Beautiful Brits

"The flowers of Yorkshire are like the women of Yorkshire. Every stage of their growth has its own beauty, but the last phase is always the most glorious."
- John Clarke in Calendar Girls

The royal wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton kicked off a day of appreciating the beauty of British women yesterday. I hosted a royal breakfast for Cath and Geraldine starting at 5:00 A.M. It was a simple breakfast of tea biscuits and croissants, a breakfast trifle and the cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches Cath brought. We watched the pageantry of the wedding, commented on the dress and hat choices of the women and the incredible beauty of the bride. Unlike the last royal wedding I rose at 5:00 A.M. to watch when William's parents were wed some thirty years ago, I sensed that the bride and groom were both friends and lovers. There was a genuine and evident intimacy between them. In the troubled times in which we find ourselves, the splendor and hope of this union provided some respite from bad news.

Last evening, Merv and I went to see Calendar Girls at the Royal Alex. The theatre was far from full, perhaps a result of the poor reviews of the critics. The play about a group of English women who create a nude calendar to raise money to buy a sofa for the waiting room at a local hospital, is a celebration of the beauty of women of a certain age. It is well written, funny and touching. But apart from a couple of quality performances, the production suffered from amateurish acting and poor acoustics. It was fun just the same.

On a sad note, Geraldine's sister got the results of her scans. Cancer was found in all her major organs, colon, spine, brain and breast. The doctors now believe that the primary source was her colon. She will soon start a course of palliative radiation with chemotherapy to follow. All prayers for Beverley and the family would be much appreciated.

One More Sleep

April is a promise that May is bound to keep. ~Hal Borland

Strangely enough, even knowing that in just two days he would be coming home, I found it particularly hard to part with Jacob on Easter Sunday. I struggled to find even one more goodbye left in my soul. There have been too many. He wrote his last exam this evening though he claims he has no idea how he did. I sincerely hope he passed. His marks are all stellar except for this one course in circuits. The exam was the whole enchilada as the midterm marks were so poor in aggregate that the university threw out the midterm results.

I had breakfast with Sara this morning. It was a treat to spend a bit of time with her. I hadn't seen her since February when she was home for reading week. I refused to say goodbye when I dropped her off this afternoon. She too had to head back to school for one last exam. We agreed we would see one another next week and left it at that. Like Jacob, Sara is ready to be home. Ready to sleep in her own bed and be with her family. And like Jacob, she has matured a great deal this year.

Tomorrow is Geraldine's birthday. She is clearly struggling under the weight of the difficulties her family members have been having. Her sister Beverley is still in intensive care following surgery for a brain tumor. Today her father collapsed during a day trip to London and spent much of the day at the University Hospital. I've been staying close to Geraldine all week. But apart from babysitting the dog, cooking and praying, I don't know how else to help. I wish I could take some of the burden from her shoulders. I know she is tough and she will get through it, but I still wish there was something more I could do.

On High Speed

Awake, thou wintry earth -
Fling off thy sadness!
Fair vernal flowers, laugh forth
Your ancient gladness!
~Thomas Blackburn, "An Easter Hymn"

My closets, along with all my best intentions remain undone. I did not get a single chore done that I intended to accomplish while Merv was away. Somehow the week conspired to keep me away from my chores. After a long period of famine, I have once again hit feast in my work life. A number of clients have materialized with projects that need to be done ASAP. They are all experiencing crises at the same time. Keeping up with the demands has consumed my days. My nights have also disappeared. A dinner invitation on Monday, a board meeting on Tuesday and a day and night of unexpected events on Wednesday. My dear friend Geraldine's sister was diagnosed with a brain tumor yesterday morning and had emergency surgery late last night. It is a difficult situation. Family have been called to come from all corners. Yesterday I took Dora for the day, did some work and made a start on some Easter crafts I was hoping to finish today but have yet to get to. I took Dora to Cath and Stan's after accepting a last minute invitation from Stan. By the end of the evening I was exhausted.

Today started at 6:00 A.M. I made an early morning trip to the grocery store to buy food I could prepare to take to Geraldine's to relieve some of the pressure of feeding her many unexpected guests. I put a pot of short ribs in the slow cooker before I left for Guelph to pick Jacob up for the weekend. Traffic was terrible and the round trip got us home a little later than I planned. As soon as we were back and the car was unloaded, I picked Geraldine up for a trip to Costco. An hour and a half later were were back with our purchases with just enough time to put everything away before Cath and Nan arrived for a planned afternoon of cupcake decorating. They left at 7:30 at which time I put dinner in the oven for Jacob and I and then made a run to the beer store to lay in a supply for our annual Good Friday dinner tomorrow. I am exhausted.

Sometime before I go to bed I must finish the glittered eggs that I have only half done. I also want to set the table. I will sleep well tonight in spite of my messy closets. There is always next week.

Kidnapped

"When I was kidnapped, my parents snapped into action. They rented out my room." - Woody Allen

Friday was a day of unexpected events. I drove Merv to the airport in the morning to catch his flight for Florida where he is spending a week golfing with friends. It occurred to me on Thursday to ask Jacob if I could take him out for a late breakfast, carrying on to Guelph after dropping Merv off. Jacob was game. About half way between Toronto and Guelph, the flat tire indicator light came on in my car. I wasn't sure what to do. I have run flat tires so I can continue to drive on a flat but only at a speed of 80kph or less, hardly ideal for a trip on the 401. Nonetheless, I decided to carry on to Guelph so I reduced my speed and put my flashers on though I managed to annoy a number of truckers on the highway. When I got off the highway at Aberfoyle, I called Jacob and left a message asking him to locate the nearest BMW service centre so I could have my car attended to before getting back on the 401 to make the trip home. When I picked Jacob up, he hadn't picked up the message but told me not to worry - he would show me how to locate the nearest service centre from inside the car. First he checked the tires and couldn't find any evidence of a flat. Convinced that it wasn't a tire problem but a computer problem, he reset the computer in my car (which he says should have been done when I had my flat tire changed a couple of weeks ago), showed me how to locate a BMW service centre through my GPS system and did a tire analysis through the car's computer. No flat. I was relieved.

After a lovely early lunch, I drove back to Toronto to settle in for a weekend of spring cleaning. I spoke to Cathy at about four o'clock and promised to take in her newspaper while she and Stan were at the lake hosting our friends Brian and Geraldine for the weekend. Shortly before six o'clock, Cath called again and asked if I wanted to join them for the weekend. I declined with thanks. Five minutes later I was summoned to the door by a loud knock. Brian walked in with Dora and told me to pack. They weren't taking "no" for an answer. Less than ten minutes later I was on my way to Havelock for the weekend.

The weather was truly terrible all weekend. We lost power at the lake in the early afternoon and didn't regain it until after midnight. At the lake that means being not just without light and heat but also being without water. The pump that brings water into the house from the lake, is electric. No water. No working toilets. For about eight hours we played cards. When the daylight ebbed we played by flashlight and candle light. By ten thirty I was freezing. It was too dark to read, even by candlelight so I went to bed. In spite of the bad weather and power outage, it was still a fun weekend. Closet cleaning has been reschedule for this afternoon.

Of Feet and Fashion

"All God's children need traveling shoes." - Maya Angelou

Just in time for sandal season, I lost the big toenail on my left foot. My right foot big toenail is soon to follow. When I saw the amount of damage I had done to my poor feet after the Weekend to End Women's Cancers, I thought the good news was that at least they would be healed in time for sandal season. I had three black nails in the days after the walk. I lost one of them in November and it soon grew back. But as nothing much seemed to happen to my big toes, I thought perhaps they would just grow out without falling off. No such luck. I had a pedicure just before we went to Mexico so that my feet would at least be presentable on the beach. They looked nice but I ended up with a raging infection in both big toes. Wearing shoes has been a challenge but one that I thought I could deal with because it is almost sandal season. Now that my nails are gone or going, I need to move to Plan B.

For the next few months, I'm going to need to keep my big toes covered. But plain bandages look quite awful. So I'm on the hunt for bandages as a fashion statement. I know I can buy Dora the Explorer and Sponge Bob Squarepants bandages at the dollar store but that's not quite what I have in mind. So my quest of the week will be to buy fashion forward bandages that I can change to match my outfits - florals, animal prints, bright colours or geometric patterns. I'm not sure where I'll find them but I know they exist. If in your travels you happen to come across any, please drop me a line and let me know where they are.

Compromised

Technology... is a queer thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. ~C.P. Snow

I don't have any trouble admitting that I'm not very technically savvy. I love my toys but there are a whole lot of things I know I don't use as fully as I could. When I was having trouble with my Blackberry, the technician at Rogers suggested that I back up my emails, contact list and BBM and that I delete all the programs and then reload my backup. That was fine but it wasn't necessary to back up and reload my BBM. There was nothing in it. I still haven't figured out how to use it or why I would.

There are some things about self-employment that I find hard. By far, the hardest thing for me is managing the technology I need to run my business. I've gone on at length in previous rants about my challenges with my Blackberry. But at least I could always manage my home office based email accounts - until last week. Last week I noticed a dearth of new emails on my Blackberry. I tried to log in to my email server on my laptop only to be advised that I no longer had an email account as Rogers had canceled all five accounts in our household at my apparent instruction. I called Rogers and begged to differ with them. After being assured it was just a glitch in the system, all the accounts were reinstated. End of problem. Until yesterday afternoon. My personal account was working but my business account was not. Then Merv advised he couldn't get into his personal account either. I called Rogers again to be advised that all the accounts other than my core account had been canceled at my instruction. Once again the accounts were reinstated. I asked the Rogers rep to try and figure out how this had happened again. He advised I must have a virus on my computer.

So last night my friend Maurice spent three hours ensuring that all three computers in our house are virus free. Intensive scans showed the presence of one virus on Merv's computer and one on each of my laptops. Everything was quarantined and cleaned. Great. End of problem.

I spent a couple of hours this morning in a smelly passport office near the Scarborough Town Centre waiting to hand over my application and $89 for my passport renewal. How strange I thought that I hadn't received an email all morning. I was waiting for something important from a new client in Ottawa. When I finally left the passport office, I called Nan and asked her to send me an email. She did but it bounced back to her. I came home to find I no longer had access to any of my email accounts because once again, Rogers canceled them at my apparent instruction. I called Rogers and was fortunate enough to get a technician who took the time to find out what was going on. She advised that our accounts had been compromised. New email addresses had been added under my name and the others deleted. An additional non-Rogers email address had been added as the address correspondence was to be forwarded to. So every time a change was made to the account, the advice was sent to that email, including a confirmation of the new passwords. Scary.

Now, of course, my Blackberry doesn't work but Maurice is on the way to rescue me from this new technology crisis. God help me if I need to call Rogers again.