Done Like a Duck Dinner

“Women are hard to figure out.
They love lingerie and they
love garage sales, but they
don't seem to like getting
garage-sale lingerie as a gift.”
- Brad Osberg

The semi-annual rummage sale was held at my mom's nursing home today. My sister Nancy and I have been organizing the merchandise donations for the sale for seven years now. Every time we've done the sale in the last couple of years I have sworn it will be my last time. I swore it again when we finished the sale today.

We spend days getting ready for the event, washing, cleaning, repairing and pricing the donations. Some years we get a lot of merchandise. I didn't mind those years. Some changes in nursing home management and attitudes have changed the process of acquiring the merchandise of late. So instead of putting up notices requesting merchandise donations, management is only willing to put up notices requesting bake sale donations. They somehow believe the merchandise will come our way regardless of whether or not we ask. It became obvious a week or so ago that it wasn't going to be the case this time. We had very few household goods donations and no jewellery donations. Jewellery is what the residents most hanker for. So in an effort to spare the residents from being disappointed, Nan and I have been working double time to create an inventory. We've culled our own jewel boxes, hit up friends and neighbours and bought jewellery grab bags from Value Village on the chance we will find enough in them that can be salvaged for sale. We did, indeed, come across some worthwhile items and I spent many hours cleaning and repairing those items. Each item was then prepared for presentation and priced. What we didn't beg or buy, we made - a couple of dozen pairs of earrings made by me, a dozen hand-painted birdhouses made by Nan. All of this activity is funded from our pockets.

We started out this morning at 10 A.M. and worked through the day, finishing at 6 P.M. Two and a half of those hours were spent in the sale, the balance in setting up the sale and in cleaning up afterwards. All of our efforts netted sales of just a few hundred dollars, much of it raised 10, 25 or 50 cents at a time. I listened to staff complain about the price of the earrings I made (all sold at either one or two dollars per pair) which we were selling for a fraction of what it cost me to make them. I listened to a complaint from a volunteer about the $5 price tag on an exquisite sterling pendant. I dealt with a resident meltdown, mediated wheelchair wars and gave a refund to an old lady who was suffering buyer's remorse on a pair of 50 cent earrings and then spent another twenty minutes choosing a pair she liked better.

I'm tired. I just want to take a bath and eat all the baked goods I bought at the sweet table. And I don't want to do this anymore.

Words Count

Sticks and Stones

"Sticks and stones can break my bones",
So the saying goes.
"But names can never hurt me",
We have chanted to our foes.

I don't think that's really true,
At least not on my part.
Sticks and stones may break my bones,
But names can break my heart.

- Jacquelyn Saad

I wrote that poem as a part of a book of children's poetry I wrote for Jacob when he was nine years old. Like me, Jacob has a sensitive heart and he was very troubled by name calling. He was the first person in the playground to defend another child being bullied by words, often before a teacher had a chance to intervene.

In our family, there has been a lot of discussion these past couple of months about words. Some of that discussion has been heated. We certainly don't all share a view of what's right or wrong in the world of words. At least we can talk about it - mostly. Words are important to me but I understand they're not as important to everyone else.

Over the past years, many people have become more conscious of the underlying slights in using certain words that years ago were common. Enlightened people don't talk about "jewing the price down" or being "gyped". They avoid expressions like "going dutch treat". They would never use the "n" word or call Italians "wops or Ginos" or speak of the Chinese as "chinks". And yet those same good people use terms in speaking about females that are offensive to me. Seems easy to me that pointing out those offending terms should bring them to an end. Yet doing so is what resulted in the heated discussions that have taken place in our family in the last few months.

Lest one think the offending term is something horrible, let me set the record straight right now - it is not. It is a good word. The right word when referencing a female of eight or eighteen. It's a word women use among ourselves whether eight or eighty. It's not really about the word. It's about the context of the word. The word is "girl".

During the broadcast of the Olympic games from Vancouver a couple of years ago, I became sensitive to the remarks of several broadcasters who were talking about the performance of the girls on the Women's Hockey Team. Use of the term "girls" didn't happen once, it happened several times. And every time I heard it, I bristled. Those same broadcasters never once referred to the boys of the Men's Hockey Team. I never heard a single reference to a male athlete using the term "boy". And yet I heard female athletes being referred to as girls, over and over again. Not being one to keep my opinions to myself, I sent a note to my friend Brian Williams and asked him to gently remind his colleagues that referring to women as girls, while referring to men as men is discordant.

At a recent family dinner, this subject re-arose. My request of one of the men at the table to consider the use of the word "girl" as inapt in describing a woman in her late twenties, resulted in a debate that still hasn't ended. It would seem I hit a nerve. Fair enough. Hearing women called "girls" has hit enough nerves with me. It's a bit difficult for me to understand why I offended the men with my request to consider their use of this term. Perhaps I didn't explain very clearly why it troubled me so much.

In a less enlightened time, when racism was blatant and rampant, it was not uncommon for men of colour to be referred to as "boys". It was a way white society had of marginalizing black men. We would all agree that was wrong. It shouldn't be so hard to make the leap to understanding why the same applies to referring to women as "girls". Enough said.

Wisdom Teeth

"A man begins cutting his wisdom teeth the first time he bites off more than he can chew. " - Herb Caen

My baby had his four impacted wisdom teeth taken out today. Merv took him to the appointment and brought him home. I took over once he was back. He's looking a bit like a chipmunk. His cheeks are swollen though so far there are no signs of bruising. He's in a considerable amount of pain but he hasn't complained. Jacob is brave. I've never heard him complain about pain or illness. My big challenge for the day was to get him to agree to eat and drink. It was a couple of hours before I could get a glass of water in him and a couple after that before he would have some juice. By dinner time I could see that he was suffering from hunger pangs. He hadn't eaten since dinner last night. While no amount of coaxing could get him to eat this afternoon, I decided to try a different tack so I scrambled a couple of eggs and put them in front of him. Within a few minutes he was licking the plate so I scrambled a couple more. They similarly disappeared followed by a cup of chocolate pudding and a cup of applesauce. He felt better. I felt better.

Mothering Sunday

“Motherhood: All love begins and ends there.” ~ Robert Browning

The celebration of mothers is held in March in England. The day used to be called Mothering Sunday. It's now called Mother's Day as it is on this side of the pond. I liked the old name. For in truth, I believe Mother's Day shouldn't just be about mothers but also about all those women who mother us. In my family that includes my sisters who have mothered me plenty and have also mothered my son. And it includes the moms of Jacob's friends - the network of women who have shared our children these many years, chauffered them around, fed them, housed them, nursed them through broken hearts and provided them with safe places to go on those days they most wanted to run away from home.

My Mother's Day celebration was glorious yesterday. Jacob and Merv bought me a beautiful fountain for the upstairs deck. It is the place I like to sit and read or do my beading on warm summer days. The fountain has a very Zen feel to it and a soothing burbling sound. After presenting me with the gift, they took me to a lovely Italian restaurant for lunch. I noticed that there were tiny vases on each table with a couple of pretty flowers in each. But there was one table with a big, glorious arrangement of white roses, pink tulips and exotic flowers with names I do not know. I wondered who the lucky woman was who would be receiving that arrangement. It was of course, me. After about an hour in the restaurant, Merv slipped out to feed the meter. Jacob took the opportunity during those few minutes we had alone, to tell me how grateful he is to have me as his mom. That was the best gift of all. My cup runneth over.

Little Things

I still get wildly enthusiastic about little things... I play with leaves. I skip down the street and run against the wind. - Leo Buscaglia

A few days ago, I stepped on a piece of glass. It was a very tiny piece that I couldn't see from my awkward position and with my old eyes. I asked a couple of people to look and see if there was glass in my foot but both said they didn't see anything. By the next day my foot was throbbing and walking seemed impossible so I soaked my foot, steralized a needle and tasked Jacob with finding the glass and digging it out. After about ten minutes he removed a miniscule piece of glass. Such a little thing caused such a big pain.

As I tend to live in my head, I started thinking about the glass in my foot as a metaphor for the rest of life. I was speaking to a friend who days later was still reeling from a small barb that had been sent his way as a supposed joke a few days before by his friend. Those of us that know and love him are already aware that he has a thin skin and is hypersensitive. His friend should have known better but even then, it was such a small comment that it is amazing to see how derailed he was by it.

On the flip side I can recall many times when my day has been made by little acts of kindness - someone letting me into traffic when it was hard to merge; a compliment from the lady who was cleaning the tables in the takeout section of Whole Foods last week; a comment from my son about what a great mom I am. In truth, that last one made my month. As those little things meant so much to me, I'm going to try in earnest to do more little things to brighten the lives of other people.

Oprah has a "thank you" game going right now. The object of the game is to say thank you to someone who has helped you in whatever the prescribed way is for that day. One day last week the object was to say thank you to someone who had helped you to be courageous. I wrote a few words of thanks to my friend Gail. Judging from her reaction, it made her day. Such a little thing. Such a big result.

An Evening with Johnny

Today I'm gonna try and change the world
Gonna take it one day at a time
I've made my resolution
I've opened up my eyes
Today I'm gonna try and change the world
- Lyrics of Johnny Reid's 'Today I'm Gonna Try and Change the World'

As part of Merv's birthday present I bought him a pair of tickets to see Johnny Reid at the Copp's Colloseum in Hamilton last night. I'm not terribly familiar with the music of Johnny Reid save a couple of tunes but I've watched one of his music videos with Merv and I saw him sing a song at the opening ceremonies of the Weekend to End Women's Cancers last year. Merv is a big fan and at the very least I knew the evening would be palatable for me.

It was my first time at Copp's. I can recall being in Hamilton only a couple of times before. Coincidentally, our friends Brian and Geraldine were also attending last night's performance so we all went together. We stopped at Kelsey's for a bite en route. It was quite an interesting crowd - everything from motorcycle gang members to cowboys. The dinner crowd was a warm up act for the concert crowd which consisted of many gray haired women alongside many very drunk young people including one couple a few rows ahead of us who were drinking rye straight from a bottle until they were ejected from the concert by security staff.

An adequate, if somewhat sedate opening act by a country western singer whose name I failed to catch, set the stage for the concert to follow. Johnny Reid is by far the most energetic performer I've seen and his performance was spectacular. For ninety minutes he ran around the arena shaking hands, kissing children and gray haired ladies, dancing and singing his heart out. His performance was personal and interactive. His music was poignant and touching. And at the end of it, I came out as big a Johnny Reid fan as my husband.

Reflections on Good Friday

"Nature often holds up a mirror so we can see more clearly the ongoing processes of growth, renewal, and transformation in our lives." - Mary Ann Brussat

The table has been set. The champagne is chilling. The salmon is stuffed and oven ready. It is a spectacularly beautiful day. The sun is shining in a clear blue sky but there is still a bit of a nip in the air. Tonight we will host our annual Good Friday dinner. I was caught a bit off guard this morning when tears sprang to my eyes while I was picking up a couple of items at the grocery store. Suddenly I was remembering last Good Friday.

The week had been hectic. Merv was away on a golf trip. I was immersed in work and trying to shore up the spirits of my friend Geraldine whose sister had been diagnosed with brain cancer that week. Without Merv home to help me host Good Friday dinner, the task fell to Jacob to co-host. Jacob was a great help on Good Friday. He helped with the preparations, tended the bar and hosted graciously. What he wouldn't do was the toast. That is always his dad's job. So it fell to me.

Speaking has never been a problem for me. But it had been such a sad week for Ger and her family that I didn't know what I was going to say. So when the time came for the toast, I spoke of the season of Easter as a time of resurrection and renewal for everyone, believers and non-believers alike. We watch the earth renew itself every year at this time. Spring is so hopeful that it reminds us that even when life seems bleak, miracles are possible.

It is a year later. Ger's sister passed away in January. There have been some serious health challenges for several of us who will sit at the dinner table tonight. A couple of us have taken on some academic challenges. Gail got her MBA and is now in a doctoral program. Marg retired. But we are together. Grateful for one another. Grateful for this season of renewal.

Happy Easter.