A slow day in December

My kids and grandkids have stopped telling me I need hearing aids, and I thought it was because I was doing all right hearing-wise.  I haven't been using my hearing aids for about a year, because I almost lost the one for my left ear, and rather than lose them, I decided to keep them safe in the box they came in.

Today, Dave and I went back to the place where we bought my aids and got them fixed up and ready for me to take on again.  Wow!  I had no idea of the loss until I heard things the way other people do.  After, we went to a restaurant for dinner, and I could hear the background music which recently I had thought was a rather silly thing for restaurants to spend money on as it could barely be heard....then at home, we could turn the TV sound down to 7 instead of 15. Kind of a joy! And it's just another instance of how kind Dave is.

Now that I've tackled sound, I'm about to tackle the sorting of my books.  We have a couple of sets of bookshelves, but they're full and almost all the books read, so it's time to get serious about what can be kept. Who am I trying to fool?  I am always passing books on and then missing them. Just this weekend, I found 4 books I'd begged Emily to take which I would love to read again. I brought one of them home and I know that I'm going to keep thinking about them until I give up and ask her if I can have them back. Then next year, I'll be trying to get her to take them again.

One of the things that would make it easier would be to determine not to put things other than books on the shelves, but I like the mix. Or I just don't like to leave myself with nothing to worry about. 

So, Where has she been?

Well, I have never had so much time between blogs, not because I'm not interested in seeing if there's something fun going on in my brain, but because I've had "being 76" take a toll.  Until the weather got cold, rainy and late autumnish, I was out for a good walk every day, loving that I live in a part of town that allows me to really enjoy the experience.  I live about 20 minutes from "downtown", the same distance from "la belle province"; and if I walk west of our place, there's a near-river bicycle path which is kindly shared with walkers.

Suddenly though, that just didn't appeal. I stayed home, crocheting Christmas presents, reading and watching Star Trek for 5 hours straight on TV. I've hit higher than my agreed-on-with-myself weight and my muscles and limbs keep reminding me that this slacking about it's not good for me, as if I didn't already know.

I'm hoping that confessing to this behaviour is going to give me whatever push I need, but even as I'm writing, I'm telling myself that I can't change right now because of all the stuff that needs doing at Christmas time. What a way to set yourself up to fail.

Whoa!!! With Dave's help, I just cut my hair...just an inch or so in the back but that's a change.  I'm on my way to my former self.

Scaaaaaaaary!!!

Well, we're coming up on Hallowe'en and if you want something scary, go looking to buy yourself a pair of jeans.  I did that yesterday.

When I was younger, buying jeans was something I did to enhance my wardrobe and flatter my figure....I bought flared, straight or skinny jeans that worked with my height and the fashion of the day.  There is nothing out there now that meets any one of those for me, so I bought some blah jeans that weren't too tight, too long or too sleazy, but it was tough to find them.

The ones I ended up with had a huge floppy cardboard letting the world know the size I would be  wearing, and that they were size X, Short and washed to look like I'd had a run in with a bleach-carrier.  There are other jeans out there, with sizes that allow you to match the length of your legs and the width of your waist and they're soft, with thread the same colour as the pants, but damn, they're expensive.  And by the way, "distressed", although it describes me, is also a key to the higher price.

Actually, I had forgotten that I have one really great pair of jeans. They actually fit me and are comfortable, but they got paint on them so I bought a rhinestone star patch for them and for some reason I've put them away for the season, and now I'm ashamed I've been so grumpy.

A Journey into the Depths of Nostalgia

Every once in a while I have a day, or part of one, where my legs are on strike.  I can walk but can't really control my direction.  I had one yesterday and chose to stay in bed...pillows behind my back, TV remote close by and an almost-finished book.  It looked like it was going to be a good day.  And in a strange way it was.

David brought up a couple of boxes from our locker, left them on the bed with a grin and a message that I could either attack those boxes, full of photos, or just leave them there.

I chose to open the boxes.

As I knew they would be, the photos, not looked at since we moved here 10 years ago, were immediate pulls on my heart-strings. I didn't let that stop me, even though I should have known better. 

Photos of family, of friends, of visits and trips, of many Valentine's Days and gifts under Christmas trees, of weddings and post-funeral meetings, of my kids with their kids and a surprising number of people and places I couldn't recall.

I cried.  I waited for Dave to go downstairs again before I actually really cried. But I also laughed and told myself off for wearing something I had loved at the time, and noticed that I'm thinner now than I was in my 40s and 50s.

Partway through the action, Dave came in to see how I was doing on the decision-making.  "Decision-making?" I said.  "What do you want to keep, and what should go?" Dave explained.

I'm still laughing.

Did I say I hate Google Photo?

Tonight I was thinking about writing a blog, and working it around a photo.  Over the last couple of weeks we have had out-of-town family visiting us and have taken photos galore, both of them and our local family.

So I just now spent a half-hour or so looking at photos, videos and work of mine which includes many lovely things covered over by one or more of my fingers, some video I'd taken which kept zooming between Robyn and Maddy doing gymnastic feats and strange blurry glances of my feet, my fingers again and the buttons on my jacket. Luckily, there were also a few photos taken by David of the 3 sisters while we were up in the beautiful countryside just north of us in Québec.

None of these will be in this blog, thanks to Google Photos which I hate with such vigour that my teeth are only two-thirds of what they were last summer.  I did manage to acquire two photos, one at the covered bridge in Gatineau and another at the Inn we stayed in that same day.

left to right: Mary, me, Dave

left to right: Mary, Kathy, me

And, the last thing I have to say about this is that I am going to have to get tutored somehow, if I can stop cursing first so that a tutor will deal with the real me.

What I mean by "Still in Wonderland"

We've been in our condo apartment for 10 years now, and we continue to feel incredibly lucky to be here.  While the building itself is not beautiful, we are located in a wonderful area. Because the site belongs to the National Capital Commission, the land must be 40% green, and it gives us a stream on one side of the building, the National Firefighters' Memorial with its beautiful walls and peaceful garden on another side, and a charming indigenous-themed park on another.  Our apartment is on the ground floor and we have a nice little patio where I often sit with a book and a glass of  wine.

Last month I was talking to a friend who wondered if we felt safe, being on the ground floor and I hastened to say that I had never given any thought to our safety and really enjoyed the freedom that it gives me.

This morning, while I was sitting in the living room with my coffee and a book, someone knocked on our patio door, someone I didn't know and whose pajama pants and bare chest made me think he might have been someone from our building whom I ought to have recognized. I went to the door and realized as soon as he started talking to me that I was wrong about that. Long story short, we gave him coffee and toast and David sat outside talking with him while I called the City to get advice on what our next steps should be, since he didn't appear to want to leave. Two very gentle policemen strolled over from the street, had a little chat with him and walked him over to their car.

Wonderland it still is.

I can't help it; the music made me do it

"Hamilton" is an American Musical, a sung- and -rapped-through musical about the life of the American Founding Father Alexander Hamilton.

About a year ago, after hearing my older grandchildren were totally taken by the musical, I bought two DVDs of it, one for them and one for me. Like them, I played it constantly, although for me, it was just for a day and I really, really liked it.  I know very little about American history, and as many of us have, I've figured that if I need to know anything about anything, Google is there. The music surprised me by being catchy and funny, and suddenly made politicians a little more human than I'd allowed them to be in my head.

After my time on Facebook today, I think we need a new musical...let's call it "Ford" and just go bezack.

I do not have authority to use this photo but I can't believe he cares.

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As it should be

Over the last few days, I have been a searcher.  That's because I'm also a person who loses or misplaces things.

I was really giving myself a hard time about my inability to track things down, but now that I think about it, I can see real advantages to that.  While I was looking for specific things I couldn't find, I came across things I hadn't seen in ages.

Imagine opening a box and seeing the necklaces Dave and I had bought each other when we were first exploring who we were as a couple; finding a book that I had promised myself would be a diary for the rest of my life, and which lasted for 7 straight days; reading a wonderful letter from my mom in which she gave me, at my request, her thoughts about how our newly-blended family was working out; finding a medal I'd earned at school for a ridiculous how-did-I-ever-do-it general excellence in my last year; picking up a small sweet black cotton Chinese shoe,the other one of  which was mysteriously lost before Emily got to wear them.

More stuff: letters and handmade birthday, Easter and Christmas cards from our kids and grand kids, photos I'd put aside to later frame them which just sat there unframed but beautiful, a long braid of my hair, probably cut when I was about 9.

It doesn't mean I don't want to be able to find the things I was looking for in the first place, but this has really given me a great deal of both joy and sadness.  As it should be.

How I pushed myself into hell

It's not every day that I wish I could restart from the moment my feet hit the floor.  Today, July 20th 2018, started at midnight by my deciding to watch a movie that I knew was going to end sometime around 3:30 am.  It was The Candidate with Robert Redford.

I didn't know that at 3:00 a.m. my connection to Netflix is cut off for a while so that things Netflix and other services are totally up-to-date by 3:08.  This meant that I missed the end of the movie and had to go to IMDB  to find out if Robert Redford became a senator.  By then I didn't much care but it seemed the appropriate thing to do.

I slept in a bit this morning but that was not a bad thing in itself.  It's just that any longer and the plastic container underneath the kitchen sink would have leaked all over the under-the-sink shelves and all the weird and possibly useless things we keep there.

Why was water leaking?  I fear that it might have been because I had used the sink to clean earth off the succulent plants that I intended to make more attractive by moving to a big beautiful copper bowl I'd half-filled with new stones I'd bought (I know, I should have searched for them near the house).

No matter what caused it, water makings its way to the shelves under the sink is not a good thing.

I wonder what I'm going to be able to eat for lunch....I've blocked off my cupboards but luckily I seem to have lost my appetite.

And this is what the copper bowl looks like now.

Bluesfest Past

Today, I just happened to catch something on YouTube that has been haunting me in a strange way.  I hadn't been able to remember either the single artist or the group she was singing with, but I have often had wisps of this music floating in my brain as I wake up.  I had heard the Pentatonics, and been charmed and excited to learn how much work they have put out, and I had been lucky enough to see the single artist, Lindsey Stirling at Bluesfest a while ago.  Not really seen her, because I was watching from my patio, which allows you to hear Bluesfest but is not close enough or high enough to even bother trying to enhance your enjoyment by sighting the artist.

I want to thank my neighbour Gil for his hint that the girl with the violin would be worth being out on the patio.

Do give yourself an amazing experience.

OMG, what a day!

Lorna in the midst of self-pedicuting.

This morning I woke early, did all my regular things and found myself incredibly bored at 9:30.  I read for a while, but the autobiography I was reading just made "boring" more and more real in my life, so naturally I was drawn to apply nail polish to my toes.

You'll notice how professionally I got into it.  Some years ago, I bought a set of keep-your-toes-apart things, and at least once a year, not usually on Dave's birthday, (but that's another story) I pull out the Chinese box in which I keep my manicure-pedicure stuff and go for the works.

Today, I grabbed a pinkish colour and got started.  I hated the pink.  I had some turquoise polish I'd bought when turquoise was Robyn's favourite colour, but lo! right beside that was cobalt blue.  Many many things in my house are cobalt blue, so it seemed right to make that choice.

I have arthritic fingers, which is the reason, I'm sure, that I was well into my 3rd application before I got to "OK as long as I can take it off before I go into a real Mani-Pedi place",  something I often do while Dave is away, which he will be starting tomorrow.

Given that I haven't written a blog for a while, it seemed like a 2-step to beating my boredom.

The "another story" I referred to is that although today is Dave's birthday, he preferred not to celebrate it as he has one of those something-zero birthdays next year and he wants us to treat that one with joy, family and friends and good food.  So when we're at dinner at Emily's place later today, we'll have to go quietly about the joy but the good food will be there anyway.  And even though we'll keep it a relatively quiet celebration, I'm still, as always on Dave's birthday, so glad he was born.

Because I'm so lucky

In the back row, my dad in a striped sweater, apparently without the moustache that he wore every day except 3 shocking ones in the 60s

Every year as we get close to Father's Day, I try, yet again,  to post a blog somewhat different from the ones I've presented in other years.  I'm finding that hard this year as I know he was a quiet man and would not have been comfortable if I were to write something he would consider boastful, so in spite of the over-the-top story I have in my heart, I'm just going for facts.

A couple of weeks ago, I was sorting out some photos that were print, not digital, and came across a photo of my dad, just days before his death, in a hospital bed, with family all around him. I was startled, dropped the picture and found my heart pounding. I do not cherish that time in our lives, but it is a real part of it.

For good or bad, I try to remember Dad as a sweet person (everybody said that), who seldom raised his voice to any one or about any thing, a man who was always at the heart of the family that we were, who was always available to us, who treated my mother as the equal that she was, and who taught me to drive despite the snippy attitude I brought to those days.

I know he was far more than that. He had left home at a very young age, had served in the Canadian Army during WW2 and until he retired in 1964; he drove a taxi off-hours for years to supplement the cost of raising six kids, always helped us to work out what our goals were and what might be the way to achieve them, and consoled us if we didn't get there. He could help us to understand why we weren't a two-car family, nor one that travelled the continents, and why family came first when things got rough.

At the same time that the people who worked with him called him Sergeant Dad, he became the most-loved Papa for all our kids and most of the kids whose families were close to ours.  Can you see why?

The first ten minutes after I got up this morning

I wonder how long it has been since I posted a story about something really clumsy that I had managed?

Today, I was following my routine for early morning: made my coffee and toast, and while they were in the process of getting hot, I zipped back to make up the bed and choose my clothes.  Came back to my raisin toast and coffee, remembered how yesterday I'd gone to my book club and only had one glass of wine, and told myself:  "High five, Lorna!"

Coming down from my half a high five, I smashed into my cup of newly-brewed coffee, and in my state of not wanting to ruin my toast, pulled the toast plate towards me, shoving the teetering coffee cup over the side of the counter.  It looked like a smallish coffee cup, yet there was coffee all over the counter, down the front of my housecoat, all over my newly-painted kitchen stool and, of course, on my bare feet and much of the floor on which I was standing.  Standing in disbelief.

In which I ramble

I love Two Cellos!  That, and the fact that I was alone in the house yesterday, is the reason that I found them on YouTube, turned up the sound and danced in the living room for about two hours.

Dancing where you can see yourself may be wrong, self-indulgent, fun or weird but for me, it was a reminder about how different "dancing" has become since the late1970s, which I felt was the best time for me and dancing.

My daughter Emily is a person who loves to dance and has always done it well, and seems to have no trouble moving gracefully into whatever is the present style. My granddaughters Robyn and Maddy take after her and dance as easily as they walk.

Dave can dance or not....

I don't know what Sarah looks like when she's dancing, if she does, and I can't remember ever seeing Chris dance, but I hope that if they do, they take joy in it.

And back to Two Cellos.  Give them a try.

The other day I posted this to Facebook, but I also want to have it on Blogger, as it's something I've been thinking a lot about lately, and Blogger is an easier place to get at after a few days than Facebook is .

On my mind today is loneliness. Not my own loneliness, because although I feel it at the moment, I have friends and family that I can connect with, and mostly I'm lonesome for Dave, who's been away for a while. I'm thinking of the loneliness of people that I see on the streets, in Tim Horton's and McDonalds or on the bus, who have lost contact with their former friends and family, and whose empty eyes won't make contact with mine. On the other hand, yesterday when I was out walking, I saw a man coming toward me, smiling, and when I smiled back, he asked if I would give him $5, as he'd lost his wallet and needed to get the bus home. I recognized him from other walks, but of course, he interacts with many people and saw me as just another target. I told him how he'd approached me several times, and he just shrugged and moved on. Fake loneliness....weird.  

How I managed to hold a dinner, without doing anything

Last night we had a family dinner.  For that occasion, family means me, my brothers Pat and Sean, my daughter Sarah, her partner Steven, her daughters Julia and Emma, and my daughter Emily and her two daughters, Robyn and Madison.

Emily, planner, chef and hold-it-together person

Julia, Emma and Sarah

Sarah and Steven

Maddy from the back

from left, the back of Robyn, Pat and Emily

Pat, Emily, Robyn and Sean

Me and Steven

from left, Sean, Robyn, Pat and Emily

We all missed Dave, as well as Em's partner Steven and their sons.

It is now 24 hours since we started yesterday, and most of the party stuff is gone or waiting for me to feel hungry again.  I feel privileged though, to have had all of those lovely people in the house

I think I should take up dancing

I am a person absolutely blessed with books.  I've always, because of libraries, and recently because of tablets and e-readers and the nearness of several book stores, been someone with books. 

In the condo building, there are a number of bookshelves, where I often go to pass on a couple of books and find myself coming back with the same number of interesting ones left by other readers.  I forgive myself for that.

Since Dave has been gone, I find myself with 5 books on the go at once, none of which I'm making much progress with, and for some reason that made it seem OK to pick up some books at Chapters from their 3 for $10.00 table.

I'm going to put bookmarks (I love bookmarks too) in all the books I'm reading right now and make an effort to finish one of the bunch. I don't know how to choose among the Young Adult, the classic, the edgy mystery, the 8th in a series by a Canadian author or the one about life in the age of Queen Victoria.

And David, if you're reading this, I hold you responsible. 

The shortest movie review ever

I just watched a movie called "About Time". 

I am not great at reviewing a movie, as some of my friends are, because I tend to expect that everything I see will be a good movie, and often I'm right.  When I'm not, I get over it.

However, I wish I could have another experience as warm, as funny, as touching, as absolutely wonderful as watching "About Time" was.

Since writing that, I've gone to look at reviews, and found that other people have been able to do what I wish I could, and they all loved it too.

Just in case I need to

I have just gone through 8 pages of very helpful descriptions of how to get things done on my laptop.  I believe the descriptions were helpful, but not for me. I don't fall into the group that benefits from that particular set of instructions.  I thought it would be good to know about screenshots.  Read about them, got lost at line 3 and moved on to taking photos with my webcam. My webcam, which I turned off about three years ago is now on but I can't seem to either take a photo or get back to the place where I can turn it off.  I am so thankful that Emily is coming over Friday night.

In the interim, I am hoping not to do anything, anywhere in the house, that I wouldn't share with family and friends.

Deep self exploration, she said with deep sarcasm

Well, today I tried my first order of groceries online-to-be-delivered.  Actually, I was amazed at the clarity of the site and the availability of grocery-sort-of stuff.  I used my list on the whiteboard to keep me from just going for the things I already loved or would love to try.  It's pathetic that I feel proud of that.

Just to balance that, I'm including something of which I am genuinely proud:  a photo of us with Asith, also known as our son, and his wife Sonia.  This was taken almost a year ago, and I can still remember the warmth.

self-exploration

This is not a sad story....just a list of a couple of things that have left me wondering about my ability to run a house by myself, especially when I'm the only one living in it.

• Dave and I have been working to get more educated about the many possibilities connected to our smartphones, and one of the recent things is to take a photo of our shopping list which we keep on an old dry-erase tablet on the fridge door. I went out today and actually left my phone in the house so that I had neither phone nor shopping list with me.  In my distress at having forgotten what I wanted before I left, I actually bought things I didn't know I wanted, but few of the things that were on the list.
• We recently bought two full-length cupboards that are nailed to the wall in the bathroom.  We found that we have shampoos, conditioners, face creams, assorted paper products, sunscreen and towels both in the new cupboard, and in the cupboard they used to be in, where we hoped to store other things. When I was out shopping today, I actually bought new (but improved) sunscreen!
• Because I fear to have people think I'm helpless, when they offer support, I say "Oh thanks, everything is fine" and now I have a cupboard in the front hall that I can't use because there is no pole on which to hang stuff.., and two full-length mirrored front hall doors stashed behind my desk, which I find distracting, and causes me to check and see if my lipstick is still pinkish.
• Since Dave is away, I have eaten the last of the ice cream we had, so I bought a small insulated bag that would let me bring ice cream home on the bus.  I got distracted by sesame croissants and forgot to buy ice cream. The helpful cashier put my milk in the insulated bag and it was still cold when I got home. Small win. 

Live with the consequences?

I'm feeling lonely.  Or is it lonesome?

Here's the possible difference:
A lonesome person has hope, a lonely person, not so much. But generally, lonely is meant to mean lack of companionship and personification of that lack (e.g. Houses cannot be lonely unless it is personified), whereas lonesome signifies something desolate, secluded or solitary like a lonesome house.

I'm still not sure, but I know that I'd rather not be either of these.  And I don't know whether I'm doing something or not doing something that might change how I'm feeling.  Or do I have to try to change how other people are feeling towards me?

For example, last night I had planned to go to a bar downtown and see a musician I like both for his music and for himself.  It was in my calendar.  What I actually did was watch many, many episodes of Grace and Frankie on Netflix because I had convinced myself that I might get to that bar and not know a soul.

Just writing that makes me really uncomfortable, but it's not the first time I've planned something interesting and possibly fun only to stay home for no good reason.

What do you think?  Is this something that a woman of my age should be able to overcome, or is it something people grow into?

Why I celebrate April 9th

Every year on this day, I post either a short or a long story about how my first husband and I, together with two very good friends, drove from Camp Borden, where we lived, to Hamilton because we had the opportunity to see a child whom we might be able to adopt.  We went to the Children's Aid office, met a counsellor and were told we would meet a young boy they thought might be right for us.


He was a chubby 18 month-old, a runner because his balance wasn't totally in his control, and he was paying little attention to us because there were a couple of plastic trucks laid out by the counsellors.

After we had been playing with him for a half hour or so, the counsellor asked if we'd like to take him home!  Just like that, they'd found his favourite toy, a well-hugged cotton rabbit, and presented it to us, along with a small green garbage bag of clothes and shoes, and we were leaving with nothing but the counsellor's business card and a copy of an agreement we'd signed.

I can remember stopping at a public phone and calling my family, telling them when we'd be home, and spending the time on the way back trying to imagine how we'd be able to buy a crib and get it to the house and whether we had any food appropriate for a toddler.

I need not have worried.  When we got home, my parents and siblings and a bunch of friends were already there, with toys and books and clothes and hockey skates and about 10 different-sized balls.  Dinner was ready and I may well have eaten it.  It was quite an evening, followed by a night in which both of us new parents got up often to check on him while he had a great sleep.

Definitely a day to remember and to celebrate every year since.

A word or two about absolutely silly and absolutely beautiful

I just spent 10 minutes writing a blog about a pair of slippers I bought, then spent another 10 minutes to find a picture that I'd taken of the slippers to show one of my daughters how serious I was about wearing slippers appropriate for a woman of my age.  Finding the picture helped me to see how boring that blog would have been, so I'm posting a picture of a beautiful place not far from Nice that we ran across on our holiday last year.  How could we not want to go back?

How it still works after 44 years

Today Dave and I have been sorting photos that have been sitting around waiting for me to scan so that I can share them with family and friends and people who no longer remember who we are.  It was such a delight, and also one that will probably take us days to finish.

I remember when Dave's screensaver used to be an ongoing slideshow of photos which, when they were from my camera,  would be incredibly darling pictures of our grandchildren and when they were his were well-planned catches of beautiful mountains, streams, lakes, forests and copper-roofed houses.

This actually is the base on which we've built our 44-year love affair.

E M O T I O N? ME?

Today I have had two amazing and moving experiences.  They are not connected in any way, except that they both made me cry with joy and wonder.

One was this: https://www.facebook.com/YFMShareYourSound/videos/301735373628655/?sk=h_ch

I have been a fan of Heart for many, many years but that performance has got to be the most moving for me, and I don't even know why.  Led Zeppelin?  Not really.  "Stairway to Heaven"?  More so, but I always thought I'd heard it too often.  Men in tears?  Probably.

Anyway, this truly moves me every time I watch it, and the watching is usually followed by searching out the playlist that has the most Heart in it.

The other was the CBC production of "Anne of Green Gables".  My brother Sean has mentioned it several times, usually to talk about the value of its lighting.  "Anne" is something else I've felt I know well, having read it many times to myself and others and seeing an earlier production with Megan Follows and Colleen Dewhurst.

This version tore my heart out.  I had never thought of Anne the way she's shown in this amazing presentation; in fact I often thought that Anne was almost Pollyanna-ish.  In this production, and I only saw a few episodes, she was so almost-broken, incredibly brave and insightful, so knowledgeable, poetic, open, hopeful and needy that I thought I couldn't sit through it.

All in all, I've had a "Where's the chocolate? Where's the wine?" kind of day.