Category: Uncategorized

My neighbours share my bedroom wall, and being much younger than I, enjoy the pleasures of being a human, late at night. Their bed grinds on my wall in the usual rhythms associated with such activity. It is usually over by midnight and it is maybe, once a week.

Fine.

They also have a piano right against the wall. A piano in their bedroom.

And what do they do every time when they have finished their love making?

They play the damn piano!

When I was growing up, the city I live in was growing ‘out’, not just in suburbs, but strip malls and bloated shopping malls. Ugly creeping sprawl.

Today, the city is growing ‘up’, in buildings way more ugly than strip malls and shopping malls.

Behold: The Sky

The most ugliest and tallest building in our modest city. It is hideous. It was built on a postage stamp sized lot at a busy intersection. The traffic in that area is gridlocked most of the time. It is disgusting. It sits on the edge on what used to be a pleasant little Italian Village, with popular cozy restaurants and stores, and nice old houses and trees. It fronts a lake and our canal. and our beautiful parks. I admit it is a prime location, but it destroys all that completely.

If developers had their way, our world would be solid concrete without a patch of green and would block out most of the sky too.

Ditto for our so called city planners, who are just greedy enablers. Their job is to change zoning laws in exchange for the right amount of money. Green bills in their palms is the only green thing they know and the only thing they plan for.

Back in the days when I got my first hybrid bicycle, a bike for city and country cycling, I had to learn the ins and outs of handling a mountain bike. My boyfriend and I planned on taking some very long cycling trips over some rugged terrain and I needed to be prepared for anything.

And so, my very patient boyfriend, on our first trip, attempted to show me how to ‘hop a curb.’

This means, just before you encounter the curb you use your body and the bikes front shock absorbers to lift the front tire up and the rest of the bike follows in a hop. The point is, if you are full speed ahead and encounter an unforgiving obstacle, like a rock, you can leap over it.

In theory.

So actually, the first few tries went well.

We packed our stuff and were on our way.

We stopped to get some groceries and I decided to practice the hop.

In my enthusiasm I forgot that we were on a trip, and the back of the bicycle was considerably heavier. There were two full panniers and camping gear piled on the back rack. So the bike failed to lift and the front tire slammed the cement and I was airborne. Ass over head over handlebars. I clung to the handlebars and did a perfect handstand swing, like on the parallel bars, only backwards, before I let go. I fell in slow motion onto a grassy embankment. Sprawled on my back I opened my eyes to several strangers who had witnessed my acrobatics and were sure I was dead.

My boyfriend didn’t teach me any more tricks.

Got something that needs to be done?

Something you want to do?

But you are waiting, waiting for the right moment. Or when you feel like it. Or for permission?

I tell you now. You are never going to feel like it. The only person who can give you permission is you. And the only right moment is now .

One afternoon while I waited to have an X-ray, two women sat across from me. They were an interesting contrast. One lady sat straight in the chair, looked to be about fifty. The other, her friend, slumped over her knees and was probably about thirty.

The slumped lady was confiding to her friend that she really wanted to go back to school and get a degree in psychology, and her friend was providing her with all the reasons why she couldn’t and shouldn’t.

I wanted to speak up but I didn’t. I went back to school after nearly ten years and got my degree in biology, so I wanted to tell her to go for it. And I have since regretted I didn’t go further and pursue more courses.

This woman wanted permission. Oh how I can relate to that! Most women are taught to seek approval before we act.

So if you want to do something. Do it. Because you are never ever going to feel like it. It’s never going to be the right time. Few are going to be on your side. You have to just shut up and do it.

Laundry.

Ugh.

Ranks right up there with dishes, housework and throwing out the garbage. A hateful task.

But boy, can it pile up fast if you’re not paying attention. Suddenly you’re groping around for a pair of underware in your drawer and realizing, there ain’t none.

However, like all good laundry procrastinators, my excuse is, the pile has to age properly first.

I know.

Just shut up and do it!

I think what is much worse however, are the people who do their laundry and then let it sit in the laundry room overnight or, days, and never collect it. So inevitably someone else needs a washer or dryer and heaps the stuff on the counters. UGH.

I never go to our laundry room on Mondays, because after a weekend of such abuses, it is not a pretty place.

One of my motto’s for years has been Just shut up and do it!

I apply it to most anything I hate doing, am lazy about doing, have tantrums about doing and also, to things I love doing, but procrastinate.

It takes me much longer to think about doing something, than to actually do it.

I can waste days thinking about cleaning up a mess that when tackled, took only five or ten minutes to rectify.

I can let dishes pile up, when really, it only takes maybe twenty minutes to wash.

Sometimes, I admit, I like to torture myself and not do things. I have no idea why, except it feels a thousand times more wonderful when I finally just stop my whining and do it. Sort of like in romantic relationships where making up was worth the breaking up part.

How did we ever go from the molehill (albeit a very serious one) of a pandemic of a deadly disease that we need to protect ourselves against (with social distancing, masks and vaccines) to a mountain, where this temporary situation is somehow going to result in a dystopian brave new world society?

Like holy cow. What the F?

Seriously people, you need to stick to what is really going on and address that. Not let your colourful imaginations take you down bottomless rabbit holes.

We have to surrender freedoms in this case in order to stay alive.

It is not complicated.

We have a zillion rules and regulations which we must abide by to stay healthy. We have building codes so that our dwellings don’t fall down. Automobile laws so we are safe when we drive. Food inspectors so we don’t die eating at a restaurant. We need vaccines to go on vacations to foreign lands. All these things are to protect us.

A lot of rules and regulations we have because people can’t think for themselves, and often prove that they are a lawless mob, quite eager to infringe on the rights of others to get their way.

We have laws to protect ourselves from the lawless. We have to do this.

I’m not going to debate about whether this is right or wrong in the long term. It is what makes our society work right now, until we find something better.

Yes, sometimes we need to question things, but when you do, for God sake, think about what you are questioning.

And it is not all about YOU. Not everyone agrees with you. You don’t speak for everyone, maybe not even a few of us.

I once had this great idea that I could wipe out a memory by revisiting it.

Long story short. It didn’t work.

I had very special memories of Montreal and a man I loved.

So I took the train to Montreal and decided to go back to some of the places that were particularly poignant and just wipe clean the memories. A purge, if you will.

But all it did was depress the hell out of me.

So much for that.

Here is the correct way to deal with such memories: see the good that came from the experiences that gave you those memories.

That love affair taught me so much, and is invaluable to who I am now.

And I still love Montreal.

And I guess, I still love him.

We have been hit with some nasty cold weather this January, the thermometer dipping close to -30 degrees centigrade, before the windchill!

I would have loved to gone out and snapped photographs of the trees covered in frost, but after some debate, decided this was not such a good idea. Not because of the extreme cold so much, as the ice underfoot.

But an awesome ice crystal mural was to be found in the bus shelter.

Nature is an award winning artist!

My father worked at the Central Experimental Farm for many years in Technical Services. He helped design many of the laboratories on the farm and invented machinery.

His work there has just disappeared. Not a mention anywhere.

Granted, my father was not the most liked man on the job. His previous occupation was that of a Sergeant Major, so he was a tough lad at six feet and didn’t suffer fools gladly, if at all.

But he was an exceptional hard worker, and brilliant. He contributed a lot to the farm.

His co-workers got streets named after them. Many got articles written about them. But my father has vanished into history. Even though his name is not there, he left his mark on numerous buildings and projects.

It has been almost 40 years since he left this planet, and in my old age, I have wished that my Dad had of received some kind of recognition on the farm.

But I guess every daughter wishes that for their Dad.