Monthly Archives: December 2011

New Year’s Eve Meme


New Year's Day postcard circa 1900

Image via Wikipedia

New Year’s is one of those reflection points that inspires some of us to review the past and possible set new goals for future realigning of purpose, body or spirit.  My husband’s blog is lit up with hits on an old meme, so I thought I’d revive it here as well.  Play along at home via the comment box or link back from your own blog if you like. Just keep in mind that the point isn’t to answer every question or even any.  It’s just an opportunity to meditate.

Happy New Year!

1.  What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before?

I stopped caring about my weight. Truly.  And it wasn’t a conscious thing nor has it kept me from monitoring intake and adjusting when necessary, but it’s allowed me to be free of the obsession that I should weigh this or that amount and that the amount matters in some tangible way.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I don’t make them.  I do have a loose idea of what I’d like to do throughout the course of a year, but resolutions remind me of all that nonsense goal-setting mumbo-jumbo in the professional portfolio’s we were required to maintain back in my teaching days.  It was busy-work to appease politicians and a public who had only a half-assed idea of what teachers actually do.  It also allowed lazy and/or incompetent administrators to weasel out of their obligation to keep an eye on what it was their teachers were or were not doing.  I put no faith in “scrapbooks” as performance indicators and less faith in the idea that resolutions mean anything or are jump-starters for the majority.  They are mostly empty promises that make people feel better about themselves without having to really do anything.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Ah, no.  The mother of one of Dee’s soccer mates gave birth to a little boy in October, but I wouldn’t call her a close friend of mine.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

My great-auntie died. She was 102ish or maybe it was 103?  I can’t recall.  I wouldn’t say we were close.  She was the last man standing, so to speak, of the old generation and being so had litter upon litter of nephews, nieces and their children and their children’s children to claim matriarchal status over.  I get lost in that crowd.

A close friend of my parents died early this year too.  Again, not a close tie to me though at one time early in my life, I saw her more often than my own aunties.

5. What countries did you visit?

In 2011, the only country I visited was the United States.  We traveled through Montana, Wyoming, the Dakotas, Nebraska and Minnesota, and we caught up with friends and family in Iowa.

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?

Direction where my writing is concerned.  I have been at the whole “writing thing” for nearly five years and still haven’t found my niche, but I think I am closer to figuring at least some of it out than I was when I started.

7. What dates from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

Nothing specific comes to mind.  Overall, the year has been a good one in general without any major highs or lows.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

I was voted one of the top five mom bloggers in Canada – with a lot of help from my friends.  I scored a position on the city’s yoga teacher roster. My biggest achievement, and I don’t know if you can rightly call it that, is that I continue to be quite happy with my life, a five-year run which owes its longevity to those around me more than to anything I’ve done or not.

9. What was your biggest failure?

Well, my potato rolls were not the success I hoped they would be and the garden was a non-starter.  Probably not huge on the failure scale however.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

I came down with a bad case of costochondritis, which is an inflammation of the cartilage around the breastbone and ribs.  It plagued me for much of the year and I am still dealing with after effects.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

I didn’t buy, but I received an eReader from Edie and Mick for Christmas that is just magnificent.  I also got a smart phone from Rob for my birthday, which is proving useful.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

Dee has grown up quite a bit, but I suppose that is to be expected of someone so young, and my brother, CB, seems to be reinventing himself with some purpose.

13. Whose behavior appalled you?

Appalling behavior seems to be the given in our world anymore.  No one in my life can lay claim, overmuch.  Anyone I know who tips beyond the pale has always done so and it’s ceased to surprise me in any long-lasting way.

14. Where did most of your money go?
The usual suspects. Nothing out of the ordinary.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

I’m a Sagittarius.  I get “really, really, really excited” about anything.

16. What song will always remind you of 2011?

Moves Like Jagger.  Normally I loathe Maroon 5, but this is an infectious ear-worm.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

a) happier or sadder?  I am basically happy and that hasn’t changed.
b) thinner or fatter? I’ve probably stayed about the same but I’m stronger and look leaner.
c) richer or poorer?  In what sense? I feel richer as a person. Money-wise? Wealth is an illusion really. Aside from those liquid assets you can put in your pocket and the material things that you own outright, all other wealth is theoretical and isn’t real until it becomes a material good or money in your actual pocket.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

Slept. I still don’t get near enough sleep for my needs.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?.

Worried

20. How did you spend Christmas?

Christmas was spent with husband, daughters and one son-in-law’ish type.

21. Did you fall in love in 2011?

I continued on in love with Rob.  Count myself lucky for the privilege too.

22. What was your favorite TV program?

I don’t watch TV.  I did watch the last season of The Tudors on dvd.  Does that count?

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

Hating is a waste of energy.  There are those I don’t care for much and that’s about as far as it goes.

24. What was the best book you read?

I am working on The Game of Thrones, which I wish I had read earlier.

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?

I continue to enjoy popular music, which is good because the second you stop liking new music is the moment when your youth truly begins seeping away.

26. What did you want and get?

I wanted to be a top five Canada mom blogger and I am.

27. What did you want and not get?

I wanted to be able to start running again, but alas, my knees will have none of it.

28. What was your favorite film of this year?

I don’t really remember too many of the films we watch beyond the moment.  Films in general aren’t noteworthy anymore.

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

We tried to eat out but couldn’t find a restaurant without a long wait list, so we ended up at Edie and Silver’s, eating take away from Boston Pizza and watching Elf.  I am 48.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

It would have been nice if I could have figured out a way to take over The Yoga Room after Jade decided to close it.  I had the chance but couldn’t figure out a way to do it financially or make it work within the confines of my personal life.  Owning and running my own yoga studio would have been sweet indeed.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?

Oh, it continues to be yoga mom-ish.

32. What kept you sane?

If a sanity check is needed, I get it from Rob. He’s a Virgo, the definition of sane.

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Fancy? I don’t really pay that much attention to that sort of thing.

34. What political issue stirred you the most?

The Occupy movement invigorated me for a while.  I went to a rally with Mick.  Donated to the OccupyEdmonton campsite. In the end though, I think they are simply just the other side of the coin where what is wrong is concerned. You can’t change anything without actually doing something tangible, getting your hands dirty, pitching in and tackling real issues with real solutions.

It doesn’t surprise me that a generation of young people accustomed to living virtually would think that all you need is words, Facebook and camping to change the world. The world bends only to those who take action, which they really aren’t doing. They are the future buck passers and obstacles and nothing more.

35. Who did you miss?

I’m not sure how to answer this, so I won’t.

36. Who was the best new person you met?

I didn’t meet anyone new in person and those I met virtually have each added to my life in different ways.

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011.

That you must accept those in your life for who they are right now or don’t bother with them. No one will ever live up to your idea of their potential, so don’t waste your time or theirs with such childish notions.

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

It’s not a song lyric but it’s source is a singer.

“You can spend minutes, hours, days, weeks or even months over-analyzing a situation; trying to put the pieces together, justifying what could’ve, would’ve happened…
or you can just leave the pieces on the floor and move the fuck on.” – Tupac
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Twas the Day After Boxing Day


Canadians observe Boxing Day, which is a pseudo-holiday the day after Christmas. Tradition-wise, it sprang from the custom wealthy Brits had of bestowing boxed gifts on their servants the day after Christmas. Nowadays it is a bank holiday and in Canada, it’s taken on the added burden of being our version of the American “Black Friday” consuming fest.

For us, Boxing Day consists of sleeping late, lounging in robes and pj’s for the bulk of the remaining day and in general, being lazy sacks.

We exceeded even our lax expectations yesterday. Neither Rob nor I crawled out of bed until the latter half of the morning. Dee was near to famished by the time I got up and found that she’d run her new iPod to fumes and was back to playing with gift bags and boxes in the living room. Although she is perfectly capable of preparing a simple breakfast for herself, she had her eye on the left-over blueberry pancakes and egg, bacon and hashbrown casserole from the day before and she isn’t allowed – yet – to use the microwave.

The day was leisurely in pace and devoid of productivity save the relentless deconstruction of Christmas displays in the house.

Boxing Day marks the end of the Christmas season in our home. The tree, window decor and outdoor holiday decorations came down late in the afternoon after Rob and I found enough inner initiative to get dressed and cracking.

It’s not just a practical thing. The tree was near to kindling even with regular watering and so a hazard. It also becomes a bit of a nuisance, encouraging gifts to loiter about rather than find new homes in drawers or on shelves. Unless one has a compelling religious reason for keeping it up, or other holiday gatherings in the offing, a tree after Christmas Day takes on the aura of a ripe house guest or a tarrying relation.

So the house was swept clean of Christmas but for the gingerbread houses and the compost awaits them. Gifts have, mostly, found their places. With a soccer tournament looming this week, it’s better to have the more onerous clean up tasks completed so that we can devote proper attention to the serious lounging of the New Year’s weekend ahead.

It doesn’t feel like winter yet. Just five days past Solstice and it seems oddly spring like, an illusion of course but I will take it.

My only concession to the Boxing Day gorge took the form of setting up my new eReader and downloading books with the assistance of a gift card. The reader’s a gift from the older girls and the card was from Rob, who knew what they were up to.

I’ve resisted readers for a while, but I’m converted now and currently immersed in Game of Thrones. My only lament is that I can’t easily skip about and read the ending chapters without screwing up the bookmarking. A small thing in comparison to the ease and loss of clutter.

The day ended with Dee’s soccer tournament in the city. Not a big fan of children’s hobbies that require more of the parents than the children in terms of effort, but less of a fan of the inane notion that children benefit from empty praise, which is handed out to Dee and her teammates in abundance. They blew a lead at the half – that they frankly didn’t deserve given the mediocre effort – and simply didn’t show up in the second half after the opposing team managed to score on them.

They are a tiny bunch. Only a few of the girls have height and only one of them has any bulk, so many of them still struggle with the physicality and the size intimidation thing. But nearly half of them are also still terrified of the ball itself, cringing away from it whenever it flies at or even by them, and only about four of them have a kick that would scare a cat. The rest toe kick like …. well …. like girls, and I mean that in the derogatory sense.

I like the coach personally. She knows the game and it’s good for girls to have girl coaches, but she is forever praising them when they don’t deserve it. One of the reasons, in my opinion, that boys progress so much faster in sports is that their male coaches tell them when they’ve played poorly, explaining exactly what they didn’t do and then practicing the crap out of them on those very skills at the next practice. I coached for years and I taught for years more, and empty praise is one of the worst motivators. Smart kids see through it and are resentful and slower kids end up frustrated and resentful.

That aside, Boxing Day 2011 was a good one. Hope yours was as well.

A Canadian Christmas


Once upon a time, I was like most Americans in believing that Canadians were whiter, more northern and slightly more redneck versions of us. All I officially learned in school was that we fought Canada, indirectly, in the War of 1812, which my history teachers seemed to think we won although ask a Canadian and he/she will gleefully regale you with the bum kicking they gave us.  Everything else I knew, I learned from Bob and Doug McKenzie.

“Did you even know what a toque was?” Rob asked.

“No,” I said, “and I didn’t know what back bacon was either.  I thought it might be bacon from the back of the pig somewhere and, therefore, not really all that desirable a foodstuff.”

“Americans call it ‘Canadian’ bacon,” he says that with the disdain he reserves for the habit my countrymen have of laying broad claim to the term “American”.

When I was in high school, some of my classmates fixated a bit on Bob and Doug and the whole “Great White North” thing, peppering their speech with “take off”, “hoser”, “g’day” and “eh”.  I found the whole thing only mildly amusing because the parody seemed a bit far-fetched in an “Ernest Goes to Quebec” sort of way, and not really in keeping with the only other bit of Canadian culture knowledge I had, which was a book I read as a grade schooler that was set in Toronto. The author, it turns out, is a well-known Canadian writer and as a 9-year-old, I found her description of the city on the lake compelling enough to make me want to go there someday, which is something I’ve still not done.

“Do you know what a two-four is?” Rob asked me.

One of the lines in the song refers to a 6 packs of two-four.  Like most non-Ontarians, I had no idea.

“It’s a 24 case of beer,” he said. “When we bought beer, we’d ask for two-fours.”

“Well,” because now I was confused, “you were only 15 when you left Ontario. What would you know about a two-four?”

Chagrined, he admitted that perhaps his personal knowledge dated back a bit earlier than most.

It’s funny to me that Canadian English can vary as much as it does. At the grocery earlier this week, I was in the butter and cheese aisle where you can also find bacon and breakfast sausage and in less than five minutes no fewer than 3 different women queried the woman stocking the shelves as to the location of back bacon.

My most recent run in with language peculiarities was actually on Facebook. My friend Jade updated her status with a request for the number of a good plumber. When asked why she needed one, she replied that her garborator had vomited all over her basement. When I told Rob that she was having issues with something called a “garborator”, he replied,

“Well you had one of those in your old house.”

“I did?”

“Sure, in the kitchen sink. You scraped food into it to be chopped before rinsing it away.”

“You mean a garbage disposal?”

“Yeah, a garborator. You call them garbage disposals?”

“Uh huh because if you look at the name written on it,” I explained, “that’s what it says.”

You say garborator; I say garbage disposal. You say toque; I say winter hat. You say back bacon: well, okay, so do I … now. But we all still, mostly, say “Merry Christmas” unless we are really Brit-fluenced and then we say “Happy Christmas”.

So  merry eve and tomorrow morn to all and to all a good day.

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