Things from my days

Stuff that happens, is found and sometimes lost

things that can’t be erased

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-coffee stains on the carpet – I know, you were going with dog pee but you’re wrong. Black coffee spilled will come back to haunt you again and again. My sage green carpet attests to this.

– that seventh grade yearbook photo where I had the blue velvet bow in my hair just above my rolled

bangs – like a poodle or a yorkie purse puppy. Just how many copies of that picture were there anyway that they come up every time I get one of the “here, you might as well have these photos now” boxes from my parents?

-that time we had guests for dinner and over dessert of weird peanut butter pie my husband looked at me and said “Sue, this is really terrible- it didn’t work out” and to the guests “you don’t have to eat this if you don’t want”….but I didn’t make the pie; the guests did…… Can’t erase it because it was SO GOOD one of those moments I can’t let him forgetJ Oh, and it really was disgusting pie.

-that time almost 30 years ago that I had a really horrible boss.  I went in to confront him over a blatant discriminatory action he had taken towards me.  As I nervously leaned over his desk for leverage, I farted. Loudly. Yup, can’t erase that moment of shock on his face, or the surprise on mine, or the few quiet seconds before I launched into my issue….

– that feeling that fills you up when someone says “I’m proud of you”. Yeah, we should do that to each other more often.

– that time and age thing. It’s a weird space to be in where you look around at “old people” and realize you are thought of as one of them. And…. It’s ok to ask for help sometimes…. That’s cool; just go with it.

The idea that we need to erase things, moments, people from our lives for whatever reason – just realize that things are never really gone; stains, good moments, bad moments. They all keep us humble when we need it, give us strength when we need it, keep us laughing when we need to, and that’s ok. Remember from school when you rubbed too hard with the eraser and left holes in the paper? Yeah.

#moments #family #mistakes #growingup #work#badbosses

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parchment paper and panty liners

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When parchment paper evolved from it’s previous iterations into the product we buy today in big fat twin roll packs at Costco, it became a kitchen staple. My kitchen staple. My cookbooks (yes some of us have the basic Betty Crocker everyone got for wedding shower gifts almost fifty years ago….) never mentioned parchment paper. It was just grease and flour or use foil.

Now! Well as I lift a cake out of the 8×8 pan in it’s layer of parchment paper I love it! And taking the parchment paper off the pan after oven cooking pork chops – what magic is this? The pan isn’t even dirty – no grease no nothing. Don’t even need to wash it.

Reminds me of a travel blog I read that recommended the use of panty liners to reduce (eliminate?) underwear laundering as you travel. Yeah, I never quite bought into that one…but still….as I put the pork chop pan away unwashed…hmmm…

in search of swans

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“There they are! See, over on the far bank.  You can see a few!”

“Hold on, I’ll pull over and we can get a better look”.

Our spring-time tradition of heading off to find the swans as they touch down and ride the river currents between thinning sheets of ice.  Driving north where the bears are still snoozing under snow blankets and any pull-offs from the highway are blocked with 3,4,5 feet of snow, we search for swans through the trees from the truck windows.

“Wait I see something.  Lots of them.” As she looks through the seriously unfocused binoculars. IMG_7194.JPG

“I think it’s a swan. No, wait….. it tipped over. It must be an ice burg that fell over.”

“Uh… ok, I guess it could be an ice burg, but…….”

“Oh, hahaha it’s a swan butt! He’s upside down feeding….a swan butt! I’ll get a picture of it”.

With photo ops few and far between from the truck with the phone, we drive on in search of swans.

“There’s lots of somethings over there. Let me check with the binocs.  Well, they sure look like penguins”.

“Don’t think so, Sue.  Not likely penguins”.

“You’re no fun.  Wouldn’t it be cool if they WERE penguins?”

“Sure”.

“There’s a weasely thing on the far bank”.

“Whatcha mean, weasely thing? You mean a marten?”

“Hey, I should narrate wildlife creature shows! (Much laughter)

“Sure”.

Finding swans feels a bit different this year. We left the house with our road sammies (BLT on fresh French bread), cinnamon buns and coffee because stopping in the tiny cafe for lunch is not an option right now.  We stop at the only outhouse rest stop open and maintain awkward social distancing with the few other travellers who have stopped. We disinfect our hands with sanitizing wipes immediately when we are back in the truck.

Finding swans this year sent us home with hope, faith and love. The swans show us that while our world might be different for awhile, we have faith that we will meet together again; and hope that we all stay safe in the meanwhile.

and Love.

“Yeah Sue, you really should narrate creature shows.”  Takes some love to say that with a straight face.

Happy Easter my friends and family. Miss you mightily.

 

 

 

 

 

the rabbit hole of insomnia

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I’ve wrestled with insomnia since I was very young.  When I was 7 years old my Dad got me a child-sized wicker rocking chair and set it up outside my bedroom in the lighted hallway. Continue reading →

apple pies, geese and those subscriptions

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IMG_8780.JPGThe past couple days I drove 800 kilometres (that’s 500 miles for the unconverted) to make pie. From scratch.  From picking the apples to perfecting the pie crust.  A dozen pies.

Why would I do that? It’s the time of year when we balance the ripening of the apples with the hunger of bears fattening up for winter.  The time of year when we harvest and bake and preserve for our own winter fattening up.  IMG_4715.JPG

Why else would I do that? Because it was a time spent in my son’s kitchen side by side as we peeled, cored, sliced and baked for a day.

My friend said it seems like a lot of work when you can just have pie delivered right to your door every week or month if you want.

Yes, in this age of subscription services we CAN have virtually everything delivered to our doors.  On my drive I listened to the radio ads touting subscription services for clothing, razors, dinners and tampons.  Tampons. It said for those times you are in need of a tampon the subscription service will be there.  Really?  So, you find yourself in need of tampons, you check the delivered boxes on your porch and find the dog toy box of things your dog won’t play with, your fridge filter replacement  that you forgot you ordered, a subscription to the oh so handy kitchen sponge replacement.  Oh so handy…. in this case….. maybe? Oh for the olden days when we could just pop into the store and pick up tampons when needed.

As we enjoyed fresh-baked pie and a glass of wine, we watched the Canadian geese “goose stepping” up from the lake to rest on the neighbour’s lawn.  I was fascinated by watching them up close and followed their schedule for a couple of days.  They headed out to the water in the early evening and at noon the next day started coming toward shore in groups of 15 or 20.  After they all gathered, with much honking and noise, they headed up to the lawn. They will do this for a few days until they head off further south. Year after year, they come back.

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Nature’s subscription service for all of us and we didn’t even have to sign up and give a credit card number. Berries and apples every year; bears to watch and wonder at, geese flying in and out again.

Go outside. Smell the fall air.  Listen to the geese. Pick some apples. Make some pie.

 

 

goat whiskers and things my mother never told me

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I have a birthday this week.  Birthdays remind us of aging of course, and with this comes some questions I have for my mother.  Like, why didn’t you tell me?

As I sat across from a colleague at a business meeting a few years ago I was mesmerized by a freaky inch and a half long hair on her chin  waving in the gently blowing HVAC breeze in the little room.  My mind wandered from the budget variance agenda to wonder how she lived with that? Like does she blow dry it? Condition it? Does she not have tweezers?

Goat whiskers, my Mom called them. But she didn’t tell me they grace us all as we age.  She didn’t tell me that tweezers will be your new best friend in a few years.

My Mom said that if you slept in your underpants you would grow funny.  I am not sure if that’s ‘Ha Ha funny” or “weird funny”.  I may have dodged that bullet.  Just sayin’.

I was introduced to face cream and moisturizer at an early age. Many, many thanks for that Mom. I remember overhearing (or eavesdropping as us kids so often did) my parents talking about a friend of ours “she needs to wear a turtleneck or hide at Thanksgiving”.  A comment I thought uproariously funny at the time. Not so much now.

Elbows, for some reason were super important. It seemed that potential husbands would flee with horror at the sight of elbows peeking out like bearded dragons from the 3/4 sleeves of the peter pan collared blouses we wore.

Maybe it’s not fair to say my Mom never told me.  After all, we all age and change and morph into versions of ourselves we may not be ready for.  The grace is in accepting that it will happen, and fight to preserve what we can  or wish to. The grace is in staying healthy; taking control of what we can. The grace is in being happy with the here and now.

And as my friend says ” carry a pair of tweezers on your key chain”.

that time I lost the Vagina Monologues

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As I pulled into the dealership to have my car serviced last week I automatically reached out and turned the volume on my radio off. I suppose so the service guys wouldn’t  have to listen to my Sirius CNN at mega volume to compensate for my deafness.  After all, I drive alone most times so my cable news addiction can remain my secret. But then again, there’s the time I lost the Vagina Monologues.  Continue reading →

shaking it off

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Those things, you know…the things that you have to shake off. Do they bother me? Those things? Of course they do but there’s no one at the edge the lake with a big fluffy towel so I’d better learn to shake it off.

I went in to get a colour correction.  That’s fancy talk for fix the gold streaks in my hair that look like streaks of “oh no…..not a good look”.  I went to a new stylist because I wanted a change; came out with hair so blonde it looks like doll hair. A cross between yellow yarn Raggedy Ann hair and bombshell Barbie synthetic hair.  A friend of mine said “I wouldn’t have done that” when she saw me.  Well, I did it and actually kind of like rocking the blonde again for a change. Doll hair and all.

My friend said to me ” don’t you worry about your brain tumor?” Interesting question which I suppose requires more than a yes or no answer. Well yes, I worry about it just before it’s time for the next MRI to check what it’s doing.  Besides making me deaf, that is.  Yes, I worry about that.  Do I worry about it otherwise? Not so much. The hearing aids work and I get by. For now.

Standing across the counter from the cell phone lady, I explain that I need a new phone and want to review options and all that stuff with the phone plan thing. Because there was background noise and she was talking down at her computer I couldn’t hear her so I moved around the end of the counter and said “I am pretty deaf and need to stand closer to hear you”. Great. She spent the next five minutes explaining my plan to me by YELLING at me very slowly. People in the store were all watching her yell at me as I backed up around the front of the counter.  I wanted to yell back “I’M NOT THAT DEAF”,  but she was trying so hard I didn’t have the heart to.

This is the time of year that no matter how long I’ve lived away from there, I get homesick for Oregon.  On my way to work early in the morning the air might feel like Oregon, or it might smell like Oregon. A tiny pang of homesick. It’s not always practical to pack up and chase homesickness so I buy Rainier cherries. Well, we called them Queen Ann, but whatever you call them, they taste like Oregon. Shaking it off.

These things that bother  – I can usually shake them off and find some joy and even a smile in doing it. Even if sometimes that wet dog smell lingers…..

 

 

 

 

wait a minute – where’s the cellulite?

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Those ads.  The all-inclusive resort, azure blue waters, all the beautiful people. I can almost feel the soft tropical wind gently blowing the sarong slouched oh-so-sexy on my hips.

Wait a minute……. where’s the cellulite?   Continue reading →

he ate my signature

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The phone call totally made my week.  The guy calls and tells me he has a problem.  He says it’s hard to explain.

 He tells me he has a situation with the document he needed to sign and send to me and that he has a new puppy. Ok.  He tells me that he signed the paper and had it on the coffee table and when he left the room the puppy ate his signature; ate the bottom of the paper right off where his signature was. Ok, so of course I asked what kind of puppy it is and he says it’s a black Lab.

Say no more.

Always dangerous, that quiet was, and as if bursting from starting blocks on a track Benjamin gallops around the round oak coffee table waving my new peach satin Victoria’s Secret bra from his mouth with great delight.  Cups flapping on his ears like headphones that can’t get a grip, straps shinning across his nose, he’s clearly thrilled with his dresser surfing prize and is trying with all his might to entice me to join in the chase.  I yelled, I commanded,  and he raced faster and faster around the table reminding me of one of my childhood bedtime story books where the tiger races around in a circle until it turns into butter.  Totally  frustrated, I flopped down in the chair in the living room and decided to wait him out. Let him eat my bra, I was tired of the whole game. Benjamin walked over and with the classic Labrador soft mouth, laid my bra gently on my lap as he looked up at me with “you are my world” eyes. It’s hard to explain.

We take our fancy new RV trailer up in northern BC to remoteness. Rivers, bears and dead salmon.  The spawners that drift up on the bank and feed bears and eagles.  I make a special dinner and set the table in the trailer with placemats, wine glasses and flowers and Mark takes Benjamin out for a pee.  The short leash while walking along the river bank trying to avoid  the dead salmon mine field didn’t quite work as Benjamin found one that Mark missed,  flips over on his back and gloriously rolls  in stinking, slimy rotting fish, legs pumping the air as he shimmies and slides in the goo before Mark can yank him up.  I open the trailer door to a fuming Mark and a putrid Benjamin.  Did I mention that it was raining steady our whole trip? Like raincoat essential rain? Using all our shampoo to wash our stinking dog and all our towels to dry him, we spend the rest of the week convincing ourselves that we’re having a great time as campers do when they’re really miserable in the rain. We camped all summer in beautiful places and weather, but it was awhile before we lost the aroma of wet dog and rotten salmon with notes of Febreeze.  You just don’t pick that up in the fine air freshener aisle.  It’s hard to explain.

As I listened to the guy explain how his new puppy had eaten his signature, the Benjamin stories started popping up in my mind.  I felt a sharp stab of nostalgia.  It’s hard to explain.

 

Photo:  Benjamin – my best friend for many years.

 

 

 

oh those duck lips….

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……an adventure in cosmetic tourism.

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Well, it was only cosmetic tourism due to my accident. A freak accident….(aren’t ALL accidents freaks?) put me in ranks of those travelling far and wide returning with altered appearances.

So here’s the thing; people do fall flat on their faces.  Nope, it’s not just a saying, and I proved it.  It’s the quick pop up, hands groping, feeling the damage that’s the realization of “F*@K, I’ve really done it this time”. Chips of tooth, too much blood were all I had to go by since I was alone,  there were no streetlights, it was dark and I was eight blocks from my hotel.

And here’s the other thing…..what the hell is wrong with people who walked around me like I had the ability to part the seas on the sidewalk; who didn’t miss a step getting to where ever they were going?  The only person who asked if I was ok was a homeless guy who said ” hey lady, are you ok?” and offered to share his grubby little roach which he told me was from really good weed and would help with the pain.  I thanked him, said no, and trundled on to my hotel.

Cosmetic tourism probably has a certain panache with hotels catering to clients and so forth. Picture me trying to get through the lobby up to my room with a bloody kleenex over my face – not even sure what people saw when they looked at me. I was a freak!

Shout out to Scripps Mercy Hospital in San Diego.  Although three hours in the emergency waiting room was oddly reminiscent of the famous Star Wars bar scene, the care was awesome. A little plastic surgery putting me back together and I was good to go albeit with a sewn-up, swelled-up lip accessorized by a healthy dash of road rash on my chin and nose to complete the look.

Here’s my question to Angelina, Julia, all those gorgeous sexy ladies with duck lips……when will mine turn sexy? The look just isn’t working for me yet…….