The Good, The True, The Tender…..

“Nor need we power or splendour, wide hall or lordly dome;

the good, the true, the tender, these form the wealth of home.”  

Sarah J. Hale (American writer, 1788-1879)

Mr. C:  Ok, now take the Highway 417 East ramp.

Me: Ok. 

(Kids jibbering in the back about songs on G’s iPod Shuffle)

Driving along 417 East in Ottawa, on our way to the Canadian Museum of Civilization for a day of fun and wonder.

Mr. C:  Now we have to watch for Exit 122 to Parkdale Avenue.

Me:  Ok  (driving along, marvelling at how easy it is to get around our capital city).  Read me the next few directions so I know what to watch for….

Kids in the back, listening to music, scrolling through the songs, talking and laughing about gross things that pre-teens find so funny…….

Mr. C:  Ok, once we take the exit, you’ll turn left onto Parkdale Avenue.  Then you drive about a mile and then you’ll take the ramp toward East.   After that you turn right onto the Ottawa River Parkway. 

Me:  Ok, that’s good. 

We reach Exit 122 and turn left onto Parkdale Avenue.

Me (watching for the next direction):  Ok, now where do I go again?

Mr. C:  It just says to take the ramp toward East. 

Me:  That’s it? 

Mr. C:  Uh-huh….

Me (driving along, probably too fast, suddenly seeing a median to my right with a sign “EAST” pointing towards a ramp on the right of the median, and below it a sign that says “WEST” indicating to continue straight through) (pointing): THAT’S IT THERE, RIGHT? 

Mr.C (pointing): EAST!

Brakes slamming, screeching, sideways skidding, BUMP-BUMP-BUMP, scraping, sudden stop……  The median found itself underneath our car.  

Mr. C: Everybody ok?

Me (nodding): …….

Kids: ……..

Mr.C (in a strong, gentle voice):  Just try driving forward and off, Sweetie…..

So I did. 

Kids (recovering & laughing):  Whoa!  Did you see how the Shuffle skipped when Mom hit the curb!…..Mom, next time, just keep going straight…..

Amazingly, the only (visible) damage was the front left hubcap that was dented & popping out when the wheel hit the curb and hopped the whole car up onto the median, which stands to reason as the front left wheel received most of the impact.   All the wheels were ok, nothing fell off from underneath the car…..We’ll know more next week when I take the car in.  I was sure I had busted up the wheels and ruined our Thanksgiving weekend in Ottawa.    As I continued our drive to the museum, I thought of how much worse it could have been…..when I saw the sign & realized I wasn’t going in the right lane, then felt myself losing control as I tried to get onto the East ramp, the car could’ve rolled had it hit the median any other way, or I could have found myself spinning back into traffic…..

I was a little shaken and completely embarrassed for the rest of the day, but tried to put it out of my mind so that we could enjoy our family time visiting one of the nicest museums I’ve ever been to.   I pride myself on being a good driver, and Mr. C has always said how safe he feels in a vehicle when I’m driving, that he doesn’t feel nervous as a passenger…..now I felt like a complete dweeb, worried that this incident would change the way he sees me.

But just when I think I love Mr. C as much as I possibly can, something happens and my heart grows bigger, because I’ve just discovered another aspect of his character that makes me love him even more. 

When I hit that median, he was very calm.  When he told me to drive off,  with a voice that people have when talking to someone who’s in shock who needs to react but won’t unless you use a gentle, authoritative tone.   Now I know I can count on him to be calm and clear-headed in an emergency, in case I can’t be.    As I reflected on this whole shebang (accent on BANG) in the days that followed, I knew I was married to one of the most caring and sensitive men in the world, because not once, NOT ONCE, did Mr. C ever say anything derogatory or mean about my driving.   He didn’t make any stupid jokes about women drivers.  He didn’t fly off the handle and scream at me.   In fact, once we parked the car at the museum and assessed the damage, he hugged me as I sobbed, and he immediately took the blame for the incident, saying he distracted me by shouting & pointing when he saw the East sign, and that HE should’ve been paying closer attention to where we were going.   

Nevertheless, I was so embarrassed that I couldn’t look him in the eye for a long while, yet he waited patiently, waiting for me to talk about it, then reassuring me that it was all ok.    Since that day, unless I talk about it, he doesn’t bring it up. 

Feeling that you’ve disappointed your sweetheart is not a good feeling.  Mr. C could easily have been angry with me, or continued to rub salt in the wound by being sarcastic or by ridiculing me, or he could have given me the silent treatment, thereby letting me know how stupid and incompetent of a driver I really am.  But Mr. C is a man whose strength lies as much in his heart as it does in his biceps.   I marvel at this tall, red-blooded American who has such a gentle grace about him, in how he intuitively senses what I need from him and gives it to me freely and in such subtle ways that I’m not always aware of  it until I’ve had time to reflect, like I’ve been doing for the past three days.   Then, after mulling over  his actions in my head,  the honesty of his love for me rises in my heart like the Harvest moon.  

With each passing day, with all of the joys that we share, with all of the deceptions that we face together, I’m rooted in security and peace of mind, knowing that no matter what, I’ve married a good man who will stand beside me through it all.  He asked me the other day how does a couple know they’ve reached the “true love” stage, when do they know they’ve passed the initial infatuation/romantic/lust stage…..(ok we don’t really get past the lust stage, do we?).   So I thought a little bit and said:  You know your love is true if it feels like you’re Home. 

Welcome Home, Mr. C……..

Love,

Chantal  xoxoxo

If The Shoe Fits

I’m sitting at the car dealership, signing my name on endless papers, turning in my trusty little Hyundai Accent for a new lease on a shiny pearl-black Elantra.  Four doors!  Air-conditioning!  Good on gas, especially now that gas price fluctuations look like temperature readings of a feverish child (100.5, 101.6, 100.6).

So I’m sitting there with Tom the head sales guy, before heading off to work, making this very grown-up lease purchase, nodding and uh-huhing like a pro as if I understand all the car-sales lingo that Tom is throwing out as he explains the various warranties and terms that I’m signing.  Plus I’m feeling very grown-up and summery in my new thrift-store stylish summer skirt, the bargain that I couldn’t wait to wear but had to because the weather hasn’t been that warm yet to go bare-legged.   But today, rain or shine, I’m signing a new lease for a new car and I’m wearing my new-to-me skirt with bare legs and last year’s summer mules!  So I’m feeling good, it’s a good day, I can feel good things happening!

I thank Tom, and he stands up to come around his desk to show me out, and as I rise from my chair, I really have no idea how I managed this but I did.   My feet get caught somehow and I stumble as I get up and nearly crash into Tom’s office door.  Which was embarrassing enough.  But this is me, and embarrassing enough is usually never embarrassingly enough.

My slip-on cute little mule shoe manages to come off of my left foot in my attempt to regain my balance, and lies there, on the floor, face down heel up.  Tom, who is shorter than me, stands there after making a little “whoa” sound when I lost my balance, and we both look down at my bare foot and my upturned shoe.  

Like my older sister taught me, when in a dilemna, think  “What would Jackie O do?” .   If this happened to Jackie O, Tom the head sales guy would have shown his chivalrous side and  bent down himself to turn over her shoe and hold it there while she slipped her dainty foot back in.   But this is 2009, and I’m not Jackie O.    I look at the dirty underside of my shoe.  I inwardly curse its dirtiness and its bad timing at exposing itself this way.   I can’t even nudge it with my toe to flip it on its right side again and slip my foot back in like it was nothing….noooooo, I have to bend down and turn my shoe over with my hand and straighten back up and then put my stupid shoe back on.   All of this with Tom the head sales guy looking on.   That whole process made it impossible for me to brush it off and act like this happens to me all the time.   There was nothing to say.  It was more of  a Bridget Jones moment than a Jackie O moment. 

You can dress me up in the cutest thrift-store skirts,  but you can’t take me out.  

Love,

Chantal Jones

She’s On Fire!

Rejoice by Monica Stewart

     http://www.art.com/asp/sp-asp/_/pd–10044808/sp–A/igid–829566/Rejoice.htm?sOrig=CAT&sOrigID=0&ui=3DA7391EA93143699B9114C22CC7A8B2

I slept last night!  Halleluja!!!!  Nearly 7 hours of sleep, with only one interruption.   I woke up this morning with renewed optimism in life (renewed optimism…..does optimism ever get old?).   Overwhelmishness was at bay, Self-Acceptance said a shy good morning, Regret and Guilt were buried (for now) underneath the To-Do List (which seemed more manageable after getting more than 2 hours of sleep).   Life is good.   Does this happen to you, when life is good?  You have these feel-good songs running through your head, as if you were on top of the world and nothing can get you down?  Songs like……

I Can See Clearly Now The Rain Is Gone…..Doo Doo Doo Doo….I Can See All Obstacles In My Way……

I like that song. 

But when I’m feeling pretty good about myself, I have Train’s “She’s On Fire” playing in my head.  Train is one of my most favourite bands, and when Pat Monahan sings “Well it’s not just a daydream if you decide to make it your life“ from that song, it gives me the mental lift I need sometimes to take care of business.   (Note to self:  To balance the emotionality of the overwhelmishness, remember to  use music more often than chocolate.) 

Anyhow, I’m flitting around the kitchen, it’s 7:30am, and I’ve got great tunes going on in my head, “She’s On Fire” being one of them.   I’m still in my ratty old bathrobe, the one I debated tossing before Mr. C moved in a few months ago, for fear of shattering his goddess image of me.  In the end, I decided to keep the bathrobe, confident that he’d love me no matter how I look in the morning, which he does.  ( Although he did mention something, now that I think of it….he asked if maybe I would like a new bathrobe for Christmas…..hmmmm.)

So I’m making lunches, getting breakfast together, planning my day out, etc etc.  You know, the usual morning kitchen stuff that everyone clad in their bathrobes do.  I put a pot of water on the stove and fire up the gas burner.  She’s on fire…..She’s on fire….I hum as I get my son’s lunch together while I wait for the water to boil.    She’s on fire…..She’s on fire….

I return to the pot, and smell something burning.   I stop humming.   I think, Wait a minute….Water doesn’t burn (althought I could probably attempt that feat, no problem).  I quickly shut the gas off, and then I see smoke rising….from….where?  Inside the oven?   Pulling open the oven door, I realize OMYGOSH it’s my bathrobe sleeve that’s sparking smoking singeing!!!    I bat out the flames (Ok, they weren’t flames….yet) and dance into the living room to the bewildered amusement of   Mr. C and my son, who don’t know what to make of this sudden inflamed crazy woman.  I’m sure Mr. C thought I needed more sleep, or that I had fibbed about sleeping well the night before…people who are sleep-deprived do strange things. 

It was over in mere seconds, but my bathrobe bore the evidence of something that could have been much worse.   I stood in the kitchen with Mr. C, looking at the trail of scorch marks on my robe, feeling like a kook.

“Good thing I didn’t ask for a new bathrobe for Christmas…..”

I thought about my bathrobe today, hanging on the back of my door, and maybe I should replace it with a new one.  But I think I’ll hang on to it a little longer, singe marks and all.   Worn and woven into the green terrycloth fabric, my trusty bathrobe has signs of a life lived and of dreams realized.  And now it proudly bears singe marks to remind me of the morning when my soul was singing and a fire lit my creativity.  Literally.

Love,

Chantal xoxoxoxo

Waiting For Ballast

It’s 4am.  I should be sleeping.  But I’m not.  I’m here, with you, dear Blogfriend.   

I feel stuck.  Some parts of my life are on hold, waiting patiently for the days of glory to finally arrive; I know they will, it’s the waiting part that gets a little hard sometimes.    Some parts are stuck in this adjustment and adaptation of trying to have a normal life, when in fact it’s only myself that I feel I’m fooling in this adjust/adapt dance (I know, I know, who has a normal life, eh?).  Some parts are making me feel irrelevant, like I’ve  overstayed my welcome, which kind of hurts when I’ve come to see those parts as forming my friendship base.  Some parts are sorrow-filled cups of melancholy of not being able to be with those I love; we all live that to a certain extent, I know this.  Some parts are frustrating me with their chronic unfulfilling agendas, in an environment that I look forward to being away from more and more.  Some parts are lying dormant,  they’ve fallen to slaves of Master Time,  they’re censored by outside factors or by my own over-developed sense of thinking too much and second-guessing myself.  Spinning my wheels instead of just doing it, whatever “it” is.   Some parts are waiting for me to let them go, some parts I wish would let ME go, with their tentacles of guilt and regret. 

And I’m crying all the time.  Even as I type out those words, tears come to my eyes, and now I have to pause to blow my nose.    I realize that, at this time of my cycle, I cry easily.  But this just feels like more than your regular emotional pre-menstrual run-up.  It often comes out of nowhere, unheeded, triggered by the slightest things that I won’t enumerate here because I’ll just start crying again.  It’s affecting my work, my life with my family, my driving, my own sense of self-control (I don’t seem to have any).  It prevents me from talking with others if I happen to feel I’m in that crying-zone, I refrain from stating my opinion for fear that my passion about something will only cause me to start crying, I’ve become a pro at changing the subject and refocusing the attention on the other person, away from something that I might find too emotional.  It’s frustrating and I’m tired of it.   I wake up (when I get some sleep) with puffy eyelids from crying the night before, which makes me cry again, because putting mascara on eyelashes that jut out from puffy eyelids results in smears, no matter how careful you are. 

So if anyone knows of anyone who suffers from crying jags like this, please please hold them and tell them it will be ok.  It will probably make them cry even more, but crying when you’re being hugged feels much better than trying to suppress your sobs alone at your desk,  or alone at the kitchen counter while you try to make alot of noise in the sink in an effort to channel your tears into something productive, or alone in the bathtub, or alone in your bed with the covers pulled tight around you like you did when you were little and scared of the dark.

And my dreams, I dream all the time, sometimes several dreams in one night.  I remember most of them vividly, like the one I had before waking you up, dear Blogfriend…….In my dream, I had slept in the same bedroom as my children, but I had gone to bed before them, for some reason.  In my dream, I woke up early, before dawn, (like I do in my waking life), and saw them sleeping in the dark.  I quietly walked out, into the bathroom, and discovered I had started my period.  And I seemed happy about this.  In my dream, I was only on day 22 of my cycle, just like I am in my waking life.  But in my dream, I was thinking to myself that I must be pre-menopausal, if my period is beginning to be erratic.   And I seemed happy about this, too.  It was a calm dream, even towards the end when my son was crying because he had an accident outside the bathroom door, where he had been knocking & knocking with urgency, but I couldn’t hear him. 

Then I woke up, saw it was 3am, and couldn’t get back to sleep.   I could make alot out of this dream…..my children are at their father’s this week, so I’m dreaming of them because I miss them.  The part about starting my period early is probably related to all this crying and me trying to find a sane explanation for it, hoping that it’s hormonal.  The last part, about my son crying at the door just makes me feel sad, and that when divorce is a part of your life, just like most losses,  you feel incapable of being the complete parent that you want to be. 

And the calmness throughout the dream?   I think it has alot to do with how I feel when my children are away:  when they’re with me, life is busy and fraught with laughter and arguing and shouting, going to school, going to work, and getting on with the joy of being together even if we often have “episodes”.   When my children are away, I turn inwards and think about how much I love being their mother, despite our difficulties, which I don’t always think about when we’re right in the trenches, so to speak.  It’s like when you watch your children sleeping before turning in at night, after a full day of family living: you feel that calmness come over you, you’re grateful for having had one more day as a parent, for having lived through joys and tears and frustrations.

You know how sometimes, in life, you’re faced with situations that all seem to be going nowhere, all at the same time?   And then something happens, a door cracks open, and the rest falls into place?  Maybe that’s why all these parts in my life seem stuck, maybe that calm feeling in my dream was there to show me to trust in what I’ve been given, that all those stuck parts are gifts, and that ballast is on its way…. 

Excuse me while I blow my nose again……sheesh.

Love,

Chantal xoxoxoxo

Hormones At Work

Proof that I can smile as easily as I can cry (and lately I can almost do both at the same time):

I got home Monday after work, it had been a windy day, and I saw that a plant had been overturned on my balcony.  My balcony has one sliding door, then another that locks, then the sliding screen.  Normally, when the weather is nice, I only close the locking sliding door and the screen.  In the winter, I close all three.  But that morning, my daughter G was going around the apartment before we left, and she closed all three doors.  So, I went to go onto my balcony that evening to set the plant upright again, and being used to only opening two doors and out I go, I slid open door number one, then door number two, and walked right into the screen!  How does that happen?  I SAW the screen door, I KNEW it was closed, I KNEW I’d have to open it to get to the balcony, and yet I still walked into it.  Sheesh, I nearly went through the darned thing!  I even felt little screen marks on my forehead…..the neighbours must’ve thought I was losing my mind because I was laughing out loud, by myself, scooping up plant dirt, thinking “What a DORK I am!”  I mean, who does this?  Who sees the screen door, knows it’s there, it registers in their brain, and they STILL walk into it?  Sigh…….   

Driving to work, yesterday, I came to a stop and had to wait for a city truck to move up on the street that I had to make a right turn on.  They were patching up the roads, and as I turned right, the truck came to a stop, not leaving me much room to go around beside it and the curb.   I was stopped behind the truck maybe TWO seconds, trying to see if I could negotiate squeezing by, and this IDIOT woman behind me starts honking her horn at me!  Not just a little “toot-toot”, nooooo, it was the impatient “BEEEEEEP!  BEEEEEEP!” I looked in my rearview mirror at her and glared as hard as I could, hoping that I could convey my entire displeasure at her with my eyes only, rather than having to give her the finger.  I DID direct a few words out loud at the rearview mirror, and then cautiously manoeuvered  between the truck and the curb.  I watched her follow me, then we proceeded to the red light up ahead.  After turning left at the light, she went off in another direction, but the whole little episode just upset me, enough that a few red lights later, I burst into tears.   It’s not like I had been stopped behind that truck for a long period of time, and it’s not like I was the one holding up traffic.   Sigh…..

This morning, I’m taking the garbage downstairs before leaving for work.  I’m feeling pretty in my skirt and high-heeled turquoise sandals.  This is going to be a good day, I think.  I get to the garbage room on the first floor, which is next to the laundry room.  My upstairs neighbour is doing her laundry.  We say hi, I open the door to the garbage room, and holding the door open with my body, I toss the garbage bag into the bin.  As I turn to leave, I have no idea how this happened, but my left heel stays stuck in the door sill I guess you would call it.  There’s a little raised ledge where the tile floor of the hallway meets the concrete floor of the garbage room, and that’s where my heel stayed stuck.  So the door is closing on me, and because I wasn’t anticipating having my heel stuck, I was purposefully walking away, only to be yanked back in place.  I nearly fell out of my shoe trying to simultaneously hold back the door, hold on to my purse and lunchbag, and get my heel unstuck.  Yeah, you look real purty, there, sweetie…..I don’t think my neighbour saw, but I was ready with the “first day with the new shoes!” line in case she was looking.  Sigh….

I walk to my car, putting my purse & lunchbag on the passenger seat, and the cuff of my jacket gets tangled up in the handles of my purse…..the more I tried to let go, the more I seemed to get tangled.  In my struggle to extricate myself from its octopus-like hold, I spilled the contents of my purse all over the floor of my car.  Sigh…

I drive to work, taking the same route I usually take, every working day.   I get to the top of the hill where there’s a stop, where I KNOW I need to turn right.  What do I do?  I steer into the left-turning lane.  You know when you have that feeling that what you’re doing just doesn’t feel right, that this is not part of your routine?   That feeling that you’re doing something out of the ordinary, but that you can’t quite figure out what it is or why you’re doing it?  Ok, I was having that feeling.   Where am I going? I ask myself, as I double-back once I realize I’m going the wrong way.  Sigh….

I get to work, smile and say good morning to the security guards, walk through the doors, and head to my section.  As I’m walking, I’m slammed with this feeling of wanting to cry, and I can feel the tears well up.  WHAT is going ON?  I kick the inner talk into high gear, saying No No No, I wore my cheapie mascara today and it will only smear, so stop it!  I breathe through my nose and blink real fast, not looking at anyone as I hurry to my desk.  Sigh…

I must be channeling a female Schleprock at this time of the month…..

Love,

Chantal xoxoxox

Seriously, I Do Have Fun

What to write?  What to write?  ARRGGHHH!!!!

I’ve been in a rut, lately.  Not really a rut.  A non-writing rut?  Not writer’s block either.  More like writer’s smorgasborg.  So many things to say, so little time to write.  I have many drafts going on a variety of different things, but I read ‘em over and think….nah, not today.   

So little time to write, and yet I write drafts, I have several different journals going, I’m writing emails….if I’m not writing, I’m THINKING about writing.  During the day, when I’m at work, when I’m trying to concentrate, I find my mind wandering to what I COULD be blogging about, developing ideas for short stories, dreaming up characters, imagining and embellishing someone else’s life….

I’m overthinking is what I’m doing.  Or I’m overthinking about several things at once, which I think is causing something to go PFFFFT in my brain.   It’s as if my synapses aren’t clasping together like they should.  My husband, a truly gifted writer, displays that rare combination of authenticity and ingenuity  (aka real smart)……tonight, during our daily evening call (can something in the evening be daily?  Because I’m thinking daily happens in the daytime, every day….what do you call something that happens daily in the evening?)  he suggested that I write something lighthearted and fun, just to get me back on the writing track.   And as I thought about it, my posts are generally serious, emotional searchings…..the books I read are generally serious, emotional searchings….my work is generally serious…….ok, there’s a pattern here.   

Fun.  What is fun for me that I can write about?  The first thing that comes to mind is sex.  Because if you can’t have fun when doing that, then what’s the point?  Sex is a celebration.  Celebration = fun.   See?  I knew I had it in me!  Ok, more fun stuff…..let’s see… ok….uh-huh…..ummmm….I’m drawing another blank.  Geez.

Let’s see if I can change directions a little.  Think lighthearted, think fun.  I could write about celebrities.  That’s always good for fluffy interludes in between reading about the race for the U.S. presidency, and the kerfuffle over the Minister of Foreign Affairs’ latest paramour…..wait, no, that won’t work….they’ve all become celebrities, or at least they all play the part.  Think fun. Lighthearted.  Like the cover of a widely-circulated magazine with the initials V.F., that recently had a teen singer/starlet with the initials M.C. on its cover, a 15-year-old half-dressed sickly looking child, who was photographed by a respected photographer with the initials A.L..  The shoot included pictures of the child with her achy-breaky father, posing a little too suggestively together, in fact they looked more like boyfriend-girlfriend than dad-daughter.  Way gross.  Other pictures of M.C. alone were provocative and obviously sexualized.  The controversy surrounding this whole thing is mystifying to me;  I mean, come on, people!  Did you not see this coming?  Another case of irresponsible adults…..ok, I’m going to stop now because I’ve crossed the fun-threshold line and waded into the realm of seriousness.  Sorry.

Maybe a little brainstorming on fun would help, a sort of fun-stream-of-consciousness.  Here we go…… Fun is Snoopy.  I love Snoopy.  I had a Snoopy lunch box in grades 1 and 2.  That was a fun time in my life, we lived in a small town, I was seven years old, everyday was sunshine and friends.  I did have a mean second grade teacher, though, Mme Morrissette.  She was always screaming at us, and this was back when teachers struck kids however and whenever they pleased.  One day, we were writing in our scribblers, and I guess my handwriting was not up to her standards.  She marched me to the front of the class and whacked my palms with a ruler several times.  Then she made me stand in front, holding my scribbler open with my reddened hands, as an example.  Every student was then instructed to file past me to look at my awful handwriting and my sore hands.   It was a long ten minutes, standing there, unable to control the tears.  Humiliating for me as well as for the other students.  I was a shy and quiet kid who liked school, and even if I was loud and obnoxious and hated school, I didn’t deserve that treatment.   So, Jeannine Morrissette, if you’re out there and happen to read this, you were the worst teacher I’ve ever had.  I hope that by picking on me that day, another kid was spared something worse. 

Ok, THAT was fun!

Maybe I’m getting too hung up on what I think I should be writing, instead of just letting it flow.  Or I’m thinking too much of what to write that will please you, without balancing it out with what pleases me.   Or I’m expecting too much of myself, wanting that first draft to be the one and only, and expecting the ideas to manifest themselves consistently and without fail.   If you write it, they will come.  I guess the only way to curb the overthinking is to keep writing. 

I think I’m back on track, baby. 

Love,

Chantal xoxoxoxo 

 

Meet the PHIMHs

I don’t know which causes me more aggravation, my fear of carwashes, or my inability to say the right thing in moments where I’m intimidated.  I try to take on the voice of someone I know who is really good at speaking their minds, but their voice comes to me hours after the fact.  Kind of defeats the purpose.  I wish my brain would have an automatic-pilot retrieval system, where as soon as my body gives physical signs that my mouth is about to shut down, this little mechanism kicks in to make the right words travel from my brain to my vocal chords.

I live in a 60-unit building.  We have three washers, three dryers, that’s it.  In consideration for my fellow tenants, when I do laundry, I only do one load at a time, not three.  It can sometimes take up an entire afternoon and evening to do it this way, depending on how many loads I’ve got (because I usually wait til we almost run out of underwear or facecloths before I declare laundry day).  The point is it’s not fair to anyone for someone to hog the machines.  If you have 6 loads of laundry that you need to get done ASAP, go to the laundromat down the street. 

Friday, the kids were off school due to a teachers’ professional development day so I took the day off.  We had done our errands, now it was raining and I thought it would be a good time to do laundry.  So I sorted my five loads, and brought the first one down to the laundry room.  Great, nobody here, Friday afternoon, most people are at work.  Thirty minutes later, I’m back down to put the first load in the dryer, and to wash the second load.  Thirty-one minutes after that, I walk back down with my third load, and I’m greeted by the PHIMHs (pronounced fimz; one fim, two fimz) committee.  PHIMH = Paris Hilton Is My Hero.  That probably tells it all, but I’m on a roll, so I’ll elaborate.

Allow me to introduce you, although I’m sure you have some PHIMHs wandering your neighbourhood too:  These two particular PHIMHs are roommates in my building.  They’re in their mid-twenties.  They wear their perfectly highlighted & straightened hair in an updo made to look messy but which probably takes them hours to perfect.  They wear capri  leggings with hoodies as a casual fashion statement, and walk with their Yorkshire Terriers tucked under their arms, like furry luggage.  Always.  I’ve never seen those dogs walk.  Their faces (the girls, not the dogs) are caked with bronzer, their makeup would be called Club Chic (but not by me), lots of eyeliner around those flat, heavy-lidded eyes that look through people, never at them, and lots of lipgloss on those lips that never smile.  Ever.  Not at anyone.  They are way too busy concentrating on keeping their noses in the air to smile at anyone.   I see them with nice, easy-going-looking guys, but the guys appear more as porters (of dogs) or lackeys who follow them two steps behind, and to whom the PHIMHs speak to over their shoulder.  They drive expensive silvery gold SUVs with cream interior.  I have no idea what these two do for a living, but I don’t think it’s in anything remotely connected to working with people……how could you when you’re so busy projecting yourself as being better than everyone else just by the fact that you are….what?  Better-looking?  I’ve seen these girls rush ahead into the building when they saw someone coming loaded down with grocery bags and not even hold the door for them.  They just walked in with their precious doggies under their arms and let the door close behind them seconds before the poor man reached the door.  And it’s not like they didn’t see him.  He was maybe five to ten paces behind them.   If you happen to ride the elevator with the PHIMHs, they visibly cringe at having to actually share space with others, and converse loudly with each other until the elevator door opens and they quickly exit, without ever having made eye contact or said good day to anyone.   

These are the girls in high school who were pros at excluding others and being obnoxious and nasty if not to your face, then behind your back.   They could make even the teachers feel lower than a worm.    Frankly, I wish the PHIMHs would all migrate to Hollywood to feed on each other and leave the rest of us to live in harmony.  So back to my laundry story. 

I arrive in the laundry room with my third load.   One PHIMH is SITTING cross-legged ON the folding table, the table that is meant to FOLD CLEAN laundry, with her DOGGIE on one side and piles of dirty laundry on the other side.  The other PHIMH is standing by the washing machines, as if she’s guarding them with her life.  They’ve loaded the other two available ones with their laundry.  They’ve opened the lid of the third machine that has MY clothes in it, I guess to show me that I’ve kept the divas waiting.  I only have one basket with me, and it’s filled with my third load of dirty laundry.  I take out my wet clothes, put them on top of my dirty clothes and haul it to the dryers.  Now this is a very small laundry room, maybe 10 feet x 10 feet.  I’m guessing.  I have one load of towels drying in one of the dryers.  I don’t want to take up more than one dryer, because I’m considerate.  But I have my third load that I want to put in the washer that I just emptied, and now the standing PHIMH barely waits til I’m out of the way before she starts loading up the third washing machine!  She saw I had a basket of dirty clothes…..GRRRRR!   I sigh, because now I won’t get to do this third load.  I open my dryer and start folding the towels, wishing the idiot PHIMH  who was sitting on the table with her freaking dog would move so I could fold my stuff properly…..but no, she stays there, picking at her nails, talking to her roommate in that affected Valley Girl accent, peppering her conversation with ”like uh….like uhh….yeah….uhh…..”  Real intelligent.   I finish folding my towels, I put my second load of wet laundry into the dryer, and the standing PHIMH nearly knocks me over with her laundry cart as she goes by behind me!  No “Excuse-me I need to get by”, no nothing.  Of course not, silly me……she’s much more important, I should’ve been the one to get on my knees and grovel as she went by.    

Women like these two upset me, because they act like the world owes them everything, and that they are entitled.  They behave inconsiderately and they don’t care.  They don’t care about anyone but themselves, and they don’t care about how they affect the world around them.   I don’t care to change their behaviour, and I don’t care if they ever DO change their behaviour.  I would really love to body-check them into those washing machines.  That’s what I’d love to do.  Or at least have a really good comeback line which would be just as effective as a body-check. 

So P & I go back downstairs with the same dirty load to retrieve the clothes in the dryer.  Standing PHIMH is still there, but I see that the last washing machine has 6 minutes left before the cycle is over.  Good.  P & I fold the clothes that are in the dryer.  I turn to put them on the folding table, but it’s covered with piles of her dirty laundry.  So I set my clean folded clothes on the one chair, and I make small talk with P as we wait for the washing machine to become available.   Standing PHIMH  is looking at the sales flyers from the newspaper while she monopolizes all three machines.  She glances at me and says “Are you waiting for the machine?”  Whenever PHIMHs speak, it’s as if you have just sullied their environment by breathing the same air as they do; this affects their speech so that everything that comes out of their mouths has a tone of flatness & disdain.   So, to answer her question,  I smile (cause I always smile, especially when I’m ticked off) and say “Yes I am. I see that one’s done now.”, pointing to the last one.    “Oh”, she says, ” I still have two more loads to do….”   I straighten up, flash my green eyes at her, and with great control, I say “I’ve been waiting to put this load in.”  She looks at me with her big stupid eyes and her big stupid mouth starts: “Oh, well, I thought you were done before…..I have to get this laundry done….”  I swiped my clean clothes off the chair and plunked it as hard as I could on top of my dirty laundry and said “We ALL have to get our laundry done.”  She slunk to the machine and said a most insincere “Sorry”, so insincere and condescending that I wanted to ram it back down her throat so she would choke.  But I didn’t.    I was so mad that climbing the five flights of stairs was nothing, I could feel my blood pressure rising as the adrenaline coursed through my body.   P said “That lady wasn’t very nice.”  To which I replied “Don’t EVER date someone like that.” 

I flung myself on my bed when we reached the apartment, and I tried to breathe deeply.  It wasn’t helping.  I thought “If I don’t calm down, all this anger is going to harden my arteries.”  So I screamed into a pillow.  That helped.  The rest of the night was good (no I didn’t finish my laundry), and once I was calm, I thought about why this upset me so much.   If it had been anybody else, I would not even have thought twice about not being able to do my third load of laundry.  But it’s more about me than about them.  It’s about me not being able to have those words ready to tell somebody that they’re being jerks and to f*ck off.   No, that wouldn’t be good either I suppose.  I would be lowering myself to being rude & inconsiderate, and it would only contribute to the cycle of nastiness. 

BUT IT WOULD FEEL REAL GOOD!

P.S. The good thing that has come out of this is that the kids & I were able to talk about how our behaviours affect others.  My girl G’s advice to her mom was to let it go because one day the PHIMHs will have someone be rude to them.  Bad karma.  As I thought about it, I pictured the PHIMHs as little girls, and they probably grew up in a rude & inconsiderate environment….Geez I can’t even hold a grudge, and I know that if I see the PHIMHs again, I’ll forget the laundry room thing, and I’ll smile & hold the door for them & say what cute doggies they have.  All the while they’ll probably be cringing and thinking “Oooo there’s that (enter adjective of choice here) woman….”  That’s ok, I’ll be kind anyways. 

Love, Chantal xoxoxo

Carwash 2 Chantal 1

I can’t do it.  I just can’t do it.

I tried again a few weekends ago, and I was prepared this time.  I had a bottle of water in case my throat got dry and I started to choke, I had a good song I could sing out loud to with my eyes shut tight, it was a cool spring day, and the car was very dirty.  All the requirements for a much-needed, very overdue (like a YEAR) carwash. 

I have a hard time with carwashes.   I thought I had it beat, because I DID manage to go, by myself, in the carwash last March (not this past March, but the one before, in 07…..yes it’s been over a year since I washed my car).  And that wasn’t too bad.  Except for the part where I kind of froze once I drove inside.  I was unaware that I hadn’t driven far enough for the big door to close behind me…..which prompted the person waiting next to buzz the attendant….who came out and gingerly asked “Is everything ok, ma’am?”  I really wanted to ask him if he could just please please please please sit in the car with me while it was being washed, but I refrained.  I just said Yes, all’s good, thankyouverymuch,  in that high-pitched white-knuckled tone that we use when we know what evil is coming over the hill.  So he said very slowly (garage guys do this when they talk to women, they talk real slow, like we’re some crazy person who doesn’t know that she needs to drive up in order for the carwash door to close)…so he said, very slowly:  Wait until I leave, then drive up a little, the door will close and the carwash will start.   Thank you, I said, and did exactly as he instructed.  And it was all good, I stayed in the car, I didn’t open the door while the big brushes were swishing past.  I managed to keep the panic in my head and chest from exploding by singing to the radio, Kelly Clarkson’s Since U Been Gone.  I think that was my saving grace.  Saved  by American Idol.  Ha! 

Ok, so that was over a year ago.  I figured hey, I can do this again.  No problem.   I drove by the car wash several times, doing errands and stuff.  Each time I drove by, there was a long line-up of cars waiting.  Oh well, I thought, can’t go now, too many cars.  Oh well.  Later in the evening, I gathered my courage and drove to the carwash, bought my ticket, and proceeded to the carwash entrance.  Deep breath.  The entrance is designed that you drive up then turn right, drive behind the gas station & then to the carwash door.   So I drive up, then turn right, I see there are maybe six cars ahead of me.  

In the next ten seconds, I felt the panic ringing in my ears, I felt my chest tighten….I was hyperventilating and I wasn’t even  NEAR the carwash door!  My thoughts were exploding inside in rapid succession:  There’re too many cars ahead….I’m already panicking…..If I don’t back out now, someone will come up behind me and then I’ll be REALLY stuck, so I better back out now. 

So I tried to slowly back out, remembering that I had to turn as I was backing out……I can do an ok job of backing up in a straight line (sort of), but throw in a sharp turn plus a panic attack is more than I can handle because I’m really not a multi-tasker.  I DID back out slowly……so slowly I felt my right back wheel climb the curb of the entrance.  I thought, ok just take it slow, what goes up must come down, turn your steering a little and the back wheel will descend the curb….

Which it did, very slowly, except at the same time I was too close to the Carwash Entrance sign that sits ON the curb, which means I s-l-o-w-l-y scraped the side of my car with the edge of the metal sign.  Deep breath. 

I look at the people gassing up at the pumps….no one is looking at me and I can’t tell if they’re REALLY not looking at me or if they’re embarrassed to have witnessed such a sad display of carwash-phobia and DON’T want to look at me.  Either way, I’m grateful for this small mercy.  I take another deep breath, and feeling like a complete loser, I drive home to inspect a foot-&-a-half long curvy gash on the passenger side of my little Hyundai.    A reminder of my terrible inability to drive in reverse (which I’m sure I can master with practice) and of my continuing deathly fear of being in closed spaces in general, carwashes in particular.  That, I think, is one thing I don’t care to master with practice.  So I have a dirty car……oh well.   Soon the local armory or some other organization will be holding a car wash to raise funds.  I’ll wait til then I think….

Never Met A Chicken Salad I Didn’t Like

I’m at the airport in Toronto on Easter Sunday.  I have nearly six hours to wait for my flight home.  What to do, what to do?  I browse the bookstore and come away with 3 new books.   Having worked up an appetite, I stroll to Tim Horton’s and order myself an egg salad sandwich and a large black coffee.  The cashier repeats my order, takes my money.  The sandwich girl hands me a bag with my egg salad sandwich.  She even repeats what my order was.  Thank you very much, off I go to find a quiet place to eat & read. 

After walking for about five minutes, I head downstairs to my gate, my backpack,  too heavy with too many books,  digging into my shoulder.  I find a seat behind an older couple who were chatting on the phone to their grandkids.   I clip on my iPod Shuffle, turn on the tunes, and write a little in my journal.  I’m  getting hungry.   Eyeing  my egg salad sandwich wrapped in the brown paper bag, I think if I eat it now, I should be good til I get home.  At which time I’ll probably be too tired to eat and go straight to bed.  So I should eat it now….

Just a few moments more….I finish writing about my trip, put my journal away and unwrap my egg salad sandwich…..which has mysteriously metamorphosed into a chicken salad sandwich.  I hear myself go “uh” over the din of my music in my ears.   This would be no biggie, normally I would eat the sandwich, egg or chicken…….. except I’m a vegetarian. 

I replay the scene of the crime at Tim Horton’s over in my mind….I had distinctly ordered an egg salad sandwich.  The cashier repeated my order.  The sandwich girl had said ”Here’s your egg salad sandwich”.  To which I smiled and said thank you very much. 

Then I think, “Maybe egg salad sandwiches at Tim Horton’s in airports are different from regular Tim Horton’s egg salad sandwiches.  Maybe it just looks like a chicken salad sandwich, but it’s really an egg salad sandwich.”   Ok, who am I kidding?  If it looks like chicken salad, and smells like chicken salad, it’s probably chicken salad. 

I think of marching right back up there and demanding that they get my order right and give me my egg salad sandwich on whole wheat!   But I don’t feel like marching anywhere after hanging around a bookstore for a few hours with an overloaded backpack.  And I’m not much of a demander, really.  More of an oh-well-er.   I’m sure if my 11-year-old daughter had been with me, she would’ve marched me back up there herself and poked me in the back, whispering the words to say to the cashier…..bless her little heart for being so different from her mom….

Feeling like a deflated balloon, I wrap up the egg-disguised-as-chicken-salad sandwich back into its wax paper, then back into its paper bag,  like a cocoon.  I set it aside, drink some coffee, grateful that they hadn’t given me a double double.   So what am I to do with this perfectly good sandwich?  I can’t give it to someone……Hey, sir, would you like my sandwich?  I didn’t touch it, honest……no I can’t eat it because I’m vegetarian…..why am I vegetarian?  (did you have to ask?)…..well, a little over a year ago, I read that the U.S. was approving cloned beef as safe for human consumption……that kind of made me a little afraid and got me thinking about what I put in my body…..that’s why I’m a vegetarian…..but the sandwich is good, sir, honest……you’re sure, you don’t want it?…….ooookaaayyyyy fine, then……

As IF I would do something like that…..as if.

I look at my sandwich.  I could toss it in the trash.  As soon as that thought crosses my brain, however,  this voice comes  out of my earphones on my iPod, the kind of voice that shakes you by the shoulders and looks you in the eye without flinching….The Voice is serious.  It means business.  Here’s what it says:

“ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?  You can’t throw that sandwich away!  You are part of that 6% of the world’s population who consumes 75% of the food that’s produced, leaving the remaining human beings to fight and die for whatever morsels and contaminated water that they can get their weakened hands on…..and you want to throw this sandwich away because it will…..what?  Compromise your vegetarian principles? (the preceding was said in a singsongy whiny tone at the top of the Voice’s voice).    The only principle you should have is that wasting ANYTHING is akin to strangling your neighbour!   You throw that sandwich out, and it’s the same as taking it out of the hands of someone who’s hungry (you don’t know the meaning of being hungry, Miss-I’ve-never-missed-a-meal-in-my-life).  And I know, you’re thinking I sound just like your mother who would tell you to finish your plate because there are poor kids starving out there.   And when she said that, you used to think, well how the heck are they going to feel less hungry if me, the over-fed child, eats all the food on her plate, here in this part of the world?  Wouldn’t it make more sense to eat less and give more?  Yes…..wouldn’t it make more sense?  Try this one on for size:  Eat less, buy less, waste less, need less, then watch how your heart will go from indifference to caring, not to mention an improvement in your health, your finances, your altruistic endeavours and your lifestyle overall.  And wait til you see the ripple effect on those around you who really need your compassion…..  (By the way, those 3 new books that you didn’t need, that are adding weight to your backpack…..are you gonna be marching back up there to return them? Ha! Didn’t think so…..) You can go ahead and throw that sandwich out.   Go ahead; but how will you feel, knowing that a perfectly edible meal is lying in the trash, something you paid for?  Something that you’re not eating, not because you have an aversion to it, or an allergy to it, but because as a matter of principle, you don’t eat meat.  Which is really good, healthy, etc. etc. etc (blablabla…..Voice’s eyes are rolling here…..)  But in this case, if you were to throw that sandwich away, it would be a greater sin than if you were to eat it. 

After a while of debating with the Voice, I unwrap the sandwich for the second time…..it looks like chicken salad…..it smells like chicken salad…..it tastes like chicken salad.    I give thanks as I eat, half-expecting to be struck with freak lightning by the gods of Vegetaria.  But nothing happens.   I swallow my last bite, knowing in my heart that I chose the better deal,  consoling myself that this was a one-time meat-eating thing, and to get over it already!  Then I think of  how this might shock some people.  Oh well.   

They ain’t seen nothing yet  

Weekend Ramble

Allow me to introduce you to Sorrow, in case you haven’t had a chance to visit her site yet.  She’s an ingenuous, creative, talented and generous person with  a heart of gold.   And if you need more convincing, she puts her talent where her heart is, actually doing something tangible to make the world a better place.    

For those of you who reside in the US, here is something that might interest you.   The National Fatherhood Initiative is putting on a “Fatherhood Means….” challenge, giving you the opportunity to share your memories about your father, or about what it means to be a father.   This was brought to my attention, and I found it worthy that an organization such as this one exists, and so I’m passing it on.   

Update on Gardasil:  I’m not sure what has struck a chord with me about this whole thing, but I was pleased to see in a national American women’s magazine a two-page leaflet summary of the vaccine, based on information found on Gardasil.com.   In this summary, Merck & Co Inc. seem to be as intent on providing safety information as they are on promoting the vaccine: they stress the importance of receiving regular cervical cancer screenings,  they mention that Gardasil will not treat cervical cancer or genital warts, that Gardasil MAY help guard you from certain types of HPV.   The possible side-effects are listed, (but they don’t mention death).   This “summary” inserted in popular magazines, comes nearly a year AFTER the vaccine hit the markets in Canada (it’s been given since 2006 in the States and the UK), but better late than never, I guess…….except maybe for the 11 deaths so far that have been attributed to the vaccine,  it’s too late for them (I won’t bother linking, you can Google Gardasil deaths……).   Am I trying to scare you?  Yes.

I try to be as green as I can.  I even put forth a few suggestions to my supervisor the other day, on how we can reduce our usage of paper in the workplace.  It felt good to be a productive employee who was looking to improve things.   So later on that day, after I had emailed my supervisor with my ideas, I was searching for information in our local manual, which is set up on a Word Document; this is different from our national manual, which is online.    We use our local manual  for instructions that apply to our particular office, kind of like an addendum to the national manual.  ANYWAYS……

Because it’s online, when you print from the national manual, you only print that one page that you’re viewing.  For the local manual however, if you hit print instead of cutting and pasting the section you want to print to a blank page, you will print the ENTIRE manual, all 70-some pages of it……So guess what I did that wonderful day where I was feeling a little too good about myself for being such a green employee?  I forgot to cut & paste the section of the local manual that I needed, and instead I clicked the print icon.  After taking in a few sharp breaths, and wanting to cancel the printing operation (but forgetting where I needed to click) in my “énervement” to stop the presses, I clicked the same print button AGAIN!!!!   I quickly got up, went to the printer and stood there as casually as possible, wondering who was going to stand up and say “Who’s the tree-killer?”  Thankfully, no one paid any mind, and I slunk back to my desk, a wasteful stack of papers in my hands.   I sat there, dumbfounded at my own dumbness……I still have those papers on my desk, as a reminder NOT TO DO THAT AGAIN.    One-third of a tree is needed to make 3,000 sheets of paper.   (Dear Supervisor, if you read this, I apologize.).

Books I’ve recently enjoyed:  Meditations from Conversations with God, by Neale Donald Walsch.   I’ll have to buy a copy of this booklet, the one I have I borrowed from the library, and it must go back soon.  It’s been by my side for a few weeks and I refer to it constantly. 

Parent As Mystic, Mystic As Parent, by David Spangler.  A different approach to parenting, one that’s a little more in line with my soul.   As with all parenting books, take from it what you need.  This book was easy to read in a busy day, it’s not necessary to read it cover to cover, you can jump around.   It gives many hands-on things to do as a parent, but it also speaks to your parent-soul, it allows you to meditate what you’re reading so that it becomes a part of you, you’re not just reading a how-to manual.

Spirit Games: 300 Fun Activities That Bring Children Comfort and Joy, by Barbara Sher.  Another book I need to buy (sigh).   I have all these bookmarks in it and am trying to write down the activities I feel could benefit the kids & I, before I bring it back to the library.  I know, I could photocopy some of it, but I’ve already been less-than-green lately….. Anyhow, I’ve already brought one of the activities into our lives, and you probably already do this without thinking, but at snack time before bed, I make it a point to SIT DOWN with the kids at the table instead of being busy in the kitchen while they eat; and while I’m sitting there, we talk, and I ask them “What made you smile today?”  We all get a chance to say one thing, then the dialogue is open to talk (or not) about the smiley thing.   It’s just a small way to reinforce the positive.  My son P is a very enthusiastic participant in everything, but my daughter, who’s 11, liked to make it seem that talking about what makes you smile is silly, and the first few times, she would roll her eyes and sigh and say something just for the sake of saying something.  She’s coming around, though.  I think she just likes me sitting there listening to her talk.  And that makes me smile. 

This week, at work, our Employee Assistance Program buddied up with our Employment Equity Committee at work and presented a Lunch and Learn session, where you could sign up for a presentation on Self-Care Strategies for Single Parents.   I thought it would be good to see what was offered and so I signed up to spend my lunch on Thursday gaining some new insights.  There were about 15-20 people in attendance, all women except for one young guy (which I thought was very progressive of him to sign up).   The presenter was a very empathetic woman (whom I knew already as she worked with my ex-husband in counselling), and in the 45 minutes that we had, we received good information on the importance of taking care of yourself when you’re a single parent, and all the resources available in the community.   We were going through an extensive list of self-care strategies (hobbies, friendships, relaxing), when the presenter came upon the following:  Learn about visualization and meditation.  Except that she read it out loud as Learn about visualization and MEDICATION.    Well, we all just roared at her Freudian slip! 

“Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last.”  Samuel Johnson