It's Only a Name

My sister Catherine writes a very nice blog about being a baby-boomer http://observationsofababy-boomer.blogspot.com/and after reading a few of her stories it got me thinking about my generation’s name or, lack thereof.

The date range for boomers is 1947 to about 1966, give or take a few years. So technically, I too, am a boomer—and yet I’m not. All the history of the boomers is just a squelch off for me, about a ten year squelch. I don’t remember the Beatles on Ed Sullivan as I was six and probably in bed at the time. Vietnam was something that happened to someone else’s older brother. I definitely missed out on the hippy movement since I wasn’t allowed to stay up past 8 p.m. I knew that something important happened when MLK Jr. and the Kennedys were assassinated because the adults around me were upset but I didn’t really know why at the time. I didn’t know about the riots, sit-ins and other disturbances of the 60s because I wasn’t allowed to watch the news. I was at the age where I was told to leave the room if anything “adult” happened.

So, what were we—the children born in the later end of the 1950s? I also read that we were part of the MTV Generation or Gen X but that doesn’t quite fit either since I was in my early 20s when MTV started. (Quick, what was the first song played on MTV? Answer: Video Killed the Radio Star. That I do remember.) My generation was in the middle of everything and nothing. We’re the Jan to the Boomer Marsha and Gen X Cindy; forever jealous of Marsha, Marsha, Marsha and tired of cute Cindy.

There are a couple of titles I could think of:

Generation Hand-Me-Down. Most of us tended to be the baby of the brood with three or four siblings ahead of us so, we got a lot of hand-me-downs or leftovers. We didn’t have the Beetles, instead we had Ringo and the All Star Band, Wings, and John and Yoko. Jim, Janis, and Jimmy were all gone before we had the chance to discover them. They got Camelot we got Nixon. They got Ozzie and Harriet, we got divorcing parents.

Or, better still, we could be called Generation Reap; as in reap-all-the-rewards-of-the-hard-working-boomers.

When I started high school I took a woodshop class. My sister commented at the time she wished she had that option when she was in high school. Instead, she had to take secretarial classes. For women, my generation was the first to start having options. I may have been the only girl in that woodshop but I was there by the Grace of God and the entire bra-burning older sister society before me!

The boomers had to fight for all their rights and then we came in and—just did it. We were the first generation that didn’t have to worry about unwanted pregnancies. This is a fact: The pill was unavailable to single women until 1972. It had been made available to married women about five years earlier but the single boomer sisterhood were denied the pill until they were in their 20s. Imagine that, a prescription regulated by your marital status! No wonder they were all pissed. The pill became available to me right when I discovered boys. How convenient.

The boomers certainly led the fight for wage equality, reproductive rights, the women’s movement, etc., but it was a long haul and many of these rights were not established until the boomers were in their late 20s and 30s. My generation just waltzed into it right out of high school after the boomers had done all the hard work. I worked in a “man’s world” in the Navy, slinging cargo and driving boats. The women before me were forced into secretary roles and were forced out if they got pregnant, whereas I had more options on the type of job I wanted and whether I wanted to stay if I got pregnant. I really didn’t have to deal with sexual harassment or the old boy’s network.

Parenting styles were definitely much more lax than with the boomer. I think our parents were just too exhausted to care what we did or too dazed after trying to raise the boomers through the 60s, after all they were the ones pushing the boundaries. And, being older, our parents slept sounder and didn’t hear us going out the window. But most of all, we didn’t have younger sisters who squealed on us when we went out the window…sorry Catherine.

We definitely were more hedonistic. We were right in the middle of the sexual revolution of the 70s. Because there wasn’t a threat of pregnancy women were questioning the double-standards of the day and having sex on their own terms. No, waiting for whatever numbered date it was that you were supposed to do this, or that; no rules, no trying to “catch” a guy. Of course the generation before has sex, probably lots of it, and in their teens as well; but there was always the threat of getting a “reputation” over their heads. My generation didn’t really care about reputations and to the horror of my mother; we called the boys on the phone if we wanted to go out on a date. Many of us didn’t get married until we were older, unlike our boomer sisters who married out of high school, so that whole “saving it for marriage” wasn’t really working for us. Ours was the one-night-stand generation and we loved it.

It wasn’t all rosy. Yes there was LSD and other heavy drugs in the 60s, most boomers in college only smoked weed. But my generation did more than pot and at an earlier age. Drugs like mescaline, speed, black beauties, and quaaludes were rampant in high schools in the 70s and very much out in the open. We paid for all the drug use and promiscuity with the AIDS epidemic in the 80s.

And don’t look to us for fashion sense. We were the first idiots to break our necks on platform shoes, (both men and women) and 30” wide bell bottoms. And yes, we invented the hip huggers I’m sorry to say. We all looked like pimps and hookers all decked out in 100% polyester.

But the best thing we invented—good guitar riffed, drum bashing Rock & Roll. All the good classic rock was created in the 70s. Bands that started in the 60s like Led Zep, The Stones, The Who all hit their peak in the 70s. We’re the generation of kick-ass Southern rockers like Lynyrd Skynyrd; hard rockers like AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Aerosmith and Deep Purple. We had bands like Boston, Supertramp, and ELO; funk musicians, Sly and the Family Stones, Ohio Players, and Earth, Wind and Fire. Then there were the glitter, glam and freaky rockers like Kiss, Elton John, Queen (we miss you Freddie), David Bowie and Alice Cooper. And when we got tired of it all, we stripped it down and invented New Wave and Punk.

So why in God’s name could a generation who came up with such amazing music also invent Disco?

Ode to My Cats

I friend of mine recently lost his beloved dog (RIP Bojo you were quite the character) and it started me thinking about all the animals I’ve loved over the years. My friend told me that he only lasted a few days before he got another dog, and he received a little grief from friends who thought it was too soon. Too soon? I don’t think so. I think the grieving process is harder and longer when you walk into an empty house day after day after years of being welcomed by a wagging tail or, in the case of cats, a demanding meow to feed them. When I was in my teens we had cats and I don’t think we lasted more than a week after losing a cat when one just mysteriously shows up. Someone would come home with a new kitty under their arm. I’d come home from school and there it was! No one really discussed getting another cat but it was a bit of a joke to see who cave in first. These were two of my favourite cats during my teens:

First there was Dusty or Rusty; I can’t remember what name stuck. My stepbrother Phil brought him home. He was a red tabby and I think we called him Dusty but dad liked to call him Rusty. So he went by Dusty/Rusty all his life. He was a bit of a tomcat, a little aloof but always there in the kitchen where dad liked to sit all day when he was off the ship. (He worked two weeks on and one week off). Dad used to pretend that he didn’t really care for cats but for some reason Dusty/Rusty was always at his feet while he sat there drinking coffee. One day I figured out why. I left the room but hung around behind the door and I dad started talking to him. He would croon to the cat, “That’s my Rusty, daddy’s little son-of-a-bitch,” and Dusty/Rusty would roll around purring oblivious to dad’s words. I quickly dove into my bedroom before dad heard my hysteric laughing.

Then there was the Queen of Sheba, our Burmese. She originally lived a cousin and her husband who had two other cats. One day my stepmother and I went to visit them and the minute we sat down, Sheba jumped off the TV and sat on my lap. They were very surprised because Sheba was naturally aloof and spent most of her day on top of the TV. We weren’t home more than 5 minutes before the phone rang; it was my cousin asking us if we would like to come back and pick up the cat. We had just lost Dusty/Rusty a week before. We were over there in a flash and Sheba became part of our lives for a long time. Apparently she was a one-cat-per-house cat aka The Queen of Sheba who liked to rule her domain because she sure took over our house. It’s funny but I always say when you’re getting a cat, it’s not you who picks the cat, it’s the cat that picks you.

Sheba was very vocal, much like Siamese, and a good chaperone much to my dismay. It was her habit to sit between me and a current beau any time we were down in the basement watching TV. I think my stepmother taught her to do that. She had this funny habit though; she would lie on her back in front of the fridge with her legs sticking out in a very un-lady like manner. She loved laying on the kitchen carpet (yes it was the 70s) and the heat coming from the fridge.

So when is the right time to get another animal? When you feel its right, even if it’s the next day, the next week, the next year; it depends on the person. But there are a lot of animals at the shelter that are just waiting for a good home and I think it’s a good way to honour the love you had with your deceased pet to pass it on to another deserving one and be damned the people that pooh-pooh your decision.

I also think the rule applies to people too and they shouldn't get grief from friends either. That's why widows/widowers with a good marriage tend to get remarried quickly. They have too much love just sitting there to give to a deserving person and it feel alien not to share when you did it for the majority of your adult life.

I Watched a TV show!

This weekend was very eventful. Saturday I went to a bridal shower for a co-worker that started at noon. I got up, had coffee, went on the internet for awhile, took a shower, went to the mall to pick up a present and arrived exactly at noon. I was home around 4 p.m., exhausted from all the talking and coughing and coughing and coughing, so I took a nap until 7 p.m. Later I read for awhile and took it easy. I'm reading Anne of Green Gables. One of those great Canadian literature that I've never read. I have a whole list of books like that. Naturally when it came time to go to sleep I couldn't because of the nap. As much as I like naps they totally messes up my sleep routine. So there I was until 2 a.m. reading, planning and writing a seven page letter to my aunt. The dark chocolate bar I ate probably didn't help with the sleeping issue as well.

What did I plan? Well, I've managed to redecorate my whole house in my mind. I just have to get it down on paper now. Our house is in a bit of a flux right these days. Ever since Bryant came back home with his dog Lexie it's been that way. She is part pit and a puppy when she arrived at our house. Cute thing but a terrible chewer. In a mater of months she destroyed our 12 ft. sectional couch, leather easy chair and all the pillows. How a dog could eat a whole couch is beyond me. It looked like it should have been on someone's porch in the Ozarks! So for now I have a couch and chair that I found on Craig's list that don't really match and no coffee table. I don't really like having company over because the house just looks sad. The type of furniture you have when you're in your first apartment not when you're established in your 50s. Bruce and I decided that we're not going to redecorate until she's gone and that could be awhile since Bryant is still in school. She's a lovely dog, a little neurotic, but cute and seriously the couch and chairs are only stuff that can be replaced. It's no different than having your house torn apart by four rambunctious growing boys. When you have kids and dogs things will be broken. Our carpet is also pretty trashed after raising four boys and 3 dogs. I don't think it will ever be beige again.

I also not been all that thrilled lately with our light blue walls. They're just too bland for me and I'm just tired of blue. I may go green or natural colours because I want to do the house all in mission style. I like the clean lines and art deco accessories these days. A long ways from the cluttered Victoria look I had in the 90s. Those rose sponge-painted walls with flowered borders. Yuck. So, I'm going to get a design book started, take some photos of things I see and have it all planned out for the day I can start. It will take me a long time to redecorate because I really want to gut the whole house when the boys move out and make our house a little couple's retreat. I'm looking forward to an empty nest. We were empty-nesters for about 4 months before the boys moved back in and it was so blissful. No dirty dishes in the kitchen all the time, no strange locker room smells coming from their bedrooms. Just the joy of being able to walk around your house in your underwear again...pure bliss.

I would have liked to have slept in this morning but my cat had other ideas. Princess was gracious though, after waking me at 6:30 a.m. for her breakfast and morning walk out in the back yard (she likes to just make the rounds while the dogs are still sleeping) she did let me go back to sleep until 9 a.m. I got up, made coffee, sat on the computer for awhile writing my blog, had breakfast and got two loads of laundry going. That's a first for me because I have a bad habit of doing laundry late and hurrying to try and get it put away before I could go to bed which naturally made me hyper and I would have trouble sleeping Sunday nights and feel trashed Monday morning. It's so easy for me to get insomnia.

Later I uploaded some photos to findagrave.com that I took at a local cemetery. I've been slowly photo cataloging all the stones at the San Marcos cemetery. It's a hobby of mine—I love cemeteries. Can't wait to go up to the famous ones in Hollywood one of these days with my girlfriend Kay. She's as nutty as me over graves. I was going to go over and take more photos while I was shopping but I forgot the stupid memory card!

Then I ran out to the craft store—had a 25% off coupon burning a hole in my pocket—and then over to Walmart to pick up curtain's for Bryant's room. By that time I was very tired from not getting enough sleep overnight but if I took a nap I'd be toast. So I sat down at the computer and watched Desperate Housewives and Brother's & Sisters while I cleaned off the desk and painted these little wooden initials (CDB) I bought at Michael's for my cube at work.

It was nice getting a little TV in but I kept myself busy while I did it. In the past, if I had bought a little project to do, it would have sat around for weeks before I got around to it. Today I worked on it the same day I bought them. I think that's progress.

Book Review: Princess Alice

I just finished reading an interesting, but definitely highly edited, book on Princess Alice of Hesse. The book consisted of a series of letters to her mother written almost on a daily basis. The book was published after she passed away from Diphtheria at the age of 35.

Princess Alice was the third child and second daughter to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. More importantly, she was the mother of Alexandra, who married the Czar of Russia Nicholas, and it was through Alice that hemophilia was passed onto that family. As most know, that was one of the reasons for the downfall and death of the Russian Imperial family during the Russian Revolution. She is also the maternal grandmother of Prince Philip husband of Queen Elizabeth II. Queen Victoria had pledged that her children would only marry for love and not politics, just as she did, so Alice was allowed to marry the impoverished minor German Prince Louis of Hesse, heir to the Grand Duchy of Hesse (the present day Darmstadt area).

Her married life started under a cloud when her father died a few months before the wedding (described as more of a funeral than a wedding) and her life wasn’t much better over the years. Hesse was involved in a lot of the wars started by Bismarck during the unification of Germany so her husband was away a lot and she was always fearing for his life. She was terribly homesick and was never accepted by the German people because of her English ways. Also, Hesse was a poor duchy so she was always complaining of money in her letters and the smallness of her house.

Her marriage was a love match until the death of her son Frederick, who suffered from hemophilia, and died from internal bleeding after a fall from an open window at the age of 2 and a half. Both of her sons were running around the room and while she was chasing after one the other was out of her sight for a few moments and fell out the window. A terrible ordeal for any mother to go through and she never got over the loss. After that she and her husband drifted apart and she suffered from terrible vague pains, weakness, migraines, etc. probably due to depression and the stress of being “the mother of her country” as she described it. In 1874 her whole family, children and husband, contacted diphtheria and she nursed them all through it. One child, Marie, died and she suffered from the stress of not being able to tell the her husband and children of the death of the favourite. When she did finally tell her son of the loss he became so upset that she broke the cardinal rule and kissed him on the brow. A few days later she contracted the disease and died, coincidently on the anniversary of her father’s death.

I say that the book was highly edited because the only letters printed were happy ones full of devotion to her mother and memories of her father. More than her other siblings, she was totally devastated by the death of her father and she, like her mother, had a morbid interest in death and mourning. Every death that happened to her servants, friends and family, which considering it was almost every royal house in Europe left her “prostrated on the couch for days with grief.” She regularly sent letters to her mother on the anniversary of her grandmother’s and father’s death and the tone was just as fresh as the first year they were mourning.

What’s not published is the hurtful letters that her mother sent back in later years. Queen Victoria was very jealous of Alice’s marriage because it was a happy one and she was a widow. She also hated the fact that Alice was always trying to cheer her up when she was perfectly happy to wallow in her widow’s misery. She also did not like Alice’s constant comments on her lack of money. Although they sure took a lot of trips!

She was not an easy mother to have in the first place. She begrudged each of her daughter’s marriages because they were leaving her. Some of her younger daughters had to fight her to get married as she thought it was their duty to stay a spinster and take care of her. It’s well known that she disliked Bertie because she blamed him for Prince Albert’s death and his frivolous lifestyle and yet, she would never give him any duties to counteract the lifestyle that she despised.

Alice was the caregiver of the family and was very interested in nursing. She set up numerous hospital and schools for women in Hesse. She took care of Victoria’s mother and her father on their deathbeds and took care of her bereaved mother after both incidents. She tended to her brother Bertie, later King Edward VII, when he almost died from typhoid, the same illness that took his father. This caused another rift between her and Victoria as the Queen felt that Bertie’s wife The Princess of Wales should have gotten the praise for nursing him instead of Alice.

The Queen’s cruelty is very obvious in this reply to a letter written two months after Frederick’s death. The Queen was focused on her son Prince Alfred's engagement to the Grand Duchess Marie of Russia (which turned into a disastrous marriage due to Maria’s haughtiness). The Tsar had refused to present his daughter for pre-marriage inspection in England, and instead invited the Queen to meet the family in Germany. Alice supported the suggestion and on the same day that she wrote to the Queen about missing her son, "I am glad you have a little coloured picture of my darling. I feel lower and sadder than ever and miss him so much, so continually..." the Queen coldly wrote to her grieving daughter, "You have entirely taken the Russian side, and I do not think, dear child, that you should tell me...what I ought to do." Not a mention of her dead grandson. Alice once complained to her husband over a letter Victoria had sent that "made me cry with anger...I wish I were dead and it probably will not be too long before I give Mama that pleasure." And yet, all her letters to her mother were full of loving and caring comments.

What I find interesting about reading old letters is how much things have changed and how much they hadn’t. She was a devoted mother who didn’t believe that her children should be seen and not heard and they were a large part of her life. She was one of the few royals who breastfeed, which did not sit well with her mother, and spent a large part of the day playing with them.

What I find odd is the amount of traveling the royals did. Everywhere that Alice went there were other relatives there to visit with. It appears that the Victorians were constantly at one bath or another drinking the waters for their health and it seems like they were always unhealthy. Many of her letters went into great detail of her ailments which were probably due to the cold, damp houses she lived in and the restrictive clothing they were all forced to wear. Her chief complaint was suffering from the heat. I think I’d have issues too if I had to wear a layers of clothing and a corset all day! But what also amazes me is the amount of activity they did in those restrictive clothing. To get to the baths was not easy. They had to go over the Alps in rickety coaches for days. Other times they were hiking for hours in the Alps in long dresses and parasols. I can’t do that with just wearing a t-shirt and shorts!

Another thing that fascinates me about the royals during this time period at the end of the 1800s is how they could separate family from politics. The complaints were always about the people not the head of the country. Prior to World War I there were a lot of minor but bloody wars in Europe. Bismarck was making war on the minor duchies in his quest to unify Germany and France, Austria and Germany were constantly at each other’s throats. England’s wars were mainly in the colonies at the time but she got involved in a few in Europe. So many times, siblings and cousins were fighting each other on opposite sides of a war. When Prussia went to war with Austria, Hesse sided with Austria. Alice’s sister was married to the Crown Prince of Prussia at the time and yet, there were loving letter sent back and forth between the sisters and family information passed through their mother. Alice blamed Bismarck, not her sister’s in-laws for the fighting. After the war the sisters visited each other as if nothing happened and Alice was on very good terms with Vicky’s in-laws, the King and Queen of Prussia. Although Alice was a bit upset when Vicky visited the site where many Hessian soldiers were killed soon after the war to lay a wreath for the Prussian victory. Later, Alice’s husband was an officer in the Prussian army and had no problem being under Prussian rule when he became the Grand Duke. The same with their Russian relations, Victoria didn’t trust the Russians and yet Alice’s husband was the nephew of the Empress of Russia. Alice made a few scathing comments about the Russian troops during a war they were involved in but did not connect the dots to her relatives. It was always the people. They also didn’t trust the French but Victoria was good friends with Emperor Napoleon II and let him and his wife live out their exile in England at her expense.

In all it was a very interesting book to read because it showed how, even though they were royals who lived more than a century ago, their lives was not that much different than ours in that they worried about their children, husband and other routine things. What was different was the amount of death they had to deal with because there was no antibiotics even the flu could kill someone and they had to deal with diseases we don’t see any more like scarlet fever and typhoid. It wasn’t uncommon for a family to lose a few children over the years. I’m glad that we don’t have to deal with that anymore.

I just finished reading an interesting, but definitely highly edited, book on Princess Alice of Hesse. The book consisted of a series of letters to her mother written almost on a daily basis. The book was published after she passed away from Diphtheria at the age of 35.
Princess Alice was the third child and second daughter to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. More importantly, she was the mother of Alexandra, who married the Czar of Russia Nicholas, and it was through Alice that hemophilia was passed onto that family. As most know, that was one of the reasons for the downfall and death of the Russian Imperial family during the Russian Revolution. She is also the maternal grandmother of Prince Philip husband of Queen Elizabeth II. Queen Victoria had pledged that her children would only marry for love and not politics, just as she did, so Alice was allowed to marry the impoverished minor German Prince Louis of Hesse, heir to the Grand Duchy of Hesse (the present day Darmstadt area).
Her married life started under a cloud when her father died a few months before the wedding (described as more of a funeral than a wedding) and her life wasn’t much better over the years. Hesse was involved in a lot of the wars started by Bismarck during the unification of Germany so her husband was away a lot and she was always fearing for his life. She was terribly homesick and was never accepted by the German people because of her English ways. Also, Hesse was a poor duchy so she was always complaining of money in her letters and the smallness of her house.
Her marriage was a love match until the death of her son Frederick, who suffered from hemophilia, and died from internal bleeding after a fall from an open window at the age of 2 and a half. Both of her sons were running around the room and while she was chasing after one the other was out of her sight for a few moments and fell out the window. A terrible ordeal for any mother to go through and she never got over the loss. After that she and her husband drifted apart and she suffered from terrible vague pains, weakness, migraines, etc. probably due to depression and the stress of being “the mother of her country” as she described it. In 1874 her whole family, children and husband, contacted diphtheria and she nursed them all through it. One child, Marie, died and she suffered from the stress of not being able to tell the her husband and children of the death of the favourite. When she did finally tell her son of the loss he became so upset that she broke the cardinal rule and kissed him on the brow. A few days later she contracted the disease and died, coincidently on the anniversary of her father’s death.
I say that the book was highly edited because the only letters printed were happy ones full of devotion to her mother and memories of her father. More than her other siblings, she was totally devastated by the death of her father and she, like her mother, had a morbid interest in death and mourning. Every death that happened to her servants, friends and family, which considering it was almost every royal house in Europe left her “prostrated on the couch for days with grief.” She regularly sent letters to her mother on the anniversary of her grandmother’s and father’s death and the tone was just as fresh as the first year they were mourning.
What’s not published is the hurtful letters that her mother sent back in later years. Queen Victoria was very jealous of Alice’s marriage because it was a happy one and she was a widow. She also hated the fact that Alice was always trying to cheer her up when she was perfectly happy to wallow in her widow’s misery. She also did not like Alice’s constant comments on her lack of money. Although they sure took a lot of trips!
She was not an easy mother to have in the first place. She begrudged each of her daughter’s marriages because they were leaving her. Some of her younger daughters had to fight her to get married as she thought it was their duty to stay a spinster and take care of her. It’s well known that she disliked Bertie because she blamed him for Prince Albert’s death and his frivolous lifestyle and yet, she would never give him any duties to counteract the lifestyle that she despised.
Alice was the caregiver of the family and was very interested in nursing. She set up numerous hospital and schools for women in Hesse. She took care of Victoria’s mother and her father on their deathbeds and took care of her bereaved mother after both incidents. She tended to her brother Bertie, later King Edward VII, when he almost died from typhoid, the same illness that took his father. This caused another rift between her and Victoria as the Queen felt that Bertie’s wife The Princess of Wales should have gotten the praise for nursing him instead of Alice.
The Queen’s cruelty is very obvious in this reply to a letter written two months after Frederick’s death. The Queen was focused on her son Prince Alfred's engagement to the Grand Duchess Marie of Russia (which turned into a disastrous marriage due to Maria’s haughtiness). The Tsar had refused to present his daughter for pre-marriage inspection in England, and instead invited the Queen to meet the family in Germany. Alice supported the suggestion and on the same day that she wrote to the Queen about missing her son, "I am glad you have a little coloured picture of my darling. I feel lower and sadder than ever and miss him so much, so continually..." the Queen coldly wrote to her grieving daughter, "You have entirely taken the Russian side, and I do not think, dear child, that you should tell me...what I ought to do." Not a mention of her dead grandson. Alice once complained to her husband over a letter Victoria had sent that "made me cry with anger...I wish I were dead and it probably will not be too long before I give Mama that pleasure." And yet, all her letters to her mother were full of loving and caring comments.
What I find interesting about reading old letters is how much things have changed and how much they hadn’t. She was a devoted mother who didn’t believe that her children should be seen and not heard and they were a large part of her life. She was one of the few royals who breastfeed, which did not sit well with her mother, and spent a large part of the day playing with them.
What I find odd is the amount of traveling the royals did. Everywhere that Alice went there were other relatives there to visit with. It appears that the Victorians were constantly at one bath or another drinking the waters for their health and it seems like they were always unhealthy. Many of her letters went into great detail of her ailments which were probably due to the cold, damp houses she lived in and the restrictive clothing they were all forced to wear. Her chief complaint was suffering from the heat. I think I’d have issues too if I had to wear a layers of clothing and a corset all day! But what also amazes me is the amount of activity they did in those restrictive clothing. To get to the baths was not easy. They had to go over the Alps in rickety coaches for days. Other times they were hiking for hours in the Alps in long dresses and parasols. I can’t do that with just wearing a t-shirt and shorts!
Another thing that fascinates me about the royals during this time period at the end of the 1800s is how they could separate family from politics. The complaints were always about the people not the head of the country. Prior to World War I there were a lot of minor but bloody wars in Europe. Bismarck was making war on the minor duchies in his quest to unify Germany and France, Austria and Germany were constantly at each other’s throats. England’s wars were mainly in the colonies at the time but she got involved in a few in Europe. So many times, siblings and cousins were fighting each other on opposite sides of a war. When Prussia went to war with Austria, Hesse sided with Austria. Alice’s sister was married to the Crown Prince of Prussia at the time and yet, there were loving letter sent back and forth between the sisters and family information passed through their mother. Alice blamed Bismarck, not her sister’s in-laws for the fighting. After the war the sisters visited each other as if nothing happened and Alice was on very good terms with Vicky’s in-laws, the King and Queen of Prussia. Although Alice was a bit upset when Vicky visited the site where many Hessian soldiers were killed soon after the war to lay a wreath for the Prussian victory. Later, Alice’s husband was an officer in the Prussian army and had no problem being under Prussian rule when he became the Grand Duke. The same with their Russian relations, Victoria didn’t trust the Russians and yet Alice’s husband was the nephew of the Empress of Russia. Alice made a few scathing comments about the Russian troops during a war they were involved in but did not connect the dots to her relatives. It was always the people. They also didn’t trust the French but Victoria was good friends with Emperor Napoleon II and let him and his wife live out their exile in England at her expense.
In all it was a very interesting book to read because it showed how, even though they were royals who lived more than a century ago, their lives was not that much different than ours in that they worried about their children, husband and other routine things. What was different was the amount of death they had to deal with because there was no antibiotics even the flu could kill someone and they had to deal with diseases we don’t see any more like scarlet fever and typhoid. It wasn’t uncommon for a family to lose a few children over the years. I’m glad that we don’t have to deal with that anymore.

No Alex?

Under the new regimen I was naturally going to change my morning route. In the past, as I mentioned before, it was turn on the TV, get the coffee, sit for 15 minutes and watch the news while sipping my coffee. So, this morning I got up, turned on the computer, got my coffee, made oatmeal and then took a quick shower so I could enjoy my coffee and breakfast while it was hot. Then I was going to blow dry my hair, get dressed, make lunch and head out the door. Well it was more like, turn on the computer, get coffee, take a quick shower so I could enjoy my coffee while it was hot, eat my oatmeal while I read my Facebook account and then ohshitwhathappenedtothetime
rungetdressedgrabpotpieoutofthefreezerandrunoutofthehouse
withwethair. Apparently I need to do the Facebook thing last after I’ve gotten dressed and made lunch. Good thing for the frozen pot pie because I ran out of the house without my wallet.

So now I’m home and it’s getting close to 7:30 p.m. and I may go through Jeopardy! withdrawal. I don’t know what to do with myself between 7:30 and 8 p.m. I’ve been watching Jeopardy! since it started. I used to watch the older version when I was little. It’s a part of my life. No rolling of the eyes when the contestants blow a perfectly logical and easy Final Jeopardy? No Alex Trebek? I’m not sure I’m going to be able to handle this one.

We’ll see.

The Grand Experiment

And so the great experiment begins...

In a moment of madness I decided to cancel our cable. That's right NO TV, cold turkey. Originally I called the cable company to cut back on some channel that we don't watch and then suddenly there I was telling the man, "You know what, get rid of it all." What was I thinking? Well, let's see how long the Branecki family lasts before we crack. So, I will be documenting these next few weeks, months, or possibly just days of being without a TV.

It's my belief that we don't become more active in the summer because of the warmer weather and longer days. This is San Diego, it's always warm. No, it's because there's nothing but reruns on TV. It forces us to get out, read a book, interact with others; in other words, get a life.

I want to break the Pavlovian response to automatically schedule my life around a little black box. How often have I thought "Oh, I'll sew tomorrow because NCIS is on tonight." Exactly how much of our lives do we schedule around a TV? We practically salivate every fall over the new shows and lament the demise of the ones we loved that were cancelled. We believe that the bachelor will find true love in a few weeks and we made "The Situation" a multi-millionaire!!

It's not a complete break—I'm not that crazy. There are still shows you can watch on the Internet. But what I want to break is that mindless need to turn on the TV the minute I'm in the door or waking up. What happened to those younger days when I got ready for work or school while listening to great music? I didn't grow up with a TV in my room but I did have a good stereo. Listening to music started your day on an upbeat note. You were bopping around the room while you were getting dressed.

So how was the first day? Not bad. I have a new Nook so I'm reading more anyway. Bruce is in the garage watch wood turning videos on his computer—no change there. It was strange not to turn on the TV when I walked in the door. I didn't realize how much of a habit it was until I stopped doing it.

I actually did turn on the TV this morning before I realized what I had done. It's my morning routine: turn on the TV on my way into the bathroom, grab my housecoat, go get coffee and then sit for 15 minutes watching the news. Don't know why, because the morning news was pretty well the same news I watched at 10 p.m. before I went to bed. I have to admit that I'm a news junkie so that's going to be a hard adjustment. But, I can always listen to NPR in my car on the way to work. It's better news anyway.

The TV does look strange just sitting there, all dark and broody. It's like having a big black hole in the wall. Maybe I'll put a plant in front of it.

I will miss the educational shows on the History Channel but they may be available on the Internet. The difference being that I will set time aside to watch something that I'm truly interested in instead of mindlessly watching anything. Either that or I'm going to go start raving mad.

Stay tuned!

New Year bla...bla...bla

It seems that I get philosophical every New Year's Eve although I'm pretty sure I'm no different than everyone else out there in the world. We ponder the future, remember the past, make predictions, swear to finally lose the weight and so forth. Well this year I'm not doing it. I'm starting out the year sick, which seems to be my norm lately, so I'm not really in a good mood. 2010 wasn't the greatest year, and it wasn't the worst year. It was just a year. I'm expecting 2011 to be the same. I'm not going to say "This is the year I finally lose weight." But what I will say is this is the year that I'm going to get healthy before I don't have too many years left. Right now I'm just hoping to get a good night sleep without having to overdose on NyQuil and we'll work from there. I don't want to put the bar up too high when I'm counting the seconds between coughs.

Fateful Decisions

When you get into your 50s your mind starts thinking differently. You start thinking about mortality, fate, life choices, your health, etc. You start paying attention to the ages of people who have passed and all those health commercials. It dawns on you that yes, you could have a heart attack one day or get cancer, or everything else. You start realizing that you are not invincible.

I already did all the mid-life crisis events in my 40s: divorced, remarried, career change, college, and a sports car. Now I’m started the philosophical stage where I slowly turn into the wise old crone. So the recent death of a friend from way-back-when started me thinking about the decisions we make in our lives that start out small and snowball into life-changing events. David was the victim of a tragic hit and run accident. (We always say tragic before horrific events but when is a hit and run not tragic; isn’t it a given?)

The news reports state that Dave smelled smoke and went out on his scooter to see if there was a fire somewhere and was hit by a 21-year-old in a car decked out with neon lights. When Dave decided to go out on his scooter it was a small little decision, perhaps because he had nothing else to do and was curious, and thought he’d investigate. Who knew a small decision like that would end his life? Or the decision that 21-year-old made to decking out his car with green neon lights and loud exhaust system. When he was standing in that store deciding that his car would look amazing all decked out not knowing that later, when he made an unfortunate decision to leave the scene of a crime, that the neon lights would make it easier to arrest him. Was it a quick spur-of-the-moment decision, or did he save up his money for months? What unfortunate decisions did he make before he got behind the wheel of his car? Was he drinking, was he high, was he just being a stupid 21-year old? We’ve all been there and been lucky to not have been in an accident.

We’ve all had minor decisions that have affected our lives. Who knew that the simple act of getting up to get another hot dog at a picnic would be the beginning of the end of a marriage? Or that a simple little mundane IM message to someone would start a new life with the love of your life. Or that a last minute bathroom break would make you the first responder to an accident instead of being in the accident?

There are so many decisions that we make in life can have so many consequence. Thankfully we don’t really think about it at the time or else we would freeze up with indecision.

Terrible Read

I'm reading a book called Francisco Goya: Life & Times by Evan S. Connell. Apparently he has written over 18 books and has won numerous awards. Really? You wouldn't know it by this book. He has a few irritating habits:

Rambling off the subject: He's describing Goya's travels to another town in some sort of cart and then goes into great detail about the cart.

Plugging in random information that has no rhyme or reason to be in the book. Here he is describing Goya's wife Josefa:

"She resented it but there was no escape. Year after year she did what was expected. She seems to have felt passionately about nothing except clothes. When I was a child our family employed a housekeeper like Josefa: a placid, expressionless, devout, overweight farm girl. Not once did I see her angry, excited, depressed, or amused. Day after day, month after month, heavy on her feet, she cleaned house, prepared meals. Sunday morning she dressed up to attend church. Wednesday night she attended Bible class. Life being what it was, she
acquiesced."

I think this is my favourite rambling so far. He is describing a painting Goya did of Don Luis de Bourbon, brother of the King of Spain. The Spanish Bourbons were well know for their large noses.

"He looks dazed, befuddled, glassy-eyed. He resembles George Washington except for the nose, the grotesque Bourbon nose, swollen, possibly discolored by too many goblets of wine. Americans call this a whisky nose and since he was Don Luis de Bourbon they wonder if there might be a connection. No. That whiskey is distilled from corn, which Europeans regard as inappropriate for anything except pig feed, and takes it name from a county in Kentucky where it was first produced."

Huh? What in the world does Kentucky Bourbon have to do with Spanish royalty?

But the best, is he throws out rumours or summations and then says "We will get back to that." I guess that's what I get for buying a discount book.

On Leaving Brockville

This is it, the last hour in Brockville. I'm sure going to miss the old hometown. I realized this trip that I had a pretty good childhood here. I guess I'm no different than most people that grew up in a small town; couldn't wait to leave and then miss it like hell when you're away.

So what was so great about growing up here? For one, it only took about 1/2 hour to walk anywhere, and we did a lot of walking if we weren't on our bikes. When we were kids we played street hockey year round. The air was filled with kids yelling "car!" which was the signal to get the net off the street and "game on" when the car went past. Most adults always knew to watch out for kids on the street around here which is why everyone in town drives so darn slow! That was one aspect of small town that I had a hard time getting used to after driving in California where 20 mph over the speed limit is the norm. Here everyone drives the speed limit. Nothing more irritating then driving 50 km (about 35 mph) on an empty country road! Another aspect of small town living is dropping in on folks. No one here gets upset if you drop in if you're passing by. As a matter of fact, they get downright upset if they find out you were driving or walking past the house and didn't stop by. Sometimes a good party springs up because of a visit. That happened the other day. We were just sitting around and my cousin Deb & her husband just stopped by on their way home and we had a nice visit. Often in our family a party will start up and there's lots of singing involved because my family can sure sing at the drop of a hat!

So would I move back here if I won the lotto? I don't think so. I really do love it here but I think I love San Diego better. I don't think I could get used to small town living after living in the "big city." For one, I was having fabric store withdrawal symptoms while I was here! They have to drive to Kingston for any type of craft item. No Michael's, no Barnes & Nobles and the horrors of it all...only one Starbuck's. But they do have 5 Tim Horton's Donut shops--Canadians sure love their donuts! There are more Tim Horton's per capita in Canada than Starbuck's and McDonald's combined in the States.

So it's back to San Diego. I miss my dogs and cat and kids so it's time to go "home."

A good time was had by all...

I'm a bit behind on my blog so I shall combine a few days.

On Thursday, Bruce and I went up to Ottawa to see my two cousins, Deb & Scott, on my mom's side. They are the children of my late Uncle Bobby. We spent a few hours and Deb & Jim's house. It's a beautiful house with Chinese furniture overlooking the river. We were outside enjoying the view for awhile but then it started raining, but it was a short but powerful rainstorm.

The rainstorm reminds me of something. It's funny the things you realize you don't have in your neck of the woods until you're someplace that has them. The rainstorm was one of them. It was a thundercloud type rain and we listened to the booming thunder clappers. In So Cal it's very rare to hear thunder. We get torrential rain but hardly ever any thunder. The other thing I realized we didn't have was the bushy-tailed tree squirrels. The real fat ones that chatter at you from the trees. We have scrawny ground squirrels with really thin tails.

So later, we went with the Pinard family to this restaurant and met up with Scott's family. It was the first time that I had met them. His oldest Donny was missing so I only met one son. Deb's family had come down to San Diego a few years ago so I had already met them.

The restaurant had a western-style theme and all the girls were in cowboy hats and Daisy Duke shorts. Our waiter actually looked like he could be a country & western singer. They had this way of cooking steaks that was a little odd. They bring it out on a stone so that it cooks at your table. The stone was 700 degrees, to which we all asked the waiter, Celsius or Fahrenheit? He didn't know. None of us except Deb's son was brave enough to have one. We couldn't quite figure out how large it was, would it burn though the table, and how often would we accidentally touch it. Turns out it was encased in a tray and wasn't that large. He said the steak was wonderful. I had a beautiful salmon.

Afterward, they were going back to Scott's but we figured we'd hit the road. Scott wanted us to spend the night but I had something to do the next day and didn't bring a change of clothes. Plus I was a bit tired. I had a wonderful time and was glad that I had a chance to see all my relatives on that side of the family while I was here.

While we were outside the restaurant I saw this huge store across the street called Hockey Life, or something like that. I asked Jim what it was and he said they sold hockey equipment and clothing. Wow, a store that large dedicated to hockey. I'm lucky if they have a rack of shirts in our store and if they do it's all the Ducks and Sharks. When we parted with everyone I looked over the stored looked like it was still open so Bruce and I headed over there. It was only open for 15 more minutes. Enough time for me! I walked in and it was a sea of Sens gear....figures. But I did manage to find a Leaf's long-sleeved shirt, a Red Wings mug, a Canada Hockey hat and a Olympics gold medal t-shirt. The mug was the only Wings gear I found there, they must either have a lot of Wings fans there or they are hated in Ottawa. I had to have the Olympic t-shirt, think I'll wear that on the plane LOL. It has Team Canada on it and GOLD in big letters. In 15 minutes I managed to spend about $100 LOL. Now that's a power shopper!

The next day I was supposed to meet Margaret Ann at Tate's Bakery for lunch. We were going to meet at 11:30 since she had to go to work. I waited until 12:30 and started to think that maybe I was at the wrong Tate's since they now had one uptown. That was the moment that I realized I can't live without my cell anymore since I couldn't use it up here (silly me, before I got it I thought that it was a luxury that I really didn't need). I went to find a payphone but they are few and far between these days. The one I did find was broken. So I thought, I'll just go to Aunt Verta's and use their phone. Good thing I did go because Louise & Ronnie were there and I hadn't seen them yet. Boy, is Ronnie looking like his dad Uncle Eddie (Verta's late husband) these days. So I called the house and Catherine said that Margaret Ann had called to say she was running late. Basically, she arrived right when I left. So I called Tate's to see if she was there. This is the conversation: "Hi, can you ask if there is a Margaret Ann there, I'm supposed to meet her." "What does she look like?" "Short and petite with short hair." "Does her hair have light streaks in it?" "Yes and she should be in a nurse's uniform or something like that." "Yes, there's someone here in a sort of scrubs uniform." "Yes, that's probably her." "Okay, I'll tell her." So then I'm thinking, she never verified that it was Margaret Ann but then Louise said, how many people would be in Tate's with scrubs on, short streaked hair, and petite. I forgot I was in a small town.

So I rushed down there and sure enough it was her. We had a nice little chat about growing up here. We didn't realize it until we were adults but Brockville was about the best place to grow up. It's the Mayberry of Canada. I'll talk about that later, this blog is getting a little long.

After she left for work I drove around and took photos of all the wonderful houses here. I went down to Blockhouse Island hoping that a ship would go by so I could take a photo but none did. It amazed me how many people are down there just sitting in their cars or hanging out at the park watching the boats go by.

One souvenir I didn't want

I lived on the 1000 Islands for a long time but I never really appreciated it being a snotty teenager. So we decided to take a 2-hour boat tour of the islands. We drove down to Rockport and it was packed, a lot of Asian and French Canadian tourists. Now, I can imagine coming from Montreal to visit the 1000 Islands but why would people come all the way from Asia to visit our little part of the world? I understand that this a normal occurrence, thousands of Asian tourists take the boat tours every year. The bus drivers must get a kick-back LOL!

We were walking from the very primitive parking lot, our car was literally perched on top of the rocks, and I managed to fall and twist my ankle in a pot hole. I was amazed by all the buses and wasn't looking where I was going. Luckily, I had tennis shoes on but my ankle was pretty sore. Figures, it was my "good" ankle, I had sprained the other ankle a number of years ago and it's been gimpy ever since. So now they're matching.

The 1000 Island was breathtaking. Funny that you don't appreciate what you have until you're away. When I was here it was just the river and we took it for granted. We'd stop and watch the large laker ships passing by because of the Brockville Narrows they come quite close to the shore when passing by Brockville. But that was about it. I did go on a boat tour when I was a teenager but I was not really paying attention. I think I was forced into going because my mom was visiting or something along those lines. Again, snotty teenager at the time.

BTW, if you've never seen them, the Laker ships are quite strange looking. Because of the locks on the St. Lawrence the ships are very long and narrow. My father used to be a skipper on a few of them before he started working for the Canadian Coast Guard. (The CCG isn't "military" like the US Coast Guard.) There are no other ships like them in the world. Again, I took them for granted but now that I look at them with adult eyes, they're rather stunning. Especially when they're so close to the shore when going by Brockville.

I was sitting down for most of the boat ride so I didn't realize how much my foot had swollen until I stood up. I could barely get off the boat and Bruce had to bring the car to me. We got back to the house and I called my insurance company because I knew I had to go to the ER but wasn't sure how that worked. Basically, you pay the hospital and the insurance company pays you back. I was thinking...great, there goes my savings account!

We got to the Brockville General Hospital about 5:30 pm. The waiting room was very small and there were about 5 people in it. Much different than the ER at home, usually there are about 50 people waiting. The triage nurse saw me right away and then I was whisked away for x-rays and was diagnosed with a sprained ankle. Less than 3 hours later (average time in my ER at home 5-6 hours) we were on our way home (with a stop at Harvey's, I was starving) and it only cost me $320 for the ER visit and 2 sets of x-rays. That's it!!! The nurse said it would have been more expensive if I had come in by ambulance. She said they charge up to $300. I told her the time that Bruce had to be transported by ambulance it was over $1,000. She was horrified. What a difference in health care. I also didn't have a ton of HIPAA forms to fill out LOL.

So today I'm hobbling around but feeling a bit better. If it doesn't feel better soon they told me to get an air cast. I was thinking, will that get me on the plane faster on Sunday???

Birthday Day

My birthday was quiet but nice. Ryanne, Catherine and I met Margaret Ann for lunch at the pub then we went shopping. They were clothes shopping but I was more interested in the book store. They had local books and I picked up two. One was of the 1,000 Islands and there was a nice photo of one of my dad's ship CCGS Griffin in it. Just for that I had to buy it. I also found a post card of the ship. It's in port so I may go down and get a good photo. The other ship he was the skipper of, GCGS Simcoe, was out. My sister has a nice painting of it. But I digress. I also bought a book of Canadianisms. That should drive everyone at work nuts! Later we had a nice dinner at home of fettachini Alfredo and played a game of Scattegories. That is a really fun game, I'm going to have to buy it. My BIL Erik is hilarious when he plays that game.

A Brockville Weekend

The morning of the second day in Brockville started out uneventful. Didn't really have much to do so I sat around and read my book. My sister Catherine and her husband Erik had an event they had to go Saturday night so we were on our own. Their event was a reunion of all the people that hung out at the Hilltop and Tiki clubs back in the 60s. Erik's band got back together and they were the main act. My cousin Deb Stewart also sang a few songs with them. We couldn't go to the event because it was sold out. That was okay because it wasn't our crowd, although it would have been nice to see Erik play. Catherine was all excited because she finally got to bea groupie!

Bruce and I headed out downtown to the Georgian Dragon pub for dinner and we were very surprised to see my nephew Derek and his girlfriend Heather there! They drove up from Gananoque (about 1/2 hour away from Brockville) to visit with us. This was the first time that I met Heather and she's just a wonderful. I had heard so many great things about her and they were all true. Derek is truly a lucky guy. We had a wonderful dinner at the pub. Bruce had a Guinness stew and I ate an Indian dish called Butter Chicken. Even though it was zero on the heat index I still got the hiccups. I'm famous for my hiccups LOL. When we walked outside I was pleasantly surprised to hear so much music and see so many people out on King Street. Downtown used to roll up after 6 pm but now that there are so many tready pubs downtown it's more lively.

The next day my Uncle Don was preaching at my old church, First Baptist, so we were all going to cheer him on. Uncle Don is a United Minister (a uniquely Canadian Church) but he's retired now and only preaches when needed. The regular minister was on vacation so he was filling in. Quite a crowd showed up for him, Catherine, Erik, Bruce, Derek and his daughter Ryanne where there but the big surprise was Gord showing up. Gord is Don's son and Catherine's ex and Derek's father. It was so great to see him. I hadn't see Gord since he and Catherine divorced. Even though he's not my brother in law anymore I always liked him and I grew up with him. He looked good and very happy now that he's happily married. There weren't a lot of the regulars at the church that I reconized except for my cousins Skip and David. A lot of people don't go to church in Brockville during the summer because it used to be a factory town and that's when all the factories closed for vacation. It got into a habit not to go to church, you were spared so to speak. Except the Catholics. My girlfriend Margaret Ann had to go to church year-round. The church hadn't changed at all, even the cupboard where we put our choir gowns was in the same place. It's a beautiful church. The pews are in a semi-circle around the pulpit and baptististry. The ceiling has gold leaves painted on them and I just love the old stained glass windows. There's three huge ones and I used to stare at them during the sermon. It is a very old, stately church. Over the pulpit was a balcony where the pipe organs are. I used to sneek up there after choir practice because I loved the view. Unfortunately the old pipe organ was being repaired so we had to settle for a piano. I do love the sound of a good pipe organ. Amazingly I still remembered the songs from my choir days. I had to laugh, I looked at the program and the organist was still the same person, she must be in her 70s. Too bad she was on vacation as well.

Afterward we all went to breakfast with Aunt Verta & Uncle Don. Ryanne came back with us to the house and Derek when back to Gan to pick up Heather. We had a nice dinner of steaks and salad. Derek made them. He's a professional chef and very good IMHO. Later after they went home, Ryanne, Catherine, Bruce, Erik and I had a rousing game of Snowball. Haven't played that card games since I left Brockville. We were quite card sharks back in the day. Catherine won, as usual, and had to post the score sheet on the fridge. Sheesh! After that it was off to bed. Another rip roaring day in Brockville!

First Day in Brock Vegas

The day after we arrived Bruce and I got into the car and drove into town. It didn't disappoint me at all. We drove in from the west end on King Street and then suddenly I was home. I loved it. I had to be at my Aunt Verta & Uncle Don's at 1 pm so we had about 3 hours to wonder around. We kept mostly downtown and I took a ton of photos. I pointed out all the sites to Bruce. I must have bored him to tears. The first place that we had to go to was Manoll's Fish & Chips. I have been dreaming of Manoll's for years. There are two fish & chip shops in Brockville, Don's and Manoll's and the debate has been going on for years as to which one is the best. I think the town is pretty well split in half on the issue. Don's is across from the beer store so I can see where they are popular but I've always been a Manoll's girl. We bought the fish & chips, wrapped up in newspaper of course, and headed down to the water to eat. Man they were good! Then we walked around some more and I took more photos. It was a bit cloudy so I may retake them. Brockville is generally the same. The buildings are all there but the stores in them have changed a bit, and some are exactly the same. There are a lot more upscale pubs downtown which is nice.

We drove out to the east end of town to Aunt Verta's and I missed the house we lived in, drove right past it. I did see it later and it seemed much smaller than I remembered. Dad & Lena's first house in Brockville was huge to my 11 year old eyes but it really wasn't that large. I had a pleasant visit with my aunt and uncle. It was their first time meeting Bruce so that was special to me. I have been blessed in my life to have some pretty amazing aunts and Aunt Verta is the best of the lot. She raised me when I was 10-11 so I've always considered her my "other mother." She is actually my step aunt but you will never hear her or her family use the word "step" around me. I was always part of the Cornforth family.

After our visit we headed out to Addison to have supper with my dear old friend Margaret Ann and her husband Darrell. Margaret Ann lived 2 doors down when I lived with Aunt Verta and Uncle Eddie on Glengarry Rd. and we were joined at the hip in those days. Later, since we went to different high schools we parted our ways but she was always in my life. I'd hear from Aunt Verta how she was doing. Later, through the wonders of Facebook, we got back together and have been steadfast friends again. We had a lot of adventures when we were kids with my cousins George Henry and Albert. The four of us were pretty close in those days. It was a wonderful visit, we played horseshoes and Wii. Bruce and her husband Darrell hit it off well too. He's a wonderful guy.

After that, it was home to bed and boy was I tired.

If it's Wednesday it must be Toronto

The trip to Toronto was uneventful, we made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare. There were no skycaps for Air Canada at the curb so we had to stand in line but even with only one person at the counter we weren’t there long. Next to us on the flight was a family of four, with two small girls. The father was sitting next to me and the wife was sitting with the girls. I had to laugh; he said that his kids were good travelers, never whinny (not like the two kids five seats ahead) But I couldn’t help notice that he promptly curled up in a ball and went to sleep the minute the plane took off with earplugs on and his eyes covered–so how would he know? His poor wife had to deal with the girls. At one point I had to wake him up to go to the restroom and sure enough his wife was complaining to him when I got back to the seat that she needed a break. She then sat next to me and said, “watch, they’ll go to sleep the minute they’re with him.” And they did. He was so smug about the girls not being a handful that I just knew his wife was seething inside.

We got to Toronto, and took the bus into downtown. There were these two girls, one was English and the other Welsh and they didn't shut up all the way into town and they were loud. The shuttle bus let us off near Ryerson University. We were only staying one day so we picked the Econolodge on Jarvis and Gerard. Not a bad hotel for the price, but oh, Nirvana...it was across the street from a Harvey’s Restaurant. I thought I had gone to heaven. About the only thing better would have been a Tim Horton’s on the other side. But, hey, this is Canada, we were sure to find a Tim’s on the next corner. For those uniformed, Harvey’s has the BEST hamburgers in the world and I haven’t had one in 20 years. I was ready but a bit worried that my memory would be better than reality--it wasn’t. I had a cheeseburger with poutine...ah, heaven. After that we went back to the hotel to sleep which we couldn’t do since our brains were still on California time. Even though we had woke up at 4 am in California. Needless to say, we were tired the next morning but that wasn’t stopping us from seeing the Holy Grail of hockey, Lord Stanley’s Cup.

We decided to walk down Yonge Street to the Hockey Hall of Fame and I didn’t recognize one building. I left Toronto in 1977 and boy, has it changed! Yonge Street was all strip joints, t-shirt shops and pubs and now it’s all high rise buildings. I did glimpse my old apartments in the distance and it looked like a dump. In '77 it was a nice building. I lived on the 32 floor and we weren’t even near the top. At the time it was the tallest building I’d ever seen but now it looks pretty small. I did notice that the street were pretty clean. I had taken it for granted when I was there but now seeing it as a tourist I could see that it was a pretty nice looking city.

The hockey hall of fame is pretty amazing. The room where the Stanley Cup is on display is beautiful. It used to be a bank so it was very stately and majestic. But the best part was the stained glass dome right over the cup. There it was, on a stand under that stained glass dome. I could almost hear the angels breaking out in a hallelujah chorus as we walked in. Just majestic. But the best part–you get to touch it! Yes, I put my hands on the Stanley Cup! Even better, I gave it a big hug and then touched the Leaf’s 1967 team and said, “This is the year” to which some people in the line said “Amen.” Okay, I’m exaggerating a bit but there were people that agreed with me. They also had the old cup on display, it’s very tall and skinny, and all the other trophies that the NHL gives out. They are all pretty impressive, but nothing like the Stanley Cup. Bruce was thrilled looking at all the Detroit stuff like Gordie Howe's gloves and uniform. It was a very enjoyable way to spend a morning.

After leaving there, we went back to the hotel, picked up our suitcases and headed over to the bus stop for the bus to Kingston. We sure did a lot of walking that day. In Kingston, Erik picked us up for the drive to Brockville. Well sort of, they live out by Graham Lake Rd near Mallorytown. We were so tired that we just sat around. I was home but not quite home yet. Until I drive down King Street into town I wasn’t home yet.

It's Just Not Right - You Can Help

From FOXNews.com
Outrage After Marine's Father Ordered to Pay Funeral Protester's Fees

The VFW issued a statement to its members asking them to help Albert Snyder pay a court-ordered legal fees.

A court order requiring the father of a Marine killed in Iraq to pay court costs of anti-gay protestors who picketed the funeral has not only angered the father -- it is prompting outcry among among veterans.

The VFW issued a statement to its members calling on them to help the father, Albert Snyder of York, Pa., pay the $16,510 owed to Fed Phelps, the leader of Kansas' Westboro Baptist Church, which held protests at Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder's funeral in 2006.

"It is absolutely wrong for the court to order him to shoulder a financial burden on top of everything else," said VFW National Commander Thomas J. Tradewell Sr. "This is a travesty at best and borders on the obscene. The irony in this whole situation is that the blood and sacrifice of our nation's heroes have enabled this group to spread their message of hate."

The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ordered Snyder on Friday to pay Phelps. A two-page decision supplied by his attorneys offered no details on how the court came to its decision.
But since Snyder told Fox News on Tuesday he would defy the court order, he has gotten an outpouring of support from across the country.

"We're still in the middle of two wars we still have soldiers coming back in a box, and as long as these soldiers are coming back like this I'm not going to give up this fight," Snyder told Fox News. "I've gotten over 3000 e-mails and a lot of them are from soldiers and families of soldiers saying please don't give up this fight. they're what keeps me going."

Fox News' Bill O'Reilly also pledged on the air to help Snyder with the legal fees. "We have a foundation set up to help those in need of assistance," O'Reilly said. "We will help Mr. Snyder who we feel is a victim of judicial injustice."

Snyder is also struggling to come up with fees associated with filing a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court, his attorneys said The high court agreed to consider whether the protesters' message is protected by the First Amendment or limited by the competing privacy and religious rights of the mourners.

A federal appeals court dismissed the suit on First Amendment grounds earlier this month and threw out a $5 million award against the protesters, some of whom carried signs that read "God Hates You" and "Thank God for Dead Soldiers."

A funeral for the fallen Marine was held in March 2006 in Westminster, Md. Snyder, 20, died from a non-combat-related vehicle accident on March 3, 2006, while supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

According to a Web site created in Snyder's honor, his relatives filed the civil lawsuit against the Westboro Baptist Church to "bring an end to the reign of terror and abuse that they inflicted" upon grieving families of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. --end.

For anyone who has never heard of this group that protests at military funerals here's the info. Parishioners from Westboro Baptist Church (for the record the Baptists want nothing to do with them), which is mostly made up of the "pastor's" (full irony here) family, routinely protest at military funerals. Their reason? It's about the most far-fetched cockamamie reason I've ever heard of--because the United States military has a don't ask don't tell policy they feel that all military personnel belong in hell. But they don't stop there. They seem to hate everyone, Indians, Jews, Italians, Catholics, Episcopalians, etc. You name it, they have numerous web sites called www.GodHates(insert name here) for their hate mongering. Shoot, even the Irish aren't spared (http://www.godhatesireland.com/) Why, I don't really understand. Maybe it's the red hair. Now, seriously, how can you hate a group of folks that invented Guinness? Blasphemy, I tell you. They say that Bono is Ireland's Poster Child of Sin. Seriously. Apparently he got that title because Bono, along with the rest of the band, are proud drunkards, womanizers, perverts, and, of course, "Christians." And because he is trying to help with the AIDS epidemic he's double-damned. Their web site were written by idiots. Too bad they believe it.

For more info on the group go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westboro_Baptist_Church.

They've been sued many times and some have been successful against them. But not the Snyder's. I can understand the whole freedom of speech thing. You can't make exceptions no matter how nutty it sounds because it's a slippery slope. But shouldn't there be some common sense in the ruling? Yes, the judge might have to rule against the Snyder's but to have them pay court costs?? That's just rude. Mr. Snyder makes $46K a year as a salesman.

As a retired member of the military I'm just appalled by these people. I also can't understand how they can use God's name while spewing all this hate. Okay, I know that's not a new phenomenon. But, as old my priest, Father Ross, (retired Army himself) used to say about such people. "There are some people that are going to get a rude surprise when they meet their maker." I am glad that they aren't allowed to spread their hate to other countries, the UK and Canada banned them from entering the country. I'd like to know where they get all this money to travel all over the place and to pay off lawsuits?

But it's not over:

The tragic story of the harassment at a Marine’s funeral here in Westminster, MD will be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court this fall, in Snyder v. Phelps. The family needs your help! Please consider donating $10 to the family of Marine Matthew Snyder whose funeral was harassed and picketed by a hate group. If the plaintiff’s family can get donations - no matter how small - from each person who cares and wants to see this case get decided at the U.S. Supreme Court this fall, it will go along way. Here is a link to CNN’s coverage of this story on March 30: http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/03/30/westboro.baptist.snyder/index.html?hpt=T2 The family needs to raise at least $36K b/c the 4th Circuit ordered them on Friday to pay the defendants court costs! So, we are trying to get the word out to as many Veterans and other people who may want to donate/help, because every donation – no matter how small - will help will all the costs needed to take this to the Supreme Court. Unfortunately, because this is not a non-profit, donations are not tax deductable. But donations can be sent through the website - http://www.matthewsnyder.org/ or made payable to "Al Snyder Fund" and sent to the lead lawyer (Sean Summers’) law firm at the following address: Barley Snyder LLC, 100 East Market Street, York, PA 17401. FOR MORE INFORMATION – PLEASE CONTACT: Sean Summers (lead lawyer for plaintiffs) ssummers@barley.com; telephone 717 -852-4997

On a final note, I can't believe that I'm agreeing with anything that Bill O'Reilly says.

California Drivers

I've lived all over North America. I learned to drive in torrential rain in Virginia, snowstorms in the North, freezing rain in New England, and around old people in Florida. I've driven through it all and seen it all in my 30 years of driving—until I came to Southern California.

Don't get me wrong, there's quite a few things I like about driving here. For one, I can put the top down on my car almost all year and drive 90 mph (and yet people are still passing me). But what drives me crazy is that everyone here drives on the left on the highway. I was always taught that you drive as far to the right without having to pass people. Out here everyone automatically gets on the highway and heads straight to the far left lane no matter what speed they're going. Half the time if I want get around people I have to drive in the "slow lane." I'm usually the only car in the lane. Even on a Sunday morning everyone is on the left! And, I was always taught that it was polite to get out of the way if someone comes up behind you at a higher rate of speed. But no...not here. People tool down the highway in the fast lane and they might as well not have rear view mirrors because obviously they never look.

I'm also not fond of people that flash their lights, that's just plain rude. I've had a few people try to do that to me when I don't have time to get out of the way. I just smile, kick the turbo in, and let them smell my fumes. I do love my turbo Miata MX5. His name is Max and he's hazy grey like a Navy ship. I have personalized plates that say CHIK BMC. That was my rate in the Navy.

Most of the time the highways are pretty crowded so you have no choice but to tailgate a bit or else someone will barge into your lane. But people tailgate even when there's a lot of space! The other day I saw this car tailgating a transport (semi truck in US lingo). There wasn't even a car's length between them and there was no reason for it. Both were in the slow lane and the car had lots of room to move over to the other lane, there wasn't a car near them. My husband's a truck driver and he absolutely hates that because he can't see them.

Then there's the rain issue. If we get 1/2 inch of rain the news stations will blast across the TV screen STORM WATCH! I'm not kidding. People here can't drive in the rain. Mind you it does only rain out here maybe 2 weeks out of the year and we've had a draught for the past 10 years but 90% of the people are from somewhere else...where it rains and snows. They have no excuse!! I can't tell you how many people that do not have their lights on in torrential rain and they're always the cars you naturally can't see in the rain—white, light blue, etc. People, it's the law here; if your windshield whipers are on your lights are on. Shoot, I'm such a small car I have my lights on all the time because people are always trying to run me over. They're also tailgating at 80 mph in the rain. I like to drive fast but I don't do so in the rain. That's just stupid.

Still the people here are polite drivers compared to some cities I've lived in. Don't ever get in the wrong toll lane in NYC and not have exact change. I barely lived to tell the story.

A Dilemma of Sorts

I love to knit. But I have two problems. (1) I'm a lazy knitter so I don't challenge myself with a lot of patterns; and, (2) it's hard to come up with ideas when you live in an area that doesn't get that cold. Touques (that's Canadian for a wool hat) are too hot here and I can only knit so many furry scarves. Hubby bought me three skeins of this beautiful angora wool. There's one of each colour: wine, black and white, and I have no idea what to do with them. I guess I could knit a purse, but I don't really carry a purse that often. Gloves are out (see note about lazy knitter). Socks are out because (see note above again) they'd be too hot here. I've already got a ton of scarves. I don't want to make something for someone else since these were a Christmas present to me. (He also made me knitting needles on his lathe.) Decisions, decisions.

On a bright note, I was at Barnes & Noble yesterday and discovered that a new Mercedes Lackey Valdemar paperback book was out. Yippee, I love it when a new book in an old series is released. How I missed the hardcover book is beyond me. I'm tempted to read all her Valdemar books over again since it's been many years. I've been a little low on books lately. I was reading a few "girlie lite" books just for something to read. That's what I call those books about women who are trying to find themselves, are in the "safe" relationship, hates their job and is looking for Mr. Right. They're cookie-cutter stories. Nothing strenuous on the brain. The one I just finished was Testing Kate by Whitney Gaskell about a woman who's turned 30 (oh no!) dumped the safe relationship, started law school on a whim, went back to the safe relationship but has feelings for a fellow law student, and eventually realizes it's all a mistake. In the end she discovers she has an aptitude for history, drops out of law school and hooks up with the one she really loved. Mind you, she had to get engaged first to the wrong guy to realize what she really wanted. Sometimes I really want to yell at them, "Make up your mind!"