THOUGHTS DURING THOSE 7AM POWER WALKS

There is nothing thrilling about the walk itself. It’s incredibly repetitious, especially in the winter when I’m confined to the indoor track.

It’s a rush to see that the sun has risen and before I leave for home, it will be daylight..

I’m getting used to the only radio station the Walkman can pick up there. A couple of people jabbering at one another, but they play enough music with a beat that I can keep up my pace.
I’m getting the hang of Shania Twayne and I like Tina Turner’s new CD and I also like to think of them enjoying their opulent lifestyles in Switzerland or wherever they hang out.

I wonder why twosomes, always older women, come to the track so early when they just want to chat? They wander from lane to lane, talking intently. I thought that only the grimly serious would drag themselves out of bed at this ungodly time.

Avian flu. My son is roving about Thailand and that is where the worry centers at the moment. From the pictures I see of the online diary of his trip, he seems to be eating noodles and vegetarian fare, although I don’t think you have to eat poultry products to catch it.

It’s time to call my sweet little Elise to ask her if she wants to resume the art lessons. We do watercolors together and I get to hear about life from a nine-year old’s perspective. When she gets restless, we stop off at a fast food place for lunch and I take her home.

Death. I think about it a lot. Whole cultures base their lives on what they think happens to them once they’re dead and I sometimes get the giggles at the notion that many of them are going to be really surprised.
I won’t know if what I believe is right until my due date and then I won’t be able to send word to my survivors. Bummer.

Desert islands. This is why I would prefer not to spend time on one, and that was before I saw how Tom Hanks fared.
There would be no more perfectly dry martinis enhanced by a plump queen size stuffed olive. Or an exquisite toast round covered with smoked salmon, capers and a shaving of egg yolk. And how about a superbly rare roast of beef accompanied by the fluffiest of Yorkshire puddings.
Cheeseburgers. I adore them and don’t even try the artery-clogging message on me. Add to the meal a perfect diet coke served in a cardboard cup filled with shaved ice. Tins and bottles do not make it. It has to be cardboard.
Incidentally, back to Tom Hanks-- do you think the lady rancher sped up the drive in time to haul Tom in for a visit and some R&R?

See, the thing about not having one of clicker things with me as I mentally count off the laps is that I don’t dare think of anything more serious or I’ll lose count and that will drive me nuts. What if I did an extra lap and didn’t know it? I would check Ebay if I knew what you really call those clicker things.

Once I get that I can both walk and concentrate on finishing my novel.

3 Photo Day

This is the view from the exercise track at 7:15 in the morning


My favorite room. A quilt in progress


The end of the day. A perfect martini. It beats exercising.

My Tussle With Mother Nature

Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine having a whole bunch of kids and spending my vacation wearing nothing but sunburn.

Let’s be clear about this. When it was just the two of us, my sweetie never showed any hint of being a nature lover. That lasted until after we had the first four kids and one day he lugged home the biggest, smelliest second hand tent I have ever seen, outside of a circus.

Next thing I know, and I’m still confused about this, but then I wasn’t getting a lot of sleep because of the kids. Anyway, next thing I know we are weekly visitors to a local nudist camp and bingo, comes vacation time, he hauls out the big smelly tent and we’re off to rough it in the camp woods.

The good news was that the laundry would be almost non-existent except for the cloth diapers.

The bad news was that every once in a while a plane swooped down to dump chemicals over the campsite to kill the mosquitoes. No one seemed to mind that we were there also. Apparently there was a quaint notion that these chemicals knew they were only to kill the insects.

Eventually I got more sleep or else the chemicals were changing my brain patterns but I had a fervent desire to see more than a bunch of naked people swimming in a muddy pond and even the volley ball ceased to be entertaining. I needed more and one of the babies gave us an exit.

It happened on a Sunday, the afternoon of the monthly meeting and this bunch loved meetings. I have no idea what they talked about but they did ramble on. It was mandatory to meet on the grassy hill and look thoughtful and superior because we were nudists.

Then this glorious day I remember so fondly, Carl the camp bore was droning on and on. The baby was just learning to walk and he crawled over near Carl and looked for something to grab onto to pull himself up. Yep, that’s what he grabbed. Carl turned an unsettling shade of ashcan gray and his voice turned to croaks. The baby got his footing and toddled off with me right on his little heels.

I wouldn’t say we were ostracized but it did seem like a good time to re-think our weekend plans. We bought a camper van complete with fridge, stove and sink and on weekends we hitched a tent trailer to that and we never looked back.

We Never Stand Still

I try to keep up with changes in social habits and this is a bit what I’ve gleaned so far:

Virginity is not a big deal. Before the pill, it was a very big deal. Now, although I exaggerate a bit I hope, if you haven’t been offered an opportunity to lose your virginity by the time you’re thirteen, you will be considering changing your deodorant.
Personally, I have no problem when a girl well into her teens decides to lose hers as long as she is taking acceptable precautions. I just hope she does it with someone she at least likes and that if she figures he’s been around, then ask for an updated medical certificate. If she’s younger and is being pressured to try it, then she needs a warden.

Dating. Except in American films, kids don’t seem to date anymore. Boys and girls hang around in gangs or their parents drive them in pairs to the movies and pick them up later. Come to think of it when do they manage to be alone long enough to get pregnant?

Internet dating. It makes good sense when you figure that families are often uprooted for business reasons and the kids don’t have the stability of one neighborhood and one set of schools and friends during their childhood. There should be a firm rule, though. Internet wannabe daters must meet face-to-face in a safe place within two weeks or call it off.

Clothing. We wore more of it. I thought my teen age granddaughter was a little over the top when she dyed her hair black (with a bit of raspberry here and there) and dressed head to toe in more black, with dollops of skin peeking out. That was before I visited her school and couldn’t help noticing that some girls wore clothing so tight it’s a wonder they weren't suffering from serious circulation problems.
We wore sufficient clothing in the winter to ward off chilblains but apparently nowadays it’s better to court chilblains and not be labeled a dweeb or the present day equivalent.

Marriage. In my country there is a raging debate about same-sex marriage but nobody seems to mind that the cities are full of homeless kids who have to do some miserable things in order to exist or that the mentally ill are jailed instead of given treatment or that war doesn’t work anymore when television cameras are two inches away from hand-to-hand combat.

Where are the ministers in all this? Have they heard of leadership? Are they inviting same sex couples to their churches to hear what they have to say? According to marital statistics, heterosexuals aren’t doing particularly well in keeping their vows so why get all upset about someone else giving it a shot?

I believe all marriages should be performed as civil ceremonies and if people are serious about a religious blessing, have that as a follow-up. This takes the responsibility out of the hands of ministers; they must be tired of the hypocrisy of performing a ceremony over two people who took three years out of their lives to plan the pageant and the parents took out a second mortgage to satisfy the dream. Makes the follow-up of actual day-to-day living together pretty bland.

And what is it about a couple living together for years and suddenly they want the ceremony with white dress and a thousand ushers and bridesmaids? Seems to me they’re several years too late. For heavens sake, toddle down to city hall, get the deed done, hold a small party later, and pay for it yourselves. Forget the gift part—that boat has long sailed.
I have a firm rule. You marry twice, I wish you luck but I don’t send a wedding gift. One to a customer is my motto.

Graduations. This one cracks me up. Babies are graduating from kindergarten wearing their little robes and mortarboards, clutching their diplomas. It gets more serious when they graduate from high school and parents pay the ransom for a stretch limo, hugely expensive gowns and tuxes and the kids get blasted, unsupervised, until morning.
Okay, I don’t understand. What is this teaching them?

I’ve learned lots more but you’ve suffered enough.

The Fur Ball Is On Her Next Adventure

Shariyat finally took her leave last night.
We had a sweet morning. Melissa and I took turns holding her, wrapped in a towel. She was fur and bones and her backbone dug into our arms. She was content to be held and her eyes had the faraway look of a journey already underway.

Her fur was cold to the touch when we stroked her head.

During her lifetime the little fur ball seldom made a sound. Most often, she would mouth the “meow” sound but you wouldn’t hear it.

I went out for a while last evening and when I returned, she had taken her leave.

Goodbye silent one. I miss you.

The Cat

Shariyat is dying slowly.

Each day she gets weaker and shrinks into herself. Last night she wanted to be in my room but she got confused and staggered in circles until I carried her across the hall to the little nest we made for her, close to the floor register. She can’t weigh more than a pound now, from her original four pounds.

I keep reliving Hal’s last days and the pain of loss is the same.

The fur ball and I have been together a long time, almost sixteen years.

I hope that she will meet up with her mom and with Hal. They’d all like one another and they can show her how things are done.

There are moments when I want this to end and then I flip-flop and value every extra moment as a gift.

I started off to the track early this morning and then turned around and returned home. I need to be here.

She is past caring who is with her as long as she is warm. I’ll stay close by anyway.

It’s your party, dear girl, and your rules.
May the blessing be.

Putting Down Roots

The minute the kids were raised, Hal and I left our tiny suburban castle to move into downtown Toronto, to an old three storied brick house seventeen feet wide.

We would have stayed there forever but when he got sick we needed a smaller place that I could manage while looking after him.

We moved into a tiny freestanding condo five months before he died and as soon as I could sell the place with the sad memories I relocated to another city, with two full moving vans of possessions.

I had fun painting and papering the new house with the cute little pool but when the nearby sounds of car crashes on the crescent were getting to be the regular event on Saturday nights I moved on to a quieter but larger house, again with two moving vans full of possessions.

I knew I had found the perfect place this time. It was a four- bedroom back split with an enormous pool, although I didn’t know that at the time because it was covered with snow. I bought in the dead of winter, and because I bought under power of sale, I didn’t know what shape anything was in.

When the snow melted I saw that the pool was not only huge but the equipment was unusable and three years worth of leaves had accumulated in the bottom. In case you haven’t learned this first hand, there is a lot of karma that comes with buying a power of sale house. That pool and a nasty neighbor were mine.

I loved the house, but after a few years it finally occurred to me that if I had that same pesky gene as my relatives I would live to be well into the nineties or worse and there wouldn’t be any money left for me to exist.

It was time to seriously downsize.

This time my daughter, Pioneer Melissa stepped in and she had an agenda. She accompanied me during my house- hunting with immense enthusiasm and it seemed to be her goal to find an insulated chicken coop big enough to house three bantam hens. I managed to do a little better than that. The new house is two blocks away from Melissa (that is her punishment) and is semi detached, a house joined in the middle to its Siamese twin. In the west they would call that a duplex.

When it was time to pack, that determined female who lives for a challenge, offered to help. No, she demanded.

You have to understand something about this woman; she would cook all the family meals in the back yard over a roaring fire pit if she thought she could get away with it. She gets misty –eyed at the thought of a sod hut with a loft for the kids to sleep. I am amazed that she doesn’t make her own lye soap and that she actually uses a real washing machine, the kind requiring electricity. She dyes her own cotton to make the quilts she designs and it’s only a question of time before the first sheep appears in the garden with a spinning wheel on order.

Anyway, when Pioneer Melissa stepped in, I knew I would have enjoyable company for the almost three months I had to pack, but I also realized I was going to have to account for every item that went into a carton.

Her constant reminder was that I was shifting from two thousand square feet to nine hundred and fifty. I was never good at math so that didn’t seem a big problem.

At first we quibbled over every saucepan—okay I have more than one so sue me. After a while I relinquished those extra casserole dishes and furniture and absolutely fabulous things I planned to sort into artful collections some time. We put some furniture on consignment and when we ran out of patience and energy we dumped stuff out on the boulevard, under what we named “the free tree.”

Passers by loved us. It was like being the object of daily bus tours and everything under the tree was snapped up.

On moving day, a smaller than giant- size van appeared and I wondered if it would hold more than the china and sheets and refrigerator but to my surprise everything almost fitted. It took all four grunting, sweating movers to get the lever fastened at the back and even then they had to take a rolled carpet into the cab with them. I left behind my beautiful big plants in their huge soy pots but by that time I was either exhausted or really into the idea of less- is- better.

We were so efficient that on my second day in the new house, Melissa appeared with her garden tools and enlarged a pitsy little bed in the back and we filled it with the plants we had carefully garnered from the old pace.

The thing is—there isn’t a challenge in moving anymore so I’m going to stay put until the family has the inevitable conference about where they’ll store me until I croak. Perhaps Melissa will have a barn with a nice stall. But that’s their problem.

Shariyat

The fur ball appears to be nearing the end of her nine lives.

She huddles over the floor register and cries when the heat is off and she can’t jump up on the bed or the bathroom counter anymore.

She avoids her litter box if any kind of paper or plastic is handy. She’s particularly fond of the T.V. listings.

This is hard. I got her and her mother the day we buried Hal’s ashes.

She’s around seventeen or so, a blue point Himalayan. Her mom Shama was a seal point.

Shama was a beauty and a scamp. She led me a merry chase until that day when she was playing with a paper bag on the floor and she suddenly screamed an unearthly scream. She’d had a stroke and her hindquarters were paralyzed. She died later that day.

She was my favorite of the two and it was best she went first.

When the vet checked them over a couple of years previously he declared Shariyat in worse shape than her mom, that they had been over bred, their hearts and livers were enlarged and they couldn’t live longer than six months.

Shama lived on for a couple of years and Shariyat has managed ten more than that.

She has fooled me before and I’m hoping she’s going to rally and try for another nine lives. You go girl.

Just the Furball and Me

A human hurricane blew into my house for two months and now he’s gone. The hurricane was my son Steve, who arrived here from the west to regroup after a crisis in his personal life.

It was fun having a grown up child in the house. This one has more electric energy than twenty humans and fortunately for us all, he uses it for good instead of evil.

Before his arrival, I had mastered the art of living a single, quiet life, just the cat and me.

It’s only been a couple of days and I’m slowly finding my way, remembering the many good aspects of alone-ness.
Silence is okay. I can return to talking to myself and I’m a great audience. I get up when I want, eat when I want and more to the point- this is the big one, when I’m ready to leave the house, car keys in hand there isn’t anyone to say,” wait a minute, I’ll come with you. I just have to…”

I hope the hurricane blows in again after his newest journey is done. In the meantime I’m finding my way back to that old comfortable way of life.

And he did teach me how to Blog.

The New Me

I’ve started power walking again after a glorious, indolent five-year pause. Okay, I also gained a lot of weight during that glorious pause.

My son Steve came to visit recently and was all fired up to run and since it’s winter and the roads are generally lumpy with snow and ice, we drive to the nearby Rec Center where he runs and I walk as fast as I can.

We do this around 7:15 each morning.

The track is marked for walkers as well as people who switch between walking and jogging, and the two outside lanes are for the runners. I use the lane marked “slow”, not to be confused with the slowest lane marked “walk.”

There is an ice rink in the middle of this complex and lots and lots of seats. The track is located above the seats and you have to climb 28 stairs to reach it. Twenty-eight stairs. Dear god. That doesn’t even count as part of the workout either.
I used to take those stairs two at a time. When I tried it on my recent return it’s lucky I didn’t break every bone and muscle in my body. Now I’m a one-step-at-a-time person.

Sensible people warm up first. I shake my ankles and get going.

Personally I admire the guts of the woman who leans against the wall by the elevator and does nothing but stretches, and then she goes home.

Then there’s a man about 55, runs like a maniac, then shudders to a halt and hurls himself up and down the 28 steps. When that doesn’t seem enough, he gets out this short hockey stick and he maniacally pushes little balls back and forth on the floor in a confined space.
A type A if ever I saw one.

Some people meet friends there and clog the lanes while they stroll and chat. I figure it’s good for their mental health if nothing else.

My personal goal is to walk as fast as I can around the track at least eight times but trying for ten. I should be puffing when I finish.

If I died tomorrow, or better still, on the track so my kids would be impressed, the general consensus would be that I’d lived a full life, so why do I do this?

Because now I can have my whopper junior with cheese every day for lunch and my conscience is relatively clear.