Tuesday, February 27

Public Speaking

On this past Sunday afternoon, the kids and I went to see a public speaking competition for students in grades 2-8. A local branch of the Canadian Legion sponsors a few competitions each year -- public speaking, essays and poetry. This past Sunday was one of those contests.

The local schools have students in each class prepare and deliver a speech. The speeches must be between 2.5 and 5 minutes in length; if they exceed 5 minutes, the children are automatically disqualified from the competition. Each class selects a "winner" who then attends this local contest as the class representative. My niece was there as the contestant from MGES - Grade 4. Her speech was about global warming and its effects on our planet.

Right before she began her turn, I tapped my son and said - "If you think you're going to laugh, look at the floor." Just the night before, when she was practicing her speech, my son distracted her and made her laugh. My brother sent him out of the room. Now, as she stood at the front of the room, I suddenly worried that I had made a mistake attending with the kids. What if we made her laugh? What if we made her nervous? What if...what if...what if.... The only thing that was really clear was that there was no turning back. Leaving moments before she started her speech would surely be more off-putting than sitting and listening. We stayed.

She was great. She hit her points, she didn't stumble. Her voice was clear and crisp and we could easily hear her at the back of the room. It was hard, I think, for her to wrap her mouth around terms like carbon dioxide and photosynthesis, but she managed. It was clear that her Dad (my brother) helped her write the speech. I mean, in comparison to the other children it was clear. After all, other kids in her category spoke about camping trips, pet ponies, and sleepovers. I'm thinking he helped choose the topic.

She won. She now carries on to "regional" finals. She will speak again on Sunday afternoon. I think we'll go and cheer her on.

Reminds me about a statistic I heard at a work function suggesting that public speaking is our most common fear. Seems most people worry more about public speaking than flying, or insects, or even snakes. It causes people to experience sweating, rapid heartbeat, dizziness, and even fainting.

I wonder if, as kids, we appreciate public speaking because it fulfills our need for attention. Perhaps only after years of socialization do we dread that same attention because of our realization that it also brings the risk of rejection and embarrassment.

I wonder if my niece will ever grow out of public speaking?

Hopefully not before Sunday.

Sunday, February 25

Letting Go

I visited my Grandma on Saturday. Earlier in the week I learned that she wasn't doing well -- she hasn't been eating. I had been warned of her decline. In fact, the last time I visited Grandma, she hadn't spent more than a few minutes awake and had no words for me at all. I had prepared myself for a difficult visit. I was worried because it had been five weeks since I last saw her.

My sister, our nieces, my kids and I went up to her room for a visit before lunch. The kids engaged in lively conversation (as kids often do) but Grandma was difficult to rouse and our attempts to engage her in conversation failed. Her eyes were red and runny so I ran a cloth under warm water and then dabbed at her eyes and face. In exchange, she gave me one word..."Wonderful," she said. Her teeth weren't in. Her recent weight loss has affected the fit of her dentures and she was a little difficult to understand, but I recognized the word as it left her mouth.

After about half an hour, my sister took the kids to the library and I waited with Grandma until the smell of lunch filled the corridor. I wheeled Grandma down to the dining room and pushed the chair in front of her place at the table. "I'd like to stay and help Grandma with lunch," I explained to the staff. "I think that's a wonderful idea," they smiled back. I grabbed a feeding stool from under the counter and placed it between Grandma and another diner while "the girls" served lunch to the expectant diners. "Pastrami on Rye or Cheese Cannelloni?" someone asked. I tried to envision pureed Pastrami on Rye. "I think maybe it'll be easier to feed her the Cannelloni," she suggested after some thought. I agreed.

A plate of pureed food arrived moments later -- pasta, tossed salad, coleslaw and something that looked a lot like green relish. I began by raising a fork full of pasta to Grandma's mouth. It burned her mouth and she winced. "Sorry Grandma. Here, take some milk to cool your mouth down." I lifted the cup of milk to her mouth and she took some sips. I followed it with some coleslaw. Better. I mixed a little of the pasta with some salad to bring the temperature down. It worked. She ate quite a few bites, but the effort was clearly taking its toll. She held her head in her hands to keep it raised up off of her chest.

At one moment, about half an hour into the meal, she looked at me and smiled. Not a small smile but the other kind; the type that fills a face...that fills a room. I began to cry. I lowered my head, both ashamed and confused by my tears. I sat with my forehead on the arm of her wheelchair, a fork full of cold pasta suspended in the air between us, trying to choke back my tears so that I could finish feeding Grandma her meal. Pressing my eyes closed against the tears, I could only play back the image of Grandma holding her head while I fed her the lunch. Not three months ago I had enjoyed lunch with her, and she fed herself most of her meal. We chatted between bites, we joked about her dinner companions and we gushed over dessert. Images of Grandma eating and Grandma feeding flashed in and out of my mind as a critical heart made exaggerated comparisons. I raised my head just high enough to quietly excuse myself from the table and I left the room to gather myself.

I managed to pull it together and made my way back to the dining room. Dessert was ice cream and Grandma ate every bite. She could barely lift her head to take the coffee though I made several attempts. "More," I thought I heard her say. "More or no more Grandma?" I asked. She shook her head oh so slightly. I made a few last attempts to give her coffee, but any sips she did take slid down the side of her mouth. She was done eating. When all was said and done, she had eaten perhaps a total of 3/4 cups of food.

We returned to her room and waited by the window for "the girls" to return and help her get back into her recliner. I patted her hand as I watched the door for someone to come and then...it happened. I felt her hand on top of mine, patting and stroking my hand. I felt the hot prickle of tears rise again in my eyes. This time, instead of fighting it, I just put my head on her shoulder and wept. I wanted her to reach up and run her fingers through my hair like she used to when I was a little girl, but it didn't happen. Instead, I put my arms around her shoulder and ran my fingers through her hair as I felt her head relax against my shoulder. "I love you so much Grandma," I said through my tears. We sat like that until my sister came back a few minutes later.

I wanted to say so many things to her during those minutes, but nothing that hinted of a good-bye; I didn't want her to think I had given up on her though it felt as though I had done just that. I was ashamed of the way I was feeling.

The thing is, I believe we don't mourn the loss of people exactly; what we mourn is the loss of what those people brought into our lives. It may have been support, love, laughter, camaraderie, compassion, solidarity, or friendship. When people we love grow old, we lose those things long before we lose those people. I think that's why I felt the way I did. I recognized in those hours, that my Grandmother was disappearing. I realized that there would be fewer moments of recognition and fewer moments of sharing. Our visits together would be short and shallow and few.

Grieving our losses is self-indulgent and it's necessary and it's a process. Grieving the anticipation of a loss, is greedy and selfish and perhaps that's why I felt ashamed. I should have focused on my grandmother's needs, but instead I let myself wallow. Next time, I'll do it differently. I'll wallow after my visits instead of during them.

Letting go of my Grandmother will be, I know, an incredible challenge for me. Letting go a little at a time might be the only way that I'm going to be able to climb that mountain.

Wednesday, February 21

Crazy Hair

I don't just have bad hair days, I have "crazy hair."

During my entire childhood, my hair was short and straight and thin and boring. Most people thought I was a boy (though I'll be the first to admit that I acted like one). I remember my mother wrapping my head in a kerchief in the spring so that the black flies wouldn't tear my scalp apart. My hair was hardly an obstacle for hungry northern black flies. It also helped distinguish me as a little girl which saved everyone a little embarrassment -- at least until it was warm enough for sundresses.

As a young girl, I kept growing my hair until I could no longer be mistaken as a boy. When I entered high school, I had long, straight hair down to the middle of my back. By the end of my first year, I cut myself some bangs to "change it up" a little, but I was growing bored of my hair. I wanted something more contemporary. I wanted a hair style.

I remember going to my mother's hairdresser one Saturday morning. I took in a picture of a model with long, layered hair (think Jennifer Aniston...though she hadn't been discovered yet). The hairdresser started layering my hair and that's when it happened...all hell broke loose. Seems there were curls hiding in there somewhere. Having been weighted down by my long hair, they suddenly sprung to life when the weight was lifted by the sharpened shears of the hairdresser. Oh, she was so happy. "Look at the curls! Look at the curls!" Not curly enough, evidently, because she came at me brandishing a curling iron and didn't finish styling me until my head was covered in tiny tight curls.

I was absolutely devastated. In fact I cried. I remember saying that it looked like an old lady's hairstyle. (In remembering this event, I also recall that both the hairdresser and my mother had similar styles which makes my comment both rude and accurate at once. Sorry mom, but when I was 16, anyone older than 25 was OLD.)

My mother and sister and I were supposed to go to town shopping afterwards, but I flatly refused to leave the car. I stayed slumped down in the backseat because I was afraid of being seen (I was also 16 at the time and my ego was as fragile as puff pastry.) I went home and washed it and tried to blow-dry it flat, but it just looked stupid to me. With classes on Monday, right around the corner, I knew I had to keep trying. I ended up washing it again and then blow drying it while I hung my head upside down and pouted. Minutes later - shazam - I had crazy hair. "I can live with this," I thought. The style was kind of "rocker chick," and it was the era of the big hair band, so the world righted itself on its axis and began to turn again.

Not ten years later, I cut it all off. I found my crazy hair too labour-intensive for a busy schedule that revolved around the needs of two young children. I wanted something to wash, run my fingers through and be done with. A little hair product and I'm out the door. I found it so easy to take care of and a little more professional looking, so I kept the short hair for many years. When I left my job last June, I stopped making trips to the hair stylist. Eight months later, I now find myself back at "crazy hair."

I'm trying to decide whether to cut it all off again, tame it down with a trim, or just allow it to grow its wild self out. I don't feel as attached to my hair as I once did. By that I mean, I don't think I'd cry if I got a bad haircut. I might ask for my money back, but I'd still smile and want to make sure that the hairdresser wasn't upset because I wasn't pleased with his/her work. These days I worry more about the colour than I worry about the style. Style doesn't seem nearly important when I see silver strands amongst my curls. I think hats not haircuts.

Every time I think of my crazy hair, I think of the same thing. People who have curly hair usually say they would like straight hair AND people who have straight hair usually say they would like curly hair. In fact, some people pay big bucks for their own version of crazy hair. I guess I shouldn't complain.

Sorry for rambling. I'm going to log off now. Maybe head over to e-bay to look for some ceramic straighteners, or maybe a barrette. A fedora? No. Make that www.l'oreal... :)

Monday, February 19

Life at the Coffee House

Things are going pretty well at work. I really enjoy the atmosphere. The storefront is a tiny cafe with four tables, some fresh baked goods and several thermoses of coffee from which to choose. The Barista likes to experiment with flavours and drinks and I have volunteered to be her official taste tester. The cafe is open Monday to Saturday from 6 am - 6 pm. People come and go throughout the day and I'm starting to know the regulars.

There's one fellow who comes in to enjoy a coffee while he sits in the chair in the corner and reads the paper. There's another fellow who comes in two times each day and orders a coffee concoction that costs about $5.00 a pop. (That's $10 a day in coffee! As far as cost is concerned, that rivals a nicotine habit.) There's another guy who comes in once or twice a day and pretends to be crabby, but he's really very nice and he likes to be teased almost as much as he enjoys dishing it out.

Behind the storefront are the offices, a large roaster and a workroom for the coffee wholesale business. From Monday through Thursday, the air is rich with the smell of roasting coffee. There's nothing like it. Everything I wear to work on those days smells like roasted coffee and so does my hair. I really like it. It's one of my favourite smells -- it's the smell of coffee when you first open a can. Apparently there are small roasters that you can buy for home use; it's becoming more popular these days. We sell green coffee beans to people who want to roast their own coffee.

One benefit of working at the coffee house is free coffee. I took some ground decaf for hubby to try. He liked it. I think, in fact, that he now prefers it to any other brand. I used to be a loyal Tim Horton's patron before joining Equator Coffee. I used to get one extra large regular Timmy's every morning on my way to work. Now, I brew a pot before I leave home; two or three cups gets me ready for the drive to work. Once at work, I have one or two cups of coffee. I start with a bold, and end with a smooth or medium roast. Sometimes I add a flavour shot, sometimes I don't. Most days I try to avoid caffeine after 11 a.m.

Last week, for Valentine's day, I thought it would be nice to get up early, drive to Tim Horton's and treat hubby to a hot coffee. I got myself one as well. About a quarter of the way through my extra large regular, I realized that I had lost my taste for Tim Horton's. I found it watery compared to what I consume at work. It was then I realized I had converted. I am officially off the Timmy's. (For those non-Canadians out there, Tim Horton's is the Canadian version of Starbucks -- though we have those too.)

The girl who operates the order desk for the wholesale operations has taken another job. I officially took over the order desk today. If it's too much to handle with my office duties, the owners will look for another person to take the orders. That said, I thought today went pretty well and I expect I'll be able to do both as long as all the customers keep to the order schedule.

My part-time job is slowly growing into an almost full-time job. Funny, but as long as my "regular" hours stay part-time and I am left with the option of working or not working the extra hours, I find I am most happy. It's kind of silly...especially since I stay until the work is done. It's kind of like working full time but committing to part time work. In the end, it's not the hours that put me off, it's the commitment. Like I said in my interview, flexibility is the feature I value most in a job. I guess that's just my way of keeping things flexible.

I'll try to get some pics for a future post. If you like coffee, you may find them interesting.

Saturday, February 17

Winterlude - Ottawa's Winter Festival

This is the last weekend of Winterlude in Ottawa. It's a winter festival that's held every year during the first three week-ends in February. I took the kids to the Rideau Canal for a skate during the first weekend, couldn't coerce them to return last weekend, but managed to convince them to take one last trip to the city before the end of Winterlude. In fact, everybody went -- the whole fam damily, as the locals here would say.

We parked behind city hall and walked through the courtyard to Confederation Park. Confederation Park played host to the ice sculptures again this year. Two weekends ago we watched artists give birth to these creations and here they were, in their finished glory, beautifully backlit by changing colours as people passed by them and marvelled at their elegance.

If you haven't been to a winter festival, you probably haven't seen anything like this.


This is a mermaid swimming with a dolphin in the surf. Awesome!

Below here is the sculpture that won first prize. It's a clown fish in an anenome with coral trailing off behind. The picture just doesn't do it justice. It really is incredible. It's about 6 feet tall and another 6 feet across.


This sculpture was in another part of the park and I believe it was part of a different contest. I believe it won in its category as well. Initially I thought it was a winged figure, but I think it's a hunter running alongside a wolf, with a sword in one hand and a fur cape flying behind him; the cape has a hood. The details are extraordinary.



The ice sculptures were amazing -- a water goddess, the march of the penguins, an RCMP officer on his horse, a woolly mammoth, polar bears dancing and eagles hunting. There were dozens to see. We browsed and "ooooh-ed" and "aaaah-ed" with everyone else. It was neat to see during the day, but it was truly spectacular at night.


We got a little hungry so we crossed the canal, and walked up to the Byward Market to find someplace to eat. We walked up Colonel By Drive towards Rideau Street and passed between the Rideau Centre and this building. I think it's the Government Conference Centre. I thought it was pretty so I took a picture.


I love the city at night. I was so cold I was shaking, which meant lots and lots of bad shots, but I managed to salvage a few in between shivers.



We ended up having a great meal at a little Italian restaurant in the market. Afterwards we returned to the canal and bough some hot coffee, while son skated on the canal. We followed him about a kilometre down the ice before turning back.


It was a beautiful night.

Thursday, February 15

Countrified City Girl's First Snowfall

It snowed yesterday and last night so I stayed in town. I just got back now after working a longer-than-usual day at the coffee house. I drove into the big driveway (shared by my brother) and was relieved to see that it was totally clear. My brother makes arrangements with a local fellow to have the driveway plowed after each big snowfall. Thank goodness too because I'm feeling tired from my longer-than-usual day, I have a headache building in the front of my forehead and my throat feels like I drank a glass full of toothpicks.

I loaded up my bags and walked across the driveway in the steadily failing light. As I approached the house I realized - uh oh, no walkway. Not a deer track, not an indent, nothing. No walkway! I shuffled a little to the left and right as though this would somehow result in the magical reappearance of the walkway and then I decided, "To heck with it, I'm going in." I trudged through the snow under the weight of my parcels, managed to unlock the door and threw my things inside. I recalled my brother saying that I could borrow his shovel if I needed one, and that it was on his front porch. I walked back across the driveway.

As I approached his house I realized again -- uh oh, no walkway. In my head, I initiated a "do I? or don't I?" discussion as I simultaneously took stock of how cold my feet were feeling in my lovely yet impractical high-heeled boots; unlined, two-and-a-half inch heel boots built for the sanded sidewalks of city streets. In the end I decided, "To heck with it, I need a shovel." "What's more," I thought, "I'll clean a path for my brother in case he should return home later tonight." Teetering in my lovely boots, I scrape a path for my brother as I make my way back to the driveway.

First things first, I had to chop away at the little snowbank that used to be the start of the walk. After four or five big scoops of snow, my breath came a little faster and my throat began its protest. Scrape, scrape...as I pushed at the fresh snow covering the walk, it fell back in behind the shovel. Scoop, scrape, scrape, scoop...I found a system that worked and made my way to the door. I uncovered the front stoop and turned to look behind me. It's been about 26 years since I've walked a balance beam so I thought, "I'll need to take another go at this." My throat felt dry and fiery from the effort of breathing through this workout. I winced a little before continuing on.


Scoop, scrape, scrape, scoop...I slid about on the snowy walkway. With little else to keep me grounded, my heels dug into the soft snow and kept me from slipping, but threw me off balance a bit. Scoop, scrape, scrape, scoop...finally I made it back to the driveway without incident. No falls, no crying, no twisted ankles, no busted shovels. Not entirely by design as much as by good luck, but done nonetheless. I returned the shovel to my brother's porch and headed back to the house.

It's a quiet night up here; no traffic sounds, no city lights. The wind is blowing and it feels a little moist, a little warm. I wondered what tomorrow would be like.

I trudged back up the walkway, opened the door, stomped the snow off my feet and stepped onto the linoleum...

and then..

I fell on my ass.

:$

I'm OK. Don't worry. The only thing I bruised was my ego.

Tuesday, February 13

Rural Roots

On the last day of January, I returned to the small town I grew up in. OK town might be an exaggeration, it's more like a bunch of houses built around a lake. The neighbour to the southwest is my brother, the neighbour to my northeast is a snowdrift that crawls across the road every night. Every morning the plow comes by to drive it back towards the lake it came from but moments later, the snowy fingers pull at the road as the drift drags itself forward again.

I came here because it feels so much like home and, lately, this feeling that I don't "fit in" has become so strong that I could not deny it any longer. It's one of those feelings that I like and hate at the same time. I'm glad that I'm different from other people and I like who I am. Just once though, I would like to sit in a room full of people without feeling like an outsider, an interloper. Truly! Sometimes I feel like an alien. Not the kind that can't get a working visa, but the kind that comes from another world. I know, I know, you make your own experience. The fact that I think this way most likely is the cause of why I feel this way. Yeah, yeah. But what if I'm right? What if I AM different?

So here I am. In a house in a place that isn't quite a town, watching the sun sneak up from behind the trees, feeling like I'm home. Like I belong. It's nice. Here's the creepy part ...it's my parent's house. They're away for the winter. Yup. I ran away from home. Or did I run away to home? Either way you look at it, I ran away. There are other factors of course, most of which are too personal to share on a public blogsite -- even if that blogsite gets less traffic that this not-quite-a-town will ever see in a day. Thing is, I feel like I belong here. It feels like home. It feels still and safe and warm. Right now, I need still and safe and warm.

Every morning since arriving, I wake up at 6 a.m. (though that will change next week when I set my alarm to 5:30 a.m.) , I make a fruit smoothie, brew some coffee and then I watch the sun come up over the trees. I go to my new job at the coffee shop and work with numbers while battling my oh-so-mild dyslexia and then drive back here into the sun. Since commuting through these rural routes, I've seen wolves, deer, a martin, turkeys and clowns (they drive pick ups) oh yeah, and a woodpecker.

I saw the woodpecker last Monday and it made me think of this blog. It was like a sign, of sorts. Well, I'll take it as a sign.

"Welcome home wordpecker."

Thanks woodpecker.

Friday, February 9

Gone Fishin'

For those people regularly checking in to my blogspot (all three of you), check back in a week or so. I am temporarily out of service but am trying to setup a new connection.

See you soon!