Robert Plant Made My Top Ten List

`Music and rhythm find their way into the secret places of the soul.`
Plato

Not that I've ever really considered a top ten list. Well, not since my basement apartment, university days with my best pal and roommate who endlessly philosophized with me.

After listening to his latest collection, "Band of Joy", I figure if I did have a top ten list, Robbie would make it. After all, any talented man is sexy right? After really pondering, I think I realistically only have a top five list after all - but that's a blog for another time.

I grew up with the likes of Paul Young, Simply Red and Boy George as musical-male influences. Led Zeppelin was something that the boys who hung out in the pool hall listened to while I was busy climbing up the stool to the penny candy counter in the 1980's. When kids my age graduated to basement parties with bootlegged tequila and home-rolled and homeg-rown ( I grew up in tobacco country) cigarettes, we were introduced to classics like Meatloaf, Lynard Skinnard and Steve Miller. Great music to take your first salty gulp of cheap tequila to and burn your lungs with your first, unfiltered deeply inhaled breath of freshly cured tobacco.

It is with this memory in my not so sub-conscience that I listened to Mr. Plant's new collection of music.  This and the memory of a great summer, open air concert a couple of years ago featuring Robert Plant, Allison Krauss, and the company of one of my best friends in the world.  Fast forward to a front row seat as a first introduction to the emotionally stoked music of Richard Thompson.

Mr. Thompson gets credit for the second song on the CD, "House of Cards". As the melody and the guitar strain in the first seconds, you fully expect Mr. Plant to break out into his Zepplinesque half-ecstasy, half-agony, melodic, scream. Instead, Mr. Plant mesmerizingly carries a uniform, controlled longing throughout the song.  

Central Two-O-Nine. Can you say blue grass, O Brother Where Art Thou?  You get the picture; "Let me hear that whistle blow/Take me back to my baby's door." Twang, twang, delightful Plant twang.

Silver Rider is haunting. The Chameleon like Plant could be a dead ringer for Robbie Roberston here with a few tweaks.  The harmony with Patty Griffen could easily be a dropped track from his 2007 collaboration with Krauss. Oil and water meet with music as the emulsifier That, and that can't-quite-put-your-finger-on-it bit of breathless lust that Plant manages to smuggle into every tune.

You Can't Buy My Love and Falling in Love Again....pretty much sum up my emotions at present about my love life. Bath soaked and beer quenched it makes me want either A - my baby back, or B - another beer. A rock 'n Roll beat to, " You can give me money, diamonds and pearls/But you can't buy my love for no money in the world."  Bop diddly do, do, do!!! I'll take option B thanks. These two songs will make you hold your head up high, walk away, and fall back in love again one right after the other. Oh, sing it Robbie my troubadour of lovin'.

Can't Buy Me Love and Cindy I'll Marry You Someday are again very much reminiscent of Plant's work with Krauss. Twangy, built lyrically and harmonically for a duet. Maybe I just wanted to, but I could almost hear Richard Thompson wrapping Cindy I'll Marry You Someday around his silken-taffy tongue, but then again Lyle Lovett could also do the tune some justice. Go figure.

The Only Sound that Matters - give this one to U2, and Bono could take it to the mainstream. Not because Bono could sing it better, just because he's more marketable to the mass MTV public.

When I read the first two lines of Monkey, "Oh my my, little white lie/I swear I'm gonna make it right this time",  I decided that perhaps I should call my therapist.  How many times have we been someone's little white lie girls? Can't tell my mother. Can't tell my sister. Can't tell my...wife!!! I loved Monkey just for the lyrics.

I had to flip to the CD pocket booklet to see if Harm's Swift Way was a little treat from Mr. Bob Dylan, but surprise, surprise....a little treat from Townes Van Zandt.  Check out the soundtrack to Crazy Heart (one of the best movies I've watched this year), track 12 - If I Needed You. What a beautiful song and statement of true friendship.  With Van Zandt's  Harm's Swift Way, as much as I love Mr. Plant's voice, and the visual I get of him hovering over the microphone in his bad-ass-rocker way, I'd love to hear Dob Dylan croak this out.

The second last, Satan Your Kingdom Must Come Down conjures images of cotton fields in the early nineteenth century deep south; an August-hot, deep-south-hell-fire-and-brimstone-Baptist-Sunday-though-shalt-not-burn-in-hell-if-you-sing-loud-enough-and-someone-faints service. This song makes you want to get up, clap your hands, praise God and pray for your neighbour. 

Finally Even This Shall Pass, the final track which could easily be set to a house/rave beat; "Life is done so what is death?/Then in answer to the king/Fell a sunbeam on his ring/Blinding light through fading grey./Even this shall pass away." Nihilistic or life affirming? You decide.

Book Burning, Gender Studies & Canadian Politics

Tommy Douglas
~Two races share today the soil of Canada.
These people had not always been friends.
But I hasten to say it. There is no longer
any family here but the human family.
 It matters not the language people speak,
or the altars at which they kneel.~


Wilfrid Laurier

First things first. You need to know, dear reader, that I have a lot to say in this blog entry. If you get confused, or my writing is too passionate to understand, let me summarize;

1) - Book Burning can be ignorant and inspiring all at the same time

2) - Some people should either be given space to write a properly thought out column in the Globe and Mail, or not be  published at all

3) - Canadians need to get off their bacon-fat, maple-syrupy rumps and vote not for the status quo, but for what is right (you know right - located precisely deep down in that hollow space somewhere between your stomach and transverse colon).

I have this terrible habit of having conversations with my colleague's while leaning on their door frames, my arms and legs casually crossed.  As annoying as my posture must be, when I'm standing like that, often with a cup of tea in hand, I'm paying that colleague a great compliment. My body language is saying, "Tell me more."

Monday morning I had one such conversation with the chaplain who is fortunate enough to have her office located just next to my own. I'm sure you can imagine her unbridled joy at my constant, verbal run-off. We had a great conversation about our weekends (ok, my weekend), baking, films, art, and finally, the hot topic of the week, especially for students of religious studies; the proposed Koran burning in Florida. 

Florida says it all folks. In my opinion the iconic state of overindulgence, consumerism and all things lacking significant thought. Please note the overwhelming presence there of men sporting white pants and white loafers. Ignorant arrogance flaunted in it's highest form. Enough said.

Our Monday morning conversation, and the conversations that I shared during the weekend evolved into conversations about what it means to be Canadian.  The conversations were not so much about Terry Jones the book burning nutso, but what ding-dongs like him can inspire in us - the democratic voting public. I believe if we separate the emotion of religion from the logic of politics, our political conversations can be inspiring and dare I say futuristically ground breaking. 

Historically our great country is in that awkward stage akin to puberty. We've been around long enough to have our own ideas, but we're hesitant to give up the safety of our tested and true politics. Thats exactly what we need to do in order to break away enough to craft the political future of our dreams. It's often the zealots like Jones who say out loud what the bubba's of our nation are silently thinking. In this case it has inspired anyone with a stitch of logical thought to speak up and out. Sometimes we need the Terry Jones's to irritate our apathetic selves into action.

Since I've been old enough to vote, our politicians have done a great job of just pushing the envelope enough to cheese us off, but not enough for our courteous and apathetic nation of voters to protest. No wonder the number of people inspired to come out of their nice cozy-wozy over-priced, over-sized, over-mortgaged homes is plummeting like a paper plane in detention room.  Canada has always been blah blue or retisent red. Liberal or Conservative - go ahead, live on the edge, flip a coin.  Face it -we're stuck.

Currently Canada is poised on the global high diving board with an opportunity to either dazzle everyone, or make a big, humiliating splash.

You all know by now that I love my Saturday Globe and Mail. I start light in the Life Style section and work my way into the heavier, more thought provoking Cover and Focus sections.  One column that I generally skip is Leah McLaren's.  This week her column, "Man, don't feel like a womyn", held my attention until the very end.

I, like McLaren also attended university when women's studies were not just trendy, but a mandatory part of most liberal arts credits.  In the end, McLaren gives a piece of advice that students should, "Steer clear of trendy men's studies courses and stick with the classics. You'll learn more about men and women in one Shakespearean sonnet than you will in a whole feminist-theory program put together." 

Upon graduation I vowed I would never again use the phrase "patriarchal society", but I also carried with me a vision for the future that included considering all points of view. 

Skip to F3....Drew Hayden Taylor's column, "If you really must torch scriptures, why not start with the Bible?", and Stephen Marche's, "When words go up in flames".  Both writers comment about the proposed Koran burning which was inspired by the proposal to build a mosque near ground zero in New York city. 

Skip McLaren and Hayden. Unless the Globe gives McLaren more space to expound on why we don't need men's studies (like for instance we've been studying history written by men for the last, oh, say, 3 000 years), it's not worth the read. This subject deserves way more discussion, and even that snarky little bit I just put in parenthesis can be argued based on the effect of the women's movement during the past century.

And pul-eaze,  Tayor's further example of taking two religions and pitting them against one another like Ali and Foreman takes us back to the Kindergarten of our existence as a civilization here in the western world. Note here that this is not a comment on the state of aboriginal affairs - it's a statement saying we're in way deeper than figuring out how to separate two bullies on the schoolyard. We have a brawl here people. We need more sophisticated systems for peaceable, equal living. Burying our heads in the classics as McLaren suggests or pitting two out of countless viewpoints against another are poorly thought out solutions to any problem.

Pitting one thing against another, in this case Christianity and Islam, or Christianity and Native Spirituality only inflates the ego of the other.  What I'm suggesting is a more inclusive discussion about how,as Canadians we are going to maintain the political stability of secular politics as our population changes to include more and more new citizens from politically less stable countries.

What I suggest as a first step is that in a very un-Canadian way we wallow in the pride we've worked hard for. Don't get me wrong, I'm not waving a flag in pride over the Japanese interment, the horror of our history for Native Americans, or the type of what I like to call, "cock-rubbing" politics we've allowed our parliament to fall into (watch any debate in our legislatures).  I'm talking about taking pride in being able to speak freely, build a church or mosque, or temple, or sweat lodge without fear someone's going to take our lives for our faith. We need to take a more obvious pride in the health care provision that's quietly being taken away from us like a toddler being weened from their blankie and give a big yank back on that blankie.

Listening to City of Toronto mayoral candidate Rocco Rossi talk about his tunnel/traffic idea, I have a feeling we're in for a big disappointment during the next set of elections.  It's our opportunity. We either dream big now, beyond the centuries old automobile and tunnels to an effective, green-clean-mass-transit-future or get gobbled up in the big compost pile of global, "cock-rubbing", wag-the-dog, Charlie-Wilson's-War, you-scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-yours politics. 

We don't need liberals or conservatives, bloc-quebecois, or even the I-went-out-of-date-in-the-eighties, waffling NDP party.  We need Gandhi's and Mandela's, and maybe even a great Canadian Tommy Douglas again. Stand up. Be proud, and whatever you do, don't fall for this fear-mongering "throw-your-vote-away" crap.  Vote like you're in your grade 12 social issues class. Vote from that space deep down just between your stomach and your transverse colon.

Jock Shopping & Crepey Skin

Holiday time is wonderful. You pack your bags, and jet set somewhere fantasy-like, relaxing into a completely different world. OR - you decide to stay at home, get yourself organized and have pieces of your flesh poked and prodded at during your annual check ups. Guess which option I chose this year?

Although I did not whisk myself away somewhere like France or Venezuela, I certainly did learn a few things, and, get this miss-martha-homemakers, I've organized all of my cupboards. I know, you're jealous.  I managed to preserve my tomatoes for the year, make blueberry jam, pickle some beets and make my Grandmother's chili sauce.  That in itself makes me happy. The pop-pop-popping of homemade yummies makes me smile. 

Between back-to-school shopping, embroidering until I gave myself tendinitis,going to the Canadian National Exhibition and preserving everything I could get my hands on ( I still want to make some salsa too!), my son's baseball team made it to the provincial playoffs.  Between games and practices, we still had time to do some shopping and spend some quality time together.

~We don't have big old Gothic
 cathedrals like they do in Europe.
 But we got baseball parks.~


Jimmy Buffett

THE SHOCK DOCTOR

Now, my son is your average boy. Except of course he's mine. That makes him the best kiddo in the world in my eyes, regardless of stinky socks, the occasional bad attitude, and thinking the living room his a very large clothes hamper for whatever he decides to peel off before flopping on the couch just before bed time.  Being an average boy, he lets me know he needs new stuff way past the expiry date of said stuff. His batting gloves look like the lollipop guild blew a hole in them.  Only after throwing the gloves out and getting blisters did he decide to tell me he might need a new pair. Since he's played so hard all year, I decided to take him for some new gloves before he competed in the last tournament of the year for the provincial championship. 

Off we went to the local sporting goods store.  This was going to be a guerrilla raid on the batting glove section. A simple in and out attack on the target item. We made a bee line for the baseball section. I spotted the gloves.  "Ok, honey," I said, "Here you go.  Which ones would you like?".  "Mom," my son said as he rolled his eyes heavenward, "these are girls gloves. Geez." "Oh. Well where are the boys gloves." I asked, looking around, not seeing any other batting gloves in the area. "Mom, I'm in a men's large glove. Geeeeeeez." my angelic son said, pointing in the direction of a very tall display of men's batting gloves that looked alarmingly like part of a spiderman costume.

Ok, so we were already taking slightly longer than I had hoped. I had some groceries in the car that I wanted to get home and into the fridge as soon as possible. Alright, there we were in front of the men's batting gloves. My son tried on this pair of spidy gloves, and gave that sound that mother's around the world know as, "I just have to have this".  His big brown baby boy eyes looked into my big blue mommy eyes just like the day he was born and he said, "Oooooh. These feel so good. They're not like my other ones. These ones are really nice." SOLD.

After a conversation with a male friend of mine, I decided to venture where no mother should in conversation with her son.  "Honey, how does your jock fit?", I said nonchalantly.  "Good." was my son's response. "Does it slide around or pinch anywhere, " I asked, just trying to make sure he was comfortable out there on the field.  "MOM! It's fine!" he said, looking around to make sure no one was within earshot.  I, by the sheer grace of God, just happened to walk by the jock display on the end of one of the rows.  I picked a package off the rack, and turned it over in my hands inquisitively. I had never had to wear one of these things. I had no idea what I was looking at, but I was sure this gel-grip, "Shock Doctor" brand thingy looked a heck of a lot more comfortable than the giant plastic cup he was currently sporting. Drill a few holes in that thing, and I could strain vegetables in it.

Anyway, my curiosity and silence encouraged some interest from Mr. Mommy's boy, and he snatched it out of my hands. "Hmm. This looks like it might be more comfortable," he said. That was my queue.  Just like Houdini, I had that jock out and the waistband of the strap held up to my son's waist. "Mom!!!! MOM!!! You don't do that!!!", my son hissed at me while he did the fighter-pilot-split-second-chick-check to make sure no one, including the great almighty had seen me hold a jock strap up to his body for sizing.  He snatched it like he was naked and our eyes locked.  "Look. You're my one chance at having grandkids, and I don't want those things being knocked around, so stand still and let me make sure the waistband fits properly", I said, never letting go of the jockstrap or losing eye contact. We remained frozen like that for what seemed like hours until finally my son surrendered.  He knew if he wanted the better fitting fancy gel-jock that he'd have to compromise.  Let's just say I had to do some creative size matching to get a teen jock and  men's waist size. Some poor man out there is going to go home with a giant banana hammock and an eensy-weensy teen waistband and I might stand a chance at becoming a grandma one day.

So, there we were, forty dollars down for the new gloves, and twenty bucks later for the "Shock Doctor". A well spent twenty dollars in my opinion.  Then there was the, "Oh look mom! Cleats are on sale!"....we've seen a two and a half size increase in the past year. A hundred and forty dollars later we left the store. One well turned out kid for baseball, and a mom with new runners picked out by her darling boy.

~"All the beauty of the world,
 'tis but skin deep."~


Ralph Venning

THE SKIN DOCTOR

The day after my son's successful baseball shopping expedition, we headed into the city for one of two rather anxiety inducing doctor's appointments.  Off we went to the dermatologists. As you can imagine my junior sidekick was thrilled to be wasting a couple of hours doing this instead of playing in the pool with is buddies.  "Bring a book," I quipped as I put my cell phone in my purse and double checked the address.  I didn't have to turn my head, I could almost sense the eye-rolling going on as he tied his shoes.

Off we went. Traffic was great. Parking was less great.  The reception staff even less great still. Anyway, I filled out the first page of my health history, and flipped to the second one which had a very large illustration of a face taking up over three quarters of the page. "Please point out areas of your appearance that you are dissatisfied with." the form read. What on earth?! Should I just circle the whole thing, or request a psychiatrist?  Was I supposed to be unhappy with my face, because up until that point, I was ok with it. Long ago I had come to the realization that not only would may face not make the cover of Vogue this century, but neither would my body. I looked again. The diagram was remarkably like the anatomical drawing on the back of an embalming form where the embalmer marks the procedure,except this was just a face. I looked around.  Was I in the right place? 

The sign just over the reception area read "Dermatology and Cosmetic blah, blah, blah......"oh for the love of pie! I was in some kind of cosmetic surgery office.  I was here to get some spots checked, not to be spot checked, or liposuctioned, or made to feel I needed a nip here and a couple of tucks there. Although.....now that I got to thinking about it, what would it matter if I took a look at the price lists? I mean just out of curiosity of course. Besides, I was early, and the gently cascading water wall was getting me pretty relaxed.

Before I could decide which parts of my body were the most evil, and negotiate the price list, I was ushered beyond the smoky glass door into  an examining room.  To my left, on the desk next to my chair was a book with a page opened to show before and after photos of skin pigmentation treatments. I couldn't help it. As grossed out as I get looking at weird skin afflictions (and trust me this was my one ooga-booga about embalming, ok,one of two ooga-booga's), I had to pick up the book and keep turning the pages.

So, I thanked God that I didn't have any weird skin colour blotches happening. That was good. I kept flipping. "Fat Reduction", was the next section. Ok, this I could relate to.  As I flipped the pages, there were photos of women's thighs, you know, the outside saddle-bag situation.  Then there were photos of women's butt sag in the back. Frankly, the before and after pictures didn't really make me think that the pain of the procedure would be worth it.  Although, I would be more likely, I decided, to have my butt fat removed than my outer thigh.  "Hair Removal" followed fat reduction.  Ok, ladies, let's face it, we all have that stray here or there we pluck and have vowed our girlfriends to plucking should we ever become disabled in such a way not to be able to.  I have never seen a man as hairy as they had in these photos. The hair on his back was long enough to brush, and the hair lines perfectly symmetrical on both sides.  It took me back to grade nine biology class when you learn about mitosis. Boy, whatever that dude paid to have the hair removed from his back was worth it. Poor man.  There was "Flaw Removal"....you go ahead and interpret that. I wanted to ask if that included transplanting a bad attitude as well because I had a special someone in mind if that was the case. 

The one that got me was the section labelled "Crepey Skin", which I, in my great academic wisdom read at first as "Creepy Skin". I was so weirded out by the title that I could barely work up the courage to turn to the photos.  Go ahead look up the word crepe...you get two definitions; the french breakfast pancake, or the material.  Ewwww.....I think I'd rather have skin like the pancake than a crepe skirt. ANYWAY...it was a section basically about having facelifts to alleviate the appearance of wrinkles. Just say wrinkles for goodness sake!  Ironically, the idea of lifting my skin, getting rid of my laugh lines and making my eyes look more lively appeals to me. But then again, I've worked really hard for this crepey skin.

Interesting. My first cosmetic surgery catalogue.  I was just finished flipping through the catalogue of procedures when my doctor walked in.  She was a soft spoken woman around....well, I couldn't even begin to guess her age based on the eerie transformations that I'd seen in the professional catalogue.  Off came my clothes and on went the gown. I wasn't there for nipping, tucking or crepey skin, I was there for some other medical based concerns.  In true form, I looked down and realized I had my underwear on backwards...yep, that's my style.

Standing, and trying to maintain some crumb of modesty, I held my gown against my awkward undies. "Hmmm...", Dr. Crepey Skin said  as she poked my torso. " I don't like the look of this here," she said looking up at me. I looked down over the crumpled up paper gown that I was holding to my chest, "What?", I said, looking down and not seeing anything. "Right here, can't you see it," she said, poking me again in the concerning spot. I tugged up the crumpled gown and looked again.  I then, very ceremoniously lifted and then squished my right breast into the paper gown so I could see what she was poking at. "Oh." I said, realizing I haven't seen the skin under my breasts since I hit a D cup back in grade 5. "I'm going to have to take that out and send it for testing," she said. "Just stretch out on the table there, and I'll do it right here."

After some needles in my stomach, some creative scalpel work, and cauterizing, the questionable piece of my skin was placed in a little bottle to be sent away for testing. G-ross.

On the table, she examined my face, and I pointed out a little bump that had creeped up in the past few months. It was ugly, and it bothered me. I was secretly hoping she'd take that off too.  "Oh well," she said in a mildly concerned tone, "we'll have to wait and see what the results of this biopsy is," casually motioning to the little bottle on the desk.  "Just take it off", I said to her, figuring I didn't want to have to face another trip to her office. "It's not covered by OHIP. Just one is," She said. Of course it would be the one on my abdomen that no one but her would ever see that was covered by OHIP.  "I'd have to charge you to take that one off," she said, handing me a conveniently nearby price list. And so began my experience with cosmetic surgery. 

So, as I gingerly move about my daily business with an open and very tender wound on my tummy, I look in the mirror and see my face free of whatever that bump was, and imagine that little piece of my skin in a bottle out there somewhere like a Hallowe'en novelty. Crepey.Creepy.

Dowsing for Tears

“I always knew looking back on my tears would bring me laughter,
but I never knew looking back on my laughter would make me cry.”
~ Cat Stevens~

If I could cry for us
I would Mark.
Squeezing out tears
wringing them like
gnarled knuckles
against tattered clothes

I would weep
like leaves
prostrating themselves
to the mercy
of the August sky

and I would cry
without trying
or holding back
vulnerable and exposed

to the ebb and flow
of whatever emotion
reigned, dowsing
a tempest of  sacrosanct tears
for you and for me

for the babies
we once were
prostrating myself
before this awesome
enigma of being human

First You Cry and then You Cut Your Hair

You cannot prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head,
but you can prevent them from building nests in your hair.
~ Chinese Proverb~

Anyone who knows women knows that one of the first things to go in the midst of any crisis is her hair. Today I got my hair cut. I mean cut.

Generally I'm a pretty content woman. Day to day, I get by, find joy in ordinary things, and  feel pretty good. When I'm sad, I'm the saddest person on the planet. I weep constantly. My eyes burn and I can't sleep.  I feel sick. When I'm around other people, I want to be alone, and when I'm alone I cry.  I had a pretty rough week last week, and after days of weeping and feeling awful, I made it to Friday. Not just any Friday. This is my holiday Friday. My kick-off-my-two-weeks-of-summer-holidays-Friday. Usually ante ceded in any emails by "Woo-hoo!".   Not this time. I came home and just wanted to crawl under a blanket until I disappeared.

Thanks to my adopted mom, I got through the weekend.  She bundled up my son and I and took us up north for some R&R, and she made me laugh. Oh my gawd she made me laugh. Thinking of her in her bathing suit, kayaking with a long-dead, giant (like huge/giant) northern pike sprawled across the bow with my son cheering her on from shore, makes me laugh just remembering it. It's one of those bright spots in the grey that makes me know I will feel better eventually.

Anyway, we looked at perky haircuts and agreed (as all women would) that a fresh, new haircut and colour would be just the thing to make me feel better. That, and a trip to MAC Cosmetics, and I thought that I would be on my way emotional recovery, or, at the very least, looking like I was cheery and competent. Ironic, because that's the polar opposite of what was driving me to get my outward appearance together.

So, this morning, before paying my colossal car repair bill from last week (special note here I do have a fantastic mechanic, it's just that my car is ready to retire), I thought I would go to my new hairdresser's, and get that perky little cut that would change my entire life.

My son was uber-patient today. He waited, quiet and still, while I explained to Helen the Hairdresser (no, really, that's her name), the kind of cut I wanted. It was a cute, just-below-the-chin-cut with long sassy bangs. I even brought a photo, and I wanted to leave the place with my dull hair looking cheery and playful - just like the picture. 

I was so happy as I tipped my head back, and Helen began to scrub my hair. Oh yah. Ooh yah. Feels great Helen. Wash that sad right outta my hair girl!  She combed and cut and combed and trimmed. I was going to be gorgeous. Gorgeous! I suppose it might be a good time to note here that Helen is Chinese.  I am not.  I am more the European, tall, broad shouldered kind of gal.  If you transplanted my hair to Helen's head, she would look like a freak, and if you took her cute square bob and planted it on my head, I would look like a weirdo. Kinda like Emo Philips if you will. So, there I was under the black plastic cape with a towel wrapped around my neck, watching Helen work her magic on my mane. Well, I wasn't really watching because I can't see without my glasses on.  I had set them aside, along with my earrings so there were no impediments to Helen's magic-mane-making. 

Helen took the big round brush that I'm such a fan of and applied it and the hair dryer to my head like a pro. She twirled and curled. I closed my eyes and let her work away. My scalp was scritchy clean and my hair was going to look cute. It seemed a little short, but it always does when it's wet doesn't it?  Helen began her final touches on my hair, and when I opened my eyes and she was setting the hair dryer aside, I almost burst out in tears. Helen had taken that square, Chinese bob and placed it on my head!!! A blonde one!!! I looked worse than weird. I looked like a dork!

If you've ever watched the Johnny Depp version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and are familiar with the bubble gum blowing Violet Beauregarde, you'll be familiar with what I was looking at in the mirror. Blue eyes round and huge in horror with a bob that curled just about two inches above the level of my chin. This did NOT look like the picture. This did NOT resemble the perky haircut that my adopted mom and I gave the nod to this weekend as the one that would cheer me up. What the heck?! Was it possible that I could actually feel worse?

Trying not to cry and yell, I pointed again to the picture that I had hoped would be a road map to my happy place. "I want it to look like this Helen". Helen glanced at the photo and gestured casually with her comb, " It's square", she said as she touched the bottom of my dorky looking hair cut. "Yes, I know it's square Helen. I was hoping for more round."  Round? I would never have described the perky-cute cut as round, but I knew that it sure as heck wasn't square."Oh. Ok." She said, and started cutting again.

Shorter. My dorky square, just-above-the-chin-bob was getting shorter. "Um. Maybe try some layers Helen." Clearly irritated Helen continued to cut with more abrupt gestures. "There", she said, "You have layers. Shake your head. You see" (yes, a statement, not a question here). I shook my head, and decided to cut my losses. I got out of the chair and took my photo with me.  I figured that I'd try a new hairdresser when my hair grew back. Helen tried really hard, but my hair was a flipping disaster. I was ticked off. Beyond ticked off.

I drove the twenty minutes home and, as most women do right after a hair cut, I re-styled my hair. My son was silent. He, having learned diplomacy as the child of a hot-blooded, never-one-to-keep-her-opinion-to-herself, single mother, kept quiet and waited patiently.  When I had finished with my haircut, I touched up my lipstick, and I didnt' feel like such a dork anymore. My very caring son said, "Wow Mom, that looks really good. It makes you look younger." I gave him a squeeze and said thank you. I wanted to hug him and tell him what a great kid he is, that he makes me happy beyond happy, and he's the light in my days, but that's not cool when you're 11. A shoulder squeeze is. So that's what I did.

You know, after I styled it myself, the cut turned out to be ok after all. It is cute, and it is perky, and I look 100% more happy than I feel inside right now.

Tonight I'm colouring my own hair. Let's hope that works out.

Vicarious Living

Photo by:
~Andrea Dowling - Frappier~

What would we do without our girlfriends? Likely be more like those 1940's housewives who seduced the liquor cabinet on a regular basis and made love to Mother's Little Helper every afternoon around 2. After all girls, without each other, wouldn't you need a little afternoon delight on a daily basis?

Two of my very close girlfriends are ready to give birth to their second child.  I've had teary calls, laughs, emails, and loved every second of each one.  

All of my girlfriends know that as each minute passes I become more and more resigned to the fact that I will not have any more children.  My son is cursed to be doted on by a mother of one who always wanted four.  I would tell you to imagine him living at home at 45, having his dinner cooked and bath drawn by mummy, except my girlfriends would never let that happen.  I will usher them into motherhood with reassurances and bad jokes, as they surely will usher me through my mid-life crisis realizing I will not likely have the kind of family I always wanted.  After all, they will be telling me about midnight feedings, dirty diapers and lack of sleep as I head into the nail-biting teenage years. They will be sending these children off to their first full days of school as I wave good-bye to my son entering the annals of higher education ( I hope ). 

All of this long distance through email, telephone calls, hallmark cards that say exactly what we were thinking anyway, and lots and lots of laughter, anger and tears.

Today, smack dab in the middle of a teary gynaecological crisis, one of my best friends emailed me this beautiful photo of her pregnant belly. About four years ago, in the middle of one of my famous diatribes about how-your-man-should-be-treating-you, she stopped me and said, "You know what McFalls. I'm not listening to you this time. I like this guy, and I don't want to end up old and single like you."  I closed my eyes and said a little prayer that "this guy" would treat her well and be "the one".  I imagine you're expecting me to say that, "'cause if he doesn't he's going to have to answer to me", but what really would happen is a long distance trip, lots of wine, tissue, high heels and squealing laughter.....and then months of weepy, giggly follow-up girlfriend crisis calls.

What did I know? He did turn out to be the one.  When he proposed, she called me and said, "Oh. My. Gawd McFalls, he just asked me to marry him."  I said, "Oh. My. Gawd Monroe, what did you say?!" If she would have been within arms length, I would have slapped her when she breathlessly answered, "I didn't say anything I came in here to call you. What should I do?"  Well, I flew to Ottawa in April, and was very proud to be the Maid-of-Questionable-Honour at her wedding. In honour of the nuptuals I sipped a bottle of champagne in the hotel room tub after I slipped out of my Maid-of-Questionable-Honour's dress. After my solitary toast to the new bride and groom I headed out to play the new Olympic spectator sport, girl pool. I couldn't have been happier for her.

"This guy" turned out to be OK as we say in girldom.  She stuck with him (not for want of teary, angry, foul-trucker-mouthed, calls to me late at night about his never ending divorce and child custody issues).  She put up with a lot. I wish I could say that he was blessed with an angel in this friend of mine.  I'm prouder and happier to say that she stood her ground, had her say, and stood up for herself throughout all of this.  I did do a tiny bit of mediating which remains to this day unknown to her.  After all, if I had a little sister, she would be it, and I didn't want her old and single like me.  Besides, between the two of us, as crazy as it sounded, and despite all that we'd been through, we both wished with all of our hearts for another chance at a family.

We share things that we just can't talk about with anyone else.  We understand each other professionally ( where else can you let it all out about working in the funeral business, the agony, the humour, the incredible amount of emotional strength you need some days), we both have single-parented for over a decade, and both know what it's like to live on a budget that would challenge the definition of poverty of any government known to this country.  Pride does not exist in our friendship. Sincerity and love, and sometimes tough love - ok, a lot of the time tough love proliferates in our relationship.

Today as I blotted tears from my eyes with the rough work quality tissues, I got an email from her. Pictures of her big-fat-healthy-baby-belly. My tears changed from ones of self-pity to joy instantly.  Those little hands and the little hands waiting to be born are a result of years of hard work between two people who, despite the circumstances and the odds, love one another. They love each other more than the stress of two sets of children, more than the stress at work, more than the stress of single parenting, of not seeing your children for months on end, of not-yet-officially-ex, and ex-spouses and more than the stress of paying the bills.

That belly, and all of the insecurity, fear, love and anxiety that created it out of love will bond these two families together as one forever. Her only son now has two step brothers and now this baby will weave a blood line thread securing them all as family.

I may mourn my own failure to have a big family of my own, but I rejoice in my friend's success because I love her.  I pray that baby and mom make the tail end of this journey safely, and that the love between husband and wife is strong enough to weather the storms of parenthood....more than the squabbles between the kids, more than the midnight feedings, more than the grapefruit and bubblegum flushed down the toilet, more than the poopy pants and teething, more than paying the bills, more than.........

Lover

~A true lover always feels in debt
to the one he loves.~
Ralph W. Sockman

there is a sea between his shoulder blades

above, his thoughts an echoing endless sky

like star gazing, up and eons away

twinkling, bursting and fading in the distance

bits of beauty unable to be bound

his body; the solid earth

ground to cling to when the sky opens

and the earth shakes

bound to the land

thrown to the sea