You Don't Say?

“Count no woman wise, until thou
 hast received a letter from her hand;
but love none thou hast not seen
face to face, for she who is
 not foolish on paper is worth knowing”


~Frank Gelett Burgess~

I love writing. Even more than writing, I love receiving written notes. There's nothing better than opening the mailbox to find a letter handwritten from my Newfie friend Jan.  When you're in love, there's nothing better than a card or note from that special someone pouring out their heart to you.  When you're in a slump, it's such a pick me up to get a crazy "thinking of you" card from your wackiest and most faithful of pals.

Too often we don't thank our friends enough, or people in our circle of acquaintance who go out of their way to make life more civilized. I'm trying to get better at that.  I have yet to write a very important thank you to my gal-pal Vicki who helped me move some large items in the dark of night thanks to her hubby's truck that was borrowed under the strict condition that it would not be used to move anything. Thank you Vicki. Hallmark thank you smut to be mailed .....soon?

Have you ever written a "love letter", or more accurately, a letter to your lover? That's a serious sitting down to write something really important. These are the letters of the wishes of our heart. Have you ever felt like you need to clarify something you said, or explain the essence of your very self? Has it ever been something that you just so badly want someone else to understand that when you read the sentiment back to yourself,  you hit the delete button, or scribble out the words, or just shred the paper, because you  can't put yourself out there? I mean, we've all heard the quotes about love and madness.

I've done that a few times - crumpling the paper, or hitting the delete button.  Just today in fact. I began an email, typed it all up, got to the part that I really, really needed to say, froze completely, and deleted the whole darn thing.

Years ago I (likely in an inebriated state) I wrote a veritable tome to someone who turned out not to be the love of my life.  One of my best friends read it and in the most gentle way possible said, "McDish are you nuts?! If you send that I'll kill you".  So I didn't.  That may have been the only wise thing she's said since I met her almost ten years ago. That, and, "Get your purse and run!"...but that's another story.

About a month ago I came across the very  letter my friend told me to toss. I had written it  in one of my many notebooks, and I was so relieved that I took her advice.  I would never want that letter in anyone else's  hands but my own now. Reading it over, I realized how much I've matured, and how much more I like "me" now.

Everything I said in that letter shouldn't have needed to be said.  In intimate relationships, the really important stuff should just flow.  We should just know what someone else wants or needs. Or should we?  I really don't know. By this stage in life, we've all been knocked around a bit, and have a few battle scars to prove it. Making yourself emotionally vulnerable is a huge risk.

Two of my older and much wiser friends have given me two good pieces of advice;

1)     A relationship only changes when a woman decides it needs to be changed.

2)     Men  really  just want to please us, they just don't know how.

It's the repetition of the same issues that wear a relationship down.  When needs are expressed and ignored, communication just seems redundant. It's not quite as simple as wining and dining us and buying sparkly jewelry.  Wouldn't that be simple. When I talk to my friends (both male and female) in their time of relationship frustration and need, the same themes repeat themselves: time, communication, respect. 

How do we negotiate our time? How do we communicate, at what frequency, about what???  Respect is the biggie...respect me enough to spend time with me, respect me enough to communicate openly and honestly, respect me enough to make me feel welcome without ghosts of relationships past hanging around like bad art. That fine balance of defining your space, both domestically and socially, individually and  as a couple, lies in navigating the elements of what the other partner values the most.

So, today I deleted a great pouring out of my heart. Older and wiser? Older and cynical? Maybe just older.

I wonder though, what would happen if we all chose to strip ego-bare, and vulnerable in our most intimate relationships? Would we all soften up and evolve into more authentic relationships? What would you say?

Meet Clint

"The only difference between
a cult and religion
is the amount of real estate they own"

~Frank Zappa~

Meet Clint, your friendly neighbourhood devout Christian, marijuana addicted, real estate agent....

The house was tidy.  Thank goodness. Some home owners didn't take enough care preparing their homes for sale, which made his job much more difficult. Clint looked at his watch impulsively as he rushed to open the patio doors, reaching into his left pocket for his lighter.  From his right pocket he drew a very small joint, almost finished, but enough to get him through this showing.

In the three o'clock shadow of the October sun, he lit his smoke and inhaled deeply, checking hurriedly over his shoulder.  Yes, the fence was high enough, surely any nosey neighbours  in this little bedroom town would think he was just smoking a a cigarette.

It had been over two weeks since he closed a sale.  He needed this .  The church was expecting his annual donation for their Thanksgiving food drive.  How could he, as one of the elders, let the congregation down?

Checking his watch again, Clint took a long, last drag of his cigarette, madly waving the smoke away from his head as if swatting at flies.

His addiction sated for the moment, Clint relaxed into his new state of mind. "Gosh those chrysanthemums are wild colours," he thought to himself, "God is good man. God is good."

Satisfied that the breeze had made it's baptismal offering by blowing away the smell of his inhaled afternoon delight, Clint sauntered back into the kitchen, opened the fridge and stared blankly at the contents.  The fridge stared back.

"Ah, thank-you Jesus - they have cake," Clint thought as he reached into the back of the fridge and pulled out, what was a  a less than a fresh dessert leftover.  He peeled back the plastic wrap which clung to a top layer of the cake, picked up the entire piece, and shoved it into his mouth all at once, "Mmm...." He crumpled up the plastic wrap and pressed it down on the empty plate, shoving it all back behind bottles of who knows what.  Clint hung onto the door and continued to stare into the refrigerator.

Basking in the richness of the cake, Clint was alarmed by a sudden loud knock at the door, followed a few seconds later by another.

His watch said 3:45pm. "Cheese and Rice!", he was running late.  They were supposed to be here half an hour ago, they being one Livinia Stone and her daughter Bridgette, prospective buyers.  Clint scrambled to collect himself, checked his lapels for any lingering aroma and flung the front door open with a wide grin on his face.

"Mrs. Stone? " he asked.

"Ms.", Livinia replied as she stopped into the foyer, "This is my daughter Bridgette," she purred as she smiled up into Clint's cloudy eyes.

Keep Summer Simple Silly

And there's that one particular harbour
Sheltered from the wind
Where the children play on the shore each day
And all are safe within
Most mysterious calling harbour
So far but yet so near
I can see the day when my hair's full gray
And I finally disappear.

~Jimmy Buffett~

I don't know about you, but when I was a kid, summer was really simple.  Days ran into weeks, running barefoot between the beach and the water sprinkler in the yard. My wardrobe consisted of a bathing suit and baby doll jammies and Noxema  for the occasional sunburn.  Footwear? Simple; Flip flops and my Bionic-Woman running shoes. I can't recall whether I wore socks between June and September at all. I remember being dumped in a tub to scrub up with Ivory soap and drifting off to sleep with that smell on my clean, sun kissed skin.

I grew up in a small town, and had all of the freedom afforded of such an environment. Your conscience wasn't imposed, it was bred into you like your hair colour and your heart beat. If you weren't blood-related to someone in the little town, they surely knew your dad or grandpa.  Nobody but nobody would hesitate to let them know of any indiscretion you might hope to conceal.

I remember one summer day, my cousin and I thought that we should hold what I like to refer to now as, "Hallowe'en" in July. We scratched out a couple of Hallowe'en masks from the upstairs storage closet, grabbed two grocery bags, and were out the door. We only made it to three houses. Behind door number three was an old lady who hated Hallowe'en so much in October that she gave out pennies and peanuts instead of yummy-sugary treats. She sat us down in her kitchen while she called my mother. That was the abrupt end of what could have been a terrific summer tradition.  Mom let us eat the two cookies that the other nice old ladies dropped in our July trick-or-treat bags, after we went back and apologized for being so bold, of course.

Besides the Hallowe'en in July cookies, food was simple. Mom would dish up cereal or eggs with toast "fingers" most mornings, and we would be out the door as fast as our barefoot legs would carry us.  Kool Aid  could have sold stock in our town, and we routinely melted chocolate covered graham wafers in the sun on the sidewalk. We ate them when the chocolate was soft and melted, shaking away the ants and sidewalk debris the best we could. Do you remember the Tupperware iced pop molds? Mmm, there was a recipe that used Jello and Kool Aid, and I loved it!

At some point during our daily adventures,we made our way through the back yards of grandparents, aunts and uncles. That's where we would snack. Maybe we were hungry, maybe we were just kids looking for a bit of mischief, but our snacks were pilfered from neighbourhood gardens. Tomatoes were always best from my grandma's garden patch behind the woodworking shop. My aunt's carrots were the very best, but she'd get upset when we ran the garden hose out to rinse off the crunchy yummies. She used to yell out the window to, "Shut that hose OFF!".

Raspberries and pears. Mmmmm!!!  They were kinda fun to get. My neighbour Pete was old. Like antique-old, born in the 1800's old. But he was nice. He was like a big kid  and when we wanted pears or raspberries, he used to just smile at us as we made our way through his weedy berry bushes and dodged bees to get the pears.

Lunch. I don't remember many lunches. I'm sure we had them, likely sandwiches and mac and cheese. Lunch would be around the time that Mr. Dressup came on, followed by the, "News at Noon". At 1pm, most of the ladies in town would be transfixed by Days of Our Lives, and as long as we didn't interrupt, we were free to play in the yard, down the street, or at the beach. That's also when we did a lot of chocolate wafer melting on the sidewalk and sucking the nectar out of pink clover.

At the end of the day, everyone sat down for dinner with their family. When I grew up, I thought my mother was the BEST cook in the whole world. Summer menus were different than winter menus. During the winter  it was usually some kind of roasted meat, potatoes and veggies from a can. I think this was the quintessential rural Canadian meal. Summer was different. Potatoes and meat were cooked in the back yard on the big brick BBQ, and mom had lots of cold, fresh salads ready. Food was simple and delicious.  Dessert was often whatever fruit was in season with vanilla ice cream or cake.

Corn on the cob.  Grilled chicken, steak, fish, and sausage from the butcher shop. Fresh strawberries, , lettuce, peppers and green onions from the garden and cucumber picked fresh and tossed in some vinegar with salt and pepper. We had pies made with peaches, elderberries, currants, apples and cherries from our yard or our neighbour's.

We had such an abundance of fresh food that we spent hours and hours in August putting up tomatoes, beets, chili sauce, jams, peaches, pears, corn, beans.....and in the winter we would eat them, and would remember the work we put into preserving our food.

Summer was simple. Simple because we were kids. So this summer, the best gift I can give my kid is to keep it simple. Simple, fresh food, lots of time outside in the pool and beside the lake. Simple dinners. Simple ball games. Simple late nights watching the thunderstorms roll in. Simple, simple, simple.

Chicks Shouldn't BBQ

"A man can be short and dumpy and getting bald,
but if he has fire, women like him."
~Mae West~

Women love looking after their man. You can tell how great a man is to his partner by how well he's taken care of. When my friends and I are in relationship bliss with our significant others, we cook for them, buy them little gifties, let them have all the man-cave time they want and think it's cute, sexy even. When a man looks after his woman, she gives it back in multiples. Pun absolutely intended.

Cooking becomes more than making sure he eats, it's a pleasure watching him enjoy his food. His nodding off while lounging at home in the evening is so sweet. Watching him help your kiddo with their homework or going outside to play catch melts your heart. When a man is gentle with his woman, everything is bliss.

...and then there's reality...

I think that's why we have raw meat and flames.   When a man's manliness gets in the way of relating - he doesn't listen, he's insensitive or his head is generally hidden up his butt, there's always the BBQ. You know what I'm talking about when I say "man-dumb" don't you ladies? I mean MAN DUMB. As in, you could tell him in eight bazillion ways about how you feel and he still wouldn't get it and doesn't seem to care to get it- that's MAN DUMB. Not complimenting you in your new outfit that was clearly bought for a special night out with him - MAN DUMB. Pointing out how you could have done everything better - cut your hair, baked cookies, spoken to your boss - and then get defensive saying he's just trying to help - that's MAN DUMB.

We don't want you to fix things boys, we want you to wrap your big strapping arms around us and say it's ok. We want you, as well groomed and smelling pretty as you may be, to be our Manosaurusrex. Anything else at the pinnacle of girl-crisis is MAN-DUMB.  We have our girlfriends for strategy. That's who we commune with in the war-room of life. We need you for moral support and unconditional adoration.

I once had a man tell me that he adored me. Only now do I realize how very sweet that was. At the time I thought it was MAN DUMB for not saying I love you. I get it now. Very sweet.  I also had a man call me a bleeping c word. I think secretly he was really in love with me too. How could he not be, what with all of my feminine charm and grace?

So, meat and flames....what gives? Well, I think when the battle of the sexes has reached a long, cool, stalemate, the last bastion of hope is the grill. There's something very sexy, primitive even about a man feeding a woman. It's like he went out and slayed the beast and is protecting his woman.  Sorta. Maybe that's just when we're delusional post-period, or when we're absolutely desperate to justify spending time with someone who seems like an an alien from another planet? Someone who apparently either can't hear, read non-verbal cues, or appreciate that he's in a relationship with a woman, not his mother?

It doesn't matter how MAN DUMB your man has been.  If you see him out there, grilling, over a red-hot flame - you can't help but be turned on a little bit. I mean, can you?  Just think of it, Mr. Sexy-I've-worked-hard-all-day-but-I'm-still-takin'-care-of-my-baby.....give him a break ladies.

So, Chicks Shouldn't BBQ. We should meditate on the meat, er, I mean testosterone standing out there on the deck, and smile knowing what we get for dessert. After all ladies, we all know that summer is the best time for shakin' up the bacon that the Manosaurusrex brought home.

Have BBQ - auditioning for guest chefs...

How I'm Going to Spend My Summer Vacation Dammit

"Vacation is what you take when you can't take
what you've been taking any longer."
~Unknown~

In a state of Yo. As in the definition used by the Smothers Brothers. In a state of  relaxed bliss, whether it be camping in the great Canadian outdoors, paddling, concert-going, putting up preserves, or, as I have been earnestly practicing; sitting on my patio chair reading smut.

Just so you know, smut is modular. You can pack it up and take it anywhere. Some of the smut I purchased this weekend includes; magazines - Woman's World (oh yah baby!!! In honor of great-granny who used to clip the Ziggy cartoons and pin them to her cork board as motivation), The Rolling Stone (because a girl has to keep up with what's going on), Self ('cause it motivates me to move myself in this state of Yo), Books - Driftwood Cottage (the essence of the quintessential summer chick-novel), The Lincoln Lawyer (because I'm too happy here on my patio to get to the discount theatre showing), News - The Globe and Mail (just 'cause that's what I do). I'm fully loaded with smut for a summer of Yo.

My fridge is stocked with my favourite beer, and a tiny variety of other bottled alcoholic beverages. I even have a vintage 2009 Bacardi Breezer floating around in there. Wine suits me fine, but once in a while I like a cold summery drink - if only to remind myself to stick to wine and beer, and the odd cocktail produced in the dead of winter by gracious hosts conjuring Caribbean shores. We have frozen fruit pops, frozen yogurt, and yes, we have ice cubes (something I'm told chicks are famous for not having)! Ahhh, summer time!

The past two summers have passed with a pathetic shortage of outdoor-enjoy-every-bit-of-sunshine-that-you-possibly-can due to an acquiescence of leadership in relationship on my part. In other words, I bowed to the social preferences of, shall I say, at least one acquaintance who desperately needs to become familiar with the colloquial, "shit or get off the pot"-ism.

I am astounded that adults of my generation think you are either a responsible parent/adult/housekeeper OR you get outside and have fun. Sometimes it's just about letting the outside in. Feeling the breeze blow through the windows, hearing the neighbour kids giggle and play. Enjoying an after dinner walk, taking in the waterbirds and flora that populate our little lake. There is a balance to this being responsible and enjoying life, and I think, at least when it comes to summertime, that I've perfected it.  I am determined his will be a grand summer in the land of Yo (dammit!).

This year I plan to make up for my two summers of hibernating.  My legs, if you were unlucky enough to glimpse them are still long and shapely, but an ungodly shade of white that I've only seen in the morgue and at very special June-church-strawberry socials between the hem of walking shorts and the tops of knee socks. Not sexy. Although one gentleman caller that I knew in a previous life liked to refer to that shade as "China Doll" white. Hey, whatever works.

This is the summer of McDishy and Monkey Lips in land the Yo.  My neighbours have been subjected to the awe inspiring sight of me in tunics and stretchy capris, beer and wasabi peas at hand as I write you these blogs, or pen my not-so-tongue-in-cheek poetry.  I think I have gained a reputation in the neighbourhood as the very intelligent crazy lady who loves kids and trots off some evenings in tottery heels, not to be seen for days. I'm a bit of an enigma, but I'm fun.

You might be wondering about summer romance. Well, I've never given up on my dream of a great man, a loving home, and kids driving us clinically mad on a daily basis. As you do know, I have given up men who have briefly starred in the dream. In other words, I'm just going to hang out and see what happens.  There is an article in my new Elle magazine that argues the benefits of summer flings. I'm pretty sure a fling is not on the map of Yo this year. I think I'm pretty content with my stretchy pants, tunics, wasabi-peas, beer and smut. I'm pretty sure Mr. Romance-Renaissance-Hot-Pants is not going to hunt me down in the backyard, campground or writing class. Yep, like I said, I'm just going to hang out and see what happens.

Even though summer just officially started, I feel like I've actually had a summer.  I've enjoyed my new-used BBQ, my little planters, my new muskoka chairs and patio lanterns. I've already had one weekend packed full of outdoor baseball games (courtesy of my kiddo), and dragon boat racing. Friday night we took our blankets and met friends for the Aretha Franklin concert downtown. Boy can that girl sing!!! It was packed, and somewhere in the crowd we lost our friend Karen, sacrificed to the I'm-going-in-search-of-something-to-drink-gods.

I'm looking forward to our planned visit up north with Carrie, Sandy, Evan, little Mr. X, and Andrea's brood, followed by two days of mom-son-white-water-rafting bonding time.  I'm wondering how my son  will feel bonding with my A5-35'ed bones in a tent? I have time booked off  I'm hoping to use for spur of the moment camping trips and gourmet smore and banana boat making expeditions. Every parent owes it to their children to teach them how to make smores, pitch a tent, and pee in the woods. You know, just in case you get lost with a bag of marshmallows.

Jimmy Buffett is coming to town which means Toronto Parrotheads will host  pre-concert and tailgate parties.  Jimmy is summer. Of course, it wouldn't be summer in the city if you weren't booked into something Mirvish-ish, and we are.

August will come and I'll be happy to get to the farm to buy tomatoes and beets and veggies so I can make preserves. This year I may even make my red pepper jelly, which is yummy during the winter time, snugged up with a bottle or two of wine. Glass, I meant glass or two of wine.

Just this afternoon I made kinda-sorta plans with a friend to get-up-and-out-early-walking before work. He's a good sport, lives close enough to motivate me to move, and isn't afraid to see me un-make-uped or un-hair-did. Besides if we start this little routine together, I can tell everyone I'm "seeing a younger man"! I'm hoping he forgets our conversation and I can lay my aching bones in bed with the snooze alarm until 6:30am tomorrow morning.

My evening walking routine has been salvaged and is in full swing. I'm registered for yogalates and writing classes. I write this eating marshmallow bananas and sighing that there is actually no latte involved in the yogalates. Besides that, summer looks pretty darn good from this angle. But what about rainy Sundays? Well, I still have a date with the summer fling at the AGO, and need to absolutely find myself in the audience at Stratford for Camelot.

Even now, I have chicken on the BBQ, and homemade potato salad cooling in the fridge.  My summery-island-tunes are playing and Leonard the cat is stretched out by the screen door listening to the birds. Kitty Wells is perched in her cage on the grass having a bird bath. I have my ever-ready bottle of bubbly chilling ready to add some yummy blueberry bliss. Come on over, sit down, relax. Do a little summer time dreaming with me.

Ai Weiwei all the way home



Say to yourself, ‘I’m here on purpose,
I can accomplish anything I desire,
and I do it by being in harmony
with the all-pervading creative force in the universe.

~Wayne Dyer~

“I’m okay, I’m out, I’m fine now,” he said quietly."  Was the crux of the report in the Globe and Mail this week following news of the release of Ai Weiwei.  What more could he say besides that?

After all, he has been released on bail after 10 weeks of being detained at an undisclosed location on the condition that he not speak of the who's, what's, where's, when's, why's and how's of his kidnapping. There was some talk of unpaid taxes, but we all know how easy it is for any  government to doctor tax records -or anything else for that matter- when looking for justification to silence dissidents.

In Our Creative Nests, I use Ai Weiwei as an example of how the human spirit often flourishes under pressure. What shall I say of him now? Described as, "only a distant echo of his usually bombastic self", can we assume that his creative spirit has succumbed to his oppressors during the mystery of his abduction? We can assume that he's damn glad to be home, and whatever the heck the giant "THEY" did to him, or threatened or tortured him with has been a great tonic for subduing the creative spirit. But I rather like to think of it as a sleeping pill for the creative animal that is curled up and healing now. May we see that animal stretch and rise again with care, and give great love and support for Ai Weiwei as he becomes comfortable with his recently silenced voice again.

So why am I writing to you about this? Why bother reporting the release of a silenced creative powerhouse?  I'm writing to ask who you think is responsible for speaking out against oppression? Is it the job of  courageous artists like Ai Weiwei? Or is it the sole task of  women like Rumana Monzur who was just viciously attacked and blinded by her husband? He gouged her eyes out and bit off half of her nose because she dared to be successful. Or maybe speaking up about oppression and violations of human rights and freedoms is the job of marginalized gay teens or movie stars confessing their addictions?

Does this all sound a bit absurd? Does it seem like perhaps, just maybe, just an eensy weensy teensy bit,  that we sit back in our Adirondack chairs and kinda take for granted that the rest of the world is just able to hang out on the weekends and relax?  Perhaps all of those people in Syria and Libya and Tunisia get a break from the hell they've been enduring on the weekends and get together for pool parties and community yard sales? You know, just to "get away from it all".
We owe it to ourselves and the rest of the world to get a little more involved with what's going on. We owe it to ourselves and the rest of the world to be more discerning in our consumerism and politics.  Even if it simply starts at home. Not just watching the news, but questioning it.  What do you mean the Canadian government, when asked for documentation about whether our soldiers knowingly handed over Afghan prisoners to torture, blacked out much of the information? How come? Why? If this happened, how did it affect our soldiers who were ordered to carry out these actions?

We are blessed to live where we do. Blessed with our freedom and cursed with complacent apathy. We have come to expect our freedom, soothed by the hand of "THEY", and guided without our knowing into a sugared silence. It's time to sit up and pay attention.

As I was hinting at in Our Creative Nests, we owe it to ourselves to let our creative self out of the stall and run for it's life.  Write a letter, paint like it's your last chance, sing, dance, sculpt, let your humanity be exalted so the rest of the world might be freed.

Toddlers and Other Annoying People

"When the toddler does something
 and there are consequences for his action
 civilization begins."
~Alicia Lieberman~ 

Every day I look forward to correspondence from my incredibly wise, hilarious and gorgeous cousin. We check in with one another, reflect on experiences, current events, spirituality and creativity. It's cool if we laugh or if we cry. I think we're kindred spirits. You might think we're a little bit nuts. That's ok. I think we're cool with that, right cousin?

My cousin, a few years younger than I am  is single with no children. He has yet to enter into the secret brotherhood of fathers club.  Today, while my head was wrapped in foils at the salon, I received the very best email of my week thus far.

Today my cousin, (let's give him a false name here, just for the sake of not over-using the phrase, "my cousin"-let's call him Daniel), told me about his afternoon at a coffee shop.  He was enjoying his time out, but somewhat overwhelmed by the people around him. No, he's not anti-social, quite the opposite.

Saturday or Sunday mornings I enjoy my own special time at my own special coffee spot with my very own special copy of the Globe and Mail. I totally get what Daniel was saying about being ambivalent in the presence of the activity and noise of other people. During my weekend newspaper reading and coffee drinking session, I enjoy being surrounded by other people. I enjoy being surrounded by other people that is, if they behave in a way that I find unobtrusive. This means no talking too loudly, sitting too closely, and absolutely no requests to move a chair or heaven-forbid-I-have-to-get-out-the-touch-my-newspaper-and-die-look, ask to read a section of my paper.  I like my newspaper in order. I like to think that no one else's  grubby paws have oiled up the places my hands will touch. Ooga booga.

I like to eavesdrop on conversations if I choose, but not be forced to hear one because the volume is inappropriate. I like to nod or say a quick, "good morning" to whomever I sit next to.  I don't like feeling obligated to hear about what someone is reading, being asked what I'm reading, or if I'm enjoying the weather. I like the idea that we can gather in a public space without being obnoxious or be forced to interact. Interaction optional. Coffee, news, intellectual thought without interruption welcome. Ahhh....life ain't easy being an idealist.

Relating completely to to the conundrum of being around people but not having to engage with them, I was happy to be sitting in the salon with my tinfoil baking blond streaks broiling on my head, blissfully alone.  I laughed when I read his question; why on earth would people bring their toddlers to a Starbucks?!

Instantly my memory took me back to my own experience of "mom with toddler" at Starbucks. I remembered my son at that age, being dragged along Saturday morning for my morning coffee.  One of my friends from a previous life came to mind - a very sweet man who very generously offered an afternoon of babysitting when I was in a pinch for child care. He picked my wide-eyed kindergarten aged son up at school, and promptly took him to Starbucks.  My son, thinking the attention combined with a public outing was fabulous, took advantage of a then-not-yet-father, and ordered an orange flavoured soda just before lunch time.

Guess what happened next? Yep. You got it. My little angel spilled his orange soda.  My friend bought him another one, and decided against the toddler-in-public adventure and brought him home (hopped up on sugar). This same friend was kind enough to keep us company on a walk one evening.  Again we ended up at Starbucks. That was about a year before the soda incident, diapers and a spilled hot chocolate may have been involved, but I'm a bit foggy on the details. It could be the ammonia residue from my visit to the salon. I do know that my son's behaviour was akin to that of a baby raccoon, hiding under tables and swinging on the chair legs.

The short answer to why people take their children to Starbucks Daniel, is that being stuck at home with miniature, intellectually impaired people with no control over their id or ego can drive an adult insane. Also, parents of toddlers rise for the day at almost the same time university students come in for the evening. By the time we see these little people at the cafe, they've had breakfast, messed up the house, been grocery shopping, had snacks and a nap. Oh yah, another reason; taking them out in public is how you train toddlers to behave in a socially acceptable manner.

I do not abide parents who use the excuse, "He/She's only 5", in response to their child picking at common dishes on a table with their fingers or not being able to use utensils.  This is lazy parenting. All parents must go through the humiliation of publicly socializing their toddlers, so they're not socially obtuse children, just (as I'm now finding out) as all parents must go through the humiliation of publicly re-socializing their teens so they don't become socially obtuse adults.

Believe it or not, I now feel nostalgic for the days when my son's head was just at the right height for patting when we bellied up to the barista bar.

When I see little ones tagging along with mom or dad on Saturday morning, or any other time for that matter, I'm filled with nostalgia.  I remember how the soft pudgy hand felt in my own, how my own son loved being able to choose his very own drink, and most of all, how his wide-eyed wonder at the world had the power to change my own perception.

I didn't have the luxury of reading my much cherished Saturday Globe and Mail in those days, but I'd give up my paper if I could have just one more day with my son, pudgy little legs dangling from the chair he struggled to climb up on, calling me mommy, and asking "why" about everything.

Instead of dreading the company of small children in social spaces now, (after all, toddlers are messy, noisy and unpredictable) I am completely entertained by them. As a matter of fact, that's one of the only things that can tear my attention away from Russell Smith's tongue-in-cheek men's fashion column. Toddlers package up the gift of  of young-mommy-memories now. Who knew that such annoying people could come bearing such priceless gifts? Maybe this weekend I'll talk to the guy who's always eyeing "my business" section. Just sayin'.