True Days

Chani has a very moving post up - about saying the truth and being the 'real you'. Also links to another blog that inspired her. She is suggesting that people who want to do some soul searching with support might wish to put 'True Day' in the title of a post about their authentic feelings about something.
I have a neat little sketch that might make a 'button'. It is this. It is by William Thakeray, called 'Vanity' and I believe it is public domaine.

I've got a post up over at Canada Moms Blog today; this is where you can find it. While you're there, take a look at the other posts. There are some awsome writers in this group and I am continually amazed to be one of them.

In the meantime, I am running about doing the Cancer Society Dessert Party. You are getting this update because my cake needs to cool down before I can ice it.

(Sound of trumpets, and a faint voice shouting 'Chaaaarge'!)

I would ask myself why I do this stuff, except I would not like the answer.

Edited to add the post to this blog on 05, 03, 2012.

04/29/2009

Who knows that you blog?

I read an article in the paper the other day about women who hide their purchases from their husbands or fudge the price they have paid, even when the purchase is made with money they have earned themselves.  My problem is something similar.  When my husband wanders by my office, a space with no door, and asks me what I am up to, I have to switch screens fast. He does not know that I blog.  I do not want him ever to find out that I blog.

My daughters know that I have a blog; the elder one, whose daughter I write about a lot, doesn't mind her daughter's appearances but isn't, as far as I know, interested in reading it.  The younger daughter follows my blog and occasionally comments. I had been posting for almost a year, I think, before I got up enough nerve to tell her about it.  Although she has been very positive, for a while after I knew she was reading it, I was very careful and subdued in what I wrote.  I can't imagine how much I would self censor if I knew my husband were reading it.  Well, I can.  There would be nothing but brief posts about the weather and pictures of birds, unleavened by anything real.
It bothers me a lot that this should be so.  I am, as they say, in my golden years.  You would think I would have more confidence, more strength.  In many parts of my life, I do.  If you talked to the members of the non-profit board where I am chair, they would be amazed to hear that I lack self-confidence. I don't think any student I ever taught would describe me as anything other than forceful.  The truth is that under the wolf's hairy coat there cowers a wimp unable to process even gentle criticism, a childish person much more given to flight than family fight.
Probably most of us have a bit of that inner child.  My inner child is very happy when someone makes a positive comment on a post and does not need very many readers at all to make her feel noticed.  The wretched little self censor that she is requires me to read and reread everything I write, to get the spelling and grammar correct, to obey all the esoteric rules of grammar and syntax, as far as I know them, and to show off every now and again with funny poetry and graphics.  And she positively trembles when I write about what I feel rather than what I think.
And that is, as they say, where the collar chafes. I've come to terms with my daughter knowing what I write, but it took me a while and some conversations with her. I'm vulnerable to my husband in a different way.  I think many of us share those vulnerabilities and that is why so many of us keep our blogs a secret from at least some of those who know us. I could, and would, defend what I say if it were necessary to do so.  But I sure don't want the hassle.
A lot of people have written about this discomfort, as well as concern about what it is appropriate to write about children, family and friends. If you have an opinion, or have written about this, I would love to hear it or be given directions to your site.  What does your inner child fear?
This is an original post for Canada Moms Blog.  When her husband is not looking, Mary G blogs at Them's My Sentiments.

Things are Going Swimmingly

Two years ago today I tentatively stuck a toe into the blogging ocean and shortly thereafter got sucked right out to sea. That's 239 posts and although there are a fair number that are photos or memes, a lot of them have cost me time, skull sweat and frustration. A few of them have garnered me some much needed and gratefully received compliments. It is scary to put parts of yourself on public display, and I find myself at times very insecure about it. Especially since I am an old, gray fish in a school of glittering young ones. I sometimes feel very diffident about hanging about with the mommy bloggers. They all seem to have better stocked minds, intimidating writing skills and a level of technical competence that I struggle to attain.

It is such a wonderful ocean, warm and full of ticklish bubbles, vast and ever changing. [Don't you think you have taken that metaphor far enough? hisses my internal editor.] As I slowly began to find my way around the place, I discovered that the voices and opinions I liked best, the writers with whom I had empathy, were 'mommy bloggers'. I discovered blog after blog sparkling with wit and erudition, funny, wistful, sad. And every one had something to teach me. Most of these blogs are on the blogroll on the lower right hand side of this screen; not all of them because a few, for some reason I can't fathom, won't load into my 'Following' gizmo. I am contemplating trying to find and load a widget I see around the places I go that allows you to list favourite posts. I need courage, coffee and a lot of time before I tackle adding gadgets.

I am only going to mention one blog in particular because we share the blogiversary - her third and my second. This is Under the Mad Hat (Happy third to you, Mad!), who is one of the cleverest bloggers out there. Her posts are amazingly good; she has one of the quicksilver minds I cherish and an understated and somewhat wry humour that sets you off laughing an hour or a day after you have signed off.

This on line world is not a natural fit for me. For quite some time I printed a hard copy of every draft post and went over it with the dreaded red pen. After two years, I no longer do that, but when I put a post up and see a typo or infelicity or bad cut sneering at me, I wonder if I still should. The brain does not function with the speed it had a quarter century ago, that's for sure. And I never have had the kind of concentration and dedication a professional writer needs. [I just leapt up and grabbed the field glasses to check out a bird that flew by my office window. Now, where was I?]

I was I was both surprised and flattered lately when a group of mommybloggers headed by Catherine of Her Bad Mother and Katie of Motherbumper asked me to join a group concern called Canada Moms Blog. I have joined and as I sit here, I have a pile of printouts beside me on the desk detailing all the steps to take to get enrolled and use Typepad. Oh, my aching head. The printouts are already dog-eared and marked up in red with stars and arrows and I did one major goof in my first post on the site that I don't know how to fix. Setting aside the fact that I have to learn how to do Technorati tags, the style of post they want is different from my usual ramble along twisting paths and I am editing, rewriting, second, third and fourth guessing myself and gulping down yet more coffee. And loving every moment, do not get me wrong. They do say that intellectual activity is good for ageing brains, don't they?

I guess I have swum come a long way in two years, eh?

The first ending of this post has been edited and is shown below. Daysgoby has just told me how to do this. Heartfelt thanks and I will share the cookies.

Now, if I could just figure out how to do that cross out thing, I could have written swum, crossed it out and put in come. Which would make a lovely metaphor bracket. I'm going to learn how to do that. Someday. Soon. More coffee, I need more coffee.

And maybe a chocolate raspberry marshmallow cookie.

Clenching Our Fists

What is this all about? To find out, you need to read this post from Don Mills Diva. It's far more eloquent than anything I could write.
The type of lifting of material and reattributing it somewhat that she describes has also happened to me. A part of a post on a sensitive topic, a post that I had very very carefully constructed to lead toward my final argument, was lifted and used out of context. Needless to say, I was not happy. I could not even find a place on the offending website that would allow a non member to post a comment.
I have never bothered to put copyright notices or equivalent on this blog; I figure that people who have ethics and a conscience will ask and attribute and people who don't would not be deterred by anything short of a leg hold trap. Our information is all out there, for sure, and the list of less than ethical institutions that suck it up is headed by Our Very Own Government. So, what's the use. If you blog it or Facebook it, they will come.
Kelly's request, however, just seemed to make my hands and mouse move of their own accord to set this up. She's that eloquent. So, please go and take a look and I hope to see some fists popping up around the place.

Bits of this and that.

I had this nice little post I was writing and it was trotting along on its leash beside me, occasionally sniffing at things but pretty well behaving itself and all of a sudden it stopped behaving and took off, sniffing around clichés, lifting its leg on trite little aphorisms, tugging me along behind it. When I jerked the leash it paid no attention. Even when I deleted the tangential stuff it would not come to heel, just kept pulling me back into the dead wood. So, I have put it in the drafts kennel for now and it can just stay there and sulk for a while.

In the interim, a chez G yard update. We've had a barred owl visiting us the last few days. It perches on the old apple tree beside the bird feeder and hunkers down to wait for a mouse or red squirrel to visit. My daughter shoved her bare feet into clogs on Sunday afternoon and scrunched out into the snow to take its picture. The owl was so calm that she was able to get right up to it and take some marvellous portraits.

And you are getting these shots in all their glory because on Saturday we got hooked up to broadband. A local internet provider sent out a crew one of whom climbed 90' up the tall pine tree behind the garage and bolted an antenna to the top of it, and hooked in a node. The pine in question is the one in the centre of this photo, and the climber is seen as a dull blue blob in the zoomed shot below.He then ran wires to the house and set us up. Woo hoo! I am now able to go and read blogs with a really heavy upload without waiting five minutes for them to open. So expect my Following list to expand over the next while. I can even get video clips and music now. I'm not sure I'm ready for the 21st century, but it has finally arrived here. Until lighting strikes the antenna, anyway.

I'm hoping the owl has found the hunting so good here that it will stick around so that Little Stuff can see it this weekend. Grama will be child minding.

I'm rearranging the furniture

I've just added the Blog Roll function and deleted the old URL list, which was out of date. I'm adding names to the new one as fast as I have time, so if I listed you in the old format and you're not in the new one, you will be!

Up and Running

Well, up and sort of trudging along. I have a nice new computer with a lot of memory and the very latest in processors (I only wish I could get my brain replaced the same way!) What finally triggered this, after several weeks of cursing and not being able to post was a lightning strike in July which fried my elderly Dell and left me bereft. The wonderful guys at our local computer shop made a real effort to get the old lady up and running long enough for me to at least save my data, but it was hopeless. The same lightning storm blew the telephone, the sensor lights on the garage and half of a huge pine tree, which landed across one of the main trails. Then Little Stuff came to stay for eight days. On seven of these days it rained.
In fact, I think it has rained almost every day all through July and the first half of August, and a fair number of these rain days included electrical storms. I now unplug everything, including the power bar and pull the phone line if I am leaving the house for more than a few minutes. Barn door. Horses. Yes, indeed.
However, the new machine is sleek, fast and impressive. And has been loaded with all sorts of new programs, programs which, of course, I now have to master. Mozilla's browser and email. Open Office. Photoshop. Sigh. I have reloaded all the old stuff except for my Corel software. I need to be Strong to deal with those, as dear Corel no longer supports my version of CorelDRAW. And their Help on the website reduces me to tears. I love the program, however, and I will perservere. Tomorrow. Or maybe the day after that.
Meanwhile, I have a lovely bunch of photos from Little Stuff's visit. She has discovered that Grama and camera can record all the good stuff and she can gloat over it later. For instance,and, a little later,
When we have a day with no rain, what does she choose to do?
Greater love hath no grandparent than to put a sprinkler on when the lawn is already sodden. Poor Grandpa is cutting about every three days, and I have watered the pot plants maybe twice this summer.
I also confess to being a total Olympics junkie, or I would have been back up two weeks ago. Why did all the best stuff run at 2:00 am Eastern Daylight? I suspect it may have had something to do with keeping Phelps' races in prime time, but hey, I wanted to see that, too. Wow! However, it was well worth a lost night's sleep to hear the rowing men's eight crew belt out 'Oh Canada'. However badly.

The Moving Finger Writes....

When Hillary Clinton made her gaffe about running the gauntlet of fire in Kosovo, there was a lot of editorial comment in the press about memory and how a person edits it. I got interested in the discussion and went and did some research, culminating in reading a book called White Gloves, How We Create Ourselves Through Memory, by John Kotre. This book turned out to be a bit off the topic I was looking for, but is a marvelous read for anyone who doesn't have basic psychology training but is interested in how memory works to form character in young children.

And so I started thinking about memory forming my character and that of my daughters. And how I edit memory myself. The premise of the book is that we form memory in different ways at different ages, and that memory is stored and accessed in layers. One of the major things we do is to stretch memory to cover more than the original event – leading to, for instance, a clear memory that it was always sunny in the summer at the cottage. Or the conviction that your sister always got the first chance at something and you got second. These convictions shape your perception of reality as an adult – causing extra misery if your week of vacation is rainy or colouring your reaction to your sister's success. It is possible, according to Kotre to deconstruct these memories and influence how you react to things, although he is very sceptical about accessing childhood memories (regressing, I think is the term, but I took the book back to the library).

A lot of our childhood memories are, in fact, not ours but are picked up from the adults around us and incorporated as if they were real. We tell our children stories about themselves and they internalize these stories. Or, at least, my family did it that way. My grandmother and my mother told me stories about myself as a baby or a two year old or whatever. I can identify some of these stories as dramatizations when I think about them. Or at least as edited versions of an event that was probably a lot more shapeless when it took place. As an example, my mother would tell, repeatedly, a story about taking me to the House of Commons public gallery at the age of three and being embarrassed by my saying in clear and ringing tones 'there's the man who wore Daddy's pants' about an MP who was my father's friend, causing all the MP's to look up at the gallery. This story was supposed to illustrate my precocious command of clear speech and, I suppose, that I was an extroverted toddler. The tale has become part of my mental furniture. I have no clue how it really happened, but I think of myself as having been a confident and extroverted child.

I think we all do this to our children to some extent. My grandmother relied on her memory; my mother did much the same. When I do what my daughters call 'telling baby stories' I tend to pull out photograph albums to illustrate things, or I tell stories from the photographs. Because although my grandmother and my mother did have photographs, they were far fewer and mostly static poses. I have maybe half a dozen images of my mother as a little girl. I have more of myself in my first three years because my father was in the navy during WWII and the family sent him photographs; it was much more expensive, relatively, to take and develop photos in the '40's and '50's. Even in the '60's, colour photographs were an item that most people had to budget for. Today's disposable cameras and $.19 prints amaze me; even more astounding is the digital photograph revolution, making still and live photography available in quantity immediately. And so, where my mother relied on her memory, my daughter will have not only still photography but also video to discuss with her daughter.

And there is the mommy blog. Unless your mother kept a diary or a baby book, your stories, like mine, rely on the spoken word backed up with still photographs or even the occasional grainy 'home movie'. Mommy bloggers' children will have the stories preserved, in their original form, backed with copious illustrations in living and sometimes moving colour, put together as the event unfolded. You will probably still retell seminal stories to your children. But your blog will be there to give them a different look, a time frozen reference, to these stories. And to the woman who was telling them.

I wonder a lot about how that will unfold. I picture my granddaughter remembering, say, planting flowers with grama. And there will be the story, with photographs of her in her bug shirt lining up the plant pots. Not raw data, certainly. All of us necessarily edit the stories as we tell them, shaping them to fit the time and space we have to get the story down, emphasizing the point we want to make about what happened. Even bits of dialogue get edited for coherency or chosen to fit into the thought thread as it is spun out onto the page.

I wonder, as I write this, how my mother would have blogged about her day at the House of Commons with her daughter. Or how she felt about raising a child alone when her husband was out sailing around in a corvette in the North Atlantic, in constant danger. I have these stories as she told them recollected in tranquility and, I am sure, smoothed into a pleasing shape by time and repetition. I know that the stories I tell to my daughters are, in fact, partly constructions formed by time and retelling. The stories about Little Stuff, on the other hand, are immediate, although shaped. I almost wish I could live long enough to understand if there will be an appreciable difference.

I won't. When Little Stuff is, say, forty, I would be 101. I'm not hoping to be that old; don't much want to be, tell the truth. And so I write this blog, a message sent forward into the future with hope and love, and try my best to make it a true record, even though I know it can't be perfect, of who I am, what I think, and how we were together.

And I had better get myself back to the sewing machine and start on dress #6, green spangles and all. Tempus is fugiting.

Blue Funk Day

There's a reason I picked this for my online image. Not only does it look like me, a lot, but also it symbolizes for me what I want this blog to be.

I stomped around the house yesterday in a senseless rage at fate, the weather, my poor husband and anything else that got in my way. I stomped on sluggish flies, slammed drawers and, to put not too fine a point on it, sulked. It was that kind of day, I was tired and bored and had a pile of things to do that I did not want to do and nothing to do that I did want to do except write a post for my blog. But, I thought to myself, I cannot write a post while I am in this terrible mood because the YD reads my blog and the YD is an activist; if she reads about this she is going to get on the phone and try to Do Something about it, and so I can't talk about it.

Well, this went on for a bit, as I wrote bits of invective about anything and everything in my head, and then I thought…."Wait a minute!"

All my life I have perceived it as my role to be the constant cheerful person, especially to my mother. I could write to her about anything, anything except that I was in a miserable mood, because if she thought I was down, or sad, or upset, she would inevitably try to Do Something about it, or at the very least fret about not being able to Do Something. (Did you follow me around the last curve? Sorry!) Anyway, I hardly ever mentioned times when I was less than cheerful. But when I started this blog, the idea was that I could write about whatever was on my mind, bad or good. And here I find that just because the YD will read it, I am censoring. Again. I do not think this is a good thing. No.

(YD, if you are reading this, do not pick up the phone. This is my bad mood, and I intend to enjoy it fully.)

And so, here is the manifesto. I, Mary G, resolve that I am going to portray what I really am like in this blog. I will not try to be better than I am. I will not do the constant cheerful thing. The censoring will be limited to other people, whose concerns are private to them. I will not self censor. I will not write around things to avoid upsetting anyone. Not here. And if someone who knows who I am tries to Do Something about it, she is toast.

Now, can I keep this resolution for five seconds straight? We will see.

All this leads to a question I want to ask. The self censoring topic has been bounced around in MommyBlog land as long as I have been reading in it. Julie at Using My Words tackled it not long ago; it has been a topic on BlogRhet. People have talked from time to time about topics they avoid, about how they deal with controversy, about how they handle references to family and friends. But I have a specific curiosity. And it is this. If your family and friends read your blog, how conscious are you of how they will react to what you write? If you find yourself self censoring, what do you do about it? How much does it change your blog personality?

My answer would be: I wrote the blog anonymously for some time. I censored, but only to protect the inncent. Then I let my daughters and several friends in on it. Since I did so, I fear that I am becoming less …. real, for lack of a better word, less three dimensional, less forthright. I don't know if this is reflected in my posts, but if anyone who is a regular reader has seen a difference, I would love to know what you think.

Two further things.

1. I have written about my blue funk as if it were funny. Today it is. Yesterday it wasn't.

2. Advice from the crone: when you plan your retirement home, make sure it has two good, comfy beds in it. In different rooms.

Really Good News

N is back on line. See her post at justmakingitupasigo.

Bloggy Birthdays

N at justmakingitupasigo is much better the last few days. She is sitting up and feeding herself, albeit very slowly, and, says her husband, is very much herself. He told her about all of the messages the blogging world sent and she is touched and pleased. I hope it won't be too long before she can get on line herself and rejoin us. She's not out of the woods yet, but the trees are thinning.

Today is the first anniversary of my very first post -- Them's My Sentiments is one year old today. I had planned on writing a thoughtful post about everything I have learned about the mommyblogging world, about your generosity to newbies, your warmth, your caring for one another, about the sheer fun it is to swim in this sea. I made notes; I started off several times. However, it is now late at night and the anniversary post is still not written. Maybe tomorrow after I shovel a foot and a half of snow off the decks. Again. I don't know how deep this fall actually is, as the wind is now sculpting it into impossible drifts and the power has flickered several times. But I have shoveled the front porch off twice today, it has disappeared again, and the piles around the porch are higher than my head. Again, after JG took them down with the snowblower. Twice.

The man is muttering about figuring out how he can get onto the tractor tomorrow and clear snow -- this two weeks after a complete knee replacement surgery. If he tries, I am going to hide the keys. Or hide all his coats. Or maybe both. I think he is kidding. I hope. We have a good neighbour who will come and dig us out sometime tomorrow, and even if the power goes, I have two wood stoves, a generator, plenty of food cooked and lots of good friends close by. One of them barreled through the drifts this evening to find out if we were all right. My real neighbours are as wonderful as my on line community.

So, before a tree falls on the hydro lines, what I want to do is to say thank you. Thank you to the people who welcomed a newbie in, gave her instructions on how to do the basics and encouraged her fledgling attempts with warmth and praise. Thanks also to the hard working folk who do the award thing every month, who devise the Monday Missions and Hump Day Hmms that allow me to exercise my rusty writing and make me think. Thanks to those of you who urged me on to confront the rude sales clerk and followed the story. Thanks to those of you whose humour and grace brighten my days, whose gorgeous photographs and art work are things I look forward to seeing and appreciating, to the BlogRhet group and to those of you who turn up to read what I write. Love you!

Thanks also to my daughters, who let me write about them and about my granddaughter. I'm so glad you're cool about this.

Here's me -- in all my wrinkly glory. But it isn't the photo that's me; it's what I write that tells you who I am.

Hereditiy is Hell

10:30 am

I've just got off the phone from a long chat with the YD, she lolling about in bed and me wrapped in my new Valentine red velour robe, unwashed, household tasks not even started. Tsk. What a pair of slackers. I ended the conversation by apologizing to my daughter for the procrastination genes she has clearly inherited from me. Funny thing, inherited character traits. Her sister and father are two of the most organized people you would ever not want to meet, should you be an ordinary, get it done sometime, kind of person. They have task lists that they actually read, schedules they meet, places they put things on a regular basis -- they draw lines through the things on the lists that they have finished. What a concept!

I am very good at getting a single task accomplished in limited time. If visitors are expected, I can clean the house with the speed of greased lightning. If you need something written at the last minute, I'm your go to person. That's the upside of being what I think of as an 'adrenaline junkie'. Pull an all nighter? No problem. Get it done way in advance? Not me. I can find any number of non essential things to do that will fill in the time until emergency mode is needed. And boy, do I resent being told that time is ticking on and I had better get to it. I still clearly remember being furious as a teenager when my mother would mention some job or homework assignment I had not started. I would have to choke down rage, knowing even then that it was an inappropriate emotion. And I have never grown up enough to stop feeling that way. Even when the miserable sod telling me this is myself.

I've read all the advice. Pored over the self help books. Given myself so many lectures that I've stopped listening to myself. You know the expression about the road to hell being paved with good intentions? I can look back up the road and see very fine paving indeed. But here I sit, writing a post that is the very opposite of essential when I have a full day alone to accomplish something useful. To get some exercise. To get the muddle cleaned out of my bathroom cupboard. To get my volunteer job papers sorted and into their binders. To get the laundry done.

(It'll be lunch time soon; I won't get anything much done between now and then and so I think I'll just enjoy blogging until then and start after lunch.)

Okay, now I'm just staring at the computer screen, thinking about nothing much. And not coming up with a way to put a punch into the ending of this post. Maybe if I wait long enough, a bolt of lightning will strike me and I will turn into a different person altogether and leap up and start sorting laundry. No? You're sure? Backbone transplants not available? How very sad for me.

Besides, it's very cold outside. Blowy and snowy and not a good day for exercise on the ice patch that Sunday's thaw made out of our laneway and roads. Does anyone care about the bathroom cupboard but me? No, indeed. Is there any underwear left in the drawer? Yep, several days' worth. Can I wing the meeting without organizing the paperwork? Of course! Plenty of time to see what the blogging world is up to today.

And I'm sure I will come up with some equally compelling rationalization after lunch.

(If you're reading this, YD, at least you're out of bed and downstairs at the computer. Love, Mom.)

A Guest Post

Although it does not fit Painted Maypole's theme all that well, this morning I am posting something that just making it up as i go wrote. It started as a newspaper article, and she reposted it on her blog last February. I am repeating it here because it's one of her best. Just Making It Up is the blogger who is so very ill, and for whom we are soliciting prayers and positive thoughts. (Thanks so much, LM!)

And here she is:

I am 34 years old. Yesterday, I welcomed a new sibling into the family, and I have to confess, I am just a little bit jealous.
It isn’t as weird as it sounds. My father hasn’t found himself someone else and decided to start a whole new family. My parents have been happily married for more than 35 years.
Instead, they have gotten themselves a puppy. His name is Winston.
My parents have had dogs before. I grew up with a boxer named, of all things, Rover. They inherited him from my grandmother when my grandfather died.
He lay around the house, an untrained lump who allowed the children to jump on him and pull hi ears. He was walked whenever someone mustered up the energy to be dragged down the street with him wheezing and frothing at the mouth as he strained at his collar. That wasn’t often.
After Rover when to doggy heaven, my parents waited a few years before the answered a “free to a good home” ad in the paper and brought home Toby, a mad little Cairn terrier who barked at everything that moved and tore the newspaper to shreds if he was lucky enough to get to it first. Toby was walked more often because he was small enough to control on a leash.
As he grew older, he would become abruptly exhausted half way through his walks and simply lie down on the road, requiring whoever was walking him to carry him back home.
A few years ago, Toby also died, leaving my parents dog-free once again. This time, worn out from having to get up at 4:30 am to deal with the urgent needs of an aging dog’s bladder and frustrated with having to find someone to look after him while they went on vacation, my parents declared themselves animal-free. No kids, no dogs: the good life.
Still, I was not enormously surprised when, this past spring, my mother announced that they were once again getting a dog. But this time things were different.
My parents, while they have always been ‘dog people,’ have up until now treated their dogs like dogs. However, Winston is clearly, in their eyes, no mere dog. Winston is a Cavalier King Charles spaniel. Cavalier King Charles spaniels, I have been informed, are small, quiet, polite dogs. This is a dog they can take camping with them. He won’t back at the mail carrier or knock their grandchildren off their feet in his exuberance. He will be smart and calm. My parents have found the perfect dog.
I am almost inclined to accuse my parents of using Winston to deal with empty-nest syndrome now that all their children are happily married off, but trust me, my parents do not have empty-nest syndrome. They could hardly shove us out the door fast enough. I can come up with no better answer than: my parents have gone crazy.
They found a breeder and met the puppy’s mommy while she was still pregnant. They learned his entire lineage and brought home pictures of his parents, pointing out their remarkable beauty. They then went back and visited the newborn puppies, picking Winston out from his siblings when he was barely big enough to open his eyes.
They came up with the name Winston long before they had the puppy – sort of like people do with their unborn children after discovering the sex on the ultrasound. They carried around photos of him the same way people carry around ultrasound photos, to present to anyone who showed the slightest interest.
Winston came home yesterday. He arrived with his blanket to a house equipped with his own bed, a cage, baby gates to stop him from falling down the stairs (or peeing on the carpet) and his own toys. The floor used to be good enough for Rover and Toby to sleep on. They never even knew what a dog toy looked like. Not little Winston. He already has two balls, a stuffed animal and a rope to chew.
My father is building a fence across the open part of the backyard to keep Winston in. the other dogs were just tied to a chain. My own children – my parents’ precious grandchildren – regularly make mad dashes for the road through that open area of the backyard when they visit, but I just have to watch them like a hawk. No fence for them.
I have to take their word on this. I have not seen Winston yet. My grubby children and I are not allowed to visit until my parents declare him to be totally settled in and ready to receive visitors. Hence, you see, the little bit of sibling jealousy. I’ve been banned from my childhood home by the new baby. Do you think if I started peeing in my underwear and throwing temper tantrums, I could get their attention back?

A Friend in Need

In last week's Hump Day Hmm we were thinking about what is ethical to post and I wrote a bit about a woman I know, a blogger, whose illness is breaking my heart but whose identity I did not feel comfortable revealing. I've got permission from her family to do so, now.


This wonderful blogger, just making it up as i go, is a very sick woman. How, exactly, it came about I am not sure, but she has a perforated bowel. She's in intensive care and has, as I write this, improved slightly from the 50/50 chance of living through her illness that she was given last week. Her family is arranging for daily updates on her condition to be available to those of us who know her and her work; I do not have one for today but as of yesterday she was still deeply sedated but breathing on her own.

If you can, please go and read a bit of her blog and, if it strikes you as a good thing to do, leave a message of encouragement. She is a hugely talented, entertaining and inspiring writer. Just thinking that her voice may be stilled forever hurts. A lot.

Using my Digging Stick

Written for a blogging friend who has had a miscarriage and another who must have an hysterectomy.

We were going to be a four child family. It was in The Plan, along with establishing careers and setting up a lifestyle that included lots of outdoor activities. The first half had been accomplished -- two beautiful, healthy babies as close together as possible, one career on track and one avocation established, recreational land purchased and weekend home built. The first two kids were in school and old enough to do a lot of things for themselves.

The joker in the woodpile was a negative Rhesus factor. Mine. Antibodies built up and up and up, and for that and other unassailably good reasons (or so I thought at the time and still, in the main, support) I found myself, in my late thirties, in a doctor's office signing up for a tubal ligation. I hated the man at first sight and his questions and comments to me confirmed my instant reaction. 'Do you not want a son?' he asked. Later, while I was on the examination table with my feet in stirrups and his very cold fingers in most uncomfortable places he remarked, 'I will have to have your husband's permission, you know, for this procedure.' Fuming, I convinced him that he was not going to get my husband's permission and I stayed with him for the simple reason that at the time he was the only doctor in our city doing tubal ligation through the vaginal wall and it seemed like the best procedure. I didn't realize that what I hated was the decision, not the doctor.

And so I 'got my tubes tied'. And I thought it would be no big deal. No incision. No more danger of miscarriage. No more birth control. I was free. The day after my surgery I forged off into the scrum and did most of my Christmas shopping, then did all the Christmas stuff you do with two kids and an extended family, hosted the dinner, did the school holiday sports stuff. After the girls went back to school in January, there was time for what I had done to sink in and I collapsed into a puddle of misery.

The only grief I can compare it to was what I felt when I lost my adored mother. But this grief was keener, the knife edged with poison, because I had done it to myself. Hindsight tells me that part of the problem was the obvious; I was exhausted. But the babies who would never be were ghosts in the daylight and haunted my dreams at night. No chance now of the son who would have my father's eyes and gentle humour and whom we had planned to bear his name. No chance now of another little one, a unique combination of genes, whom we would meet with fascination and joy. No little round head in the crook of my arm, relaxing into satiated sleep. No next one.

In her post about her upcoming hysterectomy, Slouching Mom wrote this heart tearing paragraph:

Because someday you might be in my shoes, and you'll have so many regrets, regrets about the moments you didn't enjoy your babies, because you always believed that there'd be another chance to be a better, wiser, kinder, gentler mother, that no matter how many mistakes you made with your first and second children, there was always the promise of a third child, the one you'd more perfectly parent. That's why (isn't it?) after a particularly trying battle with a child who hadn't yet attained the age of reason, you so often found yourself muttering, "I have to remember not to do this the same way with the next one."

I don't know how it feels to have fertility slowly slip away in the menopause years. I read the things that women write as it happens and I read what is written about this slow, irrevocable loss, and I can't relate. But oh, I can relate to you whose miscarriage was your last try and I can relate to you whose body has to go under the knife to save your health. There is no pain like it.

It passes, that pain. The ghost babies fade away and other joys make themselves known. When your children are grown, all children become, in some sense, yours and there is a solid comfort in working for the community and making a difference in the lives of the little ones. And of their mothers, who are the same age as the children you did not have.

If you are lucky, someday your children will put their babies into your lap and the last little ghosts will be gone. I regarded my mother's devoted slavery to her grandchildren with a somewhat jaundiced eye, as it was my job to coax the little monsters back into some kind of civilized behaviour after she had looked after them. I see that same resigned look on my daughter's face when Little Stuff is reunited with her after a stay with Grama and Grampa. Grandparenting is sheer, indulgent fun. But the best thing is that I have found that grandparenting is a generic activity that I can do in all sorts of ways.

In Woman, an Intimate Biography, Natalie Angier devotes a chapter to the utility of the menopause in creating grandmothers way back in prehistory, infertile women whose contributions of food and child care increased the survival rate of their near kin and thus perpetuated the anomaly. Off these women went with their digging sticks and the food they brought back (plus child care, I am sure) made a huge difference. These women enabled our distant ancestors to thrive and spread out across the world. Angier calls it the 'grandmother hypothesis'. It's a fascinating take on the thesis of menopause as a survival characteristic. Working in and for the community (digging stick optional) is something I love. It's a role that fits me and that I fit. Hard work, sometimes, but satisfying and fun. It doesn't require you to deal with tantrums and vomit at 2:00 am either. Priceless!

Fair Fodder -- Hump Day Humm

Julie Pippert at Using My Words has this topic for this Wednesday's Hump Day Hmm: Are other people and the things they do (blog, email, news etc) fair fodder for our blogs? What are your ethics and mores as a writer, when it comes to characterizing others.

This is a very question very close to my heart today because a blogger I know is critically ill -- at best she has a 50/50 chance of pulling through. She is a highly talented, creative, warm, funny, involved person, a young woman, with young children. The news of the seriousness of her illness is truly a blow to the heart. I would like to direct you to her blog so that you could better feel with me the enormity of this, the sheer devastation her loss would bring to her family, to her friends, to the whole community.

But I am not going to say anything more about her here because I don't know whether she or her family would want me to do so. If she recovers, WHEN she recovers, I hope we will get beautifully crafted and hilariously funny stories of her hospital stay, thoughtful posts about how being so ill affected her and hers, incisive posts about what made her ill and how it was handled, reports on her children and pets, all the marvelous things she creates. And then I will be able to talk about it in detail. I don't know if I could write an eulogy, but that would also, in my mind be ethical. To go into any more detail than I have would not.

And so I am going to try to make my mind work rather than fret, try to go from the particular to the general and answer Julie's (she credits Lawyer Mama for the idea) very important question.

I will write only about facts that are public or that people have made public. For bloggers, that means something that has been written about in the blog or peripherals, photographed or referenced. If a blogger has been given an award, that's public. If there are ads or links on a site, that's also fair game.

Where there is information about family or friends, that's public. And so that is also the edge of a slippery slope. When I write about myself, no matter how carefully I do it, I am revealing facts that could lead a reader to my identity. And if I am identified, the trail then leads to my husband, daughters, grandchildren, friends and neighbours. Consequently, I am extremely careful not to post anything about friends or family that would hurt or embarrass them or that I would not say to them.

I very rarely make negative comments, child of the 1940's that I am. I don't make them to someone's face and I don't make them online, tempting as it sometimes may be. A correction of grammar or fact would go in an email to the writer unless it is so trivial as to be innocuous. If I really disagree with something, that goes into the comment section of the writer's blog. Politely. Only then would I write about that in my own blog. And cue the writer about the contrary opinion post. In fact, if I am picking up a theme from another blog, whatever it is, I reference the blogger.
Does this bowdlerize my blog? Make it less relevant, less real, less true? Probably. I read posts where people have laid something very sensitive out in the open and, I must admit, admire their courage for doing so. But I can't do it myself. I do feel entirely free to criticize government, business, public announcements and organizations of any sort, bad public practice, wherever I find it. Whee, fun! One of the best things about blogging, to my mind. As is analyzing and posting about what is going on in my own mind and heart, and sharing it with you.

There's another award hopping from blog to blog in the neighbourhood this last little while. I haven't traced it back to source yet but I've seen it here and there and last night I found that I had been given it by just making it up as i go, the amazingly competent blogger who lured me into starting this blog almost a year ago now. (Thanks, you, and back at you.) I love N's blog -- its humour and candour are like really dark chocolate, rich, smooth and satisfying.

And recipients are supposed to pass it on to ten other bloggers. Which gives me an opportunity to put up some links to the wonderful places I go. I could, of course, update my right column link list at the same time, but I don't have a lot of time this morning and so that will remain on the ToDo list, gathering dust like the rest of the jobs there.

There are a lot more than ten, when I think about it. There's Bub and Pie, who writes so well she's intimidating and whose descriptions of her son's struggles and triumphs are so perceptive and loving and funny and exasperated, all at once, that you live them with her. There's Under the Mad Hat, whose creative energy could power a rocket into space and who comes up with brilliant and funny twists on a lot of topics that make me grind my teeth in envy and want to hug her, both at once. There's NotSoSage, living and writing with her heart and mind and soul fully engaged, giving so much of herself. Julie Pippert at Using My Words has a stainless steel ethic and a brain to match, wonderful humour and is a hugely giving bloggy citizen. There's Lawyer Mama, whose celebration of her life and family, in words and pictures, is creative, beautiful and brilliant, just like her. And Painted Maypole, another giving, loving blog citizen, who writes with warmth and style. Nomotherearth already has this award, but she's getting it again from me because I love her deadpan style and adoring acerbity as she talks about her son.

That's seven of the bunch on my sidebar that I think of as 'established' on my little mental list. I want to do another list of people who are not so widely read, judging from their comment numbers, but that is going to have to wait until next week sometime. Because just now I have to go and have lunch with the Chair of our Fundraising Committee at her request. I think she is going to tell me that she is burned out and wants to leave. In which case I am going to be crying in my soup since I will have to take over the lead. Oh dear, says I, most inadequately.

I will, as they say, keep you posted.

Wordy Wednesday -- Drat, and other expletives.

Okay, this is not my day. My links won't work. My computer has locked down completely. Twice. Bogger won't save template changes. Blogger saves template changes but stretches them. Blogger saves template changes in negative colour. Blogger keeps telling me to report these errors, but I have no idea --- NO idea, Blogger help -- as to how to report them.

I am not amused. This is not funny any more. My husband's underwear is all sitting in the washer and I do not dare leave the computer to go and put it in the dryer lest some other bloggy gremlin sneak in and fry something else while I am gone.

In fact, @#$%^&*****!!!

I am going to shut down and start all over again. After the underwear is dry. Too bad for the nice photo that was going to appear here today.

I should have labelled this post 'drinking', as in Blogger is driving me to.... At least the colour formatting is working.

Do other people have days like this, she whined?

Just Posts

For those of you who are not aware of what the Just Post logos in the margins signify, the fastest way to learn about them, and about the wonderful women who manage them, is to go to Under the Mad Hat, whose blog explains the concept and lists all the awardees, as well as linking to the other bloggers who began the operation with her.

I am really pleased (well, tickled pink would better describe it) to have received a nomination this month for this November post: Charity Begins at Home. Thanks for picking it up, and more thanks for tolerating the lack of precision in it.

The Just Posts have been around for a year now. I hope there is a celebration after Christmas chaos has rolled over us. I think the concept and the people behind it are wonderful.

Danier Leather -- The Follow Up

This morning the mailman delivered me a small express post parcel from Danier Leather. When I opened it, there was a gift card inside for $50.00. That is an impressive sum of money, by my standards, to be giving someone as an apology. I was expecting something in the range of a business card holder. Some years ago we were giving a dinner party and one of the bottles of wine we served turned out to have a pickled grasshopper in the bottom of it. We did not discover this, of course, until the bottle was empty. There were the predictable jokes about the great body of the wine, but JG was upset enough to contact the LCBO and the sales rep for the wine company. We got one (1) replacement bottle and one (1) bottle of the same plonk as an apology. Danier Leather is in a whole different league.

I am just about to dig out my box of cards, find a 'Thank You' one and handwrite a letter of thanks to the company. That is, after my eyes stop whirling.

Wait till the Fundraising Committee sees what we've got for the auction! My experience with charity auctions leads me to think that the best thing to do is to buy something with the card and auction it, as people won't bid much beyond the face value of a gift certificate, but they will push up the price up if something looks particularly succulent.

Is this the power of the internet, do you think, or would the incident have played out the same way if I had just snail mailed the letter and not blogged about it? Is the question worth a BlogRhet post for some discussion on this issue? I would love to know if other people have had that kind of response to posting a complaint.