tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8901978387541610092024-02-14T12:55:29.560-08:00Gildiner's GospelCathy Gildinerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09409583094382198566noreply@blogger.comBlogger66125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-890197838754161009.post-49127441332339678882019-10-30T11:26:00.000-07:002019-11-05T08:22:08.129-08:00Old Age part 4--Laying down the sabre of personal rectitude<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "pt serif" , "georgia" , "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 17.007999420166016px;"><br /></span>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "pt" serif , "georgia" , "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 17.007999420166016px;">Everyone is born with a certain personality. As a psychologist I know you can trim the neurotic edges, and make them more adaptable, but you never change them. Whatever personality type they exhibited in their first year-- they will have for the rest of their lives. Therapy can transform people's functionality and perception of self but <i>not</i> their personalities.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "pt" serif , "georgia" , "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 17.007999420166016px;">Many of us who were given the argumentative type of personality have tried to quell it over the years. Usually there is a lot of pressure to, as my mother said, "tone it down." She repeatedly said, "So you are </span><i style="font-size: 17.007999420166016px;">right</i><span style="font-size: 17.007999420166016px;">, it doesn't matter, just get along. It doesn't matter in the long run." What planet was she from?</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "pt" serif , "georgia" , "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-size: 17.007999420166016px;">Because hyperactive and other labels weren't common parlance in the 1950's I was just called "busy, bossy and Irish." All Irish people know the joke, What is Irish </span></span><span style="font-size: 17.007999420166016px;">Alzheimer's? You forget everything but the grudges. In my Catholic school everyone was given a nickname. Usually it was a saint we had all prayed to. for example-- Some forgiving kind boy was called St. Francis. I, however, defied the saint category and was called Perry Mason (a defence attorney in a 1950's T.V. courtroom drama) even by the principal. I used to raise my hand, walk to the front of the class and, with arms behind me, outline why the rules in the playground should be more equitable. (You get the picture.)</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "pt" serif , "georgia" , "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 17.007999420166016px;">I think people are given personalities from somewhere-- God alone, knows where, and then humans develop traits to augment their personality's effectiveness. I have always been really good at arguing. I have a good memory and am good on my feet. I like to organize facts and present them cogently. Before I went to school, I lined up my dolls to listen to my rules for my swing set. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "pt" serif , "georgia" , "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 17.007999420166016px;">This got me nowhere in Catholic school. When I argued about free will (a philosophical enigma I thought I'd solved) I was dubbed a "Doubting Thomas." If I got really inflamed over, say, unfair privileges of the older grade fives, I was called a devil or told to take my forked tongue and slither back to the garden of Eden.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "pt" serif , "georgia" , "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 17.007999420166016px;">However, by the time I hit high school (no longer Catholic -- we'd had a non-amicable parting of the ways), my methodical recall, clear outline of facts, plus my forceful presentation were admired by some. In fact, I was on the debating team in high school and university. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "pt" serif , "georgia" , "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 17.007999420166016px;">That kind of forceful personality works wonders in the workplace as no one wants to go against you, but it can wreak havoc in your personal life. You can outline a totally rational, lengthy argument to your children, and they say things like "I don't care." You can do the same with your husband and he, like </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px;">Kellyanne Conway, said during a Meet the Press interview, "I have alternative facts."</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34);">As the years spin by you realize that holding grudges and spewing facts was not gaining me family peace or personal equanimity. You could win the argument, but lose the war. Plus, grudges take up a huge amount of memory storage that could be more effectively used. </span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Therefore, in my forties and fifties, I made all kinds of efforts to change my basic personality style from angry fact spewer</span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"> (everyone said I was born to be a litigator) to warm acceptor. I read books from <i>The dance of Anger</i> to Hannah Arendt's <i>The Origin of Totalitarianism</i></span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><i>,</i> took courses, tried meditation, yoga, and even a Chinese Herbalist. <i> Nothing</i> worked. Why? : Several reasons. My personality was cut in stone and I was good at it. Cutting through another person's argument with facts and a bit of humour was my raison </span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">d'être. Sometimes I would come home very cheerful and my husband would actually say, "Who did you fight with today?" It is hard to give up something that you enjoy and gives you an endorphin high. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">The one thing that changed me or trimmed my edges was old age. I was knocked off my pedestal in my seventies. I was no longer so perfect at the art of verbal defence. I didn't always have facts at my fingertips. I would have to search my brain and sometimes that information would not pop into my head until hours after the debate. I had lost my sword. Instant recall requires a non-aging memory. Humour takes spontaneity and if you know what you want to say and it is funny, it has to be recalled and said in exactly the right moment. There is a lot that goes into a funny story and slow recall ruins the joke. Split-timing is the backbone of humour.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">So what is there left to do when your major defences, instant recall and humour are compromised? You have no choice. You have to become a different, nicer person, one who listens to others instead of mustering their own opinions. It is amazing what a good listener you can become, if you are not organizing your own argument in your head while they are speaking. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Parenting, grand-parenting, and marriage are easier since there is nothing to argue about. They say how they want to do things and I agree. It is too hard and fraught with mishap to argue. When a friend tells me something she has done, instead of saying what's wrong with her idiotic decision, I say, "That's what you needed to do. I get it." and <i>I really did get it. Facts are over rated.</i></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">I was recently at a funeral of a friend and ran into someone I used to know twenty years ago and I'd forgotten why we lost touch. I was so happy to see her and we chatted amiably for a long time and agreed to get together. On my way home my husband said he was so happy to see my talking to my old friend and not holding a grudge. He said the "old you" would have cut her dead after she said that rubbish about your memoir." </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">I was enraged. I yelled , "Oh my God, I <i>forgot</i> she did that. I'll never speak to her again." but I'll probably forget and resume the friendship. The deficits of old age has forced me to drop my sabre. The "collateral damage" is I am a happier, nicer person.</span></span><br />
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<span style="border: 0px; font-family: "pt serif" , "georgia" , "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 17.007999420166016px; font-stretch: inherit; font-weight: 900; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></span>Cathy Gildinerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09409583094382198566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-890197838754161009.post-3889088962916513972019-10-30T07:28:00.000-07:002019-10-30T07:28:34.978-07:00old age part 3 -- a free agent<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica";">Although each aspect of old age has it downsides, it has <i>some major </i>upsides. The best feature by far is being a free agent. That feature is pure Nirvana. You are no longer a machine with parts, you are a complete human. You are no longer just "tits and ass". You no longer have raging hormones controlling you like your period or PMS or menopause. You no longer have to reproduce and all that is involved with it. You no longer are on the front line of motherhood-- remember when you felt guilty if you weren't actively parenting? Remember when you came last, after work ( the deadlines), parenting, (organizing the birthday parties) and being a wife (going to his annual Christmas party, or worse--having to have it.)</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica";"> You don’t have to worry about marriage or divorce. That is now a done deal—one way or the other. You no longer have to raise teenagers. You have put in your time with soccer teams, school projects, and hoping that the kids will become solid citizens, or at least self-sufficient. You no longer have to work (in most cases) and have to answer to a boss or the market. </span><br />
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica";">You don’t even have to make dinner. If you want popcorn for dinner you can have it. If you have a husband he can share the bowl. After unending years of responsibility, you are now a free agent. Bob Dylan’s famous song, Gotta <i>Serve Somebody</i>, should be revised to exclude old people.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">You might be a rock ’n’ roll addict prancing on the stage<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "helvetica";"> You might have drugs at your command, women in a cage<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "helvetica";"> You may be a businessman or some high-degree thief<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "helvetica";"> They may call you Doctor or they may call you Chief<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "helvetica";"> But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "helvetica";"> You’re gonna have to serve somebody<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "helvetica";"> Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "helvetica";"> But you’re gonna have to serve somebody</span></i><span style="font-family: "helvetica";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica";"> If you have your health and enough money to get by on, ( two big ifs) you are not responsible for or to anyone. For the first time in your life – you are not going to have to serve <i>anyone</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Cathy Gildinerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09409583094382198566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-890197838754161009.post-15353025602595466482019-10-25T11:45:00.003-07:002019-10-29T17:53:05.456-07:00old age part 2 -- Invisibility -- pros and cons<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 39.3pt;">
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #161a1e; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13pt;">Remember when you were young and the world noticed you – like way too much? I'm 71 and have forgotten most things, but I definitely remember construction workers whistling. I also remember driving in the family impala convertible with the top down, radio blaring The Temptations, while my long blonde hair flowed in the breeze. I was stopped by the police at least once a month-- "just to check my license</span><span class="MsoCommentReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 9pt;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #161a1e; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13pt;">." If you cut out the nostalgia, and really examine what was called “unwanted male attention" in the 50's and 60's, it might now be called harassment. The term didn't exist in the 50's. It was just "men!" Or my mother would say, "He's a real skirt chaser-- so watch out!"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #161a1e; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13pt;">It's over--invisibility has set in. It started in my fifties, so beware of the transition from the forties. It takes at least a decade to set in. Mine started when I was 51, when I overheard two construction workers in my kitchen say, "I'll bet she was somethin'." Did he say "<i>was</i>"? The past tense hit me like a brick had been thrown at my aging face. Now at 71 I've settled into invisibility. I now have fully accepted that I am as invisible as Harvey the Rabbit, but it was a slow meandering journey between 50 and 70.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #161a1e; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13pt;">The other day I was in my local coffee shop that I have visited daily for years. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #161a1e; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13pt;">A woman in her twenties was in front of me and the barista said, “Brittany, I missed you yesterday.” He asked plaintively as though he'd been pining, "<i>Where were you?” </i>When I got to the front of the line, I said "Hi Jose.” I’ve been in Germany for four weeks but I’m back for a latte. He looked up, smiled and said, “Oh, I didn’t notice you were gone. Welcome back!” </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #161a1e; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #161a1e; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13pt;">The scene is a lot like the scene in the often cringingly unfunny TV <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null">show</a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #161a1e; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13pt;">, <i>Frankie and Grace, </i>with Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda. There is one funny scene where they are ignored by the male convenience store clerk while trying to buy cigarettes. All of his attention is diverted to an 18-year- old girl in a halter top. Eventually Grace screams that they are not invisible. Frankie extracts revenge by stealing the cigarettes, saying if she is invisible why should she pay.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #161a1e; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #161a1e; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13pt;">When I was 60 and my invisibility was approaching the levels on the Topper show (if you get that reference you are the right demographic for this article), I was getting ready for a relative's wedding. I tried on high heels and also flats and asked my three sons which looked better. One said, “Mom, just wear what’s comfortable. No one is looking at you.” The other two nodded in sage agreement. This was 10 years ago when I was 60 so I was shocked. I didn’t know I was past looking at. It took my breath away.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #161a1e; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #161a1e; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13pt;">Gradually by age 70, I had done a complete turnaround and found relief in my invisibility. I cut my hair so I didn’t need to blow it dry and let it go white, threw out my high heels, and only bought shoes that had support and were comfortable. I hate shopping so I gave it up. Now I wear hiking gear or exercise suits. With no one looking I gave up expensive cosmetics and facials. On a good day, I just wash my face and I wear makeup from the drug store – but only for major occasions. If I want dessert, I eat it. If I get an invitation for a dinner or wedding and it says “formal attire,” I just wear what I wore to the last formal occasion, because no one will notice I am wearing it again. I no longer feel I have something to prove. Invisibility is freeing while simultaneously being relaxing. When designer Karl Lagerfeld said "Sweatpants are a sign of defeat," I thought they were a sign of heroic independence. I was no longer dependent on Karl Lagerfeld for low cut, short shirt, high-heeled fashion advice.</span><span class="MsoCommentReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 9pt;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #161a1e; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #161a1e; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13pt;">Invisibility also aids in relationships with the opposite sex. For example, when a man asked for directions when I was a 20-year-old 5'8" willowy blonde with waist length hair, chances are he had another agenda. It was, as Darwin said, the jungle of sexual selection. It was up to me to figure out who was a predator and who was not. It was a nerve-wracking procedure which led to tumultuous feelings swinging from naiveté and paranoia. Now, since mating is essentially over, I have lots of male friends of all ages that I never could have had when I was young. It would have been too risky. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #161a1e; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13pt;">Now when a man asks me for directions, I know he is actually lost.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #161a1e; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Cathy Gildinerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09409583094382198566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-890197838754161009.post-35711435122000210802019-10-22T12:04:00.001-07:002019-10-23T07:18:24.794-07:00Old Age-Part 1 On the road with Selective Attention Deficit. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Aging can creep up on you ( see cartoon). I have been ensconced in my home writing my book, <i>Good Morning Monster,</i> for the last five years-- which takes me from 66-71 years of age. As a writer, you do the same routine everyday; as long as you stay in your deeply dug groove from home to Starbucks, you don't notice any mental deterioration in your small world. The book I was writing is about my 25 years as a psychologist. The information I needed was not new and I could recall it as easy as falling off a log. Therefore I didn't have to contend with new learning.<br />
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Now with the book finished, Penguin said it was time for me to go out in the big world and market the book. I was booked all over and I had nary a worry. I jaunted about about without a qualm because I feel I have always been 'good on my feet' .<br />
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I hit the wall on my first gig in front of over a hundred people. Old people have trouble with selective attention. It is a little like a geriatric version of ADD. When I was alone in my 3rd floor study writing with no one ever disturbing me I had no idea I was now prone to distraction-- enough to knock me off my game. I wasn't used to it.<br />
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I was in the middle of my new speech since this was the first stop on my media tour. A member of the audience was late and flounced down the aisle and collapsed in a chair in the first row. I looked up focusing on her for a fraction of a second and then lost track of what I was saying. This had never happened to me before in my entire life. If it did happen, I recovered before anyone noticed. Suddenly, I had every public speakers worst nightmare. I totally lost the plot. I felt my face get hot and my heart pounded as hundreds of eyes were upon me.<br />
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A lot can go through your mind in a few seconds. I thought, I could fake it-- but it would be a stretch-- or I could confess -- a little too Catholic; or I could make a joke-- too Chris Rock. I decided since I am a lapsed Catholic who enjoys humour-- I'd opt for honesty, humour and draw in the audience.<br />
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I looked out at a tsunami of grey hair said, "Thank God you are mostly women of a certain age. Where was I before the late arrival from Beelzebub?" I said comically glaring at the late arrival. "Remember Hillary said, "'it takes a village'." What would I do if you weren't here-- probably wander home in a daze and when the police stopped me I'd say I was Melania Trump." Everyone laughed and one or two people yelled out what I had been talking about. I said, "What about the rest of you? Distracted?" Everyone laughed and we moved on. It set a relaxed pace for the rest of the talk. I felt the audience was with me or as they say 'had my back'.<br />
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I came upon this solution spontaneously, but I wanted to share it with other old people. Just be relaxed and honest. Throw in some humour if you can. <i> The axiom is people respond to the mood of the speaker, not the words. </i> If you are humiliated by memory loss, the audience will be as well. If you are relaxed and act like it is one of the routine bumps of old age, they will feel that way as well.<br />
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<b> Practical Remedy</b><br />
What to do about selective attention deficit ( getting distracted).? Prepare to lose your train of thought sometimes. Now when I give a speech I have the key word in each each paragraph highlighted in yellow. I keep my finger on it till I move to the next paragraph. That way if someone interrupts me, I have a grounding. When people from the audience ask questions and I give a long discursive answer, I have learned to ask before moving on to another question, "Did I answer your question?"<br />
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<b>All old age mental deficits have a down side, but they all have an upside.</b><br />
Sure, we all agree that it can shake your confidence to have lost some concentration. However, the upside is that I am old enough to remember things that are now historical. In the <i>content </i>of my talk I describe patients I have almost half a century ago. For example, Danny, the native patient in my book, was a child trapper before school was mandatory. He was taken out of the Tundra to go to Residential school. He was my patient in the early 80's and I was able to hear first hand what happened to him when he was taken from his family. I could report details that few people are alive to tell. When I gave a talk to a high school they all knew of the Truth and Reconciliation commission, but were fascinated to hear my details of the past told in a present tense.<br />
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<b>You know your old when...</b><br />
<b> </b>I found my 1950's childhood memoir, <i>Too Close to the Falls</i>, in the<i> history </i>section at Indigo. I informed the salesman I was still alive and perhaps he should move it to the memoir section. He looked at me and said with a certain amount of doubt. "Yup. I guess you're still alive."<br />
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<br />Cathy Gildinerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09409583094382198566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-890197838754161009.post-45113219021390296212019-01-31T09:06:00.000-08:002019-02-01T06:33:20.717-08:00The yin and yang of Leipzig<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
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<span style="font-family: "lucidagrande" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> I am here in Leipzig, East Germany to tag along to my husband’s medical convention of 5000 international radiologists. (They all look perilously alike. They all share one trait. They wanted to be doctors but never see patients.( Picture a town flooded with said individuals.) I am an historical artifact called the The-wife-traveling-with-her-working-husband. I am actually old enough to remember fifty years ago when they used to have a "wives program" at doctors' conventions. While the men went to the conference, a social coordinator arranged activities for the wives, like a day trip down the Rhine. Now the idea of the wives’ program is completely dead in the water. It is a quaint relic. Nearly half of the radiologists under forty are women and the wives of male radiologists have their own jobs and can’t be tagging along on their husbands’ coattails. I am a writer and can do my work anywhere so, to my husband's chagrin, I accompanied him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucidagrande" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> I was interested to see what has actually happened in East Germany since the wall fell. Not many people visit it and instead focus on Berlin and the West. I was a psychologist in a previous lifetime, before I ran out of empathy, and what interests me more than the modernization of East Germany is their cultural psyches. My one week as a cultural sleuth revealed the following. The Germans are a mass of contradictions. While on the one hand they are totally rule oriented to the point of anal retention, on the one hand, they do things that even in North America would be considered wild or at least edgy. As Freud says the tighter you are wound the more you have to break out. Let’s start with the tighter and then loosen up.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucidagrande" , sans-serif; font-size: medium;"> My husband was administered a giant badge the size of legal paper on a rope to wear around his neck to prove he was registered at the conference. The badge is so large it looks like a tag you would put on a child with his name on it if you sent him alone to an unknown city. The convention literature says you must wear your badge at all time and you may not lose it; they will not be replaced and you will not be admitted without it. If you do lose your badge, the committee advises you </span><i style="font-family: LucidaGrande, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">not </i><span style="font-family: "lucidagrande" , sans-serif; font-size: medium;">come to the desk for a replacement. Result: 5000 radiologists have not lost their badges and wear them at </span><i style="font-family: LucidaGrande, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">all </i><span style="font-family: "lucidagrande" , sans-serif; font-size: medium;">times even though they look a bit slow travelling around town with giant name tags that blow in the wind.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucidagrande" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> In the morning you can buy a breakfast which has horrible sausage and other animal organs drooping off trays. I skipped the whole animal fest and went to the connecting lounge where they have free coffee and tea in the morning and then I waited to eat lunch at a restaurant where I was not chained to some strange derma. They have paper cups for the lobby and real china cups for the breakfast room. In reality, it is all one big room. I took a china cup and filled it with tea from the free drinks in the lobby. It was almost noon and the breakfast had been closed for hours. A waitress came dashing over saying that I could not use a china cup from that end of the lobby since I missed breakfast. I apologized and said I would use paper in the future if I didn’t buy breakfast. As I settled down to have my tea and to puruse the <i>Leipziger</i> Newspaper, she continued to loom over me. Finally, I looked up and said, “yes?” Then she went and got a paper cup and poured my tea from the china cup to the paper cup saying, “I am only doing my job.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucidagrande" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">One day in the lobby I sneezed a few times and the clerk at the desk said, “Gesundheit.” I said to her and to anyone in the lobby who could hear me, “Isn’t it weird that <i>Gesundheit</i> is a universal term for sneezing. Why would that one German word be used all over the world for sneezing? She looked at me for a long moment and then said, “That is not my job. I am to help you with directions.” The other people in the lobby just busied themselves with their devices acting as though I was either thought disordered or demanding. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "lucidagrande" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> I was in an art gallery —no one does modern grotesque like the Germans. They can really capture psychological terror.(See picture below.) This is only part of a much larger sculpture of hanging people.) I was in a huge elevator with an entire class of seven year olds. One chubby boy said to me in a thick accent, “Hello woman!” and the others giggled. The teacher shook her head in horror as though he’d brandished a gun. When they got off the elevator quietly in orderly fashion, a woman next to me, who clearly worked at the Gallery, said by way of apology for such profound rudeness, “Children do not behave as they once did.” I was shocked as I thought they were perfectly behaved and said so. I said, “You should see children in North America. She said, "Really!" she could not imagine worse than what she'd witnessed. I felt like mailing her in a crate to New York school for a day. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucidagrande" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">There were numerous incidents like this all day long. Just when I was convinced that the East Germans were trapped in elaborate rules, I saw the other end of the spectrum of equally wild, adventurous behaviour--things that would be edgy even in North America.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucidagrande" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> I went to a restaurant called Mondshein by our hotel to scope it out for dinner while my husband was still at his conference. The woman spoke English. ((Very few people speak English in the East German city of Leipzig— unlike West Germany, especially Berlin where nearly everyone speaks it.) I was desperate for someone to talk to so we started chatting. She said their restaurant was only for people who want to eat in the dark. I had to enter the pitch-black dining room by putting my arm on her shoulder and then we stumbled into darkness. You could not even see a shadow. All the waiters were blind. The first thing I asked was, “Does this have to do with sex?” Then I added in order to normalize myself, “Probably everyone asks that.” She said, “You are the first ever to ask <i>that</i>.” (Oops. I was weird yet again.) When I asked the point of the darkness, she said it was a new movement to enhance taste by cutting out the other senses. You have no idea what you are eating. They present a four-course meal. After the meal you go into a lighted lounge and tell the hostess what you <i>thought</i> you ate. She said usually people are way off. They have no idea how to pair their tastes to the actual dish. Literally they don’t know fish from fowl. Apparently, when you have to block some senses, the others are enhanced and the food taste is augmented. She said that there are several “dark” restaurants in Germany and a few in Berlin (of course). When I asked what kind of person comes to such a restaurant she said they are average people of all classes and all ages (20s to 70s). I told her my husband of 48 years would never buy into dark dining. When he got back from his conference, and I told him about it he said, “Let’s go!” Guess I don’t know him very well!<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "lucidagrande" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> Our hotel lacks common amenities such as a concierge, a phone, and a restaurant that does not include body organs, but is replete with a sink that lights up in green and a bathtub that also lights up in green and is a spike heel in the middle of our room. I </span><span style="font-family: "lucidagrande" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">kid you not.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucidagrande" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">A hotel near us that I checked out on line is, in my humble opinion, the Wurst hotel ever. It is all based on a sausage theme and the restaurant has every imaginable, and unimaginable sausage. The pillows alone are a derma nightmare.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "lucidagrande" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> ‘Naughty' clothing stores are everywhere. In Wonderland 13 Wicked Wear the clothing didn’t look that edgy to me. It resembled peasant blouses with laced bustiers and dirndls in red and black. They have high heeled red shoes that lace up with open toes. In reality it you bought into this ’naughty’ clothing you’d look like a waitress at any one of the Hungarian restaurants in Toronto. The website says “expressions of your lifestyle with a wink" I told the proprietor I didn’t get it and she said only, “You’re not German.” She had that right.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucidagrande" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> So there you have it. The yin and yang of the German psyche. However if you simply focus on the German psyche alone, you will miss what is amazing about Leipzig. The German people are talented and just looking at the history of Leipzig you get a taste of it. Unlike Toronto where I am from, in Leipzig you have written history dating back to the 10th century. Musical genius alone claims Bach, Wagner and Mendelssohn-- all living in Leipzig! Leipzig University started in 1409. In 1519 Luther started the reformation and in 1539 the people of Leipzig became Lutheran.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucidagrande" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> We went to a service where Johann Sebastian Bach was music director from 1723 until his death in 1750. He was ‘directed' to come up with new music every week for the service and he composed it weekly for years on end! It was like my husband's conference badges, there was no way to object! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucidagrande" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> We had a great time going to an underground restaurant called the Auerbach Kellor. Goethe, the great writer, was a regular at the cellar while studying at the university from 1765 to 1768. He saw a wood block hanging in the restaurant on the wall of Faust causing an uproar rolling on a barrel. This woodcut inspired Goethe to write <i>Faust</i>. The basement tavern has all kinds of frescoes from scenes of Goethe’s <i>Faust</i>. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucidagrande" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">When I was taking the picture below of Faust, it was behind a table of Japanese male students who were at a computer conference. They wanted to know why they all had to get up so I could take the picture. I explained why Goethe was famous and the figure in red in the picture was the devil. I asked them if it's a good idea to sell your soul for eternal youth and worldly goods as Faust had done. One earnest, black suited, be-speckled twenty-year-old looked at me and said he’d sell his youth today for middle age and prestige and all the others agreed. I was surpised by his response but admired his honestly. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucidagrande" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">During the war the restaurant was used as a bomb shelter and after the war it was used by the authorities to hand out food stamps. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucidagrande" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">The fall of the wall began in a church in Leipzig, with peaceful protest. Everyone was shocked that the wall came down without violence as the cold war began to thaw. I remember Walter Cronkite showing the crumbling wall on CBS News in 1991. We all wondered what these East Germans, who have been walled off from the west, would be like when they emerged from their dreary soviet block buildings. I noticed that whenever I talked to a German on this trip, they dated things by 'before' and 'after' the wall. None of the irony was lost on me that now, nearly thirty years later, we in the west, discuss "walls" daily in the news.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucidagrande" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> Like every other city I have been to in Germany, there is a Holocaust museum or memorial. Germans have done an amazing job covering what happened to the Jews during the war. You could never say they have buried that history. In fact it is in your face in every city and it is always done well. The memorial in Leipzig is simple but effective. It is called <i>140 Empty Chairs</i>. Each chair stands for 100 Jews who used to pray in this spot where their synagogue used to stand. 14,000 Jews from Leipzig were sent to Buchanwald concentration camp and killed. The memorial is not in a tourist area but in a plain neighbourhood of apartment buildings so that whenever anyone of a thousand people open their shades they see it. Here is a picture taken from someone renting a 6th floor apartment. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucidagrande" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> As I look around me, I realized that almost no one now has lived through the war. You’d have to be in your middle 80’s’. It’s gone from current event to history in my life time. I remember when I came here in my 20’s, fifty years ago, you saw wounded retired soldiers limping around every town square in leather shoes and vests. Now fifty years later you see everyone in Nikes with a cell phone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Cathy Gildinerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09409583094382198566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-890197838754161009.post-31838466521812090332018-03-20T10:55:00.001-07:002018-03-25T10:11:09.034-07:00Writing an Historical Novel :the Underground Railroad<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
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<span lang="EN-US">I am having a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">new</i> experience. That alone is a joy at the
age 70. I am writing an historical novel! (One of my sons said I am so old my
three memoirs are now historical.) It’s a big undertaking but it keeps my mind
alive.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I did, in fact, already write somewhat of a
historical novel in 1985 called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">SEDUCTION</i>
about Darwin and Freud. Although it was placed in a modern setting, it explored
Darwin and Freud through their letters and writings. In this novel it is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">truly</i> historical as it is about the
Underground Railroad and takes place years 1815-1860.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t have a title yet. I was thinking of
UNDERGROUND since it works for everyone in the novel—both slaves and
abolitionists. We all have feelings that have gone underground as in
unconscious things and secrets that we won’t reveal as well as the actual
Underground Railroad. So that title would work on many levels.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">I have wanted to
write this book since I was a little girl. I grew up in Lewiston, New York,
which was one of the hubs for the Underground Railroad since it is a border
town on the Niagara River. It was the last stop on the Underground Railway
since it was on the American border.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All
that was left was to row across the river to freedom in Canada. I could see
Canada from my U.S. home when I was a child. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">New York State
has dedicated a statue to Lewiston’s work on the Underground Railroad and
placed it at the spot where the slaves crossed the River to freedom. This statue is one
block from where I grew up. (See the picture below of me standing in front of the statue on the riverbank.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizDWJBzR_h9HyHLVcpXYUqG4ARmQDsOhM1l0YIM4SLmzbDSKps5JtCEtIfQBF2p7-k05Y478TSlNkmjtuAa4fVPXyoW3qpM-kVK1s4j4rVv6LiQzQt7N7nWdb3FJMdWFw1CmumQH-HG-Hc/s1600/DSCN6724.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1351" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizDWJBzR_h9HyHLVcpXYUqG4ARmQDsOhM1l0YIM4SLmzbDSKps5JtCEtIfQBF2p7-k05Y478TSlNkmjtuAa4fVPXyoW3qpM-kVK1s4j4rVv6LiQzQt7N7nWdb3FJMdWFw1CmumQH-HG-Hc/s320/DSCN6724.JPG" width="270" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">The house I grew
up in was built soon after the revolutionary war and billeted soldiers in the
war of 1812. My relatives lived there for over 200 years and were active in the
Underground Railroad in its heyday. On some of the timber beams in the basement people, presumably slaves,
who were hidden there, have etched their initials. I grew up with these stories
and their embellishments that have turned into Lewiston legends.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">When I started
the book I had no idea how hard it was to write an historical novel. In my
memoirs I could write almost everything from memory. (My husband calls me an
idiot savant since I can remember what I wore to my 8<sup>th</sup> birthday
party but not my present cell number.) Remembering the local and national
politics was a piece of cake since I <i>lived</i> through them from the 50’s to the
present.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">My protagonist,
named Lydia, is going to run the Frontier House Tavern and hotel in Lewiston as a cover
for her Underground Railroad work. She is a partner with a black woman named Hazelon.
One is the cook, the other works the bar and together they own the hotel. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Lewiston, now a
sleepy town, was bigger than Niagara Falls and Buffalo in the 1800’s. So anyone
who was anyone (as my mother would have said) who wanted to see Niagara Falls
had to stay in Lewiston at the Frontier House. (See picture of Frontier House.
The records show Mark Twain, Dickens, De witt Clinton, Lafayette, Henry Clay
all stayed there—and the who’s who goes on.) James Fenimore Cooper wrote <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Spy</i> in Lewiston and included the
Lewiston barmaid as a character. It is a daunting but fascinating task for me
to find a way to tie all this history into one novel. (The Frontier House was
built in 1824 and is still standing. See picture. This is only the upper half.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibn8sWgxdhdbOpVTzy_JUrRX9N_5EpGfT6z24iP7rdKryS_fCDancjqWiCvH6pC-8tHsOE2sgdOHJZ5bK4uXgnFjYE2ZQWMhL4GDKk6e2fUhQTDFbrphwAr-F_Nas6yyGHwivUgJ-UAVWc/s1600/FH-Frontier-House-tall-2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="458" data-original-width="494" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibn8sWgxdhdbOpVTzy_JUrRX9N_5EpGfT6z24iP7rdKryS_fCDancjqWiCvH6pC-8tHsOE2sgdOHJZ5bK4uXgnFjYE2ZQWMhL4GDKk6e2fUhQTDFbrphwAr-F_Nas6yyGHwivUgJ-UAVWc/s320/FH-Frontier-House-tall-2.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">As I began
writing I realized –oh my God these people at the bar have to have
conversation! What will they talk about? I had to read history books to know
what happened in the antebellum era. In order to have chatter at the bar and to reveal the characters in the town, I had to know this history enough to make banter. That means I had to know it as though I’d lived through it. America grew to four times it size,
slavery was debated, Indians were run off their land and “Jacksonian Democracy”
(ironic term since it didn’t include women, blacks natives, or landless whites)
took over.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="text-indent: 36pt;">Also how did
people get around? Does my protagonist jump on a horse or what? In 1830 she
took a stage coach, by 1840 their were no stage coaches and she took a train.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">What did she
wear? I have had to go to costume museums and study what undergarments were
worn and what was in style and what was out of style.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you want to describe someone as out of
date in their apparel, you have to know what year men stopped wearing breeches.
I know exactly what the 1980's shoulder pads looked like but the corsets of the
1830’s threw me. I had to learn women couldn’t take deep breaths in them and had to
pant shallowly so their breasts would flutter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>With the smallest exertion you could feel faint. You had to carry
smelling salts in small vials that were covered with the same fabric as the
dress. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">In my ignorance,
I, As Blanche said in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Street Car Named
Desire</i>, I had to “count on the kindness of strangers.” I went to Lewiston nearly sixty years after I left there (I now live in Toronto) and knocked on the door
of the Tryon House that was the most famous station on the Underground Railroad. It is
located on the steep bank of the river and there are three hidden basements that
go down to the river’s edge where slaves were hidden. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Often run-aways were hidden for months until
the ice broke on the lake. Remember there were whirlpools and strong currents
as it was not that far from the falls. It was less than a kilometer to get
across and only fourteen miles away in St. Catherine’s lived Harriet Tubman. (See picture below of back of the house with all the basements to the river.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg318EtU2EoWMnPkY7GTr02ezwPZz2_hkpmyG2gvOuyFOYCrVX75RGuiCUT_Gfy9aExGXOKMdu3Vt0jtBNgAa5b7kSxZNqYBm1XQFhFLM4kx65JZ8Ba7su8QyFS8uWkmJhEpPa4vYjrzyEF/s1600/tryons_folly.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="399" data-original-width="300" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg318EtU2EoWMnPkY7GTr02ezwPZz2_hkpmyG2gvOuyFOYCrVX75RGuiCUT_Gfy9aExGXOKMdu3Vt0jtBNgAa5b7kSxZNqYBm1XQFhFLM4kx65JZ8Ba7su8QyFS8uWkmJhEpPa4vYjrzyEF/s320/tryons_folly.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="text-indent: 36pt;">This is the first time I have had to collaborate. I</span> have probably
lived in my own head for way too long. (Only child writes in her Third floor garret for 50
years. Picture a white haired loony like Mr. Rochester’s wife in Jane Eyre.) </span><span style="text-indent: 36pt;">Three things
shocked me in this collaboration. I was surprised by how much information there is on every
tiny thing that </span><i style="text-indent: 36pt;">ever</i><span style="text-indent: 36pt;"> happened in the
past and how much controversy there is over every historical event. Secondly, I
was taken aback by how many people are fascinated by local history. For example
one amateur historian has sent me all kinds of information on trains used to
get up the steep escarpment. Another couple dressed in period attire and
enacted a short play with abolitionist dialogue for me down by the river.</span><span style="text-indent: 36pt;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 36pt;">Thirdly, I am bowled over by how kind people
are in the donating of their time. People have opened their historical homes,
their minds and have given unflinchingly of their time and copy machines. The
local historians have researched all the transportation for me, and the town
council members and history volunteers have unearthed reams of data. The
Lewiston Librarian knows every pertinent document available from the 1800’s.
When I arrived she had it all packaged for me. She even has the deeds to the
original family homes. People who have lived in the village for generations
have passed down tales to their children and their children have gotten
wind of my project emailed their lore to me.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">I think Hillary
Clinton was right when she said, “It takes a Village.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "courier"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span><!--EndFragment-->Cathy Gildinerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09409583094382198566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-890197838754161009.post-15030494129812057022018-03-19T14:54:00.000-07:002018-03-19T14:54:30.403-07:00LIFE IS A GAS IN SAN MIGUEL, MEXICO<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO60J432FAB9bgJgFx8o58ZbFBUHkKlCUMGA0UDPCtctWQLPOMy3H7p0TNIhyGVca7y3zUcMCwGd4RBmWPm4WVGiBGdOAxmX26PSWvx4GPRz-7vtvll9dSb28M6YfFZp5fg3yrBktn3Rtp/s1600/20180304_142322+gas+disaster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1270" data-original-width="1600" height="254" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO60J432FAB9bgJgFx8o58ZbFBUHkKlCUMGA0UDPCtctWQLPOMy3H7p0TNIhyGVca7y3zUcMCwGd4RBmWPm4WVGiBGdOAxmX26PSWvx4GPRz-7vtvll9dSb28M6YfFZp5fg3yrBktn3Rtp/s320/20180304_142322+gas+disaster.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">If you think you
have nothing left to learn at age seventy-—think again. I learned two
invaluable lessons this week while vacationing in Mexico. It took an emergency for me to absorb them.</span><span style="text-indent: 36pt;">For the last
three years we have opted to find housing through airbnb in our trips to San
Miguel, Mexico. Each year it has worked beautifully. </span><i style="text-indent: 36pt;">Until this year</i><span style="text-indent: 36pt;">.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Two days ago we jumped
across the dog crap on the sidewalk and entered our rental apartment for the first time that was
misportrayed on line. The pictures were totally deceiving. In fact it was not
that much cheaper than the near palace we had last year. We were sent the keys by mail. We discovered the place was tiny, dirty and had no essentials like toilet paper, towels, hair dryer, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">front door that closed,</i> and storage space (nearly all
the cupboards were padlocked) we tried to find a phone number. Finally we found one on a dirty scrap of paper affixed to the fridge. When we called we found out we were talking to a person in
California who was not the owner. She leases for the season and has sublet to
us. (She rents for six months and our two weeks of high season is paying for her whole stay!) The <i>real</i> owner owns sixty apartments and is a slum landlord who lives in
San Miguel. He does not answer his phone.( Of course.) The sublet person blamed all the problems on the cleaning lady who was non existnet.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">The person who
sublet to us <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>demanded all the money up
front for our two week stay. The owner is a big conglomerate and big conglomerates
have big lawyers. We were screwed. We came face to face with the downside of Airbnb.
Suddenly a hotel sounded perfect but it was too late. Everything for a fifty
miles radius was full. You think this is bad. just wait!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">The next day I
was in my underwear (sorry for T.M.I. but a necessary part of the story)
reading in bed. Suddenly I heard a huge explosion and a whooshing sound like standing
next to Niagara Falls and then the room was engulfed with the smell of gas. My
husband, fully clothed and reading in the living room, screamed, “Gas
explosion. Major gas leak, Get out now!” My husband who is never melodramatic (that
is my department) screamed, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Now, now, it
is going to blow up any second and we could die!”</i> As he was thundering down
the stairs and gas was buzzing in my ears and filling my lungs I was struck
with a dilemma. Did I want to die in this gas explosion or run out in the
busiest street in San Miguel at the age of seventy in my white underpants and
bra. Of course everyone over fifty knows the choice in this dilemma. <i>I chose</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Death</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>As the gas filled the room and I had trouble breathing, I donned my
blouse, pants and even my shoes. I skipped lipstick since it <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">was</i> an <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">emergency</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">My husband was
on the street screaming “gas explosion” and clearing the busy street. It was my
job to run into the posh hotel across the street and call the equivalent of 911.
I ran in so fast I did not notice that there were glass doors as they were
clean ( unlike our place) and had no wire grate. I ran <i>into</i> the doors full speed
and bounced back on the street. (Everyday I was there the doorman imitated me
bouncing off the closed door when I walked past.) I still have a black and blue
mark on my forehead. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">The gas men came
in trucks with screaming sirens and with my husband <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>cleared the street and evacuated all
apartments near ours. Gas-emergency-Men in masks ran up and down the street
yelling in Spanish. (see picture with my husband, Michael, who knows nothing about gas leaks, is directing) Finally a gas emergency man donned in an
explosion proof blow-up suit that made him look like the Michelin tire man. He
fought his way through the gas to the roof and found that someone had
jerry-rigged the gas tank valve with their own repair of plastic to cover a
leak. This particular day was hot and the gas expanded in the tank and blew the
jerry-rigged cap off and gas filled the house.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">The gas men said
these giant tanks are only good for ten years and it was now thirty years old
and had had makeshift repairs over the years and they insisted we needed a new tank.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We said we would leave if the owner
didn’t put in a new tank. The spokesman for the owner said ‘Adios Amigos.” They
still have the money from the renter. We were the sublet. I’ll spare you the
entire story but let it be known that the landlord paid no attention to the
written order. They jerry-rigged it <i>yet again</i>, and the owner refused to buy a new
water tank. We are helpless unless we wanted to fly home and give up all we
have spent on round-trip tickets, etc. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I got a real taste of what people feel like
who are helpless with nowhere to go (everything for miles around was full) and
had to settle for a substandard domain and a cruel, selfish prick of a landlord
can rule your life. I’m lucky I don’t live with it every day.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">The other lesson
I learned was more complicated. It was not really a lesson but a message I’d
absorbed about body image. During emergencies people react with their gut-- not
their mind. As an older woman I know society says, “Your body is totally done
by fifty. Don’t under <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">any</i>
circumstances, including risk of death, show it publically. When you think about
it, when was the last time you saw an older woman’s nude body on television or
in a movie. You see every other combination of body and sexuality. All those
taboos have been broken but not this one. <i>I’d learned my lesson well</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Cathy Gildinerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09409583094382198566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-890197838754161009.post-56949074420873982682017-11-12T11:44:00.001-08:002017-11-12T11:54:45.509-08:00ANGER WRITES FOR ME<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I was having coffee other day with some other writers and they were saying the worst occupational hazard they face is the dreaded <i>Writer's Block</i>; that is facing the blank page with nothing to say. Much to everyone's shock I said I'd never once suffered from writers' block. Some one asked me what motivated me and I thought for a while and then had to admit, if I'm being honest, It is <i>anger</i>. I recommend it for writers. First it is inexhaustible. Second, it is always with you and it gives you a cutting edge. Finally, anger gives you motivation and energy so you can surrmount all obstacles. There is nothing like righteous indignation to get you to speed to your computer in the morning. Anger has, of course, always been the emotion of choice for me and other Irish Catholics of the American variety.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The easiest way to explain how anger weaves its magic into the writing life is by exploring the motivation for my new book (forthcoming) titled <i>Good Morning, Monster. </i><span style="text-indent: 36pt;">The seed for this book originated at my high-school reunion several
years ago. The principal had everyone stand up and clap for an alumnus of our
class, Tony G., a military hero, who had been awarded the Purple Heart at the White
House for an act of bravery performed in Vietnam. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="text-indent: 36pt;">In terms of full disclosure, this military 'hero' is the same hyperactive boy who krazy-glued the mouthes shut on the fish I was using for my science project on oxygen for the New York State Science Fair. After months of work, I came into the lab to find them lock-jawed floating on the top of the tank. Don't bother wasting your breath telling me that was fifty-six years ago and I should give up my resentment. I nurture grudges. Have you ever heard that there is no such thing as Irish Dementia? Why--because they </span><i style="text-indent: 36pt;">never</i><span style="text-indent: 36pt;"> forget the grudges.</span></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The principal waxed eloquent about the
traits of war heroes saying they had to have courage, selflessness, humility,
patience, caring, and tenacity. Of course, what he said was true and I agree, we need
war heroes. I mean no one wanted Hitler in the white house in 1940. However, as the principal was expounding on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">military</i> heroes, I started getting hot under the collar thinking of the unsung <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">psychological </i>heroes in my private practice in psychology. I have
seen more bravery in some of my patients than General Patton ever saw in World
War two.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="text-indent: 36pt;">My patients’ bravery is not time limited as a war hero’s is; it
occupies their entire life. Why is it that heroism is not measured in duration? Most of the time heroes are brave for one moment in time or in testosterone flashes. My patients had to be brave every day. In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech </span>Faulkner said bravery was sometimes, "simply enduring".</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: inherit;">If you are an abused child, life can be your
own personal war. Children with cruel parents have to get up every morning
and fight a new battle against incredibly uneven odds. They are captive,
powerless, behind enemy lines and are held prisoner. They have no loving
childhood to fall back on for personal strength; there is no armistice in sight
and there will be no glory at the end. Back wards of psychiatric hospitals are
full of these grown children who sank from battle fatigue and fell into some
form of mental illness. The streets of our cities are beset with substance
abusers that could not fight another day. They had PTSD before they were five
and had no veterans’ services to turn to. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: inherit;">As my anger surged, my book began to take form. I would counter the military hero and offer another form of heroism; The kind that is a l<i>ifelong fight</i>. There has been a lot written about <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">victims</i>
of late and I want to explore <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">strength</i>
and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">resistance</i>. I aim to celebrate my patients' bravery. They won't have my old high school principal's and the White House's adoration, but their stories will see the light of day, and it will be my way of giving them the Medal of Honour.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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Cathy Gildinerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09409583094382198566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-890197838754161009.post-86662787033323502742017-07-03T10:59:00.000-07:002017-07-03T11:33:44.113-07:00Bud, anyone?<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 1.4pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
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<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US">I was talking to Bruce my advertising friend about the new Budweiser commercial that was aimed for the 4<sup>th</sup> of July. It is where Adam Driver, ( oddly enough) drives across country to a disabled veteran’s home to tell the family that the daughter has a scholarship provided by Budweiser.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bruce and I could not agree on efficacy of the ad.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It worked for me and he thought it approached <i>The Bachelor</i> in its degree of hokum.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/huQrvmrJbXk/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/huQrvmrJbXk?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US" style="text-indent: 36pt;">Surprised
by our different views, I began to go deeper into what actually is the
Budweiser market. What do men and women </span><span style="text-indent: 36pt;">want </span><span style="text-indent: 36pt;">who drink Bud? After all targeting
your group makes an ad, if not </span><i style="text-indent: 36pt;">good</i><span style="text-indent: 36pt;">, is
at least successful.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">I
came across what I thought was an astonishing study and survey done on Bud advertisers.
What female Bud drinkers want is a man who is, and I quote from the study “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">authentic</i>.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ok, I get that. It makes sense you
want someone genuine who is not a sleaze artist or some bogus goofball. Just be
real; be honest; don’t have a false persona. I could see going for that kind of
man in an ad or even in real life. It tells you the Bud woman wants what I want
in a man. I mean at least it is not way off the mark.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Of course “Authentic” can be misleading for you can be an authentic
psychopath—but let's not delve into semantic hair splitting. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Now
what kind of girl does a Bud man want? Please sit down before you read this. If
you take heart medicine and you are a woman, please pop a pill under your
tongue. You will think you are in a really warped time machine. Ready? The
woman they want is, and I quote again, “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Low-maintenance</i>!”
That’s right. They could have picked intelligent, genuine, funny, ambitious,
kind, family oriented. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Nope</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They want “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Low-maintenance</i>.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">What
exactly does low-maintenance look like in a woman in a relationship with a man?
She wants whatever the man wants. (That is referred to by the Bud man as ‘No
drama.”) She doesn’t need restaurants or dating. She will just stay home, have
a beer, ( Yup, a Bud) <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and two minute sex
which she says was perfect and then say goodnight. If you don’t call her on
time or cancel to watch football with your bros she is fine with it. She has no
demands, which is what the Bud man wants.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why doesn’t she have any demands? What does it
take to be “low-maintenance.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is
no one home and she has no boundaries and denies her personal needs. That ends
when one day she just gets depressed ( as the Rolling Stones say there is a
little yellow pill for mothers--I suspect low maintenance mothers) or silently walks out, or the man walks out
because he is bored stiff or not stiff.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Low
maintenance” is a way of saying I want a woman with no needs. The only important needs are my own. Also you never work on a
relationship or have romantic highs with out sorting out personal needs of
everyone in the relationship. Low-maintenance women are the ones that are still
on the Titanic.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">The results of this study done by Bud reflect any decade since the 30’s. It does
not reflect any social change. I think that male Bud drinkers are living in a
time warp and mistake fear and powerlessness in women as a time when “America
was great.” Bud drinkers carry on, but I’ll take a foreign beer anytime. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
Cathy Gildinerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09409583094382198566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-890197838754161009.post-35365190915578123862016-07-20T09:34:00.003-07:002016-07-20T09:34:49.073-07:00Horns-a plenty
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This piece on my elk battle was originally published in Reader's Digest in 2001. However, I am going back to do another residency at Banff this September 2016 so I am blogging it. I think it is worth republishing since there is never enough known about rutting. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikczEcqc-Rfdn6ZbiOOS-o-vWaNhbOIkKeTz4iEQEoaK9WrrQp8EGkmCW4y5EUao_-2SOuci0yGKUqUEexGhG2_O2hWnc5y9noZzaFhIQ9p49lTPG6GNhyphenhyphenmPXgJSEwsMdr2VC-gB-qGJ2A/s1600/240_F_61222275_ZFJ3zUrSVSjxst5YlPXmCvy5T2eaFWke.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikczEcqc-Rfdn6ZbiOOS-o-vWaNhbOIkKeTz4iEQEoaK9WrrQp8EGkmCW4y5EUao_-2SOuci0yGKUqUEexGhG2_O2hWnc5y9noZzaFhIQ9p49lTPG6GNhyphenhyphenmPXgJSEwsMdr2VC-gB-qGJ2A/s320/240_F_61222275_ZFJ3zUrSVSjxst5YlPXmCvy5T2eaFWke.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Horns-a-Plenty</span></b><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">I’ve never been a good student. Whatever is happening in the front of the
class usually fails to captivate my attention. On the plane I’m the type that never
listens to the disaster routine that the stewardess regurgitates about all the
different ways you could die and the heroic ways the person at the emergency
exit could save you. Instead I read the <i>En
Route</i> magazine and wait for the drinks trolley. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">True to form at the orientation
lecture at the Banff School for the Arts, high in the Alberta Rockies, where I’d
gone to take a mystery writing course, I
tuned out the forest ranger who dressed like a Canadian Mountie in a pointed
hat and high boots. Instead I checked
out the anthropological differences between the mystery writers and the poetry
writers. The Elmore Leonard wannnabes were muscular, smoked filter less
cigarettes, wore tight black pants, had short spiky hair and red lipstick. The
poetry writers were wan with Botticelli hair, wore wire rimmed glasses, ironed
blouses (where did they<i> find </i>them), baggy pants, and no makeup.
The New York writer beside me was also happy to ignore the lecture on “The
Emergency Measures in the Event of a Bear or Elk attack” and regale me with her
mystery plot about a lap dancer who
kills men with pelvic thrusts. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br clear="all" style="mso-break-type: section-break; page-break-before: auto;" />
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<span lang="EN-GB">Instead of listening to the content
of the lecture we focused on the form.
As this giant blonde Albertan told us about the annual rutting of the elk,
the New Yorker said she wouldn’t mind mounting the Mountie, or locking horns
with that Nelson Eddy of the new millennium.
She said she had a weakness for men who wore pointed hats and tagged
horns. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">As those around us diligently wrote
down what to do when faced with an elk, of course those in the poetry section
used fountain pens, we giggled uncontrollably saying that for sure these guys
had seen one too many episodes of wild kingdom.
We agreed that men in charge had to have a “Beware Schtick”. It’s part of “the territorial imperative”.
Translated it means, “Hey man, we are in the know. This is <i>our </i>turf.” In New York it’s Central park at night and
taking a cab to Harlem and here in Alberta it’s bear and elk. Men are here to tell you what’s dangerous and
the women are here to be scared. But as
the New Yorker said, it <i>had</i> its appeal. She said it got to “the inner
gatherer” in her. I agreed they didn’t
make those coonskin Davy Crocket caps for nothing. It’s all part of the
collective unconscious. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">She found elk a tad more frightening
than I did for all I could imagine were those guys who called themselves
benevolent, wore Wall Mart suits had flushed faces and folded their arms across their chests and then flapped their hands in
greeting to one another. I think they
had a secret handshake and horns on their hats. (Wasn’t the father on Happy
Days an Elk?) Actually they<i> are </i>sort of scary when you think about
it. Would you rather run onto a two or a
four- legged elk in the forest? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br clear="all" style="mso-break-type: section-break; page-break-before: auto;" />
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<span lang="EN-GB">The muscular Mountie, or as the
woman from Vancouver in my class referred to him as the “<i>I’m</i> Game Warden”,
earnestly regaled us with how important elk horns have become to the Alberta
economy. According to studies at the University of Alberta, testosterone increases at least fivefold when men take
ground up E.V.A., or Elk Velvet Antler
for the initiated. Women may take it as well since it does not increase
testosterone, but only enhances oestrogen. I guess that means they don’t grow
horns. One can only imagine what women do with more oestrogen: freeze more
casseroles, laugh harder at men’s jokes, begin to find Tom Jones even more attractive, buy a Victoria’s Secret preferred
customer card?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"> I always<i> wondered</i> why all those elk and
deer horns were such a big deal. I don’t know why people scoff at Freud when
what he says about sexual motivation seems to be fool-proof. I should have known when<i> even</i> our
bicycle courier at work wears one of those silly hats with turquoise felt elk
horns sprouting from the crown that sex, in the form of male virility, was
behind the whole thing. People that live
in the Rockies have elk horns mounted on the front of their car grills the same way the MTV’s on the east coast have Black fly bug screens. Over every fireplace the doe-eyed elk follows
your gaze and no matter from what angle you look at him, he appears to be
gazing back at you, silently begging you to get over this dorky velvet horn
thing and get him down off the wall.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">The next morning I was leaving my
forest cabin and lo and behold there were three giant elk that<i> had</i> to
weigh around 1000 lbs. and have a five-foot antler span. I decided even though they were blocking the
way I’d just motor between them. However,
as I stepped forward they closed rank. I
inched ahead. One began scraping his
hoof on the pine needled forest floor. I
wondered what <i>that </i>meant. I
thought it had a Hemingway ring of “I’m
ready to take you on little lady since these Rockies are my turf.” It was one of those classic<i> I’m charging</i>
numbers. At least that’s what bulls in the cartoons used to do when smoke came
out of their noses and ears. Weren’t all
those horny quadrupeds in the same genus if not same species? One lowered his head so his antlers were
parallel to the ground and, more importantly, perpendicular to my heart. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">I racked my brain. ( As opposed to
the elk who had a rack on his brain).
Now what<i> had</i> that Mountie told us to do? I hadn’t listened--story of my life. There
was<i> something</i> about a phone number.
I backed into the door and checked the automatic dial . There it was – “<b>elk 911</b>". I pressed the number and my
adrenalin stopped pumping as the familiar voice of our favourite Game Warden
said , “Elk 911. How may I help you?” I explained my situation. “Oh that’s our old
boy Donnie. He’s kickin’ up his heels
for the spring calving. Just likes to
show off for the girls. You should see him in rutting season. He really goes to
town.” After explaining that I was an
angry, hungry and trapped Homo Sapien, he suggested I should hold up a large
broom on the top of my head and then I should balance a hat on top of that and
walk out and face the elk. In turn, the
elk, would think I had a large rack, become intimidated and would
disperse. Fearing that the kind warden
was retaliating for our rude behaviour at orientation night, I enquired “Are you serious?” In a tone of one who had
dealt with the doubting Thomas from the East on more than one occasion he
said, “Trust me”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">What were my options? I held the
broom handle on top of my head with a blue jays cap precariously balanced on
the top of the pole and stomped out on the front porch and strode confidently,
far more confidently than a I felt, down the porch stairs. Now I know elk aren’t
rocket scientists, never having grazed in the Harvard yard, but were they dumb
enough to fall for this? If an elk came out of the forest with a pen and
pencil, even though I’m blonde, I am quite sure I would not have mistaken him
for a writer. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br clear="all" style="mso-break-type: section-break; page-break-before: auto;" />
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<span lang="EN-GB">But lo and behold the elk took one
look at my new horns and tore away as though my rack compared to no other. I had an antler span of well over five feet
and they knew it. Take<i> that</i> you
velvet antlered single digit I.Q’d cowards.
I confidently strode down the forest path and past a large group of
music students from England who were on their way to breakfast. Naturally I looked a <i>bit</i> odd so I
explained to the gaggle that I had to balance a broom stick on my head with a
baseball cap swinging from the top of that to ward off the elk that were following me. However, when I looked around there were no
elk. They had run off into the mountains.
Being English they said they understood<i>
perfectly</i>, and quickly excused themselves and rushed ahead. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Thinking I had put elk behind me, I
went to class to begin an exercise in researching for accuracy in plot
details. Our teacher suggested we work in
pairs. My partner was a writer from Calgary who is currently writing a mystery
story set in Banff with<i> elk
</i>as the main focus. I wondered
what kind of <i>messuages</i> was this?
Who was the detective-- Bullwinkle? She patiently explained that the
killer makes his murders <i>appear</i> to have been perpetrated by an elk gone
wild. Sensing my scepticism, the elk-
murder- writer told our group that there have been a plethora of human elk conflicts.
In fact it was pointed out in <i>Research Links,</i> the Parks Canada periodical,
that there were seventy-five incidents reported in Banff alone in 1991 up from
three in 1987. The most current statistics suggest that the fatalities have now
doubled. Last year a Japanese tourist
was actually impaled while taking a picture outside of the Banff Springs Hotel.
The elk murder woman asked me If I’d
go with her at dawn, to hear the cry of the elk as it looks for it’s mate. Apparently they make an unearthly cry as
though it were their last breath. She
wanted to hear it so she could write about it in her murder description. I was writing a Freudian Murder mystery--what
was I going to do-- take an excursion into her psyche, I petulantly thought as
I trooped through the pre-dawn forest on her elk excursion.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Even in April we had to wear full
winter gear-- even though by noon you could wear shorts a tee shirt. I guess
that’s what they mean by mountain air.
The first night nothing happened, the next nothing. Now I was getting too tired to write, but
Donnie had become my Moby Dick. I, the
Ahab from the east, was determined to find him.
Up again at 5:00 a.m., stalking
and finally we heard the unmistakable bellow. Elk-mystery-woman was ecstatic. It sounded as
though someone was dying, literally being turned inside out. It sounded primordially eery and somehow gut
wrenching, actually perfect as a murder mystery sound. I had to hand it to
elk-murder-mystery-woman on the sound score. Was it a cow that had lost her
young? Or the bull looking for someone
to make his breakfast and tidy up his horns.
The echo of the mountains threw us off.
We kept losing the sound and finally we came upon it in it’s final
desperate heave. There, doubled over a stump retching, was one of the British
high school music students. He looked up
green at the gills and said between heaves in a proper British chirp, “ I seem to be tossing my cookies on my way
home from a rather protracted evening”. As an explanation for why we were
stalking a drunken teenager at dawn, I offered,
“Sorry, I thought you were an elk.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--EndFragment-->Cathy Gildinerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09409583094382198566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-890197838754161009.post-57782633234805655052015-10-02T09:30:00.000-07:002015-10-02T09:30:06.375-07:00Bullying in Montreal<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 1.4pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
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<span lang="EN-US">Today
I gave a talk about my book, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Too Close to
the Falls,</i> at a CEJEP (College) in Montreal, which was populated mostly by students
from other countries. The students were very taken by my chapter on bullying
called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Anthony McDougall</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The gist of the story is in Catholic school in grade four
Anthony bullied me and no one would help. I asked my parents for help and they
said, turn to the principal. The principal said to pray (didn’t work), my
mother said to invite Anthony to lunch and make him a friend (Insane).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Roy, the delivery car driver at my dad’s
store, told me to hit Anthony with something sharp when he lease expected it.
(worked like a charm).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">I
was explaining to the students that in a memoir you have to explain different
realities. In the bullying chapter there were three realities: my parents
democratic view, the catholic church, and The rough and tumble world of
Roy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Juxtaposing realities is inherently
exciting, loaded with inner conflict and is a good technique to use in a
memoir.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">I
then asked the students if they had any conflicting realities they had to
juggle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To open them up I said I assumed
they had to keep several balls in the air since their parents were from one
culture and Canada had another culture. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">A
smattering follows of what I was told. I used their voices because they were so
succinct.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">--
I am from Rwanda. My brother was a child soldier and I had to get away from him
by swimming a river.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The rebels killed
my parents and now my uncle who was a rebel, lives in Canada.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thanksgiving does not work at my house. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">--
I am from Afghanistan and the Taliban bullied our family and my father was
killed in the town square for a reason we never understood. Now in Canada my
mother does not ever want me to talk to anyone outside of our family.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is paranoid so I just don’t tell her I
go out with friends who are not relatives. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">When
I went to have a <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>coffee in the school
cafeteria after the talk, some students from the class joined me and more
stories poured out. These were too personal to say in the full classroom.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 37.4pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US">--My mother and I
were raped in the same room by some Serbian soldiers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We left the scene silently and never talked
about it. When I got to Canada I learned that you were supposed to talk about
trauma or bullying. I tried to bring up what happened to us, but my mother hit
me and said it never happened. She said if our father knew of it he would leave
us. I have to balance the two cultures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I am learning to do it but it is hard. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A boy whose father and brother were killed in Afghanistan
and who fled to Pakistan alone at 16 said, “War is just bullying on a large
scale.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He said he fantasizes every day
about attacking those who killed his relatives.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.4pt; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">After an hour of stories I left Montreal feeling that being bullied
by a boy who pulled my hair out was fairly minor in the world of ‘bullying’. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One thing I was glad about was that the Anthony
McDougall story touched so much within these students that they carry around
every day. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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Cathy Gildinerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09409583094382198566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-890197838754161009.post-26915120625181509612015-08-12T11:42:00.000-07:002015-08-12T11:43:19.628-07:00Heebie- Geebies <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2BjCxZly1BpxqrtP1fWj1j1HsU3rZzG4mYFuniEp-uEvb4AI_ZeeqfdwmB2KyfYJH3X62VFHQiLLpR8Lgf-1IMHyXCmqlNVD79DrNJu4MnJMrOHV279732rr6YJ_8gUO4tZwfco3BloZ2/s1600/Drug-Addiction-Help.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="205" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2BjCxZly1BpxqrtP1fWj1j1HsU3rZzG4mYFuniEp-uEvb4AI_ZeeqfdwmB2KyfYJH3X62VFHQiLLpR8Lgf-1IMHyXCmqlNVD79DrNJu4MnJMrOHV279732rr6YJ_8gUO4tZwfco3BloZ2/s320/Drug-Addiction-Help.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 1.4pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">Heebie-Geebies<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 1.4pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 1.4pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 1.4pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">Three
years ago I was hit by a hay bailer and had a full body whiplash and a blown
out knee. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I got sick of limping and
decided to go bionic with a new knee.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 1.4pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">I
was told that the surgery is only successful if you are aggressive with the
physiotherapy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every day you build up
scar tissue and every day you have to break it down so you don’t get a stiff
leg. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is very painful and you must
take these small pink pills for the pain called morphine. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 1.4pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One guy in our physio class had a history of
addictions so he couldn’t take the morphine for the bending and stretching so
he regularly screamed and passed out from pain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>As the rest of us walked around him while he lay splayed out cold on the
floor, we thanked God that we could take our tiny pink pills. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 1.4pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">Being
an over achiever in small and unimportant situations, I made really quick
progress, so I decided to cut back on the painkillers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I woke up pre dawn huddled in a corner of my
bedroom with severe nausea, vomiting, heart palpitations, sweating and
uncontrollable weeping. (The last time I wept was twenty-one years ago when I mistakenly
erased my contact list.) This crying was because I felt like every synapse in
my brain was on fire. If I tried to think of even the most mundane thing,
flames leapt out of that thought and singed whatever idea resided next to it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 1.4pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I went back to my surgeon and told him what
hell I was going through.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He said
casually, “Sounds like the hebbie-jeebies to me.” “What?” I asked. He said,
“Don’t you know the signs of morphine withdrawal?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I said “Who do I look like, Billie Holiday?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He said, “Who’s he?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 1.4pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">It
is not often an “addiction” to morphine drops in your lap so I gave it careful
scrutiny. I, unlike a lot of scientific researchers, had a chance to study the
whole phenomenon from the inside out. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 1.4pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-indent: 34.6pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am a gregarious person. I love meeting new
people and getting together with friends.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Yet under the morphine, I had no desire to talk to anyone. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I lost the to and fro of conversation. But
more than that, I didn’t care about people at all. People who were my best
friends seemed like mere acquaintances. It was as though I was at a cocktail
party stuck in a boring conversation and had no way to extricate myself. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 1.4pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">Another
change was time slowed down. Spontaneity had left through the back door and
didn’t carry me through conversations. Now I could <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">see</i> myself at the table with other people and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">hear</i> all the inane things I said. Socializing for an hour was as
much work as being in a one-hour play performance and I would come home and
sleep of two hours after any interactions. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 1.4pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">Morphine
kills your appetite. I read there are no fat morphine addicts. I could munch on
a prune, which seemed as big as a turkey to me, for two days before I finished
it. I lost 22 pounds over two months. (When I complained to my friend about all
I’d been through she said, “You lost 20 pounds and you’re complaining? Shut
up!”)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 1.4pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">I
never worried about the future. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I didn’t
even think about my book tour coming up in a month. When I got emails about
author events, I thought everyone was being obsessive (a month translated to
ten years) and pressed delete.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">So
morphine had done several things to me. It took away all desire to be with
others and I never planned for the future. These were previously two of my most
enjoyable activities. I was now in a medically induced solitary confinement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 1.4pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">I
now totally understand why some people would crave Morphine. They may have had
toxic parents and then gone on to have unsatisfactory adult relationships. These
relationships hurt but we are social animals so they keep going back for more
pain.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 1.4pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On Morphine you are not a social animal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You really don’t need anyone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So all the people who used to hurt you are no
longer important.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Morphine slammed your
social needs door shut and you don’t have to let them hurt you anymore. The
best part is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">you are not lonely</i>. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Suddenly all the pain stops. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 1.4pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">The
future for this kind of person, who has troubled relationships, is often
limited. They are faced with futures yawning in front of them that are filled
with all kinds of woes. Morphine takes care of the problem because there is
only the present. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 1.4pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The two things that tortured them,
relationships and the future, are gone. And the divine part of it all is that
you don’t miss any of it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 1.4pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">I
have no desire to stay on this drug now that the pain in my knee has
subsided.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I look forward to wanting to
be with people again and getting back to planning my future. It is not that I
am not an “addictive personality”; it is that I don’t <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">need </i>or even<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> want</i> the few
qualities that morphine offers me. It was a bad fit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 1.4pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">One
person’s high is another person’s downer depending on need. If they had a pill
that would trim my troubles I’d be the first addict lined up to mainline it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Cathy Gildinerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09409583094382198566noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-890197838754161009.post-87235159927880336412015-04-21T13:23:00.000-07:002015-04-21T13:23:13.221-07:00SEPARATION ANXIETY <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 1.4pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixCMRpuCAtifJ50Em7dbyrPl7GU4iRlZPazBhgLG2nUbPIvJm9BGpm_o_-sNiWR908Yxy13lkoWX-VEtQC8VSZ9ODjYUHKrw9rvkgWuo8dxr3MAn139JVbo6U1KpCGIfxcXzZAoVndVFiN/s1600/images-2.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixCMRpuCAtifJ50Em7dbyrPl7GU4iRlZPazBhgLG2nUbPIvJm9BGpm_o_-sNiWR908Yxy13lkoWX-VEtQC8VSZ9ODjYUHKrw9rvkgWuo8dxr3MAn139JVbo6U1KpCGIfxcXzZAoVndVFiN/s1600/images-2.jpeg" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">When
you travel, a lot funny things happen on airplanes. We are all crammed together
and you get a chance to see the dynamics of other families minus their ‘indoor
voices’ and in public manners. Airlines are so annoying now and air travel
has been so stripped of its former glamour (I remember in the 50’s my mother
bought an outfit for the plane.) that people are not on their best behaviour.
All the indignities of taking your shoes and belts off and your belongings
rifled through, and the snaking lineups, slowly strip away the defenses you
usually keep reserve for public decorum known as civilized behaviour.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Last
week I returned from Mexico and a tourist would not force her screaming two
year old to wear her seat belt for takeoff. The flight attendant tried to get
her to comply, then the pilot came out, then a big wig from the airport came
aboard and told her she was holding up the plane and for safety reasons the belt
had to be done up for takeoff. We were now into our second hour on the tarmac.
I found it interesting that no one on the plane yelled at the woman or even
addressed her. They only glared at her. People grumbled to each other but not
to her. Finally she had to de-board with her now sleeping child and the ground crew
had to find her luggage and get it out of the plane. Literally dozens of people
missed their connecting flights in Houston. We had to run for ours. The whole
episode was not the least bit amusing, but only another example of how
parenting has totally gone to hell in a hand basket.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When that toddler grows up along with her
cohort, the book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lord of the Flies</i>,
will look like a utopia.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Three
weeks later I had another incident on a plane, which was far more amusing and
in many ways was the opposite of the first incident. The first incident was
where the child controlled the mother to an absurd degree and this latter
incident was again an interesting incident of child-parent control. A woman
with her two teenage children was in front of me in line at the counter where I
was checking in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She wanted to get three
seats together for herself, her seventeen-year-old son, who was visiting
Harvard, as she told the flight employee, and her thirteen-year-old daughter.
The clerk said there was a hefty fee to change seats at this late date since
she already had hers assigned on line. The mother gladly paid the fee so everyone could sit together.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The daughter said nothing and was wired and
up to all kinds of gadgets and the son said, “It is an hour and a half flight,
don’t pay to get seats together. We can sit on our own.” The mother insisted
they sit together. The son who was a head taller than his mother and clearly
shaved and was clearly desperate to fly the coup in the fall, said again, “I don’t
care what you say, I am keeping my original seat.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">She
said “Just do this for me.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">He
said, “No.” and the daughter couldn’t hear a thing and she was swaying to the
music she was listening to as she texted on her phone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">We
all boarded for Toronto and the woman said we couldn’t leave because her son
wasn’t in his seat. They called his name. There was no response. Finally he was
located in the back of the plane and was told to sit in the seat his mother had
paid for. He refused. Again, just like in Mexico, we sat on the runway.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">They
flight attendant talked to the mother and then went to the back of the plane
and talked to the son as he sat slouching in his seat and sulking. Then the
pilot came out and talked to the mother and again she said son was visiting
Harvard. The hearty Midwestern pilot, who clearly prided himself on having man
to man chats, talked to the son who told him to “butt out and fly the plane”
since that was his job.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Then
the called someone from the airport. This time he didn’t look as official as
the Mexican airport boss. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He came on
board wearing an orange glow-in-the-dark vest, heard the whole story,
including the Harvard bit for the third time, and then he said in a heavy southy
accent to the stewardess, ‘Move this puppy off the tarmac. We got backup. The
plane isn’t full. Both seats are empty and I don’t give a shit where this kid
sits as long as he wears his seatbelt." Then he turned to the mother and said,
“What do you want him to wear a diaper for Christ’s sake?” Then he hollered
from the front of the plane to the back, where the boy was seated, “See ya next
year in Boston when you’re on your own,” waved and got off the plane. We all
took flight. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Cathy Gildinerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09409583094382198566noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-890197838754161009.post-49605388466181889052015-03-25T11:55:00.000-07:002015-03-25T11:55:21.287-07:00Life in Florida has some shockers<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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In this photo you can see my high school friend, Sally, who is unfortunately still beautiful, and I are heading out of her garage to go to her country club so I can give a book talk on my memoir COMING ASHORE over dinner.<br />
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Before I spoke I was seated next to an emergency physician. In an effort to make conversation, I asked what are the most common emergencies in Florida. He said drunken golf cart accidents which are serious since people are old and many are on blood thinners and they bleed out when they tumble out or roll into a pond. The second most common emergency is, believe it or not, venereal disease. He said when people move into assisted living, they have a 'randy stage' where they jump from bed to bed having unprotected sex. Wow! Back to my chicken dinner. <br />
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Well those are just two sociological nuggets from the Sunshine state. Of course one of the glories of the state is the weather and being able to dine outside under the palms--- or so I thought. Another Florida shocker is that <i>no one</i> sits outside--ever. When I arrived from Canada I was so happy to be at my friend Sally's place. I asked if we could eat breakfast outside since it was so beautiful in her garden. She said no for two reasons. One the sprinkling system sprays on the cushions and they are wet and the other reason is her husband does not like eating out of doors. <br />
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Then I went to another huge house in Orlando with huge gardens and asked if we could sit near the pool to have our drinks. She looked at me horrified and said , "No, the gardner is coming tomorrow and there are a few dry leaves on the ground near the pool. Sorry, Oh and I have to close the drapes or the furniture fades."<br />
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Off I went on another day to the most exclusive spot in Sarasota in a golf community that I needed a code to get into. A grounds man drove in front of me to get to the house. ( I guess he wanted to be sure I didn't loot places on the way.) These people had a mansion and huge wrought iron porches a la <i>Gone with the wind </i> on the first and second floors. I asked if we could have drinks on the porch before going to the club for the talk and she said, "Absolutely not. You could get brained by a golf ball. It is totally unsafe out there. If you want to sit outside we have to go to the club."<br />
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I hoped to have better luck on the other coast in Florida further south. However I was told that no one goes outside. The woman said, "We had gofers or some small brown furry thing. I had to fill in the pool."<br />
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When I got to Boca Raton, I was staying with a woman from Buffalo so I knew she'd understand my need for some outdoor warm air. She said, "Ok, one drink, but then we are moving inside. Bugs come at dusk." So you can see me below after my 13 stop tour of Florida where I can sit outside for five minutes<i> only</i> and have my drink.<br />
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<br />Cathy Gildinerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09409583094382198566noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-890197838754161009.post-11350856692175254352015-03-04T07:53:00.001-08:002015-03-04T11:53:57.420-08:00Florida Book Tour---Plane from Toronto to Orlando --Disney Express<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtL0wGoqeelsmxk7z4sfeYM3NihWC2xgwZxbWwWVKDM3-Eni8tSb2n0_LqdPcycifz2JBq0Z2BncGOLY9swj1x32JQSZAz7H3G-AntQVDPD678azYb4cxigkA_Ow2WLv9MmQVuIf48eLQc/s1600/forida+welcome.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtL0wGoqeelsmxk7z4sfeYM3NihWC2xgwZxbWwWVKDM3-Eni8tSb2n0_LqdPcycifz2JBq0Z2BncGOLY9swj1x32JQSZAz7H3G-AntQVDPD678azYb4cxigkA_Ow2WLv9MmQVuIf48eLQc/s1600/forida+welcome.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">I am on a Florida book tour publicizing my
last memoir <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Coming Ashore.</i> I am going
to rent a car and go from Orlando down the ocean coast past Palm Beach
and Miami and then I’ll drive up the Gulf side and hit Naples and Tampa and
everything in between. I’m renting a car, I”ll have GPS that says <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Welcome to Florida, Cathy</i>, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(I’ve done this before). I’m taking my books
in my trunk, and I’m heading out into, as my son calls Florida, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">God’s waiting room</i>. There is something
fun about being alone and observing a foreign culture—-and let’s face it--
Florida can be<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> strange</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I thought I’d blog a bit along the way.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">Plane From Toronto to Orlando—Disney Express<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Is there
anything worse than being on a plane to Orlando in spring break? It is full of
disciples making a pilgrimage to Disney World.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> There are p</span>arents who call each other “mom” and “dad” and who say to their gaggle
of kids, “You have fifteen minutes at the window and then you have to let your
sister have a turn.” Of course the boy says, “No way.” And the girl cries and
then the parents argue with the wife telling the husband that he should never
have given the window to the boy, etc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They all finally give up on human interaction and rent ipads with games
for each of them @$14.95 each. After that there is silence and they are not
heard from again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Just
when I thought it could not get worse, a family with a baby has just joined me.
(Late arrivals.) The couple is taking their eight-month old drooling baby to
Disneyworld. Why?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is he really going to
recognize Mickey Mouse as an American icon or be terrified of a gigantic mouse?
They have brought a music box they continually rewind that plays ‘The wheels on
the bus.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When it is finished they start
it again. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>On
my other side is a middle-aged Iranian couple who are going to Disney World as
adults with no kids. They want to “experience America.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Are Goofy and Donald Duck America? I just
read the first part of the American Travelogue by the Norwegian writer Karl Ove
Knausgaard in 'the New York Times'. He decided the best way to see America was to
not talk to anyone and visit hollowed- out Detroit. That turned out to be America
for him and anyone who reads his article, it will be America for them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So these Iranians are going to go home and
report on Disney world as America? I suppose it is as much America as anything
else.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">The woman in
front of me who has a massive lung infection <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>is wearing Mickey Mouse ears and spitting up
Dumbo sized yellow globs from her lungs into her eye shade. I guess you have to
pay extra for a Kleenex on air Canada. An older man next to her said, “If you
are so sick you shouldn’t travel and infect all of us.” (I was with him on this
score.) She said she’d paid for Disney world and she was going if she had to be
carried through the pearly gates into never-never land. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">The eight year
old girl across the aisle from me <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>has
blonde hair with dark roots and is wearing a crop top, short shorts and
cowboy boots. ( How did she get out of record cold temperatures in Canada in
February in that get-up?) she told the ever inquisitive flight attendant that
she didn’t care about the rides or the Disney figures. She just wanted to eat
at the Hard Rock Café and see celebrities. There was so much wrong with the
outfit, the celebrity mentality, and the delusion that famous people eat in
Disney World in Orlando, I don’t even know where to begin. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Who knows? Maybe they pay people to eat there.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">I’ve made to Orlando Airport alive and I’m at the baggage claim. Children have run amok. It is like Alfred
Hitchcock’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Birds</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Disney acolytes have now departed from other
flights. Little boys are running all over the moving baggage carousel, surfing
and screaming as they took the winding <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>turns. Their parents have apparently disowned
them by this point because no one is taking any responsibility for them. Then
large men in uniform appear and shut down the baggage carrousel by the
emergency stop button and tell the parents, who now look like walking zombies,
to remove their children or they won’t start up the carousel.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">As I got into my
compact rental car that smelled of cleaning fluid, I have never been so happy
for silence and my destination in a retirement community.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Cathy Gildinerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09409583094382198566noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-890197838754161009.post-38392566830329363542015-02-16T09:23:00.003-08:002015-02-16T09:24:39.021-08:00Lord of the Flies comes to Ontario<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWc9XUi623Gkw1hFwF956xfZm4c-ZYU91Ubjm6e7GAP_x_c38fDPl0XGwyDR-729FY7Mjp0r7Pgymup3_5qEH9xjfPgRC9u6Ohtk2WObL7-0M10sVLZUnvfwI1tc2LtsbHTtXJVPEJnZcI/s1600/badchild.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWc9XUi623Gkw1hFwF956xfZm4c-ZYU91Ubjm6e7GAP_x_c38fDPl0XGwyDR-729FY7Mjp0r7Pgymup3_5qEH9xjfPgRC9u6Ohtk2WObL7-0M10sVLZUnvfwI1tc2LtsbHTtXJVPEJnZcI/s1600/badchild.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
Has the world changed and I haven't changed with it? I'll lay out my sorry little tale and you can let me know. I serially need feedback on this. I agreed to travel almost five hours by car to address some combined book clubs on my new memoir, <i>Coming Ashore</i>. It is my own fault I agreed to go so far. I was lulled by the Ontario Address and had no idea it was so far from Toronto. It felt like I circled Algonquin Park at least twice. All I know is I kept seeing the same trees.<br />
<br />
The book club was arranged for 1:00 in the afternoon so I would have time to get back home on the same day. The host offered to put me up for the night, but that seemed more trouble than it was worth. <br />
<br />
When I got there I realized the woman giving the group was a grandmother. This is not unusual since I have written three memoirs, the first one dates from the 50s', the second, the 60's and the last one is the 70's. It is common for me to have an older audience for they remembered those years. I myself am sixty-seven so it is not rare to have grandmothers exchanging pictures of their grandchildren.<br />
<br />
The unusual thing at this event is that the grandchildren were there with their mother who was visiting. They were two lively preschool boys ( age 4 and 5) who ran around during the luncheon preceding the talk, knocking over glasses, grabbing food with their hands and crawling under the table, etc. I guess this is what kids do today. I have no idea since I have not been in contact with children since I had my own thirty some years ago. Their behaviour seemed neanderthal but I shrugged it off.<br />
<br />
Then it was time for me to give my book talk and for the club to begin. We moved to the living room where forty chairs were set up in a circle. I could tell there were some serious readers there for they had post-its in their books and some of them had taken writing courses in Banff and wanted to write memoirs themselves. Also several of the women, like me, had travelled a long way. The daughter did not remove the two boys. They shouted, crawled around, played gun games, and generally disrupted. They also whined and constantly demanded food from the mother, however they hadn't eaten their lunch. No one corrected them or told them to leave the room. I assumed that the mother would take them out when she saw how disruptive they were. As time went on and they were not curtailed in any way they became more disruptive.<br />
<br />
Finally, I couldn't take it anymore and said, "I'm sorry I can't hear any of the questions, nor can I concentrate on what I am saying. The children are too disruptive." No one said anything. Someone asked a question three times and I couldn't hear them. The kids kept going and finally I said, "I'm sorry either the kids leave or I have to go. This is an adult event." The grandmother looked stonily at me and the daughter said, "We are a family. The kids are having a wonderful time. I said "I have no doubt about that, but <i>I am not</i>, nor is anyone else in the room." I looked around the room for support, but everyone just looked down. Finally one woman said to me, "Cathy, that is how my grandchildren act. No one even sits at dinner. It is the new parenting called child-centred. I guess we are used to it." I got the feeling those present thought I was an old fuddy-duddy who didn't understand modern times.<br />
<br />
I said I was not used to it nor did I approve of it, packed up and sped out of that driveway as fast as reverse could carry me. As I drove past their picture window I saw them all sitting there in a circle held captive by two pre schoolers. Better them than me I thought as I headed for the velvet quiet home.<br />
<br />
Is this how children are supposed to act today? Is there no disciple? This can't be normal or remotely good for children. I wonder if others have run into this. What surprised me was no one came to my defence. Am I <i>that</i> out of it? I felt like I was on Mars of some troubled planet that resembled the book <i>Lord or the Flies</i>.<br />
<br />Cathy Gildinerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09409583094382198566noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-890197838754161009.post-10836173660680225202015-01-27T09:27:00.002-08:002015-01-27T09:27:49.871-08:00World realigns<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQHZ8GrIwshrPwwklOwfwjpeUsgLf2fzzEMZhMd2j-5lbgXXOtdoa7BdReWqI-NfJLYPvYqdhvDy03RfuGzy8ezccWN2P9VgWx1b0yM80S6hUy_WPXOW7vGXM6UHcB8EML4z8eZHwlfgmQ/s1600/coca-cola.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQHZ8GrIwshrPwwklOwfwjpeUsgLf2fzzEMZhMd2j-5lbgXXOtdoa7BdReWqI-NfJLYPvYqdhvDy03RfuGzy8ezccWN2P9VgWx1b0yM80S6hUy_WPXOW7vGXM6UHcB8EML4z8eZHwlfgmQ/s1600/coca-cola.jpg" height="224" width="320" /></a>Sometimes the world realigns in subtle ways and sometimes there is an explosion. Today while reading the newspaper ( I know, how old fashioned) I discovered two changes in the world that rocked my socks. <br />
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The first was that Coke's sales have been dropping for the last few years. Apparently Canada's coke has more sugar in it than other countries. Coke, in a last ditch effort to reverse their declining sales, are taking some of the sugar out of coke in their main "secret recipe" which is guarded in Atlanta -- the recipe that only 'two live' people at a time know. ( The dead may know it at will.) I love that it was called Coke because it originally had cocaine in it at the turn of the century. And people wonder how it got such a foothold in America!<br />
<br />
A branding expert said in the paper that coke is becoming aware that people want a healthier alternative to a sugary, caffinated, fattening drink. The world is voting with their pocket books by buying water and tea and leaving Coke on the shelves.<br />
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I remember in the 1950's when I worked in my dad's drug store people would ask for a pop and that <i>meant</i> Coke. If you wanted some other brand from the giant red Coke cooler you'd have to ask. It was rare to sell a lunch at the counter without a coke to go with it--- from a glass that said Coke Cola on it in white letters.<br />
<br />
Coke has been tampering with its formula for years-- offering a new formula which their stalwart followers refused to buy so they had to bring back the old formula in the form of Coke Classic and then later fade out the new model when no one was looking. That is an interesting way to avoid saying you made a mistake.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvbYGWZ1k9hdO5uq37q6zWKbJGuEqNQzugOMVajXFzuW5CfgJTLusgCgj1tV6pzIecjou7BQqg5TyKTBwbEQMRKoWWuyPOsYM4UowaCEVRgJlee5DNcJoyk8PLqN6efQDlzx4QWNhE9vkA/s1600/barbie+in+car+.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvbYGWZ1k9hdO5uq37q6zWKbJGuEqNQzugOMVajXFzuW5CfgJTLusgCgj1tV6pzIecjou7BQqg5TyKTBwbEQMRKoWWuyPOsYM4UowaCEVRgJlee5DNcJoyk8PLqN6efQDlzx4QWNhE9vkA/s1600/barbie+in+car+.jpg" height="228" width="320" /></a>Now for an even bigger seismic shift in the universe. I read ---on the <i>same</i> day as I read about the Coke failure that --- barbie dolls are losing their market share and have been in free fall decline for the last three years. They are now down by 21%. Barbie has been Mattel's biggest seller for -- get this-- 54 years! The Barbie marketing people and re-branders have decided to deal with this billion dollar problem by revamping an already vampy look. They are giving Barbie a narrative. Everything now needs a narrative to sell. They are doing a Barbie movie casting Barbie as a superhero and a princess.<br />
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I was too old for barbies, they were invented after I was a kid, ( Another sociological factor that places me in the dementia demographic) but I did sell them. I remember when being a blonde with gigantic breasts, small waist, and a huge wardrobe was as close to nirvana as you could get. Three generations were happy to ride into the sunset in a pink car with Ken in the passenger seat. ( Hey, at least he wasn't driving!)<br />
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Current statistics on Barbie show that girls of past generations used to play with Barbies until they were 14 years old. Now they play with her until they are six and move to an I pad. She's lost her edge. Those girls that have turned away say Barbie is 'babyish.'<br />
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I recently saw a New Yorker cartoon with a political candidate asking a crowd if they wanted change. Everyone in the crowd raised their hands. Then he asked how many people wanted <i>to </i>change and no one raised their hands. What I like about the Coke and the Barbie product change is that people have voted with their wallets for change. They are saying I don't want to drink secret formula garbage or play with a bleach blonde bimbo who looks like a pole dancer. Those days are over. They had a long run. Coke has been going since 1896 and barbie has been donning skimpy ensembles for over half a century. But their days are numbered. Let the re-branders redesign all they want. They are only rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic. Their era is over--- Barbie has driven out of town in her pink convertible with a Coke Classic in her beverage holder.<br />
<br />Cathy Gildinerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09409583094382198566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-890197838754161009.post-30012533161711306142014-12-27T14:44:00.000-08:002014-12-27T15:23:02.586-08:00EXILED<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Palatino, 'Palatino Linotype', serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 1.357em; margin-bottom: 1em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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I would have described myself as the least lonely person alive until yesterday. Yet this Christmas week loneliness is coming at me from all angles. It came in on a trojan nutcracker and is dumping out its solders at a furious rate.<br />
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First of all my memoir, <i>COMING ASHORE</i> was very favourably reviewed in THE GLOBE AND MAIL. As I was reading along not only was I relieved the review was good, but I was thrilled that the reviewer really 'got' me. Or so I thought until I hit the paragraph that said that I was "lonely and isolated". Lonely?????( Agh !!!Picture a Roz Chast photo of sheer horror.) I have more friends than Oprah. What is she talking about?</div>
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That same day my cleaning lady, Nelcinda, who for 18 years has never asked me a personal question, said to me while we were decorating for christmas, "Are you sad having no family?" I just looked at her blankly which she apparently took as encouragement and continued, "In all my years here, you have never had one relative visit the house." It is true although it never struck me as sad. I am an only child, whose parents died many years ago . She said, "Don't you have cousins?" I said my dad was also an only child and my mother had one sister but her children mostly went into the religious orders of one kind or another. My mother wasn't close to her sister nor did we visit her family often. Nelcinda took this in stride but said she would be terribly lonely without her brothers, sisters and cousins, especially at Christmas.</div>
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Oddly the same day I came across a passage from Edward Said, a marvellous Palestinian writer, that jumped out at me from his essay on REFLECTIONS ON EXILE which said, </div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 21px;"><i>Exile is strangely compelling to think about but terrible to experience. It is the unhealable rift forced between a human being and a native place, between the self and its true home: its essential sadness can never be surmounted. And while it is true that literature and history contain heroic, romantic, glorious, even triumphant episodes in an exile’s life, these are no more than efforts meant to overcome the crippling sorrow of estrangement. The achievements of exile are permanently undermined by the loss of something left behind for ever.</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Palatino, 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 21px;">Again a reflection on </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Palatino, Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="line-height: 21px;">loneliness, missing your country of origin. It is at Christmas that I miss America, my native land. When I left America I had no idea I wasn't coming back. I had no enemy on my trail as I crossed the border nearly fifty years ago. I came to go to University, met my husband and stayed in Canada. My Exile was not a sudden rip, but crept in as a whimper. I was not Conrad or Nabokov who had to learn to write in English -- it was easy. I could keep my native tongue. Yet no matter where I go people say, "You're American aren't you? Or people criticize Americans for their foreign policy and or their loud, garish natures which I call <i>friendliness. </i> For some reason they figure they can criticize your homeland right in front of you. Yet if I was from Hungary, I doubt they'd criticize Hungarians to my face. Yet It is always open season on Americans. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Palatino, Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="line-height: 21px;">Since loneliness has jumped out at me 3 times in one day, you don't have to be Freud to know this is an issue. I am now married to a Jew and have 3 Jewish sons and no one is particularly interested in Christmas. In fact everyone moans and actually screams when I play my Bing Crosby White Christmas C.D. I have finally given it up. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Palatino, Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="line-height: 21px;">Yet in my head I still live through our Catholic school nativity pageant of Mary in the manger in Bethlehem which we performed every year in grades one through 6. It has limited drama. Once the baby was born and the 3 wise men depart the dramatic action is limited -- but still I loved it . Then in the older grades we did the </span><i style="line-height: 21px;">Amahl</i><span style="line-height: 21px;"> and the night visitors opera.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Palatino, Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="line-height: 21px;">At home my father played Christmas carols by Big Crosby , Perry Como, and Nat King Cole on his 78's. Carollers came to the door and my dad had them in for a high ball. ( weird since some were kids.) The priest , Father Campbell, came to bless the house and he too stayed for a drink. On his second drink he sang songs in 'old Irish' as he was originally from Ireland. it was the only time of the year anyone other than my mother, me, or my father set foot in our home. My mother didn't like company. Christmas was her only exception.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Palatino, Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="line-height: 21px;"> On Christmas we were the only people in the only fancy restaurant in our town and the chef and waitress joined us since no one else was there. Was I lonely? I didn't think so at the time. Now when I look back on it I have a heaviness in my chest. I perceived it was my job to talk and make things merry in the large cavernous restaurant. It could get tiring. I would say fatiguing more than lonely. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Palatino, Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="line-height: 21px;">I think may people miss their childhood homes, their countries and their families at Christmas. That is one of the reasons I love A CHILD'S CHRISTMAS IN WALES by Dylan Thomas. It recalls each tiny memory spun in Christmas glitter.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Palatino, Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="line-height: 21px;">I told my husband about my day thinking of loneliness for the first time in my entire life. As I was chatting while surfing the net, he said, "Let's check and see if you have any reviews of your new book on Amazon". We were revelling in all the five star reviews and then we saw one that was only 3 stars. We ground to a halt, read it, and found it was written by my cousin. </span></span></div>
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Cathy Gildinerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09409583094382198566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-890197838754161009.post-66007051298588322972014-11-20T10:37:00.000-08:002014-11-20T10:37:38.835-08:00Interpretations of my mother<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">I’ve written three memoirs and usually I
can predict people’s reaction to what I’ve written. I</span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">don’t mean whether they will like the book or not ,
I mean their reaction to the characters in the memoir. However, there is one
character that always proves to be a wild card and that is my mother.</span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">I have given hundreds of talks and am
continually surprised by how much attention my mother garners both positive and
negative. In her life she was quiet and unassuming; yet, </span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span style="line-height: 24px;">she</span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"> propels people into orbit at my mere </span><span style="line-height: 24px;">description</span><span style="line-height: 150%;"> of her. </span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">I wrote about her as
the fantastic mother I thought she was—if I could be half the mother she was to
me I’d be thrilled.</span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">That is why I am
stymied when people find her cold, distant and neglectful.</span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">Is that the mother I portrayed? Was there an
unconscious leakage of rage in my description of my lovely, pretty, mom?</span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">As
described in</span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> </span><i style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Too Close to the falls,</i><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"> My mother never cooked a meal.; therefore,
we ate in restaurants. She only used the oven for drying mittens. When I, an
only child,</span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">was four, I was so
rambunctious that the paediatrician said I had to work full time. Since no one
would ever hire a four year old, I went to work in my father’s drug store
delivering drugs with the black delivery car driver named Roy.</span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"> I went out to breakfast with my Dad, the pharmacist, and the Rotary Club and then sold </span></span><span style="line-height: 24px;">the</span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"> morning papers at 6:00 a:m. The rest of the day was spent delivering and dining with Roy and then I rolled into home around 10:00 p:m. </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">It was a charmed
</span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">life of innocence and fun</span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">with most of my time spent on the road. I
developed self confidence, because let’s face it, when you deliver drugs,
people are happy to see you.</span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">When I went to catholic school, I acted up, on
a regular basis, speaking out of turn, questioning religious doctrine, and trying to
be amusing which was interpreted, </span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span style="line-height: 24px;">probably correctly, </span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"> as disruption. When the principal, Sister
Agnese,</span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">called my home to complain, my mother just
listened and after hanging up said to me that the nun had no sense of humour
and suggested I save my routines for her when I</span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">
</span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">got home.</span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">When people said I was
too loud or too brash, she told me I was blessed with a big personality that may have been too big for the town. She suggested I ignore my critics </span><span style="line-height: 24px;">which I found a satisfactory solution</span><span style="line-height: 150%;">.</span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">
</span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">My mother and I had a lot of fun together. We confided all of our
secrets to one another and she killed herself laughing at all of my imitations
of people in the town. </span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">She encouraged me
in all of my endeavours no mater how bizarre.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">In,
</span></span><i style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">After the Falls</i><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">, the sequel to, </span></span><i style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Too close to the Falls</i><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> , </span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">the plot thickened and became a bit darker. </span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">When I was in high school , my mother and I
were left to cope with a father who’d lost his mind from a brain tumour and his
money through bad planning while having a brain tumour.</span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">We both used black humour to get us through our darkest times.</span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">For example</span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">when I was in University and investigated by the FBI at my home, my father, whose mind was failing, thought the agents were Hoover
salesmen and got out our vacuum for a home demonstration.</span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">Somehow
in his ravaged brain he had still retained the association of FBI and J. Edgar
Hoover. My mother and I were perpetually amused by that tale.</span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">I think it is an Irish Catholic trait to
laugh in the face of tragedy. </span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">Why
not—crying doesn’t help?</span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">When she was dying of </span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span style="line-height: 24px;">leukaemia</span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"> a few </span><span style="line-height: 24px;">years after that </span><span style="line-height: 150%;">she said the up side was no one would expect her to
get up early or make a meal.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It
is true that she thought my life was my own and if I was going to act up or not
do my school work it was my decision. When school called<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>to complain and asked if she was the mother
of Cathy McClure, she always said no.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As
she said, “Well I didn’t act up – you did."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>When the police came to our house after I painted all the Black lawn
Jockey’s in Buffalo white in the night, she said she had to have two Excedrin
and go to bed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She never once, in my
entire life, criticized me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am not
saying that was a good or bad thing – it is just a fact.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">In
all the book clubs I talked to most people admired by mother but there are
always some who found her aloof, distant, and non-maternal and </span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span style="line-height: 24px;">ultimately</span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"> </span><span style="line-height: 24px;">neglectful</span><span style="line-height: 150%;">.</span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">Some were appalled we didn’t have food in our
house.</span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">They equated food with love.</span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">It seems to me that restaurants are great and
why does it matter where you get your sustenance?</span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">If food is love then why not love Colonial
Sanders?</span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">It is true she left me</span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">to sort out my own issues.</span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">But that seems to me the best way to grow up. <o:p></o:p></span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">Rousseau says </span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">benign neglect is the best form of parenting and I’m with him on that one.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> People have some unrealistic </span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">view of what mothers are supposed to be. ( Especially true in the
50’s when women didn’t work) How long is it going to take to put these </span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 24px;">shibboleths of motherhood to rest? It seems like whenever you cut one myth to pieces, it rises up and double like the hydra. My mother</span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"> had a
graduate degree in math. She was a prisoner of her time living in an era before
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She found it a confusing and difficult job with no rules.</span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">She said she loved me, but not the job of
motherhood.</span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">She said it was like
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teach children.)</span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">She loved math but not
the job of</span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">teaching it. She loved <i>me</i> but
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Cathy Gildinerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09409583094382198566noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-890197838754161009.post-61500875416132452902014-11-19T11:49:00.000-08:002014-11-19T11:49:05.896-08:00Pig Headed<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 1.4pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
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<span lang="EN-US">Why
do I get so nervous for each publication of one my memoirs? Honestly, nothing
else frightens me, well… maybe cooking, but I’ve learned how to avoid that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">On
the day of my latest launch for my third and final memoir, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Coming Ashore</i>, I went to the gym in the morning to work off some of
my excess energy and did what I always do, stepped on my treadmill and placed
my hands on the heart rate monitor handlebars to see my resting heart rate. The
machine does some fancy calculation involving my weight and age, (both
appalling) and comes up with a magic number called my ‘training zone’ that my
heart is supposed to take to heart. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Today
for the first time as I stood there I read a message on the monitor I’d never
seen before. In big green letters it said, SLOW DOWN! “I’m not even moving”, I
said aloud to my machine. After a few minutes of standing still I started to
walk stealthily like Peter following the wolf.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Then
the screen went red and it said, PRESS EMERGENCY RED STOP BUTTON AND DISMOUNT!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">I
can only assume my heart was racing. My first thought was this was a great way
to lose weight. You can surpass your training rate just by standing still and
having a book launch. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I write memoir. I have written ‘truths’ about
myself that I would never have told anyone. Sometimes I’m embarrassed when I
see that I’ve said in print. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I write
alone for years on end in the confines of my third floor office perched in the
treetops and confess to the squirrels and to my computer. My latest and, praise
the Lord, last memoir in my trilogy covers my life from the age of twenty-one
to twenty-six.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wanted to be honest
about what I was like at twenty-one. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Who wasn’t somewhat of whack job at
twenty-one?) At my launch I had to read a section about my ridiculous and
somewhat embarrassing antics involving Jimi Hendrix in London.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In my life, or anyone’s life, we all use defenses—denial,
humour, intellectualization, delusions of grandeur and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">anger</i>, the latter being my defense of choice. However, I’ve used all
of them in various moments of need, and they have helped me to glide through
life quite happily, relatively unscathed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">The
problem with creative writing is that highly defended writing doesn’t work.
It’s hackneyed and ultimately boring. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To
be a decent writer, you have to dig down a layer and skulk around in your
filthy unconscious, which is littered with hidden trauma and humiliation where
your unbridled instincts lurk. Jung says, we as humans have a collective
unconscious. It is in the unconscious where we all have things in common. To
write you have to mine the creative unconscious.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">In
reality no one cares about my life or anyone’s life but their own. When people
read fiction or memoir they are trying to find verification for their own unconscious
thoughts. People say they read to learn about others and other cultures, but I
don’t buy it. I believe they read to verify their interior world. It is a
normalizing process.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">I
have received many letters referring to my first childhood memoir <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Too Close To The Falls</i>, saying they also
thought the Indian on the test pattern on TV in the 50’s was talking to them,
just as I wrote that at the age of four, he was talking to me. They were
relieved they weren’t alone in their fantasy or misunderstanding of new
technology (TV was new in the 50’s). I think that people are really afraid of
their own thoughts and are relieved when someone else has them. Memoirists come
from behind sweeping with a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">normalizing</i>
brush. Ask yourself why would anyone care about Cathy McClure Gildiner at the
age of four in Lewiston, New York in 1948.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I am not Madonna or Princess Diana. They read to find themselves in the
book.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">On
the day of my latest launch, I opened the paper and read my first review, which
said the book was witty and well written. As I expelling a sigh of relief, my
roving eye alighted on a phrase near the bottom of the page saying I was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">pig headed.</i> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">So
here you are out there on a tightrope telling the truth without a net and you
get slammed. In memoir there is nowhere to hide. You are not hiding behind a fictional
character.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can’t assume the identity
of Elizabeth Bennet or Mr. Darcy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The character is me</i>. When you write a
memoir you have to grapple with the truth, frozen in time, of who you once were
in your early twenties while still hoping to keep the reader on your side. It’s
a tough balancing act. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">The
angry side of me wanted to scream out “Of course I was pig headed you thirty-five
year old charmed reviewer.” If you are born in the forties, you have to be pig-headed
not to get married at twenty-one and be a housewife and marry the catholic next
door. (Not-that-there-is-anything-wrong-with that-- but it sure wasn’t what I
wanted.) It was before feminism laid out the red carpet and I had to swim
upstream.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There were no laws on my side
in the work place or anywhere else. I got to Oxford, got a phd. on Darwin’s
influence on Freud, live in three countries, started my own business as a
psychologist, then decided to be a writer at the age of fifty. When everyone
said it was too late to become a writer, I forged on ignoring rejection.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then I published three memoirs with all my
faults flashing in full Technicolor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Why?-- Because I’m pig-headed and proud of it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Cathy Gildinerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09409583094382198566noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-890197838754161009.post-59665428271694063542014-07-14T10:52:00.001-07:002014-07-14T11:09:38.763-07:00The Long and Winding Road<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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We, the WWOC, (Wild Women of Creemore) go camping every year on the Magnetawan River. It is very isolated as in no Lattes for 50 miles. I swear to God we saw a bear on the road this year. We all used to go white water rafting; however, now at 67 and waiting for a knee replacement, I sit that part out and eat chips and dip on the shore. After getting six stitches last month along my eye on the Bruce trail, I decided it is my job to keep the margaritas cold and the tea hot. Everyone knows that it is all I can handle and I do my job with great aplomb. Sara, in her forties, is one of those <i> real</i> wonder women who drives a giant truck and makes gourmet food for three meals a day <i>while camping for sixteen people.</i> I am not kidding. Wild Salmon on a cedar blank with with mango and the next day chicken tagine with vegetables I've never seen before. It tastes better than anything you can get in a restaurant. She can make shortcake on an open fire for strawberry shortcake. Plus she can carry food for sixteen on her back. (Ok so it took two trips.) and she can white water raft.<br />
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This year we were 'tested by the almighty' as my mother used to say. It was the wettest year in 75 years and there were bugs the size of Buicks . (see the picture) The place was overrun with Dobson flies. They are over four inches long and eight inches if you include their tentacles. You could feel them landing on your back . It felt like a helicopter landing. You had to bend over and hold a chair just not to blow over. <br />
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The rain was relentless and when we unpacked the folding chairs we found giant hairy spiders with egg sacks the size of beach balls. We huddled in our tents screaming "Help! This is worse than the trials of Job" at one another. <br />
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Finally, when there was a bit of a let up in the rain, we decided to make a fire and sit around and watch Sara cook. In a group of sixteen there is always one person who relentlessly tells tales that are revolting such as describing her mother's incontinence in a nursing home and <i>will not stop </i>no matter how much you say <i>We are eating</i>! Finally, you send her downriver in a torrential downpour with a ferocious current but she washes ashore, sputtering only momentarily and then continues her tale of maternal Depends. So much for a break in the sunshine.<br />
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Finally, when we are all waterlogged the weekend is over and we, at least I , am overjoyed to leave. But guess what? <i>We can't. </i>We drag our stuff to up to the dirt road that is completely off the grid in the middle of a forest and it is washed out. Sara's truck, the greatest four wheel drive ever invented that they use in commercials to climb Mount Everest, goes down eight to ten inches in the muck and won't move. Eventually the tires won't even spin.<br />
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Now we were exhausted by the Dopson flies, the spiders, and the mice who made a nest in the floating device, (and propelled out like rockets when we blew it up), the rain and the scatological gibberish that won't end and we can't get out. We have to <i>live</i> there. We have not seen one other person for three days and all cell phones are dead or get no reception because we have gone where no other humans have feared to tread. Even the bear we saw was going in another direction.<br />
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Emergencies are when various personalities emerge. There are those who simply give up and say, "Well, when we are missed someone will come looking for us." I know in my case I could be gone as long as Rip Van Winkle and my husband would not come looking for me. Interestingly no one blamed others or got angry. ( That is usually my choice weapon.) Finally, a leader emerged. Inese the Latvian immigrant, whose father got into Canada only if he would be a tree cutter, came to the fore. She announced with the voice of Patton, "We will build a Corduroy Road." We tried laying branches crosswise on the road but they only sank. ( The branches we could carry were too small for the huge crevice.) Finally MK, another resourceful female, who always wears rubber boots even when in civilization, said we had to pile patio tiles that were dumped in the forest into the mud hole until it was filled. We would make two narrow stone bridges of stone and Sara had to keep the wheels on them or she might tip over the truck in the muck. ( See picture below.) We had to work for hours carrying the heavy stones and Inese ran the operation. It is interesting how in an emergency one person takes over and the others have no choice but to listen, and we all have to follow orders and become peons carrying rocks. (Mostly, I photographed and felt it was my job to joke and keep up morale. Others differed as to the importance of my job.) <br />
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Finally the leader said we were ready. Inese directed the car from the outside and Sara did a great job driving, and we did, in fact, make it out. We were all covered in mud and it is now a day later and I am still in my pyjamas only inching back to civilization. The trip was hell but, of course, we'll go next year and tell stories about how heroic we all were in 2014 'the year of the rains'.<br />
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What is better than hiking on the Bruce trail in northern Ontario with best friends of forty years. I'll tell you what --NOTHING. My five friends came up to my farm for the weekend. In the above picture I am the one in the back with the straw hat with the brim. <br />
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Then as often happens things went terribly wrong . I tripped climbing over some rocks and went down and smashed my head, had to go to the hospital, got six stitches across my eyebrow and got a really black eye.<br />
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See picture below for some idea. What I found interesting was how my life changed when I got back to my home in the city of Toronto. I was perceived very differently.<br />
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First there was the man issue.<br />
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I am 67 years old. Men NEVER ask me out, unless they are 90 and have had too much wine at the early bird special in Florida.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZF8qZZGHsWKZ68u9fMd5rJMBFoH_a4Xz5XkDhign_84VBYklEkZsur-9VdvVfwIQLD6L91-Te-nwnupcLVoa__QmwYtp8LXgqWLmZHo5LCueicrDYpXDnYtsVmFVOts5-oWzI4W7UF4M3/s1600/photo.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZF8qZZGHsWKZ68u9fMd5rJMBFoH_a4Xz5XkDhign_84VBYklEkZsur-9VdvVfwIQLD6L91-Te-nwnupcLVoa__QmwYtp8LXgqWLmZHo5LCueicrDYpXDnYtsVmFVOts5-oWzI4W7UF4M3/s1600/photo.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a>However, with my black eye and black stitches I have become the bell of the ball. I have been asked out twice this week by younger men. Once I was at Hercules, my car mechanics, in a sketchy alley behind a Jamaican restaurant at the Vaughan Road and St. Clair Rd. in Toronto. I was leaning against my car and a normal looking, almost handsome, man of about fifty or so with flaming red hair came strolling up to me and we had the following conversation.<br />
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"Hey let's go for a beer."<br />
"No thanks."<br />
"COME ON!"<br />
"No, just waiting for my car, thanks."<br />
"Around the corner they have ladies hour."<br />
"What's that ? Half price if you bring a lady?"<br />
Ignoring my query he said with a great deal of insistence, in fact he used a bellicose tone. "COME ON. What's your problem?"<br />
"I already said no."<br />
"I see you been beat on. Well I can tell you I'm through with that. Haven't done it in years."<br />
"That's reassuring."<br />
Then he turned on a dime and said, "Fuck you. I can see why someone beat you up." and walked away.<br />
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I realized after he was gone that he thought I was so pathetic that I would probably buy him the beer. Men who are bullies are drawn to women who they perceive as victims. The age doesn't matter. They want someone they can abuse and manipulate. His manner was insistent almost rude and threatening. It all happened within a minute in this alley.<br />
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The same thing happened when I was walking past a smelly roofing tar truck. A man asked me to stop and chat, etc. We had almost the same dialogue.<br />
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I found it sociologically interesting that when I looked fairly decent no one asked me out; yet when I had black eye and looked abused, two men went out of their way to engage me. Strange how looking pathetic is a man magnet. People wonder why abused women meet the same kind of guy again and again,-- well now you know.<br />
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The second issue I confronted was a lack in social status. Once I had a black eye and looked beaten up, I dropped at least two socioeconomic levels in the eyes of others. Or viewed in another way, maybe people unconsciously treated me as the victim that they could blame. Read on below and you can judge for yourself.<br />
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In the first week of my black eye I was driving through the tony suburb of Forest Hill in Toronto and I stopped at the instant teller at the bank. The bank was having one of those customer appreciation days where the clerk sits outside on a summer's day at a table with a cheerful table cloth and balloons and offers you a lemonade. ( I guess they want to let you know how much they appreciated their 12 million dollar bonuses by offering the customer an instant lemonade.) As I was heading into the bank I grabbed a paper cup and the teller asked me in an officious tone, "Do you belong to this bank?" When I assured her that I did she asked to see my convenience card. Clearly she thought I was simply ripping off a lemonade. When I turned to the other people milling around the cooler and said, "Maybe I should be finger printed or DNA tested before I get a free lemonade." no one saw the humour. One customer said, "She is only doing her job."<br />
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I think that if I'd had a broken leg, no low life would have asked me out and no bank clerk would have assumed I had no bank account and should have no lemonade. Try having a black eye for a week and see how differently people treat you when they assume you've been beaten up. You'll have 'an eye opener.'<br />
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Cathy Gildinerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09409583094382198566noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-890197838754161009.post-12413976462364162312014-03-02T11:42:00.001-08:002014-03-02T12:38:26.268-08:00Shopping fracas from 1-8<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Food shopping is a nightmare at the best of times. I mean think about it. You buy the food, bag it, bring it home, unbag it, store it; then you're too tired to cook it.<br />
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I live in Toronto where it has been -29 degrees for weeks with no sun and everyone is grouchy and praying for spring. I am giving this weather detail up front so I <i>might</i> not be judged so harshly. I live right next to the University of Toronto so I often sink to the Metro food store where all the University kids shop. I wound up there last night which was a Saturday and there were thousands of students shopping for frozen Mcnuggets and Kraft cheese slices.<br />
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I really don't cook so I only buy things like raspberries for munching and milk for my tea. I never buy more than 8 items so I can get in the short 1-8 express lineup. There were 21 people ahead of me and the lineup snaked into the baked goods aisle. The guy in front of me ( who happened to be black as was the check out woman -- this is important for the story) had way more than 8 items. He had 15 items.<br />
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My anger was rising as I crept forward in the outrageous line. I was sweating in my unbreathable winter gear. Finally when we got up to the conveyor belt I could stand it no longer and said to him "You have more than 8 items and should be in another line up."<br />
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He turned to me and said in a really loud voice, "There are 500 people here. Why did you choose <i>me</i> to say that to?" Now everyone was looking. Almost everyone was from another country so they just looked at their carts. No one wanted to get involved. I responded, "Because you are in front of me and my anger has been building." I looked at the check out woman for verification but she just looked at me as though I was a member of the Klan. Then the black man said, "Well, now I know you don't think I can read, but I actually wonder if <i>you</i> can read. He pointed to a sign and said, "Ok, honey let's sound this out together. Then he read the sign slowly pointing to each letter with his finger. It said 1-16 ITEMS ONLY.<br />
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Oops. I said "Wow, how long has that been there?" The check out woman said "I don't know lady but it was here when I came 6 years ago." I said 'That is weird because I have been coming here for 30 years and never saw it. She said, "The 1-8 aisle is next door." This was all said with a scowl on her face.<br />
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This was like a social science experiment like the ones I used to be involved in when I was a psychologist. I figured the truth was the best at this point, "Gee, I guess I had free floating anger and it glommed onto the extra 8 items in your cart. " He shook his head and I added, "Maybe I need checkout rehab." He said , "Lady you could never find the sign to get there." The clerk said, "Move this idiocy along" as she snapped on the conveyor belt and it was over. I sheepishly crept my Visa in to the machine and crawled out.<br />
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After that contretemps I needed a tea so I slipped across the street into Tim Horton's. There was the black man with his 15 items in a bag at his feet. I got my tea and when I went to my table I couldn't resist saying "Hey this table is reserved for the handicapped." We both broke out in gales of laughter. He said "Dear Lord, you are everywhere." I joined him uninvited. He was about my son's age and is in the faculty of education hoping to be a teacher. He said he was hoping to teach children to read, but now he realized he had to broaden that mandate. Any way his name is Raf and he swore he would come to my upcoming book launch. <br />
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<br />Cathy Gildinerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09409583094382198566noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-890197838754161009.post-64691656374239181222013-12-16T14:18:00.002-08:002013-12-16T14:22:34.345-08:002 cappuccinos -- Canada Post<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
- Hey did ya hear the news?<br />
- Ya mean Peter O'toole died?<br />
-Not<i> that</i>. His liver packed it in back in the 90's.<br />
-What then?<br />
- Canada Post is no longer goin' to deliver the mail.<br />
-You're kiddin' --Fabulous!<br />
-Right. No more shovelling the snow.<br />
-Yeah, no tickets for ice.<br />
-Another Christmas present off the list.<br />
-No more bills.<br />
-Now you can buy more at Christmas.<br />
-For sure. Bill comes-- just press delete.<br />
-Yeah, perfect<br />
-Did ya read the whining in the Globe?<br />
-Who reads the Globe anymore?<br />
-They're riled up about old people gettin' their mail.<br />
-What did old people do when the Milk man stopped? Go dairy free?<br />
-I almost forgot --<i>we're</i> old.<br />
-Jesus Christ, you're always on top of the news.<br />
<br />Cathy Gildinerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09409583094382198566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-890197838754161009.post-87142980137363322312013-12-11T09:51:00.002-08:002013-12-11T10:43:33.549-08:00Eulogy for a best friend<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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One of my best friends, Susan Eckert Avner, known as Ecky-- a woman I have known since I was in junior high passed away this week. She died alone in her condominium and it was days before anyone discovered her. It was only because she was not posting on her Facebook that we, her high school friends from across the country, became alarmed. The fire department broke in to her home in Kansas City, and found her dead at 66 years of age. Cause unknown.<br />
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I have written a bit about her on Facebook, and I could write a lengthy eulogy, but instead I want to describe just one afternoon we shared that I will always remember. It was a wonderful memory because it was vintage Ecky.<br />
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It was a hot day in June in 1963. Both Ecky and I were sixteen year olds in high school in Buffalo. It was a great moment for me because I'd just received my driver's license that day. My mother let me take her car to school. It was a Monday and Ecky and I, both Irish Catholics, had to go to the dread of all dreads-- religious instruction. She went to Saint Benedict's and I went to Christ-the-King. I agreed to pick her up at a corner after what we called the 'hell-on-earth" class was over. We'd planned to go out to dinner.<br />
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My mother never made a meal and she had to go to her study club that night.( She studied the Congo.) So she gave me money for dinner and enough to take a friend so, as she said, " I wouldn't be lonely". Ecky's mother abandoned the family forever when Eck was around seven and basically left Eck in charge of her younger brothers. Thus we were on your own with our new Impala 409 Convertible. What is better than two teenage girls in a convertible with no parents in sight out who are out on the town for the first time?<br />
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We decided to go to Pat's Hot Dog Stand, a local hangout for 'older boys with cars' and we planned on breezing in on two wheels with the top down, cigarettes a blaze. I decided before we made our grand entrance we should get the car washed at one of those new fancy drive-thru car washes on Niagara Falls Boulevard. Ecky, always the cautious one, said maybe we should think twice before driving in since we hadn't done it before and I'd only had my license for a day. I replied, "How hard can it be."<br />
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We pulled in and there was a line up of cars. I drove in to the spray and neglected to read the sign that said, TURN OFF MOTOR AND PUT CAR INTO NEUTRAL. I decided to blast through in drive and to rev the motor. I also missed getting into the track that pulled you along. Once we got in the middle the car stalled; I'd screwed up the clutch; flooded the car and it would not start again. People were beeping at us to move as the cars were piling up. Ecky and I started laughing and couldn't stop. We were out of control. ( You know that kind of laugh that only teenage girls can have?) We were surrounded by giant red automatic round slapping machines that were in revolt. They kept making loud gear grinding sounds and then they reversed direction and water came at us from all angles.<br />
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Ecky lowered her window to yell,"HELP," but the water flooded into the car due to the fact that it was coming in from a sideways angle. The water pressure shot her over to my side of the car. We were now in complete paroxysms of laughter. No one could get to us because the machines were stuck on our car, beating it and spinning around. <br />
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Finally, between cycles, I screamed "MISSION ABORT!" and we tore out of the car hoping to make it out without a wax coat. Well, the second we got out of the car, we heard the Puerto Ricans who worked there yelling at us in Spanish, "Go Back." Sorry boys-- too late.<br />
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Suddenly the huge brushes started buffeting us all over the place. Many people would have cried from the pain of the slaps, but Ecky was still laughing hysterically and screaming, "McClure, we are going to die with really clean skin!"<br />
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As we moved toward the exit, having abandoned the car in the suds department, we were thrashed with wax from above. I 'd paid for the extra wax and we got it. It took two weeks to get that wax out of our hair. Our eyelids were heavy with wax and it was hard to keep them open.<br />
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Eck screamed, "McClure, I see sunlight ahead!" We just had to get through the dry cycle. We continually kept flying into one another. The air was so hot and so powerful our faces were beet read and we were sandblasted. Eck yelled over the din, "My freckles are gone and my nails curled upwards."<br />
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Finally we heard an eery silence, the lights flashed and the whole car wash ground to a halt. Someone had pulled the emergency switch.<br />
<br />
The owner came running up to us screaming that we had to pay for all of his damaged equipment and there now was a line up of twenty cars waiting to enter, blah blah. We couldn't stop laughing and Ecky had such an infectious laugh that the guys who worked there started chortling at the wax coating on top of our suds.<br />
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I wanted to argue with the angry owner, but Ecky, always far wiser, made him see how funny it was. She said, "Hey now you'll have a story to tell your wife, The day the girls from Amherst went through the car wash without the car." Finally, Ecky broke him down and even he was laughing. He got the car moving and we pulled out to everyone's cheers.<br />
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Never deterred from my original plan, no matter how awry it has gone, Ecky and I drove along to Pat's Hot Dog Stand. We put the top down and let our long white waxed hair flap in the breeze. I already had white hair, but Ecks was black and the white wax made her look like one of those wax dolls that you used to buy for a penny that had kool aid inside. <br />
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When we got to Pat's Hot Dog's, which was only a drive-in-stand, with a huge parking lot surrounded by tables on a scrappy piece of yard, we each had to lay down on a picnic table to dry out before ordering. Naturally, since we were encased in suds and wax we were the centre of attention. Neither of us acted like we were in any way unusual. Ecky just said to some boys who left their Corvettes to see the mummified wax figures, "You guys should go through the car wash on Niagara Falls Boulevard, It's a riot!"<br />
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When we dried off, we got our long dogs, curly fries and cokes. We laughed so hard the cokes came through our noses. When were got home, the best part of the caper was that no one noticed that we looked even slightly different. All anyone said to either of us was "Hi, how was your day?"<br />
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Although our lives took different paths, I moved to Canada and Ecky to Kansas City, we got together every year. Once when we were in Florida getting our nails done, the manicurist asked us if we wanted a <i>Brazilian </i>wax for the beach. We both burst out laughing and Ecky said, "No thanks we've had a <i>Buffalonian.</i><br />
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Two years ago I picked Ecky up at the Buffalo Airport in my new car and told her I had a plan for lunch. Fifty years later we drove through the car wash and then drove to Ted's Hot Dog Stand. ( Pat's was gone now.) <br />
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It was full of teenagers and we were 63 and 64. Still we laughed so hard that coke came out of our noses.<br />
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Eck, I still hear your laugh and always will. May you wax eloquent in heaven.<br />
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McClure.<br />
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<br />Cathy Gildinerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09409583094382198566noreply@blogger.com8