Grandma Skypes

I am a faraway grandma. My little grand daughters are urban kids who change from one month to the next.

I am not part of their daily lives. I have missed hours of singing lullabies and reading story books. As fate would have it, my visits seem to include everyday sickness with everyday sickees;  me, the girls, and/or their parents in many varying combinations.

They have been here for a Christmas and a wedding. We had wonderful times together, but there were no " What will we do today?" days.

Sunday morning was one of those "It is possible to absorb too much bad news from Libya", days. I phoned the little characters. This was one of the mornings they chose to chat. Chatting evolved into "Let's skype". Whoopee. This was my kind of morning.

I  scrambled into presentable clothes. My dogs could care less what I wear.

Brrrrrrrrrrrin, brrrrrrrrrin. Call accepted.

I was ready to play with them in their kitchen and they seemed delighted to watch my dogs play in this old house by the sea.

I got to see them good heartedly struggling to get at least a fair share of the screen. I met their newest dolls, saw their new haircuts and was able to tell them the story of  their mummy's Star War Sheets when she was little. I think I got to see the youngest grow a teeny tiny bit.

I heard my daughter and son in law in the background being engaging parents. My day grew a lot brighter.

Skyping can't take the place of an honest to goodness visit, but it is a fantastic way to keep knowing and loving through all too fleeting time and financially significant distance.

To Whom Does This World Belong ?

These are interesting times, these are dangerous times and these are times of hope. The peoples are awakening to new ways of being in this world.

Those instruments that are so familiar in so many hands and are still a little new and amazing  in some hands are opening the possibilities of living to all of humanity. Ideas are no longer filtered and foreign.

Ideas now envelope the globe. The joys and responsibilities of democracy no longer belong to some and not others. Each landscape and people strive to form choices in ways organic to unique ways of being.

The fundamentals of democracy do not belong to a few.

Let justice flow like a mighty river.

The world belongs to none and all.















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Oh Canada. Oh America.

One voice calls out from the wilderness and it is only mine. What has become of our friends to the the south?

It is getting on towards fifty years, since my graduation from High School. Although I went to an all girls  school, I have always seen countries in terms of  the characters of  A Neighbourhood High. This was pre Happy Days and definitely before Degrassi St., a more gritty show of high school experiences from a Canadian  urban experience. Both shows were well watched

In my childhood, like the childhoods of most Canadian kids,  things American  had a special gleam. After all it was the land of Three Musketeers chocolate bars, I Love Lucy, The World Series, the Mickey Mouse Club and of course Rock 'n Roll. The doll bought in Boston had a specialness, no Canadian doll could hope to achieve, not even the Barbara Ann Scott Skating doll, that belonged to my oldest cousin.

There is an allure of the Target Stores, but being shopping impaired, it is a store I have never shopped. Few Americans can imagine the allure, unless they think of Herrod's in London or Hermes of Paris.

The truth is, although I live only hours from the border and have a valid passport, I haven't been to The States for years and years. The great country has so much to offer, art galleries, museums, thriving unique cities, warm escapes from winter and grand landscapes and people, but America has lost its sparkle.

The high school football quarterback and the perky cheerleader, I always imagined America to be, are now old and jaded. Most sadly, America seems so bitter. Instead of looking forward to the world with bright, open eyes, the eyes seemed to be warily checking out not only the world, but observing fellow Americans with the intent to find bad.

I never wanted to be American. I have always preferred a less high profile place away from the stands,  but I hate to see my friend, the cool kid getting so messed up.

I am also leary of the Canadian politicians, who were probably dwebes in high school, who seem to be struggling to be cool with the cool kids, who are no longer cool.

How Many Globes ?

I love to read the news. From east to west, from left to right. I love to read the news. I like to draw my own conclusions.

My personal favourite is the local Register. It is here I learn where the next Strawberry Social  will be held,  whose family visited from Upper Canada, why they are putting down a special surface on the walking track at the Appledome, who has left us, who has joined us, who spotted a bird out of season

Until high speed internet came my way, I took myself to town each saturday morning to pick up a copy of The Toronto Globe and Mail, Canada's National English Newspaper. Not only was it the best day for Births and Deaths, I was able to gain a broader Canadian perspective (maybe) of the greater issues of the country and the world in the weekend edition. The paper is referred to as the Globe.

Being the somewhat helpful sort, I offered to pick up things my neighbours needed in town when I went to get the Globe. It was weeks and weeks after I started doing these small errands, an elderly woman in the village asked me what on earth I was doing getting a globe in town every week. I think she thought she had a budding Pee Wee Herman on her hands.

My Mother had Worms: Niagara Red Wigglers

Most of my life my mother had worms.

Often when my parents were entertaining, my father would call me over to whisper in  my ear, "Do you think the guests know your mother has worms?". I took this opportunity to announce that indeed my mother had worms. An awkward moment followed, until my mother explained the worms were part of her quest to improve the soil for her organic gardening. This was in the late 1940's.

Some guests would inevitably, stumble down the cellar stairs, to have a look. What they saw was a screen lined wooden box filled with dark rich soil. In the soil was a spaghetti mass of Niagara Red Wigglers. My mother faithfully saw to it that the box was supplied with finely crushed eggshells, coffee grounds and bits left from preparing her organic vegetables. The process was odourless.  My mother took great pride in her worms and referred to her garden soil as Black gold. The arrival of The Organic Gardener, where she avidly learned about such things, was a highlight of each month.

When we moved from the small village of Markham, into the city, the worms came with us. For a short time, they stayed in my grandma's basement, as there wasn't a space in a rented duplex. The day we bought our new house with a big garden the worms were on the move. They were to move a few times again.

When I flew down to live permanently in Nova Scotia, I was accompanied by my elderly mother, my two dogs and a paper cup, with a lid, full of the descendants of the the original Niagara Red Wriggling worms.

Each spring the worms are liberated into the garden. Each fall a select few are brought to be housed in style in a wooden box and instructed to go forth and multiply. The circle keeps turning, here in my home on the coast. I once laughed with my  grown daughters  about what would happen to the worms when I leave this earthy toil. To my surprise, the answer was that they would remain in the family. My daughters like their mother and grandmother will have worms.

Aging Hippies Rise Up

Where have all the flowers gone?

History has been kind to our generation,  the baby boomers. By our shear numbers we've had an enormous impact on most things, as we pass through time.  Those following us must be suffering from boomer overload. We have changed the world for the good, but, all has not been good.

Now we are becoming a generation of grandparents. The beautiful innocence of sweet pieces of humanity that are entering our living with swirling helixes miraculously made up with pieces of our own, need us.

The fields of daisies in which we danced, for the most part are are high rises and parking lots. Drinking water comes in plastic bottles, not sparkling springs. We have too much, while so much of the world doesn't have enough. Hope is not part of everyday language.

We are no longer children of the world. The big blue marble no longer belongs to us. Perhaps it is time to clean up our personal and collective messes. Perhaps it is time to think and act globally to support systems of fairness everywhere, so that peace will have a chance. We owe it, big time, to the generation of our grandchildren.

The answers are blow'n in the wind.

Egypt, Hope in the New Generation.

This morning I watched the Al Jazeera news on my computer. The screen was filled with earnest faces both young and old. Women and children were present. Predominantly, the crowd was made up  of young men whose faces told a story of hope, courage and idealism.

One leader, a Google executive, wept. The pictures of the fresh faces of the young men who recently died are part of his reality now. He said he has transferred all he has into the name of his wife and given her power of attorney because he is ready to die to help bring fairness to all in Egypt, a country he loves.  There is a real possibilty he may die. Wael Ghonim made clear he has everything to live for - a wonderful wife, wonderful children, a job with the best company in the world and the financial ability to embrace life. He is one of the leaders in the struggle to bring about a New Egypt of poor and rich, those who have the advantages of higher education and those without, Christians amongst the many differing Muslims, people from all walks of life.

When I was ten, I slipped a transitor radio into the trunk being packed for camp. My childhood was lived under the relatively new shadow of the nuclear bomb. The threat of another Suez War seemed possible. I was terrified and did not want to be surprised. From my present perspective, it seems an odd thing for a little girl to be consumed by such horrible worries.

My family subscribed to the three city papers, one came in the morning and the other two came in the evening. It is still somewhat perplexing why the most conservative paper, The Telegram, was printed on pink paper. My parents were interested in many points of view.

The British empire was waning. The American Empire was waxing. Canada was placing its great hope with the United Nations. This time war was averted by the work for a just peace through the United Nations. My little self didn't hear news of a new war from the radio hidden under my pillow at camp.

This morning I have access to news from all over the world on my computer, Al Jazeera. Fox News, BBC, MSNBC, newspapers from everywhere, and my good old friend and personal favourite the CBC, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The amazing thing is that now the news of the world is instantly brought to and from all corners of the world, through computers.

Perhaps more importantly, people are communicating person to person,  group to group. The doors of the internet open minds to fresh ways of thinking. The keys to this new world are held by the new generation. There is no reason to believe the future is not in good hands. There is hope for the future. A new world is already a reality.

When, Dogs Die

When I was a child, at the end of a large family dinner, before the dishes were cleared, the adults sat back drinking their tea  and recollecting. The children were excused from the table. I liked to stay behind and listen. It was here, sometimes sitting under the table, a place I quite liked, I met the long gone, loved animals and pets  that were part of the family over many, many years.

There are stories of my grandparents pets and even my great grandparents' animals. My great grandmother, Myra Hawley looks so proper and contained in her formal wedding picture from the 1800's. The tales of her girlhood tell another story. Living in the country, she had her own horse. Like Myra, the chestnut horse, Star, was  a beauty. Myra on a whim would jump up onto the the fence, call the horse over and gallop off saddleless, her long skirt and petticoats pulled up well above her knees.

There are stories of the pet rooster, no one would eat; the cat Betty whose ears were chewed off when she was a kitten; the snapping turtle that was put in my grandmother's bathtub; the Easter ducklings given to my sister and my older cousin  they kept until they grew threateningly, big and began biting children. They went off to the farm. There was a rabbit, baby mice found after the hay was mowed, birds that flew into windows, homemade ant farms and more, but it was the dogs that claimed the biggest pieces of so many hearts.

The adults would go over and over the names of the dogs, Prince, Blarney, Kiltie, Margaret, Willie, Gretchen, Lucky and many more. At the mention of one dog's name there would be a roar of laughter or a sad sigh. They knew each name; they knew each story. That didn't keep them from telling the stories over and over again. Bill, a smallish dog, who ate the dough before it had risen. The bread rose inside him and to everyone's surprise lived on without exploding. Prince, a beloved German Shepperd, in the 1920's, was sent to the druggist's on Yonge St. He returned with a brown paper bag that contained a pre-ordered brick of ice cream. Refrigerators, at that time, weren't cold enough to keep icecream frozen. Midge was a little rambunctious dog who lay quietly at the end of the bed of the sick.

So many names and so many stories. Some stories are now well over one hundred years old. The pets live on with the names of the people who loved them.  

I have confidence that Mollie, Penny, Ethel,  P.D., Bandit, Kailie, Finnigan, Winston, Casey, Lexie, Buttons, Zoe,  and many more, my dogs and dogs of my friends, will live on in stories far into the future.

What's with Groundhog Day

I have nothing much against rodents. I sometimes enjoy the little red squirrel that comes to the birdfeeder. One of Canada's revered symbols is the industrious beaver. The search for beaver skins opened up our vast land to explorers, trading posts and settlers.The furs were to become top hats for the high and mighty of Europe.

I'm not so keen on gerbils, hamsters and mice. Their care seemed to become my responsibility as they lived close to immortal lives in their often cleaned cages. 

Rats are definitely disgusting, at least the monsters that emerged from the old wharves when they were being replaced. Ferrets I understand take care of the rats, but I know from personal experience at a neighbour's house, ferrets have a penchant for biting human feet.

I am skeptical about the Groundhog's Shadow's ability to forecast a late or early arrival of spring on February 2. I am not sure I know anyone who actually knows what a shadow sighting means. 

Yes, the movie "Groundhog Day" is good, but it doesn't have the stuff of a yearly special.

My greatest interest in groundhogs was the bump on my father's big toe. My father claimed that it contained a tooth of a groundhog that had broken off when it bit him long, long ago. The warning was to always wear boots when out in the fields.

The silliness of the grand celebrations of Shubenacadie Sam, Punxsutawny Phil, Wiarton Willie are a little overdone. There is the incident of Wiarton Willie waking up dead on his big day. This really didn't seem to phase the officials, as his earthly remains was still capable of casting a shadow.

St. Bridget's Day or Imbolc, from the Celtic tradition, hold the roots of the day's specialness. Suffice it to say St. Bridget has Irish chutzpah, promotes healing, loves peace and maybe an early feminist. Her day involves candlelight, dollmaking and cows AND is celebrated with a feast of butter, cream, cheese and oatcakes.

Personally, imagining this day, halfway between winter solstice and spring solstice, as the day the seeds awaken in the cold ground is something to celebrate. I'll leave the groundhogs to others.