Happy New Year!

2013 Calendar

Here we are on the cusp of another new year. As I look back on the old year, I think about the good, the bad, the highs and lows that made my life what it was in 2012.

Some goals were met, some have to be carried forward into the new year and others will continue to be a foundation to be built upon.

I try hard to be a good person with a positive attitude but of course there are failings along the way and at times I feel sorry for myself when life is not shaping up to be what I expect it to be. As always, I pull myself together, regain my focus and get on with life.

2013 is almost here. I wish you the best in the new year. We may stumble along the way and there is no shame in that as long as we get up and keep moving forward.

Be good to yourself! Be kind to others! Fill your calendar with activities!

Happy New Year!

Will keep you posted.

Merry Christmas! Joyeux Noёl! Feliz Navidad! Happy Holidays!

Another Christmas Day is here filled with excitement and expectations. Just like birthdays, each Christmas reminds me of how quickly life goes by and I take a few moments to remember Christmas Days past.

Advent Calendar

Christmas of my childhood began in November when the house was made bare. This entailed pictures being removed from the walls and ornaments packed away. It meant shopping for fabric to recover the cushions of the heavy mahogany settee and two chairs; material for new curtains; oilskin by the yard for the kitchen table; Christmas cards chosen specifically to Mummy and Daddy or Aunt or Uncle or Across the Miles at Christmastime to those relatives overseas. Everything in the china cabinet was taken out to be washed. It was a time of receiving cards with English pounds or American or Canadian dollars or money orders from relatives in those countries or waiting to see those relatives fortunate enough to be back home for a Christmas holiday. It was a time of sewing, baking, shopping for the perfect ham, new shoes (usually patent leather made extra shiny with Vaseline), a newly sewn dress and just a time of excitement. It was a time of painting the house and weeding and trimming the front yard. It was a time of scrubbing the floors on your knees, no fancy gadgets then except if you considered a scrubbing brush as fancy.

Christmas Eve would be spent baking, cooking the ham, seasoning the meats, stuffing cushions into new covers, putting the china and glassware back into the cabinet, the pictures on the walls and the ornaments back in their place, decorating the Christmas tree, tying balloons in the windows as part of the decorations, making the beds with fresh linen and when this was all done, there was still church to attend and parcels of ham and baked goods prepared by my mother to be delivered to the older people in our area who lived alone and no longer did such preparations for themselves.

On Christmas morning, the house was transformed inside and out. The day’s cooking would be on the way and not just a family meal; there had to be enough food and drink (hard and soft) to satiate those who dropped by.  Unlike now where children receive many gifts, back then you may receive one gift but the excitement was in the preparation, leading up the Christmas Day. Maybe it was stressful for the adults but everyone appeared to be happy and looked forward to visits and visiting others.

I look back at the Christmas Days of my childhood with fond memories but I especially appreciate the Christmas Days when my three daughters were little. Their wonder leading up to Christmas at various stages from writing their Christmas lists to Santa, taking part in the Christmas pageant, singing in the Children’s choir to now, as adults. I still put out the Advent Calendar from their childhood and watch as the middle child, Leah, and the youngest, Sharon, excitedly move the mouse ahead when they visit and then text each other to brag about it. For some reason, Tracey, the eldest, never got into this battle; smart girl:) She’s already here but from the photo above, the mouse is still at Day 18. He will be moved to Day 24 later for sure but by whom? That depends on who arrives first; Leah or Sharon.

The girls come home for Christmas and I enjoy making a big feast. Eventually they may wish to spend Christmas in their own homes with their family and have others over or with a sister and her family or travel. They will start to develop traditions that bring them joy and I will be happy for them.

Christmas is a time of happiness, wonderment and memories, some of them bittersweet.  Let’s raise a glass to family, friends, those no longer with us but who will forever be part of our memories and enjoy the day.

Merry Christmas! Joyeux Noёl! Feliz Navidad! Happy Holidays!

Will keep you posted.

Door-to-Door-Soliciting

Clipboard

I was working away at my computer with so many items still to get done and wishing I could be an octopus at least for the day when I heard the doorbell. Expecting my last born who was coming by to get ready for a Christmas party, I ran up the stairs to open the door (don’t ask, they all have keys but prefer to ring the bell).

Looking out the sidelight, I could see it was not my favourite last born but a dreaded person with a clipboard trying to look official. To my question of, “How can I help you?” the response was they are in the area checking hot water tanks and would like to come in and check if mine has the stickers being pointed out to me on the clipboard. I politely stated I was not interested, twice, and closed the door, cheesed off at the interruption.

As I sat down at the computer, I wondered, and not for the first time, why anyone would choose to do such a job. Doors are closed in faces and who actually invites these strangers into their home, leads them to the farthest corner of their laundry room and lets them muck around with their equipment?

Since there is no end to these doorbell ringers, it appears there are many trusting souls on both sides. The person at my door was a young woman and I cannot imagine any of my daughters entering a strange home and following a stranger to the basement. I may not be interested in the service you are offering but I hope you remain safe.

Will keep you posted.

Barbados Independence

First Prime Minister of Barbados,
Errol W. Barrow (an original pin)

Today, Barbadians or Bajans as we like to call ourselves, celebrate 46 years of independence from Britain.

As I checked out photos of the capital, Bridgetown, and the people decked out in the national colours of ultramarine, gold and black and this morning as I watched the live broadcast of the parade, I wondered why I never considered visiting my place of birth at this time of year.  Well, I have added visiting Barbados during Independence celebrations to my list.

Barbadians have much for which to be thankful and although Barbados, like many nations worldwide, has encountered economic difficulties, Bajans remain a positive and industrious people, who find ways to overcome their hardships. I remember women who made and sold confections and pudding and souse and cultivated kitchen gardens or sewed and the men who sold snow balls (now snow cones) and learnt to be tailors and bakers and other trades to earn a living and support their families; most often done right from their homes. 

To Barbados, Bajans and Bajan wannabes everywhere, have a wonderful and safe Independence Day celebration. Until I am there to celebrate in person, have a shot, or two, of rum for me.

Will keep you posted!

President Obama Will Win

I am going on the record to state, unequivocally, President Obama will win the election and his win will have ripple, no make that tsunami effects on the right.

He will win because he deserves to win. President Obama is a great example of staying strong, cool and collected in the face of incredible resistance and disrespect from the right. Even more galling are the intellectually stunted willing to believe that by the virtue of their skin colour, they are so much better than this President.  They know who they are and it will pain their sorry derrieres to see him still standing after their onslaught.

President Obama is the epitome of the American Dream and his story should be one loved by the right since he pulled himself up by his bootstraps and all that. He is highly educated, personable, witty and easy on the eyes. The family values Christians should see him as an example of their beliefs as he is still with his original wife and has no scandals (sexual or otherwise) unlike many we could name in their camp. Were these qualities to be found in one of their own, along with steady management of the foreign policy file, healthcare and especially eliminating Osama bin Laden, the right would have been over the moon . Anyone running against such a candidate would have been looking at very long odds of winning and might as well have folded up their tent and slunk away long ago.

But no, they insist he is not an American; demand to see his birth certificate and college records when this has never been asked of any other president or candidate for the position; question his religious affiliation and happily forward the vilest emails to denigrate him.  Heck, Mitt Romney not showing ten to twelve years of tax returns caused nary a ripple with the belligerent right who would have been blowing a gasket if candidate Obama had pulled that crap. Even the so-called Christians, who never respected Mitt Romney’s religion and called it a cult, can now overlook the lies, flip-flops and copious amounts of bovine excrement and embrace Romney, whose rivals found him unpalatable and so difficult to love back in the primaries. For shame!

President Obama is who he is, so the knives must be drawn to eviscerate him. The lies told are so out there one finds it hard to imagine anyone with two brain cells to rub together would believe them but they do. To allow this decent man a scintilla of success, even as his accomplishments are evident, would put to lie their racist, malignant beliefs that his skin colour deems him inferior, therefore he must be slagged and disrespected. From the day he was inaugurated, the nastiness of those who brayed for his failure was evident. Lord forbid they spent the time and energy looking for ways to work with him to achieve success.  Their behaviour showed they would rather have their country suffer than have this Black president succeed and as we can see, they would rather support a man with no core who is easily buffeted and spun like a weather vane in a wind storm. 

I believe President Obama’s win will be the best thing for the right although they won't see it right away.   After the initial hysterics, convulsions and conniptions, they will be forced to take stock and regroup and look at why self-respecting minorities want nothing to do with them. Why racists are happy as pigs in merde under their banner.  Why the most insane christofascists are supported as viable candidates and are emboldened to stick their noses in women’s uteri. Why they advocate and support draconian measures to restrict a woman’s right to choose her healthcare and why they see voter suppression as a great way to win elections. They need to make their party uncomfortable for the simple minded egoists, the terminally stupid, racists, malcontents, Christians in name only and the happily ignorant and loving it who have found a happy home to the exclusion of the moderates. 

A purging will take place, naturally and with great effort. Many of those who thought it the height of intelligence to hold signs at tea party rallies warning government to keep its hands off their Medicare would have shuffled off to their just rewards. The upswing in minority populations will take care of a few more by weakening their grasp on power. Hopefully, shame will come back in style and force many to keep their stupidities and prejudices in check as no decent person would entertain their pathetic behaviour.

I do not believe this race is as close as is reported daily. I believe there are more decent people who are dismayed by the behaviour of the right and are embarrassed by the candidates they support and see no reason to reward abhorrent behaviour. These are the people who will re-elect President Obama who, in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, showed his quiet strength and compassion and modelled how working across party lines benefits all.

To have it any other way would be to condone, lying, corruption, deceit, racism and overall disgusting behaviour.  Good people will never allow this.

Will keep you posted!

A Tapeworm Story

I was hooked from the first sentence. I kept reading, knowing at some point in this story, I would be cringing. If it were a movie, my hand would be up to my face and I would be peeking through my fingers at what was developing in front of me.

Tapeworm

The writer just reels you into his story. I was feeling the  movement in his bowels along with him.

I thought about the tapeworm diet I had read about; you buy eggs and the resulting worm(s) would share your calories therefore helping you to lose weight. Is this what happened to tapeworm egg dieters when they had reached optimal weight and their diet pal had to 'move on'? The horror:)

If you like stories that are humorous, slightly off-kilter with a soupçon of scary as in OMG, what if that happened to me? Click here to read the story.

Will keep you posted!

Quinces

When life hands you lemons, make lemonade the old saying goes but what to do when your neighbour hands you quinces? Well, you make quince jam or is that just me?

I have had quince jelly but never had the opportunity to get up close and personal with this fruit. I never saw them at the supermarket nor the farmers’ market but surprisingly last Friday, there they were at one stall at the farmers’ market.  Not many but enough, I will assume, to get those who know the fruit to buy or pique the curiosity of others to try them. 

I was being advised left, right and centre on the web that quince is inedible (I tried a small piece; it was not that bad) and it looked like everyone was pushing jelly. Since I wanted to use all the fruit, well, not the wormy bits, I was on the lookout for a simple jam recipe. I found it and voilà, the result:

Quinces - From Fruit to Jam

In the middle of winter when I bite into a piece of toast covered in quince jam, I will be taken back to a beautiful autumn day and the heavenly aroma of quinces simmering on the stove.

Will keep you posted!