Posted by Zoom! on February 18, 2010, at 2:59 pm |
Duncan under the zoom blanket
It’s been awhile since we talked about Duncan. He’s in good spirits and I think he lost two pounds. GC gave him a toy for Christmas which hooks over a door handle and has a mouse on an elastic for him to play with. He plays with it every day, so he’s getting regular exercise now. The other day he played so vigorously with this toy that a cactus on a nearby window sill got knocked to the floor and had to be repotted. I took care of it, but it went on Duncan’s permanent record.
Duncan’s developed a new habit which puzzles me, and I’m hoping you might have some theories about it. He licks pants. Yes, Pants. My pants, GC’s pants, other people’s pants. He especially likes to lick pants that recently came in from outside. If you come to my house, Duncan will greet you at the door, lead you to a chair, jump onto your lap and proceed to lick your pants. He started doing this about a month or two ago, and he’s a bit obsessive about it. I’m mystified.
Another thing that’s odd is he loves being read to. GC sometimes reads out loud to me before we fall asleep. We recently finished Alice in Wonderland and now we’re reading a book of short stories by Ivan Coyote. Duncan likes to lie on GC’s chest during story time, purring and peering down over the book. As soon as story time is over, he comes back over to my side and snuggles up. Is this a normal cat thing? Does your cat enjoy being read to? (If you’re not sure, please read them a bedtime story tonight and report back tomorrow.)
The lovebirds, Billie and Lester, are happy, healthy and adjusting well to their new home at GC’s house. They had a bit of a mishap a few days ago when, while standing on their swing, they chewed through the thing that attaches the swing to the roof of the cage. The swing and the birds crashed to the floor of the cage, and the birds emerged from the rubble looking a little dazed and confused.
We let them out of the cage about once a week. They’re getting better at flying, and the dog has adjusted well to the idea of birds flying around the house. They have regular flight paths now. They like the tops of two paintings, the chandelier, a high shelf in the kitchen and the ceiling fan in the stairwell. We don’t like it when they go upstairs because they don’t seem to know how to get back down.
We’d let them out more often but it’s a big ordeal to get them back into their cage. They don’t let us pick them up unless they’re exhausted (and even then, Lester is not above biting us). We’ve tried luring them with food, directing them with the broom, waiting patiently, and dimming the lights. If you have other ideas, we’d love to hear them.
The Dog has been wearing his cone lately because he’s got a rash on his leg and he licks it compulsively whenever he gets the chance. This makes it worse. GC says the rash is a chronic and recurring problem, as is the licking of the rash. The Dog doesn’t seem to mind wearing his cone, but GC feels bad for him because if he were a dog he wouldn’t like wearing a cone.
I got The Dog a heart shaped cookie with a paw print on it for Valentines Day. I found it at Bark & Fitz, on Richmond Road. So adorable. He loved it.
(Speaking of pets, does anybody else feel that their Green Bin is like a pet? Or is that just me?)
Posted by Zoom! on February 17, 2010, at 9:55 am |
I’m feeling a bit scattered these days. Too many bits and pieces flying around. Too many things up in the air. Even though I’m not working, I still feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day, and I’m not using my time wisely enough. I’m in the middle of too many things, and too many projects are stalled. I want to strip my home of all its excesses. I feel weighted down by stuff. I want to get on with the business of getting a job or more education. I have a long list of things I want to do, as well as things I don’t want to leave undone. Instead I keep frittering away my time on things that matter less. Or worse, things that don’t matter at all, like trying to beat my high score on Bejewelled.
On the bright side, I’m finding time for an hour-long walk each day. I finished writing my short story for my creative writing course. And I went through my closets yesterday and filled three bags with things to give away. (That was a Kindness Week challenge.)
Today looks like this: At 11:30 I’m going to the Art Lending Library to pay for another month’s rental on my painting of pears. (I love that thing. It’s a great big heavily textured piece by Ann Gruchy, and it hangs over my dining room table. I’ve had it for six months and I can rent it for three more months. If I buy it, my rental fees will be deducted from the purchase price. But I can’t afford to buy it.).
Then I’m coming home and taking part in a free online webinar on Homeless Youth and Harm Reduction from 1:00 to 2:00. It’s being hosted by the Wellesley Institute.
At 3:00 I’m walking over to the hospital for a follow-up appointment with my neurosurgeon. By the time I get back, it’ll be almost time to start making dinner.
It’s 9:30 now, so I’ve got just two hours to do other stuff. I know some of you would kill for two hours to yourself, since you have to cram all your living in around your job, so I shouldn’t be complaining to you. (When I was a single mom on welfare, I knew this teacher who would frequently complain to me about how incredibly poor she felt. It occurred to me that one should always choose their sounding boards carefully. If you’re going to complain about money, complain to someone who has more than you. Same thing with time. So I apologize for this post if you’re one of those genuinely time-starved people who can’t imagine anything more decadent than a two-hour chunk of time.)
Now that I’m thinking about it, I ought to be able to get a lot of things done in two hours. Back in my Fly Lady days, I got all my housework done in 15-minute bursts. Set the timer for 15 minutes, and tackle a job – decluttering a closet, cleaning the bathroom, vacuuming, whatever. As soon as the timer sounds, you stop. The theory is that a) it gets you over the procrastination hump, b) you can accomplish a lot in 15 minutes if you work fast, and c) no matter how much you hate something, you can stand it for 15 minutes.
I’m going to go search through my clutter for my timer.
Posted by Zoom! on February 16, 2010, at 9:46 am |
Yesterday I had lunch with my friend Julia C at The Table, and afterwards we went to Raw Sugar to continue our conversation over coffee. The timing was remarkable, because it just so happened that we ended up right in the middle of the Chinese New Year parade! Sometimes I can’t believe my good luck.
Chinese parades are very different from western parades. The Chinese parade is much shorter and much more meandering. Everybody’s on foot – there are no floats. It weaves all over the street and in and out of Chinese restaurants. There are maybe 12 people who are “in” the parade, although as a spectator you’re right in the middle of the action too. Since there’s only a tiger, a dragon, two lions and a couple of drummers, the spectators join the parade and accompany it down the street.
Julia and I were sitting in the window at Raw Sugar, and I stepped out to film the festivities. This is the official Eating of the Green ceremony. It’s supposed to bring good luck to all who witness it, so be sure to watch. You can see Nadia (who owns Raw Sugar) and China Doll, the legendary karaoke transvestite, watching from the right side, and Julia watching from inside.
I hope the year of the Metal Tiger brings you all good fortune. Kung Hei Fat Choi!
Posted by Zoom! on February 15, 2010, at 9:27 am |
Last week commenter Kim Bosch laughed about the fact that I literally buried a lie when I was eight years old, which reminded me of other lies I buried that year. Eight, apparently, was the Year of Burying Incriminating Evidence. I puzzled over this while reminiscing. What deep psychological forces were at work that would compel a child to start burying evidence at the age of eight?
Then I remembered that this was the year we lived in a house, instead of an apartment. That was the year we had a yard to bury things in.
One evening I was bouncing back and forth on the couch, listening to my mother talk to a co-worker on the phone.
“Oh, you’re so lucky!” my mother gushed. “That sounds wonderful! I’d give anything for that to happen to me!”
When she hung up, I asked her what was so wonderful.
“My friend got home from work tonight and her daughter had made her a surprise dinner!” she said. She sounded so envious.
I decided if a surprise dinner was all it would take to make my mother happy, I was going to do it.
The next afternoon, when I got home from school, and my mother was still at work, I started cooking.
Here, as best as I can remember, is my recipe for Casserole.
1. Line the big green casserole dish with slices of Wonder Bread.
2. Peel an orange and toss in the wedges.
3. Add two broken eggs.
4. Add a few shakes from every single spice jar.
5. Add one package of red jello powder.
6. Place casserole dish on stove element and turn to high.
7. Wait for the dish to explode, sending shards of broken glass and burnt ingredients all over the kitchen.
I was so freaked out, I was shaking. My heart was pounding. I was going to be in Very Big Trouble.
My only hope was to try to prevent my mother from finding out. I gathered up all the broken bits of glass and burnt food and took them outside. I started burying them in the back yard. Not in one hole, mind you. I frantically dug multiple holes. For some reason, I thought I’d be safer if there was only a little bit of evidence in a lot of places, instead of a lot of evidence in one place.
When I went back into the house, I freaked out even more, because it stunk like something had burnt. I rushed to the bathroom and returned with a can of air freshener. I sprayed my little heart out. Then I realized there was burnt mess everywhere, including all four kitchen walls, so I had to scrub them down. While doing that, I found more bits of broken glass and food all over the kitchen, so I ran back outside to bury them. When I got back in, it still smelled like something had burnt, so I sprayed lots more Florient into the air.
I continued in this manner, racing against time between the back yard and the kitchen and the can of Florient, desperately trying to hide all the evidence before my mother got home from work.
And then finally I just went and sat in the dark living room and bounced on the couch and waited and worried. I worried harder than I’d ever worried before.
She walked in the door and hadn’t taken three steps when her nose twitched and she demanded “WHAT BURNT?”
I burst into tears. The kind of tears where you have no control.
When I finally managed to tell her what had happened, I was astonished that she wasn’t even mad at me.
(Later she told me that her friend’s daughter – the one who had made that wonderful surprise dinner for her mom – was in her twenties.)
Posted by Zoom! on February 14, 2010, at 10:49 am |
GC and I went to a Bobcat house concert last night. The Good Lovelies were playing in local blogger Bob LeDrew’s house.
I first saw The Good Lovelies at the Folk Festival last summer, and was enchanted. They were even more enchanting last night. If you haven’t seen them before, they’re a trio of young women with gorgeous voices, beautiful harmonies, energy, stage presence, sparkling personalities, charm, an appealing and eclectic repertoire, and lots and lots of funny stories.
.
My Feet and The Good Lovelies' Set List
We were in the front row (“the spit zone”). About two feet from The Good Lovelies. Close enough to read their set list, but too close for flash photographs.
Some of the highlights for me:
Seeing the glockenspiel. My friend Bruce Campagna wrote me a letter about the glockenspiel when we were in grade two in Montreal and I was home with the chicken pox, but this is the first time I’ve actually seen one. It’s like a double xylophone in a little case.
When the Good Lovelies sang Hallelujah as an encore. It had been stuck in my head since k.d. lang sang it at the Olympics, and I’d been watching various youtube renditions during the day, so it was my song of the day.
When they told this freaky story of something they heard on the radio a couple of days ago, about a couple who was so madly in love (or perhaps just so mad) that they thought they should be one person instead of two. To that end, they started doing things to become even more like each other, including, for example, him getting breast implants. Then she died, but he continued to refer to himself as “we.”
Cathy singing My Inflatable Man.
Bob’s Stuart McLean imitation.
House Concert Boots (Including five pairs of Blundstones)
I had a really good time, and now that I’ve tried a house concert, I think it’ll become one of my favourite ways to experience music. It’s such a friendly and comfortable way to do things.
I’m going to a girls-only Valentines tea party this afternoon, and then I’m hoping to spend yet another romantic evening with GC, cooking and eating and drinking wine and watching the Olympics. Maybe we’ll even fire up the fireplace.
Since it’s Valentines Day, here’s a bit of scientific-romantic trivia for you: the reason candlelight and firelight are considered romantic is because they’re typically used in a semi-darkened room, which makes your pupils dilate, which mimics what happens naturally when you’re attracted to someone. So you’re both sending and receiving physiological cues that you’re attracted to each other. This all happens at a subconscious level of course. I imagine it could get subconsciously confusing if one person isn’t actually attracted to the other…but I suppose in that case, they’d probably already be consciously wondering why they’re doing something so overtly and symbolically romantic as having a candlelight dinner together in the first place.
As you can see Valentines Day is fraught with peril. Be careful out there.
Posted by Zoom! on February 12, 2010, at 9:32 am |
Have I ever told you I have a phobia about public speaking? I’m pretty laid back and easy-going about most things, but the prospect of public speaking provokes intense anxiety in me, and that anxiety just keeps intensifying as the date and the moment get closer. By the time I’m actually speaking, I’m extremely stressed, and it’s obvious to everybody in the room, which makes me even more stressed. (Of course it rarely comes down to this, as I go to great lengths to avoid public speaking in the first place.)
It’s not that I don’t like talking, it’s just that I like talking to be spontaneous and optional.
Where I used to work, we had a habit of including almost everybody in the job interview process. It wasn’t unusual for us to subject job applicants to interviews with panels of four or five interviewers. Sometimes, for more senior positions, we even made them go through circuits of panels. I was often on these panels, and I felt such empathy for the people being interviewed. Especially the shy ones.
I once pointed out to my colleagues that the interview process in general, and ours in particular, was stacked against introverts and shy people. A confident extrovert might shine even brighter with all that attention, but a shy introvert would wilt under the spotlight. My concerns were acknowledged but nothing changed. We continued to march these poor jobless souls through our dreadful gauntlet.
Anyway. I’m facing the prospect of job interviews, and I’m intimidated. In addition to public speaking, I’m also not good at dressing up. After 18 years in a casual work environment, I have absolutely nothing in my closet that would be suitable for a job interview. That’s not an exaggeration.
To give you a sense of how casual my former work environment was:
One day Nancy and Louise and I were in the elevator going up to our office and a woman got on the elevator, looked us over in our jeans and t-shirts, and said “I want to work where you guys work!”
“This is nothing,” I said, “You should see us on Casual Friday.”
I guess I have to get the clothes thing sorted out. The Image Consultant at the COPE program, where I got my Career Action Plan, gave us clothing rules. No black. No white. No pink. No lavender. No orange. Suits only. Grown-up lady shoes. Pants hemmed to halfway up your heel. Every piece of clothing in perfect condition. Etcetera. And that’s not even getting into the hair and makeup and other aspects of grooming, or the rules about body language and speaking from the diaphragm. Honestly, the whole thing made me want to retire.
I have to get better at speaking too, so I don’t dread job interviews quite so much. To that end, I went to a Toastmasters meeting yesterday. It just so happened that it was International Speech Competition Day. Can you imagine? Competitive public speaking? Yikes.
To be honest, I found Toastmasters a bit hokey. But I think I’m going to join anyway, because I’m pretty sure it’ll help me with the public speaking phobia, which will help me with the job interview process.
Looking for work involves so much more than just looking for work.
Posted by Zoom! on February 11, 2010, at 8:42 am |
My Career Action Plan has emerged after a week of tests, quizzes, self-exploration and labour market research.
Here’s what the various tests said about me:
According to the Strong Interest Inventory, my dominant themes are Investigative, Artistic and Social. My five favourite Strong occupations are Writer, Registered Nurse, Editor, Psychologist and Medical Technologist.
My Final Career Cruising suggested occupations are Criminologist, Writer, Addictions Counselor, Researcher and Social Service Worker.
My three top SkillScan categories are Mental/Analytic, Humanitarian and Communication.
My Myers-Briggs personality type is INFP (Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Perceptive). The basic description of that type is “Curious, quick to see possibilities, can be catalysts for implementing change. Seek to understand people and to help them fulfill their potential. Adaptable, flexible and accepting, unless a value is threatened.”
Two occupations related to my Personality Type: Writer and Addictions Counselor.
My colours are equally blue and green. Blue is primarily communication/people skills, and green is rational/analytical.
My Work Values, which were determined by a deck of cards, were a bit embarrassing: work-life balance, help society, moral fulfillment, fun and humour, and earnings. It makes it sound like I just want to go to work, have fun, collect my paycheque and go home. Oh yeah, and maybe help society a bit, so I can feel morally fulfilled. (I’m not saying there’s no truth in this…just that it sounds a bit lame.)
Okay. So now we get down to the Career Action Plan. This is based on all of the above, plus my past experience, my transferable skills, the job market, some brainstorming among a small group of career coaches, plus a one-on-one session between me and a career coach.
My realistic career options:
Social Service Worker*
Writer/Editor (either freelance or as a communications officer)
Technical Writer
Next Steps (some of these depend on the outcome of others – for example, if I qualify for Second Career funding, I might not have to pursue some of the other steps.)
1. Return to Northern Lights to obtain referrals to the Y Employment Counseling Centre to discuss Second Career funding for the intensive 39-week Social Service Worker program at Algonquin.
2. Get a referral to Action 2000 for help transforming my resume into a functional style, which will highlight my transferable skills. (This is important because I’m switching careers and also because a chronological resume emphasizes age, which at my age is detrimental to employment.)
3. Get a referral to either the VPI Job Finding Club or Experience in Motion for help with interviews.
4. Speak to the Program Coordinator of the Social Service Worker program at Algonquin College to gather more information about the program and related certificates, as well as Prior Learning Credits. (My criminology degree should finally come in handy here, as well as being an asset to me in a career as a social service worker.)
5. Develop a portfolio of writing samples, and consider creating a website to showcase them to prospective employers.
6. Continue to investigate careers within social services through online research and information interviews. Connect with organizations like United Way, Salvation Army, John Howard Society, Elizabeth Fry Society, Canadian Forces and Corrections Canada.
7. Continue to explore volunteer opportunities in social service work.
8. Look at evening/part-time courses at Algonquin related to social service work, to strengthen resume.
9. Investigate working up North as a social service worker, to build experience.
This approach would have me pursuing both writing and social service work at the same time, and then looking for ways to weave them together down the road.
Whadya think?
*From the Algonquin College website: “Graduates [of the Social Service Worker program] may be employed as front-line workers in provincial, municipal, and private social service agencies including social service departments, long-term care facilities, addiction, and mental health services, schools and programs for youth, community health centres, shelters, and residential treatment programs.
Graduates support vulnerable people who are impacted by issues such as loss and separation, family stress, poverty, violence, homelessness, addiction, disability, unemployment, gender identity, immigration, and culture.“
Posted by Zoom! on February 10, 2010, at 9:32 am |
I’ve been a little delinquent on the blogging front lately because my brain fell out.
Meanwhile, life has continued to unravel as life does, and now I’ve got a bit of a backlog of things to blog about.
For example. Last night GC and I went to Paul Dewar’s art auction for Haiti at the Cube Gallery. This turned out to be a lot of fun, mostly because it was such a friendly and sociable crowd. I had some interesting and amusing conversations with likable strangers. There were some good-natured bidding wars. And there were almost a hundred pieces of art to look at.
This is a piece of Shannon Lee Mannion’s keyboard art. I don’t really know Shannon, though our paths have crossed quite a few times. We’ve met at aquarium society meetings, anti-SCAN legislation meetings, craft shows, and other places. She’s very outgoing and sociable, so we’ve had a number of conversations over the years. She’s got an eclectic set of interests, and her latest thing is keyboard art. She calls her keyboard art, generically, QWERKY B’s. Each one is unique, and most are theme-based.
There were three other pieces I liked a lot. A pottery bowl, a large painting that looked plain black at first glance but was actually a richly textured and colourful piece when you looked carefully, and an abstract called Sunshine that had three luscious colours blending into one another. It sat pretty much ignored throughout most of the silent auction, and then in the final moments became the subject of a multi-party bidding war.
In other news, Stephen Harper’s Conservative government announced yesterday that it will appeal the BC Court of Appeals ruling on the safe injection site, Insite, to the Supreme Court of Canada.
Insite has come to symbolize harm reduction in this country, which is why it’s being so aggressively targeted by the Conservative government. The principles of harm reduction run counter to Conservative ideology, which is purely about police and prisons, with a bit of treatment for youth thrown in, and maybe some moralistic, simplistic, fear-based propaganda masquerading as prevention.
Despite overwhelming evidence that the US approach to drugs and addiction is profoundly ineffective and hugely expensive, our government stubbornly continues to imitate it. I don’t get it.
What else? I finished that career counseling course, so I now have a Career Action Plan. It’s quite interesting, actually. I’ll blog about that later.
When I was a kid, I told lies because I was afraid to tell the truth. A lie was often the only possible way out of the path of my mother’s anger, so I always tried it, even though it didn’t usually work and usually led to a more severe punishment.
I also felt profoundly guilty whenever I was accused of something, whether I had done it or not. When you feel guilty, you look guilty, so sometimes I got convicted and punished for things I hadn’t done on the strength of my guilty face alone. But the more common path to punishment was that I did the thing, got caught, lied, looked guilty, wasn’t believed, and got punished.
One day in Grade Three, my teacher, Mrs. Shields, told us to draw pictures of what our dads did at work. I told Mrs. Shields that I didn’t have a dad (which, back then, was highly unusual), and she said “Okay, then draw a picture of what your mom does at work.”
Most kids would probably have then drawn a picture of what their mom did at work. Not me. I figured this was my chance to finally meet my dad. I went home and told my mom that I had to draw a picture of what my dad did at work.
“Did you tell her you don’t have a dad?”
“Yes,” I said, “But she said I have to.”
Now the eight-year-old logic behind this lie went something like this. My mom was a teacher, so school was Very Important to her. If Mrs. Shields said I had to draw a picture of what my dad did at work, then my mom would have to let me meet him so he could tell me what he did at work. At the very least, she would have to tell me what he did at work, and then I’d at least know something about him. How could I possibly lose? It was brilliant.
What I hadn’t anticipated was that my mother would write a note for me to give to Mrs. Shields, which I obviously couldn’t give to her because it was based on a lie. So, after my mother left for work the next morning, I buried the note in the garden.
I hoped that would be the end of it, but after recess Mrs. Shields took me out into the hall and asked about the note.
“What note?” I asked, trying hard not to look guilty.
“Your mother called,” she said, “And said you have a note for me. About the drawings yesterday.”
I was well and truly trapped now between two authority figures with the truth on their side, and I couldn’t think of any possible way out except ANOTHER lie. And even though the pile of lies was getting deeper and less convincing by the moment, I couldn’t imagine telling the truth, because telling the truth would involve confessing to lying, and lying was pretty much the worst thing you could ever do, except maybe killing people.
So I stuck to my guns. I insisted there was no note. I denied everything: the note, the original lie, everything. I basically told my teacher that my mother was lying. And then, at the end of the day, I did it all in reverse with my mother. I denied not giving Mrs. Shields the note, and the whole conversation we had in the hallway. I knew my lies didn’t add up and nobody could possibly believe me. But I just didn’t know what else to do. The truth, by this point, was too far gone.
I don’t remember how this story ends. But I’m happy to report that my dad is part of my life now, and he’s a professional bridge player.
A couple of months ago I was having a bad day, so GC, who is very sweet, brought a tub of ice cream over to cheer me up. But not just any ice cream! It was Baskin Robbins Gold Medal Ribbon. (Whenever we go to Baskin Robbins for a cone, GC always tries a different flavour, but I always get Gold Medal Ribbon, except for that one time in Peterboro when I tried Caramel Espresso but regretted it and wished I’d gotten Gold Medal Ribbon instead.)
Now, as everybody knows, the very best part of the Gold Medal Ribbon is the ribbon. It’s a rich twist of caramel that winds its delectable way through the chocolate and vanilla ice cream, bringing out the best in both of them.
But on that particular day, in that particular tub of ice cream, there was a problem. The problem was there was virtually no caramel ribbon in the entire tub of Gold Medal Ribbon. Eternal optimist that I am, I kept digging deeper and deeper, in pursuit of the elusive ribbon, telling myself it must have all sunk to the bottom. But no. All the caramel in the entire tub would have fit on a single teaspoon. Sad to say, without its caramel ribbon, Gold Medal Ribbon is boring. Lackluster. Not worth $8. By the time I got to the bottom, I was one bitterly disappointed fat former optimist.
I’m a pretty good consumer. If I’m disappointed in a product, I contact the company and politely tell them why. This happens maybe twice a year. In my experience, most companies are very good about responding promptly and offering an apology and, usually, some kind of solution, such as a refund or a replacement.
I contacted Baskin Robbins via the “Contact Us” form on their website. I explained the problem. They never acknowledged my note or dealt with my complaint. I tried again a few weeks later. I explained that this was my second attempt to communicate with them regarding this matter, and said I would appreciate a response. No response. That was a week ago.
I can’t think of a better way to alienate customers than to ignore their attempts to communicate with you. I mean, why even put a “contact us” form on your website, if you have no intention of reading or responding to your customers’ inquiries?
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