January 2013 – Page 3

The Daily EO: January 6th, 2013

We opened boxes today that I packed in Midland, Ontario in August 2011. Things that were wrapped up with the expectation of being enjoyed again in a couple of months (or weeks?). Instead, they spent time in a storage warehouse in Gravenhurst, then into first floor of our rental house in Huntsville, then into a storage locker in Huntsville, then across the country to Vancouver where they have sat until we could find time and place for them.

I’ve moved many times, and one thing I’ve learned is leave the pictures on the wall as long as possible. Take the pictures down when you need to feel a sense of accomplishment on how much you have packed. White walls with nail holes tell you the end is near – it’s soon time to go.

We’ve still got much in our storage locker to go through, but Sunday we opened the pictures. Because you can’t have blank white walls and be able to call it home.

Back in 2004, we moved to Huntsville – and moved into our first home together. It was the first home I had ever owned and the first house my husband (then boyfriend) had even owned. It was perfect for us then. We had moved from Toronto and separate apartment living to our own house with many blank walls and empty rooms to fill.

It was while embracing our new home town that we attended our first Huntsville Fall Fair. The fall fair is what you’d expect from a small rural town. There is a carnival, local entertainment, farm animals and many ribbons in several categories to compete for.

I was utterly charmed by the fair and by my new town. When I viewed my husband’s pictures (taken on his then brand new Nikon D70), I enchanted to find what remains to this day one of my all-time favorites images. We took two from that day (and another one of stacked Ranier cherries at Granville Island) to create a series of 3 perfect large prints for our kitchen.

They were our first pictures together in our first home. And we hung them again in our Midland home.

January 6th, 2013 Extra-Ordinary: Today they were hung in our Vancouver home. I’m glad to see them again.

The Marmalade Glows in the Sun. — Marmalade Glows in the Sun.

The Daily EO: January 5th, 2013

I don’t often get sick, which is a good thing. I don’t deal with sickness well. I whine and complain and don’t get enough sleep, have endless showers and moan about how I am probably dying. However, I will share with you my wisdom:

1. The cold is always the worst first thing in the morning. It will get better as the day progresses. You can honestly say, it can’t get worse from here

2. It’s okay to lay down in the shower and let its curing hot water loosen up the phlegm and mucus that is lying around in there.

3. If you can’t stop coughing, have a spoonful of brown sugar. It feels so good.

4. Don’t use anything but plain Vaseline on your angry red nose. No stinging, just pure relief. (and a greasy face, but it’s totally worth it)

5. Stuffing Kleenex up your nose is totally normal and it feels really good. And it gives you a break from blowing.

6. Sinuses must be really really big because I can’t understand where all of this . . . stuff is being stored.

7. Take drugs at night, but avoid drugs during the day – even if they say non-drowsy, they make you feel loogy.

8. When you are starting to get better, your voice will probably sound the worst. You can milk this if you need to.

January 5th, 2012 Extra-Ordinary: On the mend.

The Daily EO: January 4th, 2012

Almost a year ago, I wrote about traditions. I told you I like them. It makes me feel connected to the past. And I do honour traditions. This past Christmas, my mom told my brother and I that she didn’t need a stocking because we wouldn’t be together on Christmas morning. Independently, both Todd and I made sure she got a stocking – she got two. For part of Christmas lunch, we had mimosas and a pear apple (or an Asian pear) because we like them and because, well, it’s tradition.

Each Christmas, my parents sent out a Christmas letter – like many did – to friends and family to update them on the year’s happenings. Somewhere along the line, my Dad started writing a poem as the Christmas update – I think he started in 1967? And so each year, he would create a poem about events in rhyming couplets. At some point, I decided to become the Christmas poet and take up my dad’s quill. And for many years since – perhaps even 20 now – I have sent the family Christmas letter in poem.

E-mail and texting is changing the tradition of Christmas card – we receive very few in the mail any more. And I feel. .felt? . . that I was defending the erosion of this tradition. Cards are tactile objects for keeping, for rereading. Emile and I created our own traditions – eliminate the card, instead make a postcard from one of his pictures. It was ours, and I felt good about producing our Christmas package each year – it brought me pleasure to write and send.

And yet, this year I could not get into the mood. I could not seem to bring my pencil to paper to create our poem, but somehow managed to squeeze out 3 stanzas. But I needed to give myself a break. Surely right after Christmas I’d find the spirit to complete my card and get it out before New Year’s.

But then I was robbed. And in that backpack? My 3 longhand stanzas on my favorite (recycled from a computer motherboard) clipboard.

It’s taken me a while to get over that theft – and I still am smarting from it. I am pissed off, but continue to hope that perhaps something good will come from this. A lesson, a gift. And perhaps it is this: the realization that I don’t want to rewrite those 3 stanzas or any other stanzas this year.

Part of me mourns the end (or the gap?) in the tradition. Change is good, change is disconcerting. But this year there will be no Christmas or New Year’s letter heading your way from us. I hope you miss it a bit (like I do).

This year is just beginning, so perhaps we’ll begin a new tradition, or send greetings another way. I don’t know, but making this decision eases the furrow on my brow.

January 4th, 2012 Extra-Ordinary: Taking my own advice from a year ago: “Sometimes, you just need to move along people.” Traditions end. New things begin.

The sentiment remains. To all our friends and family: Happy Holidays via this untraditional medium. We spent our holiday season with those who are most important to us and hope you shared precious moments with those you care about.

The Daily EO: January 3rd, 2013

When I was in Huntsville in December, we shot off some 22 rifles with some friends. I had never shot a gun before, so it was a new experience for me. I am right-handed, so I support the gun on the right side of my body, with my right hand on the trigger and my left on supporting the barrel. Like this:

Shooting a Rifle. (note the pretty nails)

It turns out I couldn’t hit the side of a barn from the inside of the barn.

Part of my problem is my vision – I have always had problems with depth perception due to a lazy eye (which is hardly noticeable, honest, my hunchback and lisp usually distract people) and farsightedness. When I am tired, one of my eyes drifts inward. But also, if you are shooting with the right side of your body, and cocking your head to the right and using one eye to sight. . . . it should probably be the RIGHT eye that is open. Right, cause that is the eye that is directly over the gun. When I tried to shoot with both eyes open, I couldn’t sight the gun properly.

As I recounted this story to my family on Christmas Day, my brother asked me why I didn’t just close my left eye instead. Wha?! My left eye instead? What are you talking about? One can only wink with one eye!

That lead to the entire family (uncle, aunt, aunt’s mother, cousin X 2, 98-year-old grandpa, husband, and brother) doing the double wink. Left. Right. Left. Right. “Ha ha! You have brain damage!”

Really? My mother can only wink with one eye too, (the other one from me) but maybe she was just feeling sorry for me.

January 3rd, 2013 Extra-Ordinary: Despite trying for weeks now to wink with my left eye, the only thing I have accomplished to date is a weird Popeye squint and a left leaning head cock. Brain Damage indeed.

PS. I know you might think that I was shooting with Steven Paige of Bare Naked Ladies fame, but that is his Doppelganger.

The Daily EO: January 2nd, 2013

Yesterday, I did what I am sure all people rising on January 1st did – I checked to see if quicktaxweb.com had updated their website so I could start 2012 taxes and I transferred my 2013 allocation into my TFSA. (It’s the most wonderful time of the year).

I did meet a hung-over bearded man in the elevator wearing last night’s clothes, a toque and a large booger on his mustache. I am sure that he did his transfer by cell phone just after the clock struck midnight.

But today, I remembered what I forgot: the TFSA contribution room each year is indexed to 2009.

January 2nd, 2013 Extra-Ordinary: $500 more dollars in the old TFSA. People, don’t forget! Deposit today! And organize your tax receipts!

The Daily EO: January 1st, 2013

In my industry of Natural Health Products, I have been able to see first hand the ramp up to support the “New Year, New You” phenomenon. I’ve written before about how I’ve always seen September as a new start, not January, so it seems a little silly to me.

I hate the gyms during January – classes suddenly full, never can get a treadmill, sigh… all these people clogging up the place. Please hurry up and lose your commitment, people!

And yet, after 4 months crammed full with stressful and fattening things, I find myself knowing and having to engage in the ritual as so many others will do in North America. My only solace is in that I can tell myself that I am just getting back into the routine that Emile and I started in Fit April – just trying to figure out how to do it here in Vancouver. I am certainly not one of the crowd.

Alas, the ordinariness of it, I hate to fit in and yet I need to be able to fit in my pants, so we’ve launched Cliche January.

I’m too embarrassed to tell you the starting stats – maybe after some progress I’ll let you know.

January 1st, 2013 Extra-Ordinary: Wiping off the remnants of an entire box of Ferraro Rocher from our lips (before the calendar turned over), 17.7 km walk around Vancouver’s downtown and Stanley Park completed.

Will anyone ever see this post, lost in the “resolution” tag? Sigh.

The Daily EO: December 31st, 2012

When I started the EO, I had 3 rules: don’t hurt anyone’s feelings, attempt to write about each day within 24 hours and write it until I didn’t feel like it. And since I didn’t feel like it for the last couple of weeks, I decided to take a break.

On Christmas Eve, I was robbed. Well, I wasn’t robbed, my car was robbed. And with my black backpack and my smashed window, the thief also took some joy from my Christmas season. First off, I was robbed. Secondly, I didn’t handle it as effectively as I normally handle things (and that would be effectively) and third, it makes you feel like you are some how to blame (if I hadn’t have parked there, if I had taken my backpack with me, etc).

I figure the person who took my pack back (and my Kate Spade wallet, LG cell phone and a bunch of gift cards) was desperate and needed those items more than me and I should be thankful that I am not left in jeopardy because of the theft. But that would be lying to you, because really I’m just really pissed off and saddened. I didn’t want to speak of it to friends and family at Christmas, or write about it in the The Daily EO. And believe me, it is hard to write of something extra-ordinary when you are wondering about what addict is selling your SIM card for drugs.

I only told those who needed to know (“Um, Susan, do you know you are missing a window?”) and even then I lied about the circumstances. And kept my simmering anger hidden.

December – despite having a 2 week vacation at the beginning – was stressful for me. What was stressing me out? Nothing that in retrospect should have caused a problem. I was worried about taking 2 weeks off after only 2 months in to my job, I didn’t have my Christmas shopping done on time, I don’t have a bed, there are so many boxes that remain on packed, etc, etc. In the end it didn’t really matter, and I am uncertain why things that normally give me pleasure to complete, caused me high levels of anxiety.

Perhaps it is because my brain is finally catching up to my body’s geography. Change is good, change was needed, but after 2 years of searching, deciding and frenetic action, I do not truly know where home is yet. It feels that Emile and I – though holding on to the same life raft – are upon a vexing and fickle stormy sea waiting for our safe harbour. We’re here, but we are doing that thing where you balance something and then hold out your hands as if to say “stay” and try to catch it when it all falls apart.

Security and the fibers of our new life will continue to grow, but I need to catch my breath.

December 31st, 2012 Extra-Ordinary: Getting over it already and so pleased that I got to spend Christmas with my mom and brother and my BC family. The Daily EO is back.