Tripping the Light Kinda Fantastic

     I'm no Ginger Rogers or Jennifer Beals but I can generally tell my left foot from my right (depending on how much sleep I got the night before).  An added bonus is, somewhere deep within my psyche, there is a primal monkey beating on a drum, teaching me how to keep time.  I don't know where this monkey came from - one of the wierd ancestors of my primitive past, I suppose.  But he's there, none-the-less, in spite of my failures in music training as a child. 

     Seventeen years ago I convinced my husband that dance lessons would enhance our marriage.  He was not as convinced.  But he joined me anyway, likely assuming that it would go the way of many of my wacky ideas - down the toilet.  He is a good sport, I will give him that.  

     What began as dabbling turned into a full-on, long-term contact sport and, outside of some minor (and major) lapses, we've kept at it.  Having taken a few years sabbatical from dance instruction, we're back at it.  I know it sounds romantic (at least to the female contingent) but a typical night at dance class sounds something like this:

     Debra: And 1,2,3,and 1,2,3, and...stop, stop, stop.  Your feet are officially moving to a different song.  Is that an earbud stuck in your ear?

     

     Brenda:  Okay, so you're telling me that on "and" my right foot is poised, weight on my left.  Then you say move your left foot on "one."  I don't know about you, but that is a contradiction in physics and I aced physics (LIE).  

     Debra:  Let me show you.  (Debra proceeds to move into lead position, swooping me off my clumsy feet and through one entire dance maneouvre).  There, you just did it.  It's that simple.

     Brenda (quietly to Al): I have no idea what I just did but I'm seeing spots.  Is the room spinning?

     Debra:  Men, when your turning your lady through an allamande be sure to keep your elbows in.  If you're not careful you'll bruise her "girls" and be walking home or sporting a black eye...or both.  Now, let's get back to it.  I'll pick up the tempo a bit and we'll start with a lady-inside-turn, cross-body lead into a series of feather steps into an impetus turn, and end with a cross-body-check-into-the-boards.  

     Brenda: What did she just say?

     Al: I don't know but we can fake it.  We have been for years.  

     Brenda: Huh?

     Al:  Okay, let me lead, all right?  I'm the guy, remember?  And 1,2,3...and 1,2,3.  

     Brenda (mumbling under her breath):  I'll let you lead when you can get it right.  Don't you tell me to let you lead.  I'll decide when you can be the boss, Mr. Bossy.

     Romantic, uh huh!  Over the years I've (through tears) bent a toe nail back to its original state, made unflattering butt contact with hardwood floor and taken a good left hook to the nose.  And this does not even begin to uncover the carnage to Al's anatomy.  Guys have to endure the excruciating phenomenon of a stilleto heel on a crowded dance floor, which, when strategically placed into the heel of his shoe can take out an ankle bone in one fell swoop.  

     But at the end of the day, or a really great dance party when the steps all come together, we can enjoy the drive home, sweat on our brows and music still ringing in our ears.  Those are the nights when we negotiate through a knowing smile, "You can be the lead on the dance floor if I get to lead at home...and at work...and everywhere else."  He will grin and wink - a wise man.  For it's lies like these that make the bed springs more springy.  Romance.  

Paying Homage to Harry & Hermione

      I can't quite explain the mystical duplicity of moving from one extreme climate to another in a matter of 12 hours.  Like stepping into Dr. Emmett Brown's time machine DeLorean (ours, a Boeing 757) and launching into a climactic time warp.  

     We made our clandestine escape in the dark stillness of 4 a.m., cloaked in polar fleece, a duffle bag of American cash over one shoulder and passports authorizing us passage to places beyond the black hole of a late Winterpeg spring.  We kept a low profile all of the way there lest we be discovered for the white-skinned aliens that we were and deported back to our frigid realities.

Alexa, employing the "mysterious monk" effect - Jessie, the burrowing muskrat

     We arrived in a land of palm trees and hibiscus, exactly what we'd plugged into the time circuits.  It worked.  Shedding our outer wintery skins we took a step, ever so cautious, into the radioactive Florida sun, afraid to find it a mirage.  Like discovering a water hole in a desert, we drank in the arid Southern air with avarice and mounted our rented steed (Chevy Captiva), soothed by the beguiling voice of our GPS tour guide.  Her performance was nearly flawless - only one mis-step.  Who can blame her?  There must be dozens of Nectarine Drives in Kissimmee, Florida.  

     Rounding the corner, there it stood, majestic in all of its ivory-stuccoed, lime-doored, bourgeois beauty; our 1990-something bungalow away from home, complete with kidney-shaped pool (all the rage), orange trees, lizards, and blossoming shrubs.

     Sleeping off a time warp delirium we woke to a temperature gauge needle pushing obstinately into the high 80's (America speak for 35 Celcius).  A perfect day for our pilgrimage to a Floridian Mecca, Universal Studios.  The two young ladies in our back seat had waited half a life-time to pay homage to the wizarding Harry Potter in his mythical land of Hogsmeade.  

Butter beer and chocolate frogs - mmm!

Other pilgrims in search of the Great Magician

A weary sojourner

     Alas, these young lasses have lived the dream, crossed through to a matrix of magic and wonder.  And all is right with the world!

Leaving On A Jet Plane, Don't Know When I'll Be Back Again

     I am feeling restless and feverish.  Only 7 hours until my plane leaves the tarmac and I don't think I'll catch a single wink tonight.  It's been 11 years since we were together and, until now, I hadn't realized how much I missed him until I pulled the suitcase from its dusty storage and began to dig through my closet for something to wear that would leave an impression.  That special something that would make him say, "you look even better than the last time we were here together."

     Memory spills over to the first time we met.  I was 13, he was...ageless.  Debonair and delightful, he filled my head with a sense that the world was a magical place; that I could do anything, be anybody if I only believed.  

     I can picture his face in my mind, a perpetual smile and eyes so large they draw you in.  I saw a picture of him recently; he hasn't changed a bit.  Still charming the women, I'm sure.  But by sunset tomorrow I'll come walking back into his life for the third time, more confident than the last times; more ready for commitment.  

     Sigh.  Life is really too short to be holed up in some work-a-day world without adventure and romance.  His world is so free; so uninhibiting.  I want that again.  I'm ready.  

     I need to take a breath now and focus.  Am I forgetting anything?  Does it matter?  It may not be about what I take along but rather what I'm prepared to leave behind.  I look around at all of the things that comprise my life; whatever I can't get into a suitcase just doesn't matter.  

     Over the next week the sun will rise and the sun will set in his world and mine.  We'll be together.  He'll pull me into his familiar embrace and it will be like we'd never been apart.  He'll lean his head in toward mine and for a single moment the world will stop in a flash.  

     My husband will step out from behind his camera and grin.

     "Thanks Mickey."  I'll beam.  Mr. Mouse will wave his white glove as we leave, his effervescent charisma staying with us long after we've moved on.  

     Here I come, Disney World!

   

       

The Cost of Putting Your Face On

What Your Mama Never Told You and Big Pharma Never Will

Somewhere between the age of fetus and three I developed a keen interest in make-up and all of the accoutrements afforded to the female gender.   In my estimation I have likely spent more time "getting ready" for stuff then actually doing the "stuff" I'm getting ready for.  The way I see it, though, it's like preparing a great meal - preparation can take hours, eating only minutes. Or like sex - foreplay can (should) take hours, orgasm only minutes.  

But with all of the efforts I've made over the years to build healthy meals and encourage healthy foreplay, I've only recently realized the need to take a cold, hard look at healthy skin care.  Yeah, sure, I moisturize, cleanse and exfoliate away the crusty outer snake skin.  The problem, though, is not the means, its the product.  Somewhere, in the course of my internet-cruising-self-betterment-or-bust moments, I began to discover the reality of the components that make up my make-up (and skin care et al).  

Have you ever tried to read the ingredients list on your skin care products?  It's like trying to interpret ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics.  Like trying to read the chicken scratch on your doctor's prescription pad.  And that's if your product containers even list the ingredients.  Right now in North America there are NO LAWS governing the ingredients in your skin and hair products.  No FDA big brother to set the ground rules.  They don't, by law, even need to tell you what kind of crap is being pumped into the bottles and pushed through your skin and hair follicles.   Go and check your products - many of them don't.

According to the David Suzuki Foundation, "one in eight of the 82,000 ingredients used in personal care products are industrial chemicals, including carcinogens, pesticides, reproductive toxins, and hormone disruptors. Many products include plasticizers (chemicals that keep concrete soft), degreasers (used to get grime off auto parts), and surfactants (they reduce surface tension in water, like in paint and inks). Imagine what that does to your skin, and to the environment."  

For a list of the "dirty dozen" worst offenders in personal care products check out this website: 

http://www.davidsuzuki.org/issues/health/science/toxics/dirty-dozen-cosmetic-chemicals/

Most, if not all, of the dirty dozen are currently banned in the European Union.  Our government has turned a blind eye.  Doctors and Big Pharma are reaping the benefits of our ignorance.  

Considering just the carcinogens (cancer causing agents) alone in our products, the gamble for the sought after "bouncy hair" and "look-30-years-younger" skin products is a big one.  Did you know:

• Since 1971 the United States has invested over $200 billion on cancer research; that total includes money invested by public and private sectors and foundations.  Despite this substantial investment, the country has seen a five percent decrease in the cancer death rate.
• Only five to ten percent of cancers are entirely hereditary.
• Well over 1.5 million new cases of cancer are expected to arise in the U.S. in 2013. 

(Canadian stats seem to be harder to pin down but are likely much the same per capita).

The good news is we have options, and like a pilgrim in search of Mecca I set out on an "I'm-mad-as-hell-and-don't-have-to-take-it-anymore" mission.  My search brought me to my own little Mecca.  Natural skin care is readily available without having to traverse through the sand dunes of Saudi Arabia.  I found it in my own backyard.  

Pure Anada has a full line of skin care and make up products that are natural, without chemicals, synthetic dyes or perfumes.  The best part is they are made in Morden, Manitoba - a company founded by a woman on her own personal mission for safe, ethical ways of bringing out the "bombshell" in all of us.  Right now they are available at Anya's Hair Salon and online. (I am receiving no royalties for this endorsement).  The second best thing - they are affordable.

Being the "all or nothing" diva that I am, I purged my medicine cabinet and make up basket replacing what I could with safer options.  Pure Anada is not the only company out there.  Another hair salon in my home town carries a product from Hungary called Eminence, taking the fully organic approach.  According to the lovely esthetician at Refuge Hair & Body, "you could spread this stuff on your toast and eat it."  Hmm, maybe I'll pass on that.  

I didn't pass, although, on the organic shampoo & conditioner she carries.  And, after a number of lather and rinse sessions, I'm duly impressed.  (Beats vinegar and egg white).  

I'd love to hear from those of you on a similar quest.  What kinds of safer products have you discovered?   Can we beat Big Pharma and the skin care companies built on "hidden ingredients" and "profit at the consumers expense"?  And when I'm 99 and still dancing the Rhumba, I'll be glad I tried!

The Family Tree

It's after a good old-fashioned family get-together that I find myself reclining into the comfort of my well-worn "thinking" chair, evaluating the family trees of which we are all a branch, stick, root, blossom or termite.  (I use the last example tongue-in-cheek, of course, but we all know who they are in our own families).

The trunk of the tree stands tall and revered - the matriarch - in my family's case, my mom. The call to order and benediction of each family assembly is comprised of a time-tested rite, so deeply embedded into tradition that one dare not question its relevance.  It is the embrace, an act bestowed upon us with arms outstretched, her way of validating our existence.  She is the family warrior, her fortitude undaunted by the slightness of her stature.

Next on the hierarchical totem pole is the shaman,who raises the spirits of family-past through legends and memories.  The shaman's purpose is to resurrect genealogical history, keeping each generation tethered to its roots.  Like an archaeologist with a pick ax they unearth the valuable family fossils, encapsulating them in pride and respect.  In my family, she's my aunt.  Next to her, at this seat of distinction, is my cousin, ahead of me in years, wisdom and grace.  Together, when prodded, they can also call up the spirits of those who, some would say, should have been left to slumber - the forebears with an ax to grind or a booby trap to pull.  They are no less players, though, and deserve at least a little stage time, if for no other reason than to serve as the comedy or dark satire for posterity.

Tribal pecking order continues to the hunters and gatherers.  We are the generation that take up the torch, plan the party, bring the food, clean up the food, make sure the kids have had their fill and snuff the burning grasses when the ceremonial smudge is done.  When the little ones have retired to their car seats and embark on their journey home, the hunters gather around the embers, taking in the quiet and telling stories.  

The family chain continues, younger generations linked into the trunk by birth but forging their own paths, stretching out their woody fingers and producing tiny new stems, reaching the tree upward toward the sun for renewal through the fledgling growth.   

And, under girding the entire topiary, is the root system, solid and secure, the foundation to the whole.  My dad is among them now.  The only root most of us have a visceral connection with and the one whose presence is most keenly felt in a spiritual sort of way.   He speaks to us through his silence; through the idiosyncratic and corporeal characteristics of his progeny as we gather to eat, play and laugh.  The family gathering is our right and our responsibility, to those who have gone before.  It keeps us anchored to who we are and from where we have come. 

It All Started With A Simple Idea

The Cheapskates Guide to Penny-Pinching 101

How was copper wire invented?  A Mennonite and a Scotsman were fighting over a penny.

Les, the Scottish "water doctor" is installing a new water purification system in our home.  He's full of one-liners and ethnic anecdotes.  This one was new to me, and I chuckled in spite of my Mennonite self.  It's easy to laugh when you realize the incriminating truth behind it.  Were there a study of my family gene pool, I have a feeling they would find a frugal gene.  And that is where a simple idea got started.

Actually, it got its start on Pinterest one day - an on-going search for rad recipes and funky fashions.  The recipe jumped out at me, the right time, the right place and I was in the right mood.  How to make your own laundry detergent for just pennies a load.  Hmm, it was worth a try.  I'd heard rumors about the fillers in store bought detergents - water (in the liquid ones), drywall dust (whoever told me this was serious) and ground wombat tooth (that one I made up, but it sounds plausible doesn't it?) in the powder stuff.  The point is, the majority of your laundry detergent is stuff that's pointless, made to fill up the box (bottle) with extra junk that you're paying for.  And it's stuff like that that winds this tightwad into a tighter ball.

So, one day, green boxes and fabric grocery bags in tow, I went on a hunt for the 3 simple ingredients to make my own liquid laundry detergent: Borax, Washing Soda and soap; the kind of stuff I might have found next to my grandmother's old Wringer.  The first 2 weren't as easy to find as one might think, having virtually gone the way of the horse and buggy; but I finally located them between the Super Duper Extra Cleany Fresh Sunlight and the Synthetically Formulated Outdoor Fresh Scent Tide.  Superstore rarely lets you down when you're on a mission to find the out-of-the-ordinary.

A trip to my local Thrift Store produced just the soap I wanted; hand-made Homesteaders soap, produced by local women in a local sweat shop (sweat merely implying what happens when you hang over a large vat of hot lye all day).  The Thrift Store was also the perfect spot to find the "making" components of my project: large pot and wooden spoon.

Within about an hour I had the finished product cooled and ready for bottling into empty milk and apple juice jugs, emancipated from the recycle box for now.  It was kind of fun, actually, drawing my husband into the kitchen to hold the funnel as I slopped it in.  Well into my second batch, I must say I am duly impressed.  Each batch lasts about 4 - 6 months, requiring only about 2-3 tbsp per load.  The cost, according to my best calculations, is about $3 - $4/batch.  

Of course another boon, in these times of environmental conscientiousness, is the fact that it's phosphate, chemical and perfume free.  Guiltless, easy and cheap!  Three of my favorite things in life.

Recipe

1 bar of soap

 (any kind you want - with the pre-shredded Homesteaders soap I used 3/4 cup)

1 cup Borax

1 cup Washing Soda

a big pot (that holds more than 2 gallons)

a grater 

a funnel

a long spoon

2 empty gallon jugs

Grate the bar of soap into your pot.  Fill one gallon jug with cold water and pour over soap.  Cook until soap dissolves.  Add the Borax and Washing Soda.  Bring to a boil (it will coagulate).  Turn off the heat.  Add another gallon of cold water.  Stir well.  Allow to cool slightly (the mixture gets quite thick.  You want to pour before its too thick for a funnel).  

Side note: I used 2 large Dutch Oven type pots, making the stove top batch in one, transferring 1/2 of it to another and then adding the second batch of water to both.  If you find that it's too thick to pour, add more hot water and stir it in.  If, once bottled and cooled, it's gets too thick, add water and shake bottle.

Don't expect suds when doing your laundry, but suds don't equal clean.  It does as good a job as any regular detergent on the shelf today.

Love, For Love's Sake

    Life is challenging at the best of times. The struggle for survival when things are going awry all around seems to be one of the great equalizers of humanity. We fight to be heard, we long to be respected and we dream of raising our children in a safe and friendly world.

     Many of us come out on top, breaking through to the surface of the tumultuous waters for a breath before braving the dangerous depths one more time. Others, sadly, give up, finding the tide just too much to swim against. With no lifeboat in sight, what's the use? We likely all know someone who's succumbed to the bitter-sweet call of suicide leaving tragedy in their wake.

     My dad was a survivor, but in the last days of his life he faced his greatest challenge – being stuck in a body that wouldn't carry him. Equally frustrating was his trek through a walker-friendly world from the seat of a cumbersome wheel chair. I'm glad most people had the foresight to still recognize him as a human being, giving his wheelchair guidance over a foreboding curb, holding doors and bending down to talk to him face to face. This made his challenge more bearable.

     From those who have the “fortune” of fitting into the status quo, greater grace is required. Like my dad, the strugglers are all around us. They are the mentally challenged, the autistic, those with differing skin pigments, the immigrants, the depressed, the poor and the homosexual.

     We're trying, I know. We make buildings wheelchair friendly, we integrate the mentally challenged (I wish for a better term, like cerebrally gifted), we promote mental health and work to erase the stigma, we create programs to ease the hardship for new immigrants, we teach our children that we are all God's creatures, irregardless of colour or race.

     In the face of the last few weeks, I realize, though, how far we still have to go. Today's buzzword is Bill 18 and the much-feared and misunderstood enemy are the sexually different.

     There was a time when the depressed were instituted and kept “safely” away from the world at large. Out of sight, out of mind. There was a time when the black man was understood as the slave to the white. There was a time when women belonged in the home, not at polling booths or in positions of authority. But we know better now, right? We've learned; we've evolved and grown.

     How did this happen? Someone, somewhere, stood up and spoke out. They recognized an injustice, they mobilized a community and they trumpeted the truth from soap boxes on street corners. The world took notice and eventually we shushed our neighbours when they spoke maliciously, we taught our children about human value, we re-wrote our text books.

     It's time, now again, to mobilize and re-write the way we treat others of a differing sexual slant.      We know, now, that this is not a lot most of them have chosen. If you don't believe the scientific evidence then ask them yourself. Put down your smoking gun long enough to get to know someone whose discovered their difference. I mean, really get to know them, without bias and prejudgement.

     At the same time, ask yourself the question, “What would I do if my son or daughter came seeking my unconditional love in the aftermath of revealing their homosexuality?” It can happen to you; it has happened to many. My hope and prayer is that your love would not change; not one iota. And if this love can transcend the parent/child relationship, then why not all others?

     I implore us all to stop the madness, the fear-mongering and the irrational behaviour, and love – for love's sake.