Posted on December 13, 2023 under Wednesday’s Words of Wisdom with one comment

 

No explanation required

 

“You’ve got to try a little kindness,

Yes, show a little kindness,

Just shine your light for everyone to see.”

Try a Little Kindness – Glen Campbell

 

We’re living in troubled times.

The war in Ukraine.

The war in the Middle East.

Democracy under threat.

Rancor in politics everywhere especially south of the border.

Skyrocketing food prices.

Unaffordable housing.

Covid overstaying its welcome.

Natural disasters galore.

It’s easy to be discouraged.

Many people feel helpless. In times like these, ordinary folks do what they can. Some donate money for disaster relief. Some take to the streets to protest war and violence. Some pray. A lot of people simply tune all of this out because it’s too hard on the head.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed, might I suggest something that we can all do which doesn’t require a lot of time, money or emotional energy?

In the words of Glen Campbell, “Try a little kindness”.

I attended the funeral of a good friend on Friday. Over the years, we played a lot of golf together. He was a sports enthusiast in his youth playing ball, golf and skating on outdoor ponds. He added handball to his resume later in life. He never coveted greatness at any of these sports to my knowledge but let’s face it, very few people reach levels beyond respectability in sports or any other endeavor for that matter. Above all else, he was a good sport.

However, my friend was a great husband, father and grandfather and a role model for me and many others. He was the definition of a gentleman and one of his most endearing traits was kindness. I never heard him utter an unkind word in all the years I knew him. He was smart and even keeled and yes, from time to time, he enjoyed a rum and coke.

Athletes, movie stars and business moguls are overrated. Kindness is underrated.

As we head into the Christmas season, let’s all pause a moment and undertake to do one random act of kindness. It doesn’t have to be anything grand like buying someone’s coffee at the drive thru at Tim’s. A smile is always a good choice. Bring back chivalry and open a door for someone. Utter a kind word to someone who may be struggling. Visit someone in a nursing home or hospital. Let somebody go ahead of you in a lineup.

Unremarkable acts of kindness.

Be like Barry.

Be kind.

“And the kindness that you show every day,

Will help someone, along their way.”

Have a great weekend.

Posted on December 6, 2023 under Wednesday’s Words of Wisdom with no comments yet

Ready for Christmas!

 

“Rockin’ around the Christmas tree,

At the Christmas party hop.”

Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree- Brenda Lee

 

It’s just up the road and around the bend. In less than three weeks, the jolly old man himself will make an appearance, filling hearts with joy while, at the same time, emptying our bank accounts.

“Oh, dear god, Len. Don’t go full curmudgeon on us.”

Take heart, dear readers. Au contraire. I might be suffering some early signs of the Christmas spirit.

Let me first dispense with two things that make me want to go “full Scrooge”.

Number 1. “Have you finished your Christmas shopping yet?” I would put that right up there with, “Have you had Covid yet?” Why are we, as a society, forced to drag out these banal queries every year? Truthfully, nobody but your banker or credit card company is really interested in the answer to this question. “What’s in your wallet” is the tag line for a credit card company. If it’s January, the response is, “Nothing”.

Number 2. “I don’t want a lot for Christmas. There is just one thing I need.” When this song by Maraih Carey was first released in 1994, it was new, fresh and catchy.  Twenty-nine years later, it is old, stale and aggravating. Why must we be bludgeoned on a daily basis with this song? We got the gist of this piece almost four decades ago. Why not try something relatively new (circa 2003) and daring like Ron Sexsmith’s “Maybe This Christmas”? https://youtu.be/uYyftowTqxk?si=KCPxB17GlOyUvMm8

“Ok, Scrooge. You can go back to bed.”

I am having an existential crisis.

When should I put up my tree?

I know a lot of people respectfully wait until after Remembrance Day to put up their tree. The smell of balsam fir is addictive. I don’t think I have it in me any more to sustain the Christmas spirit for two whole months.

My days of having a real Christmas tree have passed. I acquired a small, two foot high, porcelain tree several years ago and I typically wait until a few days before Christmas to take it out of the box and put it on my dining table. Last year, I was exceptionally late getting this done. My tree was trimmed and plugged in on Christmas Day evening. No, it wasn’t a lapse in memory, (which, too is lurking around the bend), but rather, major travel snags. It took me five days to get home from Northern Quebec. That was a Christmas I won’t soon forget.

Storm stayed in Montreal on Christmas Eve, I was taken in like a stray cur by friends’ parents and was forced to eat truffles and drink expensive red wine!

If all had gone well, I would have been home on the 21^st, hustling around to get my last-minute shopping done. NOT. The majority of my Christmas gift giving is done by e-transfer (!) and I like to donate money to charities. The few times in my life when I actually bought presents and wrapped them, the results were less than satisfying. Somebody who had undergone shoulder surgery and had their arm in a sling would have done a better job wrapping my gifts.

This is the first December since 2019 that I am home in December and there is absolutely no excuse for me not to get my tree up early. It’s only 15 feet away from where I’m standing, and it takes all of 5 minutes to assemble. A few days ago, while walking to the mall, I noticed that Edward Chisholm’s Christmas tree lot on the mall parking lot, was going gangbusters. An old synapse in my brain fired and I thought, momentarily, that maybe this year, I would buy a real Christmas tree. Common sense overtook me when I realized that other than the bathtub, there isn’t much room in my apartment for a full-sized tree. And now that I am carless, (I can be careless too) the thought of dragging home a tree down Church Street is embarrassing.

Not only did I put up my Christmas tree early but, in a radical departure from tradition, it now sits on an old wooden stool, which is an interesting story in its own right.

I caught a small snippet of the Christmas spirit last week when my daughter Betsy, and I, performed at the tree lighting ceremony at St.F.X. University. There were quite a few children present and we had them come up and sing a few carols with us.

At my age, receiving gifts is not all that important unless it’s the gift of good health.

Have a great weekend.

P.S. With apologies to Mariah and her fans. Brenda Lee released Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree 65 years ago!

Posted on November 15, 2023 under Wednesday’s Words of Wisdom with 4 comments

A celery stalker

 

“I like to eat, eat, eat,

Apples and bananas,

I like to eat, eat, eat,

Apples and bananas.”

Apples and Bananas – Traditional

And kale.

Many times, during my life, I have thought about becoming a vegetarian.

Luckiliy these flights of fancy pass quickly.

Like so many others who were brought up in my part of the world, and who came from large families (in numbers, not girth!), meat and potatoes were the staples of our diet. Mom would arrange for the purchase of a side of beef and my siblings, and I would form a production line around our lengthy kitchen table, weighing, wrapping, tying and labelling ground beef, roasts, stewing beef, and the occasional steak. In a family of 10, steak was as rare as an appearance of Halley’s Comet, once or twice in a lifetime. Tube steaks and brown beans appeared on a more regular and consistent basis.

Now, I certainly have nothing against those who eschew meat, fish and poultry. Vegetarians are lovely people as are vegans. “Judge not and thou shall not be judged.” So says the bible.

While I love a good steak, pan seared scallops or a turkey dinner, I am also quite fond of vegetables. As part of my (somewhat) healthy eating lifestyle, I try to have two or three vegetables on my plate every dinner. I have a two-tier steamer which cooks carrots, broccoli and cauliflower to perfection.

Unfortunately, sweets are also an essential part of my diet. My most recent addiction to sugar is in the form of mini pies, lovingly and expertly prepared by my daughter Ellie, proprietress of the wildly popular La Vie Sucree.

Now that the cold, wet weather has arrived, many of us are turning to comfort food. Recently, I made beef stew in my slow cooker. This might seem like an odd choice for someone who lives alone but I am a crafty, thrifty Scot (more Irish than Scottish, actually). When the stew has finished cooking and has cooled down, I put individual servings in containers and pop them in the freezer. Thaw and microwave at a later date when I’m feeling lazy and uninspired about what to have for supper.

We all have our favourite stew recipe, often handed down to us from previous generations or the latest version downloaded from Allrecipes.com. Invariably, one of the key ingredients, a flavour enhancer to be sure, is celery. Celery is one of those vegetables that a single person should never purchase. It’s virtually impossible for one person to consume every stalk of celery in a bunch unless you happen to have a pet rabbit or chinchilla. After using a few stalks in the stew, the remainder go back into the crisper where they die a slow, miserable death. When you finally discover their remains months later during a cursory cleaning of the fridge, you are relieved that the Department of Health hasn’t come by for an inspection. Such is their pathetic state that you can actually pour them into your composter.

I decided to be smart for a change and share my celery with a friend. I was happy. My friend was happy. The celery was overjoyed.

“How does the rest of your family feel about celery?” to which she replied, “They think celery tastes like despair.”

Celery is a food enhancer, nor a standalone item, apparently. As a supporting cast member, celery shines. To wit, in a stir fry. As a solo act, not so much. You can dress up a stalk of celery with peanut butter and raisins and make ants on a log, but it still tastes like despair… with a hint of beurre d’arachide.

That got me to thinking about vegetables and how they can be described by taste and texture.

I am not a foodie or a food snob and will eat just about anything that’s put in front of me including every imaginable vegetable but really, why is kale allowed to exist? Some people say that cilantro tastes like soap, onions make people cry and the perfect human repellent is garlic. Turnips make you fart. I was going to use “flatulence”, but fart is much more descriptive. Parsnips are as dull as day old dish water and how about cabbage? Zucchini tastes like fog.

And then there’s rutabaga. In a previous life, I met someone that I quite liked until she made me rutabaga cookies. I think chewing on a frozen hockey puck holds more appeal than a rutabaga cookie.

I could go on, but I can already sense the wrath of the vegetarians who might show up at my doorstep and throw four month old celery at my windows.

Al Michaels, the venerable and much-admired sportscaster who turned 79 last week, says that he has never knowingly eaten a vegetable in his life with the exception of potato which he consumes with his steak.

A former neighbor and friend subscribes to the Al Michaels diet. He supplements his meat and potato diet with jellybeans, surely nature’s most perfect food. Milk is taboo in his diet as well.

“Food, glorious food,

We’re anxious to try it,

Three banquets a day,

Our favourite diet,

Just picture a great big steak,

Fried, roasted or stewed,

Oh, food! Wonderful food!

Marvellous food, glorious food.

Food, Glorious Food – Oliver

Kale, kale, the gang’s all here!

Have a great weekend.