Posted on March 11, 2021 under Thursday Tidbits with 2 comments

 

Cherish the good times

 

“Don’t take the good times for granted,

For things keep changing each day.”

Don’t Take The Good Times For Granted. David and Daniel O’Donnell

 

I am blessed to have a lot of friends. Many of them are close friends going back to my school days, but I’ve managed to accumulate many more over the years through my writing and travel. At a time of life when most of us are losing friends, I am collecting new friends as fast as a pair of velvet pants might pick up cat hair. Cat hairs are a nuisance. New friends are a treasure.

The other day, I received a lovely song from an old friend. She’s younger than me so technically she’s not that old! We chat quite regularly. We took our education year together back in 1975-76 and then we went off in different directions as is often the case. The death of a mutual friend a couple of years ago reconnected us again. Also, her mom is in the nursing home in my hometown where I used to do music five days a week. When she would travel home to visit her mom, we would get caught up on each other’s lives.

I’m always interested in new music or at least music that I haven’t heard before. I receive all kinds of videos as I’m sure most of you do. Many times, I ignore them. This is mainly because my internet signal is so weak that it could take me ten minutes or more to listen to a 3- minute song. Lately, my internet at home is passable which almost rates as a miracle which should be reported to the Pontiff.

Early Monday morning before heading to work (after watching the Highlight of the Night on TSN), I played the song. It’s a bit syrupy. I happen to like syrup. While the tune was pleasant enough, it was the words that caught my attention.

“Don’t take the good times for granted, for things keep changing each day,

Make time to be with the ones that you love, let nothing stand in your way.

We don’t know what waits round the corner, we never know what lies ahead,

So just for a moment, forget all your troubles, and count all your blessings instead.”

Sadly, for most of us, we are caught up in our day to days lives and when there are no speedbumps along the road, we rarely take time to heed the words written in this song. It’s only when hard times befall us or our friends that we become conscious of life’s fickle nature. I know that there are some of you out there who are dealing with cancer. There are others who are dealing with mental health issues, anxiety and stress. You might be ready to throttle me for putting on such a shiny face. I’m not naïve. As the song says, we don’t know what waits around the corner and a time will come that I might not be singing from the same songbook that I’m singing from now. Until that day arrives, I choose to count my blessings everyday and try to be consciously grateful. And we can show empathy to those whose lives are in turmoil.

Thanks, DB.

If you have a few minutes, give this song a listen. https://youtu.be/AssqoXawaoY

Have a great weekend.

P.S. The winner of my book giveaway last week for correctly identifying The Cremation of Sam McGee was Len MacEachern. There was a time when I could recite the entire poem and I’m guessing that there are many of you who still can. Now you must admit, that I tossed a lob ball with the opening lines of that poem. Ok, you smarty pants. Try this one on for size. For a free book of your choice form my vast (6) collection you need to identify the name of the poem and the author. NO CHEATING. NO GOOGLING.

“I caught this morning morning’s minion, kingdom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding.”

Honestly, I still don’t have a damn clue what this poem is about but it has been stuck somewhere in the recesses of my brain for almost 50 years.

 

Posted on March 4, 2021 under Thursday Tidbits with 6 comments

 

 

“Take another shot of courage.” Tequila Sunrise. The Eagles

 

“Why, yes. I could start my day without coffee. But I like being able to remember things like how to say words and put on my pants.” (Source unknown)

Oxygen. Water. Coffee.

With apologies to you hard core tea drinkers out there, most people recognize the necessities of life. Without oxygen, we wouldn’t be able to breath. Without water, we would certainly shrivel up and die. Without coffee, most of us would be a royal pain in the arse.

I realize coffee is an addiction and that it has all sorts of deleterious side effects like increased heart rate, quickness of speech, agitated movements, insomnia, digestive issues, muscle breakdown, high blood pressure, and fatigue. But the side effects of not having one’s morning java are even worse like being an intolerable, miserable excuse of a human being.

Why have I chosen March 4^th specifically to discuss this important topic? There is no reason. I never need a reason to write about nothing. You already know this.

I usually start seriously thinking about my first cup of coffee around 2:00 a.m. Now you might be thinking that the reason for this is that I drink too much coffee during the day causing insomnia. Wrong. My daily intake is fairly modest. I have one cup, usually around 6:00 a.m. and then I take a thermos to school which lasts all days. Now, before you go speculating, this is not one of those humungous thermoses that a carpenter might take to the job site. No. Mine is a modest 2 cupper. I start sipping on it around 7:30 when I head to school and usually finish it off in the afternoon. If I’m having a really bad day, it will be gone by 10:00.

Like most of you, I am a creature of habit, especially bad habits. Can you say “sweets, wine, and binge watching Netflix – something that I haven’t been able to do for 8 long months because of spotty (I’m being charitable) internet?

Getting up to pee in the middle of the night is not a habit. At my age, it is absolutely essential unless I opt for Depends. That will come soon enough. Let’s not go there. Invariably, when I stagger out of bed at this ungodly hour, the first thing I think about is my morning coffee and raisin toast. I can almost smell and taste it. Black coffee and raisin toast. Hardly legendary cuisine to start the day but I know that until I have this early morning fix, I will not be fit to be seen in public.

I will quit breathing and drinking water before I quit drinking coffee.

We had a bit of a cold spell last weekend when the thermometer dipped to -57 Saturday evening. On Sunday, things moderated, and it was only -50 when I received a message from my principal and her friend wondering if I would like to complete the Hero (Fools) Challenge and walk the airport loop. (7km). At the time, I was stretched out on the couch watching golf. I couldn’t have possibly felt lazier. The thought of stepping outside, let alone going for a long walk, didn’t even enter my consciousness that day. What crazy person would want to be out in this kind of weather?

Maritimers have a weird streak in them. Threaten them with shame and embarrassment and they will flash their fangs and fight to the death. “Of course, I would love to go out and get a dose of frostbite,” was my inner thought but I cheerfully agreed and 15 minutes later, we were on our way. Every millimeter of me was covered. I was wearing googles to cover my large nose and the area around my eyes. Have you ever had frozen eyeballs? The walk takes about 1:30. Fifteen minutes into the walk, my goggles had completely iced up making vision impossible. I was wearing a neck warmer and a balaclava. I stopped just long enough to pull the neck warmer under the balaclava and up over my face. The neck warmer is black. For the remainder of the walk, I had to walk closely on the heels of my walking companions as I couldn’t see more than a foot in front of me. Maritimers are both weird and stubborn. As my late brother Tom would have said “got ‘er done”.

“There are strange things done in the midnight sun…” (First person to identify this line gets a free book and a cup of coffee!!!). See. I’m not strange at all. Well grounded.

Have a great weekend.

P.S. I’m off to Victoria, B.C. for spring break in early April. Yeah, yeah, I know all about ‘essential travel’. I’ve been up north since August 1^st. It’s -57. It’s essential!

 

Posted on February 25, 2021 under Thursday Tidbits with no comments yet

A genetic abnormality or just poor jeans?

(Thanks AMB)

It has taken me a long time, but I am 100% convinced that the world has gone completely and utterly mad. I could start with the incomprehensible (to my generation) notion of Bitcoin. I can’t begin to explain it let alone determine why Bitcoin was recently priced at a cool $50,000. I’m not sure if that’s per coin or every bit of it. My son once tried to explain this new cryptocurrency craze, but I suffered a severe case of MEGO. My Eyes Glazed Over.

I could give dozens of other examples, but I won’t, lest you think I’m just a cranky, old curmudgeon.

The focus of my incredulity today is blue jeans, and not just any blue jeans.

What do you think when you hear the words “blue jeans’? Correct. They were the clothing of our youth. They were practical, comfortable, incredibly rugged, cost effective, and very durable. I chose the words ‘cost effective’ on purpose. Many of us are Baby Boomers and as such, quite possibly grew up in large households. This was particularly true in a small, Catholic community in Nova Scotia where filling the schools was almost a moral imperative.

I grew up with seven siblings. Most of the new clothing in the house was reserved for the older ones. Hand me downs were pretty well all the younger ones would ever know. A pair of blue jeans might get passed along to two or more family members. We wore jeans to school and once we slipped them on in the morning, they never came off. After school and on weekends, we played outdoors. Our mothers made meals and did countless washes every day, including muddied jeans. They didn’t need extra traffic under foot. They insisted that we stay outdoors! And of course, after being worn thousands of times, even blue jeans knew when to give up the ghost but not before showing signs of wear and tear with rips around the knees all too common. I would like to attribute some of this wear and tear to getting down on our knees every lunch hour to say a decade of the rosary. Millennials will have to do a Wiki search to understand what I’m talking about.

Spotting a child with torn jeans was not a fashion statement. It was a badge of honor indicating that this youngster wore them out honestly climbing trees, playing unorganized baseball or Red Rover.

I was sitting in a teacher training session the other day. Because it was a day without students, many of the staff chose casual wear. I looked across the room and spotted one of our younger teachers. The knees in her jeans were ripped beyond repair and there were several other places where slits in the denim were apparent. Caution. Do not wear these types of jeans outdoors when it’s -40. I’m trying to imagine what a frost bitten kneecap might look like. I was sitting beside one of our more experienced (translation: older) teachers. She has a daughter who attends university. “What’s with torn blue jeans?” I queried. Then came this startling revelation. “They are called distressed jeans.” I sat on that nugget for about 5 seconds before asking the obvious question. Why does the younger generation wear clothing that has been purposely made defective by the manufacturer or the wearer?

I am a teacher so for those of you not aware of the subtleties of distressed jeans, read on. It is a style (?) of denim that is given a worn look through the manufacturing process. This is to give the denim a look similar to that found in raw denim that has been broken in by the wearer. Apparently, the manufacturers place the denim in giant wash machines and then put rocks in to beat the crap out of the jeans. If this wasn’t enough, once received by the purchaser, they can add their own touches but putting in cuts and slits wherever they choose. The only thing “distressing” about these jeans is the price. People will actually pay upwards of $100 to acquire this exquisite “look”. There are even rules for wearing distressed jeans. I am not making this up.

Of course, I am being rather cynical here and hope that all of my distressed jeans readers (one as far as I know) will forgive me for poking fun at this trend that really hasn’t gone out of style.

I wonder how long someone would have to sit at their electronic device, playing video games, before their jeans wore out? One would expect that the arse of the pants would be the first thing to go.

I must check the family tree to see if there are any distressed genes in my clan.

I’m guessing the answer is yes.

Obviously.

The missing link comes to mind.

Excuse me. I have to go and tie dye one of my white t-shirts.

Have a great weekend.