A Hard Room

There are many times I wish I could go back to my childhood belief system. Life was so much simpler for me, so much happier back when I believed a Supreme Being had my best interests at heart. I felt special, I felt loved, I felt secure. What I'd give to feel that way again! Unfortunately, as they say, that ship has sailed. It sure was a nice cruise while it lasted though.

I have a favourite psychiatrist. And doncha just love the fact that I can begin a sentence with the words "my favourite psychiatrist..."! I'm the only person I've met who has ever said those words!

Her words to me now provide what passes for comfort in troubling times. "A certain amount of denial is necessary for everybody to get through the day."

In other words, if we all actually thought about the garbage we create, the impurities we are busy ingesting, the damage our use of water and hydrocarbons is doing daily, not to mention the chances that we'll get hit by a bus, none of us would ever get out of bed or make it through the day with our sanity intact. I mean really - each flush of the toilet, every bit of shrink wrap... now they're telling us that the stuff used in our tin cans is going to give us all cancer. And the other day I heard that the stats say one in three people will get cancer. One in THREE.

We're killing ourselves. We're killing the planet. We're killing each other. And this without doing anything special, just trying to get through the day!

So when people tell me things like "trust in god" or "think positive" or even "hope for the best," I need all my medications to put a polite smile on my face and make me nod my head appreciatively. I am what stand-up comics call "a hard room."

The latest example of how far gone from happy-ville I am came just before last week's lotto 649 draw. Boyfriend had been visiting friends on the 24th, a Friday, and as everyone knows, Fridays are days when there's a 649 draw. His friends were baby-sitting a doggie, and, as luck would have it, Boyfriend's shoe connected with some of said doggie's droppings.

A great cleanup ensued, with lots of cheerful laughter all round. After all, they said, stepping in dog-doo is lucky! They wanted to know if Boyfriend had bought his lotto tickets, since it was now practically a sure thing he'd win! And a fun evening was had by all.

For a time, even I participated in the joke that stepping in dog-doo was supposed to be lucky. "Yeah! Good thing you bought your ticket!" Etc.

Well, Boyfriend is still not a multimillionaire. When he told me that he'd checked his ticket and hadn't got a single number, the truth slipped out of my mouth faster than I knew what was happening.

"Stepping in dog-doo only means there's been a dog nearby," I quipped. And the next second I wished with all my heart I hadn't said it.

I'm never gonna win a lottery with an attitude like that!

She sells sushi...

I don't know what the ad was trying to sell, but there is a group of young people out having dinner at a sushi place. One young man orders something by pointing to the menu because he doesn't know what the menu says, and the waitress leaves with a chipper "good choice!" When she returns she has a huge platter with some round tentacled thing in the center. When the young man pokes at it with his chopstick, the thing leaps up and adheres to his face. He mumbles something about an interesting texture, and the waitress nods and smiles and says "She lay eggs now. Enjoy!"

My Daughter had never seen this ad and had a good laugh as I described it to her over our sushi dinner this evening. She had persuaded me to go to this particular establishment because she loved the food so much and she said it would make her feel better. And like any good mommy when my baby needed cheering up, I said okay. So there I was in a sushi restaurant with my daughter, when my own attitude towards sushi was pretty much summed up by that tv ad, and this line from folk singer Christine Lavin, "Some say eating sushi is like chewing on your own cheek, or chugging down a bucketful of tentacled slime."

Now, I do pride myself on keeping an open mind. About some things, anyway. So she ordered me all cooked items and I carefully worked my way through. Gotta give it top marks for presentation, the stuff certainly looks nice. I find the pieces too large though, since you're supposed to eat them whole or in only two bites.

I was contemplating how to best divide a particular piece when Daughter asked me if I was enjoying myself, and I had to laugh. I guess my facial expression indicated that, instead of looking forward to putting this morsel in my mouth, I saw it as a problem to be solved.

I had a lovely time with Daughter. But I still have to say that sushi is not high on my list of "comfort" foods!

A Christmas Donation

This time of year there are fifteen places to put every dollar, and hundreds, if not thousands, of worthy charities to support. One can hardly turn around without being asked to give to one cause or another, so much so that we can become jaded or callous concerning the needs we are being asked to fill.

It's easy to forget how good we have it, here in Canada in the twenty-first century. We complain about how slow our health care system is, but at least it exists. The prices at the grocery store and gas pump can be frighteningly high, but at least there are no shortages. We've got electricity and water, and very few of us actually know someone who goes hungry on a regular basis.

I've had my share of hard knocks in my life, but I consider myself to be a lucky person. I don't have a huge income, but I have more than a lot of people have, and so I found myself wondering if I would make some kind of Christmas contribution to a charitable cause this year. Because I am very aware of how close I have lived at one time or another to actual poverty, and how easy it is to fall over that surprisingly thin edge.

In the past I've made some questionable decisions as to my giving. I was raised in a tithing family, taught from a young age to be generous to those less fortunate, and in my young adulthood I gave plenty of money to charities and to individuals in need. Unfortunately, I did so when I actually could not afford to, and was at the same time receiving handouts from my grandparents to help me make ends meet. I had not mastered being financially responsible for myself, and I really had no business giving away so much.

So I'm a lot more cautious now when I'm asked to give. I'm aware that even perfectly good and straightforward causes may not be making the best use of the dollars that come their way. And there are certain needs that tug at my heart more than others - everybody has their favourite charities.

Out of the blue this year a request appeared on my Facebook page to contribute to a diaper drive for Elizabeth House - a place for "unwed mothers" in old-fashioned speech, single moms if you're more up-to-date. It's not something I would normally have considered contributing to, but it stuck in my head, mostly because of its simplicity. You buy diapers, and you give them. Not cash, which can be misappropriated or misspent. Just diapers, for the most helpless humans, fulfilling a very basic need. And the friend who ran this diaper drive just did it on her own, posting the invitation on Facebook and just collecting what she could. No grand scheme here, no posing for photos, no full-page write-up in the Gazette. One kind person doing what she could to help people who in all likelihood will never know what she did or who she is.

And I liked that. I get tired of what my Grandpa used to call "ballyhoo." Fanfare and celebrities and the glare of spotlights, with a side of sound track thrown in for good measure. So much noise.

Instead, this gesture was a quiet one. It required me to do some legwork - it's been a number of years since I had to go looking for cloth diapers! I had to physically find and get to a specialty store. I had to physically truck the items over to my friend's house. I think that's what appealed to me the most - it involved a small amount of work on my part. I had to make an effort. Lift the proverbial finger ever so slightly. More complicated than writing a cheque.

I thanked my friend for giving me the opportunity to contribute to the cause of her choice. It did me good, having to trudge through the snow, having to get off my duff to do this little thing. I wish more people did things like this - quiet requests, simple small acts of kindness. That's the sort of thing that needs to be spread around, at Christmas and every day.