Nothing Butt

When I made a commitment to post once a week, I assumed seven days would be long enough to accumulate blog fodder. Surely, in that enormous stretch of days, something worthy of reporting would occur. Turns out I was wrong. In the life I live now, it is possible for me to go a very long time without encountering one blog worthy situation. This week, I am reduced to writing a post about nothing.

My life wasn’t always like this. Once upon a time, I lived a frantic corporate life, teetering on the edge of disaster like a juggling unicyclist.  It was exciting, in a twisty way. I was important. Civilization as I knew it depended on the overtime I worked. The entire financial structure of the western world, according to my boss, relied on the programs I de-bugged and the code changes I installed. For weeks at a time, I lived on stale nachos, burnt coffee and wine gums from the vending machines in the break room.

One day, my boss told me the company had decided to replace my life’s work with third-party software. I would have to re-educate myself, or I’d be out of a job.  He didn’t actually tell me to my face; he sent me an e-mail. I looked at the hundreds of unread e-mails still in my inbox, probably from people who were unaware the systems they were complaining about had been consigned to the trash can, and stepped away from the keyboard. It was time to rethink my life.

There is no better way to explore one’s horizons than travel. I threw some clothes into a couple of suitcases – okay I threw in a lot of clothes  – and took off, with no real idea of where I was going. Within two months I was down to one, half-full suitcase and a credit card. I took trains and ships and buses to places I’d never heard of and met the most interesting people under the oddest circumstances. One afternoon I’d be playing cowbell with a street percussion band. The next night I’d be sitting in the plush velvet, balcony seat of a famous theatre catching a performance of Riverdance. Two weeks later, I’d be sipping white Zinfandel at the topside bar on a cruise ship, listening to live jazz and watching the Panama Canal glide by.

Civilization, amazingly, did not collapse without me, and my life was now thrilling, a kaleidoscope of places and faces and fabulous adventures. Stops became shorter and journeys became longer, until one day, I woke up and found myself in India with a bank account the size of a peanut and a travel addiction that made crack cocaine look like herbal tea.  

There are no twelve step programs for travel addiction. Unlike alcohol or crystal meth, travel is generally considered to be a good thing. For a time, I went back to work and fed my habit with a Eurorail pass, but there is only one real step on the road to recovery for a travel addict: off the precipice of bottoming-out. And so it was for me. I woke up one morning, in India again, with half my hair and most of my bank account gone. It was time to re-invent myself once more.

So now I live a small-town life in rural Ontario. Between bouts of writing, I fill my days with nature (saw a fox chasing a rabbit through a snow field yesterday) and volunteer hours at the library (had a wobbly moment on Tuesday when I helped a woman print out her e-ticket to Cuba) and knitting (anyone need a fuzzy hat?).  In many, many ways, this is the best life I’ve lived so far. It’s certainly the healthiest, in the sense that my stress levels are way down and there’s no danger of malaria or dengue fever.  I have the time, if I so desire, to flatten my butt in an easy chair for hours on end,  doing absolutely nothing. Which is what I did this week, and why you are reading this totally uninformative post. I have nothing butt.

Admit it. You thought I wouldn’t be able to work that in, didn’t you?

Please Insult My Intelligence

A while ago I received an email from my cell service provider asking me to support National Youth Homelessness Awareness Day on November 17^th. It was a lovely e-mail, filled with heart-stirring sentiments and eye-catching graphics.  It spoke of a petition to sign, volunteering opportunities to explore, and, best of all, gave instructions on how to send a text message that would donate five dollars to the cause, thereby soothing guilt without actually inconveniencing the giver in any way.

Having volunteered for a non-profit organization, I am aware of how carelessly donated funds can be channeled to causes and beneficiaries the donator had no desire to support, and as a result, I am a giver who doesn’t mind being inconvenienced. Before I dumped any of my hard-earned into National Youth Homelessness Awareness Day, I intended to find out what, exactly, I’d be getting for my five dollars.

I clicked on the link in the email and it sent me to a website containing the same graphics, an expanded version of the inspirational text and several links. Curious about the petition, I clicked on the big red button encouraging me to SIGN NOW! A drop down box appeared, telling me the petition was in support of Motion 504 and giving me another big red button that said SIGN NOW! Most people are annoyed by this kind of nuisance clicking, and I’m no exception, but I persevered because I wanted to find out what Motion 504 was about.  A pop-up box appeared giving me the opportunity to enter my name, city and e-mail address, request that I be kept informed on something called Re*generation, and, at the very bottom, the words:

 “I support the RE*Generation and believe we all need to work together to raise awareness for the issue of …”

The last line of the sentence was obscured by a poorly coded <div> on the home page that floated on top of the pop up window.  There was no indication of what Motion 504 or Re*generation were, nor any hint about who the petition would be addressed to. 

Now, I don’t know about you, but there’s no way I’m going to sign something if I don’t know what it says or who will read it. I couldn’t close the petition window and ended up having to shut down my browser.  When I restarted it, I did some research on Motion 504. It turned out to be a bill presented to the House of Commons, “based on an in-depth investigation into youth homelessness in Canada”, for the creation of “an official National Youth Homelessness Awareness Day” to “raise awareness of the youth homelessness issue in Canada and help get Canadians more involved in making a difference”.

Seriously? This is the best recommendation that came out of an “in-depth”, and probably ludicrously expensive, investigation? The government got ripped off.  And why only homeless youth? Is our government practicing age discrimination?  I happen to know, because I go outside occasionally, that homeless people come in all ages. A person would have to be blind not to see them hanging around the entrances of shelters, panhandling in doorways, pushing their purloined shopping carts along the sidewalk and digging in trash cans for empty beer bottles. Unless Canadians never go downtown, they’re well aware there’s a homelessness issue.

Grateful that I hadn’t signed the petition, I returned to the cell provider’s website to find out what, hopefully more useful, plans they had for my five dollar donation.

First, there was a commitment to supplement the first fifty thousand donated dollars with a matching amount from the company. Excellent! One hundred thousand dollars for the cause! This would certainly help a few hundred homeless people.  

Then, there was an invitation for Torontonians and Vancouverites to attend rallies on November 17^th. Torontonians would have the opportunity to donate hygiene kits in exchange for a delicious hot chocolate. Vancouverites would have the opportunity to make a donation so homeless youth could get the delicious hot chocolate. I preferred to see my five dollars used to create something a little more permanent than a tube of tooth paste or a non-nutritious drink and moved on down the webpage.

There, I learned that the cell phone company supports two organizations:

1)      A Toronto based bicycle courier firm who hire homeless youth couriers. In 2008, they reported an average of ten ‘targeted employees’ on staff. It’s a worthy effort, and I’d be happy to contribute to its continuation – except they don’t need any money. They are a profitable business and employ homeless people the same way they employ rest of their minimum wage couriers.

2)      Another Toronto based training facility that teaches printing skills to homeless youth. They are funded by donations and by the sale of special order greeting cards. Their website is colorful and upbeat, with many, surprisingly erudite, testimonials from former students, a conspicuous DONATE button on every page and a few endearingly broken links, notably the one to the Training for Youth page. It’s another worthy effort, but given that it’s been open since 2002, and reports only 100 students trained in its three month courses, an approximate average of four student’s per semester,  I get the sense they are more committed to collecting donations than they are to the actual training.  

Further down the page, I came to a humongous list showing the names and locations of people who have texted in their five dollar contributions.  Some of them were from Toronto and Vancouver, more from other places in Canada, where the residents, presumably living in communities too small to discard enough beer bottles to support a homeless population, are unaware of the issue. A surprising number of Americans contributed, and an even more surprising number of contributors  - as in surprising that there’s even one – texted in from places like Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Spain, France, Sinagpore, the Netherlands, and  New South Wales (which, for my geographically challenged readers, is in Australia). Who knew the plight of 65,000 homeless teenagers in Canada was a matter of international concern? Canada may be a small country, but we’re really giving those millions of pavement dwellers in India some serious competition.

At the end of all this research,  as near as I could tell, my five dollars would have:

1)      bought hot chocolate to encourage further donations in Toronto or Vancouver

2)       funded a seriously inefficient training facility in Toronto

I looked at the list of contributors published on the website and realized they had, considering the matching donations provision, already given more than enough to cover those expenses.  

The Real Benefit of Cross-Cultural Experience

Warning - this post contains scatological language and a truly dreadful pun. Reader discretion is advised.

I did not step in shit this morning. I didn’t win the lottery or get struck by lightning, either, but what separates the first non-event from the other two is that I had the opportunity to do so.

I was moseying along the river path, watching a small flock of Canada geese as they stocked up on riverbank grass before continuing their migration, when a familiar tingling raised the hair on the back of my neck. I hadn’t felt this sensation for a long time, but I knew, instantly, what I had to do. I froze mid-stride, right foot hanging in the air, and looked down. There, mere millimeters below the scuffed toe of my sneaker, was the most amazing sight - a dog turd!

You may be thinking dog turds are a fairly common occurrence.  This is probably because you are one of my friends who lives in The Netherlands, where canine hygiene is given the same laissez-faire treatment as prostitution and recreational drugs.  When I lived there, I had that attitude as well. It’s yucky, but inevitable given the national love of dogs, and not really a big problem because everyone who lives in the Netherlands for more than a couple of months has the same highly developed radar that prevented  an encounter of the stinky kind for me this morning.

However, if you are one of my North American readers, you are likely to be appalled. This kind of thing just does not happen in North America, certainly not in Canada. I doubt there’s a governing body in the entire country that hasn’t passed a stoop-and-scoop law. Dog walkers would rather be seen naked than without a conspicuously dangling poo-baggie, and anyone observed furtively pulling a pet away from a steaming pile is in for a serious ear-bending from passers-by.  This national aversion to canine fecal matter is not limited to those of refined sensibilities, either.

Not long ago, I needed to replenish my stock of single malt, which had been seriously depleted by  the recent revival of an interest in hot whiskey I acquired several years ago on a trip to the Aran Islands off the west coast of Ireland.  On my way into the liquor store, I passed a panhandler sitting the sidewalk. I’ve talked to him a few times. He’s a cheerful, easy-going young man who greets and blesses everyone that passes, whether they toss him change or not.  The panhandler was carrying on an animated and friendly conversation with a local busker, while the busker’s dog, a mongrel whose genetic blend obviously included a liberal infusion of Great Dane, sat patiently beside his master.  

Coming out from the liquor store, I was shocked to find the panhandler and the busker engaged in a violent shouting match.  Now I promised you this post would contain only scatological language, so I will edit the following conversation to exclude all other forms of profanity.

Panhandler: That’s (expletive deleted) gross, man!

Busker: (expletive deleted) off!

Panhandler: Pick it up, you (expletive deleted)!

Busker: (expletive deleted) that! Pick it up yourself, (expletive deleted) (expletive deleted)!

Panhandler: It’s not my (expletive deleted) dog!

Busker: I don’t have an (expletive deleted) baggie!

Panhandler: Well, shit, man. Why didn’t you say so?

The panhandler rooted through his backpack and extricated a plastic bag, which the busker took and used to remove a large brown turd from the curb, while the dog disassociated himself from the process by staring loftily into the distance.

Now, I’ve done a bit of traveling in my time and some pretty strange stuff has squooshed up between my toes. I consider myself to be quite a woman-of-the-world when it comes to stepping in crap. But at heart, I’m still a Canadian, and of all the stuff I’ve stepped in, nothing triggers my gag reflex faster that dog shit, although an incident involving bear droppings outside my tent in Algonquin Provincial Park scores a close second.  So, this morning, when my Dutch super-sense kicked in, I stepped around the dog turd and realized, with groan, that travel didn’t just broaden my mind, it literally saved my sole.  

Oh, stop whinging. I told  you it was a bad pun.

Retail Rush

I went shopping yesterday.

There was a time when I enjoyed shopping. Back in the days when I believed perfecting my body was the same thing as perfecting myself, whole weekends were devoted to the acquisition of clothes, shoes, jewelry and cosmetics. Gourmet foods and high end wines, available only from specialty stores, once dominated my shopping lists. I will not embarrass myself by telling you how many years I spent wandering through malls buying things like scented candles and throw pillows. What was the point of having disposable income if I didn’t dispose of it - right?  

Over the years, my mind became more important than my body and my taste buds finally figured out they couldn’t tell the difference between cheap red plonk and fifteen year old Baron Philippe. The ‘hit’ of retail therapy got buried under progressively thick layers of consumer guilt as the hole in the ozone layer expanded and the plastic stew in the middle of the Pacific Ocean spread. Shopping gradually lost its appeal and received its death blow in 2008, when the recession decimated my foolishly-invested life savings. Nowadays, the wilting lily of my body is gilded by semiannual trips to the local charity shop and groceries are handled in a once-a-month binge through the superstore, supplemented by random forays into a local grocery for perishables like apples, milk and butter tarts.

Yesterday’s shopping was a milk and butter tart run. Normally, I’d just dash out to the little shop down the road and scurry home to continue writing. Yesterday, in the grip of a short but intense bout of writer’s block, I decided to take a break from the keyboard and rode the bus out to the new grocery store at the mall. This was a big mistake. With less than two months to Christmas, the mall had been transformed. Styrofoam snow-people and plastic reindeer hobnobbed in store windows. Garish booths took up nearly half the floor space of the mall to ensure I wouldn’t get caught short without a commemorative tree decoration or a Hickory Farms gift basket on C-day.

At first I resisted, stomping stoically past all temptation toward the grocery store, squinting against the glare of twinkly lights on tinsel, breathing shallowly to reduce the aroma of cinnamon-apple potpourri. As I passed the calendar booth, I caught a glimpse of the 2011 Chippendale’s calendar. I slowed my pace, just a fraction, and turned my head to get a better look.

Instantly, a woman whose jauntily tipped Santa hat and rigid smile did nothing to alleviate the boredom in her eyes, leapt out in front of me from behind the booth. “Calendars make wonderful gifts,” she chirped, “and we have a super selection this year!”

I shifted my focus away from the politically incorrect display of rippling abs toward some less embarrassing kittens and took a sideways step, with the intention of walking around her. “I’m just looking, thanks.”

 “Well, be sure to look at the page-a-days.”  She pointed to the next rack over.

When someone points at something, it’s almost impossible not to look. I looked, and there, squeezed between the Harley Lover’s page-a-day and the Sudoku Addict’s page-a-day, sat my nemesis - the Little Zen Calendar. In a former life I must have been a Zen Buddhist monk because I just can’t resist a good koan. My hand stretched out toward the calendar. Just before my fingers touched the pristine plastic wrapping, I jerked my arm back. “Maybe later,” I mumbled and stumbled past the saleswoman.

A similar scene played out in front of a shoe store, where a display of thigh boots activated the vestigial remains of an ancient shoe-fetish. Before I arrived at the grocery store, I’d come perilously close to becoming the proud owner of a spiffy new Blackberry phone, a coffee table book on the ruins at Petra, a pot of miracle face cream guaranteed to eradicate wrinkles, and a two gallon pail of caramel corn. All this self-denial took its toll. I meandered through the grocery store in a haze and nursed an ache of unrequited longing on the bus trip home. Once back inside my house, safe from the retail demon, I made myself a cup of tea and unpacked my shopping bag to get the milk. But there was no milk. No butter tarts either.

What I’d actually bought, for twenty-seven dollars and fifty-three cents, was: two pounds of fruitcake decorated with marzipan holly leaves, a bag of beetroot and sweet-potato chips, and, presumably still under the influence of the Chippendale’s calendar, an obscenely shaped salami festively wrapped in red and green ribbons.

I should have bought the damn Zen calendar.