Tag: Grammar

Word Wednesday – Present Tense
Word Wednesday – Present Tense

In case you’ve been living under a rock, last Friday was Black Friday and even though Canada doesn’t have the day off like many Americans (nice job getting a 4 day weekend for Thanksgiving by the way), we seem to have adopted the Black Friday shopping insanity. I’m all for a bargain, but getting up at 5 am to line up to get into a store to save $20? Not so much. Of course, there’s always Cyber Monday where there are deals online and I don’t need to put on real clothes, but this year many online retailers had deals for both Black Friday AND Cyber Monday which made me a happy girl.

I’m pretty lucky when it comes to Christmas present shopping. I love to shop for other people (not so much for myself though). For me, taking the time to find the perfect present is worth it when you see the look on the recipient’s face. I’m reluctant to get people gift cards for this reason, though I certainly understand their appeal. I have a lot of kids in my life that I am “Auntie Jenn” to and they all get books for Christmas. I decided long ago that Christmas wasn’t the time when I wanted to try to keep track of who had what Barbie, whose parents didn’t agree with Barbie, who liked Thomas the Tank Engine vs Chuggington, or who had what creepy-eyed Beanie Boo. Books are much easier to keep track of and toys are saved for birthday celebrations which are scattered throughout the year. Some kids, who are clearly after my heart, want books for birthdays too which is totally fine with me.

My presents don’t usually look this pretty.

I’ve had my eye on one thing for the household for awhile now. Actually since last year around this time. I kept telling myself that if it went on sale this year I would get it as a Christmas present to myself. So, when it went on sale, I did just that.

I bought it on Friday, and then promptly left for 3 days in Toronto. It arrived Monday afternoon, which amazed me because I don’t have Amazon Prime anymore since I never got things in 2 days even though I’m roughly 40 minutes away from one of the main Amazon warehouses. But, I digress. It arrived, I eagerly opened it up, read the entire manual because that’s the kind of geek I am, and ran it through a test cycle. I already had dinner for Monday planned and so I made a mental note to use the Instant Pot for Tuesday’s dinner. After a quick run to town to hit up the grocery store (where the cashier guessed I had just purchased an instant pot because of the items in my cart – apparently I’m not the only one to cash in on the deal), I made a roast with veggies for dinner in about an hour. I even stepped up the game by making Yorkshire puddings to go with the roast (in my second favourite kitchen appliance – our amazing Breville Smart Oven.

The results were amazing – the photo doesn’t do it justice but I was too hungry to try to stage a proper photo.

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Look how cute the Yorkshire pudding looks!

So I’m really happy with my purchase and for once I got myself a gift that I’m going to use and that is going to benefit everyone around me since I can make dinner in no time flat. I am going to have to start seeking out some good pressure cooker recipes. I love that I don’t have to thaw meat before cooking and that I can walk away from it while it does its thing unlike with a traditional pressure cooker which I’m pretty sure would blow up my house if I tried to actually use it.

Anyway, all of this got me thinking about the word gift and where it comes from any why we use it. So, being me, I looked it up. It turns out that gift comes from the Old Norse word gipt which means “something given”. Well that’s pretty straightforward now isn’t it? There’s also an Old English word giefan which means “to give”. Either way, the word dates to about the 12th Century.

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Have you started on your holiday gift shopping? Have you ever bought yourself a Christmas / Holiday gift? Would you? Do you have an Instant Pot (if so… send me recipes please!).

Gift (gift) Noun
1. A thing given willingly to someone without payment; a present.
2. A natural ability or talent.
November 30, 2016
Word Wednesday – Losing Faith
Word Wednesday – Losing Faith

It’s been a week since I woke up to the news that Donald Trump had won the US Presidential Election. I’d like to say the world is the same place in the week since, but that would be a lie. There have been protests. There has been fear. There have been many bad words. There has been a President-Elect who has has zero experience in government making appointments that make supporters of BOTH parties cringe. There has not been much in the way of hope.

For those who are about to comment “but you’re Canadian” I’d like to point out the words of former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau when speaking to the Washington Press Club about Canadian-American Relations in 1969. “Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one is effected by every twitch and grunt.” Canadians do have more than a passing interest in American politics – and not just because this year was best symbolized by this (photoshopped) image found on Reddit a few years back.

Just some moose watching a van burn. From: Reddit

I’m kind of a politics geek, or I was until this recent US election cycle. The non stop election for 18 months exhausted me and I don’t even have to deal with it on every commercial break like my American friends do. I took lots of political science courses in university – I almost double majored in history and political science back when I had the crazy idea I’d want to be a Constitutional Lawyer (before I realized how tough the job market would be for constitutional lawyers). I learned a lot about the Canadian electoral system and a lot about the American electoral system thanks to a few comparative classes I took. I understand the way the Electoral College works and though I’ve often admired the ability to directly vote for the leader of the country the way the American system allows, I have never understood why a simple majority isn’t what decides the winner. (The answer is that the US is not a direct democracy, votes don’t actually determine who becomes president which is so mind boggling to me.)

A quick explanation of the Electoral College for those who don’t know or have forgotten. Instead of each vote directly going towards the candidate and the one with the most votes winning the presidency, the founding fathers of the US decided to make things interesting. The reasoning behind the decision was to keep power in the hands of the people and to make partisan politics less of a factor. It worked well in 1800… and even 1850. It does NOT work well in 2016. Anyway, instead of each vote directly going towards the president, they instead go to the members of the Electoral College who officially cast the 538 votes for president. Each state (and the District of Columbia) gets the number of Electoral College votes equal to their Representatives and Senators combined. It can be as few as 3 (Montana, DC, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Alaska) or as many as 55 (California). The representatives are supposed to vote the way the popular vote in that state went. Every state other than Maine and Nebraska is all or nothing – so if 50.01 percent of the state votes one way, ALL of their electors in the electoral college are supposed to vote that way (in reality, Maine and Nebraska usually vote as a bloc too but they aren’t mandated to). So take Florida for example. It has 29 Electoral College votes – but all of them go to Donald Trump because he got a slim majority of the overall votes in the state.

The Electoral College votes by state.

Right now, Donald Trump is president-elect. Nothing is official until the members of the Electoral College meet on December 19th and cast their ballots for President. There is still a scenario that has Trump not winning the presidency – if members of the Electoral College go rogue. The official term for this is going faithless – as in they have no trust in the results from their state. Some states have laws that punish electors who go faithless, usually by a fine, but others have no such rules. So in theory enough voters could go faithless in December and the result would be historic and unprecedented but more in line with the popular vote.

At the very least it will give the pundits something to talk about for the next month.

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Faithless (faith·less) adjective
1. Disloyal, especially to a spouse or partner; untrustworthy.
2. Without religious faith.
3. (US politics) A member of the Electoral College who does not vote the way they were bound to by the state voting results.
November 16, 2016
Word Wednesday on Thankful Thursday
Word Wednesday on Thankful Thursday

I couldn’t quite make up my mind on whether or not this should be a Word Wednesday post or if I should call it Thankful Thursday so I decided to make it both. Now before anybody asks. I’m planning to tackle the US election results with a word next week. I need some time to think of a word that adequately describes what went on other than one that rhymes with musterduck. This week, however is the week of Remembrance so I’m going to concentrate on that today.

I’ve written about how important Remembrance Day is to me before, and there’s no doubt that it’s always going to be a special day in my household. Of late, I’ve been quite involved with the debate over whether or not Remembrance Day should be a statutory holiday in Ontario as it is in many other provinces. I’m of two minds on this. On the one hand, I like the idea of families being able to go to the cenotaph together to either remember family members who served or to thank veterans in person. I’ve seen the joy in an older veteran’s eyes when a small child comes up to thank them – it’s really special. Having Remembrance Day as a statutory holiday would allow this to happen more frequently. The banks and federal and provincial government offices are already closed so I’m not sure how much of a negative effect it would have on business to have the day off.

On the other hand, I understand that not all parents will bring their kids to a cenotaph or watch the ceremony from Ottawa via television or the internet so those kids may end up seeing Remembrance Day as just another day off. This argument is usually accompanied by statements such as “schools do so much for Remembrance Day”. Which used to be true but I’m not so sure anymore. I remember asking a friend’s grade 3 child who was dutifully practicing the words to “In Flanders’ Fields” why they were doing that poem. “For Remembrance Day” he said – which was a good start. I asked if they were doing anything other than memorizing a poem to recite. “No, the teacher says this is more than enough since we have the assembly too”. I may have sighed audibly at that point. The kid was blindly memorizing words and there was no teaching about WHY the poem was important or even WHAT the poem was about. Of course I explained it but it bothers me that this wasn’t done in school – especially given that the child lived within an hour of Guelph, Ontario which is the birthplace of John McCrae, the author of In Flanders’ Fields.

Photo Courtesy Canadian War Museum

I asked a friend who has taught elementary school for decades about what she was seeing in the schools for Remembrance day and how it compared to what I remembered. She said that overall there is a lot less being done for a few different reasons. One is time. Teachers are strapped for time and researching Remembrance Day activities takes time. Another reason is curriculum tie-ins. This is why things like reading a poem aloud is done instead of teaching the background to the poem. One ticks the boxes for the language arts curriculum, the other doesn’t tick a grade appropriate box for history or civics at the primary level – so when combined with the first reason these mean that kids are learning the poem but not the history behind it. The third reason she gave made me incredibly frustrated though. She told me there’s a political reason – parents complain when they teach too much around Remembrance Day. It turns out, some parents feel that teaching about Remembrance Day and even celebrating it at all is promoting militarism.

Remembrance day does NOT promote militarism. In fact it promotes exactly the opposite. When we celebrate valour and courage on the battlefield we are not rejoicing in it. I have yet to meet a veteran (and I’ve talked to hundreds personally) who thinks that war is a good thing. Some will tell you that World War II was a noble war – it needed to happen to stop evil from triumphing, but they still wish it hadn’t been necessary in the first place. The same is true of military historians. We don’t celebrate war. We celebrate people – people who fought in wars yes, but people nonetheless. War is always tragic. War always hurts the innocent. We need to understand war if we want to live in peace. So not teaching about war will, ironically, prevent peace.

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On November 11th, please take a moment to remember those who have served in the name of peace. Right now, more than ever, we as a nation (and as part of the global community) need to remember that war is not the solution to our differences. If you are able, attend a service at the cenotaph and thank those who served with valour.

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Valour ( val·our ) noun
1. Boldness or determination in facing grave danger – particularly in battle
2. Heroic courage
3. Bravery
November 10, 2016
Word Wednesday – Autumnal thoughts
Word Wednesday – Autumnal thoughts

Fall has arrived and with it fall weather – which is awesome (with the exception of leaves – which aren’t so awesome when you’re highly allergic to leaf mold like I am). Cooler days and cool nights mean I’m sleeping better and can actually walk the dog in the middle of the day when he prefers it without melting into a blob on the sidewalk. I quite enjoy fall. It’s not too hot, not generally too cool, there’s football to watch, playoff baseball in Toronto, and Thanksgiving at the family cottage to look forward to.

We’ve done Thanksgiving at the cottage for years now. Even without mum, Dad and I wanted to keep up the tradition. It’s also a good weekend to get fall work done at the cottage, take in the dock and generally clean up the place. Dad will go up at least once more after Thanksgiving to clear leaves off the beach but Thanksgiving is generally my last trip up to the cottage for the season (this is partly due to the dog – he loves getting messy up there and it’s too cool to have to wash him). We usually have a turkey dinner up there. It’s not that much harder to cook up there than it is to do at home – the stove is smaller and runs hot but as long as I remember that and adjust the oven temp accordingly, it’s pretty nice. I also really enjoy having Thanksgiving dinner while looking out over the lake and at the gorgeous fall colours.

I took this photo last year – and it wasn’t even at the height of the colours yet!

I spend a lot of time over Thanksgiving taking pictures of leaves – I love looking at all the different colours. I’m incredibly thankful that I have the ability to go to cottage country and look at the gorgeous colours every fall. Of course there’s a lot of work to be done, but I can always find a few minutes to sit on the deck and quietly appreciate the foliage. I’m a little biased here, but I think Canadian Thanksgiving comes at the perfect time – right in the middle of the fall harvest, when we literally have a cornucopia of things to be thankful for. Which made me think about cornucopias and so they became my Word Wednesday word today.

A cornucopia.

Cornucopia is a neat word – it hasn’t changed in meaning or usage at all over the years. The word comes from the Latin (surprise!) words cornu copiae – which literally mean “Horn of Plenty” – which is one of the definitions of cornucopia. The other meaning of cornucopia relates to the “plenty” aspect of the original meaning – a cornucopia of fall harvest vegetables simply means an abundance of them. So to all those who are celebrating Thanksgiving this weekend, I wish you a cornucopia of good food, good drinks, and good conversation with those who mean the most of you.

Oh… and one more picture from last Thanksgiving because, leaves.

This tree is always my favourite – I love the contrast in the leaves.

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Cornucopia cor·nu·co·pia noun
1. A curved goat’s horn overflowing with fruit and ears of grain that is used as a decorative motif emblematic of abundance.
2. An abundant supply of good things of a specified kind / an inexhaustible source.
October 5, 2016
Word Wednesday – too cute for words

Word Wednesday – too cute for words

I’ve got a secret. It’s something I don’t say out loud too often because when I do people react badly. Some gasp, some try to convince me that I’m crazy, and others look at me like I’ve suddenly grown a second head. You can stop reading now if you want, I understand.

Still with me? Okay then… here goes: I don’t love babies. But you work with kids” – is the initial reaction I hear most often. Yes I do… I work with kids – NOT babies. The other common reaction is “But you’re SO good with them, they love you”. This is true – I have been the ‘baby whisperer’ at several churches that I have attended over the years. I have a knack for getting little ones to calm down and go to sleep. Babies don’t generally scream for long with me – I can think of one infant over the past decade who I was unable to win over: my friend’s middle child. Her older sister loved Auntie Jenn while she was wary of pretty much everyone else outside of her immediate family. The youngest was pretty much okay with me from day one – even though he very much preferred mommy to everyone. The middle one, however, hated me. She howled, refused to sleep, and was generally inconsolable from the minute her parents left until the moment they came back. I tried every trick in the book, but until she turned a year old, that kid was NOT a fan of Auntie Jenn. Now? She loves me – I get huge hugs, pretty pictures drawn for me, and she’s even cried before school one morning when I told her I wouldn’t still be there when she got back.

It’s not that I don’t love my friend’s babies – but it’s because of their parents, not because I have an innate love for newborns. Once they are a few months old and are doing things? Bring ‘em on. Seriously – I love the mischief they get into once they’re mobile, and love the look that a toddler will give you when they’re clearly breaking the rules but are testing the line to see how much they can get away with. It’s just the first few months, before their personality really starts to show through, that I could take or leave. I do quite enjoy making baby blankets for those first few months, and will gladly hold a baby so that the mom can grab food, shower, or even just sit for a few minutes on her own; but I’m not the woman who wants to hold random babies at the store because she ’misses how it feels’. Granted I haven’t had one of my own, but I have helped raise one and have held more babies than I can count and my feelings haven’t changed – they’re cute, and fun to play with for a few minutes, but after that I’m done. I will, however answer the same question from a 2 year old 100 times without blinking. I’ll calmly deal with the tantrum throwing toddler and hand them back with a smile on my face. Maybe I just like a challenge. I know quite a few people who don’t like newborns because they’re too fragile. Except they’re not really – yes you have to pick them up carefully, and there are proper ways to hold them, but in general, if you leave them in the crib for a moment while you pee, you’re not going to do any lasting psychological damage.

I did fall in love with my best friend’s kids pretty much immediately, but again… I didn’t spend a ton of time with either of them until they were a few months old and more able to interact. I’d also volunteer to entertain the older one so that she could get some ‘bonding time’ with the younger one. Brilliant eh? My best friend and her husband made a couple of really adorable babies. We had an the inside joke when someone would complement her on the adorable baby, “yeah, I returned the non adorable one” (I’m fairly certain it wasn’t actually said out loud), then again knowing us, it may well have been.

One of my favourite pictures of the youngest… looking innocent, but plotting her escape.

I fell even more in love once their personalities began to show through. The older one was a perfectionist from the start, always watching and learning. He had deep thoughts at two that I wasn’t prepared for – and still blows me away with the depth and breadth of his thinking, his thoughtfulness, and his truly kind spirit. His sister is what my mum would call spirited. I remember babysitting them once and in the 15 seconds it took me to help the older one find something, she was trying to scale the fridge. She has the smile of an angel, but woe to the person who underestimates her. Much like Mary Tyler Moore, the kid has spunk. Looking at them solidifies the nature / nurture debate in my mind – the kids were raised by the same parents in much the same environment, but the personalities are so very different. Where one is quietly contemplative the other is a fearless performer. Of course there were physical differences too – While the older one had a bit of baby fuzz on his head at birth, the little one came out practically needing a haircut. I remember one of the first words that came into my head when I saw her picture was “what a little moppet”. I’m not sure why that word has been in my head lately, but it has been so it’s today’s Word Wednesday word.

Moppet is more commonly used in England / Great Britain than it is here, and even then it’s predominantly only used by the older generation but I think it’s a great word. The word is from the 17th century -the Middle English word moppe meant little child or baby doll and -et is a diminutive suffix. There is a school of thought that moppe may have come from the Latin word mappa which meant napkin – hence the rag doll connotation. I’m not sure if I buy that, but it’s an interesting thought.

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Moppet (mop·pet) Noun

A small endearingly sweet child.

September 21, 2016
Word Wednesday – Para what?
Word Wednesday – Para what?

As I wrote in an August Word Wednesday Post, I love the Olympic and Paralympic games. I love the way entire countries rise up behind their athletes and how small acts of kindness between athletes make you realize that even in the heat of competition, people are inclined to help one another. One of the things that drives me absolutely crazy about the Paralympic games though is the way they’re treated in the media and by the general public. During the Olympics, I couldn’t log on to Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook without seeing #Olympics or #Canada or one of the Olympic filters on a profile picture. During the Paralympics, however, I have had to actively look to find people mentioning the games. I understand that there is some degree of “sports fatigue” – in that a lot of people who aren’t necessarily into sports watch the Olympics but aren’t actually all that interested beyond their favourite sports. The 2 week wait between the Olympics end and the Paralympics begin also plays a role in diminished media attention and public appetite. What I vehemently disagree with is that the Paralympic games are in any way or shape less important than the Olympic games. Paralympians are elite athletes – period. If you think that just because someone is physically disabled, they aren’t training just as hard or just as athletically gifted as an able bodied athlete, I challenge you to go to the Canadian Paralympic Team’s Paratough website and try one of the Paralympian workouts. I tried the swimming core workout 4 days ago, and my abs haven’t forgiven me yet!

Before I get too far into this, I should address the question I’ve been asked quite a few times on social media – why aren’t there athletes with autism or other intellectual disabilities in the Paralympics? There’s no really quick answer, but the best I can come up with is this: They were part of the Paralympics in 1996, 1998, and 2000, which is when the wheels came off. Several athletes who competed in the intellectually disabled categories during the Sydney Paralympics were proven to have cheated the classification system and were not actually intellectually disabled at all – the International Sports Federation for Persons with Intellectual Disability, which had been formed to represent elite athletes with intellectual disabilities hadn’t been doing the background checks and documentation checks on all of the athletes which created a loophole that was exploited by dishonest paralympic committees. After the scandal in 2000, the Intellectual Disabled category was removed from all Paralympic competition with some integration brought back with very tight oversight for the 2008 Summer Paralympic games in Beijing China and there are ID (intellectually disabled) classes in several Paralympic sports. Still, the majority of intellectually disabled athletes compete in the Special Olympics World Games which happen in offset years to the Olympic and Paralympic games. The Special Olympics World Games are recognized by the International Olympic Committee as are the Deaflympics – which are actually older than the Paralympics and are exclusively for athletes with hearing impairments. The Deaflympics are distinct from the Paralympics and any other Para-sport organization because only members of the hearing impaired community can serve on the board for the The International Committee of Sports for the Deaf – who run the Deaflympics.

So, the Paralympics are primarily for athletes with physical disabilities including visual impairments. The visually impaired categories in para-sport are determined by degree of vision loss and in some disciplines the need for a guide, with one sport – goalball – being exclusively for visually impaired athletes. If you haven’t seen goalball you should try to watch one of the matches via the CBC Sports website – it’s really cool. The game is played in total silence so that the bells inside the ball can be heard by the players. Athletes with partial vision compete with completely blind athletes because all players wear eyeshades that block out vision. The court has tactile markings to help players orient themselves – the lines on the court are marked by lengths of twine that are then taped over. A goal is scored by throwing the ball using a bowling motion into the opposing net – while the opposing team attempts to block it of course. Goalball and Boccia are the two sports in the Paralympics that don’t have a Olympic counterpart. Boccia is a sport open to only physically disabled athletes with 4 classifications – 3 of which are for athletes with Cerebral Palsy. In Boccia, athletes throw coloured leather balls towards a white target ball (called a jack) on a long, narrow field of play that looks almost like a patch of grass but is smooth. The object is to be the closest to the jack after all 12 balls (6 per player or team) have been thrown. Boccia has been deemed to be similar to lawn bowling but I see it as more like lawn curling. I had a chance to try Boccia at a Para-sport day hosted by some local service organizations when I was younger. It was much harder than it looked, and I lost pretty soundly.

Goalball at the London Paralympic games.

This week there has been a lot of media attention focused on the fact that the top 4 runners in the Men’s T13 1500m final all posted faster times than the Olympic Gold Medalist at that distance. The T13 classification is the highest level of functionality of visually impaired athletes so there were no prosthetic limbs or blades involved in the times. This was the one time I saw quite a few posts about the Paralympics, usually full of shock that Paralympians could run that fast. I replied to every comment with the same question – why should a visual impairment make an athlete run slower? I wasn’t surprised that these men ran faster than the Olympians – they are still elite athletes after all. I think Wendy-Ann Clarke of CBC hit the nail on the head when she reminded everyone that every race at the Olympics and Paralympics is different, especially at a distance like 1500m where strategy plays a big role in race management. The goal at the Olympics and Paralympics is to get a medal – records are secondary. So the athletes are going as fast as they need to to win, but not necessarily as fast as they possibly can. The gold medal winner at the Olympics, Matthew Centrowitz, controlled the race pace to one that gave him the biggest advantage – which was a slow first 2 laps and then a faster final lap – a tactic that would have forced his opponents to expend a lot of energy to try to pass him earlier in the race which would have drained their resources for later in the race when they needed to push. The T13 1500m final on the other hand had a racer, Bilel Hammami get off to a really fast start and the rest of the runners pushed to try to match it, resulting in a faster race overall. The assumption that para-athletes are somehow inferior to able bodied athletes has been bothering me for the past few days and is ultimately what inspired this post. Paralympians and Olympians are the top athletes in their sports; of course some amazing times will be posted during the Paralympic games, but the focus should be on the performance in and of itself. Comparing Paralympic times to Olympic times makes it seem like the Olympics are somehow better than the Paralympics when they’re not. The Olympics, Paralympics, Special Olympics World Games, and the Deaflympics are all the preeminent sporting events for the athletes competing. The difference is merely in who competes not in the athletic ability of the competitors.

%{include image.html url=“/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Paralympic-or-Olympic.png” alt=“a gold, silver, and bronze medal with the text Paralympic or Olympic an equal accomplishment” description=“A gold medal is a gold medal”}

All of this got me curious about the origin of the word Paralympic. The games were first contested in 1948 as the Stoke Mandeville Games named after the London treatment centre for spinal injuries. They were not officially named the Paralympics until 1988, but from 1960 on were informally called the Paralympics while formally known as the International Stoke Mandeville Games. The first games in 1948 were only for wheelchair athletes – and early literature refers to the games as the Paraplegic Olympics or Paralympics. As more categories of physical disabilities were added, the Para in Paralympics was assumed to be the Greek prefix meaning beside. So the Paralympics run alongside the Olympics. Now, the word Paralympics is recognized as a word in its own right, not as a portmanteau.

Paralympics ( Para·lym·pics) Plural Noun
1. An international competition for physically disabled athletes, associated with and held following the Summer and Winter Olympic games.
September 14, 2016
Word Wednesday – Courage – My Word
Word Wednesday – Courage – My Word

This isn’t the post I intended to write this week, or the post I imagined I would write on this word. Things change, however, and though I may be completely freaked out by change, it still happens. So I adapted, and am writing a slightly different Word Wednesday post.

This week, one of the bands I have grown up with announced that their lead singer, Gord Downie, has terminal brain cancer and that the studio album and supporting tour will be their last. Judging by my Facebook feed, I am not the only one saddened by the news. Part of the nostalgia is due to the fact that I literally grew up with The Hip on the radio. Their first big album, Up to Here, came out in 1987 – I was an impressionable grade-schooler at the time and anything that got airtime on stations my parents listened to had a big impact on my musical preferences. There’s a reason that a lot of the music I love was made before I was born – I blame dad and his affinity towards classic rock for my love of The Beatles, Jethro Tull, Neil Young and Crazy Horse, The Guess Who, The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, and The Band. My adoration of The Monkees is entirely the fault of Much Music for re-running their television show in the after school slot when I was a kid and Davey Jones’ adorable grin capturing my young heart. I was also in love with New Kids on the Block around the same time so take from that what you will. As I’ve grown older, my musical tastes have turned towards the East and West Coasts – with Great Big Sea and Spirit of the West respectively taking a place in my heart. I also love Blue Rodeo, Rush, The Tea Party, Barenaked Ladies, and The Trews – proving that the Canadian Content rules for radio play have definitely worked on me – it’s hard to become a fan of bands you don’t hear on the radio, or at least it is for someone my age who grew up before streaming content was a thing. (I’m sure I’ve missed some bands here but you get the idea.)

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The Tragically Hip became the soundtrack to my formative years – songs like New Orleans is Sinking, 38 years old, Fifty Mission Cap, Wheat Kings, Ahead by a Century, and Bobcaygeon were played at parties, at the cottage, and just hanging out with my friends. I learned to drive listening to these songs on the radio, I got into a huge argument with my first boyfriend over the significance of Bill Barilko, and I’ve been known to time trips to Bobcaygeon so that I leave at 9:15. I’ve seen The Tragically Hip live a few times (nowhere near as many as Great Big Sea but it’s widely acknowledged that I *may* have a slight obsession with them) and they have never disappointed me. I’m going to be trying for tickets for this last tour because I want the chance to say goodbye, to thank them for all the memories, and because I think that music as a shared experience is one of the most primal ways we can connect with others. I deliberately left out one of my favourite songs by the Tragically Hip when I listed them at the beginning of the paragraph – the one that has been quoted a lot since the news of Downie’s cancer became public – Courage (For Hugh Maclennan). Indeed, I think it does take courage to announce a goodbye tour that is actually a goodbye tour and not just because the band is going their separate ways.

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The word courage is one I’ve been planning to feature for a while and though I hadn’t planned on using the song as part the explanation, it works well. I’ve long been fascinated by the root of the word courage and the connection to the French word for heart – coeur. Etymologically speaking, this is because it was believed that the heart was the centre of all emotions and thus courage came from the heart. Indeed, there is a longstanding belief that music and the heart are interconnected – Beethoven believed that music should “strike fire in the heart”. The word courage comes to us from Middle English (denoting the heart as the seat of feelings): from Old French corage, from Latin cor ’heart’.

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Courage ( cour·age) noun
1. The ability to do something that frightens one.
2. Strength in the face of pain or grief.
Today, it is the second definition that strikes me – to be strong in the face of pain or grief. Yes, music fans are losing an icon, but the members of the Tragically Hip have been together for over 30 years and are losing their front man, their friend, and their most recognizable member. To be facing this loss and still announcing a cross-Canada tour takes courage indeed.

Update: Last night – October 17th, 2017, we lost Gord Downie. I say we because over the course of the day it became apparent that this was a national loss. The flag on the Peace Tower in Ottawa is at half mast until the funeral or memorial service, RIP Gord was trending on Twitter all day, and I spent most of the day listening to the Hip on repeat. I did get tickets to that final tour, and on August 10th 2016, I headed down to the Air Canada Centre with my friend Crys. We had dinner and whisky at the Irish Embassy, toasted Gord, and enjoyed a night full of glorious music. Memories were made and more than a few tears were shed. One of the coolest moments was the on the ball spotlight work during Fifty Mission Cap – when the lines “They didn’t win another until 1962 / The year he was discovered” came up, the banner for the 1962 Stanley Cup win was illuminated. It was a little thing but as a Leafs fan, it was pretty cool. The whole night was magical, and I will forever have it in my head. CBC aired the final concert of the tour live on August 20th, Dad’s birthday. We took the big tv up to the cottage, and hosted a group of friends for a viewing party on the lake- another uniquely Canadian moment courtesy of the Hip. So although I mourn Gord’s passing, my sadness is mixed with gratitude for everything he gave Canadian music fans. He who walks with the stars is now forever a part of the constellations that reveal themselves one star at a time.
May 25, 2016
Word Wednesday – Fire
Word Wednesday – Fire

I have a love – hate relationship with fire. On one hand, I’m a Girl Guide, so I love nothing more than to sit around a campfire telling stories, singing songs, and roasting marshmallows, spider dogs, and the occasional sour key (don’t ask – it was a dare). On the other hand, fire terrifies me. Like wake up at night sweating with my heart racing terrified. It’s always been like that. There is no specific event that triggered it, but I’ve always been very aware that while we like to think fire is an element that can be controlled, it can’t be – not all the time. As a result, I’m meticulous about fire safety and making sure a campfire or a cooking fire is well and truly out before I go on and do anything else. Even then I’ve been known to sneak out of my tent to double and triple check that it’s out and nothing is smoldering. My family teases me all the time about this habit, but it’s either that or not sleep all night because I’m obsessing over whether or not the fire is out. I take solace in the fact that almost all of my family is terrified of heights (both parents included) but I’m fine – the only thing I don’t like is someone else rocking the gondola or the suspension bridge but being up there? No issues other than the occasional bit of ear pain caused by the wonky tubes and not liking pressure changes. I also have a fear of dock spiders but that comes from a specific incident and I’ve become much better over the years with that fear.

Fire is a force of nature that is just so unpredictable. Water is too when you think about it but I took years and years of swimming lessons, wear a life jacket, and control my exposure to it when it’s very cold to limit my risk. There are some ways to mitigate the risk of fire – like having working smoke detectors (yes, lots), a fire extinguisher in the kitchen (yep), and a fire escape plan (always), but when it comes down to it, fire feels less controlled than water. It could also be an exposure thing – I grew up around water – we had a backyard, fenced in pool in the house I grew up in and we’ve had a family cottage on a lake – so learning water safety and how to swim was a non negotiable in the house. I’m happiest in or on the water and always have been. As a kid my parents joked that I was part fish because they would have to drag me out of the water for meals or bedtime. Fire was present, and I was taught fire safety in Girl Guides from a young age but it never felt like a safe thing. This is all despite my godfather being a firefighter and teaching me lots of cool things about fire. Hence the love-hate relationship – I’m fascinated by it, am great at building them, and enjoy small campfires, while at the same time worrying that it will become out of control and burn down all that I hold dear.

So when I heard from a friend who lives in Fort McMurray about the wildfires burning near there on the weekend I was worried. I told her to be safe and to keep an eye on it since wildfires are by their very nature, unpredictable. A sudden shift in the wind (especially in northern Alberta where the landscape is flatter and winds can appear out of nowhere) and things could go from “I’ve got this” to “UH-OH” in a hurry. Which is exactly what happened on Tuesday. A shift and increase in wind activity drove the fire from the outskirts of town into town and threatened all of the homes, businesses, and people in the city. Fort McMurray is an oil-town – most of the people there work in the oil industry directly or indirectly. The town has grown a lot in the past 20 years since I first visited, and now it seems destined to shrink due to the fire. When I heard that the whole town had been evacuated, I started creeping the social media feeds of my friends who are in the area, making sure they were safe. They all left with nothing but the clothes they were wearing, whatever they could grab in 2 minutes, and each other. All of the people I know managed to get their pets out, but not everyone did – and that breaks my heart. I have learned that the SPCA has set up a way for pet owners forced to leave their furry friends behind to let them know and that they’d do whatever possible to keep the animals safe, which makes me feel a bit better. I have worried about this kind of scenario so many times that I have a bag packed under my bed of stuff to grab if this sort of thing happened. I have been debating taking it apart but I think I’ll keep it awhile longer. The evacuees drove or sat in gridlock for hours upon hours last night before reaching either an Oil Sands employee camp to the north or the city of Edmonton to the south. The hospital had been evacuated earlier in the day and the patients moved to other facilities within the province. As of right now, the people are safe even if their homes aren’t. As I’ve heard over and over today, houses can be rebuilt, people can’t. 1600 structures have been affected at last count and since the fire has resisted all efforts at control, that number will grow.

It’s a horrible situation and I feel so helpless sitting here in Ontario watching from afar. So I did what I could – I donated to the Red Cross Alberta Fires Appeal – it’s super easy, you get a tax receipt for a charitable donation, and works well on mobile too. You can also donated $5 by texting the word REDCROSS to 30333 (Canada only I think) and following the prompts. In a situation like this, money is the best option because nobody knows what is going to be needed and the logistics of shipping donations can take a lot of time and effort which would be better served helping people directly. If you are in a financial position to donate any amount, please do.

Image: Red Cross Fire Appeal

Word Wednesday word – Fire. I’ve been thinking of using this word for a while because it is an interesting word from an etymology standpoint, and if I’m already going to have nightmares about fires because of the news, looking up information about the word isn’t going to do any more harm. Fire comes from the Old English word fȳr – which is the noun form of fȳrian meaning to supply with material for a fire. Fyrian is related to the Dutch word vuur, the Norse word fūrr, and the German word Feuer all of which have been around since before 900AD which is as far back as most etymologists trace modern languages. Indeed the world fire is one of the oldest in the English language.

As I write this, the fire is still burning, nobody knows when or how it will be put out. All we can do is hope, pray, and trust that the Fire fighters from across Alberta, Canada, and from other countries are doing everything they can to save as much of the town as possible. Then the long, slow process of healing and rebuilding can begin.

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Fire (fī(-ə)r) Noun
1. A state, process, or instance of combustion in which fuel or other material is ignited and combined with oxygen, giving off light, heat, and flame.
2. A burning mass of material, as on a hearth or in a furnace.
3. The destructive burning of a building, town, forest, etc.; conflagration.
4. Heat used for cooking, especially the lighted burner of a stove.
5. Flashing light; luminous appearance.
6. Brilliance, as of a gem.
May 4, 2016
Word Wednesday – Not Just Anything

Word Wednesday – Not “Just” Anything

This isn’t my usual etymological Word Wednesday post, but is a post about a word and it is Wednesday, and I created Word Wednesday and am free to switch it up as I choose. 🙂 I am an introvert, though I can play the part of an extrovert when needed. At my core, I am happiest when alone. I tend to think up witty retorts far better on paper (or on screen) than in conversation. Which is really why I’m writing this post. Last week, I had a conversation with an acquaintance who asked what I did for a living. I told her I worked with kids who have autism but that my primary source of income is my writing and editing business. “Oh, you’re just a writer” she replied “that’s the usual fallback for people who don’t know what they’re good at right? Because everybody can write”. I smiled politely, because by the time I’d processed the fact that she’d just completely dismissed my craft, she was already prattling on about some other subject. Having had a few days to stew on the matter, here’s my response.

I’m not “just” anything. The word just when used as a modifier is awful. It diminishes and belittles the subject. Nobody is only one thing, nor can anyone be defined by one attribute. It seems that the word seems to be applied to those of us in the creative class more than those who have chosen more traditional or prestigious careers. I have heard friends referred to as “just graphic designers” as if being a graphic designer required no talent – a fact which I know not to be true. I’ve never heard a surgeon referred to as “just a surgeon” so why is it okay to call someone “just a housewife” or “just a writer”? It’s not. Yes, I realize surgeons do intensive years of schooling and work experience but that doesn’t necessarily equate to their job being better or more valuable to society. Without writers, who would have written the textbooks that the surgeon studied from? That’s not to say that writing is more important than any other career; in my mind, whatever job a person does, is important. What I don’t like is when people diminish themselves or others by saying another person’s work is “just x” or that they are “just a y”. We are all more than we appear, and we are all valuable.

%{include image.html url=“/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Blackbird.jpg” alt=“An old fashioned typewriter. Text reads True alchemists do not change lead into gold; they change the world into words. William H Gass” description=“This quote lives rent free in my head”}

Which brings me to the part of the statement from my acquaintance that really gets my proverbial goat. “Because everybody can write”. My years of being a graduate teaching assistant tells me that no, not everyone can write. Despite the literacy test implemented for grade 10 students over fifteen years ago, many people cannot craft a strong sentence or write a post that is coherent and clear. Which is where my talents come in to play. Whether it is writing things from scratch or making someone else’s words shine, I have a way with words and the knowledge of how they work best together. I am a lot of things but “just” anything isn’t one of them.

So, the next time you are tempted to use the word “just” to describe someone else’s career / life choices / belief system stop, and choose a word that affirms their choice, not one that makes them feel inferior. It’s not up to you to put a value on their career choice, and this may come as a shock to you but the other person most likely doesn’t really care what you think anyway. I know I don’t.

April 5, 2016
Word Wednesday: It’s Fashionable!
Word Wednesday: It’s Fashionable!

I’m not the kind of girl who can spend a whole day at the mall. I don’t mind window shopping with a friend, but it’s not a solo activity I actively pursue (unless it’s at a board game store – then kiss the afternoon goodbye). While 95% of the time I’m a jeans and a faded concert t-shirt kind of girl, I do clean up nicely and like to get dressed up for an event. So when an invitation came through my inbox to attend the VIP preview night at Saks Off Fifth in Vaughan, I was all in. The invite promised refreshments and a one night only discount and I knew some of my other blogging friends were going so if nothing else, it would be a nice night out. I’ve never been overly concerned with being fashionable – I don’t need a new wardrobe every season, and I don’t have a closet full of shoes, though I appreciate a well-made pair of shoes as much as the next woman.

They had an actual red carpet!

So I made the trek out to Vaughan Mills in some seriously weird weather conditions – in the span of the 35 or so kilometers from my house to the mall, I encountered rain, hail, sleet, high winds, and blazing sunshine. I was really thankful I hadn’t been lulled into a false sense of security and switched out my snow tires – I needed all the help I could get! I got there a bit early and hit some of my favourite stores at Vaughan Mills (and said hi to the fish in the big tank at Bass Pro). I went to Saks and saw a red carpet and a line, so like any good Canadian, I got in line and made small talk with the people around me (mostly about the weather). I gave my name to the nice lady with the clipboard, said my plus one was delayed, and went on in. I quickly found the coat check (since it had been so miserable out, I’d worn a full length, lined trench coat) and set off to explore. I got the lay of the land and met up with my friends and we had a blast looking at all of the clothes, shoes, purses, and jewelry. We all tried on hats and took the obligatory group selfie (or groupie – I’ve been researching and it’s not a selfie if there are multiple people in it, and the term ‘usie’ which I’m not a fan of anyway, is predominantly used for couples pics).

Photo courtesy of Jenn Powell

After the hat picture, we went to the shoe section. As I said earlier, I’m not the type to collect shoes, but the selection at Saks was fabulous. There were so many! It’s not like they were all the same either – there weren’t more than a couple of pairs of any shoe in a given style and size so there were literally dozens of shoes to try on. I fell in love with a pair of Frye Boots, but one of my partners in crime had fallen in love with the same pair and was the same size as me and the rational part of my brain said “you don’t need these boots, even if they are fabulous and fit perfectly” so I gave them to my friend and apart from some pangs of non-buyer’s remorse as I scope out the boots that were not to be on the Frye site, I don’t regret it. I will own a pair of Frye boots one day (Looking at the website, there are at least 4 more pairs that I’m currently coveting). Besides they looked better on my friend with the rockin’ new jeans she got.

Shoes, as far as the eye could see.

Most of the clothes were reasonably priced, but there was the couture section – runway and off runway designs with the corresponding price tag. I’d love to be in a place where I wouldn’t bat an eye at a $2,000 dress but that’s not in the near future for me. All of this got me thinking about couture and what, exactly, the word means. I knew it had something to do with fashion but wasn’t sure exactly what it meant so I decided to look it up. I was surprised to learn that the word is just over 100 years old – the first recorded use being in 1908. Unsurprisingly, it has its origins in Latin via French. The Old French word cousture came from the past participle of the Latin word consuere – meaning to sew together. Which fits right in with couture having to do with runway fashion. While I may not be ready to spend the kind of money needed to own couture pieces myself, it doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate a fun night out looking at them with a great group of women. I can’t wait to go back and explore more and possibly get a pair of gorgeous boots for myself.

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Couture cou·ture noun
1. The business of designing, making, and selling fashionable custom-made women’s clothing
2. The designers and establishments engaged in couture
3. The clothes and related articles designed by such designers.
March 23, 2016