Tag: words

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.

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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 – Escape
Word Wednesday – Escape

Even though I work (at least partially) alongside the education system, I don’t really go “back to school”. Still, it’s a new beginning – and as the song says “every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end”. So Labour Day has just passed, and summer is coming to a close and every store has Hallowe’en decorations up, except Costco who has decided to go one better (worse?) by having Christmas trees for sale since July. Pens and pencils and pretty books to write in are going on sale which makes me very happy and also means I should actually brave one of the stores sooner rather than later so that I don’t miss out on pretty things to write with or in being on sale. Still, I’m always a little sad at the end of summer, and wish it would hang on for a little longer before the leaves change. The crisp, cool, morning air on the other hand, could start any time now. It currently feels like a sauna when I step out of my doorway, hot and very humid – another in a string of hot and humid days that seem to have characterized this summer here.

I like to try to spend time at my cottage during the summer – but this year I also wanted to explore some of the areas around my cottage that I haven’t before. We take highway 11 to the cottage, starting at the bottom and continuing up to Bracebridge where we turn off and head east towards Haliburton. I’ve driven through Barrie and Orillia hundreds of times, and have even been to a dozen or so concerts at Casino Rama but had never really explored the venue beyond a quick bite to eat before a concert. When the lovely ladies behind SJ Consulting announced that there would be a retreat for Bloggers and Influencers at Casino Rama in August, I was excited. Not only have I been curious about the casino, the hotel, and some of the other restaurants, but the ladies putting on the conference are some of my favourite people so I knew I had to apply. I was fortunate enough to be chosen to attend, and have an amazing experience.

Photo courtesy of Stacey Martin.

I’m going to write a full on review of the amazing time I had at the #LetsGoRama retreat in another post (or maybe two) but the biggest takeaway I had from the retreat – and there were a lot of amazing things that I learned during the 3 days I was there, is that we all need a little escape every so often. The retreat was almost an un-conference – we did some deep dives into topics ranging from the future of influencer marketing to how to make a media kit in the mornings, but the afternoons and evenings were completely free. Some of us caught up on work, some of us networked, some of us went to the spa or pool, and some of us did all of the above. It was amazing and gave me a chance to recharge my batteries as needed instead of my usual conference protocol of coming home completely exhausted and not wanting to speak to anyone for at least 48 hours. As a social-introvert, I love being with people in small groups (and 40-50 is about my maximum so the conference was perfect for that), and for short bursts of time. I can do a whole day but I’d really rather not because I’m just so *done* by the end of it. Having the mornings be all about learning with everyone and the afternoons and evenings being time that I could spend as I chose was PERFECTION. I need to escape groups of people – not because there’s anything inherently wrong with the group but because otherwise I become overwhelmed and stressed out and generally don’t enjoy myself.

There were so many chances to escape and connect at the retreat. I’m going to have to dedicate a whole post to the amazing ways Casino Rama pampers their guests, and how I conquered a buffet despite my allergies, but for now I want to focus on my favourite place to escape – the pool. The pool area of the hotel is free for the guests of the hotel, but anyone who books a spa treatment can also use the pool for the day. The pool itself is salt water – which I loved because it’s so much easier on my skin and bathing suit than a chlorine pool – and has a wall of windows on one side to the outdoor patio. Now, being fair skinned and not a fan of the heat, I didn’t spend a lot of time out on the patio for fear of turning into a tomato, however I noticed a lot of my compatriots quite enjoyed it. I’m part fish. I love swimming and pools so I spent my downtime in the water. I also spent some time in the eucalyptus steam room – which was heavenly. There is also a hot tub over by the pool but I’m not big on hot tubs so I didn’t test that out either. All told I spent about 2 hours in the pool and another 20 minutes in the steam room – split into 2 visits. It’s worth going to the hotel at Casino Rama just for the pool.

The pool – with the windows to the rooftop patio. Credit Ann Bacciaglia

My favourite part of the whole pool experience though wasn’t the swimming with friends and floating leisurely in the pool, or even the mad giggles in the steam room with Sherri and Christine (I wish I could remember what was so funny, though it probably wouldn’t be as funny without the company or the setting). No, what made my inner swimming nerd incredibly happy was seeing this in the changing room.

Image Courtesy of Casino Rama Resort

For those who don’t know what this is or why I was so excited – it’s a swimsuit dryer. For me, nothing ruins my zen like realizing I haven’t brought a plastic bag to put my wet swimsuit in, and having said wet swimsuit drip all over my other stuff going back to my room (or home or wherever I’m going). I also wanted to go back in the pool later, and anyone who has tried to put on a wet bathing suit knows how much of a struggle that can be. With this magical little gadget, you just open up the lid, place the swimsuit inside (one at a time) and press the lid down firmly for about half a minute. The Suitmate spins all the water out of your swimsuit and poof – almost completely dry swimsuit in under a minute. Yeah, it’s not a big thing in the grand scheme of things, but it was just one more thing that signalled to me that the people at Casino Rama Resort got me. It made my escape that much better knowing I could have a swim on my last day and not have to take a wet swimsuit back with me. Sometimes the little things really do matter.

There’s so much more I want to say about my escape at Casino Rama for the #LetsGoRama retreat, but I’m already running long and off on tangents so I’ll end here with a little history of the word escape. It’s another one with a Latin root (I know… I’m a creature of habit) – and dates from the 13th century. The root words are ex – meaning out, and cappa – meaning a head covering or cloak. So to escape something is literally to get out from under it. I think that’s pretty cool.

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Escape (es·cape)

Verb
1. To break free from confinement or control.
2. To elude or get free from someone or something.
3. To succeed in avoiding or eluding something dangerous, unpleasant, or undesirable. {Escaping serious harm}
4. To fail to be noticed or remembered by (someone). {The word escapes me …}
Noun
1. An act of breaking free from confinement or control.
2. A form of temporary distraction from reality or routine.
September 7, 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 – A Royal Occasion
Word Wednesday – A Royal Occasion

Birthdays are always special, and milestone birthdays even more so. I’ve been fortunate enough in my life to work with a lot of senior citizens and I’ve found that contrary to popular belief, they almost unilaterally want to celebrate their birthdays. One would think that at 75, 80, or even 90, that birthdays would be just another day but some of the biggest birthday parties I’ve been to have been for those who have celebrated the most birthdays. On April 21, Queen Elizabeth II turns 90 years old and the celebrations are already underway. Being the reigning British Monarch, the Queen gets a second birthday every year and this year it’s a three day event on June 10th through 12th where pubs will be open 2 hours later than usual Friday and Saturday evenings and culminating in a big street party hosted by the Queen on the 12th.

Why do Kings and Queens of England get two birthdays you ask? (Go on, ask…I’ll wait) It’s exactly why you might expect – because someone wanted to and they make the rules. The someone in this case was King George II, and the year was 1748. King George II was born in November and while November in England isn’t quite as snowy as here in Canada, it’s still damp and chilly and the King didn’t want his subjects (or himself) to catch a cold while celebrating him so he combined his birthday with his annual spring military review and voila, a tradition was born. In 1901, King Edward VII standardized the Trooping of the Colour as a June event when the weather was the most likely to be cooperative and ever since the “Official” birthday of the reigning Monarch (if the actual birthday was in a colder month) has been celebrated in June. According to historian Carolyn Harris, Trooping the Colour (where all the regiments gathered and displayed their flags to aid the soldiers in recognizing their colours in battle) dates back to the Restoration of Charles II in 1660.

Technically the Queen has more than just the two birthdays – and for that you can thank (or blame) Canada. In 1845, the (relatively) new province of Canada declared Queen Victoria’s birthday a public holiday. May 24 became a statuatory holiday when Canada became a sovereign nation in 1867, and stayed as a holiday as long as Queen Victoria reigned. When she died at the age of 81 in 1901, Canada decided to honour the role Queen Victoria had played in confederation by making the Monday before May 24 (or May 24th when it is a Monday) “Victoria Day” – a holiday that Canadians look forward to as the unofficial start of summer. When Queen Elizabeth ascended the throne in 1952, Canada declared that Victoria Day would be used to celebrate the reigning monarch’s official birthday in Canada. So this year, the Queen has a birthday in April, May, and June.

Postage Stamps released by the Royal Mail in honour of Queen Elizabeth II’s 90th Birthday.

All of this talk about birthdays and royalty got me wondering about the word royal. I know that Regina and Rex are Latin words for King and Queen respectively, but I wasn’t sure about the etymology of royal. It turns out, that royal has the same latin stem. Royal comes to us from late Middle English, which was derived from Old French roial, coming from Latin regalis ‘regal.’ Regalis came from the stem reg- the same as Rex (king) – from the Latin word regere which means to rule. So the royal family is definitely meant to rule, symply by their name. Wishing Her Majesty a very happy 90th birthday and many more to come. She has served 12 prime ministers and counting and is the longest reigning monarch in British History.

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Royal ( roy·al )

Adjective
Of or relating to a king, queen, or other sovereign: royal power; a royal palace.
2. Descended from or related to a king or line of kings: a royal prince.

3. Noting or having the rank of a king or queen.

4. Established or chartered by or existing under the patronage of a sovereign: a royal society.

5.(initial capital letter) serving or subject to a king, queen, or other sovereign.

6. Proceeding from or performed by a sovereign: a royal warrant.

7. Appropriate to or befitting a sovereign; magnificent; stately: royal splendor.

Noun

1. Nautical. A sail set on a royal mast

2. Informal. A royal person; member of the royalty of any country.

3. Usually, Royals. Chiefly British. a member of England’s royal family.

4. A size of printing paper, 20 × 25 inches (51 × 64 cm).

5. A size of writing paper, 19 × 24 inches (48 × 61 cm).

6. Numismatics. Any of various former coins, as the real or ryal.
April 20, 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
Word Wednesday: Circular Logic

Word Wednesday: Circular Logic

It should come as no surprise that I subscribe to two different “word of the day” emails – I love language and jump at any chance I get to expand my vocabulary. Sometimes I already know the “word of the day”, and other times they’re so obscure I can’t find a use for it in my everyday life, but file it away in my brain for later use. Once in awhile a word comes into my inbox that is new to me and fits perfectly into my life – and today’s word is one of those.

Being a word nerd from a very young age (I was reading chapter books in kindergarten and read the Hobbit for a grade 2 book report when the rest of my class chose Clifford or Franklin books) means that I have a pretty decent vocabulary, and the fact that I took Latin and French in high school helps me figure out words I haven’t come across before. I have a predilection for words that roll off the tongue nicely. Some words just feel right as you say them, and others just always feel awkward and no matter how much you try to make yourself like them, you find yourself using them less and less. I have tons of words that fall into this category – I still try to use them but they never feel right.

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Words have a tendency of being tied up in their grammatical rules and losing favour because of that. I’ve often wished there was a way to look at words on their own, separated from all the grammatical constraints that can render them useless. It turns out there is a word for that. The fact that there’s a word specifically for the study of words and vocabulary of a language separate from grammatical aspects, means that I’m not the only one who wants this kind of information. We should start a club or something. There would have to be a ban on word games though, us word nerds can get super serious and uber competitive about Scrabble, Bananagrams, or Upwords, and that wouldn’t be much fun. Hrm. A word nerd club. I’m going to put that on my “great ideas” list that I never seem to manage to get to. How does one start a club anyway? Can anyone start a club? Related idea: a club for people who like to go off on tangents… or have ADHD… or both. I could totally be president of that club.

Squirrel! Wait… what was I saying?

Back to my word though. It’s a fairly recent word. though significantly older than grok was when I talked about it last month. Lexical dates from the mid 19th century, when I suppose people had time and the literacy skills to start thinking about words more. It comes from the Greek root lexikos which means “of or relating to words”. Not to be confused with the Latin root word Lex which relates to laws or ruling.

Lexical (lex·i·cal) adjective

Of or relating to the words or vocabulary of a language

March 17, 2016
Word Wednesday – I detest that!
Word Wednesday – I detest that!

Last year, I wrote about the Canadian General Election and how it seemed to go on forever. What I didn’t mention at the time is that our elections seem to go by in the blink of an eye when compared with our neighbours to the south. 12 weeks of election run up isn’t even close to the 60 or so weeks that the U.S. Presidential Election seems to last. I know it’s not the actual election until November, but the Primaries and all of the other things that go along with a Presidential election just never end. Even a dedicated political junkie like me is getting election fatigue.

It’s not just the fact that the election seems to be never ending and the jokes on late night television started sounding the same about two months ago, it’s that I cannot stand one of the candidates. Naturally it’s the one who gets the lion’s share of the media coverage because the world is a cruel place sometimes. At first, sitting here in Canada, I thought that Donald Trump running for the Republican nomination was funny, a lark if you will. Now, it’s March and it’s not funny anymore. Not even close. To hear the hatred spewing forth from both the man and his supporters makes me queasy. When he was just a blowhard with a lame reality show (The Apprentice), I could (and did) choose not to watch. Now that he is running for the highest office in the United States, I can’t turn it off.

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To those who say “You’re Canadian, the Presidential election doesn’t affect you” (though most of them say it far less eloquently than that), I reply that as our largest trading partner, the political state in the U.S. does affect us. In that vein, I’d like to offer the words of former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau – when speaking to the Press Club in Washington DC in 1969. “Living next to you [America] 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 affected by every twitch and grunt.” Our media is heavily influence by the United States, our economy is intertwined, and our position relative to them is unchangeable. We cannot move further away, and Trump is not a friendly or even-tempered elephant.

It’s not just that he’s a racist and has refused to distance himself or decline the endorsement he received from a former Grand Wizard in the Klu Klux Klan (KKK) (and by the way, thanks KKK for making the word wizard a bad thing by using it in your hate-filled organization), but that’s definitely part of it. It’s not just that he is a misogynist and that I disagree completely with his views on women. It’s not even that he regularly makes up ‘facts’ and that his supporters blindly believe him until somebody dares to question him and he claims that he was “misheard” or “misquoted” or “taken out of context”. It’s that he’s a bully and I absolutely abhor bullies.

I was going to use abhor as my word for today but it’s a little too popular for my liking. Then I went to detest, but it didn’t feel strong enough to express how much I loathe Trump and what he stands for. So I racked my brain and came up with Execrate – it’s a synonym of abhor, loathe, and detest but it’s a little less common and a little more fun to say. Plus execrate has a fun etymology – it comes from Latin (of course) exsecrat, which means cursed. Ex is a Latin prefix meaning not and the Latin word sacer unsurprisingly translates to sacred – so the literal translation of execrate was “to put someone under a curse” – which I find very soothing in relation to Mr. Trump (I really like the idea of putting him under a curse – maybe the Imperius curse.. hrm this has possibilities). Nowadays, execrate simply means “to utterly detest” which fits well with my feelings on the subject.

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Execrate ( ex·e·crate ) Transitive Verb
1. To declare to be evil or detestable : denounce
2. To detest utterly
March 2, 2016
Word Wednesday: I Grok That (finally)
Word Wednesday: I Grok That (finally)

After a bit of a respite from Word Wednesday, I’m back at it again. I didn’t think I would miss it but I did. I am an unabashed logophile (more on that another week) and truthfully, picking a favourite word each week isn’t a chore, it’s more of a labour of love. I’ve been working on the craft of writing more this year and have dedicated some time each week for professional development – for the first few months of the year that means reading about writing. Currently, I’m in the middle of Stephen King’s wonderful book On Writing. While I’ve never been a huge fan of King’s horror novels (I still have a mild case of coulrophobia thanks to It – but only those with Pennywise makeup. other clowns aren’t objects of abject terror but I once rode 2 stops past where I needed to get off on the TTC because there was a guy dressed as Pennywise on the platform I needed to use) I appreciate the thought and hard work he devotes to his craft.

King devotes a lot of energy to the notion that writers must be, above all, readers. He says that it really doesn’t matter if the books are classic or even good. Indeed, he argues that “One learns most clearly what not to do by reading bad prose – one novel like Asteroid Miners (or Valley of the Dolls, Flowers in the Attic, and The Bridges of Madison County to name just a few) is worth a semester at a good writing school, even with the superstar guest lecturers thrown in”. I’m inclined to agree, though there are some books I haven’t been able to force myself to finish because the grammatical errors were so egregious that they muddled the plot. At the end of On Writing, King offers up a list of books that he has enjoyed – he says he’s not Oprah and this isn’t a book club reading list but simply a list of books that he has enjoyed and that have helped him grow in his craft. This got me thinking and I’ve been trying to stretch my reading muscles in the weeks since. (Yes I read the “And Furthermore, Part II” section before finishing the book – I’m a rebel like that). One book that I picked up recently and started reading (I typically have at least 3 or 4 books on the go at any given time – I pick and choose which book to read depending on my mood) is the 1961 classic Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein. It was here that I came across the word I want to write about today.

%{include image.html url=“/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/If-you-dont-have-time-to-read-you-dont-have-the-time-or-the-tools-to-write..png” alt=“A notebook with a pen across it and the text: If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. If you want to be a writer you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. Stephen King” description=“Words to live by”}

There’s no etymology of this word since it is out of the mind of Heinlein. I have many awesome and geeky friends who use this word often enough that over the years, I’ve figured out the meaning by osmosis. I didn’t truly grok it until I read the definition given by Heinlein in the book:

Grok means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed—to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy, and science—and it means as little to us (because of our Earthling assumptions) as color means to a blind man.

So now when a friend comments that they grok something, I can smile knowing that I’m in the know. I grok what it means to grok.

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Grok (grok) verb
1. To understand thoroughly and intuitively.
February 3, 2016