December 15, 2011 - Posted by colleengreen34 - 0 Comments
For such a joyous time of year, the Christmas season is fraught with more than its fair share of stress and anxiety, especially for the obsessive compulsive.
Let’s break it down in chronological order.
First come the outdoor decorations. When, exactly, should you hang those little plastic ornaments from the lilac tree, drape garland over the porch railing, install the blinking ‘Happy Holidays’ sign on door, apply the snowman window clings and string the LED lights? The jury’s still out on this one. If you decorate while it’s still warm, you’re rushing. If you wait until it’s cold … it’s cold.
mThen there’s the aesthetic. Should you go for flashy and festive – mutli-coloured me – or elegant and understated – soft white Rob)?
Once the outdoor area is seasonably altered (Rob’s finer sensibilities are still bruised), we turn our attention to the inside of the house. This is even more problematic, especially in a small space. Before we moved, I whittled my Christmas collection down from about 20 red and green Rubbermaid tubs to six, but there are still five tubs too many for our cozy little home. So far, we have a six-foot artificial tree with its top bent over so it will fit in our basement family room and half of Stephie’s advent calendar collection on display.
Having just brought some semblance of order to the chaos we’ve been living in since moving in July, I’m reluctant to clutter things up. Besides, the older I get the more futile it seems to unpack crate after crate of singing stuffies, poinsettia mugs and nativity scenes, just to pack them all up a few weeks later. It’s not that I’ve lost my enthusiasm. Just my energy.
Then come the Christmas cards. I used to get dozens in the mail, but I find that after five years without any kind of reciprocation, people give up on you. Not surprisingly, I have a tub of Christmas cards from years of hoarding, but I always run out of time to actually fill them out and post them. I love receiving cards and I display them proudly on ribbons strung across our banister, but they’re a constant reminder of my failure as a communicator and a friend. (If anyone is reading this column who continues to faithfully send me a Christmas card without any hope of a greeting in kind … thanks and sorry. Happy Holidays!)
Gifts are next. I shop for Christmas presents all year long, so I shouldn’t have to cram. The problem is, by the time December rolls around, I’ve forgotten what I bought and who I bought it for. Rather than check my closet (and, yes, the tubs of gifts I have stored lovingly in the basement) like a sensible person before I hit the shops, I get a case of rampant consumerism and go out and buy for everyone on my list all over again.
As if the financial punishment isn’t enough, then I have to wrap all my purchases. And I’m a meticulous wrapper. Every seam has to be even and every corner crisp. There has to be a pleasing image on the front of each package. I use a lot of tape, write witticisms or obscure hints on each tag, and agonize over every bow and ribbon.
Baking is next on the list. … and it is an apocalyptic disaster. I’ve never made a dozen cookies I didn’t love … right down to the crumbs under the cooling racks. Poor Santa doesn’t stand a chance.
And then, before you’re even remotely ready, Dec. 25 arrives. But where do you spend this most holy of days? In your own home? At your parent’s place? At his parent’s place? Driving like a madwoman between the three? Curled up in a fetal position sucking your thumb?
To that alien who is at this very moment probing my brain, the festive season must seem like a nightmare from start to finish. But it’s an ADD girl’s dream come true. So many wonderful distractions. So many things to start and not finish. Christmas is my favourite time of year. I love the magic of it – Santa and his reindeer and those industrious little elves working all year long to fill that capacious sled; the history of it – a little baby, asleep in a manger, drawing people from far and wide to his incomparable light; the traditions my family has started – champagne and orange juice for breakfast; stockings for everyone; a fondue dinner. But most of all, I love the laughter; the joy in just being together; the irrepressible goodwill.
The lead up is grueling, the big day is exhausting, and coming down off the high is debilitating, but Christmas is utterly divine. What untold riches heaven must hold….
December 15, 2011 - Posted by colleengreen34 - 0 Comments
My dad turned 75 this week. Somehow, I cannot put that number next to my father and have it make any sense. Three quarters of a century? Not Paul Coveart.
Our family is not blessed with longevity. We Covearts are, however, genetically predisposed to Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, which means we spend an inordinate amount of time confronting our own mortality and/or contemplating the particulars of our untimely demise.
My paternal grandfather, a brilliant musician-inventor-denturist-alcoholic who gambled away the family fortune in a card game, died of a heart attack when my own father was just 16. Two of dad’s sisters passed away in their thirties. My grandmother, a tough old bird who smoked Black Cat cigarettes, drank Carling O’Keefe Ale and rarely smiled, died when I was three months pregnant with my first baby.
Covearts don’t have the pleasure of great-grandchildren. Our hearts give out long before we get to feel the love.
But looking at dad, born Dec. 6, 1936, I feel as hopeful as a fatalist can be that he might be the first of a hardier generation. That his will be the first Coveart ticker to make it past 80.
Anyone who knows my dad, is as surprised as I am that he just celebrated his 75th anniversary on this earth. He’s far too busy and far too A-type personality to slow down.
A rebellious boy who spurned school and the Catholic Church, dad grew into a rebellious man who refused to join a trade union and developed a healthy disrespect for people who worked just one job, paid someone else to do their electrical work and set their alarm for anytime after 6 a.m.
As generous a man as a stranger will ever come across, dad has given even more money to charity in his lifetime than he has to the OLG. It was the Irish Sweepstakes that got him started on lottery tickets when he was just 14 years old and he’s been playing the numbers weekly ever since. I shudder to think how much this proclivity has cost him over the years, but he can’t quit now. It’s like bailing a boat in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. You’re committed, even though you’re reasonably sure the ship is going down with you in it.
I didn’t inherit a gambling spirit from my father – if I drop $20 at a casino I am sick with regret – but I did get his flat feet, the infamous Coveart nose, his stubbornness, his inability to say no and a liberal dose of OCD.
I’d like to think I also inherited some of his most admirable qualities: his integrity, his work ethic, his time management skills, his energy, his helpfulness, his curiosity, his extraverted nature and his goodwill.
I remember once, when I was a very small child, I stole a gum ball from a convenience store on a road trip. Miles later, dad discovered my crime. He turned the car around and made me take that pretty pink orb back to the shopkeeper, apologizing profusely for my transgression.
Trained in CPR and emergency response from his years as a marshall at Mosport, dad never drove past the scene of an accident. He would tell my brother and I to lay down on the floor of the car – this was in the days before seat belts – while he stopped to see if there was anything he could do. To this day, I head in the opposite direction of a siren because I can’t get down on the floorboards when I’m driving. (Not a great trait in a reporter.)
Dad never passed a Salvation Army kettle without depositing at least a fiver and he gets ‘Trusting we can rely on your continued support’ letters from not-for-profit organizations I’ve never even heard of.
When I was young, he custom built our first camper van and took us all across Canada. We didn’t go on exotic Caribbean holidays like my friends, but I had seen more of this country than any of my schoolmates by the time I was 10.
It was dad who drove Stephie and me to countless distant medical and therapy appointments, when I started to fall asleep at the wheel from stress, fear and exhaustion. And once each month, he would make the four-hour drive from Toronto to Ottawa so mom could help me take care of the babies for a week while he fixed whatever needed fixing around the house.
Dad isn’t much for PDAs, he doesn’t often apologize, and he never admits he’s wrong, but he is an angel in his own right. His halo may sit a little crooked at times, but it’s nothing another quarter century of living and giving can’t straighten out.
Happy 75th birthday, dad. I love you.
December 15, 2011 - Posted by colleengreen34 - 0 Comments
I have a love/hate relationship with facial hair.
When I was 18, I was diagnosed with a seizure disorder and put on anti-convulsant medication for two years. Upside: no seizures. Downside: a moustache. One of the possible side effects of this particular medication is facial hair growth and, as with most medications I’ve ever had to take, if there is an adverse effect, I will be the one in 100,000 to suffer it. My boys accuse me of being a hypochondriac but it’s hard to deny the forest of downy hair on my upper lip.
In fact, I once let Matthew and Patrick wax my medi-stache when they were teenagers. They thought this was terrific fun. They applied, then reapplied that nasty little adhesive strip until Patrick finally said to his brother, “Hey Mattie. I don’t think she’s supposed to be bleeding like that.”
They didn’t get the hair, but they managed to remove most of the sensitive skin from my upper lip.
That’s the hate part of the relationship.
The love part is my dad’s beard and moustache. As long as I can remember, dad has had a moustache at least and usually a beard. The latter is because he doesn’t have a chin. Anatomically it’s there, but it’s so recessed it’s hard to locate without some sort of magnification device.
When I was in my early 20s, dad made a bet with a friend. If Don paid cash for his new Cadillac, dad would shave off his beard. Don bought the car with a fistful of bills, but he didn’t wait for dad to make good on his end of the deal. He drove straight from the dealership to our house, dragged dad outside and shaved him in the back of the Caddy. I watched in horror as dad took handfuls of beard and shoved them between the cushions of that brand new car. Worse, I remember getting my suddenly chinless father. Not a good look for him. We called him ‘Joe Who Clark’ and averted our eyes at the dinner table until it grew it back so we could keep our food down.
Which brings us to Movember … and back to the hate part. While the Movember movement is admirable, and many moustached men – remember Paul Newman in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid? – are beyond sexy, there are some guys who should never go there. Make a donation by all means. Support someone who looks good with a ’stache. But don’t, for humanity’s sake, grow one yourself. It’s just not fair to the rest of us and a month is a long time.
Here’s the skinny on the November ‘lip pigeon’ (as Rob call it).
Each November since 2004, men around the world have been sprouting a moustache to mark Movember, an international movement to raise funds and awareness for men’s health issues, particularly prostate cancer.
The ‘Mo Bros’ are encouraged to register at www.Movember.com with a clean-shaven face on Nov. 1, then grow their upper lip dressing for the rest of the month, with the encouragement of their sponsors and their ‘Mo Sistas.’
For 30 days each year, Mo Bros are walking billboards for prostate cancer awareness, getting people talking about the oft-ignored issue of men’s health.
Starting out small in Melbourne, Australia, Movember has grown into a global movement, inspiring the participation of 1.1 million registered Mo Bros and Mo Sistas around the world. As of 2010, Mo Bros and Sistas had raised $176 million. That includes 119,000 Canadians last year, who generated $22.3 million for education and awareness, survivorship and research.
If my experience is anything to go by, many Movember men don’t even register as participants, which makes their unofficial numbers much higher. Chances are, if someone you know is sporting a new caterpillar it’s for Movember.
Some guys look great and won’t shave well into the New Year. Others … well, their Mo Sistas are going to be at the ready with a razor and a sigh of relief today (Dec. 1). Regardless, if men paid as much attention to their health year round as they do to their grooming one month out of 12, I’m sure we could all but eliminate prostate cancer.
Know the risks. Get tested. Increase your chances of early detection, diagnosis and effective treatment.
And make sure your Movember moustache is more than just lip service.
December 15, 2011 - Posted by colleengreen34 - 0 Comments
I grew up in Don Mills. I went to public school with one black kid and one East Indian. That was the sum total of the ethnic diversity in my immediate neighbourhood. Those two boys had a difficult row to hoe. One of them ended up in jail. I’m not sure what happened to Mohammed.
When we got to high school, their ranks swelled slightly. We added a black girl and a skinny, sickly looking boy from Estonia. While Winnel was an asset to the track team and played a mean trumpet, Mehis, had little to offer. I remember him sitting alone at a lunch table with his thermos of octopus stew.
Today, I live in one of the most multicultural cities on earth, and life on the Danforth is about as culturally diversified as Don Mills was homogenous. We even have a shop that sells ‘Islamic Fashions,’ which at first blush seems to be an oxymoron. But what do I know? I’m an old dog learning new tricks.
One of the greatest benefits of living in such an ethnically rich community is the restaurant scene. If I’m looking for a culinary adventure, I can savour flavours from all over the world within a few blocks of my home. Greek, Italian, Thai, Ethiopian, Indian, Moroccan, Japanese, Lebanese, Chinese, Hakka, Iranian … it’s all within walking distance.
But while I’m happy to be a diner in this great city, I wouldn’t want to be a teacher or administrator with the Toronto District School Board.
Stephie came home with a letter from the TDSB regarding a Student Census for kids in Grades 7 through 12. This week – Student Census Week – youth will be asked to fill out a Census in class. Questions will focus on the student’s experiences in and outside of school. The information will be used for research purposes only.
Sounds straightforward enough.
On the flip side of the advisory, however, there is a note to parents:
If you prefer to have this letter in your own language, please request it from the school principal.
This missive is translated into 25 different languages: Albanian, Arabic, Bengali, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Dari, Farsi, French, Greek, Gujarati, Hindi, Korean, Ojibway, Portuguese, Punjabi, Romanian, Russian, Serbian (Cyrillic), Serbian (Latin), Somali, Spanish, Tagalog, Tamil, Turkish, Urdu and Vietnamese.
I didn’t even know at least four of these mother tongues existed. After a quick trip down the Internet highway, however, I found out that Dari is spoken in Afghanistan, Tagalog is the language of the Philippines, Urdu is the national language of Pakistan and, not surprisingly if you have ever heard of the Indian state of Gujarat, Gujarati is spoken by people who hail from this western part of the country.
Which leads me to wonder … Is the census available in 25 languages as well? And why didn’t I study translation in university instead of English?
I remember talking to a Toronto teacher a few years back, a friend of a friend, who told me that she had to write ‘Welcome’ in 25 different languages on the blackboard on Parent/Teacher night. I thought she was joking or at least exaggerating. Apparently not.
One of the girls in Stephanie’s Developmental Disability class talks to herself … in Cantonese. Stephie would like to try to bring this girl out of her solitary confinement, but she doesn’t have the necessary communication tools. And this is just one girl, in one class. How does the TDSB muster the financial and human resources to bridge the language gap? How do teachers discuss student strengths, weaknesses and expectations with parents when they can’t even properly introduce themselves?
Now imagine the challenge for police officers, 911 operators and hospital staff. Translation is big business in the city.
I’m considering a career change…
J’envisage un changement de carrière…
Estoy pensando en un cambio de carrera…
Estou pensando em uma mudança de carreira…
Unë jam duke marrë parasysh një ndryshim karriere…
Am în vedere o schimbare de cariera…
December 15, 2011 - Posted by colleengreen34 - 0 Comments
What can I say about the shocking death of Hickstead, Canada’s beloved Olympic gold medal stallion, that hasn’t been said already? Plenty.
Although we only saw Hickstead live in competition once – at the Ricoh Big Ben Challenge at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair in 2008 after his two riveting podium finishes at the Beijing Olympics – we watched him thousands of times in our living room.
At Spruce Meadows, in FEI World Cup Competition and at the Olympic Games, the feisty little Dutch Warmblood jumped his way into our hearts over and over again as Stephie replayed – and relived – every moment of her beloved show jumping DVDs.
Her favourite dis is the Beijing Olympics. Each time she sees Hickstead and his partner and part-owner Eric Lamaze enter the ring, it’s like she’s watching them compete at the Games for the first time. She holds her breath in the jump-off, ‘Woohoo!’ing and fist pumping the air when the pair win the gold medal for Canada like she’s seeing history made all over again. This, in spite of the fact that she knows the entire 90-minute commentary off by heart and can recite it word for word in a feat of memorization that I will never comprehend.
Hickstead was her hero. Her horse.
In one of Stephanie’s recurring fantasies, her father is Eric Lamaze and the redeemed member of the Canadian Olympic team regularly lets his young wonder-daughter ride his prize-winning mount to victory in world class competitions.
When I learned of Hickstead’s sudden death in the competition ring in Verona, Italy, it was like I had lost a beloved son. Even as I was mourning his passing, I worried about how I would break the news to Stephie. Eric and Hickstead – the number one show jumping pair in the world – were scheduled to appear at the Royal Horse Show later that week, and we had tickets to seem them compete.
But there are unexpected gifts that come with autism, and sentimental detachment is one of them. For Stephanie, out of sight is out of mind, even if it’s your favourite horse.
When she got home from school last Monday, I told her what had happened. Before she could even process the information, her mind jumped to more pressing, practical matters: Who would Eric ride at the Royal and next year at the 2012 Olympic Games in London, England? “He’s been working Narcotique de Muze,” she told me anxiously, “but I don’t think she’s ready.”
I wasn’t sure whether I should let her see the YouTube video of Hickstead’s collapse. It was deeply upsetting, but it helped to make things real for me and I thought it might do the same for her.
Together, we watched our horse die. After his gallant heart burst and he staggered to the ground, he looked up for a moment in apparent disbelief, then laid down his magnificent head. His legs thrashed in the air for an agonizing few seconds and then he was still.
“I can’t believe he’s gone,” Stephie said.
On Wednesday of last week, we went to the Royal Horse Show. Eric was there to honour his once-in-a-lifetime partner. There was a tribute to Hickstead before the FEI World Cup Grand Prix that night – since renamed the FEI Hickstead World Cup Grand Prix in the athlete’s honour. I warned Stephie and Rob that I would cry. I did, especially when the ground crew – wearing Hickstead armbands they had designed – saluted their old friend.
“Mom, you’re a freak,” Stephie said when she saw my tears. “It’s just one dead horse.”
mShe wanted to feel sad. She tried. But it’s an emotion that escapes her. ‘Hickstead isn’t getting any deader,’ her spirit seemed to say. ‘We’ve said our goodbyes. Now move on.’
As we were leaving the Ricoh Coliseum, we stopped to sign one of the condolence books that had been set up for fans of the great horse.
“I love you Hickstead,” Stephie had me write. “I hope you enjoy horse heaven.”
mWatching her new 2011 FEI World Cup DVD, Stephie says it’s hard to see Hickstead on the screen. She seems to know she’s watching a ghost.
Will she still experience the Beijing Olympics with surprise? Can a dead horse win a gold medal? And now that Hickstead is gone, who will my daughter ride in the show jumping arenas of her imagination?
December 15, 2011 - Posted by colleengreen34 - 0 Comments
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place: and in the sky
The larks still bravely singing fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the dead: Short days ago,
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved: and now we lie
In Flanders fields!
Take up our quarrel with the foe
To you, from failing hands, we throw
The torch: be yours to hold it high
If ye break faith with us who die,
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
Composed at the battlefront, May 3, 1915,
by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae,
during the second Battle of Ypres, Belgium
Tomorrow, Nov. 11, is Remembrance Day. A national day of tribute when we offer up two minutes of silent thanks to the men and women who gave their limbs and their lives – or at the very least their innocence – to preserve the rights and freedoms that make this country great.
But how can I remember what I have never known?
How can I understand a sacrifice I have never been called upon to make?
How can I honour so many lives lost?
This is how.
At the eleventh hour, of the eleventh day, of the eleventh month – the official end of WW1 in 1918 with the German signing of the Armistice – a lone trumpeter plays The Last Post – a military ‘lights out.’ I place my hand over my heart as the veterans in their wheelchairs, fewer with each passing year, raise their shaky hands in salute to their comrades past and present.
I close my eyes and try to imagine what it must have been like to be there.
I try to imagine the trenches running with mud and vermin and disease. I try to smell the battle: the cordite and the gas and the blood and the rotting of corpses in shallow graves. I try to hear the screaming of commands to ‘go over the top’ and of soldiers wounded and dying. I try to imagine the sight of a man cut down or riddled with shrapnel; of men – my brothers – by the thousands, without arms and legs and faces. I strain to hear final words and prayers whispered on so many last breaths.
I try to climb inside the head and heart of Colonel John McCrae, a military surgeon who graduated form the University of Toronto and who’s friend and former student, young Lieutenant Alexis Helmer of Ottawa, was killed by a German shell and then buried in pitch darkness on May 2, 1915. I am Col. McCrae, sitting on the back of an ambulance the next day behind the dressing station, listening to the agony of the injured and dying; eyes wandering from the blood red poppies blooming on the battlefield and swaying on a gentle east breeze to Lt. Helmer’s fresh grave. And I write ‘In Flanders Fields’ from the depths of hell and despair.
I try to imagine the mothers, in their aprons, wisps of hair coming astray from their bindings, reading the dreaded telegram and seeing those inconceivable words ‘deeply regret to inform you’ next to the name of a beloved son or daughter lost forever.
Mostly I imagine the horror. But I also try to imagine the strength of friendships forged in unimaginable adversity to last a lifetime. The enduring gift of camaraderie; the cigarettes smoked, the jokes and intimacies shared; the promises made and kept. And the honour of knowing you fought the good fight, for yourself, for your family and future family, for generations of people around the world.
Every year I pin a poppy on the left side of my fall jacket, over a heart that still beats because others are silent.
We cannot remember.
But we must never forget.
December 15, 2011 - Posted by colleengreen34 - 0 Comments
As I write this column, there is a 20-year-old vampire with a broken foot sitting in the next room, flapping madly as she watches Watership Down videos on YouTube. Is this how the young undead spend their days, I wonder, or just the hobbled ones? Shouldn’t the succubus be sleeping, resting up for a night of relentless blood sucking?
Many of you may remember that Stephanie was a vampire last Halloween, and while sporting the same costume twice is verboten for my autistic trick or treater, we had assumed – and made deals based on – the fact that she wouldn’t be going door to door in a cast.
While the thought of a new movie or DS game in exchange for a pillowcase full of candy sounded appealing for a spell, Stephie’s youthful spirit became increasingly unsettled about staying home to shell out the closer we got to All Hallows Eve.
By the time we had carved our single pumpkin into the jack-o-lantern likeness of Efrafa’s war-torn General Woundwort, the most terrifying of all Watership Down characters, Stephie had convinced herself that visiting a few houses wasn’t going make her foot any more broken.
The homes in our neighbourhood, most of them semis, may be too close for comfort for most country mice, but from a greedy trick or treater’s perspective, Toronto streets are paradise. So much candy, so little distance to travel between doorsteps.
Every Oct. 31, we think it will be Stephie’s last as a voracious treat hunter. But that’s the thing about kids who don’t grow up: the good times never end. Santa still fills your stocking to overflowing, the Easter Bunny seems to find more places to hide eggs each year and Halloween is perpetually the one day in the year your parents let you stay up late gorging on bite-size chocolate bars and miniature bags of chips.
Well, your mom, anyway.
Dad has been stressing about the sugar overload for more than a month. Except for beer, Rob has been spared a sweet tooth and he worries that the usual sack of candy will hasten Stephie’s early demise – or at least a monstrous dental bill.
“Instead of collecting candy this year, why don’t you dress up and give out candy instead,” he suggested pre-cast. She looked at him like he’d grown another head long before it was acceptable to don a costume.
“Are you joking?!” she said.
Apparently, he wasn’t. He tempted her with ‘grown-up parties,’ the blu ray version of the Lion King and a new doggie dress-up game for her DS. She wasn’t having any part of it. She was going out trick or treating if he killed her.
Until she fell down the stairs and her candy acquisition dreams came crashing down around her. When the pain was bad, even she could see the impossibility of the situation. The houses are close together but they all have stairs to climb.
Like a smart little goblin, she quickly snapped up the ‘gift instead of goodies’ deal.
But that was then. Two weeks to the day and she’s feeling pretty plucky.
She trundled off to school in full vampire regalia today and came home happy as Dracula at a blood donor clinic: ashen-faced, widow-peaked and shadow-eyed, with flakes of dried hemoglobin on her lips. All we have to do in a couple of hours is a little theatrical touch-up and she’s good to go, pillowcase in (mom’s) hand.
At the very least, we’re going to test the waters with a few house calls. If her foot hurts too much, we’ll head back home and she can guard the door. But vampires don’t feel pain do they? Unless it’s a stake through the heart, and I’m pretty sure Rob doesn’t feel that strongly about it.
Last year in an ironic twist, a boy with special needs who was demoted to candy-giver criticized Stephie for being too old for trick or treating. Instead of feeling embarrassed for herself, she felt sorry for him. He had clearly been gypped of one of the great joys of being special. Living with a handicap means a life of hardship, but there are perks. The trick is to take advantage of them. And judging by her usual bag of treats, Stephie’s got that down to a science.
December 15, 2011 - Posted by colleengreen34 - 0 Comments
I realized something today. You don’t need 50 cats to be a crazy cat lady. You just need one. If it’s hairless and you carry it around in the front of your jacket like a repugnant alien fetus.
It’s fall and the temperature has dropped alarmingly outside, but the desire to reduce our carbon footprint … who am I kidding … the fear of insolvency and living in a refrigerator box beneath the Bloor viaduct, have kept us from turning on the furnace. I have forbidden anyone to touch the thermostat until at least Nov. 1.
It’s a frosty 18 degrees in our house during the daytime and that’s about 10 degrees cooler than our sphynx Cali is biologically programmed to tolerate.
Being naked and having a claw-unsheathing aversion to those cute little knitted sweatercoats worn by the neighbourhood Chihuahuas, Cali is freezing her arse off. Normally, she would find a nice warm heat vent to sleep on, but with the furnace stubbornly silent, she has no choice but to snuggle up with us day and night.
I made the mistake of zipping her into my hoodie the other night while I was sitting at the computer and it was such a toasty little cocoon that she no longer wants to exist anywhere else.
As soon as I sit down, she leaps up onto my lap and puts her front feet on my chest. If I don’t immediately undo my jacket and beckon her inside, she starts pawing at the zipper, trying to do the job herself. Once inside, she kneads my flesh until it’s raw, and eventually settles down for a well-deserved cat nap.
Other than the fact that I look like I’m about eight months pregnant, it’s not really a hardship. I cradle her when I have to get up, then rub her like I used to rub my tummy when I was with human child to put her back to sleep. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship. Symbiosis, if you will. We both stay warm in our little icebox.
This is all well and good if you don’t ever have to do anything or see anyone. Try washing the dishes, tucking your daughter into bed or taking a pee-break one-handed. If I don’t keep my arm under the bulge on my belly, Cali starts to slip out, and this inevitably ends up in a skin ripping as she tries to claw her way back up my stomach.
I’m actually thinking of getting a baby snuggly for her and lining it with something fleecy … and black.
While it’s nice to have her there, it’s wreaking havoc on my wardrobe.
Sphynx are notoriously oily creatures, and Cali leaves a chocolate haze on every light-coloured surface. (Every surface, actually. You just can’t see the patina if the object is dark, which doesn’t make it any less gross, just less visible). Good thing most people never see the inside of my hoodie.
Did I mention Cali has body odour? Waxy ears? Mucky eyes? Bad breath? Gas?
It’s asking a lot of a jacket, I know. It’s 3 a.m. and she’s in there right now. Purring like an outboard motor. My stinky little hot water bottle.
Rob just shakes his head and keeps his distance. Stephie takes her turn with the hoodie every now and then. It’s become routine for us.
But it’s a bit of a shocker for other people.
Today the unsuspecting UPS man came to the house with a package for me and when I answered the door, Cali’s head poked out of the front of my jacket, her green occidental eyes squinting in the sudden light, the pink wrinkles of loose skin folded like beaten egg whites across her bald head.
I know he was startled, sickened – possibly even scarred – because he didn’t make me sign for my package. He just handed me the envelope and high-tailed it for his truck.
I see some counselling in that poor man’s future and a YouTube video in mine … or perhaps a National Enquirer headline: ‘Woman, 48, gives birth to premature space baby.’
Crazy cat lady, indulgent surrogate mother or just a woman in a hoodie looking to share some body heat and save on her gas bill? I’ll let you decide. But I’ve got my Halloween costume picked out…
December 15, 2011 - Posted by colleengreen34 - 0 Comments
“We’re not in Kansas anymore, baby.”
I said this to Stephie as we made our way to Toronto East General Hospital Monday night at about 9 p.m. “It’s not like Port Perry. This is the city.”
But how can you prepare an autistic country girl for the chaos of an overcrowded emergency department in a big city hospital?
As a person with a healthy dose of OCD, I do not make the decision to visit an ER – a cesspool of infection and disease – lightly.
But Stephie has an extraordinarily high tolerance for pain, and when she says she needs to go, she needs to go.
We tried to deny the inevitable with cold packs, comfort food, and her 2008 Rolex FEI World Cup horse jumping video – but it was no use. A few hours after she missed the bottom step heading up to her bedroom and fell with an ominous crash to the floor, we knew what she had known instantly: her foot was broken.
I carried all 115 pounds of her to the car and we headed for the hospital, which is just a few blocks from our house. Rob and I braced ourselves for a long, long night in Dante’s inferno.
At the emergency entrance, we found a wheelchair and Rob took Stephie into the hospital while I parked the car. When I caught up with them, it looked like something you might see on CNN during coverage of a natural disaster.
There were bodies everywhere. Vertical, horizontal. Children were wailing. One man held a bloody cloth to his son’s face. There were scores of elderly people on stretchers, one with what was clearly a broken arm. Ambulance attendants arrived every few minutes with another stretcher-bound patient. There were people of every shape, size, colour and condition. I heard someone taking about a gunshot. A man told Rob he had been there for five hours.
We stopped below a stop sign that read: ‘STEP 1. Wait for a nurse.’ Fifteen minutes later we were handed ticket number 403 and told to have a seat and wait for ‘STEP 2: Triage.’ The triage nurse called for number 99. Stephie, pale as a beautiful ghost, started to cry, more in fear than pain. We all washed our hands.
About 15 minutes later, a triage nurse called out 03 (the other 400 people must have maimed earlier in the day).
We explained the situation, Stephie’s condition – autism, developmental delay, epilepsy, broken foot – and she marked ‘pediatric’ on the chart. Bless that wonderful, compassionate woman.
We stood in a short line – ‘STEP 3: Register’ – and after telling our story to that nurse, we were directed to the inner sanctum – a secondary waiting area filled to overflowing with the sick and injured. At TEGH, Monday nights, we were told, are the worst.
Another nurse reviewed Stephie’s paperwork and sent us to the x-ray department where our daughter was whisked away immediately by a kindly x-ray technician. A few minutes later we headed back to the waiting room and before we were even seated, a technician from the cast room came to fetch us.
He showed us the x-rays – a broken fifth metatarsal – and suggested an air cast for $150. The colour must have drained out of my face, because this kind man offered to go to the fracture clinic and see if he could scrounge up a second-hand number. While he was gone, the ER pediatrician examined Stephie and reviewed her x-rays.
Olaf returned a few minutes later brandishing what looked to be a brand new air cast. He put it on, asked only that we return it to the fracture clinic when Stephie was healed to pay it forward, and directed us to the waiting room to get our follow-up appointment for the fracture clinic. Two minutes later we were on our way.
Door to door in under an hour. It was utterly unheard of. It was a miracle.
On our way out, we thanked the nurse who had identified Stephie as a pediatric patient.
“They try to take care of the kids first,” she said, as she tended to one of the hundreds of patients still waiting to see a doctor.
I knew when we moved to the city we would eventually have to make the pilgrimage to TEGH and I had been dreading it. How can I ever properly thank the nurses, doctors and technicians who treated us that night for preventing me from passing along yet another of my fears to my daughter. Too bad they can’t do anything about our arachnophobia….
December 15, 2011 - Posted by colleengreen34 - 0 Comments
I wrote a column a few years back about how I lost a family. Not just a husband, but a mother-in-law, father-in-law, sisters-in-law, brothers-in-law and two lovely nieces. In many ways, it was the loss of my peripheral relatives by marriage – more than my spouse – that was the hardest cross to bear. While Jonathan and I were a bit like chalk and cheese, I got along rather well with the rest of the Schofield clan.
_It seemed so strange and sad to me that you could be a couple one day and single the next; have your whole family over for Christmas dinner and no one to visit on Boxing Day. It is a gross injustice that a partner can, without negotiation, subtract his love as well as his parents and siblings – all part of the same unhappy, unnatural equation.
_Equally odd, but much more pleasant, was finding a family a few weekends ago.
_In the way of all good oxymorons, the process was at once gradual and instant, taking both three decades and three short hours.
_Although Rob and I were together 30 years ago, I never met any of the Greenways, save for his dad, Gil, a lively imp of a man who has since passed away.
_Rob, himself, does not see much of his father’s side of the family. Like many of us who find ourselves too busy to keep in regular contact, he reserves face-time for weddings, funerals and the occasional milestone birthday or anniversary.
_He last saw his aunts, uncles and cousins at his grandfather’s 90th birthday party, shortly before Philip Greenway died some 12 years ago. When Rob was still married. When I was still married. When the two of us hadn’t an inkling that we would rekindle the sparks of a relationship that burnt out spectacularly in our youth, let alone piece together a life.
_But there we were at the Greenway Family Reunion in Guelph, and while Rob was off sourcing a beer from the ice bucket and rediscovering his long lost kin, his mom found herself in the awkward position of having to explain my relational significance.
_Into the silence, Dorothy, bless her heart, told a small cluster of the 50-some relatives gathered at Doug Greenway’s house, “This is my daughter-in-law, Tracey.” They must have wondered how they had missed a divorce and a wedding.
_But I felt a twinge of pleasure at hearing that old title resurrected so sweetly.
Later, a cousin-in-law who was studying a piece of paper on which the bountiful limbs and branches of the family tree were spread, pointed out that Stephie and I were question marks, blanks to be filled in later by Rob.
The cousin-in-law was indignant on our behalf.
“Wife?” he inquired kindly. “Daughter?”
For all intents and purposes we are, although the law doesn’t recognize us as such and there is the bothersome technical detail that while I am ‘officially separated’ from my husband we are not yet ‘divorced.’
The ‘what am I’ question is one that continues to dog me. Girlfriend sounds juvenile and transient, partner gives people the impression that I’m with a woman, and I certainly don’t consider Rob to be my ‘better’ or even ‘other’ half.
Wife is just easier and it gives me the credibility I think I deserve now that Rob and I share a home, a forever child and an uncertain and expensive future.
“Sure,” I said to the cousin-in-law, whose name now escapes me. “Wife and daughter.”
He wrote Tracey and Stephanie on Rob’s branch of the Greenway maple and it was official. I had a new family.
There was no official ceremony. I didn’t have to sign my life away or make promises I might not be able to keep. I was just welcomed into the fold unconditionally.
With so many Greenway relatives, it is unlikely I will remember all their names or send Christmas cards to each and every uncle, aunt, cousin, niece and nephew. But plans are already underway for next year’s reunion. And this time, Stephie and I won’t be blanks on a page.
We will be family, bearing genealogical fruit on Rob’s branch of The Greenway tree.
