#TayTayMeetHannah

My friend Hannah recently wrote a letter, explaining why it would mean so much to her to meet Taylor Swift.

http://www.twitlonger.com/show/kfuigr

What you won't know, from Hannah's letter, is just how amazing her mom was.

Hannah's mom organized the Run For The Cure, in the city they live in, for 2 years.

Hannah's mom raised an incredible amount of money and was fighting cancer long before she was diagnosed herself.

She was fighting cancer for you, for me, for everyone.
And then she had to stop and fight for herself and her family.

Since she lost her mom, Taylor's music speaks to Hannah and for her, when all her feelings,
especially the ouchy ones, are overwhelming.

We need to do everything we can to put kids next to the people who inspire and comfort them.
Hannah has wonderful friends and an amazing family who love her very much,
but there's no such thing as a kid with too many people on her side.

So, please read Hannah's letter,  share it on FB, email it to your friends, retweet it,
and tweet the hashtag #TayTayMeetHannah.

And, if you know someone who knows someone who knows Taylor Swift,
please tell her Hannah would like to give her a hug and say hello.

My daughter's riding coach …

My daughter's  riding coach …

Rarely takes a day off, let alone demands one, often works 7 days/week, has never taken a sick day and never ever gets summers off.

She works in the blazing heat, freezing cold & is the one standing beside my daughter, when it's pouring rain and the rest of us are huddled under an awning.

She picks my daughter up, when her pony dumps her and drops her off, when she needs a ride home.

She shares her potato chips, fixes my daughter's clothes, gives her clothes, braids her hair, and lets her sleep over.

She encourages and corrects my daughter, patiently talks her through everything, and doesn't use red pen.

She hangs out with my daughter every time there's no school and is on-call 24 hours/day for pony injury or illness.

Most importantly, she genuinely cares about my child's future and would never hold it for ransom. 

She is thoughtful, not to mention exceptional, in everything she does, because she loves her job and loves children.

My wish for the children of Ontario?

I wish the Elementary Teacher’s Federation of Ontario would get even a teeny-tiny bit of inspiration from people like this who really do put children first.

Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes: Haaaated iiiiiiiiiit.

Saw "Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes" the other day.

I had to wonder how anyone who loves animals could think it was fun to watch.

The movie was a blockbuster laundry list of all the ways we fail other creatures. We steal them from their habitats, imprison them, test on them, compromise their well-being in favour of our own, misunderstand them, torture them, change them into creatures they’re not meant to be, break promises we make to care for them, abandon them, then slaughter them. 

Oh yeah.

And we celebrate when they're more like us ...
which is kinda weird, cuz all things considered, we're massive assholes.

~

Ask me what I'm yearning for ...

i wrote this a while ago, but it reads like a wish-list, so every year I post it on Facebook, hoping a mutual friend will fling it Santa's way ... ;) ...

if any of you talk to him and he mentions he can't swing it this year, please be sure to tell him i'd be ok with an IOU ...

:)

(After you read this original, for the 2011 revised/updated version, click here)

~~~~

Ask me what I'm yearning for and I'll tell you:

a man who would never let something as small as "who cleans the bathroom?" become a relationship issue ...

a man who understands a home is more than a building full of stuff or the chores contained within it ...

a man who thinks it's cute when i'm sappy, charming when i'm scattered, and hysterical when i'm silly ...

a man who understands being faithful is more than just committing yourself physically ...

a man who appreciates having a family doesn't just mean raising happy children ... it's also about raising them to be adults who will want to come home to us when they're older ...

a man who will eventually love my child and is confident I would adore his too ...

a man who kisses me, kisses his babies ... and knows sometimes the best way we can show him we appreciate his hard work is a good old-fashioned dog pile ...

a man who wants to hold my hand often, not in possessiveness, but in support and love ... and tells me with a wandering thumb that everything will be ok ...

a man who knows you can't substitute treating someone like they're desirable for treating them like they're loveable ...that both are important, but only one will truly feed your soul ...

a man who phones when he wants to... hopefully often ... and who looks forward to calls from me, because he knows it means I wanted to spend a few minutes with him ...

a man who knows a simple "I'm here" means everything and fixes anything ...

a man who will just let me be a woman ... and will feel glad when that gets him cookies, grateful when it gets him the spot as the big spoon and always knows all those little things add up to mean there's no substitute for him ...

a man who never leaves me alone, whether he is in my presence or not ...

a man who will forgive my mistakes in the morning, forget them by the afternoon and still count me among his blessings at night ...

a man who magically transforms the trepidation into anticipation ... and the fear into fervor and force ...

a man who can be glad to be with me ... in the moment, every moment ... and shows it with a gorgeous smile with nothing hidden behind it ... and is not still be sad for whatever difficult things that brought him there ...

a man who believes "best friend" is far more than a label and is a gift i've reserved for him, long before we even meet ...

a man who understands what i mean when i tell him i've missed him every day until the first time he says hello

a man who expects and needs as much from me as I do from him ...

Why women need men ...

Reasons why women need men (yeah, it's sexist, but you love it ... because we NEED you) ... :) ... including, but not necessarily limited to:

Spiders: Please don’t kill them … just give them a ride outside … Ok, for me, big spiders ...And scorpions, if we ever decide to move to Africa.

Moving furniture: When we need to move the 100+ pound desk & hutch to rescue the squawking/biting parakeet that’s gotten wedged behind it. Failing that, we need you for pet funerals.

Car shopping: Flirting with the salesguy will only get a girl so far. I need a dude who actually knows enough about cars to know if I’m getting rooked. All I hear is “blah blah blah blah”, cuz I’m thinking “oooooh, so cuuuuuute … leather interior!”

Plumbing and electrical issues: Women’s lib is highly over-rated, I can reset a breaker, but I don’t want to crawl back in the storage closet to do it. If you can’t fix something, I’m sure you’ll have a hockey buddy who can.

High heels: And, no, of course you don’t need to wear them, but when I do, I need a strong arm to hang onto, so I don’t trip and fling the contents of my purse all over the movie theatre. Without you, it’s a complete yard sale.

Body heat. We’re smaller than you and don’t retain warmth as well. You were given broad shoulders and long arms and legs for a reason …

Shopping for meat. Yeah, that’s right. If you send me to the store for chicken, I’m likely to just come home empty-handed and looking greenish …

Day trips with the children: There seems to be an unwritten rule that the dad does the shoulder-carry when the toddler gets too tired to walk at the zoo. Apparently, the deal is: We carry the fetus; you carry the 4-year-old. It’s fair … really … carrying the 4-year-old is hard work, but it doesn’t make you fat.

Discouraging suitors when the girl child starts dating. I’ll happily relinquish the responsibility of intimidating the pubescent boys to you. If some kid slaps a ladder up to the back of the house, it’s your job to clobber him.

Birds and the Bees explanations. I’ll take the birds, you do the bees … and we’ll huddle in fear together after.

Home security: Checking the doors and windows to make sure the house is locked up at night. We shouldn’t have to worry our pretty little heads about stuff like home invasions. I’ll just wait upstairs smelling nice. Just be warned, I might wanna make out …manliness is sexy.

thoughts from the evening commute

I have a gal-pal who is constantly moaning to me that she is single. I’m sure I’m not the only victim of her whiney diatribe, but it’s exhausting.

I'd love to have 30 seconds to rifle through her medicine cabinet and figure out the mystery of her stamina.

Recently, she and I were having coffee (a regular ritual that usually leaves me wanting to impale myself on the chairs at Tim Horton’s). And we had the same conversation we'd had over a half-dozen other coffees:

She: I hate being single. Being single sucks.

Me: Yup.

She: You know what I wish? I wish that someone could just tell me there’s someone out there for me. I wish someone could just GUARANTEE me.

Me: Well, that’s not gonna happen. You’ll only know he exists when he finally shows up.

She: Why are YOU so OK with being single?

Me: *fighting the urge to stick my plastic butter knife in her hand …

Me: Well, I’m not. But it’ll happen when it happens.

She: How do you know?

Me: Because it’s what I BELIEVE. I think there’s someone out there for everyone. You just don’t know when or where or how. If you’re one of the luckiest people, you find them early and can spend a long, long time with them. Sometimes that doesn’t happen, but you just have to trust that when you truly need them, they’ll be there.

She: But HOW do you KNOW???? I need to KNOW!

Me: I just do. Maybe it’ll be tomorrow, maybe not. You see stories all the time about people who meet in a nursing home, hang out for five minutes and share some jello … then one of them is gone … but the most important thing is that they found each other eventually … and that five minutes was worth the wait.

She: DON’T tell me I’m going to have to wait until I’m 80! I can’t wait that long! I’m going to die old and alone. I just know it.

~~~

I think about being old and alone a lot. I think, at a certain age, we all start to.

There is an elderly Asian gentleman who often takes the same bus as me in the evening. He’s probably in his 80s. I don’t know where he’s coming from or going to, but I watch him sometimes.

He always sits in the same spot, if he can … right up at the front, where he can see out the windshield to spot his stop. He usually falls asleep and snaps awake in a panic, half-standing to look out at the road, to make sure he’s not snoozed past his destination.

He’s very sweet looking. His upper eyelids are heavy and like crepe paper, almost hanging over past his eyelashes like awnings.

It used to make me feel sorry for him that he had to take the bus. I wondered why he didn’t have anyone to drive him where he needed to go, especially in the winter when it’s cold and icy and treacherous out. And I used to feel sad that maybe he didn’t have someone to love and take care of him.

Then I looked closer and more thoughtfully. His hair is always cut neatly. He’s always dressed nicely … stylishly, even … his clothes look new and as if they were chosen for him by someone else. And his pants .. one day, he was wearing a cute pair of jeans …for a guy his age, he looked pretty fashionable.

His jeans were hemmed, I noticed. He’s not very tall, so they would’ve needed to be taken up… and I saw that they were sewn with white thread. A tailor would’ve matched the thread colour to the jeans, so it was obvious that someone in his family has done it for him. One small teeny tiny detail that showed he was cared for.

And I felt better. Everyone gets old, but no one should be alone.

~~~

Last night, on my second bus, there was an older lady. Probably also in her 70s or 80s. She had a walker and was obviously very sick, coughing constantly and exhausted-looking.

She reminded me of a goldfish that had accidentally jumped out of its bowl. Dry, tired, gasping. She kept coughing into her mittened palm.

Her hair was messy. She had no hat on. She probably shouldn’t have even been out of the bus on a cold night like last night, let alone taking herself somewhere on the bus by herself. She was talking … no sound, just silently chatting away, in between coughing fits. There was no one beside her or across from her, so I wondered who she thought she was speaking to.

I found myself so sad (and was grateful for the sunglasses I had on, when the tears started to gush), thinking she was probably not going to be around much longer … and sat there hoping that she had, in her life, really been loved by someone … and I hoped that was who she was talking to … that she was finding some comfort and companionship and feelings of having been truly in love, even if it was only with the lingering memories of that person in her head.

And, even if he wasn’t around to drive her to the doctor or put on her hat or hem her pants for her, that she still wouldn’t be alone, even if she was the only person who could see or hear him.

If she hadn’t, I wished, for her, that she would find him soon.

~~~

Strange relationship habits of married people: "Hi" fidelity

I’ll admit it. I’m fascinated with married people. God willing, I’ll be one of them someday, so I study them … They’re mysterious. They’re exciting. They’re sexy. But sadly, often they’re a big, messy, swirling mass of emotions and egos and legs and arms and vows and rings and children and wallets …

One thing that strikes me particularly hard about married folk is how frequently narrow their definition of loyalty is … as long as they’re not groping the neighbour over the fence, then they think they’re doing alright in the faithfulness department.

I’m certainly no expert, never having been married, but it doesn’t take a genius to see from the bleachers when you’re riding your horse the wrong way ‘round.

I was grocery shopping recently, standing in the produce section, and there was a man beside me. He spun around to look at his wife, held up a red-mesh bag of oranges, and asked "are these ok?" She did nothing. She said nothing. She just glared.

When he turned back, he caught my eye ... muttered “what a b!+ch” … shrugged his shoulders and put the oranges back ... still not sure whether he had gotten clearance to put the fruit in the cart or not. Maybe they bickered earlier about tangerines and she was still annoyed … maybe he used those little flower soaps in the powder room meant for VIPs only … maybe she really was a b!+ch, I wouldn’t know. But he sure did … and he told me so. And that was what shocked me most … that he would say that to me, a complete stranger, about his wife.

From witnessing that one exchange between that man and his wife, I realized that I hoped someday I would be able to meet a man I could and would trust enough to make any decision on my behalf, from minute to monumental ... decisions about my life, our life together, and our children’s lives ... not just what kind of produce goes into the refrigerator ... and I would yield that to him when I needed to … willingly, happily, gratefully - never begrudgingly - and he would be certain I was confident in him … and there would never be anything about being in the grocery store that would render him any less trustworthy, capable or lovable.

I was at an awards assembly at Eden’s school last year. The adults invited were the parents of the children who were receiving some kind of recognition of achievement. Beside me, sat a couple … married, certainly there for their child, but obviously not truly together. At a time when they should have been sporting smiles brighter than their rings … elbowing each other, pointing at their baby and giggling “we made that” … he was sitting hunched over, thumb-pecking at his Blackberry … she with her legs crossed, foot wagging in irritation. I shifted in my chair and she took it as an opening to bond with me … rolled her eyes in the direction of her husband … and, as if apologizing, whispered “he’s such a jerk”.

Maybe he was being a jerk, I certainly didn’t know. He seemed like he was being a bit of an arse, but maybe there was some compromise that he was able to attend the assembly, but had to stave off global nuclear war and save the earth’s pilot whale population from his Blackberry all at the same time. Besides, there were other kids whose parents didn’t or couldn’t show up at all. I wouldn’t know what kind of dude or dad he was, but his wife knew … and she told me so.

And what shocked me most was that she would say that to me, a complete stranger, about her husband … about the father of her children.

And, from all of it, I have learned that someday when I find someone that I choose and who chooses me to grab hands and make a life together with, I would do everything I could to make sure there was is never a single moment he or anyone else … friend, family or stranger … doubt he is my teammate and has my loyalty in all things. Whether we are in each other’s presence or apart, he will know he is the person I want to be joined to in love, life, responsibility and friendship ... even when he’s being a jerk … and most certainly also when I’m being one too.

~~~