What's Going On

When You and I Were Young, Nelly

Do you remember extracting prizes from cereal boxes? Dear Reader, I'm not sure how old you are, but when I was young, it was a challenging task.

Sadistic parents would force children to wait until all the cereal was gone before the prize could be claimed, because it would always sink to the very bottom of the box where it sit there for weeks, waiting patient and taunting for the little tykes.

My parents were more permissive and my usual technique would be to completely extract the inner wax paper bag so I could locate the toy and then dig around in the cereal until I could get it. If you've ever done this, you will know it results in a fat round bag of cereal that does not fit well back into its narrow rectangular outer box. What my mother did about this I don't remember.

Just recently I bought my child a box of chocolate Lucky Charms. I don't know how this happened. I really don't. One minute I was in Whole Foods buying wholesome organic Koala Crisps packaged in a box of unbleached, recycled paperboard, nobly generating a automatic donation to an Australian koala habitat simply by making the purchase, and the next minute I was in Target paying for Lucky Charms.

Could it be that I was a victim of a well-targetted marketing campaign? Could it have been the winsome visage of Johnny Depp plastered all over the box in his most becomingly sly androgenous pirate guise? Marshmallow blobs of death for the kids, gazing upon handsome Jack for the custodial adults? And what is with that? He's a dangerous rascal and he can give you the coolest hair and make up tips. What more could you want in a mate?

Well anyway, the deed is done and it's important to be able to find serenity and acceptance and move on.

Because I am not purposfully sadistic I always let my son get the prize right away. I helped him open up the box and what the hell? There was the toy. Right there. Lying on top of the inner bag, sealed into its own little plastic bag. What, you can't let the toy touch the cereal now? They couldn't put the plastic prize bag inside the inner bag? I mean, if the cereal can touch the inside of the inner bag, then why can't it touch the outside of the prize bag?

More important, are we are producing a generation of children who are so helpless, they are incapable of extracting their own prizes from boxes? I shudder to think of what is happening with Cracker Jacks.

Empiricists Among Us

I have encountered a number of behaviourists over the past few years due to a variety of circumstances.

They all have unusually positive outlooks, are encouragingly cheerful, and are all very optimistic by nature.

I made this point while meeting with with an expensive private behaviourist the other day. I was telling her about the school district behaviourist. "He's very optimistic about this new program," I told her, "But then of course he would be. He's a behaviourist.  You're all very optimistic."

Her eyes shone, she sat straighter, and she said, with great positivity and cheerfulness, "Well we have the data! We have empirical evidence that people can change!"

The modern day mind mechanics. You gotta love them.

To My Sunglasses

I recently itemized the glories of my wraparound blue block sunglasses to a friend:

• Cool colour saturation
• Block out glare
• Cut sun coming in from sides
• Easily convert to headband so I never have to comb my hair again

Unlike the eighties when these sunglasses were more readily accessible, the wrap around blue block is now scarce.

My first pair I bought from a TV shopping channel -- the first and last time I ever did such a thing. I loved them dearly and took them everywhere with me.

I took them on a trip to Montreal one January, when I had wrangled a trip to a trade show my company was attending. It was a bit of a boondoggle, but every now and then I was thrown a bone. We stayed in the luxurious Queen Elizabeth Hotel and went out for expense account dinners at fancy restaurants every night. Enough of my coworkers were partiers, and Montreal brings out the partier in even the most repressed, so it was a great trip and lots of fun.

It was also extremely cold. I grew up in North Western Ontario and I know cold. But this was blasting wind off a large frozen river freezing cold. It rained at one point and then instantly froze, so the whole city was coated in a thick layer of ice. It was treacherous to walk and people were sliding and tumbling down all over the place. One morning walking to the trade show hall, I had my sunglasses in the top front pocket of my inadequate Vancouver Gortex coat. I clutched the binder I was holding to my chest for extra insulation and heard the sickening crack of my sunglasses, frozen to brittleness, breaking in two. Along with my heart.

Many years later I was camping on Pismo Beach with my husband and son. We were out exploring the town's shops and discovered a little sunglasses shack near the beach. The proprietor was an older, friendly woman. She had on sale wraparound blue blocks for next to nothing. I was so thrilled to replace my old friends. I know I should have bought several pairs right then and there, but I opted not to for some reason now lost to me. She gave me a "Schwarzenegger buck" with my change. Funny, she didn't look like a Republican.

In between the periods of wearing my wraparound blue blocks, which I only could wear when also wearing contact lenses, I resorted to clip ons, round circles on my John Lennon style wire frames that I thought looked groovy, me by now at an age where being currently cool was no longer really an option. There comes a time when you mostly give up on being cool, or just revert to the look that was cool when being cool was still possible for you.

Then the wonders of laser eye surgery, and now I'm happily back in my blue block world. The colours are more saturated so everything looks twice as exciting as it should and I can see without being blinded by the glare. In fact, on a sunny day, with my blue blocks on, I have perfect vision, something I have never experienced before. I am still periodically stunned when I can read street signs from half a block away instead of pretty much needing to drive up onto the sidewalks at intersections to figure out where I am.

I wonder if they sell them on eBay?

What I Want

I was driving home from Tiny Timbers camp where I dropped off my son this morning and was thinking of my wish list for him, and for me too, as I seem to be an ongoing work in progress myself. Which is: to be functional and happy and to not be an asshole.

Stupid and Proud of It

This came across my inbasket, from a Mothers Club member with a history of forwarding lame, sappy, right wing, and otherwise idiotic emails:

"I received this via another group and thought that I should pass along...

"Dear All,

"The senate bill 1437 was passed and sent to the governor. It requires that all new textbooks (k-12)
highlight homosexuals and eliminate all references to "mom" and "dad." Instead, they will be referred to as "sperm donors" and "sperm receivers.

"Bill SB 1437, was passed and sent to the governor. It requires all textbooks to be rewritten and reissued at a cost that our school system, not to mention taxpayers, can little afford. They will indoctrinate schoolchildren with a homosexual agenda. The bill requires that all new textbooks (k-12) highlight homosexuals and eliminate all references to "mom" and "dad." Instead, they will be referred to as "sperm donors" and "sperm receivers." This bill is ridiculous, it is expensive and it singles out a small special interest group. We do not need elementary school children exposed to this nonsense."

Here is my reply:

"Another urban myth hits our egroup, this time a particularly appalling piece of homophobic paranoia.

"From a Q&A document prepared by Senator Kuehl's office:

'Question: Does SB 1437 require that references to “husband and wife,” “mom and dad,” or “the family unit” be removed from California textbooks?

'Answer: No, SB 1437 does not disparage heterosexual people or families with heterosexual parents. By adding sexual orientation and gender identity to nondiscrimination policies regarding instructional materials, SB 1437 prevents negative portrayals of people of all sexual orientations and gender identities. The bill does not prevent discussion of the many contributions of heterosexual people and families to California history, it simply ensures that the curriculum also include a discussion of the contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people to the state.'

"To read the whole document go to: http://www.gsanetwork.org/qyad/SB1437Q&A.doc"

I don't know what makes me more crazy -- the homophobia or the exhibitionistic stupidity:

"Dear Mothers Club,

"I am an idiot and I simply must shout it from the mountain tops! Yes! I'm proud to be stupid!"

People have the right to be morons, but do they have to share?

Scotland Part 1 -- Awae wi ye

In many ways Scotland compared to England is like Canada compared to the US. Like Scotland, Canada has worse weather, fewer people, and is filled with places named Stornoway, Dunbar, Selkirk, Lanark, Perth, and Bannockburn. There are many Scots by birth or heritage in both countries. They are both lands of great beauty and empty spaces, forests, ruggedness, and water.

In the southwest, where my husband grew up, near to the Borderlands, the land is more English in appearance -- low rolling hills, green everywhere, dotted with sheep and grazing cattle, occasional trees, grids of stone fences overgrown with hawthorn, brambles, roses, sticky willie and honeysuckle. The sides of the smaller roads are lined with thick verges of grasses, foxgloves, thistles, buttercups, fireweed, wild meadow geraniums, Queen Anne's Lace, and nettles.

Nettles were in high season at the time of our visit, poking out everywhere the wild plants were allowed to grow. My son was convinced he was immune to them, and even touched a few to prove his invincibility. Inevitably the day came when he firmly grabbed the nettle that would have the better of him and reacted with predictable drama and horror. Simply stated, it went like this: "Agggggghhhhh, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, Aggggghhhhh!"

In most places nettles grow, they are partnered with dock weed, which provides an instant antidote, as my husband likes to point out each and every time the word or even the concept of nettle arises. My sister-in-law has a most vigilant grounds keeper at Kennox House, her home in Southwestern Scotland, where the nettle in question was growing. Robert his name is and Robert had pretty much managed to eliminate every dock plant within a five mile radius, even as he had inexplicably let the nettles live. I finally found a tiny scrap of dock leaf and applied it to my injured son. It took a few more applications of equally tiny leaves to fully cure him, but soon after, my son was feeling better and had also acquired a new found awareness of stinging plants.

This will come in handy the next time we are traipsing along a poison-oak lined trail in California and my son denies he will be affected. "Remember that time in Scotland..." we'll be able to tell him, and he might just listen.

A Natural Blond?

The definitive comment for me about whether or not The Passion of the Christ was anti Semitic or not, was made by a movie reviewer, whose name I can't remember, who said that all the bad Jews looked Semitic and all the good Jews looked Norwegian.

I think of this comment all the time now when I look at portrayals of Jesus. For the most part, I'd say he had a strong and surprising Norwegian genetic heritage.

Except for one picture I saw in the NY Times of a Christian Lebanese household, where Jesus appeared to be decidedly Mediterranean -- heavy lidded brown eyes, dark hair, long high-bridged nose, elongated oval face. He looked very sorrowful.