Tributes, Memories & Milestones

Flowery Tributes

We honoured the 11th hour of this 11th day in this 11th month, as we have like clockwork, these past four years, by singing our national anthem, humming God Save the Queen and paying tearful, televised tribute to our war heroes, alive and dead for the annual and auspicious occasion of the 90th anniversary of Armistice this Remembrance Day 2008.

I don't like having to explain to the children this year what a poppy is and why they should wear it. It's one of the many small sacrifices of identity we make as ex-pats, I suspect. The kids easily spell favorite and think nothing of it. They say zee instead of zed but at least have the good grace to look at my guiltily when they do it. They're forgetting so much about Canada so soon and this makes me want to cry.

Holy Daughter pinned her poppy on her Brownie vest yesterday and she and her troop trekked off to the local Veteran's Hospital to sing songs, present cards and in her case, hand out poppies to the Veterans. It was amazing that some of the veterans recognized the significance of the poppy and were touched. It's not something Americans honour although of course, at Armistice and Remembrance Day celebrations elsewhere around the world, it's universally recognized as the symbol of peace reborn in the killing fields.

I used to have 'In Flanders Fields' committed to memory. Time and complacency have since dusted it from my childhood closets.

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.

— Lt.-Col. John McCrae

Holy Daughter said she felt this warm glow feeling in her stomach at having visited the Veteran's and personally thanked them for their service to this country. She watched the CBC ceremony on television this morning and wondered aloud at why there was so much French being spoken. And I'll admit - it seemed a bit much today - or so it seemed to this Westerner who has never found the bilingual cloak to be all that comfortable and fitting. But it was great to be able to see Canada's last WWI vet pass the torch via the big screen from the comforts of his living room to the vets and active soldiers alike of the wars that followed, up to and including Afghanistan.

Holy Son is off at an all-day Scout training day this Veteran's Day - he's not wearing his uniform but he does have his poppy pinned upon his scout t-shirt, for what it's worth. I asked him to break for a minute of silence at 11am. He said, "But Mom!" And I just did the raised-eyebrow thing and affected my no-blink, no-compromise stare.

Such is the plight of young foreigners on American soil ~ that they should have to be subjected to their parents weird homeland rituals that bear little meaning and relevance to their own Americanized lives.

Memories
I am only a fraction of the way into my Nanowrimo Rebel project - I got a little derailed by Holy Daughter's art project, soccer, Irish dance performance and Nutcracker rehearsals this past weekend, but I hope to get back in the loop this week.

My book is sectioned off into three parts - I, Don't and Know - the 'I' section is my 14 predominant roles or archetypes in life, the 'Know' part shall be my so-called wisdom text of 14 epiphanies and the 'Don't' section is my negative precept tales ~ it's the one I've been most sluggish about.

Case in point: today I'm going to tackle Pee...as in Don't Pee....which shall be my prosaic witness to a most embarrassing and debilitating time in my teenagehood ~ having LBS (leaky bladder syndrome). Whenever I see a teen girl wear a hoodie wrapped around her waist, I pause to wonder if she too suffers the same ailment I once did. Of course, now there's Depend. :) Not that incontinent teens, with their low-rise jeans and g-string underwear would be prone to wanting to sport a granny diaper. But I was desperate enough back then that I might have considered something, had I known there was an option. It would be a long time before I finally went in for bladder surgery. Proactive medical concern was not a family strong suit. We were nothing if not nuclear reactive.

Milestones
Holy Hub flew home to Deadmonchuk over the weekend and drove his Pa's old pick-up truck back. It was loaded to the rafters with trash and treasure alike and a supply of poppies that will see us through the next few years.

Some of the treasures included a custom-framed Norman Rockwell needlework image Grandma Schmidt had made for Holy Son, Grossmutti's old grandfather clock, ceramic and metalwork candlesticks Holy Hub had made in his distant youth, retro train sets, and a great old Swiss trunk from the 1930s. We have nowhere to put some of this stuff so there it sits in our dining room and entryway, biding its time 'til it might find a more permanent home. Somewhere sometime.

Speaking of some who, what, where, when, why's, I'm preparing to launch my new year vision. Consider this my pre-launch party. My 2009 life vision theme is New Gold Dream: The Siren & the Ecstacy.

It seemed appropriate to pick a Simple Minds tune, first and foremost, because it will take a beginner mind vision of innocence and risk to pull this off. And also because the song and arguably the album, New Gold Dream, speaks to an era - 81,82,83,84 when I experienced one of the most profound archetypal deaths and rebirths. On this, the 25th anniversary of the end of that era, I think it's time to die again, in order that I might be give birth to a new gilded me.

Back in October of 2006, I blogged about this very song in reference to both my once upon a time and someday dreams. Here's the once upon a distant future day dreams I constructed that day:

1. Someday strutting in a parade with the Red Hot Mamas ~ as an update, I did get to strut in the St. Paddy's Day parade with a bunch of Red Hot Mamas but yes, my parade dream is still largely alive, well and raring to strut her stuff
2. Writing and self-publishing a children's book - here ye, here ye. I actually wrote a children's book last Thursday -voila! just like that - and am officially going on record here to announce that I am going to be shopping my manuscript to worthy publishers - the golden-tinge to this dream is that I hope to one day earn a Newbery and/or Caldecott honour for said achievements. Or die trying, anyways.
3. Embarking on a six-month sabbatical as a family to a far-flung place in order to assist with an international aid project ~ this dream is fast approaching a need for speed, on account of Holy Daughter being in 3rd and Holy Son being in 7th grade. Time ticks, carpe diem and all that jazz.
4. Finally learning to draw and paint ~ I've been flirting more and more with both of these but my inner chicken is Foghorn Leghorn in size and formidabishnish.
5. Visiting as many key mystical and ancient civilization sites as time, money and energy will permit in this lifetime - I've been to a few but not nearly as many as I would like. Machu Picchu still beckons.
6. Becoming a dragon boat racer ~ this one always ends up on next year's resolution list. Sad but true.
7. Learning to breathe and meditate ~ a did a teeny, tiny bit of meditation this year but I still haven't jumped in with both feet, save vicariously, when I sent Holy Daughter away to a Vipassana retreat this past summer.
8. Climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro with Holy Hub one day ~ this would be very cool. Holy Son and Hub made a pact the other night that they were going to crack open a 38 year old bottle of Canadian Club whiskey on a Mt. Rainier outing on or near 2014. I should maybe see if we change this up to be a family pass-the-cup affair in the wilds of Africa. Not that packing a flash of whiskey all the way to Africa would be easy but who said life was easy?!
9. Owning a vacation cottage or cabin in the mountains ~ still haven't made good on this, my most ardent dream. Shame on me. 'Nuff said.
10. Writing my memoir ~ this is finally in the works!

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It's funny as in remarkable that this top 10 list still vibes with me. Dragon boat racing could easily substitute for some other physical challenge or pursuit - a marathon or long pilgrimage hike could easily suffice, too. But apart from that - this remains my bucket list.

I'm pleased to verify that I've begun to act on some of these dreams, while keeping others in the forefront of my consciousness during these tricky, recessionary times.

Let it be known for the record though: 2009 is the year I guide, stride and high-tide them.

So on that note, I'll re-quote here the sage words I noted for posterity in my October '06 blog post.

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the blowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in the your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."
Mark Twain

Got Work.

Yahoo, I got a job today! Which is just terrific because blogging, quite frankly, sucks.

I’ve lost two posts this past week because seconds before I would go to upload, I’d lose the whole bloody thing. Bloody as in lovely words killed by the random exception of fatal errors. I’ve never understood that fatal exception thing. The fatal part, yes, because it killed my beloved words. But the exceptional error part seems so oxymoronic. It pisses me off. Anyways, I’m stupid that way. Blogging without saving or typing it first in Word. There are worse things I suppose...I just can’t think of any in the moment.

So yeah, I got a job. I’ll be lending my meeting and event skills to helping design global sustainability forums this spring for a non-profit organization renowned for its work in international microfinance.

All Work, No Pay

The pay is incredible, mostly I guess, because there actually isn’t any whatsoever attached to the job. Yes, it’s a volunteer gig, that much is true, but I’m following the law of karma. Meaning what goes around, comes around. And so, believing strongly as I do in the notions of paying it forward and that money has soul, I’m going to do this hoping something wonderful my way will come. Something wonderful called gainful employment.

So even though I will be out of pocket with gas money, according to the AAA’s recent study that suggests a 20 mile trip now costs somewhere around $10.00, I am choosing to look at it as though I will be microlending my services in trust to the global village of poverty such that we we will all get fed in the long run.

I will also be taking on a part-time volunteer position doing adult education seminars for another local non-profit agency. I’m hoping to lead their immigration prep. classes if only because (a) there would be great irony in doing so and I’m nothing if not ironic; and (b) it would be terrific advance study should we end up going down the same path in the years to come. I doubt they’ll allow a resident alien to lead such classes but what they don’t know won’t hurt them. And except for the small matter that I talk funny, my alien-ness is really not all that apparent.

I’mMigration
On that note, hubby has recently begun hiding away his Canadian-ness under the need-to-know basis file category in all his conversational engagements. He has discovered, (rightly so I think), that planting his Canadian roots into a conversation is a bit like throwing weed killer on a dandelion.

Well-meaning locals try desperately to establish some grounds for connection when you mention you’re from Canada. As in, “oh, I’ve been to Vancouver, nice city.” This next awakens the need to recall some other Canadianism gleaned from the world, invariably leading to, “so, I bet it's cold where you're from.” And then the conversation will trail off and so will they, to the couple a few feet over who, lo and behold, attended the same high school and who share exact same worldview and history. It's all very understandable, I enter into the same kind of inane conversation with Koreans I meet; but according to hubby, it's also strategically avoidable for Canadians.

Assimilation is a mandatory requirement in American immigration, or so Bush-speak would have it, regardless of the fact that loosely translated, assimilation actually means to "make an ass of oneself while trying to emulate others of a different culture."

This is why hubby is also getting anxious for us to shed our Canadian plates. I'm less in a hurry to do so, perhaps because I have a tendency to cut people off in traffic ~ I’m doing my part to fit in is all. But I see his point and raise it ten.

Were it not for the fact that I keep failing the sample test, I wouldn’t be so reluctant. You see, I may have a bachelor’s degree but the only correlation between said higher learning and said drivers test is that my GPA corresponds loosely to the number of questions I can expect to answer correctly. To be fair, I did manage to correctly answer one question regarding the number of days one is permitted to maintain one’s out-of-state license. 30 days.

Not to be confused with the 517 days I have managed to hang onto mine since moving here. Although translate that to metric and you would see: I’ve really not been all that tardy.

Yup that will be my traffic cop argument, if and when. As futile a tactic as the illogic I once heard during my stint as a traffic court reporter: but occifer, I was just going the speed of the guy in front of me.

Distances, schmistances though. And signs, schmigns. I mean don’t ask me, what do I know? I just drive.

Games Without Frontiers
Yeah, it’s all fun and games. Driving tests, insurance, college, scholarships, career, house hunting.

Which is why I love the game of Life. Always have. Ever since the first time I played it at a sleepover at Arden Lupul’s house when I was 8. I remember she had the most amazing home – architecturally-quirky with nooks, crannies, lofts and hordes of board games like the game of Life, which I had never even heard of, which meant it had to be cool.

I remember feeling so empowered by the concept of the game. That you could spin the wheel and be anything you wanted to be and have this great fairy tale life.

My kids have taken to the game with the same enthusiasm.

Hubby, unfortunately, has not. He will do almost anything to avoid playing Life, including doing chores far down his procrastination list. Rather than nag him about these, I have discovered that all I need do is agree to the kid's pleas for a family game night around the coffee table, with the Life board spread eagle and the cars lined in eager anticipation. This alone spurs him into chore mania.

I’ll admit, I take way more risks in the board game version than I do in real life. I like to mix things up now. While I’m still inclined to take the college path before career (in that mama duck way of having my little ducks follow suit), I’m more eclectic in my spousal choices. I usually end up marrying a girl and having two girl babies. There’s something so Thelma and Louisey and Pinky Tuscadaro about this kind of girlie power, pro-choice stance; having all that pink exposed in my rag-top, plastic car, as we all race madcap through life.

And the kids giggle about this because they think it’s fun, too. Until one of us gets a flat tire, lands the best career and salary card, or I lose to the kids ~ whichever comes first.

High, Low, Jolly Go Pepper
So that’s why I’m not going to sweat the freebie work too much.

Instead, I’m going to draw my own arbitrary salary card out of the hat for doing the good work of volunteerism. Hmmm, what should my compensation look like?

A salary of $101,000 seems a fitting sum for the first meeting planning job. After all, having a stake in eradicating global poverty, promoting micro-entrepreneurship and building global sustainability is nothing if not six-figure work.

As to the second volunteer gig of life-skills teaching, I figure that since it’s more part-time and local in scope, I’ll apply an hourly fee of $50.00 to this stint instead. The agency serves as a conduit between the privileged and less privileged in the community by providing the necessary resources and tools for the poor, disabled and newly-immigrant to get a leg up.

It’s hard to fathom that such a dichotomy between rich and poor exists here, and yet it does. I am so firmly squished in the middle class that I have to confess to rarely having been intimately exposed to either extreme before.

Admittedly, the lines are quickly being redrawn as I blog, with new stats suggesting that a six-figure household income is the bare minimum required for new home ownership locally. Good thing then that I have landed two good paying jobs in the same day.

This middle class business is a little like living on the edge though.

There were moments in my childhood that were supreme touch and go. Like when our house burned down and we lived for a time in an abandoned shack with no indoor plumbing. Or the not-so-good-ole days, post-receivership (my mother's diplomatic way of avoiding the word bankruptcy), when my parents faced two failed business ventures and soaring interest rates back in the early 80s.

Or the lean, mean time in my mid-to-late teens, when I sponged off the goodwill of my brother, and my meal plan consisted of popcorn on Wednesday nights and canned corn with butter on Thursday nights (note to self: really must go back to that corn diet ~ I was skinny then).

Again in Pakistan, years later, we were exposed to the outer limits of both poverty and wealth, living as we did in a leased house on scenic Margalla Road, in an affluent Islamabad neighborhood blocks from the Prime Minister’s home, mere steps from Embassy leaders, and downwind from the Pakistan’s own version of royalty, the Mir of Hunza.

Yet in the streets, shoeless, even footless beggars reminded us daily of the true plight of the many, as did the makeshift squalor of the Christian village our cook deigned to call home.

And here we live again, sandwiched in a tired if quaint neighborhood with ample greenery; flanked between pockets of poverty to the south and pockets of extreme wealth to the hilltop east, lakeside west, and uptown north.

Our shopping sensibilities even reflect this. We shop not at Wal-Mart (too sleazy locally), nor at Nordstrom (too expensive), but at Target (just right). Such is not the case, however, for an unnamed gal I know.

Despite barely making ends meet as she relies on child support from her ex and free housing from her mother, this gal opts for the extravagance of a $200.00 white Coach designer handbag. I emphasize white because to my way of thinking, if you’re gonna splurge on a silly little purse while your kids wear flood pants, at least choose one with year-round appeal. Thus blogs the woman who carries a cheap, black plastic LeSportsac purse 1/10th the price of the Coach bag. Egads. Perhaps this might explain my inability to procure paid employment.

Tacky tastes aside, I think us middle class types are uniquely and ideally poised between both rich man and poor man. I liken it to the double dutch jump roper who dances precariously between the two disparate, skipping ropes – one proletariat and one bourgeoisie. Jump into the literal fray of the jump roper sometime and you’ll see it’s a similar viewpoint; that betwixt and between place at the centre of two overlapping circles.

And so it is with this same spirit of blind faith that I shall look forward to these volunteer ventures.

I will be hop, skip and jumping along to work to the beat of high, low, jolly go pepper and to the tune of hi, ho, hi ho, it’s off to work I go. And of course, I’ll be sporting my chic alor, new lunch pail, the one I bought at my friendly, neighborhood Targete.

I’m sure I’ll fit right in at the office. That's right. Ass.im.ilate. Said in my best Mr. Rogers 'I like the way you say that' voice.

Somewhere between the billionaire philanthropist who founded the organization and the illegal immigrant cleaning crew who comes in to vacuum after hours.