simplemente estupido

the war on litter: notes from the front line

~ carin ~ 9 Comments

 

Actually, not so much notes as questions.

For instance…

All those festively coloured bags of doggie doo-doo you see on boulevards, sidewalks, parks, woodlands. Are dog walkers notoriously butter-fingered, i.e. are all those bags unknowingly dropped? Or have they been set down with the idea of being retrieved on the return trip (after all, who wants to carry crud AND a Timmy’s while strolling) and then forgotten when a different route home is decided upon? Or just forgotten. And those baggies all chubby with doo doo tied to fences or hanging from trees. What is that??  The result of someone coming along, finding a dropped bag and thinking: hmmm… let’s see what could be the best possible move here… oh, I know!  Or do the dog walkers themselves use the baggies as a sort of code among themselves? (If so, please let me in on it, because I’m an occasional dog walker myself.)

Also… people who enjoy a walk (with or without furry friends), who choose to ramble in the pristine beauty of a forest, conservation area or field of buttercups, the beach or any shoreline… and yet somehow find it normal to drop their drinking cups, cans, bottles and chip bags like breadcrumbs as they go. Why are you walking in pristine beauty when you obviously don’t like pristine beauty? Wouldn’t it make more sense for you to stretch your legs at the dump? Wouldn’t you feel more at home there??  Serious question.

And speaking of cups, cans and bottles. (And bags of doo doo for that matter.) Please don’t chuck them under trees. It just makes it harder for me to ferret them out. (FYI — they don’t magically become invisible under there)

Oh, and to the black Honda with tinted windows in front of me as I left the Bulk Barn the other day, whose passenger threw a plastic cup out the window while I watched, stunned:  I’m sorry I didn’t gather my moxie in time to put my car in Park, get out, knock on your tint and ask you in my best inquiring-minds-want-to-know voice, what the [redacted] is wrong with you. Again, serious question:  How messed up is your life that you have so little regard for the planet and what can we do to help you?

And here’s something I learned recently… cigarette butts take forever to decompose. In the meantime they clog and poison land and waterways and are often found inside fish. Yum!  But even if they didn’t do all that harm, chucking your smokes is very Honey Boo Boo.  Seriously, people who empty ashtrays on parking lots or throw butts out car windows or onto the street… please go live on another planet. Because, wouldn’t you like that, to be among all your like-minded friends, each of you knee deep in schmutz??**

Serious question.

** Of course more garbage cans and public ashtrays wouldn’t go amiss either.

Write letters, people! Ask for what’s needed.

♦

Read the story that goes with this pic, here.

From The Litter I See Project.

wordless wednesday (summer postcards)

~ carin ~ 14 Comments

Greetings from somewhere west of Toronto, way west (but not as far as Calgary) (or even Windsor). No idea what’s inside this museum as we didn’t stop, or it wasn’t open, who can remember. What is recalled is the infamous garden at the swanky inn where we stayed (a gift to us from kind souls else we’d never have gone the way of such swankiness). I’d looked forward to staying there mostly because they are known for their enormous vegetable gardens and famously claim almost everything on their menu is seasonal and made with their own produce… but what we saw on the menu didn’t jibe with their marketing schpiel (butternut squash and cauliflower in July for instance). In fact almost everything on the menu was out of season  and when we asked the waiter what was up he got a little jumpy and said he’d check with the kitchen but in fact he never came back to our table. Someone else brought the bill. Later, walking in the infamous gardens of menu mythology, we asked a couple of gardeners where the celery was, and the frisee (two of very few things on the menu that were in season) and were told they didn’t grow celery or frisee and so we mentioned the marketing that spoke of how all this magnificent produce was used in the kitchen. Ha!  they snorted. The garden, it seems is pretty much for show… while rows and rows of produce go unpicked, none of it on the menu. Not a single string bean, not an onion. Even in the face of oodles of evidence, we didn’t want to believe it… a vegetable garden of this size, being used only as a marketing tool??? Nah. Can’t be true. But in the morning, as we set out for a walk, we watched a delivery arrive from a huge commercial vegetable supplier whose name was painted very clearly on the side of the truck.

I wrote a letter to the inn, asking them about this.

Didn’t hear back.

(Summer, 2015)

♦

Other (not always) wordless friends:

Cheryl Andrews
Allison Howard
Barbara Lambert
Allyson Latta
Elizabeth Yeoman

 

essentially not essential

~ carin ~ Leave a comment

 

I’ve only seen two Dylan concerts. One, in the the 70’s, which I barely remember, which I guess proves I was there. The other, in the 90’s, at some smallish venue, which could have been amazing if he hadn’t performed almost grudgingly.

I don’t like to conflate art and artist so I just let it go. Who cares that he comes across as a self important prig? I enjoyed making pasta with his tunes playing a little too loud in the background.

But something about the Nobel snub is a line for me. And believe me it’s not the Nobel crowd I’m defending here. It’s just enough already. What, exactly, is so hard about simply saying thank you and being grateful in some tiny way to the millions of mere mortals who allowed a guy named Robert Zimmerman to make his art and his living as he chose to.

It’s our fault. We’ve let him believe he’s god. And now this.

Even if he shows up for the Nobel ceremony (but why would he do that… surely he’s not accepting the money??)  it’s too little too late. He’s imprinted in my mind now wearing a sequinned tiara and prima donna sash. A wonky harmonica dangling from somewhere.

And the music suffers with the image.

So, thanks for the memories, Robbie. Some nice times. Really nice. Some excellent pasta. But I’m moving on. Suddenly the music just feels like a lot of self-importance and only reminds me how we already have enough arrogance out there blowin’ in the wind…

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so the other day i had canada’s justice system explained to me

~ carin ~ 7 Comments

 

Still slightly gobsmacked after a conversation about our justice system with someone who knows how these things work, who is part of the system at a very high level (let’s call them Hank), during which conversation I was informed that the system is, in fact, designed to protect the accused… the onus being on the accuser to prove that a certain ‘thing’ occurred as alleged.

Okay…

I was also informed by Hank that, depending on which court the case is tried in (in this province that would be either the Superior Court of Justice or the Ontario Court of Justice), it’s up to the accused  as to whether or not they would *like* a jury. It’s also up to the accused as to whether or not they would *like* to take the stand. Or, I’m assuming, whether or not they’d like extra frothy froth on their latte.

The accuser (aka the alleged victim) has no such choice. Hmmm. So while they are repeatedly interrogated and grilled, dirty laundry hung out for all to see, the accused (aka the person who allegedly choked and punched them) is not asked a single question…. Have I got this right?

Hank nods. Yes indeedy, he says, repeating that it’s in order to protect the accused.  He goes on to say what a grand system it is too and if I’m ever accused of anything I’ll be darned pleased about it.

I’m sure I would be, I say, but something just doesn’t sit right. For example, it seems a tad unfair to the accuser (so often women it’s worth noting). Especially if the grilling gets into whacking territory.

Hank doesn’t comment on whacking. He winces instead. Then he explains (rather haughtily I think) that if we didn’t assume innocence for the accused until proven guilty, we’d be like Russia.

Or France, I add.

More wincing. (I’m pretty sure Hank is partial to French wine, croissants and the light in Provence.)

Or France, I say again…

Yes, yes. Or France. He admits that France (along with a number of other countries) subscribe to what is known as an Inquisitorial System, unlike Canada, which takes its model from the British Adversarial System, a system that allows the alleged aggressor to have frothy froth if they choose while the alleged choking victim who did some childish and stupid things in her past can just please sit there and explain why she can’t remember every detail of every day for the past fifteen years.

It’s called lying!  Hank says. He believes accusers whose can remember the choking but not the bikini are nothing but liars!!  He seems to enjoy the word,  insinuating the lying happens a lot. After all, he says, what’s to stop a woman saying whatever she wants?

Yeah, women get all the breaks, I say.

He doesn’t respond. And when I want to talk about the way trauma plays with memory Hank does not welcome this line of chat.

The worst thing he can think of happening, he tells me suddenly, is that an innocent person be found guilty. He says this with tremendous passion.

What about a guilty person who is found innocent? I ask. The question hangs in the air.

Finally, I mention the quite dandy idea of “a subset of judges with special training in the psychological dynamics of sexual assault” and while Hank agrees that it may not be an entirely bad thing he also says that it’s not entirely necessary. He also says Heather Mallick is crazy.

I disagree. Her piece last week is right on the money.

I ask Hank if it were his daughter that was in the accuser’s position, that is, a daughter who claims she was beaten and choked by a ‘date’, would he advise her to take the case to court?

He says he would not advise any such thing.

I regret not thinking at the time to ask him if it were his son who was in the accuser’s position, at the hands of, say a superior at work, a son who had been choked, threatened, punched. Would he advise his son to speak up or just put his tail between his legs and let it pass, keep going to work like a good boy. And if, after a dozen years when his son couldn’t keep it to himself any longer and spoke up for justice… but couldn’t remember every detail… couldn’t remember that, oh yeah, eleven years ago he accepted that invite to the boss’s backyard BBQ and even sent a thank you note…AFTER the (alleged) choking/punching incident… would you call your son a liar, Hank?

Would you??

And if you’d advise your son differently than your daughter… would you mind telling me why?

I’m curious. Plus, it’s not a small point. But even if the advice you were to give both your son and your daughter was the same, i.e. to let the accused (aka possibly known abusive person) go free and possibly do it again, and again… and again…  then would you mind telling me again about justice?

Because I think I missed something.

And you, Hank, you know about these things.

Oh, and, if anyone’s asking, I’ll have a little extra froth.

No one’s asking? Fine. Never mind….

scales

 

earth to sanity, come in, sanity…

~ carin ~ 5 Comments

I read an article this weekend, a piece on something called ‘earthing’. You’ll be forgiven if you don’t know this means walking in your bare feet. Outside.

It talked about how earthing makes us feel connected to the earth and how we instinctively know this is A Good Thing. Researchers (yes, researchers in walking barefoot) have named this knowledge “Unconscious Evolutionary Intelligence”. Because (I’m guessing) researchers like naming things. And if this isn’t exciting enough, it seems that science is now discovering what is happening to us, biochemically, when we earth. Early findings confirm what instinct has long instincted: walking about in nature feels nice.

The article goes on to say more research is needed (naturally!), to more fully understand how earthing works… but what they DO KNOW at this early stage is that, generally, it’s a good thing. (They used bigger words but that’s the gist.)

They cite health benefits and say that being in nature is becoming the new Vitamin N. (N for nature).

Health benefits. From nature.  Imagine.

Also… it appears that walking in nature is more relaxing  than the same amount of walking on concrete in a crowded city. Significant results in improved mood, for example. Apparently even just looking  at nature has some effect (as through a window with a view of trees vs a brick wall; studies show the tree people felt less stress).

Is your mind blown yet?

Or are you thinking: yeah, sure, it sounds good, but how do I do it??

Fortunately, the article ends with an instructional, telling us that if you want to “get grounded with our planet’s surface” all you need to do is (are you ready for this?)… simply sit, walk or play outdoors.

Am I going too fast?

Okay, more slowly this time.

Earthing 101:

Sit.

Walk.

Or play.

Outdoors.

In your bare feet.

But, FYI, if you’d rather not do it in bare feet, you can buy Earthing Shoes with conductive powers. Or if you’d rather not do it outside at all, there are Universal Earthing Pads to put under floor mats. Or Earthing Sheets and Mattresses. Or Earthing Auto Seat Pads if you’d prefer to connect with the earth from the comfort of your Chevy.

♦

Otherwise, this weekend found me swimming in the rain to Brahms. I’m not sure what that’s called.

Also reading on the living room couch in a house with open windows while afore-mentioned rain continued most of the day and a door somewhere, slightly ajar, kept tap tapping against the frame, which made me remember the house I grew up in where windows were always open and doors often tapped like this. I associate the sound with fresh air. I have no idea if this activity has been named, or even discovered for that matter.

I planted pots of scented things on the patio… valerian and helitrope and meadow sweet and my favourite: apple geranium. All purchased from a grower who does not use neonic’d seeds.

Was I aromatizing?  Scentographing?  Maxi-fragrancing?

I cut chicory and arugula and kale for a salad lunch, and ate outside. We do have a name for this one; we call it “having lunch outside”.

And when the sun came out I hung laundry in the backyard (sheeting?).

Despite soggy conditions, I earthed while I did it.

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what we talk about when we talk about restaurants

~ carin ~ 2 Comments

 
Dear Restaurant with a Cute and Unusual Name:

I was thinking of writing you a letter to say what I thought of my experience at lunch but I got side-tracked into wondering what your cute and unusual name might mean…

Perhaps it means… “An attractive establishment with plenty of staff and at least one server who does not know what beans are in the Sweet Italian Soup with Beans but who will check because it’s No Problem and returns with a proud declaration of ‘white’ and when I say ‘navy?’ he says yes even though when the soup comes they are not navy, they are possibly lima…. although, like the server, I am not a connoisseur of all and sundry beans.”

Or could it by chance mean “tepid soup that arrives many many minutes after ordering, with only an asthmatic whisper of cheese (pecorino) and too little Sweet Italian Sausage.” 

Or a reference to this, “how when I ask the server if he’s found out about the pizza he forgets to find out and (many many minutes later) tells me he will do so now because until now the kitchen has been too busy but it’s No Problem and perhaps things have slowed down.” 

Maybe it means “a cook that cannot be asked about pizza while s/he is ladelling soup.”

It might  of course be meant to describe “how only after my not-even-close-to-being-warm, indeterminately bean’d soup is eaten, does my server deliver the glass of water I was offered when I  first sat down.”

Or does it mean this: “three water glasses mysteriously left on my table after the hostess cleared the excess cutlery and plates. Or a reference to the hostess herself , a young woman who, on my arrival, said I could sit anywhere I like, and when I said Oh how lovely, a window would be great! she led me to the end of the room and pointed to a tiny table tucked into a windowless corner and which almost touched the table of the only other people in the room and when I made a face she said You don’t like this table? and I said well another would be better and so I chose a table by a window where I would not be touching neighbouring diners and when I asked the hostess if she knew what the soup of the day was she said she did not and reminded me that she was a hostess.”

Then again, perhaps your cute name simply refers to “how when the bill comes, long long minutes (too many long minutes) after I ask for it, and a passing bartender asks if she can help and I say well I’d like to pay my bill and she says No Problem, she says she’ll take care of it and when ten minutes later I am now pacing in front of my table as I have a class starting in mere moments no one can find my server or the bartender and so I explain the situation to the hostess and when the server finally shows up he casually places the change from my twenty-dollar bill on the table and says sorry for the wait.”

On the other hand it wouldn’t surprise me if the name is meant to describe “the tone in which he says this, like he’s been ‘told’ I’m annoyed rather than any kind of sincere apology.”

Also, we shouldn’t discount the possibility that it refers to“the way that I, for the first time in a very very long time, possibly ever, scoop all of the change, bills and coins, into my pocket and leave the bill folder empty and wide open.”

Or “the look on the server’s face when I do it.”

If the restaurant’s cute and unusual name means any of the above, then it is a well suited name indeed. And things are going perfectly to plan.

Sincerely,

The single at the window seat who will bring a sandwich next time she has a class in your vicinity.

Alphabet_soupPhoto by: wikicommons

an open letter to tiffany & co.

~ carin ~ 1 Comment

 

Dear Tiffany & Co.

The full-page ad in my weekend newspaper, a sketched illustration, has me wondering about your sensibilities… Lovely are the ad’s colours, and the sentiments of giving exquisite gifts in small blue boxes, well, I’m sure it’s never an unpleasant box to receive. But heavens to betsy, your sense of proportion is perhaps a little off.

Here’s the scene as I see it: a woman is decked out in a body-hugging satin dress, a slip of a dress, that threatens to fall off at any moment, while she climbs a step-ladder in five-inch heels to add a bauble to the xmas tree. A fully-dressed man stands and watches, holding behind his back a little blue box, presumably for the satin-bedecked woman as a reward. For what? For decorating the tree? For being able to function in five-inch heels? For choosing a slinky dress that refuses to stay on?

It doesn’t much matter. And this isn’t the issue anyway. (I have every confidence there are as many Tiffany & Co. ads where it’s the guy in tight clothing, arranging baubles from a tippy-toe position atop a ladder while a chick stands there waiting to present him with a little sparkly something or other. Right??)

In any case, this isn’t the issue. It’s the size of these people. He is exceedingly tall, a handsome near-giant who could simply raise one arm and hang the stupid bauble himself from where he stands. She, on the other hand, is oddly small by comparison. Remove the heels and the ladder and you have an oh-so-delicate creature… in a slinky dress that’s about to fall off.

And so I wonder: why???

Not why can’t she buy her own jewellery, or why do we need to see the shape of her buttocks and thighs and bosom through that dress, or even how is she managing to balance on that ladder in those shoes… but why do the chaps in ads never get to star in the honoured role of small and delicate creature?

Some women are tall. Some men are not.

All the best to you, and happy holidays.
May each of your baubles be hung with joy.

love,
Matilda.
800px-A_betty_Boop_christmas_decoration800px-A_Betty_Boop_christmas_decoration_(2)
Thanks to WikiCommons for the snaps.

cue the theme from deliverance

~ carin ~ 18 Comments

 
So I’m driving home from lunch with a friend. Said friend lives way over yonder and I live here, and so we meet in the middle once or twice a year.

There’s a lot of countryside between here and way over yonder and it pleases me to drive through it.
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But I’m late and there’s a cement truck in front of me all the way up one (two lane) highway, and then construction on the other (two lane) highway, so I can’t stop for pictures, except the ones I take while stopped, to prove there’s actual construction and that I’m not just rudely late. Not that said friend needs proof; but taking pictures is something to do while stopped.
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Lunch is a patio, an endless strings of words, hugs and laughter. This person has been through much in the past few years, one of the strongest people I know. Yet she, in the way of such people, has no clue as to her own strength. It’s my pleasure to remind her. And to celebrate having come out the other side intact, more brilliantly herself than ever.

Driving back home, I’m in no rush and so decide to turn left here, and right there, venturing down the occasional country lane.
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As a woman, I’m always aware of the potential for trouble in venturing down lanes. I take in the air and the sights. But I remain alert. I’d like to pretend this isn’t the case, to throw out some bravado, but it wouldn’t be true. Not that the ‘awareness’ stops me from the venturing, it’s just that I don’t do it casually, the way, maybe, a fellow would.

I suspect that every woman has a few dicey-situation stories to tell. Keeping one’s wits about one helps ensure they have happy endings.

But back to all that green.
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And then, as I walk along the shoulder of a particularly untraveled road in order to get the optimal view of greenness, a car in the distance coming toward me.

Not especially noteworthy, except that I can tell it’s slowing down. A beater of car, as if the driver forwards and backs into walls as a matter of course.

I tell myself it’s a kind soul who wonders if maybe I’m in distress, but even I don’t believe me. I am very obviously not in distress. I am very obviously taking pictures. And the car is very obviously now stopping right in front of me. The window is lowered. Inside, a large man in a dirty tee-shirt. His stomach abuts the steering wheel as he looks me over before speaking, says so, what ya doin’, taking pictures?

He doesn’t care about pictures. I’m pretty sure he’s not big into the creative arts. My car is clearly visible, but it would take me a good minute to walk back to it. Long enough. There’s no traffic on this road.

I look him in the eye. That’s right, I say. See ya.

He continues to stare at me a moment and I stare back, give him the best f**k-you look I can muster. (It’s not hard.) And maybe it’s my age, or maybe it’s the look, or that it occurs to him that it’s only a matter of time before someone drives by (although no one ever did)… but he snarls a bit then steps on the gas and tears away in what feels distinctly like some kind of moronic snit.

I’d like to say that I was emboldened by all this, that my veins surged with a kind of f**k you, assholes who bother women, you can’t stop us from taking pictures on deserted country lanes, “superpower”. But the truth is I walked quickly back to my car.

I continued on my way, still stopping for pictures, albeit on less untraveled roads; I found a greenhouse and bought a fern. I was grateful for traffic. And I hated that this is the way it is for women. On empty country roads, on crowded city ones. There is an ever-present ‘lurking’ that goes on among a certain kind of men.

And it occurs to me how important the friendship of women, how its embrace is one of the few truly safe places. I’m equally grateful for friendships with good men, and it’s a sad thing that that particular bunch is so tarnished with the likes of so many others.

Mostly, though, I’m grateful for a good f**k you look, which I believe I inherited, quite by chance, from my mother.

The moral of the story? How’s this: ladies, teach your daughters it’s not always good to be polite.
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And enjoy all the scenery you’re entitled to enjoy…

a rant for friday, after dinner on thursday

~ carin ~ 7 Comments

 

The waiter brings the apps, sets mine down and says, “There you are, young lady.”

He sets down my husband’s. “And for you, sir.”

We are the same age, my husband and I.

And I am no young lady.

When the main course comes the waiter repeats his little service mantra and I point out the above—lightheartedly, but clearly wrapped in a message. It rattles the poor soul but he’s not the sort that moves easily beyond his ignorance and chooses to stand firm instead, explaining that many people like being called ‘young lady’.

“People?” I say. I point out that in our case, my husband is called ‘sir’ every time.

He looks to my husband who purposely says nothing. This is my discussion and that seems to rattle the waiter even more.

He says some people prefer ‘sir’.

Again with the people.

I should mention that the waiter is thirty something. In other words nowhere near old enough to be calling anyone young. Were he my parents’ vintage or older, or even my vintage, it would be another story and more acceptable, because it would be coming from a whole different place. Does this chap call twenty-five year olds ‘young lady or man’? I doubt it but if he does I’m guessing it might also come across as odd. In fact I can’t think of any age, beyond maybe eight, when I would have thought it normal. But more important than the age thing, is the gender thing. My husband is referred to with respect, as in ‘Sir’. While I’m expected to be content with the nonsense of ‘young lady’.

Women may be subjected, generally, to more dears and sweeties and hons, than men, and from both genders, and that’s another story, but this is about more than endearments or habits of speech. The ‘young lady’ thing, however, seems to come predominantly from males… and is directed at females who are not young. Perhaps these misguided men think of it as some kind of gift…

I try to explain this, to enlighten him with the news that women don’t actually enjoy being condescended to and that this ‘young lady’ thing is just plain silly, and then I present him with a challenge so that he might see the silliness more clearly. I suggest he turn things around, call all male customers, of any age, ‘young man’.

His face falls a little.

I smile. “Go on,” I tell him. “Give it a whirl. Maybe some people will prefer it…”

No answer to that and I’m suspecting he doesn’t give it a whirl.

I swear if I was his boss I’d insist he do it.

Later, when I pass on dessert and hand back the menu, he says, “Thanks, love.”

“You’re welcome, darling,” I reply.

If he gets where I’m coming from he doesn’t let on.

It’s only when he places the bill on the table and I immediately reach for it—and I know he sees this—that for the first time all night a light seems to come on for this boy as he realizes he’s made a terrible mistake…