Yeah, that's how today felt.
You know how occasionally you hear those news stories about people who have to call 911, because their cat has them trapped in the bathroom and they're afraid to come out?
Yeah, that's how today felt.
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Given that we celebrated a milestone anniversary, I thought I should take a few moments to reflect on marriage.
I remember when we first got engaged and everyone was congratulating us. I thought it was kind of weird - I mean really, what kind of accomplishment is it anyway? It's not like getting a degree or achieving something else where you had to work really hard and put in lots of effort. If anything, it should have been a time for sober reminders not giddy celebrations! As in, "do you kids know what you're getting into? Do you have any idea what happens after the confetti and cake?!" Not to sound like I haven't been happy we decided to say our vows. But like anything in life that is worthwhile, there is more hard work that you realize going into it. From the outside, everyone just sees a happy couple. Only the two people involved know how much effort it takes to stay a happy couple - the compromise, the difficult conversations...making the decision to be a couple again and again. Commitment is not a one-time process, it's constantly renewed. Of course it's not all labouring away in the salt mines! There have also been so many just plain ol' good times. From wonderful holiday memories to having our own little traditions, like watching Elf every Christmas. Marriage means many of your big moments are shared ones. Like buying our first house - looking back, I'm so glad that I was able to do that with Dennis. We have a history together that continues to build. One of my biggest fears about getting married was loss of privacy. When I was dating Dennis, I wouldn't even give him a key to my apartment. There was a part of me that was so starved for my own sense of space, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I didn't want to always be listening for the door to unlock, wondering if my alone time was going to be interrupted. Of course, once you're married you kind of have to give someone the key. I thought this would be the biggest adjustment. But what totally surprised me was how natural it felt to share the space. I realize ten years is a drop in the bucket compared to other couples. But I guess that's the other thing I've come to believe about marriage. You can't compare yours to anyone else's, you have to figure out what works for you. And figure it out again when things change - because things always change! Today Dennis and I celebrated a milestone - ten years of marriage! Hard to believe it's been that long. The years have truly just flown by.
Tracy had gotten me this cute "book" purse for my birthday. I thought our anniversary dinner would be the perfect occasion to use it. Dennis had made reservations at Ayden Kitchen and Bar. Ayden opened up downtown last year. The owner/chef is Dale McKay, who was the winner of the first season of Top Chef Canada. After working for years in Vancouver and London, it's pretty cool that he decided to return to his home town to start a business. Dinner was awesome - the service was incredible, and the food was so good. We started with Popcorn Prawns (loved the sauce) and Kennebic Fries (salty goodness). After that, Dennis devoured his steak and potatoes and I attacked my pasta (home-made tagliatelle with sausage). We ended up sitting next to another couple and the wife is an acquaintance of ours. In between courses we had a chance to chat a bit. It was a wonderful romantic dinner, so we decided to finish the evening with...a trip to the medi-clinic. Yep, I take that whole "for better or worse" thing quite seriously. My persistent cough hadn't lightened up at all and I was starting to feel not great as the night progressing. We stopped off at home for my health card, and then went to the nearest clinic. It was a busy Friday night - I think it was about an hour to get seen. The doctor noted that my lymph nodes were quite inflamed so she prescribed an antibiotic for me. Let's hope it kicks in soon! Apparently Tamoxifen can have a bit of a suppressing effect on the immune system, so it could be that it takes me longer to fight off colds and such. (But better a cold than cancer, I suppose!) One of the great things about Wayne visiting is we're actually exploring the city more than usual. We're taking Wayne to all the trendy little places in town and realizing how much we're missing. Case in point, yesterday we went to the Farmer's Market downtown, which we never do. But it was quite nice to peruse all the fruits and veggies. We also stopped in at Collective Coffee, as Wayne has a distinguished palate and likes the good stuff. They do the slow drip coffee, which to be honest I totally don't get. Have these people never heard of Keurig?! But Wayne swears by the flavour.
The area we were in is called Riversdale and it's been going through a rejuvenation of late. You can tell that it's going through some gentrification, as the place was knee-deep in hipsters. There are still some pawn shops on the street but they are slowly being replaced with trendy restaurants and frou-frou decorating stores. I felt a little Wal-Mart compared to the other shoppers. I either needed to be carrying a yoga mat or have a baby in one of those slings to blend with the crowd. My Old Navy dress and Target purse were not good camouflage! However, hipsters are not known for being aggressive so we were able to mingle together peacefully. The only down side to the day was when we were walking through the Farmer's Market and we stopped briefly to watch a cooking demonstration. Well, I thought it was a cooking demo. In reality the guy was giving a lecture about how people cause their own cancer by eating the wrong foods. I'm not prone to violence but there was a part of me that wanted to kick him in the shins. However, being a civilized member of society, I settled for the next best thing. I exclaimed loudly to Dennis, "What an ass!" and then walked away. No point trying to fight stupid. So yesterday I realized that my childhood is essentially "vintage" now. It was a hard pill to swallow but I've made peace with it. The truth is, we had some cool (and slightly deranged) things in the70s and 80s. No wonder people are discovering them now and enjoying them anew. For example, there are some pieces of jewelry I owned that are now turning up on sites like Etsy and eBay. If only I had kept these beauties in my jewel box! A few of my favourites: A tweet little brooch. I used to call this my Tweety bird brooch, even though technically it was just a bird not actually Tweety. (I'm sure it was trying to be Tweety-like without actually getting sued for royalties.) The bird was on a small spring and would wiggle every-so-slightly if the cage was tapped. That made it extra special, of course. One thing I will say about jewelry from my childhood. While it was made out of plastic, it wasn't cheap plastic. It was sturdy stuff. No wonder these things show up on Etsy in pristine condition. Is there anything more vintage than a bunny on roller skates?! This was another classic, also from Avon. There were two fantastic things about this: 1. The legs moved. (I'm not sure that would wow me now, but to a child it was awesome.) 2. The back opened and had a compact of solid perfume. A brooch and cosmetics in one! What would they think of next? I'm not sure the perfume was one that you'd want a child slathering all over the place but oh well. Hold me closer, tiny dancer! I'm seeing a theme here with the jewelry - all of these pieces moved. In this case, the ballerina's legs would go back and forth. I loved, loved, loved this necklace. I was fascinated with all things ballet, especially since my own experience with lessons was so sadly short-lived. This little necklace was so pretty and dainty - it always felt like a special day when I was wearing it. It reminded me of these cake decorations I had at one of my birthdays. (In fact, I seem to recall we re-used them year after year, because that's the way you did it in the 70s.) Making a cameo appearance. This final piece is the only one that didn't move but it was still very special. Like most of my jewelry, Tracy had a matching one too. This necklace was so pretty - small, delicate and a bit old-fashioned. You don't see cameo very often nowadays, which makes me think it's due for a comeback any time. The few times I have seen a piece, it's been a bit too modern for my taste. I love the look of the 1880's pompadour style in the profile, as opposed to something like this where the silhouette is more contemporary. Cameo blue would be my preference, although it is very pretty in that vintage pink shade as well. (Why did I ever let it go? What was I thinking?!) Those are just a few pieces from my childhood. I didn't have a lot of jewelry, which made it all the more special when my parents would give me something new. Of course, when I got older and I had my own spending money (plus pierced ears) I expanded my collection. I'm not sure that my taste was always impeccable though! Michael Jackson earrings? Oy! Thankfully I think my style has improved over time. My collection now is less plastic, more gemstone. (And most definitely does not include tributes to pop stars!) Today Dennis and I ran an assortment of errands, ending with a quick pop into Hidden Stitch to check it out. Hidden Stitch is a new shop that upcycles furniture - refinishing, re-upholstering, etc. to make new but vintage-y looking pieces. Dennis had been following them on Facebook and wanted to see if there might be anything fun for our house. We're still keeping our eyes peeled for some new end tables for the living room. One of the first things that I saw when we walked in was a large painting - three ships on a red velvet background. Holy crap! We used to have that exact same picture when I was growing up. My parents bought it "off some guy in a van" and were super excited because it went with their red velvet couch set. The trip down memory lane didn't end there. I saw many more mementos from my childhood. For example, they had some pieces from Blue Mountain Pottery. I defy you to find one childhood from the 70s that did not include Blue Mountain somewhere in the house. It can't be done! They also had a collection of these: Pennants! I had forgotten these exist but remember collecting them from various cities when I was a child. I couldn't even tell you which cities, but I remember the excitement of getting a new pennant for my room.
We had a good time perusing but didn't see anything for our living room. It wasn't until later that I realized, crap! I'm now at a point in my life when things from my childhood are considered vintage. There's a whole bunch of hipsters out there buying things to enjoy ironically. Things that I enjoyed unabashedly in my childhood. How did this happen?! Next thing you know, 1980s fashion will come back and everyone will be wearing neon jelly shoes and - dammit! My writing prompt of-the-day booklet had a great question for today: Do you belong in this day and age? Do you feel comfortable being a citizen of the 21st-century? If you do, explain why - and if you don't, when in human history would you rather be? Although living in another time might be interesting, I'm pretty immersed in modern conveniences. Specifically I can't imagine living without: Vehicles and easy transportation. I'm not sure that our reliance on cars is a good thing, in terms of environment. But I also can't imagine the hassle of trying to get from point A to point B when it involved horses or trains. I feel like you would spend half your life just trying to get someplace. Modern medicine. Especially surgery, which back in the day seemed pretty hit or miss in terms of survival. We also seem to be making continual progress in reducing the stigma associated with illness. Years ago, cancer was the c-word and people just didn't talk about it. Of course, mental health continues to be an area where we need to have more awareness but campaigns like Let's Talk are helping change the conversation. Freedom. Other times in history have not been so great for women. I'm able to work outside the home, drive myself where I please, have my own financial freedom, and pursue any studies I want. I could not go back to a time where I had limitations on personal development. However...I've envied some of the fashion from other eras. I know I wouldn't want to have to wear those clothes on a daily basis, but there were some incredible styles. Some of my favourite fashion times: Gone with the Wind. I loved this movie (and the book) not only for the love story but also for the incredible gowns. Oh, the petticoats and the hoops! Obviously designed for a time when women had to do little but pose graciously on couches and ring for servants. (If, of course, you were fortunate enough to be white and rich. Otherwise there probably wasn't a lot of couch-sitting and bell-ringing for you.) Of course, the downsides would be many. Corsets, for one. While they created a beautiful waistline, they also squished organs and sometimes drew blood. I'm all for suffering a bit for fashion, but not to the point where your liver becomes a different shape. Given the fact running water and washing machines weren't yet in existence, I'm also not sure how these clothes smelled. Especially during the hot months of the year. I guess everyone would be used to it but given our modern standards of hygiene, I don't think I could do it. Downton Abbey. Aside from the addictive plot lines, the best thing about Downton Abbey is the clothes. Specifically the clothes of the family, not the servants. (Again, this would only be a fun fashion time to live in if you were rich.) The beading, the fabrics, the multiple outfits per day - stunning but in reality probably a little exhausting. I do love the gloves, which of course have completely gone out of fashion now (except winter ones to stave off frostbite). This was also an era of the corset, so same problems would apply in terms of misshapen organs and such. But fewer layers (no petticoats really) and hoop-free meant that at least the clothing would be a little easier to move in. But let's be honest - this isn't meant to be athletic wear. The only sport it would be good for is catching an aristocratic husband. I Love Lucy. Fashion from the 1950s has it all - comfort and style. Many of the pieces from that time are still pretty wearable today. If I had to live in any other fashion time, this would be the one I would pick. No corsets, just lots of nice dresses. (While still allowing for slacks for casual wear.) Dresses are pretty much a staple of my wardrobe, so I think I would fit into this time quite well. The only thing I would have to get used to is not having the volume of clothing that I do - people seemed to have a few dresses that they would rotate through. I, on the other hand, have an embarrassing number of items in my wardrobe.
One of the things I loved about the 50s fashion was that it was stylish and feminine without being obvious. It could be that I'm turning into an old fuddy-duddy but honestly, people today wear some disturbing things. I sometimes wonder if I missed a memo - have we agreed that we no longer need to wear pants in public? That we're okay letting our asses hang out for the world to see?! Because I certainly am not okay with that. I don't think anyone wants to see my butt cheeks while they're going about their business, and I certainly don't need to see crack when I'm out getting groceries. Just because your underwear is pretty, that doesn't mean that it should be on display. Everything in life seems to circle around eventually. Given that right now people are wearing micro-shorts and tube tops, I think in the next 10 years we'll progress to pasties and a thong, and then it will go back to petticoats, hoop skirts and enormous puffed sleeves! The Daily Post had a great prompt for today:
Describe a typical day in your life — but do it in a form or in a medium you’ve rarely — if ever – used before. If you’re a photoblogger, write a poem. If you’re a poet, write an open letter. If you’re a travel blogger, write a rant. (These are all examples — choose whatever form you feel like trying out!) After some pondering, I decided to describe my morning routine of getting dressed for work via news story style. Behold! Local Woman Spends Inordinate Amount of Time Choosing Work Outfits in the Morning Efficiency experts are baffled by what they say is one of the worst cases of dressing disorder they've seen. They were recently on-site to observe a local Saskatoon woman go through her morning ritual. One expert said it could only be described as "truly horrifying" while another said it was "mind boggling that a person could do this almost every day, actually". Using spaghetti diagrams, the experts noted no less than 12 outfit changes within a 30 minute time frame. Convinced that this had to be a special circumstance, they returned the next day to observe again. After nearly 3 weeks of study, they found the average number of outfit changes was 9, ranging from as low as 6 to as high as 17. Even more puzzling was the fact that often there were only 4 outfits being tried on, meaning that the subject went back and forth with the same choices multiple times before finally landing on one. Despite numerous reviews of the data, as one researcher put it, "We honestly couldn't see what the f&*# was different from one outfit to another. It was like some kind of sick cat-and-mouse game with her closet." The experts say that having an extensive wardrobe was likely a contributing factor. At the very least it, "...gave her the opportunity to allow her extreme dysfunction to flourish." It's Friday the 13th today and that got me thinking about superstitions. I'm not a superstitious person by nature. Maybe it's because I grew up in a house that never really engaged in those beliefs. My parents were more likely to turn to faith than to trust in a lucky token or ritual. I've heard the little sayings (don't walk under a ladder, break a mirror and seven years bad luck) but we never really paid much notice of them. So it just wasn't part of my every day norm. Plus a lot of superstitions just seemed ludicrous. See a penny pick it up and all the day you'll have good luck? No thanks - picking a penny up off the dirty ground just seemed gross and in no way a harbinger of good fortune. If anything, it seemed like a good way to get some sort of horrible infectious disease. (While not superstitious as a child perhaps I was a bit anal retentive about germs.)
About the closest I come to superstitious behaviour is that I will often wear a family token of some kind if I have something major that day - a big presentation, or an anxiety-provoking meeting. The family token is always a piece of jewelry (surprise, surprise) - either an heirloom or a gift from a family member. I don't have too many family heirlooms (and heirloom is probably a bit grand of a word for them) but the ones I have are precious in sentiment if not so much in market value. One of my favourites is a locket that used to belong to my Aunt Julia. It has pictures of my great-grandparents in them. The locket was almost thrown out after Auntie Julia died, but my magpie personality rescued it and kept it. It's not in any way valuable except for two things: one, it reminds me of my Auntie J who was a wonderful figure in my childhood. I didn't see her too often (she lived in Kelowna) but my memories of her are rather vivid. She was a former RN who lived as independent woman long before Destiny's Child made it trendy. She was outgoing and kind. I only saw her a few times but remember her as being a fun Auntie. The other reason I treasure it is for the family pictures. It reminds me that I come from a good people - not rich, not famous - but just good people. If they can cope with moving to a new country and making a new life, surely I can get through whatever minor catastrophe or trial I'm going through at the time. That's as far as my superstition goes. I am a creature of habit (doggedly running the same route time and again) but that's just because I like routine. I don't think it brings me luck (good or other), I just like to do it the way I'm used to doing it. Besides, I've always felt lucky without ritual or charms. I know that I have a blessed life. And in some ways, cancer has made me feel even luckier. I was reading a book the other day called First You Cry by Betty Rollins. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in the 1970s and wrote a book about her experience (at a time when no one really talked about cancer or even used the word). The book has since been republished with an afterword. Many of her words resonated with me, particularly these ones: It's funny how lucky cancer makes you feel. Not at first, but later. There's no question that I feel far luckier having had cancer than most others I know who haven't had it. That's because death is more real to me and so I appreciate not dying. I think my parents gave me a gift in not being superstitious. Spending your life trying to avoid bad things is futile. And besides that, the bad things aren't always that bad - especially if they help us realize how much good luck we have all around us. I'm having some struggles settling back into work. Don't get me wrong - I'm very, very grateful that I have a job. Not only does Mama like to buy herself pretty things, but the family has gotten pretty used to three meals a day. I know how lucky I am that I have a good job - it pays enough for the needs and plenty of the wants, it's not physically dangerous, it's constantly challenging me and helping me grow, and I get to work with some truly amazing colleagues. In a career that has been filled with blessings and opportunities, my current organization stands out as one that has transformed me as a person and a professional. I've learned things that are super cool (in a nerdy way) and been able to learn from some of the best in the world (the nerdy superheroes of quality improvement). But despite all this, I'm finding it hard to find joy in my work right now. I'm not entirely sure what's going on with me. Maybe it's because I feel different, but the world hasn't changed. I have a new view but the scenery is still the same. After having been through such a profound life experience, how do I return to the mundane details of daily life? On the one hand you come through cancer thinking you should stop and smell all the roses. On the other hand, that dog poop in the backyard isn't going to pick itself up. It's a weird headspace to be in. As a member of the leadership team at work, I see part of my role as helping staff problem solve. To guide them through the critical thinking process, coach them to develop good judgement and help them learn how to get unstuck and move forward. But I have a new benchmark for what I consider a problem in life. Things that used to seem like big deals (oh how I sweated when we made our first offer on a house) aren't so big anymore. When you've faced life or death questions (do I have cancer? #!$%! just how bad is the cancer?) it's pretty hard for anything to match that level of gravitas. So by default some of the problems that send the workplace into a tizzy seem pretty petty to me. Of course, they aren't. Your biggest problem is still your biggest problem. We compare the size of our problems only to our own reality, not to some yardstick outside of ourselves. Even though I know this intellectually, it's still hard for me to muster empathy for some of the issues that cross my desk. There's a part of me that wants to respond to some of the complaints with a snarky, "Well, at least you don't have cancer." When I hear grumblings about the ambiguity in our current state and people wanting more clarity on what the next year will look like, I struggle to entertain these concerns. You want to talk ambiguity? I still don't know if I'll need chemotherapy. I will spend the rest of my life - be it another 40 years or another 5 - wondering when and where cancer will make it's inevitable return. Because as Dr. M said to me, "we never say cure in cancer". Because it's a disease that's managed, not cured. The surgery, the treatments, the drugs - they're all about trying to lengthen the window of time from when cancer first appears to when it appears again. And if you're lucky - if it was caught in time, and the treatment was effective - you will die of something else before cancer comes back for you. Unless you're one of the random people who aren't so lucky, which can be anyone at any time really. How's that for ambiguity? But yes, tell me again how not having a work plan sorted out for next year is really ruining your quality of life. I want to be a good leader. I want to care about people's problems. But perhaps right now I'm still too consumed with my own problems to be there for other people. Maybe that's horrible, or maybe it's okay. It's forcing me to dig deep for compassion and patience. It's easy to have both when it's smooth sailing but perhaps more important to be able to offer these qualities when you have them in short supply. I'm not sure. This is the circus I'm trying to sort through in my head these days. |
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