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Meat Bonspiel

Curling was going to be my shot at Olympic glory.  Growing up as a kid in a small northern town, your talent on ice was always seen as your ticket out of there.  Since I was born a girl (and remain one to this day), my parents put me in figure skating.  Back in the day, girls didn’t play hockey.  They stalked hockey players.  Unfortunately, my Nordic roots did nothing for me and I was a dismal failure on ice.  My parents kept hoping that I would be a late bloomer but, after 4 years of lessons, a ton of money in skates and one disastrous fall where I took out the set of the local ice show, they resigned to the fact that their heavy set daughter was not going to get an Olympic medal in figure skating…or probably any other sport for that matter.  Instead, they rightly concluded that my ticket out was going to be via scholarships and education.  So they gave me books and I spent my days and nights studying, note-taking, and reading. 

One night, the babysitter failed to show up and so my parents were forced to take me along on their outing.  And where did we go?  To my town’s version of the Olympics.  Yes.   The Sixth Annual Bavarian Meat Bonspiel.  My dad, being the local banker, was involved in all the town’s activities.  We walked into the rink and it was magical.  One side was set up as a German meat buffet.  The other side was the rink.  Suddenly my mom’s outfit - a Bavarian short skirt, peasant top and ribbon head-dress - made sense underneath her parka.  All the curling wives were on duty as Bavarian serving wenches.  Their job was to add a classy, cultural element to the evening… and to bring meat and beer to the curlers and fans.  My mom, who had secret ambitions to be a B movie actress, loved the part - although her over the top Marlene Dietrich impersonation, along with too much meat innuendo, made the United Church Minster blush and made the other husbands stand in long lines for what she was dishing out. 

But that night was not about drinking beer and eating meat.  No.  It was about local victory, pride and the winning of more meat.  Did I forget to say that the winning team got a freezer full of meat?  Oh.  Well they did…so the stakes were high…in every meaning of the word. 

I had never seen curling before.  And, once I did, I was mesmerized.  While figure skating was a sport of athleticism, grace and co-ordination, I watched my dad’s team (and their opponents) engage in truly hard core competition.  And they played the match while smoking cigarettes, eating meat and drinking beer.  This was my kind of sport.  I instantly perked up.  These were true athletes.  Sure, Elvis Stojko and Patrick Chan can land jumps sober…but can they do it after eating five pounds of meat, drinking a flat of Molson’s and chain smoking a pack of Rothmans?  I don't think so. 

Watching the tournament, I could see myself doing this.  As a Virgo and a granddaughter of a maid, I was really good at sweeping and I could chuck snowballs with the precision of a seagull over a freshly washed car.  I was enthralled.  Even when all the teams were so obviously hammered that half the stones started going into the wrong lanes, the competition was exciting.  I clapped. I cheered.  And  I cried when my dad’s team won the freezer full of meat.  I believed that I, a nerdy, shy, unathletic gal, could finally become a world class athlete at something! 

On the ride home, I begged my parents to let me become a professional curler.  But they were firm.   “No. Your future lies in your education,” they responded.   And with that decision, my Olympic medal hopes evaporated.  To this day, I still have a soft spot for curling….and, of course, for meat and beer.  They are three of my favourite things…and I am world class at two of them. 

Cleaning Barriers

Most people have skeletons in their closets.  My closets are full of dirty laundry.  Not dirty laundry as in juicy family secrets.  No. literally, piles of dirty laundry. 

It happened again yesterday.  The phone rang and some friend-type person wanted to “drop by” for a visit.  That simple gesture created a frenzy of cleaning that resulted in me using a snow shovel to clear the living room.  At this point in time, I have three “emergency hide it” closets whose layers look much like an archaeological dig of visits past.  To find my pink fuzzy slippers, I had to excavate down to the “2002 surprise visit from Aunt Gretchen who was passing through town on her way to the airport” layer.

Every time it happens, I swear, it is the last time I will be caught off guard.  I promise to turn over a new leaf and keep the house so pristine that even the Pope could drop by at any time and not get his white robe covered with cat hair.  But it never happens.  I get distracted by the important things in life – eating cookies, watching TV and Googling for celebrity gossip. 

As a Virgo, I am supposed to be obsessed with cleanliness….and I guess in a certain way I am.  I love a clean house but, after much analysis done one afternoon when I was supposed to be cleaning, I now see that there are barriers in my way.  If any of the following situations exist, they create the perfect storm that can very quickly take my house from neat to nasty.

Barriers that prevent me from keeping my house clean

A dishwasher that is either full of clean or dirty dishes.  Either way, this situation does not allow me to put dirty dishes in the dishwasher, thus they pile up in the sink.  And, if they pile up in the sink, it prevents me from running the dishwasher which starts its own vicious cycle.

Fruit.  I often buy fruit with the fantasy of actually eating it.  Eventually, the fruit decomposes in the bowl and attracts a colony of flies and wine makers. 

Pets.  I love ‘em, but they are furry.  And most of that fur is on the floor, couch and walls of my house.  Once I spent 15 minutes grooming the cat only to realize it was a dust bunny. 

Laundry.  This is perhaps the biggest barrier to cleaning that I have.  It has its own sub-list.

A missing laundry basket.  Without this feature, clothes seem to enjoy frolicking in their natural habitat….the floor. 

A chair to hang gently worn clothes.  Some clothes by their nature can be worn again.  If they don’t have a chair to hang on, they end up on the floor.  This then makes them dirty, mainly because my cats will have slept on them.  Now they need to be washed.  This means more laundry.

Clean laundry that needs to be hung, folded or otherwise dealt with.  Clean laundry usually ends up on the bed when it comes out of the dryer.  At the end of the night, when I need to use the bed, the pile of clean clothes gets moved onto the floor with the promise that I will hang them tomorrow.  That promise is never fulfilled and pretty soon the clean clothes start mingling with the dirty clothes and I can’t tell which is which.  This then means I need to rewash it just to be sure.

The lack of a maid.  If I had a maid, my house would be cleaner.

Empty diet coke bottles and cans.  I drink a lot of diet coke.  I once put a days worth of empty cans out in the alley for the can guys to take and one guy said it looked like I must have had a great party.  Sadly, they were all mine.  Now I can only put out a few at a time so I don’t get a lecture on diet coke dependency from the can guys.

Napping.  I am genetically predisposed to napping.  If I had to choose between cleaning the bathroom and napping, napping would win.  You can’t fight your heritage.

Guests.  While guests coming over cause me stress, I think I don’t have enough guests over on a regular basis.  If I lived in the White House, I suspect I would be motivated to keep the house clean if George Clooney and members of the UN were dropping by daily.  I would clean for George Clooney.

So, if you are dropping by, please give me at least 24 hours notice and promise not to open any closet doors.  There is no guarantee you will be able to shut them again. 

Halloween Time

Halloween is the best day on the planet.  As a very shy kid, it was so fun to be able to transform into something that I was not for a few hours.  Plus, it was the only time of the year when my parents actively encouraged my sister and I to go out and take free candy from strangers.

When I was growing up in Burns Lake, months of Halloween costume planning was always ruined by the first major blizzard of the year.  The two events coincided religiously.   When I hear kids in my Kitsilano neighbourhood whine about having to walk up and down stairs to get treats, I twinge with the impulse to tell stories about how, when I was young, I trudged through five foot snow drifts to get a single treat sized Snickers bar… but I digress…

Despite the blizzards in Burns Lake, the people handing out the candy were always so supportive and enthusiastic. 

“Hey! What a great costume,” they would say to the hordes of kids in identical snow boots, snowsuits, mittens and balaclavas that would parade to their door asking for treats.  We looked like a casting call for an episode of South Park, but in our minds we were so different.

My costumes were never cute or scary.  They were “creative”.  While all my comrades were pirates, princesses or zombies, I would be Muriel Applebottom – Bunny Hunter Extrodinaire, or My Dad’s Box of Tangled Christmas Lights or The Lost Panel of a Bazooka Joe Comic Strip.  Needless to say, most of my costumes were not met with an “OOOO…how cute” or an “Awwww…adorable”, they were met with an “Oh, and what are you again?”  Still I wore my costumes with conviction and people gave me candy anyway, so they rocked!

My mom’s expensive, guest use only, King sized silk pillow cases were the preferred treat bag of choice but it was often hard to sneak them out of the house before she noticed.  Although, one year, I did use my cousin’s hockey duffle bag until some judgemental lady ruined my fun when she called me “greedy”. Mostly, I just used a Hefty garbage bag.  Because rippage could be a problem it was important to come prepared with backup bags and maybe a sled.

Out on the hunt, it was amazing how quickly information spread on the kid treat network.  With no twitter, facebook, or texting, to link us, we mind-melded together with the singular purpose of getting as much sugar as possible.  By remaining connected to the kid treat network, you quickly knew which houses gave out two chocolate bars instead of one, which were making you sing, which were giving out raisins….and which were giving out CANS OF POP!!!  

I know kids in here in Kits stay out collecting candy until they get tired or bored, but in Burns Lake, we stayed out until medically ordered indoors due to frostbite or hypothermia.  Hard core does not accurately describe an 8 year old Burns Lake kid on a mission for candy.

Arriving home with our loot, my parents insisted on inspecting all treats for safety concerns.  Surprisingly, there was a high ratio of tainted Aero bars and Glosette raisins (my parents’ favourites) but we were too hyped up and inexperienced in the ways of the world to realize that our own parents were stealing from us. 

The next two days began the hierarchy of snacking.  We would eat through our treat bag like layers of an archaeological dig.  Chocolate bars were eaten first.  Then Tootsie rolls Then Glosette peanuts.   And then….ugh….because there was nothing else left, jaw breakers, Pez circles and gum.  It would take two to three days of concentrated effort to consume all the sugar in those king sized pillow case bags.  But we did it!!  Once it was all done, we crashed in a sugar coma for two weeks….and woke up just in time to start dreaming of all the treats coming for Christmas!! 

Girl Treats

The following is a public service announcement for men everywhere. 

When your girl asks you to bring her home a treat because she is suffering from:

• A bad day
• Her lady time
• Manic depression

She means you should bring her any of the following:

• A Dairy Queen hot fudge sundae
• Nachos
• Pies (plural)
• Jewellery

She does not mean:

• An apple
• A low fat veggie fruit bar
• The gift of just you

Thank you.

Bell Tower

Today, I woke up a hunchback. My hunch had been coming on slowly. Over the last few weeks, I began to notice a distinctive hunch developing on my right spinal area. At first, I just though…whoa….zit. But as it progressed well past zit and into something requiring its own area code, I realized that my denial was not a cure. It became so big that I actually had to…go to the doctor. Gasp. I am the worst Canadian in the country. We have a wonderful health care system and I never use it. It is sort of like my gym membership. I know it is there, and I intend on using it, but really, I prefer just to brag about it to my American friends at parties rather than actually go. You see if I go, the doctor may find something wrong with me. If I don’t go, then I can spend countless hours obsessing about the millions of strange things it could be while researching on the internet.

While researching my hunchback-ed-ness on Wikipedia, I came up with all sorts of possibilities. List of possible reasons for hunch:

• Unborn twin
• Space alien pod
• The C word – and, yes, I mean cyst
• New fat storage area for hot fudge sundae consumption since area in buttocks is completely full

The first two possibilities sounded scary, so I made an appointment immediately. My family doctor was shocked to see me. She made notice several times that the last time I saw her Y2K had not happened. She screamed when she saw my hunch and sent me immediately to a surgeon across the hall. Her reaction startled me. I began to think that maybe my hunch was serious. What if I can’t get rid of it and it continues to grow? What if I can no longer wear form fitting shirts? What if it begins to look like I have boobs on both sides? What if the only job I can get is in a…bell tower. I ran across the hall.

The surgeon’s name was Dr. Jenetles. I know. That is what I thought when I first saw it. It is pronounced differently though. I obediently took a seat and filled out the required medical questionnaire. Tick the following:

Do you (or anyone in your family) have:

• Heart disease
• Diabetes
• Lung Issues
• Hepatitis
• Syphilis
• Allergies
• Cancer
• Nearsightedness
• Ringworm

I ticked “yes” for each just to be safe. I had no idea what half of them meant but I made special note to research each thoroughly when I got home.

I handed in my form. After reading my paper, I noticed the receptionist whispering to the other staff. They put on masks and rubber gloves, spoke to me in soothing tones and kept a distance of 8 feet. Sigh.

I sat glumly in the waiting area. What is it with doctor’s offices? Do they all have the same decorator? All Canadian doctor waiting rooms must contain the following items:

• A pile of Readers’ Digest and Canadian Living (honestly, if doctors didn’t subscribe to these magazines, Darwin would have taken them out long ago)
• A box of children’s plastic toys including a wooden abacas. All are laden with enough germs to start their own plague
• Not enough chairs. Well, technically there are enough chairs for patients but given we are all scared to sit next to each other because we don’t know how germy the other one is, there are not enough chairs. There needs to be a good person – chair - person ratio.
• Ceiling tiles with holes in it for counting
• Patients who are pretending to read the Life’s Like That section of Readers Digest but you can tell that they aren’t because they haven’t turned a page for over 40 minutes.
• A guy on a cell phone who politely goes outside the office (when told to by the receptionist) and then proceeds to yell outside the door to his wife about how stupid their contractor is.
• A poster on the wall that says There Is No Excuse for Abuse. You wish you could email a copy of the poster to the wife of the guy on the cell phone.

When it was my turn to see Dr. Jenetles, I was happy to get out of the waiting room. He was a lovely older man from Europe who gave me a stern lecture for not visiting a doctor prior to Y2K. I suspect my family doctor had called to get him to reinforce the point. After examining the lump, he declared it was an infected cyst and with a snip, snip my hunch was gone. It is sore but will be better.

Today, I woke up a hunchback. Tonight, I can walk amongst humans again. Happy Days! Bong. Bong. Bong.