You've heard of pole dancing? How about hose dancing?

You know when you have a problem and you’re like a dog with a bone until you solve it?  This has been my life for the past month when our remote control for the electric gate into our complex started malfunctioning.

Uttering the words “abracadabra” wasn’t working any better than pushing the button for the remote repeatedly.  My nightly temporary solution (usually in the rain) was to pull up to the gate, and with the car running and my purse inside, open the small pedestrian gate, run inside and dance on the hose to open the gate, all the while praying that someone didn’t steal my car.  It seems that my menopausal weight gain was not enough for the hose to open the gate; hence my nightly dance upon it, trying to make myself heavier.

So I bought a new battery.  Actually, I bought two new batteries because that’s the only way you can purchase the size of battery that I needed.  Just my luck. All $12 dollars worth of it.

Battery change didn’t work.  Onto Canadian Tire to view their vast selection of garage door remote controls.  The vast selection comprised exactly three devices; two of which didn’t appear to be programmable.  So, I went with the only one that had an ancient programmable code that I could enter into it (as opposed to receiving rolling messages from space).

I took it home, opened her up and started to go blind trying to move the little teeny tiny widgets with the supplied paper clip thingy.  Wow, this really was hi-tech!  Out to the gate I went, all hopeful in anticipation, only to have the gate remain firmly shut, mocking me.

On one of my many trips inside to read the instructions further, my helpful husband called me…trying to help from afar.  He could see neither the instructions not the device, so in frustration, I hung up the phone and tried, tried again.

Hours spent to no avail.  Husband arrives home….speaks to neighbours who all concur…you don’t need a garage door opener (stupid!), you need a gate opener.  What the hell was the difference, I asserted, as long as you could program the thing?  And I didn’t recall seeing a Gate Opener section at Canadian Tire.

I took the device back for my full refund and my husband, speaking more slowly and in clearer English, tried to explain the problem yet again to the under-aged staff. We left empty handed.

Finally, at the next council meeting, Ken spoke to the one person on our strata who actually knew about such things.  Vindicated, I was…when Greg explained that I had purchased the correct device, but I simply hadn’t managed to get the remote speaking to the gate.  Apparently, yelling obscenities at the gate wasn’t going to get the job done either. I had to match the frequency of the device to the gate, program the code and perhaps face to the east, do the hokey-pokey and turn myself around, but I digress. 

Back to Canadian Tire. Back to the wall of doom to purchase yet another remote, this time in black.  I read the instructions with the concentration of a Buddhist Monk meditating on the meaning of life.  I risked blindness once more moving the little widgets ever so carefully into place for the secret code.  Finally, I took the device to the gate, along with the paper clip thingy and tried every combination of settings to get the gate to talk.  Had I been able to slap the gate, I would have. On the very last setting, the gate miraculously opened.

My eyes couldn’t believe what they were seeing.  Thinking it was a fluke, I patiently waited for the gate to close fully before pushing the magic button yet again.  Happiness.

From the time we started to have problems with the remote, to the day I got the new remote to open the gate, a full month had gone by.  But at least for now, the hose dancing is over and the neighbors can stop laughing.

The end is in sight

In Vancouver at least, we’re in what I call the Winter Home Stretch.  Just about at the end….we can even see the cherry blossom finish line.  Just one more short month to go and it will officially be Spring.

I’m amazed that I’ve survived another winter.  Can’t imagine how the pilgrims did it.  I survived with indoor heating, a gas fireplace, an electric blanket and an assortment of delicious bath products.

As of yet, I haven’t even ventured out into the snow…but that will change at the very end of February.  Frankly, I couldn’t muster the courage to drive in winter conditions or face the horrendous crowds of the North Shore Mountains.  The scenic beauty of winter was not enough of a carrot to get me there.

Soon, I will be giddy with the excitement of power washing my deck and rearranging my patio furniture…not to mention making the annual trek to the nursery for new flowers.  Until then, I will hunker down in my flannel P.J.’s, in front of my roaring fire and wait for the new growth, warmer temperatures and daylight.


How are you surviving winter?

Yenlike contentment

Contentment is a crazy thing.  Amazing that one can even feel content in a world where more, better, faster, newer is always being pushed and we’re not supposed to feel satisfied until we HAVE IT ALL, whatever that means.

I haven’t been writing my blog because I realized that I was pretty happily content. Content to just be without a writing deadline.  I wasn’t really pissed off about anything, so no need to rant.  Just sitting around motionless in January keeping to my happy little quiet self and realizing that everything was just as it should be.  Yawn.

I don’t have it all and never will.  I wouldn’t even know what to do with it if I did.  Where would I put it?   There isn’t enough time in the day for ALL of it anyway…I can just about cope time wise with what I have now.

The only problem with contentment, as I see it, is inertia.  If one is truly content with one’s current circumstances, what possesses one to get off the couch and do something new?  Boredom? 

How content are you with your present circumstances?  What, if anything, do you need to do?  

Hats off to me

I am not what you call, a hat person.  Being someone who looks mostly ridiculous in any kind of headwear, I live in fear that I may be called upon to show up at a Garden Party with the Royal Family and give thanks that no Prince has ever come calling.

When I left the house yesterday morning to go to work, it was minus 7 degrees outside and knowing there would be considerable walking in my future both before and after Skytrain, I reluctantly donned my warmest hat to date. 

Ken bought me a fake fur number for Christmas.  Think something a hunter would wear in the woods, complete with earflaps.  Now imagine it covered in fake brown fur.  I looked like I mugged a wolf.

However, because all other commuters were too busy wearing their own silly hats and shivering from the cold, happily, no one even gave me a second look.  Either that or I couldn’t see them with all that fur in my eyes.  Apparently, I was the only person on the Skytrain who thought I looked odd. 

It took me a while to figure out what I looked like with my fur hat, red jacket, black pants and boots.  Hell, give me a Muscat and a box to stand on and I could have been a guard at Buckingham Palace!

The goods news is that the hat conquered even the coldest of winter days and that was the only reason to wear it.  No matter that the fur kept falling down my face obscuring my vision.  No matter that if I tried to look either left or right, I ended up looking into the inside of my hat.  I was warm…toasty even.  And for that, I was thankful.

Now let’s hope that warm spell comes back today as scheduled so I can put my Busby back in the closet where it belongs.

As they say in Poltergeist….I’m BACK!

I took the longest vacation that I’ve had in years and decided it would be as good a time as any to totally check out.  No emails, no texting, no social media…no blog. Only the odd old fashioned face to face conversation. Rest is a beautiful thing, and its impact cannot be underestimated.

My brain has definitely been recharged, if not entirely reset.  In fact, it’s taking a bit of effort to get it going again.  I hate to think what would happen with a year on a deserted island.

Ken and I went on our first cruise ever through the Caribbean.  My favourite moment of the entire trip came when at the spa on the ship, about to have a massage and a facial, they asked me to rate my stress level from one to ten with ten being the highest.  I wrote down a one, only because I had to stand upright to do it.

You have to know that this is an unusual report when even the spa lady seems surprised to see that number!  I think after the hour-long treatment, that number was probably .5 seeing that I still had a pulse.

During the daytime, I found the concept of being at sea quite relaxing.  Smelling the fresh ocean air and watching the water going by induced a kind of brainwave that frankly had me nodding off quite often.  But at night, when you couldn’t see more than 10 feet from the deck, it was a little different.  Although seeing the amazing array of stars was quite a treat and the amount of light cast by even a crescent moon was impressive.

I also witnessed more sunrises in that week than I probably will all year.  I have no idea why I was up at that time of day so often, but I’m very that I was as they were spectacular.

I’m not sure if it was the romance of the seas, but throughout the voyage I found myself wondering what it’s like to sail around the world and thought about all those brave souls who do it solo.  It would definitely be an interesting experience…until a storm hits and then I’d be totally out.

Our time on the Love Boat was good.  We met lots of nice people from all parts of the Globe.  We drank champagne, we laughed, we danced and we saw some new places.  We tripped the light fantastic and ate like Kings.  But mostly, we relaxed and recharged and I can’t wait to do it all again.

Not me baby

I don’t know what you’re all up to these days, but I’m spending every waking hour from now until the end of the year focusing of one thing, and one thing only.  Trying not to get sick.

Because I have a very expensive date with the Sun coming up and nothing is going to ruin it, least of all a pesky virus. Even though I’ve been successful in keeping illness at bay, you can never be complacent about such things during the Great Canadian Winter when we’re all cooped up together like chickens.

I’m doing all the things your Mother ever advised you to do during cold and flu season….washing my hands, getting plenty of rest, eating my vegetables, ingesting plenty of fluids, making sure that I get enough vitamin C, calcium and probiotics…all in an attempt to ward off illness prior to my departure. I’m even limiting my social engagements to keep from getting run down during this busy time of year. 

I’m hibernating, of sorts, and frankly I can’t wait to do more of it.  This woman was not made to leap into action during the dark days of winter.  My time is filled keeping warm, sitting in front of the fireplace sipping hot tea and gazing deeply into the soft light of our beautifully decorated tree. Quietude prevails in my world.

The rest of you can shop till you drop, party like it’s 1999 and infect each other with good cheer and flu viruses.  I’ll be hunkering down waiting for the solstice signaling the return of my beloved Sun, and getting ready to meet it in the sunny Caribbean.

Santa Management problems

Why is Christmas the only holiday that seems to need saving?  In all the Christmas movies someone …whether human or Muppet, needs to somehow save Christmas, usually by getting some kind of message to Santa on his biggest night of the year. They always seem to be somewhat apologetic, but that never stops them.

Frankly, if I were Santa, I’d be a little steamed about this by now.  Think about it.  364 days of the year, the Big Guy’s got plenty of time on his hands to deal with just such a crisis.  But on the one night of the year where he’s REALLY, REALLY busy, suddenly everyone needs to get in touch and the ONLY person who can save the day is Santa. No delegation will ever do in these scenarios.  Why is that?  Does Santa not have a right-hand Elf to turn to for just these kind of emergencies?  Do these folks every think to get in touch in August?

Personally, I’d be disconnecting my mobile devices if I were Santa.  I’d instruct my elves to hold all my calls while I made my rounds.  And then around the end of January, after having some well-earned recovery time on the annual vacation, I’d be sending some carefully worded messages to the people of Earth about their utter lack of time management/planning skills.  Not that it wouldn’t happen all over again the very next year, because the one thing we know for sure is that Earthlings are pretty thick in the head.

Every year, it’s the same thing. You plan ahead.  You check your list.  Twice. Find out who’s naughty and who’s nice.  And then some nutbar you don’t know starts second-guessing your lifelong ability to separate the wheat from the chafe and ends up having a panic attack on your busiest night. And somehow you’re in a crisis that frankly, you didn’t create, but seem to have to respond to all the same.  It’s enough to put the best of leaders right over the edge.

A little forward thinking…that’s all Santa’s asking for.  If Christmas needs to be saved this year, get the request in NOW.  Or as Santa calls it, The Night Before Bedlam.