Kinda Grumpy

Colouring: harmless, low-carbon fun.

Thanks to the leader of the free world keeping his campaign promises, I'm too grumpy to blog. 

Here's some pictures instead. 

I have a thing for owls and water lilies.

Thanks for dropping by!

Have a great week!

Karen

Solidarity

Photo credit: Denver News

The reason this post is coming late to you is not because I was at the Women's March in Washington or even downtown Toronto.

Instead, I was at session with the Metis Nation of Ontario, talking with them about the province's Climate Change Action Plan, and all the things promised them there (let's say, for the sake of argument, about $40 million in projects to help them offset the carbon price).

The last time I'd seen some of these folks was in July 2015, in my pre-cane days, and I remember I had a bad cold. I also remember I really liked the people I met. And I noted then, a bit amused, the signs of divided gender roles.

In 2015, the room was set up with round tables, with six seats per table. Women filled the tables at the front of the room; men filled the ones at back. The women participated earnestly in the conversation. The men chatted among themselves. 

Yesterday, the room was set up with one big table, so the genders were more mixed together. They'd had more than a year to think on the matter of climate change and they all came prepared. This time men and women spoke more equally. Pauline from Thunder Bay and Ernie from Cochrane talked the most.

Over the course of the day, we talked about the Action Plan, about cap and trade and about adapting to climate change. Then everyone was supposed to break out into groups to brainstorm ideas. I joined one group, just to listen, but, as soon as Tom from French River saw that I was the only woman, he assigned me the role of writing everything down on the flip chart paper.

So I did.

We goofed around a bit - two of them asked if I was married when they heard the Action Plan would spend approximately 8 billion dollars over five years - but we worked fast and were done before the other groups. 

So John from Sudbury told me the 100% true story about how he renovated his wife's kitchen. First assuring me that his wife is a good woman, he told the tale of how he offered to buy her new appliances. So she got a beautiful new stove and dishwasher and fridge. Then he told her she could have anything else she liked. "Anything at all," he said, "Just tell me and I'll get it and install it." She asked for new cupboards and a new countertop. "So I bought it all, and installed it myself," he said. "Cost me fifteen thousand dollars." 

"So I was talking to my wife afterwards, looking at how nice the new kitchen was," said John from Sudbury, "and I asked her, now that I spent all this time and money on your new kitchen, are you going to become a better cook?" 

"She looked me right in the eye and said, 'no.'"

"Then there's no way I'm renovating the bedroom," said John from Sudbury. 

We all had a good laugh.

This was a nice moment for me because, while in major cities around the world millions of women were peacefully protesting the divisive words and cruel intentions of an unimaginably powerful man, these nice people enjoyed the gentle comedy in the differences between men and women.

I held onto that happy thought as I walked the three kilometres home, grateful for that experience and grateful, too, for how much my hip continues to improve.

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!

Karen

Choose Your Adventure

Lots of room for sentimental value - California Closets Jewellery Drawer

Last week's blog featured the Filmore's sign's assertion that "no great story ever starts with 'Let's go grab a salad.'"

I disagree.

A great story can start any way it likes.

To test my assertion, I'd like to enlist my readers in proposing a great story beginning with those five words. 

Here are some possibilities. If one appeals to you, put its number in the comments section. If you have a better idea, put that in the comments section. If all the stars align, I will write a story around the most picked readers' choice and/or best idea and post it on this blog.

Story #1 - A tale of heroism and tragedy when two friends - one allergic and one not - are stung by the same wasp lurking in a salad they had just bought to share for lunch.

Story #2 - A tale spanning the US Civil War and the First World War, told as two recently-met strangers reminisce over dinner at a retirement home and hospital for veterans in early 1920's Charleston, South Carolina.

Story #3 - A gritty tale of inner-city crime and violence told by a veteran cop warned by his doctor about his high blood pressure and trying to lose some weight. 

Story #4 - A comedic tale of two women who battle, bicker, bitch and fall in love while serving up organic food in a trendy restaurant on West Broadway in Kitsilano.

***********************

Not Another Product Endorsement!?!

Once we'd spent all that money on tearing out the stupid sauna and restoring our master bedroom to its former glory, it seemed natural to continue to spend money on a decent closet.

To help me make an informed consumer decision, I checked out Simply Closets and California Closets online. Neither web site had much information about cost. Without that to form a preference, I found myself persuaded by California Closets' commitment to sustainability. So I e-mailed them.

Very shortly after that I was contacted by CC, and shortly after that, on December 19, a nice young man named Nathan dropped by the house to talk about my "vision" (it's OK, thanks, but I need corrective lenses) and take measurements.

Not long after that Nathan e-mailed me CAD/CAM diagrams of his ideas for our closets. I got a quote for the second floor closets as well as for the walk in, figuring I would only do the walk-in if the cost was too high. 

The big surprise: the quote for all three closets was less than what I thought I'd spend on the walk-in alone.  

On December 22, Bruce and I both went to the CC showroom on Davenport Road to select finishes and handles. We made some tweaks to the design proposals. The CAD/CAM software upgraded the quote as we made changes. Impressive.

CC installed the closets on January 9. Here they are:

The guest bedroom closet (still needs doors), with lots of room for towels and linens and the clothes we wear not all that often.

The "office" closet (still need how to figure how to rehang the doors), with shelves for shoes and yoga stuff and the clothes we wear in the summer.

Hardest to photograph, but really the most swell, the walk-in closet with six spaces to hang clothes (five "short" for shirts, skirts, pants and jackets and one "long" for dresses), twelve open storage cubby holes, four full-depth drawers for socks 'n' undies and one half-depth jewellery drawer.

All together, including custom design, manufacture, materials, installation and tax, these three closets cost about $4,000. The walk-in was the most expensive. The two smaller closets were just over $500 each. 

Finally, something important to us: the shelves we selected are manufactured in Ontario.

And I think that's it. I renovated my hip. We renovated our master bedroom. We bought new closets. 

We're done spending money on making things better. 

Next, we'll be spending money on moving ourselves around. 

We have trips to BC in July, to Italy in September, and a destination to be named later for May/June.

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!

Karen






  

A Day Without Tylenol

The great and dreadful Filmore's strip club: a neighbourhood institution I won't miss
(the site is slated for redevelopment).
Watch this blog for a story that proves the sign wrong. 

I sat down at the dinner table the other night and Bruce said, "it is really nice to see how far you've come from where you were before your surgery."

That was nice to hear. It means that Bruce is seeing improvement, not just from the massive blow that was my hip replacement surgery, but also from the pain I was in before the surgery.

I am off daily doses of pain killers for the first time in two years. 

It all started after our return from our trip to San Francisco in January 2015. It took me until April to get a diagnosis and until May to share the fact that I had arthritis.  Now, more or less on the second anniversary of the initial onslaught, I am as pain free as anyone pushing sixty can expect to be.

That truly is a miracle of pain relief.

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!

Karen