Inside and Out

As recounted elsewhere in this blog, to help my osteoarthritic hip, I joined the YMCA in July 2015, injured myself in October 2015, quit the Y when the pain in my hip was just too much to bear and rejoined the Y in July 2017, almost a year after the hip surgery, whereupon I promptly injured myself again, so I hobbled around Italy with a cane when I was there to celebrate my 60th birthday.

Suffice to say I've been a habitué of the YMCA on Grosvenor Street for the best part of the past three years. I spend a little bit more each month to get the Membership Plus package: a women-only workout area with a spacious locker room, dry and steam saunas, free grooming products and other perks including a largely child-free environment. Some weeks I go to the Y every day; other weeks not so much.

I go the the Y, but I do not "belong" to the Y. Those who do belong and who have the same membership package as me, are the doctors, nurses and other health care professionals who work at Women's College Hospital, just a half a block away on the other side of Bay Street.

These women have all been going to the Y - almost every day - since, I don't know, the dawn of time. They all know one another, share loud, personal conversations with one another across the confined space of the workout room and monopolize the showers, the saunas and the whirlpool. This is their space.

Signs posted throughout the Women's Plus locker room tell people they are not supposed to take pictures with their phones, which strikes me as a good rule. The Y is very body positive. Women of every size, shape and description unself-consciously roam around buck naked in the locker room. That would all be ruined if people were afraid someone might surreptitiously photograph them.

I certainly did not consider myself to be in violation of the rule when, sometime last year, I sat at a vanity in the near-deserted locker room and looked up a recipe on the Internet on my phone. I was going to shop on my way home and needed to know the ingredients for something I was going to make for lunch.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone coming up beside me. Thinking I might be in the way, I scooted over a bit. 

But I wasn't in the way. A woman I had seen many times before but had never spoken to admonished me for using my phone. She did not begin by saying "hi" or "I've seen you around a lot but never had the chance to introduce myself". She just scolded me, citing the rules against photography.

I protested my innocence. I was not using my phone to take pictures.

She was adamant. I didn't see any good reason to hold my ground, so I thanked her for setting me on the path of righteousness and left.

So this is how people say "hello" at the Y. 

Having not gotten off on the right foot, I still do not speak to the woman who scolded me, though I see her at least once a week. Her locker is ten feet from mine.

She most often hangs with another woman, with impressive red hair, who I also see frequently, and who is likely a doctor. From their conversations that are impossible not to overhear, I understand that they have known one another for many years. 

And of course, the other day, I looked over from my locker and saw the two of them, standing side by side, looking into their phones.

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!

Karen

Seniors in the News

Freezing at Sugar Beach: Bruce, me, Ken

I've become very interested in old people. 

Bruce and I often share a meal with Ken when we go to see him at his nice new digs at the corner of Dufferin and Bloor. I check out Ken's neighbours in the dining room. They are in age as I imagine they were in their youth: diverse, distinct individuals. 

The lesson here is there's more than one way to be an old person.

For example, the current provincial government is showcasing the many talents of the over-seventy set.

An 82-year-old was recently appointed vice-chair of the Ontario Energy Board.

A 72-year-old may (or may not) become the head of the Ontario Provincial Police.

And 97-year-old Hazel McCallion, for thirty-six years the mayor of Mississauga, has been appointed as a special advisor to the government.

But for the OPP appointee (I'm waiting for the Integrity Commissioner's decision), I am prepared to resist my deep-seated agism and grant that these people are exceptional and qualified for the jobs to which they have been appointed.

It's just coincidental that another spry, high-profile 97-year-old cracked up his car the other day.

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!

Karen 

Signs of trouble:
condensation stain
on bathroom ceiling
 reveals location
of access panel.

Kids These Days - Again

Allan Gardens Snowman: commemorating the so far only major snowfall of the year in my part of Toronto, about ten feet from the scene of the unpleasantness recounted in an earlier post.

I have mentioned before the predominantly young demographic at the Ministry of Energy Etc. 

Both managers on my team are under forty; one is barely above thirty. They are older than most of the people on their teams. 

I enjoy working with young people. They are smart and idealistic and have lots of energy. 

They are also ambitious and anxious about their careers. 

This last part was made clear most recently by way of a presentation given to the management team recounting discussions held with staff about the annual Ontario Public Service employee engagement survey.

The young ones complained that the promises of advancement opportunities made to lure them into the OPS had not been kept. They seemed genuinely surprised, and bitterly disappointed, that the process was neither automatic nor swift.

****

Many of the youngsters in our division are unmarried. Some of them seem preoccupied with their appearance. Most of them apply one or more scented products to their person. The resulting cloud of solvents, surfactants, scents and airborne particulate gets into the air vents. Since I started at the Ministry, I have gone from having maybe one or two migraine headaches a year to having one a week. 

The challenge my migraines present me, along with the pain, is they mess with my short-term memory and impair my cognitive functioning. When I am in the midst of a migraine, I avoid making presentations or other tasks where I need to think on my feet. 

But, you can't hide forever. 

In a perfect migraine storm this past week, I already had a headache when some of the youngest members of my team and I entered a just-vacated meeting room, the air so heavy with scent even the young ones commented on it. My headache immediately got worse.

We were joining in on a government-wide teleconference about the new environment plan. Custom dictates that Directors introduce themselves and their staff when the teleconference chair asks them to. When my turn came, my headache made me make two mistakes. 

The first was that I tried to do it all myself. It is OK for staff to say their own names and that would have been an appropriate "I have a headache" workaround. But I didn't do it.

The second mistake, and you could see this coming, was that I effortlessly breezed through the first and last names of two of the people in the room with me, and froze like a moron on the last name of the third.

Dammit.

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!

Karen

Make Me An Offer

Portmeirion Coffee Set, Sailing Ships Pattern, ca 1967.

Bruce's brother Jeff has been in town this week. Along with spending time with Bruce's dad, we have been in Kitchener assaying the household effects remaining in Bruce's dad's old apartment. Jeff had a long list of items he wanted to ship to his home in BC. We had our own list: linen tablecloths I've coveted for years and small items to remember Bruce's mother by.

As for the rest of the stuff, we sorted the wheat from the chaff, took the chaff out to the dumpster and arranged the wheat in neat piles for a contents sale on Saturday.

There are some good pieces of furniture - but maybe too old-fashioned for current tastes. And some decent china and glassware, but, again, who knows if anyone will find any of it attractive enough to cough up cash for.

We are not expecting to make money from this sale, just save the cost of hauling it all away. 

A couch, chair and a few sundry items in the apartment have been spoken for and will not be part of the sale. Once these are gone and everything else left behind has been shipped to the Mennonite Central Committee thrift store, that will be the end of that, another household once held together by a sense of necessity, aesthetics, sentiment and utility, distributed by chance.

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!

Karen

Jeff and Ken Clarke by
Sugar Beach,
Friday, January 4, 2019.