Better than.....

Sometimes we wait too long. I was at a 90th birthday party yesterday and whispered to my daughter "This is much better than a funeral, yeah?" and we both cracked up. Because it was. Ms E the celebrant - who looks like she has another 90 in her - was enjoying herself. Celebrating the slide show tribute, the multiple generations of her descendants, this fourth generation has produced girls for the first time, prior to then it was boyz and more boyz. She had six of her own who went on to produce countless more.

So I went on to ponder on "better thans".

This new technique to be used when I have stress or negative projections. Today is like, 9C, seriously. So I lit the fire. And thought: "This is better than snow and ice, remember your bad fall? Isn't this cosy?" And it is. I'm not reflecting on climate change and this weird chill and growing temperature challenges and...for also, "this is better than the stifling humid heat of Toronto where I lived for years and years."

As I knitted for an hour in the morning (goddess, how relaxing that is!) I thought to myself: "I'm doing way better with the arthritis - I thought my hands would be crippled with it when my thumbs started to ache so badly in the mornings."

And thanks to blogger That British Woman and the inspiring photos of Ernestine I plan my menus for a week and post them up in the kitchen. Better than sporadic or repetitive meals. And healthier in variety.

Daughter, the former prof, has found immense pleasure and fulfilment in being a part-time crab fisher. I celebrate her joy and happiness - so much better than the life she had before, her connection with the sea is profound and her capacity for hard physical labour, in spite of her health challenges, lightens my spirit. Better than the bubble of underlying anxiety for her I carried in the past.

So there ya go - do you have "better thans" in your day?

Blog Jam

Please share in my glorious flowers.....which fill every room in my house

Give more weight to your dreams than to your fears(seen on post by friend who has realized his dream).

I am nearing a 1,000 posts over nearly 7 years. Am I running out of words, thoughts, ideas?

Late at night, I often hear music in my head. Always classical. Short. There is possibly a name for this syndrome if syndrome it is.

Today I was playing the soundtrack from Frido Kahlo and it never fails - it affects me like a punch in the stomach. Don't know why. Or there could be a 1,000 reasons.

My hearing is nearly restored. What a gift hearing is. And sight. And speech. And walking. And....

Far too many work files here. But they are listed and I am attacking them.

I love things to look forward to: Saturday night there's a friend being bemedalled by a senator and this is all disguised as a birthday party for her. I can hardly wait to see her face.
And Sunday we're having a cast BBQ to celebrate our recent success.
And oh yes, Friday night I am off to a play - a theatre performance by a father and daughter.

Boreens

I've always loved the word "boreen" an Irish word, anglicised for every day use in Ireland. It means "little road". Bothair (bo-her) being the Irish for road. Add "een" to anything in Ireland and you have the diminutive. Little Mary=Maureen (maura + een). Little woman=Colleen (caill is woman or old woman + een).

I was having a day of frustrations and minor disappointments yesterday. Nothing earth shaking, just a series of what-else-can-go-wrong-and-then-it-does kind of days.

I took this picture of a boreen heading off down the main road not too far from my house. Outsiders aren't aware of the enormous number of lakes (called ponds) in Newfoundland. We have thousands. Every time you turn a corner there is a seascape or a lakescape. This man was taking in his boat for the season. There is much trouting on our lakes.

Then I forced myself to go to a party. A Ruby (40th) wedding anniversary of dear friends. They'd booked a huge hall. 120 of those present were going to be relatives. The other 10 were close friends. I am honoured to be considered thus.

I'm not a fan of going to big parties or dances or dinners by myself. Visions of my lonesome at a solitary table hauling over a candle and reading a book extracted from my large purse while merriment and enjoyment surround me. Or knitting quietly in a corner pretending I'm one of those mad women out of fiction. Or best of all, happilly at home having refused to go on some flimsy excuse.

Anyway I went. I clung like an infant to my hosts for a while but pried myself off them when I realized they had other guests so went off, got myself a water and barged up to a large table and asked to join them. (Do any of you realize what absolute bravery this takes? No?)

And yeah, I had, oh, about 8 dances. Grand dances. Booty shaking dances. Laughy dances.

And then one of the women and I at the table get talking. She was a widow of two years and told me she didn't know how she got out of bed every morning. She was a sister of my bride-host. She'd lost her husband of 42 years the year before. But worse than that her only son had committed suicide three years before. He'd come home from up North with a failed relationship under his belt and she had found him in their garage the morning after, an apologetic note to her in his pocket.

And all of a sudden my day took on a new light. And today - which is again full of frustration and disappointment - is just another day. And I had no trouble getting out of bed to partake in it.

My boreen ain't half bad.

Hash/2

How on earth do people do it?

The maximum crowd I ever had to cook for was 36, a daunting task about 15 years ago for my annual Ladies' Brunch/Women's Christmas.

Today, at the Hash, food was prepared for ninety people. 90! And mainly by one person.

And yes, it was all hash. Hash turkey, hash ham, hash beef, hash beans, hash potatoes. All piping hot set upon the outside BBQ, portable electric roasting tins, oven, stove top and hot plates. At one point I could almost see the sides of the house bulge with all the guests wandering about.

The old folk have passed on now but their adult children use the house for parties and get-togethers and summer and winter stays and hunting (the menfolk all went out to hunt a moose early this morning, and yes, they were successful).

All ages were in attendance and there must have been forty different kinds of dessert all homemade. The walls were covered in the paintings of the deceased matriarch whom I knew for a few years before she died. A well-known artist.

The history of the family has been written by a professor out of Boston. Massachusetts and Newfoundland are so well connected through the centuries by the intermingled fishing grounds that Massachusetts is still called “The Boston States” here. The family is still very active in fishing and now it is a daughter, recently certified as a master mariner, who is set to take it over.

I met many interesting people including the family chaplain, a couple of lawyers, a media consultant, a police chief, a politician and a judge. Before I left, I was presented with a copy of the aforementioned book which I can hardly wait to get into it as it reads like a novel. I can't imagine fishing in these tiny dories out in the rough ocean. Countless fishermen died in them, including the direct ancestor of the host family who left a wife and seven young children who were all successful in spite of their incredible poverty.

Along the way over the holidays, a friend gave me this gorgeous handmade driftwood/drift glass piece to hang in my window.



It says:

“How Sweet The Salty Air”.

But as “Alone at Sea” reminds me, the sea can be deadly too.