Dec 21 2014
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A little sad, Informative

I’m Learning a Lot

capsuleSometimes when you start thinking about things in a different way you keep thinking about them that way. Sometimes it even makes you wonder why you never thought about those things that way before. Which is what has happened to me over the past three weeks since I last wrote about, what I have now come to know as “degrees of dislike”. It hasn’t been hard to do all that thinking. You see, for the last of those weeks I have found myself sick and pretty much relegated to my chair, yet again. As a result I have confronted first hand something I now know, and am happy to admit, I strongly dislike. Yep. I can now honestly say that I strongly dislike being sick and pretty much relegated to my chair, twice in two months. I mean, who would like that? It’s really not all that pleasant. And when you’re as sick as I was there’s not all that much to do. Which lead me to discover the next thing that I strongly dislike.

Imagine. You wake up one morning and all you know is if your head had actually fallen off your neck and onto the floor you’d feel and probably look, a whole lot better.  Everything hurts. Somehow, and you don’t really remember the exact details of this event, you make your way from your bed to your chair where for the next four days just about all you have the energy to do is press the little button on the remote, and you only do that to avoid watching consecutive repeat episodes of the  “Big Bang Theory”. Someone, and you’re pretty sure it’s someone who is rightfully in your home, brings you a little pill which they assure you will make things better, you swallow it and sometime within the next couple of hours you realize that the very sharp pain that has been pulsing through your head every ten to twenty seconds has abated to the point where it occurs only a few times each minute and you rejoice, because a small victory is a victory nonetheless. And that’s when it happens. The insult to the injury.

So I’m minding my own business watching, for the umpteenth time, Sheldon deride poor, ol’ Wolowitz for only having a lowly Master’s degree from MIT, (so what if he’s been to the International Space Station), when the commercial break takes me to the bedroom of some poor sot like myself who is apparently suffering with an affliction similar to my own. Since we all know that misery loves miserable company, I am immediately drawn to another’s suffering and so find myself directing my attention to what’s happening on the screen. The scene is of a pyjama clad woman who, like me, is holed up with a nasty head cold. Within moments, and what a coincidence this is, she pops the very same pill that I myself had just popped. Only in this version of the story it’s no time before she is literally dancing her way to, what appears to me to be, a rather miraculous recovery. Now as a shallow person I am honest to a fault, (it’s way too much work not to be) so it is with some dismay that I have to conclude that either she and I have significantly different reactions to the same medication or someone isn’t telling the exact truth, and since I am pretty sure about how I feel I can only conclude that it must be her.  It’s possible that, if I hadn’t been feeling quite as lousy as I was, I might have been just a tad more forgiving of this whole thing. Perhaps my judgement was even clouded by the piercing pain coursing through my head. But under these circumstances and in that moment I can confidently say that her feeling so good so fast, while I continue to feel so bad for so long, is something I strongly dislike.

I suppose I’m learning a lot from writing this blog. Since I started reflecting on this whole “dislike” stuff I also figured out that I strongly dislike fridge magnets. I mean, whoever thought that refrigerators were meant to be bulletin boards? But perhaps that’s a story for another day.

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Nov 30 2014
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Informative

I should have thought of that!

french toastEvery once in a while something happens that makes you think about things in a way you have never thought about them before. Now I’m not talking about things that turn your world upside down or anything like that. Rather, this is about the things that make you want to give your head a shake because once you have thought about them in an entirely different way you wonder why you had never thought about them that way before. And the funny thing is, it’s often a rather innocuous and otherwise insignificant trigger, an innocent comment by some unsuspecting stranger who has no idea that what they thought was a common turn of phrase had become the  catalyst for the revelations you were about to make. Had they known, they likely would not have simply turned and walked away with nary a glance back. But you will remember them forever because, without a doubt they influenced your thinking if not profoundly, at least a little. And you know I wouldn’t be saying all of this if it hadn’t happened to me not so long ago.

The story starts outside a very popular eating establishment on an uncharacteristically cold day during a visit to, what we in the West refer to simply as “The Island”.  Thinking back from where I sit now, I must chuckle just a little when I say it was “cold” given that the temps on that day pale in comparison to the extreme cold warnings I am currently suffering through in my hometown. Nonetheless, there was enough wind to cause the ears and fingers to tingle so, suffice to say, it was a little frostier than we would have prefered it to be. Now we knew there would be a line for the brunch we craved because there is always a line for that brunch. What we didn’t anticipate was how long the line would be and how slow it would move. But we waited and eventually, as happens when one stands in line long enough, we were seated, handed menus and offered the requisite morning libations. So far, so good. There are enough choices at this particular establishment that you need a little time to ponder and perhaps one clarification visit from the server, in this case a very pleasant young woman who appears to enjoy bringing good food to mostly good people. After her initial visit and, having provided us with a sufficient amount of time to make up our minds, she returns to the table ready to take our order. Remember, this is breakfast so it’s not overly complicated and things go well, what with me having taken her earlier advice to switch from the apple to the orange french toast (which I have to say turned out to be the very best french toast I have ever eaten and if you are ever on “The Island” you need to let me know so I can tell you where this is) and my compatriot deciding to indulge on pancakes topped with some sort of banana concoction which turned out to be very good too. Seems pretty routine so far, no?

The thing is, after she took the orders, all the while acknowledging our rather exceptional decision-making skills, she stopped for a moment, looked us straight in the eye (well at least one of us since we were sitting across from each other) and asked: “Is there anything you strongly dislike?” Not “do you have any allergies” or “would you like that french toast well done?” or even “do you need sugar with your tea”? Just “is there anything you strongly dislike?” Which is when it happened. It’s when I realized I had never thought about the possibility that there were degrees of “dislike”. That I could dislike something more or less. Of course by now you know that, as a shallow person, I like to keep things simple.  I like walking on the beach. I dislike walking in the snow. I like my lattes without foam. I dislike having to drink them on wooden chairs. I like winning. I dislike losing. You get the picture. It’s either one way or the other. I like something or I don’t. So you can imagine how this new concept, the idea of increments of dislike, could throw me for a loop. But having recently given it some consideration I can honestly say, I should have thought of that!

Now that I do know, I’m going to start thinking about things differently. Over the next little while I just might figure out what things I sort of don’t like and what things I really don’t like. I’ll probably try to rank them. Maybe make a list. Even though, as you probably already know, I don’t really like lists very much.

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Nov 10 2014
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Informative

I’m Living the Life!

chairIt finally happened. Wait. Perhaps I had better backtrack for just a moment or two. Many of you I’m sure, have noticed that I have been remiss, having not posted to the B.S. sightings section of the blog for quite some time. It’s not that things have changed all that much over the past little while. As far as I can tell I look pretty much the same as always and I believe my doppelganger chanteuse does too. And it’s not that people haven’t continued to notice. As a matter of fact, the sightings themselves have not diminished at the same rate as the writing about them has. It’s just that, for the most part, they’ve pretty much been the run of the mill “has anyone ever told you” events. Well there was one server in Vancouver who used “astonishingly like” in a sentence with regard to my likeness to Ms. Streisand. And there was the make-up salesperson in Toronto who told me how lucky I was to share her resemblance, although I must admit that I silently wondered whether she was really trying to sell me more product. But neither of those inspired me to write an entire paragraph on the encounter. Nothing really had struck as sufficiently unique, until now.

But you’ll have to wait just a little longer because I must digress. You see, there are several parts to this story so it’s going to take some time. If you’ve been following along carefully for the last 2 and a half years, you’ll know that I can oft be found at my local Starbucks, with or without a view of the sea, sipping on a nonfat, no foam latte.  It’s just what I do and I particularly like to do it in what those of us “in the know” know as “the comfy chair”. Because you see, at every one of these establishments there is a variety of seating options ranging from “not so comfortable” to “really comfortable”. As a frequent flyer (I’m so far ahead of the game that my SB gold card has pretty much been renewed indefinitely) I am, of course, prone to select the latter option whenever possible. Possible being the key word as, more often than not those comfy chairs are occupied by my compatriots and I’m relegated to something harder and much more wooden. At least for the time being, as before too long the phenomenon best described as the “Starbuck’s Shuffle” begins.

For those of you who have never experienced said shuffle, here’s how it works. First, you plunk yourself down at a table as close to the comfy chairs as possible. Next, you make yourself not too comfortable because hopefully sooner than later, you’ll be moving. Now here’s the tricky part. You need to keep your eye on the prize without raising the suspicions of your fellow sippers lest you end up in a foot race. This next step is important because the very moment (and I mean right away) that you see movement at those comfy chairs, is your cue to swing into action. What you do now is dependent on where you live. In some cities it’s ok to hover, and you can step right up and help those who are leaving, leave. In other cities convention has it that you allow the leavers to leave and only approach the chairs when their previous occupants are sufficiently out of the way.  You’ll have to figure this one out for yourself. In either case, it’s never easy but trust me, the reward will be well worth the effort.

So with this in mind, let me tell you what happened last week. As expected, I found myself sitting at a table secretly (I thought) surveying the landscape in an effort to determine which of the comfy chairs were most likely to be vacated first. I’m looking for all of the clues, an almost empty cup, one member of the party making their way to the loo, perhaps a computer being packed up, when suddenly my eyes meet those of another. And at that moment, much to my astonishment, the man whose eyes I had inadvertently met and who, until that very moment was a complete stranger, stands up and without hesitation says “my wife says we should give the comfy chairs to you because (and here it comes) you look like Barbra Streisand.” OMG! They gave up their comfy chairs for me! After all of this time, all of the sightings, all of the witty retorts to “do you know who you look like” I have had to come up with, it finally happened. I’m finally reaping the benefits of being a “look-a-like”. I’m finally living the life!

And now there’s only one problem. I’m just not sure how I’m ever going to sit in one of those hard, wooden chairs again.

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Oct 24 2014
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Informative

I should have known

ap windowI’ve been sick. Not earth shatteringly sick. Not the kind of sick that people should worry about. I mean I haven’t spent the last month ticking off the boxes on my “things I need to do before I die” list. Which, as you know, I don’t have but if I did, this would not have been the time to use it. Really, I should have known. About three weeks ago I got off a plane, one that I had spent five hours sitting on beside my friend who had a cold. She can’t help it. She has little kids and that’s what happens when you have little kids. But I don’t so I can only conclude that you don’t have to have little kids to get sick if you are sitting beside someone who does. For five hours. On a metal tube without any real ventilation. It’s not like I could have opened the window and stuck my head out to get some fresh air. They frown upon that on a plane. So there wasn’t too much I could do except sit there and get sick. Hence, for the past three weeks I have not been feeling that great.

Looking back at it now, as one often does when one finds oneself in situations such as this one, the worst part was not the sneezing, the sore throat or the alternating between too hot and too cold for no apparent reason. For sure, none of those things were that great. The clincher was the coughing, mostly because one day I coughed so much that I pulled a muscle in my back. And that’s what’s been keeping me up at night and making my life generally miserable for the past three weeks. It’s also why I haven’t posted on the blog which is really what all of this has been leading up to. As a shallow person you would think I wouldn’t have to explain my absence but I do. Because it there is one thing I’m not shallow about, it’s the shallow blog. Ironic, isn’t it.  Ok, enough with the kvetching (google that if you need to). I’m starting to feel better so here I am.

The thing is, before I got sick, and the sole reason I was on that plane, was to attend a conference. It was a good conference, much like most of the conferences I have attended in the past. Lots of speakers, lots of people, lots of stuff to take up my time. I had thought I might write about what I learned at the conference but I’ve done that before and, to tell the truth, other than discovering that I still abhor hot, sticky, rainy weather that makes my hair go curly, I didn’t learn too many new things. So I had decided that rather than write about what I learned I would write about what I did while I was at the conference.

Now I should tell you that five hour plane ride took me to the land of a million theme parks and I come to that number only because I figure if you have a theme park called the “Holy Land Experience” it has got to be one in a million. And, in retrospect, as prudent as it might have been to have used my shekels to have Jesus (yes apparently he was resurrected, at least for this gig) heal my ills, I didn’t make the trek to the Promised Land on this trip. Instead, I chose to meander through the rather more secular and pedestrian world of Universal Studios where the wizards carry wands rather than sceptres. So, in keeping with the whole movie theme, I had decided to share my experience of that day by relating to you “the good” (the Simpson’s ride has got to be my most favourite ever!) “the bad” (we walked 9 miles in that hot, sticky weather and by mid-afternoon I had little choice but to shove my no longer sleek hair into the hat I had so fortuitously brought with me) and “the ugly” (given the number of amusements I had to pass on due to their propensity for making riders either very wet or very sick I figure this outing cost me about 20 bucks (yea, that’s U.S.) a pop).

But I didn’t write about any of that because, as you now know,  I got sick. Which is why, instead of reading all about what I did while I was at the conference you have instead, just finished reading this.

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Sep 26 2014
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Informative, Instructive

Thank you very much!

thank-youHere’s what I’m  thinking. You’re thinking that I’ve been so busy with my “Happy” course that I haven’t had time to write the blog. And perhaps you’re thinking that I’ve become so happy and have found so much meaning in my life that I can no longer find it in my heart to write about being shallow. Of course, that was always a possibility when I signed up for the course. I knew from the “get-go” there was a chance, however slight, that this course could, once and forever, change my inner being, my worldview. Perhaps alter the very core of my existence in this universe of ours. And it might. If I could only get started on it. You see the course is now in Week 3 but unfortunately I’m not. I’m here in the “big city” doing other stuff and since I’m relatively happy anyway, my initial excitement for the course, and for gaining a better understanding about how to be happy and find meaning in my life, has waned. Even so, I still read the emails of encouragement they send to me each and every week so I know that right now, at this very moment, they are talking about the importance of being kind to others which, coincidentally brings me to the thoughts that have been swirling around in my mind for sometime now. Yes, I do think about what to write before I actually get to the writing.

So last week I’m at a concert and there, sitting a couple of rows ahead of me, is a woman I used to work with. When I say “used  to” I’m talking about quite a long time ago. To put that in perspective, when she turned around and enthusiastically waved to me while simultaneously mouthing my name, a momentary feeling of terror descended upon me as I desperately tried to remember why she looked vaguely familiar. Quickly gathering my composure, I returned a somewhat more subdued wave and smile to her in an effort to prevent the interaction from moving to the next step. Which, as you know, is a more personal, close encounter. Being only a row or two apart, and with the start of the concert still several minutes away, I instinctively knew there was a chance she would decide to come over to renew our acquaintance and “catch up” as people are often wont to do under circumstances such as these. And that is just what she did.

Now I am the first person to admit there’s nothing wrong with getting a compliment. I even know how to respond when I get one because, at some point in my life, someone whose name will forever escape me, taught me how. The thing is, compliment exchanges usually go something like this:

Complimenter: What a lovely dress!
Complimentee: This old thing? It’s been hanging in my closet for ages so thought I should give it a last walk around the block. Can’t believe it still fits.

And that’s not the way to do it. At least not the way I was taught. What you are supposed to do when you get a compliment is just say “thank you very much” and apparently that will make both the giver and the receiver feel better. Perhaps even happy. It’s just that most people don’t. But what if thank you very much just doesn’t work? Because sometimes it doesn’t.

As I continue to struggle with remembering who my long, lost friend is she comes right up to me, looks me straight in the eye and says: “I can’t believe it! You look exactly the same as you did when we worked together”. To which I wanted to reply “So how come no one told me I looked so old back then?” because even I find it very hard to believe that in the thirty years since we worked together (and I only surmise we did work together because she not only recognized me but also knew my name) I haven’t changed, not even one tiny little bit. How can that be so? I mean, as far as I can tell she must have changed quite a lot since I can’t even remember who she is. Surely neither she nor I had the deep-set wrinkles we currently have. Or the extra pounds. Or the little gray hairs that no matter how hard you try to hide insist on sticking straight up from your otherwise sleek hair. And if I did look back then like I do now, I certainly wish someone had told me.  Maybe I could have done something about it.

But I didn’t say what I wanted to say. I didn’t say any of those things I was thinking. I simply said “Thank you very much. And without even a break in the tempo, added: “And so do you”. Because it was the right thing to do. It was my way of being kind to others. And you know, as I write this, I have to say I’m feeling just a little bit happier about the whole thing.

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