Tag Archives: shallow

Dec 08 2015
4 Comments
Informative, Instructive

It could happen to you


brainy-peopleI know I’ve said this before but at the risk of repeating myself, I thought I would mention that my Mother, kenahora, (don’t worry, you can check it out here.) recently had her 100th birthday. And if you can excuse the redundancy, you should also know that my Mother has three sisters who are, respectively, 96, 94 and 85 years old. Their Mother was 102. So to say I know something about living long is a bit of an understatement. I know a lot about living long. And well for that matter because, if I might say so, all of these ladies have lived and are living, very wonderful lives. Which, as Martha would say (and yes, I’ve said this before too), is a very good thing. Given the facts, it’s not all that surprising that people who know this story of mine jump to the somewhat dubious conclusion that I too will one day find myself, hammer and nail in hand, placing that elusive to most plaque from the Queen (or more likely, in my case, the King) on my living room wall. And while I might, I also might not because, as you are most likely aware, there are no guarantees in this or any other life and one never knows what one will face each and every day. It’s just the way it goes. What will be will be. Ca sera sera.

Nevertheless, not too long ago I found myself watching a docu/news show about longevity and the amazing research taking place that will, sooner than later, let all of us live to be 1000. That’s right. Scientists tell us that it is possible that someone who is alive today will still be alive 1000 years from now. So if you are reading this, it could happen to you. Apparently there are various ways for this to come to pass, most of which I don’t care to understand as they seem to demand some rather invasive medical procedures, and one of which involves downloading your brain into a computer which doesn’t seem quite so onerous and I would imagine, would be somewhat faster and require much less direct participation from me. It’s complicated but I suppose if you think you are still thinking, perhaps you are. Cogito ergo sum.  And I suppose it wouldn’t be all that bad. Especially if they could take that computer brain and put it into a fantastic robot body. I mean, imagine. Not only could you live for a 1000 years but you could do it in someone else’s hot body. Like Marilyn Monroe. Or Jennifer Lopez. Or perhaps Ms. Streisand which in my particular case, wouldn’t be much of a stretch or, from what I hear, much different. But as compelling as all of this might sound, as a shallow person I got thinking about the prospect of being stuck on this earth for a thousand years and decided there could be a considerable downside because knowing what I know, I have to ask, who really wants to live to be 1000? And the more I thought about it, the more reasons I came up with, so in true “shallow be my name” fashion, I thought I would take this opportunity to share some of the most persuasive of them with you. Here they are. My top 10, most persuasive reasons for not wanting to live to be 1000 at the end of which, I am confident, you truly will be careful for what you wish.

#1. If you can live to be 1000 so can that irritating neighbor of yours.
#2. You’re gonna need a year’s worth of stars to get a free one at Starbucks and that’s a lotta lattes.
#3. Survivor season 753, and Jeff Probst is still counting the votes.
#4. Gas is $700.00 a litre, food costs you a couple grand a week and you haven’t had a raise in 500 years.
#5. 1000 years old and you still haven’t won the lottery.
#6. Just how many times do you think you can feign excitement when you hear “Honey, I’m home”!
#7. Meatloaf again?
#8. If you’ve said this once you’ve said it a million times. Literally.
#9. Your brain has been downloaded to a computer and you’re living in a robot body. Think about it.
#10. And last but not least, I’ll still be writing this blog and you’ll still feel obligated to read it 1000 years from now.

Tagged , , , ,
Nov 01 2015
4 Comments
Informative

They Picked Me!

scalesHonestly, it had never once crossed my mind. But it happened. I suppose I should start by telling you that, in my new home I’ve adopted a few routines, one of which is trekking down from my office mid-afternoon to check the mail. It’s not a really big deal. It’s something I do, now that I can. Mostly there are no surprises, just the usual junk mail which, as I recall, came in pretty handy when we were packing up all our belongings but is of much less use to me now. Most days I could probably forego the trip altogether but since I paid Canada Post the required fee to, apparently, make sure that all this junk mail got rerouted to my current address, I feel some obligation to at least retrieve it on a regular basis. I suppose it is nice to know that I could have ordered “two pizzas for the price of one” had I still lived anywhere near the designated delivery zone, which I don’t. So I was more than a little surprised the other day when I reached into the mailbox and discovered a rather official looking envelope with the now familiar yellow “reroute” label firmly attached, and a return address that made it quite clear that when I opened up this letter, I was going to find out all of the details I needed to know about where, when and how I should present myself for jury duty.

That’s right. I was summoned for jury duty by the province in which I no longer live. Thirty-eight years I lived in that town and not once did anyone ask me who was, or was not guilty of any particular crime. And now, all of a sudden, out of the blue, now that I no longer have to endure the bitter cold of the north winds, they picked me! Now they want me to decide the fate of some hooligan who had nothing better to do on a Saturday night than pilfer a poor, law-abiding citizen’s house. Or hold-up a gas station. Worse yet. They might ask me to decide whether some white collar guy who cooked the books so no one would know he had embezzled funds from his employer to cover his opulent lifestyle and nasty little gambling habit, should spend his remaining years sleeping on a cot beside “Dirty Joe” whose nickname is well deserved since (and I’ve only heard this third hand) showers are not mandatory in the slammer. And even if they were, no one would dare get close enough to Joe to make that happen. I’m no accountant. I wasn’t even good at math. How am I supposed to know if he was really entitled to his windfall or not? Besides, I have trouble some mornings deciding what colour t-shirt to put on, which for some people might seem like a reasonable dilemma, but not for me. The duds in my closet are pretty much black and white, which most of the aforementioned decisions I imagine, are not.

Fortunately for all involved, and that includes, me, my fellow jurors and the alleged culprits, (note I have no preconceived notions as to their guilt) I no longer reside in that province which, if I have read all of the instructions correctly, will disqualify me from my civic duty. At least I’ve applied to have it disqualify me from my civic duty and hopefully the clerk who makes those decisions will agree with my assessment of the situation.  Not that I’ve changed that much since I left although things are quite a bit more laid back over here on the Island and perhaps, how should I put this, a bit more forgiving. Anyway, I’m guessing I’m off the hook but that hasn’t stopped me from thinking about how this all might have gone down if I wasn’t. You see, getting called for jury duty doesn’t mean that getting the gig is a slam dunk. You have to be chosen, the basis of which I understand is imparted to a select few, much like the code shared by magicians. Which left me with a heapful of questions, the answers to which would be dependant on whether I wanted to get picked or not. Like is it better to be dress prissy or maybe a little too hip? Although, pretty much regardless of circumstance, it’s never a good thing for someone my age to try to look a little too hip. Should I appear quiet or perhaps somewhat outspoken? Do they want a leader or a follower? Since I’ve always kind of danced to my own drum I’m not sure how to look like either of those. I suppose if I didn’t want to leave anything to chance I could look around when they called my name once or twice and finally respond with something like “I’m sorry. I just zoned out there for a few minutes. What was it you were asking?”  I began to think that this whole thing was just one big decision after another, culminating in perhaps the most important decision of all. And that scared me quite a bit. Until it occurred to me. They would call me to the front of the room and it would go something like this:

Jury Picker: Please state your name
Me: Wendy
Jury Picker: And what do you do?
Me. I write a blog about being shallow. It’s called “Shallow be My Name”.
Jury Picker: Thank you very much for your time. You can be dismissed
Me: But wait. I haven’t even told you where I live yet.

Tagged , , , ,
Oct 15 2015
9 Comments
Informative

Never Hug a Stranger

no hugsSo I’m watching a special on Mary Tyler Moore while writing this latest blog post (it’s my kind of multitasking). Before I know it, what should come on but the most famous scene of all time, the group hug that takes place as Mary and her station mates close the door at WJM TV for the very last time. Go figure!. That’s exactly what I was writing about. No, not Mary Tyler Moore. I mean, I could write about her but I’d need more time to think about it.  What I happened to be writing about at that very same moment, and this seems to be beyond coincidence to me, is hugging. You see, I’m not exactly sure why, but there’s been quite a lot of hugging going on these days. Maybe it has something to do with this move of mine. Apparently convention dictates that when someone says goodbye they need to do so within inches of someone else’s body. Then again, it could have something to do with that 100th birthday I just attended in my old hometown, as saying hello seems to have the same effect on people as saying goodbye. They need to do it at very close quarters. And that’s something I just don’t understand. Mostly, and you can ask just about anyone who knows me, because I don’t like to hug. Not one little bit.

For some time now I have wondered why I have such an aversion to hugging. Sure. I’m shallow. But isn’t that all the more reason for me to go through the motions of what for most people, seems to have become an obligatory gesture regardless of the occasion? Because let’s face it. People hug other people whether they’re happy or sad, coming or going, winners or losers, meeting old friends or new acquaintances, really just about for any reason these days. There are even those who want to give away hugs for free. It’s become quite ubiquitous and, if I might be so bold to suggest, at least in some cases, a little hollow. So you would think I could get on board with that. But I can’t.

As long as I can remember (and that’s quite a long time on some days) there’s been a social norm around personal space. When we talk to people we like to have a foot or two between us, perhaps more depending on circumstances. We need that little piece of airspace to feel comfortable. So why is it that, all of a sudden, it’s ok to cross that imaginary line at the drop of a hat? Many times, for what seems to me to be some rather spurious reasons. Where a quick shake of the hand used to suffice now, before we know it, we find ourselves locked in an embrace with someone whose name has just alluded us. And it’s awkward. Because there’s always that “to hug or not to hug” moment when you’re not sure what’s going to happen next. Like when you’ve just spent five or so minutes in conversation with someone you know, I might add not all that well, and  you foolishly mention your impending move. Just as you are ready to wrap things up, turn and go on your merry way, you notice your compatriot taking a slight step forward, arms starting to raise from their side. You  think you know what’s going to happen next but how can you be sure? I don’t know about you but for me the upshot of this rather confusing moment is a somewhat inelegant dance in which I do my best to sidestep the inevitable. If I’m lucky, I’ll manage to escape with something that resembles a rather klutzy pat on the back, excusing myself with a smile and an apologetic “I don’t hug”, in the nicest way that I can.  If I’m not, well I’ll end up locked in the arms of someone I hardly know or worse yet, who I haven’t seen for a long time not entirely without reason, wondering how a couple of seconds can possibly go by as slowly as these.

There was a point in time that I was convinced that my aversion to hugging could be attributed to my somewhat less than average stature. You see when people like me hug, or are hugged by people like many of you, our face often ends up somewhere other than where we would like it to be. This is particularly true if there is a discrepancy of a foot or more between us. Just let me say that it can become a little uncomfortable. And while this was a plausible enough explanation for my hugging disdain, it didn’t really seem to fill the bill in all cases because while many people are, not everyone is taller than me. For the most part, I remained stumped as to why I disliked hugging so much. That is until I met up with an old cousin of mine who I hadn’t seen for many, many, years.

Remember that 100 year birthday I’ve been talking so much about? Well it turned out to be quite the family get together. As is oft to happen at these things, one has the chance to renew acquaintances with people they haven’t seen for a very long time. I get talking with this cousin of mine and we start to reminisce about our Fathers. Now let me  say that my Father was one of the wisest men I have ever known. So my cuz and I are sharing stories, remembering all the good times, working out the family history, mostly wondering why we don’t do this more often, when he turns to me and says “your Father always told me that our family makes great strangers”.  And that’s when it hit me. That’s when it all started to make sense.  In that one simple statement I found my answer to the question I have been asking myself for so long. Of course I hate hugging.  And honestly, no one should ever try to hug a stranger.  

_______________________________________________________________

Looking for the update? You’ll find it here.

Tagged , , , ,
Sep 21 2015
Leave a comment
Informative, Instructive

It’s My Move!

I know, I know! I’ve been gone quite a long time. Long enough I suppose to warrant an explanation. So here it comes. For the past “longer than I care to think about”, I’ve been trying to write a blog post about my move. You know of course, that I have moved. With every good intention, I have sat with my laptop on my knee, albeit while watching one of the many summer reality shows that are currently taking the place of the many fall reality shows soon to come, formulating sentences and even paragraphs so that I could share with you the experience of moving from the perspective of a shallow person. Alas, it has all been to no avail. Now I’m not going to tell you that my other posts have always come easy. That the words flow from my thoughts onto the screen like waves upon the sand. Sometimes they do and other times there’s a bit of a struggle, but nothing like this time. This time has been different. Because even when I thought I had it right, I didn’t. Why, I thought, was it so difficult for me to write a little piece about my move? And then it hit me. Having just gone through the whole thing I realized that there is nothing, and I mean nothing shallow, or funny for that matter, about moving. Absolutely nothing. It’s just one long, excruciating and painful experience. So I’m left with little to say but this.

Moving sucks! Trust me. I don’t use that kind of descriptive language very often. But it’s just as simple as that. The packing, the loading, the throwing out junk, the unloading, the unpacking, the realization that you didn’t throw out enough junk. There’s just not much about it that I can honestly, in all good faith, recommend. And now is not the time to remind me that I have just moved from one of the coldest parts of the country to arguably one of the most beautiful and temperate Islands this side of Hawaii. Let’s put that aside for a moment and focus on the act of moving because that’s really what we are here to talk about.

If you have been reading this blog for some time you will recall my tale about the sale of the house and how we suffered through the cleaning and purging related to that little episode, and then the cleaning and purging that followed as we attempted to rid ourselves of all our extraneous possessions. If you were to reread those posts (as I just did but you won’t) it may even have seemed that our commitment and diligence to the task would have resulted in our being left with only those things that were really important to us and, as such, worth loading onto the moving van. Of course, if that were the case, I certainly wouldn’t be trying to figure out what to do with the stuffed Pooh Bear that is staring up at me right now with it’s big, brown, glassy eyes. Or attempting to balance my evening cup of tea on what used to be a packing box but has now taken on the role of a coffee table since, apparently, while Pooh moved, the coffee tables did not. Explain to me how that happened! Given that I am just this side of a rant, I won’t even go into how, in all of the confusion on the day the van arrived, I mistakenly thought I had left my laptop at the local Starbucks never to be seen again (even in this laid back town there is only so much one can expect of strangers), only to discover that at some earlier point in the day I had decided to put it at the very back of my closet for safekeeping. Or how after spending copious amounts of time and money in preparing to take our cat on her first two day jaunt in the car (did we really need that extra can of “At Ease” pet spray?) she promptly disappeared only to be found several panicked  hours later sleeping quite contently inside the box spring of our bed. No, those are events that are simply best forgotten at this point.

Ok, so things have started to settle down and, if we can make up our minds soon, it should only be another ten weeks or so until I will be able to once again place that tea of mine on an actual table. In the meantime, all of this has got me thinking. Wouldn’t it be much simpler if houses were sold “as is”? I mean if all you had to do was move some clothes and maybe a picture or two, life would be so much easier. So what if the couch wasn’t the exact shade of blue you were hoping for? Trust me, you’d get used to it. Or the coffee table was glass instead of walnut? It’s still going to do what a table is supposed to do. Or the dishes were a little chipped? You’re going to chip them eventually anyway. Think of it! No more boxes, or loading and unloading or packing and unpacking or sussing out that elusive piece of furniture that apparently exists only in your own mind’s eye. It just makes sense to me.  But then, I might be just a tad more shallow than most of you.

Tagged , , , , ,
Jul 14 2015
Leave a comment
Informative

So you want to live to be 100

one-hundredI was reading an article the other day, well not so much “reading” as listening to someone who had read the article tell me about it. I suppose they thought I would be interested because the gist of it was how to live to be 100, which, as you can probably guess, I already know something about. But for those of you who are less familiar with this phenomenon, I suspect that right now you’re thinking there are likely some key factors that contribute to this quite remarkable extension of life. Like eating all the right stuff, exercising regularly, not smoking, and just to be sure, never playing on railroad tracks. You might even think, and you could probably find some research to say so, that a glass of wine or beer a day is the key to unlocking the door to longevity. And it is quite possible that you would be right but before you get too cocky I have to tell you, that in this case, it was none of these. Nope. What my compatriot proceeded to explain to me, despite my protestations because I, like you, am pretty confident that I have this one down pat, was the one thing you must do if you want to live to be 100 (and let me just add here that not all of us do) is easy. You have to be happy. That’s right. It’s as simple as that. Just be happy.

Now I’ve written about this so many times I won’t even bother linking you to the posts, but I am pretty certain you know that, as a shallow person I may not be happy all of the time, but I am happy a lot of the time. So for me, this “long life” revelation may prove to be less problematic than it is for some of you. Nonetheless, it did get me thinking. It got me thinking about what it means to be happy. You may recall that at one point, not so long ago, I embarked on a course to answer this very question and had I actually taken the course, I might not now be spending my time pondering this rather elusive concept. But I never did take the course, so here I am, on my own, grappling with the concept of happiness and what it means to you and me and perhaps a whole slew of people we don’t know. Because it seems, if I can be so bold to say so, that what might make one person happy could make another very sad.

Think about it. What do you think makes a con man happy? Having never been one I can only imagine that the pinnacle of happiness for someone like that would be the moment your money ends up in his (or her, of course) pocket. I’ll even go out on a limb and say in this case the “more the merrier” leaving me to conclude that the sadder I am the happier he is. Then there’s clowns. Here’s a whole segment of the population (small as it may be) whose entire purpose in life is to make others happy. They spend their days devising clever ways to to get people to laugh, maybe forget their troubles for a little while and it makes them happy to spread that little bit of sunshine. Surely there’s no harm in that. Unless of course, they come up against someone in the audience with coulrophobia and the whole thing turns into a “can’t sleep, clown will eat me” nightmare. So much for those good intentions. Or how about that tax collector? At the end of his day the more “evaders” he finds the happier he is. But how do you feel when you’re the guy at the short end of that stick? You see what I mean? Regardless of the outcome, apparently if they’re happy they’ll reap the benefits. Get it? It’s those guys who will be waving goodbye to the rest of us as we have our one final, (not to mention often only) trip in that big, black limo. Where’s the justice in that?

Anyway, that’s what I’ve been thinking since I heard about this road to living long. Although, in the middle of my thinking I actually thought about something else. My Mother is about as close now to 100 as you can get without hitting that nail on the head. Her Mother (may she rest in peace) was 102. The “sisters” are 96, 94, and 84, or thereabouts. All of which all makes me wonder. Maybe I don’t have to worry about being happy after all.

Tagged , , , ,
← Older posts
Newer posts →