Up Close and Personals



"His feet look really small.  What does that mean?
Should I be concerned?"



Everybody’s doing it.  Or not, as the case may be.  But chances are, if you have been single at any point in the last few years, you have probably at least flirted with online dating.  In fact, I know several committed couples who met each other on line and who are now married with kids or buying houses and investment plans together. 

I think online dating can be a great way to meet people.  It beats being thrown out of Loblaws for stalking fellow customers.  (This has not actually happened to me, of course. I just have an active imagination.  No, really.)

I have had several dates as a result of online dating, and the men I met were generally decent, normal guys.  Ok, there were also a couple socially stunted guys who were a little too fond of their video games, superheroes and Star Wars action figures.  But they were still nice enough guys. 

Did you know there are dating sites for every possible special interest?  For example Cougar Life is a site specifically tailored for older women looking to meet younger men.  Sugar Daddy/Sugar Baby is where you can meet someone who is just dying to fund your Manolo Blahnik collection.  There are dating sites for every religion – and even for atheist singles, and sites for special interest groups.  And – I’m not making this up --there’s even a site particularly for Vegan Atheist Singles.  Now that sounds like a fun place to meet some one for a light-hearted evening!

Recently, a few women I know have been trawling the dating waters of a site for oldsters.  There really is no other way to put it.  I mean, the site calls itself “Senior People Date” or something like that. 

The Middle Aged Sage

 “I’m going to kill myself when I’m 39.” 

“Why is that, Tiffany?”

“So I don’t have to be old.”

I’ve never forgotten that conversation, held between myself and a girl in my Grade 11 Basic English class during my first year of teaching. 

I was only about 27 myself, but I was already ancient in the eyes of 15 year old Tiffany. (They were all named Tiffany, Brittany or Courtenay that year.)  I quickly gave up trying to convince her that 40 wasn’t exactly old, feeling pretty confident that she would probably revise her plans well before the due date. 

Far from being a reason to jump off a bridge, middle age has perks that young’uns can’t imagine.  Perks like lower car insurance, and – um…. well, I’m sure there’s other stuff too, but I can’t remember exactly what at the moment.  Improved memory is clearly not one of those perks. 

The great thing about middle age is that you no longer have to care about how you are perceived by others in public.  This is very freeing for the individual, if potentially embarrassing to love ones, acquaintances and others who possibly don’t appreciate the new found feeling of freedom.

I was revisiting these thoughts today.  It began with the trip my sister and I took to Shopper’s Drug Mart Beauty Boutique. We spent a good 45 minutes trawling through the mind-boggling assortment of make-up and beauty products.  Some of these products sound like they actually belong in a hardware store.  Did you know that primer is not just for house paint anymore?  And surely “microderm abrasion pads” are really just “sandpaper”.  Pretty pink rounds of sandpaper, but sandpaper none the less.

 

The Joys of Shopping for Jeans!

 
The only shopping task I hate more than shopping for jeans is shopping for bathing suits. I’m sure you will agree with me.  If you don’t agree because you happen look great in all jeans or all bathing suits, I don’t want to hear about it.  And we can no longer be friends.  Just to let you know.

First there is the size 00 salesclerk who tries to convince me to buy something called “Dangerously Low Cut” jeans… Does she not see the wrinkles on my face? Does she not see my generous backside, the likes of which those dangerous jeans won’t even go half way to covering?

“Here’s an idea,” suggests 00. (I suspect that this may be more than just her size; possibly it’s also her IQ)  “These will stretch to fit anyone.”   Is it just me, or did that sound vaguely insulting? I don’t think salesclerks work on commission anymore, because if they do, 00 will also be this girl’s income.

Anyway, she hands me a pair of “Jeggings” … the hideous cross over garment that can’t decide if it’s a pair of jeans or a pair of leggings. 

Titicaca

Titicaca.  My friend Sai laughed like Beavis and Butthead every time he heard the name of the world’s highest navigable lake.  Can you blame him?  Obviously, it was an absolute must on our whirlwind trip to Peru.

To tell the truth, I think it was partly the name.  For a pair of supposedly mature adults, we spent an inordinate amount of time laughing over it and coming up with alternatives (Boobypoopoo comes to mind.)  (Come on, tell me you weren’t thinking exactly the same thing!)

The lake itself is a deep beautiful blue, perfectly reflecting the clear sky above and stretching away to the horizon where the snow caps of Bolivia looked like distant, unchanging cloud formations.

The first stop on our tour was probably the weirdest place on Earth.  Isla Flotante Uros Balsero is one of a cluster of 42 artificial floating islands made of reeds.  Home of the Uros people.  “Home” as in they permanently live on these massive rafts and have apparently been doing so for many generations – according to our guide, since they took to the lake to hide out from the Spanish Conquistadors.  That’s a long time to hang out on a raft. 

Have no plans, will travel anyway!

You might think that, having reached an age where backpacking and sleeping in creepy hostels are no longer my preferred mode of travel, I would have stumbled upon the benefits of Planning Ahead. 

You might think that, but you would be wrong.  Nowadays I want certain creature comforts like clean sheets and flushing toilets when I travel, but I still strike out without much planning ahead.  I will book a flight to my destination country but nothing else.  Yet I am always confident that I will figure it out when I get there, and everything will work out all right.  

This lax approach to holiday planning has driven certain people I know quite crazy, even when they are not going to be travelling with me. 

When I went to Peru a while back, I was asked the question, “Have you booked your hotels?” so many times in the weeks leading up to my trip that I finally gave in and made a reservation at a Lima pensione for the day of my arrival, just to get everyone off my back.

The friend I was traveling with and I had discussed a rough itinerary, but he is even more last-minute than I am, so of course we hadn’t booked any of our internal flights or any more hotels. 

 

Anne, the Dance Mother

Today's blog is courtesy of my sister, Anne.  You can see from this that our organizational methods are apparently genetic..... Take it away, Anne!

The Dance Mother Test and How I Failed – Miserably

Once upon a time there was a mother whose daughter was dancing in her first competition and

this is her story. ..

Somehow Kathleen did not communicate to us that she was involved in a MAJOR dance

competition until the last moment and then it was only in a piecemeal sort of a way. It took no

fewer than four phone calls to the dance studio to get the details - which I imagine now, given the magnitude of the event, had been sent home in some written form; handed out on a night that Kathleen missed dance. It was huge, a four day extravaganza of competitions involving about twenty studios, a huge expensive program, paid admission, big panel of adjudicators, start bells, the stuff of real competitions! And I had assumed it was just one of those little local things!

Among the details we managed to cobble together was the need for tights from Wal-Mart (yikes!) and her hair in a bun. Thursday night I found myself in Wal-Mart calling husband to inquire – was it pink or white? He called back to say with great certainty, it was white - so I got the last pair in her size. I then spent the better part of the next two hours trying to find some means by which to create a bun. In desperation I called another mom (a real pro) only to find out it was bobby pins and lots of them that I needed.

WWJD?

Efficiency, thy name is Jan. 

My friend Jan is my role model for Getting Things Done.  She gets more done in one day than I can accomplish in a week.  Jan can rise before her alarm clock in the morning, bake muffins from scratch, weed the garden, paint the stairs, repair the crumbling foundation, decorate the dining room and post her facebook status all before her kids and husband wake up.  Talk about six impossible things before breakfast!!!!

My morning routine is somewhat less efficient.  A typical day begins at six when I hit “snooze” for the first time. I’ve perfected the art of snoozing; I can wake up, hit snooze and return to R.E.M. sleep a good five times before I give in to the inevitable and grudgingly throw back the duvet.

This is followed by an astonishing number of trips up and down the stairs as I attempt to organize coffee, showering, dressing, breakfasting and trying to get out the door by 7:15.  Which I never do.  Ever. 

“How is that possible?” asked Jan, last night, when I was moaning about my mornings. This is a good question.  How IS it possible for one adult person to take so long to get going in the morning? 

Jan asked a few more probing questions about why I’m up and down the stairs so many times instead of just sensibly showering, dressing and making-up before going down for breakfast.  Instead of confessing the obvious truth (i.e. Clearly, I'm not “just sensible”), I blamed it on the Harry Potter Bathroom. 

"No Comment"

First of all, I want to thank everyone who has sent me messages and emails of encouragement Your support means more to me than you can know!

I know that some of you have tried to make comments on the blog and they weren’t showing up. 

I’m not exactly a techy wizard.  i.e. I have almost no idea what I’m doing here – which, coupled with a complete inability to read the nerdspeak in the optimistically named “Help” section, means that I have to figure things out by playing around. 

So, I played around with the settings and I think I’ve got it figured out.  At least partially.  Now, instead of all comments going directly to oblivion there are three possible outcomes. 

Option A: The comment will appear on my blog right away.  In which case – yay!

Option B: The comment will go to a secret compartment on my blog where I have to “moderate” it.  Oh the power!!! Ha ha ha.  Ok, really, it means I just have to press ok, and it will appear on my blog.

Option C: The comment will go to the Mysterious Land of Dryer Socks.  In which case, no one can help us.

Thanks again for your comments sent via FB and email, etc.  Love ya!

Have camel, will travel.

The sun was sliding over the horizon of the silent desert when, like a mirage, the short, bandy legged man in a lunghi materialized out of nowhere, trudging up the side of the sand dune.  He raised the bulging burlap sack in his hand and said, “You would like to buy some Kingfisher?”

It was New Year’s Eve, not one of us had thought to bring any alcohol to ring in the New Year.  Not to mention we’d spent a hot, dusty day on camel back.  The only answer was – “Of course we want it!”  We bought the lot and toasted the enterprising beer-wallah and the end of another year with warm swigs of Vijay Mallya’s finest.

Welcome!

The other day I got a piece of mail from Revenue Canada. Not just any piece of mail, but a total shocker, advising me that I owed them an ENORMOUS sum of cash equal to roughly all my life’s blood.

During the tooth-gnashing melt down that ensued, one of the things I said, no wailed, was that I had absolutely nothing to show for my life. And when I said that I really really believed it.

Because judging by certain yardsticks, I don’t have much. No house, no car, no kids, no husband, not much in the way of income at the moment…I don’t even have a TV!!! (Not that I want one) Sounds kind of dire and rock-bottomish, doesn’t it?