Life in progress

Category Archives: Life


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One-Liner Wednesday – NaNo?

Answer to the question, “What am I going to do in November?”:
“Well, you could grow a moustache, but writing a book might be easier.”

Thanks, John.

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Anyone who would like to try it out, feel free to use the “One-Liner Wednesday” title in your post, and if you do, you can ping back here to help your blog get more exposure. As with Stream of Consciousness Saturday, if you see a ping back from someone else in my comment section, click and have a read. It’s bound to be short and sweet.

The rules that I’ve made for myself (but don’t always follow) for “One-Liner Wednesday” are as follows:

1. Make it one sentence.

2. Make it either funny or inspirational.

Have fun!


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A Rant

I am officially ashamed of my job. The organization that prints and distributes the local newspaper that I deliver–that people pay good money for–needs to take a good, close look at itself and its practices. It’s no wonder subscriptions are on the decline. I’ve gone from having twenty-three customers to thirteen in the three years I’ve been doing the job.

Today, however, takes the proverbial cake.

The article in question (no, I won’t cite it for the following reasons:  a) I don’t want to advertise publicly where I live; b) the article is conspicuously absent from their website anyway; and c) I still work for them. For now.) is about a recent awareness-raising campaign entitled “Slut Walk.”

The annual Slut Walk, if you haven’t heard about it, is a tool to teach people (men mostly) that dressing like a slut isn’t an invitation for sexual assault. This, in and of itself, is a reasonable lesson to learn. You can read more about it here: http://www.slutwalktoronto.com/about/how if you’re interested.

But it’s not the Walk itself that I have a problem with – it’s the article.

Apart from numerous grammatical errors, (“you’re” instead of “your”? Come on!) which point blatantly at the fact that if an editor even read through the article he needs to be fired clean out of the editorial cannon, there are the questionable quotes from the event’s organizer, in which she states that the word ‘slut’ need not be a bad word, and that, “It just describes someone that is sexually promiscuous, someone who is maybe for work or for personal reasons and that is not a bad thing.”

Then she goes on to say people are complaining that the Walk isn’t child-friendly, but that, “…there is not a whole lot of scantily clad people…” this directly below a picture of a woman with the middle of her t-shirt cut out, revealing her bare breasts (and no, it’s not edited) and then, “…I think there is only one sign with profanity…there is nothing here that you wouldn’t see on TV or hear on the radio.”

Where is anything child-friendly about this scenario? On one hand you have a legitimate message – clothes don’t invite rape – and then on the other hand you have a newspaper quoting an organizer saying it’s okay for girls to be sexually promiscuous for work or personal reasons or whatever. Not only that, she’s blind!

And so is the editor of my damned paper!!!

Aside from finding a way to get a note to the author of the article to ask him if he grammars much, I’ve a good mind to write a letter to the editor.

I just don’t know where to start.


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Which Book or Movie Title Describes your Life?

I don’t often post surveys, nor do I usually participate in them. But I came across one that I thought might be fun on Facebook the other day and I thought it might be amusing to pass it along. Kind of.

The Facebook version asked a lot of random questions and came up with the answer for me. However, I lost all respect for it when it posed a question in which I had to choose a “literary character,” one of which was Christian Grey of 50 Shades of Grey fame. 🙄

So instead of posting the actual survey, I thought I’d just ask: If you could choose just one book title (or movie title, I’m not picky) to describe your life as it is right now, what would it be?

I realize you must scroll through the comments to get to the comment box, so try to come up with your answer before you look at the others, so you’re not influenced.

Go!


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SoCS – The Opposite of Average

I never did like averages. When they say, “the average age is between (this) and (that)” it always made me think about those who made the average what it is. For instance, the average is between 25 and 50. What about the 10s and the 75s? Nobody ever thinks about them, because they’re not in the average – but they’re just as important in making the average as anything else.

In sports I always root for the underdog. It’s why I’m a Toronto Maple Leafs fan. You remember them? The famous golfers? They’re always the first out on the greens every season. Haha. (They’re going to win the cup next year, by the way.)

I can see the appeal in being considered average. Having two special needs kids, the word “normal” has a unique set of meanings to me – and no, my kids are not average. In some ways they’re far above.

And I certainly don’t want my epic novel to be average. It’s gonna shine.

So what’s the opposite of the word “average”? Is it unique? Is it special? Is it simply “outside the norm”? Underdog? Is there one?

A werewolf and a vampire go into a bar. The vampire orders a glass of red. The werewolf eats the bartender. The vampire says, “Next time, I’m buying.”

I have no idea where that came from, other than somewhere inside my (opposite of average) brain. Thank you very much.

 

Badge by: Doobster at Mindful Digressions

Badge by: Doobster at Mindful Digressions

This post is part of Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Find this week’s prompt at the link and join in! https://lindaghill.wordpress.com/2014/09/19/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-september-2014/


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What Keeps You From Feeling Your Age?

I stood at the kitchen counter yesterday, stirring Christopher’s medicine into his orange juice and I remembered learning to stir for the first time; I might have been three or four years old. It came back to me in a flash. My senses all conspired to bring me there: the sound of the spoon clinking around the inside the glass, the feel of the circular motion and the sight of my fingers manipulating the spoon in a way I no longer need to concentrate on.

Sometimes it’s the smell of freshly mowed grass, just as I recall it wafting in my bedroom window when my dad went out to mow the lawn before an early game of golf on a Sunday morning that takes me back. Or the taste of a shortbread cookie, dipped in a cup of tea.

Though many of my memories take me back to my childhood there is something inside me that refuses to believe I’m more than half my actual age. Despite my aches, the deterioration of my eyesight, and my inability to react as quickly as I used to, in my mind I can’t possibly be 50 years old.

They say that children keep us young as long as we can remember how to play.  For some it’s staying active, both in body and mind. I’m sure those memories that return as though they were only yesterday must have an influence on how we feel.

I hear people, all the time, say they don’t feel as old as the calendar tells them they must be.

What keeps you from feeling your age?


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Wanted: Sleeping Companion

As many of you may remember, I fell while delivering papers last December during an ice storm (I’m stupidly dedicated to my job) and received a concussion when I hit my head on a concrete step. (That was a fun post: you should read it.) When I went down that fateful day, I also landed with a concrete step across my shoulders. Since then, I have suffered with shoulder pain.

You might be wondering by now what the title of this post is all about.

I have a hard time sleeping because of my right shoulder. If I lay on it, it hurts. Same thing when I lay on my back – and that’s not a comfortable position for me anyway. If I lay on my left side, I have to try to keep my right shoulder straight. If I leave my arm resting on my body, it falls off. If I prop my side up with my hand on the mattress, my wrist hurts, and if I put my arms together with my elbows touching, my shoulder still isn’t straight enough.

I finally figured out the solution this morning. A sleeping companion!

No, not a man. Get yer minds out of the gutter.

What I need is, a teddy bear. One big enough that if I keep it close to my chest it will keep my shoulders straight. Seems the perfect solution! So today I’m going to go through the boxes from my failed garage sale of a few weeks back and dig out an old stuffed animal. I have an appointment with the doctor on Monday. Hopefully a more permanent fix is somewhere in my future. I’ll let you know how it goes.


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One-Liner Wednesday – Sleeping In

Sleeping through my alarm in the morning and waking up late ruins my whole day. ~ Me, today.

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Anyone who would like to try it out, feel free to use the “One-Liner Wednesday” title in your post, and if you do, you can ping back here to help your blog get more exposure. As with Stream of Consciousness Saturday, if you see a ping back from someone else in my comment section, click and have a read. It’s bound to be short and sweet.

The rules that I’ve made for myself (but don’t always follow) for “One-Liner Wednesday” are as follows:

1. Make it one sentence.

2. Make it either funny or inspirational.

Have fun!


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10 Random Hows

1. How is it that today went by with only four hours in it? Because I could swear I just finished my Rice Krispies and it’s already 10:37pm.

2. How close does one really have to be to the curb when they parallel park on the street? I think three feet is fair, don’t you?

3. How many times can a person listen to “Let It Go” from the movie Frozen before they require admittance to a mental facility?

4. How long does it take for a kid to grow up? I’m talking boys here.

5. How now brown cow?

6. How does Twitter work? Seriously. Is there anyone on the planet who really knows?

7. How much money would it take to send all the spammers and bots into outer space?

8. How can you put the words “into” and “outer” together side-by-side in a sentence? See above.

9. How did someone come up with the saying, “There are easier ways to kill a cat than to choke it with butter”?

10. How will you decide which one of these questions to answer? I dare you to answer at least half…


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SoCS – I Know Funny

My dad had a fantastic sense of humour. Very dry, very British. One of his favourite things to do was string people along with a story. He once, at a party, had one of his friends convinced that he had an awful disease, only to deliver the punchline minutes later that it was the “Dreaded Lurgie.” It’s a wonder anyone ever took him seriously. He also had a habit of making me spit my tea through my nose on a nightly basis. My mother wasn’t impressed.

It’s something I inherited–that sense of humour–though I don’t tend to torture people. I love making people laugh. I’m actually pretty good at delivering some kind of punchline just before I walk out a door. Always leave ’em laughing. And so naturally my kids have inherited it too. My ex, their father, has a great wit about him. My eldest son, Fred, was on the improv team in high school and the other two, with all their special needs, are sometimes the funniest people I know. Chris, as a matter of fact, just last night was singing “Hellfire” from the movie Hunchback of Notre Dame in the voice of Mickey Mouse, liberally replacing odd words with the words, “chicken” and “clubhouse.” He ended up sounding like Ethel Merman.

Alex is just a ham. This isn’t him at his best, but you get the idea. Especially the bit at the end. It’s a pirate hat, by the way.

Often I use their sense of humour to my advantage. Before a situation can get out of hand I’ll try to make them laugh, and usually it works.

Badge by: Doobster at Mindful Digressions

Badge by: Doobster at Mindful Digressions

Stream of Consciousness Saturday is open for everyone to participate. Learn how, here!


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One-Liner Wednesday – Insignificant

“If you think you’re too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito in the room.” — Anita Roddick

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Anyone who would like to try it out, feel free to use the “One-Liner Wednesday” title in your post, and if you do, you can ping back here to help your blog get more exposure. As with Stream of Consciousness Saturday, if you see a ping back from someone else in my comment section, click and have a read. It’s bound to be short and sweet.

The rules that I’ve made for myself for “One-Liner Wednesday” are as follows:

1. Make it one sentence.

2. Make it either funny or inspirational.

Have fun!