Not a word of a lie – some nights were like this as I tried to hammer out a post to publish the next morning.
Survived another one! That makes 2 NaBloPoMos and 3 A2Z Challenges under mah belt, so far!
Whenever I do one of these challenges, I end up asking myself why I don’t come up with a more regular blogging schedule since I can obviously commit to go the distance.
And every time I do one of these, I find some great fellow bloggers to follow and I fall in love with my blog all over again.
Some bloggers will be heading right into Blogmas, starting tomorrow. I considered this, for about 5 seconds. Until I remembered I’m kinda not into Christmas enough to blog about it for 25 days straight.
Unless people want to read 25 semi-ranty posts about the commercialism of Christmas and how it slowly but surely killed my spirit. Could be my niche, ya know?
Instead I’m going to spend at least some of December doing my favourite activity for this month – reviewing 2017, and goal-setting and planning for 2018 (and beyond).
Some of those goals will be for Ye Olde Blogge. I am thinking of committing to at least one post per week for 2018. So that’s 52 posts (plus A2Z and NaBloPoMo). And I am going to draft some sort of plan for the blog as well – you know, like a business plan except without the money-making part…’cos I don’t think I want to go down that road at this point (if ever).
Right now my blog is like Seinfeld. It’s a blog about…nothing. Because I post about almost everything that I’m thinking about or doing.
That’s right.
And I think about a LOT. OF. STUFF. And I try to do a LOT. OF. STUFF.
Maybe that will change, but I highly doubt it probably not.
To all those that succeeded with posting every day in November for NaBloPoMo 2017, congratulations!
To all those that attempted the challenge but didn’t manage to post every day in November, you still lapped those bloggers that didn’t even try, so congratulations to you too!
Well, Black Friday and Black Friday weekend came and went and I didn’t see the inside of a mall.
I did buy a couple of things though – one planned for and one unexpected, but kinda planned for (I’ll explain). So I feel pretty good about my little bit of consumerism. Both purchases were….mindful!
First off, remember when I told you I unsubscribed to almost every email prodding me to buy? I left a couple…one was Michael’s, because I only buy my art supplies there when I have a sizeable coupon (50% off, I’m looking at you!), and those coupons come in the email.
And the other was Amazon, because – thanks to their emails – I found out I have access to Amazon Prime Video, and now Music and I am quite enjoying both of those services. Especially since I gave cable TV the boot a few months back.
During my overhaul of Chez Badass into a liveable space, being an Amazon Prime member made a lot of sense and I was seriously debating discontinuing my membership now that my place is fully small-applianced. Then I got the email chiding me for not taking advantage of my Prime Video subscription (part of being a member). OK, maybe not chiding. Maybe I was chiding myself for being such a dumbass that I did not know I even had access to this.
Anywho, since then I’ve been enjoying shows like Bosch and American Gods…but not on my TV. Only on my iPad. Alas, although my TV is only 3 goddamn years old, it apparently is too old to handle the Prime Video app. I won’t go into the swearing and gnashing of teeth and phone calls to LG customer service and an information-gathering trip to Best Buy that preceded this realization but let me just say that that’s a Saturday morning I will never have back.
Once I settled down, I thought a couple of things. First – there is no way I am buying a new goddamn TV just to watch Prime Video with. Second – maybe it’s time I went with Apple TV. Well, thank goodness I checked things out on the Interwebs first, because I learned that Apple TV does not offer the Prime Video app. But apparently might, soon? And in the meantime, I could magically beam it from my iPad through the Apple TV box onto my TV. Hmmmmm…sounds like a lotta work, that might not work, ya know what I mean?
So I held off, waiting for the big announcement that Apple TV now offers the Prime Video app. Still waiting….still waiting….
Then the email from Amazon came, announcing something called a Fire Stick – for only $50 with free shipping. A quarter of the price of the Apple TV magical box that still does not offer the Prime app. A no-brainer.
Yep, so that and some cadmium yellow and cobalt blue paints (55% off). Those were my big Black Friday weekend purchases. My Fire Stick should be delivered today.
Yep, I responded to the email prods to buy…but I had planned for those purchases in advance. They were things I already had decided I needed and was planning to buy. So, they were mindfully done.
Yep, and for now, I am very happy to remain a Prime member. They keep adding value to this subscription. Well played, Amazon!
I have been meditating every day and practicing doing things mindfully, and dumb shit still does bother me. At least it takes up more of my mental energy than I feel it deserves.
There was a post that popped up on my Facebook feed (isn’t that the way these things always start?), and I’ve was thinking about it off and on for most of yesterday. The person posted in one of the Village’s community groups that he was upset because he ordered pizza delivered but didn’t tip the delivery guy, and the delivery guy got sarcastic with him, thanking him for the (no) tip. No mention was made of poor service. Mr. No Tip chose not to tip for his own reasons.
So Mr. No Tip felt he had to justify his actions (poor, single dad with no car) and complain that he doesn’t get tipped for his work, and seek assurance from the Facebook community that he was right, goddammit, and the delivery guy was wrong and let’s all talk about it and get worked up and hopefully delivery guy gets fired and the named pizza business takes a hit for employing someone so rude.
Well, this wasn’t explicitly said, but why else wouldn’t you just shake it off and move on with your life?
I think I know. Because Mr. No Tip just might have felt like a bit of shitheel for no tipping, and then he gets called on it, so now he feels even worse and therefore has to take measures to feel good about himself again, online. I’m no therapist (thank goddess, eh?) but I’m just supposin’.
Anyways, I read the comments (I know, I know…sigh) and people were commenting on how a tip is not a given and yeah, they had problems too with said business and drivers…but what about poor servers, yada yada. The general consensus was that the driver never should have said what he did. And I agree.
Perhaps “war” was too strong a term in this instance. But still entertaining AF.
But the driver didn’t complain on the community forum about that douche that stiffed him for a tip or call him out by his name*, so I focused on Mr. No Tip’s behaviour instead.
And this got me thinking all kinds of thoughts. I tried to not think about Mr. No Tip himself, whom I’ve met IRL and who has not impressed me with other whiny shit things he has posted. I tried instead to put myself in his shoes as I thought through what was posted.
Which was easy, because I have been in his brokeass shoes. And when we couldn’t afford to tip someone for service, guess what? We didn’t eat out. We didn’t order in. We made do with what was in the kitchen cupboard.
Money was always tight growing up. When we went out for the day as a family, Mom made sandwiches and the Coleman stove was packed so we could have soup and tea to go with our meal. Because there was no extra money for restaurant food, not even at a cheap diner. We picnicked at a roadside rest area instead.
Once a year, my parents treated themselves (and later, us kids too) to a meal out for their anniversary. They saved up the money (including tip) to go out for a real treat – Chinese food. They didn’t say: We are supporting 5 people on 1 immigrant working man’s salary and we can barely make ends meet and this is our only meal out for the next 12 months, so we are entitled to not tip.
They tipped, because that is what you do in our society when you receive good service at restaurants and the like. You don’t make your brokeass life the server’s problem. If you can’t afford the tip, stay home. If you can’t afford the tip, don’t order delivery.
That doesn’t mean you have to tip – but if the service is decent, you should tip and you should factor that into the cost of your meal before you go out or order in. That’s how I was raised.
In my younger days as a married adult, money was tight as well. I was still in university. I remember one of our first meals out as newlyweds – could’ve been an anniversary, I can’t remember – we thought we had enough cash with us to cover our meal and the tip but when the check arrived we found we had miscalculated. Oh shit. We were young and unprepared – no credit cards; debit cards were not a thing yet, nor ATMs; banks were closed; and I had left the chequebook at home. So we had to slink out of the restaurant without leaving a tip for our nice server. I left a note explaining that there was nothing wrong with the service; we were dumbasses who couldn’t add. I felt like a total shitheel that night. I never let that happen again.
I went back on Facebook later in the day and saw a post that said the original post (and comments) had been removed and Mr. No Tip has been removed from the group as well, by the group’s administrators (yet again). He was removed about a year ago too, for making an somewhat similar ranty post, with racial overtones that offended a lot of readers including yours truly. Then he popped up again a few months later, having rearranged his name on his Facebook account.
So, what does any of this have to do with mindfulness, you might be asking by now?
Like the cool cat at the top of the post, I was hoping that being more mindful would mean this kind of thing wouldn’t occupy so much of my brain on a November Sunday. But that is not what mindfulness is about actually. It is about taking a pause before automatically reacting. And in that pause, (hopefully) seeing and acting with more clarity. With mindfulness.
I paused yesterday. I did not fire off a comment (snarky or otherwise) to enter the fray. Which is something I might have done earlier. I did take a pause to not react, and instead to clarify my own thinking. And I recalled some nice (and some humbling) memories as I did so. And then I wrote it all down on Ye Olde Blogge, because…NaBloPoMo…hehehe.
Good to remember when my fingers get twitchy on Facebook.
Rock on,
The WB
*Mr. No Tip didn’t either (I doubt he knew his name), but he did name the business involved which I think ultimately led to his post being deleted.
Kapsalon: Late-night takeout and hangover food supreme!
I saw a post this week on Facebook (where I get almost all my news and entertainment, these days) describing some popular Dutch food items. One of them was the glorious kapsalon, that Mizz J and I discovered on our last trip to the Netherlands.
Kapsalon covers all the best necessary food groups with its delightful mix of fries, cheese, garlic sauce, sambal, shawarma meat, and veggies. Hehehehe.
After experiencing this takeout food of the hedonistic gods, we were all fired up to bring this to Canada, the land where La Belle Province introduced the world to the wonder that is poutine.
But since we are not restauranteurs, the learning curve was very steep indeed and we soon lost interest abandoned our mission to bring this delight to the New World.
Until this week! There is a restaurant in the Village that would be perfect (IMHO) to introduce this tinfoil tub of deliciousness to North America. They already sell shawarma AND fries! So I contacted them (via Facebook, natch) this morning.
I wish I had some of the pieces that I have completed recently to show you (because I’m kinda proud of them), but they are earmarked as gifts so they won’t be appearing on Ye Olde Blogge until they have been delivered to the recipients.
September and October were pretty quiet for me on the artistic endeavours front, because those months were so freaking awesome, weather-wise…but now that we are here in damp, grey November I have returned to my laundry room/studio to do more than laundry!
When I first started back into visual arts again, I had thought I needed to find a local artist to take lessons from. Then I remembered I lived in the Information Age so I hopped onto YouTube. Love you, Interwebs!
Oh my. So many wonderful, giving art teachers to choose from! So much inspiration and instruction out there! So many tips and tricks! Especially for born-again beginners like me! Available at any given moment. Always there for you. And you can pause them whenever you need to!
This year-long course (almost at an end) is a paid-for subscription, and delivered in monthly instalments. I was following it faithfully for the first 3-4 months, then work got crazy and it fell by the wayside…but I have downloaded all the videos etc. (mine to keep FOREVAH…BWAHAHAHA!) so I will get around to the rest of them eventually.
During this course I realized something. Me and art journalling (which Mandala Magic is very much about)…huh, not so much. I prefer to get straight to the canvas. This might change when I retire and have more free time – but for now, when the muse strikes I want to get right at starting a “piece”.
Which is my plan for this grey November Saturday. What’s yours?
In this week’s episode of Drunk People Behaving Badly (alternate title: Maybe I AM Getting Too Old for This Shit?), I bring you a little photo essay of The WB and Mizz J’s adventure in the Very Big City attending The Glorious Sons show, at the Phoenix Concert Theatre.
Opening act was grandson. Hard rocking; highly entertaining. On a mission to dispel the rumours that Rock Is Dead.
What’s my name? “Grandson!” What’s my name? “Grandson!!” What’s my name? “Grandson!!!” OK. Now you know my name.
The crowds weren’t bad (in terms of numbers or drunkenness) at this point and grandson was exciting to watch bounce all over the stage. At one point he even made the crowd (well, most of them) get down on their knees, then exhorted them to jump up (and around). Never seen that one before. He also asked us if we were warmed up yet for The Glorious Sons…about 15 times during his set. Mizz J and I really liked him, and appreciated his command of the stage and the audience. He never introduced his hard-rocking bandmates, though. That I can recall, anyways. It was all about grandson, all the time. My only negative critique.
By the time The Glorious Sons was in full swing, the scene looked more like this:
Packed in like little inebriated sardines, they were.
As it got steadily more packed on the floor – and we were continually jostled, pushed and stepped on – we made a decision to high-tail it up to the Loft area, where we stood by one of the many venue bars for a bit. Less jostling and pushing. Same amount of drunks though. Eventually we caught a break and found a couple of empty spaces on a bench. Now we could relax a bit and enjoy an unimpeded view. My highlight: all of us singing along with the band to Everything is Alright.
Better view, far above the maddeningly drunken crowd.
It really was too bad that we didn’t get as much out of this show as we anticipated we would. I’ve been a fan of the Sons in all their Gloriousness since I first heard them on the air, on our local rock station. Only now – 3 years later – is the Big City station deigning to play their music. This was my 3rd time, and Mizz J’s 4th time, seeing them live.
It’s been kinda neat to follow their evolution as artists.
I wisely booked the day off from work, fully anticipating that I would be dragging my sorry butt around this morning. Was 2:30 am before I was home and settled down enough to consider sleep.
Still not the oldest person in attendance! I always check.
I’ve been unhappy with my smile for a long, long time. I never used to think about my teeth, except to check if I had a piece of spinach stuck in them. I never wanted a movie star smile. My teeth were good enough for me.
But then the dentist noticed evidence that I was clenching and grinding my teeth – in my sleep apparently, because I don’t do it when awake. And this started shifting my teeth around. My teeth were slanting in, and jockeying for position in front of or behind each other.
And by 2013 at least (can’t remember the exact date), I started being unhappy with what I saw in the mirror or in photos. Like this one, taken when JD and I were at Pebble Beach, California on that last (work combined with pleasure) trip shortly before he died:
Dems crooked teeth. And that’s supposed to be a smile. But the brightness of the day is making it look like a grimace instead.
I tried not to think about it. I tried to tell myself I was OK with my teeth. I tried to tell myself I was too old to be worrying about how my teeth looked anymore. Then, out on a walk, I took this selfie last December:
This is the photo that sent me on the Invisalign journey, finally.
I realized I was never going to be able to talk myself into being happy with my crooked teeth. And they were only going to get worse, the older I got. So I headed to my kid’s orthodontist in January. After all, he did a great job on her teeth. Behold:
Look at that smile! With Mom, on the day of Me Too’s wedding at Chez Badass: July 31, 2015. (Mom’s fuzzy head is her hair starting to grow back after her final, fruitless bout with chemo. She passed away on December 18, 2015.)
When I came back from Barbados in February, I picked up my trays and began the process of shifting my teeth into new positions.
It hasn’t been that bad – not at all. I’m so used to managing meals and my life around Invisalign now, it’s going to feel weird not to be wearing them. Because I’m starting my last tray today before we go into what Dr. Brian says is the “refinement” phase. So the end is in sight!
Here’s a photo of the progress made by August:
Whoa…that’s better! The bumps you see on my teeth are the “mounts” to help hold the Invisalign trays in place. They will be removed when the process is over.
I am beyond thrilled with the results so far. I have no idea what more “refinements” need to be made. But I will leave that up to the orthodontist. He’s the tooth artiste, not me. Stay tuned for the final smile reveal, coming soon!
Outside my home office window, the Christmas lights are looking fine! Pardon the blurriness – taken through the window. I took shots outside (in my nightie, brrrr) but I liked this one the best.
Monday afternoon and evening was filled with excitement here in the Village. Not the good kind either. An abandoned foundry had caught fire. I could see the smoke from the window of my office, in the City – a 20 minute drive away. A thoughtful friend called me to let me know what was happening, and that my area of town was not affected.
Once I got home I took some pictures, from a very safe distance – from across the river on my side of town:
As seen from Ellacott LandingAll is calm on the Mill Pond, except I spooked the ducks with my presence.
The fire continued through the night and, if I can believe Facebook, started up again the next day. People are very upset and worrying about chemicals in the air. Air quality tests were taken and people were assured they were safe. Now the conspiracy theories abound. Facebook can be very entertaining.
I’ve been thinking a lot about living in the moment (being mindful).
I’ve been practicing daily meditation for a couple of weeks now. As with most people, I’m pretty bad at it. But I keep trying.
And the reason I keep trying is because, at the most stressful time of my entire life, being mindful got me through.
When I was living with JD, his OCD made our lives chaotic and exhausting and extremely difficult to live with any measure of peace. Correction: it made my life that way. It was his normal way of being and he seemed mostly OK with that.
Except every once in a while he would complain about other people being able to take vacations and have weekends “off” and time to enjoy life, and why couldn’t we?
Oh brother. Where do I begin? I used to tell him exactly why but he didn’t want to acknowledge that it was the disease’s doing because he didn’t want to seek help. So I just stopped responding. He didn’t want a solution; he just wanted to complain at the unfairness of it all.
Anywho, every once in a wee while he would agree to us taking a day or most of a day off and we would hit the road for a respite. Those times got me through. During those times, without consciously thinking about it or forcing it, I lived totally in the moment. I was BEING. HERE. NOW. I didn’t think about the mess back home, the unceasing backlog of work, the shit-storm life I found myself trapped in, NOTHING. I just enjoyed every present moment of being with a more relaxed, funny and charming JD, and taking in some new sights and experiences.
And when that day or those few hours ended, I felt as refreshed as if I had been away for a week of “regular” vacation. Huh!
When JD got cancer, things got much worse. Because nothing was supposed to change or else the cancer would have won. (Spoiler: the cancer won anyways – 6 months later.)
So I kept working and going to (online) school and now I had a new job – caregiver to someone who already needed a lot of care and attention. JD had to stop working because he was too weak but he kept on going with his MBA studies as well. And his OCD escalated, of course. And I had to participate in even MORE of his daily rituals as part of my caregiver role. Plus we had a few of our own, like his nightly heparin shot to the stomach, that I had to administer.
Most days the only moment of peace I had to myself was when I went upstairs to wash my face to get ready for bed. I wash my face with olive oil, have been doing this for years. But when JD was sick, this became my “moment”.
I would apply the olive oil to my face and gently massage it all over. Then I would take a washcloth and rinse it in the hottest water I could stand. Then I would place the hot washcloth on my face and just let it sit there. Ahhhhhh….
I called it my daily spa moment. During that 60 seconds or so, I focused on the feeling of peace and serenity that accompanied the hot cloth being applied to my face. I succeeded in noticing every wonderful moment of that experience. My mind emptied of all other thought. And if I was really lucky, I got to enjoy it until the cloth got cooler without hearing “Sweetie? Sweetie, where are you? Sweetie! Sweetie!!”
And it was enough to keep me going for another day. It had to be.
So these 2 experiences taught me about the absolute power of mindfulness. I wasn’t intentionally being mindful – not at all – I had no time to think about that. It was more like a survival instinct kicking in. I found myself at mindfulness, at this intention unintentionally, by opening the unmarked backdoor.
