An Expensive Lesson Learned

Apparently my son has been ordering UberEats so often that the local wildlife has come to anticipate it. Last night a skunk lay in wait, and as soon as the delivery guy set the bag on the step and moved away, the skunk snagged it. He'd eaten part of my son's chicken sandwich before he even got the door open. My son flashed the car lights and honked the horn (remotely, using the key fob) to scare it away (thus waking me up so I got to witness some of this), but it was too late to rescue the sandwich. An expensive lesson learned. We might install one of those old-fashioned boxes like the milkman used to leave deliveries in, to keep animals out of future meals. 

I am somehow tickled that the skunk apparently has a taste for piri-piri.

Hilarious spam email -- or was it?

I just got an email from Air Canada that said "Ending soon! Save on destinations worldwide before it's too late!"

Why, is the world ending that soon?!

Spring is officially here

This morning I picked kale and green onions from the garden, so I am going to pronounce it spring. Even if it was threatening snow last week, and tomorrow's high will only be nine degrees.

I have started my indoor starts. This year I'm trimming down the number of varieties I'll be growing, but I have four types of tomatoes, sorghum, basil, cabbage, and bok choy started, along with three small trays of marigolds. Mid-May, I will start some pots of Mongolian sunflowers, which are supposed to grow into 14-foot giants, but last year the rabbits beheaded many of my sunflowers, so I'm not letting myself get too hopeful. But maybe if I can make them fairly tall before planting out, they'll have a better chance. Everything else will be direct-sown at the end of May.

And then the stress begins of juggling work, grandkids, housework, garden, and projects up at the church. It's most stressful trying to be in two places at once, knowing my garden needs me here but knowing the woodworking projects are waiting for me up there... I am alleviating some of the busyness by eliminating green beans and peas (sob) from the garden this year. Those require daily and sometimes twice-daily attention, but most of the other plants I'm growing only need a look-see once or twice a week. I'll have to get my beans and peas from the farmers' market this year. Which would be fine, but I find most people pick their green beans when they're too big and Styrofoam-y. I like mine slim and tender. I suppose I could plant a little, and accept that many will go to seed for lack of daily picking. Then I wouldn't miss out completely.

It's still joyful stress, though, I'll have to say. It's great to have the opportunity to garden and to do woodworking, to have my grandkids come to play, to have a job that supports us and a house to clean. So I won't complain, and instead of trying to decide if I prefer to be up at the church or here in the city, I'll try to focus on just being content wherever I am.

(Picture from a few years ago, but it looks the same except I've removed the small hedge on the right.)

Something I've never thought of before

I was watching a Youtube video by Neil McCoy-Ward this morning, and he said something in a way that hadn't occurred to me before. He said when you spend money, it works its way up to the "1%" (the wealthy elite). And duh, how come it hasn't been that clear to me before? It's true. The only way to avoid that is to solely buy/trade directly with the producers and creators, the ones with their boots on the ground. They in turn would have to find ways to get the resources they need in the same way, horizontally instead of vertically. If we all did that, conducting commerce at the grassroots level, then the top 1% would certainly feel it eventually. They need us, the everyday average person, to stay in their current state. They only exist at that level because we enable it. 

I'll have to think more about this and how to achieve it.

Absolutely Astonished

I ran to the grocery store today to grab a couple of things, and as I waited to check out, I witnessed a shameful thing. The customers in front of me were two older women, I think one likely the mother of the other. They wanted to purchase five bags of oranges for less than the posted price. The cashier explained the lower price was for clementines, not the oranges, but they insisted quite loudly that the lower price was for the oranges. 

The cashier sent a clerk to check the price not just once but twice, and also the manager came over to confirm the price, but the women still didn't agree. They were quite rude and bullying, and the cashier, a sweet girl who looked about sixteen, started to get tears in her eyes. She kept apologizing to the rest of us waiting in line, and we all assured her we weren't in a hurry and it was okay. At one point she laughed at herself a bit for getting emotional, as one does laugh when embarrassed, and one of the rude women barked at her, saying "You think this is funny?" 

Anyway, the daughter finally backed down and just wanted to leave, but the mother was still upset. When she couldn't get the price she wanted, she reached into her cart, picked up the bags of oranges, and threw them with a loud thump on the conveyor belt, one after the other, hard enough to make them bounce. It was like watching a child have a hissy fit, and I was so close to snapping at her for acting like a baby about it. You're seventy years old woman! Act like an adult! And pay for the fruit you just damaged! But I decided that wouldn't be very adult of me. 

The manager finally coaxed the two women over to the customer service counter to deal with them, and the cashier tearfully apologized again to all of us in line. She said, "I've never been treated like that before!" and I assured her she shouldn't have been treated that way and I was sorry she had been. I gave her what comfort I could, and the others in line were equally appalled and offered their support.

As I left the store and passed the customer service counter, it was all I could do not to hiss at the older woman. You just made a perfectly nice girl cry at work because of a couple of dollars. You're getting ready for a big religious holiday dinner, but God is not going to hear your prayers until you go apologize for bullying that innocent child. She's just trying to do her job. I just don't get people like that. Nothing is important enough to bully someone else about it.

Only Death Gives Back

I was recently listening to a talk my biologist sister gave on environmental stewardship and how to overcome communication barriers around climate change. One thing she said really jumped out at me. She was speaking about how we can't live on earth without doing some damage. We can try to mitigate or lessen it, but we can't avoid it completely. Whether we choose to use cloth or disposable diapers, for example, both do different kinds of harm. The plants and animals on our plates were sacrificed so we could live. It's a painful reality. 

It got me to thinking, and it's true -- life requires taking other life. It's only death that gives back.

Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern are alive and well in Toronto!

Last night I had the amazing opportunity to see Tom Stoppard's play at the CAA Theatre with my husband and Son #3. Of course after a mild winter with no snow, nature decided to pummel us with everything she had last night, and I was praying we could get there at all, but my husband managed to fight our way to the subway, and it was smooth from there (the subway truly is the only way to travel in bad weather).

I love the magic feeling of waiting for a play to begin. I've done a tiny bit of community theatre, and that smell of --what is it? Chalk dust? Old fabric? Electricity? -- draws me in every time. The stars of the show, Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan, captured us instantly, from the first line, and the tangible rapport between them made the rapid-fire dialogue spark. Imagine memorizing three hours of dialogue! (The show doesn't feel that long. I could have kept going.) But I was impressed with the rest of the cast, too, especially Michael Blake in the role of the Player. Walter Borden (Polonius) had a resonant voice like James Earl Jones that filled the theatre. Imagine being on stage with Boyd and Monaghan! Wouldn't that be such a thrill? The set was simple and spare and completely sufficient, constantly in motion, supporting but not detracting from the action.

At one point the Player says "I have lines to learn." And Monaghan broke off-script, looked at Boyd, and murmured, "So does he." The actors froze for a second, you could see Boyd struggling not to laugh, and Monaghan looked at the audience and grinned, bringing us in on the joke. Then the action resumed, but as the characters moved up stage, I saw Monaghan pat Boyd fondly on the back. You could tell they were just having the greatest fun up there together. And now I want to dig out my copy of the play to see if Boyd had flubbed a line, to prompt Monaghan to make the comment. 

The whole evening was a delight, and it was fun to revisit a favourite play. Such profound observations on life and death, but so funny too. Now and then I'd glance at my son and find him dissolved in laughter. All the way home, we tossed bits of the dialogue at each other, and we've agreed our headstones should include the inscription: "Heads."

I saw an interview with the principal actors on Youtube the other day, and the interviewer asked them what it felt like to play characters who knew they were going to die. Boyd got a funny look on his face and said, "But we all know we're going to die." And we are. In the meantime, we get to laugh and learn. I'm grateful to these men for sharing their talents and bringing me that opportunity last night.