Parameter Perimeters

There are parameters and perimeters and the latter must surround the former. When dealing with the Confirmed Bachelor, the perimeters are clear while the parameters are rather profound. Usually the elder bachelor is the most challenging. And yet there are women who attempt to change the CB into something more malleable and manageable. This is an impossible endeavor from what I have witnessed from afar. I have seen a perfectly lovely lady with the best of intentions and the most gentle of persuasions, try to convert a Confirmed Bachelor into the semblance of a mate or at least a guy who will get down on bended knee. It is a long and difficult path. The CB or Confirmed Bachelor is as malleable as iron and once molten, becomes fixed firmly and when re-molded is only all the more resistant. The gentle lady of whom I speak, does not give up but doggedly spends her life attempting to cajole the CB, using all of her wiles, to bring the chap down. He takes it all in smilingly and pleasantly but does not budge an inch. The problem is not in the attempts, the problem lies in the attempter. She should give up.  If you can't bag the man in the first couple of years and get him down the aisle, it is highly unlikely he will ever trot up to the altar. Every wile known to man and woman will not get him there. So what to do? The answer is watch the perimeters of the relationship and stay within them and be content with what you have. He is. He loves being exactly where he is. He doesn't have to take on the responsibilities of the married man with home and family and all of their demands. He is free to do personally precisely what he wishes without criticism or direction or outside costs other than those he chooses. He can flit off without a moment's notice or care. He worries only about himself and his ego. What more could anyone want? Ladies if you don't want to be a female Confirmed Bachelor, look around for someone who adores the idea of cutting lawns, being paternal. painting walls and sitting across from the same face at breakfast every single solitary day for the rest of his life. Being a single man or woman, is at a certain age, a delightful matter. Rising alone in the morning to putter about in a bathrobe, coffee in hand deciding whether to read a book or write an e mail or go out in the afternoon is a heady life style. And best of all, to meet up with your counterpart, another CB, for lunch or tea or a walk in the park or something more interesting, is your decision and yours alone. If you can beat 'em, these CBs - forget the frustration of trying to "catch" them and "keep" them. Get inside the perimeter and join 'em!

Dads

It's Father's Day and people go to the media to tell stories about their dads and events that made them love their fathers. Most of us have to think about Father's Day carefully because we don't have any one miraculous tale about some great moment with our dads. Our dads were just dads. They were the man at the dinner table, the man who shaved in the morning and went to work and the man who came home from work at night and read the newspapers. Dad was the man who mowed the grass, fixed things and kept the car running. Mom did all the rest. My dad will be remembered for his reading. When he was home, he read. The only way I could get his attention when I was small, was to climb up on his lap and read, or pretend to with him. He read novels, mostly folks like Caldwell and Steinbeck and often Mark Twain. I recall him laughing aloud when he read and that made me think that reading must be fun. My dad taught me the value of reading when I asked him about the photos and he explained the world situation occurring at the moment. He pointed out the headlines and soon I found myself able to read them. He read articles to me and showed  pertinent words. He taught me how to read before I went to school. My father worked with people of all nations and not once did he speak about this race or that. As far as I knew when I went to school, all the children were just kids like me even if they didn't look exactly like me. It was a huge shock to hear from some pupils in Primary School, that some children were "different" than I was. I knew there were other languages because my grandparents spoke them and our neighbours did, too. That it was odd was not odd to me as a young child. It was simply what big people did. All it meant was that I didn't know what they were speaking about and that was okay because we all played games together and everyone knew what was going on. My father taught me to be humble. He was not an aggressive man even though he was strong physically and could do heavy tasks with ease, his humour was gentle and his laughter long and hearty and never against anyone. My mother was the manager of the household and discipline was her duty. She did not yell but she did threaten. The threats were enough to prevent any wrong doings. Behaving was not a chore, it was a natural duty in our house. We did dishes and cleaned before we got the allowance. It wasn't a wealthy home nor was it particularly one that was slave to tradition. It was easy and relaxed but good manners were key. My mother saw to that. My dad would fade out of the picture if there were sibling conflicts or parental mores put down. He disappeared to the furnace room in the basement where he read in a straight-backed chair beside the behemoth of a furnace down there, a bare light bulb hanging above and the warmth of the furnace sending out waves of heat. I'd find him there. "Hi Dad, what's going on in the news today?" and then the conversations would begin. In his drawling way, Dad would give a hum or a haw but never advice. He would say, "Well now, that's a good question. Hmm, a very good question. Now then, what do you think about that?"

Lookey Lous

Frequently, I do the required daily kilometer around a lake. It is a small lake by many standards and is in the middle of  a growing city. The path goes in and out amongst woodsy copses, lawned playgrounds and into swamps with board walks. It's a shallow lake that ducks and geese and other more uncommon birds, along with turtles, swim about on, raise their young beside and feed in. Fortunately, the well-meaning onlookers have mostly stopped dishing out killer bread scraps and now sanely and sensibly watch as the fauna feed naturally. While I do the circuit, I do not ever run. If I ran, I would miss the surprising event of yellow iris hidden among the reeds or the heron standing stock-still like he was painted on the water or the turtles like knots on a log, sunning themselves in the morning warmth. While I don't stroll, but walk rather smartly, I can still hear the bird song without scaring them with thumping running shoes or loudly panting breathing. I have time to look over the board railing into the waters of the boggy places and perhaps catch a frog climbing up a stem or a butterfly flitting through the branches of the willows or being charmed by little blue Forget Me Nots, Buttercups or Bleeding Hearts peeking through the tall grasses. Running is a good thing for the heart perhaps -but it does little for the spirit. From what I can tell from the moans as these souls huff past me with their ears full of electronics or worse, telephones, they get nothing from this pathway other than a place to clod rapidly along before entering their menu of daily stresses. Sure, running is good but why clog up natural pathways when there are gyms and tracks for that sort of stuff. The worst offenders of the pathway's morning peace are the persons who talk into their phones yakking inane tripe and gossip for all who are forced to hear and who would rather listen to a chain saw than the personal rants of the rude and ridiculous. But that's a gripe that I have with any hand held pain in the knee. I own some of these things but there are times and places to use them and they are private, but that's another topic for another day. At the end of the lake walk, I am refreshed physically and my mind is clear and ready for whatever the day brings. It is so easy to slow down and smell the grasses, hear the bird song and sense the wonders of natural growth all around. Better still, is what our Grade One teachers used to spout: stop, look and listen.

Lazy Bones

I must admit I am a Lazy Bones. Housework used to be important in the days when life was building and dinner parties and house proud guests came for an evening of chat about work politics and child development. Those days are over,fortunately. I meet friends out and housework is on demand. Eureka, however. One day, I picked up a robotic vacuum cleaner and my life changed. Instead of the have-to-clean-up dread, little Robby is detached from his wall charger and put to work scooting about the floors picking up old popcorn kernels, missed coffee beans and running-shoe grit. Watching him duck and run, turn and sweep is pure luxury. For the cost of one good housekeeper for an hour, Robbie just does his job without pay, complaint or breakage. In areas where he is not welcome, a row of books - that I am not presently reading  - deters his enthusiasm and he turns to clean up what is available to his brushes. Oldsters and comic book collectors will remember Flash Gordon, a man of the future who rode about in flying cars between the skyscrapers while solving the problems of his world. A kind of electronic Batman or Wonder Woman. His pages suggested such as today's micro-wave ovens, garburetors and robotic vacuums. I am not Mr. Gordon but the less cleaning I have to do, the better my life seems. When I pull a fuzzy book off the shelf or sneeze unduly, I know it is time to dust. I use a pre-Flash Gordon feather duster. While the chicken secondaries don't actually pick up the dust, they do  frighten it into secret places or onto the floor where Robby finds it. I know because I empty his little cache before I plug him in again. The venetian blinds are ignored until I am forced to call someone in to wash them and the window cleanings are saved for days when I am feeling particularly angry with the world and need to scrub at something. A bottle of Windex and a roll of towel works in the places with shiny things in spite of warnings not to use The Blue. The rest of the time, unless important company comes, the dust is left undisturbed. There are those who think I am losing it and I am - losing house-proud and replacing it with proud of doing as I please.