Minimalism Bleh

My new digs in this wonderful building with marble entrances and elevators and underground parking and television surveillance, is not all joy. First of all, be it flashy classy, I needed to get rid of  my hodge podge of comfortable furniture and buy the new smooth, shiny sort. It was a choice of either comfy Shabby Chic with its rosy pillows or minimalism's metal and glass. I chose the latter because I thought it would save a lot of laundering and dusting time, and now I am ensconced in black leather and brushed steel, quartz and white walls, high ceilings and equally high baseboards. I have a Great Room. That means a great big room with no walls in between.  If you don't get a caterer in  to serve, everyone is going to see what a messy cook you are. No more hiding the spaghetti sauce pot or the salad spinner. It's all out there in public view. The dinner guests can see every culinary secret of yours. The brushed steely parts of the kitchen end, are all very well appearance-wise, but each and every finger print establishes itself clearly. Who needs a gym when you spend so much time polishing. The black leather couch shows every stray crumb, the quartz needs to be guarded like a newborn and the baseboards have proved to be very good places for dust to convene. Sitting down for a relaxing read, I am inclined to slide off the slippery couch, but it doesn't matter because one does not have lamps for actual reading any more. What used to be one for over the left shoulder, shining benevolently on the page of a book, is now something high over head in a tube whose brothers and sisters embellish every second metre up there. It is called ambient lighting and I wish it would amble out of here. I liked my old forties bridge lamp that made reading comfortable. No one has lamps any more unless they are Art. Hunks of crumpled paper or creations of coloured plastic and feathers look good in magazines. Period. And then there is the shiny new kitchen quartz in its glistening shade of light grey. With it, came instructions. My aunt's old Wedgewood china is easier care. All the must-nots of the quartz, drove me to cover it with good old Carrera marble boards that take anything thrown their way. You can hardly see the quartz now but as least it's safe. Then, there is the matte finish laminate flooring. Easy care means all it needs is wiping with water but don't dast allow something on it called "standing water". I make sure that all the water I put on it, reclines. Step into the bathroom festooned with marble, lots of it. The shower is a marvelous thing big enough for The Yankees, with a choice of streaming water when you turn on the taps that look like Rubik's Cube. The shower came with warnings, too. After a shower, you must wipe down the marble walls but first they need to be showered themselves. The benefit of it all, is that when you step out of the shower, you are dry for all the labour it took. But it looks lovely. And don't forget that the floor needs a rug because if marble is wet, it simulates a skating rink. I have bruises to show for it. I suspect that after a few years of rigorous attention to the minimalism movement life style, I may adjust. But in this new and fine space, I have the good fortune to own a small room. It is messy, cosy and there are no instructions that come with it. I do as I please there. Here is my scratched-up oak desk, the rickety  filing cabinet, my cranky computer and on the disorganized shelves, a lot of dear old well-thumbed books that are my best friends. I roll around in my old H Krug office chair and all's right with the world - the one inside my closed den door.

Dirty Secrets

Well, okay the word "dirty" was a hook, I have to admit. But the "secrets" part was absolutely genuine. Like all of you, come on, I, too, have some nasty secrets. One of them is Cheesewhiz. My more astute cheese-educated pals sneer and jest about CW, but I suspect they may have slipped from  time to time and actually bought  the odd jar of CW. Otherwise how do they know so much about it? I call this kind of individual, a food snob. I run with those wolves but I do have my little secrets. To me, there is nothing better and more comforting on a dark and windy night with a mystery in one hand and a thick slice of CW slathered bread garnished with ketchup to munch.  You can have your  pea chips and no-fat dip, granola bars and trail mix. Sometimes, I want fats and false flavours that roil around in my mouth and tantalize my taste buds. Cuddled up, novel in hand, a cosy blankie around me, and I am a kid again reading under the covers with a flashlight. Yes, and sometimes I get the unreal smooth peanut butter. The purists out there will have shuddered off by now and all that's left is us - and our dirty secrets. We indulge. We need to at times. In a restaurant where real people can see, I order the slim side of the menu. Everyone at the table is watching and the conversation invariably  turns to gyms and dieting. What else can one do in this sort of public eye, but order rabbit food: lettuce with tofu in light dressing, gluten free bread no butter, two stalks of celery in a Caesar? There is no dessert of course. My slender friends with good knees, unlike mine, jog every morning in their cute outfits and sweat together at the gym three days a week or more. I beg off with my tome of handy excuses and size L. They don't think I can sense their eye-balls-to-the-ceilings when I say, not this week, thank you.  It's okay because when I go home, I can reach to the very back of the fridge behind the light mayo jar and pull out the CW or smooth peanut butter and enjoy private pleasures. My bathroom scale is actually rusting behind the fixture. I leave it there for appearances sake and occasionally change the battery, but I try not to step on it. It is quite a bore, always giving me the same numbers, exercise or not. I have to say that I do eat a well rounded diet every day, two meals full of nutrients but when push comes to shove, there are times when only my secret stash of no-no foods will suffice. The world and its ills, the cranky boss, the snooty neighbours, the mean comments, the scary headlines all disappear when the CW goes on the bread and a squirt of ketchup decorates the top in a pretty little red heart. Now, where did I put the latest novel by...munch, munch, munch. Mmmmmm.

Bar None

Used to be the word "bars" meant something sweet to eat, some place to drink a toast  or something not to want to be behind. Now it can refer to something I just put on my bedroom window and patio doors. The bars are decorative, but strong as steel can be. Also used-to-be, we didn't lock our doors, not even at night. Why? Who was going to harm us or steal something? If our neighbor or a relative tip-toed in at night and we woke up surprised to see  one of them on our couch, we made coffee and pancakes. We lived, in those days, without fear. Those days will never be seen again. Hearing of the shooting of an innocent man who merely told a thief to get out of his house makes the world a place that needs bars. And furthermore, to learn that the perp was caught the same night, breaking into another house after murdering the poor family man in the previous one, makes the story read like the bad side of a Batman comic book. Is that our world? Yep, it is. So we protect ourselves with bars on windows and security systems and not daring to take a starry night walk on the street. Getting all hysterical doesn't work. Trying to "fix" people who are out of their skulls on drugs or in a state of insanity or under gang pressure is a waste of time, apparently. Rehab, generosity and the courts don't stop it. We seem to have to protect ourselves by adding bars to our homes. Do bars keep us in or others out is the question? Is it "nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and by opposing end them?" "That is the question" as the bard once wrote - taken out of context, of course. By "opposing", I don't see guns as  protection. That would put us into the same category as the criminals. What we have to do is  keep our eyes open and our minds clear. We need to think about our space and consider its safety. But we also need to look at our society and try to figure out why this change. Does it stem from poverty? Can't be. During the Dirty Thirties, there was lots of that and still, we took in tramps and gave them food and shelter if we had it. Does it come from terrorism? There was that element then, as well: wars, revolutions. Or is it greed? We had worse gaps between the rich and the poor long ago, before unions and welfare. Perhaps the gap was even wider. So what is it that can make Man such a beast in these relatively beneficent and prosperous times? Aye, now there is something to meditate upon and discuss at the corner coffee house.

New Secrets

Moving into a new place is like entering a foreign country. There is a new language to learn, new routes to travel and new people to meet. After the mountain of cardboard boxes levels down, and the furniture is placed, other matters are to be ascertained. The matter of where to put things away if you are "sizing down", as most of us are doing these days, is one situation. The next is when I  put items in drawers and cupboards, how best can I use their space and find anything afterwards. One of the disturbing things that I encountered from Day One in my new place, was that my adorable little wine cooler that houses my V8 juice, Coca Cola and sometimes an apple or two, did not work. Even though I received one of the brand new gigantic fridges with all the compartments and French doors so that all my messy food bits are completely exposed, I still depend on my handy little cooler. I pulled it out from the wall with great peril as there were lots of candle sticks and other dangerous objects on top, but even then, checking the condition of the plug and making sure the motor looked healthy, the thing would not go on. I had other pressing moves to contend with, so merely left my cooler cuddled forlornly in the corner next to the behemoth fridge and went about my business. Now that everything else more or less is settled in its place, cramped though it is, the little cooler needs another go-round. I pulled it out again. No problem this time. The candle sticks are grounded on top and the large décor bowl, firmly established making it quite safe to pull out the wine cooler without immediate danger to my skull. Someone told me that when you move sometimes these things need to stand erect for awhile before they work. It had been a few weeks of standing erect and now came the test. It had to work or it was going out and a new one would take its place. I told the little appliance what I just told you. Work or go! I put the plug into the outlet, turned the dial - and nothing!  Okay, thought I, perhaps the outlet has blown. Off I went to check the fuse box. No, all was well there. I took a lamp and plugged it into the outlet. Nothing. It's a dud, I told myself, and then gazing across the room I spotted the switches on the opposite wall. Aha, one of them I knew controlled an overhead light which I did not use for a chandelier. So that's likely the switch that operates this outlet, thought I, turning it on. Still nothing happened. Okay, I determined, it's time to call an electrician. I went back to the cooler, and began to push it into place.  I noticed well behind the buffet beside it, a set of wall switches. What are those doing in such an awkward space, thought I? Well, I will give it a try. Nothing to lose. I switched on the secret rocker device, and guess what? The little wine cooler clicked on; it's tiny blue light shone merrily and so did my smile The cooler is now completely stocked with tomato juice and other more sophisticated drinks.  Here's a toast to the little wine cooler and the mysterious secret wall switch. Cheers!

Changes

Lots of people hate change. I rather like it. Something new is exciting and opens doors hitherto shut. But just try to convince some sites on line of that! I have certain accounts on line that from time to time, refuse to accept my password and as a result, I try to change it. Filling out all the information goes on and on and when you have worked your way through your birthdate, gender and favorite ice cream flavour, you are told you have been successful at changing your password but all you have to do is go to your other app and find the url that confirms it. You plod through that step and voila there is the address that you may click on and Bob's Your Uncle - actually didn't have an uncle named Bob, but Earl doesn't have the same ring. Okay. All set. Now you can access your mail. You go to your mail site and click. It asks you your e mail address and password, of course. You enter it with confidence, for, after all, you have spent a good half hour making sure you got it all right. But no go. You get a message saying that "there is something wrong". You think you must have entered it incorrectly - as they suggest. You enter it again. Still, it tells you "there is something wrong". After a number of attempts including the desperate ones putting in old passwords since perhaps they will work, all else failing, but alas they, also, will not do. The "something wrong" isn't you. It's them. You know you're right because you entered the new and supposedly fixed password into your little tan password book, the one that doesn't lie because it is in real ballpoint pen and not stored on line. As a last gesture, you click on x and say something blue as you give up and go have a coffee. If they want me, they can call me you say. But later on, you realize that you really cannot live without your devices and the options of all they bring into your life. Your friends won't be able to tell you what they've been doing that afternoon. Your favorite shopping sites can't spread their tempting arrays before you. That news item you heard via radio needs to be seen on your screen. And what about the cute looking specimen that you met yesterday and gave your e mail address to. That could be a whole new experience! And then how can your hair and nail ladies remind you of your appointments, not to mention your dentist. Ahhh. It's back to the screen and more blanks to fill out. It can't be that hard, you tell yourself.