Bag Lady

Fashion is indisputable today. It doesn't matter if you are a street person or the rich house down the street, fashion is something everyone serves. Those runners, you know, the ones with their logo on the side, are admired without a doubt even though most won't admit it. Shoes and purses amongst the feminine set, rate high. Since shoes have too wide a scope, NPI, let's think about bags. Hollywood that has turned into more than a sneer by a certain glossy magazine whose editor lurks behind her curtain of bobbed hair, reigns as leader. What is worn down the red carpet speaks. And what dangles from the hand or well-toned arm of said actress, is lauded as the acme of style. Those little dabs of leather with their tiny symbols of power such as the crossed C's of Chanel or the Gucci logos say everything. Some of these little bits of leather are worth the net paycheque of the working classes. A video segment showed a trio of the world's most spoiled and wealthy media princesses doing a spate of shopping in Dubai. They wandered through an empty shop with gaping fans gagaing in the windows outside. They reached and held and fondled the purses that were displayed on pedestals deserved by their lofty price tags. I have to admit it was as fascinating as watching a boa constrictor hypnotically writhing behind glass. The group left disdainfully but elegantly not able to find what they favoured. The other day, in a fit of excess, I decided to splurge and buy myself a truly great handbag. And I did. Of course, it was on sale. The actual price was idiotic for the small amount of leather done only as trim. The rest was made of, yes, canvas! Albeit "coated". Somewhat astounded, I Googled the history of the piece and found out that it had humble beginnings. The tale is simple. Long ago a woman in the USA sold beans. She put them into paper bags at first but as her business grew, she used canvas bags. Eventually, her creation grew and became the hugely sought-after purse that women, especially younger ones, recognize and desire all over the world. They are in the three and four figured price range but are patterned after a simple paper sack. The pattern on the item and the logo are what one pays for, but the workmanship is also keen. I do have another bag made by the famous Chanel that I picked up for a dead low price in a thrift shop. I love it but don't wear it, not only because it is very old and the leather somewhat cracked, but I do put it on my armoire as a decoration simply because I admire its creator, now departed, and her rise from humble beginnings to that of a top designer respected today in that orbit. When I wear my new handbag, I do so remembering that those who dream and work hard may and often do, become everything they ever desired. And not for the money, but because they rose by living their dream and for all the dreamers out there, giving them hope and inspiration.

Sizing You Up

Sizing, now that we are global shoppers, has reached a top level of importance. We online shoppers who prefer not to feel frustrated, prowling the aisles of our favorite shops, use online frequently. It remains local in that many of the sites are familiar stores, but those stocked with online endless styles and sizes. One soon learns which sites to trust and which to avoid. North Americans are comparatively taller and larger in body size than many other countries around the commercial world. After thinking you are safe in ordering a size two or three times your NA one, you might be disappointed to learn that while the length is adequate on the purchase, other measurements such as shoulder and width vary hugely. What we here would size as zero to two or three, in some other countries might be an average size in our world. It isn't racist, it's simply a fact and one that we need to consider seriously. I know a woman who is an engineer and her specialty is helping to solve, for the garment industry, precisely this problem. Her field takes her all over the world. Now that we have opened the trading doors to international shopping, we have to expand our international requirements. Myopia is a luxury. Most men and women are not the Hollywood take-out-some-ribs variety of skinny. We are bigger than we like to admit and why we feel guilty about it remains a mystery to me. No, it isn't more beautiful to be skinny. That's a myth made by diet sellers who take in millions publishing "the latest quick loss diet" or selling substances that are said to allow you to consume everything you want and still lose weight. Few of us are fooled by that silliness. What we really want is for our garments to fit and hang properly and not make us look like we are stuffed sausages. Size is vital and getting it right is realistic and important if you want to spend wisely on fine garments. Men don't seem to be as goofy about sizes as women but I know that they are just as concerned about their mid-sections as are we women. Pants are complicated because there is the length factor as well as leg width for pants to hang properly and look right. Men's coats and jackets hide much but need to fit loosely across the shoulder and have the potential of buttoning up whether it is done or not. Men don't discuss their belt sizes socially but avoid such personal subjects of concern and concentrate fully on sports scores. For them, it's more comfortable and to me, it makes sense. Women talk endlessly, to the point of pain, about diets and sizes and calories.  During a car oil change wait recently, I was forced to listen to two women who went on and on about their diets and what to eat that had the fewest calories or carbs. With so many crucial events happening in the world, I was amazed that during the hour, not one topic other than dieting came into their conversation. Perhaps we ought to size up on chat issues?

Asking For It

Today while going only a few blocks in my community, a busy one, but still, I saw a number of driving mismanagements that were "asking for it". An elderly person with obvious walking difficulties chose to cross a six-lane highway instead of going a half a block further to where the light was. She stood and waited until what she thought would be a safe crossing and then haltingly expected the cars to let her pass. It's never safe to cross in the middle of the block. There were other driveways entering the road space that might not easily see her or would be expecting that someone would cross illegally or perhaps the drivers were looking other ways while entering the road. I saw in my rear view mirror that the slow walking woman barely got across before a stream of cars came along. Now, that sort of accident when pedestrians are struck happens all too frequently in this area and sadly is reported in the newspapers weekly. It isn't always cars that are at fault. This kind of mid-block crosser individual is asking for an accident to happen. As a driver, I try to be alert for pedestrians and cyclists and other drivers but I also expect them to respect the road rules and be safe, too. The next thing I encountered on the same trip to town, was at a corner where the light turned green and yet pedestrians continued to enter the crosswalk well after their signal for crossing went off. What? A line of cars having the legal right to turn on a green light was forced to wait until all of these illegal crossers got safely onto the sidewalk. It took some time before the crosswalk emptied. We are all in a hurry to get where we are going but nothing is more important than human life. A few seconds to wait for a safe pedestrian crossing could prevent a serious accident or maiming. Or going a little further down the sidewalk to a crosswalk where drivers expect you to be, might save someone a lot of grief. And it isn't just the victims but also the innocent drivers who suffer. At night, a number of times while driving, I have been surprised by someone all in dark clothing dashing across the road in front of my car. While they may feel safe doing so because they can see clearly, I can't stop my car on a dime and it is difficult while in a car at night, to see anyone dressed in dark clothing crossing or walking close to the roadside. If you value your life, do not take chances on it. You are no match for a few thousand pounds of metal going kilometers down the road.
 Don't "ask for it". Be careful pedestrians. I drive safely, please do your part.

The Beauty Of Wrinkles

As a small child, who knew nothing of the evils of aging and wrinkles because no one told us they were ugly or bad. We went to our grandparents' farm in summer to stay as long as we wished, all the cousins together, boys and girls, because no one told us we couldn't or shouldn't. We were welcomed naturally. We all slept in one big bed under one huge feather quilt. The farm was just there in all of its wondrous freedoms and delights. No one told us, while there, where we should go or what we should do. We were not warned of dangers. We figured out the dangers of deep water under the waterfall and how to avoid going to the orchard when the bears were in the apple trees. We could hear the bears in the blackberry bushes that we both shared. No one talked at us. We knew naturally what to do and what not to do.  It was a hobby farm which supplied food for my beloved grandparents, now retired to BC from their grain farm in Saskatchewan,  and one that, in a relaxed sort of way, did everything a farm should do and be, but with no apparent time stresses or hard rules. There was a hay barn that had cows on one side and horses on the other. They didn't seem to like to be together apparently. We took turns shoveling out the dung laughing the whole time and learning the smells of each animal that provided farm food. We saw Gramma's vegetable garden and no one told us not to eat peas off the vine or tomatoes or pull up carrots to munch as fresh as they could be. No one explained anything on the farm, it was simply there to see and watch and participate in, as we pleased. We could collect warm eggs from under the hens, dump slops for the pigs, and watch Gramma milk the cows before the sun came up or in the evening when we got to carry the lantern and watch her squirt milk from the cows to the barn cats no one ever fed or worried about. We saw how butchering took place and we were shown animal organs and learned their colours. It didn't seem cruel or disgusting. No one "taught" us, we simply looked and learned lessons we didn't know until years later. In the evening, the coal oil lamps were lit and we sat at the long oilcloth covered farm table and played rummy with Grampa who nearly always won but we didn't mind. Before bedtime, Gramma made bowls of her rye bread torn into warm milk with brown sugar. Sometimes, at night,  we crawled into their bed with them and were welcomed to cuddle up against their flannelette nightgowns. There was only love and trust and warmth and freedom and all the joys of childhood on the farm. Sometimes we would brush our red-headed Gramma's hair and look at her wrinkles with wonder and ask her why we didn't have them. We loved the wrinkles because we loved our grandparents who never said a bad or angry word to us. We respected their love and trusted it. "Why don't we get these?" we asked about their wrinkles and all they would say is that one day we would have some, don't worry. Wrinkles were beautiful and we envied them. We wanted them, too. Running our little hands over their wrinkled hands, we learned about beauty and that it was inside our grandparents who loved us all and seemed to have endless time to be with us but never to talk at us. Their language "from the old country" was not the same as ours but that didn't matter at all. It wasn't about words. It was about love.

Muckraking

'Tis the season for muckraking and lots of it. Lately, there is nothing but bad news in the news. Politics seem no longer the work of seeking a position to aid a community by claiming their confidence to vote for you. The ideal seems to try and convince your potential voters that you have a plan in place, one that your Party, if you have one, approves of, and will support. The plan, ideally, should be well thought out and be made clear to your electors. The "plan" must make sense and be based on actual, plausible and possible outcomes. Your appearance, while not all-important, should be that which shows your voters that you are serious about what you intend to do if elected and be based not on fashion. Your talks to audiences should be simple and strong and reflect your sincerity and determination to do what is best for them. Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to happen much. Politicians hie off to make-over gurus and get the latest haircuts, and garb. Most of what I see and hear in this nasty pre-election season is fraught with vicious attacks on the opponents and seems wholly focussed on trying to smear other politicians in power or not, by nitpicking their every action, history and, yes, looks, in negative terms. If the present administration has done what is lawful and right under the constitution, unfortunately, even this can be painted in dark shades. Recently, I saw an article that is an example of this low kind. The incumbent being criticized followed the law but is condemned for doing so. Charged as "heartless" was the mud word slung. But it is certain that if the same incumbent did not follow the law, the criticizing viewpoint would be presented as equally wrong. How confusing for readers. As a citizen about to enter the voting box, I am constantly having to read very carefully what I consider misleading and mistaken and misinterpreted material on everything being tossed into the media about the election candidates. The most recent one, of which I speak was done by an experienced reporter who obviously was for the anti-incumbent and try as I might to see its value, the tone of the article attempted to take the downside as an upside. Whoa! Those in power in our governments must do what is legal. After all, they are the major body that makes laws. That's their job. Why are they criticized for following what has been approved and passed by it? I find this sort of journalistic shallow muckraking, disgusting. What I need as a voter, is fact, not some kind of tale complete with horrendous pictures that are meant to rend the heart. I need hard facts with statistics and sensible reasoning and a clear statement of what exactly the reporter is attempting to present. Report. Don't politic me. I have to ignore emotional rants about how "cruel" the government is alongside photos of migrants hanging over the side of a ship somewhere else. Give me a plan. Make cool comparisons and clear reasonings. Dear Press, stop the mud slinging and name calling. Readers deserve reporting, not muckraking. Report. Voters are able to see through bad journalism. Don't waste ink. We need unbiased facts before we cast that one precious vote.

Getting There? Not Fun

Used to be that when one went on a travel vacation, they dressed. Off to the airport for a sunny holiday meant that your family drove you down and you enjoyed a lovely lunch together as you sat and watched planes landing. You didn't spend hours waiting until your plane left, you got there early only if you chose to. You had plenty of time to wander the airport and partake of its offerings. Settling your tickets and passports was easy. You went to a desk without cattle stanchion wait lines, and soon you smiled your way into the departure place to be boarded. Boarding was orderly and unconfusing. You stowed your goods overhead with everyone following the rules. You were not charged for baggage because it was simple to follow the requirements. You didn't need to take meals onto the plane. You were served almost immediately with beverages and snacks before your dinners or breakfasts. No one complained about the food. They didn't expect gourmet hot dinners. It was lovely enough just being there. They enjoyed airplane fare that was simple and basic and novel. When you bought your ticket it was through an agent at home, who handed you all of the arrangements and passes that you could rely on. You knew your flight and there was no over-selling of seats even dreamed of. Your hotel room on arrival was there without changes and you felt rested because you enjoyed your roomy, courteous flight that had polite, unrushed attendants. Air travel was a great and luxurious pleasure even if you didn't indulge in First Class. When you got to your destination, someone was waiting for you and directed you to your conveyance while taking care of your baggage that was almost certain of arriving with you. When you went touring in whatever country you chose, you were welcomed and felt safe and appreciated. Your traveler's cheques were accepted and you found shopping in a new country both unique, appreciated and inexpensive. You had space in your luggage that was of reasonble size without extra charges, to take back souvenirs and gifts. There were no armed personnel or guns present in airports or dogs sniffing out drugs, you did not have long line-ups going through customs and your collection of passport stamps done by smiling customs officers made your passports special and something to shelve. You could wander the streets of anywhere in the world and not worry unduly about pickpockets or swindlers of all kinds. Sure, they were there, but it was easy to avoid the areas where it was known to be unsafe. Everyone seemed to be happy travelers; few complained about bad food or service or mishandled reservations. You felt wanted as tourists and spoke freely to foreign residents about their lands. Taking photos was not a matter of squeezing into a crowded spot to take a bad shot because there were no crowds to fight. You seldom waited long to see your favorite art or historic exhibits. I am so pleased to know those times, and recall the days, when up-close, one could almost touch the Pieta, Mona Lisa, The Last Supper, climb pyramid stones and stroll freely around the Parthenon, sip tea invited by little Asian ladies to their homes, enjoy eating at the markets of many exotic towns, chatting in sign language with families and seeing genuine souvenirs actually made by the people of those places. Ah, the beautiful days of travel. No longer is it, "half the fun is getting there". You're doing well, if you get there at all!

Fashion Fops

I have to admit that I love fashion, fabrics and all of the foolery that goes with it. To look at only. Not that I could afford a pair of sunglasses or a keyring with a designer name. Still, I love to look. My looking isn't kind. I find it hugely comical to see the red carpet acres of fabric adorning pop singers and movie stars whose trains and high heels are the funniest things since the first Mickey Mouse. Of course, it is for entertainment only. Then there is The fashion magazine that takes itself so seriously that comes to mind. If one wants to be on the cover, it is essential that one diet cruelly for at least six months so that the maven of its pages, can peer beyond her curtain of The signature hairdo to deign a nod of approval or not. Only then, can the scrawny diet-boned bodies be exposed to her cameras. The whole silly mess of gowns that are so ridiculous, ones that can never be worn off the runways, as admitted by their designers, are indicators of how completely distant we, in fantasy, are from committing to cleaning up the planet. The voluminous gowns that float into New York venues costing millions are not very far off physically from other humans suffering under addictions and poverty. I am sickened. It brings to mind, a street man who stood outside the opera with folk leaving a performance. His cardboard sign said, "Don't ignore me." When I gaze at the pages of magazines that are not of fashion festooned men and women airbrushed into Barbie shapes, I see the real people of this kind who hide under the sequins and lace and body-toned catsuits. They have lumps and bumps and grapefruit skin and lines and little wrinkles that have escaped the Botox. They are just like us, they are themselves, the real themselves.  It is no wonder, that when they hit the streets no one recognises them. The funniest one of all, and this is not a popular view, is a certain woman who is naturally beautiful with a body that is fullsome but especially in the southern hemisphere area. She seems a "nice" lady and with help is apparently, a good business woman. But she is also one who is completely absorbed in her own appearance. She and her shopping pals, as seen in The magazine, put on their fish faces that must not smile or be in danger of serious skin cracking issues, tell their cyber fans how to put on layers of make-up and yards of pricey garments. Sadly, some women emulate them, but when they are used as models for younger women to follow, I draw the line. Life is real. It's not a dream. Real life is not about cloth, serums, airbrushing and Spanx. It's about getting an education of choice, landing a job, living a green lifestyle and being a fine family member if not the maker of one. Sounds easy, but it takes work and sacrifice. It doesn't include hiring some other woman under veiled excuses, to birth your children. It doesn't include spending what could be an annual salary on a logo purse or getting your skin plumped up or paying thousands for a spoiled child's birthday party. Fashion is merely for fun, beauty is deeper than the epidermis.

Ceiling Elephants

Over and over, as a condo resident, I hear others saying such as: "they're like a herd of elephants on my ceiling". And it is true that those living over others unless they are in a concrete building, hear footsteps overhead. Most people who live in older buildings try to keep their "footprints" down in the wearing of slippers or other soft-soled footwear. Others think that bare feet or next to it will be perfect because they aren't wearing shoes of any kind. Nay dears. Bare feet or sock feet are worse than hard heels. Your heels give off a thump that is very unpleasant to those below you. Rather than a click, you get a clump and clumps are somehow more annoying. In the first place, since the person, if reported, denies they are wearing shoes that disturb, and plead that they aren't wearing them at all, so how can that be a problem? Sorry, it is a big problem. Fortunately, I have not suffered this aspect of condo living because my upper neighbours have always been most thoughtful and wear soft shoes, not bare or sock feet, therefore I do not have that kind of noisy neighbour problem. The bad part is how some condo dwellers handle their noise situations. One person said she takes a broom handle to her plaster and taps the ceiling. She says it works but it can't be too good for the ceiling. Another more creative man I spoke to on the subject, says he leaves a pair of new slippers outside the door of his thumping neighbour upstairs. My thoughts on that, are how expensive that could be and anyway, how does he know the correct size of his upstairs fellow owners? Leaving notes can be offensive and sometimes hopeless, because it is surprising how many Canadian citizens are intermittently able or not, to comprehend English. But it's a useful tool, I am told. The best way to handle the noise-above scenario is to either go upstairs and politely state your case or if that is too intimidating, write to management and let them deal with it in a professional manner. The last resort is to move from your residence and buy into a concrete building or buy or rent a place on a top floor. Seems drastic, but it could be your only recourse to peace. If you happen to be a person living on a floor that has people living under you, remember to be a perfect neighbour and invest in some soft-soled shoes. I live above a lovely pair of people and the last thing I want to do is to be a disturbance to them. I have a collection of wonderful shoes with heels of varying heights and materials, but the ones I wear on my floor are those squishy kind with the name of an amphibian on them. They are not beautiful but they keep my conscience clear and my neighbours speaking to me in the elevator. And hey, they are kind of comfy to walk in!

Garbage Is Garbage

Garbage is not only a problem for the world but my problem, too. Where I live in a condo that has "garbage cops", and they are apparently needed, I have been warned a number of times that my garbage is not good enough for the bins that are supplied. The problem is that garbage for one place is not the same as another. I have just moved and there is a lot of cardboard, plastics and paper involved in going from one place to another. I wish it were not so, but there it is. And it's a problem. In my previous domicile, I could put the cardboard cartons, folded of course, into the cardboard boxes bins. With a lot of online buying going on these days, it is not only helpful but essential to have such bins. My new domicile doesn't enjoy that luxury. Even tiny parcels come in either bubble wrap plastic envelopes or cardboard cartons. Cardboard if light, is permitted but the heavier kind is a no-no. There is a hierarchy of cardboard apparently. It entails a lot of garbage effort. Sorting the stuff is increasingly complicated and that is okay. We all care about the environment but when you are old, caring is a lot harder. For numbers of condo folk running off to the local recycle bins every few days, it is a fact that it, another kind of pollutant,  constitutes a lot of fuel use. Not too practical. In this smaller complex where I live now, newsprint is allowed but not the newsprint with no ink, just the printed kind of which we get far too much via the local newspaper. Most of the weeklies double the number of ads over any real news inside. Almost no one reads the stuff. It's another illogical waste of the environment that seems to go on and on and no one stops it. The first thing I do with that junk ad pile is to remove it without a glance and dump it into the mail room wastebasket. That basket is loaded every week. What a waste of waste. Must be "commerce" as an excuse. Then there is a plastics bin but only certain kinds of plastics are permitted. No plastic shopping bags are allowed. I thought that plastic was plastic and all could be recycled but for some odd reason, even though they are still used by grocers, those plastic bags are excluded. So what do we do with them? We use them as garbage bags and where do they go? They go into the real garbage, garbage bins.  That's okay with me, but it doesn't make sense when the same bags go off to a dump somewhere ( not in my back yard) and become landfill. What a way to fill our land! And then packers persist in using styrofoam in some packings. These are the lepers of the garbage world. No one wants them, nor do I, but there they are. I am not a driver of hither and yon. I have to drive to find where these recycling depots are and since I am an old gaffer, I am not about to search around from one street to another trying to locate these off-the-beaten-track places. I don't feel safe doing it. Boo hoo, you say, too bad, you use, you lose! No, I don't lose, I hire. I have to pay someone to take my garbage off to the recycling depot. And I am charged plenty. Once when my treadmill bit the dust, it cost me close to one hundred dollars for a young man to come and haul that off. Yet thieves rob the metal off gravestones. If an appliance goes, which is inevitable, that's an even bigger bill. The bugbear of my existence is devising ways of getting rid of things to suit the world before it gets rid of me.

Mister King

At six this evening, moving-weary of unpacking cardboard boxes of books and putting them completely out of order on shelves, I found among the collection, an unread Stephen King. I am not sure where I picked it up. Wasn't one I bought, but "found" somewhere. The cover of the paperback showed an old Buick, not a "Christine", but one with a grill that chilled. The chrome vents were like long lethal teeth and the jaw was undershot in its hungry, rude grin. The car colour was red. In the fifties, I had a potential boyfriend, Ron Fredrickson, who had a red Buick of the same kind as the title of the book. Ron was a short phase, but his car was never forgotten. At the time, his Buick, likely that of his parents, was ultimate luxury on four gorgeous, white-walled tires but best of all, it seemed to purr its pretty decor, you know, the little silver circles on the hood sides and the smooth, long lines that made it cruise on forever down the main street of my small town. What else could I do but sigh and abscond with the paperback book by King. I set about opening the cover of another of my favorite author's irresistible masterpieces. King is a living classic and his works are pure genius. His way of yanking you into his stories is magical, and to be so-yanked is a  reader's literary blessing. King isn't some smart-ass writer who grinds out inane junk that we often buy because we recognise a name and think, what do I have to lose? Just fifteen bucks worth of paper and words to forget when the last page is turned? No. With King, you enter his world. You watch his tale passing along and if you're lucky, you may step in. They are his characters who you meet, but also experience them personally somehow, that holds close, often too close, until they let you go on the last page. From A Buick Eight is such a book. Forgetting about dinner, I dropped into my recliner with easy listening music on in the background and have not risen until now, close to midnight, closing the book and returning to my reality. The book was published about a decade ago. Where was I? How did I miss grabbing it off the shelf immediately it hit the thing? The phrase, "I couldn't put it down", didn't occur to me until this minute, well after the first page. It's one of King's books that trods slowly, pulling you down the pathway of its characters and their ways, their actions and their thoughts in a way, you can't avoid. You are not shown their every move, you feel them. Your natural instincts come to the fore and pore-wise, you learn each individual on the pages, not by word but by sense. Stephen King must feel this also, but has the brilliance to get that down on paper. Uncanny. I love writing, but to elicit that kind of response from a reader, is just not my ability. That takes rare genius. I wanted to write to King and tell him how very much this tale meant to me. I found a huge number of sites on-line, and then decided he must know by sales alone, how much his Buick book was loved. Nay, respected. The manager of the King site said when writing fan mail, to address the famous but humble author, as Mr. King. No problem with that, Mister King, Master Writer.