School Sit

 Society, especially city society, depends upon schools as babysitters. And why not? Schools are safe environments for kids, as well as  places where they socialize, learn, play, are entertained and very often, eat. Teachers are expected, not only to teach according to government laid out programs, but also do add their own personal "colour" to make the experience for kids, palatable. They teach, but they are also surrogate parents. I know that teachers have codes of ethics, but what else? Children learn not only what they see on the board or in a book, they also closely observe their surroundings, the behaviours and appearances and all sorts of details that we adults often know nothing about. Families are with their children a good part of the day, but actually, how much of it? Do families ever add up the time in actual hours, they spend with children? Do they plan mother and father or whatever combination their family is comprised of, family time together as a unit. And we shouldn't count the sports activities outside or the paid-for lessons or the play dates with other families, but the person to person time when your family gathers as a family, around the meal table or other place you do it. Do your children have much of this kind of time with you as models of life that they can take away to use as their future lifestyles? Ever think about it? When I look back many years ago and my mate and I both worked, there wasn't a whole lot of time as family together. And we lived in a rural area with not a lot of distractions. There was always a rush in the mornings and when the end of the day came, there were home things to do and homework for kids and everyone's out of the home social life as well at the end of the day. Lots of pressures. Working parents have to work to own a house, but it also means building a home of a house. Or does it matter? I hear some parents speak about their concern as gangs seek to enlist members. The gang age is reaching down to pre-teens. Are children needing to look for something like a family in a gang. Is it the place where they can share openly, their thoughts and plans  and dreams and concerns and themselves among people, other than their own, who say they be trusted?  How much of their time is spent away from parents, with other people who are not family at all? Just asking. Teachers are with their classes of children probably for more time than the parents of those same students in their own homes. And that's fine because the teacher is with the child for ten months of the year. The teacher is safe, the child can go to the teacher for support and reassurance as well as lessons in the academics. The teacher spends a lot of time learning what a teacher is, and does, and how to do that in a professional manner as well as conferring with the parent, not just score numbers and letters, but any personal needs of the child. They both "care" about that young person. We need health care in our world, but we also need the kind of care that is now largely expected of teachers as surrogate parents. Do we put enough interest and money and time into where our children, spend much of their day and are influenced in that place by a school's mandates and their teachers as models of adulthood? 

Find Your Happy

 Holiday season is approaching and for some, it's a sigh and not a happy one. Why? For some it's a sad time due to loss. Loss is funny. Instead of distracting ourselves, we often enshrine our loss. Most of our "unhappy" is self inflicted. When someone says "oh, move on" or "hey, drop it" or " aw, forget it" , we can't. Sounds easy, but isn't. Finding a new happy is the answer. It's out there waiting; it's just a matter of finding it and that begins with looking. What stands in the way of happy, is often what others think it is for us. No one knows our personal happy, but us alone. For me, it's the social season. I love the colour, the stories, the joy. Not a party person, I like my people one at a time. When party time rolls around, I shudder. A party is where no one seems their real self. The dress, the location, the food, it's all for me, difficult. Some love it. Family parties are best because you can't fool your genetic pool.  Another example of fun, not fun, is mom who spends her pre-holiday weeks preparing for everyone else and telling everyone that she or he is delighted to do it all even though they collapse when it's over until next year. That can change with the short word, no. Then, there's the currently overworked purse where expenses of the holiday are a huge hurdle. Putting the traditional turkey that now costs almost as much as the entire grocery bill, into the oven, doesn't have to happen. It's not all about turkey. Feasting menus can change.  Travelling also, to that far away beach or fantasy land, is not essential to finding happy. Some families might pool ideas on how staying home can be fun. Togetherness is laughing together. One family started a tradition of reading to each other along with nice snacks and no screens. For your elders, go visit. That is their gold. We once spent our Christmas eve driving an aunt into the neighbourhood to see the lights. She was overwhelmed with joy. Her happiness was a best gift to us. Discount what stores say is  most popular to buy. For them, maybe. Gifts are your decision, not theirs. You know what's best for your people. Buying presents could be changed from items made of plastics and electronics, to non-perishable edibles. They are luxuries we don't buy for ourselves.  Costly decking out the house can change, too. Go simple and make it less demanding on the earth. It's up to your happy. What the neighbours do is their happy. Last, if you have no one and nothing, there is still happy for you, too. It's there and waiting. You'll know it when you find it. 

Going Home

Homes, as they politely call places to stow old people that no one wants to put up with, can and as some are doing, be changed. Of course, after reading an article about a home that purports to spend extra millions as an experiment, and making changes - minor ones that I could see, and I, trying to make a comment, the censors of this so-called comment invitational site, zapped me out. That sort of mindless discrimination. But that's a topic for another day.) Back to The Home. Being familiar with The Home while visiting relatives installed in them, and rightly so, because their next of kin really could not care for them, I noticed many things that should and could be changed. And it didn't seem they would be expensive. First change is the smell of these places. Why? Surely, someone can plug a scent maker into an outlet somewhere. Second, the hallways are ridiculous. Who needs to see someone's jigsaw puzzle in a frame? And certainly not the memorial plaques everywhere or  the lit candle for the dead. Yikes, how depressing is that? Third, the clutter. No thanks to the hallway bins overflowing with diapers, stained bibs and piles of used bed linen. And please take the carts full of dirty dishes away. No one wants to look at that. I hear my mother saying, "DO the dishes." Fourth, the room decor. Do we really need misspelled little blackboards reminding one who is on duty? We have speech. Most of the signs in the rooms need to be read once, not hang there forever. Also, the lists of what NOT to do or the last inmate's, colouring book pages still hanging on the wall long after the former has died are trash.  And who arranges the furniture, the cleaner? It seems the whole room is for the benefit of floor washers. I could use the word inmate instead of resident here, because that is exactly how it feels when you are put into a scheduled, controlled environment in such as a "home".  Why call it a home? Fifth, the weekly or monthly program, complete with menu item, Friday Hot Dog Day or Pizza Party should be tossed. If you have to eat wieners or a frozen pizza, don't make a party of it. And let's have a bar somewhere or Happy Hour. We are still adults. So how to fix it?  First rearrange the room furniture in the way that the patient finds appealing. Ask. The resident basically pays for this "hotel". Second, how about a buffet  or cafeteria style food service in which there is  choice of time and food. DO NOT serve anything in a little paper or plastic cups. What real home does that? Toss out the clock which forces residents to a schedule that is for staff and not paying resident. Again, ask. Then there is the quasi entertainment. If I have a Master's Degree, or a journeyman's diploma, do I really want to listen to some bad school choir, worn out comedian or the nice old fiddle player who volunteers. No, a thousand times no. Ask what I like. Most residents go these childish events to be nice and look cooperative for the report to the the family when and if they come to visit.  And the exercise class with some cute young student doing a physiotherapy unit, cooing, is not fun.  All this may seem unfair comment, but really, I've been there and seen there, and these are the truths of the matter. Not all are this bad, but....  When I go to a "home" that will never be home to me, I want to be considered a normal human being of long experience and education, someone who can make her own decisions and choices. Please, just ASK.

What Matters

Matter cannot be destroyed we are told by scientists. If we take that to heart, it means  there's only so much matter to go around.  Nothing gets much beyond the upper layer of earth's clouds other than the odd little piece of space aluminum and  light metals and plastics that view, through cameras, what is in outer space. Or as some would say, the vast vacuum of eternity or infinity. It's pretty hard to deny science for long, even of the most hard core spiritual individual or religious enthusiast. We can stretch our beliefs only so far before they snap back to reality. Faith or not. And faith is a very good matter since it, like legends and lore and fairy tales, goes a long way toward positive attitudes even if based on pure speculation,  coincidence or just plain stubbornness. The older I become, the less I know while trying to piece all together: what I've heard and read and seen and been, over multi decades. Sometimes, the present generation which actually is still mine, since I am living and not on the other side of sod, wonders why we elders are so coo coo. Trying to figure out what our lives were is likely the reason we seem kind of nutsy. We have seen the old merry-go-round of life pass by too many times, and the brass ring, we never caught and that looks like gold, and  probably isn't even brass, is after all only a ring. The ring of truth. There are some truths such as "matter cannot be destroyed" that become very mystifying. If matter can't be destroyed and at death, we humans are turned into ash, where do all the new humans being born, come from. Furthermore, out of where did their elements arise? Yes, we come from the bodies of other human beings and they consume nutritional elements that are out of our earth itself. But does that mean earth, having attained its maximum supply of human kind, according to those who study these things, is full, and that there are no more  elements left on the shelves to make new humans? You see how confusing this all is. Then again, since someone stated The Law of Conservation of Mass and his name among others who stated basically the same idea, was Antoine Lavoisier in 1785, it does become moot. Oh, you thought it was Einstein who said it, didn't you? Sorry. Einstein said that Energy Cannot Be Destroyed, not mass, but  the energy it, under conditions, emits? But Einstein also said, that energy can be changed from one form to another. Hmm. Since those days, a host of other scientists added or changed these theories about physical matter and their list grow longer every year. No wonder we ordinary folk are confused. At present, we are wrapped up in trying to save this dear old planet from falling apart before the crawling masses of human kind consumes it entirely, or they, each other. I think of a poem that I can't find but it was something like this: when man has consumed all: bird, bark and beast, then man will eat man. Apologies to the original author, but that's the concept. None of us living, are likely to witness any such thing, but the way it's  going these days, makes me wonder. 

Staff Of Life -Bread

 If you do nothing else for your kids, grandkids included, teach them how to bake bread. One of my favorite tools in the kitchen is an old bread maker that I use only for mixing dough. Today's bread at my house is hot dog buns. My recipe book is You Tube and I found a recipe for hot dog buns that look, taste and feel like store-bought ones. This kind of bun is perfect for all kinds of purposes besides housing wieners. They also make, if sliced across, perfect little bases for your canapes or for hearty appetites, hamburger and chili holders. Or chicken/ turkey/ham/beef sliced delights along with sprouts or lettuce and tomatoes and onions. They  make a meal in a bun, and heated with mayo and cheese, a melt: tuna, salmon, prawns. You and the children can be creative, maybe even let the young ones build their own from a library of goodies you put on the counter, before them. Your bread maker is your best friend. I have never used mine to bake bread owning to the disastrous results, but it does take away the boring effort of kneading. Some people love to knead and if you need to do that, you can take the dough out of the machine after mixing and for fun, DIY. Having the aging joy of arthritis, I no longer find kneading fun but I do adore how many different kinds of breads I can make using my mixer. You can add fruit and a bit more sugar for sweet breads. Don't forget onion/cheese bread or garlic/parmesan or all-grain breads when  you toss in, now and then during the mix, some oats and other grains you enjoy. Herb bread is delicious and don't forget the exotic lavender and ginger varieties as well. You can convert any bread recipe that is not one done in a mixer, by first adding the hot water, sugar and yeast into the bottom of the mixer pan and letting it proof, next dumping in your egg, oil and/or butter before turning on the mixer to make dough after adding the flour. Peek and poke at the dough now and again to see if it needs for a nice soft, pliable dough, perhaps a bit more flour or water or oil. A good baker knows the importance of feeling the dough. You will learn the best texture with experience. This is where you and the kids can discuss the art of breading. When you teach your offspring how to make bread, you are doing them a huge favour. They will never starve at college or while living alone if they have a bread mixer and an air fryer besides the college room microwave oven for perfect popcorn and hopefully in the kitchen down the hall, an oven for baking. Carbs are satisfying and keep one from dangerous all-fat diets that usually end up adding more fat than before but on you, not on the plate. There is no harm in a slice of bread or two a day with lots of good things on top. Kids love to toss in the ingredients for bread making because the mixer does the hard work and when that dough comes out, a little kneading and shaping can feel, for them, very grown-up artistically satisfying. The smell of baking dough is a joy and an invitation to make friends over a slice of warm, buttery bread, fresh out of  your oven. 

Footie

 Not about football, but about feet. No one wants to talk about feet, but they are the most used spot on our bodies, the body outside, at least. Not sure if it's because their location is rather distant, and seen seldom other than fleetingly, that we mostly ignore them. In the days when I didn't mind spending a small fortune on pedis and manis, I loved the attention my feet received. The dear lady who made her living at tending gently and thoroughly, my feet, spent almost an hour pampering them. When the bill for tending to nails and toes didn't somehow fit my budget I gave up the mani and pedi parts of my life. Now, doing the job myself, I quite understand the cost of such treatments. Just getting down there is work enough and lately,  I am seriously thinking of reopening my monthly date with my dear lady of the pedi kind. Many feet are squeezed into the five minute shoe for parties, heels that defy gravity, shoe toes that pinch and finally, at are last comfortably stuffed into favorite slippers or worn ancient sneakers. What puzzles me about the whole foot matter, is the mystique of feet. When I was a teen, my friends bragged very politely about THE shoe store in the city where they bought their shoes. While I had rich friends whose parents didn't wince when the matter of new shoes arose at the dinner table, mine did wince widely, and told me to save up my babysitting funds if I wanted to buy the kinds of shoes my friends had. Food came before foot wear at our house. It's where I learned that the fancy shoe store dumped their left overs for the annual, much-sought-after sale that even the rich secretly attended. I was there every sale with my babysitting money clutched in hand. My rich friends had lots of shoes, but my closet held one pair of regular shoes that sat next to last year's pair along with the cheap fake version of the latest sneakers. As to fancy shoes for dances, a regular pair had to make do. None of the present teen generation knows what this is all about. We didn't do credit cards when I was a kid. What came home in Mom and Dad's pay was all that there was, and we were lucky to own our house which is a rarity these days. Then, house and food came before fashion. Today is different. Why do we ignore our feet? Most people have some part of their foot or feet that they deem to be hidden from view.  I inherited a bump on my foot that plagued my aunt who had hers removed at great discomfort, but she didn't mind. I do, and simply hide my bump as best I can. I have been know to take a strong pair of scissors and neatly and hopefully hidden, do things to my shoes that invisibly to others, make them more comfortable. Also, like my mid-European body that is  wider, so are my feet to match. My elegant rich friends, who, for some reason have impossibly narrow feet, prove that the richer you are, the more skinny are your feet. I wear a very small size but wide, and their feet are as long as skis. It is as though, their feet have somehow been pulled to great lengths while others are left to be their comfy little wide selves. Of course, I make no outward comparisons but I do pamper myself with that thought. As I age, I don't worry about shoes or that only the most expensive kinds are narrow. I buy what fits with an ahhhh. It keeps me in a good mood. 

Shame No Cane

 Used to be centuries ago, that walking sticks were very fashionable. Both sexes held them, not due to aging situations, but as an accessory. They were very visible and decorated elaborately. In Louis The Fourteenth's day they were bejewelled and their taps on marble floors were considered  the rock music of the day. When grandmother wanted a cup of tea, she struck her stick on the carpet and the heirs came running. Most were sported by the elderly and respected as sensible, useful additions that  helped persons go about in a dignified manner. That was then. These days of replacement surgery at a wink, canes are largely used only during rehabilitation after surgery. Those of us who abhor surgical procedures unless absolutely necessary, use canes and we are very grateful for them I will have you know. But there are people such as rather close friends, who look askance secretly at being seen in the company of a caned individual. If their aging situation is not the same. One lady, who fancies her golf sporting skills, however limited, considers it embarrassing to be with other ladies who carry canes. She is able to skip along lithely she thinks. And more power to her. This person's aging challenges are of the hearing and seeing variety. These don't require highly visible aids such as canes or walkers. Thus, they can hide their hearing aids and wear fancy eyeglasses and feel somewhat superior. Canes are a great assist to one's self - confidence just as hidden hearing aids or contact lenses. In either case, a fall can become a serious problem. I have a wardrobe of canes and walking sticks and feel no shame in their use. I happen to have nothing wrong with eyes or ears but I have one bad knee that I've been assigned in my particular aging repertoire. I've already had one minor operation on the thing, but now other conditions have arisen. Surgery, however, to me, is a last resort. Most of my friends are astounded that I don't just dash in and get my knee bones sawed off and a piece of metal stuck into what's left. They tell me they did it and look at them. Apparently, in many instances, once is not enough. A second hip or knee could be necessary to continue age marathoning. I prefer to keep my bones intact until the situation becomes desperate in spite of all their enthusiasm saying "why not just take the surgery and be done with it." My first cane was a joke. I was the family eldest at a reunion, and on the last day, the relatives presented me with a cane. Lots of laughter about it. But I am really smiling now because it's a boon to lean on the same cane, a rather sensible black one but a jolly nuisance, too. It isn't the cane so much as its proclivity in falling over with a loud smack when parked.  Also my deaf and half-blind pals who skip around like teens find it embarrassing to be with someone caned who looks "old". They are in fact older than I am. The other day, I went to my garage storage cage and there was my mothers walker. I took it for a spin and wow. The walker, compared to a cane, is like a jet plane compared to a red wagon. I can walk straight up and sit down when I please and roll along at a good clip. And no falling stick that makes everyone jump when it hits the floor. Good-bye cane, hello walker. Maybe.