Erin's Journals

Just a thought… Nothing is ever really lost to us, as long as we remember it. [Lucy Maud Montgomery]

Isn’t it funny the things that spark conversations? Yesterday on Twitter, Consumers Distributing was trending after someone posted this:

When I saw my friend Lisa Brandt, who blogs at voiceoflisabrandt.com and whom you can follow on Twitter @lisambrandt, had tweeted on it, I thought we should have a chat!

We did, and I invite you to listen in. Please click here, if you’d like to hear our conversation.

It felt like a hug on a cloudy Sunday to connect with my dear pal, with whom I shared radio studios at CHFI, and who did mornings for years at 680 News in Toronto, as well as in London and many other spots on the radio map. Hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

Talk to you here on Thursday.

Just a thought… Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. [Rumi]

When this year began – you know, about 102 years ago – I took on a big task: teaching myself to edit audio. I won’t go into how it’s done, although my friend Lisa did in a blog that I found fascinating and you might, too.

Learning a new skill and one that I’ve put to use literally hundreds of times (especially with that 800-page course I recorded, edited and sent, all within a month) freed Rob up to do other production work, to play hockey or keep the house running.

Then, coincident with awareness of the word “COVID,” Zoom came into my consciousness. I was mildly interested, but thought, I’ll probably never use it…we FaceTime with our family in Ottawa and that’s good enough. But it entered our home when we started using it with sister meetings coordinated by the techie of us four girls, my oldest sibling Heather. Soon the sisterhood of the travelling rants was trying other platforms as we all sought the best signals, and most user-friendly apps etc..

As work began to ramp up, thanks to two podcasts that came to be in 2020 (which we totally didn’t see coming; I thought this year would be all about in-person keynote speeches – ha!), we moved further into the on-camera virtual meeting world. And here’s where my problem lies. We used to have phone calls. I could stay in my jammie-jams all day long if I wanted (and I often did) and get the job done. As far as anyone on the other end knew, I was highly inspired and sharply attired, baby!

Weeks of isolation turned into months, and we stayed busy. If I wasn’t recording and editing auditions for the two voice sites to which I subscribe, I was pecking away at this poor worn-out computer or prepping for upcoming interviews of which I was either host or subject. And then, for some inexplicable reason, we started to go Zoom in meetings.

What were previously done over the phone as conference calls were now on screen. And why is this a point of contention?

Well, because no one but my family and complete strangers in the grocery store are going to see me with lousy hair or red break-outs on my face (thanks, menopause). So now a simple meeting turns into getting dressed, doing my hair and putting on makeup (which my skin is not fond of these days).

It sounds like a stupid thing to be bugged by – especially when there are real problems in the world and right outside my door – but more than once I’ve gotten a call where someone has wanted to FaceTime and I’ve just not answered it. Honey, you have to give me notice if you want to see this face, unless you’re family (and I’m not even comfortable looking au naturel around my own sisters).

I can hear the words “vanity” or “insanity” ringing in my head right now and some people will judge me that way. But if you’ve been slammed in the newspaper for your hockey player-like looks (does anyone remember Gary Dunford or Spike Gallagher?) it leaves a mark deeper than one from a high-sticking.

I’ve had surgery to reduce my prominent Davis chin. I’ve worked hard and gone through plenty of pain to keep my face from showing the decades of middle-of-the-night alarms. If I’m lucky enough to get to my eighties, I’ll be that woman with the vertical colour lines bleeding from my non-existent lips (they’re barely there now – I’m all mouth, but no lips). It’s who I am and I come by it honestly: my mother almost had to sit down when she saw how many women would go to the grocery store with curlers in their hair back in the 70s. She wasn’t raised that way, and neither was I.

Don’t get me wrong. I admire women who can be themselves, not a drop of makeup and comfortable in their skin. It so happens that I’m not one of them and that’s not going to change. I did strike a compromise a few weeks ago: I did a video meeting with a blazer worn over my black jersey nightgown, adding a wig and a necklace. And it worked!

So I come back to my first question: can’t we just have meetings over the phone? I mean, just because the technology exists, do we have to use it? In 2020 they’d be giving the Six Million Dollar Man a penis extension.

If you could see me, I’d be blushing. But you won’t, so please just take my word for it and I’ll be back with a new journal Monday.

Just a thought… No act of kindness, however small, is ever wasted. [Aesop]

So much to tell you today, but nothing like the adventures of four weeks ago. Puppy Rosie is doing well (about 90% success on her training now) and Rob’s hand is well enough that he was wrestling with the prickles of an artificial tree on the weekend.

It hadn’t been unpacked since we put it in our rec room for the Christmas That Was, in 2014. (The main event was the real one in the living room.) In that time, some of the lights on this supposedly pre-lit tree decided to pack it in, adding about six hours’ work to the task of putting it together as we dipped our toes back into decking the halls.

I got one of about ten Rubbermaid totes unpacked on Saturday before feeling myself climbing into a pod of depression and just stopping. It was akin to decorating for a funeral. Yesterday was a bit better; I put it off until the afternoon, once I’d decided on no decorations, just lights and ribbon. Baby steps, right?

I was really okay with no more Christmases. But having family here with us means I have to put on my big girl stockings and just do it; I’ll let the warmth of the season come over me whenever it decides to visit. And anticipate with joy the family I never imagined would be here for our first foray back into the holidays.

It did come on Saturday evening in the form of one ornament: Brooke and Phil gave me one they’d been looking for, apparently for years: a banana ornament. And in teal – the colours of our accents in our house overlooking the ocean and mountains. I mean, how cute is this? We’ll find just the perfect spot for it.

Despite three rounds of vacuuming, the house is splattered with glitter and we’re now at that “finding it in my underpants” stage of post-decorating clean-up. I’m sure by March it’ll be all gone. Here’s how the tree looked last night; I will likely add a few balls as the week goes on and I feel a bit more festive. Or it’s fine as it is; haven’t decided.

That’s not the moon (full tonight); just a reflection of a kitchen light. Could be though, eh?

Meantime, your inbox has likely been jammed with sale notices from any place at which you’ve ever shopped online or given your email address in person, imploring you to take advantage of their Black Friday or Cyber Monday sales. Humbug. But tomorrow is worth noting: it’s Giving Tuesday – the day on which the orgy of spending is balanced a little with the spirit of the season: charity. And on that note, I’ll invite you to take a little bit of an inventory.

If in 2020 you did not spend on something that you would have – what economists call “discretionary spending” – perhaps you’d consider giving some of what you saved to people who truly are in need.

Now, I know full well that a lot of people haven’t a spare dime after a tough year, but there are some of us who have been fortunate: we’ve found other ways to keep our income flowing while saving on travel (gas, cruises, flights, accommodations, etc.), personal pampering like cosmetics, hair appointments, facials, massages, new clothes and the like.

There are a hundred other ways we haven’t spent money in 2020: house cleaners, dog grooming sessions, movie nights, restaurant outings or tickets to other entertaining events. But, of course, every dollar we have saved has come at the expense of people in those industries – people who relied on our spending to put food on their table. Everywhere you turn there is hardship.

So I’ll ask you to consider the money you saved by doing the right thing and staying home, and find a charity that is close to your heart and make a donation. You don’t have to wait until Giving Tuesday; make it your Monday motivation! Open those letters and emails from charities you’ve been generous with in the past, and consider how much greater the need is in 2020 than it has ever been before.

And if you usually drop a $5 or $20 in the Salvation Army kettle, please do it online this year. (Yes, there are many volunteers still ringing the bells, but perhaps you won’t be out to see them.) That’s only one of the tremendous organizations out there that need your help, and I know you can find your own. Food banks can make your dollar go farther than any Black Friday or point redemption program anywhere – trust me.

Please, please give. And if you’re one of the many who has fallen on hard times in 2020, I hope you’ll know that we’re thinking of you. And better than that, we’re going to be helping. Here’s a link to something I did for Markham Stouffville Hospital from the home setting in which I’ve been doing Zoom conferences, speeches and so on. Hope you like it.

And if you don’t mind, thank you for sharing this message today. You just never know who needs to hear it.

Just a thought… Our most basic instinct is not for survival, but for family. [Paul Pearsall]

Huh. And so here we are again: many of us self-quarantining (except for the tiniest family bubble) and trying to close the door gently and step back into a life of care, caution and compassion. Our hearts are with our neighbours south of the border, those hundreds of thousands of families with an empty chair at a smaller Thanksgiving table this year; the millions more who are paring down their celebrations as per the guidelines and advice of those in the know.

Right now, US Thanksgiving 2020 is shaping up to have the potential to become a super-spreader event. Yesterday, flight patterns showed more planes in the skies over the continental US than on the day before Thanksgiving in 2018 and only slightly behind last year’s activity. It’s like an awful lot of people either don’t know that there’s a pandemic, or are willing to take their chances. (And how many stories are there about travellers refusing to wear masks on the plane, I wonder? The poor flight crews.)

Such is the pull of family, of tradition, of the need for humans to gather and celebrate and rekindle the hearth and heart fires after such a difficult year. But how is it human nature to turn our backs on danger? I can’t speak to that.

The “lizard” amygdala part of the brain that I learned about in addiction counselling tells of a fight, flight or freeze mentality, but there’s nothing I could find in our need to survive that tells us to turn our backs on a killer – unless, of course, it’s to run. I wish I could understand the logic of what’s happening, but I do comprehend the emotion of it. I mean, who isn’t dreading not being with family next month?

It’s empathy. We feel for them. We know this is a holiday that for many is bigger than Christmas in terms of gatherings, as more people have (or take) more time off with the four days over Thanksgiving than at Christmas time, when Boxing Day – a month today – is not a statutory holiday (as it is here).

This week I had a chance to talk with David Coletto of Abacus Data, as part of an upcoming CREA Real Time podcast, in which we look back at 2020 and ahead to 2021. And he pointed out to me that while Canada was supposedly built on the tenets of peace, order and good government, the US has always been about “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

I get that. But what if that liberty in their pursuits of happiness is actually causing death to others, themselves and/or their loved ones? Where does that come into the equation? It’s beyond me. The ICUs in several US cities are filled to capacity; the death tolls keep rising and yesterday’s case count in the US was its highest in one day since back in the spring.

Canada has its problems and we’re not in the clear – not by a long shot: our heretofore healthy and smug Vancouver Island now has the highest per capita new case rate in all of BC. But to hear President Obama name-check our country in an interview the other night in terms of how a pandemic could/should be handled, it made me thankful. We’ve got a long way to go before we’ve got this thing under control and we can safely gather for our own big celebrations again; right now in many parts of our country most of us are trying to obey rules and adhere to guidelines in an effort to save Christmas.

Will it work? We can hope. There’s still a tsunami of misinformation and deceptive news being circulated online in attempts to thwart the efforts of actual experts to keep us safe, healthy and alive. I mean, why believe actual scientists when you can listen to crackpot theories about the vaccines, the efficacy of masks, etc.?

It all becomes an awful lot to take if you stop and think about it for too long. But when the big picture becomes overwhelming, what do we do? The best we can, one day at a time.

Stay safe, stay sane and stay healthy. And to friends from the US who are here today, I wish you a Thanksgiving that includes gratitude for your good health, memories of gatherings past and hopes for celebrations – joyful, bountiful and boisterous – in years to come.

I’ll be back here Monday.

Just a thought… …and the Three Bears. No one ever questions why Papa Bear and Mama bear slept in separate beds. What was going on in that marriage? More backstory needed. [Jim Gaffigan]

I was going to call this “The Pinky, the Puppy and the Conjugal Visit,” but, a) I don’t title my journals, b) Rob cut his ring finger and not his pinky – although the alliteration floats my boat and c) there is no “c” but things are better in threes.

So having said all that, here goes.

We’re three weeks and one day from Rob’s near joint-deleting finger injury, and my flight to Kelowna to pick up a little puppy named Rosie. While we’re working on her outdoor training (our success rate depends entirely on how quickly we see her heading towards the door), she’s got a high-pitched “yip!” whenever I leave her sight.

So yes, we’re going to work on that a lot, so that in the not-too-distant future, she can be left alone for an hour or two. That will come as a great relief to us all; she yips and cries in her dog carrier (on my lap) when we take the car to do our meal deliveries. It’s enough to make our ears bleed, but hopefully that changes soon.

Since Rosie arrived that Sunday, Rob has been sleeping in the guest bedroom. Rosie dozes next to me, attached to a leash whose handle is tucked under my pillow, so if she tries to get off the bed (which is surrounded by throw pillows but could still result in injury), I feel her departure. So far she hasn’t tried to make an escape.

Rob’s separate sleeping (which has never happened regularly in our 34 years of couplehood) is to keep Rosie from waking when he gets up in the night, but also to let him try to deal with the pain in his finger, which strikes at various hours. I haven’t really minded the solo sleeping but have missed him, if that makes sense. Rosie? She doesn’t know anything different and as far as she’s concerned, she and I own that king-sized bed.

So…let me take you to the conjugal visit part of the story, and I’ll tell it in terms that I might use if I was relating it on the radio (don’t know that I would) and I knew that kids might be listening and would ask questions if I wasn’t super careful.

On Saturday, Rob expressed a wish to wander down the hall to my end of the house. (Despite his occasional hand pain and a sore lower lip that was bitten on Friday by an exuberant puppy, he’s still the boy I married.) I gave in relented wholeheartedly agreed and on we went with our day. Come evening, I started wondering about the logistics and just how realistic this visit was going to be. Then at 9 pm, Rosie was in a deep sleep on the floor, so I suggested we make a run for it. Or an amble. You know, we’re not teenagers.

And here’s where it gets weird (as if this wasn’t enough). In order to keep her from noticing we were heading out of the room, I found a file from the narration job that I’m still working on, and played my own voice from my computer. All she heard was Mommy talking and as far as she knew, I was still sitting in my chair next to her and not shutting up. You know, the same as usual.

All’s well that ends well and she was none the wiser, Rob slept well in the guest bed, and Rosie and I had a good night’s sleep, too.

I mean, I get why couples sleep separately, and usually working hours, sleep incompatibility or snoring are the culprits, but this is only a temporary measure (I keep telling Rob, and myself). In the meantime, we’re all just going with the flow. After all, isn’t that what we’re being called upon to do in 2020?