Erin's Journals

Just a thought… When fascism come to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross. [Author unknown; often misattributed to Sinclair Lewis]

My friend, I apologize: I don’t know if I have inspiring words or comforting thoughts today. I’m just sick with anxiety as I write this.

Turning off the news – as some, including myself, have suggested at times – is not a realistic option: history is happening in real time. To our friends, our neighbours, our longtime allies and, for many of us, to our family members just a few kilometres away. In a country I can see from my window (at the risk of sounding like Tina Fey).

This is a horrible time of unrest and dissent, of protests both peaceful and violent. Of looting and lunacy. And it’s happening in a country being led by a cowardly, hateful, racist madman.

We can pray and we can hope that somehow saner heads prevail. But those people supposedly in charge had their chance during the impeachment proceedings just a few months ago. When the hearings ended, Republican Senator Susan Collins said she hoped the president had learned a lesson.

He learned it all right: he is without boundaries. Without morals. Without compassion. Without a knowledge of history or a moment of sober second thought.

Without even mentioning the criminal acts committed by some members of the policing community, he is treating his own countrymen and women as “the enemy.”

Daring to stand in the shadow of a beloved church and holding a Bible in his hand, he is cloaking his hatred for free speech and expression, peaceful demonstration and protest of the desperate state of his nation in an all-caps tweeted call for law and order.

With dog whistles as loud as the sirens in the streets, Trump is calling out his 2nd Amendment supporters: the oh-so-brave weapon-wielding protesters we witnessed outside city and state buildings, screaming about their rights to get chicken wings and haircuts, to go shopping, to be free from the safety guidelines put in place to protect them from a virus which has claimed over 100,000 American lives. They called that fascism.

I’ve said before and I’ll say again: Canada is not perfect. We can always get better. But I’ve never been so afraid as I am watching what is happening in the Divided States of America this week.

If you have words that can bring you comfort, I urge you to keep saying them. I am repeating that Serenity Prayer that I shared here yesterday. But I am also heartbroken and terrified for the good people of America. Because we share more than just a border. Today we share compassion. Love. We share our humanity and a plea to turn this into a time for change and rebirth.

Just a thought… Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time. [Thomas Edison]

God, Grant me the Serenity to Accept the Things I Cannot Change,

The Courage to Change the Things I Can,

And the Wisdom to Know the Difference.

You come here to my journal for many reasons and I am grateful, but if you’re like me today, your heart is full of fear, anger and anguish. There are reasons for peace, but there are also reasons to fight – to stand up and shout “enough!”

Those words to the Serenity Prayer are really all I’ve been thinking of during this desperately sad and dangerous time in American history. Not just because the stress of feeling impotent and unable to help is so frustrating, but because I’m asking what change I can make. What we can do as friends and neighbours.

During the past week we have witnessed the most hateful and worst actions in our fellow humans. And we have been shown the absolute best and most hopeful in people as well. Of course, these elements are within each of us every day, but what we see and with whom we side during these tumultuous times depend greatly upon the filters that we’ve grown to view them through in our lifetime. Children are not born racist. Children learn what they live.

This is a time to re-examine those filters. We in Canada are not blameless when it comes to racism and long held prejudices and hatred. But it is still possible to react in horror as our neighbour’s house burns down, even if our own house is in far from perfect shape and in need of renovation. Just as in the case of a virus, we can close our doors to protect ourselves from the worst of what’s happening outside, but we are not immune to that which festers within. Call it “the courage to change the things we can.”

I will tell you that our spirits were brightened by visits with loved ones yesterday – safely and at a distance in both cases. Our morning began with us sipping coffee and reading Colin a book via FaceTime as he enjoyed his lunch; later my aunt and uncle came by and it turned an awful day around. We caught up on family news, had some laughs and felt our inner sparks being rekindled, instead of drowning in the smoldering sadness and anger we’ve been feeling for our friends and neighbours in the US.

For a time, we felt serenity.

It was the gift of family. Of love. Of connecting with those dear to us or reaching out to make sure that people we know in the midst of the unrest are safe and cared for. It was a time for wishing we could make things better, but having the wisdom to know the difference between what we can and cannot do. We have to start somewhere – and it starts at home.

This prayer is holding me fast these days and not only because it’s a building block of AA. But because it reminds me every day of what is important.

Please, June, be gentle. Enough.

Just a thought… Laugh when you can, apologize when you should and let go of what you can’t change. [Author Unknown]

Since it’s Friday, I thought I’d share a few favourite short videos with you and let you know about something to brighten your Friday evening!

I’ll be going live at 7 pm ET with former BT morning host Kevin Frankish and you can drop in by clicking either of these links: facebook.com/kevinfrankish or twitter.com/kevinfrankish. I hope you’ll put an alarm on your phone, watch, Google Home or Alexa and join us. Email me questions if you have anything you’re interested in. I don’t know what we’re talking about just yet but it’ll be fun, I promise.

If you come here via my FB page www.facebook.com/erindavispage, you’ve seen this video I posted earlier this week but it’s worth watching again: the little spotted fawn making his or her way through our backyard. Finally – a Fawnzie sighting! (Last night we saw a mamma with two fawns wandering through. It was too dusky to get any video, but you know I’ll be on the lookout. Did you know that roughly half of deer give birth to twins, and some 10% have triplets? OW!)

Then…my sis-in-law sent me this one and it’s cute. Married life during self-isolation at its funniest. We’re all doing the best we can and if we’re really lucky we’re learning how good it is to have chosen someone we truly like, not just tolerate or lust after, as our life partner. I can’t imagine being in a small space with someone who drives me up the wall or who can’t stand me. Goodness knows there are people who are in that situation – or worse – and I wish them only strength.

I hope you’ll tune in tonight for a visit and have a safe weekend. I’ll be back with you Monday as we welcome a new month. Or so they tell us….

Just a thought… I will defend the importance of bedtime stories to my last gasp. [J. K. Rowling]

First, a postscript to yesterday’s journal: at some readers’ urging, I am making steps to cancel my Visa purchase of those clothes I ordered from China back in January. When I clicked on the tracking number it showed that my order doesn’t exist. So…we’ll see what happens. This may just have been a lesson that I have to pay to learn.

One more thing: for Father’s Day, I ordered Rob eight pairs of his favourite undies from Mark’s. One pair arrived yesterday. Apparently another pair – one pair – is coming today. Is this going to be like Hanukkah? A gift a day? I have no idea. But he laughed when I told him they were half off – and that is not how I want him wearing them.

Rob’s gift to me for Mother’s Day (unexpected, as we don’t usually mark those two days) was a little electronic device that slips into my pillowcase. More on that in a bit….

Do you ever have an idea that just keeps percolating, nudging you to do something about it? I’ve been experiencing that every night. And here’s what it’s about.

I’m a huge fan of the site AtlasObscura.com – it tells stories, bizarre and touching, informative and fascinating, about places in the world. From a taxidermy museum to the tunnels beneath a well-loved city, this site explores (through its readers’ experiences and submissions) spots we would otherwise not know about. It even includes information on locations, admission prices – everything you need to know if you just have to see the world’s biggest ball of gum wrappers or something.

Why am I thinking about AtlasObscura at night? Because that’s when I turn off the light and choose a story from my Calm app to lull me to sleep. From fairy tales to train rides through the countryside, I’m often asleep by the time the “happily ever after” arrives, or it’s time to grab my virtual suitcase and embark on a new adventure.

So I’ve been thinking about how wonderful it would be to narrate some of these stories. Calm is far too big an operation for me to try to join; occasionally auditions come up on the site I subscribe to, with a chance to work with them, but so far I’ve not yet been considered. That’s okay – why not try to start something new?

I reached out to AtlasObscura.com and, while I’m expecting a “thanks, but no thanks” or “we have no budget,” I don’t have my hopes very high. But I had to ask, right?

Now, to my Mother’s Day gift. Rob came up with a neat idea and did a ton of online research (what he does best: find something and then read all the rankings and ratings) and found this:

I slip the little disc speaker inside my pillowcase and under my ear. The speaker comes in a soft blue sort of clam shell (it looks like an ear muff) but it would make too big a lump resting atop my firm enVy Pillow. Without that padded cover I can still feel the hardness of the little disc, but it’s a big improvement over struggling to find the right volume from my bedside speaker so that I can hear the narration and Rob can’t.

(I saw a set of headband speakers online last night that might also be a good option, but one reader noted on Facebook yesterday that she ordered one from China and it never arrived, so….)

So, while I’m still adjusting to using it and some nights it’s a bit more troublesome than simply listening to a speaker on my night stand, I think this is going to be a welcome addition to my sleep sanity/hygiene.

I’ll be back with you here tomorrow – have a great day and sweet dreams tonight!

Just a thought… The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire. Just as a single sick person can start an epidemic of the flu, so too can a small but precisely targeted push cause a fashion trend, the popularity of a new product, or a drop in the crime rate. [Goodreads.com on Malcolm Gladwell’s 2002 bestseller The Tipping Point] 

First, a confession: I have never been an avid shopper. I’m not one of those who finds satisfaction in “retail therapy” or consider shopping to be my cardio, but I don’t judge people who do. It’s just that I never had the urge to traipse around a mall and rifle through racks for hours on end; maybe once or twice a year I go into a store, pick a small mountain of clothes, and – heaving a sigh – start seeing what fits and whose sizing is accurate for my body.

Honestly, most of the stuff in my closet is more than five years old, a holdover from a life when I had a daily job and places to go and be seen. Now it’s jeans or my well-worn Roots yoga pants (so old they don’t even make mine anymore and it could well be nearly two decades since I bought them), a windbreaker, a t-shirt or maybe a hoodie. That’s my jam, even though I can’t quite bring myself to part with the clothes that accompanied the busy life I used to enjoy. One day, one day.

With one notable exception you’ll read about, I have only ever shopped online for clothing when I had an item and wanted another exactly the same. If, for example, The Bay was having a bra sale and I could still read the label on the one I’d worn out, I’d order a replacement. If I found some other item that had weathered the washer/dryer or held up particularly well and fit me the way I wanted, I’d try to find another like it. But, as in the case of those flared, durable Roots yoga pants, more often than not, the manufacturer had moved on even if I had not.

I haven’t had much success with trying to choose something new online. Last winter while in California, I clicked through on an ad that I saw on Facebook or Instagram and found some tops that looked like me, so I ordered them. Then COVID-19 hit and whatever shipment my linen tops was in didn’t move. I followed up a few months later and it was still “in transit.”

Now we’re not at that house and couldn’t find anyone stateside to take the delivery, so we’re hoping that if it ever does arrive (and frankly I’m tired of asking), someone honest sees our package and tosses it into our yard or puts it inside the house. We have a lady checking on the place from time to time, so we can only hope.

But I’m thinking that money is just plain gone. Lesson learned. Not everything comes in a matter of days; I may have overlooked the delivery date promised when I purchased, or it just wasn’t there. Amazon has spoiled us, for sure.

Shopping online can be a tricky prospect, but it can also be extremely efficient and rewarding, as you undoubtedly know. So today, a few other lessons I’ve learned that perhaps you also share.

The aforementioned Amazon has its act together. In every way, they have met their promise of performance, even if the delivery has not been as speedy as that on which they built their business. We get it: people have bigger needs than whatever internet-boosting doo-hickey Rob has ordered to help us with our podcast technology. And we’re patient. I mean, all we have is time right now.

Costco? Not so much. When we got home from California, we self-quarantined (and continue to do so, 95% of the time) and decided to try their online shopping because we couldn’t find anyone else who’d deliver. We took care to order enough items to qualify for free shipping.

Instead of one shipment, we got one or two things in each drop-off, (a card of AA batteries came from Calgary, while a pack of AAAs was sent to us from Whitby), which cannot be efficient for the Costco business model, no matter how convenient or inconvenient for the at-home shopper.

Their business is built on warehouse shopping and people are meant to go there in person, I get that. But what we didn’t get was…about one-third of our order, even though we were told our transaction had been completed successfully and the stuff was on its way. Rob followed up with the courier company and then Costco; the remainder of our supplies (most of which we’ve already replenished in person at our local grocery store) are reportedly still on their way…sometime. It doesn’t really matter to us; as I say, we’ve learned a great lesson in patience.

(Incidentally, because Rob didn’t get into Costco last week, as mentioned yesterday, we’ve placed another large order, even though the last one hasn’t been completed yet.) 

Other stores are doing what they can to keep up. Obviously they don’t have trillionaire Jeff Bezos behind them like Amazon does, and can’t always supply free shipping, something we’ve come to enjoy and, in some cases, even expect. Just mailing a very small package to Ontario this week cost $20; how can we expect something we order online to be sent for free? How does that even fit into a company’s business model if they’re going to stay afloat, when they have to compete against a behemoth like Amazon?

This pandemic has changed a lot of things (thanks, Captain Obvious!) but one of biggest has to be shopping. Sure, people frequently shopped online before 2020, but I’m guessing that the numbers have hugely increased, to the detriment of the brick-and-mortar outlets and the smaller independent merchants. People like those who run clothing boutiques. Small book stores. Restaurateurs who cannot afford to be gouged by outside delivery companies.

I have to believe that those relatively few people who still harboured fears about security issues have finally leapt into the breach and tried online shopping. Many will find it to be safe and comfortable and may prefer to continue to make many of their purchases this way going forward. It’s the perfect storm, really: online security has reached what I would hope are the highest standards yet, while people who were until now trepidatious about trying it are taking a leap of faith.

They’ve discovered that the most tiring part of online shopping is getting off the couch to get their credit card (unless, of course, that number is readily available when they check out, as is often the case). There’s no fighting for a parking spot, getting into a store with a wheelchair, no battling traffic, the elements and crowds. For some, this will be a real eye-opener.

What will happen beyond the pandemic, I wonder? More stores closed up, their windows papered over, with the people who put their dreams and their lives into those shops left to pick up the pieces and salvage whatever they can of their savings? Will this be a shift that is never reversed, or a temporary blip, as people, who enjoy the shopping experience, the picking out, putting back, trying on and girls’ and guys’ day out, return to their regular hunting grounds?

There are a great messages out there reminding and imploring us to “Shop Canadian” and “Shop Local” when this is all over. I am going to do my best to continue to do just that, eschewing the huge online conglomerates and trying to help out the mom-and-pop stores who have always been there for us – that is, the ones who survive this seismic shift, this tipping point.

But I wonder: how many others are going to do the same? For retailers of all shapes and sizes, is this the end of the beginning, or the beginning of the end?