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January 8 Happy 27th birthday my dearest T, You have grown into a wonderful human being and I am so very proud of you my son....

20.1.07 11:35 Permalink / comment

Almost Xmas.. Got most of my shopping done, have just finished printing most of my 2006 xmas cards, although have yet to mail them to faraway people... so what else is new! Robert and the gals have gone to Cuba for xmas.  I guess they wanted to try something different.  I know that E and Em probably would have liked to spend xmas at home, after all they are only 11 and 15, but as most of us who have been living for many years, they will probably love their holiday and never forget it.... Anyway, I have yet to find that ellusive Christmas spirit.  It all seems kind of silly with all the trudging and $$$ spent trying to pick the right prezzie for everyone on your list.  I must admit that whilst xmas shopping at the beginning of December and feeling a little blue, there was relentless xmas classics wafting over the airwaves, some good some awful, and I got perturbed at the inaneness(?) of the xmas facade, especially when religious carols were up.  Then again, I do remember Christmas's in years past when I totally appreciated that same xmas atmosphere whilst enjoying xmas shopping.  Of course I am in a mighty different place now. The one thing that did get me feeling a bit Christmasy was listening to my xmas CD's (that I have been downloading for the past few years.  It's a mix of the very old Drummer Boy (by whom I dont know), Oh come all ye faithful, Carol of the Bells etc, and some newer stuff by Kate Bush, Smashing Pumpkins, Dido, Frankie Goes to Hollywood and of course And So This Is Christmas and Band Aide... Unfortunately I did experience some melancholia and started to miss my X.  Thankfully by the next day, the yearning had all but disappeared. This Christmas I am doing the turkey thing at my home, as opposed to going to R and S's and joining our extended family there.  Anyhow, as my daughter is in New Brunswick with her beau staying with his mother (who is a lovely person), then it will be me and my four boys and my beloved mum.....so that is really wonderful and I am as always grateful for the love of my dear family... Happy Christmas, and God Bless....

24.12.06 10:52 Permalink / comment

An Exodus, January 1945     Saturday, November 25, 2006 Happy Birthday to my Dear Daughter, you are 26.  As they say, where have the years gone.....       My mother continues to write the saga of her life, and I try to help her with grammar and comprehension.  Of course when someone recounts their experiences, especially recalling traumatic memories of man’s inhumanity to man during the course of war, and when that someone is one year away from eighty years of life, it sometimes comes across as clear only to that person. She is trying to tell her voyage of how she started being born in Germany in 1927 and ended up in Canada.  It is an extremely painful journey, but it demonstrates that whilst man can turn into monstrosities, there remains goodness and fate is not only cruel, but often benelovent and wise. The pages I helped her with on Thursday start at the beginning of 1945, when the war was finally coming to a close, but for her the worst was just beginning. When all law and order in Germany had ceased and no-one was in charge, no authorities giving instructions for civilians to find safety and refuge from the oncoming invasion of the Russians.  From my own point of view, my mother aged 17, all on her own, having lost her mother a year before, was amongst hundreds of thousands of the innocent casualties of war.  Yes she was German, and because of a mad despot, her country had embarked on a diabolical quest for world dominance and religious slaughter, but she and countless others had no part in the war.  She tells of how her father and others despaired of Hitler’s call to war, but to speak out was to risk annihilation.  It was German turning in German if negative talk was overheard about der führer and the penalty was sure death of entire families. She talks of her home, a house handed down to her mother ‘lillibet’ by her family, being taken over by refugees.  Her home in the village of Tornienen, where she grew up and shared with her parents and 2 older brothers, now housed up to 30 strangers, all desperately fleeing from total loss and destruction.  It was not her home anymore, she recalls flinching inside when refugees tore up precious items of her family.  Then she goes on to say that really those things did not matter anymore, as life was really all that was left to fight to keep. The winter of early 1945 was bitterly cold with ice everywhere.  She speaks of a lull.  I think she means the period between when she discovered that Germany has been well and truly defeated and that the invasion of the Russians would be imminent.  Among the endless flow of humanity through her village she recalls a Nazi Panzer (tanks) group taking whatever food they could find.  When villagers desperately sought some guidance from their military countrymen, they were met with total indifference and indeed callousness.  These men told of the advancing hoards of Russian militia getting closer and how much they would enjoy young German girls!  With their bounty of food, they exited.  Next (timeline is not clear to my mother) came a group of Italian soldiers.  She tells of how quizzical she was at their stance.  They seemed to her to be quite hearty, and she remembers wondering how they got their and how they certainly did not seem like POW’s.  Unlike the next group who were obviously French POW’s who had been released probably when their captors fled.  They only wanted food and not to be caught by the Russians. The next group were perhaps indicative of the state of Germany at this time.  She said they were ordinary soldiers, who had survived the cruel ‘Front’.  They were a totally crushed bunch who seemed to have lost all strength of mind and soul, knowing that for them the end held nothing but suffering and death as the defeated.  They were starving, gaunt, ill, their uniforms were falling apart and they were crawling with lice.  They had nothing to say, knowing that they would probably be captured by the Russians. Then there were the Polish POW’s.  They had been pressed into working on local farms.  A number of them were roving as gangs seeking revenge, looking for the farmers.  I cannot imagine the terror and feelings of absolute helplessness and despair that she must have experienced waiting for the inevitable nightmare. She said that the first wave of Russian soldiers burst into her house and at gunpoint began ripping off any valuables that they could see.  She said her dog who had been given to her by a neighbouring farmer for protection, lunged at the soldier who approached her and of course was shot in front of her.  They tore a gold watch off her wrist that had been given to her by her grandfather.  They looted all they could carry and went off because they seemed to be headed for a particular offensive.  It was the next wave who called for blood…

2.12.06 09:32 Permalink / comment

my sister-in-law.... Star food writers win top awards   North America's `best' in competition Pieces on bug-tasting, chop suey house   Jun. 28, 2006. 05:53 AM Toronto Star food editors B and S have won awards from the Association of Food Journalists for outstanding column writing. B won for a package of Saucy Lady columns on Toronto's first Uyghur restaurant, an old-school chop suey house, and a Jewish deli's 30th anniversary.   S was cited for Fare Lady columns on dining in Paris, eating bugs and chatting about veganism with Moby the musician. "We're thrilled to have the Star's food section honoured at this level," says B. "We're competing against North America's best food writers." Adds S : "It's wonderful to be acknowledged. Writing about food is never dull. One day, I'm savouring jambon with a view of the Eiffel Tower on the side. Another day, I'm sampling locusts and giant ants." The Association of Food Journalists is a predominantly North American group of food and wine writers and editors, as well as restaurant reviewers, whose work appears in newspapers and magazines, and online.   Its annual awards competition drew 444 entries for reporting and writing in all media, newspaper food section design and content, and photography. Fifty-seven winners in 21 categories were announced yesterday. B and S must wait until the association's September conference in Charlotte, N.C., to find out who placed first, second and third. The other winner in their category, for columns in newspapers with a circulation of 350,001 and above, is D of the Los Angeles Times.

17.9.06 06:14 Permalink / comment

Francis and Janine... Francis was a lovely man.  I first met him in rehab back in 98.  He was aobut 13 years younger than me.  He was a tortured soul and an avid alcoholic.   He was a very talented musician.  He played beautiful guitar, wrote lovely music, and could shift from playing heavy metal to soft lullabies at the drop of a hat.  He was a charmer and for some strange reason we took to each other.   The very first time I saw him was at a preadmission meeting.  It was at the rehab and attendance at these preadmission meetings were mandatory for eventual admission.  Of course, then we were still all on our poisons.  I remember sitting there and sobbing about how my Ritalin habit had wrecked my abilities as a mother and wife.  This crazed Spanish looking young man with long black wavy hair tied back told me that I should not be so hard on myself.  I shrugged off his advice inside.   It was not until I had been at rehab for a few days that I saw him again.  It was the Sunday, 2 days after my ‘forced’ admission and a small crop of new clients were being admitted.  I don’t even think that I recognised him at first.  I believe that he was sober.  His mother had accompanied him and was bidding him goodbye.  I saw on his name tag that he was Frank.  I briefly thought about how that old fashioned name, which conjured up old men and Sinatra to me, did not suit him and that was that.   In the Donwood, most everybody, the clients that is, smoked.  There was no smoking inside, so when they were not in class or group or in the middle of the night, most of us were puffing in the back area of the building.  Amazingly enough, despite being tucked in a big city, Donwood was built in an amazing area of Toronto.  It was literally nestled in parkland area, and the back looked over a huge wooded gorge.  It was actually quite beautiful, scenic, and peaceful.  The other thing that I noticed about all the clients was that along with the endless ciggies were endless polystyrene cups of coffee.  I came to discover that coffee and smokes were like crutches.  When bereft of the hugely addictive substances, caffeine and nicotine seemed like all there was left, and it was completely permissible.   I WANT A DIVORCE I had gotten to know a fair number of clients during my first few days there.  I guess that we all had something in common no matter who we were.  My ex was as usual nice one day when he visited and horrible the next.  In fact on the 3rd day that he visited he became incensed that I had not put any pix of him on my bulletin board in my private room, but that I had photos of my kids and one that was of my mother and brother.  When he realized that that particular picture was folded back to hide him, he decided on the spot, and these were his words, “I want a divorce”.  I looked at him in stunned surprise and disbelief and yes, often the appeaser, I apologized.  But it was too late, he stormed off to find our daughter who was waiting in the car.  I followed him and begged him to reconsider, but off he drove.   Needless to say, I was mortified.  OK, I had deliberately made his visage disappear from that once happy family shot, but you have to understand, that this unpredictable manic man had forced me into this rehab just 3 days earlier with threats of seeking sole custody of kids and house, as well as dropping me off at an emergency department and barring me from my home if I did not follow his orders.  Yes, it was a good thing that I did end up in rehab, but the man who once loved me was flying high on the same drug that was my poison.    Ok, enough of him….shocked, I went to the back where I told my sordid tale of my looney husbands latest outrage.  I was somewhat of an anomaly in Donwood mainly because I was still married and still with my spouse.  Most every other client talked nastily of the EX.  Anyway, people were commiserating with me, and my new friend Janine, another tortured soul, came over to me and asked me to take a walk with her to the front.   JANINE Janine was a 20 something who had caused quite upheaval in her short time at the Donwood.  Her poison was crack and she was angry and oppositional and volatile, but somehow she had taken to me.  I remember that I was out at the back puffing when she stormed through the doors and noisily pulled up a chair not far from me.  I could see that she was going through some of the outrage that I felt when I arrived.  I quietly asked her what her poison was and she seemed to warm right up to me from that moment on.   Janine was a very attractive young woman and I could see how she would have been a popular stripper, as she had told me.  I quickly came to see that she was not there to cooperate.  She had quickly sized up the many male clients there in an effort to see who would be able to find her some dope.  She zeroed in on Francis.  He was not exactly cooperative either and Janine often went walkabout (on the grounds) with him.   BACK TO FRANCIS So after the shocking news from my husband, I went with Janine to the front.  She told me that Francis, with whom she mostly hung out, had given her a …pam (I cant remember which tranqu it was) that he had nicked from his mother to give to me.  She said that he felt so bad for me about my husband’s visit, and that he wanted me to have the ….pam in case I had trouble sleeping.    I was quite dumbfounded that this guy even gave much of a thought to me.  I gratefully took the contraband to my room and hid it.  I did not know if I would actually take it, but it was nice to know that I had it.   After that, I made a point to go to him and thank him, and he played his guitar for me.  We talked about music and he knew every artist and track that I threw at him.  We seemed to have similar taste and we both loved music……   To be continued……….

8.9.06 08:06 Permalink / comment

Bereft She felt so bereft, so despondent that nothing seemed worth going on for.  Yet, she did go on.  She cannot remember just what enabled her to go on or what happened that she felt she could go on, but she did. There was the time in the Hartz Mountains when she was on her journey as a refugee.  The soil she described as red clay had been churned up and was turned into thick mud with the rain.  Utterly alone, dressed in dirty rags which were crawling with (clothes) lice, weakened from starvation and dysentery, she found it near impossible to go on.  Her feet clad in shoes with soles that no longer existed, were torn, bleeding with blisters upon blisters.  She tried to put one foot in front of the other, but she felt that she had not one iota of energy to do so.  Her bloodied feet kept sinking into the cold dark mud.  She remembers thinking to herself, ‘I’ve come all this way, gone through all this just to be swallowed up by the earth and die’. There was the escape from the Russian concentration camp, where ‘prisoners’ were routinely picked and then sent to work camps in Siberia.  She had been interned for a few weeks.  Every morning there was a roll call.  All the German prisoners had to assemble and answer to their name when called.  A young girl who was probably her age (16 or so) looked at her, as she recalls, and as if they were on the same wavelength, they darted behind some bushes.  They escaped from the camp. The girls decided to try to head ‘homeward’ to the west.  It was not for a couple of days that they realized that they were actually going east.  One evening they noticed that they were walking away from the setting sun, and they knew that the sun set in the west.  They had been stopped a few times and herded by Russian soldiers to do menial work, like washing clothes.  As luck would have it, these soldiers were not the feared (KBG) and were not collecting prisoners.  The girls continued to creep through the German countryside, fearful of being caught at any time.  They found very little food in deserted wrecked farmhouses which already had been looted.  With constant fear of capture, empty stomachs and torn feet, she remembers hiding in the bushes in the village in which she was born and reared.  She could see her house, once her home.  The emptiness, the absence of hope, she felt like she could not go on…what was the point of going on, she knew her family were all gone and as well anyone else she might have known, why did she struggle to get here….but then, where else would she go…. At this point she felt that she had lost all hope and what was the point of going on… She says there are many blanks in her memories of those terrible years.  She has not a whit of an idea how she did go on, but she did.

8.9.06 05:39 Permalink / comment

Miners kajal, Aqua Manda.... Miners kajal, Aqua Manda, Top Shop, Honey and 19 A few staples of my teens and early twenties. Long straight blonde hair, sometimes with hints of dark roots, pretty face always with make-up. I love make-up. I love buying it, putting it on, experimenting, buying the newest and the latest. When I worked in Jean Junction in the mid 70’s, I decided to try kajal, kohl. It was trendy back in that inch of time. I bought a pot of Miner’s kajal from Boots. I put my pinkie in the little green pot of blackness and carefully smoothed it on the lower rims of my eyes. I loved the look. Dark eyes, where the bottom mascara’d lashes blended into the blackness of the rims of my eyes and looked thick and luscious. Of course progress produced kohl eye pencils in more colours and greater ease in application. I’ve tried many. not too bad for a 55 year old..... Recently that pot of Miner’s kajal came to mind, don’t really know why, perhaps just some nostalgia. I still have lots of eye pencils but none really seemed to be soft enough. Imagine my surprise when recently browsing through the walls of make-up in my local Walymart I came across the words kajal and kohl. Interestingly enough, the coincidence lay in the fact that I was looking at that ‘woolies’ UK line Rimmel. I tested this eye pencil on my hand and it was soft and black like it should glide on easily and hey it came in black brown and grey and only cost about 4 bucks and when I tried it at home, I was pleased with the look. No I know I am not 20 anymore, but I still think it looks good and my sons did not object to my look. I have asked my sons to please tell me if they ever think I look like mutton dressed as lamb, or put plainly, do I look like I am trying to dress too young……………..so far so good…….. Aqua Manda was a citrusy inexpensive scent by Coty that I fell in love with in the early 70’s. I was looking at an old Brit mag a while ago and saw the dated ad for Aqua Manda. It was a graphic of a swinging young lady who was caught up in the graphic waves of fragrance wafting up from that brown bottle. It looked very psychedelic. I had forgotten all about Aqua Manda for many years until I saw that ad and the scent and flavour of that time came flooding back to me. I was about 13 or 14 when I discovered the Honey mag and then the 19. I absolutely loved the fashion layouts and the fantastic gear that the trendy 60’s models were decked out in. There was Twiggy and I loved Grace Coddington’s shorn locks in one layout. I got my hair cut very short like hers. I had dyed my hair at 14, much to my mother’s chagrin. I knew that I had to be a blonde, especially when I so totally adored the gorgeously large limpid eyes and hair of Twiggy. I was still living in Glasgow at this time and had fallen in love with Vogue. It was even more far out than my 19’s and Honeys. In the British Vogue I got to know Penelope Tree, Ingrid Boulting (or Brett), Peggy Moffit, La Shrimpe, Marissa Berenson, Jane Birkin, David Bailey, Patti Boyd. That pic of Grace Coddington who I discovered a while back is now a big wig at either the US or Uk Vogue, with the shorn brown hair [a la Mia Farrow when she (God knows why) married Sinatra when she was 21 and he was, well probably younger that I am now, but I of course was totally grossed out, yech..] was in the brit Vogue in 1966. Grace was wearing a short sleeved orange twin set. Twin sets had become trendy. So I had the hair, and then I knitted the short sleeved orange twin set. Alas, I used double knitting and wearing the cardy on top of the sleeveless sheath was way too bulky, not to mention too hot to wear! I tried though, huh. When we emigrated to Canada, I was totally miserable and felt so uprooted. I also thought that the fashions here were behind and boring. I quickly bought the venerable US fashion for youth mag 17 not long after I disembarked and thought the fashions were atrocious. The best thing about that copy I bought was Twiggy on the cover wearing a pink mini coat! Luckily for me I found some stores actually carried ‘foreign’ mags and I often lucked out to find both the Honey and the 19 which I followed avidly for many years, probably until my returns to London. Best of all, I could buy the British Vogue also. Those were my fashion bibles. The best known department store in Canada I learned quickly was Eatons. That is where I found the mags and a year or so later, they had the great sense to open up a little Miss Selfridge boutique in the junior fashion department. I checked out Miss Selfridge frequently and loved their stuff. My sis and I each bought a simple cotton bikini there. Her’s was red and mine was pink. I also bought this wonderful white and lime striped cotton green short cross-over top that tied at the side and had bell shaped elbow length sleeves… very Honey and 19. I was totally loyal to Brit fashion… Just a bit of what comes to mind about two of my loves, fashion and makeup…. s

27.8.06 12:22 Permalink / comment

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