Judith Pettersen

Due to a series of unfortunate events, (caribou on the road, car slamming into the back of us) we have to buy a new vehicle. I am very fond of our current one, a 2012 Hyundai Santa Fe. But then, all our family cars gradually come to feel like old friends. I picture this one all banged up, languishing in some steel graveyard and wondering when we’re coming back to get her. Yes, our car is a she. We planned to drive her till she dropped, an emotional and a financial win. Alas.

Here is why I loved her. She had great pickup on the highway. You could pass anyone in a pinch. She was so comfortable, and all the knobs and doo-dads were in exactly the right spot. I’m short, but our SUV fit me well. She felt like home whenever I was driving around. So I’m resistant to getting something new.

Clarence talked me into test driving a 2016 Toyota Rav. Since my daughter has an older version, I figured I’d be comfortable with it. Our cars seemed strangely the same. But nothing felt right about this one. Boxy, stiff, with a weird dashboard that managed to hide important buttons like the seat warmers. I wanted to take it out on the highway, so we headed toward the perimeter.

My husband is a positive person. I’ve never heard him talk badly about anyone, and he truly can’t understand the kind of negativity that was welling up inside me. I was working myself up with all the things I didn’t like about the vehicle.Then I had one of those, ‘can’t find the wipers, where’s the wash?’ moments, just when Clarence said, ‘turn right here.’

I lost it. There is no right turn! I said. What are you talking about?? My voice was so high and loud, I’m amazed I didn’t shatter the windshield. No, right HERE, he said. Well, duh. I’m practically hyperventilating through the combination of sadness about our car, not enough information on the one I’m driving, and Clarence’s driving instructions. You’re going to miss it! he said. It’s right here!

Ah. At last his meaning was clear. Turn left, right here. I was so busy working myself up into an old fashioned snit, I couldn’t hear what he was trying to say. Which was, try out this nice car…see if it can replace the one you love. You’ll figure it all out, and by the way, turn here. Once I calmed down, we returned to our regularly programmed relationship.

Want to head home now?
Sure.
Let’s drop the car off, then. Tell the guy we’ll think about it.

I cheered up immeasurably. The car wasn’t a bad colour. It hid the dirt well. (Behind all the drama, there was reason.) So when you see me next, I’ll be with another vehicle. There may be some awkwardness at first, as we get to know each other. I’ll probably feel like I’m cheating on the Santa Fe. But after a few months on the road together, the new vehicle and I may just start to feel like family. To celebrate the car love story, here’s the band, Queen. And yes, I stole their title.

 

 

I’m a girl who likes to fix things. When people make useful suggestions, I usually listen. My husband was reading in bed the other night when I walked in with a clothespin fastened to my upper left ear. He didn’t bat an eye when I said, ‘I have a sore back.’ ‘Uh huh,’ he replied. I’d seen a posting on Facebook that said this would solve back ache, indigestion, sore feet and more. They were right. My back pain stopped immediately because my ear hurt like a mother#$&^@*&.

Another thing I’ve been trying is the vertigo cure. My friend Lois sent me the link. You position yourself in a half somersault with your head tucked down, look to the left or right, count to forty, then throw your whole body upward. This sends the crystals in your inner ear back into place. And it really works.

Vertigo tends to strike me in the morning, but with this cure, no problem, right? Except I have to do the exercise in bed. Since I’m the first one up, I try to move carefully and quietly, but doing a half somersault beside your partner in bed and then throwing yourself violently upward has a tendency to shake things around. But if I get out of bed without doing it, I stagger around like a drunk person.

I’m also fussy about having everything perfect when I settle down for the night. I need the window open about five inches, even when its -20. I like the coverlet off, leaving just the duvet and sheet. I place a giant sized pillow beneath my knees because it helps my hips. My husband calls it ‘the other man.’ He hates the other man, who takes up a lot of room.

I like to read at night, and I can’t do it in the living room. I put my bedside lamp on its dimmest setting, then slowly turn it up when my husband falls asleep. I have to pee once a night (at least) and there’s a creak in our door that neither of us remembers to fix until three in the morning. The worst of it is that the power of suggestion is so strong. If he hears me getting up in the night to use the bathroom, he finds himself checking in with his own bladder. Since we both suffer from the psychological pee, it doesn’t really matter if he has to go. Because, psychologically, he has to go.

Sometimes I feel tired of living with me. I pick on Clarence in these blogs because he’s quirky, but easy going. He doesn’t get too fussed about much unless I mess with his art collection. The only time I did that was when he came home with a huge painting of the two of us. We looked like trolls who lived under a bridge. Our teeth were the size of bricks. It couldn’t have been worse if it had been painted on velvet. Actually, that might have helped. When I indicated in no uncertain terms that we weren’t hanging it up, he told me he’d take it to his office. That’s when the utility knife came out. No, not for him. For the painting.

I like to think of myself as low maintenance. All high maintenance people do. But there’s a certain finickiness that comes out in spite of my attempts to suppress it. It’s the need to feel right, to make things better, to live in a forward moving way. Fix that back, cure that vertigo, follow the yellow brick road of interesting suggestions on how to improve your life. I read health books the way others study the stars. As if there’s a secret there. A game changer. And complaining on this bog has brought some positive results. For example, the rosary sleeping cure is still working well. So feel free to send me your craziest idea. You know I’m up for it.

I’ve been caught up in the melancholia of the world. Stunned, like many, by the US election. If any of my friends were on the celebratory side, please don’t tell me. Go hang out with your new pal, David Duke. The people who voted for Donald supposedly did it for the money. (They call it the economy, but, whatever.) I had this crazy idea that in spite of global warming, we were all moving forward. More grace in the world, forgiveness, acceptance, and a willingness to share with those less fortunate. To quote Donald Trump: Wrong.

At first, I felt a creeping dread, like I’d woken to the realization that the outcome of World War Two had been reversed. You Know Who was in charge. That’s how it felt. A certain resignation crept in after a while, and that dread, mixed with the passing of days, eventually watered down to a feeling of melancholy.

And then Leonard Cohen died. We were heading to a social a couple hours after I found out, but I couldn’t stop crying. We have a relationship, Leonard and I. I’d be in a certain kind of mood, and he’d explain things in a way that would make me feel better. In his unique, soulful voice, he described a world of love and loss that, strangely, always left me feeling cheerful. The  kind of singer you pictured sitting nearby while you waited for the bus.

He’d listen to all your sad musings, perhaps take a few notes. ‘Let me work on that and get back to you,’ he’d say. Then, you’d hear a song on the radio and realize he’d understood completely. That’s how he made me feel. He was the dutiful scribe to the darkest part of my heart. The saddest moments, the heaviest days. A singing poet who managed to unravel the mystery of my own feelings of loss, longing and bewilderment.

After a morning full of Leonard Cohen’s music, I’ve decided to give The Donald some  time to get it right. We all make mistakes. We say thoughtless, hurtful things. When my husband, who has been living with cancer, got the good news of his chance for radiation, I said, without a moment’s hesitation, ‘Darn. I’ll miss two whole weeks of choir.’ My family stared at me in shock. The next words out of my mouth were, ‘I can’t believe I said that out loud.’ It would take at least four of Leonard Cohen’s roadies to remove that large foot from that big mouth.

As Leonard said, while waiting for the bus with me, ‘There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.’ ‘Whoa,’ I said. ‘That’s heavy.’ But true. When we break, we find opportunities to change. When we make mistakes, say the wrong thing, wound people, the hurt has a way of ricocheting back. But that’s a good thing. Some of us need only the smallest of cracks to let in a bit of light. Some need a gaping wound. Whatever it is, and however it happens, I pray that Donald Trump sees the light. It can’t be fun living in the dark all the time. Even when you’re winning.

So, President Trump, I’ll leave you with this last conversation I had with Leonard. My two sources of melancholy seem suspiciously well timed, as if our beloved singer and poet couldn’t bear to be in the world any longer.  Heed his words, Donnie boy. Sit down on a park bench from time to time and mull them over.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.

Maybe purchase his albums. You might learn the lessons a whole lot quicker.

I have surrendered to persuasive reasoning and started practicing yoga. I do this in the confines of my own home for several reasons, but mostly for one. I’m just too embarrassed to take this show on the road. Like a one legged man in an ass kicking contest, I’m woefully unsuited for this exercise. However.

There are many practitioners on YouTube more than willing to share their skills. They don’t judge, either, but chatter on about lotus position, mountain pose and downward facing dog. The trouble for me starts with the first. I find the lotus position very uncomfortable. I’m not exaggerating when I say that the moon will sink permanently into the sea before I can sit with even one foot resting on the opposite thigh. Just tucking them underneath me hurts like #$%@&*:(

“Doesn’t swearing defeat the purpose of yoga?” my husband asks from his reclined position on the sofa. “I’m finding this very relaxing and you’re ruining the moment.” It’s true that he loves the yoga teacher’s voice, her bells, the soft background music. He falls asleep, thereby accomplishing the  relaxation element of the exercise.

My main problem is my ankles. In this, I’m not alone. At least one of my sisters has mentioned the same thing. Unlike the svelt, long limbed shape of your average Yogi, we’re built like lego people. Our hips and knees are jointed, but there’s not much give anywhere else.

So when I pull my feet close, I immediately start whining. Sometimes I have to pause the show so I can prepare for the next position. I pause, and then slowly unfold, often using my hands to move my feet. “Breath into your discomfort,’ the instructor says softly. Well, I only have so much breath to go around.

My knees  have a tendency to stick up like chicken wings during the lotus position. “Just use blocks or a pillow,” a wise friend offered. It helps, but still my knees refuse to drop. “You got us into this,’ they mutter darkly, ‘and you’re going to get us out of it.’ Hence, using my hands to re-position them.

I haven’t done yoga in fifteen years. Perhaps its too little, too late, but I’ll keep at it. Who knows? One of these days, my ankles could surprise me by co-operating. My sits bones could cease hollering when I don’t use a cushion. My knees could drop into place. Or, the moon could fall into the sea. The last is mostly likely, but if the first happens, I’ll be sure to let you know.

We are an optimistic pair, my husband and I. Or maybe we’re just deluded. It’s entirely possible that enough time had passed since our last assembling experience that we’d forgotten what it was like.  For the third time in our lives, we spent an afternoon in purgatory.

It’s when we wander around the large store, staring at the simple, clean lines of Ikea’s furniture, that we get fooled. The fact that we can never find our way out of the store, even with a path of pointing arrows, should clue us in. But. ‘How hard can it be?’ we ask ourselves, even though we KNOW THE ANSWER. The pieces seem to come in three basic categories. Difficult, impossible, and nine floors of Hell.

First of all, MDF, their material of choice, weighs a ton. It’s only when we’re hauling the boxes up three flights of stairs that our backs remind us.  And the instructions. Clear drawings of screws, boards, even numbered pages, but no words. The screw drawings have numbers beside them, but when there are ten sets, it doesn’t help much. We peer through our reading glasses, desperately trying to identify one tiny set from the next without losing some. We always lose one screw for at least an hour. We find it by kneeling on it.

The boards are never labeled with simple A, B’s and C’s. Instead, you have to figure out if the tiny, randomly scattered holes match the ones in the diagram. After assembling our last bed frame, a king sized one in a bedroom much too small, we discovered the sides were wrong.  We had to undo about five steps before finally getting it right, which didn’t happen for three days.

When assembling furniture with your partner, you have to mind your relationship. How well can you work together when tension is rising, you’ve lost the only Allen wrench, and there are five nuts left at the end? You’ve worn your hottest, itchiest sweater, and climbing around the various pieces has become a game of twister where the other players are bitter, tired and blaming you for the purchase.

‘How could you forget?’ they say. “Me?’ you reply. ‘I told you I hate Ikea.” Blah blah, blah. Of course,  all is forgotten once the piece is assembled. Which is how I arrived at this point. It’s like really bad deja vu, only remembering once the box has been opened, the plastic ripped and the allen wrench lost.

Don’t be fooled by the spare, peacefully assembled rooms of the box store. There’s an Ikea employee somewhere, weeping and assembling Billy bookcases and examining his life choices. I feel his pain.

Most days I do pretty well managing my wheat free, low sugar diet. I hate suffering through the hives, aching muscles, nausea and brain fog that accompany foods that don’t like me. It’s not just wheat. Gluten free crackers, cookies, and basically anything fun and well sugared also makes my body sad. Especially if I have more than one serving. Which, of course I do.

We had some delicious all natural chocolate truffles last night, along with chocolate chip, gluten free cookies. My body is busy slapping me upside the head today. Not that my brain will notice. It’s too busy wondering what the hell is happening and where I’m supposed to be and…what?

This has left me wondering about the following. How on earth do people smoke crack? Don’t these people have back aches the next day? Don’t they wonder if waking up in a Hell’s Angel’s clubhouse is worth it? Do addictions even allow us to ask any of the right questions, or do we have to follow blindly until we’re so sick that we can’t possibly shovel in another bite, or lift the pipe to our lips (if that’s what you use to smoke crack. I’m just guessing, here) or, if it’s internet porn, then…well.

The apostle Paul says in one of his letters,  “I can’t seem to do what I want to do. I keep doing things I don’t want to do!’ I know, Paul. I’m feeling your pain right now. Literally, I’m feeling your pain. We are all drawn to the dark side from time to time, whether it be food, drugs, video games or just fill in the blank.

The power of not being able to have, eat, or do something instantly makes the thing immensely attractive. Hanging out with people who are very strong willed helps, but my three year old granddaughter can only do so much for me. She can’t have wheat, either, but so far she seems to be okay with it. She’s too busy lobbying her parents for a pony.

We are all tempted by things that aren’t good for us. Perhaps if we were followed around by people holding ‘I Told You So’ signs, we’d at least put a little effort into some kind of resistance. What helps occasionally is when I think about all the times in the past when I was wrong.  It goes something like this.

Dear Mr. Sims, (my high school biology teacher, unfortunately passed away) you were right about tequila. Just say no. Well, you’d be glad to know I do that. Mostly.

Dear Dad, You were right about some teenage boys. Let’s just leave it there.

Dear friends who bug me to join yoga: The stiffness in my joints and back is seconding your argument. My resistance, along with my whole body, is weakening. Though I may be too weak to join. We’ll see.

Dear Donald Trump: Ha ha. Just kidding.

You need a multifaceted plan for resisting temptation. Like a team of supporters, or even shamers. Whatever it takes to get you through. Keeping all the forbidden fruit out of the house is usually a good idea. It would help me considerably if there were no birthday parties, no Christmas, Easter, Valentine’s Day, or Halloween. OMG. I’ve just realized I may have to change religions.The United Church is just too celebratory for my delicate constitution.

But onward and upward. I’m back on the food wagon, as of today, and feeling more convicted than ever. And for those of you who also let yourselves down, please feel free to join my pity party. Just don’t expect any cake.

I’ll celebrate the moment, instead, with this iconic, sadly unironic, moment from the Lawrence Welk Show. Thank you, John Scott, for this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was reading the editorial from Maclean’s September 26^th issue regarding online trolls, when I had a revelation. Since I’m Canadian, I’ll form it as an apology. I’m so sorry you can’t get it up. Maybe you never could. But perhaps a little encouragement, or even some information, will help you find success.

Let’s begin with those ultra-scary, sometimes annoying words, political correctness. Many don’t get it, never mind get it up. Others believe that behind those words lurks a monster so powerful, it will strip away everything great about you and your country. Allow me to provide a medication-free aid.

First, let’s clear up a few misunderstandings. I know you’ve avoided that fearful beast all your life, but here’s the good news. Political correctness is only about manners. Not your everyday manners, either. Go ahead and slurp your soup. Blow your nose on your shirt tail. This isn’t about that. It’s the behavior you show to others. The manners that allow you to disagree with someone’s opinion, lifestyle, religious/ sexual persuasion, or otherness, yet leave them feeling like you haven’t chopped off a limb. You leave them whole. ‘But I don’t want to!’ you might think. And I know. It’s hard.

Perhaps you’re remembering a time when it was just fine using words like bohunk, chink, or fag. Maybe you told lavish jokes about people with disabilities. ‘It’s my wacky sense of humour!’ you’d say, feeling nostalgia for those days. You know, back when your country was great.

‘Doesn’t she know what Jesus says?’ you might think. Why yes, I do. But if you slavishly follow the Pat Robertsons, Ann Coulters or others on the hate parade, you’ll derail yourself with such wild emotion that you can’t get it up anymore. Good manners become a bridge too far. But there’s a way to get there.

Take yourself back to childhood. If you were taught to walk a mile in another’s shoes, then bingo. You’re back in the game. Even on the internet, where ordinarily you’d act like Attila the Hun wiping out a whole city, you’ll find yourself picturing the person on the other end of your diatribe. You’ll hear their point of view. You might even feel empathy. (feel free to gasp. It’s gasp worthy.)

You may not agree with the person in question, but because you’re employing your manners, ie: political correctness, you leave that person believing there’s still some civility left in the world. When we employ a little political correctness, then like a Christmas morning Grinch, our hearts grow a few sizes. We become greater, and our countries do too, no matter our financial or social position. Because greatness is more about civility and heart than anything else.

For those unable to stop the online vitriol, those who can’t empathize with people NOT EXACTLY THE SAME, then again, I apologize. I’m so sorry for your loss. I grieve your inability to get it up, and hope that someone is able to help you. Perhaps you could check in with Jesus, (the real one from the bible.) He has really great ideas. Yes, he floored a lot of people with all that talk about forgiveness, and loving your brother. Your neighbor. Everyone, really.

But remember this. We’re all rooting for you. All of us who make mistakes and occasionally forget our manners. We understand that the world works better when we behave with kindness and respect. It’s not easy. But at the end of the day, according to Ram Dass, we’re all just walking each other home. Keeping each other company on the journey of life, which is relatively short, and often hard. Strip away all the other nonsense and remember that. You might find yourself rising to the occasion, after all.

Dear New World of Weather,

Please don’t be offended by what I’m about to say. We understand that Flin Flonners have done our share in heating the planet. ie: The Mine. But seriously. We are not used to all this rain. We had six days in a row in July, and that was very hard to endure. People couldn’t fish, except for the really hardy folks who own those special jacket and pants outfits, or have a party  boat with a built in roof.

We didn’t have our new lawn yet, so all that water just went to waste, thumping down on the clay in a sad, end-of-the-world scenario. It’s bad enough that we’ve started getting crazy bugs in town, certainly encouraged by the longer summer season, (which frankly feels like a bit of a joke.) But mosquitoes with barbs on their stingers and those lawn destroying cinch bugs are a bridge too far.

I realize we have it pretty good up here in the north. If it snows heavily, we tend to think of it as a storm. Having lived in Southern Manitoba, I realize that’s a bit of a joke. It’s true that anything hotter than 28C has many of us complaining. (Heat and northerners, a complex combination–some actually like it.) I have no problem, though, with the -30 weather in winter, as long as it doesn’t go on for six months like it did a few years ago. We’re still recovering from that one.

It’s feeling a lot like fall, and I would like a little dryness, please. I need to bring in the garden, and Clarence needs to continue bricking around our new lawn. (A subject for another blog post.) So please. Help us out and bring back the weather from, say, 1967. Thank you. ps. The smelter is shut down, so please reward us with a short winter.

sincerely,

Fed up, but trying to be nice,

in Flin Flon

In our family, the one most likely to brag about his clothes is my husband. Never mind that our youngest daughter took fashion design. He is a man of serious fashion conviction.

So one day last week, my daughter was reading her book and I was working on my novel, when Clarence sat bolt upright and called for everyone’s attention. His tone was urgent, and I became mildly alarmed. Mildly, because…well. We’ve been together a while.

My husband had just read a fashion article that begged sharing. He was resting on the sofa, his retirement beard rivaling the Una bomber’s, Hawaiian shirt half unbuttoned, and his relaxed fit, twelve pocket, khaki shorts sporting a hole in one leg, when he proceeded to share Jessica Alba’s fashion tips for success.

Excitedly, (because, for mind boggling reasons, he finds this stuff interesting) he read the following list aloud.

#1. Sometimes, a statement coat is all you need. Michelle’s eyes met mine. We both thought about the ancient postal worker’s parka he’d bought at a Thrift Store, saying, “It’s so warm! And rare!”

#2. A little leopard print never hurt anyone. Really? At my age, it might be mistaken for cougar print.

#3. Bare a little skin but wear your hemline low. Yeah, I’m not baring anything but my feet. Maybe in summer, my lower legs. And a calf length hemline makes me look like a cult member from Texas.

#4. A hat helps everything. Well, not me or my brother. We tend to look like we have double digit IQ’s and deliver flyers for a living. I wear one gardening because I burn easy, but that’s pretty much it.

#5. Traveling is no excuse not to look stylish. Yeah? Try a fourteen hour car trip from Calgary to Winnipeg. My idea of stylish is bringing a bib ,so if I spill my smoothie, I don’t have to change my clothes and end up with no underwear like that other time. You know which one.

Thank you, Jessica Alba. In a perfect world, with thousands of dollars to spend and with a completely different body, these tips would change my life. Except for the fact that I don’t care. I want to, kind of. But not really. On the other hand, father may not know best about fashion, but he certainly knows how to make me laugh. I have to thank Jessica for that, too.

(Full Disclosure – I wanted to title this blog ‘Small Town Girl,’ but grown women aren’t supposed to use those terms. So in support of political correctness, I’m going with the aging cowgirl description. Anyway, onward.)

I love Winnipeg. I love Calgary. The cities of Manhattan, London and Paris have all filled me with joy. But Flin Flon holds my heart tight in its hockey mitted, art infused, fist. For those who live here, no explanation is necessary. For my out of town readers, please. Allow me to tell you why.

When my children were young, I ordered large boxes of dried soymilk from British Columbia and sold the surplus. With my white, powder filled baggies in hand, I headed to my local post office. “Kirsten,’ I said, to a longtime employee everyone knows. “Would you weigh this product so I can figure out what to charge?’ Raising her eyebrow just the tiniest bit, she did. It didn’t occur to me until much later that a stranger might have found the whole activity suspicious. But we have an awesome post office, as everyone with any kind of business knows.

On another occasion, my family arrived at the drive-in movie theater without any money. Bill Leafe, the owner, waved us in, and the next time we went, wouldn’t let us pay him back. The same thing happened to my dad and father in law. They were excited about the movie, ‘Titanic,’ and Bill  was so happy to see them there, he wouldn’t take their money. Later, he had to go and wake them up because it was over and everyone else had left. They missed the part where the ship went down, so he took some time to explain the whole, ‘I’ll never let you go,’ love scene.

I don’t have to dress up for anyone in Flin Flon, which is a really big deal to me. I can if I want to. But I don’t have to, except for weddings and events like the Royal party where we all wore fancy hats and celebrated the Queen’s Jubilee. As we nibbled on dainty sandwiches and drank tea, we waved to each other with gloved hands. The local cadets, scouts, and Knights of Columbus dressed to the nines and waited on everyone. It was a blast. But seriously, people only comment on an outfit if it’s really cold outside and you don’t look warm enough.

We have a lot going on in town. Hockey games, community social events sponsored by various service clubs like Rotary, Kinnettes and more. The arts council brings in plenty of entertainment and there are Home Routes concerts, Community Choir musicals and so much more that, frankly, my card is always full. As I said, I love Manhattan. But because I’m from Flin Flon, I don’t just go there. I sing there. At Carnegie Hall. Or Lincoln Center. With my choir, of course, but still. No way would that happen if I lived in Winnipeg, because then I’d have to audition. No thank you.

It’s the little things that add up to a great life. Just ask the people who had to move away. Most would come back if they could. After a vacation, I love driving down the hill into Creighton or heading into Flin Flon on number ten. Everything is just as it should be. There’s the Hooter. The Flin Flon campground. The main streets with most of the same old stores and faces I’ve been seeing my whole life.

It’s not that I don’t celebrate new things. I do. I just like the old things better. But then, I already confessed to being a small town girl. Gal. That’s the just way I roll.