So much for a quiet Saturday evening at home...

My phone seldom rings. It DOES ping, ding and chime. Seldom at the same time, but recently, I had all the DINGS! PINGS! and RINGS! at the same time, after I had run around all day, and was finally home to Vimy and my dinner preparation.

PING! A hiking buddy and I are trying to set up a hike tomorrow, depending on the weather. PING! Another friend is trying to connect me with a retired dentist buddy of his in B.C., (I know! Far away and far fetched!) but he is having problems getting us connected.  PING! My sweet sis-in-law wants to know if I have checked our Lotto tickets, and how am I doing? Bless her heart; she is always checking in to see how I am.  DING! Another friend far away wants to set up a chat time tonight. More PINGS! and DINGS! back and forth.

Then comes the clincher.  While my pasta dish was baking, I had called Mamacita.  She is NOT often home on a Saturday evening. She is usually out dancing or playing cards. No staying at home for this 83, soon-to-be 84 year old. We have a lovely chat.  She is concerned about her sister who is having trouble selling her home; ipso facto her financial worries are now my mother's worries.  I guess when you have six YOUNGER brothers, and seven YOUNGER sisters, it is HARD to let go of being the caring, older sibling.

I had no sooner started to enjoy my delicious supper, when DRING! Mamacita calls me back. Do I have my St. Joseph statue, the one you bury in your garden, with a prayer, when you want to sell your house? No, I don't. Ok! She is going to find one, buy it for her sister, do the novena, and that will surely help to sell her house, right? I agree.  She hangs up and I realize that I have had a load of wash in the machine since 9:00 am this morning. Time to shove it in the dryer.

That is what I am doing, when DRING!  Mamancita has tracked down a (GET THIS!) "St.Joseph" kit, that you can buy for $10.00, complete with instructions, which will help you sell your house. Trust the Catholic Church, as capitalistic as the rest of us, to get in on this "gimmick", in a big way.  They know how to make a buck, and they need bucks, don't they?  Sorry, I digress! Could I please go pick it up for her?  WHAT? Now? It is 7:30 on a Saturday night. Last time I checked, WALMART wasn't selling this kind of stuff! No, she has tracked the kit down to the "Centre de Ressourcement" at CCNB, a hop, skip and a jump from my place.  A couple who lives in the building, runs the store.  They are open until 9:00 PM. I didn't want to say, NO, and have her tell me to "SUCK IT UP BUTTERCUP!",which is what I told my daughter many years ago, when she none to willingly agreed to drive to Saint John from Fredericton,  to pick her father and I up at 2:00 am in the morning, because we were stuck IN MONTREAL (THE STORY OF MY LIFE!) . So, dutiful and loving daughter that I am, I say, SURE, Maman, I will go get that kit right now. 

Vimy and I jump in the car. Since I don't see well at night, I can't even see the numbers on the buildings, so I end up driving around looking for #775.  Thank God for cell phones.  DRING! I call Mamacita, and keep her on the phone, while she directs me to the correct building. The woman has the memory of an elephant.  She advises me to go to the front door. Never mind that it is dark and the outside light isn't on. They are saving money, she informs me. Yeah?  They are spending it on lawyers.  She assures me that the lady she has spoken to, IS there! I hang up. I go up those dark stairs, and ring the doorbell (buzzer) TWICE. There is NO answer.  DRING!  I call Mamacita again.  Maybe I need to be at the SIDE door, where there is illumination? NO! She is adamant that I am at the right place. She will CALL them again.  I hang up.  AGAIN!

Lo and behold, a woman comes up the hallway. She opens the door and I buy the kit, informing her that her phone is going to ring. DRING! It does, and down the hall strolls the husband, chatting with my Mamacita on the phone. I take the proffered phone and let her know that I have St.Joseph in hand.

Dishes and laundry interrupted... now done. It is too late to do anything but get ready for bed. While my outing was maybe NOT my mission, I can still say MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! :)  Who wanted to watch a movie anyway?

What is a perfect day?

I  imagine everyone would have a different definition of a perfect day.  Mine is one that is singular in its simplicity.

My perfect day started with my hitting EVERY single green light on Vanier Blvd early one morning, on my way to work, with the added benefit of seeing a gorgeous sunrise over the Bathurst Harbour at the same time.  Mind you, had I had MORE red lights, I would have seen even MORE of the sunrise, but I am totally happy with what I did witness.

My perfect day continued as I taught thirteen darling little six and seven year olds, one of whom informed me that the reason their corner made noise during the Four Corners game, were picked and thus eliminated, was NOT because they were noisy, but because HE ...FARTED!  Ah....noise is noise. LOL

Even my doctor telling me I had to lose ten pounds, still didn't dim what continued to be a perfect day, as I picked up Vimy at day care, enjoyed a delicious moose stew for supper with a glass of wine, capping off my day with a three kilometre walk, on a crispy, cool, starry November night.

I marveled at the beautiful lights downtown reflecting off the waters of the harbour, the twinkling stars above me, and the sparkling dew (frost?) on the grass.  My walks are often my best time for reflection.  I realized how fortunate I am to be able to walk the streets of my neighbourhood at 8:00 at night, in darkness, and feel SAFE. At no time did I feel anything but secure.  That feeling lead me to rethink a recent conversation I had had with a lady whom I will call Lily.  Lily is a Brazilian surgeon, born of Japanese parents. She immigrated to the Chaleur area nine years ago.  She told me very candidly, during our Spanish Club meeting, that she has NOT regretted her decision to move here.  Why did she come to Canada?   She immigrated to escape the violence of Brazil, violence in the cities.   She loves this area where she finds people friendly and welcoming.  She is now a surgical assistant  and no longer a practicing surgeon, because of language requirements.  Never mind that she speaks English, Portuguese, Spanish and a bit of French. She gave up everything to come to Canada alone, where she knew no one, in order to make a new life for her herself; to be happy where she feels safe and secure.  SAFETY AND SECURITY!  Imagine!  Those are things we take for granted. How fortunate we are as a country, that we have wonderful people like Lily, who want to make Canada their home. "How perfect", I thought, as Vimy and I wended our way home safely.

Burt's Bees is NOT the bee's knees!

I always have a story, but this one involves shopping. While I do not like to hock things online, I feel compelled to speak up as a consumer.  So, please bear with me, or delete! I am a B=I=G promoter of ALL things New Brunswick.  I support local, regional, and provincial businesses and entrepreneurs.  I must.  By supporting local, I am supporting jobs for friends, family, neighbours and fellow Maritimers.  Hence my gin of choice is Thuyla, from Distillerie des Fils du Roi in Paquetville, my dog food for Vimy from Corey's in Fredericton, my lip gloss from Marr's Sweet Syrup in Fredericton, my maple syrup from Riordon Maple, Ganong's Chocolates and so on and so on.   My son's recent birthday present was a basket of goodies from New Brunswick: i.e. dulse, a Palomine chocolate bar, with other foods and craft items from all over the province.  It was a shame I couldn't bring him any blueberry beer though; it would have been too heavy in my suitcase.

All of which brings me to the story behind this blog.  I just LOVE Marr's Sweet Syrup lip balm. I have bought it in all ten flavours, and have given countless lip balms as small gifts. I was down to one lip balm when I lost that one, out on supervision one day in the school yard, a few weeks ago.  I thought it had fallen through a hole in my coat pocket.  I didn't know that hole was there. I was devastated. Honest! I searched all over that darn school yard.  I can't buy them locally so I had a friend pick me up a few in the Moncton area, and send them up to me through another friend who was coming to visit.  I have THE  most wonderful friends, don't I!  When I got home that night, I sewed up the hole in my pocket. There! I would never lose another lip balm again.

The other night I put on the same coat to go for a walk, on a gorgeously warm, and full moonlight night. I felt something in my pocket, cylindrical in shape.  What was it?  I searched my pocket. Nothing there. However, I could feel the object through the lining of my coat. E+U+R+E+K+A!  It was my lost lip balm, fallen NOT through the hole onto the ground, as I had thought, but between my coat and its' lining. Which means that, because that lining is ALL sewn up around the coat, it was IMPOSSIBLE for the lip balm to have fallen out onto the ground in the first place. Most women would have clued in right away, that the stick had to be stuck somewhere BETWEEN the lining and the coat. NOT yours truly.  I am not smart enough in that department, because a domestic goddess... I am NOT.   Not to mention that I can occasionally lack a little common sense and forward thinking. In my defense, I WAS sick and stressed at the time.  So, when I got home out came the scissors to snip a small hole in my pocket and pull out my lip balm.  It was worth it, to undo my sewing job.  I sew, resew, and undo.... A LOT!  Sewing is a tortuous endeavour for me. LOL

The real bee's knees?  My Marr's Sweet Syrup lip balm,so smooth and silky on your lips, not thick and pasty.  Where can you get this great product, you might ask?  Available at 99 percent of NEEDS convenience stores in NB, through Marr's website or through that shopping behemoth, AMAZON.  Try this lip balm! You will LOVE it!!  No, I have not been paid to mention them in this blog!

Rainy days and Mondays...

can get off to a rocky start! I thought I would have the day OFF today, but no, the phone rang at 5:50 am.  So I am up and at it by 6:00, though I am none too speedy this drizzly and drab Monday morning.

I always take Vimy for a walk before I go to work, so out the door we went, with me stopping to put some recycling in my big blue recycling bin first. I had left the little box at the door the night before, so I wouldn't forget it.  I dump all those recyclables in the half full bin, and turn to throw some of Vimy's weekend deposits into the big, black garbage can. It is upside down, as I had cleaned it, and wanted it to dry out a bit.  When I right that bin, I notice that one side of the cover is lopsided. Upon closer inspection, I realize that one of two dowels that holds the cover in place, is missing.

I also realize at that exact same moment, that I had found that dowel on the grass on the weekend. I had picked it up, and not knowing what it was, put it in my little recycling box in the house. YES, the SAME box whose contents I had just dumped into the BIG blue bin. FRIG A DIG! I figure I might as well dig it out right now, and not wait until later, when I would forget. So there I am at 7:15 am in the morning, with my head and half my body stuck in that bin, trying to find that dowel. Well of COURSE, it had fallen right to the bottom.  I had to empty the E=N=T=I=R=E bin.  My recyclables are now strewn all over my back yard!  I retrieve the dowel, put it back on the lopsided cover of the garbage bin, (It fits thank goodness!), throw all my recyclables BACK in the blue bin, and head out for the delayed walk, none the worse for wear, but tired, and now ten minutes late.

Vimy is trailing behind when we return from our walk.  I hadn't put his leash on, because it has been so dark when we walked every morning for the last month and there was never a soul about in the neighbourhood.  I could see as I turned around to call him, that he had just made a DEPOSIT on my neighbour's lawn, the neighbour kitty corner to me.  For one split second a little voice inside my head said, "Leave it! You're late!".  However, I couldn't do THAT. I get so cross with people who don't POOP AND SCOOP.  Well, you know what I mean. Their dog poops, and they DON'T scoop. I crossed the street and started walking up the incline of their lawn. Do you think I can find that poop, amidst all that brown grass and those leaves? A SECOND little voice pipes up in my head, saying, "You could PRETEND to find it!".  It is a fleeting thought, because I then hear ANOTHER , now THIRD little voice that says, "Come this way Madame. Come this way, Madame."  What??? I look up and there, in the window, which she has opened, is the homeowner, beckoning me towards Vimy's bomb.  Can you imagine, if I had heeded that second little voice in my head, and pretended to scoop, while all the while I WAS BEING WATCHED???   OMG - all I needed was another pissed off neighbour.  I thank her for saving me five minutes of searching for the darn deposit.  I bag it and trash it.   Then I jump in my car, and drive off, thinking, "I just dodged a bullet!"

Those darn kids....

KINDERGARTEN/MATERNELLE

- After I made a little one reprint his letter, he does it, looks up at me and says, "Happy?"

- Can you name an animal? Tony - Yeah, I want to name him Sam!

- Emily - You pick a name out of the box, to be your helper today, BUT you CAN'T look!

- I am going to draw a horse on a Harley.  Seeing my look of slight skepticism, adds, "SERIOUSLY!"

- Kids were returning their library books to class, from home. They had to put them in a basket which I couldn't find anywhere in the classroom. When I asked,"Where do your library books go?", of course one child answered "To the library!"

 -  Upon hearing one child, complaining after recess that her leg was broken, I was informed by her VERY knowledgeable classmate, " She always does that, every day!"

-  Talking about some books from Scholastic, the little one informed me, "I paided them first, and then I readed them."

PREMIÈRE ANNÉE

 - Qu'est-ce que tu fais Samuel? Samuel me répond: Je ne parle pas à toi.

  - Antoine -  Calie est tombéee au gymnase, mais c'est reglé! 

La tortue étant son animal préféré, la petite me dit, "Je l'aime assez beaucoup!"

GRADE 4 AND GRADE 5

I started to cough when passing my auditory headpiece to a hearing impaired student, so he could take it to his next class. "Don't cough on it!" he admonishes me.

Grade 5 - word association game - i.e. you say spring - they respond fall.  I said nose - one student said booger. 

Grade 5 English class in a French school - to the question "What would you do with a million dollars?" - Two responses stood out. Chelsea said, "I would buy shoes!"  Imelda Marcos the Third, that one, with my friend Listen Linda being Imelda Marcos the Second.

Felipe:  I would make a large robot dinosaur that spits fire, and POOPS money!

BONNE SEMAINE À TOUS!