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!

Sloppy Joe!

My mother often called me "Sloppy Joe" growing up. I wasn't sloppy in appearance, (at least I don't think I was), but I was clumsy. I am STILL clumsy.  I get into the weirdest little predicaments.  If something is going to happen that is odd, it is going to happen to me.

Take the SUP class I took - stand up paddling on this floating board. It is really sharp! Well, of course, my paddle is the one that had to come apart in half: while I grasped the top part in my hand, and tried not to lose my balance, the bottom half FELL right off.   I yelled to the instructors, but they were too far  away to help. I quickly dropped to my stomach on the board, and with my hands tried to paddle back to the bottom part of the paddle which was sinking very quickly a few metres behind me. Had I dropped the entire paddle, it would have at least floated.   Thank goodness another student close by was able get to it, and hand it back to me. NO one else's paddle came apart. Mind you, most of the students FELL in the water, and I DID NOT. :)

I was heading to a performance of The Bard at a park, on foot, with my deck chair over one shoulder and Vimy on his leash in my left hand.  There was tape across the entrance, like the crime scene stuff, only blue, to prevent cars from entering. I just ducked under it. Do you think I could duck under that tape without incident? No way! I brought it all right down. BROKE the tape, IN FACT,  so that the sticky side fell on the gravel. I quickly looked around to see if anyone had seen my clumsiness. No one did, I think. Still juggling the leash and the chair, I managed to tape the end back to the post, all the while thinking... Sloppy Joe!

While visiting my son in Edmonton, I slipped and fell in some mud on the sidewalk.  I was filthy = one leg totally covered in thick mud, the opposite hand and arm, where I had tried to break my fall, equally so. I hobbled back to Sean's, ringing the doorbell with one finger and clutching Mathilda's leash in the other.  Sean's first remark, "Did anyone see you?" LOL

What did I do today? B-R-O-K-E a mirror!!  A f-u-l-l  l-e-n-g-t-h one. How did that happen?  I haven't the foggiest idea!  I rested it alongside the back seat of my car, intending to give it to my sister-in-law. The only thing in front of it was a soft grocery bag holding a witch's costume. I drove to my destination, opened the back door, and noticed right away that one end of the mirror had broken into many long, thin shards. Some had even fallen out. How can that be? I didn't do anything.   Am I to believe that I am NOW going to have SEVEN YEARS OF BAD LUCK???  YIKES!!!

I L-O-V-E Lucy!

I am NOT talking about Lucille Ball Arnaz, but Lucile Stoltz Poling.

People come into our lives for different reasons, in different seasons, and some FOR a lifetime. Lucy, as she was fondly called, was ALL three. My children called her ''Miss Lucy."  She was my next door neighbour in Glen Burnie, MD, where my husband and I had moved with our two young children, in 1985.

Lucy had recently retired as a public school teacher in the schools of Baltimore City. She was thirty years my senior, but she quickly became my friend, my confidante, my mentor, a grandmother to my children, and a lifeline to this friendless and lonely young Canadian mother, totally out of her east coast element, and so far from any family or friends.  I learned oodles of things from her, as she shared her wisdom and knowledge, from how to properly set a dinner table for entertaining, to how to eat a soft shell crab sandwich.

We remained friends for a reason and our friendship lasted over the next thirty plus years, in spite of the distance, as my family and I returned to Canada two years later.  We were able to visit each other a few times, and maintained correspondence the good old fashioned way, through phone calls and snail mail letters. Lucy n-e-v-e-r took to the new technology.  She sent countless birthday gifts and Christmas gifts, all the years our two children were growing up.

When she and her husband John retired to Florida, we visited with our teenagers, on our way to a family cruise in the Caribbean.  John, unfortunately, died of cancer a few years later. My ex and I flew to Washington, DC, driving back to Glen Burnie, Maryland for John's memorial service. We hadn't told Lucy we were coming. I will never forget the look on her face, when we walked in. She hugged us SO hard, and was so, so grateful that we had come to share in her sorrow and pay our respects to her much beloved husband.

Lucy was no angel though.  She was to me, but had my skin been brown or black, she would have not treated me the same way. She was outspoken, outrageous, irreverent and TOTALLY without any politically correct parameters when it came to speaking her mind. The most appalling remarks could come out of her mouth.  The following is a VERY MILD one.  At the age of 92, when I visited her in Florida, her remark when I commented on the unique names for the new subdivisions popping up all over, i.e. Bellavista, her retort was, "Who is building them? A bunch of Wops!"

Lucy made me laugh... all the time.  She had a wickedly keen sense of humour and repartee unequaled to anyone else's, except for maybe my ex husband. She was kind, loving, caring and giving, to me, my family, and to many, many other people who were fortunate enough to have met this intrepid woman.  She always looked out for me, always and by leaving me a bequeath in her will, has made my life a little easier. She will be forever in my heart and in my memories.   May God bless and keep her up there with him in heaven, where I am sure she is having a rollicking good time drinking martinis and entertaining everyone!

Were you blessed with a "Lucy" in your life?

My lifetime friend Lucy passed away in March, at the ripe old age of 92.

IT'S THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN...

when the wee ones are back at school, and I am enjoying my conversations with them.  Here are a few, collected in the last few weeks.

Kindergarten/Maternelle:

J'ai un "gun" et je peux tuer un chevreuil toute seule. (Paroles d'une petite mignonne, haute comme trois pommes!)

Mon père est allergique au homard. Pas moi, mais on ne prend pas de chance! (Un petit qui a des allergies sévères aux crevettes!)


1ère année/Grade 1

Il a tiré la corde, le diable à faire!

Guess who's home? (Me- I don't know. Your Dad?)  NO... he's in JAIL and my stepfather is in the trailer.  My Dad is in jail because he set fire to his home.

I need a time-out!  Me- Why?  I was rude. (She wasn't rude; she just wanted her water bottle back, that I had her put away, because she was constantly fiddling with it.)

2ième année/Grade 2

Is my teacher on a holiday?

C'est comme ça qu'arrivaient les bébés, avant, dans le bec d'une cigogne? (Question incrédule d'une petite après une histoire que je leur avait lue.)  Moi - Non, mais c'est qu'on faisait accroire aux enfants.  La petite - PHEW!

Me - What is "green" in French?  G r e n e - replies one little redhead, rolling the r like a Scotsman. :)

Grade 3:
Madame, the door is knocking! (Sweetest little Syrian child who didn't speak English a year ago!)

Me- Why did you call him a crybaby? Rina - I was feeling a little stressed.
Me- Did you apologize to him? Rina - Well, some are saying that isn't enough. (What? What else is the poor child supposed to do?)

You must eat "vegdabells," (in her writing)

Bonne semaine à tous! Have a great week!