All I want for Christmas

This morning on my way to work, I encountered Alice, a homeless woman in her seventies, whose distinguishing characteristics include a rather elaborate fleece hat worn at a jaunty angle, white chin hair, missing top front teeth, and large, saggy breasts that hang down to her oversized belly. With her hands clasped behind her back she paces back and forth on the corner, repetitively muttering to no one in particular “Got a quarter? Got a quarter?”

I always look her in the eye, and say “Not today, Alice.” I am ashamed to admit that this is a rather new phenomenon for me – looking homeless people in the eye, actually talking to them, and sometimes getting to know their names. It has taken me many miles of walking down Jasper Avenue to shrug the discomfort that held me back from doing so.

I don’t think this makes me a better person than anyone else. I just realized one day that if I am going to talk the talk, I better start walking the walk. I also don’t think I am unusual in feeling uncomfortable about leaving my nice home, and walking down the street in my nice clothes after a nice breakfast to be confronted by the human condition every day. Seeing someone on the street asking for money reminds us deep down of how quickly all of those niceties could be lost.

The need to keep challenging myself in this way and to encourage others to do so was drilled home to me this morning, when while waiting for the light to change, Alice and I had our daily exchange. A woman standing beside me turned to me with a shocked look on her face and incredulity in her voice and said, “You know her name?”

Here’s hoping that this Christmas Santa brings us all a little more compassion.

Choccies

I am usually a discerning chocolate connoisseur (only Callebaut passes these lips), but at Christmas time I will down anything remotely resembling that dark brown, luscious delicacy.

I don’t know what it is. Maybe it is the overwhelming quantity and/or its constant presence. I can’t resist sampling any and all chocolate. My tastes range anywhere from chewy, nutty Turtles (a childhood favorite), to those dark chocolate and minty After Eight squares which always added a “touch of class” to parental holiday cocktail parties of days gone by.

My current favourite is Quality Street imported chocolates and caramels of which I have a giant box on my desk. In the true spirit of the season I refuse to share them. Instead, I have been making myself sick consuming copious handfuls this week before the big day.

Why?

None of the above described are good, or classy, or despite their names “quality” chocolates.

It is probably partly due to gluttony; a small attempt to harken back to my childhood; and a crow-like attraction to shiny packaging. Throw in the stress, and hustle and bustle (ado, flurry, rumpus, commotion) of the season and you have a weak attempt to make it through what has typically never been a very satisfying or emotionally healthy time of year for me.

The good news is I eventually do come to my senses. Part of how I help myself is by selflessly helping others.

It has become my annual tradition to buy my sister’s boyfriend a box of his favorite Laura Secord mints, which, sadly, aren’t available where they live. It is one of the man’s few pleasures in life (that and snowmobiling). These “chocolates” come in a large box, are unnaturally bright green, and seriously waxy in texture.

(Here’s the helping part.)

I always throw in a giant slab of Callebaut chocolate, in the hopes that one day he will sample and come to appreciate the difference.

Boob tube

Scenario: me and my pre-schooler son sitting beside each other on the couch.

As we are watching t.v. he leans over to give me a hug unintentionally squishing my unencumbered bosom which has sort of drooped in between us.

He quickly pulls away, looking at me with surprised brown eyes. "Hey, what's that bump?"

"Uh, that's my breast, Honey."

"Mama, you should grow smaller ones so they don't stick out so much."

I think he's onto something there. I could have a whole patch of them in the backyard and they would be removable, reuseable, and variable in size. And I could freeze them or can with them.

Maybe it would even lead to a giant melon contest in the Fall.

Must. Plant. Early.

Someone's going to Hell for this...

From a friend of a friend...

I feel closer to you now

Thank you to the person I saw on the bus who leads such a busy life that they felt compelled to clean their ears with Q-tips while riding to work. I needed to see that.


And thank you too, to the person who felt the need to share her defoliating routine on her morning commute. I realize chin hair may be a problem for you, and you were all prepared with the tweezers and the handheld mirror and all, but please spare your fellow passengers from viewing the plucking.



Leave it at home, people. Or at least for God's sake (and mine) do it in the comfort of your own vehicle. You know, the same way you pick your nose. "I am in my car therefore I am invisible to everyone else on the road."

Great holiday gift idea #2

For the Christian cook in all of us...

Sign of the times

Sign I saw on the bus yesterday:

Know your limits. Know when to say when.

And you are thinking, "Yeah, okay, holiday drinking, whatever."

Uh, no. Actually, it was a sign about over-eating.

It is unfathomable that the Canadian Liver Foundation has to tell people this.

Nearly fell off my double-wide seat when I read that eating too many high-fat foods is as bad for your liver as drinking too much.