Freedom 55 65 75 RIP

The other night in the grocery store, I observed a woman lost in thought as she looked quite seriously up at the shelves. As I got closer, she hesitatingly took down a box, but seemed unsure of her choice as she examined first it and then the other boxes that she had left behind.

Coming still nearer, I realized that she held in her hand a box of store brand baking soda, and was agonizing over her choice between the no-name and the Arm and Hammer box still up on the shelf.

Murmuring a polite "excuse me," I reached past her, grabbed a box of store brand, and went on my way. Galvanized by my choice, she gave a personal nod of assent, and continued her shopping with the generic box in her hand.

It took me awhile to figure this one out. Why puzzle over baking soda? Baking soda is baking soda - same package, same size, twenty cents cheaper - it's a no-brainer, right?

But it's a sign of the times, it seems. All around me, I see people trying to pinch pennies, cut corners, and somehow make their dollars go farther. There's an underlying desperation in the Christmas ads this year - somehow the big sales spring from a place more sinister than usual. Somehow the pleas to purchase come not from a desire to increase already-high profits, but from a need to keep the wolf from the door.

Hardest to hear about are the people whose retirement plans have been put on hold, or even destroyed utterly. Since moving to America, I've often been struck by how many older workers I see. The Husband works with several people in their sixties and there's no talk of retiring. I hear people on the bus talking about working into their seventies, or declaring (as though it's some badge of honour) that their last day of work will be the day they're carried out on a gurney with an ID tag looped around their big toe.

This situation will only increase, as more and more people have to put off (or suspend) retirement and return to the work force. Of course, jobs are even more scarce than usual, and I pity the 65-year-old trying to update her resume and present herself as a viable candidate alongside applicants half her age.

Everyone's on edge. Discretionary purchases are put on hold (something which always makes me groan a little, for tightening the purse strings will prolong the economic agony, despite being a smart thing to do on an individual level). For sale signs are everywhere, with the not so uncommon anymore "Foreclosure" notice attached. People wait for pink slips, and breathe sighs of relief when they don't come, but know their relief is only temporary until they start worrying about the next round of layoffs.

Some people are considering store brand for the first time in their lives. And to be honest, I'm not sure this is such a bad thing. This country's economy lives (and dies, it would seem) on consumerism, and the conspicuous consumption that has long been the hallmark of being an American serves only to widen the divide between the rich and the poor, as the lucky few whose birth/education/good fortune led them to positions of wealth have been able to create for themselves a world that has nothing whatsoever in common with the world inhabited by the growing number of have-nots.

But I do feel for the entire generation of people whose golden years will now be a little - or a lot - tarnished and whose castles in the air have been blown to pieces by the economic storms. Not so much for those who never dreamed they would have to buy store brand, but for those who wonder if tomorrow will be the day they can't afford to buy any kind at all.

Read more...

Baby, It's Cold Outside!

And not in a cutesy-yet-mildly-threatening call and answer song (no means no, loser!) kind of way. Oh my goodness, it was FREEZING today!

I've gotten totally soft living this far south in the balmy Icebox of the Nation, I'll admit it. I only just put my fall coat away a couple of weeks ago, and already I'm complaining that my winter coat plus mittens is not enough. Of course, I also go tripping out of the house at 5:30 am bare-headed with only thin skirts and nylons to cover the parts of my legs that show, so really, who's to blame on this one.

There's also the issue that it's halfway through November whilst my internal clock suggests we're somewhere in late September. Hello?! Since when are we forty-ish days away from Christmas? I rage every time I see holiday decorations, yet really we're not all that far off. Although I do maintain that it's too early to have the tree up (people by the lake into whose window I was peeping yesterday - your presumptuous festivity does not go unnoticed).

But, despite Time moving at such an offensive pace and the unwelcome cold and ever-present darkness that accompanies mid-November, there's lots of reasons to smile. Here - to brighten your day, The Girl's handiwork:


Now who can be sad when there's suns and rainbows and someone tells you "your part of my hart." Only people whose hearts are made of stone.

Read more...

Grrrrrr

(Warning: I'm cranky. Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.)

I hate this time of year. Every year, I become more and more convinced that I have Seasonal Affective Disorder, or whatever it's called when too many sunless days robs you of the will to, well, do anything. Hmm, it's kind of like reverse pathetic fallacy, isn't it - I get lugubrious like the sky.

The weather can't seem to make up its mind and so we're in never-ending cloudy murkiness with patches of rain and wanna-be snow. My office is full of windows that haven't seen any sun for days, and so it feels like I haven't woken up since about Sunday. With daylight saving + our plodding trudge towards the shortest day of the year, what little non-night there is seems to be disappearing exponentially.

In addition, my body seems to have played a fantastic joke on me by waiting until two years after 30 to shut down. I sailed into the decade thinking, psssht, what's everyone talking about? I feel the same as I always did. And now, ha ha, good one body!, I'm unpleasantly surprised by creaking and lassitude and a metabolism that has slowed. to. a. craaaawl....

(No metabolism + perpetual darkness + the carb-loading in which I inevitably partake at this time of year = hibernation. Wake me up in April.)

And, apparently, I've lost all will to avoid contractions. Next thing you know, it'll be a descent into comma splices and dangling modifiers.

That's about all I've got, really. I'm sorry - this post falls into the "better post something lest they think I'm dead" category - apologies. Maybe the sun will come out tomorrow.

(Noooooo...now I've got visions of red-headed moppets singing cheerfully about life's hard knocks and cheering up FDR. Or was it Theodore Roosevelt? Whoever was in the wheelchair...)

Read more...

Ahhh, The Church Skip

Yesterday was a pretty busy day. It was the Twin Cities MCC Relief Sale, and I got roped into helping volunteered to help with the children's activities. So, bright and early, I drove out to the site, uttering mild (non-violent, of course) curses at the 12 helium balloons obscuring my rear-view vision.

I lurve me some Mennonite action, as you all know, so it was fun to hang out in the world of verenkje and quilts for the day. Given that there's only two Mennonite churches in the cities, the lion's share of the work is done by the two congregations. A far cry from rural Manitoba, where everyone who's anyone is somehow connected to Mr. Simon either by birth/marriage/church affiliation. But also kind of nice to know so many people there.

My best part of the day was when The Girl got stuck in a tent on the auction stage with eleven other kids; the tent was a refugee tent used to house Bangladeshi refugees and the auction participants were told that each $400 bid (the amount MCC requires to build new homes for families rendered homeless by the cyclone) would free one of the children from the tent. The Girl was told she would be first out; I think the idea was that the teens in the back were last on the list because everyone figured they'd be in there for awhile (if they got to come out at all). I mean, this wasn't a "real" auction item; no one got to actually take anything home.

Well, they couldn't get those kids out as fast as they were "freed"; MCC raised 12X$400 within about one minute. Got me all teary-eyed to see people in somewhat unstable economic times throw their money about like that.

Then, as soon as I got home (cursing the now-16 balloons that were in my backseat, having been told to "take some home for your kids"), it was time to get ready to go to a party. An actual grown-up evening, a party without Pokemon-themed cakes or treat bags. Ordinarily, I would have come up with some excuse to get out of a party where I knew no one (it was put on by one of The Husband's coworkers), but after the whole "maybe it's time to find some friends who don't live 8 hours away" decision last week, I put on my brave girl panties and off I went. And, of course, I met some really nice people. (Mental note: stop being so darned shy.)

Today's been semi-uneventful. We skipped church, one of my favourite things to do. Now I firmly believe that there's lots of things that you should do because they're good for you even though you don't always want to (see: exercising, eating only half the bag of Old Dutch chips, not wearing yoga pants to work), and usually I put church attendance on that list. But every so often, I like to stay home, just to remind myself that I go because I choose to, not because it's just part of the routine.

Out and about running errands, my usually stalwart (if creaky) car suddenly sounded like it was driving over four tin cans and lost power steering. I was able to pull over, call The Husband (who confirmed roadworthiness of the limping home variety), and brought the ol' girl back. It's something about a belt and an alternator pump and a tension thingamajig (read: $$$$). So, we're a one car family for awhile again. Thank you Jesus for a husband who likes to bike to work and public transit!

So, y'all can keep driving, I guess - nothing to see here folks - just another typical weekend in the PM house: Mennonites, wild parties, and car breakdowns.

Read more...

Socialism - It's Not Just for Marxists Anymore!

Alright, folks, we've got a pretty big backlog of blog items thanks to all the politicking around these parts lately. Important items of discussion such as why on earth the wardrobe people over on Heroes insist on making Hayden Panettiere look like she's one pinprick away from exploding. She is tiny in real life, yet they somehow squeeze her into skin-tight jeans from Gap Kids that are painted on and glossify her overly made-up face so that she looks water-logged and bloated all the time.

Or how Chipotle gets away with hiring only Mexicans. Is it a reversal of the staffing practices of all other restaurants around whereby the white people are in the back and the Mexicans are at the counter?

But before we return to our regular schedule of inanities, I must raise for discussion a slightly more serious question. Stuff a piece of paper into the White House Suggestion Box, if you will.

What is so frightening about universal healthcare?

See, it's annual benefit enrollment time at work for both me and The Husband. Educated, experienced and extremely lucky as we are, we've got great jobs with excellent benefits. In fact, our respective companies each offer two health plans, so we're mixin' and matchin' stuff from a wide variety of options.

Working in insurance as I did for a few years, I'm no stranger to benefit summaries. But what does seem strange is talking about primary care physicians. Or co-pays for check-ups. Or out-of-pocket maximums for cancer care.

To some, this pay-as-you-go American brand of healthcare is awesome. Just read all the op ed pieces in Canadian newspapers extolling the virtues of the Mayo Clinic. Just listen to the horror stories of hallway medicine and three year waits for hip replacements. The solution, so many sigh, lies to the south, where their American neighbours get what they need when they need it.

And this is true.

Of course, it's only true if you have good health insurance. Sure, there's MedicAid, but that's for the really poor. It's the not-so-really-poor and working-but-still-struggling people that really feel it. To be underinsured is worse than to be uninsured.

What good is next-day service by the top specialist in the country if your HMO says you're not eligible for treatment? What good is top-notch cancer care that leaves you financially destitute and breaks apart your family from the stress?

And why, pray tell, is access to healthcare tied to employment? You know all the stories you're reading about the financial tsunami washing away America's jobs? Don't forget that those job losses go hand-in-hand with loss of health coverage. COBRA does let you continue health benefits for a little while, if you pay the premiums. Which is a tad tough to do if you don't have a paycheque. Just think about the people clutching those pink slips, heading home to a spouse with diabetes. Or a kid with asthma.

Don't forget the legal ramifications of off-loading health costs to individuals and insurance companies. Got no insurance and get hit by a car? Hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills that you can't pay? Sue and get the other person's insurance to pay. Is it any wonder they play all those ambulance-chaser lawyer commercials on Fox?

The bottom line is that privatized health "care" means that insurance companies, whose only interest is their bottom line, are in charge of the treatment most Americans receive. And as one of my insurance company coworkers often reminded me, insurance companies are in the business of making money, not - contrary to popular belief - of providing services.

There's nothing wrong with a company trying to make money. I don't blame health insurance companies for denying benefits - it's their job. I do, however, blame them for, reluctant to give up a cash cow, scaring the American public into fearing the spectre of "socialized medicine" as they like to call it down here. As though Uncle Sam paying for your doctor instead of your HMO is the equivalent of membership in the Communist Party

I also blame a government that offloads its responsibilites towards its citizens onto private companies who, by their very nature, will work towards making benefits less (and not more) accessible.

And I blame Americans themselves, at least those who bristle at the very thought of paying for somebody else's medical bills. The American Dream is all about pulling yourself up by your bootstraps; if you can't pull yourself up, the fault is yours, not the fact that you don't have boots. It's every man for himself, and why on earth should they have to foot the bill for some lazy person who refuses to get a job and get his own health insurance like everybody else?

The big problem with every man for himself is that, someday, at some point, you're gonna be somebody else. You won't have a job. Or if you do, you won't have enough money to pay your medical bills and your mortgage.

You'll wish you lived in Canada, where your annual pap smear is free. Immunizations for your kids are free. An ER visit to start your heart again is free. Your new hip is free. You can give birth in a hospital for free (average out-of-pocket cost - with insurance - around here is five grand).

You can die in a hospital for free.

In the second presidential debate, now-President-Elect Obama (whoop! "President-Elect" - that's fun to type!) said "I think [health care] should be a right for every American. In a country as wealthy as ours, for us to have people who are going bankrupt because they can't pay their medical bills -- for my mother to die of cancer at the age of 53 and have to spend the last months of her life in the hospital room arguing with insurance companies because they're saying that this may be a pre-existing condition and they don't have to pay her treatment, there's something fundamentally wrong about that."

Now I'm not sure I agree with his proposed solution for this (socialist that I am, I think taxes should be raised to pay for government-run healthcare instead of simply making privatized healthcare more accessible) but he is one hundred per cent correct that there is something fundamentally wrong about what we've got going on down here.

And so, while I wonder about saving the cheerleader from overly-tight pants and Chipotle's hiring philosophies, I'll continue to pray that I don't get sick. Because if I do, I'll have to call a moving company again. And see how quickly they can get me back to Canada.

Read more...

Well-Played America!

Yesterday was an amazing day. Truly.

It's not often this girl is rendered speechless, but when they finally declared the winner, even though the polls had been positive for the last few weeks, even though Obama's electoral vote tally had progressively outstripped McCain's exponentially throughout the evening, even though one could positively feel the winds of change in the air, I was still struck dumb that it actually happened.

It felt like those moments between nightmare and waking up, when you realize that just maybe the whole world isn't being blown apart and you might just be able to escape the clutches of the boogey man.

It's as though there was the tiniest ember of hope inside of me that this country could somehow slow and perhaps even reverse its decay, a hope that I didn't even realize was there and had been suppressed until yesterday's victory fanned it into a roaring flame.

And it was not (merely) relief that I don't have to commence daily and vigilant prayers that John McCain will remain healthy throughout an entire presidential term. It was not (only) admiration that a nation still so defined by its roots of slavery and racism could with such unity raise to its highest office a man who only decades ago could hardly have dreamed of a world in which some animals are not more equal than others.

It was, and is, a feeling of peace, of optimism, of well-being that floods through me whenever I hear him speak.

But it's not just me. It's millions of Americans (and countless others around the world) who hear Obama speak words of change and feel that not only is it possible, but that they can and will be the ones to bring it about. It's a nation that has been beaten down and is tired of hating themselves and each other and the rest of the world that now feels a renewed sense of worth and purpose.

Which is why I say, "of course. So what?" when the naysayers immediately started pointing to campaign promises that he can't possibly keep and to the trials ahead in which he will no doubt take some faltering steps. Governing a country is like trying to steer an oil tanker; changing direction happens slowly and incrementally.

What matters is that someone is finally steering this ship in the right direction.

Read more...

Ballot Boxes and Borscht

Just over 13 years ago today (October 30, 1995, to be exact), I sat in front of my television along with millions of other Canadians to watch the results of the Quebec referendum on sovereignty.

To provide sustenance, I made a huge pot of sommer borscht, because how better to stand vigil for a country's multiculturalism than by consuming a product of it. I went through one, two, three, four, and five bowlfuls of the stuff in an attempt to calm my inner turmoil.

And turmoil there was. I thought then, as I do now, that Canada was a darn good place to live. And not only did I want the Canada I knew to remain its unified self, from sea to sea to sea, but I also wanted the folks in Quebec to want the same thing.

Some of you may remember how tense that evening was as Peter Mansbridge interpreted authoritatively the results that trickled in, teetering first one way and then back again, see-sawing back and forth between a country united and a country divided.

At the end of the evening, with a "Yes" vote declared, I felt that a victory had been achieved. But it was a hollow victory. With only 50.58% of the votes cast for remaining in Canada, I couldn't help but think one thing.

Half of Quebec still wants out. Now what?

I'm reminded of that evening tonight, on the eve of the 2008 presidential election. Because no matter what happens tomorrow, approximately half (if polls are to be believed) of America will feel anger, frustration, and quite possibly a real sense of fear about the fact that the other side won the day.

This election has been heated and close. It might simply be by virtue of proximity, but I cannot remember this kind of interest and passion regarding a presidential election - both from Americans and those abroad - in my lifetime. There's a sense that there is something big at stake here, that the future of this nation rests on tomorrow's vote.

And with so much riding on this next presidency (or the impression among voters that there is), the elation of the winning candidate's supporters will be matched tear for tear, shout for shout, by the despair of those who find themselves on the losing team. They will feel not that they have simply lost this year's championship and that they merely need to rally for next year's contest (Palin 2012!!), but that the centre will not hold, that the country will descend to the depths of an abyss from which it cannot emerge.

So, on the one hand, I'm definitely glad it will all be over tomorrow. I'm tired of the snide comments, the baseless accusations, and the sandbox-worthy power struggle. But at the same time, I know that it will certainly not be over tomorrow. There will be initial jubilation and disbelief, followed by wary glances from each side at the other.

Because now they'll have to work together if they're going to get anything done. The losers will have to swallow their pride and decide to do the best they can with the little they've got. The winners will have to resist the urge to gloat and instead extend words of kind invitation.

Otherwise it will just continue to be a country where half of the people want out but have no place to go and this nation divided will become more entrenched in their respective positions of Us vs. Them.

With no ability to cast a vote, I am as helpless as I was the night Quebec residents voted for their future. But I can make soup, or at least a pot of tea, and stand vigil once again. And hopefully, in 13 years, I'll remember tomorrow night as more than just a hollow victory, but a victory that ushered in a time of real cooperation, change, and hope.

Read more...

Toto, I've a Feeling We're Not in Kansas Anymore

This will likely come as a surprise to many of you, but...

We moved.

To Minneapolis.

Just over a year ago.

Alright, I can see where this wouldn't be a surprise on a cognitive level. Many of you have noticed that we haven't been around all that much in the last 14 months. Some of you have even visited us here in the US of A and confirmed the veracity of this transplantation with your own eyes.

But somehow, even though I also knew this to be true, it kind of just hit me yesterday.

The catalyst was the annual church directory. I received a copy of the names and addresses of people who attend our Winnipeg church. I scanned through it, smiling at all the names I recognized, and also at those I didn't recognize thinking, how nice for them that they've found such a great place to call their church home.

But as I reached the end, I realized, hey, there's only one family on that list that doesn't have a Winnipeg-or-nearby-vicinity address.

Mine.

Now, as far as I'm concerned, FG is still my home church, even though we've been attending our local one for almost a year now. We get back every chance we can, and we're probably averaging one attendance every couple of months (which is possibly better than some other people on that list). Everybody's always glad to see us - or seems to be - and many have kept in touch beyond those always-too-short visits.

But now I'm starting to think that maybe I'm just deluding myself. Maybe home isn't where the heart is; maybe home is where you hang your hat. And maybe I need to start working a bit harder to make those two places the same.

Our tendency to move every year doesn't help in this regard. Given our track record, there was really no reason to rule out a move back to the 'Peg within a year of touchdown in Minneapolis. We go through addresses like other people go through Hallowe'en pumpkins - get a new one every year cuz last year's is soggy.

And this transitoriness (is that a word? If not, it should be, as it describes my life) means that any attempts to make a house a home are delayed until I'm sure they're worth it. Of course I work hard to get the kids settled - find new friends, locate the nearest parks, develop a new school routine -and get a semblance of routine for myself so I can cling to as much sameness as possible, but ultimately these patterns of life are simply a new veneer over the "old life."

But the longer I'm away from that old life, the less it works to have that as my foundation. With one foot on the dock and one foot in the boat, I feel constantly unstable. Never willing to say goodbye to the world of the past, I prevent any new experiences from taking root for fear of them supplanting the old.

This isn't homesickness, I don't think. Goodness know I've done that often enough over the past year. This is different. This feels more like an uprooting. Or the final closing of a door. Like Dorothy in Oz, I've left behind the sepia-toned familiar world for the technicolor strangeness of the new. Except I don't have any ruby slippers, and I can't just click them three times to return.

Even though my heart keeps repeating "There's no place like home."

Read more...

Out-Candied, Out-Treated, Out-Tricked

Happy (belated) Hallowe'en, everyone! Ours began at 5:30 am yesterday when The Girl called me from her room as I got ready for work.

"Only two more hours before I can get up to go to school and wear my costume!"

So the excitement level around here was pretty high. The Girl went as Lucy from The Chronicles of Narnia. We couldn't find a diamond bottle containing the elixir of life, so an American Girl Body Lotion bottle became a good stand-in. The Boy was Anakin Skywalker from Star Wars, although, with a "no violent costumes at school" rule in effect, his light sabre stayed home, which meant he went as "kid in brown."

Trick or treating was extremely profitable, as our new neighbourhood has a high candy/distance travelled ratio.

In fact, it only took about three long blocks or so before the bags were too heavy to be carried and both kids asked if we could head for home.

Here we are accompanying our brood along the Candy Trail. The Mennonite in me ("free candy, how can you pass it up!") fought a bit with the Wet-Blanket Mom in me ("why should we encourage them to get more of the teeth-rotting stuff?) as we walked wearily towards home, passing houses with lights on and more of the sweet treats beckoning.

The Boy's treat came when he got lost in a maze one creative person had set up on his front lawn. Having successfully made it to the centre to claim his prize, he freaked out and was too far in for a parent to swoop in. Fortunately, a damsel in distress (aka a teenage girl wearing a princess costume) came to his rescue and held his hand to help him get out. So we spent the rest of the walk home marvelling at how beautiful and nice she was (he looooves the ladies, my little Anakin).

And our trick of the evening was our daily cheating of certain death, as The Boy raced across a lawn to take a shortcut and met someone's "lawn sign minus the sign." Seriously, why on earth would you just leave a gigantic piece of wire sticking up like some menacing croquet hoop on your lawn close to the street on Hallowe'en night in an area with no street lights. Must've been a McCain sign.

But we made it home without incident, to the annual sorting of the candy to remove razor blades and needles. The whole "take out the peanut butter" stuff has also taken on a new urgency - it used to be just a dislike but now accidental ingestion could lead to all sorts of epi-pen and 911 fun.

In the spirit of the sorting and stacking so prevalent in today's early years education, the treats that made it through our rigorous culling are now categorized and sealed into ziplocs by category.

And so we're done for another year. Hopefully the candy's gone before then, as 365 days of sugar rush would be just a bit too much for me.

Read more...