The Amazing Upside-Down Backwards Book!

   A couple of days before Christmas, I was in the Indigo store in north London, looking for a book/gift for Doralyn.

   I had nothing particular in mind and was simply looking at book covers for anything which sounded interesting and possibly something she might like.

   I found myself staring down at the cover of a book called "The End of Men--And the Rise of Women", by Hanna Rosin. This sounded intriguing, so I picked the first copy off the shelf and opened it up.

   Everything on the inside was upside down!

   My first thought was well, this is what they mean by the end of men--men won't be able to read this. Out of curiosity, though, I picked up a few more copies and they were all conventional. I realized, then, that I had something different on my hands.

   At this point, I thought I would simply turn it upside down and read it that way.

   When I did this though, I discovered that not only was it upside down, it was backwards!

   What you needed to do was go to the "back" of the book and read it in the opposite direction. Essentially, what had happened was that the wrong side of the pages got bound together

   Okay, this disoriented and really screwed me up for a little while til I was able to wrap my head around the process, which basically didn't happen til much later.

   It also greatly excited me! I actually ended up buying two copies of the book (you're welcome, Hannah!) so I could take them home for comparison. I also couldn't help but show it off to the total strangers around me in Indigo. The salesclerk actually offered to sell it to me cheaper but I was too excited for that, and paid full price.

   I wrapped both books as a gift for Doralyn and we spent a lot of time showing it off to the Christmas company for the next few days. At this point, nether of us has had much of an opportunity to sit down and read anything, let alone an upside-down-backwards book, but the couple of pages I have managed to look at seem quite interesting.

   Just need to decide whether I'm going to read it frontwards or backwards!
        

Things I've Seen Other People Doing That I Would Really Like To Do

   
   I occasionally come across other people absorbed in whatever they happen to be doing at the time, whether it's maybe work-related or not, and I find myself thinking   "Hmm...that looks like something I might enjoy!" Generally, this is a pretty wide variety of things and probably not even the types of things that other people might find cool or interesting, but I'm gonna list them for you anyway....

1. Talking through a headset with a microphone
     I always think this looks sorta cool and fun! I'm talking about phone receptionists, air traffic controllers, gamers, big box store employees, police, and those kinds of people. I want to be free to use my hands and still talk to people at the same time. They also kind of look like they're in charge, you know what I mean?

2. Using that electronic inventory gun
     

I want to be the person walking around the store, shooting that little gun at things!

3. Using a hydration vest

      I think it's cool when I see runners and athletes wearing hydration vests---it means they're not just out for a run, they're out for a long run...

4. Wearing a hard hat
      Along with this, you could also include construction boots and a reflective safety vest. Hard hats are cool, I think, because they symbolize pretty well everything that I'm not.

5. Coaching goalies

     I've played a lot of goal over the years and have a pretty analytical mind. I've also had to handle a lot of my own playing "demons", so I have this strong feeling I could help other goalies.

6.

Do a "one man show" 
     Okay, I have no idea what kind of a"one man show" I'm talking about, but I want to walk around on a stage somewhere talking to and interacting with a group of people. I don't want a script or anything, I just want to get up there! And if I could wear a hard hat and a headset at the same time, that would be awesome!

7. Head to the mountains on a writing retreat

     What is it about the mountains?! There's a place in Banff which offers retreats for writers and artists and I kinda lust after that! Now, I've never actually seen anyone doing this, so maybe it shouldn't be part of the list...

8.

Being the "slow" and "stop" traffic signal person
     Okay, kind of a no-brainer here, you get to wear a hard hat, reflective vest and maybe even carry a walkie-talkie---all pretty cool things!

9. Ballet

     Or quite a lot of other types of dance, there's just something about the athleticism of it all which intrigues me. Some of my friends will say, "I knew it all along!"

10.

Someone ending a list at #10 
       I've seen many people end a list at #10 and I think this is awesome!

Man On Fire Revisited

   Things (mainly my face) are about to get ugly. Again.
   Last night, I began another three-week series of Efudex treatments on my face. I kind of chronicled my first run of treatment with Efudex a couple of years ago and referred to it as a "Man On Fire" because Efudex is a topical chemotherapy cream which essentially burns away skin cells. The skin cells we're aiming for are pre-cancerous ones (which is good) but the treatment also does a bit of a number on ALL the skin cells it touches (which is bad) so the end result is somewhat akin to a nasty sunburn.

It's you 'n' me, Eff You Dex, just you 'n' me.....

   My original treatment was not nearly as bad as I was led to believe it could have been and this time around we're only talking about two or three tiny little spots I need to treat so no big deal. More of a pain in the....face...I guess!
   The last time around, I chronicled the experience pretty extensively (with pics, even!) and if you're at all interested in close-ups of my ugly mug with even uglier red spots on it you can go back to September of 2013 on the Blog Archive (scroll down the right hand side if this page) and click on it. Religious scrolling will then take you to a whole series of blog posts on the subject. Or you could just go cut the grass, instead! And, if you're a friend of mine who actually occasionally sees me in person and is wondering what the tiny blotches are, well, now you know! Cheers!

I Am A Long Way From Home

   This afternoon, I received notification from a cousin that one of my aunts was ill and in hospital out on the west coast.
   If I wasn't thousands of kilometers away here in Ontario I could visit her in the hospital and if there was anything I could do for her I'd also be more than happy to help out.

On the Trans-Canada, leaving Calgary, headed to the mountains.
I want to be able to do this all the time.

   This, of course, is an impossibility.
   I was born in Calgary, Alberta back in 1953 and for the first eleven years of my life (apart from a couple of years in Youngstown, Ohio) I lived out west---in Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver.
   In spite of the fact that I then moved to London and, essentially, grew up here, the west was still very much imprinted on me. The prairies, the foothills, the mountains and the ocean all have this undeniable hold that I continue to feel to this very day.
   When I moved east, I left all my cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents behind. Occasionally I was able to make the trip back and see one or two of them and occasionally they were also able to make the trip this way. But get-togethers were few and far between.
   

Through the mountains and on to North Vancouver.

As happens in life, my grandparents and almost all of my aunts and uncles eventually passed away. For me, though, they passed away in absentia---they might as well have been in a different country. Most of those times I was likely too young even to make adult connections with the remaining family members. In truth, if you asked me, I would not even be able to give you the years most of them passed.
   I have always found this pointedly unfair.
   We moved east following my Dad and his work. He'd been sent to London to help set up an office for the insurance company he worked for and had been assured that it would only be a two-year stay. Forty-nine years later and I am still here.
   As much as I enjoy living in London, much of the time I find myself feeling very displaced. I feel strongly as though I am supposed to be out west. Many times people I know post pictures of their travels to the mountains and the ocean and it is difficult to describe the way this eats at me. 
   I've been fortunate enough to have been able to travel through the Rockies to the coast with Doralyn and we've both remarked at how we could understand people going there for a visit and then just staying there. There is something about the beauty of the place and, for me, I suspect there is something in my genes which connects me to it.

Gibsons, B.C., pretty well my favourite spot in Canada.

   As it happens, Doralyn and I are both at different points in our careers, by about fifteen years. Because of this, retiring out west is likely an unpractical thing to consider. More importantly, all the people we love are here in Ontario and moving away from them all would be more than difficult. At this point, even an extended holiday out there would be hard to manage.
   So I sit here in London with a little bit of an ache in my heart. It's an ache that I got used to a long time ago, though,  and is mitigated by the fact that I actually like where I live. It's good to be here, it's just that it feels so far away from home sometimes....

End of an Era

   Almost three weeks ago, in a trailer park near Port Franks, Ontario, there arrived an end of an era.
   After much soul-searching and deliberation, my mother-in-law, Marlies Buren, decided to sell the family trailer. It was a trailer in name only, however, and is only referred to as "the trailer" because, in its humble beginnings, that's what it was.

On the deck of the trailer...

   A little over twenty-five years ago, Marlies and her husband Cays procured a parcel of land at the top of a steep and winding gravel road in a section of the Oakridge Resort. They moved a small trailer there and began to use the spot as a summer retreat. The smaller trailer was then replaced by a fifth wheel, to which a  sun-room was added.

....and then on the deck of the fifth wheel!

   

Then, in its final incarnation!

Eventually, the trailer disappeared and with a combination of vision and keen craftsman's ability, Cays then transformed the sun-room into what it eventually became---a very modern, non-rustic home in the woods.
   As a relative newcomer to the trailer, it was very difficult for me to envision the place in its beginning stages. Old photographs have helped in this regard and I've tried to post a few of them here.
   Part of the appeal for me is that this is a family home-away-from-home. It's not as if Marlies and Cays scoured the

Definitely a place...

countryside looking for a cottage or a trailer and finally found a place that already had its own history. Rather, it was built by the patriarch of the family from the ground up, with much love and care. This makes for a better kind of place. The family pictures adorning the walls only confirmed this.
   In 2002, after a long battle with cancer, Cays passed away. There have always been bits and pieces of him, however,

...for family...

...and friends!

nestled away in the trailer's nooks and crannies---a picture, the cap he always wore, a walking stick. I never actually had the opportunity to meet the man but particularly whenever I was at the trailer he always felt close.
   One of my favourite trailer memories was when the aunts and uncles and other family members used the trailer as a gathering place to commemorate the fifth anniversary of Cays' passing. I spent most of that afternoon at the BBQ, flipping burgers and dogs. At the same time, I used it as a vantage point to watch all the different family members, many of whom I had only met once or twice, spend time together, swapping stories and sharing fond memories. I, unfortunately, had no stories to swap but was content enough to stand there and watch and feed them all!
   

Marlies and Cays

Over the years, the trailer has always seemed like the ideal place for the following generation of aunts and uncles to get together, with their kids. Every year, it seemed, cousins were able to come together under Oma's roof and enjoy their time with one another. As happens with time, however, getting families together becomes more and more difficult and as time progressed, maintaining the cottage became more than Oma was able or wanting to do.
   As a getaway kind of place, it was pretty well ideal. It always seemed quiet and pretty well secluded. There was nothing but forest behind the cottage and I can't recall how many times I just stood there on the deck, elbows on the railing, gazing out into the woodlands. The deck had a fire-pit built right into it and this always provided a wonderful end to the day. It was also the kind of place where you could rest easy with a book or sit yourself down to a card game. Pretty well perfect.

Out of the "oldies", my favourite pic....

   In later years, Marlies used the trailer as a meeting spot---grandkids, kids, brothers, sisters and friends all showed up from time to time, to enjoy both the solitude and the time together.
   

Kind of bittersweet.

So there has been a tinge of bitter-sweetness in the air these days. As much as we knew in our minds that this day was coming, likely sooner than later, the fact that it is now here has taken some of us, I think, perhaps a little by surprise and found us somewhat unprepared. As I write this Doralyn and the boys are there with Oma for one final visit. Other cousins have already had the last visits. Tomorrow, the trailer will switch hands for the first time and by the time you read this, it will belong to someone else.

Quin, Callum, Doralyn and Keenan, on their final visit to the trailer.

   Most endings, however, generally lead to some kind of new beginning. The sale of the trailer will open up some new possibilities for Oma. Of course, there'll be the money from the sale but also an increase in time available, away from all the travel and upkeep involved. She has already talked about the possibility of a newer and nicer apartment here in London.

The same kids--surrounding Oma this time!

   For the rest of us, visits to the trailer have ended. I imagine this will take some getting used to---regardless of how often we actually went there, it was always there in the back of our minds as a possibility. One can only hope that the new owners somehow or other come to value all the love and the history in the place.  
    

A Strange And Unexpected Occurrence!

   A week ago, I stopped eating meat! Part of me wants to say I became a vegetarian but that would feel like somehow or other I'd changed and I don't really feel like I have changed, fundamentally.
   Why did I do this, you ask? 
   Well, I'd been thinking about doing it for a long time. It really seemed as though every time I looked down at a steak or a burger or a chicken thigh or a pork chop all I could see in my mind's eye was the animal which had to be killed so that I could enjoy the act of eating it. 
   The use of the word "enjoy" is significant.
   I wasn't eating meat because it was necessary, I was eating it because I enjoyed the taste in my mouth. I was eating it because I actually enjoyed the process of cooking it and I was eating it because, as much as anything else, it was part of the cultural norm I was raised with.

Bean sprouts on egg salad on a slice of multi-grain gluten-free
bread, with a tomato slice and half an apple. My first
"vegetarian" lunch.

   In a world where the cultural norms seem to be changing on an almost weekly basis, however, I felt less and less bound by that reason for eating meat. A little research will show you a variety of ways of keeping an appropriate amount of protein in your life and, at the same time, appeal to your taste buds so the "enjoy" part of the equation had been handled. And, finally, there's a fair amount of self-satisfaction in the cooking of veggies and meat replacements, so that area is covered as well.
   In the end, what happens is that I no longer wrestle with the souls of dead animals as I eat. How long I might remain this non meat-eater is hard to say. I'm hoping it's not just a temporary fad kind of thing, I would like to think of it as a permanent lifestyle tweak, more than anything. We'll see, I guess!
    So how did the week go?
   Well, I became acquainted with tofu, for one thing. And bean sprouts. And bok choy. Just a few things I was aware existed but had never really sampled, apart from little bits of each which might have been sneaked into my Chinese food.
   Bean sprouts were easy, you just pile them on or throw them in the frying pan.
   Tofu not quite so easy. It comes in a brick which outwardly looks like cheese and is usually encased in water. It's quite tasteless which means you need to add taste to it in the prep or cooking process. 
   

Lettuce, bok choy, marinated tofu and pickled green beans. And if I
remember correctly, I think I sprinkled some hemp hearts on top.

So I had tofu plain, I had tofu dipped in batter, I had tofu marinated in sauce and I had tofu cooked like french toast. I also had tofu in the form of veggie burgers. And that was just in the first week!
   Part of the problem, though, is that I am the only one in the family currently not eating meat. This, of course, means that every meal now needs to be two meals. When you throw in the fact that Doralyn is gluten-free, then it gets real crazy. When you look at it, though, a balanced meal should already have vegetables in it, in which case all I need to do is maybe add a little protein. Not hard! I will let you know how next week goes!

So what's it like, suicide bomber?

   I find myself wondering quite often what it's like to wake up on the morning of the day which has been chosen for you to end your life, along with the lives of as many other people as you possibly can.
   Believing that heaven awaits you at the end of this task, I wonder if the air you breathe has already begun to smell a little sweeter and the food you taste just that much more delectable as you begin what you know are the final steps to this glorious outcome. I wonder if excitement broils in you.
   If there was a time when you doubted you could perform this task, how long ago was that and who or what intervened in such a way that you had now become fully resolute in your lives-ending mission?
   Does it feel as though you've become something more than a man? Do your insides pulse with what you can only imagine to be the sown seeds of divinity? 
   What is your ability to actually fail at your task? What if it just doesn't feel like a good day to die, or maybe even the right day? Are there do-overs, do you get to go back to your friends or associates and say something like sorry, guys, just having kind of an off day here but I'm gonna give her another go tomorrow? Or could it be that they will kill you, regardless, so why not aim for that heaven thing while you're at it?
   Are you allowed to say goodbye to anyone, apart from the group who has helped you along this path?
   What if you are in the exact spot you're meant to be in order to set the bomb off and all of the sudden your sister appears beside you? Or your uncle? Or an old school chum and what kind of small talk do you engage in with that old school chum anyway? Would there be any attempt to ward off these people, should they appear?
   The more I consider suicide bombers, the more questions I have.
   Occasionally you hear about the target being missed, the bomb seems to detonate accidentally and the only person who dies is the bomber himself. You almost want to cheer when this happens, one of those in your face, sucker kinds of moments. Is it possible, though, that some of these failed attempts might only be the end result of last-second changes of heart? Could it be that reason took over? Or maybe even a little bit of humanity? And, if so, how awful to know you simply cannot return where you came from without detonating a bomb, even if you are the only one who will die from it.
   Whatever the motivation, whatever the reasoning behind it all, there will continue to be instances of individuals insinuating themselves among crowds of people and letting death and destruction ensue. There will not be a plethora of pictures with this blog post. A quick search on the internet provided no suicide bomber pictures which were suitable to publish here---nothing but mayhem and body parts.
   Out of all of this, then, who ends up in heaven and who doesn't? My own personal belief is that anybody who dies ends up somewhere heaven-like. This would apply as much to the bomber as to the ones killed by him. Nobody knows, of course but what we do know is that there is this little bit of pointless hell left behind for the rest of us to deal with.
  
   
   

"In the jungle, the mighty jungle..."

   "The lion sleeps tonight".

   An American big game hunter goes to Africa and kills a famous lion. People find out about this and many end up wishing and calling for retribution on this big game hunter. 
   The retribution they demand is varied; some call for legal prosecution, some call for a brand of social shaming which will end his livelihood, some call for his torture and murder.
   In the midst of this, and a little bit after the initial revulsion has died down, some people begin to look at how the death of this lion fits into their view of the world around them.
   Most of us are aware, at least, that big game hunting goes on in many parts of the world, North America included. We may not be totally aware of the ins and outs of it---the regulations around it or the manner in which it is sometimes carried out. Lately, though, we have been getting a bit of an unsettling education.

A lion. Just not THE lion. Because it doesn't really matter.

   Our horror, in this case, revolves around what is perceived as the breaking of rules and the fact that this lion was only initially wounded and then suffered for almost two days before its demise. It was then beheaded and its carcass discarded. To top it all off, it was a famous and well-loved lion.
   What makes it seem even less savoury (if that is possible) is what I believe to be peoples' perception that this affair was perpetrated by a wealthy privileged white man in a third world country where he both felt impunity to its laws and total disregard for basic morality.
   The man and his family, of necessity, are now in hiding. After the details of this lion's death came out, an internet mob immediately formed and began directing its wrath at the man. Some of the ensuing invective was hard to read. In most cases, it was people simply venting their outrage. Given at least the vocal support of so many thousands of people, though, it is not hard to imagine a few among them who might feel vindicated by this support and then go about trying to seriously harm this man or his family. Hence their disappearance.
   In the last few days, there has been article after article and link after link regarding this lion's death. Some have been of the angry variety and others have taken a step back and attempted to look at the issue from different angles.
   One of these angles is that of conservation. It gets pointed out that big game hunting and the rules and regulations around it are there to promote the continued existence of big game. Were it not for hunting, the numbers of certain big game would exponentially explode, thereby destroying what is considered to be a fairly delicate balance in the ecosystem.
   Another angle I heard mentioned was that this episode seems to have stirred up much more anger here in North America than it did in Africa itself. Some African government officials, when contacted by the press for their reaction to the uproar around the death of this lion, were not even aware of it. In other places, it was pointed out that so many Africans are killed each year by wild animals such as lions, hippopotami, and crocodiles that the idea that one of them might have been killed by one of us was simply not that distressing.
   Other people pointed out that big game hunting helped the economy of wherever it took place. Hunting is obviously big business and brings in much needed money. It also was pointed out that the carcass and bones of the dead animal gets used by the local villagers as food and fertilizer.
   

If you really NEED to kill something,
why not do this instead?

The observation was also made that, given the advanced age of this particular lion, the natural death which awaited him was likely more horrific (to us) than the one he actually endured. As mature male lions weaken, the younger ones begin vying for the position of head of the herd. In the end, this involves continued physical attacks on the older lion which, eventually, kill it. Apparently, lions don't just trot off into the sunset at the end of their lives.
   Finally, it was noted in several places that we, as a nation of principally meat-eaters, were all too quick to condemn the death of one lion while at the same time enjoying the endless succession of steaks, burgers, and pork chops we fill ourselves with. At the same time we do this, we ignore the oft unspeakable things which happen to animals before they become our meals.
   Obviously there are many ways to look at the issue and many stands which can be taken.
   At the heart of it all, I wonder about the people who want to kill large animals.
   After all the reasoning and rationalizing are done, you are then left with someone who is more than willing to spend anywhere from hundreds to thousands of dollars so that they can bring down large and, essentially, defenseless animals. They do this in Africa, they do this out in the woods behind their own houses here in Canada and the States. They will use many of the above arguments in an attempt to rationalize hunting as a past-time but when it comes right down to it, they are people who like to kill animals and are willing to to sacrifice huge amounts of money and time so that they can kill animals.
   One of the observations I ran into the past week was rather poignant and telling. The point was made that when children, who are essentially immature, kill animals they are regarded as being potentially mentally disturbed. When adults, who are generally considered to be knowing and responsible, kill animals, however, they are considered skilled and daring! Why is this?
   At some point in our evolutionary history, it was necessary to hunt animals in order to survive. That some people still hunt, I imagine, is testament to the tiny parts of this instinct left over from those primitive days. It is no longer necessary to hunt for our meat, though, and it is unsettling that people still feel the need to kill. This may be the hypocritical me speaking, as I do enjoy meat as a food base. Long before a lion was killed in Africa, though, I was already having a difficult time coming to grips with what I was eating needing to be killed first. Is there a vegetarian me sometime in the future. Could be! If there is, I will often think of dead lions in Africa as I'm sitting down to every meal!    

   
     
   
   

Unthinkable

   Back on June 15, my ball hockey team lost in a hard fought battle. In the last few seconds of that game, one of our best players, Asa Johnson, became involved in an altercation with one of the opposing players, an altercation which got Asa and the other player tossed out of the tiny bit of the game remaining.
   We were clearing our stuff out of the players' bench and I noticed a wallet still lying there, unclaimed. I picked it up, saw Asa's name on the inside, and took it with me. I ran into Asa, who'd returned to retrieve it, by the boards. I gave him a look what I've got kind of smile as I waved it at him and he smiled and took it from me. At that point he headed off.

   That was the last time I ever saw him.
   This past week, a rather ominous post on our team Facebook feed announced that Asa was missing. Then, later that day, it became known that he had actually passed away. As a team, we were naturally in shock. Most of the players are young and in their twenties and all very vital and athletic. The last thing you suspect is that one of you might die.

Asa

   Although I never saw Asa again, he continued to appear on the team feed in the month before he passed, making comments and joking around. As a result of the altercation at the end of that game, he'd received a suspension and there was much talk on the feed about how long that suspension might be, when would his first game back be and could we possibly talk the league commissioner into letting him come back earlier, that sort of thing. Then the terrible news. To exacerbate the pain, it has come to light that his death was self-inflicted.
   I barely knew the young man. Ours was a brand new team pulled together at the beginning of this season and not a lot of the players were familiar with each other, only small pockets of friends here and there. What made it more difficult for me was that most of the guys on the team were of a different generation, young enough to be my sons. The boys were full of youthful and endless bravado, if nothing else. To a man my age, they all seemed indestructible.
   To me, the unthinkable had happened once again. It was just a few short years ago that one of the players on a team of mine passed away. That time, however, he was an older man in his late forties who had a heart attack in his car on the way home after a game we'd both played in. I had commented to him after that game that he looked pretty winded and out-of-sorts and he himself acknowledged that he didn't feel quite right. I still regret not forcing him to hang around the arena just a little longer until he either felt better or we got him some medical assistance. I wrote a blog post about that gentleman as well and, in an ironic twist, the same day I found out about Asa passing someone out there in cyberspace viewed the post I'd written on the other man.
   For the few brief moments I'd held Asa's wallet in my hand at the end of the last game he played (in which he was named the third star by the way) I noticed the difference between his wallet and my own. His was very thin and unencumbered by wads of cash, credit cards, receipts and appointment cards. His grown-up life had just begun and there had not yet been the opportunity to accrue all the little reminders of debt, meetings, purchases, interest and responsibility---all things of which my own wallet reminds me of daily. I think I almost subconsciously envied him as it passed back into his own hands.
   As I'm writing this, I have my headphones on and, in another moment of irony, the theme from the movie "Glory" has come on. It is a haunting piece of music which plays over a scene at the end of the movie wherein fallen warriors of the Union army are thrown into a mass grave after a pivotal Civil War battle. It is a haunting moment which reflects the loss of life of young men gone too soon. As I reflect on this, I remember it was written by a composer named James Horner, who also passed tragically this year, only a week after Asa's last game. None of this is lost on me.
   It will be difficult to sit in another dressing room someday, looking around, deeply, at all the young faces, and not think about Asa. I will wonder what their lives are all about when they're not on the ball hockey floor. I will also continue to wonder what kind of intervention, if any, might have prevented his death. It might have been something complex and almost unfathomable or, at the right time, it could have been something as simple as a word or two. As we pass though our daily lives, we would do well to remember that we all have that word or two in us and not be afraid to offer them up, perhaps even in the most unexpected places.  
   
    

Welts 2

   Back in December, I wrote a post called "Welts". In it, I bemoaned the fact that it had been ages since I'd been able to glory in a good bruise, black eye or laceration. Apparently I saw them as some kind of ball hockey sporting badge of honour. At the end of the post, I declared that I would play ball hockey again and that I would once again be able to share my welts with the world.
   Of course, I never really knew for sure that this might happen but it did happen! I managed to get back on a team in the spring and we just finished our summer season. Did I suffer body damage? Yes I did! Look see!

   This is just below my shoulder on my right arm. I barely remember how I got this which tells you a little about adrenaline.

   This is one I got on the same night, blocking a shot with my belly. I kind of had to because I had just coughed up the ball to the guy who took the shot. Thank you, Charles!
    Now, I promise this will be my last post about welts, strains, bruises and black eyes because, really, who wants to see stuff like this...? The only possible exception you might see someday is if bone is sticking out through skin. THAT would be hard to resist!!
   

This Is For Eric Buckley, So That He Might Actually Read It

   Yesterday morning, at work, and as we do just about every single Friday morning, Eric Buckley and I changed shifts.
   Eric and I tend to spend five to ten minutes just chatting about life in general after we're done exchanging more work-specific details.
   

This morning Eric was telling me how he quite often will houseclean his list of Facebook friends, depending on the nature of the things they post. I laughed and asked him whether I should check my list of friends to see if he and I were actually still friends on Facebook. He smiled at this and told me not to worry too much and that he had even noticed my most recent "Neanderings" post on Facebook.
   "It was something about Idiot Men, wasn't it?" he said. He then added, "I didn't actually read it, what was that all about?"
   I was quite happy to go on from there and give him a brief synopsis of what that post was all about. It did, however, once again raise the issue of why I blog and who I blog for.
   I can't tell you how many times people I know who are also Facebook or Twitter friends will ask me about specific things that have happened in my life the same day that I  just blogged about that specific thing and then posted it on social media. In my mind I'm thinking well, if you'd read that post then you'd already know about that race I ran, darn it all!
   In retrospect, though, I am as guilty as the next person when it comes to actually digesting the vast amounts of different types of information appearing on social media. I'm good for looking at a picture and following the caption but sometimes that's about it. If there's actually an article which needs reading then it pretty damn well be about something I'm keenly interested in. And it better be pretty short.
   I think, then, that this may have been a trap I've fallen into from time to time. Whereas a lot of other blogs are quite often topic-specific and therefore might have their own audience, my blog is all over the place as to subject matter and is written more like a freelance newspaper column than a blog, really. I imagine that if I posted three or four times a week with lots of pics and kept things brief, people might actually read my blog posts.
   All of which begs the question why do I actually blog? 
   Well, I certainly don't do it for the money. Many bloggers out there use the process as a means of financial gain, large or small. This generally entails posting ads and occasionally doing sponsored posts. I've never really been interested in doing that and the more of it I see in another person's blog, the less likely I am to read that blog.
   The principal reason I write a blog is that I have ideas in my head and I enjoy getting them out. I enjoy that there is any kind of an audience and appreciate the occasional positive response. Blogging is quite often cathartic, as well. This was especially true when my Dad was ill and eventually passed. Not suspecting the outcome from the beginning, I started writing simply to update friends and family on how he was doing. As things changed, I really couldn't stop blogging about it. It truly helped me come to grips with what I saw happening before my very eyes.
   

So, if all else fails, I'm betting that Eric Buckley will read this blog post. And if he never reads another one, well, that's okay too because I really like Eric and that has nothing to do with whether he actually reads my blog posts or not! Next, I may need to work on Kathy, Deb, Bill, Bob, Chris, Sarah, Ginny, Nathan, Tara............
   And in the meantime, Eric, thanks for giving me something to write about!

Idiot Men

   About a month ago, my ball hockey team won against a team higher in the standings than us. The game had been close and this generally leads to tight, physical battles during play. After the game, both teams ended up beside each other in the dressing room hallway, waiting for the rooms to be unlocked.

   I was a little late getting there but apparently something had been said by someone on one team to someone on the other team and this had led to a verbal altercation. It was one of those chest-pounding, my-brother-is-tougher-than-your-brother kinds of things, with the two teams sidling dangerously close to each other. Sort of like playground stuff. I stepped in between two of the main verbal combatants (fairly safe when you've got goalie equipment on), faced my guy and basically gave him the "let's knock it off" speech. The refs were also busy keeping the peace and so both teams retreated to their now-unlocked dressing rooms and the whole incident was over.
   Men, acting like idiots. Again.
   Not long after I got home (and possibly the next day) I came across an article in social media. It's a piece written by Margaret Wente for the Globe and Mail and it's called "When men behave badly." You can read it for yourself here. 
   In it, she refers to a British Medical Journal study in which they investigated male behaviour in regards to risk-taking, particularly low-reward risk-taking. The gist of the study was that men have a much higher propensity for doing stupid stuff than women, stuff which might not even offer viable rewards. Essentially, men are idiots. The study even coined the term "male idiot theory" (MIT).
   Okay, I didn't tell you anything you didn't already know, did I?
   For the purposes of this blog post, I am going to lump in the types of men Wente described (those who relish in silly stunts and risk-taking) along with men who see their maleness as a licence for power. I consider them all to be "idiot men". You may have an idiot man in your life and, if you're lucky, he's one of those idiot men who has a few other redeeming features and that is why you possibly still love and/or allow him to exist in your world.
   If you are un-lucky, however, the idiot man in your life is (at best) an albatross around your neck or (at worst) a threat to your life and the lives of the ones around you.
   My circle of friends has supplied me with examples, seemingly endlessly, of idiot men.
   These men treated their spouses or girlfriends with extreme disregard. The women were belittled, ridiculed, controlled, ignored and quite often kept away from their support groups. They were asked to conform to the man's idea of what he thought was good for them. In the odd case, women came face-to-face with physical violence.
   Most of this was reported second-handedly but some of it happened right in front of me. Each time it happened, my jaw dropped, at least figuratively. It was incomprehensible to me that one human being could be so disrespectful to another, let alone a man to a woman he professed to care for.
   Every time something like this happened, my list of idiot men grew. A brief sojourn through the daily news and the list becomes seemingly endless.
   It is the quest for power (or perhaps the irrational fear of losing it) which fuels idiot men, I believe. When we won that game over that better team, we stripped them of some of their power. Their power became our power, suddenly, and out of this arose the post-game conflict. 
   Losing your power to a woman is even more problematic for idiot men. In all the gradations of power conflict, the fact that most women are at least physically weaker than men (ignoring for the moment my own personal belief that most men would die during childbirth) makes losing power to them that much more inconceivable. An idiot man can rationalize his team losing or his male boss having control over him or a big loss on poker night but he will have issues when and if a woman strolls into his life in a position of viability.
   

So, from male idiocy on a global basis (think Boko Haram) to male idiocy on a national basis (think Jian Ghomeshi) to male idiocy on a neighbourhood basis (think that guy you know who referred to his wife as a stupid bitch), the world is rife with men acting like idiots. The irony, though, is that often when you give up that irrational need to be in a position of power you actually become more powerful! If one hockey team stands outside a dressing room voicing insults at the other team and that other team just goes yeah, whatever and marches into its own room then where does the true power lie there? 
   It is a freeing thing when you give up the trappings of male idiocy. When there is  no need to live up to some testosterone-driven hype or standard about the need for dominance, you become free to simply live your life. Threats will disappear or become diminished. People will work with you, rather than against you. And, chances are, you'll live longer!