When I first saw the prompt ‘dilemma’ I laughed that they spelled it wrong. Then I paused….. they wouldn’t post a one word typo, maybe it’s an American spelling. With a sinking feeling I went to the dictionary.
I’ve been spelling and saying dilemma wrong all my 63 and a half years. Me, who looks up every word I’m not sure of. Me, who always uses spell check in case I’m reading over it. Me, who prides myself on good spelling has been writing and saying ‘dilemma’ dilemma ; ……… damn! this thing even changes it automatically!
Dilemna; that’s what I thought it was. Isn’t it funny how you can use the wrong word for years and years not realizing it.
I don’t recall ever posting a blog about a dilemma I’ve had; that would invite advice from sources who only have a little piece of the whole puzzle. Very rarely can anyone affect my decision as I value my own judgement the most. I have a few minor dilemmas running around in my head but I’m not going to write them out for public opinion.
(Public, when I was a kid I wondered why they called it public hair when it was the only hair that wasn’t public)
You know, after all these years, I think I like ‘dilemna’ better. Dilemma just looks wrong now.
You know what I’m looking forward to in old age? Getting bussed around. Yeah, c’mon, everyone, we’re going to WalMart!
There will be a schedule of things to do; shopping, going to conservation areas, shows, well, I’m not into theatre but who knows….. everyone will be my age and like stuff that I like.
Have you ever seen the schedules for seniors’ community centres? I can’t wait! Yoga, Tai Chi, walks, crafts, games, music……. all kinds of things to do.
And pot will be legal next year! Can you imagine how many boomers that secretly smoke pot will come out happily high? Lots, I hope. We’ll be able to get high and get bussed around. Not have to work because our measly pay will come in automatically. I don’t care if it’s not much: I don’t make much now and I have to work hard for it.
The beach community I live in is far away from big box stores which is fine but every couple of months I need to get into Town which is a 50 minute drive. I’ll have a list of things I can’t buy around here; it’s not worth driving to Town for one thing. It takes up most of the day because I’m beat by the time I get home. And I hate it. Unless I’m in desperate need of something, I put it off. If I can stay home on my days off; I do.
So it will be wonderful to have a bus take me where I want to go, wait for me and bring me home. And I can be a little high, too, because I’ll be old and can do whatever the hell I want!
See…. there ARE things to look forward to in old age!
No. I cannot jump today. I’m still able and do jump at Zumba. Not as high as young people and it probably looks like a foot-to-foot shuffle to them but I jump as much as my knees will let me.
What a funny word jump is. Its one of those words that sounds like it is. You jetté up then land with a thump. I looked up the word for that and tried to read an article about it. Here’s an excerpt;
“Another example is “ump” words, which all seem to refer to round or round protruding things: rump, mumps, lump, hump. It is often noted that these words “sound round,” but that is, of course, very subjective. The theory of sound symbolism in general suffers from depending on subjectivity, and there is a great deal of back and forth between sounds symbolists and their opponents about particular examples and counterexamples (like glen, gland, or gluttony to the above), but it does have its proponents. Also, doubting sound symbolism does not automatically mean dismissing the suggestion that sound has some relation to meaning; it just means questioning such a direct link.”
I cannot read today. My brain just said ‘no’ to that weighty tome of an explanation. Jump sounds like what it is.
Last night I could not attend Zumba as I worked the dreaded ‘closing’ shift requiring vigorous cleaning. It’s as much of a workout as Zumba but definitely not as much fun. But I get paid and that’s why we all slog away at our jobs.
I’m off today and enjoying the peace, celebrating the Autumn Equinox. I should be jumping around a fire tonight. I’ll put on the Fireplace Channel and imagine I’m doing this:
Even if I’m working the day shift on Zumba day I don’t always go. After being on my feet all day I don’t want to jump on them. If I’m off early enough and can put my feet up….. I think I did it once.
Hiking is one of my favourite activities. These days that just means walking on trails but I did some major hiking when I was young.
When I met my husband he was hitch-hiking through Southern Ontario on his way to Michigan from Maine. He had been hiking on the Appalachian Trail and was hitch-hiking home to Wisconsin but stopping in to see his sister in Michigan. Going through Southern Ontario, Niagara Falls to Windsor, is a much shorter route than going around.
Yes, I met my husband picking him up hitch-hiking. In my defense, I was young and he was wearing shorts, a head band and hiking boots carrying a huge back pack. I hit the brakes of my Volkswagon Camper hard and he came a-runnin’. The rest is history.
Hiking on the Applachian Trail had been a life altering change for him. He wanted to out west to hike in the Rockies. I had a camper and now I was in love. We were doomed to each other.
I was outfitted with boots, a backpack and accecories and off we went. It was a rough start. The back pack was cheap and didn’t have a waistband. The weight of the back pack on my shoulders made my arms go to sleep. I had never been an outdoor person before so I was not nearly in good a shape as he was. I would lag behind: he’d call from 50 feet ahead, “Are you OK?” I’d smile and wave, “Yeah!” then when he turned I’d cry.
But I loved being out in the wilderness, being so far from anyone. To run into another hiker was an event. We spent six weeks hiking Banff, Yoho, and other parks, staying in campgrounds in my camper. We would lock up the van and go onto a trail for days at a time then return to our little home at the campground. The rangers would know where we were and keep an eye on our van. On rainy days we would play Scrabble and card games.
That was a life altering time for me. Later I bought a good back pack with a thick padded waist band…… what a difference! I was now an avid hiker.
We married 8 months after meeting but mostly because we had such a problem crossing border as he was American and I was Canadian. Because we were together, which ever country we entered thought the other was coming in to work illegally. Getting married solved that problem and he wanted to live in Canada.
For our honeymoon we hiked on the Bruce Trail from Tobermory to Dyer’s Bay. Ahh….. those were the days. We returned to the Bruce Trail many, many times. In the fall we would pick out day-hikes from our trail guide. I would say hiking were our happiest times: it’s the thing I miss the most.
I even want him to come here and check out the new trail right out my door. The woods behind my house was a maze of dirt bike trails when I moved in. I had gotten turned around and lost twice so I stopped going in by myself. A couple of years ago the local trail group started marking out trails and making walk-ways over wet areas. Dirt bikes are no longer allowed. It is beautiful and well marked so I feel good on my own. There is a proposed trail that will take it right through to the beach, I hope they work on it this year.
Now that the hot weather and mosquitoes have subsided I can go walk on it again. Last week I went out and broke hundreds of spider webs as no one had been in for days. I get a special kind of high when I’m in the woods………I think I’m going to break into song……
Slog? I wasn’t sure about the meaning of this so I looked up the definition:
“Too keep doing something even though it is difficult or boring.”
“To work at something in a steady and determined way”.
I’m a whiz at slogging! I can slog like there’s no tomorrow. Doing boring chores is a good chance to be ‘in the moment’, practicing ‘mindfulness’ and doing a mantra if you have one. It can really calm the mind.
The other day I picked wild grapes for jelly. It’s easy to pick them, the slogging part is preparing them for freezing. A long and boring job….. a great job! I sat outside on my porch and picked each tiny grape off its stem. A beautiful breeze was blowing, rustling the birches and I felt great!
I freeze them so I can make the jelly later on in the fall someday when it’s chilly outside. I use my own apples, too, which aren’t ready yet. To pick grapes and make jelly the same day would take some serious slogging: I like to break the job up. In a couple of weeks the apples will be ready, I cut off the wormy parts and freeze the good parts. Wild grape and apple jelly is definitely slogworthy!
Love these blue pearls!
Firewood; there’s another good job for slogging. When I get it delivered and dumped on my driveway, it looks like a huge job. The driveway is on the opposite side of the house as my woodshed. The woodshed is in a sunny location very near my back door where the wood comes into the house.
A few people have tried to convince me to let the pile sit in my driveway and take it in through the livingroom as I need it. Stupid! Lazy! These kind of people can’t handle slogging.
Wood warms you three times. When you stack it, when you bring it in and when you burn it! Love, love, love chipping away at firewood. I take three wheelbarrow loads and dump them it in the shed, then stack that pile. I can do that three or four times before my back hurts as I’m bent over stacking it.
I would rather do that than have a job.
The life I like to live is almost monastic, but without the discipline and austerity. That would be a little too much slogging for me.
There’s a zing in the air, there’s a zing in my heart, Fall is in the air and I love it so much! (I’m singing this, Broadway style)
Yes, the heat has finally released its grip. That was a very long, very hot summer.
This morning I had to get the garbage out first thing, now that the tourists are gone they do their route much faster. I dug out my sweat pants and a sweat shirt and took the recycling bin up the driveway. The air zinged, still damp with morning dew but it was cool and sharp, not heavy and oppressive.
There is hardly any traffic on the road: its quiet and relaxed. Yesterday I worked and it was slow; we haven’t had a slow day in three months. I could work on cakes and not talk for minutes at a time. It was cool enough to take my break in my car, parked in the back of the lot near some trees. With the sun-guard in the windshield and the windows open, I could sit and relax in peace. I almost fell asleep.
Today I’m off and looking forward to being outside as much as possible and bringing the outside in! So much of this summer was spent indoors with the curtains drawn. Today I can open the windows, let the sun shine in, lay out on the deck, walk on the trail (better carry a stick to break all the spider webs) ……aaahhh! I love Fall: Zing goes the strings of my heart!
Tonight Zumba starts back so I’ll have a zing to my step!
There is a new view out of my living room window and I’m not happy about it. It grabs my eye and reminds me not to take anything for granted while Mercury is in retrograde. Two people can think they are thinking they same things when they are not. I should have checked: I should have tied a ribbon to the tree I wanted cut down.
My house is behind a house on the road; my driveway is a right-of-way through my neighbours’ driveway. I had let the cedar hedge between us get very tall because I like NEED privacy. When I moved in I planted lilacs, mock orange, weigelas and couple of crab-apple trees in the corner to block off the view of the rotting Winnebago that is left to rust away on the other side of our driveway. It is owned by his father-in-law in the house next to him who has incurable lung cancer. The Thing is full of motorcycle parts he thinks is worth a fortune. And so it sits.
The shrubs and cedars between our houses have become really dense and I talked to my neighbour about cutting down the largest cedar where some white lilac and crab-apples will fill in behind it. We went back and forth on our properties and I showed him where I meant; the tallest cedar.
I heard the chainsaw going and I should have gone out right then and there! (kicking myself again!) But I thought he was cutting that tree; the tallest cedar. How do you get that mixed up with NOT the tallest cedar?
It was about 5:30 when the sun is getting low but shines bright yellow/orange. I looked out my window and gasped! The Winnebago! It was shining brightly, reflecting the sun! I could see the driveway, the road and the entrance to their house which faces the driveway.
I went out and told him “its the wrong tree” but not angrily. He felt terrible and I didn’t want to make him feel worse. The shrubs behind it had sparse branches from the cedar blocking the sun so they will fill in. I’m hoping the cedar will coppice and fill in again, too.
This is The View I look out at most often. Now every time I look out I see that damn Winnebago and say, “oh, yeah….” Why didn’t I remember Mercury in retrograde and ‘RE-‘ …… re-check, re-view.
The other shrubs will fill in….. next spring. The upside is that I can now see when the mail comes and when the garbage has been picked up. I’ll be able to watch for someone picking me up from inside the house. The variegated weigela will get more room; it was getting crowed out. That’s me, taking the positive view. After all, what’s done is done.
Many people have asked how I can stand having that eyesore at the entrance of my driveway. I’ve always felt it hides me from potential thieves. The sad part is that I always laughed and said, “I hope to outlive him!” Be careful what you wish for.
It’s all in how you view things…… but make sure you RE-view things when Mercury is in retrograde.
We need a return to Elegance. Young women are not learning how to be elegant; the way they dress and the way they sound; ending their sentences like broken down motors. Too many go out in public wearing what should just be underwear or should have underwear underneath. No one cares about good posture. They need better role models.
They sound just like this in Canada, too.
The movie “Carol” with Kate Blanchette brought back the elegance from the 1950’s that we saw in movies with stars like Grace Kelly and Audrey Hepburn. Their beauty and elegance were captivating, they flowed in their rustling dresses, their voices were pleasing to your ears. “Carol” brought back those times of dressing and speaking elegantly. (Unfortunately, that was the only thing about this movie I liked.)
I know this makes me sound old but I AM old: I’m from an elegant era.
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