cutting back, for awhile

You know that I am not given to hyperbole or exaggeration, so you'll believe me when I say that today and yesterday, OMG, were the most beautiful days ever in the history of the world. Hot, hot with a cool breeze and that smoky fall smell in the air - leaves gold and red and falling, gardens closing down, and yet that irrepressible sun - heaven. And tomorrow is supposed to be even better.

As I write, the crabby cat is, as ever, asleep beside me. I just said to her, "What, exactly, is the point of you?" But she just slept on, snoring softly, her paw draped over her stripey nose.

Read a chilling article in the "New Yorker" on Mohammed somebody or other, the actual mastermind behind 9/11 - Bin Laden was a johnny-come-lately who only provided money and support while this guy did all the planning, recruiting and organizing. What's so horrifying is that this Mohammed doesn't seem to be an ideological or religious fanatic; he just wants to destroy indiscriminately, and had plans to kill the Pope and plant explosions all over the globe. Perhaps the most terrifying enemy of all - someone utterly irrational, who wants to kill just for the hell of it.

Speaking of which - Happy 70th birthday, John Lennon. My mother just called to tell me to turn on Randy Bachman's show on CBC, a marvellous 70th birthday tribute to John Lennon; when the show ended to the haunting strains of "Imagine," Mum called back, and we cried to each other. The program highlighted the tender, vulnerable side of John, in songs like "If I fell" and "Woman," as well as his songs about love and peace. What a terrible loss for our planet when that lunatic chose to kill, just for the hell of it. We miss you so, John.

Speaking of loss - I recently had my own little tiny brush with death. I was zipping along on my bike feeling so grand, heading north on Avenue Road from Bloor. A bus was idling next to the curb, so instead of pulling in behind it and waiting for it to move, as I usually do, I decided to go around and pass it. As I was level with the bus, it began to pull away from the curb - I must have been in the driver's blind spot and he couldn't see me, so as he swung out, he forced me further into the centre of the road. I managed to slow down till he drew away and then flee back to the curb. The thing is - as I was wobbling about in the middle of the road, there was a red light at Bloor. If the light had turned green, streams of cars would have hurtled toward me, and I'd have been sunk.

Thank you, whoever you are, for not squashing me like a beetle in the middle of Avenue Road. If only John had been so lucky.

And finally, speaking of luck and gratitude ... Google Analytics tells me that over 300 people follow this blog every month, logging on about once a week - over 1200 hits a month. It's an odd feeling, knowing that more than 300 people, most of whom I've never met, know a great deal about what I'm thinking and doing. I love writing here, to you, but I've been wondering if the considerable time and energy that goes into this blog is taking time and energy away from my other writing work.

Hard as this is, I'm going to cut back for awhile. I've announced this before, and couldn't bear not to write, as it gives me such pleasure - I always have a notebook with me, in case something happens I'd like to jot down and share. But for the next while - the next SHORT while - I'm going to post less often, so that my thoughts and concerns go into a longer work that might actually become a book, get published and make some money. Instead of this blog which I adore but which brings in exactly $0.00. Yes, I'm mercenary at heart, as you've always suspected. It's all about the money.

And if you believe that, I've got a blog book to sell you.

(Not quite sure if that makes sense. I think it does not.)

Talk to you soon. On Wednesday. I'll have lots to tell by then.

This scares me, you know. What if all 300 + of you go away and never come back?

nature watch

Today's walk - it's 25 degrees (celsius!), and this is the scene a fifteen minute walk from Bloor and Yonge, at Riverdale Farm.

And this is the scene in my backyard - another fat Charlotte making herself at home.

THE BOOK and how to order it

Here it is - the perfect Christmas/Hannukah present, 212 pages of liquid prose. The intimate story of one woman's brave journey through life, and more particularly, through France.

$20 plus postage. Order at beth@bethkaplan.ca, and I will sign it, dedicate it to you, and mail.

"Warm, funny and moving - the best book I've ever read."

Sylvia Kaplan

(my mother)

letter to the sparkly new "Globe"

The other day, I was reading the "Globe," as I am wont to do. I still read it regularly, though I cancelled my subscription after seeing one too many smarmy pictures of Stephen Harper trying out his difficult new project - smiling. And I admire the colourful redesigned format - it's brave to put money into print these days, and I hope their gamble pays off.

But a few lines in Margaret Wente's column so infuriated me that I sat down and, in five minutes, wrote her a letter. As I was about to send it off, I decided to copy it to the Letters to the Editor.

Lo, this morning on rising, there were already two notes in my in-box - both from friends who also like to write to editors - about my letter in today's paper. I was amazed and of course, had to go to the corner store to buy a copy. The piece had gone so quickly from brain to "Sent" that I was afraid I'd be humiliated by its contents. But it's okay. Funnily enough, I had just decided to resubscribe, and now that they've shown such great good taste in their letter selection, I shall do so with the greatest pleasure, even if their columnists - and photographs - sometimes drive me nuts.

Here's it is, edited to the bone (they cut it, expertly, in half) and titled "Low bar":

Excoriating Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty for "fooling around with all-day kindergarten"? (Two and a Half Cheers for Rob Ford, Oct. 5.) Do you think that for the millions of families in this province with young children, all-day kindergarten is some kind of silly frill? Decades ago, my friends in France sent their children to all-day school starting at the age of 2 - paid for by the government.

Our politics now, thanks to the extremely low bar set by our neighbours to the south, is increasingly about getting elected by appealing to people's worst instincts - selfishness, greed, paranoia. Rob Ford would be right at home at Sarah Palin's side.

The first thing I did after reading it? Call my mother, in Ottawa, who I knew would be in bed reading the "Globe." As she was, and proudly read my letter aloud. "Oh dear," she said, "Rob Ford will be really angry at you."

"He's always angry, Mum," I said. "And he can't single me out - millions of us feel the same way."

She's sick today, and I'm not there to take care of her. Now that, at sixty, I am much less worried about my independent children, I'm much more worried about my increasingly vulnerable mother and aunt. I guess for us middle-aged care-givers, keeping the worry level just about even is nature's way of making sure we don't forget we're women.

thanks to the Y

Everyone's sick these days, as people get when the seasons are changing. The crabby cat and I are fine, however. I just logged on to the Toronto Public Library's website to put a hold on the new book "The Moral Landscape," by Sam Harris, America's well-known atheist, who was interviewed on Jon Stewart the other night, and what an interesting talk it was. I was amazed - the library doesn't even have the book yet, and there were already 90 holds. Now, 91. I'd like to meet those 90 people. I bet I'd like them.

Everyone I talk to recently seems to have an elderly parent or parents making the same decision as we are - should Mum move or stay? And if move, where, how, when? And if stay, how to make her place safe? Imagine, my friends, what the world will be like - the western world, at least - when we boomers start to make those decisions. Millions of 80 year olds who are used to having things their way. I think there will be some pretty snazzy retirement residences. Nursing homes full of bongs. I sure hope so, and that by some miracle, I can afford to live there. I'll give the rich boomers writing lessons, and perhaps they'll let me in.

Everything changed for the better today, however, in our own agonized decision-making, thanks to an encounter at the Y. My locker mate Del and I stood naked and talking, as we often do, and as she has recently helped her own mother move to a residence, the topic came up. Brilliant Del gave me a solution to the insurmountable problem my mother has, the problem of her stuff, the amount she'd have to leave behind. Del proposed to her mother that she move for six months with just her favourite bits of furniture and clothing, and leave the rest for the moment. That way, if she hated the new place, she could just come back home.

So simple - and yet the answer to our problem. I talked to Mum today, and that sounded much more doable to her. So we may proceed yet - she may move on a "we'll see" basis, leaving her condo as it is.

We still have hurdles - I'm in favour of one residence and my brother another, so she'll have to decide between the two - and she hasn't agreed to the move in any case. But at least, this way, she won't have two enormous traumas simultaneously - the decision to move and the move itself, and the million decisions about her condo. We can make those later.

Thank you, Del. I tell you, the Y is a giant Wikipedia - there's always someone there who'll be able to answer your questions and help you out, even when you are wearing no clothes at all.

And, in the I'M GLAD TO BE CANADIAN segment of this blog, I offer this headline from today's "Globe": "Ottawa studying economic benefit of polar bears." The feds have put out a tender, offering $44,000 for the winning company to study "the socio-economic importance of polar bears to Canada ... to estimate the monetary and non-monetary values of polar bears ... derived from trophy hunting ... and other consumptive values (meat, hide, and other parts), non-consumptive values (tourism, art, crafts), scientific/educational value, and existence value or value as an iconic species."

OMG. Existence value. I wonder, if, say, my life were to be analyzed this way, what my existence value would be to the Conservatives? I've had my children already, so washed up as a woman; my writing courses could be taught by someone else; my hide is worthless, and as for tourism, art and crafts ... well, there's this blog, my little offering to the world. Pretty sad pickings for a government that likes to put a price tag on everything. Estimated existence value for Beth Kaplan: $3.75.

Good luck to those glorious bears. They'll need it.