Maybe they're onto something ...

This past weekend, I was at the cottage entertaining our wonderful friends from Denmark (five of the loveliest individuals one could ever have the pleasure of meeting).

At the request of the matriarch of the Danish crew, we went to the market at St. Jacob's, which is a Mennonite town about a twenty-five minute drive from the cottage. Whilst there, the eldest son would discreetly point to some of the hard core Mennonites. In his charming European adolescent fashion, he would comment about how their lives must suck. On this point, he was obdurate despite my explanations that there could be some beauty in the simplicity of it all. (While lecturing him of course, I was trying to block out the depressing conflict and dreariness which I'd read about in Miriam Toewes "A Complicated Kindness").

My teenage friend kept waxing and waning about a life devoid of cars, electronics and good clothes. Since Denmark is a socialist country, his is certainly not a life jammed with the commercial pleasures into which we greedy North Americans regularly dip our gouty little fingers. Because of this, I thought he could relate to the lives of the Mennonites. From his perspective though, he couldn't figure out why a North American would choose to forego the luxries which he himself was forced to do without.

This weekend, my car broke down, followed by my traiterous cell phone which decided to just literally fall apart within my hands. Then my Palm Pilot started acting up and I oculdn't figure out which end was up in my life anymore. I realised that the Mennonites had one up on us; they could easily star in a Survivor series and thrive, while I would lie moaning on the ground complaining about the lack of electrical outlets for my hair dryer. Speaking of a no hair dryer existence, I think I just figured out why the Mennonite womenfolk sport those hideous black bonnets ...

Bend over ... trust me

Growing up, I was cautioned to trust no one. My parents were very suspicious of others, particularly those of the non-Korean persuasion. I suspect that their mistrust found its roots in the early days of their emigration to North America, and was no doubt fuelled by their parents' and fellow countrymen's cautions.

As I grew up, my parents constantly chastised my brother and I for our apparent naivete. The fact that we naturally instilled any trust and belief in our friends was considered sheer stupidity. I felt conflicted at the best of times.

When adolescent rebellion set in, I began thinking, in typical teenage fashion, that my parents didn't know much about anything. Therefore this whole mistrust of the world at large was clearly silly. I felt that my parents were too paranoid and needed to rethink their position on others' intentions; not everyone was out to take advantage of us at every turn. Surely some people were good.

"Not so", declared my father from within my head in a Norman Bates' mother-like way.

"Oh. do shut up please," I thought as I resolutely ignored him and continued on my merry way.

As the daughter of a theoretical scientist, I can't help but feel that every hypothesis must first be tested before one could declare it a theory. Therefore, I went to the lab so to speak, and set out to prove my parents wrong, all the while feeling the weight of my parents' disapproval.

About four years ago, I made the acquaintance of a young man in his early twenties. We met in the street right outside of my house. I live in a very quiet middle-class neighbourhood. This particular man was visiting his girlfriend who rented a room in a house two doors away from me. The initial jumping off point of our conversation revolved around the question of ownership of two well-groomed dogs which were wandering up and down the street. Somehow our conversation evolved and within weeks, he was doing some odd manual work for my husband around our house and at one of our investment properties. After work, he would often play basketball with my eldest son and would chat with me. As he was on his own, I sort of took him under my wing.

One day, D. asked me about my large book collection which he had seen in the living room. After we had chatted about what types of books he preferred to read, I then selected several from my shelves and pressed them upon him. It was obvious that he was interested in reading them all, but he was quite reticient and suggested that I lend him one at a time rather than all three at once. I insisted that they were essential reads and that he should take them all at once as I had read them already and wouldn't need them back for awhile. He cautioned me several times that he was an extremely slow reader and that it would take him some time before he would be finished with them.

Shortly thereafter, D's girlfriend moved away from our street and out of neighbourhood. As I never go D's phone number, I lost touch with him.

Now, it should be known that the one possesion about which I am slightly obsessive is my books. Through the years, I have lent out many of my books to various people and have never gotten them back. Since I have a nearly photographic memory, I still remember to this day who has which book.

After D. stopped being a regular in our household, I would often have regrets about having been so reckless in my offer to him. One of the books in particular, had been given to me as a gift by my first love and had an inscription written in it. I felt a certain longing for a book that held a chunk of my past within its covers.

Several years later, I was going through my book shelves sorting through my collection. I thought fleetingly of D. and my lost books and silently cursed myself for having trusted a virtual stranger.

The next night as I was feeding my children dinner, I heard someone knocking at my front door. Our area is heavily canvassed by charities, schoolkids and Jehoval witnesses, so I'm somewhat leery about answering my door if I'm not expecting anyone. I peered out of the window and saw a tall man standing on my front stoop. He called out my name and although I couldn't place him, I thought it was someone I knew, so I opened the door. It took me a minute for the penny to drop before I realised it was D. He looked very different as he was dressed in a suit and had cut his dreadlocks off.

I invited him in and we began chatting about what he had been up to since we had last seen each other. Before we got very far in our conversation, he dashed out the door and ran to his car. He returned with my books and apologised for their late return. Apparently, he had moved many times over since we'd last spoken and had taken the books with him to each place. The most touching comment was that he'd felt honoured that I'd trusted a virtual stranger with my possessions and he had wanted to make sure they were returned to me.

At the time, I remember feeling that this was an important life lesson; that good feelings such as respect and trust which are given out to someone eventually boomerang and find their way home to you just as my precious books did. As I learned in my physics class, energy is never lost.

I'd like to end the story on a good note. Unfortunately, after our fuzzy reunion, D. ended up moving into an apartment in one of our investment properties and stiffed us for about four months' rent with neither an explanation nor an apology. The weird thing is that that did nothing to erase my feelings that he was a person with an honour code in place. (In fact, from what I learned afterwards from others, he was going through an extremely tough time in his life which no doubt contributed to his inability to pay). I suppose it's an indication of how much value I place upon my books.

David and Goliath

One of my neighbours got married and had a child later in life. Said child is extremely petite; she weighs twenty-two pounds and is about the size of an average fourteen month-old, despite the fact that she is a couple months away from her third birthday. As the product of a long-harboured desire, she appears to be indulged in very interesting ways.

Yesterday, I was on my way to another neighbour's house with my children. We were going to go swimming. My daughter ran into Thumbelina and played with her briefly before telling her of our plans. Thumbelina then decided that she was going to come with us and ran down the street to tell her father that she needed to put on her bathing suit.

My daughter waited for her and after nearly fifteen minutes, she finally emerged from her house with her mother in tow. Mrs. Thumbelina advised us that her daughter had never really been in a pool and didn't know how to swim. She also said that she didn't know the pool-owning neighbours upon whom her daughter had foisted herself.

After about fifteen minutes of splashing about, during which time Thumbelina commanded my children to fetch and carry, Mrs. Thumbelina asked her daughter if she thought they should leave. As anyone with half a brain would guess, the little one volleyed back with a resounding "no". What kid would chirp "Yes, in fact, I'm ready to go now, Mother dearest"??!!

Then followed thirty minutes of painful dialogue between mother and child. As it turned out, the mother was expecting dinner guests and she kept asking the child if she didn't think she should come home to visit with the guests who had no doubt already arrived. I couldn't figure out what the hell the two were doing there in the first place if the mother knew guests were imminent. Why didn't she just refuse to bring her child swimming when she asked?

So I sat there and bore witness to a twenty pounder pushing around an adult who very willingly took it. It was all I could do not to scream out "Just bloody take your child out of the pool and TELL her it's time to go home!" Why on earth did the mother feel compelled to keep asking her daughter for permission to leave?

Now I'm not the world's most perfect parent, but I do believe in setting boundaries for my children. I can't imagine ever asking them repeatedly "Kids, do you think it's time for to stop all your fun and go home?" Instead, I usually give them the five minute warning, throw in a bonus two minutes and then tell them to pack it up. And yes, on occasion, I have gotten angry if they haven't cooperated.

I sometimes have to stop and wonder if I'm being too hard on my kids. I grew up in a family where no respect or consideration was ever given to one's children or to their feelings, lest said children got horribly spoiled. Because this was the norm for me growing up, I have nothing else to reference when searching for a good role model. Therefore, the task of finding a happy medium between authoritarian parent and jellyfish permissive parent is sometimes a difficult one. In this case however, there is no way I would ever aspire to be like this geriatric mom.

Forget the metaphysical questions ... these are far more pressing

I heard on the radio yesterday that Wireton Willy died after a bout of pneumonia or some such groundhog version of the ailment.

I was curious how they will go about picking Willy's successor. Do they hold auditions by shining a flashlight above the groundhog to see how they will react? Do they pick one of Willy's children? Did Willy have any say in who would follow in his hallowed footsteps? Do they attend some kind of metereology training academy? Will they announce it and have a great big press conference?