Erin's Journals

Today, as we begin a brand new month, I have to share with you something that has been eating at me for a couple of weeks now.
 
Just two days after we arrived home from Amsterdam, my new friend Nancy and I were guest interviewers at a local high school. I signed up through the Rotary Club of Sidney, to which I belong, and knew that Nancy, with her background in PR, would be perfect at this task: we were to do “exit” interviews with grade 12 students.
 
This is part of their curriculum: come into the school’s smaller of two gyms, sit at a desk across from an interviewer and answer questions. After 20 minutes, we would write a few notes on a small piece of paper, they would take that note with them, and while we wrote our thoughts, they’d sign a “thank you” card and then give it to the interviewer as they left.
 
We arrived at the school at 8:30 am and met up with a few of the other non-student volunteers for the day. Some were former teachers, others business people and even a few were recent graduates themselves. Another was a Rotary volunteer and there were a few local cops in uniform, too. As if these kids weren’t nervous enough! And, oh, they were nervous.
 

 
We were seated in the boisterous gym and, at times, as students sat across from us, it was almost impossible to hear what they were saying. Some were more soft-spoken than others, while a couple said “like” so often that I wished I was having trouble hearing them.
 
A few expressed battles with mental illness (which I thought was remarkable, in that not so long ago, those kinds of difficulties would likely not have come up with strangers like Nancy and me). More than a few had already been accepted at the local community college where they hoped to lay the groundwork for their future education and careers.
 
That is reason #1 why Grade 13 was a good idea, in my book! Neither Rob nor I decided the paths our careers should take – both radio – until the final months of that final year! Lauren was one of the very few at her Grade 12 convocation who wasn’t taking a “victory lap” and going for more high school credits, which is exactly like Grade 13, is it not? And good on them, I say!
 
There is a lot to be said for not paying an exorbitant amount to figure out who or what you want to be. Some parents agree and some don’t. That happened to be our opinion and it worked in our lives as students, and later, as parents. But I digress. The point of the exercise was to give students a “real world” sort of interview, but I don’t know how useful I was in this exercise.
 
While I believe Nancy DID write in one student’s note about not chewing gum in an interview, and also mentioned the constant use of “like” in another, I treated it like a pep rally. I didn’t stress the importance of making eye contact to one young woman who was seemingly without any interest at all, and I could have gently suggested to another that she perhaps not scratch uncontrollably when she was nervous.
 
I didn’t tell the young woman who loved rock climbing and photography that her hopes of a career as a journalist were going to be as far out of reach as the pinnacle of Everest, given the climate for journalism in the 21st century when scores of professionals and veterans – Pulitzer Prize winners included – are being mercilessly put out to pasture.
 
I remembered how Lauren hated when broadcasters would come to lecture her radio classes at Algonquin in Ottawa and tell students that most of them were not going to make it in the business. Were these guest speakers right? You bet your employment benefits cheque they were. But was it the right thing to tell these kids they likely weren’t going to succeed – to strafe their hopes – like that? I couldn’t and didn’t.
 
Here’s the one “hack” I did pass on as they were getting up to leave: write a thank you card. Not the one they were perfunctorily signing on the way out of the high school gym that day, but for any potential employer. I said that after they’d completed an interview for the job they really, really wanted, go out and buy a thank-you card. Go home, look up the person’s title – and spell their name right – and MAIL them a card.
 
Why? Because no one else does it. Because four days later when 50 other people have been interviewed for the same job, your card comes in and moves to the top of the pile. That’s why. Lauren wrote her first radio employer a thank-you card after he interviewed her. She was probably going to get the job anyway, so impressed was he by her maturity and confident air (the latter was a good front, anyway). But sending this card – something she was good at – sealed it.
 
I don’t know how much of an impact that day in the high school gym will have on the young men and women Nancy and I tag-team interviewed on that busy, long Tuesday, but I think someone along the way is going to get a thank you card. And I hope that it pays off.
 
Tomorrow: the student whose interview stayed with me to the point of haunting my dreams.
 

I need to talk to you about something. It’s directed at men, but don’t worry if you aren’t one; you likely know or have lived with one, so I think you’ll relate. And it has to do with toilet seats.
 
Let me take you back a decade or so when Rob’s older brother, who lives now as a bachelor, came to visit. I would be slightly agitated everytime I went into the guest bathroom to find the toilet seat – not just the lid, the seat – in the up position. When I brought it to his attention (more than once) he put on his fighting pants and asked me why the seat should not be left up ALL of the time. Why shouldn’t we, who sit, have to put it down, rather than vice versa?
 
I didn’t bother fighting with him, but I did point out how gross it would be to be constantly moving that seat into the down position. No thank you very much. Besides, bro, “my house, my rules.” Of course, living alone, he has the freedom to do whatever he wants. He can pee in the waste paper basket or the rhododendrons at his own home, for all I care.
 
That conversation – whether he was (if you’ll pardon the pun) pulling my chain or not – has never left me. And it came back with a big thud while we were flying to and from Amsterdam this past month.
 
On the way there, I went to the lav, which had just been vacated by a gentleman in a uniform. He might have been a pilot. He might even have been a flight attendant (I didn’t really pay attention), but he was definitely crew. Imagine my joy to walk into the tiny washroom and see the seat up. First thing I did was kick it down with my foot, making a nice big noise before I closed the door. (Don’t worry, I wasn’t disturbing passengers: the lavatory was in a galley. That was just for the gentleman leaving to hear.)
 
On the trip home, however, I wasn’t quite as astute. This time I used the lavatory near the flight deck. I’m not sure who was the offending party this time. I just know that it was daylight outside, but my body thought it was middle of the night. I was sleepy enough that when I enclosed myself in the lav, I didn’t take a moment to check on the seat. Instead I sat down. Odd, I thought, this seat feels really cold. And wet.
 
There was a reason for that. And why do you think that was? Because. The. Seat. Was. Up.
 
I hadn’t noticed that some “upstanding” passenger hadn’t bothered to put the seat down out of consideration for the next visitor. Infuriating! They have signs in most airline lavs suggesting you take a moment to use your hand towel to dry off the basin after you use it, “as a courtesy to the next passenger.” Why not a similar sign about the toilet seat?
 
You see (and I think, as friends, I can be honest with you here) THIS is why I hate sharing bathrooms with the other gender. Even my dear Rob, who always puts the seat down, uses another bathroom rather than share one with me. It’s just the best thing for our marriage. And our idea of heaven? A hotel room or even ship’s cabin with two bathrooms. It’s a rarity, but oh, what a treat!
 
Here’s another story between friends. Sometimes back at the radio station, where we had small solo bathrooms for the use of on-air people with very tight deadlines, the single HIS washroom would be occupied when a male co-worker needed to go. So he did something I wouldn’t do, even if I was about to burst: he’d use ours. Which I get in an emergency. I mean, I know how that “news wheel” at 680 can catch you in its spokes and leave you for road kill! But I lost count of how many times I’d walk in, only to find that HE had left the seat up, so rushed was he to get back to his sports, business, news or…whatever.
 
There you go – my rant for the day. I can’t imagine someone being in such a hurry that they could forget something like putting down a toilet seat, but then again, they might be the same people who don’t wash their hands either. Me? After I’ve encountered one, there isn’t enough sanitizer in the world – or up in the sky.
 
Ew. Tomorrow: doing interviews of a totally different kind for me. And boy, were they eye-opening!
 

Tax Deadline Eve. This is a time of year that brings a familiar sense of dread – no matter whether we now have someone else doing it or have wised up to the software that makes taxes so much easier – and we never quite shake it.
 
We talked about taxes with one of our tour guides in Amsterdam. He says there, in The Netherlands, the government has all of the citizens’ numbers; people just sign in online, sign off on the numbers and send in whatever the government is owed (if they haven’t already paid it). Makes great sense (to me) although, in our case, it would never work with freelance, etcetera.
 
The fellow we spoke to said that the exact same ability exists here in Canada and in the US (where he went to university) but, of course, everybody would be all up in their Constitution-decreed arms about the gub’mint having their numbers. Whatever. I’m all for keeping it tidy, above board and as simple as humanly possible.
 
Poor Rob’s been up to his eyeballs the past few weeks trying to keep several stacks straight, both on the table and in his head. My shift from being an employee for so many years to strictly gun-for-hire has had its challenges, but he manages. He uses software and even helped our octagenarian neighbour to switch to StudioTax, a free program, after he went to visit and saw her with paper, pencil, great big eraser and that familiar stressed-out look. It makes you wonder how many other seniors just haven’t taken that step yet.
 
On the other end of the age spectrum, I still hear of many younger folks who just haven’t done taxes in years. It seems they miss one year and that rolls into another and another, until the fear of reprisal (and financial penalties) becomes this great scary monster that no one wants to face. If only that first step towards finding the receipts and just paying what the government is owed could be taken! The relief from stress alone is worth the price.
 
It hurts to see people feeling so far behind and so very hopeless. What can we do to change this, as a country, do you think? How do we go about offering, if not amnesty, then certainly leniency to help young people to get back on track with their contribution to our country’s operation?
 
I can’t end today’s journal on that note, though. I have to talk a bit more about flowers, as they tie in with this time of year so very perfectly. When we were living in Leaside, Rob would take the odd break and sit at the table and look out at a magnolia tree that stood alone in the backyard.
 
Every spring he knew that tax time was approaching by the size of the buds as they prepared to burst into blossom. Just a little gift to take the edge off of the pain of writing a cheque we would undoubtedly be sending out when his careful toiling was done. I think to this day he still has a bit of a stress flashback when he sees magnolias getting ready to bloom. Luckily for us, they’ve come and gone already where we live.
 
Now at this time of year, I look for lilacs. A house around the corner from us in North Saanich has a tree that is bearing their blooms already and every time I walk Molly, I take a few timid steps into the driveway, check for bees and then cup a handful of blossoms and bring their sweet fragrance to my nose. I inhale deeply.
 
That is a smell I will always associate with Ottawa. You see, between May 11 and 19 four years ago, we were there making arrangements for Lauren’s first (of two) memorial events. We wanted to make sure, you see, that her and her husband’s friends and co-workers, as well as fellow recent radio grads, could come and remember her with us.
 
But when the reality of making plans for something we should never have had to hold to begin with became just too much, Rob and I would step outside of the Hulse, Playfair and McGarry Funeral Home and go across the street. There, we could take solace and hide our tears as we walked with our heads, not bowed in sorrow, but raised in gratitude for the sweet scent of lilacs everywhere.
 

 
For that reason alone, those flowering trees will always mean so much to me. Rob chooses not to take in their powerful perfume, but it’s my time to be in Ottawa again, as I will be in just over a month. The lilacs will likely be gone by then, as will May’s riotous tulips, but I won’t be going for the flowers. Not when a grandson awaits….
 
Have a lovely Monday and I’ll be back with you here tomorrow as we wrap up April with a story of a gentleman – who obviously wasn’t!
 

Today, as this week comes to an end, I thought I’d put a ribbon on a trip that we counted down to for months – well over a year, actually – and that now is just a series of water-coloured memories. Make that canal-coloured.
 
I’ve shared with you moments with the guests who came with us (and from whom I’ve heard that so many want to attend next year if we take over the entire boat for the Rhine in 2020). But, of course, a trip to Holland and the rest of The Netherlands could not possibly be complete without a visit to one of the country’s greatest treasures, called the World’s Biggest Flower Garden: The Keukenhof.
 

 
Made up of 7 million flower bulbs blooming over 32 hectares, the work of nature, guided by 40 gardeners, was a lot to take in. And my former partner Mike Cooper was so excited to get there, he could hardly contain himself. Wasn’t my Robbie surprised! (Many of today’s photos, like the one below, are thanks to Mali Bickley.)
 

 
Open only 60 days a year, this is a world-renowned tourist attraction and, boy, we were lucky our cruise director Nick with AmaWaterways got us up and out on the buses early and through Amsterdam before roads closed in preparation for the big parade set for that same day. The attraction filled up hugely as the morning went on, but I was still so pleased to get pictures like the ones you’re going to enjoy here today.
 
It did remind me a little of Victoria’s own pride, the Butchart Gardens. Especially here.
 

 
I don’t know if Butchart has these incredible beauties – the Camassia – but it looks like a palm tree sprouted tulips!
 

 
Look closer….
 

 
And how about this glorious purple tulip?
 

 
What wondrous colours hath nature’s pallet!
 

 
Here are some more of the glorious sights of the Keukenhof, which includes plenty of indoor space and displays for those days when skies aren’t as gloriously blue as they were for us in Amsterdam that Saturday two weeks ago.
 

 
And there are lovely animal displays and play areas; you saw Mike and me on the teeter-totter, but in the petting area you can watch a couple of real kids at play…
 

 
….or take in the brilliance of a peacock who’s always ready for his close-up!
 

 
Speaking of which, here’s your hammy correspondent as we get ready to pose for our final group shot. Oh, brother! (Anyone think Norma Desmond here, Mr. DeMille?)
 

 
And here’s how that group shot turned out.
 

 
Ah, yes. So many wonderful memories and just a few that I’m saving for the middle of May for something special with did with our Lauren in mind. In the meantime, thank you for coming by and sharing this journal – this journey – with us. If you’re at all curious about the chances of coming along for a trip on the Rhine in 2020, do send Gerry Koolhof a note. He’s the koolest guy and a wonderful host…and he’s the guy on the left in this shot. Have a GREAT weekend!
 

I want to thank you. I know it seems I do that almost every day here (and the days I don’t, I’m thinking it). But I’m still just sitting here marveling at the outpouring of kindness in the aftermath of the Marilyn Denis Show on CTV yesterday and the segment that included my interview with her (and family therapist Joe Rich).
 
Marilyn conducted a lovely interview and it was so good to spend time with her. Her crew did a fantastic job editing the hotel room pre-interview and setting the scene so beautifully. Thank you to them, and to you for your emails and response to the interview. I’ve been hearing from people across this great country of ours today.
 
By the way, If you happen to be new to this journal, welcome! Please do feel free to scroll through some of the past, oh, 15 years’ worth (not all LOL) and it’s great to have you here. Also, on the home page (just above this journal if you’re reading it on Thursday) you may have seen WHAT’S UP. You can click there to learn where I’m stopping to talk in June in Ontario. And thank you.
 
Before I forget, don’t miss this week’s Walmart piece I wrote about organization. Helps to clear the mind – just like organizing and answering my emails has done in the past 24 hours. I hope you enjoy it.
 

 
(Some of today’s photos, like the one above, were taken by our friend Mali Bickley)
 
Today: enough words. How about some pictures of what was truly the most memorable day of our trip to the Netherlands and Belgium on our Tulip Time tour with AmaWaterways? Tomorrow will be full-on UBER TULIPS, I promise you, with a breathtaking day at a place open only 8 weeks of the year. But today: Kinderdijk. On bicycles!
 

 
Pronounced “kinder dike,” it means the “children’s dike,” so named for one of two reasons: because it was either dug in part by children or, as folklore would have it, a baby, whose cradle was swept up in a massive 1421 flood, was found floating along in the waters. On top of the cradle walked a cat, moving back and forth to balance the baby (later named Beatrix, as in “the blessed”) and her crib on the water’s surface. Thus began the “Cat and the Cradle” story, too. A much nicer tale, yes?
 

 
This Unesco World Heritage Site is not to be missed when you’re in The Netherlands. How fortunate Rob and I were to take a bicycle tour, feeling the quintessential Dutch experience of riding along a canal and looking at the majestic windmills! 19 of them, built in the mid-18th century, make up Kinderdijk and they are not to be missed.
 
At one time, there were 150 of these majestic structures; today, while there exist state-of-the-art equipment and engineering to protect the land and its inhabitants, these windmills are considered back-ups in the event of modern equipment failure, standing ready and able to help keep South Holland, most of which is below sea level, safe and dry if needed. The photo below shows the water at different elevations.
 

 
*Fun Fact: calling all of The Netherlands “Holland” would be like calling all of the USA “Dakota.” The Netherlands are made up of 12 provinces, two of which are North and South Holland.
 

 
It was a spectacular, wonderful day (albeit somewhat overcast, chilly and windy – but who cares?) in South Holland at Kinderdijk. To think that people still call these windmills (two of which have been converted into museums that visitors can enter and tour) home is most amazing of all! (Thanks again for the one above, Mali.)
 

 
Tomorrow, as we make our way home and take one last spectacular tour, you’ll see a bazillion tulips in one of the most incredible settings ever – I promise!