Erin's Journals

Last week when my dad and sister made the nearly one-hour flight from the interior of BC (Kelowna) to visit Rob, Molly and me here near Victoria, we had another constant visitor in our house. Or, more aptly visitors: Jake Tapper. Anderson Cooper. Don Lemon. Chris Cuomo. The anchors and interviewers on CNN.
 
Despite being a news junkie myself since my teen years when I had a serious crush on CTV weekend anchor (and now Dateline host) Keith Morrison, I was taken aback by how glued we all were to the Kavanaugh hearings. It’s not that the real-life drama surprised me, but that we were all so interested.
 
I had a great 2017 documentary from Carl Reiner (If You’re Not in the Obit, Eat Breakfast, about 90+ year-olds who are thriving) but Dad watched a bit of it and wanted to go back to CNN. Even though we’d watched the hearings all day, listened to CNN on XM in the car during our drive home from Malahat, and heard about all there was to hear! Nope – Dad felt we needed to explore what other panels had to say about the day’s jaw-dropping testimonies.
 
At an age when many of his peers are more interested in weather coverage or (heaven help us) Fox “News” my dad has broken free of his Alberta-born right wing leanings to a small but still surprising extent. Not enough that he has anything positive to say about our prime minister, mind you, but sufficiently that he is a feminist in a great many ways who also sees Donald Trump for who and what he is – a lying, philandering, manipulative, loose-screwed con man. (In fact, that would be a rare area where he and his lady friend seem to have a difference in opinions.)
 
As I muted the overly loud TV several times (Dad gave up wearing hearing aids when Mom died six years ago), my father, sister, husband and I would have what verged on deep conversations about the #MeToo movement, the allegations facing Brett Kavanaugh and the testimony given by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford during those moving hours in DC last week.
 
But it was the quieter times when Leslie and I were alone that Leslie’s own experience with sexual assault came up. It happened before she was even in her teen years and she has had difficulty speaking about it for the 40-plus years that have followed. It has affected her deeply as she moved through her life and prompted the realization that as her own teenaged daughter begins involvement in clubs with boys her own age and older, she has to be reminded that it’s good to speak up when something happens. To know that she didn’t bring it on herself. Not to be afraid that she’ll be blamed in any way. That no does in fact mean NO.
 
Time and again, as we watched CNN and followed social media feeds, we heard (or heard of) women our own age discussing the Kavanaugh situation brushing it off because it may have happened when he was a teenager. We’ve read about people who blamed a young girl for getting herself into that vulnerable a position. We witnessed the same tropes that have been trotted out for generations. Have we learned nothing? Has nothing changed? 
 
When a close male relative, who was the same tender age as I was, offered to show me his if I’d show him mine, I declined and told an older relative. I don’t know what she did with that information, but I’m assuming it was discussed with his mother. Leslie’s situation was different: our mom learned about it when she happened upon (or more likely sought and found) a diary. There was doubt cast on her claim (much more serious than mine, I might add) and to this day, the boy’s side of the family believes Leslie made the story up.
 
I have no idea – not a clue – why someone would make up a claim of sexual assault or harrassment. The 19 women who were humiliated for their charges against Donald Trump certainly didn’t do so for the publicity. Nor did the dozens who came forward to talk about their experiences with the now-incarcerated Bill Cosby. Christine Blasey Ford didn’t step forward so that her life and that of her family could be endangered and so that she could be called every name in the book.
 
My own experiences, ones that I can back up with a handwritten daily diary that I kept from age 12 to about 42, don’t compare with those of Ford or even my own sister. But you don’t forget the details. You never forget the details. All we can do is hope that last week’s news events prompted a great many more intergenerational conversations on topics that were long ago shoved deeply into a drawer. It’s time to bring them into the sunlight – what they call the best disinfectant, yes?
 
Back tomorrow on a lighter note. I think we all need it these days.
 

Sometimes the weather gods decide to give you a big, fat break and that’s exactly what happened to us last week in our tiny corner of the world.
 
Here on the Saanich Peninsula (north of Victoria) we enjoy about 30% less rain than Vancouver. So let me dispense with the “wet coast” stereotype just a little bit. Okay, with autumn’s arrival, the rainy season starts to move in: yesterday it rained. Sunday it poured. But last week from Wednesday through to Saturday, when my dad and younger sister were visiting from Kelowna in the BC interior, the sun shone brightly and we got up to 25 degrees, if the car’s temperature reading was to be believed.
 
It was the best convertible weather we could have asked for – if only all four of us had fit into the MINI! But even though having them with us made the convertible impossibly impractical, we were happy to suck it up and take the “grown up” car for some wonderful outings.
 
One of them was up island about 45 minutes to a place called the Villa Eyrie in Malahat. In case it sounds familiar, the Malahat is also the name for the one-way-up and one-way-down highway that is often closed due to vehicle rollovers, bringing island traffic to a standstill for hours on end. It seems to happen at least twice a month. On this glorious early fall day, though, we stopped off in a provincial park for a short walk and then made our way to the villa, a resort that features a beautiful restaurant called – appropriately – the Summit.
 
A weekday afforded us the luxury of having an outdoor deck all to ourselves and, under the shade of two umbrellas, we enjoyed a spectacular, slow-paced lunch as we all took in the view of the south end of the Saanich Inlet (listed in some places as a fjord) from 1880 feet above sea level.
 

 
A stroll around the grounds later afforded us a chance to get a few pictures together. 
 

 
And, of course, Dad was clowning around for the camera….
 

 
But he finally behaved himself! The weather, as I say, couldn’t have been better for their visit. And nowhere was that more clearly illustrated than on Wednesday, when we were out to dinner for my birthday at a place called The Chalet at Deep Cove. As wonderful as our meal and server were, little could compare with the picture that was developing right outside our window.
 

 
I swear to you, there are no filters or photo tricks at play here. I only wish that later, as we sat at home watching an orange harvest moon rise behind majestic Mount Baker, I could have captured the magic. You’ll just have to take my word for it – it was, just as the ads say, Super Natural British Columbia at its very best.
 
Tomorrow, a darker side to our visit as #metoo came home.
 

Welcome to a brand new month. Thanksgiving, colourful leaves, Halloween decorations and pumpkin everything! That’s what October means to me.
 
It was a terrific visit with my dad and sister and I’ll share a few stories with you here tomorrow. But today I just had to tell you the funniest thing that happened to us on Friday.
 
We were on our way back from downtown Victoria, having picked up my sister Leslie after her visit with an Ontario friend who has also relocated to BC. As we made our way up a six-lane street, I looked over and noticed a pick-up truck to our left.
 

 
I know it’s a small world, but it’s an even smaller island. In Victoria, with its greater area population of over 300,000, we pulled up next to the truck owned by the guy about whom I wrote here on Friday. The clever guy with the stove ad – remember him? (Just follow the Friday link if you want to read what I’m talking about – a hilarious buy-and-sell site post that I just had to share with you here.)
 
Yes, that same stove was still on his truck. I was hoping it was being delivered, but I saw on the ad site just yesterday that it was still for sale. 
 
Like some teen at a K-Pop show, I shrieked when I saw the truck (my sister, who thought I’d lost my mind, will attest to this) and said, “Rob – it’s the stove guy! It’s him!” He was pretty incredulous, too, and then I had to explain to Dad and Les why we were all excited about a pickup truck with a stove in it.
 
It’s weird, I know, but I couldn’t help it when the very guy whose writing I’d admired was right there next to me on the road. Clearly, I either need to get out more or stay home where I can’t harm anybody!
 
Have a gentle day and here’s to the little things. Sometimes they’re all it takes.
 

Welcome to Friday. It’s felt like a month at times, but we’ve made it to the end of the week. And it’s been one with plenty of highs to match some of the hardest lows (like yesterday’s Kavanaugh hearings). I’d like to share with you a couple of them.
 
I got a special tweet on Wednesday. After he or she read my journal about the wisdom of being who you’re meant to be, @childoftheuniv5 sent me a screen grab of a tweet that he or she said made him or her think of me. Thank you for this: in it are the words above from Vancouver Fire Chief Darrell Reid.
 
I retweeted it and wrote to him asking if those were his words and he responded: “I tweeted this while mulling over a eulogy I’m writing. I noticed things I wanted to say about my friend were about him as a good man who lived and loved (eulogy things) not about him as a successful professional (résumé things). I doubt it’s a new idea, but it was how I felt.”
 
It’s sometimes amazing the wonderful wisdom that just awaits you with the click of a mouse or the opening of a site. But on Tuesday night I had to laugh when I stumbled upon this on Facebook. I belong to a local buy and sell site and I can tell you in all honesty that I’ve never seen an ad like this. And I almost guarantee that you haven’t either.
 
It reminded me right off the bat of a chapter in ad genius Terry O’Reilly’s book about marketing called This I Know: Marketing Lessons from Under the Influence (the latter part being the name of his CBC podcast). Among the many memorable stories is one that illustrates the power of story telling when it comes to sellling.
 
Terry shares the tale of a marketing magazine’s experiment: buy a bunch of seemingly useless trinkets (a toy hammer, a picture frame shaped like a flip-flop, an old rusty meat thermometer) and write a story about them that would compel eBay shoppers to overpay. And did they! A bidding war ensued that saw a tiny beaten up hammer go for over $70. You really have to read the book to get the story. But it speaks to the value in touching people’s hearts and just how powerful that can be.
 
That’s what came to mind when I saw this on our local site the other night. 
 

 
I wrote to Ben asking, “Is this your writing?” and he said that his wife would attest that this did come from his own mind. This guy’s writing makes me not only want to buy that stove (not that I have any use for one) but to take him out for a cold one later. How could you not love someone with that kind of sense of humour?
 
By the way, the stove sold that night, he found someone to help him take it off his truck on the other end, and I became a big fan of Level Headed Home Services. I don’t know if Ben and his team are any good but I sure would enjoy the time they spent in our house!
 
Take good care and have a terrific first (full) weekend of Fall. My dad and sister arrived from Kelowna on Wednesday and we’ve been having a great time ever since; I’ll share some stories with you here on Monday. Thanks for coming by!
 

Thank you so much for your birthday wishes yesterday. I am humbled and touched by your kindness.
 
I thought today, since I am entertaining my dad and younger sister from Kelowna, I’d borrow from the upcoming book Mourning Has Broken: Love, Loss and Reclaiming Joy (due out Feb. 26 2019 HarperCollins). Why? Because it’s a memory of my favourite birthday. And it happened six years ago yesterday. I’ll be back tomorrow to wrap up the week with you with just about the funniest ad I’ve ever read – from a local buy and sell site. You’ll love it. 
 
Meantime, I hope you enjoy this bit of the book.

One of my fondest memories will always be the day of my 50th birthday. Even though the three of us had spent my 40th in New York City dining at the iconic Rainbow Room in 30 Rockefeller Center on a rare night that there were tables open to the public, dancing to a live orchestra and enjoying one of the finest views and meals we would ever have, it was the homemade surprise she gave me a decade later that will always be at the very top of my list of my life’s favourite moments.
 
Rob and I had planned a small get-together with our friends from our years with a rock tribute band (I sang, played keyboards and sax; Rob played bass). About twenty of us in all were going to gather at our cottage north of the city to enjoy a casual dinner and birthday cake and to make some music. In the late afternoon, with an hour to go before the first guests were to arrive, the doorbell rang. I immediately went into panic mode. A towel on my head, I’d been finishing up some last minute kitchen chores so I hadn’t dried my hair and was definitely not ready for company!
 
I went to the door, Rob right behind me, and when I opened it, I couldn’t believe my eyes: it was Lauren, who had come all the way from Ottawa! She and her dad had planned it all: she caught a small plane to the downtown Toronto waterfront, took a cab several blocks to our condo, got the car key that awaited her at the front desk and then drove our car an hour up to the cottage to surprise me.
 
I stood there at the front door and, like a scene out of I Love Lucy, I just bawled. In fact, yes, I’m quite sure “WAAAaaaaaaah…” was the sound that came out. Ugly cry and all, it was simply the best surprise, the best birthday ever. She stayed just that one night and sang and made music with our friends who had known her since she was a baby, when she’d sleep peacefully in a playpen in an adjoining bedroom as we worked out the harmonies and chords on rock hits for a few hours each week. Growing up around them, she forged close ties with our bandmates and even got an extra grandmother out of the deal. As delighted as everyone was with this surprise visit, I still regard it as a gift I’ll always cherish. It was also the last of my birthdays we marked together. If it had to be our final one, I’m grateful it truly was the best.