Erin's Journals

Just when you hoped a weekend might clear your mind from awful news…. John McCain passes away. A mass shooting at a gaming tournament in Florida. A great American playwright, Neil Simon, steps off life’s stage at 91. One was expected, the second, another gun-related tragedy and the third, the end of a full and fruitful life.
 
The randomness of life itself drives home the reason behind something I’ve started doing since dismantling our comfortable existence in Ontario and inventing a new one here on beautiful Vancouver Island: use the good dishes!
 
Back when I did a nightly show on Rogers TV in Toronto (on channel 10 before the million-channel universe and I’d joke that you had to go past us to get to something better) I interviewed a woman who wrote a book by that title. Chiropractor, author and keynote speaker Elaine Dembe came on to talk about Use the Good Dishes: Finding Joy in Every Day Life and although the contents of our discussion have long faded away, that title – that theme – has always stayed with me. And no more so than in the past few months.
 
When my Mom died six years ago, she left behind a set of white china. It’s white with silver swirls and I’m happy to say that I believe she chose a pattern that has aged well since she received her first pieces as a bride in 1956. None of my other three sisters had need or want of these place settings, so I happily agreed to give them a home, envisioning big joyous gatherings at our cottage where mom’s dishes could have a second life.
 
Of course, our own lives would unfold – or unravel – in such a way that celebratory meals became a thing that I doubted would ever happen again. Still, we moved the dishes with us to BC and put them in a room off the kitchen, stacked and untouched.
 
Mom also collected silver, as brides did back in the day and perhaps still do, for all I know. I didn’t and neither did Lauren; neither of us thought we had the kind of lives that real silver would fit into, you know?
 
I asked my sister, a jewelry appraiser, to suggest what she thought Mom’s set was worth and then wrote my sisters cheques and gave the silver a home. There are four of some pieces and twelve of others, but I added to the unusual count when I found the same pattern online. Someone was selling silver and a chest and I bought all of what they were offering. That mishmash of flatware, some of it black with tarnish, also moved into that room off the kitchen. Unused and ignored.
 
This past week, everything moved into a kitchen cupboard when I made a conscious decision to start using mom’s china on a more regular basis. In fact, we used it twice in the past five days. Yes, it means hand washing dishes and cutlery after a dinner gathering, but it’s worth it. Every time I set the table with her dishes and silver, I think of how thrilled she’d be that it’s being used again.
 
We’ve had dinners with six or eight people and, more often than not, that china has made an appearance. And I feel a connection with my mom that adds a layer of peace, an air of joy to each table setting. It’s a way of honouring her and our shared past, while showing guests that they’re special enough to bring out the “good” dishes.
 
When we left Ontario, I gave away a box of champagne glasses bought for wedding celebrations for our daughter. I thought I would never again have a reason to raise a glass or join in a joyful shared moment with friends or family. But time has proven me wrong. Don’t give away the champagne glasses. Life has a way of giving you reasons to smile and to toast again.
 
And for heaven’s sake, use the good dishes! I don’t know who is going to want these pretty white pieces when I’m gone, but for now, rather than worry that something could break or chip or that cleanup might take a bit too long, I linger in the moment and appreciate the happiness that comes when friends and family gather, the clouds part and a broken heart once again feels the warmth of life’s sunny days.
 
I hope yours is a good one. Thank you for coming by. And here’s a link to Elaine’s website if you think you’d like to know more about this woman and her work. 
 

Well, I was thinking of wrapping up the week, as I have the past few, with a recipe, but the little voice in my head asks, is that what people come here for? So I’ll listen to that voice and just post a link to the most fantastic summery salad – three ingredients and a super easy dressing – that I had great success with this week. If asparagus, tomatoes and avocados sound good to you (in a light Dijon/olive oil dressing) – this is your go-to! The link is below.
 
This week has been like a year’s worth of news. Yesterday’s drama on the eve of the CPC convention, Maxime Bernier’s defection to start his own party, was like the icing on the cake and came just when I thought I couldn’t take one more bite. What a week!
 
As I was prepping that salad I mentioned for a small dinner party, I had CNN blasting away with the Tuesday news bombs of both Paul Manafort’s and Michael Cohen’s legal takedowns. While I’m anxiously awaiting developments that will see this nightmare below us come to an end, there are so many other intangibles that you almost feel as if you have to duck and cover. Like, what if Mike Pence moved up into the big chair? Why did Paul Manafort insist on Pence being VP to Trump’s P? That’s just one of the questions that swirl through my head.
 
Then there’s Trump’s telling comment on Faux News yesterday that flipping should be, like, illegal. (He’s not talking about buying places and selling them at a profit; I’m pretty sure he thinks that’s one of the Ten Commandments, if he knew them.) No, he was saying that turning from ally, to witness against him, should be a crime. Doesn’t that sound like something Tony Soprano would say?
 
Yes, I’m a Canadian through and through and I follow what’s happening here, of course, but I can’t help watching what’s going on south of the border and some of it has to do with the fact that I hate a liar. More than anything, I hate a liar. And that’s what Trump has been from Day One. The frequency and audacity of his lies have increased exponentially from the day he was sworn in and it seems that everyone in his party – save for a few who are leaving soon anyway – is turning a blind eye so that they can get all of their policies and wishes in place before the supposed Blue Wave that is coming in November. 
 
I reached out to author Linwood Barclay on Twitter this week (his book A Noise Downstairs is a great summer read) after he commented on the goings on in DC and asked him, “What do you say when people tell you to mind your own business as a Canadian?” and he responded simply: “I ignore them.” I’ve had just a few tweets directed at me with that tone, most of them without punctuation but lots of MAGA in their bios, and I just block the senders right away.
 
When someone called me cowardly for blocking instead of engaging, I simply thought to myself, Why would you argue with someone who gets their “facts” from Fox? There’s no reasoning with a person (or bot, for that matter) who refuses even to consider the truth.
 
And as for someone who posted on my FB page a while back when I made a comment about Trump and Alcatraz that I used to be so careful not to offend any listeners during my CHFI days, and wondered what had come over me, I say this: for many years, I was given the honour of using a public platform that was not my own. I treated that responsibility with care and respect; my aim was never to lose a listener.
 
Another person said, “Why don’t you worry about Trudeau?” I told her that I have a mind wide enough to take in more than one story and more than one situation and consider them simultaneously. Imagine! And then I asked who poses more of a risk to the world right now, anyway? Someone else posted that she hoped there was room at Alcatraz for the prime minister. I asked what crimes he had committed. She said, “How he treats Canadians.” Oh, okay. That seems solid.
 
What I’m getting to is this: here – in my journal, on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram – I am allowed to be who I am and share with whomever cares to visit what I feel about something that’s going on. Whether it’s a baby’s sound machine or Baby Boss in the Oval Office. Right now I’m furious – have been since the day he was elected. What’s happening to our very close neighbo(u)rs is unprecedented in their history and if you’re not concerned, you’re not paying attention.
 
That’s entirely your right! After a lifetime of trying to keep up with everything going on, so as to digest events with accuracy for listeners, it’s impossible to unplug. And I wouldn’t miss the takedown of this cheating liar for the world. 
 
So now I’m going to go out and walk along the ocean, peering across to where our neighbouring American islands are, and hoping that a clear horizon emerges from our steady blanket of smoke over the past few weeks. A metaphor for what I anticipate is happening as that long red tie continues to get caught up in the slow turning wheels of justice? Perhaps. 
 
I wish you a lovely summer weekend and here’s that recipe I mentioned above.
 

As someone who hasn’t been the parent of a toddler for more years than I care to count, being around little people reminds me of just how exhausting raising them can be. I’ll give you an example: the sound machine. Not Miami Sound Machine, a child’s precious sound machine, like this….
 

 

 
I was staying yesterday with a friend’s little daughter, giving Mom a much-deserved day out. I had tucked the toddler in, had the baby monitor at my side, had poured myself a nice, rich coffee and was getting set to watch a ball game. That’s when the noise upstairs began. The dull drumming of little feet on the floor as she hopped around told me that a nap might not be in the cards, nor would my anticipated quiet time.
 
Putting the game on pause (whatever did we do before stopping live TV?), I went up to tuck the little sweetie back into bed, promising we’d go to the park if she had a nap. Then she told me she needed her pants changed. She did, so I put her in a fresh diaper and tucked her in again. After a brief negotiation about a room light being left on (she won; not my battle to fight) I backed out of the room with a quiet sigh and headed downstairs.
 
Fast forward 15 minutes: I’d finally had some time to put four coats (one basecoat, two polish and one quick-dry top coat) on my nails. And then…crying.
 
No, it wasn’t me having just notched a nail by picking up my phone, as I am wont to do. It was the sounds of the tot above starting to cry. Up I went, once again.
 
She was able to explain that the sound machine she plays – waves and nice ambient noise – wasn’t working. I looked at it and, horror of horrors, the battery light was on. This was going to be a challenge.
 
I promised her I’d fix it (which may or may not have been the truth) and backed out of the room again, pledging to be right back.
 
First, to find batteries. I found two Cs before digging deep into the kitchen utility drawer to find (wonder of wonders) two more. Phew. Now, how to get into this thing? I think the Russians had an easier time hacking the US election.
 
I tried YouTube in hopes that some harried parent had taken two minutes of time they didn’t have to post a video of them changing the batteries. No such luck. So I grabbed a screwdriver and started to turn anything that would move. Eventually my ploy worked: two screws came out, a panel that had locked in the battery compartment magically slid off, and voilà! Four batteries ready for replacement. Using a knife (which is probably wrong) I pried the dead ones out and popped in the four new ones. 
 
I took the stairs two at a time, as though I’d just broken a code to save the war effort, and quietly entered my little charge’s room. She was lying there looking at me like a kid seeing Santa on Christmas Eve; she had believed me when I said I’d return with a repaired sound machine, and by gosh, I did! I turned on the sound, gave her a kiss and backed out quietly one more time.
 
It worked. She slept, the Jays won and the day was SAVED.
 
My nails? Just one little divot in fresh polish on a thumb. I figure that with digging in a drawer, prying open a battery package, working my way into a sound player and then closing it all up again, that was a tiny casualty in the battle to get a child to take her nap as I’d promised her mom.
 
I’ll say it again: I don’t know how parents do it, or I’ve forgotten how we did. Everything is a race against time, silent prayers and sighs, compensation, frustration and elation.
 
Hang in there. It’s worth every moment. Talk to you here tomorrow.
 

After an incredible 12+ hours of news, let’s switch lanes to the highly entertaining and blessedly diverting summer movie offering.
 
A few years back, I was asked if I’d read Kevin Kwan’s best selling book Crazy Rich Asians. First off, I was taken aback by what seemed to me to be the questionable taste or inherent racism of the title. Yes, I’m super careful about stuff like that after a lifetime of having a platform on which I could make a mistake, very easily and very publicly.
 
But I was intrigued by the premise: a young American-born woman of fairly modest Chinese provenance unwittingly falls in love with the scion of an unfathomably wealthy family. When he takes her home for a big wedding and to meet his family, she faces prejudice, outright hostility and an uncertain future – all brought about by her not being “enough” for one of the richest families – if not the richest family – in Singapore.
 
As a reader, I devoured Crazy Rich Asians and Kwan’s subsequent offerings. These glimpses behind the first-class curtains of the world’s highest flyers was irresistible and the film, which shows us early on just how posh travel in that part of the plane can be, does not disappoint. Not one bit. And at two hours, I can tell you I never once thought of the time.
 
After catching the 5:40 movie in a half-full theatre, Rob, our friends Charles and Nancy and I wandered the hazy streets of BC’s capital until we found a restaurant that would ease the cravings that watching a scene about making dumplings had stirred. Oh, yes! There’s also an early segment where the central couple and their friends dine on the offerings of a Michelin-ranked outdoor food market in Singapore – that didn’t hurt either!
 
Back in quiet Victoria, we ended up catching dinner at a restaurant in the city’s storied Chinatown, which is the second oldest in North America, after San Francisco’s. There we got talking about Crazy Rich Asians.
 
Over a full tofu and vegetable plate called Buddha’s Delight, almond chicken, sweet and sour pork and a house chow mein, we discussed the movie and came to the easy consensus that it, too, was a delight of a summer offering. Crazy Rich Asians is a light, frothy romcom that follows the usual formula: boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love, difficulties ensue and…well, I wouldn’t dare connect the dots, just in case you don’t know how these movies end!
 

 
I’ll tell you that in the US it got a PG-13 rating with a warning about…get ready…”Obscene Wealth.” A bachelorette party thrown on a private island (shopping spree and spa visit, anyone?) as well as a stag party staged on a freighter in the middle of the ocean, accessed by – what else? – private helicopters! Yes, the wealth was obscene and ubiquitous, but it was also central to the story. Are they called Ordinary Middle-Class Asians? No, they are not!
 
For those who remember the movie Arthur and the plot of that film, wherein a guy risks his family fortune for the true love of a girl who’s got a heart of gold but no material wealth (although, instead of a hooker, this film’s heroine happens to be an economics prof at NYU), you’ll find this story a little familiar. It’s one that has been told time and time again over the ages. But that’s not a bad thing!
 
A terrific soundtrack and solid cast (includingOcean’s8 breakout star Awkwafina and comedy favourite Ken Jeong) make this little movie a blessed and welcome bit of summer confection. There’s a female lead who doesn’t need rescuing; we know she’ll be just fine in her life without a man stepping in to save the day. Love wins and, oh, there’s a wedding like none you’ll ever see again (unless you happen to marry in Union Station during a rainstorm). 
 
You won’t regret the money you spend on Crazy Rich Asians, a film that cost just $30 million to make and grossed $35 million on its opening weekend. Be sure to stay for the credits and a tease for the next one! Have a great day.
 
Now…back to the news and the Crazy Rich Caucasians. Talk to you here tomorrow.
 

I have some lovely news to share with you and I know that, given the post I put here a few months back, it won’t come as a giant surprise: Phil and Brooke have gotten married! (Here’s the picture I posted when they announced their engagement).
 

 
If you’re new here, first off, welcome. Secondly, Phil became our son-in-law in 2013 when he married our daughter Lauren (who passed away less than two years later) and Brooke is his new wife. We were so happy with this turn of events: a small, witnesses-only ceremony at Ottawa City Hall, at which a smartly-dressed Colin was in attendance to watch his Daddy make his wife the woman Colin’s called Mommy for quite a while now.
 
Rob and I couldn’t be happier to hear that this threesome has become official. It’s not that a marriage certificate is needed for that in our eyes, but it was something that Phil and Brooke wanted to do. And they have our complete blessing and support, as they always have had.
 
It takes an enormous amount of character and strength to step into a life that Brooke entered: a man and a boy whose lives had been rocked by a tragedy of seismic proportions. But she’s done so with grace and sass, strength and – most of all – love.
 
We’ve done all we can, and will continue to remind her that she didn’t step into Lauren’s footprints, but is creating a set all her own. And that we’ll always be there for her – for them – as they move forward in this joyous new chapter in their young lives. As we often point out, life is short and every person deserves happiness. We raise a glass to their future, their commitment to each other as a family and the unending hopes that happy days are here to stay.
 
Have a lovely Tuesday and thanks for coming by.