Erin's Journals

I was going to share with you here today some stories about my dad. Today he turns 85 years old and my sisters gathered with him yesterday in Kelowna to help him celebrate. But I’m waiting until he comes to the island and we’ll have our own party with his brother, my uncle and friend Vern. Right DAD???
 
Instead, I’ll tell you some Dad stories on Friday, when we get set for Father’s Day. Today, I want to talk about all of those who don’t make it to 85. Or 65. Or 45.
 
Last week, we were shaken with news of the deaths of two people whose names we know: designer Kate Spade and travel and food writer, raconteur and TV host Anthony Bourdain. Both of these well-loved and respected Americans took their own lives. Both appeared to have everything they could possibly want: money, fame, happiness. How could they possibly want to leave this world?
 
If that’s a question that crossed your mind – and for most people it did – ask yourself this: have you ever said, “she had everything to live for! How could she ever get cancer?” Of course not. Cancer doesn’t discriminate among skin colours or care what your zip or postal code is. Cancer doesn’t check to see if you have a billion dollars in your bank account or a loving partner or children or millions of fans around the world. Cancer doesn’t care.
 
And neither does mental illness. We have to stop equating depression with something that can be chosen. We have to stop telling people who are depressed how they should feel, how they need to tally up everything that’s worth living for, how they have to count their blessings. It just doesn’t work that way – especially if everything inside is telling them that the world, including those who love them, would be better off without them in it. 
 
Someone I follow on Twitter – check that, followed – made an asinine comment about suicide and heaven and more judgmental garbage on Friday. I let him have it and then blocked him. All the while, a blog by John Pavlovitz echoed in my mind.
 
I had shared it last week with a fellow bereaved mother whose son took his own life earlier this year after a lifelong battle with depression and mental illness. Then, on Friday, she wrote to me in desperation about the proliferation of mental illness and how she wished there was an MRI, a cat scan, some kind of way of detecting this. She’s so right. Please read this piece by John Pavlovitz about suicide and how we need to do judge less and help more. (He’s an excellent follow on Twitter, too.)
 
I’m sorry to start your week on this note – forgive me – but I just had to share what’s in my heart. I know it’s on a lot of people’s minds and I can only hope that talking about it will empower more people to seek help instead of suffering in silence and then saying good-bye far, far too soon. Have a gentle Monday.
 

 
Happy Friday! I told you that today’s journal would be a diversion from the angst of the latest Ontario election season, and I’m keeping that promise. I can’t lie: I gasped when I checked the news on my phone after seeing Ocean’s 8. But it didn’t affect my thoughts on it, and my main criterion: would I recommend it to you? So, here we go.
 
Featuring an all-star cast, including Sandra Bullock (as Danny Ocean’s sister Debbie), Cate Blanchett, Sarah Paulson, Rihanna, Anne Hathaway, Awkwafina and Helena Bonham Carter, this movie had me hooked with its trailer months ago. So when I saw we had a chance to catch it a day before its official opening today, I leapt. 
 
Basically, it’s about a team of thieves who set their sights on a $150 million necklace during the glamorous Met Gala. (There’s some boyfriend backstory, too, thrown in for good measure.) Produced by the original director of the Ocean’s trilogy, Steven Soderbergh, Ocean’s 8 is directed this time around by Gary Ross of The Hunger Games fame, so it certainly has the fingerprints of the original testosterone-coated Ocean’s films. What it’s missing is the excitement.
 
Although Anne Hathaway’s high-strung actress role is a gem and former Les Mis castmate Helena Bonham Carter stands out in a few spots, too (as she always does), I wouldn’t classify 8 as a comedy. Sure, there were a few laughs early on – the Bullock goes “shopping” scene is memorable – but it sets you up to hope for more.
 
Maybe this should be a thriller of a movie, thanks to the heist plot, but it just…isn’t. There are moments where you think, Oh, here we go! but it doesn’t really rev high enough to change gears. Not once did I feel like we were kicking into high speed. It was all just kind of planned, the pieces put into place and then…well, I won’t spoil anything for you. (It does have a couple of clever plot twists towards the end.)
 
Was it a good movie? Sure – good enough. Light and breezy summer fare, certainly, (and plenty of eye candy at the Met Gala itself, from a fashion-and-star-gazing perspective) but not nearly as funny as, say, The Book Club.
 
Yes, Ocean’s 8 will open at number one this weekend and I get that. But I just wish it could have lived up to its trailer, or even its potential. With a cast and a franchise like this, a summer breeze should have been a sizzler.
 
Have a great weekend and I’ll be back with you here on Monday.
 

Here it is, June 7th: a day that is sure to usher in big change in my old stomping grounds of Ontario, just as we’ve seen here in BC since we arrived. (I’ve no doubt the same people who blamed us for bringing snow also wondered if we didn’t pack with us the whole coalition government idea, too.)
 
The polls leading up to today’s vote have been interesting to watch, to say the least; now it’s time to learn if the polls are accurate or, as in the case of the last US election, voters say one thing to pollsters and something else in the voting booth. Of course, here in Canada we can (hopefully) rest assured that there isn’t tampering by outside forces on those voting processes. But honestly, who knows any more? 
 
While we keep track on Twitter of the election results, we’ll also keep one eye on the hockey game as we get closer to the end of a pretty amazing playoff season. My hopes are with Las Vegas, only because of the Cinderella story of a franchise that was just formed with a bunch of – if you’ll pardon me – rejects from other teams and they’ve gone all the way to the finals. First time that’s ever happened in a team’s debut year.
 
Then you have the Washington Capitals and Ovie finally getting a chance to win a Stanley Cup ring. He’s about the only big Russian in Washington not to be on Mueller’s radar and it would be wonderful to see him cap off (no pun intended) a stellar career with the game’s highest honour. We’ll see.
 
What’s great about watching this series is that we have no skin in it, Rob and I. We are just observing for the joy of seeing good hockey and the fun of the drama, the pre-game festivities and all of that. It’s a relief not to feel such pain or joy every single game, as we did when Toronto was in the playoffs what seems like months and months ago.
 
Fortunately, we’ve started divorcing ourselves from the plight of the Blue Jays these days, too. Between injuries and arrest, it’s been just a horrible year already for this team. A promising April (better than last year’s) bowed down to a terrible May with not one back-to-back win – a fate they’d not had to endure since the late 1970s when the team was still in its infancy. What gives, guys? 
 
Luckily we bought just one game’s tickets for our visit to Oakland, California in late July/early August. Unlike last year, when we had the time of our lives watching the Jays in Seattle, we’re just going to go and hope for the best while enjoying the experience of seeing a ball game in a new park. They say it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, but sometimes it’s just sort of easier to sit on the sidelines and take things in for what they are: simple diversions. 
 
Good luck today and tonight, my Ontario friend. I’ll have a diversion of my own to share here tomorrow – a review of the brand new movie Oceans 8 for you.
 

 
So, a little while back I posted a picture on Instagram and Facebook of my DQ ice cream with a seascape backdrop. It got a lot of comments, many of them saying you’d just had your first DQ of the year, too. There’s something so special about that experience – the first of any season’s traditions. Now, I haven’t yet had my first Timmie’s Iced Capp and on this Camp Day, they’re top of mind for sure as I remember all of those mornings we did shows from the drive-thru at Tim Hortons.
 
Like a Timmie’s Iced Capp (250 calories for a small; 290 calories for a small mocha), I keep it to just a few per summer. I wish I could just drink them with abandon, but I know how fast those numbers add up and I also remember how shocked Lauren was when she saw what happened to her weight with all of the free drinks she got working at Starbucks!
 
It’s astounding how many calories those beverages we all love, or used to love, are packing. Yes, there are ways around them and special requests you can make (if you have some – add them to my Facebook post today and let us all know what we can order to lessen the numbers if that’s what we’re looking to do) but boy, talk about dangerous!
 
Counting calories (and fat and sugar grams – all of those numbers) is a pain, but it works. It totally works. A friend at lunch last week photographed her meal so that she’d remember to keep track of it later; I use myfitnesspal to stay on pace daily and I’m now down 22-1/2 pounds since last November.
 
Granted, I am coupling the counting with increased activity: Rob and I walk 10,000 steps or more three or four days a week and get as close as we can to that target all of the others. One of my favourite tricks is to get up and walk every time I’m on a phone call that’s going to be more than just two minutes. Got to 15,000 steps one night last week thanks to that one!
 
Anyway, I looked up the calories on the little cone I got from DQ to kick off summer a little early and was disappointed to see that it was 230. Why can’t they offer a “lighter” version? I’ve already given up on peanut buster parfaits (although you can get them to add a few peanuts to a small chocolate sundae if you want), but why does a cone have to be such a sin? 
 
Some people complained about the calories appearing on menus, when the practice began, as the sign of a “nanny state” or stupid reminders when all you want to do is eat what you want, but I’m a huge fan. When I’m making a decision knowing how many calories a day I’m going to allow myself, I want to choose what’s going to be satisfying the longest without feeling like I’ve sabotaged myself.
 
Information is power and I just want to make what I hope is a wise choice. Whether that’s at home with my app, my digital scale and measuring cup or out for the rare stop at a fast food joint when we’re on the road (or craving ice cream or to do good with Tim Hortons Camp Day today), I’m glad to have any info I can get my hand on – before it goes into my mouth.
 
Have a great day and don’t forget that even if you don’t buy at Tim’s today, maybe make a donation to change kids’ lives with a trip to camp. This was always such a fun day and a great chance to say “hi” to you in person. Enjoy.
 

I told you here yesterday of my shower “A-ha” moment (and it had nothing to do with getting minty shampoo where it shouldn’t go, although that’s happened). Last week as I was going through the one of the final edits of my book, taking care of legal requests that I get permission to mention this or that, I was ready just to delete a part of the book that meant a lot to me. In her “Homage to Age and Femininity,” published in O magazine, American novelist Anne Lamott summed up our lives and our future beautifully:

You will lose someone you can’t live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.

I thought it was so perfect: dancing with a limp. I couldn’t describe our lives better than Anne did right there and wanted to include that excerpt in my book. But, of course, it was flagged by the legal department at HarperCollins as needing permission (even though we credited the publication, etc.). If you ever wonder why a book is $30 it’s because the team that works on it is huge. It takes a village, that’s for sure!
 
So, with the deadline looming and hardly a prayer it would work, I just threw it out there on Twitter: 
 

 
I put that out on Saturday. The next morning, I awoke to a tweet that made me yelp; I’m sure Rob thought the coffee was too hot or something. Here’s what it said: 
 

 
How incredible and generous is that? We’re so thrilled. Just because I asked.
 
That gave me the courage to leave a voicemail and to email a Texas lawyer who wrote a book that inspired me well over a decade ago. Titled A Thinking Person’s Guide to Sobriety, it offered perspectives I’d never considered at the time, and I often still do. Even though years back I sent a “fan email” to Bert Pluymen and didn’t hear back (not that I expected to) I decided to give it a shot. I called and wrote seeking permission to include information about his book. He wrote back the same evening with a big yes: 

You absolutely have permission to do what you propose in the manner you describe. I admire your passion and perseverance in bringing your book project to fruition and look forward to reading it. 
 
Kindest regards, Bert Pluymen.

See, once again, all you have to do is ask. We’ve been so blessed all the way along here and learning new lessons as we go. The biggest one out of these exchanges? The incredible power of those three little letters: Y-E-S.
 
Talk to you here tomorrow. Yes?