Kinky boots on parade

Technically I should be editing my novel Leaving Hope and working on my query letter for Second Chances. Instead I'm writing here. Hey, at least I'm writing.

I was on Facebook earlier (yes, I know, such a huge shock... everyone who knows me can stop laughing hysterically now) and a friend of mine had posted a video from the US Thanksgiving Parade. I'm including a link here...

Kinky Boots at Macy's Parade

I'm giving everyone a chance to watch it.
*taps foot and looks impatiently at computer clock*
... okay, that should be long enough.

Comments are posted in the article about how horrible it was for this song to be played at the parade. One even claimed to make the poster have a little less hope for humanity. Because, you know, people singing about love and being there for each other is such a message of despair. But my favourite comment (which was echoed in the resulting comments on Facebook) was the one that said "Let parents decide when to discuss certain topics with their kids instead of springing it on them in Macy's Parade."

What parent really believes life waits for them to decide when to have these conversations? Really? C'mon, you'd think that ship would have sailed when your toddler wanted to know why Daddy has a penis. At the dinner table. With guests over.

Or am I the only lucky one to have conversations like this?

Let me tell you about how the topic of drag queens came up in my family.

It all started on a lovely summer's trip to the park. I got the kids dressed, slathered them in sunscreen, collected a handful of toys, and set out for the local park. We were almost there when a man approached us. He was tall, at least 6ft, and he looked even taller in his stilettos. Despite it being barely after lunch, he was all dressed up for a night on the town. Make up, styled hair, evening gown... he was ready to go. And, just to make the experience even more interesting, he wanted directions to the local jail so he could visit his boyfriend. I've found that when life hands us an experience, it goes all out.

I assured him that he was on the right road to get to the local jail and it probably wouldn't take him more than ten minutes to get there, then agreed that it must stink to have his boyfriend behind bars. Then we said goodbye and he headed off. The whole time both kids stared up at him wide eyed.

The kids watched him walk away (a lot more gracefully than I would in heels) then daughter turned to me and said, "Mommy, why is that man wearing a dress?" And I looked at her and said, "Because he wants to." Then we went to the park.

That was it. No huge explanation. No confusion. It's honestly not that hard a question.

My son came home this evening right after I watched the video so I dragged him to the computer and made him watch it too, just to get his reaction (he's what's known as a captive audience).

His first reaction was sheer bafflement that the song would be played at a parade. Because floats move a lot faster than that and no one would get the whole message, they'd just hear little bits and pieces. Obviously the Macy parade isn't a tradition in our house. I promptly explained this song was performed at the beginning and had been stationary. Everyone there heard the whole thing.

Oh... well in that case he figured they should play it twice. Once at the beginning and again at the end, because that was something everyone should hear.

Then, just to round out the conversation, I googled drag queens and we looked at faces of men with half their head made up. What else do you do on a Saturday evening? I guess we could play cards (if I knew where the deck was and remembered any games) but the pictures were more interesting.

Now I'm going back to editing Leaving Hope. I'm not going to bother posting the first chapter of Second Chances (like I did with my other novels). All it does is end in a badly formatted wall of text. But I like the first chapter and hopefully some agent out there will too.

Words from my son

I love this kid. Every once in a while we'll have a conversation and he'll say something that gets me thinking. We just had an out of the blue conversation and it went like this...

Mom, there are people out there that think being gay is unnatural. Running around naked is natural, *looks over at the cats* I don't see our cats wearing clothes, and being gay is natural too.

I'd have a little bit of respect for those people, not much but a little, if they actually tried to live a natural life. You know, if they ran around naked in the woods, eating what they found and building a tent with their bare hands. Fending off bears with sticks. And if a tree fell on them, they just lay there because going to the hospital's unnatural.

If they want to claim they're for what's natural, they shouldn't be online or driving cars or wearing glasses or watching TV. *looks at me seriously* You know what's unnatural? It's unnatural to hate gays.

Obligatory kid photo...

 And he's right. How can someone sit in a climate controlled house that's wired with electricity, wearing clothes made with man-made fibers, heating their food in a microwave, while whining about what's "natural"? There are a lot of unnatural things in our lives, who someone loves isn't one of them.

FYI (if you're a human being) | Needing CPR

Suddenly all my friends are posting and loving this blog entry titled FYI (if you're a teenage girl), from the blog Given Breath. I clicked on the link and hated it so much that I had to share it with my teenage son. We sat and howled with laughter while I read it aloud to him, then together we came up with several reasons why we both hated it.

What first set my hackles up was her sanctimonious attitude. I've got teenage children (a boy and a girl). I don't think any of their friends give a rat's ass that I've got a blog, or reads it for that matter. They certainly aren't waiting with bated breath for this post and their hopes and dreams aren't pinned on being friended or liked by my kids on any social media platforms. When it comes to her sons, Kim seems to feel otherwise.

She gushes at the beginning of the post about how lovely her sons' female friends are and how cute their rooms are. Then she babbles about how lovely (again), interesting, smart, unique, insightful, and wise they are... but "-big bummer- we have to block your posts". You see, her precious boys lack the capacity to see their female friends as anything other than sex objects after seeing them posing in pyjamas or a towel. Which is apparently the girls' problem and not any parenting deficiency on her end. Then she assures them it's not too late and to RUN to their accounts to take down their "selfies"... ending with an assurance that she's glad they're friends.

I don't get it. Does she really think there are hordes of girls racing to their computers to delete their photos? Thinking "phew, I got that one gone just in time... good thing considering Mrs. Hall has a zero tolerance policy". Personally, if I was a teenager and I read that blog post, I'd be deleting them off my friends lists anyway, simply because I wouldn't want Mrs. Hall and her smarmy attitude browsing through my photos.

The second thing that caught my eye were the pictures. You see, she's scattered a couple of shots of her sons throughout the blog post and, despite the fact the post has nothing to do with swimming, she chose shots of them posing in their bathing suits. Yes, in the middle of telling her sons' female friends that if they pose in their pyjamas in their bedrooms, even once, she's blocking them... she posted a shot of her three boys (and her young daughter) flexing their muscles on the beach. This makes her chastising the girls even more ironic, telling them that "none of these positions is one (sic) I naturally assume before sleep, this I know". Well none of the positions that her boys were in are ones that I naturally assume while swimming. You know the saying "what's good for the goose is good for the gander". Is she going through all her sons' pictures to make sure they aren't posing in skimpy clothing? Obviously not.

My son was disgusted by her attitude. First he admitted it really didn't matter what clothes a girl was wearing, he could readily picture her in a sexual way regardless. Second, just because he could, it didn't mean that was all he saw in the girls around him and he really resented the implication that boys just couldn't control themselves. And third, he strongly feels you can be a man of integrity AND look at pictures of scantily clad women. So far he's doing well so I'm willing to believe him on this one.

I think by making clothing and a pose the important part of her decision, Mrs. Hall is neglecting to teach her sons the true value of friendship. I want my kids to accept their friends for who they are and not judge them by the clothes they wear or their hair styles. Or, for that matter, by any unfortunate shots that make them look far more like Donald, Daffy, or Daisy than a teenage girl.

In the end, I find her entire post to be shallow and vapid. She has a whole raft of positive descriptions of her sons' friends but chooses to ignore them and, instead, bases her values solely on appearance. I find it terribly sad that so many people are willing to back her on this.

And, if there are any teens reading my post, I hope you wear the clothes that you like and feel comfortable in. I don't care about your clothes, I care about what sort of person you are. Treat the people around you with respect. Be kind. Be fair. Help others. Be accepting. If you're all of those things, you're welcome in my home no matter what you're wearing.

Random Acts of Kindness

The sun was barely peeking over the nearby buildings when I got downtown to wait for my connecting bus. There were four of us at the stop. Myself, as usual, clutching a pen and jotting ideas and dialogue in a notebook; a man staring disinterestedly at the road; and two older woman leaning against a brick wall, smoking and chatting with each other.

A young couple in their early twenties walked up to them. The  man asked if they had a lighter he could borrow and the one of the ladies, wearing a uniform from a national doughnut store chain, reached into her purse and handed it to him. She commented on how glad she was he hadn't asked for a cigarette, she was getting asked all the time and couldn't afford to give them to everyone, she could barely afford them for herself.

The four of them commiserated briefly about the price of smokes and how frequently people asked for them these days then the young couple turned to walk away. They took one step then the man turned back and asked, "Do you play the lottery?"

The woman looked confused, then nodded and agreed that she played when she could. He smiled, told her today was her lucky day, and handed her a crisp new twenty dollar bill, before walking away. She stared after him in astonishment, barely managing to stammer thanks.

I think, when random acts of kindness are mentioned, we end up thinking we can't do much. The little we can offer is just a pittance. After all, when you get right down to it, what could twenty dollars do?

I got on the bus with that lady, who was quite overcome by the money. She was in the last week of her job, going on sick leave in a few days. She's suffering from severe pain caused by bone growths in her knee and just can't handle working eight hours on her feet anymore. All that helps is expensive pain medication. She'd just run out and didn't have enough money to buy her new prescription. That $20 covered the gap.

I don't know how that young man felt when he handed her the money. Hopefully pride that he was able to help but he'll never know how much it meant to her. All he heard was her startled "thanks" before he walked away. It was the people on the bus who discovered how much this meant to her, not him.

That's the thing about random acts of kindness. You don't know. You have no idea what it means to the person you reach out to. It might mean nothing but then again, it might mean the world. It's random. I think the most important part is to reach out and do the best you can with what you have. We're all a candle in the darkness and it's up to us to share our flame.

Failing at humanity

I read an article yesterday that made me cry. Not a dainty, dab my eyes with a kleenex cry, instead I sobbed on my son's shoulder while he looked down at me in confusion.

It was an article a friend of mine shared on Facebook. I clicked the link and was horrified by the juxtaposition -- a group of friends, all in their late teens, posing for the camera; one with a huge grin. The picture could have been taken anywhere. At the beach, playing soccer, just plain hanging out. Instead they were in a well lit room, surrounding a fellow teenage boy. They're grinning, mugging for the camera. He's crouched on the ground in his underwear, splattered with paint, and clutching a sex toy. Soon they're going to torture him to death, simply because he's gay.

How does this happen? How could they look into the eyes of a fellow human being and see nothing but an object to vent their frustrations? He'd done nothing to them, nothing except merely exist. They're the ones who hunted him down, searched him out on a social network site, and coaxed him into meeting them. I look into their eyes and see no sign of shame or remorse; nothing that says they feel they're doing anything wrong.

Since this happened in Russia, they aren't going to learn what they did is wrong. Putin has ruled that anything positive said about gays is against family values, so even someone saying this teen had done nothing to them, that it was okay for him to simply be himself, could get that person arrested. I'm not nearly naive enough to think this is a random occurrence, or even just in Russia. I know it happens world wide. And this is where we've failed as human kind.

People talk about defending family values. Family? It's been said often enough before, it's us straight people having the majority of kids. These are our children, our siblings, our cousins. This is our family. If people truly want to protect families, they should include all the members. I've got two teenagers. When I gave birth, I vowed to them that I'd always love and protect them. There wasn't a clause in there that said "as long as you grow up to marry someone of the opposite sex and give me grandbabies". That was my choice to marry their father and have kids; they will make their own choices. And the gender(s) you're attracted to isn't a choice at all.

I wish we lived in a world where everyone was brought up with love, kindness, and compassion. I wish we lived in a world with true family values, the ones where you love every member of your family, not just the people who are the same as you. I wish we lived in a world where those teenagers never even bothered to search that boy up on social media because, hey, who cares if he's gay. And I really wish I had some answers, because I'm heartsick of reading about atrocities.

Disposable pets

We have three cats, all adopted. One was surrendered, one abandoned, and the last was disposed.

Angel was surrendered to a no-kill animal rescue agency, along with her brother, when their owner fell on hard times and couldn't afford to take care of them. It stinks but I understand that. And if anyone surrendered their black and white kitten Angelica to a shelter just east of Toronto, one that services Paws and Claws, she's a happy, healthy almost seven year old cat now (we picked Valentine's Day for her birthday) and is currently curled up snoozing on the couch.

I feel anger when I think of Blackie. Her previous owners left her behind in a shed when they moved. She was just a kitten when we adopted her at eleven months old and she'd obviously been malnourished. Her leg bones are bowed and she's got the oddest walk (which is not helped by her current pot belly). I can't understand and don't want to understand the mentality of someone who would lock a kitten up and abandon her to possibly starve to death.

It's Oreo that has me baffled. We had neighbours who lived across the hallway from us when my children were smaller. They moved in with two older cats and, shortly after we adopted Blackie, they picked Oreo out of a box of "free kittens".

A few months later they decided to move in with a family member who did not want three cats in his home. The Mom was deciding which cat to take to the shelter when I volunteered to take one. This came at the perfect time for us because my children's father (and his girlfriend) had promised the kids a kitten from the litter their cat was going to have. That litter never arrived and the kids were heartbroken they weren't going to get their kitten. Oreo, still a kitten at the time, was just what they were looking for.

A few weeks later the neighbours had a dog, given to them through the family grapevine. Someone's grandmother died, leaving behind an elderly dog. Daughter was disappointed, positive that if we'd waited a few weeks, we would have been given the dog instead of Oreo. I reminded her repeatedly that a) we'd never been offered the dog and b) we had Oreo and why would she trade him for any animal. Daughter was ticked to discover they gave the dog away to someone else shortly after moving due to bathroom issues.

A few years went by then there was a flurry of excitement on Facebook because they were getting a puppy. They'd been looking for ages and found the perfect puppy for their family. Then came the adorable puppy and child pictures. I asked how the cats were getting along with the puppy and got the response of "we got rid of the cats several months ago". Got rid of the cats who were around eight years old at the time.

A short while later she was posting saying she was going to look for a new home for her puppy soon if he didn't stop barking at the vacuum cleaner then wetting in terror. I suggested puppy training classes and provided links to local ones. She responded saying that despite months of looking for the "perfect puppy", she had not once looked into the breed. Apparently anxiety and wetting issues were common. She also refused to look into puppy training classes because hopefully the puppy would outgrow these issues.

I got blocked when I replied the shelters are already full of dogs who didn't outgrow anxiety issues and poor bathroom habits then reposted the training class links. This was at least half a year ago so I'm sure little Coco has been passed along to another family and they've moved on to yet another "perfect pet". We adopted Oreo five years ago this April. In those five years they have gotten rid of three cats and two dogs that I know of. I haven't spoken to them since last summer so who knows if they've gone through another perfect pet since then.

I woke up this morning to find Oreo snuggled against me again, his head nestled on my arm, his legs sprawled, his eyes watching mine... eager for me to wake and rub his tummy. He rolled around on the bed when he realized I was awake, licking my nose and wriggling so I could reach every part of his tummy. Son came into my room before bed last night so I could read him part of my novel. When he left to brush his teeth, he patted his leg and said "Come Oreo, it's tooth brushing time" and Oreo jumped off the bed and trotted along behind. My daughter insists he's a dog disguised as a cat.

I don't think of that family often but every once in a while Oreo will do something completely adorable and completely him and I wonder if they know what they're missing. How do you pick out a pet, promise to care for it, then give it away? How can you love and care for an animal for months or years and then pass it along and forget about it? One child used to ask my daughter and I about Oreo. "He's my Oreo" she'd insist to my daughter. Her mother never asked. Do her other children ever wonder about the pets they no longer own? Will they grow up to care for their own pets or will they grow up to see pets as nothing more than toys? Something to enjoy for a time and pass on once they're "boring".

Sure, I'm the one who gets to deal with the not fun stuff. Oreo very likely has FIV. I know it's not as easily transmitted as I was told when we first adopted him but I can't help but wonder if my other two cats have it as well. And Oreo has allergies, which means they get expensive cat food. We're eating lentils, rice, and pasta while the cats dine on smoked salmon and trout.

But then he walks up beside me, demanding attention, and closes his eyes in ecstasy as I scratch his forehead right above the eyes. His purr deepens, he grabs my hand with both paws and maneuvers it for a chest rub. He stares at me and my heart melts and I wonder once again if they ever know what they threw away.

Parenting, prejudice, and tough love

Update: When I first posted this entry, the photo was fairly new. I searched Facebook and discovered the person's name was there and had the same profile picture as the photo. She was friends with the person who replied and that profile picture also matched. I couldn't find the matching status but her profile wasn't set to public and, if I had a status making the rounds on Facebook (in not a positive manner) I'd have deleted it too. Then I found a non-grainy photo of the status, it looked real. I searched Google for final confirmation and found about 3 or 4 entries under her name. An Etsy, Twitter, and a MyLife account. I think there might have been one more. I couldn't find the age of her son but did confirm she was a mother. I didn't tag her in this blog as I was writing more to discuss my feelings on what was written and not the author of the status, but I didn't see the point in removing names and photos from the picture.

Several days ago I posted a link to this entry on a forum I frequent. That day the woman who set up the forum posted the picture on her own blog, Regretsy. Yesterday someone came onto the forum to claim the person was her niece and had been framed; she also posted a reply on my blog. I sent her a message asking her for more information but heard nothing. Thankfully Helen, the pseudonym of the woman running Regresty, was able to talk to the person who supposedly wrote this status. Her son is three years old, no where near old enough to walk home on his own with anyone. She hadn't written it.

Now comes the scary part. Within a half-hour of my blog entry, someone had already created a Facebook page, "[name]: Homophobe and Child Abuser?" with people sending her messages and threatening violence. And, remember I said I found three or four entries under her name? Google now brings up 17,500 results. Many of which show up as "Let's draw some more attention to [name] and her friend, [name]. ... How absolutely disgusting and disgraceful, thank you, [name] and [friend's name] ..." Page after page of identical listings. I got up to the 16th page before I found an entry that didn't have anything to do with her (one of those "Did you go to school with anyone named [first name] or [last name]? Find your friend here" entries). Note that wasn't where the entries against her ended, it was just where it stopped being all her. There are many pages beyond that.

I removed the reply to this post as it mentioned her by name. I have also removed her name from the picture and from my blog. I'm keeping my blog entry up but please keep in mind the photo is fictional. And, if you have written a blog about this photo and the women involved in it, please un-tag them and remove their names. They've had enough negative attention and would like to fade out of the public eye.

***************************************************************

I have seen this picture on Facebook several times since last night and each time it makes my heart heavy. Here's a mother determined to stamp out what should be nurtured in her child; kindness, open-mindedness, and empathy. It makes me want to give both those kids hugs. Both deserve to be able to walk home with their neighbour without threats of violence.

Her friend's comment about tough love baffles me. Obviously this person has no idea what tough love is. Tough love is allowing your teenager to deal with the consequences of their actions. They do something wrong and you do not step in to fix things for them, hoping that the results will show them in a way lectures won't. Tough love involves stepping back, you are not the consequences and you don't deal the consequences. It is not an excuse to violently pass your prejudices onto your children.

The other part that confuses me is their ages. How old are they? If they're prepubescent children then how does she know this boy is gay? Is she assuming because of interests or personality? My son was uniformly described as "sweet" when he was a child. He used to bring his baby doll to school and loved the colour pink. He's 15 years old now and hanging out with his girlfriend as I type. You can't judge kids (anyone for that matter) based on stereotypes. And, if they're old enough for this kid to have actually come out, then why on earth is she spanking her son? If she is putting her hand on her teenage son's backside, I hope someone from child protective services is investigating this family.

One proud moment in my life came one afternoon when my daughter got home from school. This was back when she was in grade eight and, for some unknown reason, the school decided it would be fun to invite all the boys and girls in the senior classes to stay at school for a sleepover. It was going to be heavily supervised and my daughter was eager to attend. All the kids were talking about it. That afternoon, however, my daughter was angry. Sarah*, a classmate of hers, had confided in one of her friends that she was bisexual. On the bus ride that morning, the friend had spread that information around. Her excuse was that she felt everyone should know before the sleepover. And, of course, that information spread within minutes of the buses arrival. Daughter got to school in time to hear a group of her classmates loudly proclaim that there was no way they'd sleep anywhere near Sarah. That was when my daughter walked up to her and told Sarah that she could put her sleeping bag beside daughter's bag. She wasn't going to spend the sleepover alone.

Anyone who's had a preteen/young teen girl knows what these years are like. Sleepover central. Two days later my daughter got an invitation to go for a sleepover at Sarah's house. What does a parent do? In my home, I request to go and visit the parents. I spoke to the Mom and got a general idea of what their home was like. Squalid and disorganized but I didn't see anything that would actively harm daughter and hoped maybe the rampant messiness would be an eye opener to prod her into cleaning her own room (it wasn't). They slept over at each other's homes a few times before Sarah moved.

I allowed daughter to deal with the consequences of her actions, with support and praise from me. If you stand up for someone in front of bullies you paint a target on your shirt. Daughter learned this as vandalism of school property (namely graffiti against Sarah) quickly occurred and was blamed on daughter by the same girls who had refused to sleep near Sarah in the first place. What did daughter learn from her actions? She has about three friends now who are "out" (I'm sure she will tell me the exact number once she reads my blog) so I figure one thing was standing up for friends and supporting them.

This woman too has learned one thing from her actions, her page is no longer totally public since her status went viral (her friend, on the other hand, seems to have missed this lesson). I can only hope she's learned something as well that her son already knew, kindness and empathy.



* yes, I just picked a name at random

Ethics, rights, empathy, and fried chicken

A couple of weeks ago my son came up to me. He was furious with Tide for discriminating against men. I haven't seen their ad as I don't watch TV, but my son explained they showed women doing a variety of household chores while thanking them for using their products. It wasn't fair that they didn't share clips of men doing household chores while thanking them.

I tried to explain to him that women, overwhelmingly are stuck with the day to day chores. Chores which no one seems to notice, let alone offers thanks for a job well done. Even in families where both the man and the woman work, the woman still has the majority of the chores land on her shoulders. Son found this hard to grasp. He lives in a house run by me, his single Mom, and he doesn't see his father often. To him, life is pretty much run by women and he's the one scrubbing dishes while I call him on the way home from work saying, "I'm on the last bus, please make sure they're done before I get there."

The discussion ended with frustration on both sides. Frustration for son because I didn't understand how he felt and frustration on my side because he wouldn't listen to what I was saying and understand the facts. Neither of us got anywhere.

Around the same time as our discussion, I began seeing discussions about Chick-fil-a on Facebook, in the online news, and on a forum I frequent. Before this I'd never heard of the restaurant. We don't have it in Canada. The basic issues of unfairness and discrimination reminded me of the discussion I'd had with son; along with the feelings of frustration on both sides.

I've done a lot of thinking over the past few weeks, helped along by copious amounts of Facebook pictures, comments, online articles, and discussions, and have finally organized my thoughts enough to share.

My first thought is on rights. We talk a lot about our rights as a society in general. When you get right down to it though, none of us have rights. We have privileges based on where we live. Just ask an Iranian woman who was a university student in the 1960's if she still has the same rights she had back then. Human rights only exist when the majority of people are willing to treat everyone relatively equally and fairly and create and follow laws to uphold those values.

That being said, I am strongly for equality and fairness. I think a society should be judged on how well the weakest members are treated, not the strongest. I feel that all people should have the right to live their lives fairly and peacefully and that children should be protected. Rights are not something that happens automatically. They are something to strive and work for. And they are worth working for.

Tightly tied to rights comes the concept of discrimination. Discrimination is being treated less than equally compared to others around you. The key words there are "less than equally". I had an interview at a fast food restaurant that ended when the owner of the store realized I was a single mother. She seemed interested in hiring me right until then. I was a great prospective employee right up until "So what does your husband think about you working?" "You don't have a husband? But you have kids. Oh. Thanks for coming in. We don't have a position for you." That's discrimination. Granted, I did nothing about it but I couldn't see the point in trying to fight to work at minimum wage for a busy body who was that interested in my personal life.

Less than equally also means in similar situations. It's discrimination if you're getting less hours at work because of your religion or skin colour. It's not discrimination if you're getting less hours at work because you show up 10 minutes late every day and call in "sick" two Fridays a month.

I am also tired of hearing about discrimination where it's being defined as "I used to get special privileges above everyone else. Now I'm expected to be treated equal to others, that's discrimination". Some handy tips to distinguish between discrimination and wanting special privileges. Discrimination is being told that you cannot pray silently to yourself in a public place or that you cannot marry another consenting adult due to gender. Wanting special privileges is when you're fighting to keep other consenting adults from getting married because it's against your beliefs or insisting that a court house is the perfect place to showcase the 10 commandments because you feel everyone else should live by your beliefs. Discrimination is a lack of acceptance for your beliefs while wanting special privileges is a lack of acceptance for other's beliefs.

And, while I'm on the topic, a lack of religious displays is not discrimination or pandering to atheism (a complaint I've heard before). A public place with no religious displays is simply a public space. Last time I checked, the library and local park were not hotbeds of atheist activity due to lack of religious symbols. If you ever see a public building with a giant scarlet A prominently displayed and the third Humanist manifesto carved in the wall, you can talk to me then about discrimination.

Also, the reason of "it's always been done this way" isn't a reason either because nothing has "always been done this way". Even if you've had every single person in the room pray before a public meeting for the past 20 years... twenty is not the same as always. And in 20 more years people will be equally convinced that meetings have "always" started without a prayer. Don't think I'm right? Listen to the people in the States who claim there's "always" been the words "In God we trust" on their money then do your own research.

The twin excuses of "it's always been done this way" and "these are my religious beliefs and you can't discriminate against them" are playing out almost daily in the States lately to the detriment of both gays and women. Like I said above, discrimination is when you are personally being affected by someone else. Wanting special privileges is when you want to be treated above others because, in your mind, your beliefs are more important than others' rights. If you personally are against birth control, the answer is simple. Don't use freaking birth control. But you have no right or reason to ban others from using it because you don't like it. Your religion keeps you from even prescribing birth control. Don't get a job where you'll need to prescribe it. If you want to be a doctor, specialize. I'm willing to bet that ophthalmologists and gerontologists are never asked to prescribe birth control.

As I mentioned above, around the same time my son was upset with Tide, there came a tidal wave of discussions regarding Chick-fil-a... a company I hadn't even heard of before. From what I understand it's a religious fast food place that sells chicken and has the weirdest slogan ever. When I first saw the slogan I thought one of my friends was mocking them. It wasn't until yesterday that I realized it's supposed to be on signs held by cows.

I was already pretty much the last person on their list of potential customers. As a Canadian I live nowhere near their restaurants. As an atheist I have no interest in going into a restaurant where the food wrappers have religious slogans and praise music blares through the speakers. And as a vegetarian I don't think they've got anything other than fries for me to eat. So my boycott of Chick-fil-a was pretty much symbolic.

What I want for all my friends is for them to be able to marry the person they fall in love with (or live common law if they so choose). I want them to be able to have kids if they want. I want them to be able to share dental benefits, go broke on a mortgage together, and in the worst case scenario be there in the ICU signing papers and speaking to doctors.

If your religious beliefs don't allow for same sex marriage, the answer is pretty simple. Don't get married to someone of the same sex. Same sex marriage has been legal in Canada for about a decade now and our country is chugging along just as usual. God did not smite us. Marriage between straight couples still occurs. Children are still being born. There are still Christians. There are still churches. There are still Christian churches who won't perform same sex marriages. And there are Christian churches who willingly do.

The thing about prejudice is it's an "us versus them" situation. Once you lump people into a group, you lose sight of individuals and see nothing more than a formless mass of "them".

My great-grandmother was born in Northern Ireland in a small town near Belfast. She moved to Canada when she was a little girl, maybe 7 or 8 years old. In Ireland, she used to drive her own little pony and cart to and from school. My parents still have her little wooden riding crop. Every morning her mother would warn her to "watch out for those Catholics... if they catch you they'll drag you off your cart and throw you over the cliffs". Nanaimo Nana lived to be 83 years old and to the day she died she believed there were Catholics and then there were good Catholics, the ones she knew personally who were different from the rest.

That's prejudice; the scary, faceless them. An amorphous mass of other, identified by nothing more than a name. How many of you who are against gay rights are thinking of people when you hear the word "gay"? Are you thinking of the red-headed teenager ringing in your order? Are you thinking of the women ziplining at a nearby park? Or the two men sitting quietly at an outdoor concert? Are you thinking of your child's music teacher? Someone in a military uniform.You probably aren't thinking of any people at all. And if you are, are they the "exceptions"? Because there are no exceptions when you're talking about a group of people. If you know one person out of a group, you know one person. An exception assumes that everyone else in the group is pretty much the same.

I tend to rant about prejudice in general. I don't want to hear about "them". You start talking about Hindus and I think of my boss who gave me a bunch of peppers out of her garden. Muslims and I think of my young co-worker who shyly explained the bracelet on his wrist, symbolizing the love between him and his sisters. Blacks... I think about my coworker who shares her lunch with me (I share too) and the friend I used to go camping with when the kids were small. The list goes on. I'm a white, middle aged Canadian female. That doesn't make me the same as every other white, middle aged Canadian female. As soon as you start referring to a group of people like they're all exactly the same, I know you're prejudiced.

All I'm asking is that when you start thinking of people as a group, stop and think. Get to know people, listen and learn. Don't just go with feelings in an argument. Your religious beliefs are just that. Yours. Use them as a guide in your life, live by them, but please remember they are yours. You  have no right to tell others how to live based on your own beliefs. Let them have their own lives and their own beliefs.

Above all be kind and be fair.

Dear Canada Post, a break up letter

Dear Canada Post,

I loved you when I was a teenager. I could write a letter to my friend, pay you thirty cents, and you would send my letter to her. Even when the envelope groaned under the length we made our addresses. Canada, North America, Earth, Solar System, Milky Way Galaxy... you still got it there within two days.

When I was an adult, I lost a lot of respect for you over one word. Insurance. To my way of thinking, when you pay for a service you should get that service. I pay you my money to send a parcel from my local post office to a friend or family member. That parcel is in your possession until it's picked up at the other end. Until my friend or family member picks up the parcel, it is your responsibility. That is what I paid you for, to deliver my parcel safely and efficiently. So why do you refuse to promise this unless I pay you extra?

When I go to the grocery store, I don't have to pay extra to ensure the cashier rings my products in correctly. In fact, if they screw up I get the product for free. When I go to a restaurant, I don't have to pay extra to make sure the waiter brings me what I order and remembers to serve me. And when I order a product from a store with shipping, I don't pay extra to ensure it gets delivered. If I don't receive the product, they ship it again. Your insurance reminds me more of the mafia or, at the very least, the mafia as seen in fiction books and on TV. You know, the old, "You never know when someone might just come in and rob your store and break your kneecaps. If you give us insurance, we'll make sure this doesn't happen."

I've been slowly breaking up with you over the years. My friends and I email each other now instead of sending letters for example. About the only things that go through the mail now are cards. To me it's just not Christmas or a birthday without a real card you can pick up and hold. An ecard just doesn't have the same feel.

I picked up a birthday card for my sister. Nothing huge or glittery; just a nice, simple, standard sized birthday card. And, since it's my sister and I wanted to send her something (while avoiding "sell a kidney" shipping fees plus urging to buy insurance) I added a gift card.

I went to your counter at our local Shoppers Drug Mart to pick up a local stamp. The cashier informed me it was 69 cents. I fished out all my change but only had 61 cents. A total irony as when I went online later to double check stamp prices for 1982, I discovered the set price is 61 cents. However, you allow kiosks with your name and products, staffed by people in Canada Post uniforms to set their own prices. In order to get the real Canada Post price, you have to go to an actual outlet. I don't know where that is. The one  building I knew is for sale. It was moot anyways as the cashier plunked my card down on a scale and informed me my standard birthday card was "oversize" by 0.04g and therefore twice the price. Apparently gift cards are too heavy for letter mail and glitter can tip the scale too.

I paid my extra money and, as I was walking away, the cashier chucked the card into a sliding drawer and cheerfully informed me that since I hadn't paid for any form of expedited parcel delivery, my card would be delivered in six days. Six? What happened to 2 - 3 day service? Heck, I walked past a mailbox on my way home and it claimed four days for national service. Still a day more than I remember but two less than I was told.

And now I'm pondering Christmas. If a simple plastic gift card doubles my price, what are a picture and a letter going to do? Heck, according to you, even if I skip the letter and picture, some glitter on the card might bump me over the weight limit. You might have me by the short and curlies there. I can't think of another organization that will deliver Christmas cards for any decent price. But today was my last gift card. From now on presents will be bought and shipped through companies offering free delivery.

So Canada Post, it was fun while it lasted. And while I'd love to leave you with the face saving "it's me, not you" speech, this time it really is you. You might see me over the Christmas holidays, but if you don't you'll know why.

You obviously don't have a sense of humour

How many of you have heard that phrase before? How many of you have said it? I think that phrase exemplifies one of the problems in our society, a serious lack of empathy.

I started thinking about it last week when a certain comedian* fervently defended his rape "jokes" and his subsequent "joke" of asking members of his audience to gang rape an inadvertent heckler. I say inadvertent as she admits she hadn't gone to the show to disrupt it, something I think most hecklers set out to do.

I thought about it some more this week when someone* on a craft website made a t-shirt regarding the shootings at the movie theatre in Colorado. A shirt with a print of the murderer's* face on the front and "It's WAY too soon to wear this shirt" typed in bloody font.

I wouldn't have known about either except through social media. In the first case it was through friends on Facebook who were horrified by the so-called jokes. In the second it was through a forum I belong to and, in that case, the responses generally circled around freedom of speech.

Freedom of speech. I get that's a big thing, especially in the United States where it seems to be brought up as frequently as the right to bear arms. But whatever happened to tact and decency? Do the people who claim this as a right for anyone to say whatever they want, whenever they want, think this was what their ancestors had in mind? Hint, your ancestors were wanting you to be free from oppressive governments, not allowed to trash talk your neighbours and insult bereaved family members with impunity.

When my children were small I spent a lot of time teaching them tact and empathy. "Yes honey, I know the man we just passed was very fat. He knows that too and it hurt his feelings when you yelled it. You don't need to say everything you think, you can keep some things in your head."

To me, that was just part of being a human being. Think about what others are feeling. Be respectful. Don't say something if you know it's going to hurt someone else needlessly. Try to be kind. Something my parents and grandparents would simply sum up as "good manners".

There seems to be a growing number of people who either missed those lessons or flat out ignored them. They seem to think of tact as a form of weakness, a fear of sharing your thoughts. They see themselves as strong, blunt, or brutally honest. Sharing truths everyone else is too weak-willed to share. People who disagree are too stupid to see the truth. The people they hurt are dismissed as weak and too sensitive.

In one forum I go on, people who disagree and think some things simply shouldn't be said are regularly referred to as "drama llamas"; a name that was once saved for people who constantly lead and share overly dramatic lives. The sort of person who posts "OMG FML!!! Nothing good ever happens to me!" when all that happened was they ran out of milk after the store closed and they'll need to make eggs for breakfast instead of cereal. Now, however, if you post that making a t-shirt about a recent mass murder is disgusting, you're dismissed as a "drama llama".

I see this as part of a bigger issue. A lack of empathy means dismissing whole groups of people as being different from you and not worthy of the same rights and benefits as you. Welfare "bums"... of course they should be tested for drugs and alcohol then turfed off assistance if they test positive. I don't want "my money" being used for this. Ignoring that alcohol isn't illegal. Ignoring that people who abuse drugs are in the minority. Ignoring that it will cost more money to test everyone on assistance than it will save so we'll lose money. Ignoring the question of where will these people go? Someone who's addicted to drugs and already unemployed isn't going to suddenly find a job once they're penniless and on the street. Ironically the same people who want this to happen are also frustrated and fed up with beggars on the streets. So they're advocating for more people to be on the streets while demanding that someone do something and get these people out of their sight. And anyone who disagrees with them is a leftist dreamer with "pie in the sky" ideals.

Or, in the States, the whole gay marriage issue. Herds of people stampeding to polls to vote that their State never allow same-sex marriages ever. Or, in the case of North Carolina, stripping the rights of people in common law marriages too just to ensure no same-sex marriages occur. Under the misguided idea that, just because they personally don't want same-sex marriage, no one else should be allowed to. Refusing the right for millions of people to marry the person they love because it's "icky" and they don't want to have to think about it.

And, in Canada, there's Omar Khadr, a 15 year old boy convicted of war crimes and sent to Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp. He's been there for a decade now, despite an initial agreement of an 8 year sentence with a chance to come back to Canada after one year. No matter what he's like now after a decade of imprisonment and torture, no matter what his family beliefs are regarding western society, he is a Canadian citizen. I can't see how ignoring our Charter of Rights and Freedoms is a good thing. If we ignore one young man because of his family beliefs, his religion, who he visited at 10 years old, or the colour of his skin... where do we stop? Personally, I think he should have been hustled back as a 15 year old child. We're Canadian and we should take care of our own.

Do I have any solutions? No. But one thing I refuse to do now is sit back and shut up in the face of intolerance and just plain meanness. You think I don't have a sense of humour? Fine. But you'll have to listen to me tell you that I think you're the one lacking in humour if you think gang rape and mass murder is funny. If you don't like it, don't share your so-called jokes with me. They're not funny.

* I'm not adding names because I refuse to give these people any more time in the spotlight.

I want it and I want it NOW!

I left for work yesterday just before 5:30am and got home just after 4pm with plans of making either pancakes or waffles for dinner. Both were nice and easy and both could be used for a quick lunch for son today. I checked the fridge as soon as I walked in and we had just enough milk left. Of course, a half hour later when I went to make the pancakes, son had already drank over a cup and we no longer had enough.

I grumbled and we headed out to the grocery store to pick up milk and something for dinner as by that time I didn't really feel like making pancakes. We headed down the dairy aisle first then son started down the ice cream aisle. We looked at the huge row of tantalizing confections and son burst out, "It's not fair. I can't get ice cream because of your stupid diet". I assured him we could go back to the dairy aisle and pick up cream then he retaliated with, "No! Then we'd have to wait until tomorrow and I don't want to have to wait. I want ice cream now!"

At the time I simply empathized with him. It wasn't fair. Why does our food have so much stuff in it? I'm not talking about added vitamins and minerals. I'm talking about edible fillers used so our food is almost the same as the original but cheaper to produce. High fructose corn syrup instead of plain sugar. Cellulose gum in cartons of 35% whipping cream. And I said to him, "What does it do to our bodies when so much of our food has fillers added so they can be made more cheaply? Things that are edible but taking the place of food with real nutritional value. Why can't we buy a carton of ice cream at the store that has nothing but cream, eggs, sugar, milk, and vanilla? Why can't I buy a simple carton of whipping cream that has an ingredient list comprised of cream?" Or more specifically why can't I buy a 500mL carton for under $9 when the rest of the cartons are $3.99?

This morning I thought back to one day last week. It was a hot sunny day and I knew I had an hour ahead of me, after work, before I got home. This includes a walk around a city block through downtown to transfer from one bus to another (thanks darn one-way streets). But I'd made two different batches of ice cream the night before and was looking forward to having a bowl after dinner. I couldn't wait to open the freezer and pick my ice cream. That's when I realized we're missing out on one other crucial ingredient these days. Anticipation.

My Mom commented once about credit cards and layaway. That up until the 1950's, people simply didn't have credit cards. If you wanted something, you saved up your money until you could afford it then bought it. If there was something you wanted desperately, like an engagement ring, and were worried it would be gone ahead of time then you put it on layaway and made payments towards it until you'd paid it off. But you didn't get it until you'd made your final payment.

These days there's no waiting. If you want something, go out today and get it. From the little things like a bowl of ice cream to the big things like furniture. We live in the NOW. Not mindfully, not the Buddhist tradition of "living in the now", but like toddlers who can't wait for their cookie. "I want it and I want it now", versus "I will not fret about the past or worry overmuch about the future, instead I'll savour today and live life for this moment".

That afternoon, while I pondered my ice cream, felt a little like Christmas. Something good was going to happen when I got home. Something tasty. Something I liked. And I couldn't rush it. It was going to happen in it's own time.

These days anticipation happens less and less frequently. It doesn't matter what we want (especially in urban areas) we can get it right away. Our grocery store is open 24 hours a day and so is our drug store. At least one of the local fast food outlets is open about 22 hours a day and several more for the full 24 hours. If you want burgers at 2am, they're good with it. If I want to watch a TV show, on demand television brings it to my living room any time I want. If I want to read a book, I can buy it and instantly download it to my ereader this second.

Each one individually isn't a bad thing. I love being able to pick out a book to read at bedtime. And when we moved in here and were still unloading the moving truck at 11pm, it was great to be able to run to the store for cold drinks and food. But as all these conveniences move into our lives, we experience anticipation less and less. I could run across the street and buy a loaf of bread right now. I could go a few more blocks to an actual bakery and pick up a loaf of fresh bread. But we'd miss out on the aroma of fresh bread permeating the apartment for the last hour before the bread was done. We'd miss out on that first slice, the one where the bread is finally cool enough to cut but still warm enough to melt butter.

And that's what I want for my kids. Eat an apple, have a piece of cheese, but otherwise you have to wait because Mom's making real food for dinner. Anticipate. It's good for you.

My tips on searching for facts on the Internet

Let's face it, we all have opinions (you know that old saying... and if you don't then you're probably not old enough) and, since this is the Internet, we can all find information to back up our opinions.

I find there can be a vast difference between "information" and "facts". I'm sure I could search right now and find tonnes of information on how cats really do suck the breath out of babies or detailed instructions on how to turn into a true life vampire. Somehow I think those pages would be totally void of anything resembling facts.

If anyone's wondering, here's how I search out facts online.

1) I don't take anything at face value. If a page says their information comes from a trusted source, I look for a link going to that trusted source. If they don't have a link then I go to the source and search the information there. Anyone can say they got their information from WHO or Snopes or a big newspaper. I want to see their proof. If I told you that I know that Big Foot is alive and well and living in the Rouge Valley (he was seen in the McDonalds on Kingston Road), would you believe me? After all I read about it in the Toronto Star.





2) Look at where the information is. If you're researching something specific (especially medical research) and the only proof available is someone's personal blog, chances are you should run like hell. Run faster if they're selling the cure. Flag down a taxi and bolt if they claim the information's only on their site because the media AND the medical profession are all holding a vast conspiracy and the blogger is the only person able to share the *truth*.

Seriously. If you managed to get all the media and/or medical profession together in one place (I don't even want to know the logistics of this), chances are they'd only agree on a couple of things 1) the date and 2) where they were. And, most likely, people would argue over that too. Think about it... Fox News, Huffington Post, The Toronto Star, and The Sun are all media... do you really think they're all conspiring together?

3) A picture means nothing and the more graphic and heart-tugging the picture is, chances are it's false. You get an email or a message on Facebook and the picture is a small child, covered in bandages and bruises... and that child needs your help. Human nature urges you to provide that help. But stop and think for a second first. Even if the child is real and you can help, a couple of minutes on Google is not going to hurt. Check Snopes and if you can't find anything there, check other urban legend sites. Search the child's name, or the hospital, or the location. If none of that information is even available then how much help can you provide? And remember no one is checking your forwards. If the email is claiming someone is donating a monetary amount for each forward (whether it's Facebook, Microsoft, a hospital, or a cancer organization), just delete it.

Also, pictures are faked all the time. Just because you find a picture and it looks real, doesn't mean the photo is real. I've got a photo in my dining room of my son holding my daughter in his hand. They both have wings and are standing in a forest glade. Does anyone here think that really happened? No matter how nifty it looks, if it looks too fantastic to be real, chances are it's not. If you can't verify the picture then don't forward it as true. The photo that comes to mind first is one of a child taking a photo of a cloud shaped like a teddy bear. Of course it was passed along as a real photo, no mention of it being lifted from a movie.

4) If it's too good to be true... We all laugh at the badly written missives sent from across the world to our inboxes in all their various guises. People we've never heard of who, for some reason, have discovered our email address because we're so trustworthy and want to give us millions (either outright or to give to someone else, with us getting a large monetary bonus). And they all can't spell and have lawyers with yahoo.com email addresses. They send out those emails because, sadly, people do fall for them. Then come the people who send out emails claiming to be a friend in need (using the friend's name after hacking that friend's address book), asking for money to be wired because they need help now. If you get a bizarre email from a friend, email them directly and let them know. If you get a link from a friend, email them back and ask if they sent it. Never click on a link until you've verified it.

The saddest one of these is the fake job scam. Someone gets an email from a company regarding their resume. They email back and forth and get offered a job doing something specific like data entry or accounts receivable. The email sounds professional and the person has a company name and title. The company is overseas. Then comes a variety of scams, all aimed at someone who's floundering financially and desperate to find a real job. All sound a *bit* reasonable. Direct deposit information for your paycheque... paying for a background check... answering security questions. One job even claims to set you up as their contact in your country, handling their financial information. The first ones set you up for identity theft and stealing from your bank account. The last one leads you directly into money laundering and/or dealing with multiple bounced cheques from another country.

If someone's going to leave you an inheritance, it will not be by email. You will get real mail and a phone call. You will meet them in person. There will be tonnes of paperwork. And their lawyer will have a full address and an email address that's not by yahoo.com.

If you get a job offer, google it. Get an address and phone number and call the number. Find out if the person, who ostensibly sent you an email, works there. If it's real, you will turn up concrete information about the company and the person wanting to hire you. If it's not, you will dig up all sorts of information proving that too. If you're poor at Googling, ask friends. That's how I found out about these scams in the first place. And I'm glad that the person who did get the email, took the time to ask friends before replying.

So basically, read, then read some more, and take it all with a big grain of salt. Happy reading everyone!