More Yummy And Easy Holiday Baking

Barbara: For today’s quick edition, I’ll share what is a new recipe for me. My daughter made it for the holidays last year and we all swooned. And it's the easiest recipe ever. Because it’s made with crackers and is so highly addictive, she calls it “Crack”. When I used this name at the last advent in front of one of my other daughter’s friends, she very delicately re-named it “Crackle”, which I like because it is a bit like a brittle.

Crackle

4 ounces saltine crackers (that’s one row from a regular box)

1 cup butter

1 cup dark brown sugar

2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

3/4 cup chopped pecans (optional)

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (205 degrees C). Line cookie sheet with saltine crackers in single layer. (I also lined the pan first with parchment, but I’m going to guess this isn’t imperative—the buttered crackers just lift right up.)

A smaller pan would work even better, as then the crackers would abut each side.

In a saucepan combine sugar and butter. Bring to a boil and boil for 3 minutes. 

Immediately pour over saltines and spread to cover crackers completely. Bake at 400 degrees F (205 degrees C) for 5 to 6 minutes. Remove from oven and sprinkle chocolate chips over the top. Let sit for 5 minutes. Spread melted chocolate and top with chopped nuts. 

Cool completely and break into pieces like brittle.

How to ruin these: if they haven’t cooled completely the chocolate layer will lift off the crackers. I put the whole pan in the fridge for a few hours. And later, the pieces freeze and thaw very well.

Crazy good!

PS if some of you haven’t yet left a holiday wish to deck our halls, you still can!

Newfangled Traditions And Easy Baking

Barbara: I’m not super-sentimental. I don’t keep old birthday cards (although Deb has a genius use for old Christmas cards), and I try to keep nostalgic trophies from amassing. This is probably one of those split-camp things where some of you are firmly in one camp (nostalgic) or the other (not so much).

I enjoyed wonderful traditions when I was growing up … and didn’t hesitate for a second to change them up when I had a family of my own. Of course, it turned out that my parents had also tweaked and improvised those "old traditions”. Turns out I come from a long line of tradition-tweakers. (Makes me wonder which of our own heartfelt traditions my children will change for their own families.)

As it’s the holiday season—here’s a peek inside my family’s adopted “traditions”:

We celebrate Christmas in the European tradition on Christmas Eve (both our families come from European families). The kids have never complained about getting their presents a full 12 hours early. And we get to sleep in the next morning!

My mother and stepfather often visit us for the holidays, and as my stepfather is Jewish and if Hanukah overlaps (as it does this year), we also enjoy some Jewish festivities (beef brisket and potato pancakes this December 23^rd, mmmmm). I should mention here that my stepfather knows the Christmas carols and hymns better than we do!

Neither my husband nor I grew up with stockings, but we liked the concept, so we invented our own stockings tradition when the kids were about 4 and 7-years-old. We hang stockings and then for each of the twelve days before Christmas, we add one small item to each one. By the time Christmas Eve arrives, the stockings are bulging with the “12 Days of Christmas” goodies. Both girls still tease that when they were little they always cheated and fondled the stockings when no one was looking—and had no trouble identifying the “secret” roll of Scotch tape. The next day on Christmas morning, we lie in bed, all four of us and, one-by-one, reveal a stocking present. All this is followed by Christmas brunch and Christmas dinner. Mmmm.

We celebrate the four advents before Christmas. Not (I hope I don’t offend) as a religious ceremony, but as an excuse to gather various people around us and eat Christmas cookies and roasted chestnuts and popcorn and spiced pecans and sing carols. I did take this from my own family, just tweaking it a bit to include our other favourite foods (like cheese and salad and crusty French bread). This is a treasured tradition for each of us. Fond memories include when the kids were young and, fueled by a sugar high, would perform the carols for us replete with dances, plays, and puppet shows. To this day, they still adore Advent and many of our weekly celebrations include their friends—who always begin the celebration shy and tentative, but who end (probably also fueled by that sugar high) by singing and happily reveling alongside us. 

This tradition means that I need to have my Christmas baking done early in the season. And, oh by the way, I hate baking. So I’ve gathered a tried-and-true roster of baked goods that are a) super easy and pretty failsafe, and b) can be frozen for a steady holiday supply. As a new new tradition, through the next couple of weeks, I’m going to share with you my favourites among these recipes in case you’re looking for super-easy goodies that are freezer-friendly for your own traditional gatherings or last-minute shindigs! Enjoy.

Sweet Marie Bars

These are my biggest hit—I think I’ve shared this with just about every one of my buddies. They are delicious even straight from the freezer (although very hard). Soft, they are chewy and sweet and slightly salty. And they’re even vegetarian/vegan friendly. I don’t use my microwave for much, but this is one of my few exceptions.

This recipe is for an 8” glass pan, but to last through the season, I double it and set it in a 9by14” pan.

Bar:

½ cup semisweet chocolate chips (if vegan: make sure your chocolate chips don’t contain whey or lactose; if you’re Canadian, the Loblaw’s brand is good)

½ cup brown sugar

½ cup peanut butter

½ cup corn syrup

1tbsp butter or oil

¾ cups chopped peanuts (salted)

2 cups Rice Krispies (or popped rice type cereal)

Topping:

1cup semisweet chocolate chips

2tbsp peanut butter

In a large microwaveable bowl, combine the bar ingredients (without the nuts or Rice Krispies). Microwave uncovered at full power for 1min30, then stir well, then microwave for another 1min. You know it’s ready when the chocolate and sugar are fully melted (but not burned!). Remove bowl from microwave and stir in nuts and cereal. Press mixture into a buttered or oiled pan.

For the topping, use the same microwaveable bowl, but now add the topping ingredients. Microwave at HALF POWER for 2min, then stir and microwave for another 1-2min. Stir until smooth and spread over the bar base. 

Refrigerate until set (about 2 hours) and cut into very small squares. These are very rich, so be spare in size.

How to ruin these: it is very hard, but can be (and sadly, has been) done. Either by not cooking the bar mixture long enough, which results in a crumbly bar that doesn’t hold, or cooking too much (long or hot) and burning the chocolate. Keep checking the consistency and you’ll be fine.

(PS Deb won’t be able to vouch for these cookies as peanut butter and chocolate is a combo she abhors. Strange girl!!) Stay tuned for more easy goodies!

Deb: Barb, this is so lovely to see. I love getting a peek into the traditions of others. It’s wonderful to see the many ways we can celebrate, each making our own family unique in the midst of a tradition over 1/3 of the planet celebrates. I love your traditions, Barb, and I hear the joy in your voice each year as you recount the many ways the holidays light up for you and yours.

Here is what we do:

The four weeks of Advent we spend at church, lighting the candles and singing the great hymns and carols, and sharing the anticipation of the joy to come.  Each night of the four advents, we light one of the candles at home, on the advent wreath the boy was given by our dear friend, his first minister, Shirley.

We throw a festive party every year, some years we have 90 people and some years 15, but it is always a fun way to kick-start the season, as we always try to have it early in December.

Every December 24th for a good thirty years we have met with several dear friends for martinis and club sandwiches and it is a tradition we adore. It is so exciting to hear of everyone’s plans and I am always at the table stitching the last bell on a Christmas stocking.

Christmas Eve for as long as I can remember, my Mom and Dad have had a drop-in, complete with loving friends and family, hors d’oeuvres and spirits burning bright. As they have lost most of their friends, we now have a cosy gathering with present and absent friends. But we still do it. Only now, Colin and I throw it, aided by my brother and his wife, and our dear friends, Cheryl and Bill. It means the world to Mom and Dad and is a great way to tame the Christmas Day butterflies, which I am thrilled to say I still get.

I love the European tradition of Christmas Eve and had a boyfriend in my past whom I shared that with. Italian Mother and German father. It was glorious. But let’s face it, we all love the traditions we grew up with and, for me, it was going to bed with the tree bursting its branches with gifts as we turned off the lights. I loved as a child putting out the milk and cookies for Santa, confident that he would enjoy mine at just the right time in his journey. I loved waking up at three in the morning, all ten years of me and unwrapping the stocking and putting everything back exactly where it had been, then falling to sleep with visions of sugarplums dancing in my noggin.

As an adult, I loved a quiet midnight with a rum and eggnog, filling the stockings after boy had fallen asleep. Before I tucked him in, we would watch the news for the report of Santa’s journey across the planet and we would sing sweet carol lullabies till he faded off with his advent chocolate still clinging to his tongue.

Christmas Day in our home brings the opening of stockings, the champagne breakfast, nodding off in front of a Christmas movie, and the family gathering  for Christmas dinner. Grace is said, blessings are counted, and another Christmas winds down its magic.

Here’s to traditions of every faith and secular creature on earth. As Tiny Tim observed, “God bless us, everyone.”

We would love to hear all about your Christmas traditions. Tell one, or tell all!

Partners

Deb: Over the last couple of months, my husband has been to me a friend, an ear, an errand boy, and caregiver, not just to my parents, but to me. And he has done it with grace. Not a roll of the eyes or a hint of resentment has shown on his face or in his demeanor. 

And it got me thinking about partners. The people in our lives that are the yin to our yang, the mirror we look into every day, the person that keeps us honest while sharing in our deceit. But whatever their role, they are the people we spend our lives with. They can be our lovers, friends, children, business partners. They are life partners that we may have one or dozens of in a lifetime.

Recently I have had a bird’s-eye view of two partnerships at opposite ends of the spectrum. One relationship is a gorgeous example of one partner swooping in to help when their partner is felled, without question or hesitation. The other relationship, while under a very similar circumstance, is fraught with negative behavior and is depressing to view.

And the thing is ... much to my shock I find that one isn’t more powerful than the other. And even though I would not have the miserable relationship for the world, I have to respect it. Because the partners are doing the best that they can. And because this is their relationship—and as snarky as they can be with one another—this works for them. And I know for a fact that it works for all sorts of reasons, not the least of which is their deep committed love. Whether I agree with how it presents itself doesn’t matter.  A great partnership does not have to be a warm relationship, or even a kind relationship, to be great.

I would die if I had even a fraction of the combative partnership I see in these two people. But does that mean that my partnership is better? When we love, honour and respect our partner, it certainly makes it the more desirable love affair, but does it make it the better partnership? I can’t with honesty say that it does. Because a good partnership contains so many elements including chemistry, destiny, symmetry, history and an undeniable pull towards another creature. No one ever said a partnership had to be peaceful or, even to a degree, respectful. Many great partnerships in life are none of these things. Many famous and successful partnerships throughout history were unhealthy, depressing displays.

I am sure if I asked my sparring couple if they thought they were good partners, they would look at me miffed at the question, and respond that of course they are. So they are, for them. Maybe we all are, for us.

But if I have my pick as partnerships go, I will take what I have in my husband.  The person who catches my glass before it shatters on the floor and hands me a tea before the thought crosses my mind. And he will receive same.

Barbara: As you predicted, Deb, this did throw me for a loop. Deb has had an intensely busy time and knew she would get this post to me late. So she gave me the heads-up that we would be talking partnerships in today’s blog so I could be prepared ahead of time with a short response. Funnily, I did have a whole (very long) running metaphor about cogs and wheels and how those don’t always run smoothly in even a great partnership, etc, etc, but you did stop me here with this, Deb. And I’m glad you did.

Because I can think of several partnerships that are fractious and challenging (a kind of partnership I wouldn’t want for myself if I had the choice) and yet I know, deep in my bones, that these relationships also work very well for the people involved.

Interestingly, we don’t seem to question this kind of challenge in work-related partnerships. Usually if people hear that business partners "don't get along", we assume that one temperament balances the other for success. We rarely assume the same when it comes to love relationships.

I think it finally depends on temperament. Some temperaments thrive on friction and challenge, some on support and nurturing. I too fall squarely into the latter group—so I would just like to thank both my husband and you, Deb, my work partner, for challenging and pushing me, but for mostly nurturing. I wouldn’t be the same without you.

Sloths And Such

Barbara: After yesterday’s fracas over “get moving” versus “don’t panic”, I thought it would be apropos to post something I’ve wanted to post since we received our Costa Rica Gift of Happiness (woot!!!): a Costa Rican sloth video!

A while back, I saw the famous youtube video where the sloth crosses the road in, well, in a slothfully slow way (its name hasn’t been adjectived for nothin’).  But I couldn’t embed it here. So I explored the ‘net and found dozens of similar videos—damn, those sloths like to cross roads! Either I couldn’t embed them or they were pretty bad quality. I finally found this one. You get a really nice look at the fascinating creature. 

Then I thought I’d look for Howler monkey videos because when we went to Costa Rica with the family, we were all gobsmacked by the sound they make. Video doesn’t quite do it justice—it’s more like a crazed demon from a bad horror film—but here’s a nice taste of their song (and you truly can hear them everywhere).

And last but not least, I saw this yesterday on Facebook—it’s not Costa Rica, but it just slayed me. A gorilla was returned to the wild in Africa and then, after five years, reunited with his trainer. The bond between them should erase any doubts you might have about animals and souls.  

You can still enter to go to Costa Rica too. And us—we’re counting the days!!!

Let Me Be Your Wife … Please

Barbara: The title? Okay, I have this preconceived and maybe sexist notion that if I recommend some lifestyle change, I sound like the classic “wife”. You know, the concerned matron who ensures her husband doesn’t eat too many nitrates and goes to the doctor on a regular basis. This notion probably comes from my very compelling personal experience: both my father and husband fall into this category! So no offence intended and if you’ll humour me, I do want to be everybody’s wife for a minute here.

Yesterday, I read this article about the dangers of sitting too long. Now I wouldn’t be bringing this up if it were the usual manifesto on weight loss and/or exercise. We all know the scoop on that, right? What piqued me on this one is that they’re discovering now that people who sit for extended periods of time are prone to developing all sorts of icky cancers. (Is there a non-icky cancer? Jinx!)

Even if you jog EVERY DAY, if you then sit for the rest of it: same risk!

The reason I think it’s so important to spread the word on this is that I was totally in the group of people who assumed if one was basically active, one did not run any added health risks by working stationary. I am also FIRMLY in the group of people who sits for much of the day. I am also in the group of people who has many many beloveds who sit for much of the day. And, of course, we are all doing important stuff: we’re writing and researching and collating and number-crunching and creating and Facebooking. But we are ensconced. Out of necessity.

The article tells us that research into this correlation between the prolonged seated position and various cancers and a shortened life expectancy is just in its infancy. Barely a couple of year’s worth of curiosity has been invested—and already the stats are sadly impressive. “Sitting down is killing us,” reads the copy; “It’s a lifestyle factor that’s like a bomb on health.” Stuff like that.

I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t want to wait for the next wave of conclusive evidence to get me off my chair in regular intervals and get the body moving, at least somewhat. I already notice that my right shoulder slowly seizes up the longer I sit without a break, and unseizes as soon as I move.

So let me be your wife, please, and urge you, implore you!, to get off your chair as often as you can and move around. Love you!

Deb: I read the same thing, Barb. I totally agree that we should get up and move more and on a regular basis, but I also confess that this article was to me another in the long line of “scare” vibe articles. I read warning after warning about what we are doing not doing eating not eating breathing not breathing, that can give us cancer. I am employing my old friend moderation on all of the above. However, move more ... sure. It’s a good thing! A great thing, in fact. Just make sure you’re not walking around talking on your cell phone!!!

Christmas Movie

Deb: Rigel and I share a deep love for the movie The Trouble with Angels starring Haley Mills and Rosalind Russell. Today's offering is a very short clip courtesy of Rigel that features Christmas. Although I love love loved many stars growing up and tried to mimic them (think nine-year-old girl trying to shake it like Ann Margaret in Bye Bye Birdie), there is only one I ever wanted to actually be—Haley Mills. 

The Bed Of Coats

Deb: The season of festive gatherings is upon us. For me, there is nothing that evokes the chewy centre of party’s past and present more than the Bed of Coats.  Over the Christmas season as we go from home to home, its lumpy form is a familiar and welcome sight.

The dependable bed of coats disappeared from our home during the holidays the last few years. We switched from small intimate gatherings to large catered affairs, where coats would be whisked away by a smiling black tie server and replaced with a numbered ticket in our guest’s hand. It was all so grownup. But I confess that during these parties I would go upstairs to freshen my lipstick and as I glanced at our perfectly made bed with its plumped pillows and coverlet pulled taught, it looked decidedly bored. It seemed to be wanting for its own version of a holiday duvet. A Holivet as it were.

My cousin’s Scott and Lorette had their annual family Christmas party yesterday. As it was winding down, I went upstairs with my brother to the bed of coats to try and extract my Mom’s black coat from the sixty-seven other black coats. It took us three tries, but we had lots of laughs before we hit it. Never mind the fun of checking out the other coats without actually feeling the pressure and desire to purchase one.

I can recall from both memory and family photos, falling asleep on the bed of coats as a kid, the sounds of the party becoming the soundtrack of my dreams. Maybe that’s one of the reasons I love Sinatra. 

And I can’t help but think that maybe the coats are having their own holiday party. You gotta know that the tan cashmere is eyeing the black leather bomber jacket.  And you can bet that some skanky mitten is slipping her fuzz into the lower wallet end of a herringbone tweed car coat. The satin evening cape is spread across the pillows, tag exposed, lining crushed.  Plaid felt sleeves are entangled in the back slit of an organic wool jacket, even though every coat there knows it came to the party with the fleece-lined windbreaker.

The recently purchased vintage reclaimed fur is looking down its nose at the ten-year-old trench with frayed cuffs, although it would kill to cop a feel of its lining. The organic wool peacoats are getting stoned and the hockey jackets are hoping they’ll slip off the bed so they can grab a glimpse of the game playing in the den with the sound turned off.

Bed of Coats means one thing. There’s a party goin’ on!

Barbara: Oh, Deb, I love this. You’ve just turned an ordinary thing—a possible mishmash or mess or blight on the lovely cleanness of a bed—and made me look at it through your charming eyes. Because you’re right! A bed of coats is all these things. It represents your friends and loved ones gathered close; it is every walk of life thrown together, regardless of status or style; it is no-holds-barred connection. I will never look at the bed of coats in the same way. Now I will see something sweet and heartwarming. And oh so devilishly funny as I imagine the shenanigans this seemingly haphazard, certainly cozy group of coats might be getting up to. And PS: I LOVE the holivet!!

Voice Recognition In Three Parts

Barbara: Part One: I, like many people, hate the sound of my own voice. Hate. It. I find it high and thin and just plain plain. Would that I had one of those smoky voices a la Kathleen Turner (never mind that it’s gotten so low over the years, she now sounds like a man, a sexy man, but a man nonetheless (sorry, Kathleen, I still think you are smokin’) ). But I’ve never had the discipline for nightly nightcaps and packs of cigarettes (you kids know I’m joking, right?). Anyway, you get my drift—throaty, sexy voice = good. My voice = bad. So imagine my horror on seeing video footage of me at a party. Yes, there was some drinking involved, certainly there was a room full of people over whose voices I insisted on bawling (BabyFesters, if you’re reading this, it was your voices), and what, under these circumstances, happens to a high, thin, plain voice like mine??? It gets so high and so thin, dogs howl in recognition (or abject distress). It is a nails-on-chalkboard-tin-foil-in-mouth-squeal-a-thon. I was devastated to hear it. That might sound unfairly dramatic, but let’s face it, we all have those moments where we see ourselves from a vantage point and we shudder. Not that I’m proud of it, not that I encourage it. It just … is…

Part Two: This is a nicer tale. You remember when I blogged about my aunt going to visit my mom in Montreal at the same time as us and I got to see her??? Well, consider this the ultimate in voice recognition: two generations, three women, all with variations of the same voice. If my sisters were there, it would’ve been five women. Seriously, we all have such similar voices, people will mistake us if they don’t see our faces. It’s funny sitting back, over dinner say, and listening to your own voice in other people’s mouths (okay, that sounds weird, but you know what I mean). And, okay, I don’t actually hate the voice in other people’s mouths. (Except when we all compete to talk and then the aforementioned high-squeal-tin-foil thing happens times 3 … or 4, or 5, or whatever.)

Part Three: Best part ever. I’m not a gadget hound. When I hear that new, amazing stuff has come out, the wondrous news kinda goes in one ear and out the other. So if it wasn’t for my husband’s thoughtfulness, I would never have noticed—never mind gotten—the new Siri iPhone. Not trying to rub anything in, folks, but just have to say that the future is looking pretty cool. You can now lift a phone to your mouth and it will understand you!! It will write out emails and texts and notes! In perfect English (or French or Spanish or whatever)! It will capitalize names! It will punctuate! It will spell correctly! (It will also entertain you with hilarious misquotes: when Phil voice-texted his brother that he’d picked up wine for the party with a concise, “I bought your booze”, it became, “I bought your boobs.”) Snafus notwithstanding, for a dweeb who can’t figure out how to navigate the tiny little phone keyboard, who would rather wait to get home than attempt it, this is truly voice recognition at its finest. 

Yeah, this is unpaid for, unsolicited advertising.
Apple, if you're listening--we can work something out ;)

PS If you haven’t posted one yet, we’ll be collecting your wishes here until Christmas. Thank you!!

Trim A Tree With Friends

Deb: Over this year and a half that Barb and I have been doing our blog, I have come to see those of you who read us as more than bloggers, writers, followers of the blog.

Through all the turbulence and joy of the last year, you have become so much more. You have stood with us in many ways. You have been advisors, shoulders, supporters and friends.

And it is in that spirit that we would like to have a small piece of your hearts in our homes for Christmas, and as the Old Year becomes New.

Colin and I have a little tree that lives in our bedroom at Christmas. Each year I decorate it with colourful glass birds of every description. This year I would like to decorate it with you and your thoughts and wishes. Not just wishes for me or for my family, although we will accept with grateful thanks, but anything you care to say.

In essence, it can be anything your heart desires. It can be a word, a phrase, a quote, a prayer, a hope for the planet, for her people, for each other or for yourselves. It can be funny, silly, irreverent, heartfelt, or whatever comes to mind. Basically, the sky is the limit.

I will print each one out, place it on a Christmas tag and tie it on our little tree. Barb will do the same with the wreath that adorns her front door. Just before Christmas we will post photos of said boughs brimming with ... you!

This unique, talented, exciting group of people should be together for the holidays in some form. This might bring us a little closer to that...

The Sanity Clause

Deb: I knew if I was going to retain my sanity this holiday season, I would have to employ the Sanity Clause. Specifically, I employed the Sanity Clause regards my holiday prep and decorating.

Now, Colin and I usually have a friendly rule about Christmas tunes and tinsel. Given that his birthday is November 30th, we made a pact to start Christmas on the 1st of December. And not until said date, would we make with the trimmings and the ringings and the donnings.

This year however, I knew that I would not have a decorating day as in years past. There would be no circling the 1st or 3rd or even the 10th and claiming it as day to decorate, day of decor, deck the halls day.

I decided, with my husband’s blessing (have I waxed poetic about this man lately?), to festoon our home one surface at a time, one day at a time. I did the mantle for an hour on a Monday, the table for a half hour on a Tuesday, the stairs garland for twenty minutes on Wednesday ... you get the picture.

And now, as I write this, our home is done. It’s early, yes, even too early for me. But it sure is lovely. And it’s so nice to come home after a long day with nary a twinkle in your eye, to find your entire home twinkling for you.

I have also been signing ten or twenty Christmas cards a night so that I will not find myself two weeks from now screeching, “The CARDS, I’ve got to do the CARDS!”

So here I am, as a result of the Sanity Clause, able to focus on Mom’s transition home instead of fretting about surfaces un-festooned.

Usually I am 80% finished with my Christmas shopping by now, but this year I am 2% done. However, the beauty is that when December hits, I will leave my perfectly decorated home each day and hit the stores. And I will employ the Sanity Clause once more by doing my shopping just one hour a day. This will grant me the grace and patience with my parents I might otherwise be lacking, if I was feeling overwhelmed. It will also give me the gift of enjoying the hell out of buying the gifts. Or as it’s known in Section Four, Article Two of the Clause: Gift Squared.

And when Christmas parties start to lift their lively toasts, my glass will be raised among the reveling throngs and I will be thinking, “I’m having fun. I’m feeling festive. Peace on Deb”.

Yep, that’s what I am giving myself this Christmas. Peace. And the best part? It’s free.

To borrow from The Trouble with Angels’ Mary Clancy, the Sanity Claus has been “my most scathingly brilliant idea ever!”

Barbara: Let it be said here that Deb has Christmas times 10 compared to me. She has literally 10 times the family (and probably friends!), and 10 times the familial obligations, buying gifts on behalf of many members of her family as well as her own. I’m telling you this because I want you to know just how much work she faces each holiday season. Enough to stress the catatonic. And yet, she welcomes and celebrates the festivities better than any little elf I know.

I, on the other hand, have noticed how much less stressed I am this year thanks to 2 rather significant reasons: 1) my kids are big (and home) enough to help, and 2) with age comes experience. I have nailed the holiday season down to a ritual I can almost—not quite, but almost—do with my eyes closed. That said, I also think Deb’s idea is genius: one detail at a time, steady as she goes!  

Breathe...

Barbara: The other day when a friend was going through a really anxiety-ridden experience, I was reminded just how important it is for us to remember to breathe. And the more riddled with anxiety we get, the more important it is that we breathe! In out, in out. Remember?

Madge posted this beautiful stop-motion photo-montage to her FB the other day. It is a gorgeous meditation on breath. And also has a great message at the end.

But It’s All For You

Barbara: I didn’t know what I was going to write about when I sat down at my computer today. Deb, Colin, and I have been ruminating alternate titles for our upcoming demo-pilot and that’s pretty much all I’ve been thinking about lately, so I did think that maybe I’d find myself writing about that. But then I realized I kept thinking about this conversation I had with a female acquaintance the other day, which has now niggled deep into my brain and which I would love to un-niggle with you guys.

This woman had finished teacher’s college a couple of years ago and is now trying to find her way into the system. It’s a tough field with tons of competition—and I will add, also sometimes frustratingly occupied by teachers who are sick of the grind and the grist and who offer their students little by way of encouragement or inspiration. She bides her time—as so many young teachers do—by substitute teaching. We found ourselves in quick catch-up mode and she was telling me that when she goes into the schools, every single high school student tells her that they want only one thing from their teachers: to be seen for who they are. That’s it. See me. Hear me. These kids, she said, were almost unanimously engaged, interesting, thoughtful (as in full of thought), but many of them felt they were being marginalized by sweeping stereotypes: the bad one, the rude one, the druggie, the apathetic, the asshole. She could only shake her head and wonder why they weren’t being heard, on the one hand, and why they were living by the label, on the other.

One of the “worst” of the bunch, a student who was routinely “bad”, began an extended confessional with her. She discovered a highly intelligent, passionate but frustrated kid. When she asked him why he didn’t work up to his potential, he asked why he should bother: no one would recognize it anyway. My heart broke for him and others like him. Kids who might never find their voices because they feel like they’re caught in an echo chamber—a vast, hollow and futile void.

But then I also remembered my parental philosophy, one I constantly remind my children of (and one I constantly have to remind myself of): we are hunters and gatherers of information. We search out and find what we need amongst the endless details of human life and natural phenomenon. The more stuff we catalogue and the more stuff we pay attention to, the more information we have in our arsenal to use for our own lives and for the lives of those around us. In the end, it can’t matter that there is an apathetic ear or ears in our periphery. As hunters, the prey doesn’t, after all, come to us; we have to seek it out. As gatherers, we have to keep doing a kind of archeology our whole lives long, this sifting through of mountains of detritus to find our own nuggets of gold.

I hope that we can all remember that we need to keep searching. And we don’t do it to impress teachers or loved ones or parents or some faceless “audience”, we do it to enrich our own lives, to find our own waypoints, messages, secrets, answers. Which might, incidentally, also turn out to impress our teachers, our loved ones, our parents, and/or some faceless “audience” out there, but that’s not the important thing. The most important thing is that we see our world. Not that we are seen in it. 

PS Let's keep a thought for Deb and her mom on the big move home today!!

Deb: Barb, I love this and I just had a conversation yesterday with someone about the concept of “seeing our own world”, but we did not phrase it just like that. You have now given me a phrase to encompass those feelings: “see our world”. This is my favourite part of the living experience. The hunting, gathering, and learning. Knowing that we will learn until the day we die is, on its own, a reason to want to be here. I remember a time of fear in my life when I actually tried to shrink my world. It was during a time when I was afraid to fly. Now I am at a point where I want to expand my world, explode with sights and sounds and knowledge. Because to “see my world” is to “love my world”. 

Spent

Deb: Mom is coming home. Monday. That was going to be the subject of my blog. Because I am rejoicing. We all are.

But...

I am also spent. We all are. You know how it is when a crisis winds down and you find yourself unable to move, peep or pontificate?

That is where I am at. Between a bed and a sleep place.

So I will take this time to say thank you. Thanks to each and every single one of you who reads the blog and comments, reads the blog and doesn’t, reads the blog on Facebook or reads the blog when it’s shared.

And to each of you who have reached out and made me feel packed in support, I thank you.  I really truly felt your love, advice and shared experiences coming at me at the speed of blog. And I took each comment to heart.

We are moving to the next phase, the one that opts us out of all the previous confusion and pain and sends us toward the optimistic future. And we have every reason for optimism.

Mom is coming home.

Barbara: Yay, Deb!!! Not that you’re spent, of course, but that your mom is going home. And that the village made sure she could get there. Wow. So impressive.

Okay, I have to make a call-out to our blog peeps now. I would like to send over some yummy easy food for Deb’s parents to heat up, but really have no awesome “casserole” recipes. I cook on order, in the moment. I go—yes, every day—to the store and get my supplies. I’m not and have never been good at the plan-ahead. Hence my dearth of good meals that can be made ahead and frozen. Maybe portioned-up for the 2-person meal.

If any of you have any great recipes you don’t mind sharing, I would be so very grateful!!

Love!

Film Conscience

Deb: The boy has a regular gig on a site called “That Guy With The Glasses” where he does Luke Mochrie’s Film Conscience, which are movie reviews. Given the fact that so many of our followers are writers, I thought I would share this fun one the boy did on “what makes a great movie great” because it basically talks about good writing principals. It’s a fun, easy watch that I thought you guys might enjoy.

He is in his fourth year of school and now taking a year-long course on Horror Genre Studies. Yes, you read that right. Cool, huh? This was the boy we sheltered from anything scary until he was 12! And there’s the irony.

This is the Film Conscience clip.

And this is a Happy Thanksgiving wish to our American friends!

I Wanna Cop Your Lingo

Barbara: I’m in the middle of writing a screenplay right now and I have a couple of young characters that have fun with cool speak, making up their own lingo as they go. That said, I wanted to do some research on what’s the latest in jive talk (that I know “jive talk” is not the latest hip-speak and used it anyway shows just how not-trippingly this stuff rolls off my tongue).

So I’m doing my research and don’t I run across several websites and blogs that go on rants about how modern slang is being appropriated and—as a result—un-cooled by soccer moms everywhere. Okay, I’m no longer officially a “soccer mom”—LOVED those days—but I can still say that my feelings are hurt. And I feel something of a retort rant coming on.

I like my words, peeps!!!!! Love them, in fact. I want access to all of them, not just a select few that were coined in “my time”. I want to diss, to be down, to lurk. I want random experiences and stellar calls. I want to wear bling (only sometimes). I want to feel stoked or psyched or pumped (well, okay, maybe not so much, but I want to reserve the right!).

I remember when I was in my mid-twenties having a rare argument with dear friends when they took the outrageous—to me—stance that rockers like the Stones should pack it in in their forties (their FORTIES!) because rock was for young people only. I would have thought that this ‘tude was outdated until I watched a recent episode of The Debaters (a Canadian show where comedians are given two different sides of an argument to debate). The subject was the same: should old rockers “be allowed” to rock, or should they pack it in. Obviously I’m of the mindset that if someone wants to do something—and what’s more, possesses the talent for it—they should bloody well keep doing it, regardless of age.

Same with the language thing. I get that appropriating language from the streets or from younger generations can make you look like you’re “trying too hard” or like a fool (worse, if you use the word incorrectly—remember “foshizzle”? Did anyone use that one properly???). But I’m telling you now: I want those words!!!! I want all of them. You throw something cool and exciting and fresh into the mix, I want to get my hands on it. Or my mouth, as it were (or does that sound creepy?). Anyway, my point is the same. Don’t release a nugget into the word-o-sphere and then get all greedy and selfish about it.

Tell you what: if you give me “dippin” (for, you know, when I want to leave a party and have to grab Phil’s arm and say, “Hey honey, we’re dippin’,” you know stuff like that), then I’ll give you “malarkey” (hey, it’s an evocative word and really should be brought back).

Deb: Barb, you my girl are the cat’s meow! I agree with you 100%. I too love me some words and I will say anything I damn well please. And like you, I may just bring back “23 skiddoo” and “oh you kid”. But I do think that each generation feels that they own their own slang and hipisms and they do and they should. Me, I’m just a random happy camper. Where’s the beef? I don’t know. Don’t think there is one. After all ... love means never having to say you’re sorry.