Friday, December 10, 2021

"I'm a twentysomething divorcée"/ "Sing out strong"/ "Mustard Seed $2 Family Gift Centre back for 6th year"


Nov. 5, 2021: I found this old article in my newspaper clippings:

Jul. 12, 2010 "I'm a twentysomething divorcée": Today I found this life essay by Cara McGregor in the Globe and Mail.  

I like the picture of the two birds and one is leaving the cage:



An unfamiliar woman shadowed her approach. As we made our introductions, it became clear we shared common ground - this young woman was divorcing, too.

We connected immediately, exchanging stories about DIY divorce, an option for those with fewer complications - no kids, no property, no contest - and less money. And we resolved to keep in touch, to maintain that connection.

As time went on I made similar discoveries, uncovering what seemed like an insiders' club of young and divorced women and men.

We exchanged stories of best-laid plans and solemn promises that were, for better or worse, abandoned. Stories that remained untold until our shared experience was established.

It made me realize that no matter how common it may be for young or old, divorce is not frequently or openly discussed.

Weddings are all gilded invitations and grand pronouncements. Divorces are whispers behind closed doors and silent, sympathetic looks.

As young people, we shouldn't be afraid to admit we were once married. It doesn't hold us back. It isn't baggage, nor should it be.

It's an affirmation of our courage to love fiercely and without condition. To commit to another person in a world where so many have been unwilling or unable. Or to admit you made a mistake.

Divorce is something that happens to the best of us. There is no simple answer as to why things don't work out. All you can do is move forward.

I am a 29-year-old divorcée. The first in my family's up-and-coming generation to experience the painful reality of marital breakdown.

Wed at the age of 27, I had not planned on being counted among those who experience the cold, hard reality of marriage dissolving into nothingness.

But that's exactly what happened. Less than nine months after wedded bliss, I found myself in a vacant apartment with nothing but a suitcase, a leaky air mattress and an itchy ring finger. While I was the one to move out of our apartment, it was my husband who wanted out of our marriage.

It wasn't supposed to end this way. It wasn't supposed to end at all. Divorce was something that happened to other people. Older people. They may not have gotten it right, but we were in love! We were different! Or so I had hoped.

But there I was, standing alone on the courthouse steps, holding a document declaring my failed marriage to the world on the date of our second anniversary. Unlike being single, divorced was a label I could never shake.

In the beginning, I reviled the word. It turned my stomach and my appetite. Its dark cloud hung over me on first dates and family holidays. It took everything I had to force out a sound - any sound - when someone politely asked after my husband.

I tried but failed to find myself reflected in the scores of self-help books and recovery groups. It was a fruitless search that made me feel even more isolated, an anomaly on a landscape dotted by forty- and fifty something women and men.

Finding no suitable guide on this journey, I became my own. I appointed myself the ambassador of young divorce. I talked to any person who would listen, and it was through talking about my experience that everything changed.

I was at a nightclub watching a live band when a friend caught sight of me from across the room. Only weeks earlier, I had shared the details of my then-pending divorce with her.

My wedding ring still sits in a box on my dresser, as bright and shiny as the promise it once held in my life. As bittersweet as the memory might be, there's something pure about keeping it.

Now, when I put it on my finger, it feels different. Because I'm different.

I lived through what is probably one of the most painful experiences of my young life: the realization that I was wrong about "forever."

There have been bad times: Waking up and forgetting things are different, only to have the moment of realization descend like an iron curtain.

But there have also been great times: The rebirth of dreams of living and working overseas. The recovery of purpose and identity. The realization that I can reinvent myself any way I want as I find my place in the world.

These moments have been so precious, I would experience the joy, the hardship and the pain all over again.

I am divorced. I am no longer afraid of that label. In fact, I'm proud of myself, of who I've become and how far I've come. I'm so much stronger now.

My cousin is getting married this summer. I can't wait for her wedding. I welcome their happiness, their promise of a long and happy life together, with open arms.

Cara McGregor lives in Victoria.

I'm a twentysomething divorcée - The Globe and Mail


Dec. 5, 2016 "Sing out strong": Today I found this life essay by Nelson Smith in the Globe and Mail:



Two years ago, my wife of 25 years left me. She walked out and returned to her native Germany. To say the least, my sons, aged 20 and 22 at the time, and I were shocked, but to say we were surprised would be a stretch. She had never gotten over her homesickness.

My friends rallied around, doing what they could to help me through the aftermath. They said all the right things. “We’re here for you. Just call if you’re feeling lonely.” “When can you come for dinner?” “Are you available to do some consulting?” 

I had been fully retired for a couple of years and my retirement involved spending a lot of time with my wife, both here and in our newly purchased condo in Berlin. So, needless to say, I suddenly had a lot of empty hours to fill and a life to completely re-envision. 

Once the surge of sympathy and support from my friends subsided, that was what I was left to face – alone.

No matter what people might say, there is no escaping what follows after a marriage breakup.

 It’s like a death. I found that I was overwhelmed by feelings of grief, loss, desperation and fear. I fell into a deep, clinical-grade depression. 

Not suicidal, but entirely understanding of those who choose that route as a way out. I cried all the time. I was a mess.

But, I was still able to pull myself together when required and I decided that I could not sit at home all day, that I needed to get out. So, I went to lectures. I did some consulting. I saw friends. This kept the black dog at bay, but just barely. 

Then, one day, I was attending the annual reunion dinner held by my University of Toronto fraternity and happened to be chatting with one of my “brothers” about my situation. This is a fellow with whom I had played some rock ‘n’ roll music more than 40 years ago and I had heard that he and some other old friends had formed a rock band. 

I asked if they thought they needed a harmonica in any of their songs and, if so, I was available and able to commit.

Why not? I hadn’t played harmonica in years. But when I was still living part of the year in Berlin and looking for things to do, I decided to wipe the cobwebs off my “harps” and find some people to play music with. I found some all right, but, as a person who lived neither in Toronto nor Berlin, I wasn’t able to commit the time necessary to join a band properly. Now, however, I could commit.

My fraternity brother said that, actually, they had a number of songs that would benefit from a harmonica, so how about an audition to see if I was up to the task? Mere weeks later, having passed the audition, I was part of a group of musicians, all former fraternity brothers, playing a real gig in a bar as people danced and drank. Being on stage again was scary, but exhilarating.

As time went by and we all became comfortable with each other on stage, I was asked to assume a larger role. I happily agreed. I learned to sing some songs and contribute more than the harmonica and the tambourine. 

At first, it took a while to get going. My voice wasn’t in shape and I had to relearn the classics: Honky Tonk Woman, You Really Got Me, Do Wah Diddy. These days, we can learn a new song in an evening.

As I stood in front of the microphone more and more often, I found that singing was having a transformative effect on me. After every practice, I felt happy, almost light-as-air. I was singing with others and it made me feel very, very good. I could feel the depression lifting.

 And the music? It spoke to me: “Well it’s all right now – in fact, it’s a gas!” or “I can see clearly now, the rain is gone.”

That should not have come as a surprise. Recent studies have shown that singing, especially singing in harmony with others, is remarkably effective at combatting depression. 

Indeed, those studies suggest that singing in harmony combats a number of conditions, including Parkinson’s and high blood pressure. The body’s rewards for screwing up the courage to sing include an outpouring of endorphins (pain relief), dopamine (pleasure, alertness) and serotonin (euphoria, contentment), as well as a reduction in cortisol (signals level of stress).

The corollary benefits of singing in a group are more social. We are not alone; we are part of an organism greater than us, one that we can fold ourselves into. 

For a brief time, we can dispose of our natural selfishness and bathe in a happy, harmonious experience.

And so, here I am, two years later, finally divorced and getting on with my life. I teach chess to children in the public schools, take care of my sons when they are with me and sing in a rock ‘n’ roll band called Forty Years After. 

I think we’re pretty good. We seem to be getting more and more gigs and we’re certainly having a good time.

If, as Shakespeare says, music be the food of love, then I will play (and sing) on.




This week's theme is about dating and relationships:

"Online dating scam dupes Edmonton man out of $143,000"




"Your cheatin' voice"/ "Sexting couples have poorer relationships"





My week: 

Fri. Dec. 3,2021 : Jean-Marc Léger from Montréal, QC, would like to know:

Did you keep your 2021 resolutions?





My opinion: I made the resolution "Get a work from home job" and I did and am working there.  Well that's one of my goals.  

Every year, I want to make more money than the last.  Well in 2021, I made more this year than 2020.  In 2020, I got most of my money from CERB.

I'm also about saving money.

I remember a long time ago like maybe 2015, but my co-worker Mariah at the Restaurant job #1 said she doesn't make New Year's resolutions, because everyday she does her best.

Of course, I give my best effort nearly everyday.


Flirty Bird Nashville Hot Chicken: My little brother P told me he saw this new restaurant will open where Five Guys restaurant was on Whyte Ave.

Yeg Donair: This restaurant closed on Whyte Ave.  There are still a lot of donair restaurants in Edmonton.

Dec. 6, 2021 "Facing Economic Collapse, Afghanistan Is Gripped by Starvation": Today I found this article by Christina Goldbaum on Yahoo news.  I hope the UN World Food Program solves this problem soon:

Nearly four months since the Taliban seized power, Afghanistan is on the brink of a mass starvation that aid groups say threatens to kill 1 million children this winter — a toll that would dwarf the total number of Afghan civilians estimated to have been killed as a direct result of the war over the past 20 years.


While Afghanistan has suffered from malnutrition for decades, the country’s hunger crisis has drastically worsened in recent months. This winter, an estimated 22.8 million people — more than half the population — are expected to face potentially life-threatening levels of food insecurity, according to an analysis by the U.N. World Food Program and Food and Agriculture Organization. Of those, 8.7 million people are nearing famine — the worst stage of a food crisis.

U.S. officials showed some flexibility around loosening the economic chokehold on Afghanistan last week when the World Bank’s board — which includes the United States — moved to free up $280 million in frozen donor funding for the World Food Program and UNICEF. Still, the sum is just a portion of the $1.5 billion frozen by the World Bank amid pressure from the U.S. Treasury Department after the Taliban took control.


Nov. 29, 2021 "Merriam-Webster’s word of the year for 2021 is ‘vaccine’": Today I found this article by Kate Feldman on Yahoo news:

“The story is about much more than medicine,” Peter Sokolowski, Merriam-Webster’s editor at large, said in a statement.

“It was at the center of debates about personal choice, political affiliation, professional regulations, school safety, healthcare inequity, and so much more. The biggest science event of the year quickly became the biggest political debate in our country, and the word at the center of both stories is vaccine. Few words can express so much about one moment in time.”

“Vaccine” follows “pandemic” as the word of the year, starting a hopefully short-lived trend.

Merriam-Webster’s word of the year for 2021 is ‘vaccine’ (yahoo.com)


Dec. 7, 2021 "Texas substitute teacher brings karaoke machine to class, sings": This is from Fox 7 Austin.  I first found this on CTV news, but there's only a video:

AUSTIN, Texas - A substitute teacher at an Austin high school was asked to leave campus after he brought a karaoke machine to class and sang the Britney Spears song "Toxic". The incident happened on December 3 at Bowie High School in the Austin Independent School District.

An AISD spokesperson says the substitute arrived at Bowie HS without an ID and was given a temporary one. After receiving the ID, the substitute went to his class and began to sing using the karaoke machine he had brought with him. 

Bowie’s principal spoke with the substitute and asked him to leave.

"The substitute was deactivated in our substitute pool, so it's safe to say he won't be subbing again in Austin ISD," the AISD spokesperson says. The spokesperson goes on to add that after further review it appears the substitute has a social media profile that says he is trying to sub to all 50 states and sing and entertain students while subbing while documenting his experience.

Texas substitute teacher brings karaoke machine to class, sings (fox7austin.com)

My opinion: This is so unprofessional.  That's good that he wants to substitute in all 50 states, but he should:

1. Go into the entertainment industry

2. Be a teacher and be all edu- tainment.  He wasn't teaching anything.

3. Put videos of him singing on Youtube.

Dec. 8, 2021 "'It's about helping the kids': Mustard Seed $2 Family Gift Centre back for 6th year": Today I found this article by Amanda Anderson on CTV news:

Two thousand Edmonton kids will have gifts under the tree Christmas morning thanks to the Mustard Seed’s annual Family Gift Centre.

“Our aim is to help folks who may not have the capacity to get gifts for their children or their grandchildren,” said Megan Schuring, the community development director at the Mustard Seed.

Parents who have pre-registered or have been referred to the program are able to buy up to two gifts for each child and pay just $2 per gift.


“The joy that the parents get in being able to say I did that. I was able to purchase you a gift and it doesn’t matter that it was at $2 a gift what matters is the parent was able to have that ability to go and shop and pick out something,” Schuring said.

'It's about helping the kids': Mustard Seed $2 Family Gift Centre back for 6th year | CTV News










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