Category Archives: rant

Don’t you have anything better to do with your time?

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If you have read my past blog posts, you’ll know that I have started a wonderful project to help our local food bank.  We are making Freezer Crockpot meals so families can feel the satisfaction of having a home-cooked meal on the table, once or twice a week, that is made with REAL food.  The ingredients are things like chicken, stewing beef, ground beef, ground turkey, vegetables and potatoes.   It has been a love affair of mine since it began last winter and continues to capture my heart.

After a sneaky email from a friend, I was recently interviewed by a local TV news station and the reporter and her fellow newscasters were impressed by the project as well.  We had a small segment on the 6:00 news to help promote our cause and gain more coverage to help increase donations.  The coverage was also put on the TV stations’ and my Facebook page to  help spread the word so we could try to help more people who could use a hand this time of year.

I received some fantastic comments and queries from others who wish to start the same type of project in their community, which is exactly what I was hoping would happen.  But amidst the praises and pats on the back, I should have known there lurked a few eyes that glowed eerily in the darkness.

After watching the clip on the news, a woman called the lodge where I work (and the kitchen we use for prepping meals) and was irate that we were not wearing gloves while we prepared these meals.  Upon first hearing of this call, I was taken aback…..and then I was angry.  I have volunteered countless hours of my time to make life a little better for those who struggle through the winter months, only to have this woman challenge my culinary safety practices.

chef-chopping

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I have been trained in kitchens since I was in college.  Before I went to college I worked in restaurants.  And in the 30+ years I have worked in the hospitality industry, I have never encountered a Chef who wears gloves, or makes their staff wear gloves, unless they have been cut and are wearing a bandage.  Hospitality staff are trained in food safety.  From the temperature of a fridge, to the cooking temperature of meats and the frequent hand-washing to avoid cross-contamination, we are well-versed in following very strict guidelines.   Watch a few videos of Gordon Ramsay, Anthony Bourdain, Jamie Oliver or any of the popular cooking-challenge shows and tell me if you see their hands concealed by Latex gloves.  This is cooking, not open-heart surgery.

Sufficed to say, my blood pressure has come down and I am moving on.  One angry voice in a sea of positivity will not get me down.  I can only hope that, one day, this woman will get as much satisfaction from helping others as I do and will give the same strong-arm to anyone who tries to bring her down.

 

 

 

Putting the “jerk” in knee-jerk reaction…..

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On Saturday, I spent a couple of hours at our local Foodland trying to promote our small curling club.  We  had a tiny table set up with a lone chair, our club banner and some flyers with information about our open houses and our membership rates.  What I thought was going to be a couple of hours of chatting about the club turned into a very eye-opening experience and a great deal of fodder for this blog post.

If you have ever shopped in a grocery store, you have undoubtedly seen small town clubs raising awareness (or funds) for their groups.  Having never been on this side of the table before, I was ill-prepared for the events that transpired.

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Many locals did stop at the table.  To their good fortune, and our misfortune, they were snow birds counting the days until they left for the sunny south.  We did receive a collection of names to add to our list of possible new members.  But what I didn’t expect were the reactions of the multitude of people going by who would do anything to avoid eye contact with me.

Let me remind you, I was not selling anything or asking for money.  Most shoppers picked up their pace as they passed me, looking straight ahead as if trying to remember where they parked their car.  Several people didn’t even want to know why I was sitting in that cold lobby, they just told me they didn’t have any cash and kept moving.  One lady went so far as to tell me she had already donated!   This generous stranger had somehow anonymously given money to our little curling club and nobody on the executive committee were any the wiser.

The crowning glory was a middle-aged woman who, as she pushed her full grocery cart past me, simply responded “NO” when I had asked, “How are you today?”.

I was in awe of how quickly people were willing to dismiss  me, to turn a blind eye and not even take a moment to understand why I was there.  My presence wasn’t threatening.  I was not holding my hand out asking for anything.  To say I was disappointed by the reactions of those people is an egregious understatement.  And I can only hope that if I ever have a knee-jerk reaction to a similar situation, that I’m not such a jerk about it.

When skin gets thin

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I cannot change the moods or the behavior of others.  I can only control how I let those moods and behaviors affect me.   Today, however, was a glowing example of how that ideal can radically fail.

If I were superstitious, today would have been my Friday the 13th.  My black cat was the neighbors dog, who, first thing this morning, managed to soil, not one but, two pairs of my shorts on my way to work.  The ladder I walked under was the exit door from my house.  And the broken mirror was the negativity that continued to rain throughout the day like the shards of glass falling from that broken mirror.

I am usually very thick-skinned.   Most of the time I can deflect negativity and remain blissfully unaware of the antagonism that tends to eddy in the normally calm waters of my life.  But the vortex of that disapproval became too much.  I, without my life-preserver, was pulled under and was out of breath.

eddy

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A little positive reinforcement can go a long way.  As an adult with a great deal of life experience under my belt, I know life is unfair and the wheels can fall off the bus at any given second.   But to focus solely on the loose lug nut that made the wheel come off is negating the safe driving before that wheel fell off and the work that the bus driver had to do after its liberation to safely get that bus to the shoulder of the road.

Thick skin can actually be quite tenuous and a little praise goes a long way.   If criticism is deserved, than criticism should be administered.  But if praise is deserved, it should be just as easily passed from the lips of the people who need to say it to the ears of the people who need to hear it.

Good for the economy but bad for my temperment

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I am going to do my utmost not to turn this post into a rant, but I make no promises.

The population in our tiny town explodes from May to October.  Cottagers and tourists alike flock to our little oasis to drink from our serene waters, to sip from the fountain of relaxation and to let every ounce of their city stress slowly dissipate until they resemble nothing of their former city-dwelling selves.  This is what we are selling and this is what they are buying.

This year seems to have hit an all-time high for human traffic.   Stores are reaping the benefits of the excess numbers of shoppers, our local Foodland check-outs are all lined up six shoppers deep but I have learned to adjust my shopping schedule accordingly.

We get it.  We are not new to this phenomenon and we learn to adapt to our new routines to keep our sanity.   But there are moments that we cannot control – moments when we have to shop during the peak times and it is during these times I lose my sense of humor.

Blatant rudeness and uncaring attitudes run rampant.  You may think I am simply frustrated from working long hours and dealing with unbearably hot temperatures, but I have first-hand experience of the uncaring attitude of some of our summer guests.  My latest encounter today prompted me to vent write this post.

I pulled into the liquor store and was shocked to get a parking spot without having to wait.   I noticed three carts left on the sidewalk in front of the store, collected them and returned them to their rightful place inside the store.  Wine in hand, I moved to the tills and the line moved quickly.  I was lucky to get in and out without incident.   The woman who was parked beside me had just loaded her box of goodies into her BMW SUV and lifted her cart up over the curb, leaving it on the sidewalk.  I got into my car, made eye contact with BMW lady and then she and I both watched as her cart slowly rolled backwards, tipped over the curb and landed on my front bumper.  Not missing a beat, she slid her vehicle into reverse, no apology, not a shred of remorse, backed out of her spot to head back to her restful vacation spot.

Shopping Cart Walk

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I could feel my blood pressure rising before the color of my cheeks betrayed me.  I got out of my car, checked my bumper and wheeled her cart back in to the store to avoid having this happen to another car.

These are the people who frustrate me.  These are the people who make me believe that, to them, other people just don’t matter.  I may have ranted in an earlier blog and received many varying comments, perhaps rightfully so, but my rants are justified.  Ask yourself how you would have reacted in that situation.  For me, I would never have left the cart in the first place but, I would certainly  have jumped out of my car to make sure the other vehicle had not sustained any damage.

Rant over.   What would you have done?

 

 

 

 

A post about the a-hole at the liquor store

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For those who follow my blog or know me personally, you know I live in a small town.  Our liquor store is an over-sized log cabin that can be accessed by land or by water.  Because we host a large percentage of the city’s population in the summer, our LCBO is a bustling metropolis at the slowest of times.  Cars line the two-lane black top to be able to pull off the road into the parking lot for their chance at a desired parking spot.  For those unlucky enough to be a few minutes too late, we wait in line for the next available spot.

Today I was first in that wait line.  I pulled into the lot, waited patiently on the side of the entrance, and watched a few happy customers as they left the store with their familiar brown bags.  As I was looking at their contented faces heading towards their BMW’s and Lexi (Muskoka plural for Lexus’), a beat up pick up truck, paying no heed to the rule of the line-up, ignored me patiently waiting for a spot as if I were invisible, passed my on my driver’s side and decided to create its own “parking spot”, conveniently blocking a total of four vehicles from exiting their soon-to-be-vacant actual parking spots.

parking asshole

 

The driver of the truck got out, acknowledged my car waiting to park, also acknowledged the woman in the Lexus trying to exit her space, shrugged and made his way into the store.  I’ve seen my share of selfish moves since Toronto moved North for the summer but this one truly angered me.  This guy saw me waiting for a spot, saw the Lexus driver (and, potentially, two other cars) waiting to exit and blatantly sauntered across the macadam into the store as if the rest of the world did not even exist.  I was speechless, apart from a few well-placed expletives.

I am a patient person.  If you are in a rush, I am the first to let you go ahead of me to help you in your quest.  But if your quest is to be the most arrogant and uncaring person in town, count me out.   I only wish I had the foresight to take down  your license plate number so I could rat you out in a more personal way.

Suffering the side-effects of the human condition

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For those unfamiliar with the latest news in aviation, an Air Canada flight came down at Halifax International Airport on Sunday in what I personally refer to as a “successful crash”.  Airline media relations like to call it a “hard landing”.   I’m sure the passengers aboard would agree with my description since the pilot attempted to navigate the runway with no landing gear, no nose on the plane and short one engine.  The plane slid along the runway to a stop and passengers were able to exit the plane to safety.  There were more than two dozen sent to hospital with minor injuries but the end result was no casualties.   In lieu of what we have been watching recently about the German Airlines tragic ending, this story has a relatively positive outcome.

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The crash is under investigation and veteran pilots are already pointing the finger to pilot error unless the engines were not receiving full power.  It is too early to tell anything beyond the fact that the captain and his co-pilot are currently the only people who are responsible for bringing the troubled plane to the ground and sparing the lives of their passengers and crew.

I read a disturbing story today that some passengers are already threatening to sue Air Canada.  Just days after the tragedy of the German flight being piloted straight into the side of the Alps, these passengers’ perspective seems to have crashed and burned as well.   Their plane,  although potentially mishandled, was brought down safely in high wind gusts and snow after the landing gear was sheared off because the plane hit some antennas.  The one hundred and forty-nine passengers and crew of Germanwings were not so lucky.

Yes…your flight crash landed, but you survived.  Yes……you unfortunately had to stand on the runway for an hour before being shuttled into the airport.  No, I don’t think that is acceptable and no, I wasn’t on the plane and don’t know the terror you certainly experienced.  But nobody has to make a call to your family to say you didn’t make it.  Nobody has to guide your loved ones through the pain of knowing they will never have a body, or even fragments of a body, to bury to give them a sense of peace and closure.  You are alive to tell the tale and you, unlike so many others, will live to see another day.  Your family does not have to spend countless hours wondering what happened to your flight because you did not disappear without a trace, never to be seen again.

Perhaps the thing that irritated me the most and began this tyrannical rant is that one of the passengers made a flip comment about taking “plane crash” off their bucket list. I had to close the page of the interview.  Who, in their right mind, has plane crash on their bucket list and who can be so flippant with such a crass statement shortly after 149 people tragically lost their lives only days earlier and many other missing flights loaded with passengers and crew will never be found?  The light bulb that was my hope for humanity has been alarmingly dimmed today.

Perhaps those passengers threatening to sue were still in shock and merely making a rash judgement.  I can only hope that if the lawsuits go ahead and money is awarded to the victims of the unfortunate landing in Halifax that they will look back on the events of devastation that have happened within air travel over the past few years and use that money to set up a fund to aid families who have lost loved ones.  Winning a cash reward for surviving would be such a monumental slap in the face of the families who are still grieving and to those who will never get the answer to the question of what really happened to their loved ones.

 

Smart phones, stupid people

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ctv

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I frequently watch the news when I get home from work.  I like to feel that I am remotely connected to what is happening around me and have some knowledge of events that may have an effect on how I venture into the next day.

Last night, the top story angered, saddened and disgusted me.  A video was taken of a female police officer being physically attacked by two teenage girls.  The video was then uploaded to the internet and has been viewed an alarming number of times.  But the worst part, for me, is the fact that the person who stood and filmed the abuse did nothing to help the officer who so obviously could have used the help.  The officer handled herself with the utmost decorum and did not encourage further violence by reacting in a way that would only spur on the attack.

I don’t often rant on this blog but this situation made me absolutely furious.  This person not only stood by and watched a woman who swore an oath to protect and serve, and sadly to protect and serve the same horrible human being who had the audacity to stand by and film an assault on an officer of the law but, they also had the balls to laugh at the end of their video when the teens attempted to flee the scene and the struggle came to an end.

I cannot tell you that I would jump into the middle of the melee because I abhor violence.  But what I can tell you is that I would be using my phone to call 9-1-1 instead of standing still, clicking the record button on my video and bearing witness to a crime, only to film it, and upload it, for a deplorable laugh.  Teens who were interviewed and showed the video also laughed until the reporter asked why they found the video funny.

It worries me that this is how society today respects figures of authority and accepts the most hideous displays of behavior as funny without being the least bit concerned about right and wrong.  I can safely say that in this case, the phone that was used to film this atrocity is much smarter than the person who owns it.

 

I’m loading the arsenal and preparing for Defcon Two

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It seems I may have taken the fortitude of the Red Squirrel completely for granted when waging my war on the furry little bastards.

I entered the battle with the most humane of intentions.  I brought home a live-trap so I could capture and relocate the hairy little mercenaries that have been seeking asylum in the walls and ceilings of my home.  With my dog and I at sentinel posts, we have been rendered helpless and can only try to figure out how the bristly little vermin have been able to extricate themselves from their metal incarceration -twice! – and re-enter the sanctity of our home.

squirrel

I have not yet reached the moment when I clench my fists, indignantly throw my hands into the air and scream, “This means war!”.   I am certainly bordering on enough sleep loss and misguided rage to window shop in the hunting section of the local Home Hardware.

I have warned my co-workers – if I come in to work on Monday with traces of black dye under my eyes and remnants of any camouflage, things did not go well on the weekend.  I can only hope if I reach Defcon One that I am a little more adept in the woods than Elmer Fudd!

“Shhh. Be vewy, vewy quiet.”