Fall Colors Canadian Style - what did we do to Halloween · Thursday October 30, 2008 by colin newell
Here is an excerpt from my journal entry dated November 1, 1971…
went out for Halloween last night with younger sister. last time ever I am pretty sure. at 12 years old… it must be time. weather was perfect. cold and foggy. the ground was musty with fallen leaves and rot. dressed as a gypsy. mom and sisters creation. no idea what a gypsy is. firecrackers and fireworks everywhere. pipe bomb exploded about 100 feet away from me. wow. cool. got home at around 8. went back out for long walk because this was the last one for me. feeling grown up.
In 2008 no one lets a 12 year old out with his 8 year old sister to trick or treat. At least not in this urban jungle. And I wonder why. Is it really that dangerous out there? It was way more dangerous in the late sixties when I was a kid… and I was taking myself out trick or treating by the time I was 7 or 8. And I guess I was pretty savvy by the time I was 8. On Halloween one knew where and what to avoid. The houses that felt dark and creepy were to be avoided. We knew who the creeps were – and there were not a lot of them. Even in the 60’s we knew enough not to accept anything that was not wrapped – yes, even then. Now I think we are too cautious and too concerned about threats that do not actually exist.
And I am not suggesting that you send your children out alone – we should`nt have been out alone – there should have been an adult or a teen with us – but they were slightly different times.
Now kids are paraded through malls stopping in individual stores to collect treats! What happened to meeting the neighbors? What happened to original costumes created from imaginative minds. When I was 12 I went out in an outfit that my older sister and mother cooked up. At 11 I was a greaser from the 50`s. That was a stretch! At 10 I was a vampire. At 9 I was a ghost… and yea, there was a sheet involved. Complex or not, we did something creative with homegrown ingredients. Now people shop at Walmart for togs made in China that contain enough melamine to kill a horse… made by children that have never heard of Halloween.
I cannot believe I have actually reached the point in my life when I am using the phrase… “When I was 12…”
Happy Halloween. Be safe.
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Fall Colors Canadian Style - Too scared to blog · Monday October 6, 2008 by colin newell
It is week 5 of the Canadian election campaign and week 63 of the American election campaign. The markets are falling like Canada geese at a Dick Cheney hunting party. Peace of mind is now receding faster than my hairline and optimism is a word best reserved for a good bottle of Pinot Noir.
Hope is not entirely lost – but I am not entirely sure where I put it either… probably under that sweltering pile of broken dreams – next to my shattered mutual funds.
On a brighter note, I have started counting down the days and weeks to our vacation in Hawaii – and by then I should be in a good position to buy a few houses while I am there.
So life is not so bad if you are, like me, a 40 something steadily employed dude worried a little about the future. The real trepidation should be with our seniors and later in life retired folks who are either in retirement or thinking of it soon. Those, who were once looking at sprucing up the cottage – now double checking on that noose knot, having just opened their financial statements.
Is it just me or does dread hang in the air like the pall of a train wreck? I haven’t had any good news since Britney was released from rehab – and although the Biden – Palin debates provided about as much calm and diversion as half-a-milligram of Valium (never touched the stuff actually…) the reality is, (like you) I am feeling the sting of reality too many hours of too many days.
The upside is – I feel like giving and receiving hugs more than I ever have. Any takers? I am finding humor in absolutely the oddest places – which is good… best medicine and all.
Anyway – hang in there folks. We are all in this together.
This just in folks – just googled the word coffee and I am number 2 behind Wikipedia out of 328,000,000 possible links.
I feel oddly better – but I still feel like Number Two – especially today.
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Fall Colors Canadian Style - White Rabbit Candy Go ask alice · Wednesday September 24, 2008 by colin newell
If you work in a busy office or lab like I do, you will know that the summer days are often powered with strong coffee, home made muffins and mystery candy from China.
And one of these tasty confections making the rounds was White Rabbit creamy candy. It is cheap and you can buy it by the bucket full.
But unlike the Kopi Luwak, I did not eat the candy.
Working on a University campus that is patrolled by hundreds of rabbits, many of them white (and decidedly inbred), I avoid candies and snacks with the brand name, flavor or ingredient; Rabbit, Student, Professor and Textbook… I mean, it only makes sense.
White Rabbit candy is exported to Chinatowns around the world, including those in Toronto and Vancouver, says CBC’s China correspondent Anthony Germain.
The news of contamination of White Rabbit candy comes a day after the CFIA advised Canadians not to consume three Mr. Brown 3-in-1 instant coffee products — imported from China — because they may contain melamine.
Mr. Brown. Your coffee keeps me warm. In more ways than one.
On Sunday, the agency also warned people not to consume Nissin Cha Cha Dessert, a Chinese dessert mix, made with Yili Pure Milk that was possibly tainted with melamine.
Nearly 53,000 children have been sickened and four have died in China after being fed baby formula tainted with melamine.
IOC Connection alert: Chinese physicians alerted the Chinese government prior to the 2008 Summer Olympics about the milk issue. The Chinese government buried the news (and naturally the ICO is complicit) – the result dead children.
In September 2008, taking candy from a baby is now a good thing. It is a necessary thing. And by the way, take the milk too!
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Summer food fun and drink - time to butt out this theme · Monday September 8, 2008 by colin newell
It is a beautiful summer night in our concrete and steel tower overlooking the miserable neighborhood of Rockland… Million dollar houses. Rich folks with their noses in the air.
And now I know why.
They are trying to breathe.
On this perfect night, Andrea and I open the windows to let in a softening breeze. The mid-September evening is rich with a delicate sea breeze and the aroma of summer drawing to a close.
But wait, there is more. The slow moving zephyr brings in the noxious assault of a neighbor puffing away on her balcony.
She has a new baby and she is crashing with her folks. Naturally, we would not want her exposing her bambino to the effects of second hand Butt smoke.
So let’s expose the neighbors instead. What we could find out!
Oops. Digression.
The way I see it: If someone does not give a rodents ass what they press and suck into their mouthes, they sure as heck are not going to spend much time worrying about my lungs.
Oh well. I need to be more patient. She has a new baby. No father. And no one is going to be kissing her anytime soon.
It sucks.
So please don’t exhale.
Summer fun food and drink - Breastfeeding in the upside down Universe · Thursday August 7, 2008 by colin newell
If you watch as much TV as I do (and it isn’t really that much…), what do you see?
Murder, mayhem, carnage, chaos, sadness, hunger, and death…
And that’s just what’s on Food TV’s popular, Chef Ramsay.
Tune around ABC, NBC, CBS or Fox… and CNN and you are assured of seeing a never ending body-count; kidnapping, gun shot fatalities, homicide, serial killers… all in mind boggling detail.
And yet when a woman feeds her baby, in public no less, the reaction from the surrounding public can vary from casual indifference to self-righteous indignation and utter contempt.
I mean, I would understand someone reacting with unbridled horror and revulsion if I pulled a Canada goose out of a giant paper bag and slit its throat with a K-Bar knife, tossing it onto a Hibachi on a busy street corner and serving it up with a tossed salad. That I would understand. A Canada goose, after all, is a sacred creature.
Breastfeeding, next to stopping at Starbuck’s for a double-tall decaf latte, is one of natures original methods of infant nourishment. So what is the big deal? Sure, breasts are sexualized on women – so what? It takes a deeply disturbed psyche to be perturbed by a new mom and her un-weaned young’in taking in a few dozen sips of Planet Earth’s first beverage.
So. It is with no surprise to me whatsoever that protests are popping up (or out) all over the place – At the H&M Store in Vancouver for example, where a young Mom was hustled into the back of the store by a brace of apoplectic staffers – shortly thereafter a coven of lactating mom’s showed up for a protest or circle squirt of sorts. God bless ‘em!
And Hey – Having worked at a University for over 20 years seeing virtually every square inch of male or female flesh exposed (especially this time of year…) all I can say (or feel) now when I see a mom and baby feeding is: “There is a happy baby and at least it isn’t crying…”
Maybe these weird folk suffering from breast aversion need to spend some flying from here to there on a jumbo jet filled with implacable babies screaming their heads off – if only to appreciate the simple joy, simplicity and honesty of that one moment – One mom, one breast, one baby… in perfect harmony and silence.
