Mary W. Walters: Notions

I am moving! My Notions blog is continuing at a new web address

2011-02-05T15:27:00.001-08:00

Please join me at:

http://notionsbymary.wordpress.com/

Seeing my mother’s face in mine

2011-02-05T10:14:00.000-08:00

When I began to get “older” I was occasionally alarmed to catch sight of my mother’s face looking back at me from the mirror, or her hands resting in my lap — or, worse yet, my grandmother’s face or hands. I saw these resemblances only as a sign that I was aging. But as of this year, I am the eldest person in my immediate family, and suddenly I kind of like the idea that I look and sound like the women who came before me. It is as though I am carrying around a special key that only I am able to use to unlock the past – and I do it so easily: with a facial expression, a way of saying something, or a laugh. The family resemblance has turned from something I resented into a precious heirloom.

A smartphone app I wish someone would invent

2011-01-20T12:56:00.000-08:00

Now that I can use my iPhone as a heart-rate monitor, I wish someone would invent an app that I could use to set up my workouts by desired target heart rate, including such variables as the length of time I want to get to the peak heart rate during the exercise period, how long I want to stay there, and how long the overall workout should be. The app would then select iTunes from my built-in iPod that have the correct beat to correspond to my desired heart rate (starting heart rate building to target heart rate, and then decreasing again at the end of the workout). Then I could run in time to the music and actually listen to the music and work with it instead of thinking about my heart rate and how much longer or faster I have to go.

So get on it, and let me know when it's done. I'll even pay. A bit.

Vegans and Vegetarians:

2010-08-07T20:54:00.001-07:00

I wonder if they ever feel guilty when they contemplate the fact that they are MADE of meat.

I just discovered the most thirst-quenching drink ever

2010-07-27T13:31:00.000-07:00

Boil 6 cups of water. Pour it into a juice container.

Drop 3 teabags into the hot water, as follows (some variation permitted. This is what I used):

1 Dry Desert Lime (Numi brand)
1 Green Tea
1 Wildberry Delight (Tetley)

Leave it for an hour. Then put it in the fridge (with the teabags still in it). Wait for a few hours, or overnight or whatever.

Pour yourself a glass when you're thirsty. You won't believe how good it tastes.

Roget's Thesaurus

2010-07-17T02:20:00.000-07:00

I consider it a loss that most young people today will never have an opportunity to marvel at how intelligently and intuitively Roget constructed his thesaurus. I use, and am grateful for, the on-line one at thesaurus.com, even paying for the privilege to use it all year long, but I was looking at the actual book today and appreciating its creator anew. You can climb into Roget's Thesaurus and get satisfyingly tangled in the threads for hours.

Strolling

2010-06-25T07:00:00.000-07:00

One more downside to tv ads: Now when I see a couple my age out for a walk, I think, "Oh, dear-- strolling. They should see a doctor."

Just Wondering

2010-03-21T07:16:00.000-07:00

If the smell of burning toast is a sign that you are having a stroke, and you are making toast and it burns, and you have a stroke because you think you are having a stroke, would you fail to notice an important symptom -- namely, the smell of burning toast?

The Best

2010-03-17T13:33:00.000-07:00

For me, there is nothing, nothing, nothing better in the world than the feeling I get when I complete the last revision to a piece of creative writing and the product pleases me. I've been writing for thirty years now, and the feeling of elation at this point never changes.

This is why I write.

The undoing of the media

2010-02-18T16:16:00.000-08:00

On-line media report that Gordon Lightfoot is not dead, Simon Cowell is not engaged, Brangelina did not break up, and J.K.Rowling did not plagiarize. We have entered the era of de-newsing.

Valentine's Day 2010

2010-02-15T11:18:00.001-08:00

What appealed to me most about Valentine's Day this year was the sight of so many slightly embarrassed looking young men walking along the streets and onto the subway carrying flowers wrapped in cellophane and paper.

The Subway: A Metaphor

2010-01-30T08:37:00.000-08:00

The other day at Rosedale Station A Voice asked everyone to get off the subway quick quick quick as the train had to return south to the Royal York. The Voice said another train would be along shortly. The Voice said, "We are closing the doors. Please exit the train." Everyone got off quick quick quick. They closed the doors. A minute later, the doors opened again and the Voice said we could all get back on. We did, and we continued our journey.

Was this the new train they had promised us?

This is a metaphor for my life, I think. I just have to figure it out.

A perc from the phone company

2010-01-16T14:41:00.000-08:00

My elderly aunt passed away on Tuesday. On Thursday, I cancelled my aunt's phone. The phone company guy completed the request, then said that he and his family would pray for my aunt's soul to make sure it got to heaven. I thanked him, and later remarked to my younger son, "It's amazing what you can get from your phone company these days." He replied, "I think it's part of a bundle.

Gaggles or giggles of girls

2010-01-05T18:41:00.000-08:00

by which I mean the early-teen variety, and sometimes including boys as well, should not be allowed to gather in groups in coffee shops. Do these young people ("Oh, my GAWWDDD!!!" "Oh, my GAWD!" "OH. MY. GAWWD!!!") not realize that some of us have abandoned our cherished spots in libraries, where no one says "Hush" any more, and fled to Starbucks or The Second Cup to get our reading and our writing done?

What Peter says about Paul....

2009-11-16T07:06:00.000-08:00

People get aggravated because the mega-corps based in North America who sell them their computers, telephones, etc. are outsourcing the service contracts for those products to companies with offices in countries where the hourly wages are lower -- India being a prime example. What I don't understand (aside from why so many of us have such problems understanding people who don't speak English exactly the same way we do) is why the complainers seem to blame the people at the other end of the line--most of whom actually do have the answers they need, and are doing their best to help. They are not the ones who engineered this system.

How to make yourself feel great!

2009-10-08T09:19:00.000-07:00

Invite everyone you know in a certain city to a farewell party. (I'm not sure whether you actually have to be leaving town to do this or not.) The ones who cannot attend will write lovely notes to you telling you how much you mean to them and how much they will miss you. They will not necessarily mean what they say, but they will make you feel great. (I'm not sure how often you can do this in one calendar year--at least once, I am sure.)

(For more information, see my Moving To Toronto blog)

Spin Dry -- and the Wasp Sucker revisited

2009-07-29T12:12:00.000-07:00

Someone should invent a big salad-spinner-type contraption for the change rooms of public swimming pools into which you could drop your bathing suit and then crank the handle to spin the water out of the suit before you put it in your pack and take it home.

UPDATE: My FaceBook friends inform me that these things do exist--just not at the pool I go to. So... I still haven't seen my idea for a wasp sucker on sale anywhere (like a Dustbuster only with a long, narrow neck with a baffle in it, so that you can suck wasps off your steak at barbeques and dispose of them later). It's such a simple idea. I want one of those. I even sent the idea to Black and Decker -- nothing. Drawing available on request. The fat end where the wasps would accumulate during dinner could later be emptied into the bushes or sprayed full of Raid, depending on your views about wasps' right to life.

From the "technology that baffles me" department....

2009-06-17T16:31:00.000-07:00

One of my many goals in life is to get an envelope to come out of the printer with the address the right way up on it AND with the address not printed on the back flap.

I need a search engine for life

2009-03-15T12:15:00.000-07:00

As I was looking for cinnamon in my cupboards just now, I realized that a part of my brain was wondering where the search engine for the kitchen had gone.

On being irreplaceable

2009-02-16T12:26:00.000-08:00

In times of economic crisis, people worry a lot about being replaceable. Everywhere in the media these days--in blogs and business columns, in opinion pieces and video interviews--corporate pundits and pop psychologists are struggling to explain how we can stand out from the crowd (in a good way) so that our employers will see the need to keep us on.

When Steve Jobs had to take some time off work, the words "No one is indispensable" became both reassuring and terrifying to millions of cogs in a host of corporate machines.

In good times and bad, the only business with a really, truly indispensable and irreplaceable person at its core is the one that runs off an individual creative vision. John Updike was irreplaceable. Picasso was irreplaceable. Eartha Kitt was irreplaceable. So was Yves St. Laurent.

Artists often undervalue their own contributions--probably because for most of us it takes so long to attract the only meaningful measure of our worth, which is money. We should not be discouraged. Some of us may not make a living from our art just yet (in that regard, for us there is no difference between the good times and the bad!), but we cannot be replaced, and we will always be "employed."

We have what everybody wants. We should be happy (and even a bit snooty) about that.

Got the driving-around-the-hospital-parking-lot blues again

2009-01-21T16:22:00.000-08:00

Are there, in any North American cities, any hospitals that have adequate parking facilities?

How many stress-related medical conditions have actually begun in hospital parking lots?

And shouldn't someone do some research about this?

Skimming around Web 2.0

2009-01-18T18:31:00.000-08:00

One of the main reasons why I love the Internet is that it is text-based.

TV news and information shows have always felt too slow to me. Can you skim a video for the info you want or need and ignore the rest? Nope.

I avoid information-based videos on the Internet for the same reason. I’d rather read a transcript of a news or information video any day than take the time to watch it. And I would always prefer a succinct and well written news item over the transcript.

With the increasing proliferation of online news sources, blogs and social-media exchanges, the ability to write well is again becoming a distinguishing feature that allows the best to rise to the top. As a reader, not to mention as a writer/editor with 30 years of experience, I find that situation very appealing.

Branta canadensis

2009-01-15T15:19:00.000-08:00

I would like to propose that the bird species known as "Canada goose" be renamed. They are being blamed for a lot of crap (literally) in a lot of places, and most recently for the emergency landing of an entire airplane in the Hudson River. They are giving my country a bad reputation. They are not our fault.

Tracking the Transit System

2009-01-09T15:28:00.000-08:00

I am looking forward to the day when they put computer chips in city buses so I can use my GPS to see the buses on my route, figure out how far behind or ahead of schedule they are, and plan accordingly.

Update: Readers of this Notion have informed me that the computer-chip system already exists in certain cities in North America. Very good. I will wait to see how long it takes for the technology to reach Saskatoon, SK.

Diet Tip #1 (aka Notes to Self)

2009-01-08T17:00:00.000-08:00

It is of no benefit to wash and dry your jeans during the first week of a diet. The scale may tell you you've dropped a few pounds and are doing really well, but the clean jeans will dispute that. If you want to keep your spirits up, wait a while to do the denim laundry.

In Support of the Establishment of National Wear-Your-Wedding-Dress Day

2008-12-26T12:31:00.000-08:00

The declaration of a National Wear-Your-Wedding-Dress Day (annual date to vary by geographic region, with a view to maximizing odds of fine weather locally) would provide the residents of participating communities with a range of benefits, including:

Opportunities for women (and men, where applicable) to be recognized for their beauty and good taste at least once a year by friends and families (not to mention fellow workers and grocery-store attendants) as they moved resplendent from the morning to the night in the gowns, gloves, tiaras, veils and even shoes they had chosen with such care for days on which they were married;

Enhanced justification for the investment of millions of dollars in elaborate dresses and accoutrements that are traditionally worn for one day only, after which they are consigned to the darkest reaches of the nation’s basement closets or the remotest corners of its attics;

Motivational artillery for the newly married to keep their sylph-like figures so that they are able to fit themselves anew into their matrimonial finery every year.

Those with two or more wedding gowns would wear whichever dress they preferred unless, of course, the most recent marriage had taken root, in which case they would be well advised to choose politics over sartorial preference.

On OverSharing

2008-12-16T06:22:00.000-08:00

There is a tendency in this era of social media to tell the world your whole life history and your deepest secrets.

Resist that temptation. Save your dark fears, your weaknesses, your regrets, your childhood abuse, your fights with your current partners for friends you know in person and your therapist.

Better yet, transform them into art.

Just Doin' My Job

2008-12-13T12:47:00.000-08:00

Why has it reached the point where I feel like falling all over people with gratitude when they just do the work they are supposed to do (and that I am directly or indirectly paying them to do)?

Spewing Coffee

2008-12-03T13:35:00.000-08:00

New acronym needed for Twitter and other social-networking sites: SCAOMK (spewing coffee all over my keyboard). In terms of intensity, falls half way between LOL and ROTFLMAO.

Update: This acronym (SCAOMK) was accepted for inclusion in Urban Dictionary in Dec. '08.

Parenthood

2008-12-03T13:34:00.001-08:00

Anyone who thinks only kids are permanently traumatized by their childhoods hasn't been a parent.

Seeking Advice

2008-12-01T06:45:00.000-08:00

When it comes to asking for advice, who you choose to ask is as important as how you phrase the question.

Elitism

2008-11-29T13:27:00.001-08:00

Some of us need to be elitist or there would be no elite.

Whatever happened to Inside Voices?

2008-11-29T13:24:00.000-08:00

After spending too many hours in an airport: Why do so many young moms think I want to listen to their brilliant conversations with their brilliant little kids?

Damnation

2008-11-29T13:00:00.002-08:00

On seeing The Metropolitan Opera's simulcast of The Damnation of Faust: Damnation is a journey, not a destination.

Labels

2008-11-29T13:00:00.001-08:00

Clothes would be far more comfortable if the care labels were on the outside.

Anticipation

2008-11-29T12:58:00.000-08:00

The only time I really don't like running is right before I start to run.

The only time I really don't like working is right before I start to work.