Tag Archives: kindness

50 Things

Posted in DPChallenge by

A friend recently told me about her high school principal and two key pieces of advice she imparted to the graduating class:

  1. Always maintain your own bank account.
  2. Have a filing cabinet.

Hmm. 

It did get me thinking about the good and bad advice I have been given (such as when my mother told me to say “I’ll think about it” to any and all proposals of marriage) and what I would like to share with my children. I decided to start a list.

My list does not cover great big moral issues – that is what I am trying to get through to them on a day-to-day basis. My list consists of a bunch of random things (that I think I know) that I want to make sure I cover with my daughters at some point. Here is my list so far:

  1. Listen to music as often as you can.
  2. Do not ever, under any circumstances, try to take Spanx off over your head.
  3. Do not buy shoes that hurt you no matter how much you love them.
  4. Do not stay with a partner that hurts you, no matter how much you love them.
  5. Don’t take yourself too seriously.
  6. Whatever job you have, be it cleaning toilets or running a country, do it to the very best of your ability every single day.
  7. Learn to drive as soon as possible.
  8. Sit up straight!
  9. Vote. Even if your side is ‘guaranteed’ to win. Or lose.
  10. Volunteer.
  11. Say ‘no’ when ‘no’ is what you want to say.
  12. Skip the tattoos.
  13. Or don’t. But don’t get a dolphin or anyone’s name. Or anything on your neck or chest.
  14. Do not put olive pits in the garbage disposal – they are nature’s bullets.
  15. Mind your own manners but let other people worry about theirs.
  16. Use your manners to make people feel comfortable not inferior.
  17. Learn to cook.
  18. Don’t eat and walk. Or drive.
  19. Actively contribute to your friends’ success – show up to the book launch, re-Tweet that Tweet, run the charity run, help make a connection, whatever is needed.
  20. Always RSVP in a timely manner.
  21. Be a great tipper. Especially for breakfast.
  22. Do not buy gossip magazines.*
  23. Say ‘thank you’ (and mean it) to everyone who helps you in even the smallest way.
  24. Don’t jay walk.
  25. If someone tells you that they are a jerk, you should believe them.
  26. Do not go to work or school when you are sick. People will not be awed by your heroics.
  27. Don’t make assumptions about people based on anything other than what they actually say or do.
  28. Just because everyone believes something doesn’t make it true. Think for yourself.
  29. Send thank you notes (or emails) whenever there is a reason.
  30. Floss. Every day.
  31. Eat breakfast.
  32. Don’t waste your time on pastries that aren’t fantastic. If you bite into a disappointing croissant, leave it.
  33. Only butter is butter. There are no substitutes.
  34. Save or invest 10% of your income.
  35. Keep a mini pack of tissues, and a wet wipe or two in your car and purse.
  36. Negotiate your employment terms. Always. Don’t just accept the first offer.
  37. Always ask for a better deal – more often than not, you will get one.
  38. Never buy peaches or corn out of season.
  39. Wear sunscreen and a hat.
  40. Open all crinkly candy wrappers BEFORE the movie starts.
  41. Do not take your phone out at dinner.
  42. Do not text and drive. You can park and text.
  43. Say ‘yes’ when someone asks you to dance (unless you hate them).
  44. If you aren’t sure what to get at a restaurant, order the Special.
  45. Be brave but not stupid.
  46. Stay informed.
  47. Stick up for other women.
  48. Less is more when it comes to make up and eyebrow plucking.
  49. Don’t participate in phone surveys.
  50. Never buy any clothing unless you love it. Even a white t-shirt. Or a too-good-to-be-true sale thing. You have to love it!!**

 

* Read them for free at the hairdresser.

**Courtesy of my step-mother who follows this excellent advice much more consistently than I do.

This is just a starter list. There are so many little things that I’d love for my girls to learn the easy way.

What else should be on here? Please share your thoughts!

 

 

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Holy (Steam) Rollers & Other Corporate Villains

Posted in Rants by

Revenge is sweet and not fattening.
Alfred Hitchcock.

I hold grudges. I try not to hold them against people (to varying degrees of success) but I have no such qualms about holding a big grudge against a corporation. It is a leftover from my childhood when my mother made it clear that we could not have the Nestle chocolate powder with the funny rabbit on the box because they had done very bad things with milk and formula in Africa. Since then, I’ve known that as a consumer, I have a tiny way to make my feelings known and an obligation to do so. It is more than 30 years since I couldn’t buy the chocolate milk and I have not forgotten…

Until last week, I thought that Hobby Lobby was just a crappy replacement for the previously shitty Kmart store that blights one of Tamiami Trail’s ugly highway strip malls. But it turns out that it is actually a fairly large third-rate craft store chain with an owner who has a God complex.

It is, I guess, good to know what the hell a Hobby Lobby is and it is refreshing to be mad at a company that I would never patronize anyway. It will be so easy (though admittedly ineffective) to boycott these emporiums of Made-in-China crap because I already am! I sure won’t miss it like I miss Chick-Fil-A.

Chick-Fil-A – yes, I had noticed a certain sanctimony in their kid giveaways (lots of nice morals!!) and the ‘closed on Sundays’ stuff but that


shrff / Foter / Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)

didn’t hurt anyone so I didn’t care and I would go enjoy a sandwich whenever we were in Florida. If Chick-Fil-A had stuck to making tasty sandwiches, there would be no grudge but for some reason, they just had to wield their religiosity against others.

Their anti-gay comments puzzled me.What does sex have to do with chickens (other than when chickens are having it with each other, obviously)?

And troubled me.I can’t eat there now!!

Had Chick-Fil-A remained benignly preachy, I could’ve enjoyed their sandwiches til their illiterate cows came home. But, like most zealots, the owners of Chick-Fil-A couldn’t resist spewing their noxious brimstone. Even when their VP of propaganda died in the midst of the maelstrom (or was he struck down?) they stuck to their hateful stance and refused to apologize. More recently, the CEO made a point of bringing it up again by commenting that it was a ‘sad day’ in light of the basic human rights that were extended to their country’s adult citizens!

So no more chicken sams for me. Still. And probably ever.

And definitely no crappy crap from Hobby Lobby.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_writing_challenge/leftovers/

A love story

Posted in DPChallenge, Random Stories by

He sauntered, uninvited, through an open screen door, into my cheap student apartment. He walked right over to where I was sprawled on a too-small sofa, watching TV, and hopped on top of me.

“Aaaah!” I shrieked. “What are you? Get off of me!”

The intruder looked sort of, but not really, like a cat.

He was black and white with a long bony body and a huge head. His face was mostly black, with just a little white on the chin and forehead. He had enormous yellow eyes, a crooked nose that rattled when he breathed, and long white hairs that sprung from his eyebrows.

As I tried to get him off of me, he just seemed to hug (yes, hug) me tighter.

He looked hungry so I carried him to the kitchen and got him some food and water.

He watched me constantly and seemed pathetically grateful for the kindness. I petted him and he purred like a chainsaw.

“What IS that?” asked my roommate, all red-eyed and confused when he got home.

“I think it’s a cat,” I told him. “A really huge, weird-looking cat.”

After an hour or two, the cat-creature left through the same open screen door and disappeared for the night.

We saw each other again the next day when I went upstairs to have coffee with my neighbour. There he was. Curled up in the hall like a great big furry lump. He leapt to his feet and rushed to greet me, acting like a dog, and jumped into my arms, trusting I would catch him. I did.

I didn’t want a cat. I already had one (another stray) who was about as snuggly as a goldfish and was barely around except for food and vet visits which were killing me financially.

In that moment I understood how strange it must be for pets to be chosen and instantly loved by their people because I had just been chosen. I was his.

My neighbour, who was a photographer, had already decided he should be called Ilford, after the black and white film.

I held Ilford the whole visit and when I left, he followed me back to my apartment downstairs where I got him more food.

I took a walk in the neighbourhood, Ilford following alongside and behind, leaping through gardens, showing off his cat moves as he attacked plants and shrubs. I looked for ‘Lost Cat’ signs about Ilford. There were none. Given how thin and needy he seemed, I wasn’t surprised. We walked home and when we got there, I held the door open for him.

I had a new cat.

“What an unusually, uh, striking creature,” said the vet on our first visit as I beamed with pride much as I would almost twenty years later about my children. Ilford measured 3 feet from nose to tail. Really large. The vet estimated that he was about four years old.

Regular food and proper care put flesh on his extended frame and it wasn’t long before Ilford started to look more like a cat, and eventually, a chubby cat. People would sometimes still ask what he was but not often.

My life was already full of love (family and friends) and I’d had my share of infatuations, but Ilford was my first experience with being on the giving end of totally unconditional love. He changed me.

He wasn’t typically lovable. Not traditionally good-looking – you would never see him on a pack of toilet paper – and he was no great shakes at personal hygiene (I was probably making excuses but I blamed the jerk who had abandoned him). He rarely even bothered to cover his soiled kitty litter, just scratching his feet in a half-hearted way that reminded me of people who fake-wash their hands, and he snored like a grizzly bear but I adored him.

I would walk in the door and he would jump into my arms, or, if he was outside playing, would recognize my step and come running, his furry strange face filled with joy.

He would bring me revolting gifts of headless pigeons or live tiny mice that he would spit out at my feet. I was always flattered as well as horrified. I got him a bell for his neck to stop the gift-giving but couldn’t help feeling proud when he would catch something anyway.

I would be sick with worry if he took too long to come home at night, or worse, didn’t come home until morning.

We were together, and madly in love for more than ten years until he passed away. That was nine years ago and I now have three small human creatures of my own (that can also be incredibly gross and charming) who I love overwhelmingly and unconditionally.

But I still miss Ilford.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_writing_challenge/great-expectations/

Snap and become a happier parent!

Posted in Parent Category by

Almost everyone goes into parenthood with high hopes about how they will do things and the wonderful people they will raise.

The problem is that before most people ever become  parents, they’ve already judged all sorts of other parents for their ‘shortcomings’ (as they, or ‘In Touch’, ‘People’, assorted Twitterers or the rest of the internet perceive them) and in doing so, have set themselves up.

Perhaps you had all sorts of opinions about drug-free labour, even thinking less of someone who had an epidural (though it was never any of your business). In agony, at the hospital on Delivery-Day, you suddenly have to either live up to those expectations or take relief with a side order of guilt.

Or maybe before having a child you knew that you would never give a binky, or a pacie, or sucky – or allow such babyish words to be used in your perfect baby’s presence. Except you never know. You might need to change your mind.

In both of these scenarios, it would be easier if you weren’t up to your neck in potential failure to meet your own standards (as inflicted on others) when you decide.

The judgement epidemic is not isolated to so called ‘bad’ things. We also tend to get awfully tough on people who appear to be super-parents like the Gwyneths (seriously, why do we care that her children speak multiple languages and eat like jet-setting vegans? And how is it bad?) and Pinteresters of the world.

Either way, judging others is self defeating. It makes us less kind and more sensitive to the opinions of others which makes us even harsher judges of ourselves which makes us less confident and happy parents which makes us compare ourselves to others and do more judging. A vicious cycle!

There is a solution and it is simple if not easy: We need to stop judging each other’s parenting! 

Here is my idea: Slip a rubber band onto your wrist and give yourself a gentle snap each time you catch yourself thinking uncharitable or judge-y thoughts about someone’s parenting (or your own).

You’re in line at the grocery store, eyeballing the latest gossip rags, wanting to flip through and find out why everyone is so worked up about some Jolie-Pitt kid’s hair. Or did Suri really lose it in a park? Are the royals going to abandon their tiny prince for a holiday? Give yourself a snap! It is none of your business.

Instead of an inward (or worse, a snarky outward): ‘At least I am raising my own kids’ comment about the mom with the nanny, or the family with kids in extended daycare, ask yourself: do you really care or are you just being mean? If this doesn’t work, give yourself a snap and try again.

Snap as required before you judge the parents of the kid who:

Is disheveled;

Has a bad haircut;

Needs a haircut;

Is taking a long time toilet training;

Has tantrums;

Is hyper;

Sleeps in the parents’ bed;

Cries it out;

Eats sugary cereal;

Wears weird clothes;

Eats Lunchables;

Eats only ‘organic’;

Picks their nose;

Watches lots of television;

Goes to bed at 6PM;

Or goes to bed at 10:30PM.

SNAP as needed then ask yourself: Who cares?

Decide that you do not care and, if my theory is correct (and I think it is based on my completely unscientific experiment on myself) your life will be instantly improved because when you cut everyone else some slack, you can give some to yourself as well.

Does it matter how long someone else breastfeeds or doesn’t? If you said yes, take a snap!

Feeling the urge to side-eye a pregnant woman enjoying a coffee as she struts by in high heels? Snap!

There is advice everywhere but what matters is this: if you love your kids and meet their basic needs for affection, safety, shelter, food, healthcare and human interaction, that is good enough.

Obviously, we all have a responsibility to speak up if we see or suspect neglect or abuse, but there is a BIG range of normal and healthy and we need to embrace it.

As a parent who loves and cares for your kids, you don’t need to impress anyone except yourself. It is in your best interest to do what you can to make yourself easy to impress.

Going easier on other parents, will make it easier to give ourselves a break. And if we give ourselves a break, we can actually enjoy some of this parenting stuff.