How RUDE!

In my fifteen-plus years of living off Cape Breton, I’ve wondered many times whether I’ve grown hardened with age. I seem to have a shorter fuse when it comes to what I perceive as other’s inconsiderate behaviour. Someone sitting next to me on the subway is loudly testing all of his cell phone ring tones. So rude! The cashier at the supermarket doesn’t say “hello” or “thank you.” These are basic customer service skills, people! I get bumped and elbowed daily. Sometimes I walk through my front door feeling like I just weaved my way through a booby-trapped field. I used to take many of these random incidents in stride but after a few years of repeated events I’ve started to get my back up. And when a Cape Breton woman gets her back up - watch out!

Oh, I know… people are rude everywhere. Someone from Cape Breton once emailed me to comment that road rage and nasty behaviour is increasingly becoming a problem at home. This may sound naïve but I was quite surprised to hear it. I always see a marked difference in strangers’ friendliness and consideration when I go home, but I guess I’m there for limited periods of time and prefer to spend most of it lounging around in the house making big decisions like, “Should I watch Oprah or Dr. Phil?”

However, urban environments have been shown to bring out the nasty in people. According to a recent article in the journal “Urban Studies,” tight spaces and transport “nodes” are hotbeds for incivility because lots of people are rushing to get somewhere and if an elbow will help the process, so be it (my words, not theirs.) Most of these discourtesies involve someone getting in someone else’s space and face. One surprising finding showed that most incivilities were committed by “respectable” individuals such as the middle-aged and elderly. I saw this finding play itself out in a most disgusting way on a recent business trip to Baltimore.

My colleagues and I (mostly women) were dining at a nice restaurant. Across from us was a large table of older folks, affluent-looking and obviously enjoying themselves. Somehow two of the “gentlemen” thought it would be fun to come over and flirt with the young ladies (right in front of their wives, I might add.) We were stunned by their banter; within five minutes of approaching our table they shocked us with “jokes” about pedophiles, abortions and other inappropriate topics. Finally they left, at which point one of our male companions headed over to tell the two men to stay away from our table or else. I felt so badly for their mortified wives. I had received nothing but lovely treatment from everyone I encountered in Baltimore, so I figured these jerks were an anomaly. It was then that one of the men yelled over to tell us he was from Toronto.

Go figure.

A model for all the health conscious office workers out there...

Thanks to B for the pics of (certainly not mine or his) office.

The chocolate donut stands alone.

Why wait till Happy Hour?

Soulfulliving.com

I conducted my first interview! Check out my conversation with Mildred Lynn McDonald, Life Coach and founder of Applied Ability, on the "Soulfulliving" website...
http://www.soulfulliving.com/promise_personal_power.htm

My So-called (Reiki) Life

A friend pointed out to me that it’s like I have a whole other work life outside of my job at the university and writing my column for the Post. For the past two years I’ve been teaching Reiki at a naturopathic college on weekends because, you know, I’m not busy enough.

Reiki is a treatment of Japanese origin whereby the practitioner acts as a channel for healing energy from the universe. The recipient receives this healing energy through the Reiki practitioners’ hands. The word “Reiki” derives from the individual Japanese words Rei, meaning universal, and Ki, meaning energy. After a typical one hour treatment session, the recipient may feel relaxed or energized, pain-free (or pain is lessened), balanced and content. These days I spend more time teaching than providing treatments. After a typical Reiki I training session, the student can treat themselves or others; Reiki II yields the ability to send energy at a distance. Advanced Reiki teaches additional specialized techniques to enhance healing; at the Master level, the student becomes a Reiki Master and can now teach and attune others to the Reiki energy. I’ve been a Reiki Master for about 7 years.

For anyone who has never heard of Reiki or similar modalities, I’m sure your first reaction is, “What a lot of New Age mumbo jumbo!” Hey, I’ve been there. After all, I graduated from St. FX with a Bachelor of Science. Of course I never looked into a microscope again after graduating, but I still considered myself a Woman of Science (WOS.) As a WOS, I thought anything outside the realms of massage and physiotherapy was a little wacko. However, I happened to go for a treatment from a newly minted Reiki practitioner while living in Maine. I was desperately stressed from school and open to anything. I found that the Reiki treatment was a profound experience; I even shed a few tears of relief while on the table. Afterwards my first thought was, “Well, that was weird. There must be something to this Reiki stuff.” When I moved to Windsor, I found a Reiki Master and completed training with her.

Alternative medicine and other complementary therapies are very popular in Toronto. You can’t go anywhere without seeing ads posted for yoga, meditation classes, Reiki, aura reading and past life regression sessions and so many more. It’s easy to dismiss all of these things as total bunk. But as a true WOS, I have seen the evidence in my own life that supports my beliefs about Reiki. And I also know interest in Reiki isn’t limited to the city; I personally know some talented Reiki Masters in Cape Breton who are spreading the word about this great practice. Many spas and salons now offer Reiki as part of their regular services. So when you book your appointment for your first Reiki treatment, tell ‘em a WOS sent you.

So Many Concerts, So Little Time

I’m not sure what makes one feel worse: having fewer options for things to do, or having many options and not taking advantage of them. I fall into category #2. Living in Toronto provides so many opportunities for shows and concerts, yet since I moved here seven years ago I’ve been to 2 concerts. Only 2! I went to see the Barenaked Ladies at Air Canada Centre five years ago and Norah Jones at Ontario Place about two years ago. I only went to Norah Jones because I felt like I should since it had been so long since I had been to a concert, which resulted in me snoozing off on the grassy hill because 1. Her music is so mellow and 2. Everyone around us was smoking the funny stuff and I think it made me woozy.

Somehow the city’s artistic embarrassment of riches has resulted in my complete inability to choose anything I want to see. Plus I automatically assume that everyone will want to see Artist X or Band Y and I’ll simply never get tickets. Or I refuse to pay the astronomical amount of money for tickets; good seats for Madonna’s “Re-Invention Tour” a few years back cost about $300 and so-so seats sold for about half that.

But when I lived out east, I went to everything that came my way. I remember being in high school when Rod Stewart came to town. I mean, it was simply not an option to miss it! Everyone went and we all stood in line for what seemed like days for tickets. The concert was great and I danced on my rickety folding chair while Rod kicked monstrous beach balls into the crowd.

And what about the smaller bands that headlines at the local rinks? I remember swooning over PEI’s “Haywire” at Dominion Rink and screaming like they were the Beatles while I fought to rush the stage. (Why I thought rushing the stage was necessary when less than 200 kids were in attendance is beyond me, but I suppose it was all part of the excitement.) The Dominion Rink also played host to the band “The Odds” who opened for “Barney Bentall and the Legendary Hearts.” Their dressing room was a hockey changing room, and a few other gals (you know who you are!) and I popped in for autographs and general flirting/giddiness en route to the bathroom. Now how do you ever get those times back?

I bet if I still lived at home I would have made my way to Moncton for the Rolling Stones Concert. But when they played here in Toronto after the SARS crisis, I sat in my backyard and listened to them play in the distance because I didn’t want to be around 100,000 other people. Where has my east-coast-music-fan-gumption gone? I think it’s time I try to get some of it back.

Let's all hate Toronto or something

There is a new documentary getting some attention lately. “Let’s all Hate Toronto” features a slick guy dubbed “Mr Toronto” (actually it’s the co-director, Rob Spence) travelling around the country trying to figure out why the rest of Canada hates Toronto so much. They organized bogus “Toronto Appreciation” days and then filmed public reaction. Reasons for Toronto-trashing varied from the unfriendly people to old-fashioned sports rivalries to the fact that many decisions affecting the rest of the country are made in Toronto. One Vancouverite interviewed for the documentary described Torontonians as “soul-less, one-eyed corporate zombies.” I hate to think someone would ever make that assumption about me because I’m none of those things. Although I wouldn’t mind working for a corporation and making a great corporate salary.

I escape some of the indignation other folks from Toronto feel about this documentary because I really don’t consider myself a Torontonian. If you ask me how I define myself, I still feel I am a Cape Bretoner living and working in Toronto. So when other people talk about how much they hate Toronto, I do feel a tad outside their sphere of disgust.

Growing up out east, I never really focused any intense feelings toward Toronto. When I lived in Dominion I resented Sydney a bit, because Sydney is, well, a city. Sydney had malls and Dominion didn’t. When I lived in Antigonish, I resented Halifax a bit, because Halifax was bigger than Antigonish and had several universities containing students who felt they were better than us at St. FX because they lived in Halifax and we lived in, well, Antigonish. When I lived in Windsor, Ontario, I resented Windsor because there was no point in resenting Detroit. Apparently people in Boston resent New York. I think we always resent places that are a little bigger and shinier than our own hometown, especially if folks from that other town also believe they are bigger and shinier.

One account I read about Toronto-hating refers to the concept of “shy/jerk confusion.” (Actually, the person who coined it, Larry David, used a different word for jerk.) This confusion occurs when people mistake someone for a jerk when really they’re just shy. Or in the case of many people living in Toronto, scared. There are a lot of crazy people in Toronto and after living here for a few years, you start to avert eye contact lest you meet the gaze of someone looking to follow you home. I count myself among the scared. However, like many folks living here I warm up once I realize this stranger isn’t a pick-axe wielding murderer.

But Toronto has to take some of the blame. After all, if Hogtown didn’t purport to be the “centre of the universe,” I don’t think anyone would resent us at all.

Summer Camp Memories... and Loverboy...

Summer is over, at least in Toronto. Even though the weather here is still pretty nice, the arrival and subsequent departure of the Canadian National Exhibition is the formal announcement to all Torontonians that the party is over. The kids are back in school, the outdoor pools are shutting their doors, and the stores are pushing their fall and winter clothes. With the exception of the clothes part, I feel pretty demoralized.

Last weekend I got together with some friends for a summer’s last hurrah movie-Chinese-food-and-beer-night. To boost our flagging spirits, we watched a flick that totally sent me back to the early 80’s – “Wet Hot American Summer.” It’s a spoof of all of those teen exploitation camp films that seemed so popular back when I was a kid. Incidentally, they were all the films my parents refused to let me see. I remember my friends heading up to the old Savoy Theatre in Dominion to watch such classics as “Meatballs” and “Little Darlings,” while I sat home wondering why I too couldn’t be exposed to partial nudity and adult situations at the tender age of nine. Such injustice!

Summer camp is a huge thing in Ontario. Some kids are shipped off for weeks at a time, (mostly) to their utter delight. There are camps for every possible interest. So many options! As a kid, I spent a lot of time going camping with the Girl Guides. I was so obsessed with Guides that I managed to stay on beyond the mandatory age limit of 11. (Yes, I was a bit of a geek.) Camping was an opportunity for me to demonstrate my bravery by escorting the younger guides to the outhouse in the middle of the night.

But an even bigger deal was heading off to Knox Day Camp in Mira. I swear I stayed for a full week once. While the games and sports were fun, what I remember most of all were the camp counsellors, and particularly the male counsellors. To a nine or ten year old, a sixteen or seventeen year old camp counsellor was quite possibly the ultimate crush. They were older; they had moved beyond the awkward early teen years and therefore were better looking; they had longish hair and cool clothes. We girls chased this one counsellor around, a guy from Bridgeport, like he was a rock star or something. My fondest memory was finishing up dinner in the mess hall when the counsellors bounded in with a tape player to blast some hot new music – “Working for the weekend” by Loverboy. The campers went crazy! Later the counsellors went off to watch “An Officer and a Gentleman” while we recounted, in vivid detail, the moment we were exposed to the musical magic that was Loverboy.

It’s nice to know that a good summer camp movie can take you back to Knox Day Camp anytime you want.