Cookies and Baggy Pants

These are not pajamas. They are Baggy Pants. (And that is my cat and my dog and my pudgy toes on our crappy floor and our disintegrating carpet. Who lives a lifestyle of the rich and famous?)

My friend Pamela Steel (who lives up the road from me and, as well as being my Euchre Nemesis, is the author of TWELVE books and I am not jealous ONE BIT) gave me these pants and told me I could wear them all the time except when I have a meeting at Head Office during which time I should probably wear pantyhose and sensible heels and not forget my deodorant. Other than that, Baggy Pants are what she says we should all wear, all the time.

See? I saw people wearing this stuff around and I just thought, pajamas! Pffft. I know from nothing, obviously. They are the new fashion craze and can be seen in all the fanciest places, except, apparently, Head Office. And maybe at Buckingham Palace, although there are rumours that Prince Harry likes to romp around his grandmother's apartment wearing the Disco Monkey with Plaid pattern.

So I shall wear them to work tomorrow, even though they are rather tight across my arse and this is the opposite of what Baggy Pants are supposed to be, which is baggy in the arse, not so tight that the seams are about ready to burst with flesh, but it's not the fault of Baggy Pants, it's the fault of my flabby fingers which keep stuffing food in my great big greedy gob.

I have to stop EATING. If dieting well is the result of a light switch in my head turned to the ON position then I have every reason to believe that the switch has been turned to OFF. You may think that turning the light switch back ON is an easy thing to do but this is not true in my case. I am, in fact, challenged when it comes to light switches. I have lived in this house for two and a half years and still go through a bloody big rigamarole every night trying to turn off the lights in our house. There are two switches in a row, you see. One turns the living room lights on and off. The other turns the back room on and off. I am forever turning on the living room when I want the back room and vicey versa.

"Having trouble?" Dave says, drolly, from the bedroom where he is reading a Louis L'Amour book on his Kindle while I flick the light switches on and off.

On. Off. On. On. Off. Off. ON. OFF. FECK.

You should see what I go through with the cruise control on the Jeep. One control arm that does five different things. I am about ready to divorce Dave or at least punch him straight in the nose if he makes one more crack about the cruise control. I will. If I can figure out how.

So I'm at home sick today. Blargh. I swear, I'm going in tomorrow if it kills me. God knows, I've been away so long they've probably given my job to someone else. To keep myself occupied I have made cookies. These are healthy cookies, from Weight Watchers. I made some the other day to give to Pamela and I don't think I gave her food poisoning so I made more today. I swear to God, when I made them before they were only one point per cookie. Today they are two points. Same cookie, twice the points. What gives, Jennifer Hudson? You're not making a believer outta me today!

Usually I don't make cookies when I'm dieting because, even though one cookie only has one two points, I can't stop at one. I have to eat at least eight. Maybe nine if they're little. And these are little baby cookies, cute as can be, all stuffed with oatmeal and extra stuff I throw in like natural bran and wheat germ because I am a Health Nut now, or at least I'm trying to be. If I can only find that fecking light switch and turn it on ...

For those who need to make these Health Nut cookies, which have no nuts, here's the recipe:

Health Nut Oatmeal Raisin Bites

1 1/2 cups uncooked rolled oats
3/4 cup whole grain wheat flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tbsp natural bran
2 tbsp wheat germ
1/2 cup margarine or butter (I use Becel because I am a Health Nut but Dave uses whatever is on sale)
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 large egg
2 tsp vanilla
1 cup raisins, the good kind, not the kind with the crunchy bits

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In a medium bowl combine oats, flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, bran and wheat germ; set aside. Cream margarine and both sugars until incorporated. Add egg and vanilla; mix thoroughly. Add oat mixture and mix until just combined; fold in raisins.

Drop rounded teaspoons of batter onto two ungreased cookie sheets lined with parchment paper, about one inch apart. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes for chewy cookies and up to 14 for crispy ones. Remove from oven and LET THEM COOL. Don't be an ass and burn your mouth on a raisin like I did, OK?

***

By the way, I had a really nice time at the wake for Mrs. Champion. Lovely is the only word I can use to describe it. That family is so incredibly nice that I just want to hug them all. Also it was nice seeing my old neighbours, including Leanne Baird, who used to fight with my little brother in the ditches and is now a talented artist, and her firecracker of a dad who is NINETY YEARS OLD and is still a card and cute as a bug. I see where Leanne gets her sense of humour. What a sweetie.

Mark Champion, you get your arse up here and spend some time with us, you hear? I miss you.

Good-bye Mrs. Champion

Off today to the city to pay my respects to Mrs. Champion.

She had a first name, Mary, as well as a colourful, well-lived life with many friends, a loving family and worldly adventures, but she will always be Mrs. Champion to me.

I got dressed this morning, not wanting to be too funereal so decided on a plain black skirt and a purple blouse, and I put on some make-up, the first I have worn any since my cataract operations. As I did, I marvelled sadly at the lines on my face. It has shrunk, in these past few months, falling in on itself in a web of tired lines. I am not worried about this, per se, but I do notice it with a certain amount of resignation mixed with the realization that I'm not a kid anymore.

When I was a kid, I lived across the road from Mr. and Mrs. Champion and their houseful of kids. Their house was much like our own, being a cookie-cutter suburban bungalow built when subdivisions were the new love child of the 1960s and the world was everyone's oyster.

Mrs. Champion, though, she was a rare and exotic flower in my eyes. Known to enjoy a glass of wine on occasion, she could be found in her well-appointed living room that had actual paintings on the walls and a copy of her own book on the coffee table. She always reminded me of author Margaret Atwood, in looks and personality. Even her voice was similar. I imagined they were sisters, both authors, both with regal aquiline noses and austere wit and throaty chuckles. Her handsome husband, dear sweet Joe, always held her in the highest regard. After a lifetime together they still had a sparkle that danced between them. Their son, my friend Mark, used to say that sometimes he would look all over the house for his parents, only to discover them giggling in their bed under the sheets in the middle of the afternoon.

Joe, who used to take his evening cigarette on the front stoop watching the suburbanized world go by, has been gone so many years that I can't count. His sweetheart, the girl of his afternoons, soldiered on by herself for all this time, standing up to a multitude of health issues with her trademark stoicism and, I'm sure, a glass of wine from time to time.

Today I go to the city to remember her, but I will also recall the great love of her life and the indelible sweetness of their long romance.

My best wishes to all their children and their grandchildren and those who loved them most.

Mark Champion - Letter from a Friend

It all started because Mrs. Sunshine cut her finger off while trimming a hedge.

I looked out the window of the bungalow my family had just moved into and there was a swarm of children combing through the hedge separating our house from the Sunshines. 

"We're looking for the finger!" they said. I helped them with their enthusiastic search, hoping I'd be the one to find the bloody appendage and at the same time hoping I wouldn't because, ew, it was totally gross.

No one found the finger (turns out it was just a fingertip, not the whole enchilada) but I did find a lifelong friend. Mark Champion's house was kitty corner across the street. He was my age (only a month apart), he looked like me (people thought we were brother and sister) and we got along like gangbusters. 

He was the best kind of best friend. Loyal. Caring. Intelligent. Funny. We walked to school together and argued about politics, we played Kick the Can until the streetlights came on, we made prank phone calls to people asking if their refrigerators were running ("you better run and catch them, then"). The only time we were apart was summer, when our family went up north to the cottage. There were no cell phones back then. No internet. The only way to keep in touch was through letter-writing. Mark was a faithful and avid letter writer, sending me many and getting mad when I didn't reply as often as he thought I should. I loved getting those letters. He sent them on fish-covered stationery and addressed them to the general delivery post office closest to our cottage.

Our parents used to think that we'd grow up and get married but it wasn't like that. We grew up alright, but our lives went separate ways even as they followed parallel paths. I got married, he got married. I got pregnant, his wife got pregnant a few months later. I had two boys, they had two girls. I got divorced, he got divorced. But through it all we hardly saw each other. I was a country bumpkin at heart and felt happiest up north. Mark was happy in the city. I was basically content with low paying newspaper jobs. Mark climbed the corporate ladder. After a while it was hard to believe we ever had anything in common – we seemed so different.

When I decided to run this Letters from a Friend series, I knew I couldn't do it without asking for a letter from Mark. He inspired this series, his letters. 

His e-mail arrived in my inbox while I was at work. I opened it and gawd if I didn't start bawling like a baby. Hard, ugly sobbing. People asked what the hell was wrong with me. "Nothing," I said, "I just got a letter from a friend."

His letter, as you're about to see, is deeply personal and incredibly brave. Not everyone is willing to share this kind of introspection. It is a sign of a brave and sensitive man.

What makes it even more special is he enclosed a picture of a gold coloured fish and addressed the letter as if it were the mid-1970s again and he was sending it to the cottage. That's what started the tears – but it was his revelations about his own life that really made the waterworks flow. If you ever receive a letter like this, you are a lucky, lucky person. If you ever have a friend like Mark, you're even luckier.

Oh, and if you're wondering who Cathy Robb is? That's my maiden name. God knows, it's easy to be confused. I've had almost as many names as Elizabeth Taylor. But enough about me – here is Mark's magnificent letter.

Cathy Robb

General Delivery 

Carnarvon, ON

Hey Cathy: 

I’ve been waiting so long for your reply to my last letter.  It hardly seems reasonable to ask what’s new, when the answer is a lifetime.  

I am starting this letter at work, and trying to think while the Hackasaurus in the next cube mists us with her latest virus.  Let’s call her Misty.  Misty who missed her flu shot.  Misty who hasn’t missed a day’s work in 16 years.  Fuck you, Misty.

Fortunately I have a singleton cube and don’t have to share with Misty.  As luxurious as that may sound it’s a big step down from my last position where I enjoyed the divine isolation of a corner suite in an office at the corner of University & Dundas.  My former office could have housed 8 of my current cubes and had a door to lock out the parasitic droplets dispersed by the likes of Misty. Times change.  Careers tumble. I’ve changed a bit, Cathy. 

Aside from the likely things like larger, grayer and more wrinkly, I’m less stylish.  Somewhere along the way my new frugality and limited shopping schedule has resulted in me looking at clothes as less of a way to ornament myself and more of a way to shield the world from my nakedness.   I shop for the kids constantly, but when I shop for me I try to find something of quality at a bargain … or when my bargain priced quality items have given up the ghost from constant wear … I resort to the clothing section of the grocery store where the clothes are so cheap I don’t even bother to try them on.  If they don’t suit they can always become a dish rag.   In so doing I become what most women expect their husbands would be if they weren’t around to dress them.   Even my old, nearly blind, bedridden mother has offered to buy me clothes. 

Yet, while I might like to spruce myself up a bit, I don’t think I’d change where I am at.  Somehow I had found myself wearing a corporate ladder, a Volvo, 2700 Sq Feet and a Swimming Pool and it obscured some of the things that you might have known me to be.   I think I am more myself today, Cathy… I think I may be more myself than I was before.  I’m more patient, more laid back.  I am certainly more liberal which I think is unusual in a man crossing 50.  I am less interested in things and more interested in people and experiences.  I am less inclined to desire luxury and more in search of the unique and the authentic, the intimate … the things that enrich us instead of the riches.  I like that I have put the kids first in my life. I like that we have a dog and two cats.  I like watching the kids grow,  even the painful parts.  I like getting to know them and sharing experiences with them.   I’m happy to replace the day to day excess with some time. 

Take care Cathy, dear friend, I hope to hear from you soon.

With love,

Mark