A scary event

Many years ago, when I still lived at home, Monday was laundry day. Mom had a manual washing machine, struggled with buckets of water and wrestled with wet items to get them into the spinner. By the time she was done, the kitchen was flooded and in addition to laundry she had to mop the floor.

When automatic washing machines became popular she didn’t hesitate, she was going to get one of those wonderful machines. A representative from Primus came to our house and the following week a gleaming new washing machine was delivered and installed.

While the machine was top of the line, mom’s washing skills were not. Having washed manually all her life, an automatic washing machine proved to be a challenge. There were so many buttons and dials. With the machine came a manual of course, but the book being the size of ‘War & Peace’ she didn’t bother to read it. She would learn as she went along.

As such, she accidentally put one of my wool dresses in the machine and must have set the temperature too high because the dress came out several sizes too small for my frame.

Last week history repeated itself. Well, sort of. I’ve been doing laundry with an automatic machine all my life and know about temperature control, but I can’t control the temperature, which is exactly what happened. The pipes in our condo building are to blame.

Even though I had programmed the machine to wash with lukewarm water, every now and then the cold water in the building shuts off and is replaced with hot water. When someone wants to wash his hands, or fancies a drink of cold water, this hot water business is merely an inconvenience, but during laundry time hot water only is a disaster.

Just ask my favorite black jacket. It went into the machine a size 7 and it came out … something fit for a child. I flipped, I absolutely flipped. When I looked at the label it stated ‘100% pure wool’. Yeah well, that explains why it shrunk, wool hates hot water.

I toyed with the idea of holding the building responsible, but if they denied responsibility, how would I prove that it was the building’s faulty pipes? I find this a scary event. This water confusion can happen again and again.

 

If the rich were forced to share, how many would benefit?

As a rule, I avoid social media like Facebook, Twitter, and others for the simple reason that some of those posts annoy me. But every now and then I still get confronted with articles or news headlines and they do more than annoy me, they make me bloody angry.

First, there was the news that America’s First Lady bought a $51,000 jacket. In my opinion, it’s the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen and they Dolce & Gabbana would have to pay me $51,000 to wear it, but that’s beside the point. The point it, how can anyone spend that kind of money on a jacket they will wear only once?

If it was up to me, I would enforce a rule that if people spent that kind of money on frivolities, they should be forced to donate an equal amount of money to a worthy cause. For a lot of people, $51,000 is equal to five years or more of rent. So why not give five hard-working families $10,000 each? Or ten families $5,000. Not folks who receive welfare, but people with jobs who genuinely do their best but still find it hard to make ends meet.

A few days later another outrages purchase caused me more aggravation. This time it was David Beckham who bought his wife a $379,261 purse.

Now wouldn’t it have been nice if Beckham would have been forced to donate an equal amount of money to the victims and families of the recent London terror attacks? That would have been money well spent.

Another worthy cause would have been to donate $379,261 to various animal shelters to supply food and medical services (such as spaying and neutering) to cats, dogs, etc.?

Or his money could have helped quite a few people who needed help with their mortgage. Or a particular city could have used the funds to subsidize public transportation.

And this is just the beginning. Middle Eastern sheiks buy diamond encrusted cars and paintings for hundreds of millions of dollars. They should be forced to help others with an equal amount. Not only would this help out deserving families, but they might think twice before flaunting their wealth.

If the rich were forced to share, just how many would benefit?

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End of summer lament

I select a turtleneck instead of a shirt, pull on a jacket and wrap a scarf around my neck. Outside it's chilly. Not really cold, but there is a definite nip in the air. The wind makes me turn up the collar of my jacket.

When I look up I see a gray sky packed with low hanging, fast moving clouds. I feel like turning around, going back inside and crawling into bed. I feel like joining the bear and the squirrels that hibernate until March or even April.

As I leave the subway station and climb the stairs to street level, I zip up my jacket and walk facedown, looking at the pavement. Instead of a flimsy skirt, I now wear slacks. Sandals have been replaced with shoes. Soon shoes will have to make way for warm boots.

On my way to work, I see plenty of people who are dressed like me. They wear sweaters, jackets and scarves. They no longer sashay, but stride with a sense of purpose and urgency. They no longer look around, checking if they are seen. Now they, too, walk with bended heads.

Looking up, I don't like what I see. Some trees are still green, but they are thinning. Others are turning yellow. Were they yellow yesterday, or has this happened overnight? Leaves in various shades of gold and brown rush along the pavement and swirl around my feet. When I step on them they make a crunchy sound and turn to bits.

The lilies in the flowerbeds are hanging their heads. They look sad, like they know their days are numbered. The geraniums are still there, but they don't look as radiant anymore as they once did. They have not seen the sun in a few days and they seem to suffer from a lack of warmth.

I suffer from lack of warmth too. It is bad enough that fall has arrived; but, that we have not had a proper summer makes it all the worse. We had a few warm days, but those days felt more like spring than summer.

Where are the days when it was already warm early in the morning and one could just feel that it was going to be scorching hot later on? Where are the days that people were sitting in the shade, huffing and puffing, fanning themselves against the heat? There has been no heat this summer.

Although I am not a big fan of the scorching heat, and I moan and groan at the sun like everybody else when it is really hot, the notion of heat when one is desperate with ice cold hands and feet is a nice prospect. It's something to get one through the moment, through the day and through the long winter. But somehow we have been cheated. Summer has passed us by.

As I stand in the kitchen, waiting for the kettle to boil, I look out the window. It has suddenly gone very dark, it is raining and drops of water are steadily trailing down the glass. It is like Mother Nature is crying. Down below the red and white lights of traffic contrast against the wet, black street. The reflected colors remind me of a lit-up Christmas tree.

During lunchtime I go outside to clear my head. There is some blue in the sky now, but still far too many gray clouds. A few intrepid souls are braving it and are going for a walk. I have no such intentions. I would rather stay inside and go in search of a hot bowl of soup.

The park, usually packed with lunchtime office workers and tourists, is now almost empty. There is nobody strolling along the gravel paths; nobody squatting on the grass; nobody sitting under a tree on a shaded bench. Now there are only pigeons and seagulls pecking at whatever they can find. A few people are standing around in a watery sun, bundled up with coats and scarves.

Just before I go back inside I look up and see a flock of Canadian geese. Are they heading south already? I wish I could grow wings and join them.

Canada Goose jackets

About three months ago I noticed a colleague with a beautiful winter jacket. I asked her where she had bought this jacket and she stated it was very expensive. I thought this was a rather strange answer as I wasn’t interested in how much the jacket had cost, merely where she had bought it.
She stated it was a Canada Goose jacket and only select stores carried it.

Back home I did some research on the Net and found the Canada Goose website, where a little more research revealed that these jackets were made with real feathers of geese and the material around the hoot was real coyote fur.
Suddenly this beautiful jacket wasn’t so beautiful anymore. Real feathers and real fur ... had the Canada Goose company not heard of animal rights?
My admiration for the Canada Goose jacket was instantly dead. More so, I wouldn’t have wanted a jacket if the company gave me one for free.

From that moment on the sighting of those jackets really irritated me. They irritated me to the point that I wanted to grab the wearer of the jacket and point out that an animal had died for him to parade around in this jacket. I saw the jackets as a slap in the face of every animal lover and animal rights activist.

For weeks I brooded, wondering what I could do. Whenever I passed a Canada Goose jacket wearer I would accuse him of being an animal killer, but did the ‘killer’ hear me? I wanted to do something, but what?
Then one day it came to me ... labels, I would put labels on the sleeves and back of my jacket that stated:

This is not a Canada Goose jacket
For i am not an animal killer
Say ‘no’ to fur

Finally I had found my voice. The voice of protest. Wherever I saw the young fashion slaves flaunt their Canada Goose jacket, I would flaunt my badges.
The label was read and I got some wonderful responses. Colleagues and strangers came up to me, stating “Good for you” or “I didn’t know about this” or just giving me the thumbs up.

Then today I got the ultimate revenge.
I was in a full elevator where a woman read my badge and asked “Do they really use real fur?”
“They sure do,” I replied. “The Canada Goose company traps coyotes for their fur and slaughters thousands of geese for their feathers.”
Now it so happened that a young Chinese man stood in the center of the elevator wearing one of those Canada Goose jackets. So I made him a target.
“See that fur around the hood of his jacket?” I said. “That’s real coyote fur.”
Stone faced the guy stood staring at the elevator door, not looking left or right.
I guess at that moment he didn’t feel like flaunting his apparel. From the looks of it he wanted to shrink to the size of a leprechaun and disappear through the floor of the elevator. Can you imagine, some twelve people looking at you like you with accusing eyes of being an animal killer?
Upon reaching the ground floor he shot out of the elevator like an elastic and moved like he was on skates.
Ah, revenge is sweet.

You will have to admit though, in a time where PeTA activists have made huge progress in creating awareness for animal cruelty, animal rights and have created a stigma around wearing real fur, it is rather insensitive, if not downright stupid of the Canada Goose company to use real fur for their jackets.

Of course this had to happen in Canada. Not only does Canada have this black mark on their name because of their continued seal hunt, now they are killing geese and coyotes as well. What will be next?