Don't Talk To Strangers

At the post office this afternoon, I swore under my breath because I had forgotten to bring the address of where I wanted to send my parcel. An older woman beside me heard me. She said, "It's always difficult. No matter how much time you have, things are difficult."

I nodded at her.

She continued, "I have three years left. Then it will be over for me."

I couldn't resist. "How do you know you have three years?" I asked.

"I received messages."

"Who sent you the messages?"

"I have seen Jesus our Lord."

"He said you have three years?"

"Yes. That's when the Antichrist will come. He is very good looking and rich. Women will follow him like he's the piped piper. They've already changed to the Euro in Europe. The whole world will be using one currency. It'll be easier for the Antichrist to take over when we have just one currency. He will rule for seven years."

"Where will the Antichrist come from?"

"All over. He will come from all over."

"Well, you better be careful then."

I had no idea why I asked the woman questions. And she looked so normal otherwise. I am going to stop talking to strangers because I think I am sounding crazy just talking to them.

18

The Crests lit 16 candles for a teenage queen. Janis Ian learned the truth at 17. Bryan Adams wants to be 18 till he dies. And The Boy? The Boy turns 18 today. I think he would like to light fire crackers, never learn the truth about anything, and be 16 forever. I have no idea what kind of man he will turn into. He doesn't want to grow up.

He said one of his teachers commented he will either be very creative and get rich by it or he will just be some schmoe on the street. I want him to be that creative rich guy. But right now, I'm seeing the schmoe.

I am being unfair of course. I am trying to teach him to look after himself and be responsible. He's resisting and accuses me of not being able to let go of him. The accusation is based on my having stopped giving him money for extras, for holding him accountable for his actions, for demanding that he gets up in the morning and gets to school on time. He thinks I want to keep him close to me by curtailing his freedom.

But I told him that would be a bad strategy. If I wanted to keep him close, I'd pamper him and pander to his every whim, buy his love with money and presents, and cultivate in him a dependency on me so he can never leave home. He doesn't like my logic.

It's true that he's still young. I don't demand that he knows now what to do with the rest of his life. But on the verge of adulthood, he needs to be more responsible and be capable of taking care of himself. I insist that he contributes to the house by doing his chores.

He says he's still a teenager and it's scary growing up. That's true, but he doesn't have to be obnoxious to me. I refuse to take belligerence and abuse from him.

So here we are, on The Boy's 18th birthday. From Alice Cooper and me, here's to The Boy:

I'm Eighteen

Lines form on my face and hands
Lines form from the ups and downs
I'm in the middle without any plans
I'm a boy and I'm a man

I'm eighteen
and I don't know what I want
Eighteen
I just don't know what I want
Eighteen
I gotta get away
I gotta get out of this place
I'll go runnin' in outer space
Oh yeah

I got a
baby's brain and an old man's heart
Took eighteen years to get this far
Don't always know what I'm talkin' about
Feels like I'm livin' in the middle of doubt
Cause I'm

Eighteen
I get confused every day
Eighteen
I just don't know what to say
Eighteen
I gotta get away

Lines form on my face and my hands
Lines form on the left and right
I'm in the middle
the middle of life
I'm a boy and I'm a man
I'm eighteen and I LIKE IT
Yes I like it
Oh I like it
Love it
Like it
Love it
Eighteen!
Eighteen!
Eighteen!
Eighteen and I LIKE IT

Story Of A Matron

At my book club last night, this story came out.

A mother at one of Toronto's most prestigious private schools was in a fretful state one night because she was drunk and couldn't remember her password to her account to log into her son's school web site. She was distraught over divorce proceedings that were happening in her life.

Out of frustration, she tracked down the school's technical support person in the middle of the night and demanded that he help her recover her password. The tech support wanted to help, but it meant looking into his database and seeing the passwords of all the other parents. Instead of doing that, he offered to help her try out variations of her password in hopes of hitting on the right one, if she could only remember what her password might be.

The mother was angry that he would not breach the database. So she started screaming at him and finally succumbed to offering what her password might be. It was a variation on "youfuckingbastardmotherfucker". The tech support tried out different arrangements of the phrase and after what seemed like hours, bingo, he hit on "youmotherfuckerfuckingbastard".

The next morning, the mother phoned the school's principal to complain that the tech support hadn't been helpful to her, wasted her time, and was discourteous. Fortunately for the tech support, he had the smarts to record the service call. When the school principal raised the complaint with him, he played the tape for him. The principal heard a woman scream, "It's youfuckingbastard, how about youmotherfuckingbastard. I don't know... Try youbastardmotherfucker. How should I know? Just look into my account, you idiot. You're the motherfuckingbastard..."

So the principal got up, left the room, and never raised the complaint with the tech support again.

Ne Parle Pas Francais

So far, I love my French class. I hadn't meant to start taking it so soon. I went for a placement test, and the placement officer was appalled by my lack of French facility despite all the French lessons I've had.

"But it's been more than 25 years," I told her.

"Why did you not continue it? You should be in a much higher level given all the French you've had. I have to put you in a beginner intermediate level." she said.

"Well, if I had, or if I had moved to France and lived there for 25 years, then I wouldn't be thinking of taking French classes now," I said. What gives? Does she give grief to everyone who can't speak French even though they've taken classes in the past?

"You start class tomorrow," she said in that brusque French way.

I had planned to take classes in November. But I thought, why not now? So I enrolled. I had my first 3-hour class today.

The class instructor seems alright, though I wonder if he's tired of teaching or if he had hoped he would be doing something more with his life than teach adults to speak like children. There were nine of us in class. Somehow, I plunked myself down between a ceramic artist from Stratford (she drives in for the class each week) and a visual artist in Toronto. So when it came to the part where we said where we worked (I claimed to be a freelance writer), all three of us said, "Je travaille chez moi."

The teacher initially didn't believe us. But after learning about our professed metiers, he let it go. After class, I found out that all three of us are taking French for the first in over 20 years! I tell ya, how did that happen?

Earlier this month at our girls' cottage weekend, Outrageous quoted a passage from a David Sedaris book where he talked about taking French lessons. I can't remember what the passage was about. I just remember her entertaining me endlessly by quoting something like,

- Do you like my shapely jug?
- Yes, I like chicken.

And no kidding. This is the exchange that went down in one of our classroom exercises:

Student A: Where were you born?
Student B: My nose is in Winnipeg.

The Pressure To Stay

I phoned our cell phone company, Fido, today. Right now, The Boy and I are on a couples plan where I pay for both our cell phones. I wanted to change The Boy's plan to a prepaid service so he can assume full responsibility for it.

The Fido rep inquired as to the reason for the change. Before I could answer, the rep said, "If it's a matter of cost, I can reduce the cost of your monthly plan. Let's see... I can reduce it by $10 a month for the next 12 months."

I said, "Would I need to commit to a new contract?"

"No. This is just our way of encouraging long time customers to stay with us."

"So I can still go to prepaid for The Boy's cell?"

"Yes. But I can also give The Boy's cell 6 months of free unlimited local calls. That's almost like free cell service for him."

"If I keep the couples plan right now?"

"Right."

"So because I inquired about the implications of changing his line to prepaid, you gave me $10 off a month for 12 months, and he gets free calls for six months?"

"Yes, we really want to keep our customers."

"Okay, can you give me all the freebies first and let me think about what I want to do?"

"Yes, of course."

So that's what we did.

A Retrospective

I found my camera and now I have photographs of our trip to Europe. Not great photographs as I didn't take my camera with me most days and missed many photo ops.

The symbol of Paris, of course.


I liked that you can run into a detective agency in the streets of Paris.


Inside the beautiful Musée D'Orsay.




This is how I feel most of the time now.


Whizzing by the London Bridge. It was not falling down.


On the Thames waterfront is this ferris wheel.


Each of those cars are pods filled with people.


From inside the pod high up in the air, I took this photograph of Big Ben. Behind Ben is Westminster Abbey in white.


King's Cross Station. I like the patterns, colours and textures of this part of the station.


Yes, platform 9 3/4 of Harry Potter fame is here. I downloaded this photograph. But The Boy and Butterfly Boy went to find it and they have a photo of themselves pushing against the wall to get through.


In Uzes, Southern France. The Uzes castle.


This is the town square where Gerald Depardieu filmed the balcony scene in Cyrano de Bergerac.


A side street in Uzes.


A pedestrian street in Uzes.


A cafe in Uzes.


This is my friend's house outside of Uzes.


The Roman Aqueduct that brought water from Uzes to Nimes.


See that olive tree? They tell me it's over 2,000 years old. I don't think so...



Some kids were jumping off the bridge from the aquaduct into the waters below. There's beach with swimmers and boaters under the aqueduct.


My host's home in Southern France. Modest looking from the front.


But look what the boys were doing in the back. See that clear blazing, cloudless sky. That's a fig tree behind them. Our host offered us many juicy, ripe figs from that tree.

Tough Love

A friend said this summer there comes a time in every parent-child relationship where the child is so obnoxious to the parent and it becomes such an odious task to look after the child that the parent can't wait for the child to move out. That maybe that's nature's way of transitting the parent, epsecially mothers, through the parent-child separation process. I think that time is coming for The Boy and me.

Times are tough for us. I suspected but am distressed to confirm he'd turned into a young man who takes his perks for granted. I don't support him having freedom and privilege without responsibility.

Last week, he enrolled in an alternative high school for a semester, taking three courses to raise his GPA. He's decided he's no longer interested in cinema studies and will therefore apply to other university programs in the Spring, though he still isn't sure what these programs will be. In the first week, he missed two days of school and was late once. All because he slept in. He was trying to recover from late night he had. He also did not tend to some chores I asked him to do.

The same week, I met with his friend and his friend's mother and attended an information session with them to learn about a weekend program that nets the boys a certificate to teach English abroad. The boys wanted to take the program together and we mothers agreed. The course was to start yesterday. I asked The Boy to be home Friday night by midnight as a show he was serious about taking the program. He did not make it. I phoned him to find he was still at his friend's. I gave him a second chance to show his seriousness about the program by coming home immediately. He did not. As a result, I kiboshed his program on Saturday morning.

Much argument ensued. He had let his social life interfere with his grades in high school so now he is now taking courses to upgrade. He let his social life cost him his trip to Montreal, and now, his social life has cost him the teaching program. Since he could not sign up for the program, his friend did not either. He has let his friend down.

How did he turn out to be so irresponsible? He now agrees he should take what I say seriously, that he needs to get home earlier at night in order to get to school on time the next morning, and that he needs to shape up before taking the teaching program. But I know he was placating me so he could leave the house to meet his friends. I am prepared to kick him out of the house the next time he botches up.

A New Year

September. Again. It's not January that makes me review my year and make plans for the future. It's always September. You know that long ago, the Church used September 1 as New Year's Day?

Last year then, I've travelled much. I've been to New Delhi, Kashmir, Kabul, Jakarta and Bali, Montreal, London, Paris, and southern France. I've gone wilderness camping and family car camping. I had the pleasure of seeing The Exchange again and meeting his family.

At home, I cultivated my garden, cleared out clutter, and visited with my family and friends. I took up pottery and house repair work. I read many good books and had many more excellent meals. Most of all, I saw The Boy through his last year of high year and stood by The Man in his year in Kabul. My job with The Boy is not done though. He needs much more guidance ahead. My job with The Man is not done either. He is a life-timer.

This Fall, I am about to go on our annual girls weekend getaway. I can't wait. I am eager to find out how my friends are doing and how their families are. Then I will try to squeeze in a weekend of wilderness camping before the cold kicks in. I will also be working for my candidate in the upcoming federal election. In October, I will go to Orlando to keep a promise I made a long time ago regarding my parents, and to keep a promise I apparently made recently to Kid2 that I would take her to Disneyland.

When I come back from Orlando, I will add French and piano to my roster of activities. I know, I lead a charmed life.

The Boy on the other hand, is adrift. He has opted out of university this year. What will he do with his year off? His plans are to do a short program that nets him a certificate to teach English abroad. He will travel to India, Japan or elsewhere for a few months to teach, depending on what the TESL resource centre helps him find. He will get his driver's licence. He will do a bar-tending course so he can work when he returns to university. He will try to sign up for some online courses that will give him more options next year if he changes his mind about cinema studies. He may even stop in France, enroll in a language program and come back speaking French.

I think these are all good plans. If he were to do even half of these, he will have made good use of his gap year. I am somewhat assured he will return to school next year. He visited a friend in residence yesterday and said he liked the energy there, that he regrets somewhat for opting out. Now he is sure he wants to go next year. I hope so. Now to help him line up some ducks so he can do some of the things he has set sight on.