Rose's Cantina

I didn't do any market research when I started this blog a few months back. I didn't do a survey asking people what kind of blog they'd like to read. I didn't poll advertisers to ask what kind of blog they would support. I just knew what I had in my heart. And that is why I write this blog. It keeps me grounded. I gives me insights into my own psyche. It's just that simple. But bloggers can't avoid the numbers. Google gives us a run down of who's reading, where they live and how many times they click on advertising. This gives people like me a bit of a guide. Sometimes, you don't get it right. Sometimes, a blog just hits a nerve. Look to the right and you will see my most popular blogs of the year. One is about Kevin Nelson, a beloved disc jockey who passed away recently. One is about Gloria Steinem and the future of feminism. More than 3,000 people clicked on Gloria Steinem. That's pretty big in Blogland. But the most popul...

I was eating my high fibre toast, just now, when it took a slice out of my palate. Yowzah. Damned cracked wheat. You can never trust it. I'm always getting wounded by food. Coffee scalds my mouth. Soup goes up my nose. A piece of wayward chicken misses the esophagus and ends up in my windpipe. And then I sneeze for twenty minutes straight. And, I am a bad swallower. I would never have made a skilled porn star. So I'm rolling my tongue over the afflicted area, tasting a bit of blood and a little skin flap that may be with me until 2013. It makes me realize the importance of being in the moment, of paying attention to your life. I've spent most of my life in total distraction. Drank too much. Slept too much. Watched too much television. I was a pioneer in the art of living in the unconscious state. Couch surfing? I invented it. Time wasting? Got the t-shirt and DVD rights. For most of my life, I figured, I had it made. I never had to go to work. ...

Loblaws stopped carrying the Ace Bakery whole grain and cranberry bagels I've come to love. That was one of the big disappointments for me in 2011. I don't expect much from life, but a 200 calorie, high fibre, bagel that doesn't taste like sawdust is one thing I've come to count on. It keeps me satisfied and it keeps me regular, therefore it keeps me happy. When you get to be this old, tilting toward the end of the side rule of life, not that many things can get you down. You're rarely disappointed in people because you just don't expect much of them anymore. If you're not rich by now, you're never going to be, so why worry? As long as you have a safe, dry and warm place to live, people who love and care about you, and a pack of dogs sitting at your feet, you're pretty lucky, I'd say. I don't have much to gripe about, but there are some things that have pissed me off in 2011. The year was another bust, economically. Some month...

I was struck today by a story in the Globe and Mail about a thief who cleaned out a little old lady, taking her television, her computer and her husband's ashes. Apparently, there have been three such ash robberies in Vancouver in the past few weeks. The douche bag who did this is right up there with criminals who steal from the Salvation Army and the dude who took hostage the widow of a recently slain police officer. Idiots. Assholes. Dog poop on the shoe of life. These folks are card carrying members of the Douche Bag Club, they are individuals who are so despicable that they deserve to be thrown out with the trash. It seems you can't turn around without hitting a douche bag with your purse. They are everywhere. They are Prime Ministers, Republican leadership contenders and tax collectors. They sell your teenager drugs and knock up your daughters. Anderson Cooper had a story in the fall about a bunch of kids on a thieving rampage who stole a frozen turkey fro...

We never go out on New Year's Eve. Cabs are impossible to get. People drink too much and feel it entitles them to slobber all over you. Midnight is way too late for old folks like us. So we're staying in. Practicing moderation. Probably go to bed at nine. But as an early present to my bleaders, I've compiled a list of celebrations you might want to take in on the flat screen or on your iPhone. Here's the lineup. You're welcome. CNN : The whitest man in America, Anderson Cooper, still can't get a date, so he's once again teaming up with Kathy Griffin (is she or isn't she a tranny?) to ring in the New Year from Planet Hollywood in Vegas. Look for Anderbum to bring his mom. Interest factor: -10) NBC : The usually funny NBC is settling for Carson Daly who will host from Times Square with Jay-Z and Rihanna. Green Day will also perform. At least the music will be funny. (+8) ABC: The fossil is back. Dick Clark will be gumming his way throug...

If you were going to take your life, would you blog about it first? That's what comic writer and producer Joe Bodolai did. In the realm of suicide notes, it's pretty good. Suicide in bullets. A template really. Here's what he said. http://qualityshows.wordpress.com/ He wrote his suicide blog as if he were creating a listing for Linked In , or putting down the pros and cons of dating a girl. Man, this guy was one mad MOFO. You may not have known Joe, but you will know him now. The blog has gone viral, now that Joe is worm food. Before he wrote it, he was a highly successful comedy writer, a man who wrote for Saturday Night Live and, as he notes, got punted by Lorne Michaels. He also got screwed, according to him, by Ivan Fecan, Sandra Faire and the entire Canadian funny television establishment. Booted out the door. The genius behind Canada's Comedy Channel. According to Joe. He got Geminis for writing for Canadian television. He re-imagined C...

After an exhausting week of lame Christmas specials, starring Canadian ex-pats, I was in the mood for some fresh meat, so I turned on CTV's Interview with the Prime Minister last night. I wanted to see Lisa the Fan Dancer's interviewing skills. Was she up for the challenge? I was impressed that Lisa decided to fly without a net risking the interview without one of the CTV pit bulls, Ginger, maybe Bob Fife, to ask the toughies. Would she ask any hard questions? I'm afraid to say, I was disappointed. Mr. Dressup could have asked better questions. Lisa came off as a rank amateur, the B-movie equivalent of Katie Couric, all doe eyed and lips all a shimmer, cocking her head and smiling like the cat who caught the rat. Unfortunately, her cat proved to be toothless and she let the rat gnaw on her tail. Maybe it was Barbara Walters she was trying out. If you could be a tree, what tree would you be? Or Oprah. When did the abuse stop, Stephen? She wasn...

I saw an old buddy from politics at the gymnasty today. We had a couple of long lunches about twenty-five years ago, when I had money and too much time on my hands. The fellow worked as a press aide to Cabinet Minister and had been married to a mutual friend. They split up a few years back. Anyway, the guy is nice enough, a little vacant and I've seen him occasionally over the years. Last time, he told me he was going to climb Everest. Here is the conversation we had today. So, Joe, how was the trip? I tell you, I almost died. Decided to drink the local water; what a mistake. But, you know, I couldn't let the team down, so I climbed to the top even though I was pretty sick. Ah, great. How is Scott? Pretty good. He's selling cars now, and it's hard. He's thinking of becoming a bus driver. Grimace. Wow. A bus driver. It must have been rough, you know, when he was fired from CBC. Ah, Joe. He took a pension back when he was 47. Wink, wink. ...

I'm looking out at a winter wonderland wondering how anyone could doubt we would have snow on Christmas. I can't remember a Christmas in my longish life when there wasn't snow on my Canadian home. Even in St. Catharines, the homeplate of damp drizzle, there was always a white blanket on Christmas. We're Canadian. It's how we roll. And yet for two solid weeks, the news people have been kvetching about a green Christmas. Oh, ye of little faith. The Environment Canada weather dudes told us we had an 80 percent chance of green, but I suspect they were smoking something. Just look out the winda. After I write this and have my chai tea, I'll be rolling out the door, heading for the shopping mall, not to line up with the idiots who worship false idols on Boxing Day, but to get my sweat on at The Athletic Club once again. I've missed a few days and my bones are starting to ache. I'm at the age when I've started to feel little jabs of ar...

I've just finished reading the New York Times on my brand new Kindle, the one Marissa bought me for Christmas. I got the free trial and I've made a note on my iPhone to cancel on the 13th day, otherwise, I'll be automatically billed on my credit card. I love the New York Times but I can't afford it at nearly $30 a month, so I'll read it on my laptop for free after the trial. I will continue to read newspapers online as long as they don't cost me anything. I just won't pay for them online. It seems wrong. I still prefer the print edition, still love the smell of the newsprint page, still love the photos and the little gems I find between the big stories. Dog gnaws feet off blogger, who then blogs about it. The dog, not the blogger. Man spurned by wife, mows neighbor's lawn. You never see this stuff online. But I have to admit, this old fossil might be converted. Kindling will mean an end to Citizens and Globes which stack up in the rec...

The Swedes. I don't know how they do it. I woke up this morning with an aching gut from all the butter and cream I consumed last night at our Nordic feast. It was fantastic; don't get me wrong. Swedish meat-a-balls, potatoes laced with butter, cream and anchovies, red cabbage laced with apples and vinegar. My own lemon cake as the finale. But woof. I woke up in the middle of the night, in such gut agony, I couldn't decide which end needed the attention of the porcelain bowl more. In the end, I managed to quell my turbulent, acidic waters with a glass of gingerale. But then the dreams started. First, I was back at the Laundromat being held captive by the Guyanese owner who was nattering on about a customer who didn't pick up her drying cleaning. Then I was at the house of a former friend who was kvetching about the sources of our discord. Finally, I was at somebody's house, sitting there, unable to move, knowing I had to pick Scott up at the car dealers...

What a hectic Christmas Eve. It started early at the Laundromat, then segued into the grocery store for some last minute items: sour cream for the lemon cake; spices for the red cabbage; and cream for the Swedish meatballs. In honor of Steig Larsson, we are having a Nordic family Christmas Eve. We got inspired watching the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo last night and downloaded recipes from Canadian Living . It's going to be awesome! Today, we'll watch the rest of the series, both Fire and Hornet's Nest , and try to think of ourselves as Svedish and don comfy sweaters. Herna herna herna. Maybe we'll end the day with Abba. It's a great way to clear a room. Toute la gang will be showing up in the late afternoon. Shyla, the teletubby will be here in all her pregnant glory. Nick will wake up around 9 p.m. shaking the sleep off from his overnight shift at the Big Box store. Stef will probably appear a couple hours after his wait shift pretty well lit, ...

What a weird Christmas this is turning out to be. I haven't started my Christmas shopping yet. There will be no presents under the tree come Christmas Day. None. Nunca. Nada. That's because we were expecting a big cheque from one of our government clients weeks ago and it hasn't come yet. It was promised. You'll get it before Christmas, no problemo. But the government lies. So we had to take out a short term loan just to pay our massive Hydro bill. Presents? Fagetaboutit. Smartly, Scott went out and bought the fixings for Christmas dinner a few weeks back. That's because we don't trust the government to make good on its promise. Sheesh. Fortunately, Scott got paid this week -- a whopping $500 from his car sales business. His boss is a multimillionaire, but instead of giving the plebes Christmas bonuses, he's making them work six days a week all month for no extra money. The $500 "draw" will at least pay for Christmas eve dinner, ...

From our family to yours, have a wonderful Christmas. Cherish your loved ones. Hold them close. Count your blessings. Much love, Rosalita.

When the grandparents were finally dispatched to their final resting spots, my mother moved us to a small apartment in the north end of town. It was a big change for us, leaving the six acre fruit farm and entering the world of urban dwellers. I was all for it. I was a teenager by this time, sixteen and in the prime of it, and had finally broken my protective shell. I wanted to put my lips to the world, as they say, and living in the city was just the button I needed to reboot my life. My mother's apartment became a hub of teenage hormones and merriment. Every weekend, there was a crowd of my high school friends who would come carrying boxes of Labatt's Blue and 50 -- my mother's favorite -- and we would sit around, listening to tunes on the eight track and watching dirty movies on Global television. We got our first color television in 1972 and we sat crowded round watching flying boobies on the Baby Blue Movies they played at midnight. I remember fondly a naked...

When Scott gets paid on Thursday, I will seek out a Salvation Army kettle and put $20 in it. This doesn't make me a hero. I'm just another person who needs to pay forward the gift the Sally Ann gave me 10 years ago. Fueled by a dangerous cocktail of depression, self-pity and substance abuse, my son Nick left home in the winter of his 16th year, headed for the mean streets of Ottawa. Fortunately, he had an angel on his shoulder in the form of Jacques Poirier, a counsellor with Ottawa's Youth Service bureau, who found him a home at the Salvation Army Young Men's Shelter. It wasn't exactly a free ride. Nick had to be out the door by 9 a.m. to either look for a job or get some counselling. He had to be back in time for curfew, or the doors would be locked. Sometimes, he didn't make the curfew and one night he had to sleep in minus 30 temperature in a parking garage downtown with drunks and addicts sniffing around him. Nick learned his lesson and al...

The computer wars continue today. On Saturday, my trusty computer -- the one Nick built -- died a horrible death. Just wouldn't turn on. Not even when we fed it carrots. So Sunday, I whipped out my backup HP, the sluggish one that had been sitting in the closet for about a year. It chugged and spattered, whirled and wimpered, long enough for me to complete several days of work that had piled up. Then, in mid-interview transcript, it put itself on life support. Just like that. Yesterday, I pulled the plug. That left me with the HP laptop Scott had bought me in the summer, the one I am writing on now, which I have been using exclusively for blogging and adding nasty comments to CTV Ottawa web stories. I bought it out of the box at one of those Future Shop near giveaways and it worked perfectly fine, except for one slight problem. It had no software. It came with the bare bones, Mickey Mouse little programs that I never use, games I never play, and ads for se...

Ask the cops, and they'll tell you that the long gun registry has saved lives -- their own. Whenever a cop goes into a difficult domestic situation or responds to a call that someone is holding a hostage, it's good to know how many firearms are in that household. There have been RCMP officers who have walked into these kind of situations, with absolutely no information, and had their heads blown off. So for that reason alone, the long gun registry should have been retained. But, we all know it won't be. If Stephen Harper has his way, and you know he will, not only will there be no registry but all the records will be burned. Nothing we can do about it. The people of Canada has spoken. They've given their favorite dictator carte blanche to destroy everything that is good and decent in this society. And send young folk to prison for smoking a doobie on their porch. No point flogging a dead horse, right? But do the Tories have to rub our noses in it? ...

I love my vibrating wand. I use it every single day. Sometimes twice a day. Often with other people in the room. It makes me feel all warm and tingly especially after a nice hot bath. It has several attachments, which I use, depending on my mood. Everybody in the house knows I use it because it's beside my chair in the living room. I secretly use it on the dogs, too. I bought it at the hardware store. It looks like this. See, I gotcha. This is a massager, not a vibrator. If you tried to use it in that general area, you'd put out a hip! I use this because I have tendonitis in my neck and shoulder region. Sure, you say. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more. Seriously? I have a man for that.

My elderly desktop computer died yesterday. It had been ill for sometime, slowing down, getting confused over even the simplest tasks, sometimes not getting out of bed at all. I have donated it to science. It is sitting downstairs in Nick's bedroom and it will be harvested for parts. Fortunately, I have this trusty HP laptop as well as an equally elderly HP computer, which will be doing yeoman's work until I can gather enough sheckles to invest in a new fancy desktop. The laptop is fine for writing drivel for the masses, but I need the big guy to do the heavy lifting. Magazine editing can be a bitch, especially when one is self-employed and one's magazine physically resides in Paris, France. The work requires a bit of specialty software and a big screen for world-weary old eyes. I was so upset, I vibrated all day yesterday and bounced like a ping-pong from one hardware station to another and dug through boxes looking for a phantom piece of software -- Micros...

I was feeling a bit sorry for myself yesterday, peering pitifully at my trusty digital tape recorder, not looking forward to hours of interview transcription. I love being a journalist, really get off on doing interviews with fascinating characters and trying to capture their essence in print. It's what I live for, really. But I do not live to do transcribing. Old school fellars never taped interviews and I resisted technology for ages, but somewhere along the line, my brain got soft and I realized that the digital tape recorder was an invaluable tool to get accurate quotes and, basically, ensure that you don't get sued. It's come in handy on a couple of occasions with very difficult subjects who basically accused me of quoting them out of context or inaccurately. The recorder has saved me. It also made them look like fools. Ah ha! But transcription is a dreary and laborious occupation and I hate it more than doing dishes. Anyway, half-way through the transc...

When I was six, I got drunk on rye whiskey over the Christmas holidays. My grandfather had enlisted my help in serving drinks to relatives, and, like a mischievous alter boy, I decided that I should sample the offerings. So it was one shot of rye for cousin Butch, one shot for me, straight from the bottle. I'm not sure how much I had, maybe only a couple of shots, but man, they tasted good. Made me all warm inside. Set me up for the adult years. Thanks, Grandpa! The family was having so much fun that they hardly noticed a six-year-old weaving around in the background. That was one of my earliest memories of my Simpson family Christmases. Living on the farm, I was a pretty lonely child. There were no sisters to play with, only older brothers to watch, consumed as they were with hockey pick up games on the homemade rink in the backyard. There were no friends within miles and all the adults except my mother were in their 70s. I was just a bac...

What's happened to Peter Kent? As a young journalist, I admired him, and I admit it, I had something of  a crush. At a time when national television media was populated by drones, Peter Kent was a rock star. The Anderson Cooper of his day. A man unafraid to venture into dangerous territories. A man with conviction, a man who spoke with an authoritative voice. How did Peter Kent become a shill for the Conservative Party? It is true, his career had already hit a new low when he hosted a bad business show on Global, with Deirdre McMurdy. And it didn't help when he started dying his hair that odd dishwater brown favored by men of a certain age. But thanks to his own hubris, Peter Kent has become a little shit. There, I said it. I'm not afraid of using unparliamentary language. I won't apologize for it. There he was yesterday, in the House of Commons, acting so much like the school vice-principal deflecting the genuine outrage of the opposition with the shee...

I was noodling around the tube last night looking for something to watch other than reruns of a Charlie Brown Christmas or  Rita McNeil and the Men of the Deep when I happened upon a new series on The Movie Network. It was called The Right Hand , which seemed innocent enough. The Right Hand  turned out to be a soft porn series about a Canadian film student who gets a job as a production assistant for a guy named Porno Dan, a legendary porn director, who produces cheap thrills for wackjobs on the Internet. Cool! The semi-faux documentary series follows Brandon through his days doing errands for Dan, picking up used and broken condoms, washing dildos and wrangling new reality clients for a show called Fuck a Fan, a live video-streamed main event which has ordinary blows winning a chance to have sex with porn stars. Brandon's job is not as easy as it sounds. The talent is often cranky in the morning. (You would be, too, if you...

I have advice for anyone getting separated over the holidays. If one of you suggests staying together over Christmas, for the family...DO NOT DO IT. I learned this lesson the hard way, when Mr. Big announced he was leaving the family to set up house with The White Witch of Bermuda. Because she lived in Bermuda -- apparently she has a hotel there -- it would be months before The Witch could get packed and move to Ottawa, so Mr. Big did what most men do in such a situation. He continued to stay with us. I made him sleep in the basement and told the kids we slept apart because of his legendary snoring. Truth be told, I wanted him in my bed, but I realized once he'd taken up with the Witch, he no longer had a taste for Snow White. So in an effort to protect my aching heart, Big became a cellar dweller. I tried to get him to move, but he was in no hurry. On Sundays, he would cheerfully smear jam on his toast and check the rentals. This went on for months. Finally, in N...

Some people are meant to be comets in this life. They soar through life, burning brightly. Then suddenly, the bright light is extinguished. Just like that. Kevin Nelson was one of those comets. He died today at the age of 52. I wrote about Kevin a few months back when it was announced he would no longer be heard on the radio show that made him famous, the morning show on Majic 100 in Ottawa. He and longtime side kick, Bill Parker, were being replaced with little fanfare. There were no going away parties, no back-slapping farewells. Just radio silence. Like many people in Ottawa, I was mad. I felt Kevin had been mistreated. It turns out, according to those who knew and loved him, I had been misinformed. I received numerous messages on my blog about Kevin's bad behavior, how he had treated people horribly and turned his back on the people who loved him the most. Kevin had a problem with alcohol and it, coupled with a liver infection he caught on a Caribbean trip...

As we get ready to welcome our first grandchild sometime in the coming weeks, I can't help think how wonderful it will be to have a Christmas season baby around the house. My sons Nick and Stef bookended Christmas. Nick was born November 27, 1985 and Stef brought up the rear as an Irish twin on January 12, 1987. They were 13 months apart. Oh, my! Both boys were born in the Pasqua Hospital in Regina in the dead of winter. My mother flew in to help me learn the ropes of motherhood. I read voraciously but I hadn't changed a diaper since I was the bad and bored babysitter back in my teenage years. I didn't like diapers then, and I was certain I wouldn't like them when my own children were swaddled in smelly gauze. I didn't know anything about kids. I was the youngest in my family and all the other kids were older. I didn't know how to dress a circumsection -- yuck! -- nor did I have a clue about bathing a child or even how to put the kid down in t...

I don't know about you, but I'm loving menopause. For me, it's Freedom 55 and it's been a long time coming. Menopause has been given a bad rap. It needs a new publicist. Menopause is not the culprit; perimenopause is the evil genius that ruined my life over the past decade. For years, I had no control over my bodily functions. I wept from all orifices as if God had laid upon me a female version of the stigmata. I had daily panic attacks which forced me under the bed. My spouse could only coax me out with flagans of red wine. I grew breasts the size of watermelons. My legs vibrated. Strange things grew in unconventional places. But around this time last year, all manner of aches and pains stopped. The orifices became plugged forever, as if a team of enterprising beavers found a new cause celebre. I miraculously stopped leaking. And I grew new brain cells. Once again, I became a rational and perceptive human being. It was a miracle for the ages. Toda...

During my worst Christmas season ever, the dog drop dead at the kitchen table. It was my first Christmas after Mr. Big decamped to take up with the White Witch of Bermuda. The kids were small and fairly oblivious, preferring to dream dreams of action figures, dolls and electronics. I mostly kept my weeping to myself, but I was in pretty serious pain. A week before the holidays, the house was beautifully decorated by a mother with serious over-compensation issues. The presents were wrapped and hidden. The Christmas baking had begun. Oh, I forgot. Did I tell you that this was the first Christmas after my mother died? Yep. I had it all: abandonment issues, grieving, a tiny problem with the alcoholic grape and drowning loneliness. You try mustering the holiday spirit in that kind of perfect storm of sorrow. But I managed. Then the dog dropped dead. Mandy, the beautiful black lab I had purchased to replace the two dogs I had to euthanize that same year. I blame the nanny...

Jerry Yanover was sipping on a vodka, the ever-present Chesire cat grin becoming even bigger, if that was even possible. He had done it. Outsmarted Joe Clark's fledgling government over John Crosbie's budget. He and Allan J. MacEachen managed to bring down the Tory government at the Liberal Christmas Party. That's one of my best Parliament Hill memories. No one could believe the Liberals. What a crafty bunch. That was 1979, and one of the best Christmas parties the Liberal ever threw. There were many others, of course, with lavish dinners, free flowing booze, more than the odd hookup. If only Room 200 could talk. I have fond memories of the holiday parties during my decade working as a journalist, then a Liberal flak, on Parliament Hill. Like the time I got to sit at the head table of the Liberal Party Christmas party right beside his highness, Pierre Trudeau. The little man made small talk and ate nearly an entire croc en bouche himself. There was hardly...