Rose's Cantina

Today, Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson pleaded with residents to stay home because tomorrow we're going to get a whopping 40 centimetres of snow. This news has already struck fear into the icy hearts of OC Transpo managers who are asking LRT operators to practise breaking in snow (news! The winter started months ago!). I will stay home, watching my puppies playing in the snow, because I am still unemployed after 10 months. This week, I applied for jobs as a communications adviser, a writer/editor, and a sales clerk at the grocery store. If I'm lucky I'll be packing fish on ice within a week. If I haven't heard from the grocery store by next week, I'm pulling out all the stops and applying at Costco and Home Depot. They pay an extra dollar an hour, or so I hear. It's been a very disturbing winter. I'm turning 64 in July, and I currently earn $400 from CPP. I will have to wait until next July so I can top up my earnings with the Old Age Pension rounding o...

I was going through my late friend Jennette's paperwork today for her taxes, and I found a small folder which contained mail receipts. They were all addressed to a man in Africa named George Prince Gaskin who apparently was a lawyer for a man with whom Jennette became involved over Facebook. It had all been a scam, of course, played upon a vulnerable and lonely widow. She had fallen for an American soldier named Richard Birdsong whom she met on Messenger. This Birdsong fellow had told her that he was stationed in Afganistan, and he had a teenage son. Unbeknownst to everyone but Jennette, they had fallen in love, and Jennette was waiting for him to move to Canada so the three of them could be together. In another folder, I saw a passport application with a photo of Jennette. I suppose there had been plans for her to travel to the U.S. at some point, plans that were never fulfilled. I knew she had been scammed before I found these receipts. She called me one day to ask if ...

What is hardest to accept about the passage of time is that the people who once mattered the most to us wind up in parentheses. -- John Irving I told the doctor that I wasn't that person in Jennette's life, I wasn't the one who would be hugging her, and holding her hand at the end. It's not that I was afraid to stare death in the face, it was that I, like Homer Wells in Cider House Rules, felt my time was better spent "being of use". And so I busied myself yesterday moving Jennette's remainders out of her assisted living apartment. For the past week, I've been spreading the wealth to the deserving: her coat and the brand new clothing she had bought went to Gessie. Gudrun got her collectibles, Marissa got her bedroom set, and we took the electronics and a few tables. It was unbelievable how little was left at the end of her life; as Scott says, "it's the things that fall away". The move finished, we drove to a little h...

Courtesy of Fred Bowering It's hard to believe a year has gone by since Ashley Simpson disappeared without a trace from her home in Salmon Arm, British Columbia. What a world we live in. In honor of our Ashley, I am posting some thoughts from her family. Please add your thoughts and prayers. If you have a little extra in the bank, perhaps you would consider contributing at Go Fund Me to help her father, John, who will soon be on the road back to Salmon Arm to look for her. God Bless. John Remembers: Well, Ash, my girl. It's been a long, very long year with so much confusion, heartache, pain and sorrow. One would think we would break, end all the drama that has been made since your disappearance. We walk the talk and breathe you every moment of our lives. Your sisters are all in a very bad spot with you gone and no answers as we all hope every day is that we will wake from this nightmare. Amanda Langlois Remembers: I can't believe it...

Embed from Getty Images A year ago, Ashley Simpson was looking forward to returning to her home in Niagara to attend her sister's baby shower. She'd been facing some challenges; she'd left her job in Northern, B.C. and moved to Salmon Arm, the hometown of her boyfriend Derek who wanted to be close to his kids. She was waiting for Derek to give her some scratch, enough to get home where her big and loving family were missing her. Her parents, John and Cindy, were concerned about her, so she made sure she sent them posts and photos. John joked that the girl with the gypsy tattoo was "the selfie queen". She was always posting and talking to her parents, her sisters, and her close friends. John is a working stiff, a guy who cooks for the ships and boats that travel along the Welland Canal. Last spring, he was looking forward to his summer job at the Longhouse in Huntsville where he could relax a bit, and fish the lake for dinner. Ashley always came ...

Embed from Getty Images One. That is the number of people I know who are missing and presumed dead. That one person is my cousin Ashley Simpson . Fifty is the number of dead at the hands of a deranged gunman in Orlando, Florida. Fifty-three is the number of wounded in that horrific act, a senseless rat-a-tat-ta of a man who wanted to kill people for no other reason than they chose different people to love. Regardless of whether we mourn the one or the many, we are living in a war zone, and waging a war against an evil we cannot defeat, an evil bred from the brain or the loins, an evil that has no respect for humanity. There is no difference between the ONE we are mourning and/or remembering and the 50/53. We are all fighting the same battle. We are all quietly weeping, feeling helpless against the rage of the beast the lies inside men and women who chose to kill, and maim and dismember. But we must remember. We are not helpless. We are powerful. And ou...

Embed from Getty Images I will not speak his name. He does not deserve attention anymore. In some other cultures, this man would have been cast out into the wilderness, shunned by his people, at the very hint of the violence he committed against many, many women. In other cultures, he would be allowed to let his energy flow freely, and it would be the women who would be cast out for being dirty, evil, lesser. In our culture, it's somewhere in the middle. He has been cast out, in some way, unemployable in the vainglorious media where he toiled; he has been denied his hunting ground. But he still walks among us, his face allowed to feel the cold and damp of this spring/winter day. I hope the rain stings like needles. In our society, the women, too -- one named the others nameless -- have been singled out for punishment. They weren't believable enough, they didn't remember enough, they talked among themselves, reassured each other. In some cases, they cov...

Embed from Getty Images Choose a size: A few weeks ago, I asked my very pregnant daughter Marissa how long she was going to take off work with her new baby, Kennedy Rose, who is expected to arrive in early April. "Three weeks," she said, matter-of-factly. "Three weeks? How are you going to manage that?" "Jeff's taking parental leave," she explained. "And I can work at home. It only makes sense because I make more money than he does." It's true. Jeff works in the not-for-profit sector in a job he loves. He is also a French hip hop recording artist, and for that he works nights. Marissa toils in the high powered world of consulting with blue chip clients; she's something called a "digital strategist". I smiled when I got off the phone. She didn't always take my advice, but she did listen one day when I told her to "be the man you want to marry." That's the advice I wish I could have g...

Embed from Getty Images I saw something on the Ottawa news yesterday , something that blew me away. There is an Ottawa clinic that is now offering something called FemiLift, and it's basically a vaginal lift that uses a laser to address three areas of concern for women: vaginal laxity (which occurs after childbirth), stress-induced urinary incontinence and dryness. That's according to Dr. Sharyn Laughlin, a dermatologist who works for Laserderm. It's also believed to increase sensation, she says, though that is not the main reason for its use. This could be the magic bullet for a lot of women who pee themselves when they bounce, laugh or even walk. During my worst years, through perimenopause, I used to have to wear a pad the size of a bicycle seat just to walk down the street. When I went to the doctor, I was told to do those useless Kegel exercises which basically have you holding your pee while on the toilet. That never worked for me. I tried everyt...

Today, I took my tired-looking self over to see Sheila Mackay, a registered nurse who works at the Facial Surgery and Cosmetic Centre of Ottawa. Sheila is the angel who sticks needles in my face, and I love her. She gives me Botox and Dermal Filler to fill in my craggy good looks. A lot of people will say: "what a ridiculous thing to do" or "you look just fine the way you are; you should love yourself more" or --- and I really hate this -- "I don't need that stuff. I've earned every wrinkle." I say, good for you. If you want to look like a topographic map, that's your right and I will defend to the death your right to look like the Canadian Shield. It's true, I don't look that bad for 58. With the help of hair dye and makeup, I can pass for 50 even younger because I don't have a face that looks like an unmade bed. I don't smoke. I have a nap nearly every day. I eat my veggies. I exercise. And I get my eight hours ...

#165073663 / gettyimages.com Justice Minister Peter MacKay recently un-earthed a storm a la merde for apparently suggesting that women are too busy lactating to want a top spot on the bench, preferring kitchen drudgery to judgery. He denied he said it; and referred to the lawyers. who outed him, by their given names: liars. Then he sent out Mother's Day and Father's Day messages to his staff that were misogynistic in nature. Then he denied having written them and blamed them on a female staffer. Apparently, in the Justice Department, the Chief Liar doesn't lawyer his own correspondence. Then the Globe and Mail's Leah MacLaren took a swipe at Pete's wife, who sent back a missive to the Globe's self-described, but not actually appointed, London correspondent telling her to stop being mean to the Chief Liar who was raised by a single mom and does, in fact, do diaper doodie. It was all very laughable, breaking up a monotonous week for the rest ...

In the end, I've realized, genetics win. Genetics and middle age. I was recently thumbing through the family album looking at my Aunties and saw myself in those wonderful women, those Scottish shortbreads with the pug faces in house dresses. Fashion-wise, there were good reasons women wore house dresses. They were cool when you didn't have air conditioning, they were inexpensive because the only shapes were made by cinching and darts, and you could let them out easily when your body started giving out. In my Aunties' day, there were no expensive gyms to go out, no plastic solutions to be had, only house dresses and sensible shoes. Aunties weren't athletic, but they worked hard, used something they called elbow grease, got on their hands and knees several times a week to scrub unscrubbable floors, hung clothes on the line instead of throwing them into the dryer, and cranked their own windows in cars. Their weight in middle age couldn't be explained by their e...

Wonderful news out of Georgia. The storied Augusta National Golf Club has finally deigned to offer memberships to two golfers with vaginas: Darla somebody-or-other and Condoleeza Rice. I guess Hillary Clinton and Roseanne Barr were too busy. Or too Democratic. I can hear the grumbling on the 19th hole already. The club is renowned for being snooty and having questionable fashion taste. Kermit would fit right in; Tim Gunn, not so much. Not sure about their policy on gays, though they might have invited Anderson Cooper, him being with CNN and all. Probably didn't hear about his fight the other day with his boyfriend. Remember all the brow-knitting at Augusta when Tiger Woods first poked his nose into the club? Had to let him in, right? The greatest golfer in the world, who just happens to golf while black. With Condie, they get a two-fer. She should get a golf gap with that emblazoned on it! I mean if they're going to let ladies play with their balls, they mi...

I've been pre-occupied of late with my favorite subject -- my breasts. Often I make fun of them because they are absolutely huge. For the past year, I've been living up the alphabet in the H section, though through hard work, I think I've brought them down to a more sensible DDD. Still. I never minded being big breasted. It got me jobs. It got me dates. But huge breasted is nothing if not disgusting. You cannot buy clothes that fit properly. If you wear something loose, you look like you're a fattie. If you wear something tight, you look like a floosie. Add to that a middle aged face, well, then you look like Ma Kettle. (Though looking at Ma now, I realize she was actually smaller than I am. Sheesh.) I've become pre-occupied with how much I hate my breasts. They embarrass me. They make me feel ugly. Scott took a beautiful picture of me a few weeks back and I had to ask him to crop it. Here's what it looks like without the crop. Because of their s...