megfowler.com

Things that should be big:

Coffee cups
Skies
Trampolines
Purses
Trees
Sunglasses
BBQs
Eyes
Ideas
Peonies
Commitments
Laughs
Olives
Duvets
Windows
Porches
Changing rooms
Swimming pools
Bathtubs
Straw hats
Rings
Donations
Dogs
Waves
Hugs

Things that should be small:

Laptops
Kittens
Rants
Phone calls
Whispers
Babies
Goldfish
Dinner parties
Jazz venues
Arguments
Ice cubes
Bangles
Politician salaries
Cell phones
Pills
Tears
Line-ups
Sour candies
Hockey scores
Public school classes
Prices
Frustrations
Engagements
Slivers

1. Sheets. Why do I keep thinking about sheets? There’s nothing to think about. You buy them or you don’t. You sleep on them. You wash them. WHY ALL THE THOUGHT?

2. iPod playlists.

3. Other peoples’ schedules.

4. FACEBOOK, DAMMIT.

5. Produce. It’s the fruit season. I’m going bananas. Well, not bananas, because I get bored of them about a bite in. But do I really need starfruit? Do I? DO I?

6. Boys. But that’s nothing new.

7. Things I need to save for. I should just make a list and be done with it. But the list is so long! I’ll never save for all of it!

8. Funerals.

9. Sleeping. I think about sleep instead of doing it. Wait, I do that with other things, too. Like exercise. And sex. Erm. MOM, SKIP THIS ONE.

10. Why I cannot find a pair of black Havaianas in my size and who bought them all? WHO?

11. Becoming a DJ.

12. Why no one is eating my bran muffins… just the blueberry ones. I think people fear regularity. I wonder if there is a retirement center nearby?

13. My plants.

So come here and tell us about YOU.

Do you wish you lived in Vancouver?

Longing for the West Coast lifestyle?

Wishing you could experience life nestled between the mountains and the sea?

Dying to live in a place where giant parks exist right in the heart of the city?

Can’t make it happen?

I’m here to help, my friends.

You can start your own Vancouver Satellite Community Project ™, no matter where you live.

Here’s how, in five easy steps:

***

THE VANCOUVER SATELLITE COMMUNITY PROJECT ™

1. Take a long-sleeved shirt and a pair of pants. Get them soaking wet. Let them dry halfway, rolled up in a ball in the corner. Put them on. Then throw a GoreTex jacket over your outfit to seal in the moisture, and go sit in your basement.

Kind of dark? Kind of damp? Good. Now sit on an awkward Modernist chair with a laptop, and wave it around looking for a wireless signal.

2. Take all the money out of your wallet. Cash out your bank accounts. Go bury half of the total next to the foundation of your house, and take the rest to your local coffee shop. Hand it all to the nearest staff member. Receive tiny cup with slightly burnt coffee.

Walk away, but not without being rammed in the shins by a woman with a baby stroller the size of an SUV. Notice her baby has a nicer jacket than you. And a bigger coffee.

And is searching for a wireless signal.

3. Go to the gym in your outfit, and set the treadmill to a steep incline. Ask someone else at the gym to walk in front of you on the treadmill, very slowly. Make them stop occasionally. Hold your laptop in the air above your head, searching for a wireless signal.

If you try to step around them, make sure they block you somehow with a mountain bike, shopping bag, or large status purse.

(One more thing — if you can get someone to rollerblade directly behind you on the treadmill, creating an unmistakable sense of panic and terror, you get bonus points. And some bruises.)

4. Ask your friends to come sit outside your home with large signs protesting at least nine things you do on a daily basis. Make them chant and potentially smoke something odd-smelling. Yell out to them to stop. Watch as several of them lie down and pray for you, while others toss bottles. Someone should play a drum. Someone should be on a cell phone, calling in reinforcements and requesting federal funding. A reporter from the CBC should be nearby with a laptop, searching for a wireless signal.

If your neighbours complain, have the protesters move to their yard. However, if the protesters leave any bottles or garbage behind on your lawn, make your own sign and follow them to protest their protesting. Then head off to the pub with the whole gang. Drink Wheat Ale and eat Tofu Wings.

Take transit home. Arrive in five hours, having made sixteen transfers over a distance of three miles.

5. Place road cones along your street with barriers blocking at least one part of the lane. Do no construction there, but have a flag person with a stop sign nearby. Watch as the protesters migrate over to the cones, suspicious that they might have something to do with the 2010 Olympics. Go get Starbucks for everyone.

Receive scorn from head protester because you forgot to request soy in her beverage. Receive scorn from rest of protesters for going to Starbucks. Placate crowd with oat fudge bars.

Play hackeysack for five hours.

Go inside when monsoon hits.

Find wireless signal in your bathroom. Read the Tyee.

Call it a day.

***

See?

It’s easy.

There’s really no reason to feel left out.

Start your own Vancouver Satellite Community Project ™ today!

I wish I was a lawyer.

Okay, I don’t really wish I was a lawyer.

I mean, I’d planned to be one, but in the end, decided I was not cut out for articling or the tedium of jury selection or basically any of the things lawyers did that didn’t involve going after a shifty witness or making closing arguments.

I could rock the shifty witness and the closing arguments, though.

My friends will tell you that I tend to ask a lot of probing questions. Also? I spend hours on end figuring out how to best convey and support my own ideas. Even if I’m just trying to express how I feel about Duran Duran or lemons.

So perhaps I’m living out those legal dreams in my day-to-day life.

But the legal trick I MOST wish I could incorporate into my daily existence is that “withdrawn” thing.

You know the one.

A lawyer goes to make an argument or ask a question or do pretty much anything that will clearly get them in trouble, and right around the time the other lawyer moves to object (or even shortly thereafter), they simply say, “Withdrawn, your honour.”

What?

Did we all just pretend to forget that you ACCUSED SOMEONE OF MURDER? Or that you asked the defendant’s BRA SIZE in an insider trading case? Or that you poked a juror in the eye with a stick?

Why, yes we did. Because you withdrew it. You took it back. You struck it from the record.

I mean, of course the judge and the jury heard it, and of course it’s all they can think about, and of course you TOTALLY DID IT ON PURPOSE, but no. It’s fine.

Withdrawn.

I WANT THIS POWER.

I WANT TO WITHDRAW THINGS I SAY.

I WANT TO STRIKE IT FROM THE RECORD SO THAT NO ONE CAN REMIND ME OF IT EVER, EVER AGAIN.

I mean, sure. Go ahead. Remember I said it. You are free to place it on your heart and cherish it there for years to come.

You just can’t JUDGE me for it.

Ha HA!

Catherine and I have taken to insulting one another, and then withdrawing it. It’s completely awesome.

“I hate you. Withdrawn.”

“You totally suck. Withdrawn.”

“I can’t stand a single word you say. Withdrawn.”

“You smell funny. Withdrawn.”

It’s the ultimate “Get Out of Jail Free” card.

I swear, there are a few people I’d still be dating if I’d had this power. Or a few blowouts I could have avoided. Or, conversely, a few choice things I COULD have said if I’d just had the comprehensive power of a Cosmic Do-Over.

Errr… Cosmic Take-Back.

Er… Cosmic Screw-You-Ha!-But-WITHDRAWN!

Mmm… it’s the best idea EVER.

Better than coffee, even.

Withdrawn.

Hi everyone!

Did you know I like questions? And knowing things?

And also knowledge? Knowledge that comes from questioning?

And also asking stuff?

Yes! SO TELL ME.

I’m heading up on the year anniversary of this here wee bloggy, and so I’d like to get a sense of who is reading, how you got here, and if you read anyone else on my “Sweet Reads” list.

Wondering why I’m asking?

Well, mostly because I’d like to know. So you can indulge me or not. But you know what they say about lurkers and people who don’t answer questions.

They are less likely to a) change their underwear and b) receive random offers of cash in the mail.

Is that what you want for your life?

Is it?

I didn’t think so.

Ok, I’m just kidding. I’m curious.

This is my Aunt Cassie holding me, probably about 33 years ago.

Didn’t I look like a baby bird?

My middle name is Cassie, after her.

She was a lovely woman — a poet, a writer and an artist in her younger years.

A teacher. A friend. A wife.

Unfortunately, her mother was less than kind to her before she got around to any of these things, and the cruel words she spoke stayed with Cassie most of her life.

You see, she’d planned to name her daughter “Cassandra”… but decided not to after setting eyes on her “ugly” baby.

“Cassie” would have to do.

I promise you, Cassie was not ugly. Ever. But.

She was demeaned, wounded, and left with the mistaken impression that she would always be worthless. And no matter what anyone told her after that, the seed was sown.

By the time I knew her, she was small, old, shaky and sad. The hurts she’d fought with creativity and fierceness had finally taken root and bent her spine and dulled her heart.

She deserved better.

Cut to Baby Meg.

When she held me for the first time, she told my parents I was beautiful.

And then they told her that they’d named me after her.

Which meant that Cassie was a name for beautiful girls. For girls that could grow up and do anything they wanted.

A message she should have received long, long before then.

She called me “Little Cassie” for the rest of her life.

I would do well to remember that legacy, and take hold of the freedom she was never given.

I really didn’t.

I ad-libbed, I made people laugh, I got through almost everything I needed and wanted to say.

Then, of course, I had to say how much I loved him. Love him.

And I was DONE.

So I stole out to the car afterwards, just to get myself all collected.

Thanks for your thoughts and prayers. It was an incredibly moving service for an incredible man.

I stopped and started weeping about 30,000 times, but his life earned every laugh and every tear.

And many more to come, I’m sure.

I’m sharing a little something at my Poppa’s funeral tomorrow.

Just a little something.

I didn’t want to do anything too dramatic or maudlin or emotional or untrue to the man he was.

I wanted little glimpses of him… the bits of remembrance that would make his family and friends smile and nod in recognition.

So what did I do?

I made lists.

I’ll talk a bit around them, and expand on some of the items, but mostly?

Stuff about my Poppa speaks for itself.

Things I Learned From My Poppa

How to have the loudest laugh in the room

How to cheat at card games

How to take pride in one’s lawn

How often cars should be washed

How to clean up well for church

How to judge whether or not a guy is worth dating

How to be faithful to the things you believe in

How to love people unconditionally

How to give of what you have freely

How to take care of one’s family

How to live a life to be proud of

Things I Remember About My Poppa

The way he smelled when he came home from a day at the mill

The smile he’d give me when I’d come flying down the stairs first thing on a summer morning

The after-dinner devotions he led for the family

The way he’d toss me around the pool at the Smith’s while I squealed

The mints he carried in his pockets on Sundays

The way he’d smirk about his golf score

The chats we’d have in the car after I’d clean the house for him and Nonna

The way he’d ask why I wasn’t married yet — but still had faith it would happen eventually

The hugs he gave me every single time he saw me

Things I Loved About My Poppa

That he was an amazing hockey player long before I even screamed at a game

That he called me “Schmeg” even when I scowled at it as a teenager

The way he’d light up when there was a baby in the room

The way he’d roll back from the table when he had too much to eat, patting his belly and beaming

The way he’d stand up straight and proud when he was in a good suit

The fact that he worked hard at one thing his whole life — but still had a million other gifts beyond that

The way he was devoted to caring for his wife without a single question, as long as they were together

The way he loved his family

The way he loved God

The way he loved me

And, of course, the way I love him still.

Miss you, Poppa.

1. A small toy hedgehog on the porch today, likely left by a passing cat. Unfortunately MY Cat — my roommate, Catherine — nearly passed when she saw it, too. Catherine has a fear of rodents not unlike my fear of bees, except about a JILLION TIMES STRONGER. She hates rodents of all kinds, including those of an unusual size.

I tried to kick it into the bushes to spare her (while knowing that she must have already passed it by now), but replicated the move that used to drive my soccer coach nuts — I gave it too much lift, and instead plunked it right on TOP of the bushes. Oops. And that was before Catherine texted me from the gym asking me to TAKE IT OFF THE PORCH (which I did… kind of.)

Fortunately, either the depositor came back for it or Dean and Karen threw it out before she got back home. Whew.

2. I saw a man on the bus cleaning his sunglasses by licking them.

Things get weird around here when we go without rain for too long.