Secrets from the Front

 I was hell bent that I wasn't going to catch this latest epidemic circulating the island.  But it's hard to fight off the warrior germs when your husband brings an entire army of them home with him.   Battle plans were made:  no physical contact (hugs excluded), medications were dispensed, chicken soup was consumed.  But perhaps the most strategic defense was the decision to avoid breathing the contaminated air - so no sleeping in the same bed until he was feeling better.

I thought all was good.  After 4 days he seemed to have conquered the invaders.  We had the "all clear."  I could return to my own bed.  And so I did on Sunday night.  It was then that the ultimate sneak attack occurred.

Those germs may be small, but they are mighty little warriors.  No sooner had we thought we had won the war, it became obvious that we really had only taken one small battle and that a much bigger fight would continue to rage on in the battleground that is my sinus, nasal & throat passages.

I fought on valiantly.  I took sinus medicine, lobbing drying agents at those little germ warriors.  I drank gallons of tea.  I ate toast with butter & honey, commonly known to cure whatever ails me.  I slept, but not really for longer than 15 minutes at a time.  I whined and complained.  I sneezed and coughed and wiped my eyes that were, incidentally, in a race with my nose to see which could run off my face first.  All to little avail.  

After 3 days, I was done.  I had to do it.  I had to call in the back-up brigade.  There was simply no choice.  I reached into the far recesses of my medicine chest for the  mother of all germ warfare weapons:  VICKS VAPO RUB.  

When you're in hand to hand combat against such a powerful enemy as The Common Cold, there is nothing more effective then the soothing scent of eucalyptus to clear your sinuses.   A soothing massage of VVR and the warmth penetrates your chest and immediately relieving your lungs from their prisoner of war status.  Oh sure, the smell of Vick's is enough to repel anyone that comes within a 5-ft radius of you, but I'm okay with that - I don't really like people in my personal space (husband excluded).

After 24 hours, with the use of my secret weapon, it appears I have gained a toe-hold on the enemy.  I have fought back and those nasty little germs are retreating.   Next time I won't wait 3 days to bring out the weapon of mass destruction - I'll will bathe in the stuff at the first sign of a cold.   Lesson learned.

 

Mouth-watering goodness

The look of eager anticipation of a meal that is half a day away.  

My Honey Bunny

I'm married to the coolest man.  I say this because as I'm typing this, he is in a quest for the best chocolate Easter Bunny he can find me.  

Just like most things in life, my honey-bunny husband and I have differing points of view on the subject of Easter chocolate.  His theory goes something like this:

" A "Mr. Solid" chocolate rabbit is fine for Easter and the less you pay for it, the better - it's all about the value for the chocolate".  I understand his perspective.  He's an accountant after-all.

My perspective is thus:  If you're going to indulge in Easter chocolates it should be the best quality chocolate you can find.  In my mind it is the stuff that comes shaped as a rabbit, wrapped in foil with a sweet little bell around its neck.  A Lindt Bunny.  

Let's face it - I could settle for a Mr. Solid - but why?  My hubby set the precedent for fine European chocolate our first Easter together when he had a grand, delectable French chocolate egg  delivered to our hotel suite in Monte Carlo.  I was hooked and he was done in for on the Easter Bunny front.

This year, our two worlds may have actually collided - Walmart has a sale on Lindt Easter Chocolates.  Now the only question is whether or not they have any inventory!

How to Annoy Me

Show up 10 minutes late for class and then act all put out because in your absence we covered material you need.  Grow up.  Show up.  ON TIME.  Everyone's working hard here people!

In Sickness and in Health

I'm sick.  It sucks to be sick.  My head feels like it's not attached to my body.  My right ear makes its own sounds and dare I say,  my runny nose runs the risk of running right off  my face. 

If feeling the way I do, I could accomplish:

• Showering and making myself presentable
• Driving downtown for a meeting with Tourism Charlottetown where I solicited (read begged) donations for Special Olympics PEI (I was successful btw)
• Shopping for a creative Easter-themed craft for my visit with my "little sister"
• Making a gourmet lunch (okay, maybe a hot dog doesn't count as gourmet, but when you're not feeling well comfort is comfort - whether it's food or a kleenex)
• Visiting said "little sister" Victoria where for an hour we decorated Easter Egg shaped cookies with very stale candies and icing that was too thin.  Too bad I didn't read the instructions before I went, otherwise our icing might have actually turned out better and the candies would have actually stuck to the cookies, rather than slide off.  
• Gassing up the Cranberry Cruiser in what would elsewhere be known as a hurricane, but here on PEI it's just a little wind & rain
• Talking to my one PEI friend to wish her a happy birthday and listen to her lamentations on the limitations of her not-so-good boss
• Spending an hour writing more letters to various island businesses soliciting auction items 
• Creating home-made sauce for tonight's dinner of chicken Florentine
• Studying chapters 6 & 7 in preparation for tomorrow's Business Communication double-header
• Daydreaming about a job that allowed me to write all day long

...then imagine what I could do if I actually felt better?

I shudder to think.  Or is that the fever?

Canada Lives Here

Poor, beleaguered CBC.  In today's "tough economic climate" our federally funded public broadcasting company is beset by their own financial woes.  Seems the Feds wouldn't provide bridge financing to the CBC and so recently, they've had to do some serious cutting in order to get their massive budget under control.  So, they looked at their programming on both TV and the radio and started slashing.  Good for them, they didn't close any stations, but some of my favourite programming has been affected and I'm going to miss what I soon won't have access to.

So, to help me transition away from those programs I'm going to miss, I thought I'd celebrate some of my favourite things about the CBC.  

1)  It's always been there.  It has been a constant on the Canadian airwaves since the early 1930s when it expanded from providing just radio signals for CN Railway to actually broadcasting programmed content from radio stations for anyone to hear.  

2)  It provides a voice of calm in an otherwise chaotic medium.  No one screams at you from the CBC to be the 5th caller for anything.  The radio hosts and news readers all speak in a soothing, calm manner that actually makes you want to listen to them.

3)  On the TV front - dare I say more than Alex Trebek?  Jeopardy is one of my favourite programs and I like the fact it's an American program hosted by a Canadian who got his start in television on the CBC.   Despite the big debate of having American content played on the Canadian Broadcast Company, Jeopardy made the cut and I'm glad.  Otherwise how else would I know some of the inane things I do?

4)  Back to radio - Sunday afternoon would not be Sunday afternoon without the likes of Dave, Morley, Stephanie, Sam & Arthur (the dog) and other characters that make up the stories of the Vinyl Cafe.  Hosted by Stuart McLean, formerly of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, the Vinyl Cafe is a weekly installment of folksy tales and undiscovered Canadian voices - be they musicians, singers, poets or just average people who write into the show.  Stuart McLean takes his show on the road throughout the year and broadcasts from points east, west, way north and south.  Last September we were in the audience in Georgetown, PEI when Stuart McLean broadcast from the island.

5)  Local programming.  Although it is a national media outlet, the CBC still offers some great regional programming.  Living in PEI that means afternoons on "Main Street" learning all about island traditions and history from a collection of characters that make up this island.  Where else but on a show like this would you have a little old lady talking about what life was like 100 years ago on the farm on PEI?  

6)  National programming.  I must say, one of the programs I will dearly miss is the afternoon show called "The Point".  Broadcast each afternoon at 3pm AST from Vancouver has kept me connected to the goings on of my favourite city in all of Canada.  Unfortunately, I must have been one of the few listeners "The Point" had because it did not make the cut in this last round.  Too bad - I hope they find something else for Ameer Haleem to do at the CBC.

7)  Sheilagh Rogers - she's been around the CBC for many years, having started as a weather girl in Ottawa on the local CBC tv station.  But I came to know her as the host of "Sounds like Canada" a nationally broadcast show offering stories of the people of Canada, be they in the Miramichi or in the Yukon or places in between.  No one can laugh like Sheilagh Rogers.  "Sounds Like Canada" has been gone for a few months now, but I was happy to discover Sheilagh alive and well, still broadcasting on Saturday afternoons, facilitating lively interviews on the subject of books.

8)  "Late Nights on Air" - okay, this is actually a book with the CBC station in Yellowknife as the central character - a story of the people that make up the landscape of Yellowknife and those that man the airwaves to keep listeners in those far reaches informed.  I loved this book almost as much as my CBC!

9)  News - having lived abroad and listened to biased broadcasting for years, it was really refreshing to come home to Canada and a much more global and neutral perspective on the news.  

10)  "Canada Lives Here."  It's a tag line dreamed up by some clever marketers.  But to me, it really says it all - Canada Lives Here.  Full Stop. 

"They no leave no notes"

About 12 years ago I took a Mediterranean cruise aboard a large yacht, sailing from Monte Carlo to Rome.   It was my first small ship (or large yacht) cruise and my first time to sail the waters of "the Med."  

We sailed through exotic ports that included such jet-set destinations as Monte Carlo, Cannes and St. Tropez, but there is one destination that will forever stand out in my mind on this journey.  After 3 or 4 days exploring the French Mediterranean our yacht, "The Renaissance IV," made port along the Costa Smeralda on the island of Sardinia.   

Here, we disembarked for a private tour of the countryside which featured rolling hills and lush farmland.  Miles and miles of winding roads would lead us to a rustic farmhouse where our hosts had spent the morning preparing a typical Italian farm-style lunch.  But before we enjoyed the delights of their kitchen, our tour guide had a surprise for us - a stop at an historic Sardinian landmark (one of 7000 that are reputed to dot the landscape) - a "nuraghi" (pronounced "nur - a - ghee")

Now you might ask "what is a nuraghi?"  I know we certainly did!  Despite our tour guide's best attempts to accurately describe its architecture and use, as best we could discern it was an ancient structure made of stones to look like (wait for it) a pile of stones.  But that was just for appearances.  The pile of stones were hollow inside which leaves historians to believe that ancient peoples inhabiting Sardinia used the nuraghi as either a dwelling or a fort of some kind.  

Our tour guide did his level best to explain this historical conundrum to us and it took several attempts before we got it.  Frustrated that he couldn't easily describe the use of the rock formations he threw his hands up in the air and excitedly exclaimed "We no know what they do in the nuraghi - they no leave no notes!"

It's been over 12 years since I watched our guide struggle to bring history alive to a group of rather dis-interested tourists, but I will never forget that one line...."they no leave no notes".  No, they didn't.  

Our excursion continued on to the farm where we enjoyed  home-made pasta, cheese so fresh you'd think it was made that very day (or at most, the day before) and of course copious amounts of home-made wine.  We ate and drank until our hearts content and then all too soon it was time to make our way back to our ship.

And here's the other memory from this excursion that I'll never forget:  a motorcoach full of quasi- drunk tourists, riding through the Sardinian countryside, all of us singing at the top of our lungs "Volare...oh - oh..." with our intrepid tour guide leading the chorus.

I don't remember much else about that trip - not the people I traveled with or the other ports of call...but I will always remember Sardinia's nuraghi, the taste of home-made wine and the sound of Volare ringing across the hills of this ancient island.