Does DNA Really Matter...?

When I was a little girl, I went through a stage where I was convinced I was adopted. I had two older brothers who were nothing like me; how could I possibly be related to them? In fact, they were so different from each other, I was convinced they were adopted as well. At the same time, my best friend Margaret was adopted and so was her brother, and they looked identical to each other. That confused me, because I didn't look anything like my brothers -- or so I thought. Years later I discovered that Margaret and her brother did indeed have the same biological parents.

The idea of adoption has always fascinated me. I have several friends who are adopted, and as much as they are curious about their biological families, they feel very much a part of their adoptive or "real" families. One friend of mine tells me how much she loved her grandmother, and the smell of her perfume, and they way they used to dance around the room together.  She adored her grandmother and still has fond memories of her, and yet in the sense of biology and genetics, they are not related.  In the sense of love, however, the bond is strong and unbreakable.  What a wonderful concept that is.

Another of my friends who was adopted, finally located her birth family. She discovered she had nine biological brothers and sisters. She is curious to meet them only because she wants to see if she bears any physical resemblance to any of them. Other than that, they are complete strangers to her and she has no interest or desire in establishing a relationship with them. Her adoptive family is her true family.

Rules regarding adoption have relaxed so much in recent years. At one time only a child who "fit" with the adoptive family would be placed there. Now there are interracial and intercultural adoptions, open adoptions, gay family adoptions, single parent family adoptions -- it's amazing. I believe there is enough love to go around, and certainly enough children to be adopted. At one time parents waited until a child was "old enough" to be told he or she was adopted. It would be whispered, "She is adopted, but they haven't told her yet..."

My friend, who adored her adoptive grandmother, loved her as much as any child can love a grandmother.  She was her family.  When it comes to love, does DNA really matter?

The Setting Sun...

These past few days I have been too busy to spend much time in front of my computer, or to visit my favourite blogs. Tonight, here in Vancouver there is a spectacular sunset which I thought I would share with you, should you happen to pop by my blog for a visit.  Between now and May, Vancouver will have some of the most beautiful sunsets -- like paintings by John Constable or J.M.W. Turner.  There is something about this time of the year that produces wonderful colours in the western sky.  And, if you squint your eyes ever so slightly, you can see Vancouver Island in the distance.

Have a wonderful evening, everyone...

Happy 15th Birthday, Phinnaeus...!

Happy Birthday, Phinnaeus...! You may be 15 years old, and six feet tall, but you still look exactly the same.  And you are still the goofiest, cleverest, funniest, smartest,  -- did I mention funniest? -- boy in the entire world.

Now, please go downstairs and clean up your room...!

(Kidding, kidding...)

The Princess, The Pea, And The Featherbed...

When I was a little girl, my father used to read me the story of "The Princess and the Pea" by Hans Christian Anderson. It is the story of a young woman who claims to be a princess. One stormy night she takes shelter in a prince's castle. The prince's mother decides to test if the young woman is really a princess, so she puts a pea in her bed and covers it with 20 mattresses and 20 featherbeds. In the morning the princess tells her hosts that she had a dreadful night's sleep, because of something underneath the mattress. Of course, only a real princess would have the sensitivity to feel a pea through such a quantity of bedding. The prince and princess are married, and the pea is placed in the Royal Museum.

I loved the story, and I always used to laugh because I could identify with the princess. Ever since I was a child, I have gone through phases of having difficulty sleeping. I remember once asking my father to go outside and silence a cricket that was keeping me awake, chirping underneath my bedroom window. I was four years old. As a teenager, my mother often made hot milk for me at night, because I tossed and turned until the wee hours.

Yesterday I treated myself to the ultimate in luxury -- a feather mattress topper. I put it on my bed, put on clean sheets and climbed in. Oh . my . goodness. It was like lying on a cloud. I have never felt anything so comfortable.  As I was lying there, I thought of the story of the princess and the pea.  Even the princess would have difficulty finding anything wrong with this mattress.

Gosh, do you think that means perhaps I'm a princess?

The Mysterious World Of Ticket Brokers...

Taylor Swift is coming to Vancouver in September, and I wanted to buy tickets for a very special little girl who is turning 12 in April. I thought it would be a nice surprise to slip the tickets into her birthday card, and perhaps she would like to take one little friend with her, along with her Mom. That would mean three tickets. Not a big deal, right? Wrong. I haven't bought concert tickets lately, but the process seems to have turned into a huge scam. Ticket brokers -- and I use the term loosely -- buy up all the tickets, and then sell them for hugely inflated prices, sometimes for up to ten times what the tickets are worth depending on the seat locations.  And purchasing an odd number of tickets is impossible.  Three?  Out of the question.

I spent yesterday morning negotiating with several ticket brokers, trying to get the best tickets for the best price. The prices they were charging were all over the map, and I managed to get some good seats for a fairly reasonable price, as far as ticket brokers' prices go.  So then I trundled off to meet the robber ticket broker at Metrotown so we could make the drop.  He turned out to be a rather nice young man who was using this as a business to pay his way through university.  I asked him what he was studying, and he said "I'm in the School of Commerce at the University of British Columbia, majoring in marketing".  I told him he was going to go far.  He said he buys whole blocks of seats and then sells them, but sometimes it's risky, depending on the concert.  Taylor Swift was a sure thing, however, and all the brokers made a lot of money.  None of it, of course, goes to Taylor Swift.

I was amazed at the demographic of people I was dealing with yesterday -- one of them was a young Chinese girl.  I told her I am obviously in the wrong business, going to a nine-to-five job every day.  However, I find the practice of "brokering" tickets appalling; it is legalized thievery.  I don't mind paying the extra money for the tickets for Marigold.  She is a very special young lady, and she is worth it.  But I can't imagine the millions of dollars that are being siphoned away from the performers, and there's absolutely no way to stop it.

In my conversations yesterday, I learned all about stage set-up, sight lines, row heights, seat placements -- things I never knew before -- and Marigold and her Mom have very good seats.  But the main thing is, they will have a wonderful time, I hope.  Besides, the best part of any concert is the excited anticipation of it, don't you think?

My Strange Addiction

There's a new TLC reality show called My Strange Addiction, that I find ... well ... strangely addictive. Most of the folks on the show seem entirely normal, and yet they have unusual behaviours that most people would find completely bizarre. A woman named Lori is addicted to sleeping with her hair dryer -- on; Kesha eats toilet paper, at least half a roll a day. Crystal eats household cleaners -- as in Comet; Josh eats glass, light bulbs and bullets. Belinda loves rocks. She has hundreds of thousands of rocks and when she is out searching for more rocks, she falls into a trance in search of the perfect rock.

Okay, these people make me feel entirely normal, in spite of the fact that I too may have a "strange addiction". I enjoy doing laundry. How many people can say that? For most folks, doing laundry is not their favourite chore. Me? I love it. There's nothing nicer than clean, fresh sheets and towels every day. No matter what is going on in life, nothing puts it to rights more than clean laundry. I have also learned that doing a small amount of laundry every day is much easier than saving it all up until it begins to resemble Mount Kilimanjaro -- daunting and insurmountable.

Am I strange? Well, yes ... there are people who would definitely say that I'm strange. Am I addicted to doing laundry? I hope not.

Now, if I could just become addicted to dusting and vacuuming.

The Big Bang ... God Speed

There is a theory -- I guess you could call it the Big Bang Theory -- that all of the atoms that go to make up our corporal bodies were present at the moment of the Big Bang. In that regard, we are all closely connected; and since energy cannot be created or destroyed, we are all made from star dust and we will return to star dust.  Are we connected in other ways too?  Are we all one entity?  I sometimes wonder about this, because there are times when I am able to "tune in" to the universe in ways that I don't understand.  I don't try to do it, it just happens, and I don't question it when it does.  Out of nowhere a premonition, or a feeling of intuition -- a sixth sense -- will almost overwhelm me and I know for certain that it will happen.

Today at exactly 11:30 a.m. I had an acute and overwhelming feeling that I was going to watch a man die today.  All I could think was, "No, no, no, no, I don't want to see that..."

At exactly 4:30 p.m. today I watched a man die.  I thought, "If I knew his name, I would say a prayer for him."  I said one anyway.

Whoever that man was, his energy has gone back to the universe -- back to God, if you will. The people who love him will be devastated because he is gone from their lives. But he is not really gone, is he? What is the force of energy that divides living things from non-living?  Some folks believe life force is a spiritual energy, others believe the line between living things and non-living is not so clearly defined. I am beginning to believe we are all connected -- anything made up of matter or energy.  And we all have the ability to tap into this energy.  I seem to be able to do it without even trying.

I never knew that man, and I had never seen him before today, but I knew what was about to happen to him.  And I wish him God speed...

Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee. ~~~ John Donne

Music Of The Movies...

Occasionally there is a piece of music so perfectly suited to a movie, it becomes one of the main characters. Two years ago I saw a movie called "Knowing" with Nicholas Cage and Rose Byrne. It was a science fiction movie, and the music that accompanied it gave the movie an added depth and mystery that completed the movie. I have watched the movie several times, just for the mood and atmosphere of the music. I had heard the music before, but I didn't recognize it when I heard it in "Knowing". It was so perfect, I thought it had been composed just for the movie.

And then on the weekend, I saw the wonderful movie "The King's Speech". It is a beautiful movie and deserves every one of the 12 Oscar nominations it has received. The movie has taken filmmaking to the art form that it was meant to be. My favourite scene was where speech therapist Lionel Logue was encouraging King George VI to let out his feelings, and the King let lose with a barrage of expletives that made me laugh. Haven't we all wanted to do that on occasion?

In the pivotal scene of the movie, when the King was giving his famous wartime speech, I recognized a familiar piece of music. I turned to my friend Leslie and said, "Hey! That's the music from 'Knowing'". And somehow it was perfect for the scene in "The King's Speech" as well. Instead of sounding moody and atmospheric, it sounded majestic. It was the sound of an apprehensive, hesitant man becoming a great King.  It was an important part of the movie.

On the way home yesterday, the song kept playing through my head, and I remembered where I had heard it before. It had been one of my father's favourites, Beethoven's 7th Symphony. It was composed in 1812, and first played -- conducted by Beethoven -- in 1813. And today, in the 21st Century, it still sounds as fresh, modern and as beautiful as when it was first composed.

If you haven't seen "The King's Speech" yet, go -- today.

Off For The Weekend...

Today I am off to the beautiful little village of Ladner to visit Leslie, and we're going to see "The King's Speech". I will let you know what I think of it. I want to see it before Oscar night, because I have a feeling it's going to win all the a lot of awards.  The British know how to make movies.

And here is the real King George VI's wartime speech.  You can hear him pausing occasionally.



Have a great weekend, everyone...!

Where Have I Been Lately...? Russia...

Have you ever picked up a book that absorbed you so much, you were teleported to another place? Well, lately I have been teleported to Russia. Winston Churchill once described Russia as "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma", and it is one country that has always fascinated me. If we hold a mirror up to North American society and culture, we see Russia -- ourselves in reverse. We look similar, but North America is very new civilization, and Russia is an ancient one, steeped in beautiful traditions and cultures. Russians have endured tyranny, oppression and authoritarian rule that we can't even imagine, and yet they remain more positive, upbeat -- happier -- than we are in North America. Perhaps that is the enigma.

The book "Russia" by Jonathan Dimbleby takes us on a journey with him from Murmansk in the west to Vladivostok in the east, a journey of 10,000 miles and eight time zones. We go through isolated villages and sophisticated cities. We meet people from all walks of life, intellectuals, aging rock stars, loggers, Babushkas, teenagers, and just regular, ordinary people. In this photograph, Dimbleby is interviewing two young women at a cocktail party in St. Petersburg. I thought the blonde woman looked a bit like the actress Melanie Griffith.

A friend of mine once took the train from Moscow to Leningrad, now St. Petersburg.  She sent me postcards along the way, and at the time I thought it was probably the closest I would ever get to seeing Russia.  But this book takes me there.  It's wonderful.  So, if you have been wondering where I am, I'm on my journey through Russia.  Yes, I will send you postcards along the way...