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Standing up for Silver Sisters
Like most of the nation, I couldn’t help but be shocked and saddened when the now former CTV News Anchor Lisa LaFlamme showed up on Twitter this week to talk about how she’d been unceremoniously sacked from her job and then asked to keep quiet about it for several months. As the days wore on, and opinions were spouted and columns were penned, it started to become clear that sexism and ageism were likely at play here, and when it was admitted that her natural hair colour might have been part o the decision making process, women (and men) around the country… Read more…
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Masks and (peri)menopause don’t mix
We’re getting closer to putting 2020 behind us. Good riddance to bad rubbish, as my mother might say. Life everyone else, I’m sick and tired of COVID-19. It has ruined plans, taken people from us, delayed travel, interrupted educations and disrupted the economy. Depending on where we live, it may have locked us in our houses, and wherever we live, it’s made us hoard toilet paper, hand sanitizer and wipes. We started baking bread, leaving flour and yeast I even heard that popcorn was in short supply as we hunkered down to see if we could watch all of Netflix. Really early on, before we… Read more…
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Silver linings
Forty-something days into self-isolation and the hair jokes are running rampant. Beards, mustaches, hair needing a cut, bad haircuts that have been undertaken and roots – the dreaded roots that have bottled blondes worried about becoming brunettes and brunettes worried about lighter colours growing in. My own locks are long enough that a month or two without a trim isn’t noticeable – and I was fortunate enough to have gone to my trusty hairdresser just before the world changed. So the most noticeable change for me is the silver halo I’m now beginning to sport. In my case though, the… Read more…
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Changing with the times
Yesterday, as I was driving home, I saw my first flock of starlings this fall. They were dancing across the sky, magically swooping and twirling as one single unit. I’ve always been astounded at how birds do that. I know that geese, flying in formation, take turns as leader, but a flock of birds doesn’t seem to have the same, as they morph into different shapes, and double back again and again, never leaving a single member behind. When I saw this, I was coming home from a choral rehearsal, and the similarities between the birds acting as one, and… Read more…
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Are you happy
I’m reading a book called The Happiness Curve. It posits that our 30s and 40s are the most unhappy decades of our lives – where stress lives and where things bottom out, so to speak – and that in our 50s, we regain a great deal of balance and happiness. I think there’s some truth to that, at least in my somewhat privileged Canadian experience. I have a circle of friends who are either approaching or are just past that magic half-century mark and we’re all seeing a bright shiny future coming closer and closer. We’ve been heard humming Pharrell Williams’ iconic song. Many of… Read more…
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Bidding adieu
Tomorrow morning, bright and early, the moving truck will arrive. It will trundle up to my driveway after having made its way along the torn up streets in my neighbourhood, ready to whisk me away to the next chapter of my life. But today, I’m wandering through empty rooms; my life is packed up in box upon box stacked in my kitchen, my living room, my bedroom, my study. As I stand in the entry to my daughter’s room, I can almost smell the scent of nail polish and hear the giggles of long-haired beauties as they choose a new… Read more…
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Taking the slow lane
I’m off on a business trip again. I seem to go a little more than once a month these days, and the insanity of air travel in Canada in the winter is starting to wear thin. Life in general seems to be moving faster and faster every year, with no chance to breathe. I feel this constant hum – a vibration almost – that is the background to everything, and is keeping me on edge. Even yoga, which sadly has been reduced to once-a-week classes – and maybe that’s why – isn’t keeping it at bay. This guy REALLY knows how… Read more…
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And the years speed by
When I started writing this blog almost three years ago, people objected to its original name. And I was more than willing to be told I wasn’t middle-aged yet. But is it time to admit that it might be here now? I’m a communicator by profession; a degree in journalism, followed by a 25+ year career in public relations and communications. As a young greenhorn, that meant interviewing supervisors, managers and even site directors. These were men – and yes, back then they were pretty much all men – much older than me. A few years later, when I accompanied… Read more…
