by Heather Plett | Jun 30, 2006 | Uncategorized
I may not be a perfect parent, I may yell at them from time to time, I may get impatient and ignore them when I’ve got something I want to do, I may forget to do the laundry and send them to school with mis-matched socks… BUT at least I don’t leave my sleeping child in the car while I prowl for HOOKERS! AND THEN FORGET WHERE I PARKED!
The fact that someone could do such an utterly ridiculous, irresponsible thing without facing charges leaves me completely dumbfounded. Dumb. founded. Flabber. gasted. (On a completely different note, does anyone know where either of those strange words come from?)
by Heather Plett | Jun 29, 2006 | Uncategorized
Thank you for welcoming the cool Nikki to blogworld. She’s tickled pink with all her comments.
Now can you oblige me one more time and welcome another new blogger? Want some more hints?
– she’s a spunky freckled redhead with a great sense of humour
– she’s a whiz at school
– she read all of the Harry Potter books by the time she was eight
– she loves to bake (and eat) cakes and cookies
Yup, I’m the proud mom doing my best to raise writers!
by Heather Plett | Jun 28, 2006 | Uncategorized
I work downtown. Nearly every day, I walk past the poor, the destitute, the marginalized of society. I’ve learned to block it out – the glaring poverty around me. After so many years of walking downtown streets, I know how to insulate myself against it. I don’t really see them. I brush them off when they ask for change, I hurry past them when they get in my way. I rarely look in their eyes. I forget about their humanity.
I think I’m safe behind my walls. I justify my actions. “It’s best not to hand them spare change – they’ll probably spend it on alcohol or drugs.” “There are downtown ministries that can help them – I don’t have to.” “I’m doing my part for poverty overseas – I can only do so much.”
It’s so much easier to feed people in Africa. It’s easier to care for the children who don’t stumble drunk down back lanes of my downtown. It’s easier to visit their mud huts, take pictures of them, and then go home to my comfort and my table full of plenty.
I think I’m safe in my fourth floor office with my posters and brochures about ending hunger in Africa or Asia. I think I’m okay blocking out the poverty just outside my door. But then I leave the building at lunch time, open the door in a distracted state, stumble over the drunk sleeping body of one of the poor of my own city, and I find myself shaken to the core. My heart won’t stop racing.
The poor are right here. With me. Around me. And I have learned to ignore them for my lofty ideas of feeding hungry children elsewhere.
After lurching past the body on the sidewalk, I stepped inside the church next door. The priest spoke words directly to me. God cares for the poor. It may not be what he said, but it’s what I heard. Blessed are the poor. Blessed is the drunk man sleeping in my doorway.
by Heather Plett | Jun 28, 2006 | Uncategorized
Don’t you sometimes want to mess with billboards and ad campaigns? Sometimes advertising brings out the subversive in me and I find myself tempted to climb up onto a billboard with a can of spray paint to add a few words of truth.
In the mornings, I cycle past an armoury where they display recruitment posters for the military. “Strong, Proud,” the poster proclaims above a picture of a young soldier in uniform, and I want to add at the bottom “and sometimes dead.”
Beneath the multitude of ads for the latest cell phone, I want to print “Seriously. Isn’t your old one good enough?” or “Get real – you need to watch TV on your CELL PHONE? Perhaps a visit to an addictions counselor is in order!?”
Under the ads for the latest exercise equipment – the ones with the buxom babes and bronzed bodybuilders, I want to say “Come on – you KNOW you’d have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for plastic surgery if you want THAT body. Buy the exercise equipment and you’ll be out a coupla hundred dollars and you’ll STILL have your old body!”
On the clothing ads… “Take a good look in your closet. Do you really NEED more clothes?” or “It may look good on the model, but it will look like a SACK on you!”
Under “Wal-mart. Always low prices,” I’d put “Abusing people all over the world so YOU can enjoy low prices.”
Fast food restaurants: “Do you want to add THIGHS with that?” or “Bring us your kids – we’ll make them fat and lazy.”
And speaking of the “Truth in Advertising”, check out this hilarious video clip.
And here’s another fun link about the truth in tobacco advertising.
What truth would you add to ad campaigns?
by Heather Plett | Jun 28, 2006 | Uncategorized
With tonight’s final game (a nail-biter resulting in Julie’s team emerging victorious), soccer season ends until September. Next week will find us twiddling our thumbs, not knowing what to do with all the free evenings. Perhaps we’ll set up our lawn chairs on the edge of a soccer field anyway, just out of force of habit.
It’s been an incredible season – no missed games because of bad weather. Only a few at the beginning were too cold to be pleasant, but mostly it’s been a delightful way to spend the evenings.
So now, because I know you’re dying to see them in uniform, I give you THE SOCCER PICTURES….
First of all, Nikki, who’s wearing #7
And here’s Julie, wearing #3
And because he got in on the action too, here’s a pic of Coach Daddy with his favourite team-member and with his coaching partners (note the stylish coach attire – I made them all photo shirts with the team pic on it).
If I were handing out end-of-season team awards, I would give Julie “most improved player” (she got quite aggressive toward the end there!) and Nikki “strongest kicker” (yikes! I’d be scared to get in front of that powerful leg of hers!). Oh, and Daddy and his coaching buddies – “most valuable coaches” (they made an awesome team)!
