tag:www.whitneyrb.com,2005:/blogs/foolish-whit?p=4Foolish Whit2020-03-04T13:19:48-05:00Whitney Ross-Barrisfalsetag:www.whitneyrb.com,2005:Post/62346702020-03-02T14:18:43-05:002023-10-16T10:44:28-04:00Because Music (Uxbridge Cosmos Feb. 2020)<p><span class="font_large">Dear readers, where do I start? You may not remember me. I’m your friendly neighbourhood jazz singer-slash-mother of three. Since you last read me, I and my family left my “Life in the Big City,” and moved back to Uxbridge; I have made another human, adding a third boy to my army; and I have lost an<em> innumerable</em> amount of brain cells. I admit when returning to the town of my sarcastic adolescence, I was slightly apprehensive, wondering if I had burned any Ux-bridges I would have to cross over again. But, thankfully, it seems, I wasn’t the bridge-burning type. In fact, I think I’m just entering my bridge-burning stage of life, so this may get interesting. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">Anyhoo, my busy days now are filled with caring for my boys – two that are school age and the third, my two-year old shadow. While herding these feral cats, I write lyrics and melodies, clanging away on a shocked and appalled 1908 piano I inherited with the century home we now inhabit. I’m also trying to maintain a singing voice that is more accustomed these days to a kind of air-splitting hospital orderly voice of authority (which, let’s face it, is more and more like Fran Drescher than Nurse Ratched, and no one is taking <em>that</em> seriously.) Vocal warm up generally entails, coaxing Drescher into chilling out with a torch-burning ballad…or a glass of wine for mummy (while cooking a dinner that no one will eat.) </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">Between school pick-ups, drop-offs and singing gigs in the city, I actually get to go out and see live music from time to time – the logistics made easier amidst the multiplying gaggle of kids by my partner being a gloriously devoted introvert. And for this, I am grateful not only for the chance to escape the asylum to talk to humans over the age of eight about anything other than farts, but also because I feel very strongly and deeply that taking in live music makes me a happier and healthier person and I believe it has the power to do that for <em>every single person on this struggling planet</em>. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">About a week ago, I went to hear a gig of reimagined, carefully curated songs from a most creative and perception-altering time in modern history, 1969. A friend and extremely gifted singer, Genevieve Marentette with her extraordinary band (bassist George Koller, pianist Attila Fias , drummer Ben Wittman and flautist Bill McBirnie) blew my ever-loving head off and my heart out of my chest. It was a deeply-connected and playful, truly awesome concert. And that is not the first time I’ve felt this at a live music event. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">Now, I’m not a religious person, but music itself is sacred to me. Inspiration and light from humanity. I feel so lucky not only to experience the immense talent that this part of the world has to offer, in a local joint that supports it, but to humbly stand as a member of it. It fills my heart and brain and lifts my mood to see my friends succeed and share and have interesting and things to say and arresting ways of saying them. But, you don’t have to be a member of the music community to feel the same way. Who among us hasn’t had a total <em>crap</em> day only to completely turn it around by putting on a favourite song, exorcizing the bad feelings by dancing, head-banging, air-guitaring, finger-drumming, car-singing, showering-singing, eye-closing, running, or walking til we feel better? </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">Now, think about that cherished, inspiring recording. As musicians, we continue to put out records because <em>what would the world be like</em> without being able to rock out to our jams while doing all those things I just mentioned? And we keep putting out records because musicians and composers want to move our craft, community and personal growth forward. But it is near <em>impossible</em> with the current streaming model that many of us use to be properly compensated for that immense amount of work and investment. And I really don't believe there is any going back at this point. Sadly. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">HOWEVER. What I experienced last week, watching my friends create something <em>astounding</em> reminded me, there is something <em>unquantifiable</em> that exists only in live performance. It has existed since the first person sang for the first groupie. It is an energy of a shared excitement with others present for the event and a suspended magical (I hate using that word, but) moment in history that you simply cannot capture in a recording unless YOU WERE THERE IN THE ROOM/HALL/AUDITORIUM/ABANDONED FACTORY. And no streaming service can get their hands on that. And - if it's done properly - live music helps musicians survive and feed their kids and fix their guitar and replace their old undies and buy toilet paper (and pay for recording!) </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">So, what I'm saying is get out there and see live music. Something or someone you enjoy. Doesn't have to be the same stuff I love. Whatever turns your freaky crank. And not because you "want to support" but because that kind of experience and of intimately shared joy and sorrow is life-affirming and life-giving for you (and yes, your kids too) AND for the people you're seeing and hearing. And that should be part of everyone's life ON THE REGULAR. </span></p>Whitney Ross-Barristag:www.whitneyrb.com,2005:Post/46158492017-03-03T18:23:00-05:002017-03-10T02:05:48-05:00The Dark Road (Uxbridge Cosmos Feb. 2017)<p>It is nighttime. Not sure how late. Feels like three in the morning. Could be ten p.m. because I’m only seven years old. My big sister is next to me in our family car and we’re separated by our pillows, teddies, maybe a bag or a box or two. She’s asleep. Mom is in front of me in the passenger’s seat. She nodded off about an hour ago. Dad is driving. Silent. I don’t recall what’s on the radio. The radio is always on in our house; CBC, then later CJRT as well. News, Oscar Peterson and Mozart. We’re on a long, straight prairie road between Alberta and Saskatchewan. It is summer. The smell of dewy sweetgrass and wild roadside sage is wafting in through dad’s cracked-open window. </p>
<p>Only hours before, in Edmonton, we had packed the last of our house on 85th Street into our little brown Mazda, and descended the wobbly cement steps out front for the last time. My sister and both of my parents had wept unabashedly as we waved goodbye to our neighbours and close friends of almost nine years. I had never really seen my parents cry. It was unsettling. Why were they so upset? I mean, I understood why, I was simply intrigued by the depth of their sadness. Why wasn’t I that upset too? I squeezed my eyes shut to see if I could feel that same loss. Hmm. I suppose at seven, I was still filled with a naïve sort of giddiness at the prospect of an adventure. I had friends in Edmonton, but being attached to them hadn’t really occurred to me. Not in the way it had seemingly unhinged my family. </p>
<p>My mom, my sister and I had spent that last summer out West, awaiting the return of my dad from Ontario, where he had gone ahead to start work in our new home province. Jobs in broadcasting were numerous out East and, as a freelance writer and broadcaster, my pop couldn’t turn down the prospects on offer. We finished our school year and while we waited for dad to come back and get us, my mom, my sister and I weathered a spontaneous neighbourhood crime spree as well as our city’s brush with an F4 tornado one black Friday. Strangely, our time out West had been fairly uneventful up until that last summer. </p>
<p>And so, all that behind us, quietly awake in the back of our car, I watch the moonlit-blue telephone poles and wires, swooping and hitching, swooping and hitching, swooping and hitching out my window. The sky is a dark navy, faintly brighter on the horizon, during this brief summer night. I sigh and slump sideways, watch the highway through the front windshield. The asphalt road ahead stretches only as far as our headlights and beyond it is blackness. Out of the abyss, the painted white lines on the road appear like Space Invaders laser beams then disappear under the car. Shhhoooom, shhhooom, shhhooom. It feels as if we’re about to drive over a cliff or like some unseen greedy being is reeling us into the darkness like an oblivious marlin. </p>
<p>It occurs to me – at seven – that this is the uncertainty of life ahead. Driving with confidence into the darkness, knowing there is a new home and adventure on the other side and being powerless to this highway and its pull with its spontaneous white dashes. I am excited. I am ashamed at how hopeful I am, in this solemn silence of farewells and doubt. I am, however, not afraid. </p>
<p>And so, years later – my goodness, it’ll be 30 years, this summer – I awake from a vivid dream with it still heavily, drowsily in my mind: I’m driving. It’s nighttime. It’s the same dark highway from 30 years ago, but I’m not seven, I’m me now: 37 years old, brassy, anxious, frustrated. In my red-framed glasses there is a determined flashing glare invading from the sides, first from the right, then the left, like someone is trying to distract and throw me off on purpose. I use my hands to try to block it, because it’s blinding and I’m losing sight of the road. Someone is with me, in the passenger’s seat. Not sure who, but this calm but dependent person is giving me the confidence to keep going. Where? Who knows? I know it’s dark ahead, the way isn’t clear, but DAMMIT, I will drive on and we will get there. I wake with a predominant feeling of determination and fearlessness. </p>
<p>This dream came very soon after the swearing-in of he-who-shall-not-be-named-because-he-doesn’t-deserve-more-press-space and the ensuing unleashed international violence and hatred. This dream revealed itself on the heels of my participation in the International Women’s March on Washington, in Toronto. It was a day I won’t soon forget. It was moving, it was solemn, it was peaceful, it was frenetic, it was angry, it was full of love, it was male and female, it was separate and together, it was colourful and sexy and strong and tender and tall and small and round and gaunt, it was blindingly beautiful and dishearteningly sad. It spoke of a dire need for understanding and empathy and compassion. Predominantly, it was determined and it was fearless. </p>
<p>On the dark horizon of this beautiful-horrible world is a great challenge. We’re driving into an unknown, being reeled, oblivious, into an exciting and yes, terrifying change in our universe. This change may ask us to put others first, to make space for the vulnerable, to help keep them safe, to read and to write, to think and ask difficult questions. Will you turn your back? Are you ready to fight the distractions, to open your brave heart and drive into the abyss?</p>Whitney Ross-Barristag:www.whitneyrb.com,2005:Post/42628302016-07-04T15:18:41-04:002017-03-03T18:16:48-05:00Songwriting and My Blabbery Mouth (Uxbride Cosmos Feb. 2016)<p>A few years ago I got a part in a new translation of an old play. A young Canadian director had collaborated with the granddaughter of Bertolt Brecht and re-translated the tragic German play, Woyzeck. In casting, the director saw that I was a jazz singer and assumed that I could write music. <br> <br>“Hey, I was thinking we could have some original music in the show. You write, don’t you?” <br>My brain gaffawed, “Write?! HAHAHAHAhaaaHAhahaha! No. I have never written a song in my LIFE!” <br>But my mouth said, “Yes. Yes I do. I would like to write some original music. Because. That. Is what I do.” <br>Idiot. <br> <br>Thank goodness for my blabbery mouth that makes its own decisions. Because that’s how I got into songwriting. <br> <br>So, for Woyzeck, a fun but not particularly lucrative production, I wrote such timeless, heart-warming classics as “Never Trust a Sausage,” “What Makes a Man a Mensch” and “Stay Yet” – a song that I ultimately recorded in New York just a few years later. <br> <br>That crazy but important experience then led to the writing of another song. One that even my jazz-schooled colleagues admitted they enjoyed playing on and were genuinely impressed I’d written. <br> <br>While high on my own surprise that I could actually write and as an underslept new mother of my first son, I ran into a favourite colleague at a local jam. A guitar player, Nathan Hiltz. We’d performed together a number of times at this point and were gabbing over a pint and shouting at each other over the din of the club. <br> <br>“Hey, do you write?” he asked, not knowing of my newfound GENIUS! <br>“Yup. Yes I do.” I replied, over-tooting my inexperienced horn. <br>“We should get together and write something,” he suggested earnestly. <br>“Yeah, that’d be great,” I said, in that way that we actors sometimes do, with over-friendliness and white-toothed keenness, knowing full well we have no intention of making it happen. It goes along beautifully with the let’s-have-coffees and the I’ll-introduce-you-to-my-agents or the we’ll-do-that-play-reads; a sweetly frosted bid of anxious suggestion rather than an actual promise or proposal. <br> <br>And guess what the rotten so-and-so did, he kept his word! I received a text, not two days later. <br>“When R U free? I’m open Friday morning.” <br>OH MY GOD. WHAT?! What do I even do? I can’t write music with an actual jazz musician…who’s gone to school and stuff! <br>“Yes,” I replied, “Friday will get heat.” <br>Ach, autocorrect! <br>“GREAT. It will be great.” <br> <br>So, that’s how it started. Friday at 10:30am, Nate showed up. I put my then four-month-old son in the Jolly Jumper, poured some hot coffee and Nate played me some ideas he’d worked out on his scratched up acoustic. </p>
<p>When a musician of Nate’s skill sits down and plays “some ideas of something” he has “worked out,” you thank for freekin lucky stars it’s you who gets to paint the lyrical picture. I thought at first, maybe he’d asked the wrong person. He seemed to have an endless wealth of ideas. And all of them astoundingly beautiful. I had no experience or idea of how or where to start as a lyricist. I listened. I nodded my head. I slurped my coffee. The baby kept time, repelling off the kitchen floor…boing, boing, boing…I was trying to mask the cold sweat on my palms. <br> <br>After Nate left, I sat down and write, listening to the melodies we’d recorded on our phones. I tried and tried but everything I wrote was just awful, clichéd and, often, had been written before. <br>“You… you are the…you arrrre my…you are my sunsh-…” aw, crap. <br>“Put your haaaaannnnd… put your hand in the…hand of the mannn…” COME ON! <br>“I just calllllled…” nope. <br> <br>I put it to bed. Maybe I wasn’t cut out for songwriting. Perhaps it was best left to the people I whose songwriting I so admired – Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, Frank Loesser, Johnny Mercer, Neil Young…my own grandfather, a reluctant but skilled lyricist in his own right. Before he became the well-known Canadian columnist and broadcasting personality that many remember, he himself had laboured away as a singer and songwriter for a number of years. <br> <br>The next day, I set out, walking briskly with the wee man in the stroller. I put in my ear phones and listened to all the melodies Nate had gifted me so confidently. I walked. Soon my baby was sleeping and with the hypnotic rhythm of my own feet stepping and my body moving forward, the energy of the city full of ideas zooming past me, it all starting flooding my brain. Images, words, poems, rhymes. <br> <br>Over the next four years, Nate and I wrote songs about love and loss and home and spring and death and a skunk. And we continue to write, though now Nate is a new dad and my own kids continue to grow, so, needless to say, writing time is precious and fleeting between tiny bum-wiping and juice-pouring and bedtime-storying. But I still find my best ideas while walking.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><iframe class="justify_inline" data-video-type="youtube" data-video-id="MB3RSNVGS8A" data-video-thumb-url="http://img.youtube.com/vi/MB3RSNVGS8A/0.jpg" type="text/html" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MB3RSNVGS8A?rel=0&wmode=transparent&enablejsapi=1" frameborder="0" height="200" width="320" allowfullscreen="true"></iframe><br><em>"In A World Without Him" - Hiltz/Ross-Barris - featuring moi, Nahtan Hiltz (G) and Gord Mowat (B)</em></p>Whitney Ross-Barristag:www.whitneyrb.com,2005:Post/39939992016-01-18T07:31:54-05:002022-02-20T12:20:38-05:00A Very Bargain Bin Jazz Christmas (Uxbridge Cosmos Dec. 2015)<p>Everything I know about jazz singing I learned from a bargain bin Christmas tape. <br> <br>Actually, now that I’ve written that and now that it’s published in print, I should probably amend that, as I have learned a lot about jazz from the musicians I’m so ridiculously lucky to work with… as well as the teachers and professionals that have offered me advice and guidance over the last few years. <br> <br>Okay, so, ALMOST everything I know about jazz singing… and that’s still not a lot… I learned from a bargain bin Christmas tape. <br> <br>I don’t remember how long ago this tape came into my possession. Maybe the late 80s? My mom came home from an October or November shopping excursion with a rather lame-looking tape labeled “A Jazz Christmas.” The cover was one that you’ve probably overlooked a thousand times – an airbrushed stocking filled with a cartoonish-looking saxophone. I imagine it’s a couple of sweaty dudes in the back of a badly-lit warehouse designing the jazz Christmas compilation albums. <br> <br>“Hey, Gary! Another Jazz Christmas tape.” <br>“Ah, not another one!” <br>“Should we go with the Santa Claus in sunglasses or the saxophone in a stocking?” <br>“What about the Three-Wisemen-sunglasses-horns triple whammy?” <br>“We just did four of those.” <br>“Go with the stocking.” <br> <br>Yeah, that’s jazz. Nothing says painstaking skill and modern musical innovation like a saxophone in a stocking. <br> <br>Anyhoo, this particular non-descript, lame-looking cassette tape of Christmas music featured the legendary likes of pianist, Dave Brubeck; vocalese trio, Lambert, Hendricks and Ross; saxophonist, Dexter Gordon; Duke Ellington’s Orchestra, to name but a few. I glommed onto it like a fat squirrel on a peanut butter birdfeeder and by about the third Christmas with this tape in my possession, I had managed to nearly wear it out. My sister grew tired of me maniacally playing it over and over, rolling her eyes when I giddily pulled it out each November and popped it into my trusty tape deck. <br> <br>For a long time I’ve felt a bit ashamed of the fact that a Christmas album has been one of my biggest influences as a jazz singer. Anyone who has hit a mall or any big box store over the last 20 years during the holidays can attest to the fact that bad Christmas music is the worst kind of bad music. It is near-torturous to endure. If I have to hear Mariah Carey shriek out another “All I Want for Christmas Is You” in this lifetime, I may have to move to space in a bubble of silence and kittens. <br> <br>So, why did I love this tape? Why is it such an influence? Holiday music is something I’ve heard probably since birth, once a year, every year for at least 36 years. The songs that we hear and that some of us sing at this time of year are as much a part of my psyche as tying my shoes or brushing my teeth. Whether I like it or not, I could probably sing “Deck the Halls” while sleeping, juggling flaming axes and having my molars pulled out. It is just in there. So, when I listen to Jon Hendricks take that Fa-la-la melody, turn it on its fiery backside and ride it around like a frickin’ Space Hopper, I’m suddenly aware of the thrilling and unending possibilities of music. <br> <br>As a musician, I knowingly and unknowingly borrow from my favourites when I’m learning and performing. Everybody does – so I’ve read and so I’m told. In my case, as I seldom rehearse for more than about three minutes at a time – full disclosure, I have zero rehearsal time with a demanding two-year-old that insists I play “A-B-Cs now, Mummy!” every time I sit at the piano. So, with little time to woodshed, I listen. I listen to recordings that make me happy, and that bring me back to the earth, and that keep me from running and screaming through the streets on my bad days. And so it is, that I have listened until every solo, every syllable of scat, every lick of every cut on this silly bargain bin Christmas tape has been pressed in red and green glittery letters and notes on my heart. Now, when I sing, “Have Yourself and Merry Little Christmas” or “Honeysuckle Rose,” I inevitably give away the phrases and lines I’ve heard and cherished for 36 years, but through my own weird musical filter. <br> <br>Eventually, “A Jazz Christmas” got misplaced – or perhaps mysteriously hidden – and I lost track of it. However, years later I rediscovered the tape with its cartoonish sax in a stocking, in a box and converted it into a CD that I played this very afternoon at my sister’s house with the family hanging around. I cranked that baby loud enough for all to hear. They remembered it. And they liked it. I will be playing it on repeat until New Year’s day or until it mysteriously disappears again…whichever happens first.</p>Whitney Ross-Barristag:www.whitneyrb.com,2005:Post/39939982016-01-18T07:29:36-05:002016-01-18T07:29:36-05:00Nose Jobs and Face Snobs (Uxbridge Cosmos Nov. 2015)<p>Big schnozz. The word bounced around in my head from ear to ear. Schnozz. How do I even spell that? Is it German? What does it have to do with me? Was it even directed at me? No… Maybe? <br> <br>These were honest questions I asked myself when, as a schoolgirl, a sensitive young dumdum jokingly guffawed with his equally empathetic d-bag buddies in reference to a very prominent feature on my face, over which I had no control. <br> <br>Once I determined to what and whom they were referring and that it was a sort of belittling yokel insult directed at me for no good reason except to do just that, of course, my feelings were hurt, my already-uncomfortable pre-teen confidence faltered, I immediately hated my nose and why couldn’t it be smaller and cuter, and more like all the pretty girls’ noses?! <br> <br>The nose-hate continued for many years after that. Oh, the injustice! Here in the bloom of my youth, to be afflicted with such a monstrous disfigurement! I started to look into the history of my nose: my dad, the grandson of Greek immigrants, my mother, the great granddaughter of Scottish immigrants. My nose was the genetic result of a Greek and Hebridean bloodline, where it seems the Ancient Greeks met the Celtic-Vikings and broke deoxyribonucleic bread. I looked at my mom and dad, their moms and dads and their moms and dads. I began to see my angular profile descended down a line of prominent noses. Noses of courageous immigrants who’d fled their turbulent homes to find a better and safer life in a completely alien country. Noses of strong-willed immigrants who’d helped to shape the country I call home. It was a nose of creative thinkers and never-sleepers. It was a nose of determination and hilarious wit. It was a nose of character and mischief. <br> <br>When I was trying to establish a career as an actor in my late twenties, I worked briefly as an administrative assistant for a talent agency – an unhappy and all-too-real place to be for someone who had been more accustomed to the other side of the table. One day, one the agents called me into her office to go over a to do list for the day. We digressed from the task at hand and started chatting about my history with representation and auditioning. I told her that I had considered shopping around for a higher-profile agent than the one I had – an agent who had actually just dropped me, not a month before that conversation. We went over the possible reasons for my lack of success in finding an agent and my limited bookings in film and TV. She leant forward as if to let me in on some juicy gossip. I followed suit, leaning in to her as well. <br> <br>“Have you ever considered...?” She candidly whispered, and she tapped the bridge of her nose lightly – tap, tap, tap – elaborating with her delicate and shocking gesture that I might need a nose job. <br> <br>RECORD SCRATCH. My insides recoiled. The Ancient Greeks and Celtic Vikings in my very DNA readied their pointed, shining spears. <br> <br>“NO!” I retorted, surprising myself. “For one, my family would disown me. It’s like a club. We all have the same nose. I would be literally CUTTING THEM OFF. Secondly, have you SEEN the other features on my face?! My nose may not be dainty but at least it balances out the moon-face chin and the Olympic-sized cheekbones. And third, if I got my nose done, I’d just look like everybody else.” <br> <br>Not surprisingly, I got sacked from that job after only two weeks. But at least I came out with my nose in tact and a newfound appreciation for its uniqueness. I reflect on that experience now and how I’d reacted, realizing that it may have, in fact, been a very important moment in the history of me. It was perhaps my first real moment of standing my ground in a business that I love and respect, but a business that is notoriously shallow and personally disheartening. A moment of saying, “no, this is who I am and it’s important.” <br> <br>Now that I have kids and a career in performance, I really don’t have a lot of time to hate myself. There are more important things to deal with in this life like good coffee and not saying the F-word in from of my toddler. I’m grateful for that wisdom-for-bloom-of-youth trade-off. <br> <br>Having said that, it’s now, twenty-some-odd years later and I think I’ve finally got a rebuttal to the Schnozz comment guy. I no longer remember who it was, but if I were 12 again, I’d say, “Schnozz? Good for you. You know Yiddish? How about this one: Putz? Or maybe Schmuck?...No? Ya know, I’ll tell you one thing, if by getting a nose job I could stop myself from smelling your future failure as an emotionally stable and competent adult, perhaps I’d consider calling Dr. Mulholland for a consultation.” <br> <br>Mic drop. Whitney RB over and out.</p>Whitney Ross-Barristag:www.whitneyrb.com,2005:Post/39939972016-01-18T07:27:12-05:002016-01-18T07:27:12-05:00W.W.J.A.D. – What Would Jane Austen Do? (Uxbridge Cosmos May 2015)<p>Sigh… I just finished watching the last episode of “The Paradise,” Season two. It’s a British period drama about the inner workings and excitements of a Victorian department store. So, here’s the part, in my affectionate description of these types of shows, where my long-suffering husband likely tunes me out, replacing my yammering voice with the soothing sounds of nature in his head. <br> <br>“There’s a girl named Denise and she’s, um, Scottish?... but not that hard Glaswegian Scottish, just sort of soft… and she’s just beautiful and really tall and my God, her waist is tiny and she’s in love with the owner of the… CALM BLUE OCEAN WAVES, CHICKADEES CALLING IN WINTER, WATERFALLS IN A B.C. RAINFOREST.” Ugh, poor man. <br> <br>I love me a BBC period drama like a Victorian spinster loved tiny dogs. LOVE! If I have a trying day – the boys have had me up at dawn, one of them is teething, the other MUST HAVE WAFFLES, but there are none, I’ve just done a massive grocery shop on foot and at the checkout realize I don’t have my wallet – I have a glass of wine, or maybe a glass-and-a-half (let’s not get crazy here, I’m not a Barrymore) and sit down in front of the blazing flat screen and crank up the Netflix to the tune of “Pride & Prejudice” or “Downton Abbey.” Some nights it’s “Little Dorrit” or “Mr. Selfridge” keeping me up until two in the morning with the plea to my drooping eyelids and violently nodding head of “JUST ONE MORE EPISODE, then I’ll go to bed.” There’s something in the happy, admittedly nerdy and pathetic sigh that I exhale at the end of a costume-drama binge-watch on Netflix that melts away all the mundane ick of the week. <br> <br>I’ve only recently realized that the soul-affirming effect of these series is the product of a tenderly nursed obsession with British romance and what I call my “English Country Fantasy Life.” </p>
<p>As far back as I can remember, my mom has been a great consumer of British literature and history and its interpretations on television. I can recall many a night, falling asleep to sound of the boisterous fanfare opening of “The Antiques Road Show,” or the operatic whimpering of the Edward Gorey-animated fainting lady on PBS’s “Mystery!” For years, my sister, my mother and I have passed around our copies of the 1995 adaptation of “Pride & Prejudice,” with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle. Initially, the three of us would sit down together and watch all five hours and twenty-seven minutes of it in a day. Now, with limited time, with careers and overflowing children and grandchildren, we scarcely get past the dum-deedle-deedle-dum of the opening overture before one of us has to dole out the Goldfish crackers, break out the Play-doh or change a sagging diaper. We have also now come to know the value of those five plus hours. In the amount of time it would take to watch only half of P & P, I could bake cupcakes, wash all the bed sheets, eat four of those cupcakes over the sink, wash the dog poo off some tiny rubber boots, move all the living room furniture around, move it back to where it was originally, learn a new song, write a column for the paper, erase it and start another or simply spend the entire time searching for pictures of Johnny Depp in tight pants on Google. <br> <br>In fact, the development of my English Country Fantasy Life likely began with that 1995 mini-series when I first saw a soaking wet Colin Firth emerge from the lake at Pemberley, his long white tunic clinging to his chest like a baby monkey clinging to its sexy, wet Colin Firth monkey mama. <br> <br>Yes, that’s where it started and then it grew. Is it the poor-girl-meets-rich-guy-and-they-fall-madly-in-love scenario? A little. Is it the clever-girl-outsmarts-rich-idiots-and-marries-the-one-she-loves-anyway scenario? Maybe-sorta? Is it the “poor” girl-still-lives-in-a-stunning-country-house-with-creeping-ivy-and-garden-in-full-English-bloom-with-access-to-a-million-pretty-dresses-horsies-library-and-a-house-staff-to-feed-her-and-wash-her-bloomers-in-lavender-water? Uh-duh. Yes. Nail on head. Not having the vote, having a severely limited scope of life possibilities, a total lack of civil rights and being tied into my whale bone underwear every day would – let’s agree – be soul-sucking, but wouldn’t it also kinda just be dreamy?! <br> <br>My English Country Fantasy Life looks like this: baking bread daily with the sunrise, walking in the fresh mornings with my sheepdog, the heavy dew beading off my wellies, the sun glistening off the whisper of the sea beyond the far away hills of green and chalky cliffs of white. <br> <br>The English Country Reality? Me reluctantly waking at dawn, eating a cold pop tart while I battle traffic on sheep-width roads, to drive my kids to a school in the nearest city, peering through a rain-pummeled windshield, with red, irritated, hay feverish eyes, then rushing to get home to figure out how the flippin-‘eck to make ends meet in this isolated jolly ol’ hell hole. <br> <br>It is just a fantasy. I know. These period dramas are a total guilty pleasure, fulfilling my need to escape. For just a few hours – admittedly more than a few, if I can manage to ignore my life for that long – I sit on my couch or hide under my duvet and immerse myself in this dream of perfection, this life of simplicity where the sun almost always shines (except for when people die or are separated by tragic circumstances of class), where there are swans on ponds and horse hooves on cobblestones, where one’s only responsibility seems to lie in learning to sew, sing, dance and play the piano forte and where men are curly-haired, stoic, polite but brooding, wet Colin Firth. It’s a beautiful fabrication by skilled writers and well-funded producers, but I will drink that cordial. And I will continue to foster my English Country Fantasy Life, because Jane Austen would want me to.</p>Whitney Ross-Barristag:www.whitneyrb.com,2005:Post/34880052015-01-26T21:56:22-05:002017-01-13T13:15:44-05:00Fancy Beards and Fancy Coffee (Uxbridge Cosmos Jan. 2015)I’m getting old. It’s official. I apologize for that statement, as I know that some of you will be thinking, “I remember eleven-year-old Whitney playing “Fagin” in Oliver! at Uxbridge Public School…So, how old does that make ME?” Listen, once we’re past our ridiculous 20s I think, we’re all entitled to feel a little old sometimes. I have two young children. I’ve earned at least a tiny share of smug-old-person scowling and self-righteousness. Currently, there is a growing population of 20-something hipsters in my city and while I used to admire their originality, I’ve come to realize that many of them are really just annoying young people.<br> <br>Not long ago, I popped into a popular neighbourhood espresso bar that I had passed numerous times on the street to get what was touted in local press as being a REALLY good cup of coffee. Upon entering, I was assaulted by music at a decibel level that was just too loud for my liking, thank-you-very-much (see what I mean? Next stop, angry-fist-shaking at ‘those darn neighbourhood kids’ from my front porch.) Honestly, I don’t know if you could call this soundtrack “music.” At first I thought maybe I was missing something. Literally, I thought that maybe there was some sound level or tone that only those under 25 could hear. What I <em>could</em> hear sounded like the bridge of the Starship Enterprise, a seemingly random spatter of bleeps and pings over a low drone with a depressed-sounding melody sung by a woman (?) who, I’m pretty sure, was standing in a wet cave at low tide. Before I could be dragged out to sea, I remembered why I had gone in to the shop in the first place. Good coffee, dammit!<br> <br>I determinedly approached the barista (that’s Coffee-Snob for “Soda Jerk”) and before I could order my cuppa, I was mesmerized by his get-up. The DIY-restyled t-shirt he was wearing – which I heard his colleague compliment – was one that I remember getting for free in about 1990 for the Jump Rope for Heart Campaign. This barista was likely no more than a zygote when I was collecting pledges and jumping rope like a maniac in my school gymnasium. You see, he wasn’t even wearing the shirt ironically from his own youth… he was wearing the shirt as a – oh dear God – VINTAGE PIECE!<br> <br>Then there was his beard. I should’ve known there’d be a bunch of fancy beards in this place. On any given day, there is an impressive tangle of expensive, minimalist bicycles hitched up to the patio railings outside. That’s always a good indication that the beard count inside an establishment is high. There was a time, that a man with a fancy beard was a fashionable and responsible member of Victorian or Edwardian society – a royal, a businessman, a founding father, an Arctic explorer. Then there was another time when beards were a defiant statement of the exact opposite, telling “the man” to shove his razors and square sensibilities. And yet another time came when those men still sporting beards were a bit creepy…or they were Grizzly Adams. It seems now we’ve entered a kind of neo-Fancy Beard era when it’s all very confusing because well-manicured beards have become an extravagant accessory of fashionable, hipsters who don’t care what you think (but they kinda do because that lavender-scented beard oil was 35 dollars at Holts.)<br>But Coffee! Coffee, Whitney!<br> <br>“I’d like a large, medium roast coffee, please?” I felt the order was sufficiently complicated and patted myself on the back for at least knowing what colour roast I was interested in. The bearded-barista smiled perkily.<br> <br>“We don’t have actual drip, just Espresso. Do you want an Americano?”<br>WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?! I want el-Canadiano. A hotto coffee-o in a cuppo!<br> <br>“Yes,” I said calmly, barely veiling my confusion and inner turmoil.<br> <br>“A double or single shot?”<br> <br>Yes please, I thought. Both. At once. Then I realized he was talking about espresso and not whiskey.<br> <br>I really should’ve just given up, thrown up my withered hands and run weeping from the shop, but the blood in my veins was so devoid of caffeine that it was now making the decisions, without the input of my brain.<br> <br>“Yes?”<br> <br>“A double?”<br> <br>“Mm-hmm,” I confirmed with an awkward, helter-skelter smile.<br> <br>And then I shuffled to the end of the counter and got lost in the curated collection of awkward, waxy, dark and ambiguous coffee-shop paintings. It was probably at least a minute and a half of cave-singing and angry, weeping wax art before I realized my Americano was up.<br> <br>I thanked the sleeveless, rope-jumping barista and walked out into the unforgiving light of late morning, defeated…until I drank my absolutely stellar Amerciano and felt reborn…then I realized I’d have to go back into that womb of vengeful youth if I wanted to ever get another one. Oh God. Tea anyone?<br> <div class="captioned justify_center"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/56541/0f0b75ab7864406b933deda0ce4b83202ec271b6/medium/img-0080.jpg?1422327234" class="size_orig justify_center border_" /><p class="caption"><em>My horrific realization that 1994 was more than 20 years ago</em></p></div>Whitney Ross-Barristag:www.whitneyrb.com,2005:Post/32198432014-10-06T16:12:14-04:002014-10-06T16:12:14-04:00Let's All Hate Toronto (Uxbridge Cosmos Sept. 2014)<span class="font_large"><em>*Please note: The following piece was written before I learned of Rob Ford's cancer diagnosis. Though I disagree with the man's politics, I do not wish this terrible illness on anyone and wish him luck and good health, as well as strength and love to his long-suffering family.</em><br><br>Hi, I'm Whitney Ross-Barris and I'm from Toronto. Yes… (<em>sigh</em>) the city with the crack-smoking mayor. THAT Toronto. Yes, friends, the “Big Smoke,” the “T-dot." Well, I may not have been born in Ye Olde Towne of York, but after a number of years living in it, I think I'm finally becoming a Torontonian… and I'm not sure how I feel about it. <br><br>I'm actually an Edmontonian by birth. My family moved to Ontario just after a terrible tornado hit the city in 1987. The only thing I brought with me was a wonderful array of tornado-themed recurring nightmares. <em>Thanks, Edmonton! </em>We rented in Toronto for a year and then moved into the house on Balsam Street, in Uxbridge. I confidently consider Uxbridge my hometown. It's the place where I met my first junebug (Uxbridgites may remember that as the night every window in town shattered</span> <span class="font_large">from the shrill scream of a young girl), where I played my first stage role (the White Rabbit in Uxbridge Public School's “The Trial of Alice in Wonderland” - there wasn't a dry eye in the gymnasium), where I sang my first jazz standard, where I married my Irishman and it's still the place where I find my busy head quieter and my blood pressure lower. <br><br>Despite the years I spent in the prairies and on Balsam Street, I'm pretty certain that I can now legitimately call myself a Torontonian. I own a little house in Leslieville, I pay city taxes, I complain about the weather and I'm always in a damn hurry, wherever I may be, from standing in line at the bank (to see how much money I now <em>don't</em> have) to driving behind a trillion-year-old streetcar on Queen Street. There are times when I'm proud to be from Toronto, times when I hold my head high, revel in my downtown hipness, snobbishness about coffee and my access to every possible kind of cuisine, music and theatre that I want, on any night of the week. Nowadays, however, I tend to keep my Toronto-ness hush-hush. Allow me to illustrate why in two words: Rob Ford.<br><br>I met him once. When he first ran for mayor, he came through the office for which I worked reception. At the time he seemed to be suffering from a cold. He was surrounded by his people, Ms. Stern Terrified, Mr. Curt Stressbutt and Mr. Serious Ignoreyface. I offered him a Kleenex, he blew his nose, I offered him the garbage bin, into which he chucked his tissue and then he handed me his card. “Thanks,” he said. “I'm Rob Ford.” “Duh,” I thought to myself. And also, ew. Snot hands. Thanks for the germs. I chucked his card and sanitized to my shoulder.<br><br>His ethics are misplaced. His lies are blatant and bountiful. His claims are exaggerated. His councilor brother is a bully. His behavior is outrageous and reprehensible. If he were your employee, you'd sack him and ban him from your property. If you wrote the Rob Ford Story into a film, scored it with John Williams, had Spielberg direct it and had Meryl Streep play him, still NOBODY WOULD BELIEVE IT. And if he refers to me as simply a “tax payer” rather than a Torontonian again, I may have to move to the moon.<br><br>But here's the thing: sure, the mayor of the biggest city in Canada is a crack-smoking, misogynist racist, but he was elected. And the worst of that thing: HE MAY WELL GET ELECTED AGAIN! It's bad enough that he's Toronto's mayor, but voters in MY city elected him and continue to support him whole-heartedly. It's like a city-wide case of Stockholm Syndrome. You know what it comes down to? Allow me to quote from a true Ford Nationite I observed on the news - “he saved me money.” Not only is that not entirely true (see above re: bountiful lies and exaggerated claims), but I also believe that in the long-run, we will pay very dearly for his time in office. Toronto has already become notorious for the indiscretions of its (<em>let's all say it together now</em>) crack-smoking Mayor.<br><br>I seem to recall an interview Mayor Ford did, back in 2011, with CBC Radio's Matt Galloway. When asked the simple question of what Rob Ford loves about Toronto, the Mayor of Toronto couldn't think of anything. HE COULDN'T THINK OF ANYTHING.<br><br>Well, let me tell you what I love about Toronto: my neighbours in Leslieville (our children play together, we smile when we pass on the street, we catch up at our local farmer's market every Sunday morning); the music (from Scarborough to Etobicoke, from North York to the lake, you can hear some of the world's best musicians play the killinest tunes to make your heart explode with joy); the green space and playgrounds (have you ever seen the playground at High Park?! There's also a tiny zoo with Llamas. Llamas!!); the festivals (all year round in every part of the city, celebrating everything from bacon to bebop); and last, but certainly not least, the FOOD (how could Rob Ford not mention the food? Given the chance and the budget, I would eat my way from one end of the city to the other. Whatever your craving, we've got that.)<br><br>So even though my pulse may slow way down when I visit my hometown, there's something to be said for the way it races with excitement when I walk down the street in my city. I just hope it doesn't get spoken for by the folks who seem to forget what's so good about Toronto the Good.</span>Whitney Ross-Barristag:www.whitneyrb.com,2005:Post/28663972014-04-12T23:07:20-04:002022-02-20T12:21:11-05:00When Haters Hate: Double Stroller Edition (Uxbridge Cosmos Feb. 2014)<p>A great imposing shadow falls across Queen Street. Small dogs cower their tiny Aran knit sweaters and scurry into alcoves and odorous bus shelters. Bearded bikers and boozy bottle-drivers turn their heads and stand their ground mid-sidewalk. And here I come, my side-by-side double stroller full of children trundling down the steps of my house and out into public space. <br><br>Yes, I am aware that you hate me. Join the rest of the world. Some folks scowl and comment under their breath, “why would anyone buy a side-by-side double stroller in the city?” Well, in my experience of living in Toronto, many people are just natural scowlers anyway, and we Torontonians from West end to East love to be disgruntled about a great number of inconvenient things – our “mayor,” potholes, the TTC, cold weather, hot weather, the Gardiner. Why would I use a side-by-side double stroller - as opposed to a tandem double stroller - in an urban centre? Well, let me tell you.<br> <br>I love my double stroller. Not unnaturally, but, if there were a fire engulfing my house, and I was able to get the children and the husband and the family heirlooms out, I’d probably then go for the double. It has a nice big and accessible basket, it turns on a dime, it’s not a monster – fitting through most doors and aisles – and it keeps my boys safe and sound in their five-point harnesses as we pound the hot and cold pavement of our city every day.<br> <br>Though I drive, I don’t have a car. My husband and I pitched our clunker after spending far too much fixing it for the umpteenth time and opted to use public transit and – brace yourselves – our own feet. That’s not to say that I don’t giddily accept a gloriously liberating vehicle loan from my parents now and again. I shouldn’t tell you how excited I get with the prospect of being able to buy 24 rolls of toilet paper at once while grocery shopping. In any case, my double stroller needs to pretty much <em>be</em> my car. It needs to be able to carry one fat baby and one tall toddler, two boxes of diapers, six bags of milk, two boxes of cheerios, 30 pounds of Goldfish crackers and my empty wallet. It’s a minivan but in stroller form. It also needs to be steerable, as I walk a lot with my boys and I really don’t want to be simultaneously negotiating with a cranky three-year-old and a bus of a stroller as I dodge the dog turds in the park.<br> <br>As part of my research, pre-purchase, I – as a good thirty-something should – put the word out on social media, “I’d like to buy a good double stroller. Facebook, what are your thoughts?” The answers were mixed. Many simply advised me not to “waste my money,” including some of my older friends, parents of grown children. They justifiably e-rolled their eyes and in-my-dayed me. One thing was clear, most people hated the side-by-side double strollers for the amount of space they took up. One friend claimed his feet were once run over by a side-by-side double in a store. I felt bad for him for a minute. I swear. But, like the good Facebook friend that I am, I ignored everyone’s good advice and bought what I wanted.<br> <br>In the end, I compared a lot of measurements and weights and wheel sizes and kid-weight limits and canopies and I bought one that suits us well. Mind you, I had to sell my expensive single stroller that I loved even more to buy the double. Oh, the sacrifice…What I didn’t anticipate was this jerk of a winter with all its damn salt that is now destroying my investment, but them’s the Canadian breaks, I guess.<br> <br>In roaming the neighbourhood with my unpopular stroller, I have come up with some laws of responsible side-by-side double stroller owning.<br> </p>
<ol> <li>Share the sidewalk. Be aware of your fellow pedestrians and scooterers. It takes but a moment to give way to another person and 75% of the time, they will be delighted that you did so and smile at your beautiful babies. The other 25% of the time, that grumpy, confused, wig-wearing, sarong-in-the-middle-of-February-sporting man-woman will call you a strongly-worded name for which you will have to wash your childrens’ ears out with coal tar soap.</li> <li>Don’t spend all your dough on it. There are many people on Kijiji or Craigslist selling perfectly good used strollers that you can happily run into the ground… And then resell on Kijiji or Craigslist.</li> <li>Check and compare widths to make sure it fits through your own front door. There’s nothing more enjoyable than unloading two half-asleep, disoriented kids on your front porch in a minus twenty Polar Vortex. Also, if it fits through your front door that likely means that it fits through shop doors, but don’t count on it. Practice detachment if – no matter how hard you ram – you can’t fit through the door of the fancy purse store. You can’t afford a fancy purse anyway, you have two kids, and you just bought a massive stroller (unless you followed my advice in #2.) The good news is, usually, you can go virtually anywhere that is wheel chair accessible.</li> <li>Unless it is an emergency, don’t use your double stroller on public transit. If it’s rush hour, the most you can get away with is bringing it on folded up, but what kind of superwoman can drag a half-ton double stroller in one hand, wrestle a an excited three-year-old into a window seat at the <em>very back of the streetcar</em> with the other hand, while carrying a 21 pound baby and 40 pound diaper bag? There is already a large group of stroller-hating TTC users, don’t give them more fodder to feed their blackened, empathyless hearts.</li>
</ol>
<p> <br>So, if you see me out strolling with my boys, please don’t run or leap out of the way. Unless I’m lost in thought, imagining all the other wonderful things I could’ve spent all that double stroller dough on, I will likely smile and give you the right of way on Queen Street. </p>Whitney Ross-Barristag:www.whitneyrb.com,2005:Post/28663872014-04-12T23:05:09-04:002014-04-12T23:05:35-04:00Not My Favourite Things (Uxbridge Cosmos Jan. 2014)Over the holidays, I was reminded of something that displeases me. Something I could never really put my finger on, something I could never admit is bothersome to me, because of its part in something near-sacred to so many in this world. No, that displeasure was not caused by a family dispute over which elementary school-made angel to use atop the tree, nor was it the horrifying, cheer-crushing experience of shopping at Mastermind the week before Christmas, with two young children on the brink of naptime. No, it was not the generous portion of rum in my eggnog – though I suppose its effects did help in the recognition of this somewhat offensive “something.” Yes, my friends, forgive me: I HATE the shoes in the movie, <em>The Sound of Music</em>.<br> <br>Over the past few years, I’ve joined the throngs of folks that sit down at Christmas in front of the ol’ Yule log of today – the flat screen – warming my cockles to the enchanting sounds of the Family Von Trapp on whatever network chooses to run the blessed three-hour beast of a movie musical. My poor husband, up to his eyeballs in wrapping - something he abhors more than anything in the world – occasionally peeks his head into the living room, sadly asking if the damned thing is over yet. No, darling. No. Maria is still a problem at the abbey and hasn’t even climbed Chris Plummer’s mountain yet. And my hubby, defeated, slinks back down to his man cave while I huddle under my Snuggie with my spiked nog and bask in the glow of truly <em>classic</em> music theatre.<br> <br>As a kid, I really didn’t like <em>The Sound of Music</em> much. I suppose I followed my grandfather’s lead, as he used to affectionately refer to the iconic show as “The Sound of Mucus.” But as I grew older, more comfortable with myself and slightly more experienced as a performer, I began to appreciate the 1965 film more and more. Julie Andrews, for one. <em>By God</em> what a voice! She will always be the quintessential Maria for me. Also, I find that I can now appreciate the film as a showcase of actual performative skill; the glory days of Hollywood when a movie star was more often than not a legitimate singer-actor or singer-actor-dancer and not just a sellable pretty face. Glamour with substance. The steaming pile of television, which was the recent live televised version of <em>The Sound of Music</em>, starring idol, Carrie Underwood and Vampire Bill, was a dreadful and utterly drab revival, save for Audra McDonald, the seasoned Broadway goddess, whose poise and skill just about pixelated all the other performers off the small screen.<br> <br>But, to the point: those horrifyingly ugly and completely distracting shoes. What happened? Did somebody blow the budget elsewhere? I understand that with all his drinking and carousing during the making of the film, Chris Plummer’s costumes had to be let out several times. Maybe that was it. Or perhaps it was an earnest attempt to accurately portray the style of pre-war Austria, which I commend. But listen, if this mid-60s film can relax the style rules for The Baroness, making her a little more <em>bouffant</em> and little less <em>finger wave</em>, then why couldn’t we have taken those poor children out of their wooly socks and sandals and put them into an adorable, wee Mary Jane (they’re already wearing curtains, for Pete’s sake!) I also understand that Charmian Carr (the woman who played Liesl) had badly injured her ankle and still danced the “Sixteen Going on Seventeen” number. So, please, show me a classic flat, for her sake and mine! Not a square-heeled, square-ish-toed shoe that the Queen’s mother wore on her deathbed. It’s not that I’m expecting Friedrich and Brigitta and the entire cast to be prancing around Vienna in platforms and patent leather, I just find these eyesores of underdone glam a bit of a pea in my mattress.<br> <br>Now, you’re probably wondering, why does this matter? Why should I care? Why am I reading this deranged woman’s column about nothing and how can I get the last wasted five minutes of my life back? Well, friends, I don’t really have an answer for you. I can only say that I am a woman of details and I’m also a mom of two boys, so sue me, but a little glamour goes a long way these days. When I sit down to watch a classic Hollywood movie, I crave a little perfection, a little sparkle, a little suspension of disbelief. Why ruin a perfectly good movie musical with a utilitarian loafer? Isn’t that the kind of shoe that <em>Herr Zeller</em> wants us all to wear?! We can’t let him win!<br> <br>As a member of the music theatre community, I know that this admission leaves me open to the scorn of my people - perhaps a flaming bag of dog doo on my porch, or a cold shoulder at the Monday night Music Theatre Open Mic on Church Street – but there’s nothing to be done. The festering displeasure caused by ugly shoes in <em>The Sound of Music</em> has begun to <em>ruin</em> something that for some time has indeed become – despite my grandfather and myself – one of my favourite things. Whitney Ross-Barristag:www.whitneyrb.com,2005:Post/17786582013-10-03T16:51:47-04:002017-01-13T13:15:43-05:00This is Why I Sing (Uxbridge Cosmos Sept. 2013)<span class="font_large">If you look at my business card, you'll read that I list myself as a “vocalist” (yes, we have business cards too.) Though you may roll your eyes or snicker at my possibly pretentious use of the word “vocalist” as my vocation, I'd like you to know that I use the term, because it truly describes not only what I do, but who I am. Allow me to elaborate.<br><br>Though I've always sung - to myself, to my teddy and to My Little Ponies, in mimicry of my big sister and later on in choirs and other vocal ensembles at school - it was only during a moment of intense clarity, back in 2008, that I really became a singer. <br><br><br>I was about to turn 29 and that year, I had allowed myself to take a step back from my acting career - such as it was. I hadn't performed as an actor for about a year. I had just started taking a jazz singing class once a week and I LOVED it. I used to call it my “session class,” as it was a once-a-week opportunity to learn a new standard (jazz tune) and then sing it with a real live trio. When I wasn't floating on air in my session class, I was slogging it out as a hostess in a fancy North Toronto restaurant, trying to pay my rent and forget about how disillusioned I had become with the acting biz. On a particularly busy afternoon at the restaurant, I had to welcome my most feared surly regular. A wealthy pit-bull of a man with a voice that sounded like an Orson Welles hangover and a face like a handbag. Every time he patronized the restaurant he'd ask us the same question: “Who the hell do I have to f*** to be able to smoke on your patio?” To which I would cheerfully reply: “Actually, that would be Dalton McGuinty.” <br><br>On this specific day, the restaurant had treated him and his predictably cold wife to a very fine anniversary meal - a great table, a specially tailored menu, etc. When he left, I helped him with his jacket, thanked him for his business and asked, not thinking, if “you guys” had had a nice time. He gave me a pointedly hard time and insisted - without a hint of sarcasm - that I call him “sir” because “what the hell kind of place is this, McDonald's?” I took his belittling very much to heart, bawled my eyes out privately in the coat check and wished on him some fairly nasty ailments. I decided that I hated my life. <br><br>For the rest of the day, this feeling of downheartedness weighed on me more heavily than ever before. What the hell had I done with myself at almost 30 years old? Was I to be condemned to a life of virtual servitude to entitled old trolls insisting I call them “sir”? Now, I suppose if I was a praying woman, I'd have said that someone must have been listening to my confusion and plea for direction. You see, later that night, I sang in a sort of talent show made up of the many skilled writers, comics, musicians and actors of a catering company that I worked for in addition to my hosting job at the restaurant. For my part of the show that evening, I chose to sing Leonard Cohen's “Hallelujah” - a song I had loved for many years but never attempted to sing as a soloist. I got up on stage in the gloomy club we had rented for the show, made a couple of mini quiche-centered catering jokes, introduced the tune and finally, began to sing. Mid-song something happened. I had an epiphany. The room was dead quiet. Everyone was listening. The pianist was with me, the room was with me and finally, with a new feeling of space in my head and in my heart, <em>I </em>was with me. After this terrible, disheartening day, the only thing that could exorcise how low I felt was what I now call “a good sing.” By the end of “Hallelujah” I knew that I was a singer and whether I sucked or was a star, I needed singing in my life to make me a whole and happy human being.<br><br>I'm not deluded. Being a jazz vocalist isn't going to win me the Nobel Prize, or an Olympic medal, nor will it likely make me a mountain of money, but it definitely makes me a more expressive person, and consequently, a more balanced and compassionate mother and individual. You can bet that, if one day I'm ever faced with the polite flattery of a young hostess, I will most certainly never order her to call me “sir.”<br><br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/56541/7fc606117eb6f5a086ed83532fc9dd1091f4c9ed/original/blog-collage.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></span>
<div style="text-align: center; "><em><span class="font_large">The greatest job in the world... um, besides motherhood, of course (uh, don't tell my kids I said that.)</span></em></div>Whitney Ross-Barristag:www.whitneyrb.com,2005:Post/13955622013-08-13T11:44:38-04:002017-01-13T13:15:43-05:00Sunday in the Park with Waddling Whit (Uxbridge Cosmos Aug. 2013)<span style="font-size: large; ">A few weeks ago as I was waddling uncomfortably about the park just down the street, scarfing down “beignets” (fancy Toronto timbits) by the handful and scoping out my community’s beautiful little farmer’s market, I ran into an old friend. Well… I suppose she’s more of a friendly acquaintance. When our first-borns were wee, she and I had taken a local Mommy & Me music class together with our sons. She’s a pretty cool chick. She’s smart and driven (a working mom with a very important and demanding financial sector job), she’s fit and athletic (she has those skinny-toned Kelly Rippa arms), she wears nice clothes (pressed, clean and cool but not too effortful, i.e. not a shrunken, second-hand Suzy Shier t-shirt and maternity jeans complete with pureed peach stains) and she is genuinely a nice person. <br><br>
On this sunny Sunday in June, there she was at the farmer’s market with her husband and son and I noticed her adorably modest baby bump. “How delightful,” I thought to myself. “She’s pregnant too. Though she must be at least a month or so behind me, she looks so small and comfortable.” We took in each other’s condition and exchanged knowing smiles. <br><br>
“Congratulations! Expecting the second?” I blurted out. “Us too!” And I gestured vaguely to the nearby playground, where my other half was chasing my two-year-old who was eating handfuls of sand. “When are you due?” I asked eagerly, hoping we’d get to trade eye-roll-worthy anecdotes about awful pregnancy symptoms.<br><br>
“It’ll be in about two weeks actually,” she said with a smile. I nearly choked on my beignet, knowing I was still over two MONTHS from my own due date. What kind of unjust world do we live in when this muscly, well-dressed, clever little woman gets to be teeny-weeny-pregnant and due in two weeks and I get to roll my way around the neighbourhood like an 80-year-old, 500 pound sweaty orangutan with another ten weeks to go?! I paused and for a moment and considered that she must be in intense discomfort, being so close to birth, recalling my own constant practice contractions, back pain, insomnia… and a few other fabulous pregnancy symptoms I dare not mention in polite company.<br><br>
“Two weeks,” I said sympathetically. “God, you must just be wrecked and so uncomfortable.” <br><br>
“No, not really,” she replied. “Though I admit, I’ve been having some rib pain in the last couple of weeks. But mostly I’m feeling pretty well.” <br><br>
It was all I could do to not spit-take my beignet and slap this poor woman in the face (with my non-beignet hand, of course.) RIB PAIN?!!! Frickin’ RIB PAIN?!!! Are you kidding me? I swallowed the list of gory ailments I was compiling quickly in my head to rebut the rib pain complaint. “Oh. That… that must be terrible.” <br><br>
“Nah, it’s not that bad. So, when are you due?” She smiled sweetly and cocked her head flinging her well-behaved blond hair to one side where it fell perfectly.<br><br>
“Um. Well, there’s still a couple of months. And a half. To go. It’s not really important.” Awkward pause. “Mm-kay, it was GREAT seeing you and really, congrats and best of luck with this one.” I awkwardly patted their toddler on his head and waddled away toward the playground as fast as my puffy knees would carry me.<br><br>
I found myself kind of mad at this blameless lady. Admittedly, I had – earlier in the day – cried while watching Shrek, so maybe I wasn’t on my emotional/hormonal game, but why the seething hate? You see, it was a realization, for really-real, that I maybe I was not like other pregnant ladies. So, who am I like? What do I do? What can I expect while I’m expecting, dammit?! <br><br>
The thing is, no pregnant lady is like another pregnant lady. Just as there are a trillion and one books written about how to baby-whisper your newborn to sleep through the night or how to potty-train your 3 month-old, there are four-times that many websites and books written about what to expect... when you are indeed… expecting. And what is more? Not only is no pregnant lady like another, but each pregnancy of each of those women is different from the last or from those yet to come. <br><br>
My own “normal” consists of my son being born born ten weeks early. It was a terrifying journey, but he’s just fine now thanks to a bit of luck and a nappy-load of modern medicine. He just turned two and he can read letters. Mostly just uppercase letters and he thinks “I” is a one, but I’m letting that slide for now. This, my second pregnancy has been fraught with its own challenges and ailments but the worst of it has been the overwhelming anxiety of not knowing if this one would come early again or not. Unfortunately, no pregnancy book can tell me that. <br><br>
So what can I do? First, I can remember all the millions of women in the world who’ve had far more challenging pregnancies than I, and honour that. Second, I can find support in the community that I’ve chosen to surround me: my reassuring midwives and doctor who’ve seen it all; other moms of preemies, who have gone on to have full-term babies; as well as my poor husband who has not only been my soggy Kleenex when I’ve wept, afraid of what might come, but he’s also been my toddler entertainer extraordinaire, keeping monster no. 1 busy while I conk out on the couch in a pile of pillows. I still read the books and websites and see those happy-go-lucky third trimester divas in their stacked heels, but I’m learning to take it all with a grain of salt. And beignets.<br><br><div style="text-align: center; ">
<img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/56541/1be2f9d42bbf361c6e30b6466ba62e1cb552f065/medium/IMG_2637.JPG?1376426859" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="224" width="300" /><br><br><i>Me. In the Park. In my thanksgiving pants.</i>
</div>
</span><br>Whitney Ross-Barristag:www.whitneyrb.com,2005:Post/11245482013-07-13T13:00:00-04:002022-02-20T12:22:56-05:00From Boot Scootin' to the Montana Turd Bird (Uxbridge Cosmos July 2013)<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; ">If someone asked me to write my coming-of-age screenplay, I’d write a movie about a road trip I took, or rather tagged along for, in the summer of 1996. I say “coming-of-age” as it marked the beginning of a change in me that would ultimately lead me to where I am today… On the couch, eight months pregnant, listening to Ella Fitzgerald and editing a column, ten minutes before its deadline.<br><br>My cousin was getting married, so the whole family flew out to Saskatoon for a weekend of sun, raucous good times, white lace and boot-scootin’. Following the party, I met up with my best friend and her parents and we headed west in the minivan, complete with 1960s trailer in tow.<br><br>We made our way across Alberta and eventually pulled into a campsite in Japser National Park. On the way in, one of the rangers warned us of a black bear that had been spotted in the area, “but don’t be alarmed, he’s more interested in chowing down on clover than any of you.” And he chuckled an <i>I’ll-be-safe-in-my-cabin-while-you-await-your-violent-mawling-in-that-puny-tent</i> kind of chuckle as we drove away. As a novice camper, I recall spending most my the nights in our flimsy tent bolt awake, slowly saying goodbye to my friends and family as I heard a chipmunk scurry by, certain it was Smokey coming to collect his dues for Satan.<br><br>As it turned out, Smokey was indeed more interested in the clover, as we finally spotted the bear upon leaving the site, happily grazing like a fleecy cow in the ditch while German tourists threw marshmallows at him.<br><br>Funnily enough, the Smokey I <i>should</i> have been more threatened by wasn’t a bear at all, but one of two massive hairy bikers we encountered at the next site (we figured “Smokey” was his name as that’s what was emblazoned on his t-shirt in fuzzy, stretched-out letters across his expansive chest.)<br><br>As my summer family and I sat down to a beautiful dinner of local fruit and vegetables foraged from friendly roadside produce stands, our modest picnic table was suddenly eclipsed by a huge RV (naturally towing two monster Harleys) that rolled into the site next to us. Just after the luxury-hotel-on-wheels came to a squeaking halt and nestled into its tightly-fitted allotment, on came the whirring, coughing hum of the beast’s generator, fogging our dinner with its inner-city smog.<br><br>Well, that was the last straw. Up stood my bestie’s dad – all five-foot-six of him – and over he strolled to the bikers’ den. He knocked on the door and out came Smokey, rocking the RV as he lumbered down the steps. He glared expectantly at my friend’s dad.<br>“Yeah. What?” he growled.<br>“Well… Smokey,” my friend’s dad said, “it would be nice if you’d turn your generator off while I had dinner over here with my family. The exhaust is spewing into our lot.”<br>By the end of his sentence, the other hairy biker had appeared as well as their two rotund wives like a wall of disapproving grizzlies.<br>“No.” he stated angrily and turned to climb back into the RV.<br>“Well. Okay,” said my friend’s dad with a casual yet ballsy tone. “I hope your Harleys are alright tonight. G’night.” Moments later, after this strange sleuth of bear-people slunk back into their happy hideaway, the generator sheepishly turned off.<br><br>Over the Rockies and into BC we made our way to Salt Spring Island via a network of ferries and winding mountain roads. On the Island my friend and I were left happily to our own devices for a couple of weeks on the grounds of a local karma yoga centre while her parents cruised the BC coast with their in-laws. That’s right, we were two teens, and a 1960s camper, alone with the hippies for a seemingly indefinite amount of time. What ensued were many fantastic adventures including skinny dipping in a private lake (<i>with boys!</i>); trundling up the mountain at dusk, sitting on rocks still warm from the daytime sun, watching the lights come on in the bay down below (<i>with boys!</i>); laying in the grass (<i>with a boy!</i>) looking at the stars while earwigs crawled up my back and down my butt crack (when he drove me home later, we got pulled over by the local cops, who let him off with a warning for a brake-light violation… dreeeeamy); playing guitar and singing in front of a group of strangers (<i>which included… a boy I had a massive crush on - you’ll note the “boys” trend here… gimme a break… I was almost 16</i>); getting into late-night trouble in a local yurt, watching the room spin and listening to old records til the sun came up; kicking off my shoes and running through the glorious rainforest, free as a bird and happy as a clam until I stepped on a BC banana slug in my bare feet (<i>it’s a sensation like a kind of squish-crunch… like stepping on someone’s lung… gag-inducing to say the least</i>); and finally, leaving said ‘kicked-off” shoes on the island and having to go barefoot for the next few days (<i>strangely, lots of BC roadside diners don’t really look down on barefoot customers.</i>)<br><br>After my glorious couple of weeks of freedom on Salt Spring Island, my friend’s folks picked us up and we headed back home, via the northern United States. A sleepy journey of deserted campsites and roadside souvenir shops hocking everything from driftwood Jesus clocks, to velvet Elvises, to the <b>Mighty Montana Turd Bird</b> - a taxidermied horse apple mounted on a block with pipe cleaner legs and a toothpick beak.<br><br>I think it was just after the grass fire in South Dakota (no, we didn’t start it) and about three weeks in close quarters with each other that my best friend and I finally had it out.<br><br>Throughout our trip, I had been unknowingly gaining confidence and developing a strength or individuality of character. You see, since my arrival in Uxbridge from Edmonton at the blissfully awkward age of eight (yeah, I had a rat tail <i>and</i> lived in stirrup pants), my best friend and I had been attached at the hip. She had been my mentor and role model for everything. I dressed like her, I liked the music she liked, I laughed at the jokes she laughed at, I watched the movies she watched; wherever she went, so did I. In finally expressing to her this independent new side of myself, a strange tension began to grow. This makes her sound like a controlling freak, but she wasn’t. It was a big change in the dynamic between us and we both had to adjust to that change and in effect, we were still just kids. Keep in mind, we were also tackling this fairly massive issue confined in a minivan trundling down the endlessly bumpy roads of the American prairies.<br><br>When we finally got home at the end of that summer, life <i>did</i> begin to shift. The following year, I switched high schools. I started singing jazz and acting and I consequently made a bunch of new friends. My best friend grew too, but on a different path than my own. We still spent many days and nights together and still do though we live in different cities and lead fairly different lives.<br><br>In the end, I’m not sure if my friend and her family know how grateful I am for having been part of that trip. I’m so glad – and somewhat surprised - that I remember it. I suppose it’s like a capsule not unlike that old trailer, sealed off with silver tape in my memory, bumping along behind me throughout the years, preserving all those precious days and nights of total freedom like carefully-wrapped gifts.</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<div style="text-align: center; "><span style="font-size: medium; "><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/56541/20f604ee371ccb24954c5627e13c21ad93f315ae/medium/turd-birds.jpg?1373755618" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="201" width="300" /><br><br><i>The stunning and delectable Montana Turd Bird... as far as the eye can see.</i> </span></div>
<p> </p>Whitney Ross-Barristag:www.whitneyrb.com,2005:Post/8481602013-05-30T15:53:25-04:002017-01-13T13:15:42-05:00Karma Parenting and the Eating Habits of a Picky Two-Year-Old (Uxbridge Cosmos Apr. 2013)<div style="text-align: center; "><span style="font-size: large; "><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/56541/d8db6a268d57fdf4f50f0e69c9b17313ad432dce/medium/slide-show_0095.jpg?1369961796" class="size_orig justify_top border_" alt="" height="436" width="300" /><br></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center; "><span style="font-size: large; "><i>"I would do anything for cheese, but I won't eat that."</i><br></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large; "><br>
I am currently sitting in a sticky, tangled, Karmic web of my own doing. In my limited experience as a mother, I find that much of parenting has a lot to do with Karma. It’s the what-goes-around-comes-around experience made up of all the horrible things you did to you own parents as a kid. That is, if you threw tantrums in the middle of the high street as a toddler, your kids will throw a hymn book across the pews in church protesting your new TV-watching restrictions. If you coloured on the walls of your parents’ Victorian walk-up in permanent marker, your five-year-old will paint the F-word on your designer leather recliner in orange nail polish. If you pooped in the tub every other day until you were six, your eight-year-old will sing the Diarrhea Song at full voice to all the mourners at your grandmother’s funeral. In my own case, my current Karmic challenge is the eating habits of my two-year-old.<br><br>
As a kid – even though my mother is a FABulous cook - I was a very picky eater. I didn’t like cold food, I didn’t like hot vegetables. I didn’t like grainy bread, I only wanted white, squishy dinner rolls. I loved bananas and then very quickly HATED bananas. I refused to eat seafood and filled up on chips and dip at family gatherings, making dinner much more infuriating and embarrassing for my poor parents. Honestly, it’s a wonder that A) I don’t have scurvy or have grown over three feet tall, and B) that my parents aren’t living in adjoining padded rooms in Whitby. <br><br>
So, here I am, 30-some-odd years later, with my own toddler who refuses to eat anything that isn’t French fries or covered in Parmesan cheese. Yes, mum and dad, you may now sit down in the front row of “Ha-Ha-Ha-So-There” and slowly, sarcastically applaud, point, or throw things for I truly had this coming. <br><br>
I’m sure we all know at least one kid growing up that really did live on peanut butter sandwiches and hotdogs and is now an Olympic rower or diver or underwear model. Yeah, you know… <i>that</i> guy. But more often than not, we’re told about the rising childhood obesity rates in Canada, about the dangers of over-exposing our children to fat, salt, sugar and high fructose corn syrup. We’re painfully aware of the need for and general lack of our five daily servings of fruits and veggies. And so, I suppose it’s only natural that when our children gag when served string beans or dump our steamed carrots on the hardwood floor, we panic. Let me elaborate with a quote by American stand-up comedian and actor Louis CK that a writer-friend sent me on the issue of picky eaters. He clearly crystalizes why we tend to go mental when our children won’t eat (and bear in mind, I’ve censored a few hundred F-bombs here and there to make this quote family friendly, so just imagine them in there for the full impact.)<br><br>
“When your kid won’t eat, you just go crazy, because you have a physical need to feed them, it’s an instinct. And when they’re sittin’ there, just lookin’ at their food, you’re like…Just EAT it! You’ll die, you idiot! Eat the food!... ‘I don’t like it’… It DOESN’T MATTER, put it in your face! They have your footprint at the hospital; they know that I have you. I’m not allowed to let you die… EAT IT! You have a social security number; you’re on the grid…. EAT! If you’re skinny I go to jail, do you understand?!”<br><br>
He’s right. Again – as mentioned in my previous Cosmos column about Google and the age of information – we are now, more than ever, armed with so much “knowledge” about health and nutrition that when our kids won’t ingest anything green and organic we are certain that they will perish within the next month or so of malnutrition. So, what are we to do? Well, when faced with yet another Nutella-on-toast dinner special, I did what most 30-something Facebook users do, I polled my friends online to see if anyone had any suggestions with this delicate plea: “Rrrrrraaaaaagghhhhh! This kid will eat nothing!”<br><br>
At first I was reassured to know that I truly wasn’t alone; so many of my friends have been through or are currently enduring the challenges of difficult eaters. One friend suggested that maybe his palette was highly sophisticated, joking, “Maybe he wants caviar... with some Grey Poupon.” Others advised convincing him that “yes, it’s a cookie,” no matter whether it was broccoli, pasta, or an olive. Many forwarded recipes that were, in effect, ways to disguise vegetables in every day snacks and meals. Another parent said he likes to break the ice of mealtime with a cookie, but then admitted, “that's bad parenting. Sometimes I let him have popcorn for dinner. Also bad advice.” And many reassured me through various old sayings (hunger makes a good sauce) that he will, in fact, eat if he is truly hungry and to try not to pander to his every dining whim.<br><br>
I continue to deal with this issue and like most of my hurdles as a mom (nursing, sleep-training, walking, licking random things) - though I’ve gathered much advice from books and other parents - my hubby and my difficult eater and I are sort of wading our way through it, discovering how to deal with it as we go along. My strategy includes trying to lead by example and eat well in front of him and with him; continuing to offer him things that he hates (even though he looks me straight in the eye and chews broadly, spitting out whatever I’ve lovingly prepared for him into his bib); and though I haven’t done much of it yet, I endeavor to prepare him meals with foods that I hated as a kid and continue to hate as a picky adult, if only to break the vicious eating cycle for his own children some day. But in the end, I wickedly kinda want to get that call, 30 years in the future from my exasperated son whose own toddler won’t eat the meal he just made. I’d like to die laughing. </span><br>Whitney Ross-Barristag:www.whitneyrb.com,2005:Post/6339732013-04-29T15:25:00-04:002013-04-29T15:25:00-04:00A Cozy Getaway: Winnipeg in January! (Uxbridge Cosmos Jan. 2013)<span style="font-size: large; ">I write to you from the Prairies this week! This past Sunday I landed in Winnipeg with the cast of Birdland Theatre’s “Assassins” for a three-week engagement with the Manitoba Theatre Centre. I brought with me my 21-month-old son, Coen (<b>okay, you can stop laughing at me now</b>) and an over-blown sense of confidence as a super mom. This past week was our tech week (the intense week running up to opening) and to say the least, it was stressful… as in, pull-out-your-eye-lashes-as-you-ugly-cry-and-rock-yourself stressful. I’m not sure how to better illustrate the hell that was last week better than simply letting you read the delightful email I sent to my poor mother, after having been here 4 days: <br><br><i>Hey Mama,<br><br>
Well, it's been a struggle. Everything has been trying as Coen got a cold, then I did, then his caregiver has been trying to stage and sell her house and now her daughters have the stomach flu so everything is a bit crazy (<b>I don’t know who was in a more stressful situation, she or I.</b>) So Coen's schedule is really off. He's not eating properly and his sleep is ferped up (<b>I actually dropped an F-bomb here.</b>) I rented a car from the jerks at blah-dee-blah (<b>I shall not divulge the real company name, lest they hunt me down and sucker punch me</b>), a car which I'm returning tomorrow because I hate it AND them and I refuse to pay $$$$ for it (<b>enough dough to choke a dozen rented donkeys.</b>) There are NO snow tires and it's been really treacherous here (<b>hi Winnipeg rental company, remember how it’s icy and snowy and freezing here six months of the year?</b>) It takes forever to get anywhere as Coen is cranky and I'm on my own and can't drive over 50 lest I plow into someone - which has almost happened once or twice (<b>or five times.</b>) Then I got a parking ticket today worth 150 bucks because I didn't realize - as I was running in late to rehearsal after dropping Coen off – that I was part way into a handicap zone (<b>and part way into a loading zone as well… IDIOT!</b>) My hands are so chapped that my knuckles won't stop bleeding and they swell at night (<b>I have longshoreman sausage hands… beeeeautiful.</b>) I go get Coen after the show (<b>at around 11pm</b>), which wakes him up, and then I have to put him down again at the hotel at midnight, which just is wrong. He's been waking up every morning at 3:30, mad at me and asking for something - no idea what - by pleading with me "Peas? Peas?" (<b>He doesn’t want peas, I think he wants those damn Goldfish crackers as he’d be more than happy to simply live on them and cups of milk for the rest of his life.</b>)<br>
The show is great, but I feel like I'm phoning it in because I'm so upset by everything else. Everything is just so difficult on my own, Mom. It seems like anything I try to do, there are obstacles. Little things, like the stupid car I rented (<b>we’ll call it a “Fork Siesta”</b>), the parking lot at the hotel (<b>which is under construction and I’m fairly certain might be the set of a horror movie</b>), the elevators (<b>where Coen dropped his boot one night at 11:30, which we only realized was missing when we arrived at the apartment</b>), the groceries (<b>nine bucks for a carton of juice?! Are you KIDDING me?!</b>)... It's just endless.<br>
Certainly gives me a better understanding of what single parents go through.<br>
Anyhoo, there ya go. Me ranting. I don't really have anyone to rant at, so… sorry about that? Tech week has been dismal and the days have been long (<b>mostly 12-hour days, not including boot hunting</b>), but it'll get better after today, I hope.<br>
But, again, the show is great (<b>amazing and miraculous in fact, I wish you all could see it</b>) and Coen's caregiver - though helter skelter with the house stuff - is just lovely and very caring. So, I guess that's good. I just feel like a bad mama because he's so out of his element and I've done that to him. <br>
I just keep telling myself that it'll get better. But I fear telling myself that, (<b>and tempting the fickle Fork Siesta of fate</b>) because there always seems to be SOMETHING here. Just one more obstacle. Just one more ferp you from Winnipeg (<b>I may have uttered another F-bomb here, but who’s counting?</b>) <br>
And here ends the poor me rant of Whitney Ross-Barris.<br>
Love you lots and I'll talk to you when I'm not so crazy.<br>
Wish me luck!<br>
xoxoxoxo<br>
Whit</i><br><br>
Well, after a successful show opening and promising start to the run, a relaxing day off today and a very appreciated and tender butt-kissing by the car rental company, I can honestly - and without fear of the repercussions of fate – tell you that I’m feeling very optimistic about the rest of my stay here. Winnipeggers are lovely people, welcoming people, hardy people and – dare I say – true Canadians. Though it was a tough week, I feel better for having struggled and found my way through it on my own. And to all you single parents out there, for what it’s worth, I have a newly-discovered deep and profound respect for you from the bottom of my whiny, minus-26-enduring, grocery-skimping heart. And hey, if you see my mom around town, tell her, I’m going to be just fine.</span><br>Whitney Ross-Barristag:www.whitneyrb.com,2005:Post/4816152013-04-07T14:00:00-04:002022-02-20T12:24:42-05:00Information Overload and the Dangers of Them Thar Interwebs (Uxbridge Cosmos Mar. 2013)<div style="text-align: center; "><span style="font-size: large; "><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/56541/f54f12b90c596da789bc56004da836737425b11a/medium/web-nicki-m.jpg?1379710239" class="size_orig justify_top border_" alt="" height="200" width="300" /></span></div>
<p><br><span style="font-size: large; ">If you’ve been reading your Cosmopolitan rag mags and you are up-to-date on all your talk show blather, then you’ll be familiar with the term “toxic friend.” As I understand it, a “toxic friend” is someone who you find yourself relying on time and time again for sound advice, support and a great time, but instead, you find yourself let down, freaked out, crapped upon and irrationally insecure.<br><br>Most articles or over-Botoxed guest therapists on daytime TV will tell you to let go or steer clear of these so-called “toxic friends.” If we have the courage, we follow that advice and are all the wiser and healthier for it. However, some of us – uh, so I’m told – are gluttons for punishment and keep returning to the fountain of hurt again and again like crazed maniacs.<br><br>I have a toxic friend. In the past, this friend has helped me research songs and plays, helped keep me in touch with family and long-lost friends, and has given me a wealth of knowledge with very little asked from me in return. But I’m now at a precipice of decision. Do I continue to let this friend disappoint, misinform and freak me out merely for the gift of endless information and entertainment that said friend provides on a daily basis? Or do I cut and run?<br>Many of you know my friend. In fact, you know my friend intimately (some of you, a lot more intimately that you’d like to admit.) This toxic friend of mine is Google. Though Google has soothed my troubled mind in desperate times of research and soul-sucking boredom, Google has also been, at times, the mastermind of my self-defeat and insomnia. But, the good thing is, I’m learning from my mistakes with Google. Let me impart some of my e-wisdom of when Google is your friend or enemy.<br><br><b>1.</b> Need to know the due date of the much-anticipated royal baby? Google is your friend.<br><b>2.</b> Need to know if you’ll be okay after eating that two-day-overdue yogurt at the back of your fridge? Google will help you write your will and last words, ‘cause you’re-a-gonna die for sure. Google is not your friend.<br><b>3.</b> Need to know why Ivan was so “Terrible”? Google is your historical genius friend.<br><b>4.</b> Need to know what people think of your favourite unconventional, slightly curvy celebrity? Google will present to you, from around the globe, comments made about her by the worst, most unintelligent, demented trolls ever to live in their grandma’s basement. Google is not your friend if you want to believe in humanity.<br><b>5.</b> Need to know how to wear your fake eyelashes like Nicki Minaj? Google is your friend.<br><b>6.</b> Need to know how much Nicki Minaj is paid to be a “music critic” on American Idol? Google will drive you to self-flagellation for the world is an unjust place. Google is not your friend.<br><b>7.</b> Need to know what your unborn baby looks like at six months, floating around in your womb? Aaaaaw, Google is your sweet little fetus’ friend.<br><b>8. </b>Need to know if this tiny ache in your growing baby bump is normal? Don’t. Even. Think. About. Googling… SERIOUSLY. Google is NOT a pregnant woman’s friend.<br><b>9. </b>Need to know the benefits of coffee? Google is your friend.<br><b>10.</b> Need to know the dangers of coffee? No you don’t. Google is not your friend. Coffee is.<br><b>11.</b> Need to know who that guy is, with the face, and that voice, with the grrrrr, who’s in that movie… oh, it’s on the tip of your tongue?! Google is your awesome friend.<br><b>12.</b> Need to know what comes up when you Google your own name? How about the girl in Louisiana with the same name who posts pictures of herself openly on Facebook from the last “Strippers n’ Shots” night out she had with her skanky friends? Or how about that picture of you from your fun-in-the-sun vacation 15 years ago after you had gained 25 pounds and thought, “who needs a well-documented bikini-clad holiday? THIS gal!” Google is not your friend.<br><br>So, you can see my dilemma. Google seems to have revolutionized the world, giving us humans the empowering feeling that we have infinite knowledge at our very fingertips. Information is power and satisfaction, but it can also lead to self-destruction.<br><br>In my tumultuous relationship with Google, there are two things that I have to keep in mind. First, I must remember NOT to believe every bit of crap I read on the Internet, for just about anything on them thar interwebs can be inputted by any depressed Spider Monkey with a keyboard. Secondly, in using Google, I have to moderate myself, like a wine-drunk with access to email. And so must you. The next time you’re desperate for a Google, sleep on it; ask a real, live breathing person for advice; call your mom; see your doctor; read a book (they’re those cardboard rectangles filled with paper holding up the coffee table.) If after trying all of these things, you still can’t find your answer, then – by all means – Google away. But please, please, for your own sanity, THINK before you Google. (Feel free to Google “toxic friend.”)</span></p>Whitney Ross-Barristag:www.whitneyrb.com,2005:Post/2991062013-02-05T08:17:45-05:002013-02-05T08:17:45-05:00Giving the Gift of Weight Gain this Holiday Season (Uxbridge Cosmos Dec. 2012)<span style="font-size: medium; ">It seems that wherever I turn in the grocery store line-up, every <i>Cosmopolitan</i> or <i>US Weekly</i> magazine is letting us in on the "big secret" of how not to gain weight over the holidays. “Poor suckers,” I think, imagining all the hungry stick insects in the world, passing up all the seconds of turkey and cranberry sauce or nay-sayers to another shot of Bailey’s in their Christmas morning coffee. So, here’s my rebuttal. Based on my own tried and tested experience, a fool-proof formula on how to put on as much weight as possible over the holidays:<br><br>
1. It must, of course, be Christmas. Not Easter, nor Thanksgiving, nor Simcoe Day.<br><br>
2. The participant must be barely clinging to their teens, 19 or 20 will do, just old enough to yearn for independence and space but still young enough to hope to be tucked in at night with that favourite stuffed monkey… Mortimer.<br><br>
3. The participant must be spending a year abroad on full and fantastic scholarship with their every need attended to – from having a modest job provided to allowing for a pint at the local pub with his/her friends.<br><br>
4. The participant must be at least 3000 kilometers away from home in a place that may as well be home – with all its snow and Canadian Shield-like rock formations – but that speaks a totally different, lilting, but confusing language.<br><br>
5. Accessible to the participant must be a boundless and wide (and I emphasize the use of the word “wide”) variety of chocolate, cookies, ice cream, boiled potatoes, meatballs, booze and blissfully warm, just-baked bread.<br><br>
6. The sun may not be allowed to fully rise. In fact, the participant should be well-embedded in a picturesque town amid a snowy mountain range where the barely-rising sun merely brightens the sky to a twilight glow before setting three hours later.<br><br>
7. The participants clothing should be fitted for starting weight, not allowing for any stretching or give whilst said participant’s waistline and ass expands rapidly.<br><br>
8. The participant must not be permitted to exercise. For instance, should the participants feet be grotesquely long and narrow, offer him/her ski boots that your dad wore in 1968 for that rustic cross-country skiing adventure you’ve planned for your fit self and outdoorsy attractive boyfriend. That way, the participant – with his/her flat feet – will collapse pathetically on every uphill trek after sliding backwards for 20 feet and cry secretly to him/herself while you bound energetically upwards, unaware of the ugly cry happening behind you.<br><br>
9. The participant is encouraged to spend the holidays with a very generous and loving local family whose matriarch cooks continuously in order to provide a constant stream of butter and delicious starch to her family. This family must also include a youth of similar age to the participant but of vastly different fitness level. In fact, said youth should be a contender for Miss Norway Fitness. Yes, that’ll make our participant feel really good about his/her rotund self.<br><br>
10. Christmas gifts for the participant should be somewhat lost in the mail and come only at the very last minute when he/she has lost all hope, believing in the twilight daytime that his/her family back home has completely forgotten about her… or him. (This facilitates faster and greater consumption of aforementioned butter and starch.)<br><br>
11. To make participant feel at ease, please feel free to offer him/her your mom’s old fat pants, a pair of jeans that three or four toddlers could build a home in quite comfortably. Tell him/her “you look just fine,” even though your better judgment tells you that he/she looks like an octogenarian trucker hobo.<br><br>
12. The participant must not be permitted to return to the motherland until many months later when he/she has just started to enjoy and get the hang of the host country.<br><br>
Yes folks, just follow these simple steps, and you too could be packing on the pounds with the best of them. As I mentioned, this was my own experience when I went abroad for nearly a year after graduating high school. While it was an incredibly wonderful and life-altering experience that I wouldn’t trade for all the marzipan in Scandinavia, it was a difficult experience at times that forced me to deal with my demons and to learn how to cope with loneliness. Though I can laugh about it now – and I suppose I did a little then too – I was quite honestly dealing with some mild depression brought on by homesickness and lack of frickin’ daylight. The good news is I was lucky enough to come out of it very soon after the holidays. The other good news is (there is no bad news in this scenario) in the long run, that weight just didn’t matter. Though I’m aware it’s not the same experience for many who deal with serious depression, I found a way to be happier (getting active and performing more often) and when I did, the bread seemed to be less fresh and warm, the ice cream less creamy and the chocolate less melty and delicious. <br><br>
So go ahead, get happy this season. You may find that brandy butter less enticing this year while you’re laughing your ass of with you friends and family. Suck on that, <i>Cosmopolitan</i> and a Merry Christmas to all!</span><br>Whitney Ross-Barristag:www.whitneyrb.com,2005:Post/662952013-02-05T08:11:06-05:002013-02-05T08:11:06-05:00Jam for Beginners (Uxbridge Cosmos Nov. 2012)<span style="font-size: medium; ">If you intentionally walk into me at a swift clip and knock my purse off my shoulder, I will often apologize to you. If you shove your way in front of me while I wait to get onto the streetcar, I will let you pass and maybe even help you with your over-flowing, garbage-filled granny cart. But, let me warn you that, though I am often a push-over, there is an impulsive warrior princess in my soul whose sass may surprise you. <br><br>
When I first started performing as a solo jazz singer, I wanted to learn all that I possibly could in the shortest amount of time, so I threw myself into as many situations as I could that involved live jazz and open mics. At first I tried the singer and songwriter jams (some of which I still frequent.) These jams are inclusive and encouraging forums where newcomers are welcome and every performer is supported with open hearts. But being someone who occasionally enjoys an artistic challenge and perhaps a little masochistic rejection, I longed for less friendly, less open-hearted and more open-season kinds of jazz jams. <br><br>
I had my eye on a Tuesday night jam at a local and somewhat legendary jazz club. Admittedly, it was a little daunting. At this point in my life, my day job expected me at the crack of dawn and I was concerned about how late the jam would run. There was also the stress of music selection. I had choose at least three jazz standards that were eye-roll proof (ie. not “Summertime” or “All of Me”), in simple keys (which is not easy as most standards were either written for low-voiced men or high-voiced women, neither of which I am), I had to type up a bunch of legible lead sheets or charts, print multiple copies and all this was supposed to appear as if I’d just flippantly pulled them out of my hat, because I’m that kind of awesome girl singer. Good God, it’s exhausting looking cool.<br><br>
I showed up with a supportive friend at my side at 9:30 p.m., ready to get this jam jumpin’. There was a young bass player fronting the host band. They played the first set. I sat at the bar with my pal and my pint, nodding my head in time, inwardly wondering when the actual jam would EVER start and whether I’d be here, “Like Someone In Love” crumpled in my sweaty hands until dawn. <br><br>
I had been instructed to tell the host that I wanted to sing. When the band took their break, I summoned my bravery and threw myself in front of the circulating bass player. In his hand was the tip jar. <br><br>
“Oh God, the tip jar,” I thought. “I have nothing for the tip jar!” He smiled sweetly and stared at me expectantly. I smiled back, slopped my Strongbow a little on the floor. Suddenly I was just a speechless, stingy, possibly inebriated, grinning idiot, blocking the poor guy’s path.<br><br>
“Hi!” my voice squeaked out at a pitch I though must only be audible to Chihuahuas. “My name is Whitney,” I said over-correcting in a strangely low voice, “and I sing… ahem.”<br>
“Great,” said the bass player. “I’ll call you up in the next set.” And he smiled, a kind, inclusive, friendly sort of smile. Victorious, I sat back down with my friend and chirped proudly about my successful sell.<br><br>
With my lead sheets ready to go, the jam started up and it was thrilling. I sat on the edge of my stool ready to gracefully leap up at the exact moment that he called my name. Looking around the room, I noticed to my dismay that I just might be the only singer… and girl… and non-graduate of a well-reputed jazz program. Gulp… uh boy. <br><br>
The jam droned on, chorus after chorus of killer bebop trading and one-upmanship among these young men who all seemed to know each other. A beautiful young woman got up and awkwardly warbled her way through “All of Me”, the band barely keeping up with her seemingly random key changes. Almost as soon as she hit the last note, the band started up another instrumental immediately. I began to panic. The night was almost through and I still hadn’t gotten my chance! <br><br>
“Wait a minute,” I thought, furious. “How DARE this guy railroad me! I’ve gone to the trouble of making these charts and dragging my sweet supportive friend here,” (who was at this point near sleep), “and I have had almost TWO pints!” Incensed with the injustice and the Strongbow, I slipped into my seldom-seen warrior state. I hung on every solo, every rest, every stupid over-held note, poised, like an Olympic sprinter, and before they even finished the tune, I was on the stage handing out my charts.<br><br>
“Ok… now it’s me,” I said to the host, smiling sternly. “My turn.” I felt like a triumphant, slightly evil teacher, handing out detention slips to the boys I caught smoking in the bathroom. <br><br>
I told the shocked band members what intro I wanted, barely giving them time to argue and counted them in. The room perked up and listened. It was a jazz jam miracle. Everybody relaxed - myself included - and we all had a blast. In truth, I screwed up the ending of the song irreparably, but I got to sing! And people applauded! <br><br>
So, even though on the way home that night, a guy took my seat on the bus with his backpack, I felt empowered knowing that I could order him to move it, if I had wanted to. I was a tough, bad-ass girl singer with a dormant warrior princess in my soul and I didn’t take guff from anybody. Since then, I still encounter the girl singer stigma, but I mostly kick it in the backside and have a good time. Because, well… isn’t that the point?</span><br>Whitney Ross-Barristag:www.whitneyrb.com,2005:Post/1373552012-02-02T09:35:00-05:002017-01-13T13:15:42-05:00Slurp Derperration<span style="font-size: large; ">What can make a woman lose her keys four times in a row in the same effing place? <i>Sleep deprivation.</i><br>
What can make a woman want to ring-hand-punch a noisy dump truck driver who looks like he might be an ex-con? <i>Sleep deprivation.</i><br>
What can make a woman forget why the hell she went to the grocery store for the third time that day? <i>Sleep deprivation.</i><br>
What can make a woman’s brain fall out her butt during a simple conversation? <i>Slurp derperration.</i><br><br>
When I first got pregnant, one of the most popular phrases that people threw at me was “get your sleep while you can because once the baby comes” <i>dot, dot, dot.</i> Such an innocent phrase that seemed to roll off my back as I rolled my eyes, but by <i>God</i> if they weren’t speaking the truth! However, let me retort now that sleeping while you’re pregnant, nor banking it while you’re young will do nothing to prepare you for the sleep deprivation that having a baby will give to you. So, just forget about it and stock up on wine instead.<br><br>
It seems like a faded comic book memory now… my son was not even three months old and I confidently, <i>naively</i> thought I could get him to sleep (<i>ha, ha</i>) through (<i>ha, ha</i>) the night (<i>sigh.</i>) I downloaded scads of “sounds of nature” tracks on the iPod, hunkered down in the dark bedroom with lullabies on my mind. How quaint of me. The only thing I had to show for it the next day was an overtired and somewhat hoarse baby, aubergine-tinted bags under my eyes, a strong desire for whiskey and a near urinary startle response any time <i>Rainforest Thunderstorm</i> randomly popped into the iPod playlist while I dozed on the streetcar.<br><br>
Now, as the wee man has passed his six-month milestone, I (and eventually the hubby) have decided to get serious about sleep. <br><br>
When it comes to babies and sleep, there are endless opposing schools of thought on the subject. Two such schools of thought are to “cry it out” or not to “cry it out.” My understanding is that those against “crying it out” (or allowing a baby to cry themselves to sleep safely but without intervention) believe that we are damaging our children and instilling in them a sense of fear and abandonment. Having listened to your baby wail for any length of time from his/her crib, calling out your name in a heart wrenching cry of betrayal, I’m sure that any parent can agree that it certainly <i>feels</i> like you’re abandoning and damaging your baby. But the “cry it outers” will tell you that you’re just helping your child learn to self-soothe - an important part of emotional development and independence - and that your baby will not remember being so upset when they are older, after all, <i>do you</i>? (If you answered ‘yes, I do remember and thanks for bringing it up, jerk’ to that, stop reading and find yourself a Groupon for therapy.)<br><br>
The most hellish few weeks of (for lack of a better term) “sleep-training” began at Christmas time. After a day of extremely overwhelming fun and family and in a strange bed, my son refused to sleep, expressing his exhaustion in peels of bloodcurdling shrieks. My sister urged me to let him cry and learn to self-soothe (her children were “trained” the same way and consequently sleep very well.) This was the first time my husband and I would attempt the “cry-it-out” method. Had I been hiding military secrets, they would’ve been divulged and I, executed for treason as listening to my kid wail was pure torture. <br><br>
The weeks that followed were all over the map as our boy caught another cold disrupting his sleep even more. My husband and I couldn’t seem to commit to one sleep-training method or another as nothing seemed to illicit a positive result and we simply couldn’t stand to hear our boy cry. In my burned-out brain, I wrestled with all the advice I’d received from other moms and the blasted internet. To cry or not to cry. My heart began to feel heavy with it all.<br><br>
The sleeplessness and frustration built and built until I found myself sitting on the floor outside the baby’s bedroom at three in the afternoon, weeping and rocking, trying to remember if we had any china I could smash in the back yard or whether there was an inconspicuous place that I could punch a hole in the drywall. And as I cried an ugly, hideous, loathly cry, unable to pull it together enough to settle my baby, he went to sleep. In that moment it dawned on me that he was starting to learn sleep and the more I interfered with his process the more his frustration would escalate.<br><br>
My uneducated conclusions:<br><br>
1. If you’re lucky, your baby will be born a sleeper and will sleep through the night from the start. <i>Congratulations, you lucky, lucky bastards.</i> But from what I’ve read, <b>babies aren’t really built to sleep through the night</b> until they’re a little older, for various reasons…. it’s very complicated… uh, you wouldn’t understand… So anyway, don’t expect it right off the bat or you’ll soon be riding the crazy train to BeatYourselfUpville.<br><br>
2. <b>Naps</b> are pretty important for my boy. If he doesn’t get a couple of good hour-and-a-half to two hour naps in the day, he’s Orson Welles by bedtime and will pretty much shout himself to sleep while I climb the walls and try to convince myself that I’m not a terrible mother.<br><br>
3. Sleep/Bedtime <b>routine</b> really is key for us. We’ve committed to a routine and we’re consistent… as much as we can be. There are as many differing routines as there are parents and children. Our bedtime routine does not include a “soothing” bath as it does for many; our boy gets hilariously hyper at bath time and it leans more toward <i>wet T-shirt contest </i>than <i>spa and candles.</i> What works for us is I nurse the baby in a quiet, dimly-lit room, I turn out the lights, put on a quiet song (same one every night), we have a little rock in the rocking chair, I turn on his little light aquarium – and I have to show him - I put him in his crib awake, and chatting contentedly he eventually goes to sleep on his own. But as is life, sometimes it all goes to shit and I have to dump the routine and totally improvise to suit the situation. <br><br>
4. THERE IS NO MAGIC SOLUTION so <b>patience</b> is key. You will be tired and you will be frustrated and you will be waaaay stupider than usual, so patience and brain power will be hard to come by. In the end, <i>you</i> have to figure out what works for <i>you</i> and <i>your</i> baby. And it won’t be the same as your neighbour’s baby or your sister’s kids or how you slept or didn’t sleep as a baby. So, look for patterns in the way your baby sleeps and reacts to different times of day and stimuli. You’ll start to see what works and what doesn’t if you take the time and energy to take note.<br><br><b>What I've learned from this:</b> There are definitely days when I can’t tell my arse from a hole in the ground and this morning I put orange juice on my Cheerios, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and now that I’ve established that it’s not the impending light of death from lack of sleep, I have more good days than bad. As time goes on, we’re all getting used to the routine and my son is progressively sleeping better and consequently so are we. It’s just another of the challenges that I’ve faced and laboured on as an evolving parent. But I admit, I’ve got my eye on a pair of teacups that are destined for destruction comes the next week of sleepless nights.<br><br><div style="text-align: center; ">
<img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/56541/9ecead588839ae0adbd3ac1716815f44bae78d49/medium/IMG_0280.JPG?1379710239" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="400" width="300" /><br><br><i>Sleep is for suckers.</i>
</div>
</span><br>Whitney Ross-Barristag:www.whitneyrb.com,2005:Post/1157492011-09-23T08:40:00-04:002022-07-26T09:24:34-04:00Leaving the Cave<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; ">Taking the baby into the city for whatever reason or errand can be fairly daunting without a car. Your options, <i>sans auto</i>, are to walk or to take public transit. Sadly, there is only so much within walking distance from your home and you’ve walked it a thousand times.<br><br>So, the next option, as mentioned, is public transit. While it’s easy enough to walk a stroller around the city, public transit is another story. You love your fabulous SUV of a stroller (which you nearly went into hock for); its sturdiness, the ease with which it glides over pot holes and dog poo, the massive basket which "<i>you hear"</i> can carry a 2-4. But this beast of a pram does not fit through the doorway of a streetcar and, should you get onto a bus, no doubt the haters would run you and your wee one off at the next stop with their withering glares. So you use the “easy-fold” stroller which is so magically “easy-fold” that it must be witchcraft. But having gotten as far as the subway station, the sad realization is that not every stupid subway station has a stupid elevator and you are not about to drag your precious cargo down four flights of worn out stairs.<br><br>So, you put the baby in the baby wrap – five metres of stretchy fabric which you wrap around your body to create a cozy, kangaroo-type carrier for your wee one – and you carry the “easy-fold” witchcraft stroller until you are in a position to unfold it, extract the sweaty, flat-sided, sleeping baby from the wrap and strap him into his five-point stroller harness very much against his will.<br><br>Meanwhile you are carrying in your backpack five diapers, a container of wipes (which you say a prayer that you’ve remembered to refill), bum ointment, an extra onesie (for those poop-up-the-back emergencies), a blanket for baby warmth (even though it’s 30-effing-degrees in September) and for easy plunking-down on living room floors (yours or the person’s you’ve barged in on in order to have some freekin’ adult conversation for one blessed afternoon), an apple and water bottle (to ensure some kind of sustenance to counter all your breastfeeding – other than the blackest coffee you can find), your dying cell phone, a reusable grocery bag (because, you may be tossing 14 diapers a day into landfill, but goddammit you will save the world by not using plastic bags), a change pad (which you know you should clean more often but always forget until you open it), and of course, a book (that your sister gave to you when you were on bed rest months ago, that you didn’t get a chance to read and know that, in all honesty, you won’t even crack open until the kid is in high school.)<br><br>So, by the time you get onto your first leg of public transit, you are a cross between a bag lady and a sherpa.<br><br>Forget about shopping for clothes for yourself on this outing; sweaters don’t fit over the Bjorn and your waistline ain’t what she used to be, so jeans are still just a wish to be made on a birthday cake (which you will eat entirely on your own while watching reruns of Oprah.) And Bra shopping is a hilarious joke involving mid-alphabet letters (yes Virginia, there is a J cup), nude-coloured utilitarian design and of course your own veritable waterfall of unwelcome breast milk.<br><br>Whatever errand or visit you are trying to accomplish in a day, you can guarantee that you will come home exhausted and absolutely RIPE as you will realize that in fact, you didn’t get a chance to shower today.<br><br>But <i>Halleluyah</i>, you have accomplished a great feat! You have left the house for an hour and returned home in one piece.<br><br>You may have spit-up in your cleavage and you may have totally forgotten <i>why</i> you left the house in the first place, but dammit, the baby is clean, dry and sleeping and NO ONE CAN TAKE THAT AWAY FROM YOU!<br><br><b>What I have learned from this</b>: Plan, plan, plan before you go out the door. And any nastiness that you could not forsee - including torrential rain, long line-ups at the bank, or an overcrowded streetcar full of drunks - is forgiveable. </span></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<div style="text-align: center; "><span style="font-size: medium; "><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/56541/8a298a9bf9f0e3b5a25ec712b34548a94b22dd35/medium/IMG_0515.JPG?1379710238" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="402" width="300" /><br><br><i>Clearly very happy with the fact that I'm taking him out.</i></span></div>
<p> </p>Whitney Ross-Barristag:www.whitneyrb.com,2005:Post/1141122011-09-12T12:30:00-04:002020-01-24T18:15:35-05:00Who takes a baby to a museum?!<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; ">Sitting in one's living room, perfecting one's ass print in the sofa from morning til night can be fantastically uplifting and energizing yes, but some days I have loftier ambitions.<br>As a new mom, there are days when I am debilitated by the simple task of leaving the house... with the baby, of course.<br>This past week, I found myself watching "The View"... again. A terrible confession, I know. But that's not the worst bit. You see, amidst a particularly terrible interview, I looked down at my son who was sweetly cooing from his tummy-time mat on the floor. He was watching the glowing TV in front of him. Riveted by "The View."<br>"Dear God," I thought. "I HAVE to get out of here!"<br>I summoned up what energy I had deep in the recesses of my sleep-deprived soul and went to the Royal Ontario Museum, knowing that admission was free that afternoon. You might think that taking a baby to a museum is ridiculous, but I had to do something to negate the obviously damaging effects of bad morning TV programming.<br><br>Here's a little photo blog of how it went:</span></p>
<p> </p>
<div style="text-align: center; ">
<br><span style="font-size: medium; "><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/56541/171e465d1b98cb67eb0687a4a094a3384c31388a/medium/IMG_0570.JPG?1379710238" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="400" width="300" /><br><br><i>The first exhibit we went for was the dinosaurs.<br>As you can see, my son is terrified and excited by billions of years of history in bones and fossils.<br>Good thing admission was free.</i><br><br><br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/56541/6a1cba23921c5a9e6a66b8dbd1ecd3bf7294e5ca/medium/IMG_0571.PNG?1379710238" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="402" width="300" /><br><br><i>I call this one Franklin: Jazz Hands-osaurus. Because I couldn't be arsed to read the actual sign in Latin.</i></span><br><br><br><span style="font-size: medium; ">i<img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/56541/66a74d3e27e83913b169712afbf93d81acea2668/medium/IMG_0572.JPG?1379710238" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="402" width="300" /><br><br><i>Short-nosed Bear. Absolutely terrifying. I saw a program on Discovery about these. They're only extinct because their prey died out. Yikes.<br>This is nightmare fodder for me for months. I already have a million irrational fears about regular bears. Thanks a lot, history.</i><br><br><br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/56541/e0266045fde8c9cfabe25496a36b4fd41c1d1191/medium/IMG_0573.PNG?1379710238" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="402" width="300" /><br><br><i>Some old shit.</i><br><br><br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/56541/d32e358eb5f8f874e0f847376bf0de22ff757ff9/medium/IMG_0575.JPG?1379710238" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="402" width="300" /><br><br><i>A frickin' rat with frickin' horns. <br>Another reason for me to berate the mechanics on my street corner for leaving their garbage out all the time.<br>See?! See what happens, jerks?! Rhino rats will mess you up!</i><br><br><br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/56541/46c545e1e51aab6b5cf307cae781e0ecc06f8a0f/medium/IMG_0576.JPG?1379710238" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="402" width="300" /><br><br><i>Looks pretty fake. <br>Can you ask to see a manager in a museum, cause I demand some proof that this "bird" isn't just a composite of feathers and plasticine.</i><br><br><br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/56541/d7b16121ab44c8965ef7837bac04cab59c9172b5/medium/IMG_0577.JPG?1379710238" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="402" width="300" /><br><br><i>Again... come ON, nature! For real?</i><br><br><br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/56541/f44d9d9f31a4c79ed76ebeee169021f1efa5b795/medium/IMG_0578.JPG?1379710238" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="402" width="300" /><br><br><i>It's a coconut. But look... It's like a butt.<br>(Just a reminder that I've been without adult company... all day.)</i><br><br><br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/56541/5bec539435392e19ee9c1a6beaef4bd7bde8bb88/medium/IMG_0579.JPG?1379710238" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="402" width="300" /><br><br><i>There are so many possible hilarious captions for this. <br>But in all honesty, the only thing I could think about was how there's no way it died in this position, so someone had to mold and glaze a floppy and/or crispy little dead lizard into this ferocious and somewhat comical position. RRRRaaaaaGGGGGHHHHHHH!</i><br><br><br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/56541/87ca6e7366eaa8669e0dcc1ff6e446fbef28c27b/medium/IMG_0580.JPG?1379710238" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="402" width="300" /><br><br><i>I don't know why this weirded me out, but it did. Looks like they're a carnival game. Freeze-dried weasel racing.<br>I'd bet on the second from the bottom. He's the dark horse for sure.</i><br><br><br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/56541/57749a6c565833b0206ebccbc574753e9df92d2c/medium/IMG_0581.JPG?1379710238" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="402" width="300" /><br><br><i>I think the animals that aren't that coyote better say their prayers... because some mean-spirited curator stuck them in a case with a hungry predator.<br>Unless this is an "Incredible Journey" type thing. In which case, it's nice that they have each other.</i><br><br><br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/56541/82194b667b1162adf1ebcfd4e9f0f86ac4aa2ada/medium/IMG_0583.JPG?1379710238" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="400" width="300" /><br><br><i>Again... riveted.</i><br><br><br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/56541/521b97ffdd7879ec6134e3c6647977ef49dc4333/medium/IMG_0584.JPG?1379710238" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="402" width="300" /><br><br><i>This used to always freak me out. Vampire bats, sucking on a goat.<br>The bat cave in the ROM might be new and revamped but they've saved this creepy thing from the days of old.</i><br><br><br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/56541/5125bf9d6348767b32175cf2e8554cded467a320/medium/IMG_0585.JPG?1379710238" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="402" width="300" /><br><br><i>I know this is supposed to be a clever seal-head-sticking-out-of-the-water thing, but I kept wondering what they did with the rest of the seal.<br>I imagine the seal's bottom half's been mounted on the staff lunch room wall and is being used as a towel rack and bottle opener.</i><br><br><br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/56541/61470a4d491ec2154436836a1d19137af40c961f/medium/IMG_0586.JPG?1379710238" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="402" width="300" /><br><br><i>The most intriguing of museum creatures. He woke up, demanded to be fed and promptly pooped up his back and all over his clothing.<br>Thank Zeus I brought the extra onesie.</i></span><br><br> </div>
<div style="text-align: left; "><span style="font-size: medium; ">We pretty much cut it short soon after that.<br>The visit, that is.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left; "> </div>
<div style="text-align: left; "> </div>
<div style="text-align: left; "> </div>Whitney Ross-Barristag:www.whitneyrb.com,2005:Post/1008002011-05-24T15:20:19-04:002017-01-13T13:15:42-05:00Birth in Numbers<b><span style="font-size: large; ">0</span></b><span style="font-size: large; "> – number of worries I had for most of my pregnancy (well… I lie. The number was higher at the beginning then lessened with each ice cream-filled evening.)<br><b>3</b> – the number of weeks I dealt with mysterious back pain and cramping while in my 6th and 7th months of pregnancy<br><b>29</b> – the number of weeks, plus 2 days gestation when I started to take those pains seriously<br><b>0</b> – number of emotions expressed by the male Telehealth nurse as I, so embarrassed I thought I might swallow my tongue, described the sticky details of the symptoms I had been experiencing for some time<br><b>1,346</b> – the number of worries that contributed to the ugly cry I launched into after learning from said emotionally derelict Telehealth nurse that I should go <i>straight to the hospital</i><br><b>45</b> – the number of dollars I owe a musician I was meant to pay for an April gig – I used his envelope of undelivered cash for a cab to the hospital (never leave a pregnant woman with an envelope full of your cash)<br><b>3</b> – number of times I burst into tears trying to explain to staff at St. Mike’s that I needed to be checked for signs of – <i>oh ma gah!</i> - preterm labour<br><b>3</b> – number of sizes my heart grew when my husband arrived at the hospital, still in his work clothes and totally out of breath to be at my side<br><b>12</b> – amount of relief I felt (on a scale of 1 to 10) when my mother arrived as well – if 1 was <i>“and you are…..?”</i> and 10 was <i>“Mommyyyyyyy!”</i><br><b>1 </b>– number of centimeters that my cervix had dilated to by the time I was checked by doctors at St. Mike’s<br><b>3</b> – number of times I cracked the same <i>“Aren’t you at least going to buy me dinner first?”</i> joke for each suppository I endured<br><b>.5</b> – the number of times a nurse laughed at said joke<br><b>2 to 3</b> – number of centimeters my cervix had dilated to by later that same evening<br><b>0</b> – number of open beds for a 29 week preemie in Toronto should I deliver that night<br><b>5</b> – number of needles I had received by morning<br><b>1</b> – number of needles that sprayed blood all over the bed and myself<br><b>2 </b>– number of horrified faces I saw while that happened as I looked at my mother and husband<br><b>65</b> – number of doubts I had in the nurse that administered that needle<br><b>2</b> – number of contractions I experienced when told by neonatal pediatricians about the terrifying potential risks of birthing a premature baby<br><b>1</b> – number of open spots for me and my potentially premature baby in London, Ontario<br><b>1 or 2</b> – times I had visited London, Ontario<br><b>0</b> – details I remembered of those visits<br><b>2</b> – number of hot paramedics that accompanied my husband and I on a Medevac helicopter ride to London’s St. Joseph’s hospital<br><b>6</b> – number of withering glares they got from my husband (still in his work clothes from the day before)<br><b>0</b> – my desire to fly (on a scale of 1 to 10), if 1 was <i>“I’d rather swallow kitty litter than fly”</i> and 10 was <i>“hells, yes! Let me get my head set!”</i><br><b>900</b> – number of degrees it was under the heavy-duty blankets on the stretcher in the helicopter<br><b>3</b> – upon my arrival in London, number of days I had gone without a shower<br><b>1200</b> – level of personal stink-filth (on a scale of 1 to 10), if 1 was <i>“hm, that’s unpleasant”</i> and 10 was <i>“good GOD, I’ve gone blind!”</i><br><b>7</b> – number of magazines I acquired from family and friends who were worried I’d have nothing to do while waiting in the hospital, hoping the baby would <i>‘stay in there’</i> until full term<br><b>1</b> – number of those magazines that I actually had a chance to read before the baby <i>‘got the hell outta there’</i><br><b>5</b> – number of days I hung out in a hospital bed, hoping for my contractions to settle<br><b>30</b> – minutes after 5 a.m. on the 5th day in hospital that I started timing my contractions<br><b>10</b> – minutes apart those contractions were<br><b>6 to 7</b> – minutes apart those contractions were when the nurse started timing them<br><b>0</b> – amount of cervix I had left by 10, later that morning<br><b>15</b> – minutes after 11 a.m. that they wheeled me, along with my hubby, into the birthing room<br><b>0</b> – amount I knew about labour and giving birth – <i>ummmm… what does fully dilated mean?</i><br><b>0</b> – amount I knew about pain – <i>epi-wha?</i><br><b>14.5</b> – hours I was able to hold off without asking for drugs to numb the pain<br><b>30 to 60</b> – minutes the anesthesiologists said it would be before they could come and administer the epidural I had decided I needed more than anything in the <i>ever-lovin’</i> universe<br><b>3</b> – number of nurses that I made blush when I yelled <i>“FUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!”</i> after hearing said news about the epidural delay<br><b>30-ish </b>– minutes it actually took for the anesthesiologists to arrive… I think – there is no time when you feel like your back will split down the middle and a baby will come out your ass<br><b>1 </b>– number of legs the epidural actually affected when finally administered<br><b>9</b> – hour of the evening that they finally broke my water so I could get the damn show on the road<br><b>1 to 2</b> – minutes I was able to full-on sleep between pushing<br><b>16.5 </b>– in the end, the number of hours I was in labour<br><b>46</b> – the number of minutes after 9 o’clock in the evening that Coen George Ross-Barris was born<br><b>3 and 9</b> – the number of pounds and ounces that a little boy can weigh<br><b>A million</b> – number of times a day I restrain myself from referring to Coen as an angel or miracle for fear of adding to the over-Anne-Geddied, drugstore-greeting-carded, stuffed-praying-dolled world of newborn rhetoric<br><b>Another million</b> – the number of incredibly generous and caring friends and family members that it seemed were eager to jump in and support the three of us in this crazy adventure<br><b>A trillion</b> – amount of luck I feel on a daily basis because of said friends and family members (on a scale of 1 to 10), if 1 was <i>“hey, I just found a quarter!”</i> and 10 was <i>“hey, I just found a winning lottery ticket… under Brad Pitt…who’s in my bed!”</i><br><b>0</b> – number of regrets I feel when I smell the top of my little boy’s head while he sleeps soundly in my arms.<br><div style="text-align: center; ">
<img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/56541/04094a3b1ba8783987320b51a7e4fe2dc12e793a/medium/IMG_0247.JPG?1379710238" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="402" width="300" /><br><br><i>Coen, with his prison barber haircut - when he was born he had an IV in his scalp - ouchie.</i><br type="_moz">
</div>
<br><br><br></span><br>Whitney Ross-Barristag:www.whitneyrb.com,2005:Post/969392011-04-08T04:55:00-04:002017-01-13T13:15:42-05:00Call on Line Two from Your Body - Uh... You'd better take this one.<div><span style="font-size: medium">Pregnancy is <i>not</i> for wussies. From the rapidly-expanding waistline (I look in the mirror and see a Dr. Seussian caricature of my former self; <i>Oh, the places I’ve gone </i>– mostly to the fridge and back), to the super-human smell (I know that you’re drunk on Listerine at 2 in the afternoon on the streetcar – even if you’re five seats back – and it makes me want to hurl), to the mental reprecussions of sleep deprivation (I don’t suppose you know where I left my purse, do you? – Ah of course, it’s in the fridge.) I’m no wussy, but the main problem I deal with, coming from a family of self-starters is – where does pregnancy end and laziness begin? <b>When</b> and <b>how</b> do I slow down?<br></span></div>
<div><span style="font-size: medium"><br>
I <i>adore</i> my sister and have always looked up to her, but I decided to stop asking her for advice about slowing down. When she’s pregnant, she becomes the Incredible Hulk – that is, if the Hulk was in his second trimeter, obsessed with wall decals and had mad eBay skills. She’s unbelievable! I will never forget the terrifying image of her hurling over-sized boxes of IKEA shelving onto a lop-sided cart while 6 months pregnant. I was amazed and horrified. I tried to help but it almost seemed safer to stay out of Hulk’s way.<br><br>
Now six months pregnant myself, I’ve found that my day to day quest of “am I doing too much?” is a kind of live-and-learn experience. As much as we can Google to our hearts content on what is normal and what is not, it comes down to <b>figuring it out for ourselves </b>(and let me advise you, nothing positive will come from Google-ing any pregnancy-related issue, only details of certain death and destruction.)<br><br>
The key for me to knowing when and how to slow down is <b>self-awareness</b>. Pregnancy has forced me to really listen to my body. It started when I was trying to get pregnant and I was incredibly in tune with every cramp and fluctuation in body temperature, anything to indicate that – <i>ohpleaseohpleaseohplease</i>! – I would be pregnant. When I finally hit the jackpot, my body awareness briefly turned into a panic of “it’ll never stick!” After a sobering conversation with my mother who promptly advised me to chill the hell out (“millions of women have millions of healthy babies every day, Whit”), my fear turned to wonder and utter fascination.<br><br>
What came next is something wonderful. The first lesson my child has taught me in this life: <b>What is the big damn hurry, mom?!<br></b><br>
Now when I pound the pavement, run for a streetcar or try to rush my way to appointments (<i>if</i> I remember that I have them), my body simply won’t let me. <i>Slow down Mumma</i>.<br><br>
Now when I make big plans to build those shelves, unpack those boxes and wallpaper the bathroom, the exhaustion kicks in half-way through. <i>Slow down Mumma</i>.<br><br>
Now when I sing a three-set jazz show, I know to take a monster nap before hand, otherwise, my vocal range and breath capacity is knackered. <i>Slow down Mumma</i>.<br><br><b>What I have learned from this</b>: In the end, Google and even a beloved big sister are fine references but what it comes down to is you and how your body feels. Only you can be the judge of how and when to slow down. After all, what <i>is</i> the big damn hurry?!<br><br></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center">
<img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/56541/ad124c1bd2e73e2bce0fd6ea92f279950a1e8c3c/medium/show-bump_Lomoart_6.jpg?1379710238" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="426" width="300" /><br><span style="font-size: medium"><br></span><i><span style="font-size: medium">Post-Jazz Show giddy exhaustion.<br><br></span></i>
</div>Whitney Ross-Barristag:www.whitneyrb.com,2005:Post/913172011-01-24T07:33:19-05:002011-01-24T07:33:19-05:00For Q, Who I Love<span style="font-size: medium">I owe someone something. And it’s not the 20 bucks I owe you for that time you spotted me for drinks. It’s not the kick up the arse I owe Bill O’Reilly for just being a dick. It’s not the thousands of bucks I owe to my parents for the braces they put on my teeth, the effects of which I negated by eating too many Jolly Ranchers. In truth, I owe my sister a wedding speech.<br><br>
The day my sister was married, I stood up after a large dinner (… all right, I <i>might</i> have been a little, nay a <i>lot</i> drunk) and blathered on about how great her dog, her TV and her new husband were, <i>rather</i> than what I had meant to do which was to extol the values of a fantastic sibling. So, approximately 5-ish years later, I will soberly approach a tribute to my sister, Q.<br><br>
Growing up, my now patient, introverted, no-nonsense sister was loud, wild, unpredictable and … well, a little bossy. As our dad and grandfather were radio broadcasters, we would often create our <i>own</i> radio shows with our Fisher Price tape recorder (the tapes still exist – and though I threatened to play them at her wedding, I restrained myself.) She would be the news anchor, warning the world of escaped pandas and of all the murders occurring in Edmonton overnight (“but, don’t worry folks, no one was hurt.”) She was also the host of our numerous radio talk shows, interviewing me as I lamely pretended to be various characters but mostly whined about her hogging the mic. <br><br>
My sister was first to make friends when, as kids, we moved from our home in Edmonton, Alberta, across the country to Toronto (where she also bravely fended off some <i>very</i> nasty bullies.) She was first to make friends when we settled in the then small town of Uxbridge, in rural Ontario. She was first to get involved in music. In fact, when people ask me about my training as a singer, she’s often the first person I list as informal tutor. My sister used to sing everywhere she went and I, following closely behind, would listen and envy and mimic every sound she made. Not many people know and she’ll tell you otherwise, but my sister sings like a dream.<br><br>
As I started to develop my own personality as a rowdy theatre and music kid, my sister developed into a much more reserved and sensitive intellectual and athlete. I remember many a time bouncing over to her as she gabbed with her friends at our high school, I in my dress-over-jeans-black-hair-dye-fiasco-plastic-necklaced look, she in her super-hip-cinched-Gap-jeans-and-band-shirt look, to be met with her lip curled get-the-hell-outta-here wilting glare. As we grew from children into very different teenagers, I think for a while, she didn’t <i>quite</i> know what to do with me.<br><br>
Though she disapproved of my weirdness, her instincts as protective big sister came into play, without fail, any time I was interested in a boy. More than once, as I spoke googly to some poor sod on the phone, she jumped on the line, fiercely inquiring about “your intentions with my sister.” Embarrassed, I would scream for my parents to intervene and curse her aggression as I sobbed melodramatically into my pillow. <i>Oh</i>, and P.S., her protective sister instinct also told on me for smoking pot and hanging around with the “wrong crowd” which was followed by two years of early nights and mistrust by my mom and dad. Admittedly there were a few douche-bags in that “wrong crowd” but <i>she</i> hung out with them too!<br><br>
When it came time for us to leave the nest, she went off to University and I to Europe and there was a great shift in our relationship. I suppose it was inevitable as we were becoming adults. She wrote to me diligently while I was away at school in Norway, letters which I pored over, reading them again and again. She had made me a detailed album full of photos and memories to take with me. I felt like she finally knew I existed. At the end of my school year, she came over and met me and we travelled together. It was as if I was finally getting to meet someone I’d been dying to hang out with for years.<br><br>
When she bought her first house with her long-time boyfriend, our relationship grew even closer. I was suddenly seeing her more in one month than I had seen her in the previous 10 years. She was finally letting me in. It was glorious. And the more I got to know her, the more I admired her drive and strength and fearlessness.<br><br>
A little while after they were married, my sister and her husband brought my beloved niece into the world. I was filled with more joy and more love than I had ever imagined, as well as endless wonder as I watched her not only grow into a gorgeous little girl but a smart little cookie, talking from the time she could roll over. A couple of years later, my nephew was born and I fell madly in love with him too; his coy little smile, his determination to walk, his fondness for his big sister. Here were these two little pieces of a woman I already loved so much, in perfect little independent packages. And now, spending time with them all, I get to see her in yet another light, as a thoughtful, funny, hard-working and wonderful mother.<br><br>
So this is for you, Q. A tribute to a woman who possesses such strength, such wisdom, such beauty, such courage that I can only stand back and admire you after sitting beside you, just feeling <i>honoured</i> to be your friend.<br><br><b>What I learned from this</b>: If I ever meet the bitches who tormented my sister when we first moved to Toronto, you will read this headline the following day: </span><b><span style="font-size: medium">Wig and Denture Sales Sky-Rocket as Shaven Toothless Local Women Buy Up Stock With Broken Fingers.<br></span></b>Whitney Ross-Barristag:www.whitneyrb.com,2005:Post/556702011-01-11T07:45:00-05:002017-01-13T13:15:41-05:00Ovaries-y<span style="font-size: medium">“So, are you guys trying?” Trying. Ugh. It always feels weird to say it. Once I was married, suddenly everyone was interested to know whether my husband and I were “trying,” inquiring in an easy tone like they were simply asking if we had thought about renovating our bathroom or buying a Kia. <br><br>
How strange that a marriage license and public vows of love are permission for other people to ask you about your sex life. And it’s not just the hopeful, excited grandparents-to-potentially-be that are interested to know what’s happening in your bedroom and your loins, but people you hardly know. I admit, I have been guilty of this kind of inquiry in the past but as I’ve now seen the other side, I’ve changed my ways and I try to keep my thoughts out of other people’s beds … and loins … <i>mostly</i>.<br><br>
I adopted a phrase that my girlfriend taught me. When people started to ask me if I and the Irishman were “trying,” I would tell them that “<i>well, we’ve pulled the goalie</i>.” Generally it would either shut them up or ease the tension surrounding such a probingly personal question. I was tired of people asking. It was either utter a statement like that or ask if they’d like a detailed power point presentation to illustrate what we were <i>really</i> up to. But perhaps the latter was a little too aggressive. A goalieless net is much less graphic.<br><br>
In our case, the goalie was on a freakin’ <i>hiatus</i>, perhaps on a golf course somewhere for the better part of a year. Like a lot of women my age, I spent a good part of my teens and twenties “trying” <i>NOT</i> to get knocked up, and when it finally came time to take my glorious leap into motherhood, my body was incommunicado. It lead to months and months of cycle-tracking apps, high hopes and disappointment, blood tests and sonograms, planning and un-planning, radical diets and herbal supplements. <br><br>
In the first few months of “pulling the goalie,” I tried so many pregnancy tests that, if challenged, I could probably now pee on a stick from fifty paces. But with each one came the disheartening resignation of “<i>oh, not this month, I guess</i>.” It had been 15 years since I’d consistently been off the birth control pill and so the experience was a little new. Being able to physically feel my cycle for the first time at 31 was fascinating, but I suppose, hardly dinner conversation. Not many people were eager to hear about my ovaries over a beef roast or my mittelschmerz over strudel (yeah … look it up, if you dare, mein friends.)<br><br>
Without the help of my precious pill, my complexion declined into madness. Teenage acne?! Are you fucking kidding me?! I had gone through enough awkwardness and self-loathing when I was fourteen; did I really have to relive the fantastical breakouts of grade 3 through 12?! Just throw me a plastic necklace, tie a plaid shirt around my waist, buy my Soul Asylum tickets and I’ll dredge up the whole horrifying thing! It was getting ridiculous. This persistent and totally embarrassing skin issue finally pushed me to get some answers. After all, when you’re 31 and finding yourself ducking into doorways and nearly diving into manholes (careful now) to avoid people who knew you when your face wasn’t a complete disaster, something’s got to be done. <br><br>
Following numerous blood tests (the Philippino ladies at the blood clinic now know me by name) and things being stuck in dark places by surly technicians, my doctor established that I had what is called Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, or PCOS as it is also known. As it turns out, PCOS is fairly common. I was told that about 10% of women have it and around 80% of those women are overweight or obese. So, luck of lucks, I had the uncommon version … <i>lean</i> PCOS. I’m just a trend-setter, a rule breaker … what can I say? Lean or not, PCOS is a bastard.<br><br>
As this condition seems to stem from excessive insulin in a women’s body (go figure), one of the options for treatment is a diet adjustment. So I went to a naturopath to see what could be done. She was very soft-spoken, gentle, and intelligent; I knew I was in very capable hands. But after six days on the no sugar, no coffee, no alcohol, no wheat, no potatoes diet I was put on, I started to spitefully refer to this blameless professional as my "naziopath." But that misdirected anger mostly came from the junk food withdrawal and the total food disorientation I was experiencing. Once I figured out what meals I could fix that would fill my stomach, I became less troll-like and more pleasant to be around. I started to feel more energetic, my skin didn’t really clear, but it started to feel less painful and I even dropped a couple of stubborn pounds that had been clinging to my ever-expanding backside.<br><br>
In mid-October (after almost a year of “trying”), on a hunch, I picked up a digital pregnancy test on my way home one day. Not that I really thought that after only two months on this restrictive diet that I’d be less hormonally wacky and more prone to being pregnant, but I thought what the hell, nothing to lose but a full bladder … and about 16 dollars, I guess.<br><br>
Fast forward to about an hour later … I’m sobbing hysterically – tears of joy, relief, fear, excitement and general holy-shitness – mascara streaks down my face and of course I’m still seated on the loo with a positive test in my hand.<br><br>
Now, almost four months later, I’m over the barfiness, over the exhaustion (for the time being), over the initial fear and into some new and very genuine parental-expectation-what-the-hell-were-we-thinking fear. I sleep very little as I pee every 12 minutes, I have NO idea how to dress myself, I can’t remember words like “rural”, “albino” and “replay” in regular conversation and lately I’ve been dreaming very vividly about eating paper. But I’m happy … <i>exquisitely</i> happy and I’m very aware of my great fortune in this life.<br><br><b>What I learned from this</b>: I have to number this as I’m feeling very opinionated and I also have a fear of disorganization these days as my brain slowly falls out my ass:<br><br>
1. If you’re having trouble conceiving and someone tells you “Hey, stop stressing. You just need to <i>relax</i> and then it’ll happen,” swallow your anger. They just don’t get it and it’s not really worth the confrontation. <br><br>
2. Never … EVER … E-VER Google anything that you are concerned about as a pregnant woman, you will only find stories about the worst possible things that go wrong. Nobody puts their positive pregnancy anecdotes on the net, only horror, death and destruction. <br><br>
3. Everyone has their own journey and story when it comes to pregnancy; they are personal, heartbreaking, uplifting, miraculous and incredibly unpredictable experiences and if someone chooses to share theirs with you, consider yourself very fortunate. <br><br><div style="text-align: center">
<img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/56541/d0c71081be424b77f932f6cb702f3d332b66c639/medium/IMG_0022.JPG?1379710238" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="247" width="300" /><br><br><i>The babe ... waving hello. </i><br>
</div>
<div style="text-align: left"> </div>
<div style="text-align: center"> </div>
</span>Whitney Ross-Barristag:www.whitneyrb.com,2005:Post/885742010-12-03T07:40:00-05:002022-02-20T12:28:13-05:00Fixing Fat Santa's Pants or What I Did for my Christmas Vacation<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size: small">Every Christmas, throughout my high school and university years, I added one more weird holiday job to the list of <b><i>strange things I’ve done for money</i></b>. I’ve doled out expired and melting lipstick to desperate and slightly insane women at make-up warehouse sales; I’ve shoveled copious amounts of horse manure; I’ve mopped the floors and cleaned the toilets of the Centre of Forensic Sciences; and I’ve even been a Christmas elf.<br><br>One December, I noticed a posting on an acting website calling for “elves.” The ad sought university students who needed some extra dough for a “Santa’s Little Helper” sort of photographer position. Somehow I equated it with playing an <i>actual</i> role and thought I’d give it a shot. What can I say? I was young and hopeful and poor and stupid.<br><br>Before the official festive season started, I found myself in a room full of white-bearded, mouth-breathing fat guys and a number of young women who were college and university students like me. Our boss went over the code of ethics in working with children and their often insistent parents. Everyone seemed to be an old hand at the gig and, as per usual, I was almost the only newbie. By the end of the meeting, conversation turned toward how <i>our</i> Santas were the best and had you seen that one in Oakville or Markham who had a fake beard and took long breaks and never smiled or talked to the kids?! 30 bucks for a picture with a sub-par Santa Claus? <i>Puh-leeease</i>!<br><br>In all honesty, our Santas all seemed to be very nice fellows, passionate about upholding the illusion for the kids and most of them had real white(<i>ish</i>) beards. Every time our boss mentioned the “elves” she raved about the <i>beeeautiful</i> costumes and how much I’d love them. “Well alright,” I thought “a nice costume goes a long way! I’m in.”<br><br>My first few days were at a beautiful old manor house. I joined two other “elves” and unzipped my garment bag to see a crappy elf costume made out of red and white fun fur (probably about a 1974 vintage), felt and starchy plaid packing ribbon. The other two girls unzipped their garment bags to reveal their shining, feathery, sparkly outfits that looked as if they could have been worn by Tonya Harding circa 1994. I’m sure in some world (perhaps a sluttier one) these costumes were <i>beeeautiful</i>, but in my world they seemed to be missing a great deal of fabric. Suddenly, my packing ribbon costume didn’t look so bad. </span></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<div style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: small"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/56541/735ee55d844e8512125d0543f38fccfc3dcc93c4/medium/silver-hells.jpg?1379710238" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="443" width="300" /></span></div>
<p><br><span style="font-size: small">As an elf, my duty was to take digital photos of the often screaming and terrified children on Santa’s lap, print the photo up onsite and cram it into a “Happy Holidays” greeting card with penguins on the front. I had a knack for bringing out the redeye in every kid, so eventually I was demoted to entertaining the waiting line-up of children and dads.<br><br>The Santas at the manor house were amazing. One of them had a Father Christmas accent and had an old key hanging about his neck. He told the children it was a magical key that did many things, including help him deliver presents to homes that had no chimneys. Very dedicated character work I thought ... Albeit a little creepy.<br><br>The other Santa looked like a ZZ Top sub-in bass player in his civvies, but as Santa, he was very convincing and quite jolly. This Santa had to take frequent breaks to empty his colostomy bag, poor chap. We’d just stick up the “Santa’s feeding his reindeer. He’ll be back soon.” sign and binge on candy canes until he returned.<br><br>My clearest memory of that time at the manor house was sadly not the beautiful room the staff had so brilliantly decorated with gifts and toys and trees and lights, nor the enchanting surroundings of this lovely old building. My clearest memory was looking up, while one of the other elves heaved a two-year old onto Santa’s lap, and realizing that I was staring directly into this elf’s butt which was fully exposed beneath the tiny skirt of her <i>beeeautiful</i> costume. I almost went blind. Was she nuts?! Wear some damn shorts! Wear some Grannies for God’s sake, but a thong?! Honestly. It then dawned on me why so many dads offered to line up with their impatient kids to see … Santa.<br><br>From the manor house, I then graduated to a shit hole of a strip mall out of town. The Santa there was morbidly obese, tearing the seams of his trousers daily until we were unable to stitch the frayed fabric back together, covering his bulging gut with a burgundy dinner napkin instead.<br><br>Pet day was an adventure. It was a chance for people to bring in their family pet for a picture and with Santa. I don’t know whose idea it was to bring together all manner of creatures in the middle of a mall, but there we were. Dogs fighting dogs, dogs chasing cats, cats howling at each other, angry parrots screeching at the cats, bunnies frozen with fear and all of them disoriented from the strange world that was this gaping atrium in the middle of a strip mall. I wonder where those pictures are now and why the hell you’d want to remember Christmas 2002 with a picture of Fluffy whizzing on Santa’s lap in abject fear.<br><br>But there was a positive side to the shit-hole strip mall, napkin-crotch Santa debacle: I finally got to wear the slutty elf costume. <i>Oh yeeeeah</i>. I elected to wear shorts under <i>my</i> tiny skirt, after learning my lesson the hard way. Wearing the slutty elf costume yielded a lot of power. For some reason, elves dressed as strippers are not only listened to by unwieldy, I'm-gonna-count-to-four parents, but well-respected by misbehaving children. I felt a great sense of authority and control in wearing it. I had to make sure people stayed in line, that children were happy, that Santa didn’t stand up (in case the napkin fell off.) It was up to me to make sure things ran smoothly. Of course, it goes without saying that my husband also loved the costume and would leave his work early to leer at me until the end of my shift.<br><br>I admit, I took pride in my job as elf. I would secretly talk to parents and then surprise flabbergasted kids with my knowledge of what they wanted for Christmas; I would sing carols with them; I would answer their questions about Rudolph and the workshop. I was a great elf.<br><br>It was what it was: just another wacky temp job to add to the list of <b><i>strange things I’ve done for money</i></b>.<br><br><b>What I learned from this</b>: Christmas can be magical for kids, but put a tiny skater’s dress on a young, female university student and it can be magical for dads too.</span><br> </p>Whitney Ross-Barristag:www.whitneyrb.com,2005:Post/876602010-11-23T05:15:00-05:002017-01-13T13:15:42-05:00Next Time, Get the Custard Tart<span style="font-size: medium">I don’t know about you, but on occasion I find myself in a situation where I start to look for hidden cameras. It is a situation that I feel can’t possibly be happening in the realm of reality, so I figure it must be a set-up. In most cases, it is in fact <i>not</i> a set-up ... it's just my life. But spare me your pity; I do it to myself.<br><br>
The first thing I did when I earned my union card as a stage actor was go to an open call. An open call, for those not familiar with it, is an audition that is … well … <i>open</i> to the general public. Anyone who wants to try out for whatever production is running it can turn up at an open call and get a shot a auditioning for the big show. In a lot of cases these cattle calls are simply publicity stunts to boost hype and ticket sales, but regardless, I have participated in my miserable fair share.<br><br>
Allow me to describe to you the experience of an open call. As a non-union member, you show up as early as you can get there. Your eyes are puffy, your hair is wet and you look like you’ve paint balled your make-up on. You stand in line for hours with chain-smoking classical singers and overly-energetic teenagers, you sip cold coffee and try to keep the circulation going in your feet. If you’re lucky, you get in with the first crowd and are assigned a number. What does the number mean? Usually nothing. You’re still going to have to wait around all day until they call it. You watch union members show up last minute, they skip the line, air-kiss the administration and they go to see the panel right away. You start to doubt your life and career, and then by some miracle, at 5pm, when you’ve nearly lost the will to live, it’s your turn. You smile at the now tired and impatient panel before you and you are so exhausted and overly-warmed up that you cack through the 8 bars that you are <i>privileged</i> to sing them.<br><br>
Knowing that I could now skip all that crap, with my new union card in hand, I showed up at an open call for “Dancers and Singers who can Dance.” Now, I am <i>not</i> a dancer. I admit, I can move, I can learn choreography, I can even dance, but I am in <i>no way </i>defined as a “dancer.” But I thought, as I am a “singer who dances,” I might as well give ‘er a shot. <br><br>
The audition was being held in a church-turned-theatre. As I walked through the door, my stomach dropped. It was like being a contestant on <i>The Biggest Loser </i>and accidentally walking onto the set of <i>Fame</i>. There were young (younger than me), thin (thinner than me) and very flexible (legs over heads) women stretching up and down the three floors of stairwell. They donned leg warmers and sweaters with the necks cut out and super tight buns … in their long, perfect hair ... I looked like I had just gotten off an Arizona seniors tour bus in wrinkled linen capris, a mumsy button-down tank top (that was too small for me), I had thin, unruly, partly grown-out hair, and I had pulled a groin muscle just looking at these threateningly talented dancers.<br><div style="text-align: center">
<br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/56541/a4e47157f610769d61e77f9077dd194e538a11ed/original/custard-tart.jpg?1379710238" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="402" width="600" />
</div>
<br>
In the world where I make good choices, I turn around, recognizing my limits as a performer and go and have a coffee and custard tart in one of the many Portuguese bakeries in the area. In my real world of endless blunders and humiliation, I took a swig from my giant water bottle, choked a little, smiled at the bendy freaks in front of me and went to pretend to stretch in a corner behind a curtain.<br><br>
Soon after, a woman came around with a clip board and called on all the union or “Equity” members. <br><br>
“Here!” I screamed, exploding out from behind the curtain and knocking over my water bottle. I handed the Clip Board Lady my Equity card and grinned proudly as water from the overturned bottle quietly seeped into my shoes.<br><br>
“Okay ladies, come with me. Bring your stuff.” We ventured out into the stairwell, passing all the flexible women, my shoes squidging with each step, and made our way up to a very humid, armpiteous hall in the top floor of the building. I dropped my stuff at the back of the room and found an inconspicuous place behind everyone, near the exit.<br><br>
The director and producer were introduced. They expressed their enthusiasm about the project and then slunk back into the shadow of the fabulously gay choreographer. He stepped forward and announced that the combination was quite simple, that we need not worry; we’d all pick it up in an instant. <br><br>
“It’s just <i>basic</i> ballet,” he said as I nearly vomited in my mouth. I flashed back to my first ballet classes at age 15, awkwardly struggling to get my leg up on the bar, while the other busty and long-legged girls pirouetted and chaséed as if they’d been doing it since each was in utero.<br><br>
The choreographer demonstrated the combination. A pianist played a delightful little rondo to accompany his light-of-footedness. The second time through, every stinkin’ dancer in the room could do the whole combination, step for step, leap for leap … perfectly. Then there was me: tripping over gym bags, toppling over after every pirouette, losing steps and laughing at myself at the back of the room (to keep from weeping uncontrollably, of course.) As I searched for hidden cameras among now disheveled gym bags and book shelves, I noticed, to my horror the doorway of the room was tightly packed with non-union dancers peering in to watch the “pros.” I suddenly wished I was drunk or delirious with typhoid if only to have an excuse for being so clumsy.<br><br>
The choreographer split us up into smaller groups. <i>Ohmygodohmygodohmygod!</i> My group was called and as I couldn’t find any places to hide among the beanpoles in the room, I sheepishly stepped forward. Needless to say, it did not go well. I tried to do what one of my merciful dancer friends once told me to do if I ever found myself in this situation: act the hell out of it. I tried to play up that I couldn’t dance, making a sort of character out of it. What it looked like was me making fun of the choreography and/or simply being a terrible dancer. No role had ever come so naturally.<br><br>
At the end of the session the Clip Board Lady approached some of the dancers and asked them to stay and sing. I was not approached.<br><br>
I grabbed my things and walked out of the room, my shoes still squidging with every step, my head held high. I found the nearest Portuguese bakery where I ate custard tarts until I felt sick.<br><br><b>What I learned from this</b>: Absolutely nothing. I did the same thing two years later for another audition and actually injured myself in the process. Also, I have a tremendous amount of respect for dancers as they are all incredibly skilled which is why, sometimes, I hate them.<br><br><br></span>Whitney Ross-Barristag:www.whitneyrb.com,2005:Post/614792010-11-04T08:45:00-04:002022-02-20T12:31:42-05:00Whitney & the K-town Iguana<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium">You haven’t lived until you have lived with a horny Iguana.<br><br>My first year out of University, in the early spring, I landed a role in a play in Kitchener, Ontario. I had never been to Kitchener, though I had many friends who were “K-town-born-and-raised”, and I was interested in getting to know the place.<br><br>Some of the play’s cast opted to commute from Toronto, but as I was living in Uxbridge at the time (far from both Toronto and Kitchener), I requested to be billeted with someone local. I truly lucked out. The lady who took me in was kind, generous and friendly and asked nothing of me in return for my complete room and board. She gave me my own key, my own room in this enormous empty house, she fed me and when it got warm enough, she let me swim in her pool.<br><br>Now, in this lovely woman’s house was a sort of menagerie. With two grown boys who were mostly moved out, she had been left with their numerous pets. Two Australian sheep dogs (part dingo), two or three guinea pigs, a rabbit and a five-foot long orange iguana called Iggy.<br><br>Iggy. God knows where this creature came from. Maybe hell? Yeah, I say hell. It had initially belonged to her son – who now only claimed ownership of Iggy when that ownership wasn’t attached to any kind of basic responsibility. But now, as she was used to its unnerving presence, she felt a sort of affinity and fondness for this bizarre-looking lizard.<br><br>Iggy wouldn’t have been so unbearable and creepy if he was kept in an enclosed space or cage to keep him wrangled, but for some unknown reason, he was allowed to skulk around the house freely with nothing to bar him. It was very hard to keep track of this sneaky little bastard too; just when you thought he was lurking somewhere in front of you, he’d crawl up behind you on the back of the couch while you were watching the news.<br><br>Now if this wasn’t bad enough, my hostess warned me that in the late spring that “Iggy goes into heat.” Hm. Into heat, eh?<br><br>“But isn’t he a boy lizard-iguana-thing? I thought it was just girl … mammals that went into heat … What month is this?”<br><br>Apparently I was wrong. Iggy was special. She had checked him out with an exotic pet vet upon noticing the change in his behavior and was told of his delightful seasonal condition.<br><br>Horny lizard. Funny, huh? <i>I</i> thought so until I experienced a five-foot long orange iguana chasing me across a tile floor at 8 in the morning. Apparently, when in heat, Iggy was drawn to females, no matter what species, particularly every 28 days (<i>wink, wink</i>.) I’ll tell you from experience, the last thing you want when PMSing is a freekin’ lizard pursuing you, open-mouthed across the kitchen floor. A maxi-pad commercial will feature a woman dancing with a ribbon or a skipping across a beach, but never screaming and running from a hot-to-trot iguana.<br><br>My hostess also warned me of the possible effects of Iggy’s pursuits. She held up a leather footstool that she had once thrown at the lizard when he charged her the year before. She flipped it over to reveal a large mess of torn leather and fluff. A chunk of the footstool was missing. Holy crap. You see, though their teeth aren’t like an alligator’s, all white and threatening, look closely (if you dare) and you’ll see their mouth is lined with a jagged, serrated edge. I later googled “iguana-inflicted injuries”. Don’t. Ever. Do. That … <i>Ever</i>.<br><br>So I mostly lived in fear. Every other morning I’d awake to the surprised shriek of my hostess as Iggy tried to “woo” her while she made breakfast. She showed me a trick: if he charges, grab a blanket or scarf or towel and throw it over his head, he’ll stop dead, disoriented and blinded. He’d often stay under the towel or blanket for a good half hour, no doubt wondering where all the pretty ladies went.<br><br>As I’d quietly poke my head out of the bedroom door every morning to survey the terrain and spot the creature’s whereabouts, I felt like David Attenborough should be narrating my life.<br><br><i>“The female warily negotiates her morning path, cautious as she emerges from her den. She spots her unlikely suitor, awaiting her arrival on the hall shag carpet. Suddenly, he charges. She leaps! In one swift maneuver, a bath towel descends over her predator’s head, quieting him for another few moments of peace. Now, to the watering hole for a little breakfast.” </i><br><br>In Kitchener, I learned that when you have a horny iguana, tile floors are a must. For, though Iggy would try to bolt in your direction, his long clackety nails and dry, scaly feet made it very difficult to get anywhere on glazed ceramic tiles. His body would stay in one place and his legs would whirl around like egg beaters, like some kind of tap-dancing muppet or cartoon. Luckily, this scraping, tappa-tappa would give you the warning you needed to find the nearest towel for chucking. Before I knew the towel trick, I think I vaulted over the breakfast bar one morning to escape. I usually tried to steer clear of the carpeted areas of the house whenever he was around, unless he was more interested in chasing the poor dogs.<br><br>The spring wore on, and we were graced with a sort of early summer as temperatures warmed up to almost 30 degrees (that’s pretty frickin’ warm – for those of you in the U.S.) The days grew longer and Iggy’s hormones seemed to cool, which made my stress levels plummet. He lost interest in chasing women and was content to be a lizard, lounging pool-side in the sun (strangely, he would even take the odd swim.) I don’t think he ever chased me again, thank Jebus.<br><br><b>What I learned from this</b>: In the presence of an orange iguana, <i>always</i> have a throwing towel handy – and don’t throw the one you’re wearing, because that tends to create a certain unwelcome level of awkwardness between the you and your hostess.</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<div style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: medium"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/56541/c5abf399d6937b6cbcb8ae8956e75b99655ee786/original/iguana-pose-1.jpg?1379710238" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="320" width="250" /><br><br><span style="font-size: small"><i>I know, it's not orange, but it definitely qualifies as "horny iguana."</i></span></span></div>Whitney Ross-Barristag:www.whitneyrb.com,2005:Post/864872010-10-13T13:50:00-04:002017-01-13T13:15:41-05:00Do You, Miss New York?<span style="font-size: medium">My grandparents both grew up in New York. My grandmother told me stories of how she worked as an accounting clerk at Macy’s in the ‘30s. She also remembered when a small plane flew into the Empire State building about 70 years before that other infamous event later generations remember so vividly. My grandfather lived in Jackson Heights, won trophies for singing, hung around in movie theatres and jazz clubs and learned to play the clarinet because Benny Goodman did (although he <i>did</i> give it up when he nearly lopped off his pinky, shearing fabric in his mother’s fur shop.)<br><br><div style="text-align: center"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/56541/902648fc6aa8ae0cb7a28163e6d66e136ae92c19/medium/TimesSquarefromNewYorkTimesBuilding.png?1379710238" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="394" width="300" /></div>
<br>
One gloomy spring, I decided on a whim to get a train ticket to New York City. I’m not generally prone to travelling impulsively, but I had written a one-woman play about influential jazz singer and ex-heroin addict Anita O’Day and I was eager to see a new documentary about her life. It was to premiere at the Tribecca Film Festival in New York in May of 2007. I knew the filmmaker would be there (the man who holds the late Anita’s ‘life rights’ – <i>whatever that means</i>) so I informed him in an unanswered e-mail that I was coming to see the film and that I’d like to chat with him about “our” Anita.<br><br>
I begged all of my friends, one after the other to come with me. But alas, they were all too busy and swamped with work to come and it soon became clear that <i>I</i> was the only one with no life enough to slip away for a weekend unnoticed. So I was to make the trip on my own. <i>By myself ... Alone ... In New York ... Gulp</i>. <br><br>
I was stuck in a crime-drama-induced fear vortex. Always the trusting and naïve traveller, I was certain that in New York I’d be shanked for my running shoes and found dead under a tarp in an alley with that <i>Law and Order </i>cadence underscoring my discovery: “Dun-dun.” <br><br>
Despite my misgivings, I got on the train early Friday morning, congratulating myself for making the wise and budget-conscious choice of taking Via Rail rather than flying or bussing it. What beautiful scenery, what great customer service, what a civilized way to travel! Wait … why are we stopping?<br><br>
So … I guess … customs officials are <i>not</i> on your side at the U.S. border. They dress in scary combat gear, carry ambiguous weapons covered in Kevlar, use flashlights in the middle of the day, they don’t like <i>you</i> and they don’t like that <i>fruit </i>in your purse. I think they want you to cry and pee your pants; that they have a quota they have to reach and check off on a pee-pants list. Three separate officials questioned me on the train. Even though I had nothing to hide, I was increasingly offended and terrified. It was as if they were trying to one-up each other in aggression. <br><br>
The first officer sauntered over like he was my buddy and inquired, “Where are you from?” <br><br>
“Toronto!" <i>Oh God, that was too loud … lower your damn voice, Whitney!</i> <br><br>
"I’m from …” and I whispered, “<span style="font-size: medium"><span class="Apple-style-span">Toronto.</span></span>” <i>N</i><i>othing. I’ll give you nothing, man. You’ll never break me! I smiled sweetly, nostrils flared.</i><br><br>
The next officer approached me as a boxy-headed woman rifled through my purse.<br><br>
“Where are you headed?” this guy was more like a disgruntled, android drill sergeant as he came right up to my face and looked me in the eye like he was really farsighted and angry about it.<br><br>
“Uuuuuuuh ..." W<i>here am I headed … what am I doing … where am I going … what is my name … why does his breath smell like tuna?!</i> <br><br>
"New York City. I’m going to see a movie!” <i>Another point for me, suckaaa!</i><br><br>
“What is your profession?”<br><br>
“I’m a..." <i>Um … uh … what do I do? Should I tell him I’m in catering or that I’m an actor?</i> <br><br>
"I’m a cater-ACtor.” He stared blankly at me. <i>What the hell is a cateractor? Aw jeez.</i><br><br>
“Do you intend to work while you are in the United States?”<br><br>
“No! Oh NO!” I shouted, again unable to control the volume of my voice and then laughed nervously. An even more aggressive officer replaced him and this one had a flashlight which he shone in my eyes. I recoiled like a frightened cat. The purse-sifter, took the orange in my purse and went to help the first guy, my buddy, who had begun shouting at a woman whose first language was not “power-drunk American.”<br><br>
Just as I thought I might make the pee-pants list, Flashy the Flashlight Man, became distracted and joined the fray until they booted this poor woman off the train. What followed was a 16-and-a-half hour, subarctic train ride that smelled of hotdogs, hairspray, cigarettes and Mennonite sausage.<br><br>
When I finally rolled into New York it was in the hairy armpit of night. I was freezing cold and sweaty at the same time, my hair was a cone-head slick and my lips were pale and cracked (I really don’t travel well). I saw <i>The New Yorker </i>building emerge out of the darkness like a beacon of hope. It made me think of my grandfather, the young writer trying to make his way in this giant movie set of a city and I sobbed; not just for the orange that I lost at the border and for how freekin’ hungry I’d become because of it, but because I felt a sort of relief in familiarity, like I was finally coming home. <br><br>
I checked into my room at the Vanderbilt Y. It was the size of an IKEA wardrobe but fit a bunk bed, a mini fridge, a TV with no remote (<i>quel dommage</i>) and a window that didn’t shut. But clean. Things were looking up. I had a great sleep (despite my fear of bedbugs and the waste depot-that-never-sleeps across the street) and woke to discover from my lofty top bunk, that my glasses were in two jagged pieces on the floor. Shit. Ah well, screw it, I had my contact lenses and I was in NEW YORK! I was so excited I nearly high-kicked out of bed.<br><br>
The first couple of days, I walked my feet to blisters. The weather was beautiful, everything was green and brilliant, New Yorkers were out together strolling and jogging and rowing in Central Park. Then I went to the theatre (dreamy sigh). I saw Christopher Plummer in <i>Inherit the Wind</i>, and the mind-meltingly talented and nauseatingly young cast of <i>Spring Awakening</i>. It was a wake-up call for me, a theatre actor to observe all of these regular folk so thrilled to be out watching a play or taking in a musical. A far cry from the twisted arms of surly accountants begrudgingly treated to a showing of <i>We Will Rock You</i> on a Tuesday night in Toronto. <br><br>
I phoned my husband on the way back from the show. My head was pounding but I was ecstatic, surrounded by this wild and electric New York energy and inspired by the shows I’d seen.<br><br>
When I got back to my room at the Y, the headache worsened. The ecstasy turned to nausea. By 3 a.m., I was as sick as a dog ... One that pukes a lot. The undercooked burger I had eaten earlier that day had gotten belligerent and the digestion rave in my stomach had been busted. <i>Whoop, whoop! Everybody out, by whatever means necessary! </i>Every twenty minutes I blindly (as I couldn’t just repeatedly take my contact lenses in and out all night) found my keycard, locked my door, sprinted down the hallway to the shared women’s washroom and bowed reverently to the porcelain gods I found there. This cycle repeated all night and into the morning when I was literally about seven pounds lighter and as weak as a Hallmark greeting card kitten. <br><br>
I spent the next morning watching reruns of <i>Dog the Bounty Hunter</i> and <i>Intervention</i>, unable to change the channel, trying to keep down dry cereal and vitamin water and sobbing into the phone to my husband about whether I’d make it to the film screening or not which was to happen that afternoon. I thought I was going to die and no one would find me until the tenants started to complain of “a horrible smell.” (Insert <i>Law and Order </i>cadence here: “Dun-dun.”) It took every molecule of chutzpah in me to climb out of that bunk, turn off the damn TV, put on some pants on and find my way to the movie theatre. <br><br>
The film was mercifully brilliant, showcasing the talent, personality, whimsy and wit of this old jazz singer. The filmmaker got up and spoke afterwards, getting choked up remembering Anita’s quips and strong opinions throughout the making of the film. He invited me to come out and have drinks with him and some of the other people involved in the film. <i>Ooooooh, drinks! Drinks with Anita’s filmmaker! Drinks out in New York City!!! </i><br><br>
It took my very last thread of strength to turn him down.<i> Dammit, dammit, dammit. </i>Here is the reason I’ve come to New York in the first place, asking me to come out on the town, and I can barely keep Rice Krispies down let alone have drink. I gave him a kitten-weak handshake and left and <i>surprisingly</i>, had enough fluid left in my system to cry all the way back to the Y. <br><br>
The next day I left the brilliant shine of spring in New York for the gloomy din of late winter in Toronto. Back on the crappy train, back to crappy Toronto. But having been so sick in shiny New York, gloomy Toronto was starting to look real purdy. My home, my bed, my base and all the memories I had sponged into my brain of this strange trip to reflect on (not to mention my man, who would no doubt shower me with that oh-so-needed pity.) <br><br>
So, listen New York, I don’t know what your problem was with me, but I’m coming back. And next time, I’m bringing Dukoral, bitch.<br><br><b>What I learned from this:</b> Thanks to <i>Intervention</i> I experienced how similar food poisoning is to heroine withdrawal, except that I don’t live in a trailer or say f*** as much.<br><br><div style="text-align: center">
<img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/56541/967e51f5f63a1e416af2304f3cdeaabf8b5dec76/medium/slide-show_0139.jpg?1379710238" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="498" width="300" /><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/56541/586d8a33bc86c9280198ab022bbeebac9682f7f8/medium/slide-show_0140.jpg?1379710238" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="460" width="300" /><br><i><br>
My grandparents, Alex "Butch" Barbaritis and Koula "Kay" Kontozoglus.</i>
</div>
</span><br>Whitney Ross-Barristag:www.whitneyrb.com,2005:Post/844972010-09-09T08:30:00-04:002017-01-13T13:15:41-05:00Shakes on a Plane<span style="font-size: medium">The wedding itself was an extraordinary day. An amazing day. The best part for me was when I entered, flanked by my mom and dad, seeing all my friends and family look up at me with this joy-grief-hope-love expression on their faces, and then seeing my husband Ian up there looking so fine in his three piece suit. Hellew! I had to remind myself of the inappropriateness of jumping my husband on the altar in front of all our invited guests. <br><br>
The wedding DJ, as I recall could have been a lot better. In fact, if I ever see that arsehole again, I’ll probably kick him in the shins and steal his wallet. Dude played Avril Lavigne at my wedding. He was an idiot.<br><br>
Sadly, our wedding was also my Great-Aunt Virginia’s last day. My aunt was always at her happiest when the whole family was all together and our wedding was no exception. She spent the day with all of us, including her brother, my Great-Uncle George and even my grandmother, Kay, who had been bedridden in hospital for months. Virginia danced and hugged us all and even procured a rainbow from the rainy afternoon (that morning we peered out our windows worriedly at the numerous rainstorms that passed through and Virginia insisted that we not fret, that we would see a rainbow and we did.) But after the party ended, we all kissed each other goodnight, said our “I love you’s” and “see ya later’s” and the relatives returned to their hotels. Virginia passed away <i>that night</i>. <br><br>
The day after the wedding was meant to be a barbecue celebration of marriage and family, as we had done a few years before, following my sister’s wedding. Instead, it was a family memorial. We all gathered solemnly at my mom and dad’s house and cried and laughed and ate leftover cake. Ian and I opened our gifts in front of everyone, which was awkward enough; sheets and cutlery, tea towels and cookbooks, <i>a bondage leash and studded collar</i>? Oh dear. I remember one of the younger cousins questioned, “But you guys don’t have a dog.”<br><br>
“Ha haha ha ha haaa, yes, isn’t that funny!” I said as I leapt desperately for another package. “Oooooh look, a blender!”<br><br>
The next day we were to leave for our honeymoon, first visiting family in England and then on to France. By midday I had some nasty indigestion. I told myself it was either nerves about flying or perhaps the rather suspect salami I had fashioned into some kind of fridge-remnants sandwich (there wasn’t much to eat as we were about to go away for two weeks and had ditched anything perishable.) However, Ian had had the same sandwich and was feeling hunky dory. The Irish tin-lined stomach strikes again.<br><br>
By the time we got to the Royal York Hotel where we were to catch the airport express bus, I was turning a little greeny-grey in the face. The stomach pain was worse and my skin was starting to hurt. Ian offered the possibility of <i>not</i> going, of <i>staying</i> in Toronto, but I nearly shouted, “No! Absolutely not.” I gathered what gumption I had and curled up in a seat for a nauseating bus ride to the airport.<br><br>
The check-in lines at Terminal three were excruciatingly long. Ian guarded the luggage while I skipped the lines in the washroom to bow to the porcelain gods. Every time I came back to wait with him, I looked more and more like Linda Blair in the latter half of <i>The Exorcist</i>. We finally got to the check-in desk where the clerk handed Ian’s Permanent Resident card back with a pissy look on her face. <br><br>
“This is expired,” she said, matter-of-factly.<br><br>
“WHAT?” <i>I need an old priest and a young priest </i>… “What. Did. She. Say. Ian?”<br><br>
“I said, his Permanent Resident card expired - in June.”<br><br>
“Yes, I understand, thank you … Ian?” My head spun around and I glared at him.<br><br>
He stood there dumbfounded, looking the card over. I leaned heavily on the counter, palm to forehead, trying to calm the chunks that were rising.<br><br>
“I – what does this mean?” he pleaded.<br><br>
“(<i>Impatient sigh and eye roll</i>) You can leave but you might not be able to get back into the country when you come back.”<br><br>
“Oh. But –"<br><br>
“FINE.” I said and shoved my passport in her hand. Better to be stuck <i>there</i> than stuck <i>here</i>.<br><br>
She checked us in and we proceeded to the gate. Between dry-heaves, I lay there motionless, head in my new husband’s lap, in the airport lounge, waiting for death. <br><br>
Ian, still showing no signs of the salami sandwich wrath, kept asking “Are you sure you’re okay? We can just cancel.”<br><br>
“No,” I wept. “Absolutely not. We’re going on our honeymoon … ullllghhhh.” <br><br>
I don’t know how I boarded the plane without them shouting, “Plague!” and clearing the airport. I’m sure I looked like a zombie, all pale and greasy, with clumped-up hair. But I sat down in my window seat, took off my glasses (I’m blind without them) and gave them to Ian to tuck somewhere. I was going to try to sleep this bastard food poisoning off.<br><br>
About two hours into the flight I noticed Ian getting restless. I looked over and through blurred vision, could see that his shirt was damp with sweat and he was looking somewhat confused. Without a word, his eyes rolled back in his head and he slumped in his seat. He made a sort of glottal snore that sounded like he was choking on his tongue.<br><br>
Oh my god! Oh MY GOD!!!!! <br><br>
“Ian! Ian? You okay, honey???? IAN?????”<br><br>
There was no time to find my glasses. Completely blind, I whipped off my seatbelt and got really close to his face, squinting so I could see what was going on. He was out cold, mouth gaping open and still making this horrifying sound. I was terrified. I thought he was going to die I would land in the U.K. a widow. Between hard slaps to his face, I was pushing every button above my head, blindly trying to find the flight attendant pager. I was clicking lights on and off and turning the air up and down. <br><br>
“Somebody pleeeeease get help!” I shouted. My voice had gone up to that funny panic octave and I was hyperventilating. <br><br>
Finally, I slapped him really hard and he opened his eyes. The look on his face was more “Why the fuck are you slapping me?” and not so much “Oh, hazaa, I’m saved!”<br><br>
I was so worked up that I grabbed the nearest airsick bag and hurled. Then Ian did the same. Then the Sri Lankan guy next to us got up and ran away.<br><br>
The flight attendants came by and gave us cold water-soaked paper towels to put on our foreheads and on the backs of our necks. I tried to watch <i>Kung Fu Panda </i>but the ear-piercing buzz in my two-dollar in-flight headphones wasn’t helping with my nausea.<br><br>
A stewardess came by with a dinner tray that smelled of soup.<br><br>
“No. No. No thanks.” we said in unison.<br><br>
“Are you sure?” She asked sweetly. “It’s chicken curry.”<br><br>
“NOooo! No, no, no. No thanks.” She was obviously sent by the Ghost of Salami Past to torment us and the poor guy next to us. He had returned in the last few hours of the flight, perched on the edge of his seat, jumping whenever Ian moved or coughed.<br><br>
By the time we landed, Ian was feeling better but I was severely dehydrated and so before we went to start our visit with my new in-laws, we went to an emergency walk-in clinic. Ah, romance!<br><br>
After about five days with some tender loving mum-in-law care, some sea air and a few strong ciders, I was back to my old self.<br><br>
We found out later that a whole whack of our wedding guests had come down with the same bug we’d experienced. It had actually begun with the projectile vomiting of one of my little American cousins the night before the wedding. I can’t wait to thank him when he’s old enough to drink too much ouzo, for the lovely wedding gift he shared with us all.<br><br><b>What I learned from this:</b> Next time I and my husband get violently ill on a plane, I’ll make sure to ask for the contact information of the guy sitting next to us, so I can send him flowers or buy the poor bastard a drink. Also, the couple that spews together stays together. <br><div style="text-align: center">
<br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/56541/41cb0d992b8dcf6acd696948014e6b022204e13f/medium/Virginias-Rainbow.JPG?1379710238" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="200" width="300" /><br><br><i>Virginia's Rainbow - 08/08/08</i>
</div>
</span>Whitney Ross-Barristag:www.whitneyrb.com,2005:Post/840172010-09-01T08:35:00-04:002017-01-13T13:15:41-05:00Thor is my Hero<span style="font-size: medium">I can still see my classmates from the University of Toronto rolling their eyes. “Ugh, she’s talking about Norway again… hurrgenn flurrgenn blerrrrg.” I would quickly shut my trap and change the subject. <br><br>
In the year before I started at the university, I and a student from Ajax were awarded a full scholarship to study at what’s called a Folk High School just south of Oslo in Norway. I would study music and theatre and the other Canadian student would study dance. If I tell people <i>now</i> that I studied and lived in Norway for almost a year, a startling number of them look at my dark features and Greek side burns and naturally ask “<i>Why</i>, are you Norwegian?” After biting my tongue and resisting the urge to simply end the conversation by walking away, I tell them that no, though my dark brown hair and Mediterranean features may give me away as a Viking descendant, I lived in Norway because I was given a scholarship to study there for a full school year. <br><br>
This was to be my first trip to Europe and my first long stay away from home. I had my passport updated (with a picture that made me look like a meth addict); I had my backpack and two gajillion-pound Mountain Equipment Co-op duffle bags packed; and my father had even given me the awkward “Europeans can be more promiscuous than Canadians” talk. I was ready to go.<br><br>
My parents drove me to the airport in relative silence. The year prior we had done the same quiet drive to the University of Waterloo when my sister flew the coop. They spoke in three-word, tight-lipped sentences every few kilometres making sure I had my tickets, my passport, the papers proving my intentions to study at Follo Folk High School. There was a sad kind of panicky silence hanging like pine-scented air-freshener in the Corolla. They would soon be empty nesters.<br><br>
We parked in the overpriced lot at the airport near the actual entrance to the terminal. Wow. We <i>never</i> parked in the overpriced lot; my dad was clearly losing his mind. I checked my bags warily. I was sure that they were going to be overweight with the Complete Works of Shakespeare (and the other twelve million pounds of books I needlessly packed) weighing them down. The bags cleared and we went to find some dinner at an airport restaurant. My mom and dad smiled, brimming with pride, put on their cheeriest faces and talked about all the great things I was going to do and see. None of us ate what was on our plates. <br><br>
When it came time to finally say goodbye at the gate, we all cried. I’ll never forget how my dad held my face in his hands, tears streaming down his cheeks and said “Be good. I love you.” Heartbreaking.<br><br>
I was a bit shattered when I got on the plane and I’ve always hated flying (which is ironic because I later married a pilot), so I was full of nervous energy and wild, unpredictable emotion. It manifested itself in a maniacal conversation I forced on a petite English businessman. The poor bastard sat beside me all seven hours to Heathrow, in London, and I wouldn’t let him get a word in.<br><br>
“Oh-are-you-English? That’s-great-I-love-the-English. Pippip-cheerio-and-all-that-eh? Nawww…I-love-the-English-I-do…English-writers-and-poets-and-such. You-must-be-into-business-because-you-look-really-important. HAhahahaHAhaha. So-where-are-you-going? I’m-going-to-Norway-because-I-got-a-scholarship. I’m-a-singer-and-an-actress-too-though-I-like-to-say-acTOR. Hahahahaha… O-my-god-my-mom-and-dad-just-cried-so-much-and-I-feel-so-bad-for-them. I-really-should-call-them-when-we-land… ”<br><br>
I’m pretty sure he went to sleep at some point and I just kept talking. <br><br>
We had a stopover of a couple of hours in London. The English businessman disappeared like a greased pig into the massive crowd of people and the yawning chasm of shops and fluorescent lighting. I found the “loo” and once I figured out how to flush the damn toilet (<i>honestly</i>, there’s a sort of plunger on the top that I pushed and pulled for at least six minutes) I saw my reflection and realized that I was already looking like a bag of shit tied in the middle. I don’t really travel well. No <i>wonder</i> that dude ran away. Ugh. But, there was nothing to be done.<br><br>
Another two-hour flight later and I landed in Oslo. I was starting to get really exhausted. My comforting little posse of English people had dwindled in numbers and was replaced with Norwegian business people all churgling and flurgling together. With my backpack and two enormous duffle bags in tow, I managed to find my way to the bus. By some miracle, I found the one that said “sentralstasjon” which my dad and I had worked out would take me to the heart of downtown Oslo where the train station was. I saw some trendy young blond girls with big backpacks on the airport bus, so I got off where they did. At the “senn-trrawl sta-shoon” stop, the driver helped me get my bags and drove off revealing the flurgin’ GIANT flight of stairs leading up to the front doors of the station.<br><br>
Really?! <i>Really</i>, Norway?! <br><br>
I think I stood there for a good 10 minutes, glassy-eyed, staring at the stairway to heaven, half-slumped with my bags sliding off my shoulders to the sidewalk. Part of me wanted to get back on the bus, any bus and take the next flight home. As people came and went zipping past me on the stairs, they stared. I looked like a deranged homeless person, lip quivering, disappearing under numerous bags, wearing a peach juice-stained high school sweatshirt (I had spilled the contents of a fruit cup down my front during some turbulence on the plane.) Don’t let the Norwegians see you cry. I took a breath, slugged my way up the stairs like an aging Sherpa, all the while cursing William flurgin’ Shakespeare and his Complete flurgin’ Works.<br><br>
When I entered the station, it was like walking into a bad dream. Looking around, everything was the same as back home: ticket booths, fruit stands, newspapers, train schedules, even <i>Burger King</i>, but the signs and all the print were sort of backwards and upside down-looking. Oh my god, what do I do now? I knew I had to get to Vestby, where Follo Folk High School was. I accosted a surly ticket booth lady who looked like she had cut her own hair in a dark closet with sharp spoon and in very broken Norwegian asked her what train would take me to Vestby. Really, the only Norwegian words I knew were “yes”, “no”, “thank you very much” and “don’t do that.” She shoved a flimsy ticket my way and I paid her. <br><br>
“Toozen Tuck.” I said, grateful. She just looked at me and slammed her booth window shut. Okay. Fine. Aaa-ight. Das Bitch.<br><br>
As far as I could understand, I was meant to go to a place called “Ski” which they pronounce “Shee.” I went out on the platform, found the Ski train and got on. I was still a little uneasy. There was something Das Bitch had added to the instructions that I didn’t understand. Maybe I don’t take this train all the way, like, I have to transfer. I saw the two trendy blond girls with the backpacks again; they were at the other end of the car. When we got to Ski station, they got off. <br><br>
Oh my God, I should do that too! <br><br>
I panicked. How the flurgin’ hell do I get off this churgin’ flurgin’ train?! I knocked over a family with my duffle bags as I bolted for the exit. I was hitting all kinds of buttons and window latches in an attempt to get the door in front of me open. The door behind me slid open and shut, I unhooked a luggage rack, I set off some kind of ear-piercing alarm. A conductor type slowly walked up to me and turned the alarm off with a key. He pushed a green button, the only button I had neglected to push. The doors swooshed open. I pretty much fell out of the train. <br><br>
From a pile on the platform I turned around to thank him. <br><br>
“Toozen—“ and the conductor disappeared behind the cruel swoosh of the train doors. <br><br>
I looked around. The two blond girls greeted some other blond girls, hopped into their car and drove off. A sign on the station building cheerily read “Ski.” I found a map. Ha haaaaaa! A map! It was in Norwegian… Of course it was. I might as well have been trying to find directions from a Keith Haring mural. <br><br><div style="text-align: center"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/56541/abd896e5ab137f9fbae5f330c791c8d50b23a75e/original/keithherring.jpg?1379710238" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="400" width="300" /></div>
<br>
I sat down, completely spent and out of options on a cold metal bench on the platform and I cried. An ugly, ugly cry. Why did I come here? Why did I leave home? What was I thinking? I’m going to die here in SHEEEEEEE!<br><br>
I lifted my head from the sprawled heap I had melted into on the bench and before me stood a pretty girl with ashy blond hair and bright pink cheeks. She was like a little wood nymph or something, freckly with a little sparkle in her eye.<br><br>
“Are you Canadian?” She asked in perfect, crystal-clear English, pointing to the Canadian flag patches I had crudely sewn onto all my bags.<br><br>
“Yes.” I croaked, my voice Kathleen Turner-husky from the ugly-cry.<br><br>
“Are you going to Follo?” <br><br>
AM I WHAT TO WHAT-O?! There were trumpets … and fanfares … and gymnasts with ribbons… and fireworks shaped like hearts going off in my tiny world of despair.<br><br>
“Yes!!!” I blurted out. “Yes I am.” I don’t know if I now exaggeremember this but I’m pretty sure I threw my arms around this stranger for an awkwardly long hug. I don’t think I’ve ever been so thankful to see anyone in my whole life.<br><br>
She invited her friends over and they all called me by name! They knew who I was because the school had been eagerly awaiting <i>my </i>arrival! They were all bubbly and excited and talkative and spoke to me in glorious English. They took my bags and we got on the next train to Vestby. When we got there, the principal of the school (called Thor … yup) met me in his Saab. After throwing <i>his</i> arms around me he drove me up to the school where everyone enthusiastically introduced themselves. I promptly forgot all their names and was shown my room where I collapsed into my own little bed and slept until midday the next day.<br><br>
I will always remember how welcome the Norwegians made me feel. Even with greasy hair, peach juice on my sweatshirt and ugly-cry face, they opened their arms to me without any kind of judgment. Expect for Das Bitch. She wasn’t a welcoming Norwegian. But she cuts her own hair. <i>Badly</i>.<br><br><b>What I learned from this</b>: I think Dad was wrong. Europeans aren’t more promiscuous than Canadians. Or at least, not with me.<br><br><div style="text-align: center">
<img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/56541/3d225e409a0ac16f1a77791d78eb3426a4a8bbbd/medium/slide-show_0008.jpg?1379710238" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="181" width="300" /><br><i><span style="font-size: small"><br>
Whitney of the Mountains. (Western Norway)</span></i>
</div>
<div style="text-align: left"> </div>
<div style="text-align: center"> </div>
<div style="text-align: center"> </div>
</span>Whitney Ross-Barristag:www.whitneyrb.com,2005:Post/837182010-08-27T08:05:00-04:002017-01-13T13:15:41-05:00How to Find Love in Rural Ontario - or - What you Will<span style="font-size: medium">I wish I could say that friends set us up. I wish I could say that I bumped into him on a rainy afternoon in Paris and he carried my bags back to my lavish French apartment. I wish I could say we met in a writing class in New York and though the <i>other</i> writers hated my play, <i>he</i> thought it was brilliant and bought me a coffee. But the truth is — I met the love of my life in a sketchy little bar in Northern Ontario on Canada Day in the year 2000.<br><br>
The summer of “new Millennium,” I was doing summer stock in rural Ontario. My first few weeks after classes at U. of T. wrapped for the summer were all about me and my mother’s 1987 VW Golf. In addition to the play I was performing in six nights a week, I was also rehearsing and performing <i>The Teddy Bear’s Picnic </i>on the wonderfully dated Waterfall Stage at Ontario Place. So, as soon as the day finished there, I would tear down the 401 in that smelly old car, roof cranked open, Q107 blaring and make my way north of the city for the show at night. I can still feel the horrifying sunburn I got from the Golf’s skylight in late June (somehow I thought that although the sun was hitting me directly, I wouldn’t get burned because the wind was blowing me cool. Smart. S-M-R-T.)<br><br>
On July 1st, 2000, we had a fairly uneventful evening performance at the theatre, but for some rowdy audience members. One of the ladies in the cast had had some girlfriends come to the show who cackled raucously at all the funny bits and cheered like Poison fans during our curtain call. They planned to hit the local bar scene post-performance to trawl for men. It wasn’t really my bag, so I declined, saying that I had plans to celebrate our country’s Confederation with friends in Uxbridge, where I was living. In truth, all of my friends in Uxbridge had moved away and my plans to celebrate our country’s Confederation consisted of driving 45 minutes home to my parents’ place and drinking wine from a box until I passed out, to be startled awake by the fanfare of <i>The Antiques Road Show </i>theme before going to bed fully clothed.<br><br>
As I was scraping off my makeup in the little dressing room behind the stage that night, I came to the conclusion that though my shut-in plans were tempting, it would be better for me to go out and have a good time. It was Canada Day, dammit! So, at the last minute I drove to the actors’ residence and joined my colleague and her enthusiastic friends. <br><br>
By the time I got there, they were all jovially sloshed. I still had a long-ish trip home ahead of me, so I was sober. Yesssss. <i>That’s</i> fun. I thought we would never leave the apartment but around midnight, they all piled into my tiny car like drunken circus clowns and we rolled into town. <br><br>
I didn’t realize until we were in the presence of what I loosely call ‘men’ that I was actually hanging with an insane pack of drunken cougars, with the exception of my friend from the theatre. While she sipped her Amaretto Sours and happily bopped to the music, they were catcalling anything in cowboy boots, howling, and one lady was humping the bar in time to <i>Livin’ on a Prayer</i>, which was hissing through the sound system. I went solo and made my way to the far side of the Saturday-Night-Fever-and-Nausea dance floor as <i>Sweet Home Alabama </i>came on. Alone, putting out my best don’t-even-think-about-it-pervert vibes, I was having a pretty good time. I thought I was looking mighty slick too. Though my upper body was a sort of nuclear red from my skylight sunburn, I was in the best shape I’d ever been in and rocking the only booty shorts I’ve ever worn (and – oh crikey - will EVER wear) in my life.<br><br><i>Sweet Hooooome Alabama!<br>
Where the skies are s’ bluuuueeee! Doodlee doo…<br>
Sweet Hooooome Alabama!<br>
Lord da nuh nuh nuh nuh youuuuuu.<br></i><br>
Shaggy-haired frat boys were powerless to the anti-perve deflector I had going on. Ping! Ping! Off they flung. <br><br><i>Sweet Home Alabama!<br>
Where the SKIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEeeeesssrrrrr-<br></i><br>
Near the bar, leaning against a CSI’s wet-dream of a mirrored pillar, was a man. A <i>ma-ha-ha-haaaan</i>. Tall and slim, with a hero’s broad shoulders and long, fit-looking runners’ legs. He was looking away, bored but dutiful, like he was waiting for someone. Before I could stop myself, I was staring, nay <i>leering</i> at this man, just like the cougars, but standing stock-still amidst the chaos around me. Not familiar with the pick-up protocol, I formulated a cunning plan based on my extensive high school dance experience. I’ll just go over and <i>stand</i> there. <i>Maybe</i> he’ll talk to me. Cunning.<br><br>
I elbowed and kneed my way through the grinding Cool Water stink on the dance floor to the mirrored pillar as my theatre colleague by the bar waved to me. One of the pride was attempting to scale the counter and the bartender was fighting her off. The rest of them laughed and cheered. “Eeeeeeuuuuuuu!” I waved to my friend, then furtively looked away, disassociating myself with the cougar madness. I turned my head and the man I’d been admiring had leaned in to speak to me.<br><br>
“Are you with those women?” he asked, pointing to the booty-shaking, high-fiving crew by the bar. <br><br>
Should I say no? <br><br>
"Eeeeeuuuuuuuu!" Came another mating call from the pack.<br><br>
I could say no. He wouldn’t know. If I say yes, what will he think? I looked at my colleague with her Amaretto Sour giggling at her friends and having a great time. She had invited me, the loner, out on a night where I’d have been alone and depressed, to come and have a blast with her crazy friends. Suddenly I felt I owed her something.<br><br>
“Yes?” I said, trying to judge his response. <br><br>
“Right.” I detected a sort of British accent. Squeeee! Dreamy! Then I thought, wait a minute, I bet this is just some douchey local guy putting on an accent to pick up chicks (though I wouldn’t have used the term ‘douchey’ because I didn’t know ‘douchebag’ was back in yet.)<br><br>
Skeptical but cocky (that I could detect his accent), I said “How did you end up in rural Ontario, from <i>England</i>?” Time to get creative, FAKER! I waited for the response that would out his little antic.<br><br>
“I… sort-of… well I work out of the airport.” The little town had its own very small airport, which I’d driven by dozens of times and forgotten about.<br><br>
“You’re a pilot?” I inquired excitedly, my voice 12 octaves higher than usual (dogs all over the countryside must have been like “Whoa, man! What the hell was that?”) I had visions of stripes and captains’ hats and all kinds of uniform fetishes dancing in my head.<br><br>
“Well… yes,” he said sheepishly. “I teach other people how to fly, or at least I risk my life on a daily basis while students try to kill me in small aircraft.”<br><br>
I knew in the way that he, embarrassed, told me about his super-cool job, that he was unique. Most guys in that situation would have definitely worked the pilot angle to their advantage. “Yeaaaah baby, let’s go flying. I’ll take you wherever you want to go,” and all that crap. <br><br>
“And I’m not actually English,” he added “I’m Irish.”<br><br>
In the film of my life, this is where I grab the nearest bottle of Molson Canadian, take a giant swig, pour the rest of it down my pants and calmly continue the conversation.<br><br>
“Ooooh, you’re Irish. An Irish pilot in rural Ontario. Hm. Interesting.” It was all I could utter with visions of stripes, captains' hats, uniforms — and now poetry, fiddle music, and he and I running down an emerald hill hand-in-hand in my head.<br><br>
I spent the rest of the evening shouting over the music, trying to get to know the Irish pilot while his friends teased and taunted him. They were all pilots too, working and teaching at the tiny airport, having come to do so from all over the world. <br><br>
The French pilot kept winking, pointing to his watch and saying “Eh, you get ‘er phone NUMber yet?” The other, an Englishman, was a “nudge, nudge” type, who just raised his eyebrows and grinned like a character out of a silent movie and drank his beer. <br><br>
After last call, I realized I had lost complete track of my wild posse; they had vanished and I was alone. I also realized that in my haste to get the cougars out of the Golf, earlier in the evening, I had taken the easiest parking spot I could find and left the car in an alley by the theatre. A dark alley.<br><br>
Something about the Irish pilot was very safe and even protective. I felt like I’d known him longer than just a few hours. I’m sure my mother would have freaked if she knew that a strange man I met in a bar was going to walk me down a dark alley to my – well – <i>her</i> car. But he did. And he was a gentleman. We exchanged phone numbers and the rest, as they say, is history... uh, <i>her</i>story... no, <i>our</i>story.<br><br>
Eight years, a dozen trips back and forth from the U.K. to Toronto, many tears and two permanent residence cards later, I married him. And in the end, I <i>did</i> and <i>do</i> owe that colleague of mine something for asking me to come out with her and that insane cougar posse that Canada Day night in the year 2000. Geez, I should really look her up on Facebook, eh?<br><br><b>What I learned from this:</b> Wear sunblock. Even in the car. Wind won’t save you from a badass sunburn. Also, you don’t need Paris or New York to find love. It’s exactly where you don’t expect it; leaning on a mercilessly fingerprinted mirrored pillar, just off a sticky light-up dance floor, in an unmentioned sports bar in rural Ontario.<br><div style="text-align: center">
<br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/56541/4ad79f279f75245822fc2e0a9de6ae724b85d7fd/medium/married.JPG?1379710238" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="451" width="300" />
</div>
</span>Whitney Ross-Barristag:www.whitneyrb.com,2005:Post/832722010-08-19T09:45:00-04:002017-01-13T13:15:41-05:00Vegas in Hell with the Fairy Queen<span style="font-size: medium">As a good, polite Canadian, I spend a fair amount of time wishing I were cooler and having a laugh at my own expense. <br><br>
This does however put me in some precarious emotional spots. As I am more likely to make a self-deprecating joke about myself than toot my own horn, I sometimes become a doormat for those who like to wipe their feet on others.<br><br>
When I returned from a year abroad of swilling Norwegian “hooch” and consuming Jarlsberg by the wheel, I waddled my way into a theatre and drama program at the University of Toronto in Mississauga. Great program, but like most college and university theatre programs, in your first year, the closest you get to performing on the main stage with the big kids, is hemming their rented pants while they forget your name. But it’s all about earning your stripes, I guess.<br><br>
I really hated not being allowed to act in the main productions. If I don’t get the chance to perform for an extended period of time, I start to get crazy. I chat with random strangers and use overly-vigorous hand gestures; I lose the ability to realize that I’m yelling; I become very passive aggressive and my emotions become wildly exaggerated. I become Don Cherry, really. <br><br><div style="text-align: center; "><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/56541/03c44f8dfee6c91696c2686825a3894ff5dd8c30/medium/don-cherry.JPG?1379710238" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="181" width="300" /></div>
<br>
After having mastered networking in a foreign country (while overseas I tracked down and became very involved with an English-speaking Shakespeare company in Oslo), finding some extra-curricular theatre work in the region of Peel was a piece of cake.<br><br>
I was cast in a Canadian play to be mounted in Brampton. To get to rehearsal I had to either take a Mississauga Transit bus, followed by a Brampton Transit bus or the combination of a Mississauga bus and a ride from another cast member. I remember a few dark nights there… waiting outside the Brampton Shoppers World with the winking 1970s orange sign, imagining how to use a highlighter as a weapon against rapists, praying to the patron saints of public transit to make the bus come faster.<br><br>
But I digress… The production went up in two different venues and truly, during the first year of my theatre degree, it was simply a relief to be performing on a main stage <i>somewhere</i>. During the run of the show I became friendly with everyone, cast and crew alike. However, one cast member was a slightly prickly and abrasive fellow. I got the impression that he thought fairly highly of himself and he was a total foot-wiper. Eventually I worked out a kind of stupid repartee with him that involved him calling me “Gearbox” (a neatly packaged insult to my intelligence) and in turn I called him “Shitface” (so there, Jackass.) The relationship, I admit, was flawed, but at least we found a way to stand each other’s grating company. <br><br>
The following year, the same theatre company put the word out with a casting call for their upcoming summer season. I figured I’d be a shoo-in as, who should be head of production this year? None other than ol’ Shitface himself.<br><br>
I checked the audition requirements, brushed up my monologues and learned a Gilbert and Sullivan tune for the occasion. The day of my audition, I put on my favourite spring dress (a little June Cleaver, a little Morticia Addams), borrowed my mom’s VW Golf and drove to the theatre, windows down, confident and cocky as hell. <br><br>
After boisterously running through vocal scales and arpeggios in a ladies room stall, I sat myself down on a plastic chair near the entrance to the auditorium, and waited to be called in. Ho hum… at least the dated décor of the lobby was entertaining. The theme of it must have been “Vegas in Hell” with its red and orange carpet that spanned the floor and ran up the walls to meet the bronze –speckled mirrors on the ceiling. Around me, the room was peppered with nervous candidates, talking to walls, thumbing their resumes, dropping names at fellow auditionees and loudly pretending to be old friends because they both know and “loooove” James who was in that show “that we did in Collingwood.” Oh em gee. Shoot me. <br><br>
An annoyingly cheery girl popped her head through the entrance of the auditorium and motioned for me to come in. I burst through the double doors like a returning champion, arms open and swept down the aisle. Ahead, I could see Shitface in his producer turtleneck, all clean and serious and respectable.<br><br>
“Shiiiiiiitfaaaaace!” I exclaimed with joy and familiarity.<br><br>
The room went immediately quiet. I even think the A/C cut out. <br><br>
Looking down at my eight by ten photo in his hand, he slowly sounded out my name like he was reading it for the first time.<br><br>
“Hi. Wwwhitney?” <br><br>
Oh my baby Jesus in dreamland. <br><br>
He didn’t remember who I was. No clue. No memory of our work together. No repartee. I was just an asshole actor who’d strolled into an audition and called the producer “Shitface.”<br><br>
The pianist was an alumna of the company and gave me a nod of welcome –slash-bewilderment as I dragged myself up onto the stage with – yes - my arms still open. Shitface sat behind a table in the audience and whispered with his cohorts while Miss Cheery Sunshine Satan tittered at his remarks.<br><br>
My face frozen in the expression of “do-you-think-you-could-plunge-the-straw-of-your-Sprite-into-my-neck-because-I’d-rather-not-go-through-this-incredibly-awkward-audition,” I handed the pianist my music and croaked through the Fairy Queen song from <i>Iolanthe</i> at break-neck speed. All I wanted was for this to be over. My monologue came out of my mouth in a sort of Gilbert Gottfried whiny squeal as I grappled with the audition suicide I had just committed. <br><br>
It finally all wound down and I slunk to the apron of the stage. I blocked the lights so I could see the panel members’ faces. <br><br>
“So… you ‘member when we did that play last year?” I pleaded, still Gilbert Gottfried.<br><br>
“Yeah, of course I do.” <br><br>
“Remember our <i>thing</i>?... You used to call me ‘Gearbox’?… I called you ‘Shitface’?... You know that funny banter we had?” For the love of GOD, please say you remember…<br><br>
With a glimmer of remembrance and a touch of pure, distilled, consommé of evil he said, “Yeeeah. Oh, um I guess. Sure.”<br><br>
I didn’t get a call back. <br><br><i>Exit, pursued by FAIL.<br></i><br><b>What I learned from this: </b>Don’t call a producer “Shitface” until you know he doesn’t have selective memory loss. <br></span>Whitney Ross-Barristag:www.whitneyrb.com,2005:Post/823362010-08-03T08:05:00-04:002017-01-13T13:15:41-05:00Canadian Rain Barrel Idol<span style="font-size: medium">Go ahead. Laugh. Please, it would make me feel a little less filthy. <br><br>
I never thought I would do it. I guffawed snobbishly at those who <i>had</i> done it. But before I could back out, at the ripe age of 26, I, Whitney Ross-Barris, auditioned for Canadian idol.<br><br>
I’m not sure why I decided to. It was definitely against my better judgment. Most reality TV gives me reflux. During its initial popularity, I watched, helpless as roles for actual actors dried up and the entertainment industry was flooded with “real life” dramas. Hey, I’m all for documentary, but when the definition of “real life” mutates into orange-skinned, hair-extensioned, white-toothed models making out in hot tubs in pursuit of true love, I’d rather eat hot dog-sick than watch one torturous second of this soft-core side-show they call reality TV. <br><br>
Having said that… about four years ago, I found myself waiting in the misty rain of a strip mall in Kitchener, Ontario at 7 in the morning on a weekend. I was around the eightieth-or-so person in line when I realized that the age range seemed at little broad for the contest I was about to enter into. In front of me was a long, snaking line of middle-aged suburbanites in skidoo jackets chuckling over Tim Horton’s cups and the latest cute thing their sister’s kid did. Only after questioning the nearest friendly soccer mom did I realize that I was actually in line to receive a subsidized rain barrel from the city of Kitchener-Waterloo. I weighed my options and though a rain barrel was tempting, I could see that it wouldn’t propel me onto the Canadian music scene as quickly as the other line-up might.<br><div>
<br>
I approached the actual Canadian Idol audition line-up and immediately felt like this:</div>
<div style="text-align: center"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/56541/91ce702c7927d082a0d29319cfa7fa83e84a7edf/original/knittingoldlady.jpg?1379710238" class="size_orig justify_baseline border_" alt="" height="400" style="width: 224px; height: 248px" width="287" /></div>
<div>next to a thousand hyper sixteen-year-olds, armed with guitars and lip gloss. I found the sign up desk, lied about my weight and height and promptly hid behind my copy of <i>Memoirs of a Geisha </i>on the nearest food-court bench. The wait would be lengthy and somewhat excruciating. Cameras and crew raced up and down the line up, scanning the crowd and riling up the screaming teenagers. In those moments I wished I had brought a larger purse into which I would then climb and hide until my turn came. Instead I blushed and gravitated to others that also pushed the age limit.</div>
<br>
I wasn’t sure how to feel other than immediately regretful. I was surrounded by the limitless energy of boisterous contestants who had all brought their best friends/parents. There were pert little pretty girls, pale and sadly delusional basement dwellers, pre-pubescent skater boys with battered acoustic guitars and then the veritable grannies, like me. They were all desperate to be heard and so played or screeched their songs out for anyone who would – or wouldn’t - listen. <br><br>
Eventually I was herded from this heaving, giggling crowd into a smaller waiting area, then with an even smaller, very dry-mouthed, and sweaty-palmed group into a trailer in the parking lot. Inside the trailer, the walls were covered with wood paneling and the trailer itself smelled of desperation and cold coffee. I felt like I was in one of those creepy Calvin Klein ads from the 90’s. The seven of us (that is, the Brady bunch and me, Alice) stood, leaned and teetered in front of a weary but somewhat hot young producer who sat behind a table at the other end of the trailer. It felt like an interrogation. I told an incredibly embarrassing story about myself – naturally – sang my songs and got the hell out. <br><span id="fck_dom_range_temp_1280853782781_873"></span><br>
Were we successful, the contestants then moved on to yet another trailer. I was, and so I did. Alone inside this time, I faced another judge, disappointingly less charming and attractive as the last judge and nervously performed my songs (I had chosen my favourite blues tune “<i>I Need Your Love So Bad</i>” and then for the kids at home, an Alicia Keys hit) and left with a ticket to move on to the… wait for it… ‘Celebrity Judges.’<br><br>
So, after begging my boss for the day off, I returned two days later to the bustling metropolis of Kitchener for my BIG audition. I got there REALLY early – again 7a.m. I figured I would get in and out as fast as possible and be home in time for dinner (well, I was 26, so… home in time for cereal and falling asleep in front of <i>Sex in the City </i>reruns on TV.) As it turned out, I was wrong. I ended up having to wait in a theatre lobby until 5p.m. to sing two of the five songs I was asked to learn. That ten hours of complete insanity was filled with me slowly losing my will to live as a young man dressed as Elvis pelted me with shifty-eyed awkwardness. I kept wondering where the hidden camera was.<br><br>
When I finally got in to the auditioning space – a yawning chasm of an amphitheatre, packed with cameras, lights, an exhausted crew and of course, the ‘Celebrity Judges’ - I was asked a number of questions. I talked about my day job, hosting in a fine-dining establishment that the judges all frequented at the time; I was prompted to give them my best Borat impersonation, to defend my choice of artistic career and of course I was asked to sing. After a day of not knowing when I would be called in, trying to keep warm for hours, trying to shut out another rousing rendition of “<i>Jailhouse Rock</i>” and enduring the nauseating presence of Ben Mulroney, I cacked. Terribly. <br><br>
The antagonist judge asked me when I was going to give up the ghost. In fact, the dialogue went something like this:<br><br><b>Antagonist Judge</b>: So, you’re an actress too? <br><br><b>Me</b>: (<i>with pride at my double-threatedness</i>) Yes.<br><br><b>AJ</b>: You done anything big?<br><br><b>Me</b>: (<i>deflated</i>) Uh. Well, no. Probably nothing you’ve ever heard of.<br><br><b>AJ</b>: Right. (<i>sigh</i>) So what happens when you’re a 32-year old singing hostess?<br><br><b>Me</b>: (<i>stunned</i>) umm… I-<br><br><b>AJ</b>: What happens when you’re a 32-year old singing hostess? I mean, when do you throw in the towel?<br><br><b>Me</b>: (<i>verbal diarrhea</i>) Well… I uh… I move to (insert name of rural Ontario town with day care in high school) with my five kids and alcoholic husband and I go to the local sports bar once a week to boogie with my cougar girlfriends and… maybe I’ll see you there, Jackass!<br><br>
Well, I didn’t say ‘Jackass’, but I wanted to. Then Farley Flex told me that my voice wasn’t strong enough for the competition that they had in mind and I cried all the way home along the 401.<br><br><b>What I learned from this</b>: I should have stayed in the rain barrel line. Also... Kitchener did give me my first ever union gig as an actor, so Karma, paid in full.<br></span>Whitney Ross-Barristag:www.whitneyrb.com,2005:Post/807302010-07-05T05:40:00-04:002010-07-05T05:40:00-04:00Pigeon Mafia Hit<span style="font-size: medium">When I sing, I like to wear vintage clothing. And I don't mean obscure-small-town-t-ball-champs-of-1984-t-shirt vintage. I mean, I like to seek out a gem of an outfit, something classy and fitted to suit the music I sing. Vintage dresses just fit my shape better.<br><br>
In any case, I was trolling the shops in Kensington Market to find myself one such gem and I was totally striking out. I couldn’t find anything that worked. I had dragged my poor hubby around half the city to find something. For the last ten years, he has resigned himself to the chore of shopping with me. He usually sits outside whatever shop in the sun (you should see his sunburned knees) and waits patiently while I rummage away for hours. Poor sod.<br><br>
While I was rifling through a particularly exciting trove of 1950s house frau dresses, I heard a great groan come from the crowd out on the street. Being a Saturday of the World Cup semi-finals, I figured that some joint nearby had a gaggle of fans sitting rowdy, pints in hand round a flat screen.<br><br>
Turns out it wasn't a groan in response to a ref’s call or goal-ah or what-have-you. Apparently, a slow-moving driver had accidentally run over a rather unsavvy pigeon. Most pigeons have some road sense, but apparently this one had a death wish and the result was a crunching, horrible mess, witnessed by many passers-by on the street.<br><br>
From that moment, having not been present to intervene and save this bird, frittering away my time and energy in the la-la land of vintage shopping, I believe I was caught in a vortex of pigeon Karma.<br><br>
The following day was my singing show. I hadn't found anything new and interesting in the shops to wear, and so I had pulled together an outfit of one of my favourite old dresses that I had dyed myself, as well as a beautiful white silk shawl I had worn at my wedding. I had a bag full of music, I knew that I hadn't forgotten anything, I was well-rehearsed and I had plenty of time to relax and maybe even eat before I sang. Luxury! But alas, someone had other plans for me.<br><br>
I was walking along, minding my business when out of a clear blue sky - Splat! Sploop! Son of a bitch!<br><br>
A pigeon, leaning its feathery little turd-pelter over the ledge of a dry-cleaners sign (which was closed - somebody call Alanis Morissette ‘cause THAT is ironic, don't you think?) had sprayed the contents of its bowels all down the front of my dress and in various spots on my precious wedding shawl.<br><br>
I swiveled around to confront the offender and shook my fist. It was all I could do.<br>
"You BAStard!" A cyclicst whizzing by had witnessed the whole event and shouted something to the effect of "Ha Ha!" as he passed.<br><br>
I know what you're thinking, it’s “good luck,” right? Yeah, well, that's what people tell you when you have bird crap in your hair or sprayed down the front of your dress to make you feel better. What are they going to say? Hey, you really should rethink your choice of accessories? Wow, I love what you’ve done with your hair, but the chunks are so last year? Or, ha-ha sucker? Really, the only way it could be “good luck” is perhaps the fact that you've already been crapped on, so how much worse can it get, eh? It's all up hill from here! <br><br>
I finished cursing at the rat with wings as shocked mothers covered their children's ears and elderly Polish ladies genuflected, I retrieved my soiled dignity and continued down the street.<br><br>
I dropped my bags at the club where I was singing and rather than start my show with a giant wet spot on the front of my perfectly-selected outfit, I jogged down the street to try to find a suitable, well-priced replacement. About three blocks away, I tore apart an unsuspecting shop-owner’s store. I must've tried on twenty dresses in five minutes. They were all really cute, but not quite the vintage vibe I was looking for. Finally this sweet little shop owner suggested she rinse my dress and stick it in her dryer downstairs.<br><br>
"Bless you!" I shouted. I handed the dress over and tried to keep myself sane while I waited. Apparently, sanity is sitting huddled and alone in a dressing room, singing to oneself while rocking back and forth in ones underpants. <br><br>
I could feel the time ticking away until finally I poked my head out of the dressing room door, panting like a lunatic, and I asked her to just GIVE me the wet DRESS! I will simply put it on and hope it dries by the time I sing. She nervously brought me the dress. It was perfect! She'd gotten the whole stain out and it was almost totally dry. I threw my arms around her, I think I may have even kissed her, pledging to return for a wild spending spree.<br><br>
I got back to the club just in the nick of time and the show went very well. After all, I had already been crapped on, how much worse could it get?<br><br><b>What I learned from this</b>: Just rinse it. It'll dry. I wasn’t able to rinse my shawl right away and now it has green poo stains on it. Oh, and… either pigeons are highly cosmically connected or there is simply a pigeon mafia. Be careful out there, they’re everywhere.<br><b><br>
And Furthermore</b>: That shop with the amazing customer service is called Dressers, run by a brilliant gal called Mary-Ellen. It’s at 307 Roncesvalles Ave. (416-531-7356) and though it doesn't have any dressy vintage peices, it has numerous cute and comfortable sun dresses – believe me, I tried ‘em all – as well as lots of other fabulous casual wear.<br></span><span style="font-size: medium"></span>Whitney Ross-Barristag:www.whitneyrb.com,2005:Post/798612010-06-18T04:02:18-04:002010-06-18T04:02:18-04:00Built for Comfort<span style="font-size: medium">I’m not fat! I know that. But listen, I’m not 'skinny.' But I’m usually okay with that. When I was twelve, I was skinny. But as many girls afflicted with poor body image, I didn’t think I was skinny. As I got older, I developed my curves and I can say that I’m fairly happy with the end result. One thing that I enjoy - nay, revel in - is my butt. I have a great ass. And I don’t only say this because I can fill out a pair of trousers like nobody’s business, but because my ass is a hero. A Hero!<br><br>
Last summer my husband and I bought our first house. We lucked out tremendously in the process, ending up with a fully renovated, fully detached home in our favourite neighbourhood. The man who had bought it and flipped it previous to our moving in, had gutted a turn-of-the-century cottage and turned it into a stunning starter home, complete with all the modern conveniences and aesthetic luxuries a young couple could ask for. My favourite part of our little house is the new stair case. You see it as soon as you walk in the front door. It’s a shiny, unblemished staircase of dark wood that contrasts with the white banister and cherry-coloured floors. It’s a work of art.<br>
But allow me to remind you of the dangers of new hardwood: though it may be shiny and beautiful, it is in fact slippery when wet.<br><br>
I was home alone. I was planning to spend some quality time with my sister and her beautiful young children. I had of course spent the morning scrubbing the kitchen and bathroom and vacuuming the inch of dust that had settled since our family last had visited (God forbid my sister should know that we live on take-out and never do dishes – insert eye roll here.) The house was gloriously clean, but after all that scouring and dusting, I was a sweaty tangled mess. So knowing that my guests would arrive soon, I hopped into the shower to make myself presentable. Now, I’m quite familiar with Murphy’s Law, I married an Irishman, but somehow I keep believing that I’m actually above Murphy’s Law. So of course, as soon as I start shampooing my hair, I hear the doorbell ring. Never fails. <br>
Knowing that my sister would be waiting, wrangling my two-year-old niece and holding a car seat weighed down by my six-month-old nephew, I opted to get out of the shower, soapy-eyed and greet her. I peeked out past the shower curtain to realize that in my cleaning efficiency of the morning, I had taken all the towels down to the laundry room leaving nothing but toilet paper to dry myself. So, dripping wet I grabbed my husband’s robe and went for the stairs. <br><br>
Now, I distinctly remember my foot making contact with the top stair, but beyond that the trip down was a blur, a blur of family photos in the stairwell, terry-cloth rope burn in my armpits and the rhythmic drum solo that was my ass thudding and skidding down the stairs. I thought I wouldn’t stop. I thought that had the door been open I’d have skidded down the front steps across the street and into the neighbour’s garden. I hurdled down the stairs at break-neck speed, and in an effort to brace my fall, managed to stick my foot into the banister. Though it mangled my toe, I finally came to halt. The robe, which had concealed my modesty at the top of the stairs, was now up around my neck somewhere. My sister was panicking, having heard the kerfuffle and seen a muddled version of the event through the frosted glass of our front door. I lay there quietly for a moment. I needed to make sure all my digits were still mobile. Fingers? Check. Arms? Check? Legs? Check. My sister was trying desperately to open the locked door, thinking that in that moment of silent am-I-still-alive that I had fallen to my death.<br><br>
“Oh my God, are you okay?!” She shouted through the glass. I got up and wrapped the robe upside down and sideways around my body, wearily got to my feet.<br><br>
“I’m fine,” I was surprised, “I’m actually fine.” Ever the gracious hostess, I sheepishly opened the door and my sister was almost in tears. She threw her arms around me, checking me up and down. I couldn’t believe it myself. I was actually okay. My foot throbbed a little and my butt was a might bit tender, but I had survived a naked, flailing, death-defying fall down a steep flight of stairs. Had I been that skinny twelve-year-old I once was, I’d have cartainly broken something, but because I possess the well-earned natural padding that I do, I was alright. MY ASS SAVED MY ASS!!!<br><br>
More recently, while performing in a play in West-end Toronto, I had another most spectacular slip and fall during a curtain call. The brilliant mix of straw, dust and water on a painted floor makes for fantastic comedy. Though embarrassed, again I survived. Just fine. I only wish I could’ve busted out some awesome break dancing moves to recoup – as Mr. T reminded me in 1984 on his “Be Somebody… or Be Somebody’s Fool” motivational videos. ‘Butt’ in the “End,’ MY ASS SAVED MY ASS… AGAIN.<br><br>
So ladies, instead of complaining about our thunder thighs, our pot bellies or fat arses… let us show them the respect they deserve, because – you never know – they might one day save your life.<br><br><b>What I learned from this</b>: Junk in the Trunk can save you from a tail bone fracture, so have that last cannoli, darlings, take an extra scoop of ice cream once in a while and hell, Super Size that crap while you’re at it, you just might need it one day to break your fall. I am bootylicious and PROUD! <br><br>
For a fantastic old blues tune on the subject, google "Built for Comfort" as sung by Howlin' Wolf.</span>Whitney Ross-Barristag:www.whitneyrb.com,2005:Post/794512010-06-11T08:25:00-04:002010-06-11T08:25:00-04:00Ba-dum-pum (sigh.)<span style="font-size: medium">These days, my singing gigs outnumber my acting gigs. But I still have a finger in the pot... is that what they say? Hm, ew.<br>
In any case, I look back every once in a while and remember the old slog of auditioning. Not that I ever really auditioned as much and as consistently as some of my very talented, constantly-working colleagues. After a particularly gruelling audition, I'd look at myself and think, who the hell would choose to be an actor?! You spend your waking hours praying to the gods of paycheques to help you book a Mr. Clean ad so you can pay your rent, only to be told you're too tall, or too short, or too young, or too old, or not blond enough (Mr. Clean is bald, not blond!) You spend what paltry wage you make waiting tables on over-priced acting classes and hair dye.... not to mention the money you dropped in College or University or both to earn your arts degree.<br><br>
So what's in it for the actor? Who would put themselves through that? Actors are some of the most thoughtful, creative, vivacious people on the planet. We live on inspiration and affirmation, on passion and understanding, on knowledge and discovery. We may live on all those things, and though we may be resilient, we also die a little inside upon every humiliation.<br><br>
When it comes to auditioning, I've certainly had my share of humiliation. But mostly of my own fault. Something happens sometimes within me. A wild impulse. A crazy voice that, in a time of stress, says "this will be funny..." I suppose it's like that little devil that appears on a character's shoulder in a old Warner Brothers cartoon. However, it seems my opposing angel is a mute. Or just stoned.<br><br>
Let me illustrate this point: in one instance I was called in to audition for a local show in Toronto, produced by young, hip go-getters. The audition requirements asked actors to prepare a contemporary monologue and a song. I waltzed into the room, confident and happy, secure with who I was and what I was doing. I performed my monologue to a quiet but focused panel of auditioners, some of whom I had already met before. They beamed, affirming my sense that I had rocked the shit out of my monologue. <br><br>
As they got up to walk me to the door, I reminded them that they hadn't heard me sing yet. "Oh, yes, right," they said as they happily sat back down behind their wobbly table, ready to receive the gift of song that I was about to bestow upon them. <br><br>
As I started in with my old standby all sultry and smooth, "My Funny Valentine." They seemed suitably impressed, smiling, enchanted, like cooing babies and in my confidence a completely ridiculous thought process happened. The conversation with my self went like this:<br><br>
"You make me smiiiiile with my hearrrrrt. <i>(Hey they like it. Look at them. They love me.That guy loves me.) </i>Your looks are laughable, <i>(yeah, yeah, this is great. I'm so in... And the Dora award for best actress goes to...) </i>Unphotographable, <i>(hey, you know what they'd love? They would think you were the funniest person, nay... a really well rounded performer if you started to sing off key on purpose. Naaawwwww, they'd LOVE it!) </i>Yet you're my fave'rite work of AAaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrt." And I let the note fall in tuning, rolling my eyes back in my head and screeching.<br><br>
The dream was over. Instead of the delightful <i>'ba-dum-pum'</i> one might hear on the drums upon uttering a fantastically hilarious joke... imagine the sound of a drummer <i>and</i> his kit being thrown down a metal staircase.<br><br>
The peace and happiness on the auditioners faces fell into confusion, pain and offence. <br><br>
I stopped singing. Smiled a slapstick smile. Swallowed. Hard. Stunned silence. One of the panel coughed a choking cough. Another sprung up from his chair.<br><br>
"Well, thank you Whitney. That was great. We'll be in touch."<br><br>
And before I could explain how funny I was being, I was ushered out the door of the audition room and was soon alone. Alone and not very funny at all... <i>ba-dum-pum</i> (sigh.)<br><br>
You see, it's all about choice in this life. The choice to do something safe or something impulsive. I hope you appreciate that for the sake of this humourous story, I sacrificed my chance at a small part, in a small play, put up in a small theatre with the yeah-yeah go-getter, young producers. I hope you're happy.<br><br>
In any case, I have an interesting history and ongoing love-hate relationship with auditioning. Every actor has to endure the audition. <br><br>
And in the end if what doesn't kill us doesn't make us stronger, at least it makes for a good story a few years down the line.<br><br>
(At the end of my blogs, I want to have a closing thought as I firmly believe that in everything, good or bad, there is a lesson to be learned.)<br><br><b>What I Learned From This:</b> You're not as funny as you think. There's a time and place for singing off key. Though humiliating at the time, some awful experiences and choices make for good stories. My Grandfather Alex always said: "Go for the joke." And sometimes to my own detriment, I do.<br></span>Whitney Ross-Barris