Anne Frank

Anne Frank.

News of the death of Miep Gies yesterday renewed once again, the story of Otto Frank and his family. And every single time that I read about their struggles to survive the Nazi occupation of The Netherlands, it is like a kick to the stomach.

Oh, I know that inside the pages of Anne Frank's diary, there are many examples of real courage, real heroism and selfless sacrifice but personally, I am never able to get over the circumstances under which this story was born.

A few years ago, I traveled to Germany and on a cold, snowy day in March, I visited the Holocaust memorial in Berlin. The first thing that struck me was the sheer size. Spread out over nearly five acres, the place is immense. It is filled with 2711 concrete slabs (steles) of various sizes which are arranged in neat rows. The effect is disjointed and disturbing. Like most, I put pencil to paper and learned that each stele could represent four to six THOUSAND people who were exterminated either through starvation or execution. Jews alone, could account for over 2100 people per slab. As I wandered around through the endless sea of steles, the magnitude of those numbers made my head hurt.

(photo courtesy of Wikimedia)

It was more than the death, though. It was the manner in which these people were treated before they died. Ghettos. Cattle cars. Concentration camps. It scars the soul. And the fact is, the Holocaust did not happen in a vacuum. The Nazis were not the only ones responsible. People knew what was going on. Ordinary citizens of multiple nationalities and ethnicities hid their fellow man trying to help him escape the horror.

People knew.

And still, at the end of it all, at least eleven million (some estimates put it as high as seventeen million) "undesirables" were murdered. How does that happen?

I guess we only need to look at Bosnia, Rwanda and Darfur for the answer.

Hello Monday

So last week was a total bust.

The children never made it back to school and our routine was a complete washout. I felt like I had cotton in my head for five days. The children would open their mouths and speak but they sounded like they were under water.

I smiled and nodded a lot.

I forgot simple things like passwords, keys and my bank card pin number. Rounding the corner into my neighbourhood, I shed tears of joy to see that someone made it out to open the gym. The forty five minutes that I spent there most days last week was blessed salvation. I'd like to take this opportunity to personally thank the Black Eyed Peas. Their latest album, "The E.N.D." is the only reason that I did not end up on the floor of my closet with a box of Ding Dongs.

And then the weekend came.

We vowed that we would take Saturday and do nothing but that didn't really work out very well. Instead, we cleaned and shopped. People had complained that the camera we were using for Skype was a hunk of junk so we decided to upgrade to something better.

At Sam's, we had a choice between a decent model and the superduper, extra fancy, do-everything-you-could-possibly-want-or-imagine, Microsoft LifeCam Cinema. Like idiots, we chose the Microsoft product thinking (stupidly) that it might be more compatible with our computer, which runs on a Microsoft operating system.

It didn't.

While researching the problem, I came across some tech advice which suggested that some of the Microsoft software on my computer might be interfering with the operation of the LifeCam, which of course, made PERFECT sense.

So I blithely uninstalled it.

And now my computer is buggered. Seriously freaking STUFFED.

In the last twenty four hours, I have uttered every single swear word available in the lexicon.

Today, one of the busiest days of my week, the majority of my time will be spent fixing my damn laptop. Sometimes, I really piss myself off.

On the bright side, though, my children are no longer pummeling the tar out of each other so really, it's all good.

No End in Sight

Day three of no school.

It could be worse. At least the gym has been open.

I've been splitting time between the office and home in an effort to try and prevent either of my children from blowing themselves up. And believe me, my kids are capable. It's not like they are problematic but they are independent and fearless which is a dangerous combination if left to their own devices for an extended length of time.

Overnight tonight, we are expecting a pretty good storm with lots of the white stuff and temperatures expected to drop to -4F/-20C. My kids haven't got a snowball's chance in hell (pun intended) of seeing the inside of a classroom until Monday, at the very earliest.

Normally, snow days are an inconvenience. I left a message for a girlfriend today begging her to come over and extract the ice pick from my brain and the knitting needle from inside my ear but it really hasn't been all that bad. The kids have played outside or over at friends' houses for most of the 17 DAYS that they have been fancy free.

It's not them.

It's the prolonged interruption to our routine that is making me crazy. Seriously, it's like being kicked in the teeth by a donkey over and over again.

At work, I am very organized. I use a planner. I can lay my hands on obscure, ages-old documents in 10 seconds flat because I actually use my file drawers at the office. Having to schlep folders back and forth has put a kink in my compartmentalized life. Using my VPN connection from home to link up to the server at my office is a frustrating, hit or miss, process which to date, has inconveniently blocked me out of a few drives to which I desperately need access. That sound you hear is my sanity leaping out of my ears and hitting the floor. THERE IS A REASON I DO NOT OFTEN WORK FROM HOME.

Our household is a well-oiled machine during school days. Everything from meals to homework to showers are carefully planned and executed. I would have been freaking GREAT in the military (but only if I could have run the whole thing, of course). My kids know exactly what the expectations are and they grudgingly adhere but it's been a lawless state for two and a half weeks now. I can't argue with them about strict bedtimes or any such thing because they look at me, furrow their brow in confusion and say, "Why? There's no school tomorrow."

And they're right. There isn't a single good excuse not to let them stay up an hour later or spend a bit more time on their laptops and handhelds.

I guess hell hath frozen over.

Gluteus In Incendia

Oh my god.

My buttocks are on fire.

Sunday, after waking to snow on the ground, Dallas and I were slightly panicked because we had let it hang out for the better part of two weeks. Yes, we continued to go the gym and put in some pretty serious workouts but we didn't deny ourselves food or alcohol. Sunday marked a return to discipline. It was the day we would do both a cardio AND a lower body workout just to kick things off properly.

Except our gym was closed due to weather.

I freaked. "What will we do?" I asked, "I have RESOLUTIONS to keep!"

Dallas replied that we would manage with the weights we had at home.

"But what about our cardio?" I bleated.

Dallas, with a straight face, calmly turned my way and said, "I plan to run up and down the stairs for twenty minutes."

Our stairs. In our house.

Besides the fact that me running up and down our stairs would be nothing short of a freak show, I cringed at the thought of my children watching.

And laughing.

AND FILMING.

Yes, that's right. Dylan received a hand held camcorder for Christmas this year and he'd like nothing more than to post his sweaty, crazed, mother all over YouTube. I don't know what the hell Santa was thinking giving a twelve year old boy, who thinks farts are the epitome of humour, a blackmail device.

So, I reasoned that there had to be a plan B. And gratefully, there was. Another gym was open. Whew. We took our time, had lunch and then waited an appropriate interval before heading out.

We got to the gym, walked in the door and were told that they would only remain open for another 15 minutes.

Due to the weather.

We debated for about two seconds (cardio or weights) before deciding to get in as much of our leg work out as possible. Dallas hopped onto a machine and I decided to change things up because I felt that my routine had become stagnant.

I did lunges.

With free weights.

Lots and lots of lunges.

Five miserable, sweat-inducing, grunting, jesusmaryandjoseph sets.

And one set of squats with a forty-five pound bar on my back.

Then, I got on to this great hamstring curl machine that we don't have at our gym for five sets and finished with one set of dead lifts.

Calves were last. I only managed a couple of sets before the staff guy walked by and told me he was turning out the lights. He seemed slightly annoyed so I figured that that was my not-so-subtle cue to leave.

Dallas, because he is a considerate man, had walked out the door after precisely fifteen minutes and thus, was sitting in the car patiently waiting for me when I walked out.

We both agreed that it was just a mediocre effort.

Today, I disagree. It was an excellent work out. My rear end is so tender to the touch that I can barely sit. I got a hint of how bad it would be last night when the first piercing twinges appeared. Enough so that as I was about to descend the stairs after tucking my children in for the night, I contemplated getting on my belly, sticking my hands out like Superman and flying down.

Except I couldn't bend my legs low enough to actually get on the floor.

And I was worried about my son and that damn camcorder.

Snow Daze

Today is the first day back to school and work for our family. Except it hasn't worked out that way because Murphy and I are apparently joined at the hip.

Yesterday morning, we woke up to a fresh blanket of snow on the ground. This concerned us because in spite of the fact that we experience these conditions EVERY YEAR, we live in a town that refuses to buy the equipment necessary to clear the bloody roads. Thus, here we are Monday morning, with below freezing temperatures as the predicted highs and big surprise, THE SCHOOLS ARE CLOSED. Worse, the gym is closed.

It offends the Canadian in me.

Anyway, I'm working from home which is not ideal, but it does afford me the opportunity to wear my slippers and sweats all day. What I can't share with you because I have no way to upload it, is the sound of my daughter playing upstairs. She's uniquely vocal.

The television is turned on to a loud, repetitive cartoon and Liv expresses herself in a sort of singsong, high-pitched screech. It's like all of her make believe characters are the lead in a bad Broadway musical. They don't talk to each other. They sing. Sort of. Like Yoko Ono.

In any case, it's distracting.

The weather forecast for the next couple of days includes snow and temperatures low enough to set regional records. The prospect of moving to Florida has become a whole lot more appealing.