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Sunday, December 27, 2015

BOOKS!

For this, the last posting of 2015, here are my favourite books of the past twelve months. For several years I've been recording author and title of each book I read, with marks to indicate the ones I didn't like (or didn't finish) and the ones I liked best. Below are the author and title of all the starred books on my list. Seek them out and enjoy your reading!

 

Walter Mosley                          Rose Gold

Lee Child                                 Never Go Back

Molly Kean (Keene?)               Good Behaviour

Emma Hooper                          Etta & Otto & Russell & James

David Mitchell                          The Bone Clocks

Ries (?) Haider Rahman            In the Light of What We Know

Gail Bowen                              12 Rose Street

Will Schwalbe                          The End of Life Book Club

Jennifer Klinec                         The Temporary Bride

Atul Gawande                          Being Mortal

Tess Gerritsen                          Die Again

Jo Bannister                              Perfect Sins

Margaret B. Thornton              Charleston

Mick Herron                            Nobody Walk

Donna Leon                             Falling in Love

Norman Lewis                          Naples '44

? (forgot to note)                      Fishbowl

John Williams                           Augustus

Munae Mizumura                     A True Novel

Patrick Gale                             A Place Called Winter

Elizabeth Hay                           Her Whole Life

Mary Norris                             Between You and Me

Kevin Kwan                             China Rich Girlfriend

James Rebanks                        The Shepherd's Life

Robert Galbraith                       Career of Evil

Thom Satterlee                         The Stages

 

Just so you know: in order to come up with this filtered list of winners for you, I read a total of 275 books during the year. I promise that during the coming months I will transcribe the authors' names more carefully so that next year there will be no question marks!

 
 
Copyright © 2015 Ann Tudor
 

Sunday, December 20, 2015

Joy, Again

Nothing is hidden from those whose eyes are open. With open eyes we see it all, take it in, and have no need of more—no need to understand, to put into words the mysteries of ripening and dying. It happens, and seeing suffices.

 

It's like the goddess's way of being in our lives: she is here. She reveals herself through life—and that's the secret. Pay attention to what is, not for omens and portents but for the ineffable joy of being.

 

It's the omens and portents that steer us onto the wrong course. The task, if we insist on using that imperative idea, is simply to en-joy our lives. Every minute we devote to anger, anxiety, and Angst is an opportunity squandered.

 

Brand it on your forehead: En-joy yourself, it's later than you think.

 

 

Copyright © 2015 Ann Tudor
 

Sunday, December 13, 2015

Oh, Just Let Go!

Because you travel alone you feel alone.

To your eye everyone else is joined--

by heart, by hand, by hip, by soul—

and you alone are alone.

 

Well, my friend, it's time to recognize

illusion for what it is (namely, illusion)

and counteract its effect in the only way possible

(you're going to hate this):

let go.

 

Tightly clutching to your breast

your protective cloak of invisibility

is the proximate cause of your isolation.

So let go.

 

Become visible, small bits at a time.

Loosen the fingers to let the cloak open—

it's safe, I promise you.

The cloak will still drape from your broad,

tight shoulders.

But now it will open in the front,

releasing the bonds that wrapped your heart.

 

What a good place to start:

the heart.

You may find that you are not travelling alone at all.

 

 
Copyright © 2015 Ann Tudor
 

Sunday, December 6, 2015

Ironing Insights

Aging brings startling new discoveries about myself and my place in the world, the way I act (and have acted). The doings of life arise now to be looked at through a different prism.

 

Last week I was ironing. My clothes I shake out and pretend they've been pressed. But table linens? For a dinner party? They have to be ironed.

 

I had ironed two tablecloths and a dozen coloured napkins. All that remained were a dozen large white linen napkins, and with the first swipe of the iron my mother, Eileen, came to my mind. The white linen napkins—huge ones—were hers. Not just "hers" in that she had had them when I was growing up, but "hers" in that she had made them. I knew this; it was not new information. But it's as if I am continually being given the opportunity to see things differently.

 

By now I have boxed Eileen up pretty well, or so I thought. I've analyzed her, put her into the appropriate compartments (she was this way, she was that way, she did this to me, to us—and so forth).

 

But as I ironed the hemmed edge of that first napkin I sensed Eileen in her true self. She loved to sew. She loved beautiful things, beautiful fabrics. Since she could never have afforded to buy beautiful white damask napkins, she would make them. And I had a vivid picture of her folding over the raw edges of the linen, taking tiny running stitches to make the hem—never a machine-stitched hem for a linen napkin! She was in her element, her six children forgotten. She was alone and at home in her sewing.

 

The large napkins were well worn by the time they came to me. She used them often at her frequent dinner parties, and she probably bleached them regularly to keep them brilliant white. Bleaching eats away at the fabric, of course, so a couple of the napkins, though white, sport large or small holes; these I set aside for the rag bag. The napkins that grace my own next dinner party must not disgrace either Eileen or me.

 

 
Copyright © 2015 Ann Tudor
 

Sunday, November 29, 2015

Fat Squirrel and My Cat

My Cat sees Fat Squirrel through the window.

 

Fat Squirrel: Nyah, nyah, nyah! You can't get me! You're locked in that house!

 

--Dumb squirrel, why would I want to get you? I'm in a warm house, my food is in my bowl, a lap is only a meow away. And here you are hunting in the middle of winter for acorns that you will then bury and never find again! Scattershot pantries! What a way to live.

 

--Hey! Don't put me down. I don't have your soft life. No one fills food bowls for me. And it's my tiny brain that tells me to plant the nuts. Unfortunately, it's too tiny to hold the memory of where they are so I must dig randomly. What can I say? I'm a squirrel. But surely you must admire my bushy tail. See me twitch it! See? See?

 

--Don't be vulgar, you animal. At least make an effort to be refined. If you want to improve your life, I urge you to start watching cats. Use cats as your models. If you succeed at imitating a cat, maybe some misguided soul will take you in and start filling your dish with nuts. Hah! You should be so lucky!

 

My Cat stretches, turns her back on Fat Squirrel, and walks into the kitchen to see what new treasure has been deposited in her bowl.

 

Fat Squirrel, in his endless digging for previously buried nuts, hits the jackpot and makes off with one of my most expensive tulip bulbs.

 
 
 
Copyright © 2015 Ann Tudor
 

Sunday, November 22, 2015

Indifferent Nature

Thanks be to – well, to whatever—

for the cool indifference of Nature.

Thanks for the impartial reminder

that this too shall pass.

Thanks for the perspective

that nudges us from our hot feelings,

our why-me,

our oh-no-I-can't-bear-this.

Thanks for rescuing us

from our immersion in the endless drama

of our lives.

 

The oak tree knows (its shadow, even, knows)

how to highlight what lasts,

to reveal the real to our blasted sight.

 

Look on the ocean, mighty man,

and lose the despair

that presses you into the earth—

the same earth whose fruits offer your salvation.

 

Thanks be to whoever it is for the second opinion

offered by lilacs and round stones,

rough bark and pine cones—

for all things not, in fact,

man-made.

 

 

Copyright © 2015 Ann Tudor
 

Sunday, November 15, 2015

Anthm for the Modern World

Anthem for the Modern World

 

I! Me! Mine!

Don't make me one with everything,

Mr. Hotdog Vendor,

for I am an individual!

It's my nature (or,

more accurately, my cultural heritage).

Me! Mine! My right!

I want! I need!

And everything that is NOT me or mine

would be wise to get out of my way.

Make way for ME!

 

For I am singular and share

no traits with anyone.

Being me, I require the attention of the world

which, without me,

would be a much poorer place.

 

The world without me?

Why, I can barely imagine it.

I'm sure a dispensation awaits me,

a waiving of the general rule about mortality

and its inevitability.

Surely a being as singular as I

will never be allowed to die.

 

 
Copyright © 2015 Ann Tudor
 

Sunday, November 1, 2015

In Search of Gems

You've spent your days in search of gems

though it's likely you were unaware

for the most part

of what you were doing.

For many years, in fact,

you might have denied that you were searching at all

for anything.

 

Later you had other erroneous notions

about your searching.

A hidden cave seemed to call you, perhaps.

Or a charming prince stood

ethereal

in a shaft of light,

proclaiming himself the object of your quest.

 

And now it turns out that all along

it was gems you sought:

clusters of diamonds on sunlit wavelets;

emeralds palely gleaming among

bare, end-of-winter branches,

foretelling, promising;

 

sapphire skies with pearlescent clouds

like big, fat opals;

ruby tulips dropping petals;

and brilliant, tangerine poppies

that are not gems

but could be.

 

 
Copyright © 2015 Ann Tudor
 

Sunday, October 25, 2015

Big Skies

As a grown-up I have always lived in cities. Not quite true, but close enough for jazz. For a little riffing on the topic. I always accept what is. Again, take this with a grain of salt—but it has more than a few grains of truth in it.

 

From Denver (full of big tall buildings, with the mountains to the West) I moved to Toronto. Here we are surrounded by condominiums and houses, and my view is obstructed in every direction. The morning sun clears the condo to the east no earlier than 11. The setting sun is blocked by the homes to the west of us, on the other side of the street, all of which have back decks overlooking a ravine. And there are no obstructions between those lovely wooden decks and the colour-streaked sky at the end of an afternoon. We have often committed the sin of covetousness because of those decks, that view.

 

At any rate, we seldom see the big sky. So when we are exposed to an expanse it lives in my memory as little else does these days.

 

Occasionally we go north of the city. Not very far, but north just the same. Once we are well established in the rhythms of Highway 400, the entire sky opens up, and I have never seen it when it was empty of clouds. The most beautiful, bountiful clouds float to the right and left of the car. This is a time when I am grateful that I gave up driving. Settled in the back seat of someone else's vehicle I can devote my attention to the clouds. They are the clouds of childhood, forming pigs, elephants (not much difference there, in cloud-language), chickens, cups, tables. Or just flat-bottomed, fluffy-topped collections of water that bring peace to the heart. The expanse of sky is endless. No one has mucked it up with tall buildings. It is just, even in this day and age when the goal seems to be to destroy anything natural—it is just sky, just clouds, just what it is.

 

Years ago my husband's aunt and uncle owned a cottage on the shore of Lake Ontario outside Bowmanville. Behind the house, across the road, was a bird preserve that was actually owned by the St. Mary's cement company, whose towers and docks were farther down the shore from the cottage. The rumour was that St. Mary's, holding on to that real estate until they needed it for expansion, was currying favour with environmentalists in the meantime by letting birds live rent-free on the land. Nonetheless, the lack of development across the road lent a quiet, rural character to the cottage.

 

For half a dozen summers we would spend a week or two at that cottage, just the two of us or sometimes with another couple. When you walked the 20 feet from the edge of the flagstone patio to the lakeshore, you saw sky. For 180 degrees there was only sky and water.

 

Others might mock our ideal vacation, which even I admit lacks excitement. Here's what we did: we sat in chairs on the flat stones of the patio and we looked at the lake. If the sun became too bright for our eyes we turned the chairs around. We read. We stood and walked to the water's edge (the lake too cold for swimming even in August) and we stared at the emotionless water and the flat blue sky. We read, we basked, and in the dome of the endless sky we healed from the onslaught of our city life.

 

We drove or cycled daily to the farmer's market at the far edge of Bowmanville and we bought local produce—corn, corn and tomatoes, corn and tomatoes and zucchini—and then we ate.

 

Big sky country is Montana. They clutch the title to their cowboy hearts. But big sky country is wherever you find it. Too long without its balm and we are all diminished.

 

 
Copyright © 2015 Ann Tudor
 

Sunday, October 18, 2015

Falling into This Life

What shall we expect as we fall into this life?

We can't foresee, having never known

(or else forgotten)

a universe of snowflake designs

or the reflection of trees and sky

in the puddle that collects in a pot-hole.

 

Nor can we predict,

as we fall, fall into life,

the pain of loss

assuaged, though only partly,

by gain of goodness seen

or sense of love

or simply beauty's insistent intrusion

into sadness.

 

The night of my sister's memorial service,

the gathering of friends at her house

(still "her" house)

streamed out the front door onto Lafayette Street

to gaze, faces raised,

at the cloud-filled Colorado sky.

The moon was bright as all get-out,

and the wind whipped those clouds

with an energy

that could only have been hers.

 

So there we were:

Beauty's bounty in the midst

of our loss,

making it better,

making it worse.

 

 
Copyright © 2015 Ann Tudor
 

Saturday, October 10, 2015

A Little Warmth

My fingers go numb with October's first frost.

Where is life?

Why does my blood not flow

from heart to fingertips?

A long distance, to be sure, but still.

Still.

Isn't that how it usually works?

 

Well, I can kvetch all winter long

and it won't warm up my hands.

I need a new solution.

 

Movement, for example.

Jumping jacks.

I'll leap from the chair and bounce!

Or remain seated and flex the fingers

as I make a heart connection

energetically.

I will live in my opening heart

and send live wires of sensed energy

coursing along the lines and pathways

of my body's ocean.

 

Or else, to bring a little warmth to my hands,

I'll steal it from my partner's heated back.

He'll never miss it,

with that fiery furnace burning in his chest.

I rest my hands, fingers spread,

on his hot skin

until his heat becomes my own.

 

 

Copyright © 2015 Ann Tudor

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Sunday, October 4, 2015

A New Thing I've Forgotten

When you attempt to overcome the effects of a sleepless night by downing a large coffee, you simply create a wide-eyed zombie. One night recently—for no reason at all, I tell you!—I forgot how to sleep. My eyes were closing as I gave up on a boring book and turned off the light at 9:30. At 10:15 I conceded that sleep was not happening, even though I had been drifting off while reading (note to self: choose a more interesting book next time).

 

Being fresh out of library books at my bedside, I went to my husband's lifetime collection of noir mysteries (he doesn't read them; he just collects them). I grabbed the first title I came across: a collection of Raymond Chandler's four "best" novels—and I began reading "The Big Sleep", which apparently I had never read.

 

An hour later, falling asleep in spite of my engagement with Philip Marlowe, I turned off the light again and closed my eyes. After some minutes of conscious breathing and other tricks, I did fall asleep.

 

When DinoVino came to bed sixty minutes later, I woke up. And that was when I really did forget how to sleep. I lay for an hour, doing my best "why me?, why now?" whine (and trying to drown that out by breathing, breathing). At 1:22 (aren't digital clocks great?) I put on my heavy robe and went to the media den where I immersed myself in "The Big Sleep": tough-guy talk, guns that go off (or maybe don't), smart PI who knows where all the bodies are buried.

 

An hour later I tried the bed again.

 

That's when I finally conceded that not only had I forgotten how to sleep but I might never re-learn it. Behind me was a lifetime of good sleeping. I have been the kind of sleeper who cries "insomnia!" if it takes longer than three minutes to drift off. And now it's gone. Maybe this is a memory thing. Maybe this forgetting is all of a piece with forgetting what week it is (which happened to me on Monday) or forgetting to send a thank-you note to a neighbour. Not to mention forgetting everything. Let's just leave it at that. Every. Thing.

 

I lay in bed, breathing, nudging my husband when he breathed too noisily, trying not to fret about—well, about all the worrying things there are in life, such as the state of the world. How could I sleep when boats full of migrants were capsizing? When war and brutality were forcing innocent victims to submit to coercive human traffickers in order to escape? When governments everywhere are sinking into the dark side? When commerce is replacing community? When children . . .  Oh. Now I see why I couldn't sleep. Too busy saving the world in my head.

 

Eventually I did fall asleep. Eventually I woke up, my head filled with cotton wool. Any of the previous day's thoughts were fully muffled by the kapok between my ears. My head was a stuffed animal.

 

 
Copyright © 2015 Ann Tudor
 

Sunday, September 27, 2015

It's Hard to Find the Definitive Way

I don't know about you, but my life is a series of lurches from this right way to that right way. In a sense I'm lucky, because unlike some people I haven't got stuck in one rigid belief system—belief about anything at all, you understand—but always seem ready to receive the next piece from the next person who catches my attention.

 

This openness (some might call it inconsistency and a lack of rigor) operates on many levels: I'll take up the  piano again. No, I won't. Shall I eat more flax seed? No, flax was superseded by quinoa, which has now been shoved aside by chia seeds. Childhood religion moved to no religion and then to awakening spirituality and on to the quasi-Buddhist cafeteria that seems to serve me now. Or wait, what was that about the goddess?

 

Let's talk about chia seeds first, that being less controversial than, say, religion. You remember chia. Chia pets, those white ceramic heads or animals with grooves into which you sprinkled chia seeds and then watched as the seeds sprouted (watering takes place, too), making green hair appear on the head, green fur on the animal shapes. All the rage in the–whenever. Early 60's? It was a pretty lame fad and I'm proud to say I never had a chia pet.

 

Chia has been on the farthest back burner since then. Certain health foodies, I'm sure, have espoused its value, but in such a low-key manner that I never heard about it.

 

But recently a book has come out that may do for chia what the Canadian sisters' book Quinoa has done for quinoa. The two books are similar: many pages on the history and health benefits of the product, then a large section of recipes. By giving concerned consumers all this information in one place, the books greatly increase the likelihood that curious people will start buying the product. Now might be a good time to invest in the chia seed market.

 

An interesting fact I learned from Chia: a marathon runner often (while racing) slaps a tablespoon of chia seeds into his mouth, chews, and washes it all down with lots of water. The chia seeds provide the energy and stamina a marathon runner needs to finish the race (and presumably to win). And if he gets bored running he can focus on dislodging errant seeds from between his teeth.

 

Personal testimony: intrigued by the book's claim, we bought a couple of cups of chia seeds and began adding a tablespoon to each meal. I had been in the doldrums for months and was worried about my lack of energy, my willingness to ignore the things I could have been doing in favour of sitting and then sitting some more. The day after my first dosings of chia seeds, I hopped to it, put up fence ornaments in the back yard that have been in the basement for three years waiting for me to have the energy to collect the vintage hand drill, the ornaments, an assortment of screws, and screwdrivers to fit the various screw heads (Phillips, Robertson, and slot). Within an hour, I had transformed our fence into kitsch or art, depending on your taste. I then went on, that day, to complete half a dozen other projects I'd been avoiding.

 

When my husband and I compared our day's activities, we found that the chia seeds had had the same energizing effect on him.

 

So now it's bye-bye quinoa, good morning chia. Rather, I'll be using both. Who knows what other effects the chia seeds will have? (They are very rich in Omega 3s and fiber in addition to protein.) They are tasty—or at least tasteless and crunchy. They do tend to stick in your teeth, but we're supposed to floss after meals anyway, aren't we?

 

I could go on and on about chia seeds, but instead I'll suggest you look at the book and make up your own mind.

 

See, that's where I'm really going with this idea: it's all about making up your own mind. I suppose I've taken numerous wrong turns along the way, but the whole process has been a learning experience. Even my current approach to life (whether chia seeds or the Buddhist cafeteria) may be –probably will be—supplanted next year by something else. In the meantime, however, I'm off and running!

 

 
Copyright © 2015 Ann Tudor
 

Sunday, September 20, 2015

Lyrical Moments

Recently the term "lyrical moments" came into my head. Perhaps I read it someplace. I began to contemplate the presence—or absence—of lyrical moments in my life.

 

First, what is a lyrical moment? More than happiness, surely. Some sort of transcendence? How many transcendent moments come to us in a lifetime? Is a transcendent moment the same as an epiphany? Define transcendent. Is seeing a heron unexpectedly a transcendent moment? Oh, searching for a definition has me dancing like the angels on a head of a pin, with just as much relevance.

 

Is a lyrical moment just some pleasant time that I happen to have retained in my memory? Or deeper than that? I'm beginning to think I've bitten off more than I can chew here. I'll try a list.

 

* The end of Peter Sellars' and Bill Viola's production of Tristan und Isolde

 

* The moment in hands-on healing when I feel like a clear conduit

 

* Singing on a Georgian Bay island, when three crows flew to the top of a tree to listen, then flew away when I ended

 

* Birdwatching at dawn while I was in high school

 

* Watching my three children play together in harmony at 6, 8, and 10—unlikely ages for bonding over a PlaySkool garage

 

* This morning's sliver of a moon

 

* Always the moon

 

* Sky colours at dawn or sunset

 

* The green line

 

* Toning with my Tibetan bowl

 

* Lying on a giant slab of rock on High Rock Island and joining my energy with that of the white pine growing from the slab

 

* Learning at age 72 to duck under ocean waves at a North Carolina beach

 

* Playing in an orchestra or band, where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts

 

* Dancing weirdly with my husband

 

* Learning to open and let go (but does it have to be so slow?)

 

* Deep gratitude for the direction my life has taken in the last 35 years and for all the teachers and facilitators who were part of it

 

 

 
Copyright © 2015 Ann Tudor
 

Sunday, September 13, 2015

Deja vu but always new

A lot of what I do is déjà vu (all over again, as Yogi Berra used to say). When I leave the house I go to the subway or walk into High Park or take the down-hill, up-hill sidewalk to Bloor West Village, my neighbourhood shopping area. Whichever of these three paths I take, I've been doing it for almost 33 years. I've seen it all.

 

Or have I? As I walked to the Village one day in late winter, I resolved to see people and things in a different way. The critical eye, always at the fore, has taken up too much space. It was time to soften its judgment and look with a curious and open eye. It is often said that if you are nervous about, say, speaking before an audience, all you have to do is imagine your audience members naked and your nervousness will disappear. I've never tried this, but yesterday I carried it one step further. Instead of noticing this woman's hat, whether beautiful or ugly, or that man's shabby or natty coat, I focused on seeing beyond the clothes and beyond the body (naked or not). My intention was to see the troubled or peaceful or compassionate or distraught soul within the body. So many sad eyes, so many downturned mouths made me aware of the burdens we hide in our hearts. I saw more sorrow than joy on that walk.

 

I also discovered that in my head I carry on a continuous dialogue with my surroundings, animate or inanimate. I passed a father pushing year-old twins in a tandem stroller, one seat behind the other. The baby at the back was sound asleep. But the little front-sitting one didn't miss a thing. Just as we came together, something on the side of a building caught his eye and he pulled his head around and then, as the stroller continued past his point of interest, he raised his chin and tilted his head back to keep it in view. I, wearing sheepskin hat covered with a hood and all held together with a large, looped-around muffler, was drawn to the baby's exposed neck as he craned his head. "Baby, baby," I said to him, "get a scarf. Protect your neck. At least put your chin down and don't expose yourself so freely to the wind."

 

Well, he didn't listen or care, and that was all right. Maybe he's not as sensitive to the cold as I am.

 

The pigeons accumulated on the sidewalk around a local hamburger joint and I had to pick my way through them, saying, "Shoo, pigeon. Take to the air, pigeon. Move, move—I'm coming through." Like the baby, they paid me no mind, although they did roll out of the way as I walked through the flock.

 

"Oh, ladies," I said to the two women dressed to the nines for shopping, European-style, "I hope you are happy to be living here in Toronto even though it is not your original home. I hope you don't find it oppressive to live in the midst of another language, another culture. And you do look snazzy. I sometimes wish I had the desire to dress up like that just to run up to the Village for a dozen eggs."

 

"Don't be impatient," I remind the driver who honked when the car ahead of him hesitated for half a second after the light turned green.

 

Walking to the Village reminds me of community even though I don't actually speak to anyone. I was going to say, "I don't speak to a soul," but maybe that's what my silent commentary is: speaking to souls.

 

 
Copyright © 2015 Ann Tudor
 

Sunday, September 6, 2015

Little Things Mean a Lot

Sometimes I stand in the middle of my kitchen struck with wonder at how beautiful my life is and how grateful I am for it. Other times, not so much. Today, I want to talk of the role of inanimate objects in creating at least a portion of my happiness.

 

Lee Valley is my corporate hero. You didn't know I had one, did you? Going through a new Lee Valley catalog I dog-ear page after page of "wants," which I later, refusing temptation, un-dog-ear because wants are not needs. In the last six months, however, I made two Lee Valley purchases that have changed my life.

 

When we go out at night, we leave the porch light on so we can find our way up the steps without stumbling. But the light fails to reach the front door lock. I have spent 36 years fumbling for the keyhole. Whole minutes! Minutes gone from my life! Blood-pressure-raising minutes!

 

Now I search no more for that keyhole! From Lee Valley I bought a tiny little flashlight, the size of a hearing-aid battery, that adheres to my key. I aim the key in the general direction, press the tiny button with my thumb, and voila! Let there be light. The door is unlocked in the wink of an eye. Two shakes of a lamb's tail. The work of a moment. I am happy!

 

The second inanimate object is almost as small and was just as inexpensive. With the failing memory of age I have become ever more dependent on timers to keep me from burning everything I cook. I've been known to put a tray of cookies in the oven, get myself a drink of water, and then, having focused on the water for fifteen seconds, leave the kitchen with nary a thought for the cookies in the oven. It is only 25 minutes later that the smell of burned cookies swirls its way up the stairs to my computer. And then I remember . . .

 

So I always set a timer the minute I put something on a burner to cook. And if I leave the room, I take the timer with me. And when I leave THAT room, I probably forget to take the timer. So when it dings its tiny ding 20 minutes later I am nowhere to be found, certainly not within hearing distance of the little ping. And then later the smell of burning swirls its way up the stairwell to the computer—oh, we've been here before.

 

Having a timer implanted into my wrist seemed excessive. Luckily I found in the Lee Valley catalog just what I needed. I now have a digital timer that is so simple even I can operate it. My timer can be set for seconds only or for up to ninety minutes. When the pre-set time is reached, the high-pitched bee-bee-bee-beep is so annoying I react to it immediately, just to stop the noise.

 

But here's why I really love my timer. It has a big fat clip! I clip it onto me (well, my clothing) and it stays with me wherever I go. When it beeps I have usually forgotten that I am wearing it (and of course forgotten that I had anything in the oven). But I am startled into remembrance and action and I haven't burned anything since I bought it.

 

So if you come to visit me and see something clipped to my sweater like a limpet, rest assured that it is not a growth or an insect but the only thing standing between me and culinary chaos.

 

Lee Valley, I love you.

 

 
Copyright © 2015 Ann Tudor