Think Summer 2009

"Anything the mind can conceive is possible. Nothing is impossible. All you have to do is look within and you can realize your fondest dreams. I would like to wish each one of you all of life's wonders and a joyful age of enlightenment." Doug Henning

It's overcast and humid. The humidity strikes you across the face and sucks the energy out through your sweaty pores. It's not summer hot, it's a damp and cool mist that encourages, no ,welcomes the plagues which used to dominate the summer climate of Upper Canada. The mosquitoes reign supreme ,dancing in the underbrush.
You swat them away as you pull away the weeds which have grownup beside your sickly plants that are merely existing not growing.
Summer, damn it, should know better.
Summer is hot,85 Farenheit hot.Banana Boat rising up through the air rippling off of hot tanned bodies.Chittering children's happy playful voices pollute the air amid the sounds of splashing water.The wind moving through the corn field,bee's buzzing through the country air.
Cicadas call out to one another when the temperature hits 80.
When I was growing up in Southwestern Ontario,we called them tree toads, the harbinger of summer heat. It was a big deal in the 1970's to hear tree toads as it wasn't the norm. It was a rare treat to have continuous heat above 80, how soon the collective forgets.
I believe Canadians have issues about the climate. What it should do,what it doesn't do. Our identity isn't based in culture, it's based in the weather.
We fail to speak out on the issues which we could have control over and instead obsess about the weather which we can't control.
The summer of 2009 is uncannily like the summer of 2008,1992,1991,1989 and as far back as 1816.It's not new or uncommon to have a rainy tepid summer filled with erratic low pressure unstable weather.
A few countries around the world are trying to control the weather through technology like HAARP but have discovered Mother Nature bites back with a vengeance when men in suits try to reign her in.
We are obsessed with our perception of what summer should be.Our urban Canadian society so desparately want to have a hollywood summer complete with white sand,tanned bodies and outdoor sidewalk bars.
It is such a disappointment when we are stuck with mosquito ridden,cool,rainy damp days.Canadian mother nature reminds us we live on the remnants of a distant ice age,surrounded by the untameable wild amidst man made cocooned development.
It's not Laguna Beach,Hemingway's Cuba or Elmore Leonard's South Beach.
We live in Margaret Atwood's "Surfacing".
Wild,unpredictable and so complicated.
If you can stop obsessing about the unattainable,discover pleasure in the simplest ways and apply your mind to manifesting your dreams then anything is possible.
Even the weather.
I have given up on the predicting skills of meteorologists,they simply can't predict the summer of 2009 weather.
I'm suggesting that we take Doug Henning's belief in positive manifestation to heart and think hot,sunny and dry for the upcoming Civic Holiday weekend.
Manifesting the weather we want is the final frontier, forget yogic flying, this is attainable.
Stop ruminating on the negative,accentuate the positive and manifest your desire for hot sunny days.
If all 34 million of us think hot,dry and sunny it's bound to work.
It's our long weekend,let's make this happen.
Now dear reader, it's up to you.
Send this blog link to all of your contacts,include this link in your blog,alert the media to our collective "manifest summer" movement.Play summer music,think hot,go barefoot in the sand,think positive thoughts and create a positive attitude about the summer we have and the summer we want.
Think Summer and it will come !

Join the "Let's Manifest Summer" campaign on Facebook

Summer Reflections

Movie Night on the Lido Deck

Despite the general consensus that the summer of 2009 hasn't yet arrived,our clan is making the best of it.
Katie has been spending hours in the 68 F pool learning how to dive,snorkel and increase her endurance. It's hard to believe this is the same girl who was afraid to jump into the shallow end two summers ago. The teenager is enjoying spending time with her friends,waiting for her non-boyfriend to get back from his army placement and looking for that elusive part time job.
It's a rare opportunity when we get to take a night off and enjoy our backyard and each other.
Last week , the Reno man brought out the big screen,dvd player and projector for movie night on the deck under the stars.
We pulled out the "comfortable" patio chairs and settled in with our sweatshirts,cozy throws and hot drinks to watch Jerry Seinfeld's, "Bee Movie".
It was better than the drive in or IMAX...watching a movie with your family on your deck in your backyard is a great experience which every parent should share with their kids. Best of all it was entirely free, we own the equipment and the movie was borrowed from the London Public Library.
Seinfeld did not disappoint, it's a great movie for adults and children alike.
Feet up,watching a movie on a eight foot screen with the pool sparkling in the background under the stars is an amazing feeling which everyone should experience.
Summer isn't about the weather or other factors that we can't control, it's about the experience which we create. Our creation became a shared memory about how we enjoyed the summer of 09. Chilly but memorable nonetheless.

Growing Up Cyrus

It boggles my mind that any parent would allow their preteen to upload video content to the internet. It smacks of poor judgement and bad parenting skills.
How many times have you warned your children about strangers and taught them basic safety skills which will hopefully keep them safe from predators in the real and online world.
We are still reeling from the abduction and murder of Victoria "Tori" Stafford, a young girl from Woodstock, a rural community a few miles from my hometown. We get complacent, too comfortable in the idea that abduction by a stranger is rare and that we have drilled safety skills time and time again through our kids heads.
It's simply incomprehensible that your child could be made a target.
It's even more mindboggling that other parents or children themselves may be exposing their child to a predator.
Noah Cyrus (daughter and sister to Billy Ray and Miley) and friend Emily Reeves have
set up a YOUTUBE site where they video blog their personal and professional life to millions of subscribers.
It's frightening that millions of people worldwide can view two little girls prancing around like JonBenet Ramsey and posing like Lindsey or Paris.
I'm sure that Billy Ray knows all about it as does Noah's publicist and the ensuing fame can be offset by their personal security service.
The point is, kids on YouTube who don't have the last name of Cyrus ,risk their lives through sharing personal and visual information on the internet. Thousands of preteen kids regularly upload videos to YOUTUBE,including a couple of girls in Katies' class who recently uploaded video from the latest sleepover.The parents of the said friend were nonchalant about the Youtubed pajama wearing pillow fight.
Parents and kids alike can't see the potential security threat from uploading questionable content to YouTube.
There isn't a medal out there for parents who maneuveur their child unscathed to adulthood. It's usually a miracle that we can produce kids who become useful adults.

That being said ,ignoring your kids web activity may place your child in danger of being molested,maimed or murdered.
I don't want my daughters growing up like Cyrus, I just want them to grow up safe.