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Neighbours Helping Neighbours

Illustration of neighbours looking out windows

SUMMARY: Download a template to print and deliver in your community to offer help – from a safe distance – and let neighbours know how to contact you.

These are extraordinary times. Like others, my first response to tragedy is to try and find something I can do about it. Unfortunately I didn’t pursue a degree in epidemiology. But I do have a small suggestion for how we might support each other.

Many folks in our communities are finding it difficult to get the food and supplies they need. Maybe they’re at high risk if they contract the virus. Maybe they are at home with young kids they don’t want to expose to grocery stores. Whatever the reason, this is a time to come together in our communities and help each other out. We need neighbours helping neighbours.

How to help:

  • Pick up grocery items for them if you’re already going to the store
  • Give them an extra roll of toilet paper if they run low and you have a stash
  • Check in now and then, by phone or email 
  • Pick up prescriptions
  • Costco member? A bulk buy could help many
  • Amazon Prime member? You can have purchases delivered to their home

If each of us lets a few of our neighbours know that we are offering help, there will be more care and less panic floating around. Let’s distance physically, but not socially.

By dropping items off on front porches or apartment building lobbies instead of in-person, we can abide by physical distancing recommendations.

But… what if we don’t know our neighbours? Or maybe we don’t have contact information for them. We can’t very well go knocking on doors right now. But we can deliver handouts.

To make this convenient, I’ve made a simple PDF file you can print out, fill in, and deliver to your neighbours’ mailboxes. Challenge yourself to deliver at least 5!

Paper delivery might feel very old-school in this age of social media and texting, but if we stick to electronic communications, we’re going to leave out many of our older neighbours.

Help spread the word! Use these hashtags and share freely: #NeighboursHelpingNeighbours #Covid-19

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Connecting with new people

Photo of Ladies Who Power Lunch Event

I attended an event on May 23, 2019, at Ottawa’s National Arts Centre, called Ladies Who Power Lunch. It was a networking event put on by Ottawa’s Ladies Who Lunch. Catherine Landry, CEO and Founder of Call Betty Marketing, runs the group, which has well over 30,000 members on 21 different platforms. Most of us run a small business.

It was so uplifting and motivating to be in a beautiful room with a scenic view, eating delicious food and listening to women support and inspire one another. It’s easy to end up heads-down on your projects and forget to energize yourself with social events. This one was a total boost.

I’ll be back for sure, with friends in tow.

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Tribute to Gizmo (1997-2018)

Gizmo (also known as Gizzy, Gizmeister, Gizzard, Mister Mo, Best Boy and Giz Wizzer) lived a long, full and decidedly Gizmodian life with his loving humans and best feline friend, Mitzey.

 

In his youth, Gizzard roamed the lanes around his home like a gangster surveilling his territory. Occasionally getting into trouble with the law, he was the undisputed boss of all the cats in the hood and, much to the dismay of his humans, he didn’t back down from a fight. Perhaps lucky for us all, he usually won.

 

Yes, Gizmo loved to break the rules, and he was known to jump up on the dinner table to serve himself some chicken. Or fish. Or beef. He wasn’t picky.

 

One day while his humans were in another room, he sampled some very spicy Thai food before jumping down and trying to rub the heat from his face. His enthusiasm for meat theft decreased only slightly following this undoubtedly traumatic experience.

 

As The Gizmeister got older, he mellowed out a bit. His favourite things to do were lounging in the sunny garden (or at least a sun spot indoors), getting a rub under the chin or behind his ears, cuddling with his buddy Mitzey, and, of course, eating food.

 

He also took up operatic caterwauling. Giz’s voice ranged from booming baritone to piercing soprano, and he enjoyed waking his humans with his heart song at night and in the early hours of the morning. His hearing loss meant that he needed to achieve a high volume in order to hear himself sing. His humans gave him his very own level of the house at night so he could practice to his heart’s content.

 

During the daytime, Gizzy liked to wait for his humans to use the washroom so he could gift them with an impromptu opera with great room acoustics, and delight in the full attention of his captive audience.

 

Giz’s favorite place to hang out in his final years was his pillow at the top of the stairs. More often than not, Mitzey would be cuddled up there with him, and they regularly groomed each other, not unlike how a human couple who thought they were cats might do.

 

From this perch, Giz was a lion in a tree, surveilling all the comings and goings of his household in much the same way he used to surveil the neighbourhood, but without the bloodshed. Whenever I would walk up or down the stairs, he would give me a little “hello” chirp, and I’d give him a head rub and a little chat. It was our routine.

 

We will always love you, Gizzy, sweet old boy.

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I am on (bone) break.

X-ray of ankle

Some of you will already know that I’m out of commission for the summer after a fairly freakish accident. Lots of people have been asking what happened, so I decided to post the scoop.

The night of Sunday July 6, I was at the grocery store. Walking in the banana aisle, I misstepped, rolling my left ankle off my sandal. No actual bananas were involved, much to my chagrin. I went down hard and fast, tearing through ligaments and dislocating my tibia. In a brilliant move, I instinctively tried to get up again. The pressure caused my fibula to fracture and exit through the skin of my ankle. This is called an open fracture. I wouldn’t recommend getting one.

X-ray of ankle

I was taken to the hospital in an ambulance. They sedated me before resetting the bone (pushing it back into place in my leg) and then put a plaster cast on to stabilize my leg until they could do surgery in the morning.

The surgery went well, and I now have the nickname Frankenfoot, due to the plate, screws, wires and staples holding things together while I heal.

I’ll be off my feet (no weight-bearing) for at least another 6 weeks, and will be doing lots of physiotherapy after that time to get my left leg back into action.

Luckily, I have a ton of books on my reading list!