Just a Peek

The night before Christmas, it had started to snow,

Mom said it was time,

To my bed I should go.

With a kiss and a hug, I was tucked in all snug,

Yet I had a plan,

I admit; I was smug.

They thought I would snooze, that I wasn’t a snitch.

I lay there in bed

And started to twitch.

I heard all the stories; rumours I would snatch,

His was the legend,

No one could match.

I had to know more, all I caught was a snippet,

I asked for the truth,

They told me to zip it!

I weighed all my options, this could be a snafu,

Nevertheless,

What would you do?

With slippers on in a snap, I started to sneak.

I said to myself,

It’s just a peek.

I could hear my dad snore as I watched for a snare;

This could be a trap,

Proceed if you dare.

With a snicker I thought, I would witness a snit;

If they knew I was up,

They would really lose it.

A creak on the stairs, I stopped with a sniff,

Then snaked down the rest,

To the hall, in a jiff.

Detour to the kitchen, a bribe? No, a snack,

Don’t worry big guy,

I’ve got your back.

I crept on all fours, followed by my dog’s big wet snout,

But I was getting close,

I had to find out.

So I held back a giggle, this was simply a snag;

I was on the right track,

I saw the red bag.

He’s snazzy, I snorted through my one snaggletooth;

I thought that he saw me,

To tell you the truth.

Then tapping a finger on the side of his schnoz,

He was gone in a flash,

Good old Santa Claus.

Under the tree my new snorkel, yes it pays off to snoop,

I could rest with the knowledge,

I was now in the loop.

My eyelids grew heavy, I moved like a snail,

Off to dreamland I drifted,

The end of my tale.

©2009 by Julie Ann Poirier

Acts of Kindness

I often wonder how our goat is doing, and more importantly, how the family that heifer.org picked to give it to is doing.

Six years ago, my kids opened a beautiful card provided by the non-profit organization that announced their Christmas gift from me that year was a goat that would be given to a needy family in a developing country. It was somewhat anti-climatic given the array of electronic gadgets, chocolates, and power tools that littered the floor around the illuminated fraser fir that morning but I’d like to think that someday the memory will resonate in their minds when they consider how fortunate our family is.

At the time, it took some research to determine which charity tried to do the most with its donations but since then, MoneySense magazine began publishing an annual report that grades charitable organizations in Canada based on various criteria, and although no charity is perfect, some high-profile organizations didn’t fare well (see charitynavigator.org for American charities). Knowing where your fundraising dollars are going is just as important as knowing where your other purchasing dollars are going and some charities need to be held more accountable for the administrative or advertising costs spent on paying CEOs, airing commercials, and running lotteries rather than spending that money on the cause. I am suspicious of corporations trying to embed themselves in our “helping” culture: breast cancer pink symbols on every product imaginable or spending more money telling us how generous they are than the actual amount of the donation. I would also encourage primary schools to consider supporting a wider variety of charities instead of same ones every year, possibly something related directly to children their own age. Since I cannot control where my donation dollar goes, I would rather volunteer my time, or give our winter coats, or fundraise for events which are local. Again, this falls under my parenting philosophy: be well-informed in order to make better decisions; don’t let someone else shape your opinions, get involved and learn the facts. Okay, so I’m not the fun parent in this family.

I do gripe about how I managed to raise two ungrateful children but in reality, I think some messages have sunk in. Let me take a moment to say that I’m a proud parent of kids who are peer mediators, who attend leadership conferences, who receive school board awards for participating in the Gay-Straight Alliance to prevent bullying, who volunteer for VIP programs for drug awareness and reading programs at the library, and who take part in their school Me to We and Students Making a Change clubs which participate in good works such as Halloween for Hunger, flash mobs to collect canned food, bake sales to fundraise for mosquito nets, and the annual Me to We day to raise awareness for Free the Children while becoming better citizens both locally and globally.

The world has its problems, and the thought of how much help is needed can be overwhelming but I hope the lesson learned for my kids is how small acts of kindness add up to make a big difference, not just at Christmas but throughout the year.

What Goes In

I couldn’t imagine killing a wild boar in order to feed myself but ever since reading Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma a few years ago, I've seen this form of hunting in a different light. This month’s Utne Reader excerpted an article from the newsletter Counterpunch which asked progressives in the U.S. to consider the fact that some rural people fear gun restrictions because they need to hunt for food to feed their families in lean months. And I recognize that as a meat and fish eater, an animal had to die for me but being so far removed from that process of the food chain, this point is easy to overlook.
I’ve thought about all food sources differently since reading Michael Pollan’s books, Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and Paul Roberts’ The End of Food, among others. However, fresh baked bread was always calling my name so I figured, even with this newly acquired knowledge of how food gets to my plate, as long as I was consciously choosing ingredients, I could sustain myself without feeling too guilty, or nauseous.

I was all over transfat-free foods long ago and, much to the chagrin of some un-named members of my family who didn’t understand why I chose to interfere with their enjoyment of processed cheese or artificial flavour, I have always restricted certain foods from our household. I’ve made the effort to source local meat, eggs, and greens that are organic or naturally-grown, eat in-season while shopping at farmers’ markets, and support manufacturers of organic and natural products at the store. I buy organic fair-trade coffee beans, refuse to buy garlic grown in China, and try to grow vegetables in pots on my deck in the part shade (to no avail). My next goal is to join a farm co-op where they deliver various vegetables to your door, and maybe then I’ll finally figure out what Swiss chard is.

The biggest change in the kinds of food I was eating happened more recently because I was fed up with a digestive system that was ruling my life and finally found out what was causing all the problems. After months of research, I came across the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, which, in simple terms, explains how certain foods are harder to digest so once I eliminated those foods, I felt more like myself again. Unfortunately, the so-called illegal list consists of my four favourite food groups—pasta, bread, pizza, and chocolate. To be more specific, if I want to feel well, I can’t have any grains, lactose, sugar, or starch.

In order to broaden my meal choices, I’ve had to adapt recipes, make my own yogurt, mayonnaise, sauces, dressings, and bake using walnut flour and almond flour (an expensive commodity, and if I were a betting person, I suspect more people will eat this way in the future so we should all invest in the lucrative almond market right now). What I can eat are fruits and vegetables (except potatoes, sweet potatoes, and corn), seeds and nuts, including peanut butter, lactose-free cheeses and dairy, butter, certain beans, unprocessed meats, eggs, fish, coffee, very dry red wine, and, although no pigs will be harmed by my own hand, a few pieces of crisp, naturally seasoned bacon are permitted. The only sweetener on the allowable list is honey and I keep a jug of it big enough to feed an army; that’s when my family knew I was going whole-hog with this lifestyle change.

After a time, you can slowly introduce more things back into your diet and see if your body chemistry has adjusted itself enough to digest these foods again without unpleasant symptoms. That’s the stage I’m at now and knowing how to help myself means I feel I have control over my well-being again. I would recommend this diet change to anyone experiencing digestive upset, insulin-resistance, or general lethargy because it's the foods in our typical North American diet that may be part of the problem.

We often take food for granted, especially because hunger is a strong instinct, but food has a chemical make-up and its sources have an impact on people and our environment therefore I want to stay aware of what goes in and where it comes from.