http://www.chfi.com

Dr. Sheila Basrur has died of cancer.  She was 51 and was the calm, collected, rational face for the City of Toronto during the SARS crisis.

If you needed an answer, she was there to explain in layman’s terms.

If you needed reassurance, Basrur was there to calm anxiety, especially among health care workers.

I hope the city and the province do something to publicly honour her and health care workers who fought on the front lines during SARS.

I was deeply moved a couple of years ago when I went to Hong Kong.  In this beautiful park right downtown, they have a memorial to health care workers who died fighting SARS.  It’s in a lovely calm garden, a great spot for quiet contemplation.

I would like to see the same kind of memorial built here.  Knowing Canada,  it will take years and a Royal Commission to get approval.

The frontline workers during the SARS crisis, including Dr. Sheila Basrur, deserve better.

Mary Ellen Beninger

I can’t believe it’s already June.  I still have alot of gardening to do, in part because the weather hasn’t been great and also we are adding a garden around the side of our house.

There is nothing I like better than trolling garden centers for the best plants and best deals. I am currently looking for a selection of peonies. They will go great with my Oriental themed garden.

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This weekend was a little weird because my husband had laser eye surgery. He’s worn glasses since he was 6 and he can’t believe how strange it was to wake up and see the time without having to put on his glasses.  It will take a while to adjust.

I am looking forward to the fact he can no longer say he doesn’t see the dirt on the floor or the dishes on the counter.

On the downside, I’ve always said a husband’s hearing should improve with age, and his eyesite should get worse, so you always look the way you did the day you got married.

Mary Ellen Beninger

I had to laugh when I read about the comments from a member of the Russian Communist Party.  He wanted to ban the new Indiana Jones movie in Russia saying it was anti-Soviet.  He worried teenagers would be misinformed about the 1950s.

Apparently he thought the Soviet Communist party was warm and cuddly and didn’t want anybody to get the wrong idea.

Try telling that to the victims of Stalin, who arguably killed even more people than Adolph Hitler. It’s a bloody business trying to figure out who was the worse mass murderer.

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And for all you wanting to know what’s going on with my puppy, here are a couple of pictures.

We decided against the boy dog, Spock.

He is so beautiful, but my husband wants a girl. He likes their personalities-a credit to the past two girl dogs we’ve had, and me, I hope.

So we waited till last weekend and a new litter and here’s our newest member.

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And finally, we are in for a warm weekend. That means I can plant my bouganvillas. Tish Iceton and I have a kind of competition going on over whose will flourish.  I have a secret weapon. I am going to over-winter mine at my dad’s. Not only does he have a kind of green house attached to his house but he has the greenest thumb I know.  His poppies are big enough to raise the suspicions of the RCMP Drug squad!

Mary Ellen Beninger 

It’s sad news about Ted Kennedy.  He has inoperable brain cancer and is lucky to be alive on Inauguration Day.

What’s amazing to me is the heartfelt best wishes being issued by everyone on Capital Hill.  It’s a tribute to his work as a Senator for the past 30 years…and how well he has overcome questions about his competence.

Part of that was due to his youth-he was only 30 when elected to the Senate on his brothers’ coattails.

Part of that was due to his own demons-drinking and Chappaquidick.

The prognosis is grim, but even his political foes say Kennedy is a fighter.

Barak Obama won the primary in Oregon yesterday, and now has the majority of elected delegates…and is less than 100 shy of the number needed to clinch the Democratic nomination.

Despite that Hillary Clinton won’t quit.  Her only hope is to convince the Democratic Party to accept the delegates from Ohio and Florida, disallowed because those states held primaries on dates not sanctionned by party bosses.  Even then, it seems unlikely she can derail the Obama campaign.

As for his presumptive rival, John McCain is sitting pretty, racking up money and just waiting for the Democrats to choose their nominee.

If it’s Obama, McCain faces new questions about his age. If elected, he’d be the oldest U.S President to take the Oath of Office.  A website- thingsyoungerthanmccain.com-has posted a funny video.

McCain is older than McDonalds, Coke in a can, nylons and velcro!

Mary Ellen Beninger

We are heading into the first long weekend of the summer.

That means I have to make an appointment with an accupuncturist.  I always wreck my back at the start of gardening season-lifting and spreading soil and mulch on flower beds.  Since I’ve planted mostly perennials, the hard work is over quickly.

Once it warms up a bit, I will get flats of annuals and some tropicals for my pots. I have learnt to wait until night time lows top ten degrees so I don’t end up having to replace plants that easily catch cold.

I’ve taken a chance this year and bought a wisteria.  I know…you have to wait years for them to bloom but I don’t want to move for years so this should be a decent investment. If anyone has advice on forcing wisteria to bloom, I’d appreciate it.

The downside of the summer is my hair.  It’s fine and naturally curly and that means a constant battle with frizz. People who don’t have naturally curly hair insist I should let it go natural….I don’t want to look like Linc from the Mod Squad.

The good news is there is something called the permanent blow dry. I read about it in a British paper and it costs a whopping 400 bucks!

But if you figure out all the hours you would save fussing and fiddling and all the money you would save not having to buy anti-frizz products, it sounds like a bargain.

Besides, my accupuncturist says I suffer from Frizzer’s Elbow, that pain you get from having to spend an hour blow drying the back of your hair twice a week.

Who says “No pain, no gain”?

Happy Victoria Day

Mary Ellen Beninger

I am a luddite.  I never play videogames.  I never have,  but I won’t say “I never will”.

I am intrigued by the Wii system, especially since they are coming out with fitness programs-Pilates and Yoga. Sounds like a great way to save on gym fees.

 I am amazed by how huge the video game business has become…bigger than movies and books and music combined!

Grand Theft Auto 4  is expected to make a billion dollars around the world. 60% of that…or 600 million dollars…will come from North America.

If you ranked the game in terms of box office, that would be 17th, sandwiched between Jurassic Park and Raiders of the Lost Ark.

About 70 million copies of earlier versions of the game have been sold.  That’s close to the number of albums Whitney Houston has sold and better than the numbers racked up by U2, Celine Dion and Shania Twain!

Sometimes I feel like a mix tape in an MP3 world.

Mary Ellen Beninger

Here’s guessing that there will be more television coverage today of the Britney Spears-Kevin Federline custody hearing than the Democratic Presidential Primaries in North Carolina and Indiana.

My favourite campaign ad is the Star Wars spoof in favour of Barak Obama

Check it out

http://weblogs.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/blog/2008/05/star_wars_the_empire_srikes_ba.html

Burma- or Myanmar-is making headlines for a number of reasons. First, the humanitarian disaster in the wake of Saturday’s cyclone.  And a number of celebrities have also taken part in the “Free Burma” campaign.

My favourite is Jennifer Aniston’s funny take on this serious story.

Check it out.

http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/b134644_aniston_gofer_copes_with_star_demand.html

Mary Ellen Beninger

So the TTC strike is over.  Alot of politicians say “enough is enough” and want to declare the TTC to be an essential service.

That would mean the surprise weekend strike would be the TTC’s last.

 I can’t help wondering if the Premier’s musings last week about taking away their right to strike was the final straw for some union members. Maybe they decided this was their last chance to strike and they were going to take it…so it became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I am in favour of declaring the TTC to be an essential service but I do wonder where this stops?

Is bus service less essential to people in Oakville or York region?

What about Go service? A strike at Go strands hundreds of thousands of commuters.  Should they be declared an essential service? Could you? Alot of the people who provide Go service work for CN Rail, a national company so I don’t know if stripping them of their right to strike would even be legal.

These are the kinds of questions politicians should be asking- and answering- now that the crisis has been averted and the busses and streetcars and subways are running again.

I’d also like to know how much this stunt cost city businesses.

The one day wildcat strike a couple of years ago cost an estimated ten million dollars. 

Just think about all the restaraunts and stores that didn’t see staff show up and all the would-be customers who stayed home rather than deal with chaotic traffic.

We were supposed to come into town for shopping and dinner Saturday but cancelled our plans because of the transit strike.

How many other people decided to stay home as well?

Just asking.

Mary Ellen Beninger

We have vacationned quite a bit in the Far East and one of the things I cherish is the customer service.  Clerks routinely give a little nod of the head when they hand you your change or your credit card and reciept.

In some countries, this is called a wai, and the lower the bow of the head, the more esteemed the customer. 

I despair of customer service here in Canada. It’s hard to find a clerk and when you do, they often aren’t very informed. They can’t tell you where to find something or when an out-of-stock item will be in.

I recently ran into a problem ordering wallpaper.  I gave the clerk the wall dimensions and she assured me one double roll would be more than enough. It turned out I needed twice that much and had to push them to get it in before my painter was done.

If you don’t know, don’t pretend you do.  Refer the customer to someone who does know.  I know it’s a problem getting good help but bad service will drive away customers. I know I won’t go back to that store again.

On the other hand, good service means loyal customers. I have a great guy who does windows, another man who I call every year to deep clean my BBQ and a company that responds promptly when we have trouble with our electronics.

I am also very lucky when it comes to my vet, my family doctor and my dentist.

We recently had to buy a mattress and box spring. Talk about an expensive grudge purchase.  The first mattress turned out to be defective and they sent out a service guy right away.  After he confirmed the problem, I called customer service back and they gave me the name of the replacement model we could get at no charge.

We didn’t like the new model and asked if we could replace the replacement. After the service rep checked with her boss, the answer was “yes”.  I am very impressed with Sleep Country and when I need another mattress in a decade or so, I know where I’ll go.

Mary Ellen Beninger 

Just thought I’d share the latest videos of the puppies.  I like the white one giving mom (Oasis) kisses.

CLICK HERE 

My husband is still holding out for a girl dog.

I’d take a stuffed dog at this point.

Mary Ellen Beninger