Which aspects do you think makes a person unique?

Every person is unique. From looks to personality, height,weight, skin color, skin tone, muscularity, strengths, weaknesses ,intelligence, humor, body type ,speech pattern, voice, movement, and body language. Every single one of us is as unique as we are similar.

If you could have something named after you, what would it be?

If I could have something named for me, it would have to be my perfect lipstick shade. It’s cool toned, like my skin and bright like my eyes. What’s the color? It’s slightly more purple than fuchsia but not quite  magenta . There are many good shades for bright winter women like me,but I still haven’t found exactly what I’m looking for. I’m not sure if it exists in one lipstick. But if it’s out there, it should be called WUMS. And it should be sent to me immediately.

What makes you laugh?

Being Canadian, I grew up with a love of dry British humor. For instance, I really love the boys of Monty Python in all of their incarnations. From the original sketch show right through to the movies and songs.

I’m a huge fan of John Cleese on screen. Fawlty Towers is still one of my favorite TV shows to watch. In the movie A Fish Called Wanda, he was truly brilliant . I met him briefly a few years ago, and he was the embodiment of the phrase, “Don’t meet your heroes “

Eric Idle,on the other hand, could not have been nicer to us commoners . He’s truly a sweet and funny man.

Humor is so important to me that I finally married an extremely funny British man who makes me laugh almost every day with a goofy face or a silly walk or his cleverly humorous take on a situation.

Us Canadians are well known for our self-deprecating sense of humor, and it keeps us grounded. People like Mike Meyers and Dave Foley and Catherine O’Hara have been a few of my favorites over the years. More currently, I also really enjoy Seth Rogen’s sense of humor. And Ron James cracks me up. But my all-time favorite Canadian comedian is the late great Norm Macdonald talk about a dry wit.

When you were five, what did you want to be when you grew up?

… I wanted to be a ballerina. I already had a year of ballet classes at that point and would go on to have another 10 years of classes before I decided it wasn’t fun anymore and switched to tap dancing classes and then added jazz dance classes to my repertoire. I stuck with those classes until I was 17 years old. Then, in my late 20s, I took adult tap classes for a year or so and really enjoyed it.

Dance was my childhood, my sanctuary, and it’s the thing I miss most since becoming a wheelchair user.

What’s something most people don’t understand?

That there’s really nothing that hasn’t already happened in this world.

Which is why studying history is so important. For instance, what is currently happening between Canada and the USA has happened before. We’ve had trade wars, and we’ve even had literally invasions by the USA before.

Granted, North America has not been threatened with a dictator ,but if you know your history, dictators have been around since long before Hitler and Mussolini.

Just as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, whatever happens east of us will eventually come to us in the west. There will always be people who have dictatorial traits,the trick is not to give these people power.

It seems like Canada is finally coming to its senses and turning away from the Trump–light candidate, Pierre Poilievre. We’re still smart enough to learn from our neighbors to the south, and we still pride ourselves on not being them,which might just be what saves us from falling prey to a dictator.

It looks like the only thing Trump has done to Canada is succeed in uniting us against him and anyone who thinks like him.

ELBOWS UP 🇨🇦

How has technology changed your job?

… my life.

As you know, I’m retired, have been far almost a decade, and during this time, my ‘ job’has been stroke recovery .

There have been quite a few technological improvements and inventions that have me more encouraged, independent, comfortable,and entertained as a wheelchair user.

Inventions like the Zeen

Then there’s the Scewo Bro power wheelchair that takes accessible to a whole new level, allowing the user to acend and decend the stairs .I’m dying to try it, but it’s not available in Canada yet. Though it just got into Mexico, who knows it might be soon.

Streaming has definitely gotten better while I sit in front of the TV, and I’m trying each year to drop cable TV in favor of streaming services , and there are fewer shows that I record.

And I watch those  shows and binge those streams from the exquisite comfort of my lift chair.

My last binge was the Residence on Netflix, and I can’t recommend it higher . It’s a fantastic 8 episode mystery/comedy series that had me enthralled. Shonda Rhimes knows how to make a great show.

Even my Travel Buggy made its debut in my city within the past 10 years. It’s the perfect electric wheelchair for outdoors. It’s only 60 lbs and folds up like a lawn chair, and it fits in our trunk . But, most importantly, it’s given me a lot more independence back, and that is priceless.

How often do you say “no” to things that would interfere with your goals?

Not as often as I should.

What’s a secret skill or ability you have or wish you had?

Because it’s really all I can wish I had. It would be incredibly stupid of me think about anything else while my current goal is to walk to and from the bathroom every time I have to go, to not use my wheelchair or my AFO brace and simply walk to the bathroom with the assistance of my quad cane. That’s all I can allow myself to focus on. Because I have real grown-up problems. I’m running out of time. I’m nearly 60. It doesn’t get better from here. My body is not going to become magically able to dance ballet en pointe, so thinking about doing that is just wasting time that I could be using to focus on walking to and from my bathroom.