Rose's Cantina

Hello CBC friends: I know you are CBC Radio friends because I check my stats every day and more than 600 people have visited this blog in the past three days. That's thanks to my repeat performance on http://www.cbc.ca/radio/dnto Maybe you're wondering what happened to me after my husband left me at the airport to take a trip to Bermuda to go fetch his new wife. Well, a lot of bad stuff happened, and a lot of good stuff. I raised my three kids in near poverty while he climbed up the corporate ladder. Today, he is a multimillionaire with a six figure pension. He's still a big shot. I've moved on. I beat the odds and married my third husband 12 years ago, and we are going strong. It hasn't always been easy, but it's been interesting. You will find my blogs about my life, a well examined life, in these pages. I wrote this blog for four years and it helped me heal, and it helped me learn about myself. Along the way, I made some great friends. I don...

As I sat in the radio sound booth in downtown Ottawa, it was just me, alone with my thoughts. I was about tell a national CBC audience on DNTO about the time my husband took me on a flight to London as a farewell present before he left me standing in the Toronto airport while he boarded a flight to Bermuda to be with another women, who later became his wife and step-mother to my children. The episode runs today. Anna, the producer from Winnipeg, got on the line and we went over my story. She asked me a couple of questions. I felt slightly uncomfortable. "What?" I asked. "You don't believe me?" "It's not that we don't believe you. We just can't believe this could happen." I smiled to myself and thought, "you don't know the half of it sister." And then I began to tell the tale of the flight from Toronto to London that ruined my life more than 22 years ago, the flight that took all my hopes and dreams with it and lef...

If you're reading this, you might have heard me on CBC radio's DNTO today. I was talking about how I suck at job interviews, how when asked my strategy to further the aims of an animal welfare group, I replied: "Well, there's more than one way to skin a cat". Needless to say, I didn't get that job. I'm always nervous about public speaking, but it's pretty good on the radio, especially if you're talking to WINNIPEG from OTTAWA. They put you in a little box and basically, you just talk to yourself, which I'm always doing. You see, I'm a shut-in, a freelancer, which is Ottawaspeak for "chronically unemployed". There's another word for it, a word used by perpetual gas bags and chest puffers who are also unemployed. They call themselves "consultants". The Canada Revenue Agency has another word for us. It's called "tax evaders". Seriously, you know you suck at freelancing when you don't bot...

Well, it seems I do have a face for radio. I just finished my first ever radio spot, on Definitely Not the Opera on CBC radio. The producer said I was a pro. I'm sure she says that to all the girls. A few weeks back, I was discovered by one of the show's producers, who found me at my old blog The $10 Life . DNTO was doing a show on things people have lost, and they realized that I was professional loser, so they wanted to hear my story. But by the time they found me, their deadline had passed. The producer asked if I'd be interested in having my name put on their freelance list. Would I?! I tried unsuccessfully to contain my excitement by biting onto a nearby pug, but I'm sure she got that I was more than a little interested. I always wondered how you got to be a CBC commentator. I've seen all manner of folks become instant stars for being masters of none, and I've always felt well qualified for the challenge. Like the lazy armchair quarter...