Happy Good Hair Year!

I was going to do a Bad Hair Months and Years post and wish everyone a good hair year in 2009, but it was taking forever to upload the images. You will just have to take my word for it that I have had many bad haircuts (mm can confirm this, for she kindly scanned all the photos for me). And even though that post is not to be, I wish all of you 365 good hair days in 2009. (It's not a leap year, is it? If so, I'm sure you can cope with one bad hair day.)

Instead of spending time uploading awful pictures of me (which, I admit, I wasn't that motivated to do), I watched March of the Penguins. I usually avoid nature films: they contain too much death and violence. My dear friend Heather assured me that this was not the case with this movie. Unlike mm, she is not a credible eyewitness. A penguin was taken out by a seal, some comical looking bird taste-tested baby penguins until it finally found one it liked, another baby penguin froze to death, and one lone male penguin had started the march too late and was no longer marching but stumbling wearily, while Morgan Freeman informed us that it would probably die. Why didn't the people making the film bundle the penguin on the back of one of their snowmobiles and take him to the rest of the penguin posse? One of the main characters in Joseph Boyden's Through Black Spruce is a Cree hunter and trapper who starts feeding an old blind bear. As he says, fuck National Geographic and Animal Planet. What do they know of elders scraping by each day and starving? To which I would like to add, fuck Mother Nature. She doesn't always know best.

Leaving aside the issue of whether the befuddled penguin would even have wanted to go for a joy ride and then be dumped among hundreds of other squawking birds who haven't had a bath for weeks, the scene got me wondering. How do photographers remain observers – dispassionate or passionate – instead of intervening when some horrific event (not necessarily involving endearing birds) is unfolding? For all you literati, is there a work of fiction in which this forms the subtext or the overarching theme, or assumes some other literary position?

My Father

Our family trips during the summer holidays began at 4:30 am. It wasn't because my parents wanted to avoid rush hour traffic. The early departure was so that we could get to such-and-such train station by such-and-such a time so that my father could take a picture of the train as it pulled into the station. We often spent two weeks driving around Eastern Canada from one obscure train station to another. My brother and I would play cows and graveyards to pass the time. The rules were simple. You kept a running count of all the cows you passed on your side of the road. If you passed a graveyard on your side, your cow count was reset to zero. If my parents thought that this would be a way to keep my brother and I quiet they were dead wrong. You can imagine how hard it is to get an accurate cow count when the car is speeding down the road, the driver determined to make it to the next obscure train station before the train's arrival. There were numerous disputes and loud calls to turn back to conduct a cow re-count. The calls, no matter how loud, were ignored, which frequently resulted in surreptitious physical violence between the passengers in the back seat.

My father worked for the railroad his whole life. He loved trains, to the point of obsession. He didn't only collect model trains, he collected a set of real train cars. They were sold for almost nothing after he died because the cost of keeping them in the trainyard in Montreal was prohibitive, particularly for a family that dines on bologna sandwiches (and Campbell's soup). When I was young I couldn't understand how anyone could love inanimate objects with so much passion. But now I realize that trains, though inanimate, have soul. Steve Goodman understood that. Tom Waits understood that. Gladys Knight and the Pips understood that.

But the various levels of government in Canada do not understand that. To be fair, red velvet, murder, white starched tablecloths, Some Like it Hot, candelabras, James Bond, suggestive tunnel imagery, and the Chateau Frontenac are expensive to maintain. Trains still exist along Canada’s most populated stretches, and where the scenery is particularly fetching and tickets fetch high dollars from tourists. But much of the track that used to take people to those obscure stations my father so loved to photograph has been ripped up. The only way to get to many of those places now is by car, or bus. Quel horreur. For while trains are red velvet, murder, white starched tablecloths, Some Like it Hot, candelabras, James Bond, suggestive tunnel imagery, and the Chateau Frontenac, buses are bologna sandwiches (which, if they have mustard on them, definitely ain't dijon).

It seemed so pointless. Rising at 4 am, driving to a speck on the map, waiting… waiting… photographing the train pulling into the station... then driving to another speck on the map, waiting… waiting... But now I think that perhaps my father was an inadvertent anthropologist, documenting a way of life that was doomed to extinction.

The Spikeman Returneth

This post was going to be a lament for Spikeman. (When someone once asked me if I have pet names for my pets, I looked at her like she was weird and pathetic. No way was I going to admit that I call Festus Festasaurus, Bo Bo-Bo, Charlotte Charlottini, and Spike Spikeman. It would make me seem weird and pathetic.) Spike has been gone for almost a week. I discarded the more unlikely scenarios: bludgeoned by the fanatical gardeners next door; consumed by a fisher; attending a family reunion. I assumed he had been hit by a car, poisoned, or trapped and released somewhere far from the neighbourhood. I was sad about this. Even though I never included Spike in my official cat count, he would appear most mornings and evenings clamouring for food, after which he would engage in a round of psychological warfare with Festus, then stretch out in front of the fireplace. So he was missed. (By me at least. I can’t speak for Festus.)

But this morning when I got out of the shower, there was Spike, clamouring for food. Maybe he disappeared to assert his manhood, knowing that it’s on the chopping block if I ever manage to get him in the cat carrier again and he doesn’t manage to escape before we get to the vet (in which case, he’ll be quite justified in calling me a castrating bitch). Or maybe he’s got a bit of a paw de trois going. Maybe he’s clamouring at someone else’s feet some mornings and evenings, engaging in psychological warfare with their cat, and stretching out in front of their fireplace. Maybe he has another name. Eugene perhaps. Maybe he even has another pet name. Something weird and pathetic, like Eugenieweenie. And the only way I'll ever confirm this is if Spike commits a faux paw and purrs his other significant other's name (or worse yet, his other significant other's pet name)...

A brief note about bad haircuts

I was at my mom’s place the other night. I wanted to find a picture of her for my next post, so we pulled out the old photo albums. We were in hysterics as we looked through them. When I got home though, I was somewhat depressed. My life has really just been a series of bad haircuts. A mullet (even my mother, who will say just about anything looks nice, commented on how unflattering it was). A un-shaggedelic shag cut. Zestless afro. Hair that should have come with a CAUTION: WIDE LOAD warning. And a style my father dubbed “the helicopter landing pad”. When I told my coworker mm about this today, she suggested that I do a photo-post on my lifetime of bad haircuts. While this is an undoubtedly brilliant idea, I’m not sure I’m ready to loose my terrifying tresses on the world...

Uncle Bob and Aunt Joan

Uncle Bob and Aunt Joan were the hippies of the family. I don't actually know why I think of them as hippies, since there's no evidence that they spent their days getting high or that they subscribed to the doctrine of free love. But they had long hair and wore bellbottoms and seemed carefree, and that was enough to make them stand out from the rest of the family. And since it was the sixties, it also meant they must be hippies. They had five kids, and every Easter we would make the trek a little west of Toronto for an outdoor Easter egg hunt on Sunday morning. That tradition was abruptly abandonned when I was in my early teens. Aunt Joan, while travelling on the Trans-Siberian Railway, had met an English banker. The story I know has her running off to England with him, without ever returning home. I don't know if that's true, but it probably is. It's hard to imagine a mother abandonning her children, but it's even harder to imagine her confronting them with her decision and saying goodbye. The story I know also has Uncle Bob going bald overnight. I'm not sure if that's an apocryphal tale, but I'm sure his wife's manner of leaving was sufficiently apocalyptic for him that it's not implausible. And it makes for a good story.

I didn't see my uncle or cousins again for many years. Then about five years ago, my uncle was diagnosed with cancer. I hadn't known this, but he and his son (my cousin John) had been living in the same town as me. I went to see Uncle Bob in the hospital. His bones were straining against his skin, and I felt like I was conversing with a skeleton. He was quite cheerful though and remained optimistic for a while, even after he had been moved from the hospital to a room at the back of John's house and was receiving hospice care. Then one day I heard him say, almost in passing, that although he had hoped for a different outcome, he wasn't ever going to leave that room. I looked at the cans of Ensure -- the last meals of the terminally ill -- then out the window, at the snow and trees and sky. I tried to imagine what it would be like to know you were never going to go outside again. Death brings an infinity of sorrows, and the sorrows of infinity.

I often wonder if Uncle Bob tried to contact Aunt Joan when he realized he was about to die. Her leaving must have been the great tragedy of his life, and my relentlessly romantic side yearns for a dénouement of understanding and forgiveness and closure.

A short while after Uncle Bob died, the cousins invited my mother and I to dinner at a local restaurant. I learned then that Aunt Joan and her English banker have a summer house in Southern Ontario, close to the various towns where her children live. She had, after many years, tried to re-establish contact with at least some of them. I don't know all the details, but I did hear a couple of my cousins speaking of her with some disdain. In the end, it sounded like Aunt Joan's children had abandonned her as well.

Too short stories

Back in the good old days when men were men and people with disabilities were institutionalized, my mother had a cousin named Bill. Today Bill would be labelled as having Down syndrome, but back then he was mongoloid. My mother doesn't remember Bill ever walking. He was carried everywhere: to the dining room table, to the backyard, to the bathroom, to his bedroom. “Did he have some other condition?” She doesn't know. Maybe there was some physical cause for his not walking, or maybe he was always regarded as an infant who couldn't do anything for himself. Bill was put into an institution when he was quite young. My mother can't remember what age he was when that happened. His family lived in Thunder Bay, in Northern Ontario. The institution was somewhere in Southeastern Ontario, which is about 1500 kilometers from Thunder Bay. I imagine Bill's parents didn't visit him very often. Bill died when he was 21. When I asked my mother what he died of, she told me that she doesn't know.

Bill's story can only be told as flash nonfiction. A lot of our family stories are like that. Sometimes I'm the one to blame: I assumed there wasn't a story. For example, my father's mother's main purpose in life seemed to be to keep my diabetic grandfather, who she called “father”, from eating any sweets. She seemed as bland as the biscuits she tried to pass off as dessert. Long after she died I learned that my grandmother's real father was exiled from Ireland by his family. He was an embarrassment to them because he drank too much. (As an aside, my coworker Maureen wondered how much you have to drink for it to be considered excessive in Ireland.) I searched the internet and found the name of my grandmother's father (Guilford Moffet Dudley), his wife (Eveleen A. Dudley), and my grandmother (Madeline Mary Constance Dudley) on the 1891-1943 Boston Passenger Lists. I'm not sure when they left Ireland, but it must have been shortly after 1900. That was the year my grandmother was born in Dublin, and she came to Canada when she was a baby. (As another aside, my great grandfather is a direct descendent of Lord Guilford Dudley, who married Lady Jane Grey. That unfortunate couple was forced to take up residence in one of the least desirable living spaces in England, the Tower of London. Although I don't know much of their story, I do know that it didn't end happily.) At some point after my grandmother arrived in North America her father disappeared, and nobody from our family knows the rest of his story. It might have been interesting to have asked my grandmother how she felt about her bastard of a father walking out on her and her mother, although perhaps I would have phrased the question to appear more objective. After my grandfather died I went to visit my grandmother, who by that time was in a nursing home. I hadn't seen her for some years. At first I thought that I had walked into the wrong room, and that the person in there was someone's male relative. I checked at the desk. It was my grandmother. She used to have long hair that she wore in a thick braid wrapped around her head, or at least that is how I remember it. This person was bald, the facial features Mr. Magooish. She slept through my visit. I left a picture of myself on the table beside the bed, but it probably didn't mean anything to her. She had dementia and I don't think she recognized anyone anymore.

Sometimes the reason for the too short family story is that the family itself has imposed a word limit. This was the case with my father's paternal grandfather. He married his nurse and left everything to her. The family posthumously shunned him, even refusing to allow him to be buried in the family plot. End of story.

When I watch Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, which I do every Christmas, I always get kind of teary when Rudolph lands on the Island of Misfit Toys (I've usually had lots of Christmas cheer by that point, which may account for my easy slide into maudlinness). In the world of happy endings – or better yet, in utopia where there are no endings – I like to think that every story has an appreciative audience somewhere. It would be sad if those stories languished on an island somewhere, unheard.

Yves

Dave came over last night to help me work on a Halloween costume. I don’t want to spend any money on one this year – in spite of my best-laid plans, the re-siding of my mother’s house, the repointing of part of the brickwork on my house, the replacement of several windows, and my yoga vacation with car trouble all happened at the same time. I considered using all the odds and ends of wrapping paper that I’ve collected over the years and turning myself into a badly wrapped present. I could then offer a special prize to anyone who correctly guessed what I was supposed to be. Or I could just run the brush through my hair several times and be someone having a bad hair day. But how many kids would I scare that way? Dave suggested that I make myself look like a dummy. You may be thinking that this wouldn't require much of an effort, but in fact you would be gravely mistaken. I put on some large black pants and a black sweater and gathered up lots of sheets and towels and pillowcases, and we stuffed the sleeves and pant legs and around my torso until the lumpiness of my body matched my hair. Then I put a black shopping bag over my head. The final touch was my skeleton gloves with the fake blood flowing through the veins. I’ve used these every Halloween since I bought them and they are always a hit. The blood no longer seems to be flowing in one of the gloves, but this only gives it a more skeletal appearance.

The plan was for me to slouch in a chair on the porch. When some adorable but incredibly naïve kids approached they would think I wasn’t a real person because of all the padding, and then when I jumped up it would scare them to death (but hopefully not to the point of falling backwards down the stairs). I wasn’t sure how successful this plan would be since I was too bulky to execute any quick manoeuvres. Although not a solution, I decided that it might be nice to slouch on the porch with a companion, so we created Mr. Dummy. We got my black rubber boots from the basement, put the ends of some black pants in them, used a candelabra for the torso, draped a black sweater over it, and stuffed everything full of t-shirts and whatever other bits of clothing I had that I wasn’t planning to wear before Saturday. Then Dave secured the ends of three wooden spoons and one skewer to the top of the candelabra, wrapped them with three washcloths and a shirt, and pulled a full head mask over the conglomeration. The mask looks like the face in The Scream, with the eyes and mouth painted a phosphorescent green. Unfortunately, it also has funny little ears that detract somewhat from its basic creepiness. So I pulled out a black hat that, while not a beret, nevertheless looks like something that a fashionable creepy lumpy thing might wear in Paris. In case there are any doubts about this, “Chapeau” is written across the front of the hat. We plopped it on Yves. It added a certain je ne sais quoi to his appearance. Instead of merely a creepy lumpy thing, we had a gay-looking creepy lumpy thing (my apologies for perpetuating any stereotypes based on sexual and fashion preferences). And now that the cats have discovered Yves and are trying to befriend him, we have a gay-looking creepy lumpy thing that appears to be in need of a good lint brush. It wasn’t quite the look we set out to achieve, but we were happy with the end result. I hope the kids are too, even the not-so-adorable cynical ones.

Spike

I got home from work and discovered Spike – who is a stray but is claiming squatters' rights – wandering around the house. It was the first time he had been in at this hour, maybe because it’s getting colder. So I ran down the stairs, got the cat carrier, and put a dish of tuna at the back of it. Spike isn’t completely stupid, nor was he overtaken by gluttony. He put three paws in and kept one out. His instincts were 25% sound but no match for my prefrontal cortex and protective gear. I shoved him in and locked the door. He started hissing, biting the bars on the door, throwing himself against the sides of the carrier. I called the vet and told him I was on my way with one crazed cat about to become a castrato.

The vet’s office was only ten minutes away. For the first eight or nine minutes Spike continued hissing, biting the bars, throwing himself against the sides of the carrier. But then the kerfuffle ceased. I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw Spike emerging from the side of the carrier. I’ve heard that bats can squeeze themselves through holes the size of a dime, and at first I thought Spike must have similar superpowers. My next thought was THE WINDOW. Fortunately, Spike's prefrontal cortex is less well-developed than I had thought, and he went for the passenger-side window first. That gave me time to roll my window up while swerving into oncoming traffic. In times of trouble I retain the ability to multi-task.

So there I was, stuck in a small car with a crazed cat, driving down a busy road. I started picturing Spike doing something similar to those octopi you see, possibly only in the National Enquirer, attached to divers’ faces and sucking out their prefrontal cortexes. And my next thought was that I was about to experience being flayed alive. But Spike crawled onto my lap and peered over the steering wheel instead. I heard a story about a car that was pulled over on the interstate because there were reports it was being driven by an iguana. It turned out that some guy had draped his pet iguana over the steering wheel and was somehow operating the car without being seen. I briefly considered doing the same thing with Spike, but realized I had forgotten to bring my periscope.

So Spike and I drove home. Unlike the cat carrier, we both survived the ordeal intact. Which means Spike won’t be singing in a sad falsetto anytime soon.

A traffic circle in Kemptville

I was on my way to Ottawa Friday night and pulled off the highway at Kemptville to get some gas. To my bewilderment and dismay I spotted a traffic circle at the approaching intersection. The only other one I've seen in Canada is in Dorval, where I grew up. Traffic circles and Québec drivers make for a frightening combination, perhaps explaining my phobia about both of them. I once heard that the difference between a fugue and a canon is that a fugue is difficult to get into and easy to get out of, whereas a canon is easy to get into and difficult to get out of. Or it may be the other way around; I know very little about music. Regardless, traffic circles combine the worst attributes of fugues and canons. They are difficult to get into and difficult to get out of. Few drivers seemed to know what to do at the Kemptville traffic circle. I think the town needs to hook up two loudspeakers and blast a fugue out of one and a canon out of the other, just to add to the confusion.

I often ponder how I should celebrate my landmark birthdays, when I turn 50, 60, 70 and 80 (at age 80 I'm going to stop wearing a seatbelt, start practicing unsafe sex and take up smoking, to ensure I don't make it to 90). Friday night I figured out what to do on my 80th birthday: I'm going to rent a car in Paris and try to navigate the traffic circle around the Arc de Triomphe, whilst eating a pain au chocolat and drinking a bowl of café au lait. It will be a spectacular success or a crashing failure. Memorable either way.

On a completely different note, interest is waning, the weeds are waxing, and I don't know what the moon is up to — perhaps illuminating Amy Winehouse collapsed over Deloney's lap, an idiotic grin on her face and a look of half bliss, half frustration on his. Time for a break. If you see a woman with lumpy hair lurking in your blogs it's probably me. Or maybe it's Jody. Or possibly Deb.

À bientôt mes amis...

Yard sales and revenge presents

On Saturday I went to visit Marni. We wanted to go to a small town near Belleville to get some heritage plants. Both of us tend to select plants based on their names: Cosmonaut Volkov, Bloody Butcher, Purple Kalabash. So we were drawn by the alliterative allure of Minnesota midget melons. We're going to meet in the fall to see who has the biggest midget melon.

Marni then wanted to wander over to the yard sale across the street. I don't like yard sales. I don't like to bargain since I have a mortal fear of appearing cheap. And I don't like to have lots of clutter cluttering up the house. So why would I put myself in the situation of having to bargain for clutter? But I didn't want to be churlish, so I went over without a struggle. Most of the things looked junky to me, although I was somewhat tempted by a waffle iron that would produce waffles in the shapes of flowers, and a large cobalt-blue glass bowl. But my anti-packrat tendencies held me in check. Then we noticed another yard sale a couple of houses down. Some kids had set up a lemonade stand there, a rare sight these days. So we headed over. We got waylaid by a parent though, who mentioned that there were more items for sale in the garage. So we headed up that way. The first thing we spotted were the videos. Friday the 13th! Nightmare on Elm Street! Perfect viewing for a dark and stormy night at the cottage. And I also pounced on The Way we Were, which caused Marni to roll her eyes and spout a pithy dismissal of the movie: sappy. I tried to reason with her but she's a stubborn, narrow-minded critic. Then I spotted a box of Barbie dolls. These were no ordinary well-groomed Barbies though. Masses of long tangled hair. Naked. Pouty lips. Crazed eyes. Legs that ended in removable feet sporting platform shoes, so that you could pull off one foot and make them appear even more disturbing. “Look at these” I shouted at Marni. I thought maybe she would want them for an art installation, but although she agreed they were creepy, she was less taken with them than I was. I bought four for $1.00. I may put them in my fig tree, which already houses a wooden articulated snake, a papier maché apple and pomegranate, and two wood figures I got from somewhere in Indonesia that are supposed to act as bouncers at heaven's door. They are scowling - possibly because they both appear to be having a bad hair day - and are anatomically incorrect, unless the pearly gates are guarded by male porn stars.

The pièce de résistance though was a Disney princess lamp. A blonde vision wearing an off-the-shoulder dress with a wide pink skirt that sparkles luminously when the lamp is turned on. As a joke, a few years ago a friend gave me a spa piggybank since I was always saying that one day when I have a lot of money I'd like to go to a spa for a week. The bank was hideous. But not the kind of hideous that demands to be put on display and exclaimed over. (Which one of the chandeliers that my brother and his partner brought down for a yard sale last month does. They moved into a house where most of the wall surfaces were mirrored, there were gold bits embedded in the ceiling, and the light fixtures were hideous in the way the spa bank was. Except one. It has pink cherubs pole dancing around electric candle tapers. It is fabulously hideous, and I immediately claimed it. I'm going to hang it in the garage.) After hiding the bank in my closet for a couple of years and amassing less than five dollars towards my spa holiday I re-gifted it to my older nephew Liam, since he used to find it difficult to save money. There were exclamations of disgust when the present was opened. “What the hell is that?” asked Pat, his mother. Then last Christmas, I was opening a gift from Pat, Liam and Kiernan. “It's a revenge present” they gleefully informed me. I thought for a bit. Revenge for what? Then I remembered the spa bank (which had suffered a fatal “accident” shortly after I gave it to Liam). I unwrapped the gift. It was a yellow glass pig with blue ears and eyes and a little blue squiggly tail, and a gaping misshapen orange mouth. “I love this” I gasped. I really did. I had been looking for something to put my toothbrush in, and the pig's colour scheme would fit in fabulously with the olive chartreuse walls and lemon yellow trim of my recently renovated bathroom. They looked disappointed. (When Kiernan's birthday arrived I had to tell him that his gift was not a revenge present, because it certainly looked like one. He had wanted a plaque with the family coat of arms on it, so I ordered one from somewhere in Ireland. The coat of arms was OK, but the plaque was pretty awful and whoever had done the lettering must have spent several hours at the pub beforehand.) I am going to give the Disney princess lamp to Liam for his next birthday. “It's a present to incite a revenge present” I'll tell him. Based on their previous feeble attempt to exact revenge, I may end up with another fabulous gift.

I love yard sales.

Management by Dummies

Recently in Ontario we had the Timbit fiasco, when a woman working at Tim Hortons was fired because she gave a baby a Timbit, thereby depriving the company of 16 cents in revenue. From a public relations standpoint, firing this woman was a bad move for a number of reasons. First, Tim Hortons prides itself on being family-friendly and helping children. Second, they have a policy of giving free Timbits to dogs – presumably in cars – that go through the drive-through (they are day-old Timbits mind you, although they could easily have this policy for kids as well since most of them have undiscerning tastebuds). Third, the woman is a single mother of four kids. Fourth, it made the hugely profitable company look like a penny pincher, at a time when the country is considering abolishing the penny. You can imagine the negative publicity her dismissal generated for Tim Hortons. The company ended up apologizing and re-hiring her.

The managers of a restaurant in Owen Sound, Ontario have apparently risen to their level of incompetence, for what else can explain their laying off last week of a waitress who shaved her head? This was also a bad move for a number of reasons. First, isn't that a form of discrimination? Second, it's hard to see any argument against employing a bald waitress, since they are much less likely to serve soup with a hair in it. Third, she shaved her head to support the Canadian Cancer Society. Fourth, this all took place when the Timbit fiasco was not yet the equivalent of a day-old donut in people's minds, and they were ready to join in battling any Goliaths featured on the CBC news.

Is there a Management for Dummies book?

Babi Yar

We need to leave early if we want a seat she tells her daughter Malka, a Russian nesting doll deep within her clothes who waddles and complains. Picking up a suitcase crammed with photographs jewelry lace she tucks some bread inside her coat and asks Malka to wait outside. Opening a window she unlatches the door of Anton’s cage, watches as he flutters between everyday life and the unknown then sets off to perch on a neighbouring roof. She has told Malka that someone will feed Anton but there will be no one, they have all been ordered to leave. Anton will not survive the winter’s cold but she does not want him singing his swan song to an empty room.

Outside families move in one direction, migrating birds that call to one another yet stay in formation, knowing they must leave before it is too late. Funnelled through gates they are caught in a corridor filled with laughter kicks punches. Malka grows smaller and smaller as each layer is removed until she is naked, crying. Malka quiet please be quiet please. They pick her daughter up and like children playing swing her to and fro then heave her through the air. She soars briefly thin arms and legs flailing – a young bird trying its best to stay aloft – then drops from view.

At the edge of the ravine now she looks into the black holes of machine gun barrels, eyes of her executioners. It is time to let go of thoughts of trains, of your child’s cries

and fly.

Bonobos

My coworker mm, who is the source of all facts fascinating, was telling me about bonobos the other day. Bonobos are as genetically similar to humans as chimpanzees are but as Frans de Waal states in this interview mm sent me, we tend to focus on the similarities between ourselves and the “violent, often brutal” chimpanzees and ignore the bonobos, who resolve conflicts with sex. We just seem to be more comfortable with violence than sex. This observation isn't likely to make any headlines, but it’s interesting to see the ways it manifests in our behaviour. My nephews have been raised in an environment where sexuality was and is openly discussed. (Which reminds me of a Kiernan story. Both Liam and Kiernan got into my Black Adder collection at a young age. When Kiernan was eight or nine years old his mother asked him what the book he was reading was about. “A fornicating baboon” he replied. It was probably a bonobo, but Rowan Atkinson isn't much of a primatologist.) So when we were watching A History of Violence I was bemused to see Liam hold a pillow up in front of Kiernan's face when there was some non-explicit oral sex on screen, yet make no effort to censor a subsequent rape scene.

We dress to kill, move in for the kill, are advised to kill an adjective if we spot one, kill time, kill two birds (one of which must never, never be an indigo bunting however) with one stone, kill the goose that laid the golden egg, kill the fatted calf, kill joy, kill Bill, kill others with kindness. And boy oh boy, if looks could kill... We’re even told to kill the buddha if we meet him on the path. Why not boink the buddha instead? It would probably have the same effect as killing him: it's almost impossible to deify a sexual partner since they inevitably do something ungodlike, like prance around in nothing but their socks. Even so-called expressions of affection – love someone to death, smother someone with kisses, be driven mad with desire – sound vaguely threatening.

No wonder we're more comfortable with violence. I'm not suggesting that we adopt the bonobo's custom of giving genital handshakes, since that would probably only be acceptable if accompanied by flowers and chocolate. But perhaps we can attempt to recreate ourselves, if only ever so slightly, in the bonobo's image. Start shedding that violent skin we feel so comfortable in. Make more love, less war.

Mistaken identities

A funny thing happened to me on my way into Canadian Tire the other day. A man stepped back to let me go through the turnstile first. Then he said “I haven't seen you for a while.” I turned to look at him. Couldn't place him at all. “You don't recognize me?” he asked. I continued to look puzzled. “From the meetings?” More puzzled still. Then he leaned forward and said in an undertone: “Alcoholics Anonymous.” I immediately and with some indignation replied “You must have mistaken me for someone else.” I'm sure he's sure that I'm in denial.

My point – aside from the fact that I seem to attract a lot of oddballs – is that I've been mistaken for a number of different people in Kingston. Most often it's Jody. Once by a yoga teacher, who obviously didn't know either of us very well. Once by someone walking on the opposite sidewalk, who was waving wildly. “Hi Jody!” she shouted. I smiled and waved wildly and shouted back “I'm not Jody!” In the small world that is Kingston I actually ended up working with Jody's husband. At times I was tempted to ask him if he was at all attracted to me, given that I obviously resembled his wife. But I was afraid of getting slapped with a sexual harassment suit. Last month at a concert someone a few rows ahead of us turned, saw me, and called out “Hi Deb.” She came to talk to us during the intermission, at which time I informed her I was not Deb. She had already realized her mistake as she approached us. For in the small world that is Kingston it turns out that she was the friend of someone I had dated when I moved here, and we had met many years before. But because I was with Brenda who has a friend named Deb who looks like me from afar, she assumed I must be Deb. Someone once asked me if I was the person who worked at the convenience store near their house. And I also remind someone of a lawyer in town. My appearance fits comfortably into any profession.

I've met two of my alleged Doppelgangers, Jody and Deb, and in my opinion our faces don't look alike. But our hair looks the same. I used to think my hair was unique, but apparently there are a number of women with lumpy hair wandering around Kingston. So if it ever makes the news that Helen of Kingston has committed some heinous crime or failed the 12-step program, it's probably a case of mistaken identity.

Bohemian rhapsody

I haven't been feeling very happy for, well, the last eight years or so. A friend once said that he wasn't aiming for happiness, but contentment. I can't help thinking that people who are content with contentment are afraid of committing to happiness. One is unlikely to soar high enough to melt one' s wings and go into an emotional freefall if one is drifting on the banal breeze of contentment. Yet at the meditation retreat I attended recently a few people seemed perturbed when the teacher talked about happiness and how we are all seeking it. “That sounds too much like rapture” one man said. I think he was implying that such a state would be the equivalent of a prolonged emotional orgasm that would eventually burn out your neurotransmitters and leave you a blathering idiot, proving Mark Twain right when he said that happiness and sanity are an impossible combination.

So I'm trying to identify what it is that I'm feeling this week. I'm off work, house- and dogsitting on Knowlton Lake. The place is wonderful: complete privacy, lakeside sauna, kayaks, fairytale tower out of which I could dangle my locks – if only they were longer – for a horny prince to take hold of, and surrounded by woods full of wild ginger, trilliums and white pines, whose needles sound the soft lament of spirits travelling on the wind. Lucy is wonderful too: an aging, deaf beagle who retains her keen sense of smell and joie de vivre and brings a teddy bear to bed each night. Lucy strikes me as happy, probably because she doesn't question everything she's feeling.

I feel like maybe I'm feeling happy here. I don't have to set an alarm clock. I can spend hours reading a book, watching the lake, listening to the loons. Marvel at the turkey vultures, so ugly and ungainly on the ground, then transformed by the alchemy of air into circling grace. There's no internet access, so I haven't checked my email or been online since I arrived. I'm not visually reminded of all the stuff that needs doing around my house--like getting someone to clean the eavestroughs, which have been accumulating gunk since I bought the place eight years ago. And I like being able to snoop. I don't go through drawers or look into medicine cabinets (honestly!), but I examine the knick-knacks, the artwork, the books, the CDs, the dishes, the gardens, the cobwebbed corners. Other people's lives are so much more interesting to me than my own life is.

In the two years before I bought my house I had what was the closest I'll probably ever get to a bohemian existence. I'm far too conventional to ever be a true bohemian. But for those two years I was a student with a portable life, moving from a cabin on a creek at the back of someone's property to various housesitting jobs to briefly living with an artist (who was more of an artiste in terms of temperment). I dwelled in possibility. Then I entered the regular working world and bought a house, committed myself to the straitjacket of a mortgage. I took on the dreadful burden of furniture. My bohemian rhapsody had ended.

It sounds like my house is preventing me from being happy, which probably isn't true. One of my best friends from high school, who is the only person I am still in touch with from that era, asked me if I was going to go to our 30th high school reunion this July. I said that if I were to go I would want to invent a life (and maybe that is why I like housesitting so much: it lets me do that in a way). I could tell she didn't approve of this plan, or probably it was more that she didn't approve of my dissatisfaction with my life. I know I sound like a whiny self-indulgent malcontent. Think of the starving kids in Africa. Maybe I should go on Dr. Phil and have him verbally beat my discontent or unhappiness or whatever it is out of me. Or maybe I should fashion a pair of wings and soar up, up into the wild blue yonder. If I get too close to the sun so be it. A fall is not always a failure. Sometimes, as someone wrote about Icarus' descent, it is a return from glory.

Save the penny

Last week on the radio I heard that the Bank of Canada is proposing to eliminate the penny. The economist being interviewed was in favour of the proposal because he said that Canadians no longer respect our one-cent coins. If someone these days were to offer us a penny for our thoughts we would think that person was an incredible penny pincher. Nobody bothers to pick up a penny anymore—the amount of luck it would bring wouldn't be worth the effort involved in retrieving it. And who wants to save a penny when all you’ll earn is another useless penny? The once pretty penny has passed its prime, and is no longer seen as having any value. So we toss pennies into jars or on the dashboard instead of using them as legal tender.

I am part of the minority who want to keep the penny in circulation, even though this costs Canadians about $130 million annually. If pennies have that much of an impact on society I think they deserve some recognition. Instead of a picture of the Queen or Sir John A. MacDonald, let's put a portrait of the penny on the $500 note that the “D-metric” model recommends introducing once the country’s average daily net pay reaches $100 (which is also the point at which the model recommends pennies be abolished). Besides, if we get rid of the penny the nickel will become our next object of contempt, and one of Ontario’s biggest landmarks will have to be renamed the Big Deal Nickel.

I am, however, all in favour of switching from notes to coins. When we did that with our $1 bill we got the loonie. Then came the $2 toonie. Next on the hit list (when Canada’s average daily net pay reaches $150) is the $5 bill. The interviewer asked the economist if the $5 coin would be called the foonie. I sincerely hope so, so that when counterfeiters go to work on it we’ll have the alluringly alliterative phony foonie.

A while back Rick Mercer proposed using an Air Miles credit card to pay off the national debt, then giving every Canadian a free ticket to fly somewhere. Maybe after our subsidized vacations we could collect the pennies we've tossed on the dashboard or into a jar and send them to the federal government. It can then toddle down to the credit card company, pockets full of pennies, to pay its bill. And if there are any pennies remaining it can treat itself to a beavertail on the way back to Parliament Hill.

OK, maybe these smartass kids failed math and physics, but they are brilliant nevertheless

A meditative frenzy

I am very stressed about the residential meditation “retreat” I’m doing this week. It started yesterday at 2 pm, didn’t end until close to 9 pm, and every day this week it runs from 7:00-8:30 am and 5:30-9:00 pm. Plus I’m one of three people responsible for providing a potluck dinner for the 15 participants tonight. The retreat ends next Saturday morning. I can’t make the grand finale because I have to do a presentation at a conference that morning. I’m one of the 33% of the population who fear public speaking more than death. Right after the conference I have to pick up a rental van, load it with several pieces of furniture and move them to Toronto. I’m also one of the 33% of the population who get more stressed at the thought of driving in Toronto than at the thought of dying.

We’re doing walking meditation as part of this retreat. Last night the weather was good, so a lot of people went to the parking lot to do their walking. I noticed a woman across the fence eyeing us with some alarm. In walking meditation you’re supposed to put all your attention on the feet and how they connect with the ground etc. etc. so people try and move very slowly. This tends to throw them off balance. So there we were, bodies lurching around the parking lot, blank expressions on our faces. I’m surprised the Kingston Police didn’t get a few hysterical calls about zombies in the area of Concession Street. On the other hand, we were in the Odd Fellows parking lot, so maybe people in the area are accustomed to witnessing strange behaviour there.

The type of meditation we are doing is Vipassana, or insight/mindfulness meditation. Over the weekend I went with some friends to a yoga B&B north of Kingston. On Saturday I got into a discussion with one of the other guests about his experience at a Vipassana retreat. It was one of Goenka’s retreats, a.k.a. Bootcamp Vipassana. The retreats usually last 10 days, and not only are you not supposed to communicate with anyone, but you also can’t eat after 12 pm, read, write, do yoga, or basically anything to pass the time. Peter thought the whole thing was very cult-like, and got into a heated debate about pre-Socratic philosophy with the retreat facilitator. I was impressed on two counts. First, since you’re not supposed to talk at all I was amazed at anyone being able to leap from silence to a rational argument about pre-Socratic philosophy. The most I would be capable of would be a befuddled observation about the weather. Second, I had never heard of pre-Socratic philosophy. I thought philosophy started with Socrates. Of course, just because something hasn’t yet been defined doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. I’ve heard it said that there’s no term for “hot flash” in Japanese, so it must mean that Japanese women going through menopause don’t experience hot flashes. In one of the Inuit languages there are 50 different words for “snow”, or something along those lines. This supposedly indicates the importance of snow to the Inuit culture. My theory is that there is no word for “hot flash” in Japanese because they aren’t important to Japanese men. This is the country where, at least 20 years ago when I worked there, the women had to start work half an hour earlier than the men so that they could clean their desks for them.

I’m beginning to ramble, which sounds far too unfocused for a week that is supposed to be spent in a meditative state. I’m off to retreat into some chocolate…

United Nations declares 2008 International Year of the Potato

If someone were to ask me what three foods I would want if I were stranded on a desert isle, I would choose avocadoes, chocolate and pizza with pesto, feta cheese, sundried tomatoes, black olives, and pineapple. (Hopefully there would be the occasional shipwreck of an Indian vessel, so that I would be able to enjoy some naan, saag paneer, chana masala, tarka daal, dhosas, idli sambar and baigan bhartha as well.) And if there was a deep-fryer on the island I would sneak potatoes onto the list, since they are one of my favourite foods. I like to attribute this to genetics, given that my father's side of the family is Irish. This probably makes no sense from a scientific standpoint however (although my garden leprechaun disagrees). Even if food preferences are encoded in our DNA, potatoes were only introduced to Ireland in 1589 and I doubt the Irish would have evolved that quickly. Moose lumbered into Algonquin Park 11 thousand years ago but their population still hasn't evolved to the point of developing any resistance to the Brainworm parasite. If you believe all the jokes about the Irish* they wouldn't be able to do anything faster than a moose, or anything better than one for that matter (except possibly drink one under a log).

When potatoes were first introduced to Europe the populace shunned them. They were believed to cause leprosy, syphilis, scrofula, narcosis, sterility and rampant sexuality, although hopefully not all in the same person. Their poisonous reputation wasn’t helped by the banquet Queen Elizabeth I threw for some of the local gentry, which featured potatoes on the menu (perhaps, tiring of her virginal reputation, she was hoping for a postprandial orgy). Unfortunately, the cooks threw away the tubers and served the leaves and stems instead, which are poisonous. The tubers can be poisonous as well. If you notice any green under the skin it indicates the presence of solanine and chaconine, which are related to strychnine and almost as toxic. Potatoes probably spawned resentment as well as fear, due to the fact that bullies like Prussia’s King Frederick William ordered peasants to plant and eat them or he would have their noses lopped off.

Potatoes have come a long way from their misunderstood youth (admittedly a Eurocentric perspective – the Andean farmers had a great appreciation for the potato as far back as 7000 years ago). During the Klondike gold rush potatoes were worth their weight in gold because of their vitamin C content. Perhaps the Chinese labourers who helped build the Canadian Pacific Railway should have been given part of their meagre pay in potatoes, so that fewer of them would have died of scurvy. Today the potato is being hailed as the food of the future: they are nutritious, require relatively little land for cultivation and can withstand harsher climates than many other crops. Aside from their value as a foodstuff, they can be used as a peaceful weapon of resistance. One story has it that during the Soweto uprising in 1976 some youths painted a potato green and lobbed it at an armoured vehicle, causing everyone in the vehicle to leap out and flee. The youths then commandeered it. (Although potatoes are not a fruit, perhaps it would have been helpful if the South African police had studied Self-defense against Fresh Fruit as part of their training.)

Several years ago we did a family trip to Vancouver Island. In Tofino a number of people live on houseboats, since that’s the only local real estate that’s affordable for the average non-millionaire. I went on a kayaking trip one day and the guide mentioned that a friend of his had just moved his houseboat to the foot of a glacier. How wildly romantic, I remember thinking. Thoughts of wild romance and houseboats brought up memories of Dal Lake in Srinigar, Kashmir. At dawn the shikara would glide up and lure us from our red-velvetted Rajian splendour with promises of flowers, tea, jewellery and delectable Indian treats. We could do a similar thing in Tofino, I remarked to my younger nephew, who like me is a potatophile. We could get a boat, christen it The Spud Bucket, and sail around from houseboat to houseboat selling Belgian fries with gourmet dipping sauces (a nautical version of the divine Pommes Frites in New York).

Yet here I sit, still an unentrepreneurial landlubber, The Spud Bucket resting in the drydock of my dreams. But I have a bottle of vodka I keep in a drawer, ready to launch her when some irresistible sunset beckons…


* Two Irish hunters got a pilot to fly them to Canada to hunt moose. They managed to bag 6.

As they were loading the plane to return, the pilot said the plane could take only 4 moose.

The two lads objected strongly. "Last year we shot six. The pilot let us take them all and he had the same plane as yours." Reluctantly, the pilot gave in and all six were loaded.

However, even on full power, the little plane couldn't handle the load and went down.

Somehow and surrounded by the moose bodies, Paddy and Mick survived the crash. After Climbing out of the wreckage, Paddy asked Mick, "Any idea where we are?"

Mick replied, "I think we're pretty close to where we crashed last year."

Last one, I promise

I will end my joking spree with the only joke I have ever, in 47 years, been able to remember.

A rabbi has been performing circumcisions for years and saving the foreskins in a jar. The jar is finally full, and he decides to bring the foreskins to a tailor.

“Will you be able to stitch me something out of these?” he asks.

“Yes, no problem, come back in a week.”

The following week the rabbi returns to the tailor, who hands him a wallet.

“Is this all you were able to make out of all those foreskins?” asks the rabbi in disappointment.

“Aah, but this is a very special wallet” replies the tailor. “When you rub it it turns into a suitcase.”

What's so funny?

They say that laughter is the best medicine. Like many pharmaceuticals however, there is the danger of overdosing. I once read about a man who died while watching Seinfeld: he laughed so much he had a stroke or a heart attack or aspirated a peanut or something like that. I almost died laughing when I heard this, although I'm sure the man's family was not amused. Laughing is highly infectious and often leads to decapitation or exploding intestines, although there are those who have a natural immunity to the bug. According to the dictates of natural selection then, unless we develop an effective vaccine the human race will eventually evolve into a dour lump, except in those places where The Origin of Species has been thrown on the burning book pile. Or maybe some dour lump, too impatient to wait for evolution, will devise a humourous eugenics plan involving this weapon of mass destruction (which, contrary to Dick Cheney's assertions, was hidden in Youtube, not Iraq).

Joking aside, laughter has been the subject of some serious research carried out by Dr. Richard Wiseman and The British Association for the Advancement of Science. They set out to find the funniest joke in the world. Here it is:

Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn't seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy whips out his phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps, "My friend is dead! What can I do?". The operator says "Calm down. I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead." There is a silence, then a shot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says "OK, now what?"

That’s D-U-C-UCK

On my way to work the other day I passed two ducks swimming happily in a puddle. I don’t know much about birds -- as evidenced by the fact that I didn’t know that robins bark and whinny -- except that pigeons (in spite of their lovely cooing), starlings and Canada geese seem to be at the top of everyone’s ornithological hit list. (In my case I add loons, ever since one crazy as a loon loon popped up between me and shore and started flapping its wings wildly and thrusting its sharp beak at me. I was afraid I was going to go down in history as the first person to drown during a loon assault). If a pigeon, starling or Canada goose (or in my case, a loon) is crossing the road, they're a dead duck, so to speak. But people will stop traffic if it’s a duck. Ducks are almost universally loved, whether they’re gossiping on a riverbank, served up on a Peking platter, or taking on Elmer Fudd. What’s not to love about them? They have a daffily endearing quack* and waddle like little hausfraus moving determinedly to their next chore. Like dolphins they appear to be constantly grinning, although their little furrowed brows save them from looking like complete idiots. They’re not the brightest of creatures however (unlike Indigo Buntings, which are the border collies of the bird world). First, they are notoriously poor spellers. Second, they have no head for real estate. Last summer a duck chose to nest in a planter at the entrance to the liquor store (I hope they presented her with a bottle of Baby Duck when the eggs hatched). The store is surrounded by busy streets, and a constant stream of liquor lovers floats by. One website suggests making a lot of noise to get rid of ducks in your backyard. Based on the behaviour of Kingston's ducks, I think this is all wrong. I say if you have ducks in your backyard and you want them to move on, put in a zen garden. After meditating for a bit, the ducks will probably quack* “Screw this, I want to go where the action is” and waddle down to the liquor store to hang out there.

I had to smile when I passed those ducks swimming happily in the puddle. I probably looked like a complete idiot, in spite of my furrowed brow. I’m not the only one who finds ducks comical. This is what Wikipedia says about them:

In 2002, psychologist Richard Wiseman and colleagues at the University of Hertfordshire (UK) finished a year-long LaughLab experiment, concluding that, of the animals in the world, the duck is the type that attracts the most humor and silliness; he said "If you're going to tell a joke involving an animal, make it a duck."

And on that note:

A duck walks into a bar and asks "got any crackers?" bartender says no. Duck walks out. Duck walks in the next day and asks, "got any crackers?" bar tender says no. Duck walks out. Duck walks in the next day and asks got any crackers? Bartender says, "I told you yesterday and the day before that no! and if you ask that one more time I'll nail your beak shut!" Duck walks out. Duck comes back the next day and asks, "got any nails?" bartender says no. Duck says "good. Got any crackers?"

A man is driving a pick-up truck down the road with a bunch of ducks standing in the back. A police officer pulls over the driver and informs him that he is speeding and then asks him where he thinks he’s going with all those ducks. The driver says that he just doesn’t know what to do anymore. The officer says, “Look, there’s a zoo not far from there and that’s where you should be taking them. That will take care of your problem.” The man thanks the officer and drives off with his ducks. The next day the officer again sees the pick-up truck once again speeding down the road. This time, though, all the ducks in the back are standing there with sunglasses. The officer pulls over the driver over and says, “I thought I told you to take them to the zoo!” “I did that,” said the driver, “but now they want to go to the beach!”

*Whilst doing research for this post I learned that many ducks don’t quack, particularly if they live in Vermont, but up here in Canada they prefer quacking and tend to eschew other forms of communication such as barking, whinnying, whining and chortling.

Mary Jane is dead

I have another problem, unrelated to my obsession with Lost. A friend is away for several months and asked me to go in once a week to water his two plants. When I got there yesterday one of them was brown and slumping. I realized that I must have forgotten to water them last week (so maybe this problem is related to Lost after all; I probably lost a week of my life watching Season 2). The problem is that they are pot plants, so I can't go to a nursery or the garden centre at Home Depot to replace the ailing one.

A few months ago my friend came for lunch and brought some brownies for dessert. I haven't been near any illicit drugs since my early twenties, or even many legal drugs for that matter. I was never one of those people who had a giggly, munchy kind of high. I remember my friend and I once bought a tube of Pillsbury chocolate chip cookie dough and made a giant marijuana cookie. I spent most of the night arguing with the wall and looking back over my shoulder to see if the giant rabbit was agreeing with me. This time round I started out feeling pretty good, then got more and more paranoid and began repeatedly asking if, then insisting that my friend was trying to poison me. That went on for hours, and ended with me throwing up (I'm wondering if cannabis and green tea share a common ingredient, because I once got violently ill from green tea as well.) He seemed to take it as a personal affront that a) I had not enjoyed myself and b) I had accused him of homicidal tendencies. He'll probably also take it as a personal affront that I killed one of his beloved plants. I wonder if I can get away with telling him to like, chill out man...

Help! Someone get me off this damn island!

I have a problem. The problem is my dragonish but dear co-worker mm. Actually, the problem isn't her--it's her DVD collection. Up until two or three weeks ago I had never heard of Lost. Then one day mm comes into my office, holding Season One. Since that time I've made my way through what most of the normal world watched over a two-year period. One night I stayed up past midnight, then got up at 5:30 so I could watch two episodes before going to work. Last night I was supposed to meet a group of people for dinner. As soon as I got home from work I put on Lost, then decided to keep watching and didn't show up at the restaurant. How rude is that? (Don't bother responding, I already know the answer.) I've never done anything like that before. Plus, I missed the weird spectacle they were going to at Kingston's new Crock Centre (actually the K-Rock Centre, but predictably, it's known as the Crock instead. Not exactly the same, but when the Progressive Conservative and Reform Parties united to form the Canadian Conservative Reform Alliance, a journalist added “Party” to the name and dubbed them CCRAP. They soon changed their name to the Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance.)

The spectacle was advertised in this way: “They will blow you away with their amazing feats of strength and athletic prowess. Ripping whole telephone books in half, bending steel bars, blowing up hot water bottles til they burst, shattering stacks of concrete bricks, and other displays of power and might, leaves audiences breathless and screaming for more.” Where on earth am I ever going to get to see something like that again? Probably only if I crash on an otherworldly island where nobody knows what the hell is going on. So the next time I hear mm's siren song that begins with the lyrics “Would you like to borrow Season 1 of ...?” I'm going to plug my ears with beeswax.

Bridges

When you dream of bridges, supposedly it symbolizes the need to resolve something before you can move on with your life. Crossing bridges in the waking world can be just as challenging, particularly for those of us who suffer from vertigo. Sartre believed that vertigo is caused by a fear of jumping, not falling. Regardless of whether one is a vertiginous existentialist, every bridge crossing requires a leap of faith. Faith that the engineers have performed their calculations flawlessly, which isn't always the case. Think of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. The Tay Bridge. The Gawana Bridge. Some years ago I read an article about the Golden Gate Bridge. There was a design flaw in one batch of wires. They used them in the cables anyways, because such a large safety factor had been incorporated in the bridge's design that they thought they could get away with it. Perhaps every bridge building requires a leap of faith as well.

Kingston has a bridge that crosses the meeting place of Lake Ontario and the Cataraqui River. I like to stand on the bank of the Cataraqui where a Celtic cross commemorates the deaths – from malaria and work accidents – of close to 1000 Irish men who helped build the Rideau Canal (which starts at the other end of the river). From that point on the river there's a good view of the bascule bridge, which, according to Wikipedia, is “a moveable bridege with a counterweight that continuously balances the span, or "leaf," throughout the entire upward swing in providing clearance for boat traffic. Bascule is a French term for seesaw and balance, and bascule bridges operate along the same principle.” The bridge looks to me like a giant carivorous grasshopper, and I keep thinking that if I watch it for long enough, one day I'll catch it in the act of devouring a vehicle or two.




The bridge that I like to drive across starts in Mohawk territory (“Cheap smokes”) and crosses the Bay of Quinte, taking you to Prince Edward County. The county used to be known as the armpit of Trenton (itself a military base, and therefore far from being what Mrs. Slocombe would term elegantly appointed cleavage) but has left its Eliza Doolittle past behind, and is now a wine-growing region with a coastline that in places can fool you into thinking you're on the ocean. The bridge has a steep grade, so as you're slowing making your way up it you can't see the other side. You know that once you get to the top you'll probably see the expected downhill span, but still, there's a small and thrilling fear that perhaps a different scenario awaits. Like a parallel universe. Or maybe for some inexplicable reason, the other side of the bridge has vanished and it didn't make it into the news headlines.

Although bridges serve a practical purpose, not everybody wants them. A lot of islanders for example. When they first proposed building a bridge to Prince Edward Island there was lots of talk about how it would destroy whatever quality it is that makes an island an island. Reason prevailed over romanticism, and now the world's longest bridge over ice-covered waters (for five months of the year) leads to the island. The McCain Family can ship their potatoes more efficiently, and residents and tourists no longer have to wait for the plodding ferry service. Still, is an island with a bridge to it an island anymore, or is it an engineered peninsula? And where's the wild allure in that? You never hear anyone say that they want to run away to a desert peninsula. Why run when you can just hop in the car and drive there?

I'm of the mind that we shouldn't build bridges everywhere. Some things should remain out of easy reach.

A life in six words

A while ago someone told me about a book called Eat, Pray, Love, which is about a woman who goes to Italy to eat, India to pray, and Indonesia (Bali I assume) to love. I haven't had time to read it yet. Last weekend, when I did have some time to read and was making my way through a three-inch stack of newspapers, I came across an article about writing your life in six words. “Cursed with cancer, blessed with friends.” “For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn.” “I still make coffee for two.” “Longed for him. Got him. Shit.” As I was rushing to work yesterday thinking about all the things I had to get done before the end of the day, my six-word life suddenly popped onto a mental page: Eat, pray, love... who had time?

I think I should focus my efforts over the next year on re-writing my autobiography. This one's never going to win a Pulitzer.

An inauspicious start to the day

I heard the truck coming early this morning, so I dashed over to the heap of clothes on the floor and hastily pulled on sweatpants and a top. Then ran out of the house with the recycling. I suddenly realized that my previous day's underwear was roaming around unchecked inside one of the pant legs. Then it decided to head for my feet and peek out to see if the coast was clear. It wasn't—my neighbour was putting his recycling out at the same time.

AAGGHH!!!

If the populace isn't yet ready for sexy flannelette lingerie, how about rubber bodums? So that when you knock one off the counter in the morning (maybe it can even be designed so that it perkily bounces back up on the counter after hitting the floor) you won't have to run around shrieking and pulling out lumps of your lumpy hair because you can't make that cup of coffee that YOU SO DESPERATELY NEED.

The Pasta Guy

Heather and I just signed up for one of Pasta Genova's cooking classes. I hope the gorgeous guy is teaching it. Phwooar x 4, hubba hubba, swoon, possibly irreversible coma. He shows all the signs of domestically entangled bliss – wedding ring, kids, dog – which is fine. Possession would mean elaborate security measures and alarm bells going off every time someone gets too close, possibly planning to make off with the artwork. I`m content to stand behind the line and gorge on the visuals.

The end of my weekend

The end of my weekend began when I arrived at Janet's place. She's a big blonde funny woman who can seemingly make a gun appear in almost any man's pocket. When she was in her mid 30s she was sitting in a bar and suddenly slumped over, thinking she had been shot. Maybe some man had been fiddling with his gun? What actually happened was Marfan syndrome went on a rampage, ripping a hole in her left atrium. She required open-heart surgery to repair the damage. Then in her mid 40s she was on a boat cruise in Toronto harbour and had a heart attack. Fortunately the cruise was a fundraiser for one of Toronto's hospitals and there were plenty of doctors on board. Even so, her brain was deprived of oxygen for too long. She used to drive her beloved MG from party to party; she no longer has a license, nor can she tolerate noisy places. She walks with a cane and searches for words, especially when she tires. But she's still funny and she’s still gorgeous.

She declines my offer to help with dinner. Having someone in the kitchen talking to her while she's cooking is too confusing. I can understand that. Even I find it overwhelming to cook and talk at the same time and sometimes feel like screeching “Why don't you get the fuck back to the living room” except I realize this isn't acceptable behaviour, especially since I can't plead any sort of brain injury. So while Janet's preparing dinner I look around her place, which is like a museum of kitsch. Every shelf, window ledge and cabinet surface is crowded with gnome candlesticks, lamps sprouting mushrooms, or cackling dolls that could have been stand-ins for Chucky. It’s a judgment call as to whether the ceiling fixtures are fantastically hideous or hideously fantastic. She could make a fortune selling the stuff on ebay.

“Where is Clyde?” I ask Janet over dinner. He’s away at a Morris dancer’s retreat. I had never heard of Morris dancing before I met Clyde, but apparently there’s a thriving community of dancers in Toronto. They’re mainly men. They wear white outfits with bells on their shins and travel to small communities in Canada and the US where they perform a perfunctory dance routine, then spend the rest of their time carousing. Clyde is also an actor. Janet spent much of her unmarried life searching for someone wealthy to marry, but instead she found the looniless Clyde. But she’s happy. I asked her if his was her first marriage proposal. It wasn’t. She got pregnant at 16, and the other party, a 22-year-old Macedonian, asked her to marry him. She ended up having an abortion instead. I asked her if it was easy to get one back then. “No, I got turned down at the first hospital I went to. They interviewed me, and said I was too flippant.” Her older sister accompanied her to the next interview at a different hospital, and the deed was done. Which was fortunate in retrospect, because Marfan’s and pregnancy aren’t really compatible. Then she asked me if had ever had an offer of marriage. I had, by an Australian I met while travelling in India. He had watched too many Mad Max movies and wanted to move with a chosen few to the desert where he had visions of re-populating a post-apocalyptic world. Or maybe he was just trying to resurrect the lost tradition of haremhood in Australia. (I’m not sure how he was going to convince someone to take on the eunuch role, if so.)

After dinner Janet was tired, so we watched Becoming Jane and then went to bed. When I was leaving the next morning Janet asked me to drop her off at the drugstore. As I drove away I looked in my rear-view mirror and saw a woman wearing a fur jacket, sweatpants and a crocheted hat (which may even have had a flower in it) making her way slowly across the street with her cane.

When I got back to Kingston I immediately headed out to a writer’s workshop, which was really two local authors – Diane Schoemperlen and Helen Humphreys – speaking about writing for an hour. Diane (we're on a first-name basis even though she doesn't have a clue who I am) went first and talked a lot about words. She seemed quite obsessed with them, but not as obsessed as the person behind the website that ranks words by the frequency with which they appear in the British National Corpus. “The” is first on the list and “conquistador” comes in last at number 86800. I just know this will stick in my head forever. It’s the kind of fact I remember, whereas items that would make me sound like an interesting and knowledgeable person or help me win the grand prize on a quiz show somehow escape from my neurons and drown in the cerebrospinal fluid. Helen Humphreys I had already heard a few weeks ago, when she talked about her new book The Frozen Thames. She’s low-key and funny. The Frozen Thames is a collection of very short stories about 40 occasions on which the Thames has frozen over. Helen (also on a first-name basis with her, although again she doesn't know me) said her next book will be pure fiction, so she doesn’t have to spend all her time researching it. I heard her speak another time about Leaving Earth, which is about two women who tried to break the flight endurance record by circling over Toronto for 25 days during the Depression. She said it required six months of research to write one passage that took maybe three or four minutes to read.

My weekend didn't end there, but I'll end my weekend here. I do remember dozing off in the Lay-Z-Boy late afternoon under a comforter of cats, but other than that the rest of the day is hazy and therefore not worth recounting. The delight is in the details.

The middle of my weekend

The middle of my weekend began when I arrived at Pat's place. She's my brother's ex-wife, and has just moved into a new house. They (she and my nephews) actually moved two weeks ago, but it looks like they've just arrived. Boxes and disassembled furniture strewn everywhere. Floors torn up. A pile of cupboards in one corner. No running water in the kitchen. She's hired Tom to do a long list of renovations. He's inexpensive and very good at what he does, which Pat says is almost anything except renovation work. He brings her coffee in the morning. He chats. He takes Millie the poodle out for bathroom breaks. He tries to convince them they should get Millie a companion (Tom also breeds dogs). Pat's ex-partner came over with her daughter the other day and the daughter, who is 6, told Pat that she shouldn't make Millie live in a house like that, it wasn't a fit place for a dog. I guess as humans we're more adaptable - which is why we rule the world and dogs spend their time eating, sleeping and frolicking. My bed was a mattress on the basement floor, the canopy a foozeball table.

I am a harridan until I get my morning coffee, so as soon as I got up I went down to Queen Street. The window at Sweet Bliss was full of vanilla and chocolate buttercream cupcakes topped with pink icing and sprinkles. For a moment I became stuck in nostalgia for some past that may or may not have existed. When I managed to extricate myself I headed to the Red Rocket, where I drank coffee and for the first time in months read a newspaper. I was hoping to find a Globe and Mail so that I could read the Social Studies section, which has items that sound like they could have appeared in The National Enquirer – "Polish police baffled after cyclist badly burned when trousers burst into flames"; "Did NASA kill a bunny? Outraged writer accuses NASA of intentionally running over martian bunny with rover" – but you don't have to be embarrassed about reading them in public. No luck alas: I was stuck with more conventional news stories in The Toronto Star. After imbibing lots of coffee and current events I headed back to the house. I had allocated the day to helping Pat and the boys unpack. We started in the living room, where I became curious as to the unconventional placement and sparing nature of the electrical supply. We couldn’t find an outlet anywhere along the wall that spanned the length of the living room and dining room. We could only find two outlets in the entire living/dining room area: one was about a third of the way up another wall, and a second one was placed too high up for most people to reach, unless you happened to be a professional basketball player or busker on stilts. There was a shelf there, but for nonbasketball players and nonbuskers it was only accessible from the stairs leading to the second floor. I wondered what you could put up there that wouldn’t require a constant ascent and descent to operate… maybe a lava lamp? It didn’t look like the kind of place where lava lamp lovers had lived though. The curtains they had left on the living room windows were nondescript to the point that I am unable to provide a credible eyewitness account of them, except that they were topped by a valence so monstrous it had to be hung from a plywood box attached to the wall.

After a couple of hours I was getting hungry so I took my nephews to Edward Levesque’s Kitchen, where we dined on petit omelettes and delicate potato cakes that disappointed Liam and Kiernan because they weren’t deep-fried. While we were gone Pat decided that Kiernan’s bed needed to be turned so that it would be positioned horizontally across the width of his room. It's an Ikea bed that's designed to have most of the room placed underneath it, so you have to climb a ladder to get to the mattress. Try as we might, the room was too narrow to allow us to turn the bed. Pat said she didn’t care what happened to the walls but I didn't think this extended to knocking out one of them, so we decided to disassemble one end of the bed instead. We didn’t need a scheduler, watch or lawyer to help out with this, but a high IQ and an engineer or tarot card reader might have come in handy. I was beginning to suspect that when Ikea designers retire (and are presented with a gold Allen key) they're snatched up by the city of Toronto to make its parking signs. Once we unscrewed the complex of components that make up the end of the bed the rest of the wood frame began to crumple, and whenever we managed to get it straightened out nothing would fit together. We bolted and unbolted and hit and kicked and swore — at the bed, not each other. I’m sure that was coming though, so I was glad when it was 5 pm and I could turn in my Allen key, climb over the boxes and furniture pushing and shoving at the door to Kiernan’s room, and make my way to Scarborough.

The beginning of my weekend

My weekend began at 3 pm, slightly earlier than usual. I was heading to Toronto to see my older nephew in a play. My brother emailed at 3:10 to say that visibility was poor there and that maybe I should cancel my travel plans. Even if I had gotten the email I would probably have ignored it, since it was sunny in Kingston and if I had had a tam I would have thrown it joyfully into the air.

About 90 minutes later I ran into the storm (and fortunately nothing else). No snowplows anywhere. Snow removal budgets have probably been depleted, and drivers were left to fend for themselves. I never learned to navigate snowbanks, so every time I tried to change lanes the car would fishtail. Soon it became difficult to even see where the lanes were. But all’s well that end’s well, except that I made a wrong turn and ended up several blocks from where I hoped to end up. I parked the car and got out. I don't know if every city is like this or if it’s peculiar to Toronto, but there is always an array of signs on Toronto streets informing you of the various situations under which you cannot park where you want to park. You have to have a scheduler, watch, high IQ and possibly a lawyer or tarot card reader to figure out whether you can actually park there at the particular time, date and season in question. I was standing outside carefully reading all the signs, and then noticed that one of them had “no parking, snow route” on it. I'm not sure exactly what this means, but since it was snowing I thought maybe I should go back to the car and move it.

I must have locked the door when I got out. And while I was reading the signs the door must have blown shut. Everything was now locked inside the car, including my money and keys. I tried for a bit to yank the door open and asked two people walking by if they knew how to break into cars, but either they didn't or were unwilling to admit that they did. I decided to deal with it later and made my way to the play. Set in an insane asylum, it was mostly a conversation between Marat and de Sade, interspersed with some musical numbers and whip-cracking. The person playing Marat spent the entire play in a bathtub. I was confused throughout, and probably should have read The French Revolution for Dummies before I went. My nephew later informed me that Marat hid in the sewers of Paris for years and developed a skin condition. When he emerged from the sewers he spent much of his time in the bathtub fomenting rebellion and relieving his itchiness.

I met up with my brother after the play and managed to convince him to pretend he was on a pioneer reality show and had to exist (he seemed loathe to call it “live”) without his cell phone for 24 hours, and went back to the car. Fortunately it hadn't been towed. I guess they weren't using the street as a snow route that night. I called the CAA, and help arrived within the promised 72 minutes. I never gave them the license plate number and they didn’t want to see my card. Apparently giving a name and telephone number is enough. I should have asked them to let me into the Audi parked several blocks down instead. It probably had heated seats.

Senile vaginas

There's a debate scheduled at the university next week about the feminization of medicine. I had pretty much forgotten about it, until the other day when I was reading an article that mentioned a condition known as senile vagina. It's not enough that in the final bloodshed of menopause I feel like my sex life and just about everything else that makes me a woman is going to die, but now I have to worry about some psychiatric condition taking over my genitalia. I'm imagining a personals ad written by a postmenopausal woman: “Vagina senile, but cognitive abilities intact.”

Who in their right mind would coin a term like “senile vagina” anyways? Some demented doctor who didn't have much respect for women I suspect. I know older men's genitalia don't always have an easy time of it, but erectile dysfunction isn't a direct attack on the penis. It sounds like what it is: a clinical condition amenable to pharmacologic intervention. So the aging medicated penis can continue to stand proudly at attention, head held high. Unlike the senile vagina, which sounds like it needs to be shunted off to a long-term care facility. It would be particularly galling if at some point in your life you had shelled out money for a designer vagina, only to have it lapse into senility.

I know monologues can be powerful, but in this case maybe one voice isn't enough. Maybe we need The Vagina Lobby. To convince legislators in Washington, Ottawa, Wellington, Canberra and everywhere else to ban the use of terms like senile vagina.

Love eclipsed

Once for about a week I went around asking people what had made them fall in love with the partners they were with. Some people had an instant answer, others couldn't exactly say why, one friend said she wasn't sure she had ever loved her husband (they're still married). I've been in love twice in my life, and I'm not sure the first time should count, since it was in high school and was no doubt hormonally induced. Or is that was makes love at any age? The second time was when I was in my early 30s. I thought I had met my soulmate. Unlike my first love, this time it seemed like the two of us shared the same interests. Except that he started developing other interests and eventually left me for someone else. It took several years for me to get over it. And then, with somewhat bizarre timing, both Tino and Lorne called me when I was 40. I had no interest in meeting Tino again. This was kind of strange, since usually I'm pathologically curious about other people's lives. I realized though that I didn't want to disinter my past. So when he called me again and left a message saying he was going to be passing through town and did I want to meet for coffee, I never returned his call. Lorne was a different matter. There was still some unfinished business. He had moved to Ottawa and I hadn't seen or talked to him for 5 years. We met for breakfast, and I got to say everything that I hadn't said to him when he left. The oddest part of our meeting was realizing that I felt nothing for him anymore. I was with someone else at the time, someone who I had met through Lorne. They had been in the same men's group. (I worked my way through ¾ of that men's group, which isn't as bad--or good, depending on your viewpoint--as it sounds as there were only 4 of them, not 8, 12, 16, 20 or some other multiple of 4.) But I don't think being with someone else was why my love vanished. It's still a mystery to me how that happened.

I'm not sure why I started thinking about this. Maybe it was watching the moon turn that haunting shade of orange-red last night, capturing the light from all the world's sunrises and sunsets. It doesn't happen often, and when it does we may not see it. And then slowly the moon turns a brilliant white again, still beautiful, but cold. The show's over. I turn my back on the universe and go to bed.

Yes, I admit it, I'm a crazy old cat-lady

Although I personally believe that I'm one of the most normal people I know, because I'm single, approaching 50 and have 3+1 cats, I've become a crazy old cat lady. Here are the creatures who have made me the cliché that I am.

Charlotte: She's been studying the sleeping habits of humans for years, and has figured out that for a really satisfying sleep you have to get under the covers, lie on your side and put your head on the pillow. So now when I wake up in the morning I often find that Charlotte has insinuated herself under the covers, is lying on her side and has her head on the pillow. Except it's my pillow, not the other one, and she's purring loudly. It's almost as bad as having someone snoring beside you. Plus she gets to sleep in every day, which annoys me to no end.

Bo: Because of his size and energy he looks like a kitten, but he's at least 7. In good weather he waits at the end of the driveway. As soon as someone walks by he abandons all pretences of dignity and throws himself at their feet, begging for attention. More people in the neighbourhood know Bo's name than mine. One guy has been coming by for years, sits in the rock garden with Bo on his lap, has long and earnest conversations with him. The woman across the street tells me how special Bo is. Numerous people have said if I ever want to get rid of him they would love to have him. The teenager 2 houses down periodically tells me that her stupid brother and his allergies means they're stuck with a dog. Whenever I approach my house I scan the road, hoping that there won't be a little black and white body lying in it. Bo loves to visit the neighbours across the street. If he ever does get hit by a car, I'm sure the neighbourhood will have a memorial service for him.

Festus: Festus is the problem cat. A few summers ago I suddenly noticed how thin he was, and realized I hadn't seen him eating for a while. I took him to the vet's and they found that some of his teeth were infected, and pulled a bunch of them. Cost: Approximately $1000. The next summer he stopped eating again. They pulled more teeth. Cost: Approximately $800. Except this time he didn't start eating again. They put him on steroids, on valium to increase his appetite, on painkillers. Cost: Approximately $500. None of it worked. He dropped to 2.4 kg. He was literally starving to death. I was frantic at the money I was spending and at having to watch him in such pain. They ran more tests, and discovered he has a rare inflammatory disorder, where the cat's immune system reacts to the plaque on its teeth and the gums get so infected and inflamed the cat can't open its mouth. I asked the vet what she would do if it were her cat. She said she would take him to the clinic in Toronto where there's a vet dentist, and have all his teeth pulled. (Apparently, cats can eat without chewing.) So one morning at 4:30 am I found myself driving to Rosedale, which if you're familiar with Toronto, will give you a clue as to how much this surgery cost. When I picked up toothless Festus he was eating, but stopped soon after. I brought him to the vet again. They were mystified. They tried more drugs, ran more tests, force-fed him until he vomited. Finally I decided I couldn't do this to him anymore. I brought him home to let him die in less stressful surroundings. He stayed outside for two days, not moving. Then one day he came in and started eating again, and he's been eating ever since.

Sometimes I think about how much Festus' life cost. I could have rented a villa in Tuscany instead. But if I had done that, both the villa and Festus would now be a memory. Instead I still have Festus, and can still dream about renting a villa in Tuscany.

Spike: The “+1”. He's not officially one of my cats, but he's discovered the cat door. Even though I often find him stretched out on the couch he still looks like a stray cat, yellowed fur, scruffy, angular. And he hates other stray cats. I put food for one on the back deck and when Spike spots him he becomes a Noh actor, creeping painfully slowly towards the invader. His neck extends like E.T.'s and he crooks it slightly, giving him an alien appearance. He makes strange cries. The other cat ignores him. Finally Spike realizes his posturing is having no effect and he sits down, looks forlorn. He's having an identify crisis. He's not a pet cat, but he's not feral either. I'm not sure which existence he'll eventually choose.

I guess it could be worse. I could keep my mother's body in a rocking chair in the basement. Lust after teenage pool boys. Or collect stamps.

The Job Interview

I went for a job interview today. I was a bit apprehensive, because the last interview I went to I wasn't asked any of the usual questions like “Why do you want this job?” or “Why are you the best candidate for this position?” It was a competency based interview, so instead they asked things like “Give us an example of a time that you came up with a creative and successful solution to a problem.” I finally asked them to skip to the next question, but at the end of the interview they went back to it. Dead silence for a couple of minutes. Finally I said I thought I was a creative person, but I just couldn't think of an answer to the question. They said to take my time and think about it some more. Talk about flogging a dead horse. More dead silence. Then one of the three interviewers, the sour-faced one who never smiled through the entire interview, asked me “Well, what makes you think you're so creative then?” Couldn't answer that one either. I slunk out of there, deflated. Not only had I not got the job, but my self-image was shattered. (And it was a good thing they didn't wait around for an answer, for it was not until 6 weeks later that I finally came up with something. I put a moat around the cat door at night so the cats wouldn't bang on it and keep me awake all night. Except that only worked for a while, and then they figured out that there were no crocodiles in the moat and they could actually step in it and bang on the cat door while simultaneously treading water.)

But the interview today was fine. Only one person, who laughed a lot. Easy questions. She even told me that since the job mainly involved writing, and that some people write better in their pajamas, the person could work from home. What a dream interview. What a dream job. It's almost too good to be true, so I'll just assume it isn't and maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised.

The Dinner Party

Norma arrives an hour ahead of time. “You’re early” I try not to shout. I'm wearing holey pants and a sweatshirt that looks a bit like one of Jackson Pollock’s drip works if he had used tomato sauce and pesto instead of paint. To keep her entertained over the next hour while I finish cooking, vacuum, have a shower, set the table, wash a large hillock of dishes, feed the cats and try to dissuade them from shedding all over the recently vacuumed furniture, I make Norma a chocolate martini. And one for myself.

Half an hour later I ask if she wants a chai berry martini. She does. I make one for her, and one for myself. Shortly before 7 I ask Norma if she’s ready to try what the wine wench has labelled “a really, really good shiraz.” She is, so I pour her a glass. And one for myself. Then there’s some activity at the door. I go and greet Teresa and Daniel. “You’re right on time” I say loudly, to ensure Norma hears me. There’s a lot of hugging, hellos, more martini mixing, and after a bit Heather, Marcy and Sylvain arrive. (Fashionably late, I point out to Norma.) More hugs, more hellos, more martinis. At this point I’m thinking we don’t even need dinner. I consider pulling out the Canada Food Guide to prove my point. The vodka is made from potatoes, which covers the carbohydrate and vegetable groups. Double whammy. The chai liqueur has cream in it: protein and dairy. Another double whammy. The wine covers the fruit group. Why weigh ourselves down with green and black olive crostini-white bean hummus with sage, roasted garlic, pine nuts-carmelized onions and sherry-roasted tomato and ginger chutney-roasted red pepper and goat cheese-olives with sundried tomatos and capers-lasagna Rio Grande made with asiago and jack cheeses, ricotta, cilantro pesto, chard, roasted peppers and zucchini, smoky tomato sauce-mixed greens with avocado and pepitas in a sesame oil lime vinaigrette? Why not just float like balloons through the room? Or swirl and dance all night? But everyone seems preoccupied with thoughts of food. It’s the last time I invite this crowd over for dinner. I mentally diagnose them all as having obsessive-compulsive disorder and pour more wine.

Somehow the meal makes it onto the table in a chaotic but delicious fashion. The conversation is equally chaotic but delicious, covering curling, crumhorns, cats, Cranium (the new version, where you get to manipulate people like puppets), 3:10 to Yuma (which probably left on time, I note for Norma's benefit), Burundi, brownies, girl guides, scouts, Cesar Evoria, and yoga for better sex (we can't get into our usual bawdy talk over this last one, owing to Marcy's presence).

Wisely, Norma realizes that she probably shouldn't drive to where she was supposed to be staying, and asks if she can sleep at my place. I assure her that's fine, and surreptitiously try to re-distribute the chaos (of the non-delicious sort) that has broken out in the guest room from all the books, magazines, knick-knacks, clothes and cats that I piled in there as a way of cleaning up for the dinner party. Fortunately the light bulb chooses to die at that point, so I figure Norma won't be able to see what the room is harbouring.

In the morning Norma and I chat over coffees. I briefly consider putting Bailey's in them, but then realize that because of the dinner party the night before, and the leisurely morning conversation, I have assumed it's the weekend. But it's actually Monday. Norma looks at her watch and gasps. “I've got to get going. I'm supposed to be there at 8:30.” “You're going to be late,” I remark helpfully.

Later I return from work to find no Norma. She's left a note instead. I'm disappointed. Since she moved to Hamilton we don't get to see her that much anymore. I've left early (underlined twice) so that I'll miss the freezing rain, she writes. That woman's timing is always off, I announce to the deliciously chaotic remains of the dinner party.