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...
Monday, June 23, 2008
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
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.
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.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
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?
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?
Thursday, June 5, 2008
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.
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.
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