Snowball In The Sun

Facing Forward

So, after an admittedly inexcusable hiatus, I am returning in time to get the annual Christmas song dedication out to you.

In the running this year were a few very special songs, and while I may include them down the road, I have chosen one that showed up on the radio yesterday and it suited the moment more than ever before.

I also had a chance to see her live last month, and she was better than ever...I didn't cry at the concert when she sang this song, but on my drive, when it was just me, her and the highway, I did, and it was in a happy way for once.

I'm happy to say that things are good in my world, that the nasty millenium bug I had only lasted ten years and I have ventured out of quarantine with all my dimensions intact.

I hope you are all having a special holiday time, wherever you are...

Tangled Up In Jude

Alright.  This one's been in my head for a few days now so I guess I can be bothered to commit it to the keyboard. If I fall behind in Facebook quizzes because of the time invested, the blame rests squarely on your shoulders.

The other night, I was listening to my favorite two vultures, Carol Off and Barbara Budd on CBC's As It Happens. They were marveling at the story of how a poem written by a teenaged Bob Dylan at his summer camp is up for auction, and how upon its recent unveiling, it's been exposed as having been a dead knock off (emulation?) of a sad country song called "Little Buddy" by Hank Snow. The auction house is unwavering in its glee at having the handwritten poem, despite it being taken nearly verbatim from the old song, and it's expected to sell for around fifteen thousand dollars. 

After telling the story, they played the song. It's a heartsick love letter to a dying dog. As the sickening lyrics unfolded, I glanced over at the darling Jude riding shotgun beside me and I wanted to cry. I became convinced that we were having a weird moment, like Jude was going to go on to die in his sleep that night. I dismissed wherever I had planned on driving to and turned around to take him directly to Petland, his favorite shopping spot. He behaved gallantly on his leash, proud to for once not be in Georgia's huge public shadow. He felt important. He picked out a new bed, a new squeaky baby, a polo shirt and a box of peanut butter bones.  

When we were about finished, having inspected every smelly spot on the floor, after having tolerated people with their slobby toddlers reaching out to pet him-- all without snarling even once, it bears mentioning, we went to the till with his pile of stuff. 

The cashier did her required "Oh who's a nice puppy" routine and tossed a treat to him. He picked it up, cautiously, and then spat it preciously back to the floor. I said, "I guess he didn't want one", so she threw another one down, as if a beige version of the same would please him. Still no. He looked at me for help to make stale cookies stop falling on him. When she leaned over the counter to see for herself, he looked up at her as if to say "I don't care if it's free, shopgirl, it tastes like day old vomit, and while I'm not above eating day old vomit, I don't know where your hands have been". My heart swelled with pride as I realized that while he spent nine years living with my parents, he always was my dog and I vowed to never take my little buddy for granted ever again.

May Day

Since today is special, being Laura Pee-Patrick's birthday, I am declaring it also the real first day of Spring, the first day that from here on out, leaves all the bullshit before in the past. To further that thought, here is the mantra we will share.....turn it up loud and just try not to love it.

Let Your Love Flow ~  Bellamy Brothers live in Germany

HeinZen

When you work opposite hours from the person you live with, only seeing each other on weekends, the house is divided into the way individual people live. Her house is clean and mine is messy. She rakes leaves and hours later, I burn incense and admire the row of leaf bags and wonder "Were those always here?"

I have my routine every evening, and that usually includes finding a note, or something new, or something left on display for me to see. Weeks are their own cycles. Mondays are lovey notes left on the bathroom mirror, but by Thursday, you're two cavemen who pass in the night, and instead of notes, just a broken coffee grinder is smashed to pieces in a pile at the back door, and that means, "I broke this. Maybe on Saturday we could go get a new one?"

Tonight, I got into the kitchen, tripping over the starving pet masses and noticed a full page article involving ketchup stuck to the fridge. I glanced at it, knowing exactly what the article was- some clever, condescending foray into organic ketchups- rather, "catsups", substances not deserving the brand name distinction. Jen's been hinting at this catsup crossover for a while now, trying to sneak different kinds into shopping carts, and, yes, apologizing to meat clerks, after I deposit the offending article wherever I am standing when I notice it and liberate the cart. She knows I don't care for it. I have very few thresholds left, and that one, I'm not even going to peer over the edge. Not interested. I don't want a new kind of Ketchup. I'd rather have none at all, and I mean that very seriously. It doesn't need to be upgraded, it doesn't need to be made healthy or otherwise improved upon, it just simply is. 

I tore the article page down instantly, grabbed my bottle of squeeze Heinz from the fridge, and wrote my reply on the paper for her to see later tonight.  I'll catch hell for the mess, but I thought what she had suggested is equally as insensitive.

I went downtown for a while, and returned to a house that actually reeks of ketchup. I went into the kitchen and my note still stands on the stove-top, though the paper is getting very wet.  I was admiring its dark red loveliness, wishing I could write everything with a squeeze bottle, when I glanced at a cluster of words down near the bottom of the page.  It says, "Artists who draw words with ketchup on their food have an easy going approach to life".  I smugly nodded, as my cat jumped up onto the stove and almost stepped into the N.  Then I tried to see what more of the article I could read. Might as well read it, I thought, since I have to go to debate camp over it tonight after I've already been asleep for an hour.

It's an article about people who love Ketchup. It's trivia, it's interesting, and from what I can make out of the paragraphs not saturated in red dye #5 and salty sugar gel, it's not at all a veiled threat to take away my freedom. Good thing I'm easy going- I really could have over reacted.

His Hunger For Venison

During an early morning cranio-sacral therapy session last Saturday, a revelation came to my gifted therapist. I was told of a devastating incident that took place in my previous incarnation. Whether it was a fable my body was telling her, or a real memory retrieved from my cellular bank, I don't know, but I will stand by every word of the story as ringing entirely true to me. It was almost familiar, like something someone else remembers from your childhood that all comes rushing back.

She told me of a tragedy. It involved depraved selfishness, a kindred's betrayal of the other and a dead (eaten) baby deer. At the end of the story, an arrow was shot through "my" chest, effectively closing out the friendship. (I might be stubbornly sentimental, but shoot me with an arrow and we are so not friends anymore.) 

My treatment, the physical aspect of it, went amazingly, but it was the story that really stayed with me. It wouldn't leave me all week. I was constantly reflecting on it, knowing the story had been paralleled in this lifetime as well, and it allowed me some closure that I didn't even know I needed. Fawns and arrows notwithstanding, the plot was exactly the same. It's why I still have nerve damage in the spot where the arrow went through. (Stay with me, here...)

 

This past Saturday, Jen and I wandered past our favourite alternative bookshop, and she glanced in the window and nearly pulled my arm off. She was pointing at a book cover that then pulled us into the store. I demanded it be brought out, knowing I'd buy it, regardless of what was inside. It was for me.

It was called My Hunger For Venison, by Gary Baseman. A series of 33 prints, depicting his muse, Venison. She's cavorting with a fawn deer, she's taking bites out of it, she's tangled in roots, and last but not least, of course, she's shot with an arrow. "Venison Struck" is the title of that painting, mid-way through the series, should you go to his site to have a look.  

Venison, acrylic on wood panel. © Gary Baseman, 2006.

Divindication

More light has been shed on my magical Easter weekend.  It took just a few days for the rest of the information to come.   

Noteworthy background details: Saturday night, I had some time to myself, and I was uncharacteristically antsy about it. I usually can stay in my house for days on end, provided provisions are in place, and only the ring of a Monday morning alarm clock forces me to join the living once again. However, in the pouring rain, I jumped into my truck and ventured out.

The first place I went was Wild Rose Manor, a senior's home that my Grandma lived in for many years. The place was dead quiet (most of the more mobile were out at their families' places for Easter weekend).  I met a handsome tall fellow in the front hallway; he was wearing a suit with a lapel full of some serious regalia. He hadn't been anywhere and he wasn't going anywhere, he said.  When he told me his name, I asked if he was the namesake of a small town near here. He scoffed at me, but only to then correct me that the town was, in fact, named after his mother. Close enough- whatever it took, I said, to have prevented Debolt from being named Yankee Creek. 

I tried to convince him to come to a senior's info session at the Legion next week, and he was only mildly intrigued. I told him that the Alberta government is legislating some new and spooky passages that could infringe on his liberty. He asked me "What liberty?" and as I looked him up and down, this magnificent shell of a man, I couldn't even pretend to flatter him and feign not understanding his point.

I wandered over to three cuties playing whist. I made eye contact with the one that looked most like my grandma and she took me up on that. A chair was pulled up before I got to the atrium they were tucked into. I told them about the info session as well, trying hard not to scare them while still insinuating a revolution could be started if we just go to the god damn Legion. I appealed to them- I'm taking time off work for this, can't you just come and listen? Have some tea and kill a couple hours on a Wednesday afternoon?  I think I'll see two of the three of them there. The one who won't come is having a perm that day, and between you and me, it really is time for the perm.

As I left them to their game, I noticed Mr. Debolt peeking at me from behind a column. I sauntered back over to him and he grumbled at me, "No sense in talking to them. Why don't you come here and do your meeting?  Look at all these damn chairs". I told him I'd see him at the Legion, that I'd be mad if he doesn't come. He tried really hard not to smile and still said no.  

I couldn't help but take a walk down my grandma's wing. Her door was wide open. You have to know that most of me thought she'd be in there, crocheting a kitchen towel handle, watching North of 60, waiting for me. I stood there and looked inside, and there was someone else's grandma instead, sitting in someone else's grandma's recliner, bossing around a care attendant who wasn't doing something right. They were arguing and that alone satisfied me, and reminded me that I was never in trouble when I was doing stuff to make that room run right. That, I was good at.

I was free to leave, and made my way back to the parking lot. It was still raining, and I had no idea where to go or why. I knew not to go home, and that was enough. I had a mixed CD in the stereo and listened to Walking In Memphis about four times through, and started to drive away, taking random turns and thinking eventually I'd know where to go.  

I ended up on my least favorite of all streets, the one that turns into the road I take to get out to work every morning, a road I avoid completely on weekends so as not to be reminded.  An absolute occurred to me- go to my old friend Margaret's house. She lives on that street. I hadn't been to her house since...well, since she babysat me, and contrary to what you might imagine, I didn't need babysitting beyond about 1982. Their lights were on.

I knocked on the back door, and her husband answered. He didn't say much to me, just looked bemused, and went to get his wife. She came tearing out into the kitchen, thrilled at the sight of me. That's an amazing feeling. Without any questions or answers, I was plopped into a chair at her table and she made us some tea. I was in a delicious time warp, recognizing the warm smell of her house, the handles on her kitchen cupboards, the dark bottom of the stairs where her son's room was when I was little.  He was cool, he was a teenager when I was small. He had a paper route and one rainy afternoon, he took me with him to do his deliveries, and on a block just one street over from their house, but a thousand miles away when you're four, I peed my pants.  

I reminded Margaret of how I peed my pants and she laughed and said "Knowing you, you didn't even tell me when you guys got back here", and she was right. She showed me pictures of her grandkids, now teenagers themselves. Good looking boys just like their dad. 

Margaret finally blurted out, "It must be so hard for you kids, Easter, and you don't have a mom!!"  It came out so wrong, but I laughed and made her feel a bit better for how it came out. I agreed that it is certainly weird, but that I am okay. We talked about perspective, and how I have had my reckoning with death and I understand it, I am friendly enough with it. The talk got heavy, in a good way, and I told her about the night my grandma passed away, how I was there, face to face with her as she left, and how it was a beautiful and lucky and mind-altering experience for me, and I have never ever wondered whether or not she was alright after that. She asked if I wasn't also there when my mom died, and that too, I assured her, was fine. It was quiet and serene and perfectly befitting my mom's way, and that as hard as it was, I wouldn't trade being part of it for anything. It helps with that aforementioned perspective. 

Margaret is funny. She says things that only she could say. We were right back on track, same dynamic as thirty years ago, in a couple of hours. I even choked while taking a sip of my tea and it poured all over my face and shirt, and she mopped me up with a paper towel. I didn't even get up, she just came running over and did it. I was no different to her, either. I left there that night feeling incredible, knowing that we'd needed to see each other in the worst way, but not even knowing yet why.

Today, while looking up something completely unimportant online, the local news site I was trying to load just would not work, so I clicked something below it instead, and one of the pages that flashed momentarily had three words on it that stopped my heart. I back-arrowed manically until that page came back and there it was-- Margaret's son, the paper boy, had died on Monday morning. 

Calgary man, 44, truck roll-over...no seat belt. I panicked for a minute or so and then called my mom's phone number. Half a ring in, I wisely hung up and called her friend, the next closest person to Margaret.  Margaret's not okay, and nor should she be. I want to see her, but this isn't about me.  My part, quite clearly, was played beforehand. 

So it is true, I had no idea where I was going on Saturday night, but I think it's safe to say my mom and my grandma knew exactly what to do with me. It is simply trusting, willingly surrendering to the things we can't see, but feel, both that night and today, that makes me know what faith is.

 

Crystal (Light) & the Passover Gigs

You know I like to give you guys songs for major holidays, and this year's is one to celebrate all the kinds of creating and creation in the air -- the song is a happy trip back to 2003 and extra poignant today, on yet another weird and amazing Easter Sunday. It's all good; it's better than good.  Everyone is exactly where they're supposed to be, and it wasn't nearly as hard as I thought to get here.

Tell someone you love them today.  

slide

she was hungry so hungry 
she was trying to think clear 
she kept opening the fridge door 
looking at the mustard and the beer 
then finally she went out into the rain 
carrying her bicycle chain 
and her feet worked the pedals 
while her appetite steered

after that she just followed her nose 
and fate is not just whose cooking smells good 
but which way the wind blows

she laid down in her party dress and never got up 
needless to say she missed the party 
she just got sad 
then she got stuck 
she was wincing like something brittle trying hard to bend 
she was numb with the terror of losing her best friend 
but we never see things changing 
we only see them ending

and some vicious whispering voice 
keeps saying you have no choice 
you have no choice

cuz when i look at you i squint 
you are that beautiful 
and my pussy is a tractor 
and this is a tractor pull 
i'm haunted by my illicit, explicit dreams 
and i can't really wake up 
so i just drift in between 
thinking the glass is half empty 
and thinking it's not quite full

the pouring rain is no place for a bicycle ride 
try to hit the brakes 
and you slide 
and you slide 
and you slide

© 2003 ani difranco / righteous babe music

Gonzo

A girl is missing in GP. Is she technically a girl?  I guess not- she's 33 years old. In my mind, she is. Maybe I see her as young because I vaguely remember her from Junior High, and she's still that person in my mind. Her name rings no bells, her old friends, from what I can tell about the names on the Facebook group dedicated to the mystery of her disappearance, are also unfamiliar to me. At most, I recognize some of their last names; names I know meant "from the part of town you look first when your bike has been stolen". 

The local media has given it next to no attention. Over a month ago, an article was in the newspaper, featuring a terrible photo and the write up felt snide and dismissive. Seems the girl had gone off the rails in the last couple of years and was living in the nasty underbelly of our small city, allegedly addicted to drugs, a person of the streets. She was last seen outside of the York, a scary slum hotel, crackhead central, and a truly evil corner of downtown in recent years, since that fantastic fucking boom blew through town. She was getting into a car. And not a word since. 

The photograph that the paper ran was a terrible one, and unfortunately the most recent. It looks like a mug shot. I had no idea that this was the same person in my memory.  It was only after I checked out the Facebook group that she came back to life, and I thought "HER?". Like I said, I didn't know her but still and all, I feel really attached to this story. I feel like my own friend is missing, or else I just am trying to relate to it. It must be a particular sort of hell not knowing if someone you love is dead, alive, hiding, or has been “sold” to someone in a different circuit to pay someone’s debt, possibly not even her own. 

There are no thousand person brigades combing the streets looking for her, the way there would be for a missing child or a star volleyball player. I bring her up all the time, and most people have not even heard about it. When they hear where she went missing from, their concern stops cold and some say something harsh, along the lines of it not mattering, she brought it on herself, that if she was that far down in life already, she’d probably die soon one way or another. I don’t agree with that, obviously. She’s still a human being, and she has disappeared. She has a family who sounds bewildered and I can’t even imagine how worried they are. I realize that she was living in a different dimension with very different rules and consequences, but details aside, it could happen to anyone who's in the wrong place at the wrong time, anyone who makes the wrong enemy. 

I feel sick, because at this stage, the silence speaks volumes and the simplest explanation is a horrifying one. It's been implied that some people do know more than they're telling, but for obvious fear they're not going to take that chance. I doubt there's a Witness Protection process for these people, but there's definitely a trap in a dark hallway for rats. Can't say I blame them.

                       

I check the Facebook page all the time. I do it before reading my own messages. I wish I knew why. Nothing but a lot of pain and posturing goes on there, but I look at her pictures and I just wish something would come to me, and nothing ever does. There’s something about her, though. I like her smile. She looks like she's smart, too smart to have become the hot mess that is in her mug shot. 

It took me a long time to actually join the Facebook group- I don't know these people and I'm not doing anything to help (other than obsessing about it), nor could I. I have to think all the right steps are being taken, but I also trust nothing that comes out of official sources when it comes to things like this. I've heard of some shameful cover-ups around here, where the police and witnesses, and eventually everyone in the downtown sub-culture know exactly what's happened to someone, and yet yellow ribbons still hang and devastated families still search. They are things that are too awful to admit to, I guess.  To acknowledge that one thing would be to acknowledge it all, and that can’t happen, not in our town.

                       

*** Immediately after writing this, I looked at the FB group and the latest comment tonight says there is now a second woman missing from that world. Here we go....

David After Dentist

Caterpillar Crawls Through Quarter

It didn't matter that I was reading business news online this morning, all my brain processed was the fantastic headline "CATERPILLAR CRAWLS THROUGH QUARTER".  

I envisioned some fantastic story involving hallucinogenics and YouTube, and was instead dismayed by just a predictable story about Caterpillar "the business" having financial trouble. And you know what, all of the Caterpillar equipment I currently have on site is frozen, having hydraulic problems due to the low temperatures, so I hope they're having trouble in their head offices. It would make me feel better for the hell they're causing people who're trying to use their machines to do the work. All the sweaty palmed salesmen in the region with arms full of donuts don't make up for this.

I am so disappointed it wasn't a real caterpillar and a real quarter.  I like things that are tangible. I need to be amazed.

The Delicate Balance

The Evil Lords Under Satan (Mobility)

Telus has always been out to get me. They know I don't pay my bills carefully, that I will round up to the next fifty, overpay by a lot one month and not pay at all the next. This is not random, what they're doing to me. I could fill a book with what I go through with them in an average year. I probably spent 8 solid hours a year on the phone getting things resolved. It's like being perpetually trapped with pickpockets in a room with no corners.

The most recent reason I am on the outs with them is that they've been dicking me around hard since the fateful day in September when THEY called ME out of the blue, saying "let's put you on a better plan, your bills are crazy and for a bigger package you'd still save $100 a month on overages and incidentals. Also, how about a BlackBerry, since it's your time to renew. Including 1000 minutes of calls anywhere in Canada/US, free at 5pm evenings and weekends including long distance in Canada and the US, and all the bundle features you can imagine, texting, web browsing, etc.  all for $130 a month. Your bill will never ever go beyond that because it would be impossible due to everything being unlimited and included".  

Sign me up!  We did the deal, I went in and bought a Blackberry, and started using it up freely. My first bill came and of course it was a mess of old charges and adjustments and half month this and that, so yeah it was high, and I paid it knowing it'd work itself through by the next billing cycle.  

I paid $130 in November, online, assuming everything was normal. Zero balance...or so it should have been.

Mid December, when we were in Vegas, my phone wouldn't work. I figured it was something to do with being out of the country and didn't panic, though my cell phones historically have worked just fine when I've been in the States. Once home, in the Edmonton airport, it still wouldn't make a call, and so I called their help line right there, at midnight. The account computer told me I owed $399 and I'd been suspended. Whatthefuck?  I had no choice but to put that money instantly on my account from my Visa card, just to re-activate the damn phone. I would sort it out once I was home.

I called them a couple days later and spent 2 hrs talking to various numbnuts and their supervisors and finally a rep saw what happened and said, "We have no record of this change to your account that you say happened in September."  UM WHAT?  So I increased my usage of all those things, and was being billed straight up for them all since September.  Holy shit.  

I finally convinced her that I'd been wronged, just look at how I'd suddenly started using more right around the time I went and got that goddamn Blackberry, and finally she relented and cut me a deal- they'd give me a credit of $470.  Not quite what I was out, but fair enough since it's Telus and that sounded like as much as I could hope for.  I ensured that it was documented and she showed me that my account was properly changed and 'saved' in the system, that I would be on the $130 deal henceforth, and my $470 would cover that for several months down the road.

Then my Blackberry shit itself- its charging port no longer worked. I had a huge run around (a fiasco unto itself) for a few weeks but eventually I had a replacement (refurbished) in my hands.  

The first day of having it, the replacement died. Its "radio" didn't work, so it couldn't receive or send calls or information. Perfect. Back to the store, lots of screaming, and they could do nothing but send me to call Telus Customer Loyalty, the division where they know you're in the red zone, where they try to make things right so that they don't lose your business altogether.

I called and got a lovely man in Montreal. He helped me. He saw the bullshit, he made it all go away. He even altered my package for a locked in 36 months at just $65 a month, with even more minutes and features.  Heaven.  He said "and with your credit, you will not have to pay a bill for seven months!". I told him I loved him, and all was perfect again. He even arranged for me to go pick out any phone in their stores, free, of course, and all attached fees would be waived.  I did so.

SO then I got my bill for this month.  $65.  Owed.  Nooooo.  Where is my credit?  Oh, my fees for last month were $206 and there was a balance owing from way back in November----- 

I calmed down and dialed the Customer Loyalty number again, knowing I'd get another sweetheart to sort it for me.  I knew the details would all be written on my account (which I saw myself online).   A sniveling, condescending little cunt named Gonzalo answered, and immediately started lipping me off, before I even told him why I was calling.  I should have just hung up and dialed again, but I tried to make him see.  He yelled at me, a lot.  He said my credits were gone, that they were voided when I switched my plan!!  Fuckin' A that's magical, innit?  I said "those are DOLLARS, not credits, and where did they go?" He told me I was talking in circles. I said No you're talking in circles. He told me I lost my credit by racking up a $399 bill that was never paid. Oh holy shit.  I got mad, and said "I PAID THAT AND NEVER EVEN OWED IT IN THE FIRST PLACE, THAT'S HOW I GOT THE CREDIT!! YOU CANNOT CONFUSE ME ON THIS ISSUE...." and he told me he would be noting me as an abusive customer. I told him he was abusive, actually, and did he think he was a collection agent, or a loyalty representative?  He told me he was making notes of my verbal attacks, that I am a person who makes pot-shots. Then he said "pot-shot" really fast every time I tried to say a word. It was insane!  I told him he was the worst representative I've ever talked to and I hoped the call indeed was being monitored because he'd be fired on the spot for talking to me like this- and he hung up!!!   Honest to God. I just sat there with my mouth hanging open- as bloody if.  I know, without a shred of a doubt, had that exchange happened in person, I would have physically attacked him and it would have been worth whatever trouble I landed in. 

So I went outside and screamed at a snowbank for a while, and when I was spent, I went in and dialed the number again.  A nice lady in Calgary answered. I said, "I am fragile now. A bad man hung up on me and I have no more fight left. Help."  She scanned over my account notes and said, "oh they've been charging you for all kinds of things, look at this long distance!  Where's your credit gone? Oh I see.  $340 credit is reinstated. Your bill will be $65 once the credit is used up."

Sure it will.

Trippin' Balls: A Long Time Coming

I worked with one eye on my laptop all morning so that I could watch live stream coverage of Obama's Inauguration. Somehow, the crazy fates were good to me and I was rarely troubled during my day by people passing through. In fact, no one even mentioned it; not a single person. It was just an ordinary winter day when I looked out the window. The rest of the world was riveted, and at least I felt distantly connected. I didn't even mention to the people around me what they were missing out on. I didn't want to share it with anyone who didn't care about it enough to be seeking it out on their own. If you weren't someone who grinned from within by seeing Dink Cheney slumped in a wheelchair, I didn't want to see you today anyway.

If I'd had my way, I would have stayed at home to watch it. At the very least, though, being at work, I would have called in the crew to watch, at least, Obama's actual swearing in. Ten quick magical minutes. Regardless of whether or not the guys are interested in American politics, whether they are staunch conservatives who think McCain was robbed (and believe me, I hear that more often than not), in time, it may well be an important social moment like Princess Diana's funeral or the moon landing* or when Kennedy was shot and they're going to have no idea where they were when.  

Speaking of JFK, was I the only one who got nervous when the cannons were fired after Obama was sworn in?  That shit made me jumpy. My only hope was that Aretha Franklin's hat would shield them all. I have heard too many times the pessimistic rednecks speculating on how soon his life will be threatened. (I don't even want to write what they really say.) And don't get me wrong- they don't want that to happen or anything, they just think it's inevitable, so they have to mention it all the time to be on record as someone who "called it". They're the same people who didn't really understand why we've all been angry with George Bush for 8 years, but jumped on the bandwagon around October of this past year, so I don't even respond to them now. It would be like someone explaining Star Trek to me; a day late, a dollar short and utterly pointless. 

Thirteen hours later I'm still watching the coverage with the same enthusiasm. I have twice watched Michelle & Barack's first dance of the evening, serenaded by Beyonce, and cried both times. I haven't cried since November, the night the election was won. I've even stubbed my toes a few times in between then and now, and nothing, but this guy, the inspiration is palpable, even from here. And the love he has for his wife- they are so caught up in each other, they're making the whole world go into heat. A lot of babies are going to be born nine months from tonight, in lucky October. Let's track it.

And, because this blog is nothing if not all about me, check out this Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon:

Obama is a good friend of Stevie Wonder. Stevie Wonder's friend and personal chef is the sister of my friend Jody's sister's fiance. They hang out. I should probably be at one of the Balls right now. With Star Jones. I'd walk up and ask her to dance. When she replies, I'll loudly say, "Oh sorry, no thanks, I just said YOU LOOK FAT IN THOSE PANTS!  

That is my goal for this night, 2012. 

* That's if they really landed on the moon. Depending on the day, I believe both yes and no. I sort of hope no. Thoughts?

Hot Mess

...further to my little epsidoe caused by the Fireplace Channel shortly before Christmas, I can now say that we have got our own lovely wood stove. It was a lot of doing, but that doing is done. Our downstairs rec room is in complete shambles, but we have this beautiful thing in the corner. 

Deep Thoughts

I found an old, dog-eared book in one of my boxes recently, a tome of Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey.  He is a legend, in my mind.

Some of his finer points:

"Instead of a trap door, what about a trap window? The guy looks out it, and if he leans too far, he falls out. Wait. I guess that's like a regular window."

“When I saw the old bum pushing his grocery cart down the street, at first I felt sorry for him but then when I saw what was in his cart, I thought well no wonder you’re a bum, look at the dumb things you bought.”

"I bet the main reason the police keep people away from a plane crash is they don't want anybody walking in and lying down in the crash stuff, then when somebody comes up act like they just woke up and go, 'What was THAT?!'" 

"If I ever get real rich, I hope I'm not real mean to poor people, like I am now."

“I guess of all my uncles, I liked Uncle Caveman the best.  We called him Uncle Caveman because he lived in a cave and because sometimes he’d eat one of us. Later on we found out he was a bear.”

"If you're a cowboy, and you're dragging a guy behind your horse, I bet it would really make you mad if you looked back and the guy was reading a magazine."

"The other day I got out my can opener and was opening a can of worms when I thought what am I doing?"

White Out Knuckling

We're having another nice blizzard here today. Relying mainly on muscle memory to get down the roads we travel at work every day, it's still quite easy to miss a corner. This driver of the gravel truck below assures me it's fine and everything is under control. I'd say. Clearly the words of a man who's paid by the hour, not the trip. I did what any caring person would do- I took a picture with my phone and drove inched blindly away.

MacBook Wheel

Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard (c:

All Tomorrow's Parties

As a New Year's gift to the two or three people on the planet who would appreciate the effort, I have personally transcribed the real, correct, as per the released album, lyrics to Sunset Strip by Courtney Love. There are a lot of incorrect versions out there, based on previous incarnations of the song (not to mention the ones that were just done badly, which I think is sacrilegious at best), so I sat with it second by second. With the exception of one mumbled line, I think I got it right. I can start my new year in peace. If I were considerate, I'd figure out how to include the song in mp3 for your audio enjoyment, but for now you just get the words. Sitting here on top of the hill I’ve got everything I ever need in this world Tonight I’ll get it right Just one time Cruising down the Sunset Strip there is nothing that’s not, that’s not within my grip oh tonight I can fly I can fly Look at me for the very last time I’ve climbed so high I’ve got no place left to climb I’m too good for tomorrow Rock star, pop star, everybody dies All tomorrow’s parties they have happened tonight and I know that it won’t be tomorrow Sitting on the Hollywood sign watching the girls get off the bus watching the popcorn in their eyes and they leave with broken hearts they’re useless valentines I came here from the dirty dark street there was no one there to protect me to make the nightmares go away It has to sparkle It has to shine Look at me for the very last time See if you find any life in my eyes I won’t beg I won’t wait, not for sorrow Rock star, pop star, everybody dies All tomorrow’s parties they have happened tonight and I know that I won’t see tomorrow Turn off the porn please Drowning in it for days Bad food, bad sex, bad TV, Internet Take all these stupid pills away Crashing down the boulevard I’m coming down so fast I’m coming down so hard The doctor said, “I can’t stop all the voices in your head” Look at me for the very last time I’m drowning here I’m drowning at the speed of light and I know no tomorrow Rock star, pop star, how do you stay alive? All tomorrow’s parties they have happened tonight And I know that it won’t be tomorrow Climbing on the mountain to this dirty little town it was easy going up it’s so hard to come down you can walk away and we ain’t running to tomorrow Yeah yesterday’s girl or tomorrow’s hot teen were you jerking off to her or were you jerking off to me I’m gonna rust away till the wheels fall off and a girl like me should never get what she wants Driving, driving, driving through the middle of town No one knows me all the way through Hollywood Hills and I know we’ll be late for tomorrow You were made for me Baby I was made for you Keys to the Bel Air, the Chateau too it’s not punk it’s not cool it’s not even boring You rock & roll bitches always get what you want It’s a real life They tried to steal my soul I’ve got pills when I’m fat I’ve got pills when I’m old Your little shit-coated world, it is rotten to the core I didn’t know you were born without a soul I’ve got pills when I’m blonde I’ve got pills when I’m dead I’ve got pills that make me forget what I said They are not delusions they’re the voices in my head Look in my eyes oh baby tell me we are dead Sitting on the Hollywood sign watching the love go down watching the love in my eyes Tonight I got it right just one time Cruising down the Sunset Strip there’s nothing that’s not, that’s not within my grip He said, “Tonight baby you fly, No you can fly…”

Merry Christmas

This beautiful, if grainy performance of Ani's "Welcome To:" is my secret Christmas song, the antithesis to all the junk that doesn't ring true anymore. I play it once, by myself every Christmas. It's not sad, it's hopeful, and it gives allowance for a bit of self preservation in times when your brains are ready to run out of your ears. When the time is right for you to do the same, when you can steal a quiet moment away from the fray, have a listen.

welcome to:

welcome to
no amount of stoned makes you feel ok
welcome to
this year's alone - brought to you by christmas day
welcome to
the darkness into which prayin people pray

it's quiet here except for this song
now that everybody's gone
but hey
least you don't have to play along today

welcome to
something like elation when you first open your eyes
just cuz it means
that you musta finally got to sleep last night
welcome to
the precipice between groundlessness and flight

it's quiet here except for this song
now that everybody's gone
but hey
least you don't have to play along today

besides which
welcome to
taking the good stuff down off of the shelf
and welcome to
the art of conversation with yourself
welcome to
humming an unbroken tune
all day long
yes it's quiet here
but hey
least you don't have to play along today

 

 

Phone Home?

Cheryl told me that she did nothing for her birthday last week. I wouldn't call this "nothing", per se.

Getting Wood

Tonight after driving home in a novel but scary blizzard, I walked into my darkened house and heard almost silence.  Usually it's a shrieking poodle welcoming me, followed by the gallumping of Georgia coming up behind, with a stuffed turtle or a tampon hanging out of her mouth as my gift for returning. No cats came running; Peabo wasn't even sitting at her Complaints Desk by the door (she usually does her calligraphic re-writes and her 2 minutes of hate between five-thirty and cream time).  Odd.

I heard a strange, but tiny sound coming from the upstairs living room. The room was aglow with only the light of the Fireplace Channel, in glorious 42" high def.  It looks so real. All five of the pets were sprawled asleep in a row on the area rug before the television- picture a furry Jonestown. 

The sound I'd heard was the sound I've missed more than I can say since leaving our house at the acreage- it was the crackle of the burning logs. I'd never really paid attention to that kitschy channel before- having the real thing I guess I didn't have to. 

I miss all of it, chopping the logs in minus forty, getting tree sap in my hair, having insane neck pain from chopping while cradling the phone between my shoulder and my ear, throwing the entire contents of something away so I can use its cardboard casing for kindling, smoke-outs when the entire house fills with the smoke that comes out instead of up because it's so cold outside...I really miss it all with a profound longing.  

I sat down with the pets, also hypnotized.  My mind was salivating, wanting so badly to reach into the screen and rearrange the one log that wasn't burning as well as it could. Someone just needed to push it to the one side--  and a hand that wasn't mine reached in from out of frame and did it for me. I squeaked, just a little, completely jealous, having to experience it vicariously.  

I had so much to do tonight (Did you know Christmas is almost here?  It's even on the calendars; I don't know how I didn't know) and I bet I won't do any of it.  The logs have only just gone on, and if the Hand is worth his weight in fire stoking, I'm not leaving until I see some magic from his bellow.

...and I am buying a wood stove tomorrow.  But I didn't have to tell you that.  

UPDATE!!  

One of my favorite sites posted this article this afternoon.  You see?  1080 heaven indeed.

Two Divine Miss M's Live, together for one night only

I have an important date on Tuesday.  See you next Friday!

Cold Blood

Legend has it Cold Blood was introduced to producer Bill Graham by none other than Janis Joplin. This is "Kissing My Love" from 1973's Thriller album. You'll like it.

Trouble In Amen Corner

Hear that sound?   That's my Grandma Logan spinning in her grave.

She loved Tommy Hunter with the passion that only an elderly woman with only CBC television could.

She loved him so much that when she was given a ticket to see him play at the GPRC theatre, she thought it was a con. No way would He, capital He, come to her town.  

Tommy Hunter's son is in deep, deep shit with her. He pushed Tommy to the ground.  

Let's hope he wasn't badly hurt; I don't know if I could stand extra showings of the Rita MacNeil Christmas Special this year.

I know she's a nice person and everything, but she has a face for radio.  But not this handsome devil.  Godspeed, Mister Hunter.  

The Coldest Intersection

My friend k is moving to Winnipeg on Friday. He hasn't been there in many years, but he's going anyway. It's the right thing to do. 

After years of saving souls, despite the shackles of red tape and office politics, where, according to him, the most important tool in his office is a box of Kleenex, when he gets to Winnipeg, he says he's going to operate a hot-dog stand on the corner of Portage and Main. 

Ignatius J. Reilly sold hot dogs for a short time. It didn't go well, but really, what does?  It was k who introduced me to Ignatius by way of the book A Confederacy Of Dunces about twelve years ago.  In our world, k selling hot dogs in Winnipeg makes perfect sense, and no small part of me wishes he actually would.  At least in the summer time. I don't think anyone would buy frozen hot dogs at -50C, even from a gentleman like k.

However it goes, it will be Winnipeg's gain.  Selfishly quoting the Weakerthans' song, I hate Winnipeg.  But only because it's far away, with "everything in its proper time and place".

(From Jenny Holzer's Inflammatory Essays)

Toothpaste For Dinner

I told myself that if I still laughed out loud every time I opened this file for a week, I would post it here. 

Chicken Little Will Come Home To Roost

Third gas pipeline bombed in B.C.

Natural gas wellhead bombed near Dawson Creek; police say 'no danger to public safety'

OTTAWA - The third explosion in a month targeting sour-gas pipelines in northern British Columbia is scaring people in a nearby community who say they weren't warned toxic gas began leaking Friday afternoon.

Around 12:30 p.m. an explosion site was discovered at a natural-gas wellhead, about 12 kilometres northwest of Tomslake, near Dawson Creek, B.C.

The RCMP say the explosion - at the Encana-owned pipeline in a rural, isolated area - appears to be a deliberate act.

The leak is not a danger to the public, officials say.

An Encana spokesman told Canwest News Service late Friday night that sour gas continued to leak from the pipe, and it could be several hours before the pipe was repaired.

But Tomslake resident Eric Kuenzl said both EnCana and the RCMP have been keeping people in the dark. 

--Larissa Liepins,  Canwest News Service

Christie says:

I've been trying hard not to comment on this, because I am not an expert on the subject. A lowly service worker can talk circles around me on the topic. But I do know this: Encana is certainly a special company. They deliver truckloads of sand to neighbourhood parks, and they plaster their name across community facilities with tax deductable donations. They are providing jobs in the gas industry, sure, as they take over the region, and they must be the good guys. In trade for this goodwill, their sour gas wells litter the landscape in North Eastern BC. Most farm houses are surrounded by them on 3 out of 4 sides, sometimes just metres away from the homes.  And someone new has had enough. He's bombing fairly isolated areas, sending out warnings. I am certain he's not looking to kill anyone- at least none of his neighbours.

We know what Weibo Ludwig did to the sites nearby a few years back, taking the law into his own hands when all civil attempts failed. His vigilanteism was both despicable and herioc, depending how you look at it.  It's easy to call him a cultish lunatic, a misfit, a terrorist, but it's just as true to call him a father, an advocate, and a frustrated farmer with sick farm animals, miscarried babies and poisoned land, ironically named Trickle Creek.

He was demonized in the end for contributing to the death of a young girl, at the height of the scandal. She was in the backseat of a truck full of drunk, rowdy, revved up local kids who'd driven into the Ludwig property in the middle of the night, who were tearing up the lawn around camping tents in which Weibo's daughters and grandchildren were sleeping. Someone from inside the house shot a rifle at the donutting truck, and a bullet connected with Carmen Willis. I can't say, in the same situation, they weren't justified. It's not as if the police were going to come help the Ludwigs- the establishment had long ago washed their hands of Weibo and his crazy crises.  The area, between Hythe, Alberta and the BC border, where the current bombings are occuring, is still rife with confusion.

We need an Erin Brockovich out here, someone to offer that tainted glass of water to the big guys as they step out of their jets onto the tiny Dawson Creek tarmac. Politicians aren't going to do a god damn thing to regulate this raping of the land- there is simply too much money pouring in from the dark side. Without their donations into pet causes, the city council couldn't build things that go onto their resume for the future. It's not a new story, it's how it always works. 

It's just strange to see it here, to feel attached to it once again. Toms Lake, where the bombings are occurring, is a little smattering of homes, a community consisting mainly of the offspring of pioneers who themselves escaped Nazis. In Toms Lake, we bought our firewood, blueberry pies and most importantly, Carnaby was born there. And there we were, for three years building an enormous, oddly elaborate sports complex fifteen minutes away in Dawson.

It made me feel sick in the end, after more than a thousand terrible days, to see a giant "Encana Centre" sign installed at the front of our project. It brought it all full circle to me. All the locals, poisoned one way or another- some with their land corrupted, many others with their myriad immune system defects courtesy the mystery shit in their air, can now pay inflated ticket prices to watch junior hockey games in style, in sky boxes that have been purchased with the big bucks that have trickled down to Encana's local service companies.  

Yesterday on CBC News Radio, I listened to a hostile and defensive Encana spokesman insist it just isn't feasible to provide area residents with monitors, monitors that may not save lives, but would if nothing else, show that they cared a little. He insisted that any amount of leaking sour gas was negligible, that the wind dispersement would dilute it. Nevermind though workers on these sites are wearing compulsory monitors and protective apparatus know that if unwittingly inhaled, death would be instantaneous. The sad joke around here is that by the time you realize you're in it, you're dead.

And I imagine they'll catch the guy, the latest vigilante. He'll get bold or sloppy or something and, rightly so, he'll be jailed and scorned and people will rest assured that the nutbag is put away. And that amounts to me feeling this guy will be a sacrificial lamb, the kid shouting at the naked emperor, the one who is raising hell a little earlier than seems polite. He's being so rude to "our guests". After all, they donated all that sand to the playground just last month...

Delta plus

This afternoon, we finally received a working draft of blueprints for the project we're doing, the one where I am working. My dad and I sidled up to the drafting table and started inspecting things like gradients and pilings and drainage ponds.  

Ever since I was small I remember looking at blueprints with him. I love how they smell. I grew up with blank blue print rolls as my paper to scribble on at home. I didn't know pencils could be yellow and made of wood until I got to Grade One-- my pencils were always professional drafting pencils, mechanical and filled with 1 full millimetre of lead, and tiny secret erasers inside their tops.  

Dad and I were working together, happy as clams, and he remarked to me, "You took Drafting in school, didn't you?" as if school is where I learned anything. In that moment, I was transported to my Grade Ten elective, Drafting, in a small room above the art class.  We were all deeply immersed, "designing" three dimensional boxes and practicing our perfectly equidistant architect lettering, when I heard Sinead O'Connor coming over the radio*, singing a song I'd never heard before. My heart started racing. I'd read a review of that album in SPIN and forgotten it was being released so soon.

* (My teacher was a bit of a burn out, and had MuchMusic audio on the class speakers).

Whatever else went on at school that day, I have no idea, because I went straight to the music store, bought the "I Do Not Want What I Have Not Got" CD for about thirty bucks, and I sat in my Bronco in the parking lot listening to it, loving every word in the liner, being haunted and affected and happy. I don't know if I ever returned to that drafting class, either. To this day, I don't recall a single thing I learned in there, but to this day, every word of that album is emblazoned in my memory, and I defy you to tell me I lost out.

The Last Day Of Our Aquaintance-  from The Year Of The Horse, Live

Jinkd

This blog is a weird thing for me. It seems as though the more I have to say, the less inclined I am to say it. Say it here, I mean. Instead of writing the full thought on here when the mood strikes, I will encapsulate the whole thing in one Facebook status or say it to Comfrey, and leave it there. It's my first experience with brevity and it is puzzling.  

 

I hate the word depression because it sounds like a singular condition, like diabetes, or a broken wrist or stupidity. Depression, or what I would deem that strange state, is that culmination of a pile of really bad things happening- perceived or otherwise- that eventually get so heavy you can't easily move out from under it. At best, you drag it behind, like a chicken pulling a hay bale up a hill. Imagine the incentive that chicken would have to have at the top to even fucking bother trying. What was my incentive?  I don’t know. I have (touch wood) all the big 4 in spades. It's not love; I am loved in a way I have never dared imagine. It's not money; and if you don't know first hand, I'll tell you now the more you have, the more you spend, the more empty it is. It's not health, nor lack of friendship and support; I've got a dozen or so people who I feel honored to have in my life, in my corner. And yet, I almost couldn't leave the house once we moved back to Grande Prairie and it was starting to scare me.

 

I still don't know exactly what it was, but I was missing something.  I had been so removed in Dawson, reclusive out of necessity, and hermit-like out of self-preservation. Moving back to GP should have been a breath of fresh air, but it hit me quite strangely. For almost two months, through a record beautiful summer and the endless chances to reconnect with people, I was almost only in my pajamas. Tuesdays and Sundays were interchangeable. I was on the same schedule as Ben, our three year old neighbour; glued to the TV, occasionally running around in the backyard screaming, and refusing to eat what we’d just asked to have. Days went by where I didn’t do more than twenty minutes worth of anything remotely productive; and that could include brushing my teeth or loading the dishwasher. On the same day! Not impressed? Well I was. Now I’m mortified. It was dark and pathetic and weird, and some days I thought I might turn into a fourth house cat. We'd all wander around the house whining, wondering when Jen would come home and feed us. 

 

Now I like to make things relative, so I surely don't claim to have had that much more piling up than anyone else has had; if we all compared bad news checklists we'd have the best pity party going, if anyone could get their shit together enough to plan the thing. I just know that I hit my wall.  I was 33 years old all of a sudden, time was flying, and the Nobel people weren't going to knock on my door just because I finally had a shower. The three years in Dawson were a complete and total waste of time. My personal standards flew right off the map. If that was all I could see around me, why worry? Why try?

Only some of that can be attributed to geography. It's no secret that three years spent living in Dawson, and the social conditions or lack thereof that came with it, was brutal for me. I won't speak for Jen, but you would see that she agrees if you could see her right now, cuddled up on the sidewalk, licking the curb, saying "never leaving again, never leaving again" like Rain Man.

 

Technically, the town was a town, nothing more, nothing less. It was the fact that it was "us", and on top of it, in a town that resented the project we were building with their tax dollars.  I'm sure people move there every day and find redeeming qualities. A disproportionate lot of ex-pat Americans seem to love living there- and that says far more about them than it does the town. And possibly the mysterious "it" that's in the water there. 

You might think I'm prone to hyperbole, but there truly is some X-Files stuff going on there- and the first proof of that is that you can't rent or buy a copy of a single episode of the X-Files in any of the stores. It's a lot like the Truman Show- they're not allowed to know about it. Maybe Jen and I survived, stayed outside of it, because we weren't on city water supply. Good thing. For example, had we became indoctrinated, I wouldn't have a blog. I would be far happier expressing my creativity by carving gems like "I saw you take that shit put it back" on the inside door of every toilet stall in town. I'd have Yosemite Sam mud flaps to hang on my truck. I'd put wieners in my Thai stir fry and splash puddles on pedestrians, circle the block and do it all again.

 

So, here we are, with November approaching. I’m awake now, unencumbered and grateful. I’ve started showing up. I see what I have, and I know what I want. I know I can have it, too. That’s what’s been missing, I guess, a reason. I understand that now. Like every procrastinator, I put it off until now, but I can catch up fast. And then some; my expectations for myself have always been freakishly high. Good things were waiting for me too- I just had to look up. There's been so much going on. The least interesting of which has me working real people hours on a job site. Don't make a big deal about this, but I like it. Turns out I need structure, I need to be accountable.

Before settling into the job, in a field in the middle of nothing, I bought all the provisions; in this case a spanky new MacBook Air and a dozen good books.  And I almost never touch them. Somehow there aren't even enough hours in the day, and while I'm sure my job doesn't appear taxing in relation to the dirty work of the men and boys who park in the same lot as me, I am doing something that matters. And when I'm not, I'm writing- as much as I can makes it onto a hard drive at the end of a night- and what doesn't is on my mind at all times. It's coming out easy, it's coming out right. I am back among the living, and I am no longer ready for a fight. Dawson is over, we won, and I think I have recovered. I have a family to take care of, and a lot of catching up to do.

I'm starting to feel like me again, and I did it by shooting my high horse.

Orchids

Natalie Merchant Lyrics

Sarah Palin is a Dummy

I don't know if you were glued to your TV last night like I was, but this chart summed up what she did and how she did it. I wonder if she's smart enough to regret this yet.

Breaking News: Ruben Studdard Wants a Sammich

So. Clay Aiken has done the People magazine rite of passage for poorly closeted celebrities and came out. I don't care that he's gay, you don't care that he's gay. Anyone who has heard him speak, or watched 3 seconds of Spamalot! even on mute, knew it. He's always been the young Barry Manilow for menopausal moms in the bible belt.

 You've seen them on talk shows, the ClayMates, and they are freaking the hell out this week.  

Radana gave me her user name and password and I was able to steal this gem from one of the Claymates' message boards:

This is an extremely upsetting time for me, so this will be my last post on this board, or any other Clay board... because the music and a part of me died yesterday.

Like so many of his fans, I have invested over five years of promoting him in every way I knew how, especially to young people, including my three young nephews and four teenage nieces. But he lied to us for those five years... presenting himself as someone that he is the very opposite of.

I have lost all respect for him... I will never be able to look at him the same again.

I will never be able to listen to him sing, "O Holy Night," knowing he desires unholy nights.

And watching him "come out" while hiding himself behind that poor little baby was utterly disgusting.

For all his talk about his personal life being off limits, he the one who has put it out there front and center, and has become just another advocate for legitimizing this abomination.

Every day families across this country are bombarded with this so-called alternative lifestyle being shoved down our throats... on television, in music, and in print. But it will forever be abnormal, perverse, and a subject of ridicule. And all the charity work in the world won't change that fact.

Today, if you say homosexual behavior is wrong, some people will label you homophobic, or say that you are judgmental. So be it, I know Who has the last word on this, and that word won't change with the times. 

And he may be hailed by the majority of his fanbase, as well as the media, and Hollywood... but I can guarantee you that there are many families in this nation who are devastated by this "coming out." Mine is one of them. They don't post on boards and forums, but they were his fans just the same.

And my family have thrown away our massive amount of Clay CDs, DVDs, and memorabilia, which we had accumulated since he was AI. I've deleted the many Gbs of his videos from my computer, and I'm now in the process of saying goodbye to the Clay boards where I am a member.

My family and I have taken and defended our last "revelation" from Clay Aiken.

Mods, please delete my account immediately... thank you.

Shared Fence Fever

I took over a month off.  I hope some of you still check from time to time, wondering what the heck is going on in this diorama of the world.  There's no way to catch up now so I'll just start with what is on the plate today.

There is not a back alley behind my house, just my fence, and over that, the "back neighbour"'s yard.  Said back neighbours look like lovely people. They have a beautiful yard and a pretty house, and several huge trees which border the fence. They have a pretty dog, a Husky, named Jackson.  We found out, by meeting Jackson as he barked and rushed at the fence, that Jackson has some social issues...and he clearly got them from his owners. The wife is a house-proud retard and the husband is a psychotic bastard. He's been weird toward us since the start. Curt, mean, creepy, rude and strange. Knowing that we only share a fence line, it was just a thing we'd want to be aware of, but hope to not have to deal with.

Yesterday morning, I was outside and heard the unmistakable call of a kitten in need.  I wandered around trying to see where the cries were coming from, and finally looked waaaaay up, into their trees. There was a cat, one who looks identical to my Comfrey, perched about 10 feet off the ground. From my yard, I can't do anything but stare up at it and try to coax it down.  

I gave up on that after a few minutes, and thought the kitten would probably come down of its own accord, when it could see that Jackson was no longer roaming around the ground. They'd have to bring their dog in sometime, I thought, and went back inside.  

All day, I kept spying on the tree, and each time, the kitten would cry for me to help it.  Every time I went to that part of my fence, stupid Jackson would come bounding over and the cat would completely lose any confidence about sliding down the tree.

Later last night, when it was really bothering me, I decided to go and talk to the home owners and see if they could help me get the cat down. For all I knew, it was their kitten and they'd like it out of the tree.  

I was delighted to see that they were already in their back yard, and so I carefully went to the fence and said hello. Even that annoyed them. The wife finally came over to where I was, and I asked her if she had a kitten. She acted as if I asked if she would like HIV.  I pointed out the kitten, and told her it'd been there at least all day, and that I wanted to help it get down. She scoffed at me, and said "I'm not a cat person, and if it comes down out of that tree, I hope Jackson kills it."  Umm, thanks.  I stood there, feeling awkward, and they continued to putter around their yard, ignoring me. The husband muttered something to her and she came back my way, but didn't say anything.  I asked them if they had a ladder, because we could just so easily get the kitten down, hand it over the fence to me and I'd take care of it from there.  Nope, her husband had just put a ban on ladder lending. He made a few rude comments about how stupid I was- I didn't hear exact details but she kept shushing him and giggling.  

I went and got a bowl full of cream and set it on the roof of my shed, so that the kitten might realize how starving it was and take the chance to jump down. More snickering from the sociopath husband, more comments about how the second that f*cking cat gets near his dog, how the dog will rip it limb from limb. They don't let cats in their yard, period. 

The husband had gone into the house, and when I had the wife alone, I convinced her to put Jackson in his kennel (a huge portion of the yard, no hardship). She actually did it, and the kitten raised a paw as if it was thinking about scaling down the tree. I'd no more than achieved that moment of trust with it, that the husband came out of the house, stormed over to the kennel and opened the gate, yelling that this was bullshit and this cat can't terrorize his dog any more.  The kitten went further up into the tree, and that was that.

I went back into my house, defeated.

This morning, first thing, I went outside again, completely convinced that the poor cat would have found a chance to get down...but no, it was still up there.  And now, as of supper time, it still is.  Crying and paralyzed scared up there.  

So what do I do?  I called the SPCA, but only to say that I know of a lost black kitten. I haven't heard back from them yet, and even when I do, I can't very well send the pet bylaw brigade to these misanthropes' house, because that will create a nightmare living situation for us. They know it's up there, scared and starving, and they don't care in the least. 

And, Jackson catching it notwithstanding, I do know that it will be alright, that it will eventually figure out a way to get down, just like Ani Difranco says, but that doesn't change how disgusted I am at the cruelty of these people. They're being difficult just to prove that they have the right to be.

I used to be irritated at the unseemly people who live across the street from us here, and for good reason, but yet deep down I know, if they knew a harmless little pet was in trouble, I don't think they'd think twice about helping it. And yet here are the Asshats, who I want to throttle, to tell them to stop being so suspicious and defensive and hateful, so consumed with appearances in their bitter little world that they'd actually let/enjoy seeing a sweet little animal suffer before letting a neighbour enter their yard. God forbid. This war is on.

My Judy Garland Drug

Some of y'all might know I got to see Ani play at the Calgary Folk Fest this past weekend, and as I am every time I see her perform, I am knee deep in the infatuation once again. 

This video was made for one of my favorite Ani songs, Serpentine...and for those of you who haven't heard it, please bear with the 3 minutes of meditative introduction that leads into the lyrics.  Best ten minutes you'll spend all day, I promise.

 

Shameless.

And here is an old, old rendition of 32 Flavors, filmed at West 54th...for Radana who surprised me this weekend by knowing all the words.

And lastly, here's Untouchable Face, which always just speaks for itself.

Beaner Baby's Birthday

 

 

Sheena, a.k.a That Incredibly Homely Girl I Know, is celebrating her birthday today. She, like me, is now 24 years old.  Happy Birthday Beaner!

And, just for fun, I've included a picture of us from when I used to babysit you.  Time flies, huh?!  xoxo

 

Bloodsport

Driving through GP the other night, we were shocked to see the heathen method of performance enhancement practiced by local curlers advertised so boldly on the city streets.

 

 

Cheap Meat

One day a year, the local Safeway puts meat on sale.

No Clothes

For the past year, since its inception, I have been a regular reader of jezebel.com. Its readership is huge (belonging to the Gawker Media empire) so in no small way, it has its effect on young professional women- and it is a moral majority unto itself.  They aren't in on the joke, they decide on what the joke will be. Now- it has its acceptable points, in the sense that it's the stuff that I personally am interested in, but it oozes sanctimonious garbage from time to time, all in the name of feminism. Not your mother's feminism, but the obnoxious cow disease that our young men are now forced to deal with, and our young women are trying to emulate.  This is a site where the bitches will dissect whether or not Ryan Adams' poetry is still relevent, all because of the kind of umbrella he's carrying in a papparazzi photo. Cutting edge attitude, always far more intelligent than its readers.

These two geniuses, Moe and Tracie, were asked to participate in a NYC event called "Thinking & Drinking", where guests relax and 'get real' after a drink or two...and it promised to be an evening of "catharsis and hilarity" with young Manhattan media's it-girls, two figureheads of what's cool, what's smart, what's so fucking clever that it doesn't matter if the outside world can follow it. What we got instead were two bonehead sluts making babbling asses of themselves on company time.

If this is the best that's out there, I am more than ever convinced there is no them and us. We could (and do) meet women like this anywhere, any time, and we would be disgusted and laugh at them for their desire to be shocking while coming off as just sort of pitifully average in every way. Silently, we hope they grow up some day. 

I will link to it-- and clip 2, all about rape and how cool alcohol is, is especially....special. 

Big Balls & The People Who Have Them

It's not that I think that handicapped people and the elderly shouldn't have their own designated, convenient parking spots in public lots; I'm not cruel. I respect it and I try real hard not to park in those spots, even when the handi-sign paint is faded and it's raining and I could get away with it if I'm just going to park there for a second. But this is particularly galling to me.

He's not in a handi spot! Is this dude in denial?  Who would pass up a spot by the door? Or is this petty reverse psychology at play? It's martyr bullshit, nothing but condescending, take-back-the-night vigilanteism at its most boring, and had that minivan not been there, I'd have pushed his scooter with my own truck bumper all the way to Handi-Land, and given him one of the 48 empty best parking places near the front door.

 

Mr. Scooters Canada, if that's even his real name, should get a ticket for this. Too bad for me, I believe the man who drives it is also the local sheriff.