Guest Blog by Lainey Louise

The day started out like a Richard Scary story with grammie and me driving gramps to work and seeing all those buildings and bicycles and streetcars and taxis and cars and people. I loved it. I might be only two-and-a-half, but I know what I like already and I'm not saying this because grammie told me to but I think that when I get older I might like to come and stay in my grammies' house so I can go to university and eat chicken mcnuggets for lunch at the mall even though they didn't have any Thomas trains. And speaking of Thomas trains, the other day gramps said in a really low voice, "Hello Martin. It's Linda. I have a student here...her name is Jennifer. She wants an extension on her Chaucer paper. Jennifer. You know -- big eyes, silver hair, round face. Thomas the Train, yes, that's right." Which is the same thing as a cheesehead says gramps, but none of this makes any sense to me.

Tomorrow I am going to a free lunchtime concert with a children's choir singing and I have a beautiful voice and I might want to be a singer some day so this will be good practice. I wish I had been able to stay up for Idol last night to hear Adam but it was already way past my bedtime. But if I go to the concert tomorrow I will miss my afternoon nap and that's okay because then I get to have lunch at City Hall and see gramp's office and my pictures that I drew for her last year. I can meet Susan, too, and Guy and Scott and anyone else who might want to say hello and then maybe we can go to the art gallery but I really like malls and so maybe we'll do that instead. They have a really big fountain at this one, even bigger than the one in Ottawa, and I can't believe how high it goes or how many people sit around and watch it and eat ice cream. Maybe grammie can get a frozen yoghurt in a cone because she really loves them. Can't you see how good I am with capital letters and commas? I am the granddaughter of an English teacher after all, and I might be only two-and-a-half but I can parse a sentence.

Today grammie and I came home in the wind and we grrrrrrrrr'ed like lions and tigers. I love the wind. It got all over my face and made my hands red and then I saw a train. I wasn't scared of anything, not even all the cars and trucks, and I saw a man with a dolly and two big boxes and I wondered what was inside of them. I like big boxes and trucks and cranes and service elevators and pulp and paper mills and things that are really big and useful. I also have a talent for colouring and maybe I will do some of that after I finish writing my guest blog. But first I have to help feed the cats and take the dog out and give Edith and Truman some more fish food and help grammie make supper and watch the rest of Winnie the Pooh and tonight grammie will read me the Bambi book again and I know all the words and even all the animals although porcupine is hard to say. Now it's time for me to go. I'll write again next time I come back and maybe I'll share my Dora cookies with you but maybe not because they'll be stale by then. Sorry.

Billy Bob Thornton Does Damage Control

He's a vain, petulant, ridiculous, rude, imperious, childish, laughable, self-important, smug, inappropriate, controlling, insupportable dickweed (which reminds me -- always use commas to separate adjectives of the same type; otherwise, do without.) Oh yes, and he's American (thank God), as he aptly proved on the Jimmy Kimmel and Bonnie Hunt shows last week.

"Billy Bob, darlin' -- what wouldja like on yer porridge? Maple surrup or brown sugar"?

"I told you, you ratty bitch, never ta ask me again what toppins I wanted on my oatmeal! If'n I wanted toppins, I'd go get me some down at the toppin' shop."

Thornton, as we all know by now, refused to answer certain questions during an interview with Jian Ghomeshi on CBC Radio this month, while giving terse and inane responses to other questions. "I don't know what you mean," he said. "Shit, I don't know." According to Thornton, Ghomeshi "said something he wasn't supposed to say ... and I told a DJ to kiss my ass, that's all that happened. ... The fact that that was news was astounding to me," he said. "But it gave humpback geeks all over the world something to do for a couple days ... I do that all the time."

Yes I bet you do, which is likely why Thornton's band, The Boxmasters, were jeered off the stage while opening for Willie Nelson shortly after the interview. And all of this because Ghomeshi mentioned Thornton's acting credentials, and Oscar, in the introduction. Bastard interviewer indeed! Imagine offering up a three-line bio before engaging in a thirteen-minute exclusive-to-the-topic-of-music dialogue.

Arif Noorani, Executive Producer of Q on CBC Radio One, said, "Just to clarify questions around 'preconditions' -- the producers and host did not agree to any preconditions to not mention his acting career. As Jian Ghomeshi said in the interview, he was interested in talking to Billy Bob Thornton and the band about their music as well as having them perform. That's what we were aiming to do." And that's what would have happened if Thornton had been an intelligent, half-reasonable human being. Instead, he was an asshole -- or, as I often like to say -- a complete asshole.

After returning home to the States, however, Thornton explained to Jimmy Kimmel that he's a lifelong music historian (I'm trying to picture Billy Bob in diapers, music history volumes forging heavy dents into his baby legs....) and a fan of "cosmic cowboy music," and that he only wants to be perceived as a musician while with The Boxmasters -- which is too bad because, given the mediocrity of his singing voice, he might have wanted to lay claim to his Oscar-winning-movie feat.

According to Wikipedia, Billy Bob is the son of Virginia Roberta, an alleged psychic -- too bad she didn't see this coming -- and, according to various web sites, he apparently spent some of his childhood time with his forest ranger grandfather, Otis Thornton, in a small shack in the woods. Later, he attended Henderson State University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, to pursue studies in psychology, but dropped out after two semesters. (I dropped a whole handful of mashed potatoes when I read that.)

As husband to Angelina Jolie, the couple were widely reported to have been wearing necklaced vials filled with one another's blood. Thornton later stated that the vials were actually two small lockets, each containing but a single drop. Perhaps he fibbed, however. Perhaps there was more than a drop per vial. Perhaps since his break-up with Angelina he's low on blood supply, which could account for some of his asinine behaviour. Add to that his phobia of antique furniture -- "I don't have a phobia about American antiques, it's mostly French -- you know, like the big, old, gold-carved chairs with the velvet cushions. The Louis XIV type. That's what creeps me out. I can spot the imitation antiques a mile off. They have a different vibe. Not as much dust" -- you wonder, less and less, why none of those five marriages worked out.

Billy Bob Thornton (I repeat myself here) claims to be "astounded by the interview fallout" -- a statement that makes him my newest honorary member of the Fiddle Dee Dee Club. "I'm just in their band, I'm just one of those guys," he said. Yup. That's how we all see him. Just one of those guys -- the one with the movie career, the Oscar, several (other) distinguished film awards, the five marriages, the vial of blood, the antique furniture phobia, and the man who apparently lost his horn-rimmed glasses.

As for the tour, The Boxmasters subsequently cancelled the remainder of their Canadian dates, citing an outbreak of influenza among the band and the crew. Let's hope he's not talking about the swine flu, because if an apple truly doesn't fall too far from its tree, he may be completely out of luck.

In the end, it makes me somewhat nervous to acknowledge that Billy Bob and I do have one thing in common. I can also spot an imitation antique a mile off. He can roll from talk show to talk show citing how incredibly, intolerably rude Jian Ghomeshi was, how bland we Canadians are (apparently we don't "throw things"), how strange our rules and regulations, but all the while everyone can see who the rude, bland, strange individual is. Too bad he can't sing.

<:^)

Novel Ideas

I fell asleep last night on The Red Pony. Well, I didn't fall asleep on him (here I go again), but the movie was showing on channel 323 when I finally nodded off. I love all of John Steinbeck's novels and short stories, and I remember this one -- the story and the pony -- from grade eight as something called Gabilan, although who knows if I am right? What I do have right is the memory of my best friend, Sandy, sobbing over this poor animal just the way she sobbed over the lions in Born Free, the frogs in biology class, and the furry kitten my stepfather brought into our home economics class (don't ask) the year before.

This talk of horses, an animal of which I am so fond and still terribly afraid, takes me even further back to my tenth summer -- the happiest in my life while living in my father's house -- and the month I was sent off to Saratoga Springs to stay with my grandparents, who were lovely to me. They lived in a wonderful tree-lined flower-laden mobile home neighbourhood, although you could not tell that most of these homes were what we used to call trailers. Many of the homeowners had built beautiful awninged porches, and I don't remember ever seeing trees as tall as the ones that swayed in their front yards. The weather that summer was perfect, too, balmy and breezy.

After I had been there a few days, two of my cousins, Janice and John, arrived from Port Hope. We were one year apart in age -- I was in the middle -- and we got along perfectly, racing off to the stables every morning right after oatmeal. There we talked to and fed the horses, and in braver cases (not mine) helped groom them. I remember looking up and up into their exquisite equine faces (the horses', not my cousins' -- although my cousins were lovely to look at too), those eyes sparkling back at me; and the nodding heads, imploring and grateful. Sometimes we fed them.

On special nights when my grandfather was racing, we went back to the track after supper. The stands overflowed with eager fans, and my grandfather always gave me two dollars, which I gave back to one of the track employees so that he, or she, could place a bet for me. I stood at the railing on my toes peering over the wooden bar, following the line of the blurred carts, listening to the pounding hooves, the roars surging from the crowd behind me. I wore my lucky pants -- a pair of skin-tight vertically-striped snakeskin-coloured soft corduroys -- bought for me by my grandparents as a special treat.

One especially hot night when my grandfather, whose name was Clarence, was racing two horses, and I had been given four dollars to bet, I noticed that his favourite horse -- the one expected to win -- was lagging terribly, panting heavily by the time he approached the finish line. Janice and John and I looked at each other, confused. After the race, my grandfather and the vet tended to the animal overnight, and the next morning when Clarence returned home with the good news that the animal would live, we expressed our relief and surprise.

"I don't understand," John said. "We took such good care of him yesterday."

I, not wanting to be left out of the bragging, leapt in. "Yes we did! We took better care of him than any of the horses, ever!"

Clarence wanted to know just exactly what we meant by "taking care of him."

We explained.

Having spotted a freshly-filled barrel of oats leaning against a shed wall the day before at the stables, John and I took it upon ourselves to roll the enormous container over to the stall where Clarence's favourite horse spent his days. We tipped the barrel toward the horse, supporting the cylinder with our backs, and waited while the animal ate..and ate..and ate. We fed him so much that when he could no longer reach the supply with his mouth, we offered him food by hand.

I bragged to Clarence that even I had been brave enough to do this for the sake of his prize-winning steed. I remember my grandfather's normally gentle face folding into a shade of unhealthy grey, his hooded eyes disappearing under angry shadows.

"You...did...what?" he asked, his voice so low we had trouble making out what he said.

"Well," I began, my hands on my hips, "we rolled--"

"I heard you," he said, his voice rising.

"But--"

"I heard you," he said, even more emphatically.

Who knew that not only had we cost the horse the race, but that we had almost killed him? Who knew that my grandfather was not going to see our side of things and would therefore bar us from the track indefinitely? Who knew, in fact, that a barrel of oats could weigh that much?

I remember other things about that summer -- Janice and John and I jumping wildly on our grandparent's double bed; eavesdropping on my grandfather as he half-whispered to a fellow sulky driver how no one had ever suspected that he, my grandfather, was Ojibwa; the tall trees swaying like graceful ballerinas in the moonlight; the pleasant journey home on the Greyhound bus to my waiting baby brother. But what I remember most is how one day we fed my grandfather's favourite horse and I was brave enough to let him eat straight from the palm of my hand.

Gallop apace, you fiery footed steeds, towards Phoebus' lodging.
Romeo and Juliet, Act 3, Scene 2

Paula and Simon: K-I-S-S-I-N-G

Don and I used to talk, endlessly, about how a relationship that's right will bring out the best in the two people involved in that relationship. You know how that goes. How many times have you witnessed two lovely people who are, if not ruined, then in many ways neither helped by the very fact of their partnership? If I had a dollar for every friend I have had who thought s/he had met the perfect person, the ideal partner, only to find that when s/he was with that perfect person tempers flared, decisions were waylaid, and, for whatever reasons, happiness was always deferred, I would be a wealthy woman...gliding across the Aegean Sea, for example, and not sitting here writing this blog entry. (Not that there's anything wrong with that...)

For the last several weeks I have had my eye on Paula Abdul and Simon Cowell, and it seems fairly obvious to me that the two of them are somewhere between dating and fantasizing about living together. Had you asked me two years ago what I thought of this configuration I would have laughed out loud, and probably a little sneeringly. But as the weeks go by this season I cannot help but look at Paula and Simon and admire the differences between those past seasons and this.

Paula, for starters, seems sober. I don't mean to cast aspersions, either. I have no idea if she has ever been plagued by alcohol or by prescription medication, but I do know (and I had a wonderful but vulnerable mother to thank for this) that in the past Paula has been caught slurringly red-handed. I also know that I have spent far too many moments commenting on Simon's belaboured nastiness to now ignore what seems to be a more fleeting petulance and a grinning boyishness that often takes me by delighted surprise. After all, who of us doesn't wish for any one of us to be happy?

In short, I think -- in truth, I hope -- that they are dating. For whatever reasons -- his British patriarchy? her girlish tenderness? -- they seem to be making one another happy this year. She is more articulate and sweeter; he seems incapable of long-lasting diatribes, instead grinning over at her like a boyish Cheshire cat. I am almost embarrassed to say how endearing I find them together.

Life is so short. Love can be so fleeting. And seldom do two people -- individuals who seem to need desperate help to right themselves -- find this kind of solace in like-minded partners -- in people who help them laugh away their days together; with partners who huddle under pre-dawn covers and giggle; with sweethearts who whisper tender secrets, and promise to love one another forever.

Call me a sucker for love. Call me a fool. (Call me a Billy Joel song.) But I once loved a man who has died, and I have known -- I still know -- what it means to have spent a lifetime with someone who brought out the best in me. (If that sounds vain, you ought to have seen me before.) And I think any one of us would be ridiculous to make an assertion against love in its highest configuration. This is why we can look at two people we do not know -- two judges of a talent show, for example -- and wish the very best for them. Who are we to decide what should or should not be, especially when what we see tells us a brighter, sweeter story?

First comes love...

<:^)

Flu Watch: People Are Dropping Like Flies

How long can this flu go on? Do you think it's the BIG one -- the flu to end all flus -- and all of humanity? I sure hope not. I have things to do, like go to a dinner tonight with five fabulous females, and rake up the dog's winter leftovers from the back yard, and decide whether to paint the upstairs' floor (okay, subfloor) or leave it until I find the $6,000.00 I need to redo it completely. And now I can't find the battery charger -- the one for my camera. Not that I have a battery charger for anything else, oh no, not prudish me. I can't even begin to imagine walking into a sex shop, let alone buying a toy. And why are they called toys? Doesn't that sound somewhat arrested? Or is it because I could be arrested? "Drop whatcher holdin' and putcher hands on the counter. Real high, soze I can seez 'em."

See where the flu takes me? It isn't pretty.

I'm not planning on taking any snapshots tonight. I like to remember events in my head, although I have to confess that the advent of digital cameras has altered my purist/ic senses to the degree of about 3000 photos per year -- too many of them pictures of cats, however...speaking of pussies. Okay, so that's just plain rude. Don't I know it? But it's the fault of the flu and where it takes me -- to silliness, bad TV movies and Cheesies.

What was it Darwin said about survival of the fittest? What is it, then, we're not all adapting to? This over-populated planet? Climate change? Processed foods? Smog-ridden cities? Underwire brassieres? I think I need to re-read Jared Diamond, despite (I think I mean because of) how scary it all is. In fact, I think Jared Diamond is far braver than, say, Ben Stein, who needs to relegate everything to a Higher Power (see yesterday's entry on proper nouns). Mind you, anyone who has ever voted from the (dis)advantage of the Republican party makes me a little bit nervous, and my knees are shaky enough as it is. "Stop shakin' yer knees, yer bum cheeks is flappin' like free-floatin' zeppelins."

Whatever the answers are or are not, I am on my 17th round of this thing. From guts to feet to brains, my body is screaming in protest -- Help me! -- and my poor tired fingers keep crawling into the potato chip bag because it's the only thing handy. In the meantime, I am trying to figure out the correct wine-drinking:germ-killing ratio. One glass would surely kill off at least part of this bug, but 12 glasses might be overdoing it. I can't decide. But I can promise you one thing -- if I make it through to tomorrow, I'll let you know.

The strongest man in the world is the man who stands alone. Thomas Huxley

Tune That Name

A wonderful woman sent along a timely gift last week: a guide to capital letters (proper nouns) and spelling. I say timely because I was right in the middle of an editing job (and several conversations about the loss of the English language) when the book arrived.

I know how difficult it all is. Grammar, syntax, spelling, pronunciation...I make mistakes every day. All I have to do is look at this blog if I need to find errors.

Still, usage of proper nouns ought to be considered elementary, and I am therefore going to attack some of that usage here.

Class, let us begin.

If a noun names a person, place, thing (and so on...because this is, these are, not all a noun names), then a proper noun names a specific person, place, thing (and so on), and, of course, the proper noun always begins with a capital, or upper case, letter.

From Wikipedia: "Proper nouns (also called proper names) are nouns representing unique entities (such as London, Jupiter or Johnny), as distinguished from common nouns which describe a class of entities (such as city, planet or person). Proper nouns are not normally preceded by an article or other limiting modifier (such as "any" or "some"), and are used to denote a particular person, place, or thing without regard to any descriptive meaning the word or phrase may have. ... In English and most other languages that use the Latin alphabet, proper nouns are usually capitalized."

I can easily make South American students (because capitalizing common nouns seems to be a national pastime) laugh when I try to elucidate: I was so in Love and I couldn't stop my Heart from beating so fast that I thought it would Break if She could not Love me back. And lo and behold should the assignment be hand-written, the capital letters spanning several horizontal lines as they reach passionately toward the top of the page.

The funny thing is, when South American students write this way, it almost always involves their hearts. When Anglophones write this way, it almost always involves their wallets (as in status and ego and feeling just a little bit special) (or is that Special?) It never behooves anyone to try and boast in this way, and even arrogant or rich or misguided people can learn by remembering that less is, truly, often more. (Think of bright blue eye shadow from the 1960s, and you'll see what I mean.)

Here are some examples of in/correct usage of proper nouns:

The actress, Spring Byington, was a hearty woman and not I love the warm weather of Spring.

They named the baby Joy and not Their hearts were filled with Joy.

Ottawa District School Board and not Ottawa School Board (lower the S & B in the second example) * The same is true for Board of Trade/the board; Treasury Board/the board...and so on.

My grammie won a Grammy and not My Grammie won a Grammy.

President Barack Obama said... and not The President said...

She shops at the Gap and not She has a big Gap in her heart/her teeth since her boyfriend left her.

John McCain was a prisoner of war (PoW) and not John McCain was a Prisoner of War (POW).

Send me a fax, please and not Send me a FAX. (This one is new to me, which shows you how old I am.)

And if you really care (and even if you don't), some become even trickier:

Second World War and not World War II

Old Boys (*no apostrophe) network and not bunch of assholes

House of Commons but not Toronto City Council

the Governor General (Canada) and not the Governor General (elsewhere)

And the list goes on. That's why publishers print books on this subject. No one can possibly know all of the rules. But we can know the simple ones, and we ought to, especially if we wish to live in a world where we understand that communication is key to good health, happiness, equality, honour and kindness.

And that's my two cents worth on the subject of proper nouns.

Oh yes -- and I Love my new Book.

<:^)

Barometer Rising

Spring has arrived. I know it's spring because today I painted a chair. It seems to be what I do these later years when the colder weather disappears: I paint. Today a chair, tomorrow another chair, next week a wall, and so on.

Something interesting happens to me when I paint. I think. I think about the past and the present, and how the two worlds collide and how the regrets of the past work their way into the contentment of the present.

Today while I painted I thought about my birthday, which was easy enough to do given that I turned 37 only five days ago, on Monday. I thought of Mary and of our lovely trip to Niagara-on-the-Lake, which led me to thoughts of St. Jacob's and the Mennonites and of the first place we visited there where we stumbled upon the cornerstone of a building that was the subject of Mary's PhD thesis. I thought of those girls in that institution and the tragedies of their lives and how people like Mary make such -- sometimes make all -- the difference. I thought about all the people we met in both places, and of the dinner we had in a restaurant that makes wood-fired pizzas. I thought, too, about the supper we had on Sunday with Eva and David, and the fact that I hadn't eaten lamb since Don was alive.

I thought of my daughter and of the beautiful flowers she sent me for my birthday, and of the trip she and Lainey are making next week. I thought about what Lainey and I have planned -- a walk along Queen Street to buy a new stroller; a visit to the lake and maybe the zoo.

I thought about the cards and wishes and gifts I received, which in turn made me think again of Mary and Sarah and Noam and Eva and Susan and Mike and Marcia and Marg and so many others. I thought about the new tablecloths and the found-object charm bracelet from Havana and the turquoise glass pendant. I thought about the birthday cake with yellow icing.

I also thought of the new windows Mary bought me last year for my birthday. Beautiful windows. Wood windows. Windows yet unstained by spraying neighbourhood cats. Windows with perfect-view screens and spoon-shaped latches. Windows for Lainey to stand on her tiptoes and gaze through. Windows whose unfinished pine I am going to have to paint. Windows through which I am gazing right now.

Yes, for sure I love spring. Spring forces me to paint, and when I paint, I remember what and who I love and how lucky I am. Today I sat on the old piano bench and I painted a wooden chair linen white, and the room was full of people.

A chair is still a chair
Even when there's no one sitting there...

Luther Vandross

<:^)

In Your Circles, In Your Circles

Without a thesaurus, I wonder how many words I can come up with that mean tired. Let me see...

Wiped, exhausted, done in, flat out, sleepy, lethargic, dozy, worn, weary, fatigued, drowsy, enervated, beat, pooped, spent, flagging, drained...and, when I was a kid, fagged. I bet they don't use that one anymore, at least not in this way. Reminds me of when we moved to Ottawa, and Don and I walked by a store called Mags & Fags. I was horrified. Had I known that Ottawa had a sense of humour (I still don't know that, and I lived there for ten years), I might not have been so agape, but as it was...

I know there are so many things I ought to be doing, none of which can be any more interesting to you than the previous paragraph, but for the life of me I can't find a thing to say that would be of any value to a single (or to a married) person. But I am laughing out loud because I just remembered Madeleine Kahn in Blazing Saddles talking about how tired she was. God, I loved her. She was so funny. I heard her speak about exercise once, on a talk show, saying how much she hated it. She died, like Laura Nero and Sandy Dennis, of ovarian cancer. Cruel world.

Maybe I'm tired because I have fallen off the Weight Watcher's wagon (WWW), and the effort to right myself is mind-blowingly exhausting. Perhaps I am sleepy because I went to the dentist today, or because I haven't done a bloody thing around here, or because the sun is shining down on me whispering, "Nap time. Nap time." Or maybe I am simply worn out from an excellent beginning to a beautiful month. Whatever the reasons, who cares? All I know is that I am going to walk downstairs, kick off my shoes, grab a puzzle book, and find something good on the tv to accompany me.

<:^)

"I'm so fwiggin' ti-uhd."

You Born Yesterday

I know that birthdays aren't only about heartbreakingly beautiful cards from daughters and funny ones from sons, or about turquoise glass pendants, or about special dinners topped with lemon cake made by kind-hearted sisters-in-law, or about cupcake-covered recipe books, or about a dozen birthday cards and telephone messages, or about emails from Ottawa and Toronto and New Brunswick and Cancun, or about hearing from your other-best-friend-since-high-school and being told how much you are loved and appreciated by her and by her wonderful family who have treated you like one of theirs forever, or about a homemade card from a dear friend who always makes me laugh, or about a sweet message from his partner, or about a special book of photography and cats, or about a day trip to Niagara-on-the-Lake and a drive along the parkway to see the falls, or about a book of French farmhouse furniture (my very favourite), or about a French/English dictionary, or about a complaints pad and kitty cat pencils, or about a stainless steel water thermos and a cobalt-blue tea thermos, or about an expensive gift card from Roots, or about a cd of Argentinean tango (olé!), or about two bursting and aromatic bouquets waiting at the door -- one from a student-turned-friend, all the way from Brazil, the other with a Happy Birthday balloon and pink ribbons from my granddaughter, Lainey -- or about a laudatory guest blog from mareseatoats, or about two exquisite tablecloths with six accompanying napkins, or about ceramic tealight candle holders brought back from Russia and found-object charm bracelets brought home from Havana, or about wood-fired pizza and cola, or about homemade brownies, or about music and laughter and love and hand clapping. No. I know that birthdays aren't only about these things. But whatever else they are about, I do not know.

I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder. ~G.K. Chesterton

<:^)

You Born Today - April 13

(a guest entry by Marseatoats)

Reputedly born on the “day of the iconoclast,” you are one of the world’s true originals. A classic Aries—fiercely loyal, passionate, dynamic, funny, warm and steamy—you possess a rare combination of inner strength and vulnerability. Never satisfied with half measures, you are as committed to proper punctuation as you are to proper speech and right action. Your keen intelligence, creativity and extraordinary talent with words exceeds even your expansive powers of understanding—a fact that is both frustrating and endearing to those who love you.

Child of the zodiac, you born today meet the world with both wonderment and wisdom. Challenged to be brave early in life, your verve for living has been honed in adversity. You face all challenges with dignity and grace and you reserve your strongest feelings for the privacy and safety of your home. Easy to laugh and frequently moved to tears you give pleasure easily and remain open to what every day might bring.

A magnet for Librans and Geminis, your restless and enquiring nature is particularly satisfied in the company of unusual and mercurial personalities. A gifted writer, teacher and friend, you inspire the lives of all who are close to you, giving special inspiration and support to your partners in life by encouraging them to take risks and fulfill their potential. Of all the jobs that you have excelled at in every stage of life, the one that gives you the greatest joy— the one that you have given your whole self to—is motherhood. Your dedication to your children’s happiness is perhaps only surpassed in magnitude by your devotion as a grandmother. The guardian angel of babies, you are (and will be) a loving and important presence to all your grandchildren, throughout their lives.

The coming year will bring you greater happiness than you thought possible. You will complete a longstanding project and find yourself the centre of attention—a position that is not comfortable for you, but is certainly well deserved. You born today are loved, lovable and loving. You take it all with you. Not as tumbleweed does, blowing along the road, but like a beautiful, multi-sided ruby, polished in the earth, shaped by experience and shining magnificently, always.

Happy Birthday, Jennifer.

In Memoriam

My best friend from public and early high school -- the girl I spent all my free weekends with; the friend who kept me sane; the person with whom I shared all my secrets (and we had some terribly dark secrets) -- has died. I know this because today I sent her an Easter email that was filled with photographs of rabbits and cats and dogs, and her email came back. I thought at first that the email I had sent was too large, so I sent another, but it came back, too. This account has been disabled or discontinued the message read. And I knew what that meant.

Sandy has been sick with cancer for many years. It was her second bout, but this time the cancer metastasized to her bones. She could barely speak over the telephone because she was so winded, and company was almost beyond her. I told her that I would finish my novel and ask her to be my first reader, and I thought -- I hoped -- that this would be true, just the way we thought that one day she and I would marry Paul Rockett and George Hughes in a double ring ceremony, or, failing that, that we would go trailing off across the continent in our shared Volkswagen Beetle. We were going to do so many things together. And then she moved away and at age eighteen married the lovely man who remains her husband today.

As it was, and is, I could spend a thousand hours writing about our thousand hours together: about bike riding, and grass blowing, and smoking our first cigarettes after our waitressing shifts had ended. About friendship rings and Olympic-sized swimming pools and long walks to other funerals, sad funerals of young friends who had died in car accidents or swimming the Credit River. About Nick Horuzi's store and the public library and the baseball diamond on Friday nights. And boyfriends...oh the talk of boyfriends...and grammar and Oreo cookie-eating and walks through ice storms when we were the only people out in the world.

Mostly, though, whenever I think of Sandy, I think first of her love of animals; of the night I had to drag her home sobbing from the Vogue Theatre after the movie Born Free had almost killed her. She was so heartbroken over those lions, and I don't think she ever understood how the rest of us could be so callous, so indifferent, dying up our tears before the lights came on. She was a kind, sweet, freckle-faced girl and that -- she -- never changed. And when I saw the rabbits and the cats and dogs today I thought how happy they might make her; how, no matter how sick, she always cared for others first; how she never indulged in lapses of self-pity, a world many of us know too well.

I haven't seen her in such a long time. I was hoping that by the fall she might feel well enough. I imagined us sitting on her apartment balcony drinking tea, laughing about all the fun we had in a world that was abysmal. Even now I can see her standing in front of me, her hair tied up in a blue bandana, her sweet and skinny legs, her appealing pigeon-toed gait, her affectionate eyes...how beautiful she was; how everybody loved her, how thrilled I was to call her my best friend. In this way, she never leaves me. But what a sadder world it is today for those of us who loved her, because Sandy has left us. And despite my great age and all the other losses, nothing will ever be the same.

Easter Sale!

My mother would have called me Alice had it not been for the then-current (which reads as an oxymoron) swell of rapt approval for the actress Jennifer Jones. But I am thinking this week, in and among proofing and copy editing and writing and streetcar riding and baking and talking with my daughter and emailing my son and dinner company and Easter and craft fairs and window displays and dog and fish and cat feeding, that my mother's first choice was the better one.

Alice was not a bit hurt, and she jumped up on to her feet in a moment: she looked up, but it was all dark overhead; before her was another long passage, and the White Rabbit was still in sight, hurrying down it. There was not a moment to be lost: away went Alice like the wind, and was just in time to hear it say, as it turned a corner, `Oh my ears and whiskers, how late it's getting!' She was close behind it when she turned the corner, but the Rabbit was no longer to be seen: she found herself in a long, low hall, which was lit up by a row of lamps hanging from the roof. From Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

<:^)

Weather Report

I was just in the shower lamenting (well, that's a strong word) that I wouldn't have time to write today, because I have to get off to work, and I have already spent half of my morning on email.

Anyway, it's incredible where your head goes when you're dootying yourself up for the day. How long does an average shower take? Seven minutes? Well, in that time today I thought

about how I used to sit on the back stoop of St. Matthew's Church, secretly listening to Noam as he rehearsed in the choir and thinking my son has the voice of an angel (and he does)

about how yesterday started out so badly, with so many regrets and real laments over half-begun friendships with people who are not reciprocal in the way of true friendship, and how mareseatoats and I went off to visit two new-ish people in our lives and couldn't have had a warmer, more convivial time, and how there is always hope that not everyone is going to be a disappointment (which most people aren't, in fact, just often the ones I have put so much -- too much -- faith in) (not counting anyone I have known for more that ten years, of course)

about how much I love The No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, even more than the books, and how fabulous Jill Scott is in the role and how all of the cast seem just perfect for their parts, and how I might be tempted after all these years to get on a plane because Botswana looks so enticing, and is it really true that you could gut a crocodile -- or was it an alligator? (either/or...) -- and find a dead man's gold watch?

about the weather, and how, if I wear my big bear coat to work, I hope there's a hook left for hanging

about Boots, and how I think he has willed his diabetes to come back because he loves the attention of needle-and-special-treat time (Isn't that special?)

about income tax...bluck

about Dave Foley and how I would never have tuned into the Gemini Awards if he hadn't been hosting

about how I wish I'd made tea before hopping into the shower because now it's too late

about how beautiful the Toasted Almond will look in their upstairs' bedroom

about how much I love editing and that I really ought to be -- will be -- looking for more of this kind of work on a part-time permanent basis

about how Mary is right and how, in a bigger way, it has nothing to do with me but with who people are in the first (and the last) place (it seems)
about how looking forward (forward-looking doesn't work, either) I am to karaoke, wondering which of the four of us will have the nerve to actually sing

about how, no matter how old we become, we are always the age we were born -- for me, about fourteen-years-old -- and how, no matter how hard we try to change that, so little in us ever truly changes in really big ways, which is maybe why we rush around trying to do so much to the external

about how you can't know from one day to the next how things might improve

Raindrops keep fallin' on my head...

<:^)

Poetry by David Wagoner

The Best Slow Dancer

Under the sagging clotheslines of crepe paper
By the second string of teachers and wallflowers
In the school gym across the key through the glitter
Of mirrored light three-second rule forever
Suspended you danced with her the best slow dancer
Who stood on tiptoe who almost wasn't there
In your arms like music she knew just how to answer
The question mark of your spine your hand in hers
The other touching that place between her shoulders
Trembling your countless feet light-footed sure
To move as they wished wherever you might stagger
Without her she turned in time she knew where you were
In time she turned her body into yours
As she moved from thigh to secrets to breast yet never
Where you would be for all time never closer
Than your cheek against her temple her ear just under
Your lips that tried all evening long to tell her
You weren't the worst one not the boy whose mother
Had taught him to count to murmur over and over
One slide two slide three slide now no longer
The one in the hallway after class the scuffler
The double clubfoot gawker the mouth breather
With the wrong haircut who would never kiss her
But see her dancing off with someone or other
Older more clever smoother dreamier
Not waving a sister somebody else's partner
Lover while you went floating home through the air
To lie down lighter than air in a moonlit shimmer
Alone to whisper yourself to sleep remember.

1983

George Clooney Gives Birth to a Goat!

I have been so busy lately, I haven't made time for a new blog entry. Mind you, I continually wrestle with the notion that blog-writing is mere masturbatory exhibitionism against the vain hope (so you see, I lose either way) that something I have to say might resonate for someone and make that small difference. I began all of this blogging for my children, and for my children's children, as a sort of modern-day diary (Once upon a teeny time...), but somehow I have managed to launch off in so many directions I am not sure what is or might be appropriate for family consumption.

Which reminds me...

TB or not TB?
That is congestion.
Consumption be done about it?
Of cough! Of cough!

I was reading in my style guide the other day about on-line writing, and I could see almost immediately that I have broken all of the rules. My sentences and paragraphs are too long; I am overly descriptive; I do not use compelling headlines (e.g., Man on Fire! Baby Found Alive in Bat Cave! Angelina Has Sex Change Surgery!), and I wander away from and often skate back to my original point at the end of the entry. But really, if it's newspaper writing readers are looking for, they can go to the Globe and Mail or The National Post of even The Sun -- at least until someone tells the Asper family they've run out of money.

Which takes me to that library book I finished last night. Written by a newspaper columnist (why can't I remember his name?) and hailed as a real page-turner, which it is, I can't help but pause in astonishment over his egregious errors in writing, which only leads me to believe that it isn't literary that people want, but riveting. I used to think that you couldn't have one without the other, but I must have been wrong. (Either that, or my memories of the Boer War are crowding my brain.) Or maybe all of the Internet reading I do has lowered my standards.

Let me pause here and offer up three lines I have recently plucked from the Globe and Mail commentary site

He will be touring with the broadaway musical

I was never aloud to have a dog

Do you have a picture of me? Can you stock me?

and you'll see what I mean.

The other thing I find challenging about blog writing is that I cannot help but click over to my In Box whenever I see an envelope pop up, which some days is every eight seconds. In fact, I just read "Fashion for Plus Size Women," which leads me to the thought...how do they know?

Anyway, I have to get off to my part-time editing job. (How ironic is that?) Perhaps today on the streetcar I'll find something to write for my kids...a gang-related shooting perhaps, or the way the sun looks peeking out from behind the clouds.

Blah blah blah blah blahg.

<:^)

Taking Issue

I'm not sure if it's because he has half a darning needle in his head -- the vet was able to remove a fairly long sliver of silver -- two inches? -- a few years ago, but couldn't get at the rest, which sits neatly calcified in his nose -- but poor Sneakers, who has now passed the 25 pound mark and for whom any irritation is a BIG irritation, is once again on Clavamox for recurring sinus infections, and whoa! talk about a bad smell!

Sneakers was what the Humane Society called a street cat. We found him lying listlessly in a cage, his back to the world, on the day of the two-for-one sale. And I always find it funny, looking back, that the Humane Society offered up two animals for the price of one. I know there has to be something humane in that, but still, the whole notion strikes me as a bit odd.

Anyway, the day we took him home we subsequently drove him to our vet, an industrious man named Hussein, and Hussein, with the cat no more than two minutes, asked. "Do you hear that?" I listened to the tap tap tapping of metal on metal along the uppermost point of the cat's palate.

Whenever I think of what must have been a horrifying moment of ingestion or inhalation or intubation or whatever it was, I always try to imagine that Sneakers was rustling through garbage and by consequence ate the needle, but the precision of its location makes me wonder otherwise. That needle is thituated nithely, although it hath calthified for thure.

It has become my mission, ever since we found Sneakers and watched his spreading size, to explain away his girth: the needle is resting near the pituitary gland and this is why he is obese. (Although I wonder if explaining away his girth has something to do with my own lingering insecurities about weight). He is the only cat of five who does not beg for extras, except for the occasional carbohydrate morsel -- toast crumbs, pizza crust, a baked potato -- and once in a while, he asks for a few olives. (Those he puts in his martini.) I have also grown more defensive on his behalf as various people take to laughing over the fact that the children (okay, maybe Don, too, and perhaps once in while, me) occasionally called him Pinhead.

But this is all and only to say that if you drop by the house today and something smells really really bad, you will know why.

When you're sliding into third and you feel a greasy turd,
Diarhhea! Diarrhea!

<:^)