Fashion Sensibility

When you set off to buy a new dress, you have an ideal in mind. It isn't that the dress necessarily has to be red or pale yellow or robin's egg blue, it's that the colour has to look right on you. For example, when I wear yellow I look a varying degree of jaundiced, no matter how bright or pale the dye. A few times in my life I have tried on a yellow dress because I couldn't resist the pattern or the style or something that was fondly reminiscent. But I don't own a yellow dress, and I haven't owned a yellow dress since I was a teenager.

On the other hand, I can go off shopping for a dress and end up surprising myself. I might choose a shade of colour I hadn't thought suited me, or a new pattern will strike my eye and will suit, what I feel anyway, is my personality. Just last winter in Pittsburgh, for example, I bought a long green and dark brown summer dress that reminded me of something I would have worn in the 70s. And it's beautiful. And it cost very little.

Still, I do have to be careful about colour. Because of my pale skin I am relegated to far fewer shades than the average Jane, and because I am tall and of a certain (cough cough) age, and because I am not skinny all over, there are some limitations. I am careful about my purchases and try not to linger too long lamenting a dress that would be folly for me to own. And I have known all of these things since I was a child, as have most of you.

Why is it then that we choose friendships that are not right for us? Why do we insist on that pale, or even bright, yellow dress -- despite its friendliness and beauty and common good sense -- when we know that as soon as we put it over our heads our bilirubin factor increases tenfold? And why, after we put it on, do we insist on going about town as if it were the finest dress we have ever owned, in fact sometimes stopping for long periods of time in shops that sell only yellow dresses?

No no no, it won't do. As momentarily sad as it is, the best way for us to approach our shopping days is to know what suits us, know why it suits us, make sure the item is within our price range and that the quality is good. Otherwise we will spend our days walking around in inappropriate colours while people gape at us and say, "You know, that yellow dress would look lovely on your sister, but on her? I don't think so."

After Hours

I had a dream last night that Jesus came over to use our bathroom. Apparently, his shower was on the fritz and he needed to tidy up. I didn't ask him why he needed tidying -- a Christmas party, perhaps? -- although my next memory is of Jesus saying something about being audited. I suppose having to explain things like all those fishes and loaves might be difficult, and who can even say if he claimed for all the spontaneous healings? While he and I were chatting in the doorway, one of my Ottawa college instructors (Teachers of English As A Second Language) walked by carrying a new edition of Funk & Wagnall's Canadian College Dictionary, my all-time favourite, which only heightened my already deeply-embedded suspicion of her. I felt as if she were taunting me because my middle-aged spelling had grown so so bad. (Only yesterday I misspelled pavilion -- a mistake that would have been unheard of in my grade four class.) Just as I was about to wag my finger down the street after her, Cheryl Wheeler sang out from the kitchen -- we were as blessed as blessed can be, you and Mom and Dad and me -- and as I turned to ask Jesus if he knew why the radio had been turned up so loud and to ask what part, if any, he had had in this, Ms. Wheeler emerged from the kitchen wearing a hand-stitched red apron embossed with a big black lobster, and oven mitts, and offered up a trayful of chocolate chip cookies. "They're a bit burnt," she said, and Jesus interjected, "Do you think I really care about that?" The next thing I knew, Galoshes and Ralph were hopping up and down screaming, "Cookies! Cookies!" and Jesus was looking really, really frustrated. I don't know what happened after that, but it seems to me that it was all for the better that I didn't. I know for sure that I did not have enough clean bath towels to offer up, and I had no intention of going into the kitchen and washing more dishes.

-- and it seemed like something just this side of heaven, comin' from the a.m. radio...

<:^)

Word of the Day

PRIDE

Main Entry:
1pride
Pronunciation:
\ˈprīd\
Function:
noun
Etymology:
Middle English, from Old English prȳde, from prūd proud
Date:
before 12th century
1: the quality or state of being proud: as ... a reasonable or justifiable self-respect ... delight or elation arising from some act, possession, or relationship

excerpted from Merriam-Webster's on-line dictionary

Hollywood Mourning

I have so many thoughts, and I wonder how many of them are valid. Perhaps I am alone in all of this, but I don't think so. As that wise woman said, we feel what we feel, which takes me to...we think what we think:

Why did Barbara Walters announce on The View on Thursday morning that she would be switching her 20/20 special on Farrah Fawcett's life from Friday to Thursday? Was it because, like all of us, the media queen had heard that Farrah Fawcett would likely not live out the day and that she, Barbara Walters, wanted a more sensationalist time slot to satisfy the morbid ratings-seeking ghoul virus that seems to infest those who are star-powered media-makers?

If so, was she then disappointed to have her tabloid special usurped by the death of Michael Jackson?

Beyond her, was there an inkling of attention-seeking in the death of Michael Jackson? In other words, could his death have been deliberately, consciously, self-inflicted?

If not, did the multiple surgeries and subsequent drugs, working together against him, contribute to his early death? Will the toxicology report confirm this? And if so, will the family try to alter the reports or blame someone else for Michael's death?

Why is it that we laud those who are inherently talented and in this way, and others, bypass their culpability?

Why was Jackson given sole custody of his children? Did he seem like a fit father to you? I had only to see him swinging his infant child over the balcony railing once to think not. When I add in the child molestation charges and that convincing article I read several years ago in Vanity Fair, I am shocked that anyone -- and by anyone I especially mean a judge -- wouldn't question his stability and his in/ability to be a safe father.

Therefore, why is it okay to be famous and an alleged or otherwise molester? I think of Woody Allen who, after all, confessed to diddling his child, and who, before after all had come to pass, married his teenaged daughter. How weird is that, Shakespeare? Why do we sanction it? Why do we still pay to see his movies? Why do certain people -- and not others -- continue working for him? Which takes me to...why do we reward Alec Baldwin for his unconscionable treatment toward his daughter, and vilify the wives (Mia Farrow, Kim Basinger, Debbie Rowe) who, while also human, and as far as we know, haven't committed these egregious sins against their own or anyone's children?

Does enough money buy legal protection? What is enough money?

What was the turning point for Michael Jackson? Was his abusive father solely responsible for his son's depletion (my guess is mostly yes), and how would this boy have turned out had he come from a loving, ordinary (if there is such a thing) family?

Why does Larry King ask people questions and then make impatient-sounding noises before his guests have had time to answer thoroughly?

Why do we care, in any real way, what megalomaniac Celine Dion thinks about Michael Jackson? Couldn't we have learned more from the articulate, perceptive, kind-hearted Sheryl Crow, for example, who told us in meaningful ways what it meant to her to have been a Jackson back-up singer?

Why does anyone watch CNN unless it is for its National Enquirer components? And why is Anderson Cooper -- another articulate, intelligent, sweet-seeming person -- work for them? Couldn't someone offer him a job in a healthier environment, on a healthier network? Is there a healthier network?

Who will come out of the woodwork on account of Michael Jackson's death? Who will ride on his coattails? My guesses? Lisa Marie Presley. Corey Feldman. Maybe Diana Ross. Not Elizabeth Taylor.

Why is it we all feel culpable (or ought to) when young children are taken up, usually by their parents, into the star factory, and yet we do nothing to protect or to save them?

How soon will Barbara Walters be touting every interview she ever had with Michael Jackson? And will she tell us in modest terms and endless ways that she has mentioned him in her autobiography -- or will she have the newly-charged-with-plagiarism Elisabeth, who has clearly been out of favour with her boss this past week (for telling tales out of school) -- do it for her?

Is Ed McMahon up in heaven drinking scotch and playing golf with Johnny Carson?

Who can say?

What I do know is that yesterday not one, but two, tragic Hollywood figures died. I will remember Farrah Fawcett for her biting, gut-spilling performance as a battered woman in The Burning Bed, and I will remember Michael Jackson as that wide-eyed frenetic little boy on The Ed Sullivan Show.

In the end, some things never change.

He was more like a beauty queen from a movie scene...
Billy Jean

Conjunctions

For two years, ever since we moved in, I thought about painting the rocking chair. I just couldn't decide if it was right to cover up the beautiful, natural wood. So I waited. And I waited. And I waited. After much internal debate, I bought a small can of sun-dried tomato red paint from Paint Depot and hauled the chair outside and into the sun and lathered the wood until it was a perfect vegetable hue.

I liked the result...liked it a lot -- enough that, one week later, I used some of the leftovers and painted the top of the old treadle sewing machine. (The veneer had worn away from the surface years ago, and I figured...what could it hurt? So I painted it red. Lovely.)

And then I saw that the front door could use a make-over, so I took the paint and washed it over the wood, which gave the door a kind of stained effect. From the street it looked beautiful, but when I looked up I saw the imbalance, so I painted the balcony door the same colour. Once I saw how beautiful the chair, and the sewing machine (highlighted with several newly acquired houseplants), looked against the rest of the room, thus began the walls: wood wainscoting in the front hallway, narrowed slats riding up the stairwell and up against the wall that hides the basement stairs, and then more wood -- wide pine boards -- across the opposing wall of the room. Magnificent.

But all that wood, of course, showed up the unfinished walls to poor effect, so then those walls had to be given fair thought: how about white leaf paper painted a Victorian green?

Well, of course, that's all well and good, but now the backsplash in the kitchen seemed terrifically odd, so perhaps those glorious blue Raku tiles would cover nicely. And wouldn't they go splendidly with an off-white porcelain-tiled kitchen floor -- which in turn matches unbelievably with the light fixture I stumbled upon at the Re-Store. And those leftover floor tiles can be used in the bathroom to cover the tired linoleum, but not before we put in the claw-foot tub and use the rest of the wood for wainscoting.

And while we're at it, just look at all those marvelous lines we've created -- diagonals moving at right degree angles (I'm making this part up because I am mathematically challenged -- in fact, I think diagonals moving at right degree angles is redundant) -- and won't those wide pine boards make spectacular floors through all of the upstairs?

Funny thing is, though, what with all the changes, the red rocking chair looked out of place in all that amber pine and verdant green, so off it went to the front porch. And while I was standing out on the front porch surveying the tomato red chair and the door, I saw all too plainly that the rest of the exterior was in poor repair, so what else could I do but buy the paint and get at it? Pale hound yellow with forest green trim -- you have no idea. The peak of the house looks so much better, too, its earthy green lending a more natural effect, and the flower boxes standing out sweetly in the sun-dried tomato red. In fact, from down the street, they set off the chair to perfection. And yet, I'm still not sure that it was right to cover that beautiful, natural wood...

Old rockin' chair's got me.

<:^)

Archived Wednesday, October 3, 2007

The Pardon

There's something about an old ailing dog that takes me back to every sickness I have ever witnessed in people I love. I am not sure what it is, although the word helpless comes to mind. We invest so many things in our pets, and we are always so grateful when they do not bite back, reminding us of our flaws, our errors in judgement, all those things that we lack. No matter how or where we go wrong, our cats and our dogs and even our goldfish are still there beside us when the morning comes. I look at old Pooh Bear now and I wonder...how many more mornings?

I think, too, of a favourite poem: The Pardon, written by Richard Wilbur.

My dog lay dead five days without a grave
In the thick of the summer, hid in a clump of pine
And a jungle of grass and honeysuckle-vine.
I who had loved him while he kept alive

Went only close enough to where he was
To sniff the heavy honeysuckle-smell
Twined with another odor heavier still
And hear the flies’ intolerable buzz.

Well, I was ten and very much afraid.
In my kind world the dead were out of range
And I could not forgive the sad or strange
In beast or man. My father took the spade

And buried him. Last night I saw the grass
Slowly divide (it was the same scene
But now it glowed a fierce and mortal green)
And saw the dog emerging. I confess

I felt afraid again, but still he came
In the carnal sun, clothed in a hymn of flies,
And death was breeding in his lively eyes.
I started in to cry and call his name,

Asking forgiveness of his tongueless head.…
I dreamt the past was never past redeeming:
But whether this was false or honest dreaming
I beg death’s pardon now. And mourn the dead.

At my age, of course, death is not out of range. It has too often snuck in and taken the lives of people I loved best -- Don, Mom and Sandy -- which I say as a point of their goodness and the unforgivable loss. I am not sure that I loved them best while they kept alive, but I aimed to do my best for them and hope that intentions count.

That said, no one has done better than our dear old red-coloured dog. She loves patiently, whole-heartedly and unconditionally -- characteristics that some of us loathe in others, but that I find right and comforting. I cannot say how I will find my days without her by my side, she who has comforted me through so many losses and hard times. What will I do with my mornings? Who will there be to forgive me?

Members Only

Wow. What passes for spam nowadays. My boyfriend's member keeps slipping just entered my in-box (that's what she said) a few minutes ago, and I can't imagine what kind of help that young woman is hoping for. (I am not sure why I imagine young or woman, when this message seems so much more...male-driven....) And what is the solution for a slipping member? Thicker condoms? Crazy glue? Shellac?

I have an image of a pretty, almost-adult girl on a summer day (somewhere near 1957, for verisimilitude) strolling -- albeit nervously -- up to the priest after Sunday service.

"Father?"

"Yes, my child." (Always spoken in the form of affirmation, despite the intention of querying.)

"I have a problem."

"Anything, my child. You know you can discuss anything with me."

"Are you sure, father?"

"Most definitely, my child."

"Well, in that case Father, it's about my boyfriend. His member keeps slipping."

Can you imagine the look on Father's face? And would his response be felt (by him, I mean) and delivered in proportion to any guilty pleasure he might feel over the word member? (My prejudice, I know.) (Reminds me of that old joke about the alter boy and the priest whose punch line is something like a bag of chips and a Pepsi.) Do you think then that Father would answer the girl's question, or would he merely issue x number of Hail Marys and be done with it? And how does that solve her dilemma?

Do you think little kids open up their email and find these sorts of messages? Do you think they even ask what it means, or do they already know? Do they wonder why this kind of message is coming up, or are they so used to it that they do what I do and simply delete? I can't imagine asking my mother what a slipping member might mean. Mostly, I would have thought that someone hadn't paid their dues at the church. (Not that I think that that part of my childhood was so ideal, but it had to be better than this.)

And if a child did ask her mother or father what this business of a slipping member meant, what do you think a parent might answer? "Don't read that nonsense, honey. It's just garbage." Or, "Well sweetheart, it's time we had a little talk." And what kind of answers are these? Frankly, give me birds and bees any day. I am all for any happy euphemism that gets me past the graphics. My God, no wonder kids all so cynical and flip. Couldn't they spend their free time eating Oreos and watching cartoons, the way I did?

Speaking of cartoons and sex, the other night Hank Hill found himself in the middle of an office conundrum. Ben Stiller (in animated form, of course) had been hired at the propane company as a replacement for a retiree, but Ben had an irritating and inappropriate way of turning everything into sexual innuendo. (That's what she said, sort of thing.) Hank had an even more terrible time trying to keep the workplace clean, and, without spoiling the ending, I do have to say that I felt angst right along with him and hoped that Ben Stiller would be fired and that the others would come to their senses. I sat on the couch riveted to the television, chomping on Oreos and feeling deep irritation, wondering why everything inappropriate, why all the negativity, had become so kosher, so boringly acceptable.

Mind you, I've just written all of this here in my blog for any child to see, haven't I? And yet...I am not shoving this into anyone's face, like a you-know-what. Still, how hard is it for a youngster (does anyone even say youngster anymore?) to accidentally log onto a blog? I can easily imagine any fourteen-year-old checking out their favourite blend of coffee, for example, and misspelling coffee as coffey...and so on. But then again, once they found me, why would they continue on -- especially when they read that today's entry is for members only?

My boyfriend's back and there's gonna be trouble...

<:^)

Announcements

Cross your fingers, make a wish, say a prayer...oh please...for our beloved Pooh Bear, named by a two-year-old sixteen years ago. Our darling dog, who has been feeling poorly lately, came down with double pneumonia on Friday, and is on a two-hour turning (for her lungs) mandate as well as ten pills a day. She is terribly sick, but I am hoping that with enough attention and fresh porch air she will live to see out the summer. Wish her well. She is the gentlest, dearest dog I have ever known.

Theatre: The Return of Ulysses

"What do you mean, I looked fat in a toga?"

"What does the word FAT mean to you? Okay then -- how about girthy? Oh. So you don't like that one either. Then what about lard arse? Or wide load? Or rotunda? Do any of those adjectives suit you, your royal fat ass dynasty?"

"Doesn't that remind you of the day when Don and Jennifer were walking along the lakefront and Jennifer had to pee so bad and Don pointed to that coliseum-looking building and said, 'Look! The peedatorium!'?"

"What in hell does a paedatorium have to do with my performance?! And speaking of fat in a toga, have you seen Jennifer lately? Oink oink is more like it."

"Hey! You don't have to get mean about her just because she's a little, well--"

"Girthy?"

"Shut up!"

"Pot calling kettle, anyone? Come in, kettle."

"--and because you're pissed off. You seem to think that any criticism leveled against you has to do with jealousy when in fact, Mr. Know It All, sometimes your performances are a little substandard."

"Excuse me? Substandard? How dare you talk to me in that fashion?"

"Notice how he's distancing himself with that demonstrative pronoun?"

"And speaking of fashion...ha ha ha ha ha! I'm choking on my corn flakes."

"People have been saying that my latest performance in The Messiah is breath-taking!"

"If you're referring to oxygen deprivation, I suppose it is."

"I thought that peedatorium was very smart, like the time he called...what was it that he called that thing?"

"It's funny, not smart."

"Same thing, dumb ass."

"Yes. Same thing, dumbass."

"I'll third that."

"Who asked you? Good God, what hole have you crawled out from under? Look at the mess of you!"

"He did so say lots of smart things. Even you said he used transitions better than anyone you ever read before."

"It's hot in here. Could someone please turn down the heat?"

"What did your last slave die of?"

"I can't reach it, you idiot! Why don't you pull out that catheter and give me a hand, you lazy bastard?"

"Since when have you taken up swearing? If Jennifer hears her precious boy using bad words she might take away his special treatums."

"Has anyone seen the T.V. Guide?"

"What transitions? Name two."

"We haven't had the T.V. Guide in about ten years!"

"Accordingly. Conversely. Notwithstanding."

"That's three."

"Okay then, the Feature Guide, or whatever it's called."

"I know someone who found tinfoil in their cornflakes once and they wrote in a really long angry letter and the cornflakes company reim- reim- reim- gave them back their money and sent them coupons for more cornflakes and said they could come on a tour."

"Who in hell would want to tour a cornflakes factory?"

"I can think of worse things. Like maybe going to see you as Ulysses."

"Remember when Tommy Smothers told that story about a man falling into a vat of chocolate?"

"I made a stunning Ulysses. Everybody said so. Stunning, they said. Just ask them."

"Who's Tommy Smothers?"

"Okay Falstaff. Have it your way."

"I read it in the T.V. Guide."

"Or should I have said -- Taglia Extra Large!"

"Now that's just mean. You've gone and hurt his feelings and you know how sensitive he is about his weight."

"He shouldn't have said those nasty things and not have expected retaliation."

"Don't you think that looking in the mirror is retaliation enough for him?"

"I heard that!"

"What do you want the t.v. guide for anyway?"

"There's a rerun of Franco Zeffirelli's Hamlet coming on and I want to see it because Helena Bonham Carter's in it and she's hot."

"I have never understood why old what's his name left her. Oh look -- fat boy's coming back. He must be over his toga angst."

"Hamlet? Did somebody say Hamlet?"

O, that this too too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew.

Act I Scene I

Posted by Jennifer Coffey at 7:19 AM
Thursday, December 20, 2007

The Day Is Done

Sometimes I lament because what I thought was going to be a beautiful friendship has turned into an organically failed flower, kind of like a hybrid gone bad. (Think Studebaker, which, although neither hybrid nor flower, went bad enough to make my point.) In fact, I have spent a lot of -- too much of -- my life trying to make myself fit into friendships that wouldn't really have me: heterosexual women who could relate to my heterosexually married past but not to my same-sex present, or presence, and who keep insisting that it was something I said -- which is an out-and-out (pun, yes I know) lie; gay women who tolerated me because I live with a woman, but who couldn't understand that, or why, for years and years, right up until he died and beyond, I loved a man; gay men who thought I was their mother or their sister and who loved me as their straight friend as long as I was willing to sit on the sidelines and applaud; straight men with (too often, thin upper lips -- why is that?) who were looking for more than a friend, and so on.

Today, however, I am rejoicing because, at this great age in my life, I have met a group of (as it happens, heterosexual) women, ages thirty-nine to fifty-nine, who, when we come together for dinner and discussion every six weeks, are convivial, warm, safe, funny, generous, lively, inquisitive, passionate and really really smart and who, it seems, could care less who I love.

Who could have thought that this would happen midway through my life, and who would have thought that I dare imagine it might go on for some time, saints preserve us. Somebody shake me. I have been so lucky to have maintained great friendships throughout the years, but I wasn't expecting this now.

And it isn't just the one glass of wine talking. It's as if (much) more than my advice, my free time, my emotional and physical help, my listening ear, my conciliatory efforts, my dutifulness -- all of my own choosing, yes I know -- is wanted and appreciated. And I would fall flat on my face should any one of these women betray me, distort the truth of who they know me to be, use me, exclude me, run roughshod over me, and do any of the things your mother told you to avoid like the plague.

Still, as I sit here and type, I know that arrivals, and departures, are less likely accidental than designed. Two roads did not diverge in a wood, but rather 167 roads, and I have had to try at least 143 of them in order to find my rightful place. That's work for sure. But it is work well worth doing, and it makes up for those momentary pauses and gasps that, a few years ago, usually turned into monumental heartbreak. I guess we are never too old to recognize change and embrace our better selves, or to say to no one in particular, in a quiet and not unkindly-felt way,"Hey, enough is enough."

Or as my mother so often loved to quote, and as I have long-since quoted...

Then read from the treasured volume
The poem of thy choice,
And lend to the rhyme of the poet
The beauty of thy voice.

And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares, that infest the day,
Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Performing Arts II

Every day now if or when I tune into Ellen or Bonnie Hunt, le voila! A rerun! I don't remember Merv Griffen or Mike Douglas taking off this kind of time, but what do I know? I was seven. Anyway, it all puts me in mind of my previous blog -- the one I took down in heated frustration when I found out that a local student was copying and pasting -- have people not realized yet that they will always always get caught? -- and then began again, cooler head prevailing, about two days later. Anyway, I save everything -- old email, twenty-year-old shoes, greeting cards, rocks, fingernail clippings (okay, so that's a lie, but it does prove a point), blog posts -- I've got it all. And while I haven't nearly the audience that Ellen or Bonnie command...fiddle dee dee...I am going to, on occasion, haul out an old entry and pop it in. Like right now. I hope you like it.

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

So as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted (harumph!), Sneakers outdid himself in his recent performance as Ulysses in the play at the luxurious (oh my unbelievably beautiful god!) Elgin and Winter Garden Theatre on Yonge Street in downtown Toronto. Mind you, Mary and I were already heightened by the very fact of the venue (I just learned yesterday that venue means location [location! location!] and not theme -- I think I misunderstood because of what seems like the avenue component to the word, although, if I think about it, an avenue always takes a guest right to the door of the building/venue, or at least close to the front gate.

Anyway, we snuggled down into the plush crimson-clothed (short ŏ) seats amid the patchouli (which until today I have been misspelling as petula, as in Clark) (which is probably what took me downtown, downtown...) and heavy-scented musk (oh oh...here it comes...Jesus bids us shine with a pure clear light/Like a little candle burning in the night/He looks down from heaven to see us shine/You in your small corner, and I in mine) not caring if a) my own scent of creamed roses -- no, that's not right -- that would be like creamed onions, which would have made me smell like my mother's dinners. (Does anyone remember chipped peas on toast, which we, among a thousand thousand others, also called shit on a shingle?) No. I think I mean creamy roses or dreamy roses or steamy roses, or b) if Mary's vanilla-based bouquet would incite attendees into a baking riot. Singing muffins and croissants alive, alive oh!

I cannot express how proud I was looking down and down and down onto that glorious stage and spying my little (any good performance deserves at least one euphemism) Sneakers, tall (okay, two euphemisms) and smartly berobed in a style that would befit any Human Frailty/Ulysses character. My eyes washed over with tears, and I nudged Mary and said, "Look at our boy standing there in front of mil-thous-hundreds, all of them rapt. See how widely their mouths are opened? Look at the expressions of incredulity on their faces! Could he be any more eclectic or rare?

Mary turned to me and said, "Rare cannot be used in a comparative sense, unless you're talking about steak," and, turning her eyes back to Sneakers, she added, "Or ham."

"You can order your ham rare?" I asked. "Doesn't that cause trichomonas?"

"You mean trichinosis," she said (which reminds me again of that joke about the man who went into the butcher shop and asked for a pound of kiddalies. The butcher said, 'You mean kidneys, don't you?' and the man looked hard at the butcher and said, 'That's what I said, diddle I?')

Anyway, I'm not sure what I meant, except that Sneakers looked remarkable (which is why, I guess, I am remarking on him). And oh my great baby Jesus...when he opened his mouth to sing and out poured those mellifluous tones...like honey on Kensington Market organic twelve-grain bread. Toasty and tasty. So overwhelmed was I, in fact, I barely remember the stately sets or the vibrant colours and multitudinous talents of the other performers.

I've been meaning to nudge Sneakers on his take on the entire operatic journey and specifically on that opening night performance, but he is at the dentist's this morning for his annual check-up and cleaning, although he promised me two days ago that he would get back to me on this no later than next Tuesday. I mean to make him keep his word, even if I have to sit on him. I want him to write about the experience exactly as he saw and felt it -- to document the event in the organized and loquacious manner of which only he is capable. I can merely begin to imagine what he is going to say. In the meantime, I am off to the kitchen, inexplicably hungry for maraschino cherries and pineapple.

Venue, Vidi, Vici

<:^)

Home on the Range

Edith and Thomas are going to explode -- literally. I keep forgetting if I've fed them, and because I wipe up the remnants after each go, I can't tell when they last ate. (And I know my habit would be to overfeed -- look at me -- and not underfeed.) They're clever little devils, too. They swim backwards near the top of their (separate, because when they were together, Edith, who I think should have been named Thomas, tried to eat Thomas, who I think ought to have been named Edith) tanks. The whole performance reminds me of Flipper, except I can't hear any sounds coming from their little glass water houses, no matter how much I strain.

I have heard of birds exploding outside of churches at the end of wedding ceremonies when the happy guests have tossed rice instead of paper or birdseed. (Or was that Shreddies? I get so confused.) And once I killed our family bird on Thanksgiving, which is really ironic if you think about it (especially given that I had made two enormous pots of Yorkshire Chicken for dinner.) Don was away in Winnipeg on business, and I had invited several bar staff and a few close friends to join us for the celebration of what has always been my favourite holiday.

When Lucille Kenny arrived a few minutes after the other guests, she walked into the back room where everyone was sitting on the floor (still sober) and whispered in my ear that something was wrong with our beautiful yellow budgie in the front room. (I had moved him that very afternoon to keep him from being bothered by crescendoing scotch-inspired monologues and waves of unhealthy cigarette smoke.) Sure enough, there he was hop hop hopping about on one foot, until thirty or so minutes later when he keeled over at a precarious forty-five degree angle and...plop...died.

Long rule short? Don't burn incense near a bird cage, at least not if there's a bird inside. If you do (or so said the vet to whom I beseechingly took our poor dead pet) you will kill him.

Come to think of it, I had a turtle once that I named Myrtle. I was fifteen or so and living in Wynn Evan's dining room (throughout my grade tenth year, my long toes hanging over the end of the short bed, the family cat hissing at me all night long from his perch on the humming refrigerator). I kept her on the window ledge in a little plastic pen and fed her greens. Eventually, when I felt I wasn't able to give her the care I felt she needed, I gave her away to the brother of a friend. Myrtle died a week later.

I think back now to early Charlottetown days when we lived in a bungalow situated on the edge of the highway, and had more cats than brains, one of whom (the cats) was named Pig. One afternoon, Pig snuck into a visiting friend's car and didn't exit until they (he and my friend) were well down the highway past the North River bridge. My friend said the last she saw of him the cat was roaring off into the woods. She indeed stopped her car on the edge of the highway and went after him, finding instead a beautiful but alas dead German Shepherd lying among the trees. Eight months later, on a bitterly cold morning, a speeding driver hit a cat that was crossing the road toward the house. The cat was Pig.

Gee, looking back over this a person might say that I wasn't very good with animals. They might even say that I shouldn't be a pet owner at all. Mind you, can you call two super tiny goldfish pets, even if they can swim like Flipper and beg for their breakfast? And really, who knew that a person could kill a budgie with incense (or Teflon...if it's burning. But given the way I cook...). And how could I have possibly known that my cat wanted to go for a drive, or that Myrtle the Turtle was going to die in somebody else's arms?

Say...maybe that's why their cat hissed at me all night long. Maybe it knew something about me. Maybe it sensed that I was an inappropriate pet owner. Maybe it wanted to call the Humane Society or the SPCA and spill the beans on me. Maybe the cat was telepathic or prescient and understood that ill fates awaited other animals that fell under my care. Maybe...I am meandering. Maybe I have better things to do than castigate myself over innocent accidents. Maybe I shouldn't be so hard on myself. Maybe I had best get on with my day. Maybe I had better attend to my duties here at hand. As it is I am an hour behind schedule and I have yet to feed the fish.

Where seldom is heard a discouraging word, and the skies are not cloudy all day.

<:^)

Itemizing

I receive so many beautiful gifts and, too often, as the days go by, I forget that I even have them. As a test of memory and faithfulness, and as a practice of not forgetting, I am going to see if I can alphabetize my way through some of the lovely and remarkable items I have received in the past six months.

Acer computer screen from Sarah

Bracelet, beautiful, from Susan, from her trip in Havana

Canon Camera from Sarah

Dining out, far too often, from Mary

English guide books -- two of them -- from Michelle

French Furniture book from Mary

Give thanks diary from Wayson (how ironic is that?)

Homemade card, very funny, from Mike Brown

IPod -- my first -- from Sarah Mae and Noam

Jimmy pants, from Mary

Kitty cat pencil, from Mary

Laptop computer, from me...ack!

Mother's Day flowers from Lainey, which were really grammie day flowers except I'm not old enough

New boots -- Blundstones, oh how I love them -- from Mary

Old-fashioned happy housewife lunch pail from Stephan

Photography book, featuring cats, from Marg

Queer film movie tickets (six of them) from Scott

Recipe book with cupcakes from Eva

Santa box from Czechoslovakia (well, that's what it looks like to me) from Mary

Two tablecloths -- glorious tablecloths, from France (mon Dieu, I sense a theme) -- from Mary

Uterine clearance from my gp (hey -- don't look a gift horse in the mouth, if you'll pardon the pun)

Valued book lends from Diana

Writing pad, which I use every day, from Sarah Mae and Noam

Xcellent advice from Mary

York York York -- New York!!!

Zip drive, in the form of a portable hard drive, from Mary -- and who couldn't use more memory?

And these are the ones off the top of my head. Shameful, isn't it, what we forget and what we choose to remember? If you asked me to come up with twenty things that have gone wrong in the past year, I could rhyme them off lickety split. I find it a lot harder to recall all that has been given to me -- which should tell me more than I need to know...but ought never to forget.

Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it. ~William A. Ward

<:^)

A Pen By Any Other Name...

I don't know which has given me the bigger headache today: dust; barometric pressure; Robertson Davies (actually, this one isn't as bad as the last); temperamental drivers; stalled traffic on the Gardiner (half an hour!); a dead cell phone (I use it five times a year and yet, when I needed it today...); editing -- well, no, this is re-editing of an article/interview from weeks ago whose changes have only come to me late this afternoon (people were away, so there was nothing to be done); this lingering flu; sneezy, mucousy cats and dogs (three of them); ungrateful people (hmm...maybe I'm one of them...ya think???); a two-hour-late dinner, or the fact that I have, as of this morning, GAINED FIVE POUNDS.

I think I've just given new meaning to swine flu.

A Dream Lies Dead

A dream lies dead here. May you softly go
Before this place, and turn away your eyes,
Nor seek to know the look of that which dies
Importuning Life for life. Walk not in woe,
But, for a little, let your step be slow.
And, of your mercy, be not sweetly wise
With words of hope and Spring and tenderer skies.
A dream lies dead; and this all mourners know:

Whenever one drifted petal leaves the tree-
Though white of bloom as it had been before
And proudly waitful of fecundity-
One little loveliness can be no more;
And so must Beauty bow her imperfect head
Because a dream has joined the wistful dead.

Dorothy Parker

1893-1967

Exchanges and Designs

Michelle, this one's for you.

So, last week Mary and I were sitting in the glorious Design Exchange Building waiting for the lecture to begin when I spied a man sitting across the aisle from us, one row up. I turned to Mary and I said, "Wow. He's handsome. Look at his long lean legs and those great shoes. And he has such a lovely face." About three seconds after my comment, he looked over toward us and smiled. I, shy in these ways, looked away. Still, I was flattered, and I couldn't help glancing over occasionally at his angled body so attractively decked out in black denim jeans and brown leather jacket.

Anyway, throughout the lecture (which was terrific and extremely funny), I noticed, even in the dimmed lights, that this good-looking man kept looking toward us -- or so it seemed in my peripheral vision. I took great care, nevertheless, to avert my eyes and pay attention to what the man on stage was saying. After all, at my age I am used to being completely ignored (this fact beginning, if anyone is interested, when a person is about thirty-five). At some point I did, however, swivel toward him, and in doing so realized that his attention was being paid not directly to me, but to the woman sitting behind him. It was easier for me to glance over at her, which I managed a few times because now I wanted to know what sort of woman this man would be interested in.

She was the absolute antithesis of me: short-statured; curly, light-coloured hair; polished; professional-looking; appropriately contained. Her style, in fact, was immaculate, and she had one of those faces that betray a kind of quiet, high intelligence that most of us can only envy. Still, I couldn't help feeling around the edges that he was still glancing my way. (Okay, Mary's way too, but I was the one in the aisle seat and I am the one who tends to be more flirtatious, at least in the sense that Mary isn't flirtatious at all, especially not with long-legged men.)

A few minutes after the lecture had ended and question period had begun, the woman stood up and whispered her good-byes. (My hearing, which isn't great, becomes better attuned under ideal conditions.) In the light I could sense and better see that perhaps the man and woman were a new couple, or an idea of a couple, although truth be told, Romeo (which is what I had now taken to calling him in my head, and not with so much as a smidgeon of sarcasm) was remarkably convivial with the man to his left -- a colleague or friend, so it seemed -- and I wondered if it was perhaps his nature to be overtly friendly and charming.

Just as I was sizing this part of him up, he glanced over toward me again. I kept my eyes straight ahead on the stage. So...he's a bit of a flirt, I said to myself. Or, he finds me attractive, which, while a rare occurrence, might say something positive about his character. I leaned into Mary. "Have you noticed that the handsome man keeps looking over towards us?" "You mean toward you, don't you?" Mary asked, with more than a hint of humour. "Whatever," I replied. And just as I said so he glanced over again. This time, I looked back...running my eyes from the tips of his fashionable shoes right up past his jeans and his jacket, zooming by his liquid brown eyes to the top of his black-haired head. And then I said to myself, "Something about that man is familiar."

I turned again to Mary, who was getting up to leave for another meeting. I crept out after her. "Something about him is familiar," I said, hurrying along behind her. I ran several faces and types through my head, spinning them through like a Rolodex. "I know!" I shouted too loudly. "He looks like the man from Michelle's New Year's Eve party. You know -- the handsome man. Michael. The architect. Who likes to travel to Brazil."

The words were not fully out of my mouth when I realized that, of course, he was the man from Michelle's New Year's Eve party, and that he was probably looking over at Mary and me because he had met us before. In fact, it no doubt crossed his mind to think me rather rude, sitting not two feet away and averting my eyes whenever he looked our way.

Mary and I burst out of the building and into the sunshine. "Can you imagine?" I said, laughing. "This whole time I thought he was imagining me as somewhat appealing, when he was likely thinking just the opposite. Those are those two really odd women I met at Michelle's New Year's Eve party. Yes -- the older woman -- she was the one who never shut up. And she's still overweight. Although at her age..."

Anyway, I am not entirely sure what my point is, except that I think it has something to do with vanity and humour and the fact that, no matter how old or grey or fat we become, we still see ourselves -- okay -- I still see myself as that fourteen-year-old girl sitting in the bleachers on a windy day, thrilled because, finally, handsome George Hughes is looking my way.

Somebody shoot me.

<:^)

Whoopi Goldberg Needs a Brain Transplant

Oh my God. I can't believe what I just heard on The View -- Whoopi Goldberg sympathizing (I would have said empathizing, but Whoopi sees herself as having been in a similar situation) with Lou Diamond Phillips who, on some outrageous sensationalist reality show, put his hand into a hole and allowed himself to be bitten five times by rats. Apparently, as implied by Ms Goldberg, Lou Diamond Phillips has been driven to these depths because his career has been put on hold by Hollywood. (The actor -- and by actor, I mean the new vernacular that includes both male and female -- is never culpable.)

Sherri Shepherd said something equally inane about what "heart" the actor showed, so courageous was he to permit himself to be gnawed by hungry rodents. (I wonder if this is the same kind of courage he needed in 2006 when we was arrested, and later sentenced, for domestic violence at his Los Angeles home following a dispute with his girlfriend, later wife, Yvonne Boismier. Can't those women on The View come up with some formula for consistency?)

Anyway, I think it's all ridiculous.

While I appreciate what it means to sympathize and empathize -- if I had a dollar for every talented artist, musician, writer I know who has never been credited, published or paid for their work/s, I would never have to work again (and neither would they) -- and while I understand the fickle nature of the North American culture, what does Whoopi Goldberg mean by suggesting that the prize-winning Phillips had -- has -- no other choice than to take part in this celebrity mayhem?

Frankly, and given his bachelor's degree in fine arts, I can think of a few other options, if, given his prolific acting/writing/producing/soundtrack/band member/movie directing career, and poker playing predilection, Phillips has not managed to squirrel away a few dollars for a rainy day:

~teacher (he needs one more year, if that, to complete his education in this field)
~career counsellor
~social assistance worker (considering his 1993 OXFAM award, he is a perfect candidate for this field)
~music program director for children in need
~relief services officer
~vocational rehabilitation worker
~hospital worker, even if it means volunteering a few hours per week to see what it really means to be out of luck
~veteran's administration advocate (given his advocacy of the Filipino Veterans Equity Act of 2006, he seems a right for this, too)
~documentary filmmaker, where he could go about the world and see firsthand how the non-famous live

I could go on. And on. But I won't.

In the meantime, in his free time, perhaps a brief perusing of the Parasite and Disease Load of Wild Rats (here, from farms in England) might give the injured actor further food for thought:

Transmissible to humans:

Helminths (worms):
*the liver worm Capillaria in 23%
*the cestode Hymenolepsis diminuta in 22%
*the cestode Hymenolepsis nana in 11%

Bacteria
*Leptospira spp. bacteria causing Weil's disease in 14%
*Listeria spp. bacteria causing listeriosis in 11%
*Yersinia enterocolitica bacteria causing yersiniosis in 11%
*Pasturella spp. bacteria causing Pasturellosis in 6%
*Pseudomonas spp. bacteria causing Meilioidosis in 4%

Protozoa
*Cryptosporidium parvum causing cryptosporidiosis in 63% of the rats
*Toxoplasma gondii causing toxoplasmosis in 35%

Rickettsia
*Coxiella burnetti evidence of infection by Q fever in 34%

Viruses
*Hantavirus causing Hantaan-fever or hemorrhagic fever in 5%

Ectoparasites (note: these ectoparasites are vectors for diseases which are transmissible to humans, such as typhus)
*Fleas found on 100% of the rats
*Mites found on 67%
*Lice found on 38%

Taken from http://www.ratbehavior.org/WildRatDisease.htm

As I said, Whoopi Goldberg needs a brain transplant. And while she's at it, she ought to see about acquiring one for Lou Diamond Phillips.

So You Think You Can Dance?

It’s true that I don’t know how I’d live without them, but there are days when it’s all I can do to stop myself from packing up five little bags and sending them on their way. This morning—pre-dawn this morning—it was all about So You Think You Can Dance. If they would indulge in quiet, reasonable conversation, that would be one thing. But no. It’s always the fur-flying cat-calling Budgell-shrieking kind that wakes up half the neighbourhood—the sort of screeching that usually prompts someone to pick up a phone and dial 911. And try to explain your way out of that one, standing at the door in extra-large cotton underwear and a raggedy stained wife-beater (hormones = heat) at 6:00 a.m.

Anyway, the first thing I heard this morning was, “Whaddya mean, Dan Carroty is inauthentic? Who died and left you boss of the dancing underworld?”

“I didn’t say inauthentic. I said precious! There’s a difference. And if you want to know what it is, take a look at Mia Michaels.”

“Oh, so now you’re gonna pick on Mia Michaels, the best choreographer of the whole bunch!”

“Oh puh-leese! Pick a prop and write a love scene around it? Yeah, just give me an umbrella and I’ll come up with a dance scene that will break your heart. So she’s good at one thing—

“Excuse me? I don’t mean to interfere, but I think she’s the best choreographer, too. Her and Sonia.”

“Speaking of hair…whoa! The two of them look like the Katzenjammer kids!”

“What’s all the ruckus? It’s six in the morning. Has anyone seen the cereal box?”

“You know, there used to be a time when six—”

“Boots here contends that Mia Michaels is the best choreographer on So You Think You Can Dance, and I was just saying—”

“If you can stand to look at or listen to her. Oh, you move me I am so honoured to be in your presence it’s such a beautiful day when I can open my eyes and look out into the world at such heaven-sent talent oh my god I can’t stop running my hands through my hair and contorting my body and saying how much you move move move me and how honoured I am to be in your company which is ironic because really you are in my company if you don’t mind me stopping for one tiny moment to offer a pun just as I can’t stop myself from saying how much you move me.

“You’re starting to sound like Kathy Griffeth.”

“Griffin.”

“Ha! See? That’s exactly what I was saying!”

“Mind you, that homophobic Nygel isn’t much to look at either. And what did Mary Murphy mean about masculine? Hasn’t anyone heard of a gay male dancer before?”

“Excuse me, but isn’t that redundant—gay male?”

“And didn’t you not two seconds ago begin a sentence with the object her?”

“Yeah, because nobody gay has ever danced on their show before.”

“Or hosted.”

“Just because you don’t like her is no reason to call her an object.”

“Nobody even asked me, but my favourite is Cat Deeley. Do you think that’s Freudian?”

“Her name?”

“It’s because you like the way she says judges—jidges.”

“It’s because her name is Cat. Do you think that’s her real name? I wonder why a parent would name a baby Cat. If they even did. Maybe it’s short for Cathy. Or Cathetrina. Still, Gwyneth Paltrow named her baby Apple.”

“Like the computer? Where do you hear all this stuff?”

“Jean-Marc Généreux told me.”

“You are such a liar! How do you know Jean-Marc Généreux?”

“I met him at the shopping mall when I was out buying a present for Galoshusses birthday.”

“Speaking of—where is Galoshes?”

“He told me that Benji Schwimmer was his favourite swing dancer, ever, and that $250,000.00 was the least they could offer such amazing amazing talent. And then he went on to praise Nick and Sabra and Joshua—he loves them all—and he said that—”

“You big fat juicy liar! That’s what Jennifer said! Well, she didn’t say amazing—she doesn’t use that word anymore—but the rest of it is practically verb…verb…verb…”

“Baitem.”

“Do you think Galoshes is with Jennifer? The last time we couldn’t find him he was snuggled up against her trying to get food favours again.”

“Salsa?”

“Personally, I prefer the Argentinean tango. Nobody does it like Robert Duvall.”

“Yeah, but they have to do it all—hip hop and crumpet and ballroom and jazz and tap and ballet and lyrical, whatever that means.”

“I think you mean krumping.”

“Oh, that’s right. I forgot. You’re the king of the dancing world. You know all the terms and the styles and the dancers and everything. You’re so good you ought to have signed up for the show three years ago. You could be teaching by now and getting famous. You could be on TV saying things like amazing and you move me and pretending to be Shirley MacLaine.”

“Yeah, because she’s so real.”

“It doesn’t matter anyway. Say what you want about the phoney baloneys—it’s still your favourite summertime show and you know it.”

“I’m hungry. Let’s go find Galoshes.”

Shooby dooby doo

Twit or Tweet?

It's a different world than the one I grew up in. For example, the world I grew up in would have me say, "It's a different world than the one in which up I grew"...reminding me of Winston Churchill, who said, "This is the sort of nonsense up with which I will not put."

But it seems to me that with all of the cybernetic cross-border peering, chatting, exhibitionism, tweeting, friendship seeking, blog divulging (et tu, Brute?), we are losing our boundaries. While in some ways boundary loss might be a good thing (see: Israel), we are altering our societies to such a degree that the planet will soon become—and I see this as deeply unfortunate—unrecognizable.

Yesterday I saw an advertisement for a new television show: Hitched and Ditched, a marriage-themed reality show where, weekly, a couple in a long-term relationship is challenged by a friend to take the plunge and either wed or break up—at the altar. Is it only me, or do the words vapid, appalling, empty, creepy weird, nightmarish and vulgar also enter your head?

Ellen Degeneres, who last week proudly claimed to be leading or close to leading the pack in the twittering community, apparently tweeted, "Oprah just asked me to be on the cover of 'O' magazine!" I find the disingenuousness laughable and maddening, given that Ellen not only ploughed her telephonic way, on international television, into Oprah's studio (at one point menacing one of Winfrey's assistants by saying that Oprah wouldn't be happy knowing that Ellen had been put on hold...God forbid) seems to me to epitomize the worst of this masturbatory frenzy in what appears to be a desperate attempt to become the most popular woman in the world, chumming, at 140 characters per message, with millions of people she doesn't in any real way know. And then what?

Mind you, wasn't this the way Barack Obama, the man who delivers speeches in iambic pentameter, made headway in/to his campaign?

But I digress. Sort of.

My late husband used to say, "We are losing our planet," and the people with whom I am closest don't especially hold out high hopes for the state of things to come. Among ourselves we speak in whispers of an absence of generosity; an imperiousness of our youth that is socio-pathologically frightening; a disruption of familial relationships that is happening faster than the speed of sound; a world where reverence is absent, where teachers fear students and parents their children; where sources are no longer acknowledged or credited, where an easy lie is made more palatable by still-easier lies.

I am, of course, part of a generation and planet that is culpable for many of these changes. I have a blog, and I check to see how many of my pages have been read. I am on Facebook (but only for family and a few former students). I use the Internet as a tool and as a viewing device. I have gossiped in ways that were not enlightening but self-serving. I have given up on pieces of my family that no longer seem to fit. I once in a while tune into the first three minutes of Entertainment Tonight (usually—double whammy—only to gape at the age-inappropriate clothing of Mary Hart). I watch Ellen often enough, and often enough I cry on account of something touching she says or over one of her guests, and in this way I am inconsistent.

But I also have ideas about boundaries, about appropriate and acceptable behaviour, about judging when judging is necessary, about reverence, about crediting, about generosity, about taking it all with me, about kindness, about real inclusivity and not the sort that works one day and not the next. I don't want to live in a feeding frenzy world where I am so busy twit-or-tweet-seeking and time-wasting I haven't made room for what matters: family and friends (the ones I know face to face, heart to heart), education, industry, discussion and active playfulness. I want to maintain equilibrium, which, although it might take me all of my life to achieve, seems to be fundamental to happier living.

And even if I don't feel entirely comfortable saying things such as this is the sort of nonsense up with which I will not put, I want to know the rules; why we need to know how things are supposed to work, and when and what we ought to change. While even Winston Churchill might have cottoned onto tweeting, I imagine he would have done so with a sense of purpose and with an idea of what he could do to help the world, the ways in which he could find balance among boundaries.

I tot I taw a puddy tat! I did taw a puddy tat!

(re-posted from May)

Rooms to Rent

First thing every morning before my eyes are fully open and I am fibbing to myself about going back to bed (I almost never do), I wander into the bathroom and squeeze toothpaste onto my tired toothbrush and carry it into the back room where I sit in my swivel chair and turn on my computer. Half-asleep (or half-awake, depending on my point of view of course) I brush my teeth while I wait for the desktop icons to appear, in the meantime having to hold all that toothpaste in my mouth and hoping it doesn't run down onto my pajama top because, as we all know, toothpaste stains.

Boots the cat, never much farther than two feet from my side, is this morning sitting on the old high-back chair (shared today with the heaterator and a dusty sock. I always intend to put all dirty laundry into the basket the second I take it off, yet somehow this isn't the way things go.) His back is widely arching over the front edge of the seat, his head resting on folded paws, and I wonder how it is he never falls from his precarious perches.

This isn't to say I don't love them all, of course, and to be truthful Sneakers is always close at hand as well -- in the early mornings usually lounging on the discarded pillow that lies beside me on the bedroom floor. Ralph is, also every morning, reliably in the bathtub waiting for a cold drink, and the two black cats, Slippers and Galoshes, can be had at the drop, or rise, of a decibel.

Either Real Player or ITunes, which allow me to play songs I have loved for the long and the short of it, will be turned on. Right now, in fact, Alison Krauss is singing Slumber My Darling (thy mother is near, guarding thy dreams from all terror and fear), and as always when I hear her voice, I am reminded of her gentle, quiet nature, and wonder if those traits are genetic.

On my desk, I see (Romper Stomper...) a glazed coffee mug on which is painted a blue-spotted cat, his paws folded in and pressing gently on a strand of yarn, which, if you follow the thread, wraps itself carefully around the body of a cobalt blue mouse whose tail curls up behind him in a large S shape, all of which leads to a very big ball of blue yarn at the back of the cup. LE CHAT hangs in bold script over the cat's back. I stole the cup from Mary because I wanted something happy in which to house (shades of Winston Churchill?) my favourite pens and pencils and my rubber eraser. Two yellow highlighters sit in there, too, and these I sometimes use when marking student essays.

Next to the cup is a glass rose bowl, given to me by my daughter to replace the one that belonged to my mother (the one that my mother's landlady drove two hours to give me in the middle of a dark autumn night the week after my mother died. Everything else had been taken, and my mother's landlady brought me the rose bowl, a piece of driftwood that Mom and I had found in Nova Scotia when I was thirteen, and a pewter butter dish). That first rose bowl broke about ten years ago when one of the cat's tails flicked a two-inch hole through the side of the glass, and my daughter, knowing its meaning, bought me another. Instead of dried roses (which I used to keep in there until Sneakers showed a penchant for snacking) is a sparkling collection of plastic-encased correction tape; a shiny green pencil sharpener, and a strip of small orange-coloured stickies. The phone is here next to the desk, too (the polished oak desk that Sam Walker made and sold to me for $40.00 because I loved it so much) although I am not as much in favour of the phone as I once was, not since Don died.

Anyway, I'm rambling.

What I am trying to say badly (well, I'm not trying to say it badly, it just is that way) is that I love everything in and about this small room. Three walls are painted a soft sea-blue, the fourth (a built-in bookcase and a closet) a high-gloss white. Within these few square feet are a computer; printer; photo printer (another gift from my daughter); four bookcases; hundreds of books; ten binders, eight of them lessons I have created in the last five years, another of my poetry, one of short stories; a stackful of used, and unused, paper; a copy of my novel, thus far; a Tom Thomson ceramic wall tile; four of Don's printed black-framed poems that hang on the wall; two calendars (Maud Lewis, folk artist, and B. Kliban, crazy cat illustrator); two racks of cds; a black kitty cat clock whose eyes slide side-to-side and whose tail wags; a white kitty cat clock that lights up in splendid iridescence, given to me by my older son; two wooden kitty cats with moveable heads, arms and legs; several toys (the wind-ups include a metallic penguin, a fat-headed baby, and a Mr. Potato Head); a yo-yo; a bowlful of cat toys; a tiny grey beanbag elephant; a wooden horse, painted orange; two red model cars (a Volkswagen Beetle and a Cadillac); a ceramic teapot designed in the shape of a hearth, a black cat gazing at the fire, a clock on the mantel, given to me by Don; a blue-and-white metallic teapot borrowed (okay, stolen) from the Dundee Arms; two cards from Homer, hand-painted, a Jamaican boy and girl, and on the wall behind me an acrylic-and-oil painting created by my favourite artist, Jane, whose work is too intricate and personal to describe. Out in the hallway, from the vantage of this seat, I can also see the faces of three plump-cheeked children -- two boys and a girl; one astonished looking grandchild, and a chubby little girl, age four, holding a bag of chips and smiling shyly into the sun.

I can't even begin (and aren't you lucky?) to talk about the treasures inside the drawers and the closet, or the wonders I see through the back window (the budding trees, the purple irises, the recovering ivy; the old wringer washer; the wooden table and chairs, weathered from winter; the houses behind, rising up to the track line and beyond to the park, where waits the summer-season swimming pool). And returning soon to this room by popular demand and after the final coat of white paint has been applied to the closet and shelf, are Edith and Thomas -- each in their separate fish tanks -- one on the top of the desk, one on the built-in desk that sits under the bookshelf. Along with the music (Oh Yoko...in the middle of the night I call your name...) and email (I see Mary and Diana and Marg and Ray) and writing and books, and all the other sweet paraphernalia, the fish keep me company, swirling and spinning in shimmering gold.

I love this room.

The wheels of my chair squeak over the almost century-old pine floor boards, still unpainted but lovely, as I move my hulky self away from the desk and get up to shower. I am wide awake now, even without the cool water splashing in my face and running in skinny rivulets down my too-wide back.

Trailers for sale or rent, rooms to let fifty cents...

<:^)