What a Wonderful World!

My greatest wonder in life has nothing to do with the mechanics of anything. That is Hub’s department.

What I find wondrous is nature, and life, hopes and dreams. But having lived in the same house with the same man for more than thirty years, beyond a new bend in Hub’s sense of humor, what new could I possibly find to wonder at in my home environment? The mechanics of material things change, which doesn’t impress me, but little else. Still, even at that, unexpected situations arise that tap into my emotions and leave me quite awe-stuck.

Take this morning, for instance.

Hub is in a funk and I am beginning to worry about it. He’s bored. He eats too much and sleeps too much. Seems restless and unable to focus on anything.

Added to that, the weather remains nasty, which doesn’t help. And so I am beginning to fear if the weather doesn’t turn, Hub may not turn either. Back to his normal happy and carefree self.

Still I do my best to try and cheer him, but all to no avail. So there remains little left for me to do except to remain quietly supportive and at the same time more attentive to Hub’s conversations in hopes of finding an opportunity to assist him, in some unexpected way, back to his normal good humor.

And so, for these reasons, I am immediately alert, when Hub says to me at the breakfast table this morning, “Do you know the words to this song?”

I perk up my ears and wait for him to hum a bit of the melody, but all I hear coming from his side of the table is a deep muffled rumble like a slipper tumbling in a clothes dryer. His lips are ever so slightly parted in a duplication of Mona-Lisa’s famous smile, and I can tell he is deeply concentrating while exhaling a soft sound, so I go to his side of the table and bend over and listen. An uncommon thing for me to do, because normally Hub talks and sings, so very loud.

As I bend near his face, I hear a rumbling hum that seems to be coming from inside one of the table legs rather than from him. I bend closer and peer into his eyes and see a look of such intense concentration. A look that leads me to think Hub may have quietly slipped out-of-body. It is a glazed look that tells me he has moved somewhere else—leaving me feeling quite alone. He is not immediately behind his eyes, as he should be. Normally I feel an intimate adjacency to the person behind the eyes, but when I look at him, it is like looking through 140X Binoculars across a great expanse. He seems so very far away.

But, despite that, if I am to render normality here, I must pay attention. I must listen and try to identify the song. And so I listen very carefully to muffled modulations of oblique sound that have spacing and rhythm that is vaguely familiar.

But the tune? There isn’t any. And that sets me wondering what is going on, because Hub, like most people, always attempts to jar my memory with bits of the melody when he wants to remember an old song.

This morning there is no tune. The sound is more like a liturgical chant. There is no melody. But that is not the full extent of the weirdness of the situation. What is even weirder is the sound I hear is, in no way, representative of Hub’s voice. Not his sad voice, his happy voice, his normal voice, or even his silly voice.

It is not Hub’s familiar voice I am hearing. It is another tone, another pitch, another pronunciation, another shade, another frequency. It is simply not Hub’s voice. But yet, there is something strangely familiar in this never-before-seen-or-heard rendition. The pulses of the sound are scattered but not random.

And now I begin to verge on a kind of panic with the dragging and quickening of bass-toned exhales and inhales, and again, I say, without melody. And furthermore, the sound is incredibly soft, because it is as if Hub is forcing from somewhere deep inside a sound outside of his own voice range.

I don’t know what is happening here but my inner gut tells me it must be way more serious than a high fever, a blood clot, or an aneurysm. And the eyes though still and unblinking, remain fixed on me in an imploring stare. Across the huge expanse I referred to earlier.

And then, by God, it suddenly hits me. I know the song! I know the song!

Not from the nature of it, but the mechanics of it. Hub was amazed I did it. But I was far more amazed at how ‘The Lord of the Mechanics of Everything’ (that would be Hub) packaged the clues to a musical piece into nothing more than the mechanics of the piece.

Now that I understand the virtual impossibility of what he was doing, of course his eyes veiled over with such intense concentration. It’s pretty close to miraculous when someone can deliver a memory of a song with little more than vibrations of E.S.P. accompanied by a rhythmic percussion of nothing more than the sound of a slipper tumbling about in a clothes dryer.

Now Hub can carry a tune. He knows if it is right or wrong. But as he told me later, he had completely forgotten the tune. He had forgotten the words as well. He had forgotten the name of the song, and he had forgotten the artist. But what he hadn’t forgotten was that the song was a happy song. That is the memory that led to the twisted Mona-Lisa-smile. And he hadn’t forgotten the timber of the singer’s voice or the rhythm of the song.

Now Hub is not an impersonator in any way, shape, or form. But the voice I heard, that was not Hub’s, but yet was vaguely familiar, was the deep voice, magical and dream-shaped, of Louis Armstrong.

And the song Hub needed to remember was “What a Wonderful World.”
____

Isn’t that totally delightful? When Hub wants that desperately, and needs that desperately to recall a song to sing this early in the morning, and that particularly happy song is the song he wants to sing, my heart is lifted and I know all is well. The weather has cleared despite the dreary skies outside the window, and I know Hub’s funk has flown.

Hub is out in his shop right now singing at the top of his lungs, in tune, and in his own voice with impeccable phrasing…

“I see fields of green, red roses too…”

Garden Rhymes & Nursery Whines

Roberta, Roberta,
From chilly Alberta,
How does your garden grow?

With brush and thrush,
And quiet hush,
And fresh-pressed footprints
In the snow.













(for a bit of extra amusement, try reading the second verse out loud as fast as you can -- not easy is it?)
___

As I told you last post, my garden is seeded. One picture was taken during the snowfall and one after. By way of explanation, beyond the swing, a comfortable swing, that doesn't squeeze my hips or cause hip dysplasia, is my garden, and beyond the garden is the tree stump Hub planted upside down.

We haven't done it yet, but on hot summer days, we plan to drape ourselves in skimpy faux-fur body scarfs and sit under the stump. We will sip jars of cool lemonade and wave to passer-bys. A pretense it would seem of the lives of Fred and Wilma Flintstone.

So now you know. 'Playing cabin' is not the only game we play.

Garden Daze

Flat and fragmented thoughts, which are what most of my thoughts are these days.

Hub cultivated the garden a few days ago. He started parallel to the road and when he got to my row of perennials, shrubs, and rhubarb, he ended up at a serious angle. Then he began urging me to plant it. But when I saw the rows running at such an angle, it wouldn’t do. I asked him to cultivate it again and run the rows parallel to my row of shrubs and perennials. I don’t care if my garden isn’t square with the road, or the world, I just want it to look like it is square within its own perimeters.

So grudgingly he cultivated again, all the time singing at the top of his lungs some made-up jingle about redoing a job that was already done, and why must he do the same labour twice when his rows ‘aren’t nearly as crooked as Brian Mulroney’ (You have to be Canadian to get the joke, or just Google the name and you’ll soon know).

And then of course deeply entrenched in my psyche is the old adage ‘waste not, want not’, which is not always a good thing. So first a neighbour brings me the excess of sprouted garlic that would not fit in his garden. Then another brings me two plastic bags with a bushel of soaked peas in one, and a peck of soaked beans in the other. And I also have all the seeds I purchased a few weeks ago to put in the ground.

Now I had no intention of planting garden yesterday, but what could I do? Soaked seeds generally have to go in the ground within 24 hours of soaking them. And of course, I couldn’t throw them out. Can’t be wasting them. So now I’m planting. Oh yes, I’m planting.

Enough peas and beans to feed a small village. I don’t pick peas, shell peas, or freeze peas. That is way too labour-intensive for me. Not when I can buy a big bag for about three dollars. I only plant a wee row of peas for the education of the Grandchildren. So they know where peas come from and what peas taste like fresh from the vine.

But this year, to fit in all those peas, I have two long double rows. And of course come fall, the Grandchildren will barely be able to make a dent in them and there I will be. On the back porch, like I was when I was a kid, shelling 5-gallon pails of peas for days on end.

But that’s not all, while I’m doing all this I’m thinking I shouldn’t even be planting anything when the soil is too cold to even step on in bare feet. But anyway, everything is in the ground, except the spuds and Hub will help me with them next week.

Now if it doesn’t all freeze - - - - I guess we’ll be doing okay. My neighbour tells me the seeds are deep enough that if they germinate in the next few days, the frost won’t get to them. As for me, I’m not so sure about that. This afternoon there were snowflakes again floating around outside trying to hide from view in a light foggy mist. But I saw them when they settled on Dough-Gee-Dog’s silky black fur.

And so now I’m wondering if the wood ashes I brought from Hub’s cabin cook-stove and sprinkled in the rows of radishes and turnips will stave off the bugs. I don’t know if it will work but it seems like a greener thing to do then using toxic insecticides that are so often years later pulled from the market because of risk to environment and body and blood and DNA.

The Death & Resurrection of Faith #2

(To appreciate this story, you need to read Part 1, before continuing with this conclusion)

Come Take a Portion of Faith – Pt. 2

Now Bible Camp and in particular, The Tabernacle, is a place of revelations where unseen occupants of heaven descend and commune and touch those within. It is a place of revelations through miracles, faith, healing, tongue-speaking, and soul-changing blessings. Normally, that is, but the shavings on the floor have told me a different story.

The adults at Camp assumed they had a monopoly on these messages, visions, and all other forms of heavenly contact. They assumed children were excluded. But that was just not so. I received a message. The message contained within the ‘Parable of the Shavings’. I wanted desperately to tell them ‘my message’ but unfortunately, I had not the courage or opportunity to do so.

And so, I remained silent as the Minister concluded his sermon with an announcement that he had a special surprise for us. And with that, he nodded toward a dim corner at the side of the platform. Shavings rustled softly as a tiny woman moved to the side of the platform and made her way slowly and unsteadily up three steps with an old cane as crooked and bent as she. The crowd applauded with delight at a figure familiar, and so well-known to all of us.

It was Mrs. Rett, with her bright little eyes that always twinkled and her precious mouth that only smiled. Mrs. Rett was a black woman. Black as midnight. But in Bible-Camp circles, she was a camp-celeb – renowned for her grace and goodness, renowned for her unshakable faith. Faith sufficient to part the sea, or move mountains if she chose to. And if the color of her skin made a difference, the only difference was the keen awareness we all had of her special gift of faith and unwavering goodness.

Now this particular day was Mrs. Rett’s ninetieth birthday. And what you need to realize about that is we are talking about a time when life expectancy was probably no more than sixty-four years. And so now the Minister left the podium and Mrs. Rett steadied herself with feet spread and both hands on her cane in front of her.

“Friends, I am soon going to be moving to another place,” she said in a feeble voice, “and I wanted to say a special good-bye to all of you before I left.”

Here the pianist rippled a few soft notes, and Mrs. Rett began to sing.

“Some day the silver chord will break,
And I no more, as now shall sing…”

The chord, if there was one was already broken. And we truly hoped that she ‘no more, as now would sing.’ Her voice was squawky, raspy, pitchy, cracked, and brittle. In a way that made even I, though just a child, feel the embarrassment and concern we so often have when another human being is in a situation that perhaps it would be best for them not to be in. But then Mrs. Rett raised her head towards the orange-colored canvas overhead, where the golden sunlight was filtering through, and continued her song.

“…but oh the joy, when I shall wake,
Within the palace of the King…”

And suddenly the melody was sweet and pure – her voice steady and unwavering. The sound as silken as the smooth warbling of a nightingale. And all the time we saw, in the midnight blackness of her countenance, her bright eyes and warm smile.

“…and I shall see him face-to-face…”

And that is when the most uncanny thing happened. I know others saw it too. Mrs. Rett’s charcoal-colored face suddenly turned silver –as silver as a radiant crystal with an inner glowing light. And those bright eyes were no longer fixed on us. They were fixed on something else that broadened her smile even more.

And that’s when all that I had lost from within my longing, vacant, empty soul, came rushing back with a force that made my knees weaken. I looked around me, and I could feel it in the room. Hope and faith and unwavering belief flooded the tent with a force that loudly rippled the canvas.

And I knew in that moment that everyone in that room, every single solitary person – sinner, agnostic, atheist, or believer, seized hold of a portion of Mrs. Rett’s faith. And in that moment, every one of us had faith that could part seas or move mountains – if that is what we chose to do. I believe at that moment we had enough collective faith to even turn the shavings on the floor into tightly-spliced floorboards.

And so this is where my story concludes. There is nothing more to tell you except that bit which is simply a matter of fact.

Mrs. Rett died a couple months later. And who knows? There may or may not be a heaven, there may or may not be a hell, there may or may not be a God. But if faith can do all it promises to do, of one thing I am certain – whether the foregoing questions are answered ‘yea’ or ‘nay’.

The thing I am certain of (no matter how barren the fact, science, or truth) is that there is one wee mansion with one lone wee occupant straight up, overhead, right up there – beyond the sky!

The Death & Resurrection of Faith #1

The Parable of the Shavings – Pt. 1

Some stories of my childhood defy my ability to tell a story, and this story about the mysticism of faith, is one of them. The story has meaning impoverished by only words. But still, with no other way to tell it, I hope I can find enough inspiration in a long-ago memory to make the meaning of the story transcend the insufficiency of the words.

The story is about Bible Camp – that ritualistic 4 or 8 or 10-step program dedicated to making kids the best they can be. But unlike other self-help programs, I didn’t have to first recognize I had a problem. I didn’t even have to have a problem. My Mother just assumed if I didn’t go, she would have a problem, so every year, I and my siblings, went to Bible Camp.

So now, let us first examine the camp-grounds. The original camp I went to had two granaries connected together that served as a kitchen and dining area. Another granary with too few windows sufficed as the girls’ sleeping dorm. The boys slept in a big tent and church took place in a much larger tent – orange-colored like a circus tent.

The once-circus-tent, now-camp-tent, was referred to as the Tabernacle, and inside were rows of crude wooden benches and at the front a wooden platform. The floor was sod of some sort, heavily layered with fresh, pale-colored, sweet-smelling wood shavings. And it is the wood-shavings I want to talk about, because that is where the story begins.

But first I must tell you that when nothing was going on in the Tabernacle, adults or children were still free to go there. And because, for the time being, the tent served as a church, we were expected while there to be quietly tranquil and reverent as is expected in any church. And so, one day, in the quiet tranquillity of the Tabernacle, I sat alone on a bench waiting for some friends, and quietly scuffling, with my feet, the shavings on the floor.

I had already been at Camp a few days, and of course with all the sermons, songs, and prayers, I was at a new high in my faith. Soul and mind overflowing with self-righteousness and resolve to be more kind, loving, reverent, faithful, and mindful of my spiritual wellness.

But as I examine the shavings on the floor, an obtuse thought came to mind. I find it rather amazing that although the remnants at my feet are the same fiber, the same color, and material, as a solid wooden floor – this is not anything like a solid wooden floor. It is only fragments of the original. Posing in a shameful way as a wooden floor, but not really a wooden floor.

And then that obtuse thought became even more obtuse. I began to wonder if the shavings were translating a message to me? The Bible relates stories of messages from God being relayed through simple things like the sun, a burning bush, tablets of rock, grass-dew and rain. Wood-shavings seem to fit that category, so is there a message for me in those shavings?

But at that moment a crowd arrived and seated themselves for the afternoon service. And, as generally was the case, the service commenced with singing and a few announcements. The singing was nice, but in a weak way. Relative, it seemed, to the shavings on the floor.

Now came the sermon. The minister gave dramatic inflection to every word. His body was animated. His eyes wept tears – of happiness one moment, concerned sadness for souls the next. Somehow, though, I wasn’t getting it. I was still too preoccupied with the shavings on the floor. And despite the Minister’s heroic efforts to make a solid impact on everyone in that place, I was more intent on understanding the translation within the context of the shavings on the floor.

And then came a dark realization. Perhaps the shavings signify a warning from God about my spiritual wellness and the authenticity of Bible Camp instruction. Maybe the counterfeit relationship between shavings and a wood floor is being paralleled here in the form of false spiritual instruction mimicking, in a similar way, something solid, true, and good.

Maybe this sermon, despite the dramatics of the Minister, is nothing more than a counterfeit and blended mix of shards of human-based and Bible-driven thinking, that can never provide solid transport for my soul from present life to an eternal place of refuge.

But how, pray tell, did I end up involved in such obviously complex and convoluted thinking? Truthfully, I cannot believe for one minute that it originated in my nine-year-old brain without heavenly assistance.

And so, that is how the Parable of Shavings formed in my mind, albeit in a more rudimentary way, and as it clarified, my heart and soul felt truly vexed. Hollow and empty of the usual warming convictions that had always come to me in the Tabernacle. And then as the sermon drew to an end, I felt an uneasy chill as a sudden final backwash left my inner spirit devoid of any previous convictions. And with that, a searing sense of abandonment that I expect only an orphan could understand.

I determined to look away from the floor, but by then not even the happy shouts of “Glory! Hallelujah!” or the magical gold wash of color that bathed all of us within those orange canvas walls could shake the impending agnosticism that now heavily bordered on something even more extreme. The “ath----” thing. I’m reluctant to say it, but I’m sure you know what I mean.

NEXT POST is about a broken 'chord' and faith restored.

Word Huggers, Write & Unite - 2.

Taking Back the Words


Okay, let’s see now. Where were we? Oh yes, the blank page. Ways to fill up the blank page.

Last post I stared at my blank page and my blank page stared back. And then we talked about the practical outline followed by first writ and decided that wouldn’t do.

So then today, I tidy up the kitchen in good order for the invisible-visitor-strategy appointment at nine. But at the appointed time my invisible guest doesn’t even show. Foiled again.

Just then the phone rings. It is Middle Daughter (MD). Now I should tell you that right now MD is temporarily off work. She loves to write and has had several small articles published. So right now, although writing time is still compressed by household tasks and child-rearing, she is most anxious to use this time, not to practice the art, but rather to write worthwhile stuff that might lead to more published works.

First she tells me once again, how disappointed she is with another highly publicized book she has read. It has her distressed and her question to me is if she is going to make valuable use of the writing time she has available, what should she write about.

Now, as a Mother, I must have an answer. As a Mother I can’t say I don’t know, although in my mind I haven’t the slightest inkling. But Mothers, no matter how old their children are, must rise to every occasion some way, some how.

As MD expresses her frustration, I scroll through the TV guide with my remote and decide if that is what the public wants, neither her nor I can fill that need with any conviction. Things like action movies without story or plot. Reality TV, yuk. Starlet carryings on – as if. This is not subject matter for our quills (meaning hers or mine).

And then I don’t know whether it is Mother intuition or primeval instinct that kicks a thought into the frontal lobe of my brain. The thought of what happened in my efforts to snag popular books in the last few years. With best-sellers on my list of wanted books, obliging neighbors were on the hunt for them. Friends, and family members too. But what happened every time? I suppose things would have been different if I had passed out written details of title and author but usually I put in my orders in casual conversation by telling them the name of the book and nothing more.

And sure they found books referencing those titles. Scads of books. But all were nothing more than comments, critiques, interpretations, or background discussions of the original books. Occasionally the original book came later. But seems to me like every bestseller had a side book, or two. “The Secret”, “The DaVinci Code”, and some other popular book about a life well-lived or how to live the good life or something like that. Can’t quite remember the title and absolutely don’t know now who the author was/is. But that is what my bookshelves are full of – not the original, but some prefix, affix, suffix, or infix.

I know you know this, but it bares repeating in this discussion. Our tribe is an opinionated lot. I either like something or I don’t. If I really like something I must find words to describe it that will create such an aching longing in a reader, that they will choke up and weep. And if I despise a thing I must find words to create such contempt in a reader, that my words will lend themselves as therapy to their own dismay. Is that not what writing should do? Give the reader an earnest emotional jerk?

So now I know what to tell MD. Rather than write anything original she can interpret, recommend, renounce, or criticize the themes, characters, plots (if there is one) in other books. I think I will do the same. We will write volumes of imaginative interpretations –some realized, some disconnected.

And shouldn’t it then happen that our manuscripts will fit the trend, and be caught up, as it were, in the tail-spin draft of the original book. And when our stuff hits the bookshelves, all those rummager-booksters looking for the latest release sanctified by “Oprah” or “The New York Times”, who find the original too expensive, or out-of-stock, will buy our sidewinders. (I’ve unknowingly bought many of those damnable side-offerings myself, and I’m certain you have too).

We will not separate out too many literal quotes from the book. It won’t be necessary and besides that will create too much risk of plagiarism or copyright infringement. But of course, somewhere on those covers of those sweet-smelling releases, still warm from the printing, there will be a visible reference to the original book, a befriending as it were.

Within the laws of freedom of expression, I believe this strategy will work. And although sharing this thought with others may reduce profit from my own book-royalties, I have too few readers to think the market will be instantly flooded. At the same time, I’m willing to share this idea for important reasons that I will ultimately explain.

In the meantime, another blank sheet will soon be full. Just give me a moment while I retrieve that best-seller from behind the dresser where I threw it with such disdain last night. Then watch me rant.
___
And now my final thought. You think I tell you all these things as just another tongue-in-cheek exaggerated tirade. But there you are wrong. The fact that I shared this revelation with you should make you aware there is something more to what I have just said.

And the ‘more’ there is, in the telling of this, is that I hope to create a solid revolutionary movement – a clan and cult of artful word-lovers. I know from reading your blogs that most of you agree that it is time to take back ‘the literature’ – to return it to its rightful place. Because you know, as I also do, that good literature is closer to extinction than clean water, unsullied landscapes, or chemical-free habitats in our physical world.

Besides, the water, air, etc. are in good hands. Al Gore is looking after that. Meanwhile it is up to us, the wanna-be Shakespeares’, Chaucers’, Austens’ and Brontes’ to write with might so we can take back the words, the phrasing, the emotion, and the pleasantness of a really good read.

Writer’s, fight and unite!
Blank pages are no longer in vogue!

Word-Huggers, Write & Unite - 1.

How do I write? Let me count the ways?

Oh Yeh! Oh sure! Here it is again. Like so many days. That blank page staring at me, ogling me as it were with its featureless, expressionless, poker-faced, sterile-inducing stare. Insisting I must write and it will be so inexcusable if I don’t.

But what? What will I write?

And so with mind as blank as the page confronting me, I review those propositions that induce others to write.

There are the literary rules of the basic approach. That starts with an outline followed by elaboration in each paragraph. Wonderful in theory: but for me, it never works.

I can only write the paper first and create the outline later. Cause, honest to God, when I try to do the outline first, I lose the conviction needed to write the paper and completely forget what I originally (and cleverly) planned to say for the sake of emotional impact.

Of course, I never let my language-arts teachers know that the writing preceded the outline. There was no point because all of my teachers were too entrenched in the ‘proper way of doing it’ to accept that some writers are too endowed with creativity and imagination to write emotionless stuff.

So now, for the sake of clarity, please allow me to call myself “a writer”. And so, my theory is, if writers don’t laugh or weep while doing the writing or a reading review, neither will anyone else. So if there are anomalies to be considered, that is the kind of anomaly I am.

I have not the ability to simply write a paper that adheres to literary mechanics for the sake of nothing more than a passing grade or another blog posting. That would produce something frightfully foul-written. Writing so foul-written that I promise you it would pain both writer and reader’s artful senses as deeply as auditory senses ripped by a three-hour-violin-solo with a resin-less bow.

But sometimes without an internal level of emotion to work with, writers still need to write. On those days, when shallow convictions are all one has to work with, I pretend I am having coffee with a guest as blank and staring and faceless as a fresh sheet of paper. And as we converse, with he or she being so shy, quiet, and introverted, I convert to paper what is said. The finished work sounds like ‘sermonizing’ and I guess it is, having flowed from a rather one-sided conversation.

____

But now I have a totally new writing mandate/prompt that I will tell you about in my next post.

Nibbling Mushrooms

I don’t know how old I was when I first read ‘Alice in Wonderland’ but I do know it was only a very few chapters later, when I decided it was a truly silly book. It was too much fiction. Radical fiction. There was just too much nibbling, growing, shrinking, and magical change of venue without adequate movement or explanation.

But then, just the other day, I recalled some rather delightful poetry and word-plays in the book, and the story-teller, word-lover side of me prompted me to re-read the book. It occurred to me that obviously in that first reading, I must have missed something critical, because surely with the staying power of the story over so many years, there must be gems hidden there that sailed well over my head with my first reading.

And so, once again, so many years later, I began re-reading one of the silliest stories I have ever read. And that is when I discovered Marc Edmund Jones’ interpretations of the original book.


The interpretations are wildly imaginative, but imaginative as they are, I find I am in solid agreement with some of the concepts within Marc Jones’ interpretations. And so I want to share with you, extrapolations of what I read.

_______

A few of us live totally balanced lives. The rest of us have an intelligence and nonsense imbalance in our existence. I know I do, and if you read my blog, you also know I do.

Now Mr. Jones conceptualizes that society assumes that greater intelligence equals super-human entities, and lesser intelligence equals sub-human entities. But with none of us truly aware of who we are and why we are here, or even by what authority we should define 'intelligence', can such an assumption be accurately made? Particularly without the carefully conducted research to prove it is so?

Jones further suggests that we have bought into the assumption of who are the super-humans, because the academics say it is so. That leaves him wondering, in his own peculiar way, and I in my own way, how academics have determined without proper research that they have the best of redeeming qualities for the good-life.

Maybe in the context of life superbly lived and quality attained, simpler minds hold the ultimate redeeming qualities. Perhaps if we nibble on enough mushrooms to grow monstrous in our thinking we might come to a different conclusion. And if we keep on nibbling, perhaps we can expand the growth of our thinking enough to avoid the restrictions of material thinking. And perhaps we can even go beyond that to growth so exaggerated that all we can see is the broader spectrum of cosmic dust, evolution of matter, birth, life, death, and ultimately the affluent anti-matter of decay. Do you think then we might reach quite different conclusions about the ‘quality controls’ of lives well-lived?

It’s rather small thinking, it seems to me, that would have us assume that stuffing one’s head with facts about the earth’s radius, distance from earth to sun, speed of light, and factors of compression and decompression are truly conducive to excellence of life and all the apertures thereof. Particularly if the fact is that the excellence of quality we are discussing is more dependent on the simplicity of the beauty of a bird song, a sunset, or a stretch of sand and ocean.

____

More discussion later? Shall we?

Fresh Air and Sunshine

How much is too much fresh air and sunshine (FA&S)? At what level does it exceed the saturation point? Surely all things, including FA&S, for the sake of a reasonably balanced existence, should be done in moderation.

But my life has been one of excess. With all the times, as a child, that I was kicked out of classroom or house for FA&S, I think I’ve had my quota.

I still remember being shooed out of the school during recess or noon hour for FA&S. But even more vividly, I remember the emotional feeling of ultimate and indescribable rejection that this act produced. It reminded me, at a point when I was just starting to feel a calming security in place and time, that my school was not ‘my school’, my classroom was not ‘my classroom’ and my desk was not ‘my desk’. A sensation that left me feeling weakened and undermined.

And, at home, the same story. So many times, when the house felt warm, comfortable, and cozy; in fact most often when floors were fresh-waxed and the house smelled of lemon-oil and baking. And when all I wanted to do was curl up with a good book in a comfy chair, and revel in it all—my Mother would eject me from the house. On with mitts and toque and coat to get outside for some damnable FA&S.

And then later, when I eventually married, now I had to contend with Hub. He, too, was forever at it. Winter, or summer.

“Roberta, you need more FA&S. If I was pale of countenance, that’s what I needed. If I was tired or weak-kneed, that’s what I needed. If I was impatient, that’s what I needed. And even when I was too silly, too carefree, that was still what I needed.

So year in, and year out, I’ve heard it spring, fall, summer, and winter. The damnable push from almost every living contact in my life for more FA&S.

Still, I’ve remained quiet and good-natured (and obliging as well) about it. But this week was too much. My good nature had a melt down.

Earlier this week a neighbor came for coffee. And didn’t he have the audacity to tell me I need more FA&S? I bit my lip but that is when the melt-down began.

And then two days later, another neighbor, began ranting like a lunatic about warm temps and sunshine, and having finished her lengthy prelude, wound it up by saying to me, “Roberta, aren’t go going outside today to get some FA&S?”

That’s when the complete melt-down happened.

“Yes,” I said, “I am going to do that. But I’m also going to put a clothespin on my nose, and a dark tarp on my head, because although I enjoy being outside, the very last thing I need is more FA&S!”

March ids, Ides, Odes, & Hares

March, I do hope you will leave soon. I know you think you’re pretty damn popular sporting the first day of Spring – that priceless accessory that we all so ardently pray and long for. But you, March, might as well know how I really feel about you. I’ve held back way too long. To begin with you are not popular. I disdain the sight of you and so do most of my friends.

You think history has ingratiated you with glory of id, and ides, and odes, but that is a bunch of malarky. You have been too ugly, too often, for any of us to ever again see any appeal in your nature and manner.

Too often we’ve been bewitched by the mirages you flutter on the distant landscape of crocus buds and silky green fronds, only to find it nothing more than a false display. Yet, believing it might be true, when we rush to your sunny and shimmering display, you whip about and wield another incoming surf of winter horrors upon us compacted fifty-fold.

I try to make room, excuses as it were, for those who have your kind of deficiency. But there have been too many Marches like this in my lifetime to continue to be so forgiving. For me you have crossed the line. I’m ripping you right out of the calendar and I don’t want to ever see you again.

If you are so popular as you think, how come there is so little prose or poetry dedicated to your honor? No odes or eulogies glorifying your kindness or charitable nature. No March-Day trees, no 1st of March parades, no March balloon and fireworks celebrations, and no March 21st carols or hymns of joy. But then, I guess the truth is, March gets what March deserves.

You are mad, mad, totally mad. The pre-cursor of one figurative individual – The March Hare. Even he was a nice sophisticated little fellow with a gold watch and distinguished manners until you showed up at Alice and Company’s tea party and drove him and all the other guests to such distraction that they were soon speaking utter nonsense. And amusing themselves by trying to shove a helpless little dormouse into a tea-pot. If it had been me I’d have tarred you in the treacle pot, rolled you in feathers, and sent you on your way.

And on top of that you pretend that if you come in like a lion, you will leave as a lamb. That’s just more of your bloody nonsense. The antithesis of the lion and the lamb has nothing to your entry and departure. It has only to do with your inconsistency, willful confusion, and utter madness for the entire month, from start to finish. You do the lion and lamb thing every day for the 31 days of March with even the first day of Spring treated in that same sacrilegious manner.

This year you rained down sadness and grief that was way beyond reason. When your plans failed – the plans you made to spear individuals from overhead with those sharp silvery daggers that you precariously hung from every suspended-over-head plane, you still remained bent on causing the extreme of heartache and confusion and madness that you take such delight in.

When Shakespeare said, “Beware the Ides of March”, I’m quite certain he would have said more, but you are too ugly to fit into sophisticated prose or poetry or pentameter. ‘Ides’ is pluralized, while one day – the 15th, is singular. So seems something has been lost in the translation. Knowing you as I do, ‘Ides’ refers to more than one day. It refers to any March day, hour, minute, or any other fuzzy or foggy prospect of time between midnight on the last day of February and midnight on March 31st.

Weeks of your craziness have come and gone, but you are not done yet. I still hear in the barren branches outside my window, the evil cackling craziness of your wind song. Funereal with pitchy, screaming, notes that drive me to cover my head with blankets to muffle the sound.

Physically, you are a drag. No, not just a drag, a true hardship. And mentally, you are a lethal dose to counteract the gentlest of positive emotions. You grind optimism into icy patches under drain pipes, and buffet good cheer with gales of chilly rejection.

I cannot say it enough.

“Be off with you, March before I kick your id, and ides, and odes, and callus a-- into the middle of the next century!”

An Exercise in Exercise

I’m so fed up with the constant drone of the message of good health through regular exercise. It’s a theory I remain skeptical about. And with my love of freedom, I have objections to an oppressive exercise regime that forces me to hand over lengthy irretrievable chunks of my lifetime to the most undesirable of activities.

‘Living longer and stronger’ is a questionable theory at best, if one considers the balance of input and output. It seems likely to me that if the accumulated drill time were mathematically tallied and subtracted from a fixed lifetime, the remaining ‘living time’ is more likely to be less than the foreshortened life of a couch-potato.

If quality of life means anything, wouldn’t it be better if more time could be carved out of a yet-undetermined-life-span for more pleasant indulgences? Like a cozy nap, a good book, idle thoughts, twiddling my thumbs, or basking in the sun? Shouldn’t I give preeminence to that, rather than to ripping great raw and ritual chunks of my one and only life-span to the long walk, the long jog, the long drill, and the long grind at the gym with tread-mill and bench-press?

I’ve often contemplated this kind of debate about gain or loss. But now I can finally sit up, clap my hands with glee, and wiggle my toes with delight. My good cheer today is a consequence of a report on Health News that the latest study has proven that compressed exercise can be every bit as beneficial as the extended sessions previously recommended.

So how elated was I to find that this new study suggests that equal benefits can be achieved with only 3 minutes of brisk exercise twice a week? How sweet to know that there is a way to sidestep the time-consuming exercises of the past that gluttonously devoured huge blocks of valuable and irreplaceable present-time existence.

The one drawback is that with the new condensed approach to exercise, there is a warning. The warning is that very few individuals will have sufficient zeal to get blood vessels flowing and heart pumping with the vigor needed to achieve the desired effect.

Still, it’s a warning that doesn’t apply to me. I examined my life style and found I fully meet the strait-laced and unbending requirements of the 3-minute program. I have vigor. I have zeal. In fact my routines go far beyond that requirement.

So now let me tell you how my personal program works.

Starting first thing every day there is the intense frolic of pulling myself out of bed including the repeated rocking to get a leg on the floor and my body off the bed. And then, combined with that, the effort to recover a wayward sock that slithered under the bed. An effort with such extreme stretch and intensity it gridlocks my neck in the search (oh pain!), but eventually the sock is retrieved. But now my bones are locked in a low crawl position and upright stance can only be achieved with as much effort as it would take a walrus to scale a telephone pole.

And so, when I eventually right myself, we move on to calisthenics with even greater intensity. Now, rather than sitting on the bed or bracing myself against wall, bed, or dresser, as I used to do, I dress free-standing in the middle of the room. Obviously dressing from the waist down is most challenging – i.e. underpants, socks, jeans—but I keep my balance, on one leg at a time, with a fast flailing dance imitative in every respect of keeping one’s balance in a slip-dance on keen ice. It can’t get more intense than that.

So you see, I haven’t even had morning coffee yet, but my exercise program is vigorous enough that I can cancel, guilt-free, gym visits or road jogs. The process may have swiped 20 minutes from my free-living time, rather than the optimum 3 minutes, but at the same time, I am well-ahead of the exercise game for this week, this month, this year.

And yes, I am exhausted and as breathless as I should be. All my muscles have been stretched, all blood-paths rushed, heart palpitated, and all cells oxygenated. And now I’m so ready for the couch.

An Open Letter to Anti-Bloggers

Dear Anti-Blogger,

March 17 is my 6-year Bloggiversary and with that I decided it was time to let you know how things stand with me.

I guess my first mistake was when I admitted that I blog. You said, “Get a life. Get out of the house. Make some new friends, find some new contacts, or join a club.”

“Come with me,” you said, but what you didn’t say (but still I knew), was you wanted me to compulsively, and almost daily embed myself in clusters of animated individuals.”

And I imagined you might be right. So for three weeks I engaged in dinners, dancing, and your other social events with their ribald conversations and compulsory social rites that accompany the ornamental membership that insulates your life from mine.

Together we whirled and twirled. Out and about. But despite the excellent food, the delightful bouquet of the wine, the brocade cloth, set against symphonic background music, and tables set with fork number one, and fork number two, and fork number three, all seem linked to a gloomy insincerity. I mean, maybe it’s just me, but I find it just a bit unsettling when forks have to line up and vie for time and an appointment?

I find that somewhat representative of the mockery of real life – where society is so bent on individual rights in a world of cloned disposition, designation, and duplication. Despite these thoughts, I remained silent. I promised myself I would not wound your intentions, though you didn’t hesitate to wound mine.

“It’s an ego-thing,” you said, “that blogging business. Like busking on the corner. ‘Look at me! I’m here! Listen to my song and dance and then drop a comment or two into the bucket.’ ”

Okay, okay. I can’t deny that, because that part of it, I’m not too sure about. Maybe that is the case.

But there is more, and for me to explain to you would be asking you to recognize the improbable. How can I defend my position by saying that here I form alliances with individuals for whom I have immense fondness? If I said that, you would laugh, roll your eyes, and say that I either lie or exaggerate.

How can I expect you to absorb my conviction that there is preciseness to be found in my Blog-World of totally diverse, yet collective intelligence? And brightness to each day gleaned from complexity made simple and simplicity made complex?

That here I see stunning world champions of Beauty and Brawn embellished with nothing more than the glow of ideas. Or sincerity in oblique convictions cast from another side of the seas of life. Though separated by vast geographical distances, we express closeted thoughts and analyze only those bits of interchange conveyed by words. But as limited as our exchange is, it is enough to know who is of sound judgment, sweet heart, and sober thought.

Relationships here are not based on superficial visual-perceptions of worthiness that trick us into forming new relationships that progress at such a reckless pace. Relationships formed in one day, fast-ripening by next week, and showing bits of rot and deterioration in three months.

Bloggers form alliances at a much slower rate. But in the end they are relationships that cause us to be touched, ambitious, and mindful of each other in special ways. I know you can’t understand it, but in the end we are linked as soundly by mirror-matter of the soul as gregarious and indiscriminate individuals in real life are linked by hot-spots of the flesh.

So frolic in your pulsing, steaming, social immersions of breath and body, while I frolic with equal delight with dear friends in the rapid transit of word, and phrase—essay, poetry, and composition—letters, quotes, punctuation.

(Written in honor of Blogger Friends who visit, cheer, and comment-comfort me.)

Another Stimulus Package

The only thing missing amidst all the bickering about an economic stimulus package is creative thinking and common sense. So I will give you the ‘creative thinking’ and leave the ‘common sense’ to someone else.

Now first of all the carry on makes me wonder if Canada and America have never known hard times in the past. But I know better. There were the dirty thirties (which I missed out on) but times were tough when I was a kid as well. And one could hardly call the two large cartons of tinned meat of questionable origin that the government handed out a stimulus package. Still it was much appreciated and as we ate sandwiches we had time to ponder how to salvage the house my Dad built after the fire, from foreclosure.

We attacked the problem by ‘clustering or bunching up’. That, of course, was before privacy became a big deal and cocooning came into vogue. And before lawmaking erupted from government hill like an overactive volcano, melting and crushing the natural God-given empowerment of mankind’s own initiative and instinct to survive.

So long ago, before government legislation forgave us any responsibility for our own difficulties, homeowners falling behind on mortgages, cleared out the small space under their stairwell, where they installed a cot and advertised for a boarder. Others cleaned out basements or attics and rented them out.

This was the initiative of so many for a solution during depressed times. But you see, this was a time when more thought was given to practical needs that the thought of privacy. This was not a time of luxuries. Luxuries were not in season. And privacy was a luxury.

Returning to my father’s situation, he decided he would find a renter. And that is exactly what he did. He cleared out a corner upstairs in the boys’ attic-room and an old fellow who needed a place to live, moved in. Later, when the old guy died or moved out (can’t remember now), and the elder boys went to work, my father partitioned a corner of the living room for the youngest boy’s bedroom and made an upstairs suite that my eldest sister and her family occupied. Our living space was reduced and some of these quarters were quite cramped but the bit of rent was enough of an added ‘stimulus’ to keep afloat.

Others of our country-neighbors created small additions to house elderly parents, not so much to prevent the pains of separation, but because the small pensions their elders received served in like manner to stimulate their household economy.

Even before Hub and I owned a home and lived in rental quarters we often ended up with boarders of our own bunking on the couch. The sub-letting gave us a few more dollars that were sorely needed. And yes, there were annoyances and grievances that occasionally stemmed from this kind of clustering, but if nothing else, it was a great lesson in patience and tolerance.

So now I shake my head in dismay at stimulus packages being handed out so two people can retain a house with enough space and enough rooms to easily accommodate 30 people. In my math books, 30 (no. of people) x $1000 (conservative rent) = a monthly stimulus/mortgage assist of $30,000.

Unfortunately, although this looks so good on paper, we can’t go back there. Most practical reason we can’t is because legislation prevents home-owners from inspecting renter’s space without permission. And legislation prevents them from evicting the slovenly, dysfunctional, or irresponsible. And legislation defines a thousand other considerations to do with fire escapes, privates entrances, window dimensions, etc. that impedes such considerations.

The despair of it all is that there are virtually no responsibilities left up to the discretion of individuals. No affirmation by government that people are born with a drop of sense. And without that affirmation, is it any wonder individuals and business owners find themselves in Economic Sinkholes?

And so the ‘community cooperation’ that once saved us from ourselves, that kept us in the know as to what others were doing, has been burned on the altar of ‘our right to privacy’. The new order is, ‘I don’t care what others are doing that is cruel, vicious, or evil, as long as what they do does not impact on me and my right to privacy'.

And so suspended in our private space, not only are homes repossessed, but without omnipresent landlords, dysfunctional behavior can easily hide and we are not aware until too late that sickos are putting bodies in freezers and children are missing.

And so, for reasons of privacy protection (with a strong foothold that only continues to strengthen), we can never return to clustering. How can we when we know nothing of the character of people that walk down the front walk every day for years on end?
___

In conclusion, I am reminded of a thought expressed by someone, somewhere, that the greenest of green is being able to live with what one has rather than what one wants. That’s how people turned red to green (monetarily, and even environmentally) the last time hard times hit.

Happenings and Consequences

I’ve never given a lot of thought to positive or negative mind control, except for some loosely-knit and conflicting notions in a dusty corner of my mind.

In a bland-thinking way, I’ve always thought that ‘if’ faith-healing happens, a part of that happening is the placebo of positive thought. Yet alternatively (though some doctors are avid proponents of positive thinking), I dispel the belief that patients can fight physical illness with positive thinking. Agreed, it is beneficial, but only as an add-on to medical cures.

Unfortunately, what the doctor-proponents of this belief fail to say is how many of the cases cured by positive thought are psychosomatic, and how many are not. But here the discussion becomes an enigma because patients don’t know, and doctors cannot say with any certainty, which illnesses stem from the mind and which stem from the body. It is no different than the argument about which came first – the chicken, or the egg? Did a distressed mind initially lead to the disease, or did the disease precede the distressed mind?

I’ll agree it is beneficial to be positive but I’m not convinced that one can create an imaginary army of warriors that can fight, without medical assistance, arthritic pain, a killer toothache, stomach flu, or even more serious problems. If that were true, it would make us all way too responsible for how we feel for me to accept it. (Especially since every one else has psychosomatic ailments, but not me!). Besides which, with my wild thinking, the imaginative cure would give me a bloody unfair advantage over others who only deal in reality.

This discussion is going somewhere, I’m just not sure where. But that last thought brings something else to mind that I must tell you. And that is how much I hate that old saying, ‘that everything happens for a reason.’ I just can’t swallow it. Or even understand the reasoning in it. I can accept that ‘some things happen for a reason’ but not ‘everything’.

I have seen too many innocent children and kindly adults go through horrors that are way beyond any reason. Maybe I misinterpret the saying, but to me this phrase, in plainer language, says, ‘Everyone gets what they deserve.’ And if that means bad acts get bad consequences, I’m okay with that, but if it means that bad consequences are a result of reasonable actions because down the road the whole matter will be reversed in a beneficial way, I have a serious problem with that. How much pain must one endure while they are waiting, within a limited lifetime, for the next flip flop?

I don’t know if you can make a bit of sense out of what I just said, but nevertheless we continue.

As for me, I don’t do astrology, and I am not superstitious. Although again, I guess I am – in a bland-thinking sort of way. So often bloggers are in a similar state of yen that I can only chalk up the similarity to the positioning of stars and planets.

Climate can not cause the phenomena, because of the variations throughout the globe. Calendar time has to be dismissed as a possible link if there is no direct influence at the time of a widely celebrated holiday. So what’s left to cause this duplication of mood and thinking, except ocean tides and planets? So I guess, in an oblique way, I do delve in astrology.

And I insist I am not superstitious. I do not walk around ladders, I don’t give black cats a thought or broken mirrors, but I do have an uneasy moment every time I check the calendar and find Friday, the 13th staring me in the face. I don’t become quivery or panicky, but you won’t find me on an airplane, or a long road trip that day, when I have 364 other days to choose from.

Now this prologue, I felt was necessary, before I say what I really wanted to say today which is very brief. I wanted to say it to you yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that. I wanted to say it last week, last month, last year and the year before that. I wanted to say it this morning, this afternoon, this evening. It seems like forever I have felt the retching need to say it like a nasty vomiting urge, but I refused to say it. And I guess, truth is, I couldn’t say it because of positive-thinking reasons, astrological reasons, and superstitious reasons.

I just think by saying it, acknowledging it, I will make it chronic and give it everlasting life. I am leery to say it and that leeriness is somehow tied indirectly to all that I have just told you. To say it erases whatever good comes from positive thinking. To say it is to acknowledge that I am superstitious and have some kind of foolish superstitious-thinking connected to the admission.

But I don’t care. I bloody don’t care. Today I will bloody out with it. I can hold it back no longer. I just can’t.

What I’ve so wanted to tell you is…“I am tired.” Not physically unwell, just really tired.

And if this is happening for a reason, as in ‘everything happens for a reason’, then I have a problem with that as well. The obvious reason is I am getting old. The ‘happening’ is ‘tired’. The ‘reason’ is ‘old’.

So now, for the people that accept this phrase and use this phrase and believe in this phrase, is not your devotion to the phrase connected to a comfort that you draw from it? Is that not true? Well, for me there is nothing comforting about it.

Man, why did I do this? Now tomorrow I’ll be way more tired than I am today.

Discovery No. 2

So now we come to Discovery No. 2.

Now I have two lovely easels and paints in every corner of this house – watercolors, acrylics, water soluble crayons, oils, and I am so ashamed to say, I haven’t touched them for eons. I used to paint with acrylics when the kids were babes but since then I’ve painted nothing except walls and ceilings and window-frames.

It’s been so long but nevertheless I want to paint something really nice without wasting my lovely acrylics and oils. So I guess watercolors are the best thing to use for my halting re-entry into artistic endeavors even though acrylics are the medium I am most comfortable with.

Still, after such a long hiatus, I know there is going to be too much paint wasted in the process so I will reserve my acrylics and oils for the works of perfection that will eventually follow. That does make sense, doesn’t it?

Now my watercolor Guide Book tells me the paper needs to be wet and then stuck taut to a surface so that when it dries it will not wrinkle. That’s very cute, isn’t it? Just how does one stick a sloppy wet piece of paper to anything?

It ain’t gonna’ happen. And in the past, when I’ve tried it, the paper still dried as wrinkled as a fried overshoe. In fact, even in art shows, the experts must be having problems because too often beyond the frame and the glass is a wavy piece of warped paper. The process obviously isn’t working that well for others either.

So we will have to find a new approach.
_____
And in pondering that new approach, I find myself thinking about the container of bum wipes Eldest Daughter left here last time her and wee Grandson came a callin’.

They are wet. Wet enough for water colors to blend and flow and smudge and make wonderful magical nuances of color that are so unexpected. And I have a strong suspicion that when those bum wipes dry, they will dry flat without taping or pressing or anything else for that matter. So in 2 seconds flat, I paint a test piece.

And Voila! How amazing is that? We have another new discovery!



The painting is no Vincent van Gogh, but still it’s a start.

All I need now is some bigger bum wipes – something like 16 x 34 inches. So I can do a big painting—a painting with undeniable presence.
______


Oh how long it takes me to discover these things? And the reason it took me so long is because I was trained to do things the ‘proper way’. In my youth I tried way too hard to do things according to the rules. So many times I could have moved on but I stopped because I felt compelled to do everything the way others did it. You know – the way it is supposed to be done.

But no more! And I love, love, love, this unexpected freedom to do things without the slightest concern about how others do them or if I am doing them right.

Discovery No. 1

This has been a week of discoveries. But rather than rant on much too long, I will simply offer you one at a time. So here is my story of Discovery # 1.

This morning, after breakfast, I was putting photos into albums when I found some old negatives and after hopelessly trying to make out the images stored on them, I headed for the trash can.

“Why should I keep these? Someday soon, very soon, I won’t be able to get reprints even if I want to. In fact, that might be the case, already.”

But, as is so often the case, when I get to the trash can, I am forced to halt and reconsider. Maybe not? So I took the negatives back to the kitchen table and spread them out to consider once more if I should stash them or trash them.

Now it just so happens, that as I contemplated the matter, I remembered a little monocle-mini viewer that is more than 50 years old originally intended for viewing slides without a table-top projector. I dug it out. In the box, along with the viewer, were a few old slides mounted in cardboard, so using one as a template, I made a similar frame that I could insert my negatives into.


Then one at a time, with the viewer held up to a sunny window (no batteries or internal light is this piece of plastic), I inserted my negatives into the viewer.

Now I was able to make out the picture details and found several negatives that I should have copies of, but don’t.

Then I got a notion to take my digital camera and apply the lense of it to the eyepiece of the viewer and see if I could take a picture. The picture was clear, but what good is a picture with inverted colors? But I’ll still not trash those pictures. Instead I transferred my digital recreations of the negatives to a Photo Program on the computer and commanded it to ‘invert’ the image.

Voila! The pictures were instantly transformed into images of quality. I printed them off on glossy photo paper and I was amazed. Indeed I was! How amazing is that? Right here in my own space, I can develop negatives into prints without trays, dark rooms, or whatever kind of slop that photographers use. How great is that?




P.S. I thought Hub's cabin was pretty rustic, but obviously it's pretty posh compared to this one.

Still A Valentine's Hit!

The other day we made a trip even more dreaded, than the dreaded trip to town. We did the long haul. A trip to the city!

Now part of my dismay in making long car trips is the discomfort of sitting on the low seats in the car. My knees and legs cramp, my back aches, my hip complains, and then for days thereafter all these body parts sustain sympathy pains that lead to chronic discomfort for a long time.

But that’s not all. When we hit the road for a long haul, Hub drives at a ruthless speed while I grip the arm-rests in the car, and hang on for dear life. Complaining diplomatically or non-diplomatically is of no help. Hub sets in his mind an agenda of arrival and departure that he MUST meet, or beat (which is even so much better).

But I have discovered one thing. The only cure is distraction. If I can manage to distract him with a provocative story that baits his interest, he eases up on the gas feed.

So on the way to the big city, as we blew in and out of the small communities and towns along the way, I could not help but notice the overflow in shop windows of Valentine goods. Chocolates, flowers, lace hearts, bandit bears, satin negligees, etc. And in shop windows, and on sandwich-boards and bill-boards, bold-lettered reminders for Valentine suppers, dances, and suggestions for honoring the day.

Unable to find subject matter for a story that could grip Hub’s attention, I was close to tears with fear at the incredible speed that we were traveling on the open highway. When the car went into a skid on an icy corner, I felt such panic I was now grasping at straws.

At this point I lightly touched Hub’s arm and said, “Listen to me, Hub. I’m going to only say this once, and you best be paying attention.”

So now I’ve got his attention and quick, quick, I must say something that will distract him from the foot-feed. Then with no forethought, out of my mouth came this clumsy verse:

“You can forget my Birthday,
And I won’t give a twit
You can ignore me at Christmas,
I’ll not get in a snit,
Our Anniversaries - forgotten,
I don’t give a rip,
But Valentine’s Day
I NEED to know…
I’m (still) a HIT!”

That wee bit worked like a magic chant. Hub eased up on the gas immediately.

Suddenly we slowed to a reasonable speed and for once in my lifetime I didn’t have to tell a long story of excitement and daring equal to a Clint Eastwood Movie for him to continue down the road at a slower pace.

As for me, my mind went from terror to relieved confidence in his driving as we continued our trip with him driving like a senior should drive – smoothly, cautiously, carefully – contemplating with fascination, no doubt, the provocation of what I had just said. Road noise diminished and all I could hear now was the slow grate of wheels turning in his head.

______

And what did Hub give his Valentine? A pair of lovely new hiking boots! Guess I’m still a HIT!

Truth or Fiction

In the past, we’ve pretty well covered it all. Why we blog, when we blog, how we blog. We’ve discussed the inner therapy of a sad rant, and the external therapy of a glad rant. But, what we haven’t discussed is truth vs. fiction.

Now, three years ago, maybe more, I was addicted to a blog. I don’t know how many fans that blog had, but with the amount of daily comments it received, it was a huge crowd.

As for me, I started reading it with reluctance but soon the writer and I started to gel. She seduced me into seeing through my conservative eyes the realities of her much more liberal mind. And with each subsequent reading, I began to feel things I hadn’t expected to feel. Strong sentiments of pity, love, and understanding, even though her lifestyle was abhorrent to me.

But then came that unforgettable day when it was revealed the blog was a game of pretend. And with that, it was also revealed that she was a ‘he’. And so, although that didn't diminish the value of an expertly cloned reality, readers went bizerk. They berated the author mercilessly. They stubbornly refused to read more. The comments were angry and bitter. And in real life, if ready access could have been achieved, I’m certain the throng would have stoned the author in the marketplace.

And so the author moved to a new site with a masculine identity. ‘He’ continued to tell real-life-sounding stories that made the best of the English Classics seem like shambling prose. But despite all that, his readership bottomed out.

I couldn’t understand it. To me it mattered no more to the beauty and soul of the author than it mattered to me (when I was a child), that a man named Dodgson wrote “Alice in Wonderland”, rather than Lewis Carroll.
______

Now you don’t have to read much of my blog to know that I generally write true-to-life stuff seasoned with internalized and imaginative thoughts. So I assume my two readers expect to find a continuation of that kind of truth here, rather than fiction. Having said that, I will now disclose what prompted this rant.

In my most recent post “Match-Holders and Candy”, I cloned fact-filled reality and then, when I had the reader’s attention, I eventually ‘fessed up that it was a mere dream.

So, in light of that and all I have just told you, what’s your perspective on truth vs. fiction? At the conclusion of my rant, did you feel like a stoning in the marketplace? Or, at the very least, did you want to do as Dick suggested one should do with discourteous store clerks…

“…Seize the oaf [that would be me]by the collar, pull him [her] over the counter top and back through the door then insert him [her] head down into whatever containers there might be outside - water-butt, trash can, feed tub…”, etc.

Match-Holders and Candy

When outfitting a rustic cabin, it is important that everything be representative of those earlier memories of coal-oil lamps, wood stoves, and rag-braided rugs.

And when that cabin is only 12’ x 16’, it becomes equally important to concentrate on a simple décor to keep the walls from closing in. So I am really glad I had that old futon in the basement that so beautifully replicates an old Winnipeg couch. And I am really glad we have a lovely old wood stove. I am also glad we have a small table and simple chairs.

So the cabin is cozy and comfortable, and surprisingly roomy. A lovely place to light a fire and have a cozy nap.

But I still think about other things that are missing. And what I think about most often is the little tin match holder that hung near the stove when I was the kid. Other things on the walls were rotated. Stained pictures pulled down and replaced. Calendars recycled that marked the passing of time. But the little match-holder stayed and stayed – for a lifetime. And so, often when I am in the cabin, I think about how much I need a little tin match-holder.

But then, low and behold, I was in a hardware store and what did I find? A little metal match-box holder. It was a small plate glazed with blue and white enamel like old tin cups used to be. A rectanguler match-box holder of the same material was secured in the middle. And on that, was the upper half of a little tin-man, crudely painted with yellow shirt and a brown hat as if standing behind a counter and in his hand he held a ordinary wooden match.

It was no work of art. It was crudely constructed, but in my youth, such things were often crude. And I expect the crudeness of the thing, just made it more appealing.

Still I rotated it in my hands for a time while contemplating if it would fill the need I had for rustic match-box holder. When I finally decided to buy it, and took it to the counter, it was four minutes past closing time. The clerk, with hat and coat thrown over the counter, glared at me, then his watch, and then at me. And if looks could kill, his watch would have stopped abruptly.

I apologized profusely while trying to hurriedly dig out the money for my purchase. But as is so often the case, hurry only causes further delay. And that is exactly what happened. In my flurry, I dropped my car-keys. I didn’t even see what direction they went so while on my hands and knees searching for them, the clerk bagged my purchase and with loud foot taps and deep huffing sighs of impatience, waited for me to pay him.

Eventually I got myself in good order. Car-keys retrieved, payment made, bag in hand, and out the door I went with the clerk’s shoes treading on my heels and his breath still huffing in disgust down the back of my neck.

But even that could not spoil my excitement over my new-found treasure.
____

And now, I will try desperately to keep myself together while I tell you the rest. I hurried home and called Hub to the kitchen to show him what I had bought. I pulled my purchase out of the bag only to find it had changed. I didn’t see it happen, but I know what happened.

Here I should tell you that the impatient clerk has a well-known reputation for his lack of civility toward smokers. This man is at the forefront of anything that can negate smokers’ rights. He doesn’t hug trees, or children, or pets. His only mandate is to campaign against smokers even if it means going into hideaways in back alleys to confront them.

And so while I was scrounging down on the floor for my car-keys, he snapped off the end of the little tin-man’s match on my match-holder and replaced it with a small candy and a gob of quick-dry goo.

I am pissed, and don't I have a right to be?

Hub fails to understand the thrill it gave me when I found that little match-holder. He laughs, and I could bloody wring his neck. Like where is the humor in this? They both need help – he and that brain-dead clerk.

I would have happily repaired the thing some way. Returned it to its original state with a new match and goo, but by then the fire had died out in the cook stove. I woke up to find the cabin was getting uncomfortably cool and with only a candy on a stick to restart the fire, there was no point in staying in the cabin any longer.

The 'Home Party' Review

There is something I dread even more than the dreaded trip to town. And that would be ‘Home Parties’. You know—the ones with the ‘hostess’, the ‘ladies’, and the ‘rep’.

I went to one today. I did so. I splashed on a big smile, and with inner misgivings, I draped myself in a disguise of pleasantness and pleased excitement.

Now I don’t know what it is that irritates me so bad about home parties. I think it’s the layers of obligation involved.

First of all, I am obligated to go because my friend, who is so kind to me in every way, has particularly asked me to go. I am obligated to be happy, because nobody wants a sullen participant. I am obligated to listen to a semi-truthful spiel from the ‘rep’, that is most irritating.

I am obligated to play a game or two. I am obligated to be quiet about the unfairness of the game, because no matter how many points anyone gets, they will not get enough to win a prize, without booking another party.

I am obligated to avoid expressing my outrage at prices far beyond reason. I am obligated to support false notions and tell lies and express ‘favorable’ falsehoods about products that are nothing more than crap. And the rule of the day is I must buy something! I can’t just simply party, and browse, and leave.

And furthermore, I am obligated to buy stuff I neither want nor need. And I am obligated to cost those purchases within a boundary of flattery for my friend, the hostess, and some invisible mesh that defines the whole ritual.

No matter what is outside my beliefs or convictions, I am obligated to be a gracious hypocrite about it. Because what makes a ‘Home Party’ such a grand party, is each of us collectively fulfilling all the painful obligations.

And then what happens when I head for the door after today’s party? As I make my way to my car, my friend calls out to me…

“Roberta, wait! Before you go, I need to tell you. Don’t forget my candle party on the 15th!”
______
I strongly suspect that every participant at a Home Party comes masking their irritation with academy-award winning performances. And, because of this, I want to ask my friends, why they have home-parties. But forgive me for that thought. Another of my obligations, is not to ask.

And so I can only ponder the question within myself. It can’t be for the chintzy hostess-gifts. And if it is for the socializing, there are other ways and means. At least there were before the birth of Home Parties.

Once the ‘Home Party’ was introduced, female populaces in this area were deceived into thinking that without the add-ons of a ‘rep’, ‘products’, and ‘sales’, a simple brunch and yak session is meaningless. Quite silly, actually.

And so, as much as I would like to have a simple brunch with friends and neighbors, the Home Party consciousness is the first impediment. The second is if I were to host a simple brunch, it would be seen as a blatantly rude affront to the hostesses of ‘home parties’.

Those considerations aside, there is something else that I think connects in some oblique way to the ‘Home Party’ philosophy. The way I personally react to a sales-free invitation, like a ‘fun day’ or ‘spring frolic’. I read those invitations with a strong sense of non-obligation and freedom to decline. I MUST attend the ‘Home Parties’, but the others—no prob. I can sidestep those occasions if I feel the slightest disinclination to attend. It doesn’t seem right but that’s how it is.

But what bothers me the most about ‘Home Parties’ is that in one short afternoon I have gone from a person of integrity to a counterfeit. Acting out so many lies with my most intimate friends. And even worse, there is nothing I could have done differently to avoid it.
____

Hedge Hyssop

NOTE: There’s a dreary muse out in Hub’s cabin that leads me to write things I don’t understand and this is one of them. How the title came to me I have not the slightest notion.

This is not a plant I have encountered or know anything about. But in checking references (after the poem was written), I was truly amazed to find that:
‘Hedge’ is a protective act and ‘hyssop’ branches are used in the Bible for purification rites)

HEDGE HYSSOP

‘Neath
Prayer shawl
And wing-pits
Scorches
Of piety;
Raw cuts
Of refinement.

Cedar shay
Cocoon
Motif astern
Leaving?
Arriving?

With
Folded spirit
Broken wings
Unraveled soul.

Ivory roses
Picot-edged lace

Amidst
Quiet chant
Temple dust
Hyssop wave.
Slow steps
Organ hum
And Hushed “Hosannahs”!

Twilight in the Cabin

T’is comfort here
In Hub’s wee cabin
The storm bluster
Must stop or skip
Those outgrowths
That widen the gap
Between a wood fire,
Ageing organic matter,
—And other frontiers
Tepid with gore.

And to You, I Bequeath....

Today all I want to do is resurrect an unexpected comment that appeared only recently on an older post about the special joys of spending time in Hub's rustic cabin. The comment was by Middle Daughter and was truly surprising to me but in a pleasant way. This is what she said:

“Mom, do you think you could tuck the cabin in my keepsake box with your bread recipes, and short stories?
Would enjoy this so much more, than your silver serving set, and fine china.”

Those words warmed my heart like a wood fire and a singing kettle.

Dignified or Countrified

I read a touching tribute the other day that mentioned as part of sweet memories the long-forgotten ritual of masticating spruce sap into gum. That, of course, swung me into big nostalgia about some of the things I ate as a child.

Things that I cupped in both hands and hid behind the teeter-totter at school to eat, because in my mind, it was shameful fare. And so then and there I solemnly promised myself, that I would never eat those shameful things when I grew up. But, now I find, in so many of them, unexpected delight.

Those things we ate in hard times, I still hesitate to tell you. Something in our society makes shame of the fact that although we live in modern comfort at the moment, that the ‘tar-paper shack’ we originally lived in…well, you know…better not to reveal that.

And likewise, equally shameful to reveal that I still indulge in those countrified foodstuffs I ate as a kid. After all, “normal” people (sophisticated, learned, successful, and cultured people) eat pepper steak, Parmesan pork, and honey-garlic chicken. Polished and successful people eat lobster and shrimp with exotic condiments made from pricey spices, cheeses, and herbs blended in one small container from the far reaches of the globe.

It is quite amazing to me. This perception we have that diet is directly linked to levels of social stratification (i.e. upper class, lower class, etc.) And so, because of that perception, successful and sophisticated individuals recognize how quickly they could topple from their peak if they were to reveal that they eat soda crackers dipped in molasses or potato chips dipped in ice cream. So to preserve social status, they become ‘closet-consumers’ with that part of their lives kept close to their breast.

But I intend to ignore all that in this wee Meme-Trivia combo. I am going to briefly list ignoble and uncultured repasts of my youth. Scored to these standards:

(Yuk) for dreadful, (Mmm) for undecided, and (Yum) for delightful. And if you want to play the game, or give feedback, there are two more categories for you: (???) which means ‘I’ve never eaten it!’ and (XXX) ‘I never intend to!’

So your feedback is invited. Have you eaten any of this stuff? How do you rate it? Or do you have confessions of your own about undignified things you ate as a child?
NOTE: Wax crayons or plant-dirt don’t count.

So now here’s my list:
1. bread and milk – broken-up bits of bread, dressed with brown sugar, and splashed with cream or rich milk. YUM (important – the bread must be homemade)
2. wheat gum - like spruce sap gum, this is wheat kernels picked in late fall from the fields and masticated into a smooth gum (YUM) (smooth and pleasantly mild)
3. Cornmeal porridge – cornmeal cooked as a thick mush, dredged with brown sugar and rich milk. Do not stir. (YUM) (In my books this beats by a mile the more popular savory cornmeal dish, that I think is of Polish, or Ukrainian descent, although I eat that too).
4. Buttermilk and Potatoes – This was my father’s favorite undignified treat. Young and hot boiled potatoes, slightly mashed. Pour on cold buttermilk, and liberally sprinkle with salt and pepper. (YUM, YUM) (This may sound disgusting to some but if you are okay with buttermilk or Ranch dressing, you might be pleasantly surprised.)
5. Rhubarb Biscuits – Regular biscuits with a bit of extra sugar and a cup or two of sliced rhubarb mixed in. (YUM) (Served hot, with butter, these capture an exotic balance of sweetness and tartness that is delightful).
6. Friday Hash – Every thing diced – leftover boiled potatoes, a bit of bologna or wieners, onions and celery. Mix together and season with salt, pepper, garlic, and a liberal amount of sage or poultry seasoning, and scramble-fry in butter and oil until golden and crispy. (YUM) (similar to Stuffing).
7. Instant Cinnamon Buns – a slice of homemade (again important) bread, well-buttered. Sprinkle with brown sugar and cinnamon, then into a hot oven or under the broiler. When bubbly and slightly browned, ready to eat. (YUM, YUM) (Do I need to say more?)

And here are a few undignified treats suggested by others, that I have tried:

1. Wheat porridge – Wheat kernels straight from the granary, salt, and boiling water left to cook and soften in a thermos overnight. Then dressed with sugar and milk in the morning. (YUK) (gawd-awful)
2. Cow Mushrooms (thus labeled because cows, not people, eat them). I always gritted my teeth with distaste when I spied these in the woods. Orange tops, speckled stems, usually so wormy and distasteful-looking. But when a neighbor showed me how to skillfully peal the mushrooms and in that way expose those which were corrupt and those which were pristine, and then cooked them up in fresh cream, onions, and dill. (YUM) (They were excellent).

So now, let’s have fun with this. Don’t be shy. Your social status is not at risk if you let me know what countrified things you eat. You are pretty much anonymous and so am I.

I hope so anyway, or tomorrow I’ll be toppled from middle-upper crust to bottom-of-the-barrel society.
Oh Dear, Oh Dear!

No Heatbeat - No Obligation

I read many Blogs yesterday and was astounded at how many Bloggers have tumbled into the unwholesome ditch of discouragement . Even in ‘Roberta’s Reads’, I find a collection of suspended blogs and others who speak of that intention. And so I’m starting to realize it is going to be lonely here soon if I don’t cultivate some new friendships.

I go looking, but in random readings of new blogs I see blog-strangers encountering the same difficulties. It is like a wide-spreading virus how many Blog-Proprietors are throwing in the towel. And if not that, they are packing up and moving. Some to Facebook or U-Tube. Others are moving to another Blog-site with the optimism that a ‘new start’ will rid them of their discouragement.

I’m in the pack, as largely and boldly discouraged as the rest. But still I write, even if what I write, is the saddest bit of drivel. Unfortunately, I need to do it because Blogging is not a hobby, or a luxury. It is an obligation.

The obligation-part falls within Eldest Daughter’s adage about obligations. She insists she has only one steadfast and mandatory obligation – and that is to anything with a heartbeat. Gruffly phrased – “No heartbeat; no obligation”.

And I guess I have a similar attitude toward obligations, despite the overwhelming discouragement I feel when I loft yet another bit of migratory conversation that hopefully might land in a warmer place, but is far more likely to plummet to the dust like a bird full of buckshot. The discouragement is of little matter – my Blog remains an obligation

Like so many others, I contemplate suspending my blog or moving. But then, as I sit down and power up the computer, I hear the soft murmuring whirr of a heartbeat. A heartbeat that I can’t ignore.

And so, the humanitarian-side of me starts yammering all over again as if someone, somewhere, needs to read, needs to care, or needs to comment, on what I have to say.

Performance Report

It’s a good thing the laws of nature are more ‘fixed’ than the laws of man…
Or this Sun peeking over the horizon would have cast one sleepy eye on a thermometer that read –44.4 C (without windchill factor at 8:30 a.m.), and said:

“You can take this job and shove it! I ain't workin' here no more.”

…and with that he would have rolled off to another place and another planet. But like any good steady hand, he’s hanging in there for the LONG UPHILL THAW!

(The Sun may not have given up his job, but I'm pretty sure he's scrapped that Global-Warming-Pilot-Project he was working on.)


Hub's Cabin

playing 'Cabin'

It is the first of a New Year and Hub has spent so much time in his cabin the past few days that he is looking more like Grizzly Adams than anyone else. But this morning he cracked open that new razor he got for Christmas and sheered down the forest before he came to the kitchen for coffee.

So when the newly shorn Hub came to the table for coffee – he looked g-o-od! And so in keeping with a 2009 positive attitude, I scratched D.O.G.’s belly and told him he was a funny boy and rubbed Hub’s neck and ears and told him he was a handsome boy. Hub laughed and said he was glad I noticed and then just when I was congratulating myself on that positive opener for the New Year, I was sailing down that slippery slope, where I usually bide, into puzzlement and analysis.

‘Did I get that right? Which is the funny boy? Which is the handsome boy? Gee, maybe D.O.G. is the handsome boy and maybe Hub is the funny boy?’

You see the problem is, in my mind, if you don’t understand it and don’t get it right, you better give it some more thought. Cause you know what happens. If I don’t think about things I will look stupid, feel stupid, other people will know I am stupid. Can’t be behaving or be having that.
_____
And so that brings us to the next analysis. As I told you previously Hub has renovated an old granary that he pulled into the back yard into a rustic cabin.

Visitors come. They fold themselves into the fascination of it all, but at the same time, despite valiant efforts to disguise their reactions I see eye rolls, shoulder nudges, and knee contacts under the table that indicate they really are wondering. Wondering if we are okay. Wondering why we do what we do.

So for the sake of being able to articulate rational reasons without the faintest echo of stupidity or senility, I am going to try and explain it to you.

What I need to try to explain is our new game. We call it ‘Playing Cabin’. To play it you must have a cabin with a dishpan, a teakettle, a towel rack, and a wood-burning stove. And so, the game begins.

And this is how you ‘play cabin’.

First of all – it is a lengthy game so we usually start in the morning. To begin, the basic necessity is fire. So first Hub and I cut kindling, chop wood, rumple paper. Then we artfully stack and interlace this mix in the firebox and strike a match to it. Then we debate, when the initial flare weakens to a wee spark if our efforts need to be fanned or left alone.

In turns we fan the fire, rearrange it, remove or add more wood, blow on it – I practice patience, Hub practices faith and eventually we have a roaring fire that sucks the smoke up the chimney rather than folding it back into the room. That is intrigue number one. Level one of ‘playing cabin’ reached and conquered. Whew! That level was a bit of challenge.

Now we fill the old coffeepot and commence another debate about which is the hotter part of the stove. Hub skids the pot here, I skid it there. And eventually we both agree that it should be moved more here than there.

Now we relax again and practice patience and faith. Soon the pot hums ever so gently than gradually – ever so gradually – the hum increases until we hear the happy little plop of the first perk. Soon after the hum breaks into a joyful railroad-steamer crescendo and quick plopping, perking sounds.

We listen to the music and it is delightful. We take down our blue granite cups and pour ourselves a cuppa – and man that coffee is so good. A healing tonic for the chill of wood chopping, a warm cleansing throat wash for the smothering intake of smoke while nursing those first flames, and a restorative for our objectives in our ‘playing cabin game’. We sip coffee that is hotter and better. And then we turn on the old radio and relax in a certain amount of childhood nostalgia coupled with the accomplishment of level two.

Now Hub makes bacon and eggs in the old cast iron – slow sizzled and really tasty. I toast buns on the stove-top while warming our socks in the oven. Our meal is manna for the gods, in a nest of the special soul-healing warmth that only a wood fire can give.

Then we put more wood on the fire, draw more water and put the old teakettle on the hot part of the stove and wait for it to sing its own unique tune as water is heated for washing up. And now we do dishes – with some kind of stupid delight even in that process. We are now progressing nicely. We have reached level three.

To complete this level we chop more wood, bring it in, or stack it in the woodbox outside the door. Sweep up, do the dishes, get fresh water, arrange our few worldly possessions in good order and we are ready for level four.

Level four brings out the coffee still piping hot from the back of the stove, radio down low, and a long session of silence and contemplation about why we do what we do. We move to the chesterfield in a silken contented way and the puppies go into happy dormancy around us on the cabin floor.

And so now, from the contemplation I have done on this matter, I have concluded that although playing cabin is a challenging game with the many levels of accomplishment I have told you, it remains a simple life without layers. (I think one can have levels without layers).

Yes, it is obvious, this is a non-layered existence. That’s what holds the key to the enjoyment of ‘playing cabin’. It is similar, but so much better than time out in a fishing boat, walking on a beach or 18 holes of golf. It remains one of those few small niches in this complex world where there is no economy, no bills, no phone calls, no concerns about anything except food and shelter.

Oh, and I almost forgot to tell you. Another reason we do it is because a voice came to Hub as a voice came to Noah. Not out of the sky, but out of the TV, and another from the radio, and another from various neighbors. The voices said, “The economy will be fully destroyed and the world, as we know it, will crash in its wake. It may not happen today, it may not happen tomorrow, but it will happen.”

And Hub, like Noah said, “Then to preserve my family, I will build a cabin (now how many cubits was it supposed to be?). And Roberta and I and our puppies will go in two by two (maybe one by one – the door is only 27” wide) and we will be saved.”

Hub insists this cabin-ark of his will float safely though any economic storm or draught of heat and light. And if that is not the case, it is still our salvation. A life-preserving haven far removed from the risks associated with the daily stresses of ‘layered living’. And in addition to that, a place that shelters us from those other stresses that cause hardening of the heart, soul, conscience, good will and gratefulness.
___

So now I need to know. Are you convinced after reading this rant that there is nothing wrong? Will our visitors understand and be convinced? Or, are you rolling your eyes in dismay as you return to your Wii game, ‘The Sims’, the stock market, or another of the many games that others play?