Sometimes I think my cycle of life should include a bike, but then I think better of it

Periodically, though not often, I think that maybe I should get me a bicycle – again.

I am conscious of and distressed by the contribution of massive internal combustion engine usage and its role in climate change and all sort of other hideous environmental ghastliness like the Tar Sands, pipelines, the selling out of our national soul and pristine coastline to greedy Asia and all sorts of other unconscionable nonsense.

Yeah, I think, I should get me a bike. Good for my health, good for the earth’s health, cheap transport, t’would make me immune to the near criminal price-gouging behaviors of government-sanctioned big petro, and a host of other justifications for such a decision.

Yeah, I think all those things, and then I get in my car and drive around for a bit until the feeling passes.

‘Cop out’, or worse, I can hear you thinking – well, I can’t really hear you thinking because that would make me psychic which I am predominantly not – but you get my drift. I am not oblivious to criticisms of my unwillingness to take such a vital step for the sake of the planet’s well-being.

I used to have a bicycle. But, I sold it about a decade ago. It was one of those 10-speed things with a little narrow ball-crushing seat – such seats evidently do even nastier things to girly-parts, but I wouldn’t know about such matters. But, I let the bike go for a couple of reasons, the basic ones being it took up space in the garden shed because it was, like, never used, and because of the excessive traffic on our roadways and drivers being such inconsiderate assholes.

Indeed, motorists are only surpassed in their assholeishness by certain elements of the cycling community, and are devoid of that cyclist sense of moral superiority. Not that all cyclists have a sense of moral superiority – just most. No, I josh. Sort of.

But there are elements of cycling that distress me. For one, in a physical conflict a motor vehicle, the cycle will lose. Secondly, don’t go down Comox hill faster than cars go down Comox hill because there could end up being ugliness when the road levels out down below and normal cycling speed must be resumed. Normal cycling speed is relatively slow. Even those dorky green lanes don’t make cycles go faster and they certainly don’t make them any safer in terms of contact with motor cars.

Oh, and my final reason is, being a person of moderately decent sartorial taste, I would never, ever, ever, ever want to wear any of that hideous cycling garb donned by too many Lance Armstrong wannabes, minus the steroids, I hope, but certainly not possessed of any garment decency understanding.

And finally, I want to make a comment about kids and cycling. It’s obvious they don’t teach safe cycling rules in schools any longer – they actually did when I was in school – when I see the dangerous behaviors of kids on streets with at least ten times the traffic that existed when I was in school. .

For one, you see the tiniest tots wobbling along on their little cycles. I mean, these are infants not much past the pants-peeing stage of their lives and they are out there vulnerable to the tiny dick drivers of big Ram trucks.

Another thing, kids, you ride in the direction of the traffic, not on the other side of the street. And finally, you never, ever ride on the sidewalk, though I see kids doing this all the time.

So, no, I think I’ll stick with my car or walking. I enjoy both.

I sometimes think climate change is a crock, and then I look out our front window

 

According to a recent report, Canada’s glaciers are going bye-bye at an alarming rate, and included in that mix of going kaput is our beloved Comox
Glacier.

 

 

 

That report was in Victoria’s Times-Colonist newspaper and it may amount to little more than a newspaper’s dictum that holds virtually all stories, regardless of how remote from our lives as they might me, “must be localized.”

 

 

 

But, I don’t think such is the case here.

 

 

 

The Comox Glacier, known to the original inhabitants of the area as Queneesh (the great white whale), has been revered since time immemorial (and maybe even before then) and has been much loved by those who originally owned the place and also by the European originating latecomers who acquired the place with or without permission. Shit happens. (The Queneesh image shown is by local Native artist Andy Everson)

 

 

 

It is kind of a geological talisman for what the Comox Valley is and many would find it difficult to come to terms with it being gone. Yet, the article in the TC suggests, via reputable scientific study, that end-game is nigh and the glacier has maybe a quarter of a century left. That is, of course, if you believe climate change is a real thing. Well now, despite the lack of enthusiasm by Creationist quarters and certain relics in the federal government, it seems to be a foregone that there have been a lot of changes within a brief span of time. So, while I was slow to embrace the virtues of the metric system, I am pretty sure there is some substance here as pertains to the Glacier.

 

 

I believe it because I have watched it diminish over recent years and quite seriously, it’s disquieting. They report that if you make the challenging hike to the top – which I don’t plan to do as I find the steps up the cliff at Goose Spit challenging enough – there exist already a lot of holes and chasms that weren’t once there. So, I have never been to the top other than to have once flown over it at close quarters in an Air Force jet. And at that vantage point it was pretty cool and left me with more of a kinship with good old Queneesh.

 

 

The waning of the glacier is disturbing at a number of levels including the obvious environmental consideration, but waning it is. Now, I could be a realist and point out that glaciers are remnants of the last great ice age and throughout the history of the planet over multi-millennia, glaciers have waxed and waned, like some marriages, I understand, and we are currently in a waning realm so they are bound to diminish. We are coming into an eventual ice-free mode on the planet and it’ll be tropical beaches for everyone. Great, I like the tropics.

 

 

But, the big question is ‘why has it gone away so quickly?’ I have often thought how, when I was a child, we used to get a great deal of outdoor ice skating in winter, but now that never seems to happen. And since I have lived in the Comox Valley that magnificent glacier has progressively diminished. Hey, stuff does change, as I suggested, but more than a why, the point that is disquieting is, ‘why so quickly?’ Did we do that? Are we responsible? Do 87-lane LA freeways have something to do with this? Do thousands of Chinese smelters and coal-burning locomotives play a role. Well, and I may be wrong, I think they do.

 

 

But, perhaps what is most disturbing to me is that the time will ultimately come when we will want to sell our house. And the view of the glacier outside that front window is a big selling point:

 

 

“Hey, sport, take a gander at that glacier. Pretty nice thing to look out on every morning, no?”

 

 

“What glacier? All I see is a big naked hill.”

 

 

“Yeah, well I can show you pictures of what was there when we bought the house, OK?”

 

Even if you don’t read my musings I have to write — it’s what I ‘do’

So, what it comes down to is, ‘write, I must’. As I must eat, sleep, urinate, periodically make love and do a host of other bits of functioning, writing is part of that mix and cannot be denied.

We go back a long time, writing and me and I cannot imagine not writing – even for a day. In recent years I have taken to ‘not’ packing notebook, electronic or conventional, or laptop or any such other paraphernalia with me when I go on vacation yet I have to accept I’ll go through a bit of withdrawal.

Is writing an obsession with me? Probably, but I think it really is part of my genome structure and like hunger, thirst, fatigue or horniness it wants to be addressed and satisfied.

I was fortunate as far as career went. First I was a teacher, including being a teacher of English and creative writing. That’s a pretty wordish way to spend one’s days. And, in those pre-computer days I was strictly a writerly hobbyist. But then I went into newspaper work in my main calling in life – you know, the one that didn’t pay brilliantly and left me with no pension – and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. Scribe was me, and even better than that, I got my own column that ran for years all of which proved to me unequivocally that God is great, God is good, God jumped over the candlestick.

But, when I left newspapering, other than freelance writing to other publications, all of which I enjoyed and all of which I still miss, I discovered blogging. Since my column had gone, I could still write a column and could even put in the odd dirty word and sexual reference and nasty political comment I couldn’t get away with during newspaper days. All that and I didn’t need to worry about not being paid. Oh, right, that is one of the downsides of blogging. It comes cheap.

Yet it still offers a certain ego-boost in the form of responses. In my newspaper days I used to love getting letters-to-the-editor in reference to my columns. Even if they were negative letters, it still meant I was being noticed. Furthermore, I appreciate the fact that writing for public scrutiny is slightly ego-driven, and I am egotist enough that I welcome all comments, counterpoints and sexual propositions. Doesn’t mean I will honor them all, but I’ll still welcome them.

But, here is the difficult part for me. I have been blogging for nigh on 10 years, now, with three different blogs. In the early days this was heady stuff. Everybody was blogging and I made some wonderful friends via my blog. Some of them have gone, and some of those who have gone I genuinely miss. I even developed kind of a crush on one blogger, long since departed and whom I never met since she lived far away did that lovely and candid southern belle, but it was a fun little wordy affaire that always left me looking forward to her musings. Then, one day, she foolishly activated a joint attraction with another blogging pal – not me, I assure, he lived nearer to her – and poop hit the fan, her husband dumped her and she outlined what had happened, and then stopped blogging.

All considered, though, a good time was had by all. In the early days my traffic was huge. Now it is paltry and is only shored up by a handful of still valued friends, most of whom I also keep in touch with on Facebook and with personal emailing back and forth.

But I no longer get anything resembling the commentary I once did, and I really miss it. I miss it so much that sometimes I think, screw it. Why do I bother? That was a good blog and was responded to by from zero to two people, whereas it once might have attracted 20.

So yeah, I often say screw it and maybe I should drop it. It’s a thought that enters my head nearly every day. But I know it’s not just an addiction for me to cobble words together — it’s ‘who’ I am.

But I know I won’t. Writing, as I said, is what I do and I cannot ‘not’ write and if nothing else my blog limbers me up for my other writing – which I assure you, does exist.

Everything you might or might not have wanted to know about Victoria Day

We are having a long weekend here in the not-so-frozen-but-slightly-chilly-today north.

It’s called Victoria Day.

It is another of those vestigial nods in the direction of the misapprehension by certain Canadians that anybody here really gives a ‘royal’ act of coition anymore about our one-time tie with the land-of-hope-and-glory with a little white-man’s-burden thrown in connection with the British Crown.

All I can say is that any excuse for a holiday is acceptable so Victoria Day it shall be and bless her for having been born or we wouldn’t be getting a day off.

So, what does Victoria mean to me? Well, she was a stumpy, cranky little thing in her old age who was horrid to her daughters but sucked up a big chunk of the planet into her fiefdom. As a young woman, newly married she was moderately cute and, I gather, while her husband, Prince Albert (named after a town in Saskatchewan) was still around, she was a randy li’l vixen who produced about 28 children, many of whom married up with some of the viler crowned heads of Europe and eventually caused World War One.

Victoria is also the capital of British Columbia named, I suspect, after the woman under discussion, who sent out soldiers and trappers and other sorts to claim a land that actually was already owned. But, under God’s guidance, the missionaries of the era went and snatched up as much neat art as they could and gave it all to Queen Victoria (via the British Museum up near the Elgin Marbles that they also pilfered) who ended up slightly amused by it all. “More stuff for the Queen Empress!” she was often heard to exclaim. “It’s good to be me and have commoners, colonials and dusky people to attend to my wants and needs, as my wants and needs are huge.”

During a reign of about 200 years lots of stuff was named after Victoria, like the island where Hong Kong sits, the aforementioned BC capital, a big waterfall and huge lake in Africa and an English footballer’s sourpuss missus. And in her lifetime she gave spawn to the current dynasty on the UK’s throne, some of whom have been good, like the current Queen, and some of whom have been bums, like the Queen’s creepy uncle. So for all that somebody or other should be grateful.

Me, I’m grateful for Victoria Day and I bet you are as well now that you know, thanks to my historical input, what it’s all about.

A simple day in the life of Max the Wonder Dog

The following is an excerpt from a day in the Life of Max the Wonder Dog. He’s very bright, but he can’t actually write, so this is an ‘as told to’ piece of stream-of-consciousness.

 

 

Morning:

Oh good, that guy’s up. I can hear him peeing, and now the toilet’s flushing. He’ll be out soon and I can go outside. Sonofabitch must think I have a bladder the size of a football. Here he comes down the hall. No, don’t go and turn on your %$#*& laptop. Let me outside so I can pee and then piss you off and awaken the neighbors by barking when the newspaper carrier arrives. Hee-hee. Bastards sleep too late in this neighborhood anyway.

OK, he’s got his coffee and newspaper and she’ll be up in a minute. Now to grab 40 winks now that they’re up. I mean, why not? It isn’t as if I have an actual job to do in the morning – or any other time, for that matter. They fetch and carry for me and right now it’s just a matter of filling in time until brekkie. I pretend I like my breakfast, but it does get boring to have the same old crap every morning and then only to have it repeated at dinnertime. Have they ever thought how much I might like a goodly chuck of chateaubriand? Sometimes I don’t eat breakfast. Sometimes I don’t eat it until dinnertime. I like doing that. Gets them all exercised wondering if something is wrong with me. I don’t push it too often or they might take me to the vet who will give me a shot and stick a thermometer up my ass.

Ooh, it’s now across-the-park walk time. Been waiting all night for this. Hope Abby’s out there. She’s my special sweetie and I’d marry her if we could do such a thing. Shit, I don’t see her anywhere. That’s just not right. Maybe if I look longingly at her house she’ll come out and see me. Nope, don’t see any sign of bitch. Oh, and for any humans that might be offended by the term, bitch isn’t an insult in our world. I mean, I’m a son-of-a-bitch. But, if I apply it to my human, it is an insult. Clear? Oh great. There’s some of the doggie-treat guys out this morning. Just make a beeline for each of them, I guess. I mean that’s why they’re here, isn’t it? To give us stuff because they’re needy and want us to like them? I think so.

OK, heading back now. She’s going to work. She does that every morning. I mean, she just buggers off. Wouldn’t she rather stay home with me? A bit insulting, I must say. I mean, I can see her not wanting to stay home with ‘him’ particularly, but me?

OK. He’s having his shower now. Soon we’ll hit the road. Whoopie. He’ll wanna go out for coffee and I get to go and sit in the car with bugger all to do. My fault really, I always get enthusiastic and act like I wanna go with him. I do want to go, really. Not sure why. It gets pretty boring. If only I could drive I could just take off in the car when he’s having coffee. Wouldn’t that surprise the hell out of him? But, I can’t. I mean, I’ve mastered the theory. I’m observant but, you know, the old lack of opposable thumbs thing screws me up. Oh, and I could never master driving a stick. At least if I knew how to read it might help pass the time. Oh good. He’s coming out. We can go home again and I can put in time until our afternoon walk.

Wait! We’re not hitting the road. At least I’m not. He pathetically tried to explain it to me and told me it was too hot. Hell, heat. I laugh at heat. No, I don’t really. Hit’s me pretty hard. I hear about those assholes who stick their dogs in hot cars. It’s not stray pets who should be euthanized, it’s stray brain dead dickwads. So, I’ll stay home and look all forlorn at him to make him feel bad for leaving me.

Hiatus time. He’s back again. I’d really like to bite him for leaving me, but I won’t because generally he’s a pretty good guy and he did rescue me from the slammer and that counts a lot. Bugger all happening, however. He’s sitting in that other room pecking away at his computer while I am sitting and waiting for good stuff to happen. Seems like I’m always waiting. That thumbs thing again. I’d so like to get up and turn that knob and take myself for a walk. Well, maybe I’ll go and bark at a car that has parked out in front so some moron can talk on his mobile phone. That violates my space, jerk, and I’ll bark at you through the window.

(Later)

 

 

He’s finished his lunch. Hoo-boy. That always means we’re going for a walk. Where’re we going today. OK, let it be a surprise. Climb in the car and go where the road takes us. One time it took us right to the end of Oregon. That was cool. All those sandy beaches to run on. Why don’t we do that all the time? Nope, we’re going to the woods. Almost as good as Oregon. Ohboyohboyohboyohboy – we’re going to the woods.

I like going to the woods. They say there are sometimes cougars there. I don’t want to meet a cougar. They may be just &%$#@ cats, but they are big and mean @#$%& cats and rumor has it they eat dogs for breakfast. So, I don’t want to run into one but I like the fact that the possibility keeps me on edge. Otherwise I just plod down the trails, check the pee-mails from other dogs, pee myself on each and every blade of grass and dawdle as much as possible because I know it irritates the hell out of him. It’s OK. I know he isn’t going to give me away like that other asshole did the first time around. Oops, now we’re at the sandy place. I like to have a refreshing crap here. He doesn’t mind either because it’s easy to pick up. I have him well trained and he always picks up after me. Oops, there’s a golden lab juvie. Don’t be too rambunctious son, or I might have to put you in your place. Good, he showed the proper respect. Makes my job easier. Well, back at the parking lot again to head off home.

Not a bad day in all and now I’ll just chill out on the lawn by the patio. My day’s work is done and soon it’ll be dinner.

So go and party your pants off (maybe literally) but just don’t invite me along

I hate social functions. There, I said it. I think I have always hated social functions.

I think anybody with a lick of common sense should hate social functions. But maybe that’s just me.

I hate them because they challenge me and stress me out. I think they challenge and stress out everybody, or at least those with the aforementioned ‘lick of common sense.’

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not antisocial. I love (some) people and am happy to be in their company. As it stands I’m heading out in a half hour to have lunch with a dear (and did I mention ‘pretty’?) friend of mine and am looking forward to it since we haven’t linked up over nosh for a while.

Should be nice. And there is the crux of the matter, it will be a case of a deux, No confusion when there are just two people. Just me and her making chat and enjoying a meal. Ideal. In similar context, my wife an I can have another couple for dinner or meet them somewhere, and that’s nice too and with a minimum of stress. In that context though, there remains a problem if they come to our place because you can’t just tell them to leave if they seem to be overstaying their welcome. You cannot just up and say: “Well, it’s getting late so could you folks just bugger off now?” Better to go to theirs because then you can say: “Gee, is that really the time? How did it get to be 9:30 already?”

The social functions that really put nits under my skin are parties. I hate parties. I have always hated parties. I mean, I have been to lots of them and have hosted lots of them (in years past, not latterly), and I have concluded I always hated them.

Last night, watching Mad Men, we were presented with a party hosted by Don Draper’s comely wife. Don was tense at it. He reflected my feelings because just watching the party scene made me tense, I’d rather watch a gunfight any time. No, I’d feel uptight as people were boozing, passing joints (“aren’t we fuckin’ cool, man?), hitting on people they shouldn’t, and it brought me to the conclusion that a lot of people are tense at parties, and even angry. This is why they drink too much, smoke dope when they don’t normally, hit on people they aren’t hitched to, and even sometimes get into fistfights or nasty verbal exchanges.

I had a dear (now departed) uncle who once said: “In my opinion the only reason to go to a party is to get drunk or get laid. And if I can’t do those things I’d rather stay home and read a book.”

At one time I used to drink. Some might have even been driven to say, “Too much.” Booze, as per my uncle, made parties tolerable. Since I no longer do that has rendered parties much less tolerable. In that context the best parties were the ones I attended when I was young, had lots of stamina and libido and was blessedly single. Then I could hope to link up with somebody special and, in the ugly cliche, ‘get lucky.’ Sometimes it even happened. And, since I was young and had founts of energy, I didn’t much suffer from the rigors the next day.

Those days have long since fled and I don’t have an ounce of regret that partying has left me in its wake.

Now I have that book I want to finish before turning in at a reasonable hour only to awaken the next morning feeling refreshed and contented.

Call me a stick-in-the-mud and I don’t care at all.

And now it’s sugar’s term to knock us off prematurely — salt is so last week

As we continue with our in-depth study of First World Woes, today we look at the stuff that is killing us – this week.

 

It seems it was just last week that excessive salt use was throwing us in our graves prematurely and those bastard manufacturers of foodstuffs were being indicted for blowing our our hearts, sending our blood pressure into stratospheric realms and trashing our kidneys.

 

Prior to that it was so-called ‘transfats’ and we were told that most of the products we were consuming were clogging our arteries at an unheralded rate and we were all going to die sooner rather than later.

 

Go back a little further and butter was a major evoker of health-crisis panic. Like trans-fats it was also clogging up them old arteries and we were exhorted to eat shitty margarine in lieu and expected to fall for the myth that we are unable to “believe it’s not butter.” Sorry, but it’s easy to believe it’s not butter. And bless dear old Julia Child who lived forever and consumed butter by the hogshead each day.

 

They’ve worked long and hard over the years, have our health authorities, to convince us that coffee is contra-indicated. I don’t care what they find out in that realm. Take my coffee away and you won’t like the sort of human being you leave in its wake.

 

Of course the jury was out on smoking years ago, despite all those doctors, dentists and ballplayers who sucked back nicotine like there was no tomorrow. We’ve all seen those quaint old ads with the nine out of 10 doctors preferring Camels, or whatever brand. I guess maybe for some of them there was no tomorrow.

 

Well, today the arch-villain that is knocking us off like flies is sugar. You know it’s a bad thing when Maclean’s Magazine here in Canada has devoted a huge spread to the scourge that is annihilating us.

 

By sugar they aren’t talking about the boring ‘good’ sugar that is found in fruit and vegetables. They aren’t even obsessing as much about what you sprinkle on your corn flakes, or that is found in your donuts, Danishes or cakes. Well, yeah, they are, but I happen to like those things so I’m choosing to ignore the findings. I live on the edge – sometimes.

 

One of the major culprits is sugary soft-drinks. Especially humongous sized drinks that kids scarf down in massive volumes. When I was a kid that crap (and it is crap, as tasty as it might be) came in seven or ten or 12-ounce bottles. Nothing bigger. And we got it rarely as it cost money, times were tight, and my parents lived by the mantra ‘don’t overindulge the little bastards’. Consequently, I never developed a huge taste for it. I don’t mind the odd Coke or Pepsi on a hot day, but that is about it. Otherwise, it’s not in my frame of reference.

 

In truth the major villain in a health scourge that has led to unheralded obesity, diabetes and a shortened life-span (they say) is ‘hidden’ sugar and especially in the form of ubiquitous corn-syrup. They pump that shit into everything from ketchup, to peanut butter, to pasta sauce, and assorted other things you might not dream contained sugar. Even unsweetened breakfast cereals are chock-a-block with added sugar. And sweetened yogurts so favored by women (real men don’t eat yogurt) have as much added sugar as ice cream – and are nowhere near as tasty, my bias tells me.

 

How do we get around this? Well, the manufacturers ain’t gonna roll over and play dead on products that are hugely profitable, so it’s up to you, the consumer, to fastidioiusly read labels. “Phew”, say the manufacturers in collective voice, “people are too damn lazy to read labels.” They may be right, alas, but you really have no other options.

 

Other than that, learn to avoid products that contain extra sugar past acceptable daily allowances, get sugar from fruit and veggies, and take charge of your own well-being. And maybe you’ll live long enough to wait for the next First World health scourge.

Mayhem, murder and steaming hot sex in the quaintest village you ever saw

The Queen and I probably don’t have a lot in common, but one area in which we do is that we are both fans of the British series (regularly repeated on PBS) Midsomer Murders.

The title refers to an excruciatingly quaint candybox village of half timbered and thatched dwellings situated ‘somewhere’, though I’m opting for Hampshire because it looks a bit like the scenery around there, but Wiltshire or even Dorset might do if you’re going to be picky.

Anyway, for all its esthetic and cultural appeals, Midsomer is also a hotbed of homicides, brutality, clandestine screwing (almost literally everybody is having an affair, and the penalty for forbidden nookie often means getting bumped off, sometimes in flagrante, and not uncommonly by a wronged spouse).

If the per capita murder rate in a bigger centre, like London for example, were the same as Midsomer’s, it would be a bloody horror-show of wanton carnage.

Now, we watch Midsomer as purely escapist fare. While the acting is reasonable, the plotlines are veneer-thin and so predictable that they make Agatha Christie seem like Tolstoy. There are two series, one, the original, starring John Nettles as DCI Tom Barnaby is lamer than the later one starring Neil Dudgeon as CI John Barnaby (the two Barnaby boys are cousins, OK). We prefer the Dudgeon one. More realistically written and I am madly in love with Barnaby’s wife, played by Fiona Doleman, not to mention charming Jack Russell, Sykes. On the other hand, Tom Barnaby’s wife in the first series is a boring waste of space, and his lame-ass daughter is a vacuous, snotty waste of education.

What I mostly watch Midsomer for, however, is as a metaphor. Although the homicidal mayhem quotient is lower in most other communities, including my own, a great deal of the other problems can be found.

Sleazy property developer comes in to exploit an iconic spot in the community for his profits. He offers stuff like poorly-paying jobs for folks who try to labor in an underemployed community. And he wants to put in something alluring in the jerkwater town, like a big box store of some ilk.

Meanwhile, he co-opts assorted town fathers and mothers to his cause, and successfully divides the community. And with that division, “thou shalt conquer”, or so he believes. In the case of Midsomer they also throw a little gratuitous sex into the mix and the interloper starts banging either a society matron who is hitched to the developer’s leading opponent, or the matron’s comely and endowed daughter, or both Mom and Daughter.

In my metaphor I am not sure this is exactly how such things unfold, but sometimes I wouldn’t be surprised.

But, in the Midsomer twist in the tale that opponent gets wind of the liaison and he bumps the interloper off. Usually in the forest. A forest punctuated by the sounds of screeching foxes.

Not saying such stuff happens here. At least nobody has developed a TV series around it yet, so we shall never know for sure.

‘And now we’re cookin’ with gas’, or at least we soon hope to be doing so

We were recently having one of those in-depth and deeply philosophical discussions of the sort that are our wont in our continued striving to render the world a happier and better place for ourselves and all others on the planet.

That understood, I should like to share the wisdom of our findings with you. What I opted for was the microwave oven, whereas Wendy favored the kitchen range, either electric or gas – she wavers between the two since in our forthcoming kitchen reno we are moving from. electicity to gas. The reason for that decision was simple. Gas is more efficient and direct, and you can still cook a meal when the electricity is out. Adm also, and this is important, I have for many years wanted to be able to legitimately say: “Now we’re cookin’ with gas!” If you don’t get what that means you are too young and I am not about to explain the whimsy in it.

What we did was stroll through the heaven that is the modern day appliance usage and pondered what we could do without and what would be essential for continued happiness and good will within the household.

I think in any such discussion how our lives compare with that of my grandmother in the 1930s. Poor as churchmice and while they did have a pot to piss in, they hadn’t much more than that. In that, she raised seven children and her only appliance ‘conveniences’ were a wood stove and an old-fashioned boiler for hot water. No washing machine, certainly no dishwasher, an old Eureka vacuum cleaner that she used until the day she died. Each day she prepared meager meals and baked all her own bread. Her life was, in a word, ‘wretched’ and not to be wished on anybody. But her tale was repeated in households throughout North America. Only the stinkin’ rich bastards had life free from a lot of backbreaking labor.

But today it’s different. A household’s modernity makes life my more bearable than in granny’s day. And that was how we got into the discussion on those elements that brought about transformation.

When I was a very little child I was transfixed when Mother boiled a pot simply by turning a little knob on the stove. Nothing to be stoked; no wait time; no disgustingly hot kitchens on a summer’s day. And that was just the beginning in a domestic transformation.

As I said, my nod goes to the microwave oven. Brilliant innovation. I use it all the time, mainly to heat up stuff. It’s brilliant for everything from oatmeal to hot chocolate to soup to leftovers and with the modern ones you no longer have to wear a lead apron to use them. I merely cover my crotch with my hand.

As I mentioned, Wendy’s nod goes to the kitchen range due to its convenience, with a secondary acknowledgement to the automatic washer.

And this weekend there was a little ironic twist to the stove thing. We had decided we’d sell our old range since it is still fully operational, so if we can get a few bucks for it, why not? A reasonable sale would enable us to pay off 1/100000th of the kitchen reno. Every bit counts. So, she decided that if somebody was going to look at it, it should be spotless. So she would do the self-cleaning oven thing. Brilliant. In so doing she burned out the oven element part way through the process.

The best-laid schemes o’ mice and men.

What’s that there feller Putin up to now? Seems like no-good to me

I used to work at the old and always lamented Green Sheet with a since-deceased and still-missed woman of Ukrainian descent.

 

 

As events unfolded a few years ago and the Soviet Union crumbled I, in perhaps my naivete, asked her what she thought about a seemingly lovely change in the world of Eastern Europe.

 

“I don’t care if the USSR collapsed. Whether it’s the Tsar, Stalin or Gorbachev, they’re still Russians (she almost spat out the word ‘Russians’) and I will never, ever trust them.”

 

Hmm. In light of recent happenings, indeed hmm. I passed off her comments at the time as being reflective of her own understandable biases. Ukraine, after all, had never had an easy ride with the Russians. And now it seems that they aren’t destined to have one in their future.

 

The situation in that part of the world today takes me back – in a not pleasant way. I grew up in the days of the Red Scare. “Them damn Russkies wanta git us,” said in the voice and accent of Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove. And we were raised to believe that was so.

 

We had civil defence exercises when I was in school and we were taught to duck under our desks and the civil defence weenies led us to believe our desks would protect us from nuclear annihilation. Good luck with that. But, we honestly thought that the Big One was going to come in our lifetimes. And then Hungary, and the Cuban Missile Crisis and Czechoslovakia seemed to confirm all that we feared.

 

I was in Canada so we didn’t have to contend with that McCarthy hearings shit that saw a Red under every bed, but the sentiments here were pretty similar.

So now after the benevolent years of Gorbachev (that lovable old ‘Gorby’, Regan’s pal), and tippling comedy figure Yeltsin (the Rob Ford of Russia) we have Vladimir Putin. Wily, mysterious, craven and ruthless, late of the KGB (and all that that suggests) and a man determined to not only get Russia on its right track but a man who possibly laments the breakup of the Soviet Union and wants to get some old turf – like Ukraine – back.

He’s a sneaky bastard. He stages an Olympics that came off largely without a hitch, but at the same time imprisons the hapless girls of Pussy Riot. He is dealing with a moribund economy yet seems determined to acquire territory. He has a nation with the highest alcoholism rate in the western world, and one in which life expectancy has actually fallen, yet poses a tangible threat to not only eastern Europe, the European Union and ultimately the West.

Not to be trusted, suggested my Ukrainian friend those many years ago.

I take her point and also think, damn, I didn’t want to have to face this crap again in my lifetime. It’s kind of like revisiting a bad marriage.