September ceases

The sinking September sun is shining directly into my eyes, as I head to call in on Demeter for the evening. That's why I initially think I'm imagining the spheres floating towards me.

Squinting, I can make out the silhouettes of a mother and two tiny girls, who are hurrying along the sidewalk away from me, living trails of bubbles.  Both girls have enormous wands, which they wave imperiously, but they are heading away so briskly, that they don't really see the full effect.  That gift is given to me, as each iridescent orb drifts past me, catching the golden light of early autumn, and turning it into bright pinks, greens and blues.

The trio vanish into the blinding aura, and I spare a glance at the last doomed globe.  It vanishes without a sound.

The elephant in the room

 The best of results and the worst of fears, all in one day.

On a summer's morning, I was struggling to get Demeter's laundry done, and, tussle concluded, returned to our place to find the Resident Fan Boy and the Jolly Not-So-Green Giant setting up an enormous big screen television in our living room.

This was not a shock.  The Resident Fan Boy has been promising me for two years that we would join the ranks of those with flat screens - as my eye-sight steadily deteriorates.  I sent him examples and gently hinted, but he always said that he was too busy with his church volunteering and accompanying younger daughter to her singing lessons.  He decided that he needed the guidance of brother-in-law the Jolly Not-So-Green Giant, who works in IT for a provincial governmental department.  Every time my Double Leo Sister and her husband visited, the topic would be raised and deferred.

Finally, the appointment had been made, the device purchased, and now the technical argot was in full swing.

The Jolly Not-So-Green Giant is young enough to belong to a different cohort, and was, once again, earnestly trying to sell me on Netflix.  (Every time I investigate Netflix, I'm mostly impressed by how unimpressed I am.)

Having, after some fiddling, located our cable service (which provides us with HBO and Crave, thank you very much), it seemed they couldn't connect our DVD player. Now, this is something that clearly mystifies J N-S-G G, who streams everything, but I've been dreaming, for more than two years, of being able to watch my favourite things on a big screen. 

As the fellas sank into another discussion consisting of strings of letters and numbers, Double Leo Sister quizzed me about lunch.  I checked with younger daughter, who had retreated to her room, but she wasn't forthcoming, so DLS and I decided on the local Greek restaurant.  I was nervous about Demeter waiting for us, as the installation stretched on and on, so I set out for Demeter's apartment.  DLS followed with her dog, and I tried to clear my head of the jangle of the upheaval.

We should have taken younger daughter with us.

We were accompanying Demeter to the restaurant, in a slow descent down Cook Street, when my phone rang.  The Resident Fan Boy was calling to say he couldn't find younger daughter.  Or the cat.

I gave a quick update to DLS and doubled back to our place.  Apparently younger daughter had fled with her purse when she overheard her uncle telling her father that the DVD problem could be resolved, but, as he laughed dismissively, the VHS player was out of the question. (The J N-S-G G has always derived derisive pleasure out of our ancient televisions, DVD collections and residual video cassettes.) Not a problem for us, but younger daughter, being on the spectrum, abhors change, and there are a couple of VHS tapes she treasures, mainly for what she associates with them. Neither man noticed that she'd  slipped out, until they were getting ready to join us for lunch.  They soon realized that she hadn't taken her phone.  Younger daughter has fled before, but not since we returned to Victoria.  She does know the neighbourhood, having walked most of it.

But how could she have taken the cat? He weighs fourteen pounds, I wondered miserably, more resentful than ever that the RFB had involved his complex and complicating in-laws in what should have been a relatively simple purchase.

I arrived to find my husband uselessly pacing the apartment.  He had located the cat, who had taken his safety perch on the very top of younger daughter's armoire.  Shortly afterwards, the J N-S-G G phoned the RFB with the news that younger daughter had shown up at the restaurant.  Double Leo Sister came in the van to pick us up, but I chose the five-minute walk as a balm and therapy - and a play for time. I had a bit of stress and irritation to walk off, both of which I couldn't afford to show.

If only the RFB had bought the television on his own, I grizzled.  He told me later that he actually prayed they wouldn't be able to fit it in their van, so he could have it delivered and installed later.

At the restaurant, younger daughter apologized and told us she was considering a walk in the park, but thought that would make her late for lunch.  I handed her the phone, gently explaining that she should always have it handy, and congratulated her on remembering to go to the Greek restaurant.

We brought Demeter back, and I was able to show her a Repair Shop she'd seen, but this time in all the glory and splendour of a 65-inch high definition screen.  DLS took the RFB to London Drugs to pick up an inexpensive compatible DVD player, and I showed Demeter a sampling of Wolf Hall, which we'd been showing her in parts on her Thursday night dinner visits. What had been dark, and difficult to follow for her, was now huge, clear, and comprehensible - just as I'd prayed it would be.

Finally, to my secret relief, they departed.

I feel grateful - and exasperated at the same time.  Over the past month, we've been learning how the new toy works and revelling in the clarity and detail - particularly such things as ballets and musicals.  Even old Fred Astaire movies have a three-dimensional look to them.  It's like being by a window and looking in on far-removed times and places.

However, there is a price, beyond the monetary one.  I can never express anything other than delight, acknowledgement, and appreciation for the service rendered, as traumatising as it was.

But you know, there was always that particular elephant in the room.  Now it can watch TV.

Madam, do you think we are barbarians?

I made myself watch the latest Ken Burns documentary The U.S. and the Holocaust - not that it isn't well done, but it's harrowing.  Everything touching the Holocaust is.

As bleak headlines came in about mass graves in the Ukraine and Putin's nuclear threats, I gripped the armrest and listened as author Daniel Mendelsohn recounted the ghastly stories of what happened to his great-uncle, his wife, and four daughters in Poland. As he pointed out that there were many ways of dying during the Holocaust, he looked off to one side with a hint of a shrug and the ghost of a wry, resigned smile, and I remembered Rudolf Vrba.

Vrba, who was born Walter Rosenberg in Slovakia and survived two years in Auschwitz, appeared in interviews for such documentaries as The World at War and Shoah.  He stood out, even amongst interviewees with equally horrifying stories, with his wry and articulate black humour.  In particular, I remember his description of the Nazi guards ordering the prisoners to move:  Schnell!  "They are a sporty people," Vrba observed, drily.

He also supplied the example of a distraught mother approaching a concentration camp officer, when she had been warned that her children were to be gassed. "Madam," he mirrored the officer's wolfish reply.  "Do you think we are barbarians?"

Vrba's story is remarkable in other ways.  He, along with fellow prisoner Alfred Wetzler, became among the handful of people who ever escaped from Auschwitz.  The meticulous report they wrote on the workings and layout of Auschwitz, along with their desperate struggle to make the world, including their fellow European Jews, understand the enormity of the Final Solution, may have saved thousands of lives.

After the war, Vrba obtained a PhD in chemistry, and, twenty years later, emigrated to Canada, where he worked for the Medical Research Council of Canada, and became a Canadian citizen. He eventually moved to Vancouver, where he was a professor of Pharmacology at the University of British Columbia.

In the mid-eighties, he testified against Holocaust denier Ernst Zündel.  This attracted a lot of attention in in Victoria, because Doug Christie, an eccentric lawyer who had a tollbooth-sized office in the middle of a downtown parking lot near the Victoria courthouse, was acting for Zündel.  When Christie asked Vrba if he had, in fact, seen anyone gassed at Auschwitz, Vrba's reply was mordant:  he had deduced, having witnessed officers tossing canisters into the chamber, that "it was not a kitchen or a bakery".  When Christie tried to throw doubt on Vrba's story that he had escaped Auschwitz at night without food, Vrba shot back:  "Perhaps in Girl Guides or Boy Scouts in Victoria, they didn't teach you how this can be done, but it can."

More than forty years after his ordeal, he was still having to defend it -- and still would today.  I imagine he was well acquainted with despair.  He died in Vancouver in 2006.

Ken Burns was a guest on Late Night with Stephen Colbert, just as The U.S. and the Holocaust was transmitting for the first time.  Work on the documentary series began a little under a decade ago, and Burns and his co-creators watched in growing horror as the issues discussed in the documentary, the racism and refusal to help refugees in particular, became ever more pertinent.

We don't seem to learn a thing from history -- or we learn the wrong things...

I read the rules before I broke 'em

Another tiring day, another song I like.  I enjoy Joel Plaskett, but there are not too many rap songs that catch my fancy.

I think the difference here is the folk-based Haligonian feel of this number. 

The bringer of jollity?

I kept dozing off on the couch after a mildy muggy but occupied day. I dragged myself up, removed my shoes, and thought glumly of the obstacles between my bed and me.

Then I remembered.  Jupiter is in opposition tonight, the closest to the earth it's been since 1963.  A lot of people still alive then; a lot of people not yet born.

I put my shoes back on and headed for the roof.

 

Not what I saw

Jupiter was unmistakeable, and not just because it was a moonless night. Shining like a brilliant star, it hung in the east. 

I closed one eye, and it disappeared. (I'm scheduled for eye surgery in a month.)  Through my good eye, I fancied I could see a tiny pinprick of brilliant light near Jupiter's left shoulder. A distant star? One of Jupiter's moons? Probably my imagination. 

 Back down to our suite, where the Resident Fan Boy now couldn't resist going up to look for himself. 

It will be a little more than a century until Jupiter comes this close again.

I hope someone will be here to see it.

Coffee break

This year, the assigned hurricanes are familiar.  I mean literally.  Lot of them have names that are in my family.  It's a bit disconcerting, seeing the trouble they're causing.

The images of the destruction left in the wake of Hurricane Fiona this weekend were sobering, but an antidote, of a sort, came in viewing the local coverage in Atlantic Canada.

Mind you, Halifax had a relatively mild time of it, as Fiona (wince) made landfall near Cape Breton.  Still the footage showing the conditions of the streets in Halifax reminded me strongly of Hurricane Earl, when I was there in 2010.

In between reports of devastation, the CBC reporters out of the Halifax office were chatting like neighbours at a barbecue.  They kept mentioning coffee.  No electricity, so difficult to make coffee.  The weatherman had been up for over 24 hours; he'd been getting by on five cups of coffee.  A man on the street was stopped for an interview - was he out to look at the downed trees?  No, he was looking for a cup of coffee.  (Chuckle, chuckle)

Even this morning, a journalist writing an essay for the National Post, wrote wistfully and a bit uneasily of the changes he'd seen in hurricanes over the years, while living in the Halifax area.  He described brewing a cup of coffee for someone sheltering at his home.

Clearly, what Halifax needs is coffee.  Cape Breton, Charlottetown, and Port aux Basques need electricity. And infrastructure.  And new houses.

A dream of organising my ignorance

Yesterday morning, disturbing dreams propelled me out of the sleep into the news that Hilary Mantel had died.

My first reaction was a self-involved gut reaction:  Oh no!  No more books!

Social media was full of tributes, including this one on Twitter:

Evidence is always partial.  Facts are not truth, though they are part of it -- information is not knowledge.  And history is not the past -- it is the method we have evolved of organising our ignorance of the past.  It's the record of what's left on the record.  It's the plan of the positions taken, when we stop the dance to note them down.  It's what's left in the sieve when the centuries have run through it -- a few stones, scraps of writing, scraps of cloth.  It is no more "the past" than a birth certificate is a birth, or a script is a performance, or a map is a journey.  It's the multiplication of the evidence of fallible and biased witnesses, combined with incomplete accounts of actions not fully understood by the people who performed them.  It's no more than the best we can do, and often it falls short of that.

It was followed by "RIP Hilary Mantel".

Of course, no provenance given, and by the next morning, the person posting the tweet had, for whatever reason, removed the tweet. However I'm a family historian and this quote called to me as such, plus, my family history research has made me reasonably good at ferreting things out.

It's from Mantel's first BBC Reith Lecture.  It's long (because it's a lecture), but really worth following the link to read.

Mantel was discussing the historical novel versus "legitimate history".  She's been criticized (usually by male historians) of not being accurate, which is a strange charge to level at a novelist.  I don't recall Robert Graves being raked over the coals for I Claudius, nor Arthur Miller for The Crucible, nor Lin Manuel Miranda for Hamilton.  All three works take liberties with what is felt to have actually happened - and have won awards, despite this.

A family historian also wrestles with what Mantel calls our desperation "for the truth, and sometimes for a comforting illusion" - particularly with family members who, I often find, are only interested if the work I do confirms a family myth, and quickly drop the subject if it disproves it.

Mantel also speaks of coming from "a long line of nobodies" (something I've never believed of anyone). In the next few paragraphs, she demonstrates exactly the opposite, as she pieces together the life of one of her great grandmothers.  "Even nobodies can do this," she says self-deprecatingly with a strong whiff of disingenuousness.

So, no more books.  Or intriguing lectures.  If she had not written stuff down, we wouldn't have even that.

 

I'm determined to seek out more of what she left behind.

Quick update:  This morning, someone put the same quote up on Twitter, and someone else provided the audio link to the original lecture, which includes Mantel's other Reith lectures!  I may be a bit occupied this afternoon...

Sometimes good people draw troublesome things

I got my second COVID booster today, after a wait of nearly nine months (in order to get the updated vaccine).  So I'm a bit sore.  And wiped out.

Here's a song I like.  I'm not crazy about the scansion, but I like the sentiments.  G'night. 

Little girl lost

I'm struggling with the key in the mailbox, when I sense, rather than see or hear, a short figure breeze behind me.  A small girl comes up against the big glass door that fronts the building, and she reaches up and flips fruitlessly at the heavy handle to the latch.  She looks about four, can't be any older than five.

Without thinking it through, I walk over to open the door for her.  She doesn't acknowledge me, but rushes out on the path.  For one heart-stopping moment, I think she's going to barrel out into the street, but, after looking frantically both ways, she stops and sits down suddenly on the curb between two parked cars.

Silently berating myself, I walk out quickly but calmly.

"Are you looking for someone?"

"My mum told me to wait right here, and I don't know where she is!"

"Hmmn.  Well, you were in that building, so maybe that's a good place to wait for her.  There are chairs right by the door, so you can see her the minute she comes back."

To my relief, this seems reasonable to her.  We're just reaching the entrance, when a young woman appears, having run at high speed from the elevator up the hall.  

Her mother? An aunt? A friend of the family?  At any rate, my young friend evidently knows her.

"There you are!" the woman exclaims, and glancing at me, mouths "thank-you".

Well, she didn't know I let the little girl out.  I decide to head to our apartment, before she hears different.

Revealed themselves one star at a time

 Planning is key - especially with someone on the autistic spectrum.

I'd carefully sold the outdoor screening of A Hard Day's Night at Beacon Hill Park to younger daughter a couple of days in advance.

On the day in question, we had a couple of hours to sunset, so I put on some music after dinner and made popcorn - having been mindful enough to locate the popping corn earlier in the day, which required cleaning out a couple of cupboards.  (The B-Festival wasn't selling popcorn this year.) I summoned younger daughter, so she could enjoy the kernels blossoming into white.

Then I withdrew to cover myself in highly toxic "Muskol", having also dug that out in advance. I diplomatically got younger daughter to don shoes and socks, rather than her favoured footwear of the summer, her fancy flip-flops.

Leaving our building, I took the lead, race-walking the most direct route to the Cameron Bandshell, reflecting on how it had been almost exactly three years since the evening we last attended a film at the Free-B Movie Festival.  In 2019, we took younger daughter to the condo, to break the news that we were moving from the apartment we'd occupied since our return to Victoria in 2017.  That way, she could see her new bedroom, and to soften the blow, proceed to the park to watch a Harry Potter movie.  (It went well.)

Three years later, we secured a bench corner, not too near the front, and munched the home-made popcorn, and, in the deepening dusk, watched the Beatles in a film we must have seen over fifty times, but there are still new things to discover.  This time, I saw George Harrison fall against a speaker as he played, and wondered how I'd missed that, all these years.

A star (or, more likely, a planet) rose slowly behind the screen, and I made a wish.  It's always the same one, and I can't tell you what it is, for fear it won't come true.

Afterwards, the Resident Fan Boy, who'd been grumbling all weekend, said he was happy he'd come.  A large orange moon, just past being full, had made its way to a spot above the buildings on the eastern horizon,  beyond the dark park. On Southgate, I caught a glimpse of a brilliant meteor whizzing silently eastward, and younger daughter told me, as we walked home, that she'd spotted a shooting star during the movie.  This was at the time of the Perseids.  

I felt tired, but content.  It would have been nice to have ended there.

Planning doesn't prevent the unexpected.  Once home, the Resident Fan Boy couldn't find his phone.  Sighing patiently, I phoned his number from mine.  We heard nothing.

The RFB sought and panicked, while I went into the bathroom to turn off the taps on the tub he'd been running.  The RFB dove back into the night, to retrace his steps in the dark.

About five minutes later, younger daughter found the missing phone under the bathmat.  I texted, hoping the message would flash up on his FitBit:  "You can come home."  "It was under the bathmat."

I texted over and over.  Thirty-seven times.

When the RFB returned half an hour later, he realized he'd silenced the ringer for the movie, which is why we couldn't hear it when searching the apartment.

I got to bed about 1 am, after rinsing the toxic insect repellent from my body.  Two days later, about a dozen bites blossomed on my knees.  They seemed to come out of nowhere, like stars in a summer sky. 

Perspective

The empty seat

Cartoon by Morten Morland, a Norwegian cartoonist based in the UK

 This cartoon is being shared a lot; it appeared in today's Times. 

 I think it strikes a chord on many levels (which is actually what a chord is, isn't it?).

Those of us who watched the State Funeral today (and we couldn't resist) had an opportunity: to see beyond the pageantry, symbolism, and sentiment.

We feel a loss, but it's more than a seemingly omnipresent and immortal Queen.  It's a way of life, and a way of seeing things, which, however myopic, was something taken for granted.

Many of us looked over to a chair, and realised, probably not for the first time, that a flawed, maddening, but beloved person no longer was sitting there.  Perhaps we thought:  Oh s/he would have loved/hated this.

I was lucky today.  I escorted Demeter from her apartment to watch bits and pieces of the ceremonies.  We drank tea, of course. Afterwards, we discussed which members of the Royal Family we'd seen over the years.  (They come to Canada quite a bit.)

And I realised that my very British mother actually only lived in England for about a decade, if you include her first year of life, and home furloughs from Kenya.

Then I escorted her home, and went for a walk in the sunset.

It seemed appropriate.

Why do you ring ding ding?

 When I first heard the "Elizabeth Serenade", I thought it was a German folk-song.

I went to school with a girl named Antje.  We weren't best friends, but friendly enough to visit each other's houses.  Antje's mum, who was German, was a single mother, like mine, and I knew her from her volunteer work in our Guide troop.

I remember a visit on a sunny day.  They had a small house down by Craigflower Creek, which flowed under the bridge near our school.

Antje's mum put a recording on, which began with flutes sounding rather like those in the Dance of the Reed Pipes in Tchaicovsky's The Nutcracker. 

"Isn't this Beautiful?!"  she enthused, teutonically.

It was certainly pretty.  The feathery flutes were followed by a chorus singing lustily in German, interspersed with what sounded like aggressive handbells, a wee bit jarring, but I looked out at the water flowing by the house and listened appreciatively.

It was years until I learned that this piece was originally an instrumental (which, frankly, suits it better), composed by Ronald Binge, some time around 1951.  It didn't really have a title - apart from Andante Cantabile, but when Britain suddenly found itself with a pretty 25-year-old queen in 1952, it was renamed Elizabethan Serenade.  

This recording by Ron Goodwin and his orchestra is probably the most recognizable arrangement of the piece.  George Martin, who, years later, would produce the Beatles, had a hand in producing this one, and it's a pleasant listen.  Easy, you might say.  As ear-worms go, there are far worse.

Of course, then someone had to write lyrics for it.  I'll spare you.  The title of this post is ripped from Christopher Hassall's verses, for which the kindest adjective is "twee".  Google it if you must.

I rather expected to hear the Elizabethan Serenade over the past ten days, instead we're getting a lot of Nimrod.

It may be a moot point; I heard some years ago that Queen Elizabeth really wasn't much of a music-lover, which must have made sitting through all those concerts, ballets, shows, and operas a challenge.

She'll be getting more than enough music tomorrow, but then, I guess she won't have to hang around.

The p word

When I was in Grade Two, we did a Social Studies unit on "Indians".  This was before the terms "Indigenous" and "First Nations".  I think it's safe to say that our teachers didn't know any better.

It was a time when the residential schools were still in operation, and little boys played "Cowboys and Indians".

On a special project day, we came to school dressed as "Indians".  I lived in Edmonton, so the emphasis was on Plains "Indians".  My mother fixed me up with one of my soft dolls bundled and strapped to my back.  One of the boys punched it in the face as a joke.

That's the last time I recall hearing the word "papoose".

Last night, I came across an essay on the BBC web site, under, of all things, the "Entertainment and Arts" section, presumably because the author, Mark Savage, is a music columnist. 

This piece was about the increasingly legendary Queue that stretches from Westminster Hall, where the Queen's body lies in state, to Southwark Park on the south bank of the Thames, a distance of just under five miles. 

Savage writes of the peaceful atmosphere emanating from the live telecast of the Lying in State, and says he often leaves the livestream on, while doing things around his home. He speaks warmly about the people passing through the hall on either side of the catafalque, remarking on spotting many masks.  (I've seen about half a dozen masks amongst the thousands of people, but then, I don't keep the telecast on for long periods.)

And it was when he described the many types of people passing through the great hall, that my jaw dropped to my knees: There are women in hijabs and wearing papooses... 

Click to enlarge

I was getting ready for bed at the time, and shut down the web site, feeling startled and slightly sick.  I was surprised at how upset I felt, upset enough to fumble with my phone for an official definition of this long-forgotten word. 

This seems to indicate that "papoose", as a synonym for what I called a baby sling or carrier* when the girls were infants, is mainly in use in the UK, and I recalled how, as delightful as my British rellies are, they had an unfortunate tendency to make references to "Red Indians" (cringe) and persist in calling Inuit people "Eskimos", a sidebar to their generally dismissive attitudes to Canada and Canadians. 

Still -- "papoose"??? On a BBC web site? Would they call maternity clothes "squaw-wear"? 

This morning, I texted elder daughter in London.  As a millennial who has spent much of her early adulthood correcting stone-age parental attitudes, her response surprised me:  she made the casual claim that she'd heard it used in Canada fairly often.  I sent her the dictionary definition and she seemed taken aback.

I don't, for a moment, think that Mark Savage is a red-neck, but his careless and sentimental vocabulary underscores why we've been hearing less than complimentary messages from groups wounded by things done in Elizabeth's name.

Call 'em baby slings or carriers, Mr Savage. The p-word does you no favours, and it rather ruined my evening.

*Actually, the Resident Fan Boy reminds me that we called the baby carrier by its brand-name: "Snuggli". Since I'm calling out the BBC, I feel compelled to add: many other brands of baby slings are available.

Intervention (write of passage number fifty-four)

The Resident Fan Boy was zoning out on the bus, so at first didn't hear the voice from the seat behind him.

"Hello?  Excuse me?"

A waving hand appeared near his ear.

The woman, having his attention, leaned forward.

"There are lots of free seats on this bus."

The RFB turned slightly, so as not to disturb younger daughter, who was gazing out the window, and fidgeting slightly.  The bus was, indeed, nearly empty. He fixed the woman with a quizzical gaze.

"And your point is?"

"Well, you're making people uncomfortable."

While the RFB was processing the implication, younger daughter spoke up.

"No, you're not!" she declared, ignoring the woman completely.  "You're my dad!"

Nothing further was heard for the rest of the trip.

On hearing this story (and having been questioned by strangers more than once myself), I gently pointed out that if younger daughter had been on her own, with an unwelcome man sitting next to her (which has happened), perhaps someone should issue a challenge.

The RFB agreed - a tad begrudgingly - and younger daughter called warningly from her bedroom.  She doesn't like being discussed, and her hearing is acute beyond belief.

Alignment

I was going to avoid mentioning the upcoming royal funeral until it actually happens next Monday.  More than enough is being mentioned already.

However, we are all British descendants in our house, and elder daughter lives in the UK, so naturally, we've been tuning into the death festival that's been taking place for the last week.  

Yesterday, while searching for YouTube recordings to show Demeter, who has no internet, I stumbled across the continuous live streaming of the Great British public (plus a large number of tourists) making their steady way in two lines past the Queen's coffin, which is lying in state at Westminster Hall.

It's oddly compelling viewing.  These are people who have waited for hours and hours for the privilege of a moment's pause to bow, genuflect, namaste, or whatever, before trotting back to their lives.  I'm astounded to see some people have brought strollers, or ambulant young children.

Yesterday evening, I discovered there's a "Queue-Tracker" on YouTube.  At that point, the Queue (capitalised, like the Queue at Wimbledon) was two and a half miles long, stretching back to Southwark Bridge on the South Bank of the Thames.

This morning, when I arose, it was 4.2 miles long, and I've just checked, it's 4.9 miles long.  My understanding is that the "cut-off" point is five miles, when, so the Twitter wags suggest, a queue will then be formed for the Queue.

A popular thread on Twitter declares that this Queue is performance art.  It's certainly bonkers, but like a road accident, I can't look away.

There's a demon and an angel in my belly

A few weeks ago, I dropped by the Marble Slab Ice Cream Store, because I was running errands and running out of steam. There was a knot of people ahead of me, and I realised, because of the tee-shirt of a statuesque women taking a leadership role amongst them, that they were ESL students from the University of Victoria, under the guidance of what we used to call "monitors", then euphemised to "cultural assistants".  I have tremendous respect for the work they did - except those that slept with the students (a minority, I believe).

I have fond memories of the English language programmes at UVic, particularly the summer programme, where the majority of the students were Québécois - not I ever played favourites, of course.

Last week, I heard this song at the coffee shop, and, although this song is recent, it brings back the feel of those summers, and the endearingly insular young men and women in my classes.

 

And in the middle of the celebrations

I had a landmark birthday recently. 

At least Double Leo Sister thought so.

My first inkling that I was in trouble came about six weeks beforehand, when I got a series of texts.  Double Leo Sister rarely texts, and when she does, she sends one after the other.  Usually about three or four come in, while I'm struggling to compose a tactful reply to the first one.

My sister is what you might call an impulsive person.  She probably pronounces it "spontaneous".  You can imagine how alarmed I was to be receiving a series of texts from my impulsive/spontaneous and frankly, volatile sibling a full six weeks ahead of my birthday, a birthday that, up until that second, I had regarded as being not particularly significant. 

She and her husband, the Jolly Not-So-Green Giant, wanted to visit for my "Birthday" this year.  Did I have plans?

I desperately wanted to say that yes, I would be out of the country.  However, DLS knows I'm visiting Demeter three times daily to facilitate meals and other homely things.  Swallowing panic, I texted tactfully but truthfully, that I'd expected they would be dropping by for Mother's Day, which roughly coincides with younger daughter's birthday.  (Younger daughter adores her aunt and uncle.)  Couldn't we celebrate my birthday in conjunction with those special days?

DLS responded:  "We can probably do both."  Following immediately with "Gonna do your birthday this year." It's true that they haven't "done" my birthday since long before we went to Ottawa.  I've grown to depend on it.

With a sinking heart, I forwarded the texts to elder daughter in Britain, who also adores her aunt and uncle, but knows the reasons behind my trepidation and despair.  

I mulled over this in some misery for a day or so.  I like my birthday.  It's my day, and way too often over the years, it's been hijacked by the proximity of both daughters' birthdays.  It's a day which, in a best-case scenario, is a quiet one, spent doing things I like to do - not picking my way across the emotional minefield of my sister's feelings.

I tried, once again, to get this across to my sister by text (leaving out the bit about emotional minefields).  I had to try, at least.  Once again, I suggested a joint birthday celebration that could take in younger daughter's birthday, and pointed out that there were few days around my own birthday that weren't booked by the Resident Fan Boy for his church stuff.

I suppose I could have predicted the response, which arrived while the RFB and I were Skyping with elder daughter in London.  The gist of the text was DLS's impression that she and her family were only welcome at younger daughter's birthday.

Unfortunately, this was rather true, but it wouldn't do to admit it.  The RFB and elder daughter coached me through a response, and I recalled the advice of the late American linguist Suzette Haden Elgin, who wrote a series entitled The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense - in particular, a key tip:  "Ignore the bait."  (I.E., the imbedded statement:  "We are not welcome.")

With no apology, I simply texted back with a choice of two dates - after consulting both the calendar and The Resident Fan Boy.

This worked, after a fashion, and I didn't hear from DLS for several weeks, which begged the question:  Why was my "spontaneous" sister planning this visit so far ahead?  Most unlike her.

Demeter had an answer.  DLS and JN-S-GG had found a "special" gift for my "special" birthday, and they were, apparently, very excited about it.

I wasn't.  My sister is a fan of grand gestures, many of which have meaning only to her, but she expects a rapturous and grateful response.  If I don't deliver, things get ugly.

After over a month of apprehension - although I did get my quiet birthday - their van drew up, and they got out bearing a large, flat, rectangular box, decorated with layers of coloured tissue paper.

I thought it might be one of my sister's stained-glass creations, difficult to find a place for, but doable, and rather pretty.  With some effort, I opened the box with appropriate ceremony, casting surreptitious and pleading glances at the Resident Fan Boy, who cleverly avoided them.

And then I summoned all my powers of feigning enthusiasm for -- whatever it was.  It defied description, but I'll try: 

Big. Rectangular.  Very dark brown.  It looks like a trophy, with photos sealed behind a sort of plexiglass skin.  The largest of the photos is the famous shot of the Beatles crossing Abbey Road.  Below are two small snaps of the Beatles waiting to cross Abbey Road.  At the bottom, is a small silver plaque or sticker bearing the songs that make up the Abbey Road album.

Well, it certainly was a surprise.

I'm fond of the Beatles, but Abbey Road isn't even my favourite Beatles album.  (That would be Rubber Soul, but I don't want a commemorative plaque of that, either.)

And my sister and her husband merrily hung this thing on my living room wall, exclaiming over it, while I did my level best to not betray how baffled I was.  We made it through the weekend, then the RFB and I put a heavy-duty hook on our bedroom wall (the thing would yank most hooks out of the wall), and every time they come to town, we pull the plaque out of its hiding place and hang it up.

We discovered afterwards that they got this in a charity auction.  (There was a receipt in the decorated box.) They paid $521.81 for it.

On the days I have to look at it; I comfort myself by thinking of all that money that went to a hospital.  Then I go and look at other things, until my bewilderment abates.

Intimations of mortality

On Last Week Tonight last night, John Oliver, on the record as not being a fan of the Royal Family, made a quip about Britain being bowled over because "a 96-year-old woman died of natural causes".

I am a fan of John Oliver, so I wasn't particularly bothered by this statement, much like I think arresting Scottish protesters for holding up placards about abolishing the monarchy during the Queen's funeral procession is overkill.  Their protests may not be in particularly good taste, but it's their right, and hauling them off to jail is pretty much against what the Queen stood for, isn't it?

But I recalled the Oliver quip this morning when a "retweeted" "thread" showed up on my Twitterfeed:
 

What can we learn from the death of the #Queen?

The world has watched her live through the process of #OrdinaryDying, and yet dying went unspoken, un-named.

Let's notice what nobody mentioned: we all saw the Queen going through the stages of ordinary dying.

A thread..

1/ pic.twitter.com/5bYoZIXUvq

— Kathryn Mannix (@drkathrynmannix) September 11, 2022

This stopped me in my tracks.

If you follow the link you can read the whole thread, which consists of twelve tweets, from Dr Mannix, who is a retired palliative care doctor and author -- a thanatologist, if you will.

I made the mistake of not "liking" it or bookmarking it on my phone; I was at Demeter's, doing her laundry and waiting for her to wake up.

Twitter is like a rolling, roiling river of comments, smart remarks, photos, "threads", and memes, so when I went to look for the thread half an hour later, it had been swept away by other items.  I only knew that the reason I'd seen it in the first place is that the Resident Fan Boy's second cousin once removed, a doctor herself whose physician husband wrote a bestseller about his own impending death, had retweeted it.

After nearly an hour at my home computer, doing every search I could think of on Twitter, I simply entered a few keywords into Google, and there it was.

Two tweets hit me hard:

The changes began slowly.
Initially, we realised that she was less energetic year by year.
This is the stage of dying when life expectancy is usually still measured in years.

After Prince Philip died she was noticeably more tired, her public appearances less frequent, her energy less reliable. Losing weight, walking with a stick: changing month by month, a stage that usually indicates life expectancy measured in months.

I'm a witness to my mother's final years, maybe months, according to Dr. Mannix - although Demeter has used a stick for years, and her weight fluctuates.  However, I do recognize the signs.

Years ago, I joined Victoria Hospice as a volunteer, for two reasons:  I realized in my late teens, that death was something no one acknowledged, even in a time where all topics were supposedly no longer taboo; and Demeter had brought my grandmother to live in Canada, and I knew I would be facing her death soon.  (It was over a decade later.)

It's been years since my time with the hospice, and I'm out of practice.  I do remember, that when people I knew came to the hospice to die - Victoria being not a particularly large city - that I could tell when the end was near when I entered the room and had trouble recognising them.  Not due to disfigurement, you understand, but when people are nearing death, they stop looking like themselves.  It's hard to explain, if you haven't experienced this, but more than once, I quickly checked the name tag on the door to assure myself I had the right room.

The other thing I remember is that health professionals working with the dying have a reason for not giving estimates of the time left.  We would have patients who were with us for months, despite appearing very weak and ill, and others, alert and ambulatory when I came in for my weekly shift, would be gone by the time I arrived for the next one.

However, this Twitter thread has reeled me in, and I will be paying closer attention to what Demeter says and doesn't say, plus what she does and doesn't do.

Dr Mannix concludes:

Dying in plain sight, camouflaged by briefings about 'mobility issues' and medical advice to 'rest.' Because like anyone else, the Queen was entitled to some privacy about her health, and to die away from the public gaze.

But we all saw the process.

Rest in peace, Ma'am.

So John Oliver was right.  A 96-year-old woman died of natural causes, as we watched.  Because she was a privileged person, she died prepared and supported.

I know not the time, but I'm on alert. 

A month of nights

 In a strange way, the mourning over the Queen has supplied a welcome distraction from other "stuff" happening in the world.  You can supply your own list, but I realized, with a sickening lurch, that the new head of the Conservative Party in Canada is a populist, who supported the truckers' convoy that occupied Hades for nearly a month last winter.

I felt the same way when Trump won the Republican Party nomination in 2016.  This could get messy.

Rather than distracting myself with footage of the royal hearse passing the villages on the Carse of Gowrie, where my Scottish ancestors lived for centuries, I am mindfully turning to music.

Long before he became the musical genius behind the Peanuts cartoon specials, Vince Guaraldi came up with a gorgeous instrumental, which eventually was given the title "Cast Your Fate to the Wind" .  

Some time later, Carel Werber wrote lyrics for it, and some vocal groups recorded it, including We Five (who had a hit with "You Were on My Mind" on the same album). 

(The drummer in this recording, incidentally was Jerry Granelli, who died in Halifax, Nova Scotia last year, and for some time, was Vince Guaraldi's drummer.)

But last week, Spotify sent me this relatively recent interpretation by jazz/folk instrumentalist George Winston.

Listen, is it sacreligious to admit that I think I prefer this to the other recordings (which I love, I hastily add)?

I loved the original for its humming continuo bass line, achieved by the bassist bowing his instrument.  Winston achieves by -- how -- the pedal?  He also illustrates that the piano is indeed a percussive instrument; I keep thinking I hear a drum set joining in, only to realise that this is all in how he strikes the keys. 

Goodness knows, I'm no sailor, but I'll gladly float away from the craziness on this boat.

Inches from a clean getaway

For our wedding anniversary this year, I bit the bullet and purchased an air purifier, the one most recommended on CBC's Marketplace, because summer smoke seems to be an annual menace in this benighted century.

So, naturally, we had no smoke this summer.  I was thinking about this, as I took a scenic route on the evening call to check on Demeter.  The slanting September sun looked particularly golden, and the flowers in the neighbourhood a wee bit dry.

About mid-morning today, I thought it was getting muggy.  Then the Resident Fan Boy, on an outing with younger daughter to Beacon Hill Park, texted me that the smell of smoke was strong.

The wind is blowing smoke from forest fires near Hope, B.C.

I hauled out the unopened box containing the new purifier, and set it up.  I'll then have to hurry over to Demeter's to make sure all her windows are closed.  Outside, the air is a light shade of umber, and I have errands to run.

No point in sighing.  I'll need to save my breath.

 

Not taking debate

There's quite a war going on in social media about whether this is the time for debate about the continued existence of the British monarchy, especially when the debate consists of tweets, some in decidedly questionable taste. 

I'd take the hint to take a break from social media until say, October or so, except I keep running into the occasional gem.

I do think comic relief will become increasingly necessary over the next couple of weeks of lamentation, no matter what you thought of the late Queen, so here is a possible way to joke gently, done by a Canadian, of course. 

The Canadian is "Brittlestar" (real name: Stewart Reynolds), who is based in Stratford, Ontario, and if you're unclear of the situation with Lisa LaFlamme -- well, actually, this video explains it pretty well.

Another amber moment

On my Twitterfeed this morning

I awoke early this morning; the Resident Fan Boy was celebrating his birthday by going into the hospital for minor surgery. 

In between pulling on my clothes and brushing my teeth, I quickly checked my social media feeds and was arrested by a tweet from Elizabeth Renzetti, a former Globe and Mail columnist whom I follow on Twitter.

Apparently the newsreaders at BBC News had quietly changed into black suits.

Things still needed to get done:  seeing the RFB off in the taxi, then crossing the street to go set up Demeter's breakfast.  I continued to check whatever media was available.  The commentary was vague, but pretty ominous.

I was washing up Demeter's breakfast plates, when elder daughter texted me from London at 10:36 our time.

She simply sent the words of the message that was fastened to the gates at Buckingham Palace:  The King and Queen Consort will return to London tomorrow.  "So odd."

"We'll get used to it soon," I assured her.

I didn't ask her if she could see the rainbow from South Wimbledon.

The day of magical thinking

I found a penny on the sidewalk.

This is a rare thing indeed, as in Canada, they stopped making pennies ten years ago.

It was in the middle of a challenging day, which, in turn, was in the middle of a trying week, and I juggled everything I had to struggle to pick the penny up, because it seemed a sign that everything was going to be all right.

Yeah, yeah... I've heard about magical thinking. Well, dammit, sometimes, a belief in magic is all that keeps me going.

There are times that I think I've stumbled into a novel by Kafka. 

 Or Vonnegut. 

 Maybe Camus.

I was literally minding my own business, signing in as I do every two to three times a year, and have done for the last decade, to order dietary enzymes for younger daughter, because they have been a successful boost in managing her autism for the past two decades.

I was therefore, surprised to find my credit card declined.  An automatic message suggested I supply another credit card.  I haven't had another credit card for years, having got rid of it, when the bank involved had, without permission, made my independent account a joint one with the Resident Fan Boy, when we purchased our house, and refused to rectify this when we asked.  

The RFB wasn't home, so I shrugged, and logged off, deciding to try again later. 

It was a matter of minutes before the bank involved with this particular card sent me an email, informing me that there had been "suspicious activity" on my account.  Since this was an email, I decided to take this with a grain of salt, but noted that, along with the phone numbers provided, I could phone the number on the back of my card.  I figured that this last option was the safest one.

After jumping through the hoops to get into the phone queue, a recording estimated my wait as being between one hour, and an hour and a half.  I needed to be at Demeter's for the evening set-up, so I hung up.

Almost immediately, my landline rang with an automated message with almost the exact same wording as the email, so I resolved to try again after visiting Demeter, taking a therapeutic 25-minute walk beforehand, as the sun disappeared, leaving trails of powdery-pink clouds.

The RFB was going out for the evening, so I jumped through the automated phone hoops again, and was informed by the cheerful recorded voice that my estimated wait-time was now 90 minutes to 2 hours.  I put my phone on speaker, and puttered around doing chores, while trying to ignore the Kenny G type saxophone phone queue music, interspersed with loud bank service promotions, and alarmingly long periods of dead air.

After about an hour and a half of this, I realised someone was actually talking to me, and I had to jump through some more hoops, answering inscrutable questions about my account.  My baffled responses evidently confirmed that I was who I said I was, and the nice lady proceeded to tap away at whatever device she was using, and removed the "restrictions".

When I asked her why I had been restricted in the first place, as the order I'd placed had been with a company I'd used many times before, she airily told me that "we don't know why", but there had probably  been a pattern that activated the "red flag".

Here's what I don't understand.  There appear to be regular news items about poor souls' having their bank accounts emptied by fraudulent malfeasants, without the said bank's being at all suspicious.  Sudden expensive purchases and the transferrals of savings into other accounts apparently don't count as a pattern.

I'll stick with magic, thank you.  Surely the rarity of pennies render the magic more potent?

(Don't answer that.)

September is the schoolest month

 The light is misleading these mornings.  

Through most of the summer, I can tell if it's a sunny morning when I rise at my usual time, between 6:30 and 7.  Now the light is pre-dawn grey; the summer is slipping away.

Today, I get out of bed, and for the first time in weeks, reach for my cozy robe against the chill.

First day of school in most of Canada; it was yesterday in the UK, where they don't observe the Labour Day holiday.  My social media feed is full of children and adolescents, offspring of younger relatives, friends and acquaintances, lined up in their front halls, or in front of their houses.  The English students are in school uniforms; the Canadian ones in brand-new ensembles.

My former neighbour in Hades posts a photo of her boy, born after our retreat from Ottawa. With a shock, I recognize the school in the background.  It's my daughters' elementary school, towards which I made the daily climb, about a kilometre up the hill, twice a day for the better part of eight years:  the four years elder daughter attended it, and the four years younger daughter haunted it.

Well, I knew my neighbour's son would wind up there eventually.  It's just that in the pre-dawn shadows three time zones away, I find myself re-living memories - most of which I don't treasure.  The years of volunteerism scoured away any rosy notions about school days that had survived my own less-than-stellar experiences. I briskly remind myself that I don't have to do that, nor go there.

The sun is bright and high, when I emerge, on the way to setting up Demeter's breakfast.  A phantom appears at the corner of the block which separates my home from Demeter's.  It's a mother, escorting a young pupil, while pushing younger sibling in a stroller.  They're bound for elder daughter's former elementary here in Victoria.

 I spent three years on that trek, twice a day, with another young scholar and sibling in a stroller. The confronting vision and the accompanying memories are poignant, but palatable.

I cast a brief thought to the excited little boy pictured by his mum outside of that other school in Hades.  It's all I can afford, but I do wish him well.

Missing the boat

The Sarmatian, of the Allen Line

Today, I came across one of those elusive discoveries that pleases family historians.

One of the Resident Fan Boy's great-great-great-uncles emigrated to Canada in May 1875, in the days when passenger ships had sails.  That's the ship he crossed the Atlantic in, just above.  It took nearly three weeks to reach Quebec City from Liverpool.  

Some months after settling in Stratford, Ontario, great-great-great-uncle wrote a very long letter to the Bury Free Press, back in his hometown of Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, where his family had been reasonably prominent.

He gave his date of departure, the name of the ship, and spent several paragraphs detailing the rough seas and being slowed to a stop by icebergs.  Then he described the arrival, and journey through several Canadian towns and cities, followed by itemising local birds, animals, and plants.

Being a resident in Canada for seven months - it being late December at the time of writing - he was now an expert in Canadian life and requirements for immigrants.  No more room for "artizans", he declared, while conceding that a cutler was needed.  Immigrants should be young, and not encumbered by small children, if they were to take advantage of the opportunities of this new country.

Funny thing:  At age 45, he'd made the voyage with his wife, and five boys, ranging in ages eighteen months to 16.  In the whole of this epic, informative letter, he never mentioned any of them.

Faint-hearted

They were bright red twenty-eight months ago.

In the weeks following the advent of the pandemic, red hearts appeared everywhere:  pinned up in windows, dangling from tree branches, painted and stencilled on the sidewalks.
 

It's now the third Labour Day weekend of the pandemic.

Things seem to have eased.  

There is music floating and bumping into buildings from concerts in the park.  At the coffee shop, few people wear masks.

 

Some glance at me sidelong. I still wear a mask in indoor shared spaces. I am, after all, still dropping in on my mother to set up her meals, and do her laundry, and the RFB, who had COVID a few weeks ago, will be attempting to get minor surgery done this week. It's been postponed twice. 

All a little too much to inscribe on a tee-shirt, so I try to smile with my eyes, not wishing to pin my heart on my sleeve.

Times like these

It was a long weekend like this one, except that it was in the spring. I was heavily pregnant.   I lay across our bed, watching the televised footage of the memorial concert for Freddie Mercury being held at Wembley Stadium.

I didn't know it at the time, but elder daughter would be born five days later.

Today, I wondered if she could hear all those Queen tunes from the womb, because, three decades later, she was at Wembley with a cousin and a room-mate, sitting up in the gods, attending the Tribute Concert for Taylor Hawkins, the Foo Fighters drummer, who died suddenly last March.

And technology being what it is, I was alerted that the concert had begun, by an Instagram picture posted by the cousin and tagging elder daughter.  Sitting with my early morning coffee at Moka House, I soon discovered that I could stream the concert on my laptop via the MTV YouTube channel -- with the sound muted, of course.  My iPhone earbuds are incompatible with my Mac.  (Gee, thanks, Apple.) When I had to leave to set up Demeter's breakfast, I followed the line-up via blog updates, until I could hurry home mid-morning.

I'm not a true-blue fan of the Foo Fighters, but elder daughter has been enthusiastic about them for the past five years, and so I'm reasonably conversant with about half a dozen of their better-known songs and familiar with a lot of their biographical details, having been exposed to documentaries about them during each of elder daughter's visits.

The real thrill for me was watching this Wembley show, knowing elder daughter was there -- much like her visit to three Court One games at Wimbledon, when the summer began.  I know a little about the Foo Fighters and far far less about tennis, but I knew she was in the crowd and excited beyond belief to be there.

The show had a bit of everything.  Hawkins' connections were everywhere in the rock/pop scene. When I got home, I was confronted with the very early-Seventies-style of interminable guitar solo, supplied by the James Gang, reunited after decades for this concert only.  (Not a criticism, I rather like "Closet Queen" with its variations on Ravel's Bolero, and Guaraldi's "Cast Your Fate to the Wind".)  

While getting Demeter's breakfast, I had missed the legendary Chrissie Hynde (totally in control at 70) and the Pretenders, Liam Gallagher, and Niles Rodgers, to name a few.  I caught what I'd missed later, before the lawyers hauled the YouTube video down, as I knew they would.

There was a seam of bereavement running through the performances, as well.  Wolfgang Van Halen played songs by his late father Eddie;  AC/DC lost Malcolm Young some time ago. Rush has lost Neil Peart, and tonight were playing to a politely bewildered crowd of Brits born in the nineties and "naughties".  I'm not unsympathetic - Rush has bewildered me for years.  Taylor Hawkins was a fan, though.

And then there was Queen - what's left of them.  And elder daughter now saw them in the flesh, from her seat up below the rim of the Wembley. Dancing with vicarious glee in the living room, I shared the moment with her - via texts, of course, this being the 21st century.

After a long parade of well-known musicians playing some of Hawkins' favourite music, the Foo Fighters took over.

At this moment, it became crystal clear that, for all of the variety of songs and musicians preceding this moment, it was a Foo Fighters crowd, come for a Foo Fighters concert. The singing had, up until this moment, not been as loud and cohesive. The thousands in the stadium now knew every word. 

And then Paul McCartney showed up. 

I thought he might, since he's a close friend of Dave Grohl's, but I still leapt to my feet in shock, texting an expletive to my daughter at Wembley, while  swaying eight times zones away.

The Foo Fighters were backed by a series of notable drummers, including 12-year-old Nandi Bushell, and Taylor Hawkins' 16-year-old-son Shane, in a frenetic and emotional performance that stood out among a day of many such moments.

I know just enough about the Foo Fighters to guess that the concert, which had last nearly six hours, was drawing to a close, when Grohl, standing alone on the stage, with half a dozen empty drum kits behind him, accompanied himself on guitar, while the vast crowd sang along to the quintessential FF song "Everlong".

I felt rather jet-lagged afterwards.

Maybe it was the stimulation of so much music.

Maybe it was because a piece of my heart is residing in London.  She got home long after midnight.

Bonkers but brilliant

Perhaps I shouldn't admit it, but I never was all that crazy about most of John Williams' music. Harry Potter is an exception, and I always found the instrumentation haunting. Here's a young fella to deconstruct it for us without a word, yet using only his voice:

Over easy

 I've managed to wrench my knee a bit while climbing the stairs to Demeter's apartment.  (I could take the elevator, but I figure I need the exercise.)  I limp in, while my hamstring grumbles in response to the sting in the inner corner of my kneecap.

There are a couple of rashers of bacon on a plate on the kitchen counter.  I put on the kettle, and manage to walk normally to the living room, where Demeter is writing up her monthly budget, a habit that got her through years of single parenthood.

"I take it you'd like bacon and eggs for lunch?" I inquire.

"Yes, but you only boiled one egg yesterday."

"That's because you asked for a boiled egg."

"I always have two boiled eggs, so I can make a sandwich later."

I've been setting up her meals since her fall in mid-January of 2021, more than eighteen months ago.

"I've never made two boiled eggs for you. You've never asked me to."

Her voice has taken on a gentle, resigned tone.

"Oh well, I guess you didn't hear me."

I match the gentleness (I hope), but skip the resignation.  

"I can't hear something that you didn't say, Mum."

I wince my way back to the kitchen, and fume quietly, but futilely.