No room for rompers

I'm making my way home from dinner-call at Demeter's, when I see a couple just ahead of me on the sidewalk stop to approach a bush and smell the blossoms. 

Nuthin' wrong with that. The women of the pair, however,  is wearing an ill-advised romper. 

(N.B. All rompers are ill-advised; I once mistakenly purchased one for younger daughter, believing it to be a blouse.) 

The lower quarters of the lady's buttocks are emerging from the leg-holes, which is why they're designed for young women - and even then, they're still a bad idea.  I advert my eyes, and quickly walk past them - the woman and the man, that is. 

They abruptly stand to one side to let me by, and the fellow calls out to me in a loud jocular voice, congratulating me on "beating" them: "No, really, I congratulate you, ma'am!" he persists. 

 I laugh heartily, with a sinking and uneasy feeling that I'm being mocked. (Why? I wonder to myself. At least I'm not wearing a romper.)  I hurry up the pathway to my building. 

 It rather ruins my evening.

Sidewalk rage

Thursdays have become sacrosanct in our household -- a household with someone living on the autistic spectrum has many holy days from which it is perilous to deviate.

Thursday is Pic-a-Flic Day, when we make the pilgrimage to select the week's DVDs.

We usually walk back, but sometimes, the slow, upward incline is daunting, particularly if the weather isn't pleasant or if there are extra bags to carry, and we catch the bus to a stop a block or so from our apartment building.

It's taken me some months to have sufficient courage to describe the afternoon in question, when I alighted from the bus, and made the quick diagonal cut to the busy corner near the traffic light. Younger daughter, like Eurydice, was a few steps behind as usual, so I didn't see what happened.

The first indication of trouble was the outraged bellowing of a little old man, yelling at me about younger daughter.

"She stepped right in front of me!"

I was caught off-guard by his fury, but gazing at his contorted face, shouting at me about how he had to stop suddenly to avoid bumping into her - I should point out that he, like us, was on foot - it occurred to me that he was barking at me.

Not at younger daughter.

Which meant that he had figured out that I was in charge of her.

Any wish to placate him vanished with this realization.

"My daughter is on the autistic spectrum," I told him firmly. "What's your excuse?"
"That doesn't matter!" he shouts.  "She should know better!"

Mothers have an extra limbic layer.  Mothers of neurologically different people probably have several.

He stood by the curb, waiting for the cross signal, still sniping at me.  I was carrying a book bag.  I swung it back about six inches, then bopped him on his arm.

It didn't even unbalance him, but he was probably a bit unbalanced to begin with, and now really enraged. His voice jumped several decibels, but I was no longer listening.  I strode away from him, not looking back, and flipping a bird over my shoulder at the direction of his roars.

Younger daughter apologized all the way up the hill.

When I got home, I was in a cold sweat of shock and shame.

I knew I hadn't injured him, but my actions taught him nothing, and were a poor example to my daughter.  This isn't how grown-ups respond to insults, particularly childish and petty ones.

On top of this, Victoria is a small city, and I was clad in a distinctive, hot pink raincoat.

I didn't wear it for months.

The authority song

When something like this hurtles out of left field and clobbers me, I go back time and time again, trying to remember if there were any warning signs.

It's probably a futile exercise. You can't plan for everything, although heaven knows I try. I tried this time, but the awful thing is, the planning may have been a factor.

During March Break, I've adopted the practice of making a list of possible outings. The idea is to a) get younger daughter out and about once a day; and b) give her some choice in the matter. This year's selection included Kenneth Branagh's Disney directorial debut: Cinderella. I had checked ahead for showtimes and discovered that the IMAX version had pre-booked seating. Well, I thought, that's probably a good idea. The city is full of parents - and gawd help us, day camps - searching for things to do with their kids.

So, on the morning younger daughter had chosen to attend, I got up early, booked our favourite seats online (narrowly missing choosing seats smack in the front row), and carefully plotted the buses that would get us there on time to get to the washroom, purchase popcorn and drinks, and find our seats. (Trickier than you'd think; OC Transpo cuts back on bus service during March Break.) Then I gave younger daughter timely warnings and got her out to the bus stop.

It worked beautifully. Washroom first, and no line-up at concession.

That's where things began to fall apart. When I asked younger daughter if she could take her bag of popcorn, she scooped it up impatiently and snapped, "I'm not a kid anymore!!" Quite a bit of the popcorn went flying. She stomped over to get a straw for her pop, leaving me a little startled.

We made our way to our seats in the centre of the topmost row. The aisle is well-lit, but the middle seats aren't and I realized that I couldn't read the seat numbers. Normally, this isn't an issue, but this was a reserved-seating show, so I asked younger daughter, who was juggling her food and coat, to tell me the number of the seat next to her. She spent some time working out where to put her coat, then sat down. I asked again. She grumbled at me and stared ahead stubbornly. That's when I made the fatal error. I should know better, but it's been a while, and I thoughtlessly muttered: "Oh, please don't act like a bitch." Younger daughter may have deficits in certain categories of memory and comprehension, but her hearing is superb.

It happened so fast that it seemed she had disappeared and reappeared in the distant aisle, leaving me in a shower of popcorn. She was screaming at me at the top of her lungs: "I HATE YOU I HATE YOU YOU IDIOT!!!" Then she stomped down the stairs, and left the theatre.

The family sitting in the row ahead of us moved down several rows.

A few minutes later, she reappeared, grabbed her coat, and exited as I called after her, keep my voice level, "You don't have a ticket with you." She was watching me from the corner of her eye, holding her coat in front of her body when she vanished from my view.

I sat, fighting down the embarrassment and panic, knowing pursuing her would only start another scene. What if she left the building? What if they didn't let her back in? She had her bus pass with her; would she try to go home?

Finally I made my way down, apologizing to a mum and her little girl at the end of the aisle as I squeezed by. They had just arrived and had missed the drama; most people had, the theatre was nearly empty when we first came in. The family who had moved had returned to their seats.

I looked in the washroom. I asked the woman who had taken our tickets, the one who takes hundreds of tickets for the eight large cinemas -- of course she didn't remember seeing younger daughter. I went to the entrance and gazed out at the grey and icy parking lot, out beyond the box stores towards the Transitway station. I decided to return to the cinema. As I was standing in the ramp between the risers and the doorway, scanning the seats, the trailers started and I saw her come in as an usher closed the door behind her. I walked quickly to the far aisle, up the stairs, and had to climb over another family to return to my seat.

As I sat down, I saw she hadn't followed me.

It was a morning show, and the seats were half-filled. I prayed she had taken another seat, and I sat alone in my row - thank God - with her untouched popcorn and drink wedged in her empty seat.

When the movie was over, I picked up her food and my containers and spilling a bit, waddled down the stairs to the garbage containers as the credits rolled. As I pulled on my coat, I scanned the seats again, still not finding her, but a minute later, the lights came on and there she was, in the front row of the upper level, gazing at the screen and listening to the closing song. I waited for her to finish in the washroom, texting her dad with the briefest of details. (Of course, my phone had refused to transmit in the middle of the crisis.) I told the Resident Fan Boy that I was bringing her to his office.

We didn't say a word on the long walk back to the station. We sat separately on the bus. We walked silently through the Rideau Centre. When the Resident Fan Boy appeared at his building's entrance, I handed him the music for her voice lesson, turned and left.

On the bus home, I realized I hadn't handed over my iPod which the voice teacher has been using for recording the week's lesson. I shuffled through my music, each title just a little too appropriate to be a comfort: "The Shelter of Storms"; no. "The Mountains Win Again"- oh God, no.

Finally I settled on a good old rocker. It's kind of appropriate, but not enough to put more salt in my wounds.

When I got home, there was a message from the RFB saying that younger daughter had thrown up. It was a timely reminder for me that this whole business had been every bit as traumatic for her as for me. I made the slow turn into beginning to let go of my hurt, although I felt chilled and depressed for another couple of days. I am, after all, a grown-up, and for all younger daughter's indignation, her road to adulthood still stretches out a long way ahead. The late Madeleine L'Engle quoted someone in one of her books: To love someone is to have hope in them always.

I'll have to look it up.

In the week that has followed, we have slowly returned to what is normal for us, anyway. I give thanks that these meltdowns happen so infrequently. Otherwise, I'd be tempted to run away myself.

The woman with the caterpillar eyes

It was probably almost exactly thirteen years ago on a slightly overcast Saturday during our last June in Victoria. The Resident Fan Boy was home for a weekend secondment, having gone ahead to begin his new permanent job in Hades. I remained behind, getting elder daughter through her final days of Grade Two, and frantically cleaning between viewings from prospective home-buyers during which I had to hustle younger daughter into a stroller and vacate the house. We hadn't seen the Resident Fan Boy for about a month and would not see him again for another five weeks when he would come back to escort us to our new province and city.

I was overtaxed; he was jet-lagged. That's probably why we thought taking the girls to the Oak Bay Tea Party with the accompanying midway at Willow Beach would be a good idea.

It wasn't so bad at first. The RFB took elder daughter on the rides. Younger daughter was too small to join her sister. Besides, for the past year she had developed a habit of melting down in anything involving crowds. I thought it had something to do with her father's frequent absences -- she had started having night terrors early on in his first secondment nearly two years before -- but I had made an appointment for later in the month to have her assessed by a speech pathologist.

I knew I had to get younger daughter to a washroom before setting off on the long bus-ride home, so I set up a rendezvous point with the RFB and elder daughter, and led younger daughter to the pavilion. I don't quite remember when she started screaming. Maybe it was the long line-up, maybe it was not knowing where her father and sister had gone, but by the time I got her into a cubicle, she was yelling blue murder. I tried to soothe her, but I knew there was a point when she was beyond my reach and I could only wait for her to subside. Somehow, we got through the business, and I beat a hasty and embarrassed retreat, aware of the many eyes on us and that the RFB and elder daughter must be wondering what on earth had become of us.

A woman stepped into our path.

"Why is she asking to be left alone?"

"Because she's had enough of here and she needs space," I replied wearily, scanning the crowd for an opening, but this woman was not budging. She was standing very close to me and what I chiefly remember about her was that she had blond hair (standard for Oak Bay) and dark-green eye-liner with one odd little hump on each side, like two little caterpillars.

"Well, I'm a mother and I'm concerned."

I couldn't believe my ears. "So am I!"

"I have three children and none of them ever behaved like this!"

"Well, good for you, lady," I called back, quickly steering younger daughter, who had calmed down quite a bit by this time, into an available gap in the milling bodies.

I wonder if Caterpillar Woman thinks back on this incident at all. If she does, it's no doubt with some self-satisfaction in confronting an evident child abuser. When I remember her -- and I try not to -- I think of her three children who never "behaved like this". I hope they saved all their acting-out for adolescence and made life a perfect hell for their perfect mother.

When love-sick teens get hold of French pop songs

Have a listen to this 1966 recording by Sylvie Vartan (who, amongst other things, was married to the "French Elvis Presley" Johnny Halliday for fifteen years) of a song called "Quand un amour renaît"
Non, rien n'est jamais fini
Essayons
Par tout ce qui nous unit
Pardonnons

Quand un amour renaît
Il faut lui laisser
Une chance encore
Pour nos erreurs du passé
Il faudra nous aimer
Encore plus fort

Car il y a entre nous
Plus que l'amour
Je crois que nous serions fous
Et je suis pour

Quand un amour renaît
Il faut lui laisser
Une chance encore
Pour nos erreurs du passé
Il faudra nous aimer
Encore plus fort

Quand un amour renaît
Il faut lui laisser
Une chance encore
Il faut tirer un trait
Et ne pas trop chercher
Qui a eu tort

Et tous ceux qui sont partis
Sans un pardon
Sachant que rien n'est fini
Regretteront

Sound familiar? Not fabulous lyrics, but those in the English version (based on this original French song) are probably quite a bit worse:

And when I see the sign that points one way
The lot we used to pass by every day

Just walk away, Renee
You won't see me follow you back home
The empty sidewalks on my block are not the same
You're not to blame

From deep inside the tears that I'm forced to cry
From deep inside the pain that I chose to hide

Just walk away, Renee
You won't see me follow you back home
Now, as the rain beats down upon my weary eyes
For me, it cries

Your name and mine inside a heart upon a wall
Still finds a way to haunt me though they're so small

Sounds like something on the creative writing page of the school yearbook, doesn't it? That's because the English lyrics were written by a love-sick sixteen-year-old.
I got the story from a feature on CBC Radio Two's late afternoon show Drive called "Rear View Mirror". You can read it here, and see some other songs inspired by this one that you may not have expected.

Oh, and I quite love the song. I liked the lyrics better when I was a love-sick adolescent, though.

An awkward October memory

In all my years of living in Victoria, the thing I probably knew best was that I had to allow myself an hour to get anywhere. It's a good rule in Hades, too. In Victoria, it was because you had to travel as if you were running along the spokes of a wheel; you had to go downtown to make a transfer, then head out again to your destination. (In Hades, it's because you're battling with delays and what is essentially a tangle of milk routes.)

The Resident Fan Boy's mother died in the early years of our marriage. She was, uh, not exactly my greatest fan, but I understood the very basics of in-law etiquette as set out by Judith Martin, aka "Miss Manners": 1) feign affection; 2) show up for state occasions.

The interment of Late Mother-in-law's ashes certainly qualified as a state occasion, even though only six people were to be present: Resident Fan Boy, Bereaved Father-in-law, Far-flung Sister-in-law (the reason for the interment taking place a month after LMIL's funeral which FfSIL had been unable to attend), Rector of BFIL's current church, and Rector of BFIL's former church in whose churchyard the said ashes were being interred. And me, who was not particularly welcome, but definitely expected.

I had a teaching assignment at the university that morning and the brief ceremony was scheduled for one o'clock that afternoon. I knew I could be home well before noon, allowing myself to change into appropriately somber garb, setting off by public transit with more than an hour to spare.

Except the bus that took me down the spoke, so to speak, to downtown Victoria dropped me off just in time for me to see the bus I needed disappearing around the corner.

I didn't panic. The next bus, a variation on the bus I'd just missed, was due in half an hour. It would reach the churchyard by a slightly different route, from a slightly different direction. It would be cutting it a bit fine, but I should arrive with a minute or two to spare.

The bus in question, in accordance with the unwritten rule in bus-scheduling, was a few minutes late, just as the previous bus had been a few minutes early. I kept a calm but steady eye on my watch as we approached the street leading to the church. I had about ten minutes.

To my horror, the bus continued past my street, barreled to a timing point several blocks behind my destination and turned off its motor. In the two years since I'd last taken this particular bus, there had been a route alteration. I now had seven minutes and was considerably more than a five minute dash away, even if I hadn't been wearing black pumps.

The bus started up after the driver had had his coffee and to my despair, headed back the way it had come. This time, it made the expected turn, and standing by the exit, clinging to the rail, I gazed out over the approaching churchyard and could make out the small knot of mourners standing with heads bowed. For a few depressed seconds, I seriously considered staying on the bus, but got out and hobbled along the gravel path.

The Resident Fan Boy filled me in later. Both he and his father are notorious for showing up places early. The RFB had got it in his head that six people were attending, and in the emotion of holding the urn with his mother's ashes, did a quick mental head-count, got the number six, and when asked if he was ready, nodded. It was only at the end of committal that his father sighed heavily: "I guess she isn't coming, then?" Looking up wildly, the RFB realized that the sixth person was the assistant rector. Not me. His wife. The woman dashing up the path with a rather flushed face.

He believed my story, of course. I'm sure his father and sister didn't.

Waiting for Goddam

If we hadn't left the theatre by the back door, I never would have spotted the body.

We'd just spent ninety minutes watching Christopher Plummer becoming John Barrymore. That's a story in itself; maybe I'll tell you about it some time. The Resident Fan Boy and elder daughter were disoriented as we stepped out into the frigid street behind Toronto's Elgin Winter Garden. I have a better sense of direction and persuaded them to turn right, following knots of fur-coated theatre-goers. Our hotel was about a three-minute walk away. As we crossed Queen Street East,I happened to glance across Victoria Street and saw a man lying prone in the middle of the sidewalk where the shadow of the office block kept him out of the glow of the streetlights. A coat was spread over his head and upper body. Other theatre-goers strolled briskly past him, down Queen.

What to do? We dithered for a few minutes, then hurried down to the Italian restaurant where we'd had dinner. A few young servers were chatting by the bar, and they told us there was a hospital right around the corner, but agreed to call 911. Elder daughter took younger daughter back to the hotel which was just across the street from the restaurant, and the Resident Fan Boy and I gingerly approached the shape on the pavement. It turned out he was lying on a grate, but I noted that his stockinged feet were not getting any of the warm air. We called to him and got only a waggling of his hips.

A car drew up with driven by a lady with a young woman beside her.
"Have you called anyone?"
"Yes," I said. "We're just waiting here until someone shows up."
The lady explained that her daughter had noticed him and they had gone around the block to check.
"He's alive," I told them. "But he's only in his socks, and he's not answering us, just wiggling."
Satisfied, they drove off. Peering into the darkness, I made out the upturned boots of another rough sleeper supine under what appeared to be piles of tarps.

As we shivered on the corner, we had other visitors, like some twisted kind of urban fable. One of the young servers from the restaurant hurried up: "They want to know if he's responsive."
"Well, he squirms when I talk to him," I said, leaning over to check. The coat remained firmly over his head and shoulders, but he twitched irritably, rather like a small boy who's been kissed while asleep.

She stood with us for a while with her arms tightly crossed in her short-sleeved blouse and server's apron. It was something like -17 Celsius, with a lower wind-chill with the wintry gusts funneled between Toronto's tall buildings. We assured her we'd wait.
"Okay," she said, scurrying down the block. "This is a good thing you're doing. Most people wouldn't."

The minutes dragged by and the Resident Fan Boy and I shuffled awkwardly, glancing at the body as we stood guard. A man approached us, staggering slightly.
"Do you have change?"
"Sorry..."
He looked over at the pair of socked feet sticking out from under the coat.
"Are you helping him?"
We assured him we were waiting for an ambulance.
"All I need is..."
"We're sorry, we don't have any money on us."

He lolloped away as we scanned the darkness and strained our ears, and finally heard the sirens. Two police cars and an ambulance pulled up at angles to one another in the middle of the deserted street. The paramedics were playing a version of Good Cop/Bad Cop: the first one coaxing, "Hey Sir? Are you all right?" while his partner cut in with: "C'mon! Let's get up! Whaddaya think you're doing here?"

This time, Sock-footed Man responded, sitting bolt upright and furious. At me.

"It isn't FAIR!!" he bellowed. "I was WARM!!! Now I have to walk on the streets and be COLD!! Why can't you leave me be?"
Since he was bellowing at me, I held his gaze and tried to keep my voice from shaking. "You weren't answering us. You're in your socks..."
"I was WARM!! Miss, this isn't fair!"
"No, it isn't fair."
"I was sleeping! I wasn't hurting anybody, miss! Miss, you don't understand..."
"I know. But I was worried about your feet..."
"My feet are fine! I was WARM, miss! And now I'm gonna be cold..."

I could feel myself breaking down and suddenly turned and headed back to the hotel. The Resident Fan Boy fell into step.
"I couldn't just leave him."
"Well, if it makes you feel any better, he was being remarkably polite. He called you 'Miss' the entire time."

Into the hotel, into a sparkling elevator where I could see my eyes, filling up with self-pity, reflected in the brass. Up to our room, where it was warm, where the sheets were clean. Elder daughter reported that younger daughter had been discombobulated and upset. I went into the bathroom and turned on the taps. No, it wasn't fair. He was out there looking for another grate, and if he found one, well, maybe he could sleep a bit, and maybe by morning, his numb feet would gradually regain feeling. He'd been sleeping on top of his shoes, possibly to save them from thieves. While my family and I, bellies full with an Italian meal, brains full of a wonderful evening of theatre, would sleep in cozy beds in clean rooms with a bathroom nearby.

And as I stood there in shame, embarrassment and misery, gazing at myself in the bathroom mirror, it hit me. When the lolloping man asked: "Are you helping him?", I had misunderstood the question. He was really asking: "Why not help me?" Why not? Because he was on his feet, speaking to me? Just as I wasn't attempting to save the man sleeping across the street, because I could see he had boots? Who died and made me God?

Yet, I couldn't have lived with myself if I'd walked by on the other side. Even though that is exactly what I do every day. No, brother. It isn't fair.

Shame and indignation at the movies

Last night I dreamt I tried to board a bus with a hot iron. The bus driver turfed me off, and I gave her the finger. I awoke wrestling with feelings of shame and indignation, upset I'd been tossed off the bus and ashamed I'd been so churlish, after all, she had every right to refuse to let me ride. Which is a lot of unpleasant emotion, considering none of it really happened.

As I've mentioned before, my dreams seldom make any sense. Oh, I imagine they would, if I really settled down to analyze them, but dammit, I can't be bothered. I have a sneaking suspicion I wouldn't like the interpretation.

I like to think of myself as a pleasant and considerate person, but then, I imagine most people do. Even that woman at the ByTowne Cinema last Saturday. The Resident Fan Boy and I had scuttled away to take in a late matinée showing of A Single Man, partly because I wanted to see the film and partly because Colin Firth might get an Oscar nomination for his role in it, and mainly because we like to have seen at least a smattering of the nominated movies and performances before the Academy Awards broadcast.

The RFB headed off to find us a seat while I hit the concession for a small bag of popcorn and a headset. Bytowne Cinema now offers what they call an "FM audio assist" and since my hearing never has been fabulous, I've tried it for the last couple of movies there. I just plug in my own earphones and gee, I can hear most of the dialogue.

Balancing my trophies, I went in search of the Resident Fan Boy who was waving from a couple of nice seats. An older couple were seated in the aisle, and did not get up to let me pass, so I had a brief tussle disentangling my ankles from the bag the wife had left at her feet as I squeezed past her knees apologetically. At the time, I was feeling charitable enough to assume she had physical reasons to stay put.

I had decided to try a different set of headphones for the film, rather than my iPod ear buds which are mildly uncomfortable. This may have been a mistake. Early in this particular film, there's a flashback to a very rainy evening in LA when Colin Firth's character George first learns that his partner of sixteen years has died in a car crash. As the rain pelts down outside his study, George receives a phone call from someone connected to his lover's family who tells him (nearly two days later) about the accident and that the funeral will be "family only". George, obviously in shock, is detached and polite, until we see him running in a coat-less panic of grief through the storm to a friend's house for comfort.

"Would you stop making that noise?"

Startled, I turned from George's anguish to see non-rising woman who is seated two seats away from me.

"What noise?" I asked, in genuine bewilderment. She made an angry gesture and turned back to the screen. What's she going on about? I whispered to Resident Fan Boy, who shrugged. As I tried to re-focus on the movie, I wondered if she was bugged by my popcorn, but that had never seemed to have been an issue before. Then it gradually occurred to me that the scenes involving the rainstorm were over. Was it the hiss of the precipitation escaping from my headphones? I sneaked my iPod ear buds out of my coat pocket and put the other headphones away. I heard nothing else from old lady, but I caught her looking daggers at me later when I attempted to fold my popcorn bag away quietly. Oh dear. Am I becoming one of those people? Or is she already one of them? To tell you the truth, watching films at the ByTowne is a bit of a minefield, due to art-film-revering regulars who have strong views about where they should sit and how others should behave while they are sitting there. I'm not unsympathetic, but a bad-tempered growl doesn't help me rectify the situation. That's all I'm sayin'.

A Single Man is great, by the way. A dream-like sepia-view of a rather more innocent Los Angeles about to be hit hard by flower power. Colin Firth should get an Academy Award nomination at least for a performance of heart-breaking dignity.

I'll go do that ironing now.

Bird in a guilt cage

Birdseed Arguments
Originally uploaded by CB Photography

The house we're currently sitting is the reason we have a squirrel-proof bird-feeder at home. This is the third time we've sat this house and one of the things I loved most about it (in addition to the hot-tub under a canopy of Garry Oaks and a large hill-top garden in which I only have to water potted plants because professional gardeners visit twice weekly) was the marvelous bird-feeder on the front porch where I could watch finches, nuthatches and many other birds. There were two non-squirrel-proof feeders in the back garden and one morning younger daughter and I watched in disbelief as a squirrel systematically scraped the rope back and forth on the tree limb from which the contraption hung until it plummeted to the ground, carrying several breakfasting birds with it. ("Jack! This is where we met!")

I speak in the past tense, alas. While receiving my final instructions from the owner, he informed me that he was no longer filling the bird-feeders.
"The birds come anyway," he shrugged.

Except they don't. I lasted one week before sneaking around to the pet supply store near where younger daughter is having swimming lessons. Somehow, I feel this is probably unethical. It's his house. I'm not sure why he's leaving the empty, dusty bird-feeders up; maybe he intends to feed the birds during the winter months only. But, oh, it's lovely to have them back. I sneakily hose the seed shells off the porch, and plan to stop refilling just before they return. I'm a ba-a-a-a-d house-sitter...

And that's not all I'm bad at. During this morning's illicit birdseed run, I held the shop door open for an attractive gentleman about my age and his winsome teenage daughter. He thanked me and addressed me by name. My heart sank. I've described my problems with face-blindness before. Even when he mentioned the name of his pretty daughter it didn't help, although he said it was she who had recognized me. I assumed it was a fellow-parent from elder daughter's co-op preschool days as we were in the general neighbourhood, chattered a bit and politely parted. I was shoveling birdseed from one of the bins when it hit me. The man is the widower of a high school and university friend who died two years ago, leaving two girls then aged ten and twelve. I have a photo of the family that I took in seven years ago on my fridge. The daughter has completely changed since then...but her father hasn't. Damn. Damn. Damn.

Burning with shame and with the sun that is unseasonably hot for Victoria this year (Ottawa is unseasonably cool, of course), I headed home with my shopping and waited out most of the afternoon's heat in the lower level of the house. Few houses in Victoria have air-conditioning; a week to two weeks' worth of above 25 degrees Celsius isn't worth the expense.

Unlike Ottawa, Victoria's summer heat quickly dissipates in the evening, so I decided to take younger daughter on an expedition to get ice-cream, envisioning the trek down the hill in the golden evening light with the sea breezes wafting fragances. Instead, the sun hung stubbornly above the western horizon in a blazing ball. We arrived at the local Thrifty Foods, passing parades of young children in tow behind their mums. I realized with a twinge how all of these kids would have been born after we left for Hades nine years years ago.

The supermarket aisles were deliciously cool. I encouraged younger daughter to make a selection, narrowing it down by category: "It has to be Island Farms because we can't get that in Ottawa; do you want chocolate? No? Vanilla? Here's six variations on vanilla." She chose the chocolate chip one, of course. Near us, a small family were also mulling over the selection, debating over ice milk or frozen yogurt. The dad, an early thirties civil servant type, called after his wife: "Well, you're the one who has to wear the tennis skirt. It's your choice...." I watched her walk off towards the cashier and briefly considered bouncing my deposit bottle off his bean, but thought the better of it. It might have upset the two young children this lithe woman had borne him, evidently without gaining an ounce.

The climb back up the hill is deceptively steep and relentless, taking twenty minutes of steady plodding. By the time we'd reached the house, I was in an Ottawa-worthy sweat, and checked the computer to confirm my suspicions. Yep, 28 degrees Celcius at seven pm, with a humidex of 33, the equivalent of a mild summer day in the nation's capital. Hades has followed me home.

Further extraneous proof that I am losing my mind

It's ice-cream-headache weather, cold enough that your head feels as if you've been downing chocolate ripple too quickly. Wind chill in the -20's; the school is surrounded by a shiny moat of smooth, lethal ice. I cross it gingerly on my YakTrax, but young daughter wails in fear and I creep back to take her hand. It takes us five minutes to work our way around the school.

The sidewalks are clear, save for the odd ice flow, so I bounce slightly on the steel springs criss-crossing the soles of my feet and a suddenly hear a high pip-pip-pip, a sound I haven't heard since the autumn. My gaze travels up the trunk of a naked maple at the corner and perched atop is a blaze of crimson. The first cardinal of the year. It must be March.

Into the house with the glow of organization that I've been cultivating over the past couple of days: tracking my time usage, making lists, updating the calendars. Now, I carefully bag my contact lens paraphernalia. In preparation for this morning's appointment with the ophthalmologist, I've eschewed eye makeup, so I look more worn and washed-out than usual, but if I'm going to have streaks of yellow pupil-dilating solution down my cheek, no one will take much pleasure from looking at me anyway. Checking the time, I waltz down to the bus stop; catch just the right bus.

As I stride confidently to the receptionist's desk at 10 on the dot, I suddenly remember I've left my care card at home. I apologetically explain this to said receptionist who keeps calling me Carol, then directs me to another desk. They direct me back. This time she sorts out my name and informs me that my appointment is March 23rd. "But I had a confirmation call," I falter, "and I returned the call." As she explains that this couldn't have been from her, a little voice says timidly from somewhere near the top of my head: This is Dr Tabor. The message was from Dr. Martin. Isn't he your dentist?

The receptionist has evidently seen the penny drop, and suppresses a smile as I beat a hasty retreat in search of a payphone. The dentist, whose office is a fifteen-minute walk from my house, fits me in half an hour later. My teeth look great...for an bird-brain...

The Oscars go MTV

I'd thought I'd seen the ultimate surreal Oscar moment. It occurred in 1989 when Rob Lowe did his infamous opening musical number with Snow White. Watch it if you can bear it: See, I think it was meant to be ironic and a bit over-the-top, but instead...

Then there were last night's Oscars, also meant to be ironic and a little-over-the-top. Now, I like Hugh Jackman. I'm familiar with him as a musical actor (I've never seen him as Wolverine) and enjoyed his hostings of the Tony Awards on Broadway. I think the opening "financial cutbacks, so I made it in my garage" musical montage was quite funny and certainly well-performed (with some very able assistance from Anne Hathaway). Not quite up to Billy Crystal, but entertaining. But people, what the hell was that "tribute to musicals" thing in the middle? Okay, Beyoncé has the musical chops, but the kids from High School Musical and Mamma Mia? Dear gawd, no.

"Lady Marmalade???" I said to elder daughter in bewilderment. "Since when is that from a musical?"
"Moulin Rouge," she replied.
O-o-o-oh. Baz Luhrmann. There's yer problem. He put this together and as far as I can tell, you either love Baz Luhrmann, or you just don't. Guess where I end up...

Then there was the dog's breakfast that was the nominated songs medley. They were meddled so well that I couldn't tell where one song ended and the other began. No wonder Peter Gabriel steered clear of it.

Things I thought worked (kinda):
a) The presentation of the actors' awards by five previous winners, each of whom addressed a different nominee. It probably went on for too long, but it gave each nominee a part of the spotlight and the impression that they too were winners in a way that simply hasn't been accomplished before.

b)Steve Martin's and Tina Fey's presentation of the writing awards. Mostly very witty and articulate, as writers are, y'know.

Not so much:
a) Ben Stiller's rather unfunny comic turn in a fake beard, that ended up taking attention away from the nominated cinematographers. (I think that was the award in question; I was somewhat distracted by Stiller's antics.)

b) Queen Latifah's tribute to academy members who had died in the past year. Not her fault, but the camera was undecided whether to focus on her while she sang, or the accompanying video, which really should have been what we were watching. The camera seemed to try to solve the problem by swaying back and forth in front of the monitor showing the deceased academy members (why? to the music?), making it difficult to read names and titles. Surely not the point of a memorial, right?

c) James Franco's and Seth Rogan's weird MTV-Awards-type skit of two dudes watching movies in the basement, and laughing inappropriately at movies like The Reader. James Franco's response to footage of himself as Harvey Milk's lover was a bit of a giggle though.

d) Framing the introductions and the winner's speeches with a construction of scenes from all nominated films. Thus, we'd be listening to rather a moving tribute, and Ku Fu Panda would be leaping into slow motion just below...

e) Having the orchestra launch into something under the presenter's introductions. Meant to be an accompaniment and mood-setter; ended up sounding like an interruption.

All in all, "A" for effort, guys, but "C" for the end product. If they're trying to be that hip and with it, why don't they just invite good-looking fans in and have them stand around the stage, like the various MTV awards and imitators? (Gawd, I'm getting old...)

I've deliberately kept from reading others' impressions in the newspapers and the blogs. I'm off to see if anyone agreed with me. (You'll notice that I failed to say anything about the winners. That's because, like the dresses and tuxes, there were no surprises.)

Golden arches sell your fries...

Volly from This is my secret hiding place has remarked: "I'd love to hear some "inside" stories about how they run things (at McDonald's). One can only imagine!" This was in the comments field of one of her recent posts, and I could respond there, but this is Day Seventeen of NaBloPoMo for me, so I'm not using up a post-sized comment on someone else's blog. Sorry, Volly, you'll have to read it here, but thanks for the post topic...

In keeping with this month's emerging theme of unpleasant recollections of Februarys past, I was a McDonald's employee for five miserable months a very long time ago. Never mind how long, pilgrim, suffice it to say we didn't sell Happy Meals. A year or so after my time of trial and tribulation, a friend of a nemesis wrote a freelance undercover report of what it was like working at McDonald's for Monday Magazine, Victoria's local indie weekly news magazine. She described the pecking order of McDonald's employees as being something like a big Mac: the sesame seeds on top, the middle meat part and the heel of the bun. Guess in which category I would fall. Just guess. (Oh yes, and McDonald's wrote the magazine a pretty aggrieved letter about the friendly and family atmosphere of its working environment, and the values instilled in its employees.)

I was seventeen, and when you're seventeen, you're trying to jump start your life, because you think it's never going to begin and everything is passing you by. I got in a panic because I was in my graduating year and still didn't have a "real" job, outside of babysitting. I applied to McDonald's and Dairy Queen, and the McDonald's offer came through first. I often wonder if things would have been different if I'd gone for Dairy Queen which was in my neighbourhood and run by women with a female staff.

Perhaps not. I'm not sales or cashier material. In those days, cash registers didn't figure out everything for you, and we had to tote the figures up by hand. I'm not quick at calculations, nor at giving change. At one point, I was accused of stealing because of discrepancies in my cash drawer. We were coached to sell to every customer: "How about some fries with that order? Care for a drink?" I found this embarrassing and phony. The irritation in the customer's voices when you tried to sell something else was palpable.

Here's a brief list of what made five months at McDonald's among the most unpleasant of my life:

1. When the restaurant was quiet, we were expected to look busy, wiping down spotless counters, restocking stocked supplies.

2. Crew meetings, an artificial gathering of pep talks and group chants convened half an hour before the restaurant opened, were mandatory. It didn't matter that they were scheduled before the buses ran and I had difficulty getting in. It didn't matter that they were a total waste of time. A schoolmate of the Resident Fan Boy was fired for failing to turn up at a crew meeting. He had broken his leg. His furious parents had him reinstated before he quit. (He's a doctor now.)

3. It was a largely male crew. The guys got the coveted grill positions. Ambitious girls might get "shakes and fries". The rest of us were at the tills, and if we were really lowest of the low, sent out for "Lot and Lobby". I got sent out for "Lot and Lobby" a lot.

4. If you fit in well with a high school mentality, that is, attractive, and good at sports, you tended to fit in well at McDonald's. You might be surprised to learn that this wasn't me. (Oh, go on, pretend.) Someone sidled up to me at some point and told me the managers were looking for ways to fire me because I was too "intellectual". Considering the state of my intellect when I was seventeen, this is a little hard to fathom. On the other hand, you might like to have taken a look at my managers. Well, no, you wouldn't...

5. Harassment and embarrassment were daily tools of management. I was often spoken of, in disparaging terms, in the third person while I was sitting there in the crew room. The grill guys thought it was hilarious to come order at my till on their time off, requesting a "grill order" (that is, an order with changes to it) of "Fillet O' Fish, hold the ketchup". I'd call the order back, and the derisive shout would ring throughout the restaurant. "There is no ketchup on the Fillet!" Roars of laughter. Oh, stupid me. The girls were routinely critiqued on their attractiveness, or in my case, lack thereof.

6. I was constantly being taken aside and criticized for clocking out on time. Yes, on time. We were expected to show up early for shifts and clock out at least five minutes late to show our eagerness and enthusiasm.

I could go on, but we've had enough, hadn't we? Why did I hang on for five months? Because it was bloody McDonald's, that's why and I couldn't figure out why I wasn't getting any better at it. Eventually I got mononucleosis, as did a couple other crew members. I'm pretty sure I picked it up at the Golden Arches.

I've heard many people say that McDonald's teaches work ethic, salesmanship, and team work. I learned all about humiliation and pecking orders, but you can learn that just as effectively at high school. I haven't set foot in the place since, which is probably the best thing I ever got out of it.