The blackberry statement

We got an unexpected surprise on the way home to the house-sit from downtown: rain. Brief, but glorious and enough to leave puddles. It rained the hardest as we made our way down the most rural of the three streets home. After days of dry sunshine, the air filled with the scent of blackberries. Younger daughter and I have been sampling them over the past two weeks and noticing that they have been becoming sweeter and sweeter.

Years ago, in the dying days of another summer with little rain, I was sitting in a church hall rehearsing on a recorder. I was second recorder and the alto singer of a quintet which featured three accomplished musicians. I was one of the other two. Under a government grant, we were spending the summer making the rounds of senior residences, hospitals, libraries, and other institutions singing folk songs and playing late Renaissance to classical music. As a summer job, it was pretty hard to beat.

This particular August afternoon, we were between concerts and the other girl in the group (a talented song-writer and guitarist whom I'll call Kitti for narrative purposes) and I were awaiting the return of the three boys. Kitti happened to glance outside and leaned over conspiratorially: "Let's go and get some blackberries!" There was an abundance of them, gleaming at us like dark jewels. We grabbed a bowl and set to it, happily chatting and picking.

Now, maybe I need to clarify here. There are blackberry bushes all over Victoria, along the highway, roads, in parks. These berries were dangling over the fence which backed the church. So we were very startled when the lady in hair-curlers began screaming at us.
"Just what do you think you're doing?"
Kitti and I blinked at each other.
"Uh, picking blackberries...."
"Yes, on private property!"
Now we were really bewildered. "Well, the church knows we're here; we have permission to practise."
"So you sneak back here to steal the best and the juiciest ones in the middle...."
Slowly, as her tirade continued, we began to realize that she was the resident of the house backing on to the church, and that the blackberry bushes were in her yard. We must have reached beyond the fence top to the berries that were on her side, not surprising because, as Victoria kids, it didn't occur to us that wild blackberry bushes might belong to somebody.

She was also apparently further incensed by our appearance. Our costumes for our concerts had us in peasant blouses, long skirts and head scarves. Worst of all, we were bare-foot. Kitti shook her head in disbelief and made to hand her bowl to the howling lady.

"No! You eat them, if you're so hungry."

We beat a hasty retreat back into the church hall and were just beginning to giggle over our misadventure when Kitti peered over my shoulder and gasped: "Geez! She's called the police!"
My face must have been a picture, because Kitti laughed comfortingly, and said: "Oh, don't worry; the Saanich Police are really nice!" I had only a split second to wonder just how Kitti had come to this conclusion, when there was a knock on the door, and an officer motioned for us to come outside, where Blackberry Lady was in full throttle: "....and they took the best and the juiciest ones in the middle! They'd brought a bowl! And it was this girl and this girl! When I caught them, they just stared at me!"

This was too much; I blurted out: "What on earth did you want us to say?" Yowza. Her voice went up a whole 'nother octave. The policemen quickly led us in one direction and the lady in the other.

"We just went out to pick some blackberries and she started screaming at us..."
"Yeah, well, did you reach over the fence?"
"Probably. I mean, you usually just pick blackberries, right?"
"Well, she's a little hysterical, don't provoke her and leave those blackberries alone."
"Oh, don't worry about that..."

The boys arrived shortly afterward and had to be talked out of a harassment campaign involving putting snarky signs in the the church lounge window. One of the boys was the rector's son (hence our rehearsal space) and later reported that the woman had phoned and written to the church demanding our removal.

This was a long time ago and I remember the incident with amused and bemused disbelief when I remember it at all. I have the sad suspicion that it may have been the most exciting day in that woman's life.

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.