Not gonna make it

My blog is on Hades time (EDT) and I'm house-sitting on Victoria time (PDT), so if you're wondering why there are not posts for every day in August at my actual blog, let me assure you, that at NaBloPoMo, the dates are correct --- so long as I post them by midnight PDT.

However, I'm not going to finish the post upon which I've embarked tonight. So I'm cheating and posting a YouTube video.

I'm not a country music fan, but I adore this song. I do not adore this video. If I had my way, I'd post a clip from the late lamented A&E programme By Request, back when A&E actually meant "Arts and Entertainment". On her appearance, Trisha Yearwood performed this song with the songwriter Kim Richey, plus one of my favourite singer/songwriters Mary Chapin Carpenter. It was fabulous. The vocal here is also fabulous, so I recommend closing your eyes and ignoring the video, which is inoffensive to the point of being bland and pointless:

I'll endeavour to produce a real post tomorrow, I promise!

Ms Bean (Write of Passage Number Twelve)

She's a young plain Jane, hair cut in a kind of church bob, plain tee-shirt, practical clothes, glasses perched on a snub nose. There is something atypical about the way she moves as she works her way to the back of the nearly empty bus, although I'd be hard-pressed to say just what it is. She spots a comely young man and plops down beside him, leaning enough into his space to make him squirm just a little bit. He looks out the window and studiously ignores her. A small smile plays about her lips. I've seen that smile before:

Comely young man eventually escapes. Plain Jane makes her way to another seat and leans almost imperceptibly into another young man who possesses equal powers of ignoring. Then she rises, and in that odd, not-quite-definable ungainly way, descends from the bus. She's still smiling.

Mischief managed.

The loneliness of the long-distance house-sitter

I believe I've established that my house-sit this year has been somewhat stressful. One factor (of many) in my disquietude is my responsibility for two outdoor cats. I'm an indoor cat person, and I have cared for outdoor cats before at the half-dozen or so houses I've sat over the past nine summers. However, I'm required to let the feline denizens of this home out for the night, and to "strive" (as the house directions put it) to get them in during the day.

The reason for this? A former cat of this household was killed by the dogs next door. The neighbours in question reportedly declared that they had found a cat claw in the nostril of one of the dogs. I'm not sure whether they were helpfully providing gory details or trying to suggest that the dogs were provoked.

Recently, I returned to the house late one afternoon to discover a sheet of paper in the screen door:
Hello there,
We have been over a few times to introduce ourselves and let you know that we are having a party this evening and we will be playing volleyball. It is difficult not to be noisy. Sorry in advance if we are.

I had been warned of this too. In addition to the tension over the chewed-up-and-spat-out cat, there have been confrontations between my hosts and the party-heartys next door. Apparently the better half of the couple asked if it were not possible for the people living here to simply sleep later, not understanding that the military generally frowns on this.

So after dinner, when I headed out to harvest raspberries from the backyard, the volley-ball game was in full swing. Shortly thereafter, a half-pint appeared.

"Uh, can I help you?"
"I'm here to look for the ball."
"No ball came over over the fence."
"They sent me over to look for it. Gee, you have nice flowers."
"Yes, the lady here did a nice job. There isn't any ball here."

At this point, a head appeared at one of the back gates. I was not astonished to note that it was blond.

"Hiiiiye! We're from next door; we haven't met yet!"
"Yes, I got your note..."
"Our ball came over the fence."
"Uh, I saw no ball come over."
"Oh yes! I smacked it over! Can you open this gate?"

"I'll open it for you!" chirped the cherub. "These leaves are really soft!"

He'd been coached well. I, as a mother of a special needs child who is frequently ignored or bullied by similarly appealing moppets, recognized the studied charm.

Blondie and nipper embarked on a tour of the large backyard which was, as I kept pointing out, devoid of volley-balls. Finally, someone shouted that it was embedded in the shrubbery on their side. They vanished.

I rinsed the raspberries and listened to the shouts and thonks outside. It was oddly comforting and I even summoned up the courage to tackle the front yard with the lawn-mower before the light faded.

When I stashed the machine in its place, I spotted unfamiliar shapes on the grass beside the raspberry bushes where I had laboured earlier. It appeared to be what was left of a rabbit's head and a whole field-mouse, along with clumps of fur. I guess it was dropped by one of the red-tailed hawks I've seen soaring in gyres high above the roofs. I'm certainly glad I wasn't standing underneath when this stuff plummeted from the sky. Another reason for keeping those cats inside during the day. I don't think the hawks hunt at night, although on quieter nights, I've heard them calling to each other from the tallest tree-tops.

This was not a quieter night though. Well past midnight, the voices floated up through the bedroom window, and alone with my younger daughter in this huge house, I actually slept sounder than I have since arriving.

Audience participation

Mary Ann Johanson has asked at her blog Flick Filosopher about her readers' preferred way of viewing movies. Since I'm attempting NaBloPoMo again, I'll spare her my natterings at her blog and witter on here on my blog:

This question has come up on other blogs and I'm bemused by the replies. On one side, we have the DVD viewers who decry the irritations of price, timing, and people who behave as if they're at home watching television themselves. On the other, we have those who like the cinema "experience": the concession, the big screen, the special effects if the movie has 'em.

I have a cinema preference myself, but it's mainly for the shared experience. Sure, I want to throttle the guy who repeats every joke, or the teenager sticking his feet through to my armrest, or the couple who are chatting (and are so offended when requested to stop!). However, my favourite movie memories have involved being part of the audience reaction.

I was lucky enough to see Singing in the Rain for the very first time with a university student audience, all howling with laughter at Donald O'Connor's acrobatic mishaps as he sang "Make 'Em Laugh". I saw my first Ginger Roger/Fred Astaire musicals as part of a festival for the same, and watched delightedly as a couple rose from their seats afterward and executed some pretty fancy footwork in their exit up the aisle. I recall the silent boyish awe of a row of nineteen-year-old boys eating up ET and the stunned gasp during the opening scene of Star Wars as that enormous Empire warship passed...and kept on passing....

This past year, I experimented with the looping device at my local arts cinema to see if I could catch the dialogue better. I can, but I miss the chuckles and sniffles around me. I'd rather miss a few words than be shut off from the connection around me, even if that means the risk of wanting to throttle someone.

Kinda like my rationale for marriage, I guess.

A blazing penny for your thoughts

It's cool and overcast, just before 9 am PDT on a Sunday morning in Cook Street Village. As I hurry down the hill under the ancient chestnuts, the sun is a penny rising on my left, promising to eventually burn off the sea mist.

A younger woman waiting for her chai latte examines the newspaper clipping of today's horoscope which dangles from the counter.

"I don't like her," I say cheerfully, nodding toward the photo of the astrologist, "She hates Tauruses." (As indeed she seems to; in yesterday's paper, she promised me increased stress and rarely has a nice thing in store for us Bulls.) Chai Lady behaves as if I have not spoken, or even if I'm not standing right next to her. Possibly not from around here. Or shy. Or deaf. Or determined not to acknowledge a lowly drinker of mocha lattes. I stop making mental excuses for her and find my favourite table.

This is my one chance this summer to sit by myself on the veranda of the Moka House, an independent coffee shop which has flourished defiantly to spite the Starbucks across the street.

Our eight-week house-sit has turned into a see-saw affair. You may have guessed this by the infrequency of my posting, but giving my recent posting history, maybe it's not all that evident.

Oh, the home-owners are nice enough people, but as far as I can figure, they're that most dangerous combination: scattered control freaks. I'd go into more detail, but I've just learned they want us back in the house tonight (yes, we've been out --- it's a long story...), which means I have access to a reasonably quick computer (unlike my dear mama's dial-up), which means I can try my admittedly hare-brained scheme of attempting NaBloPoMo again. My hostess, for want of a better word, has sworn we have the house until August 31st. Given recent events, which I'll go into later (maybe), I'm pretty damned cautious about this. However, for now, let's pretend that I'll have the house-sit for the entire month of August and therefore can attempt to post in the blog every day. Keep your fingers crossed.

I sip my mocha latte and watch the comings and goings along Cook Street. If I were out here an hour later, I'd see the occasional older lady dressed for one of the several churches along Quadra Street. (I doubt Chai Lady would answer them either.) However, it's 9:15 on a Sunday morning, so I see a different class of worshipper, dog-walkers, ear-budded joggers and brisk pedestrians. And coffee and chai sippers, of course, attending service uneasily side by side in this funky coffee shop.

I see them all very well. That's when I notice that two of the most ancient chestnuts of all have been removed since I was last here, replaced by a hopeful adolescent sapling all strapped up and supported and surrounded by baby shrubs. What will be missing this time next year?

Gotta go. I can see the amber lights of the blazing penny sun reflected in the parked cars. It's actually trying to put out some heat. Someone may be missing me by now. Have you? I do hope so...

Nor am I out of it....

Every time I've wailed to the Resident Fan Boy about the latest house-sitting frustration over my past nine Persephone-returns-to-Demeter summers, he has calmly responded: "At least you're miserable in Victoria."

He's right, of course. This newest house-sit has been a particular challenge. The owners have clearly never had a house-sitter before and I've been given a rather daunting list of do's and don'ts, which, although guidelines are welcome, have made me feel somewhat like an interloper. (I'm not to sleep on the husband's bed. I'm only to use the computer for emails. I'm asked to knock down any wasps' nests I see.) I'm keeping in mind that these people have had an extremely stressful year, and using my own judgment on what I will do or won't do. It's not like they're paying me to do this...

However, Hades is sweltering under a prolonged heat wave. A 44 humidex last week (that means the humidity made the temperature feel like 44 degrees Celsius). A 38 humidex this week. Tornados within 60 kilometres of Ottawa last night. This past week, the temperatures in Victoria have been hovering between highs of 20 to 25 degrees Celsius. The air smells like the sea. Red-tailed hawks have been doing mating circles high above the house at sunset.

Yes, I'm stressed. It's a huge house and I'm learning how to take care of it. But I'm in Victoria. And since I'm planning to ignore the stricture about e-mails only on the computer, I hope to do a bit more blogging...

And no, I won't be knocking down any bloody wasps' nest. Sheesh...

Necessities

My heart sank a little when younger daughter chose "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" as her performance piece for a recent church dinner.

Oh, "Over the Rainbow" is a nifty song. I'll give you that. You can understand why it's a classic. Beautifully constructed, full of unfulfilled longing, of dreams just out of reach -- no wonder it strikes a universal chord. Furthermore, it's the gem glowing at the beginning of the best-loved children's film ever, so there's the added pull of ancient childhood memory.

I was just hoping younger daughter would pick something a little less conventional. (She does a fabulous "Mr Cellophane" from Chicago.) I was wishing this even more during the week before the dinner as the Resident Fan Boy led her through rehearsals with our karaoke machine. (Not to be too cynical, but I suspect the desired use of the karaoke machine for the party was a key reason behind the invitation for younger daughter to sing.) Every evening, she would run through it about four times which wouldn't have been so bad, but the karaoke CD we have is from the show version (as opposed to the movie version) which includes a cutesy spoken lead-in and an introductory verse which I believe Garland herself only sang once in a radio show during the Second World War.

Here's a 1960 recording of Ella Fitzgerald singing the song with the opening verse (but not, thank heaven, with the cutesy spoken part): I rather wish I'd known about this recording before; younger daughter adores Ella Fitzgerald. Anyway, she practised gamely and had the new words down pat, as we set off for the bus stop on a Sunday evening, elder daughter and I bickering over the latest Doctor Who episode. (Elder daughter thinks I'm prejudiced against Chris Chibnall and would have liked "The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood" if I hadn't known that Chibnall wrote it; I don't think so. I'd say the double episode was pretty crappy even if Chibnall hadn't written "Countrycide". But, as usual, I digress.)

Younger daughter sang well. Afterward, we asked her if she was ready to go home, but to our surprise, she wanted to stay. Mystified, I watched her body language get increasingly agitated as a small parade of brave souls tackled the limited karaoke repertoire. (The organizers failed to pick up discs from the local rental and the would-be warblers were left with the half-dozen discs we happen to have.) One brave little girl tackled "Doh, a Deer" and struggled with the unfamiliar accompaniment. Another woman decided to assay "When You're a Jet" from Leonard Bernstein's fiendishly difficult West Side Story and coped by adopting the Rex-Harrison-talk/sing approach.

Younger daughter continued to fidget fretfully.
"Would you like to do one?" we asked.
"No!" she snapped.

Elder daughter grabbed a friend and cheerfully bumbled their way through "What is This Feeling?" from Wicked (which goes like this if you're not a young woman and thus are not familiar with the song):
Younger daughter continued to grimace and behave rather like she needed to visit the washroom. Finally, she blurted out: "Aren't they going to do a Disney one?"

I hurried over to the table and made the suggestion. Elder daughter grabbed some assistants and launched into "Hakuna Matata" from The Lion King. This seemed to give younger daughter the courage she needed. She announced that she wanted to sing "The Bare Necessities" from The Jungle Book, seized the microphone, and with perfect pitch, volume, and timing, belted it out. She even danced a little.

Returning to our table in the wake of a rather astonished ovation, she informed us it was time to go home. Clearly, she'd made her point.

Lawyers, guns and money

So what do you do when the world seems to be going a little nuts? Or at least a little more nuts than usual. We woke up to a pall of smoke over Hades, from forests fires around Le Tuque, Québec. That's about 200 miles away. People actually called firefighters in Ottawa to investigate where the smoke was coming from. Nuthin' on the news about it, because CBC was going on about the economy (better) and British Petroleum in the Gulf of Mexico (catastrophic). Then Israel killed some people on boats bringing relief supplies to the Gaza. (Apparently they now "regret" this.)

Furthermore, we just learned of a family crisis concerning a close friend in Victoria, and a scary health and safety crisis affecting one of elder daughter's pals. The latter appears to want no action taken. But he might die. Oh...Crud...

While I'm mulling over moral consequences, I need mood music. How about the late great Warren Zevon? Here's "Lawyers Guns and Money" (which about covers it) performed by Zevon's son Jordan and Bob Dylan's son Jacob:

Green scream

Spring is a fleeting thing in Hades. Generally, it has flown by the Victoria Day weekend (which was last weekend), if anyone has actually noticed that it was here in the first place. Garden centres in The Nation's Capital have been known to openly admonish eager and deluded gardeners who attempt to plant their annuals before May 24th.

This year was an excellent illustration of the folly in not waiting; we've been on a roller-coaster of wildly fluctuating temperatures since March, veering from summer-like heat to a sudden killing frost overnight, then back again. What has been truly weird about the season is that I cannot remember, during my last nine springs here, a time when daffodils, tulips, and lilacs have been blooming at the same time. Generally, the daffs show up in late April/early May, give way to the tulips which are gone by the time the lilacs burst forth with heady fragance in late May to early June. It's late May. The lilacs are nearly gone, having climaxed with the last of the tulips two weeks ago.

Even a "normal" Hades spring reminds me of the Sunbane from the relentlessly bleak trilogy of trilogies written by Stephan R. Donaldson. I vaguely remember making it about halfway through the second trilogy, but there's only so much leprosy, blood-letting and self-loathing one can stomach and I'm really not that much of a fantasy fiction fan. However, the passages describing the unnatural Sunbane spring, with trees being forced into leaf in paroxysms of green agony, stayed with me. I'm reminded of them each time spring comes to Ottawa, and the buds suddenly erupt from the long-barren branches, then hemorrhage into full leaf, usually within the space of a few days. Listen...are the maples screaming?

There is nothing like a Dane

You could say I have a history with Hansel and Gretel.

When I was a very little girl, I fell in love with an "operatic fantasy" version of the Humperdinck opera Hänsel und Gretel. It featured stop-motion animation and a hilarious/scary camp version of The Witch by the rather delightful Anna Russell:

In Grade Four, my teacher decided to put on Hansel and Gretel for the school. I was chosen as the witch --- unanimously...

When the gates of Parenthood slammed behind me, I found myself back in the land of fairy-tales, but it was a double-edged sword, to clumsily mix a metaphor. You have started a family and you become aware of the darkness behind the stories which, let's face it, never were for children in the first place. Hansel and Gretel is particularly dire. Innocents are abandoned and lost in the dark forest, left to the mercy of predators. Parents know that the world is teeming with those who would consume children. My kids, untouched by such knowledge, loved Hansel and Gretel, just as I had.
So this morning, we set off for the Canadian War Museum which has been the site of the Ottawa International Children's Festival for the past couple of years. Last year, to avoid the horrors of so-called "quality testing" at younger daughter's school, I took her to the festival and one of the fabulous shows we saw had been a production of Theatre Gruppe 38. This year Gruppe 38 was putting on Hansel and Gretel, so how could we resist?

After last year's excruciatingly uncomfortable risers, I was thrilled to enter the theatre and encounter proper seats. Furthermore we were ushered into the front row while a woman dressed in a white flowing garment cradled what appeared to be a baby and crooned a lullaby, pausing every now and then to instruct the usher to re-seat the audience closer to the stage, in that firm, rather disconcerting Danish way. (I've encountered several Danes in my life. They have all been firm and rather disconcerting.)

She was joined by a pianist who, when not playing exquisitely, combed his bald head and popped marshmallows in his mouth. She spread out her garment, revealing that there was no baby in her arms and began the story, pausing like a school-teacher while some late arrivals scurried to their seats. She had a shock of short white hair, unlike the actress in the photograph, and reminded me somehow of the lead singer of Roxette, only older and less made-up. She told the ancient story as if off the top of her head, slight oddities in vocabulary and grammar being the only giveaway that English was not her first language. (Scandinavians, well, indeed most Europeans, put us to shame in the language acquisition department.)

Every now and then, she would select a long fold of her garment, spread it, and an undulating picture would be projected onto it: a balloon, a bird, angels, a ringed planet. The pianist would occasionally interrupt her narrative with a question, comment, or a boyish grin. Then he'd pop another marshmallow into his mouth. The narrator explained that the father didn't want to lose his children in the forest, but that having given into his wife for the first attempt, he had to give in for the second.

"Why?" asked the accompanist simply. She paused, smiled at him, and did not answer.

When she became the witch, she stood on a grate that emitted orange light and a billowing breeze. Her gentle face became hard and her accent became....German, as she spoke about how Gretel must "vork" as Hansel is caged and fattened up for the...oven... I half expected her to say: "Vork vill make you free..." When the witch ends up in her own oven, the orange beam lit her from below and the air rushing through the grate whipped up the folds of her garments like flames.

Creepy. Charming. Mesmerizing. Gruppe 38 did it again.