BLOGG # 70 AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR

And a Happy New Year! It is a well known fact that -another of my "questionable well known facts" dear readers-believe it if you wish- the way your new year unfolds depends on how well you have celebrated the New-Year Eve. If that would be the case, my life the past seventy odd years should have been passed in Hell. I don't know about you, but I have never been successful with my New Year Eve's choices. My childhood and early teens were spent-having no choice - with my religious family in the only proper way- on my knees in church listening to the twelve strokes of midnight and then listening to the minister praying to absolve us of our sins-in German.- not much fun -and looking back on those years, especially my teen years, the above fact is indeed proven. In my student years I fared not much better. With my usual luck I was often assigned to work the New Year Eve. In fact that is how I lost my then boyfriend, for what boy would tempt fate by not having a date on that most important night thus insuring a sexless year! My early twenties are not remarkable for any outstanding New Year’s Eve bashes. I was married in Greece and every one knows the Greeks start a card -playing frenzy the beginning of December which ends in the biggest longest card playing night on New Year's Eve. And you better believe the Greeks definitely hold with that well known fact, as the financial success for the whole year depends on the success of that night. Once the children arrived, New Year's Eve became a blur of playing monopoly or something in a desperate attempt to help the kids stay awake until about 10.15pm in their hopeful quest to see the New Year in. It was in the heyday of my Divorce Years that I thought my luck would change. Believe me –Not! My wisest choice then was to elect to work the Eve thus, at double time and a half I could at least insure an easier financial year. When I did choose to test the New Year Eve waters, they were disasters. One was while in Toronto, when five of us decided to go to the trendy opening of a “Harbour Front” bash. By a quarter to midnight we had managed to get through the crush and get three glasses of warm champagne served in plastic glasses. We all left before midnight and spent the crucial midnight hour in a Tram. The worst one was in Vancouver when three of us were invited to a house party in trendy Kitsilano, Vancouver. . We arrived at 11pm-the earliest time possible fashionably. The house was suitably dark, with subdued music and packed with aging forty-something people trying to look cool. By 11.30 someone came around with a handful of pills. I recognized the powerful sodium amytal sleeping pill, my friend the pharmacist, recognized them all except one which he took home to analyze. At ten minutes to twelve the whole house was quiet with somnolent half-heartedly amorous pairs coupled- not a pretty sight. We left before midnight- again! The next morning my friend called me at an early hour and said "get up! I refuse to have my Year destroyed because of that lousy New Year’s Eve. We are going out to celebrate with brunch to change the luck." So we did and drank much Champagne and orange juice. Did it make the new year better? I don't remember. So take my advice and choose wisely this New Year's Eve—and a HAPPY NEW YEAR to you -your faithful blogger

BLOGG #70 AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR

BLOGG # 69 DECK THE HALLS..

"We wish you a Merry Xmas” versus "Silent Night Holy Night" Here it is the week before Christmas and I am in the Christmas mood again as all right living people should be. This means of course, blatant commercial activities with no guilt attached and here I am tripping gaily off to the malls with unfortunately not a full pocket but with a generous spirit. So far I have been malling- love that word- in Victoria’s  two major malls and have even visited the two major ones in the great metropolis of Vancouver—the sophisticated Downtown exclusive Eaton’s mall where you can buy $600 shoes-I asked- and the super crass Metrotown for an orgy of wishful vicarious shopping in the fast lane. During all these indulgent hours I have been serenaded by the latest “Christmas music” piped in via loudspeakers at the highest volume. Now I happen to love Christmas Carols –the true ones- and don’t really mind the shrill newer ones either, but it is a pity that I can not remember when I last heard “Silent Night” in a Canadian mall. I suppose it has become politically incorrect to play these songs in commercial spaces but I miss hearing them. The pros and cons of political correctness regarding the playing of carols is not what this is about -not at all- it is about the “topsdurvyness of the cultural customs of our present planet. Years ago when I lived in Greece the Christmas festivities were strictly religious and subdued and only the New Year was celebrated with gifts. The western Christmas with great spending was unknown.  Four years ago I was in Athens, Greece for Christmas and we did a lot of “Malling”. There are many new huge malls in Athens since entering the E.U. and Christmas really underlines this new way of living. The malls in Athens and suburbs were an hyperbole of over the top commercialization—the Santas were bigger, the reindeer cuter, the tinsel more vulgar than any I had ever seen, and all the time –interlaced with the excited shouting of eager Greek consumers, I could hear the sounds of the original sacred Christmas music of old so banned in North American malls.  Here at last I got my fill of my favourite Christmas music - nary a note of “We wish you a merry Christmas” or “I am dreaming of a White Christmas” or “Deck the Halls” instead the sounds of the beautiful old carols and especially “Silent Night” filled the air. Why was it that here in Greece I could hear all my old favourites?  Of course, the Greek people, happily shopping, had no concept of the significance of these sacred pieces, nor did they listen to the words.  No, they shopped to their hearts’ content imbued with the materialistic Western Christmas Spirit inspired by these foreign and beautiful songs unaware of political correctness or sacrilege. When I left Greece I was satisfied and satiated because I finally had had my fill of favourite Christmas Music. However last week I had to walk down Fisgard street in the centre of Victoria’s Chinatown on an errand and again I heard the old ones loudly blaring on the street and my heart lifted.  I love our present cultural “topsydurvyness” in our great planet where you can find the unexpected adoption of  music of others in the oddest places and advise you, dear readers, to embrace it also and have a wonderful shopping- indulged Xmas.

BLOGG # 69 AT LAST I GOT TO SEE "TOSCA"

For years now I have been wanting to attend the great tragic opera-"Tosca" and last Saturday, finally , there I was at Silver City Cinema listening to and watching this great production  by the wonderful Metropolitan opera of New York. Tosca by Puccini is one of the great tragedies in opera. The music is wonderful, the singing glorious and the plot as usual in opera somewhat trite, but there is nothing trite about the glorious heroine Tosca- she is dynamite. There is great love, jealousy, betrayal and murder. The murderer is Tosca,a sensitive artiste and singer in love with a painter, pushed to jealousy by the arch villain Scarpia and- wouldn't you know it- the chief of police and a barrel of a baritone- who drives her to jealousy and betrayel of her lover's hiding place. Poor Tosca is torn between listening to her lover being tortured and yielding to this dastardly-and ugly- villian's lust. The drama  is pitched very high, the music and voices ascending to passionate heights ending in Tosca, hampered by a voluminous very decollete gown, stabbing  Scarpia.  I have watched many a violent movie, stabbing being a rather tame method in our high definition movies, but never have I felt such horror. Tosca, her voice soaring, repeatedly stabbed him using both arms in violent thrusts, her hatred overflowing along with the bloody stabbing action as she kills this powerful despot. Immediately after she collapses,shocked at what she has done, her voice dropping at least three haunting registers with  her despair as she sings"and all Rome feared him." I found this very moving because as she sang she acknowledged the horror of murder-so unlike modern movies,where the murderer rushes off blithely to other mayhem. Up to the moment of the stabbing Tosca acted as victim responding to things out of her control, but Tosca is a modern woman, a famous singer in charge of her life, and when she grabs that knife she rejects the victim role and takes charge of her life. Unfortunately , this is a tragic opera, and she is one of Opera's major tragedians.  She does not conquer all-again just like a modern woman who can't "have it all"- and finds that Scarpia betrayed her even in death and her lover is shot anyway. Trying to escape her tyrant's lackey she plunges to her death-and that is the story of the Great Tosca- a modern woman.  I know the story is indeed trite but take my advice dear readers,and try to attend" Tosca" at least once in your life and be thrilled to the marrow of your bones.

BLOGG # 64 A GHOSTLY EXPERIENCE

A ghostly experience.  Today, as it was a brisk autumn day, I decided to take my car out for a drive and chose the coastal route along Dallas road to Ogden Point. Even though it was almost noon there were remnants of fog still in the air. Autumn on the west Coast and especially in Victoria is the harbinger of fog. It starts on clear days in late afternoons and deepens giving us lovely melancholic evenings to satisfy the most romantic of souls and often lingers until late the next morning before it starts to burn off. So if you are flying into or out of Victoria during this time, dear readers, keep that in mind as planes are often grounded because of it. But I digress. This morning was typical and as I meandered along the Dallas road the fog was just lifting. I parked at the quay and got out. As I shut the door I looked up and there she was out in the harbour –a two mast tall ship in full sail - a ghost ship in the fog.  I was immediately plunged into a Robert Louis Stevenson world with London docks, rogues and pirates swearing and cursing and rollicking crowds of sailors, the air exotically pungent with the aroma of spices, coffee, refuse and rats. Then the fog lifted and I could see her standing there in all her glory. The sea was silver and serene, the sky was silver and serene and she was silver and serene - a majestic sight. I stood there enthralled. Suddenly the still ocean was pierced by a determined head and a long wake. A seal was coming to shore. The spell was broken. I was pulled rudely back to my time, the rogues and pirates, aromas and smells disappearing and I was again on my familiar marine coast along with ordinary seals, screaming gulls and egrets. Was I sorry to be back? Of course I was. Who wouldn’t rather be in a Robert Louis Stevenson world? On the other hand, though I know I can fit into the most challenging situations with élan, I am not so very sure about rogues, pirates and rats so I  happily walked along the quay greeting my fellow walkers with a cheery good morning just as all good Victorians do.  

BLOGG # 63 "WHAT A DEAL

Yesterday I was leafing through a fashion magazine while at my doctors office when I came upon an article titled “Designer items at reduced prices” The price of one of the items they quoted was a second hand Jane Birkin lizard Crystal bag at thirty two thousand dollars. Jane Birkin, as my savvy bloggers know was a model, fashion muse, an icon of the seventies for her fashion sense and the coolest girl in Paris.  Hermes fashioned the ultimate leather woman’s hand bag at that time under her specific instructions and called it the Jane Birkin Bag.  It still is the most coveted piece of accessory today. However, thirty thousand for a second hand purse seems a bit steep and I wonder what the original price was.  To try to wrap my mind around the thirty thousand dollar price tag, I attempted to put it in my world to understand it. Thirty thousand is the yearly income of a low income family in Canada- the minimum hourly rate here is ,I believe, ten dollars an hour-eighty dollars a day, and if in luck, that amounts to four hundred per week, or sixteen hundred a month- Goodness- the math! This amounts to twenty thousand a year. Worse- A single mother with two children on welfare has to make do with about a thousand a month or twelve thousand a year and we consider her a drain on our economy. We certainly haven’t come a long way baby, in the past five hundred years or so, have we? The French king Louis XVI  was beheaded because he spent more on one meal than a peasant in an entire year and his silly jewel -encrusted satin breaches and mile high powdered wigs broke the bank. Of course we still have an occasional despot who insists on gold toilet seats even in these enlightened times- but a thirty thousand dollar Birkin bag?  Somehow this disgusts me more than the crazy French king and his mile high powdered wigs or the present day despot’s toilet seat.  It makes me wonder where we are going- especially when I think there are large populations living under the poverty line starving with  Drones at a horrendous cost, flying over their heads with intent to bomb, using the excuse of “terrorist hunting”- I really begin to wonder!   I am an optimist and have faith in the integrity of the human spirit, but this Birkin Bag has shaken it. Hopefully ,dear readers, not for long as we need much optimism right now.--   Having read my newly posted blog again, I decided I had better come off my self rightious perch and admit to liking the original Jane Birkin Bag; love reading the Vogue magazine knowing it is a self-indulgent act; enjoy fashion in all it's variations and tremble to think I am becoming a soapbox shouting agitator, so please read  my blogg with a large grain of salt.--- Your  non-agitating, peace-loving auntie blogger   Laurie

BLOGG # 62 THE GREAT DELUGE

Well it is finally here- the Great Autumn Deluge! Two days ago, I was sitting on the patio of my favourite coffee shop basking in the sun for two hours in my brief summer top, and today it is raining. I use ,deliberately, this West Coast understatement to describe today's weather. I watched the deluge from the window for some time, the rain slashing down sweeping sideways in the strong wind and forming lake- like puddles on the pavement, then impulsively decided it was time to go out for a walk in it. There followed a flurry of hunting for boots, rain jackets, scarves and umbrellas.Suitably clad, I ventured forth in the deluge and immediately my umbrella inverted and broke. So there I was sloshing through the puddles under my broken umbrella, my waterproof jacket, sweatpants and sturdy boots soaked through. Was I unhappy? Was I miserable? not on your life!  A true West Coaster, I happily slogged along, reminiscing about other walks in seasonal rains- Spring rains in Melancholy Barcelona two years ago,walking ghostlike through the abandoned narrow streets heavy with atmosphere - a black and white forties' war movie- and ending with a coffee in a Tapas Bar- a pensive very long walk I did on a late winter evening in Vancouver as a young woman with a broken heart, in a cold foggy rain, ending up in a coffee shop for a warm-up coffee and talking to a stranger for comfort- and the best of all running barefoot through a sudden summer storm on the farm in Alberta as a child, arms flung wide, head tilted back and mouth wide open to catch the refreshing raindrops.  After all this reminiscing in this very wet walk I came home happy, soaked and satisfied. Autumn is here!  There is nothing so exhilerating as seasonal changes. So take my advice-again- dear readers, don't fall into the trap of autumn- rain depression, but gird yourself in all your rain gear and brave the wonderful elements that nature in her abundance gives us.