BLOGG # 91 "ARE YOU A UNICORN?"

Yesterday evening I went to my local swimming pool between 6pm and 7pm for my routine exercises followed by a sauna. I love going on Sunday evenings as the pool is always empty. After a nice swim I walked into the sauna and right into a discussion and heard "I have a five O'clock shadow and need to shave every five hours or so." There were groans and nods around the room. I saw there were five men in the sauna and all involved in this lively discussion -I was the only female and as is the usual habit when in such circumstances,I kept a low profile in a corner. The man who made the comment continued saying it was a bother of course but it was the only thing she asked him to do and she was worth it. All the other men agreed "Women are always worth it". The lively discussion continued but I didn't follow as I was too intent on my own thoughts until I heard the word "Unicorn". I was amused and showed it. The man sitting next to me asked if I minded this frank discussion and I assured him I did not but was fascinated as I thought only women had these discussions about the opposite sex. I was assured otherwise and was included in the discussion and was asked for an occasional opinion. They were talking about this graph they had read about which measured female desirability. The graph measurements dealt with the level of "Craziness and hotness of the female sex. The most exciting woman, they agreed , was crazy- crazy and hot- hot and was at the top of the scale -but,unfortunately, these women were difficult though exciting.The talk continued to "Less Crazy and hot" etc and downward -I turned off at this point until I heard the word "Unicorn" again. "What" said a man not in the know "is a Unicorn?" Another man said "They don't exist" But the man who was explaining it all said "The Unicorn is a woman who rates zero on the Crazy" scale and ten on the "Hot Hot" scale [only men could devise this] but they don't exist of course except that he had found one!" he was obviously in love]-"and she was a keeper." I did have to laugh at this point.The discussion then turned to the main differences between men and women-really a lecture for my benefit [they kept asking me if I agreed-of course I said yes -one hates to hurt their feelings] Most of them had obviously read "Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus" and agreed these books should be compulsive reading for young males. The basics ,said one man earnestly to me, are that men need to be needed. "Ahh"I said,"That is why my friend traveled so far to fix my plumbing?" "Of course" they all said in unison. Women on the other hand need to be "validated" and they were very firm about that-I agreed. Next they discussed the need of men to go into "the Cave" when perturbed and the need of women to go deep into "their well." It was very important that women did not accompany men into the cave and very vital to not pull the women out of their well until they reached up their arms to be pulled out .Well, dear readers,never have I been so entertained in a sauna or learned so much! I left early , thanked them, and said I had to go home and recuperate with a glass of my favourite red. But the question remained. Was I a Unicorn? and my dear female readers -Are you?

BLOGG #90 WHAT I DID ON VALENTINE'S DAY

Today is Valentine Day and as we all know, the ritual for celebrating this day is specific. It has to be romantic . The time honoured way is to have it spent by receiving either a heart shaped box of icky chocolates from your current beau or a dozen red roses at a hundred dollars a dozen which last exactly one day before they droop thereby lasting usually exactly the time a love lasts- a warning metaphor for us all who believe in everlasting love. The other most common celebration is a romantic meal in an expensive restaurant followed by a romantic night in a revealing scratchy skimpy and ridiculouneglegie which makes most women look ridiculous -a gift from our romantic beaus. These are all wonderful and I hope you have all participated in at least one of the above but not me. I went to the opera. The metropolitan Opera of New York presented two romantic operas specifically for Valentine's Day and I enjoyed them immensely The operas are both fairy talesthe first one was Iolanta by Tchaikovski and the second was Bluebeard's Castle by Bartok.-They were both chosen to emphasize the broad spectrum of romantic love. The first-Iolanta is a story about a blind princess imprisoned in the deep forest-of course it has to be a deep forest. Fairy tales would not have been written if there hadn't been any deep forests. I have never heard of a princess hidden in a desert-have you? The theme of this first tale is about darkness turning to light-The blind princess is doomed to darkness and is imprisoned by her father for a ridiculous reason as always, until a prince-what else-stumbles on her forest prison, falls in love with her and cures her blindness. Now here's a twist. We have always known "love is blind" how often have you said "What does she see in him or viseversa.She-he- must be blind". but not in this case. Love cures blindness. Mind you, Tchaikovski was skating on pretty thin ice. The whole romance could have gone awry.Once the princess could see, she might have found her beloved prince a froggy looking prince but thank goodness love prevails and once she sees his face she loves him even more. Iolanta is a Russian opera so it has a Russian feel and sound with beautiful music and wonderful voices.The Russian language is beautiful when sung and this opera lived up to that. It ended with a lovely fullbodied chorus singing reverent praises to God thanking him for beautiful light -the greatest gift of all. Bluebeard's Castle is another kettle of fish.This is a dark story set in Hungary.The theme is opposite to Iolanta's. Here we start in Darkness and it gets worse. There are only two people in this opera-the tall brooding Bluebeard, a handsome bearded impeccably dressed bass singer chain smoking and exuding menacing sexynes-a woman's longing nightmare and Judith a silly young blonde mezzosoprano in a clinging gown who is rushing to her doom all the while begging this monster to let her in his castle and give her the keys to the hidden seven rooms. Her stance is that she loves him and thinks if he gives her the keys and she opens the locked rooms to let her love in,the darkness will dispel. Will we women ever learn? The upshot is she opens the rooms lets in the light and is appalled at the horrors in them-blood, gore and rivers of tears to say nothing of all the instruments of murder and torture. Does this stop her? Not at all! she begs for the rest of the keys singing of her love and asking that time old question women like to ask-"Do you love me best of all your wives?"- all the five dead ones mind you- The last key opens to the garden where she stumbles on her open grave and sees her own dead body -a horrible Valentine's day ending. There was mind you some lightness at least for the males in the audience. Judith did bathe revealingly naked in bluebeard's bathtub [he did not kill here there] Believe me, Marilyn Monroe in her bathtub scene in "The Seven Year's Itch wasn't sexier ! The music was dark, hauntingly beautiful in a typical Hungarian minimal scale-no high notes here and I loved it.This is not, of course, a love story but is really a fairy tale with a lesson. It is about a journey we all-male or female -take in our life when we feel deep disillusion,turn our backs on our life-Judith abandons her family and fiance-and search in dark hidden places for illumination-unlocking doors as we go. This is a very brave act and I retract my statement.Judith was not silly but brave.She risked her life "wanting to know." We all do this sometime in our own lives. So my readers-this was the Met's Valentines gift to me and I pass it on to you and remember -Watch out for that little naked fat boy with bow and arrow-He is one of the profoundest Life's teachers.

BLOGG # 89 A warmhearted Story For Frigid January

Well, dear readers a lot has passed by since I last wrote a blog: thanksgiving, Hanukkah, the twelve days of Christmas ,New Years Eve, and Epiphany. In spite of all these happenings I have not felt inspired to write a blogg. My life in the past two months revolved around health issues. My body and I have been in conflict as to who is Boss on this sojourn on Earth and the body was slowly winning, having decided to have an arthritic flare up. I spent a lot of time and money on chiropractors, acupuncturists, doctors and medication. I did manage to make a quick trip East in early December to visit my trendy friends in Toronto and to snowy Montreal for the Art Biannelli. I enjoyed all my trips and of course paid for it over the holidays with pain. However I did have a good Christmas and even-yikes- a good New Year's Eve! At the beginning of this year I decided to include a visit to my therapist for an emotional tune-up along with all the other physical therapies to improve my general well being. As usual she was very good and I felt a great release of tension. This is not what the blogg is about. The more important and rather embarrassing happening was that I had mistakenly parked my car blocking two driveways. She lives in a quiet typically overgrown Victorian neighbourhood so the driveways were not easy to see. The policeperson, a woman, who was called tried to find me searching the nearby park hoping she wouldn't have to tow my car away. When I finally came out of my session an hour later, I heard some one shouting my name "Laurie" loudly. It was this lovely policeperson and she said "where were you? I have been looking for you as I didn't want to have you towed" I blurted out that I was at my therapist. She reached over to my windowsill,gave me her card she had just placed there and said "well hurry up, here is your daughter's cellphone number,call her right away as she is coming to move your car. I said "O god not from work she is going to kill me" and this remarkable policeperson said"No she's not.She has taken the day off and is coming from home and was very nice about it so get moving!" In the meantime, the nice woman who had called the police-it was her driveway-came out with a plate of homemade fudge candy and offered the policeperson one and then me. I said I couldn't possibly take one as I was too embarrassed. The policeperson- I should say Constable-turned to me and said "O For goodness sake take one and get a move on. I have wasted enough time." So I did. The candy was delicious, my daughter didn't kill me and I sent a lovely thank you card to this remarkable policeperson. So take my advice dear readers and next time you hear comments of POLICE BRUTALITY remember to warm the cockles of your heart with this story of an act of kindness from the police.

BLOGG # 95 LADY MACBETH STEALS THE SHOW

We are in Autumn now,my favourite season, and one of the reasons  is because it is  the beginning of the 'New York Metropolitan Opera live on film' season. This means that lucky Opera Buffs like me can attend the Metropolitan Opera via cinema even in Victoria. This year the season was opened with the opera Macbeth by Verdi .You will have to bear with me dear readers as I once more enthuse in my blogg about  my favourite art form. As we all know, Macbeth is a Shakespeare play full of blood and gore and known for it's superstitious reputation [it is inadvisable to quote "Macbeth" in the theatre]. The story is all about the ambitious ruthless Macbeth who wants to become king and goes around full kilted  swirling a fur cloak and swinging a huge Claymore sword. Not in this opera! Here Macbeth is placed in the early 1950's era-looked more like an unsuccessful drug lord in a long swishy leather coat, bullet belts draped around his middle and carrying an insignificant rifle. The fact that he had a strong bass voice, was sturdy and came from Malta, saved him from mediocrity. Lady Macbeth ,on the other hand was entirely something else. When she arrived on stage I gasped and so did most of the audience. She is all about seduction and I have seen several versions in plays where the Lady attempts to be so-usually  hampered by unwieldy medieval Scottish attire. But not this Lady Macbeth! This Lady Macbeth was a Russian blond haired beauty-a cross between Marilyn Monroe and Veronica lake.  She was attired-almost- in a slip of  revealing negligee and as she writhed on the matrimonial bed singing seductively about her ambitious plans of mayhem and murder,she flashed a surprising amount of lovely long leg while twining them around poor Macbeth. I think we have to doff our opera hats to Maria Callas at this point who introduced the sexy siren as opera singer to the world. She even looked sexier when she stripped off the negligee and put on a stunning satin black satin tuxedo that could only have been tailored by Armani. With her long blond hair draped over her eyes and her six inch heels,she even looked sexy with her arms covered in blood as she came out of the bed chamber of the dead kin wielding the bloody knife and singing "who would have thought the old man had so much blood in him" in Italian with her lovely Russian soprano voice. She even looked good in a soiled nightgown as she sleep-walked crazily and tried to wash her hands-"Out damn spot"she sang in Italian-What fun Opera is!
The other part I enjoyed immensely were the witches. Usually these are depicted as three old crones, revolting in appearance as they circle around the cauldron tossing in snakes eyes and toad tongues, but not this time. This time we had at least thirty witches all dressed in fifties' era dresses looking all the world like middle aged housewives from Glasgow with "Queen Mother" hats and purses which they swung at poor Macbeth as they intoned their false promises of success in beautiful  harmony-the music in Macbeth is surprisingly beautiful and Verdi wrote it mostly in "Belle Canto." I am sure you all  know this means melodious singing.  I don't know how the choreographer did it but these' fifties' housewives managed to be frighteningly grotesque and at one time I had to shut my eyes as they-along with  their child witches- did their dastardly deeds. As you can see, I had a howlingly great and vulgar good time at the opera. There is no doubt that in the world of Art and Culture, Opera is the most vulgar but oh-so beautiful art form.

BLOGG # 94 AUTUMN IS HERE !

  This morning ,as is my custom on waking up, I drew back the blinds eagerly expecting sunshine --and  faced a blank white window. The Victoria autumn fog was here. The whole world was wrapped in a fuzzy white blanket.  I love autumn ! I love the whole idea of it - the feel of it in  the air , the smokey smell of it,  the crispness, the promise of changes everywhere, the excitement, even the inevitable rain-especially the rain. Autumn ,more than spring, heralds changes for me.One of the more important changes is the joy of  changing from tired summer clothes to Fall clothes. Every year at this time I am caught in surprise. One would think after so many years I would be prepared but that never happens. I get up and hunt through the closet for suitable clothes and can only find summer or winter items. Somehow the autumn clothes have disappeared as I frantically try to assemble a suitable outfit. Linen pants tucked into socks and winter boots, sleeveless T shirts topped with heavy long hot itchy wool sweaters and  long woolly scarves do not make  good fashion statements.  If my budget allows, this is the time I joyfully  go out and rashly buy unsuitable fall clothes. However the most important expected changes in fall  are of  course not fashion but what  plans we want to make to improve ourselves over the long winter. Autumn means "school " "academia" "honing of latent talents" "spiritual renewal" and of course optimistically enthusiastic athletic programs. This means visiting all the free newspaper stalls,  libraries advertising wonderful college and  university courses and local community centers where one can choose a variety of of courses on "cooking, sewing, photography or  macrame or even enrolling in the  more exotic "scrivener"clubs, book clubs or Dialogue clubs. Every  autumn,wading through fallen leaves, through the fog or drizzle, I venture out with good intentions for self improvement, and every autumn I fall short as I overestimate my enthusiasm and free time.  Nonetheless, the joy of anticipation in these ventures never fades year after year. The changes I have not as  yet mentioned are  the best of Autumn-the turning of leaves to brilliant hues of red, yellow and gold. This of course brings to mind the passage of time and we are reminded of our own mortality and and the inevitable melancholy associated with Autumn sets in-again one of the aspects of Autumn I love. Oh the delightful nostalgic feeling of shuffling through fallen leaves at dusk in the rain , hands deep in one's pockets, contemplating the swift passage of time and the futility of one's life. This is one of my favourite Autumn pastimes. My childhood memories of autumn in the prairies were different- riding on the hayrick piled high  with hay looking at the big orange moon, racing through clouds of smoke from the fire as my father burned the brush from the big potato field and the excitement of watching the huge combines and trucks  filled with grain. Autumn days in Greece where I spent several years reminds me of the smell of mothballs as the huge wool carpets aired in the sun after the long summer in storage and then the excitement of covering the cold marble floors with them and the taking down of white filmy curtains and replacing with heavy velvet ones-all in wonderful warm autumn colours .Please remember to always enjoy this rich promising season, dear readers, and forget the long winter months looming in the distance.

Blogg # 93 "SCHOOL'S OUT" - "BACK TO SCHOOL"

'Back To School"
"School's  Out"


Today is September the 2nd- the day after Labour Day and since the time of dawn, the first day of school. I remember from my childhood that after Christmas the best days were the ones that were named  " school's out'" and then "back to school". After lazy and often boring long Alberta summer days on the farm, "School's starting tomorrow" were welcome words. I couldn't wait to get back to school and get my allotted supplies-enjoying the smell of new paper-especially the scribblers and pads with lines where you had to learn how to write script-they especially smelled new and crisp. There were also the new text books with fascinating pictures that a book- starved child such as I was craved to see even though in a few days the novelty would wear off and the pleasure of receiving brand new pencils, erasers and crayons. 
 The long awaited pen,pen-nib and ink-the lovely blue ink that you would carefully pour into the inkwell and spill of course and with which you would eventually blot your page-I was a great "blotter of pages person" and still am- was also passed out by the teacher when you reached grade three. This also meant the possible anticipation, if you were a girl and lucky enough to have sitting behind you a boy who had a crush on you, of having him duck your braid tips into this inkwell-I had braids and  red hair. Sadly this did not happen to me- the crush was the other way around.
  The most exciting and feared thing of all of course was the sight of the new teacher which was usually a woman and my greatest influence in fashion and still is. I can still remember some of their dresses and jewellery.
The reason all these memories are coming up for me now is because of the latest news in B.C. which is of course, the "teacher's strike" and the inability of either antagonists to come to a compromise.
I am not "for or against"-I am not taking sides. I am sure both sides have legitimate arguments and feel very right about them. I only want to use this conflict to quote my favourite expression when in an insoluble conflict -"You can be right, I'd rather be free" which of course all the happy children are today -though not their parents. However I wonder if there is a child out there like I was-longing to go back to school and smell the new books, and meet the new teacher.
September 9th
It is one week later and unfortunately the situation hasn't changed. The children are still not in school nor are the teachers,and my heart goes out to the child who,like me years ago, longs to go back to school and is sitting surrounded by all it's new school supplies and brand new clothes and Addida shoes waiting patiently for a conclusion to the conflict. It really is true that children are disenfranchised  without power and at the mercy of the inexplicable actions of adults who control their lives.