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.

BLOGG # 82 "THERE ARE NO MEADOWLARKS THERE"

"There are no meadowlarks there"
-I borrowed this phrase -a version of the famous quote of Gertrude Stein's "There is no there there" to express my deep disappointment at not hearing one note of my favourite bird during the entire trip to Alberta and Saskatchewan.
There is no doubt ,my faithful readers , that you will have to often read  my indulgent reminiscing of my nostalgic trip to the Prairies and I beg your patience as I  rhapsodize now  about  one of my  favourite prairie sounds- the warbling of the meadowlark.
As soon as we decided on this anticipated prairie trip,my thoughts flew to the precious memory of the yellow and black meadowlark and his glorious song. My traveling companion went on  the internet and found several recordings of this elusive bird. There were examples of the warbling of the Eastern meadowlark and the western and also the mid western one. We voted on the mid western one as the most similar to the meadowlark sounds we remembered from childhood.
The minute we drove into the prairies we started looking for the distinctive markings of the meadowlark and strained our ears to hear it's song. I also looked for the fence post or low bush where it usually perched-there were no fence posts-and few bushes.
We weren't discouraged and expected to hear it while we rambled through our childhood places. We did not hear it at my isolated schoolhouse, nor around the abandoned house where I grew up,and surprisingly, not down in the coulee by the creek that ran through our pasture where I spent hours playing on it's bank and remembered vividly the sound of the meadowlark's lonely song piercing the hot summer mornings. We did not hear it either at the derilect grain elevator  by the small village of Bruce or even in the "ideallic in my eyes- village of  Innisfree where I was born.
We did not fare much better in Saskatchewan. We did not hear it as we walked around the lot where my traveling companion's house used to be,nor in the fields stretching on either side of the road  where he skied down the hill in the winter. We visited his favourite quiet charming coulee where there were lots of bushes, a little slough and even fence posts, where he used to look for robin's eggs and collect gopher tails for money [I will not inflict on your sensitive ears his method of catching gopher tails- a common prairie pastime for boys in the depression.] We did not hear the meadowlark in this idyllic spot either nor in the old local grave yard going back more than a hundred years. While I was reading the grave stones I did hear the red wing black blackbird's song cutting the silence and I did hear the rustling of the sage as the wind gently caressed it. We also did not hear  meadowlarks at his abandoned school house or the schoolhouse where his mother taught in 1915, even though we picnicked there amongst the lilac bushes.We didn't even hear it at "Buffalo Jump" in Alberta  where I spent a long quiet hour painting on the edge of the bluff.
As we continued down stretches of secondary roads we talked about the inability to describe the meadowlark song and decided one could describe a lovely coulee, an Alberta rose,a Saskatchewan wheat field resembling for all the world a vast green ocean as the wind blew over it, but we could not describe a sound. And then I found the perfect description of the meadowlark song. My constant reading companion on the trip was O. W. Mitchell's "Who has seen the wind" the great classic prairie novel and there,at the beginning of a chapter near the end of this enchanting book, I read the description of the meadowlark song and as I read it out loud, we heard it's song. "the soaring lilt of his song rising up high until it pierces the hot,still vast prairie sky and then an abrupt silence." Yes ! that was it! That was the wonderful sound I heard years ago while playing alone and  lonely  by the river. 
As we came to the end of our journey and rolled towards the foothills of the Rockies,  I suddenly realized we hadn't worn our hearing aides the whole vacation, so of course  we didn't hear the meadowlarks!  There may have been hundreds of meadowlark songs that we missed. It wasn't because there were no fence posts, too much pollution from oil rigs or pesticides. They were there after all!  We just didn't hear them and my heart lifted- I am after all an incurable optimist.
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BLOGG#81--PRAIRIE GIRL -PRAIRIE SKIES

Prairie Sky- Prairie Girl
I have just returned from one of my best vacations ever-- a long dreamed of vacation- a car trip to the prairies. The trip was a nostalgic one to my childhood places-the places deep in my heart. As everyone born in the prairies knows, you can be taken out of the prairies but the prairies can’t be taken out of your heart and I have certainly proved this.

My preparation for this trip was detailed –nothing of importance left out. First of all was the importance of what to wear. As all my fashion conscious readers know, and I hope that includes all of you, a trip can be enhanced or totally ruined by wearing the wrong clothes and what looks wonderful in Victoria does not go over so hotly in –let’s say- Paris. I carefully purchased a peasant skirt in light cotton which, thank goodness, is the hot item of this season and as brief as is possibly appropriate to my age, skimpy tops. I also packed my biggest warm black sweater which can wrap around all of me if needed, socks to wear with my sandals and my tough waterproof jacket.  No! jeans and sneakers were not packed, and of course, the inevitable scarf in the current fashionable yellow pink hot colours was included.  All these items were well used in this predictably extreme prairie climate and I was pleased with my choices.  As you can imagine, I made a great fashion statement. Unfortunately there were no peasant skirts in sight in Alberta or even in Saskatchewan and every woman I saw looked excessively sophisticated in the current understated yoga wear or fashionable tights and tops and of course the inevitable uniform -jeans and sneakers Nary a sock and sandal combination or peasant skirt could be seen. You may be assured that this did not bother me a bit- I felt very prairie appropriate despite the stares.

The next preparation was to go to the library to take out CDs to play as we drove through mile  after mile of delicious prairie countryside. The ones I chose were favourites of my older brother, and constituted my first introduction to music- Wilf Carter, the Carter family, Sons of the Pioneers and lots of fiddle and cowboy music complete with yodeling. This was my contribution to the trip. My travelling companion who was also doing the same nostalgic trip did all the rest of the unimportant stuff such as map planning and car maintenance and driving.
  My plan was to play these CDs the minute we rolled out of the Rockies and hit the prairie road and I did just that as soon as we rolled out of Hinton, Alberta.  As we cruised at a fast speed down into the flat prairies with the wind blowing through  our hair -that glorious prairie wind- I turned up the CD to full volume and listened to Wilf Carter singing “Always Look on the sunny Side” and laughed out loud and gazed raptly at the highest, bluest sky in the universe and was filled with joy and amazement and I was content. The sky, the wind, the vast prairies had not  diminished a whit since I was a child. I am so glad I am a prairie girl.