Where the Walls are Soft…

clipped from realestate.sympatico.msn.ca

DO draw up a floor plan for the new space before determining any furniture choices. Your favourite sofa may look like it fits in your new home — make sure it does! As well as assessing your furniture for room arrangements, measure large, wide pieces like sofas to see if they’ll fit through the front door, and keep in mind any stairs or elevators to be negotiated.

Guess who hadda buy a new F-ing couch…?

Fluffy is
a
Take Charge
Kinda Guy.You got that right.

And the new one didn’t want to go down the stairs, either. Fluffy-the-Car-Shark was in charge of that particular escapade while I was at work, thank God, or I would’ve just sat in the parking lot and cried.

Fluffy is not a crier. Fluffy is a Take Charge Kinda Guy. He stood between the building and the moving van with his arms crossed and wouldn’t let the delivery guys leave until they got the new and smaller hide-a-bed in the door, down the stairs and set up.

Then he made them clean the drywall dust off the sides of it, where they had scraaaaaaaaaped it down the stairwell. I now have a beddish kind of thing to sleep in, and although smaller, it’s a lot more comfortable than the concrete couch/bed that I bought at the J.O.B. And it goes nicely with the chair and ottoman that matched the original.

None of the above are completely paid for, but Fluffy got the New Couch People to store the Old New Couch until it can be sold. He also talked them into delivering the New New Couch at no charge and with no money down. I will have to pay somebody eventually, I suppose…

I still haven’t got the dregs out of the old apartment, or cleaned it. I’ll have to do that on Monday (I snagged an extra day because of the Some Kind of Canuckian Holiday Weekend that happens at the end of every August), because tomorrow after work, I will be accompanying Fluffy and four teenaged girls to a foreign country to witness the sacred insanity that the Fly-Girl has committed herself to.

And to drink.

We will be returning some time on Sunday evening, and with luck, maybe I’ll be able to get the last of the crap to the charity drop-off and clean the old place then. That way I could go hiking or beaching with The Oogily Bay Girls on Monday.

Or hell, maybe I’ll just hand them the car keys and sit in the sauna all day…

Random Song-for-the-Day: “Superman Can’t Walk” – Good Charlotte

Will My Dad Find Out?
Taken August 9, 2008 with Canon PowerShot A550

Even though
the
evidence was
found under my
bed… with
the date of
the crime etched on
the label…
“Wasn’t me.”Of course, my Dad found out. He always found out everything I was up to, and he always gave me a chance to own up to it, relating the dirty deed to me in a manner designed to make me believe he really didn’t know who had done it. You know, in case I wanted to get it off my chest. Which I never did. Even though *I* knew that he knew…. nope. Wouldn’t admit to it. Never.

Like that time when I was five, and the kids up the street and I set fire to the empty field behind my house. Somehow we managed to stomp it out before it got away from us, and we all went home for supper, absolutely certain we were in the clear.

And then, my Dad read the “Police Report” out of the newspaper (yeah, the one that had been printed before we found the matches, but I was five and that was beyond my scope) out loud….

“…The POLICE are VERY worried about the three children, 2 boys and a little girl, who were playing with matches in the long grass, today. They are VERY worried that these three children don’t know any better and could have been BURNED TO DEATH, because they don’t seem to understand that fires can very quickly get OUT OF CONTROL and BURN CHILDREN TO DEATH before their parents can get to them. ESPECIALLY if their parents believe their children SHOULD KNOW BETTER. The POLICE hope these three children, 2 boys and a little girl, have LEARNED THEIR LESSON, and NEVER DO SUCH A STUPID THING AGAIN…”

And he turned to me and gave me that chance to own up: “Do you know who those three children are…?”

Me: “No,”

“Well what do you think of what those three children did …?”

Me: “I think they’re very lucky they didn’t get caught and go to jail.”

Right up into my teens, I would stubbornly stick to the “Wasn’t Me” defense, even when handed unequivocal evidence that it was so me.

Like that time when I was 16, and was accused of stealing a magnum of Champagne out of the wine-cellar, drinking it, and hiding the empty bottle under my bed, I said, “Wasn’t me.” Even though the evidence was found under my bed… with the date of the crime etched on the label… along with the signatures of myself and the friends I passed it back and forth with.

“Wasn’t me.”

But about that tree….

When I was growing up, we spent almost the entire summer on the boat. We traveled all over the Great Lakes on one boat or another – at first, sleeping on the boat, which was cool, but then my parents built their camp on Cockburn Island (That’s pronounced “Co-Burn”, remember. Suzi, stop laughing.).

A “camp” is what Northern Ontarians call “The Cottage” for those who might picture tents, or a lumber camp, by the way. The “camp” is now owned by my sister Tootie and her family, and it’s a bona-fide second home. It ain’t “camping” by any stretch of the imagination.

It was a slow build, though. The first year, we lived in the woodshed (huge by woodshed standards) while the main house was being built. We had an outhouse, kerosene lamps, and a woodstove. The refrigerator was a propane unit, and my Dad built a pump system for the water that pulled it from a cream can under the sink with the push of a button. He didn’t think my mom should have to lift a pail to the sink. He was a nice guy, my Dad.

Everybody on Cockburn drove old beat-up trucks and cars. When you bought a vehicle for “The Camp”, you either had it ferried over on a barge in the summer, or drove it across the ice in the winter. These old things could live forever over there, it seemed. Didn’t need a safety, either, although that was still illegal, but since nobody was gonna check…

And it was on Cockburn Island that everybody learned to drive. The unspoken rule seemed to state that once you hit the age of fourteen, you could drive on Cockburn. Everybody did it. That was my argument to my parents, anyway, when they wouldn’t let me drive over there. Their return argument was… well… inarguable: “Well, YOU’RE not gonna.”

But I was determined to be like everybody else and drive, dammit.

So, I went to the camp across the road and lamented to the Neighbour-Lady all my woes. Neighbour-Lady was a nice gal. She always had her long blonde hair wrapped around her head with pins in the mornings after she washed it, because she didn’t like the natural curl it had. She always wore green eyeshadow. And she always had a beer open.

Neighbour-Lady had cancer, but wouldn’t take treatment. Much of the time, she was “tight”, as my mom would say – not “falling down drunk”, but she generally had a buzz on. I guess it was one way to deal with cancer.

Anyway, I was over there complaining to Neighbour-Lady, and smoking her cigarettes. She wouldn’t give me a beer, but she gave me cigarettes all the time. And that day, she solved my “can’t drive” problem for me, by loaning me a car.

Now, to this day, everybody in my family thinks I stole that car. I did not. Neighbour-Lady loaned me that car. Never mind that the car did not belong to her. Or that I didn’t have a licence. Or parental permission to drive. She handed me the keys and said, “Take it. Don’t smash it up.”

I was half-way up the road while she was still popping open her next beer.

Ahh…. the freedom! I drove up the long side road and turned right on the “main” road that would take me down to the Government Dock. There was a guy on the Island that summer, that I had a crush on. On the Mainland, this guy ran in a different circle, and wouldn’t give me the time of day, but on Cockburn he would talk to me. Probably because there weren’t many teenagers on the Island at a time. And I was there. So…

I decided to go to the dock, because he would likely be swimming there. I had to sort of “happen to run into him”, of course, so he wouldn’t know I had that crush, you see, or I would have gone to his camp to find out where he was.

As I came up the road, it was fairly obvious that the dock was deserted, so I decided to make a left, and go to the other side of the Island to the sand beach. Maybe he’d be there. And I could drive there, because I had a car. I was cool.

I was so cool that I could light a cigarette while negotiating a left turn, having never driven a car before, and not end up in the ditch.

Or not.

It worked out okay, though, because the ditch was adjacent to a government building where large logging machines and road-maintenance equipment was stored. I found a guy with a grader that yanked me out of the ditch, and promised not to tell anybody. Oddly, I don’t think he did, either, because no one has ever brought the ditch portion of this story up to me.

So, on the road again, I relit my smoke without incident, and drove to the beach. And, oh joy! My crush was there! With his entire family and then some.

We swam for a bit. Talked for a bit. And then I tried to convince him to let me drive him back home. Because I had a car. I was cool.

But he would not get in that car. I think his words included a phrase like, “death wish”, and the fact that he didn’t have one.

I’m not sure how I finally convinced him, but he did reluctantly agree to a lift. Apparently, it was just so he could wax derisive of my driving skills, though, because he wouldn’t stop wincing, advising, and clinging to the dashboard.

I finally got tired of the exaggerated terror he was exuding and decided I’d show him what scared was, and floored it. Of course, I chose to do such a thing while going up a steep hill, forgetting about the curve in the road on the other side of it.

For the record, I missed the tree the car was trying to hit. But I over-corrected, and hit a tree on the other side of the road, dead on. Very hard. Poor tree.

And poor car! The front end was smushed in. The driver’s door wouldn’t open. I still have a faded scar on one elbow – the only injury sustained in the accident – unless you count the car. Or the tree. And I’m sure my crush didn’t speak to me for years after that. He probably felt bad, because it was his fault I hit that tree. I mean, if he hadn’t been putting down my driving in the first place…

And what are the chances that the first vehicle to drive up that lonely road to happen upon us would be my father’s truck…?

Pretty good, as it turns out. He didn’t speak to me for a while, either.

When I turned 16, though, the first thing Dad did, was register me in Driver’s Ed. I passed, and got my licence. And not once would my father loan me his car – not even when I was grown and on my own, and had a perfect driving record.

Except for the tree incident.

Which happened on Cockburn.

And what happens on Cockburn is supposed to stay on Cockburn, dammit!

But still my Dad always said no. Followed by, “Remember that tree you hit on Cockburn…?”

It’s the only time I couldn’t get the nerve up to try “Wasn’t me.”

Random Song-for-the-Day: “Cannonball” – Damien Rice

“Bleed”
Taken November 15, 2007 with Canon PowerShot A550

…rumour has
it,
the new
owner wants to
gut the
interior and remodel,
and plans on giving
all the tenants notice.I’m feeling a little raw, lately. There are a lot of changes being thrust upon me, and, as you all well know, I don’t deal with change ummm… much.

I’m not having any luck becoming accustomed to the schedule at the new J.O.B., which kind of throws everything else out of whack as far as my family life is concerned. As well, my kid is about to graduate from… what should I call it…? Pre-high-school…? Grade 8, anyway. And another “landmark of Motherhood” being reached is difficult for me.

It’s an exciting time for her, though, because the graduation process is filled with trips, and camping, and dinners, and formal gowns, and what-all and what-not and God help me if any more gets added, because it all costs a frightening amount.

That makes it the “wrong” kind of excitement for me, because the J.O.B. wage is crap, and the schedule does not allow for a supplemental part-time J.O.B. (I never know from one week to the next what my shifts are). My small and hard-fought-for nest egg has been punctured in several places long before I’ve built it back up to where it should be, and the funds are leaking out in an alarming manner.

Other, scarier things loom ahead. The building I live in, which has been for sale for well over a decade, has finally got a serious offer. Good for Ruby – she’ll finally be quit of the huge headache the maintenance on the place has become for her.

Not so good news for me and the kid, as, rumour has it, the new owner wants to gut the interior and remodel, and plans on giving all the tenants notice. I don’t have a move built into the budget anymore, unfortunately, so I’m torn between hoping Ruby gets it sold, for her sake, and praying the guy changes his mind, for mine. Time will tell, I guess, and I’m trying to take my mother’s old saying to heart: “It’ll all work out.”

And I’m about to add another bill to the mess with the acquisition of The FlyMobile, which has now become a necessity if I ever want to see my parents.

They have moved back to Teeny-Tiny Town, where I was born and raised, the place they spent the first 50 years of their married life, to a facility that offers my father the 24-hour care he now requires, and allows them to stay together.

This was a good move for my mom and dad: they know everybody there already, having worked with them, and lived near them, and socialized with them since 1947. It’s also good because my sister, “Tootie”, is a nurse in the hospital that is housed in the same structure. She can see them everyday, without having to drive an hour each way and still manage the swing shift.

It kind of sucks for me and Ky, though, unless I can handle the payments on the minivan, which start in July. Money’s easy to get, though, right? It’ll all work out. Somehow. I hope.

Having a vehicle will allow us to visit once a week, like we’re used to doing. I’ll just have to spend more time on the stepper, which is currently gathering dust in my closet, to make up for the lack of weekly Walk-About to the other side of town and back. Now that I have an ass, I don’t want it to get flabby, do I?

We’ve driven down twice now, thanks to the generosity of The Fly-Girl, who has me drop her off across “the ditch” in Michigan and hands me the keys. “I’ve filled up the tank,” says she. “Go visit your mom and dad.” What would I do without her?

The Fly-Mobile is fair on gas, thankfully, and if the prices ever drop, I should be okay, assuming there are no more surprise grad fees dropped on me that I’ll have to suck out of the “transportation” category of the budget.

But, we’re carrying on with the carrying on… getting ready for Ky’s grad…. arguing over which photo to pick from the proofs…. pretending there’s nothing but happy, happy on the horizon, because what else can we do, really?

When, really, graduation for Ky may be a bust… Dad had a heart attack on Friday, and another on Sunday morning. He’s wiped on morphine and often confused, but for the most part, he’s holding his own. We’ve been down this road before….

Un-Brother Ken has come home, and Big Sis will come up from Southern Ontario after her own graduation on Wednesday. We keep our fingers crossed, but our hearts are in our throats. There’s that “no resuscitation” order as per Dad’s wishes, after all. Again, good for him – it’s the way he wants it to play out – but I can’t help but feel selfish and wish they’d ignore/forget about/pretend they don’t see the yellow wristband on his arm, and just fix him, dammit!

I think he’s winding down, though.

Random Song for the Day: “Push It” – Garbage

Come on; you can do it!

…because of
Carl,
who is
also cool in
his own
little way, I
have set up an
“About Page”.My site was reviewed today. The phrase “Cat in a tuba” was the the best thing about it. You can read the review HERE, if you like, along with my comment about it.

Needless to say, the “review” was disappointing. Not because it was a little pissy, either – I expected pissy. Pissy is this guy’s schtick. I mean, he calls his site “I Hate Your Website,” so he’s bound to get a little um… rude. In fact, I didn’t find the “review” nearly as rude as I would have expected.

But.

The few other reviews he has up, at least the few I read, actually have some honest (if pissy) constructive criticism about the site thrown in there. Yes! They actually, actually do! Not mine, though. This guy’s dislike of cats and old people is apparently intense enough, and my blog is boring enough, and my friends don’t like me enough, that my site is not worth any constructive criticism about design, layout, content (other than cats and old people), adspace, whitespace, or anything else that might give me an idea about how it might be improved for readability or traffic.

The only constructiveish thing he mentioned was that I needed an “About Page” – because he didn’t know how old I was or what I do for a living… information that is repeatedly interspersed throughout many entries; not that I could reasonably expect him to read enough entries that he could be guaranteed not to miss those two gems. I’m not sure how knowing my age would make him like my blog any better, but maybe I shall, from now on, end each and every entry with the phrase, “My name is Les Becker. I’m 42.”

Yes, Carl, I’m 42. That’s also “The Answer to The Ultimate Question”, how cool is that?! Pretty cool if you’re me, I guess. I’m not that cool, though. I’d be more cool if I owned a tuba.

Anyhoo, all because of Carl, who is also cool in his own little way, I have set up an “About Page”. I even dedicated it to him. Cuz he’s pissy and cool and inconsistent, all at the same time. That deserves recognition.

And –

I hereby declare that from this day forward, February 14th will now be known as “Cat-in-a-Tuba” Day, in honour of Carl. Oh alright, it can still be Valentine’s Day, too, but only ‘cuz it would be too hard to break you all of the habit. Happy VD, btw, people. You, too, Carl.

My name is Les Becker. I’m 42.

Random Song for the Day: “Something in the Way” – Nirvana

“Little Red Shoes”
Taken October 20, 2007 with Canon PowerShot A550

My mom
was
the teacher
you didn’t want
to get,
because you couldn’t
get away with any
monkey business, and you might even (OMIGOD!) learn something!The Little Red Shoes sit in my mother’s Etagiere, if I spelled that correctly. Elle? Wanna let me know, Betch?! My mom calls it a “What-Not”. I think it’s because it’s to display all your knick-knacks and what-not in. Anyway, that’s where the Little Red Shoes are, when they’re not in the bathtub, with me and my camera. Bathtubs make great backgrounds for some pictures. Wet bathtubs are not necessarily good for cameras, but mine’s tough.

I love the Little Red Shoes, but I don’t have a story about them. I just couldn’t come up with a pic for the post.

I’m having trouble catching up with all the posts I have in draft. Hence the title – “Mish-Mash” is about what this one will be – just a couple of bits and pieces that I’d like to get out of my hard drive and onto the blog. This clip from today’s post by Cardiogirl reminded me of a bit about my mom when she was a kid, which, in turn, reminded me of one about Ruby’s mom…

clipped from www.cardiogirl.net

cardiogirl.net/">

So essentially we have a socially-accepted version of a wealthy pretty woman (former Ford model who must have earned a lot of cash) whose hobby is traveling the globe and shopping. So she finds “amazing stuff” and brings it back to New York to re-sell it. Do I have that right? I thought so.

And these aren’t your mother’s baubles. A telephone table finished in frog skin. I’m understanding this, though I find it crazy, until I get to the shagreen part. What is shagreen? Is it like shazam?

A million years ago, when my mom was a little girl of about 12, she and her sister were down at the nearby fishin’ hole with their cousin. My mom is the older of the three, but for some reason, it was Auntie and Cuz that did the ordering around of my mom. This was the story that made me realize that my mom was a little mouse when she was a kid. How she managed to grow up into a stern (SERIOUSLY stern) School Marm, I will never know. My mom was the teacher you didn’t want to get, because you couldn’t get away with any monkey business, and you might even (OMIGOD!) learn something!

At any rate (as Mom would say), they were down at the fishin’ hole, dib-dabbling around in the water, when the conversation turned to frog legs. As an appetizer. Because that was what the rich people ate. Probably every day, even. Imagine, they told each other, all the rich people in the big cities paying unbelievable amounts of money for a plate of frog legs, when there were hundreds of frog legs attached to hundreds of frogs right in front of them. For free.

And so Auntie and Cuz decided that they wanted frog legs for dinner. My mother didn’t think that was a very good idea. She thought it might be a little hard on the frogs. Auntie and Cuz didn’t give a damn about what the frogs thought of the idea, and they didn’t give much of a damn what my mom thought about it, either. They just sent my mom up to the house to get a knife. And my mom went. Slooooowly.

The whole walk up for a knife, she tried to think of a way to save those frogs. She couldn’t think of a thing. She considered just not going back to the fishin’ hole, but decided she might pay for that later, so instead, when she got to the kitchen she decided she would bring back a dull butter knife. She reasoned that it would hurt the frogs less than a sharp one would. At 12, my mom was all for “less hurt”, apparently, but all she can do now when she tells the story is laugh over the swearing from Auntie over that dull knife not getting the job done. I guess they didn’t get their frog leg dinner that day, but there were probably a few pissed off frogs in the fishin’ hole before they gave up.

Ruby’s mom, now, would have got the legs off those frogs lickety-split. She was a woman who got things done (she also had no forearms – there’s a story for the blog, huh? Soon. Honest.).

Despite being a woman who “got things done”, Ruby’s mom had a heart of gold, and hated to see any animal suffer. She lived a hard, rough life on a farm, though, and there were times that some animals just had to be “taken care of”. Chickens had to be killed. Pigs had to be slaughtered. Sometimes, you had to shoot your dog. And there were always kittens that couldn’t be kept, and had to be “taken care of”.

Ruby’s mom hated that job, but it had to be done. She believed that the most humane way to “take care of” kittens was to drown them. Most people would shove the kittens in a burlap sack and tie it shut, and pitch the poor buggers in the nearest river. Not Ruby’s mom. That wasn’t humane enough for Ruby’s mom.

No, Ruby’s mom would pull on a pair of heavy gloves, fill a pail full of water and, one by one, she would hold each kitten (gently) under the surface until it was dead. Oh yeah, and she would make sure to fill the pail with warm water, so the little dears wouldn’t die cold.

Random Song for the Day: “Alive” – Pearl Jam

“Emma’s Knight”
Taken October 20, 2007 with Canon PowerShot A550

By the
time
you met
your fellow inmates,
most would
be dangerous, psychotic,
unrecogniz-
able versions of themselves. I must apologize to the memory of my Great Aunt Emma, for this horrible photo of her painting. It’s a water-colour, framed behind glass, hanging in an awkward niche in my parents’ small space. To get the shot at all, I had to jam myself between the fake gas fireplace and the stereo stand, straddling something or other – it might have been a speaker; I don’t remember. I imagine Emma, if she could somehow see them, would marvel at both the fireplace and the electronics in the stand, not to mention the annoying blinds that caused me problems with the reflection shining on her painting, 70-odd years after her death.

The knight in the painting is Emma’s depiction of a Crusader, having his sword blessed before setting off to convert the heathenish sinners into unwavering faith in a God they’d never heard of.

And if you can’t convert ‘em, hell – run ‘em through.

When I was little, I used to stare at Emma’s painting for hours at a time. I thought, then, that it was Joan of Arc. I used to imagine that maybe Emma felt a little like Joan: misunderstood… ostracized… martyred. Well… “martyred”, I guess, came later for Emma.

She was my mother’s father’s sister, one of three. As you can see, Emma was an artistic soul, at a time and in a place where that was unusual. The time was the late 1800’s or early 1900’s, and the place was a teeny-tiny farming community on the Manitoulin Island – a community of hard-working, God-fearing, good people. “Haweaters”, they still proudly call themselves, and I’m just as proud to be descended from them.

Emma was a “difficult” girl. She was not exactly… dependable. Her moods were sometimes… erratic. Her actions often confused people.

Sometimes, she could be extremely morose. Depressed. Her family worried over her. At other times, she became violently angry, and frightened them. There were days that she was giddy, and loud, or just plain “odd”. There were also days, and weeks, and probably whole months at a stretch that she was just plain “Emma, herself”, and they would be relieved and nervous at the same time, wondering which Emma would be there next, and hoping by some miracle that her “fits” had passed for good this time.

My mother believes, now, that Emma might have had Bi-Polar Disorder, or what at one time was called Manic Depression. I think my mother might be right, but that was an unheard-of condition way back then. And I’m guessing you have a pretty good idea where Emma ended up.

It must have been a difficult decision, sending her away. Committing her to an asylum. The Nut House. Booby Hatch, Funny Farm, Loony Bin. Horrible, terrible names, I know. Back then, though, they were horrible, terrible places to be “institutionalized” – places where, if you were shut up into them, whether by your family, or by a magistrate, you would be shut up with other people that may very well have started out with troubles similar to yours, but over time had really been driven literally mad. By the time you met your fellow inmates, most would be dangerous, psychotic, unrecognizable versions of themselves. And you would probably end up the same way. And back then, they almost never let you out.

Emma’s sisters, Marjorie and Lavinia, would go and visit her when they could afford the trip to Toronto. Sometimes, she didn’t care if she saw them or not. Maybe during those times, she didn’t realize who they were. But there were also visits when Emma was “Emma, herself”, her perfectly normal “self”, the sister they loved. Those visits were especially hard for Marj and Vine, because Emma would cry, and beg them to please, please, just let her come home. She hated it in the asylum. The other patients frightened her. She was going crazy. Please, please, just take her home. But they couldn’t take her home, and they would have to say good-bye and leave her in that awful place, alone.

After awhile, they didn’t visit anymore.

Emma died some time during the Great Depression. My mother doesn’t know if she was still in that asylum or not, but she was still in Toronto when she died. No one had any money then. No one could afford to travel.

There was a man who came from the Manitoulin, who lived in Toronto at the time. He saw Emma’s obituary in the newspaper, and recognizing the family name, he decided to go to the funeral. He knew Emma’s people, and he wanted to give his condolences. He wasn’t able to.

He was the only person there.

Not-So-Random Song for the Day: “Eleanor Rigby” – The Beatles

His name is Mike Valley. His favourite song is a toss-up between “Beth” by Kiss, and “My Ding-a-Ling”, by Chuck Berry. “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” runs a close second. He sang Karaoke before it was invented. He owns a rock polisher and eats Caramel Spread® sandwiches, and he’s the best sword-fighter in the world.

34 years later, I have the exact same haircut…

About 10 minutes after this picture was taken, Mike swallowed the quarter hidden in his piece of cake, and spent the rest of the day pissed off about it. I had to ’shop me over from the other side of the table (along with the window – you know, for the view), and poor Girl with the Plaid Pants got “smeared” out because I just didn’t want to share the limelight. Happy Almost Birthday to me.

I wish he was here – I’d give him his quarter with interest…

This post is for you, Mushy. Something to laugh about while you recuperate… did your mom put money in your birthday cakes? I wanna know…!

Random Song for the Day: “Calcutta” – Hopewell