Cat's 'n Dogs, Shake n' Bake, Broccoli n' cheese, Softball n' golf

I'm no cat whisperer but I think I can tell the difference between a "Please could you lend me the benefit of your opposable digits and get me a scoop of cat food," meow and an "I don't give a can of tuna HOW busy you are, get over here and feed me, HUMAN!" meow.

But cats being cats, I probably would have continued making my Shake n Bake chicken and broccoli/cheese rice had Sarah, the cat, not ambushed me with an endless volley of those demanding meows. In a minute; Wait your turn; I'm busy; Hold your kitty gotch; and even Shut up were not working so I slowly went over to her as she hovered around the cat food bag, (was that a triumphant glint in her eyes?), said, "I don't think so," and scooped her up. The wailing continued even as I carried her to the door and deposited, (not to say chucked), her outside.

I continued my broccoli chopping and shaking and baking. Boy Dana Carvey could make a great Bruce Springsteen song outta THAT! "I was a shakin' and a bakin' and a choppin' bra-co-lay-hay. I was a choppin' bro co lay yay yay... At any rate the entire time Sarah continued her assault through the front door glass and it was only less annoying in the amount of volume it had decreased. I could still hear her and her orders had not changed to requests.

Once the rice was cooking and the bird was in the oven I filled up the cat's bowls with food and water, walked to the door and let the screaming authoritarian in. Her tone was now like a kid blowing on a piece of grass between his thumbs. All I could do was let her yowl, "NAEEEENNNGGG! NAAEEENNNNG! NAEEEENNNNGGG! NAEEE-" until she finally spotted her full bowl of food.

Only three days earlier I awoke and went to the kitchen to make some breakfast. Again I don't claim to have my finger on the pulse of the feline society and their fiendish plot to gain the indentured servitude of mankind, but I am pretty sure Sarah didn't need anything, she just wanted to test her powers. YEAAOOOW YEEAAAOOOWWW YEEEAAAAAAOOOOOWWW! So I let her out. Not 5 minutes later YEEAAOOOWWW YEAAAOOOOWWW YEEAAAAOOOWWW! SO I let her in. Not 2 minutes later, YYYEEEEAAAAOOOOWWWW YYEEAAAOOOWWW at the door! SO I let her out again. Where she remained. For TWO HOURS looking through the glass and pausing only long enough to inhale, YYEEEAAOOOOOWWWW YEEEAAOOOOWWW YEEAAAAAOOOOWWWW!

That day after I let her in and today after she got her food I received the same reaction. And, once again, I may not be schooled in the art of pet telepathy but I think I know the difference between a happy rub and thankful purr or meow and an arrogant strut and a "Don't you forget who's boss around here," meow.

The question, I suppose, is why is this bugging me so much? I think it might have something to do with my efforts at finding stuff to do around here. I'm not just talking about work since the only job I've been able to land so far in Smithers has been my low-pay, midnight shift, weekend, part-time, no benefit, high stress, highly complicated job that I have been told by many folks would be refused by them even if it paid a fortune. But don't get me wrong, I LOVE it!

It's also sports. Everywhere in Canada I've lived I've played sports. It's probably the thing I missed most about home while living in Korea. It's the thing I looked forward to coming home to the most. Here I am practically begging people to be on their golf or softball teams and they look at my size and appearance and say to themselves, "How could someone so out of shape, old, bald and ugly play sports?" I'm not trying to be the bashful, modest self-deprecator and solicit remarks like, "Aw, you're not THAT ugly..." But what else could they be judging me by? And let's be honest, if I looked like Brad Pitt I just might get a try-out. But whatever they're thinking to themselves, to ME they say, "Hem hem haw haw we already have enough players, hem hem haw haw we aren't looking for anyone in that position right now hem hem haw haw..."

I know they're looking and I know I'm a better player than this jackwagon looking down his nose at me or not looking at me at all and lying his ass off! But I can't say that because it's bad manners and then for SURE they won't want me on their team. (this is an update... this is an update: My friend Frank told me that there used to be 15 or 16 teams in Smithers but this year there are only 11. Lots of them amalgamated. So maybe they really DON'T need extra players. See, ball players are a good bunch. They're off the hook I suppose.)

Same thing with work. I went to the board of education office and even though I've done teacher assistance work and subbed with this very school system and in this very town and now have a dozen years of full time teaching under my belt they say, "Hem hem haw haw we need our subs to be fully certified hem hem haw haw we aren't really looking for subs in your areas of expertise hem hem haw haw..."

I know people who work at the schools in town and they tell me they are always looking for subs and a lot of the people they get are not fully certified. The certified teachers are looking for FULL time work, not subbing jobs. But I can't say, "So you're telling me that all your substitute teachers are fully certified? What about Joe Shmoe, Jim So-and-so or Stella Whats-her-name?" That would be confrontational and then for SURE they wouldn't want me on their teaching team even though I KNOW I could teach circles around a lot of the subs they are using certified or not.

I'm feeling like the author of the Kama Sutra getting shot down repeatedly in a dance bar full of unsatisfied girls and clumsy, amateur, unsexed dudes. The girls are saying, "Hem hem haw haw I don't speak Sanskrit, hem hem haw haw you smell a bit like curry hem hem haw haw..."

I guess what I'm saying is "Hem hem haw haw" is starting to sound exactly like "NYAAAEEEEOOOOWWW," and Sarahs meows have the same effect as the hemming and hawing: The more I hear them the more I wish for a good old mutt that will show me a little frickin' appreciation!

Ahhhh, there we go. Thanks, River!

La Maison Foi Toi

For those who fortune's favoured all your lives;
you can't abide green onions but are very fond of chives;
your silver cutlery was as silver as could be,
not only spoons but also forks and knives,

No time for folks less fortunate than you are.
"Let them all eat burgers," you say over steak tartare.
"I'll buy it twice," you rage, "I'll pay them minimum wage,
to labour at my prosperous abattoir."

For you a modest proposal. Food for thought.
A delicacy privilege has wrought.
Epicures attest, made for and from the best.
A stew of fine game. Deadly. Rarely caught.

It won't come cheap. The most expensive dish ever.
Let the riff raff dine on it? No never!
Their unrefined tongues will stop as fast as bungs
even if they try to name it: Hossinpfeiffer.

It may have Hoss in it. It might have Pfeiffer.
The chef is mum and psychotically clever.
Statesmen and sophists he licks when they try their tricks.
The recipe from him no one can sever.

But lest I mock, belittle or disparage,
our chef is world renowned for hospitable carriage!
And for a standard fee, a fortune to most, not me,
he'll cater a barmitzvah or a marriage.

And though he bolts the cuisiniary door,
where vats of Hossinpfeiffer lay in store,
a culinary adventure craver, so long as he signs a waiver,
can enter the kitchen and help him make some more.

No plebeians, we seek a higher breed.
Advanced palate and income you will need.
Though in an abstract way, you do so every day,
you've never indulged like this. Bon appetit!

So come to the Maison Foi Toi where we dine
roughly between the hours of six and nine.
If you want to see gourmet philanthropy,
we make the world a better place one dinner at a time.

Top Ten Baby Names on the Decline in Popularity

"Boob." What immediately comes to mind when I type that? It doesn't mean what it used to does it? In the days of yore a "boob" was a foolish person. Nowadays it's something that turns half the population INTO foolish people. Maybe that's why the change. Not sure. Of course, if you call a person a "tit" it means virtually the same as "boob" used to mean. It's no wonder. I still lose a full 50% of my brain power when I see a nice pair of boobs. And I'm talking about the modern usage, not a pair of idiots.

"Dick." Again, is it a name or am I name calling? Not long ago this was one of the more popular names. Now since it's so often used in reference to a guy's junk, parents are thinking twice. Particularly parents with surnames that just make this dual meaning even MORE inescapable. Okay, okay... like Butkus, Head, Sweatt, Trickle, Byrne, Baals and so on. (By the way, ALL are real people.)

Even Richards don't want that name any more. There were some Richards who really were dicks like Nixon, Richard III, Rick Astley. But there were Richards we liked too like Richie Rich, Richard Brodeur, Ritchie Cunningham, Rick Moranis and Ritchie Valens and so on. And, of course, there are those Richards who evidently LIKE dick, like Richard Hatch, Richard Simmons and Ricky Martin.

I wonder why you can substitute Dick for Richard as a first name but you never see it as a last name. Michael Dicks? Who we found out may have been a bit of a racist dick. The ageless Keith Dicks? Awesome drummer Buddy Dick? Lionel Dickie?

And what if we did it for the foreign Richards? Dick Montalbon. Dicko Suave! And the French Canadian hockey sniper Rocket Dick. Ha ha ha. Okay I guess not.

And with this as my lead-in, here comes another of Dave's top 10 lists. Top ten baby names on the decline.

Other than Peter, Willie, Johnson, Rod, Lance, Wang or anything else that can be associated with the male member here are some names that have lost popularity for various OTHER reasons:

10. Harry, (it can have some disastrous effects depending on the family name)

9. Damien, (although in certain circles it is, I suppose, more pleasing to Lord Satan than, say, Ezekiel)

8. Waldo, (just in case the parents can't locate him)

7. Tiger, (I have found it in my heart to forgive him for hurting me the way he did, but many have not)

6. Katrina, (and Lord help the group Katrina and the Waves if they ever try to come out of retirement)

5. Jezebel, (I have read "Skinny Legs and All" and think it's a LOVELY name. In fact if I ever have a daughter...)

4. Judas, (though, like Jezebel, still unflagging in its POST-natal usage)

3. Benedict, (similar to Judas but starting to make an eggcellent comeback)

2. Fanny, (not as unpopular in North America as in the U.K. (heh heh))

1. Osama, (if this name EVER had a chance to catch on, forGET it now!)

"Osama" just doesn't sound like a baby anyway, does it?

Comfort Food For Thought

As promised a couple words/phrases that are interesting to me. The first is "comfort food." You've heard this. What's it supposed to mean? I don't know about you but I can't think of any other kind of food. Well except maybe a really spicy, blow-your-face-off curry that gives me a few minutes, (or seconds), of discomfort on the toilet after I eat it. Almost ALL food I eat is comfort food. I think maybe the phrase is one of many ways people in privileged countries try to process the massive, and massively unfair, inequalities in the world. They manufacture and misplace guilt.

I eat a plate of spaghetti and snap into a trance of Vaseline-lensed vision and body tingles that make me feel like the chair I'm sitting in is a beautiful and/or skilled Thai masseuse. THEY eat a power lunch of salad with spinach, thistle leaves and other assorted twigs and shrubbery then plan some ab crunches as penance for the dressing. "Should be able to squeeze those in before heading back to the office," they justify. Lunches with crunches USED to be a sandwich and a bag of chips.

"Guilty pleasure." This phrase is similar. After mowing the lawn, trimming the hedges, changing the baby, taking daughter to dancing and sons to Kung Fu, changing the baby, going to core exercise class with the wife, changing the baby and tending to all the other self-busying, self-imposed chores to keep me far too occupied to notice it, I'm doing it again. I'm in the den with a frozen mug of fine ale watching NHL playoffs on the big screen in high def. and cherishing the guilt as much as the pleasure. Why not think about a change, baby?

I stood for an hour in the sizzling sauna sunny sogginess of rural Thailand where, far from being in the massage parlour taking a transcendent rocket journey through the holes in my oooohs and aaaaahs, I was sweating - standing still and sweating, while watching half a dozen women harvest rice by hand. RiDONKulously hard work, yet none of them had anywhere near the lather of briny brute that covered me and my "Took Took Thailand" touristy t-shirt. Without warning hand sickles were stuck into the ground to mark places and a mat made of, (what else?), rice chaff was laid on the softER ground off the field where the stubs of cut rice plants couldn't poke through. The break in the action seemed an opportune time for me to move on and give the gals some privacy while they ate. But a couple of them noticed me in my movement and motioned for me to join them on the mat.

As a breakfast of bacon, eggs, toast, potatoes, five kinds of fruit, coffee and fresh mango juice was still rolling around in my stomach in early stages of digestion I was offered from well worn plastic and metal containers rice with mixed greens and bits of meat the origins of which I would never have dreamed of being so ungrateful to question. It was handed to me on a leaf and the ladies laughed as I looked around for a fork or knife or even chopsticks. They motioned for me to eat with my hands. One lady provided me with two rice chaffs to use. Whether it was a genuine offer or not we all got a bang out of that. In spite of, and more and more BECAUSE of their genuinely fervent pleas to eat up and have more, and because I was not hungry, but the food was SOOO delicious, this was one of the only meals in my life I really felt guilty about.

Although the ladies spoke little English and could not intimate to me why they would have all gone hungry that afternoon to stuff me to the point of puking, I think I get it now. My offers of money and gifts were refused. I could tell their amusement with me, (and at me), was payment enough. Though I understand no Thai, I knew they were marveling at the whiteness, (and sunburned pinkness), of my skin as much as I was envying the brownness of theirs. Some sneaked a stroke of my hairy arms. All were equally amazed at the free flowing sweat into my glasses, onto my food, everywhere!

With their one-baht bottles of luke-warm water and in their squats and cross-legged positions they might have been as comfortable as the ale-swilling, reclining hockey watcher described above. But they had no guilt. This makes me believe that they felt even MORE pleasure. Besides, I wasn't on TV, I was live in all my stinking, perspiring glory!

But I think it goes beyond the spectacle I was making of myself that day. These women were probably ALL Buddhist. They were resigned to their positions in life no matter how unjust. But they believed that if they led good lives, maybe next time around they would get MY life. And you can bet that every one of them would live their lives of privilege to the hilt if they earned them! When I see people punishing their own prosperity I think of these kindly, fun-loving, hard-working ladies of the field and the big smacks upside the head they'd give those people if they could.

It would be nice to see people allowing themselves more pleasure without the guilt. If it doesn't hurt anyone or the planet, why not do it? Maybe in a past life you EARNED it! Surely for all the people out there who can only dream of the lives we have it's almost a sin to squander them. And if you really feel guilt, genuinely deserved guilt for your life, maybe you should think about doing something more substantial than joining Pilates class to assuage it.

Just some comfort food for thought.

House Pics and Stuff

So at long last some pics of the place I'm staying. Pretty nice eh?
I think it looks like a ski lodge. And this is the place for that. Great skiing! But it's right near Chicken Creek so I'll be doing some fishing too. Once I get my fishing rod from Vancouver. Also will be nice to get my golf clubs so I can use the golf courses that have recently just opened up. For the first time I'll have all my stuff in one place. That'll be nice.
Notice the big deck on the house. I'm REALLY looking forward to some barbecuing this summer. You are all invited!


This is a pic of the two cards I got for the family I stayed with when I first came back to Canada. In the ther house with the pretty red truck. That pic was on my other blog.
Meg finished her 2nd year of accounting school, (I think), and was on a team that had an accounting competition of some sort. They WON!

And this is the card for Norm and Andrea. They're the residents of the house in my other blog and drivers of the pretty red truck. Well, Norm is the main driver and he lets the gals drive it now and then. They're lots of fun and super nice.


How about the art work eh? I got some of those 3D stickers and then added a little of my own artwork and the clever verbage. And for the low, low cost of a comment or two on my blog, maybe you TOO will receive a card like this!