A Poem Inspired by Smithers

Having spent a few months in the great, northern, presently not hiring, mining town of Smithers I have come away with fewer dollars and perhaps the same feeling of goldlessness that inspired the gold rush way back in the day. Here's a little ditty written in the spirit, (and the exact rhyme scheme), of Rober W. Service, the bard of the Yukon. You may recognize the name as the one and only poet you didn't hate when you studied Canadian poetry in school. Anyhoo, it's called...

You Done Struck it Rich

Six years and a day me and Frank were away
in the mountains. I can’t tell you which.
“A pinch short of forty,” said assayer Dougherty,
“Fellas, you done struck it rich!”

Those words we both feared we’d never a’ heared
when we camped near the lake in the gorse.
We mentioned ‘em when we talked now and then,
and we never quit hopin’ o’ course.

But words can be cursed, an omen, or worse!
If I hear ‘em again I might die.
But to unsay what’s said is like raisin’ the dead:
it ain’t even worth it to try.

Now forty points pure is a powerful lure,
so we packed up to mine our claim.
Too big for our britches we thought that our riches
would purchase us fortune and fame.

We loaded two mules with some food n’ some tools.
The town gossipers were abuzz.
Then we bought in Frank’s name a registered claim
and told not a soul where it was.
Those words in our ears we hiked with our fears
always checkin’ behind as we went.
We were both bound and bent to keep every cent
of our fifty point zero percent.

We blabbed as we went how the money’d be spent
and our greed ran amok, (as it does).
See we’d found a rich vein near a glacial moraine
and we didn’t know how long it was.

“I’ll bet it’s a mile!” Frank said with a smile.
I said, “Mebbe two or three!”
With the stars in our eyes it was no surprise
our follower we didn’t see.

We lit up our tents, didn’t hide where we went,
over smoky campfires we ate.
I’d be wiser today but you know what they say,
“Old too soon, and smart too late.”

When we got to our find not an hour behind
rode a figure of hatred and dread.
It was Dougherty’s son and he had a gun.
“Much obliged gentlemen,” he said.


“You can go back to town while I re-stake this ground
Or else you can give me a hand.
Choice number three, fine and dandy with me,
I could murder you right where you stand.”

Shovel in hand Frank kicked at the sand,
“This is OUR claim and you know it!”
“Well I know that’s true, and my Daddy does too,
but our claims office simply won’t show it.”

Now Frank was a spry and sizeable guy
and I outweighed Dougherty’s son.
Frank flashed me a look and his meaning I took.
He was spoilin’ to git us that gun.

It cannot be said what goes through a man’s head
when he makes up his mind in a second.
Frank rushed to kill, but I stood stone still
and the boy’s draw was quicker than reckoned.

I’m sure I can’t say we’d a took him that day
if I’d joined in the scuffle as well.
But I know it’s a fact for my cowardly act
I’ll burn in the fires of hell.


I knelt by Frank’s side as he painfully died.
I was there till his body went cold.
But before he cashed in he said with a grin,
“No friendship’s as precious as gold.”

What could I do? I chose option two
and helped that young snake steal our gold.
He more accurately aimed the pistol at me.
I done all the work truth be told.

But before I began I buried the man
who considered me his friend.
I’d visit each dawn and go on and on
about how our vein wouldn’t end.

My eyes’d get moist, I’d alter my voice
to a timbre soft but strong,
then I’d draw myself near, say, “Wish you were here,”
and promise to prove Frank wrong.

I worked that vein in the sun and the rain
through summer until the late fall.
I told my dead friend that if there’s an end
I’d seen no signs at all.


And every night the boy hitched me tight
by my ankle to a tree.
He waited until the weather turned chill
before he unshackled me.

The boy said, “You need to pick up yer speed.
Yer no good to me if yer froze.
You bin fallin’ behind these days at the mine
with yer frostbitten fingers and toes.”

I thought that I might kill that bastard that night,
but he slept with his pistol nearby.
And the time wasn’t right on any one night.
When that rat let his guard down I’d try.

I ain’t got the ink to write what I think
and I ain’t got the words consarn it!
But the best way to say what I did night n’ day
is I danced with the Devil incarnate.

The dance wasn’t long. Fate didn’t prolong
the meal from me she stole.
It was short and sweet, I was skinny and weak.
Still She dined on me body and soul.


That cur turned away one cold, snowy day
and now my damnation is double.
I cried, “Yer wrong, Frank!” and chunked off a hank
of his skull with the edge of my shovel.

Two men are now dead and that plays in my head
like my personal homicide trial.
“Your actions were filthy,” the judge says, “You’re guilty!”
And I can’t conjure up a denial.

If I go back to town I’ll just git gunned down
for my gold or for my offenses.
“There must be some way,” I thought every day
before I came to my senses.

I am doomed to grow old on this mountain o’ gold.
Maybe I’ll die in my eighties.
“You done struck it rich!” Well son of a bitch,
I can’t spend a nickel in Hades!

It's good to be back online again. Keep an eye out friends, I'm back!

A brief farewell to cyberfolks

Tomorrow I have the unenviable task of disconnecting my computer from a perfectly good internet line and going OFFline for an unspecified as yet amount of time. This is a scary proposition to me. What events will happen in the lives of my facebook pals that will shake the chatrooms to their floors and leave me innocently ignorant? What new challenges will I fall way behind on in Frontierville? What celebrities will gain weight, get married, cheat, die or slug a photographer while I'm completely cut off from reality? What American politician or sports star will commit some normal sexual exploit that is blown so far out of proportion that everybody is forced to pretend it was deviant? What if a nuclear war begins, (God forbid, touch silicon), it hasn't happened yet, but, how will I know? Well apart from the crispy sunburn. How, oh how will I ever survive a week or MORE of being OFFline???

Have patience with me. I am moving and if I am not one of the many people who mechanically wish you a happy birthday only because facebook reminded us of it, don't worry, I would have if I were online.

If I don't respond to your request to chat, please pardon my reticence. I'm not being rude, I'm OFFline.

If I fail to write anything in my blog that gives you a chuckle, or upload a funny video to my facebook page that brightens your day, it's not because I didn't want to, I'm just unable to use my computer.

And if any important email remains unanswered, any good post goes without comment, any clever joke is not "lol"ed, or any entertaining vid goes without my like, it's probably just because I'm offline folks. Otherwise I'd be MUCH more sustaining of our online relationship.

If you need me I will be in the OFFline wasteland where I'm only reachable by phone, text message, and actual person-to-person interaction. Short of that I suppose messages could be left unanswered until I reconnect to the world again. But by then if I answer you'll no doubt have forgotten what the original comment or question was.

Wish me well in my offline adventures. It's been so many years since I was without a computer I don't know what I'll do yet. But I suppose the old ways may come back to me. If you hear a wooden sounding, repetitive soundbite coming from the direction of the entrance to your dwelling, that may be me "KNOCKING" on your door to see if you're home. It's been, geez almost 5 months since I've done that. Talk about dinosaur behaviour! But bear with me, I'm non-cyber for a while.

Or maybe there might be a hard copy, epistoleric, bundle of forest product in your corporate advertising recepticle. It might be a "letter" from me. Don't be alarmed. And please don't throw it out with the other waste. It will almost be as though we are typing in a chat room or texting on our cell phones, only with the outdated, one-way style. It's quaint, if not boredom relieving.

And if you should happen to see me out of doors, (it tends to happen without a computer to keep me in the comfort of my home), you may want to use your portable electronic device to hook up to the internet, download my profile picture and compare to my actual face. I can't promise to be wearing the identical clothing or have the same expression but I'll do my best to remain identifiable. Unfortunately we won't be able to link up and chat, because I am, alas, OFFline. But I promise we'll be able to rediscover the outmoded and obsolete action called "conversation" if we give it a try.

I know it might sound scary. Think of ME! But it could actually be fun. If you don't feel up to it, I'll see you back in reality when I get virtual again. If I see you beforehand, I will understand if you do not react.

Thank you and fare well while I am gone.

Blowin' a Kiss Goodbye to the Smithereens

Well, I tried. Smithers is a nice place and I really wanted to live here but it just didn't work out. Oddly it was what I thought would HELP me here that turned out to be my Kryptonite. I worked as a substitute teacher way back when I lived here 15 years ago and was getting pretty well known in the system and my hours were on the increase. I wanted to get certified and teach full time and there was a course at SFU called the PDP, (Professional Development Program I think it was), I could take to do so but I was advised to get more classroom experience to strengthen my application for that program. Teaching ESL overseas seemed like the thing to do. It was also my plan to save up enough to pay for that program, a year in Burnaby being pretty darn expensive.


Well now that I'm back I will need extensive, (like 2 years worth), upgrading and course re-taking before I can even qualify for one of those certification programs, and practically ALL of them are now 2 years long. That's 4 years. I can start all over again and get certified in 4 years. But I'd just be doing 3/4 review and one year of teaching philosophy and instruction that is probably very close to the stuff I've TAUGHT in the teacher training courses I've designed and given. It's like closing the windows after going through the car wash


I've been through the car wash and figured out by trial and error how to roll up the windows as well as anyone. But I just don't have a piece of paper certifuckingfying that I am able to roll those windows up. This is the cash grab known as education we got going here


The school board won't hire me to sub here even with a couple years of subbing in this system and 13 years of full time teaching because I'm not fully certified. I have to get certified after having learned how to teach. Roll up those windows!
..
And every other job I apply for here sees either all my ESL experience on my resume and figures I will either leave them and go to Vancouver and teach ESL or I SHOULD. Or I give them my other resume with applicable experience that was acquired 15 years ago and they wonder what the heck I've been up to since then.

So I'm destined to keep on doing what I do. And it's not that I don't like it. I love teaching. It just has to be done in the big cities where I just don't want to live. Smithers has a brand new, shiny college here and very few people who speak anything but English as their first language. This is a FAR better location for an ESL school than Vancouver, Victoria, Calgary, Toronto where anybody from China, Korea, Japan or even other countries will never actually have to speak English apart from their classroom. And if they can synchronize their schedules with their friends who speak their language... it is pretty much like the years of French we took during our schooling. Anybody remember any of that?

But I'm just one man. I can't change much. It's not all bad though. Victoria is a nice place. It's a lot more like a small town than Vancouver. And it IS a beautiful place. I've even heard of some fishing to be done there. It'll be nice to be close to my relatives there too. And I have a few friends there. I KNOW I'm going to see a lot of Jaimie and Colleen and they're really nice. They are my brother's best friends. I think I'll even be able to play some softball this summer and I have been just ACHING to get back into THAT. Some nice golf courses too. Plus I'll have students from all over the world, not just one culture. That'll be SWEET! I love learning about other cultures along with my students. And now I'll be able to blow the dust off every book I never bother to teach that has lots of lessons in which the students are supposed to ask their classmates about themselves. That stuff's pretty useless in Korea because they have to get ultra specific before they find any interesting differences.

So I'm going into this with a positive attitude. I will be landing in Victoria on the 27th of June. With a bit of luck I'll be able to start teaching in July. I have been asked by one ESL school there to teach in July and August so I will have some work. Not sure how many hours that will be or what I'm looking at for pay but it's a start. I visited the school last time in Victoria and it looked like I would have no trouble there at all.

And I wanted to give Smithers a try before resorting to a big city. So I guess I'll have to take in as much of Smithers as I can before I make my Snag. My Snagglepuss. "Exit stage left even." Trying out some phrase coinage. Saw it on an English movie one time. Like England English. These guys were saying stuff that was pretty confusing. Anyhoo I thought I'd put a few pics up. It's been a while since I've posted so I'll explain as I go.

The first pic is the pink Hudson Bay Mountain I was trying to get at the end of winter. I just never had my camera when I saw it. Usually on the way home from work at 7ish in the AM. Now lots of the snow is gone but it's still pretty nice eh?

The second is me working at the Hudson Bay Lodge. This is where I was coming home from when I saw the pink mountains. It was a good job... when I balanced.

Picture three is what I looked like when I DIDN'T balance. Then it could be stressful and frustrating. Notice all the hair I've pulled out.

Number 4 is what makes the mountains pink. Some pretty spectacular sunrises around here! The picture just doesn't do it justice.

The last pic is Me, Meg and Andrea watching the Canucks play game 7 for the Stanley Cup. We're all dressed in our gear. Norm wasn't there yet. He was on the way home from work. Definitely would have taken some more pics that night IF the Canucks had won. But I won't get into that. Maybe next year I'll be able to catch a few games! That'd be cool!

So, I guess I have to change the blog name AGAIN to something Victorian. Lemme know if you have any idears. Take it easy. I'm gonna make my Snag. Dave out.

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.