Damn, damn, damned BUREAUCRACY!

I'm going to call this "the bureaucracy of the pisspot":  in which ordinary citizens are deprived of the right to pee by the idiocy of some unholy ordinance that says city employees don't have to get out of bed on a holiday Monday.

It went like this. Today happened to be the first real day of summer we've had: more lovely and more temperate, as the poets say, than anything I've seen in many a month. It was the August long weekend, the Monday, the sweet spot, the lobster tail, the - oh, you get it, the best goddamn day in the whole summer!
So my husband and I were getting together with my son and his wife and their two flaxen-haired daughters, Erica (6) and Lauren (4). We were headed to one of our favorite places, a spray park with a playground and a pool. Nanny was looking forward to running through a solid wall of water that comes from every direction and has the same effect as shock treatment, except on your body.

And all was great as we were unpacking our picnic, and the girls were peeling their clothes off to reveal the little pink matching Hello Kitty swimsuits underneath. They were just getting nicely wet, when we noticed something kind of funny. There were hardly any people in the park.

It was odd.  A gorgeous day. A holiday Monday. A spray park, slides, swings, teeter-totters, the works. But as it turned out, one vital element was missing.

"Nanny, I have to pee." So I dutifully took Lauren's hand and took her to the washroom, grabbed the door handle and:

How do I describe the desolate, unyielding, hopeless feeling of a locked door? And just after that, the sinking realization that we wouldn't be staying at Sun Valley Spray Park for very long.

The children were not allowed to pee. Then I noticed the change rooms were locked, too. And the pool. The web site said the park was "open every day from the end of June 'til Labour Day, seven days a week". Was this the eighth day or something, or did Port Coquitlam Town Council in their infinite wisdom decide that parks should close up facilities tight on a holiday in case anyone is thinking of having a good time?

In any case, we scrambled around to try to make this work. The girls still had a shot at some fun in the spray park, though they couldn't get away with that surreptitious pee-in-the-pool trick. But we also watched a very sad parade of Moms and little kids going around the corner, having the same dreadful experience as we did, then coming around again looking - what? Anxious, angry, or worse?

Little kids (or grandmas and grandpas, for that matter) can't go very long without stopping for a pee, or something else. Boys have it a bit easier (unless it's #2 - sorry if I'm being too graphic, but human beings do have bodies, don't they?), but they still have to expose very tender parts of themselves, and girls just have an awful time of it, pee going everywhere unless they're stripped bare. And a little girl nude in a public park is just not a good idea.

But some fucking bureaucracy decided it was too much work to have someone drive over to the park with a key and save the day for dozens of Moms and Dads and their kids. People were leaving, and I knew why. Kids were wailing, either from having to hold it in too long or to cut their fun short after so much anticipation. There were groups of women standing around talking, not looking happy, and others on cell phones, basically trying to come up with a Plan B to salvage a ruined day. Their children's glorious time at the spray park had been destroyed by a locked door.

But hey, we don't need to pee, do we? How silly! And embarrassing. Or even funny, the subject of coy jokes (pee at the spray park, hee-hee-hee-hee-hee!) So why make such a big deal out of it? (This is people with no kids.) But then there's the little matter of the change rooms, also locked, so kids had to change out of their wet clothes in front of everyone, and even the wading pool which was padlocked. On a holiday Monday! On the finest day of the year.

Silly me: I thought holidays equalled recreation and frolic and good times, as the sappy Port Coquitlam web site claimed (while lying about the hours of operation, or at least not warning us that we had to keep our legs crossed all day on August 1). We made the best of it, we stayed as long as was practical, we made some effort to shield the girls while they tried to go in the bushes, but it wasn't comfortable, wasn't comfortable at all. No one wants to squat in the dirt with some adult standing like a sentry.

We went back to our place and had a lot more fun running around with sticks in the back yard, though admittedly it wasn't as wet. But this experience left a bad taste in my mouth. It was just so - I can't quite find the right words for what it was.

Stupid. Insensitive. Impractical. Unrealistic. Petty. Mean. Oblivious (to the needs of parents and kids). Hypocritical (in view of the glowing, self-congratulatory web site). And just - some sort of power thing, you know? Here I have the power to keep you locked out, to steal your good time, even as I tell you how great this facility is. There should've been a big sign on the bathroom door saying KEEP OUT, or, more appropriately, GO AWAY!


http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.com/2012/01/synopsis-glass-character-novel-by.html

http://members.shaw.ca/margaret_gunning/betterthanlife.htm

Blessed, but depressed

(This started out as a journal entry, then I started to get engrossed in it and decided to cut 'n' paste and see where it took me. In a pretty cynical direction, as it turned out. Some day I will try to write about the profound spiritual experience I had in 2005 that changed everything for me, forever. But not today.)

Oh well. We had today “off”, but as usual it flew past. It just goes. That’s OK, maybe even good. But I yearn, I yearn. I’ve been yearning for a very long time now. I remember the times before I was published at all, I mean in novel form, when I just thought I was going to die, I wanted it so much and it seemed so far away. Then somehow, it happened twice, but now I seem to be farther back than I was before the first one. I keep bouncing back and forth: some part of me that wants to keep me from suicide insists I have a chance. Then the other side, gloom, just comes in and crushes me.

I try to pray, but I seem to have lost the knack, or else I just don’t believe in it any more. I don’t see what it does. It doesn’t change anything. If you’re asking “God” to give you what you want, it’s pretty ludicrous. "Mother, may I?" Also, what if you get two opposing sides praying for different things? Does the more holy side win, the more worthy side? The Christian rather than the Muslim? What a bunch of horseshit!

So why pray, and what does it mean? Does it mean anything at all, or is it just “wish upon a star”, or “favour me, God, because I’m worthy, besides I want this and you’d better give it to me or I’ll stop believing in you”? Can we change the laws of the universe just by saying, “Now I lay me down to sleep”, or “Our Father”? Can we bend reality to our own will? And if that’s not what it’s about, then what IS it about? Isn’t it about changing reality? And can anyone actually do that by muttering certain magic words, or squinching their eyes up real hard?

I guess there is another form of this, the one that always appealed to me the most, which I'd call the Saint Francis method: Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. It's kind of like Gandhi's exhortation to be the change you want to see in the world. But how realistic is this? How many "instruments of peace" do you know? I've known one in my entire lifetime, my grandmother, who was love, and never once uttered the word or even demonstrated it in any tangible way.

I don't know, I think I got myself involved in a very deep case of religious poisoning. I know any number of people (and believe me, I'm tired of these bloody gasbags, but they have no idea how obnoxious they are) who insist that "I'm spiritual, but I'm not religious." So what does "spiritual" mean then? That they squinch up their eyes and try to bend reality to what they want more effectively than their neighbor, whom they supposedly love "as themselves"? Does it mean they are more caring (usually not)? More sensitive? I think I know three sensitive people, and that's in 57 years. Very bad. I think in many cases it's lucky rabbit's foot stuff: I'm protected, I'm special, God will never give me any more than I can handle, and besides, everything happens for a reason.

Where is the evidence? There isn't any. Suicide happens every day, so God does give many people more than they can handle. Many things happen for a reason, but not everything, surely not everything. Anyone who has borne witness to the appalling tragedy of someone losing a child surely can't adhere to that facile truism.

But we have to give thanks to the Lord. Give thanks, no matter how appalling our reality is. Why? Sometimes life is atrocious, hideous beyond words, but we're always supposed to be grateful. Oh, and forgive! Forgive our enemies, and everyone who has ever hurt us. That means if someone ruptured your hymen when you were three, you're supposed to forgive. Oh, you'll feel so much better when you do!

I wonder sometimes, what happens when everything falls apart. Everything at once, I mean. When you lose your longtime community due to profound alienation, when you lose your health and four of your friends (to death, I mean), and many more due to circumstances that are uncontrollable. The whole universe turns into a flaming molten ball and slowly turns inside-out. When you crawl out of the wreckage, everything looks different.

That's because everything is different.

The old hymns are wheezy and boring, unbearably stultifying. Your old church is a spiritual disaster area, so you try again: not once, not even twice, but three times, with three different churches. No one seems particularly friendly, and when you try to sit down the old lady in the pew puts her hand on the seat beside her, shakes her head and says, "No. My family sits there."

No. Don't come in, not in here. Who are you?

You're not one of us. You don't know the ropes. You don't know the words to say. You don't know the responsive refrain. You don't know the hymns. You don't know the gospels. You don' t have anyone to talk to after church. You aren't on any committees. You don't bake for the bake sales, you don't count the money after church. You don't do anything but sit there with an odd look on your face. Like you're not happy. Like you might even cry. What is wrong with you? You are different. Stay out, stay out, you are a threat to our practice of acceptance and unconditional love!

It seems, it really does seem like an "I'm-in-and-you're-not" thing. We all band together every Sunday to be stuck to each other like glue and feel better for a while while we keep reality out. We send a few old socks to the poor. Things like that. Jesus would spit on that. Jesus would be on the Downtown Eastside RIGHT NOW,  just talking with people, maybe making the sign of the cross on their foreheads or hugging them.

Handing out clean needles? I don't think so. I think he might put his hand out and say, "Why don't you give me those." To lighten the burden, so to speak. Or at least, that's what he said.

He didn't aid and abet. He healed. Didn't he?

I don't know what Jesus was like, I don't even know if there was a Jesus, and if there was, I know he wasn't much like the Gospel version of him, and NOTHING like the interpretations that have been layered over him for centuries like so much poisonous muck.

I don't know why people give their lives over to him, but then, there are plenty of UFO sites on the internet, aren't there? "Look at all the people who have followed Christ over the centuries," a minister once said to me, trying to convince me that Christianity's validity could be confirmed by sheer numbers.
 
I don't live by numbers. I don't live by "everyone's doing it, so it must be good", because it can all too quickly lead to yet another soul-numbing statement: "I was only following orders."

And in God's name, where is the grace in that?

Corgi Tetherball

News Flash: two corgis escape Buckingham Palace for sudden-death tetherball faceoff, with Kate in hot pursuit!

Phaedra: this should clear up the confusion!

Phaedra (mythology)From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaIn Greek mythology, Phaedra (Phaidra) is the daughter of Minos and Pasiphaë, wife of Theseus and the mother of Demophon of Athens and Acamas. Phaedra's name derives from the Greek word φαιδρός (phaidros), which meant "bright". Though married to Theseus, Phaedra fell in love with Hippolytus, Theseus' son born by either Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons, or Antiope, her sister. Euripides placed this story twice on the Athenian stage, of which one version survives. According to some sources, Hippolytus had spurned Aphrodite to remain a steadfast and virginal devotee of Artemis, and Aphrodite made Phaedra fall in love with him as a punishment.[1] He rejected her. In one version, Phaedra's nurse told Hippolytus of her love, and he swore he would not reveal her as a source of information. In revenge, Phaedra wrote Theseus a letter that claimed Hippolytus raped her. Theseus believed her and cursed Hippolytus with one of the three curses he had received from Poseidon.[2] As a result, Hippolytus' horses were frightened by a sea monster and dragged their rider to his death. Alternatively, after Phaedra told Theseus that Hippolytus had raped her, Theseus killed his son and Phaedra committed suicide out of guilt for she had not intended for Hippolytus to die. Artemis later told Theseus the truth. In a third version, Phaedra simply told Theseus this and did not kill herself; Dionysus sent a wild bull which terrified Hippolytus' horses.

(That better? I thought so.)

Awful then, awful now

I don't know if it's brain damage from smoking too much nutmeg or what, but some poisoned synapse of my brain just released this from the dark dungeon of memory. It was one of those things I hoped I had only imagined, or just had a horrible dream about. When I found this video, I groaned with agonized delight: it was even worse than I thought! They'd done a video for this song in 1967, the music sounding sort of like a cross between a spaghetti Western and Romper Room.

Here's this guy talking about wanting to be straight (and hey, wouldn't Tony Perkins have done a good job here?), "straight" in the sense of being a non-druggy I guess, and rambling on about this mystical chick called Phaedra penetrating the great fortress of his heart, or something. He's on a horse, for Christ's sake, rambling around on beaches being Remote but Sensitive, a kind of dollar-store Neil Diamond (or Neil Zirconia?).

Then Nancy Sinatra, yes, THE Nancy Sinatra, the same Nancy Sinatra whose boots are made for walking, the same Nancy Sinatra who spent all that time in Shu-Shu-Shuuuh, Shu-Shu-Shuuuh, Shu-Shu-Shu-Shu-Shu-Shuuuh Sugartown, is here telling us about flo-o-o-o-owers, flo-o-o-o-o-wers e-e-e-e-e-ev'ry-whe-e-e-e-e-errrrre, how you can lo-o-o-o-k at them but do not touch, etc. etc. And in case we forget, she repeatedly tells us that Phaedra is her name.

So who's this Phaedra? I was just looking for clips of a movie by that name starring Tony Perkins and Melina Mercouri, one of the many films where he is paired with a man-eating monster. I guess I have to go get all mythical here and go on Wikipedia and see if this Phaedra stuff has any real Significance to it.
But until then, don't enjoy this video, it's too excruciating. But do appreciate the fact that it's a definite front-runner for the worst song ever written.

Bessie Smith My Kitchen Man

In the Great Kitchen/Handy Man Sweepstakes, who comes out on top? I think it's Bessie. Great as Ethel Waters is (and I saw her on Turner Classics last night in one of the very first movie musicals, singing Am I Blue), she's just a bit too much of a lady, with a dry, ironic delivery that removes her from the naughty/earthy subject matter.  Bessie is more of a force of nature, delivering the outrageously suggestive lyrics ("love the way he warms my chops") without a trace of apology.

I confess I haven't paid enough attention to Ethel Waters up until now: I only remember her wobbly late performances, a la Mahalia Jackson, when she had pretty much lost the vibrant, almost bell-like tone that made her singing so amazing. When she first came on the screen in this incomprehensible mess of a movie (called, un-originally, On with the Show), I had no idea who she was because she wasn't even listed in the credits, in spite of her two solo numbers. She even made the ludicrous ballad Birmingham Bertha seem credible, with a superb male quartet behind her.

I was surprised to see how many black performers were in this thing, providing its only really inspired moments. There was no discernable plot: it seemed like watered-down Showboat mixed in with some sort of hokey ghost story. At one point a whole lot of girl dancers came out in riding costumes and rode broomstick horses all around the stage, then all of a sudden real horses plunged out of the scenery, throwing one rider (on purpose, or not?). Calling Busby Berkeley! We need you.

Ethel Waters My Handy Man

I'd say he's mighty handy.

Bambi: the real story (Part II)

Bambi: the real story (Part I)

If you've never read this, and most people haven't, be prepared for a shock. Felix Salten's masterpiece Bambi: A Life in the Woods was written in 1923. As a Hungarian Jew living in Austria (later to flee to the United States), he already felt the seismic trembling that foretold the rise of the Third Reich. At least, I think he did. Those deer, the dire conversations they have, are full of hopelessness and doom. Little Gobo vibrates like thin glass before an earthquake.

This ain't the Bambi you knew and loved. There isn't a character named Thumper, though Friend Hare and his family come to a very bad end. This is nature red in tooth and claw, but it's also the heartless greed and oppression of humans as they rape and plunder Eden, just as they always do. Suitable for small children? I wonder.