Go Ask Alice

This painting is SO close to being done I can almost taste it. Today was going to be the day. I have the hook on the wall with a place ready for it to sit until it’s time to varnish it. I’ve screwed the tabs into the stretcher and strung the picture wire across the back. There’s just a bit of this to do and a bit of that but still I’m sitting here at 3 am and it just WON’T. COME. TO. AN. END. I really was going to get it done today but when I took the dogs out this morning (I should clarify my morning is your afternoon as I usually go to bed around 5am) I spotted a wee white bunny in my vegetable garden. It was sitting behind the pegged down wire fence, hunched right up against my peas. It could have fit in the palm of my hand. The white of its fur stood out in bright contrast to the garden greenery. It’s not winter here so those who know better might be surprised by the colour of its fur as the hare (not rabbit) native to this area wears a subtle shade of sable and grey in the summer. Several years ago some well-meaning idiot (the emphasis is on idiot) decided to let their domestic rabbits enjoy an outdoor environment. Since then these very cute but extremely destructive furry bundles have taken over the hamlet. They’ve forced out the native species, attracted apex predators like coyotes, and destroyed lawns and gardens. Despite this some people love them and add to the problem by feeding them. Others are not so enthusiastic. One gent down the road was shooting and eating them. He stopped when he discovered a “wormy” one.

With my sweet peas in jeopardy, unhappily it was time to call on my inner Mr. McGregor. I didn’t scheme to bag up the bunny to trade for tobacco but I may have accidentally trapped him/her in my garden shed. As soon as I saw it, I hustled the dogs into the house as a bunny is just an interesting chew toy to them. Being the grown up full-sized adult that I am, I then went to the wood pile  to get a stick so I wouldn’t have to come too close to the wee little bunny. I’ve seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail so I knew I had to be careful. I was going to try to prod it out of the garden from a very respectable distance with the longest stick (remember it was the size of a new-born kitten) that I could find. I stepped over the fence and moved towards the white bundle of fur with my stick a-a-a-and it bolted. That was a bit of a surprise. Normally rabbits freeze instinctively as predators are attracted to motion. This little guy took off like a flash towards the garden shed that makes up the back wall of my garden enclosure. It headed towards the shed and then right up under the wall. Damn it! So off I went back to the house to get the shed key.

I couldn’t find the bunny inside but to be honest my garden shed is very messy as well as very old. It looks like it might have had lathe and plaster in it at one time. The bunny had squeezed in under some rotting boards at the bottom of the wall. I spent several hours removing board so rotten I could pull it out by hand, replacing it with new wood, and tidying up the shed. I did my best to be as noisy as possible by banging things around exclaiming “Why on earth is this still here?” or alternatively “Why isn’t this in the garbage?” and occasionally cursing as I encountered cardboard boxes full of mouse droppings and curtains of dust clotted cobwebs still very much inhabited by their creators. I made enough noise to scare any passersby so the bunny should have been well on its way. I finished up by making sure the fence was firmly pegged down. I had to close the shed door though as an open shed door is an invitation to other even more problematic visitors like raccoons, possums or skunks.

There’s just something about this painting. I could attribute it to an adverse universe but that’s just an excuse. It should have been done over a month ago but it isn’t and I’m not sure why. I really want it done. So why have I started to write the two plays I’ve been roughing out in my mind for the past couple of months? Why have I completed an abstract painting, started another landscape and prepped saw blades? The bunny came out of nowhere but really the plays, the blades, the abstract, and this blog entry (AND the other two I’ve started but haven’t finished yet) that I’m writing, as I enjoy a gin and tonic and sing along with an old blues CD, don’t need to be done right now. I should probably confess that I’m actually singing quite loudly. The dogs are used to it, the cats don’t care about anything I do unless it has to do with gratifying their needs or desires, and I’ve got the windows closed so the neighbours can’t hear me. I’ve a half-acre on either side between the houses but it is the country and voices carry.  Goodness…now I’ve taken some pictures of my messy work space.

Almost there…but not yet

Another confession, there was some arm waving and a brief bit of “chair dancing” as I uploaded the pictures. So-o-o I think it’s going to be one more day (night) for this painting. I hope the bunny got out of the shed. I’ll check when I get up. I’m not really the true Mr. McGregor type.

The songs for this post are  ‘White Rabbit’ by Jefferson Airplane and Aretha Franklin’s ‘Chain of Fools’

I’m sorry. Did you say Bieber Fever?

There’s a part in this post that’s about pet bottoms. It’s not horribly horrible but I thought I should mention it for those who prefer not to read about those kinds of things. Anyway as I was about to say…

We’re a pet household. Pretty much for my entire life I’ve lived with some kind of pet companionship. Our current menagerie consists of two cats and two dogs. Our pets are all relatively young so we’ve only had the occasional health issue arise. There’s been nothing serious but as most pet owners do I keep an eye out for unusual behaviour that might spell trouble. Several weeks ago I was dismayed to notice our cat, Princess Lola Mae Piewacket, “scooting” across the floor (not exactly normal cat behaviour). I’d witnessed dogs do the butt drag but it was something I’d never seen a cat do. A visit to the vet was in order. As long as I was going I thought I might as well take our two dogs along as they needed to have their heartworm tests done. Not sure what I was thinking there.

It’s really not a good idea to arrive at the vet clinic with an unhappy cat in a carrier and two socially awkward yellow labs. I normally let the dogs have a good run before a vet visit just to get them a little tired out so they’re less likely to misbehave. The heat of the July midday sun ruled a run out. So that wasn’t a great start.  The overstimulation of a car ride with a caterwauling cat added the perfect incentive to go wild in the clinic environment where evidently everything smelled fantastic, and the kittens ready for adoption wandering around were enchanting, and other dogs were a possible danger, and there were people whose bottoms may not have been goosed by a dog’s nose before that had to have that particular experience. I’m lucky I didn’t pull a back muscle trying to rodeo the dogs while balancing a carrier that barely contained the heartfelt indignation of one unjustly confined feline. The upshot was apologies to all the staff at the clinic as well as some other clients for the overly friendly attention of my dogs, a summer’s worth of Revolution (protects against fleas, ticks, heartworm, etc.) for everyone, and a surprise backside procedure for Lola Mae (neither the cat nor I had any idea that cats could require this kind of “expressing”- her look of betrayal haunts me still). But wait there’s more.

I was sent home with a small container and instructions to take samples. I did and then duly submitted said samples for testing. I hoped for the best, expected the worse, but was still taken by surprise when the vet tech called several days later. I was informed the test results had come back positive. What I thought I heard the technician ask me was…had I heard of “Bieber Fever”. I was caught completely off guard. Was she telling me that my cat had a case of “Bieber Fever”? For those of you who don’t know this refers to a condition common amongst the fandom of Canadian pop star Justin Bieber. I’m not a fan myself (many moons ago when I was a teenage girl I was more of a DOA, The Smiths and Sex Pistols kind of fan) but to each his own. In the eternity that it seemed to be taking for me to process what I’d just heard, I wondered how Lola Mae could have experienced any of Justin Bieber’s music, never mind having become such a fan that she developed the “Fever”. Was scooting your butt across the floor a symptom of this fever? How was this determined from a fecal sample? Of course I didn’t say that.

What I said was, “Sorry, what was that?” The vet tech then went on to explain that BEAVER FEVER (which I had misheard) was actually an uncommon occurrence in an indoor cat. The medical name for Beaver Fever is Giardia. It is caused by a parasite that’s usually found in streams frequented by wildlife (such as beavers, hence the name) and can be spread through the usual way these things are passed along. People can get Giardia too. I have a friend who is a lab technician and she informed me that it sometimes pops up in rural communities with poor water sanitation facilities. We think the dogs might have picked it up at the kennel whilst we were away in May. The property has a stream that runs through it. The dogs had some digestive issues when we brought them home so it’s sort of the logical conclusion.

We’ve just finished 5 days of treatment for all four of our pets. No pills but liquid and syringes. Our larger dog is 90 lbs and he had to swallow an ounce of medicine. Do you know what happens when you try to shoot an ounce of chalky white liquid down the back of a dog’s throat with a syringe? It comes right back up. This animal will eat its own vomit or any type of exotic animal scat it comes across but refuse to lick that medicine up off the floor. A bottle of medicine, by the way, that cost us $98.00. As for the cats, well there might be some permanent scarring from the “cat incident”. I can tell you it was not a happy time for anyone. We’ll have to wait a couple of weeks and test again to make sure everyone has a clean bill of health. Here by the way is a poorly edited picture of what my cat might look like if she was a “Belieber” (that’s what they call people who have Bieber Fever).

When I looked on-line I discover a whole world of Justin Bieber “swag”. After the costs associated with our last vet visit I’m positive I couldn’t afford to support the habits of a true Belieber. I think overall we have to count ourselves lucky. It’s not known if there’s any cure for Bieber Fever but at least with Beaver Fever we’re confident we have a fighting chance.

Music for this post

If you haven’t heard of him, firstly I would be very surprised but secondly, here are two links to Justin Bieber videos. The first “Baby Baby” is the original Justin. He’s evolved a new style as he’s gotten older which you can experience in the video “Boyfriend”.

Just in case Justin isn’t your style you can give The Smith’s “How Soon is Now?” or the Sex Pistols “Holidays in the Sun” a listen.

My cat really is cute despite the awful picture I made of her. By the way I personally think that cats shouldn’t wear hats in real life unless they’re a Dr. Seuss character. It took me a terribly long time to make the Lola JB Swag image. The computer with my photo editing software on it isn’t working right now. I edited that picture in…wait for it… Microsoft Word. I then converted it to a PDF, printed the screen shot and pasted it into Paint where I cropped it and then saved it as a jpeg. Pretty sad really when there’s free editing software that I could have downloaded and later deleted. Truth be known that picture of Lola isn’t my first horribly edited photo. I occasionally make and send them to my friends and family because I NOT so secretly enjoy making images that look really tacky. It just doesn’t normally take me as long as this did because of the software issue. Here’s one I made for my nephew who is 19 years old. He loved it.

Fire and Rain

There’s been a downturn on the health side for a friend of mine. He and his wife stopped by earlier today to drop off some stuff and let us in on the news. Years ago he was the victim of a virus that damaged his heart. He and his wife have never made a big deal about it but it’s always there in the background. Lately he’s been feeling a little more tired than usual and decided to find out if there was reason for additional concern…unfortunately there was. His heart is now only working at a 20% capacity (compared to the 40% it was at before). It’s time for a pacemaker. I can unequivocally swear that though this man’s heart may be physically weak it works overtime in the generosity and caring department. He’s the type of person that is always trying to figure out how he can make life better for those around him (whether they want him to or not- I say that with the greatest affection). He works in an industry where he is exposed to the lowest of the low when it comes to the awful things that people can do to each other. Although it’s made him a bit jaded he does his best not to let that drag him down. He’d give you the shirt off his back if his wife didn’t point out that other people don’t need or want used shirts with bold Hawaiian themed prints on them. My friend isn’t a small guy and he enjoys “orange chips” (Nacho Doritos), the occasional libation and bacon- lots and lots of bacon. Though his weight didn’t cause his heart problems it doesn’t take a genius to determine that his heart wouldn’t be as stressed if he weighed less. They’ve decided a paleo type diet might be the way to go. It calls for lots of small meals, lean meats, no processed food or dairy and (unfortunately for my friend) as much fruit and vegetables as he’d like. To be honest the amount of fruit and vegetables that he would like would be “zero” so they’re going to have to work on that.

It’s always hard to know what to say at times like these. Obviously it’s upsetting and the first thing you want to do is offer comfort and support. Sometimes though I’m an idiot and I either say the wrong thing or I try to say the right thing but I don’t say it the right way. Case in point…My friend is a writer. It’s not his primary occupation but he’s been published in local print papers. For as long as I’ve known him he’s been mulling over the idea of writing a book. He wants writing to be his legacy. I can understand that. My family makes jokes about how my work will be worth more after I’m dead (SO hilarious every time they make that joke-NOT). They don’t understand that one of the most important things for me, after the all-encompassing fascination of the process and how “whole” I feel when I’m painting or drawing, is that it does carry on even when I’m gone but it’s not about money. Though that would be nice for my family (don’t tell them I said that). I want my work to have a life of its own, to touch people and continue to develop in ways I can’t even imagine. In a way I’m endeavouring to leave my mark on the world. History decides what constitutes culture. I have no control over that but I still want to be part of the mix no matter the outcome.  You might wonder who I think I am; to have such a grandiose ambition. My answer would be, I am merely my own self and as such I’m free to dream my own dream…as is anyone. So what did I say when my friend told me his heart is literally breaking? I said “It’s time to write your book”.

Not the first thing out of my mouth but pretty damn close. I’m surprised it could make it out from around the foot that I was determined to wedge in there. I meant what I said in the best possible way. He wants to write a book. He is more than capable. He has just never got around to starting. To be someone who creates regularly you have to feel a sense of urgency. You have to make it a priority. I, for example, get terribly distracted by the minutia that makes up a day-to-day routine until I sometimes find all the time in the day has been used up by things that only take me further from where I want to be. You can’t let that happen if you want to produce a body of work. I repeat that to myself daily as I try to focus on becoming who/what I want to be. You have to remove the barriers that you’ve created. The first thing my friend said when I told him he should write his book was that he was concerned about the stress working on it might bring. I told him that if he would just try to write an hour a day he was not going to up his stress level (it might even reduce it as he would be doing what he’s really meant to do). So I had opened up my mouth and said this thing and of course his wife, who is also my very good friend, started to cry and then I started to cry. We ended up hugging and laughing because despite my inability to keep my mouth shut, she knows I love them both dearly. After they left I spent an hour online looking up paleo snacks that he could have at the bonfire we’re having next weekend. Apparently you can buy organic paleo hot dogs so he can have those (if I can find them locally) with no bun while everyone else has the regular ones.

I don’t think my friend is going to up and die on us just yet. There are no guarantees but even if he had a smidgen of a thought about giving in without a fight his wife would never have it. That doesn’t mean this isn’t scaring the shit out of him. He’d be a fool if it didn’t and he’s no fool. You may be familiar with the saying “Life is a sexually transmitted disease and the mortality rate is one hundred percent”. As I’ve gotten older I’ve learned more about the latter part of that quote than I would prefer. I have had people I love leave suddenly (the unfairness of a child’s death will ever be a mystery to me). I’ve said good-bye to loved ones who suffered terribly before they left. I never did say good-bye to the one who decided he would just rather not be here. Although I accept all these as truths, there is still a part of me that can’t help but find it all utterly surreal.

Years ago I had a wonderful friend. Her name was Sue. Sue and her girlfriend were originally friends of my mother and her 4^th husband.  She and her girlfriend were breaking up at the same time that I came back to live at home after leaving a horrendous relationship. I had a 3 month old baby, a crazy stalker ex-boyfriend, I was 20 years younger than her, and I had returned to live with my mother because I had nowhere else to go and I was in terrible trouble. Despite our differences we became great friends for the year I lived at my mother’s house. When I moved back out on my own our lives grew apart but we still kept in touch. Several years later Sue was diagnosed with cancer. She made it through the first treatment and then the cancer came back. She couldn’t go through it again and opted to let nature take its course. The last time I called to talk to her was on a Wednesday evening. She was lying down and didn’t want to come to the phone. She died that night. She wasn’t alone though. She’d met a woman and taken a chance on love again. Sue was a person who enjoyed everything that life had to offer. That didn’t mean she hadn’t struggled in her journey. She was gay well before there was any kind of advocacy for lesbians. She was a large woman and had faced negativity because of it. She had an 18 year long relationship with a woman who had physically and mentally abused her. That partner had come to the relationship with a child that Sue helped raise as her own until he was killed when he rode his bike out of the driveway into the road without looking. She hadn’t had it easy but she was full of joy. Sue loved children, cats and dogs, food, and talking about her big boobs, and laughing at her own farts. You may think those last two things are childish but she rocked who she was and when she laughed she made you laugh too. And then one day she wasn’t there and the world was a poorer place for it.  I had known people before who died but this was the first person I considered not just a contemporary (despite our age difference) but an actual friend. I’ve been thinking about her lately. She had this fantastically big booming laugh that made you want to be in on the joke and when she said my son’s name you could actually hear the love in her voice.

What does this have to do with my heavy-hearted friend and the foot in my mouth? What I really want for my friends is what I want for myself and for my family; for them to be fulfilled and to live life to the fullest. Ugh…that sounds terribly optimistic but it is how I feel. Truth be told, as a rule I run more along the pessimistic line. I always expect the worst. If it turns out bad, well that’s what I expected. If it turns out well, I get a happy surprise. Despite all that, I still believe in “the dream”. There are factors we can’t control like cancer or a heart virus but if you have something you really think you should be doing, do it. Now I’m not advocating abandoning your family or shooting hobos (if that last one is your dream I feel compelled to tell you that’s definitely a “no-no” and  there are better things you should be doing with your time “treatment” than reading this blog post). What I am saying is stop getting in your own way. Find a version of your dream that works for you. You want to act? Register with a talent agency or try community theater. You want to sing? There’s an audience of millions waiting for you on U tube. Are you going to make big money? Probably not but then again …you might. Is everybody going to love you? Who knows?

As far as I could tell Sue always remained true to herself, living life and facing her death on her terms and to the best of her ability.  She owned her death like she owned her life. None of it was easy but she took everything she could from it and she didn’t apologize for that. I’m not saying she didn’t have regrets. What I’m saying is she didn’t let fear hold her back…not from life or from death. That’s what I meant when I told my friend to write his book. Not “Hey you’re going to die you better get on it” (because really that could be said of us all). What I was trying to say was “Wow that’s scary but you’re going to get through it – one way or another (as a reader of this blog please feel free to substitute whatever bit of shittiness you prefer for the word “it” in this context). While you’re working your way through it why not look for a bit of happiness (immortality if you so desire) doing that thing you were born to do?” In addition to the wonderful friendship that Sue gave me during a difficult time in my life she taught me this great lesson. You’ve got to own it. It’s yours so why not? I really hope my friend writes his book.  He was thinking about it. I could tell.  In a way I guess it would be a story within a story. Whether the subplot has a happy ending is really up to him.

Music for this post

Ben Taylor’s ‘Not Alone’ as it speaks to friends, relationships and changes that come. Then there’s the Fabulous Thunderbirds with ‘Stand Back’, a song that captures the spirit of “getting it done”. Lastly for my dear friend Sue (pictured below having a chat with my son when he was a baby) because this post is not only about how much I miss her but how she continues to be a presence in my life so many years after she left, James Taylor’s ‘Fire and Rain’.