obituary: snail

Work work work. My editor at Writer's Digest called. He likes my book, but he'd like it to be shorter. Time to get out the editing shears and do some snipping...

Obituary: Snail

Sara's pet snail, Snail, died yesterday. Sara burst into tears. Upon seeing her sister's reaction, Annie burst into tears, too. "Snail's dead!" wails Sara. "Snail's dead!" wails Annie. After the wailing and crying subsides, Sara looks down at Snail's still form, sniffling.

For no particular reason, Annie says quietly, "I won't eat him, Sara."

"What??" yells Sara. "You're going to eat Snail??"

"I said I'm NOT going to eat him, Sara," says Annie.

They have a solemn burial in the backyard, followed by hot chocolate at Starbucks with Ruth.

I offered my condolences when I found out the news but to tell you the truth, I didn't even know Snail was still alive.

MORE CHILDHOOD CONFESSIONS REVISITED

Here are a few more responses to my question, "What were some of the horrible things you used to do as a child?"

From Amanda: "I have no siblings. No one to play tricks on. I did learn the joy of practical jokes as a grown person however. My friends Kevin and Susan had just installed a new digital controller for their central air and heating system. I set the timer for 6 in the morning and set the heat temperature as high as it would go. At 6 a.m. the heat kicked on and wasn't set to turn off until the house was 80 farenheit. Apparently K&S were laying in bed saying to each other "Boy, I'm hot. Are you hot? Maybe the sun will move out the window and it'll cool down. God, it's hot." They discovered the heater was on when Kevin went downstairs to turn the air conditioner on. Meanwhile, I had forgotten all about setting the heater and was very confused at the nasty message they left on my answering machine. P.s. Rudy says hi."

From Ju: "I was a very good girl until I was nearly a grown up. But I remember playing loads of pranks at university. One I particularly remember. I was member of the English Department Drama Group. We were putting on a production called "Reign Starts Play" which was a loose conglomerate of sketches presenting life under Elezabeth II whose 25th or 35th (I forget which) crowning jubilee it was. In one particularly boring scene about 8 people sat around a table playing cards, commenting politics and voicing general opinions on life, the universe and everything. For the last performance I went into a sex shop and bought a set of hard-core porno photograph playing cards. (It was really educational. I would never have known what is possible if you are really supple) Before the show I slipped eight of the most drastic cards into the pack. The scene started with dealing out the cards. After that the scene livened up considerably. Cards were grabbed out of people's hands, or went flying with people diving after them under the table. The only one in on the trick was the prompter who unfortunately lost his composure completely and collapsed in the wings. I was never caught."

From Lloyd: "Ju: We spent nearly a week with you at the House of Chaos and I had no idea you pulled stuff like the card trick!! Wonderful! We could have had some great discussions. Reminds me of the time in high school when we had this history teacher who was fond of pulling down maps of Europe and not bothering to look at them and saying things like (in his stentorian, rather over-affected elaborate voice) "The face of Europe. 1848. Congress of Vienna. Who knows about it? Lloyd. (no answer) Unprepared!". So we went out and bought the latest issue of Playboy, snuck back into the school and stapled the centerfold to the map of Europe circa 1848. Next day, sure enough, the history teacher goes into the usual rigamorole about "Face of Europe. Count Otto Von Metternich. Who knows about it" and pulls down the stark naked centerfold. The class collapses in gales of laughter. Give the guy credit, he recovered quickly enough. "Well, ho ho ho, hm hm hm, the face of Eu-rope has certainly changed!!"

From Daniel: "Ju, that was a wonderful one. I wish I'd thought of that when I was in theatre... A few pranks come to mind from my past. Some, I will admit to having been the perpetrator, others I mearly had an advisory role but no hand in the execution. 1) We replaced a sign along Rt. 82 in Ohio which had been a simplified airplane outline with the text "SPEED CONTROLLED BY AIRCRAFT" with a sign which had an outline of a space probe and the text "SPEED CONTROLLED BY SATTELITE". The sign stayed in place for several years. 2) At some unnamed liberal arts college in some unnamed state in the midwestern portion of a country which I will not name... The night before a Parents Day (which included a board meeting), some unnamed students "broke into" the Dean of the College office and removed almost all of its furniture (a few file drawers were left in place, and also the bookcases), replacing it with a waterbed, psychodelic posters, drug paraphinalia, a strobe light and some blacklights, and a beaded curtain hanging in the doorway... Oh, yes, and a fully mature pot plant in a very nice planter. Some interesting books, including some underground comix (this was 1979-1980 timeframe), some hardcore porn, and a bunch of communist tracts and (just to be balanced) a bunch of fundimentalist christian literature, was distributed amongst the books in the bookshelves. The reaction from various (unnamed) parties was rather, um, colorful (though I won't say which colors.)"

childhood confessions revisited

Allison and Jodi came over for dinner last night. I went temporarily insane
and actually decided to cook something from scratch...I made lamb stew,
which turned out okay (much to the surprise of all of us :-)). There's something
very therapeutic about cooking, I find, especially if you don't have to
cook. I tend to prefer recipes which basically take care of themselves...my
favourites are the type where you chop up a bunch of stuff, dump it in the
pot, and leave it to simmer for hours (or bake in the oven for hours).
Any dish that needs frequent attention from the cook will inevitably
suffer at my hands.

Allison and Jodi brought Nanaimo bars and Ben & Jerry's New York Chocolate
Fudget icecream for dessert, yum. We watched City of Angels on DVD and stuffed
tapes (cutting, folding, and stuffing tape covers into cases of our
Castles and Skyscrapers tape, our first album...we had been starting
to run out).

Worked at home this morning, then worked some more on my laptop in a Chapters
a few blocks from here for a couple of hours this afternoon, nursing
a short nonfat Lactaid Tazo chai tea (say that ten times fast) in the Starbucks
Cafe. My friend Allison George got me hooked on this beverage.

I also bought:
The Girls' Guide To Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank, The Great
Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson (I've misplaced my old copy and I
*love* this children's book), The River by Gary Paulsen (sequel to
The Hatchet). I've just finished Holes by Louis Sachar, a recent
Newbery winner...great story!

As I was heading into Chapters, I noticed a crowd of young girls outside of MuchMusic down
the street, screaming. Turns out the Hanson (sp?) brothers had just arrived at the
studio. Wow, did I feel old. :-) They seem to have gotten a lot taller (the two younger
ones, anyway) than how they appear in their "Doo-wop" video (or whatever that song's
called; stop laughing at me, Allison!).

Today's Blatherpic

...is from my dad, who is in Japan until next week doing volunteer work in a school. He's been sending regular
reports by e-mail to Ruth and me, as well as photos taken on his digital camera.
Pretty cool way to keep in touch, and seeing the photos (I told him to take lots
of pictures of FOOD, of course) helps gives me an idea of what he's experiencing.
I hope to go to Japan someday. Anyway, I'll be posting some of the pics he's
been sending me over the next few days.

CHILDHOOD CONFESSIONS REVISITED

Here are a few responses to my question, "What were some of the horrible things you used to do as a child?"

From Lloyd: "Why, Debbie, what nasty little tricks you pulled as a child...behind that angelic smile...Here's something my sister and I did. Every winter (and in
Saskatoon, winter was winter!) my parents (of blessed memory) used to go to Palm Springs, California for an extended period of time. The first year
they did this (my brother was already grown up and out of the house), they got our next door neighbour to come in and make breakfast and kind of look
after my sister and I. Turns out my Dad was a bit of an innovator for the early 60s, having installed a buzzer system in our house, one upstairs, one on
the main floor, one in the basement rec room and one outside on the patio (for the two days of summer we had). It was a rudimentary but effective
intercom system. My poor mother, who was only 4 feet 11, had a buzz code of "two short". How appropriate. Our neighbour, Mrs. Flood, was a
well-meaning but rather annoying person who would cheerfully repeat the radio's dire weather forecast of 30 degrees below zero with a 40 mile an hour
wind for a windchill of -60. Wasn't kidding about winter. One morning she came over and I accidentally leaned against the buzzer on the main floor. She
said "what's that buzzing?" My sister Patty and I instantly realized she didn't know about the system, so we said, "What buzzing? We don't hear anything".
And so, for the entire winter, every now and then we'd hit the buzzer, and she would mutter to herself, "There's that buzzing noise again. I know I hear
buzzing in here." She never caught on-- and thankfully, forgot to mention this to my parents when they came home. That's just the tip of a very deep
iceberg. Don't get me started on stories, but that's one I wanted to share."

From Ju: "My teddy bears have strongly advised me to make a formal complaint. Stringing up teddy bears is not nice. They don't like it. They are quite irritated
that this is done in Canada. A number of them are rethinking their emigration plans. I have been trying to think of some pranks I played as a child. I
couldn't think of any. I must have been a boringly good child. How very embarrassing. I did not start to misbehave until late puberty. Mind you, then..."

From Andrea: "Pranks that I can recall include squeezing toothpaste down the laundry shoot and . . . I think I was about four years old when I brought my mother a
gorgeous boquet of flowers (with the roots still attached). Mom graciously thanked me (hiding her confusion) and suddenly realized to her horror that
they greatly resembled the cherished blooms of the botany professor down the street. When he appeared at her doorstep, asking if she noticed anyone
picking his flowers, she sympathized and denied all knowledge. (Of course, that doesn't Mom and I didn't have a little talk about what flowers NOT to pick
*wry grin*)"

From Paul Kwinn:
"Hey, Ju, I thought I was going to be completely boring, too. Then I remembered one thing that I did do. I was the eldest of 5 children, so I was generally
expected to kind of be in charge when my parents weren't around. One way that I enforced the "no TV in the afternoon" rule (a few times) was to unplug
the TV in my parents' room, take a short piece of very narrow guage wire, and attach it between the prongs of the plug (up against the plastic). Then, if
they plugged it in, there'd be a loud snap as the tiny bit of wire exploded. (Ah, the innocence of youth...) Once, I remember using two of the tiny wires.
Then a while later I heard a "Snap!", and went running upstairs. My brother Jamie was there, and said, "There were two wires, but I was afraid that
might be too dangerous, so I took one off." :{)} So much for elder brother thinking he's so smart.

And hey, who never did the spray can blowtorch
routine (re-enacted in Arachniphobia)? Definitely didn't do that _to_ anybody, though."

From Dave Weingart: "I was, of course, the perfect angelic child. Never ONCE did I do anything like hiding my mom's platinum-and-diamond engagement ring in the sugar bowl
at the age of 6 or climb over fences to swim in people's pools when I was in high school or gather all the gunpowder I could from the firecrackers I'd
purchased illegally and put it into the little glass bottles that model paint comes in and make small bombs that I would use to blow holes in peoples lawns,
nosirree, not me."

From Beckett: "I can remember discovering tape (I was about 4, I think), and that it could stick to almost anything, especially if you used enough of it. In the process of
conducting experiments I decided that putting a lot of tape on our old cat would be the best test of how well tape could stick, with all that fur. She put
up with me very well until I tried to pull off some of the tape (she very nearly was wearing a tape suit by then) at which point she yowled, scratched me,
and hobbled away in a huff. She was later discovered by my dad, who had the unenviable task of removing the tape suit. He stood my older sister and I
up in front of him some time later and asked who had done the cruel deed. For some reason he didn't believe the story that Sheba (the cat) had done it
herself because she wanted to dress up. And my sister, surprisingly, never ratted on me. So since my dad couldn't know for sure which of us had done it
he punished us both though I can't recall now what he did to us. But I do still feel shame and great remorse for torturing our poor kitty. She really was
very patient about the whole thing..."

From Annie: "As a youngest (by seven years) of three, and the other two being brawny great chaps. I had to resort to doing evil things to get my own back. I used to
spring tricks on myself and then blame my brothers when my parents were looking... I also once filled my brother's blade razor with hard soap. It cut his
face to *ribbons*. What an unpleasant child I was :-)"

childhood confessions

What were some of the horrible things you used to do as a child?

I remember holding the thermometer up to the lightbulb some days when I
had a wimpy cold that wasn't quite bad enough to keep me home from school.
The trick was to get the temperature up high enough so that Mom would
think I had a fever and keep me home, but not so high that she would
panic (or worse, catch on to what I was doing!).

I remember hanging my sister's teddy bears. She and her girlfriends would
have slumber parties in the family camping trailer. My brother Jim and
I used to think up schemes on how to scare them. He even figured out how to rig up a
pulley system where we could slide scary-looking things down a thin
wire into the trailer from the second floor of the house
and make Ruth and her girlfriend(s) scream (or so was the theory; we
usually just ended up provoking them into gales of hysterical giggles).
We also used to string Ruth's dolls and teddy bears up in the trailer
before Ruth and her friend retired for the night.

I could go on, but I won't until I hear from some of the rest of you
about your own exploits.

John Garrison Ridpath

Jeff and I visited with our new nephew and his family on the weekend.
Garrison's darned cute, and let me hold him without screaming.

Congratulations, Annie!!

Many congrats to Annie on her new, very cool job!!!
See her Witterings for
details.

Today's Blatherpicture

Shameless Family Plug:
Today's
blatherpicture is the cover of my sister's new book (she was the illustrator,
Sharon Jennings wrote the text). The little girl in the illustrations of Into My Mother's Arms
look exactly like my niece Sara (not surprising, since Sara posed as the model :-)).
I have to confess I got all teary-eyed when Ruth let me read the story (before she
even started illustrating it). Check out

this interview on Chapters.ca.

blathering and writing

Yes, I'm still alive. :-)

Jeff is forcing me to write a Blathering today, probably because he
thinks it will be good for me to claw my way up out of the zoo that
my life has become lately...and of course he's right.

Looking back at the four years I've been Blathering, it's interesting
for me to see how this little corner of my cyberlife has changed over
time. It began as a piece of fluff, a newsy paragraph, a fun toss-off in
the morning before I started my day.

Nowadays it has become partly a valuable creative writing exercise...some
days the words flow out, other days I sit at the keyboard staring numbly
at the blank screen, not knowing what to say. Getting into the habit
of writing something every day has been a very good experience; I highly
recommend it for everyone, even those that don't consider themselves
to be writers. I also highly recommend Julia Cameron's books (she wrote
The Artist's Way, but I've been reading
The Right To Write)...she
encourages regular journal writing. Here's a quote:

We should write because writing brings clarity and passion to the act
of living. Writing is sensual, experiential, grounding. We should
write because writing is good for the soul. We should write because writing
yields us a body of work, a felt path through the world we live in.

We should write, above all, because we are writers, whether we call
ourselves that or not.

I've gotten into the habit of keeping "morning pages", an exercise she
recommends. I went to Chapters and bought a spiral-bound journal with
a pretty cover (sun, moon & stars). Every morning, before I do anything,
I write a page about something. Sometimes it's a description of the room
I'm in, a scrap of conversation, a fragment of a short story, what my
plans are going to be that day, the movie I saw last night, a poem, some
lyrics...ANYTHING. Julia Cameron writes three pages/day but I'm trying
to stick to a goal that's easier for me to achieve. :-)

But back to the topic...in addition to being a good creative writing
exercise, my Blatherings nowadays
often become a sort of self-therapy. A very PUBLIC self-therapy. :-)
When I realized that was what it had evolved into, I admit to freaking out
a bit and almost pulled the whole thing offline. But then it became
evident that my postings sometimes touched other people, both
friends and strangers, who had been in similar situations or felt
similar feelings in their lives. I love seeing the support, advice,
and encouragement that goes on in Blatherchat.

I have especially enjoyed
following the conversation going on during the past couple of weeks,
when I wasn't around...I get a real kick out of the feeling that the
Blatherchat community has evolved into an independent entity
separate from my inane Blatherings. :-)

Scott Murray has responded in his
Scribbles, by the way,
to my comment about him being a marshmallow. :-) (Warning: Scott's journal
entries are not for the faint of heart or easily offended.)

Annie, I'm sorry I missed your birthday. Here is a belated birthday poem for you:

SUN AND MOON

A Birthday Poem For Annie


by Debbie Ridpath Ohi



In sunlight

she sings of wilderwood.

Hands folded neatly in her lap,

Annie plaits flowers into a chain

and hides her secret smile.

In moonlight

she sings of wildness and beauty.

Dancing with midnight,

black leather and teased hair.

We mortals watch in wonder from the forest shadows

(clutching our offerings of tea and chocolate)

...O Annie, sing a song for us!

hard disk still sick

No blatherings pics yet...my hard drive is still in the data recovery shop (it doesn't look hopeful), and there's no graphics manipulation program on my temporary drive (or scanner software).

Jodi and I are going to see The Road To Eldorado at Yonge and Eglinton tonight...looking forward to that! Has anyone else seen this? Allison is home sick today; please do send her get well e-mail.

To Rafe: thanks for the Didgeri-Douze photos!!! I haven't seen them yet (Allison still has them with her) but I've heard they're great. I'm picking up my FilKONtario photos today...two rolls' worth. I won't actually be IN any of the pictures, of course. :-) Do any of you have a similar situation (being the photographer in your family, and therefore missing in your photo albums)? I remember happily showing a friend some photos from when Jeff and I stayed up in Algonquin Park all summer, building our cottage. I happened to mention that I was the one who put in the wiring. My friend looked surprised and asked, "Oh, you were there too?!" :-)

Selfish request: If any of you have FKO photos with me in them, I'd be happy to pay for a copy (or copies), so I can add it to my album.

Bought some new DVDs on Tuesday at HMV with Scott Murray (it was his BIRTHDAY)...The Abyss and What Dreams May Come. Jeff and I took Scott out for sushi at Fune for his birthday, and then we came back to our place to watch What Dreams May Come. Great movie. We have to figure out a way of easily hooking our VCR...right now it's a bit of a pain, rearranging connections and having to move the TV to reach behind...watching a video is a bit of a production. Still didn't stop me from watching the Brady Bunch Sequel video that Amanda was kind enough to lend me a while ago. :-)

A FKO Highlight Diana Huey: Enjoyed seeing Diana again at FilKONtario! Her concert was great (first concert on Saturday), and she passed around an album of photos from her visit to Ecuador. Her new little boy, Gustavo (apologies for the typo before!), is adorable (he wasn't there, but many photos were :-))...I'm crossing my fingers very hard and am hoping he's at OVFF! Diana was the one who ended up buying our Interfilk package (toys, instruments, kids' songs on tape, lyrics, song writing certificate). I can't wait to start writing a song for Eduardo! :-)