April 2008

Merry Merrie Melodies

Teletoon Retro is running the original Merrie Melodies uncensored and uncut. Violence intact! It's great. Lots of Speedy Gonzales, the world's fastest and coolest mouse! So there's a scene of Sylvester stalking Speedy and we hear Speedy singing a screwed up version of La Cucuracha (the cockroach) mexican song. The lines are clearly made up from cliche spanish, then the last refrain hit me like a ton of bricks as Speedy sang: "La cucuracha, la cucuracha, marijuana por favor!"
Yes children, Speedy was a stoner!!! How seditious is that? You realize this means the animators were stoned? Doesn't that explain everything? It just brings the whole crazy looney tunes merrie melodies mania into focus. They were HIGH when they made it! In the forties and fifties yet! Or maybe it was 30s and 40s. Not sure. Only thing I do know for sure is that the audience were so innocent that unless they were smoking it too they'd never have heard it or noticed.
Wow eh?

Get God a Kleenex willya?

We knew a storm was coming. Even if we hadn't seen it on radar and satellite, heard the weather warnings on tv, the newscasters for days ahead of it. In fact there's more scheduled for tonight and/or tomorrow. So we took Iris out anyway. I had these free movie tickets for test driving a Saturn or something. I forget. All I remember about the test drive was how huge the "compact" car seemed to me at the time. I felt swamped and swallowed by some great plastic beast. It was comfy and easy to drive but I really felt small in it. Couldn't see out it seemed. I guess Iris has me spoiled with her cushy embrace and wide open view. She just fits me, y'know?
So we had these free tix and went to the opening night of 88 minutes. It's the new Al Pacino flick and it's very well done. I don't know how in heck that hold man keeps up like that but you have to salute him! He's running and jumping and dodging and doing it all with gruff tough cool. If he sweats, it's bullets. LOL
We knew it was going to be weathery out, cold at least, because it was already pretty cold and extremely windy when we went in. The air was practically foggy with all the dust blown up. Spring is dusty around here because till they sweep up all that gravel and sand put down over the winter it lays there and wind picks it up and tosses it around. Oh it was throwing around the dust alright. On the way out of the movie I saw a woman wearing flip flop sandals. You know, the kind where your feet are pretty much naked. She had pretty red painted toenails and her feet were quite lovely. Not that I"m a foot person per se, but I could see why she was taking advantage of our apparently early spring to show them off, they looked cute. Cute and cold. I mean, come ON girl! Did she have anything to cope with freezing temps? Of course not. As I looked around at the movie goers it quickly became apparent that the majority really are as stupid as they seem. Light tops, light shoes with no waterproofing, no hats, scarves, gloves, nothing.
I peer out the windows at the doors. You can see white. Not a lot else, but the white moves, sideways, and a little down. I snug my wooly hat a bit tighter, zip my jacket a bit higher, tug the gloves on and give my husband a cheery pat on the back and OUT we go. Oh dear god. It's not snow when it's this thick and wet, it's God Snot. It was piled inches deep, heck, six inches I think. And wet, with a base layer of ice on the cars where they weren't warm enough, but water on the ground. That sloppy kind of stuff.
I started clearing the car. By the time I got round all four sides the first was covered again. LOL. We couldn't get the windows to defrost properly because I foolishly forgot to clean out the vent holes. I was under way by the time I realized it so that was that. We just wiped the condensation when it got too much. I was so happy to finally have a real use for those heated side mirrors and rear defrost! Ordinarily we're in the garage and our snow is dry and light, so I hadn't used it yet. Heheh. I waited for the movie traffic to clear out before going. The way those fools were pulling out I didn't want to share their road! Iris had a runway in front due to the car that had been parked there so we got going and I was so proud and pleased with her and how smoothly she handled all that slucky stuff! Even on streets that had only been driven on once, and in the back alley where nobody had driven, Iris tracked tried and true.
It was our driveway that got a little freaky. It's very short, about a car length, and quite steep because the lot is about 4' higher than the street level (good to avoid flooding). Iris started going sideways but it was slow enough I stopped. Dan let go the garage door (2 doors on side hinges) and got behind the car to push, causing the door to swing shut and I had to honk to get him to notice. LOL, so I backed up while worked the door and got 'er, slippin' and slidin' all the way, into the garage, safe home and covered in crap. Whew. I spent about 40 minutes clearing her off so she wouldn't freeze solid overnight.
Such a good girl. :-)
When I got into the yard proper I was faced with ankle deep snow and a gazebo roof (canvas) groaning with the weight. I didn't do much shovelling, just the path between garage and back door and a path to the gazebo so I could knock the snow off. Managed to put a small tear in it too. Damn. I can fix it if that's as bad as it gets, a little hand sewing and silicon to water proof ought to do. Whew. The snow quit pretty much right after that and this morning it was ice where it wasn't snow, but this afternoon the ground is already asserting itself.
Sadly they think we'll see another round tonight or tomorrow. I still won't shovel the whole walk system. Well, maybe for the postman to use monday, after all, he has a rough job.

fashion folly

You know how it is. 200 channels, nothing worth watching, so whatever's on the channel you're on is what you watch till you finally come to your senses and turn it off and switch to the radio or recorded music. In my case it's the 9am time slot, a daily series all about what the crazy people in the fashion industry are up to now. It's moving sculpture really. They take freakishly thin women and try to make them look normal, or alien, via fabric. They they pass it off as ideals of feminine beauty. It's really quite mad and anyone in the real world foolish enough to try and emulate it is sure to get broke and sick within a season. So today I had a realization that was quite amusing. They were talking about this one designer's work, and how sexy it was. The images on the screen showed women with board chests and boy hips and stick thin limbs. Further from sexy you could not get without going to hairy transvestites! I swear I wonder how many of the people choosing these models are gay men trying to find the ideal boy. At any rate, the clothing bagged out in all the places real women would have curves, replacing the curves that have been starved off the model. How silly, I thought to myself, if they'd just start with healthy women they could simply sew the clothes to fit and it would be sexy! You know, Marilyn Monroe, who was a healthy size 14, and that's the heaviest my body ever got at "clinically obese" weights, used to get sewn into her gowns, so tight were they. She didn't need pleats and bags, swags and pockets, stiffener and pads to make her look beautiful. She needed clothing instead that hugged her lucious body and showed us all how very female she was.
Now translate that man's designs onto your body or mine. Bodies with hips and breasts, butts and thighs. The kind of bodies men drool for, even if culture has made them afraid to admit it, and we'd look like absurd caricatures of women. Our generous hips with swags and points sticking out would protrude ridiculously. The frills up front would billow out before us like sails at full mast on a tall ship. Like old time war ships we'd pilot our way about the world in these absurd get-ups, pretending all the while that we're superior in some way because we're wearing "haute couture" for which we ransomed our futures, and the future of our children who will starve themselves to death trying to emulate impossible standards.
Go forth and feed thyself. Hips and buttocks, breasts and thighs, they're good for you and sexy too. Just don't eat yourself into discomfort. Fitness matters all the same.

A happy thing

The Uncultured Project is a project by a young Canadian. One glance at him and you know he's a child of immigrants to Canada. I've been seeing this happen here and there. People leave behind their difficult nation due to war, or poverty, or just wanting their children to have a better life! Those children do have a better life. Canada opens her arms to these people and they give back with time, effort, and their families. That alone is lovely, good people who become good neighbors, pay taxes, work hard, and provide their skills to our society. But then, oh then, the miracles start to happen. Their children take this bounty we've shared and use it to give back to their ancestral countries!

When we let in immigrants we not only give those specific families a home, but we eventually wind up giving yet more aid, via these improved family fortunes, to our brothers and sisters in need elsewhere! It may be simply the act of sending money "home" to the old country to help the family there, or in situations like this fine young man, charity projects that target directly back to the problem issues and work with much deeper understanding to find solutions. These first generation canadians have a much deeper understanding and compassion because they are raised with the culture of these countries. They much better understand the people and their needs and wants. They know more deeply how close they came to living there in hopelessness and poverty. yet because of the excellent education, nutrition, security and comfort they've been raised up to in Canada, they have much vaster resources to tap in helping to lift all people out of bestial ignorance, sorrow, and despair.

We cannot eliminate sorrow, to do so would be to graduate from life and we no longer would have use for living. But we can eliminate despair, because despair is when you cannot see a point, an end, or any value in the struggle. That need not be. Everyone can access the higher truths that put beauty in the mud and purpose in the pain. When you reach out to smile at someone, or something, even yourself, you make a beginning towards this.

Last night a curious gentleman of long experience shared a writing with us in sing-song. He spoke of the gospel of St. Theresa. Granted it's much more accessible to the christian community, but the message, that was accessible by all. It was simply that whatever you do, when you pay kindness to the details, you bless the world, you bless Life, you bless all things. So even if the thing you are doing is no less mundane than washing dishes, doing so with joy and purpose lifts the world even as it lifts your spirits and your soap suds.

It's kind of along the lines of the Butterfly Principle. Think of it as thus: There is energy in your soul. there is energy in the water. There is energy in the fabric of the dishes and tools with which you are working. The quality and tone of the energy you add to the scene while doing your task, is then transmitted via these fabrics and energies, to the connecting items all around, both physically and spiritually. You infect the world with your mood!

Consider this anecdote recently related to Annie's Mailbox last week. A man wrote in about his solution to not taking his workplace stress home with him. His job, which was important to him and his future, was also causing him a great deal of anger and grief. Each night before coming in, he went to a tree in his yard and held on, projecting into it all his negativity. This lightened him, and in a year, tragically killed the tree which turned brown and died. Now how often do spruce trees on the lawn just up and die in one year anyway? How likely is it coincidence? How likely is it that the tree was killed by his moods? This story illustrates that what you do and feel always affects what is around you, however animate it may or may not be. So focus your mind on things that are to your advantage and joy, and keep them foremost in your mind even as you watch for and worry at problems to be solved.

Have the courage to change the things you can, the serenity to accept the things you cannot change, and pay attention to recognize the difference.

unkind thoughts

I was watching a wealthy woman happily detail her fortunes on television. Her face had the unmistakeable look of cosmetic surgery overload and she seemed very pleased with herself and eager to show us why. I heard myself thinking unkind things at her. Insulting her appearance, her lifestyle, her personality, anything I could. Jealousy of course. LOL, I scan see that. Then upon further reflection other things came to mind about her possible upbringing and history. That's when I realized another reason we cast aspersions. When we say something like that someone was probably treated badly as a child or struggled with addiction as a youth, or other such things, it's not necessarily that we're trying to be insulting and bring the person down to the level we percieve ourselves to be, in contrast with our perception of them. You see someone with better fortunes, it's easy to think they're somehow better people. Then we think of why they aren't. Then we think of them suffering trials in the past. That last thought process is the one that makes the most sense and redeems the previous thoughts. At that point we're reconciling that the person has likely earned their current fortune by meeting past challenges. After all, is there anything worse than witnessing another person living an undeserved charmed life and acting as though their good fortune is proof of merit?
And then there's my good fortune. I've been on the other side for so long! I wasn't poor as a child, well, my family wasn't. I watched my parents cheat and scrimp in equal measure to buy the luxuries we and they enjoyed. I lost a lot of respect watching them do some of the things they did to stretch a dollar, actually. There's cheap, and then there's dishonest, and they went a little too far. In respect that they are my parents I won't elaborate on the world wide web, but it still shames me to remember the pettiness. Yes, it was always petty, very much so. But how can a parent instill honesty in the children while excusing dishonesty in one's own life?
So now I'm not broke. I'm still walking the line financially, LOL, but that's because we can't afford the new car, not really, but bought it anyway, and you all know how that works. You buy what you can get away with buying then struggle and worry to catch up with your own foolishness. If you're lucky, you pull it off and that's how most of us get along. If you're unlucky, the cards tumble and you have to pick up the pieces. Don't anybody sneeze.... Yet sometimes I wonder if God is going to notice I'm not struggling like I did all those years after I left my parents home.
Well so it's an old habit to dis people who are better off than me and now that I'm better off than me, it's hard to accept that maybe I actually deserve it for learning to cope with the poverty I had, to do it with some grace and flare, and learn to stop hating it, which I did about as well as one could. I think I thought more often of what I was fortunate to have than of what I lacked that others took for granted. I recognized my fortunes.
Ok, done rambling. Here's a video of cute bunnies going to bed for the night: