"Shell Out, Shell Out - the witches are out."
They are also alive and well and living in Bradford, Ontario.
Today I consider myself to be more bitch than witch, because I know better. While trying to think of something witty and clever in keeping with the season, I realize that somewhere along the line I have traded my festive witchiness for bitchiness. Having said this, I decided to try and find out where I left the ghostess-with-the-mostess.
I used to love Halloween! Other than Christmas, which was a bit of a wait-and-see affair, at least I was a willing participant with some input in the costume department. Halloween was one of those calendar events where nobody threatened you with being good, or else! (Or else what? The presents have been in the bedroom closet for two months.) No going to bed early, no snow to contend with and being scary and scared was what it was all about. It was almost expected that you had to have at least one trick up the sleeve you were dragging on the ground or else what was the point? Besides the free eats. After all, there were houses to egg, pumpkins to smash and windows to soap. It was the one night of the year you could let loose and nobody gave a rat's ass.
That was before I saw the light, or rather praying for either the last kid to traipse up the porch stairs or my pail of overpriced, overprocessed and overwrapped treats gave out. Today I can't wait to douse the porchlight and lock 'er up for the night. To close my curtains and 'pretend' I wasn't at home. This coming from the kid who lived for those Hammer Films reruns on late night TV. The first turning leaf of fall meant scanning the weekly TV Guide for Charlie Brown and his Great Pumpkin. Long before the first B-B-Bat or marshmallow broom hit the stores (whatever happened to those anyway?) I could be found at my mother's Singer sewing machine with her scrap bag beside me trying to create something original and stunning for the school costume competition.
My parents tried to weigh in on this every year. One year my dad got his way, dressed me up in one of his old hockey jerseys and toted me around the block. He insisted on lots of red food colouring around my eyes and nose because, as a former hockey player, his only kid, who was unfortunately a girl, had to hit the road as a goalie that year. I was not impressed. Only a year earlier it was my mother who dressed me up as a leprachuan and doused me with - you guessed it - GREEN food colouring. Much more suitable for St. Paddy's day than Halloween, but I walked away with the kinder prize for best costume. Then I was finally old enough to travel the darkened streets of Oshawa with my friends like packs of wolves, our pillow cases bulging with sugary booty. I got even. Enough with the cutesy shit! My costumes were ghoulish, bordering on psychotic and way ahead of their time. Those were the days when I had a figure like Morticia Addams and could pull off black without it being sexist. My ghosts rattled real chains. My skeleton's bones came from the butcher, were boiled for hours then shellaced. My mother would shake her head and plead with me to be a clown or a princess, or wear my angel costume from the previous year's Christmas play. Nothing doing - let that be a lesson to you parents - there is such a thing as too cute!
Of course, every little boil and ghoul has to grow up. Usually when they discover the opposite sex. In my case, it was an older boy who played hockey in a league my dad coached. I think I remember the moment it happened. It went something like this: (handsome God-like boy comes to my dad's house and catches me trying on costume and comments) "Dressing up for trick-or-treat...awe, isn't that cute!" There was that cute word again. Came back to bite me in the ass. That was the moment I gave up costuming for bra-stuffing and never packed a pillow case again.
The years rolled by. I found myself escorting my godchildren up and down the streets of Oshawa in their home made costumes. By this time, the merchandisers had started hauling out the plastic pumpkins at the end of July, the way they roll out the Christmas decorations at the end of September. It's shoved at you for months until you're just so sick of it that you want it to be over. I realized the thrill was gone when I found myself answering the door and staring UP at the trick-or-treaters. Home alone and the stranger on the porch is dressed like Jason and is the size of Tebow - handing out the snacks becomes more of survival technique than active participation. Then they vault off my porch, run across my grass and jump my fence. Must be all that sugar. I look down my street and see police cars patrolling, the mother of the tot toddling up the driveway in his Darth Vader outfit is concerned about preservatives. I get a dirty look if I don't offer a nut/gluten/sugar/something-else/free option. Trust me, it just wasn't like that in the good old days.
It is any wonder why I can't wait to unplug my plastic pumpkin and shoo the buggers back down the driveway - from which I have to move out two cars every year so the little darlings can get to the door.
Tonight will be no different. In the wake of having to secure the cats in the bedroom, eat an early supper (which I hate!) dig out the batteries for the flashing skull and try to find an extension cord long enough for the electric pumpkin, I will bitch and grumble. I am also aware that due to hurricane Sandy, more rain is forecast and there is a strong possibility that Halloween may become Hallo-wasn't.
And in some way, the part of me who laboured for weeks over the ragged, red lace neckline of my Anne Boleyn costume will be a little sad.
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Pass The Shovel! Digging Up The Family Tree.
"Find Your Anecestors."
"Where do you come from?"
"Start Your Own Family Tree."
AT all costs, do NOT get sucked into this.
Perhaps it's because we live in a country of immigrants. Except for the native peoples or aboriginals or whatever the government is democratically calling them these days, we are ALL from somewhere. And, being human, we just can't resist the Pandora's Box of what may lie inside if we open the lid. Were our ancestors famous? Royal? Heros? Horse Thieves? The best thing I can say is that they were driven by passion. That's the romantic side of me covering up for what they really were - a bunch of hot-headed, war-mongering, Alpha males driven by their gonads, lacking any kind of moral fibre, and full of the other kind of fibre.
Now a family tree, like a real tree has roots, a trunk, branches and leaves. As the unofficial family geneologist, I consider myself the trunk whose mission it is to connect the branches to the roots. The branches and leaves of my family tree extend far and wide, some of them too many to count. The roots are a different matter. Any gardener knows if you start poking around the roots of anything you will find grubs, worms, insects, rot and disease. Many a tree has fluorished in shaky ground. Mine is no exception. In fact, I'm surprised lightning hasn't struck and burned the whole thing back to the stump! (Aren't we full of metaphors today!)
This is a cautionary tale of what happens when your curiosity gets the better of you. Remember the cat?
My curiosity was benignly militaristic. I have (had) a number of family members who were in the Armed Forces during the big conflicts which involved our country under the Crown. (That was pre-Trudeau!) With the many anniversaries revolving around major battles - Hong Kong, Dieppe, Vimy - I decided to contact the Department of National Defence (DND) and Veterans Affairs to see if I could obtain copies of my collective grandfather's service records.
The thing is, like Forrest Gump's box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get.
You see, when you signed any kind of military/governemnt document, you automatically forfeited your right to privacy - much like today. So you had to put down your parents, siblings, family members, wives and/or common-law wives and assorted children as dependents.
And that's when the skeletons fell out of my closet and bit me in the Ass.
Oh, Edna! Oh, Albert! Naughty, naughty! What a tangled, little web. Proof positive that the current
generation did NOT invent sex. Clearly, even without t.v. and video games and with the drudge of wringer washers and mopping floors, you found the time for other things. Did you ever stop to think that 80 or 90 years down the road, your future generations would end up having to re-write their own history? I now understand how Marty McFly felt in Back To The Future. If I were to open up the dozens of photo albums in my possession, would I find half of my family slowly fading into oblivion all because of one little omission? Would my revelation, in essence, change the future? Would names cease to exist, birthdates be eliminated? Are these too many questions to ask? Not funny, Bertie.
As I have yet to inform the pertinent family members of my discoveries, I'll leave out the gory details. I'm not really certain I should say anything to anyone and keep my discoveries to myself. I'm not into opening up cans of worms anymore. I would rather the world keep blindly turning at it's own pace since it's worked fine so far. I therefore have decided to keep my secrets and re-bury the skeletons deep. One side of the fence can keep showering their leaves, procreate like rabbits and scatter their progeny across the earth. Be fruitful and multiply...I shall snicker and not speak ill of the dead.
I will give you one final tribute, Bertie, and that is I believe I have inherited your Machiavellian sense of how to manipulate a plot. Comes in real handy when I'm trying to rescue what we writers call a "sagging middle" or a "blah ending." Proof that fact really is stranger than fiction.
The other side of my family tree is just as evil and unrepentent. Really Robert? FIVE cases of syphillis? It's incredible that you managed to decorate yourself out of the trenches at Vimy. It sounds like you spent the Great War fucking your way across France. It's a wonder you had any time to do enough fighting to win those medals. Don't get me started on the still. Oh well, they say God suffers idiots and drunkards. The fact that you managed to make it back to Rossmore alive lays to rest any doubt about that. Sir William must have been spinning in grave. However, when examining more closely your own Scot's ancestry, you behaved no more or less nobly than one would expect with your blue blood and noble heritage. It is men like you who gave Scotland it's greatest myths and legends. Your tribute ends with a line from the great John Ford film The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a pile of bodies and a whole lot of digging to do.......
"Where do you come from?"
"Start Your Own Family Tree."
AT all costs, do NOT get sucked into this.
Perhaps it's because we live in a country of immigrants. Except for the native peoples or aboriginals or whatever the government is democratically calling them these days, we are ALL from somewhere. And, being human, we just can't resist the Pandora's Box of what may lie inside if we open the lid. Were our ancestors famous? Royal? Heros? Horse Thieves? The best thing I can say is that they were driven by passion. That's the romantic side of me covering up for what they really were - a bunch of hot-headed, war-mongering, Alpha males driven by their gonads, lacking any kind of moral fibre, and full of the other kind of fibre.
Now a family tree, like a real tree has roots, a trunk, branches and leaves. As the unofficial family geneologist, I consider myself the trunk whose mission it is to connect the branches to the roots. The branches and leaves of my family tree extend far and wide, some of them too many to count. The roots are a different matter. Any gardener knows if you start poking around the roots of anything you will find grubs, worms, insects, rot and disease. Many a tree has fluorished in shaky ground. Mine is no exception. In fact, I'm surprised lightning hasn't struck and burned the whole thing back to the stump! (Aren't we full of metaphors today!)
This is a cautionary tale of what happens when your curiosity gets the better of you. Remember the cat?
My curiosity was benignly militaristic. I have (had) a number of family members who were in the Armed Forces during the big conflicts which involved our country under the Crown. (That was pre-Trudeau!) With the many anniversaries revolving around major battles - Hong Kong, Dieppe, Vimy - I decided to contact the Department of National Defence (DND) and Veterans Affairs to see if I could obtain copies of my collective grandfather's service records.
The thing is, like Forrest Gump's box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get.
You see, when you signed any kind of military/governemnt document, you automatically forfeited your right to privacy - much like today. So you had to put down your parents, siblings, family members, wives and/or common-law wives and assorted children as dependents.
And that's when the skeletons fell out of my closet and bit me in the Ass.
Oh, Edna! Oh, Albert! Naughty, naughty! What a tangled, little web. Proof positive that the current
generation did NOT invent sex. Clearly, even without t.v. and video games and with the drudge of wringer washers and mopping floors, you found the time for other things. Did you ever stop to think that 80 or 90 years down the road, your future generations would end up having to re-write their own history? I now understand how Marty McFly felt in Back To The Future. If I were to open up the dozens of photo albums in my possession, would I find half of my family slowly fading into oblivion all because of one little omission? Would my revelation, in essence, change the future? Would names cease to exist, birthdates be eliminated? Are these too many questions to ask? Not funny, Bertie.
As I have yet to inform the pertinent family members of my discoveries, I'll leave out the gory details. I'm not really certain I should say anything to anyone and keep my discoveries to myself. I'm not into opening up cans of worms anymore. I would rather the world keep blindly turning at it's own pace since it's worked fine so far. I therefore have decided to keep my secrets and re-bury the skeletons deep. One side of the fence can keep showering their leaves, procreate like rabbits and scatter their progeny across the earth. Be fruitful and multiply...I shall snicker and not speak ill of the dead.
I will give you one final tribute, Bertie, and that is I believe I have inherited your Machiavellian sense of how to manipulate a plot. Comes in real handy when I'm trying to rescue what we writers call a "sagging middle" or a "blah ending." Proof that fact really is stranger than fiction.
The other side of my family tree is just as evil and unrepentent. Really Robert? FIVE cases of syphillis? It's incredible that you managed to decorate yourself out of the trenches at Vimy. It sounds like you spent the Great War fucking your way across France. It's a wonder you had any time to do enough fighting to win those medals. Don't get me started on the still. Oh well, they say God suffers idiots and drunkards. The fact that you managed to make it back to Rossmore alive lays to rest any doubt about that. Sir William must have been spinning in grave. However, when examining more closely your own Scot's ancestry, you behaved no more or less nobly than one would expect with your blue blood and noble heritage. It is men like you who gave Scotland it's greatest myths and legends. Your tribute ends with a line from the great John Ford film The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a pile of bodies and a whole lot of digging to do.......
Friday, March 16, 2012
Diddlyi'm Irish!
Happy National Irish-Canadian Day aka St. Patrick's Day!
Yes, I'm Irish - waaaaay back - on my mother's side. I thought I'd take this opportunity to express exactly what it means to be Irish, or at least, be blessed/cursed with an Irish heritage since I'm not strictly limited to being green one day a year.
Yes, I'm a redhead.
Yes, I have a miserable, rotten temper - at times.
And, yes, the gift of gab and a love of telling tales in definitely in my blood.
So, to begin with, here is a primer of ME, the Irish woman.
Yes, I was named after an Irish ballad, "I'll take you home again, Kathleen." It's an incredibly sad, teary tale usually only warbled late in the day on the 17th of March by people who have been convinced by voices they hear coming from their pints of green beer that they can, without a doubt carry a tune and that anyone within hearing distance must also be convinced of same.
Sucky, but true.
Many years ago when I was offered my first publishing contract, a little clause called "Author's Pseudonym" popped up on about page 34. I thought long and hard about what to call myself. The answer came yet again from the green Isle. Chevon Gael. It is originally spelled 'Siobhan', in Gaelic, and nobody, drunk or sober, can manage to pronounce it properly. In the Irish language it means "The Woman" and "Gael" is, of course the Gaelic word for "Irish." Hence, the literal translation of Chevon Gael is 'The Irish Woman.' End of Gaelic lesson for today. If I ever become famous enough in the literary fashion to be known only as Chevon Gael, it is entirely possible that my forename, Kathleen, may disappear completely. I used to think about this because I thought it was important to know what name to put on my grave marker. Since this decision takes up too much time which I don't have anyway, I have decided that "Here Lies An Author" is sufficent.
So, what does it mean to be Irish? There are two explanations: what the world believes is Irish, through the stereotyping, advertising, myths, legends and often general misconceptions of those who are non-Irish - and the rest of us who actually are Irish.
For instance:
Irishmen do not smell like mint, clear flowing streams and fresh grass. Your typical Irishman heads to the pub after a hard day of slogging it out and the first thing that hits you is the rank combination of sweat and stale cigarettes. Add to that a few pints of brew and the flatulence of kippers and blood pudding at breakfast, a cold lamb and relish on black bread for lunch washed down with a generous glass of buttermilk and a fried something or another for supper - along with whatever was noshed down at tea - and you have an aroma which cannot be described in any little green bar of soap. Depending on the season and back in the day, this scent was often enhanced by wet, boiled wool and sheep shit caked to the wellies. You get the picture! NO MORE GREEN SOAP. I have, on occasion, heard it been said that modern Irish women consider their average man to smell like old socks and pussy! And that ain't special.
Next on my list:
We are jingoistic, popish drunkards. False! Not all of us are Catholic.
Like any race and nation in the world we have great standouts and also things we deserve to hang our heads over. Here are just a few:
Guinness - GREAT - the best meal of the day
Riverdance - well...it seemed like a good idea at the time.
Michael Flatley - we are SOOOO sorry!
Jonathan Rys Davies - you're welcome!
Oscar Wilde - First in coming out of the closet.
Bram Stoker - he did it first, he did it best.
The Famine - yes, we had a holocaust too except we didn't have the money to keep advertising.
The Kennedys - jury's still out on that one.
Leprechauns - once and for all, they're shoemakers, damnit! Get over it.
Pot Of Gold - just chocolate, my darlings. Sorry.
Corned Beef and Cabbage - flatulence, part 2.
Potatoes - carbs, carbs and more carbs. Deadly if you add butter, sour cream and melted cheese. (In Kay-bec, they fry it up and call it Poo-tine. Only a Frenchman would start a meal with the word 'shit'.)
Green Beer - Every Irishman on the planet has a BOLO out on the asshole who came up with that idea. Including me.
John Ford - thank you for "The Quiet Man" and "The Informer."
John Wayne - thank you for NOT attempting an Irish accent.
Tom Cruise - waiting for you in a dark alley!!!!
Bono and U2 - again, you're welcome.
Celtic Woman - upholstery in harmony.
The Irish Tenors - can beat the crap out of Il Divo.
Wakes - gatherings where everyone drinks, including the corpse, and somebody always starts a fight.
Maureen O'Hara - National Treasure
"Danny Boy" - melody origin is unknown but the words were written by an Englishman - Oh, the agony!
Drinking songs, dancing songs, crying songs - damn, were good!
EXCEPT - The Irish Rovers - I hate that fucking Unicorn song with a passion.
...and also including, but not limited to: horseracing, golf, lacemaking, roses, the book of Kells, castles, The Temple Bar area of Dublin, Jameson Whiskey and Waterford Crystal.
The final lesson of the day: The national colour is BLUE, not green. The national symbol is the HARP, not the shamrock and St. Patrick was a foreigner for crissakes.
All in all however, we are pretty good at making a name for ourselves, even if that name is only remembered once a year - hey, just like Christmas but with less angst.
So, as you head out to the pub today with your shamrock pinned to your vest and that nightmarish green dollar store tie around your neck, remember this:
"May the road rise to meet you, may the wind be at your back, may the dew settle softly on your fields and may you be an hour in Heaven before the devil knows you're dead."
Chevon
Yes, I'm Irish - waaaaay back - on my mother's side. I thought I'd take this opportunity to express exactly what it means to be Irish, or at least, be blessed/cursed with an Irish heritage since I'm not strictly limited to being green one day a year.
Yes, I'm a redhead.
Yes, I have a miserable, rotten temper - at times.
And, yes, the gift of gab and a love of telling tales in definitely in my blood.
So, to begin with, here is a primer of ME, the Irish woman.
Yes, I was named after an Irish ballad, "I'll take you home again, Kathleen." It's an incredibly sad, teary tale usually only warbled late in the day on the 17th of March by people who have been convinced by voices they hear coming from their pints of green beer that they can, without a doubt carry a tune and that anyone within hearing distance must also be convinced of same.
Sucky, but true.
Many years ago when I was offered my first publishing contract, a little clause called "Author's Pseudonym" popped up on about page 34. I thought long and hard about what to call myself. The answer came yet again from the green Isle. Chevon Gael. It is originally spelled 'Siobhan', in Gaelic, and nobody, drunk or sober, can manage to pronounce it properly. In the Irish language it means "The Woman" and "Gael" is, of course the Gaelic word for "Irish." Hence, the literal translation of Chevon Gael is 'The Irish Woman.' End of Gaelic lesson for today. If I ever become famous enough in the literary fashion to be known only as Chevon Gael, it is entirely possible that my forename, Kathleen, may disappear completely. I used to think about this because I thought it was important to know what name to put on my grave marker. Since this decision takes up too much time which I don't have anyway, I have decided that "Here Lies An Author" is sufficent.
So, what does it mean to be Irish? There are two explanations: what the world believes is Irish, through the stereotyping, advertising, myths, legends and often general misconceptions of those who are non-Irish - and the rest of us who actually are Irish.
For instance:
Irishmen do not smell like mint, clear flowing streams and fresh grass. Your typical Irishman heads to the pub after a hard day of slogging it out and the first thing that hits you is the rank combination of sweat and stale cigarettes. Add to that a few pints of brew and the flatulence of kippers and blood pudding at breakfast, a cold lamb and relish on black bread for lunch washed down with a generous glass of buttermilk and a fried something or another for supper - along with whatever was noshed down at tea - and you have an aroma which cannot be described in any little green bar of soap. Depending on the season and back in the day, this scent was often enhanced by wet, boiled wool and sheep shit caked to the wellies. You get the picture! NO MORE GREEN SOAP. I have, on occasion, heard it been said that modern Irish women consider their average man to smell like old socks and pussy! And that ain't special.
Next on my list:
We are jingoistic, popish drunkards. False! Not all of us are Catholic.
Like any race and nation in the world we have great standouts and also things we deserve to hang our heads over. Here are just a few:
Guinness - GREAT - the best meal of the day
Riverdance - well...it seemed like a good idea at the time.
Michael Flatley - we are SOOOO sorry!
Jonathan Rys Davies - you're welcome!
Oscar Wilde - First in coming out of the closet.
Bram Stoker - he did it first, he did it best.
The Famine - yes, we had a holocaust too except we didn't have the money to keep advertising.
The Kennedys - jury's still out on that one.
Leprechauns - once and for all, they're shoemakers, damnit! Get over it.
Pot Of Gold - just chocolate, my darlings. Sorry.
Corned Beef and Cabbage - flatulence, part 2.
Potatoes - carbs, carbs and more carbs. Deadly if you add butter, sour cream and melted cheese. (In Kay-bec, they fry it up and call it Poo-tine. Only a Frenchman would start a meal with the word 'shit'.)
Green Beer - Every Irishman on the planet has a BOLO out on the asshole who came up with that idea. Including me.
John Ford - thank you for "The Quiet Man" and "The Informer."
John Wayne - thank you for NOT attempting an Irish accent.
Tom Cruise - waiting for you in a dark alley!!!!
Bono and U2 - again, you're welcome.
Celtic Woman - upholstery in harmony.
The Irish Tenors - can beat the crap out of Il Divo.
Wakes - gatherings where everyone drinks, including the corpse, and somebody always starts a fight.
Maureen O'Hara - National Treasure
"Danny Boy" - melody origin is unknown but the words were written by an Englishman - Oh, the agony!
Drinking songs, dancing songs, crying songs - damn, were good!
EXCEPT - The Irish Rovers - I hate that fucking Unicorn song with a passion.
...and also including, but not limited to: horseracing, golf, lacemaking, roses, the book of Kells, castles, The Temple Bar area of Dublin, Jameson Whiskey and Waterford Crystal.
The final lesson of the day: The national colour is BLUE, not green. The national symbol is the HARP, not the shamrock and St. Patrick was a foreigner for crissakes.
All in all however, we are pretty good at making a name for ourselves, even if that name is only remembered once a year - hey, just like Christmas but with less angst.
So, as you head out to the pub today with your shamrock pinned to your vest and that nightmarish green dollar store tie around your neck, remember this:
"May the road rise to meet you, may the wind be at your back, may the dew settle softly on your fields and may you be an hour in Heaven before the devil knows you're dead."
Chevon
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