Thursday, July 23, 2009
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
It's Better to Know
Hubby was outside washing the truck, I was watching Hell's Kitchen on T.V. The door opened and it was Brandon and I could hear hubby outside, "come outside, you need to come outside now".
At the edge of the driveway stood hubby, with a shovel, with a huge black ball of fur, with little white tufts poking out of it's curled body. It was Sylvester.
The neighbour came over and said there was a horrid smell coming from behind their storage shed. It was him. Not broken, not chewed, not ripped apart and bleeding. He was curled up, silent. Hubby said his neck seemed loose when he shoveled him up, but he didn't want to look anymore. I asked were his eyes open, shut. He didn't know. The smell was overpowering.
We buried him topside the creek nearby, near the huge tree that gives lots of shade and protection from the sun, and the coyotes. In the Fall the tree will shed it's leaves on him, covering him over and over again as each season will pass, until he is turned into dark, rich soil, feeding the plant life and sustaining the salmon creek below. He would have liked that.
He was 17 years old. He was my cat. And I loved him.
At the edge of the driveway stood hubby, with a shovel, with a huge black ball of fur, with little white tufts poking out of it's curled body. It was Sylvester.
The neighbour came over and said there was a horrid smell coming from behind their storage shed. It was him. Not broken, not chewed, not ripped apart and bleeding. He was curled up, silent. Hubby said his neck seemed loose when he shoveled him up, but he didn't want to look anymore. I asked were his eyes open, shut. He didn't know. The smell was overpowering.
We buried him topside the creek nearby, near the huge tree that gives lots of shade and protection from the sun, and the coyotes. In the Fall the tree will shed it's leaves on him, covering him over and over again as each season will pass, until he is turned into dark, rich soil, feeding the plant life and sustaining the salmon creek below. He would have liked that.
He was 17 years old. He was my cat. And I loved him.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Back to Higher Grounds
I didn't know he had brought a woman with them until I stepped out of the tent and into the morning breath of the lake. I heard her voice, but I wasn't certain where it came from. It didn't project in a manner one is used to hearing of a woman's voice; crisp, feminine, clean. This voice sounded dirty, far away, and drunk.
Steven brought her to our camp site for the day, promising to take her boating, and knowing Steven, she probably anticipated a large yacht with endless drink. But at 9:30 in the morning, she had past the point when it didn't matter, sleepy-eyed with Bloody Mary stains already on the front of her green blouse. She couldn't keep her head held up, it bobbed sideways and forward and back, as she spoke, her face aged and limp, excess skin flapped where her cheeks should have been and her eyes drooped in and out of consciousness.
Steven is also drunk and can barely stand up without swaying to the beat of his heart, which amazingly still pumps, despite the alcohol poisoning. He is skinner and we know this means he's drinking heavily again, not eating, not sleeping. He seeks out sex with whomever will have it with him, and it usually is the likes of this woman here now, pissing away my expensive suntan lotion over the boozy stink of her shoulders and arms, preparing for the sun in the whispers of insanity.
She has scabies or herpes or ringworm, something on her skin doesn't look right. I'm not certain which one it is. But I do know it's not normal to have sores on the skin, open wounds, which are now lathered in sunblock. Did she know what day it was. Did she even know it was morning. For all I wanted to say, but didn't, was how could you be so drunk already on this fine Saturday morning.
I don't know if Sabrina and Brandon understand what's happening, do they realize this woman is not normal, or that we've got company. They are happily playing in the park nearby, swinging, diving down the slide, hidden from the realities of stretches of time and hurt and what it does to one's body. I don't want to be like that, ever. I wish, a little, there had been a slide for the kids at home. You can't run away from time, but you can hide it's mistakes, sometimes even pretend they're miracles. Or blame it on the rain.
By the time we're in the middle of the lake she has already passed out. Her head is propped backwards, her hair is wallowing in the wind, curly like the wake of the boat, splashing and spurning white lather. It has only taken us mere seconds to reach the center of the lake, the motor has sung it's lullaby to her, and the kids are shouting for the wake board to sail them above the watery depths. I turn the music up louder, surround sounds of heavy metal guitars and drums, all seven of us captured in the tiny frame of the speedboat, where there should only be four. Somehow the music made it better, made it safer.
She awakens to the pop of a cooler bottle, as I release one cap after the other, pop, pop, the fizz escaping like a genie, her eyes widen as she receives this offering from me, a perfect stranger. We have only just met, yet I know everything about her, everything I need to know. She is content with this boat trip, and probably will have sex tonight with Steven, his reward for taking her to a place she has never gone before.
Deep in the bouncing flickers of light, like ghost flickers, guarding the mountains and cliffs bearing white crosses where divers have plunged to their deaths, she keeps her eyes open just long enough to witness their last moment.
Darren, the other hapless soul, decides to wear a lifejacket and mistakenly puts on Sabrina's. He doesn't realize it's too small, only being comforted by a floating device that's supposed to save his ass because he's convinced we're all going to drown. He frantically pulls the safety buckles together, yanking at them so that they connect, but they do not reach, his waist is much too large for this jacket. He finally resolves to death-gripping both sides, until I pass him a drink, the jacket suddenly flaps open in the wind's current and his mouth is now soothed by the bitters of the flavoured cider.
He is more normal than most drunks. He's a half drunk, knowing when to start and stop drinking, knowing where the money is that pays for the booze and the meals, and the girls. At this point I'm wondering about this woman, and where she came from.........and who she came with.
There are other boats on the lake and they have already stirred up a chop, small churnings of the water that can propel a high speedboat into a hammer. The backs of the my legs are bruised from the banging of the waves, as I crash in my seat, uncontrollably bouncing in the air, kept in the boat by the sheer grace of gravity. I turn back to make sure she' still there, alive. Occasionally, she will open her eyes and smile, holding tightly to her bottle, missing her mouth by inches, the cider flies out to the tow line that links Sabrina to me. This is all too much now. I can't have this, I can't have this person here, enjoying my day, enjoying my time. This was supposed to be about me.
Sabrina holds on and motions thumbs up and wants to go faster. But I can't watch her and drive and think and worry and ponder and be angry and give up at the same time. I push the throttle forward, faster and faster until we are no longer boating. We are now flying. And Sabrina is smiling like an angel, like the God's have smiled down on her pretty face and said, "today, you will see what we see".
The boat begins to crackle on the waves and I've become aware I'm the only one not smiling, but I'm also the only one driving and can feel the uncertainty beneath the gears gripped by my hand. We are going too fast and I pull the throttle back down, hard, as we dead stop into a large wave approaching Sabrina's path.
She rips the goggles away from her face, furious we have stopped and yells that we've just missed a good one. The wave passes us and she rocks up and down, as Daniel tows in the rope bringing her closer to mother's relief and buoyancy. He recognizes, as any good palm reader would, I am not enjoying this ride and proposes we all go back for more cider, and without even discussing it, Darren and the woman are abandoned on the lake shore.
Darren jumps off the boat, jeans and running shoes intact, while she flops into the floating tube, just barely, and spreads herself out for balance. She looks like starfish, pink arms and legs protruding overboard like dead weight. We can't bring the boat too close to shore because the rocks will damage the hull, and we slowly release the rope, allowing the tube and it's cargo to float to the sandy beach. Steven wants to stay on and go for a ride, a faster ride. He never used to be this brave.
We start the motors, one, then two, taking the boat out of neutral, and within seconds we have once again escaped to the liquid sun, camouflaged by the reflection of ancient craters, monuments Steven will undoubtedly forget because I already hear pop, pop, pop.
The lake shore pushes away from us, until it curves and loses itself into hidden harbours and evergreen forests, until we are deep in the lake and horizon blue, with not a cloud in the sky, nor the woman.
Steven is so fulfilled to be with us, in this time and place, didn't matter where or how or when or what, he bursts into rants of yester-years, releasing bits of contorted memories. He still thinks we're related by marriage, though it has long since entrenched itself up on the ridge wth the other divers. Daniel and I are merely acquaintances of someone else's vows, where he won't let go and won't let us forget.
As Sabrina carves into the water, slicing it into two, we are also content to have Steven with us right now, both who are infecting us with gallant laughter. Brandon doesn't want a turn. He's still afraid of letting go and being tossed amongst the fishes and seaweed and monsters, and as we steady ourselves to catch another breath, Steven requests that we take him back......back to Darren and the woman, where he belongs.
And as he stumbles and trips over rocks, falling into the water, rushing, surging to the shore, I realize he has finally let go. Darren pulls him up and carries him out like he's a wounded soldier, battered by the realities of life and family, and they disappear into the trail ushering them back to their existences, back to higher grounds.
Steven brought her to our camp site for the day, promising to take her boating, and knowing Steven, she probably anticipated a large yacht with endless drink. But at 9:30 in the morning, she had past the point when it didn't matter, sleepy-eyed with Bloody Mary stains already on the front of her green blouse. She couldn't keep her head held up, it bobbed sideways and forward and back, as she spoke, her face aged and limp, excess skin flapped where her cheeks should have been and her eyes drooped in and out of consciousness.
Steven is also drunk and can barely stand up without swaying to the beat of his heart, which amazingly still pumps, despite the alcohol poisoning. He is skinner and we know this means he's drinking heavily again, not eating, not sleeping. He seeks out sex with whomever will have it with him, and it usually is the likes of this woman here now, pissing away my expensive suntan lotion over the boozy stink of her shoulders and arms, preparing for the sun in the whispers of insanity.
She has scabies or herpes or ringworm, something on her skin doesn't look right. I'm not certain which one it is. But I do know it's not normal to have sores on the skin, open wounds, which are now lathered in sunblock. Did she know what day it was. Did she even know it was morning. For all I wanted to say, but didn't, was how could you be so drunk already on this fine Saturday morning.
I don't know if Sabrina and Brandon understand what's happening, do they realize this woman is not normal, or that we've got company. They are happily playing in the park nearby, swinging, diving down the slide, hidden from the realities of stretches of time and hurt and what it does to one's body. I don't want to be like that, ever. I wish, a little, there had been a slide for the kids at home. You can't run away from time, but you can hide it's mistakes, sometimes even pretend they're miracles. Or blame it on the rain.
By the time we're in the middle of the lake she has already passed out. Her head is propped backwards, her hair is wallowing in the wind, curly like the wake of the boat, splashing and spurning white lather. It has only taken us mere seconds to reach the center of the lake, the motor has sung it's lullaby to her, and the kids are shouting for the wake board to sail them above the watery depths. I turn the music up louder, surround sounds of heavy metal guitars and drums, all seven of us captured in the tiny frame of the speedboat, where there should only be four. Somehow the music made it better, made it safer.
She awakens to the pop of a cooler bottle, as I release one cap after the other, pop, pop, the fizz escaping like a genie, her eyes widen as she receives this offering from me, a perfect stranger. We have only just met, yet I know everything about her, everything I need to know. She is content with this boat trip, and probably will have sex tonight with Steven, his reward for taking her to a place she has never gone before.
Deep in the bouncing flickers of light, like ghost flickers, guarding the mountains and cliffs bearing white crosses where divers have plunged to their deaths, she keeps her eyes open just long enough to witness their last moment.
Darren, the other hapless soul, decides to wear a lifejacket and mistakenly puts on Sabrina's. He doesn't realize it's too small, only being comforted by a floating device that's supposed to save his ass because he's convinced we're all going to drown. He frantically pulls the safety buckles together, yanking at them so that they connect, but they do not reach, his waist is much too large for this jacket. He finally resolves to death-gripping both sides, until I pass him a drink, the jacket suddenly flaps open in the wind's current and his mouth is now soothed by the bitters of the flavoured cider.
He is more normal than most drunks. He's a half drunk, knowing when to start and stop drinking, knowing where the money is that pays for the booze and the meals, and the girls. At this point I'm wondering about this woman, and where she came from.........and who she came with.
There are other boats on the lake and they have already stirred up a chop, small churnings of the water that can propel a high speedboat into a hammer. The backs of the my legs are bruised from the banging of the waves, as I crash in my seat, uncontrollably bouncing in the air, kept in the boat by the sheer grace of gravity. I turn back to make sure she' still there, alive. Occasionally, she will open her eyes and smile, holding tightly to her bottle, missing her mouth by inches, the cider flies out to the tow line that links Sabrina to me. This is all too much now. I can't have this, I can't have this person here, enjoying my day, enjoying my time. This was supposed to be about me.
Sabrina holds on and motions thumbs up and wants to go faster. But I can't watch her and drive and think and worry and ponder and be angry and give up at the same time. I push the throttle forward, faster and faster until we are no longer boating. We are now flying. And Sabrina is smiling like an angel, like the God's have smiled down on her pretty face and said, "today, you will see what we see".
The boat begins to crackle on the waves and I've become aware I'm the only one not smiling, but I'm also the only one driving and can feel the uncertainty beneath the gears gripped by my hand. We are going too fast and I pull the throttle back down, hard, as we dead stop into a large wave approaching Sabrina's path.
She rips the goggles away from her face, furious we have stopped and yells that we've just missed a good one. The wave passes us and she rocks up and down, as Daniel tows in the rope bringing her closer to mother's relief and buoyancy. He recognizes, as any good palm reader would, I am not enjoying this ride and proposes we all go back for more cider, and without even discussing it, Darren and the woman are abandoned on the lake shore.
Darren jumps off the boat, jeans and running shoes intact, while she flops into the floating tube, just barely, and spreads herself out for balance. She looks like starfish, pink arms and legs protruding overboard like dead weight. We can't bring the boat too close to shore because the rocks will damage the hull, and we slowly release the rope, allowing the tube and it's cargo to float to the sandy beach. Steven wants to stay on and go for a ride, a faster ride. He never used to be this brave.
We start the motors, one, then two, taking the boat out of neutral, and within seconds we have once again escaped to the liquid sun, camouflaged by the reflection of ancient craters, monuments Steven will undoubtedly forget because I already hear pop, pop, pop.
The lake shore pushes away from us, until it curves and loses itself into hidden harbours and evergreen forests, until we are deep in the lake and horizon blue, with not a cloud in the sky, nor the woman.
Steven is so fulfilled to be with us, in this time and place, didn't matter where or how or when or what, he bursts into rants of yester-years, releasing bits of contorted memories. He still thinks we're related by marriage, though it has long since entrenched itself up on the ridge wth the other divers. Daniel and I are merely acquaintances of someone else's vows, where he won't let go and won't let us forget.
As Sabrina carves into the water, slicing it into two, we are also content to have Steven with us right now, both who are infecting us with gallant laughter. Brandon doesn't want a turn. He's still afraid of letting go and being tossed amongst the fishes and seaweed and monsters, and as we steady ourselves to catch another breath, Steven requests that we take him back......back to Darren and the woman, where he belongs.
And as he stumbles and trips over rocks, falling into the water, rushing, surging to the shore, I realize he has finally let go. Darren pulls him up and carries him out like he's a wounded soldier, battered by the realities of life and family, and they disappear into the trail ushering them back to their existences, back to higher grounds.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Riding the White Saddle
There's two things in the world that can ruin a camping trip; 1) a menstrual cycle, and 2) someone elses menstrual cycle. Fortunately, these are far less annoying than watching two weeks of Michael Jackson tributes, which we missed by being at camp.
There were other issues that bothered me, too, such as women my own age who insisted on calling me "dude", and women who really didn't drink alcohol but insisted on throwing caution to the wind and experiencing it at my campsite. One woman in particular had an Italian mother-in-law, 70's, crusty and loud. She understood English but mostly spoke Italian and she was always pissed off about something. I soon discovered a nifty trick of blurting out "parmesan", which would ease the old bag into softer recipe chat.
My ex brother-in-law, Steve, dropped by one day with two of his buddies. One was clean and sober, the other was one eyed and toothless. By one eyed I mean he squinted, occasionally opening one eye. I played a mental game of watching which eye would open, left, left, sometimes right, left, but never at the same time. It helped distract me from his mouth and my sordid desire to ask if he can whistle. He told me he was a twin, but that his brother had died in the womb and how he can feel his twin still kick him in the ribs. I didn't have the heart to explain it wasn't the ghost of his brother but rather his liver and kidneys retaliating. Surprisingly, Steve has wonderful teeth for a drunk, but bad instincts for picking buddies. People can only stand a drunk for so long before hinting for their departure turned into "get the fuck out of here".
Sabrina's best childhood friend came to visit from Sudbury, Ontario and since we were at camp, they also had to camp, which isn't all that difficult with a 29 foot trailer with sleeping arrangements for eight, two plasma TVs, XBox, Rockstar, Nintendo 360, Ipods, Iphones, two playstation portables and a laptop. Yet her friend wanted to play the "drinking game" called FUCK YOU. Now, I have allowed Sabrina to drink in the past, one or two under the supervision of me or hubby, but none of the teens in our neighbourhood even considered making a game out of it.
Here's how it went:
The game is best played with four or five people and all you need is booze, cards, and a person to count time. Lay the cards out in four rows and four columns and then deal out the rest of the deck. The counter flips over the first card in the first row and column and begins to count to three and if players have the card that was flipped they call out fuck you (fill in the name of the person you want to drink) which inevitably would be Sabrina.
The trick of the game is to be the last person to get to call fuck you to a person. If a person calls fuck you after the counter reaches three he must finish his drink.
What a stupid ass game! I could barely tolerate it, since it broke the one or two drinking rule previously established. But not wanting to be prudish, they continued until it was time for bed, or until the booze ran out. The game was never played again after that because her friend was up until 3am puking her guts out in the bathroom sink.
"Dude" woman proclaims to be a witch and one evening she decided to give us all a chakra healing or reading. Chakras are energy centers along the spine located at major branchings of the human nervous system, beginning at the base of the spinal column and moving upward to the top of the skull. The primary importance and level of existence of chakras is posited to be in the psyche. However, there are those who believe that chakras have a physical manifestation as well, which explained why she kept groping hubby and the father of Sabrina's friend.
My son Brandon has a friend at camp and they've known each other for years and since we both have seasonal sites, they see each other almost every weekend. There are also other families around us we have known or are acquainted with. One family just finalized a divorce; she got the trailer, he got the boat and ATVs. With the division of property it seemed to have finalized their marriage, something I don't think she really expected, nor the rest of us and her subsequent fiery behavior.
So now there were FOUR women I tried to avoid, all apparently riding the white saddle. And that didn't include Sabrina, the friend she brought along from home, or the visiting friend from Ontario, all of which still couldn't figure out how to flush the trailer toilet properly.
There were other issues that bothered me, too, such as women my own age who insisted on calling me "dude", and women who really didn't drink alcohol but insisted on throwing caution to the wind and experiencing it at my campsite. One woman in particular had an Italian mother-in-law, 70's, crusty and loud. She understood English but mostly spoke Italian and she was always pissed off about something. I soon discovered a nifty trick of blurting out "parmesan", which would ease the old bag into softer recipe chat.
My ex brother-in-law, Steve, dropped by one day with two of his buddies. One was clean and sober, the other was one eyed and toothless. By one eyed I mean he squinted, occasionally opening one eye. I played a mental game of watching which eye would open, left, left, sometimes right, left, but never at the same time. It helped distract me from his mouth and my sordid desire to ask if he can whistle. He told me he was a twin, but that his brother had died in the womb and how he can feel his twin still kick him in the ribs. I didn't have the heart to explain it wasn't the ghost of his brother but rather his liver and kidneys retaliating. Surprisingly, Steve has wonderful teeth for a drunk, but bad instincts for picking buddies. People can only stand a drunk for so long before hinting for their departure turned into "get the fuck out of here".
Sabrina's best childhood friend came to visit from Sudbury, Ontario and since we were at camp, they also had to camp, which isn't all that difficult with a 29 foot trailer with sleeping arrangements for eight, two plasma TVs, XBox, Rockstar, Nintendo 360, Ipods, Iphones, two playstation portables and a laptop. Yet her friend wanted to play the "drinking game" called FUCK YOU. Now, I have allowed Sabrina to drink in the past, one or two under the supervision of me or hubby, but none of the teens in our neighbourhood even considered making a game out of it.
Here's how it went:
The game is best played with four or five people and all you need is booze, cards, and a person to count time. Lay the cards out in four rows and four columns and then deal out the rest of the deck. The counter flips over the first card in the first row and column and begins to count to three and if players have the card that was flipped they call out fuck you (fill in the name of the person you want to drink) which inevitably would be Sabrina.
The trick of the game is to be the last person to get to call fuck you to a person. If a person calls fuck you after the counter reaches three he must finish his drink.
What a stupid ass game! I could barely tolerate it, since it broke the one or two drinking rule previously established. But not wanting to be prudish, they continued until it was time for bed, or until the booze ran out. The game was never played again after that because her friend was up until 3am puking her guts out in the bathroom sink.
"Dude" woman proclaims to be a witch and one evening she decided to give us all a chakra healing or reading. Chakras are energy centers along the spine located at major branchings of the human nervous system, beginning at the base of the spinal column and moving upward to the top of the skull. The primary importance and level of existence of chakras is posited to be in the psyche. However, there are those who believe that chakras have a physical manifestation as well, which explained why she kept groping hubby and the father of Sabrina's friend.
My son Brandon has a friend at camp and they've known each other for years and since we both have seasonal sites, they see each other almost every weekend. There are also other families around us we have known or are acquainted with. One family just finalized a divorce; she got the trailer, he got the boat and ATVs. With the division of property it seemed to have finalized their marriage, something I don't think she really expected, nor the rest of us and her subsequent fiery behavior.
So now there were FOUR women I tried to avoid, all apparently riding the white saddle. And that didn't include Sabrina, the friend she brought along from home, or the visiting friend from Ontario, all of which still couldn't figure out how to flush the trailer toilet properly.
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