Sunday, June 19, 2005

Silk. After an hour or so of good conversation and coffee with my friend today, I set off on my short walk home. I'm one of those people who is either hyper-aware of her surroundings, or completely oblivious, depending on what's going on in my head and in my heart. Today, for whatever reason, I was peering at the world around me, noting odd details with a mixture of bemusement and curiosity. Like what, you ask? A apartment building sidewalk lined with rows of different potted plants...geraniums, violets, marigolds. No uniformity of colour, of vessel, or of actual bloom-health. It was ragtag and chaotic, this lineup, but it made for quite a display -- almost like looking at a crowd of random people on the street. I wanted to walk down the path and greet the plants like they were onlookers in my own small parade. Two balconies, directly next to one another. One full of garbage, damp cardboard boxes, broken plastic chairs stacked in a spastic heap, and a dead bunch of hanging plants -- all framed by a tangle of large-bulb Christmas lights. The other: surfaced with Astro-turf, and decked out with a faux-iron patio set, a large red umbrella, and two large tin tubs filled with a riot of pink and red flowers. A neighbour stood on each deck, leaning over the railing to talk -- clearly friends, clearly jovial, and not appearing to note the discrepancy between their setups. A glass window full of suction-cupped brass butterflies, inlaid with prismatic crystals. I paused a bit by this display, smiling at how much I would have coveted their store of treasures in years past. Around the age of eight, I thought window-crystals were about the most beautiful thing you could possess (just like Pollyanna in the movie of the same name, although I didn't see that movie until I was 30). My grandmother had a bunch of them, and I'd always wished that she'd offer me one -- but she never did. And I never saw them anywhere, since my mother rarely frequented odd little gift shops, and I only ever shopped with her. I wouldn't buy one now, since I no longer really see them as the epitome of elegance that I once did. But this window was something else. It's funny how our ideas of beauty change over the years. I'd like to think I've evolved somewhat in my tastes, but what does that mean? If taste is just that -- an individual, arbitrary premise -- how could it possibly evolve? It just is. I'm not sure I believe that, even as I say it. But I wish I did. Realizing that I no longer found such things beautiful was a bit sad today -- not because I longed for a bunch of butterflies (if you know me, you know this is most definitely not the case), but because sometimes the realization of change is unsettling. It's like walking through a spider web. You're suddenly aware of an odd feeling, and you know immediately what's causing it, though it's mostly invisible, and primarily intangible. Certainly, the thin strands of silk affixed to your hair or arms are probably harmless, and won't impact your life in any detrimental way. But it's never the silk you fear, anyhow -- it's the knowledge of what else might have become attached to you along with those fine, fine threads. 1:19:44 PM    build me up, buttercup... [] Leave It To The Elves. Today, I took a day trip with my parents to the cloudy metropolis of Seattle. Now, before you go jumping to any conclusions about the kind of experiences I might have had on a trip like this, let me make five things clear, right off the bat: 1. I did this voluntarily...no parental guilt was expended in the planning of this trip. 2. My parents are 55 and 59, and young for their ages, at that. They are hip and happenin'! 3. I come from a die-hard road-trip family. We are happy in cars. 4. Seattle isn't that far away. And we made sure I had a latte from the beginning. 5. I'm always up for some fun with the 'rents. Really. All this being said, I didn't get a ton of sleep last night, so the possibility of snippiness was somewhat on the horizon as we took off today. The border lineups were huge, owing somewhat to the rise of the Canadian dollar against the US dollar (save your jokes: .81 USD gets you a loonie). Now, my dad is a lovely man...a man with a wonderful sense of humour, a fabulous sense of style, and a deep affection for his family. But he doesn't like lineups. Not many people do, I'll grant you that. My dad, however, seems to rise above and beyond the normal populace in his disdain for waiting, and never minces words about how it makes him feel. My mom handles this in one of two ways: a) She tells him to snap out of it, and then proceeds to roll her eyes at him every time he complains. b) She changes the subject, and handily distracts him from his prodigious cranking. Today, bless their hearts, was a b) day. We got talking about late night television, which is always a topic of some delight to us Fowlers; we are all insomniacs/late-nighters/midnight-oil-burners, and we love our after-hours shows (or I would, if I had cable anymore). I used to crawl to the landing of the stairs above the living room to peer down at Johnny Carson on the telly when I was but a wee girl. As I grew older, I came to love David Letterman, and his caustic brand of....well, I'm not certain what you'd call it. At 31, I'd much prefer Jon Stewart to everyone else, but like I said...no cable. But my parents still have it. And they love him. In addition to Stewart, I found out today that my dad absolutely adores this show (I forget the title of said program) about (this is his synopsis), "how stuff is made." That's right...one of those 'behind the scenes' shows that panders to the curious minds of the TV-watching public. My mom has always been an absolute information junkie as far as this stuff goes -- she always likes to know how things come about, and why they are, and how they are, etc. I guess I'd never realized that my dad was the same way, but it's reason no. 34, 568 why they belong together (35 years now). They talked a bit about a few things they'd learned on the show, but I must admit, I lacked enthusiasm for the whole premise. Sure, it's nice to know insider details on certain procedures and processes in the commercial and manufacturing worlds, but I'm more of a fan of mystery than I am of total disclosure. Simply stated, I'm just content not to know sometimes. If the acquisition of information concerns the human psyche or the arts, I'm all over it like a clown on a big pair of shoes. Anything else, and I'm somewhat lukewarm. This may be the reason why I excelled at English, History, Art, Languages and Music. It may also explain why I only took one Biology course to get into university (correspondence, 3 weeks, read about it here), and nothing in the way of Chemistry or Physics. I am fascinated by these processes...don't get me wrong. I just don't need to know how they happened. My mom and dad went on to tell me that they'd learned how lottery tickets were made on a recent episode of this show. You know -- the ones with the silvery scratchable surface. It was tremendously interesting to them how the process worked, but I cringed. "You guys, that's one of the things I think elves do. That silver stuff. The elves put it there." At this point, they looked at me with a mixture of incredulity and resignation. Incredulity because it was such a bizarre statement, and resignation because they long ago realized just how random and freakish their daughter actually is, and continues to be. Let me break it down for the rest of you: I have this weird picture in my head of elves being responsible for certain things in our daily lives. Things like the silvery stuff on lottery tickets, the dew on the grass, the powdered sugar on donuts, the salt on the rims of margaritas...you know, the magical elements of everyday life. Yes, I know elves don't actually exist. And yes, I know that some poor sucker at Winchell's or Krispy Kreme actually slaps the white stuff on those delicious rings of lard and dough. But I like the idea nonetheless. So, for you, and for my poor incredulous parents, I'd like to present (Mike, it's another top ten!)... TOP TEN THINGS I THINK ELVES DO. 10. (as previously mentioned) Put the silvery stuff on lottery tickets. 9. Make lip gloss super-shiny. 8. Put bubbles in soda (or pop, you freaky Westerners). 7. Fill chocolates with good stuff (cherries, caramel, orange creme, you name it). 6. Put the mold on food you shouldn't eat anymore. 5. Make chips crunchy. 4. Make radios send music. 3. Make phones send voices. 2. Make Lycra stretchy (Yoga devotees everywhere, praise the elf!). 1. Make coffee keep me awake. For those of you that are now wide-eyed with fear that I don't actually understand how these processes come about, well....chill. I do know, for the most part. I just like the idea that short, cute people are responsible for it all. And I don't mean me, at 5' 3. 12:28:18 AM    build me up, buttercup... []

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