Did That Just Happen?

Friends, Birthday Week was pretty awesome.  It's hard to recount all the awesome. It's hard to make sense of it all.  What I know for sure is this: today, I am sore all over and have a hangover, there are some pictures on my camera that I don't remember taking, the dog is exhausted, E can barely form sentences, and there's a lot of dirty laundry.

Where to begin? Oh, yes, I know: Wednesday, July 25th, 2012 - the day I went off my diet (or la dieta as we lovingly refer to it).  Before you call the dieta police, I'll say this: between July 25th and July 30th, I ate a lot, I drank *a lot*, but as of weigh-in this morning I am only ONE POUND heavier!!! It's a birthday week miracle! WeightWatchers Online gave me some passive-aggressive bullshit beginning with, "Your weight has increased this week. Are you happy with this result?" but it can suck it because I am *ecstatic* with this result.

Why Wednesday was awesome:

 Stunning salmon dinner cooked by EF.

 

Amazing multi-layer vanilla strawberry whipped-cream cake extravaganza created by none other than MH!!! Was amazing!!! Also, he brought this kind of wine and it is my new favourite, favourite, favourite: http://www.kimcrawfordwines.co.nz.  Drink it.  Do it.

I got a MOFO iRobot Roomba from my parents for my birthday (Note: yes, Wednesday was technically not my birthday but the mail carrier brought my present on Wednesday and that's when I opened it).  Pet Series!!! That's right, suckas, I have a robot vacuum cleaner.  It's a ROBOT.  It does my bidding.  I've named it Rex.  I *love* it.  To head off your first question: no, I will not claim for self vacuuming activity points that Rex gets. Second question: yes, I do know how to vacuum.  Third question: shut up! I don't have to answer your questions.  I own a ROBOT and it vacuums for me.

Rex is so awesome - it looks like he moves in a random fashion but I believe otherwise.  Expect Rex updates to follow.

Why Thursday was awesome:

My actual birthday!!!  So made of awesome, by definition.

It was the one day in virtually this entire summer that it has rained in Ontario.  Seriously, we are having a record drought here, except for on my big day! Other factors working to dampen (heh) birthday spirit: we had to go pick up E's mother in Peterborough to take her to Mississauga for E's brother's wedding on Saturday.  It could have been a disaster.  But instead, awesome.  Here's why:

En route rural Ontario attractions included this stop at the super-creepy abandoned Iron Mine of Marmora (not Moria, but I can see the confusion).  The "lake" is the hole in the ground that used to be the mine and it's filled up with beautiful, unnaturally bright blue, creepy, still water (no giant squid sighted). Rainy ambiance was best for viewing massive pit and there wasn't a soul around for miles.

Next we went to Petroglyphs Provincial Park which is actually a relatively small forest (that day foggy and silent with rain) and is on territory sacred to the Ojibwe people.  There is a massive natural marble slab in the middle of the forest and on it is carved sacred picto-text detailing Algonquin belief, created sometime between AD 900 and 1400.  Groups of young men would be led on pilgrimages to this and other petroglyph sites across North America to bond, mature, and be educated.  It was amazing to visit and I absolutely love the idea of the primacy of religious pilgrimage going on at basically the same time in Europe, the Middle East, and North America:

The site is still used for worship - how cool is that?

Then E (everyday with E is awesome, natch) took me to the Best Restaurant Ever - in nowhere Ontario (who would have thunk it?) and I had birthday gimlet, duck confit, and rack of lamb and was -- remarkably -- too full for dessert.  Fabulous, fabulous birthday.  Totally, totally go to The Riverhouse Co. to eat if you can.

Why the Rest of the Weekend was also Awesome in Unanticipated Ways:

Weddings.  Weddings, weddings, weddings.  Massive E Family time as her little brother tied the knot. I can't go into all the details but suffice it to say that E's parents, now divorced  and her mother remarried, hadn't actually been in the same room together, much less spoken, in a few years (though they both live in Mexico - that's another story).  It was *tense*.  Different camps were devised to create neutral chit-chat territory, different hotels were booked, a rotating chauffeuring regimen was put in place - talk about activity points! Her mother (who is quite a character and enjoys drama) has 2 sisters who are also characters and also enjoy drama and enjoy ramping up the drama on each other - just for something to do.  I have never been so thankful that my mother is an only child. One of her can drive me mental.  E lives in a world where there are 3 of them and their stinging powers increase exponentially when they are in close proximity to one another - like a version of Charmed where everyone is in their 60s (and E's mom can Shannon Doherty-out like nobody's business).

As E and her mother were checking in to the Holiday Inn the front desk clerk did us a "favour" and gave us adjoining rooms.  It was that kind of time.

At the reception, rumours flew that Steve (fake name for E's dad) was "gaunt" and possibly diseased - these rumours were started by Elmira (fake name for E's mom).  Steve struck back, loudly positing that Elmira had had some ill-executed plastic surgery done and declared, "That's not the woman I married!"  We spent many convos quashing both rumours but also secretly wondering about them.

What was truly inspiring and rejuvenating about all of this was that all drama was quickly, quickly drowned out by the perfection of the wedding and the bride and groom's refusal to let other people's bullshit bother them.  The fact that E and I were there together (and I was just meeting many of her relatives for the first time) didn't even register as a talking point (to my ears, anyway).  Everyone was extremely warm and welcoming and both Elmira and Steve were doing their damnedest to outdo the other by being nice to me (which was very fun).  And the bride and groom were/are so perfectly suited to one another, so much in love, and so on top of everything, that it just put the rest of us at ease.  The wedding had the most incredible adult-cool-celebration vibe and it just lifted everyone else up the whole time.

The venue didn't hurt either!  It was held at the bride's family home located on the shore of Lake Ontario and I've seriously never been to a nicer place in my life:

Friends, the above is not a postcard.  It is a snapshot of the bride's lawn. For reals.

 (Yeah, I wore the same thing to MR-C's wedding.  I'll wear this to your wedding too, if you want!)

Monty even put in an appearance towards the midnight mark and shocked and delighted all with his aggressive-aggressive style.

It was a really, really fun wedding!  I feel great!

Now - to recover from the hangover.  And find a way to watch the opening ceremonies of those Olympics that I've been hearing so much about!

Learning Curve

One week of every month (for reasons that are obvious), I have an Eating Week. That week is this week. In order to survive Eating Week (EW = unnervingly similar to Shark Week, fyi) it is imperative that I find ways to not exactly cheat the Weight Watchers system but manipulate it as best as possible. Luckily, I have a PhD in (very) qualitative systems analysis and am ready to start employing everyday Weapons of the Weak instead of just teaching about them.

Things I've learned about WW:

1) There is no special provision for Eating Week in the WW system -- astonishing given that the majority of WW patrons likely experience EW.  This annoys the shit out of me!  What, we're all supposed to just carry on like we are not hormonally compelled to eat more one week than another week and in decades upon decades of dieting research no single motherfucking scientist-for-hire has ever come across this phenomenon? Bullshit!!! Fuck you, you fucking assholes. (NB: it is possible that EW is related to PMS)

2) The Point System can compel you into new activities and -- dare I say it? -- a whole new lifestyle.  For example, proceeding along the familiar dictate that, "Knowledge is power," I began to peruse the Point listings to come up with low-point food ideas.  I was impressed by the seeming comprehensiveness of the system and quickly learned that 8 oz. of raw bear meat is 9 points whereas 8 oz. of raw polar bear meat is 7 points.  Then I was delighted to learn that 1 hr of hunting gives me 4 Activity points!  You know what that means: if it takes me 2 hrs to hunt a polar bear (likely given that I don't know how to do it) and I immediately eat 8oz of my kill, I'll still have 1 Activity point to burn! They didn't say how many Activity points it is to drag the carcass back to my house but "weight training, free weights, vigorous effort" is 4 points per hour so I'm thinking I can lose some serious poundage by taking up polar bear hunting as a hobby.  This also aptly demonstrates why exile is tantamount to a death sentence in Inuit culture.

Other food points to memorize include:
Armadillo, cooked = 8 points/ 8oz
Squirrel, cooked: 9 points/ 8oz (is that, like, 8 squirrels?!?!)
Squirrel, raw: 6 points/ 8oz
Beaver, cooked: 11 points/ 8oz
Kangaroo, raw: 8 points/8 oz
Raccoon, cooked: 15 points/ 8oz
Opossum, cooked: 8 points/ 8oz
Muskrat, cooked: 13 points/ 8oz

Raccoon is probably delicious, methinks, because 15 points has to be good.

3) As comprehensive as the food and activity points lists are, they still have some glaring holes.  For example:
Activity: backpacking, no load: 2 Activity points/30 minutes

What idiot goes backpacking with nothing in their backpack?  Isn't that called "walking"?  There is no entry for if you actually have something (like a raccoon) in your pack.  Note to self: Look up "raccoon packing."

4) WW Online is a double-edged sword.  Aside from the lists of points, WW also offers an online spreadsheet-type app that keeps track of all of your intake and activity.  This service is seriously important because my dieter's/cultural historian brain cannot keep track of all of the addition and subtraction shit independently.  But the downside is surveillance and robotic commentary.  For example, after inputting "1 tsp butter" for the umpteenth breakfast in a row, the system chimed in to ask, "Would you like me to list BUTTER as one of your favourite foods?" and I almost punched my iPad.  Clearly, WWO, butter *is* one of my favourites, otherwise I wouldn't be fucking paying for your service in the first place, but do we have to put it on a special list? Thanks, WWO, thanks so much.

My Favourite Foods List So Far:
Butter
Milk
Olive Oil
Sugar
Tea
Tomatoes
Water

Favorite Activities:
Backpacking, No Load

5) If there was some way I could be awarded Activity points for doing my work, I'd have a book by now.  Fuck.

Day 11 of WW

Last night, my dream was this: E was leading me through a massive underground palace in London and we were looking for a place to eat.  I wanted pancakes.  Somehow I got a piece of chocolate cake and started eating it.  It was utterly delicious. Of course, before I could eat the whole piece, my alarm went off.

I actually dreamt that boring, cliched dream. That happened.  It's worse than when I was writing my diss and I would go to bed and dream that I was writing my diss and then I'd wake up and write my diss.  It's worse than that.  It's two words: Weight Watchers.

I know. I know! Things I thought would never happen to me now happen to me all the time (that must be the definition of ageing) so why would WW be any different?  Not being weigh-yourself-every-week sort of people -- we didn't even own a scale -- both E and I were shocked to discover the actual (as opposed to delusional) measurement of our respective weights and pledged to do something about it.  Something painfully monetized.  Something alive with decades and centuries of psycho-dietary knowledge, stretching back through Betty Draper's struggles to be the trophy wife, to the evil of Nazi experimentation and colonial famine, to the trials and sanctification of emaciated ascetics. Something that curls up on a bed of skulls and, seeing one more broken soul, smiles.  It had to be Weight Watchers.

Here's my new life: all food represents a certain point value. I get 26 points a day.  A slice of delicious cheddar cheese is 3 points, a cup of blueberries is 0, a teaspoon of olive oil is 1, a carrot is 0, my usual helping of Favourite Lunch is 22.

TWENTY-TWO.  I'm feeling it.

It's not like I'm starving.  I can eat as much fruit and veg as I can hold.  But sometimes the dog walks by and I think, "He's probably only 56 points total, depending on if I fry him or roast him."

Actually, it's not the food part that's the problem.  I get 49 "Flex Points" a week and I can earn "Activity Points" if I, like, move around and stuff.  So I can have the occasional Favourite Lunch Classique here and there, a mojito or two, even some chocolate cake.  It's all about portion control, making adult choices (how fun!), and balance, and so is, of course, a very positive change.

But there are side-effects.

1) Occasional Diarrhea
Body is *not* used to the massive amounts of fruit and veg (and let's be honest, more fruit than veg) it has been asked to process recently and so, on occasion, freaks out and purges.  Hopefully it will get used to the New Me soon.

2) Recognizing the Addiction/Detox
I think of cheese about every 5 minutes.  I'm seriously not joking.  I guess my subconscious is thinking about chocolate cake and pancakes but those thoughts aren't actually that hard to suppress in my conscious mind.  Forgetting about cheese takes constant vigilance.  Again, hopefully this will decrease in time.

3) Irrational Behaviour and Crazy Fucking Mood Swings
Undoubtedly, this point is related to points 1 and 2.  It is an especially noticeable side-effect when there are two people in a household and they are both on a diet.  Don't get me wrong, it is *wonderful* and *lovely* that E and I are doing this together.  It is a bonding experience that we will cherish forever and, frankly, it would be infinitely more difficult to do this alone while the other person in the household eats what-the-fuck-ever.  But with two people experiencing the same pangs of detox and diarrhea, the crazy gets compounded like a runaway train.  As evidence, I give you the story of:

How Monty Ended Up Going to the Vet For No Reason

Did I mention that we get activity points?  Well, keep that in mind.

Anyhow, two nights ago we were commenting on Monty's recent lethargy and weight-loss.  Was there something wrong with him? What could it be?  Is he just aging? Or is it worse?  Against my better judgement, I shared with E a (now I see irrational) concern I had been keeping in the back of my mind - that, about a month ago, the little bastard had gotten into a box containing a number of chocolate bars and had, of course, eaten about 3.  At the time he'd thrown up and had a bad, bloated night but nothing else seemed to be wrong with him.  Nevertheless, I'd googled the dangers of chocolate for dogs and found all kinds of stories about liver damage.  I shared with her those stories and then said that I had been keeping an eye on him to see if there were any signs of liver damage and so far nothing had surfaced but that this was something that I was thinking about.  We agreed that he appeared normal but *had* been lethargic and did appear to be losing weight.  But also, he seemed fine and whatever.  We then agreed that if Montoya ever didn't want his food we would know that something was gravely wrong with him because he LOVES his food and always prefers it ASAP.

Then we went to bed.  Apparently (I slept through this so have no knowledge of said event) he woke E up in the middle of the night to go outside for a crap - unusual behaviour.  Like I said, I slept through this.  In the morning, I woke up to hear E and Montoya in the kitchen.  I was about to get up when E came into the bedroom, looked at me and burst into tears.  Full-on water works.  Between massive sobs she said, "He," , "won't," , "eat," , blubber, SOB, wail.  

I ran into the kitchen to find the dog tentatively eating his breakfast.  For some reason we were both utterly and completely convinced that he would die of liver failure within the hour.

To shorten this already long story: after rushing him to the vet for an emergency appointment, it turns out that Montoya is in perfect health.  While he hesitated to eat his food that morning it might have been because the person who was giving him the food was giving off the Crazy vibe (and hadn't eaten breakfast herself).  While he did have to crap in the night, he might have just had to crap in the night.

And his recent lethargy and weight loss might be due to the fact that, because we get to eat more stuff by gaining activity points for walking him, he gets about 17 walks a day and it's frigging hot outside.

Weight Watchers is to blame for ALL OF THIS and owes me $65 in vet bills.  I might write them a letter about it today. Right after I post impassioned comments on the Huffington Post re:Tom and Katie's divorce - along with all the other insane people dieters out there.

Overly Long Post About Audiobooks

I've been travelling a lot recently -- by foot, by car, by plane, and by train -- and have had ample opportunity to hear stuff en route.  I feel like talking about it.

About a year ago I got a subscription to audible.com and have been happily downloading audiobooks ever since.  Audiobooks are excellent because they allow me to: 1) listen to something other than my tired iPod playlist while walking the dog or going to school; 2) listen to anything other than my tired inner monologue when spending alone time at home being alone; 3) avoid listening to the motherfucking CBC and its obsession with the "local man-on-the-street," issues of Canadian identity, and/or someone's account of their precious fucking childhood (I realize the shittiness of CBC programming has resulted from chronic underfunding but that's not enough to make me pity-listen to it); and, finally, 4) develop my aural comprehension skills/attention span - things one needs to have when trying to grade class presentations, say, or get anything out of a conference paper.

I'm sure that audible doesn't give me the greatest deal ever for their monthly subscription but I'm too lazy to shop around.

Audiobook highlights include:

Rachel Maddow's new book Drift, read by Rachel Maddow.  EXCELLENT.  WONDERFUL. LOVED IT!  I don't know what else to say.  RM is my hero.

The Color Purple by Alice Walker, read by Alice Walker.  Of course it's painful to hear, of course it's a novel that tells you just as much about race and gender in the US in the 1980s as it does about the 1930s.  Walker's acting and pacing are amazing and I can't imagine anyone else reading it.  It made me nostalgic for 1980s feminism and, also, the old Oprah.

Unfamiliar Fishes by Sarah Vowell, read by Sarah Vowell and friends.  Another radio-trained professional (like Maddow) who understands how to perform a book AND who has written a wonderful book.  Loved it.

Bossypants by Tina Fey, read by Tina Fey.  Again, a performer who is performing her (exceptional for the genre) book.









Honorable mentions go to:

Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne, read by Tim Curry.  This book is unbelievably fucking boring.  I'll even spoil it for you: they never get to the center of the earth! I never, ever want to read it or listen to it again.  The only thing that kept me sticking with it and even had me bursting out loud in laughter was Tim Curry's performance: astonishing.  That guy is a consummate performer.  He could sell toilet paper to a palm tree.  Somehow he was able to draw out the humour in almost every sentence, whether it was by severely over-pronouncing Icelandic names Swedish-chef style or just saying something sarcastically.  I love him.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, read by Elijah Wood.  Frodo acts his ass off in this! Seriously, I can't even describe it except to say that's one massive performance.  For sure, I got bored with classic Americana and bailed a number of times in the course of listening to this, only to come back weeks later. That Ringbearer is one talented dude.

Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations.  On top of the blue blood way of speaking, you can hear the cigarettes being lit and the ice cubes in the drinks while she's talking.  It's kind of awesome and creepy and mundane and awesome - like Mad Men a little bit and Jackie might be Betty Draper.







Of course that isn't all I've listened to.  Other middle-of-the-road selections included the list below but really, they all amount to a solid, "meh."

1) The Hunger Games Trilogy, by Suzanne Collins, read by Carolyn McCormick.  I don't know who decided that Dr. Elizabeth Olivet from Law & Order would be the go-to narrator for a 1st-person account by a teenager but it's all just not quite right.  I did listen to all three of them, though.

2) A bunch of lesbian pulp.  Whatever, I'm putting it on the blog so I own it but none of it is really good. Titles include: Sing You Home by Jodi Picoult (snooze), Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden (klassic YA, I'm sure it's banned in some of your states), the Ann Bannon canon! (aka the Beebo Brinker series, 1950s lesbian pulp as is should be - first book is set in a sorority house at UIUC!), Breaking the Ice by Kim Baldwin (horribly bad - the story is about an Alaskan bush pilot - cough - who lives in a remote location and built a cabin with her bare hands and has a rocking bod and has to fly in some nurse from somewhere who is smitten with the bush pilot's rugged-yet-noble lifestyle and there's a hypothermia scene - alls I'm saying is that Kim Baldwin knows her audience).

3) Shit for work: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (where are you, Tim Curry!); Salt: A World History (awesome! and then boring but in the academic awesome way); Madame Tussaud by Michelle Moran (why is this so boring?); The Ascent of Money by Niall Ferguson (ugh).

4) Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen.  You know you have a problem when . . .

5) Things that are maybe just better as reading-books: Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury, Slaughterhouse-Five (what the what? read by Ethan Hawke - meh), An Object of Beauty by Steve Martin (read by Campbell Scott which is like saying, "Read by Soggy Cardboard"), The Professor and Other Writings by Terry Castle (is this ass-boring, unbelievably self-indulgent, or is it genius that I lack the capacity to appreciate?)

6) Books that didn't need to be written, spoken, or downloaded: Jane Lynch's Happy Accidents.  I'm sorry to say it but JL hasn't got much to say.  I do like her acting though.

Recent downloads I haven't gotten around to yet but am very much looking forward to:

I'll let you know how it goes.

Ah, the Iron Island

Jetlag gives you fucked up dreams.  Last night I dreamt that I was being dissected, like on a medical examiner's table, by a few people (was one Sasha Alexander?) and I realized I was still alive and the feeling of being dissected was *weird*. I looked down at myself and my body wasn't like a normal cadaver, it was more like an archaeological dig where I was just this meat grid with all these tiny squares of me excavated to various depths.  I looked like a cubed steak sculpture.  I got up and everyone was horrified (of course) and I immediately began looking for my family because I knew while I wasn't dead, yet, I only had a few minutes left and so somehow I found my parents and my sister (or a nine-year-old version of my sister) and then I realized that not only was I all dissected but also rotting and smelly. But I said to them, "I only have a few minutes," and my mom hugged me while my sister said, "Eewwwww, gross!" in the background and then I woke up.

What the fuck does that mean?

Oh, here, I looked it up and it says...."Shut up and write something publishable, idiot." Hmph.

Where to begin?  June is a blur.  I'm sorry I haven't updated in so long - it's unacceptable blog behaviour and I apologize.  We spent a lot of June getting E out of her apartment in Towson and moved up to our nation's capital.  Also, I went to the UK for two weeks.

London! I hadn't been there since the diss research extravaganza of 2005-06 (so long!) but it was both comforting and kind of not-comforting that, in its aggregate at least, London seems to be pretty much the same.  The old 'hood in Golders Green looks dirtier and poorer but maybe I was just remembering it too fondly? The BL is still the BL with the wonderful addition of free Wifi throughout the building!  It's summer so the reading rooms are packed with non-Londoner losers (like me) looking to cram months worth of research into 2 weeks of hardcore BL time.  Nearly every conversation I heard was basically the academic version of this Ron Burgundy klassic:  

Oh, It's the Deep Burn! Oh, It's So Deep

So all the research I did while I was there is going to be kind of a big deal for my work.

In un-shocking news, it basically rained the whole time I was in the UK, I froze my ass off, and once again I came down with the disease I'm now going to call London TB.  Most people on the Tube or train or in any enclosed space I'm in in London have London TB - chesty cough, sore throat, sniffles, chills.  It spreads like wildfire - perhaps through the pee on the streets or via the dank air.  Look for it to decimate the 2012 Olympics. I haven't quite gotten rid of mine yet but now that I'm back in the Colonies, I'm sure it will clear up.

Highlights of Londontime include:

1) Seeing Anne and Francesco and their son Max! They easily have the nicest apartment I've ever been in AND they fed me (twice!) AND Max is awesome AND they gave me tons of Portuguese custards which I'd highly recommend.  Love them (custards and also A&F&M).  Also, it was Anne's observation about, "if I let Max eat things off the street in London, he will get tuberculosis," that inspired me to name it London TB.  I hope I don't have to wait another 6 years to see them again, they are wonderful. (A&F: Bring Max to Ottawa! We can go to Montreal!)

2) Going to the Tate Modern!  It didn't rain for dozens of minutes while I and my friend Noriko walked to the Tate Mod so here's a pic of St. Paul's I took en route.

I was super excited to see the Damien Hirst exhibit - he's the one who did the diamond-encrusted skull and the preserved shark in a tank and all that.  I'm sure that back in the day the shark would have scared the bejeezus out of me but now it's beginning to wrinkle and look a bit geriatric.  It's not scary anymore, it's unbelievably depressing and gratuitous.  Which is still instructive and still artistic, the meaning of the piece is changing over time and in ways that the artist didn't anticipate or even want, blahblahblah - but fuck, man, I paid 15 quid for that.  His other art was equally gratuitous - maybe each piece is striking by itself but all together the oeuvre has this megalomanic quality to it that is creepy as shit.  So, yeah, maybe that is worth 15 quid.

But for these wonderful highlights, London was really a blur of trying to adjust to the UK (again) and do some intelligent research (did I accomplish either? can't say.  Being back at Colindale was deeply comforting for some reason). Honourable mention goes to the Wellcome Collection which I had never been to before but was fantastic and included such memorable relics as Napoleon's toothbrush, Florence Nightingale's moccasins, Disraeli's death mask, and Wellington's razor.

But I went outside of London, too! First stop, to see Noriko at her ceramics program in Stoke-on-Trent, a town just outside of Birmingham and a decided part of Britain's Rust Belt.  In its heyday, Stoke was a ceramics manufacturing powerhouse in Europe - it's the home of Wedgwood and Denby and a bunch of other manufacturers.  Which means that there's miles of canals all throughout the place next to derelict pottery factories - cool!

I want Diamonds and Rust to be the title of my book, now. Maybe that's the inspiration I need.  Local  "urban renewal" projects have to build around abandoned-yet-protected Georgian bottle-necked kilns. How cool is that?

 Here's a tiny model of what the kiln looks like inside.  I saw the model at the Stoke Potteries Museum...

... along with a lot of other weird ceramic shit.  Exhibit A:

That thing is about 3 feet tall, fyi.  It was creepier than anything Damien Hirst had to offer.

After Stoke - Cornwall!!!

Cornwall likes to think of itself as completely separate from the rest of the the country.  As if the Cornish identity is extremely foreign and special.  It's all about the local.  Most Britons go there for a seaside mini-break because, being in the SW, most of Cornwall is along the seaside.  But not where I was: Truro, home of the Cornwall Record Office! Truro is still a tourist destination but not in the way a St. Ives or even Redruth is.

Tourist trade aside, Cornwall developed as a copper and tin mining area and in the archive I found all I needed to about Cornish miners going from colonial Rush to Rush, including this cheery bit of evidence buried in a family photo album:

I also found a Truro mine owner's diary where all he lists are the number of pigeons and rabbits he's shot from his bedroom window (while dressing himself).  I'm not sure where that will fit in just yet but I think Truro might have been a quirky little place to live back in the day.

Most of my time in the town looked like this:

That's the view from my hotel.  It reminded me of everything I've ever read by Daphne de Maurier (who lived in Cornwall and set many of her stories there.  Think, "The Birds").  Here's a cool street that was just by the archive. I never walked down it but now wish I had:

It was sunny-ish for at least a day so I wasn't completely lazy and did walk around.

Truro doesn't just have a Records Office.  It has a cathedral!

Inside it was cathedral-y.

Other things I saw on my walk around included this statue of a neked old guy standing on a ball beating a drum (I didn't go closer to see what it was about)

And, at the top of Lemon Street, this statue of Lander!  See, the Cornish *love* their tales of colonial world adventure:

 I also saw:

I didn't know there were awards for plumbers! Or that they came from Cornwall.  It's like an episode of Community that has yet to air . . . (RIP Community?).

Hmm, I think that's everything.  Oh, wait - I went to the Royal Cornwall Museum, which is a strange place, and they had a natural history section of local flora and fauna.  I searched high and low, left and right, but was extremely disappointed not to see

any Cornish game hens.  WTF!  Maybe they're just called hens there.  Or pigeons.

It was a successful trip. I collected some footnote candy (though nothing earth-shattering) and, I hope, acquitted my academic self as well as could be expected.

The whole time I was in the UK, though, I kept thinking of the Iron Islands in Game of Thrones and the "Iron Price," and the Greyjoys and all of their bullshit, and it all seemed so apt. . .

Not Downton Abbey

Some of you have asked me for updates on Cousin Jeff - is he still in jail? Is he using?  How's the rest of the family dealing with his incarceration? Things of that nature.  Well, hopefully this post can, if not confront the question directly, at least add some more context to the ripple effect that is Cousin Jeff.  Or is Cousin Jeff just a ripple effect of something else?

Let us begin with a chart or, how I like to think of it, the "cast of characters":

Sorry for the blurriness - I don't know how to work Organizational Chart very well. Click on the chart for a better view.

Where to begin the tale?  Well, as far as I know, Cousin Jeff is still in jail but his possibility for parole is high and everyone is terrified for the moment when he is allowed back on the streets.  There is conflicting info re: if he is taking this prison opportunity to get clean or if he is still using.

Anyhow, word in the family is that Mic and Joan (sisters) are feuding. I don't mean any low-level disagreement, this is some serious shit.  Both of them are well into their 80s now so they have nothing else going on that can distract them from this feud and they both live in the same small town so they can pull everyone else down with them.

Let's put some faces to the names.

Joan:

 And Mic:

So many great-grandkids, so little time.

Okay, so many months ago my mother went to Cousin Bonnie's wedding (don't even get me started on that because everyone thought that Bonnie, who must be pushing 50, was NEVER going to get married and everyone agrees that the dude she's married is a gold digger) and it was clear that Joan and Mic were NOT getting along.  Joan would enter the reception hall and Mic would be compelled to go for a walk.  Mic would come back and Joan would get tired and need to go back to her hotel.  Everyone thought for a bit that it was because Joan was pissed at Jock (their brother) because Jock refused to remove his trucker hat for the reception (or was it the wedding ceremony?).  I include a pic of Jock for completeness:

It follows that Joan would be angry at Jock for wearing the hat but angrier at Mic for not making Jock take the hat off.

It was like a jr high dance all over again, especially because neither Joan nor Mic can drive and basically need assistance to do anything so if they want to go somewhere, it takes several people to make it happen.

But, while Joan was indeed annoyed at Jock for the hat, it was a much deeper feud than that.  Apparently, Joan and husband Johnny had been playing Bridge with Mic and someone else at the Three Hills Seniors Bridge Tournament when Johnny made a play or a bid or something (here the details get fuzzy because neither my mother nor I know fuck-all about Bridge so it's hard to properly appreciate the levity of the transgression) and Mic stated that it was a play that was somehow in the wrong and then *stood up* and loudly complained that Johnny had made an illegal move.  Johnny denies that his play was illegal because something-or-other was "trumps" but Mic is adamant that a different thing was "trumps."  And be that as it may, did she have to stand up and accuse him of bloody murder with all Seniors in attendance?  But also, from Mic's point of view, she has a Duty to point out Unrighteousness whereever she sees it, especially when the intergrity of the Three Hills Seniors Bridge Tournament is implicated.

Johnny has pledged never to talk to Mic until she apologizes for falsely accusing him in such a public way.  Mic, for her part, refuses to apologize because she was not the cheater and once Johnny confesses that he was in the wrong then perhaps they can begin to move forward.  Such is the Three Hills Cold War, which began, like, 9 months ago. 

Joan and Johnny upped the stakes considerably by putting their very souls in jeopardy when they began refusing to take Communion because Mic, a Deacon, assists the Minister in preparing Communion.  And given that they're all older than dirt, this is a ballsy time to go thumbing your nose to the establishment.  So it's a bit of a scandal.

THEN THIS HAPPENED.  I will now turn to the primary text (ie/ hearsay from Cousin Alison, Mic's daughter, gained via email) for the raw narrative:

"Apparently Joan had been suggesting to mom [ie/ Mic] that she write a letter to Johnny to apologize but not to specifically mention the bridge game.  Mom said she would think about it so on Sunday Joan asked mom again if she had written the letter and mom said no but she was thinking about it.  So they were in the room off the front of the church called the vestry and there were two other people in the room but they had their backs turned and were talking separately.  Joan had left the room and then came back a few minutes later and mom doesn’t remember really what if anything was said before Joan made a fist and struck mom in the jaw.  Mom said the imprint of Joan’s ring was marked on her face for most of this week.  She is going to get Tim to take a picture of it today. 

 

Mom did go to the Drumheller police (didn’t want the Three Hills police to get involved !!) and made a report.  The woman officer said that mom could charge Joan with assault causing injury which is a serious charge.  Mom isn’t sure if she wants to go that far yet but she has agreed to have the police go and talk to Joan and make her aware of the seriousness of her actions.  If mom goes ahead with the charge, Joan could plead guilty and pay a fine or plead not guilty and go to court.  Mom is going to call the police this morning and tell them to go ahead with speaking to Joan about this and then see where they go from there.

I will keep you in touch and let me know if you hear anything from your side.  I am actually really impressed with Jock as he had stepped up and is protecting mom.  He was going to go to the police himself if mom didn’t and he has called her almost every night to check on her.

 

Talk to you later,

 

Ali"

 

So there you have it.  What did Mic say?!??! My mother has been endeavoring to get to the bottom of this and feels there is some HEAVY subtext.  And here's where the story all comes together: it seems that because Mic was and perhaps still is giving all her money to Cousin Jeff, foolishly believing all of his lies instead of understanding that she's just enabling his drug addiction, she is BROKE and has been leaning on Joan and Johnny to float her some friendly cash here and there.  How much cash?  That's the question.  But finally Joan had enough with being nice and decided it was time not to be nice.

To whom will Joan take a shotgun when Cousin Jeff gets out of jail?  OR will Joan find herself in jail and develop a drug habit of her own?  Will Jock ever take his hat off? Will Alison and the woman officer from Drumheller runnoft together?  When will Shirley MacLaine show up?  Stay tuned, friends, stay tuned.