Splash the Ocean

I know it’s the height of uncool to like musicals, and to keep my credibility here I ought to be writing an entry about how much I loved seeing Dayglo Abortions at the Horseshoe Tavern, but…I’d take Michael Crawford being angsty in a mask over indie club music, any day.

I fell in love with musicals one Sunday afternoon in the early eighties. No one was home, I had nothing to read, and there was nothing on tv. So I went through my dad’s records and found Carnival and put it on. I was immediately inthralled. It was like reading a book. I listened to the songs and closed my eyes and imagined the story to go with it. That summer was spent listening to South Pacific, Annie, Oliver, and of course Carnival. Twenty two years later, I can still sing “Everybody Likes You” word for word - which, suprisingly, was sung originally by the late crusty Law and Order icon, Jerry Orbach.

But in 1986, I discovered modern musicals. The Phantom of the Opera had just begun on Broadway, and though I had no faith that anything modern could possibly hold a candle to the wonder of “I Hate Him”, or “Her Face”, I was curious and asked another kid to make me a tape. That summer was spent singing along with Michael Crawford, as he pined after the (dreary but prettily voiced) Christine. Duets! Passion! Drama! I was a complete convert. In the years which followed, my Dream Academy and Phil Collins tapes were shoved to the back of the tape case to make room for Les Mis, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Into the Woods, and Miss Saigon.

Apparently, Jesus Christ Superstar doesn’t translate well without the background music; I was listening to it with headphones and singing along when Paula gently asked if I could stop shouting, “Jesus must DIIIIIIIE,” for a little while.

I saw The Secret Garden (eerie as hell; the audience was made up of 924 girls with Mary Lennox bows in their hair, assorted mothers, Todd, and me) and Passion live on stage, I spent a year listening to Rent. As I grew older, the musical theatre boom faded away. Aspects of Love bombed, then CATS ended its long run. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s latest musical was met with helpless giggles by the audience, which would have been fine if it hadn’t been a drama. I counted myself very lucky when, eight years later, Wicked began a Broadway run.

And then…they finally made the Phantom of the Opera movie. The Really Useful Group had been threatening to make it since 1987, when Michael Jackson was their top pick to play the Phantom. I’m surprised they didn’t hire him in the end. Think of the money the financially struggling producers could have saved on makeup.

After his surprise come-back in the ’90s, John Travolta was their next choice. I liked it even less than Michael Jackson. As the years went by and the movie plans dragged on, I lost hope that the movie would ever be made. But, here we are, seventeen years later. Interest in the Phantom has all but vanished, leaving the producers with a cast whose biggest collective claim to fame was a four minute role in “Mystic River”.

After seventeen years, I could have borne one glaring error. If the lip-synching had been poorly done, or Raoul had looked fifteen with a shoulder length bob, if the Phantom had looked just like John Travolta circa 1991 with a mask on, if his voice had sounded like the raspy end of an electric guitar lick, if the sets had the too-saturated, too-large feel of stage props…just one of those would have been fine. But not all of them.

I walked out soon after the first appearance of the Phantom (whose credits include the internationally acclaimed “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider” and “Tales of the Mummy”) surprised that I was the only one doing so. Of course, I was also one of the oldest people in the theatre. I doubt anyone in the audience had even heard of the musical before seeing the movie.

When Wicked comes to Toronto this spring, you can bet I’ll be in the best seats I can find, sobbing for Elphaba as she tries to find her lost love. But I’m glad that Carnival has been largely forgotten in the 43 years since it was written. For me, musicals work best in book form, my imagination turning Michael Crawford’s Phantom into the disturbed hero and Sarah Brightman’s Christine into a strong, intelligent - okay, even my imagination can’t make that kind of stretch - turning Christine into someone a leeetle less vacuous, the story unfolding in my head, and not at the mercy of a money-driven film industry.

27 hours. No rest stops.

Kite left Monday morning. Twenty seven hours later, the phone rang.

Sage Hello?

Kite Hi! I’m in Memphis!

Sage Memphis…Tennessee?

Kite Yes. And I am off the bus. The roads were just terrible, icy the whole way. Tell Paul that at one point everybody had to get off the bus to push it out of an ice patch.

Sage, incredulously Push it?

Kite Yes! And we got it out! We were very proud of ourselves. Well, it meant we got to go outside.

Sage So, are you heading home, or…?

Kite Tomorrow. I missed my connection - okay, that’s not true, the ticket lady said if I hurried a different bus was leaving in five minutes, and I just stared at her and finally said, “Um, I’ve been on the bus a long time already.”

Sage How long?

Kite Twenty seven hours. No rest stops.

Sage Geez.

Kite So I’m going to see the sights in Memphis, then head home tomorrow.

Sage Did you hear about the earthquake?

Kite No, what earthquake?

Sage Giant earthquake, tsunamis, it shifted entire islands. Twenty thousand people have died.

Kite My god. Well. That puts things in perspective, doesn’t it?

Later, Paul and I were trudging home over the icy sidewalks.

Sage Did you hear about the big earthquake?

Paul No, what big earthquake?

I know longtime readers are sick of hearing how we don’t own a tv, but every once in awhile an event of such tremendous magnitude happens that I feel I need to mention it, so that new readers aren’t sitting thinking, “For God’s sake, do you keep the child locked in a closet all day, or what?“

So. We don’t own a tv, and we tend to listen to our own music instead of the radio, and Paul is smart and doesn’t read the newspaper vending machine headlines as we pass them.

Sage describes the earthquake

Paul Are we going to have a tidal wave?

Sage No. We’re nowhere near the ocean. We’re near a lake, which is entirely different.

Paul Phew.

Sage It’s strange to think that all of that suffering is going on on the other side of the world, and here -

Paul And here it’s just the same was it was yesterday.

I remember when 9/11 happened, I thought the same thing. That it seemed incomprehensible that my world had changed so dramatically, but there were people who knew absolutely nothing about it - and, in fact, might never find out. And yet, here we are, getting up in the morning and eating breakfast just like we did yesterday, and having our own little dramas and small hardships while on the other side of the world it must seem like the Apocalypse.

We walked in silence for awhile.

Paul We should do something for the people who had the earthquake.

Sage I like that idea.

Paul Let’s send them a card, and a donation.

Sage I think that’s an excellent plan.

When we got home Paul sat in front of a blank piece of paper for a long time. “I don’t know what to write,” he said.

“You could draw a picture of something happy,” I said, “Something to cheer up the person who sees it.”

“Oh, I know, I’ll draw a picture of Peter!”

I giggled inwardly; apparently we both think kittens are cheering.

He drew a picture, then said, “I want to send them a song.”

“What sort of song?”

“Can you print out the lyrics to Macavity, from Cats, for me?”

I tried to picture a child in Tamil Nadu opening the card and finding the lyrics to Macavity (” Macavity’s a mystery cat, he’s called the hidden paw /For he’s a master criminal who can defy the law / He’s the bafflement of Scotland Yard, the Flying Squad’s despair / For when they reach the scene of crime Macavity’s not there!”) comforting. I tried. No luck.

“Um, those lyrics are pretty…long. Maybe something a little simpler, like, ‘We’re thinking of you,’ or…’We’re sorry for your loss’…no, that’s stupid. I’m not really sure, actually.”

Paul thought and thought, and just as I was sure I’d have to come up with something myself, his eyes brightened. “I know!” He wrote furiously, then showed me the card.

Subway Canoodling

Overheard at a restaurant:

Man #1, peeling off layers Man, in this kind of weather you have to take off all your clothes before you can even sit down.

Man #2 pauses, then says No, I think I’ll leave my clothes on today.

Sage Hi there. Would it be okay if I took a photo of your dog?

Woman For…?

Sage A photography project on Toronto. He just looks so cute, playing in the snow.

Woman Well…all right. You know, you know I don’t like him wearing that muzzle, but it’s…a long story.

Sage thinks Beginning with, “I wanted a purebred puppy…”

As you can see, the adorable Chow that had previously been happily gamboling around in the snow decided to play dead for the photo, but if I’d asked two minutes earlier, y’all would have been thinking, “Aw, I need a vicious, neurotic purebred dog too,” instead of shouting, “Honey! GET THE CHILDREN OUT OF THE ROOM BEFORE THEY SEE THIS!”

Kite left yesterday, before Paul woke up. He seemed unaffected by her exit, which is par for the course; he’s much better at living in the present moment than I am. Todd and Paul rambled around the city while I stocked up on photos, and when we all arrived home again Paul fell into his brand new Magic Treehouse book for about two hours. While he ate dinner, he asked Todd to put on a Hank the Cowdog audiobook, and we all listened to Hank drone on about Halloween. When that story was over, a new one began, about a cat that’s been abandoned by its owners and has been living alone for years. Hank comes across the cat and is (as usual) mean and hateful.

Todd and I were in the middle of deciding to play backgammon when I glanced over at the table and saw Paul bent over it, holding a kleenex to his eyes. “Paul?” I said, then with concern, “Paul, are you okay?“

He mumbled something, and I went over to the table. His entire body was shaking. “Paul?“

“This story is so…sad,” he sobbed, and grabbed another kleenex.

I knelt down and gave him a hug, while Todd rubbed his back. “It is sad,” I said. “I cry over sad stories too. I cried over a sad story just this morning, in fact.”

“The cat is all alone,” he wailed, and buried his head in my shoulder.

“I know, baby,” I said, and Todd and I looked at each other over his shoulder and teared up a little ourselves. I don’t regret a moment of it, but sometimes it’s hard knowing that Paul is 1,000 miles and another country away from his Granny because of choices we made.

I’m Buddy, and you’re Naomi.

Overheard in line for the ATM:

Boy Let’s play, I’m Buddy and you’re Naomi. Let’s play that’s my real name and your real name.

Grandmother, distracted Yeah.

Boy, in a deep voice So, Naomi, what would you like to do today?

Grandmother Yeah, yeah.

Boy, patiently Listen, let’s play, I’m Buddy and you’re Naomi…

When I was thirteen, I found the Cheers tv show theme heartwarming. (I also found the Golden Girls theme heartwarming. One night while visiting Kite, I pleaded with her to listen to this “really fantastic song”. She was sanguine until, “And if you threw a party / and invited everyone you knew / you would see / the biggest gift would be from me” when she cracked up and said, “Man, if the measurement of love on that show is how big your gift is, I think I’d rather cut firewood. Have fun!”)

Making your way in the world today takes everything you’ve got.
Taking a break from all your worries, sure would help a lot.
Wouldn’t you like to get away?
Sometimes you want to go, where everybody knows your name, and they’re always glad you came.
You wanna be where you can see, our troubles are all the same
You wanna be where everybody knows your name.
You wanna go where people know, people are all the same,
You wanna go where everybody knows your name.
You want to go where people know, people are all the same;
You want to go where everybody knows your name…

(Wouldn’t you like to buy a drink / Feed your alcoholic tendancies / You wanna go, where nobody’s in AA…Except Sam…but that doesn’t fit in with my point…so let’s pretend he isnnnnn’t…)

I always thought I would grow up and find a place like that - not, obviously, a bar, but a restaurant, or a shop, where the proprietors knew my name and my preferences.

I’ve turned into exactly the opposite sort of person, however. I ate at what currently ranks top on my short list of sushi restaurants in Toronto, frowning to myself about the snooty waiter, who seemed to be friendly to everyone else but me - frowning, but also pleased that I didn’t have to make conversation. When I came in a week later, Snooty looked at me for a long time before gesturing to the same seat I’d had before. He came over to take my order, and began to walk away, then shyly came back. “Were you in here last week?” I nodded. “I thought so. And I was going to say hello, and guess at your order, but I wasn’t sure, and I didn’t want to…you know. Anyway, welcome back!”

I smiled and said something friendly, and I haven’t been back since. Despite the excellent food, service, and atmosphere, I don’t like being recognized. I don’t like making conversation with strangers, or remembering what kind of tip I gave last time so I don’t disappoint the waiter with a smaller one, or finding myself stuck with the same order time after time because I’m afraid changing it will be embarrassing. In short, I am too shy for Bento Cheers, and I’m finding that the anonymity of Toronto has become one of my favorite things about living in the city.

Although the visit has gone well, Kite and Sage end up having their usual clashes towards the end. Sage cries a little, but only a little, because the problem is surprisingly easily resolved. Sage and Todd go out for lunch. When they come back…

Kite I casually mentioned that you’d gotten weepy, and Paul started leaping around, completely panicked.

Sage He probably thought Bush had been crowned Emporor.

News At Eleven

One of the unexpected side effects of leaving the States has been the kind of news that makes it across the border. I can’t tell if the news is getting progressively worse, or if the Canadian news agencies are neglecting the good news in favor of the bad. The news that I see while passing a newspaper vending machine, or that makes it on the CBC, is all so strange that I can hardly believe there isn’t a wave of U.S. refugees crossing the border en masse.

Hee hee. I typed “en mas”, it didn’t look right, so I went to double check via Google translation, which told me using “en mas” would give y’all the image of refugees crossing the border wearing farmhouses on their heads.

The first of the stories begins:

Alabama state Rep. Gerald Allen (R-Tuscaloosa) wants to ban public funding for any books with gay characters or content to protect children from the “homosexual agenda.” For those books already in the state’s public and university libraries, Allen suggests that people “dig a big hole and dump them in and bury them.” - Southern Voice

Oh, oh, Representative Allen, can I play too? I want to ban all books portraying Christianity as the One Truth, okay? And any books that imply that women were made from Adam’s rib, because I don’t like the government pushing that kind of agenda on The Homeland’s Youth. While I’m at it, I want to encourage all my readers to dig a big hole and bury any and all books that portray spanking as an option for parents. As my grand finale, I think I’ll firebomb all of the cigarette factories. Join me! Censorship is the answer!\

When the two plainclothes Loudoun County sheriff’s investigators showed up on her Leesburg doorstep, Pamela Albaugh got nervous…a complaint had been filed alleging that her 11-year old son had made “anti-American and violent” statements in school…Albaugh described her son as a rambunctious student who has long opposed armies of any kind.

She was aware of an incident at Belmont Ridge Middle School in which her son, Yishai Asido, refused to write a letter to U.S. Marines and responded, according to his teacher, by saying, “I wish all Americans were dead and that American soldiers should die.” Yishai and Albaugh deny that the boy wished his countrymen dead…Instead, Yishai said he has learned that it is not worth challenging authority. “At the end of the day, you lose,” he said, adding: “All of these freedoms and things they’re supposed to uphold, they bash them.” - Washington Post

You know, that kid could have been me. When I was eleven years old, my Sunday school teacher asked us to write a letter to Ronald Reagan. Ronnie’s letter openers found eight letters praising his presidency, and one asking how he could justify supporting shoveling so much money into nuclear weapons, and didn’t he know that little kids were terrified to go to sleep at night, because they could wake up to a nuclear war?

My step-sister wrote one of the drooly letters. She received a lovely series of photos of the White House interior. No response for me, though I suppose in retrospect I should be grateful that the FBI didn’t drop by to deprogram me.

Even scarier, however, is that in 2009, if we’d stayed in America, if he were in school, that kid could be Paul. Obviously we would never encourage him to wish people dead, but if he didn’t want to write to the Marines? We’d support that, we’d support talking about how war is wrong, one hundred percent.

Rainwater Harvesting: While this issue is very complex, the bottom line is that it is illegal under Colorado water rights. Although no specific statute has yet been written specifically directed at harvesting rainwater, the act of intercepting and diverting the water could be in violation of Colorado water rights. - Colorado State University

This means that putting a bucket under your gutter to collect rainwater is illegal. I’m not kidding. I wish I were kidding.

I’ve saved the scariest for last. And before you read the news story, here’s a little anecdotal preface: a Muslim co-worker of Todd’s, with an Arabic name, went to the States for a business meeting. When he arrived at the hotel, they assigned him room 911.

A prominent national Islamic civilrights and advocacy group today called on elected representatives andgovernment officials to address the rising level of Islamophobia in America. The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) issuedthat call following today’s release of a survey by the Media and Society Research Group in Cornell University’s Department of Communication indicatingthat 44 percent of Americans believe the government should curtail the civilrights of American Muslims in some manner.

A Cornell University news release on the report states:
“About 27 percent of respondents said that all Muslim Americans should berequired to register their location with the federal government, and 26percent said they think that mosques should be closely monitored by U.S. lawenforcement agencies … About 22 percent said the federal government shouldprofile citizens as potential threats based on the fact that they are Muslimor have Middle Eastern heritage. In all, about 44 percent said they believethat some curtailment of civil liberties is necessary for Muslim Americans.” - PR Newswire

Still think comparing the United States to Germany, circa 1937 is an overreaction? I don’t.

How’s it going with Tina?

Overheard at my favorite sushi restaurant, the one where every table is in a room of its own. (A true haven for the eavesdroppers, yes, but a liability when you’re biting into a Spider roll and the guy in the next room chooses that very moment to describe the time he was so drunk he threw up four times, then fell asleep and pissed his pants, right there in the bed, dude!)

Zachary So how’s it going with Tina?

Jake It’s okay, I guess. I don’t know…the thing is, I make these huge, elaborate breakfasts and dinners, right? And Tina, she gets on the phone right in the middle with her folks, right? And she talks and talks and talks, blah blah blah, and I’m like [sing-songy voice] “Hoooney, dinner’s on the taaable,” in a nice way, right, and she’s like, “Blah blah blah blah,” and twenty minutes later she gets off the phone and comes to the table, and of course by then the dinner is ice cold and tastes like shit, right? And I’m like, man!

In recent weeks the teenage violence in Toronto and the surrounding area has been escalating at an alarming rate. And even though I know the teenagers in this neighbourhood are more likely to form a gang for the purpose of washing cars for free, or helping old ladies across the street, I was still jittery when I saw a group of mean looking teens walking through a department store.

Until one of them laughed, and then the rest laughed, and looked like the boys they really are, and I saw that one kid was holding a little gift bag covered with hearts and I felt extremely sheepish, resolving anew to stop reading the newspaper.

No, I didn’t like celebrating Solstice, and no, I’m not looking forward to it next year, but I did neglect to relate one moment which did feel real. Around the middle of the day, Paul came up to me and gave me a hug. “Thank you, Mama,” he said.

Paul says thank yous for the strangest reasons. He never remembers to say the polite thank you thing unless I nudge him, but spontaneously? He’s gone into rapturous thank yous for a minute straight over me handing him a fork so he can eat his dinner.

“What for?” I asked, “The Solstice gifts?”

He pointed wordlessly to the streamers hanging from the wall.

“For…the celebration?”

He nodded, wreathed in smiles. I hugged him back. “You’re very welcome, my love.”

Merry Whatfuckingever.

Todd and I haven’t celebrated Christmas in thirteen years. Todd’s an agnostic, I’m an atheist, and we’ve been honest about Santa Claus from the beginning with Paul. So once you take out Jesus and Santa Claus, it’s all pretty pointless.

But this past May, Paul asked if we could celebrate Christmas. We compromised on celebrating Winter Solstice. I’d like to say that I rediscovered all the joy of childhood Christmases, and I’m looking forward to celebrating it again next year, but what I said in May still holds:

…if it were up to me, we wouldn’t bother with it at all. Holidays feel fake to me. I just can’t get behind choosing a specific day in which to give gifts, or color eggs. Hell, we’d celebrate Halloween whenever we felt like it, if it didn’t require the participation of the rest of the city.

Don’t get me wrong - I truly do celebrate Winter Solstice; not as an indication of the coming of spring, but as a confirmation that I can happily look forward to three more months of chill winds and snow. I just wasn’t able to get into the holidayishness. I felt like I was always on the verge of rolling my eyes and spent much of my time curbing my tongue, trying my best to make it special for Paul’s sake. It’s not Christmas he wanted, but to share in a celebration with other people.

As Kite, Paul and I were sitting at the table cutting out snowflakes a particularly dirge-like new age piano piece began in the music mix we’d been playing. I dolefully began telling the story of the Little Match Girl, while Kite giggled. I felt a momentary hope that I’d begun a tradition - a sarcastic reading of the melodramatic story as the dirgy piano piece played, but when I began reading it aloud later I ended up stopping in the middle and handing it over to Kite, crabby because Paul wasn’t paying attention.

Before Paul woke up the next morning, I created a trail of questions and clues and salted them around the house - in his Lego box, under the dining room table, in the fridge, in the oven. At the end of the trail? His Solstice gifts, a bookstore gift certificate and a computer game). Also an issue I struggled with - if we give him a gift, is it truly Solstice, or just a bastard Christmas?

Anyway. I’m glad it’s over, and glad I have another year before I have to do it all again.

I need your shoes!

Overheard at a sushi restaurant:

Kelly …I remember when I was in Prague with my mom when I was twelve, and I was wearing Nike running shoes, and people would walk by and they would totally stop, and, like, stare! And so eventually I just wore different shoes, because it was so weird, people always wanting my shoes, you know?

Mark Uh huh.

Sage thinks Wait, isn’t that the point behind brand name shoes?

Kelly Then when I was living in Japan, people would find out I was from Canada, and the only Canadian reference they knew was Anne of Green Gables, so they would always bring that up. Oh, oh, and at the library! Okay, at the library you could only check out books for two weeks. You couldn’t renew books. You could come back the next day, and check it out again, but the librarians never renewed them.

Mark Uh huh.

Kelly So this one time I’d checked out Anna Karenina and that book is, like, a thousand pages! So at the end of my two weeks I took the book to the librarian and I was like, “Please, please, just look at this book. Does it look like I could finish it in two weeks? Please make an exception,” and the librarian was all, “No, I must return it to the shelf,” but I begged and begged and finally he looked around to make sure no one was watching, and then he reluctantly said, “Okay, but don’t tell anyone,” and he checked it right back out to me.

Kite arrived Friday morning in high spirits, even though she’d just spent two days on the bus.

Thursday, she called from Chicago, where she was undergoing the second of her three 5 hour layovers and in the course of the conversation said, “I think I’m just going to hire a taxi -” and I expected her to finish with, “- and get to Toronto that way,” but she just said, “- and see the city.” She actually had FUN on her trip. We are very different people.

There wasn’t any instant coffee, so I headed to the nearest convenience store to pick some up. I’d gone there a couple of months ago in desperation, trying to find some black tea. No luck, but they did carry what I thought would be bearable ground coffee. After I brewed the coffee, I found out that it was aggressively vile, and I ended up throwing it out.

When I walked in the door, the clerk looked panicked. “You are here to buy coffee?”

I was startled by her prescience, then remembered coming in before. I smiled and nodded.

“I am so sorry,” she said, “But we are out of your favorite coffee.”

Then I really was startled by her memory. “Oh, gosh, that’s okay -”

Since Paul was born, I’ve turned into a character from ’50s television when speaking to strangers. I actually say things like, “golly” and “oh, crumbs”.

“I meant to buy some! But I just forgot.”

“No, really, that’s okay. I’m actually here to buy some for my mom. And she likes Nescafe. And look, you have it! See? So…”

“Next time you come in, I will make sure I have your coffee.”

I didn’t really know how to tell her I thought it tasted kind of like Canadian pizza, so I just thanked her and went back home.

When I arrived, Kite and Paul were busily opening all the Solstice gifts various friends had sent along.

Kite’s first Canadian border customs experience was long and tedious, filled with suspicion. She dressed up for the second, and it was easier. For the third, she was dressed up and carrying a big gift bag with a Christmas tree on the front. They waved her through with a smile.

Paula, Paul’s namesake, had - as always - relied on her secret pipeline to Paul’s secret desires and sent him many excellent gifts, including four brand new notebooks. Kite’s gift was at the bottom. Paul unwrapped a toothpick box and danced around in excitement. “Granny! Now I have Canada toothpicks AND Ozarks toothpicks!”

Kite giggled and said, “Oh, well, I’m sorry to tell you that there’s actually something else in the box. Not toothpicks.”

Paul opened the box to find a riddle and a bag to take apart and danced around a little more.

I just love that kid.

Capture the Flag

Overheard on the subway:

Randy …so then, I rolled my snowmobile about eight times, eh?

Jim Woah!

Randy And my mom comes running out and starts screamin’ at my dad, “You’ve killed him! You’ve killed him!”

Jim Were ya hurt?

Randy Nah. I just got up and started loading the snowmobile back on the truck. I was fine, eh?

It’s a windy day. Sage and Paul are standing in line at Lick’s, ordering. There is what looks like a poignant tear trickling down Paul’s face.

Sage I’d like a veggie burger meal, please. What did you want, babe?

Paul, solemnly A veggie burger too.

Sage He’d like the kid’s meal veggie burger.

Clerk, in a smoopy voice You want the veggie burger, sweetheart? Is that what you waaaant?

Paul blinks his eyes

Sage Yes, please. And to drink, a -

Clerk Don’t you want anything ellllllse, honey?

Paul blinks his eyes

Sage And to drink, an apple -

Clerk frantically picks up the basket of candy canes Don’t you want one of THESE?

Sage Oh, thank you so much for offering, but no. No thank you.

Paul Why?

Sage He’d like an apple juice. And I think that’s -

Paul Why not, Mama?

Clerk Oh but why not? He looks so saaaaad. Dontchoo, honey.

Paul But Mama, why not?

Sage, willing her eyes not to roll He - has - a - blocked - tearduct - that - makes - his - eye - water - he’s - just - fine. Thanks.

Clerk, doubtfully Oooooooh.

When the organizer announced we would play Capture the Flag, Paul immediately jumped up and down and said, “Capture the Flag [which he has never played in his life] is my favorite!” then added in a whisper to me, “What’s Capture the Flag?”

Reason #94 to homeschool: the Borg Mind.

I explained that I hadn’t played the game in many years and wouldn’t be much help. As I watched the game progress (it seemed to involve a lot of fort building, which wasn’t a part of the Montessori version I played at five years old) I thought back to playing the game myself. I remember what seemed like a miles long field at the time, but which was probably half the size of a football field, and kids laughing and running, and the jails at either end of the field, which consisted of wire spools half the size of the teachers.

I thought about how centred that memory is - how focused - me, grass, sound of laughter - and how standing there at 32 I was aware of almost everything. The music playing over the PA system, the organizer’s voice, what Paul was doing, the other games running in the same room, the scratchy tag on the inside of my boot. I felt sad about the loss of such focused concentration, and wondered if comes with age.

Years ago I heard an NPR segment about memory. The person being interviewed said that memory isn’t a file cabinet with file folders, each memory neatly labeled. He said it’s like a giant spiderweb, and that every memory in your head is connected to another in some way. I know that’s true with recent memories - I can smell a particular kind of soap, which instantly brings me to our little Ozark house, then the time I spent there alone while Todd was wrapping things up in the Southwest and Paul was with his Granny, and hey, I haven’t listened to Frou Frou for awhile, and I should start that album up right now.

But childhood memories? They truly are filing cabinets, and the ink is fading away. More every year.

A Secret Surprise

Overheard on the bus:
An actual man, actually saying the actual words, “Can you hear me now?” into his cellphone. With absolutely no sense of irony whatsoever.

One morning three weeks ago, Todd called me to say he’d seen a poster on the way to work for Cats, it was going to be playing in Toronto, and didn’t I think we should take Paul, who will sit in his room for hours listening to the Broadway soundtrack, and - the first time he saw the filmed version at age three - got up and began to dance so hard that he finally had to sit down all sweaty and exhausted?

I said yes, oh yes yes yes, and Todd reserved the tickets right away. We were very pleased with ourselves. Two days later, Paul asked, “Can I have a surprise?”

I asked him what he meant.

“You know, can I have a secret surprise that I don’t know anything about?”

Todd and I exchanged glances over his head, and I said, “Sure. You can have one on December 14th.”

Then it was three weeks of guessing what the surprise might be, guesses ranging from “playing a computer game with Daddy” to “going to Ontario Place” (an amusement park that’s currently featuring an orgy of holiday consumption). He never came close to guessing the actual surprise, and so we headed out last night with Paul none the wiser.

We stopped for dinner at Terroni (thank you, anonymous person, for the recommendation) and while in my personal estimation Tessorro still holds the number one spot when it comes to pizza, I thoroughly enjoyed the atmosphere and the fresh (in the middle of December!) tomatoes on my spinich salad. And when my espresso macchiato arrived, I seriously considered sending Todd and Paul ahead and ordering another six or seven while I drooled in happiness.

Todd had wanted to blindfold Paul for the entire trip to the theatre, but I vetoed that on the basis of not wanting to give the other TTC riders the creeps. Paul, however, asked me to cover his eyes for the last block. So we put a scarf over his face, didn’t take it off until we were in the lobby, and were able to manoeuvre him right into his seat before he spotted someone else’s program and figured out why we were there.

Still, he had no idea it was a live performance - he was excited when he thought we were there to see the filmed performance. When he finally understood that we’d be seeing the real actors, he was beside himself. I went off by myself to find Paul a booster seat, thinking on the way that man, I could use one of those. Apparently the coat check guy thought so too, because he apologetically said he needed to “actually see the child”. He was sheepish when I came back laughing with Paul in tow.

A very tall man came and sat in front of me, while his short girlfriend sat to his left. She nudged him and pointed to the tall person in front of her, and they prepared to exchange seats. He folded his coat and put it on the seat and patted it. She sat in front of me, having gained two inches. “Your very own booster seat!” he said goofily, and I wished I had a big ol’ wool coat too.

You know how cocaine makes coke addicts wired and paranoid? I’m learning that coffee has the same effect on me. When the show began with a multitude of strobe lights, I sat frozen in terror that THIS was the moment we’d find out Paul had a sensitivity to strobe lights. This was after I’d decided that because I could feel other people walking on the balcony it would collapse at any moment. I consoled myself with the knowledge that we’d be on top. I mean, what if we’d been seated BELOW the balcony?

The first act was basically a rehashing of the filmed version. I was disappointed; it was kind of like a soda at McDonald’s when I really wanted an espresso macchiato at Terroni’s. By the time the intermission rolled around, it was past Paul’s bedtime and he was starting to feel sleepy. I asked him if he wanted to head home, but he said no, he didn’t want to miss Macavity.

The second act departed completely from the filmed version. The dancing, the acting, and the singing had all dramatically improved from the first act, and they’d included Growltiger’s Last Stand, which isn’t on the filmed version at all. The dancer playing Mr. Mistoffelees garnered three spontaneous bursts of applause from the notoriously reserved Toronto audience. Paul was entranced. “Memory” brought me to tears for the first time in ten years.

As we headed home, snowflakes started drifting down from the dark sky.

We were all sparkling.