Playdates With Chris

Click to enlarge and make it easy to read.

I went to the Presentation House Theatre website to read about an upcoming play and noticed an advert for my show. I have no contract and Kim (the A.D.) and I didn't talk about the number of performances. I am okay with whatever is done, but it was an odd way to find out about the length of the run. (I do not like the image at all.)

Hot for Emily Blinko

Link.

Corporate Suicide?

The money quote:

Why should we boycott Burger King just because they are avoiding their US tax responsibilities? Because if they don't pay their fair share of US taxes, someone else has to, and that someone is you. Total government spending is not going to change because Burger King moves offshore, only the tax burden will shift to others, namely you.

Make no mistake, Burger King is still going to use the services of the US government, they just aren't going to pay for them. Their delivery trucks will still run on our aging highway system. Their shipments will still arrive at our ports. Their products and sourcing of food staples overseas will still be inspected by the FDA. Their facilities worldwide will still be protected from expropriation by our court system and defense establishment. Their brands and logos will be protected by our intellectual property rights. Most importantly, many of their low-wage part-time and full-time workers will still avail themselves of our government's health care system and our government provided retirement system. Many of their employees I am sure avail themselves of other low income government services like food stamps, but I am quite sure Burger King will not release any data on that topic.

Link to source: "Boycott Burger King" by John. R. Talbot on Huffington Post.

The Voice: A Rant

The lingering memory of my heart attack is not medical. It is a lesson I learned from my friends; I learned how to visit someone who is sick.

When I looked dreadful (which wasn't for long), people would come in and be sad and it made me have to reassure them that I felt okay and I did. (Not everyone, by the way Bruce!) I felt okay because I was being extremely well cared for and constantly monitored. I was in the ECU, the safest place to be. What I learned was not to be down when visiting someone in hospital; the visitor's role is to be up no matter what.

Now I have learned more about how to treat people who are sick or have an issue…. like losing your voice. I want to scream: "When someone loses their voice, stop with the amateur treatment recommendations and stories about other aphasics!" Why do people think that just because it is a "minor" health issue that they can diagnose and make prognoses? I know you are being kind, but think people! That's what doctors and medical schools are for.

The other day, I went to a dinner party for a good friend. I joined a group of people with whom I feel very comfortable but I arrived late. As soon as I spoke, I "stopped" the party. I guess everyone was noticing me because I had just entered the room and was speaking and in full stop-and-start rasp, but suddenly I was the centre of attention.

People who know me might say…."How nice for you. That's what you like." And sometimes that is true, but that was when I was younger and a career builder. And I like the focus when I am earning it. But as I senior I am far, far more comfortable in my more introverted personality like when I was a child and I don't like the limelight.

There is a difference between earning attention for your work or wit and getting attention because you have a crappy voice. A broken voice is, after all, a disability and laughing at it is inappropriate, especially you know it has lasted seven months.

So now, when people ask, "What's wrong with your voice?" I say: "I don't know but it has lasted seven months." "Seven months" is code for don't laugh or make a joke or tell me about Aunt Millie and lemon juice with honey or about Billy who lost his voice for a while. I am not them and I have doctors…. lots of them.

Thank you for listening.

THe Weekend in Victoria

You can click on any of these images to enlarge them.

I was excited to be going on such a beautiful day and from
such a dynamic location. The sea plane to Victoria leaves
from behind the Convention Centre.

We were a full house. I was last in.

Active Pass. I have been through here so often on the ferry
but never been over it in such clear weather.

Arriving in Victoria. I LOVE the geography here where they
get toughly 35% of the rainfall we get in Vancouver.

ON arrival, Jess, Todd and Sahara and I went directly to a
small cove near their house for a picnic. Jessica is exactly
what I would want for a daughter; Todd is human perfection.
Sahara has inspired more learning than almost anyone else
I know and she is only twelve years old.

The reddest Arbutus tree I have ever seen is
in the grounds of the Empress Hotel.

We had champagne and then the Indian smorgasbord
in the Bengal Room of the Empress—my favourite place
to go with Todd & Jess.

Adrian is Sahara's caregiver. On Sunday, Todd and I
harvested the French beans Todd grew in his massive garden.

They also grow lots of lavender and HUGE beets.
Very Provençal, all in all. 

There are two large vegetable gardens. This is the smaller one.

This is the larger garden. 

These beets are absolutely gargantuan. They are the size of
very large melons. I can't believe it.

Lunch.

These are the potatoes we harvested.
This is 25% of their crop.

A last look at the beautiful coastal geography of the Island.
They are f-cked if the glaciers melt.

Home.

Casual Friday

Chris and Frani are in black vests; Todd has Sahara
in his arms and Jessica is concealed behind them.
Hudson is in the front. This is in Autoire, France.
Click to enlarge.

Friday started off very weird: I woke up in mid-migraine. I don't ever recall doing that before.

My migraines, I am sure, are stress related, so it doesn't make sense to wake into one because sleep is, perhaps, my favourite activity. But that is how my day began…. opening my eyes to the flashing lights of an aura, and in such a situation my pills are useless. You have to take my pills at the onset of the aura, otherwise it is too late.

So I got on the bus and went out to UBC and there, I decided not to walk in the gardens but to go to Wreck Beach and being the time I call the penumbra of summer, I knew I would be blissfully alone. I had a lovely hour on warm but not hot sun and then I walked one of my favourite walks home with the sun on my back.

•

Today I fly to Victoria to spend the afternoon with Jessica, her husband, Todd, and family. Jessica's father, Chris, built the theatre I designed and we have been friends since 1974 when we u undertook that project. Chris' wife, Frani, is a loving sister to me and their daughter Jessica grew up in my heart. 

And she married a miracle. I will never forget meeting him. He was sick and it was 6:00 am. I had been up for a while when he emerged from their bedroom, introduced himself and invited me to join him for a drive into town for a coffee. Then he showed me some of his work (he is a carpenter) around Whistler, all in French. I have been hooked since.

Sahara and Hudson are their kids. Each is, of course, unique, but their Uncle Chris loves visiting them because they are exactly the same to me: they are the only people in the world I can hug indefinitely, kiss and caress endlessly. 

Human touch is vital but very hard for an old gay single man with no family to get. I long for it and sometimes cry over its absence, especially since seeing a scene in Tanzania when a baboon gave birth to a stillborn baby. I was alone with my driver in our truck when the mother came wailing out of the woods and we watched as all the baboons encircled her, the closest extending a hand to her and leaving those hands on her. There were probably 100 or more baboons silently sitting witness to her, with the closest constantly in touch.  Today, I will get my fill of that rare and precious blessing.

Good Weather, No Responsibilities Ahead

A seawall day if ever there were one. Sunny and spectacularly warm without being hot — all with the mindset that it soon will end. But while it is here, and with no marking, all projects on hold or in-hand, life is so great that awareness of all my current blessings can be very intense.

Today, I passed a man berating a woman and I could not help myself, I plugged my ears hard for many minutes tears streaming down my face and thinking non-specifically of Dad. This behaviour is the legacy of living with an angry bully of a father when I was young.

The smell of the sea, the sound of gulls and the sound of rigging on metal masts is a sensory banquet of emotions and memories — all good.

Sometimes I wonder how I have arrived at this age so happy in spite of not having a child. I wonder how much of my core sorrow is due to not having been a parent. And I wonder how parents let go and think maybe parenting would have been too intense for me.

Today was heavenly… walking with nothing at all on my agenda today. No errands no objectives except to enjoy the walk. And then, at the end of my walk, I got a salad and spicy tuna roll from Kadoya and ate on the lawn in the sunshine, got on a bus and went to Aquariums West and got some beauty new guppies for my tank.

More of same tomorrow. Then to Victoria by seaplane on Saturday and back on Sunday.