There once was a man from Montreal
Who couldn’t write limericks at all
It was such a crime
He could miss the obvious rhyme
At a linguistic shopping centre
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Sleeping Ugly
Gaze deeply into the face of the picture on the left. Isn’t that a priceless shot? That is a picture of my very own sister, Yolanda, deep in REM sleep while on a road trip with her children, somewhere on I-95 between Not very flattering, you say? Perhaps not. If you don’t think it is then you’re probably asking yourself why would I post it on the World Wide Web for the entire planet to see? The answer to that question is obvious. It’s because I’m her baby brother.
Before you paint me with the brush of cruelty as to how I could do something to such a sweet, loveable and clearly unsuspecting victim, may I warn you that Yolanda isn’t so innocent herself. She is far from anybody’s victim. Oh, she may be a little absent minded. After all, she was the one who, while ironing clothes one day, heard the phone ring and put the wrong instrument to the side of her head. (Don't worry, the burn mark was very small and you really have to squint these days to even remotely see it). But let me tell you about my most devious sister.
Yolanda is just one of my four older sisters. She is number three on the depth chart. (Yes, I have four sisters and no brothers. It was like being raised in an estrogen factory). While growing up she gave as good as she got. When I was about seven and I was hit in the leg with a dart and writhing in pain (don’t ask, that’s another story) it was Yolanda who made me role over in bed in agony several times before she would give me the packs of Batman trading cards that I wanted.
Even earlier, at about five, when we went to a fancy restaurant, it was Yolanda who said that I was too clumsy to pour the ketchup on the fries by myself so she proceeded to bang the bottom of the bottle from across the table to add the ketchup for me. The result – ketchup all over the front of the shirt I was wearing.
There was also that hot summer day when she promised to get me a tricycle – a promise that was going to be fulfilled by using trading stamps from a local supermarket. Yolanda dragged me the three long blocks to the store, traded in the stamps with the hopes that I would get the tricycle to ride home, only to realize that the bike came in a big box that required some assembly. Oh the joy of dragging a box for blocks with a toddler. Oh the joy of being that toddler.
It was Yolanda who always tried to scare the living daylights out of me. It was Yolanda who would laugh whenever I got some sort of injury. It was Yolanda who would make me try on her wigs and then take pictures of me.
So you see, Yolanda isn’t that innocent, but let me highlight her good points because every story has two sides. Yes she made me roll over in agony to get the Batman trading cards, but she was the one who bought the cards for me after my injury. Yes, she got ketchup all over me but she was the one who took me to the restaurant as a treat in the first place. And yes, it was Yolanda who saved her “Pinky Stamps” that allowed me to get my tricycle.
Yolanda was also the one who plied me with ice cream and ginger ale when I had my tonsils out and. She would drag her ten-year-old brother along with her when she and her husband-to-be went to drive-in movies because she knew about my love for films (how romantic that must have been for him!)
It was Yolanda who turned her brand new house over to me when, as a teenager, I needed a “set” for one of the action movies that I made with my friends (I also got to use their family car in scenes even though I was pre-licence age).
And years later, when circumstances dictated that she would be in a situation where she was raising three children on her own she did an absolutely amazing job instilling the same decency and wicked sense of humour that she had herself (hey, it was her own kids who took that picture above!)
So go back and take a look at the picture again. Go ahead, scroll back up, I’ll wait.
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As a baby brother I see a perfect opportunity yet again for some sibling revenge. But what I also see in that picture is the face of an angel.
That’s the Stuph – the way I see it.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Freezing Your Nuggets Off
There is a story in the news this week from China that reminds me of the warnings that parents would tell their children back when I was a kid. In those days the world was fraught with all kinds of dangers in the neighbourhood, all of which would lead to instant death. And to hear your mother tell it, most of these things happened just around the corner and usually to the same poor sad sack family that clearly had the worst luck known to mankind.
There was the snow blower. You remember little Timmy Johnson? He went out to play in a snow bank and was turned into instant mulch. Wasn’t that the winter just after the summer when Timmy’s sister Sally was found, suffocated, after playing in an abandoned refrigerator? Yes, that poor Johnson family. Never mind the fact that I never actually met them and they always seemed to have an endless supply of children. It was enough to know that this family existed in the neighbourhood just to serve as an example to the rest of us as to how dangerous our environment really was.
Didn’t do your homework one night? That would be the night you would hear about the Johnson kid who didn’t do his homework. Now he’s down at the bus terminal begging for money, sniffing glue and licking the windows.
Stayed out playing and came home after the sun went down? One of the Johnson kids did that. They were last seen with the guy who lives under the bridge. No one is quite sure where they are today, although rumour has it that he’s overseas somewhere, sold into slavery in one of those countries where children are starving for the vegetables that you refused to eat.
I took in all of these stories, believing that at best there was danger lurking around every corner and at the very least DNA evidence of a missing or departed Johnson kid. The one I thought of the most was Sally – refrigerator girl. During this period lots of people in our neighbourhood decided it was time to update the fridge (out with the basic white, in with the harvest gold or avocado green) and as we all knew, locked inside a closed fridge was probably the fasted way to die – you were gone before the light went out (as an adult, I’m beginning to see the holes in our parents’ stories. Why would an abandoned, unplugged fridge still have a functioning light?)
Most responsible adults did the right thing, either blocking the door so that it couldn’t close or better yet, taking the door off completely before they abandoned the unit on the curb where we played. But some thoughtless neighbours, probably the Johnsons, never followed that advice. They were apparently too busy giving their kids scissors to run with.
Sally was in my thoughts this week because of a story on the wire services. A Chinese man took a chicken out of the freezer after two days – and was shocked to find it was still alive. Gan Shugen, of Chengdu City, says the hen was a gift from a relative. It was wrapped in a thick plastic bag with its legs bound so, assuming it was dead, Gan put it straight in the freezer. But two days later, when Gan opened the freezer, he was amazed by what he saw.
“I heard weak sounds, and when I opened the bag, a red head popped out,” he said. “It was still warm, and when I removed the tape, she could stand.” Gan says the bag also contained a big chunk of frozen excrement.
Li Fazhi, of the Chinese Association of Animal and Veterinary Sciences, said he was mystified. “If the hen was locked in a fridge, that’s still amazing; but if she survived in a freezer for two days, that’s magic,” he said.
Gan locked the hen into the freezer again for more than 20 minutes, when a local TV station came for an interview, and the hen still came out alive. But the bird’s tribulations are now over – Gan says he’ll will not eat the chicken but look after it at his home.
Now, I have three points with this story that I find somewhat disturbing. First of all, we are hearing all kinds of stories in the news these days about the shoddy workmanship of Chinese products. This fridge must be one of them. I’m more inclined to believe a malfunctioning, non-hermetically sealed fridge than a miracle chicken.
Second, what relative do you have that would give you as a gift a live, bound chicken in a bag and not tell you it was still breathing? That would be the first thing I’d mention, right after possible recipes, cooking temperature and the best way to kill it!
Third, if you already discovered after two days that the bird was still alive, why, when contacting the media to let them know, would you think to put the bird back in the freezer for another 20 minutes? I’m not exactly a raging animal rights activist but that seems a tad cruel for someone who now claims that this bird has earned the right to live out the rest of its natural life at room temperature.
Hearing a story like this I am thankful that I’m not invited over to Gan’s house to enjoy a meal at his salmonella farm and I’m also heartened to think that perhaps there is just a glimmer of hope that maybe little Sally didn’t die after all. That she is out there somewhere leading a productive adult life, or perhaps tortured by the saddened memories of all her dead siblings.
That’s the Stuph – the way I see it.
There was the snow blower. You remember little Timmy Johnson? He went out to play in a snow bank and was turned into instant mulch. Wasn’t that the winter just after the summer when Timmy’s sister Sally was found, suffocated, after playing in an abandoned refrigerator? Yes, that poor Johnson family. Never mind the fact that I never actually met them and they always seemed to have an endless supply of children. It was enough to know that this family existed in the neighbourhood just to serve as an example to the rest of us as to how dangerous our environment really was.
Didn’t do your homework one night? That would be the night you would hear about the Johnson kid who didn’t do his homework. Now he’s down at the bus terminal begging for money, sniffing glue and licking the windows.
Stayed out playing and came home after the sun went down? One of the Johnson kids did that. They were last seen with the guy who lives under the bridge. No one is quite sure where they are today, although rumour has it that he’s overseas somewhere, sold into slavery in one of those countries where children are starving for the vegetables that you refused to eat.
I took in all of these stories, believing that at best there was danger lurking around every corner and at the very least DNA evidence of a missing or departed Johnson kid. The one I thought of the most was Sally – refrigerator girl. During this period lots of people in our neighbourhood decided it was time to update the fridge (out with the basic white, in with the harvest gold or avocado green) and as we all knew, locked inside a closed fridge was probably the fasted way to die – you were gone before the light went out (as an adult, I’m beginning to see the holes in our parents’ stories. Why would an abandoned, unplugged fridge still have a functioning light?)
Most responsible adults did the right thing, either blocking the door so that it couldn’t close or better yet, taking the door off completely before they abandoned the unit on the curb where we played. But some thoughtless neighbours, probably the Johnsons, never followed that advice. They were apparently too busy giving their kids scissors to run with.
Sally was in my thoughts this week because of a story on the wire services. A Chinese man took a chicken out of the freezer after two days – and was shocked to find it was still alive. Gan Shugen, of Chengdu City, says the hen was a gift from a relative. It was wrapped in a thick plastic bag with its legs bound so, assuming it was dead, Gan put it straight in the freezer. But two days later, when Gan opened the freezer, he was amazed by what he saw.
“I heard weak sounds, and when I opened the bag, a red head popped out,” he said. “It was still warm, and when I removed the tape, she could stand.” Gan says the bag also contained a big chunk of frozen excrement.
Li Fazhi, of the Chinese Association of Animal and Veterinary Sciences, said he was mystified. “If the hen was locked in a fridge, that’s still amazing; but if she survived in a freezer for two days, that’s magic,” he said.
Gan locked the hen into the freezer again for more than 20 minutes, when a local TV station came for an interview, and the hen still came out alive. But the bird’s tribulations are now over – Gan says he’ll will not eat the chicken but look after it at his home.
Now, I have three points with this story that I find somewhat disturbing. First of all, we are hearing all kinds of stories in the news these days about the shoddy workmanship of Chinese products. This fridge must be one of them. I’m more inclined to believe a malfunctioning, non-hermetically sealed fridge than a miracle chicken.
Second, what relative do you have that would give you as a gift a live, bound chicken in a bag and not tell you it was still breathing? That would be the first thing I’d mention, right after possible recipes, cooking temperature and the best way to kill it!
Third, if you already discovered after two days that the bird was still alive, why, when contacting the media to let them know, would you think to put the bird back in the freezer for another 20 minutes? I’m not exactly a raging animal rights activist but that seems a tad cruel for someone who now claims that this bird has earned the right to live out the rest of its natural life at room temperature.
Hearing a story like this I am thankful that I’m not invited over to Gan’s house to enjoy a meal at his salmonella farm and I’m also heartened to think that perhaps there is just a glimmer of hope that maybe little Sally didn’t die after all. That she is out there somewhere leading a productive adult life, or perhaps tortured by the saddened memories of all her dead siblings.
That’s the Stuph – the way I see it.
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