Death Valley III: In which I finally arrive in Death Valley

Roughly half an hour before arriving in the main visitor’s center for Death Valley, just outside the boundaries of the National Park, is a side road off the main highway leading to one of the region’s many ghost towns. Rhyolite was a gold mining town that flickered in and out of existence between 1905-1911, boasting a train station, banks, several newspapers, a hospital, fifty saloons and 3,500 presumably inebriated souls.

Today very little of that is in evidence – there’s a shell of a bank, a fenced off hotel and few other minor buildings, including a house made entirely of bottles (I was going to say inexplicably, but with fifty saloons about, both the building material and the decision making behind choosing it is all too explicable).

Speaking of inexplicability, the most visually arresting element of Rhyolite is not the evocative ruins, but rather the giant pink naked Lego lady Jon and I dubbed “The Cubist Nudist” but is apparently actually called “Lady Desert: The Venus of Nevada.” The Cubist Nudist is the most prominent exhibit of the Goldwell Open Air Museum which is pretty much what the name implies: a bunch of art, outside.



As with the ruins of Rhyolite, and Rhhyolite itself, there was no signs, plaques or pamphlets on obvious offer by way of explanation for any of this (other than a “no shooting” sign – one wouldn’t wish to alarm the ghosts, after all), so Jon and snapped our pictures and moved on, not entirely sure that we hadn’t just experienced our first desert hallucination.



We made Death Valley about half an hour later. Our intention had been to camp out in Texas Spring, per the drawling recommendation of Jay Stone, Death Valley Park Ranger, but we were road weary and hungry on arrival, so we simply checked into the Stovepipe Wells Resort for the evening. After a lamb kebab (just like the cowboys would have eaten!) we retired to our private cabin, drank whiskey, and lost money to each other playing poker (and by “each other” I mean “I” lost money to “Jon.”

Our first full day in Death Valley, we intended to explore the park much as our forefathers would have: by car, with the air conditioning on (let’s face it: you have to go back three generations now to find a forefather that didn’t have access to a car).

The important thing to understand about Death Valley is that while today it is a desert of considerable aridity, it used to be an inland sea of considerable humidity. I’m not entirely clear on where the water went, but it did leave a calling card. At the Devil’s Golf Course, the retreating waters left an enormous field of giant lumps of crystallized salt. Walking across them is a risky proposition: the spiky lumps make the less-than-sure-footed pay dearly for missteps. Scrape yourself on one and you instantly learn why the phrase “salt in the wound” is never meant as a positive.



Next we headed to Badwater Springs, which is the lowest spot in North America (being a few hundred feet below sea level). It too is a vast, salt covered plain, but instead of brownish lumps, the eye is confronted with an expanse of brilliant white across the valley, apparently reaching to the Panamint Mountains on the other side.

Jon and I took a stroll out in it, and it was very disorienting. All of our Canadian-honed sensory cues were telling us that we were walking across snow - white flakes, crunching under our feet - except it was hot. Also, we could feel the moisture fleeing our bodies just standing out there.



As the sun continued to climb, we hit a couple of the shorter day-hike suggestions we’d gleaned from the visitor’s center – Natural Bridge Canyon and Golden Canyon. The weird dislocating sensation continued: the canyons looked exactly like a million others I’d seen in cowboy movies on afternoon t.v. It was much the same sensation as when I first visited Paris or New York: you see a place a million times on t.v. or in the movies, and it feels familiar to you, even when you’ve never been there before.

Of course, in those movies no cowboy enters a canyon without getting shot at by some rifle totin’ bandit hiding behind the ledge. That’s what canyons are for, in my mind, so it was rather unnerving strolling up one, given that the entirety of my subconscious could almost feel some black-hatted ne’er do well drawing a bead on my back.



Also, canyons are frickin’ HOT. The temperature that day wasn’t too high, by Death Valley standards, but in Golden Canyon, at around noon, there was no shade anywhere, and the sun was reflecting off the pale yellow rock of the cliffsides in all directions. It was like being in an EZ-Bake oven outfitted with a Krieg light. We decided, fairly early on in our Golden Canyon hike to not do the six mile loop and content ourselves with the less than 2 mile walk up to the Cathedral rock. Sadly, we arrived at those rocks to find that while they resembled a Cathedral in shape, they did not in terms of shelter or shade from the sun.

The last place on our first day’s itinerary were the sand dunes near the northern end of the park. These were fascinating, in that they looked exactly like I’d picture the Sahara or Arabian deserts to look: endless undulating hills of sand. They were a disappointment though, in that there was an information plaque warning that scorpions and rattlesnakes used to the dunes as a place to burrow away from the relentless daytime heat. This wasn’t disappointing the sense that it prevented us from wandering around in the dunes – but it was in the sense that we did not, in fact, see any. This was probably better for our health in the long run, but our inner-ten-year olds were sorely disappointed.


NEXT: The Final Installment – Surprise!

Death Valley II: Is that a gun in your pocket or... oh, it is?

Finally, the day arrived for my departure. Leaving Amynah with Sana and her uncle’s baby-blue minivan, I swapped the baby seat for my backpack, booted Raffi out of the CD player and replaced him with some AC/DC and hit the highway for Las Vegas, where Jon and I were to rendez vous.

Our plans for our one night were pretty mild, given that we were far more anxious to enjoy Death Valley to its fullest than we were to

SECTION REDACTED TO PROTECT THE INNOCENT

…and then I fell asleep, head spinning, clutching the twenty five cents I’d won like it was a teddy bear.

The next morning, after an excellent breakfast at a shady off-strip casino that apparently had a Western Buckaroo theme, yet had decorated its main dining room with paintings depicting the 1813 Battle of Lake Erie between British and American naval vessels. Those martial scenes got us in the mood for the last activity we had on our Vegas itinerary before heading to Death Valley.

That’s right, boys and girls, Jon and I shot some guns.

This was entirely Jon’s idea, but I won’t pretend I wasn’t happy to go along with it. Jon had spent some time in Canada’s military reserves in an artillery unit, and apparently had a hankering to revisit the glory days of pretending to blow things up. Vegas has a sin for every taste, and so we made our way to the imaginatively names “Gun Store.” After parking my Honda Civic between a jacked-up pickup truck and another jacked-up pickup truck, we made our way to the entrance, passing a couple of enormous gentlemen whose stetsons and sideburns were locked in mortal combat over which would earn the honor of being their hosts’ dominant head furniture. They in turn, were gawking at a Las Vegas city cab pulling up to the front of the store.

“That’s a cab” one observed. “What the hell?”

“Who the f*** takes a taxi to a gun store?” said the other, clearly affronted.

Always curious about the social mores of different cultures, I was going to turn and ask why one wouldn’t take a cab to a gun store, but was saved from a probably embarrassing faux pas by a female voice.

“You boys looking to shoot today?”

“Uh, yeah,” said Jon. I turned from my investigation of Gun Store transportation etiquette to behold a pair of pulchritudinous young women in extremely tight t-shirts manning the welcome booth outside the store. They beckoned us over, and leaned over their table to show us their guns.

Pointing to the helpful diagrams on the counter, they explained that the store had a large variety of weaponry one could rent, ranging from modern combat weapons to “The Dirty Harry.” You could also rent “packages” – the “Coalition Package” of three or four assault weapons from different NATO countries, or the “U.S. Military Package” of their army’s weapons (one of which looked like it should have been mounted atop a tank).

“There’s also the World War II Package, of historical weapons,” the blonde girl said, adding non-judgmentally “if you’re into the Nazi thing.”

Jon, being into the whole HOLY CRAP DEFINITELY NOT A NAZI thing, rented a vintage gun from the British Army (also used by Canadian troops in WWII and, for all I know, still is today).

I stepped up to the booth, looked the blonde straight in the eye (not easy) and said, “Look, I’ve never fired a gun in my life. I’m looking for something really simple. Also, you should know I have girly wrists,” flapping my hands by way of illustration.

“Uh…” said our hostess while Jon stifled a laugh. Behind me, I heard a sideburn bristle menacingly.

Recovering, blondie recommended a gun whose name I forget but contained a bunch of the more macho consonants (in case you’re wondering: X, T and K are macho. L, H, F are not. Y was for a while until it was outed as a closet vowel, which are totally not macho).

Our menu selections complete, we entered the store, at which point we were signed our release forms (In signing this document, I recognize that guns are dangerous, as are the fumes, the noise, the bullets emanating from them, as are other Gun Store customers, and so I hereby release the proprietors and staff from any liability. I further affirm that I did not take a taxi to this Gun Store). We were then invited to pick our targets, which ranged from generic bulls-eyes, to images of Osama Bin Laden, to zombies. There was also a pair of brown guys holding handguns that I guess were supposed to be terrorists, but were dressed like average North American dudes, and were even depicted with friendly smiles on their faces. They could have been customers of the Gun Store, if the Gun Store existed in a parallel universe in whcih it had non-white customers. Maybe they were supposed to be taxi drivers? Slightly creeped out by the options, Jon and I selected generic targets without faces, and were handed our clips and told to wait.



Eventually, it was our turn to be ushered onto the range. We donned our ear covers and eye protection, and took our places. Jeff, our range instructor, started with Jon – loading the gun for him, placing each of his hands on the weapon, and telling him how long to squeeze the trigger.

Of course, Jon had only paid for fifty rounds, and the Tommie gun is an automatic rifle. It is designed to shoot quickly. Jon paid $70 bucks for this experience, and did not want to shoot quickly. Yes, he rented an automatic rifle in order to shoot slowly. This is why he is my friend.

Jeff: You have to hold the trigger down, for at least four rounds.

Jon: Ok (Rat-tat!)

Jeff: Ok, good – but you have to hold the trigger longer.

Jon: Sure! (Rat-tat!)

Jeff: Ok, aim a little lower, and really, hold the trigger longer. Four rounds.

Jon: Right! (Rat-tat!)

Jeff: You’re going to jam the gun.

Jon: (Rat-tat-tat).

Jeff: Harumph.

After Jon’s Tommie reluctantly expectorated the last of his rounds, I was up. I will be honest – I was nervous as all get out, and had been trembling slightly ever since we set foot in the store. Just holding a gun was getting my adrenaline pumping, which was not helped by the fact that I kept getting hit by hot shells waiting for Jon to finish mangling his paper target.

In any case, I had two clips of ten rounds to work my way through. My first shot came closer to the target adjacent to mine that what I was aiming at. I think my second shot hit the floor before reaching the target. My third shot probably alarmed the target quite a bit as it whistled by into the sand pile on the rear wall. The next few shots hit more or less on the paper, but never within a foot of where I thought I was pointing the gun. This I will blame on the aforementioned girly wrists.

For the second clip, Jeff explained how I was supposed to line up the sight. “You see the white dot? That should line up right in the center.”

“Uh, yeah,” I said. That was a lie. I didn’t see a white dot. My heart was pounding so much, my vision had gone blurry, even with my glasses on. Nonetheless, I fired off the next ten shots with much greater accuracy, but I have to say, I cannot imagine being able to operate one of those things effectively if I was actually trying to hit something that could move, let alone shoot back at me. Of course, I was slightly distracted by the pair of sideburns firing an anti-aircraft gun in the booth next to mine.

We took our targets as souvenirs, and exited the store, passing a giddy woman with a pink M-16 and an Osama target on our way out. Suitably pumped up, we climbed back into the Civic (which had stayed nice and cool in the Vegas heat, thanks to the shade cast by the neighbouring monster-trucks), and hit the road for Death Valley.

Death Valley, Part I: I had to start this story in 1985? What?

Death Valley is the most deadly and dangerous spot in the United States. It is a pit of horrors - the haunt of all that is grim and ghoulish. Such animal and reptile life as infests this pest-hole is of ghastly shape, rancorous nature and diabolically ugly. It breeds only noxious and venomous things. Its dead do not decompose, but are baked, blistered and embalmed by the scorching heat through countless ages. It is surely the nearest to a little hell upon earth that the whole wicked world can produce. New York World, September 16, 1894

My trip to Death Valley began 25 years ago, in my fifth-grade classroom in Nova Scotia. My teacher had – foolishly – assigned me a seat within easy reach of the in-class stash of books, which I would read indiscriminately and heedless of whatever lesson was happening around me.

The books ran the gamut – I read “The Hobbit” that year, the entire Narnia chronicles (twice), a number of Enid Blyton “Famous Five” books, Farley Mowat’s “The Dog that Wouldn’t Be.”

Other than Joan Clark’s “The Hand of Robin Squires” (which led to adventures of an entirely different kind) no book that I read under my desk sticks in my mind as much as… well, I don’t remember the title. It was some compendium of “Amazing Tales” drawn from the U.S. designed to get boys to read, and was filled with AMAZING TALES indeed: Escape from Alcatraz! Evel Knievel jumps Snake Canyon! Rocket Cars! The Sabre Tooth Tiger of the Tar Pits! The Corvette! And, of course, Death Valley!

The name alone would have got me, as is has many thousands of others, but there was more: It was below sea level? But dry? My ten-year-old mind couldn’t even understand how that worked. It was the hottest place in North America? Wow! The driest! Sure! It had scorpions! It had rattlesnakes! It had gold mines, and cowboys, and con-men and ne’er do wells of all sorts! Sweet Rabbi Jesus, I wanted to go there.

When we found out, two years ago, that we were moving to California, my first thought – I am not exaggerating, literally my first thought – was that I would be getting my chance to go to Death Valley. It was the only place in all of California I really wanted to see – not L.A., not San Francisco, not the beaches or the celebrities.

I had not had a chance to actually visit the place, despite it being a tantalizing three-hour drive from my home. I was waiting my moment, and my moment arrived when my friend Jon called from Ottawa. He wanted to come visit and
per established practice, bond over the experience of shared hardship, canned food, and non-existent plumbing. And what better place to re-capture our camping mojo than in a place that features mountains (in which we’d never before camped), desert (in which we’d never before camped) and a variety of poisonous animals (with which we had no familiarity). I mean, surely Death Valley is only called that to attract tourists, right?

Once we’d decided on the locale, and the method by which we’d get there, we decided to do some research (this goes against every camping principle I hold dear, but hey, I’m a Dad now). And so, I called up the Death Valley Park Rangers in order to get some advice on how one might go about camping there.



Before this phone call, I was interested in Death Valley. After the phone call, I was excited about Death Valley. The reason for the shift was the man I reached, Jay Stone. Is that not the perfect Death Valley Park Ranger name? Go on, say it out loud in a Clint Eastwood voice. Even better, he had just about the most agreeable horse ridin' tobacco chawin' cattle-drivin' drawl I ever did hear.

He told me that camp site we’d want on the first night, when we were driving in, was Texas Springs. “It's generator-free,” he explained. “Is it tent-only?” I asked. “I don’t reckon,” he reckoned. “But you’re not like to have much in the way of company that time a' year.”

For water, we should have 4 liters per person per day ("That's what I count on when I go canyoneering") Temperatures, he informed me, “get up to 80 easy, even in March.” I forgot to ask about the nighttime lows, such were my palpitations at his manliness.

For backpacking, he described Surprise Canyon, for which we were to park outside the park and hike in: “That’s what I’d do,” he said, in a tone that made it clear that this being America, land of the free, he wasn’t about to impose his will on our dreams by offering an endorsement stronger than that. All in all, he seemed amused by my tenderfoot apprehensions, and gave me his direct office number so "I don't have to walk all the way over here from my desk if you call again," which gave me a mental image of his office being at the far end of a converted cow barn or something, with an ole’ style telephony machine at the far end at which he would occasionally shoot with his Colt Revolver.

He also promised to mail me "Everything we've got" in terms of pamphlets as he held scant hope the dude-ranch posers and layabouts he worked with got my message requesting same from the week before.

I think I fell in love with Jay Stone, Death Valley Park Ranger, just a little bit.

IN THE NEXT POST: Mommas, don't let your sons take a taxi to the Gun Store!

So that's why Canadian Citizenship Applications take so long.

_{Canada House on Tafalgar Square. I should probably blog about that trip too, eh?}

Somewhere in the further reaches of a Scots-infested island in Eastern Canada, the decision was made. Using an ostentatious feather plume pen that was used by Chevallier de Drucour to sign the surrender of Louisbourg in 1758, the nameless functionary filled out the form in front of him using the words originally composed by a commitee of Robert Service, Leonard Cohen and Margaret Laurence. He signed the paper in front of him with an ink made from material from the Sydney Tar ponds and juice from Joey Smallwood's greenhouse cucumbers.

The sheet of paper was then put aboard the fastest transport available, the original Bluenose, which had been recovered and from its resting place under the seas near Bermuda for just this purpose. Under full sail, it raced past Prince Edward Island, docking in Charlottetown only long enough to bind the paper in the remains of the ribbon that was cut to open the Confederation Bridge.

On arrival in Montreal, the paper was embossed with its official seal, which was made not of wax but of maple syrup and ashes from one of Réné Lesvesque's cigarettes. This was stamped with an embossed hockey puck still bearing the mark from Rocket Richard’s shot that won the Stanley Cup for the Habs in 1952.

From Montreal, the document was sent on to Ottawa, where it rested for three days in the foyer of the Parliament Building, under the gaze of portraits of Baldwin, Lafontaine and all of the Prime Ministers. After being photographed for posterity with the same camera Youssuf Karsh used to capture the image of a scowling Winston Churchill, it was sealed in the very envelope that carried the original British North America Act from Westminster to Canada.

Onward on its journey: the envelope and document arrived in Thunder Bay, Ontario, by the statue of Terry Fox. A smidgen of snow was taken from his curly bronzed hair and melted, and used to wet a small brush made from a beaver fur and the bone of a moose consecrated by a Cree medicine man. With that brush, the the glue was wetted and the envelope sealed.

Across the Prairies the journey continued, over rails laid by abused and fearful Chinese and past fields planted by hopeful Dukhobours, over the Rockies to British Columbia, where the stamp was applied using the very hammer that drove the last spike. Finally, it was put in the regular post, with a salute from a corps made up of drummers from Rush, the Tragically Hip, the Guess Who and Blue Rodeo. It has now arrived at the Canadian Consulate in Los Angeles, which has sent me a letter to let me know: Sana is now a Canadian Citizen. Huzzah!

Remembrance Day: They who question also serve

Every year I try to write a Remembrance Day post (or Veteran’s Day, as it is called here, which I feel gives the whole thing a rather different flavour). They’re generally pompous, except when they’re about buying new baby-manglers , but I’m going to go with informative this time (well, informative and pompous).

I can’t claim to be an expert on the military, nor do I feel comfortable saying Remembrance Day is “about” one thing or another. But I have always felt the emphasis that is placed on honouring those who are “willing to die for their country” is misplaced: it is far more horrifying to me that we ask our soldiers to kill for their countries. Especially if, inevitably, they should end up killing the wrong people, for the wrong reasons.

I’ve only written a couple of articles for The Beaver Canada’s History that touch on military history, but in both I was struck by the essential seriousness of senior military men about what they do, as contrasted with the sometimes flippant way politicians treat their responsibility for the lives of their citizens and of other countries.

For instance, there once was what amounted to a civil war in a country very far away. Canada had no interest there at all, but we were told by allies, who we thought were in a position to know, that our help was needed to combat an internationally coordinated threat that stood in opposition to every freedom we in the West held dear.

Our allies had bad intelligence. We sent our soldiers to a hostile environment, unprepared, under equipped, and essentially asked them to take sides in a conflict in which we did not understand either of the combatants. As a result, we ended up propping up an illegitimate and oppressive government, and contributed to the deaths of untold civilians. The threat, in the end, was less part of an international, anti-Western movement as it was an indigenous uprising.

The threat I am talking about was not terrorism, the country was not Afghanistan. Our troops were not called on to call in airstrikes on weddings. But in 1932, because of a panicky British ambassador in El Salvador who saw Communists behind every lamp-post, the Canadian navy was ended up providing support to a military dictator who took Mussolini as an inspiration, had come to power in a coup only three months before, and was recognized as legitimate nowhere (except, oddly, Norway).

The two Canadian ships had been sent by Canadian politicians who weren’t entirely sure where El Salvador was, and didn’t care to find out. They had been told the country was being overrun by Communists, and they believed it. They were told good English speaking plantation owners – Brits, Americans – were being murdered in their beds, and they believed it. They were told lies.


Victor Brodeur, the Captain with a conscience
Image from: http://www.journal.forces.gc.ca/vo9/no4/23-book5-livre5-eng.asp

The Captain of those ships – a French Canadian called Victor Brodeur – was able to tell them the truth after the fact. He told them the vicious dictator of El Salvador was able, because Canadian vessels were securing his western port, to free up his own troops. Those soldiers were able to massacre 40,000 Pipil natives, essentially wiping out a group that formed the labour force of the British and American owned plantations and that were treated worse than dirt in the country. Venturing out into the countryside (something British ambassador that had demanded military intervention had never done) Brodeur saw that the uprising had consisted of burning some farm buildings – no plantation owners were killed, no infrastructure damaged. Shown the massacre site by some proud and preening Salvadoran generals a few days later, it was revealed that exactly one Communist party membership card was found among the corpses – many of whom were wearing white sheets, now splattered in blood, in the vain hope they would be spared death as non-combatants.

Brodeur, conscious of what his country’s actions had wrought, wrote all of this in his report to Ottawa on his return. There was no follow-up from the politicians that had sent him there, no complaints to Britain, no international censure for El Salvador. However, in an example of the high seriousness of Canadian Parliamentary Democracy that has sadly only been matched since, one far-sighted and noble MP did bravely rise in the House of Commons to complain about the cost of the fuel the ships consumed to get there.

Kool Aid? Don't mind if I do.

I’m not very familiar with Feng Shui, nor do I believe the little I know, but Amynah and I have noticed that certain apartments seem to have effects on how we live and socialize entirely independent of their size, location, and layout.

We’d noticed it in Montreal: in one apartment in the Outremont neighbourhood, Amynah would socialize constantly, and we would frequently go out for evening walks. In another larger apartment one block further away, she never invited anyone over at all.

Of course, we don’t realize the effect our apartment is having on until we leave. Our first apartment in Los Angeles was wonderful: one block from the local park, awesome neighbours in the building, two large bedrooms, hardwood floors, lots of light, close to all sorts of amenities.

While still a lovely place, our new apartment has almost none of those advantages. As an added disincentive to socializing, it comes with free cable.

Yet for some reason, we’ve already had more people over for dinner here in a month than we managed in a year in our previous place, and we’ve resumed our evening walks that had been a part of our routine everywhere else we lived. My theory is that we're trying to maintain a connection with the outside world.

Overall the new place is… nice. It’s run by UCLA for the benefit of those students and post-docs with families, meaning everyone here has the same employer, is in the same life circumstances, and have children roughly the same age. It’s called the University Village but, as it is a controlled access facility surrounded by iron gates and cement walls, I call it the compound. In essence, here we're fish in a heated aquarium, trying not to forget the taste of the ocean.



Behind the metal bars, we all live in a series identical adjoining apartment buildings, distinguished only by the differences in their communal playgrounds. There, children frolic happily throughout the day while parents chat and use the shared barbecues. The numerous flower beds are watered every morning, and everyone smiles and nods at one another as we negotiate our strollers past each other on the well swept walkways.

Many of the residents are internationals, and most of these are Indian or Chinese, most of whom appear to have their grandparents tending the children. In the playground closest to us, there appears to be an informal deal in which the Indian families occupy the facilities for one hour, then the Chinese grannies will arrive and sit and gossip while their descendants play. I’ve not quite figured out where Sana fits into all of this, but all camps seem fairly friendly to us both.

It’s also extremely well organized – there are occasional parties for the kids, there are English lessons for international students, there’s a hard-to-get-into daycare. They look after the details too: for Hallowe’en the residents' committee even circulated signs to every apartment that you could hang by your door to indicate whether you were participating or not.

All of this is so perfectly idyllic that it pushes into creepy territory, leaving us no other conclusion other than that there must be something darker going on under the surface. Amynah is convinced it's a façade masking a pulsating mosrass of sexual tension as in Melrose Place, although the most likely candidates for such hijinks are the various visiting grandparents. For my part, I keep looking around for piles of stones with which the residents express their darker urges a la "The Lottery." As such, I have been very careful not to buy the residents' committee’s raffle tickets.

If there's a bustle in your hedgerow...

Be alarmed now:



Los Angeles loves Hallowe'en. The above was relatively understated by neighbourhood standards, but my favourite by far. Makes my efforts look pretty week by comparison.

Proof I am not crazy.

Long time readers of this blog might remember way back in the day when I lived in France, I biked 160 km (100 miles) motivated largely by the prospect of eating a Burger King Whopper? And then, thanks to train schedule disruptions, failed to eat said burger?

I find out (thanks to the very funny Penelope Jolicouer ) that to go to such lengths is not unusual for the Whopper bereft French (watch to the end):

No, YORE a hoser.

_{A Canadian Navy destroyer, at dock in Halifax}

I’m not sure how it happened, but I have apparently developed a strong “Canadian” (sub-set: “Maritime”) accent.

It’s highly unusual, I believe, to develop an accent late in life like this, but I am fairly certain I never had an accent before. In all the twenty-odd years I lived in Nova Scotia, I didn't have one, right? Six years in Montreal, no mention at all - surely someone would have told me if i had an accent right?

In France a few people mentioned my accent, but I think most of them thought I was speaking strangely when compared to our mutual British friend who clearly does talk with a funny accent, one of the many disadvantages of learning English on that isolated island.

On arrival in California, one or two people, upon learning that I was Canadian would raise an eyebrow, as if to say “that explains it” but I just thought it was in reaction to my overwhelming politeness, bewilderment at Fahrenheit, or smugness in the face of the local “cold.”

Then I was hired at UCLA. Once more, I find myself giving regular interviews, and hearing myself on tape as I transcribe them. Of course hearing myself on tape while speaking to French people revealed nothing to me about my accent. But in a direct comparison against Americans, who almost speak real English, (despite their aversion to the letter “U”) I realized (realised?) that I sound like I hail from Ecum Secum

For instance: where the locals pronounce the contraction of “we are” are “weer” I am only able to pronounce it as “whirr.” Similarly, the people here pronounce “your” more-or-less like “yoor” while my pronunciation is closer to “yore.”

Those are only the words that jump out at me, and jump out they do: it’s an odd phenomenon to suddenly realize that what I thought was my completely neutral manner of speech now sounds makes me sound to my own ear like I should be yelling at my crew to be pulling in the nets because a Nor’easter’s blowin’ in.

Not to comment troll or anything, but how many of you that have spoken to me have noticed my accent before? How many of you ever hear your own?

Remember me?

It’s been a while, hasn’t it?

When Sana was born I made a vow to myself that I wasn’t going to let this blog be taken over by all the cutesy adorable things that she does, both because a) I believe the View of the Marching Fishes brand, such as it is, appeals to a sophisticated audience that wants to read about my falling off of bikes and failing to find Vicious Wild Hamsters and b) I’m already doing the Daddy-blogging thing over here (or at least someone leading my life but with differently-named wife and daughter is writing over there).

Given that almost nothing in my life occurs without Sana, it’s hard to find things to write about that meet my fairly strict criteria (I saw Inception though! Highlight of the year so far! Anyone want to talk about it?) I also went to Nova Scotia, and I’m sorry I missed pretty much everyone I know there.

So, why am I writing now? Well, a sufficient number of hilariously bad things have happened to me this week, but I think the baby’s stirring, so I can only list them point form:

1) My work visa expires next week, so I will be out of a job, until it is renewed.

2) It might not be renewed until October.

3) I am way behind on the newsletter I need to finish before I am out of my job, and so, need to work all weekend.

4) My work computer (with the entire newsletter on it) died last night, and is now in the shop. I don’t think this is going to help my “please re-hire me” case.

5) This means I had to go to the nearest Apple store and get service at their “Genius Bar.” I’m still trying to get the smell of smug out of my cloths.

6) We renewed our lease here just before leaving. On our return, we discovered we’ve been accepted into subsidized post-doc housing at UCLA, meaning we have to break said lease.

7) It also means we have to get out of here by September 1. We can’t move into the new place until September 10.

8) We have no friends to help us move.

9) Sana is teething, and appears to either have a cold, or a tributary to the Mississippi in her nose. She’s been an adorable crawling ball of tears and mucus all week.

At some point, I’m going to write a proper post (though lord knows on what. One potential topic: Did anyone know I have a Canadian accent? Why did no one tell me before?)

Leonard Cohen, Children's entertainer

This last week, Amynah’s been working like a maniac on a grant, and so I’ve had more Sana duty than usual. Sana seems to require a lot of stimulation to keep her not-bored and therefore not-cranky, and I’ve run out of ideas to keep her distracted: she figured out “peek-a-boo” for the scam it is a while ago, and is no longer inclined to humour us on the issue.

This morning, in desperation, I took out my guitar, and sang her some songs. Sadly, I don’t know very many songs all the way through, and those that I do are not exactly baby friendly. Here is my version of Leonard Cohen’s “Bird on a Wire,” performed reggae-style, with improvised melodic commentary to make it child friendly in parentheses.

Like a bird, on a wire (birdy!)
Like a drunk, in a midnight choir (he’s drunk on life!)
I have tried, in my way, to be free (yay!)

Like a worm, on a hook (he’s hanging around!)
Like a knight, in an old fashioned book (horsey!)
I have saved all my ribbons for thee (that means you!)

If I, if I have been unkind (I haven’t! Don’t cry!)
I hope that you will just let it go by (Really, don’t cry!)
If I, if I have been untrue (he means lying. Really!)
I hope you know that it wasn’t to you (Lying's bad!)

Like a babe, (new) born (not disturbing at all!)
Like a beast, with his horn (like a rhino!)
I have torn everyone that reached out for me (by accident, and he’s sorry!)

But I swear, by this song (singing! Yay!)
And all the things I’ve done wrong (like choosing this song to sing!)
I will make it, all up to thee (ice cream!)

Saw a beggar, leaning on his wooden crutch (he’ll get better!)
He said to me, you must not ask for so much (Listen to the beggar man!)
I saw a lady, leaning, in her darkened door (she's not a hooker!)
She said to me, why not ask for more (don’t listen to the hooker!)

At that point, I figured that I’d better quit before launching into “House of the Rising Sun.”

A Soldier in the Pooh Army

_{The soldier in uniform, reflecting}

I recently had the opportunity to interview a former volunteer in the notorious Pooh Army, and a veteran of the Battle of the Hundred Acre Wood during the bloody Honey Wars. This is her story, verbatim. Posts about local hikes and L.A.'s subterranean lizard people will follow, eventually)

You’ve heard of people like me. You might even think you know me. You might even think you understand me. You don’t. You don’t understand nothing, unless you’ve worn this uniform. To know me, you have be like me. You have to be a soldier in the Pooh Army.

Once, I was like you. I saw the Pooh shows, the Pooh posters, I didn’t think much of them. But one day – I dunno what went through my head. I was just a baby damnit – it was an impulse, maybe I was out of my mind of mashed peas – one day, I signed up.

And here’s something they don’t tell you about the Pooh Army: one minute, you’re a baby, rolling around in a puddle of your own drool but the next, they put you in that jumpsuit, and damnit: you’re expected to be ruthless, brutal, cold. A warrior.

My squad was a small one. We all came through the same training together… roll right. Roll left. Yell. It all seemed like a game. But one day, it all came to an end. The perfessor came. Yeah, he was an owl, sure, but we knew he had the smarts, and he was General Pooh's right-hand man. Respect.

He fluttered down in front of us, told us that we were ready. Told us about how we were not in this to be proud of ourselves, or even each other. He walked up to each of us, poking each of us in the chest with his bristly wings, looking at us with those raptor eyes, and saying we were to bring honour to the uniform we wore. Then he gave us the caps.

“You see those eyes one these caps! You see those ears?” he hollered. “You think those are just something that your Mommy will think is cute? No! Those are Pooh’s eyes! Those are Pooh’s ears! And when you go out there, he will SEE what you do! He will HEAR what you say! And you had better do him proud soldier!”

And that was it. We were soldiers in the Pooh Army, the fiercest fighting force in the world.

We were led by the Rabbit. He was scared. We laughed at him behind his back, but we should have been scared too. He’d been out before. He was a survivor, and was not happy to go out with a bunch of raw recruits like us. He told us what the owl said about the eyes was a load of crap.

“The eyes on the cap are there to confuse… him. That way, he won’t know where you’re looking. Not that it will matter.”

“What do you mean?” asked Piglet – jeez, Piglet. Poor guy never knew any better. The Donkey shushed him –Ian, or Igor or something, I think his name was – a whiny guy, but hard working.

We rolled out. The target was some place called the Hundred Acre Wood. We were to retrieve as much of the honey – liquid gold, we called it – as we could. But it wouldn’t come for free. The enemy was somewhere in there, we knew: a semi-mythical man beast, idiotic and relentless. Legend had it that he traveled by boucing on his tail – all the better to keep all four of his slashing claws free.

We were on the road for what seemed like forever, poor Piglet chattering the whole way like we were on a picnic. The donkey never said much, except to mutter that he didn’t want his number to come up fighting over some honey pipeline in a godforsaken tree farm. Rabbit was in the lead, ears jumping around like t.v. aerials in a hurricane. Suddenly, he stopped, ears rigid.

“I think…”

Suddenly, we heard a blood freezing chortle, echoing in the trees, all around us. If I had any hair, it would have stood on end. And then, there was a flash – orange, black and “whoosh” – rabbit was gone.

Yeah… gone. Just like that – one minute, he’s in front of, scrawny little thing with bugged out eyes, next…. He was air.

What happened after that, I can’t say. I hit the ground – we all did. What else could we do? All we heard was this sound… over and over again, a sickening mechanical springing sound that no biological creature should ever make, and a thump of a tail hitting the ground like a fleshy pogo stick.

I swear to god, for the rest of my life, I’ll be hearing that sound in my nightmares.

After Rabbit disappeared, Piglet was next to go. Sproing, squeal, silence. Poor kid never did grow up to a full fledged hog like his Momma wanted. Then, that same orange and black flash in the corner of my eye – “Oh well,” said the donkey, resigned, like. Then a thump, and silence.

It was just me. I lay alone, trembling. That godawful sproinging sound drew closer, and closer. Finally, I felt a shadow over me. I felt something nudge my foot.

“Hey kid. Kid! Pay attention!”

I opened my eye.

“You know what most wonderful thing about Tiggers is? I said, DO YOU KNOW?”

I could only whimper.

“You listen, and listen good. It’s that I. AM. THE. ONLY. ONE.” he said. “You go back and tell General Pooh that. Make sure he gets the message.”

And with that, he disappeared. I looked around the clearing – my comrades were gone. Just… not there anymore. I won’t lie to you – I was damn glad I was wearing a diaper. Our supplies were all over the place, but I couldn’t bring myself to clean up – the bees were already swooping in on the broken jars. I fled – it took me days, let me tell you, living off whatever I could scrounge from the forest floor, but I had to get out of there, any way I could.

I quit the Pooh Army that day, but let me tell you, I will never forget the horror of what I saw in that clearing – Rabbit… Piglet… the donkey. My brothers. I can never forget them. But I want to… god, I would love to wipe my mind clean. Because let me tell you, to this day, whenever I close my eyes, and images of that terrible day in the Hundred Acre wood come to me, I can smell it like I was there.

Honey and sawdust. Honey and sawdust everywhere.





Naw, I'm just kidding.

Shaved baby

When I first moved to Montreal, many years ago, I moved into an apartment building that boasted a very attractive rent, which the proprietors kept low by running an extremely unattractive building. As such, it was filled with students, people on social assistance, and new immigrants (and roaches, but that has nothing to do with this story).

The apartment next to my greasy studio space was occupied by a family from Bangladesh – husband, wife (pregnant) and their toddler son. We didn’t speak often – partially because of the language barrier, partially because their son fell down a flight of stairs because of my stupidity (he was fine, though I’m convinced he’s been plotting to kill me ever since) and I don’t remember their names.

However, I do remember that one day, I noticed their son had gone from being the proud owner of a luxuriant mop of jet black hair, to completely bald. I didn’t have a chance to ask them why, but I mentioned it to Amynah. She explained that it was the custom, amongst South Asians, to shave their babies’ heads, in order to promote a thicker, fuller, second growth of hair.

I pointed out that I’d never had me head shaved and that, if anything, I (and most of the hairdressers that have suffered handcramps trying to deforest my scalp) wished my hair was somewhat less thick and luxurious. “Imagine how much thicker it would be if your mother had shaved it!” she replied. To that, I had no answer.

I bring this up by way of explaining that when I married Amynah several years later, I was fully-apprised that if and when we had kids, this was going to be an argument that we were going to have, and it was going to be an argument that I was going to lose. And today, the day arrived.

Through her community’s grapevine, Amynah found Rahima, a hairdresser that was willing to shave baby heads, and we made an appointment for today at noon (after first walking in unannounced two days ago, and gaining "what? are you monsters?" looks from all the other clientele when we said what we wanted). Sana was not in the best mood, but always behaves well around strangers. We stripped her down to her diaper, and Amynah put on a hairdressing robe. And Rahima set to work.



Sana was remarkably good humoured throughout – which is to say she was upset, but not the “Help! I’m being murdered” levels of upset she can reach when we’re giving her a bath, for instance.



It helped that one of the other hairdressers was there with her husband and three year old son, who was fascinated by the process and therefore willing to distract Sana by dancing and clapping for her amusement.

In any case, in twenty minutes it was all over, and we brought home our newly glabrous baby. I think she looks like Natalie Portman in “V for Vendetta.” What do you think?

Nobody asked

Amynah and Sana are in Edmonton right now. I am not. This state of affairs, already three days old, will continue to this Friday. This is both the first time I’ve been alone in Los Angeles, and the first time I’ve spent any time away from Sana since she was born.

In their absence, I’ve made certain discoveries. This apartment apparently functions like an ecosystem, in which every niche must be filled for it to function. Amynah, Sana and I all fill specific niches.

Ordinairily, when Amynah is away, I need only fill her niche and mine. I didn’t think filling Sana’s would be so important: she’s only been around for .01 percent of my life, so how crucial could her role be?

Apparently, very crucial. Someone, it appears, has to be the one that doesn’t feed or dress themselves and sleeps at weird hours, and only when forced too. And that someone is now me.

Accordingly, I been spending too much time on the Internet, thinking about things that are not the least bit important or original. So, does anyone care what I think of the whole South Park thing? No? Here goes anyway. In response to a couple of extremists threatening the creators of the South Park cartoon for implying that they had drawn Mohammed in a bear suit (important note: it was actually Santa Claus in there), the Comedy Central Network censored the episode.

Predictably, in response to that, a few Facebook geniuses have decided to make some kind of point by creating an “everyone draw Mohammed day” and encouraging people to post images of the Islamic Prophet on their profile pages.

This is very, very, stupid.

There are three parties involved in this dispute: the South Park guys, the network, and the crazies. Posting offensive cartoons does not help the South Park guys. Nor does it send any cogent message to the network. It does, presumably, anger the crazies, but only in the course of offending millions of other, non-crazy Muslims.

On the surface, that might still be appealing, but it doesn’t really make any sense.

Take the Don Imus scandal from a few years back. A jack-ass radio announcer, he called a college women’s basketball team a bunch of “nappy-headed hoes” on air. There was an outcry, and eventually his broadcaster fired him. His defenders yelled themselves hoarse over censorship, to no avail.

Now, at that point, would it have made any sense to defend Imus’ right to say what he wanted by repeating his words? Of course not – all that would have done would be to repeatedly insult a group of women that had almost nothing to do with his firing.

The same holds here: repeating South Park’s [non] offence, won’t have any effect on the ultimate censors – the network. And it won’t have any effect on the crazies either - the only thing, at this point, that would deflate them would be if Comedy Central reversed its decision. But posting a Mohammed cartoon because of this tempest in a teapot will serve as a middle finger upthrust in the face of every Muslim who believes both in their faith, and in not murdering people (which I am confident is the vast majority – especially on Facebook).

That, in the end, is what is at issue here: the crazies are not in the wrong because they’re Muslim. They’re not even in the wrong because they’re offended. They’re in the wrong because they threatened to kill people. The response effectively subjects anyone who peacefully belongs in the first two categories to a punishment that should rightfully be restricted to those in the third.

Of course, while such distinctions should matter to the “draw Mohammed” crowd, they don’t, because the middle finger approach requires far less thought. But reactionary contempt has noxious follow-on effects. To deliberately insult all Muslims for the offence of a very few is to agree on some level with the crazies that they speak for their coreligionists, when they most assuredly do not (I know at least one Muslim group actually accused them of being a front organization to make real Muslims look bad). Striking back at the crazies in such a broad fashion is to grant them an authority they do not deserve.

Beyond the pat-yourself-on-the-back feeling from having made “a statement,” (however meaningless it be) who other than the crazies themselves, does it serve to afford them such credibility?


(Incidentally, if you want to make fun of religious crazies, there are much more targeted and clever ways to do so).

Meryl Streep's star was the next one over.

_{Mann's Chinese Theatre}

Hollywood is famous for many things, but reverence for the written word is not one of them. Its entertainments are, by definition literal, without being literary: most brutally, in a recent case, by removing the Wonder from Alice in Wonderland by making it “underland.” Because it’s underground you see, and Hollywood wouldn’t want you to be confused or, heaven forfend, be left wondering.

It’s strange then, that two of the most visited sites in Hollywood aren’t just word based, they’re literally just words – the Hollywood sign, and the Hollywood Walk of Fame. As someone who works with words for a living, I don’t want to discourage this, but I couldn’t help but be curious about the appeal. The sign is not particularly distinguished – an unadorned font, plain white, running across the crest of some unspectacular mountains, it looks like what it originally was: a real-estate billboard.

As to the Walk, what precisely is the difference between seeing the words “Harrison Ford” on gum-encrusted brass plaque on the sidewalk upon which the multimillionaire actor may never have trod, and seeing it on the credits of one of his movies which he actually had something to do with or, say, dropped arbitrarily in a curmudgeonly blog post?

My experience of the Walk didn’t illuminate matters for me. There were a lot of names – not all of which I recognized, and none of which got my blood pumping. Some that I observed weren’t even real people: like Big Bird, The Simpsons, or John Tesh.




Yet, the sidewalks were crowded with people taking photos of people’s names, squealing with excitement when they happened upon a particularly famous one. I wondered if there was a market in simply charging people five bucks for their people their favorite celebrity’s name printed on a Post-It note – it would be somewhat more tangible, after all.

As I cynically pondered this, the experience, suddenly, though perhaps inevitably, became what the cool kids might call meta-textual, when I stumbled across this star:



Anne Shirley is, as my Canadian readers will know, the heroine of the Lucy Maude Mongomery “Anne of Green Gables” novels. The first book was made into a film in 1934 and a rising young actress, born Dawn Paris.* was cast in the part. Apparently unafraid of being typecast, she adopted Montgomery’s creation’s name as her own, and spent the rest of her career as Anne Shirley. And here I was, taking a photo of the not-name of a starlet who'd been in a movie that had taken its story from a book – whose main character would have been preferred have been called Cordelia.

We’re through the rabbit hole people. Into UnderWonderland.

* _{Before adopting Anne Shirley as a stage name, Dawn Paris performed under thoroughly awesome stage name of “Dawn O’Day."}

The big cheese

I was going to do a big post on visiting the Hollywood Walk of Fame, but my beloved daughter has been possessed by a shrieking goblin that will only be exorcised by being held and cuddled, non-stop.

Instead, I will present you with, courtesy of Brian Busby at
"The Dusty Bookcase," a poem from Canada's history, singing the glories of a 7,000 pound cheese made for a 19th century World's Fair that I would look up if I didn't have my apoplectic offspring attempting to revenge herself upon me for not predicting and catering to her infantile whim to not sleep in any of the sleep-dedicated infrastructure we have cluttering up the apartment.

Vegas. Baby.

I’m not superstitious, but I should have known our Vegas trip was not going to end in riches when our hotel booked us into rooms on the thirteenth floor.

While we were looking forward to our first road trip with Yann and Felicie since Provence there were omens that luck was not with us: the enjoyment of our night gawking at the Strip was considerably reduced by Earth Hour, during which most of the major casinos turned off their ridiculously garish light displays in the spirit of environmentally sustainability. Who the hell goes to Vegas to be reminded about the needless excesses of consumer society?

The untimely restraint meant that the hour Amynah spent waiting for the famous Bellagio fountain show was wasted* – we gave up our primo viewing spots five minutes before it started, meaning we only caught a glimpse of it over a bunch of frat boys heads. (*Not entirely wasted - she found people's reactions to the gang of pamphleteers with their "Jesus Saves You... FROM HELL!" t-shirts to be pretty entertaining).


_{Strip with the lights on. Upon reflection, a less clichéed photo would have been the Strip with the lights off. Maybe next year.}


As long as Sana was with us we were a little reluctant to enter the casinos either. Regretfully, the abundant smoking, drinking, and scantily-clad go-go dancers (not to mention the surfeit of Tea-Party types in town for a protest) didn’t seem conducive to creating and atmosphere for responsible parenting.

Of course, bare flesh was hard to avoid: every corner on the strip was populated by half a dozen guys handing out calling-cards for “professional companions.” At one point, Felicie complained that no one was trying to give her one, so I – chivralrous gentleman that I am – took one for her.

This was a big mistake: as soon as the rest saw that they had a willing taker, I was swarmed by half a dozen card snapping prostitute-proselytizers, shoving pictures of naked ladies in my face, into my hands, even directly into my pockets. For those keeping score at home: Susan, Veronica [the lone brunette], Kimberly, Mariah, Tina, and Victoria and Tiffany, who appear to be package-deal twins. To my disappointment, there wasn't a Honus Wagner in the bunch. It occurred to me that Vegas would be a very strange city in which to go through puberty.


_{Felicie awaiting her Philly Cheese steak. That tower on the table behind her? Beer.}

That’s not to say we avoided sin entirely. On our first night, we inadvertently enjoyed quite possibly the most American – or least French, anyway – dinner of our lives. It was at a NASCAR-themed restaurant, with filled with March-maddened college basketball fans yelling at the half-dozen large screen TVs. Felicie and I had Philly cheese steak sandwiches, Yann had a pound-of-beef burger, and Amynah – eating light – had a Southern-style chicken sandwich with what appeared to be a hectare of fries. Though we were tempted, we refrained from ordering the two-foot long burrito that was the restaurant’s “challenge dish” – finish it, and you eat for free. “Bathroom breaks are monitored - vomiting voids the competition” said the announcer, drily.


_{Yann and his pound-of-beef burger}

When Yann and I finally managed to hit the tables, we were a little tired and overwhelmed. Our practice games of Blackjack had only left us certain that we wanted to be the house. Nonetheless, (once Amynah had retired with Sana) we found a table with a sympathetic looking dealer, close to a lucky-looking go-go dancer, and bought some chips. Felicie went upstairs to change, but promised to return.

Somehow, despite our attempts to look worldly and Euro-sophisticated, the dealer, and our fellow players, spotted us for the hopeless rubes we were immediately. Every second hand, when one or the other of us would tap for another card, the dealer would look us, puzzled:

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” we’d reply, full of machismo. And then we’d lose.

At one point, Yann was up nearly one hundred bucks, while I was down to fifteen – the minimum stake for the table. Then he drew a pair and –with considerable guidance from an exceptionally inebriated man with horn-rimmed glasses – split it. I had no idea what was happening, and I’m pretty sure Yann didn’t either, but between Friendly McDrunkerson and the helpful dealer, Yann basically had his hand played for him. He lost. Then he lost a few more times, and pretty soon he was out.

Me, I went up as much as $45 dollars, but mostly floated between $15 and $30 – winning a little, immediately losing it, then winning it back. I never had as much as Yann did at the dizzying heights of his success, but I played longer. In the end though, I lost just as much, burning through my stake.

And while I tried to play it cool, Yann and I were both itching to get back on the tables: Yann’s goal was to win enough to pay off a parking ticket he’d incurred the day before, while I wanted to show that I could walk away even with “only” a fifteen dollar win (which, incidentally, would have required winning back my initial stake as well). We were both convinced – all evidence to the contrary – that we were on the verge of a breakthrough. We headed out of the casino, towards a bank machine. On the way there, we ran in to Felicie, on her way to join us.

“You’re done already?” she asked, incredulously.

“Errr…” we said, suddenly realizing we’d blown through our stated limit in less time than it had taken for her to change her pants. Perhaps, we decided, it would be better to simply have a drink, watch the go-go dancers without the distractions of babies or cards, and then turn in for the night.

However, if there’s a next time, I’m requesting a room on a different floor.

The Mammoth Murder

Had you asked me what the coolest thing in California was when I was in grade five number redacted years ago, I would have not hesitated: tar pits. Pits of tar, laden like Chunky Soup with the remains of such wondrous creatures as sabre-tooth tigers and wooly mammoths.

It took a visit from our French friends, Yann and Félicie, to finally induce us to make the trip out to the pits. It was pretty awesome: there were a lot of animals that fell into those pits. The fact that the first few dozen to go in didn’t serve as an object lesson to the dozens more that followed probably goes a long way to explain why they didn’t survive to the present day. The Ice Age was a stupider age.


_{Sabre toothed freakin' tiger!}

As visitors enter the museum grounds, they see the largest pit, fenced of for safety. Within the fencing is an educative, if horrifying tableau:



How can you look at this and not be shocked? Look at the mother mammoth, crying uselessly for help, as it sinks, panicked, into the relentless, sucking void? Look at her baby – reaching it’s tiny trunk out for his mother, watching the very source of his existence sink, with tortuous slowness, into oblivion, while his father, stands by, helpless and knowing he can do nothing to help. It rends the heart.


But it got worse. Unnoticed, on the other side of the lake, we spot another mammoth, concealed behind a bluff, watching the terminal paroxysms of the female.



Creepy. What is he doing there? Why is he watching, offering neither assistance nor comfort? Why is he hiding? Did he have a hand in events? Could it be that our perpetually dying mammoth did not fall, but was in fact pushed?

Still alive

_{Proof I leave the house occasionally}

Boy, it’s been a while since I’ve been around here, eh?

A blog like this will go dry for one of three reasons: there’s nothing going on, and therefore nothing to write about, or there’s too much going on, and therefore I’ve no time to write about it, or I’m suffering some sort of blogging/writing ennui and therefore don’t want to write at all.

Or option number four: All of the above.

Most of our life over the last few months has been exactly what you would expect life with a new baby to be like: feeding, crying, sleeping, and dealing with the baby’s feeding, crying and sleeping. And while I find absolutely everything Sana does to be enthralling, I recognize that not everyone else is tuning into this frequency of the Internet to read about me babbling on about how absolutely brilliant, beautiful and awe-inspiring my daughter is.

Even if I wanted to write about that (which I do, believe me) I didn’t have the time because my Guardian Angel Mom has been here for the last month, keeping us alive helping us out and spoiling spending time with her newest grandchild. During that month my sister and her family of four, as well as friends from both Canada and France have arrived for visits. It’s been a madhouse, and Sana probably believes she’s being raised in a Bed and Breakfast.

In addition to that, Sana has started at daycare (breaking my fragile heart) and I have started a new job.

So, there’s plenty of material to write about, and I hope to do so soonish, but I am now splitting my writing efforts between here, my job, and my semi-pseudonymous blogging gig at Goodkin, a family lifestyle site at which I am now semi-professionally blogging. This means some stuff that might have appeared here will appear there: check ‘em out.


So this isn't a post so much as it is a promise statement of intent to eventually post here again, soon. My apologies to both my readers.

Perhaps we can reach them by carrier pigeon?

Given that it's very name is a byword for enormous and slow moving, you'd think it wouldn't be very difficult for me to get a decent picture of the blimp that skulks around my neighbourhood in the evenings.

For those of you asking why, precisely, my corner of LA is a haven for antiquated aviation devices, I must disappoint - I have no idea. I like to believe that it's manned by a gang of Prussian centenarians who never got word of the Armistice in 1918.