You Haven't Left Yet??

I was totally stumped for a post for this Theme Thursday when, all of a sudden, I heard a familiar cry from across the canal.  Well, maybe more like a screech, or the sound a cat makes when you step on its tail.  You see, there is a very loud and noisy parrot that lives across the waterway.  I concede that this post isn't particularly imaginative on this week's theme, or particularly humourous for that matter, but it sort of involves the colour of blue.

At any rate, the neighbouring parrot reminded me of a day years ago when I lived out in the country.

Not far away lived some friends who trained and bred dogs and had a small kennel on their property.  One summer, they were invited to an all-day wedding affair that was quite a distance away.  Since they probably wouldn't get home until later that evening, I volunteered to look in on the dogs.

Their kennel consisted of some six or seven mastiffs - one dog was always left inside the house as a guard.  They also had a blue and gold macaw who's name was Boomer.  Boomer was very loud when he squawked and screeched and could be very annoying when he was hungry or wanting attention.  Cheryl and David (not their real names) got Boomer a few years earlier.  Macaws are very intelligent birds and can be taught to speak.  Boomer, on rare occasions, would say a word or two, but usually when no visitors were around.

I should mention here that this kennel was the ultimate alarm system:  anyone coming up the driveway would be announced by continuous barking until David came out and hollered at them to be quiet.

So, on this hot summer day, I arrived at around 3 p.m.  All the windows in the house were open to vent the heat.  The dogs, as expected, were barking like mad and it was extremely loud.  I had to shout as best as I could to be recognized as a friend.  They were having none of it.   When I started towards the kennel so they could see me,  I heard David's voice coming from the house, yelling his usual command at the canines.

David and Cheryl were supposed to leave early this morning, I thought to myself.   "David, are you still here?   No response.  "Hello?  Did you forget something?", I called as I approached the house; the dogs still barking wildly.  Just before I reached the door, David's voice again bellowed in a more succinct manner, "Shut - the - fuck - up!"  It got eerily quieter.  I'd swear on a stack of bibles that it was David's voice that I had heard, but after I searched the house and was satisfied that no one was there, it finally dawned on me that the voice could only have originated from one source:  Boomer.  From that day on, I never heard Boomer speak a single word other than gobbledigook.  I'm sure he was laughing at me.

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This is a Theme Thursday post  - check out the others!

Phardon Me?

It was the mid seventies and my second, and last year at boarding school in the U.S.  I would be returning to Canada to finish high school.  In order to graduate in Ontario, one must have at least thirty eligible credits, whereas in the States (or at least in Florida), the requirement was six or eight credits less.

Determined to get all the required courses I could get in this second year, I signed up for geometry.  Unfortunately,  this conflicted with an elective class that I also wanted to take.  Alas, a sacrifice was made.

Geometry was my first class every day.  The teacher was new to the school and unknown to any of the students.  Upon entering the classroom  for the first time, everyone noticed that all the window blinds were closed and there was subdued lighting emanating from the overhead fluorescents, making the room somewhat darker than what we were used to.  Granted, the morning sun was a bit blinding at that time of day, but the north side shades were also closed.  We were all puzzled.

More puzzling was the teacher.  He was writing on the blackboard as the class entered.  His back was toward us.  When he finished writing and after everyone had taken their seats, he turned around.  Oh my god, I thought to myself.  They've hired Dracula!  Standing at the front of the room was a tall, dark-haired man, dressed in a black robe-like garment and wearing sunglasses.

Yes, sunglasses.

None of us knew what to make of him.  He appeared very strange and ominous.  My first thought was that he wanted to intimidate the class with his appearance.  He certainly did achieve that effect.  That was until he spoke.  We were all expecting a deep, foreboding voice to accompany this somewhat daunting figure standing before us.  Instead, he sounded like my stepfather (a.k.a. Satan ) when Satan rambled nonsense to himself in a somewhat high nasal voice.  It took all I had not to bust out laughing. Some other students also chuckled.

After introducing himself , he told us that he was from the Philippines, and that the bright morning light and the chalk dust, to which he was allergic, would irritate his eyes.  Thus, the shades of both types were explained.  I assumed the black robe was to protect his clothing underneath from collecting chalk dust.

He also had a slight speech impediment wherein, for example, he would say "phlease" instead of "please".

It was my third week in geometry.  I was struggling not so much with the lessons, but with the voice of the teacher and the fact that he was becoming more phonetically challenged as the days progressed.  It was somewhat hard to ignore, but I stuck it out.

Then one fateful day in that third week, he dissected the triangle, complete with diagrams and explaining all the angles, sines, cosines and tangents.

I immediately knew that I would not be earning this math credit when he pointed to the blackboard and uttered the words, "Can anyone name this 'phart' of the triangle."

Bodies fell to the floor erupting in laughter, with me being the first.  I happily dropped geometry for drama.
  

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This Theme Thursday's prompt is:  Triangle

The Dozo Zone

Imagine, if you will, a house situated in a quiet neighbourhood, in which lives three occupants:  a woman, her husband and her daughter from a previous marriage.

During the time they live in Scarborough, every Sunday without fail, the stepfather complains about the numerous cars parked on the other side of the street in front of their house.

Their next door neighbour is of Some Religious Order who, with his congregation, holds Sunday services in his home, hence the volume of vehicles clogging up the road.

The stepfather, a highly intelligent man of questionable veracity, is always wanting to be the centre of attention. He fabricates stories and complains about anything just so someone will, at the very least, tell him to "shut the fuck up".  As long as he is acknowledged, the manner in which it is expressed isn't important to him.

One particular Sunday unfolds as follows:

The Players:
Antagonist: The stepfather. A lawyer with a diabolical sense of humour and a dubious storyteller, has an annoying need for constant recognition. He knows how to push buttons. He knows how to push your buttons. He pushes the buttons of the daughter too far this one morning. We will call him Satan.

The Extra: The mom. She is too involved in her newspaper to acknowledge anything worthy of her attention. Really, she doesn't care. She does this on purpose. She knows Satan too well. We will call her Mom.

Protagonist:  The daughter.  She is not a morning person by any means, especially after a late night, and doesn't engage in any meaningful conversation before her first cup of coffee. She is slightly hung over this morning.  She has a short temper. Unlike Mom, the daughter has yet to develop the skills necessary to ignore Satan. We will call her The Idiot.

The Scene:
Sunday morning: Two family members are drinking coffee, Mom is at the table reading the Sunday paper, Satan is skulking around from room to room, also reading the paper and babbling on about something or other every time he enters the kitchen. Sometimes he just babbles to himself while he wanders about. We attribute this to attention-seeking behaviour or a symptom of schizophrenia.

Enter The Idiot wearing a ratty twelve year old, hospital-issued, knee-length terrycloth robe that is fraying around the edges and which is sporting soon-to-become embarrassingly situated holes in the chest area. The robe is flagged for the rag bag.

The Story:
"M'rnin'", mumbles The Idiot, stumbling into the kitchen.  “Morning”, replies Mom who doesn’t look up from her paper.

Satan is off in some other room.

The Idiot gets her coffee, sits down at the table and grabs a section of the paper already discarded by the other two.

"Oh my God!”, loudly exclaims Satan from somewhere near the foyer. “There are cars everywhere!", referring to the congregation's vehicles. Mom is oblivious to the statement. The Idiot, annoyed at being distracted from her reading, rolls her eyes.

Satan enters the kitchen. "They've blocked off the entire street!", complains Satan, again, in case nobody heard it mere seconds ago. "Whatever", says The Idiot, irked and uninterested.

Satan shuffles in and out of the kitchen for the next half hour, breaking the periodic silence with his verbal diarrhea about the Blue Jays' recent loss, the exchange rate of the Yen, or the climatic conditions currently plaguing the penguins in Antarctica.   Sometimes he just makes nasal honking noises.  This continues off and on, annoying The Idiot who is still trying to enjoy a morning coffee and newspaper despite her hangover. Satan has become aware of The Idiot’s post-inebriated condition.

About ten minutes later, the random ramblings return to the parking situation.  "Oh my God! They have not only taken over the street, but they have taken over our driveway!", rants Satan.

The Idiot, who has not even been able to finish the article she originally started to read when she first picked up the paper, erupts with rage and stomps to the front door, certain that Satan is spewing lies. To her surprise, there is a strange car parked in the driveway right behind Satan's car. From the rear-view mirror hangs an icon of Jesus. Satan is Jewish, but the family is not religious.

Fueled by Satan's accusations and innuendo, not to mention the dangling pious figure, The Idiot believes the car belongs to one of the members visiting next door. She flings the front door open in anger - anger not so much intended for the car owner, but toward Satan who has really pissed her off to no end - and traipses barefoot across the lawn with disheveled hair and tattered holey robe, and knocks on the neighbours' door.

Dressed in his Sunday's finest, the neighbour answers the door.  "Does that car possibly belong to one of your members?", asks The Idiot, pointing to the mysterious vehicle in her driveway. The man, shocked and confused at The Idiot's appearance, cautiously ventures out of his house to take a look.  Before he can utter a word, two people emerge from the far side of The Idiot's house.  She immediately recognizes them.  Retrieving her jaw from the ground and thinking that any explanation, at this point, would sound more ridiculous than she looks, The Idiot apologizes profusely to the neighbour.  Unceremoniously, The Idiot retraces her steps back to her house, seething in anger and mutters to herself, "I AM going to kill him", and greets the unexpected visitors very red faced.

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We had  moved into the house in Scarborough about three months earlier. The surprise visitors decided to take a peek around the grounds before they announced their arrival.  It was their car in the driveway.  I was extremely embarrassed. Yes, I  wanted to shoot myself.  But not before I shot Satan.

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Note to readers: The preceding post was NOT intended to offend any fathers on this, their honoured day. Because this story co-incidentally happened on a Sunday, I decided to post it today. But, to all of you dads out there:

Happy Father's Day!

The New Guy

"Hey, who's the new guy?", asked somebody.

"I don't know", said someone from the other cubicle.

"He kinda looks weird", whispered someone else from another section.

"Yeah, he doesn't look like any of the other groups", said another.

"Maybe he was put here by mistake because he certainly doesn't look like he belongs with us and there doesn't seem to be a designated area for him", remarked Tines.

"So, what's your name?", Spooner asks the new guy.

"My name is Jacques, Jacques Couteau".

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Visit Magpie Tales for more of this week's prompt.

The Dot Club

It was in Grade 1 of elementary school when I became a member of the "Dot Club".

There were about six or eight of us - I can't really remember - that were set apart from the rest of the class.  At the time, I had no concept of what a 'browner' was or what 'remedial' meant, all I knew is that we were given different tasks and studies than those given to the remaining students in the class.  A few years later I would learn the meanings of 'browner' and 'remedial' and that I was one of the former.

Our group would become decidedly mischievous since we were left to do our own work without much supervision from the teacher.  This is not to say the rest of the class was of the remedial type and needed special attention, but that the teacher trusted us enough to work on our own.

Too trusting, indeed.

Our desks were situated in the back corner of the classroom.  We would talk quietly amongst ourselves and help each other with assignments.  When this got boring, which was more often than not, we would scribble on the desks, make up stupid words, fling tiny bits of paper across the room when teacher wasn't looking, or tried to hit one of the other kids in the back of the head with the tiny paper projectiles, and other silly stuff.  We were too young to know about spitballs then.

Then there was Steven.  Steven sat next to me all the time.  He was generally shy and I would have to goad him into having a bit of fun.  During the bore sessions, I would occasionally poke him with the eraser end of my pencil and, in kind, he would poke me back.  One day I caught him off-guard and jabbed him in the ribs which made him jump up and disrupt the rest of the class.  The teacher looked at him scornfully.  He apologized and sat back down.  In retribution, he jabbed me back.  Hard.  With the newly sharpened end of his pencil.  In the left cheek.  Of my ass.

Needless to say, we were both ejected from the classroom, but we laughed all the way to the Principal's office.

The graphite "dot" from the jabbing remains visible to this day.

Yeeeowch!

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Visit Magpie Tales for more of this week's prompt.

"L-O-L-A Lola"

I'm dying for a Caramilk bar.  It's one of the many edibles I miss living on this rock.  Oh, there are some Cadbury bars down here, but not my favourite Caramilk bar.  Sob.  "How do they get the caramel in a Caramilk Bar?"  was one of Cadbury's most successful ad campaigns.  I think they even had a contest about it.  And then there is the Crunchie bar, also produced by Cadbury. A chocolate covered sponge toffee piece of heaven that would stick to your teeth for some glorious molar licking sweet aftertaste.  Great hang time on the toffee, for sure.

"Don't eat so much candy...it'll rot your teeth."   So the saying goes.  So does methamphetamine.  Meth addicts like candy.  I guess they are doubly cursed.

But some of my favourites in the candy family were penny and Halloween candies.  Pixi Stix, Twizzlers, Shoelaces, and "Rockets".  There were also individually wrapped little hard candies, caramel cubes, tiny Tootsie Rolls, your basic suckers and the like.  The "gummies" came much later, but I enjoy those too.

Ice cream, snow cones and Popsicles are other things I consider candy.  One of my summer favourites was the "Lola":  a large triangular-shaped ice treat that I believe was introduced about the time the song of the same name was released by The Kinks.   It would take almost 2 hours to finish one of these ices and, if you were successful in sucking out all of the flavour (thereby leaving only the ice behind), you could crush the ice in its packet and cool your body off on a hot summer's day. A truly multitasking treat in my opinion.  Alas, Lolas are now relegated to smaller wedges:   it's just not quite the same.

So, if you are now craving "candy" and you really, really, REALLY don't want to screw up your diet or whatever, eat a banana, suck on a lemon or consider that your teeth may eventually look like this:

(My "Elvis".  I think he smoked coconuts, not meth)

Else, have at 'er!

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It's Theme Thursday - check it out

The Siren

It taunts me.
Just sitting there, in its box.
It awaits liberation.
I look away.
Like a bowsprit figurehead, it beckons my attention.
Like the Siren that beckons the sailor.
It's too messy in here.  I'm such a slob.
It's a conspiracy, no room, junk all over.
It deserves better than this.
I'll have to tidy up.
Maybe tomorrow.  It's too hot today.

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Visit Magpie Tales for more of this week's prompt.

Craptions

It's been a rather crappy week here in blogsville.  No matter where I landed, almost every post or comment dumped in a reference to poo.  Shit was everywhere!

And, in a complimentary fashion, I was honoured by nonamedufus in his weekly caption contest with this award:

I am also honoured to share this award and hang out with two other funny cling-ons, Tom at Moose With A Twist and Chris@Knucklehead.

Thank you again, dufus!  And thanks to all of you bloggers who dropped a load.  It kept me regular all week.

;-)

Pooh-pooing

When I first started this, ahem, journal, I met up with some strange... (me: "oh, jeez, must I?" IT: "yes, you must, you must.")... BLOGfellows that helped me shed some of my mortal insecurities and from whom I will become insane to whom I will be eternally grateful.

At the onset of this journal, I was inflicted with, or rather recovering from, a gastrointestinal problem in which my bowels were not so much irritated, but were just downright furious.  This stretched into a week-long bout of sleep deprivation, eventually degrading into depravation where I accused a fellow journalist of  "telepathic plagiarism" since he seemed to be stealing my posting topics right out from under my nose.  He, too, was having trouble sleeping at the time.  I'll admit, I am a bit slow on the uptake, but, c'mon!  Those were my ideas!! 

Or so I thought...

Some time has passed since I joined this lunatic fringe online community, but have noticed that I wasn't imagining that a "telepathic plagiarism" conspiracy is unfolding in these, um...(IT: "yes, you must, you must.")...BLOGS (ugh).  I've noticed "themes" and "prompts" being played out here and there.  These were intentional in nature and I have participated in some.

What I am referring to the completely unintentional mindset that exists between, um, ...bloggers (yeah, yeah, I'm getting used to it) .  This past week's theme seems to be  "poo", "crap", "dropping off the kids", "coffee rumblings", and the like:  in otherwords, the inevitable bodily function that makes one charge to the crapper  visit the privy.  There were topics, pictures, bitches, and even a caption contest about it .  You name it, it was there and you probably stepped in it.   Hey, I even won an award for it! *cheesy grin*  The interesting thing here is that these posts and/or comments were completely unrelated or unconnected in anyway whatsoever.

It's like poetry in motion. (Poetry:  another 'telepathic theme' I noticed recently among bloggers  - myself included -  who aren't normally poetic. )

Go figure.

An Aside...

George Carlin:  "By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth."

00dozo:  "Just ask any politician!!"

Holy Heatwave Batman!

I'm white hot

I can't take it anymore

I'm white hot

By the Somalian shore

I'm white hot

Yes I'm burning to the core

I need rain, I need rain, I need rain

~ Lyrics from "White Hot" by Red Rider **

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I'm so hot,

I can't take it anymore,

I'm so hot,

I won't make it to the shore

I'm so hot,

My mind has melted to its core,

I'm insane, I'm insane, I'm insane

~ Odd Thoughts by 00dozo

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Really.  I got nuthin'.

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It's Theme Thursday - check it out!

** There was no video of the song, but this is the original (and best) version.