Pickles gives out my secret zucchini recipe

Songs of my youth – that made a difference

Janis Ian was a girl of something like 16 when “Society’s Child” was released in the mid 60’s.

Or should I say a woman with more balls than I have. She spoke of fear for her life performing this song even in safe places like New York City.

To add to her bravery, she was one of the first stars to admit to being gay (or lesbian, as the case may be.) She is one of my heroes.

Thank you, Janis.

DADT it dead.

Sorry about the advertisement that begins this clip. It's commercial TV, what can I say?

Not just another birthday

The picture shows a sister of mine, young and in her prime, with my mother and the infamous Santa cookies of 1977 (give or take a year or two.) They were not at our Christmas celebration, but somehow they showed up in a freezer 300 miles to the north the following summer. I'm pretty sure foul play was involved.

Happy 97th, Mom!

Post # 600

PK

I respect your quest for understanding into the core cause of you wife and her sisters’ fetish for shopping and all affiliated activities. But, I beg of you, don’t rush to the cliché explanation of placing all the blame on the parent, in this case my mother. I feel the adult child does need to accept responsibility for their own actions, as destructive and counter-productive as they are. While I wholeheartedly support the concept of working with the addict and helping them to see the destructive results of their ways, allowing them to cast blame on a dear soul who is long gone (and would be celebrating her 97th birthday tomorrow) would make you, dare I say, an enabler.

I tried hard to remember my childhood; to recall the subtleties and nuances of shopping with my mother and how it could have possibly influenced my four sisters and been in any remote way responsible for the shopping neuroses they currently demonstrate. It is not possible. Frankly, my own anti-shopping neurosis is much more of a classic Jungian response.

My mother was a consummate shopper. It wasn’t that she came home with ‘something’; she came home with trophies. (Note: a trophy is not a rubber spatula at half-price, it is a bolt of fabric for $1.29 that mom made into a wedding dress, four bridesmaid dresses, a slip cover for the couch, a duvet for the bedroom and still had enough fabric left over to make three ties.) I will never be the shopper my mother was, hence I hate shopping.

This really can’t be compared to the whole hunter/gatherer thing. It is on a much different level. One that I don’t understand.

Clarification

Apparently in my most recent post, I used inprecise phraseology that led people to believe that three of my sisters are insane and slaves to shopping and that one of my sisters is not. I apologize for any confusion caused by my choice of words.

Let me go on record stating emphatically that I have four sisters. Above and beyond that, any statement attempting to clarify the status of their mental stability could be dangerous to my health.

And get real, dear brother-in-law, if you haven’t determined the lucidity of your beloved wife and her sisters, I’m afraid I really can’t help you much. But there are trained professionals in your area that might be able to give you guidance.

Guilt Buy

I have never told you this before. Montréal has a vast underground shopping mall. The loud click you just heard was three out of my four sisters closing this web site and signing on to Travelocity (or whatever their favorite travel site is.) They are checking when the next flight is to Montréal. They don’t care about cost or other such mundane miscellanea. One of my sisters was slow on the draw. I just heard the faint click of her signing off.

Richard and I are horrible souvenir shoppers. Other than the beloved coffee cup, our souvenirs are limited to train ticket stubs, free brochures and an occasional tee shirt. But we had a purpose in Montréal. We wanted to buy napkins: the cloth variety. A queer choice for souvenirs, I admit, but we couldn’t find what we were looking for in Hood River, The Dalles or Portland, so we decided to make them our souvenir of Canada. So, we visited the Mall Below the Floor. (My name, not theirs.)

We descended into the bowels of underground Montréal. For the first three or four minutes it was kind of fun. Then it became creepy. There was no way to orient yourself to the real world. It was just shopping, unabridged shopping. There were people who looked like they had been shopping since the last decade. (Hell, since the last millennium.)

Richard claims I panicked. But I want to emphatically deny his contention that I ran around the mall screaming, “Oh my fucking god… is there a way out of this hell hole!” I’m pretty sure I said it in French, which mean, with my incredible French Canadian accent, no one understood me.

They had these wonderful floor plans all over the place. You will notice one thing. There is no “Sortie”. That is French for “Exit”.


We found our napkins. It was a successful shopping trip.

Have fun, my dear sisters!

Anoka-Hennepin School District.

Eight student dead by suicide in two years: aren’t you just a little bit embarrassed?

Don’t ask; don’t tell: gone totally awry.

It’s time to get over your big-bad-conservative selves and see what you can do to keep your kids from committing suicide.

Dollar Lake Fire

I took this picture just south of Parkdale.

September 1, 2011: An esoteric question.

Just think for a moment. My mother graduated from Vancouver High School. (Class of 1933… Go Trappers!) In 1956, Vancouver High School was renamed Fort Vancouver High School. All that pioneer spirit, you know! The building at 28th and Main was still the campus.

In 1970 they built a new building to house Fort Vancouver High… 5700 E. 18th Street. A decade later, the old Vancouver (Fort Vancouver) High School building was torn down.

So, does Mother’s alma mater still exist or not?

This question has relevant meaning for a number of members of my extended family. Tyee High is a memory. Did we really graduate from high school or are we just kidding ourselves?