The Bathroom Blues

   What a tattoo ta ta!   When worms began to  move across the floor and slugs appeared in pairs climbing cupboard doors, with others, heralds of strange deeds, slipping between naked feet as they made their slimy way towards the toilet (watch the angle fellas!), it was deemed appropriate, nay vital, that something drastic need be done. Have you chanced to come across such creatures as these, and others stranger yet, such as steroid enhanced earwigs the size of caterpillars, very large caterpillars, sneaking around the edges of your bathroom? Well, then you know what a trip to the loo during the night turns into: a fear of dark places, a.k.a Achluophobia, and creepy crawlies, a.k.a Entomophobia! (You always wanted to know that didn't you?). A serious chat with the landlord became essential.
     We didn't even have to twist his arm, or refuse rental payments, his response was equal to our own.
    Walls were torn out and replaced with gypsum board, the old bathtub was removed, as was an effective but outdated ceiling shower, and a newer and much smarter shower cubicle, replacing both, was installed--nice! Installation also of a larger window was a lovely and unexpected extra.
    When the construction phase was finished I offered to paint the walls, much to the relief of Harry (the landlord), who suffers a fatal reaction to paint fumes, including Acrylic. He described to me a couple of years ago how, by a quirk of fate, his wife saved his life during such a reaction. She was driving by a job site where he was working as a carpenter, and decided to pay him a surprise visit, only to  find him unconscious on the floor of a room that had just been painted, .Apparently  years of exposure to paint fumes had created a severe allergic reaction, now a threat to his life. (Try explaining away such life saving phenomenon as his wife’s sudden wish to see him!). To continue: my youngest son, Dominic  (a plumber--heh! heh!), in one of those warped moments in time, was heading out to his truck, having just said goodbye to us, and was on the point of getting into the vehicle when I decided suddenly to ask him if by any chance he had some paint left over from his recent house renovation. “Yep,” he says, “I’ve got some cans in the truck. I was just on my way to the recycle depot to drop them off.” What do you call that? Fate, karma, or just plain luck! Well, and wouldn’t you know, there among the soon to be discarded tins was a full gallon of paint identical to the color Janet and I had decided on. Crazy, eh. Such a guy, our youngest. He also did the plumbing (every home should have one, you know, a gratis plumber), helped lay. . . (ahem), laid the floor tile (I helped! Honest injun!), which was no easy task. You ask why? Okay. The floor, which would soon be covered with large 12 X 12 inch ceramic tiles in a warm, marble swirl tan, was a devastation of ill prepared loose dry cement, wood patches, small mountains, and wide valleys. There was, incongruously in that devastation, a small section of flat undamaged cement, a very small section, otherwise it was a war site, a battle field of ruin. Consequently a royal pain in the (ahem) ankle bone! The adhesive the landlord brought to us with which to secure the tiles was old, and weak--what an understatement-- it was a water based wall tile glue! I should have made a bee line to Home Depot at this point, which a clear headed person would do, an error that led to. . . . wait for it, you ain't heard nuthin' yet!
     Dom, did a great job of tiling that unforgiving bathroom battleground, but even he could not change the highs and lows to equal levels. Eventually the nasty job was done--with much use of helpful expressive expletives. The next day I grouted the grooves. More than a few four letter catch words were employed that morning, never mind the permanent disabling of my knees, and the brutal seizing up of my lower back. The grouting of that uneven floor was finally done, and commiserated upon by Janet as I wept on her shoulder. I waited the required time for replacing the removed toilet, (removed by the plumber to facilitate laying the tiles upon which it would sit). Although placing a toilet was a task I had not tackled for many a year I was game for it. The object in question had been taken out and placed in the entrance porch and now this old man was taking it back in. Confident beggar that I am I gamely hefted it up--achieving a lift of approximately three inches--and grunted it into the bathroom. Alas, I was about to meet my Waterloo, and I do mean WaterLOO!

IN MEMORIAM

            “Adieu, petite poisson, Requiem Aeternam, eternal rest be yours. You were never meant to fly, I hope you realize that now. That second attempt was your last, your not going to get another one, only cats get that.”
    Lazarus, of whom I wrote a few short months ago has followed his little friend - who swam away into the great hereafter 18 months ago - and now he too dwells in the cool and gentle waters of the great fish pond in the sky. He learned the hard way that flying was only for certain fish and almost all birds, but not for little starry eyed goldfish.
    “Now you rest beneath a special rose., little one. You may have noticed it, it grew in a wooden tub a short distance from your pond. A miniature, like you, also a beauty, with the startling name of, “Hot Tamale,” which I guess would please you greatly. Remember how you used to race around your home as though you’d just eaten one. Ah! Well, fella, I guess when you gotta go you gotta go! Thanks for the memory little guy, of your glinting, golden self, drifting through the lily pads . RIP!”

TRAVELING ON - - - - -

     Crowded, full beyond measure, my day's flowed. I worked with a zeal and passion "what comes next" was totally mine to command. The studio became my home, you know, "away from home". My poor mother was caught between her unsure pleasure at my decision to study ballet, and her fear that her strange son was putting too much energy into something out of her ken, and therefore out of her ability to imagine it would, or could, contain any security for me. My father said very little, in fact I really had no idea of what he made of me at the time. I believe he was a wise man, as he was good man; he left it up to me to find the place where I belonged. He too had his dreams, and I, and my brother Bill had been worked into them before our independence showed itself. My mom and I were very close. She was a rare gentle soul, one who would listen to the meaning behind the words she heard from the mouths of those she loved. No, not so, saying that limits her, she listened with her heart to all who unburdened themselves to her. She told me this: my father, a carpenter by trade, longed for a business of his own, and that above the door of this business he envisioned would be a sign that read - "William Wales & Sons, Cabinet Makers". Eventually he did open a cabinet making shop, but with only one name on the shingle above the door. Brother Bill became a sailor and I became a dancer! But he was proud of his sons. He had achieved at least a part of his dream and wished for us that we would find at least a part of ours.
   Slowly--read "painfully" in there--my abilities as a dancer improved, not as fast
as I would have liked, and certainly not as much as was needed for my first professional stage performance. At this point I have to admit that it was the lack, the severe lack of males willing to be called dancers that led to my "first". The attitude at the time was that dancing - stage dancing - was far to feminine a thing for a real guy; a Nancy boy's pastime, "real men" played football. You wonder what the mind set of those guys was when everyone of them had a secret desire to be either Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly, and wow the ladies with their smooth and classy moves. My how times have changed, consider all those TV reality shows with thousands of "macho" males lining up outside of television studios hoping for an audition, a chance to show the world how fantastically they too can trip the light fantastic! In my day you were heading for a look of either pity or disgust on the face of your listener if you divulged the dirty little secret that you were a dancer. Me, I loved saying it! I’d tell it to anyone who asked what I did. Then again, I'm funny that way!
     Anyway, at this stage I was not a dancer, I was an impostor who stood at
the barre, sweating heavily, and hurting. Then suddenly, along comes a fairy godmother waving her magic wand in one hand and carrying a white cane stripped with red in the other. Well, how else did it happen that I found myself in a professional musical comedy production? “What”, you ask, “about the dearth of male dancers? You know, you remind me, “impossible to find. .  hmmm?” Oh, yeah, that. Well, I guess it did have something to do with it. Anyway, the Theatre Under the Star’s famous Hollywood choreographer needed another male dancer for a forthcoming production of "The Great Waltz", so they went calling at the various dance schools. Bastions of last resort, what? Ray Moller, and another of Kay's advanced students, Bob Van Norman, were already in the cast, both having done previous summer shows with TUTS, and the recruiters were now scraping the dregs from the bottom of the dance school barrels, and in desperation conscripted me for the job. I looked properly terrified when informed of what was expected of me, but went along with it. Hey, hey, don't get me wrong, I was as blind as that fairy godmother, and besides, no one had told me I was the last of the dregs.
     Of the different numbers in the show the only one I remember is the big waltz near
the end, the “Great Waltz”. Of all the things I did not know how to do the very first was how to waltz - you know, 1 2 3 - 1 2 3, and oh how it showed. My poor partner. How and why did they put me with her? I was green behind the ears personified, and she, oh my God, she had been one of the famous baby ballerinas of the Colonel de Basil Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo! Betty Bligh! She loathed me, to say the least, and she let me know it. Over and over. I’m sure - as she pushed and pulled me through the number - she prayed I would stumble into the orchestra pit and disappear. I don't believe she walked without a limp for ages after the show finished, and I blush still at the memory of those 10 performances in 1948!
    I think an intelligent person would have decided at this point that dancing was for
other more capable folk, and that being young meant there were many other, and much safer careers to consider. But quashed I was not, I was even more determined than ever to prove I could do it. I was counting on a ‘heroes are made not born’ strategy, and fully intended to make it work.
     There is a lovely ending to the ballerina and the dolt story. Three years later, after
that fateful waltz, and much improved by hard work, a scholarship, and two seasons of summer theatre with TUTS, I went with Ray to take some classes at the North Vancouver School of Dancing. Betty Bligh had recently opened her own studio under that name and Ray having raved about how great her classes were suggested I go with him to a few. Her name alone caused the sweat of fear to flow, but  intrigued, and convinced by him that I shouldn't let the episode at TUTS sway me I went, and was knocked out by the class and how she handled her students. She was truly an inspired and inspiring teacher. She also had a bad memory, or a lapse of memory had wiped me clear out of her mind after the fiasco of the "Waltz", because she collapsed in amazement when I told her that I was her hopeless partner of three years previously. The outcome of which I gained one of the dearest friends a guy could wish for, and one of the most, if not the most inspiring teachers I ever studied under. She had a wonderful sense of humor, but confessed she almost lost it forever during "The Great Waltz". Now, decades later, whenever the scent of "Tweed"--her favorite perfume--drifts in the air, or I see, as I pass by a cosmetic counter, the distinctive box that proclaims it, the memory of Betty, and her so valued friendship, sweeps over me. She was the one who truly nurtured whatever talent I may possess, and I owe her more than can ever be repaid.

Excuses! With A Winnipeg Moment

      I've returned! Well, you might say, "It's about time." And you'd be right, quite right, but I've got one good excuse up my sleeve which I will draw forth NOW ! Janet and I have been in Winnipeg visiting our new granddaughter! Say what you will, that's a pretty good excuse. The other excuses have to stay, such as: getting the garden ready; digging and planting; praying for the sun to stick around; early morning sun dances to invoke the aforementioned golden globe's gods to do their duty; fertilizing etc. Mmmm! Going back to the sun dances. About that. I wonder if I'm on the the wrong page in the invoking manual, and have been mistakenly doing rain dance incantations, along with the wrong dance steps? Heaven's to Raven but I'm a lousy Shaman! If I had a tribe they'd disown  me; put me on an ice drift without food and push me out to sea. Tie me to a stake on the highest hill and let the wild things have their way with me! No, I'm not going there. I'll  just step back and leave it to dear old Goddess Iris to do what she has to do  (which is to convey our needs – like bring back summer - to the appropriate gods). We’ll carry on, and manage – gamely of course - with what we have, and Boy, oh Boy, just look at what we’ve have, this little beauty, beautifully named - Samara.!

          Janet and I spent a wonderful few days in Winnipeg, enjoying her and her proud, but anxious, mom and dad. (The joys and tribulations of new parenthood!). Took some great photos. Must say the weather was as bad there as we’ve been enduring here on the West Coast, but we did experience a couple of super sun days. We used one of them to  make a trip to the beach at Lake Winnipeg, an hour from the city across an impossibly flat landscape. Beautiful spot, masses of people enjoying the sun and sand at the edge of that enormous inland sea. Enjoyed my first ice cream cone of the season seated on large plastic blocks on a dusty side road a  coupled hundred feet  or so from the lake. Also had a nice visit with Little Samara's aunt Joy who has a weekend cottage there.
       The next evening we had the pleasure of renewing acquaintances with little Sam's mom's extended Winnipeg family. We shared a  lovely fun time with them over an excellent Chinese meal at a popular restaurant, and ended our final evening with pie and coffee at Marsha’s, another member of the family.

        If you've got a hankering to spend some time in Winnipeg, then let me recommend the B&B were we stayed. Called the BB Waterloo it features a secluded, private entrance suite for two, with a living room, large bedroom (a king size bed), and bathroom. Breakfast is served in front of the window in your living room. You can choose what you would like for breakfast each day, or leave it to your  hostess, Michaela Samek, who will provide you with a different creation every morning - she'll discuss it with you beforehand - a unique European dish or your usual familiar morning fare.