Can You Handel This? (Our First Time at The Messiah)

As the holiday season shifts into a higher gear, this weekend featured multiple excellent visits with dear friends and family, but we kicked it off with an elegant night out.

Yet another friend was able to gift us tickets to Handel's Messiah at my favourite music Venue, The Winspear, but we decided to extend the experience by dining out at Continental Treat Bistro.

I love my family and appreciate children, and enjoy a fun casual night out where the food is good, but I can't remember the last time we dressed up for dinner in an almost child-free space. The bistro is on the corner of Jasper Avenue and 97th street (where Hardware Grill used to be) but the flagship location has been on Whyte Ave since 1982. 

In addition to a diverse menu featuring a lot of German and Czech dishes, they also have a creative cocktail menu and stellar beer list (including Westvleteren XII, 'the world's rarest beer'!). Our server was wonderful and we enjoyed escargots, a shrimp salad and rouladen for dinner, and added tiramisu, streudel and a maple whiskey coffee simply because it was too early to walk to the venue.

A jazz trio serenaded us and it was only afterwards that we realized the entire menu is gluten-free; we will have to come back and try their schnitzel, which they claim is best in the city...

After a short walk to the Winspear, we picked up our tix from the box office, checked our coats and made our way to the third floor gallery. I maintain that there are no bad seats in this place, and even two rows back on the highest level, we could still see and hear everything clearly.

'Everything' in this case includes a 27-piece orchestra, The Richard Eaton Singers (a 90+ voice choir), 4 vocal soloists and the enormous Davis Concert Organ.

Now, like most people, I am familiar enough with the famous Hallelujah chorus from The Messiah, and recognized another piece from Audrey's extensive collection of Christmas music, but neither of us had ever heard it all the way through before, and it is spectacular.

I wish I had thought to bring a libretto or whatever you call the lyrics and liner notes for an oratorio because despite being sung in English, I could discern very little, but can tell you it all sounded marvelous. Handel was born in Germany but composed the Messiah 15 years after becoming a naturalized British citizen, but I honestly thought I had heard at least two other languages on Friday night.

My lack of understanding did nothing to hamper my appreciation though; just watching the conductor weave together so much instrumentation and so many voices was completely spellbinding to me as a layman, and the beauty of the performance spoke for itself.

I don't know that I would go every year, as I know some people do, but I am confident we will return!

The Paper Telly

A couple of weekends ago I finally decluttered and dusted the top of the hutch over the liquor cabinet. Most of the items on top of it needed cleaning, the space itself required rearranging and some items, well, it was just time for them to go.

I finally parted with the bottle that contained 40-year-old port that my dear friends gifted me back when I turned 40. I decanted the bottle caps that had been accumulating in the pewter mug Dad got as a member of the CFB Gimli "Corporal's Club." And I realized that a paper keepsake had become too dusty to clean or salvage, and needed to be recycled.

It was a tiny paper replica of a television Fenya had made when she was eight or nine years old. The 5" screen depicted a hockey game in a packed arena, with the words "Go Lemons Go!" displayed on one of the concourses, presumably referring to the team in yellow. Such was the attention to detail that the set even has a triangular antenna affixed to the top of it, something I don't think Fenya had ever seen in real life.

I don't remember the circumstances clearly, but she had made it for me out of scrap paper with tape and crayons when I worked at GE Money. It was not a job I relished going to, and I think she made it to cheer me up, which it did.

The paper tv had a prominent spot on my desk until I left the job about a year and a half after starting (to take a position where still I work today). I didn't have the heart to simply 86 it at the time, so atop the hutch it went. 

When I took it down, some of the structural integrity of the cube was lost due to the adhesive on the tape drying out over a decade and half. It was tragically dusty and unlikely to survive a cleaning, and I admitted it was time to say goodbye to this keepsake - but not before doing three things.

First I took a picture of it, no longer trusting my memory to maintain such things.

Next I called Fenya, and sent her the picture. I related the story as I remembered it, and she corroborated parts of it, not remembering many more details than I. I told her how happy the little tv had made me at work, the whimsy it would provoke when my glance fell upon it, the gratitude for having such a creative and thoughtful child (two of them, in fact). It got a little misty.

Lastly, I vowed to write about it here, to affix it a little more firmly in my memory, and give me a place to re-visit it periodically.

Surreal Estate - Re-watching "The Wizard of Oz"

"Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first person she meets and then teams up with three strangers to kill again." -  Rick Polito's summary of The Wizard of Oz for the Marin Independent Journal

I had no interest in joining Audrey and Glory at Wicked last week, but was only too happy to watch The Wizard of Oz with them tonight, and I am glad I did.

There are those (including the American Library of Congress) who feel it may be the most "seen" movie of all time, what with the decades of holiday season television screenings piled on top of all the VHS/DVD/BluRay/4K/ad infinitum home releases.

It has to be over a decade since I last watched it, and with younger kids I around, I was probably doing something else at the same time, or leaving to pop corn or some such. Sitting down and soaking in it as an adult and a movie buff is a genuine treat. 

First, it is a well crafted adventure musical, that clips along at a ridiculous pace like any fairy story should and veers effortlessly from silly to sweet to genuinely terrifying without missing a beat. And if it comes off as excessively coy or genteel, well, it is a prodcut of its time, after all.

But before the majority of North Americans had ever heard of Gandalf the Grey of Middle Earth, this adaptation of L. Frank Baum's book was pop culture's very first iteration of a fantasy realm with borders, factions, wondrous creatures, inscrutable and powerful rulers and an epic quest.

From the moment Dorothy opens the door to Munchkinland, exposing everyone to the Technicolor brilliance of Oz, I kept thinking of just how mind-blowing this must have been to those initial audiences in the 1940s. How many midwesterners quailed sympathetically at the sight of the Kansas cyclone? Who in the audience gasped, like I did tonight, and the amazing entrance of the Wicked Witch of the West in a plume of flame and densely coloured smoke? 

The costumes and makeup of the Scarecrow, Tin Woodsman and Cowardly Lion (whose outfit weighted 90 lbs!) hold up tremendously well even in high definition. The production numbers, particularly in Munchkinland, are intricate and enormous. When they say, "they don't make 'em like they used to," I am starting to think they are talking about The Wizard of Oz.

If you are looking for a family movie to screen over the holidays this year, don't pass up an opportunity to show this 85-year-old marvel to new eyes. It is available with a Crave subscription and reantable on many digital platforms (but not Cineplex unless you havce a 4K tv, grr...).

Echoes of Uncertainty - Gladiator II, Reviewed

The last time I saw a sequel that I felt had no business even existing, it turned out to be really quite good (Blade Runner 2049). Given Sir Ridley Scott's involvement in the follow-up to the Best Picture Oscar-winner of 2000, it seemed foolhardy not to give Gladiator II a chance.

In the end, GII is not much of a patch on the original, but it is a pretty solid night out with a lot of great qualities.

The sequel still carries its lineage of epic scale delineated bith gruesome interpersonal violence, from the opening siege of Roman galleys on Numidia, to the bloody and fantastic battles in the Colosseum. Sure, liberties are taken regarding historical accuracies, but I would prefer to see a trebuchet slinging Greek fire onto a ship as oppsed to a catapult any day of the week and twice on Sunday. And the co-ruling bother Emperors Geta and Caracalla were just as legit as wanna-be gladiator Commodus, after a fashion.

The cast is quite good and the acting is commensurately excellent; Pedro Pascal, Connie Nielsen and Joseph Quinn all acquit themselves quite well, but Denzel Washington's Macrinus is absolutely amazing to watch. 

Starting out as an analogue to Oliver Reed's gladiator master Proximo in the first film, Denzel's Macrinus crafts an agenda that he leverages with his rageful new fighter Hanno (Paul Mescal). Denzel owns every scene he is in without scenery chewing - hell, seemingly wihout effort. At one point I whispered to Audrey, "I can imagine him saying, 'I had so much fun I forgot to get them to pay me'..."

The first Gladiator is one of my all-time faves, and as much as I respect Steven Soderbergh, I still think the Academy boned this one by not giving Ridley Scott the Best Director statue to go with Best Picture. And watching this film while remembering the first really highlights the areas it comes up short.

Paul Mescal is a good actor who brings palpable rage and sinewy competence to his action sequences, but he lacks the magnetism and power of Russell Crowe in his prime - I mean, I can't think of any comparable modern actors, in fact. The story glosses over his leadership and the way other fighters look to him for guidance, despite him being shown as a capable and inspirational leader in the opening battle. But the movie does not play out in a completely straightforward fashion and at least there are a couple of surprises in store.

Harry Gregson-Williams has done a lot of great scores, but as the film wraps up and they start homaging "Now We Are Free" from Hans Zommer's immaculate score from 2000 and Lisa Gerrard's vocals, it really brought home to me just how much more heart the original had. I remember welling up when Connie Nielsen demands the Praetorians bear Maximus' body out of the Colosseum as a soldier of Rome, and I think I felt a little let down that I didn't experience anything close to that during this film.

But that is not to say it is a bad film! I ranked this one a 7 on IMDb, as opposed to the 9 I gave the original, and I will likely watch it again at home at some point.

And at the end of the day, being entertained is the idea, right?

(Six) Bones to Pick With Wolverine

I have been indulging in a lot of escapism of late in my continuing efforts to avoid looking at or discussing the news since the U.S. presidential election. Reading comic books on my iPad, painting miniatures while re-watching Stranger Things, playing in multiple role-playing games - these are all welcome dissociations from a threatening reality. 

And in that vein, I would like to explore a potentially unpopular opinion  of mine which will have almost zero bearing on the lives of most sensible people, and it goes like this: I straight-up hate the idea of Marvel Comics character and X-Men mainstay Wolverine having bone claws.

There, I said it.

The idea that the man called Logan has always had natural, bony claws under the surface of his skin (as opposed to bionic implants added later when adamantium was added to his skeleton) has been canonical in the comics now since 1993. This is when arch-villain Magneto used his powers to strip all the adamantium from Wolverine's skeleton (messy, but honestly a pretty solid idea), including the bony claws which surprised quite a few readers (and apparently angered quite a few of the writers too!).

In 2001, the six-issue mini-series Origin fully demystified Logan's backstory and confirmed, yes, bony claws were part of his original mutation.

Given the range of superpowers we have seen in comics and fanciful physical adaptations displayed by the ever-increasing numbers of mutants in the X-books, having retractable bio-swords in one's forearms is a long way from the least credible mutation we have ever seen, and once they were wrapped in metal again six years later (no idea how, btw), maybe it doesn't even matter, but it still grinds my gears something fierce.

I vastly prefer the idea that Logan's primary mutation is his healing factor which makes him very, very difficult to kill, and also slows his aging considerably. His secondary mutation is presumably his incredible senses, particularly scent and hearing, more akin to those of a wild animal.

"But Stephen!" some people might say, "surely bone claws are a natural pairing with the other animal-like qualities displayed by the character? In fact, wasn't creator Len Wein's original plan to reveal Wolverine to be an artificially evolved or otherwise enhanced actual wolverine (Gulo gulo luscus)?"

Absolutely! 

If we are talking about claws supplanting fingernails on the end of phalanges, like Wolverine's nemesis Sabretooth, that is.

The idea that a naturally occurring mutation, in addition to making a random individual nearly unkillable and enhancing their scent, hearing, sight etc., would also see fit to put three (not four, not five, to match the aformentioned phalanges) fully retractable, knife-length claws in their forearms unlike anything else in nature?!  

I have read comics nearly my entire life. I can take a lot of stuff on faith and my capacity for the suspension of disbelief is tremendously high, but it is not infinite. That just seems dumb to me.

Particularly when there is a much better explanation available!

Logan was already a formidable opponent prior to his being augmented by the Weapon X program, where some government or agency or what-have-you made his skeleton unbreakable by either replacing it or bonding it with the fictional metal adamantium. It is a very short trip from there to having some officious knob saying, "hey, as long as you're already under the hood, why don't you pop a set of three enormous switchblades in this guy's arms?"

X-Men artist and co-plotter John Byrne clearly felt this was the case over a decade earlier when he drew the legendary "Days of Future Past" story. In this alt-future tale where most of those bearing the x-gene are already dead or incarcerated, mutant-hunting Sentinel robots relentlessly hunt the rest, and one actually manages to kill Wolverine by incinerating him.

One too many 'fastball specials' I guess

The very next panel shows Logan's skeleton, but his forearms appear bionic, with a clear housing apparatus for his claws.

Later on, the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe (still a high-water mark in 'overthinking it' that puts a lot of Star Trek supplements to shame), adds even more detail:

In fact, John Byrne found so much of the post-Dark Phoenix X-Men canon disagreeable that he wrote and drew 32 issues of fanfic (called Elsewhen and viewable here -highly recommended!) showing how he would have carried the story forward, including his own take on an origin for Wolverine. 

In Byrne's version, sometime after WWII (including an undocumented stint with The Invaders, Captain America, Sub-Mariner, original Human Torch and others!), Logan has barely survived being trampled by a cattle stampede while working as a ranch hand...

 ...and twenty years later, accepts an offer (from the Weapon X) program to replace his shattered skeleton... 

...but is unaware of the addition of metal claws until he unsheathed them for the first time during his recovery!

Now, an excess of 'logic' or 'sensibility' or, worst of all, 'realism' has been the death knell for many a comic book. But setting aside for a moment just how much more down-to-earth these bionic claws are than the alternative, look at how much pathos has been unlocked here! 

The horrified expression on Logan's face as he realizes that while in the past he has feared becoming more feral, a literal animal, now he has been made into a monster - a living weapon.

Another of my favourite comic writers, Peter David, actually blames himself for the bone claw debacle, as he was at a Marvel writer's retreat and joked, "hey, why doesn't Magneto just pull all the metal out of Wolverine's skeleton and be done with it?" He never thought that the writer who actually took up the idea he had only put out as a joke would a) take it so far and b) decide that the claws were too important to leave out of the equation and made them boney as a result.

Now, to be clear, when Hugh Jackman pops the organic, cruelty-free claws in the movie version of Days of Future Past, it looks completely badass and makes for a great scene. From his look of initial surprise and eventual realization to the subsequent employment of said calls, let's face it - this is the Wolverine we came to see.

But beyond fan service, I am damned if I remember them playing any sort of meaningful role in the remainder of the story, and I note with interest that Logan is the biggest character on the movie poster, but  has metal claws in that picture. 

Like I said at the start, it is a largely meaningless argument with no real stakes to speak of. The decision was made decades ago and none of us bothered by it are so put off by it that we have stopped reading about the character. Because it has been undone, (in fact, a few years back Wolverine was dead for the better part of a year before returning from Hell itself with glowing hot claws...) we can each revere or ignore the bone claws and adjust our headcanon accordingly.

But with an X-Men reboot and MCU integration seemingly just around the corner (presumably following Secret Wars in 2026), there is likely another chance coming to get it right and set the record straight.

I mean, according to John Byrne, not just me...

November Blues - Remembering Mum

I am blue.

I am not despondent, but mopey; melancholy but not disconsolate.

I am looking for someone or something to blame for this current emotional state; leading contenders are the Discordians and the evolutionary process.

To be clear, I am not seeking a fix or cure or change of state - I am confident enough that my internal barometer will indicate a rise in spirits in its own good time. There has also been tremendous mitigation at play in my life of late: a weekend visit from our dear friends the Hawkins, playing D&D three times in four days (!), good conversations with close chums.

Discordianism (a religion, philosophy or parody depending on whom you ask)  and when)), teaches the significance of fives and an underlying belief that "ALL THINGS HAPPEN IN FIVES, OR ARE DIVISIBLE BY OR ARE MULTIPLES OF FIVE, OR ARE SOMEHOW DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY APPROPRIATE TO 5." There is a chicken/egg question around whether this is due to humans having evolved to a form with five fingers on each had, or if this morphometric direction was somehow influenced or ordained by the Law of Fives.

Regardless of the reason, our number system is keyed around fives and tens which has far-reaching implications for currency, measurement and memory. Feeling blue on and off this past week despite an impending pleasant visit prompted me to look at past visitations and the realization that it was Remembrance Day weekend five years ago that Mum suffered her stroke and entered the hospital. She died 29 days later.

Why would I read those posts again? What insight could I possibly gain? What benefit could I garner from re-exploring that experience? Damned if I know, but damned if I didn't read all those November and December 2019 posts again. 

Maybe revisiting those writings were a way to take my bad feelings of societal disappointment and disgust at the current political situation in North America and refocus them on something personal? Maybe I was worried about details I had already forgotten.

I think about Mum often, but certain dates feel more poignant. Strangely not the anniversary of her death, December 9, but previously established significances like her birthday, and Mother's Day, and Christmas. But most impactful is Remembrance Day. 

The day after Mum was hospitalized, our family still went to Patricia Park in Griesbach for the November 11 observances with the PPCLI. Now Fenya lives in Toronto and Glory is in Houston for fall break, but Audrey and I, joined by the Hawkins, once again stood in the amphitheatre under the national colours and the Ric-A-Dam-Doo.

I noted to Jonathan that I am of an age already where I can sometimes only distinguish cadets from active service members by looking at their footwear. Michelle said she reflects on how her oldest child and both of ours are of an age where they could be expected to serve.

Looking at the bronze plaques in front of the memorial listing the regiment's battle honours from places like Passchendaele and Amiens and others, I was once again overwhelmed by the tremendous debt we all owe those who have served, especially those who fought, and most especially those who lost their lives either on the battlefield or succumbing to trauma afterwards.

I thought about how much care my parents took to ensure Remembrance Day was observed properly in Leduc. How taking the girls out each year, regardless of the weather or situation, has been so critical to us since they were born. 

And I missed my Mum.

I wished she could have seen Glory graduate high school and come to Fenya and Bobby's wedding. I wish she was with us every Christmas.

But when I get too maudlin, I can hear her laugh, and her voice telling me to wish in one hand and shit in the other and see which one fills up first.

And even through the tears, I laugh as well.

Listening to the Last Post and Flanders Fields in the November cold brought too many feelings to experience at once: love and respect and pride and fear and grief. And now, hours later, our guests are returned to Camrose and Audrey is on her way to High River to visit her own mum and sister, so I have the house to myself and I can fall apart just a little bit. 

From time to time while writing this blog, Canéla will come and poke my leg with her nose, or try to grab my wrist with her mouth (as she does), and try to pull me away for horseplay. Is this just canine impatience, or can she sense the darkness of my mood? A brief bout of silly bugger does indeed do wonders for my disposition.

And sure, a five year anniversary is going to feel more significant - 2019 was rough in other ways too, with a medical leave from work, Mum's death and my 'redeployment' to the same business area I stared in a decade earlier all occurring within a 12 month period. Probably I shouldn't be looking to blame the Discordians or pentadactyly for the reminder - perhaps I should be thanking them.

I am not revisiting my grief, because it never went away. But I let it step out from the background it resides in most of the time, and acknowledge the presence of hurt in a way I can only hope is cathartic. But not just the hurt - I also recollect the love and support of so, so many people, and it salves. There is indeed balm in Gilead.

Acts of remembrance, both personal and collective, are important. They do not cause hurt, but reveal it, reminding you to recall your past, in service of a better tomorrow.

A Scary Story (or Two) - The Call

Observing Halloween at work is twice as tricky when you work remotely, and this year we didn't even have a team meeting where we could briefly parade our costume on camera for a bit. But instead, they asked for folks to submit pictures of their costumes or decorations or kids or pets dressed up, and also asked folks to share scary stories.

After a decade-and-a-half of weekly blogging, it is probably obvious I like to write, so I figured I would submit something...but what?

While thinking about things that scare me, personally, I recalled the time ten years back when Glory called me as I drove to pick up Fenya from choir, terrified that there was an intruder in the house. People had commented to me about just how apprehensive my relating the episode on my blog back then had made them feel, and I thought,"well, what if I started with that...and then changed everything else to make it as scary as possible?"

I guess it worked, as my story got the most votes and won the contest, so here it is; let me know what you think!



THE CALL

I’m not supposed to have my personal phone on in the prowl car, but when my own home number appeared on the call display, I pulled over and took the call. “Hello?”

“I’m sorry…” a little girl’s voice – my little girl, who turned eight last week.

“Hi Bethany, what’s wrong sweetie?” I put the phone on speaker and pulled back into traffic, being careful to keep the annoyance and tension out of my voice. “Is Daddy not there yet? He was just picking up supper.”

“No, not yet.”  I noticed now that her normally breathy voice was even lower than usual, barely a whisper. It was just starting to rain and turned up the volume to compensate for the drops hitting the roof; hear breathing sounded ragged, like she was upset.

“Baby, what’s the matter?” I prompted again.

A long pause while I felt sweat condensing on my upper lip, and then a terse whisper, “I’m scared…I thought I heard something upstairs.”

Probably an overactive imagination – but why was I still uneasy? I had locked the door before I left, so I knew there was no real chance someone was in our home.

And yet…

“I don’t think that is too likely baby girl,” I said confidently, “but do you want me to come home?”

Silence on the other end of the line.

“Should I come home Bethany? Would you feel better if I did?”

Another whisper, almost a sob of relief, “Yes, please.”

I threw on my signal and pulled a quick U-turn while calculating routes in my head. “Okay sweetheart, I am on my way. I will be home in…six minutes, okay?”

“Okay mommy.”

An unpleasant realization sprang into my mind, and I cursed under my breath. “Now, I am on my way back, but I have to let work know I am going to be late, okay?”

“Okay,” but not really, that tone of resignation in her voice, pushing the guilt button in my brain that was already worn smooth from having to leave her alone in the house for 30 minutes until her father got back.

“Do you want me to call you back?”

The quietest whisper, barely audible: “Yes, please.”

“Okay, I will call you back as soon as I can, okay? Promise,” and hung up. I called dispatch and told them I was going 10-7 for 20 minutes, hoping it wouldn’t get logged, knowing it would be, and began going through an unpleasant interaction with my sergeant later tonight in my head.

The rain was intensifying a bit but traffic around the arena would be ridiculous by now, so I took a left onto the thoroughfare to get a bit of breathing room and depressed the accelerator while asking my phone to call home.

By the third ring I had a knot in my stomach. Why did I think it would be okay to leave her on her own, even for half an hour? What if there actually was someone in the house and she picked up mid-ring? That would be a dead giveaway someone was home. But before I could even chide myself for that thinking, Bethany picked up, but I could barely hear her hesitant “Hello?”

“Hey sweetie, it’s me – where are you?”

“I’m in the basement, underneath the couch. Mommy, I’m scared…”

A sharp pain in my chest. “Why are you scared, honey, what did you hear?”

My tension matched hers as she tersely whispered into the phone, “I saw something out by the back fence before I came downstairs, like a big dog but with weird long legs, and then I heard a thump.”

Picking up speed now, I tried to lighten the mood, “I haven’t given any spare keys to any dogs, honey, so I don’t think one will get in.”

Silence.

I pressed on. “You think it’s a monster, don’t you?”

Her whispered yes sounded like the hiss of a snake, as if fear was keeping her teeth from parting. She had feared the woods behind our house, where the lot backed onto a ravine, ever since we’d moved in last year.

“Bethany, sugar, we’ve talked about this…everyone has bad dreams, and I know you see terrible creatures in yours, but you and I know they aren’t real, right?”

I looked up and saw city workers dragging orange sawhorses onto the thoroughfare up ahead. I threw on the lights and siren and flew over to an offramp I was far too close to, as other drivers braked to accommodate my maneuver as a curse slipped through my lips. A choked sob escaped through the phone’s speaker. “I know mommy, I’m sorry, but I saw it and it looked like last night and I got scared…”

I grimaced and shook my head, “I’m not mad at you baby, just traffic, but I am nearly home. And going to the basement was smart, that is a good place to hide.” I pulled onto an arterial road while a thought occurred to me. “Hey, what’s Scraps doing right now?”

A pause. “I don’t know. I don’t hear her…”

“And would she be quiet if someone was in the house?”

“No, she’d bark her head off…” Was that a trace of confidence entering her voice.

“Well, there you go,” I said assuredly. “I am almost home, honey. I have the siren and lights on and I am going really fast, can you hear me yet?”

“No,” she replied, “but it is really quiet under the couch.” I could hear her grunting as she wriggled out from underneath.

“How about now?” I asked, pulling past a van taking its sweet time to pull over.

She was still whispering, but her voice was less shaky than it had been. “Not yet…when you get here, can you yell ‘I’m home’ really loud so I know you’re here?”

In spite of the accumulated tension, I chuckled. “Of course I can, darling.” I reached down to turn off the siren and lights. “No more sirens now, I don’t want to upset Mrs. Kapour again.” Peering against the glare of the streetlights reflected in the raindrops on my windshield, I said, “I can almost see the house from here and –“

“Mommy, Scraps is sick…”

I immediately became acutely aware of every hair on my body. “What?” I replied dumbly.

“She’s lying at the bottom of the stairs and she isn’t mov-“ her voice cut off, the line silent.

“Hello? Hello? Bethany? Bethany!” I shouted at the phone. Despite being less than a block away, I floored the accelerator and came screeching to a halt directly in front of a suburban split-level. I raced out of the prowl car and vaulted the gate in the short iron fence, sprinting up the front steps, barely noticing the porchlight didn’t come on despite the motion sensor in it.

The front door was locked, and I had to suppress the urge to kick in my own door. Fumbling through my keys, I finally got the deadbolt unlatched and flung open the door. Stepping into the darkened house, I shouted, “Bethany, I’m home!” like I’d promised.

But there was no reply.

I unsnapped my holster and drew my service weapon, reaching behind me for the lights. I found the switch but throwing it didn’t illuminate the entryway.

I pulled the Maglite from my belt, switched it on and steadied my pistol over it. Moving through the living room to the kitchen, I shouted again, “This is the police – anyone here needs to have their hands up if they don’t want to risk being shot!” Bethany really dislikes my police voice, but now I was more scared than she’d been, and I prayed that my fear wasn’t audible.

Making my way into the kitchen, I checked the blind spots reflexively and swept the bright beam towards the door. My heart fell as I saw it wide open in the gleam, the storm door banging against the railing on the step.

Racing to the door, I peered out into the darkness, seeing nothing, crying my daughter’s name, hanging onto the doorjamb like a lifeline as I felt the strength fading from my legs.

Only after my voice started to give out did I finally look down and notice the tuft of matted fur stuck into the splintered doorframe where the deadbolt had been, a good four feet above the ground.

Runyon's Holiday Spirit: The Hot Tom & Jerry

NOW one time it comes on Christmas, and in fact it is the evening before Christmas, and I am in Good Time Charley Bernstein's little speakeasy in West Forty-seventh Street, wishing Charley a Merry Christmas and having a few hot Tom and Jerrys with him.

This hot Tom and Jerry is an old time drink that is once used by one and all in this country to celebrate Christmas with, and in fact it is once so popular that many people think Christmas is invented only to furnish an excuse for hot Tom and Jerry, although of course this is by no means true.

But anybody will tell you that there is nothing that brings out the true holiday spirit like hot Tom and Jerry, and I hear that since Tom and Jerry goes out of style in the United States, the holiday spirit is never quite the same.

The reason hot Tom and Jerry goes out of style is because it is necessary to use rum and one thing and another in making Tom and Jerry, and naturally when rum becomes illegal in this country Tom and Jerry is also against the law, because rum is something that is very hard to get around town these days.

For a while some people try making Tom and Jerry without putting rum in it, but somehow it never has the same old holiday spirit, so nearly everybody finally gives up in disgust, and this is not suprising, as making Tom and Jerry is by no means child's play. In fact, it takes quite an expert to make good Tom and Jerry, and in the days when it is not illegal a good hot Tom and Jerry maker commands good wages and many friends.

from "Dancing Dan's Christmas," by Damon Runyon

I cannot say for certain where I first came across the once-common warm holiday cocktail called the Tom & Jerry, but it may well have been in the writing of Damon Runyon; I came across "Butch Minds the Baby" in either a short story colelction of Dad's or some anthology or another in junior high.

Runyon's potent mixture of high vocabulary lowlifes and antiquated dialogue spiced with Prohibition-era slang sank its hooks deep into my brain at first exposure so that when I stumbled across a used copy of Runyon - On Broadway in the Leduc Bookshop, I snapped it up.

Runyon taught me what a Roscoe was without spelling it out:

Good Time Charley says he does not blame him, at that, as Miss Muriel O'Neill is so beautiful that he will be dancing with her himself no matter what, if he is five years younger and can get a Roscoe out as fast as in the days when he runs with Paddy the Link and other fast guys.

...how even bodily assault can be made humorous and potentially justifiable:

It finally becomes necessary for Charles to tap him on the pimple with a beer mallet, and afterward the constables come around, saying what is going on here, and what do you mean by tapping people with beer mallets, and the only way Charles can wiggle out of it is by stating that the character with the beard claims that Mae West has no sex appeal. So the constables go away saying Charles does quite right and one of them has half a mind to tap the character himself with something.

... and conveys the difficulty of minding one's own business while interacting with fast guys who have handles like Kitty Quick:

'Listen,' he says, 'do you know anybody in Europe?'

Well, this is a most unexpected question, and naturally I am not going to reply to unexpected questions by guys from Philly without thinking them over very carefully, so to gain time while I think, I say to Kitty Quick:

'Which Europe do you mean?'

I owe the majority of my love of language and turns-of-phrase to my father, but Mr. Runyon definitely has a hand in there as well.

As a result, when I came across a container of Tom & Jerry mix at a store the night before last, and remembering the important role it plays in Dancing Dan's Christmas (readable here and highly recommended), I really had no choice but to pick it up.

Bear in mind that the Tom & Jerry was an old-timey drink when Runyon wrote about it in the 1920s, going back a century or so at that time, and was possibly created as a promotional aid to a play by Pierce Egan called Tom & Jerry or Life in London, the first production to run for 100 consecutive performances in London, but whether this is due to the quality of the play or the assistance of the spirit imbued in the beverage is unknown.

The proper drink is like a warm milk punch or egg nog and normally comes from a batter made by mixing separated egg whites and yolks, sugar and butter and one thing and another before adding it to hot milk (or water, cocoa, or coffee) along with brandy and dark or spiced rum.

The Collins mix is more like a syrup or paste, similar to a jar of hot buttered rum mix, and I added two tablespoons to a cup of milk heated in the microwave, then dutifully added an ounce each of Captain Morgan and VSOP and stirred them together.

Now, I am pre-disposed to liking hot boozy drinks when the weather starts turning cold and I am also a fan of egg nog (until I am not) so this creamy, aromatic and gently spiced cup was right up my proverbial alley. Give me a hot Thermos of Tom & Jerry and I could be convinced to try out for the Iditarod, and I might even forego the dogs.

Furthermore, Audrey's version, made with hot water due to her fear of phlegminess, was also quite tasty, just not quite as creamy - a difference more of texture than taste, really.

While sipping, I looked up the Damon Runyon passages where I had first encountered this elixir, and ended up reading her the entirety of Dancing Dan's Christmas while she showered - Runyon's prose is a joy to read aloud, as I hope the excerpts above make evident. We also discovered that Tom & Jerrys were once served in their own bowl and mug sets, many of which can be found on eBay and Etsy and the like:

Man, I do not like to think of myself as a materially driven fellow on the general, but if I had the kind of domicile that would facilitate storing a bepoke bowl and mugs for a seasonal hot cocktail, I would find that most copacetic.

Regardless of serving vessel, however, I hope I have the opportunity to make hot Tom & Jerrys a more routine part of my holiday hospitality - after all, it is no longer illegal, and while it might not increase my wages, we can all use the friends it can bring, as Mr. Runyon asserts in the passage above.

UPDATE: Here is the recipe for those interested; consider adding the egg yolks to the butter before mixing to make things easier. Very tasty as a cocktail but also makes a very tasty cup of coffee!

From The Badger #46, by Mike Baron and Ron Lim

10th Affirmiversary with a Dangerous Senator

St. Albert United Church became an affirming ministry in 2014 and celebrated its 10th 'Affirimiversary' today; 10 years of being overtly inclusive to sexual minorities. It's a strange time to reflect because I personally thought we would be farther along now, societally, in terms of accepting people of differing sexualities or gender identities.

And yet, here we are. Disinformation, misinformation, outright lies, discrimination and hatred cloaked under religious freedoms or ersatz protection of children set the agendas of the day and continue to polarize the electorate. Manufactured rage, duping 'low information voters.'

But someone told me today that ten years of holding your ground, maintaining a safe and inclusive place, may not be an outright victory, but it certainly is worth celebrating.

That person was one of the speakers at todays' service, Kristopher Wells, and I got to introduce him. Here's what I said:

Kris Wells is an educator and activist with tremendous ties to 2SLGBTQ+ communities Edmonton and Alberta and beyond, and was also a key participant in one of the very first panels we held when we became an Affirming Ministry ten years ago. He’s been a public school teacher right here in St Albert, a diversity consultant for Edmonton public schools and helped develop the first sexual and gender identity school board policy in Western Canada. 

He’s been the faculty director of the University of Alberta’s Institute for Sexual Minority Studies and Services, MacEwan University's first Canada Research Chair and was the founding director of the MacEwan Centre for Sexual and Gender Diversity, as well as the editor-in-chief of the international Journal of LGBT Youth and co-creator of Pride Tape, 

He is also one of Alberta’s most recently appointed Senators and has been described by some pundits as ”the most dangerous senator in Canadian history”! He has some information to share before taking questions previously submitted by the congregation, so please welcome the Hon. Dr. Kristopher Wells!

Kris gave a wonderful address about our Affirmiversary coinciding with LGBT history month, and then answered some great questions that had been submitted beforehand by members of our congregation.

Throughout his talk, he consistently touched on the importance of allyship, of being there for people, both institutionally and individually. He expressed his gratitude for the warm welcome and sincere well wishes on his appointment, saying that it helps mitigate some of the backlash, like our own premier calling him a "radical leftist agitator," or the 'most dangerous senator' designation hung on him by the right wing blogosphere. (He confessed to me when I was outlining his introduction that he was trying to feel out if it was appropriate to get t-shirts made with that on it, as he does treat it as a badge of honour.)

Kris' remarks made it clear that we are in a rough spot right now, particularly given the agenda of the current provincial government. He made it clear that policies and legislation passed and yet to come are going to cause harm to a vulnerable community, and those passing it will have to live with their consciences after facilitating them - as will any of us complicit in our silence.

But he also made it clear that the best solution is to just keep telling the truth. To combat and refute mis- and disinformation when we encounter it. To be active and informed and to vote.

As he put it, "Education has always been the answer. As a senator, I now have a larger classroom, but I don't see my job as having substantially changed."

I am going to love having this guy in Ottawa - if he is a danger, it is only to a pernicious status quo. And ten years from now, I bet SAUC will still be holding its ground, flying a rainbow flag and continuing to welcome everyone.

Jasper 2024 - Rocky Mountain Heartbreak

We had booked a campsite for our recurring late-season trip to Jasper back in early July, looking forward to what we were calling Campsgiving Weekend.

By the end of the month though, wildfire proximity had prompted the evacuation of the entire townsite and many structures in the town and surrounding area were lost, including some in the Wapiti campsite where we were booked. 

In late August, Parks Canada refunded our fees and cancelled our reservation, but with word that Miette Hot Springs might reopen before the end of the season, I booked a campsite at Jasper Gates, just west of Hinton.

Sure enough, Miette announced they would be open until Thanksgiving weekend, so we loaded up Bride of Frankentrailer and hit the road Friday, but the trailer got a flat on the Henday before we even reached St. Albert. 

We called Tuber Towing because I wasn't about to change a flat on that thing beside Edmonton's fastest roadway, but they also told us the other tire wasn't looking great. So we ended up leaving it at Trail Tire so they could replace both of them - the tech didn't think the other would even get us out of the city... They hoped to get us underway late the next morning, but once we got home I transferred our reservation from the campsite to a motel room on the same property (Jasper Gates was so nice about it too!) so we could get to the mountains on Friday after all.

After cooking French toast in out kitchenette and visiting the hot springs (perhaps our favourite spot in the Rockies), we bought a park pass there and drove into the townsite. We wanted to see for ourselves just what was left of a place all three of us knew from our childhoods.

It is about a half-hour from Miette Road to Jasper, following the Athabasca river for the most part. Along the Yellowhead, the visible destruction was limited to the burnt trees you could see on the mountain slopes across the water. As you got closer to town, however, there were burnt trees on both sides of the river, some of them very close to the highway. (All the photos are Glory's.)

The eastern entry way to the town was closed so we drove on to the western one on Hazel Avenue that comes off of 93A. Last year we had seen an immense grizzly bear lounging in the shade of the trees by the intersection - almost all those trees were now gone, a few scorched trunks all that remained. 

Heading up to Connaught Drive, the main drag that parallels the train tracks, I audibly gasped - almost everything west of Hazel Avenue was gone, starting with the gas stations that had been on the corner, and all the homes that had been beyond it. My eyes dampened and I questioned my presence there.

On Connaught itself, the damage is less visible save for a gaping hole where a building housing some businesses or another used to exist. Presumably, firefighters knocked it down to save the neighbouring structures.

Looking across the tracks, the proximity of the fire from the other side is visible as well, and a ridgeline of burnt timber is particularly haunting.

We turned up Pyramid Lake Road, noting Bears Paw Bakery, a staple of prior visits, is closed. Patricia Street is currently one-way, so we went up to Geike Street and hung a left, noting that everything east of us looked largely intact.

But a few blocks down we came upon the burned out remains of Jasper Anglican Church, and a sign on the fence surrounding it warning of asbestos in the ruins. It was consecrated almost a century ago, in 1929.

Turning left on Hazel so we could proceed down Patricia Street, we saw a fire-damaged garage that was still standing and probably reparable, but with no obvious burning of the adjacent house - miraculous. Past that street though, there were almost no structures standing.

Just before Patricia Street, north of the Esso station, I think this was a steakhouse or Greek restaurant with a retro blue and white sign - almost nothing remains.

On Patricia Street we saw a section of stores and restaurants where the bottom floor was largely intact, but the roof and upper floors were gutted, with exposed roof beams silhouetted aginst the bright blue sky. But of course, even if this building doesn't require demolition, all the contents are undoubtedly wrecked by smoke or water damage.

All in all, a pretty disheartening visit. So much damage, so quickly, and impacting thousands if not tens of thousands of people. How does a small town come back from the edge of destruction like this? I had hoped we could shop or grab a light meal there, and even though I knew such an act would be fine, it still felt ghoulish somehow, so we headed back to our motel near Hinton.

But before we left, Glory wanted a picture of her with the cartoon bear namesake of the town, and I was happy to oblige. 

Somehow the fact that this statue had survived gave me a glimmer of hope, as did seeing the mountain sheep and elk so prevalent on the way out of town.

From the highway, the signs of the fire are much less visible, and in time, I hope the townsite will look more familiar as well.

Gourd Help Us All - Smoky Lake Pumpkin Fair

It turns out there are a number of good reasons to attend the Smoky Lake Great White North Pumpkin Weigh-in and Fair, less than 90 min northwest of Edmonton.  

The show and shine they host is one of the biggest I have ever been to - well over a hundred exhibitors. Now, I am not a big car guy, but I definitely appreciate a distinctive, vintage or even nostalgic ride, and all that well-represented there. Cars, trucks and vans from the '20s to today, cruisers, hot rods, even a few boogie vans, but there was a tremendous showing for muscle cars throughout the ages, including a lot of vehilces from my childhood. I was too busy being preoccupied to take enough pictures but got this one for a friend:

Food trucks are always a mixed bag for me - tremendous variety but long lineups and longer wait times. My brisket poutine was pretty solid though, I have to say.

We got back into the weigh in at the Agricultural Hall just in time for the last two pumpkins, large enough they had to be brought in by forklift. The runner up was a solid half-ton of gourd, but the entry from Don Crews of Llloydminster tipped the scales at 2137 lbs! Afterwards you can stay and bid on the entries, with half the proceeds going to the local Christmas hamper charity.

Following the weigh-in and a trip to the artisan's market for Audrey to pick up some earrings, we caught the shuttle bus over the the corn maze. A poor season for corn meant you could see over most of the maze, but it still made for a nice walk. There is also a midway where I spent enough money on darts to win a narwhal stuffy for Glory.

There was a beer garden we didn't partake in and a threshing demo we didn't make it to, and a Metis Kitchen Party at nearby Metis Crossing, but the pinnacle of excitement comes at 5:30 Saturday afternoon, at the pumpkin drop.

This is where an enormous crowd gathers around to watch the local firefighters affix a gigantic pumpkin (like, at least 500 lbs, but possibly close to half a ton) to an enormous Mammoet crane, which then hoists said pumpkin some 200 feet in the air before dropping it onto an automobile directly below. 

Spectators are kept at a safe distance by a perimeter rope, and a lucky raffle winner is apparently given the opportunity to push the button that actually drops the pumpkin, and the excitement builds to a fever pitch as the final ten-second countdown begins.

As you might well imagine, that much weight, from that height, makes a sizable impact.

In addition to shattering the pumpkin and scattering its innards over several yards, the rear roof of the car was totally crushed, it was shifted back a few inches on its axles, and we could feel the hit from where we were seated on the ground some thirty yards away.

A second pumpkin was set up and winched into position high in the air, and the eagerly shouted countdown yielded results that were at once predictable yet spectacular.

After the firefighters made sure there were no sharp shards of metal strewn amongst the shell and guts of the fallen pumpkins, a final countdown unleashed the crowd from the safety perimeter and onto the impact site, where they grabbed shards of the shell and other souvenirs - and, presumably, some seeds to perhaps grow their own mammoth squash?

I am almost embarassed to admit just how entertaining I found this entire enterprise; perhaps it was the ridiculous scale of a ton-fractional gourd being dropped by a nine-axle industrial crane from a height greater than most grain elevators.

In the end though, I think it is the simple atavism of kinetic discovery, to see and hear and feel such an impact. It feels a suitable way to commemorate the changing of the seasons, the significance of the harvest, and a chance to be outdoors before the weather turns too bitter.

I think we may go back next year as well.

Sundog spied on our journey home