Vicky

Yesterday – and today, too – I washed and waxed the floors. I remember my mother doing this. I remember her answering the telephone and saying to a friend who, presumably, was asking what she did that day. “Oh, not too much,” she would say. “I washed and waxed the floors”.  How long can it take, I used to ask myself, to wash and wax the floors?

When I grew up, cleaning floors went like this: you sweep them, run a mop over them, squeeze on them some floor shining stuff from a plastic bottle, let them dry. You occasionally get down on your hands and knees to scrub a stubborn spot. You then go and check your email or have a little espresso with left-over Christmas cake.

But now I own a Viking ‘77 floor polisher. Remembering my mother’s floors which gleamed like glass, I decided to wash and wax my floors in an attempt to achieve the same result. And I did. It took about four hours, taking to account the drying times between mopping, waxing and polishing. And buffing, the icing on the hardwood.

Recently, during an evening of wine sampling and chit chat with my middle sister, we discussed floor polishing. She, too, has a polisher. Her’s is a 50s greyish pink, and mine is a muted green, just like Mum’s.

She nabbed it on Big Garbage Eve. She doesn’t really have the scavenging gene, but Big Garbage Eve is when the truck will take anything from washing machines to mascot costumes, including the oversized head. One can see some wild sights curbside. Ever the style maven, the pink caught her eye. One man’s trash is another gal’s floor polisher.

My sister, now very social and easy to be with, was timid as a child. She had what we thought were amusing fears: Santa Claus, our next-door neighbour Cliff, an unwillingness to spend an overnighter with my grandparents. In writing this, I realize it sounds dark and weird, but she has assured me there was nothing at play but her little-girl imagination.

She also had an imaginary friend, Christine. My sister has described her to me, but the description is so detailed that it would take too long to type it here. I can say only that Christine was African Canadian – or African American, for I don’t know from which country Christine came.  I’m not sure my sister ever asked her.  I once asked her how real Christine seemed to her. She paused, leaned in toward me, lowered her voice and said “it was as real as you are sitting here in front of me”. It gave me pause, and a shudder, I’ll admit.

But on that night of sampling and chit chat, I learned something new about my sister vis a vis a floor polisher. My mother kept hers stored in a small alcove-ish space at the top of our stairs. Turns out, that in addition to Christine, the floor polisher was also a part of my sister’s social circle. It was her “tall, skinny friend”.  I don’t know the tall, skinny friend’s name. Perhaps it was Viking ‘77  - Vicky for short, I’m figuring. According to my sister, she and Christine would sit on the top stair visiting their tall, skinny friend.

Now – smart, practical, funny – I wonder what she thinks when she polishes her floor. I’m pretty sure she gives a wry little laugh and gets on with the job.

But me. I can’t help look at my muted green polisher  - just like my mother’s – and think: are you Vicky, if that in fact is you name?

It gives me pause, and a shudder, I’ll admit.

Why? I forgot a password. One of 60 passwords, it turns out. I know the exact number because I opened my “Keychain Access” and counted them. All my passwords evolved from the same word or words and are varied as needed when one or another is rejected by a site because it belongs to someone else. This in itself can cause a quiet harrumph because I must face the shocking reality that I’m not as unique and special as previously believed. So, the addition of a number or sequence of letters, preceding or following said (or unsaid) word usually does the trick. Some combinations I know well, and have no trouble slipping on to the site in mere seconds. Some elude me and frequent attempts with different variations often cause the great wall of security to fall, requiring me to (and I choke at the thought) speak to a person and ask for help. This, for me, is an act of desperation.

Sometimes I forget the password to the password, the secret question, and the hint to the secret question. Is it: my mother’s maiden name; my first pet; my high school; grandfather’s occupation; best friend’s shoe size; date of all-time favourite sneeze; average rainfall of my backyard; my neighbour’s unspoken opinion of me (in one word or less); birth weight of Agnes de Mille?  Sometimes, after these episodes (hours in duration), I forget what site I was trying to enter, and go downstairs to make myself a sandwich. I can do this in about five minutes, unless it’s toasted.

Wading through the purgatory of passwords and pin numbers takes more of my time than should be necessary to do a little banking, book a flight, or check my wireless usage for any given month. Sometimes the password has been saved automatically, sometimes not. Likewise, clicking on the little “remember me” square is sometimes successful, sometimes not. For instance, logging in to write this, I must always enter my password despite having clicked that little “remember me” square every time I want to post something. The site does not remember me. This is insulting – I think my own site should remember me.

Coming back to my chat with the pleasant man from across the seas, I’m please to say that he solved my problem. He re-set my password in approximately five minutes.

About the time it takes to make a sandwich. Unless it’s toasted.

Now, I’m left to mourn a graveyard of obsolete digital technology. First, a machine – about the size of the pillow on which I sleep – with lots of knobs and sliders (not the local bar variety) that I never quite mastered, never quite understood. I used it, but only utilized a fraction of its potential. Looked fantastic, though – slick and modern.

Then followed the mini-disc recorders that used…well….mini-discs. They came in beautiful translucent colours. I used it, but the little buttons are so small that its compact nature was lost on me. I now use the mini-discs as shims to hold cupboard doors shut and to level light objects that seem, to my eye, to be tilting.

Another beautiful porta-studio joined the group. Necessary, of course, because it had MIDI capabilities. Musical Instrument Digital Interface. MIDI allows electronic instruments communicate and synchronize with computers, thereby enabling all sorts of things that, like the aforementioned knobs and sliders (you know the kind I mean) I don’t understand. I used it, but never connected it to a computer.  Not to mention that I don’t play an electric instrument, save for an old electric piano over which I agonize to write little melodies – that is to say that I can barely play it. That didn’t stop me from buying a sound synthesizer that helped me create the sounds of waves crashing over sand dunes or tinkly wind chimes. I used it, but the sound of waves crashing over wind chimes began to irritate me. It’s sad that I ‘ll never again be able to go to the beach with a wind chime in my tote.

A Micro Track hand held recorder move in to replace the porta-studio. This was meant to be it. Loved it for about three weeks. Realized that the lack of a speaker made it useless for easy playback. The cute little LED screen was not backlit, therefore impossible in dimly lit rooms.

Interwoven with this assortment were several dicta-phones, the kind that slips in a jacket pocket. For rehearsal purposes, I loaned my favourite to an erstwhile – very erstwhile – colleague.  She took it reluctantly, swearing her steel trap memory rendered it useless to her. She forgot to return it to me.

I like doing things by hand – pastry-making, sock-darning, cat-patting, but I’m a pushover for shiny objects that seem to promise a new and better way of recording. Or taking pictures. Or watching movies. Or making expresso.

The beauty of these objects, I regret to say, is often polished chrome and/or fiberglass deep, and I am often too shallow to get beyond the attractive housings. Oh, I do use them – like a magpie does a dime.

Thanks for tuning in.

There are guitars hanging on the wall of my small studio. I walk by it dozens of times a day on my way to the room in which my computer waits. Every time, I feel a pang of guilt and make a mental note to next time enter it. Guilty days go by and I never step into the little room, never touch a guitar, a pen – never cross the threshold. Never ponder anything more than a sore hip or when I might be able to travel to Florence.

My guilt about avoiding the office is not equal to the the guitar guilt. It’s worse, because I know it’s a part of my work and I can’t get around it.  I can’t skip by the dining room, either, which looks like the back room of a Shopper’s Drug Mart postal outlet. Tape gun, return address rubber stamp, padded envelopes, black Sharpie (so different than a Shar-Pei), stamps and a postal scale. And the telephone. It weighs 100 pounds and I have to be in particularly good nick in order to pick it up, whether it be answering or calling. It’s a glamourous life I lead.

When I muse over the keyboard like this, I recall a friend’s recent comment: who cares? In response, I might have quoted Roscoe Holcomb, the departed claw-hammer banjo player and old time singer. Talk about a high lonesome song. After a performance, a man told him that the song sounded good enough, but that he couldn’t hear the words. Holcomb replied: Mister, I was singin’ that for me – not you.

Some days are like that. Some blogs are like that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApwS4L8exYo

He’s singin’ that for him. Not us.

Lots of good wishes afterward, in addition to lots of this: You didn’t know? Really? Well, no, I didn’t. Turns out there was a leak the night before and the names of winners had been released to the press so that press deadlines could be met. And turns out there was talk of it at the concert at the National Arts Centre the previous night.

We didn’t go to the concert. We stayed in the hotel, ordered room service, and watched a movie. I wish I could tell you that we watched something darkly evocative – something deep and edifying – but it was Shrek III (the III lends some gravitas that a plain 3 would not deliver). As a result, I missed the chatter about the leak and had no clue what was in store. I’m glad of that. If I had heard the night before, I would not have had as much fun with it the following night.

When Shelagh Rogers announced my name (thank you, Shelagh for the delight of your pure enthusiasm), I was surprised. Really surprised. As I walked to the stage, I was in some suspended state of credultity. I’m glad I hadn’t prepared any remarks. There were no bon mots in my  words of thanks.

I’m glad it went that way. It was a very pure delight. I’m as grateful for that as for the awards. Great honking chunk of glass, but the way,  with a maple leave suspended in the centre. In disbelief, I expect.

More when I get home. Thanks for tuning in.

…that was yesterday – today it’s a very different story with the rain pelting down on this treehouse. I thank the gods it has a roof and four walls.

Today, lunch was with my friend (and producer – but friend is at the top of the list) Danny Greenspoon. A more delightful man would be hard to find. I know that beneath his flesh and bones lies a great heart – not to suggest is is usually hidden . For me, his quick-to-react brain and his good natured self-deprecation won me from the start.   But, he’s also delivered two CDs to me, both of which have made me happy.

The last one  in particular, as much for production as for the sheer delight in the very organic way it came together. Danny has a talent for talent, and even a word hacker like me can be made to sound good in the embrace of great musicians and great singers. “Greytown” feels like family, without squabbles. I could have fallen backwards and been caught by these guys and gals (yes, gals – way better than girls).

Tomorrow, off to Ottawa and the continued wondering about what to wear  to the show. “Always a bridesmaid” I wrote to a friend, so perhaps something in a nice pastel.

Oh, and I now have my guitar back. Bliss. When my fingernail grows back on my middle right finger I think I will actually play it. Big thanks to Linda Manzer (http://www.manzer.com/guitars/)and Tony Duggan-Smith (http://tonyduggan-smith.com/) for the tremendous work.

It’s good here in the Big Smoke and don’t let anyone say it’s not so. Cities are just a lot of people surrounded by different architecture.  Some good of both here.

Good night. Have a sweet dream.

I drove to do my errands. I would have walked had I the time and were I able to balance parcels on my head. A squished disc in my neck prevents me from doing so (an old Limbo injury for which, in 1969 there was no insurance coverage – my, times have changed). I would have walked because I like walking. It builds the lungs, leaves the car in the driveway, saves on bus fare. Good, and on so many levels.

But when I’m driving, walking is bad – other people walking, that is.  They slow you down, they step off the sidewalk causing one to brake the bejesus out of the car – ABS must stand for “Another Bloody Stop” – and, worst of all, they abuse the crosswalk.

There are several varieties of crosswalk delinquents. Here is a partial list of what drivers deal with daily:

1. The Ambler. Distinguishable by hands in the pockets, gaze wandering and a general impression of no-particular-place-to-go. Oddly, it is almost always is a man, and his demeanor gives one the idea that he is in one of two states of mind: happy with the world and all of God’s little gifts and blessings; morbidly low-spirited, and close to punching out your headlight with his bare fist.

2. The Texter. This one’s easy. They have a mobile device in their hand, never look up to see what might be hurtling in their direction, and occasionally stop mid-crosswalk. OMG must mean “come to a complete stop right now and stare at the display screen”. I sometimes wish I could text them at that moment. MYLA (move your lazy ass). There is also the MYFA option.

3. The Back and Forth Bouncer: Unable to decide, they see the crosswalk has switched from walk to don’t walk. They think they can beat it. They put one foot down, but immediately pull it back to the sidewalk. This action is repeated several times giving a bouncing effect. At the last possible moment, they begin to dash across, but the dash is soon abandoned because it makes them look uncool.

4. The Lovers: Don’t be fooled by first appearance which can mislead you into thinking this is one person with two heads. These are two people side by side. Literally, side by side. Perhaps it could be described as “side on side”. They move in tandem, with each step in perfect coordination with the other’s. They go slowly, thinking that to step it up might cause them to fly apart. Which they will anyway next Friday night after someone’s “best friend” has too many “Arbor Mists”.

5. The Death Wish: Look for a dark hoodie that covers the wearer’s face. If the face is covered, you can assume the eyes are not in operation. GO SLOW! But scream out the window.

6. The Rude Little Snip Of A Thing in High Heels: she can’t walk in them, she’s much younger than you, she’s a bitch and you hate her.

7. The Stupid and/or Confused. They walk on the red, stop on the green. Or walk on green and stop on the ….oh, I don’t know.

8. Oprah Winfrey: This will be obvious. Up side of this one: if you cry because she’s taking so long, she may give you a car or pay for your make-over.

I could go on, but what a waste of your time. After all, you know what I’m talking about. Unless you’re walking.