The Harder Job

It seems impossible to not comment on the passing of Edward Kennedy, though I have little to add to what everyone else has said. However, I do remember two things my father said.

In the run-up to the 1980 election, my father was undergoing an amazing transformation. About five years earlier, when I entered high school, he had somehow visibly lost intelligence--about 50 IQ points' worth, I decided. Maybe more.

But as the end of the 70s drew near, so did the end of my teenage years, and so did the years of my father's intelligence vacuum. In fact, as I discovered on visits home from university, he had become incredibly learned. Things like American history, Presidential elections, politics--this "Dad" guy knew quite a bit. He had opinions about stuff and he could back them up.

Geez. Maybe that Harvard Ph.D. in history, lifelong interest in presidents and social history, and an encyclopedic memory all meant something after all.

In any case, my father had lots to say when Edward Kennedy mounted a serious challenge to then-President Carter in 1980, and not much of it was complimentary. It wasn't because of Kennedy's politics, but because challenging Carter was "dirty pool," not that my father knew from pool. It was bad form to foment divisions in the party, and my father also preferred Carter's principled (if sometimes less effective) leadership style.

During that time, my father and I talked about the Kennedys quite a bit, and two of his points have stuck with me since.

First, imagine living with the knowledge that two of your siblings were shot--not randomly, not accidentally. They were assassinated. Targeted specifically, for their work as public servants.

And yet Edward Kennedy had the courage to stay in politics. He could have invented other ways to "do good." He could have looked for a role in the media, as JFK Jr. and others in that generation have. Edward Kennedy could have contented himself with serving on boards of charities and foundations. But he continued to run for public office and serve the country in a way that made him vulnerable. Physically. Imagine his nightmares.

Second, imagine the pressure of being the one who survived. The one left to not only dream grand dreams and fight for ideals, but to live in the real world. The world where compromise is the necessary tool that translates grand dreams into imperfect programs that accomplish only some small part of the dream.

His brothers were cut down too early--"everyone" says so. Robert Kennedy's unrealized potential is either sad or tantalizing to contemplate; President Kennedy's maturation as a leader might have made the 1960s a completely different era.

But their legacies are the "what-if" dreams of hopes and inspiring words.

Edward Kennedy's legacy is one of action in the service of those same hopes, dreams, and inspirations. He was left to live down his own public mistakes in a world that was suddenly hungry for gossip about the wealthy and powerful, where his brothers enjoyed a different relationship with the press. He was left to sweat the details: the legislation and programs to give life to those dreams, in decades where the country's culture was actively hostile to caring for those less fortunate.

As my father pointed out, being the survivor was in many ways the much harder job. Edward Kennedy took on that job with gusto, and he did it well.

And he will be missed.

Canadian Commercial Content

In case you didn't know, the 2010 Olympics are being held in Vancouver. No, really--they are!

Here's a commercial McDonald's (official sponsor) is running. It's pretty darn cute. Oh come on, it takes 30 seconds and it won't make you crave a Big Mac or anything.



I also think it's pretty darn Canadian, and not just because the golden arches have red maple leafs in them. Here's why.

1. The little girl starts by saying, "Excuse me, Patrick Chan." She also says "please." She also has a specific request (for his autograph) and has an object (water bottle) and pen to do it with. She's prepared and polite. Canadian.

2. Patrick Chan, who hasn't even had the chance to bite into whatever McDonald's sandwich we are supposed to believe he eats, betrays absolutely NO impatience with this little girl. Again, prepared and polite. Also, Patrick Chan is a figure skater. This is a big sport up here. Not as big as hockey, but still big. Canadian.

3. When Patrick Chan hears that he is to sign the bottle for "M-O-M-M-Y," he looks puzzled but doesn't confront the mother directly. Instead, they exchange polite, indirect glances. You could call them shy glances. Canadian.

4. Patrick does his thing, the girl says "thank you," and they all live happily ever after in their separate booths, presumably eating their food and leaving each other alone. Canadian.

Here's how this would have played out in the States.

Woman to friend (pointing and shouting): OMIGOD! That's Patrick Chan!
Restaurant Patrons (all pointing and nudging each other and saying loudly): Patrick Chan? Patrick Chan!
Friend: Who's Patrick Chan?
Woman: Only the best figure skater in the world! He's gonna take gold from all those other figure skaters at the next Olympics and then go on to a multimillion-dollar career!!
Restaurant Patrons: Oh! Wow! Gold medal! Millionaire!
Friend: Wait. Isn't he...Canadian?
GASP, then SILENCE
Woman: Can't be. He's really good. I'm sure he's American. Hey Patrick, wanna sign my water bottle? Hey, anyone got a pen?
Restaurant Patrons (clamoring and thrusting water bottles, t-shirts, and body parts toward Patrick Chan): Yeah! me too!
Patrick Chan (annoyedly): Please, folks, can't I get at least a bite of my Big Mac? It's chock-full of protein, carbs, and veggies...everything I need to keep me going out there on the ice. And frankly, I'm feeling kinda faint."
Woman: Sure, we'll wait.
Restaurant Patrons (clustered around Patrick Chan, watching him go to take a bite): Oooo! Ahhhhh!
Patrick Chan (puts down sandwich good-naturedly): Just kidding. Sure, I'll sign whatever you got! Bring it on!
Shots of him signing everything in sight. Fade out over scene of Patrick Chan and new best American friends all eating sandwiches (supersized, of course).

In short, class, here are the salient features of the American version:

1. They have to explain who the sports hero is because he is not currently in the news. They also have to tie him to money. And they have to pretend he is both obviously the best in the world and American to be worthy of notice.

2. The characters exhibit shouting, pointing, and other behaviour that is questionable in public. They also are unprepared to ask for autographs.

3. Patrick Chan is famous and thus is an object to be stared at. The poor guy can't even eat in peace, which he seems to think is his right even though he's a "public figure" and supposed to represent the company he's shilling for. Americans love this type of contradictory relationship between media figures and the public (Britney Spears, 'nuff said).

4. The tie between the chain's primary product and the personality must be explicit, so that the audience KNOWS why sports figures eat McDonald's food and they should too. Because subtlety doesn't sell down there. And water bottles are temporary, not appetizing, and not food.

5. The final result of the whole thing is boisterous camaraderie. Everybody is part of one big happy American family. A similar phenomenon happens in Canada but rarely and usually in relation to hockey or donuts. Plus it's short-lived.

See? Can-con is a commercial phenomenon, too.

And by the way: Patrick Chan was born in 1990. I think I have socks older than he is. In fact, I'm probably older than everyone in the commercial, with the possible exception of the sandwich. Which has nothing to do with anything other than the fact that I'm nearly old as dirt. Which, yes, happens on both sides of the border.

Sigh.

Traditions

My parents were married on Christmas Day in 1942. Each year, the present-opening extravagannnnnnza included a moment for opening anniversary cards and gifts--as I recall, given mostly by my father to my mother.

It was mostly a non-event for us kids, except for their 25th anniversary, when my sister organized a system whereby we "donated" portions of our allowance and pooled our nickels, dimes, and occasional quarter to buy a silver bread tray.

And of course, the more years my parents accumulated as married partners, the more important their anniversaries became. The more I understood relationships (or truthfully, the more I understood that I knew NOTHING about successful relationships), the more I admired theirs.

Two years ago, my husband and I stood on our beach and made a new marriage. I'm enjoying developing new traditions to celebrate that commitment--traditions that match our marriage.

The second anniversary is traditionally the cotton anniversary. In our marriage, the whole second year has been devoted to empty space. Not the kind overhead, where the stars and planets and birds live. The kind in attics and basements and closets, oh my. The kind that is now mostly dry, thanks to hours replacing roofs (though we're not quite done with the re-roofing).

On our special day in celebration of our year of empty space, we will go to the dump. It is not only an ordinary "take the garbage and recycling to the landfill" day but also a day when we will use one of our two annual "cleanout" days. We have the rolled roofing from the bathroom to get rid of. Also the aluminum eavestroughs. Plus an old cracked toilet.

It's exciting to contemplate. And I can't wait to see what the coming years bring.

Lessons from Above

I've said this before. When you're at a camp (southern Ontario: cottage; Colorado and Manitoba: cabin; parts elsewhere: I don't know), the line between inside and outside is, well, fluid.

Sometimes more fluid than one would hope, if one would hope a camp structure doesn't include, say, the occasional rodent.

And yet. However blurry the line between inside and outside, the line between up and down remains quite solid, thank you very much. As I re-learned this week.

Last summer, we re-roofed the main part of "it may be a shack but it's our shack."

This summer, we are finishing by re-roofing the bathroom and breezeway. Starting with de-roofing, or pre-re-roofing. As in, destroying.

And I have learned a few Life Lessons.

First, knowing you should stop doing something is NOT the same as actually NOT DOING IT. Specifically, banging my kneecap on the ladder. The first time I thought, "Wow, ouch. I need to not do that again. Okay, lesson learned." The second time, I thought, "Damn, I forgot. But no more." The third time, I thought, "To hell with it. Maybe I should stay off the ladder till I get some physical grace." But not enough time has been invented for that to happen. Fortunately, we were more or less done, but I am not sure I've really figured out how to not bang it.

Second, when you're on a roof prying out nails, be careful to face in the correct direction. If the nail you're working on suddenly comes free and you fall backward, you don't want "backward," "downhill," and "over the edge of the roof" to be anywhere near the same thing. If you're squatting, point your rear end toward the uphill slope. If you're sitting, your feet should be lower than your (banged-up) knees.

Fortunately, I didn't have to learn this Life Lesson the hard way. Having a vivid imagination was enough to catch my attention and ensure that I wouldn't make that mistake. Which probably used up the attention I should have been paying to my kneecap.

Third, as shown in the photo (what you see is the lids of two tin cans, held on by tar to the plyboard roof), there are ways and ways of patching mistakes. Some are uglier than others, some are less effective than others, and some are both ugly and ineffective. Similarly, some are attractive and serviceable. So I'll try for that last combo. Even though I do have to admit that ugly and ineffective patches are kind of interesting from a family history/archeological standpoint 40 years down the road.

So, got that, people? Uphill and downhill are different, as are knowing and doing. Ugly/ineffective is different from attractive/serviceable.

And watch your kneecaps. There's a funnybone in there somewhere, and you really don't want to find it.

Sticking it to the Mushrooms

So, mushrooms. They're everywhere, as you may have heard.

Even on Canada A.M., where a new documentary, "Know Your Mushrooms," was featured this week, mostly because of its unusual distribution system: the USB stick. It's also by a Canadian filmmaker. And the focus is on the Telluride mushroom festival, which you can pretty well count on attracting a few interesting lunatics worth making a documentary about.

To see the clip, go here. The USB stick looks like a cross between an anime figure and something from a 1970s-era kitchen.

But anyway, we can't seem to get away from the mushrooms these days. Even on morning TV.

Surfacing

It's been a cool and wet summer here. Some living things long for more heat and more sun. Other living things, apparently, do not.

Nice weather if you're a mushroom. (This is one of the cheerful ones. I spared you the picture of the one with three slugs on it. You're welcome.)

And in what another blogger calls "heavy-handed metaphors," I wonder what those mushrooms represent in my own life.

Oh, stop rolling your eyes--you know what I'm talking about. Mushrooms are the things that you pretend don't exist. Like (a trivial example) whether the gums really are receding from your back molars, which means periodontal surgery is in your future, and would that be your near-term future or your long-term future?

Or (a less trivial example) whether ten years from now you or someone you love will still be able to climb ladders and paint the exterior of the camp. Whether by then perhaps you'll have learned not to be squeamish about the status of the plumbing. Or the prevalence of mice. Or even, say, about mushrooms growing places where you might wish they didn't because what does that mean about keeping the place dry and rot-free.

Which is not to even mention all those completely non-trivial examples that I do not share online and rarely even whisper about in the dark. Death, illness, decay.

So, mushrooms. When you're in the middle of a cool, damp, mostly gloomy and overcast summer, when the economy is teetering and you can't decide what to do about the $1200 in exhaust work your car might need because your country doesn't have a decent Cash for Clunkers program, when two paying projects have disappeared in one afternoon and nothing comes in to replace them--well, let's just say that you look at mushrooms and wonder what's next.

What else could surface after lurking for years.

And then you look outside and notice that today, for this moment, it's sunny. So you go enjoy it while you can.

Another Advertising "Huh?"

I can't find this online, so you'll just have to believe me about this commercial for an SC Johnson OFF yard product.

Man (disdainful): There are plenty of OLD ideas for mosquito protection.

Same man (smug): Here's one that's PROVEN.

Old. Proven. Opposites? I think not.

In fact, aren't they a little, like, NOT-opposite? As in pretty similar? Because how can an idea be PROVEN without being a little--how to say this--not-NEW? For an idea to be proven, it has to be tested, and for it to be tested, it has to be at least a little bit OLD.

What were these people thinking?

Obviously, we don't want OLD ideas. OLD ideas are bad, because advertisers know that in our consumer world, all old everythings everywhere are bad. But wait, a sanity moment: old ideas include democracy, liquor, artwork, and named days of the week. All old ideas. Not bad ones. Just old. Grr, said the crabby old lady.

Moving along. Yes, we definitely want ideas that are PROVEN. Presumably they mean "proven to be successful," given the man's smugness.

And really, they don't mean PROVEN IDEAS so much as they mean EFFECTIVE PRODUCTS. Can they not sell us some of those? I'd even take an OLD product, if it WORKS.

In fact, I would dearly love a product that would repel mosquitoes without making me or my yard smell like chemicals. But until something more EFFECTIVE comes along, I'm a fan of the chemicals. I use SC Johnson's Deep Woods OFF in spite of the smell and chemicals because I am past my childhood and childbearing years and am going to die from something and would like to be itch-free while I do it.

But back to the old vs. proven debate. This ad had to be written by committee. Late at night. After someone said "Nobody wants new ideas in mosquito protection--they want something that works!" And somehow, "proven" got put in a slot that was meant to contain "new" or even "new and improved," and this is what you have.

And here's the saddest part of all. This commercial has bugged me (ha ha ha) for at least two summers already. This may even be the third summer I've shouted at the TV "proven is not the opposite of old!" But I don't remember the actual product.

An ineffective ad in SO MANY ways.

Yahoo, Land!

What you see here is a raft. If it had a pointed end, it would be a boat. However, it has square ends. Hence the raft-ness.

It's sailing in a puddle in the driveway. The g-kids were here Friday night, when we had about an hour of rain-free fun, and Saturday till about noon, when we had maybe another hour without rain.

The car-crazy three-year-old insisted on "driving" his raft along the surface of the water. Then it "drove" along the bottom of the puddle. Occasionally, the raft "flew" between puddles, but it didn't get much chance to just float and sail in the wind.

The six-year-old really really wanted his raft to sail up the puddle, against the wind. Although the raft refused to disobey the laws of nature, he salvaged his fun by yelling "Land, ho!" every time the raft nudged the edge of the puddle." The three-year-old joined in, with a twist: "Yahoo, land!"

Then the two wheelbarrows became "cruise ships" in the hands of the six-year-old and his nine-year-old brother. (Apparently they had seen a cruise ship in the harbo(u)r in town.) Cruise ships can carry rafts from puddle to puddle. They can also be filled with water that is poured on hapless rafts to make the rafts sink, to the accompanying screams from the rafts' imaginary passengers who die a horrible and watery death.

Fun times.

I've played here in the summer for decades. As the youngest in my family, I grew up with siblings who played here in a few particular ways: mining skipping stones, "digging" for clay under the sand in the bay and making pots, taking watercraft across our bay and around the point. Visiting cousins added their own spin at times, but mostly it was the five of us. Over time, it became the four, or three, or two of us. Most recently, it's been just me, though I tend to play less and work more unless we are two. And "play" is likely to be either "sitting on the beach with a beverage" or "going out in the boat."

But between my childhood and beverage years, I had a couple of chances to watch my brothers' kids find slightly different ways of playing here. They gave different names to landmarks: one family was fond of forts, so everything was Fort _____. They brought different gear (knee-high rubber boots--genius!!) to enjoy the place with. They made different items with clay: fewer containers, more icons.

And now I watch the g-kids. When they play, especially the three of them, I learn about my own childhood. They have the usual sibling skirmishes over life-and-death matters such as whose piece of brownie is bigger (which I understand) and whose placemat is better (?????).

However, sometimes their play is like jazz, especially between the two older ones: one starts something, another riffs on it. "Hey," they say to each other, "Make the ____ do _____." The youngest, joining in, understands only partly and thus adds a new dimension. I've been there, buddy, and no, you're not wrong. Just creative.

Mostly, they reassure me of the constancy of the eternal truths. Kids are drawn to puddles. Rubber boots are a genius invention, as is the clothes dryer. In the right mind, a wheelbarrow can become a cruise ship.

And when you're on a raft and run aground, "Yahoo, land!" is a mighty fine attitude to take.