Eh?

cloud4
Originally uploaded by Rob Hoey

It snowed yesterday and my childhood flashed in front of my eyes. I remembered how I played in the snow in the mornings and my toes would get so cold that they'd itch. I'd come into the house and Dad would put Noxema on them and the itch would go away. Magic. And then I'd go out and play again, only to repeat the cycle.

It's November and it already snowed twice; maybe we'll get a white Christmas--if we do, it'll be my first one in many years. I think it has been so long since I've actually had a white Christmas that Bing Crosby's song about it just came out. Well, okay, I'm exaggerating, but it must be at least 20 plus years.

My favorite Christmas as a kid was getting my first set of electric trains. Lionel, of course, with the smoke pills and the whistle and the little houses and the tracks that fit together. Once I got too old for them, I put the trains in a box and forgot about them. Then, one day I came across them while going through my stuff. I had no use for them anymore, or so I thought, so I gave them away to my nephew, Michael. I wonder if he still has them; I doubt it.

Trains had a way of being a catalyst for the imagination; today the imagination of the young is fed by computer games, cell phone games, X-Box, and things I'm not even aware of, but I know it's out there. The trouble is, we tend to spend all of our time, lately, on our computers (as I'm doing as I write this), on our phones, in our games, and less time in our real world. George Carlin had a theory about this--he believed that this was the way for those in real power to distract us from what's most important in the world, which is how our leaders (most of whom are not visible to the public), are screwing us.
I don't know if he was correct, but I do know we need to spend more time in the here and now.
What's your favorite childhood memory, eh?

Is it Winter Yet?

I love my new city
Originally uploaded by Rob Hoey

The weather report:
"Chance of rain tomorrow with a possibility of ice pellets . . ."

Ice pellets? WTF??? We never had ice pellets in New York City. Maybe some frozen rain mixed with snow and junk, but ice pellets sounds so pernicious--like destruction is imminent and cattle will die, and people will be stuck in the house watching Oprah or Judge Judy. Ice pellets is totally Canadian and it shivers me timbers just to hear it. Is it even a weather term?

We've been trying to keep the heat down in the house because I've heard the heating bills will be astronomical and will continue to rise over the next 20 years. In fact, some politico has figured it to the penny, according to a local radio station I listen to (and called into once). If a politician can predict hydro bills over a score of years, then he or she is sleeping with someone at the power plant and is getting kickbacks in the process.

And that's another thing, talking about words. People from Canada say pro-cess, not process. Pro as in the prefix of the word 'professional', with a cess at the end. We in the USA say process differently. It's almost a prah sound as in prahcess. But when you think of it, Canadians are saying it correctly and I, after all this time, realize that we've been saying it wrong in the states. Prahcessed cheese, for example, is really processed cheese. In both cases it's high in cholesterol, and we both agree on how to say that, and that it's bad fer ya. 

In any case, we hang out in my office and use the computer there, along with my laptop because it's cheaper to heat just the office. We put the heat on about (Canadians say 'aboot' and I don't care if you believe me or not) a half hour to an hour before going to bed and it warms the room just fine. Then I shut it off as we crawl under fifteen pounds of blankets, sheets, and more blankets. In the morning, it's almost cold enough to freeze my urine as I run like a gazelle to the bathroom (Canadians call it a washroom and I saw a dude at the mall today who peed and then didn't wash), and do what I do best after awakening.

So Canada has humbled me. That's a good thing. We should all experience being humbled, I believe that humility is good for the soul. It's part of the prahcess of becoming an adult.