Varia

I struggled with latin in high school -- mandatory in my day -- but I remember "varia". My husband actually speaks latin now and then. I kid you not! In Mass, Brian will start speaking in tongues, i.e., latin, and just keep on blabbering. (Sorry, a "p.s" here: Janis Joplin is on the radio as I type and belting out "A piece of my heart". G-d what a fabulous song. She just nails it. Had to turn it up. Remember that last album, 'Pearl', with her sitting draped in feathers and velvet pants lounging on a slinky couch? Wasn't she just perfect. There is another movie out that I want to see about 'The Doors'. I was 21 when I saw them live at Varsity Stadium in T.O. in 1969. All day and all night we sat on the grass and watched Sly and the Family Stone, John Lennon, Alice Cooper and many other bands. But I remember Jim Morrison. He was beautiful. Period the end. A year or two earlier I had seen Led Zeplin live at the Masonic Temple on Yonge Street, right across from Canadian Tire. Robert Plant was also beautiful -- long, flowing blonde hair and of course, tight velvet pants. Also marvelled at Jimi Hendrix live in Ottawa at the old Capitol Theatre -- resplendent in a headband soaked (I learned later) in LSD. Now I get him.

All this came back to me yesterday when we watched 'Pirate Radio' -- a movie about rock music before it was legal. The music was fabulous and brought back so many memories. But enough about my mispent youth.


Read an obituary today about a woman who had had two husbands: one she married and with whom she had had three children, the other she married after meeting him 50 years earlier at McGill. He had been her first love. Timing being everything, they had both gone their separate ways, married others, had children, but had not forgotten their love. Who would we marry now if we could? The emotions we feel in our teens apparently are the strongest -- this has been clinically proven by endless studies. I have to agree. We visited Brian's first love and her husband in Chicago a few years ago and when he and Jan saw each other after 40 years it was obvious they were still in love. It was absolutely beautiful, I mean it. And when I run into early loves, Brian immediately notices the spark that is still there. Can't extinguish it. Burned into the heart.


Speaking of an early "spark", one of my dearest and best friends is now at the local mission, a hopeless drunk. Michael was The-Most-Sought-After-Man-in-Ottawa. Gorgeous, debonnair, charming, urbane, funny, sexy...he had it all. But as we all went our married ways, Mike kept "playing the field", as my mother would have said. He had one gorgeous broad after the other. Naturally, they kept getting younger and younger, but when they all married, his companions got lower and lower. Skip to the end and he is down and out. Sadly, we all have him on 'call screen'. But we still love him. I call the mission regularly to see if he is still alive. So far he lives.


Have been following the veil debate in Quebec. That province has banned the full burqua for official dealings. I have to agree. I may have blogged about this before, but if we are all created in God's image, why do muslim woman have to cover themselves from head-to-toe-birth-to-death? I mean, why be born at all? If women are so reprehensible that we have to be completely covered, why are we born? It's like being encased in a death shroud all one's life. In the male muslim mind, either we women are sinners or those who look upon us are sinners. Either way, we have to be covered completely. I don't buy it. With fabulous daughters, I cannot imagine allowing them to be covered, only to be partially exposed when conceiving or giving birth. Pretty sick.


Saw a great movie the other day with Sir Michael Redgrave starring as a teacher in an all-boys school in England. Called 'The Browning Version', it follows the fading of a professor who realizes he has been a failure in everything he has attempted. A parting gift from one of his students, Browning's translation of Agamemnon, lifts him briefly from his despair. It all ends sadly, but many of the lines are brilliant. Written by Terence Rattigan, the movie calls at one point for Redgrave to say, "The glimpse you've just given me of yourself is most distressing." This is in response to a remark another character has made. How elegant. About Redgrave's unfaithful wife a colleague says, "She is out to kill you." He replies, "She succeeded in her purpose long ago." It's a great movie, filled with words such as "hallo", instead of "hello"....and on and on. Loved it.

I have been keeping notes about blogs I want to write, but none seemed to have been enough to go on about. Every so often a thought strikes me and I jot it down. The first note I wrote for this blog says, "Faith and harm avoidance." That's an instructive one because if you have faith and a clue about the ten commandments, harm avoidance follows. This obvious maxim occured to me when Brian said, "Been there, done that, got the hair shirt." Yeah. Not the T-shirt, the hair shirt. Don't we all sport those when we mess up.

Off to a fashion show tomorrow. More fodder for the blog!