December 2003 Archives

One of the problems with living in a foreign land is that your gifts come labelled as to their contents courtesy of that evil green custom's stamp. Usually this isn't a problem. I avert my eyes. I stick a post-it over the offending little bastard. Or I just rip off the outer covering and hope the contents have been double-wrapped.

Not this time though. This time my good intentions were thwarted. All because my crazy landlord has no knowledge of meat curing techniques.

To be honest I'd kind of guessed what was in the package before the incident in question. It came from the west coast of Canada. It was a long flat rectangular box that was vaguely squishy. Have you guessed yet? Yes, Smoked Salmon. Yummy smoked salmon. Good for what ails you. And it's a tasteful orangey-pink colour. Brightens up any meal. Yay! I like smoked salmon.

But, of course I wasn't sure. It might not have been smoked salmon. It might have been, say, a really big novelty tie. Or maybe an inflatable hammock. Or a brand new Rolex cleverly wrapped to look and feel like a box of smoked salmon.

But my crazy landlord forced the issue.

"Hey, shouldn't you put that in the fridge?" he said.

"Why would I put it in the fridge? Do you know something I don't?"

"Well, it just looks like the kind of thing you should put in the fridge."

"Nonsense! It looks like an inflatable hammock!"

"Yeah, but you can tell what it is..." he said. "And it should probably go in the fridge."

"No," I said firmly, "No you can't tell."

"Sure you can. It's written right there." And then the little varmint pointed at the sticker.

What is it about fingers? Why do we follow where they lead? What makes them the messiah of all digits? He pointed. My eyes followed and then I knew.

I knew absolutely. There was no doubt. My package contained smoked salmon. I sat down, deflated, all the joy I had built up as a little tyke fled my body. I now knew what I was getting for Christmas. And yes, I was happy with it, and yes, when the time came I would eat it with relish. Well, not with relish as in the green pickled spread, but with vigour and enthusiasm; you know what I mean. But the mystery was gone. That amazing energy you get from the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle of Christmas had dissipated. And why? Because my close friend and landlord thought because something said "fish" it meant "refrigerate instantly or risk death".

I sighed. "It's smoked salmon. Why do you think they smoked it in the first place? So it will keep. That's why the art of smoking meat was invented: as a preservative. Plus the thing is probably vacuum-sealed anyway. Trust me. It will keep 'til Christmas."

"Okay. I was just worried."

"It's all right. Everything will be fine."

It was a small happening. The entire conversation took less than a minute. And I bear my dear semi-departed landlord no ill will.

However, I now harbour a secret burning vendetta against Canada Customs. It is no coincidence that those stickers are the same colour as the Grinch. You can be sure the next time I cross the border it will be carrying diamonds which have been hollowed out and carefully packed with opiates and more than my duty-free allotment of cheap cigarettes and booze. And you can be damn sure I won't be wearing any damn green sticker.

(more pics)

My wife is now a Doctor of Philosophy. I know this for a fact because I was at the convocation ceremony in the historic metropolis of Lancaster. This was the latest in a long series of such ceremonies. She also has a diploma, a bachelor of arts degree, and a Masters. I'm very proud. Years of study... Ground-breaking research... Endless toil... A thesis you could choke an elephant with... Yada, yada, yada...

But this blog is all about me! And my achievements. (Or, in this case, failures.) So, yep, my spouse is a Doctor of Philosophy. She sauntered up to the podium in her funny gown. And her name was read out. And I was extremely proud. Nice work, but let's get back to me.

I have no diploma or degree of any kind. This quite an accomplishment considering I spent nine years in various post-secondary educational institutions.

The closest I came was very nearly receiving a journalism diploma from what has recently been renamed the Leslie Nielsen School of Communication. Leslie Nielsen, for those who don't recognise the name, is best known as the star of the Naked Gun movies.

I am somewhat surprised an actor best known for portraying a white-haired buffoon of a police detective was chosen to give his name to a school of journalism and web design. Still, better than a politician, I suppose. The same college also has a theatre department. Why didn't they name the theatre department after him? Surely, that makes more sense.

The college that is home to the Leslie Nielsen School of Communication, Investigative Journalism, and Advanced Gurning is Grant MacEwan Community College. It also has a dance programme, although possibly not for long. The Powers That Be have suspended registration for this programme for the upcoming year. These would, no doubt, be the same Powers that decided to name the Journalism department after a Hollywood comedian.

I mention the dance programme because that is where my wife got her very first diploma. In fact, we met in the halls of this fine institution. Or, more accurately, we met on the stage.

I was a young lad studying journalism. She was a young lass studying dance. I should have known that I wasn't cut out to be a REAL journalist - one of those hard-hitting, investigative types covering important world events. When we were given our story assignments, I hid in the back as they read out:

"St. Albert council meeting? Yes, Phil, you take that one. Anyone want to do the courts today? Right, Marilyn, that's yours. And the School Board? Rob? Good work. Okay, I've got a photo-call for the new Dance show?"

I leapt from the darkness and shot my hand into the air. "Me, oh please! Me! Me! Me! Me!"

I mean, really, which was the more intelligent choice? Sit in a town council meeting for three hours waiting for an argument to break out, or take pictures of athletic young women in skimpy costumes. At the time, it seemed a pretty easy choice.

The first time I saw my wife was on one of these photo calls. She wore a white, low-cut dress, and was velcroed to the ceiling of the theatre by several long white streamers. She writhed like a moth caught in a spider web. The streamers unvelcroed themselves from the ceiling and floated towards the ground. Very sexy! And very photogenic. Another easy day at the office.

I didn't talk to her that day. We didn't really meet until quite a bit later. One night I ended up sitting next to her in the Ritz Diner. We treated the Ritz pretty much like a pub, ordering one plate of fries and several pitchers of beers. When I sat down, Vicki and her friend, Veronica, first tried to convince me they were twins. This failed on the grounds that they didn't look at all alike and were born three years apart. Then, they tried to convince me they were sisters. I pointed out they had different last names.

"Well, we're half sisters," said Vicki.

"Yes, we have the same father," said Veronica.

"And so why don't you have the same last name, then?" I asked. Veronica yelped as Vicki kicked her under the table, but she quickly recovered.

"Well, Vicki's dad hates my Mom."

"Yeah, hates her," said Vicki. "He hates her so much that he changed his own name." They both nodded their heads violently.

"It was not an amicable divorce," said Veronica.

It was yet another sign of how poorly suited I was for real journalism that I believed this story for years afterwards.

I had a great time that night. So great, in fact, that on the way back to my friend Dave's house I thought I could still do a front somersault. A couple of years ago, when I had been failing to get a creative writing degree at another University, I was on the gymnastics team. I should point out that I wasn't showing off for the girls. We'd parted company with them at the diner. I was just feeling exultant and really really happy and so I ran and launched myself into the air.

I might have actually succeeded if I hadn't overanalysed the thing. I remembered a piece of advice from when I first learned this trick. Most people don't get enough air. They just rotate without getting any height. And so I focussed on my lift and got lots of height. I just forgot to put much effort into rotating. And so, sure enough, I landed smack on my ass and broke my tailbone (or coccyx, if you want the technical term).

There's not much medical science can do for a fractured coccyx. We all hear about how someone or other has their ass in a sling, but I'm here to tell you there is no such thing as an ass-sling. You break your ass and the only thing they give you at the hospital is the advice that it may hurt when you sit down. They are absolutely right. When you have a broken ass, it hurts when you sit down. Yep. More than a little. It's a good idea to avoid it for the couple of months it takes to heal. Sleeping on your back is also a bad idea. Sleeping on your front isn't much better. Standing is not so bad, as long as you are slightly bent forward and leaning on something. Moving also hurts. In general, it's a good idea to simply avoid breaking your ass if possible.

At this point, by the way, I still didn't have Vicki's number. I didn't get it until much later. It's amazing I got it at all. I mentioned how I haven't graduated from anything past high school. That's true, but I did convocate once.

School was finished, I had dropped one of my core journalism courses which meant I wasn't eligible for graduation. I'd just completed a month long internship at a small daily paper and was pretty certain I didn't want to be a reporter anyway. I was back in the city and it was convocation day. I happened to walk by Dave's house and noticed he was back as well. I banged on his door and woke him up.

"Dave! What are you doing? You're supposed to be graduating in an hour!"

He had no idea. He'd just finished his internship and had driven down from some Northern town and had completely forgotten about the ceremony. We rushed over to my place, got dolled up and sped to the Auditorium. Several hundred people from the college were graduating that day. It was madness. We were late. I saw Vicki and the other dancers filing into the auditorium. Our colleagues in journalism were next in line. Dave and I ran to the robe room. They asked us for our names. Dave gave his.

I hesitated for a second and said, "Robert Allan Watts".

Rob was a friend of ours who I knew was still in the States. I figured he wouldn’t mind and then I could hang out with my friends while they waited to cross the stage. So I pretended to be Rob and they gave me his robes and I filed out with Dave into the theatre.

There was a bit of a wait, of course – all those art students, all those business students. Vicki sat a couple of rows ahead of me and we tried to talk but it was too loud and so she passed me a note written on her program. "Tell me a story" it said. And so I wrote a story about hundreds of penguins sailing on an ice floe and how two of them amongst all the penguins became special friends and, oh I can’t remember now. I passed the note back up to her and she wrote on it and sent it back. "That’s a great story. You’ll have to finish it some time. Call me…" and gave her phone number.

Very clever. Very subtle. You should be able to foresee by the next series of actions who would go on to become the Doctor and who would spend the next eleven years planting trees in the swamps of northern BC and Alberta.

I looked at the piece of paper and grinned. Then I thought for a moment and finished the story on the same piece of paper and sent it back to her.

She returned it. "That’s great," the note said. "But what happens next?" Her phone number was circled this time.

I thought for a moment. What happens next? Well, jeez, that’s the end of the story. But I wracked my brain and came up with a denouement and managed to fit that in what space there was left on the program.

The next note that came back to me was slightly more blunt. On it, Vicki had written "This is my number. KEEP IT! Tell me a story on another day! CALL ME!"

And so I called her, and I told her a story and eventually we were married.

We've got a bar of soap in the house that looks like a big slice of lemon. I picked it out. I hoped it would smell all lemony and invigorate me in the shower. Unfortunately, it just smells like soap. Tastes like soap too. Yuck!

It does produce a lemony yellow lather though. But this isn't a good thing. The lather turns the water yellow and I have to keep checking I'm not inadvertently peeing in the shower. It's most disconcerting.

Anyway, that brings me to my advice for today. Make sure you smell (and taste) your soap in the shop before you bring it home. And try to pick a colour which doesn't resemble a bodily fluid. That is all.