Off on an Adventure

I won't be blogging for the next week or so. I'm off on an adventure -- a tarot adventure, to be precise. My Rare One and Her Royal Highness will be batching it for the next few days while I'm in the States attending the 2009 Readers Studio, an intensive tarot workshop/conference. Woo hoo! I'm so excited! I'll tell you all about it when I get back!

Tag, Now Someone Else Is It!

Ha ha! I reach out from my computer into cyberspace and tag someone else as they innocently walk by!! Now that I have finished sharing my own 7 facts, I am supposed to pick 7 other bloggers who intrigue me and tag them with the same meme -- "Please share 7 facts about yourself." Participation is strictly voluntary, of course, so if anyone who is tagged doesn't want to do this meme, that's perfect fine!

These are the rules as they were passed on to me by Haley at Iridescent Dark:

1. Link to your original tagger and list these rules in your post.

2. Share 7 facts about yourself in the post.

3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names and links to their blogs.

4. Let them know they've been tagged.

So -- Tag, You're It!!

1. Lisa at Transcript of a Significant Life

2. Beverly at So This Is Wonderland

3. Gail at The Rowdy Goddess

4. Cygnus at My Song. . .

5. Travis at One Word, One Rung, One Day

6. Hestia at Hestias Gem

7. MommaMeg at The light, the dark and every color in between

Fact # 7

7. I delight in the evil antics of Stewie Griffin.

And I've been a fan of this satanic baby ever since the very first episode of Family Guy. What's not to love? His utter, utter ruthlessness! His high-tech weapons of destruction! His inexplicable British accent! The ambiguity of his sexual orientation!

All I can say in my defence is: What the deuce?

Fact # 6

6. I have eaten and enjoyed frog legs.

My culinary tastes are pretty standard. Not out of the ordinary at all, really. The most exotic dish I've ever tried is frog legs. I had them in a very fine French restaurant, years ago in Winnipeg (La Vieille Gare, for those of you who may know that city). Anyway, it's true what they say. Frog legs do taste just like chicken. But it wasn't the taste that posed a challenge. It was the visuals. Each frog leg possessed a tiny thigh and a tiny calf. Just like ours. It was a bit disconcerting. But I just closed my eyes and enjoyed them anyway. Savage.

Fact # 5

5. I pedal about on an old-fashioned single speed women's bicycle.

Despite my lack of athletic ability (see yesterday's post), I do reluctantly try to exercise on a sporadic basis for health reasons. The city of Edmonton has kilometres of fabulous paved hiking/riding trails running throughout its spectacular river valley. So several years ago, I decided to buy a bicycle to take advantage of the river valley's inducement to exercise.

Now, when I was a kid, all bikes were single speed. In high school, 10-speed bikes became the rage, but I never had one. So I have never learned how to use gears on a bike. I see no reason to learn now. Anyway, leaning forward horizontally over the handlebars to ride seems unnatural to me. I want to pedal while sitting upright, biking along slowly and with dignity, befitting the middle-aged lady I am. So I bought an old-fashioned single speed women's bicycle. It has balloon tires. And it has a comfy "sofa seat" to cushion and support my aging bum. And yes, it has a wire basket in front and a little bell too.

But despite all this, I must confess that when I put on my cool visored bike helmet and padded-crotch lycra bicycle shorts and go cycling, I feel like such a total JOCK!!!

Fact # 4

4. I have virtually no athletic ability.

I cannot run, skate, throw, jump, kick or do any other thing requiring physical skill or endurance. When I was a kid at school, I was always picked third-last for sports teams (believe it or not, there were two other kids who were even worse at sports than me, the poor bastards). Nor do I really understand the point of sports or physical exercise. It's always been a mystery to me why people would want to spend their precious, precious leisure time engaging in such activities.

On the other hand, I do have very good hand-eye coordination. So I'm not bad at pseudo-sports like shooting pool, which does not require any real athletic skill. Consequently I've invested a fair amount of time in becoming a decent pool player. Als0, it gave me something to do when I was young and hanging out at the local lesbian bar hoping to meet chicks. There's only three ways to pass time at a gay bar -- drink, dance or shoot pool. I'm not much of a drinker or dancer, so that left only one thing. Hence, my pool prowess today.

Happy Earth Day!

In honour of Earth Day today, here's a favourite poem. I love how it evokes Gaia's "motherly attitude" in a way that is not usually portrayed, but yet which is entirely truthful. I'm sure we've all experienced this particular tone of voice from our own Moms at some point or another in our lives! This poem is found in Marilyn Sewell (ed.), Cries of the Spirit: A Celebration of Women's Spirituality (Boston: Beacon Press, 1991) at pp. 245-247.

Inventing Sin

by George Ella Lyon

God signs to us

we cannot read

She shouts

we take cover

She shrugs

and trains leave

the tracks

Our schedules! we moan

Our loved ones

God is fed up

All the oceans she gave us

All the fields

All the acres of steep seedful forests

And we did what

Invented the Great Chain

of Being and

the chain saw

Invented sin

God sees us now

gorging ourselves &

starving our neighbors

starving ourselves &

storing our grain

& She says

I've had it

you cast your trash

upon the waters -- 

it's rolling in

You stuck your fine fine finger

into the mystery of life

to find death

& you did

you learned how to end

the world

in nothing flat

Now you come crying

to your mommy

Send us a miracle

Prove that you exist

Look at your hand, I say

Listen to your scared heart

Do you have to haul the tide in

sweeten the berries on the vine

I set you down

a miracle among miracles

You want more

It's your turn

You show me

Fact # 3

3. I have Spiral Danced with Starhawk.

In 2002, the G8 Summit was held in Kananaskis, Alberta (a Rocky Mountain resort about 4 hours south of Edmonton, near Calgary). Of course, many political activists came from around the world to protest at the meeting. A few months before the G8 Summit, Starhawk came to Alberta to teach some environmental activist training workshops, including a couple in Edmonton. She also hosted an evening celebration of Reclaiming Witchcraft spirituality at which she gave a public talk about the Goddess movement and then led everyone in a Spiral Dance. Several friends and I attended, of course, eager to see and hear Starhawk in person. It was thrilling to drum and sing and Spiral Dance with her and everyone else who was there. What a special memory that evening is!

Fact # 2

2. I was instantly smitten by my Rare One.

A couple of years after I moved to Edmonton, I went to a women's house party where I first met my Rare One. I was instantly smitten by her. She was friendly, attractive, outgoing and fun. She was the only woman I had met in Alberta who I wanted to date. I made discreet inquiries about her but alas! She already had a girlfriend so that was the end of that. But a couple of years later, our paths crossed again and this time she was single! The rest, as they say, is history. Or, in our case, herstory.

Fact # 1

1. My favourite movie is Casablanca.

I have seen this movie innumerable times and it always retains its charm for me. I never miss a chance to see it on a big screen (usually at some tumbledown repertory theatre dedicated to art films and the classics) because that's the best way to enjoy it. But TV and DVD viewings are fine too! I think I like it so much because love, politics and noble self-sacrifice for a higher cause all combine in it. It definitely appeals to the romantic idealist in me. And I always get choked up during "La Marseillaise" scene.

"The Germans wore gray, you wore blue." That says it all.

Tag, I'm It! 7 Facts About Myself

Thank you, Haley over at Iridescent Dark, for tagging me last week with the "Seven Facts About Myself" meme! Because I like to write short 'n sweet posts, I'm not going to do the whole meme in a single entry. Instead, I'm going to post one fact every day for the next seven days. Then I'll conclude with a final post tagging seven other bloggers. In other words, I'm going to milk this for all it's worth and get more than a week of posts out of it! Woo hoo!

I'm Ba-a-ack. . .

. . . and the friggin' taxes are DONE!!!

Ciao Bella

I won't be blogging for the next week or so, but I'll be back soon! In the meantime, enjoy Spring and the Easter Long Weekend: woo hoo!!

P.S. I have absolutely no idea what the hell this picture is all about, but doesn't it look like they're having a good time?

Witches Britches

Now that Spring has started to arrive, the wind is picking up and it's blowing things around more. Every day I notice another pair of Witches Britches flapping in the breeze, high up in some tree or another. You know what Witches Britches are, don't you? That's when a Witch rides through a treetop on her broom, snags her panties on a branch and zooms on, leaving them there while she returns home "el commando" style! To Muggles, however, the panties look just like a plastic grocery bag caught on a tree branch, billowing out in the wind for weeks or months on end until it either disintegrates into scrappy rags or blows away.

So Close . . . .

Her Royal Highness always has a dish of dry kibble available to eat whenever she wants. But once a day around supper time, she gets a small dish of gushy food as well. It's her favourite thing in the whole world. She nags us relentlessly for it, starting in the early afternoon if we are home. On Saturday, my Rare One gave in very early in the process and gave her a dish of gushy food around 1:30 p.m. When I got home around 4:00 p.m., the dish was polished clean and HRH was nagging me something fierce, meowing and circling like she was starving to death. I assumed the empty dish was yesterday's and was just reaching for the cat food can in the fridge when my Rare One came in to the room. The jig was up and HRH knew it! She immediately stopped her act, gave my Rare One a dirty look and slunk off to the cat tree in the living room. What a little con artist!

Aaarrggh!!

I had a very busy weekend and accomplished lots of things, except of course the one thing I needed to do most of all: MY TAXES! So that chore is still hanging over my head and I must find time for it elsewhere this month. My April is going to be a jam-packed month, so it may be a bit of a challenge. You're right, I could take my taxes in to be done at a commercial tax preparation place, but I refuse to pay those bloodsuckers an arm and a leg to do something I can do perfectly well myself (*self-righteous sniff*).

April is the Cruelest Month

Can't. Blog. This. Weekend. . . . Must. Do. Taxes.

Yay Sweden!

Sweden has now become the seventh country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage! The other six are the Netherlands, Norway, Belgium, Spain, Canada and South Africa. How could we expect anything less from the home of ABBA, the official soundtrack of gay bars, discos and drag shows everywhere from the 1970s on! Yay Sweden -- you go, Dancing Queen!

Happy Birthday, HRH!

Her Royal Highness celebrates her birthday every year around the beginning of April. In 1995, she was part of an anonymous litter of kittens born in the fabled North End of Winnipeg. I adopted her 9 weeks later from the Humane Society. HRH has graciously shared my life and home ever since. She's now 14 years old. According to the official Cat Age Conversion Chart of the Edmonton Cat Fanciers Club, 14 cat years equals 72 human years. So HRH is the oldest resident of our household. She demands (and receives) the deference due her age and status as a Divine Royal Being.

Surprise!!

May all your practical jokes be successful and well-received today, merry pranksters!