Dell's Canadian Tails

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Dell on Going Viral & Vampires

Kevin and Shelley arrived this morning as I sat inside watching the rain on the lake. It's such a peaceful sound you would think it would be my favourite. Instead, I prefer the sound of rain on a tin roof. Did you know you can actually order these sounds online? Before Kevin put on the new camp roof, this was one of my life's simple pleasures; although I know he was right, the roof needed an upgrade. Now, whenever I get lonesome for that sound, I just take whatever book I am currently reading and go sit in the outhouse which still has the original tin roof. That Kevin is some kind of smart. He rigged a set-up using heated water line built into the outhouse floor, charged off the inverter, I can switch on up at the cabin before heading to the outhouse. I can sit in there with my feet in total comfort. Love comes in all shapes: a heated floor in the outhouse is just one.
Shelley said their tenting was wonderful and thanked me for minding Dorg. Then continued, "...and since it was raining, we thought we might as well be in the rain at the lake. [I think they missed us: or at least Dorg.] Shelley, Kevin and Dorg left just before lunch, heading across the lake to Ron's, in the rain. Ron will appreciate their surprise for him, a lovely rainbow trout packed in ice. There was one for my cooler, too. I took a pass on joining them, as my feet are aching. They'll be back in the morning to run me in to the Vampires at the clinic.
Shelley took a few minutes to look at what I'd been up to on the computer, then said if I was "going viral, she had to do something."
I told her I couldn't be viral. I have a card in my wallet proving I had the H1N1 shot at the clinic, last October. She said she'd explain later and gave Kevin an odd look. Was it something I said?
She made a few phone calls. Apparently, she has a freind with an extra email address they were willing to help out with, so now I have my own official email address. Her friend will have my emails directed here.  "I'll do it before we head to town in the morning," Shelley said, so it must be a simple thing, as we have to be in town for ten. Shelley had better not use that word 'viral' around Leona. That woman will be bleeding me like a leech before you can say, "Now take a deep breath."
Tomorrow's going to be a long one: shopping. We won't be the only ones. Running the gauntlet [my phrase for shopping], is one of my life's unfortunate necessities.
The only highlight will be the local Farmer's Market. A buddy rang me up this weekend to tell me the first fresh srawberries are on sale, as well as, asparagus and, for sure, I'm picking up fresh local eggs. Shelley generally sets the menu for our Canada Day celebration: she gets me to help out sitting at the kitchen table peeling potatoes, or fixing the strawberries. Again, love comes in all shapes: giving me the sitting down jobs, while she stands, is just one of them. Ain't life grand?

There was a fine looking full moon last night. The impending rain made it all misty and fuzzy around the edges. We're socked in as Graham, my pilot friend, would say. Clouds appear to be just above tree level. You know, I'm missing Dorg already!

Dell on Eminem

Do you remember the children's lullabye Hush Little Baby? Shelley and her friends were playing their music one evening out here at the lake and right in the middle of this one song, I was hearing words from this lullabye. When I asked them to play it again, they took me inside to check it out on youtube, so I could read the lyrics as it played. I was surprised when she entered Eminem. I thought she had been saying, M & M, like the candy. Shelley said I was half right [or half wrong] because the artist's name was Marhsall Mathers.

With the words in front of me and the music playing, I was just blown away, to use one of Shelley's phrases. Here was someone using the same consonance rhymes I recognized from the World War I poet, Wilfred Owen. Considered the finest war poet from that period, Owen wasn't the first to play around with consonance and pararhyme, although he used it more than other poets. Wilfred Owens' poems are especially heart-rending because he was killed a week before the end of the war. His poems described the terror of life in the trenches and the horror of mustard gas. You may have seen old photographs of the masks on the soldiers. Owen's most famous poem Dulce Et Decorum Est is a description of the reality of chemical warfare and ends with a quote from Horace: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori - it is sweet and right to die for your country. That nonsense is still being told to young people; romanticizing war makes about as much sense as romanticizing 8 Mile in Detroit.

Eminem's rap Mockingbird made a fan out of me. The lyrics of Mockingbird are an account of the breakdown of his relationship with his children's mother, his longing to be a good father and see his children happy: familiar emotional territory.

Then Shelley brought me the movie 8 Mile, starring Eminem. Loved it.

When I hear my contemporaries call rap "crap", I make a point of telling them why I think Eminem is worth a listen. The misery of poverty, depicted in 8 Mile, is in part rooted in the prejudiced mind-set that hangs labels like "crap" without even listening to the music. When did people get the notion that maturity is getting one vision of how things should be and then refusing to budge from that vision? Nothing changes if nothing changes.

Tomorrow Shelley and Kevin are due back. Dorg has been pacing back and forth tonight obviously ready to be reunited with his owner. Maybe I'll sing Hush Little Baby to him, or not.