Posted on April 20, 2020 under Monday Morning Musings with no comments yet

A wardrobe fit for a king

 

“I was lookin’ for love in all the wrong places.”
Lookin’ For Love in all the Wrong Places – Johnny Lee

It seems like we’re looking for love in all the available places these days including Instagram, Facebook, Messenger, Tik Tok, and Snapchat.

We are either on the cusp of the next great baby boom or on the verge of extinction.

Here’s a very brief primer on the baby boom for you youngsters out there. A baby boom is a period marked by a significant increase in the birth rate. In a lot of countries, the baby boom was a result of couples holding off on having children due to the Great Depression and World War 11. In the United States and Canada, among other countries, the baby boom was attributed to the number of veterans returning home after the war ended in 1945. Veterans were encouraged to get better educated, buy homes at very favorable interest rates… and make babies! (That was NOT government policy but an unintended consequence).

“I was lookin’ for love in isolation…”

Various media outlets are recording huge spikes in virtual dating. Self -isolation and social distancing are making it a bit tricky to have personal contact. What is going to happen if the “6- foot rule” becomes the norm and we can no longer hold hands, hug, kiss or cuddle? How will the species be propagated?

Safe sex has taken on a whole new meaning.

This is a very good question and one that doesn’t have an easy answer. I mean, most of us know how babies are made and I don’t think a woman can become pregnant because someone sneezed.

While pondering this weighty question, lets look at what is happening in real time.

People are meeting online. Apparently, some people are ordering the same meal and having them delivered to their respective homes so that a meal can be shared. Glasses of wine are being clinked on Iphone screens and tablets. Some are even having a movie night picking a Netflix show and hitting the start button simultaneously. They can even share a virtual hug and kiss.

But is comes back to the pressing question of how babies will be made?

I was discussing this during a “live” Facebook show the other evening. A friend cheekily suggested that now some women don’t have to use the old standard line of “I have a headache tonight, dear.” They can simply say, “If you take one step closer or lay a hand on me, buddy, I’m going to call Dr. Tam.”

Our best hope, by the way, is for a vaccine. Sorry, but I couldn’t come up with something more original.

This just in.

Queen Elizabeth takes a bath every day at the same time and like everything else in her life, it is regimented. I won’t go into the details for reasons of privacy, but I have it on good account that the bath water must be exactly 7 inches deep. (Cue the Bee Gees – How Deep is Your Bath”) Someone’s job is to take a measuring stick to make sure of the depth and also measures the water temperature. While the queen is bathing, someone is laying out her wardrobe for the day.

I’m afraid my butler would be unemployed on Day 1 if he had to minister to my needs. I have coffee and toast followed by a two- minute shower. My entire wardrobe consists of two pairs of faded jeans and three well worn t-shirts. “Mr. MacDonald. Would you like your Stanfest t-shirt or your Highland Games Volunteer t-shirt today? Will it be your five- year old Wranglers or your 7-year old Levi’s?” I have one pair of sneakers, a pair of sandals, and my only pair of dress shoes are in northern Quebec. I’m not expecting any formal invitations this summer.

However, I always have my well -worn kilt made decades ago by the late Lucy John L.

I leave you with a line from one of my all-time favourite Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young songs in these times of isolation and distancing:
“If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with.”

If you’re a single that might be tricky!

Have a great week.

P.S. Birthday wishes to my son, Peter. He’s a great musician, a really decent human being and a wonderful travelling companion. Hope you have a great day.

 

Posted on April 16, 2020 under Thursday Tidbits with no comments yet

Future site of drive thru confessional?

 

“Let him who is without sin cast the first stone”

After two weeks of confinement I am a free man.

Or am I?

I am feeling a bit guilty after a few days of freedom. What better way of shedding some of this angst than by going to confession, but not just any confession.

Every facet of life has changed over the past few months and this includes religion. For possibly the first time in recorded history, Easter and other religious celebrations were more or less shut down because of Covid-19. Churches and other places of worship had their doors locked tight. People were forced to worship virtually by watching services via the internet and television.

For Christians, the sacrament of confession is an important part of their Easter duty.

Against this backdrop, I was quite astonished to see possibly the first recorded drive through confessional somewhere in the United States. A priest sat on a chair in the bowels of a parking garage and waited as vehicle after vehicle pulled up. With appropriate distancing, the driver confessed his sins through the passenger side window.

I wondered what I would confess if I managed to get a coveted spot in the lineup.

“Bless me Father, I confess.

For the past two weeks, I haven’t gotten out of my pajamas until 2:00 p.m. Finding street clothes terribly uncomfortable, I got back into my pajamas at 3:00.

The updated Canada Food Guide suggested that I increase my fruit intake. Every morning around 9:00, I had some grapes. I hope you won’t mind but the grapes were fermented and came out of a bottle. One of my recipes called for lemon juice. Having none in the fridge, I opted instead to eat a large piece of lemon meringue pie.

One day, I watched Netflix for 9 consecutive hours.

In an act of defiance during self- isolation, I put my left foot two inches outside my apartment door.

I am sad to say that I had impure thoughts. I made a variety of cream pies during my incarceration and one night I dreamed I ate three of them myself.

I did not bang my pots and pans at 7:00 p.m. every evening for which I am deeply ashamed.

Staring out my apartment window, I saw my neighbour’s wife out walking. I coveted her runners.

There are so many other things, Father I could confess but I can hear vehicles behind me honking their horns waiting for their turn. As a matter of fact, the guys behind me is swearing like a pirate.

Oh yes, Father, I also disobeyed traffic signs and sped on my way down here.”

Whew! I’m some glad to get all of that off my chest but what is going to happen when all of the older priests are gone? With the ranks on the “farm team” stretched perilously thin, the church may have to go with ACT’s – Automated Confession Terminals. Yes, it is plausible that the day will come when a sinner will pull up to a drive through confessional. After entering a PIN number, he/she will then have to confess their sins by pressing a keypad:

For sloth, please press 1.
For gluttony, please press 2.
For wrath, please press 3.
For envy, please press 4.
For lust, please press 5.
For greed, please press 6.
For pride, please press 7.
For “all of the above”, please press 8.

After hitting “enter” the machine dispenses the appropriate penance.

I decided to give this new technology a test ride. After confessing a litany of transgressions, the machine spit out its instructions. I drove to the automated car wash on James Street. I parked the car and chose the “deluxe” wash and wax option. The large doors opened, and I walked in. My sins were washed away in a deluge of multi- colored foam and jet sprays of water.

Feeling completely cleansed, I went through the drive thru at Timmy’s for a large black and a box of Timbits; the drive thru at McDonald’s for an order of fries, and the drive thru at A&W for a Teen Burger.

Immediately I felt guilty.

I went back to the ACT and pressed number 2 again.

Have a great weekend.

 

Posted on April 13, 2020 under Monday Morning Musings with 3 comments

Be grateful for what we have.

 

“Maybe it’s time to let the old ways die,
Maybe it’s time to let the old ways dies,
It takes a lot to change a man,
Hell, it takes a lot to try,
Maybe it’s time to let the old ways die”
Maybe it’s Time. Bradley Cooper

I’m fast approaching the end of the beginning.

By the time most of you have read this, I will have completed my self- isolation and will have completed my first walk in fresh air in two weeks. I am going to temper my enthusiasm, however. This is not a sprint. It’s a marathon.

Today it will not be business as usual for me. After two weeks of being pampered by neighbors and friends in the cocoon of my apartment, I will step out into the world most of you have been living for several weeks. As a friend said, “You won’t be out and about.”

Yes, I will be able to walk and go for groceries once every few weeks but the ground rules for daily living will be much different. I won’t be able to walk The Main, stopping to chat on the sidewalks with friends. Hugs will be verboten and wandering in and out of stores, a distant memory.

Lunches at the Maritime Inn with old friends will be a decided no go and stopping into to Piper’s Pub for a cold one and listening to Betsy’s Boots is not going to happen in the foreseeable future. Even going for a drive (or walk!) around The Cape is going to have to be put on hold.

We simply can’t afford to our ourselves in harm’s way. More to the point, we also can’t afford to be the one to put someone else in harm’s way by unselfish acts. “I am my brother’s keeper” has never meant so much.

Cherished family gatherings and singsongs are on hold. Zoom meetings will become as ubiquitous as the “Golden Arches”. For those who pray and worship, you’ll have to do this in the solitude of your place of dwelling. Many of you have been doing this for a long time so that won’t be a hardship.

This is no time to be complacent or smug. This pandemic is far from over and we need to get our mindset re-arranged. As depressing as it sounds, this is our new normal… as much as I loathe that moniker.

One can only hope that the most important thing that endures when we finally start seeing some light at the end of the tunnel is gratitude.

Staying at home and slowing down has made most of us appreciate the smaller things in life. It has also made us abundantly aware of the work force and the real heroes out there who often toil in low paying jobs crucial to our safety and survival. You know who I mean. Maybe for once, we can get away from a hierarchical society where someone is at the top of the ladder and someone else is at the bottom. We need to appreciate that we are all in this journey together and it is folly to think that one occupation is more important than the next.

Maybe it IS time to let the old ways die.

Have a great and safe week.