On a Changing

Fear not Jethro and Mary Sue Mae Ellen, I ain't a changin'.

But the bit about the old road is a rapidly changin’ … it sure be true here on The Island.

Now, I’d best clear something up first, ‘cause the last time I quoted Dylan, one of my most perspicacious critics (Hi Mom!) swiftly pointed out that I misspelled Dylan and misconstrued the true revolutionary meaning of the lyrics. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I was quoting that clown that was doing the Jack Kerouac impressions in Beverley Hills 90210.

So having acknowledged the feedback from the critics, back to changing … and change is a constant here on The Island. And it’s been amusing to write about that.

And it’s a little disconcerting when the road you drove on last Friday suddenly has an extra lane and a new s-bend the following Monday.

And sure it’s a little annoying that renting a place into a quieter low rise part of The Island was a great idea (until the park on the corner turned into a construction site for a 20 storey condo).

And I can even get over choosing a place that is a handy few blocks from a small mall (it only has 5 levels) that has a large supermarket … which 10 months later was completely flattened to build a new and improved mall (10 floors – coming soon! Invest now!).

No biggie.

But on the way home last week, the whole change thing has hit a whole new level.

You see the line it is drawn.
The curse it is cast.

My local (for those new to this diatribe of tripe please look up “Claypot Frog”, circa July 2009 A.D.), it has been a closin’. Well it has a been closed.

It’s one thing to lose a local park (to be honest, I’d rather skirt around a 20 storey condo than risk stepping in a Chihuahua’s dookie). And it’s another thing to have to go to the city for eggs and milk. But it’s a whole new thing for me not to be sure whether I have a Local.

To be fair, there are hawker joints that serve enormous pitchers of Tiger beers (on the sidewalk) all over the place. But I’m not certain this constitutes a “Local”. So I need hit the books:

“Lo•cal” British Informal. A neighborhood pub.

(Neighborhood is way too many syllables, let’s look up one of the smaller words … )

“Pub” Formal: Public House. A building in Britain where alcoholic drinks can be bought and drunk and where food is often available.

(I think this is getting warmer, except I’m sure it is meant to read “where alcoholic drinks can be bought and you get drunk, and it is a bonus if you can get a countery”)

Clearly this bookish stuff ain’t working.

So we develop a new one. Crusty’s Law (#94): to qualify as a “local”, said venue must have in its name (or tagline) one or more of the following: alehouse, bar, barroom, beer garden, beer joint, bistro, boozer, brew house, brewery, cabana, cocktail lounge, Coopers, distillery, drinkery, establishment of drinking, hotel, inn, lounge, moonshine, pool room, public house, roadhouse, saloon, taproom, tavern, or watering hole.

And while I hunt for my new Local, I leave you to ponder the extraordinarily profound lyrics from Bob Dylan McKay, ah heck, I can’t remember which of them covered it – go get yourself the Clancy Brothers version:

I'm a rambler, I'm a gambler.
I'm a long way from home.
And if you don't like me,
Well, leave me alone.
I'll eat when I'm hungry,
I'll drink when I'm dry.
And if moonshine don't kill me,
I'll live till I die.

On Pockets

So on the way to Puzzle Palace the other day we’re following one of those commercial vehicles, complete with 27 laborers wedged in the rear tray.

Three of them have been upgraded to business class (they were sharing a sheet of plastic to keep the rain off). One of the other fellers was probably looking pretty clever when they had first set off – as he’d planned ahead well enough to have an umbrella.

His strategy resembled something more like one of Baldric’s cunning plans once they hit the expressway (not only does an inverted, bright orange 7-Eleven umbrella fail to keep the rain off, it also appears to become an uncontrollable weapon of destruction to the 26 colleagues wedged in next to you on the tray of the Nissan Cabstar).

And then I notice the stenciled tag line on the rear of the truck:

“We specialize in building envelope technology.”

Now this really got me thinking. Decorating an envelope I can understand (imagine being the guy who paints those red and blue marks around the edge of those air mail envelopes).

Envelope technology?

Well, sure, those envelopes with the little plastic windows would be pretty tricky to build. And maybe those yeller ones with the string ties that we use to send hate mail to the finance department would require a bit of extra thought.

Surely there is more technology in stamps?

I mean the gummy bit on the back of the stamp tastes way better than envelopes for starters. To be fair, my research on that stopped when I discovered toads.

And stamps have those cute little moon shaped perforations. My 4 year old can build an envelope. He was pretty crap at cutting out those little perforations when I asked him to build a page of stamps – and don’t even get me started on his shoddy effort at making the picture look the same on all 100 stamps. Lucky the Minister of Fun & Finance is a therapist in her spare time ... she should be able to get the boy right again by the time he starts college.

Look, I’m no marketer. But I’m willing to suggest that the envelope building market is under serious threat from those crazy electronic letters used by the young kids of today.

Mind you I’d like to see those young kids send the house key back to the old lady in an email.

On Colonialism

Well it was a fairly long stint, but I'm now capitally reformed. Crusty prisoner #ST50326 has completed his stay in Cell Block 2H (Cluster B). So I can resume these online shenanigans. So much to share (with so few). And a quick Cheerio to warden Wee Pin Me – thanks for the memories.

So The Hillbilly has gone all Colonial.

That’s right, wifey can no longer be referred to as The Maid. So we revert (as they say around these parts) to her formal title: The Minister for Fun and Finance.

And as it turns out, The Minister for Fun & Finance decided that Singapore Slings by the pool each afternoon was too much hard work. So she’s found a job. I think she’s the Tinkerbell at the school. Why an 8 year old needs a guidance counselor is a bit beyond me. I mean, how does that conversation go?

“Hi there little feller. So what is your name?”

“Spiderman.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. My name is Spiderman. So teacher said I need to come and see you.”

“So when did you become Spiderman?”

“When God told me so.”

(At which point the kid out in the waiting room calls out “I did not!”)

And being good at what she does, what started out as a part time Tinkerbell gig, has turned into full time work.

So we got a real maid.

Actually a really scary maid.

(Which if you’ve read any of my previous work, was probably all part of the Minister for Fun & Finance’s cunning plan.)

So one of my big challenges these days is when I wearily plod in through the front door in the evenings, not to show the fright when I catch a glimpse of our Domestic Helper.

That’s right.

Not only is Puzzle Palace becoming more and more sanitized, politically correct and otherwise part of the greater feminization of the world, I am now instructed by the Minister that we should use the appropriate term for our new employee: “Domestic Helper”.

Well chaps, I’d be keen to prattle on further … but the DH has just saddled up the horses. I’d better fetch the hounds and join Algernon and Winston for this afternoon’s hunt.