I stole this picture from Parvathi...I didn't ask her...it was an impulsive act...but she would understand. Today I was reminded of the following quote: Do not laugh at a youth for his affectations. He is only trying on one face after another to find a face of his own.

“Do you know,” Peter asked, “Why Swallows build in the eaves of houses? It is to listen to the stories.”

Nothing could be more of a contrast than what I see out my window at the moment! But since lions are the thread...

A Need for Gardens

When I got there they were burying the lion in the back yard again. As usual, it was a hastily dug grave, not really large enough to hold the lion and dug with a maximum of incompetence and they were trying to stuff the lion into a sloppy little hole.

The lion as usual took it quite stoically. Having been buried at least fifty times during the last two years, the lion had gotten used to being buried in the back yard.

I remember the first time they buried him. He didn’t know what was happening. He was a younger lion, then, and was frightened and confused, but now he knew what was happening because she was an older lion and had been buried so many times.

He looked vaguely bored as they folded his front paws across his chest and started throwing dirt in his face.

It was basically hopeless. The lion would never fit the hole. It had never fir a hole in the back yard before and it never would. They just couldn’t dig a hole big enough to bury that lion in.

“Hello,” I said. “That hole’s too small.”

“Hello,” they said. “No it isn’t.”

This had been our standard greeting now for two years.

I stood there and watched them for an hour or so struggling desperately to bury the lion, but they were only able to bury ¼ of him before they gave up in disgust and stood around trying to blame each other for not making the hole big enough.

“Why don’t you put a garden in next year?” I said. “This soil looks like it might grow some good carrots.”

They didn’t think that was very funny.

Richard Brautigan

In The Girl Who Was Saturday Night, there is a scene in which a rather seedy lion prowls down Saint Laurent and a 47-year-old woman has an asthma attack.

And it took me right back...to Auntie Gertrude...a larger than life grade one teacher who wasn’t my aunt really but she saw that my mother wasn’t doing well in small town life.

In the sixties, this woman realized that there was no place for children with “emotional needs” – the term was loose...so she started Harterre House, a private school located across from the Bnai Brith building on Peel...and she populated it with salty teachers and psychiatrists and psychologists and care workers and...it was quite something...and costly

And every summer, she rented a property in Old Orchard and ran a summer camp for epileptics and assorted children who couldn’t go home...

I’m short cutting the story.

There was a ritual at the end of the summer. Aunty Gertrude, and Donald, her son, would drive to Boston to Phylenes...a very well-known store...the idea was to buy it out and then bring everything home with the campers...no duties...the schizophrenics signed for the televisions!

(Ok...I’m playing!)

What has this to do with lions?

One summer, Donald was hesitant. There was a hurricane warning.

Aunty Gertrude said nonsense and off they went.

She had an excellent shopping spree. Phylene’s was empty.

Her only issue was that her asthma was acting up.

When they exited the building, there was in fact a full blown hurricane and Donald had to hold on to the telephone poles and Aunty Gertrude.

And when they got back to Old Orchard, the news story of the day was the fact that in the chaos, a lion had escaped from the petting zoo at Phylenes and was wandering the store.

Ah, said Aunty Gertrude, I knew there was a cat loose somewhere!

So Heather O'Neill's scene was dead on!”

"A parade of young girls who had just been confirmed walked by in lace dresses. They had been up all night, collecting moths in a jar to make those dresses."

Heather O'Neill, The Girl Who Was Saturday Night

                                    Water Women

                                    We do not want

to rock the boat,

you say, mistaking

our new poise

for something safe.

We smile secretly

at each other,

sharing the reality

that for some time

we have not been

in the boat.

We jumped

or were pushed

or fell

and some leaped

overboard.

Our bodies form

a freedom fleet

our dolphin grace

in power.

We learn and teach

and as we go

each woman sings;

each woman’s hands

are water wings.

Some of us have become

mermaids or Amazon whales

and are swimming for our lives.

Some of us do not know how to swim.

We walk on water.

Alla Bazarth-Campbell

Old Lady Teeth

I met a friend in the park. She as on her way to the dentist...she was taken aback a bit when I said that she was taking her old lady teeth in for a check up...and then she laughed. We all walk in terror of our old lady teeth giving up before we do. At one time it was easy,,,they just made dentures...but now...they insist on implants - thousands of dollars of implants. Now...I'm not really considering my mortality but do I need thousands and thousands of dollars of implants for my time that is left? Can my implants be a address in a codicil of my will? On the other hand, I'm immortal enough that I don't want a gap...then I would be an old lady with a gap...and coloured hair!!