A Bad Joke, A Future Christian Rave, A Future Book Awards Gala, A Bad Day In Retail, And Doozer

Just to get this out of the way.... My favourite joke is only my favourite joke because I can never remember them, and this one I do. Also, when my little cousin told it to me five years ago when he was four, his delivery was hilarious.
Why do women wear make-up and perfume?
– Because they’re ugly and they smell bad.

I have a busy weekend ahead of me. The first thing on the agenda is getting together with the Fiery One and his co-workers for drinks in about 45 minutes. I am not supposed to indulge in the beer part too much, though, because the Fiery One has come up with one doozer of an activity for a Friday night: we are going to a Christian rave. No, really, you read me right. We are going to a Christian rave. There are supposed to be the usual Djs and roving lights and whatnot, but there are also supposed to be ballet dancers dancing interpretively to the music. I always think of interpretive dance as being what my elementary school music teacher used to encourage us to do. She would dim the lights in the music room and play something like Adam Ant (no kidding) and tell us to “move to the music... feel our bodies... be aware of the space and our relation to it.” I usually just lied about on the floor and watched the light bulbs buzz and struggle with the lowered electrical current. I am curious about this mixture of the ballet and interpretive styles being used to demonstrate a depth of Christian faith. I do hope the Lord has a sense of humour. For $10, it is difficult to buy a better or more unique form of entertainment.

Tomorrow, we have tickets to go to the Saskatchewan Book Awards. I have been told that it is quite an upscale affair, second only to New Year’s. This sort of thing always makes me nervous, because I feel all sorts of pressure to adorn myself with the proper upscale accoutrements, which has always felt highly unnatural to me. I do have an appropriate dress this time round, thankfully, so on to the next stress – mingling. There are cocktails beforehand, which I like, especially since they’re free, but I am usually the one that can be found loitering next to a plant wondering if it is just silk or a remarkably well-kept fern. The Fiery One’s presence should help this situation out, because I can at least look engaged in the festivities when I’m standing next to and talking to him. Now that I think of all that, it should go quite well, because after that there is a sit-down dinner, which is easy, because everyone is busy with food, and then there are speeches and readings and awards, which takes care of having to find anything to say to anyone. Oh, I’ll be fine. Always the worry with things like this, but anxiety about an event is almost always worse than the event itself (except for the time that I went to a Pat Metheny concert, and half-way through I went to the bathroom, broke the toilet, caused a flood, had to find my way back to my seat with my heels squooshing full of toilet water, and dragged my friend out through the lobby where we could hear the rushing of water still going on in the ladies’ washroom).

This, a regular occurrence, happened at work today (I just have to snark a teensy weensy bit):
Customer: Having one of those days, eh?
-- This, after I have had difficulty getting her purchase into the bag, dropped a second bag, dropped her debit card, and fumbled with the pen.
Me: Yep, it seems like it. (big smile faked)
I hate this kind of response to my usual physical ineptitude. It is not “one of those days.” This is my life, people, and I feel like bludgeoning you with my stapler when you grin at me and comment on my comical clumsiness. Customers are always joking with me about how it must be “one of those days,” and I am always agreeing that, yes, I am having “one of those days,” but the truth of the matter is that one-of-those-days is my life. I am like this more often than not. Just once, I would like to reply "no, I am not having one of those days. I suffer from a debilitating neurological disorder," which would make that person feel truly awful for having mentioned it. (I do not suffer from a debilitating neurological disorder, by the way. No offense to those who do).

“Doozer” Facts and Links (and sorry ahead of time for the lack of factoidal goodness):
* There is a weblog called Doozer’s Den, and another called Doozer’s Domain of Stuff.
* Doozer is a punk rock band.
* Doozer is also really hi-tech.
* In the show “Fraggle Rock,” episode 36 was called “Doozer Contest,” and the Doozers sang this song, and they looked something like this.
* One of the clan tags for some game called “Savage Caps” is Doozer.
* According to UrbanDictionary.com a doozer is “[a] person (usually a good friend) that does someone else's dirty work for them and/or tells someone bad news even though it isn't their responsiblity to tell them.”

Volunteering, Weddings, A Wet-Sounding Word, A Good Blog, And Nightcrawler

I’ve managed to get myself entangled in organizing our regional book awards brunch, and without thinking, I volunteered myself to do one of the bigger jobs – I have to arrange seating, food, and general set-up for 200 guests. Yikes! I’ve never done anything like this before, and if I’m not careful, my little perfectionist self just might want to implode. I’m sure the whole affair will end up working out quite well, but knowing that doesn’t stop me from imagining mass food poisoning, or at least having the master of ceremonies getting up to find no microphone or podium at which to speak.

On Saturday night, the Fiery One and I went to a wedding. It was tacky as hell, and so wonderful. I never used to care much for weddings until I had one, and now it’s all very touching to see two people who actually like each other and get along make it legal. Despite the duke-em-out fight between the nearly married couple and a guy in a gorilla suit and a man in conservative clothes representing the moral majority, there was a sense of sincerity that you rarely experience most days (or weeks, or months). And since I eat that sort of thing up like butterscotch pudding, I drank too many rye-and-cokes and stared at the Fiery One all mushy-like throughout the evening and rubbed up against him on the dance floor in such a way that, if I wasn’t the woman he’s married to, would make me look like a two-bit whore. Ah, weddings.

Clatch. Cf. Scot. clatch a slap, the noise caused by the collision of soft bodies; prob. of imitative origin.] (Scot. & Dial. Eng.) (n.) A soft or sloppy lump or mass; as, to throw a clatch of mud. (n.) Anything put together or made in a careless or slipshod way; hence, a sluttish or slipshod woman. (v. t. & i.) To daub or smear, as with lime; to make or finish in a slipshod way.
I realized quickly that this was not the word I was looking for. “A soft or sloppy lump or mass” was not exactly the sort of word I was looking for to describe a certain group of ladies, although in my present mood, it almost seems fitting for how I feel about them. What I really meant was this word, which is not often used anymore:
Klatch (n.) A social gathering devoted primarily to small talk and gossip.
Etymologically it is derived from the German Klatsch, from klatschen, which means to gossip, or make a sharp noise, and is of imitative origin. The earliest date known for the usage of this word may be only as early as 1885, but possibly as late as 1941. Klatch keeps running through my head lately, because it has such a sound to it, like the slapping of wet skin. Klatch klatch klatch klatch klatch. Even better is Kaffeeklatsch. Cluck cluck.

I know that I have a permanent link to ftrain’s weblog, but this one is particularly good, so I thought I would draw more attention to it.

A dear friend of mine, Nightcrawler, moved very far away from me, and has since expanded the reach of and devoted her life to varying forms of performance. Here is an excerpt I found about her latest spectacle:
Nightcrawler’s untitled performance addresses racism operating at the level of the body and hygiene. Since the era of first contact, the so-called “odour of the other” has served as a pernicious means by which European colonizers stigmatized First Nations peoples. Reflecting at the edge of a fountain in Berczy Park, Nightcrawler recalls an episode in the life of Quannah Parker, the last chief of the Comanches, who once caused a stir by bathing in a public fountain. The artist will satirically confront the misconceived but persistent fiction of “cultural stench.”
I must add that her public fountain-bathing also included her own brand of opera. Her humour is razor-sharp and bubbling, a bit of the clowning that haunted our childhood nightmares admixed with mature exploration and the joy of expression. How fabulous to make a bit of a living doing the things that few of us ever have the courage to commit. I had to write this little blurb about her, because I’m hoping she’ll read it and be tickled, and also because I want her to be absolutely famous one day.

Saulteaux First Nations Facts and Links:
* The Saulteaux have a whopping fifteen reserves in Saskatchewan!
* The word "Chief" in Saulteaux is "Ogima-kan". Ogima literally translated into English means "somebody higher up", but is more adequately translated as "Boss". Kan translated means "the position"; therefor Ogima-kan means "the position of boss".
* This link offers a much more comprehensive overview of the traditional Saulteaux world view and beliefs than I will bother to type out.
* Amuse yourself with trying to sound out some common terms and phrases in the Saulteaux language.
* A little extra information in brief.