A friend of mine, Liz, got divorced around three years ago after an almost 20 year marriage. She started dating again after a decent interval and has been seeing a man we’ll call Rick, for about 8 months.

The other day she broke up with Rick because a couple of weeks ago they ran into Rick’s ex-wife and Liz couldn’t get past the fact that the ex-wife was very, very not good-looking. Liz feels a little stupid about this as a reason for breaking up with someone with whom she’d been having a good relationship.

I pointed out that Jerry Seinfeld broke up with tons of women for much stupider reasons:

•  One had “man” hands
• One ate her peas one at a time
• One wore the same dress on every date
• One was exactly like Jerry and he couldn’t handle it
• And then there was the one who had once dated Newman. The similarities are obvious.

Did my pointing this out make Liz feel any better? I doubt it. She really misses Rick, but is repelled by the idea that he was once ‘with” this Newmanesque wife – and for a long, long time.

Anyway, we ended up trying to think of other reasons we might dump somebody that wouldn’t ordinarily be considered deal-breakers. We eliminated stuff like criminal activity and the top five reasons people usually break up:

• One person finds someone else/is unfaithful
• The relationship becomes toxic because of substance abuse or physical abuse
• They just get bored of each other/fall out of love
• They want different things from life and no longer have a future together
• There is a breach of trust that cannot be mended because of lies/secrets, etc.

I once broke up with someone I’d been seeing a short while because he told a completely inappropriate joke at a party – not once, but several times even after I and other friends told him the joke wasn’t the least bit funny and was, in fact, highly offensive. He didn’t get what we were getting all upset about, even when we talked about it the next day.

I’d break up with someone if they started smoking or doing something else that was stupid and reckless like driving drunk.

Speaking of eating peas one at a time, XUP Jr.’s boyfriend eats his meal one item at a time. First he takes a piece of whatever the protein part of the meal is. Puts it on his plate and slowly eats it. When it’s all gone, he takes (for instance) one piece of potato. Puts it on his plate and slowly eats it. Only when it’s all gone, does he take a spoonful of carrots and puts them on his plate and slowly eats them.

Anyway, Liz dumped a guy on their first date because he was almost half an hour late to meet her and had no excuse except “time got a way from him”. And he only said that after she pointed out that he was late. She left the restaurant before they’d even ordered.

What might be a deal-breaker for you that doesn’t fall under one of the usual five categories? Or, what’s the most Seinfeldy reason you’ve ever dumped someone or had someone dump you?

Although this is called Part II, it is not necessary to have read yesterday’s post in order to enjoy today’s post, but, hey — why wouldn’t you want to, right?

Once my mum began her subtle campaign to convince my daughter to get baptized or face death and an eternity in the fiery bowels of Hades, XUP Jr. and I started deprogramming having discussions about religion.

I explained that just because her granny believed something didn’t make it true. People believe in stuff because it makes them happy, I said. Like some people believe in Santa and some people don’t. (“And then they don’t get any presents, which is just like not believing in Jesus and going to hell, right?” said XUP Jr. making the necessary connections right away.)

Then we talked about all the many, many different religious and spiritual beliefs people have all over the world and I took her to a few different churches for a while until she got bored of that.

And just because I stopped going to church didn’t mean I’d given up on the whole idea of God completely. I volunteered sometimes to go to different churches with friends. I went to temple with Lily; mass with Debbie; Christian Reformed with Margo; Anglican with Sandra and even a mildly rebellious different Lutheran church with Gloria.

I signed up for the world religions course in high school – which was right after lunch and therefore populated by students in various levels of impairment. An interesting course though.

I read a lot about religion over the years. XUP Jr.’s first school was a Shambhala Buddhist school in Halifax . I picked it because it was a gentle, friendly introduction into the world of school. She loved it there. She learned a little bit about Buddhism and we found some Buddhist friends.

I took myself off to an Islamic Learning Center early in 2002 to see what was really going on in that religion.

I’ve spent a good amount of time with the Christian Scientists (eek); the Jehovah Witnesses; the Mormons, the Unitarians (they were actually pretty cool) and some Hindus. I’ve dabbled with the pagans, atheists, agnostics, Rastafarians and New Agers.

It’s interesting how passionate each person is about his or her particular belief system. And, how, like the belief in Santa Claus, most religious/spiritual beliefs are driven solely by the passions of the believers based on some long-ago legend.  And more interesting is how many similarities there are between seemingly disparate faiths. The long-ago stories connect, interconnect, overlap, converge…

In the end, what I took from it all was that people in general, no matter what their culture, want or need to believe that their existence means something more than the existence of any other living thing. That there is a purpose or plan to their life. That there is a higher power in control of things.

I don’t believe any of that. I see no reason why humans should be any more special than any other life form on earth or anywhere else. Yes, we may be a higher life form, but that doesn’t mean we are being guided by some omnipotent being or that we keep on living in some heavenly realm after our bodies die.

I think every living thing has a life force – an energy that is beyond what we know of our corporeal being. But that’s as mystical as it gets and it’s a whole other blog post. (Don’t worry, there’s no Part III).

As for XUP Jr., she’s well over her fear of going to hell. Mostly she’s too wrapped up in her own immediate, moment-by-moment dramas to worry about the afterlife.  Another couple of years and she’ll remember there are things outside of herself to think about.

And I’m confident that she understands that other people’s beliefs are important to them and we need to respect that;  just like we respect how other people live their lives — as long as no one is hurting anyone — and we do what we can to make other people’s lives, and the earth as a whole, better.

I’ve yet to find a religion that’s totally on board with that simple  credo.

I grew up in the Lutheran church – not literally in the church, of course. Although many Sunday mornings, as I sat through yet another browbeating by the man in the long white robes, watching as my young life ebb away, it felt like I’d been squirming in the pew for an entire lifetime.

Lutherans are an extremely dour bunch. There are no uplifting hymns for Lutherans. They’re all dirges. Even the Christmas hymns have been modified to the key of D flat to remove all festive nuances.  Lutherans believe babies are born sinful and if they die before they get baptized they’ll go to hell. Lutherans believe anyone who isn’t Lutheran (and a regular church-going Lutheran at that) will go to hell.

My mother keeps telling my daughter how sad she is that she won’t be seeing her in heaven since poor XUP Jr. has never been baptized.  My mother is hard-core Lutheran. She is unshakeable in her beliefs in what the church tells her. It is because of her that we were all dragged to church every Sunday morning.

The parents would go to the German service while the kids went to Sunday School and then after Sunday School the whole lot of us would go to the English service. And we’d sit there for an hour or so while the guy in the white robes enumerated all the ways we’d angered God that week and that being sorry wasn’t enough and that showing up in church wasn’t enough and that trying to be a good person wasn’t enough. Our only salvation was faith.

(When I was very young I used to surreptitiously take a peek around to see if I could spot this mysterious Faith who would save me from eternal hellfire and damnation. I reckoned maybe she was Jesus’ wife since they were often mentioned together.)

At age 14, Lutheran boys and girls are confirmed and receive their first communion. Before any of this can happen, however, we had to attend two years of indoctrination Bible study class every Saturday morning for three hours.

My Saturday morning class consisted of nine boys and me. It was the tradition that every Sunday one person in the class got a turn helping the guy in the white robe through the service – lighting the candles, dusting off the communion wine and so forth.

At age 12, it was a pretty excited thing. Aside from breaking up the general scariness and boringness of the church service itself, I was also quite into the whole ritual and awesome God thing at the time. So I was keen to step up and take this important role in the proceedings.

Week after week I waited anxiously wondering how they were scrolling through the class. Alphabetically? No, that wasn’t it. By how well we did in class the day before? No, that wasn’t it because I was working my ass off and some of the slackers were getting a turn before me. Then one Sunday, I noticed one of the guys was on his second turn.

“HEY, white-robed guy,” I said after the service. “I think there’s been a mistake because I haven’t had my turn yet and buddy here has had two turns now.”

I was frowned at. After everyone in the congregation had left, the white-robed guy took me aside and explained that I wasn’t allowed to have a turn because I was a girl and that girls weren’t allowed on the altar because we were unclean.

I was horrified. Did I smell? I asked him what that meant – unclean. In an awkward, roundabout way he managed to convey that it was because females are cursed by God with the stain of monthly sin because of Eve’s original transgression. How embarrassing.

I complained to my parents the whole way home, but they agreed with the church’s position. At least my mum did. My dad thought it was all nonsense, but went along with whatever my mum said because on the subject of Lutheranism (and that subject alone) my mum ruled the roost.

So, I wrote a very sternly worded letter outlining reasons why this was unfair and wrong and pointing out that church women were the ones who cleaned the freakin’ altar every Saturday afternoon so why were they allowed on there then, but I wasn’t allowed on Sundays? And if the altar was that freakin’ sacred why didn’t the men have to clean it. (I didn’t use the word “freakin’” though).  I gave the letter to my dad to take to the church’s next board of trustees meeting asking them to reverse this “unclean” thing.

I got a formal letter back saying, “no”. I never attended that church again. It was a huge battle with my mum every Sunday morning, but I refused.

Now I sometimes go at Christmas to make my mum happy.

___________________________________________________________

PS: I should probably point out that there are different faction and divisions of Lutheran churches and that not all of them are this harsh. Some of them even have female pastors now. My mother wouldn’t be caught dead in such a bastardization of the true Lutheran faith.

Yesterday I mentioned a boss I used to have who I called Alice. I also called her a “freaky nutbar”. Cedarflame asked me, in the comments, what made Alice a freaky nutbar. So being ever responsive to my readers, I thought I’d talk a bit about Alice and some other freaky nutbars I’ve known.

Alice

She would spend hours in her office with the door closed, smoking and crying. Crying loudly. Loud enough that everyone in the office could hear her. When she came out, she’d yell – not about work, but about her laundry or her hair or her manicure… because it was our fault since she’d pick one of us at random every so often to go and take her clothes to the cleaners or find a new hairstylist or manicurist for her and make an appointment.

One morning she emerged from her vale of tears to tell us that as a reward she was taking us all out to dinner that evening at an incredibly expensive place. None of us were dressed for an expensive place. She gave us hell for that. Then we had to work until 9:00 pm because our reservation wasn’t until 9:30 and the least we could do is work a bit longer when she’d gone to all the expense and trouble to take us out.

When I quit, she told me I was talented but had a poor attitude.

 Phil

Phil was a friend I’d known for years at university who, for no apparent reason lost his mind one day. A bunch of us were driving over to Niagara Falls, NY one night to continue the fun after the Canadian bars had closed. I ended up driving with Phil. All was well until we got to the bar.  Because it wasn’t the bar we were supposed to be meeting the rest of the gang.

And Phil kept insisting it was. And then he went mental and started accusing me of sending him hate mail and calling him up every night and saying horrible things and calling up all his friends and his family and his employers and workmates and all the time and saying horrible things about him. Of course I’d done none of this and at first I thought someone claiming to be me was doing all this, but then he said something that made me realize that he was imagining the entire thing.

Later on I found out that he had also told all his friends and family and employers and workmates that I was going around saying these horrible things about him and if I called them they should ignore me. Other people started asking me what the hell was going on with Phil because he was telling them some crazy stories about stuff I was supposedly doing. That night at the bar, things got so weird that other patrons in the bar intervened and told Phil that whatever was going on, he was being an asshole and that he should leave. After issuing some final threats he left. I truly felt like I’d stared into the face of insanity that night.

Phil was a high school teacher at the time and as far as I know, still is.

Edward

I’ve already done an entire blog post on Edward. But he’s way at the top of my list of freaky nutbars, so I couldn’t leave him off this post entirely. But, his story is too long to repeat, so if you haven’t already read it, you can read it HERE.

Aurora

She was a tiny rodent-like girl I met at work during a summer job. We were both maybe 18. She was odd and I didn’t like her much, but she invited me to her house for supper one day after work and I went. I went because sometimes 18-year-olds do stuff like that.

She had a house by the lake. It was a fairly big house and once had probably been a really nice house, but everything just looked really neglected outside. And inside — well, the inside was even worse. It was really messy and grimey. There was almost no furniture or any other stuff in the house. There was a fridge and stove and a card table and a couple of odd chairs. All the bedrooms were empty except one that had a mattress on the floor, a lamp and some books, which was where Aurora slept.

Aurora told me that her parents had died three years ago and then her brother died two years ago and she’d had to sell off all their stuff in order to survive. She said she hadn’t even been able to afford a funeral for them and just had them all cremated and buried them in the back yard.

She made spaghetti.

While I was choking down the spaghetti, she told me that she was so happy I was her friend because she hadn’t had a friend since she was a little girl and that because I was now her best friend, she felt she could tell me her innermost secret. Her innermost secret was that she had poisoned her entire family because she hated them and wanted the house to herself. She just hadn’t realized how expensive it was to maintain. And maybe now that we were bosom buddies I could come and live with her and wouldn’t that be fun?

I politely made my excuses and got the hell out of there. I couldn’t sleep that night thinking maybe she’d poisoned me, too.  I never went back to that job — because sometimes 18-year-olds do stuff like that.

One of the first jobs I ever applied for after I graduated university was as a copywriter for an ad agency. The woman who interviewed me (let’s call her Alice) was exceptionally nice and personable and started the interview with some friendly chat.

Alice mentioned my dimples and how when she was a child she was obsessed with wanting dimples. Alice pointed out that she was very tall and broad for a female, even as a child, and she used to think that dimples would make her cuter and more adorable.

I told her that I thought having dimples made it difficult for grown-ups to take me seriously sometimes because I always looked like I was smirking.

Alice smiled and said, “It’s funny that you said “grown-ups” because I hate to be the one to break this to you, but you’re a grown-up.

I must have looked completely stunned at this revelation because she burst out laughing. I couldn’t wrap my head around the idea that I could be a grown-up. It was the first time that the idea that I might be a grown-up had ever entered my mind.

I didn’t feel grown up. I mostly still don’t feel grown up. Often, when I’m with older people or even people my own age or even sometimes people younger than me, I think of them as grown-ups. I usually do not feel like a grown-up. But, I don’t feel like a kid anymore either.

I feel too wise and comfortable and responsible and tired to be a kid; but I don’t feel serious or established or rich enough to be a grown-up. I’ve never done a lot of the things that most grown-ups have done.

I know lots of grown-ups and I wonder if they feel like grown-ups. Some of the people I grew up with are now grown-ups and sometimes that’s kind of a scary feeling – like a “left behind” feeling.  Most of the time I’m okay with it though.

What’s your definition of a grown-up? Do you feel you are a grown-up? When did you become a grown-up? If you’re not a grown-up, why not?

PS: I got that copywriting job and Alice said it was because I was so shocked that someone had called me a grown-up.  Alice was a great interviewer and maybe even a nice person in real life, but she was some kind of freaky nutbar of a boss. Her madcap antics drove me straight into the arms of the federal public service.

I spent a good part of Saturday out and about with XUP Jr.  I am always amazed humans survive teenagehood with the overwhelming level of self-consciousness involved.

To being with, it takes hours to get every strand of hair just right. When you go out with your mom you have to make extra sure your clothes are super-cool, yet casual. When hanging out with friends you don’t have to be quite so careful.

It’s pouring rain out, but rainboots, waterproof coats or umbrellas are out of the question. She wore canvas sneakers.

“Put on your rainboots”

“NOOOO! Do you want me to look stupid?”

“Of course. That’s my goal in life. Those sneakers are going to be soaked through in two minutes. That’s not stupid?”

I managed to get her to put on footwear that was a little more water-resistant. And she added a light jacket to the ensemble, but refused to do up the jacket. (I got a pointed look when I made that completely inane suggestion.)

Then I get inspected to make sure I’m cool enough to be seen out in public with her. (I passed first try this time! Woot!)

As we venture out into the world. I should note here that the only reason I’m usually allowed out in public with her is if there is something she needs and she thinks there’s a pretty good chance that she can talk me into paying for it.

As soon as we set foot outside the door, my every move is carefully watched in case I do or say something that might embarrass her.  The list of possibilities is long and comprehensive. 

It includes things like:

• Walking too fast or too slow
• Walking “weird” (I don’t even know what this means, but I get hell for it every so often)
• Talking or laughing too loud
• Staring off into space
• Forgetting the name of, or incorrectly naming something (often I do this deliberately just to make her crazy)
• Walking or standing too close or too far away from her
• Wearing boots when it’s raining or snowing
• Doing up my coat
• Arguing with or even asking questions of shopkeepers
• Trying to negotiate prices with shopkeepers (hey, 50% of the time I’ll get some sort of discount)
• Ordering things in restaurants that aren’t clearly printed on the menu
• Talking to strangers (if a stranger addresses you, it’s best just to roll your eyes and mutter something non-committal like “uh..ya…”)
• Pointing out how ridiculous other teenagers look in their summer gear when it’s freezing out or when they’re pants are falling down and they have adopt a side-to-side rolling gait just to get around
• If we run into one of her friends, there is a very,very short list of things I’m allowed to say to them (which I always completely ignore)
• If we run into a group of two or more of her friends, I have to go away so she can pretend to be by herself. (I ignore this one too unless I’m allowed to go away for good and put an end to the shopping expedition).

On the other hand, she will occasionally tuck her arm into mine when we’re walking; she has no problems with a hug and kiss if we’re parting ways for the day or evening or something, (even if friends are around); she insists on me coming into the fitting rooms with her to tell her whether or not she looks good in something and asks my opinion at home on her hair or outfits (of course, she doesn’t always take my advice); and she’ll laugh loudly, uncontrollably and unabashedly right out in the open, no matter who’s nearby, when I’m joking around with her. That’s fun.

Anyway, I don’t take the mortification-at-my-presence personally. I know her judgment is impaired by hormones or something. It’s tough believing that the entire world is scrutinizing how you look, how you dress, what you say and how you say it, the company you keep, (how they look/dress/behave);  the music on your iPod,  your imperviousness to all weather conditions, etc., etc., etc. The world is watching and casting judgments. These judgments will be written up somewhere and tallied weekly to determine your ongoing popularity rating or something. I don’t know.

I’m sure I must have had similar issues at that age. Probably all teenagers do. Some people carry that sense of scrutiny around for most of their life – hampering them from being as assertive or outgoing or relaxed as they might want to be.

These days, there are  people whose opinions I value, but not to the extent that I would make any big compromises just to gain or keep their good opinion. It’s very liberating to realize that their opinion has more to do with them than it does with the essential you.

On yesterday’s Halloween post, fellow cold-toast eater and bloggy friend, Loth, pointed out that:

Halloween is also a very long-standing tradition here in Scotland. We dressed up and went out as children, only back then it wasn’t called trick or treat (drat you pesky north americans!), it was called “guising”. When you knocked at your neighbour’s door, you didn’t just shout “Trick or treat” and expect sweets, you had to perform a party piece – a song, a joke or a poem. The local kids round here still all write a song and perform a sort of group dance on the doorstep – really cool!

Then she goes on to say that they didn’t have pumpkins, so they used to carve turnips.

TURNIPS! 

This is an actual traditional Irish turnip jack-o-lantern that now lives in the Museum of Country Life in Ireland.

Apparently, Halloween is a lot of hard work in foreign countries and used to be a lot of work around here in the olden days, too.

Up until maybe the last 30 years, kids in North America were expected to perform before getting candy. And they all carried UNICEF boxes to collect spare change for kids less fortunate. Whatever happened to UNICEF boxes? And whatever happened to kids working a little for their candy?

Some really old people still ask the kids to sing for them before giving them that yummy home-made popcorn ball wrapped in waxed paper that get thrown in the trash as soon as the kid gets home because it probably contains pins and razor blades. Of course the kids just look at the old codger or coochie like they’re completely bonkers and run away.

Somewhere along the line kids got wise to the fact that singing and reciting Halloween poetry at every house takes up a lot of valuable candy collecting time. Now kids don’t even know that performing was ever part of the whole Halloween schtick. Now they barely say ”trick-or-treat” or even “hello”.  Now they just race around the neighbourhood hitting only the most well-lit and best decorated houses whose front door isn’t too far from the sidewalk.

When I say “race”, I don’t mean that in a figurative sense, I mean they literally race. They’re running full out. They push by other kids. They jostle for position on the front step of the house. If there are a lot of kids at the door already, they just run on by the house – it would take too long to wait behind all those kids. They may start out the evening with a group of friends, but if a friend can’t keep up they get left behind.

There’s no time to waste. They run up to the door, hope the homeowner is ready with a handful of candy so they don’t have to ring the bell, or godforbid, knock. They’re too out of breath to say anything, so they just hold open their sacks, get their stuff and run off. Most of the little ones still manage to yell out a “thank you” as they stumble off to the next house. The rest just flee in silence.

A lot of  parents follow their kids in a car or wait at the end of the block for them. In the back seat is a large Tupperware storage container so the kids can dump their sack at the end of every block. No kid wants to carry a 20 pound sack around all night – especially not since the tradition of shelling out cans of pop or those triangular plastic bags of coloured fluid became popular.

Seriously, what are people thinking giving kids cans of pop on Halloween? Or apples? Or oranges? No kid a) wants fruit for Halloween; and b) wants to carry around a couple of kilos of fruit; and c) would be allowed to eat that fruit even if they wanted to. Just stop it.

And stop with the home-made stuff, too.  It’s nice to mentally live in the 1940s and wrap up fudge and cookies and rice crispy squares to give to the kiddies, but these are pretty much guaranteed to go into the bin. It’s a waste. Sure, these nice people are probably not baking cookies with rat poison in them, but who knows?  Save the baked goodies for close friends.

I hope kids are still enjoying Halloween despite the new fast-paced trick-or-treating and the dangerous treats and the potentially dangerous people lurking in the dark. And I hope the weather is nice. Right now they’re saying a high of 15 degrees (60 F) which is great, but also a 60% chance of rain, which would suck.

Two thousand years ago, in the land of the Celts, life was hard — a short, dirty brutal existence. But it was never so hard as during the long, harsh winters. Every year, when summer waned and the harvest had been brought in, the cold dark months inexorably slid in.

It was a time that struck fear into the hearts of men and women; young and old, because they knew many of them would not survive the days ahead. With a life expectancy of 7,000 days – less than 20 years — the beginning of winter held a special, though frightening place in their lives. Optimistically, this is when they celebrated the new year.

They built huge sacred bonfires in which they sacrificed part of their harvest and livestock in hopes that the Celtic deities would look favorably upon them and help them not join their dead ancestors too soon. The Celts wore costumes of animal heads and skins during this celebration. Their fires also helped light the way for the spirits of the dead. The Druids, or Celtic priests would gather by the fires and, with the help of the spirits of the dead (who were particularly present at this time of year) they made predictions about the future. They called this new year Samhain.

Eventually, Christians conquered the land of the Celts, but found it extremely difficult to convert these pagans and get them to give up their beliefs and customs, so they wisely melded their customs with their own. So, instead of simply outlawing Samhain, the pope in the 800s re-named it All Hallow Mass, meaning All Saints Day, to honour saints and martyrs. The night before he kept as a day to honour the dead, called All Hallows Eve.

All Hallows Eve continued to be celebrated with big bonfires, parades, and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels, and devils. As time went on, people immigrated to American and brought their own version of this celebration with them. The rest is history.

Halloween – what’s not to love? There’s something mystical and magical about putting on a costume and interacting with people in costume. It’s so deliciously disorienting to see people you know well, transformed inside and out. In a costume, you’re not entirely yourself. Or maybe you’re more yourself than you usually allow yourself to be?

Those who still dabble in the dark arts believe that the costume we choose on Halloween says something important about who we believe ourselves to be or who we wish ourselves to be. They believe that donning this costume on the night before the new year, on the night of Samhain, will help us grow into the person we want to be in the year ahead.

Mysterious and Spooky!

Some suggest, more prosaically that you choose for your Halloween costume something you really wish you could wear all the time. Hence the popularity of “sexy” costumes for women and “women” costumes for men.

What do you think? Do you dress up for Halloween? Do you have a great costume lined up for Saturday?

One of the first Halloweeners – the mummified remains of an Iron Age Celt found in a peat bog in Cheshire in August of 1984. His skull was fractured, he’d been strangled and his throat had been cut. (Creepy AND Kooky)

About once every couple of months my Dad would get a hankering for Limburger cheese. He’d buy himself a hunk with some good dark German rye bread. Then, with all the kids gathered around barely able to contain their excitement, he’d sloooooowly unwrap the cheese while we all screamed in giddy anticipation and horror.

If you’ve never smelled the Limburger, it’s quite pungent – like the smelliest of smelly feet. That’s because Limburger cheese is made with the same bacterium found on human skin (Brevibacterium linens) which, in part, causes body odors.

Anyway, us kids would then watch as Dad spread the cheese on the dark rye, add some sliced onions, pour himself a cold lager…and then…then he’d offer us the first bite… At which point we all ran away and he enjoyed his sandwich and beer in peace.

When I got older, I did, one day take him up on his offer of the first bite. The younger kids shrieked in disbelief and followed me around the rest of the day asking me to explain in minute and precise detail exactly what it tasted like.

It wasn’t bad. It started me on the road to trying and enjoying a lot of different cheeses.

I wonder if my Dad would have been grossed out at the thought of eating tofu? Some people are.

I also like to eat cold spaghetti (with sauce) which my daughter thinks is revolting. I like it a lot better cold than hot. She also thinks its revolting that I have kippers and toast (cold) for breakfast sometimes and that I like onion, tomato and peanut butter sandwiches.

Is there anything unusual you like to eat that friends and/or family think is weird or yucky? Or, is there anything unusual someone you know eats that you think is weird or yucky? Not unhealthy-yucky (because that list could be endless) but Limburger cheese & onions style weird/yucky. Like these:

• Bagels spread with hotdog relish
• Doritos dipped in Marshmallow Fluff
• French Fries dipped in milk shakes
• Donuts dunked in beer
• Sugar in scrambled eggs
• Sushi with ketchup
• Cream cheese on hot dogs
• Popcorn with yellow mustard for dipping (I do this sometimes)
• Chocolate sprinkles on rice

Who knows what culinary wonders are out there we haven’t tried yet?

How come we have so much money for the Olympics in these tough economic times when businesses are going bankrupt and people are losing their jobs and social program funding is being slashed?

•  The provincial governments of Saskatchewan and Newfoundland have contributed $1.5 million
• Quebec and Ontario have contributed $5 million
• Ottawa has made a 654.65 million dollar “investment” into the games
• Official sponsors, Canada Post, Royal Canadian Mint and the Vancouver Port Corporation have tossed in $23 million

Security alone is going to cost $900 million. No one can come up with a full tally of what the games are finally going to cost. There is a lot money going into infrastructure which isn’t being included in the actual Olympic tally:

•  $1 billion is being spent on highway improvements
• Close to another billion on the trade and convention centre
• $2 billion on the Canada Line Skytrain

 Then there are a few million here and there for other things such as:

• $47 million for the 2010 Winter Games Secretariat
• $300-million “Olympic bonus” that unionized government employees got for signing a four-year contract that ends after the Games (and after the election).

 So far, the tally seems to be around $6 billion[1].

I don’t remember getting to vote on whether I wanted that money spend on luge or homeless shelters. Do you? (Oh, but don’t worry. There won’t be any unsightly homeless people in view during the games. They’re being “relocated”, which means that once the security fences go up, any shiftless poor people that are still around will be arrested.)

Olympics Then & Now

The original Olympic games were just a 190-meter footrace held every 4 years in Olympia Greece. Then, around 700 BC, they added boxing, wrestling, equestrian events and a pentathlon (which involved jumping, discus, javelin, running and wrestling).  The whole thing was over in 3 days. And everyone competed naked[2]. The closing ceremony consisted of slaughtering 100 oxen and having a big-assed feast.

Around 400 AD the Emperor at the time cancelled the Olympics because he reckoned they were too pagan in light of the nation’s conversion to Christianity.

It wasn’t until the late 19^th century that the Olympics were revived. The first modern Olympics was held in 1896 in Athens and featured cycling, fencing, gymnastics, shooting, swimming, tennis, weightlifting, wrestling and athletics (12 track and field-type events) There were 241 participants representing 14 nations.

Today’s summer Olympics feature almost 11,000 competitors from over 200 countries. There are 33 sports, 52 disciplines and nearly 400 events[3].

The winter Olympics (that are going to cost us over $6 billion) feature only 2,500 athletes from 80 countries competing in 84 events in: snowboarding, hockey, figure skating, curling, speed skating, Alpine skiing, cross country skiing, ski jumping, biathlon, bobsleigh, luge and skeleton.

Pros & Cons

People say Olympic money is well-spent as it’s going to bring hoards of people into the country who have piles of money to spend; and that tourism will increase for years to come because of it; and that the new infrastructure will be good for all sorts of things in the future.

People also say that competition is good and healthy and inspirational and brings the country together and forges important ties with other countries and puts us into the international limelight which will be good for all sorts of things in the future.

Maybe I’m not seeing the big picture clearly because to me it looks like the Olympics are more about the promotion of political ideologies and commercialism these days than about sport. Between the boycotts, threats of terrorism and violence, the rampant drug use, the IOC scandals and the flogging of Olympic kitch[4], the whole athletic competition angle seems to get lost.

Also, I wonder how much the Olympics are about showcasing this country’s best athletes versus just showcasing elitist athletes – those who have the money to train hours every day and to hire personal coaches to work exhaustively with them.

Anyway, the Torch Relay[5] begins this Friday, October 30th in Victoria. This party alone is costing half a million and, from the sounds of it, there will be more protesters and journalists in attendance than regular citizens.

I don’t know… back when I was a kid the Olympics were exciting. We used to huddle around the TV every spare minute we had to watch the competitions. As time went on, all the craziness, corruption and Las Vegas glitz sort of spoiled that. These days, I’m wondering how we justify spending such obscene amounts of money on this particular reality show.

[1] The 2012 summer Olympics in London are so far estimated to cost the equivalent of $15.5 billion Canadian, but with more than 2 years to go, the tally is far from complete.

[2] Hence the origin of the word “gymnasium” from the Greek “gymnos” meaning naked

[3]  Air sports, Bandy, Baseball, Basque pelota, Billiard sports,  Boules, Bowling, Bridge, Chess, Cricket, DanceSport, Floorball, Golf (new in 2016), Karate, Korfball, Lifesaving, Motorcycle sport, Mountaineering and Climbing, Netball, Orienteering, Polo, Powerboating, Racquetball, Roller sports, Rugby union (new in 2016), Softball, Sport Climbing, Squash, Sumo, Surfing, Tug of war, Underwater sports, Water skiing, Wushu

[4] Television revenues are contributing around $650 million to the Olympic pot.

[5] Interestingly, though the ancient Greeks kept flame going throughout the Olympics, there was never an Olympic Torch Relay until the 1936 Berlin Olympics when Hitler decided it would be a great symbolic connection to classical Greece as the Aryan forerunner of his view of the German Reich.