Chanticleer - In time of daffodils

Talking of undertakers

I've found that I say "undertaker" instead of Funeral Director. I like undertaker better - they undertake to dispose of you. They take you under. They undertake to take you under. Funeral Director sounds so prissy. "I am a Funeral Director" "Wot, you work with stiffs then?" And why are we not allowed to know what happens after death? I suppose those with a religious faith "know" what happens, but what proof is there that we go on going on? Couldn't someone, just one, come back and tell us? Would it spoil some vast eternal plan? Mind you, it would be a real bummer if we KNEW we're all going to hell in a handcart. Just like if you knew when you were going to die and how. You'd spend your whole life going "oh, only 23 more years, only three more years, only two more hours...." Bloody hell, you'd never get anything done for the anxiety. Urk. feeling a bit mad at the moment. Must be spring, can't settle to anything except obsessive gardening. Another important philosophical question. Why does the house make itself untidy? Why is the default option chaos housework-wise? Or is it that the house is forming itself into a form of order that I don't recognise as order? Drifts of unironed clothing form in corners, piles of book and papers appear along the corners of the living room, dirty dishes stack up automatically - it's order, Jim, but not as we know it. Just imagine if the housework's default option was clean and tidy, as I know clean and tidy? What if things tidied themselves instead of un-tidied, cleaned instead of dirtied, piled instead of un-piled? Of course, I could train the cats to do the housework. Yeah, right.

The Importance Of Being Idle

This is the gift I got from the undertakers. A little dwarf kowhai in a very cute container.

Roll on, Christmas

Just made my arrangements for Christmas. This year I am going away for the holiday, to a place called Okuti Gardens in Little River, where I will sleep in a house truck. (I really wanted to sleep in the yurt, but there's no cooking facilities in it). Little River is a nice green place, with a great cafe/art gallery and walks on the surrounding hills. I'm looking forward to it, and won't mind "missing" Christmas, as its come to mean less and less over the years. I only kept it up because Mum liked it, but she died about three weeks ago, so now I feel like doing something else, establishing some new traditions. Spent some time sorting out Mum's stuff, playing her old records on the record-player. Remember record-players? How about radiograms? They had radio and record-player in one attractive wooden cabinet, that you could admire and polish and place in your living-room like a piece of treasured furniture. They went out when transistor radios came in. Even transistors have bitten the dust, and the word "tranny" means something totally different now. Anyway, I played "South Pacific" and "Fiddler on the roof", and thoroughly enjoyed them. I've always disliked musicals - all that suddenly bursting into song and being happy and gay seemed a little like extreme behaviour to me. But "South Pacific" has the BEST SONG OF ALL TIME - "I'm gonna wash that man right out of my hair". And all of the songs in "Fiddler" are great. Check out "Matchmaker,matchmaker" for an affirmation of the husband-free life. "...he'll beat you every night, but only when he's sober, so you're all right!"

Forecasts vs.predicitons

Apparently we are to have another big eathquake. This prediciton/forecast comes courtesy of Ken Ring, our usual doomsayer. Of course he says he is doing it to help people, but I for one, would rather not know. Anyone who has problems with anxiety should avoid reading or hearing news; all it does it make one anxious. (Logical). Spent a sleepless night last night worrying about whether the bank would foreclose on my mortgage if AMI goes bust. This could happen Christchurch-wide; banks hedge their risk in your property (which is really their property) by "securing" it with insurances. People are finding that they can't get mortgages because they can't get insurance; it will only be a matter of time before banks come out in the open about how exposed their investments are. Scary stuff, scarier that Mr Ring's predictions. Hopefully this is just me catastrophizing. As Gandalf said "This is the doom I deem". PS Isn't The Lord of the Rings" depressing? Our local pond is being drained for resealing with bentonite clay, and I've just spent a few minutes laughing at the ducks wading through the muddy glop. Ducks are daft. Almost as daft as the Rugby World Cup. Sick of it yet?

Snow passages

Snow is still my song;
more falls and more to come
they say.

Here's two snow pieces that I'd like to share:

What's up, Ratty?' asked the Mole.
   `Snow is up,' replied the Rat briefly; `or rather, down. It's snowing hard.'
  The Mole came and crouched beside him, and, looking out, saw the wood that had been so dreadful to him in quite a changed aspect. Holes, hollows, pools, pitfalls, and other black menaces to the wayfarer were vanishing fast, and a gleaming carpet of faery was springing up everywhere, that looked too delicate to be trodden upon by rough feet. A fine powder filled the air and caressed the cheek with a tingle in its touch, and the black boles of the trees showed up in a light that seemed to come from below.   ( From The Wind in the willows  by Kenneth Grahame)

A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.  (From the short story The Dead by James Joyce)