Hullo. How are you?

I'm a little Woebegone.

Some of you may know who Garrison Keillor is. He's the gently-baritoned host of A Prairie Home Companion , which is heard on National Public Radio, weekends. The show overflows with good humour, stories, and pleasant, folksy music, all overseen by Mr. Keillor.

Keillor is also the author of a number of home-spun, down-homey books about life in a small town, or life as a radio announcer, or what-have-you.

Which is why this is rather surprising. To read it is to become aware of how much vitriol the little yellow man in the big white house has given rise to amongst the people. To hear Keillor describing him as an "Etch-A-Sketch president" and his party as "Pithecanthropus Republicanii" is not unlike the first time you heard your mother swear.

I mean really swear, not "Damn", or "bloody" (which isn't so much a swear word as an adjective), but ₤µ€λ, $λ!τ or @$$λΩ₤€.



Speaking of which:

Rewriting My Mother

This summer the SO and I spent a very pleasant and all-too-few days on an island in the Pacific, more-or-less. My parents have been waiting for enough co-op members to die in order that they might finally become full-fledged members. They have, in fact, been waiting for so long that my little sister this year asked if Mum and Dad would leave her their place on the waiting list in their will.

But I digress.

The rules at the co-op are simple but fairly strict: No construction of permanent facilities, aside from the scattered outhouses and some increasingly-cabinish structures for stretching tarps over your cooking area. Naturally, no campers (as in self-propelled-or-towed-house) are allowed--a move that should be followed by the entire nation. And while there are standpipes for water, there is no electricity. Generators are also not permitted, thank whomever you think is in charge.

Naturally, there is some need for refrigeration. At the gatehouse sit two ancient groaning freezers, and inside each are plastic water bottles filled with ice (you expected something other than ice in a freezer?). These are used to help keep perishables cool in the campsites.

On the date in question, Mum had put on a small backpack and headed up the hill to reload our cooler with ice. On the roughly 500-metre trip she met several friends, and talked with them, resulting in a total trip time of roughly one hour.

It is worth saying at this point that my mother is a very dignified, deeply Christian woman with a mild upper-class London accent. She is tolerant of children and friendly to the elderly in a very genuine way. She also understands the concept of Christian Duty to mean her--not anyone else. She is extraordinarily even-tempered and generally thinks before speaking--except when dad gets up her nose, as he does.


Upon her return, she began unloading the backpack, whereupon quoth my father, noticing that the bottles still contained water:
"Didn't you go up to get ice?"

Whereupon quoth my mother, in her upper-class London accent, for the first time in my mumble-mumble years of life:

"Oh . . . ₤µ€λ!"


There are moments when the world revolves slowly about a spindle roughly centred in your head. Your first car accident; that time you threw an iceball at your worst enemy and your teacher stuck her head up. You watch things unfold, knowing you cannot change what is about to happen, or what (as in this case) has happened.

My sister and I, seated on the opposite sides of the picnic table, exchanged incredulous looks. Did you really hear that? clearly written on each of our faces (at least on hers, and I assume on mine as well, although I have no way of knowing). Nothing was ever going to be the same again.

I'd imagine people might feel the same if the Queen hit her thumb with a hammer whilst driving the first nail on some massive public housing project and leaped around screaming "Christ on a crutch!" Come to think of it, there is a certain physical resemblance.

Then we and my father carried on as though nothing had happened. The whole thing had the sort of unreality I imagine China, or the USSR having. It had not happened, it was an un-event.

***

Later on that afternoon, the SO said to me:
"Did your mom say '₤µ€λ'?"

"₤µ€λed if I know" I was tempted to reply.