O yeah + the Sand Bar + 100 years of Oreo + shuffle off to somewhere

O Yeah
I haven’t quite decided yet, but as job piles go, I either sank to the bottom of or climbed to the top this week when I found myself actually applying for 27 jobs in Canada.  Not the “eh” Canada … the “oui” Canada.  Queest-ce que je pensais?

Truth be told, for about the last 10 years whenever I found myself getting itchy for change, I’d do one of two things … come home from work, pour a glass of wine and scour the web for

1. beach bars for sale in the tropics
2. job opportunities with Cirque du Soleil

Note that both things involve wine.  Crazy, I know.  Two such disparate callings … there is nothing I can offer in the way of explanation.  Nothing that makes sense anyway.  Well, there was that childhood fantasy of running away to join the circus …
_________________________________________________________

Soggy Dollar Bar Jost Van Dyke, BVI

In my own private version of Fantasy Island, Ricardo Montalban and Hervé Villechaize would be welcoming me.  De Bar!  De Bar!

The Sand Bar.  Built close to the sea on the sand, I’d never have to … well, do things like vacuum, sweep or mop ever again.  My toes … your toes … all God’s chillun’s toes would always be in the sand.

I’d pour wines I would drink, grill extraordinary seafood and cheeseburgers on my oil drum Chargrill  … basically spending all my days and nights polishing glasses, listening to music, wearing flip flops (or not), and living the low life.

A couple of years ago I found what could have been THE perfect place.  Island Blues, a bar in Coral Bay, St. John, USVI that had also been the home of the St. John Blues Festival.  All the signs pointed to “yes” … it was even on Carolina Avenue. How’s that for a sign?  I had this great idea that I could help raise the money by selling endowed deckchairs.  Beautiful teak numbers with an engraved brass plaque on the back. Your chair. Your beach. Your view.  Why didn’t y’all fall for that?  All I needed was 350 of my closest friends to fork over 1k each. You could be there sitting in your chair right this minute. You know who you are.

There was also the vineyard on Crete.  The small beachfront hotel in Roatan.  The seafront B&B in Belize.  Good thing my credit card has a low limit.  Yet, in the immortal words of Aerosmith, Dream on … dream until the dream comes true.
______________________________________________________

But back to Canada … about as far away as you can get from a tropical paradise.  It’s the frozen north. It’s where you ran away to dodge the draft. It’s Hymns of the 49th Parallel.

The same country that had American kids everywhere singing Alouette.

Currently being used in a Target TV commercial, I found myself singing along with this French Canadian folksong the other day. Did I know what I was singing? Not really, so I searched for translated lyrics online.  This sweet sounding little progression song is disturbing on so many levels.

Lark, lovely Lark
Lark, I am going to pluck you
I am going to pluck your head,
I am going to pluck your head,
And the head, and the head,
O-o-o-o-oh …..

All followed by the successive plucking of various bird parts ….  beak, eyes, neck, wings, back, legs and tail. YOW!

What we have here is a perky, infectious melody about bird dismemberment, innocently and happily sung by little kids.  Coming from a country whose national sports are ice hockey and lacrosse, a little bird bashing isn’t really such a big deal. Sure, this could have been written by a chef plucking a bird prior to cooking, but how much sustenance could the tiny lark offer after all that plucking?  But, here I go getting off track again.

Cirque du Soleil
Pure take-your-breath-away magic.  A circus worth working for in any language. Every time I’d verbalize my wish to work for CdS, inevitably I’d hear “as a performer?”  Smack your own face for even asking such a silly question. Of course not as a performer. Do I look like I’ve had years and years of acrobatic training to the exclusion of all else?  Bend and twist like a pretzel?  Soar across a room on a scarf? I do not. I wear scarves, not hang on to them 50 feet in the air.  But I could help them do it from behind the scenes.  Can you imagine how many people it takes to make all that magic happen on stage?

So this was the week.   Oh, I don’t expect to ever hear from them, but I created my own internal magic just by hitting the submit button.  Under special talents, I listed “can ask how to get to the library, as well as sing Alouette, Frère Jacques, Dominique, and La Marseillaise.”  I’d hire me just for that.
________________________________________________________

Happy 100th birthday to Oreo!

Regular or Doublestuff?  Twist and lick?  Just bite?  As a milk dipper? How do you eat yours?

Did you know that Nabisco holds a worldwide Oreo Stacking Competition?  How high could you go?_________________________________________________________

Shuffling off to Buffalo, over the Rainbow Bridge and hang a right … a variation on hymns from the 49th:
Long May You Run (Neil Young)
River (Joni Mitchell)
Great Big Love (Bruce Cockburn)
Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye (Leonard Cohen)
Love is Everything (Jane Siberry)