Storm and Angst

I am bombarded. We have had a snow storm and getting around has been a bit like Planes, Trains and Automobiles. I have a party to throw for 75 people that has just been sprung on me and have had a family birthday party every weekend for the entire month. My neice is engaged to be married...another party. Now, it's the week before Christmas and I'm just beginning to shop for it.

I'm also anticipating my web site in the New Year and have been working that out. So, I'm off shopping and Xmas-ing. Will return to the blog in the New Year, less overwhelmed.

Wishing one and all the merriest...

Charity

Yesterday I spoke about money and I believe I'm a bit intuitive, because on the heels of that little blurb something horrendous happened. My dearest friend and I'm talking about a top-notch outstanding human being who is neither slouch nor sloth was fired by the CHARITABLE organization he worked for. Yes, a CHARITABLE institution who callously fired him over CHRISTMAS!

It leads me to this: I think the world as we know it has gone quite mad. Stupid people have jobs. Inept people have jobs. Lazy people have jobs. In other words BOTTOM RAIL'S ON TOP.

I think what bothers me about what is going on here, by here, I mean on what is now appearing to be the Rat Exercise Wheel, what we deem WORK these days, is that mediocrity has taken over. Mediocrity and Evil. When you get rid of a human being who keeps the office running like clock work, saves you money so that they need not call service people, who is warm, funny, kind, it truly is an astoundingly offensive act. And a little over a week before CHRISTMAS, Dear Reader.

I am told by other people I know that one must not put any emotional investment into a job, therefore you won't be devastated should you lose employment. But truly, something is very wrong about this scenario. For the few people who believe in God or the right spiritual path, society, culture as we know it has become careless, thoughtless and outright cruel. We are supposedly sharing this planet with brothers and sisters. At least, that is what I grew up believing,(Oh, foolish, foolish 1970's lovechild), and if you don't bring kindness and passion into the workplace where exactly are we heading?

Has tenderness become a type of stupidity ? And why is excellence not rewarded? My friends, when you look out your front window, what you are seeing is a skewed picture of what life should be. What you are seeing is ass backwards. It is especially shocking for those of us who have a 1930's view of going to work, doing the job right, and having wonderful cammarderie. I can almost see the sepia tones surrounding how I picture Work & Culture. Be careful. Be mighty careful. It is not the 30's. And it's not the 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's either.

Money

I've been spending the beginning of this winter thinking about money. About money as a concept, an act of faith, a means of conveyance. Also, I am thinking about plain old money, the kind we are greedy for and think will solve our problems. Maybe it will solve our problems. It gives us the illusion of security. Money in the bank, a nest egg, something to fall back upon. Yes, I am going to ask money to forgive me for all the nasty things I've said about it.

What I learned this weekend...

That bird feathers are made of Keratin, the same stuff that makes up human fingernails and hair.

That the bones of birds are hollow making for an extremely light infra structure that helps them fly.

That I would like a light infra structure to help me fly!

That civilization has become a bunch of crybabies. We don't build our homes anymore or hunt down our own food. We have become weak-thinkers when we really are much stronger than we know.

That I know so much more now than I knew then, except for a very long time ago, when I knew everything.

Baaa Baaa Black Sheep

Do you ever have dreams of opting out? I do. I've been wondering why I insist on being on the rat exercise wheel. What is the point of keeping up a house dowtown, property tax up the ying yang and all the urban pretenses. I am even tired of dressing up for the office in the morning.

Today I spoke with my pal Misia about wanting to embark on a serious road trip with my spouse. I've been south but I haven't been to Montana or any place that speaks of cowboys and ranch life.

I want to wake up and put on distressed blue jeans and cowboy boots. I want to wear the hugest, gaudiest silver belt buckle. I want a shearling coat that looks positively ruined. I figure I want to live out an old Ralph Laurent add.

So I phoned my husband and asked him if he'd consider throwing caution to the wind and live with me on a ranch in Wyoming. Yes, he said, we can raise...sheep!

Oh pleeeease! I said. Let's go and raise sheep. I want all kinds of black sheep roaming around me! And then I broke into that ole kindergarden song...

I am so not Tech...

So there I am, sitting in my office with humungous headphones on listening to Stevie Nicks on You Tube. It was a killer rendition of "Silver Springs" with major Lindsday/Stevie angst of just the best kind. I was getting to the part where she turns to him, live in concert, shouting out "you'll be haunted by my voice and never forget me"...when I notice the ENTIRE staff killing themselves laughing. I was listening to this so loud that I'm sure the building started to tremble.

It's been glum here, for whatever reason, November etc. I'm glad my co-workers had a good laugh. Those ridiculous headphones that make me look like I'm landing a plane.



*I am so not tech that I'm grateful to Misia for helping me post the Stevie Song. You're the woman Misia!

New Conviction

I am starting a fat trend. Mainly because I'm tired of people not eating anything that is tasty. People who have been depriving themselves of bread, pasta, butter, potatoes and red meat. If you don't eat these things and try to get through a Canadian winter, chances are you'll become very depressed and hurl yourself over a bridge. Another thing, my 87 year old mother has lived her life eating bread and lard and weighs 120 pounds. She is in fact losing weight now and is 106 pounds on the bacon diet she adheres to. This is God's truth.

This weekend I ate chicken cordon blue, beef with gravy, mashed potatoes, broccoli and cheese casserole, pea meal bacon sandwiches, smartie cake, (chocolate cake with chocolate icing covered with SMARTIES!), Madeleines. It was all acceptable because of the sides--spinach, greek salad, green beans and asparagus.

I figure that women are supposed to be round and soft and float in water. I will from here on in eat what I like and it will not be bland. After all, we're all terminally ill on this bus...Might as well enjoy it...

November Song

I couldn't help but think of Kurt Weil's September Song today...

"Oh, its a long, long while from May to December
But the days grow short when you reach September
When the autumn weather turns the leaves to flame,
One hasn't got time for the waiting game.

Oh, the days dwindle down to a precious few
September, November
And these few precious days I'll spend with you..."

I always forget how sad I get in November. People love the fall with all the blazing colours and the chill in the air. But to me it means a kind of death. The trees losing their leaves and the flowers in the garden crumpling up with the frost. I've been walking around with a heavy heart and a sadness I can't seem to shake.

I suppose the weariness I feel was compounded by hearing that author, Gille Leroy has won France's Goncourt prize for his book Alabama Song-- a contrafactual novel about Zelda Fitzgerald, wife of novelist F.Scott Fitzgerald. Dear reader, I was just telling you a few days ago that I had written a fictional autobiography of Zelda Fitzgerald. It's been my lifelong interest and I've just spent four years working on it.

Perhaps you have experienced something like this and would like to share your thoughts on how you felt. In the meantime, I'll end here. Today I just haven't got the capacity.

Why Vintage... Why Ziggy?

First of all, WELCOME. Secondly, you might be wondering why I called my blog Vintage Ziggy. I wondered too, so I looked up Vintage in the dictionary and here's what I got:

1. The year in which the grapes used in making a particular wine were harvested.

2. Wine made from a particular harvest of grapes.

3. The harvesting of grapes for wine

4. A wine, expecially an excellent one.

5. The period of time when something appeared or began or when somebody was born or flourished. (Hmmmm...)

Do I see myself as old grapes, sour grapes, or perhaps an ice wine? Or am I just playful or an ole hermitage?

I've been out of the limelight for quite a while now. I've come to realize that I've enjoyed it profusely. For the first two years of retirement I slept. Then I cleaned out all of my closets. That took about another two years. Another realization is that I never need to shop again I've accumulated so much apparel while I was in showbusiness. But I will... I most certainly will.

In the midst of the purge I decided I would start working on a new book-- a contra-factual novel about a famous literary southern belle. This set me out on a roadtrip through the United States from Toronto to Asheville, North Carolina, then through the gorgeous pines of Georgia to Montgomery, Alabama, my heroine's home town.

I loved Montgomery within five minutes of my arrival. There she was, totally Greek-Revival against a blue, blue sky. I saw a mockingbird sitting on a windowsill of a bank on Dexter Street singing to itself in the glass.

Within the half-hour I was asked whether I wanted a job as a tour guide at the Union Station. I really wanted to accept and spend the rest of my years wasting away in that smally, sleepy, sultry town.

Here are the other things I loved:

The Curb Market
The beef and gravy, broccoli casserole and German Chocolate Cake at Martha's on Sayre Street.
All the people who asked "How are you?" and meant it.
Being called Miz Ziggy
Winter Place--a decaying mansion on Mildred Street that's right out of Tennessee Williams.
Red Clay.
Early Spring.
Jasmine.

Oakwood Cemetary was by far my favorite place. I searched with my spouse John, for a grave built in the side of hill that Zelda Fitzgerald, (known as SAYRE) in Montgomery , wrote about in a personal letter to F.Scott Fitzgerald who used it verbatum in his short story The Ice Palace:

"It was covered with weepy,watery blue flowers that could have grown from dead eyes. I wanted to feel William Wreford 1864."

Well we walked all around and through little wrought iron gates and along steps and crevices and I looked very, very hard for it. I was so determined that I completely lost track of John who had walked way to the back of the cemetary and heard him shout amidst the shrubs, "I found it!". And there it was-- a rusty iron vault totally built into the side of a hill with a lock on it that Zelda herself tried to wrestle with in 1918. Only she got the date wrong. The vault was inscribed William Wreford, 1873. Somehow 74 does seem and sound better. Her instinct was fantastic. John found the vault because he saw the blue weepy watery flowers first! They led him there. Very, very romantic.

At any rate, my book was written and is flawed. There is something totally wrong with it and I need to go south again to figure it all out. I'm going in February. I am so happy there!

You see, I am a literary detective. When I get back to Montgomery, all I'll need to do is close my eyes a little and sqint.. and then I'll see everything just as Zelda did.

Ziggy is the woman.

More to come shortly.