Waters

It was the World Series and I have never seen Yankee Stadium so full
and how could you not
could you possibly not be impressed

this sporting complex
doubled overnight
in height
in depth
in colour

they have turned out their pork pie hats
this intergalactic circus comes to town but once a year,
the crowd is electric and eclectic.

in the right field corner a special seating area has been created for the children of giants
the giants themselves watch their children and the game from outside the stadium...
they have grown and
they lean upon the tin roof that cradles home plate
their leaning causes the infield bleachers to groan

.

anticipation

this final of all finals features the ALLSTARS of ALLTIME
Reggie Jackson, Mickey Mantle, Ty Cobb, Pete Rose, Lou Gehrig, Buggaloo Bill
ALLTIME ALLSTARS

NOW...
baseball isn't really my thing.
I like to play ball but watching it... not so much. But we're watching it from the best seats in the house which just also happens to be
the dugout
and that can only mean one thing...

we
you and i
are playing in the World Series
against the ALLSTAR team of ALLTIME.

It's a tense game that isn't decided until the last pitch of the ninth inning... of course

We lose. Which is not too much of a heartbreaker because we aren't professional baseball players, yet still you would think that some of the sportswriters, at least one of them, would want to ask how our team came so far against such incredible odds. But no. Everybody ignores us as they rush to fete the winners. Nobody remembers second place they say and they say it enough they start to believe it they say they say so they say.

I feel a little desolate inside except that...

... it's my birthday and I'm in DisneyCanada and I have scores of friends and family to celebrate that with me... at least for a couple hours before the long drive home.

My favourite thing about DisneyCanada is the Long Canal.
It winds, corners, dips and bends seemingly forever
and you and I choose to navigate it by Koosh Kayak
which is just like a regular two person kayak
except that the oar ends aren't paddled... they're more like mop heads.

The Long Canal is essentially a conduit between all of the water attractions at DisneyCanada most of which are like little tidal pools for the indulgent. Hot springs after mud pit after rock cave after aqua yoga after whirlpool all of which are tributaries of the Long Canal. Sometimes these little nooks are hidden at the end of a set of secret rapids or behind an innocuous water fall. Finding and sharing these little nooks and the people in them is one of the things I love about The Long Canal.

Unfortunately though, the Koosh Kayaks are not allowed into most of these outlets. The Kayak has to be left at the inlet points like a dog outside a grocery store. And often when you emerge from one of these little water niches it's not obvious whether you have emerged upstream or downstream of your entry point OR if you have switched streams entirely.

And that is why we got separated. You went to go retrieve the Kayak one way and I went the other. I ended up finding a Kayak but I'm not sure that it was ours. In any case, I am Kayaked and looking for you but I don't know where to look. And as is my want, I look for you at a slower pace, making sure to look under the broad large leafy foliage that hangs over the canal banks.

Later I was to find out that you took a different tack and floated quickly downstream in the hopes of catching up with me when in fact it was me that should have been catching up with you. The distance between us increased and any hope of us reconnecting was less than hopeful.

Time passed and the sun set and the maintenance boats started their end-of-day pass. I was the last of the stragglers that they nudged towards the end of the Long Canal.

Where... finally we find each other... in the empty parking lot. We change out of our swimsuits and wonder where the rest of my birthday party went... ?

Someone appears with a cellphone with lots of flashing lights on it.

I call my brother-in-law. He is back at the President's House and he is trying to collect all the stuff that got left behind... my birthday presents, our baseball cleats, socks, underwear... and it's a little difficult for him because he's not sure whose stuff is whose and which stuff is important. I inform him that if the underwear is nice underwear then it's probably yours and should be treated as a nicety.

You smile at this. You have changed out of your swimsuit into your street clothes but you still have the towel wrapped around you.

My brother-in-law then tells me that my parents have left which is a bit of a problem for me because I was expecting to get a ride home with them and it is a long way home... half a continent. However, I am not stressed about this because I will just walk if I have to... it might take a month or more but in the end there are far worse fates than having your parents leave you at Disneyland so I'm not complaining.

It then occurs to me that I don't know how you are going to get home and, while I am not your guardian and you can surely take care of yourself, it does cause me some consternation but that's when you reveal that you have
The Coolest Car Ever
and you offer me a ride. This is satisfactory to both of us because not only do I not have to walk all the way from someplace in Ontario to Edmonton, but you don't have to drive alone
and you have someone to show off your incredible taste in music to. We have hours of talking time ahead of us. Yay!

So we're going to find my brother-in-law to help him clean up the after party confusion...
but when we find him
things get confusing. We can no longer get into the President's House because the security system is activated when the streetlights come on. We're sure that we could break in and my brother-in-law is more than willing and able to do so. But breaking in is not the problem. Breaking out is. It would require mountain climbing equipment and we don't have any.

Then my parents show up. Turns out they didn't give up on me. They just know what I'm like and knew that I would be the last person out of the park
just like always.
So they had gone to pick up my nephew and neice Khai and Kheira (key-air-ah).

Keeeeaaaara likes you because she wants to be a princess and she thinks you are what she wants to be
that is to say...
a princess.
Now, I don't know if whether or not her perception of you is true but you don't tell her any differently
so everybody assumes that you are a princess
and that Key-E-Ra's princessdar is accurate
as always.

My dilemma now
is how
do I tell my parents
that I have another ride home without hurting their feelings?

how?
how?

how?

But as these things do, they get resolved because...
because...
because of marvelous Distraction.
DISTRACTION DISTRACTION
BECAUSE
if you ARE a princess
and this IS DisneyCanada then...

Well then we don't have anything to worry about.

Ever.

!

So we go to Swampland. You are holding my niece's hand as she drags you through the camoflauge mesh curtain that surrounds Swampland. I am carrying my nephew. My brother-in-law reluctantly follows my sister and I say reluctantly not because he doesn't adore my sister - he does adore her. He's only reluctant because he was so looking forward to using his many skills and tools in the activity of break and enter and hopefully exit. My parents are always there because they are always where their grandchildren are. We are all looking into the little pools of water that constitute Swampland and we are delighted to find that Swampland isn't really swampy... it's more like a rough draft of a Japanese Water Garden. There are no mosquitoes or alligators or moonshine stills. There are many shallow irregluar ponds most of which have smooth dry stepping stones and all of which have some kind of animal swimming in them. Frogs. Fish. Salamanders. Grebes. Little Tiny Turtles. THEN through a sudden conflaguration of 5 year-old in my arms, I discover that my nephew Khai is simultaneously fascinated and terrified by turtles. He is hypnotized by them and cannot look away from them even though they throw him into a violent spastic panic. I only now wonder if perhaps this was triggered by some past life experience in which he was perhaps eaten by a turtle when my nephew Khai was not a little boy but was perhaps a catfish swimming on the bottom of some slow moving stream in New Hampshire.

So I'm holding Khai above my head as he squirms and screams (and this isn't easy because he's not as little as he once was) and I'm trying to get him out of Swampland where I can reassure him with my calm Uncling ways... and then my Dad says ... and I must say he's being no help whatsoever..

"Look, Khai. A snake."

And we all look.

And sure enough, there is a snake.

And then my dad takes a step back and says...
"HOLY CRAP!"
because this gentle moving whitesnake
which is kind of floating through existence
like one of Buddha's Allegories of Calm
it hovers
lifts its head in a controlled ascent straight up into the air heeding the call of an unseen snake charmer
turns itself rolls itself slowly banks to its starboard side over it slowly goes
and reveals itself
this quiet hypnotic representation of primal knowledge
to be
bigfastmean rattlesnake with a broad diamond head and pissed off eyes
and
it's heading straight for me
like an axe head through wood

So I hold Khai over my head and for some reason he's scared of little round tiny turtles but he is not scared of poisonous snakes but he is scared of turtles but not snakes... but turtles... go figure...

And I'm trying to run away from the rattler but it's difficult because I'm running through water
while the snake is skimming over it.

So I try to kick it away with my protective boots
but
I don't have protective boots
I'm barefoot.

So it bites me.

Which sucks.

So I'm sitting in the parking lot wondering
"Who is going to help me?
Where did everybody go?"

And it turns out that everybody went to go get help.

Though I must say that nobody seemed to be in any kind of hurry! Not to complain or whine or anything but I DID GET BITTEN BY A RATTLESNAKE.

But...

I take some solace in the lackadaisical manner in which you all sauntered off to vaguely find some assistance for me...
because the last thing
you want to do
when you get bitten
by a rattler
is
to
panic. This will increase the heart rate and speed the flow of poison to the rest of your body. One must remain calm.
Like The Buddha.
So I appreciate
that all y'all are
taking your time
though it would have been nice
if just one of you had stayed
so that I wouldn't have to suck the poison out myself. The rattler bit me on the ankle and I'm no contortionist. Sucking the poison out of there is not easy as it requires literally sticking my foot in my mouth.

I can taste something kind of foul but for all I know that's what my foot tastes like... especially after it's been slightly marinated in Swampland. I can't even tell if this is working or not. You see, I don't know what Rattlesnake Venom tastes like.

So I'm going to give up on the sucking and the spitting.
I'm just going to lie down here in the parking lot.
Maybe I'll die. Perhaps. It is not for me to decide. If it is my time and if this is the way, then so be it.
And I'm thinking... that was weird. A rattlesnake in water? I didn't think there was such a thing as a marine rattlesnake.
Maybe it wasnt's a rattlesnake. Maybe it was a cottonmouth... I don't know... I'm no snake expert...
maybe a cottonmouth is a rattle snake. So.
I'm just lying here... looking out my window... grabbing a pillow... jamming it under my head... I'm contemplating snakes... cottonmouths... marine snakes... DisneyCanada... I'm lying here contemplating... i've been contemplating it for like an hour
now... and I can't get back to sleep because my mind is racing
so
i'm going to get up
and type this all out