The Floor Is Lava

Remember playing the floor is lava? You can’t step on the floor……because….why? BECAUSE IT’S LAVA!!! Sometimes the Lava was quicksand. Sometimes it was just a swamp with alligators and crocodiles. What is the difference between alligators and crocodiles? Alligators are seen later; crocodiles are only seen in a while.

We don’t hear much about quicksand these days. That’s because, with our own advancing age, the quicksand is not very quick anymore. Now the sands just shift, as in the shifting sands of time. Lots of lines being drawn in the sand. And what time is it, kids? Time to get a watch!

Can you tell that I have been watching old Pee Wee Herman videos?

Aaak! I know you are, but what am I? When I was growing up , the floor was lava, and we would jump from couch to chair to evade the hot lava that was certain to instantly kill us. If you fell on the floor, you became a sizzle burger. What? You’ve never heard of a sizzle burger?

You take a cold burger patty (why are they called patty?) and you cut it in half. Now put it in a pan with butter and Worcestershire sauce-please note it is pronounced Wooster-sure, and then watch it sizzle. Now put the sizzle burger in a bun, and devour. Was it any good? What do you think? It was fabulous!

See what I did there? I sold the sizzle. Follow the sizzle burger with some Whip’N’Chill or Jello-123. My sisters and I would have these in the afternoon. The sisters would be watching Dark Shadows, an afternoon serial with vampires, featuring Barnabas Collins.

Dark Shadows was a show you could really sink your teeth into. Fangs for the memories. Don’t worry folks, I’m here all week. Try the veal, and don’t forget to tip your waitress.

What is the thing with Veal? Why is it that when we want to eat an animal, we have to create new words? We must divorce the food from the living animal. Pigs become pork, cows become beef. Baby cows become veal. Chickens grow fingers. Buffalos grow wings. Will baby potatoes grow up later and be tater tots? Why does no one talk about those troublesome tater teens?

There are days I would give my world for a tot, or a sizzle burger. My Mother had her own secret language. If you were having a poop, it was having a “big job”. Big jobs. Were there any little jobs? Did these jobs pay anything? How did calling poop a “big job” affect my feelings about work as an adult? When exactly did I become an adult?

They say that when a writer asks questions, it leads to greater reader involvement. That’s why there are so many questions today. Does everyone feel more involved? I know. It’s complicated.

How am I doing since my accident? Truthfully I feel a little run down. Pa-dump. Headaches, a pain in the neck, tension in my shoulders, a general feeling of malaise, ennui, and hopefulness. Sorry, I mean hopelessness. Is the hope half full? Also my balance is off. Weebles wobble but they won’t fall down.

I just ate a cold smashed potato. Lots of salt. I could taste it. Now it is stuck in my throat. Or is it stuck in my craw? Where is the craw in relation to the throat? After or before? To stick in one's craw, is to cause considerable or abiding resentment; to rankle. If the damn potato doesn’t slide further down my gullet, it will really stick in my craw. You don’t want to see me get rankled. Rankle is not the angry ankle although angry ankles can rankle. Herding cats can rankle. Cats in general can rankle. And old terriers rankle with the best.

It’s Saturday, after a long, stressful week, where in the end, our mission was accomplished. I woke up at six, as my wife was closing the bedroom door to shut out the whining terrier, who was pacing. So I got up, to take one for the team. The damned dog wasn’t going to walk itself.

Then I ate breakfast, coffee, the whole schmozzle. Part of the breakfast routine hearkens back to a time of broadsheets, going to the door to pick up the newspaper which a young boy or more rarely a girl delivered to the door. I used to deliver newspapers on my bike. I would have to bundle them up with rubber bands then fling them at the porch. Sometimes they landed on the wet lawn. Shit happens. I haven’t subscribed to a daily for some years now, as most news I get in the form of email alerts, and substack posts. Last time I got newspapers was out in White Rock. We got the Province and the Sun. One day my daughter opened the front door and Max,our angry schnauzer ran out the door and but the paper boy.

His mother and he came by in the evening to talk about it. Things are civilized like that in White Rock. I had Max locked in a room behind me, as I explained how he had been abused before we got him, how the previous owner tied him to a post in the yard. How he cut part of his vocal chords out to stop the barking, how he still barked, although is a weird bark, how he bit the Jehovah Witnesses and my brother in law. Meanwhile Max is running his head into the door. He was not very convincing as a poor rescue. Still she understood, being a dog person. I promised we would not let him out. I subscribed again. The news is different now.

Having news on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, gives a sense of immediacy, even in the case of editorial comments. There are literally scores of talking heads ready to make their talking points, reinforcing the readers political bent all according to what the almighty algorithm says is acceptable to the individual reader. The ones in Fox are bat crazy. The ones on CNN are ex-CIA. Don’t get me started on Rachel Maddow. In the list of women I am nit attracted to, she ranks just below the ever perky Christy Clark. God she was perky.

Now Facebook and Google are not showing “news” from actual news sites as that would incur fees from the government. Zuckerberg hates the idea of paying for anything. Many on the Book of Face are in an uproar over this turn of events.

Personally I have been getting my news from various columnists on Substack, which I would call the “reader financed press”. Writers like Matt Taibbi migrated there from Rolling Stone, where his brand of investigative journalism found a home for a number of years. Seymour Hersch wrote about The Pentagon Papers, My Lai Massacre and Abu Graib. A few months ago he revealed the Nordstream explosion, which was more significant than the Nordstrom Implosion. Aaron Mate carries on the fine work his father does in revealing things we don’t want to see or hear about.

The dailies, or what is left of them, are now only wire services, which reprint the skewed views of the interests that own them ( i.e. Conrad Black, Rupert Murdoch, The New Yank Times, along with other more faceless corporations.

The Tyee reported that recent fires near Kelowna and Penticton gave rise to huge clouds in the air which observers compared to a volcano’s plume. These fire plumes are so colossal that they are generating Fire Tornados, which have as much energy as an actual volcano, except without the lava. In fact, they generate their own weather systems, creating fire tornados, and thunderstorms, unfortunately without rain. Our real world is transforming faster than our ability to perceive the change. Before our variant eyes we are marching into a Slow Apocalypse, an Apocalypse Not Now, But Sooner Than We Ever Thought Possible. Where are those jet packs now that we really need them?

Everyone is splintered into factions and algorithmic niche audiences, getting our “news” from a multitude of sources. Everybody claims to be the truth.

What are we to do with this fractionated reality? I suggest we huddle, or cuddle, at the very least snuggle on the nearest couch and assume the floor is lava, which in many of these alternate worlds, may be the least of our worries.

There is safety on the couch. After all, the floor is lava.