Rough Weekend

And NOT just because it was bug bashingly hot either.

Jen and Oni are on vacay out west. They’re “glamping” somewhere off Vancouver Island without WiFi. KEE-RIST I miss them!

Are they at Clayoquot Wilderness Resort with its en suite “tents” (prices start at $5,700 per person for a 3-night stay – kinda doubt it). Maybe sleeping in the trees at MUCH more reasonably priced but still too much for my wallet, Free Spirit Spheres. These start at $314 a night and there’s no obvious note on the site about bathroom facilities. Ya know, us old babes generally get up to hit the head sometime around 0 dark thirty. I do NOT relish the idea of climbing outta the trees to whiz at 1 AM – especially at $314 per. There are more conventional (but BIG) treehouses for $200 a night, yurts and A-frame cabin/prospector tents (sleeps six for $120 a night).

Look, I don’t do this camping crap AND if I’m gonna go rough (as in, NO flush toilet) I want to be way out in nature (versus in a glamping “community”).  Cindy and Giovanni’s yurt, in the middle of nowhere with no humans around for miles was pretty fucking AMAZING.

Other, more serious weekend shit?

On Friday, a good friend went over to her sister’s place and found her dead on the floor – victim of an apparent heart attack. Wow. Just imagine the intense shock, the panic.

Then, on Saturday, I found out that a VERY dear friend of mine had attempted suicide. Lucky for us, he was unsuccessful.

This tune’s been running around my bean – Billy Joel’s Only the Good Die Young. Fucking weird. For starters, the tune’s about some dude who’s trying to get laid. It's not about dead people and loss.

Come out Virginia, don't let 'em wait
You Catholic girls start much too late
Aw but sooner or later it comes down to faith
Oh I might as well be the one

Only the good die young? Please brotha!

Are you saying that Nelson Mandela, who lived to the fine old age of 95, wasn’t a “good” man?
What about Susan B. Anthony, suffragette, labor activist and anti-slavery activist. She was 86 AND good, right?
 Rosa Parks? You ‘member her. She lived to be 92.
And then there’s Lupe Anguiano, civil rights activist, environmentalist, champion of labor, who’s still fighting the good fight at the age of 90.
Also, Jimmy Carter anyone?

On topof that, young is entirely relative. Fer instance, I think of folks in their 40s as just barely off the tit and out of nappies. (I know – not fair. I suppose I’m thinking of my own dreadfully late maturation) A friend's father died in his early 60s. OUCH! That was young. The Amazing Bob said so long and thanks for all the fish at 74. Not young/young but too damn young to croak. I thought I was gonna get ten more years outta him.

Don’t be throwin' around these adjectives without clarifying reference points!

Also, dunno what Catholic school girls Joel was trying to get busy with BUT, as a rule, us mackerel snappers were *ahem* an easy touch. Ya know, girls just wanna have fun and shit.