I know it's not until tomorrow, but I thought I'd take this opportunity to wish you all a Happy Solstice!! Katr and I are very excited to be spending ours in Victoria, B.C., with my family. We have our own Solstice rituals when we're in Edmonton and last year in Toronto, we participated in the Kensington area Solstice parade, but this year in Victoria, we may have to improvise. Victoria apparently has a strong pagan community, but we found meagre results in our online search for Solstice activities. We do like a little touchy-feely-crunchy-granola-unbleached-tampon-wassail-drinking-poetry-reading feel to our Winter Solstice celebration but ads for Solstice activities which read: "Feeling alone and misunderstood? Come be our sister!" ah . . . don't really capture the spirit. You know . . . for us.
So clearly, we'll have to create our own Solstice adventure. As the place we're staying has a late check-in time, we may start the party early, as my dad suggested. Paint the rented van, grow our hair long, get baked and start a band. Look out for a guerilla performance by hot new blues/bodily emissions fusion group Dr. K and the Repeaters. I will be the one on trombone.
Despite the fact that my parents have a condo there and my brother spent four years at university there, I have not actually been to Victoria since my ninth grade band trip fifteen years ago. I didn't play the trombone in band, by the way. In Grade 7, when we got assigned our instruments, I was physically unable to buzz and I couldn't make a noise on the flute, so I got the clarinet. But I did switch to tenor sax in 8th grade, so you know . . . that was cool.
Our band took a bus to Victoria from Edmonton and it was a long trip. I remember being very bitter at Chezza (Trumpet), who spent the majority of the bus trip in the back of the bus, flirting with Percussion, whereas I nearly had to have an arm amputated after being slept on for nearly the full 16 hours by Bass Clarinet. I remember that Victoria in March was lovely and green and blooming and I remember that the highlight, the really CRAZY thing my friends and I did on the Grade 9 band trip was go to a mall and watch Jecr (Euphonium) get her ears pierced - AGAINST HER MOTHER'S WISHES!!! We LIED and said she was 16!!! But she was only 14!! HA HA!!! GOD, we were wild!!!
Nowadays, I bet kids get nipple piercings done on band trips.
Another thing I remember about the band trip is how good the other band was. Like, we thought we were a good band - compared to other Grade 9 bands in Edmonton at the time, we really were the shit. But this Victoria band - they were the BIG shit. I'd experienced feelings of inferiority on a personal level, but never before had I questioned the supremacy of our band. It was an uncomfortable feeling, rather how one feels when one discovers that Furtles give one gas.
The point is that I am really looking forward to seeing Victoria through adult eyes (which now include glasses) and breathing the ocean air through an adult mouth (which no longer contains braces). I hope you all have a fabulous Solstice and/or any other religious holidays you choose to observe. I'll do my best to keep you posted on our activities and who knows? Perhaps this time next year, you'll be able to buy a Dr. K and The Repeaters - Window Crackin' Christmas CD for your loved ones! Watch this space for further updates.
