Cold hearted indeed

Sneriously, look into his eyes.
Uh oh, he’s been tellin’ lies.
Ah, Paula, how well you compose. Those were the glory days, before the painkillers, before Emilio ditched your ass.
But while life is full of riches and devoid of happiness for some, my life is quite the opposite these days.
This week, for example, was full of stories. As the rain came down, I giggled with glee. As backyards flooded, were washed wholly away, my fingers sailed along the keyboard, typey-type-type-type.
Is there another job that revels so much in the misery of others?
I can’t be happy standing in back of somebody’s dream home — a home I’ll never be able to afford — and snapping shots at the devastation caused by a river that opted to switch courses and traverse through the decadent landscaping, and sail right on through the back windows.
No, I can’t be happy.
But how boring it would be if all I managed to do was write forgettable missives about 100th birthday parties, school plays and new businesses.
Why, I think I’d shoot myself.
So this week was one to rejoice in my career choice. And now it’s raining once more, and because of this next week is looking up as well.
Also on the agenda this week was a trip to the local veterinarian — no, not for me, I get my teeth cleaned at the mechanics.
A reptile enthusiast, this local vet was asked by the Vancouver SPCA to care for a seized albino Burmese Python. The snake had been left alone for a month in a Vancouver storefront, with no food and no water.
Apparently, however, these constrictors can last eons without nourishment, but it’s not recommended they go without water. So, while it’s not fairing too badly, the beast is still under observation locally, and on Wednesday I got a chance to visit the scaly thing’s temporary digs.
The python weighs in at 70 pounds or so, and stretches out a mere nine and a half feet.
And, according to the vet, “it’s pissed.” Snakes don’t like commotion, it turns out, and, being much like myself, don’t enjoy being bandied about from place to place.
They’re homebodies, really.
It was actually growling, and at points sounded more like a kettle blithering about on a hot stove than the clichéd hissing one would expect. I had no idea snakes were such noisy creatures.
At one point it coiled back and the vet asked politely for me to move. I stepped back immediately, and as I did so it lunged toward the camera.
Very cool in retrospect, but I nearly wet myself at the time.
At the end of the day I’m a bit girly. I didn’t mind getting close to the coiler, but I didn’t attempt to touch or hold the beast.

Hips don't lie

One dark and stormy night at a Greek restaurant in Burnaby, the writer sat, nibbling at pita bread, chatting amiably with the five other newswomen who had gathered to gossip, enjoy a meal, share some laughs.
Giggling, moaning about men, bosses, co-workers and pregnancy (not the writer’s, rest assured), the women barely noticed the slight Greek pop music playing through tinny speakers.
But wait!
Suddenly, as a flash of lightning punctuates a really scary movie, the volume soared, the lights dimmed, and all at once the women turned to see what had caused the fuss.
No! It couldn’t be!
But it was, it really, really was.
Glancing to the left, to the main dining area, the women caught a flash of blue, and then, before they knew what happened, the shining blueness turned.
This was not an apparition, not a dazzling genie here to grant their demands.
This was a shocking beast, more ferocious than Robert Deniro in Raging Bull, more frightening than Queen Latifah in Chicago.
A male belly dancer.
“No!” they shouted.
“Yes!” his hips seemed to reply.
“Egads!” The women shouted in unison, knowing the exclamation would only bring the beast closer didn’t help to contain their shock.
Upon spying the women he approached, mistaking their cry of alarm for a shout of pleasure, misunderstanding their looks of astonishment for appreciative glances.
Sequins glimmering, oiled body glistening in the candle light, hips swaying back, forth, jutting with each slap of the finger cymbal he carried as his weapon, he grew ever nearer.
Closer he got until the stench of his cologne overpowered, until the reek of hairspray and cosmetics made the women nearly cough up the recently ingested hummus.
“Don’t make eye contact,” the writer whispered to her colleagues. “Just look away.”
“I hate white rabbits, I hate white rabbits, I hate white rabbits,” was being mumbled by the woman to the writer’s right.
But, like videos portraying pregnant ladies dressed up as clowns and high on hallucinogens, the women couldn’t look away, no matter the consequence.
Just then, the writer glanced up in time to see the beast, the bangle-bedecked man place himself behind the chair of the woman directly across the table, and with a few quick slaps of the cymbals, he juts his hips into her chair, forcing her head forward, once, twice, three times — NO MORE!
He stops, spent, turns away, and from beneath fake lashes, the writer can see his eyes dart about the room, looking for the next victim.
There are so many to choose from. Will you be next?

Sorta see the resemblance

Did you know?
Did you know that the leading cause of blindness is — wait for it — battery explosions?
That’s right. Sitting in the line up at the Albion Ferry on Thursday night, one of the attendants busted out some gigantic Motomaster battery charger machine to give some juice to a stalled vehicle when I overheard her impart this bit of wisdom.
And here I though masturbation was behind all the bumping into walls. Sheesh, learn something from a ferry every day.
And then I arrived at work the next day to this: “Did you know the guy who plays David Bowie’s assistant in The Prestige is the same guy who played Gollum?”
Now, I could have, as one member of the work crew did, pretended to know this little bit of tripe, this smidgen of non-important information, but I didn’t.
I’m not averse to displaying my ignorance. Heck, I know a lot of things, but no, I had no idea the guy who played David Bowie’s assistant in The Prestige was the same guy who played Gollum.
I should have known, considering I’m a huge Gollum fan myself, have posters, life-size plush toys, the lunchbox/thermos set, and the telephone shaped like him that says “My precious” when it rings…get it, rings, in like Lord of the Rings. Gawd I’m hilarious.
It’s funny the things a person recalls through life, the things we will never forget. The things that stick with us and pop up randomly, whether it is through some obscure Jeopardy! question, or while watching a much edited version of Joe Dirt on TBS.
Did you know that raccoons don’t have salivary glands? That’s why they wash their food before they eat it.
That little bit of trivia comes straight from Mrs. Marples Grade 1 class at Fraserview Elementary School, circa 1984.
Did you know that the really popular girls from high school will invariably end up skinny, sporting low self-esteem and drug abusing ex-husbands 10 years later? That little bit of info comes courtesy of the class of 1996 Mission Secondary Grad Reunion.
Did you know that, I, Danna Bach, know more about random celebrities than I do my closest friends?
For instance, I know that the other day Paris Hilton was found driving with a suspended licence, I know that Jessica Biel had to leave a Stella McCartney fashion show because she was hung-over from a raging party the night before, and I know that Jennifer Garner is staying in White Rock as she films in Vancouver.
I don’t know what my friends are doing this weekend, if they’re having relationship problems or if they’ve seen any good movies lately.
But I know that Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams are on the rocks.
Why do I know these things, and does knowing them make me a bad person, or just a shallow one?