Getting My Groove Back

Some of you have remarked that I didn't maintain my usual blogging pace during the month of December. Perhaps you thought that, full of the good cheer of the season, I was inclined to go easy on the usual suspects. And while I won't deny that I freely partook of cheer over the holidays, there was a darker reason for my silence.

I have to admit that I was temporarily thrown off my game.

In my last post before Christmas, I confessed how I couldn't possibly make up anything more outrageous than Don Cherry's histrionics at Rob Ford's coronation or Bill Blair's gyrations over his involvement in the G20 civil rights abuses.

And then came the video images of Stephen Harper rocking out at the Tory caucus Christmas party. Crooning John Lennon's Imagine. Thumping out the Guess Who's Share the Land at the piano. Belting out the Stones' Jumpin' Jack Flash.

I was rendered speechless (and blogless).

For weeks afterward, I'd awake in a cold sweat. I couldn't shake the images: Tony Clement and Bev Oda getting their funk on, John Baird after a couple of ryes, Peter McKay lurking under the mistletoe.

I suspect I had a case of PTSD: Post Tory Seasonal Distemper.

But time, as they say, heals all wounds, and I have Rob Ford of all people to thank for taking my mind off these ghosts of Christmas just past.

Because this week I found myself pondering the meaning of gravy. Gravy, as in the trainloads Rob Ford claimed was in the Toronto city budget. It is, I suspect, one of those right-wing code words. Like Marie Antoinette's cake, gravy is what most people depend on for a decent life for themselves and their families. Gravy is libraries and swimming pools and social services and public housing and skating rinks and transit and after school programs and community centres. If you're a bus driver, garbage collector, or daycare worker, gravy is a living wage.

And that got me pondering the strange mental processes of Rob Ford and his allies. Fer instance: as a cure for traffic congestion on Toronto's streets, Ford eliminated the vehicle registration tax and proposed a transit fare hike and the cutting of bus routes. Seems all those cars aren't the problem, it's the buses, streetcars, and subway trains clogging the roads.

And then, only twenty-four hours later, even as I write this, it seems some magical gravy has been found and the fare increase has been called off.

Bait and switch? Cold feet? Confusion in the ranks? A sinister conspiracy?

It's good to be back to normal. In fact it's a gas.