THE BALLAD OF THE AIRPLANE SPECIAL MEAL

International readers; this is Canada Day weekend, a long weekend to celebrate this country’s birthday, which is July First. We at Mango Pudding Blues are spending this weekend in Montreal. For you, sadly, we have only this little poem, written by someone at Air Canada, with punctuation by us.

The Ballad of the Airplane Special Meal

Asian vegetarian baby
bland ulcer children
diabetic fruit.

Plate gluten, free hindu
kosher low, calorie low, fat low
cholesterol low.

Sodium moslem non
lactose oriental strict
vegetarian lacto.
Ovo végétarien!

We know it’s not much, but it will have to do. We expect a return to regular programming next week. Oh, and a big shout-out to our recent reader from Thailand. We’ve been there, you know, and loved it more than we can ever say.

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CONFUSION

You know when you are with a grown-up and the grown-up gets confused? About something simple like where he left his sunglasses or whether the checkout girl in the drugstore is addressing him or not? And you say to yourself, ‘that’s so pathetic. I hope I never get confused when I’m old. Doesn’t he know he’s confused?’

Yes. Well, now that we at Mango Pudding Blues are ourselves undeniably all grown up, we admit to occasionally finding ourselves a little confused about things. Sometimes we are there, sans sunglasses, mildly addled in the lineup at the drugstore, having handed the wrong money to the checkout girl and just being ensconsed so thouroughly within the cloud nine of our little Mango Pudding world that it takes quite some prodding to snap us back to earth. And when it happens, we make a point of snarling at the young people around us, and we are hoping our snarls deliver this message; yes, we know we are confused. Fuck off.

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RETURN BEND

Yes, we are back from the past. What did we learn?

1) The two pointy things centered on the top and bottom of the forward outside of the cockpit of some helicopters, particularly military ones, are there to cut through power lines should the helicopter become entangled. As you know if you have ever jumped out of a plane, power lines are rather difficult to see from the air.

2) Our bocce playing, like our mood, swings wildly from excellent to horrible. We are not known, here at Mango Pudding Blues, for our consistency.

3) Our secret ambition is fully realizable.

4) Butter chicken really is good.

5) Love is real.

Bonus note to members of the Mango Pudding Blues Book Club: We are currently reading Timothy Taylor’s Stanley Park, and wish to announce that it has the goods.

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