Today I was watching Twitter hashtags from two separate events. Both were notionally on a similar topic, but the difference in tone was striking and it clarified something for me.

There are two kinds of events that nonprofits tend to have.

In the first, a select or invited group of people who aren’t terribly conversant with the realities of the work get together to talk about how wonderful they all are and what great work they’re doing. They know they’re doing great work because they keep inviting each other to events, and they keep getting invited so they must be doing great work because that’s the point of the events, right?

In the second, a group of people who really grok the situation get together to talk about how they can work within awkward structures and systems (within reality, really) to make things incrementally better, or at least prevent them from getting worse. This group looks at who’s in the room, is delighted to recognize very few people, worries about who’s not there, and sees its main work as turning apparent answers into better questions.

The problem is that the people at the first kind of event really need to be at the second, and vice versa.

M, singing:

L, O, double-L I, P-O-P spells lollipop, lollipop
That’s the only decent kind of candy, candy
Man who made it musta been a dandy, dandy
L, O, double-L I, P-O-P spells lollipop, lollipop
It’s a lick on a stick guaranteed to make you sick
Lollipop for me!

C, A, SS E R, O-L-E spells casserole, casserole
That’s the only decent kind of medicine, medicine
Man who made it musta been an Edison, Edison
C, A, SS E R, O-L-E spells casserole, casserole
It’s a lick on a spoon guaranteed to make you swoon
Casserole for me!

Me: What? A casserole is dinner, not medicine!
M: I know, but that’s how the song goes!
Me: I think it’s supposed to be castor oil. C, A, S-T-O-R, O-I-L spells castor oil.
M: Oh.

This is a picture I did not take of a man in his late 50s in a beat-up burgundy car with all the windows down, driving down Bloor Street on a warm November afternoon belting out Rod Stewart’s Maggie May with great feeling and much volume, slightly out of tune.

Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

As I was sitting on an Air Canada “Express” plane last night, waiting for a “ramp crew” to produce a nonexistent ramp — the plane was a turboprop about two feet off the ground; the built-in stairs did nicely, but apparently we needed three “ramp crew” to smile at us and point us into the terminal ten metres away before we were allowed to exit the damn plane — I was pondering how “Express” has somehow become a synonym for “inferior PITA version of what used to be”.

Ford Prefect: How are you feeling?
Arthur Dent: Like a military academy. Bits of me keep passing out. Ford? If I were to ask you where the hell we were, would I regret it?
Ford Prefect: We’re safe.
Arthur Dent: Ah. Good.
Ford Prefect: We’re in a cabin of one of the spaceships of the Vogon Constructor Fleet.
Arthur Dent: Ah. This is obviously some strange usage of the word “safe” that I hadn’t previously been aware of.

Air Canada “Express”. Is this what Jazz has become? Except on Jazz you could get hot drinks, and you could gate-check your bags. Neither of these conveniences were available on this “Express” flight, so my perfectly legal carry on needed to be wedged very firmly under an empty seat across the aisle since they’ve apparently made both the overhead bins and the underseat area too small to fit normal carry-ons. And on a two-hour flight after five hours of meetings and a four-hour drive, we couldn’t have some tea, since they appear to have dispensed with all heating elements onboard. Then when we arrived we had to wait ten minutes before the “ramp crew” was able to supervise our descent of the three steps to the tarmac.

I’m fond of Holiday Inn Express hotels, but they’re inarguably the inferior, less nice version of Holiday Inns.

Lately my wine club has instituted an “Express” line for members. Before this line, I could walk up to the (enclosed, covered) warehouse loading dock, hand them my pick-up notice, wait three or five minutes then walk away with my wine. Now I have to go into an office, wait in line, have someone peruse my ID, wait for that someone to fuss about on the computer, and eventually be sent outside to a distant door far past the loading dock to wait outside in the rain for my wine. I have yet to spend less than twenty minutes on this “express” process.

“Express”. Feh.

I absentmindedly pick up and throw out loose elastic bands, thanks to my old cat Tigr, who ate them (elastic bands are not good for cats).

I never leave Swiss Chalet undefended on the kitchen counter, thanks to our old cat Oliver who was a fierce, fierce predator of all things Swiss Chalet.

I put my slippers on a high shelf when I take them off so Elwood can’t bite through the drawstrings, and I pick up plastic bags left on the floor so Elwood can’t pee on them (he had a serious fondness for piddling on plastic).

All these cats are gone, but I’ll probably be doing all these things until I’m 90.

We are, or at least I am, a creature of habit.

We lost one of our kitties last night. He had stones blocking his urethra that proved immovable and thus inoperable; we did the kind thing.

He was a very fine cat.

He came to us in December 2007 from a rescue, along with our other cat Jake. They thought he was from someplace near Keswick. Here’s the first picture we have of him, just when we brought him home. He was a little unsure and decided to sit by the front door, just in case.

He settled in quickly. He was a very sociable cat; if someone was home he was always in the same room with us, although I could never convince him to be a lap cat. He was loud and opinionated, especially about his food and his water dish (anyone who’s been to the bathroom in our house knows that Elwood would always come in with you and demand to have his water dish refilled), and could carry on long conversations. He was a Biter of Strings – no shoelace, window blind, jacket drawstring or other hanging cord was safe.

He would come running in the morning when he heard my alarm so he could stampede across my bladder, crawl up into my armpit and have some snuggles before the snooze alarm. He would lie on my head and purr when I had a migraine (believe it or not, this actually helps) and would nap with me when I was sick. He slept on his back with legs ridiculously askew, like an otter or a fossil.

He always ate first even though Jake was bigger. He would dig at the kitchen cupboard in which the food was kept before eating; we never figured out whether he was trying to cover or uncover his food (which was, after all, just sitting there in the open). He napped luxuriantly on the heated floor in the bathroom. He had funny little grey dots on the end of his nose. He loved lying in clean laundry and was a good sport about our house rule that if you don’t help fold, you have to wear a Cunning Hat.

He came running whenever I opened a particular desk drawer because he knew that’s where the treats are kept and quickly learned not to fight the claw-trimming that had the treats at its end. He’d always be there waiting at the front door when we came home, saying WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN and FEED ME.

He never minded being the dorkier Blues Brother.

Rest well, bud. We miss you already.

As usual, someone else has said what I wanted to say about Remembrance Day much better than I could:

The Evil That Walks By Night

There is an evil that walks by night, stalking a nurse just off the night shift, stomping a gay guy, snapping the crucifix from a headstone.

Unchecked and unchallenged, it becomes bolder, enjoying the ability to strike fear or cause pain or create suffering. Sometimes it finds like-minded companions and begins to feel safe in the daylight and to contemplate even larger evils.

When that happens, there have always been those willing to force the evil back into the night. Some of those brave men and women don’t come home, leaving families in need of help. Some return from the battles with scars it takes time to heal.

That’s where the money raised by Poppies goes. And wearing one designates you as one who understands that sometimes sacrifice is required and you respect those who chose to pay the price.

But it also marks you as one who knows that there is evil in the world and that you stand against it.