Tag Archives: Fun

Getting Out of My Head with Betty

My head is usually pretty full.  Thoughts just zoom in, and some of them end up in my blog posts.  Of course there are the empty times too, when silence falls down around me, but mostly the wheels are turning.  I think of this author or that – a spiritual master, a philosopher, Stephen King, and what they have to say.  Some awfully deep stuff.  Sometimes, as an alternative, you just have to consult undercover sages such as Dr. Seuss, or in this case, Mother Goose:

Betty Botter bought some butter
“But,” she said, “the butter’s bitter
If I put it in my batter
It will make my batter bitter
But a bit of better butter
That would make my batter better”

So she bought a bit of butter
Better than her bitter butter
And she put it in her batter
And the batter was not bitter
So twas better Betty Botter
Bought a bit of better butter

Really – who needs bitter butter in this lifetime?  Not me.  Except it just seems to spread over us when we least expect it.  As an antidote, and in the interest of better butter, why don’t you launch into this beloved poem (out loud of course)?  And then do it really fast, so your words start tumbling out faster than your brain can handle, and you come to a screeching halt.  It’s awful fun.  And a sure way to let go of metaphysical insights, at least for awhile.

I used to recite “Twas the Night Before Christmas” to classes of children.  When I started doing it super fast (in about a minute and a half), the kids ate it up – roaring laughter and just plain glee on the faces.  On mine too.

So … tongue twisters are now officially part of my repertoire.  At my next cocktail party, I’ll be sure to recite until my mouth foams up and my teeth fall out of my face.  Except I don’t go to any cocktail parties.  Oh well.  The folks in line at the supermarket will do just fine.

Fun

I use a simple test to see if I want to spend time with a certain person.  It’s totally non-scientific but has been remarkably accurate as a precursor to friendship.  After I’ve talked to him or her a couple of times, I start observing whether they ever use the word “fun”.  “Yes” means my kind of folks.  “No”, and I wonder whether we’d enjoy hanging out together down the road.

Here’s a delightful story about the Dalai Lama.  I might just mosey over to Tim Hortons with him for an herbal tea, if the opportunity ever presented itself.

***

My friend Sid once placed a Groucho Marx mask in a hotel room where the Dalai Lama would be staying during a visit to an Ivy League university.  It was a gesture of karmic abandon because, really, who could gauge the terrestrial and spiritual consequences of such an act?

So imagine this: a cascade of university bureaucrats arrayed in the Dalai Lama’s suite, waiting for their guest to appear.  They sit erect in armchairs designed for slouching.

Minutes pass and then a door flings open.  Unaccountably, Groucho Marx – wearing long, maroon robes and serious lace-up shoes – emerges, chuckling loudly, laughing so hard that tears come to his bespectacled eyes.

How do people react when a dignitary – especially of a spiritual kind – does something so, well, undignified?  Intrigued, I call up the university official in charge of the visits of the accomplished and the famous and the presidential.  She clearly is not a woman easily impressed.  How did she feel, I asked, at the Groucho Moment?  At first, she tells me, she didn’t know how to react.  And then she and everyone started to laugh at the wonderful absurdity of the situation, laughed with a joy and incaution uncharacteristic of people in their position.

The Dalai Lama didn’t care about maintaining his image.  He saw a chance for fun, for deflating others’ expectations, and he took it.  And he just somehow knew whom to thank.  Wagging his finger at Sid, he took off the mask, still laughing.  Even His Holiness needs a little Groucho in his life.

***

I know a fellow who:

-joshes with the cashiers and customers at the supermarket
-heads to Costco at Hallowe’en in full costume
-wears silly t-shirts (such as the picture of a bone accompanied by “I found this humerus”)
-applauds as he watches a concert from his family room couch
-yells down the sewer on the playground at recess for a kid to “Come up here immediately!”
-has named his fantasy children Dollop, Puce, Inkling and Squirm
-dances in a rather odd way, with his feet flying out in all directions

The guy’s sort of weird, but I like him.  He likes me too.