There was a full moon last week, and some full moon things happened.

On Wednesday night, I woke up at 2:30 in the morning from a dream in which somebody threw something at my head. I ducked and shouted in a strangled sort of way, and that woke me up. I was lying there wide awake trying to remember who threw the thing at my head and what the thing was, and then the phone rang.

“How odd,” I thought as I answered the phone.

It was somebody I dated for a month 18 years ago. He lives in Vancouver. He was calling to tell me that the Vancouver police, the Mexican police and the Russian police were all after him, and his former empl0yer, the BC Children’s Hospital, had bought his apartment building and filled it with people who would terrorize him.

“So what’s new at your end?” he asked.

“Oh, not much,” I replied. We chatted a bit more about police brutality and spy agencies, and then said goodbye.

“How odd,” I thought as I hung up the phone.

He called again at 3:30 am to apologize for how he treated me 18 years ago, to tell me he loved me, and to ask me to come out to Vancouver to help him.

“What kind of help do you think you need?” I asked.

“I need a criminologist,” he said beseechingly.

“I’m a webmaster,” I replied.

“You used to be a criminologist,” he said, “I need you to help me. Please come. I miss you. I’d love to show you the mountains. I’ll even pitch in on your airfare, although I shouldn’t have to because you’re a criminologist so you make a lot more than I do. I don’t think it’s fair of you to ask me to share the cost.”

“How odd,” I thought again.

He called back at 5:00 in the morning, but I didn’t answer. I haven’t heard from him since, and I notice the moon is waning now.

That was one of the full moon things.

The other one: I was walking to the Parkdale Market when a man with a white shirt perched on top of his head stopped me on the street.

“I need ling,” he said.

“Ling?” I asked.

“Ling. You know.”

“Ling? I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” I said.

“Lady,” he said, “I need lady. You know. Pussy.”

“Oh,” I said, pleased with myself for finally understanding, “Pussy!”

“Yes, yes!” he said excitedly.

“I”m sorry,” I said, “I cannot help you. But good luck.”

I started to walk away.

“Wait, wait!” he called after me, “Money! I need money!”

The third thing – perhaps not quite full-moonish, but an odd little coincidence:

As you may recall, I saved a wasp’s life last monday. A day or two later, I heard a lot of excitement down on the sidewalk below my balcony. It was two of the neighbourhood ruffians and they’d taken it upon themselves to rid the neighbourhood of wasp nests. They found one in my tree and somehow managed to whack it with a stick and break it in half and run away without getting stung. Later they returned to inspect the nest and pose for photographs. Meet my buddies Dakota and Daniel: I like these guys a lot, even though they kill wasps.

I’ve since heard that *somebody* in the neighbourhood is going around with a can of hair spray and a lighter, and it has *something* to do with wasp-hunting. My source wouldn’t name names, but I have my suspicions.

Yesterday’s trip to the farm reminded me of when my son, Jamie, was about two and a half years old and he suddenly declared: “I need to touch a pig.”

“Why?” I asked.

“I like pigs,” he said.

Having known Jamie for two and a half years, I knew this could go one of two ways. Either he would completely forget about needing to touch a pig within minutes, or he would not rest until I produced a touchable pig. I decided to wait and see.

The next day: “I need to touch a pig.”

The next day: “I need to touch a pig NOW.”

The next day: “When is my pig?”

On Saturday morning I suggested we go to the library.

“Ok,” said Jamie, “After I touch the pig.”

Hmm. The pig was not going away, this much was clear.

If we were going to touch a pig, we needed wheels. I called in a favour.

“Gus,” I said, “Jamie needs to touch a pig.”

“Why?” asked Gus.

“He likes pigs,” I said. “I know a pig farmer in Kinburn. Can you drive us?”

“Of course,” he said.

So we drove to Kinburn, where I had spent the last few years of my childhood. I used to babysit the pig farmer’s three children when I was 13 and they were 1, 2 and 3. They named their dog after me.

The pig farmer, Jim, came out of the barn as we pulled into the yard. It had been 10 years, but he remembered me.

“This is my son Jamie,” I said, “He needs to touch a pig.”

“Why?” asked Jim.

“I like pigs,” said Jamie.

Jim surveyed my two-year-old, and I suddenly flashed back on him surveying the squeaky-clean city kids who came to the farm on field trips and didn’t even know what bailer twine was.

“Oh,” said Jim, “Ok, wait here. I’ll get one.”

Jamie wriggled with anticipation as Jim disappeared into the barn. Moments later he emerged with a fat, angry, squealing piglet under his arm. It was having the piglet equivalent of a temper tantrum and it was thrashing wildly and making a terrible noise.

Jamie took one look at the screaming piglet, stepped backwards, put his hands firmly behind his back and said, “I don’t like pigs. Let’s go to the library.”

He’s 23 now. He has never touched a pig.

Yesterday I went out to buy a bicycle pump and some groceries. When I got home, I started to put the groceries away. But look what I found in my fridge:

That’s right, relish.

I don’t eat relish and I’m pretty sure I don’t own any relish. Even if I did own relish, it wouldn’t suddenly be front and center in my fridge. I live alone. Nobody has a key to my apartment except my landlord, which is a corporation. In the 8 years I’ve had this landlord, they’ve never entered my apartment and put something in my fridge. Apart from the relish, nothing else is amiss. There’s no relish-smeared knife in the sink, no hotdog bun crumbs on the counter. Everything else is exactly as I left it.

Weird, eh?

This is a documentary about a group of children in Calcutta’s Red Light District. Photographer Zana Briski was documenting their mothers’ lives and became interested in the children, who in turn showed interest in her cameras. She equipped them all with cameras and provided them with ongoing photography lessons.

The children were enthusiastic and prolific photographers. Some of them showed considerable talent. But, regardless of their talent or potential, their futures were quite clearly cut out for them: they were going to follow in their parents’ footsteps because theirs was a world devoid of opportunity. Childhood is short and often brutal in Calcutta. The girls would soon be prostitutes. The boys would be pimps and drug dealers.

Perhaps there’s a universal quality of irrepressible joy to childhood, because these children seem just as happy as the children on my street. When they smile, they seem lit from within. You get the sense they know what the future holds for them, but they’re resilient and philosophical about it. They don’t expect much from life, so they’re not easily disappointed. On the other hand, it doesn’t take much to brighten their lives. They seize every opportunity to be happy.

Of all the children, Avijit is the one most graced by luck and talent. He draws, paints, photographs and philosophizes well beyond his years. He is also surprisingly ambitious for a boy growing up in the slums of Calcutta. But after his mother is burned to death in the kitchen by her pimp, Avajit surrenders briefly to hopelessness. “There is nothing called hope in my future,” he says.

Throughout all their hardships, these children smile. They glow. They play in the little pockets of time they get to themselves. They fly kites from the rooftops, where they are sent to play while their mothers and grandmothers earn money in the rooms below. They grow like weeds out of the cracks in the sidewalk, somehow surviving and thriving despite a lack of everything children supposedly need.

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Note: If you do rent the DVD, keep the kleenex box handy and be sure to watch the bonus bits.