Quitting one’s current environment on such perfunctory words as “I’m outta here!” is normally indicative of one of two more penetrating circumstances. Either you’re reluctantly in a hurry to depart from an otherwise fruitful coalition; or you’re making haste to escape a predominantly disquieting communion. As in the case of most alternatives the message is seldom “mixed” so to speak; rather, the departure on one of those bipolar terms usually leaves an unequivocal and evincible conclusion.
Yet as socially Spartan as it may be to employ “I’m outta here!” as an austere and seemingly unbending proclamation, it nonetheless bespeaks sufficiency for reconsideration and reactivation. The mere starkness of the utterance serendipitously enables the possibility of amplitude, dimension and volume; which is to say moderation or change of a broad and unanticipated magnitude. The luxurious seam of patience is little more than its passage of time. Expressing or expostulating “I’m outta here!” therefore enables the parties on both extremities of the perceived disorder to ponder and absorb the full coherence of what has lately expired. This often proves to be a welcome collateral either because it magically preserves what may have been a thoroughy delightful encounter; or, alternatively because it effortlessly quells what may have been a manifestly unpleasant occurrence. In either instance the outcome is profitable. The sometimes paradoxical result is yet another remarkable example of the complication of life and our capacity for unwittingly turning things on their head!
So too for example today we reciprocated to my family the buoyancy yesterday of their Dragonfly Wingman recommendation. By way of introduction to this possibly circuitous route, allow me to note that within the past several weeks I have cogitated upon an appropriate birthday gift for my erstwhile physician who is returning via Newark from South Africa on his birthday. After departing my relatives this afternoon (following delivery to them of their own Dragonfly Wingman), we chanced to visit Equator Coffee House in town. The shop was out of chocolate croissants so I opted instead for what I subsequently learned are called Trail Mix muffins. Jacob (the barista) informed me that the muffins are a take on Morning Glory muffins about which I found this on-line intelligence:
These wholesome morning glory muffins are my very favorite muffin variety. Filled with healthy ingredients like whole wheat flour, flax, apples, carrots, raisins, applesauce, and honey, these cinnamon-spiced muffins taste like apple cake, spice cake, and moist carrot cake combined. (And for breakfast!) There’s plenty of substitution suggestions here, so you can truly make them your own.
This culinary account only begins to capture the rapture! The Trail Mix muffins of Equator Coffee in Almonte are made in-house and on-site. And they have succeeded to surpass my adoration of donuts of any description or of carrot cake from Antrim Truck Stop or of sticky buns from Pan Chancho Barkery in Kingston! We’re talking serious business here!
Anyway…this diversion led me to the Equator Coffee web site from which I saw that they retail the Breville Barista Express espresso machine. This was my invitation to share my own recommendation with my immediate family. And I did so accordingly. Including a less than parenthetic reference to the muffins. Meanwhile I appropriated to my own purposes the new-found knowledge of the Dragonfly Wingman. It was the ideal gift for the man who has everything! It was that birthday gift I had been looking for!
The exhilaration of the moment had us suddenly clapping our hands and singing the accompanying nonesense.
“Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” is a song composed by Allie Wrubel with lyrics by Ray Gilbert for the Disney 1946 live action and animated movie Song of the South, sung by James Baskett. For “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah”, the film won the Academy Award for Best Original Song and was the second Disney song to win this award, after “When You Wish upon a Star” from Pinocchio (1940). In 2004, it finished at number 47 in AFI’s 100 Years…100 Songs, a survey of top tunes in American cinema.
But our animation had its own alternative celebrity,
“Song of the South” is considered Disney’s most racist movie, with a romanticized view of plantation life and patronizing depiction of Black characters. Disney has excluded “Song of the South” from its streaming platform Disney+ and will not include it in its new boxset due to its deeply ingrained problematic content.
It all came full circle once again, uniting the present and the past, the routine and the novel, the here and there, the now and then. And all this was the consequence of a Dragonfly Wingman from the company begun by Leonard Lee who lived in Almonte and to whom (as Leonard informed me when we first met in my law office many, many years ago) my father was once his superior officer.
Zip-a-dee-doo-dah zip-a-dee-a
My oh my, what a wonderful day
Plenty of sunshine headed my way
Zip-a-dee-doo-dah zip-a-dee-a
Mister blue bird’s on my shoulder
It’s the truth
It’s actual
Everything is satisfactual
Zip-a-dee-doo-dah zip-a-dee-a
Wonderful feeling
Wonderful Day
Yes sir
Zip-a-dee-doo-dah zip-a-dee-a
My oh my, what a wonderful day
O plenty of sunshine headed my way
Zip-a-dee-doo-dah zip-a-dee-a
Songwriters: Ray Gilbert / Allie Wrubel / Ken Darby
Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah lyrics © Walt Disney Music Company, Santly-joy Inc