SCIENCE AND NON-SCIENCE

Get a bunch of kids and adults and insects and lego thingies and yummy treats and mix them all together and you get  ̶  the Science North Roadshow.

I wandered down to Marina Park this morning and came upon a tent village on the sward. “Sward” is the unscientific name for grass.

The first tent I ducked into had a horde of enthusiasts. Each live specie of bug was caged in its own glass box. Couldn’t spot any scorpions or tarantulas. Kids loved the twig with legs that was allowed to scoot up their arms.

Other kids fabricated a tiny soapbox (that’s a wheeled vehicle) and dropped it down a ramp. Some pre-schoolers  constructed “boats” from tongue depressers and pushed them around in a water trough. I was asked if I wanted to try making one, but claimed I had a water phobia. One demonstrator showed me that squeezing an inflated  balloon between a board and a bed of nails, left the balloon intact  ̶  if the nails were of equal length. If they weren’t, then close your eyes.

Meanwhile, a trio of performers danced around onstage, ignored by the spectators.

There were a couple of information booths unrelated to the science fair, and a plethora of food booths. The crowd was mighty thin, though, so nobody got fat. There was the odd booth selling merchandise. A lady asked me if I wanted one of her dresses, but I begged off, because my legs weren’t tanned. She’s a seamstress, makes her own, sells them at pow-wows. This same lady claimed to be a psychic, so we chatted for a while.

Lady Psychic was very engaging. She quoted me fifty bucks for a reading, and I swallowed hard. Now, I had a good experience years ago with a psychic at the market at The Forks in Winnipeg. He told me that I was a soldier in a previous life. I had been a British lieutenant during the Great War, but I died. Well, that was true  ̶  if I lived in that era, I was surely dead.

So, I was open to her proposition. First, I had to pass my hand over half a dozen decks of cards. When I felt warmth, I selected that deck. Then I had to shuffle the deck of Tarot cards three times and rap on it. She wasn’t happy with my shuffling so she shuffled the deck a dozen times and neglected to rap on it.

Then Lady Psychic dealt a half dozen or so cards face up. Don’t ask me what they represented. But she told me amazing things about myself. I suffered from no stress. I led a comfortable life. I was married. I had a son. My son had a daughter. I was in love.

She asked me my age and acted surprised. She didn’t comment on my wedding band.

She asked me if I had a mistress. I said, “I’m not telling”. To each comment or question, I limited my feedback as much as I could. She concluded I loved my wife very much.

She said that at one period in my life, I suffered a tremendous stress. She hit the nail on the head. I was amazed.

Finally, she asked me to think of three questions to which the answers were either yes or no. Without asking the question out loud, she provided me the answer first.

She kept dealing cards. Her first response: Yes, but later on. Then she asked me to articulate the question. The first question was: Will I ever find a traditional publisher?

Her second response: Yes. My question: Will I ever visit the Yukon again?

Her third response: Yes, definitely. My question: Will I ever take a long canoe trip again?

Then I had to make a silent wish. Her answer: Yes. She didn’t ask me to articulate my wish.

I reserve the right to plead the fifth on my wish.

At one point she examined my palms, rejected one, and accepted the other. Nothing she said contradicted anything else she had said.

So, after twenty minutes, my fifty bucks was used up. Amazingly, nothing in her remarks or her answers left me with anything but a positive, pleasant feeling. It was fifty bucks well spent.

I recommend everyone try it.