Great Balls Of Portent

/ Diane Henders

Every now and then I think to myself, “Diane, maybe it’s time you grew up. Seriously, you’re a fifty-year-old woman. Don’t you think it’s time you stopped snickering at farts and tasteless double entendres? Even teenagers aren’t as dirty-minded as you.”

And just about the time I take a deep breath and decide to squelch my baser nature and write nothing but G-rated blog posts forever more, I find an anatomically correct building.  (And it’s Canajen, eh?)  Newmarket Health Centre in Ontario, Canada, was kindly brought to my attention by the CTV news team: http://toronto.ctvnews.ca/aerial-view-of-anatomically-correct-newmarket-health-centre-sparks-jokes-worldwide-1.2254688.

I don’t care how innocent and/or politically correct you are, there’s only one thing that building resembles.

It was built in 1951 and nobody seems to recall who the architect was. He (I use the male pronoun because it seems the most probable) just couldn’t have drawn up those plans without recognizing the likeness. And the terracotta-coloured scrotum is the biggest joke of all – there’s no way that was accidental. It sticks out like a sore… um… never mind.

The architect probably thought he was safe in perpetrating his practical joke. After all, there was no Google Earth or satellite view available to the general public in the 50s. But now his puerile sense of humour is, erm, exposed, for all to see.

I think it’s hilarious, but remember I was innocent in this. I didn’t go looking for the likeness on my own – even I am not so twisted that I scour aerial maps in the hope of finding suggestively-shaped buildings. Nope; fate just dumped this article in my lap. So to speak.

Coincidence, right?

I think not.

Exactly a day after the Newmarket Man showed up in my news feed, my friend Chris sent me a link to “the tastiest balls you’ll ever put in your mouth”.  If you want to try ‘em, the recipe is here:  http://www.mtlblog.com/2015/02/poutine-poppers-are-the-mini-mouthgasm-you-need-to-eat-now/#

Needless to say, the tagline incited a few comments, largely focusing on the quantity of comparative research required in order to authoritatively apply the superlative. (Or, as we boorish types put it: “How many balls has he actually tasted?”)

Again, there’s really no polite and wholesome way to take this. Unless you were raised in a social vacuum by a Victorian nanny, a tagline like that is going to make you laugh. Or choke, I guess.

But my point is this: These two items popped up completely unsolicited, only a day apart, immediately after I’d considered cleaning up my act. They’re clearly a message from some higher (or probably lower) power: A clean mind just isn’t in the cards for me.

Since omens frequently arrive in threes, I waited with bated breath to see if fate would offer me any more family jewels. But, nope; that was it for this week.

When I think about it, though, I guess it makes sense. Balls generally come in pairs.

Did you get any portents this week?

P.S. I just realized it’s been nearly three whole years since I last wrote a post about balls: https://blog.dianehenders.com/2012/05/02/oh-balls/. Maybe my mind is cleaner than I think. But probably not.

40 thoughts on “Great Balls Of Portent”

  1. It is nice to imagine the architect designing that building all at one time but I suspect it grew bit by bit and as you say, it wasn’t until Google came along that anyone noticed. It sure beats the smiley face I found in Kyiv on Google Earth.

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    • That’s probably the right explanation. But even if it was created piecemeal, somebody should have been looking at the overall design at some point. I still kinda like the idea of some architect with a twisted sense of humour giggling away to himself. 😉

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  4. 1. A little known fact is that there were plans for an anatomically correct female building. In time, the builders hoped that there would be offspring buildings but, alas, when told to put it “next to the man,” they heard “next to the mall” and built it next to the mall in Edmonton and you don’t want to know what resulted from that “union.”

    2. Whenever I hear balls, I immediately think of Saturday Night Live’s Schweddy Balls skit:

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  6. “Gee, Mr. Architect, the girls in the secretarial pool all wanted me to tell you that you have a nice, er, rotunda, but your, er, portico is too short.”

    “Well, you must understand, young lady, that back in the ’50s, we designed with slide rules, and mine is a 12-incher!”

    There. We’re back on topic now. 🙂

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    • Bahahaha!! Where were you when I was languishing in architectural meetings trying to stay awake? If I’d been having naughty thoughts about rotundas and porticos, those meetings would have been far more entertaining.

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        • Thankth! I got lots of plotting done today and I’m up almost 1,000 words since this afternoon. Looking forward to a half-day of writing tomorrow before it’s back to the boring grind of daily responsibilities. I was reading a short piece on Nora Roberts a few days ago, and her only responsibility is to write 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. No marketing, no publishing, no website design, no bookkeeping, no cover design; just plotting and writing. I keep imagining how much I could get done if I got to write every day… but I’d probably miss having my fingers in all the other pies if that actually happened. 😉

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          • Exactly. If ya gotta punch a time clock, it’s just a job. The way I do it, it’s still fun. But then, actually finishing something might be fun, too. And maybe getting it published. And maybe, dare I say it, getting paid. I may be having just a little too much fun with writing. Ya think? 🙂

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            • Nah. I don’t think it’s possible to have too much fun writing! Finishing is fun, too, but first you have to define “finished” (which can be an interesting conundrum). Publishing is just drudgery from start to finish. But getting paid is a lot of fun… 😉

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  7. Oh lordy, Diane, do not EVER change. I need your wit and wisdom and flair, it keeps my own insanity in place. When I was 13 we lived around a whole community, it seemed, of old people, they had to be mostly in their 70’s on up, LOL. I used to pet sit for several of them. I always thought how sad it was to get old. Bare in mind that my own parents were old, I was a surprise package when my Mom was about 46-47, they just never seemed that way. One older couple had this little Chihuahua named Louis. Most spoiled dog ever, but I got $1.50 and hour to sit with him. That was big bucks back then. The lady was gray haired and it went down to her hips, the man also had long hair and he wore beads. She wrote articles for some travel magazine and they were the most fun to be around. She would actually pay me to come brush her hair! I would have done it for free just to hear her talk about their travels and people they met, but she insisted on paying me. She would actually listen to me too, how weird is that! I changed my mind about getting old, it’s all in how you view it. State of mind kind of thing. Age is just a number anyway. You have the right mind set Diane, it wouldn’t be fair to the world for you to change now. That’s it, Diane, think of the world, for it’s betterment. and all that stuff.

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    • Aw, thanks! When you put it that way, it seems that my duty is clear. I shall leave good taste and propriety to others and dance merrily into the welcoming embrace of depravity. I like it there. It’s comfortable. 😉

      And what a great memory – your elderly friends sound like fascinating people! Where I grew up it seemed as though everybody was following the same template. Everybody over ‘a certain age’ looked the same, sounded the same and thought the same. I wish I’d known some renegades like your friends!

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  9. When I saw the article about the building earlier this week i cracked up. I think that architect whomever he was had quite the sense of fun. Would they not see this on the blueprints?
    You seem to be a magnet for this stuff Diane. 50 is the new 16 they say. 🙂

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  10. That MTL Blog is pretty racy. I did some clicking around and found an article titled “French Toast Bagel Bites Are The Mouth Orgasm You Need.” Wow, I didn’t know that could be a thing. Anyway, what I want to know is, do they play ball at the health centre? 😉

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  12. OMG-that is hilarious! I hope the architect steps forward to take credit. I love the thought of buildings designed to look like something else from the air. We have a funny-looking dental school building; there’s an urban legend that it’s supposed to look like a molar from the air (if you look at it with an open mind it kind of does). But an anatomically correct man-shaped building, that was just now noticed? Priceless!!! Rotflol!!!

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    • I just can’t believe nobody said anything about it before! I’m not sure whether it’s just another instance of Canadian politeness where everybody noticed but didn’t want to say anything, or whether it’s the best-kept architectural secret of the previous century. Either way, it makes me laugh!

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  13. Are you sure that wasn’t some monstrous male alien robot that dropped from the sky? My human read the post, loved it – his comment was, “May we never waste a wonderful, properly corrupted mind!”

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    • Aw, thanks! 🙂 And hey, you’re right – it could be a big alien. Though if it is, that leaves me feeling a tad concerned about all the folks who’ve been trotting in and out of its orifices since 1951. Poor alien…

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