Mrs. Bee's Tree

2011-01-30T17:18:00.000-07:00

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Paris, 2010!

2010-12-01T08:17:00.000-07:00

Brandade de Morue (hot salt cod 'paté') at Le Balbuzard - yum!

So far this trip has been absolutely jam packed. Day one, after arriving at 8:45 in the morning, we headed straight for a brasserie where I had brandade de morue (this is the perfect breakfast food after a trans-continental, trans-oceanic flight). Dean had cous cous and is still suffering order envy. The brandade as hot and salty and, of course, came with loads of bread and butter. For dinner we went somewhere else but I honestly can't remember where...such is the reality of jet lag. But I do remember the Salade Composée Italienne - ordinarie, but good!! Dean had Dorade - he did not have order-envy..

Salade Italienne, with hot chevre on toast, anchovies, tuna and salami - a light supper.

Hilarious that they think putting a spot of sauce in the eye makes it look less shocking.

We did not get out the camera last night at Astier, although I was seldom more tempted. We found this restaurant in Fodor's and took their advice. The whole meal was excellent, but it was the cheese tray that stole the show. A 16" diameter platter carrying 18 different French cheeses was brought to the table, between the main course and desert. I would likely not have tried most of these under other circumstances, crusted with weird looking molds and oozing out of their skins as they were, but I took the leap and must now become a cheese snob. I also discovered, via a guinea fowl stuffed with a mixture made from the giblets, that liver (of tiny birds) is lovely, and white pepper has its place in the world after all! I also discovered yesterday that a good pork loin stuffed with a single chorizo is a fine lunch after a morning of Rodin. Although Dean's pave de lieu faune (fancy bistro term for Pollack) also looked like a good choice.

Not an optical illusion - the stairs really are like this.

This trip has made me face one of my most persistent fears, daily. That being the fear of death by falling - down a staircase in particular. Our apartment is lovely, modern, clean, warm and bright. But the buidling itself is in real need of reepair. The staircase and landings are truly terrifying, and not just a small bit dangerous. The stair case appears to be falling inward, and the stairs themselves are worn by decades ( maybe centuries) of feet to such an extent that they tip both laterally and horizontally. The result is a staircase that could have been designed by Dali. Day by day I am becoming accustomed to leaving the apartment and stepping onto a tiled landing that slides away from the door is if to hurl you down the stairs. The worst parts of the stairs are on the inside, but the outside edges have no rails in places, and in others the rails are pulling out of the plaster. Oh well - maybe by the end of the visit I will have concurred my fear and leave here a new woman, sure on her feet.

And finally, a few pictures I took in the Rodin Museum. We were very lucky to be there on a sunny day, and you can get ridiculously close to these sumptuous sculptures.

The Kiss

Eternal Icon

Two great thinkers.

Not Rodin. This is an Egyptian piece (circa 300-350 BC) Rodin owned.

Zsa Zsa mania

2010-03-11T22:36:00.001-07:00

Yasmeene - so beautiful!!

When I was a girl - being a girl was one of two things. Being a girl. Being a non-girl. A non-girl did not do the girl thing . In fact - being a girl was what you did NOT do. No fancy stuff - no hair "product" - no pink things - no fancy jewellery - no make-up. It was the 70s. Being a "girl" was weak and silly. Nobody was that shallow. But in our hearts we all yearned to be girls - to be glamorous. Now - girls have that freedom - they can slap on the fake eyelashes and powder in their eye brows and it's okay!! Who knew. And I think it's time that my generation was allowed to be feminine without the whole shit load of guilt. So - I had the Zsa Zsa party and we were gorgeous!!; And here's the proof.....

Okay - so Sharon was not totally into the fake eyelashes but...

Cheryl - she got it - even though she's younger

omg - I wish I had the gams to wear shoes.

now - here's the real proof of need to be glam girls - me and Brenda-Lee - my gorgeous co-worker....we were so happy to be free to be gorgeous without the judgement....rock on BL...you are so lovely.

And Usha - who was there in her stunning outfit...suitable for a star. Usha - we did not know how gorgeous you were until now!!

Lisa and Paulette discovered the joy of a champagne glass. Lisa is wearing a wintage 50s dress she bought in Cape Breton and Paulette is just plain fabulous!

Paulette, moi, Brenda-Lee, Cheryl avec des fleures de ma mère. Let's be gorgeous!

Allyson, Amber and Paulette waiting for glamour! It is coming...

oh abby.. you are the best of all

The end of cynicism?

2010-01-23T18:17:00.001-07:00

Twice today I heard this message. Cynicism is wrong. At the rally against the prorogation of parliament the young organizer urged the crowd not to give in to cynicism, but to understand that they can make change. "Vote" was the message there. And Conan O'Brien's astounding farewell speech also lays out the cold hard reality. We are all enormously fortunate. Work hard, be kind and amazing things will happen. He is right. Whining, dropping out, buying into apocalyptic pessimism won't help. And it's immoral for generations of people who've had it so good.

Some cautionary thinking about how not to 'help' Haiti

2010-01-23T18:12:00.003-07:00

$1.8 billion for hubris. $100M for Haiti

2010-01-15T08:00:00.001-07:00

I am not usually one to jump fully on to anti-anything bandwagons, at least not for long, but today I am feeling extremely anti VANOC. In the lead up to the Olympic games there has been an increasing number of vacuous athletes talking about how 'awesome' it is and how 'my parents really supported me? like every step?'. They are 'going to do their best to make Canada proud. And then there are the 'elite' athletes who's hubris knows no bounds. And we are spending hundred of millions of dollars to prop up this, brittle, useless veneer of patriotism. It will last for two weeks and then we'll go back to grumbling about how bad we got it, and how we shouldn't have to pay tax, the weather is appalling and the Oilers suck.

The Government of Canada has proudly announced that it will match Canadian donations to relief efforts in Haiti to a maximum of $100M. Excuse me if I am underwhelmed. Want to make Canadians proud? Melt down the silly gold medals awarded for feats of chance, (I dunno Ron I felt real good. I was just there today. I gave it everything you know - I was like really focussed - it was my time Ron - it was my day today- wooohoooo) and give the raw materials to Haiti. I mean they don't do it for the metal, they do it for the endorsements, which they can keep.

And don't give me that crap about how it's all an investment that will pay off huge economic benefit for the people of (zzzzz I'm asleep). The most intelligent investment we can make in our future stability is an investment in the health, education, well-being and stability of our poorest neighbours. Maybe create a society where boys grow up playing soccer on the beach, not learning to use machetes to protect their little sisters. Not a lot of photo opps I suppose. Not a lot of happy white guys. Right. What am I thinking.

Carrot and Parsnips - mmmmm

2010-01-10T13:34:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week I poached a whole chicken breast with lemons and bay leaves (my mother's regular), so that I would have cooked chicken for meals during the week. The side benefit of the process was three cups of absolutely fabulous chicken stock which set into a nice slurry over night in the fridge, with the fat easily removed. Obviously soup must be made. So, I made a soup with carrots, parsnips, onion, fresh ginger root and thyme. I didn't add salt but I did add a tiny bit of sugar (maybe half a tsp.). I processed the soup with a manual grinder which gives a nice chunky texture and finished it with a fresh grind of cardamon seeds (I gave Dean a Turkish spice grinder last year - perfect for cardamon if you have the patience), and a couple of big spoonfuls of my homemade yoghurt. Yum yum yum. Just thought I'd share that with you.

And if you want to know where to get a spice grinder click below. Actually - this version is bigger than the one we have. You can use a coffee grinder of course - but I like this little thing - it's aesthetically pleasing!

Brass Spice Grinder

Gollum and me

2010-01-09T20:48:00.004-07:00

Gollum - just in case you aren't sure...

I love good food. And I increasingly eschew bad food. I can't actually remember the last time I had a 'meal' at MacDonalds or A&W. I pride myself on being a reasonably good cook. I can wax poetic about fresh, real food any time of day or night. I do believe the industrialized farms and food are ruining our health, and are bad for many economies. But confession is good for the soul. So I have to tell you that when we were away, we succumbed one day and had a KFC snack pack. We shared it of course. It was the classic, with a roll, gravy, coleslaw, a wing, breast and thigh from one of those tiny chickens that have become the norm. We were horrified at ourselves - what were we doing? It was a hot day - windy and sunny - the smell of the duck wafting through the air over the beach day and night. The siren call of msg.... About halfway through I looked a the chicken breast in my fingers, and thought briefly of offering Dean half - you know the breast is the best part. But I knew I wouldn't. In fact I realized right then that I was like Gollum with the ring - had anyone, or anything tried to take that KFC away from me there would've been hell to pay. Which is why I must cast this thing from me, and never go near it again. I will diminish now- and go into the west......

Organic beyond reason

2010-01-03T13:09:00.010-07:00

I am seriously jet lagged. My eyes are burning puffy bags from sleep deprivation (it just took me six attempts to spell deprivation), and despite forcing water for the past 24 hours I feel like every molecule of moisture has departed my body and is sitting outside in a snow bank. I shoveled the walks and the driveway though - the bits our neighbour didn't handle with his snow blower. He's about 85 and has Cancer of the vocal chords, but that does not stop him from spending as much time as possible outdoors. (In the summer his garden is magnificent; he cross hatches his lawn like a golf course). Then, since I figured I couldn't really justify living on meat and rice for too long, I made for the supermarket for some vegetables and fruit. Being a bit strung out, I did find myself actually debating in my mind which side of the road I was supposed to be on, and I did choose incorrectly. Luckily I was turning left onto a one way street (I was going the right way) at the time. I didn't even drive in New Zealand! I went to Planet Organic primarily because I wanted some yoghurt starter. I haven't had any luck using the old, spoonful-of-plain technique. I figured I'd just get everything I needed there, given my unreliable brain. I honestly picked up a FEW THINGS. Three tomatoes, one zucchini, a squash, a small bag of nuts (200 gm - $6.79 and they taste all organicy - no salt - will have to roll them in melted butter), one loaf of bread, some chips made of green pea pods - you know - a few essentials. It half filled two green bags. It came to $125.00. When I got home I pulled out the organic, artisanal bread and read the label. Made in Colorado! Produce - mostly from Mexico. And the 'organic' lettuce we bought a month ago is still in perfect shape in the bottom of the fridge - packaged in California. I think this is a bit nuts. I'm willing to pay a bit more - but for bread baked in Colorado!! For lettuce from the Earth Bound? Love of God. Back to the Italian Centre and Sobeys for me.

Meantime - here are some pictures of lovely New Zealand where the cows eat grass, the lambs gambol in the fields, and the shops, at this time of year at least, are filled with local, beautiful food - from lemons to beets, venison to crayfish, wine to cheese.

Christmas dinner - chicken breasts stuffed with savoury, thyme, apples etc, with fresh tomatoes, mayo and the best basil I ever had, avocados, and mashed kumara - yum. And yes - I cooked this meal using a two burner stove top with two settings - low and high, a microwave sized convection oven, and a Swiss army knife - all you need really.

Newfoundland (foreground of shot) meets the Rockies (Southern Alps actually) in NZ. This country seems to have it all.

Sheep grazing - safely. No - they are not lupines.

The Annah Stretton store in Christchurch.
(click on photo)

Scary Maori-type guy.

Sunset at Kaiakoura.

New New New

2009-12-17T01:19:00.003-07:00

There is something about New Zealand that is a lot like Newfoundland. Riding the bus and listening to the surrounding conversations, I had to wonder if everyone here is a little bit mad. And I am quite sure that's how someone from New Zealand would react in a similar situation on a bus in Newfoundland. The local lamb is - well it's New Zealand lamb; you can actually buy mutton. It costs a fortune to leave the place. It's an island. The culture is, despite the touristy Maori slant, English and Scottish. The accent is almost impossible to understand. There is a built tourism imdustry. There are a lot of vacancies. There was once a large flightless bird - now extinct. The population here made a proportionately massive contribution to the great wars. There are no native land mammals and no snakes. The most popular TV show is called Country Calendar and it is a Southern Hemisphere version of Land and Sea - seriously - go online and check it out. There are people who were forced to give up traditional fishing rights looking for new ways to survive, through tourism. There is serious pride in locally made goods, and the All Blacks are clearly minor dieties.

But there are some extraordinary differences. This is a country - not a province (ehem). And the weather; a nor' easter is a warm wind - a sou' wester brings the chill. There seems to be nothing that does not grow here - and the stuff that is native is unnaturaly large and fleshy. Everything is different - and the same. It has a bit or Israel, a bit of Tobago, a lot of the UK, teeny reminders of Cuba, and a lot that is not like anything.

Pictures next time...internet is not great here....

2009-11-21T00:50:00.002-07:00

New House

2009-11-21T00:46:00.001-07:00

2009-10-28T10:26:00.002-06:00

Keir

2009-06-21T14:40:00.003-06:00

Walking to Work, Edmonton, May 2009

2009-06-06T16:55:00.005-06:00

Graffiti on the LRT tunnel

Someone sleeps here.

A leaf, if it falls at the just the right time, and in just the right way, can change forever
a slab of concrete sidewalk.

I love walking to work. I see so many things that make me think. Some of them are not so pleasant- given where I walk. But more often it's simply small things, like the rabbits that hop across the path in the early morning (I nearly stepped on one the other day). The bits of graffiti art which always seems to reveal some small thing I never noticed before. The weeds emerging from the dirt. The strange mix of people, some heading to work, some heading to the bottle depot with their grocery carts full, some just heading nowhere.

One morning this week, as I approached the intersection where the path crosses 96th street, two of the area's homeless people (do not read addicts here - these people can't afford rent) and I were converging upon the exact some point. They were both pushing carts; his held two stuffed back packs and hers was spilling over with bags of empties. They greeted each other heartily, happily, cheerfully. It was inevitable that we would all but collide as I reached the other side of 96th, so there we were in a kind of awkward triangle. Me interrupting their morning greeting, them looking at me with something that looked a bit like pity. "You shouldn't have that thing on yur back", the man said. He was clearly native, and had the lovely soft, faintly interrogative accent common around here. He pointed at my backpack, which I suppose he guessed was accommodating a laptop, purse, shoes, extra socks, bottle of water, ledger books, makeup and other detritus of office life - of my life - unfiled taxes, unmailed thank you notes, uneaten apples. "S'bad for yur back'" he pointed out. "You should have one o' these," he patted the side of his Save On Foods dark green plastic grocery cart. Then he laughed a large, toothy laugh, and shook his head. "For sure," I agreed. "Can you get me one?" "Meet you here tomorrow morning", they both laughed and then pushed on up the path together.

Of course we both knew he wouldn't bring me a cart and I didn't really want one. But the encounter did ignite a tiny spark of something that used to run more rampant in my veins. Something that inspired me to sit mournfully beside the road in Salmonier day after day praying for the courage to stick out my thumb and hitch hike the hell out of there. Some part of me to which I was closer when I was thirteen. An inclination that yearned to follow that tall, hard, brown man down his path. Something that would happily curl up next to him on a sheet of cardboard along the tracks. A crazy wild childish part of me that's gone forever.

New House

2009-05-18T10:04:00.004-06:00

My time will be pretty much consumed with moving for the next few weeks. Here is the new house listing. We have some better photos which I will also post. For now, it's all about boxes and "home staging"... good grief.

Cut out the media on H1N1!

2009-05-03T10:23:00.004-06:00

If you really want good information about H1N1 influenza, best to go straight to the reliable sources. The information available to the media, is available to you directly. So if you want to decide for yourself, use the link above (click on the title of this blog) to connect to my dashboard. Updates from the WHO, CDC and the Public Health Agency of Canada are downloaded instantly. Media stories are also linked there, as are some of the blogs spreading conspiracy theories. Loads of fun.

Spring

2009-04-13T13:28:00.013-06:00

Christopher, me, Dean and Keir on Easter Sunday in warm sunny Edmonton

Well here it is, Easter Monday. I can't believe I've let this blog go for so long. But in a way that's a good sign because I've had a busy winter - not too much sitting around navel gazing getting morbid. Belly dance, a new writing group, and of course the new job have kept me pretty busy. Still, no excuse really. So I am looking at Easter as a kind of New Year - a time to make resolutions. Which, now that I think about it, makes a lot of sense. The sun has returned, and here in Edmonton that means lovely long evenings. This weekend we had four days of sun and actual heat - got a bit of a sunburn on Saturday.

Yesterday being Easter Sunday, there were actually families out with their kids. It's almost as if we are forbidden to show ourselves through the long winter. Other than the odd keener ski family with all the kids outfitted with the latest from Mountain Equipment Co-op and the baby in a precious tag along sled and the dog with a barrel of peregrino around his neck trotting along - you know the ones I mean. A friend told me recently she was walking her dog on a shared trail this winter (for those of you lucky enough to live in places where such things are not necessary, a shared trail is a path that walkers, joggers, bikers, skiers, etc, share. Apparently such things need to be stated and enforced in cities)...or she thought it was a shared trail. A skier slithers up beside her an tells her emphatically, with that curious mix of the interrogative and the imperative so popular these days, that "this is a ski trail?!!? not a dog walking trail?!!?" and then slithered off again on his whoosh whoosh of superiority.

I am trying hard to become a belly dancer with a superiority complex, so I can say things like, "this is belly dance?!?!?!? not adult entertainment ?!?!?" But that is a long way off, so I content myself with feeling superior about other things. "This is real art?!?!? Not a poster ?!?!?"

Carolyn and her stunning coin bra.

Abby and her stunning profile.

It takes a lot of makeup (and yes the post it flags are there for a reason) and a lot of food - to get ready!

Nearly done!

My favorite Belly Dance picture: Carolyn, Abby and me - ready to shake and bake!!

The Cancer Foundation's Daffodil Campaign is always a highlight of spring for me.

Rose, Julie and Carey - three of our beautiful friends!

Having a Mary Pratt moment with a Philippine Mango and a clementine.

The Rockies in February.

I guess I will never lose my fascination with these plants. In this picture, taken on Good Friday (we were cooking and sharing the second seder of Passover) you can see the berry inside the lantern, weakened and degraded from the Alberta winter, backlit by the evening sun. This was 7:00pm on the Jewish anniversary of Dean's father's death.

sideways I know....

2009-01-30T22:26:00.004-07:00

I've been on my own a bit lately. And that means I have fallen into old habits - like watching the CBC from supper hour news to the National. While Coronation Street and Heartland are pretty bad, the worst thing about this annoying habit is the repetitive advertising to which you are subjected when you watch the same TV channel for too long. Of note - the Swanson's TV Dinner ads, which never actually say the words Swanson TV Dinner, but repeat "meat, potatoes, veggies, dessert" in a transparent attempt to lull you into believing that is what is in the package. Then the Lucid investment ads with the gal with horrible red hair and the "older" guy with fake bushy eyebrows talking about how they need secure investments. How stupid do they think people are? How stupid are people? But really the worst of them all are the ads for CBC radio Q. Or is it Kew, or maybe Cue?? What is wrong with that guy? He is so simpering and sincere I just feel like slapping someone every time I see him. And those "quotable quotes" - bad writing - embarrassing delivery "We love our hockey, We love our beer. We love our arts." Holy shit. Makes you want to go wash, or at least pretend to be interested in the wall and spare the television set the humilitation of knowing you heard that. He looks like he's expecting to be sainted any minute now. Can't stand it.

There. Got that off my chest.

Protectionism. Yes.

2009-01-30T22:11:00.004-07:00

So the US wants everyone to buy American-made. HELLO. They've been sittin on their buts buying crap from China for how long? When was the last time you bought something because it was MADE IN CANADA?? You buy crap because it's cheap - be honest. Nobody wants to pay the price that includes a living wage for the people who put the pieces together. Obama is dead on. The only way to get America back to solvency is to get the buggers back to work. They can no longer afford to have underpaid Chinese workers making everything for them. In the long run, his protectionist policies will work for the US if they come up to the plate and stop sipping drinks by the pool. And what is good for the US is good for us. But really. My concern is the aging process. Is it just me? Or do other people notice the thickening of things? The sagging of things?? The - um - gravity of the situation....

Cuba@50

2009-01-07T21:35:00.005-07:00

I don't know much about Cuban history. Like most people born in 1960 I grew up thinking of it as a small outpost of the evil communist threat, which was elsewhere, growling away in the perpetual frozen, starving darkness that surely existed behind the iron curtain. I knew nothing about the Cuban missile crisis, or the Bay pf Pigs. Nothing about the way the American uber wealthy used the island as their own personal playground, complete with cheap liquor, cheap labour and even cheaper women. The first time I ever traveled outside Canada it was to Cuba. I was completely gobsmacked by the passport control officials with guns and dogs, checking over bags at the Holguin airport. I was at first surprised to find that Ché Guevera, about whom I knew basically nothing, was more important than Jesus, by a long shot, in this purportedly Roman Catholic country. I was dismayed by the poor food, entranced by the people, and in love with the climate. Now that I live in Edmonton it is a matter of survival to go somewhere warm in the winter. So I have been back to Cuba twice since then. Even the evil sand fleas, the annoying perfect babrie dolls from Québec, the men with beer bellies larger than yoga balls in sixe 10 speedos, the Europeans who insist on lying around topless (fine if they're under 25 - not so good when they're older than me) cannot keep me away. The only thing that may take the charm off Cuba for me is if they allow the Americans in.

Local dancers were ready to pose at a moment's notice.
New Year's Eve Roast Suckling Pig. Yummmm!
A chef surveys his choices..

2008-12-13T19:55:00.000-07:00

Shake and Bake

2008-12-05T23:26:00.002-07:00

While the rest of Canada was glued to the TV waiting for the next chapter in the sordid affair that we call the Government of Canada, I was busy with other stuff. Belly Dancing, Directing, consulting and consoling. Life is good. Making eight dozen cookies for complete strangers - that's Christmas. There is so much that is so hard to understand.

Bored? Click here for some harmless diversion

2008-11-23T18:10:00.001-07:00

This website is nuts. No point trying to explain - just get in there and start clicking...

long hard week with long wonderful conclusion

2008-11-22T00:09:00.002-07:00

If someone tells you that you are like a "potato that just fell off a truck" and then,a few hours later, sends you an email with a pat on the back - are you nuts - or is that person psychotic? I think I have to sort this one out. Anyway - I have rediscovered the joy of placing yourself in the hands of the "women". The "women" are those remarkable people who work at spas for, I'm sure, a pittance, and spend their days scrubbing the callouses off ugly feet, pushing the crap out of large pores, exfoliating old skin cells, ripping out ugly hairs, advising the grossly overweight and the over 25 on how to look young and fresh, scrubbing and waxing and pummeling... These women are heroes!!

Hour and a half of hair ripping and face toning is one thing. A woman who says - "you are tense - you need massage" - and the commands you to let your 12 pound head fall into her hands so she can manage it??? Well - THAT is worth the cash, the tip, the burned supper....that's is worth more than I can pay.

Spa Opus
Myocare

Worth the watch - but scarey stuff!!

2008-11-17T20:11:00.001-07:00

Did You Know? - Click here for more home videos

Remembrance Day

2008-11-10T21:42:00.002-07:00

Poppy with sugar beets on the road to Vimy

The train from Utrecht to Amsterdam provides an eclectic cinema of the Pays Bas, the low lands. The flat green landscape is cut through with deep, even canals. Sheep, cows, geese, ducks, and thousands of tiny gardens define the agrarian nature of rural areas. Entering the urban centres, the usual miles of warehouses and factories sport familiar logos: Maersk, DHL. Closer to the centre, huge complexes, with walls of windows where hundreds of thousands of people are working, line the tracks.

Memorial to a Canadian air force pilot shot down in Holland

The train stations at Amsterdam and Utrecht are huge, well-planned, and easy to navigate. The people are friendly and helpful. Of course most speak English fluently, and those who don’t, can speak enough to give directions. The television here darts back and forth from English to Dutch with an apparent expectation that the audience can understand both. It is what a genuinely bilingual country is like I suppose.

So here we are, in Bennekom, in a very bright, quiet guest house with a large blue and white kitchen, and a big bedroom in the attic. At night, you can lie in bed and watch the stars through the skylight in the pitched roof (when it isn’t raining that is.) We met a woman here, Renee Sauer, who lives in The Hague but has a job in Wageningin and stays here three nights a week. A very charming and interesting person, Renee is a psychologist specializing in developmental psychology. We have missed conversation, camaraderie, friends. She spoke a lot about her work, an area of particular interest for me. And she and Dean soon discovered that they share Jewish heritage.

Anne Frank House

It is, in this part of the world, so difficult to imagine the war. It is both so recent and so distant. In Amsterdam a long line up of people snake around the block waiting to tour Anne Frank Huis. Tourists stand by the simple sign beside the door to take photos. It seems oddly inappropriate. “Here’s me with a windmill. Here’s me at a canal. Here’s me at the home of Anne Frank.…” The smiling tourists appeared vulgar.

The Newfoundland Regiment Memorial at Beaumont Hamel

Renée, a few years older than us, was born just after the war. She recalls having teachers who could be ‘unpredictable’ because they had been in the war, been in the camps in Japan. The children knew, and understood this. As a young girl, she was given a copy of The Diary of Anne Frank, but was to wait until she was a bit older to read it. She tells us how it impressed her, and how visiting Anne Frank House had been very emotional for her. When she brought her children there however, they did not have the same reaction. “I realized,” she says, “my children did not have the same emotions. They had very different emotions. They realized that something horrible had happened there, but there was much more distance.” A distance she has also placed between her first experience of Anne Frank and her visit with her own daughters. “It’s very important that there is development in your own emotions. Not that it is not important anymore, but the first time, horrible stories that were told to us in very aggressive ways – that all Germans are the bad guys, and it is not true. You learn when you grow up that what has happened is that people are put in situations where they do things they would never do.”

Anne Frank statue behind her house in Amsterdam

She also tells of a Jewish woman she knows who survived the war, and greets every day with a smile. Each day is, as she puts it, a day “they will not take away from me. The Nazis have taken so much from me, but that cannot take this day.” She collected a lot of yellow stars (the stars of David used by the Nazis to identify Jews) after the war, and sewed them all unto her coat; she once sat next to a collaborator on a city bus. A woman in hijab asked her why she wore all of the stars. “I think for the same reason you are wearing the scarf. I will show you that I take this position with pride”. Renée comments on “how people, when they are happy, can cope,” but admits that many never could get over it. “They bullied their children, who had everything they never had,” she says, remembering how older neighbours harangued her for not enjoying porridge which “the children in the camps would have loved to have.”

Town square in a German village just across the border with the Netherlands

All of this in the context of a discussion about the survivors of war, and how they are not remembered. We visited Vimy, Ypres, Beaumont Hamel, and numerous road side Commonwealth and Canadian memorials and cemeteries. The names of the dead are etched in stone for eternity. The names of the survivors, my grandfather, my great-great uncle, Dean’s father – these are not. How different would the memorial of war be if we marked those who lived, who suffered through life, or who went home and built families, nurtured tolerant communities or suffered intolerance as did Bud Spaner, who came home from WWII to be told he could not teach within the City of Edmonton because he was a Jew.

Memorial to Canadian soldiers in Holland

Those who became doctors, lawyers, writers, singers and painters, who sewed stars on their coats and persisted in life, who challenged the past with the confidence of the future and the strength of survival.

Canada mourns her dead - Vimy Monument

Surely, somewhere in the lives of survivors is a victory worth commemorating. What if we placed huge marble monuments all over the world marking the extraordinary accomplishments of our species. Not just a list of the dead, but a celebration of the lives that were possible – the things that the living created – art, science, technology, politics – the advances that followed the victory in Europe. What a commemoration that would be! I was moved by the Canadian war memorial in Vimy. It is, bar none, the best of the lot. I visited Beaumont Hamel where nearly the entire Newfoundland regiment was obliterated in WWI, and was astonished to find a picture of my great-great uncle on the wall there.

The trenchs of Beaumont Hamel

And I stood under the bronze caribou, a replica of which I had often visited in Bowering Park, and wondered, what if this space was dedicated to the wonderful things we have accomplished since? What if? And you will say that the world is the forum for the present. And it is. But walking through the Beaumont Hamel visitors’ centre, listening to the music of Anita Best, my grade 8 French and English teacher, and Pamela Morgan, my friend, playing over the speakers in the background, I imagined an acreage in the north of France dedicated to the art and music and promise of my tiny native land.

The Danger Tree

Would that be enough to stop war? In the Flanders Field Museum in Ypres, (turn on your speakers to fully appreciate this amazing museum site) there is a ‘living’ list of conflicts that have erupted since the war to end all wars. It is updated regularly, and there have been more than 200 conflicts world wide. A huge stone, engraved with the names of cities bombed during the war, now has a partner stone, listing those places decimated since then. What greets you, and holds you, and moves you, is not lists of the dead; it is the art that brings meaning to what you are seeing.

Sunset outside the Rijksmuseum

En route to Vimy, we drove through miles of rained-soaked mud, and piles of sugar beets. One could not help but note that the great wars had made humanity safe for beet farms. But through the rain and fog, I saw a single flash of colour. I made Dean stop so I could investigate: one red poppy still in bloom on the edge of a beet field, dropping into a ditch. I was of two minds, but it was not really a hard decision. My grandfather, having lain in the mud above a trench while bullets riddled the young, soft bodies of his friends in France, found a single yellow daffodil. He wrote to me once when I was in university, safely removed from any understanding of trench warfare, “I heard the bullets all around me. I asked God to keep me alive. I do not want to die here I said.” And he didn’t die there. He picked the daffodil: a bizarre burst of hope amid that abject horror. He sent it home. His mother did not understand, and did not think to keep it. Such were the times. I picked the poppy. I felt privileged.* I have it pressed in a card I carried through France and Spain and Israel and back safely to Canada.

Note: I wrote this last year while still in Europe. I will now sound like one of the great naifs of all time: last week's election of Barrack Obama gave me a surge of hope that the world can change. Despite all the detractors, I plan to hang on to that for as long as I can.

My Very Scary Pumpkin

2008-11-01T12:57:00.001-06:00

The Prime Minster scared away so many kids I have tons of candy left over.

Other things I see

2008-11-01T00:35:00.003-06:00

So this morning, I am walking to work. The sun is rising. I am listening to Martha Wainwright on the i-pod. And as I follow the path I see ahead of me a clutch of young(er) people. They are lighting a pipe - hash, crack - whatever - they are in the middle of my path. I keep going. I have blackberry with voice activated calling on my shoulder strap. They watch me for a bit. I do not look back. A block or two later, there is another trio. He is pissing against a building, but he has not dropped his pale grey 'track pants'; the pants are dark with piss, but his friends don't really notice. I walk steadily forward, like him. And I have to think about all the people in this city right now, who are worried that their investment in the stock market may not have turned out as well as they thought, and who are angry about that. People who thought they could be non-productive members of this society for half their lives. And I cannot help thinking about the things I might have done to help this person, this one person pissing on a wall; things I didn't and won't do. And the gross hypocrisy of it all.

Things I see

2008-11-01T00:09:00.003-06:00

So my sister, who is pretty, cute, stunning, talented, self-reliant, popular, funny, intelligent, o.m.g. I could go on, writes me to say her throat is ugly. That she will not wear that dress again. And I think, poor thing, what can I say. Since there is a big time difference, I am walking to work in Edmonton as the sun creeps over the horizon, while I ponder this question. And the answer is there. As I am walking I see a street woman, bent and grey, with a used-centre walker full of cans and bottles, making her way up the avenue before me. The sky is a blaze of blue and pink and purple as the sun continues its relentless pursuit of a new, fresh, fair day. I am about to say good morning, feeling magnanimous of course; she squats, lets go her jeans, and pisses, all over herself, her pants and the street. Her legs meet at a sorry and sagging crossroads and the sad reality of her life is there for all to see. Of course, you think, she made some bad decisions, this person. This person who was once a little girl, looking for help and hope, who may have been me. And there but for the grace of God go I. No point holding high ground really. She could be anyone who's life went sideways. She could be me, or you. And so, I don't really care that my chin is soft, or my teeth are not really white, or my hair doesn't flip and flow etc. I do not have to piss in the street in front of strangers in the morning. I am one of the chosen few.

Belly Dancing

2008-10-29T22:58:00.003-06:00

Not my class - but one of these women is my teacher at Raq-a-Belly in Edmonton
(Photo had no credit)

I have to say a couple of things about Belly Dancing. First of all - I am very bed at it. While the other women are gracefully twirling their veils over their heads while executing flawless coffee grinders, I am trying to get untangled from under mine, wondering whether I will ever feel safe with two feet on the floor again. When I used to swim a lot, I could fool myself into thinking I had perfect form. Well - I could until the day a lifeguard pulled me over to the side of the pool and asked if I was okay. "Yeah - I'm fine." "Just checking", he smiled at the old gal, "you looked like you were having some trouble." Well, of course. I probably looked like a hippo trying to do a breast stroke while keeping it's head completely out of the water. But in my mind, I was a graceful as an Olympic athlete. No - more graceful - as graceful as a dancer. The problem with dancing is all the frigging mirrors. But I still go, and I still love it. SO what if the perfect hip lifts are happening inside my body, invisible to the outside world - they are happening none-the-less.

But that's not what I wanted to say. What I wanted to say is that in my class there is a Chinese woman who is about ym age and admits having done this class seven times; two women who look like escapees from a Mennonite farm and probably are; a skinnier than possible East-Indian girl with no hips or waist to speak of but extraordinary hair; an absolutely gorgeous young woman who may or may not be Arabic, but certainly looks the part; a dyed-in-the-wool Edmontonian who rushes from class to put on her Oilers Jersey and go to a bar to drink beer and watch hockey with the girls; a woman with Aboriginal heritage (gorgeous broad brown face and black eyes and no hips at all), and our teacher, who is absolutely overweight by most standards and has the most disarmingly graceful way of moving her body. It's not a dance class. It's a Canadian experience. And that's a lot of the reason I love it so much. If I can figure out how to complete an Egyptian turn without strangling myself with my very expensive silk veil I'll be all set.

Why it's hard to like the CBC

2008-10-13T11:29:00.005-06:00

Like a lot of Canadians, I grew up with the CBC as one of a small number of television and radio choices. It was before FM radio came to Newfoundland, and any AM station except CBC was almost impossible to pick up in the Salmonier River Valley, especially at night. I remember pressing my bright yellow ball and chain panapet transistor radio to my ear to try to hear the VOCM top 10 at 10 with little success.

In the car there was no discussion. My parents listened to the CBC and that was that. So I remember hearing Harry Brown, a Newfoundlander and then host of As it Happens, repeating the name Sirhan Sirhan, perplexed at the oddity of it, a name that was one name, repeated. I was in the back seat of a car driving on a dark road through a community at the end of the world, no streetlights, coming home from somewhere? "What was that? Daddy, who is that?" "shhhhh"

The CBC played music your parents liked, which was actually comforting. The calm, steady, deep voice of the CBC was an anchor. It made me feel sure that there was a reasoned world out there. A country with a point of view.

This Thanksgiving on CBC radio I listened with a growing sense of unease as Q host Jian Ghomeshi, with the smugness that has become the hallmark of the newly populist CBC, read a list of frivolous items for which he was "thankful". The forgettable list included a 21 ft worm, and a 24ft high house of cards. Have we come so far that we can mock Thanksgiving now? Are we that rich that the CBC can't treat this holiday with some humility? I'm not asking for much here. Just one day when the CBC puts it's smarmier-then-thou mocking attitude aside and recognizes that for many people, Jian Ghomeshi included, there is much to be thankful for in this country.

I have the extreme good fortune to work with a wide range of people. A 23-yr-old from Russia, who came to Canada after living in a refugee camp in Germany. A 30-yr-old from the Philippines whose family still travels back and forth a bit, to take care of relatives. Métis and Aboriginal Canadians, Vietnamese, Indian, Chinese, German and French Canadians. And all of them express their appreciation for this country in different ways. Sometimes deeply moving ways. So much possibility for important, and enlightening national discourse. The kind of things we should be able to rely on the CBC to deliver.

Spring Summer 2008

2008-09-07T09:56:00.001-06:00

What's Up??

2008-07-17T23:55:00.005-06:00

Oh dear. the best laid plans etc. I've been busy. Here is the before shot of the shed. After shot will follow in a week. It's been difficult coming back to reality. But busy is good...

All the food shots we took in Europe and beyond? Well. turns out Carey and Rose can top all of it with a BBQ..

Life is good and it goes on. There is something to be said for being home, among friends, and in your own back garden, small as it may be. More soon.

Some things about Paris

2008-04-16T15:16:00.008-06:00

The view from our bedroom with the Tour sparkling like a bottle of champagne.

Time is running out. Just one more day and then back to Canada. I can't honestly say time has flown by. We have had, so far, and amazing and wonderful trip and I am excited to be going home to Newfoundland for a bit. Before I leave our little attic apartment, here are some observations and thoughts, all very superficial. Trolling through the photos I have been reminded of some of the less cheerful realities in France, and of the darker moments of her history. For today however, we'll stay with the tourist guide.

I guess if you are in Paris, New York is foreign fashion import.

The people here really do dress better. They care more and they look good. Even the children and the men, and the junior high school boys for Pete's sake, know how to dress and how to live in their clothes. You can spot the visiting school tours a mile away in their uniform: blue jeans and black jackets. If it were required by law, this outfit could not be more ubiquitous. Parisiennes do not wear sneakers outside of the gym, and some of the mens' shoes I've seen walking around are nicer than any of mine. It is good we are leaving because the impulse to get dressed properly, despite a bank account ravaged by ten months off, is a bit overpowering. I am even beginning to understand the whole shoes and bags thing. Time to go.

The food can be fantastic, but the good food rule is not all-inclusive. We have had some food that would not be considered good anywhere in Canada, and it was expensive to boot. Brasserie food is okay, but Paris can’t snub its nose at North America on that front either. The ubiquitous entrecôte is simply not in the same league as an Alberta rib steak; the ham on and in 70 percent of the salads, sandwiches and crepes is a long way from the stellar product in Barcelona, and why, why, why do they feel the need to drop a raw egg on top of everything???

Egg yolk plunked in a Linguine Carbonara.

The huge variety, quality and creativity of food in Canadian cities can certainly hold its own with a Paris brassierie. (having said that, North American restaurants MUST drop the iceberg-carrot-red cabbage-salad-in-a-bag thing.) The crème brullée I had at the Brassierie near the Eiffel Tower was probably the most disappointing version I have ever encountered. Tough, overcooked custard ruined with bubbles and a burnt sugar top that was too soggy to crack with a spoon.

On the crepe front, I still hold to my memory of crepes in Quebec City as the best I’ve ever had.

Where the food is truly different and superior is in the pâtisseries, fromageries, boulangeries, boucheries: small stores run by experts. There are cheeses here you simply can’t buy anywhere else in the world.

Take out. A smoked salmon mousse with pink pepper, artichoke terrine and fromage cremeuxe de Bourgogne. An entre repas.

I have to admit some of the charm is lost on me since I just can’t eat cheese that is bubbling with fermentation, but I think I would quickly develop a taste for it. As it is, the cantal entre-deux has ruined me for life in the cheese melty department, and the tiny little rounds of soft ripe cheese, velvety on the outside and deeply creamy and pungent on the inside put the common camembert on the same tray as the mini sausages. The French insistence on good cheese is evident in the selection on the shelves in the small supermarché around the corner.

Cheese selection at the local.

The croissants are just the tip of the flour-sugar-butter-egg-cream-chocolate-fruit iceberg. Too much glory to attempt in one post. And the bread really is good. The flour comes from Canada (made from good Canadian wheat….according the Dean the wheat breeder). The cakes and pastries are so beautiful to look at one expects to sacrifice in the taste department. Not so. They are as they appear. My best find is the macaron (not to be confused with the corn syrup and coconut macaroon): a little cookie sandwich made with meringue that has that magical combination of crunchy and chewy with a smooth creamy filling. I resisted these for a while since they are everywhere and obviously mass produced.

Petites four: Marons, Mocha cake, fruit tart.

At Le Gare restaurant the coffee comes with a plate of petites four, which includes a macaron. One bite and I was hooked. While it is tempting, these are so well constructed for texture and taste, it is best not to twist them apart like other “boughten” cookies and scrape out the filling.

Poached Pear with caramel cookie , Le Bistro de La Muette

The really great gourmet food is so far out of reach that we decided to give it a pass. A one star Michelin restaurant we looked at offers a ‘formule’ (full meal) at 150€ (240$CDN) per person. The more reasonably priced bistros offer very special cuisine without the three-month waiting list and amortized mortgage required.

Grilled mullet on fresh spinach, Le Bistro de La Muette

Smoked salmon with poached egg and artichoke, dijon sauce, Le Bistro de La Muette.

Other observations? Everything in Paris is controlled, clean, manicured, shaped, regulated and counted. I have become a died-in-the-wool bureaucrat I guess, because I quite like this.

Jardins des Plantes.

Either no situps, or no lounging. Either way, stay off the grass which is 'resting' for the winter.

Paris really is a city you fall in love with. You have to witness this to understand it. This is the first place we've been to which I know, with certainty, I will return. (Apologies to London, but the B&B guys were so, so, so unbearably rude and I still have scars from the bed bug bites, canned grapefruit does not qualify as a fresh fruit breakfast and would it kill you to learn how to make coffee???)

The French bus, metro, train system is the best way to see the city if you can skip the guided tour. Guided tours delivered in three to five languages simultaneously are, we have found, rather difficult to comprehend.

Fountain at the Place de la Concorde

English words are related to French words in weird and wonderful ways that delight me. My coworkers should prepare for this.

The bare-breasted girls at the Moulin Rouge put on a spectacular show, but I still think the human infant food supply should be covered up – it’s just too distracting.

Only a masochist would try to drive here.

You can get a better hair cut in Paris for 30€ than you can get in Toronto for 100€. Sorry Toronto – but I have tried to get a decent haircut in Toronto at an off-the-street place and met the usual “what do you want-your hair is not right for that-let’s just cut it all off -crap.” Here, I walked in to Jean Louis David on the corner with no appointment and no idea. A guy with a blow dryer looked me up and down and dictated in French to his colleague what must be done. Sure, I told them I didn’t want it trop court. But after that, I was taken in hand, told what I needed in no uncertain terms, and given it. I witnessed cutting and drying techniques I have never seen before and probably won’t until I come back to Paris. I have, by the way, had my hair trimmed or cut in Lake of the Ozarks; Richmond, England; Wagingingen, Holland; Barcelona; Tel Aviv (v. good); Netanya (twice) and Paris. So I do have some points of comparison.

A sadly deteriorated Botticelli fresco.

No point talking about the art yet. Suffice it to say I became quite sad, angry and frustrated at the Louvre because it is an insult to have to herd past so much beautiful creation and not have time or space to stop and see much of anything. It is rather like shopping in the West Edmonton Mall on Christmas Eve. Most people at the Louvre seem content to line up forever in front of everything 'big' and then take a picture of it, turn around and leave. It was none-the-less a huge thrill for me to see a wall of da Vinci’s, Michelangelo’s Dying Slave, and too much more to talk about here. (Another blog) The toilets in the Louvre are made by Villeroy&Boch, so peeing there is almost worth the trip in itself.

And finally, if you live in Paris long enough you will get thin. You have to. It’s just the way it is. I have not been here long enough for that. Yet.

Unfurling fern at the Shakespeare Garden in Bois de Boulogne.

How much would you pay?

2008-04-09T05:26:00.008-06:00

Last night we went to the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris to hear Gregorian chant. Okay, so it's not your idea of a night on the town in La Ville-lumière, but it's certainly an appropriate genre in that grand setting, the music and the edifice having evolved within similar time frames and with similar artistic influences and concerns. It is a particularly lovely form of choral singing, to my ear, however it is also somewhat unnerving in the way it conjures up ideas of darkness, ignorance, superstition and cruelty. But that could be just me imposing my own limited knowledge of the predominantly misogynistic periods of Roman Catholicism. Sometimes I truly think Christianity was the finest idea we ever had, but then a bunch of guys got their hands on it. After that it was all about who was in charge, who controlled the money, who told the women what to wear etc. But I digress.

Having parted with yet another handful of Euros for an evening that held dubious promise, Dean remarked that he thought he'd been duped; it was his understanding that they would be paying us to listen to this stuff. He observed that they must throw on a Gregorian chant evening whenever they needed extra cash. These remarks lead to a ponderance of how much money is collected for candles that are "certainly not worth ten bucks" in Dean's atheist-agnostic view.

As the chant began and I was thankfully saved the trouble of further discussing the monetary evils of church collection boxes, I thought about how many candles I had in fact lit since arriving in Europe.

I have made it a policy to light at least one candle in every church in which they are offered. (Sadly, the most important church, atop the home of Saint Peter on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, is an understated, nigh protestant affair with no candles or gilt or anything pretty. I know this is how it should be, but still...a few candles? Surely even Judas wouldn't disapprove of such a minor expenditure.)

The lighting of a candle in Our Lady of Mount Carmel church in Mount Carmel Newfoundland, when I was in school at Our Lady of Mount Carmel School, cost ten cents. So did a bag of chips and a caramel log bar, so I never lit a candle. I do remember the cost however, because there was once a major disruption caused by a boy who lit all the candles without paying a cent. The priest, with a phalanx of nuns, their habits billowing behind them, bore down on Our Lady of Mount Carmel School in a cloud of smoke and fire, determined to discover the transgressor. Or at least that's how I remember it.

The air in the school changed as the search began, and it became a dark, frightening place to be. Unnaturally quiet, foreboding, as if the devil himself was wafting about waiting to see how things would go. I was too young and too protestant to have any idea what was going on. Thankfully, the teacher ("Miss" was her name) explained to the class what had happened. A helpful nun explained why this was so serious. This act was the same as stealing. The same as stealing from the Virgin Mary. The same as stealing from God. The same, in fact, as nailing a spike through the upturned palm of Christ himself; the same as forcing the crown of thorns into his beautiful head; the same exactly as taking a long Roman spear and piercing the side of the dying Jesus.

Was it any wonder that we were all allowed to hear, but not watch the strapping when they found the boy? He was in my class. He cried afterwards because they really hurt him. Lighting candles. You'd think this would put a person off candle lighting. On the contrary it probably is half the reason for my pyromaniac candle fetish.

So many years after the invention of electric bulbs, why are there still candles in churches? Silly question right. Everyone knows an electric bulb is not the same. In the Cathédrale de Notre Dame there are flat screen TVs mounted on the columns so those in the side aisles can see what's going on. There are microphones so everyone can hear. Even the Gregorian Chanters used microphones (Odd huh??). Spotlights are strategically placed to illuminate statues, paintings, windows. But there are banks and banks of candles to light, from 1€ for a tea light - to 10€ for a large candle in a glass holder.

It is not about the light of course. It is about the act of lighting a candle from another's flame. It is about knowing the flame you give won't last long. It is about adding fire. It is, most of all, about giving yourself the luxury of believing, for a few minutes, that it could matter; that the little piece of life force you have paid for allows you a close moment with a higher, better power, a place of calmness where you can listen to your heart because you can hear it.

I knew I was starting to allow myself this luxury when I picked which candle to light based on which saint stood near by, when I could close my eyes and see into a distance behind the darkness there.

So, what is it worth? What should it cost to light a candle? What would you pay for that moment? I know that I will pay up to 2€. I also know that, having come this far, I don't really have to pay anything. That was worth the investment.

Tres occupe

2008-04-08T02:32:00.004-06:00

Honestly, I've been too busy to post, but have scads of stuff in the hopper. Including the last week in Israel. I did tell the little sweeties at Alumot School that I would put them on the net.

But I thought this photo was kind of interesting. I like the way the riot guy's shoulder pads are pushed back and look like wings. Dark angel indeed!! We were at the Trocadero yesterday morning where the anti-China protesters were gathering. As were an army of gendarmes. Talk about a juxtaposition.

We did not witness the actual torch relay and resulting clash. We were in the zoo looking at dart frogs. Much more fun really. I have not been able to settle on a food, being torn always by so many wonderful choices. And I cannot commit to eating only crepes for a week. Or can I??? Hmmmm - the chestnut puree with almonds and caramel was very good, but I would like to try the nutella and banana. And the smoked saucisson with grained dijon was okay, but then the smoked saumon beckons....on verra....

If anyone (Nancy) knows how to find accents in this progam please advise. My written French is suffering.....

On y va

My mission in Paris

2008-03-28T10:58:00.004-06:00

Moules farci in Arras

One of the interesting things about eating out is that you can compare the way dishes are prepared from place to place. I did an in-depth study of the Caesar salad and still haven't found one better that the one they make at the Newfoundland Hotel. In fact, it's hard to find one without bacon, which is annoying because a classic Caesar does not have pork in it, and fresh croutons are nearly unheard of. I have also checked out apple pies, creme brulees, and fish and chips. So, heading to Paris, the big question is, what to eat? I have posted a poll where you can vote, or send me a comment via the blog comment feature, with any suggestions. I will not be eating foie gras for humanitarin reasons, and I don't think horse appeals. I don't like organ meat so don't promote the pancreas. Thanks for the help. I promise I'll share the results!

Easter 2008

2008-03-23T00:57:00.010-06:00

A brave little plant growing on the mountain below Massada.

The jack hammers started at 8 on the dot, as they do. Sunday is not a holiday, much less Easter Sunday. There is no sign of any chocolate bunnies around here and I have yet to stumble on an egg. I guess I won't be getting a skipping rope either! How things change.

Security at the Purim parade.

Sunset and wrapped olive trees, photo by Dean

Far be it from me to waste time missing the winter, since nobody will have sympathy for me here in the sun and sand. If not sympathy I deserve at least some congratulations for having climbed the snake path to Massada. The rise is 350 meters, over 2 kilometers and has 700 steps. Not ergonomic steps either. I tried on the way up to imagine how much harder this would be after a few days torture and flogging and carrying a cross, knowing that at the top there awaited a long slow barbaric death. This did not help. What did help was seeing a woman, about 5 years older than me on her way back down. At the time she appeared to be wearing heels and a crisp linen pant suit, with her makeup intact and her hair in a perfect chignon, but Dean tells me I imagined that.

How to tell you've reached the desert.

Desert dust.

Whatever got me there, I did make it, and am grateful to Allan Rock once again for helping me quit smoking. And the vino tinto in Barcelona for helping me swear off drinking. There are moments of your life when you know things have changed irrevocably. A professor I had years ago told me that the day she went to the airport to meet her father and had to carry his bags for him, she knew a corner had been turned.

Baobob tree at the Ein Gedi Kibbutz Spa on the Dead Sea.

There are many such moments and we should perhaps record them as talismans against the shock of future tectonic shifts in our existence. The day I 'ran into' my own children at a mall was such a moment. A moment that seperated the mother who knew exactly where her children were and what they were doing, from the mother who had to ask. The Christmas morning you empty your stocking and know you should thank your parents. The Christmas Eve when it is you filling stockings. The Easter morning you wake up and realize that, not only will there be no hollow chocolate egg with your name spelled wrong in white icing, but that you don't even think that there should be.

Church at the top of Mount Tabor, celebrated site of the transfiguration of Christ.

Part of being in the same place you have always been, is that place provides a cushion against change. Geological time crawls so slowly along, you can see the same beach more or less unchanged throughout a long life. You can watch the sun set over the same island's outline. You can be sure the flowers will not appear in March, as they have never done, in Newfoundland. The changes happen with you, and often with your approval. The school is torn down, a new one is built. The road is paved. Old trees die and fall. If you are fortunate, the personal changes you endure are both supported by natural change, and softened by the stability of familiarity.

My pin in Newfoundland on the visitors' map at the Ein Gedi Spa.

Great rifts in social norms and cultural expectations are difficult, since they occur outside a natural framework. Being able to look at a tree, or a brook, or a hill that you have known, and that has been around since before you were, is an important to maintaining some balance. Not the least beause it gives you a brief reprieve from the relentless process that speeds us through our lives.

I am not missing egg hunts today. But in a way, I would like to be in a place where the snow is still on the ground, the sun is high in the sky, the ice is melting here and there for a few minutes in the middle of the day, and the promise of spring is in the air. I wouldn't mind a bit of ham. But hey, I'll get over it. I always do.

Little girls dressed up for Purim at the Netanya parade:

A girl after my own heart.....

Israel today

2008-03-06T11:04:00.015-07:00

I think I would have made a durn fine goddess.

Okay so it's been a little while. Summer has truly arrived in Israel. Although we seem to be the only ones who've noticed. After a day in the sun at Appollonia, I went, sunburned, to the drug store to look for sunblock. I was told at three places that they only carry sunblock in the summer. It is 26 degrees. Everything is relative I suppose. I probably look like a recent arrival from Jamaica trying to buy mittens in Canada in August. Except, of course, that you can buy mittens in Canada year round. I was surprised that not even one body lotion available has any SPF in it. I can only assume that people stay out of the sun, or are able to deal with it better than I. Which would not be hard, given the mushroom like complexion lurking under my carefully layered clothing.

Tiny pea relative

So why have I been such a bad blogger? In addition to the ongoing effort to see every historic site in Northen Israel, I have been volunteering at an elementary school here one morning a week, helping grade 5 boys with their English. This requires some preparation on my part. Their teacher has five levels in one group, so obviously has no time to be responsible for the tutors' requirements. The books they use are not very good and they don't have any English childrens' books to help them practise reading. The school, in fact, is a bit run down. The teachers seem to have very few resources. There is one rather dated photo copier in the office. There do not appear to be art supplies of any kind, and the kids themselves do not have bags stuffed with crayons, markers, coloured pencils, whiteout, post its etc etc. They keep a close eye on their pencils, and will come looking if they forget one. My small group was amazed that I told them they could keep the handouts I brought. Even the supervising teacher querried this one. When the kids came back the next week the handouts were neatly clipped into thier homework folders. The teachers are less 'stylin' than those I remember in the school my boys attended. No themed sweaters or crisp linen trousers around here. I expect they make less than a middle class income.

At the art garden in Jerusalem. My kind of sculpture.

I have one student, Sharon, whose English is very very good. This is good since I speak no Hebrew other than tov, ken and lo. (good, yes and no) Sharon helps me communicate. Another two, Dudu and Ori need more help; I took to Dudu immediately when he sat down and proclaimed "USA, my name is George W. Bush," to the giggles of his peers who apparently thought I had come from the states. Yaden has a learning disability of some kind, so I meet with him one-on-one. He has great difficulty discerning between d,b,p,g,q/r,h/ n,u. All of which makes sense to me. If Hebrew is what you are used to reading, these English scratches would all look alike. English dyslexics have similar problems with these letters. Yaden is a sweet, if distractable little boy. The teacher tells me that he has few friends, that the other children do not like him, and he is considered trouble. Oh, how I understand this boy!!

Wild irises in the Iris Park, Netanya

They are all very sweet, and they try hard. You have to be impressed with these ten year olds reading and writing in a language that goes the wrong way for them (left to right) and in a completely different alphabet. Hebrew has little in common with English. All of which makes me a bit embarrassed that I have yet to conquer French, which is, by comparison very much like English. To continue my efforts to learn my country's other official language, I am also spending a fair bit of time with Rossetta Stone online. And yes, I know it is not approved by the Government of Canada for learning a second language, but the programs that are approved don't do the trick either.

Little lizard with blue belly.

Iris at the citadel in Safed

The Irises, Lupines and Anenomes are all in bloom now. The wild thyme and almond blossoms scent the air in the mountains. We came across some amazing tree along the shore of the Sea of Gallilee that was hung with a heavy, drowsy fragrance. I have no idea what it was.

Forget-me-nots in the Iris Park

Climbing around a park where there are caves once inhabited by prehistoric people, we saw natural rock gardens nestled in the worn stones. Cyclamen (it still amazes me to see this delicate flower growing in the wild) plant themselves in pits in the porous boulders around the hills. This stone is like hardened sponge, full of holes, rounded and weather worn.

Cyclamen in stone.

A young boy plays in the sand dunes in the Iris Park.

There are school children on field trips everywhere now, obviously glad to be outside. These groups are always accompanied by an armed security guard, or soldier, as are many of the tour groups we've seen. It is still jarring to see children and submachine guns in the same place, but given the reality here, it's certainly easy to understand. Fathers hiking with their children often have pistols tucked into their pants.

School trip to the Caves

You can never forget here that it was not just colonials and pioneers who built this country. It took a brilliant and determined military. It is a country armed and ready to go to war at any minute. And they need to be. If they ever do have to defend their country against the constant threat of destruction, they absolutely must win. That, or be "pushed into the sea" forever. After the second world war, they know only too well that they could be obliterated completely.

A guard accompanying a school group

It does not escape notice that many of the sites we have seen were built and maintained by succesive civilizations over hundreds of years, until the arrival of the Marmalukes, who destroyed everything they found. Everywhere there are reminders that civilizations, as mighty as the Romans, as unwelcome as the crusaders, as just plain rude and ugly as the Marmaluke, don't last forever. It can take just one generation of barbarism to wipe out hundreds of years of civilization and growth.

Friday is flower market day and everyone buys flowers. A good habit to adopt.

As I sit here writing this, military jets are roaring through the skies. The constant throb of war helicopters up and down the coast passes by our window. Women with babies in strollers or wheeled market bags are headed for the market. Eight families in Jerusalem are burying their teenaged sons.

A soldier takes a break at the edge of the Sea of Gallilee

It is Friday and everything closes around noon for the Sabbath. Tomorrow, people will gather at the beaches and stroll in the sun; they will mourn the dead. Little girls will put on their Saturday dresses and patent leather shoes and go to brunch with their extended families at the hotels along the coast, oblivious to the terror at the border. Soldiers will slouch in bus stops with their Tavors and Uzis on their laps. Palestinians will continue to celebrate a massacre. This country is a tiny scrap of land clinging tennaciously to existence against a world of powerful threats and enemies. Like the youngest kid trying to keep some of the covers on the edge of a crowded family bed. A beautiful, favoured child despised by its siblings.

The coast of Israel at Appollonia

February in Israel

2008-02-23T06:17:00.009-07:00

A little boy at the "Bird Mosaic" site outside Caesaria.
Full blown prickly pears.

Roman aquaduct. This was constructed at a graduated decline of 20cms/kilometer and brought water over 10 kilometers into the city at Caesarea.

Just a snail.

Tel Aviv winter storm

It's spring here. After a couple of fierce storms that brought snow to Jerusalem and Athens, an earthquake that shook the coast from Haifa to Tel Aviv (we missed it - we were inland) and winds that rattled the windows so hard the gyproc broke and dropped in dusty clumps on the floor, we are assured that winter is over. And it certainly feels like Spring - or summer if you come from Trespassey.

Snow on the Judean Hills, from our kitchen window

It is warm enough to lie on the beach in shorts, and I expect I should be using sun block soon. The brave and the young are swimming. The beach cafes are reopening. The bus tours are starting to show up. The hotel across the street, which has been eerily dark until now, is starting to glow with lit windows in the evening. Women in bikinis are sitting around the pool, and couples are standing on the balconies, sipping wine, gazing at the sunset on the Mediterranean.

Sunset. We have a lot of these, not many sunrises though..

>
Roman capital from Herod's Palace at Caesaria.

We continue to be amazed at the ancient ruins around here. Along the beach north of Hadera is a Roman aquaduct, still standing after over 2000 years. (Amazing that the bridges in Montreal won't last for 50) The sand of these beaches is littered with shards of broken pottery, falling out of the sandy bluffs where they have sat since the time of Jesus. Some of them are worn soft by time, others are as clean and sharp as if they were make last week. Saddly, the beaches are also littered with garbage and treacherous globules of black oil: these end up mysteriously on your feet, your clothes, your skin. You have to be vigilent before you sit anywhere, clearing broken glass, dog crap, bunker C, and worse. Of course, ancient garbage (broken pottery) is great. Modern garbage stinks.

Horse-back riding is very popular on the beaches

This wasp did not survive the surf. I did not feel it was right to intervene in God's plan and save it.

Above the Plains of Sharon

Deep fried, fresh sage on Fatush..

Ingenious dessert, fresh fruit in creme anglais with a brulee topping!!

This is only about two inches tall

At the Western (Wailing) Wall

The Third Station of the Cross along the Via Dolorosa

The Dome of the Rock and the Western Wall

Along the Via Dolorosa. It's hard to believe this is among the holiest of Christian sites, nestled as it is within a dirty, crowded Arab market. But then, it is perhaps fitting.

A young boy holds a candle so his father can read his prayer book, just behind the rock at Golgotha where Christ was crucified.

It is believed that Christ was laid on this slab of rock, where his body was annointed before burial.

The faithful line up here to kiss the exposed, but well protected rock where the cross was erected on the top of Golgotha.

Just pictures today

2008-02-13T09:34:00.008-07:00

This is the dome of the Bahai Shrine in Haifa. The dome is clad with gilded, 'fishscale tiles'.

The view from under an orange tree in the Bahai Gardens above the Shrine in Haifa.

Have no idea, but very pretty.

The reflecting pool at the base of the terraced gardens at the Bahia Shrine.

Competing with an eagle for withering look.

Dean like to play around on the sea shore.

This is a hot spring where Herod once swam, and so did I!

I discover why this is called broom tree and make my way up the coast.

Lizard.

Dean makes dolmas....yummm.

Deep in the bowels of the market at Acco. Chicken hearts anyone??

A rose in the Bahai Gardens.

The Bahai gardens' entrance.

If you are a beached jelly fish the view from here is grim.

Olive trees - Bahai Garden Haifa.

The lime stone coast is very soft, you can scrape it away with your fingers.

Ancient ruins on the coast at Acco.

Young men watching people from their roof top in the old city of Acco. This is a bizarre place where people still live, amid ruins from antiquity.

A camel! We were surprised. This is the only camel we've seen; tied up like the family pet in a back yard in Acco. She looks happy enough though.

Mother watching her kids playing on the crusader walls at Acco.

Tiny succlent plant in the cliff at Alexander River National Park.

Dean, enjoyed his lunch at the Eratz Israel Museum cafe.

Tis the season of the brilliant anenome.

A teeny tiny irise.

The bones of something...

Local produce....

Cats are everywhere.

Ancient molded glass perfume vials shaped like dates at the Eretz Israel Museum.

Blogger trouble

2008-02-01T01:54:00.000-07:00

Blogger is having some troubles and I can't upload any photos or spell check right now. So - I will use the photo slideshow instead (not as good because the pics are small) and you will have to accept an even greater number of typos and live with the bad spelling.

The Other Mount Carmel

I grew up in a small town in St. Mary's Bay, Newfoundland, called St. Catherine's. With only about 15 families, it did not have a school. But we did have the gas station, and the mechanic, the lounge (means “bar” or, as mom would say, “beer tavern”), and for a while before it burned down, the only place in the area that made French fries – (RIP Gordon's). This community was at the head of the Salmonier Arm and thus called 'The Head" in local parlance. This is pronounced as follows, with two syllables: hay/yud. We went to school in the adjoining town of Mount Carmel. Being a bigger community, Mount Carmel had the school, (denominational Roman Catholic), the church (Roman Catholic), the priest's house, the convent (Presentation Sisters), and the store (Tremblett's, a.k.a. Mr. Ted's, a.k.a. Tedram's. Tedram was a reference to Mr Ted's sexual exploits, his membership in the Holy Name Society notwithstanding.)

Originally this area was called Lumber Grass, since it was to this community that people from deeper down in the bay came to get hay to feed livestock, and wood to build homes. Nobody will confirm this if you ask so don’t bother, but someone told me this around 1975 and it makes sense to me. Mr. Pat passed away so I can’t follow up with more mature questions, but I trusted Mr. Pat Nolan. He taught me how to play crib and his daughter Alicia, and her brothers Ken and Kevin were about the best friends I ever had.

You would have to visit the rest of the area to understand why this was where people came for lumber and hay. To this day, but probably not for very much longer (echoes of the Rocky Horror Picture Show), you can see the outlines of what were once farms sloping down the hillside facing towards the south east. In those days Newfoundland produced about 80% of its own food, importing things like flour, tea, sugar and salt. Farmers used seaweed, inedible or spoiled fish, the apocryphal lobster, and of course manure to enrich the thin layer of soil forgotten by the glaciers. They raised cows, pigs, chickens, and sheep, and kept horses. It is hard to believe this today, but trust me it is true.

When the community was overun by the Roman Catholics, they renamed it Mount Carmel. My humble home was named after the Mount Carmel in the bible, renowned for its fertile beauty, and the place where Elijah called upon God to one-up the pagans. Elijah then smote the pagan gods - a disturbing if not entirely unexpected instance of carnage from the pages of the Old Testament. I expected the other Mount Carmel, the one in Israel, to be very very different from my Mount Carmel. I pictured it as a lush paradise, where fruit dropped from trees, with solid thumping moist bounces, into your waiting lap; a green meadow in which fat white lambs cavorted happily awaiting the knife, where the earth’s fecundity was beyond question. I believed my Mount Carmel was a land where nothing much could grow and nobody had a job. Because I lived in Mount Carmel Newfoundland when it was moving from self-sufficiency to dependence, I did not know that you could live there without either a paying job or government support.

Actually, the other Mount Carmel is not that unlike mine. Granted, the climate is a bit warmer, and it is a gentler place in winter. But remembering that brutal heat is as destructive as brutal cold, 40 above and 40 below are just choices. Some say the world will end by fire, some say by ice...after all. There are sweeping pine forests here, from which you can see the horizon dividing the ocean from the sky. There are areas strewn with glacial rubble, stone outcrops and scrubby bushes. There are goats and grass and tiny flowers. A place where you could live without a job or government support. If you wanted to. Just like Mount Carmel Newfoundland.

Art and the meandering of an idle mind.

2008-01-26T03:47:00.000-07:00

I have always understood that matter where I am, I am really only in the limited space around me. This makes things like being away from home somehow different, and perhaps less inspired? It may make me feel removed from where I am, physically, to too great an extent, or maybe too successfully. I don’t know when this idea first lodged in me. But likely it was during a time away from where I knew I should really want to be: home.

It means that living in a small house is no different than living in a mansion. Because really, you are limited to the space you can experience in the split second of time during which you are aware of the present as distinct from the past, or future. If I am on a cliff with the open ocean ahead, and the flat barrens behind, my experience is still limited to what I can see, discern, the distance I can judge, the extent to which I am able to perceive dimension. I cannot, regardless of clarity of light, see the far distance with anything more than a well informed idea of what is actually there.

The immediate environs I can sense, are all of the world at any particular moment. Since the body is an inexact machine, the world it interprets may be flawed. My vision is off, my colour perception may be incorrect, my fingers tips are not as sensitive as they once were to texture, heat, pain or pleasure. My nose and ears do not pick up the nuances and shifts that they once did, and may never have been as good as some, and have almost certainly been better than others. So the prescribed world that is within the limits of the senses, is even smaller.

In the space between the real world, and the senses that deliver it to ‘me’ there is a place where I change everything. I believe that we create our own world. When my created world encloses a person who fills me with desire, with love, or with tenderness, and their created world delivers the same messages to them, obviously it is magic. The same would have to be true around a person I could not abide. And in that crossing of worlds there is a created world that is shared. One is magic. The other – well – that’s that encounter we have all had and we know it –with someone we cannot abide. And the revulsion is the result of a mutual feeling.

It is also why talking on the phone, or on video conference, can never replace actually being there. Even when you will be able to “touch” and “feel” via virtual senses, the air around you will not be moved. And in that movement and shift is where your true experience on an 'other' lives.

So being in England, or Spain, or Gamla, or Memphis is a matter more of specifics then generalities. I am not in “Israel”. I am not even in “Netanya”. I am residing in a body I have never liked, behind a face that misrepresents me. The evil puppet of who I really am mocks me from within. The I that I am is sitting on a chair, at a table, in a room with a couch and a TV, and a stereo. The air smells of cooking eggs and toast. The noises from the street are cars, trucks, ambulances, motor bicycles. I am in a space created by the fact that I can respond to some tangibles. You can never really ‘be’ anywhere that you haven’t always been. Wherever you go, the air, the light, the smell, the dimensions and textures, shift to meet the limits, or gifts of your perception. Maybe, to be an artist is to understand this shift and capture it as it passes; which, of course, makes the creation of genuine art a near impossible task for those of us are not artists. So it is entirely understandable that with art, you can only know it when you see it. And when we see it, we naturally think we could do it if we only tried hard enough; which is like hearing a Chinese poem in translation and then thinking, “Oh I see. I could do that. It’s only English after all.” Someone else has translated for you. Real art is in the interpretation, not in the hearing of it. There is plenty of just plain bad art out there, and saddly many people can't see or hear the difference. "If it looks like art - it must be art" they tell themselves, without an ounce of insight.

So here I sit contemplating how one grabs that thin web of interface between the real and the perceived and express it. And I picture a Monet. Or I hear some perfect line ("nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands"), or recall a piece of music that is as perfect as if it grew from the air (anything by JS Bach), and I know that to hold that moment’s tiny spark of truth, would be a gift. Every work of art is proof that it can be done. Every work of art is proof that you can find that space, read it, feel it, hold it, and maybe even alter its nature. And it is proof that art is the most important thing we do. The only real link we have with why we 'are' at all. And the only religion I need.

What is obvious

2008-01-18T02:09:00.000-07:00

Being in the Holy Land is sometimes a sad experience. I guess that’s not an earth-shattering revelation is it? There is little doubt that even the outward indications obvious to someone like me, who has not been particularly interested in staying abreast of the issues, are there will never be peace here. As long as there is ‘faith’, there cannot be peace. By faith, I mean an adherence to apparently irrational superstitions and useless dogma that have become the stand-in for a spiritual life. Christians (and I do count myself among them), include massive numbers of people who still believe that Jesus was born to a teenaged virgin (even though her invention is well documented), changed water into wine, walked on water at the Galilee and rose from the dead. To quote the genie in Disney’s Aladdin, “bringing people back from the dead, I don’t do it, it’s not pretty.”

For generations Roman Catholics happily ate fish on feast days because the Pope (who was, incidentally, in league with the fish merchants and invented a bunch of new feast days to keep up pressure on exploration of the west and the exploitation of cod stocks - ehem) said so. Then they just started eating pork chops again, because, well a different pope said so. They believe that going to mass, taking communion, confessing their sins, and hanging plastic replicas of a virgin who never really existed will assure them immortality. They believe all of these things because it allows them to live as they wish without really ever thinking about the central expectation of their ‘faith’. To love each other. (Am I sermonizing? You bet – I come from a long line for sermonizers, many of whom got paid for their efforts.)

Indeed, loving each other went by the wayside long ago. Unless you accept that by ‘each other’, Jesus meant, well – you know – other people ‘like us’. Each other does not include ‘those people’, coloured people, indigigenous peoples, people of other religions, homosexuals, women, pregnant teenagers, etc, etc, etc. Maybe he was just talking in an idle kind of way to his gathered disciples. A sort of, guys, can you stop bickering and just love each other moment enjoyed by exasperated parents since time immemorial. Maybe when he called himself father he meant, you’re a bunch of youngsters – just grow up.

Gamla. After a fierce attempt to defend the city from Romans, the Jews threw themselves off the cliff rather than surrender.

And the Christians are not alone. In fact, they have few of the superstitious rules. I understand much of Kosher law. Eating pork and shellfish in the middle east 4000 years ago was very likely unwise. Cleanliness is never a bad idea. Combining milk and meat is generally not a heart healthy choice. Refusing to cut your forelocks on the other hand, escapes me as an evolutionary benefit. Using two sets of plates, one for milk and milk products, and another for meat and meat products, in the time of the dishwasher, seems extreme. Reciting prayers in which you thank God you were not born a woman denies the joy of nurturing, the pleasure of beauty, the possibility of life. Separating men and women is as counter to human nature as self-flagellation.

The Golan Heights

And then there’s the other side of the river Jordan. Believing that God is pleased when humans murder each other, as long as the victims are infidels, or that he rewards suicide with rooms full of nubile slave girls, is just plain ridiculous. How could a creator despise so many millions of his own creations. Believing that a mound of dirt is more important that life itself? Come on folks. Let’s talk about what’s for dinner.

But this is obvious isn’t it? Isn’t it?

The road to Capernaum is dotted with McDonalds, the odd Burger King, touristy attractions with Coca Cola signage. As seven Sikorsky and Apache helicopters escorted George W. Bush to the site of the ministry of Jesus the Galilean, I couldn’t help but wonder how flabbergasted Jesus would be if he could see this. If I were a Christian of the type who believes Jesus will return, I would fervently hope he did not do so in my lifetime. His wrath would split the planet and send us all hurtling into Hades. Maybe they, him and his dad, would start over, if they aren’t totally discouraged by now. Maybe the next time they should let mom off her pedestal, out of the kitchen, out of the bedroom, out from under her burkha, and include her in some of the decision making. Maybe if we all sat down and had a meal together – hmm – that sounds familiar.

2008. The Year of the Rat

2008-01-03T11:04:00.001-07:00

Geese flying south over the Mediterranean;
Tel Aviv, New Year's Day 2008
Can't see them? Click to open larger image

It's my year. All the portents are auspicious. 2008 is a nice balanced number: there are two (2) zeroes (0s) before the eight(8); and eight(8) is really two zeroes(0s) stacked up. The double zeroes (00) are also the symbol for infinity ∞ , if you think about them properly, as is the eight. Eights are lucky as anyone selling real estate in Vancouver in the early 90s, or planning Olympic games, knows very well. And I will be 48 this year. It is also the year of the rat, and that's also me. R is the 18th letter, A is the 1st, and T is the 20th. If you add them all up they pull me happily balanced into my 49th year, which is also this year. And I don't need to explain the magic of 9s. So the numbers look like this to me: 60200∞868481812049. And if you plug that number into Dogpile, Google or Technorati you will find nothing! So it's all mine. You figure it out. Trust me it's lucky. (with apologies to Bruce-the-mathematician)

Aggressive pomegranates in Shuk Ha'Carmel, Carmel Market.

So I take this to heart and start the year off right with a facial delivered by a pale, dark-haired young Russian woman in a little place on Ben Yehuda Street in Tel Aviv. She doesn't speak English really, so it's at least an hour and a half of quiet time. Well worth the sheqels I figure. (Is it just me, or is there something very strange about having actual sheqalim in your pocket? Did I read too many stories as a child? Why do I feel special with a sheqel in my hand??)

I have to admit to being a wee bit nervous about the language barrier. After all, I have special needs: sensitive, old, thin skin. And I felt I should explain how things (by which I mean the blackheads) got so out of control. I wouldn't want anyone to think I was 'that' kind of woman. But honestly, 5 months on the road, including many nights in a tent, and using hotel soap, or none at all, and bad, bad European water (don't get me started on the water) and living in ancient, polluted, filthy.....sorry....but some days it felt as if every corner of Europe was either the site of an archaeological excavation or under construction... All that to say, my skin was pretty full of dirt ( and don't tell me that it isn't dirt, it's melanin, I know that. But I also know that it's dirt) so, I felt the need to explain. But I couldn't so I just lay there humiliated, and tried to understand what she was saying in Russian to her coworkers. I think it was something like, "Holy crep, deez Ameerican wemin ear slobovskees."

Olives, pickled turnip and hot peppers (did I mention this is my year??)

Now, if you are a man (or woman) who has never had a facial, two things: one, take a hard look at your face in bright light and ask yourself why you have never had a facial. I can assure you, you need one. Two, having your pores extracted is not fun even if it is worth the sheqel. Pore extraction is a technique first developed by the MI5 to get secrets out of Russians. (This is where my captors learned the technique) Only by thinking of my sons and the safety of the free world did I survive pore extraction. But I did have a moment when I thought, one more of those and I will sing, sing like a canary. The resulting baby soft skin, awash in a rosy glow from my swollen pores, is worth that small ordeal.

With my new, only slightly raw, puffy face, I headed off to find a hair stylist. I figured it would be easy since there are at least two beauty parlours on every block along Ben Yehuda. I am an impatient person who does not learn from my mistakes however. The last time I had my hair cut, (as opposed to trimmed) was April 2007. It was a traumatic affair to say the least. One Michele, a stick insect (thank you Heather Mallick) so thin she reminded me of "manny-men" my sons used to make out of bent paper clips, literally cut off all my hair. What did I do to bring this on myself you ask? I told her that I wanted, eventually, to grow out the colour. Was there a language barrier? Maybe she thought I wanted all the colour, ergo, all my hair, cut out there and then? No, I am being kind. I showed her a picture, of ME, with the haircut I wanted. What drove her to cut off all my hair I do not know. Boredom? Malice? Hatred of the elderly? What motivates the Edmonton stylist? Whatever it was - it lead me to the purchase of my wig, so in a way I am grateful. I love the wig. (see blog post of May 26, 2007).

So I should have learned. Learned to never, ever, ever have my hair cut at all. But I haven't. And that may be because, at a certain critical mass, my hair is like a "sheep on my head", to quote Carla Martins. Impatient as ever, I walked into the only totally empty salon on the street, because, having made up my mind, I did NOT want to wait one more minute (this is my eternal downfall as anyone who knows me will agree).

A lone blond put down her magazine (I see with some apprehension it is a Russian publication) and smiled. "Shalom" I muttered. "Do you speak any English?" "Yis pleez" she assured me. Now, you're thinking, she will have the good sense to leave. No. "I need a trim. Is too long...ees too heffy" This is what happens when you are speaking to someone who does not speak English. You start speaking your mother tongue the way they do - it's frustrating and unavoidable.

Palm tree outside our window.

She pushed the sheep too and fro and commanded, "seet." Maybe it was the recent brush with pore extraction, or maybe it was the steely look in her pale blue eyes, or maybe it was just quiet despair. Something made me seet. And when she gripped the hair at the nape of my neck in one hand, and a straight razor in the other, I knew it was too late to run. And the sickening sound of a sharp blade sliding over my hair, for the umpteenth time in my life, caused me to look myself square in the eye in the mirror and plead with all that is holy...why me????

Resigned to my fate I amused myself with watching the locks plummet to the floor (my hair really is that heavy - I swear you could here the thump as they hit). As she worked away around my ears (try keeping those babies under cover) I waited for the final coup de cheveux. Then something strange happened. She laid down the razor and picked up small scissors. She cut the tips off here and there, shaped a bit and then smiled at the top of my head. With a blow dryer and a brush she happily finished her work and I looked in amazement at my hair. "Now eet go nice, long" she advised. And darn if she may be right. I love this haircut. Who knew? It will be difficult to get back to this miracle-worker every month for the rest of my life, but I am committed (or will be). I have a hair 'do' that requires blow drying, and mousse, and hot irons! Rose, if you are reading this, please set aside some quality time in May to teach me how to do this.

Bouncing up the street with a white and pick face and hair like Dorothy Hamel's, I am happy in 2008. Life is good.

Happy New Year. Hope we ride through it blissfully together!!

(update - hair looks rather less glorious after good night's sleep and shower - but I am still very, very happy)

Flower on a Lime tree, Ben Yehuda Street

Today? It is enough to be alive.

2007-12-11T13:53:00.000-07:00

Traveling is an odd thing. On the one hand it is wonderfully liberating to be able to face the day not having to report for work. On the other, it is a strangely guilt inducing position. You can her that voice - "okay - here it is - what are you going to do with it?"

We wake up every morning with the question – what should we do today. And we feel the pressure inherent in that question. A voice speaks “You are in Barcelona. You are SO lucky. How are you going to ensure you do not squander this day. Do you know what others would give to be here, in your shoes, wondering what to do today in one of the most beautiful cities on earth?” Yes, this is life. It is not a rehearsal. What are we doing? What am I doing? I spend a half day berating myself for not being enough. Not seeing enough, writing enough, creating enough…And then I get the dreadful, tragic news that the young sister of a friend has been shot to death in a random shooting. And I read about Robert Latimer. And I am reading “The Book Thief” in which a German Jew spend 22 months underground in 1941-42 without seeing the sky; suffered it all just to be alive.

It is enough to be alive, I understand. My activity right now is travel. My backpack weighs some 33 pounds. I have seen more things than I ever hoped to see in a lifetime. And it is enough just to be alive. There is all together too much talk these days about how we will leave our mark. It is enough to be alive.

This does not mean that I never think there may be something bigger and more important. I know that there is and I know what it is. Somewhere out there is an artist, chosen and blessed by fate, honed by her own hard work and determination, who is creating the art of my time. Her name will be remembered, but my name, my life, will stand behind her. She will know, when she takes the podium, that she is but the voice.

When it comes to the accomplishments of the ages there are no individuals. Only chosen ones. And I am happy to be alive. My children are whole and healthy, my family is happy; there is no shortage of food and a surplus of shelter. I am one of the chosen ones. It is enough. It is enough. And, this Christmas, I am so grateful.

Catalan music in a Catalan Church

2007-12-04T15:44:00.000-07:00

Here in Barcelona, there is no shortage of music. We were fortunate to catch a concert in the Basilica del Pi, a large, stone, lofty, cold church with the smell of a thousand wax candles burning, and a Virgin reigning over the congregation. It was a surprise, since I would have expected the crucified Christ. But here she was.

The concert was - well - music is not my area of expertise I suppose. But Jack, Jack spent many years of his life studying the classical guitar. And he plays very very well, if not often enough. Given all of that, I offer his thoughts on hearing Manuel Gonzalez, solo, in concert at the Basilica del Pi in Barcelona.

Moments
Dean Spaner

Tonight we sat in a 14th century church in the heart of Barcelona and listened to a classical guitar master play beautiful waves of sound into reverberations bouncing off the Virgin statue seeped in blue behind the pulpit; the music of Ferdinando Sors, Isaac Albeniz and Francesc Tarrega. His final encore piece was a fragment of the Concierto de Aranjuez, a piece so hauntingly beautiful I started to cry. I couldn’t help myself.

I remember Miles Davis playing in a Roman amphitheatre in Istanbul some 20 years ago; where he walked on to the marble floor, turned his back to the amphitheatre audience, pointed his trumpet into the stone walls under a Mediterranean moon and played for three hours. I remember how many hours I’ve spent staring into space transfixed by Miles Davis riffing The Concierto de Aranjuez into the Sketches of Spain on cassette, CD and now Fujitsu Mini Notebook.

The church tonight is in the narrow medieval cloying streets of the ‘Call’, the Walled Jewish ghetto where persecution became murder, expulsion or conversion in short order. Less than 200 metres away we walked out into a courtyard two nights ago to ethereal street guitar music and children playing soccer against the walls of the cloistered hellish quarters where Ferdinand and Isabel received Columbus in 1493 and where the fires of the centre of the Inquisition burned brightest for centuries.

Tonight we lined up to have our CD of the Concierto de Aranjuez signed by the Maestro. As we waited in line the tall dark woman, with black hair in luminous long ringlets, started speaking to her taller darker companion. I could hear their excitement in getting the autograph, in attending the concert; he insisting on shaking the musician’s hand, reminding his girlfriend to say thank you as they left. The guttural cadence of their beautiful Hebrew conversation shook me so much I can’t describe the emotion. They walked out and embraced in a kiss in the centre of the square in the ancient Jewish ghetto denuded of all Jewish presence in 1492. I turned to Anne and said, “Isn’t that amazing? It is all so beautiful.”

And it was beutiful..Beautiful to think that in this place of so much pain, the Inquisition, the colonization of the New World, Fascisim - to know that what remains is the beauty of this place. That people can sit here and cry for the sadness and the wonder and the true beauty of it all. That is what gives us hope I suppose.

The low cost of healthcare

2007-11-30T11:30:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wondered what prescription drugs cost in other countries? Does this question make you think that you’d better get all your prescriptions filled before you go anywhere? Before we left Canada I purchased six months worth of prescription drugs, thinking I have half of them shipped over when I needed them. Well, the time came, and guess what? You can’t ship prescription drugs out of Canada. Of course not!! What was I thinking. Well – if you are an online pharmacy you can, but if you’re just little ole me, well no way. I told my mother to lie, she did after all smuggle wine from California (sorry mom – but you DID), but she wouldn’t lie. Not even for me. Not even for my estrogen!!

So, I got down to work contacting the Canadian Consulate in Barcelona, searching the web for English speaking doctors, working out the time difference between here and Newfoundland for a phone call to my doctor there. Somewhere in my searches, I came across a phrase “in Spain, if you are paying for the drugs yourself, some pharmacies will not require a prescription.” Hmmm, I thought. Worth a try I suppose. So, next morning, I went, prescription bottles in hand, to the pharmacy next door. I figured I was in good shape on two of them, since I had the original bottles and the labels indicated two refills. The third however, I had dumped into an older bottle, which clearly said – 0 refills. Did I mention I can’t speak Spanish? I held up my bottles to the pharmacists, and he inspected them briefly, writing down the names of the drugs on a scrap of paper. He checked some drawers and some files, and then smiled at me. “How many do you want?”

And it was that easy. I went back today to pick up the two months worth of prescriptions, expecting to pay what I would at home, at least. When he told me the total, I thought he said four hundred euros. I was not surprised really, and just handed over the credit card thanking everything that is holy that I have insurance coverage. He then handed me the receipt to sign. Forty-six dollars and change. I asked him if this was correct. Yes he said, in English, “Spain have the slowest cost por drogues.” Which I understood perfectly. I paid, and half ran out the door, feeling like a criminal. Two of the prescriptions are generic and one is absolutely identical to what I get in Canada. Makes you wonder hey?

Light real and artificial

2007-11-27T09:53:00.000-07:00

Okay, I know you crowd in Newfoundland and Alberta don't want to hear this, but it hit 22 here today. Brilliant blue sky, not a cloud to be seen. We had an excellent Chinese meal on the waterfront, watching the steady flock of jets coming into Barcelona. And more wonderful than all that? Christmas is but a small part of the landscape. Even in the malls, there is no blaring Christmas music. We noted that they are building a creche in the square in front of the cathedral, marking the beginning of advent, and I admit I look forward to watching the installation progress. And the big department store in Placa de Catalunya has monstrous displays picked out in mini lights hanging above the plaza. Las Ramblas also sports pretty strings of white lights. But as for the big sell - it simply isn't here. Maybe it's coming? But I think not. This is not North America. The population here is still, apparently, very Roman Catholic; certainly you do not see girls baring their stomachs or strutting around in halter tops and short shorts. I have to say, it's very nice not to be subjected to hip bones, pierced belly buttons and thong underwear at every turn. It is none-the-less tolerant, and it is not uncommon to see gay couples, openly affectionate, in this part of town.

In the bright sunlight of midday, the Christmas decorations strung across the narrow street are illuminated. It looks a bit odd, amidst the tumbling green leaves cascading from planters hung along balconies. It is winter here though. When the sun goes down it gets chilly. Only hardy Canadians go out in t-shirts. While we sat in the sun, others were huddling in scarves and mitts. It's all about what you're used to. And when what you're used to is the all-out assault on the spirit of Christmas that typifies North America in late November, this is a huge relief. I am beginning to think that Americans (and by tacit approval - Canadians) have launched a war on beauty. Oh, to be able to visit in 500 years and see what remains of mall culture. Is there anything authentic in North America that is fit to survive? Will future generations sit in reconstructed replicas of the West Edmonton mall listening to Muzak Christmas carols and sigh at the lost beauty of it? Or marvel at the capacity of the human spirit? hmmmm

New Camera

2007-11-23T16:10:00.000-07:00

Like getting back on a bike. How lucky we are that we can replace our losses. These kinds of losses at least. My brother, to cheer me up after the theft, reminds me that, "Anything that was stolen can be replaced. Anything that was stolen that had an important memory attached..you still have the memory. Things of value,talisman, work their way around civilisation. Someone else now gets a turn, somehow...eventually." Wise words from a man who says he's had so much stuff stolen he's thinking of changing his name to Rob. Ah Ned. Your talent should have made you a millionaire by now. The world is indeed a strange place.

The young are out in droves tonight on the narrow street where we live. At street level there are dozens of tapas restaurants, bars of all description, waffle shops, clothing boutiques, soap and candle stores - you name it. And they all open at 9PM. The apartment buildings rise five stories, creating an echo chamber that makes us privy to every conversation, every laugh, scream, broken bottle, and the daily rounds of the gas man who wails his arrival through the alleys. Cars are not allowed, but motor bikes and scooters are. More annoying are the bicycle rentals and their incessant bell ringing. But it is reassuring to hear the thumping of the bars, and the laughter. People are living out there. And it feels safe in here.

Day without photos

2007-11-22T02:26:00.000-07:00

It had to happen. We were warned. And we tried! We did! But we didn't try hard enough. Yesterday, while sitting on a beach, reading a not-really-terrific-but-in-English Martin Amis novel, with my belongings safely beside me, I was robbed. I don't know how it happened. My bag was literally inches from my leg. But, at some point, I was distracted by something, long enough for someone to simply take it.

To anyone watching, and this hurts because there were certainly people who watched it, I must have appeared the typical befuddled, innocent from the New World. When I first missed the bag, I thought, Dean has it. He had gone for a walk. I stood up, looked up and down the beach (there were not many people on the beach -it being November-and the bag in question is bright pink.) I sat back down. I looked again into the sand where the faint dent of the bag was surrounded by the imprint of Dean's Birkenstocks. Ah - I thought - yes - Dean has the bag. So I read for a bit.

But the other side of my brain was computing away and reminding me that I had put my socks, and my glasses in that bag, long after Dean set out for his walk. So I stood up again, by now mortified and starting to feel a chill in my soul. What do you do? There's no point shouting or screaming. The kid practising juggling 15 feet away was still there, obligingly entertaining. Or was he distracting? The couple asleep up the beach was still asleep. Or were they watching me through half opened eyes. And there was no one else in close proximity. Except that man who asked me for something...in Spanish...and I tried to ignore him but he kept talking. Was it while he was talking?? He had pointed at my bag. I though he wanted money or a cigarette. Was he warning me??

It is gone. My bag - my pink bag - the bag my sister gave me years ago when I never dreamed of travelling anywhere, any time. The bag I took to Ireland and Cuba, and England and France and Belgium and Holland and Spain.....

So there I stood, bewildered, lost, chilled.

Luckily for me, a man saw a woman who saw the thief with my bag and yelled at him and he dropped it and the man lead us to where the bag had been dropped. So I got the bag, with my driver's licence, my bank card, and my glasses. But of course, the ipod, the cash, and the camera were gone. Not enough to make an insurance claim sensible, but enough to make me feel sick.

I am certainly thankful that I was careful not to carry credit cards, or my passport, or too much cash etc. And I am deeply grateful that I got the bag and my bank card and ID and expensive prescription sun glasses back. If one woman working in a cafe, and one man hadn't bothered...And I am impressed with the efficiency of the Barcelona Police. (I'm sure they had bigger problems) But the thought of our little camera in someone else's hand makes me bitter. But hey? It was, is, an inannimate object after all. But if we don't care about things at all . . . if nothing has significnace at all . . . if objects of our history don't matter? What are we??

The ipod - oh well. But the camera? Literally thousands of moments of our lives passed through that screen. And, here comes the romantic, I was 'attached' to it. I konw I shouldn't be. But I was - and am. I think it misses us. There, it has been said. We will, of course, replace it. But for today. No pictures. In honour of my fallen friend.

2007-11-18T02:15:00.000-07:00

The dressing station where John McCrae treated the wounded, and wrote In Flander's Fields

It seems that life is what we've been living while we should have been making plans. I hear the naysayers from time to time, telling me it’s crazy to visit Europe without making careful plans, that you can't just show up. Especially at our age. (One friend actually burst out laughing saying, "What? You'll going by train with all the backpackers??" Yeah. Hilarious. But that's what we're doing and so far it's working.

Sometimes we are surprised. And we have no doubt walked past things we should have stopped and visited. I can already hear the “You were in . . . . and you didn’t . . . ?? You should have . . . .” You know how it goes. But the fact is we tried to make a plan and fast discovered that we were not the type of people who could pull it off. Luckily we agree on that and are happy to proceed along these lines. So, for all those who are too polite to ask “weren’t you going to Spain to do the Camino?” Here is your answer. Yes. We were. After five weeks of travel in the US and sleeping in different cities every night, we felt we needed to settle for a bit and get used to the idea of where we were. My parents gave me extra money I certainly had not expected, which allowed us to spend a little extra time in England. (And if you plan to go to England, extra money is what you need – holy crap!)

Town square, Wissant

Then, on our way across the channel on the ferry from Dover, a young Canadian lawyer told us he was going to visit Vimy; his friends had lucked into rugby tickets and left him on his own in England for a couple of days. Vimy, we thought. That’s a good idea. And so we found ourselves in the killing fields, at the end of October. And while there, it was obvious that we had to visit Ypres and Beaumont Hamel. It took a bit of time since I had a bad cold for a week, and you just can’t buy Contact C in France it seems. So – we stayed in Calais for a couple of days, and then found a gite in Wissant, a small, very French village right on the channel. We took the bus from there into Bolougne for a day and walked around the walled old city. Then by train to Lille, where we rented a car and drove to Ypres, Arras for two nights and from there to Brugge. And finally, in a single day, drove from Brugge to Lille, took the train from Lille to Brussels, to Amsterdam where there were no rooms available, and so back to Utrecht.

Dolls in a shop window, Brugge, Belgium

Candles in the Dom, Utrecht

We never intended to be here, with the history of two world wars around us, days before November 11th. We never planned to visit the galleries of Northern Europe, and see some of the most famous paintings in history. But hey, it happened. As Dean remarks with just a hint of sarcasm, we have visited about 1700 Roman Catholic churches, many of which are more like art galleries that churches. Neither of us are Roman Catholic, but I for one have contributed a fair bit of change and lit a fair few candles for the Virgin Mary. I also remembered, word for word, the Hail Mary in a taxi in Charleroi. It is better to be safe than sorry.

In one of these churches, there sits a small Michelangelo. I doubt the artist would have been too pleased to see his delicate, understated virgin sitting in a niche of red marble columns and honoured by large pots of yellow flowers. But it is possible to isolate the gentle expression of the young girl, and appreciate the delicacy of the child Jesus at her knees despite the crowds, the poor lighting, and the gothic weight of the church itself.

Michaelangelo's Mother and Child at the Church of Our Lady, Brugges, Belgium

There is something truly calming about these lofty gothic cathederals. They were on to something when they believed that God exists in light. Maybe that's why it is so difficult to explain the diverse properties of light. Many of these places are operational, so visitors are expected to be respectful of where they are. Simply sitting in the Dom in Utrecht, or in York Minster, or in the tiny St. Agatha's church near Easby Abbey where we joined the harvest celebration, tells me that the church, as a place, is a wonderful concept. And I regret not having that space in my own life.

13th century frescos uncovered on the walls of St. Agatha's church, Easby Abbey, England.

CBC News - Beware Facebook's Beacon

2007-11-16T03:42:00.000-07:00

CBC News In Depth

Salmon and Apples and Pies - Oh My

2007-11-10T06:17:00.000-07:00

Remiss in taking photos in restaurants; these apples are in a church window in Easby.

Ah – the food. Everywhere I go there is something new and different. But then, there are also the same things in different forms. And it is always a difficult decision: try something new, or have something familiar but treated in a different way? It is, of course, a total waste of time and money to eat at MacDonald’s, no matter where you are. So I am not talking about that kind of familiar. I am talking ‘waffle’, ‘pancake’, ‘Caesar salad’, ‘steak’ familiar. I learned, in France, that unless you’re willing to shell out for a filet mignon, steak means something terrible. A weird, stringy piece of meat, cut with the grain. But there are some things I seem to come back to. And Apple Pie is one.

I am, it seems, on a mission to find the best apple pie in the world – or at least the world that I have visited. I had a decent apple pie in the US, but the Huckleberry Pie in Montana and the Pecan Pie at Loretta Lynn’s Kitchen simply eclipsed all other American Pie experiences. (yes – I got it). I had a very nice version of the classic maritime pie at a place in Baddeck, Cape Breton, where I also managed to eat a whole lobster. I am not convinced that I have had a better pie since actually. It is hard to beat the combination of the fresh, Nova Scotia apple, cinnamon, nutmeg, butter and brown sugar encased in the kind of pastry only experienced maritime farm women can produce. Light, but stable, flakey on top, crunchy around the crimping, dry on the bottom , with no being greasy, tough areas on the bottom. Sorry Newfoundland, but pastry is not your forte in my experience. And there is nothing I dislike more than being tricked into a ‘homemade’ apple pie only to discover it has the white, gritty mush that comes in cans, squatting on my plate pretending to be apples. This happens all too often in Newfoundland, and I expect that has a lot to do with the kind and quantity of apples traditionally available there. That argument does not excuse the tinned blueberry pie filling ubiquitous in many smaller places however, so I think Newfoundland still has a ways to go on this front.

Excpet in the kitchen of my sister Barb, who makes wonderful pies of all kinds, and cinnamon bisquits, and who got up very early to bake a wonderful breakfast for us the day we arrived in Newfoundland:

Nowadays it is reasonably easy to find real apples that suffice for pies. Having said that, the kind of real apple really does make a difference, and the mealy dry things we used to call ‘five-star’, or Delicious, are not the right kind. In Richmond, in the Yorkshire Dales I had an exceptional apple pie made with fresh, local Bramley apples. These are grown in the UK particularly for cooking, but probably no point going to look for them since about 95% of the UK crop is sold fresh in Europe. Too bad, because the pie managed to taste appley and sweet while retaining that sharp tart edge you enjoy in really fresh fruit. The pastry was good, but not as good as the Cape Breton pie. Both of these were offered cold or warmed, something I took for granted but is apparently not always the case. In France, one does not get a ‘pie’, but a tarte, or flan. (I think there is money to be made translating the translations – the “English” in France is appalling, which may of course be deliberate)

okay - not my photo but the same,

The French apple tarte was beautifully constructed with thin, perfect, round slices of apple layered in concentric rings in a shallow, short crust pastry. A slight blanket of custard lay on the pastry to cushion the apples and allowed the combination to hold and present with a surface that could have been straightened with a surgical laser. Over the top, protecting the delicate, cooked apple, a shimmer of apricot-tinted jelly brought the thing together. Lovely, but so French; so controlled; so perfect; so cold. I wanted to ask to have it warmed but having seen what a waiter did to a couple who dared to complain a few days earlier, I decided to stick it out.

nearly perfect, garlic stuffed mussels in Arras

(Customer to waiter: “My wife’s mussels are under cooked. These are closed still, and these - she cannot pull them from their shells.”
Waiter: “I will talk to the chef.”
Fifteen minutes later, waiter returns: “The chef says he cooks many thousands of mussels every day.” He gestures to the rooms full of happy mussel munchers. “There is nothing wrong with yours, monsieur.” This is said loudly so all can hear. The admonished couple get up and leave. High drama for a bivalve.)

This is not a place where they take criticism very well. The pie was good, but I missed the cinnamon and sugar, and the more reckless mouthfuls you get with a deep dish pie.

Apple pies in a window in Bennekom

And so, onto The Netherlands, Nederlands, Pays Bas, Low Lands, Holland. Apfelkuechen. This pie is a nice combination of Maritime (chucks of apple in brown sugar and cinnamon), French (short crust sweet pastry but both top and bottom) and American (served with whipped cream AND ice cream). But again, served cold with no offer of a warm dish. Odd. I like the spices in the Dutch pie, but prefer the flakey pastry to the short crust. One last version in a more ‘high-end’ restaurant, featured a simple round of puff pastry, brushed inside with a slick of caramel, hot from the oven, with a chilled poached peeled apple half sitting inside. Interesting – but I actually don’t want that much apple – if you know what I mean. It’s about the sugar, and how sugar and butter and cinnamon bake together around apples and challenge the tart soft texture. And it’s about the crumble and splinter of good pastry and how it opposes the melt and chill of ice cream. Or, for some, the mingling of soft, sweet, tang and bite when you add sharp cheddar instead of whipped, clotted or iced cream. I think I am still looking. Cape Breton set a high standard.

Our little lunch outside Vimy

On the smoked salmon front however, I have to admit to being very taken with the Scottish smoked, salted salmon. While clearly smoky-flavoured, the ingredients listed are only salmon and salt? The Norwegian is also very good. Very smoky, very oily, tender and rich. We first had the Scottish smoked salmon in a pâté which we packed for a picnic during a hike near Gunnerside. But the goujons of smoked salmon we bought in Lille and ate in the car en route to Arras top the list thus far. Maybe it was the chill and damp outside, or the special hunger you experience when you walk a lot, or the fact that we were sitting in a miniscule Citroen on a road winding between wet hills of mud and sugar beets and WWI graveyards – but I think it was simply very, very good smoked salmon, cut in chunks, not slices, with very, very good Neufchâtel (cream cheese, but they don’t pasteurize the milk here) and very, very good fresh bread.

Market morning olive and lemon temptations

Having spent so much time in towns and cities where there are markets, I can’t imagine why we don’t have them more in Canada. I know Ottawa, Toronto and Montreal have markets – but this is quite different. The market in historic Europe appears overnight, in vans and buses, and sets up early in the morning. Market day is different everywhere. The markets we visited were most often set up in ancient town squares, originally designed for exactly this kind of community gathering. In Brugge, we saw an original stone fish market. You would be hard pressed to find a better-designed, more functional market anywhere today. The whole thing was cut from stone, completely seamless and waterproof, with large drains and flat stone counters. Sadly, the only thing for sale there now is bad souvenirs. In Arras, one cold, brilliant sunny morning, we bought hot roasted chicken, chicken sausage, plain and spicy, and Moroccan cous cous with its requisite dish of soup. A mouthwatering array of pickles, spices, herbs, fruits and vegetables is generally available. Some not-so-mouthwatering items as well, including skinned rabbits, heads intact, and a host of sausage and meat dishes made from offal – a specialty here. (We’re not talking head cheese either – this is chunky bits of stuff set sometimes into hard jelly which is no doubt the natural by-product of hooves or some such thing).

Skinned rabbit

The food is absolutely fresher. There is little or no plastic. People are expected to have their own bags. In fact, even in the larger grocery stores you must pay for every plastic bag you need if you don’t bring a market bag with you. You can look the farmer who produced your food in the eye if you want to. Whatever economic arguments you can cite for or against small farms, the ability to shake the hand that collected your eggs can’t be overestimated.

And so – back to the street to find another snack – er – topic…..

Food and observation

2007-10-28T14:06:00.000-06:00

(Cassoulet with merguez de Jacques)

My good friend Gus, who shares my enthusiasm for fine food, once told me he measured his vacations not in days, but in food. “You don’t go to Portugal for two weeks,” he said, “you go for 28 great meals.” I suppose there are those who measure time in terms of galleries, historic sites, museums, plays and operas. Certainly kilometers hiked, biked and bushwhacked can define a trip. For me, however, it is more often the food that marks the days, and describes the places. The food and everything associated with it – buying food to cook, restaurant service styles, wine and water, apples and bananas, street food, bar food, bread, the subtle and the remarkable differences, all of these shape the day.

Having no access to good coffee in the morning is an obvious set back. (Who would have thought that could happen in France?? The only place so far we've had difficulty!) Having no access to black pepper is genuine crisis. I discovered this in London and Ireland two years ago and therefore carry fistfuls of little packets from restaurants so I am never without. When I was a little girl, I stayed at a friend’s house in St. John’s from time to time for a weekend. I liked her house. It was a mansion, it had a name, and a genuine haunted wardrobe. Her father had a driver who brought him to and from work. Her mother had a sewing room and drank sherry in the afternoons. I was hopelessly envious of my friend with her long black silky hair, and her horse-back riding lessons and her ballet outfits. She was a skinny kid who simply could not keep weight on. But her mother understood my condition and kindly prepared carrot sticks for me when the other little girls were having bags of chips.

On one of these trips I had a nightmare, which I can still describe in some detail, and became inexplicably homesick. I suppose it was my first real experience of anxiety. For dinner, her mother, who was from England, had made cheeseburgers. I was relieved thinking that this was a familiar enough meal. She had topped them, however, with white pepper. To this day the taste of white pepper sends me into a dark anxious place; hence the special pocket full of black pepper in my purse.

But back to the food. In Calais, and indeed in this whole region, Moules Frites is the big favorite. Everywhere you go, restaurants are full of people with black pots of steamed mussels and side plates of french fries. One uses a mussel shell as a kind of tweezer to pull the plump orange meats from their shells, and to pick up the yellow fries. I have to note that we spied McCain’s frozen french fries in the corner store, so I don’t think the French have any high ground on this one. In all of the ramblings, I have not yet found a chip that could compete with Ziggy’s on Water Street in St. John’s. It would seem Newfoundland may be the last place where you can buy, and in fact expect, fresh cut fries. McCain’s and Bluebird have invaded the rest of the world. The preponderance of moules was too tempting, but I didn’t entirely trust the brasseries. So I bought a kilo of fresh, wild mussels from le pecheur at the wharf. He had three types, and I chose the wild mussels, remembering their taste and texture as superior to the softer, milder cultivated version. I bought a half bottle of wine to cook them with and set about to scrubbing the sand out and pulling off the beards. (Dean eschews the bivalve, so I had salmon for him.)

The mussels steamed open beautifully, fresh and salty with that sort of grey smell that edges the ocean at low tide. They were wonderful, with garlic, lemon, or butter, or without. But every now and then, I hit one that had a crunchy texture. At first I thought this was sand, and they were certainly a bit sandy. But no, it was crunch, not grit. I have to note here that the kitchen where we were eating was dimly lit, as is almost every part of France it seems. So I must be forgiven for not noticing that the mussels had been dining on crabs before their capture. Inside the shell of about 20 percent of the mussels, were tiny pink and orange crabs. Charming, I thought, a kind of value-added mussel-crab combo. But the idea became, fairly quickly, less enchanting. And the image of mussels, open to the passing detritus of the ocean, crawling with brown crabs just hours before I cooked them, did me in.

(Crepe norvégien avec les saumon fume, la crème fraîche et l'aneth)

A common term here is ‘Welsh’, which describes anything and everything with globs of thick, orange cheese, and more often than not, ham, which can be disguised as epaule, lardons (bacon, jambon, or any other word you aren't sure of). And ‘Norwegian’, which means a salty smokey delicious salmon. We asked about, and therefore happily avoided, the andouillette, a local delicacy made of pig’s colons and bits of coarsely chopped offal which even our waiter said was basically vile. You have to keep a sharp eye on the details as well, as the French do eat cheval, and your viande grille may be related to Secretariate. The gauffres, large sweet Belgian waffles, dipped in syrup and then regrilled and sold hot on the street with chocolate and whipped cream, are spectacular. The crepes range from eggy and rubbery, to light delicate perfection. As anywhere, there are good and not-so-good choices to be made. Steak here seems generally not so good. But then, having lived in Alberta for three years, I’ve already had the best beef in the world.

At the Pizza joint, we had a spectacular antipasti, with tiny grilled whole mushrooms, thin broad slices of grilled eggplant and zucchini (excuse me – aubergine and corgette), pure white fresh, spongy mozzarella, sun-dried tomatoes, roasted peppers all drenched in virgin olive oil and fresh basil sitting on a bed of bitter, frizzy endive. Ignoring as much as possible the fact that the waiter didn’t bring any water until near the end, and then refused us glasses until the very end (and judging by his smell he was not familiar with water at all) it was a wonderful meal. Sitting in the close quarters required in these places means you more or less have to converse with your neighbours, which was a welcome relief for both of us. Even with my faltering and hesitant French and our neighbours’ equally poor English, it was good to be social. Thankfully Dean is fluent in both languages and can smooth out the rough spots. Which is good since I often tell people I have two daughters (sorry boys – nothing malicious) who are lonely – by which I mean on their own. Ah well – much is lost in translation no matter how fluent you are.

Sundays here are a challenge since few places are open, and those that are decline to serve you ‘juste un café.’ There are a few notable oddities about the place in fact. There are no drug stores of the kind we are used to, nowhere you can buy ordinary cold medication for example. You have to ask a pharmacist for whatever you want, and the selection is limited. God alone can help if you have no French skills at all. Everyone smokes, everywhere, which is, I suppose, part of fate’s ongoing punitive measures for my misspent youth.

(this woman is only 17 but she somkes too much...)

They do not clean up after their dogs; the men piss on the streets. At times it seems the only thing that eclipses the grand beauty of the place is the stench. This can make it difficult to eat in an outdoor café. The waiters can be unbearably snooty and rude. I learned quickly that one mixes table wine with water to make both drinkable. There does not appear to be any reason why the women are slim and well-dressed (all in black – but well got out). They appear to eat and drink with gusto. Teenagers line up at the McDo for lunch, or pick up huge crepes, made on the street and filled with Nutella. The ubiquitous cigarette may help. But I conclude that the secret to the slim French woman is DNA and, in time, they will loose their advantage. Ehem. Maybe not.

In the meantime, I can only enjoy the food as fate clearly intended.

(this woman is 47 and enjoys creme fraiche)

Enjoying a Kir Imperiale in honour of Keir's birthday

Finding the real England

2007-10-01T05:38:00.000-06:00

Our three days in London were wonderful. Wonderful: what a lame word but, in this case, apt. There was, in truth, much to occasion wonder. For instance, I wonder, why did our inn-keeper insist that direct insults to exhausted travelers are part of the English sense of humour? (e.g. “Don’t really see people your age traveling about do you? Usually get younger types.” Or “Your husband did drugs d’in’e. Vats why he’ve got that demented look innit”) or why doesn’t anyone in the London and Great Britain Tourist Information office know where Swaledale is? “Gunnerside? Never heard of it. Swaledale?? No. Yorkshire – right – up north innit. Why’d you wanna go there? Nufink up there is eer? All grass and sheep innit.” Or why we were told to stand in line for an hour waiting for a train, only to discover that, when the train arrives, the line means nothing and people simply run helter skelter for the platform. But there are more pleasant wonders as well.

Orchids in the Princess of Wales conservatory, Kew Gardens

The Kew Gardens for example. Is there nothing that won’t grow in England?

Moore sculpture at the Kew Gardens.

The Tate! The pre-Raphaelite paintings are even more luxurious than I imagined. Of course the parliament, and oh my – is that Westminster Abbey? I’ll be danged. Topping all of these wonders though was the first floor of Fortnum and Masons. There, protected by guards wearing starched shirts and ties and wool jackets, lined up in glass cases with beautifully made-up shop ladies standing behind in wait, lie the most perfect chocolates you’ve ever seen. Keep looking.

Here is a fruit plate heaped with glistening glacé fruits: whole pears, pineapples, cherries and lengths of brilliant green angelica. Thick slices of oranges enrobed in molten sugar; a piece of orange that will deliver all the orangeness of time in one bite. All of the sweets that my childhood dreams were made of: white and pink sugar mice, jelly babies, candied almonds, licorice bits and bobs, candy prawns – the things the children in English books yearned for, I yearned for the more for never having seen them. And here they are. Laid out like rare gems, under glass, in the hushed atmosphere of the finest food store in the world.

Downstairs the smoked and dried meats and full legs of lamb and pork are displayed as though they are, each, the last of their kind. The cheeses are stacked and nestled to maximize their powers of temptation. Live lobsters and crabs reach out to their admirers. Huge ducks eggs and tiny quail eggs are lined up in military squares. Jeroboams of champagne crouch by the door.
Sentinels outside a vault of fine wine.

Dean asks if I would like to have tea at the restaurant. I do. Of course. I am near tears with emotion just to be inside these walls, and choked with the memories of my, long ago abandoned desire to be a chef. Not – not a chef. A food artist. Because that is what is happening here. But I am not dressed for it. And as silly as it may seem, the tea at Fortnum and Masons, the tea and scone I would want to live up to in my childhood imagination, must be taken in a proper dress. With gloves on I think. Maybe another day? But, knowing how way leads on to way, probably not.

We ate at a pub (orrible), at a Pakistani restaurant (shabby, dirty but really good), a Chinese restaurant (fantastic fried seaweed) and were relieved to find excellent coffee here and there. Not at our hotel – where we were offered the ubiquitous and uniformly disgusting full English breakfast. Fried sausage, bacon, egg sunny side up, beans, white toast, ketchup and brown sauce. Cleverly designed to make you appreciate anything and everything you will eat for the rest of the day, and maybe the rest of your life. We quickly learn to order one egg scrambled and toasted brown bread. Within the week we are back to just coffee.

Having finally found a map and some contradictory information about train and bus schedules, we plan our move North to the Yorkshire Dales, with hopes of getting to Gunnerside. A bridge collapse closed most of the lines North so our train in crowded. We stand the whole way to York in fact. Well – almost the whole way. The men on the train, even some who have paid to reserve seats, stand to offer their seats to the women. It is a charming moment. People are on cell phones explaining that they will be late, all with good humour. Nobody is exasperated. Nobody is foul. The women eat chips and gossip quietly (this is a quiet coach and people take that seriously). The young men play cards. Other people read. I watch the English country side rumbling by out the window, with a calm sense that being stuck on a train with these people is not a bad thing at all. It is rather an informative experience, and the beginning of the antidote to the North American life style that makes us all anxious, grey and angry.

At York we get a train for Darlington and then catch a bus to Richmond. We find ourselves in a market, outside the walls of an 11th century castle, with cobblestone streets and mediaeval houses. There is not a fast food chain in site. All we can do is grin for a bit. A taxi driver points us to a bed and breakfast hotel he describes as "ordinary". They have a room available on the second floor of a 500-yr-old self-catering cottage. Our windows are set deep into thick stone walls. One looks out at the castle wall where ivy and roses tumble down stones placed 1000 years ago. The room is painted white, entirely. A fireplace sits in the middle of the wall, and the floors are bare planks. The curtains are sheer, cotton, white panels. It is, in a word, perfect. Within a day we have decided to stay for a week. After five days we commit to two weeks.

In this tiny town there are pubs and tea houses at every turn. And the food in all of them is good. Some is exceptional. Like the jam and cream scone I had yesterday. Sorry, but these scones are so much better than the heavy tea biscuit (at its worst made with pork fat), or the soda spiked biscuit of the Southern states. These scones are light, crumbly, crunchy on top, soft and melting in the middle. With real whipped cream, berry jam and a sprinkle of castor sugar they are extraordinary.
The butcher has a mouth watering array of hand made sausage, tidy trimmed local pork and lamb, and a huge prime rib roast dangling mid-window. After three days of longing, we break down and buy a noisette of lamb which proves every bit at delicate as it looks. (a noisette is the meat from a rib roast, removed from the bone, trimmed and rolled with the fat on the outside, and then tied in a neat, perfect roast). We also bought a chicken which we roasted with thyme and lemons. Tender, tasty, delicious fat chicken! The market has fresh vegetables, Greek olives (wooa –expensive!), fish from the North and Irish Seas, army wear (the largest barracks in Britain are very near here), and then the same array of clothing and jewelry found in most markets.

The bakery sells out before noon. We buy pasties, grainy buns to have with the excellent English cheeses, Eccles Cakes rich and dark with prunes and raisins, and promise ourselves a fruit and custard tart another day. Strawberries from Belgium and double cream, chocolate with ginger, fresh Bramley apple pies – who ever said food is England is dull must have stayed in a London B&B for too long.
Finally we get organized to take the bus to Gunnerside, from whence came the Pratt family. This town was once the site of a lead mine, which closed in the late 1800s as lead from Spain became available. Lead was used for roofing, windows, and alarmingly, waterworks. The drive takes us through what they now call Herriot country – the landscape made famous by the TV series, All Creatures Great and Small. The land is mowed by sheep and cattle, the greens melding into each other through stone walls defining the rough shapes of pastures and meadows. Everywhere, there are sheep. It is immediately evident why so many people come here to walk. One wants nothing so much as to get close to the land, to feel it soft green skin, to be at home with it.

We find the cottage where my last remaining Pratt relative still lives. Inside a stone wall, with tangles of roses, a large stone gargoyle over the door, this is Eleanor Cottage. They name their houses here – I have not found why yet, but it is a charming convention. She is not at home however, so we walk back to Reeth. Part of the way, we take the foot path through pastures, over stiles, squeezing through slim openings in stone fences, keeping a wary eye for bulls and rams. This does seem odd, but the English have rights of way all over the country. This is a fine idea and prevents the wealthy from buying and fencing off access to the land. Even in the rain, it is a fine walk. We arrive tired and cheerful at a pub, where a wood and coal fire blazes hot and dry. A group of walkers behind us comes in, takes off their boots so as not the mess up the pub, and waits with pints all round for their ride. Where else but here do hikers take off their boots before walking into a bar? Where else but here are you asked for your order "please"? It is a gentle, calming place. And on this evening I do not ever want to leave.

Last Day in Canada

2007-09-19T12:10:00.000-06:00

We leave for England tomorrow. Hard to believe the time has passed so quickly. Our visit in Newfoundland has been fantastic. The Newfoundland that gave me such a glorious send off with whales cavorting through a burnt red sunset on the ocean, met me with a purple and orange sunrise and rolling hills cupping heavy fog banks. Bright green trees shredding lacy patterns against the brilliant back lit white sky.

We (I) have eaten way to much - but whattcha gonna do when the cod is fresh from the sea, the wild berries are ripe, and the chocolate is.....well available will do. If there is one thing we haven't done enough of it's just to be outdoors walking and enjoying the stunning landscape around the city, or just the very pretty streets downtown. This time of year flowers are in bloom everywhere and the light is bright and clear on the painted houses. But it's still more important to see people. My sister just sold SIX paintings in one day!!

My mother is as brutally intelligent and disarmingly generous as she has always been - not to mention beautiful and charming. My father is doing his best painting in years. My brother also sold some major work and his jokes are still really bad. My nephews and nieces are growing into really likable young adults, as are my friends' children. Live progresses along a course that today seems smooth and well navigated. My many friends here showed me yet again why I love them so much.

Where I grew up - in front of our house.

me and Dad

Elvis and me

2007-09-02T19:35:00.000-06:00

Elvis. Turns out that no matter how much money you have - if you are a backwoods boy - that's what you are. Graceland is very small by today's standards. Elvis had a dining room table that sat six people. (Who can imagine Justin Timberlake having dinner for five friends??)

His kitchen is fitted out with an electric stove and still has a cast iron fry pan. His famous 15ft couch sits in a room barely big enough to hold it, with a small ante room holding a baby grand that he may have played. Elvis' mom and dad lived on the ground floor. His father ran his business office from a retrofitted garage with badly hand-lettered signage. In an effort to intellectualize the KING, displays show books he read: Kahil Gibran, Herman Hesse. One wonders.

His fun room (family room) has shag carpet on the ceiling and large pseudo-African chairs upholstered with fake fur. He really did want to be black. His basement has special features he designed himself. Bright yellow swirling counters with black spots. These are built out of plywood and painted with layers of oil paint. His stereo system maybe supported a couple hundred "records" - no grandiose stereo room here - just a turn table.

It's all very sad really. He was such a huge part of American and world culture. Yet he was so clearly ignorant of either.

We paid the extra bucks to see his collection of stage outfits. His jumpsuits were patterned after Napoleon's high collars, and the flashy outfits with capes worn by black singers.

He was very very very pretty. He had a buttery evocative voice. His eyes could mute the Sirens. Why is that not enough? Why can't we simply say - he was a back hills boy who was probably the most beautiful man ever made with an incredible voice. He was in the right place at the right time. That's it. We don't need to think he was a musician, or a deep intellectual, or a good father. He was reportedly not a good lover. It was the visuals we wanted. And they still live.

We ate at the cafeteria that served his favorite foods. (funny how I feel I should put "his" in quotes the way we would but "G--" in red letters). We ate meatloaf, yams, mashed potatoes, served up by sullen black women (can't blame 'em) and, even split, it was too much food. Black flies circled our table, which had not been cleaned for a bit. We took our nearly empty plates away and had to leave wondering what it was all about. Elvis Presley was a remarkable entertainer and I am more than happy to worship at the altar of his sexuality, his innocence, his beauty, his voice,his hips, his dimples, his eye shadow. They way his look went from sultry anger to helpless to joyful in a moment. I wish I could go back in time and save Elvis Presley from what America did to him. I wish he could have been in an age when someone would have told him that he could be his own man. He could be a man who wanted to be black, who wore eye shadow, who had hips of rubber, who could be both a woman's man and a man's man. I wish Elvis had lived in another time. But what time would that be?

I visited his grave and I felt genuine sadness at his early demise. He was something very American. He never toured outside the U.S. He never pretended (like Bryan (with a "y' Adams) that he could sing with the best. Although he could probably have held his own with the big guys far far better than Sting did. (That wsa just bad). He really was very simple. Very ordinary. A man who just was who he was and was probably undone by the way the world reacted to him. Probably best that he did not live to become old. And he was not the whole thing. He was the apex of something much more important.

But truly. He was beautiful. And I am so glad I never had to meet him in real life. Because that would ruin everything. Elvis will never leave my building. So I guess I'm a fan after all.

Elvis is buried with his parents here are Graceland. And no, that is not him visiting his own grave. But had he lived - that might well be how he'd look today.

2007-08-25T21:32:00.001-06:00

Okay - I know. It's been a while and where have I been? Actually, driving across the US is a bit time consuming. And it is hot hot hot and sweaty. When we arrived in Balsam at 74 degrees F we put on sweaters. Felt cold. We've seen some pretty wild stuff. After Mount Rushmore, we headed for Badlands National Park which is seriously beautiful. We lucked into a cabin there, after Dean cooked omlettes. Hardly needed the stove for that. Very happy for the ingenious shades on the picnic tables in the park. Dean got up early and took pictures of the sunrise. I didn't.

The girls are sisters from Saskatchewan. So different from the three at Mt. Rushmore! Well - gotta go kill bugs. Not the best Motel so far. Will get to Graceland tomorrow. But be prepared. Elvis was a pretty ordinary guy. Sigh. I coulda had him after all.....

Devils and Presidents

2007-08-13T22:05:00.001-06:00

Big day. Went to Devils Tower (which you will remember from Close Encounters of a Third Kind) and it was stunning. This is and has been for thousands of years, a sacred site for many of the area's original inhabitants. I have to say it's pretty easy to see why. It is awe inspiring and defies common sense - much like any good religion. And I would join those who say it should be forbidden to to climbers. It's definitely not on my list! We did the 1.5 mile hike around the base - with some small but steep inclines - in about 95F at high noon. Thought I'd puke. Then, in a typical gremlin moment, I lost my Swiss Army Knife. Devil's Tower is an evil place.

WE drove from there to Keystone - Mount Rushmore. The landscape en route out of Wyoming is very beautiful. Soft cliffs (much like the badlands), striped with orange and red layers of sandy rock. Dotted with dark green bushes and sage brush, and home to free roaming herds of black angus steers and dirty white sheep. Very pretty.

We learned in South Dakota why we have seen so many bikers. And we have seen, it seems, hoards of them. Big biker rally in Sturgis. Feel quite at home with biker babes though. Not a lot of hairdos and makeup on the go there.

Finally made it to the Mount Rushmore Memorial around 6:00. It was worth the drive. But the surrounding town and amenities do redefine tacky! A whole museum of wax presidents - think I'll save my money.

Grizzlies, Geysers, etc..

2007-08-12T22:47:00.000-06:00

Yellowstone is everything it promises. Unbelievably we saw a sight so rare even the Park Ranger couldn't shed any light on it. A Grizzly with four cubs. Normally they have only two and normally, only one survives. We just happened to be in the right place at the right time. Although when she started heading up the embankment towards the hundred or so people with cameras it was time to leave. She apparently left shortly after and took her large family into the immense surrounding forest. We returned to our campsite, to find a group of young deer foraging. Almost made us forget Old Faithful and the extraordinary boiling, bright blue geysers pools. Truly everything it's cracked up to be and more. We are now in Gillette Wyoming, where they don't make razor blades after all.

Yes. I will miss my job.

2007-08-03T19:07:00.000-06:00

One of the best things about my job is travelling around Western Canada. During an 'event' in Calgary at the Harry Hays Building recently I took this picture. The woman did not speak any English, but when I asked if I could take a picture of her granddaughter (I assume it's her granddaughter), she immediately beamed this beautiful smile. There are days when I wonder about my job, about the work I do and if it makes any difference in any way. And then there are days when I am so proud to work for the Government of Canada. This truly is an amazing country and we too often take what we have built here for granted. Seeing how things go behind the scenes can certainly be discouraging some times. One can know too much. But the fact that we do know, and that we have a right to know is what is important. And it is why people like these come to Canada. And we are all so much better for that.

And now - off to the US of A.

Ricki's West Edmonton Mall

2007-07-15T02:43:00.000-06:00

To Tim at the Rickis store at the West Emdonton Mall. I know you're as queer as a three dollar bill, but man can you pick an outfit! Thank you thank you thank you. XO

Post card from a goat....

2007-07-12T23:46:00.000-06:00

And so I spent the day in Waterton National Park. A land of towering mountains, disappearing into the blue fog, marbled with rich fat snowy veins, alive with hundreds of thousands of brainless ground squirrels. Now there's an animal that should explore the benefits of contraception! I was visited by members of my deer family. They are very "California", this side of the family, strictly vegan. (just a phase I'm sure!) They are not as intellectual as we, but perhaps better looking; always a sad truth isn't it: some get the brains and others -- well more on that later. Certainly they are not as good with a camera as some. I am sure they meant to get me in focus. (That's TiffanyBrianna - tell me what kind of name is that?? - she ate the WHOLE time I was visiting. Just plain rude, but then, they are Americans.)

As if this was not difficult enough, my next stop was in Montana. It is here that I faced the next of my demons, my deepest inhibitions, my most private doubts. My life long struggle, so lately overcome, is once again in the forefront. I am of course referring to the time I spent amongst the most lovely of my sisters, the Rocky Mountain Goats. I am again reminded how very small town I have become. My hair wants colouring, my teats hang down to the ground untended for days at a time, my beard sprouts wildly out of my chin, and my belly looks like that of a hairy, luckless buddha. It is all very difficult. I could of course blame this on age, but, truly, there is no excuse. Look at Pan - age never got the better of him. Indeed he was quite the frisky old devil in his age. When I saw this picture I was, well frankly, I was embarrassed. I have recommited myself to developing some fashion sense, maybe subscribe to Chatelaine, losing those stubborn extra pounds, and getting more climbing in on weekends. If only to forget their looks of disdain. I have already booked a colouring.

At the end of the day I figured I should learn something from these gorgeous creatures, and settled down in the shade of a rock, to a meal of cranberry. Just the one. Truth be told, I eat very little. I have been cursed with bad genes....

Wrong Address

2007-06-30T00:55:00.000-06:00

I took the door bell off the wall. It bothered the dog. So last night someone came pounding on the door. An Edmonton Police Officer. Two. One on the step, one (female) behind him on the path and another woman - small, professional, civilian. I am holding the dog by the collar and therefor looking up at him. "Are you Peggy?" I try to control the frantic dog. "No". "There is bad news", says the civilian woman now apparently a social worker. "There is no Peggy here" I tell them. "We have the wrong address" says a voice - I don't know whose. "Sorry" they say - and leave. I watch them go - a police car followed by a van, they take off North. And I thank God that I am not Peggy. I call my kids thinking in my mother's brain - Mommy, Anne, could sound like Peggy. One does not answer. The other does and check out his brother for me. How close we come. How fragile our realities. How thin the fabric of the bubble of our lives.

my mother

2007-06-16T00:36:00.001-06:00

My excellent mother was ahead of her time - always.

2007-06-16T00:34:00.000-06:00

Beginning to Understand

2007-06-15T23:31:00.000-06:00

As the time approaches, I begin to understand the value of time away from work. I guess since I graduated from university I have felt the pressure to work - and it is not artificial. One must make money to get by, to pay rent, to take care of children, etc. And this is a pressure I apply now to my own children. I am truly fortunate to have an opportunity to duck out of it all for a bit. Thanks to Jack. My fear is that once I duck out, I may never be able to come back. And then what? What if I find something on the road? What if I actually reconnect with that person I was when I was 15? It's a scary thought really. I sure as heck don't want to be 15 again...but then... A funny thing happened. Someone sent me a bundle of poetry I wrote when I was 19. Out of the blue. Reading it I see that I have not changed one tiny bit. The poetry was bad. I was smart to leave off that idea. But my preoccupations are the same. So if we don't actually change - then I am still 15. This is difficult. I have not grown up. But it is reassuring. I am a real person. I have days of hyper activity when I could rule the world. I have days of severe morose paralysis when I can barely move. That is me. Nice to be able to say that. My only hope now is that I can use that information in a productive way.

Alicia

2007-05-25T21:57:00.000-06:00

Bald no more

2007-05-25T20:28:00.000-06:00

We have a very close relationship with our hair, us girls. Some of my most vivid memories of childhood revolve around my mother chopping off all my hair (well that and not being allowed to go to the Regatta with my brother -cause he was a boy - and I was a girl etc...) I could post a bunch of family photos in which my eyes are all puffy and red and swollen because of recent hair cuts - and other offences. I clearly remember a hair dresser with a huge blond bee hive assuring me that she would never cut it all off who, then, cut it all off. What is this neurosis? I always wanted long black hair. But my hair is coarse and tough and thick so no-go. And when the stick insect last week cut it ALL OFF I was sent into paroxysms of sadness and cried like a little girl. So - the wig - I love it. thanks for the money mom. I used it to buy this wig. It's hot as hell, but the doctor says I have no estrogen Left so the hotflashes are over. And it packs up well for travel, so picture me in Italy with my long hair, and my big glasses, and maybe I will start smoking again, I mean who really gives a shit, and I will be all that!!

All I ever wanted to be really was that doll...My family will tell you I had one - but I didn't. Elizabeth Ayre had one; it was a talking doll - mine was Sonia - long black hair - but she did not talk.

So now I am looking like that doll - all soft and stuffed etc.

Loneliness

2007-05-15T20:38:00.000-06:00

Do you know that loneliness is among the most common terms searched on the internet? It is. Guess it's only silly to say anything further since that is so self explanatory.

Here is Sonic. Not lonely. She is admired by all who see her. It's really interesting actually. Nobody can walk past this dog without smiling. And children, all children, want to touch her. Maybe she's an angel.

My Day! May Day!

2007-05-09T08:58:00.000-06:00

Blogblock (sounds like blah blah blah)

I have blogblock. That's a term I just invented, or I think I invented it. (but than I went and googled it and of course, I certianly have NOT invented it. Trouble with internet. It takes about 15 seconds the find out that you are not original). I also came up with a really funny line which, my brother-in-law smugly informed me, could probably be googled pretty easily. e.g. That's clever and funny so you must have heard it somewhere. I harumphed off to google and, sadly, he was right. Other people had coined the 'line' before me. So only I know the truth - that it was indeed my line. Want to hear it: There are 40 million menopausal women in North America. It is not global warming. It's not just a line actually. A lot of the time I feel like I could provide enough radiant heat energy to keep a family of four warm though an Alberta winter. It sucks.

But back to blogblock. I think this is an affliction that many bloggers have. Judging from the number of blog entries that start with self recrimination. I know nobody is actually reading this, so my apologies are all to myself for being so lazy. Robertson Davies wrote every single day - or so he claimed. All great writers write every single day. Not because they love to write, but because it is what they do and it requires rigour and discipline. They also chuck great amounts of text - which we bloggers don't really do. We just write , spell check and let er rip. OR so it seems.

So - quoi de neuf? J'ai commencé le dance encore...et la Francaise...j'ai besoin d'une regime

The picture is Sonic before. She is scheduled for grooming this weekend. You will note her crooked smile - result of missing teeth but it makes her look rather sardonic. A sort of bemused old girl. I tried to fix the green-eye but could not.

So, in lieu of sage obervations on my world and yours, here is archival copy from my stores. Might as well post it here - at least I'll be able to fnd it.

It’s not safe, being green

Is it just me? Or are house plants a vexation for everyone? The problem with house plants, or at least, my problem with house plants, is that I imbue them with meaning and relevance far beyond their station in life. This can lead to a variety of irrational behaviours. I returned home recently to find two of my baby geraniums had died from either a complete absence of water or over-watering - I am not sure which, but they were decidedly dead. Note, right off the bat, they I called them "baby" geraniums. I, who don’t even consider young animals to be true "babies." They were, of course, not babies, but in fact stems cut from old dying plants, rooted and stuck in potting soil in the fall; an attempt on my part to deny the encroachment of winter, and show up my friend, Jack, who is supposedly a plant person. It was he who killed the geranium children. He also sought mercy killing for a Gerbera daisy which I rescued from the garden before the first killing frost and urged back to life over the course of some weeks. Said plant is on life support presently, and I refuse to withdraw heroic measures until all evidence of life is beyond measure. Why? Because when I bought it on sale at the end of the season it reminded me of my sister, in Newfoundland, whom I miss. If that makes sense to you, and you have found help for your problem, please let me know.

This tendency of mine to regard plants as something other than foliage is not new. I once had a Schefflera which came into my possession as one of a group of tiny plants in a decorative basket garden. The thing was a present from my mother for a wedding anniversary. Also in the basket were a China doll, which died immediately, as they do; a jade tree which was dead within a year. But the Schefflera thrived and grew to become a five foot giant, tipping over progressively larger terra cotta pots as it yearned towards the weak sunlight offered by an east facing window in St. Philip’s, Newfoundland. Four years after the end of the marriage the plant once marked, I triumphantly dumped it on my ex-husband’s doorstep, along with the dog. (I later asked for the dog back). The last I saw of the determined plant it was still outside his door, it was March and the freezing rain had given it a healthy glow.

Longer ago, when I was 17, a much older boyfriend gave me a spider plant in a green pot, slung in a macrame hangar which he had made himself out of yellow and white phentex yarn. If you don’t know what phentex is, you probably don’t remember macrame either - but trust me that the thing was, in its day, très cool. My parents dutifully kept it suspended in the hall corner for about two years after I discovered the man in question was gay and had taken up a life of prostitution in Vancouver. Seems they thought it would upset me if they removed it, so perhaps I inherited this house plant neurosis.

I know it sounds innocent enough, but consider this: I, in a jealous rage, once took a chef’s knife to a boyfriend’s plants, savaging them with a sort of glee usually reserved for happier occasions. I took a particularly sick pleasure in beheading his lucky bamboo - "lucky huh - not so lucky now are you" I muttered to myself as I sliced through the waxy green stem.

What is it about house plants the makes me elevate them this way. Why do I heave and sigh over them, feed them, stroke them, shine them, tend them, throw them into snow banks, place them strategically atop forced air vents, or drown them? Why did I weep when I had to leave a plant I had nurtured from a broken leaf into a bushy flowering mass of purple blooms, when I was preparing to move to Alberta, but was able to wave cheerily good-bye to genuine human friends?

Now that I think about it, I suppose that’s it. And at the end of the day, it is perhaps just as well that I have developed this relationship with plants. It may protect the people around me.

MP and fan

2007-05-05T16:48:00.000-06:00

Jack and mum

2007-05-05T16:47:00.000-06:00

At the garden centre

2007-05-05T16:46:00.000-06:00

Jack orders lunch

2007-05-05T16:44:00.000-06:00

Tch! Tch! March is done

2007-04-02T19:21:00.000-06:00

Humph. Here it is April and I completely missed March. Not a single blog. There are reasons. A trip to Vancouver to see my excellent mother's excellent show at Equinox Gallery. Nose to the grindstone with course that is still meters above my head. Practise, practise, practise with the belly dancing for recital. And work of course. And home of course. So many movies to see - so much wine to drink - so many meals to cook, savour and clean up after. So much nicotine gum to chew. And here it is - spring. -15 in Edmonton, the snow flying in cyclonic gusts between the downtown buildings, the dog quivering under the bed, the neighbours throwing things at our house. Okay - that has nothing to do with the snow - or maybe it does.

Shalom. Happy Passover. We are indeed celebrating our freedom from slavery - all of us.

Promise a proper update soon.

End of Winter Mental Meanderings

2007-02-24T11:44:00.000-07:00

Squirrelly, Barby, Ned, Gabrielle
(still shot from online party)

Here I am. Sitting my office, listening to something from lalaholic. Don't know either. Might be Ashley Simpson. Is she a singer? Remember when you could only hear music you owned on a record? Now you can go online and download a radio station and hear music all day long- never listen to the same thing twice. That's nice, but I miss knowing every single syllable and note. I can still, as my sister and I discovered a couple of years ago, sing along with disturbing accuracy, to every song on the Edward Bear album. Right now, I cannot name a single song, or remember a single word, but as soon as I hear the first few bars, it comes back like magic. As thought there is part of my brain that is working away without me. I hope so, since the part I am most intimate with has slowed considerably. (Think this is Ace of Bass now - weird - this is all FREE???) Makes one want to dance really.

So, I was in Kananaskis last week. Yes, that's right. Same place they had the G8. But where I stayed was not, I hope, where they brought the leaders of the world (apologies. What I mean is the 8 white guys who head up the corporations that own everything that powers the dominant culture of the western view of humanity) Anyhoooo - beautiful scenery, crappy hotel. Got there, the 'foyer' was full of sand and melting snow (skiers NO DOUBT)and it was cold. Just because it's the Rocky Mountains in February does not mean one shouldn't expect a warm welcome. There were no rooms available until 4PM. Honest to god. Lunch was offered in a dining room basically situated in the aforementioned cold dirty wet foyer. The food? Shredded beef bits in bottled barby-Q sauce, boxed immature greens with kraft dressing, and slabs of sweet things manufactured in Quebec and masquerading as home made goodness. The coffee was see-thru. Things took a turn for the worse the next day however when make your own sandwiches were offered. I have no objection to making my own lunch. But I do have objection to meats that are perfectly square, or perfectly round, and barbie doll pink in colour, over cooked eggs in texture and salt water jelly fish in taste. eg - luncheon meat.

The drive from Calgary airport to the mountains was particularly disheartening...(ever hear of a band called Cake?)..miles and miles and miles of huge vinyl houses, cheek to jowl, not even enough garden to plan a petunia. Sprawling for ever in all directions, punctuated by 7-11s , Wal-Marts, MacDonalds. Entirely indistinguishable from the outskirts of everywhere. When did they start building these houses that are all garage first. AS though a car owns the house and has provided a side-entrance, a kind of dogie-door, for the humans? When this whole oil boom thing crashes it is going to be ugly ugly ugly. (Of course, don't say that outloud here. No one will believe you. As someone told me on this drive through banality and greed that we call suburbia, until people can actually see the affects of environmental change, the oil economy is secure. And we all know, there is no evidence of climate change. Especially here s tone's throw away from the receding glaciers.. I mentioned Al Gore's film and the response was, "Al Gore? Never heard of it..."

Discovered Skype last weekend. Was able to attend my sister's birthday party and play poker with the 'crowd'. Fabulous. Fortunately for them my camera did not work, so they weren't stuck looking at me all night. But I could see them. It was unexpectedly fantastic to see my family, especially the growing up children. Seeing people move, talk and interact is completely different than seeing them in still photos. The proof positive came at the end of the evening when they sent a still picture, taken as they spoke (see above). It was as though I was looking at different people in a different time. The small things, like the way my sister's chin gestures almost imperceptibly upward nanoseconds before she disembowels with her caustic and targeted wit. And there is no way you can capture the antics of Squirrelly in freeze frame, as he stumbles drunken around the kitchen loading the dishwasher, breaking wine glasses and speculating on whether or not his woman is wearing stay ups tonight.

My sons are traveling the wilds of the North West. One was in Fort MacMurry and then Fort Chipewyan, and the other in La Loche, somewhere four hours North of Saskatoon. Their jobs? Much Music video dances. (Coool - Bruce Springsteen - Baby we were born to run....)..They are seeing a slice of Canadian life that few of us see, and few of us would bother with. On one reserve the organizers told Keir they were having the dance so the young people could have a night of fun. There had been a number of suicides in the community and families were sunk in mourning through the long, dark, bitterness of winter. My son tells me that people look sadly ridiculous when they OD on ecstasy. It is strange to hear one's children talk this way - scary and reassuring at the same time.

Well, I said I'd come up here and blog, so I did. Now it's time to practice my belly dancing. Dean is out, I have affixed a mirror to the living room wall so I can see how graceless I am. I have downloaded some appropriate music - no excuses. Soldier on - that's the motto. I have to say I am durn pleased with moi meme this am - yesterday I decided it was time - after two and half months of working out at Curves, going to the gym at work, belly dancing, and sensible eating - time to weigh and measure. And guess what?? I gained two pounds and failed to shed even a quarter of an inch. But you can't say I didn't try.

Looking for swim suit answers?

2007-02-02T22:37:00.000-07:00

Okay - many of you have asked - what happened? What did you buy? Well - I bought Anne Klein, Nygaard, and- hey I would have to go downstairs. Watch this space for updates on the "right" swim suit and belly dancing. Yes that's right - belly dancing. Get over it. And what I really mean is more like this>>>

Oh yes - and go to the hunger site - click on "Feed the Hungry" link on this blog - and just click on the box. How easy is that? You can make a difference with just a click!! It's a wonderful world if you see it that way.

And one more thing - if you know anything - ANYTHING AT ALL - about post-modernist, deconstructionist literary theory - please call me (780-471-5145) and give me the Cole's Notes. I am sick of feeling like the baygirl in my class at Uof A...I mean - we're smart. Right? (I have been here before. Outport Newfoundlander from class of 16 at Mt. A with diminutive blond girl from class of 1600 quoting Plato in first class on Shakespeare. That was when I stopped going to class. But this time is different Friends.)

If my "prof" says, one more time "let's not go to the cheesy first year English symbolistic interpretation of this - or similar banal commentary" (he's talking about me - I just KNOW IT) - I will have to set him straight. There are advantages to being ten years older than the 'prof' and in an "I-don't-need-my-year" position here. Not sure what the advantage is really. At the end of the day I must impress this group of people most of whom are the same age as my children. Very humbling I have to say. All this time I thought I was 'smart'. You know how government workers are. In my real life I'm smart. But apparently - not!

Actually - I am smart. And I can step outside post modernist deconstructionist theory for a minute I think. I stand by my declaration the Louis Owens was (despite his tragic suicide) a self conscious and apologistic writer who did not ever come to terms with who he was or where he belonged and I am still sick of the hedging and fence sitting. Maybe it has a post modernist je ne sais quoi - but for me it's just embarrassing. So - heads up folks - I could fail this course. Stand by your man. Listen to Pursuit of Happiness. I'm an Adult Now.

So - i have all of these things at the tip of my tongue about what matters and what doesn't. The earth is composting itself before our eyes and I think my kids should not have kids - But, I'd much rather maintain a dignified exterior. It's not really ME - but I am trying. (I like that word because one can use a "y" with an "ing". Help me. Newfoundland's reputation is on the line here. So - it's a critical theory course in Native North American Writing - so - go nuts....

And the belly dancing?? Wow!!! It's fabulous once you get past the looking at yourself in a mirror stage. I mean - remember the elephants in Fantasia? Huge grey blobs with teeny tiny delicate foots and hands? Well - I have the blob part down. But it's okay. And more about that another time. I have come out to my class and admitted that I am a virgin dancer. That's right - can you believe it? Never done this before. So - listen to loads of Pursuit of Happiness. Don't have it? Go to itunes and get it.

That's it for now. Post a comment friends...

Varadero, Cuba

2007-01-17T20:03:00.000-07:00

Cubablog

Cubablog2

2007-01-04T20:02:00.000-07:00

Why do we do this thing with bathing suits? What made us all so insane about wearing a version of clothes we wear (albeit under other things) every day of our lives.

Every single woman, and many men I have ever known well enough to discuss the issue with, has the same hang up. Bathing suits make us ugly. One minute you stand, chilly maybe, naked and ordinarily acceptable. (Be honest. It may not be your favorite picture, but you can deal with it this side of a nervous breakdown). The next minute, with the addition of a few ounces of fabric strategically placed, you have become a hideous offence to yourself and a danger to others.

This is what I am thinking on my way to the mall. I have taken two Prozacs and a lorazepam just in case. I have rehearsed my strategy: I am going to the mall exactly one hour before closing time. This eliminates the lingering and procrastination and the giving up midstream and heading to Cinnabnon to make it all better. I must find a suit. I have allowed one day for returns but will limit return and exchange to one hour as well. The next day I will be on a plane for Cuba and it will be too late. Too late because in my version of the world you apparently cannot buy a bathing suit in Cuba.

So, my strategy once inside the mall: I will walk straight to the swimsuit shop and target the suits that will fit and I will look at nothing else. I will be realistic. I will enter the changing room calmly and with a mature acceptance of my body with its flaws and delights. I will focus on comfort. I will remember that nothing will change about me when I put on the swim suit. I will avoid the mirror.

It is, of course, winter, so I enter the shop wearing a puffy jacket and rubber-soled fleece-lined boots. Under this, sweat socks, jeans (dirty) and an old promotional sweatshirt from, somewhere. Okay - probably not great planning, but too late now.

The shop is brightly lit and racks of absolutely fabulous Little bikinis push out into the hallways. The mannequins, sensibly, have no heads. They are simply torsos. Two wary women are already there, flipping through hangers. A clutch of girls admire the microscopic pink flounced bikini bottoms. "I like SO have to have these," commands one of them. Noting that the bikini bottoms would likely cover more of her butt than the jeans she is wearing, I suppress the mother in me and stop myself from advising the security guards that she should be stopped.

I begin my search. I mean to head straight to the ones that fit, I really do. But really - this red skirty thing is so bright and cheerful, and it has to be big enough - it's really really big. Looks as wide as a tea towel. Check the tag - size 12. Must be a big make. Well - it looks like it will fit - and it does have a skirty thing so that's okay. A whole rack of bikini tops claims happily to be for "D CUPS". Perfect. This is going to be a snap. D CUPS, however, are limited to the 30 - 34 inch range. Who in the world is a 32D?? Maybe a breastfeeding teenager? D simply GOES with 40 (okay 43 - but I could make do with a 40 if they had one).

"Hay ay ay aaay :) How can I help you this evening :) ;) *) ?"

Okay. I hadn't really planned for this. "Um - I think I'm good :-)) ," (you have to speak in their vernacular), "But thanks, really. It's like, awesome you asked. Tootally." (nod head up and down agressively, positive)

"Hey - no PRAWWWBlem. I'll just take those into fitting for you." She secures my selections (I do not put up a fight) and chugs her butt to "fitting."

She comes back. "If you need help finding anything ...like " (I know - they get paid on commission.) I am weak. "Okay. Could you find me something in an Italian widow look? I'd like something, you know, solid. Maybe with a zipper up the back. A skirt across the thighs, and a ruched bodice. Oh, and sleeves."

It's 2007 friends. She finds one! Well - no sleeves or zippers, but pretty much everything else I asked for. "This is really popular with a lot of, er, women," she assures me. I think the "er" was a euphemism for 'fat, old, tired, sad and likely horrendous mother-type'. She goes on to show me its "features." And why not. It's as big as a Volkswagon - cupholders and all.

I hold it for a minute. It weighs about 5 pounds. "There's a tummy flattening panel," she continues, "and really really firm support in the bra."

"Great." I ask her to bring it to fitting for me.

Inside myself, I know that I will not buy the Italian Widow thing. I will buy the skimpy bikini, which makes me look like a bread pudding wearing barbie doll clothes. But I am finally at an age where I don't give a damn. I like the feel of sunlight on my belly. And I will hear, briefly, my grandmother's voice telling me that there are more "flattering" cuts for me. That a one piece really looks better on "girls like you". That I will be able to wear the fabulous midi top and shorts she bought me when I lose some weight (I was nine - it never did fit).

But I am able to quiet the voice. And all the others. Because I hear another voice telling me I look great.

Thanks Dean. XX

New Year 2007

2007-01-01T19:46:00.000-07:00

The porcupine. Looks all soft and fluffy until it's pissed off. I understand this.

Is it enough just to be alive? For the vast number of humans who have lived and died, it has been. To be born, to live a mysteriously assigned allotment of years, eat and breath and defecate. Reproduce, maybe. To love and be loved, maybe. And then, to simply die. How many billions of people have come and gone and left no mark. Their names not recorded anywhere in time. How many crossed the river without ever worrying that their presence would be completely erased within a standard life time. Even those who made huge sacrifices, created, developed, invented, discovered everything that makes life livable, bearable, accountable. How many of them are remembered beyond a couple of generations. How many people can name the person who first whipped an egg white, folded hide to make clothing, invented the dish washer? How many can more than a handle of artists poets and musicians. And does everything achieved by every individual who can be recognized actually belong to the huge sea of nameless others keeping that one aloft, the way an underground network supports the explosion of a rose bloom. It is enough. It is enough to be alive.

This is Sonic. She is old now. But she loved her stocking.

Christopher is 21

2006-12-27T18:37:00.000-07:00

We went to Yianni's ( my idea) to enjoy the Greek food and the belly dancer. Alas, no belly dancer, much to Christopher's relief. He had seen pictures of Keir's forays into that world. And I forgot to pick up his expensive, French genoise, dark chocolate mousse cake. His response "I have never eaten brithday cake mom - you know that." Right - I know that.

He and Keir had to be cajoled into a photo, but they had fun with the bubbles despite their legal drinking age.

Post Cards from a goat

2006-12-12T20:05:00.000-07:00

Deerest Barb,

What can I say. Life has been taxing since you gave me to your sister. Not that I ever had ambitions - from the moment I was poured, even up to the last hoof was painted by hand, I knew my life would be simple. Yet I yearned for something more. Since my somewhat claustrophobic trip to Edmonton, I have wondered how? How? How will I realize my silent dreams?

I cannot describe the bitterness of my disappointment on arriving in this alleged "city". How provincial compared to my home land, China. I am comforted by the lights in the temples beyond my glassy enclosure, but little else has lifted the drear from my world. I am forced to listen to the most inane conversations you can imagine, sit home all day alone staring into an empty pot, freeze in the winter and melt (literally) in the summer. I have few friends, unless you include that pottery frog who has been eating the same fly sandwich since I arrived. I haven't been dusted not once, and the alcoholic neighbours are just plain nuts.

So - I decided it was time to break free. I had little to go on, but knew somehow that Gote would provide for me. And so I set out on a journey of self discovery. I am sending some pictures for your enjoyment - although some of them I have to admit I am not proud of. (Things got a little wild as I explored the many facets of my goat nature). I think you will enjoy seeing some of my exploits. So - Day one - after hours of planning, I am finally behind the wheel...

Cold. Edmonton.

2006-11-29T19:16:00.000-07:00

photo mphoto.ca

Edmonton in November 2006 is as cold as Neptune. It would be as cold as Pluto, but Pluto is just a dog now. The frost on the inside of the screen door is hard and rasping. The aluminum srcies like fingernails on dusty black chalk boards. Even the delicate fibre-optic cyrstals around the fuzzed edge of opaque frost are brittle and unapproachable.

The flourescent lights in the garage will not work. The steering wheel has become as dangerous as dry ice and needles through leather and fleece to numb fingers.

The dog skitters around, hopping from foot to foot, trying to do shit without keeping a paw on the ice for more than two seconds. Poor thing. A full beer dropped on the concrete floor of the garage explodes a shower of snowy beerflakes. In an instant, illuminated bottle-green edges of broken glass and angry frothing beer stop dead, frozen solid before you can reach the broom. As if someone pressed pause mid-action. The orange globes of the China Lanterns disintegrate in my hand, shattering in a brilliant orange confetti of freeze-dried fall.

Doors slam harder.

Sunlight breaks into triangles and pings the air.

Edmonton is here

Pictures

2006-11-05T16:07:00.000-07:00

no words necessary

This is the boys' apartment - bright, sunny, clean once upon a time.

Doug, Jill, Megan. Jonathan (wearing bubble wrap bow tie) and Molly

Mammogram

2006-09-18T20:50:00.000-06:00

last day first day best day worst day.

This is NOT my mammogram. But is sure is a lot like my mammogram. Funny how all those jokes about this process are hilarious until you are actually standing there, in your skirt, with your leotards absurdly high up your rib cage. One notices things like soft fat at these moments. And the hum of machines. The cleanliness of clinics. The way all the pink and purple smocks are made from the same fabric but with slightly different cuts and buttons. Do women care? Do I care? Would I feel more objectified if the smock was surgery green (the antidote to the after image created by staring too long at human blood in a sterile white surgery theatre- that's a true fact)

The professionalism of technicians. They, I suppose have learned not to joke about what they are doing day after day after day. The technician in this case had a slight accent - from where I wondered? Sounded maybe South American - if I go back I'll ask her. She had long very black hair - the kind my Sonia doll had and the kind I wanted. I had three dolls that I remember. Mimi - a baby, whose hand was severed in an appalling act of play war by my brother's truly demented friend. Sonia, who was a beatnik I think - with long straight hair and groovy striped leggings. And Elizabeth who was a turn of the century doll with gorgeous wavy brown hair and small pink pouting lips. Her eyes were huge and brown and they closed when she reclined. She had a parasol, and a little matching hat and purse. She wore a full-skirted outfit, a kind of muted rust and deep tan as I recall. Last time I saw her she was wearing a flannel nightie my mother tied around her long after I left home. She was, my mother felt, indecent: sitting naked about the house. I named Sonia and Elizabeth after myself, of course. And they are perhaps the most tangible evidence of my longing to be someone else.

The technician - yes - a very pleasant woman. She handled my breasts delicately. Not with precision like a dcotor may, or with sentiment like a lover, or with hunger like a child. Just carefully, gently. The way you might pick up a full blown cabbage rose that fell in a rain storm. With both hands.

The spot is small, round, like a dime maybe. It is hardly visible. Oh that, yes I said quickly. that - I've had that all my life. Well since I started - you know looking for things. Always been there. That - I know what that is.

Oh good! The technician smiled. That's great. That's good. Well, Dr. (I forget the doctor's name - it really doesn't matter of course becasue it is NOTHING). will probably want to see you, maybe do an ultrasound. Sure okay fine well, no problem. Call me.

So how is that then? I know it's nothing because I really have had it all my life. And I suppose, really, one should be no more or less afraid at times like these than one is everyday. You never, ever know what will happen tomorrow. Whether you have an ultrasound or not. Whether you have a mammogram or not. Tomorrow is a mystery. A wide open mystery that may not even happen! And there are so many things I haven't finished.

Katie

2006-08-14T21:54:00.000-06:00

It is deeply affecting to see the all grown-up versions of people you have known from infancy. Especially when their parents are your friends. To see someone from birth to present, and to be able to recall the various insights you have had into thier lives provides a touchstone with humanity. A baby girl, a toddler, a child playing tea party. A friend to my children, a shy junior high school recluse, a face in the kitchen door. A figure running past a window. A young woman in a graduation gown. It is so clichÃ© really, but there it is. ClichÃ©s have to come from somewhere.

I am sitting on a steep ski hill with about 11,000 other people, watching Bruce Cockburn. He is singing a song that was wildly popular when I was about 19. When I was the age of my children. I remember with sudden clarity a gangly, geeky art student stuffed, v-shaped into a garbage can, his arms and legs extending, kicking furiously like an overturned crab, singing along And I wonder where the lions are - wonder where the lions are - wonder where the lions are - wonder where the lions are - yes I wonder where the lions are - wonder where the lions are - (When you are singing along you do both call and repsonse.) I will, sometime after this evening of hilarity in a university art studio, become enamoured of the guy, fall for him, and it will turn unhappy. But for this moment, it is a happy memory. "cool as a cucumber" he was once called by fellow art students in the early days of irony.

And in my line of vision on this steep steep hill, with Bruce Cockburn introducing a trio of women younger than me, not much older than my children, who are his current favorite band, I can see the figure of a woman who was once a baby. A baby who once sat in my arms, smelling like a sleeping potion. Who onced ran with my son, ate chunks of his birthday cake, played the piano in a recital. She is now this person, who will, in the course of time, I hope, think of me not as her parent's friend, but as her friend. Maybe even pass her baby to me to hold. And we don't change at all. We occupy these spaces in the course of the commonality of humanity. There are young, there are old, there are the yet to be born and the dead. And we are none of us any of them. We are only observers.

Travels with a goat

2006-07-31T20:16:00.000-06:00

Off to see the world. It behooves us all to imagine life through the eyes of others. For a small plastic goat, life can appear very odd indeed, as I discovered when post cards began arriving from my friend - seen in this picture on her first day out. It was a brave goat that first tried driving - given her size she was forced to press the gas, steer and brake at different times and often without benefit of seeing the road. These difficulties did not mark her as unlike most drivers on the road.

Life in the city

2006-07-26T20:00:00.000-06:00

Out my window I can see the crack house across the alley. The people who live there are so completely out of touch with reality they think that they are alone. They dance in wild slumping circles early in the morning. They drop their tiny lumps of cocaine and then dance nose to the ground to find them. They smile at some tortured, but evident inner contentment. They remind me of the stray dogs the appear as ugly sillouhettes lurching across the street with the sunrise behind them on stifling hot summer mornings: their awkward lope and hunched profiles like bloodied hyeanas in the city. One of the 'crackheads" came dancing down the sidewalk last week while I was clipping the hedge. She took one step backward and sideways for every three forward. She was wearing a black velour v-necked shirt, and black strappy shoes - nothing else. Her teeth were basically rotten, but she carried a tiny opera bag in which there could not possibly have been anything bigger than a deck of cards. She told me with sincere enthusiasm that a man was selling off all of his wife's clothes from his garage - real cheap. "She died of cancer and he just can't take the memories." She turned a white, blue veined ankle coyly outward to display the shoe. The soles of her feet showing around the edges suggested she had been barefoot for some time before her find. She sized me up assessed my doubt that she and I were the same size. "He has all sizes", she said looking off the one side her head bobbing in frustration while she tried to hold her body still. Is her version of reality any worse than mine I wonder? Is she paying $15 a week to go to a support group for women who need to lose weight?

Oregon

2006-07-13T23:23:00.000-06:00

It was fascinating to see, in Oregon, the way the campsites emptied as the sun began to set. Everyone went to the beach to watch. They brought festival chairs, lit fires, parked on logs, or played with frisbees. It was certainly a show - and interesting to see how many people made sure they stayed until the very last minutes...

2006-07-13T17:35:00.000-06:00

We recognize people by their faces because that is how we normally look at people. We have this need to look into other people's eyes. Even when you drive past someone on the road; even if they are wearing sunglasses; we try to look directly into their eyes so there is a line between our pupils and theirs. And in some uncanny way , we know when this has happened. Walking to and from work this week I noticed a woman sitting in a chair in one of those pop-up garden screen things. All I could see of her was her bottom. By today I realized I would recognize that bottom anywhere now.

Ever have a moment when a line snaps like a fishing line through your life? Just like some angler has whipped a fly across your existence? One of those moments when everything is changed? Like when you know for sure that you are an adult and you will never ever be able to go back and start over?

Second Post

2006-07-12T22:20:00.000-06:00

This is going to be addictive I can see that. But better than food I suppose. One more picture. No reason. But please note that the character on the left is a boy - John the Baptist. I always thought this was a girl..go figure.

First post

2006-07-12T21:56:00.000-06:00

Well - here goes. This is all very strange and new but I am determined to stay on top of technology. Which will soon have a wider range of fonts I'm sure! My first post is a picture of me and Jack. If you can't see us in this picutre you don't know us very well!!

Mrs. Bee's Tree

Paris, 2010!

Zsa Zsa mania

The end of cynicism?

Some cautionary thinking about how not to 'help' Haiti

$1.8 billion for hubris. $100M for Haiti

Carrot and Parsnips - mmmmm

Gollum and me

Organic beyond reason

New New New

New House

Keir

Walking to Work, Edmonton, May 2009

New House

Cut out the media on H1N1!

Spring

Protectionism. Yes.

Cuba@50

Shake and Bake

Bored? Click here for some harmless diversion

long hard week with long wonderful conclusion

Worth the watch - but scarey stuff!!

Remembrance Day

My Very Scary Pumpkin

Other things I see

Things I see

Belly Dancing

Why it's hard to like the CBC

Spring Summer 2008

What's Up??

Some things about Paris

How much would you pay?

Tres occupe

My mission in Paris

Easter 2008

Israel today

February in Israel

Just pictures today

Blogger trouble

Art and the meandering of an idle mind.

What is obvious

2008. The Year of the Rat

Today? It is enough to be alive.

Catalan music in a Catalan Church

The low cost of healthcare

Light real and artificial

New Camera

Day without photos

CBC News - Beware Facebook's Beacon

Salmon and Apples and Pies - Oh My

Food and observation

Finding the real England

Last Day in Canada

Elvis and me

Devils and Presidents

Grizzlies, Geysers, etc..

Yes. I will miss my job.

Ricki's West Edmonton Mall

Post card from a goat....

Wrong Address

my mother

Beginning to Understand

Alicia

Bald no more

Loneliness

My Day! May Day!

MP and fan

Jack and mum

At the garden centre

Jack orders lunch

Tch! Tch! March is done

End of Winter Mental Meanderings

Looking for swim suit answers?

Varadero, Cuba

New Year 2007

Christopher is 21

more post cards from a goat

Post Cards from a goat

Cold. Edmonton.

Pictures