nos vacances, partie deux

Here's a picture of our powder room on the main floor after we painted on July 3 & 4. The glass shelf refracts the light and distorts the color a bit. It's Behr's "Silver Charm," although I maintain that it looks a tad blue to me--but that might be because I outfit the place with navy nautical accessories (which sounds redundant, but I suppose nautical things aren't navy of necessity).

my ship came in

The life preserver with its display of sailor's knots (see reflection in mirror) and the sailboat were both purchases from Winners. I'm not sure what my fascination with things seaworthy stems from; maybe it's one of those Jungian "collective unconscious" impulses rising from the leviathan depths.

nos vacances, partie un

Instead of an excursion to New York (purchase of new car took care of that), James & I took a day trip to Montréal with our friends Dave & Ci on June 30. We parked the car near the Metro and took the subway downtown. We walked around, shopped, had lunch, and then made our way to the Infotouriste centre, where we decided to go on Gray Lines' two-hour double-decker bus sightseeing excursion.

James resorts to snapping a photo with his cellphone,
because I have the camera

Meanwhile, across the street,
Ci guards our stuff while waiting in the shade

Robert Burns statue
Square Dorchester, Montréal

In the park or "square" (it looked round to me!) adjacent to the Infotouriste centre is the above statue of Robert Burns. It made me wonder just how many cities in the world boast such statues. I remember taking a picture of one I came across in Milwaukee, WI, back in April 2006. This Bobby Burns, though, was sporting an unusual headdress. I watched in fascinated repulsion as a few people allowed pigeons to perch on their arms as they held out handfuls of birdseed. (I thought of how traumatized Mom or Ellen would be if they were asked to help.)

Our tour took us past many historic buildings...

Biosphere

...and a statue or two...

Illuminated Crowd
(The one at the back looks to me like Gollum from Lord of the Rings.)

...and then more historic buildings. Our photos don't really do the city justice.

L'Oratoire Saint-Joseph du Mont-Royal
(Saint Joseph's Oratory of Mount Royal)

We'd been to St. Joe's in 2002, and it's quite impressive with its Italian Renaissance architecture and stained glass windows. There are 283 steps from the street to the Basilica, with a special flight of 99 wooden stairs specifically for those pilgrims who choose to ascend on their knees. None of our group took our piety to those heights. (Click here for other curious trivia.) Last time we visited, we posed the pig--James's bright pink carnival-game booty from days of yore which rose up the ranks to become the travelling mascot of whatever team/company for which he works. This time, it was a drive-by.

James with Ci & Dave

Since pretty much everybody in Montréal is bilingual, we could no doubt have gotten by with English only. I might even have been able to get by on my painfully halting, bumbling French-in-progress. Fortunately, however, the trilingual Ci has an excellent command of French, and both she and Dave know their way around the city. All in all, it was a great way to kick off a week's vacation.

love potion #9

Love seems the swiftest, but it is the slowest of all growths. No man or woman really knows what perfect love is until they have been married a quarter of a century.
~ Mark Twain

flowers from James

Happy Anniversary to us!

It seems awfully surreal to think that we've been married for nine years. How bizarre. Including the three-month stopover at Mom & Dad's, we've moved five times, we've each finished a degree, and I've "travaille'd" (worked) for eight different employers in twelve separate capacities.

We've had our times of dormancy (like everyone else, I imagine), but I'd like to think we've grown as an ensemble as well as individually. I used to sit at the table with James and ask myself, "Who is this stranger across from me?" I catch myself thinking that less and less. James remarked jokingly that the warranty runs out next year, and he may have to return me to my parents, to which I replied that my dad would certainly have something to say to that!

According to the "experts," there are traditionally prescribed wedding anniversary gifts to mark the milestones. For number 9 they suggest gifts of pottery, willow, or leather. Nuh-unh. It ain't happening. Perhaps it's time to postulate a "postmodern gifts" list: CDs, DVDs, cellphones, laptops, anyone?

We decided to walk over to Guava's Shawarma for a take-out celebration supper. I had resisted the whole shawarma scene for quite some time (huge slabs of meat on a spit? no thanks), until one day a few months ago when I summoned my bravado and was pleasantly surprised to learn that the vegetarian wraps are sooooo good, as are the potatoes. Subsequently, I've always ordered the small vegetarian wrap, with garlic, lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, exactly two slices of hot peppers, grilled cauliflower, and sesame sauce.

A word of advice, however: it is not good for a man to eat alone--or a woman, for that matter. The garlic sauce/spread is très, très potent. In fact, one could conceive of it as an aroma or savour of death as opposed to a fragrance of life. To eat or not to eat, that is the question, but whichever one chooses, so should the other, thereby keeping the marriage breath undefiled (or equitably defiled).

something old, something new

She breaks the lengthy silence...
We had obtained our passports in anticipation of a road trip to New York the first week in July. However, Saturday, June 21, those plans came to a halt. The morning started out like many a weekend, except that we were surfing the Web--ooo, suddenly that "surf" sounds archaic...does anybody surf the Web anymore? or take a ride on the "information highway," for that matter?--for hotel and car rental rates.

We decided to check into prices via CAA, and drove to the Kanata customer service centre. That was a huge waste of time: there were better offers online for both hotels and car rentals. Ultimately, we purchased insurance, stopped for lunch at Rockin' Johnny's (a '50s-themed diner), and were on our way home to book the aforesaid two items on our own, when James suggested we stop in at Tony Graham's Infiniti Nissan. (Little did I suspect this would actually lead to its obvious conclusion.)

Needless to say, in a matter of, oh, maybe 4 hours, it was good-bye, dear ol' Pathfinder which we've had for 7 years with a wham-bam-thank-y' ma'am! send-off (study the photo, you'll see what I mean, and just for the record, I was nowhere nearby when it happened)...

well done, thou good and faithful servant
1999-2008

...and hello, Altima. It's the car in the forefront--the other cars belong to other people. People have nicknamed the region where we live "Barbecue-haven," but I sometimes think it should be "Cars-by-you-haven." No getting away from them. You should see the streets on weekends, when everybody on the block except us invites friends and family over.

Not that I don't like the new car--I do--but I was a bit sorry at leaving the Pathfinder behind, since it's been the one thing that we've owned for a substantial period of time, and it provided a sense of consistency or continuity during our transitions. And it proved itself especially handy for carting things home from IKEA. Still, as James reminded me, the Pathfinder returned to Tony Graham's, the dealership from whence it originally came.

I like to tell the story of how we acquired the Pathfinder in the first place. It happened when we lived in Ottawa the first time around. It was sometime in 2001, about a year and a half since we'd moved, and we were finding it a bit of a challenge to coordinate our commutes to what amounted to opposite ends of the city. We were having a conversation about what to do about our vehicle situation over dinner at Kelsey's (back in the days when I still ate at that restaurant). I half-flippantly, half-seriously interjected, "Let's pray about it!" So we did. (It wasn't a gimme-gimme prayer; it was a "God, here's our situation, we're not sure what to do, so can you help us figure it out?") As we drove around the corner of our street in our little Pontiac Sunbird LE, we saw the Pathfinder with a for sale sign in its window. I rarely receive such instantaneous answers to prayers, but this was too serendipitous to be coincidence alone. Roger, the Pathfinder's original owner, had taken very good care of it for two years. I can't remember what other vehicles Roger said he owned, but the one car in his garage was obviously an expensive one, because he kept a tarp over it. We caught an impressive glimpse of gleaming metal though.

That was the beginning of the Pathfinder era to which we now bid a fond farewell. Thus begins a new era. Or as Robert Jordan would say, "The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend."

home improvements or it started with pansies

Here's a quick photo update on what we've accomplished in terms of yardwork over the last little while. It all started with a small pot of pansies I purchased at our Loeb-next-door for our front entrance.

I've discovered that pansies need to be watered regularly or they droop and become "wilted spinach," as one Web site, which I can't seem to find again, phrased it. Mine are sheltered from the rain by the overhang, so I end up watering them each morning (or whenever they resemble wilted spinach).

Then James and Dad put in the patio blocks (you read it first, right here, on May 30), so I felt compelled to spruce up our backyard with the purchase of a shepherd's hook and a hanging basket of wave petunias. One such combination just didn't seem like enough, so I bought another.


Then, this past Saturday morning, we exchanged our special invitation for a lilac bush. See, Minto Homes sent out invitations for a free plant to everyone who had purchased a home from them in the last year. There were about 5 different varieties for us to choose from, but I e-mailed an RSVP for a lilac. At the time I was thinking that perhaps I should telephone to follow up, but I stopped myself. There's a Dilbert comic circa the early 1990s that I clipped from the paper once--it might still be kicking around in my stuff--wherein the boss asks his administrative assistant to e-mail a report, fax it in case the recipient's e-mail isn't working, and then telephone to confirm the fax was received. Obviously, I didn't want to succumb to the same sort of legendary overkill.

Fortunately for me, though, I had the foresight to print out my e-mailed RSVP and take it along, because our names were not on the list when we walked over to pick up our lilac from the Minto Sales Office. Apparently my e-mail was swallowed up in cyberspace, maybe by Pac-Man ghosts. I should have phoned. But because I produced the evidence, we received our lilac (see photo above, far left). I'd hoped for a purple one, but it seems Minto only had pink and white to begin with, and white lilacs were the only ones remaining at 10:30am (they'd started dispensing shrubbery at 10).

We decided that, before we could plant our lilac tree, we would need some peat moss and topsoil from Home Depot. While there, I spotted a thornless rosebush, and I snuck it into our cart. James had done the same with the Weed'n'Feed. We've planted the rosebush in the front yard--yes, the plot of land beside the driveway on which we heap our snow. We'll have to wrap it or put a teepee around it for winter. Thankfully, that won't be for some time yet.


Instead of peat moss, we bought something called "BeatsPeat." It's made from "spent coconut rind," and is purportedly a sustainable alternative to peat moss. It certainly does retain moisture: I don't think I'll have to water my pot of marigolds ever again. (But I'm jumping ahead of myself.)

Upon our return, we settled down to dig, no easy task, because after the initial plunging the spade through the sod from last year, with every strike we hit a stone. (When I say "we," I mean that I started digging, but James soon took over given my lack of muscle/progress. I was relegated to scooping the rocks out of the hole.) Oh, how I miss Manitoba gumbo!

Of course, one trip a day to Home Depot is never enough. I'd tried to persuade James earlier that we needed two bags of topsoil; evidently I still, after 9 years, lack the conviction necessary to influence my spouse. The bright side is that I volunteered to get more, which enabled me to buy a few marigolds, too. That, in turn, meant that after I returned with the topsoil, I had to run out to buy a planter for them. (Oh, the sacrifices I make!) I finally found a suitable one at Rona. It's not exactly what I wanted--I covet my neighbor's planter--but it'll suffice.

And after suffering through two of the hottest, most humid days on the weekend--at 31˚C with humidity that made it feel like 41˚C (source: Weather Network's site), it was almost pleasanter to be outdoors than in--the Sears serviceman came to our rescue on Monday morning. In about 5 minutes he was able to resuscitate the unit which the trio of installers had pronounced dead on arrival after 3 hours of labor on Friday afternoon.

The next thing on the list is eavestroughing. Our neighbor obtained estimates for our entire row of units, and it looks like we'll go ahead with that.

So it's all coming together.

sleeping single in a queen-sized bed

~ or my husband's been to MIT and Harvard ~

It's true. James finally realized a deep-seated dream: he was able to travel for work. He'd been to Chicago on business many years ago, but this was the first time his current employer sent him anywhere. He's on his way back from Boston even as I write. While he was there, he drove past MIT and Harvard on a whim, and he especially phoned me that evening to tell me so. (His dad will like repeating that one.) I would have liked to go, too, but I had midterm tests in French this week. C'est la vie. Peut-être une autre fois.

Besides, when he's out of town, I get the whole bed to myself. What luxury! While I will readily admit that there are definitely some fringe benefits to sharing a bed, it's rather nice, every once in a while, not to wake up when someone else rolls over, or not to worry about waking someone else up on account of my snoring (of which I am not proud). Plus I get to stretch out. Funny, I don't see my favorite "jumping jack" position mentioned anywhere in CTV's "Favoured Sleeping Positions" article.

to say nothing of the dog*

Lately it just seems that everyone and his/her dog is kicking the bucket--which sounds terribly irreverent, maybe even crass, but I'm getting really tired of documenting bad news. (I may have to make up for it with reams of "positive energy" à la L.)

I hadn't yet noted, for instance, that Freckles, Dave & Ci's "baby girl" since 1996, is no more. (I feel dreadfully compelled to launch into Monty Python's dead parrot skit, but I'll let the link do that instead. I haven't got it memorized anyway.) I'm not as callous as I seem to be: I do feel for them, because Freckles was a member of their family. She'd had surgery on her leg a few months ago and recovered nicely from that, yet recently she seemed bloated and unlike herself. A trip to the vet revealed a tumorous mass. Rather than have her spend the remainder of her time in agony, her owners decided to put her down--not an easy decision since they were so attached to their pet.

Dave & Ci can't say they haven't had their share of interesting pups. In addition to Freckles, they had a big, beautiful, husky-gened dog up until 2001 or 2002. Early on he won himself the name of O.T., short for Old Testament, because he took a huge chomp out of Dave's Bible. Apparently he had once devoured a few pounds of chocolate while the family was out (even a small amount of the good stuff can be fatal to cats and dogs). He pulled through that one; I wonder if it's because some of that India paper still lined his stomach.

And Freckles, well, she was a dog unlike any other I've ever known. She once bit our former Ottawa pastor (with ample reason, it turns out). Last summer when I accompanied Ci and Freckles on a W-A-L-K, that bundle of speckled freneticism tried to jump over the fence separating her from "Buddy," a neighborhood pooch a few doors down. You'd have thought Buddy was on a trampoline the way he bounced from one corner to the other in response. The last time I saw Freckles I made a huge mistake: I pronounced the word comprising the letters "W-A-L-K," remembering only too late that the family always, always spelled it out. That crazy doggie got so wound up, I haven't uttered that word since. I wonder if her family will promenade about, forevermore spelling out that word. Do you suppose this is how words enter and exit the vernacular?

R.I.P. Freckles


*To Say Nothing of the Dog (1998) is the title of a science-fiction novel by Connie Willis. (She tends to focus on "soft" or social sciences as opposed to "hard" or applied sciences, although the latter crops up, too, if you know where to look.) Willis's novel makes numerous intertextual references to Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat (1889), whose subtitle is "To say nothing of the Dog!" I highly recommend reading the two in juxtaposition. If you don't enjoy them, do not tell me, because I simply worship the literary ground that Willis steps on.