Hipsterville, Dojo, Party & Premiere Moisson

Nulli told me of a wonderful town near him that had an artisanal chocolate shop, an artisanal bakery and a hipster café. I was very excited, so when given the choice between going to see La La Land and visiting Hipsterville--as I called it--I picked Hipsterville. 

I didn't stop to consider whether urbanites with tattoo sleeves and beards would REALLY set up shop in a country town in South-eastern Quebec. But I knew there was something wrong when my brother parked and led me to the café. The markings on the windows bragged of having juices and sandwiches and other not-very-hipster-café stuff. Worst of all, there was not a beard in sight. 

"I'm sorry, D," said Nulli, crestfallen. 

The coffee was all-you-can-drink, as it is in no hipster café in the universe, and one cup was all I could drink because .... Still, it was a nice place to look at, and obviously both anglos and francos were welcome. (There are some mighty sketchy and tribal joints in the Eastern Townships.) The town is prospering because of the ski hills and the tourists. 

"Who runs the artisanal chocolate shop?" I asked suspiciously.

"South Americans," said Nulli.

"Are they young? Do they have beards?"

Nulli didn't think they were young or had beards, and the artisanal bakery had closed, so that was it for Hipsterville--except for the amazing craft brewery. The presence of the brewery suggests that there are hipsters in town, but heaven only knows where they get their coffee. 

We were home before the school bus arrived; this is THE deadline of my work-from-home brother's life. 

This morning we dropped Popcorn off at a friend's house and took Peanut to a dojo at a nearby village. Both Nulli and Peanut were already in their white gi--karate outfits, which in Quebec French are called kimono, for some mysterious reason. The high school in which the dojo resides has 1,000 francophone students and 500 anglophone students, and they are not allowed to eat together. 

Apparently this high school used to be fully bilingual, but the provincial government put a stop to that, divided the students by mother tongue, and cut funding to the English section. If that sounds like apartheid, welcome to Quebec! Fortunately, most of the people in my brother's village do not share the prejudices of the provincial government. But the grinding poverty and hopelessness of the unilingual English-speaking minority in the Eastern Townships are just awful. The drug of choice is heroin.  

The woes of the poorest descendants of local United Empire Loyalists were not on display at the high school, and there is no lack of funding for the dojo, which has a beautifully sprung wooden floor. I watched with great interest as my brother and nephew about 30 other people did their warm-ups and kata routines and fought each other. The fighting struck me as a lot more dangerous than English-style boxing, for it was bare-knuckle. Interestingly, the students all wore shin-guards and pads on their feet, but not hand-wraps or padded gloves. 

After the session, we went to Montréal. Popcorn had chosen to attend a village classmate's party; the rest of us celebrated the birthday of Nulli's friends' four-year-old daughter. This was a bilingual party, most adults and children slipping easily between English and French. As such a cheerful and unselfconscious mixing of les anglos and the francos is of relatively recent date, I have to admit that there has been a vast improvement in one area of Canadian life--or, to be more accurate, Montréal life--since the 1960s. 

My train was late. Cheered by the sight of the queue still waiting in front of the "Toronto" sign, I found the Gare Central's Premiere Moisson ("first harvest") bakery and bought two croissants for the train. One of them is a chocolatine, so I will have to add that to my Sugar List, along with the chocolate cupcake I ate at the party. Sigh.

A Trip to Vermont

Just so you know, I am officially off sugar. No more sugar. By any reckoning, Christmas is over, and since I arrived in Canada I have already consumed the following essentials:

Black Midnight birthday cake made by my mother
Striped shortbread triangles made by my mother
Real Canadian maple syrup on pancakes made by my mother
A Tim Horton's old-fashioned doughnut
A chocolate chip cookie made by my niece and me
One scoop of Vermont's famous Ben & Jerry's ice-cream--in Vermont!

Yesterday my brother and I went to visit Red Mezzo in Vermont. Long-time readers with excellent memories may remember that Red Mezzo is my red-haired opera singer friend who lived in Montreal. Like most of my long-term readers, she has ceased to be Single. She got married to her handsome crush object (who adored Rita Hayworth) and now lives on a dairy farm an hour's drive from my brother. She and her husband now have two beautiful children toddling merrily around their old farmhouse.

After coffee and zucchini bread, Red Mezzo, her daughter and I went upstairs to clean up the daughter's room and play with her toys. I could not resist the Fisher-Price clock, for I used to have one exactly like it, and discovered for the first time that its tune is "Grandfather's Clock" (1876) by Henry Clay Worth. Then I played with the wooden doll with the 100 (literally) magnetic outfits. Finally I seized  the children's version of Anna Karenina which was all about AK's clothes and not at all about trains.

Highly suspicious, I searched the lovely illustrations for a hidden train, but it isn't there. It is a completely unironic child's version of Anna Karenina with direct quotes about AK's clothes. There is an illustration of Vronsky in his lovely white uniform, but no mention of or reference to Karenin. Little girls who love this book--and I reveled in the pretty dresses- are in for a terrible shock when they grow up and read (or see) the whole thing. I still haven't read it, but the Keira Knightley film left me with jitters.

Then we all sat down to lunch which was followed up by Ben & Jerry's ice cream, which may have milk from the very cows in the very barn in it. I had one little scoop because (despite all the treats mentioned above) I am on a low-sugar diet. Red Mezzo's husband felt badly that he was giving me sugar, but I assured him that I considered B&J ice cream the vin de pays of Vermont.

Maybe a good low-sugar diet rule is that one can only eat Ben & Jerry's when one is actually in Vermont.

We returned to my brother's village in Quebec after lunch, so as to greet the returning schoolchildren. After supper, my brother took me along to karate, and I was highly impressed when the sensei asked him to take the children aside and refresh their memories on some kata (or whatever they are). My niece--an orange-belt--was the smallest child there and the most impudent. (Nulli to Popcorn: "I 'm not daddy, I'm sempai !")

I was charmed when Popcorn pulled her two girlfriends there--one much taller and somewhat older than myself--over to my bench to introduce us. This display of good manners was so staggering in a six year old that I can only assume there was an element of "show-and-tell" to it all. (The girls smiled shyly and seemed delighted to be pulled hither and thither by the tiny human tugboat.)  Then I was terribly impressed when my brother taught the children--a mix of francophones, anglophones and hispanophones--in English, French, and whatever necessary Japanese.

But it was -17 C when we got back out to car. Brrrrr! How happy I was to return to my brother's hearth with a book.

Karate in the Village

On Monday I took the train to Montréal. My brother Nulli was waiting, and we went off to get a  late take-out lunch at Schwartz's (me) and Co Co Rico (Nulli). In years past I have had the famous black cherry soda to go with the smoked meat sandwich and fries, but at 46 g of sugar--forget about it. Sadly, the sandwich and fries were not the same without it.

We drove to Nulli's village in the Eastern Townships of Quebec (Estrie, en français). Village and countryside, thickly populated by tress, were knee-deep in snow. The lake was frozen solid and also covered with snow. Fantastically beautiful--and one reason why I travel to Canada in February!

My brother and his family live in a sprawling 1950s bungalow with a finished basement and an enormous conservatory added in the early 21st century. It has a stone floor, a pine wall and ceiling, ceiling high glass windows, a gas fireplace, my brother's grand piano, some green potted plants, comfy armchairs and sofa.  Never mind the grandest rooms in the Historical House: this is my favourite room in the world.

Nulli and his kids are mad about karate. This morning I was treated to a demonstration of karate moves in the conservatory. Then my brother led me through yesterday's calisthenics workout again. He is disturbed by my Edinburgh tales of altercations on the Rough Bus, the Not Supposed to Be Rough Bus, the Rough Beach and the Polski Sklep and thinks I should learn karate, too. I have pondered this, but the quickest fixes would be (A) putting the old-lady berets in storage (B) taking the bus as infrequently as possible.

We went to the main street yesterday for lunch, and I was impressed at how neighbourly everyone was. (Of course, it is a small town.) I even met the sensei. Interestingly most people can switch from French to English (or from English to French) without too much awkwardness. Conversations between francophones and anglophones are cheerfully bilingual.

Today is a "frozen rain" day (snow is not a problem for anyone out here), so Peanut and Popcorn are home from school. This afternoon I shall teach them the Greek alphabet and then help them make cookies. At the moment they are suspiciously quiet, but apparently they really are just playing nicely.

Dancing Snowflakes

I am just so in love with my native city right now. Yesterday I took the bus early downtown, took another bus and had brunch with my friend Trish in one of the many College-and-Bathurst area brunch spots. As we munched I watched snow swirl around outside. It was so incredibly relaxing. The brunch place was done up to look like a Canadian holiday cottage--vintage hockey posters on the walls, vintage signs--bilingual even. There was a basket of racquets in the loo--I mean, the washroom.

I've been travelling around the city for three days to meet siblings and friends, and it hasn't been the least bit stressful. On Friday after Mass I went to the Catholic Register offices, took a pal there to lunch, and then went to west Queen West to visit Trish in her amazing flat/backyard theatre. I was home in time for dinner, and my youngest sister dropped by to help eat it. 

On Saturday, I visited my other sister's new condo, I did a little toy shopping, I met my youngest brother for lunch on the Danforth, and I zipped across town to see my pal Lily and her little ones. I was home in time for dinner again. 

After Sunday morning brunch with Trish, she drove me to Holy Family on King Street West for the Missa Cantata. After Mass, I greeted friends from high school days and met their ninth child, an adorable infant. I also met a long-time blog reader, and we were on the same bus to Roncesvalles where, for once, I didn't buy Polish stuff: just more toys. I popped by Lily's, but the family is down with the 'flu, so I went home and finished writing an Ancient Greek test for my charges back in Scotland.  My youngest brother came for Sunday supper, and afterwards my dear old prom date dropped by for a cup of tea and a chat. 

The backdrop to all this has been the cold--a refreshing, dry cold--and the beautiful snow. Whenever I see the fat white flakes solemnly descending in utter silence, I am in awe. Then, when the wind whips them up into a swirling dance, my heart fills with joy. I had forgotten just how beautiful snowfall is.

Why Should the Man Propose

I woke up at four and turned in desperation to the computer. The Daily Mail featured some remarks by long-term girlfriends on Whisper about their longing for their boyfriends to propose. Several commentators wondered why the women wait for the men to propose instead of proposing themselves.

The answer to this is that a man proposing is the ultimate proof to his girlfriend that he really loves her and really wants to spend the rest of his life with her.

Duh.

When I was 15 I thought advice about not calling boys up and not asking them on dates and not asking them to dance was total fuddy-duddyism. Those were modern times, and my mother was totally out of touch with the modern world, etc. I was stung, but not convinced, by being called a brazen hussy. Calling girls brazen hussies is no way to pass on wisdom that completely contradicts everything we read in magazines and hear on TV.

The truth of the matter is that you don't call up boys, or ask them on one-on-one dates, or ask them to dance because if you do, you will never know if he really likes you or is just being polite or is just going along with it all because you are a girl--any girl. You may have begun a journey towards the humiliation that is attempting to assuage the tortures of doubt by asking the man you love if he loves you.

I hated, absolutely hated, my mother's assurances that "the woman doesn't get to ask, the woman gets to say 'Yes' or 'No'"--which, incidentally, is a brutally stripped down version of the call-response philosophy of Saint Edith Stein.  I hated the idea that instead of riding out into the world and winning the man I thought best-looking (etc.), I had to choose from whichever suitors rode up to my door. I was very pessimistic about my own attractions, which may have been humility but may also have been a kind of premature despair. Given a 15 year old daughter of my own, I would counsel her to commit herself to her schoolwork, to sports, to camping, to artistic pursuits and to put dating and dancing right out of her mind until university.

It may be salutary to explain how I won the heart of dear B.A., which was to sit very straight-backed on a couch in an Edinburgh New Town flat wearing a blue silk shift dress and pearls and listen very politely to an elderly Oxford graduate chat about Maurice Bowra, et alia. Also (for the millionth time), I had the very good fortune to resemble B.A.'s favourite singer, the pin-up idol of his university days. If you had told me at 15 that the way to a man's (or, anyway, the right man's) heart was to dress like Jackie Kennedy and not talk, I simply would not have believed you.

Peacock Feathers by Temple Bailey

My parents are avid library patrons, which is why their house is not crammed top to bottom with books. Some of the books that do linger on the shelves were owned by my grandparents, and one of them is Peacock Feathers by Temple Bailey (1924). This was one of my favourite books when I was a teenager. It was good to read it again with the eyes of a forty-something.

The story is about a parson's son from western New York state who is led by his adventurous uncle to believe that he will inherit wide estates in Colorado one day. Although he adores his kindly, idealistic and self-sacrificing father, Jerry pines to be more like his uncle. As a teenager, Jerry travels with Uncle Jerry to Washington D.C., where the latter seeks to put together a lucrative deal. When they are eating in the Senators' restaurant, the boy sees a beautiful auburn-haired girl dining with her grandfather. The grandfather, says Uncle Jerry, is a famous senator and the girl is his niece, Mimi Lebrun.

Jerry has fallen instantly in love with the girl, and when his uncle sends him to Yale University, he befriends a young man there who turns out to be Mimi's cousin. Thus Jerry gets swept along into Mimi's High Society orbit, where his simple background puts him at a considerable disadvantage.

Strangely, this is the only book by Temple Bailey I have read. Why I never thought to look her up in a library card catalogue in those far-off days of my youth, I know not. She reminds me of Lucy Maud Montgomery, only there is a beautiful spareness to her writing. With LMM, I find my eye skipping over passages of descriptions; this is never true for Peacock Feathers. Although she too loves landscapes, Bailey gets the greater impact in the fewer words.

I also love the book for its scenes of pre-war America, which is also conjured up for my by E.B. White. It's a reminder that people thought they were on the cutting edge of modernity in 1912. In Peacock Feathers, Christian Jerry rarely mentions Almighty God to his glittering set because they simply wouldn't understand what he was talking about. Having grown up in Canada, I sometimes get the impression that the world before 1968, or 1939 at earliest, doesn't matter to the zeitgeist. It's gone completely down the memory hole; we have entertaining "historical novels" instead.

True, a white American novelist born in 1869 might have a blinkered, limited view of American society. In Peacock Feathers, the only African Americans are female servants and the only American Indians are farmhands and itinerant sellers of blankets. Jerry finds the Italian immigrants who come to farm New York incredibly exotic. However, if your ancestors include pre-war white Americans, stories drawn from their experiences will surely move you.


Immigrant experience is here, of course. Mimi Lebrun and her high society set are from St. Louis, and identify strongly with the French experience in the USA. Their ancestresses came from France with their ballgowns packed up in boxes, and they danced with Lafayette. Their pride, though, rests in their ancestors having been founders of the American republic, founders of cities. They are most definitely "American first" because, although they did not arrive with the Mayflower, they sprang from "first Americans [of the Republic]."

Today this is a decidedly unfashionable point of view, no doubt because the descendants of "first Americans" are vastly outnumbered by the descendants of New Americans who, unsurprisingly, feel disgruntled and marginalized by being left out. This may be why the sins of the "first Americans" are presented to our view today much more often than their virtues. Stuart Little seemed vastly untroubled by inherited guilt, and it wasn't just because he was--incredibly bizarrely--a mouse.

In the Natal Oikos

Here I am in Canada, safe under my father's roof. How very traditional. If I'm not under my husband's roof, I'm usually under my father's in Toronto or my brother's in Quebec.

Anyway, I am on holiday from Church news, so you will not find any big Church news here, solely local details. I went to my parents' parish church for First Friday Mass (and the Feast of St. Blaise) and was very moved by the old stained glass windows, rescued when the old church was knocked down and replaced. I have loved those windows all my life. The current parish priest is a lovely man, too. There were 40 or so people at the 8:30 AM, and that also was moving.

The natal oikia (house, oikos is a household) is not in the least historical, but it is big and bright and sunlit, with big white tiles in the massive kitchen and the lovely wooden floors that have been replacing the wall-to-wall carpets over the past two decades. The sentimental wallpaper in the bedroom of my youth has been replaced by chic green paint, and the newly wooden floor is a delight.

Lots of sunlight, lots of coffee and a delicious cake. My mother is my superior in the baking of cakes, and I don't care who knows it. She blames British flour for my cakes' deficiencies.

It is very cold outside, but it's a dry cold. It's a beautiful, crisp Ontario cold.