Molson's Revisited

As Canadian as a red canoe: by HTO park, Toronto Waterfront, March 27, 2020

The perennial Canadian pastime of distinguishing ourselves from Americans has become more apparent to me these days.

For example, I took notice when Torontonians corralled an errant racoon with a bunch of leaf-filled yard waste bags, and BlogTO described it as a "Canadian" solution.

It may be no surprise that Canadians might want to differentiate themselves right now from the almost 74 million Americans who said they were ready for four more years of Donald Trump. I know I do.

So, along with agreeing that Canadians are resourceful and humane and have defined themselves in the past in beer commercials, I'd like to share some impressions that arose as I sat through an hour long web call with Margaret Atwood this past week.

The call itself was a joint project of the Canadian Writer's Union - of which I am not a member because I have not yet been paid even a red cent for anything I have written - and its British counterpart, the Society of Authors. The chat with Atwood was one of SoA's ten-part series of tea time conversations (not making this up) with various writers of English.

Atwood's massive fame notwithstanding, the host of the show asked her the same questions as all the other authors. So Atwood gave responses to, "can you show us your writing space and talk about your writing routine" and "what do you do with all your rough drafts," among other questions.

In response to the first, Atwood, seated in a room in her Toronto home, showed the 200 people on the call the desktop Mac she writes on, the feathers she's trying to make into pens, and her bookshelf with volumes of Canadian and international poetry, as well as books on palmistry and astrology, two abiding interests of hers.

In response to the second, she said, "I'm lucky because here in Toronto they have a handy thing, the Fisher Rare Book Library. I donate my old drafts and they are happy to have the stuff. I know I can find things there because they won't lose it and are taking care of it."

Atwood also talked about her preoccupation with totalitarian regimes, having been born in 1939 on the cusp of the second world war, the influence of George Orwell on her own writing and her certainty that if we don't fix climate change, we are as done as the mastodon, whose gigantism, she learned, preceded its extinction. 

When asked about Canadian literature, Atwood answered that you can find certain hallmark themes in the great literature of nations. For example, America's hallmark theme is money (think The Great Gatsby) and, when she wrote about Canadian literature in the 70's, Canada's was survival. She said she'd have to think a lot before she could say what Canada's hallmark theme is now.

When asked if she'd given thought to stopping writing, she said, "I trust my editors will tell me when I've lost it." She gave as an example of losing it Tennyson's late period poem Happy, (about a woman who scolds her husband, so he leaves on the Crusades, contracts leprosy in the Holy Land and brings the disease home with him; the woman sees this is all her fault and the poem closes with her commitment to be happy with her leper husband).

Atwood managed to insert a couple of product plugs - for Topsy Farms wool blankets (best for keeping warm in the back yard for wintertime COVID visits) and for Gil Adamson one of Anansi Press's award-winning authors. 

All of this came with insouciance and warmth from one of the world's most famous authors.

Other facts about Atwood shared on the call: she was instrumental in the 70's in creating the Canadian Writer's Union and Anansi Press so that Canadian authors could make a better living and have someone who would publish their work.

So there's a Canadian for you - a leader championing the greater good in her community, a hard-working senior citizen sceptical of authoritarianism, a writer with millions of fans around the globe who gamely sits herself down for an hour to have a cosy chat with a small handful of people, and whose one nod to how different she is from the rest of us is she has a rare book library taking care of her discarded drafts.

I imagine she'd know what to do with a stray raccoon, too. 

Thanks for reading!

Have a great locked down week!

Karen

Photo credit: Junk Boat Travels

Back to Lockdown

Musta been some COVID party: one of two stacks of wine boxes by the curb
in front of an apartment building on Isabella Street. 

Bruce and I took a walk yesterday to make the most of what might be the last of the nice weather. We started the walk around 3:00 p.m., so the Premier had not yet announced what Ontario was going to do next about the pandemic.

We made our way north to Rosedale, along Glen Road, through Chorley Park, and down onto the Belt Line. We climbed back up to street level at Heath Street. Our long term plan was to take the subway from St. Clair station back downtown.

But first, we stopped at a local pub for a beer. Turns out the fine weather is not the only thing we'll be seeing the last of. Just as we left the tented patio, after we'd fortified ourselves with some pints of Guinness, we heard people talking about the lockdown like it was a coming storm.

When we got home, I looked on line. Because people have been gathering at weddings and home parties to spread the virus, Ontario is closing retail stores, restricting the numbers of people inside of grocery stores and prohibiting the consumption of food and drink on outdoor patios.

Makes sense to me.

The Sixty-Four-Year-Old Man and the Genie, Part Two

A sixty-six-year-old man was cleaning out the basement of his family's home. His wife of forty-two years and he were going to sell the place, downsize and move to the west coast where their children and grandchildren lived.

He'd already been at his task for the best part of a week. Every box he opened, every corner he searched, brought another flood of memories. It was slow work, but he wasn't in a rush. He'd retired two years ago. Since then, each day was better than the one before.

His health was good. He and his wife were as happy together as they had ever been. Their children were genuinely pleased their parents were going to move close to them. Everyone was looking forward to that.

The SSYO man had one last dark corner to clean. Digging through piles of stuff carelessly heaped against the wall, he found an old box, like a strong box, but the metal was shiny and its surface was etched with odd-looking marks. He brushed the surface with his hand to remove some dust.

WHAM! A blow out of nowhere knocked the box out of his hand and made the SSYO man fall back flat on his ass. Stacks of old magazines and board games broke his fall.

“Time's up” said a mild voice.

* * *

I never did find the second part of the story as I wrote it ten years ago, but I recall it landed in the same general vicinity as the story above. The sixty-four-year-old man chose happiness, of course.

Thanks for reading!

Stay safe!

Karen

$14.95 a bottle at the LCBO

Devolution

This seemed reasonable in late June when this signage first went up. Probably also worth mentioning: this will be the fourth restaurant to try and make a go of it on this spot at the corner of Bay and Grosvenor, at the base of a fifty-storey condo (strata for my readers in BC) built about five years ago.

Things are going sufficiently badly (the pandemic; the election; the end of the world as we know it) that I feel at a loss for words, which is strange for me, I know.

Rather than force the issue, here's something I wrote long ago. 

It's the first half of a two-part story. With any luck, by next week I'll have found the second half.

The Tale of the Sixty-Four-Year-Old Man and the Genie

A sixty-four-year-old man was cleaning out his basement one day. He and his wife of forty years were separated and in the process of being divorced. They agreed in their most recent amicable but sad conversation that they should sell the matrimonial home and split the proceeds. He was cleaning the basement to prepare the house to be put on the market.

    In a dark corner where he was sure he’d not been for twenty years, he found an old box, like a strong box, but the metal was shiny and its surface was etched with odd-looking marks. He brushed the surface with his hand to remove some dust.

    WHAM! A blow out of nowhere knocked the box out of his hand and made the SFYO man fall back flat on his ass. Stacks of old magazines and board games broke his fall.

    “What up?” said a mild voice.

    “Who’s there?” said the SFYO man.

    “You called me,” said the voice, “Tell me who you are.”

    It occurred to the SFYO man that he was in the presence of a magical being.

    “Are you going to grant me three wishes?” he asked.

    “Not quite,” said the voice, which the SFYO man could now see belonged to an average-looking person wearing a pair of denim pants, a white t-shirt and running shoes. The genie could have been one of the SFYO man’s students. “I’m going to give you three options.”

    “Oh,” said the SFYO man, a little disappointed as well as confused. “What are my options?”

    “You can live for two more years in perfect happiness. Or, you can live ten more years exactly as you are now. Or, you can live forty more years in sickness and in pain but also with great wealth.”

    “I don’t suppose I can pass on making a choice at all?” 

    “No,” said the genie. “You woke me up; you must choose.”

    “How much time do I have?”

    “Decide now.”

    The SFYO man mulled over his options. The third was a puzzle: 40 years in sickness and pain sounded awful but great wealth could buy a lot of pain killers and health care. The SFYO man had often wondered whether or not he would live to see seventy. Both his parents passed in their mid-sixties and two of his older siblings were already dead. Heart disease ran in the family. So forty more years would be a bonanza. It wouldn’t hurt that he’d be rich, too.

    Ten more years of life sounded OK, especially without sickness and pain. But if he had to spend it all in his current state, that was less OK. A question occurred to him.

    “Is the length of time guaranteed? If I choose the second, does that mean nothing will be able to kill me for ten years?  What if I try to commit suicide?”

    “The length of time is guaranteed. You won’t be able to kill yourself,” replied the genie. 

    “Decide,” the genie added.

    The SFYO man wondered if he could bear ten more years as he was. His wife had left him. His kids never talked to him. Every year, his students seemed more bizarre. He had not felt happy for a very long time. But ten more years, guaranteed. Maybe he could outlive his remaining brother and sister.

    As for the first option, perfect happiness sounded great, but two years! That was so short! It seemed to him these days that years flew by in the same time summer afternoons used to take when he was a kid. And he could not imagine what perfect happiness was.

    “Decide,” said the genie.

***

I wrote that ten years ago, when 64 seemed very far away ...

Thanks for reading!

Stay home, wash your hands, wear your mask, keep your distance!

Karen

They're ba-a-a-ck. Lineups
return to Women's College Hospital 

Anything But The Election

Bruce with old oven. So unhappy

Because of the
wrench, you see

 

Bruce with new oven. No wrench! So happy! 

Toaster Oven News 

The Kitchenaid toaster oven we've had for the past I'm going to say fifteen years finally blew a knob - the one that sets the elements to "broil", "toast", "bake" and "warm."

After a day of turning the control with a wrench, we felt we'd suffered enough. I searched on line for a toaster oven without digital controls (the reason, I am sure, for the longevity of the old one), found a Hamilton Beach model for pretty much the same price I paid for the Kitchenaid fifteen years ago and ordered that from something called Cookstore, which along with sending our new counter appliance with dispatch, is 100% Canadian.*

Heart Surgery News

My brother-in-law, the one who I can't stop talking about in this blog, was ordered by his doctor to go to the hospital late last week. He's had for the past I'm going to say twenty two years an artificial valve in his heart that finally - ten years past its best before date - was showing signs of failure. After several days of observation while (I imagine) the hospital searched on line for a new valve that worked as well and was pretty much the same price as the old one, the doctors dropped by to tell him his surgery was scheduled for Friday - that is to say, yesterday. His operation went well. He's recuperating in hospital for the next seven days, then at home for the next three to six months.

Other Health News

My sniffles have all but dissipated. Thanks to those readers who wished me well and cheered me up with pictures of their dog. To celebrate my return to health, I've restarted my daily walks, which I missed, and my daily rounds on the step treader, which I did not.

Thanks for reading! 

Have a great week!

Karen

Good advice, end of May 2020.
Still seems relevant.

*Also delivered this week: a bed frame from IKEA, a mattress from ENDY, homemade masks from my sister Carol, a box to send back my old iPad for a trade-in, several books on the writing craft, sheets for that new bed and "five pounds" of letters I wrote 30 years ago to friends who have recently needed to downsize. Returning my letters made a sizeable contribution to that task. The most remarkable thing about this frenzy of spending, shipping and receiving: not a single item came from or by way of Amazon.com.