anthropological studies

the sound of morning [aka: unplugged]

~ carin ~ 5 Comments

A man coughs, opens a car door.

VIA train whistle in the distance.

A small gathering of bird talk behind a house.

Tires on pavement, driver waves.

Front door opens, young boy stands on stoop. “The dump truck is still here!”

A woman in jeans and ballcap passes: “Morning!”

A woman leaves a house: “Thanks so much!” Gets into car. [Not sure, but I have the idea she just dropped off a child. Relief in her tone?]

A woman in Canadian flag toque comes out of house, blows her nose: “Morning!”

A door shuts on one side of the street.

On the other, a door opens, car unlocks with a beep, engine starts.

Further along, two young children, low-speaking, stand in driveway. Too quiet to hear what they say.

My footsteps.

slow tv

~ carin ~ 3 Comments

Very sad news.

Programming cuts at TVO.

Especially sad to lose Saturday Night at the Movies. After forty years and a tsunami of technology it seems that turning down the lights and putting one’s feet up and being content with whatever the film happens to be, and maybe it’s something you wouldn’t have chosen but you end up liking it anyway… is over.

Because now we have to have what we want when we want it and if, three seconds later, we’re bored with what we thought we wanted and want something else, we have to have that too.

Here is a sigh for the end of an era.

Sigh.

Popcorn will never be quite the same.

here there be deers

~ carin ~ Leave a comment

I’m pretty sure I heard deer rustling in the shrubbery at the creek this morning. I went early, drawn by the sky and maybe surprised them.

I know they’re there. I’ve seen hoof prints in winter and people occasionally report seeing them on lawns.


Always seems a bit strange—that something as beautiful as deer can be found in urban settings. Unsettling really. A reminder we’ve encroached on their space.


They come for the water, follow the creek from north of here where, despite best efforts of developers, it’s still pretty woodsy.


I saw them only once. Two winters ago a pair of white-tailed beauties leapt across the path where I walked and then into a copse of spruce.


I like how so much goes on here regardless of us. Coyotes, fox, rabbits, stray cats, wild apple trees. They all know what to do, they manage. Until they don’t.


Nothing here doesn’t have a purpose.


Except what the largest brains contribute.

the power of dark

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This morning’s walk in all that lovely blackness, stars still out and street lights on—just the way I like it. In a few weeks we ‘fall back’ and mornings will be much brighter. I have no idea why we persist in this time altering routine every year. Didn’t it originate with children needing to help with farm chores before walking ten miles to school? Uphill. Both ways. Something like that. Light was important, that’s all I remember.

But that was before it was everywhere. All the time. Surely we could do with less of it now.

So I get up early and walk and in the darkness, I pass a young woman, she looks cosy in a pink hoodie, carries a large drinking container, presumably coffee [I’m not sure tea drinkers are as prone to wander about with flasks of chamomile and lapsang souchong, but I could be wrong]. Beside her an acorn coloured dog about the size and shape of a rolled up newspaper, walks in that sprightly way of short-legged canines who stroll with long-legged humans. She stares straight ahead, and the contrast between her yawning demeanor and the dog’s peppy Isn’t this great, isn’t this fun, doncha love a walk, doncha, doncha, doncha, wanna go faster, wanna throw me a stick, go ahead, throw me one, throw me one, isn’t this just so GREAT??!! vibe makes me smile. We exchange pleasant good mornings as we pass each other and I think what a civilized thing it is to greet a stranger so early in the day. A tiny celebration of being alive, the kind of greeting that doesn’t always happen on brighter occasions.

We walk the same loop but in opposite directions so a bit later meet again, this time both of us doing what Douglas Adams in The Meaning of Liff  calls the corriecravie:

“…[a] highly skilled process by which both protagonists continue to approach while keeping up the pretence that they haven’t noticed each other…”

By now the streetlights are off, the day’s crept in and we can see each other quite clearly. Pink hoodie maintains her part in the corriecravie by chatting with the previously-ignored acorn pup while I feign interest in the leaves I’m kicking through, although we’re probably both en guarde for making eye contact and chuckling if necessary.

Turns out it’s not.

In the light of day we pass each other without a glance.

the art of familiar letter writing

~ carin ~ 2 Comments

 
Was recently in a lovely hotel. One I’ve been in before, lucky me. On that previous occasion there was a folder that contained stationery, i.e. a few sheets of hotel letterhead, a couple of envelopes, a comment card, a pen, a Things to Do in the Area brochure. I like that welcomey sort of touch. Immediately after unpacking I like nothing better than plonking myself down in an armchair, feet on the coffee table and reading a letter from hotel management that says things along the lines of we’re so glad you’re here, and give us a dingle if you need anything, anything at all and please take your feet off the coffee table.

Makes me feel at home.

Plus, I love free pens.

And I adore hotel stationery.

I have a small collection of pages that goes back years and years, a decade or more some of it. Every now and then I’ll send a letter to someone on one of those precious sheets, sometimes recalling a moment from way back then, or making no reference at all to the place but merely using it as my personal stationery.

I think it’s damn funky.

However, it seems, at this hotel anyway, stationery has been done away with for reasons of “everyone uses email now”. And the ‘welcome’ letter is now a video, because no one watches enough TV already or is in any way tired of looking at screens. That is, after all, why we go on holiday, is it not? To look at different screens or, at the very least, our own screens in a different light, against mountain backdrops, to text in sultry salted air…

Well then, I thought, what to do in that hour before dinner, about three days into the holiday, when the sun is just thinking of lowering itself behind the lake and the patio is still all warm with it and I have a glass of cool sauvignon blanc and a bag of chips in front of me… Seems like the perfect time to write a letter and comment on morning rambles collecting walnuts and stones and finding an owl with its leg stuck in the net of a volleyball court and contacting the local and very wonderful SPCA who contacted one of their staff in the area who was at home and who was only too happy to trade slippers for shoes and come right over to help said owl.

Stationery would have been nice, but we’ve gone over that. Instead, I tore pages from a notebook and that worked well enough, even better because of the lines—saves the recipient having to turn the paper at an angle to read. And when I asked the front desk for an envelope, they had one, a hotel one even. The young woman apologized for the logo and I said, no, that was great, that was perfect! I don’t think she quite understood my euphoria given how she was not yet born when the art of familiar letter writing was in its heyday. It occurred to me only much later that they probably also had sheets of paper with the hotel logo, although not offered because no one knew what they were for.

Sigh.

So I’m writing this lovely hotel, where I spent a lovely few days. I’m writing them on my own stationery. With a pen. A stamp will be involved. Feet will take me to a nearby mailbox. I will breathe en route. I will ask if they foresee a time when the art of letter writing, if only from hotel stationery, might be revived. I will mention a very exquisite spot in Newfoundland where I had the privilege of staying a few years ago and where I was mightily impressed with many things, not the least of which was a postcard (or two), pre-stamped and featuring a nice shot of the inn and environs. Smart marketing, that. And they’ll mail it for you too.

I’ll update this post with said hotel’s response. Which, with a bit of luck, will come on hotel stationery.

◊

More handwritten thoughts:

—the postman brought all that

—pocalogging to my own tune

—dear mr. postman

—the reason i like mail

seen heard and noted on a late september ramble

~ carin ~ 2 Comments

A woman dashing, that is, walking swiftly and with purpose, from front door to car, but not without glancing up at a strolling passerby. That would be me. And then glancing away without so much a s Hale Fellow Well Met!  I’m all set to say good morning but it’s clear she has no time for such nonsense.

A chap, in his thirties, looking smart in a purple tie, approaches his smart silver car, starts the engine then returns to his house, leaving the car in idle, spewing unpleasantness into his smart neighbourhood while he’s back inside his smart house possibly positioning his tie so as not to get anything on it as he slurps the dregs of his coffee, very possibly made with the very smartest of coffee makers.
I consider how early the poor soul will have to rise in order to warm his vehicular interior once the morning temperatures fall below 15 celsius.

Something about the pillows on the porch chairs, the shade of green, the fact that bird silhouettes are stenciled on them in a sort of pale burlap colour, the way they look recently leaned against, makes me warm to the strangers living inside this house.

The very day after someone asks: why is it you never see two people walking a dog?—and at the exact moment I’m pondering this almost-koan—I see coming toward me two people walking a lovely rust-coloured pooch of indeterminate breeding.

I notice a bottle of Listerine in a neighbour’s blue box. This feels an oddly personal thing to know about them.

A bottle and can man in a red and black lumberjacket pulls a trolley along the street. I know it’s bottles and cans, it’s recycling day and I can hear them clatter. I respect this form of earning a few bob. In fact, I’d like to see those plastic bottle return depots they have in Calgary. Keeps the streets cleaner, folk make a little dough and there’s less for the landfill. What don’t I know about this seemingly good idea? Why aren’t they in every city and town?

I’m pleased and proud to see Giant Tiger yard waste bags, also President’s Choice, Canadian Tire and ‘Life’ brand in my neighbourhood. I think maybe we’re actually, collectively, getting how every tiny choice matters, support local! choose wisely where you spend your dollars or you will soon be surrounded by big box stores!  Maybe the 100 monkey thing is kicking in at last. Hooray! Then I turn a corner and just like that it’s all Costco and Home Depot, Loews. A different crowd entirely, and it occurs to me that you can probably judge someone’s politics by their yard waste bag as easily as a sign on the lawn.

Yet another man in red and black lumberjacket, this time a bathrobe. He sneezes as he walks to his garbage bag already on the street, opens it, adds something, then catches my eye as he turns and we say good morning, good morning. He looks like Peter Gzowski.

take a letter…

~ carin ~ 2 Comments

Dear Girls in Pretty Dresses in the Purple Car in the Parking Spot on St. Patrick Street:

—Which as we know is right around the corner from the Art Gallery of Ontario, which is where I’m heading to see Picasso and which is why I covet your spot and am beyond thrilled when, as I’m circling the block, I see you and a friend get into your car. Oh joy!  I think as I slow down, pull over behind you and wait a few moments for you to pull out.

But, dear girls, you don’t pull out, do you?

No.

What you do is put the top down on your purple car which turns out to be a convertible so that now I have a clear view of the back of your pony-tailed heads as you sit… SIT…!! there.

Minutes and minutes go by. And you continue to sit.

Doing what????

[deep breath]

Dear girls, I’m writing for two reasons. One, to tell you that it’s just about this time that I find myself saying some very bad words in your direction. Out loud. But you can’t hear. Unlike you, I don’t drive a shiny new purple convertible, but a well-loved tan Toyota with an Obus form in the driver’s seat and a bit of rust around the wheel wells. On top of that, my windows are closed. But rest assured the words are said.

Because, dear girls, what kind of idiot sits in a parked car when someone is clearly waiting behind you for that spot. I mean, for god’s sake, if you’re leaving, leave!

After a few more minutes it occurs to me that there might be some problem that prevents you from leaving so I get out of my car and approach yours and see that the problem is that you and your friend are having lunch. Pad Thai by the looks of it.

Hello, I say.

Hello, you say.

I don’t mean to rush you, but after you eat, will you be leaving?

We?

(At this point I detect an accent, can’t quite place it… central Europe somewhere.)

Yes, I say, you, your car.

You say yes, after you eat, you will be leaving.

I can’t believe I ask, but I do. How long do you think that might be?

You consider this quite seriously and say, ten minutes?  like it’s a question.

I say, great, I’ll wait. (Does this give you some idea of how precious a parking spot is in this neck of the woods?)

I try to read but I keep looking up. I feel the need to stay alert in case you start the engine and someone else sidles up, expecting to move in. I have to stay vigilant.

I can tell by the way your heads are moving that you aren’t rushing. You’re chatting and having a splendid time and why shouldn’t you in your dresses and hair and youth and noodles and European accents? You’ve paid for the space, why not have a picnic?

I say more bad words about out of towners and Central Europe. [Which is ironic given that I, myself, live out of town and my parents are from Central Europe.]

Almost exactly ten minutes later you open your door, walk over to my car and in your accent, which I now recognize as something like German or Swiss, you tell me you have an unused ticket for Picasso if I’d like it. I say I’ve already got a ticket, but thank you. I don’t mention it but the ticket you have isn’t valid anyway, as it was only good for entry between one and two p.m. We discuss the exhibit and your Pad Thai and I say I hope you didn’t eat quickly on my account and you say no, you didn’t. I’m oddly relieved. You tell me you’re off to somewhere-somewhere next; I have no idea what you’ve said and don’t ask for clarification… the point being you require sustenance, which, you explain, is why you had to eat before setting out. You laugh as though any fool would agree one must never go to somewhere-somewhere on an empty stomach. And of course I laugh too.

We bid one another a fond farewell. Really quite fond.

And then you are off at last in your purple convertible and pony-tails to somewhere-somewhere. I hope, dear girls, it’s all that you hoped it would be.

I just wanted you to know how the story ended.

ethanol on the beach: one story, three versions, with pictures

~ carin ~ 2 Comments

Version I

The city didn’t want it. Another city did. Some shady dealing went on. The city that doesn’t want it is getting it anyway. And they’re upset. And the city that wanted it is upset too. And please don’t ask if an environmental assessment was done because that’s just silly. Of course it was NOT done. The new rules say we don’t need such fluff and nonsense.

So there.

End of story.

VERSION II

Cronyism has won the right to build an ethanol plant in Durham Township, right on Oshawa’s busy and environmentally sensitive waterfront, much to the dismay of everyone except the cronies. Meanwhile, nearby Brock Township has a site they’d love to dedicate for just such a purpose but the cronies wrinkled their noses and said no, they want to play at the beach instead. It’s rumoured that one stamped his foot and threatened to hold his breath until he turned blue(r).

VERSION III

In Search of Gifford Hill—my take on visiting the site.

And pictures too.