22 hours in bear country

August 21, 2014August 28, 2014 ~ carin ~ 19 Comments

Arrival in bear country is similar to arrival anywhere.

It begins with fries.

And moves from there along a lane through many trees…

—to a house on a lake across which I’m ferried to a patio with a view.
Caesar salad and veggie wraps are involved.

And then back via nautical means—and views of bear habitat.

And habitats among the bears.

Eventually returning to the house at the end of the lane for quite a bit of this…..

—with exactly the right amount of that…

All the while, plenty of citronella-scrunching to let the mozzies know who’s boss.

Here’s a pink one giving the citronella two fingers.
And chatter. Much chatter. And bbq’d salmon. And later an attempt to sit by the dock, thwarted by the absence of light. A decision I don’t question because those trees look much bigger in the dark, and so very much better for bears to lurk behind —bibs tied around their mammoth necks, knives and forks at the ready, lips smacking… Thank god for the absence of light I say.

Instead, we chatter some more and only when voices and stamina give out do we call it a night, and then in my room I find a magic lamp. It has no buttons. You merely approach it with a what the? where’s the frigging button? and it senses your need and lights up. A copy of The Antigonish Review magically appears.

There are large windows and no curtains and again I wonder about the lurking bears pressing their muzzles against the glass, breaking through, ransacking my overnight bag for snacks. And wouldn’t you know it I happen to have a small container of peanut butter in my purse, snatched from the diner where I had breakfast last weekend.

I try to put this out of my urban mind, concentrate on the winning stories from the 2013 Sheldon Currie Fiction Contest, the plan being to read them, but my eyes are doing that closing thing that no matter how much you try to force yourself to stay awake you just keep going over exactly the same three words.
I give up trying to read or to survive imminent bear attacks and then, as if sympatico to my mood, the magic lamp goes dark with but a touch, or was it a wave?, of my hand.

More magic: the dark hours are over in mere moments and the new day is is all trees and I sit outside and write about vertical things.

There is breakfast.

And a walk with bells on.

And by the time I leave bear country, I have learned three things:

1) There are no shortage of bees in these parts.

2) The essentials for survival are simple:

3) Most importantly, should a bear manage to break through your curtain-less windows in search of your contraband peanut butter, or is drawn to you by the scent of recently BBQ’d salmon on your breath, or you encounter one anywhere else, whatever you do, do not buy the myth of playing dead. This, apparently, only assures the bear that you are in fact deceased and it will use you as a hacky sack. (This comes to me via my house-in-the-trees-at-the-end-of-the-lane host, and is largely paraphrased. But you get the point.) (Oh, and it only goes for black bears. If you encounter a grizzly, do whatever you want, you’re pretty much toast.)

how to see a sliver of chicagoland in 2.5 days

April 22, 2014February 24, 2015 ~ carin ~ 21 Comments

Drive to the GO Station.
Leave your car.
Take the train to Toronto.
Sit next to a guy who works for the TTC and who has an intercom system in his house so he can contact his children when it’s time for dinner. Discover this and other details of his life. He is a wonderful travelling companion and once at Union Station knows the way to the shuttle bus for Porter Airlines.
Get on said shuttle.
Get on ferry to Toronto’s Billy Bishop tiny island airport.

Make mental note to write a letter. “Dear Porter Airlines: I’m very cross with your greedy antics in trying to expand the island airport. It, and you, happen to be perfect as is.”

Although arriving an hour early, be the last one to board the plane. Blame the free salted almonds and comfy armchairs.

Fly into Chicago’s [also perfect in its smallness] Midway airport where you will be serenaded with the blues.

A cab ride into the city takes about half an hour.
You’ll know when you get there by the sound of the el trains.

Because you know somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody, get a room in a historic building at the southern end of The Loop where you are practically the only guests. This is the Chicago way.

Go outside.
Walk.

And discover that you are on a Great Lake. Not like in Toronto, but for real.

If you’ve got a serious chess habit, be happy; you’re in the right place.

Take time for reflection.

And music.

Discover neighbourhoods in the middle of downtown with off-leash dog park, running track, ball diamond. Try not to look impressed.

Discover a palace filled with fresh food—local ramps, dried grapes still on the vine, rows and rows of olive oil, fruit and veg you’ve never heard of, two dozen kinds of mushroom, cheese, pasta, seafood, home-made gelato, chocolate, bread.

Be sorry you don’t have a kitchen in your historic room.

Be happy there are places to eat in the food palace.

Walk some more.

Find the Tiffany ceiling in the old Marshall Fields [now Macy’s] building. Be prepared for staff who do not know what you mean when you say ‘Tiffany ceiling’. What you mean is the ceiling made in 1907 by Tiffany & Co. using 1.6 million pieces of favrile glass. It took something like 50 men and 18 months to install. The best view is from the 5th floor lingerie department, but you can see it from the first floor also, by looking ‘up’.

Looking up is good advice generally.

But not mandatory.

Have dinner at Boka.
Have the octopus as a starter and if you have room have it again for dessert then take your happy belly to City Winery, a combination restaurant and music venue. Something like Hugh’s Room, but bigger.

On the way home, get some tea from the place down the street. Give the woman who’s bedding down on the sidewalk some money.

Look out your window at 3 a.m. and see the definition of not a creature was stirring…

Look again a few hours later.

When your window turns golden it’s time to get up. Be grateful you’re facing east.

Ask people on the street where the diner Lou Mitchell’s is and when they don’t know and you explain that it’s legendary, that it’s where Route 66 began—and they still don’t know—realize you’re probably too far away to walk. Get a cab.

Enjoy the Milk Duds and doughnut holes they give you as you walk through the door. Also the single prune and slice of orange that comes with every order.

Be thrilled to find a cab waiting outside the diner when you leave. Jump in and then be annoyed that you forgot to walk over to Daley Plaza, near Lou’s, to see the Picasso sculpture, Chicago’s first piece of outdoor art.

Of which there are now oodles.

Not the least of which is The Bean, which 10,000 people told you to see.

So see it.

Console yourself about the Picasso thing with a visit to the Museum of Contemporary Art.

Discover Vivian Maier in the magnificent book section of the gift shop.
Take a seat on the bench in front of a series of full length windows by Marc Chagall.

Do NOT take a seat on the pink box.
It is NOT for sitting. It is art.
Be glad you asked.
And then pretend you knew all along…

Go back to the palace of food to look at the olives. Share a kale salad before heading to Giordano’s for pizza. The salad will tide you over while you wait in line. Leave with half a Giordano’s pizza in a box. Ask the woman who lives on the street if she’d like some pizza. She will say I won’t complain. And as you walk away you’ll hear her friend say Give me a slice…

Take the architecture boat tour.

Be a little surprised at how much water is in and around this city.

Stop by to see Vincent...

and friends.

And then walk some more.

Walk all the way to the beach. One of the beaches.

There are 26 miles of beach.
Meet a hacky sack guy who takes pictures of himself hacky sacking and wonders why more people aren’t curious about what he’s doing. In exchange for your curiosity he will offer you a hot tip: Ghiardelli’s gives free chocolate samples.

Forget to ask where Ghiardelli’s is and then decide that wherever it is it’s too far to walk.

Make a note to rent a bike next time.

Be amazed by it all and worn out and belly-filled and happy. And remember the things your neighbour from Chicago told you. About the other end of The Loop. About the other 25 miles of beaches, The Field Museum, street food and Frank Lloyd Wright. About tiny tucked away neighbourhoods where the ‘real’ Chicago lives. Realize that, despite all you’ve seen, you’ve seen almost nothing…

Wear pin-stripes.
At least once.

♦

More travel here.

florida seens

February 17, 2014February 8, 2016 ~ carin ~ 9 Comments

Our first night, on the patio where we go for dinner under a clear black sky and a moon positioned like a fulsome smile, a man crosses himself before digging into a burger and fries. He’s wearing a navy blazer and white shirt, open at the neck. He’s maybe 65 years old and has a full head of greying hair.

In the morning, a mallard and his mate [Ethel and Norman] stand at the edge of the pool, wary, concerned perhaps about chlorine levels or the risk of interlopers exuberant with all manner of toys and flotation devices. I share their apprehension. We become fast friends.
The view from our room: mudslide where the ground has shifted from under a gazebo and runs into a man-made stream. At first I think this is a negative, but then Ethel and Norman arrive and spend each day there quacking and paddling and dining among the shallow water of this new ‘sandbar’ and I realize the mud has created the only bit of natural landscape on the entire property.

The ducks and I couldn’t be happier.

Not one but two toddlers wearing diapers in the hot tub. [Scratch hot tub from list of things to do today. Maybe also tomorrow.]

The BBQ guy who uses the communal barbecue… puts on a steak at 6 p.m. then comes back for it at 7:15. On another night he does sausages.

On a cobblestone street, a family stop to offer a homeless man a take-out bag of waffles from brunch. Wordlessly the man accepts and only when they’re out of sight does he begin eating.

The Morse Museum, which houses the world’s largest collection of Tiffany ‘art’, glass, pottery, paintings. Before this I thought Tiffany was a lamp.

Me on the balcony, reading the memoir, Voice of the River, by Marjorie Stoneman Douglas, whose River of Grass may be the most important book ever written about Florida. A wood stork lands and then takes off again from a tall pine just the other side of the screen.

From our window at night, the fireworks from Disney World. Which makes me wonder: isn’t Pluto, et al, enough for people? They need fireworks too?? But then it occurs to me that maybe that’s just a polite way of getting rid of everyone, like flicking the lights on after the dance is over.

The light just before sunset. There’s nothing like Florida twilight; not ours in summer, nor anything in the Caribbean.

It’s not this light…

It’s before that, something fleeting and golden, almost sepia for a second, not transferable to film. And anyway, it’s more than light. There’s something in the air, a scent, an energy, as if for that brief moment before sunset each day, if you pay attention, you’ll glimpse something under the veneer of landscaping, something reminiscent of the land as it once was—a wild, natural beauty with mangroves at the shoreline instead of beaches, when live oaks, pine, cypress and saw grass outnumbered palms; when the birds lived in flocks of hundreds and the panthers and dolphins were real, not logos on a sports jersey. When the Everglades were a healthy beating heart before canals were stupidly built to redirect the water [something that has proven detrimental but can never be fixed].

It’s hard not to love that part of Florida.

Also hard to imagine it.

So each day I make a point of waiting for that flicker of strange golden light, feel privileged for this peek into the past. And then, in a blink, it’s gone again, and the land is left with nothing but its disguise—a once proud and exotic beast, domesticated, made to tap dance and roll over while wearing costumes, silly hats, masks, taffeta and crinolines.

two days, one night, prince edward county (how to)

December 2, 2013December 3, 2013 ~ carin ~ 18 Comments

Begin in Kingston.

Go to the Agnes Etherington Art Centre in the middle of beautiful Queens University campus. [Outside, marvel at those fresh faces and wonder what the lucky buggers will aspire to.] Inside marvel at the opening installations by Fastwurms and then continue marvelling as you enter the Ruth Soloway collection—

—which itself is worth the trip. If you pick as your favourite, Jean Paul Lemieux’s Beautiful People, you won’t be alone. Prepare to zip through the sombre colours and dead pheasants of the Old Masters room, then be slowed down by the intricacy of lace, the Rembrandts, et al. Be grateful for the brains behind the short histories and various other details posted beside each painting, which increase enjoyment levels immensely. There is a room of African treasures, another of letters written in code and yet another of French street scenes.

Take a walk. Preferably by the water.

Have lunch at Dianne’s Fish Bar. Order the seafood poutine.

Also the ‘Jar of Yummy Stuff’: brown butter apple rice pudding and cinnamon whip cream.

Avoid the 401 at all costs. Get on the scenic #33 and make your way toward the Glenora Ferry, a free service for cars, bikes, and pedestrians that runs every half hour off season [and every 15 minutes during the season]. Enjoy watching the fishing boats launch or just stretch your legs—the scenery’s delightful and the waiting time goes all too fast. The trip itself is five minutes, landing you, as if by magic, in Prince Edward County.

Make mental notes to come back and visit a thousand and one places you pass but don’t have time to visit today.

Stop to take a photograph of a toilet on someone’s driveway and discover the owner of the driveway also taking photos. She tells you that the thing appeared overnight with a note explaining how “You’ve Just Been Tanked” is part of a fund-raising campaign. Laugh merrily but know you will be thankful for every day you wake up and find there is not a toilet on your driveway. Ask for directions to Milford and realize you are on the right road.

Stop at the County Farm Centre where you can get anything you like: appetizers, socks, winches, neon orange road crew uniforms, helmets, strawberries, steaks, slippers, train sets, bird seed, clothes lines, sweaters, boots, apples, cheese, a garden hose, note paper, sunglasses, eyeglasses, frozen shrimp, hammers…

Also catnip. Get some.

Stop at the general store. Buy some chips.

Stop at the library. Play in the sandbox.

Be sad that a shop full of curious things isn’t open.

Arrive at Jackson’s Falls Country Inn and be welcomed by Lee and Paul and a dog named Shelby. Have a glass of wine, beer or cider in the front room. Or by the fireplace. Or on the porch. Or in colourful chairs overlooking fields and forest. Listen for the sound of the falls…

Drive a few minutes down the road to the Milford Bistro for dinner… or, on a fine evening, walk. When the Chef asks if, instead of ordering from the menu, you’d like him to just bring you food… say yes, yes, YES!! He will bring you wondrous things in exactly the right amounts at precisely the correct moments, including a dollop of chocolate ice cream, cherries and slices of roasted marshmallow between courses. You will wonder how it’s possible to enjoy marshmallow. You will be amazed and delighted.

When you return to the Inn, look up. You’ll see a sky that doesn’t exist where you live.

Sleep well in the absolute silence of your perfect room.

Awake to fresh tea and yogurt with pomegranate and walnuts; a mushroom omelette; toast and jam at a sunny table in what was once a one-room schoolhouse.

Talk to Lee about start of The County’s food, wine and arts culture. She grew up there. She’s one of the original food, wine and arts movers, shakers and founders. She is also Mohawk and enthusiastically shares plans for putting up a few tepees on a separate piece of property for those that might like that experience [although she adds that longhouses are traditionally Mohawk, not tepees, but they’re tougher logistically]. More enthusiasm as she explains the various themes, group events and dinners she loves to cater. Notice the art in every room. Notice the energy, the calm that presides even when the place is bustling with diners.

Take many photos around the Inn and know you will come back because where else do things line up this way…

On the way home, stop at Long Dog Winery; stock up on some excellent chardonnay and pinot noir.

Stop also at Keint-He Winery where you will kick yourself for not purchasing a book on Frances Anne Hopkins, a wonderful 19th century painter of Canadian history who more or less got overlooked in favour of all the boy painters of that era. Hard to believe, I know. Order a copy from your bookseller on your return home and send Thomas Schultze and Penumbra Press a note of thanks for publishing something so clever.

Have lunch at a little place on the water just outside Wellington whose name you now forget. Watch the swans and geese and otters while you eat a chicken Caesar.

Rue the flaw in humans that allows only one lunch per day as you pass some good-looking eateries. East and Main, and The Tall Poppy to name but two.

Head home before the sun gets too low and blinds you.

But first, one last thing en route… because you need gas, and also because you feel like doing something corny—stop by The Big Apple for the first time in your life. Ask about the bunny paraphernalia everywhere and find out the place used to be over-run with wild rabbits. Buy a pie for the neighbour that’s scooping kitty litter while you’re away.

And one for yourself.

♦◊♦

More Travel:

Montreal
Stratford
Prince Edward Island
Miami
Niagara Region
Peterborough
Chile
Vancouver

stratford in nine acts

October 18, 2013October 27, 2017 ~ carin ~ 11 Comments

Act One:
—a favourite art gallery that’s in-between exhibits. Nuts.

ACT TWO: a secret path behind said gallery that leads to stairs that lead to the Avon River.

ACT THREE: swans au naturel.

ACT FOUR: swans who’ve inadvertently walked into a trap and are now headed for their winter digs. Much hissing when nabbed, especially among the young ones who’ve never been through this before. When asked if the birds enjoy their off season indoor camping arrangement [I asked this hopefully, by the way, with several toes crossed] the handlers said… and I quote: “Nope.”

ACT FIVE: Stitch, who lost an eye to a mink last year. Seasonal shifts are child’s play to him; no hissy fits, he’s all one-eyed dignity.

The last time I ordered coffee, some many years ago, I was given a cup of regular instead of decaf and I jangled something frightening. I realize the jangle is part of coffee’s charm but I didn’t care for that “HELLLOOOO!!!! I’M AWAKE NOW!!” feeling and have been a tea girl ever since. Black, white, green, rooibos, lapacho bark, herbals, tisanes, roots, bits of old leather, anything but coffee. Hence, ACT SIX: my favourite retail establishment… more Ohm than Zing.

ACT 6-A: the colours of course.

No picture to prove this but Pazzo’s petite pizza, greens from Soiled Reputation and a perfect antipasti platter played no paltriness in the pleasure offered by Stratford’s SEVENTH act.

ACT EIGHT… the play. Mary Stuart. Wherein even the slightest facial movements by the astounding Seanna McKenna are a performance in themselves. The story—nutshell version—is about the way we divide up society and allegiances based purely on our passions [culture, religion, morals, values, aesthetics]. The playwright chose to portray this through a fictional meeting between Mary, Queen of Scots [Catholic, beautiful, all joie de vivre and super popular despite being a bit of a tart who murdered one of her three husbands] and Queen Elizabeth [Protestant, not so fun but a dedicated monarch] during which meeting Mary calls Elizabeth a bastard for her illegitimate status and [therefore] dubious right to a throne Mary reckons should be hers. Well, of course it’s never really about the throne, is it? Deeper issues lurk—deceptions, insecurities, jealousy, guilt, politics, family names, bloodlines, history… All that and more than a few good laughs. Yes, it’s true… there are moments of delicious humour. Three thumbs up.

ACT NINE: homeward. Via pumpkin patches and planes in pale purple skies.

Applause. Exit right. Fade out…

one way to do pei ‘up west’

September 2, 2013June 11, 2019 ~ carin ~ 63 Comments

*Fly.

When you land in Charlottetown, notice the children playing with a puppy on the grass right outside the airport doors. Unless said children are paid to do this… realize you have come to an enchanted isle.

Drive directly to the Oyster Barn in Malpeque [with a stop for chips en route to take the edge off near starvation from not being offered so much as a pretzel on the flight.]
At Malpeque, get a table by the window, order at least a dozen briny beauties to eat there [and a dozen to take with you]. Watch the fishermen coming in from a day’s work, unloading their haul, swabbing decks. If you have the chance, tell them thank you.

Arrive at your ‘up west’ lodgings. Run fast, the mosquitoes are hungry. Hug friends who greet you with a key and a jar of homemade, wild strawberry jam. Later, after a thunderstorm, walk to the beach where a rainbow will be waiting.
Take your shoes off.
Wake to a sun-flooded yellow room. Eat bread and jam and drink peach infused tea with pink rosebuds. Drive to North Cape to see where the Northumberland Straight and the Gulf of St. Lawrence meet and where sometimes there are seals or farmers gathering Irish moss. Take pictures of Queen Anne’s Lace and things that are purple and then stop at Charley’s Cookhouse — sit outside and breathe salt air. Order fried clams.

Go to any beach, any beach at all, with a picnic of chicken legs, potato salad, watermelon and a sketch pad. Do not go for the crowds.

Wonder about the number of orphan gloves you will find.

Take those oysters you bought in Malpeque and shuck them on the rocks at Kildaire Cape at sunset and discover a replacement for North Cape’s now-extinct Elephant Rock.

See a starfish.

Be a starfish.

Visit McAusland’s Mill where wool has been spun by rows of whizzing machines for close to a hundred and fifty years and penny ante games of cards are played at break time. There are no tours and no one tells you to keep your hands away from the whizzing machinery. Beautiful things are made here. Kick yourself for not bringing an extra suitcase. Afterwards, stop at a little craft place in an old schoolhouse and discover that the woman working there has a son in Ottawa who is doing an animated film with Donald Sutherland. Stop also at the long abandoned Lewis Motel and discover that the pay phone still works.

Buy potatoes by tossing coins into a wooden box at the end of a farmer’s driveway then watch the water turn rust when you wash them.

They say the mud is strong enough to permanently dye clothing. Try it.

At least once, get up early enough to see the sun rise.

Find a fiddle festival to attend and become certain that in some small way all’s right with the world.

Uncover island mysteries such as what makes the biggest tree on PEI grow so tall…

Find once-mythical lanes at the end of which friends will appear and take you to what is quite possibly the best restaurant on the whole of the island.

Find almost-buried treasure.

And in a churchyard, find the grave of Sharon Jean who died at 6 months in 1954. Someone has left fresh flowers there.

On Thursday, buy halibut from the back of the fish guy’s truck. Have it for dinner on Friday with a salad made of garlic and chives and local green beans.

Take pictures of lighthouses, impossible views and of yourself in your clam-digging best.

Take time to sit at the town pond—after lunch at The Pier where the herons are great little posers and the clouds are shaped like teddy bears; after being lucky enough to get the last baguette at the French place; after a browse through the second-hand clothing store where you will find a pair of black pin-striped pants for $1.00; after visiting the gallery of local art (which includes an inspiring button ‘collage’) and the museum, which used to be a jail and where you can look up your family’s history in the area to see if any of them were ever a guest of Her Majesty— Just sit there a while and consider that life really could not be sweeter and if you’re still in doubt, ask a group of people in the gazebo right there on the edge of the pond… ask them where is the local book shop and marvel as they each offer their own animated version of how to get to it… around the corner.

♦

* If driving, take pretzels.

♦

—More travel notes…

Stratford
Montreal
Miami
Niagara Region
Peterborough
Chile
Vancouver

morning meditation in the living room of a house on matthews lane

August 12, 2013January 2, 2021 ~ carin ~ 2 Comments

Me, on a Blue and Red Rug

facing a bay window
beyond which stands a birch
—and the sky of course,
for what would birch be
without sky?

No, seriously…
what would it be?

I’ll tell you:
it would be a splinter
boring through the earth
not sure which way is up.

journal notes – montreal

July 29, 2013November 16, 2017 ~ carin ~ 16 Comments

Me on flagstone patio in wicker chair—a collection of mirrors among the clematis and to my right a pool of much-loved fish that have recently received an infusion of ice, so hot has it become—reading about Ringuet’s life while somewhere a piano is played, windows open.

Dinner: mackerel and greens, marrow and baguette, pickles, asparagus salad, followed by tea in the park.

In my room I find a book of photos by Annie Liebowitz who says that The Summer of Love was the end of flower power culture, not the beginning—that you could get mugged in Haight Ashbury by then. This reminds me of a story I wrote, inspired by my regret at having never been a Haight Ashbury flower child.

Lunch: spinach salad with smoked trout, frites.

BONNE ENTENTE by F.R. Scott

(“One man’s meat is another man’s poisson” ~ A. Lismer)

The advantages of living with two cultures
Strike one at every turn,
Especially when one finds a notice in an office building
“This elevator will not run on Ascension Day”‘
Or reads in the Montreal Star:
“Tomorrow being the Feast of the Immaculate Conception,
There will be no collection of garbage in the city”;
Or sees on the restaurant menu the bilingual dish:
DEEP APPLE PIE
TARTE AUX POMMES PROFONDES

This city is like a favourite wild child the way it makes you love it one minute then annoys you the next. How can you be angry with it for being so alive… except that its noise can sometimes be inconsiderate. Those voices… Hear me! See me! Hahahahaha! And to the neighbours’ wee hour reveries, you want to shout: does no one own a watch?? You spend the night awake cursing the irony of a hall clock that chimes every quarter hour then nap in the light of the city’s eccentric decadence and wake to offerings of freshly baked bread and strong tea and you forgive it as you always knew you would.

Today, a lunch of six pois, beans really, and gazpacho, conversation. A walk along heated streets, laughter en route, no sparrows, thank god. And at 6 p.m. bells are ringing beyond this mirrored garden, these rooftops, and I know that on the street they are also heard by those smoking and drinking and tabernacking at those hightop tables near the boulangerie where I bought my dinner to go… a saumon quiche epinard and salade verte, une petite s’il vous plait… and where when I paid and was desperately trying to keep up my end in French with the lad at cash who kindly didn’t switch to English, or didn’t know how, I unknowingly dropped a $20 bill on the floor and he tried to tell me but I didn’t understand and then an English-speaking girl picked it up and said: “Excuse me, is this yours?”

And now on this patio, a breeze. Montreal wanting to kiss and make up, all quiet innocence tonight. There is always kissing here. Parties and smashed crockery, foul language, slammed doors, a broken swing, no chance of sleep causing more foul language… and then the embrace… none of it more or less sincere than the other, all of it adding to the whole. Impossible not to love this mad relative.

♦◊♦

More Travel:

Stratford
Prince Edward Island
Miami
Niagara Region
Peterborough
Chile
Vancouver

the annual grape post

March 11, 2013March 13, 2013 ~ carin ~ 2 Comments

Not that this is in any way important or even interesting to anyone other than me, I still feel the need to say it once a year: I don’t eat a lot of fruit out of season.

And being from the heart of all things grapey that is Niagara I’m not even allowed to eat grapes outside of late summer/early Fall.

Certainly not grapes from ‘away’.

Except for once a year.

Beginning sometime in February and through March, I hire teams to continuously peel individual Chilean grapes for me as I sit on a tuffet and remember our trip to Chile and Argentina during the earthquake.

Remember also the street dogs of Santiago, the view from our window, Pablo Neruda’s shabby chic home, melons in a truck, the outdoor market, Los Elefantes in moonlight, the Andes, the bread sellers at highway toll boths, the betterthanpesto-like dip [whose ingredients I’ve forgotten], bottles of Carmenere on warm evenings and vineyards… and one stunningly beautiful train station where a man named Mauricio talked of Puerto Montt and the Lake District in such a way that we decided we would have to make the journey back to Chile one day, just to take that train.

That’s it.

That’s everything I wanted to say.

Happy [Chilean] ‘table grape’ season to one and all.
BTW, when fruit falls in a table grape forest and there’s no one there to hear…
does it make a sound?

wedding party under miami moon

January 11, 2013February 24, 2015 ~ carin ~ 12 Comments

It was a warm and windy night

on Matheson Hammock.

They were kite sailing in the bay,

Miami as a backdrop.

I was being silly.

The sky grew dark

the way skies do

especially at night

and the moon was out and there was a wedding on the beach.

The bride laughed as the wind whipped her skirt and shawl and later the wedding party, such as it was, a few friends, had dinner on the patio, all casual and chatty, not a young couple, fifty-ish. Not boisterous. Not like it was new or anything, this wedding lark. Not like there was anything to prove.