i’m not your honey, toots

~ carin ~ 4 Comments

I finally did it. For years and years I’ve been swearing that one day I’d respond in kind when someone called me Dear or Sweetie. (Anyone, that is, outside a grandmotherly type, or kindly uncle-ish/auntie-ish soul, or anyone in Newfoundland… or, for that matter, anyone who does it correctly, like the British, who are masters at endearment, as are several other nationalities in various languages and dialects. Delivery is everything with this; it’s what comes with it that grates, more than any specific word.)

Well. Today someone did it. Incorrectly. Honey, they called me. About my age, maybe a bit younger. (And yes, it does make a difference sometimes.)

As usual, I was momentarily taken aback—wrong person, wrong tone—and normally, in my taken-abackedness, I miss my opportunity. But not today. Today, still within the window of normal response time, I rallied, answering in a reciprocal tone, casual, as if nothing unusual was going on a’tall, a’tall.

When she said Would you like a bag, honey?  I said: no thanks, sweetheart.

I’m not sure what I expected to happen. (Would bells go off, the manager be summoned?) Thing is, I didn’t do it for a reaction; it just needed to be done. To be honest, I assumed she wouldn’t even notice but she glanced at me in what felt like an awkward beat before things got back to normal. As if she was also slightly offended but hardly in a position to say so.

I was smiling the whole time of course, which may have confused her even more.
Most importantly, I realized it was the right thing to do. I enjoyed it immensely, and, who knows, maybe she got something out of it too.

So, yeah, I’m kind of looking forward to the next time. Go ahead, call me Dearie—and be prepared for a Snookums in return.

airing my laundry

~ carin ~ 8 Comments

If you, like me, have always thought hanging laundry in winter results in plank-sheets, you, like me, have probably not been leaving them out long enough. 

I first heard the rumour last year, that letting them go beyond the plankified state is the way to get things soft and dry. I heard it from a Saskatchewan woman and why it didn’t sink in, I can’t imagine. Who would know better about the dynamics of wind and air? (I’m sure my mother may have mentioned this also, but I was probably too busy knowing everything at the time to listen…)

Well, seems they were both right. Laundry will dry in below freezing weather as long as the air around it is drier than the laundry itself, as explained here in the Globe and Mail’s ‘Collected Wisdom’. Temperature doesn’t matter; you just have to leave it outside long enough.

If you, like me, get a weird thrill from hanging laundry year-round, this will be happy news.

If, on the other hand, you hate laundry in all forms, read this, from Geist, and feel better about your placement in the freshly scented, fabric softened, evolutionary conga/laundry line of life.

dear lady

~ carin ~ 14 Comments

Dear lady in the check-out line at Sobeys who the whole time the cashier rang in your stuff you were on the phone… So how ARE you? Uh huh, uh huh…. and in this way you managed to ignore her, the cashier I mean, even as she gave you the amount and set up the ATM machine and thanked you and printed out your receipt and handed it to you… all during that you never once made eye contact… And how is Brittany? Uh huh… oh wow… uh huh…

Yes, it’s true, I was watching you. And listening. Forgive me. I assumed you wouldn’t mind given how your personal space (and everyone else’s) doesn’t seem overly important to you. Forgive me also for any sarcasm you may detect in this note, of which there is plenty, especially if Brittany, et al, are in the throes of dysentry or scurvy and you are their ward nurse, checking in (though even that could probably have waited until you were in the parking lot).

Mostly, dear lady, I’m writing to say how much you missed. The cashier was a lovely person and when, after you left, it was my turn, and I said to her, in an exaggerated way: So, how are YOU?…  she got it and laughed (please don’t think we were mocking you although we were) and then as she rang in my yellow tulips and my spinach we talked about Spring and she said she was thinking of planting her first garden ever in Canada this year, flowers mostly, and I suggested including a few tomatoes and some lettuce and she said she would do that even if her husband thought she was mental. And I said good. Because the world needs more gardens.

That is what the world needs, dear lady. Gardens. And conversations with people who are standing right in front of you.

from soup to nuts

~ carin ~ 4 Comments

And things to do with flowers.

♥

EEL SOUP

Take a big eel, clean and wash it two or three times in water, and then once in vinegar. Put it to boil in a saucepan together with two onions scorched on the fire, one or two bay leaves, a sliced carrot, a few pieces of celery and fennel, pepper and salt. Boil for about two hours, then rub liquid and all through a sieve, seeing theat the flesh of the fish passes well through. Put it on the fire, adding a piece of butter and a spoonful of tomato sauce. Serve hot with small pieces of toast.

PISTACHIO CREAM

Take out the kernels of half a pound of pistachio nuts, beat them in a mortar with a spoonful of brandy and put them into a tossing-pan with a pint of cream and the yolks of two eggs finely beaten. Stir it gently over a slow fire till it is thick, but do not let it boil. Put it into a soup plate, and when it is cold, stick some kernels—cut longways—all over it.

MARMALADE OF CARNATIONS

Half a pound of sugar, a cup of water and half a pound of fresh red carnations. Crush in a mortar the tops of the carnations, seeing that you use only the red part. Put the sugar and water in a saucepan and boil to a syrup, add the crushed carnations and boil very slowly till they are in a pulp. Stir well and pour into little cups. (This compote is very useful for people of cold temperament.)

From Venus in the Kitchen, by Norman Douglas, 1952, Bloomsbury

what is

~ carin ~ 2 Comments

I don’t use the word ‘holy’ often, if ever. I prefer ‘miracle’, ‘gift’, ‘magic’. It comes down to the same thing of course. It’s a position more than a word, really. Whatever. Point is, this morning, the day after my ‘magic day’,  I opened one of the chapbooks I recently received and the poem staring at me had the [I thought] unfortunate title of : ‘What is Holy’. I read it anyway. Turns out it contains two lines that changed my DNA slightly.

What poems do.

Also proves that ‘magic’ cannot be contained to single days.

What is Holy 

 The white pages of a book.

The many ways a hand can open
     and close.

The brief darkness
     of a plane in front of the sun,
lives suspended overhead.

The way plants eat light—
     that is holy.

The endless voice of the ocean.

The streets of early morning
     when love lights shine from the windows
of the elderly.

The eyes of someone who has lost love.

It is in the breath, and gathers into
     small sounds:
bread, home, yes.

When you bite into an apple and taste rain.
     That is.

— Rosemary Griebel (from  Yes, Frontenac House, 2011; and The Johnston House Literary Salon Series)

counting my magics

~ carin ~ 4 Comments

This morning a friend told me it was a magic day. It had to do with the fact that it’s Bell Canada’s *Let’s Talk* Day in support of mental health. The friend has mental health issues and deals with them heroically; fortunately, he’s able to. Many would choose to but can’t. Most recently he’s been working at spreading the word about today, encouraging people: friends, family, colleagues, neighbours, passersby on the street—to make a call or tweet for the cause.

That was the first magic, this excitement wrapped in hope that maybe the word is getting out there, that one day mental health issues will NOT be something to brush under carpets. There should be no stigma. There should be much more understanding and assistance. That’s the goal.

And Kudos to Bell.

But something about the idea of a magic day has resonated beyond the initial meaning. I have already danced and sung and hung laundry on the line. I’ve come across a beautiful post this morning and, another, discovered yesterday, I chose to read again because it’s relevant and it makes me happy. I watched a cardinal and a blue jay hunt and peck under the cedar hedge, peacefully and within a foot of each other. I began to think they might be a couple… or should be. A sign that disparate groups perhaps can get along?

My friend’s spirit and determination, and the courage of anyone dealing with the challenges of mental health—yet still finding pleasure in small things—reminds me how much there is to be grateful for.

I’m counting my magics today and will list them on Matilda as the day goes on.

Hoping you’ll count yours also!

–Magically at the last moment remembered to grab a file for a meeting
–Also remembered, also last minute, on-line form for appointment tomorrow
–Saw the most amazing smile, the kind that says: this is what happy looks like
–When I came home this was playing on the radio; I turned it up
–Geese flying in the space between sunset and first star
–A video sent by nieces and nephew
–Beeswax candle (bees!), time to read, and a major problem solved in WIP (the solution of course was spruce trees)