Please Do Not Disturb

Where The Wild Things Are has given me emotional indigestion. The movie trailer indicated that “Inside all of us is hope,” but the movie left me feeling the weight of the world on my heart and tear ducts, not just my shoulders. Like midnight Chinese food and the electric headache that drinking a vanilla milkshake too fast can elicit, I felt an unusual distress in every part of me after seeing the film.

“I’m sooo sad!” Was the best I could come up when Dax and I walked out of the theatre equally stunned. We tried to pinpoint what stabbed us in the heart so accurately, but we were at a loss for words (compounded by a complete loss of appetite for post-movie martinis).

The opening scene with socially awkward 9-year-old Max Records sobbing after escaping his crushed igloo (collapsed by his older sister’s jerk-friends)was like swallowing an SOS pad. I had packed an illegal movie picnic for Dax and I as we had both hurried over to the Varsity after work. The gouda with fine herbs that I loved the night before felt like a choking hazard in my clenched throat. The sesame seed sticks were like shards of glass. The Boylan’s root beer set fire to everything else.

I can still see my primary school librarian, Mrs. Kuyvenhoven, in a pilly mauve cardigan and polyester pleated pants with eyes as big as eggs, reading Where The Wild Things Are to us as we sat, fidgeting on the carpeted floor of Mt. Pleasant school library. The moody front cover of the book is more of a standout in my memory than the plot, but the movie trailer and the whimsical similarity to The Neverending Story put it on my coveted must-see-at-the-theater list.  

Apparently the ‘monsters’ depicted in Maurice Sendak’s book were based on his Polish immigrant relatives who congregated in his childhood home for weekly dinners. Their choppy English and quirky mannerisms made them very monster-like to his younger self (Which I can relate to. We thought my grandmother was from Mars because she had such green and wormy varicose veins). Not so surprisingly, Sendak’s bibliography lists dozens of illustration credits as he spent his earlier years working as a children’s book artist before finding his niche in the writing world.

Director and screenwriter Spike Jonze, producer Tom Hanks  and co-scriptwriter Dave Eggers (What is the What, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius) have been sculpting and breathing Where The Wild Things Are for six years. Filmed in Australia, the surreal escape into Max’s troubled headspace is a magnificent success in that it is so disturbing. Maybe it makes me think too much about all the rejected Max’s of the world.  How we repeatedly fail to acknowledge those who are craving mere snippets of attention and acceptance.

The on-screen ‘monsters’ are easily recognized as lonely, broken depictions of humans. They are misunderstood and as uncomfortable as pimply teenagers.  They want a king who will lead them away their sadness and simultaneously Max finds a place where he is wanted and needed. He finds solace in Carol (James Gandolfini) and discovers his voice and assertiveness as he is challenged by KW, Ira, Douglas and Alexander (the Wild Things). The monsters, despite their behemoth size, fangs, horns and affection for eating children, are as sensitive as an albino’s bare arms in the July sun.

As an outsider, Max is finally able to see and recognize his own family, and how they are no different from the Wild Things. The gloomy forest and vast sand dunes of Max’s domain are forever changed as he infiltrates the Wild Things and learns the dynamics and heartbreak that have internally collapsed his friend, Carol. The movie is like an illumination of Jann Arden’s lyrics to “Everybody’s Broken.” Whether “everybody hates Billy Wolfe ‘cause he doesn’t look the way they do”  or Clara Marie who’s eighty-five years old when she’s taken from her home. “To her little white room with a cup and a spoon and the dress that she had on/Nobody came they’ve forgotten her name it’s like she disappeared.”

Everybody is broken and wants to be thought of in that irreplaceable way, and the Wild Things that Max befriends were as familiar to me as they will be to you. It’s like we keep meeting the same people  over and over again in our lives. The Painfully Awkward one, the Funny one, the Quiet and Brooding one, the Overcompensating one, the Annoying one, the Hurting one. And what do we learn? Our heartbreaks are the same. Our tears, strife and struggle are all the same. Billy Wolfe, Clara Marie, Carol, Max—we know them by different names, maybe we have even been them.

But I still walked away from the movie with a boomerang in my throat. And this is the finest example of brilliance by a director. When a film can penetrate and disturb us, lingering for days, weeks and months, like a lover’s embrace—it has fulfilled its purpose. Songs often do this to us, but when there is a powerful visual, like the pained expression of Carol when he learns that the sun might be dying in the sky, it sticks and stains us.

Ten day old cub at the Lubumbashi Zoo, Congo.

Think of the image that is instantly conjured up with the YouTube link for “Christian the Lion” and his reunion with John Rendall and Ace Berg. (In 1969 they bought the lion cub from Harrod’s and the local vicar allowed Christian to exercise on the church grounds. When he became too big for their flat, it was decided that Christian should be reintroduced to Africa.) By now, you are already picturing the lion approaching Rendall and Berg with undeniable recognition on his face–and the footage of Christian bear-hugging the two men in the remarkable hello that follows. This is how Where the Wild Things Are will attach itself to you. Carol running across the dunes towards Max in the boat, whimpering and sobbing, is the Christian the lion reunion all over again.

 The lion reunion hits the same susceptible nerves and leaves me with tears racing down my neck all the way to my collarbone. It alarms me a bit that the same footage can make me so blithery and marshmallow-like each and every time.  What does it all mean? I guess that we want to be remembered, and needed. Even when we have to let go and leave behind the kingdoms that we have built to find our feet again when it seems like only quicksand surrounds us.

When you see the final (sob-alert) scene of the Wild Things on the beach, you will understand. And maybe you will stop to ask Billy Wolfe or Clara Marie if they’re doing okay.  No one should be lonely in this world, and I think it took a few monsters to remind me of that.

Tell me what you think.

Where The Wild Things Are (trailer, soundtrack and other cool things)–http://wherethewildthingsare.warnerbros.com/

The guaranteed-to-make-you-cry lion reunion on The View– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiGKWoJi5qM&feature=fvw

Kisses and Thrills

As I rounded the corner at Yonge and Queen today I saw the chapped hands of men on ladders, hanging garland above the windows of the Hudson Bay Company. ‘Tis the season. I even heard talk of the much-anticipated Toronto Santa Claus parade today. But can we enjoy the magic of Hallowe’en first?

I have yet to carve my pumpkin and roast my famous blackened pumpkin seeds. The blackened-ness isn’t a Southern take on the seeds, it’s my lack of patience for the slow roast turned up to an impatient broil. I jack up the oven temp and turn on the light as a reminder, but, the smoke alarm seems to be what alerts me first. Does anyone toast those silly seeds successfully? The work is intricate to begin with, separating the seeds from the cold guts of the disembowelled pumpkin. The wet, pulpy insides stick like cellophane to anything within a three foot radius and make me itch like the saltwater that runs to my elbows when shucking oysters.

But a yearly pumpkin must be carved, it is as critical as egg nog and rum 100 days before (and right up until) Christmas. Other timeless Hallowe’en must-haves are at least one candy apple, Kraft caramels (by the dozen, preferably) and Thrills gum.

The Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory in Vancouver makes caramel apples so sticky that you  lose all your orthodontic work and silver fillings in one bite. The Granny Smith’s are rolled in fantasy toppings like M&M’s, pecans, Snickers bits and marshmallows. The “Cheesecake Apple” is dipped in a sweet white confection and rolled in crushed graham crackers. The “Apple Pie Apple” is dipped in the same love potion substitute (sweet white confection) then rocked and rolled in brown sugar and cinnamon. And the Rocky Road? Eat your heart out—walnuts, marshmallows and chocolate making the apple as big as a football.

The traditional candy apples of the past that turned your teeth and surrounding lips an alarming red for at least 12 hours showcase the simplicity of Hallowe’en: sugar, corn syrup and food colouring. However, my issue with the candy apple is how the whole casing can crack and slide off into your lap on the second bite. Much like a slice of pizza when all the toppings and mozzarella cheese landslide onto your chin. If the offending candy apple didn’t slide off and stain your clothes from your lap to your ankles where it rolled to the ground, the apple shell would splinter and become the candy equivalent of eating stained glass.

Some dear mother on Mt. Pleasant Road (our coveted childhood Hallowe’en domain)always went to the effort of making dozens of candy apples for us greedy trick-or-treaters with sleeping bags as loot bags. Next to Mrs. Kellam’s buttery as a Butterball turkey Nuts & Bolt, that Candy Apple House was our highlight. (And the lowlight was definitely the dorky dentist who handed out toothbrushes and floss. Boo! Hiss!)

Contrary to the dentist’s popular belief, I think I used to sleep with a wad of Thrills gum in my cheek Hallowe’en night.  And I was recently thrilled to learn that Thrills is an all-Canadian product. The critics that said it tasted like soap eventually led to the Concord Confection Company deciding “if we can’t beat ‘em, we better join ‘em.” The current packaging boasts, “It still tastes like soap!”

Really, the intended flavour is rosewater, which is essentially like chewing on your grandmother’s bath oil beads.  The gum has such a legion of fans that it is actually featured on CanadaOnly.ca, an online corner store for our indigenous candy. Wrigley’s Hubba Bubba Max and Doublemint stick gum are also available in addition to our hinterland Neilson Macaroons and Laura Secord bars.

On the site AmericansGuide.ca, Thrills gum is referenced for Americans visiting Canada who are stumped by such terms as “Thrills” and others like “Canadian Tire money” and the poppies associated with Remembrance Day.

Candy corn has proven to be more universal with our neighbours, with October 30^th being designated as National Candy Corn Day. According to Brach’s Confections Inc. , Americans eat enough candy corn per year that if the kernels were laid out, they would circle the Earth four times. Which is not a good visual for me. I never won the jellybean counting contest, but I imagine that is enough candy corn to keep the dental profession alive and well.

Sugar, corn syrup and honey are the not-so-secret ingredients to candy corn. And the beauty of it? It’s fat-free. Classified as a “mellow-cream,” candy corn has a special designation because it’s a candy made from corn syrup and sugar that has a marshmallow-like flavour. The niche market has expanded its Hallowe’en domination to monopolize other holidays like Christmas with a red, green and white “Reindeer Corn,” pink, red and white “Cupid Corn” and pastel-coloured Bunny Corn for Easter.

Allegiance divides when it comes to the Candy Corn vs. Hallowe’en Kisses debate. Kisses were reliable in mimicking lockjaw if you had more than one in your mouth. Molars would be uprooted by several millimetres in frantic jaw-prying-open recovery tactics. The blend of molasses and sugar, and wrapper (because the wrapper always remained stuck to the candy) was always satisfying for breakfast.

Perfumer Cristophe Raynaud even created a “fruity oriental gourmand” in his “Halloween Kiss” fragrance. I think he would have fared better had he made the scent evoke the Hallowe’en Kisses of our past—who wouldn’t be seduced by a dab of molasses behind someone’s ear? Raynaud’s take is a combination of orange, pear, red fruits, peach, orchid, freesia, peony, violet, teak wood, tonka bean (?)and patchouli (doesn’t patchouli always smell like a root cellar?). Seems like a lot of flowers and wood in one sniff. My Thrills & Kisses fragrance would boast notes of caramel, glucose, food colouring, icing sugar and corny syrup.

Rockets, another claim to fame for Canada, were the last things to remain in my sacred cache well into December. They are a 60-year classic with six assorted pastel colours and jaw-cramping sour flavours. Curiously, these same Rockets are called “Smarties” in the United States. And, like Cadbury and Guinness, Rockets produced in Newmarket, Ontario are claimed to taste different than the Smarties counterparts of Ce De Candy in Union County, New Jersey.

A Wikipedia Pop Culture post under the American version of Smarties claims 2009 as the year youth began to “smoke Smarties.” Crazy youths looking for a new high ground up the Smarties into a dust, and inhaled it like a cigar. The candy dust was also blown out the nostrils. Doctors have stepped in though and warned against Smartie smoking infections. It’s all fun and games until one has a candy dust infection.

I bet this nostril-fetish dog would like the Box of Boogers

But worse than the dust infection? Peel and eat gummy scabs and scars marketed as “Scab-a-roni’s.” J.C. Reid’s list of the Top 5 Creepiest Hallowe’en Candy also paid tribute to “Zit Poppers.” The Zits are liquid filled gummies that have stiff (sticky?)competition with the “Box of Boogers” that’s touted to be “Snnnnnot your regular gummy.”

If you are bored by the eyeball gumballs and mini chocolate bars and foil-wrapped chocolate pumpkins—visit  Chowhound for recipes on how to make your very own pretentious Peanut Butta Cups, Twixt and Snickles with downloadable wrappers to boot. For the Twixt, the recipe includes a shortbread cookie base, and for Snickles, the fluffy peanut nougat. For a self-sufficient Hallowe’en, visit Chow at http://www.chow.com/stories/10746.

The site also offers suggested wine pairings for caramels, candy corn, Smarties and Starburst. Tawny Port proves to be the winner as the general rule is that the wine should be sweeter than the dessert (http://www.chow.com/stories/11923). You can also learn how to make dry ice for a punch and fake blood that tastes delicious too at Chow Tips.

By now you must be craving something. And I bet it’s not the stupid box of SunMaid Raisins or the Eat More bar that only makes me want to Eat Less.  I bet if we were six again it would be the “Hose Nose” that dispenses liquid candy slime from a nose that you strap on your face. Or how about the Ear Wax candy that you dig out with a plastic swab?

Check out the 10 Grossest Candy List at http://candyaddict.com/blog/top-10-grossest-candies/

What are you craving? The chocolate covered maggots or earthworm and rotten egg jellybeans? Remember that we are the dying era of cheap Thrills and Hallowe’en Kisses. Let’s keep the true spirit of Hallowe’en alive.

 For my Hallowe’en musings from Uganda last year, check out: http://julestorti.wordpress.com/2009/05/07/boo-hoo-im-gonna-miss-halloween/

Lunch Pales in Comparison

My grocery store visits are turning into museum tours. I walk down every aisle at the pace of an 80-year-old with emphysema and a cane. I linger over pickled shitake mushrooms, rabbit terrines, sour cherry spreads, basil and walnut pestos and jalapeno kettle corn. I contemplate the merit and aftertaste of dried kiwi and an Indian snack mix that looks like it would set my insides on fire. I act like I was born in Africa and am having my first North American grocery shopping experience.

In the checkout line I flip through the glossy magazines and find a recipe for a cake that looks like a pumpkin covered in orange M&M’s. I sometimes wish I was a Family Circle-type wife. I’d make recipes with Cool Whip and Jell-o and make a trifle with tiny coloured marshmallows that would be forever referred to as “Jules’ Trifle.” Like my Aunt Brenda’s “Broccoli Salad” with a tangy mayo-vinegar dressing, crispy bacon, sunflower seeds and raisins. It’s not really her recipe, but she made it once and it instantly became hers. My grandmother Joyce has her old standby “Green Fluff” (Cool Whip and lime Jell-o with pineapple tidbits—the ultimate 70s throwback that she has carried forward into 2009, solo). My mom has her “Baked Ziti” with noodles as thick and as long as garden hoses, a block of mozzarella, 10 cups of cottage cheese and a fiery tomato sauce that can keep a spoon upright.

We all need our own specialty. Dax has his “Betty’s Bread Pizza” and Oreo cheesecake, and my dad is best known for his towers of salad with two slices of buttered toast as croutons, piled on iceberg lettuce with six diced carrots. And Kiley? Well, she can blend a beautiful banana  shake and makes a Banff-friendly trail mix with a decadent  75-25 chocolate-nut ratio.

I like to know what a person’s specialty is, it says a lot about them. I’ve evolved over the years, but I used to score high marks for my stuffed lasagna rolls (which were so intricate, it was like making a flock of origami swans). I moved on to Jamaican tarts, addictively savoury numbers filled with caramelized onions, spicy ground beef and topped with a jalapeno jelly glaze. I can also do quesadillas blindfolded–and gingerbread pancakes when in the mood to flip the batch of 56 pillowy crowd-pleasers that the recipe makes.

"Aww, Mom. Not frog legs AGAIN!"

So how do we come about our own kitchen niche? I can’t imagine it stemmed from my great-grandmother who fed us “Slop” (ground beef, peas and onions) and “fish eyes” (tapioca) on a regular basis. My mother exposed us to a world beyond Captain Highliner fish sticks and Tater Tots (but we certainly ate those too).  Is cooking genetic? Do we pass down our familial menus like tongue-rolling and bent pinkies?

Looking in somebody’s grocery cart speaks volumes more than a medicine cabinet. All the sins are exposed, and sometimes the guilt has to be vocalized and shared with the patron who’s next in line (like me, today). “I quit smoking four weeks ago, this is what keeps me away from the cigarettes,” the woman explained as she placed a box of 56 chocolate popsicles on the conveyor belt. “And these are for my husband,” she offered, as she put a box of mini pogo sticks beside the popsicles. I wondered if the two loaves of 100% white bread were an anti-smoking measure as well.

The check-out line is like a confession booth with fluorescent lighting. I didn’t feel a need to explain my California raspberries and soya milk to the Chocolate Popsicle Lady. Or the sweet potatoes and spinach. But, if you have bad stuff in your cart, the guilt rises to the surface faster than a goose egg. I’ve done it before myself, absently blurting out to the cashier or the person behind me, “Oh, it’s not for me, it’s for a friend.” Because the Diet Coke wasn’t for me.  I felt compelled to defend my grocery cart’s contents.

And we’re all indiscreet Peeping Tom’s when it comes to the checkout aisle or a colleague’s lunch.  It’s amazing how many co-workers get by on a pail-sized Starbucks something-or -others and “granola” bar. More often I am reminded of a petite Asian woman I did my massage therapy training with. A loved one had given her a waffle maker for Christmas, and the box suggested using waffles as a bread alternative. On the 40^th day Grace pushed her waffle sandwich away, and with chubbier cheeks admitted she couldn’t use the waffle maker anymore. She waffled.

In elementary school I remember certain classmates for their distinct lunches. This of course being the golden era before peanut allergies ruined everything that was sacred. Richard Nott, for example, came to school EVERY day with six homemade chocolate chip cookies. His mother was as skinny as a whippet, and he was too.  He  always had a white bread peanut butter sandwich. Multi-grain was as unheard of as trans fatty acids in the 80s.

Despite wanting a ham and French’s yellow mustard sandwich for all my primary school years, my mom wouldn’t allow it. “You’ll get cancer eating ham sandwiches every day.” We believed her, and the day she put Dijon on my sandwich almost turned me off ham sandwiches forever (until my taste buds matured and I became a mustard elitist, embracing the Dijon and grainy blends).

She made us fantastic lunches that were like unwrapping Christmas presents. A Thermos presented so many possibilities. Sometimes Zoodles, often brown beans with a chopped wiener—but best yet? A hot dog in a Thermos! The bun would be as soggy as a diaper, and the boiled wiener resembled a bloated body found in the lake—but what a thrill. It took a few smacks on the bottom end of the Thermos to get the sucker out, but it was the envy (and stink) of the classroom.

Of course, we had a school-sanctioned Hot Dog Day too, which was the highlight of the month, generally. It was all very simple, white serviettes that could be mistaken for cardboard, split over-boiled weenies, mustard, ketchup and green relish. Jeff Kellam and David Spencer always ordered four hot dogs, and the rest of the class was in awe of their hot dog-eating prowess. Some girls only ordered one, battling self esteem issues even in grade 5. The biggest delight in Hot Dog Day was being allowed to take a can of pop to school.  Somebody’s mother (Lois Isbister’s?) used to wrap her daughter’s can of Coke in foil, to keep it cold.  I was so excited to have pop in the first place that it didn’t matter if it was as warm as a fart.

There were much anticipated Pizza Days too—greasy slices from Maria’s or Brick Oven Pizza. They were the only two places that would deliver to our country school. Shannon Johnson and I would always split a Hawaiian at who knows what expense to my parents. 

Banana and bacon pizza in the Congo

Pizza was the main fuel of my high school years with Rosa’s pizza being situated a convenient one minute walk away. A slice and a pop for $2.25 was an economical choice and helped with my teen angst. Everyone was doing it. In fact, Stacy Hill and I challenged each other to a month of pizza-eating as a bet.  She was five feet flat and could run like the wind, a cheetah and an Indian motorcycle. I secretly hoped the bet would make her more lethargic so I could finally beat her in the 1,500 meter.

Then I met Bob Vamos, the guy who hated to “break a toonie.” I ate the lunch my mom packed for me on the school bus for breakfast (well, the cookie part at least), then joined Bob for a decadent lunch of cafeteria fries, gravy and mayo (we were European back then).  Also $2.25. I’m not sure why I didn’t become a candidate for stomach-stapling in those years.

I laugh to think that in kindergarten we were given prizes for eating our entire lunch. Talk about encouraging bulimia. I won a seashell once. Did I only finish my lunch once all year? Maybe the other prizes sucked. I guess I’m like a dog, I’m not ashamed to admit that I like rewards. It was simply the kindergarten version of the 76 oz. steak challenge.

My fondest memory though is of the Lunch Swap, which is not in any way related to the Key Swap parties of the 70s. Lunch Swap days at Mt. Pleasant Elementary involved drawing a number, and on that very special day, everyone brought an anonymous lunch that was also numbered. Four  Michelin stars went to the leftover pizza lunches wrapped in foil, leftover KFC (even with the stone-cold mushy fries and Leprechaun barf coleslaw) and any lunch with a chocolate bar (and a real, life-size chocolate bar, not a “fun-size” or “Hallowe’en size” bar). Fudgeeos and Oreos ranked high on the Awesome Meter too, especially in groupings of more than two. Boos and hisses went to the kids who forgot to tell their parents about Lunch Swap day, and came with swampy tuna fish or runny egg salad or an everyday blah and peanut butter sandwich.

I wish I could do lunch swap now at the Rose Avenue School near Bloor and Parliament. The primary school has the highest number of nationalities and languages spoken in all of Toronto. For sure there would be pakora, samosas, korma and shawarma. I’d even give out my “I Ate My Entire Lunch” seashell for one of their lunches!

We’ve come such a long way since squashed, Saran Wrapped mock baloney sandwiches and chocolate pudding in pull-tab cans (and didn’t it suck when the tab broke off and you had a plastic spoon and no way to get into the pudding inside without lacerating yourself?). Now kids get Lunchables with pizza, crackers, cheese and chocolate bars. It’s like a marijuana munchies snack pack.

Maybe I will single-handedly bring back the hot dog in the Thermos. Or randomly give prizes to co-workers for finishing their lunch.

More importantly, what are you having for lunch? And what’s your specialty?

Dollars and Sense

Everyone is paying for something. Catalytic converters (whatever they are), new septic tanks, root canals, bad dates, funerals, weddings, roofs and trips so long ago that the tan has faded into fish-belly-whiteness again. Celebrations and devastations both come with a price tag.

When I volunteered in Africa for four months last year, I quickly adapted to not earning a paycheque. When a litre of beer and a goat leg cost less than a dollar, I thought I was playing the greatest game of Monopoly–with all my tiny red plastic houses on Park Place. What was silently transpiring was my mind becoming  engaged and stimulated by the experience, and dollars no longer made sense.

My second sabbatical came to an end just a few weeks ago. Another fling with Madame Africa in the Congo followed by abruptly moving across Canada put a few hairline fractures in my nest egg, but I’m smoothing out the lines again. As Juliana Margulies’ told Oprah in this month’s O Aha! Moment, her mother always reassured her by insisting, “Honey, this is only a moment, it’s not the rest of your life.”

Luckily I’ve never been money-driven, as my scales tip towards the life end of the work-life balance. I admire work ethic in others, and their commitment to the greater good of a company, but, I like to address the greater good of myself first. 

As a child, I was an entrepreneurial star, with my juvenile fashionista ways fuelling most of my ambitious upstarts. There were Kangaroo shoes and Chip & Pepper overalls that were must-haves. Not to mention the Ralph Lauren button-downs, Tretorns and trendy Lacoste cardigans.

Growing up in the country, we were forced into non-traditional money-making schemes. A lemonade stand wouldn’t fly on our gravel road that was only frequented by my grandfather and uncle commuting between pig barns at feeding time. We tried, oh, how we tried—but we drank our proceeds and had cankers and gut rot from all the warm pink lemonade.

My dad was generous with chores, and the pay out. We could rake up pinecones in the back woods (oh, could we?) to make cutting the grass safer. Let me tell you, those pinecones were instant projectiles, hitting you like fiery bullets when they propelled out of the back of the push mower. Equally exciting was the opportunity to rake up gravel from the grass after a winter of my grandfather clearing out our driveway with his snow plow. That plow was effective for snow removal and gravel removal. The driveway was about 100 metres long, which translates into five tonnes of gravel on the grass come March. Gravel-raking was slightly more enticing than doing the whitewalls of the Cutlass Supreme Oldsmobile though. The SOS pads always made my hands itch like I had been picking poison ivy. Not only did we have to scour with the SOS, we had to follow this step up with a toothbrush (and we weren’t even being punished), a hose-down (but not too much water because we were on a well), followed by a shine with the Turtle Wax. I wouldn’t do that for $50 dollars now.

Luckily I had artistic talent to rely upon (which my sister still sneers about). I would sell drawings of our grey Persian cat on a snowmobile, or cross-country skiing. Oh, how Moker loved to snowshoe. Xanadu, our Benji-knock-off dog, was featured in most of the drawings with Moker. Xanadu also enjoyed skiing and the odd toboggan ride. I’d sell these crappily coloured pictures for 25 cents a piece to any relative with a wallet. The accompanying stories would net at least two to three dollars, depending on length and my up-sell.

Dax caught on to the relatives with wallets, and became quite industrious with his vegetable garden enterprise. My mom would purchase the seeds, pay Dax to roto-till and weed AND have to buy his produce on top of all that. The pints of raspberries earned the most coin, due to the tedious nature of the work, and also due to the annoying thorns.

Kiley earned her spending money (to finance her own personal telephone was she was nine) in a less honourable way. She convinced her elementary school colleagues to join her prestigious “White Rabbit Club.” Members were charged a weekly fee, and I’m sure she had an initial registration fee as well. All was lucrative with her White Rabbit Club until a jaded classmate (who didn’t make the cut) reported the financial scam to her mother, and Kiley’s club was canned.  

Dax expanded his skills in the kitchen after a 4-H bread-making course and became a burgeoning country version of Cinnabon, before Cinnabon even came to fruition.  He made Nanaimo bars and brownies so rich that your teeth would disintegrate as you ate them.  He had sinful cinnamon buns and a knock-out Betty’s Bread Pizza (a lovely braided pizza loaf) that I still request for my birthday. A friend of mine actually paid him to make desserts for one of her parties when he was 15. And we’re not talking church bake sale kind of prices. He was making enviable royalties largely because my mom had to buy all the ingredients!

How we make our money and how we spend it fascinates me. I have no problem spending $150 on running shoes because I’m a runner, it’s what I do. My dear mother hates spending money on shoes. When she finally went all out and bought herself a cool and expensive pair of orange sandals a few summers ago, she had nightmares about them being run over by transport trucks. Really, she didn’t sleep for weeks because of awful dreams about her sandals being destroyed. However, as my dad will attest, she has no issue with spending money on fireplace mantles. She has about six now.

Kiley Torti, former President and CEO of the White Rabbit Club

Dax is all about the fish. He will buy corals as pricey as the orange sandals my mom stays awake over, while my sister fawns over more downhill skis (she goes down the hill a lot, it’s justified. And she lives in Banff where it’s winter from August to June.

Michelle, my friend from Nunavut, takes pleasure in buying dried mushrooms in Chinatown, Steam Whistle beer  for around $25 a six-pack (it’s Nunavut remember—not a big beer selection, and slim pickings on the fresh strawberries and Costa Rican bananas) and artisan apple wood chips for  her fish smoker. Then there is my dear Kelly and her affection for all things Louis Vuitton. You don’t know how many times she dragged me into Holt’s to visit her Speedy bag. She’d put her cell in it, her keys, and fling it over her shoulder, feeling the wonderful weight and meticulous craftsmanship of the bag on her shoulder. Finally, one day she walked out of the store with it (after buying it), proud as a peacock.

I like that individuality and brand passion. But me? I like to spend money on experiences. Last week I had a reflexology treatment and three red bean paste rice cakes with all-I-could-drink Chinese tea for 30 bucks. Money can buy happiness! I love theatre, out of season blackberries, concerts, gourmet shortbread, film fests, skin lotions that smell like pumpkin pie and marshmallows, manicures, shiatsu—anything to indulge my senses. Goat curry from Mr. Jerk, East Dell Estates Big Black Cab, Jann Arden in my ear, a new shiny book and the bliss of being in a post-Thai massage state is what being well-off means to me.

Spending money on tampons, taxis, toilet paper and transit really irks me. Paying “professional fees” of $550 a year to work as a massage therapist, turns me into a professional swearer. And $1, 455 to simply move my stuff (that arrived 30 days late) across Canada? Well, that annoyed me too. Because, that is a plane ticket to somewhere really decent, and probably hot.

I run the risk of entertaining and pampering myself to death, which is probably not a bad thing. I love wedges of cheese that are skinnier than a doorstop and over 10 dollars a bite. I like champagne for no reason and Paco Rabanne. But I’ve raked a lot of gravel and pinecones in my life, I deserve it.

As for $250 dollar jeans, well, I have those too. I’m not bragging, just justifying. I’ve had them for five years, and if you do the math, they were less than 10 cents a day in 2004 and have been free for the last four years.

My dad always talks about winning the lottery and what he’d do (something along the lines of building a bigger house and having us all move back home. Except, my mother would probably move out). My mom, the more rational one (remember the sandal nightmares) finally snapped back, “Larry, you should just be happy to be able to walk by the time you’re 80.” That’s the lucky lottery to her, and this makes sense given her exposure to palliative care clients on a daily basis.

And as I sit in my now-free jeans, sipping East Dell Big Black Cab in one of the glasses that didn’t arrive stem-less from BC, I realize how simple and incredibly rich life can be. Maybe it was the failed lemonade stand that taught me the early value of the dollar. (Don’t get me wrong, I was insanely jealous of every city kid who could have a paper route while I took a toothbrush to the tires of the Oldsmobile).

I smile when I think of my sister (post White Rabbit Club success) being so down and out because the Valade family was clearly richer than we were. Their house was bigger, they had a swimming pool, a 10 inch TV in the kitchen and a pinball machine. AND, Mrs. Valade made homemade ice cream bar sandwiches.

I’ve always felt rich in what I have (even the year that SARS hit Toronto and the last thing anyone wanted was to be touched, let alone by a massage therapist. It was a stellar year of earning less than $19,000, but I still did everything I ever wanted to). My career success ladder sometimes resembles more of a step stool, but I know how lucky I am.

Besides, I could never bite into an ice cream bar anyway (lifelong sensitive teeth). And I peed in the Valade pool every time I went in it.

For my friend Latham Hunter’s take on money, check out her blog “Composing Myself” at:

http://lathamhunter.blogspot.com/2009/06/me-and-my-money.html

And then read her tell-all about blowing $6,000 on a painting without regret at:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/article1139538.ece

And after all that, tell me what you think about money and what you spend it on.

Have a Little Faith

When I started Mitch Albom’s The Five People You Meet in Heaven, I had already convinced myself that the book was going to be as flaky as baklava. I was certain that it would be a tacky spin-off of Michael Landon’s Highway to Heaven with the sap content of Touched by an Angel.

By God, I loved the book and the essential concept that we are constantly crossing silent intersections with people who may be directly influencing our life’s path. When I read that Mitch Albom was launching his first non-fiction book since Tuesdays With Morrie at Indigo tonight, I knew I had to be there.

Two weeks ago I sprinted from work with a stitch in my side to see Jane Goodall promoting her latest: Hope For the Animals. I was cursing my last hairy-backed client because I arrived 15 minutes before she graced the stage and the lower level of Indigo was like a Boxing Day sale. I had to choose between a pole obstruction or a Jolly Green Giant obstruction. Why is it that the 6 foot + set like to be in the very front? For most of the interview with Jane I saw only her left eye sandwiched between a woman with hair that was as high as it was wide, and a shifty guy who kept scratching something weeping on the back of his neck. Then there was the teeny bopper directly in front of me who proceeded to stand on her tiptoes every few minutes and adjust her ponytail in front of my face.

I wanted priority seating. I wanted there to be skill-testing questions on Jane Goodall that would earn true fans better seats. At the same time, I was thrilled that so many people had made it a priority to see and hear what Queen Jane had to say about chimps, the Earth and the hope that she sees in it all. She drew a crowd like free ice cream bars would at Yonge and Dundas square.

So, this time I was smart. I arrived an hour and a half early for Mitch Albom with a tall skim African Red Bush Tea Misto in hand. I even brought my glasses for high definition (not necessary with the previous pole and people obstructions with Jane). I assessed the crowd of New Age nerds, seniors with snow white hair and Werther’s candies and a large contingent of the over-40, Mr. Rogers cardigan-wearing set. The seats were soon filled, but the place wasn’t like the zoo it became with Jane Goodall in the house.

Albom’s visit to Indigo was a Canadian exclusive, and I was surprised that more hadn’t flocked to see the Oprah-approved writer promote his latest, Have a Little Faith. Given my faith in Albom and his ability to write books that make one think, I was eager to hear the behind-the-scenes snippets of his newest work.

Albom began by sharing the inspiration for the story, and explained how an 82-year-old rabbi from his hometown asked him to write his eulogy. He had known the rabbi for a long time, but not well enough to know his essence. Eight years later (the rabbi lived to be 90), Albom had a solid grip on the rabbi, and an intense education on the life of a man of God. Still, he was amazed that the rabbi wore Bermuda shorts and sandals with socks, and answered his own doorbell.

And then he introduced another vital character: the pastor at a scruffy church in Detroit with a hole in the roof that let  God and the rain in–in equal amounts. The pastor had promised God his life after robbing his own drug dealer and praying to survive behind a trash can with a shotgun. He lived, and fulfilled his promise with a self-imposed detox and gratitude for a second chance after a shaky as a Polaroid beginning. The pastor grew up impoverished, in a home where they left rice out for the mice so the vermin wouldn`t bite them while they slept. At 18, the pastor was charged with manslaughter (wrongfully) and imprisoned. When he was released from prison, he found solace in drugs, and in as  sketched out state and desperate for a fix, he robbed the most lucrative source he knew, his dealer. That was the night he was introduced to God and submitted his resume for immediate employment in the House of God.

Have a Little Faith was written to emphasize that we all need to find something bigger than ourselves to believe in. And although the Detroit pastor and 82-year-old rabbi had more differences than commonalities, they had both found comfort in faith.

This is when the book launch turned into a sermon and I started reading the quote on my Starbucks cup so I wouldn`t get sucked into the cult. Mitch Albom pointed out that we were all children of God and dictated his polished story of how babies enter the world with closed fists. He spoke in that therapeutic voice designed to stay with you and shape your life without you being aware. He told us of the rabbi in his dying days, and how the rabbi realized that babies come into this world not knowing what to expect. They have clenched fists, holding everything because they think they deserve it and are entitled to it. The ailing rabbi opened his hands before Albom and showed him how he would die—with open hands. Because you can`t take anything with you.  The crowd laughed in unison like Woody Woodpecker when he pointed out that a nice car won`t help you get to the afterlife, but faith will.

I was beginning to get distracted at this point. Maybe because after seeing Africa, I believed even more strongly  that there couldn`t  be a God. There`s even a documentary narrated by Nicole Kidman about the Lost Boys of Sudan called God Grew Tired Of Us. That`s how the Sudanese feel, like God grew tired of them and abandoned Africa altogether. But, they pray with such conviction and hope, with a trust that is unmatched.

Albom pulled the threads together by closing with his thoughts on the interconnectedness of faith and happiness.  This is where I might have started my obvious sneering. I do think many find great comfort in this combination, but I think happiness can also be a stand alone, without faith.

I wandered off, choosing not to buy the book (I`ll give it a go when it becomes available in paperback), and ended up in the Well Being section, because I was indeed feeling well after a shiatsu treatment and Chinese steamed pork buns. I found Julia Cameron`s The Artist`s Way on display and leafed through it for the twentieth time. My friend Heidi is contemplating it as well, but we are both hesitant on exposure to the supposedly life-altering words inside.

I picked up Oprah`s latest, because, confession here—sometimes I like to buy her glossy magazine and read all that gut-grilling stuff.  DREAM BIG!  O`s Guide To Discovering Your Best Life held more potential for me than Have a Little Faith. (Editor`s Note: If it was have a little Faith Hill, yes, sign me up!)

I flipped to O`s section on Five Things Happy People Do by Gabrielle LeBlanc (just to see if church was one of them). This is what I found, and will share with you so you can be happy as well.

1. Realize one`s golden self through eudaimonic well-being. Eudaimonia, for those not fluent in Oprah-speak, is striving toward excellence based on one`s unique talents and potential. Meaning: take on new challenges and follow one`s sense of purpose.

2. Design your life to bring joy in. Whether it be a relationship or a career, it`s difficult to abandon dreams even when they turn sour. Make deliberate changes, NOW. A study conducted out of the University of California San Diego had 900 women write down everything they did the day before. They had to evaluate how they felt at each point with each activity. Many of them cried realizing how much of their day was spent being unhappy.

3. Avoid If only…. fantasies. If only I were skinnier, if only I had more money, if only I had finished my degree…We misjudge contentment by zeroing in on one single aspect of life and are fooled by the focusing illusion. In a study where participants were asked how happy they were with their life in general, and how many dates they`d had in the last month, the answers were dramatically different according to the order of the questions. When asked about dating first, thoughts of their romantic life influenced the overall happiness response more negatively.

By keeping our life full of novelty, the pressure is alleviated from unrealistic expectations from partners or work, to solely fulfill happiness.

4. Put best friends first. More joy is derived from spending longer quality time with close friends than chatting with acquaintances. (Obviously the author of this entry doesn`t Twitter or Facebook.)

5. Allow yourself to be happy. Even the Dalai Lama says it`s cool in his books. We can`t save the polar bears and poor Africans all at once. Dalai says it`s okay to pursue personal happiness and help others simultaneously. Whew.

Basically, everything you own should have value. Either because it`s functional, beautiful, or you just love it.

And that`s happy in five easy steps. Just like making Kraft Dinner. If you need and want faith to get you there, fine. If pumpkin pie for breakfast is the critical omission to this checklist, go, be happy with your pie and morning paper.

Find your own brand of faith and indulge. Make your very own Happy Meal.

 

If you have more faith than I do, check out– http://mitchalbom.com/books/node/5515

And for more on Jane Goodall`s latest– http://www.janegoodall.org/product/hope-animals-and-their-world#

O`s DREAM BIG! Link– http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/Dream-Big-Os-Guide-Discovering-The-O-Editors-of-O/9780848732837-item.html

Jann Arden Attacks the Architecture of the Human Heart

I like things that are reliable, like the threadbare comfort of my Sevens jeans, Starbucks skim lattes and a dog’s love. Meryl Streep movies come with an unspoken guarantee too—it’s gonna be gripping and as raw as ceviche.

And when Jann Arden releases a new CD, I expect it’s going to be high-wattage. The lyrics are going to have an injection of unbearable sadness and resonate in my waking hours and sleep. I know that I will fall under the spell that is her voice because her haunting words are a demolition team that attack the fragile architecture of the human heart.

We know her talent is ethereal and that her vocal cords mimic yoga positions. But her true gift is the ability to write songs that everyone can identify with and sob over. Genderless, ageless, timeless—her songs become national anthems for break-ups and the soundtracks for our memories.

Jann’s new CD, Free, captures the sense of wonder that unexpectedly smacks us when we see doves take to the sky, when shooting stars spike through the dark of night and when freefall divers split gravity in two. Free. The freedom is palpable and instantly captured in the imagery of having “one last hurrah on the old tire swing,” in “Daughter Down.”

Jann Arden bleeds beauty. “All The Days” is the track that hits me like baseball bat in the ribs every time. “And all the days will wrap around our fingers /They’ll hang around our hearts like bits of stars/ And all the tears we counted all the memories that we thought would linger disappear/ oh, they disappear.” I’ve decided, at the end of my days, I want “All The Days.” (And no silly flowers, just generous donations to my chimps and all the cats and dogs waiting for their forever homes).

“All The Days” instantly hit number one on my “Crying Tears Down My Neck” list. “Wind Beneath My Wings” was kicked to the curb with “When You Say Nothing At All” (Allison Krauss) and the Indigo Girls “I Don’t Want to Talk About It.” See ya later “Your Song,” that one can’t even make me sniffle anymore.

It will come as no surprise that I love well-crafted stories and song lyrics that are as layered as Jennifer Aniston’s hair. I read the liner notes of Free before I even listened to the CD.  I loved “Everybody’s Broken” before I heard it because of Clara-Marie. “Eighty-five years she’s been living right here when they took her from her home/To her little white room with a cup and a spoon and the dress that she had on/Nobody came they’ve forgotten her name it’s like she disappeared.”

Those words don’t even need to be sung. There is no need for violas, guitars, bonjirs or mandolas. They are powerful in tandem with Jann’s  voice, but I am already moved by the fragility of Billy Wolfe and Clara-Marie, and her mother making pink lemonade.

The tracks “You Are Everything,” “Away” and “Yeah You” are the love letters that we all hope to receive. Letters that would be re-read until memorized and re-folded until the ink blurred and the paper deteriorated. Letters that are hidden in secret places to be rediscovered later as the treasures that they are.

“You’re the galaxy/A better part of me/And there is nothing that is bigger than the two of us.” Who doesn’t want to hear that? No thanks to the pretty blue Tiffany box, no to the Godiva chocolate and any other foolish romantic notions—but words like that? You’re the galaxy? And to think Renee Zwelleger had Tom Cruise at “hello” in Jerry Maguire. I have higher expectations than “hello.” I want “you are everything that’s good about the universe.” Or better yet—“you are everything you dream of when you’re nine years old.”

Wow. Why buy Hallmark cards anymore? Just send a few lines from “You Are Everything,” and the wooing will be done and the wedding dress bought online in the same night.

Free is versatile–suitable for a big breakdown cry when your eyes are as pink as cotton candy and you’re so dehydrated you can’t even make tears anymore. Free illustrates what love should be –flying kites and shooting stars. It demonstrates the invincible bulletproof quality of true love that conquers geography, worry, naysayers and the world. Free reminds us of those we may have forgotten in our own selfish pursuits—like Clara-Marie and Billy Wolfe. We all know them.

Today Free played a part of our daily lives: intimate moments, lonely hours, crossed arms, shared glasses of wine, comfortable silences, foot massages, first kisses, cold pizza, camembert tarte tatin, braised short ribs with porcini mushroom stew, corn chips, gridlock on the 401, a slow dance in front of the fire, proposals, sweaty work-outs, yelling neighbours, purring cats, barking dogs, daydreaming, uncertainty, tears. Already the songs on Free have infiltrated our lives and will continue to weave their way into many faces, loves, celebrations and devastations over the years, just as Jann’s other songs reliably have.

I’ve run with Jann everywhere. Sloppy trails in BC and Banff, in half-marathons with cramping quads, behind runners supporting Terry Fox and those who survived cancer, along the dusty roads of Uganda, Panama, Costa Rica, the Galapagos, Amsterdam…she’s followed  me all over the world.

Like the wind and the sun, we have Jann Arden’s music at our backs as well. Her songs are the best told stories, with words that stabilize our memories like quick-set cement.

Thank you, Jann, for the grace and essence that is you. And for sharing that Titanic talent with us.

35

“Thirty-five is the pivotal year of change,” Merryde informed me as we clinked glasses full of Australian merlot. The night sky was a romantic chandelier of stars—and that particular evening, Venus, Jupiter and the crescent moon aligned in a very apocalyptic way. They were eerily parallel in the November sky. I had just turned 34, and was more preoccupied with the awareness (that still caught me off-guard) of: “Oh my god, I’m in Africa.” I was as far away from 35 as I was from Canada and maple syrup at that moment.

 As for 35 being a year of change, Merryde obviously had a shiny crystal ball under the table that I didn’t see that night. But I do remember being on the verge of something, even then. It wasn’t quite tangible, but hummingbirds had been visiting me in my dreams for months. They were a sign of restlessness and spoke of change, according to a spiritual higher-up that my friend Gillian had consulted.

The moment I laid my head under the mosquito net in Africa, the restless hummingbirds were rudely ousted out of my dreams and replaced by slithering snakes (which I pooh-poohed as a coincidence considering that I was living among the world’s deadliest in Uganda).

Late night Google research investigations revealed that snakes in dreams indicated transformation. Transcendence even. I was advised to employ lucid dreaming techniques to ask the snakes what they wanted. As if that conversation would go over well.

 If the snakes bit me (which they often did), it was a signal that I was “going through a kind of initiation; a psychological and spiritual trial that had the potential to change my life for the better if I dealt with it bravely and with a clear heart.” Bravery and pit vipers don’t usually fall into the same sentence, but I made note of the possible end result.

And here I am, not exactly with three clicks of the ruby slippers, but, I’m back in the hum and vibration of my Toronto. Thanks to the snakes I guess, and the hummingbirds that initially led me to Africa. My spiritual trial has been temporarily adjourned. Or was it just beginning season two?

Birthdays (like red wine and starry nights) have an indirect way of inspiring reflection and microscopic analysis of the years and the dreams that have propelled us along the way. After an indulgent night at the Sultan’s Tent on Friday, celebrating my 35^th in fine Moroccan fashion, I was unbearably full of couscous and braised lamb shank. I was sleepless and I was thinking of Bob, again.

Bob was one of my first massage client’s at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel in 2002. He asked me one question that will never leave me. He breezed in almost daily (when he wasn’t golfing in Palm Springs), a Cuban cigar clenched between his professionally-whitened teeth, stylish and sockless in his Gucci loafers. His suit and perfectly-knotted pink tie probably cost more than my entire wardrobe, but he had charm that matched his wealth. And the first question he asked me when we were introduced?

“Jules, tell me the most amazing thing you’ve done with your life so far.”

Well, no pressure there. I ran with the first flashes that were triggered in my then 28-year-old head. I told him that I had volunteered in the Costa Rican jungle for three months and lived in a hut with a tree bark floor, no walls, and a palm frond roof. That had to be amazing. (Not so amazing was having to bang my boots in the morning to scoot out dormant scorpions and the trench foot that ate at away at my flesh at the same rate as the parasites in my intestines.)

I think of Bob often, especially around my birthday–almost in preparation if I meet him again. I can picture him with his trendy red eyeglasses pushed back on his shock of white hair. “Jules, tell me the most amazing thing you’ve done since I Iast saw you.” It’s a good question—why don’t we ask it of each other more often? We should have answers ready. Are we living our lives to the most amazing capacity?

Of course I would tell Bob of my time in Africa, those precious moments with Micah and the other darling chimps in the Congo hanging around my neck like it was a tree trunk. And how I survived Uganda and the several brushes with death that came in the form of gun-toting wildlife officers wanting to shoot me and my dog, rush-hour boda-boda rides and eating dodgy goat meat from the street vendors. That was amazing too.

But there are other things, and I would need to sit him down for about 35 days to share the rest. What was amazing to me at 25 has become amusing at 35. And at 45? I’ll be writing fortune cookie messages with my profound knowledge and wisdom. 

I remember copying out a passage from one of Douglas Coupland’s books (Shampoo Planet?) in my early 20s about the beauty of hotel rooms. How everyone who stays in a hotel becomes a blank page, waiting to be rewritten. You are allowed to reinvent yourself, over and over again. I loved that—it was strangely reassuring to me then.

And now? I am beginning to crave familiarity. I want to be surrounded by friends who know me and can finish my sentences and bottles of wine. Moving back to Toronto has allowed me to spend an unexpected and treasured amount of time with my parents and brother, Dax. I missed knowing them so intimately. Even though I was just a just a five-hour flight away, many things are lost across the miles. And visiting at Christmas was such a hurried emotional and egg nog-fuelled rush that we were already missing each other on the day of my arrival.

Which doesn’t mean I won’t wander off again to that magnetic place called Africa. I do want to go back, eventually. That won’t change. Africa has become an integral part of me. I want to see the chimps from the J.A.C.K. sanctuary released into the wild. I want to see Micah, bigger and bolder, finding her place among the group. I want to see the fiery Lubumbashi sunsets that I stared into this past July, and see how far I’ve travelled spiritually since then.

I can’t stop my hungry need to see the world.

My mom told me a few days ago of her plans to travel until she’s physically and financially exhausted. Then she will be happy to be put in a retirement home to stare blankly out the window at the chickadees pecking at the suet feeder. Because then, she will be satisfied and content in what she has seen, comforted by the vivid memories of the misty moors of Scotland, the soupy canals of Ireland, her time in Belgium, Austria, Amsterdam, Italy and beyond.

And this is what it comes down to. What we have seen and who we have shared it with. Our footage changes over the years, as we edit, fast-forward and rewind through certain clips and replace them with others. All that is important is refined, but the structural bones of our life remain, stabilizing us through the years. As we stare out the window at the chickadees, what is it that we will really see before us?

 Just as Jupiter, Venus and the moon realigned, I feel myself doing the same.

 But tell me, what’s the most amazing thing you’ve done with your life so far?

Tasting…1,2,3

I am like a dog, I need frequent rewards and treats to optimize my performance. The behaviour that warrants such treats has become a loose category that can only be defined under the broad terms of Generally Surviving a Day. August was a dizzy blur, and September has been a bit of a carnival ride too. When all that is familiar goes POOF, I find solace in the tastes and textures that I know well.

I moved from a culinary wasteland of chicken wing joints and worn-out restos that advertised Molson Canadian as a “speciality beer.” Upon arriving in Toronto, my must-eat list was already formed. I had already devoured the Toronto Life Restaurant Guide while exiled in the chicken wing territory of BC and had made educated dining decisions. The winning diners and bistros had been circled in red pen, and clearly, I had a lot of burgers to eat.

The Restaurant Guide has always been a bit of a biblical read for me and lends to reciting favourite passages out loud, like “the huevos divorciados are a sweet and spicy mess of fried eggs atop a chewy corn tortilla that’s smothered in salsa, guacamole and house-made ancho jam.” Or, this about the Globe burger–“the thick half-pound patty is pan-fried in clarified butter and supported by an all-Canadian cast:  Quebec curds, Niagara pancetta and mushrooms from Grey County.” This is the centrefold of food porn!

But first, let me reminisce about today. I needed a treat after running the Terry Fox 10K, and for sleeping on an unforgiving floor for the last month. I heard the Black Camel call my name, and in my sleep I said aloud, “I see pulled pork sandwiches.” Located skipping distance from the Rosedale subway station (4 Crescent Road at Yonge), the Black Camel would be the death of any feeble vegetarian. It’s a caveman’s oasis with slow-roasted beef brisket, roasted pulled chicken and the pulled BBQ pork shoulder (the Camel signature). For $7.00 you are offered your choice of meat (way more than the suggested deck of playing cards serving), plus two sauces and/or condiments. The Black Camel BBQ sauce with caramelized onions is the blissful marriage that the ever-helpful and smiley Eli sold me on, behind his shaggy bangs. But there’s more: chipotle mayo, Charamoula mayo (??), horseradish with enough inferno to give you a nosebleed, fontina cheese, sautéed cremini mushrooms, slow-roasted roma tomoatoes, eggplant and sweet red peppers.

The Black Camel keeps it simple and refined—focussing on basic sandwiches, chilli and coleslaw. This is not first date-quality food as the sandwich is abnormally big and drips like a leaky faucet. But, what a memory maker. I walked over to the park with a chilly Brio and ate in a stunned silence. The Brio, for those who haven’t experienced the Italian chinotto, is like a DNA mix-up of Coca-Cola and Dr. Pepper. The soda is made from the bitter citrus fruit of the chinotto tree (which is also an essential component of the aperitif Campari), with quinine and other herbal extracts. So, it’s like an all-natural Coke.

And for an all-natural one-two punch follow-up, I rely on Marche Movenpick’s bircher muesli that is straight out of the Swiss Alps. The soaked raw oats are mixed with plain yogurt, shredded apple and elderberries. It looks like a mauve cat fur ball, but has become my go-to for a healthy hit. Because one cannot survive on pulled pork alone, unfortunately.

A week ago, after a night at the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE) with Dax and Kelly, oatmeal and eight glasses of water were required, stat. Dax and I had bravely ordered the $5 bacon with chocolate sauce after our deep-fried pogo stick entree. Not so surprisingly, the combo worked—that is, if you are a lover of sweet and savoury. My Brit friends Denny and Gillian are continually disgusted by my affection for “eggy bread” and maple syrup, or worse—sausage studded with apple and raisins. Lamb and mint jelly? An embarrassment to the lamb, for sure.

Another lovely, local sweet and savoury companionship that I immediately sought out in Toronto is found at The Garage Sandwich Company (Church St. at Wellesley). I check off the same vital ingredients on the cutesy menu order scripts every time: 7 grain bread, alfalfa sprouts, bacon, roasted sweet potatoes, avocado and honey mustard. Matched with a juniper soda, the Dagwood sandwich that requires toothpicks to hold its guts together is my death row request.

And moments before the dead-man-walking moment, I’d ask for an oatmeal raisin cookie from Le Gourmand on Spadina. The cookies are as big as Frisbees and could easily serve as a meal replacement (best paired with a Jet Fuel mochacinno–which leaves a beehive in your head with the detonation of the two shots of espresso).

For an equally furry head, the Bulldog (98 Granby street) whips up a frothy monster that is delivered as “The Bulldog Latte” for three bucks. The service is reliably snooty as the baristas have the bedside manner of jilted lovers (i.e.– not really caring what you want). But, the lattes are pretty and come with delicate fern designs in the foam.

When the coffee buzz buzzes off, C’est What? (67 Front street at Church) has set the bar for beer drinker palates with their hazelnut chocolate ale, caraway rye beer, coffee porter and the Homegrown Hemp Ale which is my old Beer Store standby.

The Local 4 Restaurant (4 Dundonald street at Yonge) provides a “warm, low-pressure venue for drinking, dining and relaxing.” They are vital supporters of Ontario and Quebec micobreweries and feature Church Key Brewing’s Holy Smoke beer which tastes like a mouthful of campfire smoke, minus the stinging sensation in one’s eyes (and jerky mosquitoes). They also serve the Absinteeni, that boasts a bold shot of absinthe (alcohol content of 45-74%, AKA “the Green Fairy”). Dax and I always scour the beer list, but fall prey to McAuslan’s apricot wheat ale every time. When we went for a near-midnight pint last week, one of the owners, Nancy Gilmour, surprised us with just-baked chocolate chip cookies at our table. Let me tell you, that bolstered our relationship with The Local 4 ten-fold. Side note: the sweet potato wontons and bourbon back ribs should be considered as aphrodisiacs.

And when oysters and truffles fail to bolster sexual desire, Greg Mahon of Greg’s Ice Cream, can make the most frigid, melt. The 14% butterfat content should make anyone weak at the knees, but the flavours are the most compelling: Grapenut, green tea and ginger, lime chiffon, mincemeat, chocolate banana chip, coconut pineapple rum, malt ball crunch and, wait for it, roasted marshmallow. The two scoops of roasted marshmallow provide all the best elements of camping, in a cup or a waffle cone, experienced in the urban comfort of Bloor street.

Petite Thuet (1162 Yonge) is another reliable sweet sanctuary. The salted caramel and pistachio macaroons ($2 each) are dangerously good. Chewy and laced with a butter icing middle, they made me hesitate in the middle of the sidewalk, selfishly contemplating more. The coffee éclair I bought for Dax vanished within moments of his return home from the gym.

And there’s more. My list gets longer with every issue of NOW, and the fall preview of Toronto Life issue. First up is The Great Pumpkin martini at Ceili Cottage (1301 Queen St. E.). As bar bitch Kevin Brauch tells T.O. Life: “My Charlie Brown-inspired cocktail mixes two spoonfuls of pumpkin puree with small-batch bourbon, a drizzle of raspberry puree, orange bitters and a dash of cinnamon and nutmeg. Tastes best in a devil’s costume.”

Other top-of-the-list makers are The Hoof Cafe (923 Dundas St. W.) for serving up rabbit pancakes and the Gourmet Burger Co. (482 Parliament) has a 100% beef burger with an Australian injection—it comes topped with beets, a fried egg, pineapple, bacon, cheddar, mayo, lettuce and tomato. Hard to believe Aussies could create such a beautiful burger and roar over that Vegemite and Marmite crap.

Ten Feet Tall promises “lamb lollies” (meatballs on a popsicle stick) with a tart mint-yogurt-cucumber dipper. Amber has lobster quesadillas while Tutti Matti boasts house-made tortellini stuffed with squash puree in a sage butter sauce. Oh—and then there’s that place in Little Portugal that advertised chilled cherry soup that I have to locate again.

But tomorrow? I will eat at home, with my parents, and my mother will prepare something incredible with a glass of wine in hand. And this will be the best treat of all.

Weighing In

Break ups are a strange and furry phenomena. A once solid union becomes divided and one becomes two over a breakfast of soggy Cheerios and crossed arms. Like a gruesome chainsaw accident, a limb that was once familiar and necessary becomes detached. Sometimes it can be reconstructed and reattached, but it never feels the same. The nerves are severed and the normal sensation is lost to a ripline of stitches that run far below the surface and deep into the vital blood and muscle cells.

There may be fifty ways to leave a lover, but they’re all expensive. Going to Africa twice was cheaper than moving across Canada once. I am left at a standstill, suspended in time between couch cushions and an October 1st move-in date. I am pacing, waiting for the go-ahead to start work as the governing board of massage therapists seems to be preoccupied with Facebooking and tweeting when they could be reinstating my massage license.

I have found a posh place to lay my whirling dervish head, and this was a gigantic relief (see previous blog post http://julestorti.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/free-to-a-good-home/ to revisit the horrors). I live out of two bags stuffed with a somewhat poorly selected wardrobe. Did I really need to bring 12 belts, 8 watches and only two pairs of jeans? As the nights breathe and exhale the bracing fall air, I hope the rest of my longsleeved clothing arrives before I’m seasonally challenged.

My patience has been stretched to a spandex consistency as of late, but I’ve developed Teflon no-stick skin. My resilience stems from three months of living in a sopping wet jungle in Costa Rica, four months in Uganda eating shit and goats and another month in the dark and dust of the Congo. I can live anywhere, under less than desirable conditions– as long as I have my New Balance running shoes, occassional access to the Internet and gin.

When I first moved out west in 2006, Wanda had a loose moving company connection through her hairdresser’s mother’s cousin’s nephew’s daughter. There was a guy in Thunder Bay named Ari who could move my stuff from Ontario to Abbotsford for $400 bucks. This was a very handsome figure, considering a basic U-haul rental starts at $1,650, plus $6,000 in gas to roar across the prairies eating Twizzlers and canisters of Pringles for breakfast I leapt at the cheapo deal and boxed my stuff for pick-up the very next weekend at my parents house in Brantford. I threw a pack over my shoulder, zipped up my laptop and boarded the Westjet flight to BC, never imagining that my stuff wouldn’t arrive for another four months.

I went to Abbotsford in August 2006. My stuff didn’t make an appearance until January 4th, 2007. This was after a hundred “missed” phone calls to Thunder Bay to the always-sleeping wife of Ari. There were periodic updates of mechanical breakdowns of his transport truck. My stuff at one point was in Edmonton–then in storage in Calgary, apparently. I asked for photos to serve as proof that my things still existed and weren’t in some trailer park in Thunder Bay covered in chewing tobacco and hotdog bun crumbs.

Come December, I threatened Ari that I was going to contact the police. I told him I was LIVING with the police. He retalliated by threatening not to deliver my load. Oh, good one! At that point, I couldn’t even remember what my oh-so-important belongings were anymore. I was tempted to save the $400 and tell him to take my stuff and stuff it.

So, obviously I can live without “things.” Every break-up has enhanced my minimalist lifestyle even more. Although, I find myself buying the same things repeatedly: shower curtains, laptops, bookshelves, gin. Or, I give items away and then need them about two weeks afterwards and am required to just suck it up as poor timing. Like the time I decided to chuck out all my massage therapy college notes from a decade ago. Surely I would never use them again! Little did I know that months later I would be moving to BC and be heading back to school to upgrade my RMT license. This is why I am never throwing out my Michael Jackson faux leather Thriller jacket, because now I know I’m going to need it.

Because I lost my faith in Ari the mover, I’ve been researching other, hopefully more credible options, like Fred’s On the Move and Two Small Men with Big Hearts. The Small Men offered a guaranteed quote of $1,750, roughly a dollar a pound, with a 1,500 pound minimum charge. This is the cost of emotional baggage, all 1,500 pounds of it. Well, the books probably weigh a thousand, the other 500 pounds goes to tea lights, Puma shoes and a pressed leather headboard that would flatten a small child if it fell over.

I have to see my books again because I can tell you where, when, why and how I bought each and every one of them. They are an integral part of me, even though I could probably go to the local library, check out 370 books and pay a lifetime of late fees and it would ring in cheaper than sending all of Margaret Atwood’s hardcovers and African bird guides back to Ontario.

As I walked through Cabbagetown last week, mentally unpacking my boxed up stuff that is still sitting in Abbotsford, I absently followed signs to an estate sale on Seaton street. My god, it was like a Boxing Day sale as soon as I stepped inside the charming old Victorian home. It was like the cabbage patch doll craze of the early 80s when mothers turned into boxers, fighting for the bald-headed dollies to give their precious children. I avoided the crowd that was swarming the Blue Willow collection in the kitchen and took the stairs to the third level. Everything was for sale. Everything–right down to the cans of lemon Pledge, the Holy Bible, the furs in the closet, the chandelier and the Ensure bars in the cupboard. The artificial Christmas tree was plugged in and listing on the back patio with five boxes of slides and old projectors with a $10 TAKES ALL sign. Ten dollars. I wondered where this person had travelled to, and if they were watching with disappointment  from Heaven as the most valuable memories in their life, captured on film, were priced the same as the red wine-stained tablecloth and Thigh Master.

Is this what it comes down to? Your life is sold at a discount to greedy hands who dismiss the life that just passed in hopes of a bargain? Who wants to buy Pledge that belonged to a now-dead person? Isn’t that weird?

I spent the weekend with my parents in Brantford, sleeping in my dead great-grandmother’s bed which still gives me some heebie jeebies. I’m not sure whether the Pledge under the sink is from Wal-mart or a dead person though, I’ll have to ask my mother, because she likes dead people’s belongings.

With a bit of financial resentment, I’ll have my things shipped to Toronto, and hopefully they will arrive in 2009. What has become clear in the last two weeks is that I don’t really need any of it. Some Africans wear the same shirt and pants for years. I could adopt a similar signature look. And do I really want the flatscreen TV that I watched for 26 minutes out of the corner of my eye while drinking wine with my brother the night he set it up? It was a Sheryl Crow spotlight on Muchmusic. I paid for access to a thousand channels for a year, and watched none.

I’m not a collector of anything (aside from the above-mentioned books, and a lot of thoughts). I do come from a collective mother and grandmother though. My great-grandmother (who will probably pay me a visit in her old bed tonight) collected over 100 salt and pepper shakers in her lifetime. For what? A really eclectic estate sale?

What I eventually realized in the dull hours of sleepless nights spent on the couch, is that I do collect friends. And they have been my greatest cheerleaders, defensive quarterbacks, wine-pourers, secret-keepers, late night chatters Facebookers, avid blog readers and African correspondents. In my time of need, I’ve had offers of beds all across Ontario, promises of zen, laughter and even a campfire with S’mores and stars.

What I know now is that the stuff that always moves with me, without expense, are my golden friends and family. They follow me to all the places I insist on going, even the bloody Congo, and wait patiently for my return.

Even though I have taken up all the available “T” space in several address books belonging to friends and relatives, I am welcomed back each time and reminded that the important stuff has been with me all along. What can’t be sold at an estate sale, wrapped in newspaper and shoved in a box, or weighed by movers calculating my life in pounds–is what’s integral in life.

And now for the fine print:

Thank you in no particular order to Dax and his couch and midnight watermelon chats, my always supportive parents (who have moved me more in 35 years than themselves in 60+ years), great-grandma for her bed after 2 weeks on Dax’s couch, Kiley for offering a bedroom in Banff AND a gym membership, Pam and Jann for a reliable laughter reel and daily affirmations, Rodney for his massages and for introducing me to Teri and Rob and Mojito Mondays, Kelly for giving up her posh apartment to live with me (again), Connie, Nicole and PJ for promises of full-bodied wine and conversation, Andie for those Friday visits out west, Carol for not understanding but still willing to email me, Karin, Kim K., Martine, Linda and Dee for just always being there like dew and the breeze, Suzanne–for that Blue Dog latte afternoon that got me to thinking, to the chimps in the Congo who brought the buzz in my head to a calm, to Brit for missing me, to new friends on the horizon: Sass, Sara, Sue, and Heidi & Leslie who are distracting me with the lure of Twitter, Jenn B., Denny and Toni who take me back everytime I return from wandering off, to Gillian who wants me to have whatever makes my heart happy–even though it saddened hers, to Lynne (and Al) for crying tears of chardonnay when I said I was moving to Toronto, to Michelle who is going to fly in from Rankin Inlet or somewhere way the hell up there to prepare a french rack of muskox, to my faithfuls: Kim V., Johanne, Chantal and Kaitlin, the far aways: Merryde, Mary Lou and Ju, to Ryan now in Melburne who has a bed there for me too, to those I haven’t even met yet but care for–Jules, Rona & Leanne W., and even bigger thanks to the five extra very, very special people who I have blindly overlooked and will get proper shit for.

And to Wanda, for letting me go, against her will.

Free To A Good Home

Break-ups, breakdowns, breakouts. Upheaval , unrest and U-hauls. The end of a relationship brings what I like to refer to as the dreaded “uproot canal.” Or, once the new apartment search begins: Nightmare on Elm street, Jarvis, Homewood, Madison avenue and Beaconsfield street.

Looking for an apartment in Toronto has been generally disenchanting and an alarming showcase of ‘decor.’ I’ve seen Pepto Bismol pink tiles in the bathroom (with matching sink and toilet), carpeted bathrooms and one bedrooms so tiny that I wouldn’t be able to walk around the perimeter of my bed. The place with the red carpet throughout had one redeeming feature: fearless red wine drinking! However, to access the deck I had to turn sideways, wedge myself between the fridge and the wall, duck, an open a door suitable for leprechauns. Then, take one careful step over the soggy, caving shingles to the somewhat stable, but still rotting deck enhanced by five very dead potted geraniums.

I have been looking at Craigslist and viewit.ca until my pupils are square. Apartment photos that look promising are obviously taken with fun house mirrors to reflect the images. What appears to be an 11 foot ceiling, is actually 5 feet. All perceived dimensions must be divided by two, sometimes three. For example, in Little Portugal, I almost suffered a concussion viewing a “one bedroom” that was ample space for a Chihuahua. The kitchen was an isosceles triangle, which meant the drawers at the point of the triangle could only be opened an inch before jamming against the wall. The stairs down to the bedroom ‘area’ would be impassable by anyone over 175 pounds or by women who had given birth to more than two children. Clearly, to live here, your furniture would have to come in the form of bean bag chairs and a child’s tea party table and chairs set.

The agent showing this Little Portugal gem immediately realized that I was no longer a potential customer when the top of my head brushed the ceiling. She pointed to the area where a bed (single mattress only) could go. Here, the ceiling dropped another 10 inches and I had to stand with my head tilted severely to the side. I enquired about the mystery door to the left that was about four feet high.

“Extra storage space?”

 “Oh, no, that is the main door to the laundry room!”

Main door? Main door for a midget maybe. I thanked her kindly for her time and pointed out that I was obviously too tall for the ride. She nodded in agreement. I would have nodded back, but I couldn’t move my head in the nodding direction as it was still tilted to accommodate my height.

The following day, a 14th floor junior one bedroom on Huntley street had less floor space than an Old Navy change room. The kitchen couldn’t be bent over in, and the fridge was actually in the livingroom which was actually the bedroom. The bathroom offered a robin’s egg blue toilet and sink, located in such proximity that you could barf in the sink while sitting on the toilet. And have your feet soaking in the tub. Great for flu season.

On Dundas east, I approached a house listed on Craigslist as “spacious, sunny, immaculate–$1, 100—what a steal!” Directly in front of the house a ‘salesman’ selling heroin asked if I might prefer morphine instead, he could get me that if I wanted. I nearly slipped on a used condom, had to dodge pizza vomit and watched a dodgy pony-tailed group in bandanas and mirrored sunglasses marvel at a found crack pipe. A wrinkled woman with blue hair inched by pushing a shopping cart with two panting dogs in it. All of them wearing the same coloured sweaters. The house itself had an industrial steel door on the front with graffiti tags and barred windows. I turned on my heels but was stopped in my tracks as David pulled in the driveway in his 2009 Jetta with a Vaseline smile. He knew I was the 2:00 appointment, and this is when I should have sprinted away. He was quick to lure me inside after much urging to ignore the outside of the building. I wondered for a fleeting moment if I was being lured to my death, but hoped for the best.

The interior did shock me in a pleasing way, but so did the smell of fish head stew coming from the apartment above (where David’s mother lived) in a not so pleasing way. I was shown the backyard which had knee-high weeds and patio stones that looked like they had been simply chucked off the back of a truck in a haphazard pattern. David said he had plans to do something with the yard. And he would replace the front door so it didn’t look like a chop shop entrance. I looked down at the parquet floor and saw the DNA and clipped toenails of every tenant for the last 50 years. The place smelled like feet masked by patchouli. David excitedly pointed out the features, and the built-in microwave above the stove. “You will have to use a stool to access it though. That’s what the last girl did.” He demonstrated how I could easily unfold the stool and then hoist myself up to reheat a meal. The stovetop indicated many reheated meals, and the remnants of several breakfasts of bacon.

On Homewood avenue, where the hooker population slightly decreased as I edged away from Jarvis, I was led down a gloomy hallway to an even darker chamber by a woman in a floral nightgown (who was immediately cranky because I was 15 minutes early and she wasn’t ready. However, it was 3:00 in the afternoon). Here, the apartment offered a lovely view of the dumpsters and recycling bins and was home to 56 pigeons who burbled and wobbled about in an inch of excrement on the window sill. I entered the kitchen and cracked the new ceramic tile that had been placed on top of the former broken one to cover up the hole. I opened the fridge and almost tipped it over. The inside was sticky with an exploded bottle of soda pop, creating a sugary glaze on all the shelves. “Will this unit be professionally cleaned before renting?”

“Oh yes, we always sweep before anyone moves in.”

The windows were smaller than a childhood dollhouse and the bathtub looked like it had been home to amphibious life—turtles or a person who was covered in algae. I turned on the tap and it came off in my hand. “Oh, don’t do that, please.” Nightgown lady scolded. I poked around the walk-in closet that was bigger than the actual apartment floor space.

 “Are you done yet?” The oh-so friendly landlord barked. “Because I want to go out this afternoon.”

And so the search continues. My morning runs are dangerous as I am craning in all directions to catch a glimpse of a For Rent sign on a nice, leafy, sleepy street like Berkeley or Salisbury. I’m willing to throw down $1,000 a month. All I ask for is a balcony big enough for an Adirondack chair and a cup of tea, maybe a fireplace (it doesn’t even have to work) and hardwood flooring. I don’t care if it’s only 300 square feet, I’m a minimalist (except when it comes to my books, then I’m a maximalist), but, there are certain things I can’t compromise on. I don’t want a dumpster view, or to have to push my way past belligerent crackheads in the morning. And I need a ten foot ceiling for crying out loud, I can’t feel like Alice in Wonderland and suffer daily concussions getting out of bed in the morning.

What I do know for sure is that I’m free to a good home. Preferably in Cabbagetown or Riverdale. And willing to commute to any Caribbean island as well.