Tin Box Stories

Last Monday my parents came to Toronto to celebrate their birthdays. This means they take Dax and I out to the posh place of our choice AND pick up the tab. Of course, the visit also brings with it homemade cookies, some archives (“do you want these things?” We found them in the attic.”) and newspaper clippings.

My mother has clipped articles and ripped features out of magazines for me for years. I have come to expect it and am disappointed if I don’t get an envelope full. She is my multi-media connection to my hometown, and abroad. Kiley  gets clippings too (and sometimes our clippings are misdirected—“Didn’t you go to high school with so-and-so? They just had a ________________ (baby, engagement or wedding).”

My clipping envelope has now evolved into a tin box to house a decade of clippings. And postcards. And ticket stubs.  What started off so innocently (a scrapbooker’s  dream of Brantford Expositor news and quirky Toronto Star features) has transformed into my hard drive. Some of the gems date back to 2000, which for me, is an era now deemed as a “historical event.”

This visit, my dad carted in two mandarin orange crates full of cassette tapes. “I don’t know if you’ll listen to these or not, but we found them in the attic.” (Hours later my father realized I probably didn’t have a tape deck anymore—but he was pretty sure there was still one in the basement that he could clean up). Sorting through the tapes was a nostalgic throw-back to a time when I couldn’t get enough of Janis Joplin with Big Brother and The Holding Company. I smiled to see the soundtrack to Northern Exposure, Sinead O’Connor, Bjork, Kiley’s drama exam ?(Kiley—do you want this?), Simon & Garfunkel, Neil Young, Catie Curtis, Tori Amos, Indigo Girls and The Cranberries. Vintage finds were the Jann Arden Time For Mercy, an autographed Radiate (Carole Pope), a mixed tape from my friend Toni and Jane Siberry.

Naturally, my minimalist self didn’t want a bunch of crappy cassette tapes. But, I couldn’t part with the Carole autograph and Jann’s cassette. So, I slipped the J-cards out of the plastic cases and put them in the tin box. And then, at 3:43 am I decided it would be a perfect time to start looking through the contents of my tin box.

This was the first (ripped out of the Star or the Globe & Mail at some point) thing I read: “ British art director Storm Thorgerson observed recently: People like objects. Objects tend to fashion their lives and serve as memory. People take their favourite objects whenever they move, and those objects often define who they are.”

This tin box is like peering into my innards for the last decade. There are love letters, running bibs, folded and worn horoscopes for Virgo, postcards, San Francisco trolley tickets, Coco Chanel quotes (“I only drink Champagne on two occasions: when I am in love and when I am not.”), a pic of my dream scooter (a 49 c.c. Honda Ruckus, suggested retail $2,849) and a zen-inducing photo of The Four Seasons Golden Triangle in Thailand (“Arrive by riverboat through bamboo forests, live and slumber in a 581-square-foot tent with private deck…refresh yourself (and your partner) in an open-air shower, or luxuriate together  in a handmade copper tub…take bareback elephant excursions through the forest…arrive at your couple’s spa treatment by way of an Indiana Jones-style suspension bridge…or just sip sundowner cocktails at the Burma Bar and listen to the melodious sounds of another world.” )Starting at $1,200 a night.

I laugh to find a poem scrawled on a Player’s Light cigarette pack from a woman named Linda. Kelly and I met her at a bar on Church street. Linda was quite enamoured with both of us, and was certain her husband would be as well. As she hugged and squeezed us (within an inch of our life) goodbye, she slipped me the cigarette pack poem:

Roses are Red

Violets grow in pools

Too bad for me

I wish I knew you’s from school.

Call me! Both of you! Linda (followed by her phone number)

Postcards from the edge

The tin box also contains a heap of postcards—a Torti family travelogue if you will. I re-read the exploits of my parents in Scotland, Ireland, Sleepy Hollow (NY), Colorado, Myrtle Beach, Sleeping Bear Dunes (Lake Michigan), Quebec, Rhode Island and Holland. Eight out of ten are from my dad’s perspective, which usually involves commentary on his lack of beach time due to my mom’s tight cemetery tour itinerary, golf courses that he wasn’t allowed to play at (due to time constraints—see above), vivid descriptions of the rental car and a hilarious outtake of when my dad collapsed a Pepsi shelf display at a grocery store in Quebec when my mother startled him (I never did get my mom’s version on that one).

The Kiley Torti GPS was haywire this past decade. Postcards came in from these outposts:  Tierra Del Fuego (Argentina), Maui, The Great Barrier Reef, Alaska, a Churchill polar bear expedition and San Francisco. Kiley’s postcards are printed in a 7 point font, describing every breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack in between.  There’s a lot of summit talk, given her love of mountains and conquering them (Mt. Haleakala summit: 10,032 ft).

My favourite postcard from Dax? It came from Holland: “I’ve been to tons of museums and had a lot to drink. Today we’ll be having a drink at the first spot where they made gin. Oh, and the Bols factory makes some damn good drinks. Gay pride starts tonight so I’m sure we’ll all be a mess. Tah tah, Dax.”

Dax from London: “I totally have pulled a mom, travelling everywhere east, west, north and south, even if it killed me. We had an attic room complete with a rooftop deck and Kohler tub. Today I finished at Kew Gardens—I’ve never seen such huge greenhouses and plantings!”

Of course the tin box also contains its share of melancholy.  On September 6^th, 2005, Dr. Jacqueline Perry, age 30, was mauled by a black bear in Missinaibi Provincial Park near Chapleau, Ontario. Her husband, Mark Jordan desperately tried to fend off the bear with a Swiss Army knife, which he slashed five times. Mark carried Jacqueline to their kayak and began to paddle to a nearby campsite. A father and son from Pennsylvania who were camping nearby heard his calls of distress and came to their rescue in a pontoon boat. They flagged down another boat that carried a doctor from North Carolina and an off-duty police officer. The doctor treated Jacqueline as the boat continued to the park office, about 10 km away. She died of her sustained injuries.

Jacqueline was a star student, so exceptionally bright I was known to cheat off her math tests (shhh). I sat behind her in a few classes and hounded her for several things over the years—pens, erasers, a sheet of paper. She was always gracious, even when I did this on a daily basis. I can see her smiling in the hallowed halls of Brantford Collegiate Institute (BCI), clutching text books to her chest–because that’s what she always did. She smiled and laughed in an unleashed way that was beautiful.

These clippings still disturb me. “Woman Remains in Hospital After Crash.” “Woman Still in Hospital Following Accident.” “City Woman Dies in Hospital From Injuries.” On November 26^th, 2006, my dear friend Emily’s mother died. Susan Malcolm taught my sister and brother grade nine English. She was well-loved by all faculty and students who fell under her spell. Especially me. She was the most stunning woman I had ever met. She would always wink at me as I sped by to my next class, and had a smile that brought immediate calm. Even her eyes smiled.

On November 16^th she was in a two-vehicle collision on Highway 99. She died 10 days later, finally succumbing to her severe injuries.  A 42-year-old man was charged with careless driving. Careless driving? That’s it? He took an angel from this earth.

I unfold a page carefully ripped from Maclean’s magazine. On May 9^th, 2007, a beloved visual arts and drama teacher from BCI was killed in Malawi, Africa. She was travelling with a group of friends to the Home of Hope orphanage to deliver art supplies to the children. As they neared the orphanage a tire exploded on their van and Sandy Wilson was thrown from the vehicle and died within the hour at an area hospital. A dynamic painter and sculptor, it was her dream to travel to Africa and share her artistic passion with the children. Her suitcases were bulging with pigment, a paper-making machine, brushes and kites made by local kindergarten students.

Sandy, an ovarian cancer survivor, left behind her life partner, Valerie Leanage.  “I see her as a victory figure,” said Leanage who admitted she was coping by believing Sandy is still on a big trip in a far-off land (As told to reporter Susan Gamble at the Brantford Expositor).

Sandy let me squeeze my way onto the school trip to Albuquerque, New Mexico and the Grand Canyon with the BCI Native Club. She laughed with me when I was upset that no one would buy my home made dream catchers that we sold as a fundraiser (due to my non-native-ness). She picked me up on more than one occasion when I was walking home in dismal weather—and stopped even when the weather wasn’t dismal to see if I was okay. She was generous with her time and gifts and an absolute treasure to the high school art department.

The tin box grew heavier on each of those days.

I sort the obituaries from engagement notices and find a Globe obit for Joan Fox, a radical film reviewer. She loved the work of Claude Jutra and kept company with Doris Anderson, long-time editor of Chatelaine. She was pals with women’s rights activist Dorothy Cameron, an art dealer made famous “when the Toronto Police’s morality squad removed seven works from her Eros ’65 show for their alleged obscenity.” Fox was active with anti-censorship and adored Elvis Presley films. At her funeral, an Elvis impersonator (hired by her son), rose from a pew and sang “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” Joan Fox was working on her memoirs. “The tales of a girl who came to Toronto to watch the movies.” The tales filled several boxes in her home.

I suppose everyone has their Tin Box, of varying dimensions. I have Amsterdam street maps, Charlottetown, PEI horse betting stubs ($2 WIN!), half-marathon course maps from BC, drawings on airplane serviettes by ex-girlfriends and circled book reviews (Sailing Away From Winter—A Cruise From Nova Scotia to Florida and Beyond by Silver Donald Cameron: a recount of a 236-day trip he, his wife and their whippet took on a 33-foot ketch named Magnus).

There’s a heap of absurd stories about The Burning Man Festival and Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch (or the Church of St. Mary in the Hollow of White Hazel Trees near the Rapid Whirlpool by St. Tysilio’s of the Red Cave in Wales). It’s the longest place name in the world—the triple-long train tickets became collector’s items. In other news I have clips of Petra the swan who fell in love with a swan-shaped paddleboat in Muenster, Germany (she refused to leave the boat’s side, but reportedly found a new mate, a white swan, and was last seen building a nest with the non-boat swan).

“Masked robbers bag birds’ nests”—nests of the swiftlet birds, prized for their medicinal value were stolen from Ming Heng Ginseng Dry Foods at the Richmond Mall in BC. The nests are used to make bird’s nest soup which reportedly sharpens the appetite of the elderly and those recovering from surgery. (The nests retail at $200 for 37 grams = 2 to 3 bowls of soup).

There’s more—articles on the new Beer 101 course at a university in Halifax, an interview with a fortune cookie writer (on rejected fortunes),  a feature on Nova Scotian folk artist Maud Lewis (who lived in a cottage 3.5 metres wide by 3.5 metres long—every inch of it painted) and a review of the Ithaa Undersea Restaurant  in the Maldives.

God, there’s even a menu for Evelyn’s Coffee Bar in Banff (best lemon yogurt and ginger crinkle cookies), 56 birthday cards and a getaway guide to Portland, Oregon (Cacao—150 pure artisanal chocolate bars from around the world, decadent drinking chocolate infused with chilli; Teardrop—locally made Aviation gin with notes of cardamom, lavender, sarsaparilla and dried orange peel; Powell’s City of Books—world’s largest independent bookstore at 68,000 square feet). I also uncover a rejection letter from Arsenal Pulp Press for my manuscript “Accidental Love and Death,” and the nicest letter from my boss Farrah when I quit my job at the Wild Orange Spa because I thought there were greener pastures elsewhere. She hired me back months later when I realized the grass wasn’t so fertilized elsewhere.

There’s a post-it note from Dax listing my birthday package contents from age 31 (?): Homemade Oreo Biscotti, Galaxy chocolate bar (London), Sparklers. Who Hoo! and a returned letter from April 18^th, 2003 that I sent my sister when she worked on Disney Cruise Lines out of Cape Canaveral, Florida (which I am going to forward!).

Whew. It’s been a trip. I feel well-loved and well-lived. I hope everyone has a Tin Box of stories and cigarette poems. I can’t part with a single item because they all resonate with me in some vibrating way and remind me that we do carry our favourite objects with us. And my favourite objects are my family and friends and all the postcards and letters sent in between our absences.

So tell me, what’s in your Tin Box?

Ten Years, Not Tenure

A  decade. Over 13,456 bodies served.

I promised myself that I would work as a massage therapist until I paid off my student loan. That took eight years of bitter monthly payments that seemed imaginary when I looked at the percentage that was clawed off in yearly interest.

It’s been 10 years this month, and last week I had a wake up fall. That’s right, fall, not call. I had a 45 minute break in my day that I thought I would fill with a foamy latte and biscotti at Tamaringo’s. What I hadn’t planned on doing was hydroplaning off the very first wooden stair behind the spa and landing not-so-gracefully on my hip and forearm. Monsoon rains fell from the sky and made my jeans wet so quickly, I wondered if I had wet myself.

My pride was hurt the most, and in my fear of being seen flat out on the stairs I fought off the crocodile tears, jumped up and ran to my vehicle. I had three heartbeats in my body, but the one in my arm was the biggest. Everything on my left side seized. Now what? Was this my career-ender? Just like that, for a stupid latte and biscotti? I was glad I wasn’t over the age of 60, with bones like biscotti, because I would have had a hip fracture for sure. I checked my radius and ulna for the dreaded “dinner fork fracture” which splits both bones at the wrist. I felt my ribs and thought I should eat more ribs. I thought of the last massage I had scheduled for the day and wondered if I could scrounge up any strength to do it.

As I lost myself in the routine that I know best (massaging, not the latte and biscotti, but I do know that routine well too), I thought of what I could do the day my body rejected any further future as a massage therapist.

My dream job has been taken by a determined 12-year-old. And no, I don’t mean that I want a paper route so I can buy a new, shiny bike at the end of summer. I’m referring to Le Petit Gourmet, David Fishman of New York. The kid is lunching with veteran GQ food writer Alan Richman.

Last November, Fishman’s mother sent him out to eat by himself. He walked into Salumeria Rosi without a reservation and agreed to give up his table by 8 p.m. As he was taking notes and chatting up customers, Fishman was spotted by a woman whose friend worked at the New York Times. She gave the boy her card which was passed on to his mother, and the headline ran shortly after—“12-year-old’s a Food Critic, and the Chef Loves It.”

Fishman has even had dinner with Tim Zagat and his story is being gobbled up by Paramount. He told GQ (March 2009), “I didn’t want a movie, if this was an adult aspiring to be a food critic, nobody would care.” Charmed, Alan Richman invited him out to three more meals, and Fishman wrote reviews of each to be printed as excerpts.

“Appearing like a schoolboy doing homework while he ate” Richman thought his approach was “more sensible than what we professionals do, which is to try desperately to conceal our spiral-bound notebooks under the table while we blindly scribble notes we can’t decipher when we get home.”

The kid can eat, Dungeness crab and sushi even, but can he write? The excerpt in GQ on their visit to Kouzan reads: “The sushi for two loomed in front of us, looking like a dish prepared for a TV show, almost fake. One bite and it tasted it too. This restaurant has a far way to come in my opinion to even reach traditional Japanese standards, and something tells me it isn’t even going to try.” The 12-year-old food critic gave the food at Kouzan an 11 out of 25.  

When I was 12 I thought having Oreos for breakfast was close to living like royalty. Kraft Dinner with ketchup was de rigeur and cold straweberry frosted Pop Tarts were considered haute cuisine. Regardless, I was beginning to generate career possibilities even then, but I didn’t think of being a full-time food critic (only when my mother made pork hocks and lima beans).

I scribbled down financial windfalls like Kentucky Fried Turkey. KFC had mastered fried chicken, imagine the crowds at Thanksgiving and Christmas if they offered Kentucky Fried Turkey! Unable to find a reliable KFC contact who would allow me to copyright the turkey money-maker, I moved on to a more tangible idea. In Brantford, Ontario, where I grew up, a landmark location was “The Bookworm,” a used bookstore that smelled like Noxema and hair. This was in the heyday of cassette tapes and I told my mother that I needed to buy the space beside The Bookworm. I wanted to open a music store which would be called “The Tapeworm.” But then cassette tapes were pushed into medieval practice with CD marketing. “The CD Worm” sucked as a store name and my brilliant idea went into the ether.

Eating that banana slug would have given me a tapeworm…

My highschool yearbook is a testament to my ongoing fulfilling job search. In 1993 I was quoted as saying that I would like “to be a maxi pad commercial hand model.” Ambitious, yes. But how does one break into that scene?

Still in love with Kraft Dinner at that point, I thought a Kraft Dinner Cafe (not Kafe, because that would be too tacky) would win the hearts and guts of malnourished university students. The menu would offer KD with chopped wieners, salsa, ketchup, sides of fried bologna and retro desserts like chewy Jell-o cubes with Cool Whip. But then I had gnocchi and gave up KD for good.

This is when my letter carrier fantasies began to take a firm hold, but much like the fate of the cassette tape, the future of posties is delicate. I might have the career lifespan of a hamster if I sign up with Canada Post today. Will they even exist in two years? Regardless, I am envious of their bulging calves and the solitary nature of their work. Plus, I’ve had four really good dog bites which would give me a fearless edge.

So now what? All the good jobs are obviously gone. I am patiently waiting for a copy of Alpaca Farming For Dummies to learn where to begin with that enterprise. Who knows, maybe I’ll have a Susan Boyle moment and discover that I have the vocal chords designed for an Inuit throat singer.

I read the Classifieds like a good Catholic does the Bible–but where does one apply to be a Paint Chip Colour Namer? I know exactly how my curriculm vitae would appear for that position. An 8.5′ by 11′ sheet of paper—not white. No, it would be cottage cheese, July clouds, Tom Sawyer fence, French manicure, goat’s milk…and I would put my name on the bottom and decorate the border with Wite-out correction fluid. I’ll be a shoo-in.

If the Paint Chip Colour Namer gig doesn’t pan out, I’m thinking a street cart on Granville selling toasted marshmallows on summer nights would appeal to the urban crowd. Or, if I could just get my foot in the door at Thomas Haas Fine Chocolates, then I could share with him my very best truffle ideas. Like a dark chocolate truffle with cotton candy inside. Or, a charred marshmallow with graham cracker bits, which could be marketed as a reconstructed S’mores.

Drinking pedestrian wine, god, is that Arbor Mist?

If my Toronto neighbour, Claire, wasn’t such a snooty oenophile, I may have looked into becoming a wine critic. You know, talking about the legs and nose of a wine, describing it like a lover. Raw, notes of leather, lingering finish, soft on the palate. But Claire, she destroyed me with her glares at my “pedestrian wine choices.” That is, until she was already drunk, sleepless and wanting more wine after her shift at the bar. Then my pedestrain wine choices were tops on her list.

I could go on, really. Surely a distance education course will become available so I can become a hot air balloon pilot from the comfort of my own home. Wanda still says no to my beekeeping interests due to the allergy=death thing. The bed and breakfast (which I’ve already decided will be called the Bread & Bekfast for simplicity reasons—try saying it 10 times, you’ll get what I mean) is promising. And the Dog-Eared Bookstore? Well, I could just start selling off my heaving shelves.

 

Ngamba Island Chimp Sanctuary 10th Anniversary Cake–not made by me, but I could do that!

And then there’s cake decorating like the icing wizards on Ace of Cakes. I could do that! Or travelling on a camel across Ethiopia to Morocco delivering books to African kids like that woman did in the The Camel Bookmobile. Surely that’s a franchise!

For the time being I will continue with the hairy back industry. But I’m feeling the years of rubbing everyone the right way. What I know for sure is that I won’t be able to work at Tiffany’s helping customers with dainty necklace clasps. And making tiny little swans out of origami? Nope. All my fine motor movement will be gone after another decade of massaging. At that point I will be found cracking open jars and bottles much like hard-boiled eggs on countertops to get at the pickles or wine inside.

Any further ideas are always appreciated. As you can see, I will consider anything, within reason of course.

Another option, getting into the lucrative Live Bait market