July 2006 Archives

It always feels like defeat, turning on the stupid energy waisting airconditioner. But this is one of these days. Otger is sleeping on the couch, in the cool living room. The A/C doesn't really reach upstairs. I showered continuously, and sketched with my feet in a bucket of ice water. I miss the Gaspé Peninsula already. Lovely fresh and cool up there. Sauf in the tent. I didn't pack very carefully for the camping trip, there wasn't time. And then on the first night we discovered our sleeping bags weren't clean. Piffin had used them ALL WINTER as extra blankets. And I love my daughter very much, but this was overdoing it. God, the stench. A real bummer, because I love the freshness of sleeping in a tent. Now off to the sticky bedroom.

The whales were very impressive. Michiel just missed the enormous tale of the blue whale -the little zodiac was bouncing on the waves- but we did see it. And we didn't only see whales during our zodiac safari, from the shore we saw them swim by daily. Everybody shouting "baleine, baleine!" Otger we think preferred the seals, they were everywhere. Curiously swimming around his kayak, or lurking on the mackerel fishers on the pier head. When one of them had a bite, the seal dove and caught the fish too. And the pulling match started, like a dog with an old sock. One of them had mercy, left the fisherman the mackerel head... And they really do speak French in Quebec, amazing. And very, very little English. I had a hard time understanding the Quebecois, so I often asked people to speak English. But then sometimes I had to ask them to switch back to French. Strange strange language. But quite beautiful after some getting used to. And they sell beer and wine in grocery stores in Quebec! And they sell decent bread! And dried cod is delicious! And I could tell so much more, but this is enough.

We're off. Almost. The car is almost packed. Shopping, shopping, shopping is done. Martin will come house sitting tomorrow, I could ask him to keep my blog going, but that is too much to ask I'm afraid. So I closed the comments. Too many spammers, sorry. Sleepy sleepy now, and we'll see where we'll end up tomorrow. Au revoir!

Nothing by me in the literature section this week, they did a holiday special. With seven great drawings by the unsurpassed Joost Swarte throughout. Images he did for a calendar* that will be in the bookstores in August. If Joost Swarte is right, we are in for disaster. Otger and I went to the library today, for his holiday supply. He asked how many books he can borrow maximum. Fifty. FIFTY! You can borrow FIFTY books from the Toronto Public Library, and you can keep them up to SIX weeks. Membership is free. And it gets better. We decided fifty books would be a bit much. So Otger took ten books and went to the check out. One of the books had no stickers, no stamps, no library identification of any sort. Unread and brand new. Where did we find it, the librarian asked. On the shelf, between the other books. She asked the other librarians what to do. And they decided "finders keepers", so Otger got the book and doesn't have to take it back. This is one fantastic library. And we have a fantastic bakery too, it turns out. I was late, only one bread left, and a tiny one. I took both and wanted to pay. The girl at the counter asked the baker how much is the tiny bread. The baker said he made it from some left over dough, and just put it between all the other bread in the shop, figuring some customer would ask how much is the tiny bread, and that he would then say it was free. So now, almost five o'clock, he could finally give away his tiny bread. Sweet! Anyway, where were we, Otger had his ten books to take to Quebec. And I had promised him one from the bookstore, where he also bought another two with his own money. So now he is taking thirteen books. I hope he will come out of his tent to eat and shower, and go to the bathroom... or he really will have his constipation.

* It is a strange Dutch tradition to put up "birthday calendars" in bathrooms. So while sitting on the toilet in your friends houses, you check their social status. The more birthdays on their calendar, the more popular they are.

Sold another print to the portrayed victim! And don't say I need a haircut, I just had one. And I can never deny Michele some fun with his blowdryer, so I look like the Italian version of me, which I am not showing. He put in some linseed oil from Italy, and I must admit, it smells delicious. I asked him where his flag was, it was on his car. Michele was very glad they're not playing Portugal in the finals, because that could have meant all Toronto Italians would have had to move to New Brunswick after. The soccer championship really is something special here, in our multicultural bubble. Toronto wins and looses every single game. Neighbour Heidi was sad the Germans lost. She and Daniel gave us a whole bag of vegetables from their garden yesterday, yummie. And a strange Vietnamese herb that grows rampant everywhere you look. I didn't know it was edible, it grows in our front yard too, tastes lovely and sharp. If you look very closely, you can see it in the picture. It's the purple stuff just underneath the African marigold on the right hand side. I saw an Asian man plucking it from front yards this morning, probably from people just as unaware of its edibility as I was until yesterday. I had that too, Chinese old ladies with plastic bags, coming into my front yard harvesting away. Strange manners, those people.

Close but no cigar. She needed 24 points to get her IB diploma, and she got 23, the stupid... A little more effort in any of her subjects and she would have passed, her teacher said. He called me. He promised to call her other teachers to see if they could find grounds for appeal, and would call me back if they would. He didn't. She's got her normal high school credits of course, no problem. But the IB would have gotten her in any university where ever. Holland for example, she was thinking about studying in Holland. Our sweet little eternal relative underachiever. Grmph. Anyway, my work is done. I think I passed my holiday exams. I rented a car today, nothing can stop us now. Shall we go watch the world cup finals in Montreal?

The last mile. Have to finish one more drawing tomorrow, and then... holidays! I hope it'll all work out. We'll rent-a-wreck and we plan on making some serious kilometers in this enormous country. Can't wait. But first that longest mile. Finish the drawing, clear the mess in the house, pack, buy all those last mile necessities, and all of that in this sticky heat. But we're not crazy, we haven't set a date yet. We'll just leave as soon as we're ready.

Not feeling too well. Hot & sticky, I feel shaky and dizzy and almost sick. Thank god no headache. Despite all that, I can give you a tip. Canadian music on Dutch radio. Hours and hours and hours of Joni Mitchell. Just click her name (in black, right hand side of the page) and enjoy.

I wanted to upload this image yesterday, but I had no inspiration at all for writing some lines to go with it. Nothing happened yesterday. I thought. Until I was about to turn off the computer. And Michiel had already gone upstairs. An enormous racket upstairs. And then nothing. So at first, I thought little of it. But after some silent minutes I went upstairs to see what had happened, and found Michiel flat on the floor of the dark landing. We had taken out a floor board earlier in the day to learn some more about the intestines of our old house, and forgot to put it back. Taxi, emergency, I thought. But Michiel was more or less alright after some cold water. A scrape, and a blue nail. I couldn't help making a little fun of my poor husband. It could have been his third broken foot since I know him. The first when a concrete sculpture fell on his foot in an art gallery. The second when he came down the stairs on his socks in our house in Belgium. In the middle of the night. Slipped and caught his toe on a baluster. I joked he might be suffering from bone fragility syndrome. We had heard about that in a tv quiz we watched. It was that kind of day. To watch quizzes. Come to think of it, it's starting to look suspicious. When he needed stitches in his lip some weeks ago, neighbour Kathryn took him to the women's clinic emergency, where they mainly treat domestic violence...