For everyone with a teenager, or who had one in the house once ... this is very funny.
Friday, August 12, 2016
Thursday, August 11, 2016
Bach on the mountaintop
After that nice note the other day about my first book, "Back Page Stories," I came across a copy of my second book,
"Yours Truly - a book of the blog," a compilation of my first year of
blog posts, including my five month stay in France. My mother kept her copy by
her bedside and told me it was the best book she'd ever read, though since she
was not a great reader, and she was also my mother, that's perhaps not the
review to put on the cover.
Inside,
I found this entry from Friday Feb.
22 2008. This was before I started to go to Macca concerts. I was 57.
Not a rocking chair
My beloved Paul McCartney was
on the British Music Awards last night, getting an award and then playing a few
songs. He was wearing tight black pants, a mod little jacket and Beatle
boots, he and his band rocked and screamed and crooned, and I thought, “My God,
this man is nearly 66 years old!” He’s the age when people retire and settle
into their lazy boy chairs with the remote, join the shuffleboard team, buy the
skirts and pants with the stretchy waistbands and the comfy shoes and let it
all sag out. Not the Paul machine. There’s something absurd and fantastic about
the fact that so many boomer heroes – Eric Clapton, the Stones, the Who – just
keep going.
Paul’s voice was rough last
night, but his hair was a lustrous brown, and he jumped around looking pretty
damn great. I’m proud of the way we are redefining middle age. I can see us all
in groovy old folks communes, with state of the art sound and movie systems and
hookahs built into our Mag-wheeled, graffiti-splattered wheelchairs.
Rock on, Grandpa Paul.
Well, that’s not the image of a 66-year old - or of a grandparent - I have
today, that’s for sure!
https://aeon.co/videos/a-bach-cello-piece-played-atop-a-mountain-is-as-exhilarating-as-you-d-expect
Wednesday, August 10, 2016
home in the heat with giant cucumber
It's so hot out there as to be painful - 33 degrees feeling like 39, unbreathable. On Friday it says it'll feel like 41. How terrible for those who have nowhere to escape to. I've been looking up movie times, just to get into the cool, and I have A.C.! And yet - the upside of the heat is that my tomato crop is phenomenal and my latest cucumber the biggest I've ever seen - 19 inches long and thick. Yes, I measured my cucumber. I'm going to make gazpacho.
So glad to be home, as always, but I loved visiting my American family in upstate New York and my British and Canadian family in Ottawa. I'm especially proud of my accomplishment in Ottawa. Aunt Do is a very stubborn 96-year old, and yet I managed to get us to Ikea, to choose curtains, to get the right equipment and find someone to hang them and get them up before I left. It was a miracle. Today she is happy to have shelter from the sun pouring in her windows, though, she says, she also misses her sheer curtains. Next time we'll have to go back and find a second set, some new sheers to keep her happy. But that's next time.
Below: last walk in Britannia Park.
Discovered a fabulous vintage store nearby - Antique Hoarders on Howe St. Full of great stuff, including the Librarian Action Figure. Did not buy her, but was tempted.
Do in the Fiat
and with her dear friend Una, after our lunch out on Monday.
Trip home perfect - the thunderstorms predicted did not materialize. My son who'd kept the garden alive was in residence, commandeering sofa, TV and fridge, as always. He'll be back to keep watch over house and garden while I'm away next week, at a rented cottage with Anna and the kids. And that's it for summer travel. That will almost be it for summer 2016. Somewhere out there, athletes are straining. In here, all that matters is that the rosé is chilling.
A very nice woman just sent me this note, below. How welcome it is when people write to writers. Thank you! Fred was one of my favourite students a long time ago, and BPS my first book, a compilation of Globe and CBC essays, designed by my friend Chris and published by Kinko's. I found an old copy recently too and confess I re-read with pleasure. Some of them are not bad. (A few are reprinted on this blog, under Articles.)
So glad to be home, as always, but I loved visiting my American family in upstate New York and my British and Canadian family in Ottawa. I'm especially proud of my accomplishment in Ottawa. Aunt Do is a very stubborn 96-year old, and yet I managed to get us to Ikea, to choose curtains, to get the right equipment and find someone to hang them and get them up before I left. It was a miracle. Today she is happy to have shelter from the sun pouring in her windows, though, she says, she also misses her sheer curtains. Next time we'll have to go back and find a second set, some new sheers to keep her happy. But that's next time.
Below: last walk in Britannia Park.
Trip home perfect - the thunderstorms predicted did not materialize. My son who'd kept the garden alive was in residence, commandeering sofa, TV and fridge, as always. He'll be back to keep watch over house and garden while I'm away next week, at a rented cottage with Anna and the kids. And that's it for summer travel. That will almost be it for summer 2016. Somewhere out there, athletes are straining. In here, all that matters is that the rosé is chilling.
A very nice woman just sent me this note, below. How welcome it is when people write to writers. Thank you! Fred was one of my favourite students a long time ago, and BPS my first book, a compilation of Globe and CBC essays, designed by my friend Chris and published by Kinko's. I found an old copy recently too and confess I re-read with pleasure. Some of them are not bad. (A few are reprinted on this blog, under Articles.)
I have been purging and sorting for the past couple of days and came across Back Page Stories. My friends Fred Reynolds and Angie Hains gave it to me for my 50thbirthday.
It is as fresh and entertaining to read it as it was back in 2000 – thank you once again!
And now that I have signed up for your blog, I can get my Beth-fix on a regular basis!
Monday, August 8, 2016
Ludwig forever
Thanks so much to my helpful friends who've been writing to suggest composers of violin concertos - Bruce thought it might be Mendelssohn or Haydn, Chris suggested Sibelius. Nyet. I also tried Brahms and Schubert and others, and then I said, It has GOT to be Beethoven. It was just richly Beethoveny in tone plus it kept building to a crescendo and then not ending, as Beethoven does. So I Googled his violin concerto again - the version I tried before was very slow, just wrong, and I didn't listen to enough. But with another version - we have a winner. It was indeed the Beethoven Violin Concerto in D Major, and a glorious thing it is too. I'm listening to it again now.
So that was Dad and his violin keeping me company. Yesterday I went to the communal garden at the base of Mum's apartment building to check out her patch - she had a beautiful bit she tended with lavender, rudbeckia, phlox and daisies, very Mum. Her patch was lovely still, and a bird was singing in a tree right there, a cascade of liquid notes. So I felt my mother there too. It was an emotional day.
Dinner with the Scrabble ladies; my elderly aunt came second in Scrabble, beating a woman decades younger. She is a force of nature. When I took her home, she complained yet again, as she has for a year, that her blinds are broken and she doesn't know where to get them replaced - to keep heat out in summer and in in winter. At 3 a.m. I awoke. Ikea, I said to myself. Ikea curtains. Just the thing.
This morning I managed to get her away from the Olympics to Ikea where we actually figured out dimensions and chose curtains and marched through sixteen miles of other stuff to get out of there. At home I made a bunch of phone calls and we found a handyman to come tomorrow to put them up. Let's hope they work, or else I will be to blame, and I will never hear the end of it.
We went out for lunch with my brother and his nine-year old son, and I spent the afternoon showing Do a year's worth of photos on my computer. Managed to secretly throw out some of the food rotting in her fridge. And then after dinner, I left her poring over the curtain instructions. Ikea instructions! Nothing I'd rather less read.
Once again, all I can say is - I hope I have my Auntie Do's genes.
Went for a long walk through the park by the river. Britannia Park in the summer is a microcosm of Canada. As I walked, I heard every language except English. It's a marvellous place.
Finally - a bit of truth - why I'm happily single.
So that was Dad and his violin keeping me company. Yesterday I went to the communal garden at the base of Mum's apartment building to check out her patch - she had a beautiful bit she tended with lavender, rudbeckia, phlox and daisies, very Mum. Her patch was lovely still, and a bird was singing in a tree right there, a cascade of liquid notes. So I felt my mother there too. It was an emotional day.
Dinner with the Scrabble ladies; my elderly aunt came second in Scrabble, beating a woman decades younger. She is a force of nature. When I took her home, she complained yet again, as she has for a year, that her blinds are broken and she doesn't know where to get them replaced - to keep heat out in summer and in in winter. At 3 a.m. I awoke. Ikea, I said to myself. Ikea curtains. Just the thing.
This morning I managed to get her away from the Olympics to Ikea where we actually figured out dimensions and chose curtains and marched through sixteen miles of other stuff to get out of there. At home I made a bunch of phone calls and we found a handyman to come tomorrow to put them up. Let's hope they work, or else I will be to blame, and I will never hear the end of it.
We went out for lunch with my brother and his nine-year old son, and I spent the afternoon showing Do a year's worth of photos on my computer. Managed to secretly throw out some of the food rotting in her fridge. And then after dinner, I left her poring over the curtain instructions. Ikea instructions! Nothing I'd rather less read.
Went for a long walk through the park by the river. Britannia Park in the summer is a microcosm of Canada. As I walked, I heard every language except English. It's a marvellous place.
Finally - a bit of truth - why I'm happily single.
Sunday, August 7, 2016
Beethoven pipes me in
This morning, tootling along the 416, the gleaming highway to Ottawa, in my cherry-red Fiat, the sky extraordinary, powder blue with great puffs of cumulus, stunning, the weather stunning, the family visit behind me wonderful. I turned on the radio and it was a violin concerto, at first I thought it had the sweetness and nimbleness of late Mozart but then it turned muscular, so I guessed it was Beethoven - unfortunately they didn't say afterwards what it was or who was playing, but it was so beautiful, and - you know me - I wept. I wept because I had spent two days with my dad's family, Ted yesterday telling me how he'd looked up to his older cousin Gordin, how his father Leo and he too loved Mike, my grandfather, Leo's older brother who put him through law school. We were celebrating a family legacy, and it meant the world.
I wept because I showed Ted the picture Anna had just sent me of Eli, and Ted exclaimed, "He looks just like your dad!" I had seen that myself, but to have someone who's never met Eli see it so clearly meant the world.
And I wept because it was the most beautiful day of the year and because New York is nearly empty now, it used to be full of Kaplans and now almost none are left, and because one day I too will not be around to celebrate days like these, music like this blasting out of my cherry red speakers. My Dad played the violin, so right then, he was with me.
I pulled over when the music ended and sang a few bars into my phone so I can find out later what it was. (Just Googled - Beethoven only wrote one violin concerto and it's not the one. Mystery.)
I arrived in Ottawa, went to my airbnb place and for a blessed walk in Britannia park - I seem to have done nothing but eat, drink and sit for days, am expanding exponentially - and marvelled at the para-sailers - is that what they're called? People skimming over the lake at high speed pulled by sails.
The dots are sails; there were at least ten of them. Check out that perfect sky.
Then headed downtown to meet someone I didn't know. Just before my mother died, a man got in touch with her whose hobby was doing research into Bletchley Park and those who had worked there. Did she know, as someone who worked there during the war, she was eligible for a medallion from the British government? So he ended up coming to meet her and sending her particulars to England, and she received her medallion. I have it now.
He and I had lunch together. I cannot use his name because he works for the Communications Security Establishment - CSE - and must keep his identity secret. But we had a great talk about Mum and what he learned about her work during the war. She told him a few stories she didn't tell me. So again, we were celebrating a family legacy, this time on Mum's side. And also, I was celebrating him, this man who made sure that deserving people got recognition. He told me about a very important civil servant in Ottawa, a Brit who worked at Bletchley during the war, side by side with Alan Turing, and when he received his medallion in a ceremony, said he'd been ashamed all his life of not being in combat like his friends; this was the first time he realized just how important his war work had been.
LOVE that.
Now I am going to have dinner with the Scrabble ladies - Auntie Do's team. She has been playing all afternoon and I was not invited, but am to join them for dinner. I have bought a bottle of wine to help me through.
The wedding was very moving - Debby at 65, marrying for the first time; Dan, whom she first met as a teenager, not long divorced with his three grown sons in attendance. What a story. Debby owns an apartment in the Marais in Paris and a country house too, none with heat and both with her hoarder's stash of stuff and her many cats being looked after by friends. She is moving to Dan's house in upstate New York. A big job ahead in France. Dan is up for it.
Debby being walked down the aisle by cousin Ted on the far side and his husband Henry on this side
After the ceremony - Dan and Debby. May they have many years of happiness. There are good omens - it was supposed to rain that afternoon but was gorgeous during the ceremony, as you can see. When we were inside stuffing ourselves with a huge wedding banquet, it poured. By the time the meal was over, it was lovely out again.
I was very glad, though, to get back to Canada this morning. Upstate New York is a poor white area; there are lots of angry people supporting Trump. And lots of the biggest people I have ever seen. Perhaps these two things go hand in hand. In any case, I'm back where sanity reigns. For now.
I wept because I showed Ted the picture Anna had just sent me of Eli, and Ted exclaimed, "He looks just like your dad!" I had seen that myself, but to have someone who's never met Eli see it so clearly meant the world.
And I wept because it was the most beautiful day of the year and because New York is nearly empty now, it used to be full of Kaplans and now almost none are left, and because one day I too will not be around to celebrate days like these, music like this blasting out of my cherry red speakers. My Dad played the violin, so right then, he was with me.
I pulled over when the music ended and sang a few bars into my phone so I can find out later what it was. (Just Googled - Beethoven only wrote one violin concerto and it's not the one. Mystery.)
I arrived in Ottawa, went to my airbnb place and for a blessed walk in Britannia park - I seem to have done nothing but eat, drink and sit for days, am expanding exponentially - and marvelled at the para-sailers - is that what they're called? People skimming over the lake at high speed pulled by sails.
Then headed downtown to meet someone I didn't know. Just before my mother died, a man got in touch with her whose hobby was doing research into Bletchley Park and those who had worked there. Did she know, as someone who worked there during the war, she was eligible for a medallion from the British government? So he ended up coming to meet her and sending her particulars to England, and she received her medallion. I have it now.
He and I had lunch together. I cannot use his name because he works for the Communications Security Establishment - CSE - and must keep his identity secret. But we had a great talk about Mum and what he learned about her work during the war. She told him a few stories she didn't tell me. So again, we were celebrating a family legacy, this time on Mum's side. And also, I was celebrating him, this man who made sure that deserving people got recognition. He told me about a very important civil servant in Ottawa, a Brit who worked at Bletchley during the war, side by side with Alan Turing, and when he received his medallion in a ceremony, said he'd been ashamed all his life of not being in combat like his friends; this was the first time he realized just how important his war work had been.
LOVE that.
Now I am going to have dinner with the Scrabble ladies - Auntie Do's team. She has been playing all afternoon and I was not invited, but am to join them for dinner. I have bought a bottle of wine to help me through.
The wedding was very moving - Debby at 65, marrying for the first time; Dan, whom she first met as a teenager, not long divorced with his three grown sons in attendance. What a story. Debby owns an apartment in the Marais in Paris and a country house too, none with heat and both with her hoarder's stash of stuff and her many cats being looked after by friends. She is moving to Dan's house in upstate New York. A big job ahead in France. Dan is up for it.
I was very glad, though, to get back to Canada this morning. Upstate New York is a poor white area; there are lots of angry people supporting Trump. And lots of the biggest people I have ever seen. Perhaps these two things go hand in hand. In any case, I'm back where sanity reigns. For now.
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