Pillow Blog: Some Things I'll Miss About Tim's

Tim Horton's and Burger King might join forces. And though it's kind of like when Tim's and Wendy's did the same a few years ago, that doesn't stop it from being big news. For Canadian news, that is. The "man on the street" interviews seem mostly concerned with one thing: Would that mean Burger King takes over food operations at Tim's? Could extra large sodas and salty fries replace our double doubles and sugary donuts? Eh, probably not. Tim Horton's has its finger on the sluggish, cholesterol-choked pulse of Canada's food tastes. Still, if the worst did happen, here's what I would miss about our national coffee chain:

• Bagel BELTs. But only when hungover. And with some sort of cheese-covered specialty bagel. God, you're gross, but also suddenly sober. 
• Sour Cream Glazed Doughnuts. Here's the secret about Tim Horton's. They may put the date on the coffee pot, but you don't really know how long the doughnuts have been there. I once saw pumpkin spice 'nuts for sale at a Tim's. In March. However, the sour cream glazed doughnut is a reliable choice. The dough is already moister thanks to the sour cream, and the glaze seals it from even the most punishing rest stop air. These are the things you learn on many family trips along Canada's highways! 
• Timbits at work. With nearly any other work treat, you're limited by shame and social graces to one piece. Not so with Timbits. As long as no one is looking, who's to say if you had one Timbit or six?
• Related: the work Tim's run. Social bonding at its finest.
• The Honey Crueller doughnut. If I'm feeling lucky, I pass over the reliable sour cream glazed for the treacherous, yet occasionally rewarding, territory of the crueller. What mysteries are contained in its many folds and crevices? What fairy magic renders its insides so spongy and delicious? Perhaps a second one will unlock its secrets. 
• Oh heck, the Iced Capp. But only once a summer, because it's the adult Slurpee. 

My Marvin Troubles

Marvin isn't taking the move in with Dan well. And, like all concerned parents, I wish I could outsource my parenting issues to picture books. Here's what I would buy Marvin:

... AND HE TURNED PRETTY WELL.

If he could read, that is. Marvin remains stubbornly illiterate, though not silent. Oh no, everything but that. He was vocal before (I named him after Gaye not Lee for a reason) but ever since the move he's been a non-stop howling machine. For a while, he would regularly howl between 4:30 and 4:40 in the morning, before his regular 6am hour of howling power. Then he would keep it going throughout the day, before finishing off with an evening recital of demonic yowls and then a well-deserved dinner. 

It made me cry. It frustrated Dan. It made me angry. And finally, it made me hopeless. 

We tried the calming collar ($20.) Then we took him to the vet for shots and a hormone spray (nearly $300). There were more toys and a collar so he could go outside ($18). The the hormone diffuser ($60) and another collar because he hid his first one, as well as more toys to keep him entertained ($18.) Finally, a scratch box and a squeaky squirrel ($19.) Now he's going for blood work on Saturday ($money I don't have.)

And still, he howls.  

We had to stop letting him outside because his favourite activity, according to several concerned neighbours, was to lounge in the middle of the road, letting cars come at him. My little death wish kitty.

On Friday, the noise was so bad that I held Marvin and cried. After nearly strangling him. I cried because I was frustrated and tired, because I wanted to seriously hurt an animal, and because I didn't know what else I could do, or at least afford. 

Marvin watched me cry before letting out a truly horrendous yowl. I looked at him, anime eyes and all, and realized that I wanted to do nothing more than something I thought I would never, ever consider: surrender an animal. 

Yes, I wanted to surrender this face.

I felt so guilty for considering it, but that didn't stop me from googling it. And of course I cried some more, for being the kind of person who would just give up. That guilt means Marvin is still here. Good for Marvin. But there's a bit of shame in knowing that I didn't want to do the right thing, so much that I didn't want to be the person who did the wrong one.

Cottage Reading

I've been meaning to write something to push the "O woe is me, I am so sad" post down to where it deserves to be. Below the fold! Away from here!

But work got in the way, which I suppose is a better reason for my silence than being overwhelmed by life in general. Some very kind friends got in touch after that post to see how I was doing. And while I didn't write it for that reason - I was angry, and tired of putting a cheerful face on a desperate situation, and wanted that feeling to go on the record somewhere - it was a pleasant side effect.

Other than that, the good ship SS. Protagitron putters on. I was reading The New Jim Crow, which was good, but as anger-inducing as a book about mass incarceration in the US (and on its way to a Canada near you!) needs to be. Then I had the chance to go to a cottage. The ideal cottage reading has at least three of the following five things: a dead body in its pages, embossed type on its cover, pink everywhere, sex scenes that aren't quite a hard X, and some historical aspect because come on, we're classy. The New Jim Crow has none of those things, though it is a very worthy book, so I left it behind.

Why I thought finally finishing Kamouraska was the right choice though, I'll never know. Let's relax with a fractured, jumpy, poetic narrative about a love triangle in 19th century Quebec! WHAT FUN! Bodices were almost ripped, but it turned out I was pinning all my hopes for cottage diversion on what felt like four sex scenes, three mentions of pus, and a lot of sleighs dashing through snow. It's a beautiful book, but the last thing you want to feel in an Ontario summer is the bitter cold of rural Quebec and/or a stifling marriage.

Of course, I also spent my time at the cottage hauling old shingles, so maybe my reading material was appropriate.

I can't wait for my next trip to the cottage, when I can finally unwind, pour myself a beer, and really lose myself in the diverting decadence and sparkling wit of, uh, Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano? Oh crap, I am not doing this right.

Dispatches from Blue Valley

I've been struggling to write a few posts for the last few days. First, I wanted to write about detective shows, and violence, and how my Mom's fearful reaction to them both - she had just been for a visit and insisted on securing all windows and doors - affects me. But I couldn't.

Because I am depressed as fuck.

And then I struggled with writing about that too. Writing about all of that, the Big D, makes me angry. It's like the bitterness has become cystic, and writing slices it open. It might be cathartic, but the result is unpleasant. I also have a policy, a mostly reliable one, of not posting anything written through tears. The emotional tone is so embarassing the morning after, and there are so many typos that need to be fixed, that it's not worth the bother.

So I looked at the half-finished but already overwrought post, and deleted everything until the "fuck." There it is. I am depressed now, but I also know, as the benefit of so many trips to the emotional valley, that I won't be sometime soon.

Better luck tomorrow.

Pillow Blog: Sounds that Remind Me of Montreal

• Fireworks that I can't see
• Taxi wheels at 4am
• Drunken men yelling
• The metro announcer's pronunciation of "McGill"
• TamTam drums

Alone Again (Naturally, Fortnightly)

Dan has left for a two week trip to Europe, which means I have our new apartment all to myself. 

So check Craig'sList while I try to unload Dan's vinyl collection in his absence for some sweet deals. I'll give all the Zeppelin away for free!

Oh, I couldn't be that cruel. Though I am scared enough of the record player that Dan will return to a two-inch layer of dust on the cover - I just look at vinyl, and it scratches. 

Instead, I'm enjoying life spread-eagled on the bed, with Marvin (the Demon Cat) making a shockingly quiet foot warmer. It's time to Netflix in bed and think about cohabitation. I'm kind of scared that Dan and I won't make it to six months, that we'll have to break the lease, find a sublet, chainsaw our Ikea Kallax shelf in two for equality's sake. I know that's the risk anyone takes moving in with another person, even in a strictly platonic context. Things might not work out. Familiarity will breed contempt, and the kind of resentment that leaves one counting toilet paper purchases and floors mopped for signs of inequity.

There might be hope though. I'm happy for the extra bed real estate, but I already miss Dan. I can't wait for him to fly home and sprawl out, which makes me think we can make it. 

If not forever, then at least until our lease goes month to month. 

Domestic Thursday: A Baby Hat and Beer

Knitting for babies is great - small garments take less time to make. Knitting for babies is terrible - there's a non-negotiable deadline, since the babies insist on eventually being born. 

Here's my recent experience with the paradox. With two people pregnant at work, I had bought enough yarn to make two matching baby hats, and even cast on for one, before ignoring the whole enterprise to move. 

Then, suddenly, it was Friday, the last day of work for one co-worker. And I had maybe an inch of their future kid's hat finished. Well, that's no problem that a looooong working lunch can't solve, at least if I can fuel myself with a massive burger. Here's how the hat looked when my burger arrived:

And here's how it looked about an hour later. 

I handed it off just as my co-worker was heading out the door, and felt like Indiana Jones sliding out out of the temple just before the gate slams shut on the booby-trapped boulder. The pattern is the Golden Pear Hat by Melissa Thomson, in three shades of Cascade 220 Superwash. Here's hoping it still fits when winter rolls around. 

The liquid fuel? Left Field Brewery's Sunlight Park Saison. A great, tasty well-rounded beer. Drink it watching a baseball game, or while knitting a baby hat, though I think the second actually moves faster.

The Caviar Fridge

Greetings from beautiful, overwhelming Forest Hill. 

Where the local grocery store has a tiny caviar fridge for all of your fresh caviar needs. 

And my caviar needs are great. 

Anyway, sorry for the lack of posting. Moving took up most of my time of course. There was also some professional disappointment mixed in there too, so as irritating as moving is, creating order out of chaos, packing box after box, had a therapeutic effect.

Of course, eventually the last box is broken down and the last piece of Ikea furniture (shakily) assembled. At that point I had to make some kind of accounting of myself, and my future in my current industry. And so the answers I arrived at were: "B for effort", "outlook poor", and (to an unasked question) "Why yes, it's time to open another beer."

Which means one thing... tomorrow Domestic (Beer) Thursday returns!

The Ballot of Protagitron

Dateline: Ontario. Election Day 2014.

First: Get a shovel.

Yes, I voted. No, I was not enthused with any of the parties. Not to the point of spoiling my ballot to make a statement, but to the point where I kept on letting out long wistful sighs while waiting for the polling station to open. 

Then an older man ahead of me turned around, and said to his wife:

"Look at how long the line is! So many good people out here."

Without any irony at all. 

Yeah, I expect my medal in the mail, good sir. In fact, I was such a "good" citizen that the line I was in WASN'T EVEN FOR MY POLLING STATION. I hadn't bothered to read my registration card closely enough, wandered into the first place I saw on St. Clair with orange arrows, and tried to vote there. The man in charge sent me to the correct place, probably thinking I was another silly person about to vote for the cutest candidate. 

Ha! Wrong. I was actually going to vote for the person with the best-sounding name. 

Well, really, I had forced myself to sit down with my laptop last week and research who the best MPP would be for my riding. But getting back to the voting thing - I do think it's important to vote. But it dominates the discourse of political action (and newsfeeds on social media), when it's only a fraction of what it means to be truly engaged. Compared to the constant, daily work of effecting change, taking a few minutes to mark up a ballot isn't a huge accomplishment. There are many other days of work to do. The next day you have to hold the people with the most ballots accountable, and sometimes you're forced to accomplish what your representatives are too cowardly, too hamstrung, or just too tired to do yourself. 

So let's tone down the self-congratulation. Put the back patting on pause. It's also worth looking at who's not with you in that line, and why. That's a good place to start the rest of your work. And maybe next time, more "good" people might be able to join you.

Ontario Cider Week Recap

 

I used to be a cider drinker. I hadn't quite developed my taste for beer, and I didn't get wine, so cider seemed like a fraught-free thing to order. Then I discovered the Snake Bite/Black Velvet (terminology dependent on bar), a deadly combination of stout and cider.

And I'm so very sorry, beer purists. But it's good.

It was also probably the grease on the slope I slipped down into becoming a craft beer drinker. The Guinness lead to other macrobrews, then to similar styles from local breweries, and eventually to me drinking specialty one-off casks brewed with three different adjuncts and twice as many hops. Along the way, cider was left behind.

But only by me. While I was busy with beer, others in Ontario were doing interesting things with cider. In an echo of the craft beer movement they were perfecting the standard pub cider, while also expanding the boundaries of what a cider could be. The options are no longer limited to Strongbow (except on the shelves of most LCBOs) - West Avenue, Brickworks, Puddicombe, Spirit Tree and more are all doing wonderful things to apples, including mixing them in with raisins, cherries, and ginger, and seeing what settles out.

And what settles out is mostly good. I finally reunited with cider last week, after discovering Ontario Cider Week. At the All-Day All-Ontario Cider event at Bar Volo, in fact, I reunited with exactly seven of ciders. The West Ave Crab and Cherry and their Ginger Rhubarb were my favourites, the Crab deliciously tart, and the ginger pleasantly spicy. This was enough cider to dampen my existential life crisis to a dull roar. On the patio, in the sun, chatting with people I would probably never, ever see again, life seemed okay. And cider? It was better than okay.