Cultures Shock

I was kind of excited, during my trip to the Burlington Mall (the one in Ontario) for Moonlight Madness, to discover that there was a Cultures in the food court. So I sidled up and asked what was in the boccinicini panini (it looked very exotic). She said "Normally, there's boccinicini cheese and sundried tomatoes...but we're all out."
I said, "of sundried tomatoes?"
She said, "of boccinicini paninis."
I said, "Oh. Then can I have a turkey brie panini?"
And she made me one.
And she gave it to me along with my two salads and my bevvy.
I paid debit and got charged an extra 10 cent fee which she hadn't informed me about when I asked if they took debit. That pissed me off.
Then I got to my seat and took a few bites and got the distinct feeling that there was no brie on my turkey brie panini.
Not to seem too picky, but I dug through both halves and SWORE there was no brie.
I felt kind of like a stingy prude, but I went back to the counter and in my most embarrassed voice said, "Um. I don't think there's any brie on this."
And he didn't even look surprised.
He looked mostly bothered that I'd noticed.
He called to the lady, "Are we out of brie?"
And said said they were.
And he said, "We're out of brie. We just got the menu today."
And I said, "Um. Why wasn't I told when I was ordering that there wasn't any brie."
And he shrugged and said, "Would you like swiss or cheddar instead?"
Instead of asking for a discount, as I'd planned, I thought that might be not too bad either, so I said okay.
I watched him put on gloves and I sat down to wait.
He had my plate ready far too fast. Too fast to have actually warmed some cheese into the panini.
And I took it from him and looked down and realized that he had actually just plopped two halves of a cheese slice on it.

I ate it anyway. And it was exactly like you would expect a turkey panini with cold cheese slices to taste like. But the mango salad was divine.

Reasons to buy Skinless Chicken

I have a big purple bruise on the knuckle of the ring finger of my left hand. I’m lucky it’s not the size of a tennis ball. I’m lucky it’s not broken. I’m lucky I can still move it, actually. For a few agonizing seconds, I was not so sure.

Here is what happened. I was reading Delia’s lovely husband’s blog about making curry chicken soup in the morning. And I decided that that would be fun. (By the way, my soup wasn’t so delicious). So I scribbled down the ingredients and tried to burn to memory the instructions and I went grocery shopping. He had specifically instructed to buy two dollar chicken. The kind with the bones and the skin. He said to skim off the fat. I was excited to buy cheap chicken. I am normally not encouraged by my husband to buy bone-in skin-on stuff, even though the cheap side of me claims that it has more flavour. Today, I did just that. I did splurge and spend three dollars on it.

When it came to the night to make the soup, I rinsed off the chicken and decided I’d have to skim a whole lot less fat if I just removed the chicken skin before cooking it. So I was perched in front of the kitchen sinks (which were loaded with dirty dishes – including hard-rimmed cups) peeling back skin which was kind of stubbornly sticking to the bones and trying not to think about the fact that my hands were going numb with the cold from the still-partly-frozen bird pieces. In retrospect, if they hadn’t been a bit numb, I think I would have screamed.

My left hand slipped from the bird leg as the skin finally gave and I estimate it was going about 189 km/h when it hit the rim of a plastic (thank GOD!) cup in the sink about two feet from the meat. Full force of trauma was placed on one knuckle and I think I swallowed my tongue. I may have half expected to see no finger there at all because my entire hand went numb and my thumb began to tingle.
I took my rings off and put them on the other hand and so I was a bit disappointed that the swelling was not proportional to the pain. Nor was the bruising to be honest. What’s the point of dreadfully injuring oneself with no one around if you’re not going to have the showcase of scars to back up your story?

Mo of the Learn to Run Club

In looking back at my blogs, I am trying to figure out what pseudo-name I gave little Mo of the Learn to Run Club in its earliest stages. I can’t seem to find the blog and I’m wondering if I decided not to write the earlier blog for fear it would seem insensitive (that never stopped me before).

Anyway, today’s events really made me giggle and I only hope I can aptly paint the picture.

Mo is a chunky little grade 7 boy. He and Jen had a conversation during one of the first Learn to Run Club runs (now I KNOW I wrote about this) in which he complained that he didn’t even like to walk quickly, let alone run, because his heart rate went up and that was uncomfortable.

This little dude persisted for a few weeks and plodded along next to me. Despite his seeming lack of motivation to run on his own time, he was determined to make me “run” the full prescribed distance of the day with him regardless of how long it took or how much I was afraid he might hyperventilate and die next to me. We would run for the distance between two driveways and walk for a block then run for the distance between two Conservative Party lawn signs then walk for another block. During this time he taught me all about Ramadan and going on pilgrimages and this holy place where all your prayers will be answered immediately.

But then the distances got longer and little Mo just didn’t show any more. Truthfully, we were a bit relieved – partly afraid of the liability and partly afraid of having to spend more than two hours doing 5k.

This week marks the end of the Learn to Run Club for the season. We’ve got our goal race this coming Saturday. I had some information for those who had registered, so I posted an announcement going out to all those Learn to Run Club members who are registered in the Santa Shuffle for this Saturday. I asked them to meet me at the beginning of lunch.

So I was walking in the hall on the way back from lunch when who should I run into in the hall but Mo! And he looked at me and hurriedly says, “I forgot to come to the meeting!”

I looked at him and said, “Pardon?”

“I forgot to the come to the Learn to Run Club meeting at lunch!” he said.

I said, “Mo! You forgot to come to the Learn to Run Club for the past two months.”

And do you know what he said to me? He said, “Well. It got cold.”

I couldn’t help but grin.
And then I added, “And you didn’t let me know that you were interested in doing the Santa Shuffle this Saturday. You’re not registered, Mo.”

And he said (as if to convince me of his conviction), “I’ll come out the Learn to Run Club on Thursday!”

“Mo. There is no Learn to Run Club on Thursday. I have parent-teacher interviews." (You crazy, crazy little boy! Do you really think running once is going to prepare you for a distance that could very well make your body seize into one giant pretzel?)

He looked at me with puzzlement.

“Why don’t you try again in the spring, big guy.”

Actually, I didn’t say the words “big guy”. I only thought them.
I also thought, now there is one little man with very little self-awareness.

Burlington Mall

I decided that yesterday evening was as good a time as any to begin my Christmas shopping. My friend Alison was willing to drive out to Burlington so we could attack the nearby Burlington Mall. I wanted to be sure it would be worth the drive, so I went onto Google and looked up the Burlington Mall and checked the hours. To my surprise, it was open to 10pm every night of the week except Sunday. Wow, I thought.

So when Alison phoned to say she was running a bit late, I figured it didn’t really matter much. She rolled up my street around 8:30 and we headed over to the mall. I remember commenting on how surprised I was that there were so many good parking spots. We walked through the mall and plotted about the stores we would go into, just as soon as we had emptied our bladders. After the Washroom stop, we got in line at Tim Horton’s in the Food Court in order to power our bodies with a caffeine jolt.

While we were in line, we had the following conversation.
“What’s Black Friday?” I asked.
Alison explained that it had something to do with sales.
I mentioned that apparently this week at the Burlington mall the stores were opening at 6am instead of 9am because it was Black Friday Week. Alison thought that was strange because Black Friday is a shopping tradition associated with American Thanksgiving.
“I guess they’re copying the States” she figured.

Finally ready, with tea and muffins in hand, feeling relieved and revived, we turned from the Food Court to the main stores only to see the wave of sliding metal cage-doors sliding across their entrances. I was dumb-founded.

“Is Old Navy closed?” I asked.

“I think they’re all closing,” Alison observed.

“But the website said they were open until 10pm….”

Then I think it all came together for Alison and I at the same time. While it was occurring to me that there might be a second Burlington Mall somewhere in the developed world, she might have said half of “There’s a Burlington in Vermont” before she broke out laughing so hard she choked on her muffin.

We went to Chapters. Good, reliable Chapters. Open late every night. And we didn’t get our shopping done, but she did seem to think it was worth the drive just to see me make such a funny mistake.

Epilogue:
Upon revisiting the site, I realized that a few things should have tipped me off:

1. When I typed “Burlington Mall” into google, the first site to came up mentioned Ontario, but I apparently skipped over that to the second site.
2. The address said Burlington MA (which is apparently Massachusetts).
3. If one was to click on the Map link, they’d see the Burlington Mall isn’t too far from Boston.

Humble Me

My sister visited for a few days just recently. I love it when she visits. Instantly, wherever I am feels like home. Mark and I named the guest room “The Maryann Room” because she was the first one to use it.

And being around Mary reminds me of who I am and also how I used to act in the dynamic of our Loftus household. Enlightened with those memories and reminders, I appreciate Mark much more. I see myself through Maryann’s actions and comments more accurately as I am than through my own eyes. And I’m reminded that not only was I not an easy older sister to live with, I’m probably not always an easy wife to live with either. My idiosyncracies seem perfectly justifiable when it’s my way versus his, yet when my sister (someone who has loved me for so long and whom I’ve loved for so long that she can be fairly honest with me) makes a comment like “Yeah, it IS ridiculously cold in your house!” or “You are being kind of stubborn, Melissa” or “Nope, that’s NOT a realistic expectation”, I suddenly see myself for who I am. It’s easy when having a disagreement with Mark to think, well, he just doesn’t understand how I grew up and what I’m used to. But when Mary, who grew up in the same situation as me, surrounded by the same influencing factors as me, says or implies that I’m being kind of irrational or bossy or controlling (actually, she rarely says things this bluntly, she has a very gentle way of showing me these things about myself), it seems more real. Poor Mark can tell me something fifteen times and I won’t believe him, but if Mary says it once, it must be so. He must get so frustrated.

And I wasn’t always a very good big sister, but I usually convince myself I’ve come a long way. I actually do laundry on my own now, and I don’t pretend to be bad at folding it so someone else will do it for me. But I still don’t do a lot of stuff ‘cause I dislike it. So next time Mark reminds me that he’s cleaning the toilet for the seventeenth time in a row, (or the shower or the sink for that matter), I should just remember my selfless sister and pick up a brush and get down to that dirty business.

For a little sister, she continues to teach me so much.

Saturday Morning Coffee

I decided to treat Mark to a coffee today. So I drove down the road to the local Tim Hortons to get him one. It was surprisingly full for 9 a.m. on a Saturday (or at least, it surprised me). And when I finally got to the counter, I handed the girl two loonies and received my change. I glanced down at my palm to count it and wondered if the gentleman who'd held the door for me on my way out knew I was counting the change. I wondered if that seemed too suspicious for Burlington. I got back into the car and wondered, as I started it up and backed out of the parking spot, whether I could run another errand before going home. I was well out of the parking lot when I was deciding that it kind of depended on the temperature of the coffee and whether it could hold its heat for a few more minutes.

That's when I glanced down at the cup holder and realized I hadn't actually taken the coffee.

I am a Porsche

This morning, believe it or not, neither my cell phone alarm clock nor Mark’s side-table alarm clock went off. And instead of waking up at 5:50 which is customary, we woke up at 6:45. The up-side, which I mentioned to Mark later, was that we got an extra hour of sleep. Secondly, I discovered I am a Porsche.

You see, a Porsche has been quoted to be capable of accelerating from zero to sixty miles per hour in 3.9 seconds. That’s fast. And apparently, I can do the same. You see, I knew something was amiss because it seemed lighter out than normal and my body was waking itself up and the alarm still hadn’t gone off. I also remembered hearing the neighbour’s truck leave (it usually leaves at 5:30) and that felt like a year ago. I fumbled for my glasses and squinted at the clock on Mark’s bed stand. Then I heard “SHIT”.

I am a Porsche because I felt no panic. I knew exactly what to do. I can streamline like nobody’s business and I felt myself glide into high gear effortlessly. I think I had my clothes on even before my eyes were fully open. I had the lunches packed before Mark had even gotten his feet to the floor. And it was kind of exhilarating. I then checked my e-mail, packed my school bag, found directions to the Conference I was attending, cleaned the cat litter, and shoved a pill down Frankie’s throat while the rest of the world was accelerating at a normal pace from their REM states.

I found myself saying “I think I was born to move this fast.” I am a finely tuned machine that operates best at certain RPMs. I needed to stretch my cylinders to find the optimal place. You see, I am a Porsche.

The Race

I put on my running shoes as soon as we got home from school today. I know that daylight is valuable and in short supply also these days, so I was keen to get a run in before dark.

I was trying out a new route which I call the “Spruce Route”. It’s pretty and quiet and residential. And I came upon a guy who was walking in the same direction as me on the same sidewalk as me. He was a gallumpy guy with slouchy pants – probably in highschool – with a backpack and one running shoe tied to it. He was loafing along as I began to approach him. Then suddenly, it seemed he was walking faster. I wondered if I was imagining things. I know I’m a slow runner, but I started to wonder how slow a pass it would be. Would it take me five minutes of being beside him before I could squeeze in front of him? Then I SWEAR he turned his head slightly to glance back and me and he began to trot.

I shuffled through leaves and he ran ahead of me. We were about six feet apart and I couldn’t catch up! We were obviously racing. It was ludicrous. He was just some teeny-bopper on his way home from practicing the electric guitar in his buddy’s basement, I’m sure. And now he was racing me! And I began to get a cramp.

Finally, we had to slow to cross at an intersection, and he must have given in because he fell into a walk again. I passed him. And I almost said, “THERE!” But I was concentrating on breathing through my stitch until I was out of eyesight and I could take a walk break.

Melissa Moment

Welcome to the daily Melissa Moment. A free chuckle at my expense due to my stupidity.

Carolyn and I were on a road trip. We were on our way back from visiting with her grandmother in Cambridge. So the conversation was a quick synopsis of her extended family and their relationships. Somewhere along the way, it came up that her Uncle Bob lives in Michigan. Interesting. I know Michigan is in the States. I am definitely not a geography pro, but I DO recognize that Michigan is part of the US.

Later, she mentions how funny it was that her brother, Stu, was at a mall in Detroit when he ran into none other than Uncle BOB!

And what do I say (trying to demonstrate that I’ve been listening and remembering important details), “That’s ESPECIALLY ironic because Uncle Bob lives in MICHIGAN…but he ran into Stu in Detroit!”

Carolyn doesn’t say anything.

So I add, “How far is it from Michigan to Detroit?”

“Um….Michigan is the State and Detroit a city in Michigan.”

“Oh.” ‘Cause there’s really no way to save face after that.
The only thing to do is blog about it so everyone can enjoy.

Today I actually found myself taking dishes OUT of the dishwasher (before it had run) and washing them by hand.

I am Alice

I am my mother. I could always see Alice-like tendencies in my sister and sometimes in myself too, but since moving into my house, I have grown an even deeper understanding for why my mother did the things she always did. I used to question these things, but now I understand.

For instance, I remember always liking to stand over the heat register in our house because it shot out hot air. I think our house was kept fairly cool. I think that is how we saved energy. I remember when our house was heated with electrical base-board heaters and each room had its own thermostat. My mom would come in and make sure the thermostat was around 17 degrees. My dad would then come in and say, "It's cool in here" and turn it up to 22 or so. And the cycle would continue.

Also, I always marvelled that our mother would never let us use the dishwasher. We had one there in the centre of the kitchen. We used it more as an island for counter space and food preparation more than we ever used it for its dish-washing abilities. My mother would let us use it on the rare evening that we had company. But on any regular day she'd say, "If I'm going to fill up the sink to wash the pots and pans, I might as well just do the dishes!" I knew she was saving energy. But I always figured, wouldn't it be lovely if we could actually USE the dishwasher!

Well, Mark and I just recently purchased our first home. We've now lived in it for 14 days. And since I learned how to program the thermostat, we walk around in sweaters and slippers, wrapped in blankets and occasionally vests because I am so adamant about keeping the temperature low enough to save energy. I'm not a total penny-pincher, we DO turn it up by three degrees when we have company. I don't know why it matters so much, but I have this overpowering urge to be thrifty about the heat! Genetic perhaps?

And I am so leery about this new dishwasher we have. I remember Mark was overjoyed at the prospect of owning one. And yet, while we ate dinner on our first night in our new house, he looked over at me kind of sadly and said, "I have a terrible feeling you aren't going to let me use that dishwasher." And I replied, "I won't lie to you. My instincts are telling me not to use it. But I will fight them.... I will." So I've resigned myself to running the dishwasher once every three or four days and doing cutting boards and pots and pans and tupperware by hand, but wouldn't you know it, I just figure that if I'm going to do a few dishes in the sink and put water in there anyway, I might as well just do the dishes myself.
Isn't that right, Mom?

Little J

Little J is a student in our Communications class. And he is a cute, chunky little red-head with a face full of freckles and a very slow articulation process. He understands and can maintain a conversation, it just takes a painfully long time for him to get his words out.

Today, during our daily physical activity of walking around the field, I fell into step with Little J. It was a colourful conversation that is noteworthy (especially because I’ve been receiving pressure to blog about SOMETHING despite my lack of interesting anecdotes).

So I noticed he was hugging himself in his little gray t-shirt (temperatures had to be nearly zero Celsius). So I said, “Little J, where’s your jacket?”

Long pause (this is standard with Little J) and then he said, “I came…I came…to school like this.”

And I said, “Didn’t your parents tell you to put on a jacket this morning?”

And he said, “When I go to school my dad is already not there…. And my stepmom is in her room.”

And I said, “Who makes you breakfast?”

And he said, “I DO!”

And I said, “What do you eat?”

And he said, “TOAST!”

And I said, “Who makes your lunch?”

And Little J said, “My dad.”

I said, “I hope you tell him thank you lots.”

And he said, “I tell him I love him lots.” At this point he is losing some drool down his chin and it is wetting his t-shirt. He has also turtled his arms into his shirt to keep warm. I half wonder if he is playing with his nipples.

I said, “Do you know where your jacket is at home?”

He said, “I know where more than one jacket is at home.”

So I said, “Can you turn on the tv and find the weather?”

And he said, “Channel 24”

I said, “Yeah. Breakfast television is good for weather.”

And Little J said, “I watch BT every morning.”

I said, “Tell you what. If the forecast says it’s going to be less than 15, put on a jacket.”

Customary pause. “If it’s 15 or less…put on a jacket.”

“That’s right, Little J.”

“If it’s 15 or less…put on a jacket,” he repeated to himself.

Then he muttered, “I’m a dang fool for not putting on a jacket.”

“Um….I’d say you just made a mistake, kiddo.”

“Dang fool,” he repeated.

We then had a conversation about how my name (Mme Peron) is similar to the principal’s name (Mrs. Perrin) and that strangely enough, we’re not related. He asked what the announcement I’d put on this morning was about. I explained that the Santa Shuffle was a race I was hoping to encourage kids to join in. He said he’d thought it was a dance because shuffle means to dance.

I asked what he would be doing this weekend and he said it was his cousin’s birthday and then he got a funny look on his face, veered to the right a few feet and threw up a little bit on the grass. When he returned to my side he declared that he would be alright, he just sometimes gets a funny feeling then throws up a little bit, but “I’ll survive” he explained.

Little coatless J with spit on his t-shirt. Today he learned when to put on a jacket. I’d say that doesn’t make him a fool at all.

Frankie

Few people love my cat. She’s not a pretty creature. She hobbles now under her excessive body weight and her fur is kind of ratty and if you touch her, a cloud of loose hairs rise into the atmosphere to make your eyes itch and water. She also obliviously sports a good-sized hunk of shit on her back-end under her tail. It’s tough not being as bendy as you used to be.

What’s nice though, is that Seabrook has known me since Teacher’s College, when Frankie and I shared a tiny, dingy basement apartment in London, and Seabrook likes Frankie. That makes Seabrook a very special kind of friend.

Anyway, today Frankie came to join the Peron household. We’ve assigned a room just for her and I lovingly chose a cat bed at the local Pet store (the cheapest one available) and placed it in a corner of the room with an old kitchen mat and a raggedy beach towel. I opened the blinds so she’d have sunlight and I put a baby gate to quarantine her to her area.

She didn’t love it at first. She cried and I thought, my goodness, this is going to be a painful transition. But then she found her little bed and she had a nap. I brushed her seven or eight times, which she LOVES. And then I opened the door so she could explore the upstairs. I moved the baby gate to the top of the stairs. She waddled to almost into the bathroom – took a rest lying in the doorway – then worked up the strength to make it to the bath mat where she slept for an hour or so. I thought it would be fun to take her outside. She’s on a strict mission to lose weight – doctor’s orders – so just being outside, I hoped, would stimulate her to move a bit more than normal. And she did seem excited. She walked along the brick path to the archway where the rose bushes are, then turned around and went back to the door. I tried to coax her up the five stairs to her special suite, but I heard two big thuds and found she’d abandoned hope on the second step. When I moved her up to her bed (which I’d now put at the top of the stairs so she could see everything that’s going on) she slept for three hours. I woke her up to make sure she was still alive. Then she slept for several more hours.
I took down the baby gate from the top of the stairs. It just doesn’t look like she’s going anywhere fast.

Frankie's Big Hoorahs for today:
1. Survived two hour drive from Peterborough
2. Had most of nails clipped

Frankie's Big Goals for tomorrow:
1. Tackle the shit on hind end
2. Maybe try to make it to the end of the yard

Wallflower in a Comm Class

I was supposed to be covering a fellow teacher’s Communications class. There are four children in it, ranging in ages from seven to seven and a half to eight. Let’s call these kids, Jane, Jen, Ellen and Dylan.

Instead of going to visit THEIR classroom as I usually do, last Friday I had to bring them to my science classroom up in the intermediate wing, so their regular teacher could use her classroom. No problem, I thought. Apparently, I had no idea how EXCITING it is to be in a different teacher’s classroom.

There is an aquarium in the room and the kids were immediately drawn to that. And I have a container with a dissected turtle in it, which I often forget is there, until new kids come in and want to know “what happened to the turtle?” and “is he still alive?” Ellen said, “I used to have a really big turtle in my class.”

My students had made little imaginary animals out of modeling clay. Ellen and Jen and Jane and Dylan wanted me to inquire of Mrs. Massey if THEY could do that in art class.

They wanted to use a microscope. So I got one out. The kids stood on chairs and carefully took turns peering through the eyepiece at the specimen of a potato. Dylan wanted to turn the knobs. I said, “You won’t be able to see the cells clearly if you turn the knobs.” He turned the knobs. Then he looked into the eyepiece for a little longer, looked at me and said, “I can’t see anything any more.”

We settled in to watch a movie. Jane said the tv was too small. Jen yelled, “Too small! Too small!” Dylan wanted to play with his pencil case during the movie. When he saw me spying on him, he’d push it away from himself on the table, but then slowly pull it back when he felt I wasn’t looking. Sometimes he would move it close to his ear and open and close it like a mouth. Then he’d nod at it and say things like, “I know. Yes. I think so too.” Then Jane would turn to me and say, “I had a hermit crab that died.” Jane and Dylan would then begin to swing their legs under the table and would have a footsy war. I would try to stop it only to be told by Jane, “Know what happened to me at the beach? I got pinched by a hermit crab.”

After the movie, Jane would walk around the classroom on her heels aimlessly. All of the kids would decide the pencil sharpener was so exciting that it warranted making a line in order that they all sharpen their pencils. Then Dylan would get in line two more times to try again. He would then break the pencil sharpener and get quite angry with me for not having one that works.

Jen would try to recall the word “equator” from the movie. She would say, “it’s the E word…but not the bad E word…” which would leave me wondering….what IS the bad E word that I don’t know about.

I would then listen to an engrossing conversation on the topic of pencil shavings. Jane would tell Ellen that they are “a little dangerous.” Ellen would agree and add “if you get them in you it could poison you.” Jane would elaborate, “They could KILL you!”

Well, I’m certainly glad we got that cleared up.