City Walk #482

Yesterday I ducked out to buy a few groceries, having been away at the Surrey International Writers' Conference for five days.

What, you thought my husband would have replenished the fridge? He lives on salad and whatever he can find in the fridge that is ready made (jars of pickles, cheese, cold cuts, maple syrup, beer...) When I met him, the only thing in his kitchen was a stack of empty pizza boxes as tall as me. I? As tall as I? It was a 5'4" stack of empty pizza boxes.  And in his fridge were a couple of boxes of alfalfa sprouts and a container of cream cheese. What did he concoct with these ingredients, I can hear you asking. Peanut butter, cream cheese and alfalfa sprout sandwiches on a bagel. I know this because he offered me one during our first night together. It's a credit to his other qualities that I decided to marry him. As I recall, that night we ordered pizza around 3 a.m. and watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail, but that's a whole other post.

And I digress.

(However, I might add he comes by the weird food honestly. His father, now in his late 80s, once offered me a peanut butter and onion sandwich, the onions sliced thick like chunks of apple. The alternative, besides starving to death, was peanut butter and relish or peanut butter and onions sandwiched between leftover pancakes.)

Okay, no more digressing. Scout's Honour.

I love this grocery store which caters to downtown tenants, so it's a mix of ethnic (pretty much every country represented) and health food (due to the number of students and artists) all crammed into a tiny space. I love it because there is nothing worse to me than wandering around a giant grocery store down aisles carrying thousands of varieties of cereals or cookies when all I want to do is buy some veggies and nuts and schlep them home.

Damn, I just digressed again. (However, from the news reports, Scout's Honour doesn't carry much weight these days.)

Outside the grocery store, I noticed a pile of seeds all along the outside of the building. Some stupid tenant in the apartment building next door had clearly laid these out for the birds. I suspect there was some stiff competition from the city rats, pigeons and squirrels (or as I like to call them, ugly rats, flying rats and city rats with fancy clothes) but I thought no more of it until I got to the checkout and pulled my wallet out of my leather backpack.

As I struggled to put away my credit card quickly and fill my portable grocery cart for the walk home (Do Not Judge Me. In the city, these portable grocery carts are used by everyone, not just little old ladies. How else are we city dwellers supposed to lug home heavy stuff like milk, potatoes, and MacCallan 12?* And I bought my cart in an artist's store, for carrying art supplies, and what is cooler than an artist? Never mind that I bought it for my daughter who looked at me like I'd suggested she wear panties on her head and dance Gangnam style down Sherbrooke Street.)

Where was I?

Being glared at by the lineup at the cashier, casually bumped in the ankles by the cart behind me, which is code for move your ass and fiddle with your bag outside.

This is when I noticed my hand covered with what looked like, but did not smell like, chocolate.

Upon closer examination, I saw that a bird, most likely a Flying City Rat, had shat on my bag. If shitting on handbags were an Olympic event, this pigeon would have a gold medal. It managed, even though flying by at 30 mph (they have been clocked at 58 mph, though average speed is around 30) to accurately hit not only my bag, but INSIDE the pocket, a gap less than 1/2 inch wide. It splattered my lovely satin lining, my comb, my fan (Menopausal 101 - carry a fan at all times) and my brand new SiWC pen!  I wiped up as best I could, because it also splattered my one and only Kleenex.

By the time I got home, I was calmer until I pulled my keys out of my bag, conveniently clipped to a lanyard, and tossed them over my hair and around my neck, as a matter of habit.

I remembered, too late, that the keys had also been stored in the Outside Pocket of Bird Shite.

There are many things I love about living in the city. Pigeons are not one of them.

*While the MacCallan 12 is a lovely, everyday go-to single malt, the MacCallan 18 is to die for, or at least, killing your best friend with a skillet to the head and running off with her bottle.

Post Christmas Fug

Well, the leftover turkey is almost gone, the carcasses have been turned into soup along with some lovely fat egg noodles, the remaining baked goods are still going down well with breakfast coffee (seriously, is there anything better than chocolate for breakfast?) and the Christmas holiday is all over but the shouting. How did everyone do?

We had twenty-four for dinner, although two stayed home and had dinner delivered to them as they weren't feeling well enough to get out. There were a couple of glitches along the way. My car battery died, so we were down to one car. Then our water turned brown from a broken water pipe somewhere, but I ran over to my in-law's and filled up a couple of jugs even as half a dozen snow plows/trucks blocked my way and honked as I darted in and out. We didn't get our promised free-range, 30 pound "happy" turkey my two daughters on the cusp of veganism insisted on, which (despite my reservations to the contrary due to its size) I've roasted in the past to juicy, tender perfection. No. My husband came home with two, 15 pound Butterball turkeys the butcher handed him instead.



This meant stuffing and roasting one on Christmas Eve and racing home from my sister-in-law's shindig to carve it and make gravy and tuck it away in the fridge. No worries. It reheated beautifully while I made gravy from the second Christmas Day turkey and so there was plenty to go around along with the huge (I mean giant roasting pan filled to the top huge) pan of stuffing, mountains of mashed potatoes with sour cream and butter, mashed turnips with maple syrup and cinnamon, cranberry sauce and broccoli with olive oil, lemon and sea salt. We finished the meal with my mother-in-law's famous steamed carrot pudding with hard sauce, and I baked Italian macaroons (divine, chewy almond confections I tried for the first time and LOVED), a bowl of fresh fruit salad, shortbreads, truffles, buttertarts and all manner of other treats.



Doug insisted on a big cheese plate, which I thought would be too much, but it proved popular so we'll do that again. It went very well with the new whisky he gave me for Christmas, one fine bottle of Glenkinchie. Do other women ask for whisky for Christmas, or is that just me? It has proved to be my current favourite, just slightly above the Aberlour, Glenmorangie and the Macallan 12 year old we've sampled lately. For some reason, and I really don't know why, whisky does not affect me the way a glass of beer or wine does (that is, almost instant stupefaction accompanied by a flushed face and the sweats leaving me looking like a scullery maid after a big banquet.)

There were so many people in our tiny house that all the windows steamed up as did I, when I stepped outside to cool off. Literally, there was steam rising off my body in shimmery waves which cracked up my sister-in-law, who hasn't experienced a hot flash yet. (Just you wait, darling.) But we all ate and drank and chatted and opened gifts together and it was everything Christmas is meant to be.

Doug and I collapsed at the end of it, our legs finally giving out around midnight. We haven't moved from the house since, preferring to eschew the Boxing Day sales and instead, tucking in with our new books and mugs of tea and the odd DVD, like Terry Jone's MEDIEVAL LIVES. Happy New Year everyone!

The End.