Mark bought two tickets to Sigur Ros, one of his favourite bands. He keeps insisting that I like them because the lead singer is a woman, but I find them dreary and dissonant and generally difficult to listen to. The lead singer doesn’t even sound like a woman, but like a man singing falsetto. They aren’t bad, I don’t hate them, but in general I would rather be listening to Macy Gray.

Finding someone to go with turned out to be surprisingly difficult. He asked me again to go with him, so I said that he could tell his single-parent friends that I would babysit - but that yes, if that didn’t work, I would go.

It didn’t work. So tonight I prepared by drinking half a beer, taking acetominophen and ibuprofen, and buying earplugs. I sallied into the night to do my best at enjoying an outdoor concert with my beloved.

It was quite nice, really. This old biddy had a good time. The music was somewhere between Bjork and whalesong, and the lead singer is a man singing falsetto. 

We paid an old-fashioned weekend visit to Mark’s friend Mary who was having her end-of-year cottage-closing party on a little lake in the Laurentians. Food was brought by everyone, children were brought by most and dogs were brought by very few (we dropped ours off at the Dog Lady’s on the way up). The drunks were sociable but not lascivious, the children were active and excited but not rude, agressive or whiny, the food was identifiable and nutritious. As this party lasted two days and as many but not all guests made multiple appearances it’s a little hard to count numbers; but I suppose that Saturday night there were about twenty adults. It ended with a bang this afternoon as the last five of us hard-core partiers played a rousing game of Cranium™.

Anyway, it was very nice.

We left this evening in time to pick up the dogs before the 7 pm curfew, giving a lift to a friend. The dogs were happy to see us but bore no apparent resentment towards the Dog Lady. Exactly perfect. We locked Pepe into his usual cage in the back of the station wagon and drew the cover over to muffle the sound of his barking somewhat. I sat in the back seat with Poupoune on my lap and our long-legged friend sat in the front. I quickly realised that Poupoune reeked something awful. After quick and urgent discussion windows (which had been raised against the rain) were lowered and I stuffed Poupoune into a plastic bag to contain the nauseating odor. This arrangement worked quite well, Poupoune being pretty compliant when she knows what is wanted. Upon our return home both dogs were ushered promptly into the bath and thoroughly scrubbed… and de-flead while I was at it.

I think the other dogs at the Dog Lady’s did the territorial thing and peed on them. And then I think the Dog Lady sprayed them with Febreeze.

[originally transmitted by e-mail August 29 2004]

Suzanne’s mother is dead; her father is dying. She is clearing out the family home in preparation for selling it to the highest bidder. Lineoleum is being pulled up, walls are being washed, cupboards and basements emptied and two lifetimes worth of accumulated stuff thrown away or given to the Rotary club. Hobby materials are the toughest: paintings and model boats gave meaning to the life of their maker, but that life is now over. The hobby materials do not evaporate but are left to the children to hard-heartedly toss in the dumpster.

In the guise of the sewing fairy, Suzanne came by last night bearing gifts. Sewing patterns from the fifties, sixties and seventies. Her mother was tall, so bought large-sized patterns I can use; more important, she had simple, classic tastes so I want to use them.

Attachments for my sewing machine: her mother’s Necchi went to another friend, but I got the attachments. Including a keyhole buttonholer! *Very* special! And a ruffler. The ruffler was bought for making curtains: in the pile of treasures were two books on soft furnishings and strings of orange bobble trim. Suzanne remembers the ruffled curtains in the kitchen. She also remembers the ruffler being turned to evil purposes once the curtains were hung, and being tortured with frilly dresses. I have twenty-first century plans for the ruffler but it will be used once again.

Books and books of knitting patterns for men’s cardigans A bag full of wool ends (dog sweaters!). Kniting needles. Darning needles. Snaps. A box of buttons.

A recipe book published by Lowney’s: 55 recipes for dainty marshmallows. I suspect I won’t be cooking much out of it, but perhaps it could be framed.

Everyday Etiquette by Amy Vanderbilt.

Scraps of vinyl left over from covering chairs. A little square of printed fabric probably intended to cover a small coffee table. Pre-printed fabric for embroidery. Embroidery floss.

Duvet covers from Germany. They are simple damask rectangles with embroidery and Suzanne’s Oma’s monogram at the foot end; all four sides and corners have buttonholes in them for attaching to a button-covered duvet.

Christmas time! Suzanne and I spent a happy afternoon opening packages, reliving and reconstructing the past and making sense of the present. And drinking beer.

We walked to a local artsy café for supper so that Suzanne would be okay to drive home. As soon as we sat down Suzanne announced that she disliked the waitress for treating us like dirt. Um, whatever, we’d just gotten there. We ordered.

Suzanne wasn’t having wine so the waitress brought her Perrier. She assumed it was free because she gets free bottled water at her neighbourhood Indian restaurant. Turns out it was $4.50. I had to ask for my tap water; in fact, I had to ask every time I wanted my glass filled.

The waitress got my order wrong. She brought us both what Suzanne had ordered. She was tight-lipped, not at all gracious when I asked for time to taste the food before having cheese grated or pepper ground onto it. She said she’d come back later, but had to be signalled and asked for the cheese; she promptly grated a huge mound of parmesan onto my meal with an electric grater, ruining the food. I abandoned any idea of getting pepper from her to balance the now much-too-salty meal.

Suzanne felt vindicated in her assessment of the waitress; I still defended her, saying she wasn’t a bad person - just someone who shouldn’t be a waitress, who didn’t grasp her role as hostess, who lived in her mind rather than feeding off the stimulation around her.

Guido Molinari was at the next table; the owner of the café introduced the waitress to him, who gushed her admiration of his work.

The waitress cleared our table, taking our napkins and bringing tisane. Um, our dessert? Apparently we hadn’t selected the dessert option. Yes, we had. We wanted dessert and had selected the dessert option. The waitress argued with us: we had asked for something not on the menu and she had arranged it specially for us. We were amazed: we had asked for no such thing. She angrily announced that she would have to go and get the owner to settle our dispute.

Okay, Suzanne was right. The waitress was not just spacy, she was narcissistic and treated us like dirt. A waiter came to our table, gave us our dessert for free (not what we’d asked for either - we just wanted dessert and to pay for what we got). He was very gracious, not obsequious, just a considerate host who wanted his guests to be happy.

Suzanne and I had a grand old time talking about the waitress. We speculated that she was an actress and was hired as a sort of jester to give patrons something to talk about, but Edsel Fung she ain’t.

On leaving the restaurant we tested the hypothesis that we were being hypercritical, getting sadistic pleasure out of tearing people to shreds, by going into a laundromat and criticizing it. But there was nothing to criticise: it was clean, the decor was nice, the music unobtrusive, the machines new, the change machine convenient, the bathroom large, the clientele polite. No, it was definitely the waitress.

We’ll be going back.

[originally transmitted by e-mail March 16, 2003]