Celebrating Victoria Day

Chilling on the front porch with a cup of Trader Joe's mango black tea. This is the life.

Bonus relaxation time owed to the fact that younger son's 14-year-old birthday party was cancelled -- well, postponed, anyway-- due to lack of guests. He wanted to arrange it all himself. Life lesson learned: give your friends, even the really good ones, more than 24 hours notice.

Putting down roots

We have begun gardening. For the three years we lived in the faculty rental house, there seemed no point, bar placing the odd pot of herbs. Now we have Land. Not much, certainly, but our own: our outdoor domain extends to an L-shaped plot about 15 feet by 8 feet in the back, and a scruffy patch of lawn, slightly bigger, with two borders for flowers, in the front.

For Mother's Day(second Sunday in May, in North America) I asked husband and children to accompany me to the Evergreen Brickworks Garden Market, in the Don River valley, a community-based enterprise that specializes in native and low-maintenance plants. The 'low-maintenance' part especially appealed to me. We acquired a trillium-- the state flower of Ontario-- along with a dwarf cherry tree, some grasses, a raspberry, meadowsweet, thyme, and a number of other plants whose names escape me. Everyone got to choose something. After a hot drink and a wander in the grounds of the Brickworks, we came home and worked together, in amicable cooperation, whistling happy tunes, for five hours. I lie, of course. But the point is we did work hard, digging, weeding, preventing attempts at escape by children and pets, planting, hauling the dog back from next-door. Five hours times five of us. That's 25 human-hours, right? Well, here is the 'before' picture of the back yard:

And here is the 'after':

Five hours. Times five. Disappointing, to say the least. We have much to learn, Kimo Sabe, about gardening in Toronto.


Locals have been helpful, though. I met a neighbour from the street behind ours, a 'lane-mate' (their house backs onto the same alleyway as ours). She offered advice about starting plants indoors, because the gardening season is so short, especially in years like this one with a never-ending winter, and about where to get plants, for instance at nearby Christie Pits Park, next weekend:

http://torontobotanicalgarden.ca/event/north-american-native-plant-societys-native-plant-sale-in-christie-pits/

This particular neighbour, Jessica, popped round Sunday morning to tell my daughter and her friends that the mouse had died. This pronouncement luckily did not have the same import as saying that the rabbit had died (children, long ago, that's how a pregnancy was determined) but was nonetheless news of some moment. Jessica, along with her small son and my daughter and her friends, had on Saturday tended to an injured rodent in the park across the street. They fed it Doritos, and in fact named it Dorito (alternatively 'Daphne' if it proved to be female). They made a nest (more of a hospice) from a discarded blanket before being called home to dinner. The kids were prepared for the mouse's demise, and philosophical about it. Perhaps morbidly, they were actually fairly excited about the prospect of a funeral. Before even eating breakfast the next morning, they were all out of the house and following Jessica across the street. I brought up the rear, and a shovel. The memorial was lovely, the headstone (which they had prepared the day before) ever so tasteful.

Requiem for a mouse:

Once we had a chance to chat, I asked Jessica about herself and what she did. She provided one of the more surprising answers I've heard: 'I write books on genocide.' And so she does:

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/author/jessica-dee-humphreys/

The book is written in concert with a Canadian general called Romeo Dallaire, who is apparently well-known in Canada, though not (yet) to me, about the atrocities in Rwanda.

We live in such a wonderful and interesting neighbourhood. Not, I hasten to add, that genocide is wonderful and interesting, but to have neighbours who care enough to write about it certainly is. I am growing to appreciate Harbord Village more and more, especially now that the streets and paths have thawed and I can actually chat with its denizens, who seem to have blossomed with the appearance of sunshine, much as I hope our garden will do.

Our trillium:

Chuffed

'Chuffed' is such a great BrE word. It makes the list of vocabulary I try to promulgate on this side of the Atlantic (along with 'loo' and 'queue').

And it describes exactly how I felt when I had a short story published in the Toronto Star last week!

http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2014/05/02/star_short_story_contest_2nd_place_laughing_tiger.html

Whimsy

Dorothy Sayers chose the perfect name for her ultra-English aristocrat detective, Lord Peter Wimsey. There is a particular British talent for inserting the whimsical into the mundane, or even the serious. It's hard to pinpoint its absence, but completely recognizable when it appears, as at St. Pancras station last week, where pianos were tethered at intervals and music spontaneously erupted.

Almost a passport

I visited England last week after my longest absence since moving there 20 years ago. My last trip was during the summer of 2012, for the Olympics.

Nearly two years. I was homesick.

A combination of work and pleasure got me across the Atlantic, at last, the timing arranged so I could attend a particular meeting in Cambridge. To get there on time, I had to arrive a day early, giving me from mid-morning til evening on Thursday all on my lonely own in London. That never happened when I actually lived in the U.K. I went sightseeing! First stop after landing was the Dulwich Picture Gallery to see an exhibit of David Hockney's amazing prints. Some of them I had viewed at Saltaire many years ago, but most were completely new to me, and the curation, which included stories surrounding the prints, could fairly be described as gripping. The gallery itself, which somehow I had not visited before, is a gem. I arrived with my little wheeled suitcase in tow, hoping it would be allowed in the cloakroom. Instead the cheerful fellow at the entrance said, 'Just leave it with us. We'll stick it behind the desk. No worries.' How is it possible that I had never been to this gallery? Dulwich itself was a posh surprise, a short ride from Victoria and so utterly different. A friend tells me that someone he knows asks people whether they prefer their coffee 'Brixton', 'Herne Hill', or 'Dulwich', the names of the three stops on Southeast Rail, to gauge the quantity of milk to add. The main colouring I noticed in Dulwich was green. It is the exemplar of 'leafy suburb'.

After Dulwich I made my way to the British Library, another institution I'd neglected to make time for when I lived in the country. What a shame. I'm now the proud possessor of a Reader's Pass, having acquitted myself well enough at the interview and having remembered to bring a proof of address. It is almost as good as the British passport I neglected to acquire during my 17 years in the country (to my husband's ire). The pass admitted me to the Reading Room, where I had reserved a book I wanted that is not held in Toronto's library, but even someone without a pass is welcome to visit the building, to sit in one of the cafes, or to gaze upon Jane Austen's tiny writing desk and her itsy-bitsy spectacles, or to look at one of the the original Magna Cartas.

An evening with the in-laws, followed by a day in Cambridge with colleagues, and then I took the train north. I had made use of my no-longer-resident status to purchase a BritRail pass, a most marvelous invention for those of us who are merely touring Britain. For a set amount of money, depending on length of stay and travel habits, one is allowed on any train, any time. Remembering the days of having to go to the station days in advance to purchase an affordable, unalterable ticket, in order not to pay unholy amounts of money, I felt like royalty simply stepping on to any old train, even during rush hour. True, I had to stand for the occasional stretch, but never more than one station stop. Joy.

The trip from Cambridge to York (via Peterborough, of course) was so hauntingly familiar that it made my throat ache. Not beautiful, not at all, but so particularly English: sheep grazing in grassy fields tucked up against a cement factory on one side and a housing estate on another, like a jigsaw puzzle perfectly cut and reassembled. During the decade I lived in Durham I found the journey frustrating, so near to to loveliness and yet escaping it by an ill-placed power station or a industrial park, but now I drink it in, the accommodation of the British sensibility to necessity. Why should people in houses want only to see other houses? Why not a factory, or cows chewing cud?

Maybe, like Dorothy in Oz, you have to leave a place in order fully to appreciate it. Or I do, anyway.

Signs and portents

Sign of age: my children's piano teacher told me I am like a second mother to her.

Sign of trouble ahead in a book group: after much difficulty obtaining the chosen volume (short stories by Mavis Gallant), and only halfway through reading it, I found my copy completely soaked by an unsecured water bottle in my bag.* Maybe that was an omen rather than a sign. My take on Gallant's In the Fifteenth District: lyrical, elliptical writing, stodgy pace. I didn't make it to the end of the book, or to the book group.

Signs of spring in Toronto: a few bold snowdrops, crocuses, and aconites in bloom; buds on trees. Still bloody freezing though.

Sign of success: I came second in the Toronto Star Short Story contest! I am over the moon.

http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/2014/04/24/brendan_bowles_wins_star_short_story_contest.html

*For how to dry a wet book, see
http://www2.lib.udel.edu/Preservation/wet_books.htm

Moving on up

Our sixteen-year-old, whose birthday we celebrated in New York City last month, also hosted a birthday party for his friends. A dozen teens gathered at our house after school one Friday. What would they want to do? I imagined them wishing to huddle in our kids' eyrie, the 'games room' on the top floor, far from adult eyes and younger siblings' interference. Maybe they would play loud music and dance.

Not these teens. They gathered in our living room to laugh, sing along to a guitar, and play games. After a while they departed for nearby Kensington Market, where the birthday boy had planned a scavenger hunt, with prizes for 'weirdest item you can buy for five dollars' and for 'spotting Rob Ford's face'. They regrouped at our house for the prize-giving, followed by dinner of home-made shepherd's pie. They played first charades and then sardines, a reverse form of hide-and-seek in which 'it' hides and the rest seek.

Husband and I sat, bemused, pleased, sipping tea in the kitchen, enjoying their joy and marvelling over the similarities between sixteen and six. We gathered them up for cake with candles and ice cream.

The next week, son headed to Service Ontario and obtained his driving permit. The test was easy, he reports. He has already taken me for a spin around the block.

Give me your tired, your poor

Last month, the eldest child turned sixteen. Years old. Not days or weeks or months, but actual whole years. ‘How is this possible?’ I asked him. ‘Only yesterday I was changing your nappies.’

Son gave me pitying glance and carried on studying the meaning of life, the universe, and everything, though really he knows most of it already. I’m sure that when I was his age, I was completely ignorant in comparison.

His actual birthday coincided with the school district’s March Break, so we decided, pretty much at the last minute, to drive to New York for a few days' mini-holiday.

On our last family trip to the big apple, we stayed in Manhattan, but I remember that as we drove away westward across the George Washington Bridge into New Jersey(thanks, Chris Christie, for leaving it open that day), I related tales of my own childhood visits to New York, to grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles, mostly in Brooklyn. When can we see Brooklyn, children (and husband) asked. So for this visit, I found us a charming apartment in a brownstone house on a quiet street in Bedford-Stuyvesant. I had no preconceived ideas of the place, since during my childhood visits, I never navigated, and only recognized the actual streets on which my grandparents lived. Hancock Street in Bed-Stuy turned out to be lovely, with free parking, the flat three short blocks from the subway. And we saw a lot of cousins.

The actual day of son’s birthday was spent, at his request, touring the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, which involved taking the subway to Battery Park and showing us one of the reasons people prefer to live in Manhattan. The C train did its job of getting there, but kept us waiting for some time, time enough for youngest child to start counting the rats running past under the rails. Native New Yorkers with tails.

Wonderful day, sunny blue weather, perfect for sitting on the top deck of the ferry. The kids loved it all, the statue, the Liberty Museum, the Ellis Island tour. For me, Ellis Island was a sort of pilgrimage site. My maternal grandparents alit there as children coming from Eastern Europe, from Russia or the Ukraine. The story my grandfather told me is that he crossed the Atlantic on the Lusitania, but that would have required him to embark from Liverpool, which seems unlikely. I have not yet traced his landing but my grandmother’s arrival and transit are documented. Their names are both on the Ellis Island Wall of Honor. New York is part of my life history. One of the pleasures of living in Toronto (I keep having to count them) is that New York is now a (long) day’s drive away.

We also spent a couple of hours at MoMA, which conveniently is open late and is FREE on Friday evenings. (I heart New York.) From there, we eventually found a legitimate taxi, narrowly avoiding kidnap by one of the meter-less shiny cars that scoop you up and demand an exorbitant fee, which took us to a great Spanish restaurant on the Upper East Side, one recommended by cousins, and at which we were joined by another cousin and my niece. The birthday concluded with a stop at Dylan's Candy Bar, a colorful emporium with every sort of sweet imaginable, and handily open until 11:00 pm.

We began that next day with a perfect brunch in my niece’s charming apartment in trendy Williamsburg, and then a guided wander through her neighbourhood. After that, just the five of us again, we embarked on a trip down my Brooklyn's Memory Lane, making a pilgrimage to the two apartment buildings where my grandparents had lived during my own childhood. The first, 781 Eastern Parkway, is where my mother grew up. Lately I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking and writing about my mother’s childhood and my grandparents’ experiences. My own children and husband were more mildly interested, but kindly humoured me. On Eastern Parkway we met a woman who now lives in my mom’s former apartment building, a lovely Russian Jew who tried her darnedest to lure us to the Lubavitcher Purim festivities. She wanted to know what my grandparents were called, and in which apartment they had lived. I didn’t remember, but I described it, the long wood-plank hallway running from front to back. ‘Oh, it must be one of the ‘A’s, on that side, she said, gesturing. ‘I’m over there, in B. So, how much rent did they pay?’

The rent, my mother tells me, was ridiculously low, due to municipal control, but eventually, her parents had to move out as the building had no elevator. The new apartment was on Washington Avenue, across from the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, and that was our next stop. This building, a lovely one but in a dodgier neighbourhood, I remember with much greater clarity, since my grandparents lived in it during my teen and early adult years. In fact, in my senior year of university I made a snap decision to visit them there on my own. They sent me the money for plane fare. At least, I believed that was what they intended me to do with the check. I remember that I either called them or asked my mother to call, telling them of my plans. I'm sure of it; I’m almost certain. However when I arrived on the red-eye from California, it turned out they were definitely not expecting me. Fresh from a year abroad studying in England, backpacking around Europe during the breaks, I had lost the habit of advance planning, and perhaps of courtesy.

When my grandparents did not turn up at the airport to meet me (as they had always done in the past), I found a bus to Brooklyn,but had no clear idea of exactly where I was going and had not thought to bring a map. When I descended from the bus, in the predawn dark, the streets were deserted. (And they were mean streets.) No convenient subway entrance presented itself, but a taxi did. I gave the address but also warned that my funds were limited, so the taxi dropped me some distance away from my destination and pointed out the route. ‘Be careful,’ the driver warned. At least by then it was light. I lugged my suitcase and myself to 1035 Washington Avenue. The doorman was not on duty that morning; the building could only afford to hire him a few days a week, giving the burglars free reign the rest of the time. (My grandparents were either mugged or burgled almost monthly in the last year or two they lived in Brooklyn.) I rang the buzzer to my grandparents’ apartment. ‘Who’s there?’ a scared voice demanded.

‘It's Leslie!’ I said. ‘I’m here!’

‘Go away,’ my grandfather’s voice rattled tinnily. Or maybe my grandmother’s. ‘Leave us alone.’ I stood, puzzled, shivering (it was December) and tired, with my luggage, uncertain what to do, when a woman approached the building and opened the door with a key. I must have looked pretty dishevelled, but also harmless, or just pathetic, because she allowed me in. I found my way to the fourth floor, and knocked on their door.

Now they really sounded petrified. ‘Who is it? Go away!’

‘It’s me! It’s Leslie! Let me in, please.’ By then their near neighbours were roused and one of them came into the corridor, echoing my plea that my grandparents let me in, and allow the rest of the building to breakfast in peace. Emboldened or perhaps embarrassed by the presence of others they finally undid the bolts and opened the door. Two more incredulous faces would have been hard to find. To their credit, they welcomed me and begged forgiveness. The boot was on the other other foot, I came to realize sometime later, but then I graciously accepted their apologies. I was a young idiot.

On that trip, I discovered for the first time how remote Brooklyn was from the island of Manhattan, which, on my several previous visits hadn’t seemed to matter; I went where I was taken, and visited whom I was told, and it was all delightfully exciting and fun. Now, I had become an independent soul and wanted to come and go and see whom I pleased, and my grandparents spent the week beside themselves with worry and responsibility. I can pity them now, but at the time I merely shrugged and laughed and demanded a doorkey.

It was good, this time, with my own family, to go back to Brooklyn and see it afresh. We wandered through the still barren Botanic Gardens in spring sunshine, and I remembered walking there with my grandfather, when the roses were in bloom.

My lovely cousin invited us to dinner at her lovely apartment on the Upper West Side. It is the only family home in New York that is still the same from my childhood. Nothing else remains but the buildings themselves. And the Botanic Gardens. A strange realization.

It was a long, long time ago.

Tollywood

Our street became a film set yesterday, for a scene in the ABC pilot 'Clementine'. Actually less 'yesterday' than last night. The drama apparently required cover of darkness, though darkness on film seems to demand an awful lot of light.

When we lived in the rental house, there were several occasions on which the nearest street corner got blocked off to film car chase scenes. That sounds dramatic but it wasn't really so different from the normal traffic of buses, trucks, and so forth, and also took place early in the morning. Once I got yelled at by a Toronto police officer on security detail for the crew (what a great use of our tax dollars) because I walked out of my front door at an inopportune moment. 'You'll ruin the continuity!' he barked. I leaped back inside. A while later a member of the film crew made a point of coming by and making nice, so I wouldn't write angry letters to Rob Ford, or the newspaper.

But here, last night, the filming made a much bigger difference to the neighbourhood, perhaps because it is such a quiet street normally. The focal house, fortunately, was 8 or 10 down from us and on the opposite side of the street, so we didn't have the bright lights blazing in the window at two o'clock a.m. Still, I am kind of hoping the series tanks. We don't really want them back. Is that NIMBYism, even if it's in the front yard?

By the way, though the photo, taken yesterday, shows the timid appearance of grass under melting ice, today we had a blizzard. Enough already! I mean it.

Heated subject

Furnace is working. It was the third widget. Moral: always get a second opinion, especially if the second opinion mitigates for a less costly solution than the first. Also knock on (BrE: touch) wood.

The Hearth of the Matter

Our furnace is on the fritz. This is terribly bad news when one is regularly waking up to temperatures of -15 or -18. That’s centigrade, but it is still MINUS FIFTEEN. Or MINUS EIGHTEEN. We have two different furnace repair guys telling us two different things: 1) it can be repaired! Just get a new widget! Or 2) it can’t be repaired! Get a new furnace! Each repair guy has his own backer amongst our Board of Advisors. We have no idea who is right and who wrong. We just know it gets mighty cold with no heat. We’ve got electric space heaters plugged in, we keep the stove burner turned on in the kitchen, and the furnace goes on sometimes, but it’s not good. Not good at all. Whose bright idea was it to build a city here, anyway? A country? Have people not wondered why 90% of the Canadian population snuggles right up against the US border? I’m back to my fantasies that the War of 1812 turned out otherwise, and that the Eastern Seaboard today belongs to Canada, right down to Key West. That’s probably treason coming from an American citizen, but I’m a very cold American citizen. Just think: universal health care, decent schools, and subtropical climate. Heaven.

Winter Games

On television from Toronto we watched the Olympics in Sochi, where top skiers, skaters, snow-boarders, and bobsledders competed in temperatures that were downright balmy compared with the brutal frost-biting we’re experiencing here. The cold weather is record-breaking, apparently. ‘Worst winter since Noah built the Ark’ read the headlines (or something like that). It’s a very strange season. Every place we have lived as a family has suffered this winter: drenching rains and disastrous floods in England, drought (then floods) in California, and here an ice storm followed by loads of snow and thirty-one ‘severe cold weather alerts’. Normally there are five or six, I believe (but am not checking). And winter’s not over. I’m guessing we’ll hit forty. There’s just something biblical about all of this.

I’ve always enjoyed watching the Winter Olympics, and usually take up ice-skating every four years as a result. Not this winter. I own my own ice skates (which still surprises me) but have had no wish to don them and head for the nearest outdoor rink. Too darn cold. I’ve skied once this season, and the younger children (plus the dog) have gone sledding multiple times, but the allure of winter sports has diminished considerably. ‘Embrace the winter,’ we were told when we moved to Canada, and I’ve tried, but it’s tough, more like wrestling than hugging this year. An American friend who recently became a Canadian citizen tells me that to pass the citizenship exam I will need to prove that my entire family has skates and hockey gear (does that include the dog? Must check), that husband and I regularly get up before 7 a.m. on weekends to take children to hockey practice (we will have to take someone else's children), and that we expend a set proportion of our annual income on beer (do we have to drink it, too?). I hope she is jesting, but then again, recalling that my Cambridge-educated, England born and bred husband had to spend a full day taking an English proficiency exam it’s just possible that R. is speaking the plain truth.

On the subject of friends, another one of mine, Jennifer Berdahl, has performed an interesting analysis of Olympic medals won at Sochi per country in comparison with the countries’ gender equality scores. While it might not be surprising that countries more committed to upholding women’s rights and opportunities have more women winning medals, the interesting thing is that those countries’ men also win more medals. Check it out: http://jberdahl.blogspot.ca/. I am hoping she repeats the analysis for the Summer Olympics medal-winners.

House-warming

Finally, we managed to throw a house-warming party... six months after we moved into the house. Oh well. It was a blast, and a wonderful reminder of how many friendships we've built in the few years since we arrived in Toronto. It's a cold city with a warm heart.

I learned something new (just to remind us we're not locals yet). When you give a party in winter here, you have to think seriously about how to store the coats and boots. Ideally not like this:

And I learned that a large number of people own almost identical black Bogs. One child went home with the boots of another (sounds like a game on I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue) and it has taken some serious detective work to sort it out. Where's Sherlock Holmes when you need him?

So. Much. Snow.

I've been doing a lot of walking lately. One day last week I calculated that simply going through my normal daily routine, I covered almost 10 kilometres. That's a lot. I'm used to riding my bike, but the quantity of snow and ice have grounded me. My bike fortunately has a cosy, covered corner in which to sit out the winter, but others are not so lucky:

In England, especially in Durham, I became expert at navigating on foot the narrow pavements (or sidewalks-- see Lynne Murphy's wonderful blog on transatlantic differences in the English language: http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.ca/). These paths were constructed, many of them, in a pre-industrial age. It was hard work, perhaps not quite as difficult as the building of the pyramids, but certainly no picnic (and a lot colder and wetter than toiling in ancient Egypt). Workers thus made things only as big as they absolutely had to be, unless they were constructing, say, a cathedral (http://www.durhamcathedral.co.uk/), which allowed a century or two's leeway for completion, was funded with pots donors' money, and had God's glory to satisfy.

My good friend K, the one whose home I shared until she gave me away to my current husband, taught me the art of navigating the thin paths that bordered cobble-stoned streets, so treacherous for the ankles. Durham is, for most of the year, full of university students who are thoroughly absorbed in themselves and to whom we oldsters (their teachers) were pretty much invisible unless we were stood at the front of a classroom (and even then, sometimes...). But K brooked absolutely no nonsense. I remember a particular instance when she and I hurried along the North Bailey, outside St. John's College, so close to the stone walls of the students' rooms that we could have reached in to nab a can of lager from the bedside table had their windows been open. Less than an arm's length separated the buildings from the cobbled road. K and I walked next to each other until three female undergraduates hove into view, when I stepped behind K politely to make room. The three girls chattered and giggled, unaware, crowding together, taking up the full width of the pavement, gormless, expecting, if they expected anything, that we would magically vanish, or at least get out of their way by stepping into the street. But no. K came to a full stop in front of them. They stopped too, surprised, and suddenly quiet. 'Well?' K enquired, severe and yet at the same time civil, a quintessentially English demeanour. The three blushed, mumbled, and formed an untidy single file that allowed them to pass us. Boys were a different story; as long as they were not (too) intoxicated, they instinctively seemed able to make room around them for others. I attribute it to years of team sports.

I acquired further skills traversing inadequate paths, rocky roads, and unexpected stairways when I began propelling first a pushchair (stroller), and then a double pushchair. There was a terrible moment at the top of some steep, unavoidable stairs by the Kingsgate Bridge, me eight months pregnant with one baby, a sleeping toddler in the buggy, and late to pick up the eldest from school. A boy student came to my rescue and I dissolved in tears of gratitude. (Ever since, I always offer to help people with strollers, however suspicious I may seem.)

All of this experience navigating difficult terrain is proving extremely helpful in the current endlessly snowy conditions here in Toronto. Our formerly wide-enough North American sidewalks have shrunk drastically from all the piles and drifts. We thread our way along narrow trails between frosty white hummocks. Stairs down into the subway that seemed perfectly manageable are now slick with ice and gritty with salt. My training on the mean cobbled streets of the Durham peninsula is serving me well. Holding my own when confronted by oncoming pairs and triplets of oblivious Canadian students requires just as much firmness as on the inadequate paths of northern England.

I have not yet perfected K's glare, though.

A Thank-You Note

Canadians are famous for being nice. I loved a recent New Yorker cartoon depicting Canadian lemmings at the edge of a cliff: 'After you!' 'No, after you.' Today, I lost my beloved iPhone on a TTC (Toronto Transit Corporation) subway train. It took me some time to notice its absence (love is blind), but within minutes-- seconds, actually-- of knowing that it was gone, I also learned that it was safe. A kind passenger on the train had handed the phone in to the ticket collector at the Lawrence West station, far beyond my home. The ticket collector said to me, 'I've been waiting for you to call!' and assured me he would keep the phone safe until I arrived. I sorted out the kids, headed back to the subway, and half an hour later, phone and I were reunited. Not only that, but the ticket man also handed me a pair of black woolly gloves. Those, I gave back.

I have lost belongings in England, too, and had them returned. But not often, and not usually intact. and never in a big city. So here I offer heartfelt thanks to my fellow Torontonian(s). May your journeys always be smooth.

The Birthday Party

Here and there, or then and now?

We started throwing children's parties way too early, in spite of good advice to the contrary. (Next time around I'll know better.) For instance, we combined our eldest's first birthday with a big house-warming party, in Durham. I still remember my regret at having baked - and iced- chocolate cupcakes for the myriad toddlers who turned up. Our newly-painted walls! The still-unstained upholstery! 'Look what a lovely day it is!' I said brightly. 'How about if you eat them outside on the lawn?' We had to rouse our sleeping tot, who had been awake half the night with a cold and (it turned out) incipient conjunctivitis, in order to sing him 'Happy Birthday' and to petrify him with a house full of people. The fear on his face, and the feeling of his tiny fists clinging to my jumper, haunt me still. It was almost 15 years ago.

Birthday parties in England, particularly in the north of England, have, or perhaps had, a particular grammar to them. They lasted about two hours. Disciplined mothers made sure no more than ten guests came, in which case they could host the party in their own home. Husband and I almost never managed that trick, because we usually invited two dozen children and then expansively included their siblings, parents, grandparents, and visiting third cousins twice removed, so most years we went to the next level: hiring a church hall or a leisure-centre gym, along with a bouncy castle and soft play equipment, or perhaps going the 'entertainer' route, paying a large sum to some entrepreneur dressed as a magician or a fairy or a clown.

When I was a child, birthday parties involved cake, ice cream, and perhaps a lollipop as a prize for winning 'Pin the Tail on the Donkey'. In contrast, at the parties I learned to give for my own small children, parents typically provided a meal of crustless white bread sandwiches filled with butter and jam, or Marmite, or processed ham, or cheese. There would also be an array of biscuits, usually including chocolate fingers and Jammy Dodgers (in Britain, the cookies all have names, and everyone recognizes them, like dear friends); there would be crisps of various types, also well-known: Hula Hoops, Quavers, Pom Bears; for dessert, fairy cakes and jelly. The home-made, perfectly decorated birthday cake would be brought forth, the child sung to, and then the cake whisked away to be carved, the pieces wrapped in paper serviettes and squashed into party bags already full of sweets and plastic trinkets. (Eating the cake generally involved consuming a lot of the napkin, too.)

After one attempt to match this menu, staying awake until 4:00 a.m. cutting up wilted bread, I became a maverick, foregoing the manufacture of fiddly sandwiches and serving instead ready-made 'pancakes', savoury biscuits, cold cuts and individual wrapped cheeses. I discovered that Costco made absolutely marvellous cakes, decorated to order. Radically I included mandarins, carrots, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, grapes and berries. I wasn't a complete ogre; I also made sure to have plenty of cookies and fairy cakes and crisps. No child was ever forced to eat anything in the least health-giving. Sure enough, there were always lots of fruit and veg left but at least the table looked cheery.

Here, in Toronto, and now, in 2014, it is easier for me. Perhaps it is Canada, perhaps it is the age of my children, perhaps I have just worn out. (Also, with older kids the parents don't stick around for the event so no one is watching what you serve. And the guest numbers drop dramatically when extended family stays home.) My youngest child's birthday happened last week and the 15 pre-teen girls who populated our house for the duration of the party (angels all!) were sustained with pizza, potato chips, and Cracker Jacks. They ate candy that they 'hunted' with flashlights in the park across the street (hidden by the eldest brother, the selfsame child I had terrified at his own first birthday party). I bought a cake, and served out the slices on the spot. Again, I offered carrots, cucumbers, and grapes. Again, there were quite a few left over. But not all.

The bar feels much lower here and/or now. Thank goodness.

Landed

We are now permanent residents of Canada! (Though 'permanent' means 'for 5 years' here.) On one of the bitterest, snowiest and blowiest days we have experienced, we drove to Buffalo, ate a late lunch of hot wings, and returned to the border. Hearts pounding, we stated our intent: to consummate our status as permanent residents. Overlooked by the Canadian flag and a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, we did just that. We were prepared to be grilled about our worthiness and shaken down for proof of financial solvency, but it turned out to be a simple, straightforward process conducted by a couple of smiling young men we might have mistaken for Boy Scouts (except for the handguns in holsters at their hips). They had us sign our names, told us we could keep the pen as a souvenir, and then helped us find out about traffic (bad), road conditions (icy) and nearby hotels (available). So, abandoning plans to brave the QEW motorway home to Toronto, we are sitting, the five of us, in a Hilton Garden lounge on the edge of Niagara-on-the-Lake, sipping tea and reading the newspapers before a gas fire. Our celebration.

Toronto's woes

‘May you live in interesting times,’ goes the old Chinese curse. If so, my new city is definitely accursed. Last month in the New York Times, Stephen Marche wrote: ‘Toronto is starting to get interesting. It is a city making a spectacle of itself’. It is indeed. I felt I ought to say something about it. I can't bury my head in the sand forever. Especially when the sand is covered in snow.

In my humble and relatively uninformed opinion, the main problem is less Rob Ford himself and more that the city is constructed in such a way that he could be elected. He is almost entirely unsuited to his job. You could maybe elect him in Mayberry RFD, and make sure Andy Griffith was on hand as sheriff (anyone under 40 and not from the US may be puzzled; here’s a link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HSZ8xJoCIg) and Ford would not be much of a handicap; any buffoon would do. In fact, for sitcom purposes, a buffoon is better. But when a mayor has in his purview the quality of life of millions of people, their commutes, their cityscape, their cycling and walking safety, and their access to libraries, arts, and affordable housing, and when the police have their own agenda, look out. This particular mayor is a human wrecking ball. (I’m not referring to his weight or size. I don’t care about that and I have no patience for bringing the topic into the debate. His weight is not my business and his size does not affect his ability, or lack thereof, to do his job.) Received wisdom says Ford was elected by the poorer, less educated suburbs as a lesson to the wealthier, cultured 'inner city'. (I find this in itself odd; when- and where- I was growing up, 'inner city' went with 'poor' and 'uneducated', while 'suburbs' implied middle-class privilege. How did that change?)

I met Rob Ford briefly a few months ago, while chaperoning a school trip to City Hall. I shook his hand, as did the children I escorted. I'm slightly horrified now, thinking what those hands have been up to, but at the same time I have occasionally caught myself thinking 'poor Rob Ford'. I still believe he is unfit to be mayor; he is both a boor and, most likely, a criminal. But I’ve met him, shaken his hand, watched him smile at my group of children. It’s the power of the personal. I can pity him: he is human, if you cut him he will bleed.

Which, on further reflection, makes me sad, not for Toronto (well, not just for Toronto), but for myself. While I feel very enmeshed in my neighbourhood and my community, and extremely attached to my new friends, I also have many old friends, really good ones, that I see too rarely. If 5 minutes of being face-to-face with Rob Ford can evoke my pity, how much I am missing by my remoteness from the very many people I hold dear? It’s an insoluble problem I return to, with sadness, every so often. The people I love are scattered everywhere, places I've lived, places they've moved; to get them all together and near me would involve kidnapping and other illegal activities. (I'm thinking something like a forced relocation program.)

My mantra: I can be homesick wherever I am.

Which makes me very excited to learn that one of my dearest friends and her daughter will be coming to Toronto soon for a visit! Can't wait. I didn't even have to threaten them. Much.

Keeping time

The other night, climbing into our cold car, I huffed and watched the mist trail of breath. ‘I’m a dragon!’ I called to the kids in the back seat. ‘Look!’

‘Mom,’ chided the eldest. ‘That was funny when we were five. Not now.’

‘Teens,’ I groused to husband.

‘Hey, I’m not a teen!’ said the youngest, who is at the tail end of ten. ‘I’m still a kid. Treasure me! Treasure me!’

We all laughed.

But my heart is breaking a little, too. In raising children, as I remind myself when I feel impatient with mine, the days are long but the years are short.

To be truthful, I usually remember that aphorism just after I've been impatient with them.

Sigh. I do treasure them, tot and teen-- beyond all measure.

Ice storm!

A reminder to us that we live in Canada: winter is only a day old and already its depredations are taking their toll. Either ice fell during the night, or rain did and then the temperature dropped below freezing, but we are now living in a world of icicles. It's a bit like spelunking without the cave, with light, and only stalactites. Okay, then, not so similar. But there is a sense of enclosure, of being cut off from the normal world, of being inside even outside. An ice-covered branch came down next door to us leaving a possibly live power line draped over a fence. The fire department appeared immediately to apply a web of crime-scene tape, like a band-aid. They wouldn't touch the wire and said that Toronto Hydro (confusingly, the electric company) would be along when other, more urgent issues had been resolved. 'Stay home,' urged the friendly fireman as he drove off over a length of the tape held down by his mates; they had trapped their truck inside the web.

Several friends report being without power at home (and have been urged to come camp out with us). We are fine at the moment, but when the next bough breaks, it could start getting mighty cold here. I suggested to dear husband that 'repair fireplace' should move to the top place on our to-do list for the house.

A little beauty: our front lawn in fall

That is, in autumn.

I am still a little amazed that we have a front lawn.

What we need now, clearly, is a rake.

PR

Hallelujah. We've been approved for permanent residency. We still have to cross the border and come back in to 'activate' our status ('flagpoling', the lawyer called it),but supposedly all the hard work is done and we have been accepted by the Canadian immigration authority. We're all set, until it's time to apply for citizenship, or to renew our PR status. In Canadian immigration law, 'permanent' doesn't actually mean permanent, apparently.

This is really great news. I know that. I'm happy and relieved.

It's just that along with buying a house, and having that recent unsettling sense of feeling settled, it is hitting home that Toronto is, in fact, home.

Guess we had better get our hearth fixed. We'll need it.

Leaves

A friend told me yesterday that she might move to British Columbia. 'Oh,' I sighed. I will be sad for her to leave here but I would stop no one from heading to the west coast. Sunsets! Ocean! Mountains. We joked about my going along with her.

Perversely, though, I then heard myself arguing for the benefits of living in Toronto. At this moment, I want to stay here, on my sofa, my dog on my feet, looking out my bedroom window. Lyrics run through my head: it's a gift to be simple, it's a gift to be free; it's a gift to come down where we ought to be.

It may be that I'm settling in.

Darn it.

If only there could also be the ocean and mountains and sunset...

Coming clean

My cousin, an accomplished psychologist, writer, and blogger (http://goodenoughmothering.com/) asked me recently how I managed to find time for blogging along with all my other activities, which recently have included planning a bar mitzvah as well as moving, working, school volunteering, and permanent residency application along with the daily routines of parenting and householding. It does start to sound like a lot when I list it, especially as my natural tendencies are toward sloth and hedonism, so the question has resonated with me - how do I do it?- and I keep wondering about the answer. Here's my attempt.

Firstly, it's a better question to ask of my sister, who is the ultimate 'I don't know how she does it' woman. I don't accomplish anywhere near what she does in a day or week or month. But I have decided that what I do manage, I probably owe to two factors: 1) having a wonderful, supportive, contributing husband who has a hand in at least half of the household and parenting tasks and (confession time) 2) my being a truly terrible housekeeper. Most women say it, but for me it's the god's own truth. I do very little cleaning and the bare minimum of laundry. For instance I have no idea where our iron is, or if we have an ironing board. (When the kids were little they thought the iron was strictly for the funny plastic mosaic craft called, in England, 'Hama Beads'.) We have a cleaner once or twice a month and pretty good immune systems. I shop, and cook, and usually get food on the table before the kids' bedtimes, and we collectively feed and walk the pets. Our houseplants don't fare well because they are quiet in the face of neglect; kids and animals have the virtue of making a great big noisy fuss when they need nourishment, which goes a long way toward their survival.

But thank you, Elaine, for asking. Let me brag that I have just finished sweeping three flights of stairs, though I will admit it's because I'm procrastinating work on my contribution to a big grant application due this week. I couldn't find the broom or the brush or the mop, so had to improvise with a duster and disinfectant wipes.

Down the rabbit hole without a passport

Trying to stay for any time in a country that is not your own is a pain in the proverbial. Immigration services worldwide seem to pride themselves on being distrustful,suspicious, and convoluted. My own country, judging by what I hear from my foreign friends, is the leader of the pack in pickiness and penalty, but fortunately for me I only deal with them at the actual border. I've had to negotiate with Indonesia and with the UK to be allowed to live, work, and study, and while my memories of encounters there are not fond ones, they are at least well in the past. (Like childbirth, you forget.) In Indonesia once I sat in a waiting room at an immigration centre hoping to renew my visa. Next to me was a man from Zimbabwe, or perhaps it was New Zealand, who hoped to run a shrimp farm on the southern coast of Java. His problem was that the work visa required ten fingerprints, and he was missing one finger, so having been rejected on that score, he was here to argue his case. I never did find out what happened to him. When it was my turn to enter the supervisor's office to be interviewed, the only question he asked me before stamping my documents was 'Are you a virgin?'

They haven't asked me that one in Canada in our quest for permanent residency (PR, as we hopefuls call it). The university provides us with the services of a law firm because the process is so complex, and we know we ought to be grateful for their help. The only trouble is that the appointed law firm seems bent on making things harder for us. The assistant with whom we deal cannot get my name right twice in a row, randomly calling me 'Mrs Husband's-Last-Name', 'Carlin', and 'Dr Leslie'. Very occasionally she calls me either Leslie or Dr Carlin and I do a double-take.

This would be funny in some contexts but not so much in legal or immigration ones. I had to make my way to the lawyer's office recently to sign a notarized affidavit, and found that, after months and months of sending this firm documents, information, and completed forms detailing intimate aspects of our life histories, they had got wrong my title, my address, and my citizenship. With an outward show of good humour I waited while they corrected and reprinted the letter. We proceeded with the signing and stamping, but at the same time I could not help clocking the opulence of the office in a high-rise, high-rent part of town, and thinking about where our tax dollars are going.

Then there was the medical exam we had to undergo (not just our family; all PR applicants). While I cannot say that the doctor, one of a small handful recognized by the province as certified to evaluate our health status, ran anything but the most upright operation, his policy was to accept payment only in cash. The office occupied a basement suite of rooms in a seedy building in the low-rent part of town. We were the only patients in the place; there are five of us, and he had exactly five chairs in the waiting room, so just as well. I had the impression that once we left the premises, the Venetian blinds on the glass door would snap shut, and the office would transform itself into a den of iniquity, for gambling, perhaps, or purveying illicit substances, or jazz. It would have been perfect for any of those, but it was not at all suited to the practice of medicine. As we handed over cash, nearly $200 per person, to the smiling receptionist I asked whether she was checking for unmarked bills. To her credit, she laughed. I don't think she was Canadian. As far as I can tell we passed the medical exam but on what data, I am uncertain.

We had to apply to a total of four countries in which we had lived as adults, requesting police clearance records. Three countries came up trumps (I now know where in our 'hood to go to get my fingerprints taken -- for the FBI, of course). The fourth country is Indonesia, where I lived many moons ago, and whose police will only conduct a record check if the request is accompanied by official government documents-- documents on flimsy tissuey paper that I have long since discarded, or lost. When I phoned the police department in the city where I lived to plead with them to make an exception, the officer listened to me politely, asked where I was calling from, and then, once he understood something of what I wanted, said 'Ibu- Madam- I cannot hear you' and disconnected. This happened three times. Nor could the consulates or private expatriate services assist. Eventually, merciful Ottawa granted me a waiver. It's warranted; I'm fairly sure that the only crimes I committed in Indonesia were sartorial. There was a lot of batik.

I don't believe in borders, by the way. I never have, but I always thought that was my own little peculiarity. Recently, and thanks to Twitter, I learned that I'm in good company, or at least company: http://openborders.info/