August 26, 2007
Itadekimasu
“What does it mean exactly, itadekimasu?” I asked Sayaka over our sushi lunch yesterday– the Japanese equivalent of “let’s eat”, or “Bon appetit”. She explained that it means “I will take your life,” and it was a message of thanks to the food we were about to eat. Grace, I suppose, without a god. I think Barbara Kingsolver would approve (I think Barbara Kingsolver may have replaced Jesus in our household). And I love it. I will stop italicizing itadekimasu, and it will enter my vernacular. As non-religious people, we have to seek to live our lives in thoughtful ways, and I think this is a good tradition to take along with us.
August 24, 2007
Footprints
Oh, I do wonder. About my houseguest who comes from a culture in which bathing is a sacred ritual. Who comes from a culture in which the body is scrubbed clean before one steps into the bath water. Oh, I do wonder. About my houseguest. About what she must have thought this morning. What must she have thought about the footprints in my tub?
August 19, 2007
Wonderful…
Now rereading Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin, which I remember nothing about. I read it the first time, according to the inside cover, beginning October 8 2001, and finished that October 27 with a note on blank page at the back, “Wonderful…”. Let’s hope it lives up to my previous reception. And that I read it a bit quicker than I did the first time around, as there are so many books I’ve got scheduled to be read before summer is over. Also now reading the latest Walrus which is proving interesting, though The Future of Reading was less interesting than I wanted it to be.
Earlier today I was happy to be reading a little interview with Margaret Drabble (via Maud Newton). “The biggest fate of all is your marriage partner. It’s extraordinary that you should happen to be at such a party or such a university or even on such a bus ride and meet the man that you’re going to marry, for better or worse. I find these accidental conjunctions that turn the plot of your life fascinating.”
News on the homefront: we’ve just cut into our first homegrown watermelon, and we’ve got a Japanese houseguest arriving on Wednesday.
August 19, 2007
If you want your local bookstore to prosper…
A word of advice: if you want your local bookstore to prosper, a good tip might be to give me a gift certificate for it. I regard gift certificates as licence to spend twice as much as usual (naturally– one wouldn’t want to look cheap). I was fortunate to receive a gift from Nicholas Hoare recently, and so yesterday we made a journey out of walking there and back. (I like long long walks. I regard them as licence to eat cake en-route.)
When we arrived at the bookstore, Stuart settled down on a couch with a book of interest to wait out my selection process. (Which is to say that Stuart has come a long way since our trip to Paris’s Shakespeare and Company in April 2003 which was the scene of our very first fight.) And I chose very carefully: I am deeply interested in reading Arlington Park and A Celibate Season, but neither was in stock. However I found eight others, and then narrowed the pile to five, and then three.
What won out in the end were Claire Massud’s first novel When the World Was Steady, Simple Recipes by Madeleine Thien, and Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible. Each of these writers have wowed me with their more recent works, and I am excited to be venturing into their back catalogues for more.
August 13, 2007
Piedust Memories
I’ve been too busy having fun lately to take pictures, and so I bring you one of my favourite shots from our trip to England in June.
This weekend has stretched long with the fun. Someone gave Stuart tickets to We Will Rock You for Thursday eve, and fun was had. Friday evening we met up with Natalie Bay for an authentic Japanese meal at Ematei, followed by authentic ice cream from Sicilian Sidewalk Cafe. Saturday evening was a housewarming at the gorgeous new abode of a certain Ms. Kim Dean (special guest appearence by E. Smith). And then today, a whole day with the future-Smiths. We went out for Chinese food, and then came back to ours for a game of Scrabble on the porch while the rain poured down. And I won! Word I longed to be a word was “piedust”. Best actual word of the game was “zygote”, and Carolyn and Steve didn’t get too angry when Stuart and I cheated (I handed him a tile in the bowl of popcorn). They stayed over until the sun came out, and then dinner was tea and freshly baked scones and jam, which would have been perfect had I not added too much salt. Everyone was very understanding though, and copious dollops of jam rendered them absolutely edible.
Now reading The Raw Shark Texts. I think I will be up quite late tonight reading to get to the very end.
Tomorrow night we’re going to see Crowded House!
August 9, 2007
Art arrived today
Today I received a print of my favourite painting ever: Fisher Price Mother Russia by Kirsten Johnson. Nothing has ever been more brilliant. And I am looking very forward to it hanging it up, having it adorn my walls forevermore.
August 8, 2007
Golden tomatoes and blue potatoes
Now rereading Carol Shields’s Unless, her masterpiece. I reread this book every summer, an amazing experience that allows one to, for example, pause and ponder the first paragraph for about ten minutes straight. It’s also sad and heartening to be reading this book after having read her book of letters with Blanche Howard in June. I also still maintain that this book is a treatise on novel-writing, which is very exciting seeing as I am returning to my own novel in just a few weeks after this summer of short stories. Anyway, I am enjoying this much the same way I always do, but also differently, of course.
I liked Michael Holroyd’s exasperation with author acknowledgements, as much as acknowledgements are the first part of any book I read. I also enjoyed Holroyd’s sister in law AS Byatt’s treatment of Middlemarch, which you might recall I read for the first time and fell in love with earlier this year. Byatt’s Possession is being “twinned” with Middlemarch for the Vintage Classic Twins Editions, which were brilliantly introduced to me here at dovergreyreader scribbles.
And it’s been nearly a week since I mentioned the garden last– you all must be on the edge of your seats! For your information my husband is now reading Animal Vegetable Miracle and is more obsessed than I was. We revisited the brilliant Trinity Bellwoods Farmers Market and brought home tons of wonderful stuff, including blue potatoes and blackberries. We did a harvest of our garden tonight, and brought in two enormous bowls of tomatoes of all kinds– the window sill is crowded. Tomorrow night I am going to attempt a golden tomato sauce.
July 27, 2007
Pickle Me This goes to the cottage
Oh, how jealous I am of people with cottages. As great is summer in the city, some days I’d donate my kidneys for a dip in a lake, for the feel of a slatted dock under a beach towel, weeping willow trees, screen door slams, and the cry of a loon. Even for a rainy day, drops bouncing off the lake’s surface. And finally, my dream is scheduled to come true. Hurrah! This weekend we’re off to Muskoka for a cottage weekend away with my two friends oldest and dearest. Hilarity is in store, board games are packed, beer bought, compilation CD compiled (inc Spice Girls, Joni Mitchell, Guns N’ Roses, Dixie Chicks, the Chiffons, Enrique and Cam’rom– can you spell eclectic?) Oh I am SO excited. And books planned: I will be reading What the Dead Know, and I’ve just lost my husband to some book about a boy wizard. We leave very early Saturday morning, have a wine and cheese party to attend tomorrow evening, and from where I stand at this point, the next three days promise to be rather fine.
July 23, 2007
Not Kurashiki
And so here we are, anticipating next weekend in Muskoka in a big way (ha ha). Yesterday we got to Toronto Island, finally, and so it won’t be this summer’s Kurashiki. (Kurashiki was the city in Japan we meant to vist almost every weekend that we lived there, and then we moved away). We had a brilliant day, riding our bikes down to the ferry docks– we adore riding through the financial district on the weekend when the sidewalks are as wide as usual, but perfectly empty. We landed on Ward’s, and had an ice cream. Spent some time on the beach reading our books, and then we rode along the boardwalk. To Centre Island, which was perfectly madhouse, and great in its own way, and then along to Hanlan’s Point where we got the ferry back. And then we rode up to Kensington and picked up blueberries, and then up to Mexitaco on Bloor Street for food aplenty plus Coronas which surely undid all the good our exercise did. Oh well.
Today was not so notable, except that we tried our carrots– they may look bizarre, but they taste good. The big tomatoes are coming out now too, and they’re extraordinary. If all goes well, we might soon have more watermelon than we know what to do with (imagine that predicament!). And a bit of a low point as whilst turning off the hose I fell seven feet off a ledge to the bottom of our concrete basement steps. That was not so fun, and yet fascinating also as I’ve not been so scraped in years, nor can I remember the last time I lost my footing and failed altogether to find it.
In better news, I finally replaced the $10 Canadian Tire helmet I bought when we were broke, and got a fabulous new one— in pink!
