Katitude

It’s the middle of June, and we still haven’t decided where we’re going for the summer road trip. It feels odd. In all our previous road trips, the decision would have been made months ago, and by now I would have accumulated a stack of state/provincial tourism pamphlets and maps.

Originally, we’d thought of going to Newfoundland again. There’s just something about it that calls us back. We want the next visit there to be more leisurely; three weeks on the Rock sounds about right. But finances are still what they are, so we’ve shelved it until we can do it right.

We sit in bed in the morning, sipping our coffee and looking out over the city, and talk about which direction to take to escape it for a while.

South sounds intriguing. We’ve never gone in that direction, have not yet ridden the Blue Ridge Parkway yet, or Deal’s Gap. Truthfully, the thought of riding the Tail of the Dragon (318 curves in 11 miles) makes me nervous. And excited. But mostly nervous. I think if I could ride it when there is NO ONE else around, I’d be a lot less nervous.

Not only is there the lure of the unknown to bring us South, there are friends a-plenty (too many to link) who I know would greet us with hugs should we pull into their driveways. Oh, and I could get my chicken fried steak fix if we headed South, that’s for damn sure.

However, there’s the issue of southern summer heat and riding. We found out during the run to the Grand Canyon in August that leathers + 90 degree heat = “holy smokin’ assholes, it’s hot!”. Further morning conversations will determine if the need to go somewhere unknown and unridden will outweigh the desire not to melt.

East is another option; through the dark green lusciousness of the Adirondacks and the White Mountains to the bracing ocean breezes of the Gaspe. Mmmm….poutine and tarte au sucre!

Or there’s West, heading around the Great Lakes to visit friends and stop at Betty’s Pies then curving up and back along Superior’s North Shore. There’s something about the run from Thunder Bay to Sudbury that always feels like home, the rocks and trees and lakes of the Canadian Shield reminding me of childhood summer vacations. It’s a hop-skip-and-a-jump from Sudbury to the magic of Manitoulin.

I am getting to the point where it doesn’t matter which direction we go in, as long as we go. Nothing else blows away the crap that lodges itself in my gray matter like a few days on the road, unplugged and without a schedule.

OhCaptain has set up a tourney next week to raise some funds for Ronald McDonald house. I have a class that night, so enjoy my dead money.

Feeling a bit knocked sideways tonight.

I have to go to a funeral on Friday. Alone, as Keith is in Korea until Monday. I am feeling significantly less than myself at the moment.

My plans for a distraction tonight have fallen through and there is nothing to take its place that I’m even remotely interested in. I’ve gotten bored with my book halfway in (hate it when that happens), I don’t feel like knitting, there is truly nothing on tv and my cello sounds soggy and morose thanks to humidity. I’m supposed to go and find some pictures, but I just don’t know if I can right now. It’s too hot and humid for a bubble bath, and I have the sneaky suspicion that alcohol is not going to help my mood.

So I think I may make a few phone calls, then kill little Lego people until I can sleep.

Yes, I know this sounds pitiful. I’m going to post it anyway, not because I’m looking for sympathy (I’m not) but because if some of the mood is here then less of it is between my ears.

This is an old piece that I dug out for writing class last night. I liked the concept of describing a photo not taken (credit to Unphotographable.com), and while it still seems a bit contrived, it’s better than it was two and a half years ago when I first wrote it.

**********

In this photograph I didn’t take of Solange, she is standing in the kitchen of her small, square house. The kitchen easily takes up a quarter of the living space, and it’s a cheerful room with apple green walls, dark red appliances and lightly-stained pale wooden cupboards. The wood came from their property; she had told us before that her husband had cleared the lot and used the oak, maple and pine for the building and furnishings.

You can see one of the large windows over her shoulder. The window is propped open and my non-photograph has caught the white lace curtain billowing in the breeze. A bit of the clearing can be seen through the curtain, semi-wild and unmowed, the tall flowers and grasses making it a haven for butterflies and dragonflies.

If it were a photo, you would see Solange smiling at the camera. There’s something about the way her eyes twinkle, the way the laugh lines are formed around her mouth and eyes, that lets you know that she accustomed to smiling more than frowning. And there’s something about that particular shade of red hair and the easy way she holds her cigarette that makes you suspect, even before you know her name or hear her lilting accent, that she’s French Canadian.

In this un-picture, you can see trays of muffins and pies on cooling racks on the counter behind her. It’s a pity that you cannot smell the deliciousness of her kitchen, with its notes of cinnamon and ginger and caramelized sugar hanging in the air. She is holding a plate of her homemade butter tarts. They don’t look like much, a study in brown in and beige. The taste however, is a perfect blend of light pastry and sweet raisin filling that I’d not tasted before and haven’t found since since.

It had been the promise of tarts that had enticed us off the road and into the clearing, into the kitchen. There had been a small hand lettered sign propped up against a fence post, offering

tart
muffin
pie
bread

and so we rode along the rutted and overgrown driveway to her little square house. The plan of just getting a few tarts and then heading to the campground for an early set up dissolved, and we we stayed for a few hours to talk with Solange in her apple green kitchen, drinking coffee and keeping her company. Not many tourists made it to the far end of the island, and her husband worked in the bush. It would be months before she would see him again.

We talked about travelling, about teaching. She had been a teacher in Montreal; one of her daughters was a teacher in Africa. She asked us how we met, and laughed when we said over the internet. She liked the fact that I rode my own bike, and that we didn’t have any helmet-to-helmet communication.

“People tink dat a marriage is all about de talking. Pffft. It is about de good silences between de talking.”

She was a good saleswoman, that’s for sure. While we sat and talked, she had us try samples of her baking, talking up each one. The maple cookies had maple syrup that her husband had made, the oatmeal cookies were from her grandmother’s recipe, the butter tarts were made with brown sugar, and she informed us that the muffins, “Dey harr all naturelle, wit only applesauce to sweeten dem. Anyting else is no good”.

We bought more than we’d intended, and certainly more than we had room to store in the cooler. We carefully packed the butter tarts and maple cookies so they wouldn’t shake apart with the vibration of the bikes on the corduroy road to the campground and we each carried muffins in our pocket. They became slightly squished and a little linty, but they still tasted heavenly when we ate them the next morning, warmed over the campfire and served with coffee.

We made a point to see her every year after, when we took our annual trip to the far end of this remote island. She would remember us, and we would have coffee in her apple-green kitchen and buy too many baked treats. It became a tradition.

However, two years ago there was no sign leaning against the post and the drive looked even more overgrown with weeds and grasses than it had in the past. We asked after her at the small local store in the nearby village, and the dull-eyed teen behind the counter said Solange had been sick, that’s all she knew.

Last year, the drive was fenced off with a new-ish wooden gate, and we’d learned from the owner of the gas station that Solange had passed away. All I have now to remember her by is this un-photograph in my minds eye, the fading memory of lively conversation in an apple green kitchen and the taste of the best butter tart I have ever eaten.

It’s quite a paradox, really.

I am feeling quite mellow and zen, and yet I have a very real urge to yell a big ol’ FUCK YOU to the human race in general.

No, not to you, of course not my dear. I meant the rest of the human race. You, I quite like.

A woman sat across from on the bus on the way, which is not unusual. But the woman herself was unusual, and I couldn’t stop stealing glimpses of her.

She looked to be in her late 50′s, and was thin but not frail. Her hair was short and spiky, dyed purple with white blonde tips. She wore a black summer dress that showed off the tattoos that started at her right wrist then swirled and twined around her arm to spread across her back and chest. Judging by the colours that were so vibrant that they seemed to shimmer against milky pale skin, I’d say the ink was fairly new.

She looked fabulous. As I tried not to stare at her, I couldn’t help but think that when I grow up, I want to be just like her.

I’ve been reading some pretty wordy blog posts about the LOST last episode, and decided to add my 2 cents to the fray.

Dudes. You look/sound like teenage girls discussing the latest episode of Gossip Girls. Well, except for Julius Goat; he sounds like a funny, witty and intelligent teenage girl intent on taking over the world while we are all laughing and not paying attention.

But I digress.

Lost. It’s a TV show. It’s fiction. And ultimately, pretty meaningless.

If you want to watch something meaningful, might I suggest you take the time to watch some videos from TED.com? Just an idea.

(I was going to embed one here, but still couldn’t decide which one after watching 6 or so. They all left me inspired.)

oh sweet FSM, make it stop. The world has gone all jittery and surreal.

Wait…maybe it’s not the world. Maybe it’s the double espresso and the 3 pieces of Kahlua brownies I had instead of lunch? I even brought a nice healthy lunch in today, with veggies and low fat dip and organic yogurt (peach) with home made granola to mix in. But I had meetings and clubs that took up nine tenths of my lunch.

Then again, now that I actually read what I brought in for lunch, maybe it’s no big surprise that I went right for the chocolate and sugar.

Yeah, it’s a day.  :-|

**********

Kahlua Brownies

Brownies

1 cup                   butter
1 cup                   white sugar
1 cup                   packed brown sugar
1 cup                  cocoa
3                          large eggs
1 cup                   flour
1 ½ tsp                baking powder
1 ½ tsp                vanilla
1 tbsp                  Kahlua

Icing

1/2 cup                butter, softened
1 cup                   icing sugar
2/3 cup                cocoa
1 tsp                    vanilla
1 Tbsp                 milk
2 Tbsp                 Kahlua
2 Tbsp                 hot coffee

Preheat the oven to 350.

Brownies: Melt the butter and combine with the sugars and cocoa in a large bowl.  Beat in the eggs one at a time.  Sift the flour and baking powder into the mixture and stir.  Add the vanilla and Kahlua.

Pour into a greased and floured 9 x 13 inch cake pan. Bake for 25 minutes to 30 minutes.  The centre should be soft.  Let cool before icing.

Icing: Combine ingredients with an electric mixer.  Spread over the brownies.

…then this must be post 1000.

Not really sure how one should celebrate 1000 posts. I think I’ll start with a drink and a game of poker. After all, that’s pretty much how this thing got started.