This evening Zsolt and I removed nearly all the boxes from our apartment. We’ve been holding onto these boxes ever since moving from England, if not longer.
Cockroach Update: The exterminator came round today and laid a paste in various/many locations of the apartment. That’s right, you read correctly – Exterminator. Turns out the entire building has a cockroach problem, so the landlord is tackling each flat. I haven’t at all built a ‘community through cockroaches’ (excepting a 1 minute conversation in the corridor today that involved three opened doors with heads sticking out as we all exchanged with the exterminator about the problem), but at least the issue is being handled throughout the building.
Sending our boxes into the light.
So this evening Zsolt and I packed up the boxes to be put out for recycling. Apparently cockroaches like the cardboard glue. It just felt so strange to let these pieces of corrugated cardboard go . . . like I totally didn’t want to, like somehow I’d assigned emotions to these boxes and getting rid of them was cutting me off.
But what emotions could they be? Attachment to England? The feeling of not yet being home (since we’ve been storing boxes ever since moving to the UK, where they hid on top of closets, under the bed and behind the sofa)? The lack of moving ease?
I’ll psychoanalyze myself a moment, and say that for nearly the past seven years Zsolt and I have become accustomed to being transient. The idea that we would stay put – in one flat, for a long period of time really does feel bizarre. Like, could this place be home? Are we home? Can a place you rent be home, aren’t we not home until we buy our property? But there go the boxes – out into the street for the recycling truck to collect.
We’re transient without anywhere to go, or any means to easily get there. So maybe we should just change mental modes and instead be ‘settled’ . . . settlers, who settle, and grow tomato plants and get to know their neighbours in a way that actually sticks.
Well . . . I don’t know. The cockroaches have forced us to get rid of the moving boxes. We have to accept being here. I guess in a way that’s one step closer toward community, eh?
This evening, I ate a cheese-stringy, gravy covered, steaming hot bite of the neighbourhood at The Casse-CrouteVanier Snack-Shack. That’s right, we poutinized our evening and discovered another charming go-to destination amongst the streets of our new home. (And I watched a networking/marketing master at work – talk about having people invest in your business . . . oh my goodness, it was fantastic.)
Here’s the thing about Vanier that’s awesome, and what I never really anticipated before moving here. This area of Ottawa has a whole lot of community sunk right down deep into its streets, venues, and parks. And bit by bit – through the neighbours Zsolt gets chummy with, the fellow who bikes around with his trailer and waves hello, the dad who plays with his daughter every morning outside, the house that’s covered in ornaments, the park that hosts a spring-time sugar shack, and now our night excursion to the snack shack – we are learning more and more about this community.
I’m going to tell you about this Vanier Snack Shack right now, because I feel like it’s only right. You’ll see why in just a second.
Okay, this evening I had planned on baking salmon (still marinating and raw in the fridge at this moment) to eat along with the Naosap Harvest wild rice I was given at the Shesconnected conference this past weekend. Very healthy, no? Yes. But through a combination of feeling damn lazy, a wee bit discouraged from an unexpected bill (can you say, “whoops, I spent how much?!”), and being about a day away from my period – I was like, screw the salmon! I want to visit that remote snack house we noticed the other day by chance.
Zsolt wisely consented.
So we were off! Walking along the dark streets of the neighbourhood, we pass through an empty lot and approach the snack shack. Thankfully it’s open (we’ve tried to visit before and failed), which I can tell because there’s light coming from inside and there are little Christmas lights around the doorway and window.
In we go!
First impression: Inviting. There are little neon coloured poster boards all over and in different sizes advertising various food deals – two steamed hotdogs and small fries for 3 bucks, something called a bacon cheese hotdog, a variety of burger sizes, a poster for an American hotdog (?), an arrangement of styrofoam containers up on the wall with different prices, situated above a chest-high wooden counter, behind which is the kitchen, a fellow in an apron, a young lady looking on, and the owner – Serge.
And here’s why I think I have to write about this restaurant. (Not including the fact that Zsolt has labelled this his favourite poutine so far in Canada, citing the “harmonious mix” between the cheese, gravy and fries.) We were given such a warm welcome. Serge asked me firstly whether I was French, because I had a French sounding accent . . .I blame this on the word ‘poutine’, which I happen to say in a way that’s rather French. If ‘poutine’ and ‘croissant’ were the only two words I ever needed to say in French, I could be mistaken for a native speaker. . . anyhow, he then asked if we were new to the neighbourhood, advised us to buy property as Vanier is about to boom, talked with Zsolt about his new patent job & the office move, let us know there’s tons of art and music festivals in this area and we’re welcome to contribute if we have any ideas, and gave us a tour of his entire menu. All the while the young lady was trying to get our order, bue Serge wouldn’t stop telling us all about the area and his snack shack.
We did eventually get a big poutine. Not the biggest poutine, but a fairly large one nevertheless. Before leaving he gave us his card, and said he was looking into the facebook thing but never had any time for it. I’m not surprised. This fellow strikes me as sunk into his community and his restaurant. He’s organizing festivals, recruiting whoever walks through the door, and running what seems to me a successful small business. So no, he’s not online as of yet, but you can find ratings for the Vanier Snack Shack at www.urbanspoon.com – which he asked me to visit and rate, if I was so inclined.
So, are we going to go back? Duh. He made us feel like part of the community – he welcomed us to Vanier, and his long-waiting-customer-behind-us (apparently they are old friends) welcomed us to Vanier too; from now on, going to the Snack Shack will never just be about a harmonious poutine, it is about being part of the neighbourhood. (But of course, the yummy food also matters!) Brilliant welcoming – brilliant marketing – and just plain brilliant poutine.
Bonne Appetite! And yes, I am glad we moved to Vanier. 😉
P.S. I loved the huge helping of cheese curds. If you have poutine without the curds, you are missing out!
If you haven’t noticed, exercise is a big thing in terms of health. Everyone needs exercise no matter what your weight, no matter what your medical history, and no matter what your ‘lazy’ levels. Even walking around the house when there’s no strength left is good exercise. (That’s an extreme example, but I’ve been there with chemo and know others who have as well. My mother once had chronic fatigue, and just getting out of bed was a struggle . . .)
Right, so Dr Canada once told me to ‘burn off that estrogen’. Forget about fat or calories. I’m burning estrogen.
What my husband is burning, I have no idea. He’s six foot five with a slim build. But maybe we could say he’s building up the muscle? Burning on that muscle! And improving circulation, too.
All this to say that we’ve found a new way to exercise, which I’d like to recommend to you today. What is it? Snowshoeing!
Yesterday afternoon we drove out to a quiet spot in the Ottawa Greenbelt just off the highway, and tried on our (my parent’s) snowshoes for the very first time. Unlike the experiment with cross country skiing (which was, by the way, disastrous) there was no trouble getting into the shoes, and no trouble keeping balance.
[Side note: Zsolt has this impression that Canada equals animals. But where are all the animals? We see squirrels, birds, chipmunks . . . but what about the bear, moose, elk, wolves, and deer? He’s not the only one expecting the suburbs to overflow with wildlife. I do believe that nearly anyone visiting from outside the country expects to step off the plane and spot a moose. It’s not their fault, it’s ours. Canada has injected the world with giant-animal propaganda, what with the stories of polar bears and seals and moose and wolf packs, and grizzly bears. Anyhow, I’m just saying – if Ottawa is a tourist destination, maybe we should import some elk or something?]
So we begin to walk into the bush, and we’re determined to find some animals. There are tracks everywhere. Some two-hoofed and spaced, others tiny and very close, a few that are quite dog-like (or wolf-like!), and others remarkably human. But that’s all we see – tracks.
Maybe twenty minutes later we’re crawling through the branches of some thick patch of spiky trees (the best bit of nature walking) and come across a train line. Fan-freaking-tastic, a nice smooth path. Obviously animals and people walk along this line – we can see by the tracks, and obviously no train uses this thing because it’s totally snowed over.
Safe to walk on? Of course!
So we start walking. Beautiful day, the sky is so blue, the trees have that glisten of a past ice storm . . . and we are stomp, stomp, stomping along till we reach this ‘thing’ I don’t know the proper name for. It’s a light for the train, as though there were once two train lines here, as opposed to one (because the actual lights points off into the forest – i.e. to nowhere and no one, not sure how a train on the main track would even see it.) and at the bottom of this thing is a pile of old seeds. And chickadees. Little tiny, black, grey and yellow chickadees, hopping around and picking at the food. Zsolt pulls out the camera and one of the birds flies onto his camera.
We became excited.
Next Zsolt passes me the camera, and I film him picking up a few stray seeds and holding them up in his hand. A little bird arrives and hops around his palm, pecking at the seeds and hopping about some more. Charming or what? It was like a scene from Disney’s Sleeping Beauty with all the little birds. (And since Zsolt is such a great beauty.)
We get this on film. And then I decide to try.
Holding up my hand and waiting, the birds seem less certain to land on my palm. But I keep waiting with my hand held out – until Zsolt says,
“There’s a plow!”
And I say,
“Oh shit!”
Roaring down the ‘apparently-not-abandoned’ train track, is a giant plow throwing snow into the air like little waterfalls off its side blades.
Well hey, we weren’t going to argue with its progress. Scrambling to pick up our poles, and our mitts, and my dropped scarf, Zsolt then says,
“Jump across the creek!”
Because this train line is quite, hmm, narrow? With dips on each side – one side goes quite steeply down into the trees, the other rises quite steeply up in to the trees . . . the stream is on the ‘up side’.
So in my snow shoes, I run and take a flying, big-footed leap to safety. (Though the snow was sliding, and that stream looked really deep just next to my heels.)
What does Zsolt do? Does he follow his panicked wife?
Oh, no, he doesn’t. He’s suddenly struck with reason, and simply steps to the side of the maybe-wider-than-I-realized path, and the plow slows down to pass.
There I am, clinging to the side of this hill as the plow man looks at me and gives an uncertain wave. . . and they carry on.
Leaping across a stream is easy when you’re panicked. Getting back off that steep incline is more tricky. With help from Zsolt’s reaching arms, I managed to jump back across that stream (onto the upward incline of the train line) and back to safety.
Anyhow, by the time we walked back to the car, we were both totally knackered. However, in terms of exercise and reclaiming your health (Cause, really, that’s the bottom line despite all the extra life-threatening fun.), I couldn’t recommend it more. Crazy adventure with snow shoeing, and good health to boot. Totally worth the price of the equipment. And maybe, maybe, next time, we’ll spot a moose.
Bumpyboobs ~CatherineBrunelleWrites 