5Q5A: Summer Holiday Stretch 2017 (Part 1)

For the past while it seems, I’ve been becoming very paranoid every time I book holiday time: because it feels like I’ve been jinxed or cursed, for the past few times in frequent succession, by something that either afflicts me negatively health-wise, or else presents itself as some other crisis to respond to that gouges away at me financially, robbing me of funds to do anything more adventurous. As a result, lately I haven’t been too committed to even make any travels or definite plans for extended leave, just out of pessimism and cynical belief that some recurring pattern of this will happen: with something coming along and ruining things for me anyway. So far, this time around, some whammy, bad karma, or some other force of malevolent juju hasn’t befallen me (yet). However, now I’m deprived of anything of novelty to do, and starting things off in this suck-ass rainy weather of today doesn’t help. I turn to writing as my last resort to noodle things out, and to try to put things into perspective in 5Q5A format, to also hopefully prevent me from rambling on too much.

Q1. If I can’t away anywhere, what things can I do to at least “mentally vacate”?

A1. My regular weekend routine involves just doing my own laundry/housecleaning, or hacking food

My favourite thing to do alone as a kid was

assembling model airplanes. Here's what I

walked out of that store with: a cheaper

than plastic option, and a whole lot

more to build for a cheaper price.

to pieces and applying some form of heat to them, and maybe preserving this stuff. All still labour-intensive projects; all still a lot of work, and it’s certainly not 100% leisure. I thought I was going to try to test how far I could still run with my infarct-afflicted lungs. Of course, that didn’t happen given the rain. One other thing I thought of doing was taking a prolonged break from all this “being-an-adult-with-responsibilities” bullshit. The trick then is to think like a kid. With me not being, or having been a parent, I have never had many opportunities to view the world vicariously through the eyes of a child: watching them grow, or interacting with them as an adult through play. If brought up right, kids are usually uninhibited in using whatever creativity, wonder, and genius they have: before too much progressively invasive adult reality dulls that shine away from them. To get back that quality involves finding some place where adults go to supply themselves with stuff to exercise some new creativity, and the place to spark that kind of stuff was Michaels art supply shop, to find some sort of craft supplies. I did find something that tickled my fancy, and made me a bit nostalgic of my own childhood. My next stop will probably be at Lee Valley, to collect some precision tools, if making little airplanes isn’t going to entertain me.

Q2. What was the thing that came closest to being bad juju then at the beginning of this holiday?

A2. My beloved coffee grinder, one that was gifted to me over 20 years ago, finally kicked the bucket - a bad omen perhaps. It served me well. I always have whole bean coffee here; never that stale pre-ground crap. There is no shooting off into new realms of inspiration or creativity here from ground control without the right kind of caffeinated rocket fuel early on in my day. And with nothing else to grind my beans, that is a problem. I tried using my blender for grinding them, but unfortunately, the resulting grind was too course and it just couldn’t do the job right. Thankful, I found a replacement for a bargain.

Q3. If expense and travel time weren’t factors, what would have the plans otherwise been?

A3. Something like the list of the following things, on some madcap adventure throughout Northern Europe spending time:

·         Exploring the local castles

·         Picking random stops along the London Underground, and just wandering around for days staring up at the architecture

·         Cycling around Copenhagen and Amsterdam and taking in the outdoor markets and cafés

·         Touring the Viking Museum in Roskilde, Denmark

·         In a jacuzzi full of Swedish bikini models*

·         Gorging myself on fresh seafood in some seaside bistro along the Brittany coast of France

·         Visiting the D-Day battlegrounds and memorials (Juno beach)

·         Having my ass-end warming some barstools at various pubs in Dublin, and in other Irish communities

·         Doing whatever else Anthony Bourdain would be doing in those regions, and taking time to write some memoirs of these jaunts (He’s a lucky son of a bitch, and I am so envious for the job that he has!)

Q4. If then resorting to cheap(er) thrills, what are they?

A4. Not exactly a cheap thrill, but being in a rut of boredom, depressed by the dark sky and rain, and otherwise void of inspiration, I made a trip to the casino, and thankfully won a little money, just enough to cover some of the cheap thrills I bought throughout the day. The beer I brewed last month has cellared long enough to sample; I’m at least well-stocked with that. The best score so far for this early part of holiday time in terms of simple things (apart from a bargain priced new coffee grinder, and model plane book), has been an ample supply of . . . super fresh Black Mission Figs. The first time I ever had a fresh fig in my adult life seemed like a religious experience**.

Foccacia Bread baked with fresh figs, unripened goat cheese,

and seasoned with mint, pepper, and a little drizzle of salt

and olive oil. This, plus some olives, and some wine cured

dry salami as some chacuterie was my lunch. The rest were

just simply eaten raw, and some were reserved to be pickled

in balsamic vinegar.

That happened several years ago in St. Catherine’s, Ontario. For that I thank a certain Mr. Testa, an old gentleman Italian immigrant, who is also my cousin’s father-in-law, who offered me the experience of what one of these things actually taste like in their perfection: fully ripened, and eaten within seconds after being plucked off of its tree proper. Simply amazing! The fig tree he had grown and husbanded himself was his personal treasure. It stood only about two meters tall, sheltered in the very centre of a very orderly greenhouse, as if presented there in a shrine-like display, surrounded with all the other pots of herbs, pimento peppers, and various other plants he used for crafting his own homemade canned antipasti. The tree was itself a product of carefully and mindfully placed grafted scions, according to some tradition of his Old Country, which gave it a perfectly sculpted symmetry. It was like an oversized, fruit-laden, Bonsai tree. Amidst the branches of this tree were smaller pots of soil, tied and secured to them. The soil surfaces in these pots were contacting the bottoms of the crooks of the smaller boughs. These pots were triggering root growth on those nodes of the branches, which when established, he would then cut these rooted branches away from the main tree body. It was his method of propagating new cuttings, which he either further nurtured separately, or sold as new little fig trees; I was very impressed with this resourcefulness. The tasting a fresh fig now always reminds me of this sort of ingenuity and pride. The same kind of pride my Dad had for his blossoming apple tree earlier this spring. Fresh figs are a rare find in this town, so scoring some by happenstance was a real bonus. So, I grabbed up as many as I found practical to use, given how perishable they are.

Q5. What is the next thing to invest in for having a decent summer holiday locally?

A5. Given that I’m conveniently only a block away from the riverbank, I’d really like to explore the

city, and the southern riverbend, from rowing around on the South Saskatchewan itself. The only watercraft that I might be able to carry there and back by myself is a shorter (2.5 - 3 m) kayak. The only things that keep me from outright getting one is the question of storage space (it would have to be hung from the ceiling of my balcony, a possible condo regulation infraction), the question of how to transfer it safely in and out of the building (I mentally engineered a pulley system from my deck, like casting away a lifeboat), and the fact that if I capsize the thing, my own comfort and ability to swim equates to that of a thrashing, drowning cat - even with a life jacket on.

Although thankful that I won’t be at work for a while, it feels like the grip of boredom and a mindset dulled and numbed by previous stessors has to be shaken off me in a drastic and desperate manner: like Houdini escaping from a straight-jacket in a tank of water kind of deal.

I have eight more days to reckon with all this.

*- I struck this out, not because it was a thing I had already accomplished (I’m sad and sorry to say), but because, if I weren’t travelling alone, if I ever did reach Europe, I’d ideally be traveling with a female companion, and I wouldn’t think she’d approve of this sort of frolicking and cavorting on my part. Secondly, of all the things on that fantasy list, this one would probably be as likely to happen as me being struck by lightning not just once, or twice, but thrice!

** - Buddha himself allegedly found enlightenment just sitting meditating under a fig tree, so perhaps it’s not some sacrilegious hyperbole to say such a thing. It makes me wonder if he indeed partook and relished in eating its ambrosia-like fruit.