other voices, other rooms

I'm really liking my new apartment, even as its less attractive aspects become apparent - the neighbors across the hall, for example, whose stereo sounds like it's in my bedroom and whose musical taste runs, sadly, to Ricky Martin and Christina Aguilera.

And the neighbors upstairs who, as far as I can tell, play recorders and clog - slowly. I don't even know if slow clogging exists, but it's the only activity I can conceive of that would correspond to the sounds I'm hearing from upstairs. Perhaps they're just learning to clog. Or perhaps you have to clog slowly if you're trying to play the recorder at the same time. Both seem plausible explanations to me.

I'm not worried about it - for one thing, it may be seasonal, something they indulge in only once a year (which would explain the lack of expertise). For another, it's only happened after 11 in the morning, and most days at this time, I will be at work, leaving them free to slow-clog their brains out.

Mostly, though, I find I like the mental image of them - I've decided they're some sort of recorder-based, slow-clogging, Czech version of the von Trapp family, and that, somehow, makes it all okay.


[Pictured, above right: My upstairs neighbors.]

the corkscrew chronicles

My recent adventures in corkscrews reminded me this is not the first time they've caused me grief.

Some years ago (it's not for me to say how many), I was studying French in a town I'll call Pate a Papier (Pulp and Paper), Quebec. My roommate was a schoolteacher from Newfoundland, and through her I met another Newfoundlander - a very tall, very brash, very blond girl who called me "Brainchild" because, having absolutely nothing else to do in Pate a Papier, I did my homework. Through her, I met the Quebecois guy with whom she did a weekly language exchange. He was about a foot shorter than she was and as dark as she was blond, and I came to think of them as Hall and Oates.

When my roommate returned to Newfoundland at Christmas, she advised me to "be very cold" to Hall. She didn't elaborate, but the unspoken message was, "or pay the price." Moments after she'd left (or so it seems, in retrospect), Hall called to invite me to attend the school Christmas party with her and Oates. Throwing my ex-roommate's warnings to the four winds, I agreed.

The night of the party, they arrived to pick me up in Oates' car. Hall announced she had a bottle of wine to drink at the party but no corkscrew. I realized I had none either. Oates, however, announced that he had one, and that we'd simply have to return to his house and get it.

What he meant, I realized 15 minutes later, was that his MOTHER had one and we could return to the house he shared with her (and his father) and borrow it - but only after I'd been introduced to his parents and looked at photos of their cat swimming in the toilet.

Wait, it gets worse.

We arrived at the party, opened the wine, I poured a glass and detached myself from Hall and Oates as quickly as possible. Until, that is, Oates approached me in a panic, asking if I'd seen his mother's corkscrew. I told him I hadn't, and he looked like he was about to burst into tears. If he didn't find it, he said, his mother would kill him. Or maybe make him swim in the toilet. I can't remember, but whatever the threat, it scared him. He told me I had to help him search, and I, being a nicer person in those days, did - wandering around the hall, peering surreptitiously over people's shoulders, trying to find the corkscrew.

I had no luck, and told Oates as much, but he had a new plan: he'd talked to the DJ, who had agreed to give me the microphone after the next song so that I could announce, in English, that we were missing a corkscrew and could we please have it back.

Now, to this point, I'd kept a very low profile in our program, and the idea of being known as the girl who lost her corkscrew at the Christmas party did not appeal to me at all, but I couldn't see anyway out -- Oates was so upset (and Hall was SO gone). Oates was by now standing next to the DJ, holding out a microphone toward me, and so I began the long, horrible walk to the DJ booth, thinking that I could always transfer to another university after Christmas. Just as I was reaching for the microphone, a guy ran up and handed Oates his corkscrew.

An 11th hour reprieve.

Joyfully, I returned to the party, and after Christmas I returned to the university. But I never again returned a call from Hall or Oates. I was very cold. I'd learned.

[Pictured above right: A girl from Newfoundland and her Quebecois language exchange partner, or Hall and Oates. Your call. And while we're on the subject, if you haven't watched Yacht Rock, you should.]

seasons' greetings

Recent accusations of racism (see previous post) have left me bloodied but unbowed. I've been accused of worse, you'll remember - of homophobia, of clubbing seals (for fun, not fur), of stealing the movie Wimbledon from the Planet DVD on Spalena.

Perhaps I will become more culturally sensitive as a result. Perhaps not. It's a crap shoot, really.

I've been enjoying a very relaxing holiday season during which I've mixed long stretches of reading with short bouts of energetic unpacking and picture hanging. My apartment now has a decidedly split personality - the living room is settled, the bedroom looks like a squat. It's the sort of contrast that occurs frequently along the Czech/German border.

Relaxing as the holidays have been, they haven't been the source of great posting inspiration, so rather than treating you to a condensed version of the plot of The Constant Gardener, I think I'll just wish you all happy holidays!

moving target

I've been moving since the beginning of the month. The idea of having an entire month in which to complete the process sounded great at the outset, but has actually just prolonged the agony. Like watching all of "Runaway Bride" instead of just puking during the trailer ("In a world where brides run away...").

I've been living in the old apartment while I "clean" it - i.e. lie on the couch and watch "Friends" and wish cats could vacuum - but I actually moved most of my worldly possessions to the new apartment on December 2.

That night, having once again had to do a ridiculous amount of the lifting and carrying although I'd hired two movers this time (side note: you know you've been rattling around a town too long when your Albanian mover takes a good look at you and says, "I'm sure we've met somewhere before.") I bought a bottle of wine to have a glass and relax at the old place, forgetting I'd moved all my corkscrews to the new place.

Exhaustion battled desire for drink and desire for drink won, so I went in search of a corkscrew. I returned to the store where I'd bought the wine, realizing as I approached the clerk that I did not know the Czech word for corkscrew (I chalk this up to being a beer drinker rather than stinking at Czech, although I also stink at Czech). I successfully mimed opening a bottle, however, and the clerk got it but told me she couldn't help me. She suggested I try the Chinese store up the street. "They have," she said, then paused, as though mentally cataloging all the things they had, "Everything?" I suggested. "Everything," she agreed. And that's true, because I'd hit the them up up earlier in the day for packing tape, and they'd had that.

So I returned to the Chinese everything store and used my miming abilities to ask the extremely uninterested girl behind the counter for a corkscrew. Rather than answering me, she yelled to a guy in the back room in Chinese, and judging but what followed, I'm guessing what she said was:

"Hey, Hung Li, whitey here want to drink wine out of ice cream scoop, you got one?"

To which Hung Li apparently replied, "Now I hear all! Send her back I fix her up."

So, nodding and smiling the way I do when I'm not sure what Chinese people are saying but I want them to realize I respect them and their ancient culture, I went into the back room where Hung Li handed me an ice cream scoop.

"No," I said, in my halting Czech, "Have wine. In bottle. Need to open. Need..." (and here I did my bottle-opening mime, being careful to avoid any hint of a scooping motion).

"HA!" said Hung Li, then rooted around through a shelf containing every kitchen implement known to man and produced a corkscrew. I thanked him, and, trying desperately to ingratiate myself, asked him the word for corkscrew in Czech. He immediately yelled to the girl at the cash desk:

"Now she want CZECH LESSON! Stupid melon! Don't she know two day ago I in Shanghai stick KNIFE in white people???"

Girl at the cash desk (to guy in back) "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! Corkscrew! Corkscrew!" (then to me) "29 crown" (then to guy in back) "Corkscrew! HAHAHAHAHAHA!"

"Thank you, goodbye," I said, still gamely smiling and nodding.

"Goodbye! Goodbye!"

[Pictured above right: Something I probably could drink wine out of, if I had to.]

putting the 'rogue' in 'prorogue'

I have been remiss and I apologize. I have left you wandering unattended in the thickets of Canadian politics while I watched "You Are What You Eat" and redecorated my blog.

To address the most pressing issues:

1. Yes, everyone in Ottawa gets a "snow day" as a result of parliament being prorogued. In fact, they get a snow month and a half (or more). It will be nothing but snow angels and snowball fights on Parliament Hill until January 29th.
2. To "prorogue" is not a euphemism for something nastier. Although, in this case, it could be.
3. The governor general of Canada is the head of state and the representative of our actual head of state - the Queen of England.
4. Yes, that is sad.
5. The role of the governor general is largely ceremonial, except for those rare occasions, like this one, when the fate of the government rests in her (or his) hands. It's like, at the bottom of the ninth with the bases loaded, sending the mascot up to bat.
6. In recent years, it has become fashionable to appoint minorities and women (or minority women) to the post of governor general - so we've had Ukrainian, French Canadian, Chinese, and Haitian governors general. It's a way of appearing open and tolerant as a society without giving these people any actual power (well, it usually is). It also draws attention away from the reality which is that, with the exception of the 10 minutes during the early '90s in which Kim Campbell was prime minister, Canada has always been ruled by white men.
7. I, personally, am torn between my hatred of Harper (and my desire to see my erstwhile debating club buddy turfed from office without time for rebuttal) and my fear that a coalition supported by the separatists/sovereigntists would be doomed to perdition from the outset.
8. I believe it's time to ask ourselves, "What would Sir Guy Carleton do?" (WWSGCD). Sir Guy (pictured above, right) was governor general not once but THREE times between 1768 and 1796. Surely during his long tenure he did or said something that could be applied to today's situation. I really hope somebody has the time to do a little research and find out what that something was.
   

extreme makeover

It seemed like a change was in order, so we're shaking things up here on the Imbecile Sidewalk - a nip here, a tuck there, a slash of lipstick, a more liberal use of the first person plural and voila! a whole new blog. (This is a work in progress, by the way, we realize that you can't actually read the title of the blog as it now stands, and we understand that can severely limited your traffic.)

The inspiration? A Czech TV show called "You Are What You Eat." I watch it regularly with horrified fascination. The premise is simple: each week, an overweight or underweight person is watched as he or she attempts not just to lose or gain weight, but to adopt a more healthy lifestyle.

I've only ever seen the overweight people, so I'm not sure what is done for the skinny ones but I'll happily speculate for you - I sometimes feel that's my purpose here on earth.

With the overweight people, at some point early on, they are blindfolded and led to a table that holds everything they ate the week before - for one guy, this included 15 non-alcoholic beers and 12 liters of normal beer (presented, appetizingly, in those big white industrial-size buckets restaurants buy mayonnaise in, although I don't believe he actually drank it out of these).

They are then shown a table filled with all the healthy things they will now be allowed to eat in a given week.

Speculation alert: I assume for the skinny people they first show them an empty table, then show them the 'before' table of a fat person and invite them to dig in.

There follows (in no particular order) a trip to the doctor; a trip to the grocery store (to buy healthy ingredients for a healthy meal the healthy-meal specialist shows them how to cook); a meeting with a personal trainer; and a trip to the beauty salon where (if you're a woman) your hair is cut, then dyed some unnatural color that doesn't necessarily become you but would certainly draw attention away from the rest of you.

My favorite part of every show is when the host - an actual doctor (pictured below, right, with a featured dieter and one of those tables full of food I was talking about) - sneaks up on the person to find out if he/she is breaking his/her diet. This always takes place when the person is at a party with his/her friends, presumably to up the potential humiliation quotient.

At the end, the weight losing/gaining person is presented with a special oven (I think it works like a normal oven and a convection oven, but remember, I'm watching this in Czech - it may actually be a TV set) and sometimes a more elaborate reward for his/her weight loss (one contestant received the wedding of her dreams - assuming she always dreamed of being married on television after appearing in her underwear in front of the entire nation).

If you're interested, it's on TV Prima every Thursday at 21:10. And if any of you watch it and realize that I have it all wrong, please, keep it to yourselves.