(alarm) bell(e)s and whistles

[for sunday, july 27]

in downtown ottawa (not unlike many other communities), Summertime Saturday sees its streets, parks and canal walkways exploding with poofywhite gowns (ka-BOOM!) and parading penguin suits and a bevy of other costumes. and, regardless of whether an ornamental envelope made its way into our mailboxes months ago, we're all invited to the wedding party: just try passing the national arts centre or strolling through major's hill park without intercepting a pose or -- in the process of, say, ogling a dapper groomsman -- unwittingly striking one yourself (thereby becoming an extra in someone else's wedding album...you know: that unrecognizable person the couple's eventual offspring enquires about several years down the road: who's that, Mommy?).

yep: here come the brides!

and Summertime Sunday (the coffee shop whispers to me) can be quite similar. after all, it is -- figuratively, if not actually -- Day One in the lead-up to the coming week's saturday, as per three tables over: a beaming hetero duo and their perky wedding planner, meeting for the first time. (ps is it legal to plot others' nuptial to-dos when you're twenty-five tender years old?) the late-twenties bride-to-be has a big warm toothy smile (think Jennifer Garner, caricaturized). her sweet, gangly, concave-chested partner in crime wears a stupendously purple (think Barney the Dinosaur) tee. amid lots of giggling, the couple explains that the ceremony'll be in rockcliffe park (it'd be great if at least one photo were like [insert dream moment]!) and begins to tell Perky their story of luv -- something about CaricaJen going to med school and meeting Barney Tee there, in newfoundland. (at this point, i begin to seriously hope their wedding plans will include 1) the officiant announcing: you may now kiss the (cartoon) cod! and 2) the open bar exclusively wetting guests' whistles with screech.)

alas! Summertime Sunday is also Day Eight in last week's wedding run. it's the "wedding hangover," as per my morning mission (enveloped in the wintry chill of this über-air-conditioned starbucks): translating my forty-something friend's marriage deed into english so he can move forward with his long-awaited divorce.

cue the (fascinating) documentary "112 weddings." cue, also, the current café playlist song:

...keeps me searchin' for a heart of gold,
and i'm gettin' old.

few understand like young neil.

and now back to translating...

navel gazing

perhaps, one day, no one'll flinch when witnessing someone -- who's sitting in a coffee shop booth, alone, with nothing whatsoever going on -- strike a face-pose (outer eyes curled up + lips slightly pursed + counterfeited laissez-faire expression perfected), extend her arms straight out and up in front of her, and take a selfie.

for now, though, it's still very unsettling.

and now back to translating...

doppelgängers

seated across the way, near the doctor-your-drink station in one of the campus coffee shops, is a young man (maybe twenty-five years old) with bushy dark-brown hair, wearing a turquoise t-shirt. close by, on his right, is an older silver-haired woman.

it's lunch time. so they're eating. but, unlike others here, they're not eating food from the starbucks. instead -- hosting a kind of indoor picnic -- they have before them an array of tupperware containers, full of food that had been prepared at home. they have laid out piles of napkins on the tabletop. they have brought along their own metal cutlery. and as the man sits quietly in the black wheelchair, with its rounded cushioned headrest, the woman lifts forkfuls of food gently into his mouth.

these are the moments, after loved ones have left, that you ache for. the moments when you get to see ghosts. Graham and Mom used to sit together just like this. wielding metal forks and tupperware, from within their own sacred space. a sacred space that's now all mine to share in once again. from up close. from very far away.

and now back to translating...

schooling

kids go to school to fatten their spongy minds, and adults attend professional development seminars to hone their expertise in a given field. but the coffee shop, too, has all sorts of lessons for us!

today's lesson comes to us (indirectly) from Hans and Franz, the two thirtysomething guys over there to my left, sporting pinheads and authoritative pre-pubescent voices.

what we learn just from witnessing H&F is that, when you've worked out at the gym so much that you'll have to add "neck" to your next xmas wishlist (dear Santa...), you are indeed over-pumping.

and now back to translating...

so this guy walks into a bar(ista)...

some wisecracks should be banned. not because they're racist or homophobic or begin with "knock-knock" (though, generally speaking, these also deserve the axe). but because they're so tired that they're just not funny anymore. case in point: in ottawa, there are two seasons: winter and construction. yuk yuk yu(c)k...

same goes for certain songs. or, rather, certain appropriations of certain songs. personal remixes whose formulas are so tired that the "clever" spin-off renditions drive everyone crazy in the moment, not to mention for hours afterwards. case in point: earlier today, one of the baristas is singing la bamba. typically among the worst earworms. however, since the guy (being colombian) knows the spanish lyrics, it's actually delightful to overhear him launch into para bailar la bamba, instead of pa la ba la ba la bamba (the way most of us -- myself included -- usually gringo-garble our way through it). the trouble begins shortly after this. when the second barista (the one who, last week, hadn't been clear on nova scotia's elusive whereabouts) jumps on board and -- like a sprinter in a relay race, taking the (inadvertent) baton pass from Colombia -- just runs with it: pa la ba la ba la bamba, i need s'more es-pres-so...

¡ay caramba!

and now back to pa la ba la ba la translating...

machu picchu. (gesundheit!)

there's not much point in pretending otherwise: i'm a language snob. and there's no point in apologizing for it either. for better or for worse, i genuinely love seeing words spelled properly, and poor grammar turns me off -- though mostly when it's lurking in published goods. on the flip side, i'm a practical goon when it comes to science. (oh, Bob McDonald, you make it seem so easy...) but strengths and weaknesses and personal preferences aside, you figure people who've at least completed grade eight share a base of common knowledge. like knowing what a hypotenuse is (or at least knowing it's not an african animal), or that yellow and blue make green (not to mention some pretty gruesome thigh/ass bruises), or that machu picchu isn't located in ontario, or that Madonna is(n't) necessarily a virgin, or that mixing vinegar and baking soda makes for a reasonably satisfying papier maché volcano eruption (and has been popular at grade school science fairs the world over since the dawn of time).

but this logic doesn't always hold...

Barista One, chatting with Barista Two: a consonant is the same thing as an antonym.

(fortunately, Barista Two swoops in to offer an alternative point of view.)

Barista 1: so, where is nova scotia? (B2 swoop: take two.) *explosion of laughter* (that's B1 laughing at herself, by the way.) i guess i need to study geography more.

holy hypotenuse.

and now back to translating...

castrated

[friday, april 25: castres, france]

as anyone who's crossed national borders knows, international travel -- particularly when an extended stay is involved and the geographical distance between Departure and Destination is significant -- is full of cultural awakenings: an onslaught of epiphanies about how objects look, how language is used, how people tend to think and behave. immediately, you begin to assess your new and unfamiliar surroundings: sacré bleu, these french public washrooms are sketchy (not to mention hard to come by)! holy Hollande, having chocolatebreadcheeseandwine at every meal is genius! and then, slowly but surely, you begin to re-consider various aspects of the surroundings you'd been immersed in before your trip: much of what used to strike you as "normal" back home now registers either as just one of many ways of doing/making/thinking about something -- like measuring flour and sugar in cups and teaspoons instead of by weight -- or as "normal" only in relation to the place you're from -- like having squirrels scurry past you every day (and wondering why a tourist would think to take a photo of such rodents).

but, in all likelihood, you won't be reflecting on your home country all by your lonesome. several people you encounter abroad will help you out, by sharing a thing or two about you. typically, it'll be something "hilarious" that you've heard a billion times. if you're colombian, there'll be a crack about cocaine (crack? cocaine? did you get that?). if you're from the states, you will probably hear about obesity and georgedubya. if you're canadian, you hear about lumberjacks, caribou, maple syrup, snow, céline dion, and (alas!) rofo.

other times, however, what you hear is completely new. like this afternoon. my friends are at work, and so i've solo-settled into Thé ou Café tendance, in jean-jaurès square, in the centre of castres (a town whose name is, incidentally, a conjugated form of the verb "to castrate." yowch!) i've been here for no more than five minutes when, over a steaming chocolat chaud cannelle (yee-um!), i overhear the following from one of the two sixty-something women at the nearby table:

tu sais, quatre-vingt pourcent des canadiennes sont des femmes battues!

[translation: you know, eighty-five percent of canadian women are beaten!]

it's definitely surprising, as a canadian, to be in france (or almost any other country, really) and happen upon a conversation about canadians. (let's be honest: recent rofo-ing aside, canada's hardly at the forefront of The World's mind.) even more surprising, however, is discovering that, all this time, you'd been so in the dark about your own people! the woman has shared this news with her friend in a hush-hush, gossip-hound tone, but the remaining authority in her voice says it all: i mean, the cited stats simply must be true. (particularly in light of her sophisticated general knowledge, as later evidenced by her insights into UFOs.) thankfully, now armed with this data, i can spread the news upon my return home (phew!). i only wish i'd caught the tail end of her canadian lecture -- the part that began with: soixante-quinze pourcent des enfants canadiens sont [seventy-five percent of canadian children are]. d'oh! now we'll never know.

and now back to translating...