all the world's a stage

...and all the men and women merely players:

two days ago, an elderly woman, dressed head-to-toe in emerald-city green (egad!), bursts onto the scene barking at one of the customers for leaving her puppy outside (for two and a half minutes) to die a gruelling -- *cough* fictional -- death in the sweltering heat. after shouting fatty! at the dog owner (the entire coffee shop gasps), Esmeralda is dismissed from the premises by one of the baristas. (imagine a very angry vaudeville hook.) and the crowd goes wild!

taking centre stage yesterday: three new Gen Zeds -- one guy, two girls. he's a mute wallflower and blends in well with the current conversational wasteland. but the girls -- one PippiLongstocking-meets-SideshowBob; one SinéadO'Connor-circa-nothingcompares2u -- are in a perpetual state of wigging out. it's loud-speaker voices, oversharing, and exclamation marks absolutely everywhere. a sampling... Redhead Zed: my mom was engaged seven times before she got married! Skinhead Zed: i'm trying to be seductive, but it's not working! Deadhead Zed: ...  (shhh, i think he's sleeping. zzz...) eventually, heckling from the peanut gallery (aka the forty-year-old ordering his mocha somethingsomething): HEL-LO!? but the Zeds are oblivious. and, since the show must go on, the audience learns that Red's dad was forty-two and had braces when she was born, and that...

today, it's a one-man show, starring my favourite character, Professor FLQ, who's popped by for a "brief" (it's never brief) chat. today's monologue revolves around the flying squirrel, the 1972 munich massacre (how had i not known about this? *crawls out from under rock*), his ride-along with the ottawa police, his love of country music, his aversion to all things internet. then, he offers to set me up with a sixty-five-year-old man. excuse me? upon recovering from the initial shock, i threaten to defriend him altogether if he does this. and to leave him sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. he promptly changes the subject.

and now back to translating...

holy trinity

[from the archives of thursday july 19]

hocho lovers unite! today, i'm on location in trinity-bellwoods, toronto, and -- *drum roll* -- i've just stumbled upon the most divine hot chocolate. ever. you're gonna wanna checkthisout/ writethisdown/ committhistomemory: nadège. at queen and gore vale. (in case you forget: sounds like dean and door nail. or green and lore mail.) what you're probably thinking now is: hey, what does nadège mean in english, anyway? well, i'm glad you've asked. it's french for no matter where you currently find yourself, make the pilgrimage to see us immediately! (a good example of how, sometimes, a word in one language is tantamount to a whole sentence in another.)

upon arrival, my friend and i learn that it will take them some ten minutes to make the drinks. the staff seem concerned that we might not want to stick around that long. on the contrary! any hot chocolate that's had ten glorious minutes of TLC (uh-oh! cue an unrelated song...) is something well worth waiting for.

through the large window that separates the eating area from the kitchen, we can see the pastry chefs in full smock-and-toque (yes: toque) garb as they prep the pastries and -- more importantly -- the chocolatey beverages. twelve minutes later, two little white ceramic mugs on two little white ceramic plates, accompanied by two not-so-little pink homemade mallows, are placed before us. the mugs are full of thick dark velvet, and -- omigod! -- there's a halo hovering over the liquid. ok, no: that last part's a lie. but one sip says that this is heaven. amen!

and now back to translating...