Haggis is food? (June 28)

DIARY

Is poutine the new haggis?

                        by Robert LaFrance

            I am risking my life in this Scottish-obsessed household by making a disparaging comment about haggis (devil’s cake) and the same thing goes for any bad adjectives referring to poutine, but luckily I am on this side of the international border and can’t get deported for breathing. However, there are those who think haggis and poutine are the twin apexes of culinary delight; then again some people eat ants.

            Haggis, in case you didn’t know, is the national dish of Scotland. That’s the country in which bagpipes is the national musical instrument. Poutine is the national dish of Quebec.

            That Scottish ‘food’ is made from the innards of sheep or ducks (I can’t remember which) and contains anything from suet to “sheep’s pluck” to onion and possibly the skin of aarvarks and is incased in a sheep’s stomach; poutine, popular with many, is made from grease covered with grease with more grease inside if needed.

            I have never had the nerve to try poutine, but under family pressure (if you know what I mean) I once took a bite of haggis. Note the word ‘once’.

            This quote is from an E. B. White book of essays. “The Epicurean Circle of London recently declared that the Scottish national dish haggis is the most horrible culinary concoction in existence in the 20^th century.” I think we can extrapolate that to the 21^st century, can’t we?

            Amazing what people do their bodies. I fell off a Ferris wheel once and would still prefer that experience to eating a saucer full of haggis or poutine. That must be why the Scots and Quebeckers are so tough; anybody who can ingest haggis and poutine can conquer the world.

                                                ***********************

            On another subject, I recently visited the Hendersons (or was it the Andersons?) and was amazed at what I saw in their bathroom. Nothing scatological or anything, but I refer to the number and names of some of the shampoos and things like that.

            It’s none of my business I know, but if I stuck to things that are only my business I wouldn’t be a hard-hitting investigative journalist. (“You’re not,” said Flug, who had been reading over my shoulder.)

            One of the items in the Hendersons’ bathroom was something called Dove For Sensitive Skin. Having known the family for a long time, I can safely surmise that none of them has sensitive skin. More like hide if you ask me.

            Then there was something called Down Under natural’s, a conditioner for all hair types. I have no idea and can’t guess why the word natural’s has an apostrophe or why it doesn’t start with a capital letter.

            A plastic container called Aveeno Active Naturals goes on to say that it is a ‘Skin brightening daily scrub’. Like the stuff from Down Under, I can’t imagine how a material out of a plastic container can use the word ‘naturals’, but I suppose with fraud now rampant, it’s only natural.

            The last one I’ll mention by name is Alpen Secrets goat milk body wash. Do goats wash with this? It wasn’t clear, but the container does have inside something call Argan Oil. This, I would say, is vital if one wants to remain beautiful.

            This all takes me back to the 1950s, when my mother forced me to take a bath every Saturday evening before bed (it would be a little inconvenient AFTER bed). The old galvanized tub hung in the closet until after supper, usually beans) on Saturday and then it emerged. I really don’t think they thought that through, but I did.

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            I’m not sure if I should report this, but a couple of my neighbours are in the midst of a Hatfield-McCoy type of feud. No shooting, but you never know with those city types. They both moved here from Jemseg and, after years of bad feeling there – they had side-by-side houses – they each bought a house here in the Scotch Colony between Bon Accord and Upper Kintore. Harry says he lives in Upper Kintore and Solly says he lives in Bon Accord. I happen to know that both their houses are officially in the Leonard Colony suburb of Trout Brook West, but I have never bothered to tell them.

            The first sign of problem after they settled in this area occurred when Solly painted his house robin-egg blue. Within a week Harry did too. Then Solly painted his house a sort of peach, followed a week later by Harry. This could have gone on forever, but I told Solly about the paint colour called Zealand Yellow. It goes on yellow, but within a week it turns a brilliant red. Of course Harry had painted his house yellow and it stayed that way.

            Bottom line: They finally called a truce, and Ferney’s Paint Store filed for bankruptcy. People sure do strange things, but that’s what keeps the economy humming.
                                          -end-

" I had to answer the phone anyway" (June 21)

DIARY

The Norse goddess was named Frigg

                        by Robert LaFrance

            Not referring to the blowhard now living at the White House (that we burned during the War of 1812 and should have kept burning), people do lie, and automatically.

            Thursday morning my bedroom phone rang at 7:51 am and I stumbled over to answer it. (Someday I will put it next to my side of the bed.)

            “Halloo,” I mumbled, not meaning any more than “&^%$#@(*^!”

            “Oh hello, did I wake you up?” said this bright and cheerful voice.

            “No, it’s all right,” I mumbled. “I had to get up to answer the phone anyway.”

            Although I never lie (that’s a lie), there are times when one must lie to salve other people’s feelings. In the days before Political Correctness, these were called ‘little white lies’. I remember the day half a century ago when I asked a certain girl if she had any feelings for me. “You must be kidding,” she said. “You disgust me,” and she spat on the ground. You see how she spared my feelings by not telling me the whole truth?

                                                ***********************

            “Wow! That’s quite an edifice,” enthused one of the busload of Toronto tourists. She was gazing at Kincardine’s skyscraper, a 3-storey structure built during the Depression and still standing as a monument to our business community.

            It’s looking pretty shabby these days – its last paint job was in 1959 – but is still an imposing building. Flug’s Uncle Jeff owns it now and keeps chickens in it, something not unusual in these parts. His wife’s father had built it in 1932, as an answer to New York City’s Empire State Building that, amazingly, had been put up on time and on budget that year.

            Although I’ve lived in these parts for several decades, I never have figured out why a busload of tourists would come all the way down here to look at it. I’ve heard that  that city has several buildings more than three storeys tall. On Saturday I found out.

            Glenn Abbott is a tour guide of that bus line. He explained that neither he nor the tourists had any interest in a chicken house in rural New Brunswick. “The so-called tourists are homeless people,” Glenn said. “You see, Toronto can’t afford to put them up in apartments or even closets, so they hire us to drive them around the country. It turns out that it’s much cheaper to do it this way. When we leave here we’re heading for Minto, where there’s a petting zoo.”

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            Yesterday evening I visited old Finsterwald who was watching television. He’s always watching television. It doesn’t matter if it’s Wheel of Fortune reruns, a Littlest Hobo Festival or War and Peace done in Swahili, with subtitles.

            While I was there yesterday, he did manage to drag his eyes away from a Manitoba Poker Tournament long enough to say hello the beer’s in the fridge, but that was about it, plus: “Pull up a chair. Coronation Street is coming on in three hours, after The Secret Edge of Tomorrow’s General Hospital Storm.” He loves his soap operas.

            The reason I mention this all is that while I was there, a short show came on and talked about ‘artificial intelligence’. I looked over at Finsterwald who wasn’t taking in what was being said. It was then I realized that his ‘Smart TV’ and Smart Car, both made with Artificial Intelligence, represented about the only intelligence that the Finsterwald house would ever see. I went home and watched Jeopardy and didn’t know one answer.

                                                ***********************

            Why I wanted to know this, I have no idea, not being intelligent, but last week I checked on Google to see where the names of our days came from.

            Obviously, or at least evidently (not even apparently) Sunday’s name came as a tribute to the Sun, or at the very least the Sun God Ra of ancient Egypt. Monday is talking about the moon; Tuesday is clearly in tribute to the Germanic War god Tiu (as if I had heard of him). Wednesday is from the Germanic Sky god Woden – we all knew that. Thursday is from the Norse Thunder god Thor, and then, last but not least, the name Friday is named after the Norse Love goddess Frigg. Google it if you don’t believe me.

            So when you hear someone say: “Holy Frigg!” when they drop a stitch in that sock they’re knitting, they’re really talking about love. Go figure.
                                           -end-

Waving with one finger (June 14)

DIARY

My cold doesn’t seem ‘common’ to me

                        by Robert LaFrance

As we speak, I am in, if not the depths of despair because of this cold, then certainly not many rungs from the bottom and The Big Swamp.

I, and I am sure most people, don’t want it to be called a common cold. It is not common to me, at least since last fall. To make it even worse, it’s a beautiful sunny day outside.

I was up all night coughing and my wife was too. It was a virtual symphony, and then Minnie the dog joined in. Far down in the valley I could hear the bagpipes being played by someone whose musicianship was dubious at best. A symphony indeed!

Why me? I asked of whoever might be listening. The answer came quickly from the heavens: “Because exactly four days ago you were telling your friend Flug that you didn’t get colds. You went on and said that you hadn’t had a flat tire for ten years. You must be demented! By the way, I hope you had fun changing that tire.”

                                    *******************

            Two days ago I drove by Flug’s house and looked in to see him washing his car. A Shop-Vac was sitting in his driveway. I waved to him with one finger. Communist.

            Down in the depths of the Scotch Colony and the heights of it (Upper Kintore) I spotted four more people out washing their cars inside and out, making a lot of work in spite of the fact that the vehicles would be dirty again in mere months, maybe six.

            I looked down at my floor mats and took great comfort that they looked as if they hadn’t been cleaned since Winston Churchill died (1965), which was quite a feat since the car is a 2014 Toyota Corolla. It wasn’t through lack of effort; I’ve had to work hard to keep Certain Persons from pushing her way into the car with three or four Shop-Vacs. You know what wives are like.

            So I continued my drive up along the Tobique where still more otherwise sober looking individuals were elbow greasing around their cars. If they would even take the cars out of sight behind a manure pile or something! It’s quite annoying.

It was after supper (Tilley Takeout) when I got home, and I had the eerie feeling that something was amiss. You know the feeling – you’re walking through a graveyard at 3:00 am and you start to get nervous when you see a headstone with your name on it. I walked into the silent house and couldn’t find anyone. That was suspicious right there; then I heard it – the sound of a vacuum cleaner and it was coming from outside, at 3:14 am.

You can guess the rest. It’s been two days now, and I’m still not calm after the treachery I witnessed inside and around that innocent Corolla. It’s as clean as a crow’s wing. It is clear that certain people can’t be trusted when there’s a vacuum cleaner around.

Even my son went over to the dark side and cleaned his car, inside and out.

Still on the same general line, cars, I was impressed that so many people cleaned their cars on June 6, which is of course D-Day, when the Allies hit the beaches of Normandy in 1944. Today D-day means something quite different and that’s why so many sad sacks are out washing their cars.

In 2017 the hyphenated word D-day stands for Daydream-day - which is what we should be doing instead of cleaning vehicles.

                                    ************************

At first when Donald Trump took over the rains (that’s not a misspelling) of power in the U.S.A., I, like many other journalists and columnists, was quite pleased because it meant we would have something to talk about,

However…he has ceased to be funny. I think he’s dangerous. I don’t think he is going to attack North Korea, because that would be the end of South Korea, but there is one country that should be wary of things ‘the Donald’ says and does,

I refer to our beloved Canada. Since the American public appears to both weak-minded (they elected him, didn’t they?) and ready to invade any country, why not invade the closest? Some people reading this are saying: “Mexico’s closer, you (t)wit!” But by the time he decided to send the troops into Acapulco, the Wall may hinder troop movements.

So let’s watch our backs and fronts.

Meanwhile, here’s a quote from George Faludy, whose 1986 memoir I recently read again. “Of all the good things about Canada, one of the best is that it is definitely not the United States.” Hear, hear.
                                       -end-

Beware of Mike Pence! (June 7)

DIARY

Hummingbirds calm down!

                        by Robert LaFrance

            This afternoon (I’m writing in the evening) I sat on a lawn chair on our porch and watched two hummingbirds fight it out over a bit of sugared water and thought about all the wars, battles, skirmishes and just plain bloodbaths that are occurring in the world as I sat there.

Did you ever watch a pair of hummingbirds fighting? One will go to the feeder and try to get a drink to give himself or herself enough energy to keep going, and before the sipping is finished the other bird will come along and attack.

It makes no sense – there’s lots of nectar for both – but they do it anyway, just like Sudan and South Sudan. If Greenland and Tasmania could find some way to go to war with each other they would. Remember the Falkland Islands war in the 1980s?

            On to a less violent subject, psychology. There is psychology in every aspect of our lives, even in grocery stores, and all the time I was thinking they just sold food. Two days ago I was near a certain store (not in Kincardine) at lunchtime and decided I wanted a snack. I bought a little package called Lunch-Mate Stackers, made by Schneiders, and figured that would do the trick for now. There were little round crackers, slices of alleged cheese, slices of ham and a very small Kit-Kat chocolate bar. Imagine my shock when I found there were 8 crackers, 8 pieces of alleged cheese, but only seven slices of ham.

            A lot of people reading this column probably think I’m going to complain, send a message to Schneider’s, sass the store manager, call in the riot police, etc. but I am not going to do any of that. In fact, I am rather pleased about the missing piece of ham. It gives me hope that somewhere in the world somebody else can make a mistake in spite of all the ‘smart’ technology that permeates our existence.

            Here in the neighbourhood where Flug and I have families and house pets, there is not much strife, except occasionally in the early morning hours in the club where we have canasta and auction 45 tournaments and allow lemonade to be served. It’s a weird community, half sane and you can guess the other half.

            One of the residents (he lives just down the road, beyond the big pine tree) resides a gent who is a prime example of the other half, the non-sane side (in my opinion). Fredson Blark is an antiques nut.

Born in the late 1960s, he’s not an antique himself, but I really think he sat too long in the sun in his younger years spent in Burma, what is now called Myanmar, full name Republic of the Union of Myanmar. He arrived here in the benighted Scotch Colony in the 1990 and promptly started collecting antiques, marrying 71-year-old Martha Grundge. (She calls HERSELF an antique, so don’t get mad at me.)

Within two years, he had their little cottage FULL of antiques. He would go to yard sales as far away as Arvida, Province of Quebec, and Halifax. Last week I decided to ask if I could visit and see his collection and it was true, the place was FULL of antiques (in case I hadn’t made that plain), but I didn’t realize just how full until I got ‘caught short’ as Aunt Ella used to say and asked to use the bathroom. I’m not kidding, he had no plumbing in the house. He directed me to his ‘washroom’, which turned out to be an outhouse, but with a difference. It was inside the house. How does he empty that? I soon decided I was in the company of a person who might be violent. I fled.

Speaking of nut cases, yesterday Flug came over and had a lemonade with me. When the subject changed to crabs, a topic I can take or leave, preferably leave, I was about to leave but remembered it was my house. He wanted me to go with him to Aleck  Gannon’s and see Aleck’s new crabs. It turned out that Alex had recently bought three crabapple trees, nothing serious. You never know about Flug – or Aleck for that matter.

            A lot of Americans are talking now about impeachment of their beloved president, and others are talking as if that gentleman may just decide to resign because he isn’t having any fun, but they had better think twice about what’s waiting in the wings.

            Mike Pence is their vice-president, and if people are uncomfortable with Donald Trump, they ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Pence would not only chop their health care and smile while he’s doing it, but he would probably ban income taxes on the rich – he’s a bit right-wing like that.
                                     -end-