from quebec city: do as the romans

Walk the city streets briskly, pick up foods at the epicerie, follow the side streets home.





Near the old town, take out your blades (or rent some), turn your face away from the direction of the wind and skate. Then, because it is the ubiquitous treat around here, take a bag of maple syrup cones home.



who is this person? wonder if she keeps a blog...



a shack with skates and maple sugar cones



instead of ice cream


If it gets too cold, warm up at the local café, where they are serving hot mushroom soup. Or, just sip your espresso and catch up on the paper.





Going home, be careful. Snow removal is in full swing. Nearly every block has a guy on the roof pushing the stuff down. Step out of the way.





And for God’s sake, enjoy the food. Post on food will follow. Tomorrow. I am off now to enjoy the food.

from quebec city: sunday pleasures

Just north of the city, the Montmorency river shoots down a cliff, creating falls that are taller than those at Niagra.

In the winter, the world around the falls freezes.

Crazy people go out and try to scale the ice walls created by the frozen mist.

Crazy Wisconsin people go out to watch on this bitter cold day.

Crazy families take their offspring for a quick peek as well.

This kind of craziness is more than beguiling. It is thrilling.


the falls



scaling the frozen wall at the side of the falls



up close and personal



man meets iced cliff



from the top of the falls, looking down



from the top of the falls: looking at the next two climbers



sunday outing: bundled up


The Quebecois will not turn their back on a blast of arctic air. Embrace the cold! Windy? Great! perfect for kite-skiing on the frozen portions of the St Lawrence! I watch one such person soar and rise and twist until I am too cold to move. He has no problem moving, I, the Wisconsin wimp, do.



skiis, kite, frozen chunk of the st. lawrence


At some point, the little rented Kia is irresistible. Enough of hiking under, over and to the side of falls, enough of watching others face the winter without so much as a shrug.

We head out to the Ile d'Orleans, right there in the middle of the St. Lawrence, minutes north of Quebec City. The island is lovely. Deemed a historic treasure, it has no new development, just farms, fields, little villages, deserted now, because who the hell goes here in the middle of February?

We pick up an old guy who is thumbing a ride. I ask what he does here on the island. He rambles, but I can hardly pick out the words. The accent is too thick.

We do some Nina-things. We stop at a vineyard. Yes, they’re trying here! God knows why, but they are at it. It’s this attitude they have. Cold weather? What the hell. There’s a life, only one, and it can include this.



ile d'orleans vineyard


One village has a chocolate shop and a café. Come on. Would I pass up a latte? Okay, a cappuccino, in a place where the snow is piled so high that they cannot open the front door… (Side door works.)



island chocolaterie: snowed in



chocolates...



...and coffee


Inside, a little girl is explaining in rapid fire French why her brother has to order something other than icecream. Women, training the men to do the right thing. Starts early.



no, not like that


We drive to the tip of the island. Here, the villages and farms stand isolated, barren. It is how I imagine the outposts near the Arctic Circle to be. Scattered houses, farms, howling winds that make you grateful for that little Kia with the heater turned full blast.



up island



still blowing and drifting


Just before leaving the island I see a sign pointing to a cassis maker. I love cassis (black currant liqueur). I dump it into wine all the time as a dinner party aperitif. Cassis from Quebec would be sublime.

We pull up in front of what looks to be a private residence (with a cassis sign in front). I open the door to the vestibule. Hmmm. Looks exceptionally private. Boots strewn about, a rabbit in a cage. I walk to another door. I press a button thinking it to be the bell. Suddenly there is chaos. The garage door swings open, madame comes running out with curlers in her head. Oh! You have opened a door that will not close in winter! Oh! Ca ne fait rien, it’s fine, it’s fine! Oh! Ed, get out of the car and help me fix things here! It’s fine, it’s fine, be glad my husband is not home! (Men.) You want to buy cassis? Yes, yes, of course, I have some. I grow the currants and berries myself. You cannot see them now, they are buried in snow. Forgive me, we never have visitors at this time of the year.



island berry fields



cassis

This time of the year. The perfect time of the year to lose yourself in a place that never says no to the outdoors. Or to visitors who come breaking down your door to get a bottle of cassis.

from quebec city: ice

A high of -2? Fahrenheit? With a wind chill that refuses to type itself here because it is so daunting? Interesting.

You read about how the Quebecois deal with winter and you try to copy them. Wear layers and embrace the cold. I think it’s a toss up if I embraced the cold or it embraced me, but we were indeed one today.

My answer to the question of how is it pleasurable to do a getaway to a place even colder than Wisconsin had always been – hey, I’ll catch up with my reading and writing and I’ll take a few photos in the 5 minutes I step outside and I’ll eat well. Good deal, no?

With only a short occasional pause to catch our breath, we spent four hours outside, Ed and I.

It was worth it: a search for ice pushed us to extremes.

Initially, I wanted to find the ice sculptures.

Through lower vielle ville streets, up the road to upper Quebec, sliding terribly on the planes of Abraham, peering out with tears freezing on the lids, Lara’s theme playing in my head, we search and find nothing.

Why would a city dismantle ice sculptures just because its winter festival has ended?



snow and houses and snow



where are they? where is anything?



out and about: embracing the cold



...but first you bundle up


Then came the brilliant plan to do the ferry crossing. The St Lawrence is traversable, even though the ferry has to crash through floating bricks of ice. It is nothing short of an awesome trip. The sound itself is tremendous.



the city spills into the river



ferries, passing each other



St Lawrence close up


Looking out we see canoers. Nuts, these guys are nuts. I found a bunch of people even more insane than I am! I watch them get in their boat, paddle furiously…



paddling


…and when the going gets tough and they can paddle no more, they hop out and jump between floating chunks of ice.



...and jumping ice


Standing at the helm of the ferry takes every last ounce of warmth out of my veins. The only solution, ONLY solution is to find a creperie and order something hugely satisfying. Maybe filled with apricot puree and roasted almonds?



hot and fulfilling

from quebec city: whiteout

Remember whiteout? How useful it was before it caked around the edge of the bottle and left clumps on your page, like snow mounds on a smooth road surface?

It’s gusty outside, the pilot says as he lands in Montreal. Are 80 mph winds gusty or are they more like a slap across the face?

Charming little Kia, waiting for us. Ed had been working all night, I had been working only half the night. I’ll drive, I say. CNN said expect snow, heavy at times, but the skies look star studded here in Montreal.

It’s less than 300 kms to Quebec City. We leave the airport at 6:30. The speed limit is 100. A breeze. In time for a late dinner. I turn on the radio. French music. Ed sleeps, I zip forward. The wind adds bounce to the drive. I’m up for it.

Fifty kilometers outside of Quebec it happens. Suddenly the car in front of me is flashing parking lights. So is the truck. A gust brings a sheet of snow from the side. Above, there are stars. Around me -- snow. I slow down to 5 mph, Ed wakes. It’s no use, I am moving randomly, I see nothing. The wind is coming from my left. Ed looks out his side. You’re too far to the left. The white shroud recedes. I am nearly off the road.

The next one comes, and the next. In between – nothing but the blown snow, now in clumps on the road. In front of us, a roll over. People get out to help. I can do nothing but move forward. The cars are crawling now. You hope each gust is the last. It isn’t.

And then, suddenly, there is the bridge, with the city on the other side. Snow-covered. Beautiful.

Almost 11 at night now. The hotel clerk guides me into the snow-covered lot. I do it for you, madame! He says and proudly spins the car into a spot. You drove today from Montreal? Brave! Bad winds.

At midnight, in a bistro across the street, pommes frites and moules, with crusty bread and Canadian wine. Heaven.

Quebec

Never say to me “we should go to Quebec someday.”

The word someday does not exist in my vocabulary. I have no patience for it.

A friend (I’ll call him “Ed” – two letters, easy to type) said someday to me a month ago and learned that someday for me is right now.

I wonder whether impatience is a cultural thing: we, Poles, seize that which may disappear soon.

Or, whether I should take personal responsibility for plunging the minute a rope swings my way.

In spite of Madison snows and frosty temperatures, I am heading north right now with Ed, the now biting his tongue Ed, for, having uttered the word someday, he is keeping me company as I head north today. Tonight, if the skies clear and the planes land, we will be in Montreal, driving up even further north to Quebec City, where the ice statues lay buried in snow and the temperatures will not pass single digits.

Waiting now at the Detroit airport for our (delayed) flight out, Ed turns to me and says: You’re the maturest 52-year old kid I ever met.

Personally, I don’t know why anyone would wait until spring to head north.

pedaling

I don't really know you, a friend said today.

Oh, everyone can read me – I have a hard time hiding my pleasure and displeasure with the everyday.

Yes, that you do disclose, but I don’t really know even a fraction of who you are.

Nonsense. I write a blog, I talk to friends about my days.

But you lived in communist Poland, you were a Fifth Avenue nanny, you were in Leningrad when it was Leningrad…We here ate twinkies for lunch and took trips to Florida in winter and had chrome on our cars and thought we were damn lucky to be American, you know, ‘cause we’re better than everyone else.

So I don’t really know you. I don’t know what it’s like to grow up with questions in your head, with storms, with drama. Will you talk more about it?

No, I am not good at that. There’s Ocean and there are the smiles and sadnesses of the everyday. There is no pleasure in unraveling spins and dramas from the past. No pleasure at all. And the snow today, it's so beautiful.




this morning, out my window



getting to class



finding a way to move along State Street



pedaling. because it's Madison.

going on rounds

An evening early this week. My friend comes over and tells me about his rotten day. Okay, I want to hear about it. I want to be the kind of friend who can listen. So tell me.

I'll talk, but will you go on rounds with me? I’ve been stuck in a room with mean lawyers all day, I’ve got my work rounds still ahead.
Sure. Take me to the dark alleys off of rural roads, where men work late into the night. I want to see these places of metals and dim light.
Sun Prairie. We'll drive to Sun Prairie. I want Mike to balance xxxxxxxx..

I could never repeat what Mike is balancing, not because it’s dirty (though if grease = dirt to you then it’s plenty dirty) but because my mind cannot take in things that spin and make vintage motorcycles move forward. Indeed, as my friend takes apart what has to be some component of the spinning hickey of the clutch (flywheel, Nina, it's called a flywheel) I wonder why it has to have ten separate pieces to it. Like, why can’t it be just one?

Mike the machinist is brilliant in this, that I can tell. He has one of only a couple balancing machines in this county. Watching him drill out bits of metal to create a balanced doo-hickey is an exercise in patience. I want to say, oh let it go already. The thing will turn without that millimeter adjustment. But I know the two men in the shop would kill me if I offered this suggestion and since there are a lot of implements of death and torture within an arm's reach, I stay silent.

Designing tools, designing machines. Me, I take apart texts and opinions and oftentimes I have nothing to offer in their place. I design nothing but a thought process. Well, okay, I designed Ocean. But I am powerless to guide my hands to do anything out of the ordinary. Dabbling hands, I have dabbling hands that have strummed guitars and baked pastries and cultivated perennials.

And held a child.

And typed words and pressed shutter releases. Okay, I’m feeling better. But still, I am clueless about how most anything works and even more on how to improve our physical spaces. Completely clueless.

It’s a flywheel, Nina, it’s a flywheel.

Ah.

be mine

Yeah, be mine, sweet Valentine’s Day, be mine. Make it special. Got cash? Boil a lobster, pop a cork. Dirt poor? Shoot pool, go home, call a friend. Spend the effort. You are alone? No, wait, there are children out there who love this day full of hearts. Be with them. Or with a lover. Or an ex. Or with a pink cosmo and TV coverage of the Olympics, romanticizing winter and sport. Wake up, wake up, I am talking to you, don’t look the other way!

I asked in class today (50 bright faces, ready to learn even more about dissolving relationships, for that is what I teach): who is doing something fun and Valentiney today? One person raises his hand. Oh come on, you others, you’re lying! Shaking heads. He’s married – someone pipes in. Okay, how many are married here? Seven hands go up. Do six object to the Hallmark celebration of the passage of half of February?

This day, make it bright red and sappy. Remember when the girls were little and we had to help them make cut out hearts for their classmates? God, I hated that project, having no patience for crafts at all, me, who could not ever do scrapbooking because it all looks so painfully tedious and sticky. All those hearts.

And then, in the evening, out of their backpacks would come – endless little hearts, all made by Mothers Who Care (if you’re a father who made Valentine’s day hearts for the class, forgive me, we have not met). I note who made their child sign his or her own. I did. Stiff upbringing my girls had. Solid European manners. Sign the goddamn card already! I am surprised they did not grow up to hate this day. They don’t hate it. If they had been in my class, they would have raised their hands. Both of them, engaged in something fun and Valentiney.

Yesterday, on my way home from a meeting, I walked through our local zoo. I want to photograph polar bears, wrapped in each others’ fuzzy paws, just like I see on blogs and in valentine’s day cards.

But no. I see only one bear. He looks around. Dreamily. Is there a polar bear sweetie out there to eat kegs of fish with? No? Eyes close, he rests, basking in the faint sun that is February this year. Happy-looking. (Though what do I know about Polar bears, especially those in zoos.)

Do well by another and by yourself today. Half of February is over and done with. Happy Valentine’s Day.


anyone want to eat fish heads with me?



no? okay.

have you ever seen a lassie go this way and that [or: how to succeed in getting your name in the paper without really trying]

This is the honest truth: the above was the first song I learned in the English language. My mother taught it to me when we were still in Poland. I’m not quite sure why. Maybe she thought I was the type who needed to get excess energy out of her system by kicking her leg to the lyrics. You’re supposed to kick this way and that. So she said.

I was reminded of it when I read an article in the Wash Post today. There I am – gliding in on the coattails of another blogger, me, Nina, referenced by name in the Wash Post. Waddaya know… (C’mon. scroll down to the last page. Okay, so I am not easy to find. What did you expect??? We’re talkin’ Wash Post!)

The article itself picks up on the recent flurry of activity surrounding Ann’s post of many many months ago – a post where she cited an email discussion she and I had about blogging from the left (that would be me; at the time Ocean actually acknowledge the existence of politics) and from the right (or, from a centrist position, perceived as right-facing).

Now that Ocean is squeaky clean, preferring to write about places and foods and idle conversations, the amount of disgruntled emails in my Inbox has gone down. (Though it hasn’t entirely disappeared. I just had a million-word exchange last week with a person in Poland who was terribly bothered by a generalization I posted about Polish people).

It’s so easy to offend. Sometimes I understand why it might lead to a tightness in someone’s chest, sometimes I do not.

Sometimes I myself am offended when I read blogs. Sometimes I am just damn mad. What the hell, how dare they? Excuse me?

Okay. Those are troublesome times. But you know, the blogs that I read are all over the place. And so I am used to stances and positions and worldviews different from my own. In fact, it is safe to say that no one out there that I know shares everything --- age, worldview, writing style, eastern European angst – that I think are my small burdens. So hey, I can deal with most anything well presented and well argued.

Even if it swings this way….


barbados sheep
Vilas Zoo, Feb.13

And that…


barbados sheep
Vilas Zoo, Feb.13

Regalia culinaria musicale animalia

In other words, a dinner party with hearty, festive eating, rousinging musical shenanigans and animals, eyeing each other, all evening long.

I’m telling it like it was. Last night. At Saul and Mel’s.

blue and yellow, sweet and savory

At Fontana sports:

I’m with a friend who can help me sort through this stuff. I’m looking for a day-pack.

These are good. Note the additional waist band to shift the balance…
I like this one, over here!
Huh? What?
This one! Look, classy! Gray, with blue and yellow accents! It’s perfect!

Nina, come try this one on. It’s all in the fit…
Fit? You’re giving me one with black and red! I don’t want black and red!

You folks doin’ alright here?
I have never in my life seen anyone pick a back pack because of colors. Can you believe it?
Hey, I had a woman come in here and pick skis to match the color of her boots and ski jacket.
And what is wrong with that?
Just do me a favor and put this one on.
I can’t! That brand? My daughters used it in high school! It will make me feel like I am toting their high school packs! Besides, you’re not listening: gray blue and yellow – it does not get better than that.

(Stares from the two men.)

Would you not pick something according to color?
If it was puke-toned, if it fit me well, I would buy it.


(after visits to many other sporting goods stores) at Sacramento’s:

I thought of this panaderia when you posted a photo of the baked goods at Nogales.
These are great! Mexican and Nicaraguan?
Our family took over this place a year ago. We were farmers, we know food.
I see tamales, enchiladas, in addition to the sweet stuff...
You want a nice photo? Let me put together a selection of cakes and cookies.
Too many of those baked goods are going to go home with me, you know that. Good thing my favorite blue-with-yellow-trim backpack has adjustable waist straps.







at Fontana’s:

I’m back! I looked the whole world over and did not find a nicer looking pack! I can’t wait to strap a baguette to its side and stick a bottle of wine inside…

(Only on State Street would a store clerk be patient with weird shopping behaviors of this sort, I’m sure of it.)