| thoughts from a cunning linguist | |
It's 80 degrees F here today (25 C). Given that I have a ton of work to plough through in the next month, I figured I'd best be scouting out the guilty pleasures that can serve as a counterpoint to sitting at my desk for hours on end. I started by getting some flowers for my room. I don't really have much of a view out my window (I can see the siding of the house next door), so a little greenery has gone a long way. I've also scoped out a good spot to get ice cream for afternoon snacks and breaks. So what then, if I have to chain myself to my computer and write thousands of words in the next warm sunny month?
I think I'm developing a new appreciation for spring. This is probably because in New Jersey, spring is a real season. It was never a real season in Newfoundland, just the move from slush to mud (and often back to slush again). Spring was more spring-like in Nova Scotia, but even then, it was like "mini-spring." I remember over the last few years, visiting the Queen of Sheba and the Grand Poobah of Culinary Delights when their magnolia was in bloom. I'm sure it was later than the middle of April when that happened. But two weeks ago, here in New Jersey, the magnolias has come and gone. I walked through the fallen petals of their flowers on my way to the grocery store. And the lilacs are already opening. Now if I could get my chapter to bloom, we'd be all set.
Those of you who are regular readers of aMMusing know by now that Halifax got hit last night by Hurricane Juan. Being the internet junkie that I am, I was well-prepared for the event and sending lots of sympathy to my friends in the city that feels most like home to me (my having lived in Halifax for 10 of the last 12 years). I went to bed last night expecting to hear about the sound and the fury of Juan (or, I thought, maybe that the storm was not so bad after all) over e-mail or via Canadian websites.
My mother had different ideas. Not having ever used a computer in her life, she was convinced that I would not get any news about Juan now that I'm living in that hinterland called New Jersey. So before 6:30 this morning, my phone rang. Between the time of the first ring and the time I said hello (maybe 5 seconds), I was already convinced that someone (hell, maybe more than one person) was sick or dead. This is what Newfoundlanders do in crisis: they call you at whatever hour of day or night the crisis strikes.
The "crisis" in this case was not really Hurricane Juan itself, I don't think. If so, she would have called last night to tell me about this. No, the crisis really was more of national proportions: my mother worried that American news channels would not give me news she thought essential to me.
I have a theory that Newfoundlanders, being islanders, constantly fear isolation. And the best evidence against isolation is connection, in one form or another, to the events happening in the world. So we (at least in my family, but I think in others as well) are big telephone people. Most Newfoundlanders in small communities have cable television, where it's available. And I don't know anyone who doesn't have "the plan" (some version of an unlimited long distance calling package). So my mother, in spite of her knowledge that I am an internet junkie, assumed that I "wouldn't hear much about the Hurricane down [here]." This is more because she could not imagine that I would have any means to hear about it except American television and newspapers. In short, it didn't occur to her in "the crisis" to think of something as far outside her own experience as the internet as a possible source of information for me.
Aside from there being an obvious and "virtual" generation gap here between my mother and me, there's also an equally obvious effort to close any gaps in distance between us that might, in turn, create gaps in knowledge. As long as Newfoundlanders are part of Canada, telecommunications will thrive, at least in Newfoundland. And as long as my mother has a phone, I guess I should just get used to her being my occasion a-Juan clock.
It's 9:30 and still 30 degrees. My mother would die. (She, of "oh my! the heat! I'm near gone!"--and that's only when it's around 20 degrees!)
It's been the kind of day during which one should do as little possible in hopes of keeping cool. So I got up, went to the gym, cleaned the bathroom and kitchen, attempted to rid my computer of a nasty virus, and hammered my dresser back together. And then I decided I would cook--yes have hot food for supper. What could I have been thinking?! A load of ice cubes would not go astray right now.
Oh, and it doesn't help either that there are now only 5 more sleeps until my visitor arrives from Toronto....
Little wonder that it's "hot, hot, hot" today!
Most people I know simply love the summer. It's the sun, the heat, the beach, or outdoor sports. It's always something that inspires their summer swoons. I like the summer, too. I especially like the flowers and the smells and the people milling about. But somehow, I've always been more of an autumn or winter person. I like winter clothes (pants, sleeves, etc) and I like crisp air better. The only relic of summer I wish I could hold onto year-round would be my Birkenstock sandals. I guess it's like this: I like the sun, but I love the snow; I like the leaves on the tress, but I like them better on the ground; I like shedding my sweaters in the spring, but I like sweater weather in the fall more.
Gee, the more I write the more I think I'll have to ask Maurice if we can still be friends!
OK. It's April 17. It's almost Easter. And Easter is late this year. So how cold is it in Halifax you might ask? A whopping -20 (-4 for you Fahrenheit folks) with the wind chill factor. The day before yesterday it was +14 (57F).
This can't be what they call global warming.
Can it?
I had dinner with an old, dear friend tonight who has just returned from Bathurst, New Brunswick. She was there as the Communications Director for the Canada Games (the Nova Scotia team's Director, that is). Maurice has been filling you all in on the coldness of life here in the last little while. But Adele remarked that the weather here was pretty balmy compared with the below 0F temperatures in Northern New Brunswick. We then talked briefly about the phenomenon of talking about the weather itself. Is it peculiarly Canadian? There is now an ad on Canadian television for Ford cars: "Built for life in Canada." It asks, for instance, "What is -10 and snowing in Winnipeg?" The answer: Spring.
But the fact that Canadians seem to be weather-obsessed can only be recognized, I think, by imagining places where the weather is not news at all. I can think of San Franciso, where, I'm told (I've not been there, unfortunately), there are not four seasons. And another friend, Jenny, who lived in Mexico for years, says that no one ever talked about the weather while she lived there.
Leave it to two Canadians to find the fact that weather is not news in a particular place worthy of conversation--one might even say "news to us."