Paris

We arrived in Paris this morning to a little bit of drama.

Having opted to be a little frugal and take the RER rather than a taxi, at least to the Gare du Nord, we purchased our tickets without incident and then had to ask the information person where exactly to go.

That's when the drama arrived: a suspicious package that kept us out of the train area for a while and treated us to the sight of soldiers with machine guns and police bomb specialists who were much less well armed, but much more snappily dressed. Not to say I didn't find the camouflage (or what was under it) interesting…. No bomb went off and we took the train.

On the train, a little entertainment from a guy who sang his own karaoke – portable sound system, the first part of a number of songs of different styles – and then asked for contributions. A few of us gave a few coins.

Taxi, then, to the Hotel IBIS La Villette. The hotel is nice, of a different style than the North American hotels I usually stay in for meetings. Here, for Bob, a hotel bed shot…

…and a shot of the view from the window of my room.

Not a typical Paris scene, but we are practically at the wall in the 19e arrondissement. The thing with the bubbly top is actually a covered play area and there are a bunch of kids playing soccer in it, which is a lovely and lively sound.

Another all-important view for me, given my varied experiences of showers in different hotels in France, is the bathroom. First the toilet and sink area:

…and then two views of the shower itself, base and a vertical shot:

It is not much bigger than a phone booth (certainly not bigger than a phone booth here – they are larger here), so I will probably have to get out to pick up the soap if I drop it, but at least the two doors open, so that action will not be a struggle.

I still need a bit of sleep, so will get to that now.

Oh, the Humanity!

Just back from a one-day trip to Ottawa for a meeting and I thought I would write a brief note about the travel experience, rather than the meeting.

First big surprise: I got to the train station with very little time to spare on Sunday only to discover that the travel agency used to book my travel and/or Via Rail had mistakenly booked me for Monday! Some tense moments on my cell phone to the emergency line of the travel agency got me onto the right train with several minutes to spare.

Second big surprise: there was no Via1 car on this particular train, so no lovely free lunch for me! No complimentary drinks either! :-(

The hotel was lovely, and I'll show you what it looked like in this Bob-esque view of the bed:

It was a sleep number bed, meaning that the remote you see on the bed was there to control the firmness by inflating or deflating each side of the bed. A first experience for me, but I won't be rushing out to buy one.

The real tragedies come with the trip home: brace yourself for bourgeois spoiled-bratness!

No problems with the ticket, but what is with this long, long walk to the Via1 car? I mean I – or someone anyway – has paid much more for this ticket, yet I am forced to walk way further than the economy class passengers to get to my car! The world is surely out to get me!!

And then on the way home, neither of the electrical outlets at my seat worked, so I used up 40% of my laptop battery watching two episodes of Justified. (Timothy Olyphant is pretty, cool, and wears his Stetson well.) And, thanks for asking, I am now completely recharged!

I'm just bracing myself for my Air France experience tomorrow. Can things right themselves? ;-)

Resting Place

One of the objectives of our recent family gathering in BC was to come together to spread my Mum's ashes. She asked to have her ashes spread in a place where she would have been afraid to go in life, and we chose the beautiful Helmcken Falls, iconic image of the region she and Dad have called home since 1969.

Interestingly, the area reaches much further back in Mum and Dad's history, as we found out on the drive to the falls. One of Dad's early jobs was in the park – the cabin he stayed in is clinging to the bank of a creek visible from the road, threatening to fall in as the bank erodes. Closer to town, another auspicious spot: the little inn where Mum and Dad went to dinner on one of her visits to him, the place where Dad proposed and Mum accepted.

You might think that a waterfall with a viewing platform and accessible by road would not be the type of place where Mum would have been afraid to go. You would be right on that count, as Mum really loved this spot. We did take care, however, to place her ashes beyond the security fence on the slope leading to the precipice, and we can all be sure that she would never have ventured there.

It felt good to carry out this wish, and not like a sad occasion at all. Now we know that Mum's remains will contribute to plant growth in this beautiful spot with so many ties to her past, and we can only be glad about that.

Glad, too, to have been able to spend some time all together – Dad and all of us siblings and assorted siblings-in-law – which is always a pleasure above all. I did have to realize that I have some points of divergence on issues quite central to my work with some of my siblings, but the important part is that we all love and like each other, which continues to be a testament to what a great job Mum and Dad did with us.

Cendrillon

What a lovely evening I had last night with two friends!

First, we met for supper at Zen Ya, a lovely Japanese restaurant hidden on the second floor on a building on Ste-Catherine West. I had delicious sushi and a lovely appetizer of galettes de deux saumons, layers of smoked and raw salmon on a crispy rice base. Yum!

The true object of the evening was the Opéra de Montréal production of Massenet's Cendrillon (Cinderella).

I have to start with the sets. At the opening, there was a kooky arch with a sign spelling "Cendrillon" in lights, which I didn't really care for. It looked a little tacky for what I expected, and I'm glad to say it didn't stay long.

The main set which arrived afterward – the kitchen of Cinderella's family home – was like some kind of crazy cross between a Dali painting and a box of pale pastels. Giant kitchen appliances soaring skyward and a 50's looking table at the centre on a much smaller scale, made for the humans who sang there. I'm not sure if I was more surprised by Cinderella emerging from inside the stove, where she was cleaning, or by her fairy godmother stepping pout from behind an old looking test pattern on the TV way up on the counter and descending by using a series of pulled-out drawers as her stairs.

The ball brings us to a theatre space where they have cleverly inked on the marquee "Bal Princier." The big problem with this was the clock, which lost control of its minute and hour hand, so Cinderella rushed out when the clock struck…11:20. Nothing else really stands out about this set, so on to the next: the drive-in cinema! A giant boat of a car sits centre stage and a screen descends from above – a screen on which is projected black and white movies of historical princesses getting married to princes. How big is the car? It's so big that when the prince and Cinderella get in, they are not even aware of each other's presence (opera is fun that way) and we can barely see their heads above the dashboard!

One other set to mention is the suburbs, where Cinderella's father moves with her and, it seems, with step-mother and step-sisters, after a post-ball dispute. Or maybe they were always in the suburbs? Rows of identical houses layed out in that peculiar suburban way of patterning streets, all visible painted on the backdrop.

Costumes, you ask? Fascinating. A whole lot of garish shades of the pastels in the background on the main characters. The best, however, was the Las Vegas style performing at the Bal Princier. The dancers were wearing giant headdresses that looked like cocktails and they even lit up at a particular moment in the performance. Oh, and the slipper. In the opera, only one glass slipper is ever worn, and it renders Cinderella unrecognizable to those who know her. When she put it on, I swear it lit up like the whole thing was made of glow in the dark material, way better than those running shoes that light up on impact. I still can't believe, however, that no one noticed she was wearing two different shoes (the Bal Princier was obviously not held in a club in Montréal!) and there was no mention of how difficult it was to get back home with only one shoe on after midnight.

And just because we are delaying getting to the singing, a few words about acting and other elements of movement. I don't think I have ever seen as much dancing in an opera, and this was not just at the Bal Princier. The bevy of foreign princesses competing for the prince's attention were a collection of acrobats and contortionists, doing things like ironing while doing a handstand on the ironing surface or tossing a baby around in a most entertaining but not very motherly way. Some extras who looked a little like feral Mr. Cleans ventured into the audience during the cinema scenes to hand out popcorn, which was most odd. Back at the house post-ball, there was some slapstick that looked a little too much like domestic violence for my comfort.

Okay, it was the opera, so what about the singing? Well, things did not start well. I could barely hear Cinderella's father as he sang, and I'm not sure whether it was he, or the set eating the sound. Others were more audible and sang quite nicely. But you need more than a nice voice, and I may be a little too prejudiced in favour of Italian opera, with its catchy tunes and repetition of the best lines, to rave about this one. There were a couple of very lovely songs that I thoroughly appreciated.

One other note: at one point during the performance there was so much coughing around us in the crown that I thought there was some kind of H1N1 outbreak. Yikes! Get a lozenge, people!

All in all, as you can see, an enjoyable night out.

Civic Vigilance

Even now I am wondering about the story behind this sight in the entryway of the Jean-Talon Métro station yesterday afternoon. But I will not likely have any answers.

As I rode up the escalator, I called my friend to see if he didn't want to join me on my shopping trip. He did, so I offered to wait where I was until he got there. As I stood in the nearly deserted entry space, I noticed this pile of things:

No one seemed to be connected to it. I started thinking that this is the classic case where news reports tell us "the authorities" have closed down an extensive area in an urban setting and sent in a robot to determine what this might be. I actually expected it to explode at any moment. But I didn't leave, because I was waiting for my friend and wanted to be where I promised I would be.

People just walked by, not taking any notice of this menacing sight. Even the officials of the Société des transports de Montreal (the transit authority) – well, I guess I should point out that only a couple of bus drivers went past – paid no attention.

At least I, the model of civic vigilance, took a picture with my phone.

All of this reflection just makes me think that we have become a little paranoid these days. Or the news has. I guess I watch too much news?

Andersen's Inkwell

We went to see an excellent play this afternoon in a theatre full of parents and children.

It must be very difficult to create a piece of theatre that can entertain children and adults alike, but this Geordie Theatre production succeeds in doing it. Minimal sets, but with very effective use of a projection screen at the back of the stage, great costumes and really good acting.

The little match girl sitting under a snowfall of paper bits as the tall man cuts out a cityscape that mimics the one projected on the rear screen just after, the coming and going of characters in Dickensian outfits (probably Andersonian, but I'm quite unfamiliar with Danish couture at that particular time in history), it was well-staged and well acted. It was actually a plus to have children calling out "There's nothing there!" in response to the cloth for the Emperor's New Clothes or "I am!" when one of the characters asks who's there.

My personal favourite was Daniel Brochu in the role of the goblin. He was also good as one of the swindlers (of the Emperor's New Clothes), but the goblin role showed off his talent, voices and physical presence the best.

And in the end, the goblin Eric learns the value of books and reading, even if this might not be the message retained by some of the many children under the recommended age of six who were entertained anyway.

I would recommend going to see it, but I fear we just saw the last performance.

First

I have been so busy over the last few weeks that I didn't realize that this day was coming. Now, in a brief pause in the pace of work, I have a few moments to think about it.

This is my first Mother's Day without a Mother.

I won't have any more hugs. She won't massacre me in a game of Scrabble or Crib or any of a number of card games we played either between the two of us or as some configuration of members of our family. We won't debate the issues of the day or agree on our criticisms of things that are happening around us in our society and in the world.

I'm not sitting around weeping and wringing my hands (though I am getting a little teary as I write this). Anyone who knew Mum would know that that would be the last thing she would ever have wanted. No, I'm remembering the best of our relationship and the many things that Mum did and said that will stick in my mind forever. In that sense I will always have a Mother.

I wish that seeing the rest of my family was not still three weeks away. I think I need to hug them.