A Simple Christmas Gift

I spied the two fruit mince pies straight away. They were accompanied by two pieces of fruit cake, offset against a red Christmas tree shaped plate and wrapped in clear cellophane. I hoped that the gift was for me.

Allie must have seen me looking because she said, "Glenda and Will were over for coffee last night and Glenda asked me to give you this gift."

I picked up the red plate. What a treat! It was just what I wanted to enjoy with a cup of tea on Christmas morning. And it is just what I didn't have. Mom's Christmas baking always included fruit mince pies.

Every Christmas I want to find time to do some baking and welcome Christmas in a restfully prepared manner. And every Christmas I don't. Every year there is a jolt of panic somewhere around the 20th of the month. This week? This week! Christmas is this week?!

And somewhere in there I quietly ask M, "Did you buy me a gift to unwrap on Christmas morning?" I see the panic in his eyes. No. "Good, then please don't because I don't have one for you." The relief is mutual.

And now, on Christmas Day, a simple gift of fruit mince pies and Christmas cake is pure delight for me. Later I say to M, "Next year, if you want to give me a gift for Christmas, wrap up some fruit mince pies."

Catapulting Brooks

M and Brooks have this fun game Brooks likes to play. It's called 'Catapult Brooks'. They discovered it purely by chance.

Brooks regards the study as her domain. Actually, it's her primary domain. Because, as she often reminds us, the entire apartment is her domain. And so, when she's out her cage, you can't do anything in the study without her approval and say so. You can't move a piece of paper or put a binder away without her acting like a member of the morality police, coming to check it out and make sure it is above board. She flies onto the object in question with a gust of bird chatter sporting her fluffed-up-feathers-I'm-intimidating look.

One day she landed on a binder M was returning to the cupboard. She ran around on the binder cocking her head to the left and then to the right in her frenzy to find out what it was all about. M flipped her off the binder so that he could put it away. In a high-pitched squawking flash, Brooks was back on the binder and M flipped her off once again. Brooks is relentless, especially in the pursuit of action and fun, and so she headed straight back onto the binder. This time though she swung herself around, facing away from M, tucked her wings tightly by her side and waited for M to flip her off the binder once more.

And hence, an ever-so-much-fun game of catapult was discovered.

Cheap Red Wine

"Do you want to join me in glass of wine?" I ask M.
"What do we have?" The connoisseur asks.
"Well, there's this Californian Merlot," I reply. "Otherwise, I have a Canadian Chardonnay in the fridge."
"Red, please."
I uncork the bottle and reach for a wine glass.
"Let it breathe first!" Connoisseur M corrects me.
"Breathe first?" I reply. "It's a cheap red wine. Cheap red wines don't have to breathe first. They're drinking wines. You just pour them and enjoy!"
M looks at me skeptically as I pour first one glass and then the next.

I stopped having a glass of wine while I cooked a long time ago. The empty calories were finding their way to my hips. But now that my teeth have metal fences on them and my mouth hurts, it's a treat to enjoy a small pleasure that doesn't involve any chewing.

M and I clink glasses. I take a sip and put my wine glass on the counter next to the yams waiting to go into the oven. That's going to be my next little pleasure: bright orange yams, naturally sweet in taste and mashed nice and soft. It's a perfect pairing with red wine and a great accompaniment to a sore mouth.

An Enormous Applause

"Don't go just yet," I think as some patrons get up and make their way to the exit. "The show's not over. They haven't played 'The Radetzky March' yet." And anyone who has watched more than one DVD of an André Rieu concert knows he plays that piece at every concert.

André Rieu is a star performer. He has a winning formula which gets a quiet appreciative audience on their feet baying for more. His formula works like this: turn out a brilliant performance straight off the bat with an hour long first and second half. At the end of the second half let the audience know you are playing just one more piece. Some people will leave, the uninitiated that is, but the majority will stand to applaud and call you back for an encore. After some encouragement, you concede and offer up a rousing encore like 'The Radetzky March'.

Of course, the audience is delighted, standing and clapping, and from there you just keep upping the ante until you have a crowd of classic music patrons resembling a rambunctious rock concert. Give them the most reverent rendition of 'Amazing Grace', accompanied by a piccolo and a bag pipe, they will ever hear, pop champagne on stage, play a salsa piece, get them to sing their own national anthem and show them just how much fun can be had in only half an hour.

Pop, pop, pop. Adults pop the colourful balloons dropped from the ceiling like happy kids. M and I hoot and holler. Even though it is a week night, we don't want to go home. Oh what a blast! We're having a good time. When the orchestra eventually leaves the stage, Jean says to me, "That was a long encore." I smile, "That wasn't an encore, that was part of the show."

André Rieu entertained us so well, we're already talking about getting tickets for next year's show in Vancouver and making this an annual tradition. And so, in André Rieu's own words, give him 'an enormous applause', he knows how to get us coming back for more.

Words in Language

I discovered my love for the English language when I was a secondary school English teacher in South Africa. I became enthralled with the structure of the English language as I studied it and taught it to students far less passionate about it than I was. I developed a deep affection for words.

I have just started reading Mark Buchanan's book, 'Your God is Too Safe', which I whipped off the library's shelf as soon as I saw it. Mark Buchanan's writing not only puts fire to your faith but his use of the English language is beautiful to read. I would read his books just to read his use of words. In the foreword to his book was a comment by Eugene Peterson that resonated deeply with me.

Eugene Peterson explains how the words we use, whether written or spoken, shape and form life. Our use of language has the ability to generate life, deepen our experience of life and enrich the life we live - or not. The flipside is that, if used loosely and without care, words have the ability to cheapen and devalue life. Words can also be used deliberately to damage and injure often times in subversive ways. If we care about life, we should also care about how language is used.

This encourages me to read books like Mark Buchanan's where language is skillfully used. It encourages me to continue to practise and learn the craft of writing so that the words I use may shape and form life, bringing hope and encouragement in a hard world. Do you remember the lie in the childhood chant, "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never harm me"?

Red and White

At last, M and I have got to sport our Olympics 2010 red and white gloves! We bought them as must haves during the 2010 Olympics in February and didn't get much wear out of them then. February was warm; we were busy and, before the end of the Olympics, we jetted off to visit family in sunny South Africa.

Last night we ventured out into the cold to see the Christmas lights at Capilano Suspension Bridge. We dressed in layers, sported our down jackets - black for M and impractical white for me, donned toques and, best of all, our red and white mittens.

Do you know that to keep your hands toasty warm you should wear mittens rather than gloves? Your fingers keep each other warm when they are all huddled together in mittens. In a glove, each finger, separated from the others, has to work harder to keep itself warm. And, as we have found, fails miserably when you are in sub-zero temperatures on the slopes.

M and I forked out good money for expensive ski gloves our first winter season on the slopes. Before long, on the chairlift taking us to the top of the ski run, we were complaining of cold fingers. One night, running in for groceries at Superstore, I saw a bin of leather mittens with sheepskin lining at a quarter of the price of our high-faluting ones. I was desperate for warm fingers and got us each a pair. They were fabulous at keeping our fingers warm regardless of how low the temperature dropped below zero.

And last night, our red and white 'We love Canada' mittens did a sterling job. Apart from the warmth, they are such happy mittens sporting the Olympic rings on the outside and a white maple leaf on the inside of the mittens. Feeling happily Canadian, I asked Ron to take our picture, tourist-style, with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police bear at the entrance to the Trading Post store.

Winter is a lot more fun dressed in red and white.

A Simple Delight

"What are we going to do with these baskets?" M once asked. He hoped I'd say, "Let's throw them away," as they had been stored in our locker for almost a year.
"I know, I'll use them in the kitchen," was my reply.
I could see the groan stir in M's face.
"It will look nice. I'll use them for fruit and veggies."
I seized them from him with delight.

And a delight they are. They stand side by side on the counter, next to my cookery books. They are at their happiest when they are filled with fresh produce from the market: tomatoes, avocados, oranges, cloves of garlic and limes. The colours make for a burst of happiness in my kitchen.

I grew up in the eighties when, as maturing girls and young women, we wanted to stay as far from the kitchen and domesticity as we could. I prided myself that I didn't know much how to cook. Why would I? I was going to be a career woman. No kitchen duty for me.

And yet I still have the pages of my first cookbook hosting recipes cut from magazines and pasted on to its pear-yellow pages. As a teenager, I often made the Sunday evening pancakes in summer or the steamed pudding in winter; and this from a young girl growing up in a culture which said that there was more to life than the kitchen.

Twenty years later the young women of today live in a food craze culture. The cooking channel is much watched, no expense is spared to buy the best quality food at upmarket stores, food blogs abound and it's an honour to be known as a 'foodie' - an aficionado of food.

Yesterday, at a client's office, I overheard two young women, no older than twenty-two, talking food. I caught snippets of conversation about the quality of the food and the competence of the chef. Obviously, this is just the right place in downtown Vancouver to eat. I wondered how much money they were prepared to charge to their credit card to eat there. I shuddered at the thought.

I'm no foodie. And that's not say I scoff at those who are. I wouldn't mind being more competent in the kitchen. I like to read recipes and I certainly like to eat. Yet, I still want to appreciate the simple delight of fruit and vegetables cuddled together in a basket for the simple reason that I find them attractive not because the current culture has made them an icon to be worshipped.