Happy birthday, Maaseru...

To maaseru:






Wishing my adored maaseru a wonderful day, and a year in which dreams come true.

Of Charles Dickens and Bumbleberries...

I had made arrangements to meet friends for lunch at the Scone Witch - bunsen_h, auriaephiala, and friends from a mailing list who were visiting Ottawa from Scotland. I'd carefully used the OC Transpo "Travel Planner" to work out how to take a bus at just the right time to get me to just the right corner exactly on time.

Turns out that the Ottawa bus system didn't know (any more than I did) that Bank Street in the Glebe was closed off all day for a massive street party to raise money for cancer research. Now, don't you think they should have known? And reflected that on their website? And not led me astray by pretending I could catch a non-existent bus at Bank and Third?

Now, the bus I needed (the #1) is already detoured from Somerset to Albert due to road construction downtown. I was at a loss. Since I could think of no alternative, I started walking down Bank St.

Ever since I broke my ankle, I've considered walking to Bank Street a major accomplishment. But the physiotherapist told me I should walk more. So... I just started walking north and kept on going. Step by step. So very slowly. Caught a bus at Gladstone, and got to the restaurant maybe two minutes late. It was a minor miracle.

Lunch was delicious - especially my desert, Bumbleberry Shortcake. This led to a conversation this evening with maaseru and maaboroshi about what exactly bumbleberries are. Online research produced various recipes for Bumbleberry Pie, but no exact definition of the term. It seems to be a Canadianism meaning "a mix of fruit, including berries, particularly blackberries, often including apples and rhubarb". Does anyone know a more exact definition? My shortcake consisted of a cut scone, lots of whipping cream, and blackberries - no other fruit.

On leaving Ian, Elizabeth, and the others, I was at a loss as to where to find a bus, so I turned onto Bank Street and started walking southwards. Much of the north end of Bank is under construction; I'm a little vague as to what they are doing or why, but it was fascinating to walk along Bank in the middle of the road with no traffic, fences and unpaved holes on either side of me. There was something vaguely post-holocaust about it, and the effect was only stronger when I got to the sidewalk sales going on, with cheap goods and almost no one buying. At one point I passed a table where the DVD seller was saying to a customer, "You've been here two minutes, and already three people who know you have said 'hello'. Do you know everyone?"

The man replied, "This is not a good thing."

I was amused.

South of Gladstone, there were buses, but I know it would be only a few blocks until they detoured to bypass the Glebe, and now, being a good two thirds of the way home, I felt challenged to walk the whole distance for the first time since March. Especially since there were a few things I wanted to buy - including flowers for maaseru, to celebrate her birthday. So I walked onwards, admittedly going more and more slowly the further I went.

In the Glebe, there were people from the Arthur Murray Dance Studio giving dance demonstrations in the street, to great admiration and applause. Another group was teaching a bunch of people to do a kind of line dancing to rap music. There were patios set up in the street in front of the restaurants, a booth where kids could get their faces painted, a stage with musicians setting up - it was the same place I'd heard Ashley MacIsaac in concert last year, but I don't know who was there now. I just continued onwards, getting more and more tired.

By I made it home, pleased as punch. Can barely stand now, of course, and the problem isn't so much the ankle, which behaved well, it's the lack of muscles in the legs and hips. The physiotherapist is right: I need to walk more.

The birthday dinner was at the Cathay Restaurant on Albert, where maaseru unwrapped her presents. Then we went back to her place and watched the first two episodes of the DVD set that was our present to her - Bleak House. I promised not to complain about Burn Gorman.

You see, Bleak House was the first Dickens novel I read, aged about thirteen. It was the beginning of my great love affair with Charles Dickens. I thought it was funny and sad and wonderful, and though there was so much about it I loved, what I particularly remember was my love of Mr. Guppy, one of those funny underclass characters (like Sam Weller in the next book I read) who struck my adolescent brain as funny and smart and sexy and delightful in every way. Yes, not only was I in love with Charles Dickens, but also with Mr. Guppy.

And Burn Gorman, making him a not-so-attractive figure of fun, disappointed me dreadfully - quite broke my heart. I couldn't see anything much left in him of the sweet, funny, heroically brave Mr. Guppy of my imagination - the underdog with style.

I hold a grudge. But that aside, the production is wonderful - especially Gillian Anderson as the beautiful, troubled Lady Deadlock and Charles Dance as the sinister Mr Tulkinghorn.