"Ladies that Lunch"

"We are," said Adrienne with a dignified air, "ladies that lunch." It sounds luxurious, and it is. There is something Victorian about it, and something post-modern as well.

Turns out we're very good at lunching. Today we shared a delicious dejeuner on the quiet side deck at Stella's: mussels, poutine, beetroot salad. The only thing we ordered two of was cafe lattes.

The kind of long, rambling conversations we enjoy over a shared meal take time. When we arrange to meet, we make sure we both have the afternoon free. We don't always spend the entire time lunching, but we make sure it's available, just in case.

I am definitely old enough to be her mother. I remember her at six, at twelve. Looking into her chocolate eyes, I sometimes see backward through the tunnel of time to the face she had as a girl. That face wore the same expressions: serious, conscientious, thoughtful.

We talk of the most mysterious things, the most daunting and unknowable things. We reveal things we can tell none but each other.

Then something sets us off and we start and we start to giggle. Away we go into gales, laughing our heads off.

Lunches with Adrienne are unique and special. They provide leisurely and luxurious sustenance for body and soul.

Bee, Buzzed?

Image from BBC

Today I dined outdoors in White Rock. The weather was fabulous. But the rain could start any day.  Better enjoy the beach now.

I sat on the deck at Cosmos Restaurant to eat bean soup and mark my papers. A bee circled the sweet alyssum blooming in the planter boxes, sniffed my pita bread and flew off.

Dreamily, I watched the Amtrack train slide past along the beach while I had coffee and dessert. Topped with whipped cream and drizzled with orange liqueur, the creme caramel was delicious. When I set the empty plate aside, the bee came back. The cointreau must have smelled better than the alyssum. He buzzed around, then landed on the rim and advanced gingerly toward the puddle of liqueur.

I watched his little dance with fascination. Apparently sensing danger, he carefully avoided wading into the sticky puddle. Instead, he travelled carefully around the plate to find the best position from which to sip safely.

So many times I have watched bees; yet never have I observed one so closely or for so long. While he sipped the sweet treat, he held his feelers out at right angles to his body and his wings in close to his back. His abdomen wiggled as he drank. Apian ecstasy?

When he was done, he rose and made a slow lazy circle. He was moving like a heavily loaded cargo plane, climbing laboriously before he flew off. Was he buzzed?

Water Fountain at Incesu

Photo: town of Avanos with local clay pots
In the hot region of southwest Turkey, roadside fountains beckon. People regularly stop to drink, wash their faces and fill containers. In Marmaris, we visit the roadside cesme in the evening and carry back delicious drinking water for the house.

Central Turkey, near Kayseri, also has public water facilities. Located in the centre of the tiny town of Incesu, the public fountain is dedicated, of course, to Ataturk.

The town's name, Incesu, means thin water, and indeed, the stream that flows from this fountain is thin. The fountain leaks, in spite of a new cement patch. As we drink, fill our bottles and splash our faces, water trickles through the dust at our feet.

A donkey stands in the road. On his back is a diminutive old woman carrying a tiny switch. Her friend on foot is also tiny. In spite of the heat, the two are wearing many layers of skirts, scarves and pantaloons. I fell that when unwrapped, they would be the size of children, or dolls.

They greet us and we chat together. They explain that the woman on the donkey was coming to her friend's house so they could make some food together. Even with their Kayseri accents, I am pleased to note that my Turkish is good enough to follow most of what they say, even though I don't catch the name of the dish they plan to cook.

It seems that some essential ingredient was left at the other house. The rider turns the donkey around with a couple of light taps of her switch and rides off to get whatever is needed. Her friend stays and tells us about her son and her grandchildren.

High school drinking fountain

Image from hawsco

Writing about water fountains yesterday got me thinking. Water is essential for brain and body function and we often get dehydrated. My Grades 8 and 9 ESL kids really needed their water breaks. Junior high is puberty time and as their bodies changed, many of my students found it hard to keep still. When they asked to go for drinks of water, I let them. Once day a kid named Archie went to the water fountain and didn't come back. At the end of the day, the office told me he had transferred out.

Sometimes the kids would skip class. When they returned, I would ask them where they had been. "At the library," said Manuel, with mendacious virtue. "Anyway, I'm thinking of transferring out."

Manuel's first language was Portuguese. His English conversation skills were good but he couldn't read or write very well yet. He was learning the ropes, but I also knew the transfer game. Kids with ESL backgrounds, as well as troubled or academically weak kids, would try to enter the transfer mill. Three or four schools later, when the year was nearly over, they would transfer back.

"No, Manuel," I said, looking him firmly in the eye. "You are not going anywhere. Starting tomorrow, you are going to be here every day for the rest of the semester." I guess he appreciated feeling wanted, because he didn't transfer and didn't miss another class.

By the end of the term, Manuel had improved his reading and writing skills tremendously. To help him concentrate, he relied on frequent breaks to go to the water fountain.

Drinking Fountain

Today I spent a couple of hours at the Canadian Authors Vancouver booth at Word Vancouver. After talking to a lot of people, I felt thirsty and left my fellow table minders briefly in search of something to drink. I was planning to buy some bottled water, but I popped in to the library for a moment to pick up my hold and remembered they had water fountains.

As kids in elementary school, we routinely drank water from the fountain or bubbler, as it was sometimes called. The bubbler was a great thing for kids who had trouble sitting still, providing a welcome break in the unwelcome routine of sitting for long hours at a desk.

"Miss Holden, can I please go to the fountain?" a child would say, waving an arm in the air. And if the kid asked politely, the teacher would usually agree.

Now we've become used to the concept of drinking bottled water, and paying for it too. In today's society so many things are monetized. But the best things in life are still free, and that includes public libraries and water fountains.

Drinking at the fountain in the VPL today, I felt how blessed we are to have this free place for all to slake their thirst for water, and for knowledge too. As Bill Richardson once said, "If free public libraries hadn't been invented long ago, probably nobody would be willing to fund them now."

But free public libraries have been around for a very long time. Drinking fountains are old too -- even the Romans had them. And people are starting to use them again. Very sensible, too.

Blue Medicine with Loose Skein of Birds Flying over

Stellar's jay image US National Park Service

Driving off in the open car in the late afternoon was bliss. At White Rock I broke my habitual pattern and stopped on East Beach. Parking in front of the Gelato place, I went in and bought ice cream. Waffle cone, one scoop of green apple, one of lemon.

"Ah," said the proprietor, "You like the sour ones." He watched me take the first lick, and asked, "How is it?" Mouth full, I gave him the thumbs-up and he smiled.

The unique blues of the sky and water in the late afternoon sun were just what I needed. I crossed the road to look down at the sea. The beach there is very shallow but today the tide was in and the water as blue as the Caribbean.

The sky was gorgeous too. These two blues, flanked by pale green trees and dark green shrub palms, were soul medicine. Reluctant to leave the sea behind, I got in the car and drove toward Crescent Beach. From Crescent park, the lush lawn and trees emitted a burst of the lovely green smell that heralds dusk. The treetops were sunlit, one Stellar's jay on a wire alone and blue.

The sun was going down. By dusk, the sky overhead was swathed in a gauzy layer of cloud. Waiting for a light, I leaned back and gazed directly up at a flock of small birds flying over. Seeing them so close up gave me an intimate sense of participation in their flight.

The fresh air and outdoors were what I'd been craving. The birds, the greenery, the burst of fragrance that was a harbinger of evening. All of it was powerful medicine for the soul.

Aberdeen Associations

Photo: wikitravel.org Aberdeen, Scotland

"We are sorry for the delay of the 9:15 to Newcastle, Edinburgh and Aberdeen." The musical British voice over the loudspeaker thrilled me. 1976: I was in England for the first time, Brit Rail pass in hand. The train might be late, but I would be aboard to ride to the end of the line.

Aberdeen. For anyone with roots in the British Isles, that conjures up images of northern Scotland. But for many here in Vancouver, it also evokes memories of Hong Kong.

In 1983, I ate dinner at the floating Jumbo Seafood restaurant in the harbour at Aberdeen and watched the milling junks and sampans, home to thousands of people. It was from that Aberdeen that the local one derived its name.

Now the Aberdeen Centre in Richmond is expanding. Originally built in 1989, it tripled in size in 2003. With the addition of Aberdeen Square (slated to open in 2013) it will become the largest Asian-style retail centre in North America.

The original Aberdeen is a North Sea port, a center of oil exploration and Scotland's third largest city, sometimes called the Granite City.

How strange that it lent its name to a village on Hong Kong island and from there, to the big Chinese-style shopping center that is now served by the Canada Line.