Dial "C" for Carrots

The sun was shining, a light breeze was blowing from the east, and it was a balmy 15 degrees according to Auntie's lucky deer thermometer that was hanging from a post in the back yard. I'd won it in playing bingo in Toronto with BFF Sean a few years ago so it's always had a place of honour in the yard. 

So as you can see, the day was as perfect as it could be for baking carrot cakes, four of them in total, all destined for my fund raising bake table at the annual Great Glebe Garage Sale.

Auntie's heart was singing and preparations were progressing nicely but when it came time to grate the carrots it all came to a screeching halt.  Imagine Auntie's dismay when I noticed that one the three bags of carrots I'd bought from my local supermarket the day before seemed a lot lighter than the others.

This wasn't good.  Auntie needed every gram of those carrots to make four carrot cakes.

Just to make sure I wasn't imagining things, which Auntie sometimes does, I pulled out my scale and weighed that bag of carrots.  Sure enough, something was wrong.  It should have weighed almost a kilo but it didn't.  As you know, Auntie takes baking very seriously so too few carrots in her carrot cakes would never do.

I threw on my coat and hat, ready to head out the door to buy more carrots when I noticed a phone number on one of the bags.   Hmm, I thought.  Maybe if I explain the situation someone can send me some emergency carrots!

Auntie is a bit cynical these days when it comes to customer service.  Sadly, it's a lost art but with a jolt of optimism, no doubt fuelled by the cheery prospect of baking all day, I thought what the heck.  It was a free phone call and maybe the Green Giant himself would answer. Wouldn't that have made Auntie's day?

Safe from squirrels and little fingers

Auntie has always had a place in my heart for the Green Giant.  When Auntie was a little girl she sent away for a 5-foot tall stuffed Jolly Green Giant and it was her very favourite thing for a long time.  Auntie's fondness for vegetables and big green men in leafy togas goes way back.

There go to two lucky ladies with the last pieces of carrot cake

While I dialled the number on the bag, I was expecting to hear a recorded message like "press one for peas, two for corn, three for carrots" but instead, a very nice lady named Julie answered.

I told Julie the sad tale of the light bag of carrots and instead of laughing, she was very sympathetic and apologised.

After I hung up the phone with Julie, Auntie discovered a few loose carrots in the vegetable crisper so off came my hat and coat and out came the grater again. When I finished grating and weighing the carrots, I had just enough to make all four carrot cakes.  Phew.

A few days later on a sunny Saturday morning during the Great Glebe Garage Sale, Auntie sold all four carrot cakes, one slice at a time, each topped with a hand-made carrot made of white chocolate.  For a few hours, I made many people very happy while raising lots of loot for Auntie and Uncle Jim's favourite charity.

One pound of carrots = one carrot cake = 16 happy customers

One morning, a few days after the sale, Auntie heard a clacking at the mailbox and guess what?  Julie sent me a coupon for more carrots!

Isn't that nice?  I think Uncle Jim may be getting a nice carrot cake soon.

Maya Visits Paris

Vingt dieux, la belle église!  When was the last time you received a thank you note from a visiting 12 year old niece?  Seems that her Finishing School tuition wasn't wasted.

Maya's thank you note is also today's guest post entitled, The Sacre Coeur Economy. It's an enlightened perspective of her first trip to Paris where she and her Mom zipped to by high speed train after visiting Uncle Jim and I in the south of France. 

Thank you sweetheart.  You can guest post for Auntie any time.

The Sacre Coeur Economy

Dear Auntie:

                                                                                

     I thank you enormously for your invitation to guest post, although I had some trouble deciding what to write about, I have come to a conclusion of writing about the Sacre Coeur, an enormous church and the area surrounding, because you were not there for it, and because it was my favourite place to drink cappuccinos at cafés and laugh at other stupid tourists. 

     Anyway, the Sacre Coeur was about ten blocks away from our hotel, and the area surrounding it is like what silly tourists get into their silly heads about Paris.  In truth, Paris is just like New York, only much better architecture, and everyone speaks French. 

The hotel was unusually coloured

So, on day two, we walk up the tiny, twisting pathways filled to the brim with busy, bustling people, and then suddenly half of the population spoke English.  We had reached what I like to call the Sacre Coeur Economy. 

     The streets were packed with mildly crazy tourists, and we found ourselves amidst a crowd, being helplessly shoved up the hill.  We pass two mimes and a lady with a cart covered from top to bottom in flowers, playing an accordion.

 

     Then, my Mom shouts, and I follow her finger to one of the most magnificent towers ever.  At this point, we were only a block away and were already gaping with mouths as wide as fishes.

 

The view of –and from- the magnificent Sacre Coeur

     So of course Mom wanted to go to the top.  Three hundred spiralling steps up, and three hundred spiralling steps down.   The view was stunning, and even through the pollution and clouds, I could make out the faint outline of the Eiffel Tower.

Another amazing thing about the Sacre Coeur Economy:  the shops

     I would also like to thank you for not only allowing me to write this, but for giving me no other option but to have a marvellous time – Uncle Jim, you too.

        

     I look forward to next time,

Love and hugs,

Maya.

Two Nieces Visit Auntie

The Niece-ling visits the Auntie.  Let the spoiling begin!

It was a rare, "three generations under the same roof" week for Auntie and Uncle Jim, four if you count the fruit flies who arrived on some bananas a few days prior.

Our fabulous niece Tina and her equally fabulous daughter Maya jetted half way around the world to visit us at our seaside shack in the south of France.  Uncle Jim can count all of his relatives, both distant and close, on his fingers and toes so how lucky were we to have a thumb and pinkie to spoil at the same time? 

The last time niece Tina and niece-ling Maya visited was in 2002 when Maya was just a wee kitten.  Celine pointed to the kitchen doorway where almost 11 years ago to the day, Maya stood still just long enough for Auntie to mark her height on the door jamb.  I had completely forgotten about doing that.  She was under three feet tall at the time.

While we stood there, marvelling at the mark, a few things came to mind: boy, time sure flies, followed by, I'll have to have a word with the cleaning lady.

We made the most of our short time together.  I sent Maya up a tree or two to pick lemons and oranges, we baked a cake, she ate Moules and Crêpes Suzette and we haggled in French for souvenirs at a Vide Grenier or giant garage sale.

We had a "three country day" where after waking up and having breakfast in France, we drove through Italy and had lunch in The Principality of Seborga where niece-ling fearlessly ate wild boar and we met a little dog that was so adorable we plotted to kidnap it.

On the sunniest day, we all jumped in a helicopter, cameras in hand, and zoomed around in the sky, as one does on a sunny day, to get a new perspective on the world.

You make a diversion and I'll grab the dog

Bargain hunting for souvenirs at the Vide Grenier

Maya is an "up looker"

Time to say goodbye

Then, all of a sudden, we looked at Auntie's cat calendar and realized the party was over and it was time for them to leave.  Next stop, Paris on the high speed TGV train.

I asked Maya to write about her trip to Paris and she wrote a guest post for Auntie entitled, The Sacre Coeur Economy.

I foresee a brilliant and adventurous life for Maya and I hope she'll write more posts for The Auntie Times.

Thanks sweetheart. You can visit any time.

XO, Auntie

Wet Cement

Who can resist the lure of fresh wet cement?  Auntie sure can't!

On our way to do some shopping in downtown Menton yesterday, Uncle Jim and I were making our way through the narrow streets of the old town when about half way there, our passage was blocked by 3 burly workmen wearing dirty coveralls covered in what looked like white dust.  

One of the men was pushing a wheelbarrow, one had a hose in his hands, and the other was bent down mixing something in a big black tray.  As we got closer, we could see that they were in the middle of repaving the surface of the narrow street directly in front of us. 

We were about to turn back when one of the men said, "it's OK to pass, just be careful, there's wet cement."  Oops.  Auntie was wearing a new pair of black Italian shoes!

While we were carefully tip toeing around the wet cement, Auntie had an idea. 

I put a big smile on my face and asked, "may I step in it?"  Just so there was no misunderstanding, I lifted my foot and let it hover over a smooth patch in the corner.  

Much to Auntie's surprise, they said "yes!"

It was pure co incidence that earlier in the week, Auntie was watching an old episode of the TV show, I Love Lucy from 1955 in which Lucy decided she needed a souvenir from Hollywood to bring back to New York. Most people would have brought home a t-shirt or snow dome but not Lucy!  There she was, in the middle of the night with her friend Ethyl, at Graumann's Chinese Theatre, prying off the concrete slab with John Wayne's hands and feet imprinted on it.  

Immortalizing oneself in concrete has been going on there for a long time.  

It all started in 1927 when Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks stuck their hands and feet in wet concrete and since then, two hundred and eight actors, actresses and entertainers have been honoured and immortalized in the same way.  Michael Jackson was the latest when in January of 2012 his shoes and glitter glove were pressed into the wet cement in absentia by his children.

Well, here was Auntie's chance at fame but since I was wearing good shoes, I decided to stick my hand in the wet concrete instead.  The concrete was wet, very cold, and it was a lot of fun.  

When I got back up, we all paused to see my handiwork and shared a laugh. Uncle Jim handed me a tissue to wipe my hand and we all went on our merry way. 

This morning, curiosity drew Uncle Jim and I down the same route into town today.  We were dying to see if the workers left my hand print but alas, it seems that after we'd left, the workers had put the finishing touches on the path and smoothed over my hand print.  It was but a sweet memory.

It seems Auntie wasn't the only one attracted by the lure of wet cement that day.  Something with four paws and whiskers left it's mark instead!

Falling Ahead with the Times

The 2000's are calling and they want their phone back

The other day Auntie and Uncle Jim were on a double date with friends Geoff and Christine and Auntie became the laughing stock of the dinner table. 

While we were waiting for our salads to arrive, the subject turned towards cell phones and everyone pulled out his phone to compare Apps and show off some photos.

I miss my Walkman so...

Well, there was Auntie with her ancient little Samsung phone, the one that she'd bought about 10 years ago with the little silver bear charm hanging on the end, right next to the antenna.

"That's your phone?" Geoff asked accusingly mixed with peals of laughter.

Well, I never!  You'd think I'd been carrying around two tin cans and a string in my purse.  Well, I guess compared to their shiny new iPhones, I was.

Ah well, Auntie took all the laughter in the spirit that it was intended:  ridicule.

Good old

How had I fallen so far behind the times?

The funny thing is that in all other ways, Auntie is quite the modern miss.  I have three blogs, a facebook page and two twitter feeds. I even saw PSY's Gangnam Style video on YouTube when it had under 100,000 views. Now it's nearing 1.3 billion.  Where did I go wrong?

Bad old

With laughter still ringing in my ears, Uncle Jim kindly offered to buy me an iPhone 5 and Auntie readily agreed.  This zip-lined Auntie into the modern age and now I can't put my phone down.

The truth is that these days it's hard to keep up with all the new ways of doing things.

Do you remember record players?  Auntie does.

After listening to one side of the record, which took about 15 minutes or so, you had to get up and flip the record over to play the other side.  Television offered the same chance for vigorous exercise. If you wanted to change channels, you had to push the cat off your lap, get up out of your easy chair, walk across the room and flip a knob.

While watching TV and listening to records were both good ways to get exercise, now we sit like statues and manage our video content and MP3 files in our Clouds so there's no need to flip anything except your lid when your WiFi goes on the fritz or your download speeds are too pokey.

Back in the good old days when iPods had click wheels

I often think about all the things in life that are both old and good:  fine wine, architecture, grandparents, and unwatched episodes of your favourite old-time TV shows.

And how about everything that's both new and good in life like kittens,

"A ground breaking advancement in the field of obsolescence"

apples, friends, and new episodes of your favourite modern TV shows?

Sometimes, it's fun to find a happy mix of both like this nifty USB typewriter that Uncle Jim found on the internet.  If you have an old Underwood typewriter lying around, you can convert it into a keyboard for your iPad.  Imagine being able to hear the "clickity clak" of the typewriter keys and all those "likes" you'll generate when you update your facebook status to  "just got a new typewriter!"  Just make sure your don't slap your iPad off its stand when you should hit the "enter" key instead.

Uncle Jim is in many ways a thoroughly modern man and owns an iPad but strangely, he's never owned an iPhone.  After a bit of delicate questioning, I learned he has a little disability that plagues many people of his generation:  his fingertips aren't pointy enough to use the keypad.  Poor Uncle Jim!

All is not lost though. You'll be pleased to know that while we were in Hong Kong, we bought some nifty finger cones that are all the rage there.  Wearing these cones on your fingers over night will reshape your round fingertips in no time and they're guaranteed to make them pointy enough for an iPhone keyboard.  Fortunately, the cost of the cones is covered by his health insurance. 

Good old. The house phone from the Balmoral Hotel in Edinburgh

Of course this doesn't mean that we can't hold on to things from the past that bring us happiness and joy like old friends, antique tea cups and vintage Pucci dresses.

We should just be open to new things and new adventures that will enrich and improve our lives.

As one of my favourite animated characters, Edna Mode would say, "I never look back, darling! It distracts from the now."

I couldn't say it better myself! 

Stop fighting girls!  There are plenty of those to go around

Yes, "Like That."  All is well in the modern age - for now...