January 2005 Archives

(more pics)

I don't think I've ever visited a place that lived up to its advance billing so well. Venice is absolutely magical. I think part of it has to the do with arriving by boat. Getting on a boat somehow makes you feel you're on a journey that's a little out of the ordinary. It adds a certain spice of adventure. We took the water bus from Marco Polo airport, but you can also take a water taxi which might be even more magical.

The water taxis looked prettier and and they travel much faster. The water bus took slightly more than an hour to get to the San Marco dock on the far side of the island. A water taxi would make the same journey in half the time. If you can get a group of six or eight together, the price is pretty reasonable. A water taxi costs about 80 Euros in total. The water bus is 10 Euros per person. Either way, Venice rises out of the mists as beautiful and mysterious as its quasi-namesake Venus.

We arrived on the 3rd of January which was the first day of low season and had booked a room through hotels.com at the Palazzo Selvadego. Our room was absolutely stunning. It was a mini-suite just west of the Piazza San Marco. There was a little sign in the room that read "The Maximum price for this room is 520 Euros." We got it for £60/night. Deal of the century.

That night we went to Da Fiore for dinner. They weren't serving yet so we had a coffee in the bar. I fell immediately in love with the place because they gave us free cake with our cappuccinos. And, once again, I was humbled at the European facility with languages. The woman who served us from behind the bar spoke to us in perfect English and two other couples in perfect French and German respectively. Both the French and German couples spoke passable Italian anyway and the five of them (including the bar-woman) used this as a common language for a discussion that was apparently hilarious. (I was able to tell this because, fortunately, I can understand laughter in all three languages.)

For dinner we had a bit of a mystery meal. All we were certain of from the menu was that it was some kind of risotto. It turned out to be cooked with octopus ink and so was completely black. It was tasty but had we known we would have ordered a different wine. As any serious interior decorator can tell you, you should always have white wine with black food.

The next day we had lunch at a bar on the Fondamenta Minotto near the Piazzale Roma which is where the buses from the mainland terminate. Lots of working men popped in and out of the bar while we were there. They came in groups of four or five and usually stayed for just a few minutes. One group of five stayed for lunch, however. They ate huge amounts of food, especially this one tiny guy. He was probably only about five foot four and skinny, but he had a huge grey moustache the size of an octogenarian ferret. It obscured most of his face. I was amazed he got any food past it, and more amazed with just how much he managed to fit in his wiry little frame. He began with a mountainous plate of spaghetti, followed by a plate of tortellini, followed by a scallopini that hung off the side of the plate, followed by half of his neighbour's calamari. Or course, one explanation is that it wasn't a moustache at all. Maybe he really did have a ferret stapled to his lip. Vicki and I restricted ourselves to a shared starter of diverse denizens of the sea, followed by some delicious gnochetti al salmone.

After lunch we took the water bus to the island of San Michele which serves as Venice's cemetery. Vicki was keen to visit Diaghliev's grave, an impresario who revitalised dance in Europe at the beginning of the 20th century. Diaghliev once said,

"I am... ...someone afflicted, it seems, with a complete absence of talent. I think I've found my true vocation: to be a patron of the arts. For that I have everything I need except money."

Despite the lack of coinage, he managed to bring together the Diaghliev Ballets Russes with Njinsky and Anna Pavlova supported by, amongst others, Picasso, Salvador Dali, Stravinsky, and Prokofiev.

Stravinsky is also buried on San Michele and we came across his grave first. People had left some rather odd tokens on it: a piece of chocolate, some segments of orange, and the business card of a music teacher from Pittsburgh.

A rather sombre couple stood in front of the grave with whom we had a brief but strangely moving conversation.

"Are you musicians?" one of them asked.

"No," I said. This seemed somehow inadequate so I added, "My wife," indicating Vicki, "is a dancer."

He nodded.

"Are you a musician?" I asked.

"Yes." He gestured towards the grave. "He was the father to us all."

Diaghliev's grave was also decorated with keepsakes, including a pair of point shoes and what looked like a pair of clogs woven from reeds. He died at the age of 57, which made me think that perhaps he should have done less watching and more dancing.

After the cemetery we went back to the main island and wandered into the Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni which has a number of paintings of Saint George. They're big on St. George in Venice. Everywhere you go there are depictions of him killing the famous dragon. I have to say, I'm not that impressed. The paintings we saw in the Scuola and later in the Basilica de San Marco are of a beast about the size of a big poodle. Personally, I wouldn't go around calling myself a knight if I couldn't dispatch a wee beastie like that. I certainly wouldn't expect to be sainted for it.

It was Vicki's birthday and so we had a fancy dinner in a wonderful little restaurant we'd spotted the previous night called Ai Gondelieri on the Ponte del Formagen in the Dorsoduro area near the Basilica di San Maria della Salute. Fantastic food, lovely setting, and, having learned it was Vicki's birthday, they wedged a large table candle into Vicki's dessert.

On our last night in Venice we went to the opera, " La Roi de Lahore" at La Fenice (pronounced La Feneechay, by the way). The building is stunning. It reopened in 2003 after being destroyed by a fire set, rumour has it, by the mafia. Unfortunately, we had terrible seats. Except for the stalls, the seats are arranged in boxes in a horseshoe shape. Most boxes have two rows of two seats. We were in the second row in one of the boxes on the side. This meant that while Vicki could see at least part of the stage, I had a lovely view of half the orchestra pit and the boxes directly opposite. Still, it sounded beautiful, and the building itself was gorgeous.

After the show we went a nearby restaurant called La Teatro and I asked for my first autograph. Shortly after we ordered, a large group of effusive Italians came in and we realised it was the cast from the Opera we had just (barely) seen. I had bought a postcard of the opera house to send to my boss. His wife used to be a professional opera singer and the two of them had met while studying music. I asked the two principals to sign it, which they graciously did. Later I added a brief postscript and sent it to my boss. Sadly, this gesture has yet to result in a raise.

We left Venice the next day. It had been sunny with clear skies the entire time we were there. It didn't seem overly thronged with tourists and the Piazza never flooded. All in all, a near perfect trip.

(more pics)

Contrary to what you might think, the dapper gentleman pictured above is not my Grandmother's lover, but her brother. These pictures were taken in August. The main reason for our trip was to attend her 90th birthday party. She's a grand woman, my grandmother. She really is one of the best people I've ever known.

My loudest aunt hosted a grand party with 90 green helium balloons floating around the ceiling. My gran had prepared a multi-page speech which was typically wise, funny, and demanding – she quizzed us all in her speech. My question had something to do with the Battle of Hastings, I seem to recall.

Vicki and I wrote a number of beautiful poems. Sadly, it is now several months after the fact and I can't remember any of them. I'm pretty sure they were thoughtful, brilliant, and touching though.

There were postcards and letters and well-wishings from around the globe, and a grand time was had by all. I just wish I hadn't sat on the photos for so many months. I'm looking forward to her 180th.

(more pics)

These pictures are from the summer. I'm still catching up a bit from last year. As stated previously, it's all Gracie's fault. The necessity of keeping my needlepoint work from my sister meant I had to stay away from the keyboard for fear of spilling the beans.

Anyway, while we were back in the Canada in August, we visited an old treeplanting buddy named Heather. She and her husband Lamont run an organic farm on the Saanich Peninsula of Vancouver Island. Their place is called Northbrook Farm and they supply organic vegetables to various local restaurants and are part of a home delivery service called Saanich Organics. If you live in the Victoria area, you should contact them for all of your daily gourd and rutabaga needs.

While we were there we helped her pick melons and beets. You smell melons to tell if they're ripe. I didn't know that. Now, every time I see a pair of melons I like the look of, I stick my face right up to them and take a deep breath. Mmm... Melons...

Beets are trickier. We were picking "small beets". Apparently restaurants are quite picky about what a small beet is. I figure if it's smaller than my head, it's a small beet. This wasn't good enough for Heather, however, and a large proportion of my beets went to feed the chickens.

I like Heather. She's fun. In fact, I like her so much we were almost engaged once. Well, actually, we just told people we were engaged. I've never even kissed the woman, never mind smelled her melons. It was a long time ago and it was at my 16 year high school reunion and Vicki was out of the country and so Heather and I went as a couple and lied to a huge number of people I used to call friends. You can see details about the whole shoddy affair.

And now she's a farm girl and lives in a house heated by boiling magma deep beneath the surface of the Earth. It's funny how people change.

Sweet Creator of Elvis's hips! This blog is becoming a dry and dusty expanse of procrastitory voidliness. I blame it on Gracie, my new niece. I could blame it on work or life or myself, but those are common targets for my finger-pointing. Gracie is brand new. I doubt she's been blamed for much of anything yet.

Actually, in a way, it's also BJ's fault.

Every year since I was 15 I've made the same New Year's resolution -- not to live a boring life. It's a bit vague, admittedly, and I work at it about as hard as most people work on their New Year's resolutions -- i.e. not at all. Usually, life itself just foists itself upon me so I don't worry about it. Every once in a while, however, someone comes along who reminds me that really I could be a bit more interesting. BJ is one of these people.

In August I visited my mother in Victoria, Canada. My stepfather was also there. This is rare as he has spent most of the last year working as a paramedic in Iraq. He's another person that makes me feel my life's a bit dull sometimes. So, anyway, both of us were in the garage talking about manly things. (Jeff is pretty manly; my mother is not -- so the only part of the house that is really his is the garage.)

They live in kind of townhouse development so all the garages are next to each other. BJ is their neighbour. She was a singer in a band in the 70s that had at least one big hit and was married for a time to someone who is still big in the music business in Canada. She pulled up outside the garage in her new car, a PT Cruiser convertible. The top was up and we could see her moving around inside the car, laughing and running her hands all over the inside of the car, but we couldn't hear what she was saying. She wore a leopard-skin pillbox hat and cateye sunglasses and looked to be some indeterminate age between 45 and infinite. It was the first time I had ever seen her. Finally, she threw the door open and leaned out.

"I've had this car for over a week now and I still don't know how to roll down the windows!" She laughed.

Jeff and I ambled over and peered inside the car. He, being the more manly of the two of us, soon spotted the window switch. We introduced each other and BJ said, "How do you like my car? It's a gift from a man, you know. I'm a kept woman. It's fantastic being sexy!" Then she disappeared into her own garage.

That night BJ came by for a few drinks. She absolutely monopolised the conversation from the minute she came through the door. I was completely jet-lagged but I couldn't go to bed. I had to stay up and see if she ever drew breathe. She'd just returned from the Toronto Film Festival and was filled with anecdotes of plastic surgery disasters she'd seen and tales of country singers licking frogs. She was considering some plastic surgery herself. The mystery man who'd bought her the car offered to get her anything she wanted for Christmas and she was thinking of asking for a boob job. "Or maybe I'll just take the money and buy myself a flat panel TV as big as my living room wall. That way we'll both have something nice to look at when he comes over."

The only time BJ paused was when Jeff was talking about his experiences in Iraq. I went to bed a shaken man determined to follow a new and exciting path in the morning.

But what path to take... I can't sing and even if I could, it was probably too late to become a faded rock and roller. Taking a job in Iraq would definitely fit the bill adventure-wise, but, to be honest, the idea scared the bejesus out of me. I needed to find some new occupation that would be creative, challenging, hold a moderate risk of blood loss, as well as being totally unexpected. The answer, obviously, was needlepoint.

My sister was pregnant and all the women in the family were putting together a quilt with a nursery rhyme motif. I immediately volunteered to do a square. I got Little Johnny Stout. He occupied much of my holiday. And sure enough, it seemed to add a spark of interest to my otherwise hum-drum existence. You wouldn't think, in this enlightened age, that the sight of a man doing needlepoint would cause much of a stir, but it did. Suddenly all those anecdotes about mortars flying into the compound and movie stars having the brains of virgins injected into their butt cheeks didn't seem nearly as fascinating, at least not when contrasted with the site of a burly hunk of man-meat like myself doing satin stitch.

Next year I plan to take up finger-painting.