The little fish of shame

I've been musing that maybe one of the reasons I haven't written much here this year is because nothing ridiculous like this or this has happened to me lately. The incidence rate of the bizarre seems to have declined appreciably since I left the tropics—or maybe I just don't get out enough anymore. But a recent, seemingly innocent trip to our local cheap and cheerful Portuguese BBQ managed to restore the normal abnormality for an evening and I haven't been able to shake off the experience.

We generally have a great time when we go to this little restaurant so I shan't reveal its name, but we seem to have settled into a default order whenever we go there, which is piri piri chicken for Charles and char-grilled squid for me. This particular evening I decided to mix it up a bit and ordered the char-grilled sardines, figuring they would be a bit of a house speciality. When they arrived they were enormous—so much bigger than I was expecting—and I was really impressed. Our waiter did a dump-and-run with our order, as they were typically busy. But when another stalwart, older-generation, career waiter whizzed by, I couldn't help but gleefully comment on my dish in my mangled Franglais. He screeched to a halt, turned on his heel and proceeded to launch into a bitter tirade about the decline of the once-mighty Portuguese sardine fishing industry, made all the harder to keep up with by a passionate peppering of Portuguese in amongst his Franglais. Ah, Montréal!

His argument bordered on the outright racist and factually questionable at times, but the basic gist of it was true and this: the sardines run up the west coast of Africa before entering traditional Portuguese fishing territory. Overfishing of sardines off the African coast has resulted in a burgeoning plankton population since there are not enough of the predatorial small fish to keep the plankton numbers in check. In turn, the plankton have died in great number, basically of old age, and a toxic combination of hydrogen sulphide and methane is released from the rotting remains when they fall to the ocean floor. This noxious mix then literally explodes to the surface, poisoning all the other sea life, including any remnant sardines, resulting in a catastrophic, multi-species mass die-off. The delicate balance of the ecosystem has been damaged by humanity's greediness. Again.

Now, while the waiter blamed starving African hordes dredging the coastline with hand-held nets for this situation, the reality is it seems to have been overfishing by international commercial fleets from the 1970s onwards that has tipped the balance. But since the sardine is such an iconic part of Portuguese food culture, the absence of it is being felt quite personally. The rant lasted close to 10 minutes in all—in fact, the waiter came back for a round two on his explanation after attending to other patrons. And the whole time he was talking at me my handsome, gigantic, piping hot and beautifully cooked sardines were sitting on my plate in front of me going cold. By the time he had finished part of me didn't even want to eat them anymore, I felt so guilty for my contribution to the problem. Another part of me wanted to jump up and screech, "Well, why are they still on the bloody menu then if this is such an issue?" But in the end, my pragmatic (and polite) side won out and I resolved to enjoy every last mouthful of my delicious, already-dead-and-nothing-could-be-done-about-that sardines, since they were going to be the last ones I would ever eat in my life.


PS On a related topic, there's one seemingly insignificant news story that I have come across recently that has absolutely enormous ramifications. I am not quite sure why this story is languishing here in ABC Australia's rural news section instead of being plastered all over the front page of every news site on the planet. In a nutshell, CSIRO scientists have developed a commercial prawn food that does not require the use of any wild-caught fish. Currently, wild-caught fish make up 25 percent of commercial prawn feeds and 40–50 percent of commercial fin fish feeds. It can even take 2.5 kg of wild-caught fish to produce one kg of farmed salmon. Where is the sense in that, I ask you? Now that the CSIRO has cracked the formula for prawn feed (entering production as I write), they are starting work on developing a similar product for fin fish. Go you good things!

It's a long way to the shop if you want a sausage roll...

Australian ex-pat trying valiantly to uphold national pride in -20C. Photo: Charles Cardinal

The title of this post is something probably only Australians of a certain age would get. It's a schoolyard twist on the lyrics to AC/DC's It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock 'n' Roll); just try singing it and you'll see what I mean...

Today is Australia Day, and despite all the broader political ramifications and my personal uneasiness in recognition of Invasion Day, as it is also known, I am a little more nostalgic than usual for my home country. I celebrated by listening to '80s Oz Rock and making a batch of lamingtons to share with my classmates tomorrow. Surprisingly, there are two other Australians in my class, so I am not as much of an exotic creature as usual. I also made a batch of sausage rolls for Charles and I, which turned out to be the best I've ever tasted, perhaps because I've been so deprived. Like any good immigrant, I have soulful longings for the unique tastes of the Old Country.

It's a curious thing, being an expatriate. There is all the excitement and novelty of a new country, culture, and—frequently—language to explore, but it is so often clouded with a few greying drops of homesickness, as well as the involuntary comparisons. I can't even imagine what it must be like for immigrants who have had to leave their home against their will or for the preservation of their lives.

As always, I remind myself that the purpose of this blog is to enforce a positive view of change on myself so, like a happily tipsy father of the bride, I take the view that I am not losing my own culture, but gaining a second. (Gosh, I just remembered having a jumbonormous fight with a German boyfriend in 1998, when he claimed Australia didn't have a culture. Oh, my goodness!) As I sit here, I've been contemplating just what it is that I'm invoking when I think of that mythical beast that is "Australia." In essence it seems to be wide, open spaces, a freshness of both spirit and produce, and a lack of taking anything or anyone, including oneself, too seriously. But mostly it is the wide, open spaces. Oh, and warmth!

For years I have celebrated drives through those wide, open spaces with a stop at a country bakery for a sausage roll and a Farmers' Union Iced Coffee. It was a little tradition that I made for myself somewhere along the line, to the point now when a long car trip will induce sausage roll cravings. I've managed to find a suitable iced coffee substitute here, at the ubiquitously Canadian Tim Horton's chain, but it looks like I'll be doing a little pre-trip baking from now on because there really is no suitable alternative to the sausage roll here, and 16,000km is indubitably a long trip "down the shops."

Back to school

"You sound like a French-from-France!"

To most English speakers this would be a compliment, right? Coming from my 11-year-old stepson it is a stab to my heart, a soul-crushing blow, the most scathing of put-downs. Around here the French-from-France don't speak the True French. They are fickle followers of fashion, blithe spirits who do not care for tradition, who do not know the Old Ways. Québécois is the True French. Except when it borrows from English. Or a First Nations language. Or it had to make up a word to describe something unique to the New World. Or it uses the informal "tu" form of address with wild abandon. But let's not get picky now!

To someone who has had exposure to French-from-France—moi, for example—it is also a terrifyingly daunting dialect. Similarly causing, I'm sure, the kind of fear that must strike an English learner when they encounter a Scots accent, a Deep Southern US accent, or a broader-than-broad, closed-mouth, Far North Queensland accent. But here I am in Montréal, having just braved the joual of Témiscamingue, and today I started niveau 3 (level 3) of my cours de francisation.

I'm now at the Centre Saint-Louis, much closer to home after three and a bit months at the Centre Lartigue. These classes are run and heavily subsidised by the Commission scolaire de Montréal, via the Ministry of Education. The Ministry of Immigration also offers classes, but after a spectacular fail at fulfilling their own KPIs, I wound up in the care of the Education Minister.

It's an incredible deal: a $70 administration fee per six months, plus $10 per level for the textbook. For that you get 20 hours per week of professional, immersion French classes. As I wrote: incredible!

I won't lie, I have found it very challenging going back to study almost full time. Twenty contact hours of foreign language learning by immersion leaves you pretty shattered for several extra hours on top of that per week. It's not the work per se; I'm doing very well. (Thank you home tutors!) But being a povvo student after years of full-time work is very challenging. My Aries moon is also always very impatient to just get on with things, and I want to master it all NOW, and I want to be back at work NOW! (I'm not saying these are attractive qualities I admire in myself, but it is a personality trait I am constantly battling to overcome.) I am continually taking stock and reminding myself that most of the known universe dreams of "taking a year off to learn French." Reason vs Wonder again!

So, now on my second institution, I am also on my fourth school venue. Some of the buildings have been beautiful—evocative and even anachronistic. Others have been coldly utilitarian. We've seen chalk dust and felt erasers, wall-mounted pencil sharpeners, wall charts and maps, linoleum, and even PCs running Windows XP.

It really feels like I am back at school.

 

On va vers hiver

It's here! For weeks the anticipation has been building. Will it or won't it snow tonight? This weekend? Before December?! And tonight here it is, the bright, white blanket putting all our childish fitfulness to rest. And again with the firsts—this is my first First Snow.

Two weeks ago as I walked home from class at lunchtime, the sky dusted down the tiniest of snowflakes that melted as they touched my jacket. This is it!, I thought. The next morning it tried again, and the more adventurous of my two black cats—tropically born and bred—came trotting into the kitchen after his morning garden survey with a sprinkle of white flakes across his back. Definitely it! And then...nothing.

Ice has slunk into the nooks and crannies, making my daily walk treacherous, with every puddle and pooling frozen on the footpaths and often hidden under piles of leaves. Between last Friday and today the lake in Parc La Fontaine has incrementally frozen, too. And now the late night revellers who want to challenge the ice have had to resort to bigger and bigger objects to throw at it to test their respective strengths. Drunken man vs ice. The ice has obviously remained resolute, and logs and rocks and garbage sit dejected on its surface.

In preparation for their trials ahead, the city's squirrels are as fat as they are going to get after early November's feast on Halloween's abandoned pumpkins. The sight of the mauled and maimed remains of jack-o'-lanterns strewn throughout the neighbourhood has been more gruesome and disturbing than most people's costumes!

But tonight I'm content to go to bed and dream of crisp, clean snow. And I hope to wake up tomorrow to a fresh new city that will charm me all over again. I will enjoy the novelty of my first First Snow while I can, at least until the relentless cold forces me inside and I begin to dream of summer.

Simplification

Well.
Here I am.
Montréal.
Permanently.
Finally!

Actually, I've been here for three and a half weeks now, but I have been suffering transplant shock and have barely been able to bring myself to write emails, let alone a blog post. Don't get me wrong, I love it here. I love it more every day, and Charles is just the best darn husband a girl could wish for. But I did recently give up at least 90% of my possessions, my house, my car, and a job of eight years, not to mention again all the goodbyes I've said to loved ones in the last couple of months. I've been vacillating between being emotionally exhausted and like a kid in a lolly shop as I've been exploring my new home in far greater depth than I've had a chance to previously.

I also find my life refreshingly simplified.

I haven't got a job - haven't even started looking yet to be honest - but settlement did come through on the sale of my house so I could hold out for a year if I was willing to fritter away my life's savings. Without the job and the house I am also released from some of the more mundane financial facts of life: the mortgage, house repairs, home and contents insurance, income protection insurance, car insurance etc. etc. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz... And to be honest I am not missing the stresses of my old job one bit. The woman who two months ago was ranting and raving about government funding cuts, AWOL project partners, interminable grant reporting procedures and budget adherence is now spending her days on the swing at the park, dreaming up what she's going to cook for dinner while she waits for her stepson to finish making new friends. Or spending three and a half hours walking to the Mont-Royal, up it, down it and back again before lunch. Or stumbling across super-cheap Chinese/Portuguese supermarkets in unexpected places. Or potting out a balcony herb garden. The only ranting and raving that's been going on has been at the squirrels for digging up my rocket seeds twice.

I still don't think I'm down to a baseline heart rate after the last few months, but I'm getting there. I'm making the time to look after myself and relaxing, eating well, exercising and enjoying life with my beloved after three years of being in a long-distance relationship. It's not often in a First World life that you get to untangle yourself so much. It always takes something drastic like an international relocation, or a number of much less pleasant scenarios. That or a conscious drop out. I'd be lying if I said I didn't occasionally hear a desperate voice in the back of my brain screeching, "Stalled superannuation contributions!!!!" But it's early days yet, eventually I'll get a bit bored and start looking for a challenge, or a complication, or a bit of stress.

But not just yet.

Which word is the hardest to say?

Which word is the hardest word to say in the English language? Is it sorry? Or is it goodbye?

I have been having a few teary goodbyes in the last few weeks, three of them at airports (always especially tricky) but this evening was my official going away gathering in Cairns and there were so many goodbyes to be had at once. So many good people - good friends - such uncertainty as to when we would be together again. Tonight is also my last night in my house, dear Mavis Blue, and tomorrow I put my two cats on a plane, consigning them to stress and fear for four days until Charles collects them in Montreal. I have offset this all with the remembrance of how hard it has been the eight times Charles and I have had to say goodbye at the airport, unsure of when exactly we would see each other again.

The hardest goodbye so far, however, is still not even over. I have a very special friend. He is 11 years old. He is high functioning autistic. We spend a lot of time together and tonight, even though I will stay with him and his parents for the next two nights before I leave Cairns, he cried his heart out for 30 minutes at my going away party and it broke my heart. I have been so strong and excited until now, but this was quietly devastating. The most positive spin I can put on the experience was to rejoice that he was able to actually articulate his feelings, and rationalise about how he knew I would still love him from afar and how happy I was going to be when I got to be with Charles all the time. That is a major communication for him and he was so clear about it all. I was very proud of him, but at the same time I was gutted. Sorry may be hard to get out of your mouth, but the pain of goodbye can last long after the word is spoken.

If it ain't broke...

"Listen up.
The 'universe' DOES NOT CARE about you, okay?
It doesn't try and 'tell' you things or reward or punish you for anything.
It just doesn't give a F#$%! It can't! It's a universe... not your f#$%in' mamma. Alright?!
Thank you." - GDD, former housemate, now long-distance Facebook friend, Facebook post 2012, initials used to protect anonymity.


Every once in a while you get a moment to yourself to pause and reflect on the true nature of the Universe. For me that chance came a couple of days ago as I was rolling around in agony at the bottom of my back stairs.

I was having an incredibly productive day, of the type I haven't had since before my back went dicky. I'd just had my medical and X-rays for my permanent residency application to Canada, I'd had two sales on Etsy, and I'd finally gotten around to buying a new printer after hours of painstaking research. I'd even taken myself out for brunch at Caffiend and had their truly wonderful fetta and basil omelette. It was a benchmark day in my recovery. Life was good. 

I'd popped home to package up the Etsy sales and drop off the printer, then I'd planned to do a run to the post office, then the op shop to try to restock for Etsy, pick up the X-rays and deliver them to the GP, and then do a supermarket shop. Busy, busy, busy! As I headed out I stopped near the bottom of the back stairs to add one last thing to my shopping list on my phone, and then I stepped off... 

Except I wasn't on the bottom stair as I thought, was I? No, I was on the second or third, and I stepped off into the void and went crashing down, landing with a sickening crunch on my right ankle while my phone smashed face first into the concrete. As I lay there trying to breathe through the pain—watching my ankle imitate a tetchy puffer fish and running through the checklist of "Is it a sprained ankle, or a broken ankle?"—I contemplated that I may have been done in again by a case of be-careful-what-you-wish-for. 

Now I'll confess that in my younger days I used to be a bit of a hippy-dippy, esoteric, New Agey thinker, but I got over that. Reason has won that contest, though on occasion Wonder still tries to put her two cents' worth in. I don't believe that 'everything happens for a reason'. In fact, that's a platitude guaranteed to send me into a boiling rage. But I have observed that sometimes if you really want something to happen, it does. Hence you have to be careful what you wish for.

I'm not advocating 'wishcraft' or any of that Law of Attraction hoo-doo, I'm far more inclined to think that wanting something to happen makes you much more receptive to noticing when it does, and probably also makes you act in subtle ways to bring it about. But what I'm taking an awfully long time to get to is that, in my experience, if you are really putting it out there that you want something to happen you had better be specific—like make, model and serial number of desire—because otherwise it tends to come back to you any which way and you must wryly concede that you got what you wished for, just maybe not quite under the most ideal of circumstances. I'm talking getting fired when you hate your job but you haven't yet got anything else lined up, that person you've been crushing on turning out to be a dick once you are dating them or else confessing their true feelings the minute you've given up and started seeing someone else, that sort of thing. In this particular instance I have been very strongly focusing on how I wish I could have several days to work from home because I have so much written material to generate and I'm getting interrupted every five minutes in the office and can't concentrate, and, as is well documented on this here blog, I am really not loving my Android phone and miss my iPhone, particularly since Bek introduced me to Camera+ the other day, which like Hipstamatic is not available for Android users. Amazingly, my phone still works, even though its screen looks like a spider's web.

So, here I am, proving that is is in fact possible to limp with both feet (gosh, I must get around to explaining about that left leg!), trying to keep my fat, sprained right ankle elevated, compressed and/or iced as much as possible and contemplating either a replacement phone screen or the purchase of a second new phone in the space of six months (aaaargh!).