Living it up, cat-style

Our couch is old and worn and when we want it to look a little nicer, we spread a lovely Nova Scotia tartan blanket over it. The blanket belonged to Dan's late Mom so it's sentimental as well as just being good to look at it.

We often use the lovely blanket when we have people coming over but the cats – Grizzly and Junior – don't know that. As far as they're concerned, lovely blankets spread on the couch are for cats' pleasure and enjoyment. They often watch in anticipation as the humans are spreading the blanket and as soon as it's in place, so are they.

(Don't forget to click on the pictures to see the big ones.)

These cats don't particularly like each other but when there's common cause – a comfy not-every-day nap space – they're willing to tolerate each other.

They seem to have become aware of the photographer so they go into pose mode.

"Look at me. Do you think I have enough fur? Do you think I'm beautiful?"

And then, when we're ready to take the blanket off and fold it up until next time and we've obediently waited for the cats to decamp, we find that one of them is not finished yet. Grizzly has tucked under to have one more nap.

Backstage at the Vatican

When we were in Rome, it took us a few days to get up the nerve to call the priest whose number we had brought with us from Halifax. Our parish priest at that time was Italian and when he heard we were going to Rome, he insisted on giving us the name and number of one of his former professors who now worked in the Vatican Secretariat of State. He said his old friend would be delighted to meet us and would show us around the Vatican.

We called him on a Saturday, just before noon. We explained who we were and named our priest and Father L. instantly treated us as if we were old friends and told us to come right over. He said he had a couple of hours before he had to be somewhere but he'd be happy to give us a tour. He told us to go to the Bronze Door and they would tell us what to do then.

The Bronze Door

We went in through the very impressive doors and gave Father L.'s name to the Swiss Guards on duty. We were directed toward a small office to be issued visas because we were, of course, leaving Italy and entering a separate city-state. We knew that but somehow, we hadn't thought about it when we left the hotel because we hadn't brought our passports.

Fortunately, we all had ID and we had Father L. awaiting us so we filled out all the forms and we were admitted. We were given precise directions and we found ourselves climbing a flight of marble stairs and it dawned on us: we were inside Vatican City.

I have always been interested in behind-the-scenes details. I like being backstage in theatres; this past summer in London, I liked being inside Buckingham Palace and hearing how preparations are made for public events. I didn't expect secret details in the Vatican but I enjoyed seeing things that weren't on anyone's regular tour.

We made our way to Father L.'s office and he was warm and friendly and welcoming. The tour was informal and informative. He pointed out priceless art as we strolled along the corridors. Once, he waved his hand casually toward a large painting and said, with Italian flourish, "Raphael." There were antique maps along the walls of one corridor and paying attention to our origins, he made sure he pointed out Nova Scotia and some of the misconceptions of the early map-makers.

We walked along one corridor on our way to the outside and he gestured down the hall and said, "That's where the Holy Father lives." It was summer and he wasn't there but it seemed kind of exciting anyway. When we were outside, he showed us the various locations where the Pope would meet heads of state when they came visiting. As we walked from one courtyard to another, he said that we were just behind the Sistine Chapel and the Vatican Museums and he pointed out damage to the back walls that he said would collapse if they weren't soon fixed. I think he was exaggerating. I don't expect to watch the news one day and see that a wall of the Sistine Chapel had collapsed!

Because Father L. was so hospitable and his tour was so interesting, we didn't stop to take photos. I'm sorry now that we didn't but it probably would have seemed a bit inappropriate – like being shown around someone's home and snapping pictures in every room.

We did take this one, on a terrace right near Father L.'s office.

Maybe we'll get to take pictures the next time.

Grammar rules

There are numerous sites around the Internet where the rules of grammar are chiselled in stone and where frighteningly knowledgeable people are ready to scold you for your little mis-uses.

I've been one of them although I always tried to cajole rather than scold. The Writing Resource, a team of writers, editors and educators used a blog I wrote about grammar and proper use of words. Many of my pet peeves are included in the blog and I hope you'll go and have a look because for sure, you'll see that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

I'm not going to rehash my favourites (tow the line? bare the pain?) but they're there, along with scores of others.

You might think we've come to the end of the line. All the mistakes have already been made and from now on, it's just a matter of re-hashing the old ones until everyone has been corrected and chastened and, in the end, enlightened.

Think again. I have a new one.

A few days ago, I was reading the comment thread in one place or another and found myself oddly absorbed in a heated discussion between two people – strangers to me and, I think, strangers to each other. One of them became very annoyed which caused the other to say (and I'm paraphrasing both of them): "You seem to have taken unbridge at something I've said but I stand by my opinion." The other guy said, "Yeah, well your opinion is wrong and furthermore, I didn't take 'unbridge' as you said. I took 'umbridge'."

Well, I take umbrage at both of you. I considered dropping in on the conversation to say just that but I thought it would be obnoxious.

Good grammar and using words correctly are all very well but we must remain gracious.

Hamlet-the-character: regularly redefined

Benedict Cumberbatch’s Hamlet was playing in London while we were there recently. We had checked on tickets before we ever left home but tickets had sold out in an hour a full year before the play opened. There were 30 tickets made available for each performance when we were there – first come, first served – and people were sleeping overnight on the sidewalk in front of the theatre hoping to score. We weren't among them.

The production didn't get good reviews but Benedict got rave reviews for his portrayal of Hamlet.

However, we did see it in the end, in a movie theatre in downtown Halifax. This was a filmed version of the stage production. We had read all the negative reviews but we weren't deterred from seeing it. I'm glad; I was blown away by it.

Before it started and during intermission, you could see the audience going in and out, getting some wine and snacks, stretching their legs (it was over three hours!) etc. That was fun – it was a little like being there.

Benedict is a wonderful actor – and must be exhausted by the end of it. He plays Hamlet with great energy and bravado. It is one of the most-produced plays of all time and I'm sure I'm just the latest in a long long line of people to say that Hamlet-the-character is regularly redefined by the last actor to play him. Over the last few days, I've watched (thanks, YouTube!) some of the actors who have risen to the occasion and who've been acclaimed for their performances. I found them all so different from each other.

John Gielgud played Hamlet anguished; Richard Burton – determined and confident; Laurence Olivier – forlorn and sad; David Tennant – a little bewildered. Hamlet, it seems, is whoever the actor portraying him decides he is.

After the curtain call at the theatre in London, Benedict always stepped forward and talked to the audience about the refugee crisis in Europe. He asked the audience for donations to help the refugees and by the end of the run, he had raised a lot of money for the cause. He spoke to us in the movie theatres after his performance also and was eloquent in his plea for people to help in this humanitarian emergency. He quoted an excerpt from the poem Home by Warsan Shire.

no one leaves home unless

home is the mouth of a shark

you only run for the border

when you see the whole city running as well

your neighbors running faster than you

breath bloody in their throats

the boy you went to school with

who kissed you dizzy behind the old tin factory

is holding a gun bigger than his body

you only leave home

when home won’t let you stay.

no one leaves home unless home chases you

fire under feet

hot blood in your belly

it’s not something you ever thought of doing

until the blade burnt threats into

your neck

and even then you carried the anthem under

your breath

only tearing up your passport in an airport toilets

sobbing as each mouthful of paper

made it clear that you wouldn’t be going back.

you have to understand,

that no one puts their children in a boat

unless the water is safer than the land. . .

You can read the rest here.

Paris

Yes, the only Mom on the corner wearing mink

I have a mink coat. This is exactly what it looks like:

It's a gorgeous coat. My late mother-in-law gave it to me several years ago. She had stopped wearing it and felt it was a waste to keep it hanging in her closet all winter and placed in cold storage all summer. It's soft and luxurious and without any doubt, the warmest garment I have ever been lucky enough to put on.

I wore it occasionally, mostly if I were out in the evening to the theatre or the symphony. I thought the crowd there would be accepting of my sartorial choice. If they weren't wearing their own fur, I assumed they'd be a little envious of mine.

I also wore it on the coldest days of winter when I had to go up the street and stand on the corner waiting for the school bus when William was a little guy. It was freezing cold out there and I was the only Mom on the corner wearing mink. It made the wait bearable though.

I haven't worn the coat for quite a long time. I love it but I realize now that I always felt a little self-conscious when I was wearing it. I assumed people were looking at me – I honestly don't know if they really were – and I found that idea kind of uncomfortable.

I also felt guilty. I am completely opposed to killing animals for their fur and I wondered if I should wear a little sign to that effect – or maybe print small pamphlets to hand out while I was wearing it. I wanted to explain that I would never have bought it myself and I don't in any way encourage or condone the fur industry but it already existed and it had been given to me.

I considered lying to people and telling them it was faux-fur. "They're doing a wonderful job these days of making it look like real fur," I would say.

If the truth be known, I also always feared that someone might, against all likelihood, throw red paint at me. I wasn't thinking of the coat being ruined. I was thinking of the aggression and how upsetting it would be. I didn't like the idea of drawing attention to myself in a negative way and perhaps having to deal with the consequences.

So I gradually – not consciously – stopped wearing the coat. I still have it. I still remember how sumptuous it felt to snuggle into it.

I'm talking myself into getting it out and wearing it on very select occasions.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Canada Bereft: In the right place

The Canada Bereft statue at the Vimy Memorial in France is also called Mother Canada and sometimes, Mother of Canada. She looks bereft and you can feel sad just being near her.

“Mother Canada” or “Canada Bereft”: A female figure draped in a cloak stands alone on the wall at the north-eastern side of the memorial. She bows her head and is looking down at a stone sarcophogus, representing Canada's war dead, at the base of the 24 foot (7.3 metres) wall below her. The magnificent view across the Douai plain and the location of the old enemy of the time spreads out before her. This figure is called Mother Canada or Canada Bereft, representing the nation of Canada mourning for her dead. The figure was carved from a single 30 tonne block of limestone.

The memorial is vast and she is very much to scale. She's overwhelming only in the compassion she engenders.

Compare her to this:

This is the statue – also called "Mother Canada" – proposed for Green Cove in Cape Breton Highlands National Park. It is the subject of much controversy not least because it's so ugly – a monstrosity, it's often called. It's also planned to be located in a National Park and it's a blatantly commercial venture, masquerading as a site to honour Canadian soldiers who didn't come home from the wars.

Those are all legitimate reasons to shut down this awful project and there's another good one. The statue in France stands in the middle of a battlefield. She's surrounded by graveyards and numerous reminders of the tragedies she's mourning. She's part of something much larger than herself.

She's so moving because she's in the right place.

And let me add this assurance – with definite reference to the commercial plans for the monstrosity – there is no Canada Bereft Gift Shop anywhere in sight.