Never the twain shall meet

I was terrified to go in for my appointment -- and not just because of the thunderstorms noisily rolling through the neighbourhood.

The only appointment I'd been able to secure was at 7:45 pm. Ignored at the door of the Apple Store, as younger people skipped past me and collared the "Geniuses" in their blue polo shirts, I remembered that my appointment was actually for the "Genius Bar", so I headed for the back of the store, and scanning the long table, tried to catch someone's eye.

The person who finally noticed me was named Mark - a nice change from the Jasons and Joshuas with whom I'd been dealing all week as our house was being dismantled in search of asbestos. Oh, please don't ask...

I informed Mark that the battery in my five-year-old laptop had died, and, being in the middle of a move, it wasn't a propitious time to replace it.

"What about an iPod?" he asked, brandishing his own.
"But I watch movies on my laptop."
"Oh. What do you use?"
I could see him politely stifling his bewilderment as I extracted a small square out of my computer bag.
"I don't stream; I watch DVDs - yes, I'm a dinosaur," I told him.

He set to punching keys and exclaiming at some of the weird stuff it apparently was doing, while my heart sank. As he poked and prodded, he asked me where we were going. I told him Victoria, and he mentioned he'd been west. The last time an Ontarian boy told me this, he said he'd been to Winnipeg, so I decided to pursue another topic.

"Yes, it will be different, because there's no Apple Store in Victoria."
He pulled out his trusty iPad to prove me wrong.
"See? Union Square."
"Union Square? That must be new," I said uneasily. "Do you have it on a map?"
He squinted at his screen, and shrugged. "Uh, that's Vancouver. I guess you're right."
"I am, sometimes."

He mentioned he'd never been to BC (I could have guessed that), and that all his German relatives think that British Columbia is Canada: "Ach! Lake Louise!"

I paused diplomatically before answering.

"Well....Lake Louise is actually in Alberta, but I know what you mean. My British relatives can't get their minds around the fact that it takes three or four days to go to the West Coast by train."

Using something called SMC - he showed me an article on his iPad which presupposes knowledge I do not have - he magically resusitated my battery, and didn't charge me.

Making my way home under clearing night skies, I decided that he'd definitely made up for not being a geography genius.

Cool comfort

Technically, this is the last weekend of the summer isn't it?

This morning, I watched bemusedly as a young child accompanied his mother to school in a parka with the hood up. I mean, it was chilly, but I found a fleece jacket over a summer top was adequate.

I saw a dead bird at the base of the tree on our front lawn and it looked frozen -- until I noticed its head was missing, the work, no doubt of one of the many felines who wander our neighbourhood before strolling home to get dinner from their unsuspecting owners.

When I got off the bus to go to a family history workshop, the girl ahead of me was wearing a toque.

After the workshop, it was a beautiful, temperate afternoon, and I decided to take the twenty-five minute walk down Bay Street to reserve a rental commode for Demeter at the Red Cross. (She's unsure of her bladder control while waiting for the Resident Fan Boy [a Virgo] to emerge from the bathroom.)

I realized that I am totally unfamiliar with the stretch of Bay south of Laurier. At this time of year, it's a leafy parade of houses and townhouses featuring a dizzying variety architecture ranging from beat-up semi-detached to elegant Mission Style (though I can't say I care for the colour of the latter).

The neighbourhood seemed peopled with older men in baseball caps puttering in their front gardens.

I felt I was walking through a very old part of Ottawa which was totally new to me.

Pretty cool.

But not cold.

Moving music

As the bus made its way down Rideau Street into downtown Hades, I watched the reflection of the sun flash by, ricocheting off windows and walls, seemingly in time to the Bach piano concerto playing on my ear buds.

Yesterday, I was talking about how statues and sculptures change with the surrounding environment and our perception of them. I suppose this is true of all art. When I was in a youth theatre at age 17, I was amazed how we could perform the same play three nights running and each performance was distinctly different, according to the audience reaction and the moods of the actors.

Music seems to be the most dependent on environment and mood of all, especially now we can take it anywhere. Last summer, I was (again) riding the bus and saw three boys walking along the sidewalk and imagined their adventures. It then occurred to me that they could be doleful or up to no good, but the upbeat song on my iPod gave me the illusion that they were walking with youthful and light-hearted energy. I was superimposing a soundtrack on whatever they were getting up to on that sunny July afternoon, and watching them like a movie.

Just a couple of weeks ago, I was listening to Tempo on CBC Radio Two and because Henryk Górecki had just died, they played the first movement of his Symphony of Sorrowful Songs. No, I don't mean the famous second movement; I mean the first movement that begins with an interminable grating of the lower string instruments as they overlap each other in steadily mounting grief. Listen to the first few moments of it. If you can bear it:

I gazed up and down the street and everybody looked miserable, bogged down, staring at the ground as they waited for the bus or dragged their shopping in their listless hands. Of course, had I been listening to a lively jazz piece, they would have appeared busy, energetic and probably kind of hip.

A few days ago, I was stuck outside a Grand and Toy stationery store, waiting for it to open. Having nothing else to do for five minutes, I strolled over to the railing and looked directly down two levels to the food court below where I could see people strolling diagonally across the red tiles. Every now and then someone would approach the trash bins and deposit stuff in them, pivoting gracefully away to dance across the floor. Well, that's what it looked like. This was blaring on my iPod:
As I listened, I noticed strings of white Christmas lights dangling into the court like tropical jellyfish. The bulbs blinked rapidly along with the notes, as the shoppers -- well -- tripped the light fantastic.

I was almost sorry when the store opened.