Canadian content

We spent the day prepping for the party. First the girls and I made copious lists of what we needed from the various stores then headed out. We came back with a mere nine giant jugs of pop. As we climbed the mule track they call a road near our house we realised, by our rough calculations, that since I was by this time carrying all the pop, I was in fact carrying more than the weight of youngest up the hill.

Groan.

We then went back again for real groceries.

Groan.

The man is still kind of ill, but the girls and I got quite a bit done...here's some pictures, we did more, but this was the start, and a pretty good start I think.

The door to a different world.



She's lovely isn't she?



He likes her so much he can't control those independent eyeballs...



I have to get one of these for my living room.

Then again, I have one.

Don't you think Martha Stewart will have this in next fall's line up?

For anyone concerned for the mental well being of our visitors, this is a seperate room, and entirely voluntary....other bits look much simpler, though we haven't finished yet.....BWAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA!


Tonight we kind of tried to go to correllengua, which is 'run your tongue' in translation, or run your language. I think run your tongue is more fun. It was a bit of a washout. There were the diablos and a couple of the giant puppets, they shot off some of the correfoc fireworks, but not very much, and that was about all. I thought there would be some butiffara and mungetes with pa amb tomaquet, but they were still loading wood on the fire at that point. We went home feeling sniffy and put out to a lunch type dinner of bread, cheese and fruit. There was one guy quaffing back mouthfuls of kerosene and then breathing fire...he was impressive, but it actually made me gag to watch him drinking out of that giant container of kerosene.

*shudder*

This is an uber nationalistic event all about the maintenance and preservation of the Catalan cultural and linguistic heritage. It is a bit like moving to a hard-core separatist town in Quebec, near Lac Sant Jean maybe, and seeing the local celebrations and strong strong feelings about their nationhood....

While I am writing Canadian references here, I picked up a copy of the Morningside Papers, book five. Now if you don't know what Morningside was, or who the inimitable Peter Gzowsky was, you have truly missed out on something. The man was simply brilliant. This was a three hour radio show every weekday that ran for 12 years, and Gzowsky probably the best interviewer I have ever heard anywhere. The book is a collection of letters that were sent into the show by Canadians from all over, as well as notes penned by Gzowsky himself.

Here are some funny bits I enjoyed out of the book....

How many surrealists does it take to change a light bulb?

A fish.


And another little story I liked a lot, this is part of what Gzowsky did so well, he could tell a simple story, in a manner that completely brought to life the feelings of what was going on....he also managed to stay this side of sentimentality almost all the time, though I will admit he occasionally danced rather close to the line.

He had lead in pieces every morning....here's one:

October 31, 1991

Good morning...I'm Peter Gzowsky and this is Morningside....

Heard a nice little story the other day and, although it is apropos pf nothing on Morningside today, I thought I might pass it along. It took place about ten days ago, when Wayne Gretzky's father, Walter - a really nice guy, by the way - was fighting back from the brain aneurysm that's laid him low, and Wayne was away from hockey and at his bedside. Wayne, in fact, was alone with his ad saying, it's me, Wayne, if you recognize me, squeeze my hand. Suddenly, there was a response, and Wayne knew that his father would pull through. "He knew me, he knew me," he said as he left the room. "Gee, Wayne," said someone outside, "I don't want to let you down....but everybody knows Wayne Gretzky."

A totally typical Gzowsky story.

As an interesting aside, you should try to type ''Gzowsky'', unless you are a pro, it is quite the interesting little exercise.

After the kids were put to bed I went down to the tongue running Correllengua in search of wood fire cooked butifarra (sausage) and mungetes (beans), plus pa amb tomaquet (bread with tomato). They were up and running now, so this is what I got. I took it home, which explains the silver cutlery. It doesn't really go with the plastic plate, but what the heck. It sure is nice to eat off.

The band has just started up, and they are appalling. I like most kinds of music, don't get me wrong (Well. Not Rod Stewart), but I think someone ran over the lead singer's tongue....it is AWFUL. Simply AWFUL. I may go out on the porch and see if I can post some of the music...

I also just did the spell check, I misspelled the amb in pa amb tomaquet, the google spell check highlighted it, the list came up, and there was the correct spelling, amb. Then further down, it had the correct spelling highlighted as a mistake. Thoughts about right hands and left hands not knowing what the **ck is going on, eh?