Last night in our local Italian restaurant we sat across from a couple. The woman had the facial features exactly like a Renaissance Virgin Madonna.
It was such an odd situation to be watching the Virgin Madonna eat her pizza Funghi.
Archive for Life in the City
Strange Situation (Lia)
Mini Rant (Lia)
To the couple who exited the crowded train first and decided to stop in front of the door and search through their luggage for their travel itinerary…
To the mother and daughter that stepped off the escalator and stopped to get their bearings…
To the four teenagers blocking the top of the staircase to the track of our connecting train…
Stay alert! Watch what you are doing! There are other people needing to get places quickly!
Birthday Wishes from a Flashmob (Lia)
Mukhtar is a bus driver in Copenhagen. You can tell he was worried when a trumpeter started playing on his bus. Would the other passengers complain? Then it gradually became clear that almost everyone on the bus was there to wish him a happy birthday! -Thanks, Hanan!
It is well worth waiting for the last scene. Sniff.
Quilting Ladies (Lia)
A quilting group is in the process of setting up an exhibit in a local café where I am sitting. It is fascinating to see how harmoniously and quietly they decide what quilt should hang where and who should do what about making sure these decisions are made true.
bad weather (Sara)
All winter I was longing to see the green leaves on the trees in front of our house and now that I see the luscious green sensations on the trees it does not have the right effect, because the sun is hidden somewhere behind the giant white clouds. But maybe the sun will come out tomorrow, who knows.
So to cheer everybody up, who is experiencing equally bad weather :
Spring Check List (Lia)
collect all winter coats, gloves and mittens (sort our missing pairs), scarves, and headbands. Wash and store in top of cupboards for next winter- take out all spring jackets, running shoes, sandals and sunhats. Throw out those sandals that are stiff from salt water of summer past
- buy new sun umbrella for balcony
- bring up garden chairs from basement. Wash and wash again
- buy some posies in pots and place them on kitchen windowsill
buy some new sandbox utensils for visiting small folks- check books lists for light and entertaining literature
- take winter coat out of storage because it’s too damm cold outside
Beachcomber (Lia)
There is an army of long term unemployed people who spend their days combing the city and surrounding parklands picking up bits of trash. The municipal parks people and the city cleaners are meant to handle the overall sanitation, so I am not always so certain what the men in green are really suppose to be doing. They seem to be beachcombers on a beach strewn with cigarette butts.
Word Definition – Stinjeesh (Lia)
Stinjeesh (noun):
The neighbour who loots the public poop bag dispenser across the road, to use as garbage bags, instead of going down the street 100m to the next drugstore and buying the things himself.
(He actually waits for the city worker to refill the dispenser, comes out of his apartment, empties the dispenser, folds the bags properly together and returns into his apartment building. What a cheapskate!)
Lost & Found (Lia)
The coat of snow that fell early this morning is trampled down by the constant flow of wooley bundled children on their way to the school. The sidewalk in front of my apartment is covered in slush, ice, gravel, sand, salt, and the general despondency of a long winter’s malcontent.
My boot toe catches on a partially frozen child’s mitten, slowly rising to the top of the filthy mush. Dirty beyond belief, it lies there dejected, forgotten, oh so lonely. No longer capable of calling its twin, who undoubtedly is abandoned in some overflowing school lost-and-found box around the corner from its match.
Let it snow, let it snow let it snow (Lia)
Muffled steps, snow-covered gables. Father pulling his two rollypolly kids along on a sled. I peek out the window, but stay indoor instead of joining the drunken waddle of strangers in the street.
