Rose-coloured reviews 4lbs of strawberries for $5 at Metro

I consider a good price for a one-pound (454 gram) clamshell of California strawberries to be $2.99--higher in the dead of winter. So when I saw two 907 gram clamshells for $5 at Metro, I was awed (I believe you could also replace one of the boxes with a honeydew melon, but I don't own knives sharp enough to cut honeydew rind, so I stayed away from that).

My grocery-shopping escort declined a box, claiming he could not eat 2 pounds of strawberries before they went off. I scoffed at this, but quailed at the prospect of 4 pounds, so I just got the one. As it turned out, they still charged me the sale price even though I didn't buy the sale amount (this is one of Metro's usual, and nicer, policies)--so my 907 grams cost $2.50. Score!

Unlike much sale-priced produce, my berries aren't underripe. They are nice and dark and, for imported berries, fairly soft. That's still not *very* soft--Cali berries always have a bizarro crunch factor that is completely absent in lovely delicate local berries. But the local berries won't be ready for, minimum, another month, and one of the stranger aspects of globalization is the taste it creates for out-of-season fruits. I want berries *always*, not just the six weeks you can pick them in southern Ontario. So Cali berries it is.

These are, I think, the best of their kind I've seen. They are nice and sweet (most of them, anyway) and very few off berries (just one in the box so far, and even that was likely edible). I am very impressed. And what's more, it was not my box--I looked at the others stacked up and the Yonge & College Metro (can't vouch for any others) and they looked uniformly dark red and healthy. Yum.

Running into this sale was fortitous for a Sunday when I skipped lunch in favour of a poetry vending machine launch and wound up eating a giant burrito at 4pm, because a big fistful of berries plus cereal made a really great supper around 8 that evening. Life is good...but I can't wait for Ontario berries.

RR

A passion for narrative can make you a jerk

Well, me, anyway.

I saw an ad for Kraft Dinner Szechuan a few months back and, as appalling is that sounded, I wanted to try it so as to verify the appallingness for myself.

Then I forgot all about it--it's not like I'm going to spend money on this stuff or anything--and then today I saw they were giving away free samples of KDS at Metro. Yes! The girl at the little sample-table was talking to someone else when I approached. I waited patiently, but when she turned to me she looked aghast.

"May I try some too, please?"

She tried to thrust the whole container at me, realized her error, forked a tiny bit into a bowl, could not free the fork from the noodles because her hands were shaking violently, and finally handed it over, eyes wide and wet.

"Thank you."

"Oh, you're very welcome," she said, only a slight quaver.

I went off with my sample, but she called me back to offer, and explain, a coupon booklet. Except she couldn't turn the pages easily, her hands were shaking so badly. When I thanked her, again she seemed incredibly touched.

I've been thinking about her ever since, wondering what tragedy or incident prompted all this, and how she would do for the rest of the day and after. Bad news? A near-miss car accident? An irate or violent sampler? Surely, it would have to be something big; the story wouldn't be as good if she were simply wildly nervous about giving out samples at Metro.

Clearly, I'm an asshole, because I was sort of hoping for the worst-case scenarios in the name of a good story!! Why wasn't I hoping from the beginning that she was just a very edgy kid, and she'd grow into her role and in time get a better one? I'm hoping that *now*, but I had to roll through all these other fun catastrophes first. I suck. And, come to think of it, why *wouldn't* the coming-into-her-own of a Metro sample-distributor be a good story? A story is only as weak as its writer.

And the KDS is more abominable than you could ever imagine--you have to try this!!

RR

Break

If you count the week as Saturday to Friday, I attended four literary events this week, and spent a similar number of evenings up after midnight. I also did some work, two readings, saw a bunch of awesome people and took some fair-to-middling pictures. And now am so very very tired.

And now, though of course have blogged *The New Quarterly*'s fall launch for you despite any exhaustion, I have a delightful break, because Alex James, who provided the musical accompaniment to the evening, is also a profession blogger, and has a wonderful (and flattering!) post about the event. Hooray! It really was a terribly fun night, with so many friendly writers and delicious food only one jack-knifed tractor-trailer (my publisher, Dan Wells spent only five or so hours on the highway to be there and bring us books!)

So that's it--I can concentrate on small, easy, non-exhausting tasks for the rest of the weekend--Hallowe'en shopping at Zellers, getting the DVD player to work long enough to play the last two episodes of season one of Slings and Arrows (the first tv show in a long time that I've been willing to argue with the DVD player for), maybe a nap in there somewhere.

Weekends are nice, and I hope you enjoy yours! Seeya Monday!
RR

Rose-coloured Reviews T&T Supermarket

I was tired and overstimulated from an afternoon gathering featuring no fewer than 7 children under 3, but when my friend Z asked if I would mind stopping at a Chinese supermarket in Markham, I felt my energy returning.

Markham contains Chinatown North for Toronto, and Chinatown North contains wonders of new (to me) restaurants, groceries, and other things that I know nothing about that are not contained in the older, bigger, wonderful but different Toronto Chinatown south. And carless me does not get to go to Markham very often--this would only be my third trip, which is why I don't know much about what's on offer there.

I had never, for example, heard of our destination, T&T Supermarket, even though it apparently has some TTC-able branches, and is wonderful. WONDERFUL.

It's a grocery store--big parking lot, buggies, checkout lanes, etc. But it's also a market--various stands of prepared foods, pushing crowds and entire families shopping together, and the free samples are distributed far and wide by cheerful hawkers who yell at you (well, me) to come over to try some soy milk/dumplings/fried scallops. I was excited about the prepared food section because it reminded of Japan, with all the cute complete cheap dinners in plastic boxes. I think it was a pan-Asian market even though it was in a Chinese area, too, because I recognized some salmon teryaki and those triangular nori-wrapped rice cakes I forget the name of. Yum, everything.

Too bad I didn't really need any of that stuff and was full of cake, but even the stuff I wasn't buying was fun to look at: Chinese baked goods, aka, manna; giant rice-cakes that *popped* out of a rice-cake making machine (tragically, the picture didn't turn out); kimchee in tetra paks, and all kinds of vegetables I don't know how to cook with:



This would be intrepid M, with duriands. The sign, if you can't read it, says, "Handle duriands carefully to avoid injury."

Since I didn't need so many things and was feeling somewhat restrained for once (could be all the cake), I didn't buy much. But the Chinese eggplants I bought were excellent in stirfry, the lettuce was...well, standard lettuce, that apples were huge and tasty (though I dropped one on the floor and it got all bruised...we can't really blame the apple, can we?); the dried mushrooms I haven't tried yet and the sweet potato candy that I ripped into in the parking lot was...odd. But I eventually found someone who did like them to give the rest of the package to (I have another, unopened package--coming soon to a household near you!)

Also, all the little samples I tried were awesome, except the soy milk (I don't like soy milk, but it's so healthy that I keep trying). And the prices were super cheap and if you were more ambitious and organized like my shopping companion Z, you could get the makings of some truly fantastic food. And no one gave me a hard time for bouncing off people in the aisles, or clogging the produce section taking pictures, or not knowing which line to stand in. It was a friendly happy place full of delicious.

I later heard this place has been bought by Metro a chain that had a little cred in Quebec, but quickly spent it all in Ontario and now just annoys me (crunchy bitter raspberries the other day!!) So that can't be good. I'm going to try to find the local one before all the awesome falls apart.

And if we're lost together
RR

Be nice to cashiers!!

Well, it's another happening night at the Rose-coloured ranch. I've been down on the floor sorting manuscript pages for the last while, and after getting dismayed by the slipshod sweeping job I do, I decided what I needed was write a blog post about the latest upsetting trend at the grocery store.

On Monday, a new Toronto law kicked in, requiring stores to charge 5 cents for each single-use bag they distribute. Not, perhaps, the most thrilling news ever to have hit the streets, but I assumed that if even I knew about it, everyone did (being as I spend my evenings on my living room floor, covered in paper and dust, not watching or reading the news).

But apparently, the people of Toronto don't *all* know, and when the cashier at their local grocery/drug/clothing/porn shop informs them of the charge, some don't take it too well. I have witnessed a couple meltdowns in the three short days the law has been in effect; apparently, the most logical interpretation in some people's minds is that cashiers are lying about the nickel charge in order to...steal? Piss customers off? Make their own already hard jobs that much harder? I really don't know what is going on in these furious consumers' minds.

I haven't worked in customer service for nearly two years, but I still remember viscerally the bottom-of-the-belly fear I felt when I realized that the person I was serving was angry with me. As far as I am concerned, unless your customer service personnel has been sexist/racist/homophobic, anger is never an acceptable emotion in that context. Frustration, irritation, desire to speak with a manager; fine. I did, at various points, suck at various jobs, and I can see why many many people were a little snarky with me. But anger is a somewhat crazy thing to bring to the checkout line, and to see people lashing out at squirming teenagers and exhausted ladies in smocks makes me so sad.

So...have you seen the 5-cent meltdown yet? What did you do? I can't imagine it would help for me to raise my paw and say, "It is a real law, you know." Or, like, "That woman make $10 an hour, flat, not commission off her bag sales, therefore she has no reason to lie to you." Or...what? In my days in service, I was always comforted by raised eyebrows and smiles from other customers following a confrontation, so that's all I've offered so far. But if this nickel thing is going to be a major tipping point in stores citywide, perhaps I should formulate a better response.

Thoughts...?

Do you know your enemy?
RR

This weekend

This weekend feels like it's been going on for weeks, and there's still two hours left! There was hot sun and mild sun, thunder-and-lightning rain and gentle plink-plink rain. There was a giant chocolate cake, an eggplant curry, several chocolate cookies and a lot of salsa. There were a lot of really cool people and one really long walk on which I obtained a tiny sunburn and a mop! There was also not much in the way of sleep, which might account for the seeming spaciousness of time.

There was a road trip to the new McNally Robinson in Don Mills, a place I'd encourage you all to visit. The store is, while not perfect, is a lovely lovely shop filled with natural light and realistic-looking trees, and books! Not yet quite so many book as you'd think in this big shiny space, but I'd imagine more are on the way and the selection is already pretty good. I would urge you to make the long trip to Don Mills even if that's not your usual 'hood just to see this place and buy a book or two. The reason I want to press you to do that is because I asked the cashier if there would soon be lots of more convenient McNally Robinson's in the heart of Toronto, and her response was that head office will see how *this* branch does before deciding. So if you want more diversity of bookstores in our city, vote with your wallet and your metro pass (the #25 from Pape station will take you there), and head northeast!

I learned two new games this weekend and have already forgotten the rules to both, and I also enjoyed without understanding the movie Duplicity (if you saw it and understood, please email me!) This weekend was, as my students say, obviously pretty bomb.

Because the drugs never work
RR

Pretty Things

I've posted a bunch of pictures of books over at Thirsty today. Because I like pictures of books, and because I'm *finally* getting the hang of my digital camera, is why.

If I kissed your face / in front of all your friends
RR

Books for the Literati

*Once* makes Geoff Pevere's Last Minute Shopping Guide.

Sort of amazing company to be in.

How I'll hate going out in the snow
RR

The Day I Went to America

...was yesterday. Whilst there, I

Saw
--an inflatable and operational Ferris wheel, each car of which was filled with a lovable Christmas-related cartoon character. It was going backwards (cost: $US179)
--big hair
--7 massage chairs (cost: $400-600)
--infinite gum
--a brand of candy called "Palatable Pleasures" (cost: too much, considering)
--more than 4 purple houses (we lost track); one each that was teal, lime-green and salmon
--children making a scene


Heard
--nonstop Christmas carols, excepting one song by Genesis and one by Steve Winwood
--drawls
--"honey," "sweetie" and "darling" from people serving us in stores and restaurants
--children making a scene
--a refreshing lack of honking no matter how poorly anyone was driving


Consumed
--FOUR different kinds of pop, all unknown and unattainable north of the border($1.89 to $2.25, so worth it)
--one bite each of three truffles (these were being shared; it was complicated and messy, but very good)(Cost: won from a scratch'n'win)
--all-you-eat salad and breadsticks at Olive Garden (cost: ~$15)
--fistfuls of Trix on car-ride home (cost: approximately 1/8 of $3.59)


Purchased
--two pairs houndstooth tights (cost: $4 and $6)
--box of Trix ($3.59)
--2L (or Imperial measurement equivalent) bottle of Cherry Coke Zero ($1.59)
--2 3-packs of Orbit Bubblemint gum (cost: $3.59 each)
--*Midnight's Children* by Salman Rushdie (cost: $15)

Felt
--that things are very very slightly, almost imperceptibly, different since November 4 (cost: priceless)

(c'mon, you knew I was building towards that)

I found music/and he found me
RR

Rose-coloured Reviews Cresson Ballet Flats

Shoes are a class issue, and they have been ever since the days of Chinese foot-binding; what you do to your feet is a product not only of what you can afford to put on them but what you are going to *do* with your feet. The above article mentions that, "... by the time of the late Qing Dynasty, foot binding had become popular among people of all social classes except among the poorest - who needed to be able-bodied to work the fields."

Only those who can afford to work less, choose to work seated, or not to work at all, can attend to fashions that render them less than able-bodied. When I worked on my feet, I wore athletic shoes or, when those were forbidden, Docs, which look from a distance like dress shoes. Almost everybody did, and had to--when you move all day every day, everything on your body is in service of that.

When I got an office job, I quickly bought a pair of pretty vinyl-covered cardboard shoes for $15. It didn't matter the quality, because they looked cute and they spent their days resting quietly under my desk. The luxury of cheap shoes, I call it. Those shoes, ballet flats, turned out to be pretty good despite the cardboard, and I wore them for ages. My current ballet flats are more expensive, better quality and slightly more interesting looking--they are called the Cresson from Naturalizer, home of vaguely sensibly, vaguely stylish shoes. Teacher shoes, I think of them, as teachers have to look professional but do spend their days pacing in front of a chalkboard on a cement floor.

I like cute shoes, but the voice of Uncle Alex from Eight Cousins is always in my head when I evaluate wardrobe: "'Suppose a mad dog or a runaway horse was after you, could you get out of the way without upsetting...?'" For, office job or not, I do have to walk the city sidewalks in snow and sleet and goose shit (when I moved to Toronto, I really didn't expect that the geese would overrun the city); I have to climb onto bushes and occasionally over traffic medians in pedestrian-unfriendly parking lots; I have to deal with not horses but certainly dogs and violent stroller-pushers and cracked cement: I don't have a car.

In Toronto, car vs. no car is not quite as much of a class issue as it would be in Regina, but it really does make you buy shoes in a different way. I've not watched that tv show everyone says makes you want to buy $400 shoes you can't walk in, Sex in the City, but I suspect those women operate in a slightly different tax bracket from me. I guess it could be an issue of equilibrium as much as money, since I have friends who will stroll quite casually in 3-inch heels over those medians and snowbanks. But for every one of those, there's one digging in her spike heals, and refusing to walk one more step unless it's into a taxi.

I hate taxis and like to move under my own power, so I like the Cressons. The online add brags about having a "stylish low vamp" (vamp being the leather bit that goes over your toes) but it is actually high enough to give the shoe good purchase on the foot--when there's the pivot-point of shoe-coverage is too low, the whole thing can flip-flop right off (hence the eponymous shower/beach shoe) when you try to move at speed. The zig-zag strap (a sportified allusion to toe-shoes, I think) also gives the shoe greater staying power, while also looking cute--over short distances, I think I can run nearly as fast in the Cressons as in sneakers. Good for snarky bus drivers, short pedestrian signals, vengful drivers and wild dogs.

The online ad also describes these as having a "1-inch heel" but I totally don't think they do. The rubber sole is built up slightly at the back, but it's also built up *around* the back, making a firm support perfect for stomping angrily down the sidewalk (I never do that) or climbing a dirt hill (also an unknown circumstance in my life).

There isn't major arch support inside, just a little rise on the instep, which is enough for me but might not be for others. But the insole is nicely padded and, bonus, bright red, as is the inside of the leather upper, and there is a tiny bit of red stitching on the outside of the back. I dig that little hint of cool.

I bought these about 6 months ago. I paid $70, and consider them very well worth it, as they are fare and passage to so many places.

Pete almost lost his job until the union stepped in
RR

Upshots

Thanks for all your advice, guys--I really appreciate it. In case you were wondering how it all turned out:

1) I couldn't get the book Fred recommended from the library, but the search brought up something similar sounded, which I have ordered. I'm sure whatever I end up with will be disturbing, as it should be, but maybe I'm hoping for...manageable disturbance? So I can still fall asleep?

2) I love the booklet that Kerry lent me on recycling. You *can* mix paper and plastic and metal. You should put cut tin lids *in* the tins and then pinch them shut so the recycling collectors don't stabbed. You can recycle those round cardboard canisters that cocoa and disinfectant come in, but not the plastic lids. Amazing. There's even a picture. The booklet provides a link which leads to a much more confusing bunch of information. Try to get the booklet if you can.

3) Since the age of my olives was indeterminate but at least 8 months, I took the advice of Naya and Scott and almost everybody and tossed them. I miss them, they were a part of my life for so long that I notice the blank spot when I open the fridge. I miss them even though I don't actually like olives all that much, which is what cause of the problem in the first.

4) I bought a knee-length, non-black, non-constrictive new dress yesterday, but it is only good for a specific season (fall) and since we seem to be having all of them in alternation, I'm still not sure what I'll actually be wearing on Monday. But I am excited. And to get into waaayy too much information, the trial run on my hair didn't go so well. I now must take the bus looking like I've just received a mild electrical shock. Learning, learning.

As cool as I am / I thought you knew that already
RR

The Pages Window

So, in the wee hours of yesterday morning, Brandon was wandering the city and passed the wonderous Pages Books. A fine attraction on it's own, but while there, B. spotted a window display of Once. Even though he emailed me both description and photo, I actually rearranged my day in order to go see for myself. I am hugely lame, as is evident in this picture, but I am also really gleeful, as is probably also evident.



Please note: these are only posters right now. As of Monday, they will be actual books.

On the morrow, Eden Mills, where it might or might not rain, but where it's fun enough for rain not to matter (right? right!)

Wearin' a raincoat that has four sleeves / gets us through all kinds of weather
RR

On the weekend (an epic photo essay)

There was a journey to Rexdale.


Then Blogger freaked out and wouldn't let me show the rest of the pictures. But trust me, it *was* epic. You wouldn't believe how far you can go and still be in Toronto. That's what I love about Toronto. You wouldn't believe how thrilling imported sodas (Ting! Faygo!) can be! I tried on the world's sluttiest dress, and leggings that came down over my toes. I bought a quarter pound of balloons! Good times, my friends, good times.

Don't wanna see it on my windowsill
RR

Photographic Failure

My camera experienced existential doubt in, oh, April, and in a sense really ceased to exist, since a camera that doesn't take picture is like the tree falling without an audience--what's the point?

The point is I have no camera. Sorry, focus. That camera that died had a good run, since it was a film camera that I got in (I think) the nineties. Yes, film. I'm not much of a photographer--I rarely even miss the ability to take photos, except on occasions when someone I know does something photogenic, like the Idle Tigers live on stage, be-glittered and brilliant. Oh, last night was very very good, and it did make me sad to be camera-less.

I have been for some time ready to take the leap into digital photography (once more, bravely into 2002!) I even have money set aside to purchase a simple yet effective model. But I can't *stand* the thought of losing half a day to comparison shopping, learning what a megapixel is or whether I care about them, and why, being chased by Future Shop employees, eventually buying something I saw in the first hour of the jaunt for $20 too much because I'm just so tired, and then getting teary-eyed over the warantee.

I am not a good technology shopper.

Please please, if you know the name and model number of a simple yet effective digital camera, tell it to me and I will go purchase it (maybe also tell me where to go?) Yes, I am outsourcing my thinking on this matter, but really, almost anyone's going to be better at it than I am.

All this goes also for laser printers.

In the meantime, sometimes I get photographed by professionals, and that's really both easier and more effective, because this shot here by Donna Santos is far better than I normally look. Also some other lovely authors you might recognize.

Wear your pink petticoat
RR

Chick-Lit Ruined My Life

It used to be that clumsiness and ineptitude was just embarrassing, and best kept to yourself. Then Bridget Jones happened, and it was so great to have a book about being self-conscious and semi-insane over your own secret faults—someone else had written it, better and funnier than I would have, so now I didn't have to. Then there came the strange cultishness of chick-lit, where self-obsessed ramblings came to be packaged in book form all-too-regularly without a hint of irony, or context, or humour. Women engaged in subtle self-deprecating one-downsmanship at parties, and it seemed that there was always a more glamourous way to fall off a chair than the way I was doing it.

And now it comes to this: defeated by the cello bags at the grocery store. Opening these has always been a challenge, and one day it finally proves impossible: the bag remains aggressively two-dimensional, a sheer limp sheet of cello no matter how much I try to rub, tug, and blow (sorry) it into three dimensions. Finally, I have no choice but to sidle back to the bag spinner and get a new one, nervously tucking the failed case into the tie cup. I look up, sure I'm being scrutinized, either by my bitchy blond nemesis from work, or my stand-offishly handsome grouchy boss, or perhaps a quirky cute butcher with a raised eyebrow and a penchant for clumsy girls. Or perhaps the bag stand is about to be knocked into the grapefruit display by a grocery-robber run amok and I'll be taken hostage in a great big televised misunderstanding that all my friends will see.

But no. What actually ends up happening is that I can't open bag number 2, either, and I have to put the bag and the loose apples separately into my basket and take the whole thing with me as a kind of long-term project, and after about five minutes in line, finally get the whole thing sorted.

What an anti-climax.

We were the high-priests / the keepers of the backbeat
RR

Natter

There are really too many posts about how much I love malls, but in truth, it's *because* I don't get to go that often that I feel compelled to kvell every time I do. Yesterday, killing time before dinner, I bought some lip balm that benefits AIDS research, which is funny because trying on lip-balm testers in stores used to be how kids thought you could get HIV. So I put on some of the tester, to prove to myself how far we've come. Or something. Mall symbolism gets a little murky.

Other items of mall joy: mannequins with furrowed brows! The hilarious security guard at Sephora! My new camisole, purchased for the sole purpose of compensating for tops and dresses that I buy, otherwise nice but far too low-cut. Is nipple-grazing the fashion now, or do I just have an unerring love for inappropriate shirts? Anyway, camisole=problem solved.

Gosh, this is trivial. But such is life.

Better: I'm going to see a little Victorian melodrama tonight, courtesy of the kids at Free Biscuit, still going very strong despite the fact that the blog is no longer being updated (hence no link!) Also now reading/looking at Alison Bechdel's *Fun Home*. I really mean it about the "looking at" part--I'm getting way better at taking it all in when I read graphic novels. I used to actually skip the pictures and just look for words! Not consciously, but if there was narrative in the visuals, I'd miss it and then have to go flipping back for it. I'm picking up a lot better this time. Could help that Bechdel is both brilliant and extremely textual--she builds books and words into a lot of her images, and so those boundaries start to blur. Anyway, it's an extremely compelling book, highly recommend if dig that sort of thing.

Sorry, I'm rainy-day groggy. Perhaps a more brilliant post tomorrow!

Taste it and tell me it's savoury
RR

Scene 2

Two gents walk into the grocery store. They are wearing extremely nice suits, long overcoats flapping open. One is gangly and 6'3"-ish, one is about 5'8", but both are strikingly attractive in that so-clean-as-to-look-wet, just-shaved-in-the-parking-lot way. They are somewhere in the low end of the twenties.

A lot of time is spent selecting baskets, which they swing Mary-Had-a-Little-Lamb style every time I encounter them in the aisles. I hear them talking loudly about how much they like spareribs and which kinds are best, but they don't seem to know what they are looking for or to be putting much in their baskets. I see the tall one bounce off a display of cakes, basket swinging, overcoat flopping.

Rarely have such ingenuously heterosexual males been spotted shopping for supplies together. They walk so far apart they block a whole aisle, which they apologize for and attempt to cluster up, but it doesn't work. Their shoulders are too wide, they talk to loudly, where will they swing the baskets? They wind up with about four items scrupulously divided and rattling around in the bottoms.

What can have brought about this state of affairs? Outword Bound corporate training program? Brothers evicted from parental home? Some sort of double-date doomed to ptomaine poisoning?

I lose them in frozen foods and go to check out. I am at register by myself in the otherwise crowded checkout area when the tall one passes by, basket swinging, probably dinging his canned crescent rolls. He walks towards my line, stops. He sees it is the shortest line, but he doesn't join it. He stares nervously, watching me hand over my credit card. Is he checking me out? I *am* wearing cool tights. But nevermind, he's at the *very* low end of the twenties. Pocket creditcard and receipt, gather bags.

As I retreat from the cashier, I sense tallboy advancing. He leans over the conveyor belt and speaks quietly and urgently to the cashier. As I leave the store, I hear over the PA system: "If there is a 'Drew' in the store, could he please report to the customer service desk? That's DREW, please report to..."

RR

Me at the Mall

I know this isn't a popular problem to have, but I am a thwarted consumer. I love shopping and, sadly, I love the worst capitalistic aspect: malls. Even when I was a student and all my discretionary income went towards coffee, I called the mall (all malls are The Mall) The Museum of Nice Clothes and went sometimes just to savour all the *stuff*. Doesn't need to be mine for me to appreciate it.

Now, however, I am no longer a student, but a person with a decently remunerated full-time job and I could have the occasional expensive bit of discretionary fluff. However, I almost never shop unless there's a birthday I'm in danger of missing, because full-time jobs eat up a lot of time and then there's this whole writing thing I do. So my clothes wear out and discretionary purchases are limited to high-end groceries (but how many artichoke hearts can a girl eat?) In many ways, I still look like a student (not if you get close to my eyes, though), because I dress, well, with deliberation, but there are some gaps.

I had a perfectly servicaeble and presentable black canvas bookbag throughout grad school, which my parents gave me to congratulate me on getting in, and which disintegrated promptly on graduation (magic book bag?) Having no time, or really, no patience, I'm not *that* busy) to procure a new one, I fell back on my purse, which is small and stylish and, for days when I needed to bring a heavy book, or a big lunch, or my gym stuff (read: every day) I would have my old book bag, which is a) emblazoned with the word "bloomie's," b) fuschia, and c) 21 years old.

I've been using this bag for *months* and it occurred to me only today that it is hideously unprofessional to be lugging to work, no matter how brilliant the books inside. So I had a minor freak-out, which justified a trip to the mall. Hurrah!

Oh, I had the full mall experience: my way was impeded by unsupervised toddlers and angry teens in do-rags, I looked at bizarre herbal products from the GMC, and bought cherry-banana fat-free, sugar-free frozen yoghurt from a charming nervous Asian girl ("She's new," explained the charming nervous Asian boy who was directing her in fruit apportioning. I nodded encouragingly. "I'm new, too, but I been here a week already." "You're both doing great," I told them, and they beamed as I took my dessert. It was fuschia, too, and awful. When will I learn?

I bought no bag, because these are the years of bling, and I can't do with that much shininess on a leather bag. I saw some nice things, but they all had at least big buckles and zips. For a minute, I got confused and thought I liked a pink patent leather thing, but I stopped myself. I can't wait until my 40s to get this right. I'm going somewhere more conservative tomorrow, I think. On my way out of the big Scarborough mall, I got myself embroiled at the crosswalk and almost didn't make it (Scarborough is like a dangerous lover--once you are in her arms, the only way out might be death).

I had a perfect time.

Carry the news
RR

Love Like

I started writing a post about Platonic ideals a couple days ago, but what with the weight of saying something intelligent and all the varying demands on my time these days (do not leave kitchen floor covered in crumbs; pay your bills; go to work; write fiction; eat; do not ignore your friends) I'm not sure when that will be done. So, on the eve of Valentine's Day, I thought I'd do a little easy post, on niceness.

Today, I had a magnificent customer service experience. I had bought a defective product and was sad (and nauseated; it was a defective food product*) so I looked up the customer service number on the brand website and called. The woman on the phone was tensely, nervously helpful--she wanted my first name so that she could "better address" me, and she promised to "address" all my concerns before she even knew what they were.

You can sort of guess why someone in a role like that would sound like you just kicked her dog. I mean, "customer service hot-line" reads "complaint line" to pretty much everyone, and since the number isn't on the packaging and you have to look it up on the web, you have to be pretty plaintive to call that number. I've had jobs along those lines, and it was terribly terribly unfun. I'm sure there are circumstances where it is necessary to yell in order to be treated with respect, but this sort of scenario is rarely one of them. Some people just call to yell.

I, however, only wanted a refund on my snack item. When, in response to the customer server's tense politeness, I was politely tense back (I get nervous calling strangers), her manner loosened markedly. And when she realized that I had a legit complaint ("I, oh, ew, I *assure* you that that is *highly* unusual") things went along swimmingly. It was easy for me to arrange a refund, and pleasant. Nice.

Nice, a highly underrated quality. One of my better ones, I like to think, and the reason working in service did not destroy me utterly. It's so *easy* to be civil to strangers, because they'll be gone soon and won't want anything from you again. It's the people who are around all the time who are going to make demands, who are going to be hard to put up with.

I am not feeling *terribly* hostile towards V-Day this year, but romantic love already gets a *lot* of attention in our society. I don't know that it needs this particular day. And I don't think customer service reps are any less worthy of a day than secretaries and nurses, both of whom have Days, and significantly more so than, say, bosses.

People feel free to be rude to store clerks and phone reps because there are no repercussions--it's a five minute relationship and the outcome is unlikely to improve if you turn on the charm. But the *interaction* will. That's the thing--I'm not necessarily advocating politeness for it's own sake here, though if that's the only argument that will work on you, take it. It's that you end up with the exact same groceries whether you smile at the clerk and say, "Thanks, have a nice day," or keep your iPod in and don't make eye-contact. But there's no hope for a return smile or friendly comment if you do the latter, and who needs fewer of those things? On my best days I try not to squander any interaction--the bus driver is never going to change my life, but if I say thank you as I get off, he or she will usually call some variant of, "You're welcome, have a good day!" which are words you just can't hear too often.

The customer service rep on the phone asked me if there were any further problems she could help me with, and I told her that my only problem had been that I'd spent the money and had no snack item, and now that she was sending me the refund, I could buy a new snack. I thanked her. She thanked me. This all took about three minutes, and was lovely.

I imagine lots of people are going to be do fun Valentinesy things tomorrow, and me too, but one thing that might be nice is to be nice to *everyone* tomorrow, not just the ones we love best.

I'm backed out on the car
RR

Good and Bad News

Well, it is good news to me, as well as surprising, to discover that 28% of Canadians are currently boycotting Walmart (in a marketing text I read for work; sorry I can't offer a link). I was feeling really pleased to be a part of a group so much larger than I'd have thought. I haven't been able to shop there, despite my delight in inexpenisve consumer durables, since I read Barbara Ehrenreich's gently terrifying bookNickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, about minimum-wage jobs and the lives lived by their workers.

Anyway, I felt good and solidarity-like for about 12 minutes, before I realized Walmart is doing just fine. More than a quarter of the country is pointedly not shopping there, and the store is thriving.

It's maybe that "pointedly" above that was the problem--is the 28% really comprised of people who would've shopped there anyway? As I tell this news to my friends, friends who are mainly young people who rent their homes, have a lot of education, low-level professional jobs and no children, I have found that almost all of us fall within the 28%, but what would we have been buying if we did shop there? Walmarts aren't easily available to the downtown-dwelling, non-car-driving population; the year before my boycott, I remember what I bought there distinctly, because I went only once. A friend's father drove us as there as a special favour, and I bought a coffeemaker and yoga pants, for a grand total of about $50. For the year. Pre-boycott.

My brother points out that people will take on the strong stand when the costs to their personal happiness and inconveniences are minimal, and this is sadly true. I still don't buy much organic food because it is so expensive, even though I do believe it is better for the environement. The sad truth is, I haven't much buying power.

Then yesterday, I was at a party, whinging about this to a group of the converted, one of whom pointed out that it's only by talking about these issues that a relatively powerless demographic can gain some power. My nickels and dimes don't add up to much, but I can tell people who have more to spend, or just so many little people that our collective power adds up to something. So I'm telling you this--not that you should boycott Walmart, but that you might want to if you read about their treatment of their employees and think about these issues the way I do. So...that's it, I've told you. And I think that's for the good.

Other good news is that Polident, the denture-cleaning people, now make one of those effervescing pellets for retainers. The bad news is that I wear a retainer, but you knew that. Now it is a sparkling clean retainer.

But, ok, ok, the *really* good news is that The Journey Anthology was reviewed in The Globe and Mail's Books section this morning, and they said amazing things about my short story, "Chilly Girl." Also the other stories in the collection, all of which blow me away, and the whole thing was quite joyous to read (my protagonist gets called someone else's name, but that's pretty minor. Quibbles!!)

And the other good news is that, despite living under a rock, I have numerous lovely friends who call and email when something nice happens. Otherwise I might never have known.

Let's get wrecked on Rolling Rock
RR