Beautiful Cynicism III

Photo: christmastraditions.com

La Saint Valentin est un jour pour masochiste. Si l’on est avec quelqu’un il faut lui dire “je t’aime” avec un cadeau, pour que cela ait plus de valeur que les 364 autres jours de l’année; si l’on est seul, on déprime!
Sarah Michelle Gellar

Happy Valentine’s Day to all!

Photo: lasenza.com

From last weekend’s Globe and Mail: “According to a 2006 survey in Redbook, an alarming 70 per cent of women prefer chocolate over sex. And last month a study by 50PlusResearch.com revealed that 25 per cent of respondents said chocolate would be harder to give up than sex — while only 3 per cent thought sex would be tough to skip.” (Emphasis added.)

Et pour ceux parmi nous qui aiment tous les deux? Il n’y a qu’une solution… Appétisant!

Soyons reconnaissants aux personnes qui nous donnent du bonheur; elles sont les charmants jardiniers par qui nos âmes sont fleuries.

Marcel Proust

Ah! Such cursed little things these false cognates are! (I confess I much prefer the French term here – the English is so impersonal and sterile…)

It’s that little fact that I repeat to myself when I find myself at a loss for words when I’m trying to write in French. Sometimes, there are just more ways to say something in English than in French, and if I’m looking to evoke a particular feeling, or conjure up a particular image with my words, sometimes it’s just not possible for me to find a comparable vocabulary in French. A poor excuse, perhaps, but it is somewhat comforting.

Now I’ve heard there was a secret chord
that David played and it pleased the Lord,
but you don’t really care for music, do you?
It goes like this: the fourth, the fifth
the minor fall, the major lift;
the baffled king composing Hallelujah

Leonard Cohen, Hallelujah

Hooray! I’ve been waiting to hit the 3000 mark. That’s three thousand evil little adverts for porn and drugs and cosmetic surgery that did not get through to infect my blog! (Unlike u-blog, my previous blog’s host, where I would need to manually delete hundreds of spams every other day, because of their non-existent spam filters…) That’s 3000 since the beginning of September; how long will it take before I reach 6000?

I feel as though I’m living in this ice house. This incessant cold is becoming rather depressing. One would not, at first glance, describe the landscape of the city as depressing – the thick blanket of white snow covering the roofs and sidewalks, the delicate patterns of frost lining the shop windows, the clear blue sky presiding over the urban bustle, the bright warm sun shining above… A picture-perfect scene? Not quite. The temperature has not risen above -21 for a few weeks (and with the windchill it’s been much, much colder), and these conditions will likely stay that way for some time yet. The sunshine, famous for lifting the moods of even the most despondent, is cursed these days. When I wake in the morning to see the sun rising, my heart sinks – for a sunny day is a cold day. I would dearly love to see some dull, sad, gray clouds rise above the city and hang there stubbornly for days. “Cold hands, warm heart” goes the saying. And what if the entire body is frozen, a mere mask of humanity? My inner glow is only so strong…

Pour la course au lointain, jeunes femmes coquettes,
Attachez à vos pieds les légères raquettes.
Les champs sont blancs à l’infini; de toutes parts
Il neige. C’est le temps propice aux beaux départs.
Sous vos habits de laine épaisse, souple et chaude,
Ne sentant pas l’hiver, vous irez en maraude,
Passant les vergers nus et passant les maisons
Où la neige a planté de pâles horizons.
Et vous croirez pouvoir atteindre jusqu’au pôle!
Il neigera toujours du blanc sur vos épaules,
Et vos lèvres seront rouges comme un oeillet!
Vous rirez de tomber, d’un beau rire complet!
Chacune sera gaie aussi de toute chose,
Et chacune sera rose comme une rose!
Sur le tapis fourré de molle hermine, au soir,
Lasses, vous reviendrez au foyer vous asseoir.
Belles d’avoir bu l’air ardent des étendues,
Ayant marché sur tant de blancheurs épandues
Dont vos yeux resteront pour longtemps éblouis,
Quelque nuit, vous aurez des songes inouïs
D’arbres blancs, de maisons blanches, de paysages
Exquisement givrés, beaux comme des visages!

Albert Lozeau, Croquis d’hiver

Photo: digiteyesed.com

What happens when the temperature doesn’t rise above -20 in weeks? And one lives in a nearly hundred year-old house? One’s house pipes freeze. Actually, the pipes of thousands of homes are frozen throughout the city, such that the plumbers are run off their feet (and, let’s face it, likely loving every minute of it). Not that a plumber can help in my case: the pipes are frozen underground, meaning the City has to deal with it. It cost $90 for the plumber to come and tell us that. It will cost a further $100 for the City to come “deal with it”. Welcome to a Winnipeg winter.

Update: It’s the following evening, and still no water… A few City workers attempted to steam the pipes but to no avail: they’re still frozen solid. Even our water meter is frozen! We’re now on a waiting list to have some kind of outside work done. That work may take another day or two, and may happen at any time, day or night – not sure if they’ll wake us up for that or not. So I may be without water for several more days, or I may be woken up at 3:00 some morning. Neither option sounds particularly delicious. All I know is, there will once again be no shower or bath for this cynic.

Icebergs, icebergs, cathédrales sans religion de l’hiver éternel.

Henri Michaux

For my happy little Polish boy…

Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.
-Emily Brontë

L’air frais et transparent comme le pur cristal.
Les toits sont saupoudrés de givre matinal
Et luisent au soleil merveilleux qui les frappe,
Chacun pareil à quelque éblouissante nappe.
Sur ce blanc, la lumière éclate comme un feu
Descendu par degré du firmament tout bleu,
Et fait soudain jaillir de ces claires parcelles
Des multitudes de reflets et d’étincelles…
-Albert Lozeau, Gelée (extrait)

Je me suis levée à 5h ce matin – ne me demande pas pourquoi, cela se passe de temps en temps. J’ai légèrement déposé un tout petit baiser sur la joue de mon amoureux, et il s’est éveillé aussi. Avant de retourner au lit, il a rechercher le météo: à 5h ce matin, il était -37 degrés Celsius, avec un refroidissement éolien de -50 degrés! -50! Nous avons presque cassé le record de température dans ma ville (qui est -54)! A présent, à 9h25, il est un plus doux -36 degrés (-46 avec le refroidissement éolien). Ah, l’hiver canadien!

Photo: www3.nationalgeographic.com

To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring. (George Santayana)

Happy Groundhog Day!

Pas d’aile, pas d’oiseau, pas de vent, mais la nuit,
Rien que le battement d’une absence de bruit.

Eugène Guillevic

Test yourself here.

The Holmes-Rahe Scale was developed in the 1960s, as a measure of an individual’s stress levels. The scale is in questionnaire format; various life events (both positive and negative) are listed, and one simply ticks off a box if the event has happened to him or her in the past two years. Each event has a numerical score attached to it – the higher the number, the more stressful the event. The scale assumes the death of a spouse to have a value of 100 (most stressful event) and marriage to have a value of 50 (middle of the road? ). At the end of the questionnaire, one’s score is totted up. The score is translated into a percentage – the percent someone is likely to contract a stress-related illness or to be involved in a stress-related accident within the following two years.

Time to take a chill pill! The big question is, how stressed-out are my readers?