Tiffany: a case of mistaken identity

An Email to a Friend sent Thursday:

Yesterday I took a break from the!@##$$$%% taxes and went to Montreal with a neighbour and friend.
Strange trip ... but fun. I thought she was inviting me to go to the fashion district with her sister but in fact she wanted me to accompany her to the Tiffany Glass Exhibition at Les Beaux Arts.

I prepared by shoving my camera and a skirt I wanted to find a top to match into my pack.  It was only when we were actually on Sherbrooke Street looking for parking that she said we would not be going to the fashion centre she had mentioned; that her sister said it specialized in skimpy tops for very young people.

Before we made the trip, she had said that Tiffany would only be in town for a few more days and I thought Tiffany was a friend of her sister's ... someone coming with us! Duhhh ...

Anyway we had lunch with her very strange sister ... 70 years old ... and GLAMOROUS! For forty years she was Holt Renfrew's top salesperson selling Estee Lauder ... and believe me ... she proved that make- up can transform a woman. Skinny as hell. Spike heeled boots. A knee that juts out to the side. A packrat whose 3 bedroom apartment in NDG is so stuffed to overflowing that she has to sleep on the livingroom couch and she won't allow anyone in.

And delightful!

At the restaurant women kept coming up and telling her how much they missed her ... clients ... ranging from a chic fifties matron to a thirty-something lovely natural beauty who had been going to her since she was a teenager. And, except for the make-up,  there wasn't even a hint of artifice about her.

So we were really there to go to Tiffany Exhibition:

I love stained glass ... used to do it ... still have my tools and some glass ... so it was fun to go to the Musee ... but oh my, I hate crowded galleries and museums ...  you have to make your way through masses of hot sticky odiferous humanity to see the exhibits.

Montreal is fresh and green, and the women, as always, amazing ... it was a good break from the drudgery of taxes!

My friend's response:

LOL  You thought Tiffany was a friend of her sister? That is hysterical. Did it ever occur to you that you might be seen as odd by some?  Naw, not possible.


I guess everyone within a thousand miles of Montreal knew that the glass exhibition was in Montreal except me!  I am going to have to leave the hermitage more often!

On Chairs and Peonies ...

Yesterday was lovely ... Besides having the tub enclosure tiled and receiving a larger cheque than anticipated for my teaching, I received two of the kindest most thoughtful letters imaginable. One came by snail mail and the other was an email. I went around in a state of bliss for hours afterwards thinking about how lucky I am.

Tamarak, Carlos, Shea, Teddy and Kaiah all arrived for dinner. They stayed the night so that they could look after Kenya while I go to Montreal today.

I will be going to the Botanical Gardens and am looking forward to the trip. it is apparently peony time. The last time I was there it was October and the experience was magical. Maybe I will write about those magic moments when I come back from this trip. I am sure that I will be reminded of them over and over again. I am taking muffins, apples, my latest unfinished pair of socks, and Miriam Toews' novel, The Flying Troutmans, with me for the bus ride. And my small journal.

I keep looking at the wonky house chair and am now thinking that the basic problem may be the chair itself. Its shape is not as interesting as the others. It is an old school chair from the days when they made their school chairs to last ... from wood. Today they are made of pressed board, plastic, and metal and are designed to fall apart almost immediately. One year I was presented with all new desks and chairs for my classroom. I looked at them and said, "But they are for young kids, not for hulking teenagers." The administrator, who had expected me to be overjoyed, said, "They are adjustable." Well ...a janitor came in and adjusted them all to their maximum height and as soon as the first class came in and sat down, half of the desks lay in pieces on the floor. They ended up glued and taped together (and very wobbly) for the rest of my career, and looked so decrepit after a few months of normal wear and tear that they invited graffiti and desecration.

Well, after that tirade that just emerged from the depths of memory, I am beginning to like those old chairs after all! Maybe they just need a different theme. Ideas welcome!