Bertinelli Blues

From the moment I arrived home I have been dogged by the vague notion of being in a made for broadband TV movie. The kind about a divorcee who returns home to care for her ailing grandma/settle her parents estate/find herself. Hijinks and poignancy ensue as she tries to reintegrate into the small town, running into a seemingly endless cast of characters from her past on every trip to the post office or bank; her Jr. High gym teacher, her first kiss, her childhood dentist. (That is, I confess, the part of the plot that makes me cringe the most). Unabashed in her metropolitan urbanism, her attempts to transform the town to a mecca of sophistication are consistently frustrated by their small town mentalities. In the end it's she who trades her high heels for galoshes, when she falls in love all over again with her recently widowed high school sweet heart. (That, is the part that wakes me up screaming and in cold sweats. Not the heels. I don't actually wear heels. The falling in love in this town).  Valerie Bertinelli would play me even though she's 50, or maybe I'm playing Valerie Bertinelli playing me in some bizarre meta movie hologram.

I left home when I was seventeen. Actually I eloped. With a boy named Steve. It wasn't a serious elopement, I don't even recall ever kissing him to be honest. It was more of a political statement, a satirical poke at the institution of marriage if you will. Or so I thought. Somewhere between our prairie town and Victoria Island- a bar brawl in Calgary to be precise- it became apparent what we had, and all we had, was a failure to communicate. By the time we crossed the Rockies, not only were the farcical nuptials off, but we were no longer speaking. We parted ways in the shadow of the mountains and I never came back.

Half my life later I decide to make my lemon ginger Asian pasta which required coconut milk and meant a trip to the grocery store. It was here, in what passes for the imported food aisle, I finally had my Valerie Bertinelli moment. There, pushing a wobbly shopping cart with a toddler, case of PC coke and mega box of sugary breakfast cereal, was Steve. I managed to avert my eyes the instant I recognized him but he stopped and gaped. I sauntered carelessly down the aisle then, rounding the corner, made a mad dash for the Liquor Mart conveniently located on the other side of the parking lot, barely pausing at the check out counter long enough to pay.

It took me two glasses of wine to realize it wasn't Steve himself that sent me running to the bottle, which was a relief because I didn't remember liking him enough to require liquid eraser. It wasn't even the fruition of the dreaded Bertinelli moment. It was the sight of this person who, when I knew him, idolized Thoreau and wanted to hire hookers just to talk to them, pushing a kid in a cart and me instinctively knowing what that meant. He had grown up while I still want to marry someone on Friday just to divorce them on Monday, I still see a child as too big to fit into my backpack and prefer planes to mini vans. Not to mention the amount of sugar in that shopping cart would give a small elephant diabetes. In retrospect that was also very distressing.

Saccharine aside though, I can't help but wonder, how does this happen? Am I lost in Neverland?

On the plus side the wine went really well with dinner. Check out the beautiful label. I love the 70's design. Something about it captures the essence of a day like today, when the rain is finally turning the brown to green and it's all filtered through a grainy gray sky, perfectly.

 My father, on the other hand preferred to eat this:

Maybe I'm adopted?


Mom and I were fortunate enough to be invited to a Latin jazz concert tonight, gratis. Trio Bembe was brilliant but the situation awkward being that the concert was in a church and you really ought to be swinging your hips when the latin rhythms are beating. Pew dancing just doesn't quite cut it. Which reminds me of the joke: if you want to confuse a Mennonite offer them free dance lessons.

German phrase of the day: Eine stille Antwort meint ja= a silent answer means yes