Meet Up With the DoHos!

Tags

bloggers, Blogging, Halifax, Maritimes, meet-ups, travel

Yes, they got in touch with me.

Just in the nick of time, too. We had finished at the Maritime Museum (where I had a great time with my niece and nephew – I’ve seen their exhibits many times, but the new tribute to being gay at sea was a lot of fun) and PH was on the verge of reluctantly abandoning me on the waterfront so he could get to Dartmouth in time for his nephews’ track and field events. But they messaged and said they were headed to the Economy Shoe Shop, so he dropped me off on Argyle St instead, making me promise to not let the internet strangers steal my kidneys.

I hung out there with Babby while a variety of scenarios played out in my head. They were going to change their minds at the last moment and decide to go to a restaurant on Quinpool or somewhere instead, and I would have a really long hike or would have to figure out the bus schedule. Or they would change restaurants and not even tell me.

OR, I decided, they would show up, but afterwards inform me that they were all going to Peggy’s Cove. I wouldn’t be able to come along because I didn’t have the car and car seat, and so would be left wandering disconsolately around the city with Babby in tow until my husband returned from Dartmouth at the end of the day.

Meanwhile Babby got fussy so I sat on a flower box and nursed him. Now, I have long since resigned myself to strangers seeing my boobas. I used to have a little nursing canopy for more public situations, but Babby now thinks that that is a great game of peekaboo, and any covering gets whipped off immediately. If there is one thing more awkward than showing everyone your booba, it’s desperately trying to cover your boobas but failing miserably. So I just haul ’em out without shame, because then at least I retain a semblance of dignity.

However, nursing on a public street while a hobo shuffled by periodically and commented on my baby’s big brains was a new experience.

Then they arrived – I recognized The Urban Cowgirl right away, because she posts pictures of herself in a variety of outfits, and I was quickly introduced to blondevixen, CO, So Dramatic, Too So Much Alex, AllieLG, MomofTwo, ATXGirl (aka The Squeaker), Darleya, and Sakura (who has published a REAL book and everything!). Of course, I knew OF them all from the Dooce Community, and had read their blogs, even, but meeting them in person is a strange feeling.

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We had a fun lunch at the Shoe Shop and then walked around Barrington St and Privateer’s Wharf. We missed Curiosity, so we brought her image with us!

at four thirty PH found me and after a round of hellos and goodbyes we packed Babby into the car and went home. Babby, who had not slept since 10 that morning, was so worked up that he babbled to us for a while (no doubt regaling his Daddy with tales about his day with the DoCo ladies) and showed no signs of settling down until he finally conked out after a hearty round of Old MacDonald. 

It was a good day. And I got to keep my kidneys and everything!

Choice

Tags

Halifax, home, Nova Scotia, traffic, Vancouver

“I hate this city. I want to go home.”

My husband and I were walking back to our car after a very stressful evening. I had spent most of it in traffic, trying to get to a party my work was throwing for its amazing volunteers. The party had been fine, but I had spent most of it wrestling with time and distance and rush hour traffic, and the fact that this city, despite swelling to two million people, still has road systems more appropriate for Nova Scotia than for a bustling metropolis. I didn’t know shortcuts, and none of my coworkers had thought to tell me that you couldn’t go from my house, to the party site, help set up, and get back to get my husband off of the train (since we needed him to be Santa)  in the amount of time allotted. It didn’t occur to them that I wouldn’t know that, and it wasn’t their job to think of it. I missed dinner. Santa was horribly late. I was angry and miserable and full of self loathing.

“Okay,” Perfect Husband said calmly, looking at his wife who was stressed beyond belief and near tears. “If that’s how you feel. We can go home.”

I looked at him sideways. Was he calling my bluff?

“I know we can’t go home,” I muttered.

“Yes… love… we can,” he said seriously.

“How. How can we go home?” I accused.

“It’s easy.” He spoke as if to a little child. “You quit your job. I quit mine. I could request a transfer but I might not get one. We sell the townhouse. It would bring more than enough to buy a real house back home.”

The possibilities flew past my mind in an instant. Back home, with a house. Where I know every nook, cranny, and short cut. Where a 12 inch pizza isn’t called a “large” and doesn’t cost 22 dollars. Near my family. Near his family. Near our friends. White Christmases. A real house. Home.

…Quitting my job, which is my dream job. Dragging my husband from the city which he still loves. Bringing our future children into the Nova Scotia public school system. High taxes. No jobs.

“No,” I said decisively. “I’m not ready to do that. I’m not giving up yet.”

But the freedom of knowing I could took a little weight off of my shoulders. I’m not stuck here. I choose to be here.

Damn you, West Coast, and Your Excessive Lettuce, Too

Tags

birthday, carbs wonderful carbs, food, Halifax, Perfect Husband, Vancouver

Perfect Husband’s birthday was last week. After weeks and weeks of me trying to convince him that he should get to pick his own birthday activities on his birthday, rather than just sit around the house like we always do, he finally chose to go to a BC Lions (that’s football, apparently) game and then walk across the street to try the Atlantic Trap and Grill. As he pointed out to me, I got to go home (ever so briefly) but he hasn’t been home since we got married. On his birthday, he deserves a Halifax Donair. If you look up Halifax donairs on Google (and I suggest you do so if you like schadenfreude, since the wingeing of ex-pat Maritimers is pathetic to witness), this place in Vancouver apparently serves decent Halifax fare.

We both suffered through the game (which was a loss so blatant and humiliating that the stands basically emptied themselves long before the end of the last quarter) and then we walked over to the Atlantic Trap and Grill. It had just moved locations to directly across from the football place thingy. It also had a sign outside that said “Enjoy Our New Menu.” That should have been a warning to us. But we were put off our guard. Drunkards were wrestling each other outside, and there was an Alexander Keith’s sandwich board outside. So far, so good. So we walk in, and there’s a big mat on the floor saying “Welcome to the East Coast.” It was loud, and had wooden barrels and lots of drunkards. Seemed authentic enough.

It was crowded and loud. We didn’t care. We perched ourselves on stools in the corner, like naughty children, near an advertisement for Kokanee, the BC beer that no one outside of British Columbia will even consider drinking. That should have been another hint. When we ordered garlic fingers and donairs from the server (wearing a football jersey which read “Russel Beers”) our blatantly Haligonian order made him pause awkwardly.

“Uh… just so you know… the donairs don’t come in pitas. They… they come in tortilla wraps” he said. We blinked owlishly at him for a moment.
“Ooh… kay…” We weren’t sure how to respond to that. Imagine if you ordered a burger, and were told “okay, but just so you know, they come in crepes.”

I wondered how many angry Genuine Maritimers had explained the pita vs wrap thing to our server. Clearly enough that he felt he had to warn us. We should have taken the hint, and left. When the garlic fingers arrived, we looked at them in confusion. They were served (get this, Maritimers) in a basket. That’s right. Like garlic bread. Not on a platter or pan, the way pizza should be served. And yes, it did appear to be cooked on pizza dough, but when we picked them up, they drooped impotently in our hands, and radiated that certain warm moistness that pizza gets when you warm it over in the microwave. They weren’t even garlicky.

The “authentic” Halifax donair sauce with which we were served was thick, and when you dipped your finger in it and lifted the finger towards your mouth, it left a trailing drip leading back down to the cup, much the way honey does. Oh, and by the way, it tasted like honey. Donair sauce is not supposed to taste like honey, since there is no honey in the ingredients.

“What the FUCK?” was my husband’s appraisal, “there’s LETTUCE under the garlic fingers.”

But maybe the donair… wraps… would be better. I had abandoned all hope, but my husband, clinging to the last moments of his birthday, clung to optimism.

Soon, more baskets arrived. In each, was a snug, red little tortilla wrap, bristling with healthful-looking lettuce and tomato. A hint of red onion peeped out from the leafy fronds charmingly.

“What the FUCK??” said Perfect Husband, “There’s FRIES. Everyone knows that the only appropriate side order to a donair is MORE DONAIRS.
… and WHY IS IT RED??”

We began eating glumly. Not only could you pick these up and take dainty bites out of them, but your fingers stayed relatively clean. This is wrong. A Halifax donair only has the pita bread to help absorb the worst of the sauce and grease. You eat them with knife and fork. After a few mouthfuls of crunching though salad vegetables, a hint of meat appeared within the red tortilla. Further in, the cloying honey taste of their “donair sauce” was also detectable. It was bizarre. It was like going to a movie “inspired by” your favourite book. You recognize bits of it, but this is not the same thing.

Seriously, how hard is it to make a decent Halifax donair? Crappy, dirty, two-bit corner places serve them all over frigging Nova Scotia. You can’t tell me that the Maritime cuisine is impossible to duplicate. I feel like calling up King of Donair and tattling on these people and their false advertising. Presumably KOD would come flying down to Vancouver to start a good ole’ Halifax knife fight with the restaurant owner, for daring to call this… this… healthy travesty a “Halifax donair”.

What gets me is that if a Vancouverite moved East, and went to a sushi restaurant, and ordered a BC Roll, and was served a salmon-head (eyes still staring) covered in rice and roe, with a seaweed salad served on the side, they’d be pretty annoyed. But it seems to be perfectly ok in Vancouver to take a delicious East Coast dish, then cover it with LETTUCE and healthy red tortilla.

Welcome to the East Coast, my ass. I feel the way that Chinese people must feel when they walk into a “Chinese” restaurant and see people eating Chicken Balls and Fortune Cookies.

You know your country is big when you miss the culture from your side of the continent.