The Two Solitudes

So I spent Easter among the Natives. No, not the Indians, although now I kind of understand how Samuel de Champlain felt when he came upon the Algonquins.

Mrs D's mom was visiting us last week and we packed up the car and took off for Victoriaville to visit her sister and her Aunt. Victoriaville's about 2 hours east of Montreal. It took us about four and-a-half hours to drive from Aylmer. We waved at Nicky Eff as we drove through Montreal.

Tante Poutine, formerly of Warwick, Tante Bud Light, who is no longer with us, and Tante Lucienne all hail from either Warwick or nearby Victoriaville the poutine and maple syrup capitals of the world. And it's deep in Francophone country.

You know that song Englishman in New York by Sting? Yeah? Well magnify how he felt about ten times and you start to understand how I - the lone Anglophone - got on in Francophone country.

I tell you, ply these 80+ year-old women with alcohol - and they're just so damn polite, they never say no - and I was tempted to take out my hearing aids. That's right the decibel level of their conversation seems to increase with the amount of wine consumed. Alas, if only I could find a hearing aid that not only magnified conversations but translated them too.

But I nodded politely when my name was mentioned and threw in the appropriate oui and non when I thought they were required. I got the odd strange look when I got them wrong.

Now this is all my own fault. Firstly, I studied French in Government and promptly stopped using it when I got the requisite pass levels. Secondly, I married a Francophone. Thank god she's bilingual but still there are times I look at her and wonder "What the hell did she see in me?" But I'll save that story for another time.

But, hey, I guess it's true what they say: love is blind. And in my case, deaf and unilingual.

But listening to all those hard to understand conversations Easter weekend I came to a significant discovery. I think Mrs D's family is in the witness protection program. Unfortunately for them when they get excited and have had a few they let their actual family name slip. I pretended not to notice but often I heard them call each other Voyonsdonc*. Don't tell anyone, eh?

*Voyons donc, loosely translated means "Oh, come on" or "get out of town" or "shut the front door". My mother-in-law, her sister and their Aunt say it a lot.

The Polka Dot Door

A long time ago, when I was 22, my first child was born. That kid grew up on a little Canadian kid's show called Polka Dot Door, produced by the TV Ontario network. And Dad, more often than not, sat through those shows with his little one. Nine or so years later when a brother, and a year after that when a sister came along number one son was moving on to Knight Rider and The Dukes of Hazzard. But there was a nice overlap where his siblings picked up where he had left off with Polka Dot Door. And Dad was right there to welcome them. So you're looking at a Polka Dot Door veteran. The show began in 1971 and ran to 1993. I didn't watch the full run but I did get in my fair share. The formula was pretty simple. A young male and female host, which seemed to change every week, sang songs, told stories, made crafts and generally did their best stimulate little brains. The show opened as follows... Imagination Day! Oh boy! ...

Hello Goodbye

Today a bit of a reflective piece. Rather than being funny, this is about the funny. It's a day of mixed emotion at nonamedufus . You see, after several months of inactivity I've dropped a couple of former blogger buddies off my blog roll. I kept hanging on and hanging on hoping they'd return to active blogging but, alas, after waiting in one case five months I've decided to let them go. I'm going to miss - going to? I have been missing - Margo at the Screaming Me-Me . She was one funny lady. From time to time she and I would engage in a feud or two for several days at a time but it was all in fun both for us and, I think, for our readers. And we'd leave each other funny comments, poking fun at each other. I miss her friendship and our humorous exchanges. The other blogger I'm letting go is Chelle, The Offended Blogger . Chelle was a special lady. In addition to her own blog she created and managed Humor Bloggers Dot Com where humour bloggers like m...

The Dangling Conversation

There's a debate underway in my household between my wife and I. I say "underway" because it hasn't quite reached the "raging" stage. If you want raging, my wife (a Francophone) and I (an Anglophone) from time to time (usually in a weak moment of my own making) slip into our number one discussion around why we don't speak more French at home - ergo - when am I, a former public servant who learned French at the expense of our gracious taxpayers and was technically rated bilingual (even though I hardly used it), going to improve my use of Canada's other language? This one never gets resolved, hence it's ongoing nature. But the current debate is over a remark I casually made the other day. I'm no geek, but with a lot of time on my hands I surf the web, converse on Facebook and such and - I have to admit - "I'm nonamedufus and I'm a Twitterholic". In an epiphany-like moment I was struck by the apparent impact of social networkin...

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