Recipe for a fabulous weekend:

• Start by buying a 12 pound fresh turkey at the grocery store downtown. Afterwards realizing that your only option transporting it home is the bus (a taxi would obviously be too easy). Clutch the turkey and cradle it all the way home like some odd-looking baby. More like an odd-looking mom.
• Buy new dishes for dinner guests Take that trip to Ikea you've been meaning to for months
•  Line the bottom of a pie crust with fresh hazelnuts (without tiny pieces of shells this year) and drizzle the so-sweet-it-makes-your-teeth-hurt maple sugarness over it. Make the kitchen smell heavenly while it bakes.
• Invite a friend over to help dress and stuff the turkey. Engage in the obligatory turkey dancing and fake turkey voices before finally setting it in the pan. 
• Mash the potatoes, sliver the almonds, sautee the green beans, and almost forget about the salad.
• Vacuum, with one hand over your eyes as you go near the fridge. Last time the vacuum was over there, a mouse jumped out. 
• Open all the windows in the apartment, because all the radiators are broken and at full blast, and the oven has been at 325 for most of the day.
• Have a moment of panic that everything you have to do won't possibly get done. Take a deep breath and go buy a bottle of wine. 
• Welcome friends with open arms. And open the bottles. 
• Listen to Christmas tunes for the fifth first time this season, the conversations overlapping each other in the best kind of way.
• Sit down to the table and only get up for dessert, hours later.
• Be thankful for the warmth of traditions, new and old. 
• Make room in the fridge for the tupperware.

My weekend was lovely friends, here's to hoping yours were too.

I don't have all the photos on my computer to put up here yet, but if you're as impatient as I usually am, you can see them already up at provincecanadienne.com. Happens to be an excellent photographer :)

See you soon.

xo

alli

encounters of the rodent kind.

via lionbrand.com

And I had such good intentions.
After six months too long without a vacuum cleaner, I decided Sunday was The Day.  To Canadian Tire we went and proud owners of a ruby red Dirt Devil we became.  Not even ten minutes after we got home, Old Red was put together and ready to fly.  And fly she did, the rugs are immaculate now.  I had finished the living room, the bathroom, the entryway, and moved into the kitchen to finish up.  All was going to plan.  Until Old Red hit the fridge and scared everyone within a 20 kilometer radius of our apartment building.  When I hit the fridge I can only assume I scared the bejeezus out of the little mouse who for all intents and purposes, we have now dubbed Mr. Jingles.  Mr. J. scurried halfway out from behind the fridge, saw the vacuum gave it a considerable second thought, and scampered back to where he started.

And here is my confession.  I let out a high-pitched scream like a little 8 year old boy years away from puberty.  Scared that little mouse to death, and Stéphane, and I'm sure the rest of the apartment complex. I never, ever, anticipated being so scared of a little mouse!  I think it was just about the last thing I was expecting at that moment.  God knows I'll never forget it when I vacuum near the fridge the next time.

But our night with Mr. Jingles was far from over.  The only thing worse than knowing there's a mouse in your apartment... is not knowing where it is.  We had little more than a flashlight and the end of a broom to, ahem, take care of our furry friend.  I was terrified that once we got him out from behind the fridge he would bolt into the rest of the apartment.  I do not want a mouse near my food, but damned if I let him traipse about in my bedroom!  I promptly barricaded the kitchen with toilet paper rolls, kleenex boxes, and a can of paint a wall of steel and started inspecting where this guy could have gone.

While moving the fridge, the little guy eloped to behind the stove, but even with the flashlight shining behind, below, sideways, diagonally... we could not find him.  I finally, skeptically, suggested opening the bottom oven door.  Where the oil drippings and crumbs go.  Because who would be stupid enough to hide in the oven?  (Would I turn the stove on if my friend Bugsy was in there? Anyone?)  So I ever so slowly opened the oven door and two beady little eyes met my gaze.  In retrospect, I should have turned on the oven right there.  Ok, I kid.  Mostly.

A failed attempt with the end of the broom scared Mr. Jingles to who knows where, and there he stayed for several more hours.  I could not find him.  But he did make an encore appearance an hour later.  When he thought no one was looking.  But oh.  We were looking.  Found his refuge in the little mouse hole we have now located in the corner behind the bathroom door.  Because we had no mouse traps and every last thinkable mouse trap store was closed at 8pm on a Sunday, I did the next best thing.  Stuffed a plastic bag down into the hole and secured it with a heavy candle on top.  And had dreams about hundreds of mice all over the floor, chewing through plastic bags.  I woke up more than once, swearing I had just heard him tip over that candle, his little feet scampering across the wood floors to escape.

Still haven't seen him again yet, but we've put out a nice tasty snack for when he decides to pay us another visit >:)  Ug.  I've never thought of myself as someone cruel to animals, but honestly.  Not in my kitchen, Mr. Jingles.  You've messed with the wrong lady.

So here's to hoping that my mouse encounters will be limited to one per... well one ever.

xo

alli

muscle memory.

West Desert Airpark, June 2010.

I'm a pilot.  I don't talk about it too often, even though It's something I'm very passionate about.  Are you ever hesitant to talk about the things you're proud of?  I've been around aviation all my life.  My dad is a pilot.  Oshkosh is the aviation Mecca that is (almost) always at the end of my summers.  In our family we tell stories about my sister and I walking around in the cabin in a Cessna 170, flying above Indiana when we were hardly old enough to remember.  I recall flying in the backseat on the way to Chardon, Ohio, mesmerized (and a bit skeptical) that I could talk with my mom and dad from the backseat without everyone on the radio and in the control towers hearing me.  

The first time I ever went to France was in June/July 2003.  After a late afternoon drive by an airstrip surrounded by tall grass and radiant sunflowers that only seem to exist in Southern France, I came home and told my dad I wanted to take flying lessons.  September through May I drove up to Heber on weekend mornings, frost lining trees along I-40, snow blowing slowly across the road on windier mornings.  Come Spring, I would anxiously anticipate the first view of Heber Valley to see if it was socked in with fog on the early mornings.  The last months before my checkride I convinced my school advisor and my theatre teacher to let me leave early on Monday afternoons.  Playing hooky to go fly up in the sky a while.  

Five days after my 18th birthday I earned my private pilot's license.  A Sunday morning if I remember correctly, after waiting hours for the checkride instructor to show up.  Show up he did, and we went over every possible question for the oral part of my exam.  And then we flew, going over every ground reference maneuver, stall, emergency procedure, and landing situation.  Only going back to practice my right side steep turns until I perfected them without losing 100 feet of altitude.  

Since then I've flown in two other countries.  I earned my tailwheel endorsement in a little Jodel outside of Paris, France, accompanied by Claude the retired French Air Force pilot and a little British terrier named Yessie.  Well, Yessie followed me on the ground.  Airport dog but scared to death of the planes, go figure.  And then a new friend let me fly in the left seat of the Piper Arrow as he accompanied us back to Sens and we hitched a ride back into la centre ville.  My friend and I were talking about that amazing afternoon for awhile.

And just two weeks ago, I piloted a plane for the first time in over a year at an airport outside of Montreal.  A Diamond Katana, the plane I trained in.  After the flight as I flipped through my logbook, I saw that the last time I flew a Katana was in July 2006.  Five and a half years ago.  So much was different back then.  So much is different now.  Yet as I walked around the plane on the chilly Sunday morning, I was struck by how similar the whole thing was.  Two words popped into my head. 

Muscle memory.  

My fingers traced the smooth tapering surface of the wing.  Eight years later (wiser?) on another continent, but for a moment I believed myself 17 once again, addicted to the first feelings of flight in the left seat.


Right tire.  Pressure. Strut. Right wing. Pitot tube. Position light. Strobes.

17 and smiling since the moment my hands directed us into the sky.  45 knots and a gentle pitch up, excited to see what the sky was hiding beyond the mountains.

Fuselage.  Fuel drains.  Vertical stabilizer.  Horizontal stabilizer.  Cables.  Left tire.  Left aileron.  Aileron cable.  A click to the left and the right.  


Though I carried a list with me, my hands took over and my brain was quiet.  Remembering the moves to a choreographed dance.  It made me smile in a way I hadn't for awhile.  Preflight finished my quebecois copilot and I closed the canopy and taxied to the runway.  Before long we were soaring above St Hubert airport, and we would land at Saint Matthieu de Beloeil and Saint Hyacinthe before the morning was over.

Any out of practice pilot gets anxious on their first landing back from a break.  I always adjust myself in my seat, pull my seatbelt tight, and fidget my feet on the pedals.  Landing is the most complicated part of flight, but also in a way the most rewarding.  An eloquent dance between friends.  A chain of intuitive maneuvers.  Yet a challenge.

Eyes on the center line.  Hand on the throttle.  Pressure on the stick.  Throttle in.  Speed check.  Nose down.  Throttle out.  Last set of flaps.


A gentle ebb and flow.  Front step, back step, creeping slowly to the ground.  I knew it had been years since I had been in that plane, but I couldn't believe how normal it felt.  How instinctive it was.

Nose up trim.  Flare.  The persistent stall warning horn.  Hold it a bit farther.  The screech of the tires.  Back pressure to keep the nose up.  Flaps up.  Steering us to the taxiway at the end of the runway.  


I looked at my flight instructor with a smile on my face.  Not too bad for the first time in a year!  It was excellent, he said.  I believe that was the perfect way to describe it.

xo.

Sunday stories.

Hi friends !

Hope you are all having a wonderful Sunday, reading the paper, drinking tea, hiking in the crisp fall weather...

When I started Minstinguett, one of my ideas for a feature was something along the lines of 'Sunday Stories'.  I wanted a creative blog that was a mixture of things- inspirations from all around, daily adventures, as well as an outlet for some of my travel stories.  Having a blog for my stories allows me to write about them (pushes me to write about them) but in a more casual way.  I'll try to vary the stories from week to week and hopefully I won't get behind on my posting schedule.  As always, I love comments !  Are you writing down your own adventures ?

I'll start with a story- a moment- that I experienced a little under 2 1/2 years ago, that I still think about often.  It was at the end of my year studying abroad in Nantes and Paris during my junior year of college.

My feet knew the path well, luckily.  I didn't quite know how to feel- it was as if I was seeing everything for the first time instead of the last.  I turned the corner and headed up Avenue Reille, heading to my favorite spot in the 13th arrondissment in Paris, my home that spring.  I passed the tiny presserie which hardly seemed big enough to offer dry cleaning.  The 'France-Louisiane Franco-Américanie' drifted by on my left, with the same man I always saw, sitting behind his dark 'bureau' surrounded by yellowing photos and nostalgic photos of New Orleans decades ago.  It was surely one of the most niche-specific offices on the block, with a small exhibit and exchanges with New Orleans and Parisian residents.

The trees lining my path were barren and cold when I arrived in Febraury.  On my weekly runs I watched them turn furry with excitement for spring and the warm months ahead.  I could almost hear them sigh with relief as their bright leaves slowly unfolded in the early Paris sunshine.  Now, on the last day of May, the thick branches belonged to full trees, shading the sidewalk and the neighborhood residents.  My running shoes were already packed and zipped in my suitcase; today I was walking, with a hope that it would slow things down if only a little bit.

I reached the end of my street and tried to memorize the view of the entrance to Parc Montsouris.  My park.  With it's majestic gates guarding the entrance to the green lawn, the calm lake and the playground for adorably dressed Parisian toddlers.  A mother pushed her daughter in her pousette through the gate as her son followed eagerly behind, if only slightly distracted by the avion he was zipping through the air, his lips buzzing like an enginge.  "Allez, tu viens là ?" the mother demanded, and the boy zipped ahead of his mother and sister into the park.

Après tout, it seemend to make sense in a perfect way, that my last day would be filled with nothing particularly extraordinaire.  Just my normal Parisian days, falling into place in my surroundings.

Even though my feet kept a calm and steady pace, my thoughts were anything but relaxed.  There was a certain relief and excitement to be heading home.  But at the moment it was overshadowed by the absolute fear that nothing would ever be the same.  That this lovely, comfortable, exciting but ordinary adventure I'd led in France for the past 9 months would disappear completely once I left.  An illusion.  Something I would have to convince myself had truly happened.  Once I left France, my time there would become somewhat of a snowglobe- something I could observe, but never again be inside of.  No longer a participant, but a permanent bystander.  Just the thought of not being able to slip back into this world I had been living in made me sick with panic.  If this was going to be the reality, honestly I'd rather not leave. 

I sat down on one of the green flaky benched where I'd spent so many afternoons.  Stretching after a couple loops through the park.  My journal on my lap with my pen scrawling excitedly across the page.  Watching the old couple across from me walk casually around the lake, elbows linked.

The hardest part about leaving a place is the fear and recognition that things will be different when you return.  The fear of being left out could almost be strong enough to keep me standing still.  And even if I was lucky enough to come back to France, back to Paris, how could it ever be better than it had during this past year ?  A year of traveling, discovering, living passionately. 

I wasn't doing well with these fears- it just felt like the couldn't be overcome, even as I continued to hope desperately for a solution.

My back slid against the bench and I looked up towards the blue late morning sky peppered with clouds.  I'd done the same thing countless times, admiring the contours of an illuminated and patchy sky.  The shape of the cloud I saw in front of me shook me from my daydream with a jolt.  It was so familiar.  But then, it couldn't possible be.  People talk about coincidences, about symbols; messages meant to be- but did that ever really happen ?

As I sat there in awe, the anxiety I'd been trying to sort through started rolling down my cheeks. 
There was, however, a smile through those tears, as I stared upwards at the puffy form of France twinkling down on me.  That silly cloud gave me more comfort than any lecture or self pep-talk ever could.  Yes, things would change, but that was the utter excitement of it all.  I would never forget France, even if I tried.  And that afternoon I was assured, france would never forget me either.