Petits Fours with the Queen

What’s on my mind? The day Queen Elizabeth and I had a cocktail and a tête-a-tête.

 was one of the most memorable of my life. Don’t get me wrong. The Queen didn’t ring me up to say: “Nicole? Liz. Wanna schmooze?” It didn’t happen like that. It happened because the Queen was giving a reception on the October, 1987 Thanksgiving weekend and my friend Moira couldn’t go. 

The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh were arriving in Vancouver, Canada, to meet the Commonwealth heads of government. With another commitment on her calendar, Moira asked if I’d mind stepping in to take her place.

Mind??? Would I mind??? I’d juggle naked (don’t ask with what) to meet the Queen, let alone have a cocktail and a chat with her.

Moira Farrow, London-born reporter extraordinaire, was on the guest list. But Moira had met the Queen several times, and had other plans for the weekend. 

Which was why I, Nicole Parton, a simple-minded columnist with a turkey in my future, told my spouse to stuff it before I ran off to meet royalty, close-up and poi-son-nal.

When the phone rang Sunday morning, a male voice asked: “Mrs. Parsons? I’m hmmmfff-hmmmfff (no recollection, but definitely not the Queen) of the Royal Tour office. Would you care to attend a reception with Her Majesty tomorrow?” 

Rather than splutter something stupid and jump up and down because my name is and was not Mrs. Parsons, I reminded myself this kind of telephone call does not come everyday.

It took all of 30 seconds for panic to set in. A hat! I don’t have a hat! The  Queen won’t notice, said my spouse. Gloves! I can’t eat sandwiches wearing gloves! Take them off, he said. 

Clothes! I’d worn my only decent jacket a hundred times before. The Queen has never seen it, he said.

Monday, on the morning of the reception, I collected my invitation: I still have it. With its gold-embossed royal insignia, it’s the size of a cedar shake and almost as heavy.

The events calendar in the lobby of the hotel recorded a fictitious meeting in the room intended for the royal reception. 

The day I met the Queen, Lady-in-Waiting Susan Hussey taught me how to curtsy - something I immediately forgot to do as I staggered, probably drooling, toward Her Majesty. Not that I really noticed, but the Queen wore a large uncut sapphire encircled by diamonds and tipped with an inch-long tear-shaped pearl. And clothes. I have no idea what, but she definitely did wear clothes.

Protocol allows me to report that the Queen sipped red Dubonnet with a slice of lemon; that her diamond-dotted pearl earrings were the size of marbles; that her then-brown hair (mostly hidden under a hat with an upturned brim) was graying at the temples; that her eyes were deep azure and truly lovely; that her teeth were perfectly white and even; that her skin was creamy and devoid of any makeup save a touch of rouge and powder; and that I saw her eat nothing - not even the mocha petits fours to which I formed a strong attachment.

Protocol does not allow me to repeat our two-minute conversation. Pity. Those behind me in the queue were already rehearsing their curtsies; it was time I shuffled off.

Meeting the Queen was like encountering Santa, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy all at once - magical.

And Philip? He was okay, I guess. 

© Nicole Parton, 2019

Future, Tense

What’s on my mind? Progress.

“And then I go ’n’ spoil it all by sayin’ somethin’ stupid like I love you …” Catchy song! Frank Sinatra. Release date, 1967. Fifty-two years ago. 

Somethin’ Stupid has been re-recorded many times, by many artists. As far as I know, the original Sinatra version is the only one the radio station in our village plays.

I’m stretching the truth. Our “village” designated itself a town 41 years after its village incorporation. Even some town councillors still call it a “village.” One of the highway signposts to this place says the same thing. It’s been estimated that 50 years from now, our population could hit 12,000. Now that’s progress! 

Yesterday is tucked away in our museum. So will today be, tomorrow.

Despite the new townhouses and the large new retirement home under construction, I’ll always consider this place a village. The streets have no parking meters. There’s just one traffic light uptown. There’s another, I think, three blocks away, at the far end of town. I’ve never seen a reason for that second light. Maybe it was installed to assuage the fears of jittery tourists unaccustomed to quiet streets.

I don’t like that big machines with big teeth have started chewing up the forest and displacing the wildlife that makes this place special, but I don’t like many “progressive” things - something that qualifies me as a full-fledged fuddy-duddy. The very use of the word cements the label. Guilty as charged.

Progress! Where does anyone start? Hooped skirts? Home computers? Microwave ovens in home kitchens? Or, depending on your age, GMO foods? AI? AGW? 

At what point did “progress” become a dirty word? Combine harvesting? Robotic assembly lines? Self-serve checkouts? Why are “progressive” Democrats demonized? Isn’t the thrust and parry of different views what democracy’s all about? Isn’t polite but otherwise unfettered discussion a healthy thing?

Progress is generally good - but here’s the point. It’s my impression that societies have become less “civil” over time. In fact, they’re deeply fractured. The equality of “creeds” now includes spreading openly dangerous beliefs by mass emails, texts, bots, trolls, tweets, fake news, social media, and “dog whistles” that say one thing and mean another.

I love our little village. Almost everyone is friendly. Almost everyone looks out for everyone else. The town is shuttered by 8 o’clock, when the very old and the very young snuggle into their beds. 

Is the future always better than the past? I don’t think so. It’s not a good thing when a troubled present considers the past disposable. 

When that happens, Holocaust deniers proliferate; kids die and anti-vaxxers prevail; civil societies stand on the brink of civil war; the intensity of dog whistles increases; and unstable Presidents swagger onto the world stage. Dangerous times. 

© Nicole Parton, 2019

The Big O

What’s on my mind? The word “Original,” cap O. Sometimes, the entire word is capitalized, as though it were doubly true. Listen up! The statement is often false. 

I’m talking prepackaged foods, where this bit of “puffery” seems to be common and accepted. A lie is a lie is a lie. Frequent repetition doesn’t make a lie true.

Like Kraft Dinner, which really should be called “Crafty Dinner.” It takes a lot of chutzpah to label this stuff  “Original.” The package design isn’t original. And nor is the taste.  

There were no microwave ovens when Kraft Dinner really was “original.” Using smaller macaroni than Kraft did years ago means quicker cooking, blah-blah-blah. I don’t care how fast it cooks. It shouldn’t be called “original” unless it really is. Nor are the trendy (but wise) directions to add non-hydrogenated margarine and skim milk “original.”

It’s the flavor that bothers me most. Trust me, I remember how the “original” of 40 years ago tasted, and this ain’t it. There may well have been an earlier “original” of this “original.” If so, I wasn’t around in those horse-and-buggy days.

While I’m shadow-boxing with Kraft (today, called Kraft-Heinz, with sales of something like $26 billion) allow me to touch on the company’s individually wrapped cheese slices. It wasn’t too long ago that consumers who bought this product had a choice of thick or thin slices. 

I must admit, the thicker slices tasted like cardboard. They also didn’t melt well in a grilled cheese sandwich, or on a barbecued burger - which may be why Kraft later produced one thickness, somewhere in the middle between thick and thin. 

If my recollection is correct, Kraft soon made those slices thinner, and over time, thinner still. Himself recently made me a grilled cheese sandwich; he had to use three slices. If things keep going this way, consumers may end up with an  empty package of plastic permeated with the “original” scent of cheese.

And Wagon Wheels! Having read the description on the box that these were “original,” fond memories kicked in. You remember Wagon Wheels - surely you do! Everyone does. Foolishly succumbing to the promise that these were “original,” I bought a package. 

The box also read: “Made Better.” Better than what? The Wagon Wheels I bought 30 years ago were sensational! I don’t mean to whine about the “good old days” - that’s tedious and boring. But trust me, if you’re younger than 40, you don’t know what you’re missing. What you’re consuming today is dreck.

What a disappointment ... The “Made Better”reference must have been to the box - certainly not to its contents - because these Wagon Wheels weren’t even close to the “original.” The  taste has changed for the worse. Half the size of the “original” Wagon Wheels, there isn’t even the familiar blob of red jelly at the centre. Cost-cutting, I suppose.

The marshmallow filling used to be delicious. No longer. The  decadent chocolate coating has been replaced by a “chocolatey coating.” Want to know what’s in today’s Wagon Wheels? Let’s start with that “chocolatey coating”:

Sugar, hydrogenated modified palm kernel oil; oil, cocoa, salt, sorbitan tristearate, soya lecithin, artificial flavor. And the rest of it? Wheat flour, glucose-fructose, sugar, modified palm oil, canola oil, whey powder, corn starch, fancy molasses, salt, gelatine, glycerine, baking soda, natural and artificial flavour, ammonium bicarbonate, potassium sorbate, soya lecithin, mono-calcium phosphate.

As everyone knows, food additives serve a useful purpose,  extending a product’s life, preventing spoilage, and maintaining a food’s texture and color. All of that reduces the manufacturer’s costs and (in theory) saves consumers money.  

The best-before date on the Wagon Wheels I bought extended more than six months into the future. The trade-off? A longer shelf life = more additives = inferior taste. As in over-sweetened “chocolatey” (not chocolate, but “chocolatey”) hockey pucks. 

The Big O is the Big Lie among food manufacturers. The term “original” is now so widespread that I suspect its use produces a known uptick in sales.

While many prepackaged foods are convenient, tasty, and nutritious, I’m sad to say many others are over-priced crappola. Manufacturers boldly dodge truth-in-advertising and get away with it. Perhaps the rationale is that each of us is also an “original” - even though we look nothing like we did when we were five years old. 

© Nicole Parton, 2019

Naughty Li’l Hagar

What’s on my mind? Stories. Silly, made-up stories scribbled down for fun as I wrestle with the difficult and necessary job of penning the synopsis for a book completed two months ago. 

A synopsis summarizes the what, when, where, who, and how that make a book better - or worse. A synopsis forces a writer to add, chuck, or change words previously added, chucked, or changed in edit #143.

As much as I dislike writing synopses, they’re a valuable tool, showing where a writer’s gone wrong with the ordering or size of chapters; showing where a book drags, showing where the timing of events might be illogical, and showing where characters’ voices don’t ring true. Better for a writer to find those mistakes than for a literary agent to find them! But enough of that.

I’ve been playing in the sandbox, avoiding that long synopsis by noodling away, having fun. Bad Nicole! Bad, bad, bad! 

Can you envision an ending for this silly little piece? I can’t, but it’s still been fun to write: 

“There was a lotta ’citement roun’ here las’ month. When me ’n’ the guys rode the bus ta work t’other night, we saw ol’ Hagar inside the town limits, chewin’ on a steak. I toll’ ya ’bout Hagar before … The grizzly what lives near th’ A55 loggin’ road 10 minnits outsida town? Ya prolly remember the time he chewed off haffa Bill Dunderhofer’s scalp.

“Sally-Mae usta sneak Hagar the bacon fat left on Bill’s breakfast plate … She shoud-da known gooder. Bein’ the thrifty type, Bill usta rub a little bacon fat what was left in th’ skillet on ’is hair. Gave it kinda nice sheen, ya know? Hagar musta got confused because one mornin’ he came af-ta Bill like a house-a fire. Thet’s what the cor’ner said, anyways.

“Sally-Mae was real sorry, but th’ damage was dun ’n’ there wasn’ nuthin’ goan bring Bill back. ’s a good thin’ she took up with thet Charlie fella down-aways by th’ junction, ’cause nobuddy else would talk t’er, after she done gone fed Hagar like ’e was-er pet.

“Ever-buddy says we gots keep Hagar down by th’ A55, but grizzlies don’ read no signs or nuthin’ so there’s prolly no keepin’ ’im there.

“When me ’n’ the guys was on thet bus, we wonnered what the heck Hagar was doin’ in town this time, ’n’ where in blazes ’e wudda gots a steak? It was purdy dark, so we din’ notice ri-da-way thet the steak was wearin’ a blue plaid sleeve. Dave Morris din’t come ta work, thet night, or any night since. Ya know how he usta wear thet ol’ blue plaid shirt? Say no more, say no more …

“I jes’ hafta wonner what thet li’l rascal Hagar will do nexx, specially now thet Sally-Mae ain’ feedin’ ’im no more …” 

© Nicole Parton, 2019

That Day We Rode the Bus

What’s on my mind? 

I knew something was wrong with Mutti, my Austrian grandmother, when my mother took six-year-old me on the bus to Mutti’s apartment. My mother did that so she could evaluate how Mutti was doing, all things considered. Mutti had always been there when we came to visit, but not that day, which felt strange.

Nor was Papa there, but I already knew I would never see him again. I was too young to understand the depths of grief, and how swiftly grief can turn to anger and self-destruction.

Before that day we rode the bus, I remember how my mother answered the phone, listening for a few seconds before falling to her knees screaming “No-o-o-o-o-o-o!” 

This I observed almost clinically, having never seen such a thing before. 

My mother later told me my grandfather was dead. His heart, she said. To me, he’d simply vanished - Papa, who each time I saw him wore a pale silk tie with a pearl stick pin. Papa, who each time also wore a finely tailored suit the milky color of moths. Papa, who played the violin with such exquisite, sweet sadness that Massenet’s Meditation would forever be stamped on my soul. Papa, in the lakes of whose eyes memories swam and overflowed. 

I will never forget Papa, or how, that day we rode the bus, my mother raged as she tore through Mutti’s kitchen of rusted spice tins and moldy bread. 

Mutti moved - more precisely, was moved - to a small apartment near the ocean, where she could walk in the sun and calm herself. My uncles hired a woman named Mrs. Balzar to live with her. How long this arrangement lasted, I’m not sure, but Mrs. Balzar departed in a storm of shouting after Mutti’s mood did not lift, to put it mildly. 

From there, Mutti took her place in a retirement home, the days of sequinned dresses long forgotten.

  

That day we rode the bus, the day six-year-old me visited Mutti’s apartment when Mutti wasn’t there, I remember opening forbidden closets as my mother’s fury grew in the kitchen. It must have been hard for her - remembering what was then, seeing what was now.

Mutti had been an opera singer in Vienna; Papa was a classical violinist. But Papa had also built a thriving import business in Eastern Europe, under his surname. The family moved from Vienna to Budapest to Prague. I knew only that; nothing more. 

After the family escaped Hitler’s Europe, Papa built another successful import business, but under an anglicized version of his name. I didn’t know anything about the War in those days; no one in my family ever mentioned it.

Mutti and Papa’s apartment was a place of wonderment. Mutti’s closet was the perfumed repository of many fine furs and many fine clothes I had never seen before. A blue-sequinned evening dress hung in that closet - perhaps a reminder of her former life in Europe. The blue-sequinned dress winked at me. I winked back.

I wanted that dress for my very own - at least, a piece of it. From Mutti’s sewing basket, I took the large, sharp shears with which she cut fabric pinned to paper patterns. I sliced a wide swath of fabric from the bottom of that dress.  

I remember my moment of terror as rows of electric blue sequins spilled from the dress like rivers of tears. And then I quietly closed the closet door and returned the shears to the basket. Understanding plausible deniability from an early age, I planned to blame my mother for cutting the dress, if anyone asked.  

I’ve never forgotten the over-brimming lakes of Papa’s watery eyes, or the day my mother fell to her knees, or that day we rode the bus to Mutti’s apartment, or the rusted tins of spices, or the trickle of sequins to the floor.

Some 20 years ago, I was deeply moved to visit the former Nazi concentration camp of Dachau, which is now a museum. In recent years, I’ve visited Prague, where I was somehow compelled to find the old Jewish cemetery. As I read the long list of Prague citizens who died in the Holocaust, I came across Papa’s surname - a name not uncommon, but also not widely known. 

Working backward to that time, I realized with sudden shock the man with Papa’s name may well have been a nephew or another close family member. I remember crying and crying for a man I didn’t know and had never heard of. 

And that is why, whenever I hear Meditation, my tears trickle down like the sequins of an evening dress, that day we rode the bus.

© Nicole Parton 2019

Gucci-Gucci-Goo

What’s on my mind? The logo of the double Gs. So, gee ...

I’m not out to “get” Gucci. With this little blog? How could I? More to the point, why would I? 

Gucci is a long-established, highly regarded name in the fashion industry. For those to whom “brands” are important, Gucci is one of the most recognizable and sought after. 

So this isn’t an attack on Gucci. But nor am I interested in promoting them or any other brand name. Gucci doesn’t need me to keep the money-tap flowing. Gucci isn’t doing anything its competitors aren’t. My observations apply to many Big Fashion names, with Gucci but one example.

Mostly, I’m curious. What I have are some questions. So ... Hello, Gucci!

Courtesy Vanity Fair magazine’s February, 2019 issue, here’s one of your summer sandal designs for “hiking” - at $1250 US. Question: Where can anyone hike in these shoes? 

Always keen to stay in fashion, I’m penning this in my 25-year-old bathrobe (and yes, it’s late-morning, and no, it’s none of your beeswax). 

I found this Gucci dress in the same magazine. I’d look like a bumblebee in that dress, but yellow’s not my color. Question: How much? Can’t find the cost anywhere, but you know the old adage: If you have to ask the price, you can’t afford it.

And this, described as “cruise wear” on your website. Question: Why? That woman looks like an idiot in this getup.

  
Curiosity drove me to the Internet, to search out more sandals of the Gucci persuasion. They didn’t persuade me. There were many: $1475 US ... $1050 US ... There were also many sneakers: $1050 US ... $1035 ... $1875 ... $1165 ... Question: How do your designers sleep at night? And why do so many of the models in your ads look wasted - like they don’t sleep at night, perhaps having to wear outfits like this.

In 2013, Gucci founded Chime for Change, a “global campaign to raise funds and awareness for girls’ and women’s empowerment.” I already feel empowered. I wouldn’t waste a dime on any of this stuff.

© Nicole Parton 2019

The Great Maple Syrup Swapperoo

What’s on my mind? Icky sticky licky maple syrup.

I once had exotic dreams that Himself and I might visit Quebec or New England to participate in the maple syrup harvest. Wearing the mandatory black-and-red plaid shirts as befits the occasion, we wouldn’t care that we looked more like saps than what oozed from the trees. 

Huddled around camp fires between the maples, we’d sing French songs about coureurs de bois, slapping spoons against our thighs to make lively, toe-tapping music before drifting to sleep with the sap and our noses plugged.

Himself is a maple syrup aficionado. I’m content with Aunt Jemima. Himself loves the stuff Costco peddles as Grade A maple syrup. I don’t doubt that it is, but to me, it tastes cheap and thin. I prefer the darker, thicker Grade B maple syrup, which I find richer than Grade A. 

No marriage is perfect, so we’ve agreed to disagree. Which is how we come to The Great Maple Syrup Swapperoo.

Believing Himself couldn’t tell the difference between maple syrup and Aunt Jemima, I began diluting the real stuff with the imitation, always asking: “How’s the maple syrup?” 

“Great!” he said. So I diluted it further. Once again, he said: “Great!”

Things got to the point where I couldn’t stand it any longer. “Ha-ha, fooled you!” I said. He wasn’t happy. Can’t say I blame him. He immediately complained about the fake stuff, saying he’d known all along something wasn’t right. 

The last time I made pancakes, I served them with pure maple syrup. “How’s the syrup?” I asked, pretending to smirk. “Fake,” Himself said.  When I told him it was the real thing, he was even more unhappy that I’d fooled him again. 

I’ve concluded it’s the very idea of maple syrup and its romantic production that Himself and so many other people love.

Maple syrup festivals have even sprung up on the West Coast island I call home. Can you imagine? Here? Maple syrup is being tapped in backwoods places considered the salt of the earth. Who cares if salt and maple syrup production don’t always go together? It’s happening and it’s happening here! 

I know so little about maple syrup that I didn’t even know what kind of tree was tapped for its syrup. Wow! Maples? Who knew? Excited to join the romance of the harvest, I read that: “Most maples will give sap if tapped during the right season and the right weather conditions.” 

This is the right season. These are the right weather conditions. It’s snowing like a house on fire! (Let’s just kick that unfortunate cliché aside.)

I can see it now! Taps in the trees ... the drip and flow! Here it comes, gurgling out … All the Aunt Jemima I could possibly want, and all the maple syrup for Himself!  Compromise is the foundation of any happy marriage. Note to self: Buy plaid shirt.

© Nicole Parton 2019

No Nudes is Good News

What’s on my mind? The day my skirt fell down on the highly polished floor of the circular rotunda of a large, well-known hotel, I didn’t know this would happen and didn’t know it had. Standing smack in the center of that rotunda, that terrazzo floor’s brilliance was all I could see. But anyone standing near me who stared into its reflective sheen could easily have seen London and France. 

Oblivious to the state of my skirt, I was probably thinking deep thoughts at the time: Does anyone still read Archie comics? Are doves really pigeons in disguise? Do dreams actually come true “when youuu wish upon a starrr ... Makes no diff’rence whooo you arrre …” 

Really? When I was single, I wished on many stars and threw many coins into many wells, and didn’t ever have one wish granted. But the day my skirt fell down, men came running from all directions. I had no idea attracting a man’s attention could be so simple.

I loved that skirt. Even though it was too big around the waist, I wore it hitched up and belt-cinched. So impressed was I of this shiny floor that I failed to notice the leather belt securing my skirt had slipped a notch - maybe three.

No nudes is good nudes. I was wearing underpants and pantyhose under my skirt. Now on full display, my pantyhose trapped my privates like the casings of a sausage. I was vaguely aware that everyone - even Joe Namath - had tossed out their pantyhose, but was very glad I had not. Tight as they were, my pantyhose hid my underpants. Stepping out of my skirt, I grabbed it and ran the 40-yard dash to the elevator.

My plan was to take refuge, slip my skirt back on, and yank that stupid belt until my (facial) cheeks turned from their present scarlet to can’t-breathe-blue. I’d swagger out of that elevator looking like a million bucks, with no one the wiser.

Except that ... Between me and the elevator was a formidable wall of bellboys and security people and shocked guests and a passel of snot-nosed kids pointing to my near-naked butt, all of them blocking my way: 

“Any luggage today, Madam?”

“Come ’ere you! We need to have a little talk …”

“Get her away from me, Harold, get her away!”

“Mom-meeee! Is that lady going swim-ming? Why isn’t she wearing …?”

I finally reached the elevator. Either it was lolly-gagging somewhere around the 108th floor (with probably 60 scheduled stops along the way), or it had permanently broken down. Regardless, it wasn’t in the lobby.

This happened as my then-spouse completed our check-out. He wasn’t the excitable type, so when he turned from the reception desk to find me skirtless in the rotunda, all he said (as though it happened everyday) was: “Your skirt is puddled around your ankles.” 

I remember his flat, even words precisely. He’d already asked the valet to fetch the car. Calm as ever, he suggested I get in. 

© Nicole Parton 2019