Carly in Canada

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Before I start writing anything about the hedonistic splurge that was my birthday, I have to announce that tonight, I SAW A RACCOON!!!

I was on my way home after a mad dash to the bank to collect our new credit cards and a whiz round Metro to stock up on cereal and noodles when I saw a large, lumpy looking creature trundle intently across my path and over the road.  It was dark so I didn’t get to see its jailbird face mask but it did immediately remind me of one of the Rodents of Unusual Size from The Princess Bride.

This has obviously been the highlight of my working week, closely followed by the excitement of moving out of my strange pink partitioned bubble box and into an open-plan unit next to the printer.

Topping both these events however, was the bacchanalian extravaganza we indulged in on Saturday night in celebration of our birthdays (mine was on Sunday, JM’s is today).  We took our festivities to the sister restaurant of our regular haunt The Auld Spot.  We have visited the Danforth branch on many occasions but decided to try out the College arm as, technically, it’s a bit closer.

We were joined by our favourite Torontonian Cousin David who swept in looking ridiculously dapper in a leather-elbowed cardigan and slicked back Tom Cruise hair.

As it was a celebration we started off with a dozen oysters and a bottle of bubbles.   The owner, Nate, who we recognised from the Danforth venue, happened to be passing through and suggested we try pouring out the ‘liquor’ from the crustaceans and topping up the shells with champagne.  This recommendation proved such a hit with Cousin David that we ordered and devoured yet more oysters, all well oiled with generous amounts of fizz.

JM got his usual superior steak and chips, I had salad and Cousin David did the brave thing and ordered the bison sausage special which was accompanied by lots of other exotic-sounding ingredients that I can’t now remember.  Somehow we managed to drink our way through another two bottles of red wine and, according to JM, a second pitcher of beer; and at some point the lovely Nate produced a cake topped with a candle.

I admit a certain haziness has descended upon my memory of much of the evening’s activity and conversation, but I know for sure it was a fantastic night and that I woke up with an extremely sore head. I also know that I am, unquestionably, another year older.  I actually had to say my new age out loud today when I called the bank to activate my new card.

On Saturday morning JM and I are off to Chicago and then New Orleans for a holiday.  If I don’t manage to write again before we return next Sunday, it’s because we’re imbibing oysters in the French Quarter.
 
 
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If you keep heading north on Bathurst, you’ll eventually arrive at Earl Bales Park where you can ski right in the middle of the city.  Winter sports have never appealed to me.  I had a few lessons on a dry slope when I was little; all I really remember loving my pink and purple all-in-one ski-suit, how scared I was going downhill and how much it hurt when I fell over.

But soon there may be another reason to go to Earl Bales Park.  A Vermont-based company called ArborTrek Canopy Adventures wants to build a network of ziplines high up in the treetops.  Speaking to The Star, Councillor James Pasternak has expressed interest in the proposal but there are concerns amongst his City colleagues about the environmental impact of increased tourist traffic.

I went zip-trekking in Whistler two summers ago and absolutely loved it.  There is something about flying through the air, hundreds of feet above the ground that, at the time, is really, really funny.  It’s not like being on a roller-coaster where your tummy flips and you feel sick; it just makes you want to giggle.

The first thing slope-inclined non-Canadians always ask when they hear we’ve moved to Canada is, ‘have you been skiing?’  And when I tell people about my dry-sloping past they immediately want to tell me that skiing on snow is completely different and that I shouldn’t be put off by past powderless experience.

I will give skiing another bash one day but I really hope the zip-lining plan takes off.
 
 
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If there’s been a recurring theme to this week – other than the frigid temperatures – it’s that animals behave in odd ways.

On Wednesday CBC As It Happens host Carol Off spoke to graduate student Gillian Moritz about her research into the weird and wonderful aye-aye (it’s about 11 minutes 15 seconds in from the audio link).  A native of Madagascar, the aye-aye is a type of lemur with one unique defining feature.  It has an unusually long and spindly middle finger, which is uses like a woodpecker to tap tree trunks in search of food.

The finger, according to Moritz, is independently mobile of the other digits with a ball and socket joint at the base allowing it to move around in all directions.  When it finds food – larvae, beetles, grubs – the aye-aye uses its finger to dig into crevices and extract its dinner.

Another fascinating discovery about the aye-aye’s unusual tactile member is that it cools down by about 2.3° when not in use.  Moritz thinks it might have something to do with energy efficiency; because the pointer has a large surface to volume ratio it’s not designed for retaining heat, so when not in use it gets deactivated.

Speaking to the BBC, the research team outlined a couple of explanations for how the aye-aye controls the temperature of this single digit.  One idea is that when the finger is not being used, or curled away during locomotion, the blood supply is cut off at the joint, like a bent garden hose; and then when the pointer is extended again, the artery opens up allowing full blood flow to resume and the finger to heat up.

The only other creature with a similar appendage is the striped possum, which has an elongated fourth finger.  I saw my first possum in Australia and they’re pretty cute.  The aye-aye, one the other hand, lies somewhere between kooky and creepy in the looks department.

On As It Happens they used the French expression belle-laide, which could describe something that is not conventionally beautiful but which still has appeal.  Moritz says she finds the animals ‘very attractive’.  Not so in Madagascar, where the aye-aye is considered to be a bad omen, and if you see it pointing it’s long middle finger at you it’s bad luck.

Speaking of strange-looking nocturnal creatures that forage on the dark, JM has seen a raccoon twice now.  Historically, I have a poor record when it comes to spotting urban wildlife.  Whenever I go somewhere renowned for the proliferation of a particular species, where everyone takes it for granted that I will definitely see this ubiquitous creature; I can almost guarantee that I won’t.

So even though, according to a Canadian documentary, there are 150 raccoons per square kilometre in Toronto, I have as yet failed to observe one.  Our landlord warned us that they regularly rifle through the garbage bins and if we were ever throwing out scraps of meat we would have to doubly secure the lids.  Susan Fleming’s film, Raccoon Nation, reveals that the procyonids are resourceful and adept safe-crackers.

Their paws are equipped with receptors that enable them to open containers, doors and latches. But Ms. Fleming also found that raccoons respond to challenges by working harder to solve them. They are creative, determined and actively work at developing their intellect.

This very afternoon we listened to a segment on another CBC show – Definitely Not The Opera – about one Toronto resident’s conflicted relationship with the neighbourhood pests.  Where he lives, in Riverdale, further east from us, the raccoon population is particularly dense.  People either love or hate raccoons and up until recently Michael Jursic fell apologetically into the latter category, frequently rushing out of doors in his underwear to turn a hose on the bin-raiding critters.

But he had a change of heart one day when he came across a coon with its head stuck in a peanut butter jar. Unable to ignore a creature in obvious distress he grabbed the jar and gave it a good few shakes until the raccoon popped out like a champagne cork.  Since then he says a mutual sense of respect has blossomed between him and his black-masked lodgers
 

 
 
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As I write this we’re about half an hour away from episode two of season three of our favourite Canadian TV show Republic of Doyle.  JM and I started to follow the escapades of private investigator Jake Doyle last summer and fell in love with the paintbox-splashed streets of St John’s in the process.

The new series premiered last week featuring super special guest star Russell Crowe as a bad guy/good guy Doyle foil.  Crowe had worked with members of the band Great Big Sea (who perform the show’s theme tune) when he was filming Robin Hood in 2010.  And he first met show creator Allan Hawco on the set of Cinderella Man, which was shot right here in Toronto.

Lots of American movies get shot in Canada and Toronto frequently doubles for New York.  US adaptation of Brit sci-fi drama Being Human is meant to be set in Boston but was actually shot in Montréal.  It focuses on the sort-of half-lives of three flatmates – a werewolf, a vampire and a ghost.

More supernatural creatures feature in ABC’s Once Upon A Time, which was filmed in Vancouver.  I’ve been watching the series on CTV; it’s about a bonds collector called Emma Swan whose ten year old son believes she is the missing daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming.  When the Evil Queen froze fairytale land in an evil curse, baby Emma escaped in a magic tree and now, in the real world of Storybrooke, New England, none of the fairytale characters remember who they are and it is up to Emma to break the spell.

Republic of Doyle has finished now.  Des got hit by a car, but he’s ok and Tinny is ‘back’ from London, England, as Canadians would say.  Here’s Russell Crowe, Allan Hawco and Great Big Sea front man Alan Doyle talking about the show.
 

 
 
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As JM and I gradually continue the process of assimilation into Canadian culture, one positive consequence to emerge from the sacrificial embers of our credit-scorched souls is that I am now finally able to sign up for a Canadian iTunes account.

Ever since I heard about the launch of the BBC’s global iPlayer app and discovered that, because my iTunes account is registered in the UK I am forbidden by the technology gremlins from subscribing to it, I have been engulfed by an overwhelming sense of injustice.

At least I was until this weekend.  Having fiddled around for weeks trying to convince Apple that I now live in Canada and am more than happy to pay $8.99 a month or whatever it is to have access to an archive of superior BBC programming, I finally worked out that the only way I would be able to download the global version of the app was if I created another iTunes account and set my country to Canada.

I thought I’d nailed it until I got to the part where you need to provide credit card details.  My heart sank.  Already knowing the outcome I entered the numbers from my RBC bank card.  Of course, these were rejected.

I know there are other ways to watch UK TV online but I really did want to pay for the pleasure and moral righteousness of convenience.   And now, thanks to the corrupting forces of our new credit card, I can.

Hampered by our unreasonable $1k limit, it’s been a tedious faff trying to book the various components of our forthcoming holiday.  Everything has had to be done in stages and as soon as one task is completed we have to wait, hoping that flights don’t go up and rooms are still available until we are able to pay off what’s there and load up the next round.

This is what occupied us for a good chunk of the weekend.  The rest of the time I was glued to my iPad, swiping and scrolling around the BBC app trying to decide what to watch next.  I fell in love with Trevor Eve all over again in the first two episodes of season one of Waking the Dead and I started to get into Whitechapel.  I got about three quarters of the way through John Sweeney’s Panorama investigation into Scientology and I rediscovered the genius of The League of Gentlemen.

I’m not sure if this was ever screened in Canada but it is absolutely fantastic.  Watch the clip of Tubbs and Edward, proprietors of the ‘local shop, for local people’, dealing with a police officer.

 
 
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