Matching books

 ... our background is a totem pole ...

After Naomi’s orthodontic consultation for a root canal, the thought of which was about as harrowing as actually having the root canal, Mary dropped Naomi and me off in downtown Ottawa with a small city map in our hands, telling us she would pick us up at Chapters after work.

Mary said that she wished the map were more specific.

It had no street names, just blocks laid out and a few line drawn for us on it about when to turn east and when to turn west.

Mary dropped us off at an intersection across from which was a vintage store. What we found there that was slightly interesting was a wicker basket full of earrings, all of which were gold and shaped like a molar. Yes, like a tooth.  We had a slight urge to buy them to wear for the dentist when the root canal really happens.

I was a few steps behind Naomi for part of the day. The ends of her angel-bone length hair have been dyed a scarlet red colour. The laces from her untied shoes trail past her ankles and sometimes bounce off of the ground as she walks. Her $3 purse can certainly be called vintage, having been purchased from a second hand store. By the end of the day I was privy to all that she carried in her bag: a banana in a banana shield, 5 mandarin oranges, her wallet containing a gift certificate for Chapters, some meds, a pencil,  a water bottle and a baggie full of Halloween candy. The browns and golds and auburn colours in her purse matched her orange jacket – not a neon jacket. A jacket that will hide itself in any crowd.

Naomi and I have never spent an afternoon together – alone. We decided to only walk into shops that were interesting to her. So now every fascinating ethnic food store had to be skipped over and we mostly entered gift shops or stores selling ethnic jackets, purses and jewellery. All were too expensive for her.

Drop into the Bank of Canada Museum
after the National Remembrance Day Ceremony
and continue your
day of remembrance.
Join Chief Curator Paul Berry
for a 40-minute guided tour about money in wartime.

We walked along Sparks street, passing the Chateau Laurie.

I saw a store front that was called The Bank of Canada Museum and tried to get her to go into it.

“The history of money doesn’t interest me, Grandmother.”

Well, that was blunt.

Chapters was another thing.

We roamed the store stopping in all of the general categories of books. We lingered in The American Girl boutique, looking at the dolls and accessories there that Rhiannon might like. American Girl now comes with a horse and a stable, with a beauty parlour and ear-piercing salon, or with her own umbrella and beach accessories. There are clothes so that you can wear an outfit that matches the doll you carry. And the doll comes with every hue of skin and hair cut imaginable: maybe 40 of them in one case showing the different options. That was the head shaker part of the shop.

I have no idea why we started looking at day planners. Just about everyone who walks by a planner shakes their head and says, “I am terrible at planning”. Naomi was no exception. So we began to play a game that I often do with any companion: the game of “if I had to select one, which would I choose”. I do that in clothing shops, art galleries, museums,  at jewellery counters and even in book stores. Naomi and I began to look closely at the size and weight of the planners, at the tabbed pages and coiled bindings, at the artwork on the cover pages and at the texture of the pages.

... at the end of Sparks Street ...

Chapters has day timers and binders to die for. 

We were soon moving around the counter that had initially caught our eye and were at the back of it, thumbing through more choices, and then we walked to shelves along the wall, touching the leather journals.

Now that was a mistake.

We finally left to look at other things in the store: matching scarves, mitts and hats that looked like they had come right out of a Charlie Brown special. We lingered longer at the bath and beauty section, reading ingredients on bath salts, skin oils and perfumes. We turned over Gardenia scented hand soaps admiring their packaging. We looked at perfumes bottles that have roller-ball tops. I know we shouldn’t have but we laughed a bit over essential oils and products made from charcoal or the bottom of volcanic seas.

“Are these real dried flowers?” Naomi asked when we were parsing out the ingredients in some bath salts. “It looks like Epsom salts is a common ingredient in all of these,” she noted.

“Let’s get home and look into your mother’s beauty products”, I said to her.

“My mom doesn’t have any beauty products. My dad is allergic to smells.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “You have snakes, frogs and turtles in your house and they have smells.”

“Still, my mom has none of these.”

O.K. I could see that the fragrance counter would not be the place to spend her money.

I wanted to walk back to the front of the store, but three times Naomi went over to look at the leather journals.

Hand-made in Italy.

Leather binding.

The tiny labels on the back cover also had the price – somewhere between $24 and $48, depending on the product.

I just couldn’t see her buying one without me getting one as well.

Now every night as she writes in her leather journal, I write in mine.

Some days are just too glorious.

Arta