Memory Lane

This morning as I was waiting for the movers to arrive, I decided to further thin out my collection of receipts and bank slips from the past two years which, in a fit of packing, made their way to Brazil last fall. Although this is a task that truly needed to be accomplished, I felt quite a bit of saudade as I individually verified and then ripped up credit card slips [there is quite a bit of identity fraud here, so ripping up receipts isn’t just me being paranoid] and restaurant bills. Names of restaurants, stores, bars, and even hotels, coupled with their dates, brought back all kinds of memorable occasions spent in the company of friends, and I began to wonder whether it wouldn’t be more fun to keep the receipts in order to haul them out every so often, look them over, and reminisce about days gone by. Some of the best receipts that I came across were:

→ Two receipts from the B&B in Ithaca, New York where Claire, Ysa and I stayed in 2003. The reason there are two receipts is because between the three of us, we could not decide how long to stay in Ithaca. It was labour day weekend, and respectively we wanted to stay two, three and one night. Finally we settled for somewhere in the middle. On Sunday afternoon, all packed up and on our way out of town, we still couldn’t decide whether or not to stay another night. Finally Ysa pulled over, we flipped a coin, and headed back to the B&B for another night! Needless to say, the owner was a little bit surprised to see us back an hour after leaving.

→ A receipt from Forillon National Park in Gaspésie from when Etienne and Florence were visiting from France and we drove 2999 kilometres in eight days [Canadians do things like that!] around the Saquenay and Gaspé Peninsula. Very memorable!

→ A receipt from Luxe, a newish restaurant in Ottawa’s Byward Market. Although the dinner from this particular receipt was rather memorable (Claire’s birthday, I believe, when I unsuccessfully tried to influence the waitstaff into giving us free dessert), it also reminded me of another funny meal which revolved around Luxe. Nell, Ysa and I were in a bumming-around kind of mood and decided to go to Licks, a hamburger joint in Ottawa South, for lunch before heading shopping at the South Keys. Nell and I arrived at Licks and waited and waited and waited. No Ysa. We called the Roots Outlet in South Keys, which is where we were to head after lunch, to see if Ysa was there. No Ysa. We strained our eyes to see if we would see her car drive by. Still no Ysa. We left a message on her home phone saying that we were at Licks, while she left messages on our home phones saying that she as well was at Licks. What could it be? There is only one Licks in town. Confused, but resting assured that Ysa was okay, Nell and I finally agreed that we had to eat and get on with the day. Later that night, I finally managed to get in touch with Ysa, who wondered where the heck the two of us were while she waited and waited and waited for us at Luxe! Oh, the subtleties of Canadian accents! [Yes, the reasons behind cell phones did become clear to us this day.]

→ Lots (!) of receipts from Café Indochine [poor them, no website], a great little Vietnamese restaurant in the Market. ‘Nuff said. Good times have been had with all at Indochine.

→ Many [not sure I should say lots] of receipts from the LCBO [the only place one can buy wine, spirits, or imported beers in the repressive Republic of Ontario].

→ Receipts from MTL, Siam Bistro, The Black Tomato, the Empire Grill, and the Black Cat Café, all of which brought back fond memories.

Is it any wonder that i) I found it difficult to remove these receipts from my life; and ii) it takes me so long to clean my house! What an way to revisit a random picking of events!