My Back Yard

Iggy, honey, this diving pig website is for you!

“Fifteen Craft Exercises for Writers” can provide you with a prompt for writing, if you’re feeling uninspired.

It’s one of the resources available at PoeWar.com Writer’s Resource Center.

Skirt Magazine publishes eight to 14 essays on women’s topics every month.

Here’s a list of their monthly themes for 2006 and their writer’s guidelines.

Would any of my writing buddies care to start a friendly competition to get published in Skirt?

Steve, this includes you. They don’t exclude male authors. How about an essay from a sensitive male?

FC, maybe Skirt’s June issue, for which muses are mentioned as a potential topic, would be a good target for your Tabitha essay. Or December because of soulmate reference?

PTC and DA, you may already have something in inventory that’s appropriate for this market. Think about it!

I ate at the forbidden restaurant on Friday.

When I pulled open the heavy outside door, a deep purple, velvety curtain confronted me. I pulled it aside and peeked in.

Directly in front of me stood a table with glasses stacked high. Behind it, a framed poster for a Fernet-Branca digestif dominated a wall. “The King of Bitters” it said.

I scanned the room. The floor covered with small white tiles led to to leather banquettes and small wooden tables and chairs, with mirrors rising behind the shoulders of seated patrons. I imagined Ingrid Bergman dining with Humphrey Bogart in wartime Paris, as in Casablanca.

“Bonjour.” The waitress’ greeting broke my reverie. She seated me in what was formerly the front window of a shop, smoothing over the white tablecloth a sheet of white paper with a name, L’Entrecote Saint-Jean.

The name explained why this restaurant was forbidden to me, at least in the company of Iggy, my husband. Entrecote is a cut of steak. Iggy is a vegetarian. It’s not that he won’t enter any restaurant serving animal flesh. But L’Entrecote serves only steak.

Iggy couldn’t have sneaked by with a hearty salad. Patrons either order a salad with walnuts followed by a steak and frites or the same set menu preceded by tomato soup or juice and followed by chocolate profiteroles puff pastry. I imagine this keeps the restaurant’s costs low. I was eating at 2 p.m., so I couldn’t judge whether the limited menu cramped their traffic.

I ordered my guilty pleasure.

The salad arrived as stripped down as the menu. Broad lettuce leaves the color of endive tips rested under a sprinkling of walnutes and a lightly oily vinaigrette. I ate it slowly, savoring each bite.

Next came the piece de resistance. A long, thin steak bathed in pale brown gravy shared the plate with a heap of matchstick fries.

I’m always nervous before I cut into a steak. Not because I’m afraid of offending Iggy, but because even 30 seconds of overcooking ruin it for me.

I pulled my knife across the steak to reveal a pink center. Promising. Skewering the morsel with my fork, I delivered it to my mouth. Into the hangar. Chomp, chomp. Mmm…

This morning I saw a chickadee fluttering at the suet feeder.

Yippee!

St. Louis Square is known as a charming residential Montreal neighborhood by some.

I’ll remember it fondly for its scrappy squirrels. They don’t hesitate to dive into a flock of pigeons when squirrelly treats are available. Iggy and I lured some with pumpkin seeds, which they quickly dissected, extracting the “meat” from inside the white “wrapper.”

The squirrels came close to us, but, upon scoring a seed, they’d turn away, to eat in privacy. Do they think that if they turn their backs, other squirrels won’t see — and challenge them for — their booty?

You can eat very well in Montreal.

Today’s highlight was Chokolantara, a chocolaterie artisanale, or artisan chocolate maker in Montreal’s Plateau district at 263 Mont-Royale Avenue (514-289-1790). The window lured us from across the street with its promise of chocolate drinks.

It was no ordinary chocolate milk that landed on our table in the small shop. In a cafe au lait sized cup two wooden coffee stirrers stuck out of steam milk streaked with brown. When I lifted the stirrers, the origins of the streaks became clear. Attached to each stick was a ball of dark chocolate slowly melting. A taste treat to be savored. Only C$2.25 a cup.

Other stops today:
*Schwartz’s for smoked meat — eight to 12 briskets sat in the window, as if lying where they’d fallen
*Le Reservoir for their locally brewed beer
* My cousin Anita’s for Montreal bagels, which are way too soft to be considered bagels by the standards of the northeastern U.S.

Coronation coach

The diameter of the rear wheels of the Romanov coronation coach are almost as tall as me. They’re about five feet across, painted deep red with elaborate carving and gilding.

The coach was the first item in a special exhibit about Catherine the Great (1729-1796), illustrated with items from the Hermitage. It was built on the orders of Peter the Great and used by several rulers, including Catherine the Great. Apparently she hated the baroque style with lots of carved, gilded details: cherubs, curlicues, scrolls, people, lions, flowers, crown.

However, as I learned later in the exhibit, Catherine was big on using imagery to support the legitimacy of her rule, so it figures that she’d use this coach built on the orders of the Peter the Great, whom she strove to emulate.

The coach, displayed on its doors the coat of arms of the Romanovs, including the double-headed black eagle. A regal red was the second most common color on the coach, following gold. It was the color of the upholstery and drapes.

From Sophie to Ekaterina

Catherine was born a minor German princess named Sophie. She took a Russian name, Ekaterina, after she went to Russia at age 14 to marry Prince Peter.

In her memoirs, she wrote, “I would have loved my new husband if oly he had wanted or been able to be lovable; but even on the first days of my marriage, I had a cruel thought about him. I said to myself, ‘If you love that man, you’ll be the unhappiest creature on earth; your character needs you to be loved in return; this man hardly looks at you, he talks about practically nothing but dolls, and he pays more attention to other woman than you; you’re too proud to make a fuss, so keep a tight rein on any tenderness you show this man; think of yourself, madam!’ This first impression on my waxen heart remained with me, and this thought has never left my head.”

This quote makes her sound tough. But she had the benefit of hindsight in writing her memoirs. I wonder how she felt in the early days of her marriage.

An active love life

When she and Peter hadn’t produced an heir after eight years of marriage, her mother-in-law encouraged her to take a lover. A son followed.

Apparently Catherine had an active, if illicit, love life. A gentleman with the last name of Potemkin was a great love and adviser to her. They’re reputed to have married secretly. That, of course, was after the death of Peter, her royal husband.

The Reign of Catherine, 1762-1796

There was apparently a risk of Catherine being repudiated by her husband after he took the throne, so he could install his mistress as his Tzarina. A bloodless coup d’etat took place with the aid of the militarily prominent Orlov brothers. Peter died a suspicious death.

Catherine was viewed in Europe as a tsar-killer. That’s one of the reasons she went to such pains to have symbols of her rule and legitimacy in her portraits. One of her first portraits in the exhibit shows her holding a scepter pointing at a bust of Peter the Great with “to continue what was begun” written overhead, asserting her role continuing her predecessor’s legacy.

That Catherine was quite a gal. Everything seemed to have an ulterior motive.

Many people would look out my back door and see an empty yard.

I see a squirrel playground.

The gymnastics apparatus starts with the metal stair railings leading down to the concrete patio installed some 20 years ago by the landscaper who owned our house back then. My squirrels aren’t fazed by the wiggle in the railing. That’s nothing compared to the undulations of the skinny outermost branches of our maple tree.

On the far side of the patio lies the squirrel bungee, dangling an ear of corn from a shepherd’s hook. To its right is what looks like a hedge to humans. But to squirrels it offers a series of corridors protected from predators. They scurry back and forth. Not only at ground level, but also jumping from branch to branch in a stealthy approach to the squngee.

When I look outside in the morning, there’s plenty of squirrelly activity. There’s one sniffing, her nose to patio cement, hunting for food. She runs up the heavily sanded stairs — Iggy is paranoid that he or I might slip and fall on ice — leaping onto the railing, then down to the kiddie table/squirrel snack bar next to the stairs. A tray of sunflower seeds hides under its cover.

Tnrough my online book club, I’m reading the beginning of Sue Miller’s The Story of My Father.

It’s a beautifully written story of her father’s experience with Alzheimer’s.