A nice night.
Jul. 14th, 2007 12:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lance_sibleyI just got home a few minutes ago from tonight's date with Ambrose. We were going to go to an Italian restaurant up the street called Spacco, but on the way there we passed a 50s-style diner called Mars and Ambrose said he wouldn't mind eating there, so we went there instead. (I'm not that fond of the food in there, and it hasn't improved since the last time I ate there, but the blueberry pie was excellent. As was the company. :) )
Following dinner, we went for another long walk, taking the same route as last time but in reverse. At one point we passed a store that was selling slipcovers, and I said that one particularly garish one reminded me of my acquaintance Rosalie from the bridge club, about whom it's been said, "She's rich enough to own her own colour, but she looks like she dresses in the dark." Don't get me wrong - I like her and her husband, who once offered to see if his company's IT department needed anyone when I was looking for work - but she doesn't believe in wearing something that has only ten colours in it when twenty colours are twice as good.
Well, guess who we bumped into over on Mt. Pleasant? Rosalie and her husband Isadore, just leaving the bridge club. I stopped to say hello, and introduced Ambrose. They asked why I haven't been playing bridge lately, and I said that I was thinking about picking up a copy of Rosalie's recently-published memoirs and bringing it over to the club to get her to sign it. She said, "Make sure you read it first to make sure you like it!" I've glanced through it in the bookstore already, though, and while I'm not a big non-fiction reader, it looks worth reading:
Rifke (Rosalie Wise Sharp) grew up in North Toronto, which felt to her like a foreign place because there were no other Jewish families there in the late 1930s. Yiddish was spoken in her household, and the food, dress, and customs of Ozarow — the Polish shtetl (small Jewish town) from which her parents emigrated — were all maintained.
Rifke’s peers took lessons in tap-dancing, ice-skating, the piano, and the flute; activities that didn’t translate into the Yiddish vocabulary at the Wises, where only hard work, no nonsense, and book-learning were permitted. Rifke secretly decided to pass as a Gentile, joining a bible class and the Christmas choir. She did not bring home friends, in case they were witness to a Jewish ritual like the koshering of meat. Rifke was guilty about her pursuit of Gentile activities during the war time, when her mother was frantic with fear that their family in Poland was being slaughtered by the Nazis.
In high school, Rifke’s life changed when being “a freak” translated to being “eccentric” and “respectable.” It was there that she met and married her soul mate Isadore, who worked in the construction business, much to her parents’ disappointment. Prosperity, took time; however, Isadore’s audacious dream to build a world class hotel chain, The Four Seasons, came to pass. In this memoir, Rosalie Sharp casts a wry and self-deprecating look back on her childhood, with anecdotes about the chance events and comic ironies that make up a life.
Besides, all of the proceeds from the sale of the book are going to charity.
Anyway, if there's still a group from the Polaris concom going to see "Geek-Gasm" at the Fringe Festival on Sunday, Ambrose said he'd be interested in coming along. If not, we'll touch base about getting together next week. Hopefully we won't both be exhausted again after our respective busy weeks at work...
Following dinner, we went for another long walk, taking the same route as last time but in reverse. At one point we passed a store that was selling slipcovers, and I said that one particularly garish one reminded me of my acquaintance Rosalie from the bridge club, about whom it's been said, "She's rich enough to own her own colour, but she looks like she dresses in the dark." Don't get me wrong - I like her and her husband, who once offered to see if his company's IT department needed anyone when I was looking for work - but she doesn't believe in wearing something that has only ten colours in it when twenty colours are twice as good.
Well, guess who we bumped into over on Mt. Pleasant? Rosalie and her husband Isadore, just leaving the bridge club. I stopped to say hello, and introduced Ambrose. They asked why I haven't been playing bridge lately, and I said that I was thinking about picking up a copy of Rosalie's recently-published memoirs and bringing it over to the club to get her to sign it. She said, "Make sure you read it first to make sure you like it!" I've glanced through it in the bookstore already, though, and while I'm not a big non-fiction reader, it looks worth reading:
Rifke (Rosalie Wise Sharp) grew up in North Toronto, which felt to her like a foreign place because there were no other Jewish families there in the late 1930s. Yiddish was spoken in her household, and the food, dress, and customs of Ozarow — the Polish shtetl (small Jewish town) from which her parents emigrated — were all maintained.
Rifke’s peers took lessons in tap-dancing, ice-skating, the piano, and the flute; activities that didn’t translate into the Yiddish vocabulary at the Wises, where only hard work, no nonsense, and book-learning were permitted. Rifke secretly decided to pass as a Gentile, joining a bible class and the Christmas choir. She did not bring home friends, in case they were witness to a Jewish ritual like the koshering of meat. Rifke was guilty about her pursuit of Gentile activities during the war time, when her mother was frantic with fear that their family in Poland was being slaughtered by the Nazis.
In high school, Rifke’s life changed when being “a freak” translated to being “eccentric” and “respectable.” It was there that she met and married her soul mate Isadore, who worked in the construction business, much to her parents’ disappointment. Prosperity, took time; however, Isadore’s audacious dream to build a world class hotel chain, The Four Seasons, came to pass. In this memoir, Rosalie Sharp casts a wry and self-deprecating look back on her childhood, with anecdotes about the chance events and comic ironies that make up a life.
Besides, all of the proceeds from the sale of the book are going to charity.
Anyway, if there's still a group from the Polaris concom going to see "Geek-Gasm" at the Fringe Festival on Sunday, Ambrose said he'd be interested in coming along. If not, we'll touch base about getting together next week. Hopefully we won't both be exhausted again after our respective busy weeks at work...
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no subject
Date: 2007-07-14 04:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-14 04:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-14 04:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-14 07:34 am (UTC)And BTW, the photo on her website is current. I can only hope I look as good when I get to her age.
blueberry pie ...
Date: 2007-07-14 08:19 am (UTC)Re: blueberry pie ...
Date: 2007-07-16 05:18 am (UTC)Oh, he is. And very sweet, too. Just like the blueberry pie. ;)
Actually, the really sexy part was when he offered me a taste of his cherry pie. :) (He doesn't like blueberry, though, so he didn't taste mine. He said he finds it too tart.)
and the name "Ambrose."
It's a very unusual name, and old-fashioned - which seems to fit.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-14 11:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-14 11:08 pm (UTC)