Life Should Taste As Good As Swiss Chalet
Life should taste as good as Swiss Chalet was a slogan for a Canadian TV commercial popular back in the early years of the last decade.
Swiss Chalet is a chain of restaurants in Canada that specialize in making Swiss style rotisserie chicken.
My dad and I loved to eat there.
There was a Swiss Chalet restaurant in Edmonton’s Capilano district which was close to the hamlet of Sherwood Park where my dad and I used to live.
Throughout the 1990s and the early part of the last decade, we used to visit there every Thursday night.
We used to get the rotisserie style quarter chicken and baked potato which also came with Swiss Chalet’s mouthwatering secret recipe gravy not to mention a home made dinner bun.
The taste of the chicken was heavenly, the gravy was out of this world and the Swiss Chalet baked potato always seemed to taste better than most restaurants’ baked potatoes.
Then about 10 years ago, the Canadian Tire store (Canadian Tire is a department store in Canada- it sells more than just tires) which was the anchor of the shopping center where this particular Swiss Chalet was located- it closed. A few months later, this Swiss Chalet which lost most of its customers (save for my dad and me) closed as well.
How my dad and I missed that Swiss Chalet. It had an upper dining area which had a huge photo of the Swiss Alps that covered three walls. That was where my dad and I used to sit and imagine that we were in a Swiss chalet in the Swiss alps eating Swiss style rotisserie chicken.
A Swiss Chalet restaurant did open later in Sherwood Park where my dad and I lived but it was poorly managed and the food wasn’t as good.
One evening back in 2008, my dad and I had to wait an hour and a half to get our meal (Swiss Chalet prided itself on getting its meals out to customers within 15 minutes) and when the meal arrived- it was poorly cooked.
My dad and I never went back.
And most of Edmonton’s other Swiss Chalet restaurants were in the west side of the city- a good hour’s drive from Sherwood Park (the Anthony Henday roundabout hadn’t been built in those days).
Then of course 22 months ago my dad died from cancer.
Today I was in a grocery store in downtown Edmonton and a new sit down Swiss Chalet had opened (before it had been only a take-out place).
So I went there tonight.
The quarter rotisserie chicken, the gravy, the baked potato and the dinner bun were as good as I remember from the meals my dad and I had in the Capilano Swiss Chalet.
So it was like old times again.
And in a certain sense, I seemed to feel my dad’s presence again.
Life should taste as good as Swiss Chalet- that old slogan went.
And when my dad was alive- life did taste as good as Swiss Chalet.
Maybe when my dad’s estate is finally and completely and totally settled and the funds from it are finally dispersed between my sister and me and I move to Vancouver where I now want to live- then again maybe life will taste as good as Swiss Chalet.
A Letter To Jack O’ Hare
This is a letter I’m writing to Jack O’ Hare the wild hare jack rabbit who used to live in my back yard but doesn’t hang out as often since my dad died.
Dear Jack,
I hope all is well. How long have we known each other now? About 4 or 5 years?
I didn’t know jack rabbits lived that long.
But you were the same rabbit.
For what other rabbit in the wintertime would I see his footprints in the snow following me?
You had followed me 4 blocks up to the neighbourhood pub. For I could see your footprints in the snow.
You may have followed me in summer too but I had no way of knowing unless I saw you.
My dad got a kick when he used to look out the window and see you down on the ground.
While he watched you, you were busy watching through the basement window watching me work on my computer.
At first I didn’t believe my dad but then on at least 2 or 3 occasions, I used to look behind me at the basement window and see you there watching me.
You in many ways acted like my guardian angel.
Watching me when I walked to and from the pub.
Watching me as I worked on the computer.
You vanished when my dad got sick with cancer.
And only showed up again on the day my dad died to pay your condolences.
You did the same thing the day of my dad’s funeral.
For the first living creature I saw when I exited the house that day was you.
The past year I would occasionally see you again and always on days that were crucial in the past year.
You showed up the day I received the call my dad’s house had to be sold and I would have to move.
It’s strange how I never did see too many jack rabbits in downtown Edmonton.
Well in fact none at all until the past week.
Then in the space of the past week, I’ve seen 3 different jack rabbits in downtown Edmonton.
Now that I’m moving from the suburbs to the City’s downtown itself, I guess you sent the message to your cousins in the big City to start looking out for me.
Well as you know Jack- things move quickly when they happen.
My godfather and I went to see the Estate lawyer last Thursday.
The lawyer wants me out of the house pronto to begin the process of selling.
Within the space of 24 hours, I found the apartment I wouldn’t mind calling home.
And next Wednesday September 14th 2011, I shall be moving into that apartment.
So I guess this is good-bye, Jack.
Will I ever see you again?
Probably not unless we meet in Heaven?
Do I believe animals go to Heaven?
Well writer and theologian C.S. Lewis believed that.
So if it’s good enough for C. S. Lewis.
It’s good enough for me.
You may not know it, Jack but you developed a base of fans here at Xanga.
All the short stories and poems I wrote about you, they were the most popular among many Xangans.
@Daniella_Aalyiah_Li loved hearing about you.
@RestlessButterfly my good friend Rez loved hearing about you.
And so did her two nieces Arrabella @Arrabella_Lyka and Jessenia @PrincessDiyanaAleeya.
So you had a devoted fan club here at Xanga, Jack.
I hope Jack for your sake that I do become a famous writer.
Because if the world hears about me, then the world will read about you since I’ve written so much about you.
This remarkable rabbit who befriended a human being.
This rabbit who watched the human as he worked at his computer.
This rabbit who followed the human to the pub to ensure his safety in the dregs of winter.
This rabbit who befriended a human being.
And vice versa.
It was a privilege to have known you, Jack.
Good bye my friend.
Should I say with the French au revoir?
Until we meet again?
I think so.
For I’d love to meet you again.
In the meantime we have the words of assurance from that old animated cartoon I saw as a kid An American Tale, “Somewhere out there beneath the pale moonlight, someone’s thinking of you… we’re still underneath the same big sky.”
Your friend,
Christopher
Slow Boats To China?
Those who know me well know that I love old movies from the 1930s and ’40s.
And one of the things I loved about those old movies were the scenes shot on old steam trains and old passenger cruise ships.
In those days, travel was something that was meant to be savoured.
Enjoying the scenery of land and sea at a leisurely pace.
Today travel seems to be standing in line at airports for hours and hours to eventually move through a booth where you’re gawked at and strip searched by beady eyed perverts in uniforms as the leaders of our respective countries turn into Orwellian Big Brothers and neither they nor we seem to notice.
The line of the U.S.S.R. was, “Your papers, please?”.
The line in today’s world, “May I see some ID, please?”.
Nouns may change but the intent remains the same.
At least the U.S.S.R had its Aleksandr Solzhenitsyns.
Where are our Aleksandr Solzhenitsyns?
Why, text messaging of course.
But a work like Gulag Archipelago would be marked and classified as so much spam in a world of quickie thoughts and quickie sex.
The greatest accomplishment of a totalitarian state would be to make the unfree think they’re free.
Freedom is an illusion and I’m loving it- the welcome sign over the Matrix says.
What the Kremlin in Moscow and the Reichschancellery in Berlin failed to accomplish- the globalization of Madison Avenue has made it a fait accompli in 2010.
We have our Nike shoes and our Gucchi bags.
Our cell phones and our ipods.
We are hooked in and interconnected.
We want fame and adoration?
Simple.
We just need to grab Simon Cowell’s attention.
Or kill our neighbour and then post it on YouTube.
The hits and the offers will come flooding in.
The medium IS the message.
We ARE the pieces on the board game of Monopoly.
Soulless.
But unseen masters roll the dice and we move.
And think we’re free.
The only real outbursts of freedom seem to come from Icelandic volcanoes.
And the volcanoes stop our flying through the skies.
And we are grounded with no where to go.
But what happened to the slow-moving steam trains?
What happened to the easy pace passenger ships?
What happened to that old maxim, “We’re going to find our way to heaven is a rough and rocky road if we don’t stop and smell the roses along the way?”.
What happened to that old song, “… taking a slow boat to China”?
I’d like to take a slow boat to China.
Or a slow boat to Malaysia.
Or a slow boat from Malaysia…
after picking someone up and then going off to see the world.
As the song Moon River put it, “There’s such a lot of world to see.”
Maybe if we looked up from our text messaging and looked outside the confines of the screen showing us American or whatever idol we’re currently worshipping, we’d be able to see that.
Jack O’Hare
Jack O’ Hare is the name I’ve given the wild jack rabbit who lives in my back yard.
He’s lived in the back yard for the past 3 or 4 years now.
He hangs out all over the neighbourhood but my back yard seems to be his home.
He’ll occasionally watch me through the basement window while I’m downstairs working on my computer.
And he also seems to follow me whenever I walk the four blocks to my local neighbourhood pub.
He may do it in the summer but I can’t tell. However in the winter I can see his tracks in the snow.
A couple of nights ago when my dad and I got home from shopping, he was standing in the middle of the road a couple of doors down from our house with his big ears sticking up in the middle of the air.
I was hoping he wasn’t suicidally depressed and the reason he was standing in the middle of the road wasn’t because he was hoping a car would drive over him and end it all for him, his last words being, “This bunny wabbit can no longer stand the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.”
But no he’s still alive.
Yesterday on a 32 degrees Celsius day, I looked through the kitchen window about 5:30 PM and saw him resting under the shadow of one of the apple trees in the back yard no doubt grateful to get out of the hot blazing sun.
So Jack O’ Hare is alive and well.
And all is right with the world.
The ANN Animal News Network News
June 1, 2011 at 9:02 pm (Commentary, Personal essays, Satire) (airheaded parents, feminist nonsense, ludicrous feminist theories, ludicrous sociological theories, New Age idiocy, New Age stupidity, post-Berlin Wall Marxist drivel, sociological nonsense)
(Scene: The studios of ANN- Animal News Network)
Voice of ANN Announcer: This is ANN- the world’s most watched Animal News Network. This is the original animal news network unlike that upstart Crazy As A Fox Network News.
News Anchorwoman Zelda Zebra: Hello, I’m Zelda Zebra. Coming up next on ANN, the Situation Room With Wolf Ritzer.
(Camera focuses in on a wolf eating some Ritz crackers)
Wolf Ritzer (spilling some Ritz crackers on his suit and tie): We’ve got an interesting story in the Situation Room today, Zelda.
Zelda (flicking her mane of zebra hair with her purple nail polished hoofs): What’s that, Wolf?
Wolf: Well Zelda, you may have heard about a couple of pigs living up on a farm in Ontario, Canada. The couple recently announced to their neighbours that they have a baby. But they won’t tell the neighbours whether the baby is theirs or what species of baby it is. They figure this new baby they call Hail should be be allowed to decide his/her own species itself. They figure that a baby animal should not let society dictate what species it is to be. Their argument is why shouldn’t wolves be allowed to moo and eat grass and why shouldn’t cows be allowed to lift their heads and bay at the moon? Why shouldn’t bunnies be allowed to quack and why shouldn’t ducks have big ears and be allowed to hop around in the grass?
Zelda: I understand Baby Hail has unleashed a storm of controversy all over the world.
Wolf: Indeed it has, Zelda. The outcry has caused Baby Hail’s airheaded mother to release a terse and airheaded statement from her farm up in Ontario, Canada saying, “This just shows the inherent prejudices and stereotypes of the society we live in when animals won’t allow a baby to be able to choose its own species.”
Zelda: That should be an interesting story in today’s Situation Room, Wolf.
Wolf: Thanks, Zelda.
Zelda: Also coming up at the top of the hour, what role did the White House family dog Bo play in the hunt and eventual capture and death of Osama bin Laden’s pet rat?
Voice of ANN Announcer: You are watching ANN…
-A satire written by Christopher Van Helsing
Tuesday evening, May 31st 2011
Permalink Leave a Comment