The Globe and Mail - 16.10.2019

A20 O THEGLOBEANDMAIL| WEDNESDAY,OCTOBER16,

Thequestion

My wife and I have old friends we see every

now and then. We enjoy their company,

but I get up in the morning at 5:45 to swim

and they have no time constraints and stay

after dinner until late. How can we tactfully

encourage them to leave at a reasonable

hour?

Theanswer

Good question – one I’ve confronted many

times over the years:

What do you do when you want to go to

sleep, but your guests show no signs or in-

tentions of leaving?

I’ll tell you what I’ve done in the past.

Now, I want to emphasize most emphati-

cally: This is not what I advise. It’s just a

little background information.

In my world, it’s called “bolting.” You

look for a suitable opportunity when no

one seems to be paying a lot of attention to

you – or, if such an opportunity doesn’t

present itself, casually act as though you’re

just heading to the washroom – then

stealthily slither off to bed.

I always feel slightly guilty when I, as the

host, bolt. But as I lie under my cozy duvet,

I can often still hear the sounds of my

guests happily chatting away and thus

conclude that they probably don’t mind,

or perhaps even notice my absence and so

to the sounds of their merrymaking and

laughter I quietly drift off to sleep.

My brother-in-law is also a bolter. In

fact, he is something of a maestro. He is ...

the Master Bolter. He could teach a class.

He’s an early riser, so when his time

comes, his time comes. We’ll be at his

house, laughing and chatting, sipping

wine, when suddenly someone will say:

“Hey. Where’s Johnny?”

Poof! He’s vanished, like Keyser Soze.

(Except, of course, unlike Keyser Soze –

the ultravillain from the movieThe Usual

Suspects– he isn’t disappearing in order to

continue a campaign of pure evil; he’s sim-

ply gone to

bed.)

I never mind

it. I’d have to be

a horrible hyp-

ocrite! (Which

I am, but in

other depart-

ments.) As a

fellow bolter, I

am naturally

deeply sympa-

thetic. When

it’s discovered

my brother-in-

law has van-

ished, I merely

smile quietly to myself and think: “Sleep

tight, my friend.”

One of the features of the bolt, as you

have no doubt surmised, is you don’t say

goodbye or goodnight to anyone.

The reason? Everyone will say: “Oh, no,

don’t go, come on, stick around, the night

is young,” and so forth. Which is flattering;

it’s nice to be liked, but you’re simply too

tired to run this gauntlet of objections and

fight all the resistance to the siren call of

your duvet.

(Obviously, you can only do it if you

have a spouse willing to hold down the

fort, hosting-wise, which both my brother-

in-law and I do.)

Now, I want to re-emphasize that this is

all merely background information. I’m

not advocating bolting. Do as I say, not as I

(or my brother-in-law) do.

Especially if it’s just the four of you. In

your circumstances, even the most artful

bolt might lack a bit in the mystery depart-

ment.

There are numerous ways to politely or,

as you put it, “tactfully” let your friends

know you’re tired and want to go to bed

and it’s time to wrap up the festivities.

(On the other end of the spectrum: The

rudest way I’ve ever heard of, although it’s

possible it’s apocryphal, is a host and host-

ess who would flick the lights on and off, as

some bars used to do at closing time, to sig-

nal their guests it was time to go.)

Why not simply say some version of

what you’ve said to me? “Guys, we enjoy

your company, you know that ...” Maybe

don’t be afraid to lay it on a little thick: “We

love you to bits. But I get up at 5:45 to swim,

and right now, feel like I have lead weights

attached to my eyelids and need some seri-

ous sack time. Could we possibly recon-

vene this most stimulating and excellent

encounter at a later date?”

I don’t see how they could possibly take

offence. In fact, they’d have to have hearts

of stone not to gather their things at that

point and recede into the night.

And then you can add to your ultra-

early morning exercise routine with a little

late-night aerobics by running, not walk-

ing, to the washroom, brushing your teeth

extra vigorously and diving into bed.

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DAVID

EDDIE

OPINION

DAMAGECONTROL

Ialwaysfeelslightly

guiltywhenI,asthe

host,bolt.Butas

Ilieundermycozy

duvet,Icanoftenstill

hearthesoundsof

myguestshappily

chattingawayand

thusconcludethat

theyprobably

don’tmind.

I

look up from the sidewalk’s inky blotches to the

gangly trees. Bunches of berries tantalize in var-

ying shades of cherry red to midnight purple.

“You know what those remind me of?” I ask

Karen, who was born in Saskatoon. (I moved here

from Edmonton – we’re two Western Canadian gals

who have become Toronto city-dwellers and dog-

park friends.)

“I was thinking the same thing,” Karen says.

“Saskatoon berries. But those grow on bushes.”

“Exactly.”

Of course, we both picked them as children, for

our mothers’ pies.

“They call them serviceberries here,” I tell her. “Do

you think saskatoons grow on trees, too?”

“Never seen it.”

“Well, they wouldn’t plant poisonous trees near a

playground.”

And with this wise observation, we pull down a

branch, while the dogs pant in the heat. I pick a few

and bite each one. The inside is greenish-violet, and

the little crown is a giveaway. But I spit them out in

fear.

“Saskatoons. I think. Let’s make pie.”

“My mom used lard.”

“Mine too.”

The berries send us into a spiral of

overthinking for several days.

“I’m not eating that pie,” Karen’s

husband says. “What if they’re poison-

ous?”

My husband concurs.

But something deep, unconscious

in both of us, needs them to be saska-

toons. Karen and I are almost strang-

ers, but we understand each other’s

desire to relive our childhood, to pick

berries in the wild West and to eat our

mother’s raw pie crust.

So we take out our iPhones.

We take pictures of the berry trees. Karen has an

app that identifies plants. It lists serviceberries as

one potential, but not the only one. Inconclusive.

I call Jan, my neighbour and volunteer that helped

choose the trees years ago.

“Yes, they’re serviceberries,” she confirms. “But I

don’t think they’re edible.”

Well, she’s not a Prairie gal, but she did give us the

gift of those trees.

I find blogs and recipes online, from the likes of

Mother Earth News and Lost Recipes Found, written

by people who are disappointed that the public

doesn’t know that serviceberries are edible and con-

tain more protein, fibre, calcium, magnesium and

manganese than blueberries.

I send a pie recipe to Karen.

“I ate three,” she replies. “They taste right. And I’m

not dead.”

“We need four cups. And a ladder.”

We want to make the pie. We really do. We also

want to share it with our dog-park friends and hus-

bands. They remain unconvinced.

“We’ll be the only ones at our Park Pie Picnic,” I tell

her. “I’ll offer wine.”

“I’ll bring ice cream,” she says bravely.

We’re still as unsure as our husbands. We’re just

not saying so out loud.

Time to pull out the big guns, as they say in the

West. I send a picture to my friend, who runs the To-

ronto Botanical Garden horticulture department.

“It’s hard to make out with the resolution of your

photos,” Paul writes, “but they look like serviceber-

ries. Are they still fruiting? My plant at home and

those at the Botanical Garden finished fruiting.”

Uh-oh.

I race to the park to take close-up photos.

Our research exhausted, we take the leap and

bring the six-foot A-ladder and a stainless-steel bowl

to the park.

The berries are sticky and our fingers turn purple

as we straddle the branches, giggling like the chil-

dren in the adjacent playground. A few curious pas-

sersby carrying tennis rackets ask what we’re doing.

Making pie, we tell them.

“That’s nice,” they say skeptically.

Paul answers through e-mail. “That is them.”

And with those three words, we are allowed to re-

live our childhood.

We agree to not use lard. There’s something about

rendered pig fat. Karen arrives to my kitchen pre-

pared with recipe printouts from The

New York Times for a butter crust that

“banishes all fear,” and ideas for the

filling from Prairie blogger Kitchen

Magpie. Her vast research also yields

“How to make a lattice top for a pie

crust.”

Our mothers are laughing in heav-

en. They had a sixth sense based on

weather patterns and how the dough

felt in their hands. We have technolo-

gy.

Karen rolls the crust out like a pro,

surprising herself. Divine interven-

tion, we agree. She tastes the raw dough, pretending

to understand what she is checking for.

“Tastes perfect,” she says confidently, “although,

I’ve only made five pies in my entire life. Maybe less.”

More than me, so I’ll go with it.

We resort to a YouTube video for the crust edge,

choosing pinching over crimping. The pleats are a

little large and jagged. Rocky Mountain-esque, ac-

tually, but way better than a lazy fork crimp.

Dogs and dog-owners attend the Park Pie Picnic.

(We shared the verification from our horticultural-

ist.)

The pie is warm. The blanket of emotion is warm-

er.

Silence, as everyone chews in peace. The delecta-

ble berries softened as they baked, but kept their

shape, and have a slight almond flavour. The ice

cream melts into a creamy pool around the flakiest

crust ever.

For those few minutes, we’re no longer city dwell-

ers who are suspicious of everyone and everything,

even that which we recognize, like a kindly visitor

lost in the neighbourhood or a berry that lives in our

hearts. We are reminded, by a slice of life, to trust our

natural instincts and to accept our unconscious

intuition and our memories. To trust ourselves.

AlexandraRisenlivesinToronto.

ASLI
OFLIF

ILLUSTRATIONBYWENTINGLI

WhenIspottedafamilarbushinthepark,Irecruitedanother

Prairiegirltohelpmefindoutiftheywereourbelovedsaskatoonberries,

AlexandraRisenwrites

FIRSTPERSON

Theberriesare

stickyandour

fingersturnpurple

aswestraddlethe

branches,giggling

likethechildrenin

theadjacent

playground.

Haveastorytotell?Pleaseseetheguidelinesonourwebsitetgam.ca/essayguide,

[email protected]

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