An interview with Chef Yuta Funaoka, who opened a new restaurant in Osaka weeks before the lockdown, and is now serving inexpensive ¥1200 takeout with local ingredients.

A couple of years ago I got interested in learning more about postal codes and, specifically, ours: C1A 4R4.

That C1A 4R4 applies to only 24 households stuck in my mind as a thing I could hang my hat on someday; someday arrived when we all went into lockdown: neighbours are now more than neighbhours more than ever before.

Hence C1A 4R4, the newsletter. The first edition was published today, and is now in the mailboxes of our hearty compatriots.

This first issue–which you need to live in C1A 4R4 to read, because otherwise what’s the point–has contributions from one end of the postal code to the other. And a call for submissionss for issue № 2.

Want to do the same thing for your postal code? Here’s what I did.

First, to find out what addresses are in my postal code I used the Canada Post search tool, but rather than entering an address to look up a postal code, I entered my postal code to look up all the addresses therein:

(This really only works if you live in the city, or in a rural area that’s had street-level postal codes assigned; in rural areas it all falls apart because hundreds of households share the same postal code, so you’ll need to find a different geo-conceit).

I identified some neighbours that I already knew, and sent them an email seeking submissions; here’s what I sent out last week:

As a little pandemic diversion, I have decided to start a newsletter, a real printed newsletter, for the 24 households in C1A 4R4—the east side of Prince Street from 96 to 124.

I am thus soliciting contributions. Anything up to 200 or 300 words, on any topic, C1A 4R4-related or not. Prose, poetry, coronavirus-related or completely not.

For the first edition I got three submissions from my neighbour Norman and one from my neighbour Karen; added to a little piece of my own, and an introduction, these fit nicely on a double-sided piece of letter-sized paper when I pasted them into a Pages document on my Mac:

I printed 24 copies, double sided, put each in an envelope, and hand-delivered them to front mailboxes, (recruiting Norman to deliver to his building at № 124). I washed and sanitized my hands before and after delivery, avoided any people along my short route, and was out and back home in under 3 minutes, so I think I’m good on the Dr. Heather Morrison front.

If you follow my lead, please leave a note in the comments.

Time to dust off the old CBC Prince Edward Island Headline Testing machine again, as I noticed they were running a showdown between “Islanders mobilizing to make masks for seniors’ caregivers ‘nothing short of amazing’ ” (currently running at 62%) and “Why these Islanders have mobilized to sew hundreds of cloth masks” (37%). Learn more about this in my 2017 post breaking it all down.

These two photos were taken in essentially the same place from the same perspective, off Water Street near the Marine Terminal on the Charlottetown waterfront. The first I took yesterday; the second in September 2016. 

A lot of stuff gets dumped here over the course of the year, and, depending on the season, and the stuff, it’s an ideal location for shooting your next film set in an exotic local during a time when the pandemic means you can’t get to, say, the Moon, or the tundra, or Oman.

When my friend Cynthia launched her podcast on belonging last month, something told me that I had something to contribute.

Find out whether I was right.

And then they ask “Hello, is Michelle there?” and it all falls apart.

The first big trip I took apart from my parents and my brothers was to Thunder Bay with my grandmother Nettie, from August 19 to 26, 1971. She had been born there, in Fort William, as had my father, so it was, in part, a chance for her to take me to one of our family home places. I was 5 years old at the time, and so ready for a small measure of independence, so it was, I think, her helpful gift to enable that.

Tonight I opened a suitcase that I’d been carting around for years, a suitcase that I hadn’t opened in 30 years. Inside the suitcase, I found a blue travel journal with “My Travels” embossed in gold on the front. Here’s what she noted about our trip:

5 days sunshine, 2 days rain. Went by plne to Malton. Stayed at Royal Edward. Took bus tour up Mt. McKay and Kakabeka Falls. Took boat around Harbour. Saw oldest information centre in Canada. Had tour of “Nonsuch,” Hudson’s Bat Co. whaling ship moored in Harbour in Pt. Arthur. Visited Vickers park (beautiful flower beds, marigold bed ruined), walked past rows of very old beautiful birch trees, saw Nana’s high school, walked along Ft. William freight docks, saw polluted Kaministiquia River - snapped picture alongside tugboat. Visited Chippewa Park - Peter climbed up rocket - had rides - saw Sleeping Giant in distance - visited beautiful park in centre of city - beautiful flowers and founatins. Nestor’s for lunch, then drive to cemetery - saw Dad’s grave, visited Conservatory (beautiful tropical plants), saw Lakehead University, Peter ran elevator. Ate waffles in coffee shop. Wonderful week. Peter an angel. Flew back.

I don’t believe I’d ever read those notes until tonight, but I certainly remember almost everything she noted, down to the waffles.

When I started traveling with Oliver, I followed in her travel journal tradition; on the shelf here beside me are Moleskin’s filled with notes of our travels around the world.

From an essay by Corinne Duval in Belt:

This could have been a love story, if he was a better man and it wasn’t the Rust Belt. But I ended it—ended us—and he demanded the house. I could have fought for it. But what would I have been fighting for? Paper? Textualized plans and well-made arguments? No. I know we could have done it all so much better. All that possibility: windows to start, happiness to end. But I couldn’t keep holding us both up when he was so determined on the fall.

Coming up on Monday, April 13, 2020, the Folk On Foot Front Room Festival:

Help us to stage an amazing virtual folk festival on Easter Bank Holiday Monday – and support musicians who’ve lost their livelihoods during the coronavirus lockdown.

The Lineup: Bella Hardy, Beth Porter plus the Bookshop Band, Jon Boden, Julie Fowlis and Éamon Doorley, Karine Polwart, Kerry Andrew (You Are Wolf), Kris Drever, Lisa Knapp and Gerry Diver, Martin Simpson, Nancy Kerr and James Fagan, Peggy Seeger, Rachel Newton, Sam Lee, Seth Lakeman and Steve Knightley - all playing sets of up to 30 minutes each in their front rooms.

When: Easter Bank Holiday Monday 13th April from 2pm for over six hours of unique music.

Where: from the Folk on Foot YouTube Channel and Facebook page – direct to your front room.

That’s 2:00 p.m. GMT, which is 10:00 a.m. Atlantic Time (thanks to Jarek, in the comments, for noting British Summer Time).

(via musician Karine Polwart’s email newsletter, which is worth a subscribe; she appears on an episode of the Folk on Foot podcast in 2018)