Mrs. Deutschlander

I was seated -- most unfortunately -- beside "Mrs. Deutschlander" yesterday at a dinner.  Not a Canadian citizen herself, she and her professor husband sang the virtues of every country other than Canada the whole evening.  Yours truly could not resist pushing back.  "So, after 16 years here, you are not Canadians, "I said.  "Why is that?" 

"Well, we will be moving back to Germany any day now," she said.  Not fast enough, I thought.  I hadn't realized just how stupid, uninformed and provincial I was until Mrs. Deutschlander filled me in.  Every thought and opinion I proferred was met with...."No, zat's not correct.  You are completely wrong."  Oh, I thought I was just giving my views on....Africa....Alberta....Italy....Spain....unions....Greece.....guilds.....health care.....But I apparently was completely mistaken and ignorant on every count.  "Have you ever lived in Greece?" was her retort.  "Vell we have and you are wrong."  Me, the World Bank, the United Nations, Mark Carney and the International Monetary Fund -- all ignorant and misinformed.   

"Italy is not finished," she pronounced.  Hey, I thought it was -- and, by the way, it is.  "Italy vill always be faboolus," she stated.  What about Greece?  It vill always succeed, she pronounced.  The lawyer and his wife sitting on the other side of her choked.  Later on, when he said, "I congratulate you for biting your tongue so often with our tablemate," I took it as a compliment. 

And as to her husband?  Well, he has been doing "research" at the University of Alberta for 16 years on biophysics and stress on the joints.  Unwisely, I chirped, "It seems to me that stress on the joints is directly related to what we stuff into our gobs."  Well, that went down very badly -- especially with the tubby Mrs. Deutschlander.  (How she could natter on about nutrition with her ample bosom and torso spewing over her belt was a complete mystery?....But I digress.)  What a boondoggle they are reaping in Canada. 

I could go on about all the other things she hectored me about in her many riveting homilies -- like the "fabulous" Christmas party they give every year to show off their "real" tree with "real" German candles -- but I won't.

Unfortunately, one thing into which I did jam my club foot was baby formula.  I was talking about the difficulty of finding baby formula without additives and singing the joys of breast-feeding when the young woman opposite me snapped, "I formula-fed my baby and she is as healthy and happy as can be,"  Oops!  How does one recover from that?  I asked her which formula she used so I could learn from her.  Kind of a weak defence, but I never did find out why she could not breast-feed.  After a while I suspected it was misplaced "convenience". 

 Happily, this dinner afforded me an opportunity to see another side to Calgary.  Many of the wives were seconds and all very high-powered.  This one was the CFO of a bank, that one was the president of an oil company, the other was a prominent lawyer.  And the outfits and jewellery!  Unreal.  "Where did you get that jacket?" I asked one very well-turned-out wife.  New York, Armani.  Well, naturally.

Not a wine snob, I zoned out when the representative of a French winery kept stepping up to the micophone after every course to inform us in excruciating detail about which wine we had just tasted.  The wine eulogies were a bit too elongated for someone who buys the cheapest house brands available, but all good for The Ranchmen's Club, to which the products had been donated.

Keeps our fees down.

All in all, a facinating evening.