Harry: Look, when the shit comes down, I’m going to be ready for it. That’s all I’m saying! Sally: Well, in the meantime you’re going to ruin the rest of your life thinking about it. Sally and Harry were discussing death, but I think these viewpoints can be utilized more generally, or, at the very […]
Let Me Eat Cake
October 23, 2023 by 64 Comments
One of the things I was most excited to do when I moved here was to restart cross-country skiing; I love it but, sadly, for one reason or another, have not skied in twenty years. Now that I don’t have children in school or classes to teach, I have been eager to restart, and because […]
Just Me Or Everyone
October 16, 2023 by 55 Comments
In beginning of The Blind Assassin, my favourite book of all time, there is a scene where octogenarian Iris is presenting an award at the local high school, watching the graduates file on stage. Up they trooped, solemn and radiant, in many sizes, all beautiful as only the young can be beautiful. Even the ugly […]
Gratitude and Grievance
October 9, 2023 by 54 Comments
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Yesterday my husband and I took a ten hour road trip to visit my parents. It was a gorgeous drive but I am a tiny bit tired; not, however, as tired as I was Saturday morning when I was woken up several times by a pack of howling coyotes in the vineyard. […]
Hairum Scarum
October 2, 2023 by 62 Comments
The thing about moving is that, once a person has moved, there is still so much paperwork to deal with, there are still so many decisions to make, and there is so very much to learn about the new environment. Moving across provinces, I am discovering, means that much time must be spent in a […]
A New Chapter
September 25, 2023 by 55 Comments
I was thinking a lot about the last chapter in A Tree Grows In Brooklyn this week, when Francie goes back and looks at her neighbourhood, wanting to remember it just as it was. This week I was in Calgary again, for forty hours, and it was so interesting to see it from new, non-resident […]
Dog and (Social) Butterfly
September 18, 2023 by 59 Comments
Although I have seen all of the Feuding Dog Park Men separately a few times, I have not seen them all together since The Incident, and I’m able to give them a nod and closed-lip Mona Lisa smile without being drawn into conversation with any of them. I did, however, get knocked off my feet […]
