The wind. Sometimes, she is hard.
There is a spider building an egg sac on my patio. Specifically, there is a spider named Charlotte (because what else could she be called, really?) suspended in a delicate web that stretches between my patio table and the patio railing, and she is building an egg sac in the middle of a wind that […]
“The only things getting tapped here are the maple trees.”
I went on vacation. It wasn’t that long and it wasn’t really that far, but it was enough. Earlier this summer friends of mine retired and moved from Hamilton to just north of Belleville, and now they own a house on a point with three docks and a beach and a boathouse and a bunkie […]
The BIG, BAD BLOG HOP
Well, not really bad. But it sounds nice as a title, doesn’t it? So a few weeks ago — maybe a month? Time just blurs on by now as I advance in years — the super swell Jen Sookfong Lee got in touch and asked if I wanted to participate in a blog hop. You […]
La belle ville
Last week I treated myself to a mini birthday present and spirited over to Montreal for a couple of days. It was, in a word, magnifique. I love Montreal. The last time I was there was in 2009, and I remember feeling the same then as now–like I’d stepped into a world exotic and exciting […]
Falling asleep on porch benches
I was up at my parents’ place on the weekend, helping to celebrate their 40th anniversary. Forty years of marriage–holy smokes. My sisters came up too and we spent hours on Saturday going through old family pictures. My father’s mother had a glamour shot done when she was in her early twenties–she looks like a […]
On the Canada Writes Creative Non-Fiction Longlist!
My piece, “Holy Ghost”, has been longlisted for this year’s CBC Canada Writes Creative Non-Fiction Contest. Three cheers! What a nice way to start the week. The longlist is composed of excellent writers and I’m thrilled to be in their company!
Literary friendships, and saying goodbye…
We have the same hair! We were kindred spirits even then. Fifteen years ago, I won in my age category in a little writing contest put on by the Hamilton Public Library. It was called The Power of the Pen. The whole business of the thing–the little ceremony that they gave us, having our stories […]
On playing my first jig
Eighteen years ago, I got a fiddle for my birthday. It was 1996 and Hi, How Are you Today had been making its way through All Of The Radio Stations. I was wildly in love with Ashley MacIsaac. (This was before I knew that he was gay, obviously.) Even more than that: I was going […]