Author: sweetsaraline

Garden Star of the Week: Baby butternut squash

/ sweetsaraline

It would probably make more sense to give butternut squash the distinction of being Garden Star of the Week at harvest time when we can actually eat it, but look at how cute it is!

This is also the farthest I’ve ever gotten when growing squash and it is very exciting. I’ve had lots of big, beautiful, orangeish-yellow flowers, and then nothing. On the advice of several gardening books I have even used a paintbrush to help with pollination but it still did not work. I meant to try that again this year, but I didn’t get around to it yet, and look at what happened! Sometimes all you have to do is nothing.

My little baby butternut squashes will be delicious eventually. I like them roasted in the oven with some butter, salt, pepper, and cinnamon. I also like them roasted in the oven and then made into a comforting and creamy soup. Fall is going to be tasty this year, all because of my butternut squash, which is why it is the garden star 🌟 of the week. Congrats, cuties!

Partings

/ sweetsaraline

The door is open and my mother has one foot inside and one foot outside in the cold, October rain. The raindrops make tip-tapping noises on the fire escape.

“Please,” I beg, sobbing. “Please don’t leave.” I’m kneeling on the linoleum floor and clinging to her pant leg. My eyes are red from crying and I’m still in my pyjamas.

“I have to,” she insists. “I have to go back to work.”

“But I don’t know how to take care of a baby!” I cry some more. My week-old son sighs in his sleep in the other room. My mother gently pries my fingers open and drives back to Ontario.

Missing: part three

/ sweetsaraline

This Sunday school is weird and I’m not even supposed to be here. I suppose it’s not really their fault that their van driver accidentally kidnapped me this morning. I don’t know very much about this organization, but when I grow up I’ll learn that they use discrimination to choose which individuals they will help and which ones they won’t. Their name sort of rhymes with “Dalmatian Barmy.”

For now, I can’t put my finger on why I think this Sunday school is weird. I’m so anxious about being in the wrong place, about Carol being sad that I didn’t go to Sunday school with her, and about how I’m going to get home that years later all I can remember are the buttons that they handed out. The buttons are covered with pictures of a smiling cartoon dog with a backwards baseball cap and shiny sunglasses. The dog is telling us to “SAY NO TO DRUGS.”

Meanwhile, Carol and Amelia’s parents are discussing who will pick up which daughter from their respective Sunday schools. My mom says, “Don’t they go to the same Sunday school?”

The pieces start falling into place. My dad and Carol and Amelia’s dad drive to the Dalmatian Barmy to pick Amelia and I up and I never have to go to Sunday school again. THE END.

Missing: part two

/ sweetsaraline

My parents are friends with a couple who have two daughters. Amelia* is a year older than me and Carol is a year younger than me.

I am walking to their house to go to Sunday school with Carol. It’s a sunny day and I’m happy that I get to go see my friends. I am almost at their house when I run into Amelia, who is standing on the sidewalk with some other kids.

“Oh, hi,” she says, surprised. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m going to your house,” I tell her.

“Oh. I’m going to Sunday school.”

“I’m going to Sunday school. That’s why I’m going to your house.”

“I guess you should just come with me then,” she says.

“Okay.”

A large, white van driven by a man that I’ve never seen before pulls up and we all climb in. Amelia explains to the man that she’s bringing me to Sunday school with her. He turns to look at the back of the van to smile at me. He has short, thin, dark grey hair and a gold tooth. He is wearing an old leather jacket. He turns back around and the van pulls away from the curb.

As the van rattles through town, I lean over and say, “Hey Amelia, where’s Carol?”

“Oh, she goes to a different Sunday school,” Amelia says.

*Not their real names

Missing: part one

/ sweetsaraline

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, kids are still enjoying a certain level of freedom. We can walk to the store by ourselves. We can knock on the door of a stranger who everyone calls “the candy man” to get free treats. We can toboggan down a hill that has a fence on the bottom of it, even though we’ve been told not to. Nobody will even know until one of us comes home with a black eye.

If there’s an article in the newspaper about an attempted kidnapping a block away, our mothers and fathers won’t lock us inside. They’ll just say, “If you see a tan van with a maroon stripe, make sure you stay away from it.”

When friends of my parents call to ask if I can go to Sunday school with their younger daughter, my mother asks if they can give me a ride. The adults come to an agreement, and that Sunday, I walk over to their house. It’s only a block away. My mother watches me leave.

Half an hour later, the telephone rings. My mother answers. It is the mother of the friend who I am supposed to be going to Sunday school with. She asks my mother if I’m on my way and informs her that I never showed up at their house.

Panicking, my parents retrace my route, looking for me. I’m not there. They run back home and I’m still not there.

When the police arrive, my parents give them a picture of me. In the picture, I’m wearing a mint green dress with a wide lace collar that has a pink ribbon threaded through it. My hair softly branches away from my face like the needles of an undecorated Christmas tree. My two front teeth are shorter than all of my other teeth, but they have ambitions of becoming bigger than them all.

The police go door to door with my picture asking if anyone has seen me. My friends in the neighborhood stare at the cops and the picture with wide-eyed astonishment. I’m famous now. They know a famous person!

One by one, every single neighbour shakes their head. None of them have seen me.

Tradesies?

/ sweetsaraline

One year ago

Freddie Purrcury sits in the hard, plastic carrier that is strapped into the passenger seat next to me. He gives a worried meow, and I rest my hand on the carrier reassuringly, and then realize that it’s probably actually not that reassuring.

We are on the way home from the vet’s office, where he charmed everyone with his handsome features and his friendly demeanour. We haven’t had him for very long yet. He’s still afraid to sit on the furniture and he still watches us while he eats, surprised that we’re feeding him and also worried that we’re going to take his food away. He eats his food too fast and then he throws up. He wanders around the house at night meowing loudly and sounding distressed. His gritty, sandpaper-like coat is starting to get softer with daily brushing, but now he has a bald spot.

I wonder, Is this cat just stressed out being in a new place, or is he sick?

The vet thinks that he’s going to be okay. She gives us some food for cats with upset stomachs, a canned and meaty version of mashed potatoes.

Freddie seems relieved when I bring the cat carrier into the house and open the door. His new brother, Sirius, is happy that I brought Freddie back, too.

I prepare their dinner for them. I set the food for sick kitties down in front of Freddie and the regular cat food in front of Sirius. Each cat looks at their bowl of food, and then at the other cat’s bowl of food. Without any hesitation, they switch spots.

Garden Star of the week: Beans

/ sweetsaraline

Perhaps you know it as the musical fruit, despite the fact that it is a vegetable, but the bean also enriches your soil by adding nitrogen to it. Because of this magical ability, it is an excellent growing companion for almost every plant. Just try to avoid anything in the onion family. Since they have a short growing period, you can plant beans two or three times in a growing season and have beans all summer and into the autumn.

Beans make an excellent snack or side dish, and they even make delicious pickles. Try planting purple ones so you can enjoy the pretty purple flowers near the start of the growing season.

There are just so many reasons why beans are the Garden Star 🌟 of the week. You did it, beans!

Haunted

/ sweetsaraline

My mother is sad that I don’t have more memories of her grandfather.

“Don’t you remember that he had a crow?” she asks. “And it would untie your shoelaces?”

I shake my head. I wish I remembered that. Was I upset that the crow kept untying my shoelaces, or did I think it was funny? I guess the crow that that I was funny if it wanted to play with me. I picture the glossy, black feathers and the big beak as shiny as a new record. It cocks its head side to side, watching me, and as soon as I let my guard down, it dives to my feet and pulls the string out of the loop again before making a dramatic escape.

I can picture my great-grandfather’s crow, but I don’t remember it.

I do, however, remember his haunted piano. He’s sitting on the bench smiling while the keys move up and down on their own. His hands rests on his knees while the piano plays its own jaunty tune without his assistance. He watches to see my reaction, and when I stare at the piano in wonder, he slaps his knee and laughs.

Whale watching

/ sweetsaraline / 1 Comment

The boat jumps up and down on the waves like a volleyball leaping over a net. Even without the connection to my least favourite sport, I’m not feeling super amazing. I try to concentrate on the tour guide’s fun whale facts and the soft weight of my son’s head on my shoulder and not on my stomach.

“I don’t feel good,” my son says. I look down at him. His arms are hugging his stomach and he is staring at the bottom of the boat.

“I’ll go get a barf bag,” I tell him. I give him a gentle pat on his shoulder and walk up to the tour guide to ask her for one the bags that she waved around in the air and stuffed into the pocket of her fleece jacket at the start of the tour.

She is still reciting her whale facts, and she puts a finger up, indicating that I should wait. When she finishes her sentence, I ask her for one of the bags, but when I have it in my hand and I turn around, it is already too late.

My son’s vomit is all over the bottom of the boat. Another mom is sitting next to him and rubbing his back with concern. As I watch the scene with the empty barf bag in my hand, I feel that I have failed him.

I clean my son up with tiny, brown, ineffective paper towels. The smell and the rocking boat make my stomach want to empty itself as well, but I manage to hold it together.

When we get home from our trip a few days later, my son tells me that his favourite part was the whale watching tour.