“Sushi? Are you sure?” I ask again.
My fourteen-year-old son looks determined, maybe even excited.
“Yes, I’m sure,” he says. His tone has a tint of finality. He does not want to be asked again.
“What about something easy?” I say. “Like pasta, or pizza, maybe soup with grill cheese sandwiches?”
“No, I want to make sushi,” he says.
“Okay,” I say doubtfully.
Continue readingIt’s my aunt’s first day of school. She is the youngest of five children and all of her siblings have already had this teacher, including my father.
My aunt sits up straight in her chair while the teacher adjusts her horn-rimmed glasses and clears her throat. She holds a yellowed paper with a list of students’ names typed on it.
The teacher reads each name clearly and loudly, until she gets to my aunt’s name. She stops reading abruptly. A range of emotions passes over her face: surprise, horror, suspicion.
“Are you related to Claude Grenier?” the teacher asks. She says my father’s name like she is pronouncing the name of the Antichrist. She glares at my aunt with anger and dread.
“It happened every year,” my aunt tells me a few decades later.
My younger sister runs up to the refrigerator when she is around two or three years old.
She feels overheated. Her scalp and neck are damp and warm and her feet are sweaty and dirty from running around outside in a pair of sneakers with no socks. She opens the fridge looking for a source of relief.
She sees a bowl of water with fresh sticks of celery floating in it. The celery looks cool and refreshing. Carefully, she uses two hands to set the bowl down on the floor.
Cool air from the open fridge caresses the crown of her head as she sits in front of the bowl. She plunges a foot into the cold, refrigerated water. A satisfying and cooling wave moves from her foot to the rest of her body. She sticks the other foot in and scoops water over both of her feet, watching the dirt drip off of her skin.
When her feet are clean and her body temperature more comfortable, she puts the bowl of celery back in the fridge and closes the door.
The waterfall at Camping Chutes Fraser near La Malbaie, Quebec
There’s a waterfall across the laneway from our campsite. After our tent is set up, we cross the little road to have a look.
Wooden stairs lead down to to the flat rocks at the top of the waterfall. We stand on the rocks and admire the scene.
“We’ll probably get a better view from the bottom of the waterfall,” I say.
My husband Phil says, “Do you want to take that trail we saw when we came in?” I agree and we head down the path.
We quickly realize that the path we’re walking on is also a roadway. We squeeze onto the shoulder to let cars pass. We bend our knees generously as we make our way down the steep path through the woods.
At the bottom of the hill, there is a parking lot. A family in a pickup truck wants to park where my son is currently walking. They reach their arms out of the open windows and bang on the metal sides of the truck, making a loud, booming sound.
Not wanting him to get run over, I pull my son out of the way, but the truck is taking up the entire parking lot. Pedestrians scatter as the driver maneuvers around the small parking lot.
We get away from that mess and onto the trail. There is a wooden bridge crossing the river and a foot path leading us closer to the waterfall. I snap several pictures and take some videos from the bridge and from the path.
We find a picnic table near the base of the waterfall and sit down to enjoy its beauty. The cool mist tickles our hot faces, relieving us from the humidity that has been clinging to us all day.
Phil decides that it’s a good time for him to get some photographs as well. He takes out his phone and uses the camera to frame the waterfall. He is about to tap the button when the family from the pickup truck walks into his shot.
They’re wearing bathing suits, tank tops, and flip flops. A guy with a mop of white-blond hair and neon pink swim shorts takes his shirt off and poses in front of the waterfall.
He bares his teeth and sticks his tongue out as far as it will go. He sticks his pointer and pinky fingers up while holding the middle fingers down with his thumb. He poses with his right hand up and his left hand in front of his belly, with his left hand up and his right hand down, and with both hands in front of his hips.
When he is done having his picture taken, he puts his shirt back on.
When Phil sees the guy walk back to his family, he thinks that this is his chance. He takes his phone out again, but the other family members also want their pictures taken.
We notice rain drops and decide to walk back to the campsite. As we walk over the bridge, we see the guy climbing up the waterfall. His shorts are blazing like a neon sign in front of the white water and the grey rocks.
A few days later, we’re at home sitting on the couch. I ask Phil what his favourite part of the road trip was.
“I liked it when we were sitting on the picnic table and laughing at that guy,” he says. “You know, the one who was throwing horns in front of the waterfall while his girlfriend or whoever took his picture.”
“I think that was his mom,” I say.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
Hello, welcome, and thank you for clicking on my click baity title. Here is a long explanation about what s’mores are, even though you probably already know because you clicked on the link and you want to find out what the hack is. Don’t worry, I’m going to tell you, right after I make you scroll through ten paragraphs of text reiterating what s’mores are, what people typically do with them after they make them, where they make them and why, what time of year this usually happens, and what time of day. There will also be so! Many! Filler! Text! Adjectives! And also adverbs. Some adjectives and adverbs will mean the same thing.
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Raccoon Brontosaurus 