“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.
It’s my coworker’s last day of work before her retirement. We have planned a series of surprises and delights for her throughout the day, hoping to give her a special send off.
My boss calls me into her office in a business-like tone, like she wants to discuss something work-related. She really wants to go over the details of one of the surprises for my coworker.
As she speaks, I nod. I sip my coffee in between nods. I give my input and sip my coffee some more.
When the discussion is over, I look down to see how much coffee I have left. Much to my surprise, it is my boss’s coffee cup that rests casually in my hand.
The first band I saw in concert was the Moody Blues when I was six or seven. We saw them at Canada’s Wonderland in Toronto. Our day was spent going on the rides and walking back to the parking lot to eat sandwiches and salads from our cooler.
When the sun was getting ready to finally give us some space, my parents spread a blanket out on the grass where we could see the stage. We relaxed on the blanket and enjoyed the music.
“I want to see a show this summer,” my husband tells me many years later. I do a quick search in our vicinity, and I find one: a Sam Roberts concert in Mont-Tremblant.
“Do I know that band?” Phil asks. I list off some songs I think he knows. We listen to some on YouTube. Phil agrees that it could be a good choice.
“It’s nice up there,” I say. “We could find somewhere to stay and have a mini-vacation.”
“Can I come?” my son asks. It seems like a good setting for his first concert, so I say yes.
A couple days later, my son and I are having a video chat with my sister.
“Tell her what we’re doing this summer,” I say.
My son’s eyes light up. “We’re going to a David Bowie concert!” he says.
Even though I’m a kid and even though it’s summer time, I am riding my bike to school. My errand today is to pick up my high school report card, and it turns out to be a lovely day for a bike ride.
The country highway is straight and cuts through the flat landscape. Some of the ditches along the road are soft with fresh cut grass, some are full of weeds, and some are spongey and hidden by tall, elegant reeds. Bushy trees line fields, and as I get closer to my school, the corn crops dwindle and make way for the tobacco crops.
I arrive at my destination. As I turn into the school parking lot, my dog, Creedence, emerges from the shadows like a Viking invader. She is panting happily, and very proud of how silently she ran through the ditches and behind the trees as she followed me to school.
It is Thanksgiving, but my son and I aren’t celebrating. I recently started a new job, and he recently started kindergarten. We are both just happy to have a long weekend to relax.
I’m not going to make a turkey dinner for the two of us, but it is a long weekend, so maybe I’ll get something a little festive. As we walk up and down the grocery store aisles, I see the frozen tourtières. A tourtière is sort of festive, I guess. I put one in my cart.
It is easy to make. All I have to do is put the frozen meat pie in the oven and wait. My son and I enjoy our slightly festive dinner.
A week goes by. Temperatures are getting lower and the air is more refreshing. The trees look like they’re going to a festival with all of their bright leaves on display.
My son brings home an assignment that he had at school. The top of the sheet says, “Draw a picture of what you ate for Thanksgiving.”
My son has carefully drawn a brown circle. At the bottom, his teacher has written, “A little more detail next time, please.”
Hello, my dear readers! Today is Wednesday and it is time for some fiction. I do have another horror story for you, but this one has more jokes than the last one.
The last thing that I want to see is some guy that I don’t know sitting on my couch when I get home from work.
A heavy ball of nausea drops to the bottom of my stomach. I am trying to remember where I put my phone so I can call the police.
“Who are you and why are you in my house?” I say as I shove my hands into every single one of my pockets.
“What do you mean?” he says. “It’s, me, Freddie.” He jumps onto the floor and lays on his back. He arches his belly at me. He curls his hands over his chest with his fingers pointing down.
My pockets are empty. “Freddie who?” I say as I move on to my purse. It feels like someone is dribbling a basketball in my chest.
“Freddie Purrcury,” the man says sadly. “Don’t you recognize me?”
“Freddie Purrcury my cat?” My phone is not in my purse either.
Continue readingYou can read the vignette presented in this video here.
The video includes my artwork, and also some footage from our more recent whale watching tour last week. This time we were armed with Gravol and we didn’t get sick.
Here is a gallery with some pictures from the tour and with the artwork from the video.
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.
Raccoon Brontosaurus 