“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.
In third grade, I walk to school every day with a girl who is a year older than me. We walk on a dirt road with houses on one side and a field on the other.
The daily walk starts quietly, with our two voices blending with the ancient voices of the little birds in the field. Drops of dew cling to blades of grass like paper bag lunches. Other kids join us on the way until an entire group of us arrives in the schoolyard.
It is like this at first, anyway, before the new subdivision begins to be built. Instead of walking next to a field, we walk through a construction site. Our voices and the birds’ voices cannot compete with the loud machines.
One morning, a section of our dirt road has disappeared and been replaced by a large hole. The excavator is still working on it, it’s long, graceful arm reaching into the hole and scooping dirt out with sharp claws as it whirs loudly.
I want to take a wide detour around the hole. My friend wants to walk to the edge of hole so the guy in the excavator can see us, and then walk carefully around the edge.
We start walking slowly towards the excavator, but I panic and run around the scary obstacle. My friend runs after me.
“Why did you do that?” she asks once we’re on the other side.
As an adult, I recount these events to my parents, but neither of them remembers me having to walk through a construction site.
“I believe you, I just don’t remember that,” my dad tells me.
Did they just not know about the construction? Is that why they still let me walk to school?
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.
Rain. When the temperatures are high and the plants are thirsty, rain is every gardener’s dream.
We want to hear the rain tapping on the roof and the windows, letting us know that it’s here. We want to go outside and look up and feel the cool water on our hot faces. We want to see raindrops glistening on our tomatoes and the delicate petals of our roses, we want to see soil dark with delicious, fresh water.
Some of us want to take our shoes off so we can sink our toes into the softened and refreshing dirt.
Too much, of course, can be a bad thing if you’re on low ground near a body of water. But when it’s not too much, why not celebrate it? Just be sure to help out any earthworms that have ended up on the pavement, because we want them in our gardens, too.
Congrats, rain, on winning Garden Star 🌟 of the week, and thank you for everything that you do.
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.
We always get fall clothes when it’s time to go back to school, and then it’s still too hot to wear them. What do we expect? One day it’s August, the next day it’s September. Why do we think we’ll need so many sweaters?
This is the case in 2001, when I’m waiting for my very first university class to start. I sit on the floor in the hallway, uncomfortable in a very cute green sweater.
There is a guy standing across from me who is also waiting. He kind of looks like Vincent Van Gogh, but with a bigger beard.
The red beard is only the first thing I notice. He is wearing pyjama pants, and a comfy old pair of slippers. He leans against a wall looking unconcerned.
I have to admire his demeanour. Here he is, comfortable as can be, because who cares? I look at him while I sweat in my uncomfortable fall outfit.
I don’t know yet that I’m going to marry this guy one day. It’s months before I even speak to him.
A previous owner of my house planted these, and I am always happy to see them bloom.
Phlox can come in creeping varieties that are used as ground cover, and also standing varieties that stretch above your other plants. I have one of the tall varieties.
My phlox (phloxes?) are a pretty and light purple colour. They stand out against the dark brown of the wood siding on my house, and they also attract butterflies. Who doesn’t like butterflies?
The flowers are also star-shaped, which seems as good a reason as any to name this attractive plant Garden Star 🌟 of the Week. Welcome to the club, phlox!
Raccoon Brontosaurus 