Birds Of A Feather

So about a month ago, I looked out the door that leads to our upper balcony and there was a bird sitting on the railing—a kind of bird I’d never seen before. It was very exotic, all white feathers dotted with black. But the most unusual thing was that its underwings and tailfeathers were PINK. How had I missed a bird like this in our neighbourhood all these years? I took a photo and google imaged it, and it came back “Racing Pigeon”. Well, it didn’t look very fast to me, and the pigeon in the picture didn’t have pink feathers. But this bird DID have a band on its leg, which meant it must belong to someone. So I did what any normal person would do—I asked Ken.

Me: Apparently the bird that’s been hanging around the balcony is a racing pigeon.
Ken: Racing to where?
Me: No idea. But it didn’t win, OBVIOUSLY, KEN. What should I do? The interweb says they’re domesticated, and it looks sad, like it’s lost.
Ken: Post something on the local Buy and Sell site. Maybe someone knows who it belongs to.

So I did that. It turned out that no one, in fact, knew who it belonged to, and I had to delete my post after several very rude comments about pigeon pie and an argument between some of the responders about the best way to catch a pigeon, and as a side note, why are people so stupid online these days? But I DID hear from someone who said there was a racing pigeon group that came to our town on weekends to train their birds, and this one must have gotten lost, so I was like, great, have them come get their bird—here’s a picture of it in our tree. An hour later, a car pulls up and two guys jump out. They have a cage with another pigeon and a platform on a long, retractable pole. At this point, MY pigeon is in a tree in the back yard. They tether the other pigeon to a blue platform and extend the pole. My pigeon immediately freaks out and flies away.

Pigeon Guy: Oh no. This one is trained to come to a yellow platform. We brought a blue one.
Me: Pigeons aren’t colour blind?
Pigeon Guy: No. The blue platform confused it.
Me: Do you have a yellow one?
Pigeon Guy: No.

And they left.

But they gave me the contact information for actual owner and this was the conversation:

Me: Your pigeon is still here if you want to get it.
Pigeon Guy 2: Are you able to catch her? If you have any cage, you can put some seed in cage and maybe she can get catch.

Like WTF? No, my dude, I am not a bird wrangler, I do not own a bird cage (aside from an antique one that sits on my piano), and I don’t have bird seed! So I asked if he knew anyone local who could come and get her, and that was the last I heard from him. So the next morning I bought bird seed and put some out in a bowl in the corner of the balcony. An hour later, she was eating as much as she could, then fell asleep next to the deck box—she must have been starving and exhausted, poor thing.

And now Penelope (because apparently she is my bird now and that is what I have decided to name her), lives in a tree above my balcony and I feed her every day, much to the delight of the other thousands of birds that live on our property and like to poop all over the table while they eat. But we’ve established a good routine—every morning, I go out onto the balcony and yell “Pen Pen” until she looks down at me with complete disdain (that’s what you get for making sure she doesn’t starve to death), and she waits until I go in the house before she descends/condescends to eat.

But then I started worrying, as one does, about if the other birds were being mean to her (those starlings are DIVAS), and what would happen when it got colder, so I reached out to a Pigeon Rescue group and let me tell you, pigeon people are nuts. I only asked if anyone knew of a local Pigeon Rescue who would come and get her, and I was inundated once again with instructions (these examples are verbatim) on how to catch her:

1.  Feed her in a cage or shed. Lure her in at first so she can assess the entrance and get comfortable with the concept of going back inside a “loft”. Don’t feed her outside.

Seriously? This bird is gonna “assess the entrance”? She couldn’t even find her way back to a yellow platform.

2. You can use a dog crate or bird cage put wild seed in it and tie a string or twine to the door. Sprinkle wild bird seed inside to lead her in, then pull the string to close the door and catch the bird.

I’m sorry, WHUT?? This bird might be navigationally challenged but she’s not STUPID. She’s gonna take one look at that string and know EXACTLY what I’m up to.

3. Buy some dove food at PetSmart and then you can easily catch her with a laundry hamper upside down. You don’t need any experience. All you need is a hamper some string and a few bricks to set on top of hamper once it’s inside. It’s really easy. When it’s under the laundry basket call me/

OMFG. No, lady, I’m not Wile E. Coyote-ing this bird with an Acme laundry hamper. Seriously, is there NO ONE who can just come and catch this very expensive beautiful bird? Because trust me, if I COULD catch her, I would. Frankly, I don’t think she WANTS to be caught—I mean considering how much freedom and free food she has, who would? At this point, I’ve covered the table on the balcony with yellow paper plates and a yellow plastic tablecloth, hoping she’s soothed by the colour and gets used to me, because I really want to fulfill my fantasy of having a pigeon who’s “comfortable with the concept” of sitting on my shoulder like I’m a pirate. But if anyone tries to give me more advice on how to catch her, I have one thing to say: Flock off.

Lost In Translation Again

Well, another Christmas has come and passed, and I hope your holiday season was peaceful. Mine was lovely—we spent time with family and friends, ate a lot of fantastic food, and exchanged gifts. I got some very cool things this year: a couple of miniature kits (see below for a picture of the one that I already built), some jigsaw puzzles, lots of chocolate and wine—yeah, my family knows me pretty well. But there was one gift that made me laugh my head off. It was a game called “Once Upon A Pair: A Literary Matching Game.” The rules are simple—there are 26 pairs of cards, each with the title of a book on them, and the idea is to lay them face down, then flip over two at a time, trying to get a match. And yes, I know that’s not funny in the least but I was really excited to see what the books were so I opened the packages up:

Me: Ooh, look Ken. Peter Pan, Wuthering Heights, The Picture of Dorian Gray…hang on. What the hell is this?
Ken: What does it say?
Me: The Hunchback of NORTE-Dame. And this one says, The Legend of Sleepy HALLOW. The Young VISITERS? I think something was lost in translation here—yep.
Ken: Does Moby Dick normally have a hyphen in it?
Me: In China, I guess? At least it doesn’t say Moby’s Dick. Oh, here we have The Art of War and The Diary of a Young Girl. Nothing says fun like Sun Tzu and the Holocaust.

I’m still looking forward to playing it, despite the warning on the back that it’s a Choking Hazard, as if someone is going to ram a thick piece of cardboard down their throat—

Atlas: Ahem…

Well, those warnings are there because SOMEONE has done it in the past, I guess.

And then I started to build one of my miniature kits and discovered the same issue. Stickers were misspelled, like ‘Potcard Holder’ and there were also a lot of tiny books, again with very interesting titles: The Mienes of Amish, Abourogh The Wor LD In 80 Days, and of course, everyone’s favourite, Alice’s Wonderland.

The instructions were equally nebulous, and you’d think considering how much money the company must make on these things, they’d hire an actual translator and editor instead of winging it. Still, it’s done and I think it’s very cewt, don’t you?

At any rate, Happy New Year to all of you, and I hope your year is amazing. Farewell for now.

A Canine Comedy

Here’s a little throwback to the time I watched the National Dog Show with our last Labrador, Titus. He was an incredible dog and I still miss him, even though Atlas is awesome too.

Titus and I watch the National Dog Show.

Well, it’s that time of year, when frou frou dogs get to shake and shimmy their little selves down the catwalk (there’s some irony for you). Yes, it’s the National Dog Show, brought to you by Purina, the company who doesn’t believe feeding dogs antifreeze could possibly harm them. (Propylene glycol, according to Purina, is very safe to ingest. I wonder if any of their senior executives would care to sample it?) Anyway, the show itself is highly entertaining, as much for the strange remarks by the two male commentators, as anything. We tuned in a little late, but just in time to see the Toy class:

Me: Titus, look. A Japanese Chin!
Titus: I didn’t know the Japanese had different chins from you guys.
Me: No, wake up. It’s a kind of dog.
Titus: Ugh. It looks like a bug.
Me: It’s name is Michael.
Titus: Sounds about right. “Michael”. Ha!
Me: What’s wrong with Michael?
Titus: Look it up on Urban Dogtionary.com. You’ll see.
Announcer 1: Up next is the Yorkshire Terrier, Bugsy Malone. Did you know that Yorkies were originally bred to guard factory workers’ lunches from rats?
Titus: What kind of self-respecting dog GUARDS lunches? I’d be all up in that sh*t. There’d be nothing left, let me tell you. Guarding lunches—bah.
Me: Yes, I think we all know better than to leave YOU in charge of food. God, look at this thing….
Announcer 1: And here we have the Pekingese, Chuck. Chuck is a little slow off the mark. Oh wait, there he goes—he’s really “scorching the earth” now, haha.
Announcer 2: You know, you could be walking this dog backwards for two years and never notice. Wow. He just won his class. Way to go, Chuck.

Then we went on to the sporting class, which seemed to be made up of a lot of setters, pointers, and spaniels.

Titus: Wait—did he just say “Cocker”?! This gets better and better.
Me: Grow up!

Then the announcers started to fill in the dead air between announcing the dog’s breed and watching it parade around the ring with some pretty random pronouncements:

The Irish Setter: She looks like the redhead who walked into the cocktail party. (Titus: He said “cocktail”. Snort).
The Weimeraner: This dog is the grey ghost. It’s like a ninja. I have one, and he just appears out of nowhere.
Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retreiver: This dog has a long name, and it’s the official dog of Nova Scotia. It has to be strong enough to carry a two pound duck.
The Chesapeake: Oily coat and webbed feet. An interesting dog. Waterproof.
The Springer Spaniel: This is by far the prettiest dog I’ve ever seen. His name is Timmy.
Miniature Poodle: This haircut is not whimsical. The miniature poodle is a gentleman’s hunting companion (Titus: Hunting for what? Aliens?).
Schipperke: Look at those nice, erect ears. (Titus: He said “erect”. Snort).
Lhasa Apso: Bred to be a guard dog in monasteries.
Tibetan Terrier: Also guarded monasteries. (Titus: Why were all these dogs in monasteries? Geez, live a little, why don’t you?)
The French Bulldog: Did you know Parisian streetwalkers used to use these dogs as icebreakers? You know, to start a “conversation” with a potential client…
The Border Collie: These dogs are incredibly intelligent. (Titus: Not intelligent enough to refuse to be in a dog show.) His name is Slick. (Titus: Well, at least he has a cool name.)

Finally, the show was done, and the overall winner was a Greyhound named Gia.

Titus: I think I’m in love.
Me: She looks a little too mature for you.
Titus: What?! Why?
Me: Really? From the guy who snickered every time the announcer said a word with “cock” in it? I thought you were going to fall off the bed when he said “erect ears”.
Titus: Guilty as charged. You know, you missed your chance with me. I could have been a show dog. Just look at these pearly whites.
Me: I’d have to rename you. How does Dick sound?
Titus: Absolutely awesome.

titus-teeth

Monkey Business

I got an early Christmas present this year by way of an acceptance for my novella, Nomads of the Modern Wasteland by Running Wild Press, which was awesome. Almost as awesome as having a monkey butler…

Right before my birthday, I got a very cryptic email from my mother. The subject line was “VW”, and the text of the message said this:

“Hi Honey: Bought you a present today to do with the above (hint) his first name is Ralph.  See you soon.  Love, Mom xxx”

I pondered for quite a while, and came up empty. I asked Ken, “What do you think this means?” and he replied, “Maybe some kind of stuffed animal?” And I was doubtful at first, but then I had an epiphany that maybe it WAS an animal but not the stuffed kind, and I wrote back this:

“Is it a monkey butler?! I’ve always wanted one of those! Also, there was nothing above except the initials V. W. Is my monkey butler’s name Ralph Van Wooster? Can’t wait to find out! Love you:-)”

I was super-pumped, and waited for a while to get a confirmation. And waited. And waited. But my mother didn’t reply back, and I got worried. There were several possible reasons why I had yet to receive a loving message about how clever I was to have surmised that my present was a simian man-servant:

1) My mother was mad that I guessed her riddle and spoiled the surprise. I could see her reading the email, and then saying to my dad in a low whisper, “How does she always know? Well, let her stew, the smartass.”

2) My mother had actually bought me a Volkswagen, and didn’t know how to let me down gently. I have to say though, Mom, that a VW named Ralph would have been almost as cool as a monkey butler, but only if it was a Beetle.

3) Someone had hacked my mom’s email, and I would eventually learn that in “exchange” for the present, I would have to send $5 000 in iTune gift cards to a Nigerian prince named Ralph Varem Wabara who’s being held captive on the International Space Station by Chris Hadley (a Canadian criminal mastermind/astronaut).

4) My mother didn’t know what a monkey butler was, and my email befuddled her, so much so that she didn’t know what to say in return. I could see her reading the email and then saying to my dad in a low whisper, “What is she on about now? I can’t even dignify this with a reply. It’s your fault she’s so weird,” and then my dad would say, “Och! Yer aff yer heid, woman!”

Number 1, of course, was the most likely scenario, so I spent the next few days feeling a little guilty for being so clever. Then my parents came by the house to drop off my gift. I had read extensively on the topic of how to train a monkey butler, and I had the guest room prepared as per the instructions I found on a weird website which was exclusively devoted to the topic of “How to Train Your Monkey Butler”—it contains pearls of grammatically incorrect wisdom like “When you have your monkey butler serve a person let him take his time and serve one person at a time so he doesn’t get confused and start to get angry, a confused angry monkey is no fun for anyone.” I heartily agree and highly recommend this advice to anyone who might find themselves in my position.

Then Mom and Dad arrived, and I was a little concerned when I saw them coming down the walk “sans simian”. What a letdown. But when they came in the house, my mother presented me with a CD of music by Ralph Vaughan Williams, who, aside from Trent Florence Welch, Reznor, Maynard James Keenan, and Dave Grohl, is one of my favourite composers, and that really softened the monkey butler blow because the other night, Ken had tried to lull me to sleep by playing “Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis” only he had to find it on YouTube first, then he put his iPad directly on my ear so that the music wouldn’t drown out The Weather Channel, which he was watching fanatically as one does. It wasn’t very lulling and more just annoying, although he meant well. Now I can play that, and “Lark Ascending”, any time I want. But I was still curious:

Me: Why didn’t you answer my email? I thought you were mad.
Mom: Your email? You mean the one about the monkey butler? I would have, but I don’t know what a monkey butler is.
Me: It’s a monkey that’s a butler.
Mom: Would you really want one of those? Wouldn’t it be a lot of work to train it?
Me: Yeah. You’re probably right.

And then I realized that every time I had pictured Ralph Van Wooster in my head, he was actually wearing a bellhop uniform, and not a bespoke tuxedo, so it’s probably good that I wasn’t put in charge of training him, because then he would insist on carrying everyone’s bags instead of serving drinks.

Me: I don’t think a monkey would make a good butler.
Ken: Um, what?
Me: It would be hard to train him. I can’t even get Atlas to play dead—he only plays “wounded”.
Ken: You have to make it submit. You know, like “Shock the Monkey”.
Me: If you think the best way to train a monkey is to shock him, then you don’t deserve a monkey butler. Besides, I thought that song was about a guy who pleasured himself in a sudden and rather violent way.
Ken: Um, what?
Me: Like Spank the Monkey, only–never mind. (whispers) You know I’ll have to make this whole conversation up when I write about it. Forget about training a monkey butler—I need to train YOU to be a better “humorous foil”.

At the end of the day, I didn’t get a monkey butler. But I DID get an awesome CD, AND a publishing contract, so it’s still been a pretty great couple of weeks!!

Good King Wences-What?

It all started earlier in the week when Ken and I were at a local holiday banquet. Ken was tasked with creating a ‘fun’ trivia quiz, and I wasn’t allowed to know anything about it so that I wouldn’t have a leg up on everyone else because I’m very good at trivia–my mind is like if a jukebox had a baby with an encyclopedia and they all had OCD, and also, the jukebox NEVER STOPS PLAYING. At any rate, one of the trivia questions was about Good King Wenceslas from the Christmas Carol.

What year was King Wenceslas born?

640 BCE
907 CE
1595 CE
1853 CE

So I said 1595, since none of the other answers made sense, but the correct answer was 907, and I was confused because they didn’t have saints before, like, the late 900s AD or something, being as there was no Christianity before 0 AD or whatnot, but then Ken pointed out that I had misread the question, that it was his birthdate, not when the song was written, and that CE was the same as AD, but that AD was a religious term and Common Era wasn’t so it was better to use ‘CE’, and then I POINTED OUT that AD is the common vernacular, and I’d had a couple of glasses of wine, KEN. Anyway, my partner Cathy and I did really well on the trivia, despite the dating debacle. And the wine.

Then, the next day, we were talking about it and I remembered why Good King Wenceslas ranks up there with the most stupid carols. Let me break it down for you:

“Good King Wenceslas looked out
On the feast of Stephen”

So he has nothing better to do during a feast but look out the window? Shouldn’t he be hosting the banquet that HE organized?

“When the snow lay round about
Deep and crisp and even
Brightly shone the moon that night
Though the frost was cruel”

That’s some heavy foreshadowing right there. Best to stay inside where it’s warm, but no…

“When a poor man came in sight
Gath’ring winter fuel”

Why wasn’t he invited to the feast? Is it because he’s poor? So classist.

“Hither, page, and stand by me
If thou knows be telling:
Yonder peasant, who is he?
Where and what his dwelling?”

So he just assumes that his servant knows every single peasant? Even more classist. Also, it’s like the way people conceive of Canadians: “Oh, you’re from Canada? Do you know Bob from Kamloops?” Narrator’s Voice: She does. Just like the page, because plot twist…

“Sire, he lives a good league hence
Underneath the mountain
Right against the forest fence
By Saint Agnes’ fountain”

And those are some VERY specific coordinates. Like maybe he’s been there before, probably when the weather wasn’t so shitty, maybe for a barbeque…

“Bring me flesh and bring me wine
Bring me pine logs hither
Thou and I will see him dine
When we bear them thither”

Seriously? We’ve already established that ‘the frost was cruel’ and now we’re going traipsing out in the middle of the night into a blizzard to give a guy, who already HAS WOOD, some MORE WOOD, as well as some FLESH? You couldn’t wait until the morning? So impetuous. Also, who’s carrying all the flesh and wine 3 miles through the snow? I bet you dollars to donuts that it ISN’T Wenceslas.

And then of course, you know the rest. The page almost dies of hypothermia, the king is like ‘Oh, just walk in my footsteps and you’ll be fine, and by the way, don’t drop the flesh and wood,” and we never find out if they get to the peasant’s house.

Me (driving): I’ve never understood the popularity of a song about some sundowning old guy deciding to wander off into a snow storm during a banquet that HE organized and almost killing his page.
Ken (on his phone):It says here that the feast of Stephen isn’t an actual feast. It’s Saint’s Stephen’s day, December 26th.
Me: Yes, I’m aware, KEN. That was just for comic effect.
Ken: It also says here that he wasn’t an old guy. Wenceslas was only 28 when he died.
Me: Only TWENTY-EIGHT?! Well, now it make sense. He wasn’t trying to be charitable—he thought the peasant was getting ready for a party and he wanted to horn in on the action. He was just lonely, and the flesh and wood were weird-ass hostess gifts. He and the page were probably already drunk and like, “Dude, it’s so BORING here in the castle–isn’t this supposed to be a feast day? Let’s find a peasant we can hang with. Don’t worry about your coat—it’s only a couple of miles. If you get cold, you can just…I dunno…walk in my footsteps,” and the page was like, “Cool. Maybe it’s a barbeque.”
Ken: Wenceslas was murdered by his brother.
Me: Honestly? Not surprising.

Let’s Party!

Horing Around

It’s official–I am a hor. And no, that’s not a spelling error, and no, I didn’t hit my 60th birthday and decide to use my feminine wiles on an unsuspecting and soon-to-be appalled clientele–no, ‘hor’ is short for horologist. And what is a horologist? I hear you ask. Has Mydangblog suddenly earned a certification in the art of telling people that a random constellation assigned to their birth defines their character, and that I’ve started providing daily reports about very specific things that will happen to them–and the millions of other people also born in that month? Of course not–that would be insane. But I AM crazy–crazy for clocks. And if you know anything about me at all, you know that I’m obsessed with clocks. I have OCD, and I find great comfort in being surrounded by clocks, not sure why, because all the explanations on the interweb don’t seem to apply to me–I don’t have a fear of time passing, I don’t obsessively check the time, and I don’t compulsively count things. (I DO have what’s known as ‘magical thinking’ about clocks, but it only applies to the digital number 3:33, because at 3:33, the clock in our bedroom, which projects onto the ceiling, looks like 3 spaceships having a battle, and if I wake up in the middle of the night, it’s usually around 3:30, so I wait until 3:33 to see the space battle, whisper Pew Pew! to myself, and it puts me back to sleep.)

At any rate, at last count, I have over 56 clocks scattered around the house, and only about a tenth of them actually keep time. But lately, I’ve had a run of luck.

First, if you recall, there was the antique mantel clock that I retrofitted with a battery pack–it runs like a dream and is currently sitting in pride of place in my bathroom. Then, 3 weeks ago, I came across a beautiful gingerbread clock at Value Village for only twenty dollars. It didn’t work, so I was planning on selling it in my antiques booth as ‘clock decor’. It was taking up room on the kitchen island so I brought it into the dining room. It stayed on the dining room table, dormant as a bear in winter, until I needed to clear the table. I put it at the back of the sideboard. A little while later, I could hear a faint sound, a sound that was both exhilarating and soothing at the same time. I approached carefully–the gingerbread clock was RUNNING!

Me: Ken!! Ken!! The clock is working!
Ken: What clock?
Me: Don’t come any closer! Tiptoe!

Of course, Ken completely disregarded my instructions and clunked his way into the dining room, but it was fine–the clock didn’t even seem to notice, and kept right on ticking. A few minutes later, it began to chime.

Ken: Is it really 8 o’clock already? It doesn’t seem that dark out…
Me: Shhh. Just give it some…time, hehe.

Despite my best efforts, the gingerbread clock loses about 20 minutes an hour, and chimes out random numbers, but that’s just fine because I GOT IT TO WORK.

And then, a few days ago, I was at the Mennonite Thrift Store (Mennonites dress like the American Amish, but they have cars and cellphones), and right by the till, there was an antique Sessions clock, just sitting there, as though it was waiting for me. It was very cheap, and there was a sign on it that said, “Pendulum package and key inside.” So I bought it, because who doesn’t need another clock, especially one that’s almost 150 years old?

I got it home and set it on the counter. It seemed to be a little overwound, so I took the back off and manually started the pendulum. I did this several times. Suddenly, the pendulum continued to sway back and forth, and the next thing I knew, the clock was chiming–and not only was it chiming, it was keeping THE CORRECT TIME. I kept it on the counter for two days, where it continued to keep perfect time. Then, Ken and I went out grocery shopping, and when we came back, IT HAD STOPPED. I almost cried. But I was never one to give up–I moved it to the dining room, the scene of my last success, and kept manually trying to restart it. Finally, I sprayed the innards with WD40–EUREKA. And now it sits on the dining room table, and we all tiptoe around it, and I’m scared to move it in case it stops again. Temperamental little b*tch. But it keeps perfect time.

And you’re probably now thinking, Isn’t this supposed to be a humour blog? This isn’t that funny, her going on about some stupid clock. But it IS funny. Because I’m a hor. A hor for clocks.

60 Is the New Something

So, I turned 60 this past week. It was not a particularly momentous day, as the family had thrown me a party on the Saturday before, and it was wonderful. But on my actual birthday, which was Tuesday, I was once again in a high school classroom. At least this time I wasn’t presenting and the students pretty much ignored me, so that was nice. And then Ken took me out to a fancy restaurant for a steak dinner, and came back home to the most incredible caramel cheesecake with toffee sauce, made by Kate’s lovely boyfriend Max, and it was the best cheesecake I’ve ever eaten. 60 years old isn’t bad, I guess–I can’t do a cartwheel anymore but I get discounts at the thrift store now. The hair on my head no longer grows as fast as the hair on my lip…but on the positive side, the hair on my legs hardly grows at all. So as my dad would say, “What you lose on the roundabout, you save on the swings.” He’s Scottish, so he has a lot of weird sayings, but no one knows what they mean. At any rate, it was all very nice, and I was thinking about other birthdays and found this throwback to 2014–my first birthday post about the best card I’ve ever gotten. So here it is, just for you:

Specific types of birthday cards are a tradition in my family. My parents always buy me cards with beautiful messages on them, and I always appreciate the sentiments, because they are from the heart, and I love my parents tremendously. My aunts, on the other hand, endeavour to find the funniest cards possible, which are also from the heart, albeit another area of the heart, and I also love them tremendously. This past weekend, my family threw me an early birthday party, and one of my aunts gave me the BEST birthday card ever.

I share it with you now, so that you can copy and paste it into any card you want (don’t tell the copyright police). I opened it up and this is what it said:

• Okay, I’m not sure this will work, but let’s try it.
• Act like you’re reading something personal that I wrote in your card.
• After a couple of seconds, laugh as though I wrote something very funny. In fact, tilt your head back when you laugh so it looks extremely funny.
• Now nod your head as though I wrote something very serious and heartfelt. Maybe touch your heart and exhale, but don’t make it look forced.
• Okay, now close the card, look at me with sincere gratitude, and mouth the words “thank you”.

So I followed the directions, and you wouldn’t believe the reaction. Everyone was like “What?!! What did it say?!!” Then I passed it around the room and other people followed the directions too (an Oscar to my brother, who has a PhD and it’s not even for acting!), until everyone who hadn’t read it was freaking out. Try it for yourself—it’s better than “pin the tail on the donkey”, that’s for sure.

The other tradition with cards that we’ve developed as a family is to give someone a card that has nothing to do with the occasion, but to doctor it up to fit. This year, Kate gave me the best one that any member of the family has ever done, and I laughed my head off when I read it (and just for the record, Waiting For Godot is a fantastic play, KATE):

She definitely inherited my sense of humour. Anyway, it’s been a great birthday week–last night, Ken invited our friends and neighbours for cake and snacks and it was the best night. I feel like a very lucky old woman.

Voluntary Anxiety

I don’t know if you, like me, suffer from social anxiety and if yours, like mine, has gotten worse as you’ve gotten older. Things that I used to do without much stress are now sometimes quite daunting, and I’m constantly forcing myself, it seems, to do things that exacerbate it. For example, this week, I was asked to speak to a group of 45 high school students about being a writer and publisher. Remember, I was a high school teacher for over twenty-five years, so this shouldn’t have been a difficult task. But I’ve been OUT of the classroom for several years, and while I THOUGHT it would be fine, the night before I was wracked with nerves. To make it worse, the morning of the presentation, all the highways were closed due to an accident, and then I also had to worry about finding a way to this school, which was about 45 minutes from my house, and did I mention that I had VOLUNTEERED to do this?

I did make it to the school on time, and then I waited in the library, trying to set up my PowerPoint with the help of the school tech until the bell rang, and all these 16 year-olds came in to see me, and you can imagine how incredibly excited they were to hear all about writing and publishing from a 60 year-old woman. It was the usual suspects: a majority of the kids were fairly apathetic and looked bored for most of the time I was speaking, two boys spent the first half of the presentation giggling and whispering to each other until I laughed at them and told them they were being distracting, and the rest were polite enough not to be rude. And then there was a group of kids near the front, mostly girls and a couple of boys, who were engaged and seemed like they were enjoying my “journey as a writer, publisher, and radio host”, and it was very nice, especially at the end when I raffled off two of my books and the winners seemed genuinely happy about getting them and asked me to sign them. BUT. There was this one girl in particular, a girl who smiled and nodded encouragingly as I went through the presentation, who laughed at my dumb jokes with what seemed like sincere appreciation, and clapped heartily for me at the end, presenting me with a thank-you card on behalf of the group. And that one young woman—she made all the difference. I don’t know her name, or anything about her, except that I wish her all good things in her life, and I’m grateful to her.

And now, in other news, here is the best marketing strategy I’ve ever seen.

I have only three words: Buzz buzz, baby.

Marathon Woman

A couple of weeks ago, I was at the dentist. I got a clean bill of health, as well as a few good show recommendations from my hygienist, the lovely Harmony (Unknown Number: The High School Catfish was as riveting and bizarre as she’d promised). “But,” the new dentist said to me, “you have some areas on two of your molars where the enamel is quite worn. You should make an appointment to get those patched.” At my look of panic, not having had ANY kind of dental procedure in years, he assured me, “You won’t need any freezing. I just have to rough up the surface a little and then apply a compound.” That sounded easy enough so I made the appointment.

On Thursday, I got to the dentist in plenty of time, and I sat in the waiting room listening to some random dude talking very loudly on his phone to someone about a woman who apparently wasn’t supposed to be in his apartment, but he KNEW she’d been there because he had set the thermostat to a sensible 72 degrees when he left and when he got back, the thermostat was now at 73 degrees, so it had to be her. Apparently, it was JUST LIKE HER to turn the heat up. The whole thing was befuddling–like why does she still have a key if her whimsical thermostat meddling is such a problem, and does she just go into his apartment, turn up the heat and then sit there for a while? But it was entertaining, and a good distraction from the fact that the dentist was running late.

When he finally came in, he greeted me as if we’d never met before, and greeted me thusly:

Dentist: How are you doing? Taking a break from work?
Me: (laughs): Oh no, I’m retired.
Dentist: You’re retired?! But you’re so young!
Me (foolishly thinking he was complimenting me): Oh, haha, I’m going to be 60 in a couple of weeks.
Dentist: I thought people in this country couldn’t retire until they turn 65. You’re so lucky! I’d love to be retired.
Assistant: Retired so young, yes, I’d like that too. Lucky you.

And I so badly wanted to say, “Lucky?! Do you think I won ‘retirement’ at poker, instead of working for over 30 years, paying almost half my salary into a pension plan, yet still having to work part-time to afford things like GOING TO THE DENTIST?!” But I didn’t say anything because it didn’t seem like a good idea to antagonize someone who would shortly have his fingers in my mouth.

We were all quiet for a minute while I guess they were fantasizing about being retired, then the dentist asked the assistant, “What are we doing today? Ah, OK.” And then he said to me, who was lying prone with a stupid bib and plastic sunglasses on, “We’re just going to start with a little freezing” and I realized he was holding a needle, and I immediately said, very loudly, “NO.”

“Oh, it’s just to help with the pain,” he said. “We don’t want it to hurt, right?” And I responded by squeezing my lips shut and forcefully shaking my head, like a very small child refusing to eat beets or whatnot.

“You don’t want any freezing? But I have to drill into your teeth. It might not hurt THAT much but I can’t be sure.”

I stared at him, and said, “You told me I wouldn’t need any freezing. I don’t want to do this.”

He sighed. “I can try doing the drilling without the freezing. Just put your hand in the air if it hurts and you want to stop.”

And so he started drilling into my teeth. And it DID hurt. And I knew exactly how Dustin Hoffman felt as I waved my hand wildly in the air.

“A little sensitive, is it?” the dentist said. “Just a tiny bit more and we’ll be all done.” So I dug my fingernails into my palms until the drilling stopped, and he patched my stupid teeth with his stupid compound and I tried not to hit him when he stupidly said, “At least you don’t have to go back to work after this.”

And then I went to pay, and it cost $482 for a procedure that took less than 10 minutes from beginning to end. So at that rate, I guess he’ll be able to win retirement soon too.

In other, more pleasant news, here’s the miniature room that I made for my parents, who love classical music. I think it turned out pretty nicely, and there was no drilling involved.

Calling Jeff Goldblum

My car, the Chevy Sonic Turbo, recently turned 12 years old. I’ve had it for 10 years myself, and together we’ve enjoyed a decade of driving. I love my car, but the one thing that drives me crazy, and I’ve discussed this before, is the fact that the hands-free calling is very archaic. There are a lot of commands to go through, and it has a terrible time recognizing simple names like ‘Ken’. As a result, I changed ‘Ken’ to ‘Kenneth’ in my contacts list, but even still, it invariably asked me, “Did you say ‘Kenneth’? as if I have some thick accent that makes my requests indiscernible. But then on Friday, this happened. I was driving back from the bank in another town, but I’d stopped off at the Restore Store, and wanted to let Ken know about the cool lamp I found. I hit the call button on my steering wheel:

Car Lady (because it’s a female voice): Ready.
Me: Call.
Car Lady: Call. Using ‘Suzanne’s phone’. Please say the name or number to call.
Me: Kenneth.
Car Lady: Did you say ‘Jeff Goldblum’?
Me: What?
Car Lady: Pardon?
Me: ???
Car Lady: Please say a command.
Me: Call!
Car Lady: Call. Using ‘Suzanne’s phone’. Please say the name and number to call.
Me: Kenneth!
Car Lady: OK. Calling ‘Jeff Goldblum’ using ‘Suzanne’s phone’.
Me: What the f*ck?! (hangs up)

I sat there for a minute, not sure what to do. Jeff Goldblum? Then I realized that years before, I had received a link to get text messages from Jeff Goldblum, which I thought at the time might be a scam. I had received an initial text from him that said this:

Which is exactly what someone who WASN’T Jeff Goldblum would say, am I right? At any rate, Jeff Goldblum really WAS in my contacts list, but that didn’t explain why my car phone lady was trying to get me to call him. Was it a sign from the universe? But I didn’t want to talk to Jeff Goldblum, I wanted to talk to Ken, although I’m sure Jeff Goldblum would have been breathlessly ecstatic over my lamp find, if the way he acts in most of his movies is any indication. I pressed the car phone button on my steering wheel again:

Car Lady: Ready.
Me: Call.
Car Lady: Call using ‘Suzanne’s phone’. Please say the name or number to call.
Me: Kenneth!!
Car Lady: Did you say ‘Jeff Goldblum’?
Me: No, you stupid woman! Kenneth!! Kenneth!!
Car Lady: OK, calling ‘Kenneth’.

The whole situation was so bizarre that I decided to investigate. And you know what? It turns out that the text number IS actually Jeff Goldblum. Here’s a link to his Facebook video from November 2019 announcing that if you set his number, 310-620-6558,as a contact, he would text you with updates about his career: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=529097061000888 But I guess he got bored very quickly of the whole thing, because I haven’t had a message from him since 2022. Yes, I got ghosted by Jeff Goldblum. And I’d gotten over it, years ago, so thanks Car Phone Lady for re-opening that wound.

Speaking of wounds, Ken once again managed to almost lose a digit on the table saw. This time it was his thumb. And this time, I was a little less sympathetic—I mean, the first time, it’s a terrible accident; the second time, it’s more like, “WHAT DID YOU DO?? WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT WAITING FOR THE BLADE TO STOP SPINNING?! Even the doctor at the hospital (who had sewn him up last time) asked, “Is this ‘weaponized incompetence’? (which is where you do something so very badly that no one asks you to do it again) to which I replied, “I didn’t ask him to build a shed! He WANTED to do it!” and the doctor said, “Oh, I wasn’t talking about him,” and I said, “Are you referring to the way you’re stitching up his thumb? Because yes, I’m hoping we never have to ask you to do this again,” and we all laughed. Except for Ken, who was grimacing in pain.

In other news, last week, I had a lot of people ask for pictures of my cute boots, so here they are:

Adorable, yes? Jeff Goldblum would love them.