Image-ination; I Get Read

It’s been a hectic week and I didn’t think I had much to write about, but then I remembered that I hadn’t told you about my new tattoo. You may remember that over a year ago, I promised that I would get all my books tattooed on me, and I’d made a good start but then I got sidetracked. Until finally, three weeks ago, I finally got an appointment with my favourite tattoo guy, Nathan S. of New Rise Studio. He did what he always does—I arrive, he says “What were you thinking?” then I say, “A steampunk pocket watch with the words ‘Time’s a-ticking under it”, and he says “Okay”, then he draws something fantastic on the spot. Here’s the end result:

I’m super-happy with it, because the image commemorates Feasting Upon The Bones, my first short story collection (Potters Grove Press), featuring the character Mr. Death and his catchphrase “Time’s a-ticking.” I’ve expanded that character and he also now appears in a couple of other places, which you’ll hear more about down the road. But for now, Feasting is immortalized on the back of my calf.

I was scrolling through the pictures on my phone, looking for something interesting to go with a story that was going to be published on DarkWinter Lit (I only use original images, taken by either me or Ken, except in rare circumstances, because I like to customize a unique image to the individual story or poem), and I came across this image, which you might recognize:

Yes, it’s from WordPress and it’s the image you see when a post has no comments. I’ve seen it hundreds of times, but I only looked at it closely the other day and then I was really confused. Seriously, what the hell is it? Here are two options:

a) A girl carrying a giant tennis racket, accompanied by a boy awkwardly holding a small oar. Are they attending the world’s weirdest summer camp? I went to summer camp once, and all I remember is shooting arrows at targets and crying because I got stung by a bee in my ladyparts. Needless to say, I hate camping to this day, especially if it involves playing tennis in high heels or rowing a boat with one hand. Or bees.

b) She’s a detective with a magnifying glass the size of a hula hoop and he’s her trusty sidekick, ready to gather evidence in his crossbody bag. Someone at the summer camp died, and now they’re looking for clues. Maybe there’s one behind that mostly invisible plant. Actually, THAT would be a summer camp I’d go to—a murder mystery adventure camp where the counsellors are all robots, and it would be called MurderCampWorld, kind of like WestWorld but without the sex, violence, misogyny, and racism. Okay, there’d be a little violence but it’s just the one murder.

Regardless of what the image actually is, I have no idea why it’s the one chosen to encourage people to post comments, and if I were customizing an image for this page, I’d encourage discussion with this cute little guy that I found on Facebook Marketplace. I’m not sure what he’s supposed to be, but I’m certain he would make people really want to open up:

In other news, I had a tarot card reading the other day on Zoom, done by my good friend and fellow blogger Willow Croft, Bringer of Nightmares and Storms at willowcroft.blog. It was fantastic and fun, and her insights have really helped me center my energy around the things that matter the most to me. I highly recommend her—she charges a small fee, but it’s completely worth it, and she can do it over Zoom, telephone or even email. If you’re interested in supporting a fellow blogger, you can contact her at croftwillow@yahoo.com for a full reading, or if you’d like to try it out, use the code mydangblog in the email subject line for a $5 USD three-card reading.

Getting Thrifty With It; Tiger Lily

I’ve always loved thrift store shopping. When I was younger, it was the only place to find the vintage clothing that my friends and I, 1980s club kids, favoured. When I got older and money got tighter, it was a cheap way to look nice. And now that Ken and I have re-instated the antiques business and I’ve opened a second booth at the antique market, thrift stores are a wonderful place to find trinkets, odds and ends and whatnot that I can resell. The other day in fact, I was at a local thrift store, Goodwill, and found some good deals–a vintage action figure for a buck, a few pieces of ironstone and a depression glass rooster candy dish for 4.50. It’s from the 1930s, in excellent condition, and worth a heck of a lot more. So imagine my excitement when one of my co-workers at the antique market mentioned that there was a Goodwill ‘outlet store’ not too far away.

Me: OUTLET, you say? A place where things are even cheaper than at the regular Goodwill?
Co-worker: Yeah, it’s pretty cool. You pay by the pound. We’ve gotten some good stuff there.
Me: Where is this mecca of good deals?! I must know!
Co-worker: Just up the highway. Here are the directions.

I was super-excited, imagining a store lined with shelves of beautiful china, glassware, and other assorted sundries, and me with a shopping cart, just filling it up with things that didn’t weigh too much. Finally, last week, after days of anticipation, I was able to go there.

AND IT WAS THE MOST TERRIFYING EXPERIENCE OF MY LIFE.

I arrived shortly after 10:30 in the morning, having followed my GPS instructions like a pirate with a treasure map. I pulled into the parking lot and the red flag should have gone up right there. It was PACKED. People were double-parked and cars were squeezed together, but luckily my car is quite tiny, and I managed to find a spot partly on the grass. I grabbed a couple of reusable shopping bags and walked through the door…into a giant open room. It was full of large, wheeled bins surrounded by people, who were going through them, tossing things up in the air, digging through to the bottom, and pulling things out. I was hesitant, and took a tentative step forward to peek into one of the bins, which was full of what looked like broken CDs. Then I noticed in the far corner, there was a line of tape on the floor, and behind the line of tape, there was a line of men, standing shoulder to shoulder, fidgeting, rocking back and forth on their heels and looking desperate and hungry. A store worker went by:

Me: Excuse me. That line-up over there—is that where I’m supposed to wait my turn or something?
Worker: Oh no. You can look in all the bins over here. Those guys are waiting for the new bins to come out. You have to stay behind the line until the new bins come to a complete stop and the back-room workers have had time to step away. Then we give a signal and you can dive right in.
Me: Maybe I’ll just watch for a bit.

After a minute, the doors to the warehouse suddenly flew open. The air bristled with anticipation and the men in line started cracking their knuckles and bouncing up and down on their toes. The bins were wheeled over to the corner and parked. A man began to move and a woman shrieked, “NOT YET!! STAY BACK!! The men muttered in frustration while the carts were positioned, and then the workers let go and backed away quickly as a whistle sounded. The line surged forward and everything became pure chaos. Arms disappeared into the bins, then reappeared holding perceived treasures. A cry went up as one man triumphantly brandished a coil of copper tubing. Two other men tussled over loose hockey cards, and another ran back to his shopping cart (I realized they all had carts lined up against the back wall) with a Coleman cooler. It was like feeding frenzy time at the shark tank, with vintage radios and glass vases as chum. Then, as quickly as it had begun, the men tossed their finds into their respective carts and ran, as a unit, to the opposite corner, where ANOTHER LINE FORMED. Apparently, the new bins were placed in alternating corners, and sure enough, a minute later, a set of full bins arrived, and a fresh round of shrieking and digging commenced.

So what did I do? What do you think? I tucked my reusable shopping bags under my arm, got the hell out of there, and drove like the wind to the calm oasis of Value Village.

In other news, I had the tremendous honour recently of being asked to write the foreword to my good friend and brilliant poet Susan Richardson’s latest compilation titled Tiger Lily, to be released on August 19. The collection is an ekphrastic collaboration between Susan and artist Jane Cornwell, and it’s just brilliant. You can pre-order it here. And here’s a sneak preview of one of my favourites, Mermaids Are Real:

In Memoriam: James Douglas Whytock

It’s been a tough week. Last Tuesday, Ken got a call from his mom that his dad, who’d been suffering from Alzheimer’s and had been in a nursing home for the last couple of years, had stopped eating. He’d been on a steady decline and if any of you know anything about Alzheimer’s disease, you’ll know that’s pretty much a signal that the end is near. And it was. Ken’s father, a lovely man, passed away peacefully on Thursday night at the age of 87, surrounded by people who loved him very much. And while the last two years of his life were incredibly sad, as we watched him drift further and further away from us, I’d like to take this opportunity to tell you a little bit about him.

James Whytock was a kind, hard-working man. He had to quit school and take over the family dairy farm at the age of 16 when his own father passed away very young. He and Ken’s mom built a good life for Ken and his siblings, and I know they all look back on their childhoods with fond memories. One of my first experiences with Jim was when Ken and I had begun dating and I would go with him to the family farm. In the morning, our chore was to feed the calves while Jim milked the cows, and he would razz me about being a ‘city girl’, even though I’d grown up in a town that really wasn’t much of a city, but to Jim, anything larger than the 1000-person town he called home was a metropolis.

He loved to tease people, but never in a mean-spirited way. He was quick with a one-liner and had a variety of sayings for all occasions. He was the skip of our family curling team, and I still laugh when I remember the time we were winning but the other team was gaining points—he leaned over to me, winked, and whispered, “Now the cheese is starting to bind!” It made me laugh so hard that I could barely sweep, but we won the tournament–and some bacon. Even once the dementia got hold of him, there were still glimmers of the old Jim—every once in a while, he’d crack a joke and it would let us know he was in there somewhere.

He was an incredibly creative person. When, at the age of 62, he and Ken’s mom sold the family farm and moved to town, he finally had more time to devote to all his favourite hobbies. He was a talented photographer (in fact, he was the photographer at our wedding and did an amazing job). He also worked with glass. He taught me how to do stained glass, and we shared ideas and designs. He had a glass kiln as well and made all kinds of things out of fused glass, including my favourite set of checkerboard “Alice In Wonderland” coasters.

He collected all kinds of things, notably coins and diecast tractors. Kate inherited his love of coin collecting, and when she was younger, they would discuss coins—she was always impressed by how knowledgeable he was. And not only did he collect tractors, he also customized his own collector vehicles, one of which sits proudly on a shelf in Ken’s office—a gift from his dad.

James Whytock leaves behind a family who loved him very much and who will miss him terribly, and an enduring legacy as a man who always saw the positive side of things—I don’t think I ever heard him say a bad word about anyone, and my last image of him this past Father’s Day was the smile on his face as he ate the chocolate that Ken’s mom brought him. Alzheimer’s is a horrible disease and I’m glad he’s finally at peace.

Skin Game

Last week, I had to renew my health card. For those of you who don’t know what a health card is, it’s the card you show at the doctor’s or the hospital or whatnot, and then you don’t have to pay for anything. Everyone in the province gets one at birth and it’s funded through income tax paid by residents and businesses. And for some reason, it’s one of the few things that can’t be renewed online anymore, which meant I had to go into a Service Ontario office (similar to the DMV) and stand in line. I went in the afternoon, and when I walked in, there were only 5 people ahead of me, and the three at the counter were finished quickly. But the next guy in line didn’t know what his exact mailing address was and insisted on looking at Google maps and stood at the second counter calling three other people to figure out the best place to mail him something, and then the woman at the third counter just WALKED AWAY. Which left one poor woman available for the rest of us. But still, she was very efficient, and about twenty minutes later it was my turn. She looked at my health card and said, “No problem. Your driver’s license is coming due at the same time—do you want to renew it now as well?”

And that seemed like the smart thing to do since I was there anyway, so I said “Sure.”

She filled in some information on the computer and then looked me straight in the eye and said, “Do you want to be an organ donor?” And I was really taken aback, having an actual person ask me this, instead of just ticking off the box on the back of my license, and I froze.

Me: …No?
Woman: Really? Are you sure? OK.

And then I felt terribly judged and also remembered that I’d had laser eye surgery and now my eyes were pretty good and might help someone else, and also that my kidneys and liver had passed their last tests with flying colours, so I said, “Wait! I changed my mind. Yes, I’ll be an organ donor.”

She kind of sighed, and said, “It’ll take me a minute to get back to that screen. Hang on.” Then, after a few minutes, she asked this bizarre follow-up question, and my blood froze. “Do you want to donate only for life-saving procedures or also for medical research?”

MEDICAL RESEARCH?! Like I’d be one of those cadavers that medical students experiment on? Would they give me a terrible nickname like Gangrene Greta or take selfies with me? No thank you, ma’am and I told that woman the same in no uncertain terms, but while in my head I sounded determined, it came out a very whispery “Just the first one.”

Woman: OK, no medical research. Now, are you good with everything, or do you have any exceptions, for example, would you like to exempt your eyes, your lungs, your kidneys, blood plasma, your bones, or YOUR SKIN?
Me:
Woman: Great. Now I need to get a picture so stand over there and don’t smile.

Don’t SMILE? You just told me that when I die, someone is going to flay me and then steal my skin and bones. The license hasn’t come in the mail yet so I haven’t seen the picture, but I’m sure I look absolutely horrified in it. Like, imagine this scenario:

Cop: Do you know how fast you were going? Can I see your license and registration please?
Me (gives him my new license): Sorry, Officer, I—
Cop: (returns my license and backs away): I didn’t mean to add to your trauma. Have a nice day. (whispers to himself) Poor woman.

When I got home, I was really disturbed and told Ken what had happened. “I didn’t know what to say! She asked me in front of everyone and I didn’t have any time to think about it. But I don’t want them to take my skin! Don’t let them take it!”

And I know I sounded like a big baby but Ken laughed and reminded me that as my survivor, he had right of first refusal over all my body parts.

Ken: Besides, there’s no need to worry about it. You’ll be dead.
Me: YOU DON’T KNOW THAT, KEN!! And don’t forget, if you let them have my skin, you can’t have me stuffed and put me in the living room.
Ken: I wasn’t going to do that anyway.
Me: You’re so mean.
Ken: It’ll just be one small empty urn on the fireplace mantle…
Me: You better hope I die first.

In other news, 3 weeks ago, we switched from our long-term internet provider to a cheaper, faster company. And three days ago, that company’s nation-wide network went down, leaving us with no internet. I’m posting this using my phone as a personal hotspot and hoping I don’t run out of data before it goes live. Stupid Rogers. So if I don’t engage too much today, you know why…

Flushed Away Again

One of the things I have to do at work, one of the things I dislike the most, is that I have to clean the bathroom on my floor. It’s technically a ladies’ bathroom, and it’s used mostly by our female customers. I used to think that women were much more hygienic when it came to toilet stuff than men, based on my experiences many years ago at the donut shop where I worked in my late teens to make money for university tuition. The men’s room there used to be so disgusting that the only thing that would really help would have been a flamethrower. But now that I have to clean this particular bathroom regularly, I’m beginning to wonder if I was unfairly stereotyping the guys. Personally, I’m fairly straightforward when it comes to using public washrooms—I go in a stall, sit down, do my thing, wash my hands and leave—but apparently I’m an anomaly when it comes to using a public washroom and I have some questions for the hypothetical woman who regularly uses the bathroom at work that I have to clean.

1) Why do you put the lid down?

I know that people complain ALL the time about men leaving the seat up, but that’s an easy fix—I just use the toe of my shoe to pull the seat back down. But putting the actual lid down before you leave the stall? What the hell for? You flushed, didn’t you? (see Question 5) So what are you trying to hide? I enjoy taking a “safety go” right before heading home, and seriously, the number of times I’ve had to lift the lid so that I could sit down is ridiculous. And you can’t use the toe of your shoe for THAT one—you have to touch the lid WITH YOUR FINGERS. Do you do this so the germs from the toilet flushing don’t invisibly splash on you? Well now my hands are covered with them, so thanks for that.

2) Two-parter: a) Why do you line the toilet seat with toilet paper?

So you don’t want your butt to get dirty? Honey, you’ve already touched all kinds of sh*t before even sitting down, and you’re worried about your butt? I hate to break this to you, but going to the bathroom in and of itself is a process that is rife with germs. A thin layer of toilet paper will not protect you. Of course, the alternate to the toilet liner is to simply crouch and mist the toilet seat with your urine, which makes things even more disgusting, especially for the next woman to enter the stall.

b) If you do insist on lining the toilet seat with toilet paper because somebody else was spraying like a tomcat, why don’t you flush the damn stuff when you’re done instead of leaving it on the floor where it fell after unsticking itself from your butt? Now it’s MY responsibility to sweep up all your ass-paper.

3) How do you manage to get water spots all over the mirror?

I mean, are you having a splashfest in the sink? Are you just waving your hands around, doing the chicken dance or something? The mirror at work is at least two feet above the sink but it constantly needs Windexing to get rid of all the droplets that have managed to land on it from your exuberant handwashing. Oh well–at least you washed your hands.

4) Why is the garbage full of V8 juice cans and an entire empty tray of butter tarts? Were you having a picnic in there?! (This happens more than you think). And please stop leaving your empty Red Baron beer bottles behind the toilet at 10 am. No wonder you have to pee so much.

5) Do you not understand how a toilet handle works?

The handles on two separate toilets were literally snapped off last week. How hard are you trying to flush?! Oh well, I guess it’s better than not bothering to flush at all, which you do on a regular basis. No wonder you put the lid down.

If I seem a little grumpy today, it’s because I am. There’s still a skunk somewhere on the property, and it refuses to take our delicious peanut butter and cat food bait, but insists on spraying several times a day to the point where I can barely breathe! So here’s a picture to cheer us all up: