Month: May 2024

Feeling Bubbly But Not Expensive

This will be a quick one because the book launch for my new novel Charybdis is this afternoon and I’ve been planning like crazy, buying meats and cheeses, and assorted drinks and other things so that people will be busy eating and not notice how nervous I am. I also bought 2 bottles of bubbly but because we forgot to get some in the city, I was forced to buy it at the local gas station and all they had was Spumante Bambino and it was $10.95 a bottle in case anyone is thinking that champagne is a luxury. I’d normally do something a little fancier like a nice prosecco but gas station liquor store beggars can’t be choosers.

Otherwise, it’s been a quiet week. Here are the highlights:

On Tuesday, I presented a workshop on creative writing to a class at a school that seemed to be near Niagara Falls and I was so excited because I was planning on hitting some wineries on the way back. The kids were amazing and when I was done, I put “wineries near me” into my gps and THERE WAS NOTHING. I was on the wrong side of the escarpment apparently, and came home empty-handed, having also not made the finals for that literary prize I was longlisted for. Well, not really empty-handed—I got a nice mug and a lanyard from the school.

I ordered some gluten-free licorice for Kate because she was recently diagnosed with celiac disease. It came on Wednesday and I was so excited because licorice is her favourite. I tried it. It tasted like cardboard.

Thursday: That bug is back.

Say hello to my little friend!

Friday: I had been booked for AGES to do a reading at this one particular reading series on Saturday which meant I couldn’t do a book festival that came up on the same day that I really wanted to do. Then the reading series cancelled at the last minute, so I asked the book festival people if I could be put on a waiting list. It would have been cool to do either, kind of like a Charybdis weekend with the launch being on Sunday and all. Then the book festival got cancelled because of rain and the rain date was TODAY. And on Friday night, I got an email offering me a spot at the book festival for today but I couldn’t take it because I’M LAUNCHING MY BOOK. Could my timing be any worse?!

But then on Saturday, with big junk pickup on Monday, I made Ken take me driving around the back concessions and there wasn’t much but I got, AT THE SIDE OF THE ROAD FOR FREE, a stained glass lampshade in perfect condition. So the week turned out okay after all. I’m pretty easy to please, as you can tell by both the lampshade and the Spumante Bambino.

Here’s a picture of the aurora borealis that I took from our upper deck because it’s beautiful and even if things don’t always go my way, life is still very beautiful too. Wish me luck this afternoon, and by wish me luck, I mean let’s hope that at least a few people show up and drink my cheap champagne.

Also, if you can’t attend my in-person launch and you’d still like to celebrate with me, my wonderful publisher JC Studio Press is doing an online Eventbrite launch for Charybdis on Saturday, June 1. You can register for that here!

Taking The Fall

First the good news: After the shuttering of Potters’ Grove Press and their decision to unpublish all their titles, I was left with 2 short story collections that were no longer available. I’m happy to announce that my first short story collection, Feasting Upon The Bones, has been republished by Baxter House Editions and I even had the chance to correct a couple of minor typos that had always bothered me. So if you’d like a copy of the new and improved Feasting Upon The Bones, you can buy it here!

http://a-fwd.com/asin=B0D3YBHJ5R

And in other news…

As I write this, much of my body is aching thanks to an incident earlier in the week, which was terrible at the time but which, because you know me and you know I can laugh at just about anything, seems funny in retrospect:

I woke up early on Thursday morning because I had an online meeting. OK, the meeting started at 9 am but I’m retired and I spent the majority of my career getting up at 5:45 so 9 am IS EARLY AND I WILL NOT BE JUDGED. I got ready, but because it was an online meeting, I did what any normal person would do and I put on a nice sweater and also some pajama pants and my old woolly slippers because my bottom half wouldn’t be visible. The other person logged on right at 9 and we began to chat. Then she wanted to share something on her screen. At the same moment, my phone, which I’d left upstairs, began to ring. It was taking her a minute to get the file up and I was worried about the phone because Ken had gone out with Atlas and I’d heard sirens just a little while before the phone started ringing and again, if you know me at all, you know that I’m the Queen of Worst Case Scenarios. So I said to the other person, “While you’re getting that ready, I’m just going to grab my phone” and then I ran upstairs.

I was in a bit of a panic, thinking that someone was calling to tell me that poor Ken had been hit by a car chasing after Atlas, who had broken his collar AGAIN, or more ludicrously that he had been attacked by an angry swarm of bees and I was picturing Atlas snapping at them all and praying he didn’t get stung (which has happened in the past and I’ve tried to soothe him while simultaneously trying not to laugh at his chubby cheeks), when I hit the third step from the top.

That was when my slippers, being old and woolly and having no tread, went completely out from under me and I landed hard, left-side down, on the stairs. But that wasn’t the end of it. Thanks to my super-comfy yet non-grippy pajama pants and sweater, I began sliding DOWN THE STAIRS AT BREAKNECK SPEED. It sound like this: Thunkthunkthunkthunkthunkthunk and I could go on for another 7 thunks but I think you get the point. About halfway down, I screamed at the top of my lungs—why, I don’t know, because there was nothing and no one who could save me, and I wondered if it was true that if a woman who’s falling down the stairs screams and there’s no one there to hear her, does she make a sound? And the answer is yes. Yes, she does. A very loud and terrifying sound. I hit the bottom of the stairs and lay there for a second, trying to figure out if I had broken anything, and then I suddenly remembered that I was IN A MEETING. So I had to limp over to my office chair and sit down very carefully.

“I’m back. Are you ready to get started?” I asked between clenched teeth. And the meeting continued like nothing had happened, except that I was in agony.

But the best part is that, even though I didn’t break anything, I have some huge bruises, and while that might not seem like an upside, it’s certainly getting me lots of sympathy and maybe even a nice get well present KEN (hint hint—I like wine). Speaking of wine, the only other time I’ve fallen down a set of stairs was when I fell down our attic stairs almost 20 years ago. I was at the bottom trying not to cry and Kate, who was about 8 at the time, immediately ran and got me a glass of wine. Because she’s the best daughter, aren’t you KATE? (hint hint—I like wine).

Worst slip and slide EVER

Zoology 101

It’s been a zoo around here this past week. I’m serious—a veritable zoo. First, I’ve been having issues with a squirrel in my attic, and that’s not a euphemism for how my brain works, like literally ALL the time. No, there’s an actual squirrel who took up residence in our attic over a week ago by chewing a hole in our fascia. I noticed one day when I was putting laundry away that it sounded like a herd of elephants cavorting around the heating vent in the ceiling above me, and that’s when we discovered the hole. Ken got out the really long extension ladder (because our house is very old—the main floor is 14 feet high and the second floor is 8 feet high, plus the attic space, carry the 1, divide by the nominator, and draw a Venn diagram where I’m in the middle, terrified that he’s going to fall OFF the ladder—in fact, I came up with a very cunning Worst Case Scenario plan whereby if the ladder tipped over, he was to grab the eavestrough and then swing to the window ledge, leap towards the largest branch of the nearest spruce tree, and then fall into the springy bushes underneath. Ken’s reaction to this, while he was swaying back and forth on the ladder, was “Don’t be ridiculous—I’m not going to fall off.” Thankfully, he did not, but I was PREPARED.) Where was I? Oh, right. So we waited until the next morning when it seemed like the squirrel had gone out for the day, and then Ken repaired the hole. But later that night, it still sounded like there was something in the attic, so we got out the live trap. Ken baited it with peanut butter, and the following became the conversation for the next four mornings:

Day One

Me: Did you catch the squirrel?
Ken: No, but the trap was sprung and the peanut butter was gone.

Day Two

Me: Did you catch the squirrel?
Ken: No, but the trap was sprung and the peanut butter was gone.

Day Three

Me: Did you catch the squirrel?
Ken: No, but the trap was sprung and the peanut butter was gone.

Day Four

Me: Did you catch the squirrel?
Ken: No, but the trap was sprung and the peanut butter was gone.

So now, not only do we still have a squirrel in our attic, he’s the most well-fed and happy squirrel on the block.

And then, I woke up on Wednesday morning, and there was a notification on my phone that our outdoor camera had detected motion around 3 am. What now? Had that bug decided to go on a walkabout? But no—I checked the feed and it was a GIANT RACCOON!! It galumphed from our side porch over to one of our outbuildings like it was having the time of its life and I was so excited, because the other day I saw a video clip about a man who had raised a raccoon and it followed him everywhere like a puppy. Atlas rarely follows me ANYWHERE unless I have food, so a raccoon would be awesome. I decided I would put out a big bowl of food and see if I could gradually tame it to hang out with me, but then Ken reminded me that raccoons are nocturnal so I’d have to be awake in the middle of the night to ‘hang out with it’, and that was kind of a dealbreaker for someone like me who’s asleep by 10 o’clock. Still, I really want more raccoon films so I’ll keep you posted on the results of my labours.

Finally, the strangest thing happened this week as Ken and I were travelling up North so I could do writing presentations to a high school in Cochrane. We went through this small town just as school had finished and we got stuck behind a school bus. It stopped, lights flashing, so we waited patiently while it unloaded. Then it drove off. But there was no child on the sidewalk—there was only a CROW. Just standing there like it was waiting to cross the street. And then from the other side of the street, another crow came hopping along very quickly, like it was coming to meet the first crow who had gotten off the school bus. And I’ve been thinking about that for days.

And finally finally, on a non-animal-related note—my Leacock Longlist stickers came on Friday! If you order my humour book What Any Normal Person Would Do (which you can do by clicking here), it comes with the image of the sticker on the front cover, but the copies I ordered for myself are getting plastered with those bad boys!

Making A List

No, I’m not making a list, like a grocery list, or a checklist of tiny furniture I need to buy at the Miniatures Fair I’m going to later, or an excel spreadsheet of all my clocks—the list I’m talking about is a very prestigious longlist. The longlist for a humour competition I recently wrote about where my entry was number 69 on THAT list, which I found hilarious but everyone else was too mature to snicker at. Yes, to my absolute shock and delight, my humour book What Any Normal Person Would Do was selected for the Leacock Memorial Medal For Humour longlist! That book, based on this little blog, was found worthy of being long-listed beside well-known Canadian funny people like Rick Mercer! (If you’re not Canadian, you might not know who that is, but trust me, he’s hilarious).

I knew that the longlist was being announced last Tuesday, and I hadn’t heard anything at all. I wasn’t sure if they let people know ahead of time, so I messaged a friend who had been longlisted twice in the past and he assured me that people only found out when the announcement was made. I don’t know if that was REALLY an assurance because then I was like, great, another week before I find out I didn’t make the cut. Then on Tuesday morning, I was getting ready to go shopping, and my email alert went off. The subject line said “2024 Leacock Medal Long List Announced”. I reluctantly opened it, wondering which big names in Canadian humour had gotten this accolade, and I squinted at it because I couldn’t find the several many pairs of reading glasses that I have scattered around the house but can never seem to find in a pinch. Then my squinty eyes widened as I saw what looked like my name. And I say, “looked like my name” because it WAS my name but it was spelled incorrectly—instead of Craig-Whytock, it said “Craig-Whytack”. But the name of my book was alongside it, and with sudden jawdropping surprise, I realized that I was actually ON the longlist. I felt faint. So I did what any normal person would do—I called Ken:

Me: Oh my god oh my god!
Ken: What? Are you okay? What happened?!
Me: I made the longlist for the Leacock!!
Ken: What?! That’s amazing!
Me: I think I’m going to cry!

But it was real. And then my daughter sent me a CBC article where my name was mentioned (spelled correctly, thanks, national broadcaster) and it started to sink in. And when it did, I was faced with another horrifying realization: people were going to read my book, and what if no one else thought it was funny, and everybody was like “Why the hell did they pick this piece of crap?” and “Wow, this lady is superweird” and “She has way too many clocks” and “She used the word f*ck 39 times in one book!” As Yoda would say, “The imposter syndrome is strong with this one.”

But the best part of all this is that I got an email from their director of communications yesterday (and yes, my name was still spelled incorrectly even though I’d told them, and even though they’d apologized, but I said ‘Don’t worry, it’s just an honour to be on the longlist’) offering me STICKERS to put on my book covers. GOLD STICKERS (well, they call them bronze but they look gold to me). Is there anything better than stickers? Even the word is the best: sticker sticker sticker sticker. The finalists, who are announced on May 21, get even nicer stickers and while I know I won’t make the finals, it would be cool if I did because the grand prize is $25 000 and the two runners-up get five grand each, and you can only imagine what I would spend some of that money on (hint: tick tock).

‘Excellence in Canadian humour’–find it here, folks. Sticker sticker sticker sticker…