Humour

Going Viral

Last week at work, one of the vendors came in and approached me for some help with bags. I took them from her and as I did, she wiped her nose with the back of her hand, sniffed, and said, “Ugh, I feel so crappy.”

And I was like, what the actual f*ck?

Me: Are you okay?
Vendor: Yeah. But don’t worry, it’s not covid, I tested. It’s just a bad cold.
Me: Yet you’re here, and you’re not wearing a mask.
Vendor: Well, it’s not covid so…

Don’t worry, it’s NOT COVID? Since when is that a thing, that it’s acceptable to spread your germs to other people as long as it’s not covid?! Why on earth do you think I want to get a bad cold any more than I want to get covid? Because I DON’T. Yet—I did get a bad cold, thanks to this person and their communicable disease. So I spent the last week sick as a dog—but don’t worry, it’s not covid, I tested—and had to lose three days of pay as well as cancel my mom’s 81st birthday party because, even though it WASN’T covid, I didn’t want her and my dad, and my co-workers and the myriad of customers who come into my workplace to catch whatever sh*tty virus I had.

I honestly thought at this point, after everything people have been through, that they might be a little more considerate when they’re sick, but I’ve actually heard that phrase “Don’t worry, it’s not covid” more than once from people with colds, flu, or stomach bugs. And I remember pre-covid, when people used to stagger into work, hacking and sneezing and sharing their viruses with everyone around them, and we all just thought it was par for the course. But can we not do that anymore? Because after almost two years of not getting sick, I’d forgotten how awful even a bad cold can be, and how incredibly grumpy it makes me. And what the hell is wrong with my immune system that I’ve eluded covid for over two years but can’t fight off the common cold? Of course, I only have myself to blame really, because I wasn’t wearing a mask. Apparently, I am now going to have to wear a mask for the rest of my life because a) people can’t be trusted and b) I am very un-fun to be around when I’m sick, like the other night when Ken and I were watching Drag Race Belgium:

Ken: I didn’t know chicory was a Belgian national food.
Me: Well, apparently it is.
Ken (looking it up on his phone): Did you know that chicory is not only used as a coffee substitute but it also can be used as a sweetener?
Me: No, I didn’t know that.
Ken: The chicory we have here in Ontario has blue flowers but it’s different from this kind of chicory, which is technically Belgian endive.
Me: Uh-huh.
Ken: Ooh, you can also use it in some kinds of beer, like Belgian–
Me: Okay, Trivial Pursuit, can you stop rambling on about chicory and just WATCH THE GODDAMN TV SHOW?!
Ken (whispers): You’re so mean when you’re sick.

And then, to make matters worse, a couple of days ago, there was a news story about bird flu and how people are getting it now, and I was like, What new hell is this?! Why do birds hate us? Although frankly, I don’t blame them, and if you’ve ever had an encounter with a Canada Goose, the evil lake chicken that is our national mascot, then you’ll know I’m right. But the newscaster was like, “According to the WHO, the situation is worrying but the risk to humans is still very low.” And I don’t believe that for a moment:

Me: Are you okay?
Vendor: Yeah, but it’s not covid, I tested. It’s just the bird flu. C-caw!

See, this is why the zombie apocalypse is an inevitability. I’ve been watching The Last Of Us, which is basically The Walking Dead meets The Mandalorian, and in it, the world is infected by a mutated fungus. And just like everything else, the fungus spread because, although it was initially in the food supply, it kept going until most of the people on the planet were zombies. Why? Because a lot of the people on the planet are jerks:

Me: Are you okay?
Zombie: Yeah, but it’s not covid, I tested. Just a little mushroom thing. *tries to eat me*

And now I’m an incredibly grumpy zombie.

My Valentine Is Bigger Than Yours

It happens every year, on pretty much every occasion—I get outdone by Ken. It’s bad enough that I have a terrible memory and Ken writes EVERYTHING down:

Ken: Guess what day it is today??!!
Me: Oh, god, no. What day is it?
Ken: It’s the 33rd year anniversary of our third date! Here, I got you a little something…
Me: Sigh.

But it’s worse on the major occasions. We’ve been married for almost 32 years, and Valentine’s Day is no longer a big deal. Of course, when we were first dating, and then married, it was a week long celebration of our love, complete with red roses, special dinners, and flirtatious lingerie, and let me tell you, Ken looks wonderful in boxer shorts decorated in hearts. After a while though, as it does, the excitement died down a little. Twenty years in, it became less of a surprise and more of a competition, which Ken inevitably won:

Ken: Is it OK if I drop you off at the grocery store? I went to three different places yesterday, and I can’t find the thing I want to get you for Valentine’s Day.
Me: What? You don’t have to get me anything. It’s not a big deal.
Ken: No, I have this thing in mind. You’re really going to like it.
Me: All I got you was some chocolate…
Ken: That’s OK. I just want to get you something special. Do you want to know what it is?
Me: Um…OK?
Ken: It’s a digital picture frame!
Me: But that’s really expensive. All I got you was chocolates.
Ken: But you’re worth it. Don’t worry about it.

On that Valentine’s Day, he presented me a beautiful digital frame so I could have pictures of him, Kate, and all kinds of flowers, clouds, fences, and trees that I could look at while I was working. But I won in the end though:

Me: Here’s your chocolate. AND YOUR CARD.
Ken: Oh no! I forgot to get you a card. I’m so sorry.
Me (a little smugly): That’s OK. The present was enough. Don’t worry about it.

In recent years, it’s been a little hit and miss—sometimes we just have a great dinner; other times Ken gives me something special and I get outdone once again, and I can never predict what’s going to happen. So this year I decided to nip the whole thing in the bud and announced last week, “Here’s what we’re doing for Valentine’s Day. I’m going to buy you chocolate and you’re going to buy me wine. No cards. Cards are a waste of money, and we just throw them away now anyway.” Ken agreed.

Then, the day before Valentine’s Day, I had completely forgotten about it, and I was driving home from work when it hit me that I had nothing to give him in the morning. Luckily, the local liquidation store was open until 6, so I drove there quickly and grabbed him some delicious gifts—a giant peanut butter cup AND a more pricey tin of Bailey’s filled chocolates. I was feeling pretty good about everything, so the next morning while he was at work, I put them on the counter with a piece of scrap paper that I had lovingly drawn a heart on in crayon. When he came home, I dragged him over to show him his presents:

Ken: I have your present in the car, chilling. I’ll just go and get it.
Me: Ooh!

And he brought in not one, but THREE bottles of wine. I was flabbergasted. Outdone once AGAIN!.  And then he said, “Oh, hang on, I forgot your card!” He ran upstairs with me yelling behind him, “We said no cards!!”

“It’s okay,” he reassured me. “It’s just a piece of paper with a heart drawn on it. I mean it’s bigger than yours and more card-shaped….”

Outdone, indeed, but my heart was drawn more symmetrically. I may have snickered a little to myself at that point. But don’t tell Ken. He’ll always be MY Valentine.

Smells Like Teen Syrup

On Thursday, I went out shopping. Thrift store shopping because this month is ‘Cabin Fever’ month at the antique market, which means most of the booths, including mine, are on discount to encourage people to come out even when the weather is crappy. Sales have been good—or I should say, stock has been moving, because between the commission the market already takes combined with the discount of 20% that I agreed to, I needed to do a little buying. So I headed into town to Goodwill. It was absolutely pouring rain, in keeping with the ‘weather is crappy in February’ theme (three days before it was a blizzard), and I ran into the store, soaking wet. After taking a turn around the metalware section, I headed for vases. A few months ago, I found a vase at a different thrift store, and recognized it as something I’d seen at the market before—turned out it was a Chinese vase from the late 1800s and I resold it for $300—not bad considering I’d paid $5 for it—AND had a coupon. So I’m convinced that the same thing will happen one day, just like I’m convinced every time I play the lottery that I’m going to win, but I never do and I’m always disappointed. And on Thursday, I was not only disappointed but also disgusted. Why? Because I was looking through the vases and turning them over to see it there were any interesting makers marks, as one does, when I picked up a small urn that looked like it might be satin glass. As I flipped it over, suddenly my hand felt…wet. Something had dripped out of the vase and onto ME. And it wasn’t water. No, it was some kind of weird oil. AND IT SMELLED. I immediately went to the cashier, holding my hand in the air:

Me: Do you have any paper towels? Something just dripped onto my hand from that vase over there.
Cashier: No, sorry.
Me: Nothing? Like Kleenex or wet wipes? Seriously? It’s BURNING.

He grabbed me a couple of tissues and passed me a pump bottle full of hand sanitizer. And as I cleaned myself off, I realized that the smell was kind of perfume-y, but not the good kind of perfume. The smell was more like if you said to an AI, “Design me a perfume that smells like maple syrup and gingerbread” and it gave you a bizarre approximation of what it THOUGHT that was. Or like when you walk past the Yankee Candle store in the mall, and the mixture of scents is initially sweet then REALLY off-putting. And I had to keep shopping with this weird, expired candle/moldy syrup smell on me until I got home.

Once I was home, I washed my hand very vigorously with soap. I dried off and checked but it was still really pungent. I took off my rings and washed them too, but it didn’t help. That night, I had a long bath, and when I got into bed, I shoved my hand in Ken’s face.

Ken: What are you doing?!
Me: IT STILL SMELLS!
Ken: Yes, it does. Please get your hand away from me. It’s like a candle that no one wants burning in their house.
Me: I KNOW!!

On Friday, the scent was still very strong, despite me having washed my hands several times and soaking my hand in wine, which is totally something that normal people do. And then I had a bath again on Friday night, but every time I waved my hand near my face, I could still smell the combination of old gingerbread and expired maple syrup. Sure, it was getting fainter, but how the f*ck was it still lingering?! Was it the cockroach of smells? On Saturday afternoon, Ken and I were out, and I held my hand up to his nose:

Me: It’s still there!
Ken: Get it away from me!
Me: You are SO mean. “Meh, don’t make me smell you!” What a baby.
Ken: Is this going to be a forever thing? Like, you will always smell this way? Because…
Me: That’s not very nice.
Ken: And neither is the way your hand smells.

I have scrubbed it and scrubbed it, and even as I write this, if I put my hand up close to my nose, I still get a faint whiff of that oil. But I don’t feel quite so bad tonight though, because Ken just made coffee and it smells even worse. Maybe if I rub the grounds into my fingers…

Here’s a picture of Ilana in a box because a picture of my hand is nowhere near as cute:

In other news, my new short story collection At The End Of It All came out last Tuesday, as you might have read, and I was completely floored when I saw that it debuted at Number 1 on Amazon’s Hot New Releases Chart. And it stayed at Number 1 for most of the day before being supplanted, so despite reeking like the corpse of a gingerbread man who has been embalmed in maple syrup, I was pretty excited. I know a few of you have started reading it—I hope that if you like it, you can give it quick review. It would mean a lot.

A Novel Idea

As you may or may not have known, I haven’t been working at the antique market since before Christmas. I didn’t really specify why—it was mostly because I haven’t had much time to write, and I had a new novel idea brewing in my head that I really needed to get done. So I took a six week leave. Well, I asked for a leave and they told me I’d have to just quit, so I did, but then a couple of weeks ago, I was asked to come back. And I am. On Monday. And not a moment too soon, because on Friday, I finished the book. I initially felt like I powered through this one, but I worked on the last novel pretty much once a week until it was done. So technically, this one probably took me the same amount of hours, except that I wrote about 2000 words almost every day since January 2. It’s called Charybdis—yes, like the whirlpool monster from Greek mythology and it’s a gothic thriller.  I’m super happy with it. I like to finish a chapter or two and let Ken read it first for feedback, but this time, as I got close to the end and started explaining to him what was going to happen, he said, “Stop. Don’t tell me. I want to read the rest of it in one chunk and find it for myself. I want to be surprised.” And that was fine, but then the other day, I was driving on the highway and the weather was shitty, and it suddenly occurred to me that if I crashed my car and died, he would NEVER KNOW. And it would haunt him for the rest of his life. So I started trying to summarize the rest of the book in my head VERY succinctly, so that I could whisper it to him as they were loading me into an ambulance or whatnot.

But then, after I had finally come up with a pretty good synopsis of the ending for him, I started struggling with the plot a little, trying to make it both suspenseful, twisty, but logical. I literally lay awake in bed for hours, trying to put all the pieces together in a way that made sense, and once that happened, I completely changed what I’d thought I was going to do (because I’m a pantsing plotter), and then I had to re-summarize the whole ending AGAIN just in case I got hit by a forklift or something. So as you can see, I’m exhausted. If only there was a place where I could sit and rest…

Seriously. Was there no thought AT ALL put into this sign? If I’m sedated, why would I BE DRIVING?!

And here’s something really weird that happened last week. I looked out the window at my balcony, and I yelled for Ken. He came slowly ambling in (because no matter how much I yell, he never runs), and I pointed at several small pieces of blue and green paper:

Me: How did that paper get up here? It wasn’t there yesterday.
Ken: That stuff is all over the neighbourhood. It’s like someone shot off a confetti cannon. There’s a gold paper star right in the middle of our back yard.
Me: AWW. That’s kind of nice. But strange.
Ken: Maybe they all flew out of a recycling truck that drove by very fast.
Me: I think you’re reaching. Let’s just call it magic.

In other news, I just found out that my first novel Smile is under contract with my Canadian publisher to be translated and published in Georgia. And every time I tell people that, they say “Great, y’all!” No, not Georgia the state, Georgia the country. And what language do they speak in Georgia? Georgian, of course. It’s due to be released this summer. Maybe I should buy a confetti cannon. Now that I’m going back to work, I can afford one.

Ironing Out The Bugs

On Thursday, Ken and I went away overnight. We didn’t need to—it wasn’t a special occasion or anything, but we’re planning a bigger trip in May, and here’s the thing: We have never left Atlas alone for more than one night, and up until now, either Kate or my parents have looked after him. But now Kate’s in school to become a veterinary technician and she’ll be moving to another city when she finishes this semester to do an internship, so SHE’S not available. And my parents are wonderful, but Atlas is a very active young dog, and when he tries to hug my mom, he literally knocks her down. So we were kind of stuck. But then Ken and I went to a banquet right before Christmas and became acquainted with a young woman in town who…TADA!…does dog and house sitting. She came over a couple of weeks ago and she and Atlas got along like a house on fire, ending the visit with him lying across her lap. So we hired her for a trial night and got ready to leave town.

Atlas: What you do?
Me: Just putting some old clothes in a bag. Nothing to be concerned about.
Atlas: Why does bag have wheels? Is toy?
Me: No, just easier to wheel out to the car. Don’t worry. Here’s a cookie.
Ken: See ya, nerd!
Atlas: What? Can I come for ride?
Me: We will only be gone for 5 minutes. Here’s a cookie. Go to sleep.

So we left him lying in his favourite chair, unsuspecting as he was. We drove down to a lake town, stopping at a couple of wineries along the way, and I was feeling pretty happy about the whole thing. Wine has a funny way of helping you avoid picturing your dog crying and whimpering while the sun goes down and he realizes he’s been abandoned. Am I being melodramatic? Obviously.

Anyway, we checked into the hotel, a very fancy and luxurious place that I still had money on a gift card for. Our room was beautiful with a huge king-sized four poster bed and a lot of weird Victorian era paintings like “Portrait Of A Man Standing In Front Of A Fireplace”–and he was. Within minutes of settling in, I got a text message from “Ivy, my virtual concierge”, who promised to help me with any and all needs I might have. So I texted back, “How do I make dinner reservations?” because I wasn’t sure how to call the hotel restaurant. I waited for a response. And I waited. And waited. Finally I texted back, ‘Ivy you’re not doing a good job at assisting me” at which point I received a very terse reply: “Call 65320 for dinner reservations.” But then, as Ken and I were trying to relax, I noticed several very large bugs on the ceiling, walls, and THE BED, so I texted her again with a picture—“Ivy. What kind of bug is this in my room?”

Well, before you could even say “I’m actually not an AI but a real person who is extremely flustered right now”, the response came: “It is called a brown marmorited it is a common harmless bug i will Maintenance come and remove it for you. I am sorry he made his way to your room.” And IMMEDIATELY after the message, there was a knock on the door. I didn’t know what to expect, but when I opened it, there was a guy standing there with a ladder and a roll of paper towels. We gave him the bugs, which we had carefully wrapped in toilet paper, and instructed him to let them outside. He looked at us like we were out of our minds, but nodded and left.

Then, fifteen minutes later—more f*cking bugs. We put them in a coffee cup and instructed Ivy to have someone come by and pick them up. The message? “I’m so sorry for the trouble. Would you like a bottle of white wine for the inconvenience?” And I was like, “You don’t have to ask me twice, you considerate quasi-artificial weirdo—send it on up.” So at a certain point, we were bug-free and wine-full. If only the pillows hadn’t been hard as rocks, it would have been idyllic.

I didn’t sleep much and finally woke up to a lovely message from the dogsitter, that Atlas had had a good night, sleeping on our bed, but had played, eaten, done his business, and was now sleeping in a chair, awaiting our arrival. So most of the experiment was successful.

When we got home, he was still asleep:

Atlas: You back so soon?
Me: Yes. Did you miss us?
Atlas: No.
Me: That’s actually ok, buddy. Have a cookie.

One Thing After Another

A couple of weeks ago, my parents emailed me with a picture of a big old pine wardrobe that someone in their condo building was giving away. I showed Ken the picture and he thought about it for a minute, then said, “You know that built-in cupboard in the upstairs hallway, the one made out of plywood that we keep sheets and pillowcases in?”

Me: It’s not plywood. It’s just not the best wood, but it’s not horrible.
Ken: I’ve always hated it. What if I rip out the built-in and we replace it with that wardrobe?
Me: It’s built right into the ceiling. You’d have to replace the drywall and then patch and paint behind it.
Ken: Cool!

We picked up the wardrobe from the very elderly parents of the guy who lived in my parents’ building. They were literally adorable, both in their 90s. He insisted on helping Ken and his son carry the wardrobe out to our trailer, while she insisted on showing me their house, including the rugs that she’d hand-knotted herself. We promised to send pictures of the wardrobe in place once we’d completed the project. And so the process began, as most home renovations do, in the ‘one thing leads to another’ school of fix-it projects.

1) Rip out the old linen closet. Discover a very cool hollow space at the base that would be perfect for hiding valuables, or love letters, or human remains, or old clocks. Discover that there is NOTHING in there. Wander the house in existential disappointment for 10 minutes.

2) Find some drywall for the ceiling. The old linen cupboard pre-dated the upgrade to the hallway, and the previous owners had simply drywalled AROUND it, which left quite a gap. Go to the store to buy drywall compound. Purchase Pokémon toys, shampoo, and chocolate in addition to drywall compound because I’m AT THE STORE, KEN.

3) Put up the drywall. Tape it and patch it, as well as all the holes in the wall where the nine-inch nails were holding everything in place. Not Nine Inch Nails the band, because that would have been super cool. But no—just stupidly long nails that ripped out pieces of lathe and plaster when Ken crowbarred the cupboard out.

4) Continue to apply drywall compound, because Ken is a fanatic.

5) Let the drywall compound dry. Search the house for the one can of paint that might match the rest of the walls in the hallway. Find three different cans, none of which match. Determine that now the ENTIRE hallway will have to be repainted.

6) Sand the drywall compound that coats the walls like a powdery white lover until you’ve almost scrubbed into the next room so that the walls that will be hidden behind the new wardrobe will be supersmooth. Spend half an hour vacuuming up all the dust.

7) Contemplate the waste of opportunity around having a very large space that would have been perfect for gold bullion, a severed hand, or even a rat skeleton, but which has been squandered. Realize that reality is never as good as your imagination and that you may be obsessing just a tad.

8) Mix two colours of paint together to get an approximate match. Decide that it’s not approximate enough to avoid having to repaint the ENTIRE hallway.

9) Curse the wardrobe. Curse it long and curse it deep. Rip a small piece of painted wallpaper off to get a match at the paint store. Meet a girl who is a WHIZ at paint mixing and who makes you paint that is indistinguishable from the rest of the hallway.

10) Realize that, if nothing else, the whole experience has provided you with a writing topic in a week in which not much happened.

In other news, there are less than 3 weeks until At The End Of It All, my new short story collection, drops. I’m super-excited. I don’t know how these things work, but if you want to host me on a blog tour once it’s out, I’ll repay the favour by promoting you and your own work, or posting a review, or whatever you like. I’ll even come to your house and look for ghosts, or name a character in my next book after you. I’m easy. And if you want to grab At The End Of It All as soon as it’s released, you can go to the Potter’s Grove website, or pick it up on Amazon.

Here’s A Tip

Something that completely befuddled me the other day happened when I went into the cannabis store. That’s it. That’s the story. No, I’m kidding. I went into the cannabis store, because I live in Canada and we like weed so much that we have government-licensed and regulated places where you can legally purchase it. I don’t smoke it or anything—I use CBD gel caps to help with my shoulder pain. I ran out of pills, and walked into the cannabis store to buy some more. On the counter at the till, there were two jars. These jars are TIP JARS. Every month, this store and others like it, have a question that prompts you to leave money in one of the jars. Last month, the question was “Is the Earth flat?” and terrifyingly, there was almost as much money in the YES jar as in the NO jar. Like, how stoned ARE you if you think that gravity, physics, and every explorer who circumnavigated the globe are just LYING TO YOU? But this month the question was “What TV show was better?” and the choices were Friends or Seinfeld. However. The questions are NOT the point. The point is, Why is the staff in a government licensed and regulated business asking for tips? First, they get paid $15.50 an hour at the very least because that’s the minimum wage. Second, it’s not like they cooked me food or brought me a drink—like, all the woman in the store literally did was open the locked cabinet that I pointed at and hand me a bottle of pills. And she wants a TIP for that? But I guess people are very grateful to cannabis store workers because there were a LOT of tips in those jars. More tips than I bet Jumbu ever got anyway.

Jan-uary Ads

On Friday, I was surfing through ads on Facebook Marketplace and I saw something that made my heart soar. No, it wasn’t a clock. It was, in fact, an ad for a cabinet, but it wasn’t the cabinet I was taken with. I’ve become so used to people who can barely put two sentences together online, let alone describe a product they’re selling with any accuracy at all, that this ad description almost made me weep:

Capacious?! And an example in another colour for inspiration? I have found my people!

I immediately followed this seller and took a look at some of her other ads. One in particular touched my heart: “The camera doesn’t do the colour justice; see the close-up picture of the fabric juxtaposed against white paper for a more accurate sense of the colours.” She used a SEMI-COLON. And JUXTAPOSED things. Why can’t everyone be so literate AND courteous? Prior to Friday, I had become inured to the lack of simple spelling, punctuation, and sloppy descriptions that are par for the course on online buy and sell sites, particularly with a highly rated seller named ‘Jan’. The majority of Jan’s ads are an enigma. Yesterday, she was advertising “Decorations Puts”, which I can only assume means ‘decorative pot’, but with Jan, you never know—it could be some kind of insult or a strangely worded command. And right before Hallowe’en, this was a group of things she was trying to offload:

Now, call me crazy, and a lot of people do, but I don’t think that particular Hallowe’en staff deserves even minimum wage—I mean, they all look half in the bag. I appreciate that she managed to spell both outdoor and chair correctly, and I love that she named the bank:

Buyer: Hi, I’m here for the piggy bank.
Jan (cradling it in her arms): His name is PETE.
Buyer: Um, ok.
Jan: SAY IT. SAY THE NAME.
Buyer: …Pete?
Jan: MR. BANK TO YOU.

But I have no idea what ‘2 landre’ basket is, except ‘landre’ is French for ‘moor’, so I can only assume these baskets are to be used in gothic novels by heartbroken heroines who wander the moors in torrential downpours, kind of like an umbrella but with many holes. Sadly, it seems that Jan is almost as misguided in her efforts as this coat she’s currently trying to hawk:

I can imagine that living with Jan is an ongoing adventure, trying to decipher whatever madness comes out of her mouth, because if she’s this bad at written English, how on earth does she speak?!

Jan’s husband: Hey Jan, where are you off to?
Jan: Gone to stone. Bach will eat moussaka.
Jan’s husband: Delicious. Or terrifying. Only time will tell.

But at least Jan isn’t as morbid as this person, who’s selling Vintage Death. And I was like, who the hell takes a picture with some alive family members and some who look VERY DECEASED? I was sure those two Scottish children were just sleepy from the photographer taking so damn long to get the shot. But then I did some research on Victorian death photography and it turns out they REALLY ARE DEAD. And everyone else in the photo just looks casual, like “Och, it’s a lovely wee day for a pic of the fam. Come on, Mam. Gi’ us a wee smile. Let Dead Robbie lean on you so he don’t fall over.” Victorians. I’m currently writing a Gothic thriller called Charybdis (based on a short story in my new upcoming collection) that partly takes place in the Victorian period so I can’t wait to find a way to fit this bizarre practice in.

New Year, Same Me

It’s New Year’s Eve as I write this. I’m feeling slightly nauseated, not because I’ve been drinking—I mean, it’s only 11 o’clock in the morning after all. No, it’s because Ken decided to run some errands, and right before he left, he made himself a cup of coffee because he obviously HATES ME. The smell has permeated the house, reaching right into my office, and now I understand how the woman feels who posted this ad on Facebook Marketplace:

I don’t know what her husband did to her that he no longer deserves a wet/dry shop vac, but I’ll bet it involved a percolator. So right now, my house smells like a skunk died in the kitchen, and I’ve taken futile refuge in my office to think about the new year ahead. I never make New Year’s resolutions, as I’ve said before– mostly because if I want to change something about my life, I do it when I think of it, not on some arbitrary and imaginary date line. But still, the moving forward of time does give one pause, and by “pause” I mean “let’s stop and think about what the f*ck we’re doing and do we want to keep on doing that?” So here are a couple of things I will most likely be doing in 2023:

1) I will finish the book I’m currently writing by the end of February. I have to, because I quit my job at the antique market to focus on it. Also, the antique market was no longer a fun place to work, and Ken and I promised each other that when we retired, we would only work at jobs we enjoyed doing. Not that I didn’t enjoy the work I did BEFORE I retired, but moving forward, I will only work at things I really, REALLY enjoy, like driving a forklift around the neighbourhood helping people move picnic tables or whatnot, or petting kittens and puppies. And writing. Writing is definitely something I enjoy. The new book is called Charybdis and it’s a gothic thriller that takes place in two different time periods involving a little-known reclusive Victorian poet and the modern-day graduate student who’s researching her life. What horrors will she discover? If you know anything about me at all, you’ll know there will be several! And then, once Charybdis is done, I’ll be starting on the third book in The Seventh Devil trilogy. Book 2, The Devil You Know, will be out this summer, and Book 3 will be called The Devil You Don’t. And of course, there’s At The End Of It All, which will be out in February and I can’t wait for you to read it. I love writing short stories, and I already have some more stories in the planning stages, which is to say I have notes on my phone like ‘laces where joints are supposed to meet’ and ‘Glitter for Brad’ and I have no idea why I wrote that down but it’ll make a great story once I figure it out.

2) I will travel more. I will have to do this spontaneously, because whenever I PLAN to travel, I instantly regret making travel arrangements and would rather just stay home.

Me: But what’s the use of being retired if I can’t travel?
My mind: Where do we want to go?
Me: I don’t know. Somewhere fun.
My mind: Home. Home is fun.
Me: No, NOT HOME! We need to see more of the world!
My mind: We’ve already seen plenty. The world is too scary now.
Me: Sigh. You have a point.

3) I will buy more clocks if I want to. You can’t stop me, KEN. In honour of clocks, I promised to show a picture of my favourite:

But I WILL make Ken a deal. I’ll stop buying clocks if he stops drinking coffee (at least in the house). Tick tock…

Anyway, Happy New Year. Let’s hope 2023 is a little more sane that the last few years.

Give And Let Give

If I had a dollar for every time someone that I know and love said to me, “I didn’t know what to get you—you’re so hard to buy for”, I’d have enough dollars to buy myself something that I really like. But I am NOT hard to buy for. Here are the things that I like: jewelry, perfume, make-up, clothes, fine leather goods, electronics, antiques, clocks, and alcohol. That’s a pretty comprehensive list. But Ken will tell you that within this list, there are only specific types of things that belong to each category, which is why he always approaches buying me gifts with a certain amount of dread. I think this is totally unfair, and it makes me feel really guilty. And I’m a very believable recipient—I always act terribly pleased, regardless of the gift, and no one but Ken ever knows if I’m not. This is part of the problem—I CAN’T FOOL KEN. He always knows when I’m not being sincere, because, unfortunately, Ken was my partner in crime when I taught Kate how to handle getting things she didn’t like, for example clothes instead of toys, which was to say “Thank you, it’s beautiful!” (this came out as “Tank you ids bootyful” when she was little and it was sooo adorable). Of course, now that Kate is much older, she doesn’t bother with the niceties. This was the conversation a couple of years ago on Christmas morning:

Kate: 2 more pairs of pajamas. Wow.
Me: But you said you needed pajamas.
Kate: No, YOU said I needed pajamas.
Me: Well, SOMEONE said you needed pajamas! Either way. Now you have lots of pajamas, and I don’t have to look at you in that pair you’re wearing right now with the knee ripped out.
Kate: Yes. Now I have a different pair for every day of the week. Thanks. Is there anything under the tree for me besides more pajamas?
Me: Um….
Kate: Again, wow.

While I might not be very imaginative when it comes to picking out gifts, the trouble with Ken is that he tries to be TOO imaginative. For example, one year right as we were about to open our stockings, Ken announced, “The gifts in your stocking this year are based on a THEME.” We all stopped what we were doing. Nobody spoke. Then Kate said, “I don’t see this ending well.” Because apparently the theme was “things you can use to cook my dinner with”.

The first stocking stuffer was a shaker of spices. I looked at it curiously, and Ken said, “You can use it to sprinkle on the potatoes when you roast them!” He was getting nervous. I smiled, and opened the next gift—a jar of pizza spice “for when you make homemade pizza.” This was followed by a grinder full of chipotle and pink Havana sea salt, and a selection of “peppercorns from around the world”. At this point the smiling kind of stopped. I didn’t know quite what to make of any of it, except that I had a lot of cooking ahead of me, and it was going to be very spicy. But that’s OK—I really like cooking, and in retrospect, they were pretty cool gifts with a lot of thought behind them (even if he did buy them all at Homesense on Christmas Eve). But the main point is that I don’t really care about presents all that much. At this time of year, I like to remember one of my favourite quotations: The best things in life aren’t things. The most awesome gift of all is having Ken and Kate (and her boyfriend) with me on Christmas morning. And like the Whos down in Whoville say, “Christmas day will always be/Just as long as we have we.” Plus this year, Ken got me the wine fridge that I asked for, two bottles of very good wine to go in it, and some other nice things, so I never once had to say “Thank you, it’s beautiful”.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, Happy Kwanzaa, Peaceful Solstice, and all the joy of the season to you and yours.