Writing

Signs of (Bathroom) Trouble

Last weekend, Ken and I went to the book launch for one of my DarkWinter Press authors. It was a wonderful time—great audience, beautiful venue, and I think she sold a lot of books. It’s the second time I’ve been fortunate enough to attend a DarkWinter author’s book launch and I hope I can keep doing it! But right before the book launch, Ken and I decided to stop off at his old high school, which is in a town near the book launch venue, because they were having a homecoming afternoon.

It was very busy, with a lot of people in attendance because the school serves the small town it’s in plus all of the surrounding area. Still, Ken managed to find a few friends and spent some time catching up (and when I say ‘spent some time’ I mean YOU MADE US LATE TO THE LAUNCH KEN) but it was nice for him to see some of the guys he hung around with when he was a teenager. Right before we left, I needed to use the bathroom and I found one in the main hall. It said ‘Gender Neutral Washroom – Students’, which I thought was very nice, so I went in and used the facilities, but when I tried to wash my hands, I couldn’t get the faucet to work. This happens to me sometimes and it serves to reinforce my belief that I am really a ghost, even though Ken tells me he can see me most of the time. Anyway, I also have OCD (yes, a ghost with OCD—I haunt your house by cleaning it) so I needed to find somewhere to wash my hands and lo and behold, right next to the Gender Neutral student washroom was another door that said, ‘Gender Neutral Washroom – Staff’. So I went in there, and it turns out that the problem was not me being invisible again but that the faucets were NOT in fact motion activated and had a very small handle which needed to be turned. A few blessed seconds later, hands clean, I turned to leave and saw a very strange sign on the wall by the toilet which said this (see below for what it says if you can’t read the image):

In regular print: “If you have digestive issues, please go see a doctor.”

Then in large print: “Otherwise, it is expected that you will clean the toilet after an episode of diarrhea.”

And then in very small print: “Nobody else wants to be part of your bathroom issues.”

I stood there for a minute pondering this. I reread it, then took a picture of it. Later, I was talking to Ken and Kate about it and showed them the picture:

Kate: It makes sense. Why should the custodian have to clean it up?
Me: That’s not the point. The point is this—THERE IS A SIGN. That means it’s happened MORE THAN ONCE!
Kate: Oh right!
Me: It’s the same logic as warning labels on appliances. If it says, “Do not use this hair straightener on your eyelashes” it’s because at least one person has done it! So the question is, how often has ‘an episode of diarrhea’ been such an issue that someone posted an actual warning sign?!
Kate (laughs): Yeah, whoever made the sign was fed up, like, ‘We’re all sick of your shit, Frank.’
Me: And the sign is LAMINATED. Like, just in case it needs to be wiped down.
All: EWWW.

And I can tell you right now, having worked in a high school for many years that the sign was probably written by one of the female English teachers directed towards one of the male gym teachers and you can literally feel the animosity coming off it despite how restrained it is, like what she really wanted to say was ‘Here’s a newsflash, FRANK—if your system can’t handle the constant barrage of burritos and beer, give us all a break from your sewage shower and eat some roughage. And if I ever see you waltzing out of this Gender Neutral space after your explosive diarrhea has rendered it uninhabitable again, I will personally shove a toilet brush up your—”

You can imagine the rest.

Happy anniversary, Ken! It’s been 34 wonderful years and here’s to at least 34 more!

Tiny Me

It’s been another crafty week at the mydangblog household. First, you may remember the peel and stick wallpaper that Ken and I used to create the illusion of a bookcase door which leads to our secret library? Well, it’s not much of an illusion when it starts to fall off the panel attached to the door (as if the illusion wasn’t already problematic based on the size, and worse, the bizarre titles of the books on the peel and stick bookcase—Dawn Fly Stuff is still my favourite and you can read about all the rest in a previous post called Lost In Translation). But my tremendous disappointment at the less than sticky stickers was relieved when Ken said, “I have a great idea—I’ll get some trim and moulding and tack it all down with actual wood that looks like a bookshelf.” And that’s what he did. It looks even better than it did before the books all started to fall off, especially since the giant fake candle sconces in the middle are now hidden. But of course, the trim had to all be painted the same colour. Which I volunteered to do before I realized that I would have to use painter’s tape to protect the books in EVERY SINGLE SQUARE. It took me 3 minutes to paint the trim. It took me OVER AN HOUR to tape it all up. Still, at the end of the whole process, I think it looks even more realistic than it did before, and the stickers so far are staying stuck.

And then, because I was in A MOOD, I decided to tackle my new miniature room, and for the record, let me just clarify that it’s a miniature room, NOT A DOLL HOUSE because that’s a road that, as much as I’d love to go down, is also a rabbit hole that I may never emerge from. But last week, before we went to that awards banquet, I made Ken stop at an antique market up north because I had seen a Facebook post from one of their vendors who specializes in miniatures. Not only him, as it turns out—this place is the MECCA for tiny things and I was super-excited by what I bought, I mean, I got a cute little HARP among other things. I’d been thinking about it all for several days and rearranging things on the counter and looking for ephemera and whatnot, so after our secret library door success, Ken built me a box and I started the room. It turned out even better than I’d hoped and I’m so happy with it. Ken took a look when I was finished though:

Me: What do you think?
Ken (silently calculating): There are 3 clocks in this room.
Me: Of course there are 3 clocks. How else will Tiny Me know what time it is?
Ken: None of the clocks work.
Me: Tiny Me is aware, KEN. Time is a construct.
Ken: That…doesn’t make any sense.
Me: It’s my room—Tiny Me can have as many clocks as she wants!
Ken: Okay, Susab.

In case you’re confused, ‘Susab’ was the name on my place card at the awards banquet we went to. So to recap—they spelled my last name wrong on the press release, they had ‘Susan’ on the seating chart, and then ‘Susab’ on the place card. No wonder I didn’t win—they didn’t even know who I was! I should have just told them to use Tiny Me.

I Detect Another Mystery Show

Right now, as in Saturday morning which is when I usually write this, I’m a little distracted because I’m getting ready to go to the big banquet for that literary award I was longlisted for. I already know that I didn’t win, but there’s a roast beef dinner–need I say more? I’ve never been to a big literary banquet and I’m very nervous, like what if I drink too much and pull a Kanye by rushing the stage and insisting that Margaret Atwood should have won? (Narrator’s Voice: Update: She did not rush the stage. But she DID address a man in line at the bar with “You look familiar–is your name Jerry?” to which he gave her a strange look, muttered, “No, it’s Steve. I need to go get some water” and hurried away. And not long after, she was mortified when ‘Steve’ got up on stage because it turns out he was the HOST of the gala and also a VERY well-known Canadian comedian but in her defence, Steve is mostly ON THE RADIO). So in honour of my anxiety (which proved to be a valid concern), I present to you a throwback to a post I made a few years ago, which appropriately follows up on my Midsomer Murders expose. Hope you enjoy! (Also, at the end of this, there’s a link to a radio show I recently did, so also enjoy!)

Once, I was bored and there was nothing good on TV, so I decided to watch a rerun of a show whose title had intrigued me for a long time: “Houdini and Doyle.” From what I understood, it was about a detective duo at the turn of the century, and I love detective shows. One of my all time favourites is the updated version of Sherlock Holmes called Elementary, starring the irascible Johnny Lee Miller, and Lucy Liu as Watson. I also adore Benedict Cumberbatch in the BBC version of Sherlock, which I’ve rewatched several times on Netflix, so I thought I’d give Houdini and Doyle a whirl. All I knew is that Harry Houdini was a Hungarian-American magician, and that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was the Scottish author of the Sherlock Holmes series, among other things. I love magic and I love Victorian Scottish fiction writers (albeit a very small group) and I had high hopes for its ability to keep me happily occupied for the next hour. Unfortunately, the TV show was—and I’m being polite here—absolute sh*t. Here are my main complaints:

  • The plot was ridiculous. This episode took place in a town where everyone except the local doctor and a little girl suddenly died. People were just lying on the streets in their period costumes, or keeled over their dinners of mutton and ale. Even the dogs were dead. And so were the mice—I know this because Houdini pointed out a nest of dead mice under a porch in a very obvious way in order to prove—well, I’m not actually sure what he was trying to prove. Houdini and Doyle eventually decided that everyone died due to a large cloud of carbon dioxide which had escaped from a nearby mine and which had asphyxiated the entire town. And as convoluted as that all sounds, it wasn’t even the ridiculous part. The most illogical part of the whole thing was their explanation regarding the survival of the doctor and the little girl. I was hoping beyond hope that since the show revolved around a famous magician that there might actually be a supernatural or magic-y rationale, like they were both alien mutants with cosmic lung capacity, or immune to the biological weapon that the government was experimenting with or something cool, but no. The doctor was in bed having a nap, and the little girl was sick and was also in bed. Therefore, they were BELOW the gas cloud and escaped its nefarious and deadly clutches. At which point, I yelled at the TV, “WHAT ABOUT THE DEAD MICE UNDER THE PORCH?! ? WHAT ABOUT THE DOGS? ARE YOU SERIOUSLY TELLING ME THAT ALL THE DEAD DOGS WERE TALLER THAN THAT KID’S BED?!”
  • It made even less sense later, when having “solved” the first mystery, Houdini and Doyle then prevented the assassination of the President of the United States at a hotel because they had found a note with the words “King Edward” on it, and after thinking it was about killing the King, they realized it was the name of a hotel and got there just in time. All in one episode of 45 minutes (not counting all the commercials).
  • There were no magic tricks AT ALL. Considering the show stars one of the most famous American magicians of all time, there was a surprising LACK of magic-type stuff. Not even a f*cking card trick. They should have had Houdini in a locked closet, tied up with padlocked chains, racing against time to escape and thwart the assassination. Instead, he just knocked the gun out of the guy’s hand. Boring.
  • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was Scottish, yet he spoke with an English accent. Yes, they sound different. The English always sound like they’re trying to knight you, and the Scottish always sound like they’re mad at you, thusly:
    English: I hereby dub thee Lady Mydangblog. You may rise.
    Scottish: Och, you’ve a new fancy name ‘n all! Gie up, lassy!!
    But Doyle was always like “Good Heavens! What the devil happened here, my good man?” instead of “Whit? Awae wi’ ye, numptie!” Yes, I know that the actual Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was well-educated and spoke the “Queen’s English”, but it would have added something to the show if he’d used spicy phrases and unintelligible dialect. The plot didn’t make any sense, so why should the dialogue?
  • Houdini sounded Canadian and the whole show had a distinctly Canadian feel ie: it was kind of amateur-ish, like Murdoch Mysteries, where a Canadian detective in the 1890s “uses radical forensic techniques of the time, including fingerprints and trace evidence, to solve gruesome murders” (imdb) along with his partner, female coroner Dr. Julie Ogden (yes, a female coroner in the 1890s–very realistic). I wasn’t sure WHY I felt like Houdini and Doyle was so Canadian, then I googled it, and it turns out that the show “has Canadian producers and comes from the same production company as Murdoch Mysteries.” Mystery solved.
  • Last, throughout the show, Houdini kept insisting that you always know when you’re dreaming because “You can’t read in your dreams.” This is patently untrue. I read things all the time in my dreams, words that I’ve written, stories, poems, social media posts, and whatnot. I don’t always remember them when I wake up, but I READ them, so maybe I’m just more magical than Houdini.

Anyway, in keeping with the current trend of unrealistic detective/magician duos like Houdini and Doyle, I came up with a couple of my own.

1) “What The Dickens!”: This show stars Charles Dickens and David Copperfield, played respectively by Gerard Butler and Keanu Reeves, because why the hell not? In the show, Dickens has time-travelled to the future and meets American magician David Copperfield. Together, they investigate the disappearance of many large buildings and monuments, and battle their arch-nemesis Uriah Heep, played by Dick Van Dyke, who is as immortal as any supervillain. After they’ve solved every mystery (turns out it was Copperfield all along), Dickens returns to his own time and writes a very long novel called “David Copperfield” where he makes a LOT of stuff up, (he got paid by the word, after all) but leaves out the detective/magic part because he doesn’t want his heirs to get sued by Copperfield in the future for revealing his magical techniques.

2) “Fitzgerald and Wife”: In keeping with the fine tradition of married couple detectives, this show features F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda. Every week, they are presented with a new mystery which they fail to solve because they are too drunk.

3) “Robbie and Doug”: This is a Canadian reality show starring famous author Robertson Davies, who almost won a Nobel prize, and Doug Henning, a Canadian magician who ran for Parliament as a candidate for the ‘Natural Law Party’, which believes that all the problems in the world can be solved by learning the art of “yogic flying”. In the show, Davies just grumbles a lot about everything in an unintelligible dialect because he’s 90 years old and Scottish, and Henning solves all the crimes by flying around and meditating. The show is cancelled when viewers discovered that Henning isn’t REALLY flying—it’s only special effects. Yogic flying is actually just bouncing in a lotus position, and everyone knows you can’t solve crimes by bouncing unless you’re Tigger.

As a side note, I know that neither F. Scott or Zelda were magicians, but I liked the concept too much to leave it out on THAT technicality.

Also, if you’re interested in hearing me read from my OWN gothic thriller/mystery Charybdis, as well as from my new work in progress Nomads of the Modern Wasteland, I was recently featured on the radio show Reader’s Delight, hosted by the lovely Jody Swannell. You can listen to it here: https://radiowaterloo.ca/episode-vi-of-readers-delight/

It’s A Mystery

Recently, I’ve been binge-watching an old British TV series called Midsomer Murders. The show focuses on a detective named Barnaby who lives in this vast English territory called Midsomer (not to be confused with Midsommar, which is quite possibly the most INSANE and awful movie I’ve ever seen, nor is it a time of year like Midsummer, which in Canada, happens in October). Each episode is an hour and a half long and there are TWENTY-THREE seasons with between 4 and 8 episodes a season. It’s been on since 1997 and they’re still making new episodes. Right now, I’m in about Season 9, I think—it’s easy to lose track, but at this point, I think I’m qualified to make a few observations about this show.

1) How are there any people left in Midsomer? Because in each episode there are at least 4 murders, sometimes more. Midsomer is rivalling several entire countries as well as numerous American States to be crowned the murder capital of the world. You think Murder, She Wrote was a little over the top? Try living in Midsomer, where your life is in your hands every day because you own a relish factory.

2) How big exactly is Midsomer? In the first couple of seasons it seemed like it was a fairly small county consisting of two or three villages. But when all those people were murdered, they started adding on with places like Midsomer Parma, Midsomer Wellow, Badger’s Drift, Midsomer Worthy (not to be confused with Midsomer LITTLE Worthy, Midsomer Barrow—in fact, if you look online, there are SIXTY-TWO different towns and places where these murders all take place. It’s like Midsomer has its own continent. But I guess when you’ve been killing off your population for 27 years, you need to expand your victim pool.

3) Every single person who lives in Midsomer has a deep, dark secret. From the local barman to the local baron, they’re all hiding something. That’s why in every episode, there are so many red herrings. I mean, you can’t stretch a murder investigation into an hour and a half unless you have twenty different suspects who have a shady past/married their stepson/made someone drink hallucinogenic tea/had a secret lovechild fathered by the local Anglican minister/turned someone into a blood eagle/once shot a guy during a foxhound and claimed they were aiming for the fox/burned someone alive/urinated on a sacred tree (some of these happened in the TV show Midsomer Murders and some happened in the movie Midsommar and some happened in BOTH. Guess which is which?)

4) The same actor played Detective Chief Inspector Tom Barnaby for the first 13 seasons and when he retired, his ‘cousin’, Detective Chief Inspector John Barnaby takes over, and the best thing is that the actor playing John Barnaby, whose name is Neil Dudgeon was in one of the earlier episodes called Garden of Death. The IMDB synopsis of this episode is: “When an arrogant aristocratic family’s decision to develop a memorial garden into a commercial tea shop has the villagers up in arms, murders past and present rear their heads.” People got MURDERED over a tea shop. And the guy who becomes the new Barnaby was the sexy memorial gardener. Also, in researching this, I discovered Neil Dudgeon has been a bit actor in every single BBC mystery series, so I guess he has a lot of experience at detective-ing.

5) The synopses get increasingly more random and bizarre as the years go on. Here are some of my favourites:

The bodies of former criminals are found in a cornfield. The cause of their deaths and the strange position in which they lay is rather bizarre. Rumours quickly circulate in the village that it could be the work of some extra-terrestrial force. However, Barnaby is far from convinced.

When one of the world’s rarest orchids is smuggled illegally into Midsomer Malham, it triggers a catalogue of passion, jealousy and death.

The unveiling of a newly-discovered novel by deceased Midsomer crime-writer George Summersbee at the Luxton Deeping Crime Festival is jeopardised when the manuscript is stolen and a woman is fatally electrocuted by a booby-trapped roulette wheel. Can new dad Barnaby untangle a web of jealousy and obsession to find the killer?

The annual harvest fair and the daredevil riders of the Wall of Death come to Midsomer village Whitcombe Mallet. When the owner of an equestrian centre is trampled by his horse DCI Barnaby and DS Nelson have to unravel a complex feud from the past, where nothing is what it seems.

Alien abductions, illegal orchids, booby-trapped rouletted wheels, walls of death—what more could anyone ask for?

But recently, all of my mystery watching came in handy when we had a murder in our OWN house:

Me: I have discovered the body of a mouse in the guest room. This crime shall not go unpunished. Now let me see. (*carefully appraises group of suspects and then points with a dramatic flourish*) Atlas!! Was it you?!
Atlas: What? No! I have an alibi. I was outside at the time, barking at the squirrels.
Me: Hmmm. (*points with another dramatic flourish*) Then it must have been Ken!!
Ken: Why would I—what are we doing here exactly? I don’t remember this scenario ever happening…
Me: Don’t break the fourth wall, KEN. All right, let me see…there’s only one other suspect—ILANA!! It was YOU!!
Ilana: I didn’t do it, copper! I swear!
Me: Then why did the mouse write ‘Twuz A Kat in its own blood on the floor? Explain THAT!!
Ilana: Fine. It was me. But it was supposed to be a present.
Me: Mystery solved.

DCI Barnaby would be proud.

Reactine Well

Reactine Well

The virtual book launch for my new novel Charybdis just finished and it was lovely, so huge thanks to everyone who came, to my special guests Susan Richardson, Lawrence Moore, and Paul Brookes, and an especially big thank you to my amazing publisher Jane Cornwell of JC Studio Press for organizing it!

Aside from that, it’s been a lovely week because I’m currently kitty sitting my grand-kitty. Kate and her boyfriend are on the West Coast visiting his family, so we’ve been left in charge of the delightful Ilana. The delightful and furry Ilana. Did I mention that I’m very allergic to cats? So while I’m loving taking care of this tiny monster of joy, I’m also stuffed up to the gills, which is being compounded by all the pollen in the air now that spring is finally and definitely here, because if you know anything at all about Canada, you’ll know we actually have something like 13 seasons here, and I take this from the several many memes about Canadian seasons that one can find on the internet:

Winter
Fool’s Spring
2nd Winter
Spring of Deception
Third Winter
Pollen Spring (this is where we are now)
Construction
Summer
False Fall
Second Summer
Fall
Winter Is Coming
Hello darkness my old friend

So you can only imagine how difficult breathing is for me right now, but I can’t help it. Ilana is adorable and sweet and a total little goblin who likes to wake me up in the middle of the night by punching the back of my head and then rubbing her face against my nose until I wake up:

Me: What the hell?
Ilana: There may be a mouse…
Me: Well, go get it. That’s your job.
Ilana: But I want you to know about it. If I catch one, I will bring it to you.
Me: Please do NOT do that.

There is a mouse down here, I’m certain

Like most cats, she’s also very fickle about how and when she receives attention:

Ilana: I present to you my tummy. Please rub it.
Me: Awwww. Such a cute—ouch! Why did you attack my hand?!
Ilana: Changed my mind. Wait. Rub my tummy.
Me: Will you attack my hand again?
Ilana: No, I promise.
Me: Okay. You’re so sweet—ouch!! Damn it!!
Ilana: One more time?
Me: Sigh. Alright.

Of course, she’s still not comfortable around Atlas but she’s getting more used to him, and he still regards her as a wild woodland creature:

Atlas: That skunk is back.
Me: Not a skunk. But don’t bother her regardless. You think a skunk is an issue? Wait until you try to rub her tummy.
Atlas: Fair enough. Will you rub MY tummy?
Me: Will you attack my hand and bite me?
Atlas: What do I look like—a psychopath?

At any rate, we have her for over another week, and I’m thoroughly enjoying everything about her, because, as you can see by the pictures, she is the most precious little kitty in the world—no matter how much of a psychopath she is, and I’m single-handedly keeping the allergy medication people in business.

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…

It’s The Little Things Part 2; Online Launch Party for Charybdis!

The link to the online launch party for Charybdis is at the end of this post, so if you don’t want any humorous content first, you can skip right down to the end, but trust me, you’ll be missing some hilarious sh*t.

Anyway, it’s been another quiet week with a couple of notable exceptions. First…THAT BUG IS BACK. Yes, I woke up on Tuesday morning to another notification that there had been movement detected on my kitchen camera at 2 o’clock in the morning, and yes, it was that same bug. How long do house centipedes LIVE? Is this guy the Methuselah of insects?! And what the hell is he eating?! I looked it up and according to the google, house centipedes eat OTHER ANTHROPODS, which is so cannibalistic and creepy but then again, I’m not surprised that something that looks like the alien in ALIEN eats insect flesh. But then the article I read went on to say that if you have frequent sightings of house centipedes, “this indicates that some prey arthropod is in abundance, and may signify a greater problem than the presence of the centipedes” and OH MY GOD DOES THIS MEAN THERE ARE MORE FREAKY INSECTS IN MY HOUSE?!!  Then again, the sighting hasn’t been “frequent”—it’s only the one leggy dude waving at us like “Hey, just haunting your kitchen AND your dreams” so hopefully he’ll run out of food soon.

But the other thing is that I’ve definitely gone down the rabbit hole of miniatures, because a couple of weeks ago, I was at the antique market and I found a bag of vintage dollhouse furniture and a tiny voice in my head whispered, “Buy it. You know you want it. You can do something cool with it.” So I DID buy it and then it sat on the breakfast room table for 2 weeks until Ken whispered, “I can build you a box to put this doll furniture in” which he did. And suddenly, I became a fanatical miniaturist, and I created an entire “Antique Store Office Sanctuary” which now I want to live in and if I could only shrink myself down to 1/12” size, I would totally do it, just to live in my tiny room. Here it is, and I adore it so much:

The Persian rug is actually a mouse pad and I got all the tiny books from Amazon. I already had the Antique storefront from some wall art that I cut apart, and the wallpaper came from a book that I had bought years ago full of William Morris style wrapping paper that I podged on, and I had the trim and created the ‘paintings’ and HOLY SH*T I’m becoming obsessed and I really want to make more miniature rooms, but we all know what happened with the clock fixation, am I right?

In other news, I’m over 8 chapters into my new book “Nomads of the Modern Wasteland”, which centres on a group of people trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic future, woven together by the poetry of TS Eliot. It’s actually going to be a novella, which is a mini book, so that tracks.

Also, the book launch for Charybdis is on May 26th in person, but if you’re a friend of mine who’d like to celebrate with me but you have NO WAY of coming to Ontario, Canada, my publisher has very graciously set up an online celebration for June 1 and you can register here–it’s FREE!: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/charybdis-by-suzanne-craig-whytock-launch-party-tickets-884105522417?aff=oddtdtcreator&keep_tld=1