Atlas

A Mouse-y Mystery; An Announcement

Every once in a while, we get a mouse in the house. Of course, it’s usually more than one—you know what they say: where there’s one mouse, there’s usually more. In the past, we’ve tried everything—live traps, sonic devices, a cat—and eventually, they stop coming around for a few months. We hadn’t seen any sign of a wee rodent since last winter, but a week and a half ago, Ken and I were standing in the kitchen talking and suddenly Ken interupted me with, “Look! A mouse just ran across the floor and disappeared under the cupboard!”

We have an old postmaster’s cupboard in the corner of the kitchen that we use for a variety of things, but in the bottom we store Atlas’s food in the right-hand side, and rice and a rice cooker on the left-hand side. Ken opened the left-hand door, which is where the mouse seemed to have disappeared into, and there was no sign of it. But the bags of rice had obviously been chewed into, and there was mouse sh*t on my rice cooker.

As you may remember, we gave up on live traps when it became obvious that the mice had figured out how to get the peanut butter without getting stuck in the trap, and as much as I hated to do it, we went out the next day and bought one of those snap traps. Ken slathered it with peanut butter, much to Atlas’s delight, because that meant he also got some peanut butter (Why? Because otherwise, he would pout and complain), and then Ken slid the trap very carefully under the rice/dog food cupboard with me all the while repeating, “Careful, careful!” in case it snapped his finger off. The next morning, we came downstairs and sure enough, there was a mouse in the trap. It was a late mouse and it made me sad. We repeated the same steps two more times and caught two more mice. But then…

On Thursday morning, I came down for breakfast.

Me: Did you check the mousetrap?
Ken: Oh, not yet, I forgot. Hang on. (*gets down on hands and knees to peer under the cupboard*). Uh…
Me: What’s wrong?
Ken: The mousetrap is gone.
Me: What are you talking about? How can it be gone?
Ken: I don’t know, but it’s gone.
Me: But…the whole mousetrap?!
Ken: I know. Maybe the mouse’s tail got caught and it dragged it somewhere else?
Me: I don’t hear any squeaking.
Ken: Maybe it got free.

So we spent a lot of time on Friday searching for the trap to no avail. It has completely vanished. And I know there are a lot of places in any house where a mouse might disappear into, but a whole mousetrap??!! It’s kind of terrifying, to be honest, like where could it possibly have gone?! And now, I have no mousetrap, and potentially a mouse with magical powers, half a tail, and a thirst for revenge. Wish me luck.

In other news, I’m happy to announce on behalf of DarkWinter Press that our second publication, the novel The Dogcatcher by Sean Patrick Carlin, will be available for pre-sale starting tomorrow! It’s an awesome book if any of you are looking for a fun, spooky, and cleverly funny fall read and it’s available to order here!

Abandonment Issues

Last week, Ken and I decided to watch a new show, based on my dental hygienist Harmony’s suggestions. It’s called Ahsoka and it’s part of the Star Wars universe, and that might make you believe it was going to be a good show, but by halfway through the first episode, I turned to Ken and said, “This is the most stupid show I’ve ever seen.” Why, you ask? Was it the acting? No. Was it the dialogue? No. Was there a plot detail that made absolutely no sense and made me super-angry? Why yes. And what exactly was that ludicrous plot detail in a story that takes place a long time ago in a galaxy far far away, and features people with elephant trunks for ears? It was this, and you can read this without worrying about spoilers:

In the show, one of the main characters has a cat. Well, it’s a cat-like creature that looks KIND OF like a cat but sounds and acts EXACTLY like a cat. When she comes home from her job, she takes a container of kibble out of her cupboard and feeds the cat, and it purrs, and she pets it, and it is VERY OBVIOUSLY her pet cat. But…partway through the episode, she gets into a fight with someone in her home, and she gets hurt, and ends up in a weird hospital. And NO ONE SAYS A WORD ABOUT THE CAT. Not, “should we get your neighbour to check on your cat?” or “do you want me to pop by and feed your cat while you recover in this very white and large hospital room?” Again, no. And then……she decides to go off and join up with the Jedis and she JUST LEAVES. Does she ask anyone to take care of her lovely, purr-y pet cat? NO, SHE DOES NOT AND WE NEVER SEE THAT ADORABLE CAT AGAIN. And it’s so apparent that no one in charge of writing this show has EVER had a pet of any kind because for all of us who DO have pets, we know that the care of your pet is usually topmost on your mind. Ken and I never leave the house without 1) calculating the number of hours that we’ll be gone and ensuring that it’s a reasonable length to leave Atlas alone 2) contacting our neighbour if the number of hours is more than 6 consecutively so she can give him lunch and let him out to pee 3) giving him a cookie and 4) telling him that we’ll be back soon so he won’t worry, as one does. And yes, I know cats are a little more self-sufficient than dogs but still, who the hell just up and leaves their pet house cat to fend for itself while you go off gallivanting around the galaxy and doing additional stupid things that shall not be named here because I promised no spoilers?

At any rate, it was terrible and I became very fixated on the whole cat abandonment plot twist, to the point where I started dreaming that I found a litter of kittens and Ken and I were trying to herd them into a holding area so we could care for them and if you know anything about cats and/or dreams, you’ll know that it was a very difficult and stressful task. So thanks, Ahsoka.

In other news, I’m sorry if this is so rant-y and short but I did one book festival all day yesterday and I’m doing another one all day today, and between having to actually talk to people and sit under a tent all day, I’m exhausted. But I sold a lot of books and promoted the new press, so it was pretty good.

How could you ever forget about something so cute?!

Let Them Eat Cake

If you know anything about me at all, you’ll know I love reality shows. Most of them are about drag queens, but lately, I’ve been watching baking shows because the second season of Is It Cake? just came out. In this show, a group of bakers have to recreate everyday objects out of cake, and sometimes it’s almost impossible to distinguish between the object, like a Doc Marten boot or a turntable, and the cake that looks like it. The bakers use a variety of tricks—edible paper, molding chocolate, fondant and whatnot, because in this show, everything has to be edible. And then sadly, I finished all the episodes and, having no Drag Race shows to watch (by the way, I decided that if I was a drag queen, my name would be Tartan Juicy because I’m part Scottish), I started searching through my channels for something else to fill the void and found the Dr. Seuss Baking Challenge. In this show, the contestants have to create cakes based on the books of Dr. Seuss. It was a lot of fun watching them make Truffula Trees and Grinches, but it got me thinking about other possibilities for baking shows….

1) The Kafka Kitchen

Host: Welcome to The Kafka Kitchen, a show that marries the absurdity of reality with cake! Today, our contestants were challenged to come up with a special dessert that exemplifies The Franz Kafka Thang. I’m here today with our judges, Connie and Hermann, to see who can outcake Kafka! Blue Team, what did you make?
Blue Team Spokesperson: We created a giant cockroach out of a peanut butter swirl cake with a butterscotch ganache, vanilla cream icing, and an orange fondant.
Host: Delicious! What was your secret ingredient?
Blue Team Spokesperson: We were given anise and nihilism.
Host: It looks super-depressing!
Blue Team Spokesperson: Thank you. That means a lot.
Host: Connie and Hermann, what do you think?
Connie: It devastates me.
Hermann: Ja, it is oblivion to me.
Host: Blue Team, you have “metamorphized” into first place!

2) Shakespeare Cake-speare

Host: Welcome to Shakespeare Cake-speare where our contestants must design desserts based on the plays of William Shakespeare. Today’s challenge—Titus Andronicus! I’m here with our judges, Portia and Mercutio, as we try to determine who is the Bard of Baking! Green Team, tell us about your special creation!
Green Team Spokesperson: We made a pie.
Host: Cool! What kind of pie?
Green Team Spokesperson: Meat.
Host: Meat? But it’s supposed to be a dessert…Judges, what do you think?
Portia: It looks very bloody. What kind of meat IS it?
Host: Mercutio? Mercutio? Has anyone seen Mercutio?
Portia: Not since this morning…
Green Team Spokesperson: That’s what he gets for criticizing our scale model Globe Theatre cake. Too many sprinkles, my ass. To be or not to be, Mercutio.

At any rate, I’m sure there are plenty of other authors who would make a great basis for a baking show—can you imagine cakes all inspired by Alice In Wonderland or Lord Of The Rings? Regardless, the only thing I need to know is: Is It Cake?!

In other news, Atlas recently acquired a new toy. We don’t buy him toys very often because a) he has a huge wicker basket of toys already, and b) he will immediately destroy anything not made out of the most durable rubber. But this toy, a type of stuffed character, was a gift from a friend whose dog had passed away, so we reluctantly let him have it under supervision on the balcony only. Every night after dinner, Ken and I go up to our balcony for dessert and now Atlas can’t wait. He’s actually started running to the balcony door any time we go upstairs, and he stands with his nose pressed against the door crying a little because he wants his new toy so badly. It’s very cute and also a little obsessive. The only option is to bake him a cake that LOOKS like his toy, and then he can destroy THAT instead of the toy, which is much healthier because cake and fondant won’t get lodged in his intestines like flannel and micro-fill will. And if he can’t tell the difference, maybe I’ll win a prize…

In other, other news, thanks to everyone who’s purchased and given a review to What Any Normal Person Would Do–last week it was actually sitting at #12 on Amazon Canada’s Best Sellers in Comedy chart! And now I’m hard at work editing manuscripts for the authors I’ve signed for the fall under the DarkWinter Press imprint–I’m sure they’re all going to be bestsellers too!



From Every Angle

A while back, I took out a subscription to a particular country decorating magazine, mostly because they kept emailing me with better and better deals until it finally came out to about $3 an issue—and yes, I mean actual paper magazines, not the online kind. So they started coming in the mail a few months ago, and I’d forgotten how ubiquitous each one of these things can be: every issue features a young couple who hired a designer, a gay couple who didn’t need to hire a designer, recipes I will NEVER make, and the latest in weird decorating trends. I’ve made my peace with the all-white rooms and all-white furniture, the people who never wear shoes, and the copious overuse of figs, but this month’s issue made my skin crawl. Was it full of earwigs? (Fun Fact: When I was very young, my grandmother let me watch an episode of The Twilight Zone—the old black and white version—where a man had an earwig crawl into his ear and it ate through to his brain. I was terrified of earwigs for years, even after I discovered that they’re called earwigs NOT because they crawl into people’s ears, which they never do, but because they infest ears of corn. Still.)  Were all the recipes based on beets and peas? No. It was the newest trend alert: hanging all the artwork on your walls askew. Aside from being the stupidest trend I could possibly think of, even worse than the faux leather wall covering debacle of 2006, I was immediately overcome by intense panic at the mere sight of it. You may remember, particularly because I mention it often and it took up almost a whole chapter of my new book (shameless plug: it’s called What Any Normal Person Would Do, available on Amazon), I have something called Extreme Symmetry Disorder, which normally applies to rugs, but also, in this case, to the artwork on my walls. And while it might seem strange to you, I regularly patrol my house, straightening not only the rugs on my floors but also the artwork on my walls, because while Atlas manages to knock the rugs sideway several times a day, the vibrations of his bounding around also shift the frames of both paintings and photographs, which I am compelled to restore to their proper positions.

And then I had to read this magazine, which featured several different walls of artwork, two of them very much like my own photography-filled breakfast room wall, but instead of them being all delightfully level and perfectly perpendicular to each other, THESE PICTURES HAD BEEN DELIBERATELY KNOCKED ASKEW AS A FASHION STATEMENT.

Who DOES this?! I mean, I can’t be the only person who would go into a house where the pictures are all tilting off into oblivion and have an overwhelming desire to straighten them. Seriously—is this not scraping the bottom of the barrel of decorating trends or what? And what’s next? Should all our rugs be scattered haphazardly around our rooms? Should our objets d’art be randomly grouped in fours and sixes instead of the much more stress-relieving threes and fives? Should the cords on all our lamps face the front where we can SEE THEM?! AM I IN HELL?

At any rate, this issue, according to the latest email exhortation I received, is to be my last, since I have no interest in renewing a subscription to something so ludicrous. I will never cook with beets, I will never decorate in all white, and I especially will NEVER tiltshift my artwork. To quote Captain Jean-Luc Picard, when he was yet again faced with the Borg: “The line must be drawn here!”

In other news, the new literary press is going very well. I have a lot of submissions and I’ve already signed three authors—don’t ask who, because it’s a surprise, at least until I’ve finished editing. But all three are awesome, and their books will be coming out under the DarkWinter Press imprint before the end of the fall. I’m currently in the process of reading more manuscripts to decide on the catalogue for Spring 2024, so if you want to be considered, I’d love to see your work—at least before the end of August, when submissions will be closed until January.

(And now I’m having a mild panic attack because I just realized that one of the candlesticks isn’t straight!)

Again?!

On Thursday night, Ken got up around 5 am (is that night or morning? Either way it was still very dark out and I had been, until that moment, fast asleep). “What’s wrong?” I asked. His back was twinging a bit because he’d been carrying our new deck furniture, a gift from my brother, up and down a ladder, to put it on our balcony because it was too big to take through the house.

“I’m going downstairs to read,” he said.

“Take the dog with you,” I said. Imagine at this point that there was ominous thunder rumbling in the distance. There actually WAS thunder—I guess I should have paid more attention.

I fell back asleep quickly and I was just in the middle of a lovely dream involving clocks and puppies when my subconscious sensed that something was terribly, horribly wrong and I sat bolt upright. I breathed in deeply, smelled that familiar noxious odour and knew that my subconscious was correct. I leapt out of bed and ran downstairs yelling, “Don’t let the dog out!!” Ken was standing in the brightly lit kitchen, mixing up something in a plastic bowl. He stared at me.

Me: Did you let the dog out?
Ken: Yes, but he’s back in now…
Me: Please don’t tell me he got sprayed by a skunk!
Ken: I can’t tell you that because he got sprayed by a skunk.
Me: Again?! OMG, is he okay? Where is he?
Ken: I locked him in the bathroom. I’m mixing up the peroxide, baking soda, and soap.
Me: F*ck. I was really hoping you’d just made coffee.

Alas no. The palpable stench was not from the devil’s brew; it was from the nocturnal demon that Atlas had decided to chase and confront at 5 am. After he’d been washed with the skunk remover, showered, and dried, I had a word with him:

Me: What were you thinking?!
Atlas: I thought Ilana had escaped. I was just trying to help.
Me: She hasn’t been here for weeks! What the hell is wrong with you?
Atlas: IT WAS DARK. I WAS TIRED.
Me: Well, you’re still a stinky pants.
Atlas: Smells just like coffee. MMMM.

He’s lucky he’s adorable. Smelly and dumb, but adorable.

What Any Normal Person Would Do

First, I have very exciting news. After a lot of time spent and a lot of trial and error, I’ve finally published the test book for DarkWinter Press. It’s called What Any Normal Person Would Do, and it’s basically a compilation of some of my early humour posts. I found common themes, divided them into chapters and made the whole thing flow more cohesively. Then I had to figure out Kindle Direct Publishing, which I did with help from friends, watching a lot of YouTube videos, and calling their support line a couple of times. The cover was especially hard to do—I don’t have any of the “pro” versions of Canva, Photoshop, Gimp and so on, so I resorted to Microsoft Publisher and found an awesome walkthrough about how to use the KDP cover template in that program—you can see the result below.

(Note: this is not a children’s book. That’s me as a child with creepy demon Santa, the one who cursed me with a mind that never shuts off). I finally uploaded everything on Thursday, and on Friday I got notification that the paperback and Kindle e-book are now both live and available! So I’m super-excited because now I can launch DarkWinter Press and start to publish other people! So if you want to help me out and order either the paperback or the Kindle e-version, that would be awesome, and a lot easier for you than trying to read through all 489 posts starting from 2014 until now. Here are the links if you’re interested: Amazon.com and Amazon.ca. It’s also available on all the other Amazons.

Over the next few days, I’ll be meeting with my web developer to figure out how to incorporate DarkWinter Press and DarkWinter Lit, and then I’ll start accepting submissions. I can’t wait!!

In other news, this past week I once again had to pull out my McGyvering skills when Ken went to stay with his mom for a couple of nights, leaving me alone in a very large old house with a very nervous young dog. Things would have been all right if we weren’t also babysitting Kate’s cat, my beautiful Ilana, and it put the dog on high alert—or even higher alert than normal. The lock on our bedroom door was painted shut years ago and I kept asking Ken to fix it, but in the meantime, we’d installed one of those sneck hooks that kept the door somewhat secured BUT NOT COMPLETELY. So on Tuesday night, I finished snuggling Ilana then shut her in the back part of the house, and enticed the dog upstairs with cookies. And when he came, I hooked the door:

Atlas: But there are things I need to do downstairs.
Me: It’s 11:00 pm. It’s time for sleep.
Atlas: I’m going to stand by the door and boof it.
Me: Stop sticking your nose in the gap. Get on the bed or no more cookies.
Atlas: I AM feeling pretty sleepy. Where are those cookies again?

All was well and good until 5:30 am when I was awakened by Atlas losing his shit, standing on the bed, hackles raised, and barking and snarling at the three inch space between the door and the jamb. I was TERRIFIED. I couldn’t detect any movement in the hallway, or see any moving shadows in the hall light, and after a few minutes, I steeled myself. I grabbed the baseball bat that I keep by the bed and yelled, “Okay boy—get ‘em!” I opened the door and Atlas went charging out, me following close behind with the bat. We searched the whole house and nothing.

Atlas: Maybe it was a bad dream. Or a ghost.
Me: You’re staying downstairs.

I finally fell back to sleep with the bat on my pillow, only to be awakened again by someone hammering on the door down the hall. This time, it was the cat, wanting to be fed. I’d had enough, and spent the next three hours reading because there was NO WAY I could get back to sleep after that. On Wednesday afternoon, in preparation for Ken being away again, I examined the lock. Our bedroom has its own bathroom, as well as a balcony that I could use in case I needed to escape—if I could only get the lock working, I could lock me and the dog in, and ghosts/intruders could have a f*cking field day but I’d be safe in my own little panic room. Using only a chisel, a hammer, and copious amounts of WD40, I managed to:

1) Chisel off the paint on the lock.
2) Chisel the edges of the lock.
3) Use the skeleton key to wiggle the lock.
4) Spray WD40 into the lock.
5) Hammer the lock until it finally pops free.
6) Realized that the lock plate is too small.
7) Use the chisel as a screwdriver and unscrew the lock plate.
8) Chisel out a larger hole so that the lock will fit.
9) Lock the door.
10) Yell “Haha!”

That night, after I’d snuggled the cat, Atlas and I retired to the bedroom, me with wine and him with cookies. I locked the door behind us, and we both slept soundly until morning. It’s what any normal person would do.

There’s No Place Like Home

As I write this, I’m sitting in the lounge at the Barcelona airport, waiting to board our very long flight home, and reflecting on the last ten days. It’s been a wonderful time all in all, with really too much to capture here, but of course there were the requisite weird things. Here are some highlights:

Vatican City: It was super-crowded but we were supposed to be on a very expensive “Small Group Special Access” tour, which I had assumed meant we’d get some special privileges, like saying Hi to the pope and whatnot. We did not. We saw pretty much everything that all the other tourists saw as they shuffle-stepped shoulder to shoulder through the narrow hallways of the Sistine Chapel. We did get to tour the pope’s gardens—they were gorgeous and there were, randomly, a lot of large turtles. We also got into the Basilica without lining up for 2 hours. And the coolest thing in there was the actual corpse of some guy, an ex-pope I guess, and he was coated in wax to preserve him. Obviously I needed a picture of that—I mean The Birth Of Man is one thing but a preserved corpse?! And the best and weirdest part is the the clear case he’s lying in is BULLETPROOF. Just in case. In case of what, I have no idea. Also, we discovered that you have to read the shore excursion descriptions very carefully. For example, when it says “Gaze in wonder at the Uffizi Art Gallery where the Statue Of David resides”, it means you can look at the Uffizi from the outside but you don’t get to go in. And some of those gazes cost a pretty penny, so we learned to interpret correctly.

We toured France, Spain, and Italy. In France, nobody said anything about crime, but in Spain and Italy, every single person, from the hotel concierge, the tour guides, the bus drivers, and restaurant staff would tell us, “Keep your bag in front of you and put your wallet in your front pocket.” How bad is the pickpocketing situation when the citizens of a country are like, “These are my people but they WILL rob you blind. Trust no one, not even our children.” Strange endorsement. Ken, of course, insisted on keeping his wallet in his back pocket on the grounds that “it had a button flap”. As if that would stop a pickpocket, KEN. So I had to stand behind him all the time, guarding his butt.

Valencia. This is one of the most whack places I’ve ever been to. We took a tour called Valencia: City of Flowers, but there didn’t seem to be any more flowers there than anywhere else in Spain. And not once in the 3-hour tour did our tour guide tell us why Valencia is called that. Although apparently it SHOULD be called the City of Fires because most of the tour was him telling us about this bizarre festival they have every year where people carve giant wooden statues, some 20 storeys tall, some costing $800 000, and then at the end of the festival, THEY SET FIRE TO THEM. One of the guys on our tour asked, “Is it like Burning Man?” and the tour guide said, in a very deadpan way, “No. No, it’s not. Not at all.” Then he took us to a museum full of some of the statues because every year, the statue that’s voted the best one is saved from the fire. And if you’re thinking these statues were like Greek or Roman statues, or even Renaissance style, you’d be wrong because they weren’t and they were TERRIFYING. My particular favourite was the one of the babies all eating each other.

On the way back to the boat, we passed a park, and the tour guide said, “If you look over there, you’ll see a statue of a dog on fire. This park is very nice, for the children to come and play.” And those are two sentences I never thought I would hear back to back.

One of the best things about cruising though is that you see a lot of the same people each day, and sometimes you get to know a couple of them well enough to become friends. That happened to us with a few fellow travelers: Dee and Joe from Buffalo (she talked exactly like Joan Rivers), and Dontae and Lisa who were both in the military and were taking their first vacation in years before being stationed in Tokyo. They were our partners in the wine blending challenge and our concoction, aptly called “Dontae’s Inferno”, took second place and won us bottles of wine. And then there were Glenn and Kanya, two of the loveliest people I’ve ever had the fortune of meeting. We sat together for lunch on an excursion and immediately felt like we’d known them forever. Glenn was a trivia king, but not hardcore like some people, who took the promise of a “life-changing prize” a little too seriously and were severely disappointed when they found out it was a pop socket. The running joke became that our trivia team was called “Glenn From Vancouver” because, despite the fact that he was clearly Australian, Ken mistakenly introduced him to Dontae and Lisa as Glenn from Vancouver much to everyone’s delight. I hope we see them again one day. But for now, it’s good to be home. I know Atlas missed us–well at least one of us:

Me: Hey Buddy, we’re back!
Atlas: Daddy!!
Me: I really missed you. Did you miss me?
Atlas: Meh. DADDY!!!!

Still, it’s good to know that we can leave him in the care of our dogsitter (as well as my parents and our neighbours who helped out as well), and he’s not traumatized. And now the only thing I need to do is get over the jetlag…

Reading Is Fun-da-Mental

A while back there was a call for readers at a particular online event celebrating a Canadian poet who had just released a new book. I’ve done these open mic things in the past and really enjoyed it, so I put my name forward and I was accepted for the reading last Thursday night. I was initially super-happy but then I realized that, rather than being able to choose what I was going to read from one of my short story collections, it was a POETRY reading. I don’t write a lot of poetry but I’ve been working on a few pieces recently, and I had one I was really proud of, so I thought, what the heck—this will be a safe space to try it out and maybe get some feedback. The poem I’d chosen to read was about narrowly missing hitting a deer with my car, and how the universal forces of time and karma came into play—I mean, there was more too it than that, but that was kind of the main thing. It was a pretty personal piece and I thought I’d just read that one and be done. The event started and the guest poet was amazing, reading some of her poetry and chatting about the things that informed her writing, particularly the deaths of her parents when she was younger. Her mother had passed away from cancer when she was in university and then her father had died suddenly and tragically a few years later AFTER HE SWERVED ON THE ROAD TO AVOID A DEER AND CRASHED HIS CAR. And I was like WTF am I supposed to do NOW?! Was I really going to read a poem about how I SURVIVED a potential deer/car incident when her dad DIED IN ONE? Obviously not—I’m not a MONSTER (unlike the woman at the last reading I was at, a Valentine’s Day event about “Love”, where we were specifically asked NOT to read anything that included violence, rape or incest. SHE read an essay about EXACTLY ALL OF THAT and it was so disturbing that no one knew what to say. And I was even more upset because I write a lot about death but I managed to find one of the few pieces I’ve written that didn’t involve someone dying, and I don’t think anyone even heard me because they were still in shock over such a flagrant violation of the Valentine’s Day Spirit, although if you think about it, the original Valentine was dragged around Rome, beaten to death and had his head cut off, so she may have had a point).

 At any rate, I was now left in the position of being shortly introduced and not having anything to read, so I was scrambling, flipping through docs and trying to find something I was equally proud of or was at least polished enough to read to a group of PROFESSIONAL POETS. So my turn came, and I read a couple of things, including a poem I wrote for my dog, and no one responded, not even in the chat, and then I just shut off my camera because I felt so dumb. But then the next reader started his presentation by saying really nice things about my literary magazine, DarkWinter Lit, where one of his first poems was published, and that made me feel a little less embarrassed.

Then yesterday, I was fortunate enough to do a live reading at a coffee shop/bookstore in a nearby town with a few other writers. It was a much better experience aside from a quirky microphone. One of the stories I read was one that I’d never read out loud to an audience before called “Twist of Faith” and I’d forgotten that at one point, there’s some very dark humour. When I got to that point, people in the audience started laughing, and then I started too, and could barely keep going–a combination of nerves and relief that other people thought it was funny too. But I finished and got some great feedback, as well as a complimentary swag bag that contained GROUND COFFEE, and if you know anything about me at all, you’ll know that I would have preferred wine.

Long story short, being a writer is hard.

In other news, I was very disappointed by this ad which is ostensibly for flooring but also for a fox? So I messaged the guy to find out more about the fox and he didn’t take it very well at all. 

Apparently the fox DOESN’T come with the carpeting, and personally I think this ad is extremely misleading because I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s more interested in the fox than the carpet it’s sitting on. The fox is very cute and looks equally confused as to why it’s featured in an ad for a FLOORING STORE NOT A PET STORE, and someone should tell this guy that his customer service is as sh*tty as his ad sense if he yells at people who come into the store to pet his fox the way he yelled at me for inquiring about his fox.

Anyway, if you’re interested, here’s the poem I wrote about my dog:

For Atlas

It’s 2 am and
My dog is whimpering
In the throes of a bad dream.
Does he miss his mother and
The way she would comfort him
When he was frightened?
Is he lonely for his brothers
And sisters,
For the warmth of their bodies
At night?

He cries and twitches
And I wonder what haunts him.
I am his pack now.
I shake him awake and tell him
Everything is
Just fine.

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.

Batter Up!

Recently, Ken has taken a part-time job at the local gas station. It’s a great gig—it’s a thirty second walk from home, he only works four hours a day, and most people pay at the pump so he’s not run off his feet. In fact, the only downside is that his shift is 5:30 to 9:30. IN THE MORNING. Now, he loves it, being an insanely early riser and all, but it’s been hard on me. You may remember that our house has been experiencing strange events, from doors being left open, to taps running, to the dog staring at the basement door and growling—and while things have gotten slightly better, which is to say that I haven’t needed to enlist the neighbours in a house search lately, I and especially the dog are both a little jumpy. The other morning, Ken left for work but forgot to close the door to the family room, which meant Atlas was free to roam the house. He decided to pay me a visit and announced himself by leaping onto the bed and staring into my face:

Me: Huh? What’s going on?
Atlas: Nothing. Just came for snuggles.
Me: Okay. Be quiet though.

Then five minutes later, he suddenly lifted his head, started to growl, and ran out of the room barking. He wouldn’t stop, and it was making me really nervous so I finally had to get out of bed and found him at the top of the stairs, hackles raised:

Me: What are you doing?
Atlas: Noise. Downstairs.
Me: Go look.
Atlas: No, you go look.
Me: YOU’RE the dog. And YOU started this. Go see!
Atlas: Hard pass.

At which point, exhausted and fed up, I went back into the bedroom and grabbed the baseball bat I keep under the bed. And why do I keep a baseball bat under the bed? For the exact same reason I keep a hammer in the drawer of the bedside table. I also have both a hammer and a baseball bat in the bathroom, and a hammer in the family room, as well as two large oars in my office. I don’t have either a hammer or a baseball bat in the kitchen because in the kitchen THERE ARE KNIVES. And all this is because I am the Queen of Worst-Case Scenarios. In fact, one year for Christmas, I bought Kate a book called “The Little Book of Worst-Case Scenarios”, and I forced her to read it so she would know what to do under different circumstances, for example:

a) Being chased by a bear (make yourself look as large as possible and scream loudly to let the bear know you could take it in a fight. Don’t run—unless you’re with someone who’s obviously slower than you).

b) Accidentally driving a car into a river (find an air pocket, wait for the car to be submerged, then open the door and swim to the surface). Kate was like “I’m seven years old–why would I ever drive a car into a river?” I DON’T KNOW, Kate. But if you plan for these things, you might SURVIVE them).

c) Playing in a bouncy castle that suddenly becomes untethered and begins to float away (which apparently happens more often than you think, prompting our local school board to ban them from school property. They also banned dunk tanks. Because of all the dunking).

And Kate has learned her lessons well, because a few weeks ago, she came home for the weekend, and after she left, I went into her room to re-make the bed (because I’m weird and like things a certain way). As I was moving the pillows to one side, I found a knife under one of them. I smiled, put it back where I found it, and said to myself proudly, “That’s my girl.”

Anyway, I have assorted weaponry in the house just on the off chance that Atlas is correct for once and there actually IS an intruder in the house.  Here’s the scenario:

We wake up in the middle of the night to strange noises coming from downstairs. Ken offers to investigate. He puts on his housecoat and goes down with the dog, who is clearly agitated but too much of a chicken to go see by himself. I wait, wracked with fear. There are shouts, commotion, then nothing. The intruder has tied up both Ken and the dog, and is taunting them as he steals our stuff, mainly clocks and paintings of Paris because he’s a robber with good taste. I quietly get the baseball bat out from under the bed and sneak downstairs. The intruder has his back to me. Ken sees me, but luckily, he’s gagged so he can’t do what he would normally do and say something like, “Why do you have a baseball bat?” At this point, I swing, connect with the intruder’s head, and down he goes. I free Ken and Atlas, put back my clocks and paintings because I’m weird and like things a certain way while Ken ties up and gags the intruder, and then we call the police. Ta dah.

But to make a long story short, I went downstairs with my baseball bat in hand, but as usual, there was no reason to sound the alarm. I came back up, slightly unnerved from the experience to find Atlas fast asleep in my spot. He’s the worst guard dog ever, but he’s very warm and snuggly.