“Salads! A cool relief on a hot summer’s day!” the food magazine says. I am here to tell you this is not true. Not the eating of the salads, which is actually a very good idea, heat or no heat. It’s the making of the salads that is a completely ridiculous thing to do when […]
Why is it that when I wake up in the middle of the night (which usually corresponds with when Dennis decides he wants to go out), all of my hundred bug bites start itching simultaneously? Furthermore, why is it that I have so many bug bites, and why do they swell up to the size
Cottage Status Report 20200628 Read More »
I think I caught a glimpse of the owl yesterday afternoon, something big and brown flying out of a trio of trees heading towards the middle of the island. The owl is mostly heard not seen. I hear it hooting and hollering at four in the morning, the hour at which the cats insist on
Cottage Status Report 20200614 Read More »
I am pleased to report that the family of dock spiders is enjoying the fine spring weather. They bask in the midday sunshine in a physically distant array. All seven of them, spaced out in their own isolated zones of dock real estate, ensuring I will maintain a distance of at least a ten-foot pole.
Cottage Status Report 20200607 Read More »
It really wasn’t my fault. I did not intend to get on the wrong side of the law. But it happened none-the-less. It all started sometime after the pandemic showed up. In addition to a virus gone viral, COVID-19 also brought people to suburbia. In the “before time,” at approximately 7:12 each morning, the suburbanite
Suburban Status Report 20200521 Read More »
I am sorry to admit that my house, recently a place of unparalleled cleanliness courtesy of pandemic boredom, has reverted to its former slovenly state. My vacuum cleaner is probably heaving a large sigh of relief, much like people’s dogs that are getting annoyed at the quantity of forced-march walking that is taking place. My
Suburban Status Report 20200507 Read More »
I sat outside on my deck in the sunshine a few days ago, when April was behaving a little better than right now, reading the New Yorker while freezing my ass off but stubbornly clinging to the notion that being outside was better than being inside. My all-weather fake-o wicker loveseat emerged from the winter
Suburban Status Report 20200423 Read More »
For the most part, I have dutifully restricted my cat ownership to a maximum of two at a time. Except for a time about twenty years ago, when I lived way downtown in Toronto. My house, in a “transitional” neighbourhood that stubbornly resisted transition, had a tiny backyard consisting of a deck surrounded by a
I never thought I would say this, but the outer-reaches of suburbia is the place to be during a pandemic because this place is a wasteland of human interaction. Oh wait, I stand corrected. Except for now. People I never, ever, ever, see on my street are suddenly in evidence, out walking with their various
Status Report 20200330 Read More »
I read to you today from this week’s Longo’s flyer. “Cashmere Select Bath Tissue, $6.99, save up to $5.50!” “You could find the cup to win one of three trips to the Stanley Cup Final! Purchase any one of Kruger paper products!” “Free Cineplex movie offer with purchase of General Mills family size cereal.” I
And Yet, They Persist Read More »
