Blog
English as a Second Language
If you visit this blog regularly, you may know that I’ve been taking university English courses. For fun. If you visit this blog regularly, you may also know that I have a supremely misguided notion of what constitutes fun. Just ...
Just the Fax
This important news item may have escaped your notice in the past couple of weeks, and I completely understand why. There have been many news-worthy things going on than journalism space to recount them. Some prince and his not-good-enough-to-be-a-princess wife ...
Marching Forth
April is supposed to be the cruelest month, but in fact it’s March that deserves that crown. At least in these parts, April doesn’t regularly erupt into spontaneous snow squalls and spawn northwest winds that fling the snow shovel across ...
From Russia, With Love
There are ghostly cat paw prints on the floor. You have to look at just the right angle to see them on the hardwood, but when the sun comes in through the sliding glass kitchen doors, like it’s doing today, ...
Cat Scratch Fever
It has come to my attention that I am not the only household harbouring criminals. There have been two usurpers prowling in the backyard lately, a gray tabby and a calico. Henry oversees all of this from his perch on ...
A Former Librarian Repents
The other day, I did a walk-up curbside pick-up at the library to collect two books I borrowed for my English 1002 course. Although there was only one copy of each in the library, they were easy to reserve and, ...
K as in Knight
January is pretty much always the same. Dead Christmas trees get kicked to the curb. The tenth batch of turkey soup arrives with only a fraction of the enthusiasm that greeted the first. And we’ll spend countless hours we’ll never ...
In Which I Assay an Essay
Back when such things were considered amusing because nothing more amusing had yet to be invented, my grandfather was fond of reciting limericks as part of the Presbyterian after-dinner frivolity, as we drank tea as viscous as crude oil from ...
Suburban Status Report 20201115
This is a suburban status report because the cottage is a wrap for 2020. That means we are now entering the phase of ‘things I’m pretty sure I forgot to bring home.’ These things reveal themselves slowly and it will ...
Only Two Sleeps until Official Book Release!
Here’s an Excerpt The very, very, very best Grade 2 art day is asbestos clay day. Asbestos is a wonderful material in the 1960s. Not only does it cover our floors and insulate our walls, it is a mighty fine ...