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 »
I always have flowers in my house. Or maybe not exactly always, but as close as I can get, given my current circumstances of living in suburbia. Apparently, suburbia does not believe in flowers. There are no fruit markets in suburbia, the places where I used to pick up some sunflowers or tulips when I
Send Me Dead Flowers Read More »
It’s pretty much business as usual around here, in the cozy bedrooms north of civilization. Which is to say, as usual, there is rampant inaccessibility, unavailability, and inedibility. Follow along with the bouncing ball, if you will. There is a bus that goes from Newmarket to the Toronto Yorkdale subway station and back. This bus
Suburban Status Report: 20191124 Read More »
Dear Mr. Rogers; No, not you with the cardigan and the movie with Tom Hanks. I’m talking to the telco Mr. Rogers, who I believe has unfortunately left his mortal coil, but whose name is on the eponymous telco. I vaguely remember that we may have had a relationship in the past, although if we
The Molloys were already ensconced in the house next door to us on Newton Crescent when we first arrived in Deep River in 1960. Inexplicably, since there was no lack of land to develop, we shared a double driveway and a semi-detached garage between our pre-fab bungalows, such that the middle wall bisected the official-unofficial
