Looking at life through a funhouse mirror
As you may know, I am now down to one cat. In case you were not aware (and in my own defense), I only had two. Also in my own defense, there was only one period in my life when I had more than two, which was when I lived with my ex-husband and a …
Sometime in mid-winter (or most likely before that), at least one raccoon moved into our attic, as evidenced by scratching noises emanating from the living room and bedroom ceilings. The upper reaches of the living room were the preferred hangout for cocktail hour, while the sector of the attic over the bedroom was typically active …
If someone were to review my dreams, they would probably give them one star at best. Repetitive, they would say. Not much of a discernable plot, they would say. Derivative, they would say. Nothing at all that’s remotely inventive. Here’s why. There’s the one about the final exam I have not studied for, which is …
When I lived in Cabbagetown (a completely non-suburban place, in fact about as urban as you can get) in a row house with a Victorian exterior and early 1990s interior (which was perfectly fine because it was the early 1990s at the time), the kitchen was a white womb of hard surfaces. The cupboards were …
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 and their not-allowed-to-be-a-prince son (except when he will be, which will happen when said prince’s …
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 the street into the side of the neighbour’s minivan. Luckily, the shovel doesn’t have any …
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 …
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 …
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 …
The 905 is the nickname based on the area code for the suburban sprawl that stretches East, West and North of Toronto and smacks up against the border of the 519 and 705 (area codes that used to be in the ‘are you nuts?’ category of commuting consideration but are now the new normal coordinates …