Monday 30 September 2024
Possibly the best thing I've ever seen on television
Sunday 4 August 2024
Informed consent
The barista asks me if I want a pain au chocolat: "So you don't look predictable." (A lot of mornings, I arrive at the counter and the pastry is sitting there on a plate, because they saw me coming.)
"Well, getting consent is always a good idea," I tell her. She's laughing so much, that she forgets to get the chocolate croissant and hand it to me, even though I've paid, and is momentarily confused to see me still standing there.
"You had my consent and everything!" I declare in mock indignation.
I get mock-indignant so often, that I think real indignation would go unrecognised.
Saturday 3 August 2024
Things change
I've seen them several times over the past year; one of them lives in an apartment building around the corner, and I've seen his pal at the ancient glass entry door in the morning, before they head out to middle school. (I've also seen them hogging the courtesy seats on buses and scattering ice cream packets on the sidewalk, but, heck, thirteen is thirteen.)
That's the thing. They don't look thirteen this late summer afternoon. They've shot up a couple of inches, and their shoulders have broadened. High school for them, this year, I think.
Then I discovered I'd left my wallet behind, doubled back, and decided to seek a cooler way into the village. The sun was just bordering on uncomfortably warm, but the shadows were deliciously pleasant, with a light breeze wafting up from the strait.
So I nipped around another corner, and skidded to a halt.
For years, the City of Victoria has covered the utility boxes with historical photos of the surrounding area: landmarks -- such as hospitals and schools -- shown as they were decades before, and houses that are no longer there.Friday 2 August 2024
Blossoming
Oh, I love younger daughter's watercolour paintings.
Thursday 1 August 2024
What kind of music is "Pumpkin Spice", for pete's sake???
Wednesday 31 July 2024
The deer canter
This is the first time I've seen our usually laidback urban deer running.
They're fast.
They bound. They bounce off the grass, and over shrubbery. I turn, to see them vanish into the bushes that encircle the east end of our building.
Another cluster of clattering rings out behind me. I wheel around, and a fourth deer sails by me, only a foot or so between us.
I never see what has spooked them.
Tuesday 30 July 2024
Sideswiped (write of passage number fifty-six)
I don't enjoy riding sideways on the bus, and avoid it whenever possible.
This particular afternoon, the bus is fairly full, so I find myself fighting momentum sideways while clutching a rail with two full cloth shopping bags dangling from my wrist, and an ice cream birthday cake balanced precariously on my lap.
Across the aisle, a plumpish young woman is curled up in a corner, her bare knees pressed against a bar, chatting nonstop on her phone. Next to her, a young man with odd colouring - pale, pink, and washed out - is gazing into space. He's wearing earbuds. There's something about the proximity between the two that suggests to me that they're travelling together, just not quite in the same universes.
Every now and then, he sings out a snatch or two of whatever is playing in his ears. I don't recognise anything, of course. Knees Up Phone Lady glares at him when he does this for the fifth time.
"I'm on the phone," she hisses, and plunges back into the other conversation.
"I was answering the question," he shrugs.
Cramped and crippled, I juggle my packages, struggling to keep the cake upright, and leap gingerly down to the pavement, wondering what the question was.
Monday 29 July 2024
Got distracted
Sunday 28 July 2024
If, like a crab, you could go backward
The top of her brightly coloured bike helmet is only a few inches above the top of my table. She's moving steadily, but not particularly quickly, backward, so I have time to reach out to steady my tall glass of iced mocha.
She bumps gently into my table, smiles beatifically at me and steps to her left to continue her reverse trek into the back of the legs belonging to a tall elderly gentleman standing in line for his morning cup of coffee.
"Walking backwards is a thing these days," I inform my neighbour on my left. "I've been trying it myself; it's supposed to improve your balance."
The mini-back-pedaller reappears, this time walking forward, having retrieved her grandmother, and they return to their seats at the table to my right, where a tiny bike has been stashed. The lady tells an inquiring fellow grandmother that the little girl is "just three". The child knows she's the topic of conversation, and takes off again, sans helmet -- sideways.