Drive, She Said

I’m a big supporter of public transit. I’ve never owned a car, and most of the time, I’m happy about that. It allows me to feel superior whenever I see a report about carbon emissions. And yet, every once in awhile, I have access to a car, and for that brief moment, I can appreciate the freedom and convenience a car can provide, and I like it. My parents are still off in Europe, walking 500 miles, so we’ve taken advantage of their car for running errands, buying plants, and getting around. This Friday, we met up after work and headed home via a familiar route. We’ve walked home this way and have traveled this road countless times in the back seat of a taxi. The route winds through a beautiful residential neighbourhood where only the very wealthy live. Huge, old homes line the streets and, in a few weeks, a tall canopy of green will make it even more pleasant. We know this route and we like it. It’s peaceful to head off the main avenues of Toronto and drive through a section that fills us with fantasies of what our lives will be like as soon as we win the lottery.

This was the first time we’d driven there, though. As we drove along, Mr. T noticed a sign that said, “No Through Traffic” and scoffed “Yeah right, watch me. How would they know, anyway?” We laughed and drove on along the quiet residential street. We turned the corner and arrived at a three-way stop. There was a lot of commotion at the intersection. Some bozo had decided to pull a u-turn and it was holding everyone up. We watched him in frustration thinking of his arrogance in forcing everyone to wait while he did his thing. As we waited to turn east, I noticed a man heading in our direction, waving. “Why is that guy waving at us?” I wondered aloud. “He’s probably just waving at someone else,” was Mr. T’s response. Hmm.

We turned the corner and started to make our way east. Within milliseconds, we spotted the cause of all the commotion. A police car was parked in the opposite lane, it’s officer out, waving us over to the side of the road. Everything suddenly made sense: the sign, the bozo, the wave. “So, that’s how they know!” exclaimed Mr. T as he pulled out his license and registration and lowered the window. Apparently, there are no right turns between 4PM-6PM. Only wrong turns. As we pulled away from our brush with the law, we reflected on the joys of public transit and plain old walking. Sometimes, you get stuck. Sometimes, you get soaked. But it rarely costs you ninety dollars. Thank you, officer. Thank you for reminding me that I haven’t got it so bad after all.

How's the Water?

I was only 13 but it haunts me to this day. The haunting isn’t solely because of my actions, which admittedly were less than admirable, but because my sister, the only other witness, and the victim of my crime, won’t let me forget it.

We were standing in the kitchen and I’d just started the dishwasher. We were chatting and getting lunch when we noticed that I’d forgotten to unplug the drain. The sink was rapidly filling with hot, hot water, while my 11 year-old sister and I stared in horror. “What do we do?” she yelled at me (ostensibly the one in charge because I’m 2.5 years older). “We have to unplug the drain!” I shouted. I knew it had to be done. If we didn’t put a stop to this, we’d have a huge mess to clean up and possibly a flood. There was simply no alternative. And yet, I was afraid to burn myself. I admit it. The steam rising off the soapy water looked menacing and dangerous. Standing next to the sink as it filled with water at what appeared to be an impossibly fast speed, I could feel the heat rising off the surface. I reached my hand towards the sink. I turned my face away and willed myself to do it. I couldn’t. The sink was filling fast, the water line rising to the edge.

I quickly amended my statement. “You have to unplug the drain,” I screamed at my sister. “What?” she asked in horror. “Look, I’m really sensitive to heat” I bullied, “you’ve got to do it. Do it! DO IT!” I berated her for at least 4 seconds before she plunged her little hand into the water and pulled out the drain. She screamed as she did it and when she pulled her arm out of the water, it was bright red from the scalding she’d received for her efforts. “Why did you make me do that?” she asked me as she nursed her tender arm. “I’m sorry?” was the only response I could think to make. Why, indeed?

Since then, I think I’ve done some nice things for my sister. I think I’ve been a pretty supportive and caring older sibling. In fact, I’d buried the memory of what I hope was my one truly non-fraternal act towards my younger sister. Until a few weeks ago, that is. I was with my family out at my sister’s house. We were all gathered in the kitchen, talking while some of us cooked. I turned on the tap to rinse some dishes before putting them away in the dishwasher. As the water hit my hand, I couldn’t help but exclaim “shit, that’s hot!” My sister, from across the room, looked at me with a sly smile and said, “I guess you want me to do that?” Ouch. Burn.

Digging in the Dirt

I’ve always liked the idea of a garden, but for a variety of different reasons in a variety of different rented homes, I have never taken that idea and made it a reality. Last year, Mr. T. and I dipped our toes into the land of living things by getting a few pre-potted plants to beautify our deck. The plants were pretty, we watered them, they bloomed, fall came, they died. All in all, it was an easy initiation into cohabitating with outdoor flora. This year, we decided to get a little more involved. We said to ourselves “won’t it feel good to get our fingers in the dirt and plant some things?” And, because we agreed with ourselves, we headed to the local greenhouse to investigate plants, flowers and herbs.

Armed with purpose and determination, we browsed the lines of mystery greenery. We bought bags of soil, we bought planters, we bought things to put planters on, we bought a spade and gardening gloves, and, most preciously, we bought a variety of things that came in little pots. Some were pretty (geraniums, dwarf dahlias, daisies), some just smelled great (rosemary, sweet basil), and others we just liked the sounds of (Gazanias – what a great word, it should be the title of a musical!).

We brought everything home and, in order to get into the right headspace, we cracked open some cold beers while we played with the pots. We put different things next to each other to see how they would look. We asked ourselves a lot of questions such as:

“Does that green look good with this one?”
“Do those flowers want to be alone with like-minded flowers, or should we encourage them to mingle with herbs?”
“What does full sun mean?”
“Does partial shade mean that it gets shade at some points of the day and not others, or does the plant actually have to be in a space that is always partially shady?”
“Does this need more soil?”
“Are these too crowded?”
“Did you just throw that dirt on my foot on purpose?”

And on and on to a variety of other questions to which we had no answers. Despite the many questions, we soldiered on undaunted. The plants all got planted and, in the end, we had 7 fun arrangements brightening spots where there had been no life. The deck looks great and it should do so for the next week before the fruits of our ignorance start to rear their dead heads. Although I’m not overly optimistic about the odds of some of our creations, I am looking forward to discovering what’s going to happen to our new little friends. I find myself thinking of my gazanias at odd times of the day and wondering how they look. Maybe I’ll install a webcam so that I don’t have to miss a minute of their growth? Maybe I’m taking this a little too seriously?

Lurking vs Working

He wanders the halls, stopping as he can to chat about the weather, movies, or a new video game. He’s the first to respond to any email with a joke (albeit never a funny one) and if you should happen to wander into the kitchen, you’ll doubtless find him there, getting a cup of tea. The one place you’ll never find him, though, is seated at his desk. Yesterday, I was working on something and looked up to find him standing in my doorway. I didn’t hear his approach and he didn’t even announce his presence with a courtesy throat clearing. Instead, he stood there, waiting for me to look up. Eventually, I did. “I’m going to be sending you an email later today” he said. “Okay, great” I responded. What else was there to say? Apparently, a lot. The nature of the email, the expected result of sending it, and the estimated time of arrival of said email also had to be discussed. I got the email, I responded and that was the end of that. Or so I thought. I went to the kitchen to grab a glass of water. He was there. “Thanks for getting back to me so quickly” he said before he went on to explain the thought process behind the reply he’d sent to my response. As I made my way back to my desk, harrowed by the 1000 items on my task list, it occurred to me that I might like his job.

Turf Wars

My best friend Meg and I would meet at the top of the “mountain” before school. Everyone called it a mountain but it was really more of a hill. We had two choices to get to school: we could walk along the boring old sidewalk, or we could slide our way down the snow covered bumps of the hill together. Even better than the slide down was a sign at the top of the mountain stating “Private Property. Enter at your own risk!” This proclamation lent an element of danger to our walk down the hill with which the sidewalk simply couldn’t compete.

In truth, the risk wasn’t the mountain as much as the schoolyard at the base of it. Our French Catholic School shared its lot with an English Catholic Junior school and in order to get to our friends, we had to cross the St. Aloyisius schoolyard. For years, this hadn’t been an issue. We did, after all, know most of these kids from the neighbourhood and some of them were our friends. However, that winter, we’d been having a hard time with one particularly vociferous young girl named Pamela. Pamela was mean and would lead the others in chants of “French Frog” as we walked by. It was an unfair fight given that there wasn’t an English equivalent to their chant. “English Muffin” didn’t sound like much of an insult and since Meg was an Irish kid whose parents wanted her to speak French, the prospect of finding a better insult with which to slander the Anglo kids wasn’t terribly enticing.

Given the situation, we had no real choice. Failing to find a proper term for insulting Pamela’s entire culture left us with no alternative but to attack her personally. Each French frog was henceforth returned with a “Pamela Pig”. This happy alliteration rolled off our tongues and served well to quiet her for the remainder of the week. We’d won. Pamela pig was cowed and we could make our way through the schoolyard without harassment. It was such a good chant, that by Friday, despite Pamela’s noticeable silence, we continued to prance through the yard singing our merry song.

On Monday, however, we were surprised to see a bolder Pamela blocking our path through the schoolyard. Beside her stood a tall high school student wearing tight jeans, a white parka and pink mittens. I was only nine but I was tall so the older kid squared off in front of me, while Meg, tough from her years of gymnastics training, was facing mopey, doughy Pamela. “You’ve been calling my cousin Pamela Pig,” menaced the teenager as she held me firm by the jacket. “She called us French Frogs” I retorted, certain that she would understand that all was fair in schoolyard wars. I was ready to defend myself with justifications and evidence of Pamela’s own abusive behaviour, but this was a teenager of few words. Her rebuttal came at me in a flurry of fuzzy pink that was remarkably painful as it landed on my face. My head snapped back and I was powerless to stop the tears from flowing down my face as Meg and I bolted to the relative safety of our school where the nurse applied something cold to my rapidly swelling lip.

For the next few weeks, Meg and I got to know the joys of the sidewalk and I got to be the only member of my family with the dubious honour of having been punched in the face. It’s hard to like Mondays.