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Speak to me like you are Barry White. Please.

If you're going to ask me about all we've got going on this week and next, speak to me like you are Barry White. This week, I've had to ask loved ones to stop talking to me like this: "OH NO!! ARE ...

My dad 19229

My Mom and my Dad, who turns 80 today, met a couple of young(ish) RCMP officers on Parliament Hill a few years ago, who were astounded to learn that Dad's regimental number was 19229. That means, roughly, that he was the 19,229th ...

Tumble in the cranberries

This weekend I sat at my dining room table and consumed a pie recipe. It was almost a poem. Especially when I reached this line: Tumble in the cranberries. That is what cranberries do, as anyone who made sauce this weekend knows. They ...

Singing

It was around the second half of the first verse of "One Day at a Time...Sweet Jesus," a solo sung with gusto by a woman at my parent's small rural church, when I heard the first chirps of a renegade songbird joining in. I ...

Used books

The other day I found exactly what I was looking for in a used book store. It was The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. The store owner, sitting behind his desk pecking away at an ancient computer, jumped to his feet when I ...

Unexpected pleasures

For a simple trip from Toronto to Halifax, it certainly involved a lot of cancelling, delaying, waiting, boarding, fretting and running. It was easier to fly home from Cambodia. But happily, last in is first out, or so I learned about luggage. ...

I have a favourite editor

I have a favourite editor. Probably all writers do. But this guy is sunshine. Every time I do a piece for him and read over his comments in the margins, I smile. Here are some snippets from his latest edit: He starts ...

Darlene

These past months, my gobbling greedy self learned anew, and deeper than ever, how disappointment can punch you in the stomach. The deep, miserable kind. The cry loudly on your bed when you are home alone. The nose-running kind. I felt like God had almost ...

Me and my Mom

On a recent day, during a visit from my Mom, we travelled through Toronto via go-train, subway, bus, streetcar, taxi and a big chunk by foot all within the space of a few hours. We reached our destination: Canada Blooms. There we snapped shots ...

A sweet and tender moment

I had a lovely embrace of a moment with an old friend recently. We encountered each other at a writers conference,  after 22 years of living our lives and growing up and out from what we had been when we knew each ...

Signs of the time, and how much I let them bother me

I have a dear and patient friend to whom I send the pictures I snap of the most annoying decorative signs I find in cute shops everywhere. She rewards me with a "HA!" of solidarity. Janet, I think, is the only person ...

On debates and mission trips. Say yes to things that scare you

Words that inspire, stuck on my cluttered fridge. Although I do often give myself a day off, I believe, along with good old Eleanor, in doing things that scare you. On Saturday night I was the moderator of a Religion and Society ...

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