the real world

so i’m on the 401…

~ carin ~ 2 Comments

… and I’m thinking: I hate this.

I hate all this traffic and construction and all these cranky people and how I’m one of them—and where is everybody going anyway, doesn’t anyone work where they live??—then I exit onto Bayview and I’m thinking why doesn’t the guy ahead of me turn already—for god’s sake turn, buddy!! and excuse me, what the ????—they’ve closed a lane even though it’s technically still rush hour?? On a main street?

I hate them. Whoever them are.

It’s because of them that all of us—the idiots who don’t know how to drive, and me (because of course I do)—are stuck like rats in a… a something that’s such a pain in the ass stupid I can’t even define it.

Oh great. Now some yutz  cuts me off and nobody’s letting me merge—moron!   I do the international what—are you nuts? combo–move with my hands and eyes. 

I turn off the radio because it’s too pleasant, all that brilliant CBC morning banter gets in the way of being fully tense and angry. I shout in my hermetically sealed container, make what I believe to be rude gestures but in my supreme annoyance with all things other drivers and stupid summer roadwords I’m momentarily confused about which finger is the rude one and I’m pretty sure I’ve just flashed my pinkie.

Perfect, now we’re not moving and the guy I flashed is staring at me.

I call where I’m going even though it’s against the law (and yes I know this is wrong and I’m consumed with guilt and shame but—please—who am I going to crash into at zero kms an hour??) and say I’m going to be god only knows how late and the relaxed voice at the other end says oh that’s okay, don’t worry—and this makes me nuts. Easy for you to say Ms. Sitting in an Air-Conditioned Office Where You’re Already Supposed to Be—try inching, inching along Bayview Avenue sometime, try being caught in a cesspool of moronic city/street/roadwork planning for a few dozen years or however long I’ve been out here this morning. Yeah, sure, relax. Thanks. Why didn’t I think of that?

So inch inch inch we go until finally, finally, the other lane opens up and things are normal—which isn’t great, merely better— then, at last, I land at my destination, a major achievement—all I need is to park but the parking lot is full and by some weird bad miracle the very same dorks that were on the road, or their nearest kin, are now circling the lot and it takes forever—by which I mean a good twenty minutes—and we’re inch inch inching around and waiting to see if that guy, or that couple, is coming or going and we collectively mutter under our breath when it’s obvious they’re coming and while some of us get spots, others of us inch down down to various levels until we’re super subterranean and I’m one of them and when I finally at gd last park, I head for the stairs and I see this: 

And my huff mellows just a titch.

And I get closer.

So I stop and watch these gorgeous gormless faces just sitting and waiting and I think: what patience, what peace.  Happily whiling away the time til mum returns. Possibly even humming (I’m sure I hear them humming). Fully engaged in the moment. Hmm, hmm, hmm.

What is the problem? they appear to say when I stare up at them with my wild, frazzled, flushed, just-stuck-a-fork-in-a-live-socket look.

You can almost see them smile and blink hello.

And I think: what an idiot I am. 

This is what it’s all about.

And just like that—presto magic—my return drive is entirely different.

here’s to fresh food and farmers

~ carin ~ 3 Comments

The picture doesn’t do this bounty justice.  All of which was less than seventeen bucks. And yes, that’s the last of the asparagus (sad to say goodbye—it’s been sooo good). The first (for me) of the strawberries—which, by the way, I learned recently, are best picked and eaten in the morning when the dew’s still on them—just in case any of you are heading out to a strawberry patch in the coming dewy days.  

To the left, a pile of mini hothouse cukes, most of which got left out of the snap. (Tomatoes are also hothouse; I normally wait for vine-ripened, but it was my first day at the local farmers’ market, the sun was shining, and, well, I had a mad moment…)

From the garden, there’s this—

I’m slightly insane about salads. They would be my preferred last meal were I to face a firing squad and be offered a choice.

This one includes nettles, dandelion leaves, mesclun, arugula, lambs’ quarters and purslane. Oh, and nasturtium leaves and flowers for oomph and a peppery je ne sais quoi-ish quality that never hurts and is not hard on the eyes.

Also garlic. I couldn’t resist pulling one from the still ripening crop. Normally the ‘First Garlic Bulb of the Season’ is almost a ceremonial event around here.  Not this year. I just yanked one out and diced a few perfect, crisp, translucent, completely-unlike-the-stuff-from-China cloves, then topped the whole schmozzle with my favourite dressing: olive oil and fresh lemon juice.

Anyway, definitely oodles to choose from at this time of year, right from our own ‘backyard’.  (It’ll be months before I step inside a grocery store again, except to buy detergent and sardines.)

can we all just get along?

~ carin ~ 2 Comments

So the woman down the street says this damn rabbit, have you got rabbit problems too, it’s a complete nuisance, look what it did to the bark of this tiny sapling over winter, it was just planted in the Fall, can you imagine?

I ask does she mean can I imagine being clever enough to fend off starvation by finding a tender sapling to eat amongst all the concrete…

She doesn’t answer, continues, tells me that’s not all, now it’s after the just planted snapdragons.

I say aren’t you supposed to wait until the 24th?

She says, her lovely display of varying heights and colours, all planned and perfectly arranged, which would have filled out to become a striking focal point beside the goldfish pond, is ruined. She points at holes where clumps should be, makes fists and says this can’t go on, something must be done! She looks around the yard, helplessly, hopefully (yearning for a rabbit sheriff to stroll by with bunny handcuffs?).

I suggest we stop building subdivisions where woodland used to be, we’re confusing the wildlife, we’re in their backyard not the other way around. In fact, I say, they’re pretty reasonable about sharing it with us, wouldn’t you agree—notice how they don’t eat all the snapdragons…

A lovely clump of sorrel mysteriously disappears in April—probably makes a good lunch for someone.

(Excuse me, is that a bit of sorrel in your teeth?)

By May—before I even have a chance to die of starvation—it grows back.

And so becomes another good lunch.

Plenty to go round. No need for pawcuffs.

lumbricidae-ish milestone

~ carin ~ 4 Comments

I recently touched a worm for the first time. On purpose I mean. I touched it very very lightly and with just the very tip of my index finger for possibly one millionth of a millisecond, then jumped back a couple of metres. It was an oddly cavalier thing to do given that they’ve been making my toes curl in a bad way since I was a kid walking to school on rainy mornings, dodging what seemed like hundreds wriggling all over the sidewalk. (And please don’t even mention Danny something who used to scoop them out of the sewer near the back entrance and dangle them in your face as you walked by.) 

My fear of worms never stopped me working in the garden of course—I just did it in my own way—weed weed EEK!, dig plant dig ICK! (Making Peter shake his head and say things like: don’t you think it’s a little weird for someone who spends as much time as you do mucking about in dirt to be afraid of worms?) 

He obviously didn’t know Danny something. 

Still, I suppose it was a little weird to be eeking my way through three seasons. Maybe the shame finally sunk in.  

So I’ve touched one.  And now they don’t scare me one bit.  Well, less.

That doesn’t mean I’m going to touch another one on purpose. Nor does it mean I’m going to challenge myself by picking one up. No no no. There will be no pictures of me holding any member of the family lumbricidae like a prize. I’m just happy the screaming is over, and my toes can finally un-cramp. 

Although if I find an unusually long and fattish specimen (they can, theoretically, get to 3 metres), I really can’t guarantee anything… 

to each their own...

spring vs summer

~ carin ~ 1 Comment

Without question—Spring—best time of year in the garden. Better than summer when everything’s clamouring and shouting, a riot of colour, a blur, mere background— like a gallery full of exquisite art—impressive as a collection, but impossible to give each item the attention it deserves.

Right now the garden is quiet, still stretching, yawning, relaxed. A humble place where the most excitement is every day another bit of green has replaced mud, a bloom has opened pink or blue or white, and that clump of leaves—still undistinguishable—is either cardinal flower or coreopsis. Does it really matter?

It’s excitement enough.

Oh sure, god bless summer and all that, but by July there’s so much to see I think we actually see less—whereas right now, and for a while longer, it’s possible to see everything…

Last night’s rain on this morning’s lupin and lady’s mantle.

the first

~ carin ~ Leave a comment
Narcissus, "King Alfred" Daffodil
“Each evening, before the dive boat returns, I sit on the deck of the cantina, watch the sun fall into the ocean. Sometimes I see Pearl and her daughter, flashes of silver in the distance, and I raise my glass to them. They’re bottlenose, I learn from my fish book, related to the killer whale; their main enemy is the shark, the left-facing variety of course. I leaf through pictures of basket starfish, eagle rays, familiarize myself with the habits of the curious giant stinking vase sponge and memorize dive terms so that at dinner with the gang I don’t end up saying, “Narcosis, I’m all for that, why I plant at least two dozen each fall…” (From Bliss, by ‘me’, Room—31.1)