Category Archives: True Stories

Anecdotes from my past and present.

‘Cause nothing goes down like bad news at dawn…

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imageYesterday Badger and I were catching up via text, as we do, and one topic was whether Rumble would recognize the import of the green Frogboxes we’re renting this coming Monday for the move. He would climb on them, of course, but would he see them as a harbinger of relocation? All was well.

At about nine last night he had something that may have been a heart attack, and though we rushed him to 24-hour kitty hospital, there was nothing they could do but smooth out and speed up what was already happening to him.

K and I are in shock, with devastation to come. I’d love to write our boy a beautiful eulogy, but I’m not up to it. Maybe in a few weeks/months/years, mmm? Plus also, we’re signing papers on the condo in about ninety minutes.

Rumble had a lot of friends out there and he’ll be missed all over.

Toronto, Day 326

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imageIt has almost been a year.

It’s no coincidence that we’re moving, again, as the anniversary nears. The plan was always to rent a place here for the first year, scope out the neighborhoods, and then commit. Kelly and I were both so unfamiliar with Toronto that to do anything else seemed nutty beyond words.

(Though jumping in without a clue is how we chose our Vancouver neighborhood, also sight unseen, and that worked out.)

Our soon to be former apartment is coming to be known as “the King Street place” or variations thereon. We haven’t been here long enough to come to dislike much about it. It doesn’t have a great layout, but it is serviceable, bright, and all-new–which means it’s in great repair. It was a good enough place to land and it helped me refine my idea of what I want in a tiny place: a bedroom door that closes, for example, and a real separation between our living room and my office. No yawning distance between bedroom and bathroom.

The new place, Dua Central, definitely has those features.

I would be really happy if the King Street overlords would turn on our pretty, pretty fountain sometime before we leave. I’d like to see it once more from our second floor balcony. I’m not holding my breath, though.

Poor Rumble has no idea what’s about to hit him.

Did you like Captain America? (Eff Yeah!)

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Here’s a picture of me with the actor Cineplex hired to Cap it up outside the theater after Friday’s screening. He was pleasant and fun, and who doesn’t enjoy a superhero selfie?

Captain America Saves

Things I liked about the movie:

Steve: I am coming to like his character more and more. He may be the straightest straight-arrow since Constable Benton Fraser… in other words, catnip. What’s more, he’s pleasingly articulate. His funny lines are delivered with square-jawed conviction and good grammar.

Natasha: The only thing wrong with Black Widow in this movie was her hair, which looked as though evil fiends had dried and ironed it in a bid to lower her self-esteem. She’s delightfully deadly, and I loved seeing a glimmer of how very much she looks to Steve and Nick Fury to hold her onto a moral path as she continues to sponge some of that red out of her ledger.

Falcon! Just plain awesome. I am hoping Tony will build him some hardware one day soon.

Surprise! I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that hey, there are some big reveals at various points in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. One I saw coming, the other was beautifully played.

The movie has an excellent sense of who Steve is. It reaches back into his past, referencing the first film without burdening the movie with too much exposition. (Those reach-backs are especially handy if you found Captain America Primo rather forgettable.) I had a few quibbles with the plot, but it makes a reasonable amount of sense, as such things go. And I’m very curious to hear how the film’s events affect Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

In sum, I found it entertaining enough, and suspenseful enough. It may not be a staggering work of genius, but there’s nothing much wrong with it either. I had fun.

Did you?

Chaos at the Casa

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Some of you probably know that I am just back from a vacation in Austin, Texas. It was super to get away, to see dear friends and visit the desert. I kept about six hundred of the pictures I shot–we saw everything from scaled quail to a fox!–and these are percolating out to my various photo sites.

Coming up in the next very short while: I will be at the Ad Astra SF Convention this weekend. This’ll be your first chance, if you’re local, to hear me read from Child of a Hidden Sea. We are wrapping up the paperwork portion of our condo purchase next week, and plunging into a few necessary renovations before we move. My next UCLA Extension Writers’ Program course, Writing the Fantastic, opens on April 14th. (There may not be slots available right now, but if it has filled there is a waiting list.)

Then we move to the new place! In, seriously, three weeks!

Much is happening, in other words. How about all of you?

Toronto: Day 293 (Nice Ice Lady)

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When I lived in Alberta, I hated winter. I hated waking up in darkness and leaving school or work in the black.  I hated being wet of foot, dry of skin, and bone-chilled every time I came in from outside. I hated mushing around in heavy winds while snow accumulated on my forehead, melted its way down my face and glued my glasses to my nose.
I hated forty below for weeks on end and occasionally getting into cars that were iceboxes and shivering all the way across town in same, arriving–inevitably–five minutes after the crappy heaters had begun to pretend to kick in.
Here in Southern Ontario, we are reportedly having the worst winter in twenty or so years. It has snowed often. It has been twenty below three or four times.
Now, here, I have a warm feather-filled bag that covers me from crown to toe. I have sweaters, and thermal tights and toasty waterproof boots. Good stuff, none of which had to be bought by a parent who was weighing a certain amount of poverty against the general concept of Why buy quality for a kid who’ll outgrow this all in a year?
Even in the chill, it has been sunny, so sunny. The amount of light here is amazing. Hazy days seem few and far between.
And you may have noticed that I am nuts for icicles.

This isn’t a new thing. I would try to get good icicle pictures in Vancouver, or on our trips to the Prairies to see the kin. Opportunities were few and far between, but I tried. Here… ha! The old gutters on all these picturesque Victorian houses overflow, and ice over, and spill. Constantly! The resulting frozen structures are spectacular. They stay in place until the light’s good. You can get close to and atop them. You can get under.
Which would be how I’ve worked out that any patch of ground beneath a good series of icicles is also slippery as shit.
Anyway. It’s March. Nobody in Vancouver has sent me a crocus photo yet, though I did make a point of telling all my west coast loved ones that they should gloat. This winter, this unusually cold and terrible winter–as the locals would have it–I have been cold and miserable and sad to be outside all of twice.
It feels like I’ve gotten away with something.
I haven’t enjoyed everything. I am a bit tired of bundling up, which is a wearying chore. I have realized or remembered that the primary thing that I dislike about snow is the stage where it’s dirty and festooned in various types of dog waste.
I am also headed somewhere warm in a couple of weeks. And, in the meantime, here’s some ice for you all.