Copyright © 2021, Lesley Crewe
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission from the publisher, or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, permission from Access Copyright, 1 Yonge Street, Suite 1900, Toronto, Ontario M5E 1E5.
Nimbus Publishing Limited
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Printed and bound in Canada
NB1592
Editor: Penelope Jackson
Editor for the Press: Whitney Moran
Cover and interior design: Jenn Embree
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Title: I kid you not! : chronicles of an ordinary family / Lesley Crewe.
Other titles: Newspaper columns. Selections
Names: Crewe, Lesley, 1955- author.
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20210220945 | Canadiana (ebook) 2021022102X | ISBN 9781774710722 (softcover) | ISBN 9781774710739 (EPUB)
Subjects: LCSH: Crewe, Lesley, 1955-—Anecdotes. | LCSH: Motherhood—Nova Scotia—Cape Breton Island—Anecdotes. | LCSH: Marriage—Nova Scotia—Cape Breton Island—Anecdotes. | LCSH: Families—Nova Scotia—Cape Breton Island—Anecdotes. | LCSH: Cape Breton Island (N.S.)—Biography—Anecdotes. | CSH: Women authors, Canadian (English)—21st century—Anecdotes. | LCGFT: Anecdotes.
Classification: LCC PS8605.R48 A6 2021 | DDC C818/.602—dc23
Nimbus Publishing acknowledges the financial support for its publishing activities from the Government of Canada, the Canada Council for the Arts, and from the Province of Nova Scotia. We are pleased to work in partnership with the Province of Nova Scotia to develop and promote our creative industries for the benefit of all Nova Scotians.
For my granddaughter, Gia Elizabeth,
A little soul who arrived in 2020,
a beautiful shining light in a dark world.
“Can we Zoom?”
“You’re on mute. I said, you’re on mute! It’s the button on the left. The left. The bottom of the screen! Oh, hell’s bells.”
“We’re in our bubble.”
“I’d like to order ten extra-large pizzas.”
“I’d like to order ten extra-large pairs of pyjamas.”
“I’ve watched everything on Netflix. Now what?”
The world has become a very different and uncertain place since we first heard the word COVID-19. None of us will ever forget the year 2020—or 2021 for that matter—and I don’t pretend to know what’s going to happen in the future. Our society has been smacked upside the head, and at times it seems too overwhelming to even talk about. But we’ve also had our heartwarming moments. The realization that we need people and they need us. The one thing we missed the most was each other. Now we know that to hug someone we love is all we want. Nothing else matters.
One of my enduring memories of the first days when we were told to stay home is of watching videos of Italians serenading their neighbours from tiny balconies, with voices and musical instruments. Trying to keep each other company, saying, “You are not alone. We’re here too.”
Some of these ramblings are about 2020, but not endlessly. It’s nicer to remember all the silly stuff that goes on in our lives. But that’s a lot easier for me to do, since I live in a part of the world where the tradition of selflessness is paramount. We might grumble, but we do our best for one another.
A spoonful of kindness can not only be comforting, but life-saving in times like these.
In the chaotic spirit of the last couple of years, these jottings are in no particular order. They are messy, like life. You can’t put memories in a category. Just pick one up, read it, and then toss it on the bedside table. The next entry will be something totally different.
Some of them are from a long time ago, and a good portion are columns I wrote in my final year with The Chronicle Herald. I decided to go back to writing novels after that, and The Spoon Stealer was born, and now Nosy Parker, coming soon. My musings about being a grandmother and living through a pandemic are observations I wrote on my Facebook page or in my private diary.
So enjoy this collection. The years are mixed up, my attitudes change over time, I’m young, I’m old, I’m everything all at once.
I like that.
I’ve always loved Fran Lebowitz.
She’s only five years older than I am, so I feel like I’ve grown up with her. She’s been on my radar for fifty years. To me she represents someone who says what’s on her mind and doesn’t care if people don’t like her.
She’s worn the same outfit for fifty years, the same look, the same hair, the same glasses. She is who she is and makes no apologies for it. Fran is a famous, grumpy New Yorker who always makes me laugh. She’s smart and funny and doesn’t own a cellphone or a computer or a microwave. Our lives are the exact opposite and I’m sure she’d ignore me if we ever met and not be my friend, but I’ve always loved her anyway.
And the fact that one of her best friends was Toni Morrison tells me everything I need to know about Fran.
I’d like to be her. I know I can’t, but we admire people whose qualities we find attractive. She’s caustic, she smokes, she doesn’t cook. She says she’s lazy. What’s not to admire?
She writes about her world. New York. Makes me want to go there.
I’ve always loved Rona Maynard.
Since I was old enough to read my mother’s Chatelaine magazine, I would read Rona’s editorial first. She always seemed so knowledgeable. And now that we are friends on Facebook, which thrills me to no end, I read her fascinating posts about art, music, politics, and culture. When you finish reading a link she’s sent, you come away enlightened or encouraged, or outraged, or thoughtful.
She and her mask and her dog travel throughout her neighbourhood daily and she documents the journey. She writes about her world. Toronto. Makes me want to go there.
I’ve always loved Lucy Maud Montgomery.
Reading her books throughout my girlhood made me feel like I belonged to her. She and I and Anne were kindred spirits. We loved the same things; we felt the same hurts. We had the same heart. She made me see that the beauty of the natural world and the creatures in it are to be treasured. And family and friends make life worth living. When Matthew died, I cried for days.
She wrote about her world. Prince Edward Island. Makes me want to go there.
These women made me want to write.
So now I write about my world. Cape Breton. Makes me want to go there.
Happily, I made it.
It didn’t start out well, but now I know why. It was January 19, in the year 2020. Mind you, we didn’t know about 2020 in January, and so had no immediate concern. Our first grandchild was due on the 24th. First babies are always late. We’d be going up to Halifax in a couple of days. We didn’t want to crowd the poor kids, but of course that’s exactly what we were doing. Although they did ask us to come.
And then on the 19th the phone rang in the morning. “We’re heading to the hospital.”
“You can’t be!! I’m not there!”
“Sorry, Mom,” Paul said. “Gotta go!”
“Johnnnnnnn!!!!! We have to drive to Halifax this minute!!”
He came into the kitchen. “It’s a blizzard out there! We can’t drive!”
Ignoring him, I shouted, “We’re driving and that’s that! I will not miss this baby’s birth!”
“And I don’t want to have an accident on the road. That would be a great gift for the kids and the baby. Dead grandparents.”
“You’re so mean!” I was hysterical at this point. “I’m flying!”
After spending a fortune on a ticket for myself, I made hubby drive me through a blizzard to the airport because there was no stopping me. We sat there for three hours waiting for the plane to come in, and of course it didn’t, because there was a blizzard. We had to drive home in seven feet of snow, me crying the entire way, while hubby cursed the gods as he tried to find the road in blowing snowdrifts.
Gia Elizabeth was born that evening and I was still crying, from happiness, frustration, exhaustion, and wonderment. The first picture arrived. Hubby and I looked at the cellphone in amazement at this precious little bundle of Korean/Scottish/English genes. She was this perfect little doll with her dark hair and big blueberry eyes.
And then, because it was 2020, we lost our power at that exact moment. No internet, no lights, no video chat with our new little family.
I managed to fly out the next day. Poor Grandad ended up staying away for more than two weeks because of a miserable cough. Gia’s auntie Sarah picked me up at the airport, and we hugged each other tight before she drove me to the IWK.
Standing in the hospital hallway, I took a deep breath before entering the room. This was a moment I’d waited for my entire life, and it was unbelievable that it was finally happening. I tiptoed in and there she was in a small cot, all wrapped up in a flannel blanket with a white cap keeping her little head warm.
My son put Gia in my arms and our lifelong love affair began.
And then a scant seven weeks later, the pandemic reared its ugly mug and we didn’t see her again in person for months.
In Korea they have a one-hundred-day celebration for baby, called Baek-il. We couldn’t go, naturally, but the kids got all gussied up, put Gia in a beautiful dress, and made the special traditional Korean dishes to go with it. Just the three of them instead of a houseful of guests. We watched over a Zoom call and I was so proud.
Of course, I blubbered when the call was done. I’d waited sixty-five years to become a grandmother and longed to spend time with my little muffin.
But everyone in the world was feeling this longing, so I wasn’t alone. It just felt like it most of the time.
All the grandmothers I have ever talked to have mentioned how your heart seems to grow three sizes the day your grandchild is born and I’d nod politely and say, “Yes, I’m sure.” But I never imagined the depth of the connection.
They finally came to Cape Breton in August and we took her to our beach, and she fell asleep in my arms on a sunny, bright day, with the water shining like diamonds across the sand. She’d snuggled into my neck, wrapped in the hooded beach towel I bought for her, her soft breath against my skin.
My heaven was on a beach chair.
Now I gaze at this delightful, drooling little face playing peek-a-boo with me over the internet, her button nose and eyes scrunching up as she grins with her two bottom teeth peeking out like little pearls.
In spite of what’s going on in the world at the moment, everything now makes perfect sense to me.
Because she’s here.
All of us did the same thing in the year 2020.
Nothing!!!
Because of COVID-19, we stayed the blazes home and stared: in the mirror as our hair turned grey; at our loved ones, while we tried to figure out why we loved them; in our suddenly very small houses; at ourselves, as we stretched our stretch pants to the limit; at the television while we watched Netflix to drown out another television screaming American election news.
All of us coping with things we’ve never had to worry about before.
“Does my mask go with this outfit?”
The panic to buy masks was real, and now I have so many, they’re cluttering up the car’s glove compartment, my top bureau drawer, the washing machine, the basket by the side door, my purse, and my jacket pockets. No need for a three-layer mask; just wear three.
Remember the early days? Overnight, toilet paper, hand sanitizer, Fleischmann’s Yeast, flour, and pressure-treated lumber were like gold, and dealers could be found in dark alleys muttering, “Psst,” opening their coats and tossing their heads at you. “Wanna buy some rubbing alcohol?”
I wonder if people are still baking sourdough bread.
In the early days of the pandemic, going to the grocery store was like being in Churchill’s War Rooms. Lists, maps, gloves, walkie-talkies, Purell, scrubbed grocery bags, balaclavas. Only one of you could go in, so your better half stayed in the car in case germ warfare got out of hand. When you got home you disinfected the canned tomatoes, turnips, and your entire body with sanitizing Lysol spray. Then cleaned the doorknobs and washed your hands while singing ten rounds of “Happy Birthday,” just to be on the safe side.
I’m not quite as paranoid now, but I always remember to put on my mask before I leave the car to do the shopping. Now if only I could remember to take the grocery bags.
But it seems there are always those who don’t read the memos. My poor daughter and son-in-law were standing in a lineup when the guy behind them whipped off his mask to have a gigantic sneeze! Eww. What is a mask for? They hightailed it outta there.
It’s a sad fact that I’d rather have someone fart in my general direction than have them cough or sniff beside me.
So, hubby has been obsessed with this NEOWISE comet that has been hanging around for the last week or so. He’s been determined to see it.
Looking up at the night sky is a lovely thing to do, until my neck gets sore and I start to get dizzy for some reason.
“Let’s go down to the field at the bungalow. We can see the Big Dipper really well from there.” Apparently NEOWISE is lurking below the pot part of the Big Dipper.
We arrive too early and have to wait for the sky to really darken up. And it does, everywhere but where we are looking. I’m getting impatient. And standing at night in the middle of a field with not a breath of wind is a stupid thing to do. The mosquitoes can’t believe their luck.
We see the space station go by, which is always cool. And remember the old days, if you saw a satellite in the night sky you were really excited. It’s a four-lane highway up there now. They are everywhere. That makes me even grumpier.
Finally, I think I see the comet out of the corner of my eye and tell John.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“You’re just saying that so we can go.”
I don’t respond to these kinds of statements anymore.
Then he sees it. So suddenly, it must be there. But it’s not a great showing, because there is a layer of clouds lurking about.
Two nights later, I’m in bed reading a book and he pops in the door. “I’m going to the cottage to see the comet. Are you coming?”
“Does it look like I’m coming?”
“You’ll be sorry.” Off he goes.
Ten more minutes of reading and my eyes are closing, so I turn off the light and go to sleep.
“Are you asleep?!” he hisses.
I look around in a dazed stupor. “Not now! What time is it?”
“After eleven. You can see it from the front deck with binoculars.”
“Why did you wake me up?”
“You said you were awake.”
I don’t respond to these kinds of statements anymore.
As I stagger to the front deck, he puts binoculars in my hand. “You see the big fir tree?”
“No. It’s night. It’s dark. And there are twenty thousand fir trees in my line of vision.”
“Do you see that hole between the trees? One of the trees is bent over and the other one has a wonky branch?”
Just say yes, to get him to stop talking.
“Point the binoculars there.”
I look through the binoculars. It’s pitch black. No stars. No trees. No comet.
“Do you see it?”
“No.”
“You’re not pointing it in the right direction.”
“John. I don’t have my glasses on because I can’t see through binoculars with them, and I have ointment in my eyes because of my dry-eye situation. Unless this comet rolls up and parks in the driveway, I can’t see it. I’m going to bed.”
And I do go to bed. Fifteen minutes later I hear him hurrying down the hallway. “You can see the comet from the highway without binoculars!!”
Graciously, I throw back the covers and stomp out of the house in my nightgown and march up to Highway 255 and stand in the middle of the road, waiting for a car to, please God, hit me and put me out of my misery.
“Do you see it?”
“Yes! I see it.”
Now, he’s happy as a clam. And we watch it for at least ten minutes, marvelling at the spectacle.
Finally, I march back to bed, and I can’t get to sleep because John is snoring. I might forgive him by the time the comet comes around again in six thousand years.
You get really nosy when you get older. I remember my grandmother, her sister, and her friend popping up from their chairs in Dora’s bungalow to look out the window if a car drove by. Which might have made some kind of sense if it was during the day, but they continued this behaviour at night, as they watched Maddox and Hawaii 5-0. The three heads would appear like gophers out of a hole, and then disappear again, to discuss who it might have been out at this ungodly hour. Anyone out after nine o’clock at night was just asking for trouble.
Yesterday, while bobbing in the ocean with two friends, all of us six feet apart, we noticed someone walking down the beach.
“Who’s that coming? Is that Linda?”
“No, I don’t think so. She’s moving too fast.”
“Must be Patricia or Wanda. They’re tall.”
“There’s a guy behind her. Is that Pat?”
“No, he’s limping.”
“Oh, must be John.”
“No, I believe it’s Lloyd. Doesn’t he have a bum right knee?”
“No, his limp is on the left.”
“And it’s not his knee, it’s his hip.”
The fact that we don’t bother to wait until this person is close enough to identify shows you that it doesn’t take much to amuse us during these pandemic days.
And I definitely sounded like my grandmother when I came across a stunning young woman lying on the sand far enough away from my beach chair. “Hi, sweetheart. Who do you belong to?”
“I’m Sam. Shirley Scott’s granddaughter.”
“Land sakes! I remember the day you were born! I remember the day your mother was born! Why, I remember when your grandmother brought your mother to the bungalow for the first time and a flying squirrel got in through the window…”
Sam patiently gives me a sweet smile, as youngsters do when you’re boring them to death with stuff they don’t need to know.
And now that I’m a grandmother I’m like a coiled spring, ready to go off at any moment if someone asks me about my little Gia. The words don’t even make it out of their mouths before I’m fumbling in my beach bag for my phone.
“Oh! My little blueberry!!!! She’s so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so—”
“Cute?”
“How did you guess?!”
Have you ever tried to see a picture on a cellphone at the beach in the glaring sun? It can’t be done. That never stops a really determined grandmother. But now I can’t hold the phone close enough for them to try and take a peek, and I don’t want other people to hold it, so they have to squint and say “Awww” before they quickly give up and go back to putting on sunscreen.
Then I asked Rebecca and Jill about their ceremony planned for next year.
“How many people have you invited?”
(This is none of my business, by the way.)
“150.”
“Whatttt???”
“We both have large families. But who knows? Plans may change.”
They shouldn’t have to explain this to me, because again, it’s none of my business. But since I’m old and nosy now, instead of saying, “How lovely,” whether they are inviting two people or two thousand, I give them my opinion, which they never asked for. And I really don’t have an opinion, except when you say “Whatttt?” to something, it certainly sounds like you do.
This is what old people do. I am definitely my mother and grandmother rolled into a big bag of wind.
But there is a part of me that is enjoying this. I’ve lived long enough to be really annoying.
It’s like having a Get Out of Jail Free card.
Growing up in the big city of Montreal was exciting. We hung around with a bunch of kids of every nationality. We played in back alleys, ran along concrete sidewalks, and biked beside busy streets. We loved it. But when the hot days of summer came, there was no place on earth we wanted to be more than our bungalow in Round Island, Cape Breton.
My sister and I would make ourselves sick with anticipation, and inevitably one or both of us would come down with mumps or strep throat the night before we left. Into the back seat of the car we would go, along with the dog, the two cats, and endless luggage. Cars were like boats back then. They held everything.
The excitement would begin when we neared the Causeway. We’d start to hoot and holler: just two more hours in a stifling hot and furry car. At the end of Hornes Road, we’d roll down the windows and breathe in the glorious and cool salty breeze. The dog was frantic by now. Turning down the lane and finally being set free, we’d tumble over each other in our haste to be the first one to run to the beach, just to make sure it was still there.
Thus began our endless summer. Summer lasted forever back then. Heck, one day lasted forever. We lived in our bathing suits and never wore shoes. We had one towel each that only got washed when it was caught in a downpour on the clothesline. Our days were spent with the gang, draped over bunk beds and old sofas reading Archie comics and chewing bubble gum.
Then someone would yell “Let’s go to the beach!” and we’d tear off, banging the screen door, chasing each other through the path in the woods and over hot, spiky blades of grass in the field, then hurling ourselves into the ice-cold water. There we would stay for the entire day, splashing, diving, and pushing each other around until someone’s mother would yell at the lot of us to “get home now if you want any supper.”
We never cared what we looked like. No one brushed their hair. Not that you could get a brush through it anyway, it was so encrusted with salt. Our feet were black and our heels were like cement. We were as brown as berries. One year some of the older girls told me if you put lemon juice in your hair it would turn blonde. I picked pulp out of my scalp for weeks.
Every night after supper our motley crew would gather in Scott’s field to play baseball until dark and then walk each other home, scaring ourselves sick over the Round Island Terror, a ghost story that came in handy when you wanted to grab on to whoever you had a crush on that summer.
On rainy days we would gather together to play Rummoli or Racko, or read old Harlequin romances that gathered dust in the corner. We’d make fudge and chow down on endless boxes of Kraft dinner.
We would go for picnics and gather seashells. Our grandmothers would make us pick berries in the field on hot August afternoons. Poor Grammy would always tsk when I offered my plastic shortening container full of leaves, branches, and bugs mixed with a few blueberries.
Thelma always kept great tubs of ice cream in her freezer, so we would run to her place and get an ice cream cone for a dime. Then we would race up to the tree house and eat to our hearts’ content. It always tasted better up there.
The stars at night are what I remember most. Lying in the field at night, listening to the adults sing old songs by the bonfire. Looking up and feeling so small in the face of such splendour. The night would wrap me up in its arms and I would feel safe in my small Round Island world.
Now I take my own children to this place. But alas, I am the adult and have to do stuff like drag things to the beach and set up housekeeping, with coolers and umbrellas, hats, T-shirts, and sunblock. We have boats and water-skis, noodles and floats. Now I feed people and count heads.
But then it happens. My kids race back into the water. Dark shadows against a dazzling summer sun. The water glistens all around them. I squint my eyes and put my hand up to shade my brow. Their laughter is an echo of my sister and me, a long time ago when we were young and free as birds.
Oh, for the good old days when dry eyes were my only problem.
As I walk out of the eye doctor’s office, I notice there is a hearing clinic right next door. Immediately, hubby’s voice is in my head.
“You never listen! You should get your hearing checked.”
Oh, please. We’ve been married for forty-three years. All wives who’ve made it to this milestone are happily tuning out their husbands. We have to, or we’ll go mad.
Still, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt. Hearing tests are fun. They don’t require needles, or fasting after midnight, or memorizing stuff. You just sit in a phone booth. It’s like an unheated sauna with a big window, where you get to stare at the audiologist and pretend you’re Captain Kirk. “Warp speed, Mr. Sulu.”
You have to listen and repeat words, let her know if you hear beeping out of one ear or the other, can you hear static or other weird noises? Nothing to do but nod and smile. Gosh, I’m acing this test.
The lovely audiologist, who is young enough to be my daughter (every young woman I meet now qualifies on this score), tells me to watch my step getting out of my little prison, and naturally I trip despite the warning. This is strangely prophetic.
While I smugly sit by her desk, waiting to be released back to my regular day, confident in the knowledge that I am fine, I worry that I’ve wasted this woman’s time. Hope she doesn’t mind.
“How did I do?” I grin.
She hesitates. “You have mild to moderately severe hearing loss.”
I chuckle. “Get outta here.”
“No, really.”
Now I stare at her. “What?! What?!”
It strikes me funny that I’m yelling these words at a woman who’s telling me I can’t hear. “That’s not possible!”
She shows me the reading. It looks okay in some spots, but then dips downward, resembling a graph of the ’29 Wall Street Crash.
“But I can hear you!”
“You’re fine face-to-face. It’s the higher register that’s particularly bad. I know you weren’t expecting this. I wasn’t expecting this either.”
Perhaps the fact that I’m now slumped in my chair gave it away. “So, what does this mean?”
“You need hearing aids in both ears.”
“What?! What?! How much is that?”
“From two to six thousand dollars.”
“What?!”
When I go home and walk into the kitchen, hubby asks me how it went.
“You were right. I wasn’t listening.” And then I burst into tears and howl. He hugs me.
“We could be going on a river cruise in Europe. Instead, I’ll be sticking two little metal lima beans in my ears.”
That night I call the kids because I need to hear their voices.
My son mentions that I always turn up the volume on the television. My daughter reminds me of the time we were outside at twilight and she said, “Listen to the peepers.” And I couldn’t hear them. I’d completely forgotten about that, although it gave me a stab of panic at the time.
And then my wonderful, sensible Korean daughter-in-law says matter-of-factly, “Mother. You will need to hear the baby.”
So, that’s it. I will wear hearing aids so I can hear my first little grandchild crying, and now it all doesn’t seem so bad.
I’m lucky I live in a time where hearing loss can be fixed. I’m lucky I can afford the hearing aids. I’m lucky I’m not profoundly deaf.
But I have to say the last few weeks have been eye-opening. Someone up there wants me to know I’ve entered a new stage in life. I’m going to be a grandmother. My Old Age Security application is in the mail, my back tooth is falling out of my head ($$$), not to mention getting physio on my bum ankle, and now I need hearing aids. The only thing left to do is let my hair grow grey and my transformation will be complete.
Oh, no. Just realized I’ll be hearing everything hubby says, so I really must take up drinking.
There’s no phrase that strikes more fear in the hearts of humankind these days than “The internet’s down!”
All life as we know it ceases to exist, and we go into a collective tailspin when we call our internet provider and there’s a message that says our area is experiencing difficulties and you’ll have to call back for further updates. So, it’s serious! It’s not something that can be fixed by unplugging and re-plugging some router that’s lurking in the back of your credenza in a maze of dusty wires.
If someone asked me if I was online all day, I’d say, “Heavens, no! That’s ridiculous.” But that goes to show you how delusional I can be, because now that the internet has been down since last night, it has seriously messed up my morning, and I never realized how much of my routine is wrapped around this marvellous technology in the early hours of the day.
What’s the first thing I do when I swing my feet from the bed to the floor? Turn on the computer in my study on my way to the bathroom. Then return to type in my password before heading to the kitchen to fill the coffee maker. Out the door for my walk; walk, walk, walk; back to press the coffee on before taking a shower, make poached eggs on toast and head back to my study to sip my coffee while I check my personal and business email and read various newspapers from around the world. Then I go on Facebook to see what my three friends are up to, and accidentally read about the lives of the other six hundred people I’ve added as friends but who I wouldn’t necessarily recognize on the street. But that’s okay, because they’re delightful and I get a kick out of people’s celebrations, trips abroad, and pictures of their grandchildren and dogs.
Then hubby’s emails start piling in. He’s in his lounger in the living room drinking his coffee with a laptop, not surprisingly, on his lap, and I’m in my study not ten feet from him, but he sends me emails from the Weather Network about various weather disasters, a husky dog meeting his human baby for the first time, cockatoos having a dance-off, cats being cats, meteor showers in the night sky, and whales jumping out of the water.
I can’t believe how much I’m missing that this morning.
Well, I have to get down to business, and I need a quote for something I’m working on. I’ll google it. Nope. No Google. So, I think about dinner. Maybe baked haddock. What temperature should the oven be? I’ll google it. Nope. No Google. Gosh, I must answer that invitation to do a reading in October. Nope. No email. I wonder what day Sarah is driving home with the dog. I’ll message her on Hangouts. Nope. Not working.
I’ve become so used to staring at this computer screen while I drink my morning coffee that I feel like I have a limb missing this morning. And that is a sobering thought. It used to be, years ago, that the first thing I did was grab my coffee and a book off the bedside table and hoe into that for an hour before doing the dishes and getting on with my day. I didn’t feel like I was missing anything, and if I wanted news about friends or my kids, I’d call them.
But that doesn’t happen anymore as a rule. Now it’s messaging or texts. However, I still call the kids because I’m their mother and they’re not getting off that easy. These are voices I need to hear.
So, what have I done while my internet has been down this morning? Well, I wrote a column, cleaned the bathroom, vacuumed, made a grocery list, straightened my humidity hair, did my foot exercises, read five chapters of a novel, watered the plants, dusted, made a casserole, and mucked out the freezer.
Based on this experiment, I’d say my life is much more productive without the internet. But I just know that I’ve missed a fluffy corgi butt sashaying down the sidewalk and a baby elephant plopping into a kiddie pool without me!
And that’s just wrong.
Whenever I meet someone new in a social setting (which hasn’t occurred in more than a year), I play a little game with myself and wonder if they are cat or dog people.
There are clues you can spot right off the bat.
Dog people obviously have cars with old blankets completely covered in dog fur and mud on the back seat. Cat people are happy to carry cat fur on their clothes.
Cat people have old, sort-of old, and new cat scratches all over their hands and arms. Dog people have enormous pockets filled with poop bags, leashes, doggie treats, and water bottles.
Dog people have back sliding doors covered with wet nose prints, just above your knees.
Cat people have nothing on their windowsills because their cats knocked it all off long ago.
Dog people have learned to keep their wastepaper baskets Kleenex free, or at least buy ones with lids, but that never stops a really determined dog.
Cat people can never keep a glass of water by their bedside. There’s always been a cat tongue in there at some point.
Cat people can go an entire day without finding their pet and grow hoarse calling their name before their feline appears, wondering what their problem is.
Dog people always have a slobbery dog underfoot.
Cat people think it’s cute when their cats curl up in the bathroom sink and take endless pictures and post them on YouTube.
Dog people shout at their dogs when they jump into the tub to keep their human kid happy. They always have a video of it and post this on YouTube as well.
or
I am a cat person who adores dogs. I am a dog person who adores cats. I love all animals equally. If I could get away with having a baby hippo in my house, I would.