Kathleen Molloy

Let me tell you about Lippy Zundar. I don’t know if I love her or hate her. How am I supposed to write a story about a protagonist that I am not sure if I love or hate? On the one hand, I love her vulnerability. I love her maternal instinct. I love that she kicks butt. On the other hand, she’s quick to jump to conclusions, she’s bitter, she dances between shades of grey in what is right and what is wrong. And now she is full of self doubt. I don’t like that.

How can she possibly do her job well if she’s always worried that the school is going to call because her kid popped another kid in the nose when the other kid said Daddy’s new wife had nicer boobs? Life distracts her from work and those distractions are deadly. Lippy Zundar is a paid assassin for Canada’s Department of Homeland Insecurity. And she’s worrying about baloney sandwiches, indoor sneakers with non-streak treads, and passing grades, when she should be focusing on her next mark.

And I have to get Lippy out of my head and into my computer. But some days I don’t want to let her out. I don’t like her. She’s mean.

I always say that Moms get sick after everyone else is healed; because moms have to take care of everyone else.

I have been proven wrong. My kids took care of me as a slept through H1N1.

During day three of my five day fever, I was splayed out on the chesterfield babbling incoherently. I had already sweated down a jean size and still felt as if I could boil soup in my ear drum.

I was a mess.  I let the kids completely pamper me with glasses of water at the ready. They got a kick out of playing doctor and junior doctor, and preparing cereal for Papa’s dinner.

“I’m sorry, Mommy, I don’t know what you want.” Kiddo #1 had brought me a straw because I couldn’t sit up to drink. I was completely incapacitated. Gasping for air I was trying not to hack on them. “Mommy, I don’t know what Farm Tax Credit is.”

“What are you talking about, honey?”

“Farm tax credit, Mommy, you keep saying it.”

Who knows what other bits I blurted out? Did I give away the hiding place for the stash of solstice gifts?

By day four I could get off the chesterfield but I had to be coaxed by parental emergencies.

“Mommy! Come!” I bolted off the chesterfield and crashed into the wall. I had been having problems breathing and this simple movement collapsed me. “Mommy! It was an accident.”

I hadn’t heard the glass crash to the floor. “Is everyone okay?”

“Nobody’s bleeding. It’s okay. It was an accident.”

I had enough energy to pick the kids up out of the glass and vacuum the kitchen twice before I collapsed again.

“Mommy! Don’t worry, nobody’s hurt,” Twenty minutes later Kiddo #1 reported “it was an accident.”

“Maman, my hair!” The baby wailed. I didn’t care who had accidently put the gum in the baby’s hair and I didn’t waste time looking for the peanut butter to slide it out. “Get me the scissors.” And back to the chesterfield.

It is now day seven. I can breathe. I can keep my eyes open to focus on reading the kids a story. Read a story – not fake reading a story. I had spent almost a week fake reading to the baby as little fingers flipped pages and I imagined what trouble Clifford the Big Red Dog would get into next. “A then Clifford said…”.

“Mommy, … Clifford no talk.” Egad! Found out by a two-year-old.

After one full week of letting H1N1 have its way with me, I am on the mend … and just in time …  the family has run out of clean underwear.

 As a functionally bilingual Canadian I am never surprised to see someone flip a cereal box to the side on which they will read the ingredients in their language of choice, and I smile knowingly as they turn a government form over front to back to do the same.

But I didn’t realize how conditioned I myself have become. Typically, I read the language that I see first, unless of course it is a financing agreement or instructions for medicine or some other such legal document that I need to make sure that I understand.

I read the first language I see – be it English or French. Then I ignore the second language.

I didn’t think I’ve missed too much by ignoring the second language.

Now I wonder.

I made a discomforting discovery about myself while visiting Saskatoon’s Mendel Art Gallery this week.

I was appreciating Mary Longman’s funny money exhibit, wandering around the hall, reading the block lettering stenciled onto the wall in bold black chunks, learning a little more about Mary and her Saskatchewan roots.

“Why are they calling this a New York show?” I asked my art-lovin’ companion.

“Because she works out of New York.”

“How do you know THAT?”

“Because I read it on the wall.”

“Where?”

We doubled back. “Right here, … on the wall.”

In my ignorance, I had been cruising the gallery reading only the left side of the blocks of information stenciled on the wall, completely ignoring the right side.

I grimaced. Had I done the same thing at the Rembrandt exhibit in Chicago 4 years ago? Have I been doing it in every art gallery, museum, or theatre outside of Ottawa??????

Now I’ll read all of the writing on the wall. 

I’ve bitten into the first erotica book of my CanLit challenge. Bitten, I say because this is vampire erotica. It is also a romance novel, a scientific mystery / conspiracy, and characters with exotic names such as Rio, Valian, Simaron, and Chancella.

I wasn’t sure what to expect with this one. I checked the author’s website and discovered that Susan Phelan has two other books in her The Blood Tapestry series and the other two covers feature shirtless hunks. Go to Susan.phelan[dot]com and also take a look at this Canadian author’s blog.

I was quick to nab this book while at Audreys Books in Edmonton in August. I asked the ever-friendly staff to recommend local erotica authors. They sent me to the Gay and Lesbian corner which was loaded with Ivan Coyote et al. I asked for some hetro erotica, by Canadian authors. There was all sorts of smut written by everyone-but-us.

I made my way to the front desk and asked for local authors – period. Turns out, there is no section for local authors, however, there are a few shelves for authors that had come by for a reading or signing and left some autographed copies behind. Eureka! But 3/4 of the books were by Toronto authors.

I snooped and snooped and snooped and presto discovered a signed copy of Susan Phelan’s The Cure – complete with local author sticker and sex in almost every chapter.

And now I offer it up in a new contest. By October 31 please tell us about the WORST sex scene in CanLit or in a Canadian story. Stories by Canadians don’t count if the sex hasn’t occurred in Canada. Short stories count – of course – and heck, why not poetry too? Ok, bad Canadian sex in Canadian books. Let’s hear it.

Really, is there anyone who doesn’t love Maggie?

Spent the weekend in a town was dripping with CanLit icons. Kingston WritersFest welcomed: Margaret Atwood

Gil Adamson Lorna Crozier Leon Rooke and The Dewey Divas (sans Dudes??)

Kingston, in the Autumn, with folks that love books … what could be better? How about Kingston, in the Autumn, with a book in hand and a warm bowl of chilli in the other?

Chilli Fest Kingston is hot stuff. Saturday, October 3, 2009 12 Noon to 4pm Confederation Park, Downtown Kingston

Late to post. Here are a few books enjoyed by Islanders and tourists alike this Summer.

From the August 2009 paper journal The Buzz:

- Prince Edward Island Tales - Montague Library Writers Guild

- Gail of Wind, by Gail Duguay

- The Fixer Upper, by Lorne Elliott

- Passing the Torch The Community Living Movement in Prince Edward Island

- Prince Edward Island: an illustrated history, by Douglas Baldwin

And which one will youstuff into a backpack? Go with the Montague tales, for a true taste of the island.

Today Kiddo #1 participated in the Terry Fox walk.

“Mommy, I like the Terry Fox story. It makes me think that people can do things when they are sick. But why do people bring money to school?”

“To help the people who need it.”

“The people that are decomposing when they’re alive?”

“Yes. And to help buy medicine for them.”

“Because they can’t work because they’re sick?”

“Yes.”

I have developed a long-term professional crush on Leonard Cohen. Why is it then that in my 38 years I’ve never been to one of his concerts, poetry readings, or book launches?

Not one concert.

For my birthday, I treated myself to his Live in London concert CD. And I played the CD - a lot  - on the way to and from school – to the point that the kids were filling in the words to the songs that they used to mumble.

“Mommy, is that the Hallelujah song?”

“Yup.”

 When Kiddo #1 was 2 and a half I frequently heard “Loooo-lah” screeched from the back seat of the car.

Not many years later as I celebrate my birthday with Kiddo #2 screeching “Loooo-lah” from the backseat, Kiddo #1 asked “Mommy, who is going to replace him when he’s dead?”

Who is going to replace Leonard Cohen?

Kiddo #1 returned from school bubbling with excitement having discovered something about Mama’s former life (before kids).

“Mommy, Harriet’s mom said you used to play ball with her!”

“Yup - Harriet’s mom was the catcher.”

“That was before I was born, right?”

“Yup, before Harriet was born too.”

“When you were skinny, right?”

Twelve kms on P.E.I’s gorgeous Confederation Tail on the first day out of our family cycle trip and I discoverd that I was, indeed, a master gloder.

I also discovered that Kiddo Number One has inherited my love for playing with Canadian words.

“Mom, I gloded for 1 kilometre.”

“You glided, I mean glid, I mean … good for you, now you know how to glide.”

“No, I glode. If I was riding my bike I would have rode but I was gliding so I glode.”

“Then you can’t say you are riding your bike if you are gliding. And you can’t say you are a rider.”

“I’m not saying I am riding, I am gliding and I’m finished gliding and since I already did it I’m not a rider I’m a gloder.”

At the next  6 kms I discovered that gloding also runs in the family. With tight calves I had mastered the art.