Kathleen Molloy

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.

Kiddo #1 has always enjoyed writing stories. This morning I discovered that we have a song writer in the family too. I was serenaded with the following:

“Mommy, I don’t love it when you tell me what to do

And when put me in the time-out too

And when you count in your mean voice

But I love you, I love you, yes I do.”

I love surprises, well planned surprises, like birthday parties and practical jokes.  I like to believe that I’m game for anything but the truth is… I’m a bit of a worrisome Mom and when it comes to the kids – I’m not as carefree and spontaneous as I used to be.

But I’m a good sport.

This past weekend I put my trust in a couple blinded by love. Our family had been invited to attend their wedding in Repentingy and the invitation stipulated that following the ceremony there would be a dinner dance at an enchanted mystery location. We would need three modes of transportation to get there.

Mysterious location? How to mobilize the kids between 3 mysterious modes of transportation?

All the way to Repentigny we took turns guess ing what the three modes of transportation could be. 

My favourite suggestions offered up from the backseat were: camels, feet, and magic carpet.

Following the gorgeous ceremony we set out on a mad chase through town in a cavalcade of cars in the rain, trying to keep the yellow bridal car in our sights through the raindrops. We lost them and we didn’t have any idea where we were going because the couple merely (or merrily) announced “follow us” before they sped off.

At a set of lights I hoped out of the car when I caught sight of a minivan ahead of us with the silhouettes of women wearing updo hairstyles. I figured that at 3 pm only wedding-goers wore updos so I tapped on their window.  A well dressed man lowered his window and I stammered in French to ask him if he is chasing the bride. “Follow us” he instructed and off we went.

We arrived in an empty parking lot. The women and kids (40 women and 4 kids) were herded onto a school bus with the bride and groom. The men were asked to wait under umbrellas as we zoomed away.

Our trip lasted 8 minutes. We were then told to wait at the dock of the marina for the barge. Because of the rain, all of the updos toppled into downdos and my kids huddled under my armpits until I found shelter of an awning. I was the only adult who didn’t have the good sense to bring an umbrella. I did however bring blankets and wrapped the kids snuggle.

A man in a green t-shirt popped out of a plastic beer tent, hustled the kids and I inside and scurried to his truck to fetch a gigantic golf umbrella for us. He instructed “Just leave it here when you come back.” Thing was, I didn’t know when we would be back from where we would be going. I tried to explain this and he smiled and waved us off, telling us the barge was leaving.

The kids and I hopped on the barge, amid giggles from the soggy female guests. We were off. Our destination – the gorgeous vignoble du Domaine de l’île Ronde de Saint-Sulpice. Even in the rain the winery estate was beautiful.

The concierge took the kids’ jackets and soaked blankets and tossed them into the dryer after handing me a glass of rosé. All the gals were giddy as the dj cranked up the music to start the party without the gents.

The boys arrived, doubly wet, already in great spirits and the dinner dance that followed was charming, sentimental, and full of games and stories. A memory maker.

But how to get back?

We learned that the barge to head back would depart at 11 pm. Just after eight we bundled up the kids and slipped away on the barge the workers use to get back to shore.  We still had to find our car and then the hotel. The adventure continued…

At the marina it was raining again when I handed the kids off to my beau and set out to find the man in the green shirt to return his umbrella. Arriving in the beer tent my glasses fogged up and I couldn’t see anything. When my eyes adjusted I was met by a lipstick-wearing bishop and playboy bunny with four o’clock shadow.

I couldn’t hear what they said. Porno music was blaring. The bishop pulled me by the hand and asked if s/he can help me find my way. I had a millisecond instant of panic, thinking I walked into a transgendered swingers’ party until I saw the white rabbit. And then I saw the zombies. And then the ZOMBIE hookers.

“What are you dressed as?” The hairy playboy bunny asked.

Umm, a soggy wedding guest.  “I’m looking for a man.” I tried in French.

“I’m a man.” The playboy bunny affirmed.

“The man has a green t-shirt. He had a green t-shirt.” I spotted 3 beautiful brides in the line-up for the buffet.

“What’s his name?” The bishop pressed my hand.

“I don’t…he drives a black pick-up. He lent me this umbrella.”

“Yes, yes, I know him.”

 I handed off the umbrella, uttered thanks and backed out.

In the olden days, the days before kids, I would have whooped it up alongside my new-found friends, and laughing Monday morning as I explained to friends that I spent the weekend with beautiful brides and zombie hookers.

These days, I have to consol myself that at least I’m still a good sport.

Isn’t CanClit: Lesbian Canadian writers writing about Canadian Lesbians?

I was playing around with a business name that I wanted to use in my next novel Rumbles in Arse du monde. I tried it out on my beau. “What sounds better: The Jane Rule Womens’ Writing Retreat and Car Mechanic Apprentice College or The Jane Rule Women’s Writing Retreat and Beauty School?”

“Who is Jane Rule?” Now, to be fair, my beau did not grow up being force fed Maggie Atwood. He’s from a small town in the Maurice region of Quebec and so for me to have expected him to have been familiar and appreciative of an English-writing west-coast CanLit pioneer who wrote about women lusting women well before he was born …would have been completely unfair.

Still, I was stunned. “Who’s Jane Rule?” I went on to politely explain as much as I knew about the Canadian writer Jane Rule, but to be frank it was only with her passing that I became more or less introduced to her work. I gave him a very stern you-should-have-known-better look and declared “If Rule had pandered to the mainstream publishers she could have been a CanLit icon! But she wrote about happy lesbians – unheard of in her early years. Name me one lesbian protagonist today in mainstream Canadian books that isn’t conflicted, and don’t include anything by Ann-Marie Macdonald or Dionne Brand. Name me one.” I knew he couldn’t.

And he didn’t even try. “That doesn’t make sense,” he returned with a you-don’t-know-everything frown “If they named a whole genre for Canadian lesbian writers writing about lesbians how can there be no lesbian in CanClit? And what if all the lesbian Canadian writers try to go to Arse du monde to the Jane Rule writing retreat that doesn’t exist in a town that you made up? Are you going to tell the four of them they should have stayed home to write their CanClit?”

Then it occurred to me – I am in love with a man with wax in his ears.”Sweetie, when I say CanLit, what do you think I’m talking about?”

“Lesbians. Lesbian books. I don’t know. Isn’t CanClit: lesbian Canadian writers writing about Canadian lesbians?”

It must be the weather. Folks in west Quebec are stripping down and tattoos are sprouting up. Recently buried under layers of cold-weather clothing the crop of ankle tattoos, lower back tattoos, and bra strap tattoos are on display. And more often than not the tattoos are Chinese symbols.

Today I saw a fist-sized tattoo planted in a woman’s cleavage. My first reaction was “Ouch”. My second reaction was to ask her if she knew what it meant.

The tattoo artist probably told her it was one of the 10 most popular symbols listed below. I snatched these from About.com. You can check out the images there and see if you recognize any on your loved ones.

 1.) Fu - Blessing, Good Fortune, Good Luck
2.) Lu - Prosperity
3.) Shou - Longevity
4.) Xi - Happiness
5.) Cai - wealth, money
6.) He - harmonious
7.) Ai - love, affection
8.) Mei - beautiful, pretty
9.) Ji - lucky, auspicious, propitious
10.) De - virtue, moral

 But what if the lady’s tattoo in her cleavage didn’t mean “Fu”, “Lu”, or “Shou”? Maybe he wrote: “Hey… look at my big saggy breasts!” Who would know the difference?

My girlfriend Mei Mei would know. I called her in Manhattan.

“Mei Mei, how do you feel about North Americans appropriating Chinese symbols as tattoos?”

“What North Americans? You mean stupid white people with too much money? It’s okay. Why not? Live free. But I’m not gonna get a Big Mac on my butt.”

Zophia didn’t invent Positive Voodoo but it sure came in handy when she needed to put a gay man in the freezer. Her idea that you need to freeze a wish in time to make it happen, certainly gave her the action-reaction response she longed for when Mark Tewksbury waltzed into her life. He was the benchmark she had measured all gay-grandson candidates against so she had hedged her bets by slipping his photo into a ziploc bag and sliding it into the freezer beside the frozen peas. 

It has been a long time since I’ve had to deploy Postive Voodoo. But I’m starting to wonder if I use it more than I realize. This morning I was lounging in bed planning my Sunday chores and the issue of the compost popped up. I am a kitchen-scrape composter: I don’t turn my compost, I don’t make compost tea, I don’t measure the nitrogen (is that even the right word???). I add oak leaves when they crunch underfoot, only because a neighbour suggested it. And after 3 years of encouraging my half-ass compost heap to give me some black gold to spread on the veggies I hauled off 1 small bucket of nutrient-rich compost. But that’s not why I was delaying getting out of bed this morning, that wasn’t the compost problem.

It seems our old dog has begun rooting around the compost. She bodychecks the black plastic  contraption to pop the lid off and then she feasts. Weekend after weekend I spend a bit of time shovelling the compost back into the bin, attaching the lid, wrapping the chicken wire around it, taping all the gaps, and cursing. Every weekend I try to out fox her and add obsticles to convince her that even MacGyver couldn’t get into it to sample the potato peels.

This morning I planned to spring out of bed before her - to resolve this compost issue once and for all…I was going to build a proper 3-compartment hinged-lid recycled-wood compost bin. Lounging in bed I created my shopping list, noting all of the parts I could lift from the garage without my beau missing them, and thinking about parts I could reuse from other never-completed projects.

A knock at the front door dragged me out of bed. A favourite neighbour had plywood he needed to unload. I think my eyes bugged out. I laid out my entire plan for the 3-compartment hinged-lid recycled-wood compost bin. He left, hooked up his trailer, loaded the wood, and arrived to a giddy girl with her hammer ready. As I picked through the wood I discovered that he hauled over a solid crate from his moto shop. It was about 8 feet long 3 feet deep and 3 feet high with a removable panel for easy loading and a trapdoor lid.   Positive voodoo.

I spent sunny Saturday in Montreal with a dear friend who is in the throngs of redecorating her condo. Up and down St. Laurent we sniffed taunt white-leather sofas and rested our butts in $400 transparent plastic lawn chairs. I’m not much of a deco dame and I don’t have a good sense of the trends or for that matter the name of trends. When she had invited me along I remembered a few years ago there was a craze when junk painted white was called Shappy Chic. But that was the last craze I could name. Between visits to bakeries I wasn’t much help as she tossed designer names into the air. I tried to imagine how many guests a hostess would need to squeeze on her $16K chesterfield to justify buying it instead of a SmartCar. Oh la la I was out of my element and I think maybe that is why she invited me along; my crinkled nose was her benchmark. Seeing the 12th showroom bed that stood 2 feet tall I was beginning to understand that the there was a new home decorating trend: Homes for Folks that Don’t Live in ‘em. Bookshelves with no room for books, flimsy dining room chairs for women that didn’t eat two helpings of dessert, white carpets for couples that can’t fathom inviting over people with kids or pets…these showrooms were for the homes of Montreal’s travelling rich that stopped home to pick up their mail and drop off dry cleaning. By the 7th store my girlfriend confessed that she hadn’t seen anything that caught her fancy. For her it was all too Matchy Matchy. Ah huh! I knew that there must have been some designer lingo for this craze: Matchy matchy - everything just right, nobody home.