my bedroom

But last night, the dog didn't howl! Give praise for life's blessings.

in which she whines

Later that same day ... I do not know what else this house can throw at me, I really do not. Because I swear, every *#$@ inch has screwed up at some point in my nearly 27 years here. The windows wiring floors ceilings flooded basement leaking skylights furnace every goddamn thing.

John my most wonderful handyman came. He opened up more of the ceiling above my bed. What was his cheery diagnosis? "Much worse than I'd thought. It's a miracle it didn't fall in on you." It's rotten right to the roof, the wood still wet and chewed through by termites or carpenter ants. Which means that not only the ceiling and beams need to be ripped out and rebuilt, but the roof itself, too, needs to be ripped out and rebuilt. And you know what? My roofer was just here a few weeks ago, and what part of the roof did he completely redo? THAT PART! YES!

So John and I spent some time hauling garbage bags of rotten wood and plaster outside. My room is a debacle.

But! I do not have breast cancer. My family and friends are healthy. In the middle of all this, I called my mother, and she told me that she walked without her walker from the bathroom to the phone by her bed. When I last saw her, this woman could barely stand up with two nurses on either side.

So - good news. My mother can walk, and I do not have breast cancer. And I haven't heard the dog howl for at least two hours. Mind you, I've been busy. And - wow! - the bedroom ceiling did NOT fall in on me as I slept! How lucky can you get?

As I sit writing to you, my cat just puked all over the kitchen floor. The garden is shrivelled and needs desperately to be watered. I need to find clean clothes and pack for my flight to Ottawa early tomorrow, sort out the fridge, take out the garbage, water the indoor plants, make lists for the catsitter and the garden waterer. It's 30 degrees but feels, they say on the radio, like 36. Yesterday I spent the entire day on the phone to Ottawa, dealing with lawyers, accountants, Mum's bills and where she'll go next. Somewhere, on the backest of back burners, is my work.

Is it time to move into a nice simple tiny clean new condo? Tell me what you think.

Later. This is one of those times when the single woman feels really alone. The fantasy is of a big strong man to whom I can say, Problems in the ceiling, dear. I have writing to do. Ta da.

I know big strong men come with complications of their own. Still, today I am feeling swamped. Not sorry for myself, because this is exactly the life I want (minus, of course, ceiling rot). But swamped.

P.S. And I haven't even mentioned that fine writer Maeve Binchy, RIP. I have a wonderful article by her before she was famous, which I'll share with you. As soon as I can dig it out from beneath the dropcloth.

news of fresh disasters

Something odd ... I just watched the mother and six baby raccoons who live in my ivy go home for the day, climbing up the sturdy vines - and then, not ten minutes later, I watched them climb down again, one after the other, and disappear into the bushes. Moving day?

Today's little battle - a neighbour from the very expensive condo's directly south of me has obviously gone away and left her dog behind. It howls on and off during the day, but at night, it really lets loose. Long sobbing howls, all night long. It's driving me mad. A little black dog, sitting by the door, crying its heart out, and I want to kill it. No, I want to kill its owner.

Someone comes once a day, I guess to walk it. I left a note yesterday informing the owner of what's going on and asking her to do something. The mail was taken in but the dog howled all last night. So today I posted a big notice on the front door, including the City of Toronto Anti-Noise Bylaw.

Wait ... I thought that was a battle?! My painter Dan is here; he just came to repair a small damp patch on the ceiling above my bed. "Very bad news," he said. Why am I not surprised? The whole ceiling of my bedroom is damp and rotten; he is up there now in a shower of plaster, pulling the ceiling down. It's a filthy mess and will be disastrously expensive. Not to mention the possibility of bugs.

But hey. I just got a letter from the Ontario Breast Screening Clinic. I do not have breast cancer this year. So what's a howling dog and a rotten ceiling, between friends?

I should move in with the raccoons.

"civic-minded hip hop"

I'm reporting in: 62 is great so far. Fab food, wonderful company - good vibes, as we old-timers used to say. One glitch only for my birthday party - we had salmon, shrimp and veggies ready to be barbecued by my barbecue-savvy son, who arrived reeling with flu-like symptoms, vomiting and feverish. He had taken Tylenol with codeine for back pain, and it turns out that he, like his sister, is allergic to codeine.

So he was lying in a dark room, not hovering over the barbie or making merry with the rest of us. But the food got cooked and consumed, nonetheless. And I was reminded, as I pressed my hand onto his hot forehead while my daughter dandled her own son, that motherhood starts 9 months before birth and never ends.

Speaking of motherhood, I am here to defend my own poor mother. An article on an American Olympic swimmer on the FRONT PAGE of the "Star" said this: "17-year old American Missy Franklin's vertiginous physique is anchored by a pair of seal flippers - size 13 feet."

EXCUSE ME! My mother had size 13 feet by the age of 12, to anchor her six foot tall body. Her shoes and my father's were the same size, and at 88, she still has size 13 feet. She has spent her life in a tragically futile search for pretty shoes. Tall Girls - meh. There is nothing funny or seal flipperish about exaggerated appendages. TAKE THAT BACK.

There's an event called ALL CAPS indie festival coming up in a few weekends on the Toronto Islands. If anything is guaranteed to make me feel old, it's this rundown of the bands: (The last one sounds comprehensible ...)

Saturday August 11:
YAMANTAKA // SONIC TITAN (Montreal “noh-wave” / Japanese prog theatrics / Polaris Prize long-listers!)
Maylee Todd (Toronto / good-time summer funk-pop complete with costume changes / Do Right! Music)
Choir! Choir! Choir! (Toronto / community jukebox choir)
Tyvek (Detroit / 1978-style avant-garage punk)
Wet Hair (Iowa City / Krautrock drone duo)
Esther Grey (Guelph / intimate minor-key folk-pop / one to watch!!)
Triple Gangers (Toronto / solid new synth-pop trio)

Sunday August 12:
A PLACE TO BURY STRANGERS (Brooklyn / psychotically loud psych-rock / Dead Oceans & Pitchfork darlings!)
Lioness (Toronto / post-punk sex-rock / New Romantic Music)
OG Melody (Toronto / Isla Craig + Thom Gill = pure love jamz / two to watch!!)
Canadian Winter (Hamilton via U.K. / civic-minded hip-hop)
Absolutely Free (Toronto / electro brain-damage rock, ex-DD/MM/YYYY)
Young Mother (Toronto / post-punk psychedelia)
Ivy Mairi (Toronto / beautiful Island folk)

Plus! Swimming • Bonfires • Island Fun • New Food Vendors • And more! 

Being 62

It's a gorgeous Wednesday August 1st, and I am sitting here feeling 62. Whatever that means. Woke this morning with a wonderful breeze wafting in my window - it rained in the night, and I could smell summer - wet grass, lavender, jasmine, rosemary. On my computer, already, were many messages through the wonders of Facebook. While I was checking, my daughter instant messaged me. There were texts on my cellphone, and I checked my new discovery - Twitter - to learn that Canada had just won a silver and Gore Vidal just died.

I'm up to date.

So - 62. Never felt better.  Never more grateful. This is a blessed time - because the reality of great loss is just around the corner, that is sure. Vital to appreciate every moment, right now.

What I am especially grateful for, besides my health and that of family and friends and the presence of those family and friends and the fact that I live in a country at peace and make enough money to live there in relative security ... and my teeth and ears and eyes and limbs that still work ... I made a list, and will add to it through the day:

Bicycles. Libraries. CBC radio. Jon Stewart. The Y. Peaches and dark chocolate and chevre. New music and old and learning to sing. My cat's grey stripes and little white boots. My neighbourhood in the heart of the city, with its narrow houses, open neighbours and its very own, if battered, farm.

This city itself, where I lived in my early twenties and moved back to at 34, where my children have chosen to live as adults, facilitating joyful events like today, when they leave their own busy lives and come over to the old homestead, to the garden they have played in most of their lives.

That garden, long and narrow, its birds and ivy and scent. Sanity safety sweetness.

And most of all, Eli. I sent a picture of my grandson and me to an old boyfriend, and he wrote, "Looks like you've found the man of your life."
"You're right," I replied. "His conversation is limited, so is his diet, and he's very short. But otherwise, he's perfect."
And if he would just get his finger out of his nose, he is.

PS. A literal truth for me:

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

Since my house burned down / I now own a better view / of the rising moon. 
-Mizuta Masahide, poet and samurai (1657-1723)