7/26/2007

In the nest of girls


Dock spiders rule the otherwise beautiful and multi-decked waterfront just by being freakishly huge and ugly and able to swim underwater by trapping air in their hair. Days begin with bong hits and Baileys® coffee. Us girlies change bikinis frequently to suit sunbathing, swimming, shade, spider monitoring, or 'shroom trips. The only guy up here this weekend is massive, tattooed, bald, occasionally hilarious but, in the final analysis, far too full of himself. He's in the nest of girls. He needs to mind that.

I find a spot to lounge on the poop deck—a few feet higher and a good ways back from the dock and its hideous occupants. My most arduous task is to get rid of my flip-flop tan lines. The sky is extra-blue, the clouds super-puffy, and the water ultra-sparkly because I'm high on my friend's homegrown. A card carrying medical user, she hits the bong every hour and you'd never know it.

I close my eyes and open them again. The cottage door squeaks open and closes softly. This sun is hot on my tummy and I push my Muskoka chair further into the shade so as to get optimum colour on my legs but avoid looking like one of those over-tanned women. The ones whose chests look leathery. Plus I don't want to spin out by mid-afternoon all sick and dizzy from the sizzling July sun. It happens. It'll happen tomorrow. Big man will eat his 'shrooms really fast and bake in the sun without a hat or something gay like that and then drink a bottle and a half of homemade red wine all by himself to impress us ladies and pass out on the verandah then sway off to bed before 6pm, down for the count, while us chicks make and eat KD® and salad, watch a documentary about wild horses and giggle at the descriptive video function, play round after round of Crazy Eights between bong hits and stargaze out back until midnight. We'll laugh about him on the drive back to the city.

Sun is creeping up my belly again and someone has put on a Cat Stevens CD at a volume respectable for cottage country. My girlfriend wanders down with an ashtray and a bottle of water. She's wearing a different bikini than before. She heads to the dock to check up on the spiders—their size, whereabouts, activities. It's very important. She's armed with a camera. The breeze dries my bikini bottoms that got wet in the rainbow coloured kayak. It makes no difference if I'm awake or asleep.

7/13/2007

After the storm

You decide to sit outside on the vernadah. It's chilly. You're wearing cotton flipflops and a mauve terrycloth bathrobe. A few pale clouds roll by but mostly it's clear. Both cats are inside and the backdoor is double-locked. You've just had a magnificent shower. Today you finished putting all your books out and even unpacked two more boxes. Your mother has offered to buy you a couch.

The night is cool and the sound of raindrops drips through leaves. Two branches frame a star. It's really dark in this front garden. Almost too dark and you make a mental note to trim back the big Catalpah tree and clip the fattening cedar hedge. In the eaves-troughs you see the reflection of streetlights. You get to go to sleep soon. The distant Parkway traffic hums.

7/08/2007

Overheard on my verandah during tenants' birthday party late last night:

.

Male party guest: "What IS that thing hangin from the tree?"

Female party guest: "Oh, chick said it's a windchimes."

Male party guest: "It's kinda freakin me out."

Female party guest: "It doesn't chime much. She said it's made of shell."

Male party guest: "Are you sure it's not, like, crowns of skulls or something?"

.

7/06/2007

Garden lady

It's official, I've turned into one of those chicks who gardens in her bikini top and cuts the lawn with a handmower in bare feet.

It's looking good in here

I'm shoving a load of laundry into the dryer when Tonia shows up at my door with coffee beans, raw sugar and two kinds of milk. I make us iced lattes that we share in the backyard and talk about what the hell am I going to do with this crazy garden. I ask her to help shift a piece of furniture down the basement stairs. I can tell she's totally not liking it so I suggest instead why doesn't she run out an get us some Sushi

that we share on the front verandah facing the lowering sun
then jump on the subway to her place.

It's Canada Day.
We're in a 29th floor penthouse overlooking Lake Ontario.
The whole shoreline flashes with fireworks displays.
Ashbridges Bay, Ontario Place, Hamilton, Burlington, Something, Something, Niagara-on-the-lake, Niagara Falls.

We smoke a bowl together.

The moon rises big and round and red and fat over the lake.

7/02/2007

Moving Days

Picture this:

You're sitting on a wooden box with your lover, eating takeout from a vietnamese buffet, giggling and watching 'So you think you can dance.' Your worldly goods surround you in cartons you've brought home from local shops on recycling days, most of them from the pet store. You two make love that night.

You merge into holiday weekend Montreal traffic—a full hour behind the movers—in your mom's borrowed car with your trunk and backseat packed, including your cats. One of them has just pooped in his pet carrier. Traffic's pretty smooth.

You have to call VISA from the payphone beside the toilets at that big service centre just before Kingston while your lover wanders around and buys a Powerpuff Girls® keychain from a coin machine. It's a teeny tin box, "just big enough for a little bud! Think I'll get one for Erin!" You're uncertain that this $2G payment will go through.

You let your lover play DJ so you're treated to The Orb, Led Zeppelin, and ELO. You love her so much. Traffic's light all along the 401, except for around Oshawa, which forget it.

You pull around the corner. The big blue truck is already outside your house. The evening sun shines through the trees that canopy your street. Your lover disappears for a while on a mission. The mover guy, who's been hitting on both of you the whole time, and his jolly old dad, whose missing pretty much all of his teeth, have to unload the truck from the neighbours' driveway because your front walkway is almost completely overgrown. Your house looks shabby from several years of renters but you can't swallow the lump of pure love in your throat.

Your lover returns with brie and strawberries and ice wine and new windchines made of old wood. And when you hang them in the tree it looks like some voodoo lady lives here.

A neighbour actually hugs you.
The variety store lady says you look just the same.
You hear blackberries falling through leaves.