Weekly Stories

I HATE

Today I saw a beautiful black woman in a black bikini with gold trim and a hot body wearing a waterproof black hijab. She looked like an observant Bond girl. I am sure there are people out there one side or the other who don’t agree with either the bikini or the hijab but I thought it was rather spectacular. It seemed honest to me. “this is where I’m at with my faith and my body, despite what you think.” Third day of my 10,000 steps and I’m walking my old dog farther. We are reaching out into the shadier…

starship

If we sit for too long, does our body assume we are waiting to die? Day two of the 10,000 steps and my energy has shot through the roof. I woke up at 5am and decided to take the 5:30 ferry. Normally I would find this an ungodly idea at an ungodly hour. But this morning I was excited to snake along the roads in the dark and hop on the quiet boat over the black water. Usually I sit in my car. It’s only a twenty minute ferry. And I take about five minutes to walk out and catch…

10,000 steps

I walked 10,000 steps today. That’s the recommended amount of movement for people who don’t want to turn into a mushy turnip. I started with a hike in the rain. Immediately I met up with our neighbour: a bus driver and his fire chief wife and their gorgeous children. They were out walking their dog with an exotic name. I met their neighbour, let’s call her Zelda. She was walking her dog with an exotic name and a lovely red kerchief around his neck. The labs kindly sniffed my old mutt’s butt who stood stock still, blind, and a little…

action hero one step at a time

I don’t care to admit I am waiting for a knee operation. It makes me feel mortal. I prefer the concept of Timeless Beauty, personally. I hide my pronounced limp on stage by sashaying my hips seductively. But stairs give me away. I have to take them one by one, sideways, gripping the rail with full geriatric detail. This is particularly embarrassing at the Stanley theatre: all the comp tickets are in the nose bleeds. I have to take those damn stairs down in front of all my peers. This is my first thought with Pride and Prejudice coming up….

the prayer of the unintentional racist

Lord, help me remember that just because I turned down the wrong street in LA once, does not mean I know what it’s like to be a visible minority. And though I have been racially profiled as an Italian Canadian, the worse assumption about me is that I like to make a scene and apologize for it afterwards. I have lost one high profile job once because, “you’re a woman and need a man to oversee you” and women make “emotional decisions” and I “distract men in the office, wearing provocative dresses” and I’m a “bitch who whines about equality”…

I could use a Latina

I start my day with a little love note, “Bella, my love, I love you. xo. PS Tartuffe puked beside the bed. xo” I have an adaptation of The Thin Man to finish this week and I am chuckling in the car, remembering my own joke, hoping it’s funny to everyone else. Then I furrow my brow. Maybe it isn’t? Maybe it’s cheesy? Maybe I should make the scene leaner and add the bit about the secretary off the top? As a woman writing in a male dominated industry in an even heavier male dominated genre, every joke has to…

loving lavishly

My nieces, adorable and pink and puffy in their winter jackets and woollen hats, trundle outside to play in the snow too new to stick. They wear a little button of my Nonna’s face on their jacket. Some thoughtful cousin of mine gave them to all the kids, a gentle reminder of who we lost a year ago. How I love these two darlings and how different they are from each other. The one smiles pretty as a princess, the other sticks out her tongue and growls like a cornered wild boar. I watch how gently and patiently my brother…

a tow truck called Trigger

At Il Mercato grocery store, I walked out the First Ave exit and forgot to log my license plate into the meter near the elevator to qualify for the 45 minutes free parking. When I returned from my ten minutes of shopping, a tow truck was approaching my car and I had a ticket on my windshield. Shocked, I rushed to read my ticket, “I was only gone ten minutes, I still have lots of free time left” and then remembered, “Oh, I forgot to log in!” and as the tow truck man strode towards me, “I have my receipt,…

the importance of icing cookies

In a crowded show room in Ikea, a timid female voice over the intercom suggested a minute of silence for Remembrance Day. The muzak was miraculously muted. All the shopping carts rolled to a respectful halt amongst the storage solutions. I stood hand in hand with my curious daughter and gazed at all the generations, the races, the sombre faces, standing respectfully in their organized aisles. Each of us were holding our Hemnes and our private thoughts about peace and war. A distant toddler whinnied, unsure why his mother had turned to stone. And then, around the corner, wheeled one…

Cabinet ministers, an Old Dog, and Me

It is hard to amaze, these days. But today, I am gobsmacked. Last evening…my dog’s legs are giving out and he’s leaving outlines of sweat that very old pets puddle in. Sweet ancient Tartuffe with his skittery paws and gentle milky blues. He’s been such a faithful tenderhearted fellow: the kind of dog who sleeps under the crib. When he was a frisky youth, he chummed with my friend Cheryl’s dog: Felony. This was an adorable three-legged lab who lived up to her name. She was diagnosed with fatal cancer and the doctors gave her perhaps a month or two…

Lucia Frangione