Weekly Stories

getting cut from the Titanic

Today I am thinking of my great grandfather, Albert Aris. He was a concert pianist good enough to make the short list of entertainers on the RMS Titanic in 1912. I’m sure he was very bummed to have been cut at the last minute. Bummed from April 10 to April 15th. I am also thinking of a dear friend who hadn’t performed for a long time and was up in a small town in Northern BC considering changing careers in her late forties and heading into seniors’ aid when she got that impossible magical phone call from a producer in…

baby on the street

Walking through Grandview park, an aboriginal woman sits on a rock among heather and plays a tiny pink and white ukelele. I am babysitting little Henry Devine right now and the day is sunny. He bites his lower lip just like his playwright Dad does when he realizes the line he thought was funny is actually funny. It endears me so much I have to give the baby a little kiss just because. He is happy, the sun is shining, and he hears music. Some kind of African drum is being played by a tall black leopard of a man…

family watching

A little boy in front of me with a boy scout cut and a Gortex jacket like his dad, bites into a Starbucks cinnamon bun (Starbucks making dry chewy pastry trendy again). He pulls it with his teeth to try and break off a mouthful and it comes unraveled and stretched out like a rubber dog’s toy and he puppily grimaces and pulls with tremendous effort until he wins. I chuckle along with his parents. I am auntie to only nieces (and a gaggle of glory they are!) and I was not gifted with a son. So when I get…

birdy wants a perch: a search for real estate in Vancouver

Fantasizing about a piece of real estate for a month before seeing it is like chatting on line with a guy too long before meeting up with him for coffee. What you end up with is likely smaller, smellier and way more work than you can afford. As Fellow and I drove away from my fantasy hobby orchard B&B off an incredibly BUSY LOUD UGLY road in Langley, I pouted for half an hour in silence in the HOV lane all the way home, then said in a small voice, “I just wanted to give my daughter a farm.” We…

why say “sugar’ when you can say “Athol Fugard”?!

I might decide on a radical change of lifestyle by this weekend. Fellow and I have been talking about what we really want our future to look like and we have started really listening to and believing the kids. I guess with the passing of my beloved Nonna, I am also thinking of legacy. I will keep you in suspense until we are quite certain, but let me tell you, it will result in some new material for the blog, that’s for sure! And this is entirely why I keep making bold choices: so I always have literary fodder. It’s…

the pleasure of industry

The sun is shining brightly through my patio window, revealing all the little fingerprints the height of a certain nine year old who still can’t help but press her face up against the glass and peer at the big big world outside. I have just had a private dramaturgical session with a firebrand of a woman who has a huge juicy story on the spit. It took her tremendous courage to capture it and skewer it. It will be a feast for many when she serves it. I am inspired by her inspiration. I am dumbfounded by the beauty she…

the tough and the tender

I went public today. Red lipstick, heels and bandages. I headed out for a reading of a new play at the Arts Club. (I was an actor not the writer) It was a huge draft with many great changes. I never doubted it would get somewhere because he’s a terrific writer and he had the bones of a good idea. But still, it is thrilling to see something grow like that, right in front of my eyes. Never gets tired. To see a story realized. My students have been submitting some pretty great drafts too. All these baby stories growing…

Robert Frost is in the book

I carve a perfect pear and set it down in front of my daughter who, for the first time, is diligently doing her homework without provocation. She is discovering the joy of industry: something hard to teach except by example. I feel the same. My mind is sharp and much was accomplished today. I feel myself returning to normal. I am also resting physically as chided: I did laundry in nice little light loads. I talked for hours on the phone, conversations long over due, with an ice pack on my stitches. I’m pondering a bone to pick. I’d rather…

Epiphany and Venus McFlytrap

I am wearing my “useless” nightie. I have deemed it thus because things keep popping out of it. Fellow says, “Not everything need fall under the servitude of utilitarianism.” He’s working the night shift and I’m all alone with my sexy neckline and my sore stitches. I just came back from seeing Bellaluna Production’s story about the Italian santa, Bafana. She gives out gifts to children January 6th: epiphany. Susan Bertoia made a feisty little strega, flying on her broom. As always with Bellaluna, it was a ridiculous and absolutely compelling evening! And, like every other event I’ve been to…

cat condos and heaven

I have decided to completely rearrange all my furniture, because that’s an excellent thing to do one week after a hernia operation. “You’re doing WHAT?!” Cries Fellow on the phone when I sheepishly tell him I moved the sofa near the patio door. I didn’t LIFT the sofa, I slid it. And then kinda hip checked it into place. No problem. I don’t have the brain to do anything else really and I’m bored. I already downloaded all my CDs and threw them in recycling. (I take copyright very seriously, royalties make up 1/3 of my income) And as I…

Lucia Frangione