Weekly Stories

Grey Escape

On my drive back into Vancouver from teaching in Richmond I stop at a red on Cambie. The driver next to me is gesticulating some kind of wondrous movement with his smooth dark hands to his companion. I am mesmerized. Is he pulling toffee? Is he drawing apart wool? Is he stretching dough? Is he running his hands luxuriously through a woman’s long hair? Right below his window is the name “Escape”. Surely the escape isn’t the gray monstrosity passing for a vehicle…but him. His hands. The color of earth so rich, it releases endorphins just digging into it. …

Trout

I’ve noticed a direct correlation with people who talk incessantly and people with short necks. Maybe the neck shortens because the muscles that constantly work the jaw pull tight from over use? This also seems to have an effect on the audio and visual ability to notice that nobody else in the room has had a chance to get a word in edgewise. The expression I see on most incessant talkers is closely akin to that of a trout. The most recent incessant talker I came across was the butcher standing behind my regular halal butcher yesterday. My butcher is…

mixed tape

Great press, nothing but excellent reviews and our house tonight is about…what…nine people? Those of you who aren’t from Vancouver will say “What?!” And those of you who are from Vancouver will nod and say, “oh yes, the first Wednesday.” Wednesday is also laundry day for costumes so I throw in my blouse and – tuck my show lingerie into my own bag, newly realizing it is the artistic director, Richard, who is doing the wash. Tomorrow I have a meeting with my composer and dramaturge for the opera, then I clean apartments, and then I make dinner for the…

Anthropomorphism

I think it’s taken me this long to realize when I say “God” others don’t automatically know this means: newborn gasp “these are my hands?” When I say “Jesus” I mean: Muse out of dreams. Fog rolling over a mountain studded with snow like a lover’s graying beard. The feel of hot tea sliding down my throat. The satisfaction of reading a great novel and understanding enough to change my life while knowing I didn’t get even a tenth of it. When I say “The Spirit” I mean: that deep rumble feeling of earth quake that did not choose to…

Wasted Food

Apparently Mexican food is not a big hit in Algeria. My lovely girls eat everything and anything I put on the table as long as it’s halal: God bless them. But for some reason, for tech week, I made a huge pot of delicious chill: halal beef, home soaked beautiful organic beans, lots of veggies, a hint of molasses and cumin and cinnamon, hot sauce…I make a good chili. They didn’t touch it. Tonight I served it up for Nora and Michael and when the girls got home, I scooped them up a bowl and they left it on the…

Pace

We just finished 6 days in a row of twelve hour days. For me, however, it’s been thirty five days in a row with no break: my “days off” reserved for writing and prepping a class to teach, mothering, cleaning, doing laundry and feeding the Algerians. I slap make up over the bags under my eyes, tease my hair up into a fabulous beehive and off we go for a matinee. And in my head I remember pace: no time between the ends of their sentences and the beginning of mine. No time to breathe. That’s excitement, that’s comedy. Suck…

Behind the Scenes of Except in the Unlikely Event of War

It’s opening night tonight for Sean Devine’s new play that I have the pleasure of being in. We had a preview audience last night. It went very well. (I knew it would because I figured out my hair do. It’s all about the hair for me. This was my first beehive). We are rather tired after a series of ten out of twelves – so I am grateful for this “sleeping in” time this morning before opening. Last night my fatigue showed only once when I had to list twelve psychologists, sociologists and physicists in a row and I got to…

Show Hair

One of my favourite things about being in a show is having the luxury of sitting at the make up table with a head full of hot rollers and apply my make up. I love having that hour and a half to physically transform into someone else. In this case, someone who obviously spends more time on their hair than I ever do. I love applying make up and feeling those little brushes across my skin. They caress every crinkle, curve and smooth plain and there’s an acceptance. “This is what my face looks like, now, at this age.” And…

My Poppy

I trundle out of the grocery store with all my bags and pass a fitness club that an effective graffiti artist, with one deft slash, renamed “Fat World”. Fat world indeed. North America, anyway. We suffer from obesity and apathy. Big fat babies. The grocery bagger boy had a poppy and I did not. Not by choice. I just didn’t happen to bump into a noticeable distributor. The controversy over poppies makes me as fecking impatient as the controversy over Christmas. People died so we could live. Jesus died sharing the concept of compassion and the Bigger Life. This turkey…

Algerian Belly Dancing

My Algerian girls are fasting again today. Before bed, they are singing in the other room, I think it might be a prayer. It’s a sweet sound. A couple of weeks ago it was Haha’s birthday. Facebook let me know, otherwise, I don’t know that they would have told me. Haha is not one to call attention to herself. She’s very modest… Well, Nora and I do some last minute surprise planning and we bake a cake and prepare a nice lamb halal dinner and get Haha a present of a scarf and mitts (welcome to Canada’s winter) and Nora…

Lucia Frangione