I felt just “Off” last week. By Friday I had a tickle in the back of my throat. Several people at work said, “You look sick.” They were all over 35, so I don’t think they meant “awesome.” By Saturday morning, swallowing felt like a flaming golf ball was stuck in my throat. Sorry folks at work: Saturday morning the doctor at the walk-in clinic took the little light, peered deep while I said awe and, recoiled on her armless three-legged stool. “Ten day course of antibiotics.” Somethin’ nasty’s got me. Two days later, my right ear is now plugged and humming, and I have an odd inflamed in-grown hair…

A friend called me the other day at work to inquire about my sanity. Which was nice. He said he was worried after reading this blog. Funny how we relate these days. He took me out to lunch. I had a Mick chicken burger at the Mayflower, the day after the Stones were in town. The meat came heavily breaded, deep fried and, with the melted Monterey Jack, looked more like a Keith Richards close-up than the mug of the big-lipped guy. The side salad was limp. What does this mean? It turned out the friend had troubles of his own. As he was sharing, he started to weep, so…

The bus was empty when I got on this morning, already deep into a “first fiction” piece in the New Yorker about two kids snorkeling in a boat graveyard for their dead sister. At the next stop, a pair of shiny slip-on loafers broke the story’s spell. They were attached to a middle-aged man in a golf shirt asking me to take my laptop off the seat next to me so he could sit down. He plunked down next to me, and I surprised myself by jumping up to move to another of the forty-odd vacant seats that remained. Why did he have to sit next to me? A compulsive…

Suzy took the kids to her sister’s place this morning. So I’m sitting under an umbrella with my laptop, surfing on someone else’s unsecured wireless network. Wahoo! 21st-Century Risk. My hard drive is exposed to the world and I don’t care. Turning Japanese is playing. It’s the only song I have downloaded on this computer, sent to me by e-mail one afternoon at work to turn my already distracted mind to mush. I brought the laptop out here so I could listen to music on CD, but the drive keeps spitting out the “Canadian Songs Vol 2” that Elizabeth burned for me. A few minutes before that I started to…

Thanks for dropping by the cabin, and especially for all the great e-mails this week! Given the response to family revelations (below), I’m thinking of selling the movie rights. 🙂 I’m taking a week off, but please come back. It’s been an intense summer — a very good one. Project Porchlight is moving ahead. Work is busy and interesting. Simon’s about to walk. Suzy has just checked “All Families are Psychotic,” (how appropriate) by Douglas Coupland, from the library. I’m looking forward to a week of reading and R&R before an inevitably hectic autumn arrives. When I get tense, my breathing gets shallow and I look pinched and old. This…

I’m walking wounded today. Last night I was told that my dad’s wife, Joan, has ”nothing left” to give me as a token of my father. Dad died four years ago, and I finally screwed up my courage this week to ask my Aunt Mary to raise this issue with Joan. Mary got back to me within a day with the bad news, and added rather matter-of-factly, “You should have asked for something earlier.” Funny, I didn’t think I had to ask for a memento of my dad. She didn’t see it that way. So I called Joan directly (from work). She has call display, so I was surprised she…

First the cabin was robbed. Then the web site went down. The kind people who host the site for me for free are actually staying in the cabin right now, battling hornets under the step. I understand that there is a lot of fogging and foaming going on, and hundreds of hornets wobbling in agony all over the place. A battlefield! Henry David Thoreau probably would have whacked the next with a stiff broom — or left it alone. Who knows? Today’s sunny and not too hot. Nice. I decided to take the bus this morning so I could finish Douglas Coupland’s Hey! Nostradamus. A great book, but fairly bleak.…

Confirm $200,000 support for Porchlight campaign. Find volunteers to distribute 50,000 light bulbs door-to-door in Ottawa. Figure out where to get a microphone for the Premier’s speech. Take a deep breath. I’m looking for a project manager/events planner genius. If you know someone who is available for the next 3 months, please let me know!

We got the money (see below) Our project will mean 100,000 half-ton truckloads of coal will not be burned. Now that’s cool. Wanna volunteer? Please!

Walden Cabin was robbed this weekend. Our housekeeper Eileen stopped in to prepare the place for guests and the locks were gone. She bolted like she’d seen a ghost, without even going inside. I don’t blame her. She called to tell me and I spent a strange few hours contemplating the range of possible news: The place was trashed. Everything was gone. Someone had written Thoreau Poser! in squashed purple coneflower on the walls. That would hurt. I got an update on the train to Toronto. My neighbour Allan broke the news. The toaster oven is gone. No damage. No messages. But no more TV dinners. I was relieved. As…

I think I’m dying. Which must mean that things are going extremely well. I suffer from a range of neuroses that creep up from the pit of my past and hold me back, mostly just when I’m about to finally see the results of a lot of hard work. It’s pretty stupid. Which is why I have to expose it to air here. That’s one thing about neurotic or paranoid fears. Say them out loud and they are revealed for what they are: ridiculous. The pain on the right side of my abdomen (which has me worried about imminent doom: cancer!), goes away when I eat. Suzy puts it into…

I’m riding on a half-inflated tire. For a week now. It’s getting to the point where I can almost feel the rim. When I go over a bump, my saddle bag pops off. One of these days I should invest in bungie cords. For now, my laptop remains unhurt. For the past month, the left hem of two pairs of my pants have been held together inside with duct tape. A few years ago, someone told me that “everyone leaks.” No matter how much we try to appear well put together or in control, there are little signs that betray us. But most “leaking” occurs when we’re under pressure. Think…

The night was oppressive. We turned out the lights to minimize the additional heat from the incandescents. That’s how bad it was. We clicked on our LED camp light and broke open a deck of cards and settled in for a friendly game. Even the honey brown was sweating. I sucked at Snap. My sister used to beat me at that when we were kids. It’s just so unnerving and violent. So Suzy suggested Crazy 8s, and added a naked challenge to make it more adult. I’d learned from Grammie Phoebe but she’d never taken it to this level. Lose a hand, lose some clothes. With the kids in bed…

Lake week went quickly. We didn’t go far; the cottage was 90 minutes from Ottawa on White Lake near Calabogie. In seven days we left the cottage only once for a quick visit the “the Frew” (Renfrew) to get a Globe, pick up some ice cream, and pump up our tire. For sale: 1992 Corolla. The weather was incredible – clear and hot. We cooled off by jumping off the dock. I’m now a master of the floating noodle, and Jasper and I developed a subtle yet effective sign language for “you have a horse fly on your head.” You need this when you’re floating on your back, still, ears…

I was thinking today of the past tense of jump. “Jamp” came to mind. This is just one sign that I need to leap off a dock. This week, a client melted down in an air conditioned board room. It had nothing to do with the humidex warning, more a result of the pressure of a busy summer that looks like it will never slow down. And by the end of July people need a bit of a break to avoid a breakdown. Someone said to me yesterday that May and June were slow because of the expected federal election, and now we’re making up for it. Now that’s just…