I was this many years old when I first saw “squidge” in the wild.
Squidge through the muddy fields, as my family and I did this last St Patrick’s day, climb over a wall or two and you find yourself faced with a small site hemmed in by drystone walls. – The Abbey of Misrule, Paul Kingsnorth
I looked it up.
squidge (skwij)
“So, like, the guy tells me that he wants me to re-caulk his tub. It looks pretty good to me, so I ask him why. Get this: He says that every time the shower runs, water pours into the basement – two floors down. So I tell him, ‘That’s not the caulking.’ I have to cut into the drywall in a bunch of places before I find the leak. Turns out, to get at it, the tub has to come out completely. Which is a two-person job.”
I might have messed up some of the details: I wasn’t listening carefully. My excuse? It wasn’t my leak: The plumber fixing a minor problem in *my* house was just making conversation about another job site–and, maybe, making me feel better about my own. I still got enough to get the gist: A not-uncommon point of failure (a leaky pipe) was going to be a bugger to fix because of how we install plumbing and the associated appliances.
Are you telling me . . .
This conversation from 40 years ago is burned into my memory. I still remember the incredulity of the tone. Let’s go back in time together.
Are you telling me . . .
Yeah, never a good start. Especially when it’s repeated. From his point of view, he’s giving me fair warning: a chance to recant. An opportunity to climb down from an untenable position. Clearly, in his mind, what I just said was ridiculous.
Are you telling me
that you can create crust
by cutting bread differently?
1 Exercise on a Monday night
(nothing fun happens on a Monday night).
I exercise six days/week. Are there six Mondays?
14 Buy a cheap blender and use it to finely chop onions
(it saves on time and tears).
Or just buy sweet onions.
17 Don’t be weird about how to stack the dishwasher.
Shut. Up.
What are we doing? Reviewing the Guardian’s 100 Ways to Slightly Improve Your Life Without Really Trying.
As my father before me, I have two sets of photographic records. His were slides and prints; mine are prints and JPEGs. My father’s records exhibited a clear discontinuity: it was almost all slides all the time until–Poof!–there weren’t any slides ever again. There was little overlap: Once he switched to prints he was all-in. My transition has been more gradual: My JPEGs start in 2003 and have gradually come to dominate, but even now, 20 years later, I still get handed the occasional print.
The other day, not being busy, we decided to circumnavigate Terminal 1 of Toronto’s Lester B. Pearson International Airport (hereinafter LBPIA). On foot.
No, no, that’s not true, we didn’t quite circumnavigate it, although as we doubled back completely on our seemingly endless path (one way!) from arrival gate to Canada Customs (Connecting Flights subdivision)–Oh look, there’s our arrival gate on the other side of the glass–and hopped awkwardly on-and-off occasional moving sidewalks before being spit out into the domestic-flights concourse at the farthest-possible remove from where we next needed to be, it certainly *felt* true.
It was, we might say, our trudged experience.
I’m not sure what part of Colorado John Denver had in mind, although I expect it was, well, a more mountainous part than I’m in. But the clear, crisp air and the blue blue sky made a short walk pretty spectacular even in this populated part.
Fall aster, I think – still blooming under the imminent threat of snow.
Scrubby oaks, en route to brown
A pine tree with exposed roots, hanging onto the hillside for dear life
Seedpod from . . . what? A thistle?
A perch for a red-tailed hawk, now departed
Not a red maple, but nice in the afternoon sun
Feathered seedpods from another unknown plant
And with no walking required at all, a graceful ending to the day.
Ahhh
Where did the colour come from in these sparkly shots of a dew-dappled car hood? I don’t know.
It’s just another optical mystery. This is getting to be a habit.
Black leggings. Black and white sleeveless tunic top. Black button-free cardigan with tight sleeves. Black sandals. It’s an edgy look, I’m thinking, especially at my age: I turned 71 this year. It’s definitely not grandmotherly.
House dresses or dressy dresses. Matching low-heeled pumps. Nylon stockings. Not one pair of pants of any description. Shorts? Ha! Capris? Nope. Jeans? Don’t be silly. This endless parade of dresses was a grandmotherly look, I’m thinking, completely appropriate in that day to my city-dweller grandmother’s age: She turned 71 in 1961.
Posted: 2025 may 03
Thanks to John Whitman for this slightly dismayed face from downtown Ottawa.
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