Tag: Family

  • How Many? How Much?

    How Many? How Much?

    I knew that weddings are expensive but I didn’t realise how expensive they are until I was responsible for paying my share of one. Every cost is multiplied by the number of people who attend. And, and!, you’re treating them! It’s like you forgot to get drunk but are still willing to buy another round…

  • Wandering

    A good friend of mine recently sent me a photo of his daughter wandering along a beach in Portugal. He captioned the photo with: “There is something inspiring about the meandering footprints of a child contrasted with [the] linear path of adults.” When did we stop wandering?

  • Cucumber Water

    Over the March Break, I went home to Calgary for a few days. The visit was too short to do much more than hang out with my family but was long enough to interrupt the things I wanted to do back home in Toronto. Of course, I made a trip to Reid’s and bought a…

  • Calgary, where 5°C feels like summer

    On New Year’s Day, -4ºC, my father walked down into the basement, which is my room, turned on the lights, and, in Katchi, softly said, “Aly. Aly, wake up slowly and take your mother to the hospital.” In Katchi, I replied, “Yeah, okay.”

  • Filling the Sink with Water

    Filling the Sink with Water

    Whenever I do the dishes, which is not altogether that often, I like to plug the one side of the sink. While I’m washing dishes, I let the water collect. Eventually, the water level gets high enough to spill over the little inset portion of the sink. Whenever that happens, I take a minute to…

  • Art Battle

    Last night, my cousin invited me to an art event. It was an art battle: two rounds of eight artists painting for 20 minutes. Two winners from each of the rounds competed in a third round for the championship. It was a pretty entertaining event. I’d go again.

  • Day 18 of 30

    I’d make a terrible parent. I know this because I just bought Riel a new cat tree.

  • Day 3 of 30

    Day 3 of 30

    So, my sister will be spending the night. It’s an unplanned visit, the result of a misspelling of our last name. I don’t have all of the details, just enough to know that I have to be at the airport at 22:15 tonight. When I have to be back there in the morning is still…

  • My First Typewritten Letter

    Last night, I sat down at my typewriter to write a letter to my sister. It was really hard. It’s not something I’ve done in a very long time.

  • Imagining Things?

    It’s been a bit of an odd week. It’s not for anything that has happened that was out of the ordinary. It has to do with how I’ve been looking at the world around me.

  • Snippet: Donkey’s Despair

    I’ve been slowly reading Albert Camus’ Myth of Sisyphus over the last couple of weeks. I just came across this: It got me thinking about the time when my father called me a donkey.

  • The End of Time: 06:51:27

    Just over two weeks ago, on a Thursday, my watch stopped working at precisely 06:51:27. I noticed that it wasn’t working properly at around 06:45. It then took approximately another hour-and-a-quarter to make its 6-minute way to its end.