Libby Broadbent's Blog, page 5

Rock or Bust!!

Frank Sinatra. That is who I love.

Toby Keith. Loreena McKennitt. Leonard Cohen.

None of these musicians endorse the wearing of glowing red devil horns. None of them make screeching noises like their scrotums are clenched between the teeth of feral dogs. And while some of them are old, dead even, none of them Rock or Bust like AC/DC!

When I told my Love that I got him AC/DC tickets for his birthday, his first comment… even before he asked where? or when? or how?…was: “We need costumes!”  Such was my ignorance of the AC/DC legend that we had to google the devil horns, and the school boy outfit, and the discography that included such gems as “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap” and “Highway to Hell”. Don’t get me wrong. I know the songs. You’d have to be living under a rock to be oblivious to the dulcet tones of AC/DC… especially if my Love lives under the rock with you, and “real music” means rock, Q104, anything from the ‘70s, and especially anything that isn’t country.

AC/DC ain’t country!

I have never gone to a huge concert before. A Lot of People, to me, means standing in line at the Superstore when chicken wings are on sale. Loud music, to me, means the CJHK Country Countdown turned up loud enough to be heard over the vacuum on a Saturday. Staying up late, to me, means making it all the way to 9:30pm on a Friday night. This, was not that!

We camped for two nights in a field of friendly, happy, wild hooligans.

We ate deer steak wrapped in bacon, we ate pizza, we ate lobster dip… roughing it? Not so much. There was, of course, lots of drinking and the sweet aroma of weed and probably some other mystery substances floating about, but I didn’t witness a single bad moment of impairment or obnoxious behavior. People were kind, funny, helpful… it was very nice that there was a gang of young 20-something men just behind us who frolicked, bare chested, all afternoon in the heat. When I told my Love that I was taking a photo of their youthful musculature so I could show my daughters, who appreciate such musculature much more than their elderly mother, he suggested that he should also be allowed to photograph all the lovely young girls, to show his son… Ok. I get it. Stop ogling the youth.

The concert was… overwhelming! So many people, so much noise, so many lights… I was so excited, in such a spinny, that I actually cried. Not weeping, just leaking.

My Love: “What’s wrong? You’re crying.” (“For Those About to Rock” thundering behind us.)

Me: “I am? Oh! I just… LOVE THIS… I just… THISISAMAZING!”

My Love: “You’re so weird.”

Me: “THISISAMAZINGILOVEIT!”

This, from a woman who is scared of crowds, avoids large groups of people at all costs, gets nervous palpitations every time she has to go out in public…

I laced my hand onto his knapsack and let him drag me through the crowd. My face hurt later from smiling, screeching, singing, howling. It was absolutely phenomenal… the size of the stage, the huge towers for the lights, the enormous screens that show every drop of Brian Johnson’s sweat and every wrinkle of every grimace…

In a moment of delightful role-reversal I texted my children…

Me: “Yeeeeefmjgub!”

Abbie: “Oh god… are you all right?”

Me: “Zur! I have fun at rock show!”

Abbie: “Hahahaha! Love you!”

We got quite close to the stage, and at one point I just stopped moving and put my hand on my chest. Every bass note, every beat of the drum simply POUNDS through your whole body. My Love, once again, thought I was being weird.

Him: (yelling over the thundering band) “What’s wrong? You ok?”

Me: “THISISAWESOMEILOVETHIS!” (I think I was probably crying again)

Him: (top of his lungs) “Why you holding your chest?”

Me: “FEEL!”

He put his hands on my chest and we started head-banging in time to the pulse. Is that what it’s called? Head-banging? When your Love has his hand on your boobs in a crowd of 60,000 and you’re both giggling like school girls and jumping up and down, screaming? That was us.

It was over way too fast. They should have played for 657,000 hours. I am absolutely, completely, totally in LOVE with the big outdoor concert experience. On the drive home we were considering what other concerts we could get to, and who we would most like to see, and should we buy a motorhome and become groupies travelling across the country to every summer concert in Canada?

We camped on a golf course at concertcamping.com, and it was organized, efficient, clean, safe… I was completely impressed with the staff and crew that led us in, cleaned up after us and shuttled us out afterwards. The porta-potties were clean, the camping staff were super-friendly and helpful, and the traffic just seemed to flow without huge wait-times and snarls. Very impressive! We will definitely be staying there again.

So, although Frank Sinatra will continue to float my boat, I have discovered that AC/DC is actually more my speed. I think my spawn were surprised that I loved it so much, but I’m not sure why. Generation gap, I guess.

Molly: “Get ready, Mumma! You gonna jam out with your clam out?”

Me: “Oh, I don’t think so, dear. Seafood is much too rich to eat before a rock show. No, no. No clams for me.”

Molly: “Um… I meant… oh. Never mind. Have fun, Mumma.”

Don’t worry, little spawnlet, Mumma had fun!

 

Everybody poops

I’m heading back to school, and I’m scared.

It’s not what you may think… I’m not scared of losing my free time, that glorious exuberance of summer where a tired teacher can wake up and recklessly declare: “I’m Not Going To Mark Anything Today”. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Not Doing of Things. I love free time and Not Marking… but personally, I thrive in busy-ness. I’m not scared to have a schedule pressed back into service, not afraid of getting up early and conforming to the long workday that is the High School Teacher’s world. I kinda like it.

I’m scared of other things. More viscerally disturbing things. Things like:

What if I have to poop at school?

No one mentions this at Teacher School, just like they don’t mention what to do with That Kid who will tell you to Go Fuck Yourself (hereinafter referred to as The GFY) sometime between Labor Day and Thanksgiving, no matter how engaging your lessons are, or many high fives you dole out in the hallways like lost dolphin slapping the waves looking for its missing pod. The GFY ain’t nuthin’, compared the disquiet of the demanding colon.  I’ve been quite happily pooping anywhere, anytime, at the drop of a hat, you might say, all summer… no more. No one wants to poop at school, but how much control can be demanded over the wild vicissitudes of the unregulated digestive system? Don’t try to tell me I’m alone in this fear. Everyone works, everyone poops, and never the twain shall meet.

I’m scared of the cafeteria muffins.

No one warns you that you will be starving by 9am. It’s a hunger borne of the adrenaline burn of standing in front of twenty five sweaty teenagers, praying that there will be no GFY, praying that at least one of them will get your lame grammar jokes, praying that there will be an epiphany of the grasp of there, their and they’re. It eats a hole in your gut no matter how much spinach you stuffed in the blender for your uber-healthy green slime of a breakfast smoothie. Why the green slime? Because you determined to avoid the muffins. The oh-so-fluffy and fragrant muffins that call to you… “Come, we love you, we value your existence”… the muffins never do The GFY. Your waist does, after ten months of non-stop muffin-atings. (Atings… the past tense of eatings.) And, at our cafeteria, our lovely ladies let you run a tab. A Muffin tab. Which you forget to pay until June when suddenly discover you owe $300 for muffin-atings.

I’m scared of other teachers.

I have two wishes for teachers… I wish we had to wear uniforms, and I wish we would not judge each other. It’s impossible. The uniforms would never fly, because I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who would willingly and happily wear a smock and grungy sneakers every day to school, sans makeup, sans hair straightener, sans deodorant. Happily.

(Ok, yeah, I’m kidding about the deod. It just seemed to fit the whole ‘au naturelle’ theme of the sentence. Or maybe that’s why no one wants to sit beside me at staff meetings…)

And the judging? Well… it happens. They’re better than me. They’re smarter than me. They wield rubrics like a superhero’s flaming sword, where I have a mere checklist. Who do the kids like most? Who does the administration praise? Who has the best lunch? Who pooped in the staff room loo? Who ate all the muffins?

It’s scary, going back to school.

I have horrendous teacher-dreams for weeks before going back to the classroom. Falling into holes in the classroom floor, standing in huge line-ups of kids and not remembering any of their names, being flogged by the GFY. I spend the first two days in a lather of emotion… who are these new kids? What do all these new initiatives mean? Can I do it all?

Last year, I did an activity based on a novel where I had the kids write notes about what “gives you heavy boots”, which was a metaphor for what makes you sad.

The sticky on the top right reads: Having to poop in school.

I am not alone.

The sticky on the bottom right, which is difficult to read in the photo, says:

When people draw penises on my work.

It is moment like these when I remember that my fears of a new school year pales in comparison to the suffering of my students. While it is entirely possible that I may have to poop at school, I shall go boldly forth, secure in the knowledge that even though my peers may judge me, even though the muffins will win, once again, at least I know that my work will remain penis-drawing free.

I hope.

Gird up your loins, teachers. Here we go!

(The “heavy boots” reference is from Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close”)

Artist? Me? Pfffft…

Why is it so hard to accept praise, and value your own creativity? Am I the only one who suffers from this twitching-in-the-corner malady that sees an ordinarily rational woman turn into a spoonful of jelly when someone asks “How much do you want for this?”

 

What a strange and wonderful thing art is. What I mean is, it’s totally cool when other people look at stuff you made, with your own grubby little paws, in the extra bedroom of your house, out of toilet paper and flour….and like it. And when I say other people, I don’t mean people who have known you for twenty years, or people who grew within the boggy confines of your very own loins.

My spawn love my art.

They also love my texting, which is strange, because I really suck at the texting which draws into question their unconditional love of my art. I have no such faith in my own creativity.

Other people, now. People who are other are the ones who are new, and strange and unbeknownst to one.

Like the five hundred year old woman I met this weekend who cackled merrily when I told her she could take my Love home to play with him if she liked. She said he was too young. He’ll be blushing for a week. She also told me I could drop Marilyn off at her house, because she’d look awesome in her picture window.

Everyone loved Marilyn.

I was so lucky to be invited to be an artist at the Harmony in Art Exhibit this weekend at the Harmony Bazaar in Lockeport, NS. My silly maché creations stood beside the beautiful artwork of photographer Kim Robertson Walker, and painters Michelle Blades and Judy Matthews. And people liked it. I was completely flattered.  I giggled profusely and shrugged a lot and tried to hide behind my Love who was acting as my groupie for the event. Everyone needs a groupie to hide behind.

Why is it so hard to accept praise, and value your own creativity? Am I the only one who suffers from this twitching-in-the-corner malady that sees an ordinarily rational woman turn into a spoonful of jelly when someone asks “How much do you want for this?”

“Oh… I dunno… it’s just a silly thing… maybe… um… five dollah?”

A beautiful retired teacher, with her sleeping grandchildren and a lovely conversation about cell phones in the classroom (don’t get me going!), gave me twenty bucks for my fishies, when I asked fifteen, and I had to restrain myself from throwing an extra one at her for free.

“How much do you want for Marilyn? She’s marvelous!”

“Oh, um… how much do you want to give me?”

These are not the words of a savvy businesswoman. This is not the road to marketing success. I just can’t believe that people like my stuff, and are willing to pay for it.

The whole day before the Exhibit I steeled myself for rejection by rehearsing how I would answer questions like:

“This isn’t very good. Who do you think you are?”

“You’re asking $15… for this? You’ve got to be kidding.”

“All of this is made of paper. And it sucks ass. You suck ass. Go home and mow the lawn.”

Ok, so that last one isn’t a question, but that was the gist of my mental dialogue as I prepared to show my work to people who don’t love me. I am blessed with people who love me and who encourage me to make things out of paper. It’s taking those things out into the world that cripples me. In all of my nervous rehearsing, not once did I imagine what I might say if someone said “I love this, it’s fantastic! How do you do it?”

“Oh… I… um… toilet paper.”

My Love and I went to Shelburne, after we gathered my stuff from the studio in Lockeport, for lunch at the Beandock (which is marvelous! Scallop and Bacon Wrap. Best. Thing. Ever.) and as I exited the Loo… (side note: The Beandock has the smallest Loo in all of the Sanitized World. It is wee. For your wee. You need to go, just to wee in the wee-sized Wee-Wee room.) and there were two people outside who had been at the Gala. We talked about my stuff. The lady actually said:

“Hey, aren’t you that artist from the Gala?”

That artist. Guffaw! Pfffft! Me? Har har dee har har!

“Why, yes. Yes I am.”

When my Love and I left the Beandock, we were surprised to hear the pounding of feet and the yoo-hoo-ing of the man I had just chatted with.

Never before have I been chased down the road for maché. This was a new high in my career. A pinnacle, if you will.

“Can I buy the Outhouse guy? The one with the… you know…”

“The anatomically correct fisherman?”

“Yeah. We just loved that he had a… you know…”

“A penis? Oh, yeah. Everyone loves the penis.”

My Love turned several shades of red, and I bubbled over with glee as we directed the enthusiastic penis-lover to the Tides of Time, where he could purchase said Outhouse Guy…

It just blows my mind.

I know I must not be alone in the self-conscious world of the introvert artist… wait, did I just call myself an artist? I meant a Messer-Around-With-Stuff person. Artist? Me? Pfffft…so I just want to say to you, you scaredy-cat creative types out there: Do it.

Say yes.

Say yes to the Exhibit. Say yes to the craft fair. Say yes to the offer of $20 for something you slaved over. You will feel good. Your new friend will feel good. Your art will make its way into the world and make the world a better place.

Because that’s what art does.

The five hundred year old woman didn’t actually offer me any money for Marilyn, because I couldn’t decide what to ask for her, but I loved our conversation and that moment of smiling contact with a lovely funny person who looked at me and said “Your art is good.”

I didn’t realize how good it could feel to be called an artist.

Artist?

Me?

Well… maybe…

The Graduating Class of 2015

I recently spoke to crowd of about six hundred people, in a really bad Russian accent. Or maybe it was German. Nepalese, maybe?

       “Ven I am gettink nervooz… und belief me, mine darlinks, I am verry verry nervooz zis evenink… ven I am nervooz zee accents, zey get all jumblink up, und zat izt never und good idea!”

My only hope is that there were no Russo-Canadians in the audience, to be offended by my mangling of the Mongolian tongue… or whatever it was. It was Grad night at Liverpool Regional High School. A foreign accent seemed to suit the occasion.

Don’t ask why.

I was the Guest Speaker, and no one was the Boss-ah-me. That’s not entirely true… it was suggested that I should avoid profanity, which I successfully did, but despite a valiant effort on my part one wiener joke did slip out. It seemed to be expected of me.

The Class of 2015 holds a special place in my heart, because I love them. I don’t know why… they are every bit as hormonal, smelly, sassy and frustrating as any group of teenagers I’ve ever taught before, but these ones? Well, they just seemed to crawl under my skin, close to my heart, like one of those pig valves they use to keep people alive. This group of kids has kept my teaching soul alive.

Some of them started out their grade 10 year hating me. Fer realz.

There were the Cell Phone Confrontations of 2012. There was the Hat Hostility of 2014. The Homework Hassle and the Absenteeism Altercation and the Deadline Disaffection. There was that really bad day when I googled “Jobs That Aren’t Teaching”, but decided I’m not really suited to any other career unless it involves cantaloupes and monkeys.

I actually said that to these kids.

“I could have had a job working with cantaloupes, but I chose you people instead.”

I may, or may not, have also said: “Stay away from his crotchal region.”

High school is a complicated place. Sometimes we don’t just impart wisdom about the thesis statement, as grand as it is. Sometimes we dig deep and converse about the human condition, natural selection and wieners.

This particular group of kids struggled and thrived and wallowed and achieved and I took each one of them home with me every night. Fretting. Laughing. Shaking my head.

As Guest Speaker, I told the kids they were responsible for “building the landscape of the future”. I rather liked that. Metaphors, and all. I talked about finding the right people to “hold your ladder”. I performed a brief adaptation of the Fresh Prince theme song. I performed a technically perfect* Back Street Boys dance move. I cried a little.

“Now, more than ever before, you are equals. Regardless of how popular you were in high school, regardless of how good or how bad your marks were, or how many sports you played, or how many lates you accumulated, with a high school diploma in your hand, you are all ready to take on the world and define success in your own terms. Never before has the horizon been so broad. You are the people who will build the landscape of the future, and populate it with your dreams. The digital world is empowering you as never before, and your futures are not restricted by which school you go to, or which trade you choose, or how many scholarships you win on grad night.”

I was incredibly nervous as I began to speak, half-blind because I forgot to put on my glasses until well into page three of the ten page speech, but then I got warmed up and kinda wanted to hang out on stage all night. It’s nice, being surrounded by happy people stepping bravely toward their futures. But I got a little sentimental, and I think my makeup smudged and I had some snot issues. And the clock was ticking toward nine, which everyone knows is bedtime, so I ended with a metaphor. Metaphors make everything better.

“There’s a good chance that somewhere in your 18 years of life, you have learned that people are fallible. Someone has probably let you down in some small way, or in some huge way.

Get used to it, it’s probably gonna happen again.

But someone has also held you up. Someone has loved you, even at your most unlovable, even in your darkest moment, even when the world may have felt heavy on your shoulders. It’s on a night like tonight that I hope you can realize how insignificant those disappointments are, compared to the people who are holding your ladder.

Who is it, in this room, who has held your ladder? As you move forward into your large and rowdy lives, remember this moment. Let go of the disappointments, they are insignificant. Learn from them, but don’t let them lie in your bed with you at night. Embrace love, celebrate love. Cherish your people.”

It’s always sad to see a class go. We spend so much time with them, and watch them grow and change so much over their three years in our care, it’s always bittersweet to see them leave, knowing that phase of their lives is over. Teachers miss the class as a whole, and the individuals who make us crazy… the Jordans and Tylers, the Kelseys and Michaelas, the Lizzys and Deenas.

The Jeffreys.

His name isn’t actually Jeffrey, I just have trouble with J names. How many J names do we teach in the run of a year? A lot. I would make a personal request to all new parents to avoid J names. Please. And thank you. I also have a problem remembering M names, and R names. Take that into consideration also.

Jeffrey was probably the only person in the room who understood this wee phrase:

“Some will write code, make laws, heal, teach, weld, build, breed, design, become an internet youtube star who throws knives at origami cranes whilst speaking German in tight lederhosen…”

But I guess that’s what it’s all about. The individual, and the whole, and the building of landscapes.

And really bad foreign accents.

“Mine darlinks, I luff you. Go forte und build zee landzcapez off zee future. Metaphors be with you.”

Congratulations, Liverpool Regional High School Class of 2015.

Be the one!

*(when I say a “technically perfect Backstreet Boys Dance move”, I actually mean “an embarrassing flailing of arms reminiscent of Kermit the Frog”. But, whatev’.)

You HAVE to watch this video the kids made! It’s my fave!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1JGM1sAMgY&feature=youtu.be

“I Love This School”: Heavy D retires

I’ve been teaching under the leadership of Terry Doucette for the past decade at Liverpool Regional High School. He’s retiring this year, and I am torn.

Torn because I want to retire too!

Torn because he has always been there, in the office, and now he won’t be.

Torn because I wish great happiness and relaxation and family time and hunting adventures for him, instead of the stress and drudgery of being a school principal…

But that’s just it.

Terry never made it seem like drudgery. He never moaned and whined like the rest of us about how hard it is to be a teacher, how worried we are about the kids, how angry we are with a system that doesn’t understand our needs, how tired we are of marking and discipline and cell phones and upset parents and impolite kids… Terry was the one we complained to. He was never the complainer.

Terry didn’t hire me the first time I interviewed for a job at his school.

I was a twitchy and terrified new BEd grad and I was asked how I would adapt if I had to teach courses that were outside my specialty.

“Oh,” I blustered. I probably giggled. I was so scared, I think I also put my thumb in my mouth for a minute. “That’s no problem. I can learn stuff.”

Terry smiled at me and thanked me for my time.

He did hire me three years later when I interviewed again. Then, I hope I was slightly more poised, slightly more mature. He, as ever, joked and laughed and tried to put me at ease.

I was terrified of Terry in my first years as one of his teachers. I learned very quickly that if you were going to the office with an issue, you’d better know what it was you wanted before you walked through his door.

Me: “Terry, I have this kid, and he’s, you know… I dunno… he’s being a real shit, and not doing his work… I dunno… what should I do?”

Terry: “What’s going on in your classroom?”

Me: “Um. I dunno. Stuff? I… um… this kid is, like, you know…?”

Terry: ‘What do you want me to do?”

Me: “Um… you know… be all Heavy D on his ass? Like, make him… you know… be good?”

Terry: “What?”

Me: “Yeah. Um. Ok.”

Terry: “Good. Come see me anytime.”

I learned. I learned that teachers have to be responsible for the actions in their classrooms, and that the first line of defence is always yourself. I learnt to be a self-reliant teacher, not because I couldn’t run to the office with a problem, but because Terry trusted me to be able to solve most of them myself, and that is true leadership. When I had BIG problems? He was always there.

I would send a kid to the office for swearing, insubordination, aggression, whatever… and Terry would appear at my door asking for details, asking what I would like to see happen, asking if I was Ok.

Terry never actually said: “Are you Ok?”

He would just make a joke, be a presence, address the issue. I always felt better after.

I saw Terry every day in my classes. He would make the rounds, saying hello, coming in … quite often in the middle of a pivotal moment when we were talking about the sex lives of the characters in a novel… and often staying for a few moments to talk to the kids. Terry knew everyone. Their dads, their uncles, their grandparents. He would joke with them, random moments of connection and kindness, and then move on leaving the class sometimes bewildered, sometimes laughing, always aware that Heavy D was at the helm. I usually address emails to Terry as “Dear Mighty Leader”, because he is.

You can always count on Heavy D. The kids knew it, and the teachers knew it. Even when times were tough, I always knew that Terry would pull us through.

I have seen Terry support his staff through tragedy, through scandal, through loss, through difficult times in the community, through difficult times with the education system, through difficult times in our personal lives, and the lives of our kids.

Make no mistake. Your kids are also Terry’s kids, and our kids, and Terry loves our school.

“I Love This School!”

That has been his motto and his catch phrase, for the past decade and beyond. I have heard Terry Doucette’s booming voice, even when my door was closed, even on the bleakest Mondays of a school year, walking through the halls declaring to the world “I Love This School!”

One kid would shake his head and mutter: “He’s so weird.”

Another would grin: “Heavy D is awesome!”

He started every September with that statement, and he ended every June with it as well.

I have faith in our new administration. I know that LRHS will merrily chug along, and that we will continue to love the kids and struggle with the kids and worry about the kids… but I am going to sorely miss Terry Doucette as my principal.

I will miss the high fives, miss the hunting conversations before the morning bell, miss interrupting his lunch in the cafeteria with a question or a request, and especially miss his presence in the hallways making kids smile, or cringe, and being the heart of our school.

Terry Doucette loves this school!

And this school loves you, Mr. Doucette! Happy Retirement!

 

Smoked chicken, anyone?

This is what a Bradley Smoker looks like: It is a machine of bliss and deliciousness. It delivers smoky goodness to turkeys, chicken, deer, fish, cheese, brisket… digital, state-of-the-art, a smorgasbord of delight! I bought ours for My Love two years ago… for about $500… and we’ve been happily smoking ever since.

This is what our Bradley Smoker looks like today: Did a feral deer run amok and torch it with a flame thrower? Did a salmon explode from within? Did I accidentally set the time to “ERUPT”, instead of “smoke gently”? Nope. I just tried to smoke a chicken. Chili rub. Butter under the skin. Whiskey briquettes. Like I’ve done fifty times in the last two years.

KABOOM.

I was happily working on the back deck when a cloud of dark smoke billowed over the roof of the house. The acrid scent of burning wires wafted on the breeze. “THE SMOKER!” I screeched to the weiner, who had been drooling for the past hour, anticipating the dripping delight of chicken skin in his slavering jaws. I… ever the paragon of calm… raced around to the front of the house. Now, I know you’re not supposed to smoke chicken inside. Smoking inside is forbidden. But I did place the Bradley Smoker just inside the open door of the two-car garage attached to the house. The garage door was open, there was breeze, there was air-flow.

KABOOM.

The entire garage was filled with dark smoke, and flames were leaping through the cracks in the door where the plastic seal used to be. I fully expected the neighbors, the fire department, an ambulance and Satan to come waltzing down my driveway at any moment.

“Flames,” I said calmly, to myself, without screeching, flapping my arms or looking around wildly for My Love to save me. “By golly, there seem to be FLAMES emanating from the Bradley Smoker.”

The epitome of calm.

“Hmmm,” I pondered. I may, or may not, have poured myself a glass of wine and meditated for a few moments before I rubbed my chin thoughtfully in contemplation of the dilemma. That’s just how calm I was. “There are flames shooting out of the smoker, AND MY SUPPER IS IN THERE!”

It was this consideration of my gastronomic necessities which galvanized me to action. I am almost ethereally calm in the face of crisis. Just ask my children. Totally panic-free, that’s me.

Did you know that there are instructions on fire extinguishers? Quite handy, actually, the instructions. If you’ve never used one before, and the smoker in your garage is in imminent danger of explosion, and you can’t find your glasses and the instructions are written in text small enough for only fairies to read… very handy. Did you also know that fire extinguishers have about enough extinguish-er inside them for… oh… 2.5 seconds of hopeful pfffffffffttttt-ing in the face of Flaming Death?

“Haha, Leaping Flames of Death! I shall smite thee!” I crowed.

I aimed the extinguisher.

Pffffffttttt….fftttt…fttt…tt…

Flames. Lots and lots of flames.

I meandered calmly around the house to the hose. I did NOT run frantically, knees and elbows akimbo, screeching “WhatdoIdo? WhatdoIdo? WhatdoIdo?”

No, no, no.

I did NOT almost rip my knuckles off unscrewing the hose, then heave it trippingly around the house, then burrow wildly through the obstacles in the way of the garage faucet to attach it, all the while thinking: “My Love will KILL me if I burn down his house!”

I did not do any of those things.

I think I actually hummed the refrain to “These are a few of my favorite things” whilst I retrieved the hose.

You know how Charlie’s Angels always look so sexy when they aim a gun? The wind blows back their hair, and their boobs are perfect, and there are explosions all around them but they calmly just take aim and make shit happen?

 

I aimed the hose and blasted that motherfucker. My hair is too short to blow back, and my boobs are almost fifty years old, but there was definitely an explosion. Shit happened. The door blew off.

KABOOM.

The fire went out. The smoke billowed.

The chicken, in its blackened chili rub, crawled out of the wreckage and gave itself up on the charred altar of What-Was-Once-A-Smoker.

I staggered out into the driveway, coughing, wondering how the Angels ever kept their makeup so perfect, and pondered what we were going to have for supper.

I texted My Love: “We’re not having smoked chicken for supper.”

I did NOT cry a little. I did NOT return to the garage and blast that smoking beast with a second flume of retribution, just in case. I did, however, chase the weiner away from the charcoal carcass of chicken that was limping desperately toward the compost bin.

When he got home, My Love hugged me and told me that I smelled delicious. Like smoked chicken with a hint of burn.

We had salmon for supper, cooked in the oven, sans flame.

This, believe it or not, is a product review. I will probably post it on the Bradley Smoker website. There seems to have been no reason for the conflagration, but it definitely smelled electrical rather than appetizing. I am minus one smoker, minus one chicken and minus some of my ethereal calm with which I meet all episodes of smoldering drama in my life.

I definitely did NOT, at a critical moment in the above scenario, consider closing the garage door and wrapping the offending holocaust in a blanket to smother the flames. Because that would have been stupid.

When in doubt… go for the hose.

KABOOM.

The LannaThai Kitchen

My Love doesn’t like to be called Mr. Sexy Pants, in public.

I don’t understand. I mean, it’s totally flattering, right?

But, apparently, when I tell a lovely young waitress that she can address him thusly… he seems… uncomfortable. Go figure.

Brittany, the lovely young waitress, asked if she could just call him Mr. S.P., and I thought that was a great compromise. My Love? Not so much. But…this is exactly the kind of delightful, accommodating personal service you will experience at the LannaThai Kitchen, in Bridgewater, NS.

It’s a Thai Restaurant. In BRIDGEWATER. They don’t serve fish and chips. They don’t serve burgers. They don’t serve hot sandwiches drenched in thirty litres of dark gravy… if anyone wants me to review a restaurant that pours dark gravy on everything, I am totally on it, but This, is not That.

Curry, baby. Oh, baby, show me the curry!

The LannaThai is new. They’ve been open for less than a month in an amazing transformation of the old library building on King Street in Bridgewater. Where once books lined the walls, and silence ruled the spaces in between, there is now bustle and hubbub and sweet chili sauce and lemongrass and tamarind, oh my!

The original brick walls have been preserved, and the woodwork around the windows and doors, but now the rooms in the back which once housed whispering librarian offices are bright and fragrant and shining with stainless steel and glass noodles. There’s a bar with a funky blue glass countertop, and you can see the incredible busy-ness of the Asian kitchen through the windows that line the back of the dining room.

My Love ordered Red and I ordered Green Curry, after the spring roll appetizer. He would have preferred some meat in the Spring Rolls, but this is a man who wraps everything in bacon, so he must be given some elbow rooms when it comes to the vegetarian dishes. I found them crispy and light and the sweet Thai chili sauce was just sweet enough to make you want to soak up every last drop.

The curries come with a dish of rice, and your choice of protein: beef, chicken or shrimp, and you can choose mild, medium or hot. The servings are ample, and the flavors? Delish. My Green Curry had a just enough coconut to make you want to drain the bowl with a straw, or smear it over your body and lie in the sun to complete the digestion process. My Love’s Red Curry was hotter with just a sniff of squash and basil to give it body. They were both delicious, and if we were to go back we could order the same dishes with a different meat choice, and different heat option, and have a completely different meal. Don’t be deceived by the short entrée list, there is plenty of variety in its brevity.

Our server, Brittany, was a delight. She weathered our questions with patience and charm, and I kinda want to introduce her to my son, just in case… but my son says I’m not allowed to do that anymore. He says that he can find his own girlfriends, thank you very much Mumma, and that asking cute young waitresses how many children they want is not a good idea.

Hmmph. Whatev’.

We will go back to the LannaThai. The entrée menu is not extensive, with only six options available to date, but with the variety of meat choices and heat options, the possibilities are endless! Next time, I want to try the Khao Pad, because I’m not sure how to pronounce it and that’s got to mean that it tastes fantastic!

How wonderful it is to find an ethnic restaurant nestled in the bricks of the old town which exudes the energy and pulse of a city dining establishment, without the extravagant cost, and without the impersonal service which sometime characterizes such restaurants in bigger centers.

I was delighted with LannaThai. Personal, delicious, throbbing with vitality and flavour; I think everyone should go. Ask Brittany what you should order, but maybe don’t ask her how many children she wants to have. She will call your date Mr. Sexy Pants though, if you tell her that’s his name. Just make sure he thinks that’s OK first.

Here is an article about the LannaThai in Atlantic Restaurant News.

And here is a link to the Lanna Thai website where you can view their menu.

 

 

 

 

Dad Bods and dogs

I spent the weekend surrounded by wet dogs, dead ducks, a thicket of camo… and Dad Bods.

“Dad Bods, man. They’re like, a thing. And we got ‘em!” This, from one fifty year old to another, his voice rising to an adolescent squeak. “WE… are sexy!”

“We’re… sexy?” His friend’s reply hints at a lost world, a distant fantasy, an impossible dream. “You and me are… sexy?”

Beer mugs are raised. Stomachs are scratched. Prurient possibilities are pondered.

Wives glance at each other.

“Yeah. I’m tellin’ ya. Google it. Dad Bods. We got Dad Bods and we are hot.”

With so much sexy going on, it was hard for a girl to focus this weekend at the Cape Breton Retriever Club Hunt Test. Luckily for me, and the several other women in attendance, most of this tantalizing man-flesh was so fully covered in camo that we were able to restrain ourselves from overt demonstrations of lust. Phew. Thank god for camo.

A Hunt Test is an event where dogs proceed through a series of increasingly challenging retrieving tests, advancing from Junior, to Senior, to Master Hunter with each successful pass. Each level includes land and water retrieves, moving on to blind retrieves and quarter flushes as the dogs proceed in their training. It’s challenging and exciting, and I usually get to sit out in the field as a thrower, with a bucket of dead ducks at my feet, allowing me an unobstructed view of the Dad Bods as they bring their dogs to the line. Even in the deepest camo ensemble, I can pick out my man out at 200 yards.

   

Oh, hello there Mr. Delicious. Would you like me throw a dead duck for you?

That, my friends, is true love!

This weekend was the very first Hunt Test for the CBRC, and they outdid themselves with hospitality and organization and good times. There was lobster. There were mussels. And somewhere, under the camo, under the several decades of manhood, there were muscles. The Dad Bods were the icing on the cake.

Or something like that.

This is, of course, completely unfair. The corresponding Mom Bod was not discussed. Imagine two women poking each other in the belly as they affirm their newly reclaimed middle-aged sexiness. Why are our sagging bodies not bringing sexy back? Why do we not revel in our advancing age and expanding middles? It’s Mars and Venus, baby. And never the twain shall meet.

Retriever Clubs seem to be male dominated, but the bright flower of womanhood flits around the edges of this testosteronic world. There are several female trainers in our circle, and wives and girlfriends basking in the glow of their partners’ animalistic sexual magnetism.

Or something like that.

But it’s mostly the boys, and the dogs, and the sun and the grass and the odor of dead duck on the breeze.

As for the girls? At the end of the day, if you can pick out your man from the camo shrubbery, and if the dog has been successful, you get to take home a ribbon and a hunk of man flesh to play with. Peel off those layers of camo and see what all the fuss is about.

Dad Bods. So sexy.

Or something like that.

(Many thanks to the Cape Breton Retriever Club for an awesome weekend!)

Write with your toes!

I have attended various wonderful Writer’s Workshops over the years, delivered by authors who talked about their writing, shared some tips and tools, and encouraged people to develop their skills and share their stories. Sadly though, two or three weeks after the event I would find myself once again slumped against the keyboard, weakly tapping the keys and trying to remember what it was the author had said about metaphor… or character arc… or plot points… searching in vain for the sheets they had given out, trying to remember if I was supposed to write without plotting, or plot without writing, or plot and write simultaneously or just pour a glass of wine and go back to dreaming about being a writer, which is something I’m quite good at.

Most of those Workshops were built around the development of a skill… creating metaphor, show don’t tell, writing engaging dialogue… and while these are all vital skills in the writer’s tool box, the reason I mostly forgot what we had practiced at the workshop was because those particular skills didn’t directly apply to the struggles I was facing with my Work-in-Progress at the time. Knowing how to build a metaphor wasn’t helping me get my character out of the parked car I’d written him into, because for some reason there was parrot on the old lady’s shoulder and someone had to get shot because I wrote up a gun in chapter three. Understanding character arc wasn’t helping me walk away from the unfolded laundry and my ipad crossword app and sit my own arc in the chair and write.

I wanted to attend a Workshop that would offer me helpful ways to write myself out of the holes I seemed to constantly write myself into. I wanted suggestions about how to write that pivotal scene where the guy recognizes the depth of his loss, or to create ways to make my writing viscerally real, without being disowned by my family. I wanted help placing myself in the scene to write it like it’s actually, believably happening and not just some lame fabrication of my overworked imagination. I felt that these problems were more immediate than the challenges of writing good metaphor, or following the steps of the Hero’s Journey like a blueprint for success. Someone famous once said that you should write the book you want to read, so I decided to design the workshop I wanted to attend.

But this ain’t no workshop!

The word “workshop” conjures up images of burly workmen putting all the right pieces in place and banging on them long enough to make a final product.

(Burly workman. Yum. You’re welcome!)

I’m quite fond of burly workmen, but it takes more than elbow grease and the right tools, held together with rivets and tie wrap, to build a novel. Writing is not a workshop.

This… is a Fling! Drum roll, please.

I want you to have …a Fling… with Writing that will stick with you, like that time in high school when the hot guy danced with you and you can still smell his cologne if you think about it really hard. Or the time you puked up tequila for half a day after an ill-advised beer-pong challenge took a turn for the worse and now a whiff of Patrón makes you wince. I want to leave you with something you can reach back to and dig out the pieces and apply them to your writing, no matter how stumped, frustrated or hung over you are.

In designing this… Fling, I brainstormed what my own personal problems were with my writing, hoping that I was not shivering alone in the bleak and lonely landscape of the fiction writer’s desert where there are sentences, sentences everywhere and a not a word on my page. Or something like that.

(My Work-in-Progress is quite often a Work-in-Procrastination. Or sometimes even a Worrisome-Incomplete-Painintheass.)

I narrowed it down to two core components.

Motivation, and STDs.

Yes, STDs. We all have ‘em, we just don’t like to talk about ‘em.

Specific Technical Difficulties. Nasty little contagions that make for crusty writing and sticky prose. I’m talking about bad grammar, weak plot lines, bland description, repetitive narrative, lack of imagery… the list goes on. We’ve all been there, but hopefully we’ve scrubbed off our writing and are able to rise above the scourge of Specific Technical Difficulties which make our friends cringe every time we hand them a new manuscript to read.

In my experience, my Specific Technical Difficulties are directly tied to the other branch of my writerly problem, which is motivation. If I am motivated, running hot, writing drunk (as Hemingway suggests), my STDs fade into the background and I stop staggering over sentence construction and the three pillars of good storytelling and building metaphor and bla, bla, bla…and I get the words on the page.

It’s the Circle of Life, man. If your writing is weak, your motivation sags, if your motivation sags, your writing gets weaker, if your writing gets weaker… suddenly you’re folding laundry and cleaning out the pantry and plucking your eyebrows, anything other than sitting at that hateful keyboard feeling useless.

Bottomless sadness ensues.

My hope is that by compiling some of my own experiences with teaching and writing in one little book, and by sharing a day of lighthearted writing, you will find something useful, handy, inspirational or at least mildly entertaining to help move your writing forward.

We’ll start with a few challenging writing ideas that spark the fire, followed by a few idea-generators that will help you write yourself out of that sticky hole you typed up five pages ago and can’t spell your way out of now. And I’ll share some quotes and resources I have found particularly helpful on my journey as a writer.

And there will be rules! Limited sharing time. No talking during lunch (but you can write!). Limited forced writing time. If you are here, it’s because you love to play with words, you hope to publish something, and you get inspired by talking about the craft you love.

I hate wasting time. I don’t want to waste yours. I want you to be exhausted when this day is over, on the verge of tears from the writerly abuse, wishing you’d chosen ornamental horticulture as a hobby instead of writing… and I want you to go home and feeling excited to write.

 

And you get to keep this funky little book, so you won’t forget what we did.

It’s gonna be great! Please contact me at libbybroadbent@gmail.com to register.

So… Write. Now.

Oh… and my credentials? I’ve been an English Language Arts teacher for over ten years, I’ve written three novels, and I have a wiener dog. The wiener seals the deal!

(And oh… why “Write with your toes”? Because if that’s all you had… your toes to write with… you would value every word, you would celebrate every sentence, you would pour your whole self into your writing because it would be such a miraculous effort. It should be like that EVERY time. From your sole.)

 

Untold miseries. Except, I’m telling everyone.

 

“I am suffering untold miseries.”

This is what I said to the cute little pharmacy guy, moments before I bared my leg to his unsuspecting gaze.

Poison. Ivy.

It’s not called Mildly Annoying Ivy. Not called Slightly Itchy Ivy.

POISON. Ivy.

From the fangs of Satan, himself.

Poison Ivy turns your life into a Gauntlet of Gore. A Pestilence of Pus. An Obnoxiousness of Ooze. An Itchiness of Insanity. I could go on.

I have it on my knees. Both of them. And there are now some suspicious looking itchy spots on my arms that I am hoping are just fly bites. Fly bites are a mild tooth ache compared to the root canal of poison ivy.

It’s on the inside of my knees, so when I walk, it itches. When I wear pants, it itches. When I breathe, it itches.

My Love… a veteran of Satan’s fangs, himself… keeps saying, with the deepest sympathy: “You’ve got it between your legs.”

“It’s on my KNEES, dammit! IT’S NOT BETWEEN MY LEGS!”

He chuckles. What a funny guy.

“IT’S ON MY FUCKING KNEES, I TELL YOU!”

I sleep with the wiener curled up against my stomach… not my Love’s wiener. He’s keeping that as far away from my oozing wounds as possible… Jeepy Jeep, the Wonder Wiener, sleeps beside me and at one point last night he put his little wienery snout on my knee.

…There is nothing wrong with rubbing a wiener violently against your leg, making groaning noises and weeping a little. Don’t judge, until you have had the Pestilence of Pus devouring your flesh like the burning fires of a witch’s fingers with the only satisfaction being to excoriate your skin with whatever comes to hand.

It spreads, the poison. It spreads and blossoms across your meagre flesh, leaving a trail of blisters the itch of which can only be eased by nails, sandpaper or a rusty saw.

I can’t wear pants, because of the itch. I can’t wear shorts, because of the unsightly ravaging of my flesh. I can’t sleep. I can’t walk. I can’t talk about anything except how itchy my knees are.

My wiener keeps giving me deeply disturbed looks.

My Love regards me sympathetically… from a distance.

It’s a disaster.

The cute little pharmacy guy, who was kind and earnest and clean-looking, took a step back from my bared leg, the blight of my plague revealed under the glaring grocery store lights.

“Wow… it’s right there. Between your legs.”

“It’s on my KNEES!”

He took another step back, eyes furtively scanning the shelves for analgesics, sterilizing creams, bear mace.

“So… it, um… itches?”

“Like FUUUUCK!”

There ought to be a law against using profanity in the general direction of cute little pharmacy guys. People should be arrested for the use of unwarranted profanity. Or at least be given a rusty saw to put themselves out of their misery.

I’m going to spend the next week in a vat of oatmeal.

At least it’s not between my legs.

IT’S ON MY KNEES, OK?

I’m going to find a rusty saw.