Wendy saves the day

Want to hear about my super special day? Here it is in a nutshell:

Woke up with a headache that stretched all the way down the side of my face to my jaw, and kept it the rest of the day. So what does that mean? Do I have bed bugs or something? Do bedbugs have one enormous fist which they use to sock their sleeping hosts in the jaw?

Got to the Princess of Schools to discover I forgot my school key. Fine. Just had to canvas random staff to open doors for me as necessary. Oh - and what's this? No wonder my laptop bag seemed so lightweight. Not because I've turned into Mr. Universe. No. It's because I forgot to put the laptop in it. So now my prepared 'lesson plans' are up in smoke and I have to improvise for the day. Fine.

At the end of the day I discover that my planned visit for next week falls on Halloween day which is bad news. The school agenda goes a bit haywire for pumpkin day. By a great stroke of non-luck, three of the remaining four days that week are in fact three of the four days of the ten-day cycle which I have agreed not to interrupt with reader/writer group schedules. That leaves only Friday which is the only day of the week I personally can not do. So now I'm staying late negotiating with the art teacher so that I may come on one of the forbidden days. Luckily the art teacher is an excellent young gentlemen and we hammer out a deal. But now I'm running a tad late. I have to get home and pick up the Liberal Theologian. We have a write-in planned with the Crisco Kid.

Booting home along the highway I see by the clock on the dash that I am going to make it on time. No problemo. Except that what I didn't see on the dash was the fuel gauge which was very politely and quietly reading WAY below the red zone.

I managed to run out of gas right at an off-ramp where I could easily access the local neighbourhood. On foot. In the rain. I knocked on the window of the first house and was greeted immediately by a pair of large barking dogs and soon after by a woman who looked about as pleased to see me on her porch as she would a creeping loping undead swamp beast.

I yelled through the firmly closed door that my car broke down and could she please call me a cab. She did so.

Cabbed it to the gas station and purchased a gas can and tried to call the Liberal Theologian collect (no change or credit card) to warn her I'd be late and not to worry, but her telephone account is set to automatically decline collect calls. Fine. Let my absence be a mystery.

I arrive home exactly the time we were supposed to be at the write-in cafe. So we'll be late. Fine. On the way there, cruising down the middle-right lane of main street; a very busy five-lane affair, I spot a man stumbling backward off the curb, trying to regain his balance. He stumbles all the way into my lane, falling on his back. I'm all over the brakes and stopping just in time while Drunken Asshole #9 lies there looking at his cell phone/blueberry/whatever and while my passenger goes into anxiety attack mode.

"Call the police please," I say. "He needs to be picked up before he gets killed or else causes an accident." But her cell phone is missing from her purse.

Fine.

We make it to the cafe without further incident. And find that it is mysteriously dark inside. And also closed. Remind me why I got out of bed today?

So we go to the Mulberry; the next most obvious write-in venue and the Crisco kid is not present. Turns out that he was taking his time and was about to show up there looking for us - right after we left.

Meanwhile we picked up some Wendy's take-out and went home. And miracle of miracles: They actually, for once, got our order right.

Heh. Go figure.

Welland Ontario

I took my time driving down to Welland today, accompanied by a live acoustic Jackson Browne CD full of Browne's typical little-us-under-a-big-sky kind of songs.

Welland looked, to me, as it always does; smaller than it really is, with small houses (though more than big enough).

In the little school with little classrooms and little chairs, in the little library, I catalogued books. Big books. With big pictures; windows into worlds as vivid, rich and imaginary as our own, but each one different. At 3 the cleaning staff departed and left me in perfect quiet solitude.

I finished the cataloguing project but I will return one more day over the summer for more mundane cataloguing maintenance. There are older books requiring attention of various types.

I adore this little library and this "little" town. I sense a good-hearted simplicity here; an air of guilelessness with just a hint of melancholy. All stemming from highly subjective personal interpretation of course. My own recollections of grade-school experience are a blend of sweet and solemn.

I look forward to September; to the return of the staff - a most warm, sincere and dedicated crew. And of course it will be excellent to see again the returning grade-seven-come-eights who I worked with last year. This time around they will have a superior experience given my own learning from last year. The coming year will feature a writing group and I'm cooking up some very special surprises for them!

Leaving town I left the stereo off before hitting the highway because the truck is just developing an exhaust leak so if I must subject the locals to its grumbles, the least I can do is subject myself as well. I accelerated slowly out of each turn; zig-zagging through the neighborhood. Every street is a shelf; every house a collection of stories. People sit on porches, some of them in groups, smiling and talking; some of them alone and still-faced. To those I almost have the urge to wave.

Any town we spend some time in develops a personality it seems, and this one suits me verily. But I maintain this is mostly illusion; subjective experience. In the end every town is built of the very same components; streets and bricks and pipes and wires and human beings of every possible ilk.

It would be nice to move to Welland but in reality Grimsby and St. Catharines are more probable. Welland will likely remain a very nice place to visit.

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