Tag Archive | toronto

How I Became a Baseball Fan

Nov13

I would never have predicted this: the World Series made me a baseball fan, however briefly. I flew to Toronto on Friday of Game Six of the World Series and was surrounded by fans wearing Blue Jays gear. The man seated beside me was heading straight to the game to meet friends and he was pretty much vibrating with excitement, sure this was it; the Jays would make history tonight.

I took a cab to Alison’s place and when I arrived, they were of course watching the game. Sure enough, I got totally into it and began peppering Jim with annoying questions. “Do they get to bat again?” “Why is he out?” and then the most important question of all that night, “How is that a wedged ball?? It was NOT wedged!”

We went to bed greatly disappointed by the results but were sure Game Seven would be a glorious victory. We had tickets to a great play that night, called Tell Tale Harbour, written and starring Alan Doyle of the Great Big Sea. As it ended and we left the theatre people were buzzing, “The Jays are ahead 3 to 1.” We drove home in great haste.

You all know how that night ended, not with a bang but a whimper. Though I know the basic rules of baseball, having played it at Osoyoos Elementary Junior High School, suddenly it was over and I went “What happened? That’s it? It ends like that??” Jim explained it always ends abruptly. I was shocked and also surprised at my own roller coaster ride over a baseball game. Who knew?

The rest of the visit contained less adrenaline and a lot of enjoyment. I saw two more plays, attended a performance by the National Ballet, went to the art gallery, drove to a fab consignment store where I bought two things, visited Allen Gardens which is a plant conservatory, walked the ravine to the Brick Works market, and went to divine restaurants for delicious food.

Because I was there during the Toronto International Authors Festival, Alison booked us into a talk by two memoir writers, Susan Swan and Catherine Bradbury. Of course I found this very inspirational. At the ballet Alison introduced me to her friend Roxana Spicer who wrote The Traitor’s Daughter, which is a memoir.

Alison said to Roxana, “Moni wrote a memoir.” This is like saying to Wolfgang Puck “Moni makes a nice fettucine al Fredo.” I immediately did the two palms up saying “um, well, mine is self-published on Amazon, so….” and Roxana could’ve been all snooty but instead she was magnanimous and kind.

She said she has a friend who’s a published author who decided to go the Amazon route because he was tired of having to flog his works to publishers all the time.  Roxana added there’s nothing wrong with self publishing. I left there feeling quite buoyed by this nice writer.

As soon as I got home it was back to the old routine and I quickly made bran muffins for mom, baked a cake and got groceries for Osoyoos. The dogs and I drove down and spent two nights as usual, however this time for the first time ever mom said, “I’m sure you must be glad to be driving away from this crazy place.” I of course then said “no, not at all”, thinking oh yeah….

But I myself am crazy so shouldn’t judge anyone else. Imagine me yesterday, proudly mailing off my passport application, only to remember the moment after I mailed it, I forgot to sign the photos.

When Bots are Stupid

Oct30

Imagine my surprise to see that Amazon’s bots decided to write this about my book: “Customers find the content of the book wonderful and great for kids. They describe the writing style as delicious and unique. Generated from the text of customer reviews.” One reviewer had said they thought it was a kids’ book, then wrote NOT, as she read it and discovered it was for adults.

Though now I hope parents buy it for their kids because they need to learn the importance of cannabis and alcohol early in life. It’d be fun to give it to a twelve-year-old who then says to their mom, “Can we make cannabis cookies, too?” Or give it to a ten-year-old who can expand their vocabulary with four-letter words that mean ka ka.

As usual I panicked, and because the liquor stores were closed and it appeared no end was in sight, I stocked up on a lot of vodka, and some tequila. Of course, soon after the hoarding was complete, the strike was over and now I’m left with the most interesting assortment of brands. The small independent stores soon ran out of the normal stuff I buy (nice cheap Smirnoff) and so I had to take whatever was available. Fear not, it’ll get drunk. Or I will.

Great joy as I remembered my old pal Steve MacNaull from the Kelowna Daily Courier and decided to google him to see where he was. It turns out he’s now working for Now Media, and so I met him there today in their absolutely gorgeous office space on the 16th floor overlooking the lake and the autumn trees now changing colour within the neighbourhoods below.

We reminisced about the old days when he’d write articles about the government contracting business, Rucastle and Schiller Workskills. Then we talked about the fruitcake madness and how all of that went over the years. I gave him my memoir and told him to read it as I said, “you’re in it.” He immediately tried to look in the back and I said, “there’s no index, so you’ll have to read to find it.” Cagey, right?

I also baked fruitcakes a few days ago and brought him one of those. He very kindly got a knife and plate, and cut a piece then took a few photos of me holding my memoir in one hand and the cake in the other. When I saw the pictures, I was quite dismayed and said why oh why is my right eye so much smaller than my left? It’s not normal.

When I left, I asked about Now Media, and he said this story about my book will appear not just in Kelowna Now, but Prince George Now, Kamloops Now, and many other Nows. I don’t mind telling you I’m very excited about this as perhaps as we come up to fruitcake season, the article will arrive just in time to give people the nudge to buy the book as a gift for someone.

I’m off to Toronto tomorrow for a week of fun and am all packed and ready to go. Will just take a carryon for that amount of time. Actually, I took a carryon for my two weeks in Europe and when my male cousin arrived to drive me to the airport he looked at what I had and said “that’s it? For two weeks?”

Trevor and I are hoping today’s the final day of re-taping certain areas of the book that didn’t come out right. I’m willing to ignore all of the annoying swallowing just to get it over with, but there are some words that are just plain wrong and it has to be fixed.