Day 5 of the 2-week novel

Day five

I have left Lilliput and Brobdinag, and cut out all the useless marinary exposition of the voyage up until now. I have taken stock of my supplies and realize that my progress has been much hampered by the curious worlds that I have been stuck in the last 5 days. I must get to the world of my job soon, or face persecution back home. My fellow explorers have been cruising at a much faster velocity than I, and I must forge ahead. I am only at 3000 W-ords out of 10,000 W-ords. For posterity, a W-ord, is a unit of suffering based on the number of hours spent idling on the boat deck divided by the number of mangoes a person eats, times the efficiency of paddling, divided by tangent boat trips to cute little islands.

I see an island coming up soon - I think this may be the island of novelisk, whose main centre of commerce, Chapterisk, I shall visit soon to see if I can trade my empty candy bags and scraps of paper for a conversation with their queen. They have probably never seen such things before, and I shall chuckle as they are awed by my trinkets.

Notes from work

The complimentary bar during a 50th wedding anniversary - we are like a receiving line for people entering the ballroom - except their hands fly out not to be received warmly in mine but to clutch a freezing gin or caesar.

At the end of the speeches, the couple whose anniversary it is goes up to the mic. After the wife finishes thanking people the husband puts both arms on the podium and says, "I really have nothing to add that hasn't been said already. But I've been thinking of how we got here today. It was because fifty years ago, I pulled a boner."

The voice is uncanny

Is his opening not a little too biblical?

I love the fake roses with thorns

When I got to the photo studio, the lady behind the country took $10 from me, cloaked me in a shirt and robe, and left me in the lobby next to a styrofoam faux castle front. Would this be a background option? My photographer was a skinny pregnant woman who had to shake the camera to get it to work, and spoke to me like I speak to the birds sometimes - go like this - yuh! and this - yuh! move back - yuh!

She positioned me into all the unwanted positions of a political opportunist, a sleazy banker, a baseball player up to bat, except instead of a bat, I gripped a bundle of roses - why was I leaning forward like this? If university had done anything to me, it had permanently mutated my posture. Now, when I graduate, they attach me to a rack. "Little smile!" said my mousy photographer. "Now say money!"

It occurred to me for the first time today that I have a bachelor of English and I'm employed in my field. For the benefit of all people who sounded sincerely sympathetic when asking me about my degree, "Ugh huh, and what are you going to do with that?" I want to say to them,

never condescend to a writer.

Some of you familiar with my job may counter, but Laura, this is a contract job that isn't even full time. Do you suppose you'll keep landing contract book jobs the rest of your life?

I have already thought of that. The book will obviously turn into a franchise, and I am numero uno yes-woman for selling trinkets from our fictional world. Not only that, but I'm going to contact Pepsi, to see if they're interested in a product placement in exchange for letting us have our meetings in Hawaii. Fair is fair.

Think of it: "As Cody toyed with the idea launching his revenge, he remembered that he had something in his back pocket - a Pepsi. Sweat dripped down his arms and face as he splashed the liquid bliss into his parched mouth. Yum."

Tai chi twister, GMO ninja fish, martial arts kid slot-machines - the possibilities are endless. Journals of Wu fake newsletters to encourage kids to keep reading. Can you see how I am bursting with altruism with the thought of all those bouncy spent-thrift children? It makes me never want to sleep.

Working on the farm isn't all bad

Canada Day.

The Touracos elaborate meals I like to call Sundaes.

The work of Cole, when I'm not home.

Asparagus!

The evil bird.

Return of the Jetter

(Photos now posted below)

So the computer on the acreage doesn't have a place where I can plug in my camera, so the before-and-after photos of the bird mauling will have to wait a day.

Unfortunately.

I called McMaster's to re-book my grad photo appointment, and told the girl that part of the reason was that I had bird-claw scratches on my face. She thought that was very funny.

Well, probably my relatives aren't going to want photos that look like I was clawing myself in frustration during my last year of school. It's true, but not everyone wants the truth.

My guests and I spent Canada Day evening lying in ambush behind the tomato plants in the garden. I came out to tell two of my guests that dinner was ready and was greeted with a SHHHHH! and saw Jason doing a military elbow crawl between the asparagus while covered in a blanket. The bird was perched on the fence next to the shed. It had been hanging around all day, terrorizing the cockatiels, flying around the yard, and eating stawberries from the garden - whole strawberries. Julia and I had cornered it in the garden at one point, hoping to throw a rug-heavy blanket on top of it to immobilize it. Another time Moni almost grabbed it with her bare hands. Moni is courageous. She grabs birds with claws all the time at the zoo.

We eventually gave up and went inside. We were all extremely tired after the chasing.

This morning, I went to collect eggs from the chickens and guess who was in one of the empty cages that I left open?

Mr. I-don't-like-family-life.

The trick now is to convince him to go into a little cage so that I can move him into his home cage. So far no luck, but at least he's right next door. I guess he wants shared custody and some visiting hours.

Before

After

My eye is a delicacy

I blame it on my vanity. I stuck my head into one of the Touraco cages, hoping to get a photo of me and my bird friend who likes to stalk me through its cage. I got one photo of us both but you couldn't see the bird's head, and I didn't like what I looked like. So I tried again. That's when the photo shoot became more like an Alfred Hitchcock film. The bird gouged my eye as though rehearsing King Lear, then bounced onto the lawn while I yelled Agh! Agh! Agh! like a bad horror movie actress.

Rewind now to the owners imparting advice before they left. I could hear their voices now, saying, "And if a bird escapes, just..." and that's when the fallacy began. If a bird escapes it's never 'just' anything. This bird wanted vengeance. Why? I've fed you, talked to you, loved you... and here you are tearing the heads off pansies while I stalk you at a distance with a wire grate over my face. My eye... oh god, it stings. Is it bleeding? I don't want to touch it; my hands are so dirty.

Rewind again now to last night as I fell asleep. Wouldn't it be great to get a photo of myself with a bird? Man, that would make me look so tropical! If only I could open the cage somehow. HA HA HA, boy am I silly. The bird would fly right out! I better not do anything stupid. I should have an extra cage outside in case it tries to escape.

Back to the present moment, I watched the Touraco and wondered if it had evolved much since pre-historic times. Probably not. It did not seem any tamer than a pterodactyl, a name given to it by a friend of mine after I tried to describe what it was like. It's a goddamn pterodactyl. It's trying to maim me. I didn't cause the mass extinction that killed your buddies. Lay off the vengeance.

But Laura, why did you choose to take a photo with the most aggressive Touracos, the ones that have chicks?

Well, my friend, I am addicted to unsuccessful risk-taking. I love to barely have my life together. Everything must be pulling at the seams.

For this particular assault on reason, I now look like Scar from the Lion King. Soon, I'll get to say things like Be Prepared with authority and foreboding.

The bird had flown into a tree. I found a large cloth of some very soft material, about a metre wide and 8 metres long. The escaped bird seemed to be trying to attack my feet, and it forced me to dance a jig as I positioned the ill-shaped catching-cloth to bag it. I almost had it under the cloth. It went crazy! Like a struggling salmon in an eagle's grasp, the bird's claws tore at the fabric.

And then it escaped.

It flew back on top of its cage. Its partner scolded it, and told it to come back inside. It wouldn't listen. It needed space, it said. The kids, the home-life, it's too much. I'm leaving.

Perfect. Now I have to mediate a domestic dispute. Where did this go wrong?

Let me see. Probably when I was like WEEE I'm a ditzy girl! I want a picture with the birdies! That picture isn't perty enough. I want another one. OWWWW ! MY EYE!

I'm so afraid of that pterodactyl that the only way I'm going to get near it again is if I wear Lacrosse goalie equipment with a net-stick. That sounds great.

The bird is gone. It's doing its early fatherhood crisis manly golf-fishing trip to reconcile pre-chick life with post-chick life.

I'll be reconciling pre-eyelid-scar life with post-eyelid-scar life as I send out this post.

PHOTOS