Glenn Kubish

Happy end of the week, y’all! Once a week,   I try to notice three things that made me happy or grateful, as a way to remember to notice things that make me happy or grateful. This week, under the spell of México:                                  1.   The oilers   We are back from the carnival that is México, a country where the virgin is still a topic of passionate conversation.   “So to cook eggs with extra virgin olive oil: cold frying pan. Cold extra virgin olive oil. Put your eggs on it. Set it on your stove. Set it at the lowest setting. Walk around. Make your coffee. Five to ten minutes later, your eggs will be done perfectly. Your oil will not smoke. And you will have great tasting eggs and great tasting olive oil.” That was Victor Gutierrez, the patron at the Finca Luna Serena olive oil farm (and pickleball courts) outside San Miguel de Allende, where Shelagh booked us a vis...

  From our vacation hideout in México, here is episode 88 of the Three Things podcast.                                  1. Estaciones en el sol ☀️ Route 45 into the city from the Guanajuato Airport was not where I expected to come across Terry Jacks, but there he was in our little Kia Rio as it shot through the highway dark. Our driver, Fernando, explained that he didn’t understand all of the words, but he loved playing the music. The three of us—me, Shelagh, our guide, fixer, translator, friend and boxing explainer, Sheryl—represented the 1970s and Canada to the best of our home range. I remember being consciously aware of my suddenly unsophisticated music taste the first time I heard somebody trash the song. I liked it. I still do. I thought, and still do, that the hills that we climbed were just seasons out of time was clever. The songwriter is saying the season of childhood is on the clock, an...

Happy end of the week, friends. Once a week I try to notice what I noticed made me happy or grateful, remember it, and then record it. So the noticing equipment doesn’t completely calcify. This week:                                 1. Flash of time   Placeline: middle of summer, Delwood, northeast Edmonton, 1978. I was 14 years old. Boston’s second album was still a couple of weeks away from landing at A&A Records in Londonderry Mall. What was there to do? Well, Edmonton at that time was about to host the Commonwealth Games. There was a new LRT line downtown. The Queen was staying at the Westin Hotel and would, the former Edmonton Journal reported, walk out of the hotel at such-and-such o’clock on her way to an evening function with so-and-so important people. I grabbed my camera and caught a train downtown from Belvedere Station.   The Kodak EK100 Instant camera, which emitted a snapshot from ...

Happy end of the week, y'all! From Edmonton, where August’s average high of 26.5 degrees C, call it 80 degrees Fahrenheit, was the second warmest since 1880 (thanks, Chris), here are three things that made for some happiness or gratitude this week.                           1. This time of year   There’s a lot going on. Young people are going back to school. Canadas are in test flight mode. Tomatoes and cucumbers are coming off the vines as gardens descend into ruin. The sun sets before midnight. It is a letting-go time. It’s a tuning-in time. Every pitch and every swing matter in baseball. U.S. Open tennis is on its two-week off-Broadway run under the lights. (I would cancel my sports cable channels if it wasn’t for live sports. That’s not quite true. When Ken and Ivanka on Sportsnet are on their game, they are worth extra bucks a month. But the big voices from the big desks, the swirling music and the hit-me-in-the-...