Glenn Kubish

Happy end of the week, y'all! Here are three things that made for some happiness and gratitude this week in Three Things from Edmonton, episode 78:                             1. Breaking news   And oops and smash! A new ecosmart 60 watt, soft-white LED replacement bulb slipped out of my hand and hit the kitchen floor. I grabbed the broom and the dustbin and swept up the debris field of miniature mirrors.  What I saw in my mind was the pavement on the 142 Street service road just past Valleyview Drive. For at least two weeks, shards from a broken bottle sat there on the road like chunks of ice that won’t melt. I had pedalled through them and around them and I had pointed them out to other bike riders, but did I stop to clean them up? The whisk I carry wouldn’t have been up to the task. The whisky glass stayed there.   And the glass might still be there if three unexpected things didn’t happen. Firs...

Happy end of the week, friends! Here are three things that left me happy or grateful this week.  Three Things, episode 74:                                             1. Pop!   I could pretend that my week was more profound than it was. But here’s the truth: what made me the happiest was replaying a clip on YouTube of the closing credits on the broadcast of the 2011 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony. On stage performing De Doo Ron Ron were Darlene Love, Bette Midler, Elton John, Neil Diamond, Leon Russell—and Alice Cooper. It’s a special bit of joy. Watch it. Dance in your kitchen. Sing out loud.   This can wait.         Cooper sporting his black grease paint while singing the “caught my eye” line. Bandleader Paul Shaffer getting reading with an index finger in the air for the key change. The delight on the face of the rhythm guitarist w...

The idea with the Three Things podcast is to isolate three things from my little life that delivered some happiness or gratitude each week. Here is episode 64:                                              1. Help from above It was a memorable week for going off script, to say the least. In a speech to NATO allies, The U.S. President said, “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power” of the Russian dictator Putin. White House staff tried to walk back that shot across the bow. During the Academy Awards broadcast, the actor Will Smith assaulted the comedian Chris Rock with a shot across the brow. The Oscars decided not to walk Smith out the back. Then there was the bit of ad lib provided by the University of Arkansas cheerleading team and the backboard during the men’s game between the Razorbacks and the Duke Blue Devils. Let me draw this up. March Madness is the year-end...

Happy end of the week, y’all! Each week, I try to notice three things I noticed that made me feel happy or grateful. Noticed that I noticed, because it’s good to try to be semi-conscious. Happy or grateful because anger and outrage, because how’s that working for everybody?  Here's this week's Three Things—episode 41 (5 minutes, 3 seconds):   1. Hauling dolly! There are days, we all have them, where you have to haul a 50-pound delivery dolly downtown and your driver’s licence is two years past its renewal date, so, putting the wheeled contraption in the trunk of the car isn’t going to work. And there are times, we’ve all felt those times, when your commitments to yourself, your very identity hang in the balance, even with mundane challenges like how to get the dolly downtown. And there are, to keep everything together, we all have them—bungee cords. I used eight bungees to secure the dolly and its handle to the back rack of my mountain bike last week. It was a spider web, a mu...

My bet is if I don’t consciously try to notice three things that made me happy or grateful each week, I’d notice only the things the algorithm wants me to notice, which would not be cool. So, I try to notice what I notice, and say them out loud. Here's this week's Three Things podcast .  1. Dough The pandemic has imprinted a few new habits on me. I wash my hands. I try not to touch my face.  For whatever reason, I have begun flossing my teeth.  I bake bread, too. Homemade bread My favorite part of baking bread happens after the stirring, mixing, beating and kneading, when the dough, in a ball, sits in a buttered bowl beneath a white tea towel, and, over the next 60 minutes, abracadabra, rises imperceptibly. And then my favorite part of the process happens, the punch down, which is what Auntie Shelagh typically takes care of. Sealed And then my favourite part of baking bread: the forming of the risen and punched down dough into shape. In one of the folds, the dough looks...

I don't mind the wind where I live. The wind reminds me I am outdoors. Air conditioning aside, the interior life in buildings, malls and automobiles is windless. The advantages of this arrangement are numberless—better looking hair among them. Outside on my bicycle working the pedals on my Rocky Mountain into a gusting from the northwest at 50 kilometres an hour, I am in another kind of place. It is a landscape of action and reaction, give and take. I feel very much a small element in a larger equation where the wind is strong enough to make demands. I make concessions. The wind hits me in the face, and I add seven teeth, switching to an easier gear to keep my legs turning at a comfortable speed. This is what gears do, of course. They help bicycle riders like me speak back to the conditions, and keep going. Keeping going is the job. Keeping going in the little picture means shifting to an easier gear to get to the right turn onto 91 Ave without grinding to a stop. Ke...