Glenn Kubish

I try, no matter what is happening in the world, which is a mess, or in my bronchial tubes, which are, too, to notice what I noticed made me happy or grateful.  Three Things, episode 143:                               1. Weather map   I saw the weather map in a new way last week.   The visual grammar of the TV weather is familiar to all of us of a certain vintage. A personality with effervescence and expertise stands in front of a map printed with the names of local communities—Edmonton, St. Albert, Leduc, Sherwood Park, Spruce Grove, Stony Plain, and all the smaller places, too, like Veg and Whitecourt, Smoky and Westlock—and this expert, like the great Josh Classen, or the great Bill Matheson before him, narrates a story of how the meteorological forces, the high pressure systems, the low pressure systems, are vying above to make their presence felt in our little lives below. It’s mythical stuff....

Once a week I try to remember three things that made me feel happy or grateful, record them and then put them back out there on their own. Three Things, episode 84:                         1. Cutlery  The anniversary gift for 30 years is pearl. For 35, it’s coral. For 33 years together, Shelagh and I stayed with the ocean theme and treated ourselves to a seafood dinner at Sabor on 103 Street downtown. Mussels, clams, halibut, Arctic char and lobster risotto—it was a very good meal. As often happens when we’re dining out, Shelagh shares stories about growing up in the west end.  Food is evocative. For some people, one meal is connected to another and another before that. Shelagh is one of those people. There are many cupboards in her mother's bungalow. She remembers food like she remembers what she was wearing in her elementary school photos. And for the same reason.  Home-made stuff lasts. Even home-made sou...

Happy end of the week, friends. I don’t recommend ignoring the horrific news of the past week. I just think it is still somehow worth the effort of noticing what we notice that makes us happy or grateful, remembering it, recording it. Here’s my list from a tough week.                                            1. The oilers   The spit and sizzle of a couple of breakfast eggs frying in olive oil in a small pan in the kitchen last week was a good sound. I haven’t given enough thought to olive oil. We are oil-rich at our house. There’s stir-fry oil, canola oil and peanut oil. We have olive oil for cooking and olive oil for finishing. I know the difference because Auntie Shelagh has attached a piece of green tape to each bottle, and, in black Sharpie, printed the words “cooking” or “finishing” so I don’t mix them up and use the $30 bottle of Lorenzo to fry my greasy spoon eggs....

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...

A remarkable and a quite remarkable and a truly remarkable thing happened at the farmers market this afternoon. In exquisite formation, 10 American white pelicans soared overhead. I stood dumbfounded, at first thinking they were airplanes. I do this. I mean, I transpose nature into artifice, as if somehow birds resembled aircraft and not the other way around. For a few heartbeats, the creatures flew out of sight behind the old GWG Building. I ran, and they reappeared over the new museum, banking to the north, then looping back and around high over the law courts, the undersides of their wings shining as they wheeled. It was remarkable aerial performance for a groundlooker like me. Shelagh had seen the birds first. "Oh, look," she said, pointing up as we stood beside the Blindman Brewing stall. We had been talking with Nicola. "They're pelicans," Nicola said immediately. And then, after a second or two of considering the things above, she said: ...