Glenn Kubish

Happy end of the week, y’all! Here are three things that made for a little, okay, more than a little, happiness and gratitude.                            1. Hope and feathers   Stockboys at   IGA glanced over at him as he stood there near the eggs, feathers still fluttering free from the gash in the right sleeve of his winter jacket. A little girl pushing one of those little shopping carts pointed at him and was gently hushed by her mother who would likely explain later in the car that it’s not polite to stare at strangers. The object of this attention was my friend Darren, the intensive care physician. He had set out for the grocery store on his bike and had taken a wooded, downhill route, misjudged his position or his speed or his age and smashed into a bristling spruce tree. Like an opponent’s spear levelled in a joust, the branch knocked Darren off his mount, slashing his puffy armour and lacerating the ...

Happy end of the week and happy Folk Fest is back (more about that next week), friends. Here are three little things from my life that I noticed I noticed made me feel happy or thankful. Three Things, episode 81:                                  1. Flowers   There are days, like last Monday, when my angle on things is obtuse enough to let me make believe that I am underwater, that all of this is underwater, that the sky, as I ride my bike, isn’t as much the sky as the top skin of the ocean stared up at from its asphalt floor. The illusion is enhanced by the flow of automobile traffic that carries along the leviathans of the road, the delivery trucks. Pickups emit inky exhaust. Motorcycles dart in and out of their lanes, rapidly. Boulevard trees sway like seagrass.  Sea anemone, downtown Edmonton At the front of a yard in Glenora, a bee floats through the thin stems and the tiny bell-shaped flo...

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 is this week's Three Things podcast (5:27): I use this list to gently force myself to do a better job noticing the things I notice that make me feel a bit happy or a bit grateful these days. Because, these days. These days can make you feel obliterated. Maybe that's the play. Anyways, I don't have the words, the personality or the stomach to make my stand in the anger arena, so, as my friend Fish points out, I go micro.  This week micro sounds like:  1.  Snap! The wind was King Lear wind and it brought the curtain down on the mountain ash tree in our front yard in Parkview where it had stood and served for more than 50 years. Spring after spring, the tree was a public house for travelling waxwings out to drink in a bit of the shiny, new world. In summer, it gave us cool shade. In fall, the tree plugged into an invisible electrical current, and glowed. In winter, the red berries held tiny mounds of snow to resemble the hats of so...