Glenn Kubish

Here’s a fact beyond debate:   it’s the end of week. Next up: the weekend. Here are three things that I noticed I noticed made for some happiness and gratitude last week. Three Things from Edmonton, episode 145:                               1. Goalies   Connor Hellebuyck, the goaltender for the Winnipeg Jets, allowed two early goals against the Oilers last week and then closed the door, as they say.   The Oilers lost 3-2, underlining what has been a lacklustre start to the season for the home squad. But enough about them. In an extended interview after the game, Hellebuyck was asked about his unique style. I reached for the remote. I didn’t need to hear again some version of “the team plays well in front of me”   or “I was just seeing the puck well tonight” or some other in the long list of platitudes for the multitudes. Before I could hit the mute button, he said this of his style. “I think ...

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....

Happy end of the week, y’all! Here are three things from that past week that for now have left behind some tracks of happiness and gratitude.                                         1. Big smiles   We filled up on beers and bar food at Towers, and, then, Shelagh and I brought down the average age at the MacEwan University pub by paying our tab and leaving. We walked up a few blocks, took the bridge over 109 Street to Allard Hall and got seats at a fundraising concert for Ukraine. It felt quite downtown-y and undergraduate-y. The pianist John Stetch was the draw. He banged out variations on J.S. Bach, F. Chopin, N. Diamond, T. Swift and S. Twain during the concert, which also featured a jazz take on Beer Barrel Polka, I think.  Stetch, who grew up in these parts, used the word “tentacles” to describe the connections re-experienced being back in his Edmonton roots. My tentacle to ...

  It's the end of the week, a time to capture three things that made my happy or grateful over the past seven days, and, before they vaporize from memory, add them to the other side of the scales. Here is this week's Three Things podcast  (4 mins). Here's this week's list. 1. Tomatoes, 2020-2021   🍅 🍅 On the ant-grasshopper spectrum of how best to live life, toward industry or toward abandon,  it’s more fun to be the grasshopper. But it’s satisfying to be the ant. And tasty. Last fall we jarred tomatoes from our container garden. Some tomatoes, some Mason jars, some time in the basement. Last week, we opened a jar to juje up a dinner of pork and rice. Standing in the kitchen, unable just to be happy, I asked the jar of tomatoes why I felt happy. A voice replied.  "Why not?" said Auntie Shelagh. "We grew them. We preserved them. They taste great. They didn’t go to waste. It’s pretty cool to grow your own food. Or, maybe, it’s just because they taste good...