It’s pretty straightforward, actually. You can wear anything you like, although socks are recommended, and this manoeuvre can be practised, even perfected, in the privacy of your own dining room. As with everything, timing is critical. There is no point in starting before midnight. More about timing later.

There are some secondary considerations. Skidoo takes only two players, one of whom has to be an Artist. Not to put too fine a point on it, an oil painter who works on stretched canvases. The Artist’s role is to work for five or six hours rendering some sort of intricate scene —let’s say the complex reflections of a treed and snowy riverbank. For this challenge to work best, i would recommend a complete value study as well as a colour foundation of three primaries. The Artist’s last task is to take that wet canvas and hide it flat on the floor somewhere on the main floor. Many possibilities but again, finding just the right nook makes the whole game more fun. The only real giveaway will be the oily smell, unavoidable because rules demand the use of walnut alkyd oil as a medium.  Skidoo rules further specify that the Artist, whose job is now done, must immediately go upstairs to bed with Player #2 and fall asleep.

Player #2, hereafter referred to as the Midnight Skidooer or MidSkid now begins to play. Craftily pretending to sleep, he waits patiently until The Artist has departed for LaLa Land; really getting into it, The Artist might even snore a tiny bit, though only for the sake of the game. Like a ninja, MidSkid will then rise from the bed and tiptoe downstairs. Because it is critical to remain in that dazzling midzone between sleep and wake, the obligatory Dagwood sandwich must be assembled and consumed in no more than the light of the fridge.

Fortified and girded for action by his jaunty CPAP mask and undershorts, MidSkid is ready for the Main Event — the Great Slide. Undeterred by the velvety darkness, with dazzling skill and the nostrils of a cheesemaker, he locates the target and laser-locks onto it . It is magnificent! A full span of 36 slippery inches with enough width to traverse with both feet!!  Like leaving footprints on the Moon, MidSkid now ensures that his contribution to local art will be memorable.

CODA:
The Artist will spend the whole next day deconstructing the event and thinking up better hiding places. She will also conclude that it would be unkind to trump that glorious victory by bragging about having absent-mindedly plunked herself down on her wet palette just the day before. Everybody wants to be The Midskid once in a while.

When I booked the appointment for dental surgery, September seemed like a long way off.  Besides, I had Art Camp the weekend before the fateful Monday, so I could overlook the inevitable.  That strategy became untenable yesterday.

You know how they say that good things come in small packages.  So, it appears, do strong drugs.  The pink pill was miniscule.   And while I have never knowingly done drugs, I’m pretty sure I was stoned all yesterday.  Mind you, the appointment went swimmingly.  It was suggested that I go to the bathroom first, lest I find myself unable to negotiate the facilities later.  It was already too late in that I vaguely remember washing my hands with Listerine.

In no time at all I was on my way home;  even though I wanted to stay and visit some more (at least an amiable stoner), I meekly clambered into some car with a man who claimed to be my husband.   It seems that I was hungry because today I keep finding hints of snacks, the most intriguing being the gnawed vidalia onion in the TV room which was accompanied by a half-licked spoonful of almond butter.  I’m not sure what I ate with the three kiwi whose skins surfaced in the bed this morning.

My plan had been to paint all afternoon.  Thank God I didn’t try.  

Yesterday put me in mind of the best description I have ever read of plastic bags in an windy alley (there should be a special Giller Prize category for this, don’t you think?):

The sound of the plastic bags was like rifle fire.  If you watched the rubbish for a while you could tell the exact shape of the wind.  Perhaps in a way it was alluring like little else around it:  whole, bright, slapping curlicues and large figure eights, helixes and whorls and corkscrews.  Sometimes a bit of plastic caught against a pipe or touched the top of the chain-link fence and backed away gracelessly, like it had been warned. (...)  The bags often stayed up in one place, as if they were contemplating the whole gray scene, and then they would take a sudden dip, a polite curtsy, and away.  Let the Great World Spin,  Colum McCann

Today my mouth feels as if it might have been on the losing side of a brawl but yesterday it was a real blast channeling a plastic bag.

Jon too spent last week on his knees but I doubt that he was having as pleasant or interesting an experience if I were to judge by his mumbles and grunts.  He was laying a new floor in the kitchen, having finally found vinyl planks which echo the tones of the century-old quarter-cut oak floors throughout the rest of the house.  Buying it was the easy part.  Nothing in our house is standard and the poor man had to fit the planking around such things as the four legs and two pipes of the hot-water radiator.  From time to time he emerged to express his bitterness about the promotional YouTubes which show someone laying the product in jiffy-quick time in a perfectly empty and rectangular room.  As usual, his work is superb.  What it was not, nor ever can be, was fast, given the canvas he has been given to work on.

Part of the problem arose from the exposed glue strips on the edges of each plank.  Theodore, El Long-Hair, was immediately banned from the kitchen.  I don’t know why I laughed, because I was next.  You try living without access to the kitchen.  And therefore to the basement.  To get to my canvases, I had to leave through the front door and reenter at the basement stairs.  Now try it in pouring rain.

To reach the fridge, which now resided closer to the back-back-door (yes, I meant to say that), meant re-exiting and re-entering.  Now this arrangement wasn’t too bad if you ignored the wet clothes.  Being able to access stove, sink and fridge with nothing more than a pirouette is actually pretty convenient.  So we ate reasonably well on Tuesday.

Wednesday was more of a challenge.   The fridge now abutted the sink, door facing in, blocking the back-back-door.  Both of us tired, stiff and hungry, we drove to Loblaws, where by mutual assent we abandoned all common sense and bought a BBQ chicken, a weird salad with suspiciously hard quinoa seeds and a huge pumpkin pie.  Did I mention the container of squirty cream?  This was assembled in the laundry tubs and delivered through a light rain to the TV room where we watched a movie and pretended we lived elsewhere.  And there was wine. 

Thursday was an exact repeat, less the aerosol whipped cream which had somehow emptied itself in the previous 24 hours.  

It is now Labour Day and we are finally putting the room back together.  Welcome back, Sweet Utensil Holder, from the living room!  Hello Dolly Dog Food container from the dining room, and Where've-You-Been? garbage/compost/recycling container!!  

So this post is in praise not only of Jon’s work ethic but of the invention of kitchens and the food that normally comes with them.  It’s always a pleasure to paint food!

The front lawn got away from me this summer.  I had faithfully hand-weeded it over the past decade but the combination of drought and heat tricked me into forgetting that weeds (aka anything growing where it wasn’t invited)  thrive on such neglect.  But I’m on it now.  Literally.  The rains  (oh, such rains) have softened the earth and turned the lawn into a soft green carpet;  birds of all feathers come and go from the feeders and the air is filled with song.  Cicadas serenade from every corner of our mixed woods, joined by cricket and katydid at dusk.

I should explain that our over-thirty years without air-conditioning  and the resultant necessity of  open windows had accustomed us to the deafening roar of six-legged suiters trying to drown one another out from dusk to dawn.  What defines orthoptera - this insect family - is its musical ability, cleverly produced by turning one's legs into string instruments.  And what choir competitions result!

When air-conditioning “splits” became available and we could cool specific rooms without ripping the walls out to add ductwork, we closed the windows of course and the nights suddenly went silent.  You would think the absence of ear-splitting duelling violins a good thing if you didn’t know the difference.  We realized that we had loved it, for it had connected us to that other invisible web of life outside the footprint of the house, while simultaneously proving an effective white noise to cancel any unwelcome human noises.   Insect concerts, like tree frog trilling in spring,  celebrate life at its lustiest yet charge no admission.

Weeding sometimes reminds me how much I have missed this tapestry of sound. On my hands and knees, I not only listen but look, enjoying a closeup of the grass and its denizens  — a juicy red wiggler accidentally unearthed (Did you know that earthworms are not native to North America?), a tiny veronica with blue blossoms, a fresh walnut just buried by a squirrel, a wee black and white feather no doubt dropped by a downy woodpecker.  I may be delusional, but weeding is always something of an adventure.

This photo is of a Deptford pink I found one day, its scale suggested by the clover leaves beside it. Only an inch or two in height, these exquisite miniatures are nonetheless carnations, as you can see from their paired leaves and five petals with “pinked” edges;  gloriously beautiful, they manage to survive everything, included power-mowing, that life throws at them.  

Don't worry, by the way -- even if you feel a slight urge to hand-weed your lawn, it will pass.   It always does for me.