Law of Attraction

A little experiment…
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Surprise!

Don’t you just love surprises?
Well yesterday, I got two of them.

First Surprise

I found an old friend on Facebook. We hadn’t seen each other for maybe two or three years, maybe even more, so it was nice to reconnect. I saw this guy grow up; he used to live across the lane and was friends with my oldest son.

Second Surprise

After we exchanged a bunch of messages on Facebook – news about our respective families, what’s happening in our lives these days, are we in love or not, how’s the health and all that jazz – good ol’ Éric sent me this drawing: he took my Oza cartoon, crossed her arms, and drew himself at her side. Too cool! Worst is, I had forgotten how well he can draw.

I’d like to remind you that if you really want to get in on this trip, if your Inner Kid still believes in magic, then go to Facebook and register. Once you’ve registered, glide on over to my group, Road Trip Destination Happiness, and join. That’s how you’ll get to see all the people who are on this trip – a mighty swell gang, from places all over the World. Even my dear ex-neighbour is in the van…oh yeah.

One Last Thing

Apart from his talent for drawing, Éric Goyette is an excellent guitarist, bassist and singer (rock and blues), as well as a cabinetmaker. And now that he’s back in Montréal, he’s looking for work. So if ever you need his services, please send me a message on my contact page. Thanks!

Edmond Makes His Entrance

The year 1918 starts off on a Tuesday.

The World is at war – has been for over three years – but life goes on. February 1, Russia switches from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar. February 6, Gustav Klimt dies. March 19, the U.S. Congress establishes time zones and approves daylight saving time (which goes into effect on the 31st), and on the 29th is born Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart.

April 6 – a chilly Saturday morning with lots of sunshine and a few cloudy periods – Meldrude decides to stop lying to herself and to finally face the cold hard fact: after 5 months, the baby’s stuck for good, might as well accept it, God’s will be done, she’s pregnant.

Sitting at the kitchen table, boning a pile of pigs’ feet to make the stew for supper, Meldrude cuts and stabs the meat with mounting fury as she prepares to tell her husband the news. Théodore, scared, silent, erased, who has been observing for a few weeks now the thickening of his wife’s figure, lets out a loud cough before leaving his rocking chair and rushing past the table to go put a log in the wood stove.

Meldrude stops focusing on the pigs’ feet and throws a cold, hard, disgusted look at her husband. She wants him to understand just how much she despises him for that darn Monday night (November 26, 1917, she’ll never forget it) when he came home, stone drunk, after celebrating the creation of the National Hockey League. His being sloshed isn’t what had made her mad. No. It’s the fact he had to go and ask her, all droopy-eared and teary-eyed, for a certain favour that she had cleverly managed to refuse him for a good six months – that’s how long it had been, if her memory was correct. Meldrude had felt guilty and, consequently, had given in and accomplished her marital duties.

May 2, General Motors acquires the Chevrolet Motor Company of Delaware. On the night of 16/17 July, Emperor Nicholas II of Russia and his family are executed in Ekaterinburg. July 18, Nelson Mandela is born.

When August rolls in, the Spanish Flu has become a pandemic; there are hundreds of thousands of victims across the planet. Already disdainful of all insects and microbes, Meldrude has taken the habit of spending her days in the bathtub, soaking in lukewarm water to which she adds half a cup of baking soda, three tablespoons of boric acid, a big chunk of camphor, and one quart of holy water. Every week, two gallons of holy water are delivered to her straight from Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré Basilica, thanks to her cousin Armand, a farmer living in the region, who picks them up at the basilica and then hands them to his brother-in-law who works for the railroad company and who makes sure the precious shipment reaches its destination. And so it is that on Monday, August 5, at 4:28 p.m., Meldrude has her first contraction, followed immediately by the baby who ejects himself like a trout out of a net and starts swimming, all gooey and bloody, stirring quite a mess between her trembling legs.

Once over the shock and horror, Meldrude grabs the baby – a boy – and proceeds to climb out of the tub, taking care not to get tangled in the umbilical cord. Before alerting her husband and the rest of her flock, who are outside doing whatever it is they normally do at this time of day, she has no clue and doesn’t give a hoot, Meldrude cuts the cord, wraps the baby in a towel, slips on her bathrobe, powders her nose, and starts picking at the strands of hair that are plastered to her forehead – one by one – in order to sculpt each one into a tight little curl. Tired of hearing the baby cry, she doesn’t bother applying blush, picks up the kid, steps outside onto the balcony, and there, in the bright late afternoon sun, she yells out for all the neighbours to hear, “Here’s your boy, Théo. Come take care of him!”

September 11, the Boston Red Sox defeat the Chicago Cubs to win the World Series. October 17, Margarita Carmen Cansino, better known as Rita Hayworth, is born in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Spanish flamenco dancer Eduardo Cansino, and Volga Hayworth, an English/Irish-American Ziegfeld girl. And finally there’s good news, as November 11 marks the end of the Great World War; more than 25 million people have died from the Spanish Flu in the last six months, almost twice the number of people who died during the war.

The year 1918 ends off on a Tuesday.

P.S.: The baby is named Edmond, in honour of his great grandfather, a chicken farmer who is said to have been quite a charmer as well as a thief.