Elly's Diary, June 1, 2019

My daughter thought it might be fun for her to pull out items from the garage and then ask me to remember stories behind them.  She calls it the “Deep Dive Items from Our Archives”, but I think of it more like a dumpster dive.  We did another one just recently and so I thought I would tell you about it.  

I draw and colour personal greeting cards by hand.  I used to buy greeting cards from the store, but they are so expensive now, it's a lot easier to fold up paper and scribble stuff on it and pretend it is a fancy card from the store.  On the back, I put "cheep cards by Elly" and I draw a little bird surrounded by bugs that are about to attack the bird.  That way people get the joke about "cheep" plus they know they shouldn't "bug" me about giving them a piece of paper instead of a real card. I tell Elizabeth this is my own original idea and she tells me that being cheap is not really original. 

We found a doll once that I had made to look like my youngest daughter...Let me see if I can remember her name.  She is foolishly not married yet and so she reminds me of an April fool.  Right!  It's April.  I went to a craft fair and I met a talented doll maker from Jamaica and I thought, this is the perfect person to make a doll to look April.  All of April's friends are from other countries than Canada, so who better?  I said, "You need to make her looking surly and mean like a princess used to getting her own way."  Instead she made this nice doll with a April blowing a bubble.  It doesn't really look like the April I know, but she seemed to like it anyway.

I found a goofy fish sculpture hanging in a shop in Sarasota, Florida.  I was there visiting my good friend I sometimes meet with in my book club, Cathy, the woman with no nose.  She was in Sarasota visiting with her mother, so we thought that was a good time to go and visit her too.  It wasn't and that's why I have this fish sculpture.  It's in storage now, but someday I will take it out of storage and probably throw it away.  It is hideous.

I have a picture of when I was being attacked by giraffes.  I was supposed to be a giraffe feeding time, but when I saw the giraffe food I thought it looked pretty good and I wanted to eat it myself.  The giraffes had other ideas and they teamed up on me and eventually won the battle.  Darn giraffes.

On that same trip to the giraffe farm, one vivid memory I have is of sitting in a bus with seven or eight of these wonderful women.  Everyone was singing and they were soon singing songs in 4-part harmony. Even though I didn’t know what the words meant, the choruses were repetitive.  So there I was, right in there, singing at the top of my lungs with women whose lives and language couldn’t have been more different from my own.  Shortly after that there was a giraffe stampede and they broke down the fence.  I guess giraffes don't appreciate the sound of women singing.

After my split with John, I lived in Elizabeth and Anthony's basement for 6 months before finding a small townhouse.  The rumors you have heard about Anthony's basement are true.  There is a little prison down there for the children, but I tried not to let that bother me.  The little French girl isn't there anymore and my grandson, whatisname, doesn't cry as much anymore when he is down there.  One of these days, Elizabeth will give me a real granddaughter who is not French, and then I expect I will remember her name, especially if she calls her Elly.  I know the other rumor was that I was in that basement for a lot longer than 6 months, but don't believe it.  I am a woman of independence.  It was only 6 months.

I love my small townhouse.  I like to think it's on the same street where I grew up, but it's really just a few minutes walk from Elizabeth and Anthony's house.  Now THAT is definitely coming home!  Since I get all my meals at Elizabeth's house, it is home in more than just one way.  I seem to remember being a great cook at one point in my life, but Elizabeth tells me that my cooking was so bad it was a running joke for years and years. 

I am happily partnered with a man I’ve known since grade 5. Paul is a professional guitarist whose specialty is Brazilian jazz. Music is now a big part of my life as well.  And by being a big part of my life, I mean have to be careful when I walk around Paul's bedroom that I don't step on any guitars and break them.  He hates when I break one of his guitars.  And by "partnered" I mean that he still hasn't proposed to me and we don't live together or even live in the same town and he has a whole professional life I am not involved in and we see each other occasionally when we go on trips together.   In other words, I am in it for the sex.  Frankly, it is so shocking to have sex that doesn't cause me to get pregnant.  I don't know how that happened.  With John it was completely different.  Every time we had sex I got pregnant.  Now that I am in my 70s and with Paul, I never get pregnant.  It's like something has changed about me that keeps me from getting pregnant.  I wonder if there is something my mother should have taught me about that.  

Elizabeth has invested in a new office space, which is a 10-minute walk down the hill from where I live, and we will soon be able to move in.  She says it's a place where I can pretend to work all I want and not bother the people living in the other side of my townhouse.   After the bookstore, I learned that I don't want a career where I make money or have to deal with people, so this is perfect for me.  I can leave all kinds of crap on the floor and I don't have to worry about messing up the floors.  Am I happy? I don’t think I have ever been happier.  Someone cooks for me.  I get all the sex I want.  How could it be any better?  Well, if Paul proposed to me and moved in, it would be better; but aside from that.

In unmarried bliss (or as blissful as you can be without being married),

Elly