Written Whilst Awaiting Groceries

Normally on Saturdays, our grocery delivery is around 9 am, but with the long weekend, we didn’t have that option, so here I am waiting for Metro to deliver our groceries in the afternoon.

We woke up and remembered we had more time until delivery so I went back to sleep due to my sinus pain and Charles rewatched The Theory of Everything, the biopic about Stephen Hawking. He had the sound on and I fell asleep. I sleep through almost all films and tv shows, so that my experience of them is just a little bit here and there.

I am still happy after yesterday’s lovely long visit by a dear friend. We drank some of the remaining chocolate chili chai tea, which was divine and left its chocolaty aroma in the compost bag overnight. I had made a playlist for C’s visit, but had forgotten to put it on, as the three of us became immersed in our conversation right away. The mark of a good friendship is an ability to carry on a conversation as if in the middle of it, not having to engage in small talk.

As frequent readers of Amanda Thru the Looking Glass may realize at this point, I make playlists a lot. For this playlist, I wanted to focus on girls and friendship. I included songs from Leanne Betasamosake Simpson’s wonderful album Theory of Ice, Joni Mitchell, Tori Amos, Girl in a Coma, Girlpool. 38 songs running over 2 hours. It will serve as a reminder of our time together on Good Friday.

It is good to have friends over, and it’s been some time since anyone was here. When I turned 41 many years ago now, Charles and I had a 14-hour open house party which ended at 2 a.m. with an old poet who was poured into a cab after sampling some of our scotch. From time to time we would have friends over for dinner, but we haven’t done so since before the pandemic. It’s something I might like to do again some day.

I have a forthcoming procedure at the Montfort on Tuesday: a sigmoidoscopy, which is like a colonoscopy without all the purging and fasting. I have only 9 inches of colon left since my near-death health crisis. That 9 inches is my sigmoid. I had a sigmoidoscopy ten years ago and it’s time I do so again, for cancer prevention and also because my family doctor is concerned in case i have a twisted bowl. Last year I was in the General’s ER twice in the summer due to bowel obstructions, part of my life post health-crisis/colon removal and small intestine reattachment, but she thinks we should check to make sure. I now have an endocrinologist who I met with in December and she’s the one doing the sigmoidoscopy. The Montfort is the only hospital in Ottawa that I have never been to. For this procedure I only need to do two enemas before leaving the apartment, so Charles and I went to the drug store this morning to pick them up. Charles has a photographic memory so knew exactly where in our local Shopper’s these items would be. Thankfully, they are in the same place they were a decade ago.

Years ago when I was taking one of rob mclennan’s poetry workshops at Collected Works, a bookstore now defunct, afterward we hung out at the Carleton Tavern. I remember one particular fun night where we made a lot of enema puns: “The friend of my enema is my friend,” etc. You can groan now!

After the enema purchases, we went to Massine’s our local grocery store to pick up items that were cheaper there than through Metro. Massine’s has some good meat sales on over the holiday, probably due to its being closed two days this weekend and not able to move as much product.

En route home, we stopped into the Art House Cafe for coffee and a nanaimo bar. Double shot Americanos! We chatted for some time before repairing home.

Charles made one of his delicious omelets, a bacon and calabrese omelet with jalapeno peppers and a bunch of veg and cheese. I did the dishes and now we are sitting here awaiting the arrival of the groceries.

Things we have not done yet: showered, my fitness class, Bywords work. We have the luxury of time. Nowhere to be until Tuesday’s excursion to the Montfort.

Post-Script: the groceries arrived.