Letters from Rona / Sort by date

So there you are, a grownup with at least a couple of the following: job, mortgage, vet bills, kid. You have friends who laugh at your jokes, colleagues who ask your advice and may even think of you as their mentor. You also have a family. And when you're with them, you're not your usual assured adult self. You revert to the child you used to be as if pulled by invisible hands. At least you're not playing this game by yourself---your siblings know all the moves and share your wild delusion that someone can win this contest. [more]

It's my firm conviction that no one should call me "Sweetie" who has never shared my bed or at least a life-changing confidence, but I make an exception for Sarah, who owns one of the few stores around where it's still fun to shop. Sarah sells every kitchen gadget you can possibly imagine, plus hundreds of other mysterious gizmos you had no idea you needed---until she explains, with the enthusiasm of a six-year-old and the authority of Oprah, how a piece of cleverly engineered plastic saved her all kinds of time and trouble. [more]

It's been seventeen years since a piece of my prose inspired a week or so of headline-making fury. A Toronto Sun columnist accused me of "pathetic, whining, whacko, feminist claptrap." A radio host denounced my "evil, vile pamphlet dripping with slime." Irate callers lambasted the Ontario Women's Directorate for having the temerity to publish a 35-page booklet on non-sexist language, anonymously written by me. I've never felt more reviled---or less visible. I would read the morning paper in my bathrobe, wondering what new slurs were coming my way from people who had no idea I existed. [more]

There are moments in the life of every married couple when one spouse agrees to accept what the other urgently desires. To stay married is to learn both parts in this dance. But some compromises exact a devastating price. Zooey and Adam, a Canadian movie made for peanuts with a hand-held camera, pulled me inside an extreme marital dilemma and let me watch, squirming, as the anguish unspooled. [more]

Back when lunching with writers was part of my job, I booked a date with a humorist beloved across the land for her ability to crack people up. I was expecting to feast on wit. As it happened, I've met cabbies with more one-liners and accountants with less gravitas. [more]

When a woman of my acquaintance just happened to mention that she'd soon be boarding a plane for Argentina, I pictured her drinking malbec and learning the tango. "Lucky you!" I said. "You're going to love Buenos Aires!" Turned out she was giving it a miss. She was bound for the wilds of Patagonia, where she and three teammates would tackle a 600 km adventure race known all over the world for its rigour. [more]

There's a door to my soul that I'd prefer you didn't open. Some days I can hardly bear to open it myself. I'd rather not confront my unruly psyche. Fears, obsessions, misbegotten dreams...it's all on display, although exposing the most shameful excesses would take some serious and possibly odiferous digging. But at least I'm not alone. Do you have a fridge, dear reader? Then chances are you're harbouring a few slimy secrets of your own. [more]

I've been told more than once, by more than one exasperated person, that my cell phone habits leave much to be desired. "You must have called during Pilates," I explain. Or "The battery was out of juice." Or "The phone was buried at the bottom of my purse and I couldn't fish it out in time." My most annoying answer seems to be "You called? The traffic must have drowned out the ring tone." [more]

I used to think that to experience a totally foreign culture, I would need a phrase book and an intercontinental flight. Turns out all it really takes is a road trip through the far southern reaches of my native land, the U.S.A. [more]

An old friend of my mother's was refreshing my teacup when she said, looking wistful, "It must have been hard for you, knowing that your sister was her favourite." So it was at the time, and the memory of early slights dies hard. But I've realized not being the family darling has at least one distinct advantage. [more]

My husband was perusing these virtual letters when he told me, not for the first time, "You need a good copy editor." These would once have been fighting words. Unlike my husband, I was once a copy editor. The craft requires unflinching devotion to the minute, eye-glazing details that no one ever notices except when they've been bungled. [more]

I was not at all pleased to be dining at the Madison Bistro in desolate downtown Toledo after a long winter day's drive from Chattanooga. Hungry and peevish, we'd picked this combination bar/greasy spoon from a list offered up by our dashboard concierge, otherwise known as the nav system. Bistro, to me, says comfort food in the Julia Child tradition---none of which appeared on the menu. But there's a lot more to comfort than what's on the plate, as I was about to discover. [more]