Humour – Page 2 – Cynthia Reyes

A Good Home, Canadian life, Couples, Family, Family Moments, Humour

To Make You Smile – A Bit of Foolishness

December 10, 2015December 11, 2015 Cynthia Reyes

I’m not talking to my husband.

The problem is that I can’t remember why.

“How can you be mad at a person and not remember why?” he asks in disbelief.

“I don’t know. I just know.”

Which makes about as much sense as holding a grudge for something you can’t remember.

“Did you have another dream?”

There was the time, long ago, when I dreamed that a woman flirted with my husband.

I woke up the next morning and was very upset with him.

“Was she pretty, at least?” he asked.

“This is not a joking matter,” I replied huffily.

“But why are you blaming me? SHE was the one who flirted!”

“Well, you were probably encouraging her!”

“So you’re blaming ME because some woman flirted with me — in a dream?” He asked.

“Yes!”

“But it wasn’t even MY dream!” he protested.

“That’s no excuse,” I pouted.

Now, what the heck had he done this time? I couldn’t remember.

It wasn’t because of The Case of the Missing Ski Sock.

Although, I was pretty mad at the time.

“Are you sure you didn’t put my sock somewhere?” he kept asking. “That’s my expensive ski sock.”

So of course I went looking. Hours later, I’d completely re-organized his very messy closet – but still no sock.

He had learned early on that if he accused me of removing his keys, pen, wallet, cell phone, socks — you name it — I’d go searching till I found the darned thing, right where he had misplaced it. But it took me decades to catch on. Decades. Yes, I’m really that daft.

Now, if only I could recall why I’m mad at him this time.

How can I forgive and forget if I can’t remember?

Dedicated to all loving partners who con their spouses into finding things they’ve lost — and to the loving, crazy people they live with.

A Good Home, Book lovers, Books, Canadian life, childhood mischief, Great books, Humour

I STEAL BOOKS

April 1, 2015April 1, 2015 Cynthia Reyes

Like any other criminal, I am entitled to a defence, after all.

So before I confess, let me say this in my defence:

It’s not that I plan to steal books.

It’s not even that I mean to.

But, somehow, I steal books.

I have been an obsessive reader since early childhood and it continued throughout my life.

I read everything.

The newspaper.

The dictionary.

One summer when the school library was closed and I had run out of things to read, I even read the Bible.

Someone must have dared me. And, being very smart, I didn’t realize that some bets shouldn’t be taken.

You have no idea what it cost me. Two years before, I’d decided that I was an atheist.

The kind that half-believes in God at night, in the middle of a furious storm.

But an atheist nonetheless.

I had hardly begun, when I got to the begats. They nearly did me in. Jacob and his wives begat dozens of children who begat dozens more children and when I woke up the next morning, they were still begetting.

Reading the begats was cruel and unusual punishment and I had no-one to blame but myself.

I imagined that God was having a great laugh.

If I believed in her, that is.

But I digress.

I first stole a book when I was about ten years old. It was probably a Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys mystery.

I gave it back when I finished reading and I never stole another book till I found myself at a silent convent some years ago.

“You stole from the nuns?” I hear you asking.

Yes. I stole two books from the nuns, but I did not chop down their cherry tree.

I returned the books a whole year later. And they forgave me, smiling at my extreme penitence.

But I stole a few magazines before then. From airplanes or airport VIP lounges.

Stole them and brought them home because of a great story I wanted to finish reading.

I must have felt really bad about it, because I kept stealing them.

Three in all.

Till one day my eyes caught a small sign on the cover of one magazine, making it clear that the magazines were free to customers. All three magazines had the same sign.

I know God was having a great laugh.

I’m told he’s funny that way.

A Good Home, Canadian Gardens, Canadian Identity, Canadian winter, Flowering trees and shrubs, Humour

Ice, Cold and … Flowers?

February 25, 2015April 25, 2015 Cynthia Reyes

Never have Canadians been so united in one complaint.

Our northern nation, collectively, is shocked and appalled by this winter.

There’s been a surfeit of weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth. And a wealth of dire prognostications as one cold-weather record is outdone by the next.

The most popular refrain this winter: “I’m not budging. I’m staying home.”

Second most popular: “Can’t talk right now! Strapping on my snowshoes to put out the garbage!”

We’ve become a nation of winter wimps. Yes, the hardy northern folk you’ve read about in books and seen in tourism commercials and airplane videos are no more. Gone, like the dodo bird.

That being the case, I imagine that there are robots running our schools and hospitals, driving our buses and subway trains, sanding our sidewalks, managing our electrical and gas supply and keeping our neighborhoods safe and protected. Someone has to be brave enough.

In the midst of this alarming breakdown in our national character, my friend Jean sent me photos of flowering cherry trees and rhododendrons and azaleas.

You’d never believe where they are from.

Give up?

The west coast. Vancouver. Canada.

Really.

Scenes like these tend to cause a serious breach in relations between east coast and west coast Canadians. How can one part of Canada be enjoying bloomin’ trees and shrubs in February, while the rest of us are freezin’ our tails off? It hardly seems fair.

But I, for one, am thrilled. Thrilled that one small part of this country is blooming.