Screens are Bad, Friends are Good

Two article that I wrote last week created a stir, and I was up late on both Friday night and Saturday night watching developments on social media. As a result, I slept very badly both nights, leading to a decidedly unfunny comedy of errors this morning as I attempted to get both to Mass and the late morning train to Montreal.

My parents were quiet but very helpful and possibly reflected that I need more sleep and less coffee. On the other hand, they might have been thinking, "Why is she so often like this?"

At least they couldn't have blamed my going out at night because I didn't go out on Friday or Saturday night because I was working late--ha!

Saturday was nevertheless lovely because I went to an RCIA ceremony at one of the Oratorian parishes, and then to brunch, and then visited my best-friend-with-four-children, and then, as the children were usually sedate and her father and husband were both as home, I stole her away.

"Where are you going?" demanded the boys.

"To do secret woman stuff," replied their father and I both at the same time.

The boys hated this answer, but we grown-ups just laughed cruelly.

Those children aren't allowed the internet, so I will reveal that we walked down a now-fashionable street, looking for somewhere to have a mid-afternoon alcoholic beverage.

"Where do you usually go on [this street]?" I asked my friend-with-four-children.

"Nowhere," she said.

My friend rarely leaves home now. When she does, it is only after a monumental struggle with coats or snowsuits, bags, toys, strollers or prams, and an increasing number of small but wriggly people.  I must say, though, that she was very well put together for a prison break. She wore jeans, a striped black-and-white French top and a red cardigan. She is one of those tall, slim women who still looks good in jeans after 30, even after giving birth four times. If I didn't love her so much, I would be eating my liver with envy.

We had our secret-woman-stuff drink in a Polish-Canadian bar--the bartender said it was "very Polish and very Canadian," so who am I to say it wasn't? (Besides, I seem to recall eating pierogis there on one of my visits. Also, it serves Zywiec and Tyskie. Okay, I'm convinced.)  I ordered a Bloody Caesar on the grounds that there is no more Canadian a drink than vodka adulterated with clam juice. It came with greenery sprouting out of it.

"Is that a bean?" I demanded.

"Good Lord," said my friend. "I think it is  a bean."

It was a bean. It was green string bean. Craziness!

When we had finished our drinks and our serious discussion, I walked my friend home and then took the subway train home myself. Then I sat down and, as I promised my editor, worked away at another  important story.