TABERNAC!

That’s a French-Canadian swear, that title. You can use it to feel fancy – even swearing sounds chic en Francais.

Today it was a lovely sunny day, and I decided to take my lovely dog and my lovely daughter for a walk. I loaded Olive into her bear suit and into her Ergo (I still haven’t chosen a stroller. I just…can someone stop me please? Just make this decision for me. Seriously. I just keep discovering new options and I think I’m leaning towards a jogging stroller and I found one called a Bumbleride which just sounds deeelightful, doesn’t it and oh god I’m even boring myself but I can’t stop seriously help).

Anyway. I got Olive loaded, Gus leashed up, put on my hat and headed out. 

Oh! what a gorgeous day! Brisk and sunny and dry, we walked through neighbourhoods and I admired the flowers poking their heads through the grass and it was all bucolic and fantastic and sublime. 

AND THEN. 

Then we walked past a hedge, a regular sort of hedge that you might find bordering innumerable lawns in almost every town and city everywhere. Nothing remarkable about it. 

But hedges, as you know, are not solid matter. Instead they are little trees, with branches and leaves and – this will be important – space between these branches and leaves. Sometimes things lurk in these spaces, and because they are inside of the hedge, hidden by those leaves and oh yes, the branches, one can not see them.

And one’s dog, one’s fucking RIDICULOUS almost-200 lb dog can not see them either, GODDAMMIT.

Ahem.

So picture me, my precious infant daughter strapped to my chest, strolling along feeling like a hot mama in my leggings and my sweater and my boots, enjoying the feeling of the sun on my face, looking out over the ocean and thinking to myself, “Self, I think things are looking pretty good right about now.”

BAM! BIRD FUCKERY! A giant swarm of birds shoots out of the hedge in a giant cluster of beating wings and chirping and darting movements, and I can’t even tell you what kind of bird they were – swallows? sparrows? parrots?- because I was too busy being DEMOLISHED by my insane ridiculous fraidy-cat dog who was so terrified, terrified of these tiny little 8 oz birds that he took off. Just bolted. Like, “..tha fuck is that? Gus OUT.”. Mic drop and he was gone.

Not only did I not have time to even see what kind of birds the offending birds were, but I didn’t even have time to mock Gus, my stupid ridiculous almost-200 lb dog, for being afraid of them. Why? BECAUSE HIS LEASH WAS ATTACHED TO MY HAND. 

Where most leashes go, when you are taking your dog for a walk in the sun because you know he loves walks and that’s just the kind of person I am, GUS.

So. Birds shoot out of the hedge. Gus bolts. Gus is attached to the leash, the leash is attached to me, and I am yanked over onto my side and it happened so fast I didn’t even have time to regain my footing or steady myself ( and on what? the hedge? the bird cluster?) and I hit my left hip and my ass and put my left hand out to break my fall so that I don’t crush Olive, who was sleeping peacefully in her little bear suit unaware of this impending fuckery.

It was all a blur (I say, with a quavering voice). I hit the ground hard, and skinned the heel of my hand, and Olive’s head banged into my sternum but she didn’t make a peep and so while I was bleeding and trying to collect myself I was also frantically trying to peel back her bear suit so that I could see if she was alright.

Internets, she slept through the whole thing. And as I lay on my ass on the pavement, Gus loped back to me, (oh! suddenly the birds aren’t so scary?) and looks bashful and apologetic and my hand is stinging with gravel and tears prick my throat and suddenly I feel like I’m in third grade and fell off the monkey bars, trying to hold back tears so the sixth graders don’t laugh at me. 

When was the last time you skinned your hands? Or your knees? That stinging pinch of dirt and pavement. What a strange nostalgia. 

I wasn’t thinking this at the time though, I wasn’t sitting there on my sore ass waxing poetic about third grade. I was getting to my feet and trying to corral Gus who was now trying to do anything to avoid me because I may have screamed obscenities to him in the middle of the street. (And by “screamed”, I mean “hissed” in a sinister whisper because somehow Olive was still sleeping.)

So then I returned home, and washed my hand and left that good for nothing mongrel with Adam’s dad. The I went and bought so much wool that I may have to start selling toques and neck cowls again just to pay for it. 

How was your friday?