Orlando

Yesterday I made an Orlando, which sounded like it might be good, but was just plain nauseating. I blended fresh pineapple with water to make pineapple juice, shook it to a foam with gin and Chambord and plunked two raspberries in the middle, drank it with a straw over ice as instructed. Perhaps gin and pineapple juice just shouldn't be combined. Perhaps I don't actually like pineapple juice. So I dumped it down the drain and moved on to gin and tonic.

I've never been to Orlando. Growing up in Alberta, we found ourselves in California a number of times, but never Florida. I like Miami, though, come to think of it - it has more character than Los Angeles or San Diego; South Beach, gateway to the Caribbean, Key West, Ernest Hemingway, and then of course there's the U2 song. We've talked about growing old and getting a condo - there or in the Bahamas. Do I still prefer the west coast to the east? Did I ever?

It's been a blur of a weekend. Friday I brought lasagna home from P.J.'s, nibbled a few bites and drank opened-three-days-ago red wine that Patrick had poured for me, then played Star Wars Lego on the Wii with Jule, the first four levels, a new file, smash smash smash and I forgot to collect coins and I forgot which characters had force and how to switch between them. Then I organized the garage for our sale, it was dusk, I stepped out into the yard, a loon in the bush, clouds thick over the house, and thought - if a bear comes along and attacks me, this could be it. I am not normally so brave. I am deleriously happy, but won't always be; it would perhaps be a fine time to die - but it was only lovely and there was only the loon, and Shadow.

Saturday having slept very little I dragged myself up from Pat's side of the bed when he brought in coffee, placed it on the new hardwood floor. I drank it while I bathed, hot and hot and hot that strange chill from my chest up the back of my neck tried to burn it away but no - it was tenacious. My blood pressure must have been two hundred. My intracranial AVM quivering. By 9:05 half our stuff was gone, all of our neighbors having called, I ate Mini-wheats in the garage, Jule entertained himself nicely. I wore my War t-shirt and my Seven for all Mankind jeans, perfumed with Off. I boiled K.D. and tomatoes. The Ricci's bought our fridge, and lingered. The Mullner's admired our trailer. Super Smash Bros with Jule, "I'm in a fighting mood," I told him, and beat him round after round, he was surprised and I had to let up. Bike ride to the Nym Lake Road, Jule in the middle did well and no cars hit us. Pat took him along to the dump and I dozed off to "pretty hate machine" in Caleb's cool bed, nothing much better in life than sleeping in the afternoon, nothing much. Then I checked Facebook. Then listened to my ipod in the bathroom and cried; an impossible dream. Then cooked spinach and garbanzo beans, got drunk on gin, and walked down the highway with a mini-cigar willing a bear to come and rip me to shreds. Then I watched Spongebob Squarepants, and repaired some torn clothes, and called my mother, and read "Arthur's Pet Business" to Jule, and put him to bed. Two episodes of "Mad Men" with Pat: Donald Draper falls apart under the strain of concealing his secrets year after year and begs his mistress to run off to L.A. with him, suddenly a weak irrational man, suddenly human.

I slept very little and this morning it occurred to me to go to church for the first time in, like, five years, take communion and check out the new priest with the African accent. That or watch "The English Patient" again. I love Colin Firth and Ralph Fiennes both - who should she have chosen? A quiet life or a violent death? - and resurrection after death, forgiveness in the form of Juliette Binoche, what a strange heaven.

Instead I made coffee, had bran flakes and strawberries, watched "Madagascar 2" with Jule (oh my God the first twenty minutes or so of that movie crack me up, Jule was in tears he was laughing so hard), made him a salad which for some reason he requested at 10:30 in the morning, fed it to him in the basement on our grand leather couch. I answered the phone for once when it rang, and talked to Patrick's sister. I looked through old pictures. It occurred to me that I don't want to read fiction anymore, but rather a biography: John Updike's, or Arthur Miller's, Grace Kelly's, Gertrude Stein's... but I didn't have any of those. I searched my bookshelves and found Agatha Christie's autobiography, and read it. Her first husband left her for another woman, and then she found Max, a younger man, an archeologist. I spent more time in the bathroom, and came to a decision.

The chill is gone now. Still can't eat, though. Pineapple for lunch. I lay down with Jule in the bottom bunk, listened to Radiohead. Caleb came home from Cub's camp, and wanted privacy. We finished the living room and hung pictures, then celebrated with a cigar, a Pom, in the sun room. I found myself able to return to U2, "Achtung Baby", thank God for Bono. I lay down under the crocheted quilt, black with blocks of color, watched the wisps of smoke as they were sucked out through the screens like skinny ghosts, up to the trees. Boiled spinach, ate a little. Red wine, a new bottle, and sparkling water. I remember the first (only) time I was in Europe, we were kids still, food stand owners would ask how we liked our water - sparkling or still - and we didn't know what they were talking about.

I want to grow up now. I want to start my second life.

Caleb slept, exhausted. Jule watched "Star Wars 1: The Phantom Menace". I blogged. It is 8:20 p.m. Patrick has suggested that I see U2 in Brussels in September, just me, we have enough Air Miles. "Waves of regret and waves of joy." I hope I can sleep.