I still remember the tin doll house I had as a child. My parents eventually got rid of it, and of course, like hordes of other baby boomers, I spend my time looking for a replacement, so I can revisit my childhood.

So when I was sitting in the misty rain at a country auction, wondering what the heck I was doing there, everything became clear when a Tin Doll House from the 1950s came up for bids. I was so excited that I bid and bid. I bid against myself. The auctioneer finally said, “Madam, you are bidding against yourself. Could you please not do that?”

My wild bidding against all competitors (including MOI) resulted in my ownership of a rather wonderful litho painted tin doll house with a pile of pink and blue furniture to furnish it. I imagined setting up a corner of my house with the doll house, a child’s table, a few select teddies and bunnies and perhaps some vintage children’s books and teacups. This was before I was reminded that my house looks like an episode of Hoarders and there is no space, anywhere, to create this wonderful montage, an ode to childhood lost and regained.

To my great shame, that dollhouse has been buried in my basement for over fifteen years (protected by a cloth, so I am not totally irresponsible).

As I embarked on a project to clear my basement by selling on Kijiji, I unearthed the doll house, took wonderful photos, and posted it. The bright side of all this, is that the dollhouse is now worth more than what I paid. Not a fortune, but at least I don’t feel like a total idiot.

If only I could figure out how to add a photo to this post, you would see how wonderful and jolly this 1950s memento is.

As it is, I muse on how I searched long and hard to find something that was a reminder of my childhood, and then totally neglected it for years.

Could somebody please buy this doll house?
Linda

I love making lists. Every night before I go to bed, I make a list of the tasks i hope to accomplish the next day. Then I grab another note pad, and prioritize that list. Then I grab another note pad (all of them are cheery florals or witty sayings, like ‘you can never have too many shoes’) and make another list. By the time I have expanded all my lists into household, career, creative, financial and personal, my kitchen table is littered with note pads.

The downside of this, is that, for some of us with many obligations, there aren’t enough hours in the day to get through these lists. About a week ago, I felt a moment of despair, realizing that I had accomplished maybe one tenth of all the items on my LISTS, and was able to use a big pink felt pen and cross off only a few. This is no way to end a day. So bad for the self esteem.

Then, I had a brilliant idea. Instead of starting the day, say, a THURSDAY, with a list of things to do, I would instead go on my merry way. And, at the END OF THE DAY, I would make a list of THINGS TO DO ON THURSDAY (just before I went to bed on Thursday) and carefully note everything I had accomplished, and then, with great self-satisfied flourish, run a big pink or red felt pen through it. And go to bed tremendously pleased with myself.

I think this is a brilliant idea and that I should patent it for all disorganized people like myself.

On to today’s list!
Linda

This is a great day to think about all the blessings we have, living in Canada. People have nice manners, and are generally kind and good. We have a health care system that works, despite some glitches (okay, like 8 hour waits in ERs). We have clear skies, good roads, and generally speaking, government with integrity. I may rant about reduced government funding for CBC and the arts, but I am still grateful that I actually manage to get some dough to do my work every now and again, and that I have a wonderful publisher (Heritage House Group and TouchWood Editions) who are still in business, malgre tout, and who are committed to Canadian authors.
I like being able to see a nice mountain or a Mountie every now and again. And being able to go to a nice, clean, friendly library.
Most of all, I am grateful just to be a Canadian. We may be dismissed globally as being nice (or so I am told) but we are still NICE, and there is nothing wrong with that.

I recently found this wonderful book, How To Have a Life Style, by Quentin Crisp, in my basement, amid the boxes of 20 year old National Geographic magazines and obscure poetry books. I then discovered, after an internet search, that it is a relatively rare book. Not worth pots of money but enough to make me want to hold onto it.

How nice. A rare book. It made me feel as if I had really good taste. I don’t need to call up any of my friends and read them passages, because just about everybody I know already has a very nice lifestyle. And mine isn’t too shabby, either. More shabby chic, in fact.

I then had a fleeting and totally crazy idea that it would be great fun to became a rare book collector, maybe even a rare book dealer. I already saw myself with a pince-nez and a velvet carpet bag, touring estate sales with a list of rare authors in mind.

Luckily, reality gently smacked me in the face, like a old paperback Dashiell Hammett.
a) I already collect enough things and am trying to unload, not collect more.
b) Books are heavy. I would end up hunched over like Quasimodo if I started carrying bags of books around. If I am going to collect anything more (NOT THAT I AM) aprons or handkerchiefs would be a more sensible choice.
c) I am an allergic sort of person and would probably spend more time wheezing than reading, if I did acquire any nice old dusty books.
d) I already have enough unread books sitting around my house in stacks.
and finally
e) for pete’s sake, I have publishers waiting for three books right now! I should be writing, not fantasizing about collecting rare books.

This so NOT How To Have a Life Style….

When I was in my basement last month, something made me take an uncharacteristically objective look at it. I am usually a head in the sand sort of gal. Staring at the boxes around me, I began to feel as if I were in familiar territory. It reminded me of something. Something. What was it?
Then it hit me. I felt as I were the star of an episode of HOARDERS. Upstairs, I pretend to lead a civilized life. But my basement is a shameful reminder of how low a person can sink, once they just start throwing boxes and papers and doodads and old toys and records and menus from favourite restaurants and mismatched curtains bought at a clearance table around.

Such was my shame at this new view of my clutter, that I decided to book at a table at the flea market, pronto. HA. Silly me. There is a waiting list of people eager to rise at 5 a.m., and haul 20 boxes of junk to a big, noisy room so that they can be insulted and harassed by strangers who want to pay twenty five cents for a twenty five dollar item. (I have worked the flea market in my youth.)

Luckily, I then discovered Kijiji (which apparently means ‘village’ in Swahili), the online buy and selling site. What’s not to like? I don’t have to get in the middle of the night. I don’t have to lug heavy old boxes. And I can sort of keep to myself.

I promised myself that I would list an average of three items a day on Kijiji. I taught myself how to transfer the photos from my little Canon to the computer (a major achievement for a Luddite) and have now managed to post over 100 ads.

So far, so good. A number of charming, interesting, and on occasion, somewhat unusual people have shown up at my door. I have started to keep a journal of my Kijiji people. I think I might get a book out of it. (After I finish the next three books that I am already committed to with publishers.) And I have cleared a little path in my basement.

However, I do notice that Kijiji, which relies heavily on email contact, seems to invite a lot of people who have never learned basic manners. And by manners, I mean consideration of others. I think the anonymity of email gives some people the feeling of carte blanche regarding keeping their word. I find it sort of rude when a person says, “I will be there at noon” and then you never hear from them again. Okay, maybe they were eaten up by a tornado. But surely just before the funnel swallowed them, they could have sent me a text???

I was also bewildered by a man who showed up with two toddlers to look over the old tools in my garage. I realize now the toddlers were just a ruse, and that he had probably rented them from the nearest day care, hoping to pull the wool over my eyes. Which he did. I thought he must be decent. He has cute children. He works for a government agency, for pete’s sake. I should have shown him the door when he started pulling open drawers without my permission, and then, when he manipulated his way into my basement, grabbing tools right and left (which I had told him had sentimental value and were not for sale). I told myself that somebody this desperate, obnoxious and disrespectful would surely pay big bucks for the privilege of buying from me. HA. He beat me down to a minimal amount for what he took, conveniently forgetting that he had pocketed three 1950s tape measures, until I sweetly reminded him.
All this was a lesson to me. There are delightful, lovely people one can meet, selling on Kijiji. And then there are the boors and borderline criminals. I just hope those little kiddies recover from the experience of spending the day with a crook and that their real parents can undo the harm.

The plus side, for me, of course, is that this gives me another murder victim in the next Lulu Malone mystery. Now that should be FUN!!!!!!

I had practically given up on The Killing. It’s just too hard on the eyes to squint at that darkness (somebody please give the producers more of a budget for lighting). Of course, I know it is supposed to be atmospheric. And I frequently have to turn on MUTE on my remote so I can see the text of the dialogue because of the mumbling. And I swear, I am not THAT old!
So what a refreshment to settle into The Killing last night and find Tantoo Cardinal, a wonderful Canadian actress (who I first met on the set of Marie Anne, a Canadian movie about the early West, where we played cousins and hung around campfires in buckskin) playing a worldly hooker.
Oh my goodness, The Killing is so grim and monotone that I was just about to switch away when Holder (I think that is his name) is shown talking to a woman at the bar at the casino. And there was Tantoo! Somehow she made this grim scene so entertaining, funny, even, with her jaded reaction to Holder.
I believed every moment of her few moments onscreen. Somebody give this woman her own series. Just saying.

I am tickled pink (my favourite colour) that I am on the CBC Canada Writes website today , as part of Crime Month. Check it out.
http://www.cbc.ca/books/canadawrites/2012/05/linda-kupecek-the-comfort-of-the-sidekick.html#content
I feel sort of famous. For, as Andy Warhol said, fifteen minutes. Well, let’s think positive. Fifteen minutes this week. There is always more to come, I say.
The cute photo was taken by my friend Bill Vauthrin.
Back to work now, as the moment of fame on the CBC website is inspiring me to get back to work on Trashing the Trailer, the next Lulu Malone mystery.

I am a cheery sort of gal. I may kvetch and kvell about a lot of stuff, but basically, I am upbeat. Hey, I write comedy. I can generally find something to laugh about, even in the darkest moments. (Just like my heroine, Lulu, in Deadly Dues.) Get handed a lemon, make lemonade, I say. And if you can make people laugh while you are making the lemonade, more power to you.

This is a preamble to my rant about The Killing, a series I enjoy. Now we all know there is not a single laugh in The Killing. Not a chuckle. Not even the hint of a smile. And that is the sort of program it is, and we all know that is what we are getting into once we watch the first two minutes. I watched the second season premiere the other evening. My enjoyment of the program was affected by my constant whipping off my spectacles (I wear contacts in public, specs at home) to see if there was some sort of dark cloud on them.

Finally, I realized that the poor, impoverished producers of The Killing couldn’t afford decent lighting and had decided to make the cast and crew work in the dark. No wonder I couldn’t distinguish one character from another. I imagined the crew working with coal miners’ lights on their heads, while the cast fumbled around, trying to find their marks and not send each other flying into the dark.

This is such a great series. I think we should establish a charity fund for the producers, who obviously are making people work in the dark, and viewers squint accordingly, all in the name of atmosphere. Atmosphere is great. Communication and clarity are better, in my opinion.

Linda

Bless Esso, Bless Zellers, bless gift cards. Bless everybody who buys my books. All conflict has been resolved, and I promise that I will be a good little author and not kvetch any more. Or, at least, not for a few weeks.
Back to writing comedy instead of living it.

After my earlier rant, Esso has redeemed itself a wee bit. The manager of the station called to let me know she was trying to fix the problem with my gift card.
And (hallelujah) she was civil and pleasant.
So please, all of you who were intending to rush out to your nearest Esso station and picket on my behalf, just stand easy.

After many telephone calls today on business matters, I am somewhat astounded by how unnecessarily rude some people can be. When one person asked me about my work, I told him I was a best selling Canadian author (which is not a lie, as my first book, Rebel Women, has sold well over 25,000 copies, and is still going, like the Energizer bunny.) His response? “Well, I’m an avid reader, and I have never heard of you.” You had to hear his tone to get the true flavour of his rudeness.

Little does he know, he is going to end up in the next Lulu Malone mystery, insulting poor Lulu, who will, unlike MOI, have a snappy comeback.