Well you could have knocked me over with a chickadee feather! Maybe even a hummingbird feather. No, maybe a BABY hummingbird feather – now that's a little feather!
I was in the lunch room at work, foraging for iceberg lettuce with carrot croutons (num-num-num), when I was approached by the lovely and talented Pamela Steel who, as well as being my friend, is also the editor of the Bracebridge Examiner and the Muskoka Weekender. She's a big cheese, a femme de fromage, and while she is hilarious she takes her job seriously and would never jeopardize it just to kiss my extra-round lily white ass.
So when she asked if I could start running my blog posts as a column in the Weekender, I was gob-smacked. Suddenly I was channelling Sally Field from her infamous Oscar acceptance speech. "You like me! You really like me!"
Pamela said something like, "What's not to like?" and flattered me just enough to make me feel like the second coming of Woodward and Bernstein. She even said, "If it works out, I think maybe you can replace Arthur Black." Ooooooh...that's heady stuff. Arthur Black is a syndicated and popular columnist who has been running a column in the Weekender since, well, I have no idea but it's been a heck of a long time.
After my head-swelling conversation with Pamela I danced back to my desk and shared our conversation with my workmates, thinking they would be thrilled with my news. Well, they started out happy for me but when I said, "and if it works out, I might even replace Arthur Black," thrilled wasn't the reaction I got.
"They're gonna pull Arthur Black?"
"But I love Arthur Black."
"YOUR blog is going to replace Arthur Black? Really? Are you sure?"
"His column is my favourite thing in the whole newspaper."
"Oh."
Nobody said, "Geez, Cathy, that's AWESOME! You're WAY funnier than Arthur Black! Congratulations! You rock! You are a rocking STAR! Screw Arthur Black! Way to go!"
Nope. Nobody said that. They just made wry faces and went back to work. Like I had just announced they weren't getting paid this week. Obviously Arthur Black needn't worry about me taking over his Bracebridge newspaper crown. He is much beloved (for good reason).
Anyway. (Sigh.) I have to go through my blog posts and come up with some that are funny but aren't libellous, that don't have the feck word too many times and are local enough to appeal to a local crowd. I think that narrows my selection down to about two. Feck.
Whoops. There goes another one.
