In every spare moment, you have been aching to know the origin story of Lizardinlaw. I know this. Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? Oh. That's the Shadow, not me.

My little sister was diagnosed with breast cancer a few months after getting engaged, apparently publicly online, to some "noder" Brit. He had flown over to California, she had flown to England and they jumped over a damn broom. They both wrote on some weird fucking ass writing site called E2 and that is where they met.

My sister called me after her MRI. "Katy, I saw the films. One side looks like white netting and the other doesn't have any! I'll have to have a mastectomy, won't I?"

"Yes. If they look that different, yes." I am a family practice doctor. I don't read breast MRIs either. But if they look that different, yes, bad.

The British noder was Wertperch, aka Kevin. He dropped everything and flew over when Grundoon got the news. She was scheduled for a mastectomy. I flew down for the week of the mastectomy.

And met Wertperch. Now, he is a nice person, so his version is no doubt different. I felt rather like a cat that is in a strange place under stressful conditions, meeting another usurper cat. Stiff-legged and fur a bit on end, that's me.

I also felt useless. I was at Grundoon's house, here's my support, and we're sort of waiting for the big event, mastectomy, ick, on Thursday. So I needed something to do and being an introvert, I cannot talk to a stranger continuously. Yuk, strangers, and worse yet, a stranger engaged to my sister.

Luckily, my niece's room was trashed. A shelf full of clothes had fallen down and the room was rather knee deep. I am a terrible packrat, but pale in comparison to my parents. My daughter does not have the packrat gene and has been ruthless about getting rid of stuff since age 2.5. She considers me a trial. My niece has the gene.

I asked for permission and started cleaning up the room. My niece was with her father. There were lots of clothes, multiple sizes and intermixed with toys. I love toys. I played with everything and organized it. I started finding lizards.

They were the shiny rubbery lizards which probably are made of toxic chemicals and off-gas, but I love them anyhow. I made a lizard pile. A sensible person would probably have tossed them, but I have a deep silly streak that I attempt to hide when I'm doctoring. Mostly.

I made nice progress on the room and had a pile of five lizards and a frog. Now what?

The next day, Wertperch got something out of the rather full refrigerator. He pulled out a lizard, looked at it blankly and put it on the counter. Grundoon did not see this. I squirreled the lizard for later. That afternoon, he pulled out another leftover container and again found a lizard. He showed Grundoon, "Why are there lizards in the leftovers?"

"That would be my sister," quoth Grundoon, laughing. They dug around in the fridge and found them all eventually. We played with the lizards. We joked about regrowing a breast, just like a lizard regrows its tail.

The day before the mastectomy, I went to an art supply store. That night, we put vaseline all over Grundoon's chest and used casting material to make a cast of her chest. It was rather messy and funny and sad, too. Saying goodbye. We talked about making champagne glasses from the mold. It came out quite wonderfully.

The next day she was in surgery. One of the lizards came with us to the post-operative room, in a bag of potato chips. We had a very sweet kind nurse. Grundoon came through the surgery very well.

On the second evening, the kind nurse was back and a bit stressed. She'd gotten two post-operative patients at once and was running around.

We waited a bit and then Grundoon needed to call her. She came in looking anxious. "I'm feeling some swelling," said Grundoon, pointing to the bandage. Our nurse looked more anxious and began unwrapping the gauze. She took off a layer and then stared blankly at the shiny lizard on Grundoon's bandages.

"A lizard?" she said and we all started laughing. We told her about the lizards and gave it to her. Apparently it popped up all over the ward after that. A cleaning person came in and said, "Are you the lizard people?" Yes, we said, we definitely are the lizard people.

After that, Wertperch started introducing me as his lizardinlaw. We bought a hundred of the shiny lizards for their outdoor wedding and they were in the bouquet, the corsages and all over the beautiful yard. And a friend taught all the children to make long grass stem slipknots and slip them over the heads of the real lizards. By the time the reception was in full swing, most children were walking around with a plastic cup containing a small live lizard, all of whom were later freed.

With the help of Wertperch and Grundoon, I posted my first writeup on Everything2. I then was enveloped by the horrible computer electronic medical record at my job. The hospital went live with A4 in November of 2005 and it took me 3 years and two months to write a decent patient note. Tech support at our organization was nicely described by my nurse: "If there is a problem, it's a user problem." I was missing Grundoon terribly, so in Dec 2008 I returned to E2.

And that is the birth of a Lizardinlaw. Nuff' said.

Prologue:

I stopped my bike last week in front of Attic Books. In the nicer weather, they put out a selection of books, discounted, and a box of old buttons and badges, a quarter apiece. I noticed one button asking that we Help Save the Grenadier Pond Monster! As I have an interest in folklore, I bought it and investigated further.

The only Grenadier Pond appears to be the one in Toronto. Although the largest pond in High Park, it's too small to contain a creature previously unknown to science. As it turns out, there isn't even folklore suggesting the pond harbors such an occupant. In 2014, a young caiman, perhaps an abandoned exotic pet, turned up in one of the other ponds. Otherwise, all I found online was a rather silly YouTube video made by, it seems, a man and his young children, and a children's book from 1987. The badge may have promoted that obscure publication, or perhaps it connects to some now-forgotten event.

I tossed the cryptic pinback into my car. Plans were afoot to go to Toronto, and I thought it should accompany me.

What follows are reunions, intensity in a tent city, an absent tree, an encounter with the CBC and, of course, Grenadier Pond.


August 8

Since the pandemic hit I have spoken with my brother and sisters and their partners, and my brother and his wife have stopped by for a socially distanced visit in our yard. Their youngest daughter, a nurse, lives nearby and has been the only family member we've otherwise seen in real life.

Both sisters live in Toronto, and so they arranged a get-together for Monday afternoon. Timing proved challenging. They no sooner set up the weekend when my nephew found his new apartment, and would be moving into it at the same time. It's about a fifteen-minute walk from their house, so quite convenient, but they spent much of Saturday assisting with the move. He rented a truck to move his things. His sister said he drove well, as their mother "mimed an air brake."

She nevertheless found the time to make a general call to the next generation of the family who live locally and set up a late-afternoon Sunday assembly for anyone double-vaccinated who had the time. I left home with more than enough time that I should have arrived promptly for that. Traffic, the mending of highways in summer, and one minor accident (not mine) delayed me more than an hour. Driving into Toronto frequently resembles some bizarre game, minus the part where it's fun. I parked in front of their house in Bloorcourt Village and approached. No one answered when I knocked.

The door was open, so I entered and called out. No one responded. It’s a traditional duplex. Their first floor resembles the classic sitcom set: living room, dining room, and then kitchen. No one was about. I continued to the dining room and saw myself atop the table, image on a screen. Someone had set up a computer and a camera for an online meet. No one else appeared to be present.

I wondered if some mysterious voice would assign me to a mission. Perhaps the doors would lock shut and I would be provided with a life-or-death challenge before I could leave.

My nephew came from upstairs, where he'd been doing a final check of his old room. The situation came into focus.

Files my sister intended to pass on after retirement had been languishing in their garage—a storage unit, as they haven't owned a car since 2012—and the relevant person intended to pick them up that morning. He had just arrived-- delayed, like me, by traffic--and she and my brother-in-law were giving them a tour of their garden.

My niece was out on an errand. The other two who would later arrive experienced the same snarled progress: CJ because they'd been out of town, and B. because of subway repair issues. The twins are in university. B's twin sister holds three part-time jobs, and could not make it. The hosting sisters' offspring could, of course. They are, respectively, an IT guy for U of T and a receptionist for a nearby veterinarian, and training to be a veterinary assistant. Her work and CJ’s apartment also fall within a ten-minute walk. It’s all bizarrely small town for Toronto.

The camera had been set up because my other sister's son, in LA, thought he might find the time to log in. He composes music for media and has, after years of TV, videogames, and lesser-known films, achieved Grammy-voter status and his first commission to score a major motion picture. Of course, he cannot tell us anything about it until closer to the release. In the end, he texted his regrets, and the rest of us mostly hung out in the back yard.

My brother and sister-in-law, due to arrive Monday, were visiting one of their daughters about an hour away. She and her fiancé delayed their wedding from last year, pushing it back to this autumn. The other, the one local to me, announced her engagement that day.

Busy weekend.

N. lives out west with his family. We didn't expect him, though he would have been welcome.

One other niece might have come. Her current whereabouts remain unknown to us. This happens frequently. You cannot tell a woman in her thirties what to do with her life.


August 9

The siblings met Monday. We have not all been together at one time since 2016.

Two of us lacked our partners. One sister's wife was out of country, and mine has not yet been fully vaccinated, a condition of the visit (she went for a shot this week, in fact).

That visit matters to us, but would be of little interest to anyone else: pasting, presenting, prognosticating. It meant, of course, much to us. They left by the end of the afternoon. I was staying.

My nephew needed a couple of things from IKEA that he did not have time to get when he drove that rented truck Saturday. We took my car in the early evening and entered that circle of hell. He dealt with the particulars, and even managed half-price on two floor-model chairs of a discontinued make. I texted his mother with a video of glaciers moving.

The Grenadier Pond Monster, meanwhile, was stirring.


August 10

Tuesday, my final day, I planned to meet with my friend Eve, who has not been so much in touch during the pandemic. With no prompting, she suggested we eat at the Grenadier Café in High Park. "Synchronicity II" by the Police played in my head: "Many miles away something crawls to the surface..."

With High Park less than an hour away by foot and me in need of exercise, I chose to walk. The day turned out to be a scorcher. When I reached the edge of the park, red shirt sweaty, I chose not to continue on the city sidewalk to the roadway that leads directly to the Café and Grenadier Pond. Instead, I turned onto the footpaths, which I figured would be cooler with the sheltering of trees. They are, but they're also a little confusing. Fortunately, it's a popular spot, and I had no trouble finding people, most walking dogs. A woman with a pooch and tattoos pointed me the way. En route I received additional directions from a man, presumably a paid walker, who was accompanied by a small pack. I took a shortcut across Dog Hill. The dog park will not harm you.

I heard my name as I walked towards the Café. Eve was stepping out of her car.

The pandemic has been difficult to her, as it has for many Her social contacts (save when she visits her mother, six hours away) have been work and two people nearby she calls her "homeless friends." They're not actually homeless, though they’re always teetering on the edge of that. He says things like, "when you see a knothole in a tree, it's where someone shot it in the, like, 1800s." She tries to be helpful. It gives her another anchor.

After brunch we wandered the park. We lay down on a dock like the twentysomethings we were when we met and not the folks into which we have grown. We talked for a very long time, our conversation and the lapping water frequently interrupted by a maintenance worker on a rider mower doing the park lawns.

"Is he just doing the same spot again and again?" she asked me. "They must pay him by the hour."

When we finally stood up a felt a momentary dizziness. I used to get that all the time, usually stronger, until I was thirty, when I arose abruptly from rest. I had low blood pressure then. Now I'm on meds for the too-high kind. It really was as though we had returned to an earlier time.

We heard activity, a little ways off. A man wearing a sash and a bizarre, button-and-patch covered parody of a Boy Scout uniform performed eccentric actions, interacting with a gaggle of Canadian geese. A small crew followed him, with camera and mic. They looked pretty professional, though young. Then again, at this point everyone under twenty-five looks about fifteen to us.

We moved up onto the grass and watched. Perhaps, we thought, a very well-equipped group of film students? But many did look older than that.

The geese came our way, and the production followed. The director cut when they were not so far away. As he spoke with the star, we approached the crew and asked what they were filming.

I Frickin’ Love Nature is a CBC thing, mostly for their online platform, that has been running since 2019. Our host, with his Boy Scout uniform and shifting ornamentation, takes a humorous look at nature across Canada. Education with a smile.

I offered them the Grenadier Pond Monster badge."Too bad we can't use it now," she said. "Continuity. But look for it in a future episode."

I'll have to tune in, if only to see (1) the High Park goose ep and (2) if they ever use my donated button.

We spent most of the afternoon in the park, leaving only when the rain hit. Eve dropped me off at my sister's.

CJ, coincidentally, also lives within walking distance of my sister. After dinner I decided to take a short-cut through Dufferin Grove Park. I rather wish my sister had given me a head's up about the situation there: huge news in Toronto but largely ignored everywhere else.

Two tent cities have sprouted in one half of the park. One, more recent, largely consists of some First Nations people with a growing memorial to those lost and damaged by the residential schools. The other encampment first developed some time ago, some self-proclaimed activists and others simply homeless, occupying the park. They get evicted and move to another locale. Some find affordable housing. The others eventually return. They've been back here for some time, however. Relationships with the community have been strained. During an earlier incarnation of the camp in May, one man, presumably high, went after a resident with a knife. Nearby buildings complain that people have gained access and used stairwells for washrooms. People with children necessarily express concern about safety.

Partway through the park I passed a police officer in discussion with someone of significance in the encampment. A cat walked away. "Even the cat doesn't want to hear this," said an encampment bystander. As that started to escalate my cell rang.

My wife picks the darndest times to call.

I caught up with her on the far end of the park and then continued to CJ's. We talked of many things. The park short-cut really does save time, so I returned the same way. The occupants seemed to ignore anyone on the walkway, though sun had set by then and the underlit surroundings felt like they could turn menacing. I tried to look like a man minding his own business and I passed without incident. I saw one small group gathered 'round a fire, lit by flames.

They were toasting marshmallows.


August 11

I passed the park the next morning as I left. Tent city remained sleeping.

On the unoccupied half of the park, a large group of children played.

I stopped for brunch an hour later in a place where I lived for a year, back in the 1980s. Afterwards I drove by the house where I'd once rented a room. It stood next door to an elementary school, and we'd hear voices in the warmer weather, sometimes see the small bikes in the grass. One tree was perfect for climbing, I guess, if you were small, and kids used to clamber up and hang out, invisible beneath the covering of leaves.

The school closed at some point and is now a private, converted building. The half of the property that contained the yard and playground now features a row of townhouses.

The tree, of course, is no longer there.


I have a busy weekend coming up. Some version of Free Comic Book Day takes place on the 14th, and my publisher has invited me to take part in a virtual event at When Worlds Collide on Sunday. I'll be meeting with the cover artist next week and the major beta reader for "Flying Whistle Stop," a novella written to be a part of my forthcoming short fiction collection.

I've also managed some writing, and have added one more story to the forthcoming collection. I wrote it last week: it's a pocket space opera, a little over three thousand words in length, told from the perspective of the comprimari, the secondary characters.

I may have to write one day of a monster in Grenadier Pond.

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