A year ago, our drive to Phoenix generated a mental playlist based on the road itself and the towns and cities we passed by or through. This year, to avoid dangerous road conditions, we took a different route from Columbus OH on. A different route; a different experience. Continue reading
And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod,
they returned to their country by another route.
– Matthew 2: 12
Unlike the Magi, we didn’t get our warning in a dream: Ours came in a TV broadcast by a weather forecaster.
Snow! Freezing rain! Along the northern route to Phoenix!
But the general outcome was the same: We returned to our (other) country by another route. Continue reading
In 2003 and 2004 I went to Guatemala to study Spanish. On one of those trips I bought a small purse made by local weavers. It’s been hanging on the wall of my living room since 2008.
Today, for the first time, I glanced sort of sideways at it and saw a face looking back at me. Two steep triangles make the eyebrows, the squares with the W make cheeks (or earrings in a universe with less perspective) and the rest of the face goes from there.
It’s that time again. Actually, it’s a month past that time again. Time to check in on my fitness project, I mean.
I won’t say that my progress is stellar or even uninterrupted, but I keep coming back, in part because I’ve committed to doing these videos.
So, thanks for watching!
Ten phone calls made. Three voice mail messages left. Over the three days from Monday to Wednesday, I figure I’ve done my bit to make an appointment with my hearing aid clinic after receiving their message to do so. And what have they done in response? Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zero pick-ups, zero callbacks.
But on Thursday I call again, get their voice mail again, hang up without leaving another message, and calmly dial the number of the same clinic’s downtown location, even though I know each office is a stand-alone franchise operation. Their voice mail informs me that they’re closed for two days. “Yankee Thanksgiving?” I wonder, a bit puzzled. Whatever. At least I stop making phone calls. Continue reading
Doug Ford and I don’t agree about . . .
well, about anything, really.
Kathleen Wynne, the former Liberal premier of Ontario, is being interviewed on the Ottawa CBC Radio morning show. Monday night in Toronto, Conservative Premier Ford will unveil Ms. Wynne’s official portrait, as all succeeding premiers have done for their predecessors. Continue reading
landscape (noun):
3) a view, prospect or vista of scenery or tract of land
with its distinguishing characteristics either natural and/or man made
– University of Chicago
I frown out the car window at a landscape distinguished by a complete lack of distinguishing characteristics, natural or artificial. The Big Guy seems to hear my thoughts, and offers the only defence possible, commenting on the one thing that could be characterized as a distinguishing characteristic.
It’s flat.
“Flat” doesn’t do it justice. If it weren’t for the occasional windbreak (natural? artificial? both, somehow?), I think I could see my old family home in Calgary, a 13-hour drive to the left, and our current home in Ottawa, a 23-hour drive to the right. Continue reading
Her pleasure in the walk must arise from the exercise and the day,
from the view of the last smiles of the year upon the tawny leaves and withered hedges . . .
– Jane Austen, Persuasion, published 1818
I read Jane Austen more for bitingly funny commentary on human pretensions in the drawing room than for lyrical descriptions of nature, but every now and then she has a lovely turn of phrase.
. . . the last smiles of the year . . .
“What the heck is pardonment?” I hear you asking. The opposite of punishment, that’s what.
“But pardonment’s not a word,” I hear you protesting. (Aren’t you glad I got these hearing aids?)
No, no it’s not a word. But here’s the thing. After hearing “crime and punishment” all my life, “crime and pardon” sounds chopped. And here’s the other thing. What does it matter what we call something we don’t do? Continue reading
Posted: 2025 Aug 20
