2. Realize you still need instructions
and grab cardboard from recycling bin.
My scanning eye stops in its tracks, and I go back over it, in slow time. When confused, I find it’s best to go back to the point just before the confusion, if I can.
1. Throw away this cardboard sleeve
and the plastic cover.
OK, that’s clear enough and about what I was expecting. Next!
2. Realize you still need instructions
and grab cardboard from recycling bin.
Yes, I read it aright the first time. Continue reading
I feel like a cross between Garrison Keillor and Mr. Rogers: It’s been a busy week or two in the neighbourhood. That’s “neighbourhood” defined as the extended circles of family, friends, and acquaintances.
Sad, you know, but there it is. To be expected, surely. After all, they were both old, “old” being defined as anyone at least 15 years older than I am.
But there are other goings-on in the neighbourhood.
We’re in that zone. Forget the old: People close to our age are getting sick; some are dying. And so we make the hospital visits, contribute to the designated charities, and attend the funerals. Continue reading
How many times have I turned this puppy over to wash its bottom?
A few, anyhow.
Turns out the face is on the bottom.
I love bath time!
Bringing up the rear (after the white and the pink birds), the little blue heron. Ta da. And an even littler one on the way.
A wise friend told me to do something I enjoy today, this being my birthday.
I can’t say that I enjoy doing pushups and planks, but I do enjoy making videos. This one marks the halfway point of my six-year project to be fit(ter) at 70.
It’s getting a bit creepy, isn’t it? Everywhere I look: Faces! And even if I don’t look — maybe especially if I don’t look — they pop out at me.
Here’s the two-faced USB connector from my phone charging cable.
Having reviewed Florida’s white birds, I had a pink/blue decision to make.
Pink it is.
Today.
And just one pink and black bird.
Defenders and attacker.
Where am I?
Ah, the joys of middle-of-the-night bathroom trips on the road.
After three months in Gilbert, my subconscious knew where I was: not at home, exactly, but in a familiar place. But as we work our way east to the birds of Florida, we’re in a different hotel every night; indeed, a different chain every night. This requires a lot of my middle-of-the-night brain. Too much, really. Continue reading
Do you want to wear
your pink pyjamas or your blue pyjamas?
This diversionary tactic might not work on today’s savvy preschoolers, but it worked on my cohort, I think. It also sorta sums up the parenting wisdom from my extended family, even if I didn’t execute it perfectly:
Going to bed now? Not negotiable. What you wear? Entirely up to you, kiddo. Continue reading
Posted: 2025 Jun 21
Thanks to John Whitman for this slightly dismayed face from downtown Ottawa.
This space is available for other submissions.
