Monthly Archives: January 2018

Like images from Shakespeare’s tragedies. Freezing and frozen iguanas falling out of Florida trees because of cold and snow. Baby bats dying as they fall from trees in excessive Australian heat and fires. The unnatural craziness of Nature today.

Living through the seventies, I had more than my share of second-hand smoke. Everyone smoked and it was everywhere. I still attribute many of my worst respiratory moments at home in the ’50s to ’60s to my parents’ chain-smoking. From … Continue reading →

(The Father of The Essay Genre) “No pleasure hath any savour unless I can communicate it.”–Montaigne One key model and influence for this discursive blog has been the famous French writer who changed Western civilization writing with the first essays, … Continue reading →

(do a closeup for main titles) from Vienna always sends me scrambling for the most beautiful music I know–a 6 CD best of Strauss family set which starts playing here every Jan. 1 while the tree and decorations are up … Continue reading →

Yes, an actual hole forming on its way to blindness. This is one surgery which is a no-brainer. Why lose 50% of one’s vision by not having it or dragging one’s heels? It’s only been around since 1992. Before that, … Continue reading →

Night, night– It is left but for me to draw close the tired drapes on a cold December full-moon. To lock the frosty doors and extinguish the lights. To diminish the heat and halt all machines. To take the last … Continue reading →

There are various ‘basics’, but one I come back to more and more the past few years is that life is basically changeful, ironic, and often absurd which makes humor, survival, adaptation, and whatever forms of happiness, even simple contentment … Continue reading →

took place in little ole Spy Hill, SK when a Via Rail train froze and its 95 passengers were comfortably accommodated by the village’s firemen who took it upon themselves to provide food, entertainment, and beds for the unexpected visitors. … Continue reading →

Welcoming the new year. The biggest party animal. Peanut: the other, quieter party animal. The ‘Kids’: The Globe and Mail year-end crossword fiends. The amazing 6-year-old grandson doing 6 shape-puzzles simultaneously.

So many ingredients, so little time. Hands-on followed by mouth-on, previously called mouf-on. The first man. The last man. Dictated instructions from another room by creator, after creator imagined the man in his head. Grown-up followed instructions as directed. (There were questions of … Continue reading →