2017 Posts
A house is not a home
Since I haven’t moved in almost two whole years, it’s time to move again. As I have mentioned earlier, looking for a place to live is very much like online dating. There are promising profiles and attractive photos but the ...
Wondering where the lions are
I somehow missed the news about the lionfish invasion of the Caribbean, which has been a thing for at least 15 years. Forget about Johnny Depp – these are the real marauding pirates. Lionfish are particularly attractive saltwater fish and ...
My friend Tony
Six Mile Lake is a lake in the Muskoka region of Ontario. I should note this location is definitely not chopped liver but certainly not the foie gras of THE Muskoka lakes frequented by Goldie Hawn, Cindy Crawford and various ...
All the colours in the world
I swear this is not related to April Fools. Indeed, if it was a joke it is far too cruel a one to be played on April 1. In case you missed the news, Crayola is retiring the ‘dandelion’ crayon ...
Doing the wave
The home version of the microwave oven turned fifty this year. Although the industrial microwave oven has been around since 1947, we did not get the chance to add it to the list of standard kitchen appliances until 1967. The ...
Sitting at the dock
I am pleased to report that the dock spider(s) have successfully emerged from hibernation. At least I assume they hibernate because surely nothing could grow that big in the few days without frost running up to the long weekend. I ...
Counting crows
I feel like I am about to become the Tippi Hedron character in The Birds – and we all know how that ends. This being spring (for a few weeks more), the birds are still returning. Although they don’t need ...
I love a rainy night
I don’t really love a rainy night except that if it is going to rain (and so far this summer promises to be a rainy one) it might as well rain at night rather than during the day. I don’t ...
Food, glorious food
I clearly have too much time on my hands because I’m pretty sure normal people’s first thought when going grocery shopping is how the store should be reorganized to make it more logical. I’m not talking about the ‘merchandizing strategies’ ...
Garden Party
Unfortunately, I have recently come to the conclusion that I like the idea of gardening more than actual gardening. I don’t know why this is only a recent revelation because the blatant indications that I am not as enthusiastic a ...
Mon pays
Courtesy of my friends at CBC radio today, I was reminded (if I ever knew in the first place) that our national anthem is a French song that didn’t have English words until 1907 and the version we learned in ...
Go for a soda
I feel guilty about my fridge and it’s highly likely that you should feel guilty about yours too. That’s because I have a box of baking soda sitting in the nether regions protecting the good name of my housekeeping skills ...
American pie
You may have missed the latest eruption of severe first world problems. If that is the case, I am happy to be of service to fill you in. It all started in Iceland, of all places. Usually Iceland is pretty ...
I hear music
You know you are getting old when you start hearing some of the music of your youth that was considered edgy at the time wafting gently out of the speakers while you are at the grocery store. I swear I ...
Yellow Bird
I was walking home the other day and saw a yellow bird. But of course there is much more to this story. I was walking home on Oriole Parkway, a Toronto street in an otherwise leafy and urban area with ...
Bon voyage
NASA recently announced that the Voyager 1 spacecraft has moved into interstellar space. This journey has taken forty years and that is merely a drop in the bucket when it comes to the time it would take to actually get ...
Bookends
When Pamela Paul was 14, she started keeping a journal of every book she read. While this is certainly what one would expect of someone who would later become the current editor of the New York Times Book Review, I ...
My friend Walter
Okay, maybe Walter Becker wasn’t really my friend but I’m guessing you didn’t spend a week with him. Okay, maybe I didn’t really spend a week with him per se, but I did spend a week at the same place ...
September, we’ll remember
We are barely into the double digits of September, but already Fall is encroaching on the final weeks of summer. I had to pick my meager crop of green tomatoes (that is, the crop was meager not the green tomatoes ...
The story of civilization
While browsing random content on the internet the other day (as one does) I happened across ‘The 7 Things You Should Never Buy at Costco’. This is a great example of prime clickbait headlining: you must use an odd number ...
Supper’s ready
It all started with dropping the lid of the slow cooker on my foot. No wait a minute, it actually all started with the idea of baked beans. Seeing as how I would have my hands full getting Thanksgiving dinner ...
Playing in the big league
Apparently, these days you can make serious money doing almost anything – especially things that have nothing to do with solving world hunger, avoiding global nuclear war, or talking some sense into the US of A. Case in point: I ...
The secret life of yoga
I first encountered yoga in the 1970s when a sun salutation was a mere shadow of its incarnation today (like for example, not involving anything other than bending from the waist and moving your arms). Fast forward a few decades ...
It’s the most wonderful time of the year
Oh dear, it has started already. Not the snow, at least not in these parts. And the Christmas music started way back before there was frost on the pumpkins. What’s started now is the annual ‘best of the year’ lists ...
Write on
I can never find a pen when I need one. And when I do locate the stash of pens in the back of the junk drawer none of them works (although technically they still all work as advertisements for the ...
The rise and fall of Barbie
No female childhood in the 1960s was complete without a Barbie or three. In the beginning, there was only one version, with long dark hair in a permanent ponytail. Of course, the permanence of the pony tail was not initially ...