2021 Posts
K as in Knight
January is pretty much always the same. Dead Christmas trees get kicked to the curb. The tenth batch of turkey soup arrives with only a fraction of the enthusiasm that greeted the first. And we’ll spend countless hours we’ll never ...
A Former Librarian Repents
The other day, I did a walk-up curbside pick-up at the library to collect two books I borrowed for my English 1002 course. Although there was only one copy of each in the library, they were easy to reserve and, ...
Cat Scratch Fever
It has come to my attention that I am not the only household harbouring criminals. There have been two usurpers prowling in the backyard lately, a gray tabby and a calico. Henry oversees all of this from his perch on ...
From Russia, With Love
There are ghostly cat paw prints on the floor. You have to look at just the right angle to see them on the hardwood, but when the sun comes in through the sliding glass kitchen doors, like it’s doing today, ...
Marching Forth
April is supposed to be the cruelest month, but in fact it’s March that deserves that crown. At least in these parts, April doesn’t regularly erupt into spontaneous snow squalls and spawn northwest winds that fling the snow shovel across ...
Just the Fax
This important news item may have escaped your notice in the past couple of weeks, and I completely understand why. There have been many news-worthy things going on than journalism space to recount them. Some prince and his not-good-enough-to-be-a-princess wife ...
English as a Second Language
If you visit this blog regularly, you may know that I’ve been taking university English courses. For fun. If you visit this blog regularly, you may also know that I have a supremely misguided notion of what constitutes fun. Just ...
Wait a Minute, Mr. Postman
This tweet came to my attention the other day. As you can imagine, there are several things I take exception to with @JoyAndDefiance’s post. First, did something happen in the email-universe in 2017 that I am unaware of? I should ...
Suburban Status Report 20210502
The thermometer outside my bedroom window fell to its death on the patio below the other day. I am not sure if it jumped or if it was pushed. I must admit it was not the most accurate temperature measurer, ...
Country Comfort’s any Bus that’s Heading Home
As you may know, last week the Greyhound bus had its last victory lap. No canine rescue happening here. No bucolic retirement pasture for the hound, that, truth be told, I have called horrible. Even though I steadfastly maintain I ...
Cottage Status Report 20210610
The good news: the hummingbirds are back. The bad news: the racoons are back. It is possible that I aided and abetted the latter because of my method of composting, which involves flinging vegetable peelings over the deck railing into ...
Going Viral
I agree with John McAfee. Actually, let me qualify that. I do not agree with John McAfee that Russian roulette is fun for the whole family. I do not agree that poisoning your neighbour’s dogs is a appropriate way to ...
Let it be
There is an article in this month’s Vanity Fair about a movie that’s going to be released on Disney+ in November. It has been salvaged from reclaimed footage of the Beatles’ final live appearance, filmed while recording the tracks for ...
State of the Union
About a week ago, the mayor of Toronto, the premier of Ontario, and the prime minister of Canada announced that the decade-long renovation of Union Station was complete. I was not there for the ribbon cutting, but I would guess ...
Stupid is as Stupid Does
In my own defense, I am far from a Luddite. I have been paid lots of money to tell people what technology they should use and why. However, I am a practical person. I do not need new gadgets just ...
Cottage Status Report 20211030
The goose migration is finished. Although they do, of course, fly, I cannot imagine them being classy enough to leave from an airport on even the most discounted of discount airlines. Geese must leave from a bus station, after they ...
Suburban Status Report 20211130
When I lived in Cabbagetown (a completely non-suburban place, in fact about as urban as you can get) in a row house with a Victorian exterior and early 1990s interior (which was perfectly fine because it was the early 1990s ...
In Which an Audiobook Gets Born, Sort of
The room is about eight feet square, with baffles on the ceiling made of foam that looks like upside down egg carton innards, black acoustic panels on the walls, and grey industrial carpeting on the floor. All of this makes ...