I recently reconnected with an old friend. We knew each other at college back in the early 1970s and I wrote a few blog posts about some memories I had of the ways in which she helped me through a difficult time. Subsequently, I wrote to tell her […]
Today I was returning some clothes that I had ordered online but which turned out to be too small. Outside the nearest Post Office, parking is severely restricted because the city is prioritizing cycling. So, the only place to stop and jump out to pop something into the […]
In March 2018, I deactivated my Facebook account and I really haven’t missed it. Occasionally, when talking about something they had read or posted on there, family members have said: “Oh, I forgot you aren’t on Facebook anymore.” Otherwise, its absence from my life has been largely unnoticed. […]
My Canadian family and I are having Christmas in January this coming weekend. It’s also going to be a joint celebration with my son Jamie’s birthday. I flew up yesterday from San Jose and the journey was, like most airline travel, tedious. I arrived at the San Jose […]
It’s cold in San Jose right now, but I feel bad about saying so. At the same time as I am experiencing a northern Californian chill, my family and friends in Edmonton are living through a long and hard Albertan winter with epic amounts of snow. There’s no […]
Yesterday I went with my niece and great-niece to see Mary Poppins Returns. We all have fond memories of the original Mary Poppins movie and we were looking forward to seeing the new one. These are my thoughts on it, but if you want to experience it without […]
You know how, when you need some gift-buying inspiration, you go to a favourite shopping website and click on the options? You can select gift ideas for men, women, kids, or a specific celebratory event. Well, the people who put the products under those categories have some really […]
It was cloudy and rainy yesterday when Jamie and I left San Jose, but by the time we got to Capitola it was sunny and bright. The town had very kindly arranged for everyone to have free parking until Christmas, and we were lucky enough to find a […]
We have arrived! This has been a long day, but I am glad we started out early. We left our hotel in Winnemucca at 7 AM and arrived in San Jose at 5 PM. It is a distance of about 415 miles (668 km) but it involved driving […]
Today we drove from Idaho Falls, Idaho to Winnemucca, Nevada, which is roughly 445 miles (716 km). This is a long unexciting section of the journey with very little to look at. The most challenging part was making sure I didn’t run out of gas during the hundreds […]
Today we drove from Shelby, Montana to Idaho Falls, Idaho which is 441 miles (710 km). The roads were bare and dry, the weather was good, and there was very little traffic. We listened to more episodes of The Strange Case of Starship Iris and Dear Hank and […]
Today, Jamie and I began our trip south for the winter. Jamie is keeping me company, managing all the electronics, reminding me to eat, and generally making the time go by much faster than it does when I do this alone. We drove from Edmonton Alberta to Shelby […]
I am now fully recovered from the fall I had last spring; my hips feel good and my wrist is working well. There are only a few minor issues to remind me of the pain and drama, but I can live with having one finger that doesn’t bend […]
[The following is the third part of a story I began here and continued here.] In 1971, after I had left my marriage and moved in with a college friend, Nancy Miller, one of the things I had to resolve was that AR had taken off with the cheque book […]
[This is a continuation of the story I began telling in a previous blog post.] After visiting with my family in the London area, I applied and was accepted into the college that had been recommended to me by my brother-in-law Jim. Consequently, AR and I moved again […]
The other night, just as I was falling asleep, I found myself remembering the woman who came to my aid in 1971. I was standing at the side of a road with my suitcase and my mother’s sewing machine, waiting to be picked up by a friend from […]
My mum was really great as a homemaker and as a post office clerk. I wish she was still here to take over from the woman at my local Canada Post office. She would have dealt with the needs of the young Vietnamese man ahead of me and […]
Yesterday we had two bikes stolen from our garden shed. One bike was expensive, one was not. Regardless, I’m upset. We are good people who live good lives. We work hard, pay our bills, and we don’t take what doesn’t belong to us. Most of the time we […]
I had a bad fall while on vacation in California and needed the help of my family to fly back to Canada. I broke my wrist and fractured my pelvis, and have written about it in this blog (here, here, here, and here). My experience in negotiating all the […]
This is a conversation I overheard today after a woman greeted a man she knew on a bus I was riding: He: Hey! I haven’t seen you in ages. How have you been? She: I’m fine. I just got out of jail. How are you doing? He: I’m […]
I am a snowbird who travels south for the winter. When I get there I have a bird of paradise plant on my patio.
