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Category: Relationships

August 30, 2022Snowbird of Paradise

Learning To Socialize Again

Two years of Covid semi-isolation has been a mixed blessing. I have enjoyed feeling safe and secure but also felt myself become increasingly agoraphobic. The long Edmonton winters and icy sidewalks made it difficult to get out for walks, and my social life was reduced to visits with my immediate family and increasingly rare meetups […]

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April 16, 2022April 15, 2022Snowbird of Paradise

Contentment vs Happiness

When I was chatting with one of my singularly remarkable sisters who has recently become single, she said something that captured my attention. Normally, declarations that come with hesitations make me cautious, or even suspicious, but this one was instructive. After I asked her how she was feeling, she said: “I’m feeling hap. . . […]

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April 6, 2022April 5, 2022Snowbird of Paradise

Being at The Crossroads of Change

A couple of days ago, I told my eldest son that I wanted to thank him for being so supportive of his wife’s success. She recently had some good career news, and we were enjoying a celebratory dinner. My son said it was a “no brainer” to compliment her accomplishment, and I pointed out that […]

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March 12, 2022Snowbird of Paradise

I Cannot Cry

I sometimes feel as though I want to cry and all the normal emotional and physical triggers suggest that I am about to cry, but I don’t. I am told it is a side effect of one of my medications, and most of the time I am fine with that. Sometimes, though, I really need […]

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March 30, 2021March 29, 2021Snowbird of Paradise

I Was Wrong About Feminism

A couple of days ago, I discovered something I wrote when I was in my twenties. It was an essay entitled “Why I Am Not A Feminist.” It represents a moment in time when I had mixed feelings about the women’s movement. I did not think about women’s rights when I was growing up because […]

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March 26, 2021March 25, 2021Snowbird of Paradise

Youthful Poetry

I once took a course, many years ago, that required me to write poetry. I have never considered myself a poet or a connoisseur of poetry, but I did as I was asked. That poetry was put into a ring binder and added to a box of miscellany that I recently rediscovered. Here are a […]

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March 2, 2021Snowbird of Paradise

The Kettle and the Box

Question: What is the relationship between this kettle and this box? The answer: a dream. Remembering a Dream I rarely dream. In fact, when I had a dream a several weeks ago, it was a momentous occasion for me. It was the first time I had remembered a dream in many, many months. Maybe years, […]

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January 23, 2021Snowbird of Paradise

What It Is and What It Feels Like

Today in Edmonton the temperature is -20C (-4F) with a windchill ‘feels like’ temperature of -28C (-18F). This distinction between the nominal temperature and what it actually feels like has always left me slightly bemused. In my world, only the ‘feels like’ temperature matters. When Canadians check the outside temperature they want to know not […]

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December 12, 2020Snowbird of Paradise

Compromise, Sometimes

There is a word in the English language that is a kind of verbal Get Out Of Jail Free card. It is also quite delicious to say out loud. The word is ‘notwithstanding‘. It means ‘in spite of’ and is used when you want to recognize that something can be true regardless of the fact […]

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November 8, 2020November 8, 2020Snowbird of Paradise

. . . and don’t come back!

Molly Jung-Fast, Editor-in-Chief of the Daily Beast, got it right when she wrote today “America Finally Breaks Up With Her Abusive Boyfriend.” As a Canadian watching from the sidelines for the past four years, I feel the analogy fits perfectly. When you watch a close friend or family member being constantly insulted or abused, you […]

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September 10, 2020September 9, 2020Snowbird of Paradise

For All the Solo People

Covid-19 has given us all a new experiment in living. We are all (or most of us) trying to maintain social distances, wear masks, and wash our hands for twenty seconds. As the weeks and months have passed, we have gotten better at this. We now automatically make more space when we pass people on […]

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August 23, 2020August 23, 2020Snowbird of Paradise

Biases Are Optical Illusions

Today I read something that made me stop and think. The behavioural economist Dan Ariely said: Behavioral biases affect everyone, including those of us who study them. Biases are like optical illusions: Even when we know what we’re seeing isn’t real, we can’t help seeing it. from Ask Ariely This goes a long way to […]

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June 21, 2020July 4, 2020Snowbird of Paradise

How Little Has Changed

I remember some of the names of my high school classmates. Sylvia Coulson, Jane Cripps, Janice Butler, Valerie Russell, Penny Lewis, Peter Blackwell, and many more. My memory gets worse every day, but today I remembered one person who changed my perceptions. Her name was Penny Haag and she joined my class when I was […]

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May 22, 2020May 21, 2020Snowbird of Paradise

The Murals of Legal, Alberta (Part 3)

There are so many great murals in Legal that it is hard to pick out a few to show you. Today I have chosen the portraits of two more homesteading families. This first is of Joseph St Martin and Marthe Calage. Joseph was the stepson of Jean Calage (1848-1927) and the two men each paid […]

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April 10, 2020July 4, 2020Snowbird of Paradise

Magpie Nesting Habits and Divorce Rates

Here’s something I bet you didn’t know:  more black-billed magpies get divorced in Alberta than they do in South Dakota. It’s true. They usually mate for life unless one of them dies and then the remaining magpie may find another mate. Divorces do happen, though, and one seven-year study found divorce rates up to 63% […]

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March 23, 2020March 23, 2020Snowbird of Paradise

To See Ourselves As Others See Us

Until today, my major concern in relation to Coronavirus was to avoid contact with other people. I did not want to bring the virus home and I did not want to carry it to the people I love and live with. Before I returned to Canada I spent a week in self-isolation. I didn’t leave […]

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January 5, 2020January 17, 2020Snowbird of Paradise

Twitter: It’s A Love/Hate Thing.

I have been an avid user of Twitter for a couple of years. You might say I’ve been enamored or addicted. Today, though, I decided our love affair is over. It’s been good, Twitter, but you became abusive. Now I have chosen to leave. For a few months now I have been troubled by how […]

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December 21, 2019December 20, 2019Snowbird of Paradise

Courtyard Flora in December

Every year, when I come to San Jose, I am delighted to see flowers. It amuses my sister to see me taking pictures of what seem to her to be unexceptional blooms, but when you come from a snowscape, greenery and blossoms are a lovely contrast. Today I was playing with the macro lens on […]

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October 3, 2019October 2, 2019Snowbird of Paradise

Loving Yourself Takes Time

Yesterday, I saw a writing prompt from Bubble Bath Self-Empowerment that got me thinking. In fact, it prompted me to write, so it worked! The prompt was: When You Love Yourself First, Everything Else Falls Into Place. I can remember times in my life when loving myself was way down at the bottom of my […]

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August 10, 2019August 9, 2019Snowbird of Paradise

Open Letter to My Dentist’s Assistant

I’m sorry that I was resistant to your request for information this morning. It came as a surprise that you would call in response to my feedback on your clinic’s email questionnaire. I was suddenly confronted with that recent evaluation and not fully prepared to justify it on the spot. When a business calls a […]

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