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 […]
This morning I had a really good clear-out. Now, a bag of trash and two bags of recyclables are waiting for the garbage trucks. In addition, I just took to the thrift store two boxes full of miscellany, a bag of clothes, a recycling bin full of pots and pans, and a George Foreman grill. […]
For a few years I have tried growing shrubs and bulbs in our front yard, but have had very limited success. The soil quality is not good because it is mostly clay. In addition, there are bugs that are determined to kill almost anything that starts to look as if it might grow to bloom. […]
I spent about half and hour pottering about in the garden yesterday. It had been raining, so everything was wet, which provided a wonderful environment for insects of all kinds. When it started to rain again, I went back in the house and soon realized I had a couple of mosquito bites; one on my […]
Inertia: 1) a tendency to do nothing or remain unchanged 2) a property of matter by which it continues in its existing state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line unless that state is changed by an external force. (via Lexico) When I first began my 14 days of quarantine after arriving back […]
One of the unanticipated side effects of staying home for self-isolation is that some people start drying out. I’m one of them. In case you were wondering, I haven’t stopped drinking alcohol. I still enjoy a couple of glasses of wine in the evening. In fact, I look forward to 5:01 PM when I allow […]
I’ve been feeling a bit stressed lately because some dirty rotten scoundrels are trying to steal my savings and I don’t know how to stop them. I know why they are doing it, though. They borrowed some money they didn’t have and gave it to their friends. The friends didn’t really need it, but the […]
On Saturday I was flying from Edmonton to San Jose via Seattle. The first flight was without incident aside from some turbulence. When I arrived in Seattle I had plenty of time to catch my second flight which my boarding pass told me was at gate N18. I had been forewarned that Sea-Tac airport was undergoing […]
Borden Park is one of Edmonton’s best-kept secrets. When we moved here in 2014 I would walk to this park but since then I have had a couple of bad falls and I can no longer walk that far, so today I drove there. Even so, I had a lovely walk when I got there […]
For everyone who has heard “It’s your age,” this article is for you. I have reached the age when this diagnosis has been applied to whatever thing I might be grumbling about. I must explain, though, that this conclusion has not come from my doctor. She is very open to understanding and interpreting, without bias, […]
I’ve got a black eye! As this is my first ever black eye, I have decided that it is going to be a conversation piece, so I will try to make sure I choose clothes that bring out its most interesting colours. Today that is turquoise. On Tuesday, I was walking along Jasper Avenue with […]
When the comedian Colin Quinn said “Never trust a socialist with a summer home,” I laughed. It’s a good joke. But, I am a socialist with a winter home, which amounts to the same thing, so that joke got me thinking about my kind of socialism. I learned socialism from my parents when I was […]
I sometimes experience dismay when young people are surprised that I know how to use a computer, travel alone, or do household repairs. I have been doing all those things for decades and am not ready to stop doing them yet. The assumptions some people make shouldn’t surprise me, but they do. I am fully […]
In my ongoing quest to solve my years-long struggle with insomnia, this week I started using CBD* oil. For two nights now, it has provided a marked improvement in the depth and length of my sleep. CBD oil was recommended to me a couple of times and, most recently, by fellow blogger Lael-Heart. She used […]
When I was getting my hair cut last week I had a bewildering conversation with my hairdresser. She is a friendly, chatty young woman who talked to me about all sorts of things including how she had once been forced to run down the hallway of the mall to get away from a stalking ex-boyfriend. […]
Restless sleep has been a problem for me for a number of years. It has interfered with my ability to function well at work or to complete normal household tasks efficiently. That feeling of having missed a couple of hours of sleep and not being able to concentrate for very long seems to have become […]
Ask anyone and they will agree that you can never make just one trip to Ikea. I am currently in the “dammit” stage and postponing my next Ikea trip. It all started when my daughter-in-law said she wanted to take down two sets of old vertical blinds that no longer worked properly. The swivels-on-sticks didn’t […]
Every road trip movie I can think of involves two or more people traveling long distances together. On the way, one or more of them come to a new realization about themselves. Sometimes they also come to a new understanding of the other person in the car. Either way, it’s all about the interaction and […]
If you have been wondering why you don’t see many people out and about on Edmonton streets, this is the answer. Not everyone shovels their sidewalk. When the sidewalk is not cleared, it doesn’t take long for the snow to get packed down to create a slippery surface. Those who are afraid of falling, those […]
