At least this trip does. I’m two hours into a five hour ride to Montreal, and I’m already in that booze-induced state that makes laughter and tears flow readily. They keep you hydrated on VIA1 although I haven’t yet had a drop of water: they seem to favour vodka and white wine here, libations that allow the free-flowing laughter and tears from the book I’m reading, Lessons in Chemistry.*

This trip is my first re-emergence from Ontario, post-pandemic. I say post-pandemic, but of course, we’re all deluding ourselves into thinking it’s over. But even I’ve gotten to the stage where I’ve weighed my own mental health vs risk to physical health and often found in favour of the former. So here I am, off to visit my friend, Greg, who has job training in Montreal and has a hotel room with a pull-out couch. I can’t count the number of cities I’ve visited Greg in during our 40+ year friendship, but this is the first time we’ve been in Montreal together.

It’s a rare thing when a novel hits all the right notes - Bonnie Garmus’ debut, Lessons in Chemistry, does just that for me.* 

Like many of you, I suspect, I have a big stack of books in my bedroom, so ready to be read that sometimes I think the word ready was invented simply to describe this situation. I have a bad habit of allowing more to climb onto the pile than get moved onto my lap. Lately, though, I’ve tried to limit their online purchase - something I justified during the height of COVID as a way for me to pass time while keeping my local bookstore in business - and spend less time rifling through the Little Libraries that have found their way into Weston. My biggest source of reading material though are friends who pass their finds onto me. I find it hard to say no to these but with the limited space of Chandlerville on the near horizon, I am redoubling my efforts. 

“If you like, leave a message.”

‘If you like’ is the first expression I unintentionally taught Jack. He heard it on my voicemail when he called to schedule a service call to fix my fridge. It was 2009 when we had landlines and voicemail, and left messages. That voicemail resulted in our nine year relationship, one that was made richer in part by our shared project - him to master English, me to better understand how difficult English is to learn.

Elude is a fun word to type. That “de” at the end just rolls off the left middle fingertip. I thought this the day “elude” came up as the Wordle word. I’ve been using the daily puzzle as a way first to exercise my brain and second to strengthen my writing muscle: I write stream-of-consciousness for five minutes starting with the Wordle word. I do this exercise in white font so I can’t see what gibberish is coming out and, more importantly, can’t correct it. All part of a generative writing technique to get words flowing without overthinking.

I have been hired as the Deputy Executive Director of the Co-operative Housing Federation of Toronto (CHFT). CHFT is an umbrella organization of 185 non-profit housing co-ops** in Durham, Toronto, and York Region representing more than 50,000 co-op members. The news of my new position hit the housing world on Tuesday and I’ve been overwhelmed by the positive response. Thank you for making me feel appreciated and for assuring me I’m not the only one who thinks this is a logical next step for me. I couldn

I was stunned this week when Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s Prime Minister, announced she would step down in February. Her words reverberated through me - she no longer has enough in the tank to carry on.

Ardern’s had a helluva run as PM. She’s led New Zealand through a number of national crises including the Christchurch mosque shootings and the explosion of the volcano on White Island, an offshore island that had been a tourist attraction for years. And then, of course, there was her approach to COVID 19. She took decisive action to contain the spread before, it seemed, other countries really got their heads around the potential impact of the virus. Sure, it’s a bit easier with a small population of 5 million people well away from other countries. But she was a powerhouse and we all watched her in awe.

That's the Canada Blood Services (CBS) great tagline. I do so love double-meaning. But I'm not just commenting on their clever marketing today. No, I want to tell you why I was there this week to make a donation. And why you should go too.

When I grew up, my father was a regular blood donor. He didn't make a big deal about it, just went off to give a pint from time to time, as one of the many things he did to help society function - religiously pay his taxes, get involved in community groups, vote, and so on. He'd joke about going only for the cookies and juice but I knew there was more to it. When, in his 70s, he was denied the opportunity to give because of his escalating blood pressure, he was annoyed, declaring he should be able to judge the risk on his own accord. I suspect by that time, he'd given several hundred times.

As regular readers know, I’ve been super-COVID-compliant. But while the pandemic is not over, it’s been such a long three years that even I've gotten to the end of my masked-up, sanitized, and risk-averse rope.

With the “end,” comes reflection on the upshot. With such a lengthy period of confinement, people built on their pre-existing tendencies resulting, I gather, in one of four options: hunk, chunk, drunk, and monk

Friday was my last day at Iler Campbell, the law firm I joined in 2005 as an articling student and for which I was co-ordinating partner for the last seven years. It was a great 17 years. Why’d I leave? Well, as I’ve written here and here, sometimes you just gotta take a risk and pursue a dream, letting go of things that, while still good, may be approaching their best before dates. This is one of those times.

Back in October, I decided to make a spider for the occasion. “What is she talking about?" I hear you ask. As a kid, I didn’t have advent calendars. Instead, while others had a chocolate treat at bedtime in the lead up to Christmas, I enjoyed brutally ripping a leg from my paper spider. When the spider was reduced to a body, it was the magical 25th. (Hey, I couldn’t make this up if I tried - just reporting my childhood.)