Fahrenheit 451---But What's That In Celsius?

   Well, it's about 233C, if you really wanna know....damn hot either way!
   It's coming on winter in these parts and as the temps begin to drop it's almost inevitable that we spend more time checking them---if for no other reason then to figure out what to wear to work in the morning.
   I am of the generation which grew up on Fahrenheit as a temp measurement scale and was really only familiar with Celsius (Centigrade) as it applied to physics in high school. I can remember doing the math in trying to figure out how one related to the other and thinking never gonna need this! Well, I was wrong.

In case you wanted to have a bit of an idea

   As an adult living in Canada, I then found myself dealing with our country's switch over from Fahrenheit to Celsius and a few other nasty little things such as miles to kilometers and pounds to kilos. 
   This was all to bring us in line with almost the whole rest of the world, minus the United States, stubborn as they are. In time, I got used to it. I knew that 32F and 0C were the same thing and I kind of went from there. If the weather was up in the twenties, then it was pretty nice out!
   Somehow or other, though, my weather app stuff has now converted back to Fahrenheit and this is kind of cool because I only really know what temperature it is if it's in Fahrenheit.
   Oddly enough, though, there is enough of an age gap between Doralyn and myself (almost 15 years) that if I tell her what the temp is in Fahrenheit she has no idea what I'm talking about. A couple of days ago I told her it was going to be a warm day (for this time of year) because it was going up to 56 degrees. She had no clue what that meant. And I couldn't tell her what it meant because I had no clue what it was in Celsius! (it's about 13 degrees).
 I find myself referencing the temperature reasonably often over on my running blog, Ragged Cap Runner. I do this so other people might know what I either do or don't suffer through while I'm out running. I generally will mention the temp in Celsius and then remember that I have a handful of readers in the States and I find myself needing to refer to my Celsius to Fahrenheit conversion app just to let them know exactly how much I was suffering (or enjoying myself.) 
    

Sort of what you look like after a -40C and F run....

   Okay, while I'm on the subject, I've got something very cool to tell you about. Very cool. With all the vagaries of the two systems of temperature measurement, I had reason a couple of winters ago to discover one very interesting fact---forty below in Fahrenheit is the same temperature as 40 below in Celsius. I only discovered this because I was set to run in a race wherein the temperature, with the windchill, was going to reach -40C. In an effort to describe to my Amurrican friends just how cold this was, I discovered the aforementioned fact. Now how cool is that?! Well, too freakin' cold to run in, for one thing.....

Snow

   For the fifty-second time in the fifty-two years I've lived in London, Ontario, snow has arrived. I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that this was also the trend prior to me moving here.
   I'm tired of it.

Looking out my bedroom window this morning.

   I can clearly remember a time when a heavy snowfall got me all giddy and excited and eager to pull on the boots, scarves, snowpants, mitts and toques and get out there. There was a small hill at the side of our house back then and any appreciable snowfall created a large drift along the crest of it. I would stand before this drift in wonder at all the opportunity it offered for diving right in. There was, however, also some pristine beauty to an undefiled drift and I would always hesitate, knowing that I was about to spoil this forever. And then in I dove.
   Along the way, there were also the delights of tobogganing, skating, bumper-jumping and, when I got a little older, cross-country skiing.
   But that was then and this is now and, as an aging Canadian, I've discovered why other aging Canadians occasionally find their way down south for four months about this time of year. I don't know whether we've become more susceptible to the cold, less physically able to dig our way out, or just more psychologically weakened by this change of seasons but each successive winter just seems that much more difficult to bear.
   Saying all this seems somewhat traitorous--Canada means snow and if you hate the snow then you must hate Canada, right? Our national identity was carved out of a chunk of ice, right? Well, I still love Canada and would never think of moving away, even for just part of a year, but I just hate the thought of another winter. And winter is here now!
   Two days ago, we could all have been wearing shorts outside and we actually broke a temperature record for this time of year. Yesterday, lake-effect snowsqualls hit town, along with the accompanying dose of seasonal reality. Oh well....
   Likely, (and I know this because it always happens) once I get back into the routine of it all, find my winter clothes, get the snow tires put on and start living a wintry life, things will be fine and I'll somehow manage to make my way back through to Spring again. In the meantime, I need to go out and find my car... 

Strange Boy

   It was this past All Hallows' Eve when the Strange Boy appeared, literally plopped down in our midst, almost from out of the darkness of nowhere.
   It was the spacesuit which held him apart from all the others who'd trundled up our steep wooden steps. Some otherworldly force (his Dad, I think) had enabled him to levitate past those foreboding steps and land there in front of us.
   He had never been there before and looked about at this strange new place, our entranceway, in wonder and possibly a little bewilderment.
   When he landed among us, I was in our kitchen, cleaning up a few of the leftover dishes from dinner. Doralyn had gone to the door when this Strange Boy arrived and it was her loud, gasping ohmigod which then alerted me to the presence of something new and wonderful in our house.
  I investigated and came face-to-face with the visitor from out there, as well. I had the same reaction as Doralyn when I saw him--my jaw dropped a little and the rarefied air he'd brought along with him caused me to inhale fully and deeply.
   He looked like he might have been one and a half years old and had simply one of the most the beautiful, tiny faces we had ever encountered. This same face peered out from his velour space helmet and as he looked up at us his mouth dropped open, in wonderment, as well. He was not quite sure why he had landed here and he alternated between staring up at us and then turning to his Dad's voice coming to him from outside. His visit was brief and, insofar as he had obtained quite a bit more candy than any of the other kids had, his mission was complete. Back out onto the launching pad of our porch and then flying away into the darkness, and his Dad's arms, he went.

   I returned to the kitchen sink and the almost-completed dishes. It was here that I began to feel the effects of the Strange Boy's visit---suddenly my eyes began to well up with tears and this choking sensation took over my throat. This tiny visitor had done something unexpected in the short time he was here and I was at a bit of a loss as to exactly how this had happened.          I am not totally immune to the cuteness of young children as I encounter them but, for the most part, this entails complimenting parents on how adorable their child is, and maybe squeezing the odd chubby cheek or two. This Strange Boy was different, however. 
   I am still at a bit of a loss as to being able to adequately explain how I felt while he was here. A part of me wanted to envelop him in our world and, if had stayed with us, that might have been fine. It also could have been that he was a bit of a time traveler, that somehow he was perhaps connected to my kids when they were that age. The other possibility with this theory was that he came from the future. All I remember was that he didn't seem sure why he was there and, as much as his father thought he had just landed for the candy, I'm not so certain either how and why this Strange Boy came to visit, from out of the dark and past the stars.

O Cohen, My Cohen!

   This past week, Leonard Cohen passed away.
   I knew, of course, that this was eventually going to happen and I also knew, deep inside, that this was possibly imminent. Leonard himself, reflecting on the recent death of his longtime muse and love, Marianne Ihlen, seemed aware that he soon would be joining her. As much as I was intellectually prepared for this event, emotionally it was still a numbing moment.
   The world responded quickly, as it invariable does these days, and much was written about the poet and singer's legacy. Many tributes and much reminiscing occurred and his name has now been added to the seemingly endless list of musical icons who have passed away in this sad year.
   If you know me well, then you know how important Leonard Cohen was to me. My love for the man's writing and music grew out of the crucible of teenage hormonal angst we almost all found ourselves dealing with at that age. For me, this occurred back in the late sixties.
   I was not depressed or suicidal or filled with undue anxiety at the time but I did find myself torn in many directions and wanting desperately to be a man of the world when, in fact, I wasn't even a man of the subdivision. Finding my way with the girls was a constant state of struggle and rejection (or at least what felt like rejection) was the constant hidden jungle trap. On top of everything else, as much as I wasn't dealing with suicidal depression, someone else in my family was.
    So it was during this part of my life that I discovered Leonard Cohen.
   I was as prone to listening to the music of the day as anyone else was and there was a steady stream of Beatles, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin and The Doors engaging me on a daily basis. I liked it all, for sure, but then I heard Cohen's "Suzanne" for the first time.

   I had never heard anything like it before. The voice, the lyrics...they were like nothing else playing on the radio those days and I was drawn to them like no other. 
   Part of the attraction was Cohen's imperfect voice. There were no histrionics employed and the monotone he effected made it seem as though he was just one of us, one of the strugglers in the world who was trying to figure things out the same way we all were. As much as anything, though,  it was the lyrics which stood out. He talked about mysticism and sexuality and Jesus, for Christ's sake, all in the same song! The intimate nature of the music made it easy to feel as though it was only directed at me, and not the surrounding, acne-riddled masses.
   As soon as I was able, I bought the album "Songs of Leonard Cohen", playing it over and over. My parents were somewhat aghast that I would so readily immerse myself in what they saw as nothing more than monotonous melancholia. I, myself, was unable to adequately explain the attraction---apart from the fact that all teenagers seem to be  drawn to what their parents aren't.
   My love of Cohen wasn't easily shared. It probably didn't help that "Suzanne", partly because of its Canadian roots,  soon became part of the high school English curriculum. We studied it, for goodness' sake. Picked it apart. This was not an exercise most of my peers particularly enjoyed and the fact that I actually doted on Cohen never scored me any points on the popularity scale.
   On the wall in my bedroom, the posterised Cohen soon appeared. On another part of the wall, mounted like a shield, hung the cracked and broken top of a plastic birdbath. This birdbath and I had had a run-in in a neighbour's backyard and its jagged edge had made my leg bleed profusely. With my neighbour's blessing, I retrieved it, detached the top, and positioned it in a place of honour above my bed. Not far from this, I had also mounted a chunk of 2x8. Attached to this piece of wood was were samples of the same wires and staples that morticians use to ensure their clients' mouths stay firmly closed after death. An undertaker had once come to my public school as part of a "careers" presentation and had demonstrated their use. Afterward, I rather boldly asked him if he had any further use for this piece of wood. He did not and it came home with me. This then was the room to which I retreated to listen to Cohen in the dark, for hours. Very little wonder that my parents feared for me.
   The feeling that I had at the time, though, was that listening to Leonard Cohen was somehow or other saving me. It was almost as if the angst and confusion were being shared and, in the sharing, dissipated. It was not actually therapy but sort of was.
   I bought all of Cohen's early albums and soon along came "Songs of Love and Hate". I still consider this to be Cohen's masterpiece. I so clearly remember lying there in the dark, with headphones on, listening to "Dress Rehearsal Rag", an epic-length song from that album. Essentially it is a

contemplation of regret and loss in which suicidal images are very prevalent. It was easy to identify with the protagonist and feel, similarly to a good movie, that you were right there living his life with him. Then, just when you think it's possible he might actually end it all, suddenly "the cameras pan, the stand in stunt man, dress rehearsal rag, it's just the dress rehearsal rag." To me, this seemed like some form of redemption, that you could be depressed and contemplating ending it all (possibly even practising) but that, in the end, it perhaps was just as acceptable to carry on.
   As an adolescent, then, I let Cohen share the dark with me. As an older man, I allowed Leonard Cohen to age right in front (and only somewhat ahead) of me--sharing his joy, bewilderment, anger, longing and passion right up to the end.  The fact that he could still get the women as he aged also couldn't help but endear him to me

                                                   I knew that he would be gone some day and wondered how this would affect me. Of course, I have been able to share him with many over the past week or so, thanks to the world we live in these days. In an age of instant gratification and lightning-swift communication, though, I was bemused to discover that Leonard Cohen had actually passed a full three days before the world found out about it. This, and that fact that he was buried in a simple pine box next to his parents, helped to add  a little  perspective to the self-deprecatory man he always was.
   A very complex and simple man. 
   
      
    

   

My Wife's Next Husband

    Every once in awhile, the subject of my wife, Doralyn's, next husband comes up. That's not because we're on the outs or anything, it's just what seems a realistic topic for discussion as I am significantly that much older than she is.
   This is the second marriage for both of us and one of her favourite sayings is I married the first time for kids, the second time for love, and the third time it'll be for money! 
   We kind of smile and chuckle whenever this comes up, obviously not knowing whether life will work itself out this way or not but, frankly, I'd be quite happy for her if, after I'm gone, she found some rich guy who was able to provide her with some of the things I'm unable to right at the moment. And when I say some of the things, I mean pretty well everything. 
   Neither one of us came out of our respective previous marriages particularly well off financially, so we found ourselves basically as the the stereotypical struggling newlyweds, the only difference being that we were in our thirties and fifties at the time. We're in our forties and sixties right now and nothing much has changed, believe me.
   Now, I'm not sure who Doralyn envisions as her next husband but I kind of picture The Most Interesting Man In The World from all the Dos Equis commercials. He'll be able to fly her wherever they want to go and take her on all these marvelous adventures, dressing her up glamourously and treating her royally. With the husband she has now, well, we occasionally make it to Toronto... 
   This new husband, whoever it turns out to be, will be a lucky man. I know this because I'm a lucky man and everyone knows I'm a lucky man. I'll wager that this actually confounds the odd person and I know it certainly is a little beyond my comprehension as to how I became this lucky. I should really buy lottery tickets. I really wish I could tell you just how lucky I am but, really, there's not the time. Just take my word for it!
   If there's an issue Doralyn's next husband might run into, it's that she's a little "high maintenance". I put those words into quotation marks because they are her words, not mine. I never really think of her as high maintenance (whatever that really is) but she feels this to be the case. More than anything, I feel that all woman are high maintenance, when it comes to men trying to navigate their way around them. If you're a  man and at all successful with maintaining a positive relationship with a woman, then you are clever, understanding, thoughtful, caring and empathetic. That's 5% of the time. The other 95%---well---it's  a friggin' crapshoot, and we all know it.
   It has occurred to me that something other than my physical demise might pave the way for Doralyn's next husband. One of these days she might just come to her senses and realize that I'm way luckier than she is and then I might just find myself dumped like a hot potato. This, of course, would be heartbreaking for me but would, at the same time, cause a lot of other male hearts to start ticking with a little more urgency. I know the feeling!
   I can't imagine it would be long before suitors in all shapes and sizes showed up at her door, maybe even the same door that used to be our door, who knows? Of course, all the poor, fat, bald ones would be politely re-directed but, in the end, there would be Doralyn's next husband. And his money!
   So my job, for the next few years at least, is to remain "viable"---as healthy as I am able and as charmingly acquiescent as I can be. I will try and stay away from her laundry and I will try not to eat the last piece of chocolate. I'll buy the odd gift and I'll get out of her hair for a few hours. And, as always, I will bow down to whatever force of nature brought this amazing woman into my life!







   

You Almost Blew It, Anglican Church Of Canada!

  *I wrote this blog post a couple of days ago, when the vote to not support same sex marriages was announced. I was all set to post it when I discovered that there had actually been a miscount and that the Anglican Church of Canada would now be allowing their clergy to perform such ceremonies. At that point, it suddenly seemed pointless to post the blog. Upon further reflection, however, I am going ahead and posting it. Mainly because they felt it was something they actually needed to vote on and secondarily, that it was as close at it was*                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Yesterday, as I was going through Twitter, I ran across a report, posted by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, on the decision by the Anglican Church of Canada to not support same-sex marriages. Yes, you read that correctly, to not support same-sex marriages. If you'd like, you can read that report here. This decision was reached after a vote at the end of the six-day Anglican General Synod, attended by 200 delegates. In order for the resolution supporting same-sex marriages to have passed, it would have needed two-thirds support from three different orders---lay, clergy, and bishops. The lay and bishops were for it but the clergy (the guys who would ultimately be the ones performing the same-sex ceremonies) were narrowly against it.

Almost blew it.....

   I was both surprised and shocked at this and, quite frankly, rather ashamed.
   In a world where same-sex unions seem to have finally been accepted by the majority for what they are---simply two people who share the common bond of love for one another and wish to have it legally recognized and celebrated---it seems ludicrous and backward-thinking that an entity such as the Anglican Church of Canada should go out of its way to oppose them.
   Granted, the report indicates that the vote was extremely close and could not have actually been any closer. This is very small consolation. In this day and age, they shouldn't even have needed to vote---it should have been, to use a golf term, a "gimme". The Anglican Church of Canada really should have said to itself holy cow, there are couples out there who are dedicated and loving to each other and all they want to do is get married in a church and, by God, we should help them DO that!! What the vote actually indicates, though, is that some Anglicans are actually saying to themselves same-sex marriages? eww....that's kind of ICKY....!
   At this point, I just wanted to offer a little personal background on myself. 
   I am an avowed atheist. As a young child, however, I was raised in the Anglican Church, believed in Jesus and God, felt strongly about my religion and at one point even thought that being a clergyman was what I wanted to be when I grew up. And then I grew up! I have this clear recollection of the priest telling us near the end of our confirmation classes that, once we were confirmed, we would then be able to make adult decisions about church. My first adult decision, fueled at least partially by being in the throes of puberty at the time, was to stop attending! And that was the last time I was an active member of the Anglican church. Since that time, in the total absence of any proof or evidence that there actually is a God, I have become an atheist.
   Now, I told you all that simply to explain why it is that this decision by the Anglican Church has me as riled up as it does. There is a vestigial part of me which wishes, even though I am not an active participant in the church, that at least the Anglicans could have had the decency to do what I think is totally right in this case. This they have failed to do and this now the reason for my shame.
   I read the article, from the beginning, with shock and a modicum of disbelief. Part way down, however, my shock and disbelief turned to sadness and anger as I read the part about the Anglican minister, Rev. Allison Courey, who also happens to be a lesbian, who said that "many of us" had committed suicide because "death was better than being rejected by God". 
   This made me angry on a couple of different levels. Firstly, it seems that a simple recognition and acceptance of same-sex couples in the Anglican church might have gone a long way toward preventing this kind of tragedy. Secondly, the idea that anyone could feel "rejected by God" based on the legislation and beliefs of a bunch of Anglican bishops and clergy seems ludicrous to me. 
   This is where my atheism steps in. I truly don't believe there is a God and so I also truly believe you cannot be "rejected by God". On the off-chance that there  is some form of God then I don't believe he's going to let a bunch of humans on earth decide who he's going to reject or accept. It makes no sense to me that it might work this way. My advice to any same-sex couple who wanted to get married would be to go ahead and do that any old way you can and know deep in your hearts that God loves and supports you, regardless of what the Anglican church might say or believe. If God exists, I'm pretty sure He exists with or without churches!

   One of the other very disturbing things I read about in the article was when one of the younger speakers who was against the motion to allow same-sex marriage got up and declared that "God did not create another Adam, He created a woman." Okay, it always bothers me when people take the Bible literally... you know, ignoring all the evidence of pre-history and evolution. And if by some infinitesimal chance God did create Adam then he pretty well had to create Eve or the whole story ends there. After that, though, all bets were off!

   Here's another part which struck me as I read the article---the language. Here's a list of some of the words used: delegates, resolution, voted, percentage, debate, speakers, legislative, amend, authority, discussions, divisive. Now do any of these words sound like they have anything to do with spirituality!? Or does it sound a little more like current American news channels...?
   Okay, you have made me ashamed, Anglican Church of Canada, and I am pretty sure you've shamed, shocked and disillusioned many of your own faithful. Whether they stick around and continue to worship under these circumstances is hard to say. I know that I wouldn't but, then again, I left ages ago!

The Mystery Of The (No Longer) Missing Bowling Pins!

   A few days ago, I made mention over in Ragged Cap Runner about this pretty random discovery a guy I know had made in an alleyway in downtown London and I thought I would do a bit of an update. He had come across  a cardboard box full of regulation bowling pins, seemingly put out as garbage, and had taken them home and left them in his shed.

Strange discovery!

   I happened to notice this box of bowling pins while doing some work in the shed and, upon further inspection, discovered that each pin had been signed by this year's version of the London Knights. This year's version of the London Knights also happens to be the Memorial Cup winners (for all intents and purposes making them the best junior hockey team in the world) and it was not hard for me, as a sports fan, to recognize the value of what I was looking at. My friend, on the other hand, is not a sports fan and hadn't even looked at the pins all that closely.
   I managed to convince him that it was very likely that the pins had been left there by accident and that the Knights would probably be interested in getting them back. I asked him if I could take the pins with me and he said that was okay with him.

Ryan Starr and, behind him,  Budweiser Gardens,
home of the London Knights!

   When I got home, I sent an e-mail off to the Knights explaining what I had in  my possession. A couple of days later, I received a reply from the team saying they would be very happy to have the pins returned and, in fact, had been looking for them. I ended up speaking with Ryan Starr, the Knight's Public Relations and Communications Manager, and we agreed to meet downtown at Budweiser Gardens. When we met, Ryan explained to me that they used the pins as special occasion gifts to minor hockey teams and players here in London. Together, we were unable to imagine any possible way they might have ended up in a alleyway downtown but the main thing was that they were now back where they belonged. As a token of gratitude for ensuring that the pins made it back home, Ryan more than graciously offered me free game tickets for the Knights when the next season starts! Pretty cool! I work for an agency which provides support services to people with developmental challenges and have already spoken to the powers that be at work about donating them.
   All in all, if you're a Knights fan, kind of a cool mystery with a happy ending!

  

15 Years

   I am married to a woman, Doralyn, who is almost fifteen years younger than I am. I did not set out to marry a woman fifteen years younger but fell in love with someone who laughed at my jokes, was beautiful, loving, cared about my life and the people in it, gave of herself freely, read my mind, and, most importantly, kissed Syd. The fact that she happened to be fifteen years younger was irrelevant.

No age difference....right??

   Usually, the age gap is inconsequential. Many of our interests are the same and the ones that aren't only serve to keep us balanced. 
   Physically, I have always been pretty active and would guess that I am on par with men who are fifteen years, or more, younger. Mentally, I am slowly passing over into the "senior" zone and this is where likely the age gap makes itself felt the most. 
   I forget, she doesn't. I have been cast adrift in a sea of technology, she sails that same sea effortlessly. She cares how she looks. Me, not so much.
   The age gap also means that I have had fifteen more years of life experiences. I witnessed the Beatles. She sort of heard about them. Often I have found myself making cultural references about things she was never around to experience. Or possibly even care about!
   That fifteen year difference has also led to interesting relationship observations, particularly when we look around at the other people in our lives and consider their age differences.

My son, Bryant, in the middle.

   This same fifteen year gap exists between my oldest son, Bryant, and Doralyn. Then there's the aforementioned gap between Doralyn and myself. After that, there's another gap of the same length between myself and Doralyn's mum, Marlies. Finally, were he still alive, there would have been the same difference in ages between Doralyn's mum and my dad. At the same time that our age difference seems so viable, it is almost impossible to imagine any of those other people in our lives with the same age gap being paired up together!
   Another thing which never occurred to me when Doralyn and I started this journey is that I am going to be retired long before she is. At this point, I am actually only about a year and a half away from either full or semi retirement and Doralyn will still be heading off to work every day. Then, by the time she's ready to retire, I'll be almost eighty. Hard to say what kind of shape I'll be in as we're trying to enjoy our retirement together!
   As much as I've been talking about this fifteen year difference, I am also a firm believer in "you are as young as you feel". This and the fact that, physiologically, people age at totally different rates is something I place some faith in. What seems like a tenuous fifteen year age gap may, in reality, be more like a five year age gap. And that's workable, right?

My Dad, Doralyn, myself, and Doralyn's Mum. LOTS of 15 year gaps there!

   I also tend to define my age somewhat by the peer group I feel as if I belong to. I have been working at the same place for almost thirty-five years and have always considered my co-workers as being part of my peer group. As the years went by and the ever-expanding group of co-workers became younger, I still considered them part of my group. Occasionally, however, I'd find myself having a discussion with a co-worker about one of their parents and then realize that I was older than that parent! Yet, in spite of this, I still identify with the co-worker.
   Family-wise, I am part of "The Kids". There is the matriarch, Marlies, and then "The Kids". I tell myself that I am part of this group and then along comes my brother-in-law's wife, Sabrina, whose mother, Naheed, must obviously be  part of the older group, "The Parents". Naheed, however, is the same age I am! So, this "fifteen year" deal gets a little complicated sometimes...
   All in all, I think about this age difference very little. At the same time as I might be planning for the future, I am not wary of it. As much as possible, Doralyn and I take care of each other on a daily basis with little regard as to how old we are. There are old souls and there are young souls and I think that, soul-wise, we're right about the same age!
   
   
   
   
     

You WILL Scream About Ice Cream!

      We don't eat a lot of ice cream around here but occasionally we buy it for special occasions (hence the "occasionally") and this past Mother's Day weekend I picked up some Breyers French Vanilla for dessert.
   Now we didn't actually get around to eating any of it but the other day Doralyn spotted me coming upstairs with the tub, planning on a bowl of it for myself. She had one of those omg kind of moments and told me I needed to watch this video while I was eating the ice cream.
   She then proceeded to sit beside me and my bowl and play this video for me. It was a ten minute video of some guy who had discovered that Breyers Family Classic ice cream (the same kind I was eating) does not melt! He had taken a bowl of Breyers and three other bowls of very well-known ice cream and left them all out, uncovered, on his kitchen counter for a couple of hours. The three other bowls of ice cream had become blobs. The Breyers, however, remained essentially unchained, retaining its original shape. 
   The fellow on the video then went on to leave all four bowls out on the counter for a full twenty-four hours. At the end of that time, the Breyers still had neither melted nor even changed shape!
   It gets worse. The man leaves all four bowls out on the counter for a whole week. At the end of this time, the three bowls are still blobby messes but the Breyers has now developed blackish, mouldy spots!
   By this time I had finished my bowl of Breyers but was now trying to figure out a way of un-finishing it, short of sticking my finger down my throat.
   Later, it occurred to me that we now had this unfinished tub of Breyers to dispose of and why not do the same little experiment ourselves? So about 6:oo p.m. last night, I left the uncovered tub out on the counter. This is what it looked like when I set it out....
   

Kinda looks like ice cream, right...?

    And this is how it progressed over the next twenty-four hours....

Kinda still the same , 4 hours later

Very much the same, 24 HOURS LATER!

    Full disclosure here, I lied when I said "ice cream". It's not actually "ice cream", it's a "frozen dessert". If you had sent me to the store and asked me to pick up a "frozen dessert", I'm not sure what I might have come back with but Breyers French Vanilla probably wouldn't have been it...

Safety precaution

Ooops, I said "ice cream", didn't I ?

    I took a pic of the ingredients label. I'm not a scientist so I'm not sure what the offending ingredients are which cause this frozen dessert to not melt. Whatever they are, I imagine ski clubs could use them come summer!

So if you don't want something to melt,
put plenty of THIS  crap in it

    I finally threw out the Breyers today. Because you want to know, it had gone very soft, sort of the consistency of stale Cool Whip. I kind of wanted to stick my finger in it but was afraid something might bite me. Totally unaware of the local by-laws for disposing of bio-hazards, I simply deposited it into the garbage.

Falling Down

   This morning, while Doralyn was in the shower, I headed downstairs as I do every morning and made a hard left into the kitchen to....wait.....that's what I would have done if, in fact, I had actually been at the bottom of the steps when I made that hard left! 
   Instead, I stepped out into mid air, sure that my right foot was about to make solid contact with firm parquet floor, when this was unfortunately not the case. Yes, I began my day lying in a heap on the floor just outside the kitchen door. 
   A quick bodily check and I was soon back up on my feet, almost none the worse for wear. Unfortunately, it's a little hard to disguise the sound of a 226 pound man doing a face plant on a hard wooden floor at 5:56 a.m. when the only other person up and moving in the house is safe in her warm shower and Doralyn soon appeared, in a towel and still dripping, saying it sounded as though I had fallen down the stairs. I confirmed that there was a reason for this, she asked me if I was okay, I confirmed that I was, and she headed back upstairs. Likely wondering what fate had brought her.
   This is not the first time the exact same thing has happened. A few months ago, I pulled a similar maneuver going down the steps into the lower level of our house. I thought I was already at the bottom when I wasn't, yet. Again, that time, no major damage done. I at least partially thank many years of playing sports as a kid and then as a young man for my ability to "take a hit" and survive, relatively unscathed. This is fine but, intellectually, I know I can't keep doing this.
   After my first little mishap I found myself consciously making sure I had actually reached terra firma pretty well every successive occasion I had for walking down stairs. In the mornings, I generally find myself going down the stairs in the semi-darkness and when I think I have reached the bottom I will actually take one more exploratory step, just to make sure that bottom is, in truth, where I'm at. This morning, I did not do this for some reason.

   

   I'm going to blame the cats. On my way down the stairs this morning, two of them rushed past me, ostensibly to begin their day but possibly as part of their deadly plan to distract me from my normal stair routine. I found myself bemused at their fervour and looking forward to their antics and totally entered a different realm of cognition. Hence the disaster which befell me.
   Part of this, I'm sure, is the aging process. As a young man, I really don't remember ever falling down stairs, at least not stairs that were clear of ice or obstruction. These days, it seems like a fairly common occurrence. I even occasionally lose track of where I am when I'm walking up the stairs---somehow or other, in mid-step, I'm not quite sure where I need to put my foot next. I have to concentrate more than I ever used to, and this seems all wrong, dammit!
   Okay, so this is a cautionary tale, I guess. Like a minor car accident reminding you to drive a little more cautiously, I imagine that this morning's mishap will linger long enough to remind me the next time to make sure the ground has firmly come up to meet me before I then move on. Other than that, we might be looking at either kiddie slides or parachutes to get me out of the house in the morning!
    

    

Doralyn Gets Inked!!

   About a year and half ago, for her birthday, I gave Doralyn a gift card for a tattoo. 
   She had been talking for the longest time about wanting one so I went downtown to the Perfect Image store here in London and purchased a card. We then spent about a year and a half occasionally talking about it again before gathering up our resources to get it done.

Where our adventure began! Perfect Image, in Waterloo.

 
   Doralyn got on the Perfect Image website and went through some of their artists' portfolios before deciding on the person she wanted to get a consultation from. Perfect Image has several outlets in Canada and as it turned out, Doralyn ended up picking an artist, Eli Deschenes, who worked out of the Waterloo, Ontario store. We went down there a couple of weeks ago to meet Eli (short for Elizabeth) and talk about some of the ideas Doralyn had in mind for a tattoo. We set up an appointment for today, the 13th, to get it done.
   What we failed to notice, however, until we took a closer look at the gift card, was that the card was supposed to be used at the store where it was purchased. This became a major sticking point, unfortunately! We were given the e-mail address for Kfir Ohayon, the general manager for all the stores in this area. We pleaded ignorance (true enough) and Kfir did us the extreme favour of letting us transfer the gift card to the Waterloo store. Kfir, you rock!
   Our appointment in Waterloo was for noon and we arrived an hour early so we had a bit of a picnic in the car. Then on to meet Eli!
   She showed us a couple of design elements for the tattoo Doralyn had talked to her about in the consultation. We then had a discussion about size and placement and, before long, we were off!
   Eli very graciously allowed me to sit in on the tattoo and also to take copious pics during the process. She is a young and extremely personable woman and she and Doralyn hit it off right away. Good match! 
   Doralyn had only minor discomfort during the process and most of this occurred right near the end. Here are some of the pics I took as we went along.

Eli applies the stencil and a few preliminary markings.

She then begins the outlining.

More outlining, from a different angle

The finished outline!

The colouring begins!

And continues...

The finished project!

Happily-inked Doralyn and talented Eli!

    All in all, this was a wonderful experience and Doralyn loves the new tat, saying it was exactly what she envisioned! And not only that, she now figures prominently on Eli's Instagram page! Many thanks to Eli Deschenes for the wonderful job!

As Long As Bonanza And Part Of Bewitched

      One day last week, I was hanging around with someone and they asked me how much longer I was going to continue to hang around like that.
   The answer was "about an hour and twenty minutes". There was a brief exchange about how long this actually was and then, to be clearer (and cognizant at the same time as to this person's age and life experience), I said, "About as long as Bonanza and part of Bewitched."
   There you have it, two new units of time!
   I do this a lot, and mostly with myself. If I know I need to hang around and wait for an hour for something to occur (and because I am of a certain vintage), I usually visualize myself plopped in front of a T.V. screen somewhere, watching Bonanza or Ed Sullivan or Perry Mason. If I only need to wait half an hour then it could be Bewitched or The Flintstones or maybe even the Dick Van Dyke Show. God forbid I need to wait an hour and a half so then I imagine "The Virginian". Any much longer than that and I end up turning to movies like "Cleopatra" or "Gone With The Wind"!
   Of course, I make reference to an age when you had no choice but to watch commercials (or head to the bathroom) during the course of a show and that added up to the half-hour, hour, or ninety minutes. Nowadays, with the advent of a PVR's  ability to pause, rewind and fast/forward, a show can be as long or short as you'd like it to be. You can go to the bathroom and cook a roast, if you want. Hell, you can go to the bathroom and then go on freakin' holidays, for that matter, before the show starts up again!
   So, lost on a new generation is the ability to gauge time by T.V. show length!
   While we're on the subject of gauging time, there was a day when, if someone asked you what time it was, you would look at your watch or the clock on the wall and say something like it's half past three or it's about a quarter to ten or I've got about twenty after two. There was a certain amount of imprecision around phrases like those but they still did the trick.

Do you prefer THIS.....

   These days, however, the advent of digital clocks and timepieces has taken away any pre-existing inconsequential inaccuracies and has almost forced us to tell the other person exactly what time it is. Whether they wanted to know, or not.

...or THIS?

   Whereas before you might have looked at the rough position of the minute hand on the clock and it's about twenty after two, nowadays you're going to look at your digital device and say well, I've got two twenty-two. Which quite frequently might be followed by oops, now it's two twenty-THREE, and so on. No more sneaking upstairs at round about one when, in fact, it was actually one twenty nine...
   So that was my little "getting old", "the times, they are a-changin' " rant, hope you're not tired of them by now! And, frankly, I really don't give a damn whether the clockface is "sweep" or "digital" as long as it's "large"!
   
   

Yes, Prince Is Gone But Then There Was Harry....

   In what will likely become known as "2016- The Year The Music Died", Prince's name has now been added to the list of performing icons who have passed what seems like long before their times.
   As each and every name has been agonizingly revealed to us, collectively we have mourned and individually dealt with whatever the loss of that artist has personally meant to us.
   The losses in the music world have been particularly hard to assimilate and come to grips with---Glenn Fry, Paul Kantner, Merle Haggard, David Bowie, Keith Emerson---the list just seems to go on and on.

   Social media has allowed us to both mourn the passing and celebrate the life of each and every musician and, most importantly, share the grief. Obviously, each passing has meant something different to us as individuals, depending on the role each performer played in our lives. A term I have heard frequently the last few months is "the soundtrack of my life". Essentially, many of the performers who have recently passed were responsible for the music we all played and the music that followed us around for all our formative years. The idea that the creators of this music are no longer with us seems intolerable.
   As I have dealt with the surprise and shock of so many icons' deaths, I have been fortunate in one way---none of them were intrinsically part of the soundtrack of my life. As much as I appreciated their artistry, there wasn't a lot there that really touched me in an important or personal way.
   

There was a particularly dark day for me, musically-speaking. On July 16, 1981 I was walking along a dusty road in the middle of Pinery Provincial Park when I heard a radio report from a neighbouring campground letting me know that Harry Chapin had been killed in a car crash in New York state. Gone was the artist who'd created "Taxi", "Sniper", "Cat's In The Cradle". "W.O.L.D.", "Circle", and "30,000 Pounds Of Bananas". Gone was the story-telling and gone was the humanitarianism
   This was devastating. My ex-wife and I were huge fans of Harry and had seen him here in London not that long before he died. We had many of his albums and basically worshiped the man. The worst part of it all was that he was in what seemed to be the prime of his career and there was just so much more music to look forward to. The rest of the camping trip was a bust, to say the least. It was like a all of our underpinnings had been removed, in one fell swoop.
   I know that millions of us have been affected similarly in the last few months as legend after legend has disappeared. It is much too easy to forget that, as we have aged, certainly they have as well. And if they seemed too young to die then we need to remember that no-one is guaranteed a certain number of years and that there are forces at work in all of our lives which pre-dispose both life and death.

   I have been what you might have called a "folkie" most of my life. This means that the artists who comprised the soundtrack of my life were people like Simon and Garfunkel, Leonard Cohen, Cat Stevens, Joni Mitchell and Gordon Lightfoot. In recent years we have almost lost a couple of them and it is inevitable that, sooner or later, they will all be gone. They may be gone after me or they may be gone before me. At this point in my life, though, I am not expecting a lot of new music from any of them and am content with the role they have already played in my life.
   This wasn't true with Harry, though.