Thailand: Kitsch at Christmas…Revisited Last year, we spent the Christmas season in Thailand, mainly in Bangkok. Our younger son lives in Thailand, a world chock full of all things tacky, of corniness, of kitsch. Tongue -in-cheek, he suggests that I move to Thailand where my broken foot would never impede shopping, since little red cars..
Rascal scooter to the rescue: an alternative to Ottawa public transit (part one) When I was a child my mom always called me “little rascal,” normally in Ukrainian, the language that her Polish family adopted when they came to Canada just before World War One. “Malenʹkyy dyyavol” she would yelp when I misbehaved…literally “little devil.”..
Speech to the Ottawa Transit Commission at City Hall November 25,2024 Here are a few excerpts from my speech to the Ottawa Transit Commission at City Hall yesterday. Anne and I were protesting the proposed 120% hike for a monthly seniors’ bus pass slated for 2025. The entire five-minute speech is on YouTube at 3:09:25..
Terminal tartar When I was about five years old, growing up in Georgetown, Ontario, a first visit to the dentist yielded the most perplexing diagnosis: I was afflicted with terminal tartar. Now in our home, in honour of my mom’s vestigial Catholicism, combined with her ardent desire to be a contemporary 1950s housewife, we always..
Tarpon Springs, Florida 1959…and 65 years later When I was seven years old, our family made a trip from Georgetown, Ontario to Tarpon Springs, Florida, on the train. (My father worked for the CN railway, so we had a family pass.) Tarpon Springs, Florida – Wikipedia We made this odyssey to visit our mom’s favorite..
Bug-Itis got a-hold on me …or don’t let the bedbugs bite About 400 years ago, when I was a student at Oakridge Secondary School in London Ontario, one of the major events of the institution’s social calendar was a yearly dance featuring a group called the Mandala, commonly referred to, for some unknown reason, as..
The poem below is a villanelle I wrote based on Elizabeth Bishop’s sublime work “One Art.” It is dedicated to my wife Anne to mark 45 years of our living together, beginning April 30, 1979. We are those strange characters in the picture included here. The Art of Loving The art..
Returning home… Adieu à notre belle vie française After two and a half years of living in beautiful Dijon, France, a city that we have grown to love, my wife and I are returning to Canada for keeps on Easter Sunday. Friends on both sides of the Atlantic – and our two sons as well..
David Sedaris and little old me Most of us have been told at one time or another that we look just like “X” (i.e. my favorite cousin’s best friend’s elder brother/sister/wife/uncle). Well, what happens when someone tells us that we write a whole lot like “X”? Since my book My Time with You Has Been..
The Pilsbury Doha Boy “Everything is funnier in retrospect, funnier and prettier and cooler. You can laugh at anything from far enough away.” — Chuck Palahniuk An individual sporting the trademark maroon uniform of Qatar Airways and holding a handwritten sign saying ”Paris” was vacillating wretchedly not far from the exit ramp as we “de-planed”..