Homer Simpson said it so well: "I'd be a vegetarian if bacon grew on trees."
Just a little bacon appreciation post for those who love salt and happiness.
Years ago a friend oh-so-randomly filled a pause in the dinner party conversation by remarking, "Frick, bacon's expensive!"
Well! You probably had to be there to fully appreciate this, but we laughed all night about his well-timed but left-field declaration and FOR YEARS NOW, whenever there's a lull in the game-night or supper discussion, someone inevitably drops this arbitrary statement and we laugh and laugh again.
Dear friends, I hope you and your pals have inside jokes.
Dear friends, I introduce SPRING in Northwestern Canada.
One might call our version of Spring 2026 less of a welcome seasonal change and more of a meteorological paradox. 😠
While other (northernish) bloggers tell of snowdrop flowers and actual butterflies, featured here is the (repellent) view through our lower floor window. Yes, that's our backyard (tomato garden box entombed) and yes, that's the peak of a neighbour's home in the distance.
Although locally quite on brand for this winter, all this flake news has become MORE and MORE and MOREsnowtiresome.
At some point, an iPhone Apple CarPlay update meant my vehicle navigation now features this tiny and instantly amusing vehicle on my dashboard display and it consistently triggers a switch in my imagination so now any road-trip is ALSO A VIDEO GAME and thus I anticipate/conjure various (fun) characters and or obstacles to emerge like MARIO & LUIGI or a YETI (to eat my avatar) or a LAVA PIT or a PORTAL (teleportation wishful-thinking) and yes, I suppose this confirms Iam still a child, also just so you know I'm a tad preoccupied on the road these days. Dear friends, travel safe.
Unfortunately, we all know what a clique is. Sure, there are wholesome exceptions—a book club for example—but typical cliques are comprised of people who think tribalism is a personality, people who don't choose their friends carefully or, in short, sheeple—a frustrating collective driven by one or two ringleaders, secretly aching to maintain their fragile egos and dubious influence, buoyed by herd mentality and their gang, all ill-equipped or actively-resistant to thinking critically about their norms, their conduct, their code. One might call them oppressors, bullies, or the cream of the crap.
Does my description bring anything to mind?
Cliques are exhausting. I remember because I've been in them. I think this sort of temporary insanity is commonplace. I've learned my lessons and I'm wary. Decades later, joining ANY group for me is like a passport application: periodically necessary, but references must be involved, and I may never travel there anyway. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
But whether it's Junior High or 2026, there's no escaping some cliques: here we are again.
I'm thinking about those groups I can't seem to ignore or escape, namely the Alberta Separatists (rolls eyes here) who aim to impose their policies on us other 7.5/10 proud-to-be-Canadian Albertans who have indeed been undervalued by our federal government, but c'mon people there's NO WAY our province would be better off independent from Canada—not to mention solvent—nor would we be independent for long—insert Orange Shitpile Biff Tannen 51st state blustering nonsense here—a reference to another relentlessly inescapable ringleader and his clique of idiots currently in charge of (effing) the (entire) world. Sigh.
What to do though? Defying cliques is exceedingly onerous; they disregard reasoning. I'd be delusional to think this blog post would impact much of anything but nevertheless, I do hope to arm you with a new-to-me clever (and satisfying) language counterpoint to the clique: the claque. What if clique members had a word to ponder their roles as mimicking sycophants, clapping and clapping ad nauseam at their ringleaders' bullshit?
Dear friends, I know it's only a word, but as I've suggested before, precise word-choice impacts worldview, so please use/drop/insert/release this word (like a balloon) as you see fit (sly as a fox).
Whether archaic or zeitgeist-y, unfamiliar words or phrases fascinate me. Currently, I'm captivated by the phrase drag path. Apparently, it's also a social media hashtag...so for those who imbibe in that sketchy pastime, perhaps you were already familiar?
Although I don't know much about this phrase's history, I encountered it thanks to the (fantastic) band Twenty One Pilots who recently released a song bearing this name. Perhaps they coined it?
If you know anything about me, you know I'm an (overly)enthusiastic learner so experiencing this song, this phrase felt...how to describe...?
You know when a much-missed friend covers your eyes from behind...like a makeshift blindfold, then suddenly removes them to reveal themselves? Like that...like a sight for sore eyes, but for my ears instead, ha. I didn't know I was missing this phrase (and this song) because I didn't know it existed! It turned me round. And now I see drag path evidence everywhere. Thanks (once again) to music and language, I'm empowered to identify something that once needed many more (failed) words to describe the profound but typically nebulous after-effects of an emotional experience.
To explain: a drag path is literally the path made during a task, struggle, or conflict—it's a sign, an impression, an earthly scar—somewhat forensic in nature. Metaphorically though? Imagine a grief drag path, or those created by addiction or depression or trauma. And like a drag path through the snow (eventually melted) there's intangible and psychic evidence everywhere. Think about the personal story a series of hidden tattoos might tell. Think about a heart surgery scar. Think about the pandemic's ongoing effects: a drag path of health issues, education gaps, politics, histrionics and loss. Think about the devastating drag paths of this violence and these (endless) wars.
Hardwired to be introspective, I think I've long sensed this idea but I'm grateful to now name it, to recognize it, to help others acknowledge theirs. Sometimes my own drag paths linger like ghostly trails. Heck, much of this blog might be a drag path.
We've all endured something—or we're currently enduring something. This phrase enables us a lens through which to investigate life's inevitable emotional scarring. Who/what dragged us? Did we drag our own feet? At what moment did we stand on our own two feet again? Others may never know our hidden struggles, but whether the evidence is subtle or not, they leave a wake. What might we learn from the wake?
The song features a character's intentionally-left evidence, "I dug my heels into the gravel as evidence for you to unravel," touting some type of rescue. One could insert their favourite saviour accordingly, but the song leaves it ambiguous, resisting a single interpretation. Regardless, what I'm more interested in about drag paths is this: they signify BOTH weakness and strength, surrender and resistance, friction and perseverance. In this sense, some are necessary. And sometimes we rescue ourselves.
Dear friends, contemplate, even examine your drag paths, but remember those struggles also represent survival. Whether it's to signal rescue or pure tenacity, continue digging in your heels.
Bonus: when peeled one might say they're giving Dr. Seuss vibes. Despite this fair assessment, I will eat them in a box, I will eat them with a fox, I will eat them here or there, I will eat them everywhere... because they're delicious. Not-so-bonus: unpeeled...well you already know what they resemble.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Anyhoo, I mention them because science says the exterior fuzz is just as nutritious as what's inside.
Therefore, dear friends, as Dr. Seuss might put it, do you nosh them with the skin or does that make your stomach spin?
Curious to know a little known life-as-a-Canadian hazard?
Choking on a snowflake.
True story.
Mishap occurs more than you'd think. I will never not recommend a brisk walk during a snowfall but if the wind(chill) is blowing a certain direction—the exact direction one must trudge to return home—well, dear friends, don't sing along with your ear pods or risk inhaling those adorable fluffy (damn) (killer) snowflakes.
One more thing: if it weren't March this post would be unnecessary (even embarrassing) but it's time FOR THE MELT TO BEGIN. Sigh.
we all know some words are better left unsaid. Conversely, this adage suggests that some words are best said.
Precise language impacts worldview. Words influence action. So, dear friends, what if you and I—at some point today—released this word like a balloon into this sorry world?
Dear friends, I hope you already know that a sketchbook can change your life.
Because a sketchbook is your very own secret laboratory. Or workshop, or garage. It's your office—perhaps the one you prefer to visit. It's a forge, a factory, a shop. You can lose yourself there, time will disappear, the work is "all." Things will happen and you will begin to see the world anew.
Some cautions though: a sketchbook is not about perfecting or producing something. Unless you want one, there's no clapping nor silent audience. And it's definitely not (all) about your so-called artistic skills. It's not about good or bad, right or wrong.
Defer judgment. Discontinue criticism. Suspend doubt. Waive embarrassment. Slow down. Think. Observe. Record. Stop verbalizing. Quiet. Calm. Think. Move the dialogue inside. Or silence it. Because, here's the truth: you must must must destroy the gatekeepers of your imagination.
Thanks to a childhood filled with sci-fi/horror books and movies, I am especially intrigued by this "lab" situated near my new temporary office. Sure, my cerebral cortex is like calm down, but also DANGER. And those frosted windows? They certainly add to the potential for an "outbreak" of some design.
Let's be honest: laboratory is a synonym for a fraught 48 hours from an home-made asylum. Yikes. Remember The Fly (1986)?! (Don't google it.) Hence, that's why I would LOVE to visit this room! Because, mystery. Because, curious. Because pea-brain.
Dear friends, what in the amygdala do you think's going on in there? 😕😁
I fell in love with reading again this year. It's not like we had broken up, but... perhaps horticulture would call it a reblooming. My relationship with books this year quickened, seeking to make sense of the senselessness and find the humanity amongst the intrusive and pervasive cultural smog surrounding us, because let's be honest, it's choking out there sometimes.
Dear authors, thank you for the absolute toil you make look so easy: like few other things, it helps clear some of that smog. In no particular order, my top five reads follow.
If you've read this title (an imagined early life of William and Agnes Shakespeare) you might be surprised by my perspective: this book is a touching romance. There's wooing, and deep maternal love, and there's a remoteness from real-life, to spin a magic cocoon for a happy family. But then, tragedy: one all parents dread most. Yet in making art out of pain...perhaps all's well that ends well? Their plight reminded me of Prospero's final lines in Shakespeare's Tempest. He asks the audience for applause. Although many conflicts remain unresolved, the story (that suspension of disbelief, that romance afforded by the arts) can transform our pain into something bearable, even meaningful, albeit temporarily: "release me from these bands with the help of your good hands."
It seems to me that beneath this short book's surface is Ireland itself: its history, its trauma, its children, and its future. Essentially a novella, Keegan's book is in no way small. That ironic title highlights how trauma is minimized, even institutionalized, in service to old and tired ideologies until one good man, (seemingly small), decides that delivering coal and righteous sanctimony is less important than his daughters' futures.
Historical fiction (early 1800s?) set in what is now Newfoundland. A sister and brother, just children at first, endure the feral environment while trying to survive. Explorers and early capitalists come and go seeking fortunes, all hapless eventually yet history teaches us this is how North America was settled. An Adam and Eve tale, there's paradise here and an inevitable fall, plus a cruel ocean waiting to swallow everything. And yet we immigrants & colonizers are the descendants of these tough and tortured mortals.
With each incredulous chapter, my inner voice continued to ask, what IS the long walk? Is it a coming-of-age horror story? Yes. Is it an war allegory? Yes. Is it modern-day reality-TV obsessed USA? Yes. Is it about male friendship and the way it knots itself embracing then rejecting vulnerability? Yes. Despite my conclusions, does it remain ambiguous? Yes. Although I've read many of his titles, I think this one impressed me like no other King novel, (and its his first!) Also this: read with caution. Although published in 1979 (!) the casual nature of its cruelty and insanity feels very 2025.
I already wrote about the film version, yet I loved the book first. A lonely good man, a logger in early Northwest USA, grapples with his mistakes, his losses, his empty life. Do our mistakes haunt us? Often. Do they doom us? Sometimes. Is there some cosmic price to pay? I doubt it. Or must we simply enjoy kissing the ones we love among the daisies while we can? Yes, yes, yes.
I know this is a little late...but we enjoyed a rare Christmas with our kids and ALL our grandkids. Three of the five (!) little ones slept over with us; we were VERY BUSY in the best possible way. You would definitely laugh at the chaotic family pics sure to be hilariously re-enacted in the future. Anyway, on Christmas Eve, these are the treats they decided to leave for Santa and the reindeer. M wrote, "SANTA FOR YOU." 😀
Healthy choices... or hmm... were those little toots keeping the cookies and chocolates for themselves? Either way, adorbs.
P.S. I have a few scheduled posts before year-end, but I'm starting a new job in January for a few weeks and I AM BUSY (good busy). Nevertheless, I will check in periodically to determine if you've left ME some treats posts, because let's be honest, those feel like surprise treats too.
It won't stop snowing here. To paint a picture for you....
Imagine you're sitting at your dining room table ready for supper. The table is set, nothing is amiss on the table's surface...the food is piping hot...but you'd be sitting in snow. Reach into your pocket... snow. Drop your fork... gone. Forgot the ketchup...you'd be wading back into the kitchen, the snow way over your Sorels(nod to fellow Canadians). Don't even attempt to open the fridge's bottom drawer.
We are approaching a meter. 😕
It's equal parts alarming and hilarious. Winter travel is doubly concerning. Our community is doing a great job with snow removal but they can't contend...it's relentless. It's also my youth relived, but with climate change, well...we haven't had this much moisture consistently for about a decade...maybe two? Hence I apologize for complaining, but...there's a deer attempting to shelter under my deck. Enough.
Even the trees are alarmed. Examine the photo: I'm 73% sure that's some sort of tree spirit and I'm 100% sure he's exhausted.
Dear friends, there are apparently about 90 days until Spring (insert Canadian-style guffaw here), so in the meantime, what to do, but just go with the flow snow. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Artist and author Lynda Barry said it so well: "There's the drawing you are trying to make and the drawing that's actually being made—and you can't see it until you forget what you were trying to do."
Dear friends, Lynda Barry is talking about life, too.
I've been reading a lot about art lately. One notion about artmaking stood out among many assertions: there's a human tendency to "close early on an idea."
Yes.
Whether a forklift operator or physician, that inclination to tick boxes, to iron it out, to get to the bottom, to solve and be satisfied, to close on an idea, and move on—we humans resist protraction, don't we? Waiting rankles. It can be uncomfortable. We don't like to not know. It feels like...losing. My words are not intended to criticize this type of thinking; I haven't read the book yet, but there's obvious value in both thinking fast and thinking slow.
But art...it invites us to to think s l o w to decelerate, to ease off...to pull ideas around us, closer, like a blanket, a weighted blanket.
Have you seen the film Train Dreams? There's a scene—perhaps 90 seconds (?)—where one character's quick decision, his reluctant yet undeniable involvement, haunts him forever. He engages with an idea without thought, an idea with an alarming outcome, one he surely did not expect nor want, and this idea, this moment, the burden of it... he spends his life doomed by it.
Train Dreams does something so well: it emphasizes scale and image over discourse. With little dialogue, the film's director paints a stunningly beautiful portrait of a man and a life hinged on regret and loss and grief and the terrible and grand mystery of it all; he invites us to sit, sit without answers, sit and contemplate the whys.
Perhaps I loved it so because my Dad was a logger? Perhaps I loved it because I revisited my past, even the difficult past with rash decisions and regrets? Perhaps it was the time and place, the nostalgia? Yet how am I nostalgic for days before even my grandfather's birth (1913)? Perhaps because I long for a slower past, where change didn't constantly hit us all like middle school spitballs? Yes yes yes...but perhaps mostly these themes, these ideas, the invitation to contemplate.
Film, as an art form, invites us to inhabit a space, to walk in those shoes, to join the protagonist's journey (somehow making our own a little less lonely), and to reflect on the story it constructs on the screen but more so, within us—all stories are interior stories, aren't they? That's art. It gets inside us. And what does it do there? It challenges us, it stirs us, it pushes, but it repairs us too, it restores us, it soothes and settles us, if we allow it, if we unclose ourselves to the ideas.
Recently, I spent an afternoon with my two-year-old grandson being his LEGOfer. As a fellow creative—and his (big-kid) assistant—I encouraged all his creations. However, some of my prototypes were approved, while others were dismantled without explanation. 😂
What are you waiting for? Also, dear friends, consider rewatching the LEGO Movie. Like LEGO itself, it's designed for multiple interactions. For example, I bet you missed this favourite line. 😄
slipping...falling...taking a tumble...unless you're a toddler (even then, I suppose) it can be quite serious. Sometimes there are big consequences. Statistically, it's foreboding.
The photo tells the story, doesn't it? One might say, gravity called and I took the call on my knees. I've answered this call before—I remember my elbow took weeks to heal, but this time? Only my dignity took the plunge.
Again, not to negate the seriousness of falling, but there's a very human moment after a fall, isn't there? That embarrassment? It's humility. And it certainly seemed to me like I had instantly developed warp-speed in uprighting myself and then scanning the neighbourhood to see who may have witnessed this grounding moment. A vehicle drove by, I nodded sheepishly. Nevertheless, thankful to be without pain, I had to laugh at my awkward self and the photo evidence: it's clear I was swept off my feet, but sigh, without the romance. I've devised a name for this moment: humortification. 😆
Dear friends, be safe out there and may your "down-to-earth" moments be low-impact.
Sometimes nature has a way of illustrating the lesson you did not know you needed.
Dear friends, no matter how this deer's journey might resonate with you—whether on a continuum between inviting change or overcoming an idée fixe or choosing retreat—they're all going somewhere. Keep going.
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