For those who love...

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.   

Snowmo-being

Thanks, son. 

There's so much more sunshine these March days, yet snowfall after snowfall continues. We know there's no point in complaining, but that never prevents a Canadian from griping about the weather. Between complaints though... why not go sledding?  

My son (the stuntman in the photo) recently repaired my "sled," a weighty old-school no-name-brand-yellow clunker of a (perfect-for-me) snowmobile. Thanks to him, my clunker has much more gumption. 

As the photo implies, my son and I approach snowmobiling differently. One might say we have opposite ways of snowmo-being. He's no fool, but he's more of a risk-taker and quite unflappable. My approach is more cautious, and uh, geriatric. Nevertheless, despite differing "braaaaap" styles, inside us we're experiencing the same emotion: pure joy.    

I often say that my son possesses many of my characteristics and all those I wish I had. Did I have his confidence at his age? Nope. Could I repair a snowmobile or anything else? Nope. But I could draw it, paint it, describe it, neglect it, and then buy parts so he could fix it. I believe this relationship is referred to as er...symbiosis, or is it codependency? 

I josh. I'm grateful for him. He needs me though too. After we zipped around for a while, I pressed my brake and noticed no resistance. Hmm. This was not overly concerning among the flat prairie fields, but I made a mental note and adjusted accordingly. Later, I mentioned the brake problem. His reply?  "Oh yes, I know; I haven't fixed the brakes yet." 😕Perhaps he could have shared that important info pre-braaaap?

I told you he was unflappable. (Or perhaps planning my demise?) We chuckled; we both know there's something I'm a bit better at than him at least sometimes: fundamental communication. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

Let's be honest:

sourdough cinnamon brown sugar bread
(Thanks, T.)

bakery air.

It's basically oxygen, but better, buttery better. 

I fondly recall many places I've visited all over the world but truth be told many of the best spots were bakeries. Montreal. Kensington, PEI. Galway. 

Dear friends, here's to more bakery air in our lives. 

You know you knead it. 

Things that deserve the stink-eye (in a good way):

kiwi fruit. Yum.

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? 

To learn more about kiwi fruit please visit this entertaining YouTuber who shares the fruit's history (and takes a jab at a certain world leader, lol.) 

Makers

im-peck-able design :)

Recently, I enjoyed a few hours playing with my middle granddaughter, I. Considering she has a new baby brother, she loved the undivided attention. And me? Also a total boost. 

She has the cutest bedroom; last summer I helped her Mom paint it pink and white. Her Auntie painted big yellow flowers along one wall. Her room is big, with ample space for toys. Although I will always be a fan of big cardboard boxes, stones, and crayons, some modern toys exhibit impressive design. I's miniature A-frame cabin—it has a tiny glowing campfire next to it—ha, I played with its sound effects more than she did! And of course she has a big bookshelf with her Mom's childhood rocking chair next to it. We spent most of our time reading aloud: she brought me book after book after book—this is classic playtime with I. 

But my favourite of her toys? A knitted chick. Imagine the person who created this?! How could you be sad or anxious with this little friend?  

Let's take a moment today for people who make things: artists, creators, composers, cake-decorators, all types of creatives—their skills, their imaginations, their hands. In these modern times of tearing-down, remember and celebrate the people who make things: they empower us, they comfort us, they inspire us. 

Markus Zusak said, "I guess humans like to watch a little destruction. Sand castles, houses of cards, that's where they begin. Their great skill is their capacity to escalate." Sad but true, eh? Let's be honest though: the greater skill is to make something that de-escalates this impulse. 

Dear friends, what do you make? Or which maker inspires you? 

Let's be honest:

Thanks, Chris
(for fries cooked in beef tallow,
 and for everything else too).

Everyone should know a guy who

a. knows a guy

b. knows a guy who knows a guy

c. knows how to make homemade French fries.

Dear friends, who's your guy? And what do they know?

Let's be honest

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? 😕😁

Fave Books 2025

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. 

Let's be honest

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. 

Five!

Number 5 is here! Another M! And another cousin for M, L, and the last M!

His (now) big sister is sitting on my lap helping me, er, type this... kjnjjjjjjjjhjjjjjhjj ...thanks, I. 😌😆😘

Remember that line from Winnie the Pooh? "I was walking along looking for somebody and then suddenly I wasn't anymore." 

Wow. Dear friends, may we all find our somebodies. 

The Forecast

The Northern Lights, we swear.

On Tuesday night, My friend Kate (who lives on the other side of Alberta) and I excitedly texted each other our best Northern Lights pics. The sky did not disappoint: those greens, those pinks, and those reds?! 

Whoa. 

Forecasters said the next evening they would be even more impressive! Could it be possible? 

Uh yes...last night...insert record-scratch here...they certainly were...something else, lol. 😀

Dear friends, I hope you have screwball friends with whom you can share some Abnorthern Lights (and whatever else brings the haha we all deserve in these 2020s). 

Moved

I haven't attended an arena concert since 1991 (Sting), so the Sarah McLachlan concert this past weekend at Edmonton's Rogers Place was...overwhelming, good overwhelming. She performed with the band Tiny Habits; combined they just might be the sad song music therapy epicenter, lol. For a guy who read this book as a beacon to the shadows, let's be honest...all the feels, all at once. 

Things have changed since 1991. Mostly me. This time, sober, conscious, I brought a well functioning (mostly) frontal lobe. But my brain still wanted to play games. The venue? The crowd? Yikes. Massive. This introvert's initial reaction? Fear. And the Dad in me kept waiting for the event safety spiel, lol. But soon I forgot because somehow, Sarah made it feel cozy. 

I have a list of musicians I've longed to experience live: Sarah was third. She's a one-of-a-kind Canadian treasure of a human and her concert did not disappoint. Imagine being a child with hearing loss and becoming a global award-winning performer who used her mastery of sound and voice and language to change the world. (See the Lilith Fair documentary.) 

I had hoped she would perform her cover of Joni Mitchell's song River (Mitchell is the #1 artist on my list). Yet with every hit, old and new—her voice like a weighted blanket—I soon forgot and then she sang a favourite: Ice Cream. 

Years ago I sang this song to my kids at bedtime. If you know it...your love is better than ice cream...better than chocolate...better than anything else that I've tried...that might seem fitting but this song—deceptively simple and upbeat—is also dark, and most importantly, honest...but everyone here knows how to fight...how to cry...it's a long way down to the place where we started from.... That's why I love the song: it juxtaposes exuberant delight with that abrupt anguish inevitable in all our relationships, the mirth and the melancholy. She did not sing her crushing song from Toy Story 2 either, but she did sing a song she wrote about her relationship struggles with her daughter, entitled Gravity. Oh wow. 

While waiting to vacate that massive arena, a stranger asked me what I thought of the concert. Sheepishly, I told her I cried a few times. She nodded and smiled, "you were moved." I'm still moving. 

Dear friends, what's moved you lately? 

Things one should never outgrow:

Thanks for the reminder, L. 

politeness, charm, civility. 

Potty-training is challenging, but my grandson is teaching me a few things I suspect we should all review periodically.  

After his first BM in the toilet, and before he received several Smarties, my grandson (altogether sincerely) had this to say about that first flushing, "Bye-bye poop. Have a good day." 😄

 

Caturday, kinda.

Thanks, M. 

I don't own a cat, but my 4-year-old granddaughter does, so if you're into Caturday (or need some light-heartedness), here are her adorable cat drawings. 

How do you like meow? 😀

Wait, wot?

Wait, wot? 

I swear this main-character-energy mushroom wasn't here yesterday?! I've read that some mushrooms can double their size in 24 hours, but this mushroom? She got quantum leap skills.  

Aren't mushrooms bizarre? They're fascinating. Wikipedia informs me this is a "coprinus comatus" aka the appropriately named "lawyer's wig, or shaggy mane fungus." 

Like all cunning villains, this character wears a wig, proving she's involved in some nefarious subterfuge, popping up into the garden, a stealthy baddie up to no good. It's like she's superbly styled by the genius artists from the series, Wednesday. 

If you're thinking, pea-brain put a leash on your revving imagination, here's the most astonishing fact I learned about her: "this mushroom is unusual because it will turn black and dissolve itself in a matter of hours after being picked or depositing spores." 

Wait, wot? If you look closely, she's already dissolving! No doubt she is currently popping up (right behind you) in your garden (insert Thing's soundtrack here). 🤣

Just the Right Amount

A sister to M & L, 
and a cousin to I. 

Especially after false labour way back in the first week of August, it's been quite a holding-pattern of a month waiting for our newest (third) granddaughter: 9 lbs and 9 days late! I'm so impressed by my daughter's resolve.  

But she's finally here: another M, her name a nod to my Grandmother and her middle name for my daughter's grandmother. Imagine being so fortunate to be named after two grandmas...that seems to me like just the right amount of grammatude, and I can't wait.   

Places to Go

Clever.

On their way through Saskatchewan, some good friends texted this hilarious t-shirt design, lol. Well done Tourism Saskatchewan. 

These friends are currently moving home to Nova Scotia after 30 years employed in Alberta. Working for decades in the Canadian West is a familiar story for those of us born out of the province, but especially those from the stunning Maritime provinces: New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland. I'm sad to see them go, but we will visit them someday soon. I'm also a bit jealous of their cross-Canada travels, a dream many of us Canadians possess although the east west trip alone is about 8000 kilometers. (This reminds me dear Canadian friends, did you know you can now buy Terry Fox's shoes?!!)

Their trip is more necessity than tourism, but like many Canadians choosing not to travel to the US this year, it's an opportunity and the right time to explore a corner or two of Canada's 10 million square kilometers. This summer, our new federal government initiated the Canada Strong Pass, so Canadians (especially young Canadians) can experience our country by rail. There's so much to marvel at here at home. 

For US friends interested in visiting "The [Forever] True North Strong and Free" this summer, there are many wonderful places to see and experience. And if you find yourself in Saskatchewan, you must get the t-shirt, AND if you want a unique, some-say-weird, one-of-a-kind experience, visit my favourite Saskatchewan oddity. If you dare. ;)

Tree Gazing

As my oldest granddaughter once said, "Happy New Day, Pops." It is indeed. The saskatoons are ripening— my favourite sign of Canadian summer. Happy Canada Day, friends.  

Science says even looking at trees boosts your mental health. What's your favourite tree? Or berry? 

Help Yourself.

Thanks, Grandma. 

My life-long relationship with food? Dysfunctional. Someday we may delve into that topic. 

Anyway, current status? Complicated, and healthy-ish, but perhaps not in the (caloric) way you might be thinking. Let me explain.

A Gen X kid (aka 8/10 times without parents), I taught myself how to "cook" all the 70s-80s savory classics: mostly fish sticks, oven fries, KD, tuna casserole, chili, and other box/ package/ can-opener inspired meals. (I still firmly believe that most meals should be cooked in one pot and eaten as leftovers for days.) Except for rice-Krispie squares—marshmallows are fun to melt—childhood me never learned to cook anything sweet.

 

After years of attempting to feed my kids (no comparison to my wife's abilities), cut to becoming an empty-nester (about a decade ago). Equipped with more time, knowledge, and skills than childhood me, I decided to join that elusive club of people who made food others actually enjoyed. In most cases, people ate my culinary concoctions with more resignation than reverie. So, always a creative, I began to experiment. I failed. I succeeded. I learned how to make chocolate-chip cookies that are infinitely more popular than I am. 

And that's it. Insert record-scratch sound here. I perfected these cookies and that's all I made for years; it's still my go-to. I call my recipe, 'Small Cookies are Stupid,' because they are. 

But this taught me something more meaningful than recipes. Cooking sweets for others boosts my mental health. My cookies make people happy; happy is not my default mode, but making people happy? Pure dopamine. 

Cut to the pandemic. Remember those tragic and trying 24 months when most humans became more we-orientated than I-orientated? But then thanks to politics and social media 30% of humans went batshit? Sigh. Who didn't need extra dopamine during those days? So I mastered my Grandma's cupcake recipe. And gave them away again and again and again; I made them for my own birthday party this week. Why? Gifting cupcakes boosts my personal growth, and increases my life's purpose and meaning. It bolsters my self-acceptance. It lifts my heart too. In short, everyone is rewarded; IT'S A DOPAMINE PARTY!

Dear friends, happiness is fleeting. But mastering something simple and sharing it with others? Help yourself. 

FOMO

Our precocious, fast-moving
youngest granddaughter, I. 

Although my grandchildren's personalities are unique (and in development), they all seem to display one common trait: FOMO. 

It's the reason they're so disarming. 

I love it when all three grandkids are together with us, but let's just say I am the JOMO to their FOMO. So when they wiggle their way into my lunch, my laptop, my life... I am summarily overwhelmed and yet also joyously powerless to resist them, similar to Elizabeth Olsen's vibe in this puppy interview, lol. I recall a comedian once remarking that he had no idea that parenting his first toddler would be similar to living with his university roommate if said roommate were drunk 24/7. To hell with boundaries, amirite?

Oh sure, I know how to to gently redirect and distract when necessary, for their safety, for their education, etc. etc.... but at this stage in my life I avoid imposing myself. Why? We earned it: grandparents often take advantage of the privilege to laugh about it and let their parents figure it out. But the real reason? These kids are the nervous system reboot I never knew I needed right now in my life; like the Grinch, they make my heart grow three sizes, minimum. 

Currently, my youngest granddaughter is the perfect age for this puppy-like pandemonium, so that's why I thought she needed to celebrate the way she jumps into life (and off the slide) with both feet; hence, she has her very own FOMO been-there, done-that, bought the t-shirt t-shirt.