Magpie Nesting Habits and Divorce Rates
Here’s something I bet you didn’t know: more black-billed magpies get divorced in Alberta than they do in South Dakota. It’s true. They usually mate for life unless one of them dies and then the...
View ArticleThe Murals of Legal, Alberta (Part 3)
There are so many great murals in Legal that it is hard to pick out a few to show you. Today I have chosen the portraits of two more homesteading families. This first is of Joseph St Martin and Marthe...
View ArticleHow Little Has Changed
I remember some of the names of my high school classmates. Sylvia Coulson, Jane Cripps, Janice Butler, Valerie Russell, Penny Lewis, Peter Blackwell, and many more. My memory gets worse every day, but...
View ArticleBiases Are Optical Illusions
Today I read something that made me stop and think. The behavioural economist Dan Ariely said: Behavioral biases affect everyone, including those of us who study them. Biases are like optical...
View ArticleFor All the Solo People
Covid-19 has given us all a new experiment in living. We are all (or most of us) trying to maintain social distances, wear masks, and wash our hands for twenty seconds. As the weeks and months have...
View Article. . . and don’t come back!
Molly Jung-Fast, Editor-in-Chief of the Daily Beast, got it right when she wrote today “America Finally Breaks Up With Her Abusive Boyfriend.” As a Canadian watching from the sidelines for the past...
View ArticleCompromise, Sometimes
There is a word in the English language that is a kind of verbal Get Out Of Jail Free card. It is also quite delicious to say out loud. The word is ‘notwithstanding‘. It means ‘in spite of’ and is used...
View ArticleWhat It Is and What It Feels Like
Today in Edmonton the temperature is -20C (-4F) with a windchill ‘feels like’ temperature of -28C (-18F). This distinction between the nominal temperature and what it actually feels like has always...
View ArticleThe Kettle and the Box
Question: What is the relationship between this kettle and this box? The answer: a dream. Remembering a Dream I rarely dream. In fact, when I had a dream a several weeks ago, it was a momentous...
View ArticleYouthful Poetry
I once took a course, many years ago, that required me to write poetry. I have never considered myself a poet or a connoisseur of poetry, but I did as I was asked. That poetry was put into a ring...
View ArticleI Was Wrong About Feminism
A couple of days ago, I discovered something I wrote when I was in my twenties. It was an essay entitled “Why I Am Not A Feminist.” It represents a moment in time when I had mixed feelings about the...
View ArticleI Cannot Cry
I sometimes feel as though I want to cry and all the normal emotional and physical triggers suggest that I am about to cry, but I don’t. I am told it is a side effect of one of my medications, and most...
View ArticleBeing at The Crossroads of Change
A couple of days ago, I told my eldest son that I wanted to thank him for being so supportive of his wife’s success. She recently had some good career news, and we were enjoying a celebratory dinner....
View ArticleContentment vs Happiness
When I was chatting with one of my singularly remarkable sisters who has recently become single, she said something that captured my attention. Normally, declarations that come with hesitations make me...
View ArticleLearning To Socialize Again
Two years of Covid semi-isolation has been a mixed blessing. I have enjoyed feeling safe and secure but also felt myself become increasingly agoraphobic. The long Edmonton winters and icy sidewalks...
View ArticleSquawking Children
On my way out along the seafront today, I saw what appeared to be a juvenile gull squawking at its mother. It continually followed her around and occasionally pecked at her. The repeated, high pitched,...
View ArticleOpen Letter to My Dentist’s Assistant
I’m sorry that I was resistant to your request for information this morning. It came as a surprise that you would call in response to my feedback on your clinic’s email questionnaire. I was suddenly...
View ArticleAn Oath of Allegiance
Next week, British citizens are being asked to individually and collectively swear an oath of allegiance to King Charles III, and that sticks in my craw. Today I have been wondering why. First, I have...
View ArticleSaying Goodbye to Farewells
Farewells are hard. Goodbyes are even harder. No matter how we experience them, there is always a tinge of sorrow, or regret, or hope, or ambivalence, or some squishy unnamed emotion that lies just...
View ArticleI’m Not Superstitious, But …
I’m not superstitious, or in touch with the beyond in any way, but something weird has been happening. I am repeatedly seeing the number 357. Sometimes it is 3:57 on a clock. No matter where I see it I...
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