I’d Like to Come Back

This week seems to be all about lids and cycles. Who am I to fight fate?

Of course, it could also be about humour in marketing, or about making a personal connection to affect behaviour.

Wait a minute, you say. We can’t have a personal connection with a metal jar lid, can we? Well, all I know is that *this* jar lid got its wish, at least as far as I could grant it: I threw it in the glass/metal recycle bin. It’s up to someone else to finish the job. And that brings in one of my mother’s favourite quotes.

It is not your duty to finish the work,
but neither are you at liberty to neglect it.
Pirkei Avot, 2:16

It’s true, you know? It’s connections, all the way down . . .

Posted in Laughing Frequently, Photos of Built Stuff, Thinking Broadly | Tagged , , | 10 Comments

And Around We Go

The screen in front of me is not quite the dreaded Windows blue screen of death, but it *is* the black screen of endless updates. In the middle of the screen a message huffily informs me that the downloaded updates are installing and I should sit down and shut up. Perhaps I paraphrase, but I can almost hear it sniffing, impatient with my impatience.

Be still
and know that I am updating.

Below this imperious message, a small arrow chases its own tail around and around in a circle, the hamsters being otherwise engaged, I guess. Continue reading

Posted in Feeling Clearly, Laughing Frequently, Mortality, New Perspectives | Tagged | 10 Comments

Cup-lid Face

After a long dry spell, here’s the second face in as many weeks. This one seems more seasonal than the suitcase. I mean, is this not the face of a slightly cross-eyed reindeer?

Of course, given that it’s a Timmy’s cup it could just be Canadiana: a moose, perhaps? Either way, I may never look at a maple leaf, stylized or otherwise, in quite the same way again.

 

Posted in Laughing Frequently, Photos of Faces | Tagged | 4 Comments

Tell Me Without Telling Me

The #TellMe challenge started in 2019 as a social media game: challenging others to express something in an indirect way.

Tell me you’re from NYC
without (actually) telling me
you’re from NYC.

I don’t own a car and life is easy.

Tell me you’re from the midwest
without (literally) telling me
you’re from the midwest.

A trip to run an errand is only 15 hours.

It started, I think, as a fun and creative challenge playing to exaggerated stereotypes and (mis)perceptions but, social media being social media, it soon degenerated into something a little snarkier. I bet you didn’t see that coming.

Continue reading

Posted in Laughing Frequently, Wired | Tagged | 10 Comments

When One Doore is Shut

Winter in Canada has, perhaps, one redeeming feature: I don’t have to get up too early, or stay up too late, to see sunrises and sunsets. Driving from Edmonton to Calgary last week, we saw all the stages of a sunrise at an entirely reasonable hour.

It started by looking as if it was almost done.

Continue reading

Posted in Appreciating Deeply, Photos of Landscapes | Tagged , | 6 Comments

Suitcase Face

Look at this cute guy, giving me the eye from across the room.

Continue reading

Posted in Photos of Faces | Tagged , | 4 Comments

Things Not Seen

A picture is worth a thousand words, yeah? So that’s it. That’s the post. Well, maybe I’ll just add a few words.

You can see the snow for yourself; the temperature is less obvious. It’s cold in Calgary. But not cold enough, I guess, to trigger that Prairie rule of thumb so often offered as consolation, however faint:

At least it doesn’t snow when it’s this cold.

Continue reading

Posted in Feeling Clearly, Laughing Frequently, Photos of Landscapes | Tagged , | 14 Comments

The Gamut Gambit

That’s the whole gambit.

From across the room, I throw a slipper at the TV. No, no I don’t. Is this a case of remarkable self-discipline? Of mature emotional control? Of respect for basic norms of civil behaviour?

No. I’m not wearing slippers.

Continue reading

Posted in Language and Communication, Laughing Frequently | Tagged | 6 Comments

Yes, Virginia

Don’t you have a pump?

I don’t even draw a breath: any pause would spoil the artistry of my slightly but completely justifiably indignant response.

There’s a pump?

My hair-stylist/salon-owner looks at me in the mirror, trying to decide if I’m serious. I look back steadily and, as well as I can from under the cape, give him the hands-opening-up-and-out-shrug: the universal hand signal for Seriously, I did not know there was a pump.

Continue reading

Posted in Appreciating Deeply, Laughing Frequently, Thinking Broadly | Tagged , , | 12 Comments