What began quietly this morning as a prospectively normal day – blood pressure readings, ablutions, breakfast, cycling and a constitutional drive to the city for a car wash – suddenly turned to unanticipated commotion. The day became critically complicated when I noticed that my iPhone was irreversibly black. After being defeated in all manner of repair (other than simply plugging the phone to a charging cable – and waiting) I performed a test of the device’s facility by attempting a repeat of a recent telephone call to my partner via the screen of my car’s LED screen. To my admitted surprise, the call worked. So the iPhone functioned though I couldn’t yet see its activity.

It wasn’t until I reappeared on home territory – and the charging thankfully stimulated its rectification – that I read the numerous communications on my iPhone. The first text message was from my partner regarding his conversation with our US banker and an email from his surgeon. That intelligence alone invited further specificity and involvement. The second text message was from my brother-in-law’s brother, proposing a rendezvous of me and my partner with him and his co-vivante. When I tried calling him, there was no reply. I left a message. It turns out his device was malfunctioning temporarily as well. Then a third text message materialized, an invitation from my erstwhile physician for a swim at his country estate. Meanwhile, interrupting these pressing considerations was my habitual consideration of an afternoon double espresso at Equator Café. My head was swimming with alternatives!  Paradoxically the furious wind throughout the countryside correspondingly activated the poetic stratagem of “pathetic fallacy”. By this point I was nearing turmoil!

No doubt, dear Reader, you can bear the deprivation of my pathway to resolution of this inconsolable dilemma. I ended rallying first with my partner, who encouraged my connection with my erstwhile physician for an improving swim in the country. I therefore gathered up swim suit and towel. Serendipitously upon arriving at my erstwhile physician’s residence, I read my brother-in-law’s brother’s testimony regarding his defective phone. We settled outstanding matters by expressing the hope to unite soon – perhaps at the golf club for brunch on an equally sunny day. Subsequently another text message arrived, reiterating the identical wistfulness.

In summary, I did go to Equator Café where I enjoyed a very agreeable double espresso; and, no doubt in an effort to palliate the mounting violence and volition of the day, purchased six of their inexpressibly tempting goodies! Consolation is not for the pusillanimous or for those of sylphlike grace. This, after having swum at my erstwhile physician’s residence; and, after having parenthetically discussed among other things the shameful appeal of baked goods at the German baker’s in Carleton Place. Having thus regrouped, I was homeward bound, re-energized and stabilized. My brother-in-law’s brother sent one final text message suggesting a possible unification tomorrow. As so often happens in matters of similarly unprecedented turbulence, we’re back where we started – and no worse for the spin.