It is Thanksgiving weekend.  By late afternoon today – Saturday – as I smugly returned home from my leisurely constitutional automotive meander into Renfrew County, the country roads were fairly sparse apart from the occasional swirl of falling leaves. As a reformed boozer with all the gusto of a newly endorsed Christian, I maliciously conceptualized that the gentry had already retired to the drawing room and were greedily sipping the first of a succession of shots of blended whiskey from crystal tumblers. Such a warm and powerful image on a blustery autumn day! The day had not however begun as agreeably.

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Though it sounds colourless it is a singular and empathic pleasure to have nothing to do for the rest of my life.  What little remains as an agenda on my electronic calendar (and perhaps, now that I think of it, for the rest of my life) is comfortably instructive rather than offensively obligatory. There is no pervading uncertainty. I believe the most urgent of my future obligations involve a haircut, laundry, housekeeping, Thanksgiving dinner, dental hygiene, flu vaccination, health card renewal, dividend payments and that sort of thing. Not exactly a latitude associated with production.

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Life swarms with paradox.  In spite of my native though shamefully self-proclaimed allegiance to virtuosity I am occasionally inspired by trifling economy to acquaint myself with what I appraise to be the laudable accidents of Nature among them for purposes of this chronicle the purgative passage of copyright. I won’t even pretend that the posture and its dubious wildlife inference are but an obfuscation of what I fully suspect is a deeply embedded frugality within the Chapman family genes as exemplified by my late father and more recently my sister.  My sister for example rejoices in the find of a .925 sterling silver salt cellar or other heirloom at a garage sale or similar domestic enterprise. Admittedly my mother and I were affected by the feature of extravagance but always within a standard of excellence; that is, with the exception of once when she bought me an antique brass wall container for deposit of those silly candles that burn down before you get to the top of the winding castle stairs. And, yes, if you’re curious to know, I returned the oddity several weeks after Christmas to the antiquarian on Rue de la Montagne, Montréal. Laughably I ended replacing it with an equally preposterous antique mahogany box for playing cards and poker chips – neither of which I had ever used in my life! Wistfully for me in retrospect – though entirely without secondary remorse – it was that sort of wackadoodle which characterized many of our down-sizing items for auction when we decided to throw in the towel.  A small loss, granted, but a deprivation nonetheless.

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Whenever I contemplate living somewhere other than Almonte I invariably recoil. Here’s a list of why:

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I haven’t yet succumbed to long pants. But the summer is definitely over.  When bicycling today upon my usual route about the neighbourhood and along the Ottawa Valley Trail I saw a maple tree entirely of yellow leaves. It shone vividly in the slanted early morning sunrays. Many others are on their way from verdancy to collage. The canyon of sheltering trees on the erstwhile railway right-of-way shall soon abbreviate its mantle until exhausted to the flat grey solemnity of November and impending winter.

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We haven’t escaped the mention of COVID-19 since we first heard of it in March of 2020.  As late as March 15th, 2020 we were having breakfast on a brilliantly sunny Sunday morning at the Green Zebra in downtown Sarasota; and only three days earlier on Thursday, March 12th we dined with our friends, Dr. and Mrs. G from Maine. A Democratic leadership debate took place about the same time. Precipitously following the notice on March 16th of impending closure of the Canadian border we scurried home to burrow in our northern foxhole. The gravity of the pandemic was largely lost among the ensuing summer duties relating to hearing tests, blood tests, eye exams, birthdays, income tax, dental visits, social calls with family and friends, insurance renewals, Lanark Historical Society meetings, library lectures, breakfast at the golf club and arranging to have the clocks cleaned.

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Conveniently I am spared the indignity of incremental physical immobility by having preserved throughout the past 45 years an undying fondness for the North American passenger automobile. It gets me going when almost nothing else will. The opinion of my physicians and specialists is that I am in decline but as yet the front sight of the shotgun is only on impending doom not current or complete failure. The inescapable additive “old age” is proving to be the more common though equally dismissive diagnosis. The implication naturally is, “Live with it!”

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Top US General Mark Milley has warned al-Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan could threaten the US in as little as 12 months.

The Taliban had not broken ties with the group responsible for 9/11 and themselves remained a terror organisation, Gen Milley said. BBC September 28, 2021

The Muslims vs the Christians!  The east vs the west. Republicans vs Democrats. I have solved the world’s problems. The constant bickering has to stop! Listening to CNN, CBC, BBC, FOX, The Atlantic or Al Jazeera is nothing but a parade of insults traded between hyper-constructed opponents whose only apparent profit is entertainment and undivided self-interest. The vernacular has led to saturation and disappointment. There has to be a better way.

Muslims (Arabic: مسلم‎, romanized: Muslim) are people who follow or practice Islam, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion. The derivation of “Muslim” is from an Arabic word meaning “submitter (to God)”. Muslims consider the Quran, their holy book, to be the verbatim word of God as revealed to the Islamic prophet and messenger Muhammad. The majority of Muslims also follow their own versions of compilations claimed to be the teachings and practices of Muhammad (sunnah) as recorded in traditional accounts (hadith).

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After last evening’s rollicking rustic foregathering and superb al fresco dining in the Village of Ashton for Her Ladyship’s 31st birthday the initiation this morning of my routine bicycle ride was perfunctory. I did however first soothe myself with J.S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion performed by the Monteverdi Choir. The descent from pâte de foie gras, triple chocolate mousse and a squadron of youthful regeneration and manifestly indulgent old fogeys must of necessity provoke one’s desire for expiation.

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The constancy of today’s bliss is indescribable. Indeed so animated have I been throughout the day that I began to question whether I had not by inadvertence taken a codeine pill as prescribed yesterday after my endodontic surgery. Narcotics – apart from their constipating effect – are a confirmed game changer in addition to being an analgesic. Most likely I’ve just a hangover from yesterday’s meds during and after surgery.  Whatever is going on I have felt decidedly improved throughout the day!

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