When I was perhaps eight years old I received a wind-up toy car from Santa Claus.  I remember it well.  It was a silver coloured German-made racing car with a white rubber bumper. I spent Christmas morning propelling it about the smooth kitchen floor. When I wasn’t playing with it, I put it on a shelf for protection and admiration. Though I can’t imagine the model car initiated my subsequent interest in real cars there were characteristics of the toy car which match the qualities I like about the real things. I hesitate to say German engineering because I have only ever owned domestically manufactured automobiles; but the German tradition of creative superiority is an indisputable hallmark. Another is the sense of solidity and weight. Simplistic design is another. And overall stability. In sum, the feature of reliability was and is manifest.

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There are two things I abhor: travel logs and recipes.  The reason?  They both inevitably dwell tarsomly upon the cause not the effect.  When it comes to globetrotting and tucking in I’d much prefer to hear what happened than how.  Accordingly I shall spare you, my dear reader, a repetition of the formula of last night’s meal other than to say, first, it was superb; and, second, it was pork tenderloin médaillons with mixed green salad and local baby potatoes.

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How many times in your life have you asked yourself, “Is this the right time?” I suspect more than once.  You may even recall precisely when.  It is as likely to have transpired to your discredit if you chose to ignore the sonorous call. I’m thinking for example of would-be love affairs because those in my experience tend to strike home most noticeably. If by chance you were one who opted to do something about it, at the very least you know of what constitutes the deprivation; and, you may have stumbled on a great deal more. Whatever the outcome it no doubt inspires a wistful memory. A ship departing on the distant the horizon always does! On this Valentine’s Day I must however digress to less prismatic instances when the decision about the right time to do something also strikes us as unexpectedly.

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The sophistry of the Republican party in acquitting Trump of impeachment marks the end of a pitiful era of American history. There is no one – including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell – who does not think Trump engaged in criminal activity. The juncture does not however obliterate the underlying racism of the so-called “Make America Great Again” political army, a movement which goes back far beyond the turn of the twentieth century when Eastern European immigrants were condemned as itinerant pedlars for not “tilling the land” – that is, for being different (though I have no idea where the remote landowners were otherwise expected to get their dry goods). Americans have devoted centuries to name calling one another because they’re different; and, to this day they continue to do the same.  It amazes me that we humans have yet to develop a new way to approach our fears, something Trump and his acolytes capitalized upon.

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Mid-winter is a widespread occasion for a sobering look at one’s protuberant belly. Although the aim is less about the Darwinian theme and more about the Ralph Lauren objective – that is, less about diet and more about appearance – healthful eating is always cogent. It’s at least intellectually inspiring. And that of course is the real problem; namely, raising the spirited ambition from chatter to action.

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Customer Review of 2021 Lincoln Aviator Reserve AWD
Manufacturer: The Lincoln Motor Company, Chicago
Dealer: Lincoln Heights Ford Sales Limited, Richmond Road, Ottawa, ON Canada
Lincoln Heights Ford Sales Limited

February 12, 2021

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There is within the ungodliness of my latest tactile absorptions (the visual, the mechanical and the artistic) an identifiable yet complicated scientific feature, the exact nature of which I know only by the very pleasing effect arising from its impenetrable cause. Isn’t that so often the case!  How willingly ignorant we are of origin yet how shamelessly avaricious we are for its reverberations, those fountains of transparency and brilliance from the wellspring. Thankfully there is no imperative to connect the two. The tolerance of rendition howsoever kindled is but an accepted convenience of society.

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One of the recognizable though perhaps less than lofty merits of shallowness is the over-riding permission (dare I say submission) to acquaint oneself with the hedonistic and patently visceral pleasures of life! In my defence – and speaking on behalf of the natural scientists of the planet – we are after all at heart but a stem from the root of the corporeal world! This fleshy, substantial sphere is however not so far removed from the unworldly, spiritual edacity that some would have us believe. Never overlook the strength of the mind/body dichotomy, thank-you René Descartes!

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Never had I imagined the current extravagance of nothing to do! With the exception of the occasional medical appointment and an outing for grocery shopping, the world is my own! It is however but an awakening privilege, one which expressly requires conditioning. Its unemployment is not a release from work for there is a new mandate. Nor by the way is the boon merely a product of retirement.  Indeed the first several years of my retirement were devoted to domestic adjustments and a prolonged review of paper and electronic files including the maintenance and settlement of the inter vivos and testamentary estates of my parents. What a profound peculiarity it is for me to reflect upon what is the precipitous disappearance of my parents and the equally abrupt injunction of the future horizon which I must now face entirely without them, without the joy or necessity of their approbation, as an unidentified personality in a wide open space of unfamiliarity. I have at last attained the summit of professional and familial obligation. My complacency is a confessed achievement of self-satisfaction though not without its percolating exigencies.

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This business of going to bed every night at precisely ten o’clock is in many ways a welcome adoption but at moments like this – when I’ve devoted an entire day to “taking care of business” I need a break from routine.  Not that it is something I am attempting to avoid; it’s just that sometimes I require more than habit to make me sleep or at least stay asleep without pondering things over and over again.  Anyway what’s keeping me up and going at this dreadful hour – it is shockingly now past midnight – is that I have been fussing all day rearranging things.  Just little things, really, but nonetheless things that obviously captured my attention.

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