“I’m Afraid of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf”
Murder by Death, Album “Like the Exorcist, but more Breakdancing“

I didn’t mean to make you feel out of place
By the comments on your clothing
Or the makeup on your face
I didn’t mean to pre-empt the chase
You’re the drama queen of every scene
Perfectly out of place

So you cry yourself to sleep
On your blanket of snow
With your tiara of barbie doll heads
And your arms crossed for a pillow

If you can’t make up your mind just how different you should be
Reorganize your priorities to expect more sympathy

Only cynicism can get through to you
Expand the image up the insults negativism through and through
All of this pretending makes me feel a bit confused
You’ve spent your life losing yourself and now you’re marked as used

As my dear old pal Johnnie (an addlepated alcoholic) was wont to detail, “Well, I got up“. If I recall correctly it was around 9:30 am this morning that I first stirred beneath the enveloping duvet. I had that satisfying sense of recovery from a pleasant dream. Removing my sleep mask it required tactical effort to descry the weather. Bright sunshine happily streamed into the bedroom through the drape on the door and the cracks in the window shades. The footling intelligence instantly buoyed my percolation.

We have in the studio Bertrand Russell, who talked to us in the series “Sense Perception and Nonsense: Number 7, Is this a dagger I see before me?” Bertrand Russell.

Russell: One of the advantages of living in Great Court, Trinity I seem to recall, was the fact that one could pop across at any time of the day or night and trap the then young G. E. Moore into a logical falsehood by means of a cunning semantic subterfuge. I recall one occasion with particular vividness. I had popped across and had knocked upon his door. “Come in,” he said. I decided to wait awhile in order to test the validity of his proposition. “Come in,” he said once again. “Very well,” I replied, “if that is in fact truly what you wish.”

I opened the door accordingly and went in, and there was Moore seated by the fire with a basket upon his knees. “Moore,” I said, “do you have any apples in that basket?” “No,” he replied, and smiled seraphically, as was his wont. I decided to try a different logical tack. “Moore,” I said, “do you then have some apples in that basket?” “No,” he replied, leaving me in a logical cleft stick from which I had but one way out. “Moore,” I said, “do you then have apples in that basket?” “Yes,” he replied. And from that day forth, we remained the very closest of friends.

Classic text on bare plurals

Between 1963 – 1967 while attending St. Andrew’s College in Aurora, Ontario one of my classmates and colleagues was Nicholas Glassow. He is the son of the late Dr. and Mrs. Frank Glassow of Thornhill, Ontario where Dr. Glassow was one of the senior (if not in fact the senior) surgeon at Shouldice Hospital, a private clinic.

“The facility was the subject of a 1983 business case by the Harvard Business School. Written by James Heskett, the report is the school’s fourth-best-selling business case, selling over 259,000 copies. The case study focuses on Shouldice’s unique three-day hernia repair process. The popularity of the business case is responsible for the hospital’s process becoming known outside of Canada.“

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The sky over Sarasota Bay is a foggy grey. The palm fronds are twisting in the forceful wind coming from the west across the Gulf of Mexico. The American flag “red-white-and-blue” is fluttering in alternate directions at the top of its pole. We have the front door of the apartment open and the wind is howling through it to the open windows of the drawing room overlooking the boat slip. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, December 24, 2019 on Longboat Key.

I hesitate to record this particular incident. Not because there’s anything either wrong or strange about the detail. But it is nonetheless mildly embarrassing. Here it is in a nutshell. Immediately following brunch with friends on Anna Maria Island, on our way home through Bradenton Beach we detoured across the bridge at Cortez to Tide Tables for lunch!

Casual seafood eatery overlooking the Intracoastal Waterway, with a marina & outdoor tiki bar.

Serendipity: the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.

As they leapfrog from South Africa to Singapore in search of local delicacies, the authors prove again and again that serendipity is the traveler’s strongest ally: many of their most memorable meals issue from the hands of generous strangers …— Sarah Karnasiewicz,  Saveur,  June/July 2008

If reporters fail to keep these files, they seldom luck into bigger stories. Their investigative work typically happens only by design—analyzing the news, for instance—not by serendipity.— Michael J. Bugeja,  Editor & Publisher,  13 Jan. 2003

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The giving of gifts at Christmas is an indisputable part of the Christian tradition. Its only competition is the focus on food – a custom shared with many other religions. Reflecting upon past Christmases there is no question that my mother ensured that both conventions – gifts and food – were predominant. The absorption certainly surpassed any religious imperative. Only once do I recall having attended Midnight Mass at St. Paul’s Anglican Church in Almonte. It was an odd occasion on which I was home alone on Christmas Eve (probably because my sister, her husband and young children where with my parents instead – likely staying overnight). I as probably gleefully used the opportunity to light the fire and then get lit too before walking to the Church in the snow.

“The winter solstice celebrates the longest hours of darkness or the rebirth of the sun and is believed to hold a powerful energy for regeneration, renewal and self-reflection. In Pagan times the winter solstice was referred to as Yule and was a celebration of the Goddess (Moon) energy.”

Have you ever tried to make another pot of tea with the same tea bag? I suspect not. It’s an economy not even the most niggardly would likely attempt! Yet how often do we demand a similarly endless production of ourselves! Though tea is not my preferred ambrosia – my favourite is coffee, strong black French or Italian roast – I know enough about the ceremony of making tea to grasp that, aside from first heating the pot with some hot water and afterwards allowing the tea to steep, one would never think of re-using the leaves. There are simply limits to what is expected of even the most exotic Darjeeling!