Old age, so I have unwittingly and a shade reluctantly lately smoked out, is unqualified and uncompromising.  I had previously attempted to bend the branch.  But I was up against a powerful grip. The inflexibility of old age isn’t poetic; it isn’t a dreamy world in the verdant pasture of life. Its defeat of willingness is harsh and relentless. Its unconditional nature is utter and outright. The most workable resort, I have concluded, is the one guided by accommodation. This I think you’ll agree is not a preferred recipe; it is distasteful medicine especially for those of us who are keen upon independence and latitude. The prescription ensures instead unparalleled limitation. We cannot do all the things we used to do. And more exacting is the growing narrowness of our performance in spite of our willingness to cooperate. We are repeatedly alerted to the impending necessity to make compensatory decisions about where we’ll go and what we’ll do when we get there.

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It is infrequently that we have such an animated confab as we did late this afternoon with old friends at a local beanery.  Our dining partners, a married couple each younger than us by about two decades, live nearby but hail from Northern Ontario where the Trans-Canada Highway precipitously turns west towards the distant prairies. They have from the moment we met – which at table today we speculated to be about 2012 – characterized what I have since come to observe from acquaintance with others from Northern Ontario the outstanding features of intelligence, devotion, assiduity, skill and spirit. And they as we adore their pets (a cat and 2 dogs).  Our commonality is otherwise impossible to distinguish except as fortuitous for we met entirely by accident on the beach of Hilton Head Island, South Carolina when I asked to pat their French bulldog Max, little then knowing they too were Canadians who likewise resided in the Ottawa Valley. We’ve been munching and conversing together ever since.

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Excerpt From
Thomas Babington Macaulay
“The History of England, from the Accession of James II — Volume 1.”

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It is at times thorny to know where to go, whether straight ahead, up or down, left or right, in or out or around a winding curve beyond which there is no end in sight. Do we engage at our risk and peril? Or were it better to remain rooted to the spot. But at what place?  The one whence we came or the one whither we go? There’s no map to tell us the direction or distance of our travel or when to stop or start. Like the precipitous and shifting skies above us, there are no time limits or boundaries or mandates. Certainly there are cautionary urges and impulses; signals on the horizon; and guide books, everything from apocalyptic and biblical to modern and green, spiritual and psychological plus the gauzy dreams in our head.

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“Sir George Jeffreys, Chief Justice of the Court of King’s Bench, was a man of quick and vigorous parts, but constitutionally prone to insolence and to the angry passions. When just emerging from boyhood he had risen into practice at the Old Bailey bar, a bar where advocates have always used a license of tongue unknown in Westminster Hall. Here, during many years his chief business was to examine and cross-examine the most hardened miscreants of a great capital. Daily conflicts with prostitutes and thieves called out and exercised his powers so effectually that he became the most consummate bully ever known in his profession. Tenderness for others and respect for himself were feelings alike unknown to him. He acquired a boundless command of the rhetoric in which the vulgar express hatred and contempt. The profusion of maledictions and vituperative epithets which composed his vocabulary could hardly have been rivalled in the fishmarket or the beargarden. His countenance and his voice must always have been unamiable. But these natural advantages,—for such he seems to have thought them,—he had improved to such a degree that there were few who, in his paroxysms of rage, could see or hear him without emotion. Impudence and ferocity sate upon his brow. The glare of his eyes had a fascination for the unhappy victim on whom they were fixed. Yet his brow and his eye were less terrible than the savage lines of his mouth. His yell of fury, as was said by one who had often heard it, sounded like the thunder of the judgment day. These qualifications he carried, while still a young man, from the bar to the bench. ”

Excerpt From
The History of England, from the Accession of James II — Volume 1
Thomas Babington Macaulay

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For the past decade we have routinely wintered on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina or various places in Florida (from Daytona Beach Shores to Key Largo).  As a result most of my clothing is for warmer climes than Canada in the winter. And as a further result I am struggling to adjust to long pants, heavier shoes, long-sleeved shirts, sweaters, hats, coats and gloves. My racoon hat has long ago gone out of fashion.

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An unanticipated casualty of weight loss is the reduction of one’s ring size. The reduction though minimal is however especially noticeable on the little finger where I sport my so-called “pinky” ring.  The ring was never tight; but my moderate weight loss (20 pounds) combined with the load of the ring  (40.2 grams) has precipitated a dislocation. The disturbance is so sensitive that it shifts with the change of the weather.  On days when the clouds cover the sky and there is humidity in the air – as opposed to days when the air is clear and dry  – there is less annoyance.  Recognizing the alteration I could only think to go to the local hardware store to search for a rubber “O”-ring which might usefully compensate the increased space between ring and finger. It is not an ideal remedy and requires almost as much attention as not having it at all. Today the difficulty has evaporated as the threat of rain (or snow) increases. The brownie, Nanaimo bar and chocolate/peanut butter cookie I had last evening after dinner in muted anticipation of today’s relieving event (related below) may also have had something to do with it!

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Part of Cadillac’s safety features is a service called OnStar.

OnStar Corporation is a subsidiary of General Motors that provides subscription-based communications, in-vehicle security, emergency services, turn-by-turn navigation, and remote diagnostics systems throughout the United States, Canada, China, Mexico, Europe, Brazil, Colombia, Argentina and the Gulf Cooperation Council countries.

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Jewellry
personal ornaments, such as necklaces, rings, earrings or bracelets that are typically made from or contain jewels and precious metal.

“she had silver hair and chunky gold jewellry”

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We drew open the blinds this morning to reveal a dazzling sunny day. Crisp and clear. It was without question a happy chance for the proverbial Sunday drive. Nor did we shilly-shally about launching the exploration. Initially we headed to Westport on the Upper Rideau Lake then southeasterly to Gananoque. But our more compelling direction was along the Ivy Lea Parkway adjoining the St. Lawrence River (above where it drains into Lake Ontario) en route northerly through Rockport and Mallorytown past Brockville and Blue Church to Fort Wellington at Prescott then back to Ottawa all the while having traced the Canada/United States of America border separating the Province of Ontario and New York State.

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