Bill,
Drop everything and proceed with Denis to the local Brooks Brothers store. For the first time in my life, their polo shirts are 50% off. I finally bought one. Still cost you over $50.00 but it’s worth it to have one. The cotton is amazing.
Go now. There are temptations all over the store.
Merry Christmas,
Mike T.
The clear, cold weather continued today. Fearing that our bicycle tires might contract in the frigid temps we opted instead this afternoon to walk along the Mississippi River. The Riverwalk from the old Town Hall to Metcalfe Park was partially covered in snow and ice so the walking was for me at least at times treacherous. Nonetheless we credited ourselves with an outing of 1.6 kms which I consider a small but acceptable accomplishment. Towards the end of our trek I had opened my sheepskin coat, tucked my gloves in a pocket and removed my fur hat.
My paternal grandfather (George Chapman) was a wholesale fish monger, silver fox rancher and maple syrup producer. He owned a home on the St. John River in New Brunswick (a province adjoining Maine, USA). He had seven children and drove a Packard limousine as a result! There’s a story that when my father’s marriage to my mother was announced, my father’s mother told my mother, “Get everything you can out of him in the first four years because there’ll be nothing after that!” My mother received in addition to her substantial engagement diamond ring several fur coats – among them a lamb shearling and a silver fox called a “chubby” (which was strictly for formal evening wear). There is nothing innately silver about the silver fox. The fur is actually black but through the tanning process the colour is altered.
Where to begin! Today was a master stroke of incomparable attainment! The unparalleled zest hasn’t the trapping of anything profane as commercial achievement or gloating victory. Rather it is the consequence of unpredicted fortuity. The coup is particularly gratifying because it followed a sleepless night after an evening meal which because of its infrequent pungency provoked a moderately unsettled repercussion. At two o’clock this morning I succumbed to my persistent wakefulness by withdrawing from the virginal lair to pursue a less hostile environment in the drawing room. When at last I returned to bed, I slept painlessly until shortly before nine o’clock this morning. If the Stoic revival weren’t then enough to inspire a determined address of the day, any hanging back was abruptly quelled by the sound of an incoming telephone call from an HVAC manufacturer in Ottawa advising that the filters ordered last August had arrived and were ready for pick-up. The delay had been precipitated by the pandemic and the corporate shift to produce masks instead.
The polar temperature today – minus sixteen degrees Centigrade – was a record so far for the season. After yesterday’s near chilling cycle along the old railway line we knew better than to attempt that finger-numbing adventure again today. So this afternoon in the interest of fresh air and exercise we opted instead to walk along the Ottawa River at the Nepean Sailing Club in Andrew Haydon Park. To prepare for the outing it was first necessary to reacquaint myself with the seldom used closet in the study where years ago I had hung my winter coats and tucked away on the shelf above my mittens, gloves and hats. Until that moment it was a wardrobe I had not had occasion to revisit. Putting on the gear indoors was itself an endurance though not of the boreal nature that was to follow when we commenced our walk.
Americans, aside from having a guaranteed fodder for entertainment in the evening news, are completely worn down by the gambits of President Donald J. Trump who is clinging to the gates of the White House with tiresome conviction. In the process the members of the Republican Party have succeeded to contaminate themselves as pusillanimous bastards.
This morning – amid a dusting of snow – we bicycled 12.93 kms according to my Apple Watch and the resulting Activity Summary on my iPhone. I can think of no reason other than the childish amusement with a toy that I should persist in keeping track of such unimportant detail. Obviously we knew where we had gone and roughly how far. Yet the manufacturers have succeeded to engender a hopeless preoccupation with record and accounting. There are other related averages and totals for workout time and calories none of which sadly has done anything to reduce my protuberant belly. Nonetheless we both agreed that the venture today was invigorating. The horizon for such Olympic endeavour is narrowing as we incrementally approach what will assuredly be a dump of snow that will make any future adventures perilous.
Christmas Eve is ten days away! The buzz has as usual heightened upon every turn! Throughout the Town there are charming front-door wreaths, glistening lights on trees, magnanimous exchanges of greetings by regular mail and email, non-stop sentimental carols on the radio and appetizing evidence of seasonal cooking and treats. This is the first winter we’ve spent in Canada – specifically, in the cold – for years and years. Certainly we occasionally hearken back to fond memories of the southern Atlantic coast or the green shores of the Gulf of Mexico but we have succeeded to rise above the pandemic interference and now seek to derive whatever benefit we can from this wintry clime.
As Sartre put it: “Do you think that I count the days? There is only one day left, always starting over: it is given to us at dawn and taken away from us at dusk.”
The quotation above was sent to me by my long-standing friend Dr. Franz B. Ferraris of whom I am quite certain – though without any tangible proof – that he subscribes to a like reflection upon the immediacy of the present. The unspoken sequel to the remark is that we’d better learn to make the best of what we have while we have it. By coincidence as we bicycled through a light snowfall this morning we passed an acquaintance walking her little white dog. She triumphantly exclaimed to us as we went by, “Isn’t it amazing!” This clipped addition to the conversation underscores the great surprise or wonder of life.
As the illumination of December 25th draws near, the indisputable resplendence of Christmas carols is enough to make almost anyone react sentimentally. And if the undercurrent of sacred inspiration doesn’t succeed to shape the listener then one is as assuredly overtaken by the unconscious hearkening to the past, to memories of people no longer whinnying among us, to pictures in our mind of distant events now softened by regret or dismay. All told it is sometimes a dreadful effect – captured for example in the melancholy song “I’ll be home for Christmas“.