Today is one of those grey, rainy disconsolate days sustaining myriad excuses to do nothing but snooze and drift into afternoon melancholy.  It’s Wednesday, nothing special about that.  Just the middle of the week. The uncommon lack of traffic certified that vacuous detail. And yet…having said that…we were anxious to get our scheduled booster today from the pharmacy where the pharmacist was as anxious to inform us that we had received at her hand a Pfizer-BioNTech Comirnaty XBB.1.5 COVID-19. Whatever all that means. I had by contrast a more revealing confab with her about her studies at Dalhousie University and all the related matters which subsequently flowed from the opening of that unanticipated floodgate.

We really do take a lot for granted by trusting our legislators and whomever else runs this country – including perfect strangers whom we allow to inject unknown fluids into our system.  Accordingly I accept as a purely logical premise that there are grounds to dispute the privilege of mandated health care.  I mean, really, it’s the last (and perhaps only) stronghold of independence we have; viz., our health and our bodies. But many of us have wilfully chosen to entrust our well-being to those whom we predict are more knowledgeable than we (though of course none of us has any proof whatsoever of that bald and admittedly far-reaching assertion).  It illustrates how contradictory and paradoxical our current pleasures and inclinations are, when you imagine how unjust we’d consider it of anyone else to make such an important decision without a particle of evidence to support it. Other than the equally unsubstantiated beliefs and – dare I say it – prejudices which seemingly govern our lives.

But I’ve lost the thread.  We were just going to the pharmacy for our shots.  Then, because we were parenthetically escaping our digs while our housekeeper was there performing her routine magic, we thought of going to the golf club for breakfast.  Well, a late morning breakfast.  It was just approaching noon.  I know that, by the way, for a certainty because while I was adjusting my seat at table overlooking the dampened greens, my telephone rang. Or buzzed. Or did something to animate itself.  When I removed my iPhone from my breast pocket, I saw that it was a call from a local number (which neither I nor my iPhone recognized).  So I called the number.  A woman – I’m guessing a youngish woman – answered.  She of course denied having called even though I had her telephone number.  That was the end of that. These things happen.

Then it was back to the bleary golf course and the grey river passing by. But in an instant all was invigorated. Our youthful and exceedingly attractive server (recently graduated from her first year at Brock University) arrived at table bearing substantial platefuls of breakfast. Pancakes, bacon, sausage and eggs. With butter and maple syrup. Though my partner and I have been together for near three decades (and have as a result little of any consequence or pressing immediacy to relate to one another) and though we’ve sat at the identical table many times over the years and enjoyed a similar if not identical repast), judging by the unobscured solemnity that at warp speed ensued (as we both greedily tucked into the trough), the meal was as always nonpareil. We salute Chefs Wendy and Christopher MacDonald, caterers of the Mississippi Golf Club in the Village of Appleton for yet another stimulating gastronomic outing, a veritable hole-in-one so to speak, an identifiable, memorable and palpable hit to quote the Bard!

Brock University is a public research university in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada. It is the only university in Canada in a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, at the centre of Canada’s Niagara Peninsula on the Niagara Escarpment. The university bears the name of Maj.-General Sir Isaac Brock, who was responsible for defending Upper Canada against the United States during the War of 1812.

Upon return home, and having ploughed through the outer edge of the rain storm, we settled into our dry, comforting (and now cleansed) burrow, punctuated for my part with a chilled espresso coffee as I tranquilly pursued the electronic complications of my computer and photo software.

And, with the arrival of the day’s post,  I have at last put the lid on the Henri Henri episodes.  It is once again the inevitable conclusion of the material world that nothing is perfect.  But I am immeasurably close.  Within mere millimetres of perfection. I have every intention of enjoying my triumph however Pyrrhic it may be!