It is easy to lapse into a melancholic state of mind and in the process lose touch with reality. We have a habit of mystifying things from a distance, colouring them with perhaps unmerited speculation. Yet looking at things frozen in a moment renders an oddly expansive image of the whole which embraces the past and the future in one frame. Reflection is both fanciful and insightful. And at times lachrymose. The important people in one’s life are like the finest strains of doleful music, the softest garmet of silk, the tenderest flush of hues.
“But time is ticking!“
As I drove northward to Arnprior from Stittsville (where I had had the car washed), my mind wandered across the open furrowed fields. The blue sky was predominantly clear except for a fine haze. The vista was the background to the crest of land that drops across the Madawaska River and the skyline of Arnprior comes into sight. And the Antrim Truck Stop and its renowned Big-Rigs Bakery!
I’ve experimented with a lot of drugs. Aspirin, obviously, and also Tylenol Arthritis. There were 292s (or whatever they were called – some really powerful stuff my endodontist gave me) and of course codeine (which I now refuse because it constipates). Then there were – or should I say, “Now there are” – the recreational/analgesic items such as the bottle on my bookshelf conveniently located directly behind called “THC Mood Ring BALANCED 15:15 oil”.
It would be glib of me to dismiss those chemical additives as ineffective. Yet against the contest of arthritis there are few impediments. I have however discovered a pain killer that really works. Carrot cake from Antrim Truck Stop, BIg-Rigs Bakery does the trick! Please note in the interest of tenability and assiduity, each element of that discovery is important. For example, the cake is not just any carrot cake from anywhere. It has to be a carrot cake from Antrim Truck Stop, Big-Rigs Bakery. Trust me, I have no idea how they make it or what “secret” ingredients they add, but I’ve had a lot of carrot cake in my lifetime. Admittedly many of the carrot cakes (which by the way often side-step the traditional presentation of the cake) are quite satisfactory, maybe even delicious. But they are not exceptional. The carrot cake from Antrim Truck Stop, Big-Rigs Bakery is quite simply nonpareil, nec plus ultra.
Laden with gifts – and commensurately preparing my explanation for the lapse of dietary control – I relished the drive home following the windings of the River through the VIllage of Pakenham past Cedar Hill, Bennies Corners and the Tannery. It was a late Saturday afternoon on a bright, sunshiny day! As my friend Hughie Whitten liked to quip, “…with a clean windshield and a full tank of gas!” And on top of all that, I had by cautious reasoning and sometimes painful revelation undertaken a dive into the depths and managed to profit by the effort. I won’t say I got a grip on it all but damn close!