Rhythm. Rhythm in music. Rhythm in words. Rhythm in patterns, on the floor, in wood. Rhythm appears in the sinuous movements of dance; sounds out from fingers dancing on piano keys; heard in the staccato beats of hand clapping hand. Hidden, our hearts beat out rhythms, and our breath, lulled into meditative depths, inhales and…
Category: Personal
Beginning The New Year
The New Year began with a heart attack — ack, couldn’t see anything on my website but my home page — and shock — someone rated Lifeliner on the Chapters website. Whoo hoo! Luckily, tech support actually understood the website snafu, and we resolved it. In the process, I’ve learnt some errors are inscrutable and…
The Soft Light of Christ(mas)
The woman stands at the tall lobby window, staring out into the night, waiting. The car races down the darkened road. The crosswalk lights sway erratically in the black wind, casting shifting shadows onto the melting snow. People jostle strangers in the light-bright mall, un-noticing. The mother cooks in the kitchen. The father sits on…
Telogen Effluvium: The Dirty Secret of Stress
There’s a condition doctors won’t tell their patients about. It sneaks up on an unsuspecting person; when you suddenly realise what’s happening, doctors dismiss it, relatives poo-poo it. It’s called telogen effluvium. In short, massive hair drop or the big sink clog or the human hair pillow. Yes, folks, your crowning glory falls out and…
Blogging on Canada, The Coalition, and Harper
I’ve had one heck of a fun day, blogging and tweeting on the rapid political changes happening in Ottawa. The House of Commons has suddenly become a bloodbath, but instead of the red stuff coming out of the Liberals, it’s coming out of the Tories, with Prime Minister Stephen Harper ironically the lead butcher. I’ve…
Thoughts on Living with Tape on One’s Chest
What’s it like to have something stuck to your skin, year in, year out? When I was writing about Judy Taylor, I didn’t spend a lot of time imagining this, probably because for her, the G-tube (gastrostomy tube) consumed much more of her thoughts with its incessant leaking onto her skin than her catheter or…
A Lactose Rant: Goat’s Milk vs. Cow’s Milk
The Oprah Show was interesting today, looking at the Blue Zones — places where centenarians thrive in good health — and Dr. Mehmet Oz, Oprah’s medical guru, served as the guide for the show. Dr. Oz, with his partner, also writes a column for The Toronto Star, talking a lot about nutrition. He’s a cardiac…
CafePress has gone Canuck
CafePress has gone Canadian. Yup, they’ve launched a CafePress website “localized for the Canadian market.” When you surf to CafePress, you’ll see a little flag at the top of their website with an arrow beside it. If you mouse over that arrow, you can choose from Canada, Australia, UK, and US Worldwide. Sweet! Canadians can…
My Second Brain, My Palm
Surrogate Memory. That’s the title of Judy Steed’s article in the November 8th Toronto Star on seniors with memory impairments using Palms. It’s apt. I called my Palm my second brain. I first checked out these nifty handheld devices when we bought my regular biennial computer back in 1999. But as Normand, my husband at…