To make Comments write directly to Jim at jimt@quixotic.ca
22
Dec
2021
Sunday December 19, 2021
I had trouble doing my Christmas decorating this year.
Last year, I found the bins of Christmas decorations Joan had put away in our basement the Christmas before. I set them up as I remembered what she had done.
This year, though, I couldn’t remember all the details anymore.
This Christmas, I realize, I’m not decorating for her. I can now only decorate for me.
Categories: Sharp Edges
Tags: Christmas, Blue Christmas, lonely
Thursday December 16, 2021
A few years ago, my daughter invited three temporary Jamaican workers for Christmas dinner.
As the oldest male in the family, I got to carve the Christmas turkey. Of course, I served the guests first. “White meat or dark meat?” I asked.
The three women looked at each other. Then one of them ventured, “Dark.”
The other two agreed.
When plates were emptying, I offered seconds. This time, all three of the Jamaican women asked for white meat.
It turned out that they had made an assumption. They thought that references to white and dark related to their skin colour, not the meat.
Categories: Soft Edges
Tags: racism, Prejudice
Sunday December 12, 2021
Things were just starting to get back to normal. Restaurants and drive-ins were open again. Sports events could have fans in the stands. People trapped in Canada for the last 18 months were booking flights to exotic locations.
And then the Omigod variant appeared. (Sorry, the OmiCRON variant). Some old rules were re-instated. Some new rules were imposed.
Suddenly, a return to “normal” -- whatever that is – looked a lot farther away.
I suggest that we’re kidding ourselves if we expect that the world is ever going to go back to whatever we once considered normal.
On a personal note, I know that, since my wife’s death last year, going back to any former “normal” is impossible.
Tags: normal, Omicron, mutations
Thursday December 9, 2021
The woman standing in line looked vaguely familiar. But because she was wearing a Covid mask, I could see only her eyes and forehead.
“Holly?” I asked, tentatively.
Her eyebrows shot up. Her eyes crinkled. “Jim!” she exclaimed, flinging her arms around me. (Take that, Covid!)
I find it hard to recognize people with half their face hidden.
In the old days, people used masks to cover other parts of their faces. The Lone Ranger and Batman wore masks over the upper half.
Now it’s the opposite.
Tags: COVID-19, Masks, whole body
Sunday December 5, 2021
After two weeks of reporting on B.C.’s floods, evacuations, washouts, and landslides, the CBC’s David Common was asked for his personal reaction to what he had seen.
He paused to think. I could see him collecting his thoughts, to avoid rambling or repeating what he had already said.
Water, he said. The sheer power of something that most of us take for granted.
Indeed, most of us do take water for granted. We think of water as benign. Friendly. Necessary.
This last few weeks, water has gone out of control.
Tags: water, BC, McLuhan, floods