While 2014 seemed like a welcome breath of fresh air this New Years Eve, a year for which I still hold the greatest of expectations, it could definitely use a breath mint at this point, at least from where I’m standing. Read more
Last night while on a rare family outing to see the musical Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (rare because it didn’t take place at a hockey arena), Andrew and I officially became an embarrassment to our kids. That’s right. We had the audacity, the unmitigated gall, to openly express our appreciation for the performing arts in public. I know … someone call Children’s Aid. Read more
Like most Torontonians, I am only too aware of the fact that our fellow Canadians think we’re all a big bunch of wimpy winter snow sissies. Well, STICKS AND STONES PEOPLE! (Actually, we’re not really well equipped to handle that kind of flying branch and rock debris, so … you know, please don’t.) Read more
With cold and flu season in full swing, I have been so cooped up over the past two weeks caring for sick, stuffed up children that I was getting down to my very last nursing nerve. So many, many days …
But thanks to the miracle of antibiotics and Tim Horton’s coffee Read more
“Daddy, I like this one … THIS one, daddy!” the girl insisted as she tugged on the spruce’s frozen boughs. I glanced at the child and her loosely bound tree and thought it too short, too sparse on the bottom, and far too scraggily to ever make it onto the roof of my car. I wouldn’t have taken the tree either. Read more
‘Twas the month before Christmas and as the first jingly shopping mall music thwacked me in the ear like a hard-packed snowball, I felt both excited and horrified by the looming prep work ahead that accompanies the word ‘holidays’. But at a time when even heavy metal’s Twisted Sister is reminding me to Come All Ye Faithful, at least I’ve got Read more
Alright, so I’m no Rosa Parks. For those who read my Can’t Afford Rob Ford rant last week, I’ll admit I didn’t attend Saturday’s anti-Ford rally as I said I would. I know I was all hopped up on banner-toting social justice when I said it, and while I am still as disgusted by Mayor Rob Ford today as I was on Friday, I just needed a break from the man. Oh, and my dog ate my placard. Read more
Do you know what it feels like being a Torontonian right now? It’s a bit like standing in a crowded elevator beside a man who just baked the mother of all wind biscuits. Read more
Like most North American children, my kids have no firsthand knowledge of war, and for that I am eternally grateful. They do know that their grandfather had been a pilot during the Second World War and that, as they tell it, “He went to fight that bad guy Hitler”. It’s a subject that usually ends in quiet introspection, for all of us. Read more
I like to think of myself as a reasonably rational person, not prone to hysterics. I also like to think I’m Tori Amos or a veiled wood nymph at times, but neither persona would have saved me from myself last night as I drove my car alone in the dark.