bogeyandruby

December 26th — Showing Up

bogeyandruby

December 27, 2025

After the big clean-up yesterday evening and writing my daily blog entry, my husband and I settled down to watch a couple of episodes of Motherland, a hilarious British comedy series about some of the more unsavoury aspects of middle-class motherhood. Long story short, we ended up going to bed late and I was in the middle of reading a chapter in my current book, when I suddenly did a face-palm and exclaimed out loud, “Dang, I have an early morning kettlebell class tomorrow!”. The class is live online, super convenient, but the start time is 6:30 am. I need at least forty-five minutes to an hour before class to toilet and feed our three dogs and get enough caffeine flowing through my veins to push and pull my way through a challenging strength-training session.

My coach, Pedro Barbieri, is an outstanding, stand-up kind of guy: martial arts trained, disciplined, reliable, and honest, with an integrity that makes him show up for class, even when I am the only one booked. (Why more people don’t exercise in the morning, I don’t understand.)

I knew he would be waiting for me this morning no matter what, and because I knew this, skipping class was not an option. This mutual accountability is a strange mix of annoying (like those times you want to skip class because you need an extra hour or two sleep to metabolize all the excess Christmas carbs you consumed the day before) and marvellous because you literally have a gym buddy showing up for you every single time and you don’t want to let them down.

I perform best within the framework of structure and a fixed schedule. Once those elements are in place, repetition of the activity in question establishes new grooves in my brain that then become habit. Once the habit is formed, I am committed.

I am not a fan of this time of year with the excesses it imposes when it comes to food, drink, socializing and spending. Granted there are some positives like the whole notion of the spirit of giving; many charities benefit from the generosity the season brings.

That being said, why let all the things that are good for you go the last four to six weeks of the year, only to begin every new year with the same resolutions to join a gym, eat better, get more sleep, make more time for creative pursuits, etc.?

It is so much easier to commit to a healthy lifestyle in a way that is sustainable all year long. And while you are at it, find someone, be it a coach, friend, or support person, who shows up for you consistently. Think about that for a moment, about their commitment to you, how fricken awesome that is, how lucky you are to have them in your corner, then set that bloody alarm and show up for them too.

Dedicated to you, Pedro, for all those mornings you show up for me. With gratitude.

December 25th — Denouement

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December 26, 2025

By 6:30 pm, the last of the guests had departed, the washing up was done, my black velvet slacks were hung in my closet and I was in full decompression mode.

As predicted, there is always a mad dash to the end. A dear friend texted me early this morning : Merry Christmas old friend. Breathe. And use a timing list (I always make a list of when items come out of the fridge, when to warm the oven, when an item goes in /out etc to manage my entertaining anxiety, and to set timers in case I get engrossed in conversation. Also I plan what goes in what serving dish.

Such a great idea but unfortunately I was down to the crunch, too late to make a timing list but I will definitely do so next time, if there is a next time.

Forgive this unrelated interlude but my husband wrote this lovely haiku this morning. inspired by our backyard squirrels.

By Ian Hanchet.

We left later than planned to pick up my mum at the residence where she lives, about forty-five minutes before the other guests were to arrive. She was in a tizzy; apparently the resident handy man figured Christmas Day was as good a day as any to fix the hole in her ceiling from some plumbing work he had done last week. She’d had no access to her bathroom all morning.

Meanwhile at home we had adapted our bathroom to accommodate her mobility issues.

Grab bars for the toilet. One of these days I will install one on the wall.

My mother has a hard time following conversation at gatherings like this but she does enjoy being part of the celebration.

The matriarch.

The guests started to arrive soon after we got her settled. We served them munchies and a cheese plate. The gourmet chips were a big hit but shockingly, there were lots leftover. I particularly enjoyed the Miss Vickie’s Vodka Pizza Sauce chips and the Chilli and Mango Chutney flavoured ones.

The table looked a bit meh, I mean okay, certainly not as good as I had pictured in my head, but it’s challenging to cram eight people around a smallish table.

The table setting, done at the last minute. I spent too much time trying to wake up this morning after very little sleep.

This was my husband at the beginning of the day and just a few minutes ago:

My attempt at a group selfie. It should be noted that I have hobbit-sized limbs.

We forgot my mother in this one.

Better but my right arm takes up too much of the frame. That’s Jazz, the chihuahua to the right, near my mother’s chair. We should have called him FOMO.

Dessert was fab. Sticky toffee pudding and some Christmas cookies and squares.

Nom nom!

After dessert, Ian and his sublimely talented daughter, Ema Jean, sang some Christmas tunes.

My mum and sister left first; mum was overdue for a little snooze in her chair. The rest of the kids played a card game but I am not a fan of games (unless it’s Clue, I love Clue, or Scrabble) so I sat quietly with my coffee and caught up on social media.

Parrotlets Loki and Ivy keep me company while the others play games.

We sent everyone home with doggy bags. Doggy bags make me happy because they remind me of my mum and dad, always concerned that I wasn’t eating enough, sending me home with Tupperware containers of leftovers. I am sure I would have starved if it weren’t for them.

My husband and I exchanged Christmas presents last evening to save time today. Here are some of my fav gifts from him:

This is a gorgeous, hardcover copy of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park.

Check out the pages:

The book design is a work of art.

I also received this book of Herman Leonard’s photography, music photography being of particular interest to me.

This present is from Ema Jean and her partner. What a perfect gift for a bookish couple who belong to several book clubs!

Apologies for all the photos in place of text. I am pretty pooped, mostly from the wind-up leading up to this day.

Honestly, it’s not for me, this hosting business. I am not a convert having survived the day. But it is important for my mum and after all the Christmas dinners she hosted for us kids, I owe it to her to suck it up.

Wishing all my readers happy holidays. Hope you spent the day the way you wanted to. I appreciate you.

December 24th — The Crunch

bogeyandruby

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December 25, 2025

To a certain extent, anxiety pushes me to be super organized when it comes to planning for anything I find particularly stressful. I guess it gives me some sense of control and I feel great relief ticking things off my to-do list.

Like weddings though, there is only so much you can do in the days leading up to the event. Today’s check list included a couple of important tasks: 1 Pick up food from caterer. 2. Clean-up house. Item one was pretty straightforward. The caterer we use isn’t too far away and is uber organized herself. The only moment of panic was when we realized we couldn’t fit all the food in our retro 1988 fridge (still not dead). After chucking some expired condiments and moving all the cold drinks to a cooler, we managed to shove everything in. In a brief moment of madness, I half-wished we had a second fridge, but then I thought of my parents and the two refrigerators (at one point they had three) and humongous freezer we had to empty after my dad died three years ago and I came to my senses.

Christmas turkey and trimmings for eight people plus two cheese platters.

Soon after the food was sorted out, the table centrepiece I ordered from the local florist arrived, all bird-friendly foliage. It is lovely with a scent of pine and cedar.

I love the greenery with pops of silver and brown.

Because we have three elderly dogs, one of whom sheds, and four birds that we allow to fly freely for periods in the day, clean-up must be thorough and meticulous, up to the standards of people who do not have animals, if possible. The birds all got minimal flight time today but we will be back on schedule on the 26th.

As my son is spending Christmas Eve and Christmas morning with his girlfriend’s family, we took an hour out of our housekeeping chores to open presents with them.

My son, studying journalism with a minor in political science, asked only for books this year.

Books on international and national politics and an art book about Kent Monkman’s work. Monkman has an exhibit currently showing at the MMFA

.

Sean & Isa

Isa loves Jazz, our fifteen year old chihuahua.

Surprisingly, I even had time to chill this afternoon. Here I am enjoying a latte in my new mug, a gift from my son, featuring the only kind of cat allowed in a house with birds.

New Christmas mug.

A little light reading.

What goes best with a latte in a coffee mug featuring cats and books? A Christmas murder, of course.

Whatever you may be doing this evening, festive or quiet, I’m rooting for you and hoping you make it through intact.

In less than 24 hours my Christmas lunch will be over and I will breathe a huge sigh of relief. That is when my holiday truly begins.

December 23rd — Number One

bogeyandruby

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December 24, 2025

My number one, favourite client ever died this past July. After all that she had been through and survived, finding refuge in this country after lifetime of hardship and suffering, the final diagnosis was brutal. There was no time to say goodbye, to tell her what she meant to me. Her last days were spent in palliative care, a matriarch surrounded by those who knew her long before I did, whose lives would be turned upside down by her absence.

She had been in my caseload on and off for at least fifteen plus years, mostly on if I’m honest. I always thought if she hadn’t been my client, she would have been my friend. Truthfully, it was better to be her worker, someone who could advocate on her behalf in this intricate healthcare system. She faced bias regularly because of her skin colour, religion and size, dismissed by medical personnel who neglected to investigate her symptoms to the point on one occasion, of putting her life at risk.

She was not long in Canada, under the status of refugee, when I first met her and I ashamed to say, nearly dismissed her too. Once a rapport was established, she’d refer to me as the first white person to help her in Canada, which made me smile because, of course, I am more brown than white. Many years and interventions down the road, she would call me and her social worker her honorary sisters.

She was the bravest person I knew, the most determined, and at times the most disorganized. She’d registered for every adapted exercise class I’d recommend from aqua fit to chair Tai Chi to traveling by adapted transport from the West end of the Island to the East to work out for ten minutes at an adapted gym. She wanted a four-wheeled walker with a seat to get around so we applied to a government subsidized program, one with very strict criteria when it came to stairs, and I had to explain in great detail how she planned to hoist the walker up the stairs using her hijab, and lower it step by step by having it rest on her hips.

She had the best laugh. Oh, how we laughed at the ridiculous state of things, laughed with a compatibility that crossed so many barriers. She’d clutch my hand and her eyes would crinkle and tears would run down her face. Like when she lamented over the fact that she didn’t speak English and I suggested the best way to learn would be to get an English boyfriend. And the time she wheeled into a community resource with her walker to offer her services as a volunteer and they misunderstood and thought she was looking for services. Or the day she passed the exam for her Canadian citizenship wearing a kaftan with the map of Africa on it and I teased her that she should have worn her red and white outfit to be on the safe side. She asked me to take a photo of her that day. She is smiling her biggest smile, proudly holding her certificate. I still have that photo on my phone but I cannot share her joy that day, her having been my client and not my friend all those years.

Life goes on, the wait list turns over, and my caseload fills up, except of course, for that one particular slot, the one where my favourite client used to be.

December 22nd — Gratitude

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December 23, 2025

Like many people who work regular full-time hours, Monday through Friday, I was never a fan of Sunday evenings. For that reason, when I had the opportunity to work a modified full-time schedule with every other Monday off, I took it.

You’d be right to expect that a Sunday evening before a Monday off would feel like a jackpot two Saturdays in a row, but the truth is, it didn’t feel like that at all. Instead, Sunday before Monday off felt like doom and gloom on simmer, and Monday evening felt like Sunday with the volume-up.

I wondered if I might feel less stressed if I was off every second Friday instead of Mondays, but the reality is, many of the services I might be inclined to book on a day off, apart from maybe the hairdressers, would likely be closed on Friday or at least only offer reduced services. It simply wasn’t practical.

Now I am semi-retired and only work Tuesdays and Thursdays. Even with this reduced schedule though, I am still preoccupied on Sundays and even more anxious on Monday evenings.

I thought about all this today, exceptionally working Monday instead of Tuesday, due to Christmas being on a Thursday this year. There was the usual wind-up the evening before and I had a very busy day today with home visits spread all over the territory.

As I drove to my first home care client, 16 km away from my starting point, I asked Siri to play Vince Guaraldi on car play. It’s pretty hard to stay in a funk listening to this version of Peppermint Patty. It was a cold day, minus eleven Celsius, so I put the seat and steering wheel warmer on, luxuries I insisted on when I bought this car, as I suffer from Raynaud’s disease. Before long I was warm and toasty. The last five kilometres of my route was a long stretch of road that I had to myself. It felt like a mini road trip with a great soundtrack and kitschy roadside Christmas decorations to keep me company. If not purely zen, I was pretty dang calm.

It was the first time I was seeing this client and to my delight, she had two black kittens, brothers. We are supposed to ask the clients to secure their animals during our visits, for safety concerns, mainly ours, but if the pets are well-behaved, I let them stay. For me, it is a work perk, a form of pet therapy, if you will.

On the way to my next client, I retraced that same long road with Vince competing with Google maps. I noticed an older woman, dressed for a walk in the cold, trudging towards me on my side of the road. She wasn’t walking quickly but by her body slant, I could tell she was walking against the wind and uphill. I ventured she was practicing her daily constitution in order to avoid a visit from the local home care physio.

I passed some other walkers, another senior lady in a very puffy red coat the shape of a Christmas tree, her red knitted cap, similarly triangular, secured with a chin strap, making her look a bit like an aging teletubbie. There were youngsters waiting at bus stops, perhaps on their way to the mall to catch up on Christmas shopping or just to hang out with friends. I passed our old offices, various landmarks, the old Chinese restaurant that is now someone’s residence, a soft ice cream stand boarded up for the winter, the new REM station (where I used to catch the train to university), churches, a mosque, synagogues, the local Sikh gurudwara, a Hindu temple and lots and lots of Christmas inflatables. I know all the speed limits by heart, the school zones, short cuts and scenic routes.

Indeed, I have travelled these familiar roads for work over the past twenty-nine years, the time and space between clients often spent rushing through traffic when late for the next visit, planning interventions, multi-tasking thanks to blue-tooth connections, white-knuckle driving through bad weather, etc. Today, there was none of that stress. Thanks to the two-week break for Christmas and New Years, there was no traffic and I was on time for all my clients, even early for some. Vince produced enough music in his short lifespan to play through my entire day.

I even took a lunch break for a change, meeting up for coffee with a dear friend who was in town to celebrate the Winter Solstice with her family.

My point is, it is all about gratitude. That is what changes a negative mindset. It may be a piece of music on your radio or an unexpected connection with a client and their kittens, or a familiar road that evokes a happy memory.

I’m not sure how many more Sundays and Mondays I will waste worrying about work. They wear you down after a while, even when you only work part time.

I will miss the days like this on the road though, when that silver thread winds itself through my route and my heart.

December 21st — The Mother of All Hump Days

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December 21, 2025

The Winter Solstice is upon us. We have arrived, hopefully intact, to bid adieu to the shortest day of the year and the longest night of winter.

For many pagans like my friend, Joan, Winter Solstice is the only occasion that warrants celebration during a marathon month completely hijacked by Christmas. Whether you worship Christ or not, you cannot help but be carried along by the worst of the holiday (the bloody, commercial excess of it all) and the best (sweeping generosity of spirit) of it.

I find it ironic that the province of Quebec where I live, one that proudly purports to be secular, feels the need to pass xenophobic laws targeting already marginalized, minority religious groups by banning the visual signs of their devotion, yet essentially shuts down for two weeks during Christmas and New Years. If you are an enthusiastic supporter of these laws but also enjoy hopping on the holiday train, you may want to check your hypocrisy at the turnstile.

According to Wikipedia:

A secular state is an idea pertaining to secularity, whereby a state is or purports to be officially neutral in matters of religion, supporting neither religion nor irreligion.^[1] A secular state claims to treat all its citizens equally regardless of religion, and claims to avoid preferential treatment for a citizen based on their religious beliefs, affiliation or lack of either over those with other profiles.^[2]

It says nothing about banning religious symbols in the process. At our workplace, we get two statutory days off at Christmas and two at Easter (Good Friday and Easter Monday). Secular state, my eye.

A few years ago, the physiotherapy team at the local health care unit where I work, decided to participate in a holiday door decorating contest. As we are a multi-faith team, we came up with a holiday tree that would respect and represent the diversity in our workplace. The judges agreed and we won the contest. Here is our winning door decoration.

This season can be used to stand up for others. A friend sent me a CBC link to a story about a Chicago area church that is using their nativity scene to protest ICE. The interview starts at about 13:50. Here is a TikTok video of the scene for a visual. This is the true spirt of Christmas, I think. Stepping outside one’s comfort zone, risking one’s own safety and well-being, in support of strangers in need, no matter their colour or religion.

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Update on the flower-ordering Glitch. My mum was the happy recipient of not one but three floral Christmas arrangements when my brother and sister-in-law visited her yesterday.

Left to right: white poinsettia, boxwood tree, poinsettia and ivy arrangement. Courtesy of Westmount Florist

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The gourmet chips have been purchased and are ready for consumption. Hint: these chips will be hidden strategically in your local grocery store, not in the snacks and soft drink aisle one usually frequents, but rather where chi-chi consumers hang out, closer to the very expensive cheese displays and organic food sections.

Front row, left to right: Sauce Curry, Mango Chilli Chutney, Pizza Sauce Romanoff, Pesto Mozzarella. Back row (for the commoners): Family Pack Salt and Vinegar, Family Pack Traditional BBQ flavour

Wishing all my readers a very Happy Winter Solstice! Let there be more light in the world, in every sense of the word.

December 20th — Christmas Is On Thursday

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December 21, 2025

I dropped by to see my mum this morning. She was walking through the hallways of the residence with her walker, to her physiotherapist-daughter’s great approval. She greeted me in a booming voice which I interpreted as her being delighted to see me and continued to speak very animatedly, our conversation travelling along parallel lines, sometimes converging but mostly diverging, for the next fifteen minutes until I realized she had forgotten to put her hearing aids in and couldn’t hear a dang thing I was saying.

Once the hearing aids were in, I asked her what was new knowing the answer before she said it. There has been some maintenance drama this past week in her bathroom with a very slow leak in the form of droplets falling slowly from the ceiling above the toilet, hitting her backside. While investigating, the maintenance man had removed the grab bars from around the toilet then neglected to put them back, creating a safety issue. Someone (likely her marvellous, paid companion) complained and they were reinstalled, but were too wobbly so the residence replaced them with a different system that my mother complained “was too tight”. A too tight toilet brings all sorts of images to mind. Turns out the handles of this new frame are much closer together and she keeps overshooting them during transfers. Adaptations only work if clients can use them safely and effectively. I will have to replace them with the system she had in the first place. See below.

These don’t work for all seniors or on all toilets but they are a good option for my mum.

That sorted out, my mum asked me what day it was tomorrow. I told her Sunday and she asked what time I was picking her up for Christmas dinner. “Ma, Christmas in on Thursday. That’s in five days.” She couldn’t seem to grasp that Christmas could be on a Thursday. I’m not sure where this confusion comes from. Is she mixing up Christmas with the sabbath? Dementia often takes unexpected detours. There is no map or guide book when it happens. I got her a clock for seniors for Christmas, the kind that reads the time, day of the week and date. Black lettering on a white background. I am really hoping that it helps orient her to time and reduce her anxiety.

“What will I wear on Christmas?”, was her next query. I have barely figured out what I am wearing apart from my new black velvet pants with a twenty-six inch inseam, never mind sort out her outfit. Wardrobe decisions for special occasions give me anxiety, being six inches shorter than adult petite sizes. Is there a clock for the fashion challenged? My mother clothes shopped for me until about five years ago and as such, my current wardrobe is in a sorry state. Fingers crossed the sweater I ordered her from Reitmans arrives before Thursday and that it fits.

On my way out, I accompanied my mum to the dining room where lunch was being served. Without supervision, my mum parks her walker about seven meters away from her assigned table. This drives me crazy because it puts her at risk of falls. When I am with her I make her keep the walker all the way to her seat. Even though it makes me feel better, it creates confusion for her as it is not part of her routine. She has no clue what to do as the walker nears the table.

As I helped her to her seat, one of her table mates, we’ll call her K, a friendly lady I have spoken to before, more often than not about her love of mangos, blurted out:

“You have the most prominent widow’s peak!”

“Yes, I do. Do you think it makes me look like Eddie Munster?”

“I don’t know who Eddie Munster is but a widow’s peak is a sign of great beauty. I didn’t know whether to embarrass your mother now or later.”

At this point I am not sure which mother she is referring to as my own mother sometimes refers to me as her mother.

Then K says:

“I am a senior without a family. May I prevail upon you to buy me some wrapping paper and bubble wrap?”

Ahh … now the unexpected compliment is making sense. Still, could she not have picked another attribute other than my prominent widow’s peak? LOL

Actually, her request broke my heart.

I picked up the wrapping paper and bubble wrap and will drop it off tomorrow when I swing by with the new toilet bars. And I will be on the lookout for mangos in the grocery store.

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I made a lengthy shopping list for my husband today which included: two bags of gourmet chips. These were to be a special treat for our guests on Christmas Day, chips that we are not worthy of eating as a family of three during non-festive circumstances. My husband’s interpretation of gourmet chips was family-pack sized bags of Lays bar-b-cue chips and salt and vinegar. As I expressed my disappointment to my husband, my son, listening in, asked me to explain what I meant by gourmet chips. Put on the spot, I said they were elite chips, packaged in very small quantities and sold at very high prices to ensure there are no leftovers after the party. Flavours like black truffle or Iberian ham.

December 19th — Christmas Inflatables

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December 20, 2025

Sometime after October 31st, lawn-decorating enthusiasts everywhere replace their Halloween inflatables with Christmas inflatables.

Anchored in the ground, they stand proud and taut, bobbing in the wind, in all their air blown glory.

I pass these smiling, cartoon characters every day when I’m on the road seeing home care clients, running errands, or en route to my mum’s residence. There are jolly Santas, with or without the reindeer, smiling snowmen and penguins, a Grinch here and there and at one house I drive by regularly, a full-blown nativity scene that takes up their whole front lawn.

I did a bit of research into what makes these things blow. Home Depot recommends: Learn how to care for holiday inflatables, so your family and neighborhood can enjoy your displays for years to come. There is a whole page of instructions on how to care for your decorations. For example, you should unplug them after eight hours so that they don’t overheat and if they stop working during bad weather, you should take them inside to dry out. Uh, sounds a lot like that one friend or family member who always parties a little too hard and ends up sleeping it off.

Before long, these inflatables begin to tilt and lilt, become unmoored, lose their air and lie recumbent. Is it just me or does anyone else find the sight of deflated inflatables to be totally depressing at this time of year? Not that I am a fan of anything inflatable. For instance, you will never catch me carrying a bunch of helium balloons on a windy day or riding up, up and away in your beautiful, your beautiful ballon.

The Collins dictionary defines deflated as:

1. having lost confidence, hope, or optimism

2. voided of air or gas; not inflated

I think both these definitions apply when it comes to these dreadful decorations.

Here are a few examples from today’s errands.

This poor neighbourhood inflatable has been hungover from the get-go.

Spotted outside a local Canadian Tire. I thought those were its feet at first but apparently they are antlers.

Inflatables on display behind a glass enclosure. Is this supposed to make me feel merry?

Two more days ‘till winter solstice …

December 18th – Glitch

bogeyandruby

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December 19, 2025

My husband and I were at a show tonight at Mariposa le Café, our favourite hangout, when I received a text from my brother:

Sharon, I just got home. Chantal got a variety of 7 different flower arrangements with vases from mom. She called the florist to see if there was a mistake. Do you know what is happening?

It is my lovely sister-in-law’s birthday today and I had organized flowers to be sent to her on behalf of my mum.

I replied:

Oh boy! Not what I ordered. I ordered a flower arrangement bouquet.

Then:

I just checked and there was some sort of glitch on my part. My fault. 🤦‍♀️ I must have had stuff already in the basket.

My sister-in-law piped in:

I felt certainly very loved but I was also wondering if I was dead and wasn’t aware.

Remember my December 12th Quandary, where I can’t decide which holiday arrangement to order from our local florist for my Christmas table? My indecision compelled me to put one of every colour combination and permutation in my shopping basket. I neglected to remove them when I added my sister-in-law’s birthday bouquet the other day and promptly ordered the whole kit and caboodle.

It wouldn’t be so bad if they were all coordinating arrangements but they aren’t. Each one is stand-alone different. This I why I can’t take myself clothes shopping.

The flowers aren’t returnable so they will bring a couple of Christmassy ones to my mother this weekend, and maybe one each for me and my sister.

My husband thinks it is hilarious that I am blaming this on a glitch rather than admitting to a very expensive gaffe. I definitely need supervision these days. I am simply too distracted, over-stimulated, and holiday-stressed to be multi-tasking solo.

This is the flower arrangement that was actually meant for her birthday. Thankfully, this one was delivered with the others.

Photo: https://westmountflorist.com/

December 17th — Sludge

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December 17, 2025

I had a whole list of errands to do today including taking my new wide-leg black velvet pants to be hemmed (bought after reading about them on my lovely colleague’s blog), seasonal clothes shopping for my mother (who sadly, along with my sister, used to do my clothes shopping), and a dollar store run to buy wrapping paper and a pair of rubber gloves for dishwashing, the serious kind that extend up to my armpits because at my stature and vantage point in front of the sink, the water tends to run in that direction.

After another visit this morning from Justin the electrician and his associate to replace an inaccessible corroded wire in a pipe that runs between our electrical box and Hydro-Québec (I catastrophized the whole time he was here, imagining the wire snapping as he reached for it and the corroded end of it recoiling into the even more inaccessible core of the earth), a half-hearted and lethargic attempt at some Christmas baking, and over-exerting myself wrapping an oversized present for my brother, I was sludge.

There are very few activities I dislike more than shopping, with the exception of shopping for books. Lucky for me, I have a lovely husband who does all the grocery shopping and a large bulk of the errands, often while I wait in the car. He agreed to drop my slacks off at the alterations place; I will give him clear, written instructions indicating that my inseam is 26 inches. I may even draw the inseam so that the seamstress doesn’t think I have a 26 inch outseam. Those would be gauchos even on me. The dishwashing gloves can be postponed too; my recovery is more important than wet sleeves. And I ordered a couple of shirts for my mum online from Reitmans, including a sweater for me because I don’t have anything to wear with those lovely velvet pants.

My December daily blog will be completed shortly and once it is, I will relax with a latte and my current book: Pilgrims by Devin Kelly. So far so good. I am a devoted follower of his weekly poetry blog, Ordinary Plots, on Substack.

It is important to listen to your body (and mind) at this time of year, a season of excesses, overindulgence and very little light.

Luxurious black velvet.

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	December 24th — The… on Stuck in 1988
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