Stephen Notley of Bob the Angry Flower fame is my favourite cartoonist when it comes to expressing emotions, particularly negative ones. The above strip exactly expresses how I felt today. Admittedly, I did not wake up with a bug body, nor did anything annoying or bad happen today, but I just felt like exuding irritation. For example, in my yoga class, during the final relaxation I was really ticked about the people on the upper floor constantly moving furniture around and disturbing my thoughts. It later turned out that the ‘noise’ was part of the background music and was simulating the beat of the heart.

Agitate, agitate, agitate.

I am a bit sad this winter that canal has been closed for most of January. While it is pleasant to walk around without freezing my behind off or even without a hat, an overwhelming sense of doom has come over me. I could always turn the radio off, but, much like car accidents, reports that winter sports might become extinct in my lifetime are morbidly fascinating.

Well, February still has a chilly reputation and I have planned some x-country skiing lessons. If I only have a few more decades to enjoy the winter, I shall make the best of it. Drop me a line if you would like to go skating with me when and if the canal freezes over again.

I am very sceptical of references to the past as ‘simpler times’. The only thing simpler about the past was our understanding since we were children.
In these days when we download our favourite shows from the Internet and watch them whenever we feel like it (without commercials), it is somewhat sweet to remember the 7:15 cartoon.

Drowned in a sea of commercials and preceding 7:30 news, the 7:15 cartoon was a social construct that allowed parents to calm their tots, then stuff them to bed and run off with excuse of having to watch the news.

To children the cartoon was a rightly earned reward at the end of the day. I remember patiently waiting through the commercials for the little bit of happiness. 7:15 cartoon was my equivalent of what my Canadian grown friends refer to as Saturday morning cartoons.

Apparently, in today’s modern age, 7:15 cartoon has been cancelled. I don’t know about the Saturday morning cartoons, but I hear they are facing a similar fate. There is a petition on to save the 7:15 cartoon. Hopefully for the tradition buffs it works out. I am still waiting for Stockwell Day to change his name to Doris.