Anna Jarvis pioneered the first Mother’s Day in 1908 in West Virginia and then campaigned for the holiday to become official. Congress recognized it in 1914. However, the occasion soon sparked commercial possibilities. A simple tribute to mothers turned into a day so fraught with expectations — it generates the highest sales figures in the floral […]
FIRST AND LAST TIMES
We remember doing something for the first time. Firsts are milestones in our memories, the occasions when we get our driver’s licence, fly in an airplane, see awesome scenery — Banff National Park, the Grand Canyon or the Pacific Ocean (for landlocked Prairie people) — taste alcohol and, dare I say, have sex. But how often […]
TAKE A WALK
To empathize: walk in my shoes. To be authentic: walk your talk. To behave boldly: walk on the wild side. To reminisce: walk down memory lane. To promote wellness: take a walk. Walking doesn’t always get the credit it deserves. Low Intensity Steady State cardio (LISS) is indisputably good for us. LISS involves elevating your heart […]
TO LOVE AND TO LIKE
“To love and to cherish, till death do us part” is a traditional wedding vow that many couples utter. But what do we make of this promise after our marriage has progressed through the years? Divorce, not death, often parts couples. According to Statistics Canada, about 38% of all marriages now end in divorce, slightly […]
FUN FACTS FRIDAYS: VANCOUVER RESTAURANTS
This list of fun facts does not identify the ten best restaurants in Vancouver. Or the ten most popular. Instead it gives a synopsis of ten restaurants, organized chronologically, that opened in Vancouver and went on to become successful elsewhere in Canada and some in the U.S. In 1928 White Spot founder Nat Bailey opened Canada’s […]
DIVISION OF DUTIES
When I entered our Vancouver condo, home alone for a few days, I heard a chirping sound every 90 seconds. It didn’t take long for me to realize the hallway smoke detector needed a new battery. Okay. But that domestic duty belongs to Glen who, at 2,500 km away, wasn’t able to perform it. I […]
DEATH DEFINED ME
Today marks the 47th anniversary of my first grave encounter with death. In the fall of 1970 my best friend Ingrid and I embarked in a camper van we bought used in Edmonton for $1,200 on an adventure across the U.S., from the Pacific coast to Key West in Florida. On our return in the […]
ROAD TRIP ANYONE?
Guest writer Linda Richardson discusses a great North American road trip in this post. In retirement my husband and I decided to combine shorter road trips into a grand circle tour of Canada and the U.S. Over 10 weeks and 21,000 km last fall, we travelled through eight provinces and 37 states. Given the new […]
FUN FACTS FRIDAYS: WATER
At our two homes we spend considerable time talking about water, in the form of precipitation — the surfeit of it in Vancouver and the lack in Scottsdale. Rightly so. Last November 2017 we lived through a record (tying 1953) number of rainy days in Vancouver: 27 of 30. The year before, October broke its record […]
TV TOGETHERNESS
One reader suggested I write about the changes in television and its role in our later years. He said rightly that, while a tad sedentary, TV viewing constitutes an important pastime for many/most retired people. Indeed the likelihood of being a frequent television viewer (21 or more hours per week) rises steadily with age, from […]