Iraqi elections are over. How can you not be impressed by people lining up to vote in the face of death threats! Yeah for democracy! Since Bush was elected, the Iraqi people are more free, and Americans less so. From the “What’s Next” department: Yoga Journal magazine reports in the current issue that the ubiquitous yoga sticky mat, all the rage for years among enthusiasts, is now known to cause cancer because the PVC material leaks formaldehyde and other toxins. Contemplate that next time you’re in Downward Facing Dog. The same issue of the magazine includes ads for sport utility vehicles. I learned this week that “fornication” (here’s another definition…

I want to live in a country where I don’t have to wear rubber things on my shoes, and where I have to explain things like slush and wind chill. So after last night’s post about the frozen toes, my wife bought me boots. Thanks, Honey.

Yesterday I had a great lunch at sunny Juniper Kitchen and Wine Bar on Wellington Street in Westboro. It was a relaxed client lunch with Anne from Health Canada. Over a Parmesan crusted portabello mushroom stack with pesto, we discussed writing diabetes info for Aboriginal communities. Anne lives in a beautiful house in Wakefield, about 20 minutes north of Ottawa in Gatineau Park. Makes me drool. She says her son recently agreed to use their boat to deliver groceries up and down the Gatineau River from the general store in the village. Wakefield has great charm, including a cool inn/pub — the Black Sheep Inn — and a steam train…

There’s Hope in the air this morning, that is, if “hope” implies an end to suffering. The sun is brilliant, and it’s only -20C. Freakin’ balmy. Meanwhile, in Mauritius today it’s 28C (above zero) and the temperature of the aquamarine sea that licks its sandy shores is a bathlike 22C. Some links from friends: 1) Zachary Houle send these suggestions for mid-winter reads: “Hello, I’m Special: How Individuality Became The New Conformity” by Hal Niedviecki. Non-fiction. Not for Ayn Rand fans. (or people who write blogs, apparently). “The Safety of Objects” by A.M. Holmes. Short stories. Really odd, twisted short stories about suburbia life. Opening story is about a bored…

I’ve ranted about this here before, so I’ll keep this short: This time of year it’s easy to get frustrated by things, like cold feet, cracked knuckles, imminent environmental collapse. Last month I went with my friends Mike Perry and Elizabeth Harvey (find them on Lavalife) to Mike’s hometown — Fenelon Falls, Ontario. A local hardware store had donated 50 compact fluorescent bulbs to our Project Porchlight campaign. We are motivated by the fact that if every household in Canada replaced one light bulb with a compact fluorescent, the reduction in pollution would be like taking 66,000 cars off the roads. So, how many Canadians does it take to change…

Don’t try to shake the V8 after you open it. Deep breathing in meetings makes people suspicious. Avoid contact with small animals on cold outdoor rinks.

It’s still cold in Ottawa. But you already knew that. In other news, Suzy is using a Swiffer wet jet behind me. That guy got rich. I wish I’d been in the room to see the circumstances surrounding the moment of revelation when Mr. Swiffer realized that floors could be cleaned with a squirt and a sanitary napkin. The cold was mitigated muchly yesterday by my friend Mohammad’s birthday party. He’s now 33, just back from two weeks of touring Europe alone, and on his way next month to Cuba to visit a girlfriend he met there in December. He’s happy. You may recall that Suzy and I met Mohammad…

Here’s a challenge: What’s the One thing you absolutely have to do before you die? It’s easy to pick the obvious things, like “see the Pyramids” or “have a family.” But what do you really Have to do? I never would have thought this before, but one thing I had to do was experience death up close. When I held my son as he died 5 years ago, it changed me forever. And that night I walked out of the hospital and saw one star in the Toronto sky. Light reaching my eye after millions of years of travelling through space — raining on my grief. I knew then that…

New Christmas Album. Flashback Video: Ten years ago Walden was a clearcut and I wore goofy hats. (Waldencabin.com disappeared today, which figures — I’ve been writing more regularly.) This morning I had this great story ready to write about Llubjana, capital of Slovenia. It’s a tiny, unappreciated capital city of an underestimated country just across the Adriatic Sea from indulgent and overexposed Italy. Venice is a short train and boat ride away. It’s like the New Brunswick coast to PEI. What prompted this was eating a Balkan yogurt that Suzy bought specially for me thinking my mind and bowels would benefit. I don’t eat enough for breakfast and, after a…

It’s -40C today. I want to go to Mauritius more than ever. As I was running out the door this morning, my wife yelled “Only an idiot would go out without a hat today!” Passive aggressive much? So I pulled up my hood. Now I’m looking for a toque on-line but I have to find out how to spell it first. Good thing I’m “Director of Writing” at gordongroup. Now I know why my colleagues do the little quotation mark action with their fingers when they introduce me at meetings. So now I’m warm at work, and I found a great Toque and a good laugh. Among the headlines today…

-25C today. I washed my mitts this weekend and didn’t quite dry them completely. Waiting for the bus, my hand was locked as if in an enthusiastic wave. It occurred to me then that I could live anywhere. Why put up with another winter? The guy sitting next to me on the packed bus didn’t look like he was thinking at all. He stared straight ahead and didn’t so much as fidget once. I did enjoy the heat of his arm against mine. Warm. Ahh. When I got to work, I discovered my cell phone was gone. Must have popped off and dropped on the bus. No one’s answering it.…

There was a lot of hype about Walrus but, like lots of things from Toronto, it turned out to be stuffy-whitebread and boring. Though I did like their recent article on marriage — kept thinking: “Oh, so true. So true!” Enter Maisonneuve, arguably Canada’s coolest magazine. And what do ya know? It’s from Montreal. To shame, Ontario! Subscribe to Maisonneuve now for $19.95 and get all of the ’04 issues, a hip Montreal band CD and some postcards. You can’t go wrong with that! — or a magazine subtitled “Eclectic Curiosity.”

I like Mauritius, but I’m not sure why. Could be because we share a birthday. We’ve exchanged cards over the past two years (me and an island in the south Indian ocean), and I’m determined to visit someday. Luckily, Maurituis was not hit by the tsunami.

I resolve to be more mindful this year, to notice things more. Mindfulness and awareness of impermanence are two pillars of Buddhism that I can accept; it’s the karma thing that trips me up – kinda like the literal Noah’s Ark in the Christian tradition. The down side to mindfulness is acute awareness of things that piss you off. So I’ve started a list. Maybe you can help add to it, and we can all get closer to Enlightenment. Little things that piss me off: 1) Cookie sheets and muffin tins. Who invented these? Do we still iron with 50lb cast iron? The cookie sheet is an unfortunate holdover from…

Sometimes it takes looking to the stars to put things in perspective. Like sudden death and VISA bills. I’ll never forget the 1998 summer night at Walden when I first saw Saturn’s rings through my little cabin telescope. The gas giant planet, tens of times bigger than Earth, was a tiny spot in my viewfinder, with delicate filament-like rings casting shadows on its milky surface. And the Andromeda Galaxy. Did you know you can see a galaxy of 100 billion stars, the same size as our Milky Way, with the naked eye? Think about this for a minute: 100 billion suns. If just .0001% of these has a planet around…