I’m 45 years old. After much prompting, the kids are slowly transitioning from calling me Old Man, to “Cactus” (Simon’s idea), or “Darth Father” (Jasper’s). I’ll take either. I hate getting older. The wisdom thing is great, but not so much the pain in the hip or the hair in weird places. And although I feel I have a lot more to share now (and I definitely care less about what people think about what I think), my 10PM bedtime makes blogging less possible. Even though time is passing more quickly than ever, I’m conscious that there are still many things I could be doing now that will help me…

Fun Dip now comes with two candy sticks. I discovered this on Christmas Eve when a wide-eyed kid who had already had too much sugar stumbled into me and showed me the tangy candy pouch like it had just been invented. Idiot. “That’s so 1974, dude.” I said. Then I remembered that he was born in 2006. Fuck. Then, to establish my cred: “Grape is the best flavour. This was 10 cents when I was your age, and the sticks were bigger.” (but we only got one). Now Fun Dip $1.50, and that kid had checked his texts by the time I’d finished my talk. Maybe the second stick is…

“Well, that was the best ‘rock bottom’ ever.” Our friend and neighbour Michelle has a gift for summing things up tidily. And this was no exception. It was August 19, 2013. I had just taken a leave of absence from work to quit drinking. Then the real work began.

It’s 7:25 AM, any random weekday. Puddy is on the bed, purring and pacing. Simon (9) has a blanket pulled over his head, pretending that this isn’t happening. It’s as if it’s the first time I’ve ever asked him to get up (I do it every day). A monologue/song is usually required, made up on the spot. Here’s an example. Simon (yelling): “Go away, Dad! I don’t want to get up! School sucks! I don’t like you!” Stuart (yelling back): “Well, I don’t like you either!” (There’s a pause, and a little face with shocked expression pops out from under the duvet) (softer) “I don’t like you, Simon. I love…

I’ll never forget September 4, 1984. It was a Tuesday — a day that would later be called Landslide — and I was working the closing shift at MacLean’s, a one-cashier country grocery in Winsloe, PEI. Tuesday was a slow day at MacLean’s. Harvey the butcher usually left at 6 or earlier, the meat case fully stocked after the weekend grocery rush. Demand for hardware or painting supplies usually peaked in the morning, and the post office in the back was only open “government hours” — although owners Heath and Phyllis would go get your mail for you anyway if they happened to be down getting smokes from their apartment…

I really wish I knew when it’s the right moment to harvest tomatoes. I have four different varieties growing on my third floor deck: The ubiquitous Big Beef, familiar Homstead, and a collection of cherries and grapes including tiny orange Golden Girls — each cherry-sized tomato easily outperforming brawny big beef in all categories of flavour and acidic punch on the palette. I planted half of them in upside down four-post planters from Lee Valley Tools, and the rest in colourful felt garden bags from Gardener’s Supply in Burlington, Vermont. The upside-downs did well at first but dried out more easily. The floor bagged plants are, by contrast, still lush…

As the town receded into the distance, I thought: Well, at least if I’m being driven into the desert to be raped and killed, this was beautiful. It’s lonely at the border of Syria and Iraq when you’re a 20-something English-speaking foreigner. Deir Ez-zor is about as far as you can get from anything in a country that’s not exactly overrun with tourists (especially now). I was attracted to the far-flung eastern desert town because of nearby Mesopotamian ruins and also because I wanted to flip the bird to Saddam’s forces at the barb-wired border — my way of finishing the job where Bush (the first) had f*cked up. It…

It was nearly 1:30 a.m. by the time we collapsed in bed, hearts pounding, sweaty. Neither one of us thought we’d be able to sleep. The carpet burns and throbbing scratch marks were almost too much to bear. Then the moaning started again, and I knew it had been a mistake to get a cat for Jasper and Simon on Valentines Day. Our first mistake was probably renaming the cat. It was 6 years old, after all, and had gotten used to “Button.” We just weren’t a “Button” family. But the cat had arrived suddenly after a friend called saying that her 10-month-old son was hospitalized with a respiratory infection.…

“We were there to suffer. The suffering wasn’t a by-product; it was the point. I started to accept this, and quit fighting it. I realized that facing anxiety and pain without any way to escape is the course’s primary teaching tool. After hours of struggle, my mind settled. It began to observe my situation objectively. And then the physical torture and mental anguish started to melt away.” See full article in Macleans.ca

I loved how neighbours would dash from their bungalows as the delicate licks of flame danced with the wind across the tips of sun-browned April field weed. One little spark could become a rapidly advancing line of fire a few hundred feet wide in a matter of seconds. Nothing brought the community out faster than a grass fire. Everyone suddenly had a flat spade beating the flames back from BBQ tanks and cedar decks. Up until that point in my life, I had felt no greater power.

There's great submission in lying down. We accept things are the way they are because of the construction that provides the input. You and I may not be able to agree on how to define the colour "blue" but I can tell how disciplined you are with your kids by checking out the underside of your kitchen table.

As she was packing up, Leslie volunteered that she thought red wine was probably my biggest current oral foe (something I'm painfully aware of lately). Maybe this is TMI, but I chew nuts on the left side to avoid discomfort.

Don’t you just wonder: If you have a “toothbrush jar,” what does it indicate about your other choices and preferences? Do people who share a toothbrush also do joint chequing? Is the inverse true? What else do they share?

Alison looked nervous, but there was little I could do about it. She had picked the swarthy French guy as her buddy, so fixing up her hoses wasn’t my responsibility. By that point we were at the water’s edge. Still, I just couldn’t resist clipping her secondary air supply properly, so I just reached over and did it. She turned and looked at me, then swung around to the French guy and said, “Uh, ‘scuse me, I’m switching buddies.”

My very capable executive assistant Andrea told me today that the natural state of ripe oranges is Green. “So why are they called ‘oranges?” I asked. She quite calmly and confidently asserted that oranges are called that because of the colour inside, not because of the skin. She added pointedly that she has always known this. She, 33. Me, ten years older and clearly misinformed. Then, squeezing more out of this advantage, she said, “And most people know this.” Apparently, the skin of an orange is only orange because of a chemical dye used to make it attractive for sale. She pulled it up in wikipedia. Pointed to it. Shattered…