As I shove my hands into the remnants of last night’s revelry, dripping what can only be described as garbage juice, I mouth what may not be necessarily words, but sounds that still express the emotional quotient of my current well-being. “Ewww! Ugh!” and my Mad-magazine-approved favourite, “Blecch!” This is the last day of the …
Cathleen Collins has taken some of the strategies used in illustration and has pushed them through acrylic paint to create a show that’s well worth seeing. Exploring Illustration at the Chocolate Claim is Collins’ first show. The young artist has been working for the summer at Arts Underground. She’ll go back to school in the …
A few years ago I received a delightful gift consisting of an assortment of home-grown, home-dried tomato and pepper seeds. What a delightful gift, I thought, and with Christmas only around four months away, now is the time to try saving seeds from your own plants to share, give as gifts or keep for next …
If you like to camp in comfort and enjoy a challenge, take a Dutch oven. Breads, bannock, cinnamon buns, upside-down-cake, succulent meats and baked fish are taken to a new dimension over an open fire. The trick is to keep only a few coals underneath and more on top of the Dutch oven. This bread …
What makes a vacation, at least for me, is going to a place different than what you are accustomed to. This could be a change in your physical surroundings, your schedule and even what you explore and taste. The last several weeks have been all of that for me and for my children. Even with …
How many memories are created by a simple family vacation … Depending on how you look in the rear-view mirror, the road behind can seem rocky – one of bad luck and poor decisions – or like a yellow-brick road of which each stone is a shared experience in both its problems and its joys. …
Since I know, almost as a fact, that Trevor will not be put down by the Bylaw Services Department, I can sit back and enjoy this story as it unfolds. I know that Trevor is safe because I’ve been here before. I was a reporter in northern Ontario in the early 80s when some whales …
I am in awe of bicycle commuters. I feel one-upped by them. So I decided, way back in February, that as soon as the weather was reasonable I would start cycling to work at least three days per week. I spent serious coin on some very-high-tech, all-weather cycling clothes and waited for May and reasonable …
Our neighbourhood has speed bumps (and more than a few potholes) that make slow driving an easy choice. As annoying as they may be, at times, they are important to keep us all safe. The comma is not vital to our survival, but it is vital to our success as writers. Commas can have a …
