She is so petite that at 5' tall myself I stand taller than her. She has naturally curly blazing red hair, and an ever-present smile. She and her husband live down at the foot of our street, in a house backing on the ravine, the opposite side of the street to ours. When we first met her about twenty years ago she had a friendly female red retriever she always walked in the ravine. Two years later she acquired another retriever, this time a male and he was extremely large for his breed; the personalities of the two dogs couldn't have been further apart; the female sedate and biddable, the male rambunctious, his physical antics belabouring the patience of his companion dog. His name was Winston, the female's was Autumn.

They're both long gone. And our long-time acquaintance has never replaced them, though she often offers to take her sister's and sister-in-law's and neighbours' dogs out with her in the ravine.When we do see her now, far less frequently, striding through the ravine, a walking stick in each hand, dogs gambolling about as we did yesterday, she is with her sister. Our friend Gayle is a dental technician by profession, her sister, older than her, and absent red hair, is a dentist with a nearby practise within a purpose-built building she'd had constructed some years back. They don't want for the comfort of a sturdy income, she and her partner in marriage and in business, another dentist. They had with them four dogs yesterday and it was pleasurable to witness the delight the dogs took in their trek through the ravine on that cold, overcast day.

Gayle's two sons, whom we vaguely knew as pre-teens are now adults themselves, with their own families. She is still the same open-faced, garrulous woman with a pretty face that we had known many years ago, but her body has quite ballooned to unhealthy proportions. One of the reasons she and her sister remain committed to outdoor exercise. When we come across one another, usually my husband engages her sister since they're both interested in exchanging political views. I generally get to talk with Gayle, and in the process become quite annoyed at the length of time that transpires in the cold, discussing rather vacuously Gayle's worldview of economics, while my husband remains in animated conversation with her sister.

Our conversations are mutually genial and respectful. But yesterday I found the respect I'd always held Gayle in plummeting as she regaled me with the knowledge her husband, a UPS delivery driver, gifted her with. Primarily that the Canadian market is such a limited one for profit compared to the vast American market. That came out of our conversation about Black Friday shopping, about Gayle mentioning their recent return from Florida and the satisfying shopping experience they shared there, with consumer items so much more reasonable than it is here.

With firm conviction she spoke of the statistics that her husband imbued her with; that a number of American cities each have within their geographic confines populations the equal of all of Canada. Gayle, I said to her, the most populous state, California, has a population just about equal to all of Canada; there is no city that fits that population category. Wrong, she responded; I should check my facts; for example, she insisted, New York City, Chicago -- and I don't now recall the other cities she mentioned -- all each have populations of 30-million, while Toronto, Canada's largest city has a population of only 7-million. I looked at her a little goggle-eyed, asking if she was serious.

Toronto, I told her, has no such population figure, and nor do New York or Chicago; check Google, I offered her. She laughed disparagingly, poked me good-naturedly in the shoulder, and said, her husband should know, after all, it's his business as a driver for UPS, one of the largest conglomerates in the world. I'm the one who should check the facts. Nothing ill-natured in her about this exchange of data and opinions, just a solid assurance that she was in possession of the real facts and I was suffering from ignorant lack of awareness, poor thing.

Why should I care? Why should that encounter have left me almost as gloomy as the overcast skies?