Out of fascination with celebrity figures and celebrity culture in general another genre was spawned, one with a tight multitude of admirers and followers and hangers-on, which to someone like me gives credence to the idiomatic expression 'get a life'!

There are marketers, social influencers, stylists, PR marketers and so many other catchy little nomenclatures for these people who build up a following on social media, on Internet channels, on radio and on television, many having their very own shows, courting name brands in the process to sign up with them so they can highlight the brands on their platforms, attract more followers, a greater number of brands, and make a surprising amount of profit for themselves. Word-of-mouth if you've got the charisma and the followers can gain the 'right people' quite an advantage in a career of advertising/public relations.

 

And in the process one must be extremely careful to make friends among others within the profession, to carefully avoid pitfalls, pratfalls and above all, the dreaded mob rule leading to accusations that seem indefensible when the adoring public has its 'progressive' back up, and wham! you're cancelled.

"According to Wikipedia, “Influencer marketing (also influence marketing) is a form of marketing in which focus is placed on specific key individuals (or types of individual) rather than the target market as a whole.” Over the last five years, it has grown from obscurity to a form of marketing where even the biggest brands understand its value."

Influencer Marketing Hub 

Here is a snippet of a sad and sordid, perfectly pathetic tale of influencer-versus-marketer woe. Which betrays the way the wind blows these days of progressive culture, Black Lives Matter and the regular media's fascination with an alter-culture that has become mainstream culture, a stereotype of bullying for gain in followers and accompanying profit in a cutthroat world of female empowerment. 

Jessica Mulroney /Instagram

Jessica: "I had a moment to think and I want to apologize. I was wrong. Comparing myself to you was wrong and what you are doing is all the good the world needs. I will do better and be better. I am not a fighter. I'm a lover. But I went about it the wrong way. Please accept my sincerest apologies."

 

Sasha: "Girl, everyone is calling you out. You were not dialed in to see that. DO NOT MAKE YOURSELF THE VICTIM HERE! Not one person that I called out for their poor judgment and behaviour was 'disappointed; or did make it about themselves. Nor did they have the balls to compare themselves to me as a black woman and what I'm [putting] on my feed. You will have a lot of work to do moving forward That is clear."

"I've lost all respect for you."

 

Jessica: "I'm sorry you feel that way. Was only trying to help and learn from you ... I believe working together is the answer. Do  you? I tried to make a conversation happen. I was just hurt."

 

Photography by Justin Aranha

Sasha: "Honestly, I think I'm done with this conversation. You are not Woke and you won't be. Ever. You're scared which is probably why your account is private and you're taking a social media 'break'. Girlfriend, you aren't fooling anyone. This entire thread is proof that you have not learned one thing. I cannot devote energy to ignorance. I am very sad because I foolishly expected different."

 

Jessica: "I did not take time to realize I was not approaching the right way and needed space. I was wrong and am sorry. Truly. There s no need for hate right now I"ll do better. I hope we can get back to a good place. This is why I wanted to be thorough and thoughtful about what I say. Anyway, I hope you will take my apology under consideration. Only love and respect for you. But what you said. It's not about me. It's about a larger issue and speaking up is the only answer. Thank you for enlightening me."

 

Sasha: "This is ALL kinds of wrong and shows how much you've tried to exercise your privilege in this situation. Your comments in yesterday's text thread are so problematic, you have no idea. It's textbook Amy Cooper."

Jessica: "Sasha, we are not always reasonable in moments of shame. I'm sorry. That's all I can say. Emotions are running high and I guess I felt embarrassed that you called me out. I received many calls about it and it hurt. But let's move forward. I realize I was wrong and I'm trying to apologize. But if you don't want to understand me then I get it."

"Well, your silence is understood. We don't always do it the right way. But we learn from our mistakes. Take care."

Perfectly ghastly on all kinds of levels. Have people truly, nothing better to do with themselves? As for the unabashed bullying and the meek acceptance of someone who knows how destructive the merest whiff of suspicion of 'racism' or 'Black-bullying' can be to one's career and aspirations, even if that career is of no benefit whatever to society, but represents a nasty black hole of out-of-control consumerism and pretence to importance, the spectacle of a woman willing to surrender her self-respect in this manner is downright painful.

Yesterday turned out an unusually quiet, contemplative, sombre day for us. We didn't much feel like doing anything. On the other hand, we did talk about the past, about how things were so many years ago when we were young, and about the people we knew and shared many happy hours with. One of those people, we learned early in the day, was no longer in the land of the living. We had been informed some short while ago that she had been hospitalized and the end result was -- the end.

So we talked and we talked, and though the memories were fond, the emotions they elicited were not bright and cheerful. We went about our day quietly. And so as a kind of solace I turned to what I know best; how to prepare a meal that might inspire a little joy. Not all that difficult to achieve for a goal that would lighten the evening prospects of a sad day.

Since I had some bread dough resting in the refrigerator it was a no-brainer to plan to bake  bread of some kind, and croissants laced with sesame seed and Cheddar cheese came to mind. Rolling out the dough and working with the ingredients involved to achieve a goal has a calming effect. The actions are familiar and deliberate and soothing. And the fragrance that wafts through the kitchen, making its way through the rest of the house has its own calming effect, whetting the appetite and lowering the burden of sadness to a more tolerable level.

Even before I did that, though, there were several competing fragrances, one of which was the chicken soup that always accompanies our Friday night meal. This time. for dessert I thought to bake light and airy cupcakes and chose coconut-lime, a quick and easy recipe that can be altered in so many ways to produce other types of cupcakes. This one needed a grated and juiced lime. And ingredients including 2/3 cup each granulated sugar and Becel margarine to which I added two large eggs, 1/4 cup sour cream, 1/2 tsp. vanilla, most of the lime zest and all of its juice. Beaten in intervals with 1-1/4 cup cake and pastry flour, 1 tsp.baking powder, 1/4 tsp.salt and a cup of desiccated coconut. I used the remainder of the lime zest in a simple butter icing.

Food, its preparation and consumption, is a guaranteed comforter for our emotional beings, both a sensual pleasure and a necessity for survival. Jackie and Jillie, our two little poodles agree with great enthusiasm. 

This morning the cold that greeted us read -15C on the outdoor thermometer, a tad 'milder' than yesterday's -17C, but the sharp, biting wind that distinguished yesterday, was absent today when we all went out to the ravine for our afternoon tramp through the winter woods. Astonishingly, the thick clumps of snow captured on branches of trees and shrubbery in the forest remain intact. They are so hard packed that neither the warmth of sunrays that reach them haphazardly, or the wind that whips through the tree mass has been able to dislodge them.

The trails, once so deep and narrow in years past, now wide and flattened by the many booted feet that have been traversing them, were readily manoeuverable, no longer quite as slippery on the ascent/descents. That's the rare upside of having so many people descend these days on the ravine, as an escape within the community from COVID lockdown conditions. We heard a Pileated woodpecker off in the distance, as well as a nuthatch much closer by, among a small flock of chickadees. 

We were out quite a lengthy time, taking our trek at a leisurely pace, and stopping now and again to chat with friends our paths crossed. We were fortunate this afternoon -- it seems the cold disagrees with many people not accustomed to enjoying the brisk winter air in the great out-of-doors -- feel discouraged by the low temperature, leaving the ravine to we old-timers whom untoward weather conditions rarely are persuasive enough to forestall outings.

It was admittedly very cold. Even the slight breeze making it seem even colder. But moving along at a steady pace usually generates enough energy to keep warm, though bare faces do  tend to reflect the level of cold through pinched noses and rebellious red cheeks. But the wonderful blaze of the sun through the screen of the forest trees and the snow-puffed forest floor along with snow remaining on trees all make for an exquisitely lovely landscape.

It's been a quietly pensive, moody day in this household. Disturbing news tends to do that to anyone. In one sense it wasn't unexpected, even while it was. A week ago an old school chum had emailed me that our mutual friend of such long standing -- a lifetime ago to the present -- had suddenly been taken to hospital; it appeared she was in renal failure. Placed on dialysis, my friend Surely said she was unable to get any more information about our friend Edith's condition.

Irving and I spent a lot of our leisure time with those two old school chums of mine and their boyfriends/husbands. Not together in a group, come to think of it, but just two couples at a time. We went places together that teenagers tend to gravitate to, and our relationship encompassed a time in our lives when we were all shaping up to be adults. We all of us married young; for us it was age 18 and by that time we had already been together for four years, Irving and I.

We had lost contact with them over the years, as they and we raised our families. They remained in Toronto and we moved to Ottawa fifty years ago. Life keeps one busy, there are so many distracting elements in life along with the imperatives. Then the oddest thing happened about ten years ago when my sister in a telephone conversation mentioned she met an old friend of ours. They both were involved in community staging of dancing events.

I gave my sister my email address (my sister is legally blind and has never used a computer) to give to Surely and in a day's time we began exchanging email messages. And then I was given Edith's address and then another mutual friend's email address. There was a lot of 'catching-up' to do. Edith's husband Alvin had passed away years earlier, and her oldest child at age eight had died in a traffic accident. She was a widow and so was my friend Surely whose husband Allan had left her with their young children while he went off with their baby-sitter never to return. Surely had married again, but by the time we re-connected she too was a widow.

Surely, Rita and Edith

A few years ago when we last went to Toronto to help settle our granddaughter living in residence at University of Toronto, we made arrangements to meet. Complicated by the fact that our meeting had to take place out of doors since we had our little elderly toy poodle with us and neither of their apartments permitted entry to pets. We four had a happy, interesting reunion. At one point Edith whispered to me she was concerned that Surely was no longer as mobile as she once was, and was preparing to shed her car.

Who might have imagined that it was Edith, the more robust of the two who would succumb first to the inevitable? My sister, younger than me by four years, commiserated with my gloomy attitude after we discovered that Edith had died several days ago. During COVID her funeral, which was yesterday, cannot have been attended by many. 

Surely, our age coeval, hasn't been out of her apartment in the last eleven months. Her daughter shops for her and just leaves the groceries at the door. My sister and her husband also live in Toronto but they venture out themselves to do the shopping weekly, as we do here. Living in tight little apartments in a city the size of metropolitan Toronto with its population size of over six million people and its relatively high incidence of COVID-19 leaves much to be desired in quality of life.

There are parks and green spaces, wooded ravines that run through the city, but access in a city of that size can be difficult and since the stay-at-home orders were promulgated on top of the lock-down a month ago, the quality of life has been even further diminished. We are quite aware of how fortunate we are to be domiciled in a smaller city of a million people, with much more green space accessible, and for us, available quite directly, giving us a much more generous quality of life; eroded somewhat with the presence of the pandemic, but tolerable.

We tend to think of ourselves as experiencing something entirely new, struck by a global pandemic. It has certainly altered the way we live beyond anything our reluctant imaginations could ever conjure. If -- and it isn't likely -- we ever paused in our busy lives, to consider what such a catastrophe enveloping the world as we know it might turn out. Despite that from time to time we've read warnings issued by world-renowned epidemiologists who have been preparing for years for such an inconceivable event. Inconceivable to us, entirely and rationally conceivable to them.

Until with seemingly lightning-speed a new coronavirus presented itself, and we read with little interest that something new that produced a pneumonia-like effect in its victims had emerged somewhere far off in China. Where it had no intention of remaining and began to travel widely, like a seasoned traveller determined to circle the globe. It did, and we've been in various states of lockdown, mourning and fearful suspense ever since.

So it's beyond interesting to read in the most current book you're absorbed in, a historical account that resonates, reminding that the world has always been challenged by such events.

"As there were few European-trained doctors or surgeons in Quito, the Frenchmen's services would have been in great demand. Accompanied by their friend, the emigre French doctor Raimundo Dablanc (who, back in 1736, had loaned money to the expedition to carry out its initial geodesic surveys), they would likely have made the rounds dressed in the peaked hats, red coats, silver-buckled shoes, and blue pano asul capes that marked the local doctors as distinctively as their gold-handled walking sticks. The men certainly did not lack for work, as the church-run hospitals were frequently overcrowded, understaffed, and in disrepair. Sickness and death were constant neighbours in the eighteenth century, wherever one found oneself; child mortality rates in 'backwards' Peru were actually little different from those in 'advanced' Europe. On both continents, parents knew that one in four newborns would die in the first year, and half their children would not live to adulthood. The anguish of loss was not diminished by this knowledge, and neighbourhoods in both Europe and the Americas regularly resounded with the keening of bereaved mothers and fathers."

"Infectious diseases were the primary cause of this suffering. In the eighteenth century, they raced around the world in epidemic cycles, borne between Europe and remote regions such as Peru by caravans and ships carrying goods throughout the already globalized economy. None of the dozen or so great killers -- including measles, yellow fever, smallpox, malaria and diphtheria -- originated in South America. Many of these diseases incubate in domesticated herd animals (pigs especially) that live in close proximity to humans, whereas for much of their history the Indians had only guinea pigs and Llamas, which made for bad hosts. The diseases came with the first conquistadores and quickly spread far beyond their original contact with the indigenous peoples of the Americas, devastating their populations long before most of the victims ever saw a European. Smallpox, for example, likely killed off much of the Inca population in the late 1520s, including its great ruler Huayna Capac, leaving his kingdom in disarray and making it easy pickings for Pizarro and his conquistadores when they arrived just a few years later."

"By the beginning of the 1600s, the Indian populations around Quito had been cut down by almost 90 percent and was rebounding only very slowly. Every decade or so another epidemic laid the population low; the last great epidemic of 1718-1723 most likely influenza, destroyed a quarter of the Indian population in Peru before extinguishing itself."*

It's been cold today -- we're heading back to colder temperatures. When we were out in the ravine this afternoon it was -10C, and steadily falling, with a sharp, gusting wind, partially overcast with occasional glimpses of sun. For the next few days it will be progressively colder, though still not yet in -20 territory, so we can be grateful for that, at the very least.

Jackie and Jillie seem impervious to the cold, as long as they're trussed in their sweater, coat and harness, in that order. For the first half of our circuit we found few people about, but soon we came acounter groups, one with five preteens who took whooping turns taking running leaps onto their backsides to slide down the hillside trails, having the time of their lives. Their dogs running happily alongside the snow-gliding children.

It occurred to me yesterday that it's been quite some time since I made a dish for dinner that was once a favourite. Yesterday seemed as good a time as any to correct that gap, and I set about making a savoury onion pie. It's fairly easy, not that many ingredients, just takes a little time, but the result is worth the effort. I started out with a plain pastry crust comprised of flour, salt, Crisco shortening, lemon juice and ice water.

The filling has few ingredients but they complement one another. I used four onions thinly sliced and two garlic cloves chopped, stirred them briefly in a pan with a tablespoon of olive oil, thyme sprinkled over and cranked a good amount of peppercorns over, then let it cool. I sliced up four tomatoes, and did the same with old Cheddar. Then I rolled out the bottom crust, fitted it into a pie plate, spread the onion mixture over the bottom, then added the tomatoes to cover the onions and sprinkled sweet basil over the tomatoes. Last came the cheddar cheese, covering the tomatoes and over that went the top crust.

It was baked in my little countertop convection oven at 350F for 35 minutes and we were ready to eat, with crisp little baby cucumbers alongside, and sliced fresh peaches from Chile for dessert. The pie is best with a really flaky crust, and that's just what this one came out as. A treat, but not one you'd want to repeat too often. Tonight it's chicken livers dredged in spiced-up breadcrumbs, mashed sweet potato, and steamed broccoli. with Moroccan minneola oranges for dessert.  

Typically, Irving will enjoy the first and the last; the items in between not so much, though he'll eat the yam, and some of the broccoli. The chicken livers are high in iron and that's important for his diet. Now I've got to think of how I plan to use the yeast bread dough I've got sitting in the refrigerator waiting for me to brainstorm it into baked shape.

The weather has moderated, we had a high of -4C today, sunny in the morning, overcast in the afternoon when we went out with Jackie and Jillie to the ravine for our usual daily tramp through the woods. New snow had fallen last night, though no more than 7cm. While we were still eating our breakfast this morning our neighbours had been over shoveling our porch and walkways. Which they insist they enjoy doing. What can I say?

 The snow that fell last has a silky quality to it, so it's slippery, and ascending the ravine's hills comes complete with sliding episodes. Which is fine for us, just takes a little more energy to attain the top when you experience that proverbial 'one step forward, two steps back'. What a visual treat it is viewing the landscape from all angles as we proceed along the trails. 

Newfallen snow lightly padding the earlier snowfalls render a wonderland appearance that's truly breath-catching. There's a sheen on the snow and a sparkle irrespective of the overcast perspective. Branches and boughs are thick with snow, some of them bending gracefully to the weight. A slight breeze penetrating the forest loosed snow from its perch now and again and we watched as a galaxy of tiny stars fluffed through the air, dispersing on the forest floor.

As we rounded the completion of our circuit and approached the creek for the final pass over the last bridge there was a tiny commotion below as we saw a bird lift off from the edge of the creek where it had been perched on a fallen ranch, to fly to the trees above. A robin. Which should have migrated in late fall, but decided to remain in this cold climate. It isn't a complete stranger, every year for the past decade or more we've seen robins, sometimes singly, sometimes in little groups, in the ravine and most often close by the creek. What they are able to find to eat puzzles us; dried berries, seeds, fruit. As live-eaters these options don't reflect their dietary preferences.

Irving and I have always been interested in Polar exploration, reading of what the determined explorers went through as they forged their way through extreme weather conditions, particular geological areas of immense cold, beauty and alien-to-human-survival conditions, straining all their physical resources to reach their goal. Many of course did not, but all without exception suffered exhaustion, mental fatigue, the desperation of uncertainty and fear in their chosen enterprise. Some succeeded while others were not meant to.

My interest also steered me to the mountains in Canada's far North and the Arctic along with Himalayan adventures; reading about them, certainly not engaging in the pursuit of summiting those incredible heights of vast geological proportions while battling inclement elements. Physical feats of fearsome demand on the human body requiring resolute endurance, physical stamina and ambition beyond the ken of most folks. I've been more lately immersed in a fascinating book about scientists in the first quarter of the 18th century enduring hardships and physical strain on an adventure of their own, one with a decided purpose, not merely recreational in nature; to measure the Earth and to prove through their calculations a more exact shape of the Earth.

These were French astronomers, a small group of less than twenty dedicated scientists who were dispatched by the French National Academy of Science to settle a dispute over the Earth's shape, a kind of intellectual/scientific dispute between France (Cartesian theory) and Britain (Newtonian theory) at the time, but with the more direct purpose of conducting a geodesic survey, a truly ambitious one for the time using the latest and most precise instruments to calculate that dimension that were available at the time.

And they set out to do their measurements in an area of Peru (now Ecuador), then a colony of Spain, eliciting Spanish authorities' permission to proceed, which they succeeded in persuasive terms to receive. Spain appointed two young Naval lieutenants schooled in science, astronomy and navigation to accompany the French delegation of highly renowned astronomers, and together they spent an arduous number of years -- close to a decade -- setting up their survey triangulation points for miles along the Andes climbing mountain summits and the tops of volcanoes in the pursuit of their mission.

I read just yesterday a brief news item asserting that a growing number of people in the United States reject the grapefruit-or-egg-shape theory of the Earth's dimensions in favour of that old canard, the flat-Earth theory. Talk about scientific regression! That, and the hordes of wannabe adventurer-celebrities lining up to have themselves guided and cossetted up Mount Everest.

As for us, our adventure-climbing days are long over; not that we did any truly spectacular ascents, contenting ourselves with the coastal mountains in British Columbia and the White Mountains in New Hampshire, a few in the Great Smokies, along with a few modest summits outside Tokyo. 

We're content now having the good fortune in our elder years to live beside a forested ravine. And in the winter there's a faint resemblance to those faroff elevated geologies that so fascinated us all our lives. The terrain here is hilly, it's forested and in winter muffled deep in snow. Inviting us along with our two little dogs to daily tramps through the forest trails, which we graciously and gratefully accept.

 

 

We were later than usual getting out for our ramble through the woods with Jackie and Jillie this afternoon but it's still fairly routine for a Monday, housecleaning day, to end up later than we'd like, in the ravine. We were putting on our jackets around four o'clock, and although we're beginning to reverse daylight hours, recapturing bit by agonizing bit -- likely not more a few seconds a day -- lengthier days, it's not yet noticeable.

It's been like that for months now, though. That when we enter the forest interior the light-atmosphere is dimmer than outside it, but with each minute that passes we notice the light becoming progressively dimmer until the point where it's unmistakably deep dusk and it'll take only another ten minutes before time shoves dusk aside and ushers in night-time darkness. Little difference now between early evening and night.

But the camera records it all, from the first few when the photographs present with a modicum of light to the last few where indistinct images prevail. We figure that by the end of February there will be more light to the day, enough so that we'll remark on it.

We'd had light flurries through the day and when we were walking up to the ravine entrance snow was tumbling lightly from above, enough so that it could be seen as a light frosting over the overall snowpack. In their eagerness to reach the forest, both Jackie and Jillie pull on their leashes. It would result in a far more relaxed trek overall if they were off leash as they once were, before coyotes began being sighted during daylight hours, any time of day. And the occasional encounters that people narrated  of their dogs having episodes with coyotes. Mostly no harm done and in some instances playfully, but then other stories were reported in the news from the west end of the city with dog-coyote encounters that didn't end well for either.

Many people still continue to walk their small dogs unleashed, and today in fact we came across someone walking two very small Yorkie-mixes. Other than making a spurt downhill to meet up with Jackie and Jillie the little creatures tended to stick pretty close to their human, so one imagines he has confidence he wouldn't run into any problems with them.

Even so, shortly after we'd come across the little dogs and their person, we met up with someone else who was walking two very large German shepherd mixes who informed us he'd been out with them earlier in the day, around half-past eleven, when in the very place where we met him, he'd seen a pair of coyotes. His big boys are more than capable of looking after themselves.

Our two, off leash, have a tendency to  race up to other dogs, sometimes with obvious hostility if it's a dog they're not familiar with, and we know from experience that if it was a coyote they confronted they would raise its hackles if for no other reason than that they're irritating. Should an animal like a coyote respond with similar sentiments, though, our two little dogs might come out of the encounter in a condition necessitating immediate veterinarian care, if not worse.

Yesterday I thought I'd go for a poor man's paella. Skip the elaborate preparations and simplify the basic dish to produce a casserole containing everything we'd need to make a complete and good-tasting dinner. Since we had chicken the night before, I decided to only include fish. A fish paella. And to confine the fish to two types, no shellfish per se, only shrimp and cubed haddock. It does take a bit of pre-preparation but in a sense the dish cooks itself after the preliminaries.

Which means 2 garlic cloves and an onion chopped then briefly stirred over a low heat in olive oil. Adding four small tomatoes chopped beforehand and a  half bell pepper chopped as well, stirring until all the ingredients become a slurry. Adding pepper, oregano and basil, about a teaspoon each. Then dumping 2/3 cup of short-grain rice, and stirring it, sprinkling a teaspoon of saffron over, and adding a cup of hot water with a chicken bouillon cube dissolved in it.

That all went into the casserole dish, a pottery dish that our youngest son made many years ago -- I have quite a collection of them actually; for a scientist he has a multitude of interests and pottery is one of them -- and that's when the fish was added, cubed haddock, and a bunch of shrimp -- everything covered with foil and popped into the oven at 325F. By then it was time to prepare the evening meal for Jackie and Jillie. They had to wait, though, because Irving had other things in mind.

Radio Canada CBC always plays golden oldies on Saturday night and the sound of those old tunes grips him. He has fond memories of us as young teens dancing to the music of our times, and it's a must with him that we dance for at least a half-hour while those memorable songs are broadcast. He can recall all the old names of the entertainers that I cannot, remembers the words to the songs, can identify each song from its first introductory notes. I love dancing with him, he's a smooth dancer and it takes me back, too. Truth is, I love any chance I get to hug and hold on to him and that's as good a time as any.

Jackie and Jillie peek their little heads around the corner wondering what the hold-up in their dinner is. While we've been dancing they've been racing about the house after one another, madly dashing everywhere, stopping long enough for a brief tussle, then going berserk again. It's a kind of ritual of excitement they engage in before mealtimes. And in fact they'd been pretty muscular about ripping about the house and the backyard all day because we hadn't gone out for a hike through the forest trails as we usually do.

This morning I was about to make pancakes for breakfast when Irving said I should try making French toast with the challah he had baked a few days earlier in his bread machine. His bread machine, I wouldn't know what to do with it, and I prefer kneading bread dough manually, personally. I was doubtful, but went ahead and it turned out to be the best French toast we've had. We usually eat a robust breakfast and dinner, but we never, ever eat lunch and haven't for decades, feeling it wholly unnecessary, extraneous to our needs.

So we did decide to get out this afternoon, after all. Despite the cold, the wind and our experience of weekends being packed with area residents. By the time we got out into the ravine the temperature had risen to 11C, though it felt colder thanks to the wind, but on the positive side of the ledger, the bluest of clear blue skies prevailed with the sun streaming its warmth over everything. Jackie and Jillie were glad to be out in the ravine and as luck had it, we only came across a few other people and dogs, so we speculated that the cold has kept people indoors.

Cold it most certainly was, and while there was good shelter within the forest interior from the wind, it doesn't take much wind at that temperature to make things pretty frosty. I could feel my cheeks being pinched from the cold, and my nostrils taking shelter by crouching inside themselves. But oh, the beauty of the landscape! Incomparable. Snow still lingers on the trees. And the cold has succeeded in icing over the creek. Even the rapids are now frozen, and nothing moves within that can be seen.

Was a time when a daytime high of -20C wouldn't stop us. We'd go out and up to Gatineau Park with little Button our miniature poodle, our younger son in the lead breaking trail, all of us on snowshoes ramping through piles of snow and think nothing of it. We'd gain a prominence in the hills and come face-to-face with a buck, he'd snort, paw the snow ferociously and we'd each go our separate ways. On the way downhill we'd literally float on the thick but light piles of snow exhilaratingly moving downward like the wind, and it was wondrously comfortable.

Now, we decide on a midday high of -14C and wind, to give it a pass. We're a whole lot older. Besides which since COVID has entered our lives and the community has gone stir-crazy, finding comfort at last in unwinding naturally, the forest trails in our nearby ravine have been packed on the week-end with casual trekkers and the occasional tight passes on narrow areas of the trails give us pause for second thought.

Pity, since it's such a beautiful day. Jackie and Jillie often balk at going out to the backyard to relieve themselves on extremely cold days but they're keen to be out in the afternoon on their ravine hikes as long as they're adequately accoutered with boots and jackets. They'd do fine out there today even though they weren't thrilled at their frequent outdoor stops at home. They do enjoy snow. They'll miss it when it's gone come April.

When they went out first thing this morning with Irving they were elated and bouncy, rushing madly after one another in a snow-chase, under the deck where there's a clearing, out and about the network of little walkways that Irving regularly shovels for them. After that as the day wears on so does the novelty. They'd far prefer to remain indoors. But then, that's their attitude at any season; they're home-and-hearth little dogs.

Last night we had the usual robust Friday-night dinner. And at this time of year it's often breaded baked chicken breast, roasted cauliflower and a potato pudding after we've had the mandatory chicken soup. It's chicken soup that forms the base of our Friday-night meals. Before I ladle it into our bowls I add dried parsley and snipped green onions. Yesterday the soup had matzoh knaidlech rather than rice. 

For dinner tonight I'm planning a chicken-less paella, kind of, with fish. We both love rice and the saffron-tomato-infused rice is quite delicious. We get our protein, carbohydrates and fat in one nutritious casserole. It's a treat, however, that we won't share with Jackie and Jillie; too rich, too seasoned for their tender little stomachs, though they may think otherwise.

 

 

Our puppies are on the mend, feeling quite a bit better today than yesterday. We couldn't do enough yesterday to comfort them, they wanted attention constantly, to be petted and consoled over being so under the weather so to speak, that they were unable to eat. Mind, by dinnertime their empty stomachs got to them as we hoped would happen. Nothing wrong with their olfactory senses; from the family room as they languished on the sofa they could smell chicken being cut up into their bowls. I decided to forego their kibble and just give them chicken dampened with chicken soup.

And I prepared their after-dinner salads as usual; cauliflower (briefly 'cooked' in the microwave) with snowpeas, bell pepper, cucumber and grape tomatoes diced over. They were definitely interested, warily circling their bowls. Jillie succumbed first; a nibble, then a pause, and before we could blink her dish was emptied. Same thing with her vegetables.

 

It's always different with Jackie, he seems to play little games. He will deign to eat if he's hand-fed little bits of chicken. Then he waits for more. By which time if he doesn't lap his food up on his own he won't be getting any more, and after closing in, then distancing himself in a rotation of indecision, he finally eats his dinner too, and most of his salad.

This morning Jillie was game for her pre-breakfast cheese bits, but Jackie played his distance game. Jillie gobbled her breakfast and Cheerios with milk afterward as a regular treat, and Jackie, while sniffing furiously, obviously arguing with himself over the outcome, opted to leave whatever was offered him. It's a regular routine; he genuinely doesn't feel up to par, and won't eat, but usually by dinnertime he's ferociously hungry.

The snow that fell throughout the day yesterday was light in texture given that the thermometer didn't budge above -8C, and wind had done a fairly good job of shifting the shovelled snow back onto the walkways again, so that was Irving's pre-breakfast task re-clearing the trails. The twins went out repeatedly to the backyard, Jillie inviting her brother to a good rumble, but he wasn't interested. Both of them busying themselves sniffing about vigorously; unseen to us but known by them the scent of rabbits and raccoons at the very least.

When Irving sees rabbit pellets in the backyard he picks them up to flush them down the toilet to ensure our food-conscious connoisseurs don't consider them edible delicacies. Their idea of 'treats' certainly doesn't reflect ours.

And my choice for a dinnertime dessert treat today was lime cheesecake. I had bought a bag of limes and mean to use them in various ways. I thought a cheesecake flavoured with lime would be a little different; pairing cheese with lime seems like a natural to me. After I finely grated the peel for inclusion in the filling, Irving obliged by squeezing the half-limes to extract the juice and I was away to the races. Cheesecake is so simple to put together and so delectable as a treat.

I used a package of cream cheese, about 250 grams, a half-cup of really thick sour cream, 2/3 cup of granulated sugar, 3 large eggs, the lime zest and juice for the filling, a cup of graham cracker crumbs mixed with a quarter-cup butter for the crust which I briefly baked before filling it. I sprinkled white chocolate chips over the partially baked crust, poured the filling over and baked the cheesecake for an hour at 350F, and that'll comprise dessert tonight.

We went out with the puppies around three in the afternoon. Figuring on a cold Friday, overcast and slightly windy, there wouldn't be too many people going through the trails, and we were right, not too many, but enough to make it awkward at points where the trails narrow and the forest vegetation is too thick to permit standing off-trail, particularly going uphill. 

The landscape is stunning in its thick mantle of snow. This latest layer of snow isn't the packing type such as what we received a week ago when the temperature was more moderate. With this colder weather the texture of the snow tends to be lighter, it tends not to stick, so ascending and descending the hills in the ravine can become a bit of a challenge. The crampons we wear over our boot soles help immeasurably to keep us from continually sliding downward.

Jackie and Jillie came across their share of 'others', in the presence of a wide variety of dogs accompanying people. Some they know and since they're familiar with them, they behave passably well. For the dogs they've made no previous acquaintance with they reserve special treatment, challenging and hostile to their presence. Not the kind of civil behaviour we expect of them, but they've proven to be fairly incorrigible so when we urge them to stop barking, it accomplishes nothing. A breed-specific trait.