I have the long-time, intimate acquaintance of a woman whose extensive experience with dogs, and whose understanding of the manner in which best to communicate with them has gained her the knowledge required to expertly understand them. This woman advertises her services to assist other people to understand how best to communicate with their dogs, to instruct the dogs and to anticipate that they will respond in a manner that ensures mutual respect between the species.

She accepts contracts whereby she goes out to peoples' homes, assesses their situation after extensive interviews upon meeting them and their companion animals (for occasionally there exists more than one dog, sometimes two, three and more) before she launches into a full explanation to edify them on what has been occurring and what its remedy will be. And then, for a period of several hours she takes those people through a series of exercises with their dogs to have them understand how they, as owners, can best make contact with the dogs' intelligence, fulfilling both their needs. In the process also taking to the public arena to demonstrate to the owners how well their dogs respond when they are given adequate instructions in the proper manner.

She informed me this week that she had received two communications from clients. One, from a couple with three rescue dogs to which personal menagerie they had added a fourth and were faced with an addition, with the fourth, that was confused, fearful and apprehensive about how it should fit into their family life. They wanted advice as to how the dog might be assured, how to treat its fears, and assure it that it is welcome to share their lives. Their after-service message was to thank this woman who had solved their problem, to their great relief.

The second missive was from a couple who had evidenced little patience with the detailed explanations given them about their dog's needs and how best to fulfill their obligations to this dependent creature, informing it in the process how it was expected to behave, and ensuring it fully understood its obligations to its owners. Their message to this woman who had completed her agreed-upon contract with them, leaving them with the assurance that if they followed her instructions their problem would be solved, but it would take time and patience and determined routine, was that they had, after all, decided to euthanize the dog. Unless she would herself agree to adopting it.

This came as an excruciating shock to the woman. Who rejects euthanization entirely as a solution to peoples' inability to be responsible with their companion animals. And who has herself, over a period of years, assembled her own coterie of rescued dogs, dogs that had been abandoned, mistreated, and left to their own helpless devices to survive.

It is this woman's contention that whatever goes wrong with companion pets can be generally attributed to the lack of understanding on the part of the pet owner respecting communication and assurance. Or outright deliberate mismanagement and a propensity of some people to be cruelly controlling to animals. She believes implicitly that dogs look to their owners for direction, responding with alacrity when it is given properly, resorting to ill behaviour when that direction is absent. Her theories, when they are put into practise, appear to work well.

But, as she emphasizes, it takes commitment, a willingness to give it time, and a determination to be a responsible pet owner, taking the initiative and exercising an informed will. Obviously, not everyone is willing to take the trouble, the time and the responsibility required.

About forty years ago, a then-young man who published a literary magazine put me in touch with three other then-young women whose poetry and creative fiction he also published. We four women found much in common with one another, and a fervent and enthusiastic letter-friendship developed between us. They lived in various places in the United States; Massachusetts and California, and I in Canada.

We shared, through our long-term and voluminous writing career informing one another of our successes and hopes, information about our respective families. As our children grew and matured we discussed that, just as we discussed what we were each engrossed in writing about, and the publishing successes each of us met with.

Since that long-ago time, one of the women dropped out of our mutual correspondence, another died ten years ago of natural causes due to poor health, and there remains two; myself and another, still living in California. Now, we are able to correspond through the Internet via email, sending one another laconic messages.

But she still maintains a list of friends to whom she annually sends a Christmas message tucked into a jolly Christmas greeting card, where she updates others in more detail on what has been occurring in her life. I received one of those annual communications this week and in it she informs that her grandchildren, a young woman and young man are preparing to launch themselves into university studies for law and medicine, respectively.

And that she has just completed preparing a manuscript to be published, the second in as many years; last year's was a historical novel, this year it is a collection of short stories and a novella. She is self-publishing, but publishing. I too have been self-publishing, but not in hard-copy form; rather, in a series of blogs, one of which is devoted to my creative literary muse.

She writes of a difficult year, with many health problems erupting, "but nothing life-threatening", for herself, while her husband "has been at death's door a number of times...He is in real bad shape now". But while it sounds dire, it is typical of her; any letters received over the years have been replete with hard-luck health-and-accident stories that have occurred either to herself or family members - or distant acquaintances. Vintage.

The final sentence in her missive was an enquiry about how everything is proceeding in my family.
Prompting me to respond. By mail. With a reciprocal jolly Christmas card. And chirping message of advanced-age-related health problems.

Fortunately for us, as it happened, yesterday dawned a perfect winter day. It was well below freezing, and supremely sunny, with little wind. A perfect day as far as weather was concerned, to install the new stained glass windows.

Although we have stained glass windows installed throughout our home, this was the first pair to be installed on the exterior. Work proceeded without incident. Until, after having completed the job, my husband realized he had installed one of the windows backwards. Who would notice; certainly not I. But out it came and it was re-installed right way around.

And then, scrutinizing it from the interior of the house, the dining room, he noticed a crack in one of the frosted glass portions. It hardly looked like a crack to me; more like a straight, shallow crackle in the glass itself, but out came that window once again, and down it went into my husband's workshop for remediation.

Now, whenever I pass by the dining room, I'm struck with admiration for the appearance of the two new windows. They will take some time to become accustomed to. They're not as colourful as the others; meant to be muted so as not to clash with the inserts of the shutters beside them; to complement rather than to confuse, yet they present with their own mystique, as light transforms them reflecting exterior light influences.

Altogether, they present an ever-changing play of light on transparent and opaque coloured glass as though colour itself has a life of its own.

We two are not reclusive by temperament or inclination. We do enjoy, on our own terms, mingling with people, speaking with them, sharing moments. We are not, however, given to being part of a crowd, a group, a clique. We are of our neighbourhood, and with it to a degree. We very much like most of our neighbours, and have known them for quite a long time, for the most part.

There are certainly those people who live on the street our home is on who go out of their way never to acknowledge the presence of their neighbours. These are unfriendly people who simply prefer to be left alone. If they have a preference at all it is certainly not for congenial relations with their neighbours.

We, on the other hand, like those whom we mostly live amongst, find quality of life in cheerfully acknowledging the presence of those whom we've become familiar with. And we remain open to the casual inclusion of others who may become homeowners on the street. We take pleasure in stopping to talk through lengthy conversations with them when the occasion presents itself. We know sketchy details of their family lives, their concerns, their interests.

And that is about as far as we prefer to take it. When in public we are semi-public people, approachable and warm to others. When in the privacy of our homes we prefer not to be disturbed by outside influences. Ours is not an open-door home, nor do we prefer that our neighbours' doors be open to us.

When the need is there to help someone and we are asked to contribute in some way, we respond. We have always found, however, in ourselves a reluctance to ask others to help us, so this has become a one-way street that is not reciprocal; we will go out of our way to be of assistance, but rarely call upon others to assist us.

When, as occurred this week, an invitation was extended to take part in a neighbour's seasonal cocktail party, we demurred. Behind our resistance is the feeling that such an event is not reflective of a place where we find ourselves comfortable. We're old enough to discriminate between what is suitable for us and what is not.

At risk of offending.

A casual friend yesterday afternoon regaled us with humorous stories about how he and his wife plotted to go out shopping for their Christmas gift-giving at times when they hardly anticipated there would be the usual crowds flocking to the various shopping arenas. Those shopping arenas have become zones of consumer hysteria, with hordes of people desperately searching out bargains with which to finally complete what they obviously view as their obligations to friends and family members at this time of gift-giving.

They arise, our friend confided, early in the morning, so they reach those big box stores at half-past seven in the morning. And at that time of the morning there's hardly anyone but the sales staff around, so they can move about in comfort, make their leisurely selections long before the crowds show up. But they have been surprised, he said, to see on occasion very young children accompanying their parents on these early-morning shopping expeditions. Don't they know, he said puckishly, that children aren't allowed in at that time of day?
It's a special time for children, and in fact it should be viewed mostly as an enchanting, magical time for children. As it was for us when we were young, even though Christmas was not a holiday festival that Jews celebrated. Even as a child coming from a secular background I felt alienated from the holiday itself with its emphasis on a kind Jewish sage whose dreadful and untimely death we Jews were constantly reminded we were responsible for. I was hounded as a child by cries of "Christ killer" from some of my unforgiving peers in the school grounds.

But we also remember with immense fondness and appreciation the heady excitement we felt coursing through us, just as it must have for children whose parents clung to their faith, that this was indeed a magical time. We longed to be taken to those great old department stores that existed in Toronto away back in the 1940s, Eaton's and Simpson's, at Yonge and Queen streets, with their colourful, light-filled mechanized Christmas window displays of fashionable ladies, Santa's workshop complete with busy elves, and any number of enchanted scenes to transport a child with joy.

Inside the stores, we'd be taken up to the floor dedicated to Santa's Christmas, with beautiful winged fairies, clever little dwarfs, unicorns, miniature railways, and songs being played over and over, like "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer", which set the child's mood, enraptured by the mechanical movement, the blazing light and colour, tiny lights strung everywhere, absolutely mesmerizing children. And Santa, he was there, in huge living colour, awaiting brave children who would sit on his lap and divulge what they would really, really, like for Christmas.

Neither my husband nor I ever sat in Santa's lap. But our children did. I'm not certain they loved it, but they did experience it. Now, it seems to us from a social remove and many years long gone and past, that Christmas is no longer a public spectacle for children, to enchant and teasingly bewilder them. The old Eaton's and Simpson's stores are gone. There is now the Eaton Centre in downtown Toronto, and displays there can be dazzling, like a crystal-laden tree, but the magic playground of automated fairies and elves and Santa is history.

It takes just a few minutes' time and a scarcely three-quarter-cup scoop of flour to bake a half-dozen mid-sized chocolate cupcakes. Of course, it helps immeasurably if you add a quarter-cup cocoa, use cake and pastry flour, a dash of salt, a teaspoon of baking powder, and process these dry ingredients through a sifter to ensure there are no lumps of flour.

And while you're at it, prepare an egg and about a third cup of milk, and a teaspoon of vanilla. Oops, a third cup of Becel margarine fluffed into a half-cup of granulated sugar. There you are, the constituents of a half-dozen chocolate cupcakes. Good thing it comes automatically to me now: the ingredients, the measurements, the procedure, dredged out of years of experience and baking, to enable me to put them together without much thought.

Of course it helps that I've got a lovely little counter-top convection oven, which accomplishes the baking task in record time, producing a light, moist and exceedingly good-tasting end-product. And then the icing, comprised of Becel margarine, icing sugar, vanilla, smoothed over the cooled cupcakes, sprinkled lightly with chocolate bits; voila! complete.

And it's always pleasurable to hear my husband's comments about how good the house smells, redolent of chocolate being baked, and his enthusiasm for capping off a Friday night dinner with a baked dessert. Different from the rest of the week when dessert comes in the form of fresh fruit.

He is excused on these occasions for having consumed two and a half of the cupcakes.

We haven't suffered one iota from no longer having a television set. Our old television set which we acquired twenty years ago, when we moved into this house wasn't able to capture the new signals, and was thus rendered useless, so we discarded it. And we have not yet replaced it. Nor do we have any idea when we will replace it, or even whether we will.

We're radio listeners, we're newspapers readers, we're book lovers. Neither of us could imagine our lives without reading material, books in particular, and of course daily newspapers. There is not a room in our house that isn't heaped with its share of books or magazines.

We had used cable only for a few years for our television reception, before deciding it was a waste of money, and cancelling it. At that time we decided to invest that monthly fee instead in health insurance for our-then single companion dog - before extending the insurance to a second policy when we introduced our second dog into the household. That insurance too has now been cancelled, because we paid far more into it than what we received in the sole instance when we made a claim and scandalized the insurance provider by so doing.

We've also got our computers, which suffice to introduce us electronically to the wider world of entertainment, education and communications. There's value there for our enquiring minds...