There are so many physical and habitual idiosyncracies that identify us as individuals.  Familiarity aids in identifying people at a distance by the way they walk, their carriage and the manner in which they propel themselves.  I can often identify people at a distance whom I have become familiar with, neighbours, for example in this way, even while my eyesight has been compromised to the extent that I cannot distinguish their physical features at that distance, their faces a blur to me.

I have never been very good at recalling peoples' names and have had to employ little memory tics; they work often enough, I would prompt myself when facing one person to mutter into my inner ear: "Mutt and Jeff" to recall that his name was Jeff.  I cannot often correctly identify even faces when they're seen out of context; people we might come across in the ravine and where it's perfectly normal to see them and feel an acquaintanceship, and then when we meet them in another setting, say a shop, I'm perplexed until my husband comes to my rescue.  He remembers details; names, places, faces.

We also have an aural signature; we respond to the voices we know from being close to them.  I remember the first time I heard my own voice in a recording and I could hardly believe it was me.  My voice sounded unlike what I thought it did; it had a twang, a whining quality I had always associated with my ethnic/cultural group.  I cringe inwardly at the very thought that this is what my voice sounds like.  But it is my voice, nonetheless.

My husband's voice, evidently, is so distinct, not only to me, someone who loves him and has been by his side for 62 years, but to others with whom we have a passing acquaintanceship.  Whenever he telephones the veterinarian clinic where we have taken our little dogs for the past 20 years, for their annual health check-ups, the receptionist there knows to whom she is speaking, not only recognizing his name and associating it with our dogs but enquiring after them also by name.

Yesterday he called our local Canadian Tire outlet to enquire whether a sale of leather slippers might be acknowledged that day, though the flyer said the sale would begin today.  The voice at the other end knew to whom she was speaking and enquired after his well-being.  She confirmed the sale price would only apply today, but she said he would only be able to have a choice in size if he bought them yesterday.  Some people do that, she assured him, and they return the following day when the sale is in order, to receive a credit for having paid the full price the day before.

In fact, she said, if he hesitated to go that route he could go along to the store and hand her his choice, and she would set it aside for him, then surrender his slippers to him the following day, and ring them up as a cash sale at that time.  He thanked her, went along to the store, chose two pair of slippers in his size (they would be on half-price sale the following day), paid for them, and retained the invoice, planning to return for his rebate today. 

While there, he sought out the cashier so familiar with his voice and thanked her for her advice.  The fact was there were scant few of the slippers available, despite the advertised sale, and had he not chosen them the day before the sale, it wasn't likely his size would be left after others had gone through them. 

His visits to that store are sporadic and as-needed; they are not a regular routine, as it were.  Yet that woman, who in her line of service work comes across thousands of people during the course of a week was able to retain in her memory bank the sound of a specific voice - and likely many others as well.  Astonishing.

In societally advanced countries of the world - liberal democracies - the will of the people does prevail to a degree.  In North America and Europe as an example, where populations exercise their legally-mandated franchises, the democratic process is alive and well.  Other segments, like the economy may suffer, but people are free to express their opinions about however their society has progressed through freedom of expression.  And, when practical and possible and reasonable, their governments listen.

Throughout Africa and the Middle East, societally-impairing vestiges of ancient tribal mentalities persist, and there the rule of law is overlaid with corruption, vengeance, hatred and war, both internally through polarized determining agents of tribal-inspired suspicion and greed, and externally, with the very same human needs and emotions at the very basest, primeval level, motivating people and moving events along to their savage conclusions.

One African country after another has succumbed to rulers raping natural resources, funding their personal lifestyles, advancing those of their cronies, and oppressing the vast majority of those living under their fist in poverty, disease and social disorder.  The Middle East, always the nest of viperous, scheming tyrants, has undergone a transformation from the moderation of benevolent tyrants to the belligerent fanaticism of imperial theocracy.

Iran, which brought in the Islamist revolution, overturning years of steady progress toward human rights while still mired in the bonds of tyranny, paved the way for political, militant Islamism to raise its fist of domination with schemes to herald in a new international submission to Islam whether by steadily advancing infiltration on a tide of migrants abroad, or by virtue of establishing state and non-state militias known as mujahadeen, jihadists, those bidden to and overwhelmingly willing to view themselves as martyrs for a global cause.

Opposition to the ruling Ayatollahs in Iran came from among the secular-minded, and the Ayatollahs were swift to demonstrate that the incidental cruelties of the royal reign that preceded their own was by comparison to theirs, moderate.  The vicious malignancy with which the newly-established Islamic Republic of Iran responded to the challenges to its legitimacy through the auspices of the Almighty to rule by decree and by force, was sufficient unto the day, cementing their reign through their campaign of theistic-dominating terror.

Iran's arming, training and support of jihadist groups was second only to the oil-wealth-generated ability of Saudi Arabia's Wahhabist kingdom to spread the rigidly authoritarian and jihadist-inspired training of future martyrs to a cause they shared, despite their abhorrence of each other's Islamist reflections of the divine; one Shi'ite, the other Sunni, deadly enemies by heritage and inheritance. Oil wealth established religious training schools around the world absorbing Islamic youth and spitting them out as future jihadis.

And then came the Arab Spring - a tentative springboard to change - touching down by turn in one Arab/Muslim country after the other, with ordinary citizens with moderate attachments to Islam, and yearning to see freedoms arrive in their societies reflective of what they observed through the advent of communication and education through social media.  People chafing at their social constraints, at their poverty, at their lack of opportunities to advance materially, socially, educationally. 

The responses by the ruling elite to these appeals for change to their political-societal standards were not viewed beneficently by their oppressors.  Yet the aggregate of the people who were persuaded by the tides of history and human advancement were inspired to continue their protests and their supporters grew and gradually embraced those initially not involved, until their protests became a swell of humanity demanding their human rights, with the collective power to destroy the governments that had so long oppressed them - or perish in the attempt.

These demonstrations dominated the international news as people looked on with fascination, wondering what the final outcome would bring to a long-suffocated society held in thrall to the whims and desires of dictators.  Violence begat more of the same, and thousands died in their zeal to oppose their oppressors as they gathered in tribal-based militias to fight against their regime's militias.  Some of those battles are still ongoing, with the secular-liberal-minority groups left behind, their war for liberation taken up by Islamist forces that had been suppressed by the ruling elite.

People exulted in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt in the belief that they had prevailed, when the despised old order was brought down and the new installed.  And they they awoke to the realization that the society they had envisioned would still elude them.  They had exchanged one tyranny for another, a reflection of what Iran had achieved a generation earlier.  In Syria one tyrant battling for his regime's enduring presence, is slaughtering his people.  In Egypt, a democratically elected Islamist government has turned its back on democracy.

Yesterday we experienced a true weather anomaly.  It turned out to be, in fact the warmest December day in this city's history of weather-record temperatures, beating the previous record attained on December 3, 1982 of 16.3C. by one degree and that of the following day in 1982 of 13.9C.  Perhaps I should, but I don't recall those previous occasions of Nature hesitating on her way to winter, resorting to mystifying us by leaping forward to spring.

As we made our way through the ravine on our usual ramble, mist rose steadily from the lower depths of the ravine, and it felt humid, and wonderfully balmy, though when we set out the temperature was at 6-degrees and had gone as high as 8-degrees by the time, an hour and more later when we returned to our front door.

The ground, though still firm, no longer had the feel of winter-frost permeating it as it had a few days earlier when we slipped and slid on the ice and the thin snow covering, reminding us it was time to change to winter boots and possibly even ice cleats.  Yesterday there were a few remnants of ice gliding over the surface of the forest floor, but the snow had all melted and the creek, which had itself iced over, was now free again.

We often see fungi, odd-shaped and coloured mushrooms, like Indian Pipe and other types on the forest floor when it has been warmly damp and humid.  Yesterday it was most certainly that but it hadn't occurred to us to look for mushrooms there, we were too busy satisfying the greedy appetites of all the squirrels that converged upon us from every point in the forest and beyond.

It most certainly was an extraordinary weather day.  And it remained mild throughout the night, as well, though by the time we emerged from our lovely snug bed the temperature had dropped again below the freezing mark.

And this morning, after breakfast, when I looked out the window at the front garden closest to the house, where previously the soil had been well covered by a snow coverlet that I assumed was there to stay and to grow into a puffy cloud of stubborn snow-drift, there was instead a colony of white mushrooms, very inviting in appearance, looking fresher and whiter and firmer than those button mushrooms I usually buy at my neighbourhood supermarket.

Now that the port-a-potty and the bulldozers, along with all the peripheral equipment and the workmen are gone, it is suddenly quiet on the street.  I hesitated to pose the question to her, since it is rather a delicate one, so I desisted.  Instead, my husband was effusive in his praise of the work that had been done on her front lawn.  And the new driveway; never had he seen such a deep excavation and such exquisite care taken to ensure that all the gravel was pounded down properly. 

I had, in fact, seen such care and workmanship done previously; when my husband had undertaken on his own, single-handedly, to do our own front, taking his time, and using elemental, traditional stonecutter tools, not the electric stone-cutting machinery now used.  Unlike our neighbour's earlier inlaid brickwork which had shifted and cracked, become dangerously uneven and unsightly, requiring replacement - ours, since the dozen years when my husband had done his own work, has never shifted, and looks as precise as the day he finally completed the three months of hard labour he had set for himself. 

With all their equipment and the teams of workmen applying their professional efforts to our neighbour's job, it took them a full month to complete the entire project.

We wondered at the scope of the work our neighbour had done, since her brickwork now encompassed a good portion of their front lawn, and the workmen had left a large expanse of soil meant for a garden, to be completed by their firm at some time in the spring.  When the planting of the garden would be undertaken.  Who would do the garden maintenance, we wondered?  And it was that question that lingered on my tongue, unspoken.

It would not be our neighbour's husband for he is not given to such householder-driven tasks.  Nor could it be our neighbour herself for she is incapable, due to her immense girth, of even walking the short distance up the street to the group post box to retrieve their mail.  She glowed in the compliments that my husband indulged in, at the quality of the workmanship, the choice of materials, the obvious planning blueprint that had turned out so successfully.  I really appreciated that he indulged her in that manner, but he really was genuinely enthused over the quality of the professionalism he had witnessed.

Now that our gardens have been so long established, I don't myself find the tasks of looking after them, various as they are, too difficult, and our neighbours are sixteen years younger than us, at 60.  Still, she is incapable of much physical endeavour and he is unwilling.  Perhaps they mean to employ someone to do occasional gardening and yardwork as they did in previous years.  Even though he has found paying contracts for his own line of professional work few and far between these last several years.

Aside from the rush of spring planting of annuals, and the fall clean-up of perennials, the amount of work required to maintain gardens is not overwhelming for the willing and for those for whom working in a garden is a source of pleasure.  It's possible they haven't thought that far ahead; to conclude that someone will have to dedicate some time to looking after their new gardens, yet to be conceived and planted, but awaiting that event. 

Perhaps they'll manage to collaborate; they do now, in a sense.  He brings to her the garden pots she likes to have surrounding their porch, along with bags of soil, and pots of new-bought annuals, and she, seated on a garden seat, and stretching her huge arms, manages the task of tamping in the soil and popping in the plants to create small portable gardens for her enjoyment, sitting out on her porch with her three beloved cats.

At first, I recall having experienced an uneasy feeling when we used to drive through those long tunnels in Japan.  I was struck by the oddly coloured glow that emanated from the lights installed in the tunnel ceilings at regular intervals, fascinated by how it changed the colour of the polish on my fingernails.  At times when the unwanted thought of the potential of a tunnel collapse entered my mind, I would shove it hurriedly aside and go on to think of other things.

I was impressed with the immensity of the Fraser Canyon in British Columbia when we stopped beside the highway at an impossible height to stand astride the roadway, looking down on the chasm below us, and to the right a train entering a tunnel forged into the side of the mountain.  The yawning O of the tunnel mouth, very visible from where we stood looked like a fragment of nature once the train had disappeared into its maw.  The immensity of the scene and the thought of human ingenuity and the engineering and toil that resulted in the tunnel allowing trains to barrel through the mountain grasped my imagination.  With some misgivings, bringing me back to those thoughts of the Tokyo-centric tunnels.

We had been watching a film, Dante's Peak, one of those horrific natural-disaster epics that so fascinate people on Saturday evening, after which I went over to my computer to have a look at the latest news.  We have no working television set in the house, and haven't had one for a year and a half, so the computer comes in handy for the news.  And there was the first report of the latest catastrophic tunnel collapse in Japan.  Bringing back memories and presenting a horrifying mental picture of the terror and panic that those trapped within the tunnel must have felt before death overtook them.

And I wonder why it is that engineering geniuses don't think of building a road going over or around, instead of through mountains; saving labour, time, money?  Sometimes the quickest route is straight through.  And sometimes the quickest route to catastrophe at some time in the future is the quickest route to perdition.

We're steadily coming across a new generation of people and their new generation of dogs rambling through the forested acres of the ravine to which we have been devoted for over two decades.  Those old ramblers with whom we were familiar have steadily dropped off and none now remain but a scant few whose dogs' ages match that of our remaining little poodle.

Increasingly we see dogs still in puppyhood, infused with amazing enthusiasm for life, springy and spontaneous, curious and abundantly willing to share their newfound love of life with anyone in their path who might feel equally enthralled with existence.  Some of these creatures - both large and small look equal to conquering Mount Everest in their zeal for discovery, their boundless energy and their frolicsome moods.

Bringing back to us memory of our own little miniature poodle who shared so many adventures with us in her younger days, clambering up mountainsides to reach summits from which we could look out vast distances to other countless summits marching across that lofty landscape, and where the sky looked boundless, creatively crowded with clouds resembling what we had left down below us in the landscape of trees and giant boulders, and waterfalls and oak scrub clinging to the inhospitable sides of barely-soiled granite.

Our little dogs in their too-brief youth saw vast vistas in their zeal to match our efforts to mount the sternest mountain peaks we could manage before time took from us the energy and the motivation to persevere against the pull of relentless gravity.

And now we see that new generation comprised of the tiny black bouncing happiness of a Maltese terrier-poodle mix, to a great Pyrenees, or an Irish Wolfhound-German Shepherd mix discovering the beauty and mystique of nature in our very own backyards.  Through their boundless enthusiasm we re-visit our own experiences and the fruitful discoveries, along with the satisfying pleasure we shared with our own little companions.

Back, as the saying goes ... in the day.

 
This recipe for cupcakes - or variations thereof, and I must confess I did change some basic elements of the recipe, as I often do; more often than not using no recipe whatever other than what I construct in my head for any particular type of cupcake, as a result of my facility with putting together ingredients, a natural outcome of a long familiarity with baking, somewhat like the manner in which a chemist knows his periodic table - produces a gorgeously sumptuous end product.  (I do tend to let sentences run on, don't I?)

Cupcakes: 1 tsp lemon juice, 1/2 cup skim milk, 3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened, 1-1/4 cups granulated sugar, 2 eggs at room temperature, 1 heaping tsp.grated lime zest, 1-1/2 tbsp.fresh lime juice, 1 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped out, 1-1/4 cups all-purpose flour, 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1/4 tsp. salt,  cup sweetened coconut flakes.
Cupcake frosting:  140 g white chocolate squares, 1/2 cup butter, softened, 4 cups confectioner's sugar, sifted, 1 tbsp.lime juice, 4 tbsp. sour cream, coconut flakes for garnish.

Method: line muffin tins with paper cups, preheat oven to 350F.  Stir lemon juice into skim milk; set aside.  Cream butter, sugar, beat in eggs one at a time; add lime zest, juice and vanilla.  Sift flour, baking powder, salt; add dry ingredients to wet, alternating with buttermilk (lemonjuice/skim milk). Fold in coconut, scoop batter into muffin papers, bake 25 to 30 min; cool in rack when browned.

Melt chocolate, cool to warm, whip butter with chocolate, add confectioner's sugar and mix with lime juice and sour cream.  Smooth over cooled cupcakes and dust with coconut flakes.

I substituted Becel margarine for butter, went a little short on the sugar, used unbleached flour, less of the milk and somewhat less of the amount of flour called for, and liquid vanilla instead of bean, and made about half of the frosting finding it more than adequate for the purpose.  The result was a lovely cupcake, beautiful to look at and even better to enjoy as a dessert.

In the interests of full disclosure, this end-product of an excellent recipe took my fancy when my husband pointed it out to me while we were awaiting attention at our local veterinary clinic.  We then indulged in an anti-social act of purloining said recipe by swiftly tearing the page on which it was printed out of the magazine my husband was perusing.  These cupcakes were the result of ill-gotten gain, you might say.  Tch-tch.