We mostly look for paintings, but we're interested as well in clocks, oriental porcelains, bronzes, all manner of decorative items that attract our attention because of their unique nature, their (mostly assumed) provenance, their beauty, all of which satisfy our sense of aesthetic and enhance our lives through providing a focus of interest around us.

We can certain live without all of these things, but they do make our lives even more pleasant than they already are. If it became a toss-up between books and bits and pieces of antique objects, I guess books would win the contest hand down; they, it would be difficult to live without. The ongoing and fairly casual search for beautiful objects, however, does grasp our interest. And yesterday after breakfast we hied ourselves over to the centre of town to do just that -- look about to see if there were any offerings that might fulfill our search to acquire yet another piece of the past.

It was the occasion of the semi-annual antique show that comes to this city in the spring and fall. They are now put on at the Fieldhouse of Carleton University. The show itself has gradually deteriorated from one where responsible antique dealers coming from Toronto and Montreal and all points between would bring what they had painstakingly collected through estate sales and auctions and serendipity, to present at these shows -- to one that largely now features jewellery, memorabilia and junk with the occasional real thing thrown in for contrast.

At the fall show we bought nothing, because nothing appealed as genuinely worthwhile. At this spring sale, there were even fewer dealers, though there were ample potential customers. The genuine antique dealers have discovered that Ottawa is not a useful venue for them. Although the purchasing power is there, the interest in arts and antiques seems tepid at best. So they now no longer bother going to the trouble of packing their desirable objects to haul them out to this city, then do the very same in reverse, hauling back most of what they had to offer.

For us personally it's a bit of a let-down, but in fact we hardly have need to augment what we have collected over the past 50 years of shared interests. As it happened we did come across a walnut-case bracket clock with a beautifully intact brass face. Just as we prepared to approach the vendor, another browser had him turn the clock around to view its interior works, find the pendulum and set it in place, but something appeared to go awry, the suspension had been fixed at some time in the past, and there was a tiny bit missing so the clock wasn't able to operate, and this turned the buyer away.

Which provided the opportunity for my husband to step forward, explain to the vendor that he knew what was wrong, and it made no difference to him, whereupon the vendor offered a very good reduction to the selling price, and the clock became ours. Later that evening, my husband finished working on the clock, restoring it to perfect operation, and it has now joined our clock collection.

Now there's an unexpected surprise. My obituary. Never did I imagine that I would read the regrets at my passing. As Samuel Clemens had quipped -- "the reports of my death are greatly exaggerated"; certainly words to that effect are appropriate in my case. On the other hand, just in case any of my friends and acquaintances, few as they may be, may be startled should they chance to come across that notice, I hasten to remark: "Not dead yet", courtesy of Monty Python.

Amazing, in a sense, although not entirely unexpected that it is people with a warped sense of humour, a decidedly comic bent and lens through which to view the absurdity of life and the release of death that has people cursing life yet clinging desperately to it, unwilling to enter the peace of that long oblivion.

Well, of course, it was not I who died. It was another unfortunate soul who just happens to have shared my name - or I hers, to be a trifle more accurate. She inherited the name before I did. For she was my senior of over a dozen years. She did live to see age 90, and I am still hale and hearty at 76. She was born in January 1923, and I in December 1936. We share an ancestral ethnic heritage, that much is obvious, and both being female, there is the extent of our connection; scant indeed.

Still, it is not every day that one is so surprised by a reminder of that long journey that takes us from life to death. And, having been reminded, trips our determination to enjoy life while we may and make the most of whatever comes our way.

Isn't this absolutely WICKED!  I do not, needless to say, reference the thumb-sucking, grenade tossing baby Kim. He is pathetically dangerous -- or should that be dangerously pathetic? The mind boggles attempting to fix itself on that absurd persona which despite its lack of grey matter, tosses about dystopian-reflecting tantrums that make the grey matter of world leaders throb with pain.

Wicked, utterly and absolutely genius-level wicked is the witty caricatures that cartoonist-without-peer Gary Clement daily provides for the wry amusement of National Post readers.  The man is one of a kind. There clearly are some people whose intelligence has been sweetly warped toward viewing the world in a unique way that eludes most of us ordinary people.

There is nothing ordinary about the mind of this man, capable of capturing the essence of a situation flawlessly through his brain directing his capable fingers to produce these brief insights in the nature of that absurd creature known in the aggregate as humanity.

It all falls on those proverbial deaf ears. Public health authorities repeatedly inform us that we are eating ourselves to death. Obesity rates among the public -- including most alarmingly, children -- is a growing, seemingly unstoppable phenomenon. We are warned that our children, as a result, may not live as long and productive a life as their predecessors have done. And that effectively turns on its head normal expectations that each succeeding generation will live a better and longer and more productive life than the past ones.

Children, with growing obesity rates, are susceptible to life-damaging conditions that have traditionally been associated with aging; what was once called adult-onset diabetes afflicting sedentary, overweight middle-aged and older people is now raging among the young, their hormonal systems out of whack with what nature's convention intend. Diabetes ravages the bodies of those living with it, affecting eyesight, nerves, the heart and kidneys.

We know, because we are told, and we aren't completely stupid, that we are responsible to act as intelligent stewards of our bodies, to bring them gracefully into old age. That we can prevent or hold off the impacts of organ failure and general body degradation, through healthful living. And though it is true that the triumvirate of inheritance, environment and lifestyle all play a part in what we can ourselves achieve on our own behalf, and we can do little about genetics, be wary about environment factors, and truly take charge of lifestyle choices, few of us practise what is preached to us.

It is simply too easy, with the advent of convenience products masquerading as nutritious food, to simply succumb to the allure of ease of or no food preparation at all, and the substitution of whole foods to 'food products', taking in far more salt, sugar, fat and intrusive chemicals than any healthy living organism can cope with.

New data indicate that one of the most deadly of all cancers, the one that brought Christopher Hitchens to silence -- cancer of the esophagus - esophageal adenocarcinoma -- is steadily growing in incidence, as the population rapidly gains weight.  Esophageal adenocarcinoma forms in the part of the esophagus closest to the stomach and has doubled in Canada in the past 20 years.

Belly fat in particular seems to increase the incidence of gastroesophageal-reflux disease - chronic heartburn - that sends stomach acid up into the lower esophagus and represents a major risk factor in this type of morbidly deadly cancer. A study published in the Canadian Journal of Gastroenterology indicates that this type of cancer increased by about 4% a year for men and at the same rate for women from 1986 to 2006. That kind of cancer increase is dramatically unusual.

Esophageal cancer is increasing in incidence throughout the developed world, with one of the lowest survival rates of any types of cancer. The five-year survival rate ranges to 80% with early detection, but there's the rub; half of all new diagnoses fall into the most advanced stage, once the cancer has spread.

Abdominal fat is linked with higher circulating levels of substances causing inflammation. Chronic tissue inflammation, according to researchers, plays a role in the development of many types of cancer. Diets focusing on red meat and surfeit with saturated fats remain risk factors for both upper and lower types of esophageal cancer; diets heavy on fresh fruits and vegetables in contrast, have a protective effect.

Riley loves his comfort. And he particularly is fond of our bed. At night, regardless of the season, he insists that it is his right and his vital need to burrow down deep into the bed, beneath the feather comforter in winter, the lightly draped topsheets in summer. We wonder sometimes whether he can breathe freely, so closely ensconced in there, but obviously he has no problems with that close, stifling confinement. As regular as clockwork, at 6:15 am each morning he clears his way through, tunnelling out of the depths of the bedclothing to surface, and install himself instead outside and atop the comforter to continue his peaceful sleep there until such time as we arise.

Because of the work engaged in while applying a wall surface of very large tiles looking amazingly like stone, my husband has experienced restless nights lately. The effect of reaching up with one hand holding a hod heavy with mortar and then later grouting, the other smoothing it over, and then lifting the tiles into place. Shoulder, back and arm muscles have been stretched and tested beyond normal physical activities of a normally physically active man. A few days back we'd just fallen back to sleep after Riley had settled down again at 6:15, when the telephone rang, and when it was picked up, emitted that irritating sound of a fax machine.

But now, all the work has been completed. The tiles in place on the fireplace wall, and the grouting done. I'm grateful for that, it's been a bit of a nuisance having those ladders, and the two-story scaffolding set up for more than a week in our otherwise-spacious family room. I'd be sitting at the computer, busy composing something, feeling bits of mortar or grout falling about, hitting my head. Good thing my husband is so meticulous about cleaning up after himself. We managed comfortably enough, despite the localized chaos. And now it's all done, and looking quite excellent, much to his satisfaction and my admiration.

The scaffolding disassembled, placed back into the larger of our two garden sheds, the ladders taken back down to the basement, and the drop sheets shed of their detritus-burden, a bit of touch-up painting here and there, and now there is only the art pieces to be re-hung, the decorative items to be placed back on the fireplace mantle, little things like that which he will attend to. Yesterday, before the scaffolding was taken apart, we re-hung the painting my husband had done almost twenty years ago, featuring Button anxiously waiting for me and our youngest son to paddle our canoe back to shore at our camping spot at Algonquin Park.  My printer and its little storage unit will be replaced from its temporary banishment, and we're back in business.

Adam Shaw and his dog Rocky, an eight-year-old Labrador retriever-husky cross, both rescued two girls from the icy waters of the North Saskatchewan River Sunday.    Photograph by: Ed Kaiser, Postmedia News , Postmedia News

There is a photograph of a noble animal and a man who appreciates the enterprise, fortitude and obedient courage his own attitude and his cross-species bonding is capable of producing. This man walking along a bridge over the North Saskatchewan River with his family on Easter Sunday saw the peace of the day transformed to a sudden emergency when they heard screams and looked over the bridge to see a little girl being propelled along the icy waters of the river, her slightly older sister attempting to reach and rescue her.

"I was just really scared", he said afterward. "I just really didn't want to fail. I really wanted to save them." And, giving credit where it was due, he also said "He's a terrific dog and he's very adventurous. He's always in and out of the water, he's always shocking us with jumping off the ice and stuff like that. I knew that he could jump in the water and swim back no problem."

The bond between the 27-year-old oil worker and his eight-year-old Husky-Labrador mix was strong enough, their level of communication sufficiently well established that Rocky was capable of following his human companion's desperate actions to save two children. The ten-year-old girl had finally fallen herself into the speedy, icy river swollen with spring run-off. Her rescue was far less complex than her sister's as the young man was able to stand on the edge of the ice and pull her to safety.

The rescue of her nine-year-old sister was another matter. She was floating and bobbing a metre or two from the edge of the melting ice, having been carried 50 metres downstream. Her arms and legs had been immobilized by the freezing water. As the man tentatively stepped toward her the ice crumbled, plunging both him and Rocky into the river. Rocky scrambled out of the water after prodigious effort, helped by the man who then grabbed the dog's leash to pull himself with the dog straining to aid, back onto shore.

He called out to the child that Rocky would be prepared to return back into the water, asking her to grab the leash as the dog swam close to her. When Rocky leaped back in the girl managed with obvious effort to take  hold of the leash, and it was then that the man instructed his dog to return to shore. Rocky was able to gain some traction, aided by the man, and  managed is way back onto the ice. At which point both Rocky and his human companion were able to pull the little girl to safety.

Riley enjoys his comfort. Where once he never lagged behind on our clambers and treks now he does just that. In the winter particularly this concerns us because we're aware that coyotes have been sighted at dusk and dawn in there, though we've never seen one ourselves, no longer entering the ravine as we once did, at those hours. Before he was born, and when Button was a young puppy we would often go into the ravine at night, and in the winter when the skies were overcast and the moon hidden, a magical pinkish glow would light up the ravine, often making it as light as day. At that time there were still foxes to be seen often in there, signs of porcupine and skunk, and frequent daytime sightings of raccoons, of grouse and quail. But no coyotes. Even the occasional deer came into the ravine through the corridor along the Ottawa River, reaching down toward the ravine.

The presence of owls has become more common now, and hawks arriving with spring weather. Riley trundles along behind us on the trails. But given his unfriendliness to dogs that he doesn't know, we take the precaution of one of us walking before him, the other behind, and our progression is, as a result, very slow. For me that works fairly well, since I too have become much slower in my physical progress and energy levels over the years, but even I become irritated at the slow pace from time to time. Once we're halfway through our usual circuit, oddly enough, he suddenly picks up his gait, just as Button used to do.

He doesn't have Button's curiosity and adventure of spirit. Although to his credit, he may be bored with being exposed to the same old routine every day. It's true that when we deviate, when we take a different, shorter trail, he becomes instantly interested and forges ahead. But then the familiar landmarks evince themselves and he falls back again, trudging along.

He seems to prefer the comfort of home, just being home, relaxing and enjoying the feeling that he can do whatever he likes there, within reasonable constraints. Mostly, now that he's approaching his 13th year, dozing.