It is perplexing and irritating beyond words at one and the same time, and that represents a gross misunderstatement. Why it is that people who initiate contracts, verbal or otherwise, who maintain old contacts for the purpose of keeping a service business going, all too often fail to meet the objectives of the most basic nature when they themselves make the appointments.

When I answered the telephone early this week the male voice on the other end recalled his name and his company to my memory, asking whether I might be interested in having our exterior windows cleaned, as usual, for fall. I would indeed, I responded. And mentioned how puzzling it had been when he hadn't shown up as scheduled in the spring to clean the windows.

He apologized profusely, said his secretary had been a problem and he had, as a result, fired her for keeping sloppy, inaccurate and undependable records. As a result of which, he went on further, he had lost almost half of his traditional clients. I commiserated. Said how glad I would be to see him so our windows would get the attention required.

The appointment was set for Thursday, at ten in the morning. Thursday dawned, ten o'clock passed, then eleven, and the succeeding hours as well with no sign of his van and equipment. Nor were we contacted with any kind of explanation. Another day has passed with no sign of the errant service-provider.

Twenty years earlier we had first been contacted by the company and they had regularly cleaned our exterior windows. If we weren't home when they happened by, they left an invoice in the mailbox.

We always paid a bonus to them, exceeding their price for the job. The business owner was very pleasant, always had a helper with him and the two speedily and efficiently did the job in no time at all. They carried with them the requisite ladders, cleaning equipment and professionalism.

The current business owner is someone who had worked with the original owner. I make no claims to having any deep understanding of human nature but the laissez-faire manner in which many people in the service industry seem to pursue their interests is confusing, to say the very least.

I had imagined a large truck arriving with an installation crew, hauling along our two new garage doors. Nothing of the kind. When the service truck eventually arrived it was a company cube-like truck. It contained neatly wrapped sections of each door, along with all the metal parts and all other items required to install them. The outward journey, on completion of the installation would contain the dismantled old garage doors, for disposal.

The old doors, which had performed very well for two decades were manufactured of inferior materials, as might be expected for components used in mass production of tract-style housing. Each spring the bottom portions of the doors would be rusty from road salt carried into the garage and splashed over the bottoms of the doors. That would require that the rust be carefully removed, but in the process each time that occurred, the metal on the doors became less robust as they were prepared for re-painting.

It became time to replace the doors not only because of their deteriorating condition but also because their fit was not tight, they were not insulated, and as a result the two bedrooms partially positioned over them on the second floor were colder than they should be during the winter months. The new doors were meant to solve those problems. They are more efficient, their installation would provide greater energy efficiency.

And an added bonus is light! These doors have windows and they emit an extraordinary amount of light into the garage, where previously opening the door to the garage would mean having to put on lights because the interior was so dark. Overall, a welcome change.

That installation crew I anticipated? Turned out to be one technician. He worked from ten in the morning to two in the afternoon, dismantling the old doors and installing the new. And a fine job he did of it.

The most critical piece of information, the query that led off our conversation was, did I pass on his greeting? Yes, I did. And I also, I informed him, handed his business card over. Had he written a personal message on it, he prompted me, as though he didn't know what he had himself done. Yes, I responded dutifully, it was a brief greeting and an invitation to get in touch. He is a medical practitioner, someone who likes to be noticed.

He is flamboyant, and certainly more than a little eccentric. His suite, large, spacious, with many smaller examining and equipment rooms leading off the main corridor from the reception area, bulges with antique knock-offs of clocks wagging on the wall, ornate mirrors and paintings, none of them original works of art, skilfully printed and framed looking like what they are not, presenting an overall most fetching atmosphere drawing the eye around and then up to the ceiling from which is suspended all manner of hobby airplane models and blimps.

What he is interested in is the reaction that was elicited by that personal greeting I conveyed, from this city's famed opthalmalgic surgeon who is also tasked with looking after the welfare of my aging eyes and who had performed a vitrectomy on my left eye back in December.

"He smiled", I said.

"That's all?" he asked, obviously disappointed. "And what did he do with the card?"

"The card? Well, he accepted it, looked at the back."

"Did he say anything?"

"Well, no. He placed the card on the desk, set it aside."

"Oh", ruefully.

Fact is he wasn't interested in this communication from an optometrist who suffered from some kind of insecurity complex and was anxious to have the notice of someone higher up in the field of expertise than himself. He wanted to be noticed as someone who stands out, someone unique, and that he most certainly is. He is a poseur, and that is unfortunate. But I think he's also competent as a technician, capable of using the equipment he has to evaluate the formula I require to acquire new eyeglasses.

The surgeon relates to me, when I see him, his busy schedule, his travels abroad to exotic places in the world where medical assistance is rare. He has for many decades of his professional life, dedicated time to aiding people in Third-World countries.

The optometrist, well he is mercenary and self-absorbed and intent on displaying himself as exceptional. He is that.

Now that he has his very own ice-cream maker, he occasionally feels the urge to experiment. When we had serial episodes of house guests, apportioning everyone their share of freshly-made ice cream it represented as a most nicely-complementing end to a meal. Now that we're just the two of us again, it means that at least half of the new ice-cream produced goes into a container to be kept in the freezer for later use.

The occasions to make a fresh batch consequently are fewer and far between. Which, although I truly do appreciate the taste of the product that he comes out with, is fine with me. Truth is, having ice-cream is less of a treat when it's so readily and too-frequently available. With the ice-cream maker right at hand and the needed ingredients for basic vanilla ice cream (whole milk, sugar, heavy cream, vanilla) at his disposal, we could end up eating too much of the delicacy, far too often.

Yesterday, he decided he would like to try making butter-pecan ice-cream. All we had in the baking pantry was a quarter of the amount of half-pecans he needed, and a lot of crushed pecan, which wouldn't serve the purpose. He decided to improvise and use cashew nuts instead; we had plenty of those, as well as lots of walnuts. The idea was to brown the nuts in butter until they were dark and crispy, to be thrown into the emerging ice-cream during the last few minutes of mixing.

The ice-cream was excellent, quite delicious, but what a whack of (scrumptious) calories!

One thing she does seem to have retained an vestigial memory of; before her slow decline she had always, no matter how deeply asleep she might be, reacted when the clock turned to five in the late afternoon. She would awake, alert, and signal to us that she wanted to go out. The purpose of going out to the backyard purportedly to urinate, but really to let us know that she was expecting her evening meal.

While she no longer goes outside on her own because she is almost completely blind, and requires accompaniment, it has become clear that she no longer remembers why she reacts as she does. She wakes up and begins to restlessly wander the house, or the backyard, stumbling into everything, knocking her head against immovable objects, and we wince, and try to guide her to safe passages.

She no longer seems to recognize her own body telling her of a need to become hydrated. We now bring water to her, or lead her to her water bowl. Sometimes she drinks deeply, sometimes she just is not interested in drinking, but if we leave her to her own devices she can go a complete day without herself approaching her water bowl.

She no longer waits, expectantly, to be fed, hovering around the kitchen while her food is prepared. She simply wanders interminably, clumsily, through the house, the only interior she has ever known but whose parameters of space and objects within that space she seems to have forgotten. Most often we have to bring her into the kitchen and deposit her beside her food bowl. She will pick away, wander about, come back to pick at her food again, and eventually manage to eat it all, particularly if it has been spiked with something extra that appeals to her taste buds.

If we manage to time her evacuations just so, there will be no deposits in the house that day. We are not always successful; she has lost the recognition of what is appropriate, simply naturally responding to her urges. During our daily hour to an hour-and-a-half walk in the nearby woods she often will neither urinate nor evacuate.

She wears a halter during our walks, and we're able to guide her with it, otherwise she ambles awkwardly off the trail, gets turned about, doesn't realize which direction we're walking in, unlike previously when she knew all the trails so intimately and naturally. When she comes to a complete standstill and remains there, we understand she no longer wishes to continue on her own, and she is picked up for a distance until the terrain is flat and wide again, and she can be placed back on her own four feet to continue the walk.

She always had a standoffish personality, never was one to take to cuddling, a very independent streak that we respected, unlike her younger male companion dog. Latterly, however, we feel it is important for her to receive physical attention from us, and we stroke her and speak to her even though it's doubtful she can any longer hear us.

She reciprocates in her own way, informing us that she values that physical touch.

Yet another unalterable fact of life. Another sorrow surfacing. There is no avoidance of the inevitability of the approach, the presence, and the final days of life. This incident would not even begin to mark a fraction of a nano-event in the course of life. Yet another of Nature's creatures inexorably departing life.

But of course, for her, the steward of a beloved creature, it is an event heavily weighted with sorrow. An event that no human intervention can in fact delay. Not for that little creature, not for any of nature's organisms. He had simply outlived his natural days. Six years is not bad for a very small rabbit that was born with a myriad of health problems. But six years is a very short time to have enjoyed his presence, she mourned disconsolately during a sleepless night.

She knew, from early that morning that he was in distress. Interested in nothing; certainly not his food. She had on previous occasions fed him through a tube. It was evident that this would only cause him more distress, this time. He was barely breathing, simply sitting there, his companion Hanna, to whom he mostly snuggled closely when they slept, giving him the room he needed to be by himself at this critical time.

By evening his breathing shallower, then still, he was gone. If our spirits rise from out bodies on death, why not a small rabbit's? River's spirit lifted and exited his body. He was at peace, would no longer require those interventions, ministrations, concerns he was so glad to be shed of, so he could return to his pen and be himself.

Hanna has lost her companion.

Canada Post and its union CUPE, are entirely too precious. The presumed entitlements of its employees under a series of union contracts make a mockery of that old rhyme about mail delivery: "Rain or shine, snow or sleet, we deliver your mail".

Oh, really?

Actually, not quite. Not unless, for example, the homeowner is prepared to obey the fine print in the contract that Canada Post heartily accepts on behalf of its coddled postal delivery workers, matter of fact.

There are codes and expectations to be met, some reasonable, many more reflecting just how entitled workers believe they must be in their work environment, not actually reflecting exposure to dangerous situations, but expectations nonetheless. Take, for example, the situation of a single mother, age 50, who in this depressed job environment has been unable to find full-time employment in her field of structural interior design and property management, despite years of experience and many past, highly-responsible contracts delivered on time and in excellent order.

She has been putting food on the table by taking ill-paid part-time employment and reluctantly accepting financial assistance from her family. She is stretching her resources to make ends meet, to pay all her bills, to ensure her young daughter has the environment any child requires to feel secure and well cared for.

When she bought her property six years ago she felt fairly assured of ongoing employment in her field. The last several years have proven extraordinarily difficult; she has been without a contract for a year and a half, struggling now to get along. The mailbox that had sufficed, and is in excellent shape despite that road ploughs do their best during the winter snow-plough months to knock it down entirely, no longer fits the model that Canada Post insists upon.

Its height is somewhat lacking, evidently, contravening 'rules'. The rural mail delivery person may not have complained, but inspections take place from time to time in accord with the union contract and obviously the placement of her mailbox has been singled out as inadequate. She has no idea how many others in the neighbourhood, let alone in rural areas to begin with, are being hit with a similar notice, that mail delivery will be stopped unless she complies with the rules as set out in the communication.

She has no idea how to set about pounding a new post into the ground to affix her mailbox to. Nor does she have the financial wherewithal to employ someone to perform that task for her. This niggling, nagging threat to her peace of mind with respect to paying her bills on time, on top of having the economic resources to do so, threatens to break the camel's back.

Doubtless there are countless others who can recount bitterly the insulting assaults on their tax-payer rights to count on regular mail delivery. Canada Post Corporation, while on the brink of redundancy in light of other, alternative means of communication, seems to have little sense of public responsibility, nor conscience.