The Great Nice North

We’re talking about going to Toronto at the end of the month.

We’ve been twice before, but the last time was in 2009, so I’m sure the city has changed and there will be new things to see and do.

Time to make the switch

We turned the heat on.

I’m sure there are people who make it a point to hold out as long as they can, but I have no such pride. It hasn’t been terribly cold lately, but our house doesn’t get a lot of sun, so it never gets warm.

The heater crackled to life and warm air did come out, so that was good. Like anything else, you don’t know how that first pull of the season is going to go.

Colds and COVID: Oct. 2

It’s a testament to how great Switzerland is that I enjoyed myself immensely despite having a nasty cold almost the entire time.

Worse yet, I couldn’t just try to bombard it into submission with several daytime tablets throughout the day and nighttime tables before bed — which also meant that sleeping was a challenge — because you can’t just walk into a drugstore and grab them over the counter.

Instead, you apparently have to talk to someone at the store, meaning Suzi had to explain in what passes for her French to someone whose English wasn’t any better than her French. I believe mimicking a cough was involved.

Negative energy

I know … I know … the important is how you respond to things like having your most-cynical belief — that optimism is for fools — proven right.

Just a little bit rich

A few years ago, I wrote a fun silly post about how, if you only listed its features, you could make the place where I went to elementary and high school seem like a mansion.

It was inspired by Vee over at what unfortunately appears to be the former Millennial Life Crisis writing about someone turning an abandoned elementary school in British Columbia into a house.

Seriously, go read it, and then come back.

Not my kind of party

I am told that today is a very special day, a day of almost religious significance to its adherents, although most of the celebrations are probably over by now.

Gradually that feels like suddenly

It’s now dark when I get up in the morning.

How did that happen?

What should have been

Berkeley Marina was basically a microcosm of our trip to San Francisco.

After a fine day where we went to the Port of San Francisco, Chinatown and downtown and met up with friends from high school who lived in the area, we decided to take in the marina before sunset.

And it was lovely.

More money, same food

My fantasies about being obscenely wealthy start with the thought of money never being an object again.

I’m fortunate enough that my family was solidly middle class when I was growing up, and Suzi and I are the same now, but there’s a difference between “middle class” and “obscenely wealthy.”

Money being no object would mean being able to travel whenever I want, having houses in my favorite cities, going to see games or shows or concerts or whatever I want on a whim.

We should all scream for this: Sept. 25

We can all probably think of some question or issue where if we ask 10 people about it, we’d get 11 different opinions.

But I have stumbled across something that I think everyone, regardless of their stances on any other issue, can agree on.

Everyone should get an ice cream truck for their birthday.