Just a pic from my front porch today to show those of you who don’t have snow yet what’s coming! (You can click on the pic to make it bigger.)

Leave the grocery cart! Run for your lives!

Luckily the wind was at my back while I was walking home through this.  Nasty to have it blowing in your face. (You can click on the pic to make it bigger.)

A couple of reminders that things are only getting worse.

(1) Recovery time for any aches, pains, or injury just keeps getting longer.

I’ve always had a bit of a bad back. As in it’s OK most of the time but roughly every 18 months it just goes on me for no real reason. I don’t overwork it or do anything to put it out, but it just goes. And by that I mean I can’t get out of bed, or stand up straight if I do get out of bed.

Now in the past, and this has been recurring since I was a kid, these flare-ups have usually only lasted 24 hours. After that I’m on the mend. In just a couple of days I’m pretty much full strength. But my most recent attack lasted a full week. I’m still not 100%.

It’s the same for anything that goes wrong. Any pain you used to go bed with, knowing that it would be fine when you woke up the next morning, now takes days or weeks to get better. I pulled a muscle in my rib area last year and it took three months before I could lift anything.

(2) You can’t see or hear as well.

I’ve always watched movies with subtitles on. I don’t know if that’s so much because my hearing is going though or because of poor sound recording. Only recently, however, I noticed for the first time I was having trouble reading a book with some really small print. Or maybe I just thought it was small.

Because I’m shortsighted I’ve never worn glasses to read, But I find with this book I have to hold it at just the right distance to be able to read it comfortably. This is a bit worrying, as I do have a lot of books with small print (all those Penguin Classics Dickens novels!) and I’m wondering how big an issue this is going to be moving forward. I suppose at some point I’ll be having to get large print editions out of the library to manage.

Saw these neat clouds on my morning walk. Looks like a map of the coast. (You can click on the pic to make it bigger.)

I remember before the COVID-19 pandemic a bag of Doritos never cost above $3. On sale you could get them for $1.50 or $1.88. But I’m glad to see Wal-Mart is rolling back their prices. Way, way back if this sign is any indication.

Index

Those living in this country know well that Canada’s roads have two seasons: Winter and Under Construction. This doesn’t affect me very much, but as a hardcore flâneur I do get put out by signs like these, all encountered in a single walk downtown I took this week. They put a cramp in my style!

This is an index page for my posts on things I see in my day-to-day life that just don’t add up. See if you can figure them out.

Prequel: (Not) From Concentrate
Part I: Food Makes Food
Part II: Fresh or Free
Part III: Book Sale Facilities
Part IV: Glacier Freeze
Part V: Crosswalk
Part VI: Price Rollback

Be thankful this was never your job! Stowing sails in a storm wouldn’t be something I’d sign up for. (You can click the pic to make it bigger.)

This is a crosswalk. I don’t know what the traffic rules and regulations are where you live, but around here these broad white stripes mean it’s a crosswalk. And that means vehicles stop for pedestrians.

But according to the sign this isn’t a crosswalk. It’s like any other stretch of road, where pedestrians yield to vehicles.

Except it’s painted as a crosswalk.

Of course, this particular bit of signage is on campus, which is a place with its own rules and regulations. So I guess anything goes.

Index

So I was just looking online for a new winter coat. As some of you may remember, I had a bit of trouble with this a few years back. Anyway, I was browsing through the discount offerings at the Wal-Mart and came across this product description that I first thought might be AI slop. Then I decided AI couldn’t be this bad. No, somebody, somewhere figured that this was the best way to sell a coat.

I resisted adding this particular item to my cart, as impressed as I was that it was made of “materials” and was guaranteed to make me look not just handsome but more handsome. I don’t know if the world could handle that.