The other night as Patti and I were out for our evening walk with Marlee Marie, we were admiring the almost-full moon and Patti said, quite casually, "Which direction is north-north-west?"

We worked it out and I asked why she wanted to know.

"Well, because the Weather Network said that both Jupiter and Saturn would be visible tonight in the sky to the north-north-west."

Sure enough, we looked into the distance and saw two very bright, very steady lights in the sky to the north-north-west.

"They also mentioned," she added, "that Mars would be visible near the moon."

Surprised and excited, I glanced in the direction of the earth's only satellite, so bright and vivid in the sky, and saw another, much smaller light nearby. Mars.

We spent much of the rest of our walk talking about what a beautiful night it was and how amazing it was that all three of these planets were so visible on the same night in that deep, dark sky.

When we got home, I went inside and got, first, my new binoculars, just to make sure we could actually see the planets from our own front yard. Yep. There they were. Saturn and Jupiter in front of us; Mars and the Moon behind us, above the house itself.

So I went back in and fetched my telescope, a gift some years ago from my sister Lynn, which we had just rediscovered among our boxes in the basement and put back together. I brought it out and set it up on the driveway, intent on finding the planets and getting the best view of them possible.

What an amazing experience! Saturn was very cool but also the most distant and we couldn't make out its rings. When Jupiter finally hove into the viewer, however, we were thrilled and amazed to be able to see not just the planet itself but two of its moons, shining in the reflected light of the planet itself.

That's a first for me. I think I've seen Jupiter before but I have never, ever laid eyes on any of its moons. What a thrill!

Then we turned our attention to Mars, which shone red in our sights, and finally the Moon itself. What an amazing feeling to see the familiar Moon so close, so crisp, so bright. To see the craters that pock-mark its surface, to recognise that the Moon is not perfectly round, its shape affected by the curves and bumps of those craters.

I'm not going to try to end this post on some high philosophical note (I'm too tired to even make an attempt). I just know that I'll remember for a long time the night I saw the Moon, Mars, Saturn, Jupiter and two of Jupiter's moons, all in the same night sky.

Today's Photos: The Perigee Full Moon, taken last year here in Fredericton. Sorry, I don't have the equipment to get a shot of Mars, Jupiter or Saturn.

Tags: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, telescope, Weather Network

Sunday evening, Neil Diamond's “Hot August Night” on the turntable, a strong gin-and-tonic close at hand. With Patti away, it's just me and the dog. And Neil, I guess, and, earlier this afternoon, Woody Allen.

I've had the turntable for some time now but only recently, with the death of my old Sony bookshelf stereo system, have I had it set up and ready to play. With a new Sony Receiver, a Pyle Pro pre-amp and the Technics turntable, Neil sounds fantastic. And what a great album it is: four sides, live concert, Neil at his best.

On the stove, boiled potatoes, green beans and chicken breast. A throw back meal. I thought about mashing the potatoes but, for this night, boiled seems right. Like my mom used to make.

It's funny. With Patti back in Ontario taking care of her family, I'm having a bit of an old Walma-style weekend on my own. Yesterday, it was the joy of making a massive pot of spaghetti sauce just as I used to do in the 1970s in Hamilton, complete with ground beef browned in the pot, chopped garlic, onion, pepper and mushroom, then a whole lot of simmering so that the veggies melted into the crushed tomatoes and spices. For lunch, Kraft Dinner, made the Walma way with tuna and egg.

And now, it's the old meat and potatoes meal, made and consumed to the Neil's best tunes. My sister Janice brought Neil Diamond into our household and “Hot August Night” was one of our favourites. The stereo back then was my brother Klaas' equipment: as eldest, he was always seemed to take it upon himself to make sure we had that kind of modern stuff. Every time I think of stereo components, I think of him.

I remember my childhood as being completely and utterly happy. I know that sounds strange and I'm sure we went through our shares of trials and tribulations (like a father leaving five children behind and disappearing for good when I was three or four) but, honestly, my mother found some magic that made those days seem golden.

Maybe it was the big family, the many strong personalities, the talk, the laughter, the reading, the music. Our house was the place where friends wanted to come, to stay, to feel that they too were a member of the family. We may not have had much money, many material possessions, but we had each other. And that was enough, it seems.

I'm thinking about all this stuff, not just because I've had this weekend to myself, these two days where so many things seem to tie back to my home and childhood. I'm thinking about it now, at this moment, because I've just watched Woody Allen's wonderful “Midnight in Paris”, his latest effort, which stars the underrated Owen Wilson.

This is a beautiful movie, as much an homage to the glory of Paris as it is the story of a successful screen writer (Wilson) who finds himself longing for a simpler time. For Gil Pender, Paris of the 1920s was a golden era that he hopes to rediscover. But his socialite fiance (Rachel McAdam) has no time for his romantic fantasies nor for his dream of leaving Hollywood behind to try to become a novelist in the style of Fitzgerald or Hemingway.

By the end of his adventure in Paris, Pender has learned an important lesson: you can't spend your life wanting to live in some golden age in the past; you have to make your own life, your own world, your times own golden.

I know, it's a bit of a weak tie-in, between my memories of my childhood and the lesson Woody's character learns, but I'm feeling it anyway. I loved my childhood but I have a responsibility to make my life today as happy, as fulfilled. Neil helps, I think. As does Woody, Patti, Marlee and all of my friends and family.

And don't forget the positive effects of gin.

Today's Photograph: (From left) Michael, Janice, Oma, Mark, Klaas, Lynn and Mom circa 1969.

Tags: Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris, Owen Wilson, Technics, Sony, Neil Diamond, Hot August Night

I know that Canada Geese are looked down upon in many places, considered nothing more than pests and nuisances that foul beaches and mess up playgrounds, parks and fields.

But I had an experience the other day that made these massive birds seem nothing less than magical. I was walking Marlee, our beloved Golden Doodle, at the Potato Research Farm here in Fredericton, enjoying the fading warmth of the fall afternoon and the gentle touch of the slowly setting sun on my face. The wide sky of the St. John River Valley hung almost pure blue above us, with very few clouds within view.

Then, to the west, we heard and then saw a line of Canada Geese approaching, perhaps 30 in all, honking loudly as they pelted across the sky. They came in fast and low, then as a unit swung in a sweeping curve to head northward. As I watched them go past, I saw in the distance to the north a small cluster of geese approaching. This time, just four. An advance party, I guessed, scouting out the sky.

As the four approached the larger flock, I saw an even larger group come into view over the river, following the advance party. I thought the groups would join into one larger cluster but the advance party swung east, ceding way to the 30, and their flock followed them to the east, staying out of the way of the original group.

I watched in awe, only to catch sight of yet another group, maybe 20 or so, coming in from the east, heading directly for the original squadron. The sky was filled with black and white forms, moving in lines, honking and squawking, wings beating a rhythm. I was reminded of descriptions I used to read in history books of the RAF's "big wing" formations of fighters, gathering above Western England from airbases scattered all over the British Isles to form up and attack the Luftwaffe bomber fleets as they approached London.

Except the geese never formed up. In fact, despite the fact that the sky over the potato form was thick with birds, the lines never even inter-mingled with each other, not for a single second. In graceful arcs and choreographed turns, the groups neared each other but managed to stay sorted. And that's the phrase that occurred to me: the geese were staying sorted.

I don't know how they organise themselves. I don't know how they determine their lines, their flocks, their formations. But on this day, I saw the majesty of the Canada Geese as they darkened the sky over Fredericton in an amazingly precise, pristine aerial performance.

Today's Photograph: A flock of Canada Geese arrow across the sky above the Potato Research Farm.

Tags: Canada Geese, Fredericton, potato farm, Birds

We have been without television service for almost nine months now and, to be honest with you, we didn't really miss it. Sure, there were some big events here and there where we thought, "It would be nice to be able to watch that," but, for the most part, we got happily by filling the gap with online programming and our fabulous VHS/DVD/Blu Ray collection.

It's been quite nice, actually.

Then along came fibre optics. Bell Aliant out here in Atlantic Canada is really pushing "Fibre Op" as the next great thing in television and internet. And they've been offering great deals, including Free Installation, Free Personal Video Recorder (PVR) and reduced pricing. What really sold us, though, was when people whose opinion we respect and rely on with regard to all things technical and electronic said they'd get fibre op if it were available in their areas.

Okay. We decided to dive in.

We had the fibre op installer (Phil, a really nice guy) at the house on Saturday and, despite some pretty scary stories we'd heard about how long installation can take and how much damage it can do to your house, our install was actually pretty simple. Phil had it done in an hour, with very little impact on the state of our home. And it's working really well.

We opted for the best package available, mainly because all three packages are the same price for three months and you're allowed, before the price increases, to step your service down to one of the lower packages. We've got zippy internet (with really fast uploads, which has helped my photo blog immensely) and a state of the art television service in high def, complete with the PVR.

There are only two things that bother me. First, Springsteen had it right when he sang, "Fifty-seven channels and nothing on". Only now it's 200 channels and nothing on. I know, that's a bit of a stretch. So far, I've enjoyed brief glimpses of a Blue Jays game, U.S. Open Tennis and a CFL tilt, all in HD. That's really cool. But, when you scroll through the "Guide" function on the service, you honestly do find that those 200 channels offer up a lot of crap. One channel was showing "Entourage" continuously. Several others didn't seem to have any programming, just paid advertising shows. The new Oprah network appears to the be the new "All Yoga" channel. It's kind of sad.

And, speaking of the Guide function, that's my second pet peeve. The Guide includes every channel that you could possibly have purchased from Bell Aliant, even if you didn't purchase them. We have 200 channels but our Guide function makes us scroll through about 600 anyway. So I had to set up my own "Favourites" listing, which just included the channels we actually get. Then I realised that even that list was almost 300 channels and impossible to flip through, mostly because about 50 of the channels we get occupy two or three different slots in the guide.

Often, it's the digital version first and then, further up the list, the high-definition version of the same channel. Sometimes, the high-def version appears more than once as the service provider groups them into the bundles they try to sell you. If the same high-def channel appears in two or more bundles, it shows up two or three times on the listings.

So I spent some more time deleting the duplicated channels. Ugh. Why can't they just set it so that you get every channel only once (the high-def version if you have high-def service) and so that the "Guide" function only shows the stations you get?

Still, I am quite excited about watching tomorrow's TiCat-Alouette game in high def, in my own home, the first CFL game I'll watch all season!

Today's Photograph: A lovely flower on a tree hanging over a bike part in Fredericton. I'm quite happy with this photo!

Tags: Bell Aliant, Fibre Optics, Fibre Op, Bruce Springsteen, Entourage, Blue Jays, Tiger Cats, U.S. Open, Oprah

I woke up today with the Cowboy Junkies roaming around in my head. Even though it's Friday today, my mind was singing "Sun comes up, it's Tuesday morning" even before I had my first real waking thought.

It's been a long time since that's happened but the reunion was genuinely welcome. I don't know many voices that I like better than that of Margo Timmins and I don't think there are many bands that can spin a musical tale better than the Junkies.

What surprised me was the fact that I had forgotten some of the words to that song. I used to have them memorised. Completely and utterly memorised. I remember back in 1991, in Cambridge, Ontario, taping the video for "Sun Comes Up" off the TV, then watching it over and over again as I learned all the lyrics. And that's no easy task since the song is almost four minutes long and the lyrics fill about 95% of the time.

So this morning I had to go to Youtube and play it back a couple of times. What a great song. Then I moved on to its companion song from that early album, The Caution Horses, called "Cheap is How I Feel". That's another song I used to know off by heart (about two decades ago) but it was a real thrill to come back to it again as if it were new.

As I am wont to do, I then started exploring the library of Cowboy Junkies tunes on Youtube and found live performances of some of their songs, including a 1990 appearance on the Tonight Show in which they wowed Carson with a powerful rendition of "Sweet Jane" and a 1991 performance on Letterman where they performed "Sun Comes Up".

Fabulous, both. But it was the Letterman performance that really blew me away. Timmins was on top of her game that night. Even though her rendition stayed fairly close to the album version, she still managed to add something extra to the song. At one point, as she smoothed through one section, I actually emitted a spontaneous "Wow" out loud. The performance is that good.

The Junkies hold a special place in my heart and have done since they first put out the Trinity Sessions, their monster smash second album. Originally, my devotion to the band arose simply because, when I lived in Toronto, I found myself walking past the Trinity Church where they recorded that album. I felt some sort of weird personal connection as a result.

The connection was strengthened some years later when I stumbled upon an amazing opportunity: the band was performing in a small bar in Hamilton, Ontario, limbering up for their next tour with, I think, the Miles from Our Home album. The only flaw in the show was that Patti couldn't be there to enjoy it with me. The Junkies were absolutely mesmerizing and Timmins made every one of the 100 or so people in that tiny room feel that she was singing just for them.

I was delighted several years later when the band returned to Hamilton for another small-club show as they prepared to tour the One Soul Now album. Patti was able to come and, again, everything was perfect until... At some point in the evening, I ended up drinking a glass of wine that had been spiked with Rohypnol (probably intended for one of the women in our party). Just as the Junkies were revving up to play "The Anniversary Song" (at our oft-shouted request, doncha know!), the Roofies hit me and I was done. I don't remember anything that followed, though Patti tells me it was quite a scary experience, right down to the difficult trip home (with her basically carrying me) and the visit from the unsympathetic ambulance crew who helped her make sure I would survive the night.

That was probably the most memorable night of my life that I can't remember. I don't know if I'll ever be able to see the Cowboy Junkies perform live again (and I certainly hope I do get that chance) but I'll always have those great songs with me, on CD, on the web and deeply seated in my memory; even if I do lose the odd line here and there as I age.

Today's Photograph: Sun comes up on a foggy morning at the fire hall in Fredericton.

Tags: Cowboy Junkies, Sun Comes Up, It's Tuesday Morning, Cheap is how, Margo Timmins, The Caution Horses, Trinity Sessions

Hurricane Irene came to town this weekend and, after a week of hype, turned out to be rather tamer than expected. Sure, we got about 60 mm of rain here in Fredericton in a 24-hour period but we suffered nothing close to the damage we were led to expect.

Not that Irene wasn't the perfect way to end a crazy week here in New Brunswick. A week ago Monday, I managed to jam an umbrella and my baby finger into a door handle at work and break the bone in the tip of the finger. Talk about painful!

Then on Tuesday, we felt the effects of that big earthquake down in the States, leading to the evacuation of many buildings in downtown Freddie as they were checked for structural damage. On Wednesday, we witnessed a tree-branch break off and smash into an electrical transformer on the street outside our office, leading to a bright orange flash, some ominous crackling in the ceiling of our building and wisps of smoke coming from the transformer. The mall near us was without power for several hours as a result.

Finally, we get Irene. Despite the fact that she failed to live up to her hype, she still packed some power. Sunday saw rain from dawn until dusk and well into the night, followed by high winds Monday morning. The winds seem to do the most damage: we lost power to our house at about 1 p.m. on Monday and we just got it back late Tuesday afternoon.

Quite the week, I think. Still, it's not a bad thing to take an evening away from all of your electrical gadgets and just sit reading with your family, with nothing but candlelight to illuminate the books and keep the seamless darkness of the outside world at bay.

Today's Photograph: Puffy clouds in the skies over Fredericton, after the storm has passed.

Tags: hurricane Irene, earthquake, Fredericton, New Brunswick

So I'm sitting at my desk, working on the computer, and all of a sudden the screen in front of me starts swaying from side to side. I feel a bit woozy and think: am I sick?

Then I hear my colleague in the office next door say, "I think I'm feeling a little sick."

"Is your computer screen swaying?" I ask.

"Yeah. It is."

"Then you're not sick. It's an earthquake."

I stand up and look around. All kinds of other faces are popping out of offices all over the floor. "Did you feel that?" "Are you feeling sick too?" "What was that swaying?" "Did someone say 'Earthquake'?"

We all stand looking at each other for a second, kind of stunned, then someone points out that things were still swaying.

"I'm not good with these things," says my colleague. "I kind of freak out."

And then she does, in a very mild way. So we all agree we should make our way down to the ground floor and out of the swaying building. Some of us, not thinking clearly, take the elevator. We get to the lobby and out onto King Street in downtown Fredericton and find all the other buildings in the area are also quickly emptying themselves of people.

Sirens bring fire trucks to the NB Power building across the street. Then the media start to show up, cameras on shoulders, microphones in hands. Someone with a faster Blackberry than mine does a quick scan of the internet and announces that a strong earthquake had hit a short while before near Washington, D.C. We must be feeling the distant rumblings here.

I was right. It was my first earthquake. Surprisingly scary.

Tags: Fredericton, New Brunswick, earthquake, King Street, Downtown, Washington

I'm wondering if maybe New Brunswick is wearing off on me a little. When I first arrived here, I was amazed at the level of patriotism that most of the locals feel, the way they celebrate Canada Day, follow Canadian sports, get involved in everything and anything Canadian. That's not something I'm used to in Southern Ontario, where cynicism has replaced patriotism almost across the board.

Sure, I've always been a bit of a "Rah Rah Canada" kind of guy, rooting for our hockey teams, our Olympic athletes, our peace keepers overseas. I've read up on my Canadian history and I have a pretty good handle on Canadian geography. I vote in elections and follow the results pretty closely. I even like to watch Canadian TV shows, like The Mercer Report, 22 MInutes, Corner Gas and stuff like that.

But the level of patriotism the people feel here in the Maritimes took me by surprise.
So there I am today, at the Fredericton Fairgrounds, watching the RCMP's Musical Ride and I suddenly start feeling, well... patriotic. Proud to be from the land of the Maple Leaf. I don't know what it was about the precision prancing of those magnificent horses and their red-clad riders but I found myself with a distinctly Canadian positivity.

Amazingly enough, a local citizenship judge was the guest of honour for the performance and, when he took over the microphone and told us all (and there were a lot of us there) that we were going to renew our citizenship pledge together, and in both official languages, I surprised myself by feeling deeply moved.

And, of course, thanks to my recent French Immersion course, I was able to complete both versions with no problems. Now, keeping up with the operatic performance of "Oh Canada" that followed.... well, that's another story.

Tags: RCMP, Musical Ride, Fredericton, Patriotism, New Brunswick, citizenship, Canada

Bonjour.

I'm beat. Studying another language for eight hours a day is exhausting. You never get a second's rest when you have to focus on every word, every syllable. And what's with all these verb tenses? I'll tell you one thing, it's not just the verbs that are tense anymore...

Still, it's coming along well. If I had a fuller vocabulary, I think I could be a pretty good French speaker. And building a vocabulary is easy: just listen to others when they speak, listen to French music, read French books and watch your favourite TV shows and movies in French. That's one of the nice things about living in Canada: most DVDs come with French subtitles (and you can sometimes purchase copies of movies where the actors actually speak French!).

The other students in my class have much bigger vocabularies than I do. And some of them even know a lot of French sayings and French slang. Nothing makes you sound more like a strong French speaker than when you sprinkle your conversation with lingo.

You might have noticed that I've added a photograph to this blog. It has nothing to do with the text. I just thought it would be nice to spice up my writer's blog with the odd photograph from my other blog (Fredericton 365). Good idea, eh? This is a shot of the main street of North Head on the island of Grand Manan at night. I really like this shot. For more like it, head for that blog. If I can figure out how to link it to this, I will. Otherwise, the link is located on the mainpage of this website. Yep, it worked!

Tags: French, immersion, Athene, Photography, Fredericton, Grand Manan, North head

I'm lucky enough that my work has decided to send me for French language training this week. I studied French from grade 7 all the way through high school and into University but it's been now about 25 years since I've taken any kind of class in it.

Wow, is it ever great. I'm glad to report that a lot of what I learned from my professors and teachers so long ago has managed to find some way to stick with me. I'm not the best in my class (not by far) but I'm also not the absolute worst.

It's a good group and the instruction is really good as well. They offer a nice combination of grammar lessons, conversation practice and games. I'm finding that I'm pretty strong in the grammar work but not so strong in the area of vocabulary. And when I get tired at the end of the day, I really start to lose all the words I learned at one point or another in my life.

And that's the biggest thing about this immersion training. It's exhausting. You have to focus and concentrate every moment of the day to keep up and that's not something that any of us are really used to in life. I get home at the end of the day and I feel like I've run a marathon.

Still, I think it's working. I'm finding that I'm thinking a little bit more in French and able to string sentences together with greater confidence. Am I bilingual? Of course not. But I'm doing okay. Well, not okay enough to try to write this blog in French but, still, not too bad.

Tags: Fredericton, French, immersion, grammar, Athene

There is something transcendentally peaceful about sitting at the base of a light house, with night closing in, listening to the soft breathing and gentle rolling of whales in the water below.

Patti, Marlee and I recently took a short vacation on the island of Grand Manan, a section of New Brunswick that lies in the Bay of Fundy, just off shore where the province meets the state of Maine. We enjoyed many of the pleasures of Grand Manan but none so lovely and so peaceful as that evening at the foot of the Swallow Tail Light House, communing with the darkness, the sea and the whales.

We arrived just as the sun was setting and stayed long enough to enjoy the fullness of the darkness, with only a crescent moon (behind the light house) to provide us with light. We sat on a bench, located about 10 feet from the edge of a cliff, overlooking the Bay of Fundy. The water and the whales swished below us.

For a while, there was another couple, standing on a outcropping nearby, as silent as we were, enjoying the sea breeze, the whisper of the water and the occasional soft phhffting sound of a whale blowing, followed always by the rippling of water as the great mammal rolled gently back under water. I know that sounds over water can be deceptive but, sitting there with our eyes wide and our ears straining, we could have sworn the whales swam directly below us.

We had to endure the interference of the last mainland-bound ferry of the night as well as the inbound passing of a brightly-lit party boat, the air rent by the pounding music and the screaming partyers, but it was well worth the wait. By the time the last boat cleared, it was full dark and a pod of whales whispered by.

In that darkness, we never saw the whales but, for twenty minutes or more, the only sounds we heard were the ticking of the light house as it turned, the sudden whoosh of a whale's breath and the rolling sound of its return to the depths. Absolute heaven.

Tags: Bay of Fundy, Grand Manan, Swallow Tail Light House, whales, mammals

My beloved mother passed away about two and half years ago and I miss her still. That's not surprising, of course, but I still find it amazing the kinds of things that remind me so vividly of her, even now.

I have just finished reading SportsIllustrated.com's coverage of this year's induction ceremony for the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. As I was reading, I couldn't help but realise just how happy my mother would have been with the choices of the three inductees.

First, there is Roberto Alomar, the switch-hitting second-baseman for the Toronto Blue Jays when they won their two World Series championships in the early 1990s. My mother loved Roberto. I think he was probably her favourite Blue Jay player of all time (the only possible competition would be Joe Carter and Dave Steib). His fluid play in the field and his wicked, timely batting drew her to follow the Jays intently during that period and to revel in their victories.

Second, there was Pat Gillick, the general manager who built that championship Blue Jay team. Now, I don't think my mother adored Gillick the way she did Alomar; in fact, I think she quite detested the man. Not because he wasn't a successful GM but because he was the guy that always seemed to have to make the tough choices and trade some of her favourite players. Yes, he did bring in Alomar and Carter but Gillick had to deal Tony Fernandez and Fred McGriff to get them. At the time of the trade, my mom was pretty upset: McGriff and Fernandez had been, to that point in time, two of her faves.

And third, but certainly not last, pitcher Bert Blyleven was finally elected to the Hall. What connection did Blyleven have to my mother? That's easy. He's Dutch. Born in Holland, Blyleven spent some of his childhood in Canada before his family finally settled down in California. His Dutch roots were sufficient to put my mom completely and utterly in his corner.

I'm not sure but I think Blyleven was the subject the first time my mother turned to me in the middle of a ball game and said with pride, "How much do you want to be he's a Dutchman?" I've heard my mother make that comment hundreds and hundreds of times and I think it all started with Blyleven. The fact that Blyleven looked so utterly Dutch probably helped as well.

My mom was a big sports fan, a fact that I appreciated every day of her life. We spent any number of hours companionably together, watching baseball, football, golf or tennis (or equestrian events, curling, the Olympics, swimming, track, hockey, even basketball, when I could cajole her into it). Among her favourites, as I recall, were the Hamilton Tiger Cats, the Blue Jays, Roberto Alomar, Doug Flutie, Tom Clements (though she insisted on calling him "Dan" or sometimes "Sam"), Tiger Woods and the great Canadian show jumper, Big Ben.

Oh, yes, and anybody from Holland who put on a uniform and played the game. Any game. As long as they were Dutch.

Tags: Major League Baseball, Roberto Alomar, Bert Blyleven, Pat Gillick, Hall of Fame, Janny Walma, Blue Jays, Toronto

I've become a royal watcher. Count me among those people who never really cared about the British Royal Family until Prince William and Kate Middleton, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, landed on Canadian shores last week.

For some reason, I decided a couple of days ago to look into the coverage of the Royal Tour on the internet. I think it was because the CNN website had a headline in its top stories about the visit and that surprised me. Why would Americans care about this visit to Canada?

So I started watching the videos on that website and then on the CBC News website. And I'm impressed. Beyond their good looks.

They seem to be fun people. They seem to be young, hip and outgoing. They seem to take their public roles seriously but with a dash of humour and good will. Kate is a natural at the crowd-greeting stuff and they both seem to enjoy getting down and dirty, be it shovelling dirt for a tree planting, getting sweaty in a dragon-boat race or playing foosball at a shelter. And I have to admit, it was pretty impressive watching William take part in that dangerous helicopter rescue drill with the Canadian Forces.

But what gets me most is the genuine affection that seems to pass between them. From the little smiles, to the quiet words, to the small touches they exchange during the public events, it really looks like they enjoy each other.

And, believe it or not, I think their Tour is doing some good. Their visit to the victims of the wildfires in Alberta today is a case in point: those people seem genuinely thrilled to see the Royals in their town, caring about their lives.

If only Canadian politicians could catch some of their sparkle and dispense with the over-long, pretentious speeches. And the Premier of PEI needs his butt kicked for that ridiculous, sexist joke about Kates always being right. How embarrassing, for him, for PEI and for Canada. Ugh.

Tags: Prince William, Kate Middleton, Will and Kate, Royal, Duke of Cambridge, PEI, dragon-boat races, Alberta, Wildfire, CNN

I need help understanding my dog.

Marlee loves to chase balls. Orange, rubber, expensive balls to be exact. These things run us about seven bucks each. Every time we take her to one of the off-leash places in and around Fredericton, she immediately starts begging for the balls.

Problem is, she loses them. How does a dog with a nose that's, what, a thousand times more sensitive than mine, manage to lose a smelly orange rubber ball in the grass? I'd say we go through about ten of these balls a year. That's right. Marlee manages to lose about 10 balls every year, even though she watches as I throw them, runs after them immediately, and has a magnificently sensitive nose. She still loses them.

I do my best to keep an eye on them but it's not easy. These things bounce a long way.

Okay. That's not even the weirdest part. P took Marlee to a new place about a month ago, a beautiful, wide open, sloping lawn that's gotta cover the area of maybe 20 football fields in total. It's massive and it welcomes visitors to a government installation that, believe it or not, experiments on potatoes. Or maybe that should be, "experiments with potatoes."

So P and Marlee are out playing on this massive lawn with the balls and, of course, Marlee manages to lose one of them. P says they both looked for the stupid thing for a half hour of so before giving up on it.

That was a month ago. Today, we went back there, to the lawn. We brought the usual two orange balls with us and I tossed one down the slope for Marlee to chase. P remarked that the lawn had been freshly mowed so it was nice and soft underfoot. Marlee tore off after the first ball, then suddenly broke off her pursuit with her nose to the ground. Sniff sniff sniff sniff. Dig dig dig dig.

Out comes the original ball, the lost ball from a month ago. Suddenly, we had three. Marlee seemed quite pleased with herself.

But I just don't get it. The dog can lose a freshly thrown ball in an inch of grass. She can walk right past it when it's in plain sight in front of her even.

Yet, on a sunny day and a fresh-mown lawn, moving at a full-out gallop, she can pick out the scent of a half-buried, month old ball in the grass, stop and dig it out.

Explain that to me.

Tags: Marlee, Golden Doodle, Dogs, chasing balls, Fredericton

A couple of weeks ago, I spent four days in the cardiac care unit, thinking I might die. For the past three days, I've suffered through food poisoning, wishing I had.

I have not been to a doctor to confirm that I actually have food poisoning but everything I read and all my symptoms point in that direction. And it is awful. I haven't slept for a period longer than two hours in three nights and, well, I don't think anyone wants to read about the other "challenges" prompted by this condition.

My reading tells me food poisoning usually resolves itself in three days. By my count, that's sometime tonight.

And not a moment too soon.

Tags: Cardiac, Care, health, food poisoning, sleep