I’ve always liked these photos, taken in the same session, late in her life. A tragic end to someone whom I’ve grown to respect for her talent, her intelligence, and personal nature.

So, it’s happened again, and again I haven’t the words to make sense of it.

Stacia was in my class for her Grade 7 year back in 1995-96. Rambunctious as all giddy-up and as funny as they come.

My thoughts are with parents Tom and Cathy as well as sisters Kathleen, Anne, and Mary. And to her little boy and all her many friends, my most profound condolences and best wishes.

So, you’re resentful of increases in immigration, because you feel these people come here and take jobs from “Canadians.” You’re afraid some are hell-bent on turning Canada into a reflection of themselves.

You’re sick and tired of cultural diversity and the “woke-ism” that’s popped up everywhere.

An American dog, a Russian dog and a North Korean dog are sitting at a bar drinking beer.

The American dog says “In my country you can just bark and the people give you meat.”

They think about this for a bit.

The North Korean dog finally asks “What’s meat?”

The Russian dog asks “What’s bark?”

Everyone in Russia knows that there are shortages for consumer items and services that pre-date sanctions. In fact, Russians have been living like this for decades or more, and it’s not unusual for potential buyers to have to wait months, sometimes years, for that key purchase opportunity to present itself. That is if they’ve got the rubles.

Recent news reporting shows Canada’s grocers making record profits through the COVID-19 era and the inflationary period that followed. Other recent news reporting indicates that, with the rising costs of food and grocery shopping, a significant number of shoppers have resorted to shoplifting and barcode swapping. Food banks are maxed out, and too many people are losing their homes because rising interest rates leave people with double their original monthly mortgage payments, or even more. And for those renting during these times, sales of homes containing rental units spiked during the Great Real Estate Happy Time, with new owners, having paid an arm and a leg for these hyper-inflated properties, raising rents to the no-can-do level for many innocent renters, if not evicting them outright.

One of major downsides of the COVID era, aside from the virus itself, was the encouragement of people to more or less stay home. I’m kind of a loner to begin with, so that’s really nothing different for me, but still, I don’t think I’d be alone in saying that a lot of things that once were in our lives suddenly weren’t.

In what is likely a first for me, I’m going to gush on a library, and more specifically, the one on offer here in Renfrew, Ontario.

I come by the topic honestly.

Proverbs 21:20. A fool and his money are soon parted.

My mom used to say this, quite often in fact, and I always considered it to be a fleck of generational wisdom handed down to us by folks who had the great misfortune of living through the Great Depression of the 1930’s. But I guess, if you trace things back far enough, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the notion may have had its origin in scripture. And let’s face it, fools and their parted money have been with us for as long as there’ve been fools and money.

Had a meeting this morning, then popped into my local grocer on the way home. I guess they’re not accustomed to seeing me dressed like this, because I sure got my share of looks and comments. I was able to assure people that nobody had died, that I wasn’t getting married, or that I hadn’t died myself.