War has broken out in Ukraine and there is a real danger that this could escalate to something even more serious than what it is at the moment. The game of geo-politics chess is at play with most democratic societies unwilling to enter into a much bigger, and more dangerous war with Russia. Over the past few weeks actions to hurt Russia financially have begun to take place, but with a madman at the helm, it’s unclear whether Russia will back down. I don’t profess to have a full understanding of what is driving this problem? These actions have certainly cost people their lives and upturned the global economy. Here at home, the cost of gasoline has reached record highs and there is talk that prices of many other items will begin to go up even more.. It’s hearbreaking to see images of the destruction of cities - with reports of over 2 million people having to flee their homes. This is very unfortunate, as countries should be able at their own free will, choose the road that they want to follow.

We can only hope that people will come to some sort of sense before the use of nuclear weopons are put on the table. Russia has already threatened to do so…….and this can’t be good. Banning travel, freezing assets and kicking out Russian sports teams from international play can hopefully help. From what I’ve read, the release of information (social media) within Russia is being controlled, so does the average person on the street have any idea what is going on? I rather doubt that Russian mothers want to send their children to war and maybe not come back - and for what purpose? We shall see…..

I guess we’ve had our own type of war here in Canada recently. The capital city of Ottawa was recently taken seige by protestors who were advocating the overthrow of the government because of Covid restrictions. Many of them were supposedly “truckers” who were upset that they needed a vaccine to cross the CDN/USA border to haul goods. They maybe didn’t realize, that the USA government had the same rule, so I’m not sure what they were complaining about? Anyways, I assume what started out as peaceful, and a law abiding protest at the Parliament Buildings, became much bigger and difficult for local residents, especially for people who resided in the area. There were complaints of road closures, horn blasting at all hours and sometimes abuse for residents. I have no problem with people protesting, but I doubt the protestors would like to have hundreds to thousands of large trucks outside their own homes. The local police became paralyzed and couldn’t do anything to breakup the protest. I guess they naturally assumed that people would eventually get tired and go back home - that didn’t seem to work.

The Federal Government decided to step in and they enacted the Emergency Act that provided for increased powers, which some suggested would hurt individual freedoms! After a few tense days a coalition of police were able to break up the protests (with a lot of arrests) and Ottawa became somewhat normal again.

My take on the situation is pretty clear……generally do whatever you have to do to send these people home. As I said, you can protest all you want but as long as you don’t bother other people. There were also protests taking place at various border crossings impacting the flow of goods/services between Canada and the USA. American companies already pushing for more jobs in the USA, began the drum roll of let’s bring the jobs to the USA. So, please explain to me how protesting was going to help you? Especially when you lose your job.

Getting the vaccine certainly was and still is a personal choice, but with choices can come complications. I have always felt that we should try to do what we can to help take care of each other, and the idea of not getting a vaccine that could keep save others is/was simply a selfish choice -in my opinion.

I recently saw the impact as someone close to me, had to go to the emergency department three times in the previous week, and no one was allowed to be with that person - and this person was young enough and scared. Someone should have been with her…..but with the challenges of overflowing emergency wards and the high percentage of non-vaccinated people in the hospitals - we could not go in. So, my concern for your personal freedom is frankly gone. Sorry - tough! Get on with life and get the damn jab.

This has been a long, long two years. Wearing a mask, as I do for 6-8 hours a day is not a lot of fun. Playing dodgeball with people , trying to make sure I keep them, and myself safe hasn’t been fun. Seeing the number of people who have suffered from loss of life to losing their jobs has also not been a lot of fun. No doubt governments have made a lot of mistakes but there has been no playbook for this. And the politicians continue to play “politics” pandering to different types of voters. As I continue to say - again and again - if everyone would have stepped up to the plate and did the right thing (if they could) things may have looked a lot different.

Time for something a little less political. The “kid” was home from University recently and we probably overdid it on eating out. We managed to do three different (or was it four?) different dinners outside the home. One of her favourite places is the “The Dip” www.cafediplomatico.ca We usually order take out and it’s about a 15 minute drive back to the castle. So, that was dinner #1.

The 2nd dinner was from Y’ Not Italian on Harbord just west of Bathurst. This is a great place owned by Peter, who used to operate EVVO, another local favourite that was a short walk away from us. It closed during the start of Covid and he has opened this new place. We’ve done takeout from there and this was our first time eating in….in a long time.

The final dinner was from Le Paridis - a place that I’ve written about before. Also, just a short walk, it has never failed to amaze how they make it so simple, not overly expensive and always very, very good.

The “kid” is back at University now, and she seems to be enjoying herself. We are patiently try to make it through the last days of winter and so looking forward to better and warmer days. My plan (I have so many of them) is to stop or slowdown working on May 1st. This plan, like most of my plans is fraught with challenges. I won’t get into it here (save that for another day) but I have really not had time to myself since leaving Wilson. And, that’s probably good and bad. Anyways, I do need to find a happy medium and hopefully enjoy some of the summer days ahead.