Posted on February 11, 2026 under Wednesday’s Words of Wisdom with no comments yet

 

 

 

“I wish I was twenty and in love with life and full of beans.”

Self Portrait – Mary Oliver

Love is in the air.

Or is it snowflakes?

In a few days’ time, men will be flocking to flower shops, jewelry stores, and chocolate outlets trying to impress their amour. Others will wine and dine their beloved, with dinner at a fancy restaurant. Some will even (gasp) write a love letter or a poem. Most women I know would be more impressed if men did the dishes once in a while, picked up their dirty laundry off the floor, or remembered to put the toilet seat down every time.

Buying chocolates and putting the toilet seat down…a winning combination and the ultimate sign of love.

Authors, playwrights, poets and musicians have been writing about love since time immemorial. My exhaustive research of songs about love (Google) provided me with a list of some of the most famous love songs. As I scrolled through the list, I wondered if there was a deeper meaning to the lyrics, a subliminal message.  Here’s what I came up with:

True Love’s a Many Splendored Thing

When she tires of you, love is a many splintered thing.

Only Love Can Break Your Heart.

A spendthrift spouse can also break your bank account.

She Loves You

But she’s not crazy about your cooking.

Can’t Help Falling in Love

The definition of a hopeless romantic. Hopeless being the operative word.

Love The One You’re With

A sure-fire way to end up in divorce court.

At Last

At last I can get some sleep. My husband snores. He moved to another bedroom.

I Will Always Love You

Except when you’re a pain in the ass.

You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling

Sadly, you never had it in the first place.

I Just Called to Say I Love You

…And could you make meatloaf for supper

I Want to Know What Love Is

Ask Google. It knows everything.

What’s Love Got to Do With It?

Laundry. Dishes. House cleaning?

I Think I Love You

A lame marriage proposal

Love Will Keep us Together

So will the mortgage.

To Know Him is to Love Him

An ode to Tim Horton.

I Can’t Stop Loving You

Yes I can if you don’t stop watching sports all weekend.

How Deep is Your Love?

Six feet if you cheat on me.

So, there you have it. A small smattering of love song classics.

Just for fun, I did ask Google about love.

“Love is a complex, powerful emotion of deep affection, care, and attachment, involving feelings like warmth, fondness, and devotion, expressed through actions like kindness, intimacy, or commitment, and understood differently by everyone, encompassing romantic, familial or platonic bonds.”

I still think it all comes down to the toilet seat!

“Though I’m not twenty,

And won’t be again but ah! Seventy. And still

In Love with life. And still

Full of beans.”

Self-Portrait – Mary Oliver

Have a great weekend and Happy Valentines Day to lovers and hopeless romantics.

 

 

Posted on February 4, 2026 under Wednesday’s Words of Wisdom with 2 comments

 

 

“Oh, the weather outside is frightful

But the fire is so delightful

And since we’ve no place to go,

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.”

Let it Snow – Dean Martin

Earth to Len. Christmas is over.

I realize that this song is a Christmas staple but if you examine the lyrics more carefully, it really has nothing to do about Christmas. It’s a song about the weather and romance, two of my favourite topics. Well, one, anyway.

In our part of the world, it’s shaping up to be an old-fashioned winter with plenty of snow, biting cold, and blue skies. The past couple of winters have been relatively tame. I can tell by the number of times the parking lot at our apartment complex gets plowed each year. Three years ago, the plow arrived almost as many times as the mailman as we had a humdinger of a winter.

But let me tell you Gen Xers and Millenials, you’ve never experienced winters like Baby Boomers. You know them. The ones who walked uphill both ways to school! Our children and grandchildren often accuse us ancients of exaggerating just about everything from the good old days. However, when it comes to winter and snowfall, we have unimpeachable evidence.

You see, our mothers (especially mine) kept photo albums as opposed to 10,000 digital pictures on our phones that will never see the light of day in the future. Photos don’t lie. There was no such thing as “photoshopping” when dinosaurs roamed the earth. Photos were taken and rolls of film were shipped off to Winnipeg or Tuktoyaktuk for processing. You’d wait for several weeks for them to come back and more often than not, half of the pictures would be unrecognizable. Retakes of grad photos could be a nightmare.

Funny thing. Back then, when snow started to fall and the wind picked up, we knew there was going to be a storm. We didn’t need five days of advance notice and “yellow warnings”. Weather happened. Period.

And how much snow accumulated? Enough that our parents warned us not to touch the power lines when we were playing “King of the Castle”. Don’t believe me? Check mom’s photo albums.

When we had the ever-popular storm days, we were hauled out of bed and made to go out and shovel our driveway and then those of our elderly neighbours. No questions asked. If we were enterprising and wanted enough money to buy a Jos Louis and a Coke at The Allies”, we would put ourselves out to hire to shovel anyone’s driveway who wasn’t a senior citizen.

We built snow forts, dug tunnels, went tobogganing or went to the Salt Ponds and scraped the ice so that we could play hockey.

When I ask young people these days what they do on a storm day, invariably they say that they spent the day on an electronic device, gaming.

I reckon that psychiatrists and psychologists are going to have a field day when these youngsters become adults.

In honor of winter and the storms that she brings, I penned this little poem:

LET IT SNOW

 

The days are shorter, the nights are cold,

The winter winds do blow,

It’s late November, we needn’t be told,

That soon we’ll see the snow.

 

Our part of the world, has four seasons,

Including summer, spring, and fall,

But winter’s the one, it is the reason,

That casts an eerie pall.

 

It falls from the heavens, flake by flake,

And covers the frozen sod,

Trees and forests, ponds and lakes,

This ancient gift of the gods.

 

A fresh fall of snow, it is a blessing,

For those who like to ski,

In crisp, cold air, it is refreshing,

For the likes of you and me.

 

Toboggans and sleds, pulled up a hill,

A great day for fun and sliding,

The downward plunge, it’s such a thrill,

Over moguls and bumps a gliding.

 

Making a snowman is such a blast,

If you’re the snowman building type,

This three-tiered character rarely lasts,

The man with rock eyes and a pipe.

 

The greatest joy, if you’re a student,

Is news of a storm on its way,

Staying at home, it might be prudent,

When word comes, “No school. Storm day”.

 

There are days in winter, when it’s not very nice,

When the rain falls melting the snow,

It turns to slush and then to ice,

When the temperature is twenty below.

 

April arrives as the snow disappears,

 

Spring just around the bend,

The sun comes out, and with it good cheer,

So long winter our friend.

Have a great weekend.