I’m struggling …

There’s a lunatic child monster running amok in the White House. The bare-chested he-man in the Kremlin is determined to destroy democracy, already making some serious inroads. And the crazy little man-child with the huge nuclear arsenal and the itchy trigger finger keeps gleefully demonstrating how serious he is, how close he is to wiping us all out.

Then there’s the rise of the white supremacists — which leaves me wondering if, one of these days, we’re going to start seeing lynchings and yellow stars again.

Why not? El Presidente doesn’t see anything

Something very weird is going on …

Seriously, I’m very confused.  I think we’re having one of the coldest winters on record — not just here, in Toronto, but throughout the entire Eastern seaboard.

Cold as in -27 celsius with the windchill.  Cold as in frostbite.  Cold as in bone-chilling.  Cold as in frozen window panes.  Cold as in the streets are deserted.  Cold as in even I’ve had to crank up the heat.  Cold as in I have to close my window (which is only open a crack to begin with) and jump back into bed for twenty minutes while the room warms up, before I’ll take my shower.  Cold as in my cats won’t get out from

Day 7. Thought Association

Have you ever played the Word Association game?  You know the one I mean.  I’m sure your parents played it with you and/or your siblings on long, boring road trips.  Basically it’s about exchanging words that are associated together.  Here’s an example:  Let’s say someone says “Dog”.  The next person might then say, “Cat”.  And the next person might say, “Fur”.  And on and on it goes.

Well, I think I’ve inadvertently come up with a new twist on this old classic:  Thought Association.  It happened, quite unintentionally, while I was watching the Olympics, specifically the Jamaican sprinters.

• The Jamaican team made me think of jerk chicken.  What can I say?  I like spicy food and West Indian cooking, in particular.
• This made me think of scotch bonnet peppers, which should come with a warning.  The deadliest of the deadly, even a small bite can set you ablaze.
• This made me think of Michael, a Trinidadian art director who used to work for me.  Whenever he went home for a visit he always returned with a bottle of his mother’s delicious but lethal hot sauce for me.
• This made me think of a Bajan I once knew, who invited me to one of his parties.  He hadn’t told me, as he kept topping up my drink, that I was slugging back over-proof rum.  Instead of getting loaded, I got tired.  I happened to be in the one and only bathroom in his house when the need to lay down hit me like a ton