I’m a complete amateur when it comes to web design, I admit it. However, I’m trying to make my website better and it seems that everything I try is met with resistance. All I get is the circle of death. The problem is I’m such a know-nothing that I don’t even know where to start...
Despite not wanting to give my detractors much credibility, I’m tempted to answer a couple of the comments made after my original post about sexism in Vienna. I’m not going back to read them, because, ugh, but a few of them have stuck in my mind, so I thought I’d talk through them and hopefully...
That is, the internet. My friend wrote those words to me (with slightly different punctuation) after my last blog post which you can read here, if you didn’t catch it. It went viral… or the equivalent of viral in my tiny corner of the blogging world. I was surprised by both the positive and negative...
Recently, I was on tour with the OSM (L’orchestre symphonique de Montréal) and we had a few days in Vienna. Vienna is a beautiful city with scads of musical and other cultural activities available any day of the week. I didn’t plan anything in advance, and I was not all that drawn to the idea...
I went to Zumba class this morning, and, not for the first time, I found myself puzzled by the lopsided numbers in the class. Out of forty people (approximately), only two are men and only a handful are from visible minority groups, the rest are all white women between 18-65. The previous teacher, who quit...
I have a favourite song from my daughter, Erica Lee Martin’s album, Out of The Playground. It’s called I Push On and it just gets me. It’s poignant and haunting and it speaks about facing challenges and finding inspiration to keep going. I just love it. For those of us who aren’t blessed with an...
I was feeling the greyness of November very heavily on my psyche the other day, when I wrote the post, November Blues. I don’t think I really believed that it was only the dreariness of the weather that was making me feel so down, but when I woke up this morning and the world was...
It’s a dreary month, no question, but the Nordic countries have something they call “hygge”, a Danish word defined in English as “A quality of cosiness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being.” (thank you, Oxford Living Dictionary) I think the idea is to make up for the lack of light...
I told you I’d bring you an up-date on my “winter” biking commitment. (Winter is in quotes there because we really haven’t gotten into the season proper yet.) Well, today started out cold (“felt like -18C”, according to the weather network) and I just couldn’t face the ride to work. I’m not giving up entirely,...
Despite what the calendar says, winter is here. Though there’s no snow on the ground, it’s cold enough to put on your winter coat and boots, so it’s winter in my book. The temperature might still spike for a day or two, but pretty soon it will be sub-zero, all the time. If you’re like...