Merry Christmas one and all!
I was planning on a different post without Xmas on my mind. A dear friend of mine Ken, wrote to me and I thought I would share my reply to him with all of you.



Remember always there are people in the world that love you and people in the world that need your love too. Some of them you already know, some you have lost contact with but still think about and they think about you, some you have yet to meet. As someone that believes in these things I know that you will realize that friendship and love ignore distance and time and that those whom you think of are always with you.

Xmas is important because it is a period of hope. A million years ago our ancestors shivered in the cold and knew without knowing; that the days had started to get longer; that although the worst may be yet to come, that it was the beginning of the end for winter and spring would follow with all the bounty that it brings. Xmas by another name was celebrated before Christianity and it will be celebrated after Christianity is forgotten, because of the seasons and the reason why they exist, it is a connection we share with the planet we live on and the path it follows through space. So for all the commercialization and hollow felicitations, there is still in all of us, that little golden thread of hope connecting us to the earth and to the people that we share it with, so with that thought present I would like to wish you, my dear friend, a very Happy Christmas.

Here comes the sun.....
Tomorrow I am renouncing the heinous frozen wastelands of Canada to spend Xmas and the New Year in Costa Rica. Those of you whom are regular air travelers will know that the reduced cabin pressure in a plane leads to expansion of abdominal gases which may lead to some discomfort. This will be especially true for the people sharing my flight tomorrow, as I am just about to tuck into a giant pot of of extra spicy Vesuvius flavour noodles. It's these little pleasures that make it all worthwhile.

I have been driving around here in a vanilla and snow white Chrysler 300C which makes me feel like a pimp or a rap star, or perhaps a poorly dressed wedding chauffeur. It is an ocean liner of a car, I'm actually quite sad to have taken it back to the rental agency. My marvelous yet thrifty boss would prefer me to be driving around in a rent-a-wreck special that had previously been rejected by a junk yard for lowering the tone of the lot. I told him I needed a Bentley, so I think we have met half way on this one. Besides, when you are driving on snow as I have had to do in the last week it just feels a little more secure if you are in the automotive equivalent of the Queen Mary.

The ladies of my office in Toronto have been forewarned of my departure and they know that they only need mourn my absence until the New Year, when they may recommence humouring my mock ego.

I picked up some green cardamom pods for my friend Olga, so hopefully she'll make me some baklava, pastries are a weakness of mine. I can't make them, but like eating them. In theory I am cooking Xmas dinner for some amigos, as Marie will be spending it with her family and I didn't get an invite, even before the recent events that seem to have drawn us further apart. Still, the lucky buggers have an excellent meal in front of them. This is almost a routine started off by my friend Nicky, who for a while was collecting dinner guests that were happy to cook for all on arrival. I believe I still have the Guest Chef high score but there is no use resting on your laurels. It is worth noting that as a bloke I am allowed to do junk food every so often, but even so, if I am just on my own, I'll still cook something serious once per week.

I have decided I want to make babies. I have practiced making them so much that I should do an excellent job when the opportunity arises. This is not a recent revelation, I have just been getting broody recently.

Many of my colleagues in the office in Toronto are Rumanian and prior to working with them, I knew nothing of their homeland. Now, I know almost nothing. What I do know is that it is made up of three countries that joined together in 1600: Transylvania; Wallachia; Moldavia. It is very poor and Vlad the Impaler AKA Count Dracula was born there of a Wallachian family.
I believe that Transylvania needs to achieve independence from the rest of Rumania for the sake of economic regeneration and to reverse the tide of emigration that is denuding the country of the educated middle classes. The passport alone would make it worth moving to.

Transylvanian dentists would be sought the world over, cape and hair oil manufacturers would have to double production just to keep the souvenir shops in stock. That part of the region at least would be back on its way to some of the wealth enjoyed by some of the other post war countries of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire.

My plans to learn Italian by watching all four series of the Sopranos on DVD back to back seem to have faltered. I am falling slowly in lust with the simple, caring approach of the mature, experienced and beautiful Carmela. I am struck evermore with the innocent sophistication and stunning looks of Meadow. Yet I feel that the intelligence and the irresistible simmering sensuality of the gorgeous Dr. Jennifer Melfi will win my heart in the end. However, I know that even thinking about taking one of these babes for my next goomah is gonna get me clipped so I'm gonna go on the lamb.

I think I need to get out more.

Odds and Ends
I am reading an excellent book at the moment called "Tuesdays with Morrie". It is wonderfully life affirming and has affected me somewhat. It recounts the final conversations between an old dieing man and an ex-pupil. I think reading this book has changed me or at least brought to the fore some of those thoughts that have been hanging around for a while. The things that have hit me the most are; the lingering reminders that it has given me to really pay attention to those around me because my time and thoughts are the most precious things I have and not giving them is not caring; to actively show the people I love that I do because one day I'll be out of time; to care a lot more about even those I don't know, because really under the skin, we are all so very similar.

I have done all my Christmas shopping this year over the internet. Except the presents for Marie back in Costa Rica, who has lost her mobile phone and quite possibly her interest as she never calls and is never in to answer mine. The geographical and emotional distance make me feel quite alone up here and single yet somehow bound.

Two weeks back or so I was in Bar Volo on Yonge Street with three developers I have up here from Central America. The waitress was extremely surly, she stated that she could not bring me another glass of wine and a pint of beer at the same time (I was thirsty OK!) together with the rest of the round as it was against the law. Apparently because you can't serve someone two drinks simultaneously and also apparently rubbish from those I have spoken with. I asked her to come back and say it again wearing a police woman's uniform. She was not impressed and launched into a loud and lengthy monologue on her distress and umbrage in the packed restaurant. So I said, "That's fine but can you come back and say that again wearing a police woman's uniform?" The food was pleasant. When it was time for the desert she described the special, "it's made of sponge, it's a chocolate hollow filled with mousse and cream". I said "I'd like to eat your chocolate hollow". She launched into a loud fit of magnanimous trite hubris that seemed to designed to create embarrassment in a crowded restaurant. When she finished I said, "That's fine, but I'd still like to eat your chocolate hollow". She returned with the bill rather than the desert so I wrote ZERO in the tips section and booked my table for ten the following week somewhere else.

It has been snowing here quite a bit recently and the thirty minute drive back to the apartment took two hours yesterday. The snow blanket is very inconvenient but so very beautiful. I think I'm getting used to the cold. I left the office for a cigarette with a colleague on Wednesday, I didn't bother putting my coat on and remarked that it was a quite a nice day as the sun was out and it was only -10C. Roll on January, the winter and the cold weather.

Back in the frozen wastelands of the North...
About two and a half weeks ago I left Canada via the tortuous freeway system of Toronto in the rental car to get to the airport and thence to Costa Rica. The signage on the freeways in Toronto is designed to comfort the nuerotics that already know their route perfectly. For anyone that does not they are useless. The freeway splits and only after you are on the new route are you rewarded with a sign that tells you that you made the right or wrong decision. Signage for minor roads is designed so that you have to swerve across five lanes of heavily trafficked highway within a hundred meters, at 120kph or be forced to drive on safely, missing your exit, to the reach the following one and drive around aimlessly for an extra hour. Did Ontario employ Spanish road designers?



Prior to leaving I went downtown and happened upon the Toronto Santa Claus Parade, it takes about two hours to see the whole thing and takes place over a 6km route. This was the 101st year, which apparently makes it the oldest running Xmas parade in the world. Along the whole route there are children playing and families under blankets sitting on camp chairs and some of the floats are truly impressive.

I went to the Toronto Motorcycle Show today where I became convinced that life would not be complete unless I owned a new KTM 950 Adventure in Costa Rica. I'm not normally drawn to this type of bike, but as I live on unmade roads halfway up a mountain and work in a city paved like the Himalayas, they are just practical. I got depressed later in the day after finding out that Costa Rican Import Duty is 100%. Which turns a bike that in the US costs $13,900 into the price of a small farm three hours drive from San Jose. This I am sure means that the people that rent them out and organise motorcycle tours on them are bribing the customs officers.