Welcome to www.flakker.ca

To all Things...

... an end must come. And so it is with the year. Being that both Christmas and New Year's fall on Friday this year, this will be the last flakker of the year. While I suppose I could find time during the week to compose one I cannot see me making everybody, including granddaughter number two, wait to open their Christmas gifts while I post a new entry. Talk about being a Grinch!

The year can be encapsulated in four words/phrases based on the volume of articles and stories written; Obama, H1N1, Tiger, global warming. It would appear that the people who bring us the "news" believe that trashing celebrities is right up there in importance with constantly trying to scare the crap out of us. What they don't seem to be interested in is unbiased, factual reporting. How unfortunate. I think that the newspapers are better than TV but then the TV stuff is so bad that this is kind of like saying that your cooking is more appetizing than a dung beetle's dinner. Come to think of it, TV news and a dung beetle's dinner have a lot in common.

On a more upbeat note one of the great things about this time of year is that we get to exercise our inner gluttons. Everyone is baking all kinds of family recipes for all kinds of foods. Around our place the tradition is for the Dame of Desserts to make her melt in the mouth shortbread cookies, get some chocolate covered nuts (only almonds, cashews and dark chocolate) from the best outlet in Ontario and, oddly, some After Eight mints. Dessert or a treat consists of having one or two of each but it is essential that you take a bite of one and then a nibble of the other and so on until finished. This way you are in a constant state of gustatory ecstasy and anticipation. When the season is over and the nuts start to run out the disappointment is palpable. It would be safer to take a steak from a bear's jaws than it would be to try and sneak an extra chocolate covered delight from the Gorgeous Gardener.

As you know, I have been wrestling (unsuccessfully I might add) with some health issues. One thing I have learned is that while ALS is not a lot of laughs it is a lot easier to deal with if you can keep on laughing. Fortunately, with a lot of help from friends and family and occasional caustic comments from the Maiden of Marigolds, I have done my fair share of laughing. Sometimes at inopportune moments perhaps but what the hell, any time is a good time for a laugh. Except maybe when you are trying to stand up straight and laughing makes your legs collapse. This is something that my malevolent number one son seems to delight in doing to me. Gets his bent sense of humor from his mother I guess.

Several months ago I lost the ability to type. However, I can still use the mouse and I have this really nifty program that converts speech to text so I have been able to continue my writing. Unfortunately, as time goes on, my clarity of speech is getting worse and worse. It is now getting to the point where the error rate is so high that I spend far more time making corrections than I do composing. The whole point of these little blurbs is that I love to play with words and come up with flippantly funky but focally funny phrases. Or is that flippantly funny but focally funky phrases? In any case, although the rewards are enormous it is getting to the point where the effort exceeds them. When it stops being fun, what is the point? Therefore, this may be my final flakker. I say "may be" because Lady Lupin is suggesting that she could type for me come the new year. I somehow doubt that this would work well because I like to be alone to compose my verbal compost. Besides, while she isn't quite A.D.D. I cannot envision her quietly and patiently waiting while I sit back with eyes closed coming up with exactly the words I want to use. Not to mention that I am not all that easy to understand, both verbally and mentally. I have had a good run. I have been writing these since 2002 and have cranked out almost 400 of them. That is a pretty serious case of verbal diarrhea. I will keep the website going and will try to add more of the older ones to the archive. My thanks and deep appreciation to everyone who has enjoyed this journey with me.

ciao

the flakker