Lindsay has been rescued from the nefarious clutches of Nigel and races along the top of the bluffs, reveling in her new found freedom. Her head is held high and her long ears and tail streak out behind her.

I'm walking much slower. Yesterday the temperatures were well above freezing and we had a light rain. Over night it dropped to 12 below and the world is now a skating rink. The forecast is for it to stay below freezing until the weekend.

Below us the Lake is a cold, rich, cobalt blue with frigid waves pushing against the ice encrusted shoreline.

We've had four friends and family members slip on icy sidewalks this winter and injure their knees. My step brother has been walking with a cane for the past three months. I don't want to become the fifth.

Yesterday was Family Day and we had family over for dinner. Our rush to clean the house and prepare the meal was interrupted twice by calls from my mother-in-law's Retirement home. Her deteriorating mental state has required her to be moved to the Extended Care facility on the second floor. That recent move was not handled well and her behaviour has become more extreme. The chaos is reaching its icy fingers along the ties of relationship deeper into the routine of our lives.

The first phone call was from a frustrated nurse who could not get my wife's mother to take her medication. Linda had to run over to sort that out.

The second call was later in the day, just as we were all sitting down to dinner. It was from the new on-duty nurse. Linda's mother had been refusing to eat all day. She was convinced the food was poison and wouldn't touch her meals. Some of her evening medications could only be taken on a full stomach and the staff had exhausted their efforts to convince her to eat.

This time I went over, wondering how I would handle the situation. Fortunately the home is only a fifteen minute drive away.

By the time I got there, Linda's mother had forgotten her fear of tainted food and rejected out of hand any notion she would think the food was poisoned. I stayed with her for an hour while she finished her meal and saw her comfortably settled in her room for the night.

I just got back home in time to say goodbye to our daughters and their families as they were leaving. Both live several hours drive out of the City and had to get underway before night fall.

I click the leash on Lindsay's collar and lead her back to the car. Our run is over for the day. I'm afraid our run-ins with the Retirement home have only just begun.

Lindsay has a strong personality and distant relatives are always asking about her. So I posted the above video to YouTube a few months ago and titled it "Lindsay at Play". When I checked back, later that afternoon, it had had over a thousand hits! I was astonished.

Then I noticed its listing among "related videos" and discovered it was smack in the middle of ten videos about Lindsay Lohan. Not wanting our sweet dog in such company, my wife made me take it down. I've subsequently reposted it with the subtitle, "How Lindsay Gets Burrs In Her Ears" and it gets no where near the attention.

I'm walking alone today, Lindsay accompanying me only in my thoughts. This is Family Day, a new Provincial Holiday, and we are having family over for dinner. My oldest daughter's son is allergic to dogs. His eyes swell, turn red and water painfully. So whenever they're coming over we have to board out Lindsay for the day and do a dramatic cleaning of the house.

Fortunately for us, Nigel is only a couple of blocks away, is a former dog trainer for the Canadian Institute for the Blind, and loves to have Lindsay visit. He calls her "Monster" and Lindsay goes into paroxysms of delight when she sees him.

I've been asked a couple of times about Lindsay's breed. She is an English Springer Spaniel/English Setter mix. She is mostly Spaniel, but we don't give her the Spaniel cut and chose not to get her tail bobbed. As a result she has a beautiful tail, that, along with her ears, is a magnificent burr collector in the Fall.

We taught Lindsay to sit and lay-down and roll over; but most of what she knows she taught herself. She listens to us intently and its astonishing the things she's picked up. When she was being irritable one evening, my wife got annoyed and told her, "Oh, Lindsay go to sleep!" And she did. We laughted, thinking it was just a coincidence; but no, Lindsay knew just what she was doing. And its become a handy little command to have in our tool kit.

Speaking of teaching dogs to "sit". When Lindsay was younger she was part of a dog walking group called Puppy Club. About twenty of us would gather with our dogs and take them for a run through the Rouge Valley on a Saturday morning. One woman was having problems with her dog and loudly and angrily ordered it to sit. Everyone of the twenty dogs promptly planted their bum on the pathway setting off a veritable earthquake of obedience. You probably felt the earth move where you live. Ubiquitous little command, that "Sit".

Anyway, thoughts of Lindsay as I finish my lonely walk. Lots more more to do before the family arrives. At least it was warm enough to rain last night and some of our huge snow banks are gone. Driving should be safe today. Both our daughters live in cities outside Toronto and wouldn't drive if the weather was bad.

I'm looking forward to the day.

It all went wrong. The entire day. Everything.

I'm taking Lindsay for a run this morning to unwind. My muscles ache but I push through the pain. Lindsay scampers on ahead, then comes running back to see what's keeping me.

Both Linda and I have 89 year old mothers living in the same retirement home. However, Linda's mother has been in serious decline over the past 6 months. Whether from stroke or dementia, its hard to know. But she's become very forgetful, and very slow, and very angry. Difficult for the staff to deal with. Difficult for us to deal with.

I trudge on through the snow. One step in front of the other.

A decision was made last month to move Linda's mom to the second floor, the extended care floor. We've put her name into a another facility, but it will be 4 or 5 months until a spot becomes available. Depending on how quickly people die off at the new facility or on their waiting list. Its a tough business, this caring for seniors.

We were to be notified when the move was to take place, so we could prepare her mother for the change. No sense preparing her too soon, she would only forget and get confused. And frightened. And angry.

Yesterday, Linda and I were looking forward to having coffee with Giorgio Di Cicco, the Poet Laureate of Toronto, who is coming to give a speech here on Wednesday. Linda loves poetry and was really excited. But an hour before the coffee, Linda got a phone call from the retirement home to say they had already moved her mother and when were we coming to move the remainer of her furniture down to her new room?

"What!" I could hear Linda saying on the phone, "This was supposed to be organized. This was supposed to be a process. You were supposed to warn us!"

Well, it turned out, a room had come available and staff were free that day, so they had gone ahead with the move. Expediency trumps process every time. It was a half hour before we were to meet with Giorgio. Suddenly the day had gone from joyful to a nightmare.

I won't bore you with all the details. Linda went immediately to see her mother. I kept the appointment with Giorgio, but my head and my heart were with Linda. Linda had arrived to find her mother sitting on her bed in an otherwise empty room, wracked with both confusion and outrage. Two hours later, with Giorgio back off to the hundred acre "Hermitage", where he lives North of Toronto, Linda calmed her mother down while her brother and I moved the remainder of her mother's furniture down to the second floor.

It was rushed. It was exhausting. It was stressful. We had words with the staff; but of course, the woman who had made the decision to proceed with the move had already gone home. And won't be in today (Sunday) or Monday (our new Provincial holiday). She knows how to time somethings.

Usually a walk with Lindsay is magic, easing away both physical and emotional strain. But, somehow,there is no magic in our walk today.

I'm having coffee with Pier Giorgio Di Cicco this afternoon.

I see you're not impressed. His is not a household name in America, not here in Canada either and not even here in Toronto where he lives.

But I'm impressed. Di Cicco is the Poet Laureate of the City of Toronto. But it's not his poetry that interests me today, its his work as a philosopher of creative communities. Here is one of his quotes:

“There's no escaping the virtual project of the planet; keeping in mind that information technology enriches, extends our domain, generates wealth and makes life easier if not profound, we also recognize that it robs us of the indigenous, the flavored, the local. And that is the challenge of the contemporary city; the question of how to be international and at the same time unique.”

Di Cicco’s philosophy has found popularity in forums ranging from The Prime Minister's Advisory Committee on Cities and Communities, The Creative Cities Project of the Ontario and Toronto governments, to Waterfront Toronto to international conferences on urban sustainability. In 2005 he was appointed official "Curator" for the City of Toronto’s Humanitas project, a global showcase where Toronto will host its heritage, vision and strategy for global citizenship.

“The creative city is taken to mean different things. It means to prosper and to assert one’s heritage in a climate of adventure. It means innovation to those who would marry commerce and imagination. It means a welcoming city with places in which to relax, with people free to invent and encounter, through the arts, in public spaces and through architecture. But architecting a city is first about constructing the space between people, the metaphysical space, the way they feel about each other and for each other.”

Di Cicco's work has earned him numerous awards, including five Canada Council Awards, six Ontario Arts Council Awards and the City of Toronto Arts Award. He was recently appointed the Emilio Goggio Visiting Professor in Italian-Canadian Studies at the University of Toronto.

“For until we have architected the civic space between each other, we will inevitably put up bad buildings, confused infrastructure and obscure the project of city spirit.”

Di Cicco has agreed to come here to the West Hill area of Toronto to talk to us about the creation of a creative community and we are meeting today for him to see our small section of the City for himself before his talk to the community on Wednesday.

And, yes, he loves dogs and I do plan to bring Lindsay and to take him for a walk along the top of the bluffs. I'll let you know how it goes.

The small rabbit sits on the path about 15 meters ahead of us, its tiny nose twitching furiously.

Lindsay hasn't noticed it yet. She's too busy attending to some interesting scent just to the right of me, black and white tail at the alert, her own nose twitching with excitement.



The rabbit hasn't moved. It sits in profile, tall ears erect, its dark left eye watching Lindsay's every move.

And then its gone. One single bound into the tall grasses by the side of the pathway and its as if the rabbit had never been. Lindsay has finished her investigation of the interesting scent, her tail is back to wagging with excitement, she looks up at me to ask why I'm standing still. She prances down the pathway a few feet and then looks back as if to say, "Come on, lets get going!"

So I start walking and Lindsay bounds on ahead, past the spot where the rabbit had been sitting. Catching the recent scent in passing, she backtracks, nose to the ground and is off on the trail. But the rabbit is now long gone.

I walk on, thinking about our senses. Lindsay has missed the rabbit right in front of her because she was turned into the sense of smell not sight. I'd been reading, a few days ago, that scientists had discovered that our brains tune out unnecessary sensation, to prevent distraction from our primary sense of sight. Put on clothes in the morning and we can feel the fabric against our skin. However rough or comfortable, however sensual our clothing feels, within minutes of dressing, our brains tune out that awareness.

For a moment I focus on the weight of the coat on my back, the slight itch of my scarf, the tightness of the hat on my head, the feel of the leather gloves on my hand, the constriction of my feet in my boots, the coldness of the air against my face.

But when I begin to listen to the distant grumbling of the city in the background, the crash of the waves at the bottom of the bluffs, the clicking of the branches in the tall trees, the crunch of my feet as I walk through the old snow, I realize my brain has already tuned out the feel of my clothing.

I struggle to both feel and listen at the same time. I can do it, kind of. But not well.

I'm a very visual and auditory person. My wife has a much greater awareness of aromas and tactile sensation. She will track me down in Sears to have me come over to feel an interesting fabric on a dress that has delighted her.

I remember our Valentine's Day dinner at the restaurant last night, the air alive with wonderful aromas. The delicious warm taste of the food, the coolness of the wine glass. Linda momentarily reaching across the table to squeeze my hand as she tells a funny story about her day at work.

Then Lindsay comes crashing her way through the brush and tall grasses, returning from the rabbit hunt. She pushes her way back onto the path, twigs stuck in her tail and long ears. She shakes herself vigorously, loosening a few of the twigs, the rest she just ignores.

Interesting.