I caught a cold last week while preoccupied with the big, bad belly-ache. Now the gut problem has eased up and the cold is bronchitis, for the second time this year. I am so bummed.

Nothing says “misery” like coughing myself awake to the sight of Trump’s smug face on the front page of the Globe & Mail.

My weight has skidded to 63 Kg, a bit less than 140 pounds. That’s about the size I was coming out of recruit school. Of course, I was 5 cm taller then, and carrying a lot more muscle. My fancy electronic scale and the charts on even the most respectable medical websites say I’m still a bit over-fat, but I’m not sure those charts apply all that well to a woman of my age. I’ll persist with the low-carbohydrate diet, however; not for weight loss but because it’s apparently what my guts prefer. Never argue with your entrails; they get the last word every time.

Fibre-optic telecommunications service is widespread in southern Ontario. We made the switch about five years ago, when a local provider brought it to Stratford. It’s stable and much more consistent than the coaxial cable service we relied on before, and the provider’s tech staff are both skilled and downright nice. No regrets whatsoever.