The leaves are beginning to turn colour and each morning we awaken to find heavy dew glistening just outside our windows. Autumn is my favorite time of year. Crisp air, leaves rustling underfoot and heavenly scents make for wonderful walks.

We have been busy with our annual harvest-time activities. There are ten liters of chili sauce sitting on the kitchen counter, waiting to be stored in bright red rows for our winter pleasure. My cholesterol problem prevents me from eating some of the foods I used to love smothered with chili sauce, like Jamaican Patties. Attila and I sat down and had a serious discussion about what foods can remain in our diet, that benefit from the addition of chili sauce. The beef/potato/turnip dish, that Attila created many years ago, fits all the criteria for health and is delicious served with chili sauce.

While on our fishing holiday, our friend Annie rustled up some fried cabbage to eat with our pan-fried pike. It was delicious and is a new dish we are adding to our best-loved vegetable recipes.

We have also decided that, all things considered, we enjoy life more when one of us is not working and can keep the hearth fires burning, so to speak. Since my work experience and skill set are too specialized and exotic to be accommodated where we now live, we agree that for this time and place Attila will be the “breadwinner”. That decided; I would cease to make significant efforts to find work. However, if work finds me then that is another story altogether.

The past and the future sway, ripe with infinite possibility. Today alone offers the comfort of surety.

My genealogy research continues to provide me with an outlet for working with data and statistics. My natural affinity is for research, math and statistics, hence my former academic career. All those years of intense focus, training and discipline have left their mark upon me, making independent research a source of passionate pleasure. The only thing missing is honest and rigorous feedback on my work, which I was very lucky to have at the University.

Recently a genealogist from Scotland did some research on my behalf (for a reasonable fee) and has sent me information on my ancestors who immigrated to Canada from Glasgow in 1820. Fascinating! The information provides me with a starting point to research the family in Scotland. There remains only one branch of the family to locate “over the pond”, Protestants from County Cavan, Ireland, who arrived in Canada in the mid-1800s. No luck with finding anything useful so far, but I have not really concentrated on that line thus far.

With the County Cavan line I have encountered one relative suffering from an ego related issue, or it might be more accurate to say that I am suffering from his ego related issue. The relative is distantly related but carrying the surname of my direct line and claims genetic high ground based on the patriarchal surname system. My failure to recognize his eminence, based on the contrived social convention of surnames, is not well received. I do not know how the rest of the descendents are dealing with him. My guess is that the males can afford to ignore him, while the females expediently avoid him.

My conjecture is that this gentleman is an Aries male. If I find myself in conflict with a fragile male ego, it has been invariably with an Aries male. It seems that those few Aries males that are prone to hysteria can find my approach to life very distressing. I have a dear friend, a male, an Aries male, who is very open minded and delights in my expansive and non-linear worldview.

When I run into males, whose personalities are dominated by gender issue emotions, I always think of Farley Mowat’s book, The Dog Who Wouldn't Be. It seems to me that for some males, a woman with a mind, a voice and confidence is somewhat like Farley’s dog. Although, unlike Farley and his dog, I think these men find women more frightening than amusing.