People expressed a wish for more posts on my personal life, and I’m happy to oblige. Remember that you asked for it before you complain.

When we were looking for a house to buy, N’s only criterion was that the house should have a wood-burning fireplace. He drove the real estate agent nuts because his only response to absolutely any communication from the agent, be it written or oral, was “All I need is a wood-burning fireplace.”

“Yes. Got it,” the agent would respond. “You made your wishes very clear and I wouldn’t even consider showing you a house without a wood-burning fireplace. Now, I have a couple of questions. Is a one-car garage an absolute deal-breaker for you or would you consider it if everything else was great?”

“I need a wood-burning fireplace,” N would respond.

“Yes. I understand. A wood-burning fireplace,” the agent would patiently repeat. “But what about the garage? Some people refuse even to look at houses if they don’t have a two-car garage. How do you feel about that?”

“I need a wood-burning fireplace!” N would exclaim. “That’s all I need!”

And the conversation would continue in this vein for as long as it took me to get bored and interfere.

So now we’ve been living in a house with a wood-burning fireplace for months but a fire has never been lit.

“When are we going to use the fireplace?” I kept asking. “I thought you loved sitting in front of a fireplace and looking at the fire.”

“Let’s wait until it gets cold,” N kept saying.

So it got bitterly cold, it snowed, then it snowed some more.

“Are we finally going to use the fireplace?” I asked. “It’s cold already.”

“N-n-no,” N said, with his teeth chattering from the cold. “It’s still not that cold.”

I know him well, so I had an explanation.

“Are you afraid that if your dream of sitting in front of the fire comes true you will not be able to deal with so much happiness?” I asked.

“Yes. . .” he said.

So I bought some firewood and scheduled a therapeutic lighting of the fire for tonight.

Are you following the G20 summit?  It’s all shades of hilarious. The so – called Western leaders have been completely impotent to stop Putin, so now they decided to hurt him where he will really feel it: they are trying to make him feel like the unpopular kid during lunch break. 

Somebody not very important was sent to greet him at the airport while the important greeters were reserved for other visitors. He wasn’t given a good spot at the group photo. He is now probably weeping in his room and asking, “Mommy, why does everybody hate me?”

Tony Abbott forgot about his bluster after the Malaysian Airlines plane was shot out of the sky by Putin ‘ s employees and happily shook Putin ‘ s hand. But Abbott got his revenge against Putin!  The smile he gave Putin was a shade narrower than the one given to other, more popular kids!  That must have stung just as much as being shot down by terrorists.

But the hero of the summit is Canada ‘ s Stephen Harper. While shaking Putin ‘ s hand he courageously mumbled, “Get out of Ukraine!” Unfortunately, since Putin wasn’t in Ukraine but right in front of Harper, the mumbled statement had a dubious effect.

Of course, everybody soon forgot about Putin, and Tony Abbott put everybody to sleep with a long lament about his incapacity to impose a $7 tax on GP visits. Evidently, this rankles much more with him than the deaths of the passengers of MH17.