The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, recently made the stunning announcement that they will be stepping back from being senior members of the British royal family. The news comes after the couple spent an extended sabbatical of six weeks in Canada over the holidays. (Don’t miss these photos of Meghan Markle’s stunning transformation since becoming a royal.)

“After many months of reflection and internal discussions, we have chosen to make a transition this year in starting to carve out a progressive new role within this institution,” the couple said on their official Instagram account, @sussexroyal. “We intend to step back as ‘senior’ members of the Royal Family and work to become financially independent, while continuing to fully support Her Majesty The Queen.”

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex wrote that they would divide their time between the United Kingdom and North America. “This geographic balance will enable us to raise our son with an appreciation for the royal tradition into which he was born, while also providing our family with the space to focus on the next chapter, including the launch of our new charitable entity,” the royal pair said in the statement. This is why Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s baby boy, Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, didn’t get a royal title to begin with.

What does “stepping back” mean for their royal future?

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex launched a new website explaining their future endeavours, which include three key initiatives: helping the community, serving the monarchy, and strengthening the commonwealth.

The royal couple also explain at length how they plan to become “financially independent” as they mention in their initial announcement. Currently, like other senior working members of the royal family, they do receive some funding through the Sovereign Grant, which is funding from the monarchy to cover official expenses, like residences and workspaces. Under their new arrangement, the couple plans to give up their share of the Sovereign Grant, which they state only covers 5 per cent of their costs and is only used for official office expenses. Instead, they are choosing a “new working model” that would allow them to have financial independence from the Monarchy (thus, allowing them “future financial autonomy to work externally”) as well as earn their own income, which until this moment, they’ve been prohibited from doing so, due to “the current structure and financing arrangements.”

Prince Harry and Meghan have also updated their media policy, which will “ensure diverse and open access to their work” by the Spring of 2020. They plan to change things like no longer participating in the “Royal Rota” a press pool dedicated to providing exclusive access to the official engagements of the royal family, but also sharing more information directly with the public via their own communications channels.

Who else from the royal family has “stepped back”?

Prince Harry and Meghan aren’t the first royals to step back. After more than 70 years next to the Queen, Prince Philip relinquished his royal duties in May 2017 at the age of 96. And, their son, Prince Andrew, Duke of York, recently stepped back from public duties in November 2019 after backlash from a BBC interview over his friendship with the late convicted sex offender and American financier Jeffrey Epstein. Find out 50 surprising things you didn’t know about the British royal family.

What will happen to the rest of the royal family?

Rumors of a rift between brothers Prince William and Prince Harry have been circulating the past few months. Following the U.K. release of ITV’s documentary Harry & Meghan: An African Journey in late 2019, Harry opened up about the feud. The couple’s Instagram announcement alludes to the fact that they will continue to work with the Queen, Harry’s father, Prince Charles, and his brother, Prince William, in the coming months, however, stating: “We look forward to sharing the full details of this exciting next step in due course, as we continue to collaborate with Her Majesty The Queen, The Prince of Wales, The Duke of Cambridge and all relevant parties. Until then, please accept our deepest thanks for your continued support.”

Not long after this shocking statement from Prince Harry and Meghan, Buckingham Palace issued a response: “Discussions with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are at an early stage. We understand their desire to take a different approach, but these are complicated issues that will take time to work through.” Now, find out how Meghan Markle changed Prince Harry since she became a royal.

Written on the body

My parents died within weeks of each other. Mom left in November 2017 and Dad followed her in January. They were both 85 years old, their birthdays having been just a day apart. They had been together since they were 17, meeting on a summer evening at the Wagon Wheel Dance Hall in the small community of Pointe-du-Chêne, N.B. Growing old, they both remembered details from that long-ago Saturday night, when Mom wore a soft yellow sweater set and a pair of pedal pushers, and Dad, nervous, made his way across the floor to ask her for a dance.

As they were aging, they never discussed or specified their care needs or wishes; Mom was especially reticent to talk about it. But they knew that after dying, they wanted to have their bodies donated to a medical school. That was a long-standing and clearly stated desire, and my brother and sister and I were proud of them for making that decision. After they passed away, their bodies were taken to a medical school laboratory where they stayed for close to a year and a half, teaching a new generation of health care professionals.

I filled out a form that invited us to tell the students what we thought was important for them to know about Mom and Dad. Another form asked for medical information. I wrote a couple of paragraphs about both of them and listed their many medical conditions. The woman who coordinated the donation program assured me that Mom and Dad would lie side by side in the lab, and that the students who worked with them would know they’d been married. Some years prior, I had the opportunity to spend time in the anatomy lab of the medical school where I was working, and I would have loved to know more about the people whose bodies I was looking at.

I wanted the students to pay attention to my father’s hands. They would see that his left hand was rough, the fingers calloused and bent from decades of creation in his workshop. There might even be speckles of paint on the palm or the finger on which he rested his paintbrush.

Dad had a massive stroke when he was only 58 and, as a result, he lost the use of his right hand; perhaps a student would notice that it was the softer hand. For years after that stroke, he tried, unsuccessfully, to bring life back to that paralyzed hand, massaging and exercising it. Luckily, his dominant hand was the left one—thank fate for such a mercy.

I hoped his fingernails were trimmed. As he aged, he became more and more sensitive and it was increasingly difficult to cut his nails. And maybe he was less trusting of his grown children to do the job the way he wanted it done.

Over the decades that followed his stroke, Dad became an artist, making thousands of dollhouses, birdhouses and pieces of furniture, giving them to family and friends. Then, when age sanded his words away, he sat and painted. Hundreds of paintings. His art gave him a voice when his speech had been twisted. His workshop and, in time, his bedroom, gave him a place to craft beauty in wood and paint and whimsy—the joy of creating.

When those students would look at my mother’s back, I wished a volume of things. I hoped for them to notice the pathway of pain that was my mom’s crooked spine. That pain aged with her and, in time, put her in a wheelchair, bending her neck low. And when they would examine her heart, I wished for them to know that it had been troubled yet tough. Perhaps a student cardiologist would note the wonky valve that caused her so much fear throughout her life and, just maybe, that student would also be touched by the fact she had loved so fiercely with that heart. She did not love perfectly, but she did so mightily, and worked every day of her life to love better.

And when Mom’s brain would be studied, I wished that the future neurologist would see the worn passages of anxiety and the dark pools of depression, and be impressed by the way she navigated life with that brain. I wanted them to know that she was funny and smart, and, once in a while, very brave.

I wished that the students learning to read the human body would see Dad’s lion heart. I imagined it large, bruised, scarred but strong. He fell in love that summer night so many years ago—surely that was marked on his heart, which would also have been cracked over and over as both he and Mom battled their ways through deep illness. That demon stroke must have burned into his heart, too, but he lived on after it, defying the wicked clot that tried to take him away.

I wished for the students to see Dad’s throat, where there must have been a battalion of words, trapped. He fought to find them and to speak, right up until the day he was put to bed and demanded I take his glasses off. He died three days later.

The students would perhaps notice the crooked bones of his hips, and I hoped they would realize the pain he was in when he sat with Mom, and she with him, at the end of their long lives together. Finally, I wished for them to look at Dad’s brain, with its increasing damage. I wished to say to them: Imagine the strength it took to stay through all of that, and to do it because of love and duty and that long-ago dance.

For those with eyes to see, Mom and Dad’s bodies were tapestries.

Next, read about one man’s connection to a fallen First World War soldier.

© 2019, Linda E. Clarke. From ’My parents died months apart, but lay together in a lab for students’’, The Globe and Mail (June 19, 2019), theglobeandmail.com

Above and beyond

In 2009, when Kate Smith* was in her final year at the University of Toronto, she seemed like any other high-achieving young woman. The then 21-year-old got good grades, participated in extracurricular activities and planned to go to law school. But below the surface, she was struggling.

At 17, Smith had been raped, but wasn’t taken seriously by a friend when she confessed what had happened. “It made me feel as though it was my fault and that I deserved to be mistreated,” she says. As coping day to day became more difficult, she began using drugs and alcohol.

Smith managed to graduate, but law school went on the back burner. Then she met a man who introduced her to more addictive drugs and started abusing her. Unable to hold down a job, she became homeless in 2014, and earned money as a sex worker. “I was living in hell for about a year,” she says. “I thought I was worth nothing.”

She eventually escaped her abuser and sought treatment for addiction, but her feelings of worthlessness persisted. Then, in 2016, she discovered Up With Women, a registered charity that offers executive coaching in Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia to women who are living in poverty and find themselves at risk for homelessness.

Founder Lia Grimanis (pictured above) herself experienced homelessness as a teen growing up in Toronto. She got the idea for Up With Women when she received career coaching while working for a tech company. Unlike counselling, where clients work through issues from their pasts, coaching is about the future. “A coaching conversation is all about what is your ideal life and what do you need to get there? It’s spending time focusing on where you want to go versus what you need to fix,” Grimanis explains.

She realized that women who really needed professional-development help from a coach could never actually afford it. “All of our clients are living below the poverty line, but some coaches are charging $350 to $600 an hour,” she says.

Up With Women matches participants with certified career coaches who provide one-on-one sessions twice a month for one year. The strategy is working: so far, the organization has helped more than 400 women. In the 2016–2017 cohort, roughly 70 per cent of them saw an increase in their income—and, on average, they were making $12,383 more per year than women still on the organization’s waiting list.

Grimanis says that, while it’s harder to measure confidence levels, she sees an increase there, too. And those difficult-to-quantify results can be the most powerful. Harmeet Toor, Up With Women’s director of operations and programs, was once a client herself. For Toor, one of the most impactful parts of her coaching experience was learning to shed the idea that she should limit her goals. “I call it the poverty mindset. ‘I deserve whatever everybody else in society has discarded because I am someone who has been discarded,’” she says. “But my coach didn’t spend time entertaining this idea.” Instead, she asked Toor, “What do you want?”

Five months into Toor’s coaching sessions, she’d found a place to live. By the eight-month mark, she’d landed a job at a doctor’s office. And now she’s figuring out how to help others—like Smith, who was finally able to start law school in 2018.

“I owe it to Up With Women for helping me get here,” Smith says. “Of course, I have the drive and the determination, but I wouldn’t be in law school if I didn’t have that coaching.”

Next, read about Brad Fremmerlid, an Albertan living with severe autism who started his own inspiring business.

*Name has been changed.

Walk-in wait times across Canada: Ranking the provinces

If you’ve ever waited hours to see a doctor, you’re not alone–especially if you live in Nova Scotia. New data from website Medimap has revealed that the maritime province has the longest walk-in clinic wait times in Canada, with patients waiting an average of 69 minutes to see a health-care professional.

British Columbia takes second place, with a 50-minute average–exactly double the average wait time in Ontario. B.C. is also the home of seven of the ten cities with the longest wait times in the country, the worst of which is Sidney, with an average wait time of three hours. Alberta, on the other hand, has the shortest wait times, with patients waiting just 23 minutes on average to see a same-day doctor.

The data comes from Medimap, a website and mobile app that monitors the wait times at walk-in clinics across the country. Using data provided by clinics between November 1, 2018 and October 31, 2019, Medimap calculated the average wait times in six provinces. The site doesn’t operate in Quebec, Newfoundland, New Brunswick, P.E.I., or the territories.

Walk-in clinics first became common in Canada in the ’80s as an alternative to emergency rooms, particularly for people without a family doctor. According to Stats Canada, in 2017, 15.3 per cent of Canadians over the age of 12 didn’t have a regular health care provider, meaning that many Canadians rely exclusively on walk-in clinics for their health care needs.

Not surprisingly, then, clinics often fill up quickly. Many have patient caps and have to turn people away–some Canadians have reported trying multiple clinics in the same day and still not finding care. A 2017 analysis by the Commonwealth Fund found that only 43 per cent of patients in Canada were able to book same-day appointments for health care, putting Canada in a tie for last place when compared to nine other OECD countries.

That’s where sites like Medimap come in, with the goal of connecting patients with walk-in clinics that are close by and under capacity. “People want convenience,” explains founder Blake Adam. “We created Medimap as a simple solution that saves time and frustration for these people when they need access to care.”

Since the website’s launch in 2015, more than 900 clinics have registered with Medimap, reporting their current wait-times every half hour in order to ensure up-to-date information on the site. Other sites, like Skip the Waiting Room and, in Quebec, Bonjour Santé, book next-day appointments for patients, sometimes for a fee. “If every Canadian is empowered with information,” Adam says, “we will have fewer people using our emergency rooms unnecessarily and a healthier society.”

Next, find out which health symptoms you should never ignore.

One solar year (that is, the amount of time it takes our planet to accomplish one full rotation about the sun) takes roughly 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds. That extra five-or-so hours nobody likes to talk about are precisely why we have leap years: the 366-day years that occur every four years, encourage women to propose to men, and make celebrating birthdays very confusing for 1/1,461th of the population. Here are nine reasons Leap Day is even more special than you think.

1. The rule: Leap Day happens every four years… unless it doesn’t

The point of leap years is to help adjust our Gregorian calendar (aka, the 365-day calendar you can find on your desk or phone) to the solar calendar, and make sure we celebrate solar events like the spring and autumn equinoxes with some regularity every year. Even adding an extra day to February every four years doesn’t quite do the trick, which is why scientists sometimes call for a Leap Second like they did in 2015 on June 30th at 11:59:60 pm.

How do you remember if it’s a leap year? Simple: If the last two digits of the year are divisible by four (e.g. 2016, 2020, 2024…) then it’s a leap year. Century years are the exception to this rule. They must be divisible by 400 to be leap years—so, 2000 and 2400 are leap years, but 2100 will not be one. As a bonus, U.S. leap years almost always coincide with election years.

2. What’s crazier than February 29th? A woman proposing to a man, says history

You’re not the only one who thinks leap years are silly. After Pope Gregory XIII instituted the Gregorian calendar in 1582, the idea of adding February 29th every four years seemed so ridiculous that a British play joked it was a day when women should trade their dresses for “breeches” and act like men. The play was meant as satire, but some early feminists must have been inspired; by the 1700s, women were using Leap Day to propose to the men in their lives. The tradition—now called Bachelor’s Day or Sadie Hawkins Day—peaked in the early 1900s and continues today in the UK, where some retailers even offer discount packages to women popping the question.

3. The Salem witchcraft trials are connected to Leap Day

If we’re looking at history a bit closer to home in the United States, then we should focus on Massachusetts. The Salem witchcraft trials weren’t a fun time in colonial America. There was a particularly negative connection with Leap Day. The first warrants for arrest went out on February 29th, 1692 for the Salem witchcraft trials. And you thought Friday the 13th was spooky! Find out some strange things that really happened on Friday the 13th.

4. It’s rare to be born on Leap Day…but what about dying on Leap Day, too? 

According to the World Heritage Encyclopedia, in the 1800s, the British-born James Milne Wilson, who later became the eighth premier of Tasmania, “was born on a leap day and died on a leap day.” Wilson died on February 29th, 1880, on his “17th” birthday, or aged 68 in regular years.

5. What do Tony Robbins and Gioachino Rossini have in common?

They are both extremely successful in their respective fields—but more to the point, they were both born on February 29th. The odds of being born on February 29th are 1 in 1,461, which makes it particularly rare for one leapling, as they are called, to meet another.

Rarer still is the possibility that three children in the same family would be born on three consecutive Leap Days, but that’s exactly what happened with the Henriksen family of Norway. Heidi Henriksen was born on 2/29/1960, her brother Olav four years later on 2/29/64, and baby Leif-Martin four years after that on 2/29/68. According to many government agencies, the siblings would not legally be considered a year older until March 1st on non-leap years, but in 2020, we can officially say, “Happy Actual Birthday, leaplings!”

6. Only Swedes and Hobbits celebrate February 30th

February 30th? This even rarer date occurred in Sweden and Finland in 1712, when they added an extra Leap Day to February to help catch up their outdated Julian calendar with the new Gregorian calendar. There is, however, one race of people who celebrate February 30th every year: Hobbits. The wee folk of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings universe observe twelve 30-day months every year—including Solmath (translated in the text to February). That’s definitely one of the things you missed when reading Lord of the Rings for the first time.

7. There is an official Leap Day cocktail

And it’s called… the Leap Day Cocktail! This colourful cousin of the martini was invented by pioneering bartender Harry Craddock at London’s Savoy Hotel in 1928. According to the 1930 Savoy Cocktail Book, “It is said to have been responsible for more proposals than any other cocktail ever mixed” (see: Sadie Hawkins Day above). Whether or not you’re in the market for a freshly soused spouse, you can make your own Leap Day cocktail with Craddock’s original recipe:

• 1 dash lemon juice
• 2/3 gin
• 1/6 Grand Marnier
• 1/6 sweet vermouth

Shake, serve, garnish with a lemon peel, and enjoy the flood of bittersweet flavors. It’s like a marriage, in your mouth!

8. Not thirsty? Celebrate Leap Day with travel deals and a rare French magazine

How does one celebrate a holiday that’s not really a holiday? By shopping, obviously. Many businesses observe the rarity of Leap Day by offering massive deals. Take a minute to check in with any restaurants, hotels, or cruise lines you’ve been curious about; chances are, they have a promotion running. And if your travels take you to France, pick up a copy of the rare La Bougie du Sapeur, a French parody newspaper only published once every four years on Leap Day. Newsstand copies sell for four euro apiece, but generous investors can buy a lifetime subscription—only 100 euro per century.

9. Is February 29th good luck or bad luck? Depends on who you ask!

According to an old Scottish aphorism, “leap year was ne’er a good sheep year.” The superstition that Leap Days are particularly lucky or unlucky has been debated through history and across cultures, and there’s still no clear winner. For one thing, it’s bad luck if you’re a prisoner on a one-year sentence that spans a Leap Day. Also, bad news if you work on a fixed annual salary; no extra pay for that extra day. On the other hand, Leap Day is great luck if you’re on a fixed monthly rent (one free day of living!), or if you’re Hattie McDaniel, in which case February 29th, 1940 is the day you became the first African-American to win an Oscar, for your role as Mammy in Gone With the Wind.

Next, check out these debunked myths about daylight saving time.

On a crisp evening in April 2018, I sat at a candlelit table and ordered dinner and a glass of red wine for a party of one at a restaurant with outdoor seating in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. I was on a solo trip to experience the tulip season among other western European cities in spring. On one of my last nights before flying back to the United States, I had wanted to go out for dinner to celebrate the trip. Instead of staying inside wishing I had someone to dine with, I took myself out to enjoy my own company and enjoy the ambiance of dining along one of the famed Amsterdam canals.

How to find the confidence to do things alone

The first solo trip I went on was to Iceland in December 2015. I was alone in a new country where I didn’t speak the language, didn’t know anyone (yet still managed to run into a sorority sister by coincidence), and didn’t even know the Icelandic book-exchange tradition called “Jolabokaflod” or the “Christmas/Yule Book Flood.” On my first night in Reykjavik, I met three other solo travellers from the United States and from then on we continued our journey together.  Over time, I branched out of my comfort zone and explored new places and activities. I tried more adventurous things solo. I went to concerts, watched movies, and finally dined in restaurants alone. First in New York City, and then in different cities and countries around the world.

At first, dining alone can be intimidating

Dining alone is an inevitable part of the solo travel experience. In the beginning of my solo travels, I was overwhelmed with the thought of what other people would think of me, the woman sitting at a table alone with “no friends” and “no one to talk to.” When I first started dining alone in new cities, I was mortified at telling the hostess I was by myself. It’s one thing to dine alone in your own city, and another matter entirely when trying to order a meal in a place where I didn’t speak the language and wasn’t too familiar with the customs. (Read up on these etiquette rules about tipping.)

But dining alone doesn’t need to be embarrassing

I used to be embarrassed to sit at a table alone. I’d watch as hosts removed glasses and plate settings from the table. Instead of taking up my own space, I’d wonder which couple or family couldn’t be seated. I’d scroll through my phone, look through the menu half a dozen times, write in my journal, and read a book to avoid all the negative thoughts I’d had. However, as I worked through the discomfort and got to the root of the issue, I realized I was more concerned with what other people thought than what I thought of myself. In acknowledging these fears, what used to terrify me began to fade away. If I liked dining with other people, why couldn’t the same be true in dining in my own company?

Sometimes, I meet new people when dining alone

On my cross-country road trip over the summer, I went to a restaurant a friend had recommended in Denver. Once seated, I ordered pumpkin curry pasta at the bar. When a guy sat down to my right and we started talking about turmeric lattes, I thought about my home in New York City and how far away thousands of kilometres really felt. I realized that, much like travelling alone, when dining alone I didn’t need to be alone if I didn’t want to be. I’d met a cast of characters on my journeys—some I’d never heard from again and some I follow on Instagram. It can feel hard to meet people, but here are some helpful tips on how to make friends as an adult.

Learning how to enjoy being alone

Devoid of my own conversation, I’d listen to the conversations around me and observe what was happening in the restaurant: chairs scooting backward, the clink of cutlery, and the cacophony of voices reverberating about the room. I didn’t expect to chat and get to know waiters who took my order. Sometimes, we’d have full conversations about our lives and why we were where we were.

I like going out to eat with friends and family. However, there’s an interesting draw to eating a meal alone in a new place. Similarly, the more I do things alone, the more I want to do things alone. There’s an inner power in doing things alone. Like any skill, dining alone needs to be practiced in order to be refined. I’ve ordered steak pies and Scottish breakfasts, croissants and coffees, pastas and sandwiches, all for a party of one. I didn’t have the perfect dining experience the first time I ate at a restaurant alone. However, as time went on, my confidence grew. I began to understand that each dining experience was supposed to be different—just like each solo trip is meant to be different.

When I finally realized dining alone could be fun

One time at Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland a few months ago, I was exhausted from a day of exploring and went to a burger restaurant a friend had recommended. I walked inside and asked for a table for one. The back room was full of friends and large parties. Once seated, I didn’t feel the need to hide in my phone or journal. I didn’t feel like being immersed in a conversation. Instead, I took in the ambiance and allowed my thoughts to wander. I allowed myself to be present, and that was one of the greatest travel experiences of all.

Feed your wanderlust even more with these gorgeous travel photos.

The Carol Sing

Come December, you’d see the signs everywhere, taped to the steamed-up glass of Woody’s Bakery, bold-lettered on the door of Taylor Bros. Hardware, papering the windows of Diamond Jim’s Video, Jewelry, Used Books and Pellet Stoves. Come one, come all, proclaimed the posters tacked on telephone poles and storefronts. Come to the Community Carol Sing!

This was one of the nights when the whole town of Vanderhoof, B.C., gathered, a ritual on our municipal calendar, announced many weeks in advance on the front page of The Omineca Express-Bugle. And it would run alongside advertisements for “Midnight Madness,” Vanderhoof’s holiday spending spree, where all the stores stayed open until the stroke of 12, sidewalks bustled with people scrabbling for bargains, and Aunt Evelyn seemed always to be careening around a snowy corner in her van, hollering the hourly surprise specials—Co-op’s got butter for a dollar a pound!—to my mother, whose hand I gripped as we navigated the steady flow of shoppers.

Our town’s social life followed the rhythm of the seasons, each shift in weather signalling a reason to come together—the summer air show, the fall fair and rodeo, the greasy carnival that rolled into town every spring. In a town our size, small in population but sprawled out over kilometres, any event was cause enough to make the drive into the valley, to close the wide acres of pasture and forest that separated neighbours.

But the Community Carol Sing, our winter tradition, held a promise that set it apart from the other events. Every element—the darkness, the cold, the streets and buildings strung with lights—tilted the world away from the ordinary and toward the miraculous. From across the tracks and both sides of the frozen river, traffic rumbled over the roads and down into the valley, a northern caravan of exhaust fumes winding toward the local high school. Into the gym we tromped, hundreds of us in heavy coats and boots, snow melting into puddles where we trod. The gym that usually echoed with cheers, sneaker-squeak and the thud of a bouncing basketball now lay in darkness except for a few flickering overhead fluorescents and the blinking strings of coloured lights strung up along the walls, hoops and scoreboards.

As we bustled and climbed into the rolled-out bleachers, the crowd’s small-town small talk buzzed in the wide-open room—gruff discussion of the cold snap moving through, who bought the old Schultz farm off Braeside Road, whose dog bit whom and why and how, and what to do about the falling price of lumber.

Jammed shoulder to shoulder, our crowd was the town’s true cross-­section: loggers and cops, accountants and hairdressers, seniors from the care home and runny-nosed kids sweating in their snowsuits. In one huge room, the stoic Lutherans and turtlenecked Anglicans, the equally reproductive Mormons and Mennonites, the wild Pentecostals and rosaried Sisters of St. Joseph (“Don’t stare at the nuns,” my mother whispered)—we all came together, ready to sing.

I’d been raised in communal song, surrounded by the voices of the congregation at the evangelical Mennonite church. When I stood beside my mother in the pew, holding one corner of the heavy open hymnal and following her lead, the music enfolded me so that I became a swaddled thing within it. But gathering on Sunday for a church service and plodding through a hymn with the voices I knew well, many of them belonging to family, was different. To be one in a crowd of people who were familiar but still mysterious, to share a bleacher seat with the tall, curly-haired woman from the produce section at the Co-op grocery store, or to spot, one row up, the man with the goitre, that turnip-sized bulge on the side of his neck—to breathe alongside these almost-neighbours, almost-strangers made the occasion seem magical.

When the spotlight rose on the low podium, and the high-school band lifted their instruments, and when the music teacher raised his baton, we rose, too, as the opening bars of “Deck the Halls” drummed and trumpeted us in. And we sang, our voices surging at every fa-la-la, hushing into “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” then vaulting back up into “Jingle Bell Rock.” To the right, my first-grade teacher and her stern-browed husband. To my left, a row of fidgety cousins, an aunt, an uncle. And leaning in the doorway, some of the Stoney Creek men who stood on the corner by the Reo Theatre and sometimes called me Blondie when I passed. Together, we belted it out, one raucous choir breaking into four-part harmony whenever the choruses came around, then returning to the simple, unified melody of the verses.

The true high note of the evening always came near the end, when the town’s barber, John Zandbergen, made his way to the front. When the speakers swelled with the canned orchestral backing track, he leaned into the microphone and began to whistle.

What song he whistled, I don’t recall. But how he whistled—that was unlike anything I’d ever heard. His breath took the melody and flew it upward, lilting, spiralling as if on wings, a pirouette, a twirl, a whirling silver trill that rose and dipped like some strange bird sprung loose from its winter cage and freed into the sun. John Zandbergen—the town barber!—whistled that gymnasium into wonder. The nuns, the fussing babies, the mayor and his council, the truckers and trustees and housewives and ranchers—all of us. His hands fluttered at his face, trembling the tune, soaring it, unscrolling it, flying it lofty and alight, then winging it down to rest in a clear held note that faded into silence.

We rose to our feet. We clapped and clapped for this man, this ordinary human whose whistling made anything seem possible. If that song could rise from a man who daily razored the stubbled jawlines of cussing truck drivers, who buzz-cut every fidgeting farm boy in town and trimmed the wild eyebrows of old men, if by some strange miracle his song could rise like that, then so could anyone’s.

The Community Carol Sing closed with a final rousing stand-to-your-feet and sing-as-you-leave song. As we made our way back to the parking lot in a collective shuffling of boots through snow, more than one man, low beneath his breath, whistled as he walked to his pickup truck. The breath of all that whistling scrawled the air with a little rush of warmth, the winter night bending to the lowly tune beneath a sky heralding stars to guide us along the icy road for home.

Can you guess the world’s oldest Christmas carol?

Excerpted from Every Little Scrap and Wonder by Carla Funk. Copyright © 2019 Carla Funk. Published by Greystone Books. Reproduced by arrangement with the Publisher. All rights reserved.

One of the great travel etiquette questions ever considered has to be who gets the middle seat armrests on an airplane. The aisle and window seats have their pros and cons. The person sitting on the aisle has to get up from their seat every time someone in the row wants to stretch their legs or take a bathroom break. The passenger sitting in the window seat generally has control over the window shade—will we be sitting in darkness or light? But the unlucky person sitting in the middle has only one potential saving grace: two armrests. Or do they? Who actually has control over those two middle seat armrests on planes?

To expound further on the question, we messaged etiquette experts (some of whom are former flight attendants) and all independently came to the same unanimous conclusion: the person in the middle seat has control over both armrests. This may come as a shock to those who think middle armrests should be shared, but there’s a very good explanation. And it’s just another of those things you should know that your flight attendant probably won’t tell you.

“When sitting three across on a plane, the person in the middle has dominion over both armrests,” says Jodi R.R. Smith, president of Mannersmith Etiquette Consulting. “The person on the aisle has the benefit of being able to move freely and has stretching room into the aisle. The person at the window has the benefit of leaning against the window or being able to see the view, when there is something to see. Both the person on the aisle and the person on the window are only being potentially touched by one other person.  But the person in the middle is not able to easily move or stretch, nor is there anywhere to lean. Additionally, they are potentially being touched by two others. Therefore, they have control over the arm rests.”

“The poor person stuck in the middle seat deserves both armrests,” agrees Benét J. Wilson, the credit cards editor and travel writer for The Points Guy. “The window person has the fuselage and control of the shade. The aisle person has access and can put their leg out when the flight attendants aren’t serving.”

So if you’re on a flight and haven’t snagged the coveted window or aisle seats, are there any benefits to sitting in the middle seat? “The only benefit that I see is that you get to your destination just as quickly as the people on either side of you,” says Jacqueline Whitmore, founder and CEO, the Protocol School of Palm Beach. Whitmore was previously a flight attendant for Northwest Airlines. (So maybe she could tell you the reason why most airplane seats are blue).

However, should the person in the middle seat be given any additional room? “Each person needs to stay in their own space,” says Wilson. “The middle seat person gets the armrests, but nothing more.”

When travelling during peak holiday season, a window or an aisle seat may be hard to find. While sitting in the middle seat may not be appealing, it’s just a fact of life when you travel. As more people worldwide are taking flight, we should all make a commitment to being a bit more considerate to our fellow passengers.

“Being in a small, enclosed space is exactly where you need to employee your best manners. We need to all get along to get where we are going,” says Smith. There are many airplane etiquette rules travellers need to follow. “Being smelly, drunk, or entitled is not going to benefit anyone in the long run. You want to know, really know, someone? Travel with them. People’s true personalities emerge when they travel during the busy holiday season.”

Now that the case is closed regarding who gets the middle seat armrests on airplanes, what more can you do to be a good fellow passenger? Is there anything that can be done to help make the flight a good experience for everyone?

“Decide to be the polite passenger who helps others arrive at their destinations with a renewed faith in humanity.” says Smith. “Help others with their overhead luggage. Offer pieces of gum for take-off. Have a tissue at the ready for the person who sneezes,” she explains. “Allow the middle passenger the most space possible. Play peak-a-boo with the fussy baby. Chat up the person petrified of flying. Listen to the older person who is missing loved ones and just needs to feel heard.  Look the flight crew in the eye and say ‘thank you’ for spending their holidays with all of us instead of their families. Be the passenger we all hope to sit next to on our next flight.”

Next, find out 15 things you should never say to a flight attendant.

1. Hey there! You’ve roarched—

Roarched? Haha, nope! Oh man, that’s hilarious. “Roarched.” Okay. From the top!

2. Hey there! You’ve REACHED

Karen J. Holden, editor-in-chief of Houseboat Weekly. I’m either away from my… what’s the hard work surface?…DESK, ah, heck. Desk. Scrap this, start again! Ha! First-day nerves.

3. Aloha! You’ve—

No, Karen. Come on, that’s ridiculous. You’re not from Hawaii.

4. Did you know houseboat accidents

account for a whopping 0.8 per cent of all marine-based injuries? Hello, I didn’t see you there. This is Karen J. Holden, editor of—
Hmm. Maybe that’s too alarmist. Yeah, no, it is. Okay, for real this time. Let’s get this done.

5. Good morning! This is Karen J. Holden, editor of…

DAMN IT, KAREN. THE AFTERNOON EXISTS.

6. Yes. Hello. Yes. This. Is. Karen. Jade. Holden.

Editor. In. Chief. Of. Houseboat. Weekly. I. Am. Strong. And. Powerful. And. Formidable. And. Not. In. Any. Way. Terrified. Of. Houseboats.
Okay, just a quick fun one! Ha! Cathartic! Gotta start over, though.

7. Hello, yes, and thanks for your call.

This is Karen J. Holden, editor-in-chief of Houseboat Weekly, the only magazine that inexplicably showcases a different floating hell each w—HOME! A different floating HOME, I said HOME. A different floating home. Each week. That’s what I said. Ugh, fine. One more time. LAST TIME.

8. Hello, this is boat—

OH, COME ON, KAREN. PULL IT TOGETHER, PLEASE.

9. Hi! It’s Karen J. Holden, editor-in-chief of Houseboat Weekly.

Please leave a message and I’ll get back at you—
Oh no, that’s not what I meant at all. Yikes. All right. LAST TIME.

10. I am Karen. I am Karen. I am Karen.

I am calm and centred and professional and I am NOT haunted by dark, sinister waves lapping against violently outdated wood panelling. NOR am I consumed by the ongoing vivid nightmare of feeling your permanent living space lilting back and forth for all eternity as the very concept of solid ground is stolen from you forever and your well-being suffers irreparably. WAIT, I DIDN’T REALIZE THAT IT WAS ALREADY RECORDING. STOP IT. STOP RECORDING.

11. Hello and thanks for your call!

Karen J. Holden here, editor-in-chief of Houseboat Weekly, a family-owned and very reluctantly inherited magazine catering to the nautical-recreation community since way back in 1952. Wait, WHOOPS, wait, may have overshared juuuust a little—

12. Hello. There. You’ve. Reached. The. Voicemail. Of. Doctor. Kare—

DOCTOR?! Since when? Girl, it’s a miracle you even staggered to the end of undergrad.

13. Hi! You’ve reached the voicemail of Karen J. Holden, editor-in-chief of Houseboat Weekly magazine.

I’m either on the phone or far away from my original career goals.
DESK. I meant “desk.” I’m away from my desk. I. Am. Away. From. My. Desk.

14. Hi, this is Houseboat Weekly editor Karen J. Holden.

I’m not available to take your call, but please do leave a message and I shall return your call at my earliest convenience.
…
…
…Nah, they’ll figure out pretty soon that I’m not British and then it’ll be weird at work.

Need more laughs? Check out the funniest Reader’s Digest jokes of all time.

When is it too cold for a dog to go outside?

“It heavily depends on the dog breed as size, coat thickness and colour, age and other factors but in general, when the temperature hits below seven degrees Celsius, most dogs start to feel the cold,” says Dr. Gary Richter, a veterinary health expert with Rover. However, he says when it goes below zero degrees Celsius is when they can actually start to get hurt from the cold.

In many parts of the world, the temperature remains below zero degrees for multiple months at a time. Since dogs obviously can’t be cooped up inside all day during the winter season, the most important thing to remember is to pay attention to your dog when you take them out. They will typically let you know if they are uncomfortable.

The actual temperature is really just part of the equation. You also have to take into account wind chill, dampness, and cloud cover, says Dr. Richter. The windier, wetter, and darker it is outside, the colder it is going to feel.

What dogs are comfortable in the snow and what dogs can’t stand it?

“Thinner dogs tend to get colder quicker than larger dogs as body fat is a good insulator,” says Dr. Richter. The thickness and colour of their coat can also play into how quickly they’ll get cold. A dog with a thick coat like a Husky will be able to stay out in the cold for much longer than a dog with a very thin coat, such as a Greyhound. Also, if dogs have a darker coat, such as a Bernese Mountain Dog, they’ll remain warm on sunny days since their coat will absorb heat from the sunlight. (Don’t miss our countdown of the smartest dog breeds.)

How long should dogs be outside for when it is cold?

“Dogs can go outside for 15 to 20 minutes at below-freezing temperatures to use the bathroom and play,” says Sara Ochoa, DVM. She reiterates that you should keep a close eye on your dog while you’re outside to make sure that they’re not showing any signs of discomfort. If dogs are outside for too long they can have trouble regulating their body temperature and freeze.

What signs does a dog give when they are cold?

If you see that your dog is shivering, acting anxious, whining, slowing down, searching out warm locations, or holding up one or more paws you need to start to head inside. Dogs have similar traits to humans when they want to get out of the cold. (Discover why dogs stick their heads out of car windows.)

What happens to a dog’s health if they are outside in dangerously cold temperatures for too long?

“If the temperature drops to -6 degrees Celsius, dogs could potentially develop cold-associated health issues like hypothermia and frostbite but it’s not very common,” says Dr. Richter.

Another health hazard you need to watch out for in the winter is the salt that is used to de-ice roads and walkways. It can cause your dog’s paw pads to peel off, leaving a layer of fresh, sensitive skin exposed which can be painful to walk on. Make sure to wash your dog’s feet with warm water when they return indoors.

You should also steer your dog clear of icy areas because they can fall and hurt themselves just like humans, especially older dogs that may not be able to react as fast.

How can you protect your dog from the cold?

If your dog isn’t a breed that can withstand the cold well, getting them a coat can be helpful. Make sure that the coat is snug but still allows your dog to have a full range of motion. If you’re in a damp climate or need to take your dog out in the snow, make sure that the coat is waterproof to keep their fur from getting wet.

Here are the best dogs for apartments and other small spaces.