hello to Rick Mercer, farewell to Matthew

Oh my beautiful, relatively dust-free, relatively clutter-free home. In fact, it's pretty dusty and it's crowded with clutter, but it's my dust and my clutter and I love it.

Okay, important things first: poor Matthew in "Downton" - "Off with his head!" The actor was crazy to bail on this wonderful series - the actress who played Sybil too. Think of Rob Lowe leaving "West Wing" in its prime and never finding anything else as good. I read a fascinating interview with the writer Julian Fellowes about how he decided to kill the two characters. Yes, writers are godlike, but this is ridiculous. Anyway, a delicious end, can't wait for next January. As I said to Jean-Marc and Richard when they came in for our viewing party, "Welcome to Sackville Abbey, gentlemen. Anna, bring tea."

Unfortunately, the servants have taken the decade off. Maybe the century.

One of Maggie's best LOL lines: "That's the thing about nature - there's always so much of it."

Speaking of people with funny lines, I sat on the Porter flight back from Ottawa right across the aisle from the witty and ascerbic Rick Mercer. I couldn't stop myself - apologized for disturbing his privacy, but had to tell him that I've been a fan since Codco and his one-man show. "When I saw that fantastic show," I told him, "I knew you'd go far."
"That was twenty years ago," he said. "I wouldn't have the guts to do that now."
"Please, for all our sakes," I said, "keep skewering the prime minister."

Rick, like all media personalities, is shorter in person than on the screen; he's solid and shaggy, like a very small buffalo. A polite but restrained receiver of fandom. I wanted to tell him that I'd appreciate him almost as much as Jon Stewart if he'd do less goofy stunt stuff, fun as it is, and more political satire, but didn't. I'm sure he would not have appreciated my critique, but also, it isn't true. Good as Mercer is, no one can touch my Jon.

Family Day today, spent with the cat. Well, she's family, and in any case, there's been just a bit too much family in my life this last while. And more to come; my ex-husband is coming in on the weekend to see his children and grandson, spending three days in my basement suite, which was just vacated because the pretty young tenant's boyfriend proposed to her at Casa Loma in January, and she left to get married. There will be a lot of family time; it's a treat that we all enjoy each others' company so much, 22 years after the divorce. So, it was good on this Family Day to enjoy a bit of solitude.

Speaking of all that, I liked this quote from the "Globe" on Valentine's Day: "There is no holiday celebrating friendship, but only since the mid-19th century has romance been elevated above other types of love," writes Simon May, author of 'Love: A History.' "For most ancient Greeks, for example, friendship was every bit as passionate and valuable as romantic-sexual love. Aristotle regarded friendship as a lifetime commitment to mutual welfare, in which two people become 'second selves' to each other.

Today friendship has been demoted beneath the idea of romance, but they should be on equal footing."

I'm with Aristotle.

Finally, most importantly of all and speaking of a love that's passionate and valuable: Booboo gets home tonight, and I'm going over to see him tomorrow. He has been in Saskatchewan with his mother for two whole weeks, and now has three new teeth and can skate and speak fluent French. Well, almost.