Flipping

I don't have much to report today, but I have decided not to let that stop me.

Danica had a wee scare driving our car home from her exam yesterday on the expressway. Some object or other knocked the car from below, causing Danica to fear a tire problem. Thankfully that wasn't the case. She will be off again to another exam this evening. We'll have the car for our use tomorrow, but she will sit one more exam: her final one for her first year of university, on Thursday night.

It was raining in the morning, so I played some more with crocus photos. The second one is a duplication plus a flip of the first with a border added. I see wolf's head just below the centre line in the flip. 

We did get out for a shamble in the afternoon when it cleared up. Believe it or not, the temperature was mild (17C) so we overdressed and were too hot. Go figure. It's certainly bit awhile since we were hot on a walk.

Although we passed a few more pathetic crocuses, I didn't stop to take photos. If I see a nice cluster in the future, I might still grab another photo, but I may be done.

Our New Looks

We did a little running around yesterday to ready us for Danica using our car for much of this week. After shopping and visiting the poor. little crocuses, we stopped for our traditional car-coffee break. As usual, we took a selfie. It's good to keep taking them to record the changes in our appearances as we keep on aging. 

The face paint app doesn't work as well with sunglasses.

I have been trying icm (intentional camera movement) with the phone as well as long exposures, but I am not having much success, so here is a new, regular crocus photo. The crocuses have been sparse this year and/or furled and/or withered due to the miserable weather, but I have kept trying.

I have posted the following two crocus photos previously, but I re-edited them to try to make them more interesting.

It is grey and rainy today, so we probably won't even get out for a walk.

Caufield and Carney

Sue is usually in bed when I watch my hockey games, or at least she is for the part that goes beyond 9pm.

Being a considerate sort of fellow, I keep the noise down. When a dramatic last-minute goal seals the win for my Montreal Canadiens, I have been known to simply pimp my fists and issue a silent scream.

But I yelled and whistled on Thursday night, when Cole Caufield, scored his 50 the goal of the season. No Montreal player had accomplished this feat in 36 years, and only 6 others Canadien payers have scored 50 goals in their 117 illustrious years.

There aren't many 5'7" players who can survive in the extremely rugged NHL, but Caufield has thrived after being passed over by 14 teams in his draft despite setting goal-scoring records in college. Good for him.

Noteworthy on that historic evening was our prime minister, Mark Carney, in the stands. And he was, indeed, in the stands and not hidden in a luxury box enclosure. Although a couple of seats around him remained empty, he seemed to be sitting amongst ordinary people and not surrounded by twenty secret service agents.

As a tallish sorta guy, I am happy to report that I was able to respect and admire two diminutive but stalwart men in one single evening.

Missing

This was to have been the day of visiting with C2 (child 2) for the first time in almost three years.

PJ lives in Vancouver, so we don't see them often, but they booked their flight, and we were to spend the weekend together, today being the main day to visit, with yesterday being the night flight in and tomorrow being the evening flight out.

But they totally wrecked their back and, therefore, are in considerable distress. You can't navigate to an airport and then sit in it in that condition, never mind sitting in an airplane for a long time, twice within three days, especially when you have trouble sitting for more than a few minutes at home.

Thus, we wait a little longer before seeing C2 again.

PJ is 47. Oddly enough, I had my major back attack at the age of 47. I was off work for two months, and I could barely sit at the table long enough to scarf a meal. Let's hope that C2 fares better, but they are having a very rough time at present.

I leave you with two more photos that I think I have posted within the last year. As it happens, they were both taken at the family cottage in the early 80s.

Broken

A most unfortunate accident occurred this week.

Jonathan got into an accident, and the kid's car was a write-off due to its age and value. But it was valuable to the kids, especially to Danica who relied on it to get her to university this year. 

Fortunately, her classes are finished for the year. With only three exams left, she can borrow our car. 

In time, she can plan for next year.

The car has been so important for her this year, so it is quite a loss, practically and emotionally. Living outside of a city almost necessitates having a car, but there are cars in the family, and I am here to give her rides to work, when necessary, as I do with Jonathan.

She said yesterday when I dropped her off that she felt like she was about to have to chop vegetables all, for that was her first job. I would pick her up at about 6 on a Sunday morning to take her to her job in the salad bar at the grocery store.

I sent her this quote this morning after reading it in another blog. Maybe it will help her from being too distraught, but it is quite a loss for the poor kid.

at the time.

Post-Easter Squall

Easter did not change the weather. On Monday morning, we awoke to a skiff of snow along with cold and wind. Yesterday was even worse with more than a skiff but not a huge dumping, thank goodness. I took a shot from the front window just to share my misery with y'all. Thanks for your concern.

Then I took another, but we've put the screens back on the windows after opening them for three minutes when the weather was nice-ish one day. As I was pressing the shutter, the phone switched its focus to the screening, and I think it's kinda neato.

Somewhat stupidly, we later attempted a decidedly miserable walk on a snow-obscured sidewalk and in a fierce wind. When we got back to the house, I took a photo of three tulip buds sticking out of the snow. Several other clusters were buried completely, but they shall make themselves visible again soon. 

They were dark in the overcast light, but I brightened them in post.

On the previous day, our local walk led us to the back of a private garden that backs onto the park. There we found (you guessed it) more crocuses. There is a bit more variety of colours in this flowerbed than in the two other primary locations that we gravitate to.

On the same day, when we walked past the recently-thawed pond, I was pleased to see two geese swimming by.

Surprisingly enough, the goose photo looks very good when it fills my monitor, for I cropped it at monitor dimensions, which is 16:9. I think you have to trust me that it looks good displayed large like that because we wouldn't know it from what we see here. :)

Inside Baines

I have shown this building a few times in passing although it has often been from farther away. At other times only parts of it may have appeared in photos.

I cannot find confirmation again now, but I am fairly certain that it was once Baines Machine Shop or machine something. It has sat pretty idle in our 20+ years here. Most first-floor windows are boarded up, and many of those on the second floor are broken. We have seen birds and squirrels going in and out.

Having concluded that the building was being left unused to continue dilapidating, we were quite surprised to see a truck at the door. Four men were loading tables and chairs from the building into the truck. In conversation, we learned, surprisingly, that the items were going to a restaurant in Ottawa.

The very nice men granted us permission to go inside, and this is what we saw: just random items of no historical value except for the structure itself. 

I like the distortion in the phone pano.

We were advised that it would be best not to go upstairs which was said to be very grungy and dirty. It would have been nice to have a look, but it was great to see to see what we did see.

I don't think too many townies have seen inside in the last few decades, so we'll take this as a win.

Addendum: Sus has since put together a composite which reveals the whole story, including the truck.