The Night that Was

This was not going to be a bloggy day. I didn't have a topic or anecdote in mind, and I was okay with that. Although I post frequently, I have never committed to being a daily poster. However, as I was doing my daily puzzles and whatnot on my tablet, I thought that I simply must post about last night.

Whenever I got to sleep, possibly 11:30-ish, I awoke at 1 o'clock to go. . .  well . . . you know where.

As I returned to my chair in my still sleepy state, even I couldn't help but notice the lightning. I was seeing flash after flash to the point where it never went dark between flashes. There was nothing to do about it, so I rolled over.

There was a loud noise: a noise I interpreted at the time to be a sudden power outage that caused my surge protector to stop and restart immediately.

I was wrong about the noise, which turned out to have been an Emergency Alert on our phones. At this point I am a little foggy about the following sequence of events, but I shall do my best.

I felt a beep from my watch, which I do usually wear to bed because of my Sleepwatch app. But who can read a text message on a tiny watchface through bleary, sleep-shot eyes? I could see that it was an Alert of some kind, but once again, I decided to try to go back to sleep. As you know, sleep is an issue in my life, so I like to hold on to it when I can.

Sue burst into the den with tablet and phone in hand and going on about a tornado warning and heading to the basement. That's about all that I heard because I was sans hearing aids, and she was more or less talking in her normal but rapid voice, or at least not amplifying enough.

I think I growled something about not going to the basement and, once again, I made an effort to get back to sleep. My mind, however, was finally beginning to kick into gear. Beginning.

I realized that I should read the Alert, so I grabbed my phone and, through squinting eyes, read that there was indeed a tornado warning with the advice to head to the basement.

Meanwhile, the lightning was ongoing. It was quite something.

Whether I heeded the warning immediately or whether it took another minute or two, I can't be sure, but I soon concluded that I should, perhaps, be taking this seriously.

It was a hot night, so I was just in my loin cloth, as it were, and under a thin sheet to at least give me some cover from the overhead fan. But it was a little cooler by then, so I dressed myself in a tee and pyjama-type pants.

Sue came back into my room, once again with tablet and phone in hand.

We gazed out the back window. We gazed out the front window. The lightning was becoming less frequent. The peak of danger seemed to be past.

I went to bed, our shared bed this time, and managed to go to sleep until sometime after 5, close to 6, I think. I then brewed a coffee, played some games, and read some blogs. I brewed another cup of coffee.

Eventually, Sue staggered into my den, and I do mean staggered. The lady was not in a good state of being. She'd had a terrible night with the thunder and howling wind keeping her up. If that wasn't enough, she then developed  one of those recurring pains in her wrist, the kind of pains that pretty well make sleep impossible.

One of the very meagre advantages of being very hard of hearing is that the thunder and winds had been much softer on my brain, and so I had slept at least for some hours.

This morning, FB posts reveal that we were, indeed, in the absolute heart of the tornado warning. There may have been a touchdown or near touchdown on a local street with trees being downed, cars being damaged, and power being lost. But I think that is all although I am sure that it was enough for those who were affected.

And that, dear blog and bloggers, was the night that was.

Friends of the Cane

We drove into the city to drop off the dodgy monitor. At the store, everyone ahead of us seemed to be having major issues, so we spent what seemed like a long time in line before we could explain our predicament. At least it felt like a long time to my aching back. Once we got to the head of the line, we were met by the fellow who sold us the monitor in the first place.  

He plugged it in, and it worked fine. Of course it did. After much discussion, they accepted it and did the paperwork to send it away. Who knows what will happen next.

From there, it was off to lunch before hitting the Outlet mall. Frequenting malls, especially big ones, is not the kind of thing we do, but Sue’s feet have difficulty with shoes, and there seemed to be shoe outlets aplenty there. We hit the first shoe store, but happiness was not to be found. We both did better in the second store: Sketchers. 

That’s the setup: now to meet the brothers of the cane.

I habitually avoid taking my cane into stores because I have an annoying tendency of leaving it behind., but there was walking to be done in this mall, so I brought it along. 

After we did our browsing and trying on of shoes, I heard another nearby senior muttering something about forgetting his cane in another aisle, so off he went to retrieve it. When he returned, we engaged in conversation. His name is Garry. with two r’s he wanted me to know. Eventually, Sue, ever the observant one, noticed that in addition to each of us porting canes, we were dressed, at least partly, in red and black. Sue, being Sue, bless her, took a picture.

Garry commented on my shoes. He said, being ex-army, he couldn’t be seen wearing shoes like that. I will just leave that with you for the moment and continue with the anecdote.

Once Sue settled on her acquisitions and I on mine, we made our way to the checkout. Garry was ahead of us amd just finishing checking out. He began to walk away from the counter, but I quickly notified him that he was once again forgetting his cane.  How observant of me! On this occasion, I am proud to say that I never forgot mine on this outing. What a clever boy am I.

We met Garry and wifey again outside. There was more talk, and somehow it came to pass that I was to post the photo on FB. Sue gave him my business card, so he could find me online. (I have no business, but I do have a card. Sue carries a few copies around with her own non-business, business card for occasions such as this.)

I don’t post to FB much, but it had been determined that I would post this photo, and I so have done. But I am more keen to tell you the story here on the blogs. Which I have now also done. However, in conclusion, I will also add that Garry found my FB post and commented on my shoes once again, writing that he should also have a pair for the next time we meet,

10:10

Yesterday afternoon, I dropped into Service Ontario to renew both my driver’s licence and my health card. I had received a notice by mail that my licence needed to be renewed. I somehow already known about the health card without being notified. Perhaps they hadn’t alerted me yet because it is still good until September. There was fee attached to the licence renewal, but the health card would be free although it is almost worth its wright in gold because it gives me access to free health care.

There was a small line in the little storefront facility, but the transactions ahead of me were taking forever, so I stood and stood, but my own session wouldn’t take long because I had brought the forms with me after filling them in at home.

But first I broke the camera. Well, not quite, but the camera wasn’t liking me and the photos weren’t turning out. She told me to move back after several failures. My body brushed the screen behind me which the notice said not to do, so I inched back forward. More camera clicks but still no joy.

Almost in despair, she told me to move to the . . . Then she had to stop and figure out whether it would be my right or hers. It’s was to my right, so I shuffled over.

“No, not that far. Move back a little.“

So, I did, and we finally achieved a result.

Then, and this was really to be the point of the post, but I do go on and on, I was asked to draw a clock.

She shoved a form toward me, one that had some information at the top. She pointed to the space at the bottom of the paper. “Make a circle in this space. Fill in all of the numbers of the clock. Show the time to be 10 minutes after 10 o’clock.”

The request surprised me. I know they do this test for octogenarians, but I am two years short of that wondrous milestone.

I made a very imperfect circle, filled in the numbers not terribly evenly, and drew a little hour hand to near the 10, trying to get it a little past the number to show some movement of time since the hour. Then, now get this, I drew the long minute hand also to the 10. 

I began to slide the paper toward her but snatched it back in the nick of time, for I realized that I had marked 10 to 10 and not 10 after 10 as requested. I quickly scratched out the erroneous minute hand, drew it correctly toward 2. It was a mess, I tell you, but at least it was a corrected mess.

To think that I almost failed to draw a flipping clock.

I am not a very precise person, and I make many daft errors like this on a somewhat regular basis. Thank goodness, I caught this one in time.

Wisdom is an Albatross

I know that I am late, but today is World Albatross Day, and this is an albatross named Wisdom.

Wisdom and chick in 2011

Her barely visible band was applied way back in 1956, so Wisdom is at least 70 years old. She was she was still incubating eggs as late as 2024, and was last seen in February 2025. 

The USGS has tracked Wisdom since she was first tagged and estimated that Wisdom has flown over 3,000,000 miles (4,800,000 km) since 1956 (approximately 120 times the circumference of the Earth). To accommodate her longevity, the USGS has replaced her tag a total of six times

. . . Albatrosses lay one egg per year, and usually have monogamous mates for life. Smithsonian speculated that, due to Wisdom’s unusual longevity, she has had to find several successive mates in order to continue breeding. Biologists estimated that Wisdom has laid some 30–40 eggs in her lifetime and that she has at least 30–36 chicks.

 This is identified as her chick, spotted in this February (2025), but, apparently, that is her mate in the video.

Heat and Photo Processing

Today we celebrate the solstice and the commencement of  astronomical summer. We had to beat the rush, however, by turning on the AC – the other AC 😜 yesterday –  with temperatures creeping into the 80s, humid 80s, I hasten to add. It will be even hotter on Sunday and early next week. The other news, now that summer has officially arrived, is that the daylight hours will now get shorter..

Meanwhile . . . 

Sometimes, I am able to do something in post that will assist Sue with her photos: not often, but sometimes. This playground train is an example.

On that day, Sue was prompted to photograph a train, but the theme for the week was also blue. Unfortunately, the train was red, but I managed to change the colour in Photoshop. I was also able to replace the dull sky with one with a bluer one.

On another day that continued the blue theme, she was also asked to photograph steam. She had Shauna bring over her kettle, which, you are about to see, lights up in blue when it boils.

It was a tricky photo to set up because it needed backlight to highlight the steam, but that threw off the rest of the photo. In the end, Sue hid the light under black construction paper as best she could. I didn't do much in edit except to thicken and highlight the steam just a little bit more to help make it more visible.

Sometimes, I play around with my own photos, doing this and that to see what will happen. This is another version of an iris photo that I showed you last week. I extracted the flower and played with adding a new background.

Finally for today, I repeat the photo of Sue's grandfather that I showed recently in another post.

I took it with a flash many decades ago, but the flash left a very large and dark shadow on the right side. after some fiddling and faddling, I managed to remove the black shadow, but that left a hole in the background, so I replaced the background completely. By trial and error I managed to come up with an acceptable photo. 

For me that is often the purpose and fun of Photoshop — to improve a poor image to an acceptable quality. Of course, the best way would be to get the photo right to begin with,in camera, but that is often not possible. I do find some satisfaction in occasionally being able to bring a problematic photo up to the level of acceptability.

Peonies In the Garden

At the museum on Father's Day morn, I found peonies here and there in various stages of blossoming, and, of course, I took photos accordingly. Other than that, there is not much more to tell except to say that when I show my photos, it is because they are part of my daily life, but I do not necessarily consider them exemplary. Having said that, i rather like the second and third images  

I lke the composition of the next and final photo, but I should have brought back just a bit more light onto the flower. 

Compact and Spry

He came into my cubicle and told me that it was time to move me to the operating room. Nice guy and a very competent orderly, wheeling me through the narrow doorways and corridors, also taking care to assure me that all would be well.

After recovery whilst in the discharge process with my two ladies, we were receiving instructions about what to do next at home. The same orderly walked past us pushing another gurney.

When he was well past us, the nurse quietly confided to us that the man was 75 years old.

Seventy-five and in the finest of health, conveying usually younger patients (not me) hither, thither and yon.

I reflected that in my lifetime I had encountered two other older fellas who were, shall we say, of compact stature but were spry beyond their years.

Sue's grandfather was one such person. In 1971, we moved our belongings to another city on one of those steamy hot, summer days — one of the hottest days ever in point of fact. Our team consisted of Sue and me, in our early twenties, Sue's 28-year-old brother, Sue’s 40-something father, and her 70-something grandfather. Temperatures soared to 100 degrees as we carried  our belongings in the hot sun past the hot, bricked units to the seemingly distant centre of the townhouse complex where we would abide for my first years of teaching..

We four younger ones were all flagging in the heat but not grandpa. He just kept going back and forth and forth and back, carrying this box and that box. When we stopped to rest and replenish our dwindling resources, grandpa just kept going and going.

You guessed it; he was a compact and spry guy and fitter than us young-uns.

I also recalled one more encounter with another older man of similar compact stature. 

We were visiting Canyon de Chelly in Arizona, our fourth and final stop before motoring back to Phoenix and flying home. As we drove into the parking lot, a younger couple (we were in our fifties) that we had met at Monument Valley were there and just about to embark on a desert tour with a Navajo guide. Sue readily agreed to join them, thinking that we were about to take a jaunty jeep ride as we had done at Monument Valley. She was quite taken aback to discover that we would be hiking through the desert.

We descended the very steep steps into the canyon and staggered into the hot desert following our compact and spry elderly guide. He required no water as we walked along and no food as we stopped for a shared lunch with our fellow touristy hikers.

Like Sue's grandfather and my hospital orderly, our guide was one of those older guys who still exuded energy and stamina in his compact and spry body.

Grandad, by the way, lived to be 105 years old. In one of the oddities of life, he was buried beside his brother who died at the age of 2. Genetics are a crapshoot.