The Amazing Sue and the Amazing Afghan

Somewhat as a joke, Shauna showed Sue a wonderful but difficult afghan pattern that she would like ... in her dreams as it were. This was before Christmas, sometime in early November, I guess.

Sue took up the challenge and put a lot of work into it for almost three months.

Last night, she gave the finished product to Shauna, which was sooner than she had thought it would be ready.

Maybe I will be able to persuade Sue to do a guest blog sometime about how in the world she made this masterpiece, but in the meantime, I can show you a few pictures.

Isn't it spectacular?!

A Comical Murder Mystery

Our local theatre troupe, the Mississippi Mudds presented a murder mystery dinner theatre this weekend. You can see the theme, above: A Comi-Cal Murder.

As you will see below, the characters were a blend of Star Trek, Comic Book Superheroes, with a touch of Doctor Who.

I hauled my body out of the house just long enough to catch one fairly brief segment. I chose to shot from the balcony, but due to the noise of the floorboards, they restricted me to one stationary spot. However, I was able to see everything quite well and managed a few shots. They then broke for the main dinner course, and I headed home. Even though there were two more segments to go, I had had a chance to shoot all of the characters.

After my recent inactivity, I felt that I finally accomplished something, and I'll share a few shots with you.

AC Tries Religion

When I was recently afflicted, I found two positions that offered some relief. I began to think of one as the Catholic cure and the other as the Baptist cure.

This ↓ is me participating in my Catholic ritual.

Yes, this is where Sue often found me for about 4 days. One day, she was moved to take this photo. Don't I look pathetic?

Down on my knees like that in a most uncomfortable position, the cure engendered almost as much suffering as the malady. But it did serve to temporarily relieve the most odious of complaints at the time.

And keeping with the Catholic theme, I still bear the stigmata, as it were, a whole week later.

So the treatment worked as such, but it left me with its own version of pain. Very Catholic in my mind (no disrespect intended — just sayin).

For me, the Baptist solution was more efficacious without the residual discomfort.

To wit: I would take a bath. Did I say A bath? Well, I meant 6 baths. Per day. For 4 days. Baths as hot as I could make them.

But the relief! A bath would relieve the pain for an hour: sometimes less, sometimes more. And then I would ride out the buildup for a few more hours before I felt forced to immerse myself in almost scalding water once again.

I must say that the Baptist treatment offered more relief for longer at less cost and no stigmata. Not that I'm exactly a convert in the larger sense.

You are probably not too very sorry that I can't produce a photo of me receiving one of my many baptisms. I know I'm not either.

Time to Sing

After posting quite a lot throughout much of December and January, you may not have noticed my recent absence, but there has been one for just over a week. In point of fact, even my last two posts only made it online because were pre-posted, and I sure haven't been commenting.

I'd best not get into a blow-by-blow account, but I will share a few photos, which, I know, is terribly unique.

In our shopworn and somewhat dilapidated ER waiting room, it was pleasant to notice that a few people had made an effort to cheer up the place by painting some ceiling tiles.

Kind of a nice touch, eh?

But when I spent a few hours in a care room, mostly receiving from IV hydration ...

... this is what I saw right above my head.

A sort of creepy picture of a beady-eyed dove, which looked more like a vengeful crow, making it's way to heaven (I guess).

Now, I don't know about you, but I didn't find a beady-eyed bird indicating a passage to eternity to be exactly soul-lifting. Shudder,

Now that my mini crisis is fading into the mists, it seems appropriate to post this half-page from my SiL's journal.

"Life is a shipwreck, but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats." (Voltaire)

Thankfully, I am humming again, and that's close enough.

Some of the other quotes.

“The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which to burn.” (David Russell)

"We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope."  (Martin Luther King, Jr.)

"Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence."  (Vince Lombardi

"The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud." (Coco Chanel)

It also seems an appropriate thought for this rather grim political day in the USA. Everybody sing now. Come on, louder. Put yer 'arts into it, me mateys.

(Please forgive me for not commenting very much for a few more days.)

Whiskey and Wickedness

We attended a lecture (presentation) at the Carleton Place and Beckwith Museum this week. The topic was what you see in the title: Whiskey and Wickedness.

This event concerning our past was considered to be part of the our town's Canada 150 celebrations. Our young country is 150 years old this year, and there will be events and celebrations in all sorts of corners of the land.

Larry Cotton, the presenter, has written many volumes of this title, Whiskey and Wickedness, many about the days of whiskey and certain other beverages in the pioneer days of Eastern Ontario, The latest of his series features Carleton Place and places close by.

He explained how this region was settled, at least partly,  by retired soldiers, mainly of Irish and Scottish extraction. After the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812 with America, Britain had thousands of vets that it had to deal with. It also had the need to populate this region to keep it under firm British control. So, soldiers were offered a pension and land to settle in these parts.

Part of the pension consisted of being allocated 5 vouchers per day to ... um ... keep up their spirits as it were. And since they were Scots and Irish, two drinking cultures,  to begin with, alcohol played a large part in the fabric of early settlements. Because of the need for water combined with the quick spoilage of their products, beer had to be manufactured locally, so breweries especially were often combined with pubs and more than one to a village.

The meeting concluded with a presentation by a new to Carleton Place, local brewery, Stalwart Brewing Co., which served samples, much to the delight of many.

Paul Cotton

Stalwart Brewing Company

Larry Cotton's Website

Stalwart Brewing Company Website

The Third Stop

I know that I'm sort of cheating by using about an hour's worth of photography into three separate posts, but c'mon man, it's January. If January in Canada isn't an excuse for just about anything, then I don't know what it. And just wait until February when cabin fever really seeps into the soul.

Anyway, after I jumped off left the bridge in the previous post, I got into the car and headed the relatively short distance to the park. The eastern end looked like this.

The keen-sighted amongst y'all may see that there is no path along the path as it were, so AC, being a chicken-liver at heart went back to the car and drove to the west end.

There really wasn't much doing there either, but I did take one by the ramp where cars load or unload their boats into the water — not just now of course.

So, I turned around where there is an old, original log house on the other side of the road. But this time, I didn't shoot the house but the adjacent shack. What really drew me was the satellite dish by the shack.

Nice enough light there, but I decided to have a look in mono, and I like that too. It's got a very different vibe, but I still like it.

And that, ladies and germs, is how you get three blog posts for the price of one. Now what?

From the Bridge

From the park (previous post) I headed over to the bridge. These boathouses and their reflections are almost always of some interest.

From the other side of the bridge, I took one more shot of the Boulton Brown Mill, which seems to demand a shot every time. This time, I caught an ice floe going by, which made it a bit different.

I walked across the bridge (from where I had parked and begun) to the northwest side where I took this photo of the birdge, townhall and the former Paterson and Sons Funeral Home and Furniture Store.

I also turned around a took this shot looking back upriver. I was quite surprised to see all of those leaves clinging onto the young oak tree.

Upon heading back to the car, I chanced to notice the moon over townhall. I tried to get the moon centered over the flag pole. I didn't quite manage in camera, so I moved it and enlarged it a bit in post. What I did right in camera was to underexpose the shot to keep detail in the moon. I also envisaged it as a black and white shot from the getgo, and I think it worked out pretty well.

After I got back to the car, I headed to Riverside Park. But that's for another post.

From a Snowy Park

Saturday dawned with a coldness, but when it is sunny and calm, it doesn't seem too daunting. So, with Sue out with Sha for the afternoon, I decided to take the camera out.

I first headed to a little park off Bell Street. It probably has a name, but it's not on Google Maps, so I can't tell you any more right now. What it does have is a view of townhall which is different, so I thought I would have a look.

Getting to the river side was a bit of a trick, though. I had to climb a snowbank to get into the park, and then I had to slog through unbroken snow, which was surprisingly deep in spots — like up to mid-calf deep or maybe more. This photo doesn't quite tell the story, but I took it for the fence line and shadows.

Directly across the river, the trees in front of the former Boulton Brown Mill (now condos) were covered with ice from the spray of the water, some of it coming from the remnants of a damn.

Since I went there with the intention to photographing the town hall, here are the two the I guess I like best.ou can see the old damn on the left.

Then I moved to the other side of the tree, and I think I managed a somewhat better photo although sometimes you just get out and enjoy yourself but no shot is terrific. Whatever the case, itis the shot that I like best from this excursion.

Actually, this wasn't the end of my excursion as I next went to the bridge that you can see in the background. But that can be for another post.

New Years Eve

This post is a record for the folk who were there. The rest of you should feel free to just roll your eyes and move on.  😁

First a bunch of photos (and I do mean a bunch) followed by two video clips, the first of which is a game and the second the countdown and welcoming.

Now for the clips. First the Unwrapping Game, followed by the Countdown and Welcoming.