Two Walkies

We're still getting our walks in early in the day — at least early for us. In cooler weather, we tend to walk before noon, but it's been getting very hot lately, so we try to walk early. It went up to 33C/91F here on Saturday, and since it's is always a humid heat, we really feel it. 

On Friday it was coffee and selfies on a bench in the park before we strolled to the other edge of the park and back. After taking our usual selfie angle, which shows the setting looking upriver, we took a different angle. The advantage of the second is that it shows us on close to the same plane and keeps our proportions better without one of us looking tiny in the background.

There was much activity on the water that day. Sue was looking for colour for her daily photo, and she got some.

The next day, we opted to walk along and around the trail bridge. Just as we were starting to ascend to the bridge from the parking lot, Bob and Barb drove by, so we invited them to join us. We walked and chatted. The highlight was encountering a friendly cat. He lolled in front of us for pets. I did my bit, and then he waddled over to receive attention from the ladies.

The ladies stopped a few times to look at this and that. Bob and I were ahead. Sue took some pics.

The good news is that a cold front has blown through, and it cool this morning. It is also raining, so there may be no walk today, but we shan’t complain. 

Caturday 86: Lacey Becomes HarlyPoo

Oh Lacey! What odious vehicle of human torture hath pulled onto your street‽

Surely your kind and beloved humans would not foist bath, brushing, and shaving upon your exalted body.

Alas! They did.

Poor old Lacey came to stay with we traitorous humans about 6.5 years ago. Between humans and cats, her fur coat was kept up pretty well for five of those years. But in the sixth year, her hind end became very knotted and beyond all three of us to deal with.

Enter the cat groomer lady and her portable spa. She took her time to gently attend to the old puss. She shaved, washed, dried and brushed in a very non-traumatizing fashion.

Here Lacey is resting in the dryer although she was not being actively dried in the photo.

About an hour and a half after being ported to the spa, she was back with us: calm and exhibiting no sign of trauma. She eased out of the carrier, and resumed being just quiet Lacey again.

Washed and brushed with her hindmost quarters shaved.

But she is now more than just Lacey. She is also our little HarlyPoo. I thought that her new do looked poodle-like, and since she is a harlequin tabby, Sue dubbed her our HarlyPoo.

Her back half looks like suede to me, for in most light it looks a little browner and darker that in the photo. I kid that she looks like she is wearing suede pants. Sue chimes in, "With fluffy stockings too."

All is right with the world. She still loves Sue and she has frequently been availing herself of Sue's lap. Lacey was supposed to be my cat since I am more of an ailurophile than Sue, but Lacey HarlyPoo always had a different idea.

Now to work on keeping her ladyship tat-free. Since Sue gets the lap time, it will pretty well up to the two gals to attend to HarlyPoo's very pretty coat.

Me? I get the glare.

The Effrontery

Did you see that Senator Martin of the Maine legislature has posted a four page letter expressing the opinion that the four western provinces of Canada should join the USA? Why a senator of an eastern state would particularly invite our western provinces, I know not. I wonder what he has against the rest of us. If you are interested, you can find his letter within this reply post in Facebook by a Canadian politician.

What ignorance, arrogance and effrontery! Talk about not being able to read the room. He seems to have missed the news from the past eight months that we are not interested. Frankly, we have it better here, and most of us are refusing to even cross the border to visit these days, never mind actually becoming one with the US. 

There have been various response. Predictably, Charlie Angus has something to say.

I could go on with responses and even write my own, but I will just post some excerpts from the response, by a Canadian MLA, Brennan Day, from BC in an X post. 

We’re Canadian. Proud of it. Not confused. Not for sale. And not going anywhere.

You see, we don’t measure freedom by the number of firearms owned (but we do own a few) or how loud we can shout without consequence. We measure it by how we care for one another—how we build strong public institutions that ensure our kids are educated, our seniors are looked after, and no one goes bankrupt because they broke a leg or needed chemotherapy.

. . .  this letter—framed as an invitation—lands more as a manifesto of arrogance. The idea that Western Canada must “abandon Canadian legal codes,” “discard Canadian political loyalty,” and “salute your flag, not ours” is not unity—it’s erasure.  

You say you want us “free, armed, self-governing, and accountable.” We already are. We just don’t define those words through the same lens:

•Freedom means your health card works better than your credit card.

•Accountability means a leader who answers to Parliament, not the cable news pundits.

•Self-government means working with Indigenous Peoples, not stepping over them.

We believe a rising tide should raise all ships, not just megayachts.

Your letter is a perfect example of what many Canadians find so deeply troubling about the American worldview—assuming that what works for you must be the solution for everyone else . . . We know who we are. We know what we have. We see the chaos, division, and deep inequalities that plague your system, and we’ve chosen a different path. Not because we’re blind to our flaws—but because we believe in fixing them our way.

It Began on Drummond Street

Having written about Evangel Temple here, our church in Montreal in the 1950s, I think that I fill in more of the story to complete the picture by looking at what came before. It will probably help to explain why my parents were so attached to Evangel Temple and why they were willing to take those long bus commutes after we moved farther away.

Before Evangel Temple there was its predecessor: Drummond Street Tabernacle. If my parents were still alive, I would ask them for more detail, but I'll share what I can tease from the fragments that I can recall.

The Pentecostal assembly that became Evangel Temple began to exist in 1916. I don't know exactly where they first met, but at some point the congregation had grown enough to have a pretty packed building on Drummond Street, Montreal, about 3km from their later Evangel Temple location.

I do not know when my forebears began to attend, but it certainly wasn't as early as 1916. I expect, but don't know for sure, that my maternal grandmother was the first to attend in the later 1920s. I think she was what might be described as a bit of a holy roller, but I don’t mean that literally, and perhaps I am overstating her zeal based on a few off-the-cuff remarks.

My parents got involved. That is where they met and were married. Before then, however, I remember mom telling me about losing a friendship when she was younger after her mother invited her best friend to a somewhat wingy Pentecostal service. She was still hurt by the loss near the end of her long life.

Mom and dad were very devout, and, in their late twenties and early thirties, they became lay pastors at a church in a town, Gananoque, a town less than two hours away from where Sue and I abide now. I've posted a little about this in the past, but the search bar will not dig up that post for me, no matter what words that I enter.

Now you know the broad outline of how it all started. Grandma got involved with the predecessor church to the first church that I remember: Evangel Temple.

But that is not completely true either, for I do have a very dim recollection of the church on Drummond Street from the very early fifties. I also vaguely recall the day when the final Sunday morning service was held at Drummond Street, and the very first service took place at Evangel on that very afternoon.

I found a few photos online. They don't ring many bells for me, but you can see that it was pretty crowded in there and that a larger building was needed.

I believe that the man on the right in the next photo was the pastor. If so, his name was Bill Kautz, and he was the pastor when the church moved. I have a faint recollection of him from back then, and I met him years later when I was a young man, about 25 years old, when he came to our church in Sarnia for a week of meetings.  He was the pastor who dedicated me, but that was at my dad's church in Gananoque. Kautz made a special train trip from Montreal on a very cold night in order to dedicate baby me. He remembered that 25 years later.

I looked for my parents in the next photo, but they aren't there. I don't know when in Drummond Street's approximately 35 year existence that it was taken, but that does look like Bill Kautz, front and centre. If it was he, the photo would likely have been from the late 40s or very early 50s.

Unfortunately, I may require one more post to conclude these ramblings, but tomorrow is Caturday, so expect an interruption to this riveting narrative. :)

\

Evangel Temple

To continue my reminiscing from the previous Ruby Foo’s post, I reiterate that the trip to and from church was a rather long one on the buses. It took us two buses to get there, and I am thinking that it probably a 40 minute trip each way. But Evangel was really the only Pentecostal church in Montreal, or at least the largest one and also the only one that we could feasibly get to. For its time, it was a pretty noteworthy edifice for a lowly Pentecostal congregation.

Evangel Temple  still sits in a prime real estate location in Montreal.

This is what the interior of the church looked like in the 1950s. There was usually a fairly large orchestra on the commodious platform. I have added a red ellipsis approximately where our little family would sit. It is quite likely that I would be in the picture if it were taken on a Sunday morning.

Modern services look a little different.

Taken from the balcony at the back.

Although it was a longish bus ride, the family had begun attending Evangel back in the day when they lived within walking distance, so we kept on going for the next five years after we moved to the suburbs.

Later, when a small Pentecostal church opened in a school, my elementary school to be precise, we ceased our marathon bus ride and walked to church. A small meeting in a school gym was very different than the big, downtown church, but I liked it. I liked them both.

I have found the Evangel Temple web page and YouTube site that confirms that the church remains an English-speaking congregation in a very French province with seemingly less of an English presence than when we lived there there until the very early sixties. 

Church was important to me until a half-life ago, when I suddenly stopped believing, but that may be another story for another time — or possibly not.

Remembering The Foo

Last week the grandkids' dad took them to Montreal for a few days. It is his former home and also mine from a long time before he entered the world. The highlight for dad and the kids in those few days was probably the Linkin Park concert (whatever that is) that they attended on Wednesday evening. The highlight for me, from their messages, was a trip down memory lane when I saw the name and location of their accommodations: Hôtel Ruby Foo's. 

That was a familiar name to me, for I passed it almost every Sunday on the way to and from church on a city bus —  #17 to be exact. It was actually a streetcar and not a bus for the first year or two over the six year period from about 1950 to 1955 before Montreal made the mistake of jettisoning streetcars. It was a pretty long journey just to attend church, especially since in involved a transfer.

Ruby Foo's was just a restaurant back then, so I was surprised to see that it had become a major hotel.

Ruby Foo's was a popular restaurant in Montreal during the 1950s, known for its lively atmosphere and a menu that blended Chinese, American, and French cuisine. It was a stylish spot frequented by politicians, celebrities, and the city's elite. The restaurant was particularly famous for its egg rolls, chicken almond guy ding, and club sandwiches.

This is more or less what I would have seen from the bus although my eyes saw in colour back then even though the cameras didn't.  ;)

A typical Montreal bus if that era with Ruby Foo's in the background.

For six years, I would wonder about Ruby Foo's when we passed by. What was it like in there? It smacked of a kind of prosperity not enjoyed by my poor, little family, and now my grandkids were staying at a semi posh hotel in the same location and bearing the same name. I really have no connection other than those sightings and the kids staying there, but the name and place still evoked memories.

Lavish furs and cars on a New Year's Eve

I also recalled passing another classy restaurant, not far from Foo's. Piazza Tomasso was Italian, and we never came close to darkening their door either. Besides, as the Google AI note reveals, it was a nightclub and, therefore, probably a den of sin, and we were most definitely not sinners. :)

Piazza Tommaso in Montreal during the 1950s was a popular restaurant and nightclub, particularly known for its upscale ambiance and celebrity clientele. It was a notable entertainment spot in the city during that era.

As one thought led me to another, I started to think about the church that I mentioned earlier in this post. Some might wonder why a family would spend up to and hour and a half on city transit to attend church on a Sunday. So I feel the need to reflect on that and then write about it.

Until then . . . ttfn (ta ta for now)

Sue's Flipping Experiment

Sue is given some odd photo assignments from her group, but they can prove interesting. Last week, she was instructed to take the camera down to ground level and take a photo. She was then to turn the camera upside down and take another. I don't think the object was to get a great photo but to see the world differently.

She took this one before turning the camera over. The second flip shot was quite unfulfilling because the lens was right at ground level and stuck in the grass, so I shan't bother showing it. 

It's an interesting perspective. If old bodies weren't what they are, it is probably something that we should try more. The photo is not great and definitely crooked, but I still like something about the point of view.

Turning the camera upside down would probably work better on an actual camera because it would more or less just flip things. However, a phone is rectangular with the lens in one corner, so when it is flipped the lens is in a different place and really low to the ground where there may be grass ir other objects in front ot it. 

Sue did some experimenting and eventually found a few pairs to include in a collage.

Code Red

It’s dry here. The last bit of rain fell on July 19-20. I don’t know how much fell, but I think I remember it being very light. Prior to that it last rained on July 9. So, we've only had trace amounts of precipitation in a whole month — a hot month at that.

The river is running very low. I peeked over the foliage at the edge of the park and saw exposed green where I have never seen it before.

Along the trail, the bog is dry where we saw the turtles during spring. One wonders how the turtles cope.

Lawns are looking parched for the most part. This is a section of ours beside the garden. No one has needed to mow for a long time.

The town is in Code Red with regards to water usage. Sue and I are complying by watering plants from the can (mostly) or nozzle (a little bit), but not all people comply. On a recent morning walk, one resident was happily sprinkling the lawn. Granted, it was probably out of ignorance because not every message filters through to every person. Still, it rankled a bit.

We abide by the list ↑ and adhere to the third section for tending the plants.

I don’t think we have to worry about ever running out of water in this town, but, while we often need to moderate our usage at some point during the summer, the situation is a little more concerning than usual this summer.

It is possible that we might get some rain on Wednesday, but it is definite that the heat warning will persist until then. Even though the temperature will drop afterward, the weather will continue be quite warm for the foreseeable future.

Of course, a fire ban is also in effect.

Sturgeon Moon

When I awoke to visit the facilities at 5:17 this morning, I grabbed the phone from the bedside table and shot the moon. It was the full, Sturgeon Moon, hanging there right in the middle of the window. It pleased me to see it and to capture this unexpected photo  

As an added bonus, I was able to get back to sleep until almost 7. Sleepwatch thusly informs me that I exceeded my sleep goal of 6 hours and 30 minutes by 15 whole minutes. This infrequent achievement pleased me too, but not as much as the Sturgeon Moon did, Granted, 6.5 hours is a rather modest goal, but it is one that I at least have a chance or making.

Caturday 85: TFW

I had to look it up. TFW is short for That Feeling When: an acronym that I shall promptly forget.

As I must surely have posted previously, Lacey expects five feedings per day. I refer to only wet food meals and not the ever-full dry food dish or the semi frequent treat-tossings. 

All of these feedings only amount to one small can per day. I used to divide the can into four segments, but she often wanted more. So being a human with a superior brain, I simply opted to divide the can into five portions. 

It works for the most part. Her first feeding is usually served by 9am and her last by 10pm. During the wretchedly long night, she much subsist on dry food: poor thing. 

There are occasions when she will bother me for ages for the next feeding. Sometimes, the cat will hound [sic] me for a long time, but when I finally lay her dish before her majesty, she, like the cat in the photo, seems to have a TFW moment, and will simply stare vacantly in the general direction of her dish for a moment before walking off. 

Funny Names on Funny Friday

I haven't subscribed to this feed that I am about to reference, but someone with the handle, Actual Names (click here) keeps showing up in Bluesky. He finds weird names of actual people who have lived, such as Petri Fuckherbergers, for example. Many, like Petri Fuckherbergers, have a sexual innuendo in modern English. Quite a few, however, are just weird in our times: Viola Toolate, for example.

These are real names, or at least he provides the 'receipts' (as they say now), such as the example below. If you want to check for yourself, this is the link for his posts: https://bsky.app/profile/actualnames.bsky.social .

I'll list a few sans citations, but there are more if you follow the link that I have now provided three times. Meanwhile, have a Funny Friday.

Slutsend

Antoine Bonercainer

John Slicksoup

Willie Bonercamp

Dr Joyce Ivy Bonerberger-Brough

Catalina Urinal

Sukey Shitler

Harry Fillmore Urining

Assole Victor

Duncan McSperm

Ada Badger

Alice Fartkamp

Speaking of Bluesky, since I am here blathering anyway, let me post a little something. This is not a funny something, but just a something something in passing.

I was scrolling down the app one recent evening, and began to notice what there was extra vitriol in the air. People were saying edgy, mean or even somewhat racial things. Then, I realized that I was really in X/Twitter. I had opened a popup link that had appeared on my phone, not realizing that I was in the lair of the evil one.

As a side note: there is not much point in giving you my Bluesky link because I seldom post there. I mainly just follow bits of news and read a few opinions. But I do feel as though it is a kinder and gentler place than the dreaded X. However, I do get into X on occasion because not everyone whom I would like to follow has crossed over to where the skies are blue

Foto Fun

Daughter and granddaughter invited me on a daytrip to visit my former brother-in-law deep in the boonies. I didn't feel as though I wanted to travel 2.5 hours each way on one day, so I demurred. However, it was Brian's birthday weekend, so I decided to acknowledge the occasion by sending along a fun sort of gag gift.

I have been known to like both coke and chips — coke in Diet form — and Brian always seemed to appreciate liberating the occasional can of coke from me although he never seemed to get around to purchasing his own. So, for fun, I decided to send a few cokes and a bag of chips along with Shauna.

But, something else was needed, and so I decided to make a fun card. I found this old photo of Brian and his daughter-in-law, shucking corn at a family reunion.

I cropped Mary out of the picture and then got rid of the firepit and corn that he was holding. I replaced the corn with a can of Diet Coke and added a bag of chips in the crook of his arm. Then, using AI, I added chips as though they were falling. Finally, I added the bible verse. We both have very evangelical no bliblical backgrounds, and since we haven't seen each other for seven years, I thought it was an appropriate final but funny touch.

He seemed to appreciated my fun gift and sent me this photo.

Monday Walkie

Monday was our August holiday. It is called by various names, depending on where in Canada you live. 

In Canada, the first Monday of August is commonly known as the Civic Holiday. However, it is also referred to by different names in various regions and municipalities. Some common alternative names include British Columbia Day (BC), Saskatchewan Day (SK), New Brunswick Day (NB), Heritage Day (AB), Natal Day (NS), and Terry Fox Day (MB). In Toronto, it's often called Simcoe Day, while Ottawa recognizes it as Colonel By Day. (Google AI)

It really made no difference to us; we would have taken the same route regardless. However, we did choose the Tims-Junction walk. We park by the Wool Shop, walk over to Tims to get our coffee, before we mosey over to The Junction where we sit and watch the kids play while we finish our drinks. But let us begin at the beginning: at the Wool Shop where I thought that the bright yellow flowers by the window might result in a good photo. It wasn't that good, but here it is. (All phone photos today.)

Focusing on a trio of flowers was actually better than taking the big picture, which is often the case but not an easy lesson to remember.

Then a bee got a'buzzin, so that was a bonus.

We picked up the coffee and walked around through the junction, past the hockey rink and the replica train station to the benches by the play structure. You've seen the structure twice previously, but what I should really do next time is show you the rink and the buildings that we pass.

You might recall that this is the location where we first discovered the picture-in-picture feature. We took another this time and messaged it to Shauna as we sat there.

Sue's hat is too grand to allow much room for moi.

Last time I did this picture effect, I gave instructions about how to achieve this little trick, but I later discovered that it is not available on Android devices: not yet anyway. Nevertheless, permit me to repeat myself for Apple users because it is a fun feature, and surely it will make it to Android in due course.

You can take a selfie+scene in the Messenger app. To do so, activate the comment box, click the camera icon at the side, and just select the DUAL option when the app opens up. Once you are done with Messenger, be sure to also save it to your phone.

Nighttime Photos from the Back Stoop

Sunday Evening: tennis is on. It's gets dark outside earlier now because because Ole Sol* is heading back south to the equator and beyond. I chance to look toward the patio door and spy a very orange half moon — half+ really, which can be called a gibbous  moon. My camera is nearby with my longest lens attached, so at the first opportunity at a break in the match, I venture onto the back stoop and snap a photo.

Nice detail, and that was the genuine colour, due to the smoke.

I had never previously taken a no -tripod, hand-held lunar photo, and while it is very far from recommended practice, I just wanted a photo for the blog. I increased the ISO and set the shutter speed high for hand-holding, and then I clicked.

Despite using my longest lens, the moon was small in the image, so I cropped a lot. At that high ISO, the photo would also be noisy, but that is the compromise with shooting the way that I did.

Fortunately, software has come a long way. It allowed me to upscale the cropped photo while still decreasing the noise and even increasing the sharpness. As one can see, I was able to get pretty good detail under the circumstances, and that pleases me.

At the same time, while out on the stoop, we decided to try to get a photo of the spider and her web. You may recall that it is hanging in the seeming middle of nowhere and that we couldn't even see the web when I showed you  a daytime photo a little while ago.

Well, by shining a light, the web showed up brilliantly against the darkness. I held the light and Sue was able to get a pretty good picture with her phone. The spider herself was sitting in the middle of the web. She was over-exposed, but the web showed up very well. 

Isn't this impressive: a beautiful and intricate feat of engineering
almost hanging in the middle of nowhere?

* I looked up Sol to see if I was a correct way to refer to the sun. I found this from someone who used the handle, svarogteuse. It is acceptable usage in the more poetic sense.

The Sun is called the Sun in English. Sol is used in other languages and in poetic senses, but in English scientific literature the preferred term is The Sun according to the IAU.

Blue on Sue

Willoughby walliby woosen

An elephant sat on Susan

Or in this case . . .

Willoughby walliby woosie

A Retriever sat on Susie

Blue sitting contentedly on Sue's foot

It was a doggie morning on the trail by the arena yesterday morning. Most dogs are friendly, Blue was exceptionally so. He sat on Sue's foot and seemed willing to stay for as long as Sue would have him.

Since Sue's prompt yesterday was OWN, she was able to work it in with Blue taking ownership of her foot.

The Willoughby walliby song, by the way, comes from Raffi, whose music we played for the grands awhile back — a rather long while back now, if truth be told.