Dock & Walk

When we head downtown, we generally park in the little parking lot adjacent to the river and close to town hall, and we are often tempted to grab some photos. Yesterday was no different,

A little upstream, just beyond town limits and  well to the left and east of the ↓ photo, the river widens out into a lake, or at least what we call a lake. There are cottages and even homes along the lake, and a good proportion of those folk have boats. To facilitate access to downtown, the town has installed a dock with two piers extending out into the river. It doesn't seem get a lot of use, but I do see boats moored there on occasion.

Down to the dock went I, as I have done before, and took this ↓ photo that includes the bridge in the background. I included the bridge so that the viewer could orient themselves somewhat since I have photographed the bridge many times although usually from the far bank. Note: On this day, although I took my camera, I chose to leave it in the car and use my phone.

Turning back toward land, I wanted a photo of the sign, but I also wanted to get the scene, so if you can't read the sign at this resolution, I will tell you that it is Dock & Walk, which is also the title of this post.

I am standing oin the town dock, looking upriver past several private docks.

Turning back the other way, there is a building with at least one residence on the top floor, and I can't help but think what a very fine view they have from their elevated patio. I know that their deck is difficult to see in this photo, but it is there behind the railing near the top. They will sure have a great view of the fireworks tomorrow night.

We did our downtown walk (pictures tomorrow). When we returned there was a canoe situated quite well in the frame, and Sue took a shot. I did a little editing, including turning the light on, or at least attempting to fake it.

It Happened Again . . . And Again

I wasn’t looking to post of this again and had another topic in mind, but it just happened — again!

Too funny: very early this monirng I checked social media and saw that my friend, Nick, had posted two intriguing photos. In Comments, I wrote: “What a treat to see your art first thing in the moring while most of the rest of the world sleeps.”

Do you see how I typed morning? And do you see how I typed it (above) to introduce how I typed it? Well, I guess that you must see since I have now gone back and bolded them. 

It’s so weird. What is it about this word? I freely admit that I am a terrible keyboarder, but this word gets me almost every time. It even got me at the beginning of this paragraph, but I corrected it in this instance  

I swear that I do not do this intentionally. I also swear that I will never post of this again . . . this week.

Perhaps if I hadn’t been reduced to fewer than five hours of sleep on two consecutive nights,  I would type and write better. Seriously, it’s just a little after 7, and I have been awake since before 5. I’m on my second cuppa and may even get a Tims coffee later. 

Monirng, Strawberries and Tennis

I am going to be very brief this morning, and it is about spelling or actually typing the word, morning. I just typed it as monirng in a comment and was reminded that I once wrote about my difficulties in keyboarding said word. I wrote that post more then two years agp; this is whatI wrote: among other things, of course.

I am a terrible typist (keyboardist?). While I don’t exactly keep track of my mistakes, one recurring one that I have noticed recently is monirng when I mean monring oops, I mean morning. (I couldn’t type morning correctly even when I was paying attention. I assure you that it was unintentional.) 

The more things change, the more they stay the same, eh?

Since I am here writing and posting when I didn’t intend to be, I will also mention that I have read two posts that mention strawberries. They have come in season here, and the stand around the corner is up, so I should definitely do something about that.

Strawberry season also reminds me that it is Wimbledon tennis time. I have signed up for the Canadian sports channel that carries the event. Every year, I subscribed for just the month, but I will have to remember to cancel once the event is over, so I’ve put a reminder on both Alexa and Google Calendar. I will have to renew it for the US Open in September. 

The Graduation

After posting The Graduate yesterday, of course you know that I would also post about The Graduation today or at least soon. As I previously wrote, I couldn't be there at the ceremony, but we did get a few minutes to grab some photos before the in-crowd set sail for the high school.

First, however, this was from our family party on the previous evening. The photo was fine in colour, but I had a yen to convert it to b&w, maybe because my and Sue's grad photos from college were in b&w. That was back in the dark ages when big phones were still attached to cords and walls, but mono still seems good and proper to me.

As you know the hinges on the proverbial door to you-know-where have been exceedingly hot lately, but yesterday was pretty cool and rainy. Fortunately, the rain abated just before it became photo time. There followed a frantic 20 minute of various people shooting phones from various angles, so that Danica or others never knew where to look. While I would have loved a half-hour, quiet and dedicated photoshoot in the park with just Sue, it wasn't meant to be.

However, two of my more-liked photos were snapped before the larger gathering um gathered. Danica had just stepped from the car.

We moved to the front of the house and soon began to take family photos.

This one with me and Sue came from two blended snaps because I needed two tries to get us all looking at the same camera. Somehow, we missed getting a photo of just me and my grand girl. I passed my camera to JJ for this photo while I stepped into the frame.

Because I could and because I wanted to, I converted the next photo of Dani and Jonathan to mono.

Outtakes: the first of Sue and Dani, the second of JJ looking rather pensive. I really like that candid.

That's not all that I have, but that is enough. If Sue goes into her composite-making mode, I may make a subsequent post.

The Graduate

Today (actually yesterday — I forgot to post this), Sha and the kids and their girlfriend and boyfriend will drop over at suppertime for a quiet family celebration honouring Danica's graduation from high school. The actual ceremony will take place tomorrow, but, with seats at a premium, we won't be attending. We do, however, already have a copy of her grad photo, and just maybe there will be an opportunity for our own photos if time and weather permit tomorrow.

I first posted about Danica on the day of her birth, April 19 2007, and she became the star of my blog for years along with her brother, Jonathan after he joined the family. I looked back at that post, Freight Train Smudge, to see if any of you were with me back then. You weren't, but a few of you might remember her when she was still young.

We took tons of photos for many years, and, especially in the early years, we also took many videos. If memory serves, videos were a little tougher to post back then, at least partly, due to slower uploads speeds, but I did manage to get many up on YT although not too many here on this blog.

One video that I recall and, indeed, I don't need the video to be reminded, was that I would dance with the baby to get her ready for bed if we were over there at the time. Sue and I did line dancing in those days, with a favourite being Waltz Across Texas. We would play it for Dani and dance her around, and I would often sing along and change it to Waltz Across Lanark, the county in which we reside.

When Shauna brought over a huge card for everyone to sign, I decided to write a message hearkening back to those Waltz Across Lanark days.

It seems like yesterday to me, although a lifetime for you, that I waltzed across Lanark with you in my arms. From there you have waltzed through kindergarten, elementary school and high school, and soon you will waltzing off to university. We no longer step as closely together as we once did, but I will always hold you close in my heart, and in my own way, I will step with you as you head off to Carleton U.

Congratulations on your graduation and for stepping so very well through school. I send best wishes and hopes with you as you step smartly into the next phase of your young and beautiful life.

Somewhere, there is a version with the actual music playing, but this is just me trying to sing a Capello  – no, I am not a good singer. Just play it for a few seconds if you are so inclined. (By the way, we called her Smudge for blogs and videos back then.) 

What is in Bloom at the end of June

Although it is ever-so-slightly cooler today than yesterday's 35C/95F, it is still pretty steamy. I went out to open the car while Sue was still getting ready for our very brief stop at the grocery store. Then I thought to copy Granny Sue and others and post about what is blooming now. 

I pulled out my phone and started to take some quick shots. My first photo was of the one little salvia/sage plant in the very dry and hot spot near both the driveway and the sidewalk. There were once two of these plants in the vicinity, but this is a really tough spot, so good on this one for trying its best.

Beside the salvia and even closer to the sidewalk is the penstemon/beardtongue. It was rescued from a spot where the shade was doing it in, so I just stuck it in here a few years ago, and it has decided to expand its horizons this year. The picture isn't good, but these are small pinkish flowers on a plant where the leaves are a bit purplish.

In front of those two and even closer to the sidewalk than the previous perennials is a bought pot that is showing quite well.

So much for the border along the driveway, the main part of which is full of daylilies, but they won't bloom until July.

In the centre garden, I planted a Shasta daisy this year. We tried them elsewhere in the garden some years ago, but they gave up the ghost. But I like daisies, so I purchased one plant this year: so far, so good.

The one flower that takes off in our garden is echinacea (coneflower), which is a plant that I really like. Over the years it has spread itself on the sunny side of the garden while vacating the shadier side. It has even spread beyond the edges of the garden into the lawn. The first flower unfolded in the heat yesterday, and there are several more blooms today. There should soon be quite a good showing that will endure for some time.

Finally, we have heuchera or coral bells. As far as I understand, gardeners tend to call the shady-tolerant variety heuchera and the sunnier-loving ones coral bells, but I won't die on that hill. The flowers are tiny but pretty although I think heuchera is mostly grown for its purplish leaves that look good in the shade. We have it beside a Hosta, which is not in bloom right now although the leaves are looking rather grand.

The photo does not do it justice, but I am not going to get
too picky in the heat.

Finally, I took a shot of the front of the centre garden as one would,  more or less, see it from the street.

I have finished the coffee that we picked up after our little shopping,  and I am going to brave the heat for 10 minutes or so to do a little watering.

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.

Father's Day Weekend

My expensive, high-end monitor refused to work, but other than that, it was a good, Father's Day weekend. There was a trail walk with the bordering greenery almost engulfing the path in places.

There was a visit to the museum gardens where I took some close-ups of peonies while Sue photographed various compositions, both large and small. I will save my close-ups for another time.

The heron was in the pond and a family of Canada Geese, swam by all in a row as Sue was photographing the heron. Now, that is a great photobomb. 

Sha dropped by on Saturday afternoon with donuts, coffee and gifts, including the tee-shirt: The Man, the Myth,  the Legend. Somewhere, I have a mug with that same epithet from another Father's Day.

The grands came by on Sunday with more coffee.

Twas a lovely weekend, and the monitor will get sorted in due course. In the meantime, their father has loaned me a basic but serviceable monitor. It came fresh in a new, sealed box. Their dad is not in a real big hurry to get it back because he has 11 more at his place, so that takes some pressure off while I figure out the repair protocol and probably wait the interminable wait.

Trying to Explain our Vexation with America

I was browsing around Substack when I came across an article by Paul Wells. Paul was a student in my grade 9 geography class, sometime around the mid-seventies. This was in Sarnia, which is cheek by jowl with Port Huron, Michigan. He mentions Sarnia in the post and how close we were to Port Huron and, indeed, ro the USA, in those days. We'd pay a mere quarter to drive over the bridge for ice cream, gas, tennis balls, a Whopper, or what have you.

Paul went on to become a well-known Canadian political columnist. Many years ago, I contacted him after reading one of his columns and found that he best remembered me for giving him lines to write for a minor misdemeanour committed from his seat in the back of the fifth row. But I won't comment directly to him now because on Substack that privilege is only available to paid subscribers, and one could become poor by paying for myriad subscriptions, no matter how deserving they might be.

His post, O Beautiful, attempts to explain to non-Canadians why we are so thoroughly vexed by Trump's America. He posted it here on Substack, but except for omitting one early paragraph, I have copied the column verbatim, below. It was not behind a paywall, so I am trusting that he wouldn’t mind. I have also emphasized (bolded) a couple of points: my emphasis, not Paul's.

And Paul, if you do happen to see this from some sort of feedback mechanism, I can tell you that you are able to subscribe directly to Britbox without involving Amazon Prime.

=================

O beautiful

I've never known how to be Canadian without being partly American. This year has felt like an amputation.

Last month a European ambassador stationed in Ottawa invited some Canadians over for lunch, so we could try to explain this elbows-up business to visiting colleagues from her country’s government. Why are Canadians so worked up about Donald Trump?, the visitors wanted to know. Why the ragtag boycott of American imports? Why the sudden drop in visits to the United States? What are you afraid of? What do you hope for?

All good questions. The unspoken subtext was, You Canadians really are being a bit silly. There are worse outrages in the world than Donald Trump’s Truth Social page. There are Americans who agree with you about Trump! Why can’t you just be neighbours? And I thought I heard a second layer of bewilderment below the first layer. You Canadians are always so pragmatic. Boring, even. And certainly not prone to mass hysteria. What’s got you all stirred up, all of a sudden?

I surprised myself, and I think I surprised my hosts, by getting emotional as I tried to explain it. On the eve of what promises to be an eventful weekend, I thought I’d revisit some of those thoughts.

. . . 

I grew up in Sarnia, five minutes’ drive from the bridge to Port Huron, Michigan. I used to shop at Full Moon Records in Port Huron because the selection of albums there was better than at home. Other friends liked to cross the bridge to eat something called “Chicken in the Rough,” whose pleasures I never sampled. One car in thousands might be stopped at the border for a thorough search, but for most of us, most of the time, the border barely existed.

My high school’s football coach recruited a star player from the Michigan side, who moved to Sarnia, or claimed to, for his last couple of years. We all called this kid “The Ringer.” He was tall and broad-shouldered and spoke English with a Michigan accent, which was unspeakably exotic, given that he’d grown up closer to me than I lived to Toronto.

Those of us who loved music or sports learned early that there was plenty of both on offer in Toronto and Detroit, but that given a choice, we’d have a better time in Detroit, because Detroit audiences would make themselves part of the show.

I guess I’m saying that for me, in those early years, the difference between Canada and the United States was sometimes hard even to perceive. Yet throughout this period my father preferred not to travel into the United States because he was furious about the U.S. war in Vietnam, long after it ended. I didn’t even notice this personal boycott was going on until years after it ended. He’d always take me to Detroit when I felt the need to go. The ways a father finds to express his love.

Most Canadians grow up juggling these contrasting impulses, the fascination and revulsion in the face of a neighbour that does everything to excess. Heroism, cruelty, creation, greed. Robin Williams said Canada is like a really nice apartment over a meth lab. Sure, but it’s as true to say our apartment is upstairs from the Algonquin Round Table or the Selma March or the 1995 Chicago Bulls or Emmett Till’s open casket. You can’t sum a place like that up without resorting to caricature. It’s too big. You just thread your way through it all, weaving some parts into your own sense of yourself, recoiling from others.

There’s a current of rote, simplistic anti-Americanism running through Canadian culture, but to me it’s never felt dominant. Most Canadians I know don’t define themselves in opposition to Americans. The relationship is far more intimate and ever-changing. I’ve never known how to be Canadian without being partly American. My first visits to the Village Vanguard and Carnegie Hall, Bourbon Street and Cape Canaveral, helped make me me. American books and movies influenced the way I talk and write.

I haven’t been to the United States since January and I don’t know when I’ll be back. I cancelled some US subscriptions. I won’t have anything delivered by Amazon. We kept Amazon Prime so my in-laws can keep watching Britbox. Who among us is pure.

It’s a shocking loss to me to write the United States off my list of travel destinations. It feels like an amputation. I’ve been to something like 40 states. I woke up in Edmonton on the morning of September 11, 2001; my first instinct was to rent a car, drive into Montana, and figure it out from there. I just wanted to be with Americans. When some visiting Europeans ask, politely but with a note of scorn, whether this elbows-up stuff is a rational response to the rantings of an addled U.S. President, I have to answer: Of course it isn’t rational. What are the chances of the United States annexing Canada? Zero. How sweeping and effective can a rag-tag, improvised, cultural boycott be? Not very. Whom does it hurt? Disproportionately, creatives who voted for Harris and will march against Trump this weekend. What’s the end game? Haven’t got one, sorry.

I told the visiting diplomats: When Donald Trump was re-elected, Canadians were surprised and concerned, more or less like people in a lot of other places. There was no particular reason for the Canadian reaction to go further than that. Even if he had simply imposed his stupid tariffs on Canada the same as on other places, it would have been a mechanical application of bad policy and not worth any emotional response.

But when the twice-elected President of the United States of America spends months on end telling anyone who’ll listen that my country doesn’t deserve to exist, and that message is amplified in the White House Briefing Room and on the border by the lipsticked Junior Brownshirt who adorns his surreal cabinet, my pretty strong response is: Let me help you out with your homeland security. I’ll stay home, thanks. You go ahead and stew in your own juices.

There’s not just anger in the response, or wounds to a national pride I haven’t always known I had in me. There’s something tragic in there too. Americans do tragedy in excess like they do everything else. We’re talking about a country that fought a civil war because a critical mass of people would rather fight a war than lose their slaves. Even as it was becoming a powerful force for good in the world, America has also always been a venue for horror. Both at the same time. Now its federal government is led by a man who says it’s “divisive” to study that contrast and learn from it.

This weekend, once again, the factions in the American drama will face off in American streets. I wish I could help the good guys. Most Canadians I know put their whole heart into the way they feel about the United States. We’re a little afraid of it, but mostly we’re worried for it.

 

3 + 1 pics

I am just going to post three non-related photos today: the first from our pre-surgery walk on the weekend.

We were walking over the swamy area on the trail when, looking down, we saw an iris. Sue took a photo and later in the week was able to use it for a prompt that involved adding text. I like both the photo and the quote.

This ↓ is me once I was changed and settled in my waiting cubicle before surgery. Notice the tubing. It was leading from a heater to a plastic contraption under the blanket with the intention of keeping the patient warm. They were also keen to heat me up post-surgery but with a more conventional heated blanket.

After the de-tethering yesterday, we did our familiar lunch and coffee at the park. Despite it being the twelfth of June, it was windy and cool, so we stayed in the car while still being able to appreciate both the park and the river.

Oh wait . . . I think I will add one more photo: this of our trip home from the hospital on Monday. There was traffic and much rain. Oddly, it was fairly dry once we got back to our town, and we were told that it had hardly rained here at all.

It is almost 9am, and the cat has now been waiting for hours for me to take her down to the kitchen, so off I go. 

The Other Flowers

For those who have been following along, I can report that I am now untethered. We wait to determine whether the plumbing will work as it should.

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While I did have irises chiefly in mind at the museum garden, once I was done with them, I photographed other flowers too. These are not phone photos, but I did use the iPhone to get some information. This first flower was  identified as Milk Thistle, and I like the photo a lot. In fact, I think I am liking these photos better that yesterday's iris photos, which had been what drew me there. You just never know what is going to look best in the photos.

I knew the identity of next flower although I did feel the need to verify my identification. It is a cranesbill or geranium which is not the same as the annuals that are called geraniums but that are really pelargoniums. Incidentally, that is a name that I, somehow, dredged from my memory banks from when I was doing more gardening a quarter century ago. Truth be told, however, I did doublecheck online to verify.

I needed help to i.d. this next flower. I turns out that it is a phlox, but not the tall kind of the summer garden.

I have one more flower to post, but it is not from the museum garden. I stopped at a house that I passed on the way because this clematis impressed me so much, not just for it's closeup beauty but because of how it was situated off a corner of a verandah very near the sidewalk. I saw it in passing and had to drive around a long block to get back to it.

This ↓ is how it looked when I drove by and why I had to go back for a closer look, but it was the closeup ↑ that resulted in the better photo. Still, it was a most agreeable view from the street.