Caturday 79: The Buddies

Circa 1972, the two buddies gaze out the front window: Baron the fluffy Persian to the left, and Dusty that rambunctious domestic to the right.

We had friends who were cat fanciers, so we took Dusty to a cat show. She was just a house cat but they had a category for them, judged by local celebrities. Much to our surprise, one judged her to be second best, whatever that might mean.

Our friends had other cat fancier friends who showed a Persian kitten. Baron wasn't a high class Persian, but he did take home a fifth, but I don't recall the exact category, whether it was fifth among longhair kittens or all purebred kittens.

Baron may look big in the photo, but it was mostly fluff, for he was actually a bit of a runt. While Dusty wasn't a big cat, she was somewhat larger than Baron and quickly put Baron in his place — as second cat. Baron accepted his role happily, and they got on well together.

Fifty-four years later, we remember them, and by the way, we still have some of the little knick-knacks that decorated the window.

We Are Canadian and Funny

I don't do the Friday Funnies meme, but this is Friday, and these are funny . . . although also serious in a way. Note: if you are tired of political trauma, these are pretty well just fun although it is a bit of a message, especially in the second video. It's not hard to take, however.

More than a decade ago, there was a fun I Am Canadian commercial for Molson Canadian beer. It was carried off in the form of a rant, and was greatly loved. It's just over  minute long.

In these troubled times, the guy, Jack, is back with with a We Are Canadian rant. This time it is not a commercial, and there is a message, but it is mostly fun. (length 1' 42")

I am posting the auto generated transcript below. I looked for the original script but couldn't find a copy.

hey I I know it's in our nature to uh

cut a guy some slack give him the

benefit of the doubt like maybe he was

confused or just joking or just maybe

really needed a double

double but this isn't that guy these

aren't those people and those are not

the Rockies they make a lot of mistakes

they mistake our modesty for meekness

our kindness for consent our nation for

another star on their flag and our love

of a hot cheesy poutine with their love

of a hot cheesy Putin they think they

can bully us threaten us and push us

around but they do not know us that

artificially drawn line they keep

talking about not artificial and it's

not on a map it's right here this is the

land that ter ran the land the gourd

sang about this is the birthplace of

peanut butter and ketchup chips and yoga

pants it is the land of Universal Health

Care and the bench clearing brawl of

innovation and optimism and getting her

done this is the land of the Peacekeeper

and the shawinigan handshake are we

perfect no but we are not the 51st

anything we are the first to unite in

the crisis the first to build Bridges

not walls and the first to stand on

guard for the my name is Jeff and we are

Canadian thank you

Eel's Creek Cottage

In going through my old slides, I have come across photos of the cottage that was owned by Sue's parents through the 70s into the 90s. These are personal memories that I want to post, but I realize that they will hold little interest for my usual blog friends.

I think it was the year that we married, 1969, that Sue's dad purchased a very rustic cottage. If not, it was the year after. For more than ten years, we often visited the cottage for a few weeks in the summer, even though it was at least a six hour drive.

The cottage was on a stream called Eel's Creek, which despite the name was a good running stream. It was a very cottagey cottage sans plumbing or running water. Although we had to make do with an outhouse, we have electricity. There is a corner of the building in the background (right) of the following photo.  That was the porch where we would eat and sit at night and read or play games. From the porch, we could see the stream, which you can just see a bit of behind Shauna and me in the photo. Just up the slope from the creek, there was a rural highway that could get quite busy. While one might think that having traffic going by the cottage would be a bad thing, we would sit in the porch at night and enjoy the stream of traffic going by, especially on a Friday evening as the weekend cottagers fled north from the city.

Baby Shauna with me in her first year, 1973.

There was a waterfall on the property which we may get to later. It was on a ninety degree bend in the creek and was a place where the logs would jam up. One day, Sue and I started pulling a few logs out. Sue's dad got inspired and rigged up a block and tackle to winch bigger logs out. He was very good at knowing how to jerry-rig whatever was needed to solve a mechanical problem.

Sue's dad sitting on pulled logs with baby Shauna.

Speaking of Sue's dad, here he is again (below) with Sue's grandfather. They were attempting to install a pump to get water from the creek to the cottage. It worked somewhat for awhile, but we would usually have to get washing water from the creek by pail. We could obtain our potable water needs from the Ministry of Natural Resources in the nearby village of Apsley.

Dad and grampa are making a holder for the eventual water pump while I watch keenly in my shorts and black socks. I had no memory of ever dressing like that and have thought black socks with shorts to be an assault on all that is righteous for as long as I can recall.

Getting back to the waterfall, I have two photos, one that I have shown previously of me and youngest sitting in the waterfall, so we are probably jumping ahead in time for maybe ten years from the previous photos. She wore a bathing cap to protect her ears that had drainage tubes inserted to help deal with her earaches.

A wider view of the Falls with lots of accumulation of logs. Although we pulled out a lot of logs, spring runoff would bring plenty more downstream.

Bathing beauty Sue getting some sun on the bank by the Falls.

Although it sounds ghastly, Eel's Creek flowed clean enough for a little swimming. However, it was over my head in spots and the the rocky bottom could be hard on the feet when one did find a spot in which to stand. We had a big inner tube that we would tie up. We could float down toward the waterfall and pull ourselves back up. Of course Allyson (now PJ) had to be held. We would go to a nearby lake for better swimming, particularly for our young girls.

Shauna might have been close to nine in the photo, and she'd had
swimming lessons, but of course we watched her closely.

Shauna playing in the creek with her cousin, Jamie, who,
sadly, succumbed to brain cancer several years ago.

What else should I mention? How about this little bridge by which we accessed the property? Sue's amazing dad, being the clever and industrious man that he was, built a sturdier bridge a few years later.

And there is this (below): the smudge pot. Whenever Lou was there, he kept it going, supposedly in a battle  against the mosquitoes, but I think he just liked doing it, and it was a way to clean the rubble and burn the trash. It was always an enjoyable sight, and it stirs pleasant memories all these years later, as do all of the pictures.

I think we first visited the Eel's Creek cottage in 1969. We would return when we could into the early to mid-eighties. By that time, it was getting more rundown and with the family growing up and with us living far away, we stopped going sometime in the early to mid 80s, but we did enjoy it for many years.

It stayed in the family for a long time and was enjoyed by Sue's siblings and their families. They lived much closer and could come and go more easily and frequently. We did go for a few years after we took this photo of the younger Allyson circa1980.

These were pleasant memories for me. If you kept reading, I hope I conveyed that.

Elbows Up

Elbows Up has quickly become a simultaneously humourous yet serious Canadian meme in these troubled times.

It's a hockey term. When players go into the corner to fight over a loose puck,  they will jostle for all that they are worth. The elbows may come up aggressively in such scrums and can cause damage to tender jaws.

Hockey is a tough sport, and Canadians can be a tough lot. Expect us to keep our metaphorical elbows up in the coming days.

Just as hockey players are willing to take a beating to gain possession of the puck, so are Canadians prepared to take a beating to stand our ground in the face of unwarranted aggression, for stand our ground we will.

I hope you didn't miss Prime Minister Trudeau's speech yesterday. He demonstrated intelligence and steadfast commitment and determination. It's not anything like the rambling and ranting we are accustomed to from the senile 47. 

It is below and only 13 minutes.

Morning Translations

I was a boy in Montreal, the largest city in the French-speaking province of Canada. However, it was the time of two solitudes in which the English did their thing and the French did theirs. Living in English was very easy, and young AC and everyone he knew were unilingual. Too bad, but that it the way the it was.

There were three English elementary schools fairly close to where I lived, and in 1960, they built a new English high school for me and all of the baby boomers as we began to enter that phase of our lives. A year later, they built another English high school for my friends who lived on the other side of the imaginary school border. That is where my closest friends went.

Even though we took French in school from grade 3 onward, it was just a subject, and I didn't become very adept. In fact, when I transferred to school in Ontario at the age of 15, I found they were ahead of me in some ways, certainly in reading. This was the case, even though, at that time, they didn't start French until grade 9 or maybe senior elementary.

Of course, that late start in Ontario hasn't been the case for a long time, and most schools and boards also have a form of French immersion from first grade and onward for those who desire it. My grandkids continue to take some subjects en francias, even in senior high school.

I also hasten to add that by the time I started teaching, 10 yeas after I left Montreal, English kids who moved to Southwestern Ontario from Montreal could speak French very well.

I have been sorry to not have learned Canada's other official language better. I did have the notion to makes amends in retirement. I remember signing into Duolingo, but the problem was that my hearing was compromised enough by then that I could not pick up the nuances of pronunciation. I soon threw in the towel, right after throwing my hands up in despair.

Even though I moved away more than sixty years ago, my favourite hockey team is still the Montreal Canadiens. I almost bleed the bleu, bland et rouge (their colours). In fact, the Canadiens (or Habs, as in habitants) are now my only sports interest at all in all sports. I guess tennis is an exception, but it isn't a team sport, and I cannot follow it in the same way.

There is very decent coverage of the Canadiens in English. I can watch the games and read many articles. But the French press (not the coffee-making kind) is very active, and I cannot read those pieces. Oh, if I struggle, I might be able to get the gist of a short social media snippet, but long articles elude me. Could I have improved my French reading comprehension skills despite my hearing difficulties? Possibly, but I can't see that it would be worth the struggle if I can't speak the language. Besides, I don't really have anyone to speak it with, other than my grandkids, who both do English much better than French although they do have basic French competency.

Back to hockey: I really wrote all of the above to get around to explaining how useful the internet is in keeping tabs on my team. Google provides me with an instant and automatic translation. The app is built right into my Chrome browser. It's set up, so that if I click a French sports page, and I guess any French page, the English translation is instantly there for me. I do not even have to make a separate click to tell it to translate for me.

Here is a sample paragraph in both languages.

Sur le second, il a pratiquement traversé la patinoire d’un bout à l’autre avec la rondelle sur son bâton, battant de vitesse deux rivaux et profitant de l’espace entre les deux défenseurs pour orchestrer un jeu de passe qui allait mener au 10e but de la saison de Josh Anderson.

On the second, he practically crossed the ice from one end to the other with the puck on his stick, beating two rivals and taking advantage of the space between the two defenders to orchestrate a passing play that would lead to Josh Anderson's 10th goal of the season.

Oddly, sometimes if I click a sentence, I will be asked if it was an accurate translation. The answer in my head is always the same: "How would I know?"

Being able to read these pieces helps to occupy my time when I get up cold and achy at 2:30 in the morning, as happened today. It is now almost 6 o'clock, and I will add this piece to my ever-expanding queue to publish . . . whenevah.

Alpaca Fun

When we go to Wheelers Sugar Camp, Sue likes to take photos of the two alpacas, but when she needed one for an odd photo prompt, she could find them in her camera roll. After rooting around in past Blogger and Flickr posts, I eventually found a couple of photos from October 2017, which I thought they would make a nice, light Monday post.

Sue tried to use ChatGPT from her phone to put a hat on the middle photo, above. The app wouldn't do that, but it did make a fun alternative image (bottom right in the composite). Read the captions within a Dr Zeuss frame of reference.

 

Then, I decided to see what I could do in Photoshop using the original image. First, I used AI to expand the canvas because there wasn't much head room in the original photo. Then, I asked for a top hat. The hat that they gave me was small, so I made it bigger on a separate layer. The result is unrealistic and mediocre, but it was fun to try something different.

Meanwhile, despite it being March, we are enjoying some of the coldest days of winter. However, the sugar shacks are beginning to open as the sun returns, and we hope to get back to Wheelers for the running of the sap and a breakfast of pancakes, French toast and sausages in a few weeks. As I picture that breakfast, my mouth begins to water. Seriously.

Seeking Pity

I have been awaking very early recently. On the morning when I write this, I stumbled to the bathroom at 3:30, but trying to get back to sleep, after maybe fewer than five hours, didn't work. I visited the bathroom again less than a half hour later. This time, instead of going back to bed, I tried to snuggle down in my chair, but that was a lost cause too. Soon, I was up visiting the bathroom again.

If I could do more than dribble, especially at night, I might empty myself better and, therefore, be able to get back to sleep, but this is not my lot in life these days. I do the self-catheterize thing before bed, but on some nights, I still struggle afterward.

I await surgery #4 to try, once again, to attempt to alleviate the problem. This may occur in April.

After a few nights like this, when I struggle to get even five hours of sleep, I tend to become overtired and discouraged.

Thankfully, after a few days, my troubles usually right themselves to some degree, and I will get back to 5+ hours of sleep. Even five-and-a-half hours make a difference. Sometimes, life even grants me the boon of 6 or 6.5 hours of sleep, for which I am grateful.

Meanwhile, I don’t like being awake in the dark, cold house at 3 or 4 in the morning, but it does give me something to moan and blog about as I, shamelessly, seek your pity.

Caturday 78: Snuggly Lacey, Good Grapes, and Bad Cauliflower

As I mentioned yesterday, I did have to do a small shopping — at a Canadian grocery store. The main reason was to get cat food, or Lacey would not have been a happy cat this morning.

There was a reasonable price on cauliflower, so I popped one in the cart. Same with grapes. Then, I looked down at the grapes and saw that they were from Mexico, and I realized that I hadn't vetted all of the products in my cart. That caused me to check the cauliflower. It was from the USA. I put it back.

We are serious about this up here. It is not just a one-day event although yesterday did demand a bit more of us than the average day. Many of us are avoiding American products as much as possible on a consistent basis. It's a small thing, but it is what we can do.

Meanwhile . . .  speaking of Lacey, I was surprised to happen by this old photo.

It was a picture of Lacey on my lap, six years ago, shortly after she moved in with us. She has never snuggled with me much, but she did on that day. 

The Day of Protest

While I will very likely buy nothing at all, as a Canadian, I will, definitely,
not shop American in any way.

Are you paying any attention to our Charlie Angus, who is giving it back to Trump in whatever way that he can? I am now getting his daily email and subscribe to the free part of his substack.

This is Charlie's email from yesterday.

What is about the richest men in the world that reveals them to be so petty, shifty, and money-grubbing?

Step forward, Jeff Bezos.

If you ever had any doubt that Amazon is one of the most predatory corporations on the planet, read the book The Everything War by Dana Mattioli. She lays out the mercenary strategies by which Amazon stole the ideas of start-ups, crushed competitors and destroyed small companies that posed no possible threat.

And, of course, Jeff Bezos is part of the MAGA mob using his control of the once-esteemed Washington Post to serve the gangster king in the White House.

On February 28th, Canadians are launching a national day of resistance against American corporate power.

But I would like to make one suggestion – instead of a single day of resistance, why not a total and permanent boycott of all things Amazon?

I am writing this in response to Amazon's decision to close all their warehouses in Quebec after workers chose to unionize because of the horrific injury rates in the plants and the lack of respect for basic worker rights.

Where are the Canadian politicians who have failed to demand Amazon pay back the massive subsidies they were given?

The Canadian people gave Amazon the red carpet treatment. Now, they’re treating us like some kind of third-class feudal state. And, of course, Jeff Bezos is laughing at us with his 51st state swag.

So, my friends, if Jeff Bezos is gonna walk away on Canada, let’s walk away on him.

*You can find Charlie Angus here on Bluesky and on the other places too, probably.                

Amazon became a bit of a lifeline for us during the recent plague. We live in a town, where the only other viable choice for many goods is Wal Mart. I dislike that place and feel like my soul is being sucked out of me when I enter the doors. But Amazon is a big part of the oligarch Bezos' empire, and I feel as though we are colluding. It will be hard to sever the tie, but we are going to work on it.

It will require an effort, and it will cost us, but doggone it all, what else can we do? 

Random Photos from our Walks

As you know, we go for an almost daily trudge. We often snap pics with our phones. As winter soon (hopefully!) begins to wane, I thought that I would post some shots that haven't made it into other posts.

Two somewhat buried benches: the first in our neighbourhood park, the second along the bridge trail. Both seem to have been sat upon but not by us. The second one has a bare patch right in the middle. I could show the patch better from another angle, but, compositionally, I like this view with the trail stretching into the distance.

From part of the trail bridge before it goes over the river. I like the curving road with the two lines where the car tires have worn down the snow. The road reduces to a single lane under the bridge, so not many cars use it, even though it is close to and leading to downtown. 

Animal tracks in the park.

The footbridge in the park.

Here's one standing below the door of town hall and looking up at the flags: the Ontario ensign on the left and the Carleton Place flag on the right. Maybe it will go into my project, or maybe I'll do a better one in due course.

Happy protest day down there. It's a start, but widespread work stoppages and protests need to happen. Pain will have to be endured, I'm afraid. That may be easy for me to say, but we shall have our share of pain up here. Just for today, however, we won't darken the doors of any American stores or buy American products. We are not even going to load up Facebook, run by another oligarch, or are we now saying broligarch? I have already all but abandoned Twitter, but I will remain on BlueSky, for they seem to be doing things right and keeping the site as circumspect as they can.

Council Chambers

I, unwittingly, added to my town hall project. Really, I didn't think about it until I was back home processing the images. You see, I had never thought of making interior photos part of the project.

Sue had been looking for material for a frames prompt. We were downtown, so she wandered inside town hall, thinking of, perhaps, photographing out through some of the windows, using the window as a frame.

An employee wandered by. We chatted a bit, and I wondered if we could have a look a council chambers. She unlocked the door, and Sue began to shoot this and that. After a few moments it dawned on senile AC that he could also get out his phone. Duh.

We couldn't monopolize the employee's time for very long, so I grabbed two quick shots and began to make my egress.

Here are the two shots. They required the removal of some distracting equipment and a few filters for finishing touches, but they are more than okay for phone photos.

So, I will add these photos to my project. Why I didn't think of it sooner, I knoweth not-eth.

Thinking of Crocuses

At this point in winter, options for our walks become fewer. As the footing becomes rutty and icy or sometimes slushy, we pretty well have only two good choices. One is stroll around the back bridges, and the other is walk downtown. For quick convenience, we may also walk the neighbourhood, but will pretty well have to avoid going through the park for now. On this walk we traversed the Back Bridges, as they are sometimes known.

Above: I am shooting from the trail bridge toward the smaller and lower Gillies bridge in the centre distance. Off to the right of Gillies by that far  building, is another small bridge, which I think is nameless. Unlike the trail bridge, both of the distant bridges are for normal traffic, at least if single lane can be considered normal.

 

We walk northward (left) from this spot and then clockwise around to the building on the left, and over Gillies bridge before passing the building and bridge on the right. BTW, they are converting the right structure into condos although it is taking them years. Meanwhile, I despair about the left building, which is falling farther and farther into disrepair.

When we get around to the left building, I take time to notice this scene, and I look both backward and forward in time by thinking of the croci of other years and anticipating them to come later this spring. 

Pretty unremarkable, eh? But around those two bushes in the clearing between the trees (left) and the building (right) is where I hope to once again find patches of crocuses when spring finally rolls around.

April 05 2022

April 12 2023

March 12 2024: note how early last they bloomed last year after a winter with minimal snow.

I don't know how I could photograph them differently this year, but I suspect I will make an effort to take a few photos, even if they are the same old thing because methinks that sometimes same old is worth seeing again and again.

By the way, the most common plural of crocus is crocuses, but some do use croci, which is also acceptable — even if Blogger spellcheck thinks otherwise.

A Slight and Brief Warming

Lynx in a cold storm, mostly AI with some windy help from AC

These are momentous days because, for two consecutive days, the temperature is rising above the freezing point, which of course is 0C or 32F. (From here on in this posts, I’ll just the C stats.) It has seemed like a long time since the mercury rose this high, so I did a little sleuthing and found myself on the Weather and Climate site, specifically looking at Ottawa.

According to Weather and Climate, we last edged over the freezing line by a mere degree on February 01. It has seemed so cold for so long that I am surprised that it happened at all this month. I checked back farther and found that the previous temperature above freezing occurred on January 27, also by just a single degree. I remind you that these were the high temperatures of the day, which could have lasted for just a short while.

In total, over the first two months of the year, we've had only six days that edged that slightly above freezing, the two warmest days reaching the exalted heights of 2.1, and one of those two days was way back at the very beginning of January.

The very coldest temperature was -23.8 on February 02, with the day before coming in second at -22.5. The coldest day in January was just a couple of days earlier than those:  -22.3 on January 30. Basically, the last week of January and the first week of February were extremely cold, but it has pretty well been very cold for almost two months. 

Moving on from highs and lows to average daily temperatures (high temp + low temp ÷  2), we find that the average daily temperature has not exceeded 0 since January 01. The coldest average was -17.4 on Feb 1. In the first 21 days of this month, 17 days experienced temperatures below the normal daily average. In January half of the days were above average and half below, so that was pretty typical, but the February cold has been quite something.

I am posting this today, February 24, because I knew from the forecast that the temperature should climb to 4C today but was surprised that it became almost that warm yesterday, which was more than what was forecasted. At this point, 4 degrees seems almost subtropical, but beginning Friday, we will go back into the freezer, and we shall remain there at least through the first week of March. 

A Humourous Sunday Morning

When I checked my phone yesterday morning, I saw that, on the previous evening, Jonathan had left a message asking me to drive him to work at 9. Unfortunately, it was almost already 9 o'clock, but I soon found that his mother was driving him in, so all was good.

Shortly thereafter, the merriment commenced. I laughed when I received this text from JJ.

idrk what to do cuz mom told me to grab her phone so i did, but i forgot it was in my pocket and i just went in to work with it and she went home

Then this:

i can’t exactly text her cuz i have the phone

Laughingly, I took the message into Sue, and she laughed too.

There was backing and forthing with both JJ and sister, Danica, who couldn't help as she was car-less and away on a sleepover. I told them that I would get it sorted in due course, but it wasn't long before Shauna figured it out, picked up her phone, and the world was once again set to rights.

It does show how reliant we are on these devices. In Shauna's case, she needs to stay pretty connected with work, for she has responsible oversight of all that goes on there.

As all of this was transpiring, Sue had another reason to laugh when she saw my outfit. It was my nighttime haberdashery: yes, often including the socks. I do wish that you could see the mottled, non-matching colours of my shirt better, but I think you can agree that I present a rather uncoordinated and unfortunate sight.

Actually, I had also worn a black hoodie to bed because
I and my head can get rather frosty in our
cool nighttime temperatures.

Kerplop

Having finished supper and our tv hour or two, Sue headed upstairs whilst I tended to Lacey's fourth meal of the day, each meal consisting of 1/4 of one of those small tins. She likes to eat, but too much at one time is a waste.

After getting upstairs, and before I could sit down, Sue came into my den trying to tell me something, but she couldn't quite manage.

It went something like this.

In all of our married life, all fifty-five, almost 60 years, you have never . . . 

, , , much  laughter by Sue . . . 

This was repeated, probably 4 times before she could get out the rest of it.

You see, I never leave toilet seat up. Never. Not even when Sue is parked downstairs for the afternoon, and I am up here frequenting the commode to rid myself of lunchtime tea because tea goes right through me. Typically, I will have to pee three or four times after a modest-sized cuppa. I know milady is bound to remain down there, and I could theoretically lower the seat, but something within me prevents me from doing so. Frankly, I almost always lower the lid as well. I don't know why; I just do.

So . . . I had never not lowered the seat. Never once. Not in 56 years.

But with all of my sneezing and blowing, just this one time  . . .  well  . . I somehow forgot. Now, you see, Sue is prone to not bother turning on the light for a quick pee. I often tease her about peeing in the dark. 

So Sue didn't notice, and Sue sat down . . .  and down. Kerplop!

Why doesn't Sue turn on the bathroom light, you may ask. I can't explain fully, but I can tell you that she sees the world brighter than most of us. This is why you will seldom see her sans sunglasses in outdoor photos and even in some brightly lit  indoor venues: certain restaurants, for example. I don't know that I have ever said this out loud, but I have often said it to myself: "Sue would wear sunglasses at midnight it there were a full moon."

Caturday 77: No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

It popped up on my Google Calendar on Wednesday: the sixth anniversary of Lacey's adoption. She had mewed plaintively in her cat carrier all of the way home. Upon arrival, we plopped her in her litter box. She paid no heed but bounded out to explore. The box is out of the way on the landing halfway down the basement stairs, but she found it when she needed it and hasn't missed yet.

The only bit of the above that is relevant to this post is that it was her sixth anniversary. All of the rest I included because I knew that y'all would be riveted. 

But what about the punished good deed, AC? Quit stalling, man.

How can you give an old cat who has no interest in cat toys some a treat of some kind?

Well, she does like to eat.

So ... I dropped in to the pet store and purchased two expensive tins of seafood pate. The real good stuff, y'know.

I'll have you know that Lacey never throws up, but ya know what?

After consuming a generous portion, she found an obscure corner and heaved away prodigiously.

Sue found ii by accident and had a deuce of a time cleaning it up.

She then stumbled, knocked the stuff over, and had the privilege of cleaning it up again.

Many are called, but puke are chosen, or something.

Snowbanks Gone for Now

Wednesday night; from the bedroom window around bedtime, I see an empty truck go by. It was empty of snow, but I think I knew what it meant.

This truck is full of snow, but it is a bit like the truck that I saw passing by.

What I thought was, that they might very well be beginning the process or removing the curbside snowbanks — like the one behind me in the photo.

In the photo I was looking at the mound over our lawn, and that is probably what you noticed too. But look at the snowbank behind me. It's on the edge of the road which makes driving roads problematic. The snow effectively turns our street  into one lane. Cars take turns pulling off to allow the opposite car to have safe passage.

I was right to suspect what the empty truck was presaging, for, when I awoke at 5 in the morning, the snow banks out front were gone. While it was a pity that I hadn't been able to see and document the process, I had been able to do just that back in 2022. In the photo, you see the orange machine blowing snow into the truck by its side. When it is full of snow that truck will drive off to dump the snow in the river. The truck to the right of the frame will pull up to the blower and so on and so forth. Most of you were also here back then in 2022, so you saw both the photo and the ensuing video clip back then. https://anvilcloud.blogspot.com/2022/01/winter-excitement-in-great-white-north.html

Back then the neighbour across the street had the presence of mind to shoot a video, which depicts better than words how the process works. You can see the filled truck just beginning to pull away at the end of the clip; the next truck in line would have taken its place, and then the next.

Eight Pretty Towels

 

Did you count ↑ the eight pretty towels?

They are in the tiny closet-sized bathroom by the front door. Did you get that? Tiny bathroom with eight towels.

It gives us a lot of choice. Right? Wrong!

Because we don't use them!

We look at them but do not use them. We use the single, plain towel folded by the sink.

Yup! That is the towel that we use. The only one we use.

I am reminded that early in our married life, Sue took to keeping the phone inside the clothes closet near the entrance — on the floor, if you please.

Because  . . . 

Because the living room looked better without the phone, doncha know.

What's not to love about this woman?

A Sneezy Morning and Runny Day

My body stirred me into wakefulness just a bit before 5 o'clock. It was the bathroom thing, plus some leg pain, and a general chill because we allow the temperature to go down to 16C/61F at night. Up until recently, I had the thermostat set to 15C/59F overnight but increasing it that extra degree (or two) does make a difference. I bundled up and moved to the chair, but I pretty well knew that sleep was done for the night. I'd had 5+ hours, and while that isn't quite enough for me, I can only get back to sleep after 5 hours about once in a millennium, and since that event has already occurred, I was pretty well scuppered.

I turned up the thermostat which would take about an hour to get the house up to our standard 19C/66F. Meanwhile, I bundled up under two hoodies and a blanket, brewed my first coffee, finished and posted a blog, read blogs and then did Wordle, the Mini, Waffle and two games of Sudoku. Sudoku takes time; I play a difficult level, so most games take 15-20, with the occasional really difficult one possibly taking even longer.

All that time, and it was quite a long time, I sneezed and blew my nose. It was crazy. It wasn't a cold, but something triggered a series of significant sneezes shortly after I had settled into my chair, and that in turn set my nose to running and running. I have a sensitive spot in the left nostril; when it gets excited/agitated my nose run copiously, sometimes for many hours.

After almost three hours fiddling and fiddling in my chair with the tablet, I finally went to the computer in order to attend to my FB group in way that I couldn't manage on my tablet. I then began to compose this post. The cat sidled up beside my chair for our ritualistic feeding of the kibble although the crazy puss has a full bowl in the bedroom just across the hall. Then, Sue got up, and I whinged to her about my nose and managed to demonstrate my predicament. I am sure she greatly appreciated my blow by blow demonstration, accompanied by sound effects.

And that was the first three hours of my day. I refuse to recount the whole day, but if  we get a few more snow pics, I will append them, below.

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Mid-morning I went out front to check the drifting by the garage door and front door. I am happy to report that there hadn't been much drifting, but I cleared up what there was. I wandered across the street to take a picture of the fire hydrant. People are asked to help keep the hydrants accessible, and the neighbour takes the request seriously. Notice the attached arm. If the hydrant gets completely buried, that arm should still stick out. They will remove the arm in April or May and reattach it in October or November.

On the way across the road and beyond whatever windbreak the houses provided, I discovered there was a fierce wind. It was also very cold, which meant that we should forego our daily trudge. I told Sue this when she was snapping this photo on my way back.

We decided that picking up coffee and taking it to our usual spot would make a nice change. As you can see, the snowfall and subsequent plowing obscured our view. so it wasn't exactly a huge treat.

As for my runny nose, it kept up all the livelong day. There were times when I couldn't go longer than a minute without wiping and blowing. I got some relief by plugging up the left nostril with a wad of tissue. It helped somewhat by stopping the air from going past that sensitive spot, for even breathing seemed to trigger the running.

It was driving me mad, I tell you. Late afternoon, I went to the pharmacy to seek desperate relief. I was offered a nasal spray after assuring the pharmacist that the runny nose was not symptomatic of a cold as pathetic as I might look.

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It is now the next morning (Wednesday). Once again, I was up at 5, brewed my coffee and have been snuggled into my chair while the house heats up. The nose was reasonably well behaved, but I was on tenterhooks all night. I have stuffed tissue back in as a preventative measure since this is when it all started yesterday morning. If it continues to behave itself, I will meet the boys for coffee later. I should also do the grocery shopping at some point. Maybe I should go at 8 when the store opens and get it done before coffee at 10. Or shall I wait until afternoon?

Aftermath

The Sunday storm abated before we went to bed. Sue took a photo of the back deck (left) in the dark and another on Monday morning (right). By that Sunday evening there had been quite a bit more snow after our mid-afternoon shovelling. Oddly enough, the night winds worked in our favour by blowing quite a bit off the path. More work will still be required, however.

After looking out back, Sue went to check out the front walk and took these photos when she got to the door. I find the first, through the wreath, very arty.

She did get a photo of the walkway (left, below). While the winds had helped us out back, they sure didn't work in our favour in the front, for snow had drifted back in, as it always does in that spot. Then, I took one from my window (right). It shows the snow on the roofs of the opposite houses and the depth of it on the lawn. I have never seen it that deep; even some of the lower tree branches have been covered.

Meanwhile our neighbour posted a picture of our lawn and tree from his viewpoint. Crazy, eh? How much higher can that pile go? There is not a melt in sight, I can tell you, and there is more snow in the forecast although not right away.

I looked out again and saw a neighbour from across the street helping our next door neighbour, who hadn't hired a contractor. In Canada, this is what we call friends with benefits. 

We did go for a walk in the windy cold. On our own street we walked on the road because although the sidewalk had been plowed, there were a lot of cave-ins from the adjoining properties. Once we turned the corner near the park, there were no adjacent properties to mound up the snow, so the sidewalk remained walkable (left photo). Back home, the accumulation on our yard (right) is higher than I, so it is well over than 6 feet tall. I converted these photos to b&w because the colour was really off.

Here I am at 5:30 on Tuesday morning, and all is calm although I expect we’ll have to clear the front path at a minimum, but that is for much later. For now, I sip my first coffee under much cover while I wait for the house to heat back up to a livable temperature after letting it drop to 16C/61F overnight.