Four Things and One More

Thing 1: I took this momentous photo in the Tims (Tim Hortons) parking lot while waiting for Nick to appear for our coffee meetup. GCalendar had told me at the last minute that it was Nick's birthday, so I offered to treat him to a coffee. At $2.50, it was a cheap present.

I say that the photo is momentous because it was the first donning of the running shoes since . . . well, I don't know when exactly, but approximately four months ago. The pavement was snowless and dry, so I just threw caution to the wind in my nonchalant devil-may-take-care manner. I am a wild and crazy guy, eh?

By the way, enquiring minds want to know your appellation for what I call running shoes or just runners. If you're American, do you say, sneakers, and if you're British, do you say, trainers?

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Thing 2: Inside, I snapped some portraits of the young, compared-to-me, man, mostly when he was on the phone, which he was only briefly. He got a call from relative in Ukraine, Kviv to be exact. If I recall correctly, Nick was born in Canada, but his parents were very recent immigrants, and I think his slightly older sister was born in Ukraine. Nick has been back several times and can speak the language pretty well.

The call was via Messenger (FB/Meta). It is amazing to me that one can use this app to call freely around the world. Not that I would, of course, for I and mine are not devotees of phone calls, for we text almost exclusively. That is particularly true for Sue and me.

The top photo was processed on the computer, the second in the phone app. Processing is such a choice with all of the filters and sliders available. In this case, I prefer the phone version, for the computer version looks a little dull when I see it again. Of course, I could change either version at will.

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Thing 3: It now behooves me to post more about peameal bacon since it was such a new term to many of you. Bear with me, for I was a teacher, and I have been known to become pedantic at times. The following photo and description are from Wikipedia. What I forgot earlier was that we also call it back bacon up here in the Great White North.

Peameal bacon is a type of unsmoked back bacon. It is made from centre-cut pork loin, trimmed of fat, wet-cured in a salt-and-sugar brine and rolled in cornmeal.[5] It can be sliced and cooked on a grill, griddled or fried; alternately, it can be roasted, then sliced and served.[6] The brining process makes it nearly impossible to overcook.[7] The low fat content keeps it juicy, and the cornmeal gives it a crispy edge.[8]

Cooked peameal bacon has a mild salty-sweet flavour and tastes more like fresh ham (when compared to smoked back bacon or side bacon).[6] The cooked slices have been described as resembling small pork cutlets.[9] It is eaten for breakfast, lunch or dinner,[8] served in slices or as an ingredient in a pork dish.[6]

The name 'peameal' comes from the dried yellow peas that were ground into meal and packed around the meat to preserve it in the Victorian era. This has since been replaced by cornmeal, but the original name remains.[6][8] Peameal bacon is rarely found outside of Southern Ontario,[10][11] and is often simply referred to as "back bacon". Similarly, a peameal bacon sandwich is often called "back bacon on a bun".[12][13] 

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Thing 4: Finally, I ask you, what do you think of this idea?

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The Other Thing: Oh  . . .  I forgot to add this. It's just an ad hoc selfie while Sue was taking real photos of geese in the pond. I know that I am a beautiful guy, but I am showing it for the background. Every spring, there is much flooding in the park. The background ponding on this day was due to the recent rain and also the warmth (the temperature did reach 15C for a few days). The water sits there for now because the ground is still frozen. Later, the river may swell and overrun its banks, so there could be even more flooding, but it's only a park. Stay tuned.