Friday at Riverside

Friday was one of those very wonderful autumn or late summer days that we value so much after a very hot summer and before a long, cold winter. There was the right amount of sun, breeze and temperature. The day took us to Riverside Park where we sat on a park bench as much as we walked.

The first thing we noted after parking were the reflections in the almost still water under the clear, blue sky.

Two geese assumed statuary positions.

Autumn orange was beginning its ascendancy.

We sat on a bench and looked at the students on their lunch hour on a bench under the changing tree (above). Farther down (below) a group of girls sat on the deck of the boat launch. Do these students know how lucky they are to have such a schoolyard on such a glorious day?

It was a grand day and time for another selfie. We had gone  few days without, after all.

Hi there

Caturday 89: Seeking the Sun

For months, Lacey has spent little time on either the bed or the bureau beyond, by the window. But come cooler weather, the afternoon sun beckons to warm the old bones. Although it isn't yet winter, thank goodness, the summer heat is gone, and this late summer/early autumn has been quite cool. Oddly enough, the forecast for at least the first half of fall predicts that it will be somewhat warmer than normal. I have also read that after that, winter may then come earlier than usual. Go figure.

In any case, here is the dear, old thing, being in places that she doesn't bother with in summer. I wanted a picture of her napping because that is what she does. Of course, she was uncooperative as soon as she sensed my presence.

Oh wait! I eventually did catch her napping.

Now onto the bureau where there are things to be seen, so we don't usually sleep up there. We look, but we seldom nap.

About Charlie

I wrote this pithy piece yesterday morning after Leroy posting something else. Then, so much was written yesterday that I thought that I shouldn’t bother adding my tiny voice a day late. But we all say things a bit differently, so I decided go ahead and post.  

What about Charlie? Of course, he shouldn't have been murdered, and I deplore the conditions in my second favourite country that led to his shooting. Of course, I do.

However, there are shootings that I feel much worse about. On the same day, three teens were critically wounded in a shooting at a suburban Denver high school. I feel worse about that. I also feel worse about the recent shooting at Annunciation. I feel worse about so many more murders.

I don't feel quite as badly as maybe I should about Charlie who, apparently, found shootings to be acceptable on some level. He said it after all: "It's worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year, so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights.

So, no! I don’t feel the same amount of regret. Not even close. 

Point Form: From Ties to Interrobangs

• Speaking of ties, as we were recently, I recall the sudden switch sometime in the mid-80s. We had always worn ties from when I started teaching in 1971 until then, but suddenly, they were being left in the cupboard. It was an impromptu and unspoken adaptation by almost all the staff that stuns me in its rapidity and totality as I look back on it.
  
  
• When I shopped this week, bathroom cleaner was on the list. I swear that perusing those shelves is what took me the most time — so many brands and varieties within those brands. So confusing.
  
  
• Speaking of groceries, our cost us 56₵ this week. That is because I used points to cover the first $120. Not ever carrying change, I pulled out my debit card for the extra 56₵. I was being thoughtful by not using my credit card, which is how I accumulated those points. 
  
  
• Either I or the cashier didn't pack very well. When Sue unpacked, she was rather put out to see heavy objects over top of the soft burger buns. There were also broken eggs, which is an absolute first in all of my years of bringing home the groceries. I think it was the cashier's doing and not mine, but I can't swear to it.
  
  
• We had the fam over for supper that night. What used to be a standard weekly practice has become only a occasional event with everyone diverging off in various and myriad directions. It was just grilled burgers, but there won't be too much more grilling before winter: some perhaps, but not much.
  
  
• Danica brought us up to speed after her first full week of university. She's adapting to the commute, and she reports that after being a trifle late on the first morning, she was overly early on the next day. Of course, she could use that time productively. We shall see.
  
  
• I mowed the lawn on the weekend. The grass still wasn't growing due to the drought, but of course we had enough rain to cause the weeds to spring forth with vim, vigour and vitality. Apparently, it will continue to be our job to maintain our shared lawn, most of which is on our neighbour's side. The present owner seems nice enough, but she has shown little inclination to roll up her gardening sleeves. 
  
  
• There is something wrong with my body since my trip to the ER. I am having a pretty good sweat on most nights. At least I am not soaking through completely so I don’t always have to change my top. But something isn’t right. In a few moments, I will be taking the last of my antibiotic pills, so what next?
  
  
• There was quite a thick fog early one morning. Once upon a time, I would have been out there making photos, but I have been there and done that, so I remained in my unmotivated chair reading blog posts and playing my usual morning puzzle games. What has become of me‽
  
  
• At least I know what an interrobang ( ‽ ) is and when to use it. ↑

Roy Brown Park

Roy Brown is the WWI pilot from Carleton Place who has been credited with shooting down the infamous Red Baron. There is a mural honouring him in town as well as a statue of his likeness. I have posted of these before, but there is also a recreational area named after him. We haven't visited that park for a long time, but we recently decided that we should.

It is yet another area with woodsy trails. I applied filters to try to jazz up this photo. I don't like it now, but it does reveal some of the path and woodland.

In one spot, I found a length of trail where someone had laid down rocks as if it were an entrance of some sort. I found this a very odd placement. It was like a shortcut where the trail bent around. We followed the broader main trail.

Odd Path, Not Taken

It was also odd to find a plaque commemorating a WWI battle deep in the woods, but it makes some sense, given the park's name. You probably can't read it, but it notes that five men from Carleton Place were lost in the Battle of the Somme. Terrible business.

I had forgotten about this footbridge over the rocks that must mark the path of the wash in a heavy rain or spring runoff. I took the photo because it reminds us all how close we are to bedrock in this region. It's just below the surface.

I was excited to come to the pond but startled to see it empty after our drougtish summer.

That was the end of the walk, well not the walk because we still had to find our way back to the beginning, but it was the end of my photos.

Speaking of going back to the beginning, I had taken this photo back just before we entered the park. Two kids were snuggled up on the bench. I suspect that at least one of the them was skipping classes from the high school on the other side of the park. Or perhaps one or both were on their spare. It was sharp-eyed Sue who noticed that there were only two legs for the two bodies.

Neckties Be Gone

When I was watching the tennis match on Sunday, it struck me that no one wears ties anymore, even when they are wearing suits. Well, the orange one did of course, but otherwise,  even the exalted big wigs who presented the trophies wore no ties under their finely-tailored suit jackets.

Speaking of the orange one, what a gall to hold up the event for more than a half hour while spectators were searched. At Wimbledon, even royalty does not hold up the game.

Meanwhile, I have some more walkie pics. Of course I do. I'll probably cut back on these sometime, but autumn approaches, and there is change in the air: leaves drop, and colours pop.

These are from the part of the trail that we accessed from the arena sometime last week. Sue has fits trying to get me to fake smile for the birdie, but every now and then something happens that causes a genuine smile. It’s usually me doing something silly with the camera or at least the camera doing something silly while I hold it. Whatever it was in this case, it caused much mirth. The colour was off and showed my face as very red which it wasn’t, so a mono conversion was my solution. 

There are several mini paths off the main trail toward the river. We often bypass them, but we meandered down a few on that day. I like this photo of all of the little trees with their slender vertical trunks.

It feels too early, but autumn colour is beginning to appear.

I have one more photo from a different walk, in which we spotted a Great Blue Heron, near where we saw the Green Heron a week or so ago. 

Double Vision

The US Open has ended and tennis season is effectively over for me although these will be tournaments for the players as I think the Asian part of the tour begins. But it is over for me until Wimbledon next year. Then I will once again, purchase monthly subscriptions in order to watch Wimbledon, the Canadian Open (which isn't called the Canadian Open), and the US Open (which is called the US Open).

In a sense it is too bad that it's over because it took me until the end of the whole dang season  to figure out how to watch it. You see, it takes two devices — the standard tv and my iPad. I put the tablet on my lap while the same stream plays on the tv in the background.  ➡️➡️➡️

That is rather odd you say, but you don't really know odd until you know me. However, I assure you that there is reason in my madness.

What it amounts to is that we, apparently, don't have the sharpest tv, and/or I do not have the sharpest of eyes, for I keep losing track of the ball. But on the final match of the tournament, I implemented a solution. I knew that I could see the play clearly from the tablet, so I put tit on my lap and tuned into the same livestream. The two devices were posting seconds apart, but not being totally bereft of brain power, I managed to adjust my tablet by hitting pause and then play, so that the two streams showed the identical picture, or near enough.

The point is that I could follow the ball perfectly well on my tablet, but I could still watch the match while seated beside Sue, who can somehow see well enough to follow the ball on the tv. I don't need to do this double-streaming for ordinary tv, but the tennis ball is rather small and quite often disappears from my vision in mid flight. I would sometimes have to turn to Sue to ask what really happened; it was like following the game by braille.

 

That was the end of the day, but earlier, we went for our standard walk. We chose downtown where we could drop into the Blue Spoon and pick up delicious blueberry scones for lunch. We walked up to the bridge where Sue took this photo as she keeps an eye on changing conditions for her photo of the day group.

As you can see it was a beautiful day.

Until it wasn't. For the heavens suddenly opened as we walked our main street.

Despite it being Sunday, we found an open store: the second hand store that we used to frequent for kids attire when they were young. Sue and the owner renewed acquaintances while I stood outside and took a few pics, like the one above. At the time, I didn't realize that Sue took a few of me from the inside. Of course, I should have known.