Two of a Kind

In Florence: Waiting to get into the Academy

Memories of Italy: Part of another massive human swarm.
This time we're waiting to get into the One of a Kind Show.

 My sister and I celebrated the arrival of spring by swinging by the One of a Kind "Craft" show, the first time in several years for Kim, the first time in a decade for me.

I recall when I went there in 2008 - when it was held in the grubby cathedral-like space of the Metro Convention Centre - that I held myself to a $200 budget, with no single purchase over $25.

I spent a bit more this time, with the greatest part going to some fun clothes, brought all the way from Winnipeg, designed by the charming Lennard Taylor.

My other purchase was of some Low Poly craft kits, which are do-it-yourself paper sculptures, a combination of origami and Meccano.

Kim got some caramelized white chocolate, a squirrel-proof bird feeder and some fun -- possibly over-priced -- costume jewellery, pictured below.

The floating red hat completes the ensemble.

We had a super fun morning, the milling mob notwithstanding. 

But One of a Kind is not a "craft" show. 

Maybe it's a "cottage industry" show, or an "entrepreneurial artisan" show, or a "limited edition manufactured item" show or a "you can buy this in sixteen cities and three countries and here as well" show, but very few of the zillions of fine pieces on sale would qualify as "crafts" as such.

One notable exception was hand knit sculptures of tiny cacti. They were beautifully done, 25 bucks apiece, and, ten years ago, at least one would have left the show with me.

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!

Karen

Farewell to All That

The last of Queen's Park: my new office is a couple of blocks south of Macdonald  Block. Here's the last of my illicit photos of the art on the first two floors.

I'm one week into my new job. Although it is still early days, I can offer some points in comparison. 

The Ministry of the Environment is a big ministry. The Ministry of Energy is small - about 1/10th the size of Environment.

The Ministry of the Environment protects the environment. The Ministry of Energy protects the ratepayer.

The teams I led at Environment had a lot of people over 40, sometimes almost the entire team. Youngsters were comparatively few. Succession planning was a big issue because so many people were within 5 years of retirement. 

At Energy, everyone is very young, even my fellow directors and my boss. There are not only a lot of people under 40, there are a lot of people under 30. Succession planning is still a big issue, but because young ones move around so much.

At Environment the work focused on preventing environmental damage, like climate change, or redressing legacy damage, like Grassy Narrows.

At Energy the work focusses on the power grid: generating energy, transmitting energy and conserving energy, especially through new technology. My branch's area is the agencies that manage and regulate the energy sector and programs that support innovation in the grid. 

In other words, my new job is completely different from my old. 

Body Count

One of the people on my new team who is under 30 is my administrative assistant. On my first day, she was the one who made sure, as she said, my office was "pimped out" with everything I needed: a computer, mobile and desk phone, all the accounts set up, everything. 

She is pleasant and helpful and a delight.

I was out of the office on Tuesday at a conference (in hindsight, too soon) and so it was Wednesday before I noticed she wasn't around. Word slowly sifted in that she had, on Monday night, been hit by a car and was in hospital with a concussion and broken hip bones.

Last week I put a bid in that the word "war" should not suffer the same fate (though it already has) as other words such as "icon", "avatar" and "truth" through lazy locutions like "the war on Christmas" or "the war on the car."

But, if you are a fan of these turns of phrase, you have to admit, just in terms of body count, the cars are winning.

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!

Karen

War is Hell

A toy lost by one of the very few children living in our condo townhouse complex sat for a couple of days in the crook of the honey locust tree in our backyard. 

Hungry squirrels took it up there hoping it was good to eat.

It was not. 

When not whiling away the hours of my staycation looking out the back window, I've been watching Ken Burns' 2007 production, WAR, on Netflix.

The seven-episode series is about the experience of WWII from the perspective of the people living in four American cities. Mobile, Alabama. Waterbury, Connecticut. Sacramento, California. Laverne, Minnesota. 

To this non-American never longing for narratives about how great my country was or is, the series seems subversive.

Footage of destroyed civilians - by far the greatest war casualties - and killed soldiers on all sides of the conflict dominate the episodes. The narration makes damning assessments of lionized generals MacArthur and Montgomery. The episode called FUBAR focuses on how senior officers' ill-conceived schemes sent thousands of soldiers to their wasted deaths.

Everyone should see films like WAR for all the good reasons of remembering the terrible sacrifice and carnage, being grateful for what we have now, and for thinking that war is a hell of a way to get anything done.

These depictions of what war really is may also encourage those looking for a way to express their opinion to avoid phrases like "the war on Christmas."

Seriously.

Thanks for reading!

Have great week!

Karen









  

Incidentals

At Front Street and Jarvis, across from the St. Lawrence Market, a 19th Century flagstone sewer under the "north market" unearthed during redevelopment excavations, awaiting its fate. July 2017.

Fate decided: the sewer is also demolished. March 2018.

Our busy vacation schedule includes having friends over for dinner on Saturday. On Wednesday I went to the St. Lawrence Market to pick up a rabbit to make stew.

As I always do, I checked in on the old flagstone sewer that, along with other historically significant remnants such as meat hooks, animal remains and glass, had been holding up the construction of a new north market that was to have been completed in 2014.

I guess they have all the information they need. The pipe is almost all gone.

Thanks for reading!

Karen

No Plans

The Duomo in Milan

I saw some friends for lunch yesterday. They all asked if I had plans for my staycation.

Not really. 

Bruce's primary objective is to heal. Mine is to find a fine balance between enjoyable inactivity and boredom.

Pedicures will likely be involved. Plus cooking.

Thanks for reading!

Karen

Product Reviews

Bar Keepers Friend

The two plates in the picture are from a cheap made-in-China set I bought at Crate and Barrel about twenty years ago. They are our everyday place settings. And the set we use when we have company. The plate on the left shows marks from countless stainless steel utensils scratching the surface. The plate on the right has almost none.

The difference comes from Bar Keepers Friend. It also polishes stainless steel and copper. It works a treat. You can buy it online for $4.99 from Hudson's Bay or in store at Williams and Sonoma for about twice that.

23andMe

My 23andMe reports came yesterday. For the now high-seeming price of $228.95, I have a "likely" (the single most used word on the 23andMe reports) sense of most of the things I knew about myself already.

For example, I "likely" have brown eyes, wavy brown hair, pale skin and have a big toe longer than my other toes. My genetic markers also say I "likely" have average body weight, am lactose tolerant, sleep lightly, move more in my sleep than average, and am less inclined, or not inclined at all, to consume caffeine.

On the health side I am not a carrier of any of the forty or so gene-based medical conditions that I might have passed on to the children I never had. 

And, although the presence or absence of the genetic variant  guarantees neither that I will or will not develop late-onset Alzheimer's disease, I don't have the variant. I also don't have the variant for Parkinson's, but that also doesn't mean a thing.

The ads for 23andMe make a big deal about how your genetic makeup can correct fanciful family narratives. You know, the guy who thought he was Italian finds out he's German instead.

Well, my family narrative is more or less born out by my genes. I am mostly Scots (my father) and German (my mother). The proportions are a bit of a surprise, though. I'm almost 40% Scots, and less than 20% German. I'm also 6% Scandinavian (Vikings, I'm guessing) and 13% Eastern European. 

The larger proportions are from the nearer ancestors. According to the genes they pulled out of my spit, 400 or so years ago I had an ancestor who was 100% Finnish and another who was 100% Native American. These ancestors account for less than .2% of my DNA.

So that's pretty cool.

The two biggest surprises and least expected pieces of information lurking in my genes were, first, that I have 302 Neanderthal variants, including the variant associated with having less back hair, and, second, my genetic muscle composition is common in elite power athletes.

As for what this last factoid means, the report says 

For most people, lifestyle and training factors drive athletic performance. At the national and international levels of competition, the genetic variant in this report seems to make a difference in athletic success, but its role for non-elite athletes isn't completely understood.

Here's my contribution to science: in non-elite athletes the elite athlete muscle composition genetic variant has no role whatsoever.

Thanks for reading!

Karen

   

Hometown Tourist

View from the very last orchestra row: Royal Alex Theatre

In an almost O'Henry-eque turn of events, a colleague at work and his wife had the same idea about what to give their spouse for Christmas.

During my last week at the office, he sent out an e-mail asking if anyone would like two tickets to "Come From Away." I was over with my chequebook so fast I forgot to bring my security pass. I spent a few tense moments stuck in the stairwell, worried more about someone snatching up the tickets than dealing with the inconvenience of going down ten flights and then coming back up in the elevator.

Bruce and I saw the show last night. We weren't sure if it would be too much for Bruce and his battered eyeball. But he lasted through.

I know a lot about the show because my sister and brother-in-law have seen it twice. 

It is sweet, funny, both sentimental and hard nosed, with the comic crescendo about two thirds in: the audience roared with laughter.

On Broadway, "Come From Away" won a Tony for stage direction. That seems about right. The cast is constantly in tightly choreographed motion, seamlessly switching characters and locations with nothing to work with but a hat or jacket, twelve chairs and a revolving platform. Great stagecraft.

Thanks for reading!

Karen

Summer Holiday

Winter's relentless: yesterday it snowed.

I started work at the Ontario Ministry of the Environment eleven years, five months and 26 days ago.  

One day ago I stopped.

I am now on a two week break before my new job starts. 

It's my summer holiday. All the work I was so caught up in is behind me. All the work I will be caught up in is ahead, unknown. And, just like all the summers between semesters during my university education, I have some reading to do. 

Staff at the Ministry of Energy have stocked me up with lots of materials. 

At Nandos on Bay Street, February 28. Some of my staff and I pose in front of spent bottles and corks.

Eyeball Breaking News

Last we heard, Bruce's recovery from a torn retina and an effective but wince-inducing procedure seemed to be going well.

And it was going well, but, the eye doc warned us, due to the multiple rips in his retina, the risks of scarring and another detachment were high.

Indeed they were. This past Wednesday Bruce attended his weekly check-in with the doc. His vision test was not as good as the week before, leading to the sad news that scar tissue was building up and another detachment was imminent.

So the following day he went into the eyeball repair shop for a second time. 

After a more intrusive and even more wince-inducing procedure than the first one, Bruce now has a drop of oil in his eye. The effects on his vision are actually less distorting than those of the gas bubble. That's the good news. The bad news is the oil won't go away on its own. Bruce will have to go back to the eyeball repair shop to have it removed.

So Bruce is back to holding his head like a drinking bird in mid-sip for another four weeks or so. But, he feels like an old hand at this now, and is determined that this time, it'll work.

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!

Karen