Impact

Three totems: my work companions.

I don't know if anyone cares about what public servants do during an election, except, perhaps, the public servants themselves.

When the election is called and officially there is no government, public servants go into "caretaker mode" so that, even though there is no one in charge, welfare cheques get issued, public infrastructure gets built and the Ontario Provincial Police issue speeding tickets on 400 series highways, among many other important things.

Before the election, there is the frenzy of activity called "transition" where shops like mine frantically prepare briefing materials in anticipation of the new government. 

This is also the time when public servants fret about whether or not they will have a job after the election.

I went for lunch this week with the two other Directors that work in my Division and it was all they could talk about. They have young families. They are terrified.

Also terrifying was the "Yonge Street Incident" this past week, where a clearly disturbed individual used a rented truck as a weapon to mow down innocent pedestrians. 

Maybe he was inspired by the incels, but I wonder if the driver had anything so rational as a motive; rather, an overloaded sense of grievance and a lot of bottled rage.

These days, the combination of these two things seems like the most powerful force in the universe.  

The people killed and injured by the deranged driver did not have the benefit of foreknowledge that they were going to be the targets of this force. 

People working in the public service, on the other hand, do. 

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!

Karen 

Rare Sightings

Last in the series: 
the kit had fifty pieces, 403 points to glue and took eight hours to put together.
The legs, especially the back ones, were a lot of tucking frouble. 

This past week I retired from doing Low Poly crafts.

I also attended a Ministry of Energy "town hall", the first to be held in at least six years.

Those attending fit easily into the small chapel at Victoria College on the University of Toronto campus. The whole ministry has less than 200 people. In contrast, the Environment Ministry has almost 2000.

Never before seen together in public: the Ministry of Energy senior management team.
My boss is second from the left. The person holding the mic is the Deputy Minister.

Science and religion used to be friends:
Sir Isaac Newton in stained glass on hallowed ground,
Victoria College Chapel.

You used to be able, in April, to see patio stones in my back yard.

Finally, at a rate of better than a million dollars a day, more than 140,000 people (including me) from more than 80 countries donated more than $15,000,000 in support of the families affected by the tragedy that befell the Humbolt Broncos hockey team. 

It is so exquisitely rare that this kind of common cause arises that of course it could not last. Even before the Gofundme site stopped taking donations, people started to complain. Nancy Kane, for example, said: 

"Do not understand why a few more days were not given to accept very sincere donations, rather churlish after everyone's efforts."

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!

Karen

Marching

Puffin: Fifteen fewer pieces; three fewer hours, 
but the legs were more than a little bit tricky.

I've mentioned the Toronto construction boom in this blog before. Just about any neighbourhood near a major transit line in Toronto is seeing big changes. 

I have illustrated this before in bits and pieces: construction hoarding and notice signs.

Here's another way to show the change underway.

In 2013, nothing showed above the Allan Gardens greenhouse except the palmhouse dome, the stack of the long-decommissioned incinerator and the stalk of a blooming yucca plant. 

In 2015, something else appeared, a condominium tower under construction at the corner of Dundas and Jarvis.

Now, in 2018, there are two more being built at the same corner. 

The march of the fifty-storey towers.

You can see the construction crane for the second new tower just peeking above the greenhouse roof. 

There is another fifty-storey tower slated to be built just east of these.

If all goes as planned (and nothing does) we will be in this neighbourhood for another five years. 

By then, we won't recognize the place.

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!

Karen

Cold April

Before the wind and snow: two little snow drops in my garden.

Since I left the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change at the beginning of March, every day the temperature has been more or less the same. 

The weather itself is sometimes sunny, sometimes cloudy, sometimes rainy, but the temperature is always cold. 

I don't believe there's a connection.

Updates on Various States of Health

Bruce went to the eyeball repair shop week before last. The doc says the retina has reattached. 

Now we wait until Bruce is healed enough to withstand the procedure to extricate the oil bubble still in his eyeball.

We joke about using him as a level in the meantime.

My assistant, injured by a hit and run driver the night of my first day at the Ministry of Energy is at work, cheerfully hobbling around on crutches. She may or may not need to have her hip bones bolted together. It all depends on how much she stays off her left leg.

The branch project is to nag her constantly to use her crutches. 

Low Poly Crafts

I built a raccoon to pass the time over the Easter long weekend. 

The racoon started off as 47 different numbered pieces of grey, black and white stiff construction paper, cut, pre-scored, and marked with small numbers to identify which tabs need to be glued together. 

The kits are idiot proof so long as you make folds in the right direction, and glue matching number to number.

The racoon took about seven hours to make. 

Next up: a puffin.

Thanks for reading! 

Have a great week!

Karen