Goliath, Again

First bee of the season; Allan Gardens, April 13, 2023

The struggle this time is with the City of Toronto.

But I'm not in search of a solution that affects me directly, except for my sense -- a hangover from my twenty years as a public servant -- that government is there to look out for our collective interests.

During the pandemic a plot of dirt on Sherbourne Street between the bike lane and the sidewalk (where a tree once grew) took on the aspect of a sink hole. The dirt in the plot would wash away in the rain and reveal beneath the road surface a quite shockingly large hole. The kind of hole you see on the news with a half-submerged car sticking out of it. 

This plot of dirt is directly in front of our condo complex, so my neighbours and I felt we had something to lose if the hole were to grow.

We have, over the past three years, contacted the City maybe half a dozen times asking that they fix the hole and plant a new tree in the plot.

So far the City has placed a series of hazard cones on the dirt plot (many of which have grown legs and walked away) and dumped some clean fill down the hole.

We knew that approach was futile, as this video, recorded on April 5 2023, shows:

I have written my local council member a time or two about this matter. 

The video may do the trick.

Maybe some day soon, this week's picture will be of a nice new tree on Sherbourne Street. Failing that, perhaps the photo will be of a car sticking out of a sink hole.

Thanks for reading!

Karen

Trigger Warning

More cold Bay of Quinte Geese, March 2023

Last August I found a box of old journals in the crawl space. The box has sat there ever since like a grumpy ghost annoyed that I was ignoring it.

I got around to looking at the journals this week.

The first of the volumes - there are 20 in all - is from 1976. I was 19. I kept a record of the month I spent in London, England with family friends. The last volume, just a daily calendar really, is from 1998. 

In the years between the first and last books, I met Bruce, graduated from undergrad, worked at a series of unsatisfying jobs (during which time my father died), attended and graduated from law school, articled at the Canadian Environmental Law Association, and then worked at a series of unsatisfying jobs. 

I'd like to share some of the notes I recorded around the time of dad's death.

It was July 1985. Bill had been battling cancer for about six months by then. It started in his kidney. After some astonishingly brutal treatments, the cancer had seemed to settle down. Dad had some good weeks. And then the cancer came back. The doctors found it in his liver and then everywhere.

It started like this:

On July 20, a Saturday, dad's friend Blackie Lidstone drove him up to the Martyr's Shrine in Midland in search of a literal hail Mary. It was a six hour trip there and back, but dad slept most of the time. Once home, he served drinks and then excused himself. We figured he wasn't feeling well and needed to go be sick.

After about a minute, he called my mother. I decided to listen in. I heard my mother say "Oh my God!" and guessed then that dad was vomiting blood. I told the people in the living room what was happening and said Dad needed to go to the hospital.

While mother ran up and down the hallway saying "Oh my God" every time she passed the bathroom door, I held Dad while he was being sick, and helped him wipe his face when he was done. I was completely calm, which surprised everyone.

Dad lost a lot of blood, more than they actually had for him in Trenton, so he and my mother travelled by ambulance to the National Defence Medical Centre in Ottawa. It was touch and go. We didn't know if he would survive the trip.

Bill had children in Los Angeles (Cathy), Comox (Carol), Trenton (Kim) and Toronto (me), all of whom had to figure out how to get to Ottawa in time to see him alive one last time. Kim got there first, and I wrote down some notes to prepare for the call I was going to have with her:

1) Is Dad alive?

If yes, we'll come to Ottawa. If no, what are the plans? Will you bring him back to Trenton? When? Should I go to Trenton?

2) Who's taking care of the dogs?

3) How's Mom?

4) How are you?

Dad's pain medication had made an ulcer bloom like a red, red rose in his stomach. At the hospital, the doctors talked about surgery to fix the ulcer, but the cancer had more immediate plans. Dad's liver was failing. His heart stopped just before six in the evening on August 2, 1985, almost two weeks to the day after he'd asked the Virgin for mercy.

Thanks for reading.

Karen

Icy End of March

Geese pointing into the wind on the Belleville shore of the Bay of Quinte,
March 30 2023

Mallards, grateful for their down jackets,
South Foster Park, by the Great Lakes Waterfront Trail, Belleville

Synchronized snoozing;
Canada geese by the old Bakelite Plant, Belleville

When the weather’s bad, the only thing there is to do in Belleville is eat, but you have to drive forty kilometres out of town to find a decent meal.

 

So, we had lunch on Wednesday in Napanee at a place called Spuds, a throwback diner where everything - the menu, the staff, the clientele - is vintage 1950's and 60's. We had supper on Thursday in Bloomfield at Flame & Smith. The chef's table* was spectacular, but the cocktails were a bit of a dud.  We drove all the way to Madoc on Friday for lunch at the Iron Rooster, a better than you might think biker bar, with a real life display of classic 'cycles.  

 

Between those meals, on cold, windy days, I took a lot of blurry, focused-on-the-wrong-thing photos of waterfowl and whitecaps. 

Brrr.

Thanks for reading!

Karen

1953 Vincent Rapide C

*Starter: charcuterie. Appetizer: yellow pea fritters with tzatziki; cod croquettes with tartar sauce. First course: roasted mushroom salad, ceviche and home-made corn chips, escargots. Main: Flame broiled Tomahawk steak with blue cheese butter. Dessert: dulce de leche banana pie and chocolate cake. 

Anorexia, Aging and Two-Day-Old Croissants

It'd be a better joke if the sign said "ask our girls what they think!"

Over the past week I have, in no particular order, watched a documentary on anorexia (THIN), had my hair highlighted with blonde dye, and read a few chapters of the book that keeps showing up in the comments, This Chair Rocks.

The common thread among these three is, obviously, your looks may influence how you feel about yourself and will definitely influence what other people think about you.

This Chair Rocks by Ashton Applewhite (evidently her real name) takes aim at ageism, which is a pattern of behaviour -- like all the other "isms" -- where people assume bad things about other people based, among other things, on how they look.

Applewhite shows with lots of studies and research that the facts about old people prove the assumptions wrong. Old people are mentally nimble (just forgetful), can sustain muscle mass and vigour (though, you know, less than when they were 25), and are often happier than they have been their whole lives (no qualifier on this one; this is completely true).  

I'm a ready convert to the gospel Applewhite is preaching. All you have to do is watch a documentary about anorexia and see what a horrible burden being young (and female) can be.  

I wanted to recommend Applewhite to the 59-year-old man who fretted about his retirement as he put the highlights in my hair. Accentuating the positive, I told him about my trip to Paris, and the small pleasure of eating two-day-old croissants for breakfast. He missed my point that even stale Paris croissants are delicious and asked instead, "Weren't you worried you'd gain weight?"

Maybe Applewhite. Maybe THIN.

Thanks for reading!

Karen

Much older than me:
Roman rampart in Tours

 

 

Visual Signals

Bruce and I enjoyed a delicious meal at Richmond Station last night. We were celebrating St. Patrick's Day, the anniversary of one or the other of our weddings, and the third anniversary of the COVID lockdown announcement in Ontario.

Regarding the last in that list, the streets this year are much more lively than they were in 2020. 

It's been more than a year since Ontario lifted most COVID restrictions, but I still get a kick out of seeing people thronging around in happy crowds, as they were last night outside of McVeigh's Tavern. 

As much as I enjoy a more active city, I still feel sometimes like I've got a ways to go before I'm fully adept at coexisting with strangers.

For example.

Last Saturday, I was waiting in Union Station for some friends coming in from Belleville. We'd agreed to meet by the women's washroom. I was early and their train was late, and the power of suggestion made me need to use the washroom, which I did. 

Just as I exited, what looked to me very much like a man walked in. I said, “this is the women’s washroom.” I can’t be sure now what my tone was, but it wasn’t my intention to accuse. He could have just been mistaken.

I realized I was the one who was mistaken when the person said, in a clearly offended tone, “I am a woman.”

“OK” I said. I sat down on a nearby bench, and waited for my friends. 

The trans woman spotted me when she emerged from the washroom. She marched right up to me and loudly berated me for my rude behaviour and how I should know better than to talk to a trans woman that way. She started with the question “What’s your problem?” 

My feeling was she had more of a problem than I did, so I didn't respond. If I gave her no fuel for the fire she was looking to stoke, I hoped she would stop yelling at me and go away. 

This she eventually did. Then I sat there minding my own business, but smarting a bit, until my friends arrived.

I’m sorry for that person’s troubles. They have a lot of anger, and seem to have learned somewhere that you yell at strangers in public when things don’t work the way you want them to.

There’s small irony here that the trans woman was acting like a Karen.

Thanks for reading!

Karen

Dog park dogwood, Allan Gardens

Grey (Crime) Wave

Creedence Clearwater ear worm, 11 March 2023

Another week, another winter storm.  If it weren't for that shingles shot on Wednesday, I would not have gone outside this week at all.

In other old person news, Bruce and I had a coffee in a supermarket cafe recently with a friend (who shall remain nameless) who confessed to not paying his fare on the streetcar. He'd also skipped paying for some yoga classes.

We marvelled at the incredible ease with which he had committed his crimes.

"It's because old people are invisible," he said. "We can do anything we like and no one notices."

In Canada, by 2030, more than one person in five will be over 65. So watch your wallet.

Thanks for reading!

Karen

This old man, on the other hand, attracted a lot of attention when he repeatedly pounded his guitar against the giant exhaust pipes across from the Georges Pompidou Centre.

Canada Calls You

Looking out my back door, Saturday, March 4, 2023

Since we've been back from France, there have been three major winter storms.

Phooey.

So let's just enjoy some Manets, and pray for spring.

Thanks for reading!

Karen

Tours mash-up: medieval half timbered house, now the 
Leonard De Vinci restaurant, next to "Poutine Bros"
where you can get yourself some poutine
(see the lumberjack and the flag?).

Inside "Poutine Bros"