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

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