Month: June 2013

Toward the end, she says that the World Cup and the Olympics are great events. Come on. Really?

A friend is considering one of these but Canadian Tire is asking $429.99 CAD (web price). The same cycle sells for $259.00 US at Walmart in the States right now. That’s about a $170 difference. Granted, Canadian Tire says they’ll assemble it for you “free”, but that’s a HUGE assembly charge built in, if that’s the reason.
There was a recent Canadian Tire sale on these, briefly bringing the cost down to $329.99. More reasonable, but our friend missed the sale… and there would still have been a $70 spread built in to cover that “free” assembly. That difference would easily cover the cost of a helmet and lights.
Note: the Meridian Adult Trike above is single speed.

Danica and Kathleen pose in the back yard before heading off to a block party on friend Neda’s street. Don’t they look terrific?

When she saw her 3 year old grandson playing with his pee-pee, a disapproving grandmother said, “Don’t play with that. It’ll fall off”.
The 3 year old turned to his older brother and said, “That must be what happened to Mom’s”.

Congratulations, Kash and Carlotta, on the opening of your brand-new-old-traditional latteria in Niagara-on-the Lake!
After years of success with their Tuscan-style B&B, Zuhair (Kash) Kashmeri and his wife Carlotta are expanding into a whole new business. The B&B continues to thrive, but now the entrepreneurial couple will also be selling genuine Italian gelato on Niagara-on-the-Lake’s main drag. Gelato di Carlotta will be made with Italian equipment just imported and installed. Rave reactions already and the Grand Opening is still a couple of days away.

My recent sorting of scans brought to light this interesting opportunity to compare two oil paintings of similar subjects. The one on the left is an aboriginal elder, painted by Helen Andersen. On the right, an elder painted 4 or 5 decades earlier by Helen’s mother, Fannie Anderson.
What a difference in treatments! Many casual viewers would prefer to hang Fannie’s painting on their wall. It is conventionally realistic, almost photographic. Everything about the picture is safe and comfortable. I believe that Fannie knew the sitter as an individual, but she titled her work “Grandmother”… safely categorizing the likeness as a typical genre painting rather than as a portrait of a particular person. It is a kindly treatment of a kindly personage, one who smiles out of the canvas without looking us in the eye. The “native” aspects of the picture, aside from facial characteristics, dwell on the centrally parted, braided hairstyle. I’m not sure if the brightly coloured print of grandmother’s blouse was also meant to be typical, but I suspect it was. The background is generalized and nondescript, although it is curiously similar to part of the background behind Helen’s elder.
So, let’s compare.

I feel the need for a word to describe the error we make when we click on some button or link by mistake. Such an error in typing is called a typo, so I propose cliko as a new and useful addition to our vocabulary.

Following the rule “Don’t play with your food”, I have resisted putting talk balloons above these seated beauties. I should get points for that.
You are looking at two “beer-can” chickens, covered in rub, waiting for the barbecue lid to close. Tonight’s delicious dinner emerged after an hour or so… crispy on the outside, juicy inside. Of course we didn’t eat one each. We have 6 more dinners to enjoy after today’s two meals.
Want to see how they looked an hour later?

A snide person on CBC radio last week said, “New York has its Brooklyn, Toronto has its Scarborough”. Yeah? What part of Brooklyn looks like the gorgeous lakeshore around the mouth of the Rouge?

My friend Peter lent me one of his bikes today so we could explore about 10 kilometres of the Waterfront Trail. That’s 20 kilometres, round trip. As one who cycles once or twice a decade, I was surprised that it wasn’t too difficult. Some hills, but not bad.
Below are a few more snapshots from the day. The nuclear plant does, I admit, seem Brooklynesque.

Click image to go there.
Some would say overdue, but the entry is timely, too. We have a number of lithographs of Helen’s work to distribute and need a link to send to prospective recipients.
The prints were among the originals recently discovered. Our plan is to get them onto people’s walls where they can be enjoyed. We aren’t out to sell them, but we may offer some to galleries if they want to sell them to their clientele.