Do Stuff

 I can't say this enough. Do stuff. If you don't have much money do small stuff. Do stuff and take pictures of the event because you might end up with a period of time where circumstances stop you from doing anything. You know like a freaking plague.

My 60th birthday happened just before the boom lowered. In fact there was the odd news report of something happening in China but no one thought it was much because they were controlling the press coverage pretty closely. Also frankly everyone remembered the H1N1 and SARS scares.

H1N1 was easily dealt with by vaccinations that were ready to go because of ongoing research. SARS while bad for the few people who caught it did not travel nearly as readily as COVID so that while in many cases it was often devastating to the people directly effected it touched relatively few people. 

My actual birthday happened in the middle of the week so I had to grumble my way through an ordinary work day. That weekend most of my friends were at a fan convention. I ended up going to the Canadian National Exhibition with a different friend who favor's a different convention. 

Neither of us are big ride fans but we enjoyed the displays in particular the pictures I have added here. They are all Chinese lanterns. Some of them moved. We spent a long time wandering through the display and taking pictures. It was a good birthday.

PS; the weekend after my other friends and I went to a movie as kind of a casual birthday party. It was great.

Random stuff.

 Several things are bugging me this evening. A big one is one of my knees has decided to go out without permission and I spent some of the afternoon using a cane and trying to convince it to return to its appointed job. We all get our own special problems as we get older. I seem to have been assigned knees that don't want to work. Covid in general has had me delaying going to the doctor but I will eventually have it looked at in the mean time "grumble grumble stupid joints."

Seriously your average rooster has the right idea. Do what you want, complain to the sun if it wakes you up and if you get annoyed by life, scream and scratch at the annoyance till it goes away. 

Recently I got told on Facebook that someone had made a duplicate of my page presumably for hacker reasons. I announced the problem to the people I am connected to then went on a fever of password changing just in case that was a factor. 

Deep down I have to admit the passwords had been the same for way to long but changing them was a bug I didn't need. I'll tell you something else I didn't need. My hands automatically typing the old password in different spots then having to go CRAP then type the new one. 

Seriously if you are typing a password without thinking its probably time to change the thing.

On a holiday note my daughter lives in a whole other town. Of the handful of times she makes the trip to Toronto one is Christmas day. Generally we see a movie then come home have dinner and she goes home the next day. A nice Jewish Christmas. The only thing more cheche would be if we went out for Chinese food. 

Last year she stayed home of course and that probably got her thinking. This year she's coming a few weeks early instead because frankly traveling at Christmas is a nightmare.  So enjoy your weekend Christmas shopping. We'll be at the movies watching Ghost Busters.  

Let the December madness begin. 

Where we put the dead.

 On a side note my insomniac self found out last night that the You Tube app on my bottom of the line android tablet does not work anymore, is no longer supported by You Tube and there's no way to download a replacement. I can still watch You Tube on the thing I just have to access it via Google. Problem being the background is blinding white. This is not good for someone who just wants a blur of words to distract her from her own brain so she can get to sleep or back to sleep. 

                                                                        RIP APP

On to actual death. Not a cozy topic but it does tend to catch up with one. Really old cemeteries actually can be very interesting. That fellow up there is near the entrance to Mount Pleasant Cemetery in mid town Toronto.  Not sure why he's there but he does tend to epitomize the hidden feeling you get when you either have to go to a funeral or have to organize one. My parents have passed but I didn't have much say in what happened (long story). I do remember the vivid feeling of "Oh hell now what"? 

Don't remember the story on this fella either. Seems to be above it all doesn't he? 

Where we put the dead can actually be very interesting. Hence the cemetery tour.  Over in Europe I have been walked through the standard catacomb tours. They weren't just places for early Christians to hide they were places to lay dear Uncle Commodus out on a shelf. Fancy going to a religious service two tunnels over from a fresh internment? I wouldn't.  

Toronto is a young city in a relatively young country but we have some keen Toronto tours.

The couple I have gone on were led by an American Archeologist who is in the process of getting his Canadian citizenship. He's great and has learned a lot about who is in Toronto's plots.  

I think my favorite story is about a stone set simply to remember someone because there is no body underneath it. The man remembered there had more bad luck than is strictly speaking reasonable. Then he inherited a bundle and decided to heck with it he was going to see the world. He did see the world and in the process got sick as a dog. To sick to walk. He was carried aboard the boat to cross the Atlantic. That boat? The Titanic. 

Come to think of it coping with changing apps is a problem I can handle after all. 

December

 We are into the second half of November now and I think its safe to say Christmas is coming. Like a monolith December hangs above us all. There are different ways to approach the holidays.  I tend to think of it as a very Celtic northern European winter festival. It's the dark of the year and from here on in the days slowly get brighter. 

I'll probably go into more detail at another time but I was raised Anglican, I'm now Jewish (non practicing, long story). Celebrating the season with this kind of attitude soothes my inner pagan. On Christmas day I make a nice meal, veggie lasagna when my daughter is able to come, spare ribs and a couple of different kinds of veg when its just me and my son.  We also go to the movies in the afternoon. You find an interesting crowd at the movies on a Christmas afternoon. We once saw a whole cluster of saffron robbed Buddhist monks. Don't know what they were there to see but presumably their abbot gave them the day off from becoming one with the universe to have some fun. 

When done right this time of year can be a healing time. Those with nothing get a lift up. Those with plenty get reminded that sharing is a human obligation. A long time ago I read an article written by someone who volunteered to deliver Christmas boxes for kids who otherwise would get nothing from Santa. On one delivery the mother of that family mentioned the people in the apartment next door had just arrived in the country. They had very little.

Having packed extra boxes for just such an occasion they knocked on that door next. The father of the family protested that they didn't celebrate Christmas. The woman writing the article told him; "We do and there's no reason for your kids to go without a treat. This is Canada and its Christmas."

So yeah. Its Canada and its Christmas. Be kind to yourself and celebrate being alive in however way you see fit. After the past couple of years its practically a notable achievement. 

Most of all be kind. 

Weather

 Other cities in eastern and western Canada laugh at Toronto weather. To be fair they have a point. In generally we are warmer in the winter and have way less snow than almost every major city this side of the Rockies. 

There's an extra expensive neighborhood down town that holds an ice sculpture contest in February. Its great stuff but its also at a spot in the calendar where we often get a thaw. Makes for a nice winter day out but I bet the sculptors get a bit ticked. 

Basically we are right on lake Ontario in the crook of several different wind directions and tend to get missed by most of them. Its a tricky balance. We just happen to be on the right spot. If you want to know what its like being on the wrong spot google Buffalo New York and winter. They really get hit. 

When bad weather doesn't miss us we can have problems. One winter SNOWMAGEDDON hit so hard that the mayor of the time was having serious problems getting everyone to work. He called on the local army for help and got made fun of for doing so. This wasn't really fair. When you have the capacity to move X amount of snow in a day or so, thereby allowing people to get to work, and you have to move XXXX amount of snow; preventing the city from grinding to a halt can make you do some silly sounding things. 

So, its November. Most of the time we don't get anything more than a dusting before now and the end of December when it really does hit. Most of the time isn't all the time though.

Winter is coming. 

HEROES

(A short story based on a real Remembrance day a long time ago.) 

 

November eleventh, the student body of a small school is gathered in the gym; at one end is a stage with a row of candles. In this school war is not just a history book thing. There is one light for every war-torn homeland of which the student body can speak. There are children here who know that fear and death are only a plane ride away. The teachers know this and know that it needs to be remembered too. 

After this comes a candle for a war, they will not study for some years to come. A war their grandparents fought and to which their parents had listen, a radio war. 

There is a candle to mark the death of six million. Six million; words passing like a discomforting shadow over minds to young to understand. There will be time for true understanding another day. 

They stand and listen to the soul pulling sound of a horn. Then sit and listen to a song of young men going to war whole and hearty and strong and coming back broken and changed, or not at all.   

Then the janitor climbs the platform and stands behind the podium. They know him. He is a grandfatherly man, as Irish as a fairy's dream. A man with a ready smile and a story for every occasion, except around this time of year, this time of year he thinks deeply. Now it is time to talk about what he has thought. 

"Boys and girls, last year on this day, after school let out a lad asked me if I'd met any heroes in the war. I told him I had. He asked me if they looked anything like the heroes you see in movies.  I said no. 

"Since that time I've thought about that answer and realized that it’s not quite good enough. So, I today that is what I will talk about.   

"There is an electrician with the board of education. You've seen him in here fixing this and that; he was in the war. That man is a hero.   

"There is a principal of a school not far from here. You know it. You might even know him. That man is a hero too. I won't tell you why they are, stories like that aren't for young ears, they just are.   

"What I am going to tell you is the story of a young man who came from the same village in Ireland as I did. Our village was right on the border between free Ireland and the part of Ireland still under British rule. In fact, there was a certain street, if you were born on one side of the street when you were drafted you had to go to war. If you were born on the other, you would never have to go.   

"This young lad I knew was born on the British side. He didn't want to go. He was a religious lad and didn't like the thought of maybe killing someone, even in self-defense. But the only choice was the army or jail.   

"So, the army let him sign a paper saying that he did not have to carry a gun. They made him a stretcher bearer. That's what he did and that's how he died; unarmed, looking for lads that had been hurt and needed carrying to safety. He never fired a gun. He never dropped a bomb. That lad, boys and girls, was a hero." 

The children quietly filter out of the gym, red paper flowers pinned to their chests. A short time later half assemble in the lunch room. The rest bounce noisily home. 

The janitor stands outside the school. He has a smoke and watches them go. He will retire soon. The thing is all planned with useful ways to spend his time, or waste it if the spirit moves.  

 

But he will be back on this day. To tell the next generation, and the next if the good lord would grant him the strength, that war might sometimes be necessary but it could never be right or good. To tell them the difference between film and fact.   

He would say that he was only an aging Irishman who'd taken the king's shilling and gone to war. He was no hero. But he knew what hero's looked like. He would tell them that too. 

Directions

 Toronto is a city on lake Ontario. Its a large lake. On a clear day you can see a fuzzy mirage that is pretending to be New York State. That's not New York state in the picture by the way its part of a spit that has to do with industrial shipping. 

When I was a kid directions were simple. North was the suburbs. South was the lake. East was away from Young St. and West was toward Young St. 

There was and still is, a general center of the city that had all the good stuff like the Art Gallery, Eaton's department store and the Royal Ontario Museum. Eaton's faded away after 130 years but the gallery and the museum are still with us. 

Beyond the center of the city is THE WEST END. 

There is a strange cultural thing about Toronto. East enders don't really know about the west end and generally don't go there. West enders are the same about the east end. Because of the groups that settled in the various neighborhoods we have slightly different histories and populations. We are joined by one overwhelming feeling that the bus doesn't come nearly often enough and having a subway closer would be really good. (Even though we don't want to put up with the years of disruption it would require not to mention the cost.)

We also tend to think that the down town people are a bit spoilt. 

But that's Toronto. Remember if you walk south and your feet get wet you've gone to far. 

Marching

 I was born in 1959. This means that by the time I was old enough to process things that were happening in the news, said news shows were full to bursting with stories about marches. Mind you this was back in the days when you only had a hand full of stations so you had to put up with watching the news with your parents before the good shows came on, 

There were the anti war protesters, the women's lib protesters and of course the anti segregation protesters. Being a quiet only child who's views were seldom taken seriously I thought to myself who's going to listen? Will it help? Will it change anything? It did but not very quickly.

Then the pentagon papers showed that the war really was seen as unwinnable even before it started for the US yet they went in anyway. Finally they backed off and pulled out. Women began to get lip service, then began to actually push themselves into the main stream. The backbone of segregation was broken. We all know that was just the beginning but it was a beginning. For the American military "don't ask don't tell" was brought in and believe it or not that was an improvement.

In Canada homosexuality was taken out of the criminal code. P.E. Trudeau famously stated, "Government does not belong in the bedrooms of the nation." and decriminalized homosexuality. 

By the time I hit my late teens I don't think anyone was marching anymore.  It was the 80s the era that brought in Greed is Good. All the hippies bought stock and the squares began their climb to the top.

I'm making up for lost time and have been in a couple of marches since. The first march I ever went on I was in my 50s. It was a march for science. Seriously, back in the 1940s and 50s did they even picture having a march to support science? I suppose they never figured science would start telling them things they didn't want to hear.

They taught us a chant. 

"WHAT DO WE WANT?"  

"SCIENCE!" 

"WHEN DO WE WANT IT?" 

"AFTER THE PEER REVIEW!"

Christmas

 On Saturday I went to what was billed as a Christmas Market.  There was the usual selection of hand crafted this and that a DJ and the Business Development people who organized it was giving away free hot cyder. It was also wonderfully warm for a November day. 

The real attraction was the location. It was right next to Fort York the fort that was built by the British when the location was first settled by Europeans. (Yes there were indigenous people already here. I'm not getting into a colonization discussion. I'm not qualified. )  

Between the spot where the Market was, which is called the Bentway for some reason, and the reconstructed fort is a large visitors center. It didn't exist when I was younger and visited on school trips but people do have to get formal about things don't they?

The real attraction to this spot is its underneath a busy highway. The big pillars you see in that clip are holding up one of the busiest commuter roads connected to the city. Underneath are a lot of people sipping cyder, looking at beads, crystals, designer masks and considering buying some vegan chilly to go with the cyder. 

I didn't by the way the line up was to long.

In the winter they flood this spot and turn it into a long natural ice rink. I've never gone. I like my bones in the condition they are in. At my age one good fall and I'd turn into a maraca. 

Least We Forget

 In Canada the day we mark military conflict and our service people in general is November 11. I believe Americans have several days we have this one. It stems from the official ending day and time of the first world war. The war officially ended on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. Probably picked for its memorable qualities by a bunch of politicians and statesmen with high collars and long white mustaches. 

It is of course but that's small compensation for the guy that got shot dead one minute to eleven. I can't remember his name or where it was but he died because some suits wanted the nastiest, bloodiest, most pointless conflict in history up until that time to have a memorable end. 

Nit pickers can point out some continued hostilities that happened in I think Africa but communication wasn't as dependable back then as it is now. Also its always possible some locals were getting a head start on the job of kicking the Europeans out of their country but that's another story that I am massively unqualified to comment on.

When I am not working I like to try and go down to Old City Hall for services. Toronto has three, Old City Hall (now used as a court house) New City Hall and Metro Hall. 

Its very effecting to stand in a cold blocked off street among a few hundred people and listen to a bugler play the last post. 

They mark the Boer War (the first time the Dominion of Canada fought with a separate force as opposed to men being mixed with British Forces) World War One, and Two, Korea, Pease Keepers and everything since. 

At 11 there is a moment of silence and a flyover. These are vintage planes and among them is the Lancaster. Its the last Lancaster bomber that can fly and the sound it makes feels of history.

War isn't history though so in the meantime remember. 

FOOD

 Once you get to a certain age you suddenly discover that food you once thought was absolutely your favorite or the worst thing ever have changed positions in the -will I eat it- stakes. 

Two different types of cheese melted in the microwave. Yeah I know toaster oven would do that and the bread wouldn't get soggy but I don't have one. Or to be more exact I don't have the counter space to have one. I live in a 60s era building but it has 2020 era counter space in the kitchen.

Beyond swiftly prepared cheese sandwiches I have decided I like Brussel sprouts. This is a Christmas dinner -eat one and you can have desert- item I never thought I would eat willingly. I now find my body does a scream now and then and says; 

"EAT A VEGITABLE DAMN IT!!! OK OK I'LL MAKE THE THINGS TASTE BETTER."

A food I kind of miss and once in a great while I make just for myself is canned beans and hot dogs. Or as they were referred to when I was a kid beany-weenies. The beans of course were generally Heinz beans in sauce. I've seen on British TV that they still get eaten often over there but here, not so much.

On a side note did you ever just mix stuff up in a bowl, eat it, say wow I'm having that again, then never eat it again? I think that's how they invented poutine only the inventor did do it again. 

Now if you will excuse me I am going to go make jello and I might mix it with dream whip and if you're good I'll put fruit in it. 

The Pan Am Games

 For years and years the powers that be in Toronto wanted to have the Olympics take place here. Not big on that myself I think Montréal is still paying the bills off from when they had it and that was over fifty years ago. We did however get a smaller event called the Pan Am Games. A sports event for countries in the North and South Americas. 

I'm not a sporty sort myself and didn't go to any of the events. I did attend some of the fringe entertainment based things and had a good time. That was when I learned Toronto has its own Japanese drum group. They're great by the way. 

One odd thing did happen. Roughly two weeks before it was due to start an underground room was discovered dug into the earth on the grounds of a university at the northern edge of the city. It had a generator for lights and a fridge. Someone came forward the next day to admit he and friends had dug it in secret as a party space. That was that. It was a silly story that even made the US news. 

I didnt buy it. I bet a lot of other people didnt either. An underground space located very close to the venue where the tennis was set to take place is an innocent party room? The thing is for a fantasy/sci fi writer the truth is kind of dull. Gritty, sad but ultimately dull. 

I turned it into a time travel adventure where a young genius invents a machine that transports an entire WW 1 dugout with one soldier into the present day.  Both soldier and dugout snap back to their own time and eventually the boy is caught by security forces but before that can happen both a detective and an archeologist working on her doctorate end up standing in a Saxon palace within sight of the Holly Island of Lindisfarne

. You can find a link to the book on my amazon page 

amazon.com/author/tabithabaumander 

To get back to the games I rather enjoyed them when they were here. I really think we should try for the Commonwealth games once Covid settles down. I'd never want the Olympics. Its just to much money for what you get out of the experience.

Insomnia

 A few years ago Steven King wrote a book called INSOMNIA. I managed to grab a hard cover copy from a sale counter and learned that while it was in the middle range quality wise as far as King's work goes you could take a book sized hunk out of the thing and have a debatably better book. I'm not commenting on the book itself today beyond that I am talking about actual insomnia. 

I was the sort of person who needed her 8 or 9 hours of sleep or she was cranky all day. Then I got pregnant. Then I had twins. Then I spent the first three or four months getting my sleep in 15 minute lumps no more than a total of three hours per twenty four hour period. Day and night mean nothing in times like that you have to think on a 24 hour basis to understand how time is passing. 

That of course is an extreme experience and even the worst of those pass in time. I eventually worked my way up to 4 to 6 hours a night and started to feel like a human being again. At this point though I literally can't sleep like I did when I was younger. 

To make up for it I learned some rules. 

Lay in a dark room for a period of time each night. Get comfortable and try and think of as little as possible. Common wisdom says keep electronics from the bedside but I find that an audio book playing softly will block out my racing brain and let me drift off. The amount of you tube videos I have turned on and not heard the end of are legion. 

Above all know that there is something called micro naps. Even if it seems like you have been dead eye awake all night you have probably napped at least a little. They're the sort of thing drivers realize they've had when they have been driving for way to long. 

Above all don't give up. Sleep can happen. You just have to accept it wont happen in the same way as you were when you were a kid. 

Tried counting sheep. Didn't work.