To Marineland....and Beyond!!!

So you may have noticed no mention of Niagara Falls.  Except for the magnificence of the falls themselves, there is little to say about the city.  We had access to a nice pool in a medium-nice hotel, and time to recover from the drive.

Marineland, however, was such a different experience.  The day we went was a very hot day, but it wasn't crowded at the park.  Sarah had researched very well and we had everything we needed.

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The hand with the blue ring that you can see in this photo is Julia's, but we all took our turn feeding and petting the Belugas, and I was amazed at how warm I felt towards something I would have, all my life, considered a beast.  They were responsive and playful, and we all delighted in throwing fish at them and stroking their surprisingly textured heads.  I say surprisingly, because in my wrongheadedness I expected them to be slimy.

Wheeeeeeee! ( I hoped)

silently screaming, I joined Emma on the baby roller-coaster, only to find that it was actually quite pleasant, and I was not about to die, with my granddaughter having to cope.






Both Julia and Emma loved feeding the deer; we spent a couple of hours in that part of the park:

Julia showed a never-before -seen-by-me patience tempting these reindeer with various treats until finally, even she could feel the futility and we finally moved on

We took a breather, had some lunch, danced to a polka band and then
with this memory seared into our heads, each personalized,

we, in this case meaning "I" stood in line for the Big Show at the Walrus theatre. In spite of being named for a walrus, the show featured dolphins---sleek, tricky, playful dolphins.

 They fascinated us with their individual grace, but the really impressive part of their show was when 5 of them worked as a team, sailing up out of the water and executing flips and twirls with an amazing synchronization.

I didn't say we were synchronized.....

The next day, at the Toronto Zoo, we had again been beautifully organized by Sarah and the fun began:

Julia as Lawrence of Arabia

Emma as Princess Jasmine

 

the Toronto Zoo has a wonderful pool of stingrays, with a shark as well.

Lorna sees a shark!!

And pets a stingray

Meanwhile, Sarah and the girls get adventurous and feed/pet stingrays.  All of this just seems surreal to a woman who can't pet a dog.

We see some adorable rabbits:

Can't flip it, but can't leave it out either.....

Get adorable:

Only one dalmation

A lazy tiger (sorry!)

Domestic and wild life at peace

Julia, is an artist, and she also has a piquant sense of humour:

More swimming, more eating, alcohol for the over-7s and we were back home before we knew it, but I got a very clear sense of how to have a great vacation---go with some of your best friends.

It only took two hours

By bits and pieces, I'm pulling together my former Lorna in Wonderland blog.

This morning I rebuilt my blogreading list---I hope I haven't left anyone out.  Rebuilding the list makes it easier for me to stay updated, but it amazed me how long it took to do this essential step.  I could have imported my old one if my old one wasn't sitting on an inaccessible site.

Oh, have I mentioned this before?  The dormant blog?  Did I include in that mentioning that the stupidity was mine?  That I fiddled with something that wasn't broken until I broke it?

Can I really mean it when I say this is the last time I'm going to mention it?

Gack!!!! I only get some of the names on my blogroll.  This is not going well.

How easy it is to please sometimes

A couple of weeks ago, I was making a chicken stew.  I am not really a cook, but I can make a truly delicious chicken stew.

Emma wanted to help, but all that was left to do was the dumplings, so we gamely set about mixing and dolloping and boiling and steaming and in less time than it takes to watch a TV show, or for some of us to take a shower, we had dumplings.  As you can see we were both delighted.  

Findings

While I was on the mini-vacation of which I'm not going to write until I have photos, I had a mini-earth-shattering experience.  Since it was on the vanity side of my life, it only qualifies under "shallow findings".

We were in a hotel with a long counter in the bathroom, mirrored in front and on the sides, and as one stood brushing one's teeth, one (read me) was able to see one's image multiplied 40 times in either direction.

One (read me again) was dismayed to see 80 images of one from the side---newly, the least flattering of all the possible viewpoints.

I had been aware that I was putting on weight---in the same way you notice that your mail is piling up, or that you really have too many shoes, but I wasn't really aware of the visual impact: what 15 or 20 pounds adds in the way of contours to one's mid-section.

It was a shallow finding, but one that just might get me off the double-double coffee with cinnamon bun at Timmy's and out of the way of the second glass of wine in the evening, and definitely made me think of re-visiting the Exercise Room in the basement of our building.  I haven't done anything as radical as deciding on a diet or an exercise plan, but it would probably be a good idea.

My other finding was that I can go very quickly from shocked to soothed.  In most cases, that would be good.

Not that I'm counting the years....

30 years ago, when Emily was 6 months old, we needed a caregiver.  We were delighted when a young Sri Lankan woman answered our ad, and started coming to our home with her 6 and 4 year old kids.  A warm and loving caregiver, she looked after Emily for two years.  During those years, we came to know Dayani's husband, and her children Asith, Inoka and later, Renuka, and to love them all.

When Emily was six, Dayani and family asked her to join them on a trip to Edmonton, and Dave, Chris, Sarah and I watched as they boarded the bus for a 3 week stay, and rejoiced when we finally got her attention long enough to wave good-bye to us. 

We stayed friends and shared meals, went to concerts, games and cricket matches together, watched each other's kids in school shows, lived both far from and near to each other but always visited, always kept up to date and always, always supported each other.

We stayed friends through graduations, kids leaving home, kids coming back, weddings, births, opening nights and sadly through illnesses and death in the family.

Today Asith, on a visit from Vancouver, played Uncle to Robyn---I had to fight the happy tears.

Asith, Robyn 18 August 2010

Robyn wins!

Why I'm Not Talking About Niagara Falls or Toronto

I've been on a mini-vacation.

I took my camera and my video-camera but left them in my bag all the time I was gone.

I'm not writing about my mini-vacation until Sarah downloads her camera which has the interesting bits, none of which are me in a bathing suit.  At least they better not be.

Where's an exorcisor when you need one?

I have an evil alter-ego.  A hidden misanthrope.

That person, whom we'll call Evilorna, got called out of her cave a couple of times this weekend, with dire results.

First, I had to drive over to my daughter's place on Saturday morning because one of her children told Dave that she was alone in the house and she didn't like it.  Naturally, I zoomed over, but when I found that she hadn't seen her dad, who was out in the back yard watering vegetables, and hadn't heard her mother say goodbye because she was trying not to be distracted from her tv show, Evilorna had a good 45 seconds of wanting to shake her silly.  That's how long it took her to come over and kiss me about 50 times and say she was sorry.

Later the same day, I had to banish Evilorna after some brash young man tried to make a left turn while we were zipping lawfully through the intersection.  I sat stunned, but Evilorna successfully completed at least three rude and noxious gestures while daring said man to lose eye contact until she was finished.

She had a pretty good evening last night, just lazing in her dark place while I had a really good time at a wedding reception with Dave, Emily and Robyn---she did try to make a break for it when encountered by a woman in a really outrageously short, tight dress and amazing cheekbones, but I beat her down.  We were with family, after all.

And, sad to say, at the Byward Market, she actually managed to press my bag down (hard!) on a box of raspberries belonging to a woman who tried to charge me too much for my pitiful purchase of apples and peaches.

I've managed to subdue her tonight with a couple of glasses of wine and a dark chocolate KitKat, but watch out.  You never know when she's going to be in your face.

Photohunter theme: COLOURFUL

NOT ONLY COLOURFUL BUT ELEGANT!

Julia 3, Mina shaken

A post from this time in 2005, which seems as vivid to me as yesterday afternoon.

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I should have locked myself in my room Friday morning and stayed there until Sunday night.

But no, I stayed home and did stuff this weekend while Dave went to Algonquin Park with friends. He had a wonderful time, and came home exhausted and happy. I was waiting by the front door, stomach in knots, eyes swollen from crying and lack of sleep, waiting to tell him this story:

 Lorna:” Sweetie, I’m sorry but there was some trouble with the car this weekend.”

Dave (he’s so perfect!) “Are you all right?”

Lorna: “I’m upset that’s all—I know how much you love that car…”

Dave: (he’s so perfect)”Don’t worry—just tell me what happened.”

Lorna: (nervously) “Well, Julia came for a sleepover, and I thought it would be nice to take her out to dinner. So I told her we’d have a Girls’ Night Out and we went to Red Lobster………you know how we usually avoid it, but it’s really quite a nice family-friendly place….

Dave: “It’s OK—just tell me what happened.”

Lorna: “They gave her a box of crayons and a colour-on placemat. She loved that. Did you know she can draw the sun? We talked about what she wanted and decided on steamed vegetables, and I ordered the fish, and Julia shared some of mine. She was drawing on napkins—the staff are nice, they kept giving her new ones. I told her it made me so happy when she was drawing because her drawings were so beautiful.”

Dave: (encouragingly) “Mmmmhmm…”

Lorna: “Everybody was so nice to her and she had a great time, and said good-bye to everyone we passed. Then, when we went out to the parking lot I couldn’t find my keys so I told Julia to stay near the car while I looked through my bag. She was so good—she stayed right by the car. Then she said “Look Mina, isn’t it beautiful?” and I looked and I could see that she’d drawn all over one side of the car with a rock!”

Dave: ( he is so perfect!) “Mmmmmhmmm…and is it bad?”

Lorna: “Well, at first I couldn’t tell because I just jumped and yelled, and Julia got all scared and she kept saying she just wanted to make me happy, and wasn’t it beautiful, so I had to go over and hold her and tell her she makes me happy but the drawing wasn’t good because it would damage the car…..but she just kept crying and saying she just wanted to make me happy, and people in the parking lot—a lot of people go to Red Lobster on the weekends!—were looking at me like I was a child-beater, so I got in the car and we went to Tim Horton’s because my hands were shaking, but they didn’t have any jelly timbits.

Dave: “MMMMMMMMHMMMM…is it BAD?”

Lorna: “Well Julia finally decided on a cinnamon bun and I got out to look. It isn’t very deep, but it’s on both doors and right down to near the taillights—not too bad, I guess. I’m so sorry.”

Dave: “Well, it’s not your fault….let’s go look at it.”

THUNK!!! Lorna falls over on the floor in a faint.

But is it progress?

Yesterday, I was at my ditheriest ever and as a consequence, ended up with blogging problems.  I am over it.  For the time being, I'll be posting here at Blogger while minds more pliable than mine figure out if Wonderland is just wasteland or not.

Early yesterday morning I was sitting outside drinking coffee when I saw something that looked both familiar and strange.  I love a dichotomy, so I took a mental picture---my camera being elsewhere---and pushed it to the back of my mind for further exploration.

Later, I did explore.  What I saw was a man walking along the sidewalk, dressed for office work and both his hands were free, and he wasn't wearing a backpack or a messenger bag.   Think back.  Men used to do that.  They put their wallets in their back pockets and hit the road to wherever they were going.  That's where the familiar/unfamiliar thing came in.

I know what's in my bag when I go out.  Always a book, wallet or credit and debit cards, one of the handkerchiefs I bought for my son years ago and (rescued from one of his moves), several tools and products designed to keep me from looking my real age, Godiva chocolate pearls and my keys.  Sometimes I remember to take my phone.  When I was working, I sometimes carried food and shoes with me.  And maybe scarves.  And gloves.

I obviously need a bag, or a purse (if you're so inclined),and I have a few to choose from.  Yes, a few: big, small, with shoulder straps or not, of various patterns and sizes and degrees of sparkliness.

I use them joyfully, I use them with discretion and a gypsyish swagger.  But what is in those backpacks, messenger bags and rucksacks that I see on the street all the time, get slammed with on the bus and run out of Starbucks to unite with their forgetful owners? 


I think this is one of the things that will puzzle future archeologists when they dig urban sites.  For now, I have to admit I'm going to watch for Mr NoStuff, striding along with both hands free.

The Big Save

Count Em....31

We woke up early that morning because we had to get the fruit and berries ready for the sangria.  It was going to be a fine day and a wonderful party!
At noon, with all the preparations behind us, and dressed to the nines, Chris and Sarah, Dave and I walked out the side door into my folks’ garden, to get married.  Because I never knew the lyrics to anything, the “processional” music was Cat Stevens’ Morning Has Broken, and justified or not, I’m blaming that music for the fact that I cried from the minute we opened the door and I realized this was not just a party until well after we’d signed the register.

Lorna and Dave 1979

Most of our immediate and extended family and many of our friends were there, which was wonderful and heartwarming, and I love that in that flowery and verdant  garden, which was my mother’s joy, we were all various versions of young, strong and beautiful.  There was a beribbonned swing way in the back of the yard, we had croquet and horseshoes and stilts, music and food, a beautiful homemade cake covered in fresh flowers and we had successfully concocted a very potent version of sangria that we still make for special occasions; we had given the kids ID bracelets with their new initials, my brother Pat took lots of pictures, which I can still see in my head, but which, except for a few, are lost now—still in the beigey-rose album we used to look at in the dead of winter, but which disappeared when we made the move from our big house.
I can remember being humbled by the strength of my emotions, delighted at the solemn way the kids were involved and dizzy, dizzy with love.
Outwardly, we’ve seldom made a big deal of our wedding anniversary.  In fact, we joke about how many of them were spent apart, but every year, in my heart and in my increasingly doddering mind, I celebrate it again and congratulate us on the brilliant decision we made that year to have a party at which we’d get married.

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Pianos, Voices and Wishes

by Lorna on Tuesday, August 3, 2010

One of my friends posted music from “The Piano” tonight on Facebook.  He was very taken by the sound, so I watched the video.  It reminded me how compelling the movie was, and that I’d like to see it if we ever start watching DVDs again.
More than that, it reminded me that I love full-bore, bang the keys piano like Vanessa Carleton and Tori Amos play.  The tinkly end of the piano doesn’t interest me at all, so I’m partial to Rachmaninoff and his robust ilk if I’m listening to classical music, which probably explains why I’m also drawn to the cello, the contralto and bass voices, and the drums (but not the high hat feature).
When I was a singer, I had a rich and full-voiced sound, which used to surprise people who thought I’d be singing in the upper ranges because I was just a bit of a thing.  I did well with choral music, I could ballad till the cows came home and if something had released my inhibitions I could sing a mean blues number. I think I miss singing more than almost anything that I don’t do anymore.
If I could go back though, I’d cherish that voice, but I’d also like to have learned to play the drums—my brothers play drums, one brother and one sister play guitar and legions of my relatives play a multitude of instruments, sing and write music.  It’s wonderful to see their joy.
Even more than playing “drums”, I’d love to have learned to play these.  Or these. Or these:

just kidding!

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Victoria Island, now and then

by Lorna on Monday, August 2, 2010

Sometimes, I can’t narrow down a subject for a post.  Today, I just let a number jump into my head, and then counted out the same number of photos on my web album site.  This was the result:

Les Girls, Victoria Island

We had all gone to a First Nations celebration at Victoria Island, and I thought this was a beauteous picture of Emma, Julia and their friend Lucy.
I have to admit that I also thought that they were too close to the water.  I sometimes channel my mother like that.  She had the most vivid imagination when it came to possible danger—which probably explains the dearth of childhood accidents in our family.
The water is the Ottawa River, and if I had taken the photo from further away, we would have been able to see the back of the Parliament Buildings and the National Gallery.  but I am a people picture-taker, and just went for cute.
Victoria Island is a five-minute walk from our place, and a centre for First Nations activities.  That is as it should be but when I’m there I can’t help but think about the first two seasons of the Ottawa Shakespeare Company when they produced A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the Scottish Play there in the early 1990s.   The  Company was a newly-formed one, and I was on the Board, Bruce a performer, Sarah, Emily and I did various front-of-house tasks, I did a lot of schmoozing, Dave came to a few performances and Chris ignored it, as he did anything that had the potential to bore or embarrass him.  We had some amazing moments there.  It was a very precious and joyful time in my life, and my memories of that company, the artists and technicians, the company manager, the Board, the audience and the people who hung out at the beer tent are still vivid and warm.
Victoria Island was and is a great place to be.

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Oh, so random!

by Lorna on Sunday, August 1, 2010

• I’ve had several ideas for a post tonight but I got poleaxed by the wonder of Chapman’s Double Dark Chocolate ice cream bars.  They’re tiny, they’re delicious and if you eat six or so, they’re quite satisfying.

• I’m giving serious thought to going to this Celtic Rock Festival. “Going” means persuading Dave that we’d love it and that it would be worth the drive to northern New York.  I do love Celtic Rock—how can anyone resist dancing to it?

• Every once in a while I get incredibly depressed and long to spend days in bed with my head under the covers.  I seldom actually do it, but I can get pretty low and bedraggled—there’s absolutely no reason for it; it’s chemical and because I have a wonderful life  it doesn’t really behoove me to complain, but it still sucks.  I must be over it though if I can write about it.

• One of these days I’m going to count the cushions we have in our house—I guess I should say “the cushions that I have incorporated into our house”.  Dave is cushion-mania-free.  We live in a place that basically has 3 rooms and two bathrooms and without really counting, I can see about twenty beautiful cushions of various sizes, shapes and colours from where I am now.  That’s why it seemed quite bezack to be planning a clandestine visit to a gift shop in a hotel whose bar I like so that I could buy the 6 cushions I’d picked out between entering the hotel and ordering a Pinot Grigio.  Could I be less responsible? less conscious of consumerism’s dark side? less needy? more comfy?

• One of my brothers told me I should stop shopping at Chapters because the owners have an anti-Palestine bias—I’ve looked but haven’t been able to see what he’s referring to—and yes, I know it’s a big-box store and it’s killing the independent bookstores, but I would find it hard to stop.  I also go to independent bookstores, often with wonderful but costly results, but today at Chapters I could buy 2 paperbacks and get the 3rd one free.  And get 10% off as well with my Irewards card.  It’s hard to believe that evil could come in such a seductive package.

• And finally, tonight I came across a movie on PBS that I watch every time I can:  Leave Her to Heaven with Cornell Wilde, Gene Tierney and Vincent Price.  The first time I saw it, I remember thinking what a tragedy it was; later, I realized how dark it was, then remembered noticing the iridescent beauty of the two lovers, then realized there was a whole sexual undertone I’d missed, next focussed on how unlike himself Vincent Price looks without a moustache.  This time, still enthralled, I couldn’t help but notice how high the waistlines were for both men and women .  Oh, the learning, oh, the layers!

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Photohunter Theme – PUBLIC

by Lorna on Saturday, July 31, 2010

MAY 2010T