Tag: Weather, Holidays and Seasons

Yuletide

I am convinced there is a third or maybe fourth thread running through this time of year. The first is the birth of Christ which, for better or worse, has receded in terms of importance for most people. The second is the bacchanal of spending – the fear that you have spent too much or not enough or that the toys or pants will not suit the child or will be mocked in the playground. To my mine there is a cure for the first: get some religion of not. Either you will take to the story or you will not but make the call. For the second, all I can say is get some spine. We buy less for the kids than others but it has always been so. There is a small theme of austerity in all the largess in a Scots family Christmas, the time of excess coming later at Hogmanay just after New Years Eve has passed. The third may be the sadness and badness that happens at times like this of social pressure – if the wheels are going to come off, you can bet this is when it will come to pass. What can be done for that?

After all these, however, there is Yule. The winterfest. The longest night. Yesterday marching the seven year old through downtown shops with a list, past the new outdoor skating rinks, a Victorian choir singing carols and even a trumpeter on Princess Street, me handing her loonies to put in those outstretched hands and also treats for her own, it was about the merry – the merriness of a shared holiday. Summer holidays are the slackest time, when laying down in public space is an activity to be planned. But Yule is collective as, even if you are not gifting or not remembering, you are at half speed except in retail. My family was in retail and fifteen years ago this day I would be pushing the poinsettias, flogging packets of holly but even at that all minds on the back side of the counter were aiming towards the days of nothing when naps and sherry sips and, yes, one more small sideplate of that would be nice. All a big reward for something or other never needing being quite defined.

Friday Again – Time To Yap

Sharing from you to me that is…

  • Things are going well here in the snow belt. I think we had more snow in the last 12 hours than in the last two winters. Good for the Christmassy feeling. We are not going totally insane with the shopping this year and all but one package to be mailed has been sent. I have bought less from the internet this year, all at amazon. Because we started early I wanted to actually have a human experience for the most part. Any tricks to share for the last week?
  • The CBC gig has been interesting so far. It is particularly neat to see how change in a couple of elements of the structure changes your approach. There are no comments and posts are checked by an editor. That is quite fine – not so many spelling mistakes – but it means it is more like writing a short daily column than a chatting area like this space. Right now the site looks like it has been hacked but I think it is just getting some early morning maintenance. No massive bump in stats although the beer blog is up a bit.
  • On a more serious note, it is shocking to read that the Iraqis had al-Zarqawi in its possession but let him go earlier this year.

    Iraqi security forces caught the most wanted man in the country last year, but released him because they didn’t know who he was, the Iraqi deputy minister of interior said Thursday. Hussain Kamal confirmed that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi — the al Qaeda in Iraq leader who has a $25 million bounty on his head — was in custody at some point last year, but he wouldn’t provide further details.

    It sure was handy that Hitler had that funny moustache so people knew who he was. I suppose these things happen. On the upside, as Jay notes, yesterday was a great day of the Iraqis.

  • And I watched a bit of the first debate last night but was stunned how dull the process was, no face-to-face argument, kinda what I think of when I think of the word “debate”. Stephen Harper has now said he would not use the notwithstanding clause in section 33 of thge Charter to over-ride same sex marriage. He has also said he would allow those already married to remain so. This leave a really weird position where person “X” would supposedly have their rights recognized but person “Y”…or maybe “X2…would not depending on the date of application for a marriage license. Seeing as this is patently unconstitutional treatment – a discriminatory difference without a purpose – do not expect the courts to uphold it and, without use of the over-ride clause, expect it to fail. Are the socons that easily fooled? I would think this would be as offensive to them as the Tory spending spree would be to fiscal conservatives. No word yet from the neo-me-o-cons but they have a hard time breaking away from the mirror long enough to notice the real world.

That is it for now and it is fairly placid. If you have some stormier issues, let’s have it.

Friday Chatter

Just as with the child whose non-meal time symptoms passed within a day and a half, so it has come to pass with me. I credit the chanting and the placement of the gerbil statutettes. So it is Friday and it is a day off booked far in advance to coincide with an teachers’ in-service day and as we monitor the route south, it is interesting to note how useful the New York State road condition web pages are. One would be content to wait until tomorrow were Ithaca not the sort of place where you can curl with rutabagas…rutabagi?

So it is sunny and clear here, we have new winter tires and are likely wise to stay put and chat. Topics?:

  • VOTE EVERY DAY!!! The awards let you vote each day from yesterday to next Wednesday. We need you to make your mark as often as you can. And join the GX40 nation while you are at it. There is a rumour that you should vote in every category to make the web widget work. And look for both beer and here in best blog, best culture blog, best group blog and best blog post series. And remember…your idleness is the Flea’s best friend.
  • Now that the necessity of scrounging is done…are winter tires the best value for technology or what? $425.00 gets you a full set installed including taxes and they take away the old bald things you were driving on. Can an iPod do that? I have driven year round on winter tires to the amusement of others but been caught in tornado inducing downpours and stuck to the asphalt while all around me hydroplaned. Plus you have only one set of tires to buy every two years. I expect vigourous discourse on this topic. It’s a gem.

I need a coffee to consider other topics. But that one above is a winner. Go with that for a while.

Update: I took a look south and you can see Watertown. We are making a run. If we are stuck in Watertown, we will find a high school basketball game to watch tonight. You could even see a laker:

Click for a bigger view. I don’t know why it is blue. I must have had the camera set on something other than auto. The wall of cloud behind the laker in the big picture is the lake effect show machine.

Naval Memorial, Kingston, Ontario

It turned out to be much colder that I would have expected yesterday given the sunshine. There seems always to be something in the weather on Remembrance Day. We stopped at the Naval memorial downtown and I watched this vet read the plaque as he waited for the ceremony to begin. Click below for a larger image. Another cheery chatty gent, now small and stooped in a dark great coat, wore the black cloth officers cap with a small badge at the front I had seen in black and white films on the wavy navy, those guiding and protecting corvettes of the North Atlantic.

You might wonder why the there is a naval memorial here in Ontario but Kingston was a key naval port of the Empire as this plaque references – and which let to our martello towers.

 

Remembrance Day

It looks like a fine day for Remembrance Day this year – no lashings of sleet as if often the case.

It is still hard to understand why Ontario is not on full shut down today but it was good to see the kids have a pretty full week of activities in elementary school based on remembrance. I wrote this last year. I suppose I think today more than any other of great-uncle John as a teen ninety years ago in the trenches.