A bit like the Queen’s birthday [Queen Victoria, that is, no getting all modern around here!] which we celebrate on a day that is specifically, by statute, never her actual birthday, May 24th, Canada day is a holiday dedicated to outdoor eating and drinking. Fireworks, yes, but mostly drinking and eating. Like July 4th, but with hesitant polite patriots. And a lovely neighbour, who hails from the U.S., who has managed to fill in enough paperwork again to get us barricades so we can block off our block, almost legally.
Setting the ambience for this public display of eating and drinking, much waving and wearing of the Liberal Party colours will be evident here in Ottawa, the nation’s capital, ostensibly picked by said Queen because that is where her finger landed on the map … not really, just a bad Ottawa joke … there are three rivers that intersect here that were of significant navigational and economic import at the time. And speaking of said Queen, I just have to add, she seems to have enjoyed her eating and drinking, as they can date her underpants by their waistband, having what one might call an expansive photographic record of their owner’s expanding waist: Queen Victoria’s ‘big pants’ to be sold at auction in Wiltshire:
The liberal government of the day cleverly remade our national flag into essentially a Liberal Party sign, removing any trace of blue, the colour associated with conservatism here, and any symbols other than the maple leaf, during one of our spasmodic attempts to reinvent our past and create a national story by destroying all remnants of our colonial history. But I am proud of our slow shedding of our colonial yoke and the use of argument over weapons and will raise a glass of not Canadian wine in thanks for wonder at being born at all, let alone into such a magically lucky setting.
Replacing the flag at the cottage, May 2013
Bonne Fête, Canada, and Santé, which we could all use a little bit of, to go with our dwindling sanity.
And having just said that I was proud of slowly shedding our colonial yoke, I bump into this quotation:
The ends justifying the means … easy for him to say … his ends, and someone else’s means. The means are us … we never reach the glorious end these supposed leaders lead us towards.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/tragically-powerful-story-behind-lone-112309976.html
Truly one of man’s most hideous ends and means moments … what a great picture of defiance in the face of insurmountable odds.
another duality, the individual vs. the group. give too much power to either and society is destroyed.
not only is it Canada day, it is the full moon. and it is July 1 yet it it feels like mid September.
i had something more to say, but it escapes me.
how ’bout some Floyd?
site gone goof for me. weird loading.
is back 
…some songs,,,absolutely random.
It has come to my attention that I have failed to explain how I broke my leg. I have drawn a terrible picture with Paintbrush, using my right hand I realised half way through, but it gives the idea. Basically we were putting up the mast, and the boat is sitting on the trailer. Because the boat’s arms are folded in, they stick up. The jib stay is the thing that holds the jib sail, the sail that is in front of the main sail, and is attached to the top of the mast and then gets attached to the bow of the boat once the mast is up, making a triangle. At the base of the jib stay is a roller furling device, that allows you to wrap the jib around the stay instead of pulling it up and down, that is somewhat heavy. To raise the mast you have to walk it forward until you get to the mast mount, and then up it goes, quite easily. So I have been carefully walking the jib stay and roller furling back along the deck of the boat while hubby and third child move the mast, and then we need to get it over the upright arm so I get down off the boat, and hubby goes to hand me down the roller furling end of the jib stay. We both are aware of how heavy it is, and I have just been carrying it, so totally prepared for the weight to come down but instead the weight pulls forward as well as down, and honestly like something out of a comic book, the forward/downward pressure on my arms brought my feet up and I slammed down on the top of my femur. The ground is rough gravel, and there was no scrape or puncture, and it would appear that I just must have hit the bone against a rock. I show no signs of osteoporosis, having been tested for a gazillion things in the search for the hernia and entrapped nerve. My problems lie elsewhere in the muscular/skeletal system and it isn’t a genetic thing in our family and I breastfed and did impact sports. Never broke a bone other than a toe or two before. And hope not to do it again! Here is the picture, worth perhaps a few dozen words, certainly not a thousand:
Never say never …
That video is worth the drummer alone. No need to listen to the music … just watch the drummer!
There really do seem to be gremlins at work in the site. I am still hopeful that an update is coming that will solve all problems. In many ways I am hoping for such a thing.
heat all around, (yep i complain too much) nice little storm rolled in and i’m thankful for the rain.
4 tomato plants trying to make their way, full on sun for sure and some blossoms burning, (didn’t fertilize at first but now it seems almost necessary…miracle grow and such things ?) thoughts Woodpecker?
it aint easy being cheesy. always liked this song.
don’t fertilize now. if it is too hot those flowers will never become fruit anyway. water though.
i hope Levon isn’t still pissed. bands are just like dysfunctional families. so anyway, here it goes.
and this…
gremlins
http://i.imgur.com/WPULn8X.jpg
I don’t know if this will work. Trying to post from my phone. But even without the picture or by a miracle with the picture, a belated Happy July 4th to my American pals. Yeah for freedom, and boo for imperialism.
Yes, that is me steering the boat with my broken leg. Three weeks yesterday. Who would have thunk it!
And nothing wrong with being cheesy – it is my main operating mode.
Sorry to have been short of good mornings … hmnnn … in many ways! But it is a beautiful day, doctors have been visited, taxes almost figured out for the business, and now down at the boat. I have been super flustered lately … taxes get me every time and I think I only just started to get upset that my leg is broken. But we are fairly determined to try to keep inching forward.
Thank heavens for podcasts (listening from the beginning believe it or not to Judge John Hodgman: http://www.maximumfun.org/shows/judge-john-hodgman ) and now listening to Sailing Alone Around the World by Joshua Slocum: http://www.audible.com/pd/Bios-Memoirs/Sailing-Alone-Around-the-World-Audiobook/B009GJB122
see?
http://www.thepressproject.gr/details_en.php?aid=79064
good morning Xty! 7:30 & 84 still..it’s been super super hot here and no let up.
Should have supplemented the tomato plants right away..flowering buds galore now and with some leaf shade on the scene. (miRacle gRoW seems mandatory for success)
so love her voice.
tune for Woodpecker.
Good Morning. Just had to give the old noggin a break, and it has almost worked.
It is sweltering here. In a very nice way.
Helter skelter in a summer swelter
The birds flew off with a fallout shelter
Eight miles high and falling fast
It landed foul on the grass
The players tried for a forward pass
With the jester on the sidelines in a cast
http://imgur.com/bnKFzwG
http://i.imgur.com/bnKFzwG.jpg