Geeky Cat Miusings

The week started off in a nasty way: When I took the escalator on the TTC, I placed my hand on a wet gooey, spot on the handrail. My hand had ketchup on it. Somehow someone got ketchup on the handrail. Yuck! You would think that if someone were to be eating on the run, they would also have a napkin for wiping their mouth, fingers, and handrail… should the need arise.

Perhaps a few people could use the $7 reimbursement from the TTC (to compensate for the strike days) to buy some tissues and wipes.

It is the end of the weekend and the TTC strike is over. The strike lasted two days, potentially crashing people’s weekend plans but it did not put much of a dent in my weekend. I enjoyed the local neighborhoods and tried a nearby restaurant that I never before had a chance to dine at. The walk there much improved my appetite and during the stroll I noticed the street lights shaped like trains for the first time, thanks to my newly awakened observation skills. Even though the strike did not interfere with my weekend, I’m glad the TTC strike is over.

A friend sent me a link to a quiz that asks various questions about every day objects with the objective of testing how observant one is in daily life. I know very well I am not highly observant since I often don’t notice what people are wearing, their hair colour, or any weight changes. If they are wearing something beautiful or they have changed their hair colour, I probably will notice, but not as a general rule and I don’t think I would be the greatest witness in a courtroom…though I would probably notice what book the bank robber was reading.

Here is an example: One day last week at work I had an envelope that I needed to mail. I was thinking about my surroundings and trying to recall if I had noticed any mailboxes close to the office. I thought there might very likely be one on the main street but my memory scan of the street failed to produce a mailbox. So then I called a co-worker and asked him if there was a mailbox in the area and he said there wasn’t one right around our work area but there was one at the nearest major intersection. So when I left work that day I planned to walk to the intersection. When I passed the bus stop that I have used every day over the past four months, I saw a mailbox. It has been there all along but I never noticed it!

I think it is time for me to be more observant.

Here is the quiz if you are interested though I can’t vouch for its value:
http://www.blogthings.com/howobservantareyouquiz/

I celebrated Passover for the first time and found it very interesting and very different from any celebration I have ever participated in.

The first thing I noticed when I sat down at the table was the plush toys on the table. I thought it was a fun idea and wondered if it would be part of a game that we might play later on. On closer inspection I noticed that they weren’t typical toys because one looked like a blob of blood. The hostess, upon seeing my puzzled look, informed me that they represent the ten plagues that God inflicted upon the Egyptians to bully them into setting the Jewish people free.

Here are the ten plagues toys:

• A spooky eyed drop of blood
• A Frog for frogs—of course
• A Giant Lice for lice.
• Cow for cattle disease
• Black Locust for locusts
• A white satin lump of hail
• A black cube of darkness
• An icky boil on a piece of flesh!
• A snarling lion’s head for wild beasts
• and last of all a very sad head - for death of the first born.

At the Passover Seder all people drink four glasses of wine. I was very curious as to the reason behind this, but nobody knew. Finally, I have an answer:

Four glasses of wine are poured during the Seder to symbolize the four main stages of Exodus that led Hebrew slaves to the promised land of freedom. These stages were:

* Freedom
* Deliverance
* Redemption
* Release

Before the wine is consumed, the ten plaques are recited while dipping a finger into the glass of wine and dropping a droplet of wine on the dinner plate to symbolize the blood spilled by Pharaoh, the blood as part of the Ten Plagues, and the blood the Jews put on their doorposts. After we completed the finger dunking we licked our fingers and the plates were taken away — how sad, I could have licked the plate clean.

Then we performed various rituals around the Seder plate, the most notable for me was dipping a sprig of parsley into salt water, which represents the tears of the Jewish people, and ate it.

There was also a reading of passages where the speaker was required to not take a breath until the end of the passage. Each person around the table would recite a passage and the length of the passage would get progressively longer until you could hear the person reciting was totally deflated by the end. I cannot find any reference to this on the web, so I don’t know if this is a unique ritual created by the hostess to ensure that we all speak as quickly as possible.

The Seder is a 15 step ritual dinner — It is one of the most central events in the Jewish faith and it involves hours of singing and eating — I can only tell part of the story here… But it was fun I got to play with the plagues.

This week was pretty nice for me — I had the chance to catch up with a few friends. I had my first “picnic” outdoors thanks to this beautiful weather and I was finally able to deliver a Christmas gift to a friend whom I haven’t seen for much too long.

I will go to my first Passover dinner tonight. There are a lot of food restrictions for this religious celebration and I am wondering why something like legumes are not allowed. I was asked to make a green vegetable dish and my first thought was a green bean and cauliflower dish but then I realized green beans are legumes and are not allowed. Well, I hope to learn a bit about this Jewish ceremony and I will let you know how it goes. I would also like to know why celebrants are required to drink 4 glasses of wine during the dinner. I can’t drink 4 glasses of wine — I feel very dehydrated with just one glass of wine so my plan is to bring a thimble sized glass.

But the week was not without its frustrations:

I still haven’t received the computer I ordered over one week ago. I checked the order status online and it still says it is in production. It seems that buying a computer from a store that is close to you may be the best option. You get your computer quicker and if you need to contact someone but they don’t pick up the phone, you can always just go over to the store and give them an ear full.

A week after I brought my papers and photograph to the passport office for a new passport I received a call informing me that I need to retake my photo because I was “grinning” in the photo. When I had the photo taken at a passport photo studio the girl said I must not show any teeth — which I didn’t. The frustrating part of this setback is that I waited an hour at the passport office to see the passport officer who looked at my papers and photo, did whatever he needed to do and took my money. He didn’t say there was any problem with the photo. Shouldn’t the person that reviews your files in the passport office be able to tell you that there is some obvious problem with the documents? If they can’t do that, I think they might as well replace the officers with automatic passport machines (APM).

I hope you enjoy this gorgeous day — I’m heading out for a nice long walk after I do my weekend cleanup.

I love this animation — it reminds me of Pumpkin:

A news program I watched the other day mentioned that there is a Bank of Canada site available for the general public to determine if they have any forgotten bank accounts with money in them in Canada. I checked to see if I had forgotten some dough somewhere but did not find any on this site — though I’m sure to find some in my pant pockets if I were to go through my closet thoroughly. You may want to investigate if you have some money in a bank somewhere. If you don’t have any, check if your friends or family do so that they can afford to treat you out to dinner…or at least buy you a side order of bread;-) (see previous post for reference to bread). Here’s the site:
http://ucbswww.bank-banque-canada.ca/scripts/search_english.cfm

If find that you don’t have any lost funds, you can find a bank or ATM close to you using this reference page:
http://canadaonline.about.com/od/atms/ATMs_and_Bank_Machines_in_Canada.htm

I went for brunch at Urbano on Queen Street for a little bit of socializing and catching up with some of my friends. I ordered a fritatta vegeterano which is basically an omelette with vegetables. This omelette did not come with bread and I dislike eating eggs without bread. I think eggs straight up are kind of nauseating and they need some bread or other carbs to balance the dish. So I asked the waitress for bread but a customer in this establishment can’t get a couple of slices of bread thrown in — you need to ORDER a bread side-dish which costs $5. Five dollars to get some bread to go with a $10 omelette. All I needed was a slice or two of bread to complete my meal but the restaurant wants to milk the customers out of their cash buy requiring them to buy a side dish of bread. I would say the bread should be included in the price of the $10 omelette, or at worst, charge the customer a dollar for the waitress’ trouble.

This is not good customer relations, they must rethink their service and quality of care.

Today I would like to share with you an e-mail sent to me by my sister who lives out in the country side. I think it is a lovely description of the country flavour and a wonderful contrast to my morning experience.

Good morning Dee!

This morning my lawn is the the “wash cycle” and the last of the sand-speckled snow is vanishing in the rain. The birds are loving this wetness and are singing away, so lovely and relaxing. I wish I could cuddle up in bed with my coffee and listen to Spring unfold outdoors. Unfortunately I have 2 houses to clean today so I better get my ass moving. The good thing is both these places are waterfront so I can glimpse at the river that is now open and just full of waterfowl. Already everyone is staking claim to nesting sites and so there are plenty of arguments and commotion. Meanwhile 4 turkey vultures are gliding into my view along the river bed. Amazing how they barely move a wing to maintain flight. Mind you they have a 6-foot wing span to carry their 26-inch body.

Yesterday afternoon John and I went for a walk in Emily park and on the way home saw a large snapping turtle trying to cross the busy road to lay her eggs on the other side. So I sent John home to get my welding gloves and I stayed with the Mrs., so that she would be safe. On his return I carried her to safety as she fought me..and it was a good strong powerful fight. It is difficult to hold onto the 8 and 4 o’clock position because the most weight of the turtle is in the front. But I prefer to keep fingers away from her powerful jaws.

Off I go to get ready for work. Hope you have a good weekend Dee, at least Sunday will be an outdoorsy kind of day.
M