I would like to give everyone a head’s up that my name day/onomastico is coming up: Diana of Andalò of Bologna feast day is on June 10. Mark it on your calendars. Some websites claim it is on June 8 or June 9 so if you prefer one of those three days over the others, just go right ahead and celebrate it on your preferred day.
Took advantage of Doors Open this weekend and snooped around Coach House, a quaint book publishing and printing press that is tucked away on Toronto’s historic bpNichol Lane. After the description of the tedious work involved in typesetting, I was eager to sit in a comfy chair which is called The Magical Sleeper Chair and dream about the fantastic novels written by authors such as Michael Ondaatje and Anne Michaels that were published in that very place.
The churches were nice to explore but there is nothing like a excited, chatty person to animate the experience. One church was growing a vegetable garden to feed the hungry people of the area. The enthusiastic guide described the variety of vegetables, which included the rare purple carrot, that grew in the garden. She informed me that the carrot was originally purple but has long been known as an orange vegetable, thanks to patriotic Dutch growers who bred the vegetable to honour their monarchy, The House of Orange.
One grand mansion had a room with wooden panels on the walls. It looked like an ordinary room with one door way but what the unsuspecting didn`t know was that the panels opened to a secret bedroom with ensuite bathroom. The master of the house kept his mistress there. The dirty secrets of the Victorians!
The Hare Krishna Temple started off as a Presbyterian Church and has been passed through the hands of many religions until the Hare Krishna`s had enough money to buy it by selling lollipops and other small items to the public.
I came across a cute story about Scrabulous and how its role in romance:
A Scrabulous fan, who played the game a lot with his girlfriend, requested the application maker’s assistance with a marriage proposal. The prospective groom requested that they secretly create a fixed session for him and his sweetheart. In the session, he was given letters that would allow him to spell the words “Will”, “You”, “Marry”, “Me” and “Jane.” Jane was given the letters to spell the words “Yes” and “No”. Thankfully, she used “Yes.”
I think their wedding cake will have to be a giant cake covered with a Scrabble board icing and tiles place on top, spelling their vows.
I think Scrabble can be the whole theme for the wedding. That would be cool.
I hope you’re having a great long weekend. There is so much to do. Have fun!
If you want to build your own virtual kaleidoscope visit this nifty page.
Currently I’m reading Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach. It is a hilarious exploration of the strange lives of bodies postmortem. Here is one compelling quote from the book:
“The way i see it, being dead is not terribly far off from being on a cruise ship. Most of your time is spent lying on your back. The brain has shut down. The flesh begins to soften. Nothing much new happens, and nothing is expected of you. ”
It is a funny coincidence that I am concurrently reading Thank You For Smoking! Smoking is one way to make the final vacation arrive at your doorstep, sooner rather than later.
And one more stiff joke pops up as I read the Urban Decoder:
“Honest Ed’s a corpse, but his prices will never stiff you.”
The Contact Festival is on and I have started my trek along Queen Street — starting at the gorgeous Gladstone Hotel and its great assortment of exhibits and meandering eastward popping into the little galleries along the way, enjoying what the photographers have to say to us through their photographs and their collections. Sometimes you have to stand back and look at all the photographs by the same artist to understand the point(s) they are trying to get across. I saw interesting ideas displayed on the walls and some photographers were on hand, enthusiastic about discussing their works with gallery goers. There was one collection where each shot was a photograph of someone taking a photograph. I laughed because I often take photographs of people taking photographs.
The Contact Festival runs through to the end of May so you have ample opportunity to catch some.
The ghost walk in Hamilton was really cool! A man who speaks and looks as though he suddenly stepped out of 19th century England guides ghost seekers through downtown Hamilton and describes the unfortunate suicides, murders, and accidents that occured at various locations and the subsequent ghostly visitations and other types of hauntings that persist in these locations. The tour starts at 8:30 pm when there is still some dusk light, but it quickly gets dark and the guide leads us with only a lantern to light the way through the streets and dark alley of the city. If you think that Hamilton is a quiet little place with no significant history, you’ll be surprised to hear about the famous mobster that lived and and worked there and that was a Jack the Ripper suspect living there.
I’m looking forward to going to the Niagara-on-the-Lake ghost walk sometime soon.
Today is Mother’s day: A special day set aside to give your mother extra thanks for all she does for you and to show respect and honour for all motherhood (including being a loving mother towards pets). Today is also Eat What You Want Day. Don’t feel bad if you didn’t know about this…this is the first time I have heard of this. I think it is great that the two occur on the same date this year…because that means that children can and should give their mothers all the best foods in the world and mothers can induldge in the delectables with absolute abandon. For me, today’s pièce de résistance (or non resistance) is chocolate with peperoncino. Oh it is sooooo good. This is chocolate that must be eaten very slowly…just let it rest on the tongue and let the warmth of your mouth slowly melt the chocolate until it totally coats the tongue with its silky smoothness and you can fell the peperoncino infusing your mouth and throat with heat.
The chocolate I’m eating is Aiello Ciocolady.
Have a great one!
xox
Why does my cellphone get such good reception in the underground PATH downtown, but not in the subway?
Telus, Rogers and Bell have installed a special network of antennas throughout the city’s downtown underground network. The underground system uses small ceiling-mounted antennas every 150 metres or so. The TTC hasn’t installed antennas on their system yet. But now that Washington and Montreal subway stations have installed the mini-antennas on their systems, it looks like the TTC will follow suit. We may be able to chat while waiting on the subway platforms.
Is writing on money illegal?
Contrary to popular belief, defacing currency is not illegal in Canada. The law states that scratching, marking or otherwise defacing coins such that it is unrecognizable, is illegal. So it is okay to save money by not buying a gift card and just write the message right on the bank note. For example on Pumpkin’s birthday I give her $20 and on the bill I write the following: To Pumpkin with love. Buy yourself some kibbles. Love mommy.
If you don’t have a thermometer handy, can you still tell what is the temperature?
Yes you can! Use cricket chirps to calculate the temperature in celsius. Here’s how: count the number of chirps in 25 seconds. Divide by 3. Add 4.
I hear a lot of people commenting that cell phones don’t last very long…. after only a year or two something breaks and they need to get a new one. This type of a conversation is quite commonly heard in passing on the TTC. My cell phone is around eight years old and continues to work. The reception is not that great, but that may be due to a missing antenna and also the battery life is very poor on the old clunker so I have been considering getting a new phone. The trouble is that I’m not sure what features I want. A camera is a nice feature and they all seem to come with that. Music is nice but I have an iPod. I think a calendar application that syncs with Google calendar would be a helpful feature…but when I asked my friend about which phones have that feature he said the iPhone. The iPhone is very expensive (around $800) and not available in Canada yet. Is the calendar feature worth that much to me? Not at all. My dollar store calendar is cheaper and easier to use and probably the best match for my needs. When I receive an Evite there is a button that allows the invitation details to be imported into Outlook (and only Outlook). Other invitations I receive allow the event to be saved to other applications. At this point calendaring does not seem to be cross compatible so you end up having to write things in manually anyways.
The other features of the iPhone are certainly very enticing. Playing video is great…since I don’t seem to have much time to watch television I could possibly watch shows and movies when I’m on the go. But if I consider the price of it and consider the fact that I’m quite happy just reading books or listening to music and podcasts on my iPod, I realize that it may not just be worth it for me. There is also talk that you may need to sign up with a plan with the iPhone….not a cool incentive for someone like me who uses a $10 pay and talk plan.
I could continue to use my old cell phone and save a lot of money.
There are so many variables …. I’m still thinking?
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