Quebec City roofs, late 80s

 

Roofs, Quebec City 

Quebec City has some of the oldest buildings made by European colonists in North America. 

Wasaga Beach, off season, 1991

 

Wasaga Beach, after season, c. 1991, probably 63 Beach Drive. Wasaga Beach is a resort town on Georgian Bay, Lake Huron. It's mostly people who can't afford to fly anywhere who go there, high school and college students. After the summer it gets boarded up and they don't remove the sand that blows in from the longest freshwater beach in the world.

Peter Gabriel

View from the nosebleeds at the Bell Centre, Montreal

 I went to see him on Sept 13 at the Bell Centre. Honestly, I didn't like it and left early - the seat was way up in the nose bleeds and on the edge so I was looking down from way up and the sound, although better than the old Forum which had a lot of exposed steel beams that made a cacophony of echoes, was still not that good, and I realized watching it on TV would be a lot better. Gabriel just looked like he wasn't that into what he was doing. I walked back to where I was parked along Dorchester (I don't want to honour evil) passing skyscrapers with pretty young women going in at night, I guess working with offices in Asia. I thought back to 1985 and it just seemed the same. A beautiful blonde woman walking barefoot in the rain along Sherbrooke.

Handsome cat, Budget Batmobile

Handsome cat on sidewalk

Sign strapped on ordinary sedan. Like Bruce Wayne?

 

Akwesasne Powwow 2023

 

Fish dance

Notable memory - vendor selling water asks man if he's with his father, he says yes, and he tells him to give his father a sip first. Mohawk custom is to feed elders, then women and children, then men.
 

Passion fruit

Looks ugly but tasty. Passion fruit from a plant that I didn't think would grow fruit.

 

Found him!

 

Santa Claus in summer mode. You can write him in Canada here:

Santa Claus

North Pole

H0H 0H0

Canada

He will write back

Northwest Territories License

 The coolest licenses plates in Canada are from the Northwest Territories. Saw this today - the capital, Yellowknife was evacuated last month due to wildfires. 

Roxy and Bunk

Bunk holds his chihuahua Roxy on Brookdale Avenue, Cornwall

 

Liminal Space - walled off section of food court/game arcade

 

Closed off section of food court/Game Arcade, Seaway Travel Centre, near 401, Cornwall, ON, Stanley Cup replica, very large Cathode Ray TV set

Thrift store find. I saw this Kodak Disk 4100 with batteries still charged after nearly 40 years.

Thrift store find. I saw this Kodak Disk 4100 with a film cartridge still in it - although this is almost 40 years old in 2023, the motor still ran when I pressed the shutter button. The film was on a wheel of 15 shots that rotated. It had two 3v lithium batteries, which still held some charge even now. I used one like it in a waterproof case scuba diving. It didn't take good pictures due to the small size of the negative. Also film processors often didn't use the special equipment to make prints from it.

My earliest dateable memory

Iberia Airlines, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

 Sep 8, 1964 - Was again The Beatles, who had landed at Dorval Airport. My dad took me outside to hear the fans screaming. It was about a mile away from our house but I could still hear the girls voices. I can also remember my dad talking to a girl coming to the door on Hallowe'en that year wearing a Beatle wig.

Earliest dateable to the year memories

1964 - The earliest memory I can sort of date is The Beatles' appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964. I don't know which of the four appearances it was. 

CC BY-NC-ND

Picture: Dan Grossi

 

Pinned

 I can't seem to get rid of this clothespin - Les Foubrac were an acrobatic comedy duo. When  I photographed them in 1990 someone clipped this on my vest without me knowing! Faites circuler is 'pass it around'.

Blog post on their show

Night Market, Cornwall, Ontario

 

Passionfruits

Four big ones - I bought the plant but the label is off, so I don't know what variety it is.

 

Nespresso Capsule Return Envelope

 There is no Nespresso pod recycling in my area, which is a shame as they are made out of easily recyclable aluminum, but if you ask at the https://www.nespresso.com/ca/en/irecycle website using their chat function they will send you recycling bags free of charge that you can use to mail them back to them. They have a reusable zip-loc style closure and a tape seal when it's full.

 

Flowers and street art

 

Poutine festival's French fried humour

I've also seen a chip stand called "Lord of the Fries" near Guelph. The band The Tragically Hip was formed in Kingston, Ontario.

Poutine Festival, Cornwall, Ontario

Poutine is a relatively new snack food. It's difficult to track its origin, since the word in French can mean different things. Chip stands and wagons have been ubiquitous in Quebec, as have cheese curds but when and where they were put together with gravy is not certain.  Poutine probably derives from 'pudding', and can mean something that's thrown together, a mess, or trouble. Poutine Acadienne or Poutine râpée is a potato dumpling (or just grated potatoes on a plate with the filling), and in the St. Maurice valley region of central Quebec there is a pastry flour dumpling with the same name. The curds. fries and gravy form seemed to have developed in the 50s in either Warwick, Princeville or Drummondville, Quebec. It didn't come to Montreal until 1983 and I first saw it in Lancaster, Ontario, near the provincial border, in 1985, and I tracked its westward march. By 1990 it was in Toronto and on the menu at fast food chains like McDonalds. In the 80s it was an object of ridicule in Montreal, particularly in the humour magazine CROC, and if I mentioned poutine in western Quebec, people would ask me if I meant Poutine Acadienne, because they found the cheese curds, fries and gravy variety disgusting. When I lived in Lowertown, Quebec City there was a snack bar near me that had a sign that claimed they were the first in Quebec City to serve it, but said the owner had gotten the idea from New Brunswick. As I recall, 'hot chicken' (called that in French) sauce, which is made by the St-Hubert restaurant chain, was the usual gravy.

It is pronounced 'poo-tin' in English like in French, at least as far west as Brockville, Ontario, where they will correct you if you say it  'poo-teen', but a lot of people in Toronto say it 'poo-teen'.  I don't know where the isogloss, the line that separates the two pronunciations,  is. Ryan Gosling grew up in Cornwall so he says 'poo-tin', and he fronts the 't' sound so much it becomes an affricate consonant .⟨t͡s⟩, which is common in Canadian French -   His parents are from London, Ontario of partial French-Canadian background, but he doesn't speak much French.

Poutine is also the spelling of Vladimir Putin's name in French. When I saw him called "Le Roi Poutine" (King Putin) on the cover of a French magazine, I thought they were talking about a new fast food chain!

 

Poutine...

 

Liminal Space - Soccer field in fog

 

North America Bunny

North America, in a rabbit's fur. Owner said she lets her out for a half hour everyday.

 

Heron and gulls in the rain

Heron and gulls in the rain

 

More naloxone tips.

Since my friend Krystal died of a fentanyl overdose last year, I've started keeping a naloxone kit in my first aid bag in my car (I used to carry a naloxone pill in the 90s). There was a info booth at a fair and the pharmacist. Kent Guidon, told me that more than two nasal sprays can be used if the paramedics haven't arrived yet and the overdose victim hasn't responded, so I got some more. He also said to angle out the spray toward the eye after getting the nozzle in to better get the naloxone into the sinus, and to use the sprays on alternating nostrils.

 

Ferris Wheel, moonrise

 

Which Kerr?

Jim Kerr, Simple Minds, 2017

Photo: Stefan Brending, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/legalcode

Last month I wrote Happy Father's Day in Welsh,  Sul y Tadau Hapus, on Cherisse Osei's page as she had a video with her father in Wales. Just now someone 'loved' it on Facebook. I wondered who it was...Jim Kerr... nah, it couldn't be the same Jim Kerr, lead singer for Simple Minds, the band she's a drummer for....it was! I was wondering how he knew Welsh when I saw he hearted everyone's comment. (I'm assuming it was an app)

Ferris Wheel

 

Seagull waiting for the storm

 

Cherries on the bottom

Cherry tree, more of a bush, all the cherries are near the bottom, although there were flowers all over.

 

Another yellowish red sun

Yellowish-red sun. Not that much haze from the forest fires, but the light is still yellowish-red, so I imagine the smoke is in the upper atmosphere.

 

Dogwood, maybe

Maybe a dogwood? Abundant flowers just growing by the roadside on Watkin's Corners Road, near Purdon Conservation Area. June 2023. One suggestion my friend on Mammoth made was a Mock Orange, Philadelphus spp.

 

Bird of Paradise

 

Thrift store find - Promo brochure for 1951 version of Bird of Paradise, starring Louis Jordan as a Frenchman who goes to Polynesia, marries a native, played by the not-very-Polynesian Debra Paget, who is sacrificed to a volcano. Seriously. I think it's a fumetti with the plot given along with still photos.

Maple Leaf Truck

Chevrolet 'Maple Leaf' Truck, made in Oshawa from 1930 until 1948. 

 

Interior

Biker War 2023

Scene of shooting in parking lot, three injured,14th Street and Brookdale, Cornwall,  July 8, 2023  Supposedly there is a fight between the Outlaws Motorcycle Club and Loners Motorcycle Club. Outlaws clubhouse was torched in Brockville on Monday. 

Little Girl

 There was a little girl, about eight, sitting on a folding chair at the entrance to a small mall. She had a cardboard box that had stuffed toys in it - "What are you selling?" "Some toys" "Here's a donation" I said, giving her a five. "What are you trying to raise money for?" I asked, thinking it might be for a school project. "I don't know, maybe for my dad." and her voice wavered. "Here's another ten - take care of yourself!"

Luminous Long Sault

Luminous Long Sault 2023, boats light up by LED lights in bay, Long Sault, Ontario, July 8

LED Drones light up sky, done by Anugrah Patel, Paul St. Onge, and Barsha Hardikr 

Surprised dog, Lancaster, Ontario

 

Flowers through Fence, Williamstown, Ontario

 

Birds not of a feather, flocking together

 

Domestic goose, with wound on wing, among Canada geese, east end, Lamoureaux Park, Cornwall, Ontario

Sixth booster

 Sixth Covid-19 booster today. I haven't had any kind of side effect from the Pfizer vaccine.

Double Rainbow Canada Day

 

Yellow Moon

Yellow moon from smoke from forest fires in Quebec

 

My pic of Mayor Chow

My photo of new Mayor of Toronto Olivia Chow, with late husband Jack Layton, 1993.
 

Still smoky

 

Still very smoky outside - yesterday Montreal was on the news because it had the worst air quality for a city in the world!