The prize for best performance in this category goes to . . . Marshalls!
For anyone who has ever tried to keep a gaggle of items straight, this store is for you.
I have no idea what this path sign means, but at least I saw it. (To call it a trail marker would be a tad overwrought. The wide, groomed-but-dusty paths accommodate pedestrians of all skills and levels, as well as wheelchairs. The wilderness it ain’t.)
Our recent return to Veterans Oasis Park showed great growth in the plantings surrounding the artificial ponds–so much growth that it was sometimes hard to get close to other Park visitors.
It’s hard to give/get the feel of these urban-but-also-desert parks. The fluttery to-ing and fro-ing of small flocks of birds above my head. The grit under and on my shoes. The smell of the creosote bushes alongside the path. The sudden sighting of a well-camouflaged roadrunner. The sprinkle of colour through sage-green bushes: tiny flowers that lift the heart even though they don’t take a good picture.
This 10-second video adds at least something to the false quiet stillness and sameness of any photographic view.
As we come up on the gravel truck, I squint. At freeway speed, the spray-painted, stencilled message is a tad small for reading but the first two lines are legible enough if not exactly clear as a result.
DO NOT
FOLLOW NOT
Non-standard uses of negations usually annoy me, often confuse me, and only rarely charm me. I ponder what this one might mean and decide it would net out to a Yoda-like injunction to FOLLOW.
Three hands rest on their respective owner’s laps: a soft 20-something hand, a pudgy toddler hand, and a fat-free, veins-and-knuckles-protruding, 50-something hand. Left to right it’s me, my son, and my mother sitting in the back seat of my parents’ car after a trip to The Farm: the farm where she grew up and that she now, well, farms in partnership with the neighbouring farm-er.
A light shines in the darkness.
It’s a common/commonplace image in the visual arts: in paintings, where a light in the window speaks succinctly of home and warmth; in photography, where sunrise light speaks of a day started in hope and sunset light speaks of a day ended at peace.
A light shines in the darkness.
How’s that working out for you?
Movie dialogue can be a useful source of insights: think life, business, love, communication, and, well, everything. It turns out that “useful” is le mot juste to keep in mind on this last day of the year, according to Seth:
It’s not possible for anyone to actually see the world as it is.
But there’s a significant opportunity we can work toward:
To experience the world in a useful way.
Not correctly, but usefully.
If the methods you’ve used . . .
have been helping you get exactly what you seek,
congratulations.
For the rest of us, there’s a chance to work
on our filters, our habits and our instincts.
Mountains near at hand use up the sky. Mountains a tad farther away can add to it.
These scenes greeted us on Christmas night.
Are you telling me . . .
Ah, never a good start to a conversation. On either side.
. . . that you can change
the amount of bread crust
by how you cut the bread?
Well, yes.
Today, Christmas Day, is the first of the 12 days of Christmas, immortalized in the old song and in my videos. Here are two: 2019, 2018.
Today, Christmas Day, is the subject of endless music. Here are two selections: Canadian Christmas music, Blue Christmas variations.
Today, Christmas Day, is a day of many memories. Here are two: Shy Dee Doze, Let it Begin.
Today, Christmas Day, is the subject of endless reflections. Here are two: It’s Blue. It’s Imported, Beginning to Look a Lot like Christmas.
Today, Christmas Day, is a source of some frustration. Here’s one which counts as two: Outsourcing the Bird.
Today, Christmas Day, is a time for gift-giving. Here are twelve-in-three: The First Day, The Second Day, The Third Day.
Posted: 2025 May 24
Thanks to John Whitman for this slightly dismayed face from downtown Ottawa.
This space is available for other submissions.
