On the self-same visit to the Canada Aviation and Space Museum that generated deep thoughts about language and sexual roles/stereotypes, we saw this CT-114 Tutor aircraft hanging upside down in the foyer.
Why was it upside down?
Playful creativity–even or especially in a museum display–is a joy forever.
Womanize: verb (disapproving)
A man who womanizes often has temporary sexual relationships with women or tries to get women to have sex with him.
Womanize, womanized, womanizing:
: to make effeminate (transitive verb)
: to pursue casual sexual relationships with multiple women (intransitive verb)
Womanized:
: made effeminate, feminized
Thus spake, not Zarathustra, but three online dictionaries: Cambridge, Merriam-Webster, and Collins, respectively. Merriam-Webster helpfully offered 16 similar words. It’s pretty subtle but see if you can spot the occasional disapproving tone:
mated, coupled,
slept, copulated, lay,
fornicated, made out, lusted,
played (around), fooled around,
cheated, stepped out, philandered,
catted (around), screwed around, tomcatted (around)
A recent rain left this pallet of water droplets on one of our evergreens: perhaps a Calgary juniper, although I no longer remember its name with any confidence.
What is generating the pink/purple colour in the droplets? I’m not sure, but it could be what I was wearing, although neither are my colours. Some funky refraction, I guess.
What invisible something is suspending the droplets? I’m not sure, but I suspect a spider web–not my happiest suspension suspicion but a reminder that nothing is all good or all bad. Even spiders, you ask? For now, I’m suspending judgement.
As we tour a family member around Lanark County (7 Wonders!), we stop at Pakenham, famous for its now-historic 5-arch stone bridge and for its always-fresh butter tarts, not necessarily in that order. The bridge may not be the primary attraction, but it is lovely.
This day, there is a raft of ducks in the water just above the rapids. At first glance, the ducks are close to all being of a size, but closer inspection confirms that they’re a female and a host of younger ones: not babies or even toddlers, I’m thinking, but teenagers.
Getting out and about is a good thing, often because of the view when I get back to the car. In accordance with my blog categories, are these Photos of Built Stuff, or Photos of Landscapes? Yes.
These scenes don’t have any big significance but they make me happy. Maybe that’s significance enough.
Using your words, not your hands, describe this structure to someone who can’t see it. I’ll wait.
That’s it. That’s the post.
Well, not quite.
Arriving home in the early evening, I saw a bunny hop into our front yard. By the time I parked the car and closed the garage door, I figured it would be gone–under cover or gone gone. But no, it was sitting on a rock in the middle of the other rocks in our front yard. I got a phone-camera photo at max phone-camera zoom (see left below; the version on the right is after cropping and brightening).
I got my big camera and went back out, but I figured it would be gone–under cover or gone-gone. But no, it was still sitting on a rock in the middle of the other rocks, washing its face with its paws or drying its paws on its face. And then it was just sitting, looking alert (note the ears) and yet, somehow, relaxed.
Did it know I was there, as something distinct, say, from the shrub I was lurking behind or the porch pillar I was trying to blend into? I think so, although bunny cognition is not a subject I’ve studied. But even though we are unlikely to have a meeting of the minds, there is something immensely satisfying about a peaceful encounter with wildlife. Is there any chance the bunny feels the same? I don’t suppose so, but I kinda hope so.
Lilac Capital of Ontario
I snap to attention in the back seat. Driving–well, being driven–to Kingston last week for a family gathering, I see this sign as we enter an otherwise unremarkable town(let). For easier driving, we’ve taken one of the innumerable roads less travelled than the 401, whose sign, if there were any emotional truth in promotional signage, would say this:
Welcome to Hwy 401:
One of the Busiest Highways
in North America.
Don’t say we didn’t warn you.
As quickly as we enter the Lilac Capital of Ontario, so do we depart it; it’s fast enough that I don’t capture the name of this metropolis. Dagnab it. A modest capital, I guess, and a town(let) indeed.
Hi. Can I get the number
for the poison control centre, please?
Silence. Then more silence. I wait, pen poised, wondering what the delay is. I’d already called the telephone company’s directory-assistance service for other numbers in Saskatoon, our new home in this January of 1980, and usually they’d rattled them off pretty quickly. Finally, a voice speaks, hesitantly, as if afraid of the answer.
Is this an emergency?
Posted: 2025 Jul 19
