What a weekend!

In fact my weekend was so packed with excitement, that I am going to have to break this up into at least two posts.

We started Saturday morning off by going to the farmers market and spending atrocious amounts of money on fresh veggies. We discovered while we were in the neighbourhood that it was time for the Art Walk. Local artisans set up on the sidewalks in front of willing businesses and show off their art and sell stuff and you can even watch some of them work. My friend though it would be a good idea for me to sit in the blazing sun and have a caricature drawn, so here it is.




It only took her about 10 minutes to do this and it is a fairly good representation. I think I might use this as my avatar for awhile.

We wore ourselves out walking around and looking at art, then I had to rush home to go to work. About 2.00 p.m., I stepped outside to run back to my suite for a minute and could smell propane. I spent the next few minutes going from patio to patio at the back of the office building, checking barbecues. Nothing, then it went away. Well, it is windy, I wonder how far that smell will travel on the wind? (By this time, it was getting very urgent that I return to my suite.)

10 minutes later going back to the office building I can smell it again! I check some of the patios on the other buildings, then decide the fire department is better equipped to find a leak if there should be one. Our Fire Department cannot be reached unless you call 911 - which in this case is rather stupid. I had been hearing sirens and kinda thought they might be attending whatever was causing the smell and didn't want them rushing to respond to nothing. I did search a bit on the web to see how far the smell could travel, but got nothing. I called the non-emergency line for the police and barely got out that I was smelling propane or something, but wasn't sure, when the Cst. (sorry, Constable) informed me that the construction crew for the LRT * had hit the gas line and we might be evacuated soon.

As it turns out, they didn't have to evacuate us, we were far enough away, we just happened to be downwind. I finished my shift, went home had supper and headed out about 7.00 p.m. to go to my friends place and fix my bike tires. They had only just finished fixing the line.

I have a short cut that I take along the greensward that cuts directly to the avenue that my friend lives on, if I went by surface streets, I would have an extra 4 blocks to walk. This picture is at maximum zoom from where they have cut off my shortcut, back to my parking lot, my bldg is at the far end of the lot. The driveway is on 108 St.

Click to enlarge

This sign pretty much tells you where I am going with this.

This is probably the culprit! (this is 111St)

That idiot could have blown up houses for miles! Not to mention two schools and a community centre and my apartment bldg.

That is about a half mile from my place or less as it is about a mile to my friends (by this shortcut). Um, yes, that is a garbage can beside the bike trail.

I figured that as they made me smell gas for 5 hours and then had the nerve to cut off my shortcut, I would blog about it. I had to add 6 blocks to my walk after having walked around all morning! (Yes, it adds 2 blocks, because I had to backtrack a bit) But, we got my tires changed with no problems and tightened my brakes and greased my chain and I can change gears much better now!

So, for Monday, I am grateful to be here, to have my bike fixed, a still have a roof over my head!
I will have to tell you about Sunday on Wednesday as Tuesday is WWC.

Have a good Monday everyone.

* Light Rail Transit

Monday, as Saturday.

Yes, I work weekends and have Monday and Tuesday as days off. So, today, I am doing very little, I need to go and get some groceries and a tube for my bicycle tire. Exciting stuff eh?

During the thunderstorm on Thursday evening, I had a hawk land on the tree outside my apartment. I was lucky to get a shot of it, I happened to be outside trying to film the little wrens at their bird house when he landed. I say trying, because I could not keep the camera steady at all. No film due to my shaking hands, but I did manage to get one bad photo.



Near as I can tell it is a Red Tailed Hawk. He stayed there for a few minutes and I tried to film him too, but no luck. I saw another bird in my peripheral vision come from over the roof of the building and then bank and take off back over the building. That hawk was after it in the blink of an eye. I think it was a raven or magpie, but it could have been this ones mate for all I saw of it.

I think it is strange to see hawks in the city, but after all we do have Peregrine Falcons that nest downtown, so why not hawks. After all, we are eating up their territory by expanding the city boundaries so rapidly.

Well, I am off to shop. Have a good day all.

The Odd, The End & The Middle

Wow, I was so exhausted last night that I couldn't get the video to load for today. Why? you ask? Well, let me tell, you about my weekend.

Friday, I rode my bike to the Cross Cancer Institute to pick up the drugs I forgot to pick up when I was there on Wednesday to have my arm checked out. (In case you missed that, it is better, I have an appointment for Wednesday to be measured and order a new sleeve - smaller!) Before I tell you how far I went, I want to remind everyone that I just acquired a bike last summer after years of having a car. So far this year I have ridden it maybe three times.

On the way, I noticed my tires were a bit low, they had just been pumped up the last week before, so I stopped at my friends and asked (I think I've named him) Pete if I could borrow his bike. Well, it hasn't been out yet at all (and is buried behind a bunch of stuff), so we just put air in my tires and hoped for the best. I headed off and was deliberately taking it easy, I wanted to make sure I could get back. It is four miles from my place to the Cross. With the added stop at my friends, round trip was 8.42 miles.

I had a bite of lunch, then got back on my bike to go to the Dr's to get some prescriptions that he had missed two weeks ago. He drives me crazy sometimes and he refuses to write a 'scrip for more than three months at a time or give them to the pharmacist over the phone. That added 2.64 miles round trip. So my total riding for Friday was 11.06 miles! (18+ kilometers for anyone young enough to actually think that way first)

I almost fell off my bike on the way back. There is construction everywhere between here and the Cross because of the LRT and some dipshit stole a shopping cart and parked it right behind the bushes, with just a corner of the handle sticking out. All along the outside of the sidewalk were these little A frame stands indicating no parking (for the construction). I was on the narrow sidewalk because I know I have to replace or repair the tubes but didn't want to pick up anything from the construction debris in the tires. Needless to say, my handlebar caught the shopping cart handle and I lost control. I managed to stay upright, but only just! When I finally got stopped, I looked up and there was one of the workers looking at me. I felt like taking a bow!

Saturday, I spent rearranging boxes and trying to organize the back room in the office. That woman (my boss) has taken a bunch of files from one year and stuffed them in a plastic bag! So not professional! Anyway, that is now done, so I can suggest some changes in the back and see what happens.

Sunday, my friends came and took me to the bottle depot in the morning.....except I hadn't slept all night! I hate having insomnia! I managed to stay awake while at work in the afternoon, but I think that was due to the cappuccino more than anything.

Last night after making and editing this little movie, I was a bit tired and just could not get it to load. I figured out this morning that I was trying to load the wrong thing. Please realize while listening to this tape that I have had about 90 minutes sleep in about 36 hours at this time. I therefore used the wrong words a few times. I did manage to edit out a lot of crap though.




Oh, I forgot to mention on Friday night we went to see stilt walkers perform. I tried to get some video, but a lot of it is shaky - could be I was a bit exhausted. I will see if I can clean it up and show you some of it.

I hope everyone had a great weekend! Enjoy.

LRT = Light Rail Transit

The best laid plans?

My garden is still not planted! It is about 80% though, as long as the rain holds off, I should be able to get it finished today. I have been working at it in between downpours and showers and of course the lawn maintenance people were here on the only dry day!

I haven't been able to work on the overhead cover, I need to unroll it on the grass in order to cut it off of the roller. Did I mention it is an old outdoor roll up blind? I had originally thought to hang it from the edge of the balcony above me to cut back on the heat from the sun, but it won't work to do that, so will be perfect overhead.

Friday, I was able to take my cat to the vet for his shots and check up. $100.00 later, they will give me an estimate to take care of the abscess in his mouth. The vet thinks he has gingivitis and needs about 5 teeth pulled. They called Saturday afternoon....the minimum it will cost is $700.00, I didn't hear the top price, I was in shock. I will call them this afternoon and give them the fax # for the office here and tell them that it will be awhile before I can afford to have anything done.

Saturday after work, I cycled over to my friends to take a photo of her new bridge (I am helping her redesign her front yard) so I could play around with colours for it in Adobe. On the way home, trying to beat the rain, I was going to fast to make the 90 degree turn to stay on the paved bike trail, so went across the grass (like everyone else). No problem, until I tried to get back on the paved path! (the bike path makes another corner, so I was making the bottom of the triangle) My front wheel hit the pavement at the wrong angle and instead of bumping up onto the pavement, slid along beside it. Of course, my forward motion didn't change direction with the bike so I wound upon the pavement. This time, I was not face down like I am when I trip over speed bumps though. No, I landed on my side. On my arthritic knee and my lymphatic arm. Of course on the arm, I have an appointment to get a new sleeve on the 18th and my physiotherapist will be angry with me because it will be still swollen! She will make me wear the mummy wrap out of spite. Then the weather will get hot. Yes, I would love some cheese, thanks.

This is what my knee looked like Saturday night, after I put the chain back on my bike and got home. You can see it is swollen and a bit of the swelling of my arm.


This is it 24 hours later.


This is just a few minutes ago, the swelling is somewhat better.

Sunday, my friends & I went shopping and I got the edging for my little garden and a new lock for my bike (the other is just too short for most bike racks). Then I worked in the afternoon, got some gardening done and managed to not hurt myself.

Today is laundry and trying to get the last plants in.

How was your weekend?

Take care all.

This & That

I was on my Flickr account last night and (for those that don't have one) when you click on Groups, it will bring up any you belong to and on the side a random selection of other groups out there. Last night, one of the random ones caught my eye and I decided to have a look.

It was called "Memento Mori" - Latin for "Remember, you must die". The Group instruction was "Please post what reminds you of your mortality". There were several beautiful photographs, mostly of graveyards, skeletons or various bones, some of the church in Europe that is made from skeletons. Pictures of dead animals, all beautifully photographed. Some photos were of sun breaking though clouds, others had more of a horror film promo feel to them and some just were very nice photographs.

Maybe it is just me, but I wasn't once reminded of my mortality looking at these pictures. We see graveyards on a regular basis, the beauty of the sun breaking through after a storm doesn't remind me that I will die. I think the group administrators could have come up with a better name, as the instructions indicated they would accept this type of photograph.

Personally, I expected more along the lines of this:


Or any of the photos I have of the scars and bruising that accompanied my ordeal. Maybe I just have had a more personal look at my mortality than most.

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My friend is having as much fun with the WWC as I am. I got a phone call this morning asking what the words were for next Tuesday as she had just discovered something that was great! It might work too, we have to research a bit. If not, I am sure I can make it work for something else later on.

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My sister the Bag Lady has named a calf after my blog! If you look on my side bar, you will see a picture of "Pegasus the Calf"! Isn't that the cutest thing you ever saw?

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My boss is stupid! She can't even buy a cardboard file box the correct size! Of course, she asked her husband if they were the right size and he said yes, so they must be! The blind leading the stupid! AAaargh!

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I got my bike out of storage last night and the chain promptly fell off. I have not had to put a chain back on in an eon! I got it though, then I locked up my bike and went in and washed the grease from my hand. I am not very bright, I didn't take the compression glove off of my right hand before I started! Trying to replace a chain left-handed, then having to try to wash the grease off one handed...it took three goes of soap before it was clean enough to get the glove off so that I could wash with a nail brush and both hands. I still haven't gone for a ride and from the sounds of the wind whistling through the gaps in the windows, I won't be going today.

I think that is about as much randomness as I have for today. Take care everyone.