Since then...

I know I've been increasingly quiet here.

I have done my walking and photographing for this blog with my dog, Moo, who has been with me since 2000.  She died this past month, after becoming increasingly frail over the last year.

She still liked being taken out, but as the year wore on could spend very little time walking.  I'd still carry her through the parks, and stop when she wanted to get down and sniff something or investigate an area of heavy squirrel activity, but by the end of October, she just had very little energy and ability to get around.  The soul was willing, but the body just wasn't capable.

I leave you with a silly video of her from when she was nine years old, playing with my father's cat in my old bedroom there.

October already?

Yep, it is - would you look at that?  Time flies when you're swamped with pointless busywork.

Well, it crawls, but you are so busy you don't get anything else done.

Never fear, though - I've still been taking silly photos when I remember to take my phone with me.

We'll start with this stunning Sheldonesque suit I saw in a window downtown (sorry for the reflections - it was a bright afternoon).  I still can't convince the Mr. to get it, but I think it's truly awesome:

Next up, I just wanted to share that I spend far too much time on my daily commute staring at glass-breaking hammers behind glass that needs to be broken.  It's a conundrum.  Shouldn't there be a smaller hammer alongside to help you get the bigger hammer out?

Then this terribleness!  Walking the dog in the park, there's an area that's got a lot of dropped crabapples and it's got a yellow jacket problem right now.  The poor thing got stung on the back of her thigh, top of her toe, and back of her heel before we could kill the wasp and scoop her up.

(She's recovered now - the swelling only hasted a couple days, and she was using the foot again by that evening, though gingerly.)

Again walking downtown, I sometimes pause to wonder what "eggs" are, and where they come from:

And last, but not least, it's cabbage season again here in Toronto.

[Off Trail] Carolina Beach

Last week I was lucky enough to take a few (too-short) days and get some time down in Carolina Beach.

We've been going there for family vacation since I was a little kid, so when the opportunity popped up to spend a long weekend, I really couldn't resist.

Sunrise walks on the beach.

And the sunsets weren't bad, either.

In between there were sand castles ...

... laughing gulls ...

... blanketflowers ...

... Carolina anoles ...

... the boardwalk carousel ...

... and lunch at Pop's.

The Redpath Tallship Festival

With my low tolerance for people, I end up at very few festivals, but I could not help but wander down to HTO West this weekend because there were tallships in port.  Despite them being absolutely crawling with people, and hard to take photos of, I tried.  Really, I did!

The one that I could see from Ireland Park (and so which got me headed toward the tallships) was El Galeón de Andalucia, out of Seville.  She sailed over from Cadiz on June 29th (I'm sure her two 380 HP engines helped with that!) and she's pretty awesome to behold.

El Galeón de Andalucia

It was hard to get closer and get any detail though.   Here she is from alongside the starboard bow, looking back - you can see her anchor tied up there above the cannon ports.

This is a close up of her stern, with the Virgin painted upon it.

Behind the Galeón was the Pride of Baltimore II, but it was impossible to see her behind the swarms of people:

Pride of Baltimore II

But the best surprise was the Draken Harald Hårfagre (the Dragon Harald Fairhair), out of Norway.

Draken Harald Hårfagre

Really lovely!  Here's her prow:

And here she is prow-to-prow with the Galeón:

Viking longship, nose-to-nose with Spanish galleon

The fun thing to know about the Viking longship is that she has a crew of 33 and no below-decks - there is a tent on deck that sleeps 22, and the crew sleeps in three watches of four hours work and eight hours rest.  They galley is open to the weather.

Later in the day, they took a sail around the harbour:

The Pride of Baltimore II, under sail.

The Draken Harald Hårfagre, under sail.

El Galeón de Andalucia, under (solo) sail.

To the ROM!

On Sunday, I paid another visit to the ROM.  This time, most of the photos I have for you are from the First Peoples gallery.

First, this hat, which I love and would totally wear:

Next up, Sitting Bull's shirt and bonnet.  Awesome.

And this winter ensemble, which I looked at for a really long time because - not to overuse the word - it, too, is awesome:

In the Canadian wing, I was taken with the early Quebec altar decorations, such as this angel:

One of the current exhibits is called "The Third Gender" and is about the wakashu in Edo-era Japan - essentially young men who were seen as objects of desire by both men and women.

There are many great prints in the series, though I'd not advise taking children to see it just due to the fact that many of the prints are from shunga.  Still, many are quite beautiful.  Here is one example with its accompanying plaque:

Utamaro School, ca. 1790

Certainly see it if you're into either Japanese woodblock prints, or gender roles.

Oxidized Puddle

What April Showers Brought

The April showers really haven't relented much, but I went out Saturday and, in a brief patch where it wasn't raining on me, took a few photos in the Music Garden.

These are my favorite daffodils.  I just like the color contrast.  There are a lot that are in the beige to peach range out there, but these just say "yes! Spring!" to me.

The pink tulips down at the eastern end of the garden as also great.  So pretty!

These are smaller, yellow, tulip-like flowers at the western side, but I don't know what they are:

And this, by the maypole - I don't know for sure what it is, but it's kinda neat looking: - I think it's a Persian fritilary:

There are some small checkered fritilaries along a nearby path; if I remember, I'll get some photos of them, too.

Er, spri-what now?

It really did look like Spring earlier in the month.  On the first, I took a photo of these little yellow flowers peeping up through the pine needles:

But on the second, it was starting to snow.  But then it always does for J's birthday, so why worry?

By the fourth, this is what that same area of the garden looked like.  Do you see any teensy yellow buds?  I don't.

They must have been an April Fools' joke.

And by the way, it's still snowing.

Springish

A few of the first signs of spring are finally showing up.

They're sparse, but they're there!  Meanwhile, the water fountain seems to have developed a lot of attitude for a fountain that is actually rarely ever working.

Only Mostly Dead

I know I've been absent, but I swear I did not die.  I only felt like it.

I took very few photos in March, as the weather was almost abysmally dreary and I was in a constant state of panic over my course load and assignments.  (To all school administrators out there: 21 credits is too much to ask people to carry, especially when each and every one of your instructors likes to assign ridiculous busy work such as "learning journals" and repeated draft submissions of the group paper they handed out to over-large groups.)

We had a few brilliant days toward the end of February.  I think I took this photo on the 28th on the south side of Alexandra Park, over the Western Gap:

Cleaning the Hoses

At some later date, also along the Western Gap (by Ireland Park), I noticed the bollards all have these little stickers on them.

Mysterious, right?  Well, I'm sure they mean something to someone.

Finally, the weather has been far more crappy lately.  We had freezing rain all at the end of last week (it hardly seems like Easter already with this crap going on).  Somehow it managed to coat the inside of the transit shelter I was in on Thursday, making it somewhat hard to see if the streetcar was coming yet (thank goodness they're at least bright red).

The View from Inside
(a transit shelter on Queens Quay)

Moon over Toronto

This is only a couple days after I took the photo, but two nights ago we had a really fantastic moon rising in the east.

I also learned that, to get the best results from my phone camera, I have to put it in manual mode.  So... I'll be doing that more in the future.