This was an easy way to vote...no line-ups, no parking problems...

 

This little quilt was made by Fern...more sunflowers :_

A walk at Spanish Banks yesterday

It was warm and no wind and we saw some cool older cars. You can usually count on seeing the occasional cool car but nothing like Palm Springs. Well, the desert really is good for vintage cars as long as they are garaged. The blowing sand can do damage.

Jim is admiring this BMW

Love the wheels!

Wanted to catch the freighters in the background.

Now, this was an interesting Mini-Cooper....love the colour but doubt it's original.

Now what I found really interesting is that the convertible roof pulls back like a French Deux-Chevaux.

Not too many people playing volleyball.

Sunflowers

 I usually buy sunflowers quite often but as with so many things in these times, good examples haven't been available at least where I've been. I bought these at IGA...not great, but I'm enjoying them and liking their rather goofy aspect. They make me smile...

And, of course, I always put the vase on the sunflower trivet that Fern game me knowing how much I love sunflowers. 

Pumpkins

 

Loving this Becel product for my peanut butter cookies!

 Donna uses this product in baking (she is a Master Baker) and gave me a package to try. I made cookies yesterday and it folded in wonderfully. I'm hooked on this product now. Thanks, Donna!

Ready to go in the oven.

The finished product. 

A new "Little Library" in the area!

I just love these! 

Good Morning. I am new to this site and wanted to let you know that we have put up a ‘little library’ outside our house on the 4100 block of West 12th. Feel free to take or give a book. Also, check out my mask making website -maiseymasks.weebly.com - fundraiser for local causes.

Sunrise over Pacific Spirit Park the other day...

 I almost never take photos of the sun rising but liked the colours when I got up. 

Well, no sunrise today but we are still feeling the warm glow from our wonderful Thanksgiving dinner with Donna yesterday.  Thanks, Donna, so much for making it a very special event in these strange times.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

 It will be a quiet Thanksgiving today. We celebrated Thanksgiving with Richard and Grace last weekend and will be celebrating with Donna later today at her place. We're doing mainly a catered dinner. Donna is a wonderful hostess and we always enjoy our time together.

Just for fun I thought I would look at my blog and see what we were doing in 2014. We celebrated Thanksgiving late that year as Ray and Naomi were travelling in Quebec but wanted to have us all over. That was the first time we met them and it was a very fun evening and a wonderful dinner. Since then we have always celebrated Thanksgiving together. We have many wonderful memories of those evenings.

Richard always does a wonderful job of carving the turkey.

Grace, Naomi, and Richard doing all the work.

The amazing world of otters!

I always loved the otters at the zoo in Stanley Park. I won't mention feeding them fudgicles. Terry wouldn't approve but we were just kids and they loved licking them off the stick. We never thought they might bite the hand that fed them. But we did see a documentary a while ago that painted a rather nasty profile of otters and what vicious things they are capable in the "name of love"...like dragging a dog into the water and raping it). This is a much nicer story.

Also there is a great film called "Tarka the Otter" which is available on YouTube. I think it just might be time to watch it again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-2d3Dp0Xh0

From CNN's "The Good Stuff"

How does an otter find love? The same way a human does: Online dating!  Harris, a 10-year-old Asian short-clawed otter at the Cornish Seal Sanctuary in Cornwall, England, has been feeling lonely the last few years after his 16-year-old mate Apricot passed away. Although the otter dating scene is admittedly sparse, otters work best in pairs, so Harris' handlers wanted to set him up with someone new. They created an online dating profile for their little buddy to showcase his best qualities. "I am very attentive, I love a cuddle, and I am a very good listener," the profile said. "I will love you like no otter." Who could resist that? Harris' smooth words caught the attention of an otter named Pumpkin at Sea Life Scarborough sanctuary, who had recently lost her own elderly partner. Sure enough, Harris and Pumpkin hit it off, proving there truly is an otter out there for everyone.

A photo of Harris and his first mate, Apricot, in 2019. She died a few weeks ago, leaving one lonely otter. 

Nobel Prize for Literature

I'm now always hoping that Margaret Atwood will win. She is always under consideration but didn't make it this year. The writer does have to be living to win it and she is getting older. I was thrilled that Alice Munro got it but Atwood is deserving as well.

I did like this poem by the Louise Gluck who was this year's winner. 

Hyacinth

BY LOUISE GLÜCK

1

Is that an attitude for a flower, to stand

like a club at the walk; poor slain boy,

is that a way to show

gratitude to the gods? White

with colored hearts, the tall flowers

sway around you, all the other boys,

in the cold spring, as the violets open.

         2

There were no flowers in antiquity

but boys’ bodies, pale, perfectly imagined.

So the gods sank to human shape with longing.

In the field, in the willow grove,

Apollo sent the courtiers away.

         3

And from the blood of the wound

a flower sprang, lilylike, more brilliant

than the purples of Tyre.

Then the god wept: his vital grief

flooded the earth.

         4

Beauty dies: that is the source

of creation. Outside the ring of trees

the courtiers could hear

the dove’s call transmit

its uniform, its inborn sorrow—

They stood listening, among the rustling willows.

Was this the god’s lament?

They listened carefully. And for a short time

all sound was sad.

         5

There is no other immortality:

in the cold spring, the purple violets open.

And yet, the heart is black,

there is its violence frankly exposed.

Or is it not the heart at the center

but some other word?

And now someone is bending over them,

meaning to gather them—

         6

They could not wait

in exile forever.

Through the glittering grove

the courtiers ran

calling the name

of their companion

over the birds’ noise,

over the willows’ aimless sadness.

Well into the night they wept,

their clear tears

altering no earthly color.

FB memory from Oct. 9, 2015

 This just came up on my FB so just had to post it. Richard ran the Victoria Marathon that day and finished all safe and sound. I seem to remember there was some weather problem that worried me.We were  in Vancouver. This year he and Grace are doing wine tasting in the Okanagan. 

What a wonderful project and such positive results!

Nothing is a "one size fits all" but generally I've found giving people some control over their own circumstances is a good thing. It's really worth reading the whole article. I think there needs to be many approaches to this problem.

 "The results of a B.C. research project that gave thousands of dollars to homeless people are in and, according to one researcher, could challenge stereotypes about people "living on the margins."

The New Leaf project is a joint study started in 2018 by Foundations for Social Change, a Vancouver-based charitable organization, and the University of British Columbia. After giving homeless Lower Mainland residents cash payments of $7,500, researchers checked on them over a year to see how they were faring.

All 115 participants, ranging in age between 19 and 64, had been homeless for at least six months and were not struggling with serious substance use or mental health issues. Of those, 50 people were chosen at random to be given the cash, while the others formed a control group that did not receive any money."

https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.5752714?fbclid=IwAR3CSO-kv6QXPilniR5Fph8aT5CRw9spgiS2aHGLD8Zvg5uaZy1m_pep78Y

Just might be the best Jack O Lantern of the year...

 

Fitted sheets...wonderful invention!

Impossible to fold, of course.

"All hail Bertha Berman, who on this (actually yesterday) day in history filed a patent for the fitted sheet. "Berman, an African-American from Forest Hills, N.Y., invented the fitted bedsheet, patented on this day in 1959. Her design featured a detachable band that encircled the sides of the mattress, keeping it in place and allowing the sheet to be easily removed for washing. This eliminated the need for flat-sheet corner tucks, the so-called hospital corners that were as hard to master as they were unreliable. Berman’s bedsheet was an improvement, and other designs followed, but Alberta’s Gisele Jubinville wanted a better one. In 1992, she patented the design we know today – a sheet with deep pockets on the corners that wrap under the mattress. “I was fed up with fitted bed sheets that didn’t stay on the mattress,” Jubinville said by phone. “I didn’t know how to sew, [but] I’m about solving a problem.” - Globe and Mail.

Phone booth pranks

 We never thought of doing something like this probably because we didn't have necessary money. I don't think kids today could grasp how funny we thought knocking on a door then running away was. They were simpler times for sure!

"Best prank my brothers and I played was taking down the phone numbers of two pay booths about 4 blocks away from each other on Robson. The next day we called one of the booths. A woman walking by answered. I told her I was four blocks away, stuck in a phone booth and I couldn’t get the door open. I asked her to come help me! She was dubious, but I think she was walking that way anyway. We had timed how long it took to walk those four blocks and so I counted down and then phoned the second booth. Sure enough the woman was there by then and answered. I told her I had managed to escape and came down to the first booth to tell her not to bother and now I was stuck in THAT one! She said “very funny... you kids find something better to do.”

Huge Monkey Puzzle tree in Vancouver

 Ian Forsyth posted this on FB...for you, Mary S.  

Mary showed me that these trees have a special beauty. I think I disliked them since there was a huge one on my street when I was a kid and was afraid of it. I actually crossed the street to avoid it. You pretty much had to walk around it anyway becaue the branches were so low.

"The tree towers over the big, beautiful Craftsman house. I would think it was probably planted when the house was built."

New retro hotel in Tofino....love it!

Well, of course, everyone knows I'm a sucker for these colours and designs.

 https://www.vancouverisawesome.com/travel/hotel-zed-tofino-bc-open-2695565?utm_source=Vancouver+Is+Awesome&utm_campaign=897d13fb2d-Daily+021020&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f592a7afc0-897d13fb2d-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D&ct=t%28Daily+021020%29&mc_cid=897d13fb2d&mc_eid=%5BUNIQID%5D

Itty Bitty Book Review: "The Dutch House"

 "The Dutch House" by Ann Patchett

This is vintage Ann Patchett...what an amazing writer!

 It’s about three generations of an American family who have mixed attachments to a family home in the suburbs of Philadelphia and their interactions with each other. It spans about 50 years beginning around  the end of WW II. It’s an imaginative story filled with twists and turns and lots of suspense. It deals with obsession, love, hate, compassion, and forgiveness in original ways
 

David Wilson's Art showing now at Kurbatoff Gallery

 I think I've probably posted some of his paintings before. I really do love his work.

Add caption

Fall Modernism Week in Palm Springs

Modernism Week in PS began with a week in February and then expanded to two weeks and now they have a week or so in the Fall. It's been a great success  in bringing tourists from all over the world. One year we attended quite a few events and then we mainly went to the free events.  

It looks like it's going to be online this year and I imagine the February event will be online too. They seem to be charging normal prices and I wonder if that will work out for them. Of course, it's all the tourists who come and spend money that really help the PS businesses. That won't be happening and the Canadian snowbirds won't be coming either. Of course, we have a real soft spot for PS and the people there so really hope things get better for them soon. And the moment we can we'll be back to our winter paradise.

The Rancho Mirage Writers Festival has been postposed until January, 2022.  The tickets sell out immediately for this event (I believe they are around a thousand US although I think they may be less now due to a major donor).  They don't appear to be giving the option of refunds and the tickets will carry over.  

https://mwkly.com/places/events/how-to-attend-the-modernism-week-fall-preview-online-experience/

And even more Erma Bombeck

“Did you ever notice that the first piece of luggage on the carousel never belongs to anyone?” 

― Erma Bombeck

“When a child is locked in the bathroom with water running and he says he's doing nothing but the dog is barking, call 911. ” 

― Erma Bombeck

“All of us have moments in out lives that test our courage. Taking children into a house with a white carpet is one of them. ” 

― Erma Bombeck

“Dreams have only one owner at a time. That's why dreamers are lonely.” 

― erma bombeck

“Cleanliness is not next to godliness. It isn't even in the same neighborhood. No one has ever gotten a religious experience out of removing burned-on cheese from the grill of the toaster oven.” 

― Erma Bombeck

“Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare. They are consumed in twelve minutes. Half-times take twelve minutes. This is not coincidence.” 

― Erma Bombeck

“Sometimes I can't figure designers out. It's as if they flunked human anatomy.” 

― Erma Bombeck

“You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness. You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism.” 

― Erma Bombeck

“When humor goes, there goes civilization.” 

― Erma Bombeck