Knitnut.net. Watch my life unravel...
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Posted by zoom! on May 20, 2008, at 8:08 pm |
 When I was a little kid I used to wonder if we all perceived colours identically. Maybe we all saw the same colour very differently, and we just labeled it identically. For example, we would both say the sky was blue, but maybe your blue looked like my yellow.
I used to lie on my back and look at the sky and try to figure out how we could know for sure if we were all seeing the same colour, not just the colour we called the same word.
I came to the conclusion that only blind people could be objective about colours. I then invited an imaginary wise old blind man into my daydream and I described my versions of various colours to him.
It was an interesting exercise but inconclusive. It would have worked better if I’d had a real blind person to bounce these things off, or if I could have invited a real friend into my daydream to describe her version of blue to my imaginary blind man.
I was reminded of this today because I was thinking about food. How do we know that we taste the same flavours when we eat the same food? Maybe when you eat a banana you taste the flavour I call chocolate. We both call it banana and we both think we know what a banana tastes like, but who’s to say we’re tasting the same flavour?
After all, if everything tasted the same to all of us, why do some of us hate some flavours that others of us love?
It’s funny, now that I think of it, that I’m never surprised when someone likes a food that I don’t like, but it shocks me when people dislike the foods I love. How can you possibly hate coriander or raspberries or blue cheese or asparagus? Others, of course, are equally shocked that I dislike peanut butter and mushrooms and olives and most seafood. (My sister says I have immature taste buds, except for the blue cheese. Immature!)
A blind man wouldn’t be helpful in assessing whether we all taste flavours consistently. We need someone without tastebuds. But that was something else I thought about as a little kid. What would it be like to be lacking a sense that everybody else had? How could people describe it to you in a way that was meaningful? How would the world be different if almost everybody had another sense? How much of a disability would it be not to have that sense? How can you even imagine a sense?
Just as an exercise, see if you can imagine a new sense, in addition to touch, taste, smell, sight, sound and possibly the sixth sense of ESP? Can you imagine or make up a seventh sense?
(PS: Don’t forget to head over to the Elgin Street Irregulars for an update on AndrewZRX’s placenta.)
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Posted by zoom! on May 19, 2008, at 11:20 am |
Mayor Larry keeps changing his blog in response to other bloggers’ criticisms of it.
The How Do You Like My New Website? poll disappeared when it became obvious that people weren’t overwhelmed by the site. You might have missed the poll because it was only on the French site (but, oddly, only in English). Last I checked before it disappeared, one person loved the site, six thought it was terrible, and three others said there was room for improvement. So what do you do when you don’t like the poll results? Delete the poll of course. (He could have just edited the poll to remove the offending options, but I suppose that would be tampering with the democratic process.)
He also removed from his website a damning Ottawa Citizen article which enumerated many of his controversial, misinformed, naive, embarrassing and/or criminal deeds since becoming mayor. I believe he did this in response to Apply-Liberally’s mocking of the fact that it was on the site in the first place.
I know in my original comments about the site I said he should write his own blog because it was a bit too slick to be authentic. I take it back. Upon further exploration, I’m inclined to think he’s not getting much help beyond technical assistance and translation.
Here’s an example.
“This website is as much mine as it is yours, it’s success comes from the conversations we will have in the days ahead.”
He probably meant “It’s as much yours as it is mine,” and any half-assed editor or proof-reader would have picked up on that catastrophic apostrophe error. (I fear the Word Cop or the Grammar Gestapo might set their sights on Larry if he’s not more careful.)
However, I do want to give him some credit. If he’s writing the blog all by himself, I’m very impressed. It’s a courageous move. Welcome to the blogosphere, Mayor Larry.
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Posted by zoom! on May 18, 2008, at 9:04 pm |
Ottawa has got to be the festival capital of the world, and we’re heading into festival season. We have non-stop, overlapping, frequently obscure, outdoor festivals throughout all the months with tolerable weather. You name it, we’ve got a festival for it.
This weekend there were at least two that I know of: The Victoria Day Festival at Carling and Preston, and the Sheep-Shearing Festival just down the road at the Experimental Farm.
 I don’t know why anybody would go to the VD Festival. Seriously. Look at the advertising. They don’t give anybody any reason to want to go to this festival. Their advertising poster does little more than identify their sponsors. I happen to know they have a ferris wheel and some other kiddy rides and food booths, which isn’t enough to entice me down there, but maybe a family with kids might go if the poster went out on a limb and hinted at some fun.
I did go to the Sheep Shearing Festival, because the Experimental Farm is the very best thing in Carlington and practically makes up for the fact that we still don’t have a coffee shop or a grocery store in the neighbourhood.
Besides, when you really think about it, aren’t you just a little bit curious about how they shear sheep?
Knitters are an interesting breed. Lots of us start with yarn and needles, and then we start working our way backwards. We want to dye our own yarn. We want to spin and weave. Eventually we develop an urge to raise sheep so we can shear the wool ourselves*.
In my case, the buying of the loom seemed to forestall the backwards progression towards total yarn self-sufficiency. The loom is in my basement. I have never used it, because it’s not the kind of thing you can just start using. You have to figure it out, and it looks really complicated. It’s big, too. At any rate, it has kept me anchored at the stage that precedes sheep acquisition, so it’s probably a good thing.
I had no idea what to expect at the sheep shearing fetival, other than maybe some sheep shearing.
 The first thing I saw when I arrived was a border collie agility competition! I loved this. The border collies loved it too. My dog Sam was a border collie mix, and they’re so smart and focused. They have tremendous energy and agility and they love a challenge. They took turns running an obstacle course through tunnels and over see-saw things, weaving through posts and jumping over hurdles. (It was hard photographing them: those dogs move fast!)
 After the agility competition, I checked out the knitting, spinning and weaving demonstration. The Ottawa Knitting Guild was there, and they had some interesting samples of their work. For example, they had a woman who knits using plastic bags as her yarn (see the picture on the right? Those were knit with plastic bags). You can knit with just about anything. There was a book open to a page in which a Waterloo woman had knit a functional boat. Here it is.
And here’s a weaver and a loom, much like the one in my basement.
Then I went to the sheep-shearing demonstration. First they clip the sheep’s nails and give her a drink of medicine, then they shear. They try to get the coat off in one large clump because it’s worth more that way. Guess how much a sheep’s coat is worth?**
The sheep didn’t seem to enjoy the shearing much, but I think they liked being all naked afterwards.
Before:
During:
After:
One of these things is not like the others:
After the sheep-shearing, I went to the sheepdog herding demonstration. I always thought the farmer just trusted the herd to the dog, and the dog took care of the herd and kept them from wandering off while the farmer milked the cows or something. But actually, the dog is the sheep-herder’s tool, and they work closely together. The sheep-herder controls the dog via voice commands and whistles, and the dog controls the herd according to the sheep-herder’s instructions. The dog never takes his eyes off the sheep or his ears off the human.
 My last stop was the border collie fly-ball demonstration. The dogs ran relay races over hurdles to retrieve balls from a wooden thing. At one point they gathered six kids from the audience and had the kids compete against the dogs.
The Sheep-Shearing Festival continues tomorrow – I highly recommend it. Take kids if you have some, but they’re not essential. The cost is $13 per family or $6 for an adult and $3 for a kid, but I accidentally got in for free. I wasn’t trying to sneak in, but I guess I did by approaching from the west, at The Driveway and Morningside.
*Or maybe it’s just me who wants to raise a sheep.
**A sheep’s coat typically weighs about three pounds, and fetches about $2.70 on the market. It costs about $5 to pay someone to shear a sheep. The sheep are shorn primarily for health reasons. Sheep are raised for their meat: there’s no money in wool.
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Posted by zoom! on May 17, 2008, at 8:19 am |
I just learned of Mayor Larry O’Brien’s new blog on David Reevely’s site, Greater Ottawa. Like David, I encourage the mayor and other elected officials to blog.
I’m not going to say more than that at this time.
Except this: the little talking mayor introducing the site is going to get old really fast.
And this: I think the mayor should write the blog himself – it’s too slick; it lacks the authenticity of a real blog.
Okay, that’s it. For now.
(Oh, one more thing – be sure to check out the French version of his blog and have a chuckle at the little French-talking mayor.)
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Posted by zoom! on May 16, 2008, at 9:34 pm |
Here’s the official photo of the people who showed up at today’s rally to keep the Portrait Gallery in Ottawa – click the image for a larger version.
That’s me – very front row, very far left. Next to me is a blogger friend who I think might prefer to remain ‘ominous.’ I was so pleased to see that at least a few regular readers of my blog showed up, including the two Nancys, Skylark, and the blogger on my left.
Several politicians showed up too, including MP Paul Dewar, and Ottawa City Councillors Diane Holmes and Clive Doucet.
I don’t know if we saved the Portrait Gallery or not – the Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, wants to crassly auction it off to the highest bidder – but it’s kind of cool that this portrait of us might be hanging in the Portrait Gallery someday.
The photograph was taken by Paul Couvrette, who is one of Ottawa’s finest portrait photographers. This is him here, taking the official portrait of us.
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Posted by zoom! on May 15, 2008, at 6:59 pm |
As far as I know, Mayor Larry and I agree on only one issue – we both want Ottawa to be home to the National Portrait Gallery. The Prime Minister wants to give it to Alberta.
Here’s Kelly Egan’s column (September 07) about why the gallery should be housed across the street from Parliament Hill, in the former US embassy building. I agree absolutely.
Ottawa Centre MP Paul Dewar has organized a Friday lunchtime rally to keep the Portrait Gallery in Ottawa. Here are the details:
Momentum for tomorrow’s rally is growing. Take this last opportunity to
spread the message and bring out as many people as possible to the rally.
When: Friday May 16, 2008, 12 noon
Where: NCC InfoCentre, across from Parliament Hill
What: Rally to Keep the Portrait Gallery in the Capital + mass portrait to be shot by world renowned Ottawa photographer Paul Couvrette
Why: Cabinet is considering whether to keep the gallery in Ottawa or send it to Alberta. We believe that the National Portrait Gallery should stay in the Nation’s Capital.
Watch Paul’s youtube video on the gallery.
Visit the Rally’s event page on Facebook.
Invite your friends, spread the message, and keep the gallery in the capital!
Paul Dewar | MP | Ottawa Centre
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Posted by zoom! on May 14, 2008, at 7:58 pm |
It’s been a month already since I joined the Goodlife Fitness Centre. With the exception of the week I was away, I’ve gone every single weekday morning.
I have to admit I’m a little surprised at how quickly I adjusted to getting up at five in the morning. I mean, it sounds so insanely early, doesn’t it? I’m out the front door by five-thirty and at the gym by six-forty-five.
Mondays I do BodyFlow, which is kind of a tai-chi-yoga fusion to bad music. Tuesdays and Thursdays I do BodyPump which is a full-body workout with weights to bad music. Wednesdays and Friday I do cardio – an hour of walking uphill on an 8% grade at 4mph on the treadmill.
Overall, it’s pretty good. I’m feeling a little stronger and a little more toned and stuff. I’ve lost a little bit of weight. The biggest difference, I have to admit, is I feel more virtuous.
I’m supposed to have a Visual Fitness Planning Consultation. However they don’t seem to want to come through on this thing, which they advertise as a free benefit of membership. I’ve asked three times and they’ve taken my information three times and they’ve told me three times that someone will call to schedule it, but nobody has called to schedule it.
Gym culture is interesting. I do some of my best people-watching there. Everybody’s doing the same thing but mostly in isolation from each other. It’s a pretty intimate culture so the collective isolation is an interesting contrast. I mean, you’re all sweating and contorting and panting together in front of a giant mirror, but God forbid you should acknowledge one another’s existence.
The most interesting part of gym culture is the change room. I would love to show you pictures, but there’s a big sign saying you can’t use “image-capturing devices” in the gym. (Why don’t they just say cameras?)
Basically, you’ve got a whole bunch of little lockers and a whole bunch of women in various states of undress, which is exactly what you’d expect in a women’s change room. But there’s MORE than that. They’re not just getting dressed or undressed. It’s like they live there. They’re wandering around half-naked, doing the getting-ready-for-work stuff people would normally do at home. Like ironing, for instance, or putting curlers in their hair.
Maybe these aren’t good examples, since I don’t iron or put curlers in my hair at home. I actually thought curlers were an antiquated thing – I thought people used high-tech heat tools to curl their hair now. I haven’t seen curlers in anybody’s hair since my mom used to sit under a noisy pink hairdryer with a plastic cap with a rubber hose attached to it. And she’d put Dippity-Do in her hair, and tease it.
There are lots of mirrors in the change room, and they’re all busy all the time, because so many of the things women do require a mirror. Makeup, hair, etc. It seems they mostly like to do those things in their underwear.
I try to be discreet in the change room, but I’m fascinated by so many things, and I can’t help but check out things like what kind of underwear everybody wears. And now I think I should upgrade my own underwear, because maybe other people are checking mine out too.
The showers are kind of icky. It’s best not to touch the walls or the curtains. I touched them accidentally once, and they felt slimy. I don’t know how often they clean them, but it’s not often enough. I suppose they’re being used all day long, every day, so it’s hard to keep them clean, but still. Yuck.
There’s a sign in the shower area saying “we are extremely sorry for the lack of hot water and the burnt-out light bulbs in the showers, and we are endeavoring to fix both those things as soon as possible.” The sign has been there since I joined the gym.
I really wanted to take a picture of a new sign in the change room today. It was posted by someone whose belongings were all stolen from a locker on Friday afternoon. It basically asked whoever took those things to turn them in at the desk, or “if you prefer to remain ominous, just leave them in a locker and the staff will collect them later.” Yes, if I were the thief I think I’d prefer to remain ominous.
I thought it was weird too that someone would ask the thief to return their stuff. They’re basically asking the thief to go out of her way to do them a favour for no good reason. I mean, why would the thief want to do that?
There’s one thing about the gym that bothers me a lot. I’m afraid it’s going to collapse. It’s on the second and third floors of a very old building on Queen Street, and the building is about six stories high. There’s a lot of heavy equipment in the gym. After the BodyFlow class, when we’re doing that nice relaxing part of yoga at the end, I’m lying on the floor and I can feel the building shuddering. It freaks me out. It reminds me exactly of how I used to feel when I was a little kid on the swings and I’d build up some serious momentum, and then the swing set felt like it was going to pull itself right out of its moorings and flip over.
I have visions of the building collapsing under the weight of all that machinery and energy. It’s probably an irrational fear, but I can’t seem to shake it. What if the building was never designed for this kind of thing? What if structurally it can’t handle it? Who can I contact to find out if it’s safe?
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Posted by zoom! on May 12, 2008, at 7:18 pm |
I woke up on Mother’s Day without any solid plans. I had left it till the day before to invite my mom out, and she had already made plans to get together with friends. And I hadn’t heard anything yet from my son.
So I went for a run and then had a shower and then, in a rare spontaneous burst of femininity, I got dressed up in a short summery skirt and top and even put on some jewelry. I’m funny about dressing up. I find it stressful to *have* to get dressed up, but sometimes I just suddenly feel like it for no good reason, and then I really like it.
After that, I just went about my day, doing a little housework, drinking coffee, reading, playing scrabble and scramble, stuff like that. And I waited for my son to call. Maybe he’d forgotten it was Mothers Day. Maybe I should go to his place and hammer on his door and say “Hey, it’s mother’s day, let’s go do something!”
I had a nice philosophical chat with myself about Hallmark holidays and things you should and should not do to yourself and/or your children.
I was also thinking about perspective, because a friend of mine’s mom died unexpectedly the day before mother’s day, and another friend recently lost her mother-in-law. I reminded myself that being a mother and having a mother are much more important than having a day about being a mother or having a mother.
I agreed with myself 100%, but I still hoped James would call.
And of course he did! He invited me out for patio beers at Daniel O’Connell’s, which was perfect because it was perfect patio weather and I love the musicians who jam there on Sunday afternoons.
 So off I went, and we drank beers and ate a club sandwich and talked and listend to music and it was a Most Excellent Afternoon on the patio with my son. In addition to loving him more than anything, I really like my son. His father and I, when we get together, still marvel at how we hit the genetic jackpot with James, and how he is the unique and unlikely combination of the very best of both of us.
 Something interesting happened too. It’s funny how something interesting always happens, isn’t it? We’re sitting drinking beers on the patio, and some guy drives up and locks his bike to the fence right beside me. Six inches from me. Tied to the back of his bike is a package of chicken breasts.
“But what about your chicken?” I asked him, “Do you think it’s safe?”
“I thought about that,” he replied, “but you don’t look like a fox to me.”
Then he changed his mind and said maybe I did look like a fox, and I thanked him for the compliment and we both laughed.
He left that chicken there for an hour or so, just sitting out in the sun, while he drank beer wine. I was reminded of Janet’s beef.
 “You’re not worried about the chicken going bad?” I asked when he returned to his bike.
“Nope,” he replied cheerfully, “My mama always said you’ve got to eat a peck of dirt.”
(There was more to that, but I’d had a couple of beers by then, and I can’t remember the rest…sorry.)
“You know,” I said, “I have no choice but to blog your chicken.”
Then he pulled out a business card and gave it to me, so I could send him the link.
And you know who he turned out to be? Justin Wonnacott, the Somerset Street photographer! I’m not even kidding!
(He seems like a super-nice guy, but if you’re ever invited to his place for dinner, don’t say I didn’t warn you.)
Okay. Back to Mothers Day. I got tagged by MudMama for a mothering meme today. Basically I was asked to describe three things I’m good at in the mothering department.
I decided to ask my son, since he’s the expert on my mothering strengths and weaknesses. I sent him an email, described the assignment, and apologized if it sounded like I was fishing for compliments.
He sent the sweetest reply back. It put a huge goofy smile on my face and it made my day so I’m going to post it here. (Maybe it’s tacky to go fishing for compliments and then post them on your blog, but so what.)
Hey Mom,
I think you’re good at pretty much everything as a parent… it’d be a
lot easier to answer if you were good at some things and bad at others
😛
You instilled some good morals in me, I was well loved, well fed,
disciplined, had pets and toys, etc… Plus you’re smart and down to
earth, so I know I can always go to you for good advice.
You’re basically the perfect parent, nobody could ask for better 
Love ya lots,
James
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Posted by zoom! on May 11, 2008, at 8:52 pm |
I was out scrounging the thrift shops a couple days ago, looking for long-lost Group of Seven paintings or, failing that, just something interesting to hang on the wall. I did find an oil painting at Value Village that I might have paid $10 for, but they wanted $29.99. That seemed like a lot, considering it’s Value Village and all. (But apparently I’m not the only one who has noticed the recent price jacking at Value Village.)
While I was in St. Vincent de Paul’s (which, by the way, didn’t have any paintings), I perused the books and ended up buying one called Are You Normal? It’s got all these human interest statistics in it. It’s not rigorous scientific research or anything – it’s mostly based on self-reported behaviour, which you have to take with a grain of salt – but it’s still kind of interesting.
For example: Do you peek in your host’s bathroom cabinet? Apparently 39% of people say they can’t resist, and of those 39%, 77% are disappointed because there’s nothing very interesting in there. (However, 23% claim their snooping was rewarded with the discovery of things like dead rodents, toupees, glass eyes and guns.)
Equally interesting is that 38% of hosts actually go to the trouble of moving personal items from their bathroom cabinets when they’re expecting guests.
(I strongly suspect that the hosts who hide things are also the guests who snoop.)
Here are some more:
7% of people have flossed their teeth with their hair.
48% of dog-owners let their dogs sleep on the bed.
45% of pet-owners don’t mind if their pets watch them having sex.
29% of us have deliberately shoplifted something from a store.
3% of us change our bedsheets every day.
We swear, on average, 16 times a day.
1 of every 7 Americans carries a knife or gun. (That doesn’t count the weapons they keep under their pillows.)
5% of Americans rate themselves as beautiful or handsome.
One out of five women would like to have a penis of her own.
Posted by zoom! on May 10, 2008, at 10:13 pm |
I stumbled upon the Tulip Festival at Dow’s Lake today after brunching with the blogger formerly known as The Urban Pedestrian and currently known as XUP.
The Tulip Festival, it seems, is mostly about photographing your loved ones nestled against a background of vibrant tulips. Just about everybody was either taking a picture or having their picture taken. There were even special little photography stations, marked by camera pictograms.
Here are just a few of the many thousands of people who posed for photographs at the Tulip Festival today. (It feels a bit weird walking up to a stranger and taking their picture when they’re posing for a picture for someone else.)
Here’s a tulip painter. Lots of us were standing around taking his picture too.
It seems XUP is a bit of a rebel when it comes to pictogram prohibitions. Here she is, stomping tulips with her sensible shoes.
(Don’t worry. No actual tulips were harmed in the making of this blog post.)
Anyway. XUP and I had some good food and interesting conversations. We talked about things that used to be considered socially unacceptable but no longer are, things that will be considered socially unacceptable in the future, the revolutionary new dating paradigm, sustainability, excess, fake meat, vegetarianism, single parenting, the health care system, real estate, Value Village, the looming suburban crisis, cats, work, cancer, people who can’t smell, people who can’t feel pain, the increasing prevalence of autoimmune disorders, shoes, chicken pox, smoking lounges, and much much more.
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