According to my pedometer, I walked 26,314 steps yesterday. That’s about 20 km. I had an absolutely solid nap when I got home from the Great Glebe Garage Sale.
I got an antique hobby horse, a four-volume creative writing course, a rabbit lamp, a bunch of books, some bright yellow rubber boots for planting flowers in, a bag of knitting needles, and three vintage children’s books for a grand total of about $20. I was very happy with the day’s haul.
I got these three old children’s books and a hardcover knitting book plus a bag of knitting needles and crochet hooks and two small knitting books for $2. I like people like that seller, who treat garage sales as an opportunity to get rid of stuff they no longer want, as opposed to opportunities to fill their pockets.
I purchased this antique hobby horse for a mere $5 from a woman whose children had been given it by an antique-loving family friend when they were little. Interestingly, there was another woman with a toy monkey that I liked, but she wanted $20 for it because it had so much sentimental value to her and her husband. Twenty dollars worth of sentimental value, apparently. I didn’t buy it.
GC picked up this sweet little prairie dog for fifty cents, and two vintage fitness booklets from the Canadian Navy (5BX for men and XBX for women) for free. He’d actually been looking for these specific booklets for awhile. He says we will now be able to achieve peak physical fitness in just twelve minutes per day. My friend Felonius Monk’s dad also swears by the 5BX plan. He included a chapter about it in his book of things he has learned about life from almost ninety years of living it.
(Speaking of Felonius Monk, he phoned me from a forest the other evening, where he and his girlfriend had stumbled upon a motherless baby fawn. He wanted suggestions on what to do with it. I gave him some phone numbers and asked him to keep me posted, but he never called back.)
Here are some of the things we did NOT buy yesterday:
Growler
You see that bear on wheels, behind the teddy bear? The one with the big hole in him, and the straw stuffing poking out? Yes, him. He’s a Steiff bear, and the seller was asking $1500.
I did buy a couple of stuffed animals, but not these ones.
I didn’t buy any mannequins or mannequin parts. But not because I wasn’t tempted. GC reminded me of my diminishing house space and my desire to declutter, and then he dragged me away from the mannequin house. (Other people were dragging their partners away from the same house, because they had a vintage Harley Davidson for sale too.)
So…did any of you go to the Great Glebe Garage Sale? What did you get?
GC and I popped over to Carleton U yesterday afternoon to catch some of the presentation about the proposed redevelopment of Lansdowne Park. I haven’t paid much attention to the Lansdowne development issue, so I’m just throwing my opinion out there without the benefit of context. Take it with a grain of salt.
The presentation was delivered by architects Richard Brisbin, Barry Hobin, and Robert Claiborne, who said their goal was to create an urban space that reflects Lansdowne’s long history as a city, regional and national meeting place.
We only had an hour in the meter, so we didn’t stay for the whole thing, and much of that time was eaten up by technological difficulties, such as false starts, audio problems, and presenters not knowing how to click ‘next’ in the slide show.
But we saw enough, I think. We saw Mayor Larry O’Brien gush about the plan. We saw the video of it. We saw a guy fall down the stairs. We saw Counselor Rick Chiarelli smirking in the doorway.
I didn’t come away with a strong opinion one way or the other. It was okay, I guess. I found myself getting seduced by the language used in the video, and it made me realize once again the power of words to create moods and illusions. This would have been an entirely different video without a soundtrack, and I wouldn’t be surprised if people came away with entirely different thoughts.
Once I caught myself melting into the language, I started focusing on that instead of the graphics, which is probably why I don’t have much of an opinion. Although I have to say it did look expensive. And, while I guess it would be nice to have a fancy-pants mixed-use facility in the Glebe, don’t we all have more pressing things to do with our money? For example, I’d like to see us build more social housing, and provide more green space and recreational opportunities for kids in low-income neighbourhoods. And that’s just for starters. I’d also like to see us build up some reserves so that when we get another snowy winter, the mayor isn’t proposing a special snow tax.
There were a couple of lines that made me laugh, although maybe this is just how architects think and talk:
“The relationship between Lansdowne Park and the Glebe must be completely redesigned.”
“The two buildings – the Horticulture Building and the Aberdeen Pavilion – will have a relationship with each other, and a dialogue with each other.”
Does that strike anybody else as funny?
Incidentally, I’m keeping an eye open for candidates in the October municipal election when I attend things like this. We recognized a couple of them at the Lansdowne event . James Dean (Knoxdale-Merivale Ward) was in the audience, as was Julia Ringma (College Ward). (On a completely unrelated note, it was Julia who originally introduced GC and me, first on the Scrabulous board, and months later in person at her birthday party.)
It was stinking hot on Tuesday night, so GC and I headed off to the Empire Movie Theatre for 90 minutes of air conditioning and a strange movie about babies. It was called Babies. There was no plot and no dialogue. Just footage of four babies during their first year of life. There were baby boys from Namibia and Mongolia and baby girls from Japan and the U.S.
Babies was charming without being obnoxiously cute. It was interesting to see the similarities and the differences in babyhood across cultures. It was also interesting to watch the babies develop relationships with the people and animals in their lives. I fell in love with the Mongolian baby, who was hilarious; GC’s favourite was the Namibian baby.
I remember thinking, when my son was a baby, that watching him develop was like watching human beings evolve…learning to work that opposable thumb, learning to use tools, going from crawling to being upright, acquiring language….all kinds of things.
GC and I talked afterward about where we would most want to be brought up, if we were babies. We both liked the Mongolian baby’s life – he lived in a yurt, surrounded by animals. The Namibian mother was the most attentive. She naturally integrated her baby into everything she did. The Japanese and American babies lived in cities, and their surroundings were largely artificial. They went to exercise classes and attended group singalongs about being in touch with Mother Earth. Meanwhile, the Mongolian baby crawled naked over stones.
Here’s the trailer.
Anyway. It was a good movie and a terrific deal. On Tuesday nights, the Empire Theatre (in the World Exchange Plaza on Albert Street at O’Connor) charges $4.99 for a movie ticket (half the usual price). For $5.99 you can get a popcorn, drink and chocolate bar (that’s half price too). And they throw in three hours of free parking, and all the air conditioning you can absorb.
Speaking of babies, have you seen the pack-a-day two-year-old? Video and details here.
I saw this on my way to school a few days ago, lying on the sidewalk on Merivale Avenue. It was about a foot long. I have no idea what it is. It looked like rabbit fur wrapped tightly around a metal cylinder. But why would anyone wrap rabbit fur tightly around a metal cylinder?
It was hot and muggy yesterday. Neither GC nor I has air conditioning in our homes, and most public air-conditioned places were closed for the civic holiday. So it was the kind of day where you lie around sweating and having conversations like this:
“What do you feel like doing?”
“I don’t know, what do you feel like doing?”
“I can’t think of anything.”
We had that conversation a few times, and then GC came up with a brilliant idea. He suggested we take our books and our water bottles and a blanket and go lie under a tree at the Arboretum. So that’s what we did. It was lovely and shady and there was even a whispery breeze to take some of the clamminess out of the heat. We took turns reading to each other and I even had a wee snooze.
Then some jackass set off a firecracker about 50 feet away and scared the bejeezus out of us and all the birds. But it was a lovely afternoon except for that part.
Speaking of birds, on Sunday afternoon we took The Dog and the lovebirds (in their cage, of course) out into GC’s backyard. They LOVED it. They sent out piercing calls to all the other birds in the neighbourhood, and they studied the sky and watched the trees.
Also, within five minutes of being moved outside, Lester developed a case of Spring Fever. He started regurgitating his food and feeding it to Billie. Subsequent research confirmed that this is normal lovebird behaviour and is part of the mating ritual. By throwing up into her mouth, he’s demonstrating that he’s sexually mature and ready to mate. Amazing what a little fresh air and sunshine can do!
A couple of days ago, GC and I dropped in to Sir Guy Carleton High School for their annual open house. There were burgers and bake sales and plant sales and raffles and all kinds of thing, but the thing that captured our attention for the longest period of time was the honey bee exhibit.
One of the shop teachers is a beekeeping hobbyist, and he built and brought in an exhibit for the day. It’s basically a beehive sandwiched between two pieces of glass in a wooden frame. You can see all the bees doing their bee chores. The cleaner bees are cleaning, the builder bees are building, the nurse bees are nursing and the queen bee is laying eggs.
GC and I spoke to the teacher for quite awhile. It was pretty clear that he loves talking about bees.
The most interesting thing for me was this: Bees always act in the best interests of the colony. Their survival instinct is not individual, but collective. They don’t care about themselves. They care only about the colony.
I keep thinking about this. What would human society would be like if we were like bees? Maybe we could save the world if that was everybody’s only priority. If other things – like getting ahead and accumulating money and possessions and satisfying our own appetites – weren’t so important to most of us. Maybe the bees are on the right track.
On the other hand, bee society is pretty chilling when you really think about it. Bees aren’t very tolerant of imperfection. If a bee is born with a disability, they kill him. They want to ensure that no bad genetics are allowed to proliferate in their colony. It’s all about survival of the fittest, because that supports survival of the colony. It’s a very cold and utilitarian system, but it’s based entirely on instinct. They don’t sit around and debate it or do studies or consider the ethical implications.
Human societies of course also operate on the principle of survival of the fittest, but the measure of fitness is different, as is the definition of ‘survival.’ Weakness could be physical, mental, financial or other. We don’t literally kill our weak (as a general rule), but we don’t usually let them thrive either.
If we were all to act in the best interests of the human race, who would we kill? The sick? The disabled? The poor? The rich? Some people might argue that the poor aren’t pulling their weight. However, the poor consume very few resources. The rich, on the other hand, have voracious appetites and consume far more than their fair share. Who would we kill?
Maybe we should kill the economic system. Kill money. The endless pursuit of money is keeping us from identifying and pursuing things that are more important to our survival and well-being, both individually and collectively.
Here’s another thing I’ve been thinking about. The planet. This might sound weird, but all the people who are trying to save the planet – have they considered that the best thing for the planet might be to let nature take its course and eliminate the human race?
The annual Sheep-Shearing Festival at the Experimental Farm runs all this weekend. Knitting, weaving, border collie agility races, sheep-shearing, finger-weaving, felt-making, all kinds of stuff.
Just a little update on the depression that ambushed me awhile back. As I said at the time, I don’t have a history of depression, so I wasn’t sure what to expect either from the depression or the treatment.
I started taking a very small dose of Effexor back in March. My doctor wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to experience any weird side effects, so the dosage was well below what would be considered effective. Two weeks later, she doubled the dosage. A month after that, at the beginning of May, she doubled it again.
Now, three weeks later, I’m feeling pretty good. I don’t feel high or freakishly happy or anything like that; I just feel like me again. I’m optimistic and cheerful. The anxiety is gone, I’m sleeping a lot better, I have more physical energy and mental focus, and I’m interested in the world again. There’s still some residual social anxiety, for lack of a better word, so I’m staying away from large gatherings for the time being. But other than that, I’m feeling pretty good. (And I appreciate feeling good more.)
These days I’m pouring a lot of mental and physical energy into gardening. And I’m reading a really good book about biodiversity, called The Diversity of Life, by Edward O. Wilson. It’s a little outside my normal subject matter, but I started reading a book that Milan wants everybody to read (he’s even buying copies for strangers) called Storms of My Grandchildren. It’s about climate change. I only got a hundred pages into before it was due back at the library, and I confess to being out of my league, scientifically speaking. But the first hundred pages did kindle my interest in science and nature, which led me to Edward O. Wilson, who is changing the way I think about the world.
Anyway. Back to depression. Now that I feel like myself again, I wonder how it all works. Am I still depressed but I just don’t feel depressed because of the antidepressants? What I mean is, if I were to stop taking the pills, would the depression consume me once again, or is it gone now? How does one know when it’s okay to stop taking the pills?
A few people asked about school. I’m taking a two-week course (mornings only) called Experience in Motion. It’s for “mature workers” aged 45 and older. It’s sponsored by the Ontario government, as part of the “getting Ontarians back to work” program.
This two-week course has been running for six years, but this session will be the last one ever. They just lost their funding. The three trainers are going to be unemployed in two weeks. (In fact one of them had his last day yesterday.)
Also, remember that course I took a couple of months ago, with all the career interest tests and stuff? COPE? They just lost their funding too.
Anyway, this course is pretty interesting. The focus is on finding jobs in the hidden job market as opposed to the open job market where there’s so much competition. And it’s actually not so much on finding jobs, but on finding work. They emphasize the ways in which the job market has changed over the years, and how job search methods must change accordingly. For example, the kind of jobs we’re used to – permanent, secure jobs with benefits – have been replaced with more precarious forms of work.
The other thing, which is kind of weird, is the relentless focus on age. They keep trying to spin the positives of our age, but at the same time they’re advocating updating our resumes to remove any hints of our age (for example, removing the date of a degree). They talk a lot about ageism, and about how younger people don’t want to hire employees who remind them of their parents. This is because of stereotypes like older workers are set in their ways, and can’t adapt to rapidly changing technologies, and are just trying to kill time til they can retire. It’s also because young people aren’t comfortable with the idea of being authority figures to people their parents’ age.
Anyway. The whole thing is making me feel kind of old, which I don’t think is the purpose.
In other news, GC and I saw a coyote on Hunt Club Road between Merivale and Woodroffe yesterday afternoon. He was standing on the side of the road as we (and a guy on a bicycle) drove by, and was a very handsome specimen.
And someone stole GC’s hanging flower basket last night, which was hanging by his front door. It was stunning, and we just bought it a few days ago. I forget what kind of flowers they were, but they were a cascading mass of tiny blue flowers. Lobelia, I think.
This is just a super-fast post before I leave for school.
Here’s the last couple of days flashing before my eyes: Doctors Without Borders Refugee Camp in the Heart of the City, Home Depot, Lloyd, community garden potluck, Ritchie’s Feed and Seed, Canadian Tire, community garden, mixing soil, wheelbarrow, Ottawa Farmers Market, square foot gardening demo, The Guy Show, herb garden, first day of school, last day of volunteering at the Christie Lake Kids art program, radiation oncologist follow-up.
For Lucy: Tonight is the Ottawa Horticultural Society plant sale and auction at 7:30 at the Tom Brown Arena. Also Ottawa Art Lending tonight and tomorrow at the Unitarian Church at 30 Cleary. And Thursday is the Nepean Horticultural Society plant sale and auction, 6:30 pm, City View United Church, 6 Epworth Avenue, Nepean.
The rabbit lamp was the day’s pièce de résistance. Before I bought it I was just another face in a sea of faces. But the instant I bought it, strangers started smiling at me and talking to me and telling me how lucky I was to find something so wonderful. Some guy stopped me to show me his Oscar Meyer Weinermobile, knowing we must be kindred spirits. Somebody even took a picture of me with the rabbit lamp, saying it personified the Great Glebe Garage Sale. I let GC carry it for awhile, and then everybody smiled at him and talked to him too. 
I got these three old children’s books and a hardcover knitting book plus a bag of knitting needles and crochet hooks and two small knitting books for $2. I like people like that seller, who treat garage sales as an opportunity to get rid of stuff they no longer want, as opposed to opportunities to fill their pockets.
I purchased this antique hobby horse for a mere $5 from a woman whose children had been given it by an antique-loving family friend when they were little. Interestingly, there was another woman with a toy monkey that I liked, but she wanted $20 for it because it had so much sentimental value to her and her husband. Twenty dollars worth of sentimental value, apparently. I didn’t buy it.
GC picked up this sweet little prairie dog for fifty cents, and two vintage fitness booklets from the Canadian Navy (5BX for men and XBX for women) for free. He’d actually been looking for these specific booklets for awhile. He says we will now be able to achieve peak physical fitness in just twelve minutes per day. My friend Felonius Monk’s dad also swears by the 5BX plan. He included a chapter about it in his book of things he has learned about life from almost ninety years of living it.
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