Last night GC and I went to the so-called all-candidates meeting for the Ottawa West-Nepean provincial by-election. It’s GC’s riding, and he wanted to better acquaint himself with the issues and the candidates before deciding who to vote for.
Two of the mainstream candidates – the Liberal and the Conservative – didn’t even bother showing up to make a case for themselves, despite the fact that this was to be the election’s ONLY public all-candidates meeting. They’re begging for votes, yet they snub the voters.
I believe GC crossed them both off his list.
So who does that leave? The NDP candidate (Pam FitzGerald), the Green candidate, Mark MacKenzie, and the lunatic fringe candidate, John Turmel.
John Turmel. This guy has been running for office as long as I can remember. He’s in the Guinness Book of World Records for having run – unsuccessfully – in 72 elections. He rants and raves about poker, interest-free loans, bartering and marijuana. He’s opinionated, theatrical, big and belligerent, and he waves his arms and hollers his opinions. I kept thinking he was going to accidentally smack Mark Mackenzie, who had the misfortune to be seated next to him, with one of his flailing arms, and at one point he did elbow him in the head. Everybody else tolerates John Turmel, but the photographers seem to love him because he’s such a spectacle.
I wonder if anybody ever invites him to dinner parties. Imagine a dinner party with John Turmel, Lowell Green, Marvin Glass, Don Cherry and Big Bud? (If you’re not from Ottawa, you might not recognize some of these names – what they share in common is that they’re all overly opinionated men who entertain no possibility in their own minds that they might occasionally be wrong. They also all believe in the power of volume to prove a point.)
Anyway, I believe the some-candidates meeting helped GC narrow down his list. He’s still got a couple of days to make his final decision.
You guys are NOT going to believe this. Remember two years ago when Duncan was immortalized in a piece of street art by Elmaks? Well, it’s happened again. This time he’s in a novel. I’m not kidding. I was reading a book, when suddenly, completely out of the blue, right there on page 37, there was Duncan. Duncan!
At first I thought maybe it was just a coincidence, but then, some pages later, there was a description of the cat, and it matched. I sent a message to the author, Rachael Herron*, and she confirmed it: the literary Duncan was modeled after our Duncan!
You really have no idea how thrilling it is to find your cat in a novel.
Duncan, of course, is pretty cool about the whole thing. He’s a cool cat. He says Johnny Depp is going to play him in the movie.
If you want to read the book, it’s called How to Knit a Love Song, by Rachael Herron. It’s a romance, but it’s a GOOD romance. I wrote the following review on Amazon:
“I don’t usually read romances, but was drawn to this one because of the knitting angle. I really like it. It’s entertaining, funny and charming, and it has some sizzling sex in it too. Best of all, it doesn’t trivialize women the way the romance novels of my youth did – the main character isn’t sitting around waiting to be rescued or swept off her feet or dragged kicking and screaming to some gothic castle where she will succumb to Stockholm Syndrome. The icing on the cake? It’s got a fabulous cat character in it. Terrific first novel. I’m looking forward to Herron’s next book.”
*Rachael Herron is the famous Californian knit blogger Yarnagogo, and she was instrumental in the conception and creation of the Zoom blanket.
Posted by zoom! on February 28, 2010, at 9:33 am |
The decluttering continues. Broken lamps. A scrapbook of newspaper articles about deformed baby chimpanzees and children raised in dungeons. Holographic guitars. Things that only work with obsolete technology. Shoes of babies I’ve never met. Veterinarian records for pets that died decades ago.
Meanwhile, life goes on. I’ve been reading and knitting and baking. We drove GC’s son to Montreal yesterday. We’re going crow-chasing in the east end of Ottawa this afternoon.
But I’m coming up empty in the blogging department.
Posted by zoom! on February 26, 2010, at 12:51 pm |
No time for a real post today, but I loved reading this article by Rebecca Fleming, the woman who first tweeted that Gordon Lightfoot had died.
On a totally separate matter, I can’t believe the International Olympic Committee sees fit to “investigate” the Canadian women’s hockey team for drinking in public during its post-game, gold-medal celebration on the ice.
Posted by Zoom! on February 25, 2010, at 10:09 am |
Not too long ago I blogged about Ontario doctors being investigated for welfare abuse because they were completing paperwork that allowed some of their patients to “fraudulently” claim an additional dietary allowance intended for people with chronic illnesses.
There’s now a movement afoot to impress upon the Ontario government the need to increase the welfare rates across the board so ALL recipients – not just the chronically ill ones – can afford to eat.
As part of that campaign, there’s a website called Do the Math. It allows each of us to calculate, category by category, how much money we think a single person in Ontario needs, at a minimum, to live on. It then compares that number to the actual amount a single person on Ontario Works or ODSP (Ontario Disability Support Program) receives in welfare benefits.
It’s interesting because each person gets to decide what they think is a necessary or reasonable expense for someone receiving welfare. For example, do you think they should have Internet access? Pet food? Haircuts?
If you do Do the Math, I’d be curious to hear your results. (I’ll reveal my magic number in the comments tomorrow.)
(Hat tip to poverty activist Terrie Meehan for telling me about the Do the Math site.)
Posted by Zoom! on February 24, 2010, at 9:46 am |
When I moved here three and a half years ago, I began actively cluttering up my house. For the first time in my life, I had all these rooms, and all this space, and a basement too. How could I resist filling it up?
Well, my work here is done. This house is full. It’s full of furniture, books, art, art supplies, found objects to be used in making art, clothes that don’t fit anymore, camping stuff in case I ever go camping again, yarn, a giant loom bursting with good intentions, and a million tiny things that I only see when I’m looking for something else.
And then there are my collections. Over the years I’ve collected antique photographs, vintage cameras, old purses, playing cards, Saints cards, teapots, mannequins, vintage clothing, pottery and much, much more.
It’s time to declutter. These days I’m feeling drawn to the idea of being surrounded only by things I use and/or love.
I find the process of decluttering difficult because it’s all about making decisions, and I’m not good at snap decisions. I like to look at things from all angles and consider them carefully before deciding. It takes time, and there’s a part of me that argues for keeping every single thing. Just about everything is potentially useful when you really think about it. So decluttering is basically about arguing with myself, which naturally creates tension.
It’s difficult too because there’s so much emotional weight attached to so many objects.
I have a number of items that belonged to my grandfather, who died 15 years ago. I ended up with things nobody else wanted but nobody wanted to throw away. For example, his Christmas in a Frame prototypes, which he was trying to get patented. His Shriner stuff. His ugliest teddy bear. All his slides. I don’t really want this stuff, but I don’t feel comfortable throwing it away either. By keeping it, I feel I’m somehow protecting him from disappearing into obscurity.
Another example of emotional hoarding: I find a pebble in an old jewelry box and I think “I must have kept it for a reason; it must have had some sentimental value,” so I keep keeping it, even though I no longer have any recollection of its significance. I become sentimental about my sentimentality. I think it’s time for me to let some of this stuff go, don’t you?
A box of kitchen clutter
Apart from the psychological challenges of decluttering, there are practical questions as well. For example, what do you do with all the stuff you’re getting rid of? Put it out on the curb and let people help themselves? Donate it to a shelter or some other organization? Sell it on UsedOttawa.com? Keep it til Spring and then have a garage sale? Some combination of those things?
I feel exhausted even thinking about organizing my clutter for resale. Besides, once I’ve filled a box with stuff I want out of my house, I don’t really want it hanging around until garage sale season. I’ve barely just begun the decluttering process, but already I have three green garbage bags of clothing, a box of books and a box of kitchen stuff cluttering up my living room while I try to decide how to dispose of it.
Anyone want a rice cooker? Books about running? Small orange pants?
Posted by Zoom! on February 22, 2010, at 10:05 am |
I have a soft, sweet place in my heart for crepes. So when I heard about a new crepe restaurant in town from Nelly’s blog, we wasted no time checking it out.
The making of the crepe
Crepella’s – despite its unfortunate name – makes wonderfully yummy crepes. They use only fresh ingredients, and they prepare the food in front of you. They have a selection of savory crepes and a selection of sweet crepes, as well as waffles and smoothies. We watched Mike the crepe-maker make some sweet crepes with strawberries and bananas and custard and chocolate, and we were very tempted to order those. But after much poring over the menu and discussion of the options with Mike, GC and I both decided on savory crepes.
I had the Michel, which is chicken, cheese, avocado, tomato and lettuce. It was fantastic. GC had the Josephine, which includes feta cheese, spinach, tomato, cucumber, black olives and tzatziki sauce. He looked deleriously happy and wasn’t able to say much more than “mmmmmmm” for the first few minutes.
These crepes were seriously delicious.
Crepella
The other customers around us seemed more than happy with their meals too. The prices were reasonable, with most crepes costing $7 or $8. The restaurant itself is tucked away in a strip mall, and doesn’t look like much from the outside, or from the inside either. It’s small, clean, and comfortable enough, and it doesn’t pretend to be fancy. It’s just a humble little place worth going to if you love a good crepe. It’s new – only six months old – so it’s still working at building up its clientele, mostly through word of mouth.
If this post seems a bit like a restaurant review, it’s because GC and I inadvertently cast ourselves in the role of restaurant reviewers. Since the crepes get made in front of the customers, GC photographed the making of the crepes, which led Mike to ask us what the pictures were for. GC told him about the blog. He got a little carried away. (“Hundreds of people read it every day,” he said, “And they’re all going to come here to eat!”) I think it made Mike a bit nervous, actually. We then tried to downplay the whole thing, explaining it wasn’t a food blog and we weren’t food reviewers, but it was too late. From Mike’s perspective, we were there to eat his food and publicly judge it on a popular website.
He needn’t have worried, of course, because his crepes are delicious and besides, nobody cares what we had for lunch.
After we finished eating, Mike gave us his card, took mine, and said the meal was on the house. But we wouldn’t hear of it. As long as we were cast in the role of fake food reviewers, it would be unethical for us to accept free food. Besides, Crepella’s is a good, small, independent restaurant trying to establish itself in a tough economy, and we want it to succeed. Maybe someday, after Crepella’s is solidly established because hundreds of you went there to eat, we’ll let Mike treat us to a crepe.
Crepella’s is located at 2440 Bank Street, which is at Tucson’s Mall, around South Keys. (I know that’s at the other end of the universe, but it gets bonus points for being one of the few places you can take the O-Train to.) They’re open all day in case you get a hankering for a crepe outside of normal brunch hours. If you do go, tell Mike that Zoom and GC sent you.
Posted by Zoom! on February 20, 2010, at 11:12 am |
I have to say, I love love love my green bin. Maybe the novelty will wear off someday, but so far I’m totally enamored with it. It’s like having a new pet. I feel like I’m feeding it.
In the olden days I used to have a worm composter. I kept it in my kitchen and tossed my food scraps in. Thousands of red wriggler worms ate my banana peels and coffee grinds and wilted lettuce, and converted it into compost, which I used on my house plants. We had a happy relationship, my red wrigglers and I.
I loved it so much I got one for the office too. Nancy and I were totally into it – we fed them every day and harvested the compost once in awhile and shredded newspaper for the bin. We had it for years but two of my colleagues lobbied to get rid of it when we moved. They said it gave them the creeps. They didn’t like worms. They didn’t even like the idea of worms. You don’t actually see the worms in a worm composter unless you open it for a peek, and they never even used the handicapped washroom, which was where we kept the composter.
But eventually the squeamish folk won out and we gave the bin away to another non-profit organization.
I credit my worm composters for my fondness towards my Green Bin, and for the feeling that I’m feeding something when I compost. Feeding a pet. Feeding the earth.
The Green Bin doesn’t have worms, of course. Just a small kitchen container and a tall outdoor bin. We make origami liners out of newspaper for the kitchen container. It takes about 10 seconds to make a liner. Bella taught us how.
Incidentally, the Green Bin is having the unexpected benefit of improving my recycling behaviours with my Blue Bin (plastics) and my Black Bin (paper). I’ve always recycled, but not as conscientiously as many other people I know. Since getting the Green Bin, I’ve been taking great pleasure in not throwing things in the actual garbage unless I have to.
Posted by Zoom! on February 19, 2010, at 9:21 am |
You know, I have no trouble wading into controversial political waters and sharing my opinions on all kinds of subjects. I’ll talk about crime, drug policy, our idiot mayor, unions, poverty, social programs, welfare cheating, public spending, the bus strike, whatever.
But I’ve been reluctant to say what I think about the deeply divisive issue of strollers on the bus. I mean, who wants to take on either motherhood or disabled people?
But the stroller thing has become a perennial problem and I don’t think it’s going to go away until we solve it. The parents won the last round, which was just a few months ago. It’s back again, and this time it has been framed as the seniors and people with disabilities versus the parents. I’m not sure this is the most helpful way to think about it. The problem is not parents or babies or people with disabilities or old folks or any animosities between these groups. The problem is we’re trying to make buses and strollers do something they weren’t designed to do.
As much as I love babies, and as much as I support the rights of parents and babies to ride the bus, our current buses were not designed to safely accommodate those big-ass stroller systems. They’re hazardous. Not just for the elderly and the disabled, but for all of us, including the babies. People are trying to navigate through this obstacle course of strollers, walkers, wheelchairs and shopping carts while trying to stay upright on a poorly designed lurching bus that doesn’t have enough things to hold onto. (This is especially true at the front of the bus, and especially if you’re short, like me. I can’t reach those bars that run along the top). People are tripping and falling. It’s only a matter of time till someone falls on a baby. This would be awful of course, but it’s awful anyway that we’re falling down on the buses, even if we’re not taking out babies.
I think we need to look to history for solutions to this problem. I used to ride the buses with my baby, back in the 80s. I wore him in a Snuggly until he got too heavy (about four months) and then he graduated to an umbrella stroller. The rule back then was that you could bring an umbrella stroller onto the bus, but it had to be folded. That’s what we did. And I don’t remember there being all this controversy about it either. Maybe it wasn’t perfect, but it made sense and we all managed to live with it.
I don’t doubt that it’s a lot harder to fold and carry today’s massive stroller “systems” that convert from stroller to car seat and whatever else. Why not use your stroller system for all other purposes, but use an umbrella stroller on the bus? It’s small, it’s light, it’s easy to fold, it’s cheap, it’s easy, and it doesn’t take up half the bus.
In the longer term, I think we should be designing buses with strollers and walkers and wheelchairs and shopping carts in mind. Maybe all these vehicles and wheeled devices should be getting on the bus via a back door, and using the back of the bus, so everybody else doesn’t have to navigate through them. It’s having to get through them that makes them so hazardous.
I can’t imagine that we’re the only city with this problem. How are other cities dealing with it?
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