I just found this picture...and since I cannot blog on my visit to my geriatric gynecologist, I am using the picture to keep a place.

I really like the picture!

Some years are for growing Amaryllis...some are not. This is an Amaryllis year!
One of the most important lessons given in teacher training was that of gaining the janitor's respect. The janitor would be the first to know if one was losing it...or if one never had it!

I'm clearing out files. Not only is it an Amaryllis year, it is a year for file cleaning. I found the following: A certain private school in Washington was recently faced with a unique problem. A number of 12-year-old girls were beginning to use lipstick and would put it on in the bathroom. That was fine, but after they put on their lipstick they would press their lips to the mirror leaving dozens of little lip prints.
Every night the maintenance man would remove them and the next day the girls would put them back. Finally the principal decided that something had to be done. She called all the girls to the bathroom and met them there with the maintenance man. She explained that all these lip prints were causing a major problem for the custodian who had to clean the mirrors every night. To demonstrate how difficult it had been to clean the mirrors, she asked the maintenance man to show the girls how much effort was required. He took out a long-handled squeegee, dipped it in the toilet, and cleaned the mirror with it.Since then, there have been no lip prints on the mirror.

And that is why teacher training focused on the importance of the janitors!

I have no idea what the rules of copyright for a blog...but I'm just finding stuff and putting it up so that I don't lose it. I found this somewhere...an exercise in writing six word stories:

-Seeing the world before it’s gone.
-Superwoman has got nothing on me…
-Tried to hate.
Love won out.
-Followed dream. Found cure. Nobody interested

I just discovered something that I forgot I had!

The Rights of the Reader
Daniel Pennac
The right not to read
The right to skip pages

The right to not finish
The right to reread
The right to read anything
The right to escapism
The right to read anywhere
The right to read out loud
The right not to defend your tastes

I have to find a photo for this but now I have found this...

At a Ceaileigh awhile ago a friend and I performed the following - a list of descriptions of whiskey...as we read back and forth, we crumpled to the floor and ended whispering to the ceiling...it was fun. We didn't win. My friend's partner was a judge.

About Whiskey

Minty sweet
Oily and firm
Pure caramel
Sweet almost meaty
Plenty of dolorso character
Warming in a vigorous well defined finish
Gradually revealing a broad complex of interlocking flavors
Rounded and velvet-soft with a big development of dry, spicy, bitter-sweet marmalade-like orange and heathery smoky flavours even a faint tang of saltiness
The flavours are so tightly interlocked at first that the whiskey appears reluctant to give up its secrets…
Aromatic, heather-honey notes give way to cut-grass malty sweetness which intensifies into a sudden burst of peat
Peat some incense like heather honey with a fruity softness
Unhurried, with chocolaty notes and gingery dryness
Skips sweetly along at first and then becomes mean and moody
Salty, dry, smoky – a roaring crescendo…
Lots of seaweedy, oily, peppery notes
Tangy again in a rather quick finish
A late echo of its peaty island home
A bit of cinnamon wouldn’t you say?
Assertive wet-earth character
Fresh light flowery fruitiness
Sweetish without being cloying
Lightly sweet without being sticky
Chewy – definitely chewy
Lingering to the tongue
A cigar-box character
A hint of sulpher
A touch of mustard
Some spirity notes
Faintly phenolic
Astonishingly creamy
Rich and luscious
Fairly warming
Clinging moth-feel
A whiff of smokiness
Gingery and crisp
A hit of oakiness
It lingers but not long enough

In Edward Albee's Sandbox, the grandmother responds to the events with the words: Lordy, Lordy, Lordy.
Walt Whitman yearns to sound a barbaric yawp.
And I alternate between Lordy, Lordy, Lordy and yawping...

I found a shopping list amongst my important papers:

...ginger...potatoes...insurance...yogurt...Get a life!...blood tests...broth

So I went up the mountain and got a life!

All this just to record a wonderful example of a grammatically ambiguous sentence!

I shot an elephant in my pajamas.

I'm chasing my mind at the moment. It refuses to just settle down and dust. It keeps distracting me: Look, Pat! Look at the dead flowers! Aren't they neat? After hearing Molly Peacock talk about The Paper Garden and Art Seigleman just talking about the craft of comix and an afternoon at Cosco just looking...who wants to dust?

This picture seemed appropriate...

I have waiting for several months for an insurance check. It came today...but for some reason or other they refused my request for reimbursement for orthodics. I had in fact submitted the prescription for my orthodics and a bill for my car repair...What puzzled me was that they had even considered it, created a statement for misc. and refused it.

I pray someone in that company had the grace to laugh. Now I have to find the bill for the orthodics.

Liam O'Leary was found in an large field behind an industrial area of the city. He is a profoundly sweet animal. He has been with me long enough to alas gain weight and to get to the point where he can cuddle with the other feline resident, Ciboulette. That took at least two years and still is only possible when Ciboulette is sound asleep or cold enough to tolerate another body to keep her warm.

The point of this blog is to catch hold of ideas before I forget them...and that is a challenge in itself. I sometimes forget the ideas just before writing them down...
The other reason for blogging is the vehicle for photographs ...otherwise, I just have...photographs fading on my computer.
I have a friend who is one of the first women ministers ordained in the United Church of Canada. I think she was #68. She is serving at the moment as chair of presbytery and in that position was invited to take part in the installation of two Catholic axillary bishops at Mary Queen of the World cathedral. She robed and joined the line up of robed priests taking part in the ceremony. She was of course the only woman.
Now here's where I would take liberties in the story telling. As she tells it, she slipped and fell and was rescued by the priests around her just as she entered the aisle. I would wait until she was half way up the aisle and describe her rescue as being much more dramatic. She would be pulled to her feet by six robed priests and at least one arch-bishop!
That's the manipulating of a story. One stretches the fact for the sake of the fiction.
The cat in this picture is Liam O'Leary. I feel guilty for not photographing him too often but the problem is that a black cat is not easy to photograph.

I making plans to create an appropriate box for my brain...

Yesterday as a volunteer I addressed envelopes using a mailing list that did not have postal codes and had the name of at least one deceased on it.

I offended the group a while back when I said that volunteering was easy as long as one left one brains at home...

But I had to come home, reinstall my brains, and with the help of Canada 411 find all but six of the postal codes on the mailing list. I very much wonder if said six were deceased also...

I am being glib but I do know how hard it is when someone one loves has died and mail keeps coming in for him or her.

The day after my father died, we received a well-meaning chain letter suggesting that if he prayed three times and turned in a circle four times and sent said letter on ten other people, he would go to heaven. If not, he would go to hell.

Naturally it was anonymous...someone out there buying some time in heaven...but I really wanted to find them and say: Is it too late?

Now with emails such letters are no longer anonymous. I never ever do what they say but I do worry that by not doing what they say I might be jeopardizing my afterlife...

And that's why I want to make a beautifully padded box for my brains for when I am not using them or need to leave them at home.

Two friends whose husbands have both been in hospital recently confessed that the institution got the best of them.

It is customary when one is in emergency for a nurse or orderly to come in regularly and ask: Do you know who you are? Do you know where you are? Do you know what day it is?

Both husbands understood the necessity of the questions; both husbands however just couldn't resist...

In one case, having been asked the question for the fourth time by the same nurse, another nurse came in. Before she could say anything, the husband pointed to the first nurse and said, "I'm a bit worried about her. She seems to be quite forgetful."

In the other case, the husband couldn't resist when asked did he know where he was. He replied hopefully, "Regina?"

So I did not mention to the people at the Biodome that one of their birds was loose.

And the question that I have been avoiding: Where were you on 9/11?

I was in a cabbage patch on the coast of France looking over to Mont Saint Michel.

My guilt is that I was in such an exotic location.

I certainly don't have a problem finding pictures for this blog. I have trouble finding something to say...and it's not even that. I have trouble remembering what I was going to say.

But that problem has now been solved. I have a file of quotes that I have never used. I can blog forever!

Some years are meant for asking questions; some years are meant for answering them.

I think I'm in the answering phase.

Five women, friends for fifty years, sitting at a picnic table at the Atwater market laughing in relief that we were all losing it...losing our keys, losing our laundry, losing our nouns...relieved that we were not losing our verbs!

And vistas and the obligatory flower!

Some more ink-filled pools...

At the end of a number of vistas, there are sculptures. This sculpture stands in the cow field where rumour has it that the highland cattle use it to ease their itches! Between me and the obelisk is a ha ha!

This summer I discovered Charelvoix which in itself was a treat, but I also discovered les Jardins de Quartre which is open four days a year. One walks and listens...Apart from the obvious flowers the gentleman specializes in vistas and reflections and to perfect the reflections, squid ink is used in the pools.
There are no fences; there are only ha ha's - a British term. There are moats around the fields so that the highland cattle cannot escape, but the vista is not interrupted. It is not until one comes to the edge of said moat that one realizes what is happening. I would have called it a Ah Ah but then my connection to Britain is fast fading.

I realize as I write that I used to teach this way...I'd talk assuming

that someone was listening but really I was putting my thoughts in order! I think the class would arrange as to who kept me busy whilst the rest got their work done!

August, 2009












August, 2011


Now, dare I ask the people at the Biodome if their porcupine is stuffed...or just incredibly slow?

I returned to this entry because I've been thinking a lot lately about anti-climax. The one I found in a text was: The rest of all the acts of Asa, and all his might, and the cities he built, are they not written int he chronicles of the kings of Juda? Nevertheless, in the time of his old age, he was afflicted with diseased feet.

So if I wanted to deal in anti-climax I would have to say that either the porcupine was incredibly slow...or stuffed!

Another day is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day I can hear her breathing.

Arundati Roy

Quoted by Steven Lewis at Jack Layton's funeral...

When in doubt I always return to the favourites:

A man said to the universe:

"Sir, I exist!"

"However," replied the universe,

"The fact has not created in me

A sense of obligation."

Stephen Crane

Seconded by this wonderful old boxer whose owner dressed him as a pirate on halloween.

I just found an excellent definition of my thinking process. I have a grasshopper mind. That is why I started this blog and why I get distracted and forget what I was going to say on the blog.

This picture I call Patti's Pit Bull...not because I have adopted a pit bull but because it is such a neat title!

This is Tyson who was abandoned and rescued by the people at the local dog run. They thought they had a foster home for him but the family cat named George beat him up the first night and so for a moment he was fostered by Rags and his owner.

He was a very distressed puppy. The good news is that he was adopted by a family who understands pit bulls.

There is a group of people in my area who have made it their goal to redeem the reputation of pit bull. Their dogs wear neckerchiefs and want nothing more than to be patted. They are a fascinating and much abused breed.

I guess I'm going to have to get me a pair of roller blades!

Choose to inhale. It is not always easy but it is essential.

I'm not going to apologize...I've been chasing alligators and dreams...but I have worried...I've been...stultified...and today...I made this and I liked it very much so I am...back!

I know - it's hard to see...but it is appropriate I think...this is my month...I am an Aries!

Some people talk about their bucket lists...the 100 things they want to do before they die.

My concern is with my bus list...the 100 things I need to tell someone in case I get hit by a bus...

Maturity is when a lettuce is taken out of its plastic cover from the fridge and is eaten...because if you don't eat it, it rots.

Maturity is fun, funnier, funniest...

Maturity is eating the whole cookie at once rather than taking it apart...

Maturity means getting a real bed...
And turning the fouton back into a fouton...

I'm rather excited!

I think one should be leery of an Internet offer promising a university degeree at home...

It would be hubris not to post this picture of Lyric sitting on my lap...but please understand that the sweater I am wearing...is very warm.

I have just come back from Fernhill...a farm in Northumberland County, Ontario. This farm raises Scottish Deer hounds...I spent a good hour with one of them sitting on my lap whilst I massaged him. Sitting on my lap is a relative term. This dog is a champion...and stands a good three feet tall...or more. If I am sitting down, we are nose to nose. He had parked his hind quarters on my lap. I actually have a picture of this but I refuse to post it. In fact, I refuse to post any pictures which include me. Why?

I realized when the owners of said farm sent me the pictures that my issue is simple. I have always wanted to be a six-foot-tall model. The fact that at 71 I can finally accept the fact that such a wish would demand a genetic miracle has led me to ignore the lies in photos. I now think that I am a six-foot model despite proof to opposite. At 71 I have the privilege so to do.

The topic is humming birds...and I have no pictures of humming birds so when in doubt, a flower will do. A note from the west coast. "Had to chisel ice off the humming bird feeder or he was threatening to dive bomb the window and moaned about having no appropriate boots." I like the ambiguity of that sentence...did my friend or the humming bird moan?

I am an only child so I don't know what it is like to be the oldest or the youngest or the middle child - I am all of those. What I realize is that I have neglected Liam O'leary. He is the youngest child. He is profoundly sweet and well meaning and therefore doesn't get the attention of Ciboulette who is boss...He is also black and so taking his photo is difficult...but without him, there would be no balance. As an only child I had to balance myself...no easy task...

In Newfoundland I stayed on this wonderful island called Little Big Island. Many of the people who were born there and had to leave to earn a living are returning. As the island residents aged, they took off the second story of their homes for practical purposes. My hostess has hired two men who live on the island to restore that second story and put back the dormer windows. Newfoundlanders have a wonderful sense of humour. The two men have incorporated themselves as Dumb and Dumber! If I were included in this company I would definitely be dumbest!

Post number three out of nine! I know - I'm cheating! This is all in one day...but the game is...to catch up. I'm also cheating because this is last year's picture. We don't have that much snow yet. But the theme is stillness. The mission of Yan Martel: "For as long as Stephen Harper is Prime Minister of Canada, I vow to send him every two weeks, mailed on Monday, a book that has been known to expand stillness. That book will be inscribed and will be accompanied by a letter I will have written. I will faithfully report on every new book, every inscription, every letter, and any response I might get from the prime minister on this website." The website is: http://www.whatisstephenharperreading.ca Mr. Harper has been if nothing else silent...but the collection of books is fascinating. I am embarrassed at how few I have read.

Nine days into the new year - therefore I owe nine posts. This is post number two, a lesson in making sure my windows are cleaned this spring...I have a magic tree...

OK - this has to be a plan. I have to have a plan! A picture a day - that's my plan! I've lost a word. I've lost many words but this one I'm anxious to find. It is the antique dealer's word for tacky. I am tacky. I like to think that I collect folk art...but it's not true. I like tacky! I want to say that one of my favourite Christmas presents was...but that's not nice. That's tacky. A friend teaching in Korea saw this cow in a market and said: That's Pat! It is! I love it. If I push its arm, it dances. Mind you Ciboulette is not impressed! I call this photo: Cat and Cow negotiate for space!