Sep 4 2023 - Early Return

 

We return early from our trip to Denver, as Gerry got a bad cold/sinusitus, etc.  The rest of the trip was to be driving, so that wasn't very appealing.  We took Air Canada flights.  We were early at the airport and the flight destination on the sign was Vancouver.  That's the location where two planes had a little collision.  I can't imagine  being the pilot and explaining how one didn't see something the size of a jet.  "It was in my blind spot."  A piece of the wing fell off each plane, according to one of the passengers.   This is one of the busiest weekends for travel, so we were very lucky to travel on the Sunday rather than the holiday Monday.  The Denver airport was filled with people on the Labor Day weekend.  Canadians were filling the airport at the Toronto airport, but we were there for the Labour Day weekend.   Bing tells me that the busiest time at Denver is today at 11:00am.  There was a supervisor yesterday watching over the people at the departure gates.  He said today would be grid lock at the airport.  I thought it was busy yesterday.  I guess not flying for a few years has made me forget how congested airports are.   Pearson is Canada's busiest airport, with 35.6 million in 2022 - and that was recovering from COVID.  The report was that the volume was significantly up by August 2023 - 50% increase.   We would have seen at least a thousand or more people in passing yesterday.  On a daily basis it is in the range of 130,000 people travelling through.  That is hard to imagine.   What is interesting is looking through statistics on the airport - before, during and after COVID.  I wonder how they forecast volumes of people now and staff activities.  Looking at the retrievals, I expect it is messy and chaotic to work in that area now.  But no worries for us now that we are back home. Here's one of my favourite plants - an Ornamental Oregano "Kirigami".  This picture is from Denver in 2017 when we were there for the last convention. It was a delight to see it throughout the gardens this time during the visit to this extensive botanical garden.  One could call the flowers "hop-like".

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Jan 13 2022 - Silly Socks Day

 

Let's take some ideas from school.  One of them appears to be sock days.  Silly socks, in particular.   This seems to play out for us adults in the number and variety of national sock days.   As I looked through the sock jokes, there is a joke that we can enjoy for the various sock days.  Here are some general sock jokes for National Sock Day on December 4th.  - Why do golfers wear two pairs of socks? - In case they get a hole in one! -Who is the most famous footwear philosopher? -Sockrates - What did the hat say to the sock? - I’ll go on ahead, you go on foot. - What kind of socks do you need to plant flowers? - Garden hose! Crazy sock day is in November: - Why did the sock have no friends - Because it was a odd sock Here is a joke for lost sock day on May 9th:  - Whenever I get a sock from the laundry without the other sock, I keep this sock in the hopes of finding the partner in the future. - I call these socks lost soles. No socks day on May 8th: - What do you call a animal with no socks on? - Bear-foot. This last one seems strange to me but is referenced quite a bit. It is sock day divorce.  That's the day a divorce is final and "the day you get your freedom back".  Here's a joke: - Why did the pair of socks decide to break up? - Because one of them always had to be right, and the other one left.   A botanical garden display from a few years ago. Such a contrast with our winter scenes today.

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Jan 9 2021 - Zeno Who?

 

Zeno 1. Is this a number? 2, Is this a game character? 3. Is this an emperor? 4, Is this a place? Who can guess these days what the answer might be? Or it might be all of them.  Definitely Zeno is the name of an emperor in the Byzantine era -this was the time of Goths and Vandals, so the name Zeno fits in. While it isn't a number that I know of, it is the name of a mathematics program.   And there are Zeno's paradoxes, devised by Greek philosopher Zeno of Elea.  There are nine surviving paradoxes preserved in Aristotle's Physics - the three famous ones are Achilles and the tortoise, the Dichotomy argument and the arrow in flight.  They are covered in Wikipedia HERE.  I dismiss the point in each one and am clearly not meant for philosophy. There is a place in Fandom -called Zeon. This might be more popular than Zeno, as spellcheck keeps changing Zeno to Zeon.  The story of Zeon goes like this: "When Zeon Zum Deikun, the leader of the Republic, became gravely ill in UC 0068, he mentioned only one name on his deathbed: "Degwin Zabi." The people of Side 3 took this to mean that Deikun was naming Degwin to succeed him as leader of the Republic in that year. After being appointed as the leader of the Republic of Zeon, Degwin Zabi adopted the title of Sodo, meaning "Lord," and was referred to from them on as Degwin Sodo Zabi." I seem to find the plots from the fantasy world and the ancient world very similar.  Maybe Zeno, Byzantine Emperor, inspired the game Zeon. Today's pictures are of Whistling Gardens, just over an hour's drive from Grimsby or Toronto.  This is my version of virtual botanical garden tours.    Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Boo Is Gone

Boo was the social media sensation of a dog.  He was considered the 'world's cutest dog'. He died yesterday at 12.  He really is cute - he looks right at you with a smiley face.  Boo belonged to a San Francisco-based Facebook employee.  She created his Facebook page and posted 'cute' pictures which gathered more than 1.75 million Likes on Facebook.  Boo got a big boost when Khloe Kardashian wrote about him on her blog. Boo had his own book:  Boo:  The Life of the World's Cutest Dog. He became a celebrity for charities and the official pet liaison of Virgin America, featuring pictures of him and advice for people travelling with pets.   This is his poster picture.  Doesn't he look like a little teddy bear!   The Wikipedia entry on Boo identifies that in April 2012, Boo was the subject of a death hoax after #RIPBOO appeared on Twitter.  This is interesting in retrospect, given all the investigations of influencing in national elections of various countries.  And the increased use of social media to harass people with hoaxes and lies. It took only one post by Gizmodo writer Sam Biddle for the rumour to spread wide and be treated as fact.  Moreover, the Gizmodo writer pursued the hoax by continuing to post tweets of Boo's death in a duck pond - which the New York Times retweeted. And then Twitter followers played along with the hoax, including photoshopping a gruesome image of Boo's demise.  In retrospect now, this type of distortion and manipulation would have broadcast social media's vulnerability far and wide.  Is this different than in the past? A report by New Oxford says it is growing at a larger scale, despite efforts to combat it. Our storm story of yesterday has come about as fact. It is to continue during Sunday with blowing snow.  The Weather Network's chart is amusing.  It has the row names out of sync with the data.  So the hours of sun on Monday is 51, 23 on Tuesday, etc.  That's supposed to be the wind gust.  On the theme of white, here are some images from the Minneapolis Arboretum in September.

Christmas traditions

Yesterday's newspaper had a front page picture of the rowing Santas of Venice - a yearly tradition.  Would it be considered bizarre?  Nothing as bizarre as these traditions: My brother Brian, might not be pleased to find out that the Emperor Moth is the subject of a Christmas treat in South Africa.  It is a deep-fried delicacy on Christmas Day.  That might be more a matter of cultural norms.  Catalonia seems to achieve true weirdness:  In Catalonia they include the figure of the Cagier in their nativity scenes - a small figure of a defecating man.  They also have the pooping log.  It is decorated with a face and blanket, and on Christmas Eve the log is placed halfway into a fire and beaten with sticks.   I remember the Venezuelan tradition of roller-skating to Mass from last year.  And Italy, the heart of Roman Catholicism doesn't have Santa - it has Befana (a kind old witch) on the Fifth of January.  No confusing what Christmas is about there. In Guatemala they sweep out their houses, create a huge pile of dirt, put an effigy of the devil on top, and then burn it. In Slovakia, the most senior man of the house takes a spoonful of looks pudding and throws it at the ceiling - the more that sticks, the better. Read all 35 at foxnews.com  The lists of weird traditions ranges from 7 to 35 in the internet retrieval list. I am sure there are more than 35. The foxnews article excluded the world's oldest Christmas Tree - it is at Wrest Park in Bedfordshire, planted in 1856.  It was planted outside and then potted up each year to be in the house.  It is permanently outside now because of its size: a truly weird choice for a Christmas tree - a giant redwood. There's a competing oldest Christmas tree with there world's record.  Janet Parker of Chippenham Wiltshire, UK puts up the same artificial tiny pine tree each year, purchased in 1886 - possibly from Woolworths.  It fits in a teacup sized pot. And what about the tradition of Christmas cards?  What makes it weird? The first Christmas card depicted a small child drinking wine.  It was sent in 1843. We know about the New Year's plunge in icy water, but there's swimming in Hyde Park's Serpentine Lake on Christmas morning.  Playwright J.M. Barrie donated a prize cup to the tradition in the early 1900's, solidifying its place in tradition. In contrast to all this seemingly crazed behaviour we depict the beautiful Lotus flower today.  These pictures were taken in the botanic garden Lotusland, in Santa Barbara, CA.