April 26 - Treasured Memories in our Times

I had a dream last night in which a family with young children were in the grocery store and each was  allowed to buy a package of toilet paper.  They hugged their cuddly treasures, and laughed and ran to the checkout counter. Will this be a treasured childhood memory some day?  According to a survey, these are the top 10 most common first childhood memories: Trip to the dentist Birthday party Vacation First day of school Trip to the doctor Being outside An accident or injury A tooth falling out We can get the happiest memories from The Express - the beach accounts for almost 3/4 of happy memories.  Here are some more: Family holidays  Hide and seek Collecting shells on the beach Hop scotch Sports days Watching children's TV Fish and chips Pic n mix sweets Playground games  Pencil cases Climbing trees Egg and spoon race Collecting toys/ cards/ collectibles etc. Ice creams from the ice cream van Playing outside until it was dark Given these times, we might return to some of these activities and still enjoy ourselves. We'll have to figure out some of the activities with social distancing. Our picture today is a leaf abstract.

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Ghostwriter Sign up Here

"My first real job was selling television commercials for WGAN-TV in Portland, Maine. I messed up virtually every detail of my life that touched that job. I borrowed money to buy a “suit” and for some reason bought an off-white one. I borrowed money from my parents to buy a used car, and somehow never managed to pay them back. I made one sale in six months, before getting fired. I lived in a closet, literally. Moving out from the third floor, I decided it would be easier to throw my dresser out the window than carry it down to the dumpster. I came very close to killing my roommate." I hope this person became a comedian as this is the beginning of an article in Forbes. That's not the case, though. He's Bruce Kasanoff and his website says he is a ghostwriter who has written over 100 articles on Forbes. There are three books attributed to him as well.  Bruce's name comes up when I ask for the best known social media ghostwriter.  (I'm still thinking about how large his closet was to have a dresser.) Ghostwriting has been with us for so long - the most well-known unfounded rumour is that Shakespeare was not the author of his works: "While most academics scoff at the idea, gallons of ink have been spent arguing that William Shakespeare was not the author of the masterpieces attributed him. Ironically, it was intellectual elitism that first began the theories, born out of disbelief that a man without a University education could create such apparently learned works. Was he really rival Christopher Marlowe, who faked his death in a tavern in Deptford to continue writing through Shakespeare as a ghostwriter? Was he the genius Francis Bacon, taking a break from scientific investigation to poetically render the human condition incognito? Or was Shakespeare Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, as the new film Anonymous conjectures, protecting his upper class persona by employing a lowly theatre player to pose as the author of his plays." I wondered how people might distinguish between ghostwriting and writing/authorship - one's a job and the other is a calling.  I decided that - I didn't look it up. Isn't this a beautiful leaf?  The Caladium plant - a tropical.

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Summer Pie Time!

It is time for summer pie.  First it is strawberry-rhubarb, then strawberry, then raspberry, now cherry, and soon the Queen of Pies - peach pie.  Did you learn to make pie crust?  I was lucky that my friend Janet had a mother who constantly made pies. My mother constantly made German streusel cakes - sweet raised yeast bread with fruit and sugar butter crumb toppings.  And those breakfast rolls with butter, brown sugar and cinnamon all gooey together. Consider these two desserts together and you can see how we lived a sugary sweet existence, blissfully ignorant of the health problems to make the news in later decades. Why are pies round and cakes square? Because they are.  There is an explanation on Quora that comes up first.  It is based on the pie plate being easier to make round.  That would be the same for cakes.  Quora is great to read, but don't consider it information. What makes a pie a pie?  A crust - even though there are crustless pies.  Think of the expression 'crustless pie' and you understand that a pie and crust go together. Wikipedia's entry on pies is rich with information with delightful pictures of mouth-watering savoury and dessert variations.  I looked through the list of pies and the stargazy pie got my attention.  Not a happy result, though, as it is a Cornish dish made with baked sardines, eggs and potatoes. There are fish heads protruding through the crust, apparently so that they appear to be gazing skyward.   I couldn't make this up - take a look HERE. Should we make square pies instead of round?  The Atlantic has a remarkably entertaining article on this topic. The Case for Squared Pie is HERE.  Dan Pashman is the author of the book Eat more Better:  How to Make Every Bite More Delicious and says that the square pie has more deliciousness - where the crust turns the corner in the pan is where the flavour from the filling is absorbed into the crust while maintaining toothsinkability.  He's done the arithmetic on this.   Sounds heavenly to me. Out of the thousands of pie jokes, here are just two: Q: Why did the pumpkin pie go to a dentist? A: Because it needed a filling.  Q: What do you get if you cross a train engine with an blueberry pie? A: Puff pastry Here's today's Prayer Plant image.  I am fascinated by the textures within these abstract shapes.

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Flip Flop - the summer sound

I heard this summer sound yesterday:  "flip flop, flip flop, flip flop".  The person ahead of me was walking along in her flip-flops.   So I asked everyone I talked to yesterday about flip-flops and when did they become part of our popular culture. My proposed answer was after the war with the great economic growth and the widespread adoption of popular culture trends in the U.S. and Canada.   That doesn't answer the question of where did they come from or how did it start?  What happened was the U.S. soldiers brought Japanese zori with them.  And this caught on in the 1950s during the postwar boom.  They were redesigned and changed into bright colours in keeping with the vivid 50s. In the 1960s they became associated with California beach style.  They have continued and expanded ever since, so much so that they are an accepted shoe style. They have an ancient beginning. There is a picture of thong sandals from the New Kingdom of Egypt dated 1550 - 1307 BC.  We know intuitively that this makes sense and that the Greeks and Romans wore versions of flip-flops.  I seem to know this from the sand and sandals epics we saw as children.  Or maybe they were wearing sandals in the movies.  I just checked - no flip-flops - fabulous sandals. Today there is discussion on flip-flops as casual wear.    Here's the advice on when not to wear them: Restaurants with cloth napkins Red carpet events Churches Funerals Business meetings First dates and blind dates Isn't that delightful? The advice seems consistent with when flip-flops originated in the 1950s.  Can you imagine deciding ahead of time what to wear in a restaurant "with cloth napkins."  And decide to wear "nice shoes" on a first date.  What is missing from the list?  Can you wear flip-flops to weddings?  Here you go...     Our picture today is a close-up of a leaf pattern.  This is the leaf of a Prayer Plant. Maranta leuconeura, also known as prayer plant, is a species of flowering plant in the family Marantaceae, native to the Brazilian tropical forests.

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Hunting Bigleaf

Autumn Colours are here with the Virginia Creeper and the Sumac in Niagara showing their beautiful reds and oranges.  Today looks like the calm after the storm - the high winds of the last two days resulted in many leaves ripped off the trees and scattered about.  I am on the look-out for Magnolia macrophylla - the bigleaf magnolia.  It has leaves in the range of 2 feet long with rich colours and marked textures.