May 21 2025 - Norm then and now

 

George/Norm has passed away and his obituary says he was 76 years old.   Last week I saw an article on how much younger people look now compared to 30 or 40 years ago.  The picture used as the demonstration was Cheers' Norm.  They showed what a 34-year-old Norm looked like during the Cheers series which ran from 1982 to 1993 and how he would look today at the same age.  Today's Norm looks younger.

I found an article that showed pictures of the main characters at the beginning and then the end of the series.   "A 33-year-old George Wendt first perched himself up at the bar as Norm Peterson during season one of Cheers. Greetings of "Norm" continued each time he arrived at the bar throughout the series 11-season run until he was 44."   Doesn't he sort of look the same age at the start and the end?   And why do we seem to look younger now? Here's an answer:  "Yes, it's generally accepted that people today are looking younger than they did 50 years ago. This is due to a combination of factors, including advancements in healthcare, changes in lifestyle (like better nutrition and smoking cessation), and increased use of sunscreen and skincare." Here's another answer: "Our skin, hair and teeth are benefiting from less cigarette smoke and physical toil, as well as an ever-expanding collection of cosmetic interventions designed to make us look younger." The studies say that people of the same chronological age are also biologically younger than fifty years ago.  There are some pretty irises blooming in my garden.  Irises have a long season of bloom - there are early bloomers with the snowdrops right through to June when the bearded varieties bloom.  These beautiful bearded irises are at Royal Botanical Gardens and will bloom in a week or two.

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Marilyn's Photos - May 20 2025 - Dishwasher Detergent

 

There are over 43,000 products on ULINE, and dishwasher soap is one of them.  But my question this morning is what is that weird little red ball called the powerball in the Finish dishwasher detergent. It fell apart when I put it in the little holder this morning.   Detergent is different than soap.  If we washed dishes with soap, they would have scum on them. So what is detergent if we had to make it ourselves?  Homemade versions include ingredients such as borax, essential oil, eucalyptus oil.  Borax, soap, washing soda, salt, lemon essential oil, citric acid are ingredients.  Lemon would not have been available until recently, so wonder what our pioneers did. They left it out. So zooming ahead 100 years or so, our powerball is a specialized compartment with compressed detergent to provide a "concentrated boost of cleaning power." The powerball is one of three chambers for breaking down all types of food residues.  There's a chemistry lab in that tiny cube.  I wonder how many chemists worked over the decades to get to that seemingly simple product. Simple?  Just type in 20 uses for dishwasher tablets and you will get more than 20 uses for it:  clean the toilet, wash the washing machine to freshen it, brighten white clothes scrubs the oven, revitalize patio furniture, soak pots and pans to remove burnt food, deodorize the trash can, soak silverware... an "all-clean" set of scenarios. A picture from the past of a steam locomotive from the past.

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Marilyn's Photos - May 19 2025 - Fireworks?

 

This is a fireworks day.  But things have changed in 70 years.  We had firecrackers going all day long - playing cowboys and indians with extra gusto.  I can remember met Dad having the bigger sized firecrackers and playing with them.  And then there would be a huge display in the school field at night. There would be a big crowd to see the display.  All gone now.  Hardly any fireworks for sale.  They used to be in all the stores, easily available. When I searched for what happened to fireworks, Wikipedia shows up as the top hit with the list of fireworks accidents and incidents.  I bet they are something!  Check them out HERE.  They start in 1869 with a fireworks factory explosion and  continue to the latest in North Macedonia in March 2025 with a nightclub fire that killed more approximately 60 people. Somehow they lit fireworks indoors.  The deadliest one looks like 1977 in China with 694 people killed at a public hall.   Last year, Toronto had a stor of a "fireworks fight" on Victoria day with young people shooting off fireworks across Bloor Street West - one of Toronto's mai streets.   Here's how fireworks are managed in Canada today:  "Fireworks are not allowed in parks or on beaches," the city's website says. "You are also not allowed to set off fireworks in a street, a parking lot, on a balcony, or on any private property that is not your own." On the positive side, this would be Niagara Falls' big night with both sides likely having fireworks displays.  Watch out for the traffic on the QEW! Maybe my "Blue Dahlia" looks enough like fireworks.

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Marilyn's Photos - May 18 2025 - Here Comes the King

 

King Charles' visit next week on May 26-27 is being heralded as distinctive and different.  King Charles will deliver the speech from the throne.  The CBC claims the visit is unprecedented for a few reasons: - Charles, personally - the Crown - for the state of affairs in North America.  For the rest of us, we know that Washington will be watching.  I wonder what the worry over "flawless" is?  What are the things that could go wrong that would embolden the Americans? It likely has to do with "words" and "gestures."   Don't we write the Throne Speech and the King reads it?  So then we can ask:  What are the "real" messages that Mark Carney wants to send to the U.S.?  There is expected to be something about the United States in the Throne Speech that "gets picked up" in the White House. And then there is an expectation that governments all around the world will be listening and looking at the language used - word for word.   And after the Throne Speech?  There are comments the King will make outside the throne speech.   Are there now small departments in every nation whose job is to track the coded language of governments and states around the world when dealing with Trump? There's a headline on decoding Mark Carney Face during the discussion in the White House with Trump. Here's a painter's palette from the watercolour class last week.

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Marilyn's Photos - May 16 2025 - Michelin Stars

 

There's big news on the Quebec restaurant scene with 9 Michelin Star awards in Quebec.  Michelin certainly has made a business of judging restaurant quality.  They review 17,000 restaurants annually.  There are 151 three-star restaurants globally.  There are 26 Michelin-starred restaurants in Canada - 25 with one star and one restaurant with two stars.   Michelin ratings started out as a service offered by the tire company in 1889 for car owners in France - a guidebook for hotels.   Independently-reviewed restaurants were added in 1920 and stars emerged in 1926. A 3-star designation is the top level.  Even today, the Michelin Guide supposedly does not make money.  Instead, it is estimated that it "increases tire sales by 3%".  And it sells Michelin Guides - about 250,000 a year. The Guide runs events and licenses the ranking system - e.g. TripAdvisor.  And countries pay for coverage.  That's what I found out when i initially asked Pearl Morisette about "star status" - their answer was they had to pay Michelin to make the trip and do the assessment. No promise of a star for that investment.  Most restaurants have 1 star.  A star adds about 20% more traffic to the restaurant, 2 stars gets 40% more business and 3 stars gets 100% more business.  And how do the restaurants react after getting their star?  The article I read says they increased pricing to signal new status, revamped menu language to more sophisticated terms and ingredients.   Would you like to be a Michelin guide "inspector?" You would eat around 250 anonymous meals a year which Michelin calls a table test.  travel involves 150 nights in hotels, 600 total visits and 1,000 reports.  And then there are the chefs who "walk away" from their stars.  Too much work, tired of making complex multi-course menus, get back to cooking simple dishes, The full article is HERE.  A rust abstract today.

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May 15 2025 - Get the Clean up Crew over here

 

Get in the experts.  Just over two weeks ago a tractor-trailer hauling $800,000 in dimes rolled over in an accident.  Its contents spilled over the highway.  This was northwest of Dallas, Texas.  It was part of a fleet of trucks that moves cargo for the government.  Some cargo. I wondered how you pick up those 8,000,000 dimes.  Were they just loose?  Were they in rolls in boxes?  They definitely came out of the truck loose.  Check out the picture of them everywhere.    So was there now a fleet of people with metal detectors picking up dimes?  There were crews who used shovels, brooms, industrial vacuums, street sweepers, as well as picking them up by hand.  That was 14 hours of closed highway.  I wonder how long the recovery went on for? And what was the truck doing carrying "loose dimes" - doesn't that sound like they were just dumped into the truck?  Seems like that was the case.  I looked up how the Canadian Mint transports coins and I got the answer for the US:   How does the Mint distribute coins? The coins fall through a counting machine before they are dumped into bulk storage bags. All the bags are weighed and then stored until they travel to Federal Reserve Banks for distribution around the country. So we know that's a story rather than a fact.  I wondered how they decided to stop picking up the lost coins?  It is unlikely that they collected all the dimes as it rained earlier in the day with a minor flood in the town. That could become a tourist treasure hunt site.

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May 14 2025 - More "Ocracies"

 

The Globe and Mail had an article that used the term kleptocrat in relation to the U.S. president.  And the New York Times has an article on the Trump's family increased wealth since he's taken office - $3 billion in three months.   The definition of a kleptocrat is a ruler who uses political power to steal his or her country's wealth.  One can also use the spelling kleptocrat and that definition says a government official who is a thief or exploiter.  The synonyms for kleptarchy, kleptocracy, kleptocrat are thiefdom, corruption and graft.  Also a corrupt and dishonest government characterized by greed. So a kleptocracy is where the ruling elite steals national resources.  "Klepto" has a lot of variations, it seems.  If we look at kleptomaniac there are hundreds of synonyms.   Wikipedia tells me that kleptocracy is different from plutocracy - that's rule by the richest.  It is different than oligarchy - that's rule by a small elite.  The defining characteristic of kleptocracy is that corrupt politicians enrich themselves secretly outside the rule of law, through kickbacks, bribes and special favours from lobbyists and corporations.   What is notable here is that everyone knows about this -  the New Republic described the Trump family as becoming $3 billion wealthier in the first three months of the Trump presidency.  And that's just kleptocracy.  What about all the other 'ocracies'? I found an article in the Daily Kos which lists what it terms as Trumpocracy words.  So many variations of ocracy are possible - This is an ambitious article - HERE.  Here's one I've not seen in the news articles so far and this time I am predicting it will turn up: pathocracy - government by people with personality disorders.   More tulips from the TASC Tulip Farm.

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May 13 2025 - :Tulips in Niagara

 

I went to the TASC Tulip Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake yesterday.  It was vast with more than 3 million blooms of 175 varieties on 55 acres.  It is a "farm" rather than a "festival".  Watch where you step in the clay paths as they are bumpy.  Their farm previously was in Fenwick so you can imagine that they are likely doubling the number of visitors being in Niagara-on-the-Lake. There were likely a thousand people there yesterday - and that was on a Monday.   What distinguishes a tourist destination like this is that it is full of families - quite often 3 generations together.  Everyone is smiling. Flower events are perfect for our difficult political and social times.   I'll get to the Seventh and Fourth Avenue field this week - and then the tulips will all be over.  Fleeting, don't you think?

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May 12 2025 - Liberty of London

 

Liberty of London is a luxury department store in London dating from 1875.  The store's interior was made from the timbers from two ancient battle ships.  The decks were used for the flooring.  In all, there was 24,000 cubic feet of ship timbers.   My thoughts of Liberty are around its fabric print design and production.  Liberty used the finest silks and cottons in the making of its beautiful floral designs.  Liberty prints were readily available in Toronto in the 1970s into the 1980s.  But those stores are now gone - Eaton's, Simpsons, and the Hudson's Bay.  standalone fabric stores are gone from regular shopping places.  There is a single Fabricland in St. Catharines on Welland Avenue, and that is unusual.  I went online to see if they still make the prints that I had worn.  Yes, there is one of my favourites - poppy and daisy still available.  It is part of Liberty Fabrics’ Classics collection which started in 1979, created to champion the most well-known and iconic designs from the Liberty archive all year around.   And the price?  It is $62.00 a metre at 1.36m width.  Ouch if you wanted to make anything to actually wear. Here's are the Editor's Notes:  Poppy and Daisy is a fine-lined and meadowy layout, which has been part of the Liberty archive since the 1910s. An archetypal Liberty floral, it would have originally been a wood block print. Our Tana Lawn™ cotton is a fabric built by obsession, perfected into a modern masterpiece of production through a bespoke process that has evolved over a century. Printed in our very own Liberty Printing Mill, located between Milan and Lake Como in northern Italy, Tana realises unmatchable fluidity with a silk-like touch, unique print quality and striking colour vibrancy. Machine washable and durable enough for daily wear, it can be used to create everything from simple separates to spectacular statement pieces. Here's the screen print of the lovely design.

And this picture?  A print from Liberty Village in Toronto.   Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

May 11 2025 - Mother's Day Legends

 

What do people do for Mother's Day to get in the Guinness Book of Records?   The oldest mother to conceive naturally turns out to be Dawn Brooke, of the U.K. in 1997.  That's a record about giving birth rather than about Mother's Day. And that's where the Guinness Book of Records goes for Mothers.  Here's the weird one: In 2008, when she was 56, Jacelyn Dalenberg agreed to be a surrogate mom for her daughter, Kom Coseno. Jacelyn successfully carried and delivered three healthy granddaughters, who were delivered by C-section at a Cleveland hospital. That makes her the oldest woman to give birth to grandchildren.  And then there's the record for the most number of children - in the 1700s (supposedly and highly unlikely) - the wife of Feodor Vassilyex (she has no first name on record) is claimed to have given birth to 69 children - 16 pairs of twins, 7 sets of triplets, and 4 sets of quadruplets.   But that's all about giving birth.   Are there strange celebrations? Yes, in Peru, they visit their mothers who have past at the cemeteries. In Australia, they give "mums" to mums (chrysanthemums). Mexico's Mother's Day starts with Las Manzanitas serenade.  In Nepal, they visit Mata Tirtha Pond - which is dedicated to showing love and respect to mothers, living and deceased.  Ethiopia has a three-day celebration for Mother's Day. Thailand combines its celebration of their queen with Mother's Day.  In Japan it is red carnations that are traditional on Mother's Day.  Aren't these all sort of sweet, but tame?  Compare that to Chicago breaking the record for the biggest game of catch on Father's Day with 2,000 people participating.

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May 10 2025 - Build Me a Blobbery

 

Do you remember the Monty Python movie with the "you must find me a shrubbery" scene?  It is "Scene 17:  How to Find that Perfect Shrubbery"  and you can read it HERE.   And I recommend you read it as it is hilarious. My favourite moment is Roger the Shrubber's short but excellent "soliloquy": "Oh, what sad times are these when passing ruffians can say 'ni' at will to old ladies. There is a pestilence upon this land. Nothing is sacred. Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history." Scene 18 follows with an escalation of the shrubbery demands: "First you must find... another shrubbery! Then, when you have found the shrubbery, you must place it here, beside this shrubbery, only slightly higher so you get a two layer effect with a little path running down the middle." I have found a third scene that could be inserted.  A decades later sequel to the movie.  This comes from the middle-sized garden weekly blog, and this week is showcasing blobberies.   Here's the possible scene: "And now build us a blobbery. One with balls, clouds and lollipops.  They give a garden structure and interest all year round.  And they are easy to clip and maintain." "And mix them together – different types of plants as blobs – and sometimes they’ll merge together over time." Wouldn't that be a perfect sequel to the shrubbery scene? I think of this tree as being a haze of blossoms.

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Marilyn's Photos - May 9 2025 - Vulgar Language

 

One of the articles in the Globe and Mail today compares  the relationship between presidents and prime ministers.  It had a quote from Lyndon Johnson that was vulgar to me - Lyndon Johnson yelling at Lester Pearson to not come into his house and piss on his rug when Pearson suggested the bombing of Vietnam should be paused.  That was an example of a difficult relationship.  We have a difficult relationship now.  And it seems that quoting Trump or showing a video clip often comes with vulgar language.  Is this the new normal in the U.S in the Trump second term?  I guess the answer is yes.  Trump's first term brought  many articles on his vulgar language.  Most of the articles point to Lyndon Johnson as the most vulgar president in U.S. history.   Quoted expressions that demonstrated how vulgar he was are in the Nation Post article  HERE.  Its main theme was Trump's vulgarity in 2018.   Once I started to look, for Johnson's vulgar expressions, it is clear that they are not collected in  one place - they are scattered.  No one seems to want to gather them together for history.   I don't remember any of these expressions when I was young.  I would remember them as they are distinctively shocking.  Why didn't our newspapers have any of these in print?  Maybe newspapers thought they were protecting us.  Maybe they were protecting Lyndon Johnson. Maybe protecting themselves from lawsuits.  There is even "the story where Lyndon B. Johnson showed "jumbo" to a ..." group of journalists.  That was in response to questions about Vietnam.  Here's a "what if" scenario:  can history repeat itself on something like this? Little violets in the lawn.

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