Marilyn's Photos - July 13 2025 - Wimbleton Towels

 

Famous events bring forth famous swag.  Wimbledon is famous for: a) being the oldest tennis tournament in the world b) strawberries and cream c) only Grand Slam still played on grass courts d) its towels You likely know the first three answers.  But Wimbledon towels?  I guess I am not attentive enough to the social beat.  AI says these are: "iconic, collectible, towels, particularly the traditional green and purple "Championship" towels, which have become synonymous with the tournament.  Players often take these towels home as souvenirs, despite them being intended for use during matches and then laundered. " I prefer them to take them home rather than reuse them.  How cheap.  Actually, aren't they expensive at $200.00.  But then, they have hand towels and face clothes for $94.00 so something for at least two price groups.  There are many products for the fans far away.   Go to the website to purchase and here's what you will find: "The Official Wimbledon Towels have achieved iconic status here at The Championships where they have featured in some of the biggest matches in memory. Instantly recognisable, the classic colouring of the green and purple championships towel is as at home on the beach as it is the tennis court. Made by Christy, using their exclusive Hygro cotton technology, the towel features a soft handle and a high absorbency that make it a perfect partner for those 5 set show downs. As used by the players on court at The Championships, Wimbledon Excellent absorbency Highly durable Soft handle Low linting Classic Wimbledon Colours 100% combed Hygrocotton pile 70cm x 133cm / 500 GSM" I've included the pictures so you can "instantly" recognize them next time. There is a Wimbleton tote bag for $430 - that feels cheap compared to that recent Birkin Hermes Bag.   Those TikTok stories of Wimbleton players "stealing" towels - the videos show them stuffing them into duffel bags.  Real or AI?  Now I've started to wonder about all kinds of things. Here's the Ostrich Parade at the Ringling Circus Museum.  It looks normal compared to the Wimbledon towel.

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Marilyn's Photos - July 12 2025 - Burger Time

Marilyn's Photos - JNuly 10 2025 - Pool Boy vs Golf Course Brawl

 

One year we went to Florida for Gerry to teach a lighting course.  We were at the famous PGA Golf Association resort.  There was an old guy there at the pool who told me he was the oldest pool boy in Florida - he was over 70 years old, he said.  But there is no news of the oldest pool boy - it isn't interesting.  Instead, there's lots of news about golf course brawling in West Kelowna.  An ex-NHL enforcer brawls slowpoke golf player.  I guess with that background, the news will get repeated over and over.   The "assailant" was thrown into a golf pond, and then "tossed him high through the air and onto some grass." Someone videoed all of this.  Was that a friend of foe? It is hard to guess, isn't it?   Brawling at golf courses doesn't make the headlines. OK, there's one:  "Insane six-man golf brawl breaks out during Father's Day round" June 2024.  That was at the Raccoon Hill Golf Culb in Kent, Ohio.   Mostly golf news is about top golfers "in search of first win of season" and "in a fight against himself" and  "counting memories before defense of Scottish Open" and so on.  And what about this one:  "The golf bug infects everyone eventually, and LeBron James is the newest star athlete to receive a bite."  In the repair shop at Strasburg Railroad.

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Marilyn's Photos - July 8 2025 - Hospital Opening

 

Our new hospital  just a block away from us - is opening in October.  Here's a picture of it from the back.  The old hospital is  the tiny y-shaped building int he distance.  We live a street beyond the left side houses.  They face Lynwood and we are a crescent which curves into Lynnwood.   I wonder how the old hospital will be demolished.  So the new hospital is opening in October 2025 and the old hospital is scheduled for demolition to complete in October 2026.  Demolition will "involve crushing the brick and concrete on-site to minimize the number of trucks needed to haul debris to the landfill. The resulting chipped aggregate may be used for the property, such as for roads or foundations."  That means that there is another year of construction - this time deconstruction.   In addition to the hopsital, there is a new crane located just beyond the lower left buildings.  It is constructing the new McNally House Hospice.  It says that the facility will be completed in April 2026.  I   I found a construction picture so you could see what's happening there.  This  picture shows the McNally Hospice House foundation three days ago. Yesterday a big new crane was added.   The street going out of the top of the picture is Sunnylea Crescent.  Drive around the crescent, and there's my house.   Our McNally House is named after Grimsby residents.  It you search on the internet you might find Andrew McNally House - of Rand McNally - in California.  It was a heritage house built in 1887 by architect Frederick L. Roehrig,  it is octagonally shaped.  There are lots of pictures of it, as it was on the real estate market in 2020.  Sadly, it was destroyed in the Eaton Fire in January 2025.  So back to little Grimsby with our big cranes and construction for the next year and a bit.  I wonder if I will miss those little beep-beep-beeps and whether Millie will be wistful of having the guys way up on the roof that she hears so clearly that she thinks she can visit them.   Tomorrow is the Fun Run Porsche Day, and they will be stopping on Sunnylea for a garden tour.  This is Gerry's car from two years ago.  That was when the Topaz Lab filter was functioning and I could add the "speed blur" as he came around the corner.

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Mairlyn's Photos - July 7 2025 - Pinks and Quarts

 

Those little pink and quart boxes are the standard for fruits - especially tender fruits such as strawberries, raspberries, and cherries for as long as I can remember.  And I know they were made of thin wood prior to being moulded paper or plastic. The original approach was called a pottle and it was a conical wood chip basket with a handle.  Wikipedia has a picture from 1688.  What were they replaced by int he mid-1800s?  Punnets - that was the name for our current little square wooden box.  Beamsville had a punnet factory - but it was called the Beasmville Basket and Veneer Company. "Logs were soaked in boiling water, and then peeled strips were dried and assembled into various sizes of baskets. The factory's output was crucial for the region's fruit industry, enabling growers to transport their produce to market." "The Beamsville Basket and Veneer Company operated until December 1981, when a fire caused its destruction. Despite the fire, the company's impact on the region was substantial, particularly in shaping the fruit-growing sector and the town's economy. The factory's history is intertwined with the growth and prosperity of Beamsville and the surrounding fruit belt." And we haven't mentioned six-quart, nine-quart, and 11-quart baskets.  That's for stone fruit - peaches, apples, pears - things that are bigger or are not tender.  What about those tough little blueberries - they can handle a big basket. And didn't I forget bushel baskets?  There they are filled with pumpkins and squash.  From beginning to end of the growing season, baskets are with us.

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Marilyn's Photos - July 5j 2025 - Pilotless Jets vs Driverless Cars

 

A pilotless jet is more compelling news to me than a driverless car.  However, a pilotless jet is less likely to directly impact my life.  MSN covered this news in the Daily Aviation youtube channel - it is a jet that has been modified into a full-scale target drone for the US Air Force.  The retired F-16s are converted into full-scale aerial target drones used for training to "help naval personnel practice air-to-air engagements."  They mimic subsonic cruise missiles in fleet training and weapons testing.   MSN makes things sound new but it turns out that this isn't new stuff:  "Other U.S. jet fighters, including the F-100, F-102, F-106, and F-4, have become target drones. Air Force experts use converted jet fighters as target drones to test sophisticated missiles and electronic warfare systems." "Although some of these retired jet fighter target drones are destroyed during weapons tests, often the drones rely on onboard sensors to calculate the point of missile detonations to record "kills" without destroying the target aircraft." That all seems like very expensive practice equipment.   Closer to home, the news announced in May that 20 driverless delivery vehicles are coming to Toronto as part of a pilot program.  It started at the end of June!  They will be under the observation of humans in cars.  The vehicles are operating within an area roughly bounded by Eglinton Avenue to the north, College Street to the south, Avenue Road to the east, and Parkside Drive to the west, with an additional deployment in the Junction neighbourhood.  Now that they are here for a few days, is there any news?  Only one headline from the Toronto Sun which requires a subscription.  Oh well.

I went to a Hamilton home show one March and this was out front on display.

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Marilyn's Photos - July 4th 2025 - Prison Wear

 

I wondered about the prison wear that Diddy Combs would be wearing during his upcoming short stay in prison. It made me think of the prison wear from long past - the big wide horizontal stripes.  They were more circus wear than prison wear to me. However, their intent was  to create humiliation. Articles in May 2025 said that Diddy Combs was allowed to receive non-prison clothing for his trial.  "The singer, 55, can have five button-down shirts, up to five pairs of pants, up to five sweaters, up to five pairs of socks, and up to two pairs of shoes without laces."   We won't see pictures of Combs in neon orange jumpsuits. Orange jumpsuits are for high risk prisoners.  And he's no longer a high-risk prisoner, is he?  The orange suits are also used for court appearances, but not Combs with his special privileges.   Famous and infamous have similar exemptions.  I might be cynical, but I think the view is that the sex trafficking was really just a bit of prostitution, that the "victims" must have consented.  Victim consent is still the norm in the public's mind. The tradition of giving of privileges to criminals is long-standing.  The U.S. is given to idolizing criminals. Think Billy the Kid, Bonnie and Clyde, Al Capone, John Dillinger, and so many more. They have been romanticized over the many decades. Is that all in the past?  What about these criminals right here and now?  The consensus is that Diddy Combs will stage a career comeback.  Donald Trump just recently did this.  All those criminal charges and being convicted were found to strengthen his political position.  But there's a difference between a comeback and being idolized as a criminal. Diddy Combs will likely fade from view. Donald Trump?  Given Americans know he is a criminal: a YouGov survey found that 2/3 of Americans say Donald Trump has definitely or probably committed crimes, then what?  Hie is in the "line-up" for idolizing and adoration. It is just a matter of time.

Isn't this great!  A picture from the past when we were in Toronto and I took pictures through the glass block window in the dining room.

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Marilyn's Photos - July 3 2025 - Eye Contact

 

There's been constant coverage of Anna Wintour retiring at 75.  The picture in all the articles is remarkable - she looks to be 50 years old.  The world of cosmetic surgery and medical interventions has fully arrived. She isn't wearing her signature dark glasses in the photos. Supposedly in her younger days, it was said that she wore dark glasses because she had bags and dark circles under her eyes.  Much later she said it was "to hide what she's thinking or feeling."   She wore sunglasses "since the beginning of her career"  or maybe it was in the 1990s, according to another writer.  How attached is she to her glasses? She was so attached that she wore them while telling the staff of the Pitchfork that they were all being fired. “One absolutely bizarro detail from this week is that Anna Wintour — seated indoors at a conference table — did not remove her sunglasses while she was telling us that we were about to get canned,” Allison Hussey, a former staff writer at Pitchfork, wrote on her X social media account."   Such a powerful person in the fashion news world, and so much attention on something other than her accomplishments. Maybe her "caricature" in the movie The Devil Wore Prada was truer to life than one would like.

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Marilyn's Photos - July 2 2025 - Which Country is up next

 

Which country is up next?  Celebrating or commemorating its existence.  There's quite a cluster on July 1st - Canada, British Virgin Islands, Burundi, Hong Kong, Madeira, Rwanda, and Somalia.  Up next is Curacao with their National Anthem and Flag Day on July 2nd, then Belarus on July 3rd.  Finally, the United States on July 4th (with its arguments over whether it should really be July 2nd).  It might be independence from France - that's Algeria on July 5th, Cape Verde's independence from Portugal and Venezuela's independence from Spain. All the differentiations of a Nation Day. Our celebration day is about a coming together.   The Wikipedia description:  "commemorates the creation of Canadian Confederation, the process by Province of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick were united into one federation called the Dominion of Canada in 1867."  The Province of Canada became Ontario and Quebec.  Other countries celebrate their "independence from."  One looks at a list of conquering and colonizing nations such as Spain (Kingdom of Spain), Portugal, United Kingdom (or the British Empire), France, and so on.  Isn't France distinctive with Bastille Day - the storming of the Bastille on July 14th 1789.   Mexico celebrates its Independence Day on September 16th - the beginning of the War of Independence from Spain.  It probably took a while to complete. Not one country celebrates itself on December 31st, the last day of the year.  Turn to January 1st and there's more optimism. Cuba, Haiti and Sudan celebrate their national day. China seems to have a few days and it celebrates January 1st as Founding Day.  But then China has much history as a nation.  I wonder how long it takes to study their history in school. And what about Australia?  On January 26th it celebrates Australia Day, commemorating the establishment of a British prison settlement at Port Jackson in 1788.  It is also known as Survival Day and Invasion Day - lots going on there. And the United Kingdom?  It does not seem to have a recognized national day and celebrates the King's Official birthday.  Nothing for Wales or England.  Ireland has March 17th (of course) Saint Patrick's Day, and Scotland has the Feast day of Saint Andrew. With all the events in the world, one starts to wonder about the birth of a nation.  Some seem to  evolve, some are unifications of similar or disparate groups.  Others are declarations through conflict.  I wonder how these beginnings are embedded in  social fabric of a nation. Canada seems quite young.  Who is the oldest nation?  It is considered to be San Marino, tracing back to 301 AD with unbroken self-governance. There are older nations based on different criteria.  Look at Egypt - it was founded in 3150 B.C.E. - the estimated beginning the reign of Narmer.  And who but England would have the oldest constitution - the 1215 Magna Carter.   I seem to think that Shakespeare could only have come from England because of this historic start.

Here's something I created quite a few years ago - light painting with a sparkler in the dark  Seems like a good image for today.

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Marilyn's Photos - July 1 2025 - Verse 2

 

We are not strong on national anthems.  Once finished primary school, the lyrics drift off from the minds of most Canadians.  We recently updated them to be "more gender inclusive" or less discriminatory.  O Canada! Our home and native land! True patriot love in all of us command. With glowing hearts we see thee rise, The True North strong and free! From far and wide, O Canada, we stand on guard for thee. God keep our land glorious and free! O Canada, we stand on guard for thee. O Canada, we stand on guard for thee. Would you like to learn Verse 2? O Canada! Where pines and maples grow. Great prairies spread and lordly rivers flow. How dear to us thy broad domain, From East to Western Sea, Thou land of hope for all who toil! Thou True North, strong and free! God keep our land glorious and free! O Canada, we stand on guard for thee. O Canada, we stand on guard for thee. Now on to Verse 3: O Canada! Beneath thy shining skies May stalwart sons and gentle maidens rise, To keep thee steadfast through the years From East to Western Sea, Our own beloved native land! Our True North, strong and free! God keep our land glorious and free! O Canada, we stand on guard for thee. O Canada, we stand on guard for thee. And finally, let's finish with Verse 4: Ruler supreme, who hearest humble prayer, Hold our dominion within thy loving care; Help us to find, O God, in thee A lasting, rich reward, As waiting for the Better Day, We ever stand on guard. God keep our land glorious and free! O Canada, we stand on guard for thee. O Canada, we stand on guard for thee. As long as there's the True north strong and free, we're ok with fixing the first verse and ignoring the rest. That was enough work. So let's stick with that and if you fell strongly today, sing the first verse a few times.

All those chairs, so many choices.

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Marilyn's Photos - June 29 2025 - Off the Beaten Path

 

Don't we all want to be off the beaten path these days?  Somewhere not known by others. Wouldn't that be "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost.  That poem seems to be speaking to a desire to be off the beaten track, too.  And thinking it may be written later in life as he refers to a yellow wood of autumn:   I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. Or maybe not.  He wrote the poem at age 44 and died at 88.  At the half-point.     He died in 1963, before John F. Kennedy himself died - at age 46 in November that year. John F. Kennedy led the tribe for Frost's funeral.  At Kennedy's inauguration, Frost had read  one of his poems as part of the ceremony.  This scene was described in a New York Times article from 1963: "Invited to write a poem for the occasion, he rose to read it. But the blur of the sun and the edge of the wind hampered him; his brief plight was so moving that a photograph of former President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Mrs. Kennedy and Mrs. Lyndon Johnson watching him won a prize because of the deep apprehension in their faces. But Frost was not daunted. Aware of the problem, he simple put aside the new poem and recited from memory an old favorite, "The Gift Outright," dating to the nineteen-thirties. It fit the circumstances as snugly as a glove. Later he took the unread "new" poem, which had been called "The Preface," expanded it from 42 to 77 lines; retitled it "For John F. Kennedy: His Inaugural" -- and presented it to the President in March, 1962."  I can't find the photo referred to.  The retrievals don't seem to respond.  But I came upon the Life article with pictures of the inauguration.  My goodness, that was Camelot! Here it is.

Here are our beaten paths - the Echinacea wWalk in the Rose Garden at the Royal Botanical Gardens.  The second is the Jordan valley path up to Cave Springs in the winter.  Here are our beaten paths - the Echinacea wWalk in the Rose Garden at the Royal Botanical Gardens.  The second is the Jordan valley path up to Cave Springs in the winter.

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