Immediately Useful for Real Life

Yesterday in my morning class we studied maybe (the adverb) versus may/might be (the modal followed by main verb).

Is it going to rain Friday? Maybe. I don’t know. Maybe it will, and maybe it won’t. Adverb.

It may rain tomorrow. It might rain tomorrow. We might go on the field trip, but if it rains, we might cancel. (Modal plus main verb.)

Today the whole school went on a field trip to a small zoo out in the rural part of the county. We saw a lot of animals whose names we’d been learning in the days leading up to the field trip: lemur, bear, monkey, camel, dromedary, goat, tiger, lion, buffalo, llama.

Here and there we saw important looking signs posted on the outsides of certain animals’ enclosures: WE MIGHT BITE.

I may have to start a new blog category: English lesson synchronicity!

Jack’s Project

Something rather wonderful has happened in my morning class, which is a special demographic (older).

About ten days ago one of my students (I’ll call him Jack) approached me to ask if his friend from level one (with 22 students) could join our class, which at that time numbered only nine students. I told him that his friend, whom I’ll call Carl, could sit in and give it a try, but that he would probably not fit in due to his level. This is a gentleman who has been repeating level one for a few years. I don’t know if he has a learning disability; the consensus among my boss and colleagues is that he lacks intrinsic motivation and doesn’t put forth any effort. My lessons are geared toward a level three or high two to low three.

Anyway, I let my boss know what Jack had up his sleeve. My boss discouraged the idea saying that if I devoted too much class time to trying to rescue Carl, I could lose the other students.  I agreed and told Jack that.

But Jack did not give up that easily. He continued to hound me about it at every opportunity.  So I went back to my boss and asked if we could try it for a few days. He said that if Jack wanted to take on Carl as his pet project, he could do so. Jack and Carl were both thrilled with the news. I was eager to see if the rumours were true or not. Would Carl prove to be lazy and lacking in motivation to learn or study?

Jack asked me to print out some exercises for Carl to do at home, so I started him off with the most basic of literacy material: circling letters and letter combinations. I also recommended a phonics website for use at home.

So far it seems to be going well. Carl and Jack sit together; Jack helps Carl all through class.  If the rest of the class has a worksheet that is too hard for Carl, Jack will tell him “circle such-and-such a word as many times as you can find it.” He is a very good assistant teacher!

So far Carl has done all the homework I’ve assigned him. He is working his way toward being able to say all the letters of the alphabet, recognize the words “first name, last name, address, city, street, province, telephone number, postal code, social insurance number, health card number, date of birth.” Next he has to be able to fill out a simple form and also spell his name out loud correctly. Those are our early goals.

Today as I was going toward the teachers’ washroom during break, I saw him visiting his level one friends. They were asking him when he was coming back. He smiled, pointed me out to them and said, “No come back…teacher Kelly.”

It’s a beautiful thing to witness–the way this class has bonded, the way they look out for one another. I feel so privileged to be a part of it.

A Hit

Have the courage to follow through.  I’d forgotten that little mantra that got me through my first months of teaching.

This week I covered for a colleague who is off sick as well as teaching my own class three mornings this week. The one I’m covering is a tough crowd, hard to please. They are very advanced, so I find it difficult to come up with lessons that are both edifying and intriguing to them.

I wanted to fulfill a request from a student in that class to do something concretely related to using English in everyday life, such as to visit the doctor.

Monday was computer lab day.

On Tuesday I facilitated an activity called “What Would You Say?” I gave the A partners cue cards with situations such as being short-changed by the cashier when shopping, finding half of an insect in your dish in a restaurant, or arriving home to discover you’ve just bought a pair of shoes that is mis-matched in size.  To spice it up and force the As to have to be more persuasive and assertive, I instructed the B partners not to give in too easily.  That lesson went well.

Yesterday, for police and emergencies month, I used a lesson plan that the Toronto Police uses in their newcomer outreach program. First we watched a clip from the 2004 movie Crash: the scene where Matt Dillon molests Thandie Newton during a traffic stop.

In small groups, they then discussed what happened in the scene, how they felt about it, and what they would do if it happened to them in their first countries. Interestingly, many said it could never happen in their first countries. In Iraq, for example, a female officer would always be called in to pat down a woman. One man said that if anyone, even a cop, dishonoured a woman that way, her whole family would hunt him down. Okay, then!

After reading about the police’s rights to search us, our vehicles or houses and the situations in which we have the right to refuse consent to search, the final exercise was a writing assignment in which we filled out an actual police misconduct complaint form that I downloaded from the OIPRD. The students wrote the reports from the point of view of the couple in the movie.  I took the essays home and marked them last night.  One student thanked me profusely for doing that: marking every single spelling and grammar error in his whole essay.

Last night I felt as if I’d shot my wad, if you’ll excuse the raunchy idiom. Looking at what I had prepared for today, it suddenly seemed lame and too babyish. So, in spite of knowing full well that I needed to go to bed and that my search for a new lesson plan idea would probably prove fruitless, I spent two hours on the wild goose chase.  Desperate, I said a little prayer to the Universe.

I finally decided to stick with the lame lesson plan and just try to deliver it well. It was a game whereby the students are divided into two groups–doctors and patients. I give them role playing cards so the patients know what ailments they have and the doctors know what to recommend for each ailment. The vocabulary was too low for this group, but… yeah. I decided to go with it anyway and cross my fingers that they didn’t roll their eyes.

Before the role play, I warmed them up by asking them to tell me all the vocabulary they could think of related to doctor visits. We started with “book an appointment” and it started rolling from there: requisition, prescription, x-ray, blood work, lab, ultrasound, MRI, CT scan, diagnosis, high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, symptoms, fever, rash, headache, nausea, constipation, diarrhea, and so forth. Soon we had covered the entire board with words and had pulled up “leprosy” on Google translate.

By the time I passed out the role cards and arranged the chairs into doctor-patient pairs around the room, I was feeling more confident. Since there was an odd number of students, I took on one of the doctor roles.  As it ends up, all the most articulate students became doctors while the lower level ones became patients. That was perfect for scaffolding and gave the stronger ones a chance to stretch by pretending to be doctors.  Each patient was allowed five minutes with her doctor, then I would announce “change doctors!” and all the patients had to rotate clockwise to the next chair.

It was a hit! Usually this class starts to squirm at ten till the bell, but at five minutes before the hour I could not get them to stop and look up for the plenary discussion.

Prayer answered.

Grace in Small Things 182

*Feeling better about myself and my wardrobe since the ladies in Northern Reflections taught me that I was buying my cords two sizes too big and also too short.
* While I pulled them aside one by one for speaking proficiency assessments, my students helped one another in the computer lab. I love that we are like a family. I can trust them to come to one another’s aid in my absence.
* Someone dumped a geranium in the garbage room, but was thoughtful enough to set it upright on the shelf where we deposit our used batteries and such. I brought her home.
* Lavender shortbread

Treat Each Day…

…as if it were your last.

That is one of the lessons I am taking away from the recent deaths around me.

I was relieved to learn today that my neighbour and new friend did not take her own life.

Her death and my other neighbour’s death have served as a BIG reminder (as if the angels were walking up to me and giving me a good shake by both shoulders) to treat everyone as if it were our last interaction with one another.

Don’t brush anyone off.  Don’t be in too much of a hurry.  Don’t put it (whatever IT is) off till the next time you see them.  Every interaction is an opportunity to slow down and pay attention. It could be the last time I’ll see the person.

I got up this morning and reminded myself it could be my last time to towel myself off after a shower. I plunged my nose into the plush towel and inhaled the scent of lavender laundry soap.

Hello, towel.  I love you, towel.

I want to remember to treat each day as if it were possibly my last one here on this beautiful earth.

Today I stopped in Taloola with today’s newspaper to read it over a cup of tea and a piece of their amazing lavender shortbread. While I was standing at the counter with my head buried in the tea menu, the server stepped up behind the cash register to take my order.

“Sorry, I haven’t ordered tea by the pot here before. Is this the price for a pot?” I asked, pointing to a column and still looking down at the menu.

She answered me and I was halfway through the next sentence before I had even laid eyes on her face.

Oh my God, I thought, catching myself. Did I just do that? Did I just have an exchange with someone without even looking at them?

I stopped and took a deep breath. I looked at her. I saw a beautiful young woman with skin smooth enough for a soap commercial wearing orange glass bead earrings to match the one or two shocks of hair that were dyed glossy orange, a beautiful contrast to the rest of her raven-black tresses.  The orange complemented her purple top wonderfully, and I told her so.

Slow down, Kel, I said to myself.

When I parked the car at my building, I sat there for a minute just watching the key chain sway as it hung from the ignition.

This is a sacred moment.

It’s a privilege to be here for one more glorious day.

What is the Universe Trying to Tell Me?

I came into the building the other evening just in time to see my supers–a couple–leaving for the evening all dressed up.

“You two sure are all gussied up!” I said.

“It’s not for a good reason,” they answered with somber expressions.

That’s when I noticed that both sparkly outfits were black. It must have been the only black they owned, what with the glitter and all.

“Oh,” I stammered, “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Did you know so-and-so on six?” they asked.

I said I didn’t.

“It was her husband,” they continued.

We both must have been thinking the same thing: so many deaths lately. The same week Mr. P’s body was taken away by police, my 96-year-old neighbour died at a local hospital. Her obituary had been tacked up on the bulletin board in the lobby; I’d seen it when I’d gone to get my mail.

“There was another one just the other day, too,” she added as they made their way toward the doors. “Did you know her? The young woman on ten?”

I didn’t think I knew anyone on ten.

“I think her name was ***.”

You have GOT to be kidding me, I thought, remembering that she had just changed floors.

“I have been texting her because I was worried!” was all I managed to get out before they slipped away, already late for the other funeral.

This is a neighbour I blogged about here and   there –a troubled soul with an overwhelming constellation of issues who had sat in my apartment on two or three occasions and gone for a walk with me another time with the purpose of talking while I listened.  Our visits started when she came around to ask me a question about Christianity, assuming I was Christian.

“I remember what you told me that day in the laundry room…about counting your blessings…five things every day.”

We had talked about perspective, how it isn’t about what happens to us, but how we look at it and respond to it.  She was hungry for tools like this one, as she felt like a prisoner and a victim of her life circumstances and sensed that a shift in attitude could be the answer to her misery and bitterness.

She asked if she could come to our ACIM meetings.  I had told her it was a closed group, but that another one would start up later and she could join at that time. I offered her reading material, but she said she had trouble reading. So I gave her some CDs. Mostly, though, she just needed a friend.

And so we walked and talked a bit. While she was sometimes hard to take, something about her was also very likable. When we walked, she picked up trash. When she saw one of my plants needed better care, she advocated on its behalf. She gave me clothes to give to the refugees where I work. I liked her raw and vulnerable authenticity, which was illustrated one night when she was talking a mile a minute, jumping from thought to thought.

When she came to her final question, I laughed out loud.  It was,  ”…so if Jesus was a Jew, why is the Pope Catholic?”

My sudden chuckle caught her off guard.

“I’m entertaining you,” she said, astute and wounded.

“No, no,” I’d said. I just don’t know how you made the final leap to that question.

“A.D.D., that’s how,” she said.

I gave her a few rides here and there since she was saving up for a car. However, one day I did pull back a bit when one of her requests felt to me to be over the line, bordering on taking advantage of my goodwill. That was shortly before our Muskoka vacation.

Before we left on vacation, I didn’t call her to ask for my shopping cart back and I didn’t tell her we were going away for a week. She was being very silent, but it wasn’t the first time she’d lain low for weeks on end.

When I got back I texted her to see how she was. The next day I texted again that I was getting worried, to please call me.

Her teen daughter found her.  I don’t know how she died, but I know she had attempted suicide several times in her life.  She was only 46.

Grace in Small Things 181

Sylvain’s neighbour gave us some beans from his garden. They are so good sauteed with just a bit of butter and salt. I need to thank him!

The new CEO has lifted the dress code. No more black and white every day. Yay!

My boss let me know he has plans to get me a file cabinet AND keys to the book cabinet so I can at least have one shelf. No more lugging everything around in my backpack?!

We may even be allowed to put a poster or two on the walls of our classrooms soon. If so, Jen Lemen is going up in my room!

A level one student passed me in the hall today (first day not dressed like a waiter) and said, “Teacher, you beautiful!”

Sometimes They Need To

Today toward the end of the hour, I offered to take two new literacy students–recent arrivals to Canada from a war-torn country where they are now a persecuted religious minority–into the tutoring room for some extra attention. They seemed a little lost as other students copied and read aloud a list of simple food vocabulary, so I thought I’d go over the alphabet with them.

I got out the flashcards to see how much they knew. She knew almost all the letters, he knew maybe half. After reciting the name of the letter, I would have them pronounce the word on the flashcard. You know, K is for kite and all of that. And each time he would tell me the name of that thing in their language. I repeated it.  Maybe they noticed good pronunciation. Maybe my mere willingness to say words in their language was all it took to open the floodgates. I don’t know what sparked it. All I know is that when all 21 consonants and five vowels had been reviewed and drilled, they began urgently telling me a story in their language.

Because they used enough gestures and pantomime for me to follow, I never stopped them to say, “I don’t speak ____.”  Instead, I echoed their story back to them in English as I understood it.  They responded with nods and a word I took to mean “yes.”

I don’t know how I was able to understand everything in spite of knowing none of the words. It’s almost as if their desire to communicate and my willingness to relax and listen allowed us to transcend verbal language.

What I got out of all their gestures and foreign words spilling from their mouths was this:

We had to leave quickly, with just the clothes on our backs. We had to leave everything behind…our house, our jobs, our things, our friends.  I was a mechanic for ?? years. Now I have to start over from the beginning like a child. They (the religious majority) came for us. They told us we had to leave or they would kill us (universal gesture for slitting the throat). They hate  us (religious minority).

They shot me many times in my legs.

They (here I will spare you the graphic details of one atrocity they witnessed).

When they got to that point in their frantic, pantomimed story, I gasped, covered my ears and closed my eyes.  When I looked at her again, my eyes were wet. Hers glistened too as she met my gaze.  She reached into her purse and passed me a tissue, keeping one for herself. I accepted it and wiped my eyes.

“I’m sorry,” I said.  ”I’m sorry you experienced that.”

The next thing they said in their language was something like: We are here now. We love Canada. We sleep here, we eat here.

She reached into her purse again and this time pulled out the last two cookies in the bottom of a bread bag.  She made them herself. I accepted them, knowing then was not a time to worry about propriety or the rule about teachers not accepting gifts.  I wrapped them in the tissue for later.

It was time to go back to class. We gathered up the flashcards and put them back in the little box.

“Thank you, thank you,” they said. That word I do know.

If you would like to know more about the situation that forced them and a quarter of our student body to flee their homeland, this article or this video will get you started.

Lesson 365

Tonight our year of doing the ACIM workbook lessons came to an end. Six of us attended faithfully for the entire year, with one other person coming sporadically.  Six or so never made it past the stage of putting their names on the sign-up sheet, meaning those floor cushions I rushed out and bought to provide overflow seating were never used.  Well, no. The Wednesday night meditation group now uses them.  It’s all good.

Sylvain and I have grown so much through these 365 lessons.  More than anything, I’m grateful that he agreed to join the group his Catholic family calls “the cult.” It has not only given us tools for making this life the rich and joyful ride it is meant to be, but has put us on the same page and given us a common vocabulary with which to deal with everything that comes up for us individually and as a couple.  If I try to be a brat, he can call me on it with gentleness and humour, knowing that we both want the same thing for ourselves. If he has trouble with anxiety, I can remind him of the tools we learned about together.

When we find ourselves grumpy or irritable, we now know and can usually very quickly identify that the problem stems from having had expectations to begin with.  Sometimes now we will begin an outing with the words, “No expectations.” It’s a wonderful agreement to allow things to go awry if they want to. When they do, we can smile and flow with it, knowing that clinging to an idea of what was “supposed to be” is sheer folly and a waste of energy.

It has been amazing to have five teachers for a year. They helped me shine a light on things that had been hidden in my blind spot. They always did it lovingly and with respect. What a gift that has been!

It will be weird not tidying up the apartment, sweeping and dusting. Weekly company ensured that I emptied all my trash cans at least that often.  I wonder which rituals I will drop and which ones I’ll continue?  Will I still lay out a clean hand towel by the sink?  I guess the little tea area can be disassembled.

It’s been really fun coming up with recipes and experimenting with baking. I am now the proud owner of a creme brulee torch. It was fun making crumbles and cobblers, pies and squares. Maybe I should find a new excuse to keep my skills up.  Not right away, though.  For now I am looking forward to the extra evening of unstructured time.

In the end, what did we learn?  Nothing we didn’t already know at some level, I suppose.  I, for one, was reminded that everything we long for and strive for, we already have.  It’s just a matter of sweeping aside the veils created by ego and its endless stories to see the shining light of Love that was there all along.

The Course confirmed what I already believed: It’s my movie.  I cannot control what happens to me, but I am 100% capable of deciding how I view what happens and how I respond to it. Pain comes with life; suffering is optional.  When things don’t unfold as I had hoped or expected,  I can curl up in fear or grumble in discomfort.  But I now know that discomfort is a choice. It’s of my own making.  Alternately, I can observe in awe and wonder the miracle of just being here to experience whatever it is.  All of this. Every moment of it. The ups and the so-called downs.  Every breath is precious. This one Holy Instant is a miracle.  It’s all we have.  It is more than enough.

One Trail Walk, Six Ferns

The weather was cool almost every day of our stay up near Algonquin Park, and it didn’t rain. The last couple of days were sunny.  It was perfect weather for setting out from the cottage with a fern field guide in one hand and a magnifying glass in the other.  I love trying to find as many fern species as possible, something that is challenging since I am still learning to use a fern key.

The first fern on my checklist isn’t an especially exciting find because it can easily be seen from Highway 11 and in great abundance as soon as we turn down Fox Point Road. Eastern Bracken grows deep and thick all along highways, roads and trails up there.

Bracken

The second fern I always see is Sensitive Fern, because a baby one is coming up right beside the porch of our cottage.  I see it on almost all my walks around Bondi Village and also on our trail walks in the park. I think Sensitive Fern is such an interesting-looking fern. It is once cut, meaning each leaf is not further divided into leaflets.

Sensitive Fern

During this fern walk I got a thrill, however, because I saw the sori on the fertile frond of a Sensitive Fern for the first time.

Sensitive Fern fertile frond with sori

Another reason this was exciting for me is that while my fern book goes on and on about ferns whose fertile frond is different in size and/or shape from the non-fertile fronds, this was the first time I had observed that in a fern.

Sensitive Fern sori

The third fern of my walk gave me some trouble. I enlisted Sylvain’s help. He read the key while I answered “yes” or “no” to each question in the decision tree.

What do the undersides of the fronds look like?

Together we decided this was an Ostrich Fern. Do you agree? (Note: there is also a Sensitive Fern in the photo.)

Possible Ostrich Fern

We followed the key through three times, plus I had already done it twice, and we came up with Ostrich Fern every time.

Next I found a Spinulose Wood Fern, which I had found in previous years. I love this “fancy” fern. It is thrice divided, meaning that the frond is divided into pinnae and each pinna is further divided into pinules. On Spinulose Wood Fern, the pinules even have teeth, so it is a very lacy fern!

Spinulose Wood Fern

By this time, Sylvain had left me to go do other things. I kept walking down the same little stretch of trail and soon came upon a huge colony of New York Fern. I remember identifying this fern for the first time during a previous visit to Bondi Village. You can easily identify this one by the way it tapers at both ends. The bottom-most leaves on the rachis are very small. I love this elegant, slender fern!

New York Fern colony

Creek edged by New York Fern and others

The last true fern I discovered during this short outing was a new one for me: Narrow Beech Fern. The downward arching lowest pair of leaves is diagnostic.

Narrow Beech Fern

Narrow Beech Fern

The little area I was exploring was so rich with fern and fern ally species!

fern, horsetail, moss

I can’t imagine how much fun I’ll have if I ever learn my lichens, mosses and fungi!

club-shaped yellow fungus

fungus like white coral

Heck, I haven’t even started on the cliffbrakes or aquatic ferns. What joys await me?

Unfortunately

I blogged a while ago about helping an injured neighbour make it back to his apartment. I told you he wouldn’t let me call an ambulance nor a relative and that I tried checking on him throughout the week to no avail. I also said that the building manager finally agreed to let herself into his apartment on day five, and that based on what she reported, Sylvain and I stopped worrying about the guy.

That was false information. Or rather we and the building manager did not understand each other. There were assumptions made, a misunderstanding.  Sylvain and I received the contradictory news via a voice message when I checked email and voice mail on Labour Day, our first full day up in Muskoka.

That is as much as I am comfortable putting here on this open public forum since my late neighbour’s dignity along with the privacy of any surviving family members are at stake. So if you would like me to email you the private blog post that I’ve written about it, leave a comment here requesting that I do so (or email me privately if you have my email address.) If I know you, I will share. If I don’t know you, I probably won’t.

A Foodie Goes to Bondi

One way I make time at the cottage more interesting is by coming up with fun recipes to try while we are there. We never forget to bring along my aged balsamic vinegar, some extra virgin olive oil, the pepper mill and a few other staples of the foodie kitchen. Sylvain and I usually stop at a large grocery store in Hunstville on our way to Bondi Village.  Our six days of vacation is all we usually get in the way of vacation during the year, so we give ourselves culinary carte blanche and indulge in rich cheeses, artisan breads, and lots of local fresh fruits and veggies.

This year we picked up Cambozola, 5-year-old Canadian white cheddar, Brie, fresh peaches and raspberries, cream and milk for making ice cream, black currant and raisin artisan crisps, fig spread, wild blueberry preserves, figs, and local rainforest-friendly coffee.  We also bought a New York strip, some beef patties, buns, tomatoes, baking potatoes and bacon–a very rare purchase for us.

Muskoka Roastery - Loon Call Breakfast Blend

artisan bread

Thanks to Nancy’s chickens, we know every morning will begin with a breakfast of fresh eggs from very happy, free-ranging hens. We always call ahead and ask for at least six to be placed in our fridge; that way we don’t have to go looking for Nancy before breakfast the first morning.

Kelly feeding the chickens at Bondi

The lunch and dinner menus don’t fully take shape until we find out what Carol has in her gardens. This year she provided us with fresh basil, rosemary, parsley, chives, arugula, onions, and dill. She also told me I could pick as much mint as I wanted down by the boat house where it grows in with the rushes.

It was fun seeing how many ways I could incorporate the garden goodies into our meals.

Inspired by Foodie and the Beast, I caramelized Carol’s onions almost every night. A burger topped with cambozola or 5-year-old white cheddar and caramelized onions beats Weber’s any day of the week. Arugula and/or basil is pretty good on them, too!

onions from the garden

The chives went on baked potatoes, of course.

Carol's chives

One night I threw together a salad with arugula, fresh pears from Sylvain’s backyard, walnuts and Cambozola. I whipped up a balsamic vinaigrette emulsified with a pinch of sugar.  For this meal, Sylvain opened a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon that he’d had in his wine cellar for a decade.

Carol's arugula

I kept thinking of ways to use mint leaves, like atop this bowl of fresh Ontario peaches with hand-whipped cream.

mint from the lakeside

But the epicurean highlight of our week were the figs, prosciutto, blue cheese and arugula sandwiches–a repeat from last year. Even though I swore at the time that I would explore more recipes from the amazing sandwiches blog, we both wanted to have this one again.

fig, prosciutto, Cambozola, arugula sandwich

Don’t ask how much weight we gained during the week. Neither of us owns scales.

We Finally Stopped at Weber’s

Every year we talk about stopping at Weber’s for their famous burgers, but every year the line is just ridiculously long, snaking way out the door and across the parking lot. Can you imagine standing in line in the hot sun for twenty or more minutes…for a hamburger? Get real.

This year, however, we wanted to find little ways to make the trip different from previous years. Coincidentally, the line was only about ten people long when we approached. So we stopped.

Yes, the burger was good. The fries were good, too.

I love it when a business doesn’t try to be everything, but focuses on one or two things and then gets those things right. Weber’s has done this.

For one, they have made a science out of moving people through the line quickly. When you get close to the entrance, a nimble young person holding an order pad will approach you to take your order. She or he will take your money up to the till and come back with your change. This way, by the time you reach the grill area, you can’t hold up the line fiddling with your wallet or trying to decide what you want.

The second thing Weber’s has gotten right was a highlight of the stop for me: the washrooms! Housed in old converted train cars, the stalls and sinks have been masterfully fit into the long, narrow cars by virtue of an ingenious layout. Each sink stands back-to-back with another sink, and between each pair of sinks is a place for the hand-washer to stand that is out of the aisle. Each cut-out place to stand has its own hand-drying equipment.  Genius!  The bathroom was also clean and airy–making this one of the best washroom experiences I’ve ever had while on the road.

The owners of Weber’s know that those who stop for their very pleasant washrooms will probably then consider standing in line for the burgers, and those customers who stop for the burgers won’t do so if there are not good bathroom facilities.  My hat is off to this business for being savvy enough to invest in abundant, well-designed toilets.

I’m glad we stopped at Weber’s this year.  Now whenever we pass by (Insha’Allah) and see those crazy lines, we won’t be left in the dark wondering what all the fuss is about.

Weber's on Highway 11

Re-entry

We are back.

It will be a day or two before I can get my thoughts and photos together in order to post something about our stay up north near Algonquin Park.

Folks tell us that it rained every single day that we were away. Where we were it was nice every day, though cool and cloudy all but the last two days.

Just now an evening thunder storm is brewing. The sky is a weird yellow. I like September.

Grace in Small Things 180

• Lunch with a friend at Rino’s Kitchen. She insisted on picking up the tab to thank me for helping her get clear on an issue that was troubling her greatly, saying that a therapist would have cost much more.
• This blog post.
• This sunrise.

Sunrise on a Hazy Morning

Something to Do While I’m Away

I have someone I want you to meet. His name is Mike.  He is a computer robot (chatbot) who won 3rd place in the Chatterbox Challenge Contest 2010. If you are learning English, he can chat about most any topic with you. Just type, “Let’s chat about _____.”

I decided to give it a try. Our typed conversation went as follows. Keep in mind that all of these answers appeared on the screen within about 1/5 of a second, or faster than I can measure.

Kiki: Who is president of the United States?
Mike: The president of the United States is Barack Obama.
Kiki: Who is the vice president?
Mike: In 2010 it was Biden.
Kiki: Can you win at Jeopardy?
Mike: Certainly!
Kiki: Are you friends with HAL?
Mike: Yes. I am. How about you?
Kiki: You are freaking me out.
Mike: I mean no harm.

You can have your own chat with Mike by going HERE. Have fun!  You can read more about the Chatterbox Challenge 2011 here.

Suggestions?

My suitcase is almost packed.

This year I’m taking along my new ice cream maker as well as the usual staples: pepper grinder, extra-virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar and other things that any self-respecting foodie would need at the cottage.

A few years ago I said that I didn’t want to go to the same spot year after year. In fact I proposed that we go up to the Muskoka area only every other year, and I would have my own vacation in the intervening years–maybe to Cuba, which I’ve always wanted to see. In the end Sylvain was able to help me see the benefits of going to the same locale annually. In order to make it FEEL like a different place each year, I like to introduce as much novelty as possible within the same framework. For example, we can take different games, wine instead of beer, white instead of red, try new recipes, and so forth.  This year I am thinking of booking myself a spa day (well, okay, two hours).

Do you have any good recipes to share? Any game ideas?