Stone Soup

Poor Ben has got himself into plenty of trouble lately. He is getting old and for some reason he is more nervous...not in the house with us but outside with strangers and sometimes other dogs. He has bitten, well nipped but a nip counts as a bite. It is really so upsetting.

Craig was ordered to keep him muzzled when outdoors but the muzzle kept him from panting and he was too uncomfortable to walk. We found this basket muzzle tonight. It is a little too big for him because he can get it off but one size smaller will still give him plenty of room and it will not come off. Craig will go back to the pet store tomorrow.

Ben can pant and even drink with this muzzle on and he seems comfortable wearing it.

I find the muzzle makes him look rather fierce but really, he is a sweetheart in the house. Strangers can come in but we have to introduce them to the dog, show him that we know the stranger etc and then Ben is very friendly. He was not trained or raised to be aggressive and never has been in the past; it is just coming out in him recently...it has to be age.

What a summer we are having, thunder showers almost daily then it clears. You can't tell what will happen weather-wise from hour to hour. I was supposed to go to the Beaches Jazz Festival this afternoon...well, we will see what happens.

Here is a little view of my front flower box between showers this morning....

There are many beautiful places to walk near my home. The other night walked with Craig and the dog, he wanted to show me Seton Trail. We parked in the secluded lot and began to walk to the trail when a car pulled into the lot and three young fellows, not dressed for hiking, got out. Craig whispered when we were away from them, "That's going to be a drug deal." I didn't like it but thought they would be gone when we returned from the hike.

We came to a stream without a bridge and I chickened out, slapped many mosquitoes off my arms and legs while Craig showed me how easy it was to get across. He realized I wasn't going to do it. So we walked back to the car. The young guys were still standing around, waiting. We quickly got in the car and drove away. As we left the parking area a hot car drove in, a single black man driving. The dealer I supposed. We drove out to the road just wanting to be away from there. But if I had had a cell phone with me when I reached the road, I would have called the police.

We were still wanting to walk so we drove down to the lake, Lake Ontario. The walk there was easier and quite pretty. And there were no drug deals...that we noticed.

Craig always comes hungry and rummaged through my kitchen...spied some fresh tomatoes and brought out the olive oil and white balsamic vinegar. I had no bocconchini cheese so he reluctantly used some shavings of light Jarlsburg over the tomato slices...topped each slice off with fresh chopped basil from the garden...and drizzled the dressing of oil and vinegar.

The sweetness of the balsamic vinegar dressing with the sweet basil, ripe local tomatoes and the nutty cheese were quite yummy. I wish I had had a nice crusty slice of bread to mop up the wonderful juice left on the plate...but I am not eating carbs these days. If you try this...have the bread handy.

I am cleaning drawers today. I started with the drawer where I keep my meds in the bedroom night table, found quite a few expired pills...then what the heck, I did the other drawer. A few things in that one had to come downstairs to a kitchen drawer then I started cleaning and organizing those, then a few things had to be moved to the dining room so I am doing those too and a few candles I found have to be moved upstairs to the linen closet...an on it goes...I know that linen closet will need straightening. My job list is growing, I see a drawer needs repair, silver needs polish, oh my...I will never get out of here!

While clearing junk from the drawers I came across a booklet called Walking Trails in Scarborough. It shows maps and lists features of all the walking trails in the area,. I find it almost humorous...I can't imagine walking alone at even one of the recommended places. Morningside Park, Miliken Park, Colonel Danforth Park, Birkdale Ravine, Cedarbrook Park...all with scenic long walking trails and who knows what hiding in the bushes...drug and gun dealers, crack crazed crazies, perverts, pedophiles. This is a dangerous city and one should not walk alone along park trails. I wouldn't even do this with a friend...maybe I would with a large group. Maybe. Arthur tells me there was another shooting in Toronto last night.

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P I C T U R E P E R F E C T

This is week 9 of the Competition and you have three days to submit a picture, after which the Top Ten Pictures will be selected by our panel of admins and posted up in a poll on Saturday morning (PST). The poll will run for 24 hours (as requested by the public!) and the winner will be announced on Sunday morning!

~ Each week a theme will be posted up on Wednesday, and you are invited to put up your best picture with that theme in mind, it should be only ONE picture please and it should be YOURS not off the internet, not a friends picture but your very own No slide shows please, and no automatic music on the page

Fine print:

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Play a good clean game on PP..its all we ask! Cheating in any form will not be tolerated on this site.

Then come back and post a comment on this page:

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so that everyone can link to your blog and see your pic.

By all means mention your camera and lens used, and if the picture has been altered or enhanced in anyway! Out of the box thinking is encouraged!! Please open your page for viewing for all for that day...and then visit as many others as you can! Try and post a decent size pic on your blog page, so much is lost if the pic is too small or too big.

Good Luck, and have fun out there!!

......

Zest for life? Zest for living? Zestful energy? No.

I can't help it..."zest" only makes me think of food!

When I walked in the door after the little surgery on Friday afternoon, Glenn was working on his paper looked up and said, "I forgot to tell you, Grace's parents invited you to a bbq tonight, it is Nadine's anniversary."

"When did they invite me?|

"Last week. Sorry, I forgot to mention it."

I felt not too bad but there was no way I was going to rush out and shop last minute for a suitable gift. We stopped for a flower arrangement on the way, picked up a fruit flan, and I grabbed a bottle of Wolf Blass on my way out the door.

It was a barbecue with a middle eastern flair. Grace's mom, who is a great cook, mixes North American food with special dishes from her homeland.

The "groom" made the tea. He brought these tea glasses home from his last trip to Dubai. It was Ceylon tea but he steeped it with cardamon seeds and I don't know what else, but it was absolutely delicious. I drank a few cups!

After dinner the men brought the water pipe out to the patio. The tobacco was mixed with honey and apple, they added Ouzo to the water, and WOW what a nice taste this smoke had! I quit smoking years ago but decided to have a couple of puffs of this. Just a couple and I am still a non smoker...it didn't do me in.

The pipe reminded me of water pipes we used for other types of smoking in the late sixties (my young wilder days)...but this night, it was just straight tobacco (with honey, ouzo and apple).

The waterpipe, bowl filled with a mixture of water and Ouzo.

The tobacco mixture

Tobacco mixture is under the foil, a hot coal on top to start the smoke

Fred blows smoke through his nose

Fred laughs, what a show off!

Glenn says, "I feel like a sultan!"

Grace has a few puffs

And I tried it too!

But I think I will stick to my tea!

My family doctor sent me to a dermatologist last summer to have a wart removed. By the time I got in to see the dermatologist (April would you believe?) the wart was gone but I kept the appointment anyway because a mole on my chest that I had for years, had begun to itch and the shape of it was a little irregular.

The doctor told me it didn't look like a problem but he sent me to another doctor for a biopsy. It turns out to be a basal cell carcinoma, the most common form of skin cancer--it is caused by sun exposure. I have never really lain in the sun to get a tan; the only exposure I get is working outdoors on weekends.

It is not a dangerous cancer, and it is simple to treat. I am going to have the mole removed on Friday. They remove quite a bit of tissue with it just to be safe and I, being not enormously endowed, hate to give up any tissue! But I must!

I am showing you a photo of my mole just so you know what an irregular mole looks like. If you have one, get it checked.

She lives in Vancouver BC now, but we grew up together in Montreal. We will meet after Glenn's wedding and travel to Newfoundland together next summer.

Do you think we will have a good time?

We took my mom to visit the house she grew up in, thinking the memories would be accessible to her...and they were.


This is the house my mother was born in. My grandfather built it. Both my grandparents had come to Montreal from Newfoundland--not a Canadian province at that time, it joined confederation in 1949 or 1950. My grandparents met each other in the community of "Newfies" who had migrated to Montreal looking for a future? Expatriots always find each other. One thing Newfoundlanders have in common is that they always miss home and they always want to return! That is another story.

My grandparents, William and Sophie, married, saved their money for a few years, then bought some land on the south shore of Montreal. The community they bought their land in is East Greenfield, a little neighbourhood of St Hubert. My grandfather built this little home in 1920, and in 1925 added an extension to the back for their growing family.

I Googled to find directions to the area, no longer able to rely on Mom's directions...she was in a bit of a blur as we drove, yet she has driven herself to the old home a number of times in the past. We drove around a bit to find the house.

This was the first time I had been to the area since I was a child. I was amazed to find streets named after people my mother had talked about growing up with.

In the car, she kept telling us to look for the old horse gate...it led to the house. We saw nothing but new houses jammed together...how could we find that. Then we drove to the bottom of the street she had lived on where she pointed out Mr Campbell's house, an elderly man she had befriended as a child...he gave her his bible and she still has it. ( I am thinking I would like to have that.) She used to go to his house after school and do small chores for him and sometimes he let her make fudge in his kitchen. I used to love to hear such things as a little girl and I finally saw his house last week. Mr. Campbell had loved a woman who was married and broke it off with her. because it wasn't right. He never married after that.

We drove past streets with the names of people she used to play with...it was strange. I wonder why there was not a Mugford street....named after her family.

We finally drove past the horses gate, as she called it, and in unison we shouted, " THAT'S IT!!!, There it is!!!" We were so excited! So was she.

We pulled into the long driveway off the regular street where buried in the back was her first home. The lady who now owns it came out and was very happy to see her again...Mom had dropped by a few times over the years.


She showed us the upstairs window that Uncle Bill and Uncle Ronnie had sometimes taken a pee out of into the garden because the naughty boys had been too lazy to go to the outhouse, saying that part of the garden was well watered and the lady who now owns it laughed, saying yes, they told me that! Mom also showed us where she and Uncle Hedley had made mud pies and pretended to bake them, not far from the house.


Much of the property has been sold off, and homes have been built on the perimeter but the gardens are still lovely. An old oak tree is still standing, it is about 90 years old. It had to have been planted a few years before my mom was born in the little room off the kitchen.


The old vegetable gardens that my grandparents fed a family of eight children on during the Great Depression are long gone, but the trees are still there and current owner (originally from France) loves the house, the land and the peace of her home, an oasis in the middle of a now bustling community. She loves the home my grandfather built with his hands.

A visit home wouldn't be the same without Karen's cats. Above is Charlie, the homeless fellow who adopted my sister and her family. He is quite content here, but stays clear of Cinder (photo below), their younger wilder kitten. She likes to jump on Charlie's back. But then, I think he gets her back by eating her food.


Mom and I at Karen's for dinner. Mom didn't like any of the pictures I took of her but this one she said was ok. She is 85 years old.

Karen found an old Newfoundland recipe book amongst my mother's things and brought it home. She and Melanie decided to surprise my mom with a blueberry meringue cake--the recipe had a sort of check mark beside it. Mom didn't remember the recipe or having ever eaten a cake like this but she did like the cake.


Melanie (my niece) asking her mom (Karen, my sister) if she thought the cake in the oven was done. I miss doing things like that and it is nice to see it again.

For once I stayed near the speed limit on the drive to Montreal...I passed speed traps at least 5 times going and returning. By near the speed limit I mean 119 kmp. The limit is really 100 but who can drive that? If they raised it to 120 which everyone drives, everyone would then drive 140, right?

Most trips home I return upset and depressed because of the state my mother is in but this time, she is in a home, fed, clean, dressed, hairdresser visits monthly, clothes laundered, pressed and folded. She doesn't say she is happy but when I told her she was looking so much better than she did last time her face brightened.

Mom has vascular dementia but thinks she is ok. She knows she can't live alone and cannot handle the house any longer. It has been sold. Most of her furniture went this week to people who needed it (Freecycle) and closing of the sale will be very soon. I am thankful she is handling it well, maybe in a bit of a blur, but she is accepting it.

It has been a creepy feeling staying at Karen's and hearing telephone messages from the freecycle people who were interested in picking up some furniture...I knew we needed to get rid of it and we don't need it, this was the quickest and easiest way. But it still feels sad, and if she knew how her house is being emptied she would be upset, she would be grabbing and saving things, saying oh no, keep this, I need that. It is almost done now. She will never be able to live on her own again...this week makes it final and sad.

We picked my mom up every day and brought her to Karen's, and sometimes out to shop, she loves grocery stores most so we made sure she got to Loblaws... I wheeled her up and down the aisles and she chose items she wanted, like pickled beets that she can keep in her room and take down to the dining room for dinner. She was craving beets. Mealtime is an event at the home and her meals are very nice but sometimes missing some little thing she likes.

We went back to Loblaws next day for another jar of beets because she didn't want to run out! I assured her Karen would bring her beets any time she wants some...but going to the store herself to choose what she wants is something she still enjoys.

She no longer reads books as she used to but she likes to look at Readers Digest. I think reading at any level is good for her. I brought her a stack of them.

We are still looking at other homes. The one she is in was the best that was available when she needed it. A recreational therapist comes in a few days a week and there is also the odd bingo game that she enjoys. I'd just like to see her in a place that will keep her happy and somewhat more stimulated.

This is an adjustment for all of us.