Through The Mist Darkly

Congratulations to Mr. and Mrs. Chris Doy.  Lisa and Chris were married Friday night.  Not quite your normal wedding ceremony though.  The event took place during the 1st intermission of a preseason NHL hockey game between Toronto and Detroit.

Both the bride and groom were dressed in their finest Maple Leafs jerseys and were married by a minister wearing a referee’s jersey.  The cake was in the shape of the Stanley Cup and the surprise guest of the night was Tie Domi, former Leafs player.

A fun and unusual evening.  More pictures of the event can be found here.

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I live in Brampton Ontario, on the outskirts of Toronto.  Brampton isn’t a “little town” - it’s the 11th  largest city in Canada with a population over 400,000.  To get there, we experienced a 61.7% population increase in just 10 years. That doesn’t stop it from thinking little.

Today was “Brampton Day” and the city center, affectionately called the 4 corners was closed down for the celebration.  Every city department had a little booth or a display of their equipment set up as well as the standard Saturday farmers’ market on Main Street.  Hundreds of people lined up before 8am for a chance to get a free t-shirt and a pancake breakfast. 

Brampton officially came into being in 1834.  Prior to that, it was known as “Buffy’s Corners”.  Cute eh?  The village grew into a town and then into a city slowly and calmly until 1960 when a new housing development began.  Bramalea was a designed community with an integrated plan for housing, parkland, light industrial and retail building.  The city boomed almost overnight and has kept growing almost unchecked ever since.

With all this growth, Brampton remains somewhat of a hick town.  Our local newspaper could be published in a town of 5,000 and contain just as much “news”.  Being this close to Toronto (and actually lumped in with it under the umbrella designation of the GTA - Greater Toronto Area), we’re bombarded with 4 large daily newspapers, over a dozen TV stations and countless radio stations.  So Brampton doesn’t have to try very hard.  We used to have our own radio station which started life as CHIC-FM with an all female cast (again with the cute) but that changed to hard rock and finally got gobbled up by a Toronto conglomerate.

Our city council is a joke - all bullshit and bluster with a very weak plan to manage a infrastructure that cannot keep up with the influx of residents.  The Mayor is such a camera hog that I half expect her to show up in my kitchen every time I cut the top off a bag of lettuce.

We live in Bramalea in the “H” section - someone thought it was a good idea to name every street in each phase of the development with names that start with the same letter.  We live on Hayden which is just off Hilldale.  Huckleberry runs off our street.  You could live on Horatio, Horton, Hazelglen, Hollis, Howden, Hayley……  You get the picture.  Confusing as hell if you’re trying to find a specific place and you get the street name even slightly wrong.  Our little house is over 30 years old but it’s paid for and the street is reasonably quiet.  So far it’s been safe.

Anyhow.  So I walked around the 4 corners just before the festivities started.  Everyone was busy setting up but still managed a friendly hello or a smile.  A nice part of the small town mentality.  For instance, this volunteer was preparing for a long day of herding kids on and off an inflated “rock climbing” amusement.  I’m sure she wasn’t smiling by the end of the day.

The farmers’ market was going strong.  Late season crops of apples were drawing plenty of attention.  In the center of this picture you see an older chap in a white golf cap.  He just happens to be one of Brampton’s celebrities.  Jack Galway used to be Director of Parks and Recreation and deserves much of the credit for the area’s parks and conservation areas.  The clubhouse of my local golf course was dedicated in his honor and I still see him out on the links every weekend.

Brampton has changed a lot in the 25+ years we’ve lived here.  Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse and some things haven’t changed at all.  The worst parts of Toronto are slowly making their way out into the ‘burbs.  On the other hand, the city is actually greener than it was a few years ago.  It’s just growing too damm quickly and somebody better come up with a forward thinking plan before we get sucked into the whirlpool that is Toronto.

But, for now, I still live in a little town.

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Singapore Airlines is playing up the fact that they will be the first to fly the Airbus A380 commercially come this October by comparing it to a number of animals.

Given the delays and criticism that the “whale jet” is too big to be a success, perhaps they should rethink using an extinct animal as a measuring stick.

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Today is the last Saturday of summer and, with Jan away in Edmonton, I decided to grab her convertible for a trip up to see Maxine in Wasaga Beach.  Unfortunately, the temperature plummeted overnight and showers came and went all day.

One of my tasks (there’s always work when I get to Maxine’s) was to try and get a couple of pictures of the latest addition to the zoo - Fancy.  She’s a lovely cat, very big and soft, and has an ingenious little bed that hangs from a window sill.  This is the best I could come with because all the light streaming into the dark room played havoc with the exposure values. She joins Alex, Nikki and Patrick.

Speaking of Alex, caught this shot of him and Max out for a little walk.  I’ve written about Alex before but he is still the only small dog I’ve ever met with so much personality.  The rest of the menagerie is bigger than him but you always know who is the king of the castle.

The recent rains have done wonders for all the greenery in the subdivision and it was a beautiful day for a stroll.

I’m not the only one that Max puts to work.  David was hard at cleaning up the little pathway beside the garage and stopped just long enough for this portrait.

We had a wonderful lunch of meat pies, quiche and Caesar salad and, yes, I had to make the salad.  You get pretty good at one thing and you have to do it over and over and over again.

Walked around the property and came across this shot.

I love the play of the light through the trees.  It was a great visit but I had to head back.  On the way, I stopped at nearby Allenwood beach to see what Georgian Bay was up to.  Windsurfers and Parasailers were taking advantage of the stiff wind and high waves to have some cold fun.  This was the best of the shots I managed to get before the cold drove me back into the car.

I guess it’s fun but you can have it.

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One of the last things on our to-do list was to arrange for the large green ash in our front yard to get a trim.

The before shot shows the guys from Diamond Tree Care getting ready to climb up into the tree.  20 years of neglect left us with a monster that was spreading off in all directions, lots of dead branches and some dangerous limbs just waiting to fall on the cars if a big wind or snow load came along.

Diamond spent about 3 hours up in the tree cutting here, shaping there and created an incredible amount of work for their shredder.

The shredder sounds like a WW1 airplane when it spools up to full speed and you certainly wouldn’t want any body part that you’re fond of to get anywhere near the intake.  Some branches must have been 6 inches around and this monster ate them like they were toothpicks.

The guys worked like dogs without a break and it was fun watching them sway in the branches as a heavy wind came up.  Didn’t seem to faze them in the least.

At the end of the process, the tree looks a little naked but so much cleaner.  The fall leaf pickup should be half of last year’s and I expect that the canopy will fill in next spring now that nutrients won’t be wasted on the lower garbage that has now been taken away.

While they were working on the ash, I was doing some work on the computer so I couldn’t devote much time to making sure they were doing things right.  No fear, our fearless forecat Sarah kept her eyes on things.

Thanks Sarah, and thanks Diamond Tree Care. A job well done!

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Jan was looking at the blog the other day and she was surprised to see that I hadn’t written anything specifically about our 25th anniversary which was Monday, August 20th.

She’s right.  Not a word.

Perhaps it’s because I spent that day flat on my back lying in a hospital bed with IV fluid and morphine dripping into my veins.  No that’s not it - I was groggy but not completely out of it.

The real reason I haven’t written anything was because I disappointed her and it tears me up everything time I think of it.  Instead of smelling the salt air in Halifax, my body decided to play the cruelest of tricks on us.  Less than 12 hours before we were set to fly out, the surgeon took a scalpel to all the plans we had made.  We were finally set to actually take 2 weeks away from work to have the vacation we’d dreamed about.  Halifax, Cape Breton Island and Prince Edward Island.  Being together in the great outdoors without a care in the world.  Great scenery, good food, new places; it was supposed to be perfect. 

Instead, it all went to shit because of a little bit of something that medicine cannot even begin to fathom why it even exists.  Jan was sure that work would intrude and something would come up that required my attendance like it has for every planned vacation over the last 15 years.  I’d planned everything so that wouldn’t happen.  My coworkers had gone out of their way to help make sure that all contingencies were covered.  We were free.  We were screwed.

Two years ago, my sister died on August 20th.  Everything became a blur as we made urgent plans to get to England.  Jan stayed behind and never said a word.  I made up my mind then and there that our 25th would be memorable.  She chose the Maritimes as our destination and I started the planning.  Our anniversary dinner would be at “The Press Gang”, one of Halifax’s finest restaurants.  Three days to travel up and down the Atlantic coast visiting Lunenberg, Peggy’s Cove and a dozen other spots that we hoped to stumble upon.  Then, it was a drive up to Cape Breton for a couple of days in that wild country.  Perhaps a whale watching cruise.  Check out some of the Acadian culture.  Finally, off to Charlottetown for 3 days exploring the unsullied beauty that is Prince Edward Island.

Instead, I spent 5 days in hospital followed by another week of laying around the house while she looked after me.  It just isn’t fair.

We’re back to work now but I know that she is disappointed.  To come so close to heaven only to be thrown into hell.

She deserves so much for putting up with me for almost 3 decades.  I say “next year dear, we’ll try again” but I can see it in her eyes, she doesn’t believe me.  Why should she?

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Must be getting time to go back to work.  With  a day and a half left until my “vacation” is over, the gout is finally going away and the surgery has almost completely healed.

Yesterday was still very painful but I had to get out of the house.  Ventured out to the museum to find that they’ve taken the Kiowa out of storage.  The Bell CH-136 ‘Kiowa’ helicopter was used by the Canadian Forces from 1971 to 1996.  This particular airframe (serial #136230) was originally based in Lahr Germany before being transferred to Downsview where it was retired.  It could certainly use some work but will certainly make a fine exhibit when cleaned up.

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