Snow Like My Childhood

Sunday night brought a blizzard to Toronto and with it 36cm of snow by Monday afternoon. Jason spent the day shovelling, heading out multiple times to work through it all. The photo on the right is taken through our back door, the snow piling up in the backyard and back porch.

Heading out for a walk today, the neighbourhood felt like what winters were when I was growing up in Paris. I don't know what it is about nostalgia, but the memories I have from childhood include mammoth snowbanks and huge piles after shovelling. Also I remember there being so much snow that it was shovelled with this strange big metal scoop thing that my dad would push and then tip (I saw someone down the street using a similar thing today, so they are still around.)

Painting Refresh

I had always meant to paint the garage door a darkish grey, it has been white and slowly fading since we moved in. I had envisioned faking a row of windows near the top, with paint (taping out squares, maybe even some light shading to give them depth.) Then I saw that you can get decorative garage door hardware, which would look fancier than windows and be easy. (They also have them in magnetic form to stick them on metal garage doors too, but I got the screw on ones since ours is wood.)

When I mentioned it to Jason though, he wanted it painted black. (Which reminds me of the song when I was younger, that I gather is actually a cover of The Rolling Stones. But isn't a cover when it is done exactly the same? There is a difference, it is a bit like a remix or something. I like the Gob version better and, upon looking it up, found out they are Canadian. It is a little more metal than The Stones rock version.) 

Paining it black then meant that I had to spray paint the decorative hardware a different colour to get it to show up - I went with 'stainless steel.' It didn't really made it look like stainless steel so wouldn't recommend it for that purpose, but it worked to make it a greyish colour that would show up against the black. Jason helped me attach the hardware.

Happy with how it turned out! Even more so now that I see what it looked like before!

Couch Reno

It might have been Two, however I think it was more likely Binx, but at some point one of the corners of the couch got torn up. This couch has been around forever, I think it was at Rrunuv Bayit for most of the time and has been at Casa Verde since we moved in. My parents got it for our family room in Paris when I was a teenager, maybe even a pre-teen. The issue with the torn up corner is that it is right as you enter the room! It is the main corner, very visible. 

I figured you could get patches but I wanted stick on ones, not iron on ones, and they needed to be large enough, strong enough to work with a couch. I eventually came across some faux leather ones that you heat up with a hair dryer before sticking on. There were tons of colours so I was able to get a beige that coordinated with the blue and cream couch stripes. I cut a custom shape that so it would tuck under the first fold of the arm and then wrap around the corner with the the other three corners rounded (recommended in the instructions, also looks nicer.)

So that it didn't look as much like a patch and more like a purposeful part of the furniture I made sure to get and make enough to do both corners on the couch and over on the chair-and-a-half so that everything matched. After I finished I asked Jason if he noticed anything new in the living room, and he had about 6 wrong guesses before I just gave up and pointed at the patches. He thinks this shows how well they blend in and is not continued proof of how unobservant he is.

Looks like our living room furniture has little leather elbow pads, like on tweed academic blazers/sweaters. I am very happy with the refresh and hope that it will continue to extend the life of this couch because I don't want to replace it anytime soon.

Neither Of Us Can Remember

At dinner last night, Jason and I were trying to remember the different restaurants that we had been to on Valentine's Days of years past. We knew we had visited Maple Leaf Tavern before, but I knew it hadn't been last year - we went again this year. Last year, 2019, I was in the middle of renovating the cafe and getting it ready to open in March. We actually ran a Valentine's Day event out in front of the shop to create a bit of buzz. So, our previous trip to the Tavern must have been in 2018, but I am not even sure about that. Especially because on Always Standing, I didn't mention the dinner. I just posted a photo from our wedding reception. And I should have mentioned that dinner because it was where I tried Wagyu beef for the first time - so good.

It is hard to keep the dinners straight because we also tend to go to nice/fancy restaurants on our anniversary so places and years get even more muddled. I don't seem to post about our dining experiences very much. In fact, one of the more memorable times was our very first Valentine's Day when Jason took me to La Maquette (previously a fine dining restaurant, now an event venue) and I chose the occasion to tell him that I wanted to postpone moving in together until the Fall of that year (2013). My blog post the following day talk how wonderful our day had been, with no mention of the difficult discussion or dinner location. 

I have done some fun blog post to mark the occasion:
- A poem from Facebook in 2014
- Photo collage the next year, 2015
- A quiz in 2017 with Jason and my answers the following days

It wasn't until I was looking back at various years in Always Standing to write this post that I remembered it was on Valentine's Day 2016 that we made our wedding rings! For lunch we went to a cafe near the jewelry studio on Queen West but I can't remember what we did for dinner. So many wonderful meals lost in our minds. I wonder if it makes sense to better document them somehow?

Breakfast Of Champions

Sunday Mornin' Coming Down - A post about my Dad each Sunday, named after a song that he loved.

When I was in Ottawa at the end of last month, Steph mentioned that Dave had bananas on his breakfast cereal in the morning. I had totally forgotten about doing that! Usually I have a smoothie for breakfast in the morning. A pretty basic one: frozen fruit (either strawberries or peaches), soy or almond milk, a couple of scoops of protein powder. Now, if Jason is around to cut the banana, I have started to have Vector with (cow's) milk and bananas. I am loving it! When I was little, my dad used to cut bananas into 'coins' for me and often put them in cereal (usually Rice Krispies.) Reminds me of my childhood and makes me think about my dad.

New Look Too!

For the past two and a half years, Always Standing has looked like this:

Before making the design change to the basic burgundy appearance above, the blog was purple and had a pretty filigree-ish pattern.  I think this new one has humming birds in the background - I am almost always using a split screen on my computer so the window for the blog is too small to see much of the edges. What do you think of the new peach-coloured look?

New Milestones

The following photo, and caption, was posted to Taylor's instagram a few days ago:

We measure the moment they take their first steps, first word, first day of school... but it’s the small milestones that make me all mushy. First LEGO set put together ALL BY HIMSELF! #excusemewhileicry #legomania #bigkidsclub

Congratulations Lochlan! And it doesn't look like it was an easy one. It is true that it is a milestone registered by parents (and relatives) and I don't think it is even a small one. Jason was really excited when his nephew reached an age were he could be given 'real' lego instead of the larger duplo style.

Yes This Is Was A Hack

The message between the dashes was posted yesterday on Always Standing (don't click the link):

--

hi Blog

https://goo.gl/Azbvsi

My best to you

Chris Tine

--

Jason texted me to say that he thought my blog had been hacked, I went and looked and said, "Nope, my email was."

For Blogger, you can set up a Mail-to-Blogger feature. I turned it on when I was in China, and my posts sent through it then actually look a little different (smaller serif-style font, no links, or spacing, etc.). This feature is still turned-on in the settings of Always Standing, and the email address used to send posts is saved into my email contacts.

So, my email was hacked and they sent the link to some of my contacts, the "Blog" is the name I saved the email address under and "Chris Tine" is what my name shows up as when I email someone. Normally when this happens people respond to say your email has been hacked. It used to happen like this fairly regularly to various friends of mine - I would say about five years ago I was probably getting an email like that from a contact about once a month.

Oh, I Had Some Of Those

Younger colleague at work brings some shopping bags into the office and says, "So I bought this weird shirt. I don't know if I like it. It is like an adult baby-onesie." And she pulls out a bodysuit to show me. So I guess those are back in style again - I didn't really like them that much the first time. I think I was in elementary school when I last had one, it was waffle fabric.

Sleepovers - Child Vs Adult

I just got back from a quick four-day trip to Calgary. Jason used his Aeroplan points to get me flights out west for my birthday, so I could spend some time with ERin and Anne. (It was going to be during Stampede but got postponed to August.) I thought I would discuss the weekend as a comparison to sleepovers, specifically birthday party ones, I had as a child:

Length of Time
Not just a single night! Since I am in Toronto, Anne in Calgary, and ERin in Edmonton, if we are going to spend time together it only makes sense for it to be a few days. I flew out on Wednesday evening and back Sunday night.

Location
Instead of gathering in the living room or basement of our parent's house, we stayed at Anne's trendy apartment in the Kensington area of Calgary.

Sleeping Arrangements
We don't need to all be in the same room, and our bodies are too old to sleep on the floor. I got the fold-out couch with some awesome memory foam.

TV
Morning cartoons, fun movies, or late night television? Nope! An episode of Chef's Table in the afternoon.

Snacks
No chips, candy, or popcorn, instead we helped ERin by taste testing some new chocolate flavours.

Meals
We traded in the pizza and hot dogs for Anne's fabulous cooking. She made us orzo salad, fennel and zucchini soup, fish tacos with homemade mango salsa, and more.

Dessert
I used to love decorating cupcakes. But this weekend we helped ERin make two different fancy cakes (I was minimally helpful.) We started with the very complicated Pacific Cake that took much of Thursday, and then quickly whipped up a modern version of an Opera Cake on Saturday.

Restaurants
Our choices for a Friday night out on the town were not kid friendly at all. First stop, for appetizers and margaritas, was Anejo, where they make the guacamole and salsa right at your table. For dinner we went to Klein Harris, where I had beet salad and hanger steak. We also made a few breakfast/brunch stops at a pie place in Anne's building - I kept getting the quiche, so good!

Daily Essential
It used to be such a regular thing to visit the corner store, usually for ice cream or candy, during a sleepover, but now that we are older - it is coffee! Made at home or quick visits to a cafe.

Amusement
Hard to remember all the things that I did as a child at birthday parties; swimming, movies, games. In Calgary we went on a road trip to the mountains, visits to ice cream shops and the grocery store, dinners out, dinners in, a cat cafe, and lots of walking around the city.

Conversation
Did we talk about boys? Yes. But also our families, friendships, pets, careers, travel, health, education, and more.

Friendship
I think it gets even better as we get older. It was a wonderful weekend, I love those two so much.

Speed (1994)

So I finally got around to watching the movie Speed with Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock last night. It came out in 1994 but was way to scary for my 10-year-old self. Then I never got around to it once I started watching and enjoying action movies. I ended up sharing my thoughts on Facebook as I watched - which most readers will have already seen but thought I would post here anyway for people not on social media...

Quiet Sunday evening on the couch with Jason, watching Speed for the first time. I know I am a bit behind the bandwagon on this 1994 action gem. Let's see how this goes..

3:20 - The opening credits are making me sad that Microsoft canceled Paint and also making me nostalgic for Corel Draw. However the score has stood the test of time - so good, already epic.

28:59 - Phone booth plot point!

38:16 - Used a car phone in a commandeered convertible, then took that guys cell phone too. Used cell to call police station - police station has rotary desk phones. The telecom in this thing is all over the place! Oh the mid-90s.

45:53 - Loving supporting cast, Jeff Daniels and Alan Ruck. Who knew!

1:33:43 - Amazing end to the bus saga! Super exciting. But there is still over 20 minutes left - is it just hunting down the bad guy? No more Sandra Bullock driving? I love her! She had better be still a good strong part of the rest of this!

1:35:13 - They killed off Jeff Daniels! ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?

1:38:26 - Sandra is now a bomb wearing hostage!! Nooo! Man, solid third act arc.

1:39:58 - Oooo Subway... (Didn't know LA had a Subway)

1:43:37 - ANOTHER the path isn't finished issue? I would comment that this is ridiculous but it isn't like we are all up on top of our Toronto infrastructure in 2017 so I can't really say anything.

I really enjoyed this movie, it is very very good. Speed definitely stands up in a first time viewing 23 years later which wouldn't be said about a lot of actions films that old. Can't believe it has taken me this long but glad I finally got to see it.

The Cost Of Stamps

This is such a grouchy senior citizen post, but I can't believe the price of stamps now! If you just buy one stamp it is a dollar, when you get them in rolls or booklets it is $0.85. It is nice that they have the little P that means 'current domestic postage rate' so if it goes up you can still use it to mail a normal letter within Canada. But still, when did it get so expensive? How is this not a commodity market item?

I actually remember when it was $0.45 to mail a letter. I found a website that maps out all the postage increases from 1943 to now. It turns out the price I am remembering is from 1995, and for my entire elementary and high school life it was under $0.50. That milestone increase happened in 2005 so I was in university at the time and I guess I didn't notice. I am shocked at the cost now, it is just such a big jump.

It is the same story with gas prices too, I started driving when it was in the mid-sixties. However, I can remember it being in the forties when I was younger. Now it is regularly well over a dollar. (I am such a grouchy old person.)

The Lost Summer

I ran across a video on Facebook called 25 Years of Summer Songs and all of them brought brief flashes of life back to me, except one. It was so strange to recognize each one, remember the song, reflect on my time during that year and then be confronted by a blank. It was jarring but I assumed it was probably an American list and that song wasn't popular here.

Then I thought about the year - 2004. I don't know if I would say it was the worst summer that I have had but it was a rough one: staying in Ottawa after my first year at Carleton in Engineering, to take summer courses. Working at a minimum wage job across the city that took over an hour and half on transit to get to. Dealing with a long distance serious relationship. Not many friends around because so many people return to their hometowns during that first university summer. However, that minimum wage job was at Extreme Pita, so that is full-time radio listening and I am surprised that the song didn't stick in my mind from that.

The song, Burn by Usher, seems to be pretty universally agreed to be the main song for the summer of 2004. While I recognize other songs from that same album, that one just isn't in my memory. I don't totally agree with all the picks each year, in 2001 I can remember Drops of Jupiter being a major summer song, but that might have just been personal experience. I might not be big on music but songs are still often a serious memory link.

Smart Served

Sunday Mornin' Coming Down - A post about my Dad each Sunday, named after a song that he loved.

My parents got their Smart Serve certification so that they bar-tend at Give Me Liberty (the Liberty Village BIA street party that I worked on in 2012, 2013, and 2014.) According to my mom, it was actually at that event that my Dad learned about Shazam.  I don't know if they got much use out of the Smart Serve beyond those few times, they may have found it helpful for yacht club events. I was able to list Mom's as a Smart Serve bartender at my wedding so she at least got one extra use out of it.

Interesting side note: According to Anne you have to redo the certification in Alberta because it expires after a period of time. In Ontario it lasts forever. Teri and I did a course one weekend when we were 18, wrote the test and the end, and are still good 15 years later.

Happy Birthday Steph!

It is Steph's birthday today! 

I hope she is having a good one.

Prime seats in front, up top, on a double decker bus.

London, England - January 2008

Photo by ME

It has been nine years since we took this photo, and we have been friends since September 2003, yet she still makes me this happy! Since moving to Toronto in 2010 we don't see each other as often, but we both make the effort and I head up to Ottawa pretty often. We make it work, she is worth it. Happy Birthday!

Shock And Sadness

Teri called me on Sunday evening with the terrible news that her father had passed away. It was sudden and unexpected - later determined to be the result of a brain aneurysm. I first met my best friend's dad, Gord Osmond about 25 years ago, and he is probably the kindest person I have ever known. His goodness moved beyond his polite and thoughtful demeanor and into action.

I always found it impressive that he taught Grade 8 for his entire career as a teacher - the students are at a very difficult age. But I can imagine that he would have been the perfect person to provide knowledge and guidance. Gord was a great balance of fun, intelligence, organization, and caring.

Always the athlete, Teri would tell me stories of her dad playing sports in high school, he continued to be active his entire life - playing hockey, baseball, curling, tennis, and more. He was involved with the local retired teachers organization. The activities and groups he was a part of often received the benefit of his participation at the executive level, helping to run and coordinate. Gord was generous with his time and active in the community. He was passionate about politics with a focus on education, healthcare, and equality.

Teri's house has always been a joy to visit - Bonnie and Gord have made their home in Paris and their cottage up north places of love and warmth, where I always felt welcome. Gord was a great father, it isn't just that Teri and Kevan grew up to be amazing people, which they did, but they were always awesome from the moment I met them. I witnessed from the age of 7 how involved and engaged Gord was with his family, his friends, his school, students, and hobbies. He touched so many lives and we are all much better for it. He will be dearly missed.

Beach Tic-Tac-Toe

When we rented a cottage at Ipperwash Beach when I was young, we would go for daily walks as a family (unless it rained.) To keep me occupied we played Tic-Tac-Toe. I would run ahead, find a stick, and draw the board - if I finished in time for Mom or Dad to pass by than one of them would play the game with me. It was a tricky balance to run far enough ahead to have time to find a stick and draw - they would walk passed if I hadn't finished by the time they caught up to me. Yesterday I taught this game to L at The Cottage...

Front: Jason holding hands with E

Middle: Mark walks with I

Background: Me playing Tic-Tac-Toe with L

Long Point Beach - February 2017 - Photo by Meg

TB - Toddler Jason

Throwback Thursday with a twist! I thought I would post a picture of Jason that I found recently. Normally young pictures of Jason remind me of his current little nephews but not this one, because his face is quite round.

So cute!

He guesses that he was 3 or 4 and doesn't recognize the house. I remember when that type of wall paper and tile style were everywhere, definitely 80s!

Grandma At Ipperwash

Sunday Mornin' Coming Down - A Sunday post about my Dad, named after a song that he loved.

I realized that I didn't talk about the black and white photographs included on the In Memoriam Page of the wedding program when I posted about it last week. Aunty Laura emailed me recently that she liked that we had included the two photos of my grandmother. It was important for me to have her on that page as well, since it was sad that she couldn't be there for our wedding.

The images are a young one showing my Grandma about to pick up my Dad as a baby and then the two of them again in the 1990s taking the Laser out. I know that the top image, with Grandma on the boat, was taken at Ipperwash, since she always vacationed with us there. We have seen that life jacket before! I believe that the other photo at the bottom of the page might have also been taken at Ipperwash, since it looks like they are at a beach and they used to go there when Dad and Aunty Laura were kids.

Motherhood - Not Friends

Great video!

Awesome excerpts:

"If my kids liked me 100% of the time, I am probably failing at parenting."

"If your 30, 40-something and your best friend is an 8 year-old, like that's just weird."

"You know what is terminal? Them turning into entitled bratty adults the rest of the world now has to deal with - that's terminal."

The video is by Kristina Kuzmic, she has written an article along the same subject on her blog. I was totally 'parented' as a kid, and am so very thankful for it. In fact my mom still refuses to be my friend. I am sad about the that but also understand it - we each have our own friends, our dynamic is mother and daughter.