spud says hi

Movie magic

Apparently they're filming something at Casa Loma tonight--and something that takes place in winter.

There's white fabric all over the place--which is a funny contrast to the forsythia that's just burst out in the past couple of days.  Just as spring really comes, they fake winter!

(I see film trucks all the time around here, but this is the first time I've seen a landscape really changed for a filming.  On the other hand, a friend of mine just got paid $300 for letting a TV show film in her parking space.  Crazy!)

Finally, the ROM

At various points I've posted pictures of the outside of the Royal Ontario Museum, because its giant crystal extension is such a striking feature of the streetscape near me.  But I hadn't yet made it inside the place until late last week, when my mom and one of her friends came to visit me.  We had a generally good touristy time, riding streetcars all over the place, in part to get out of the snow and cold, but also to see different neighborhoods.  We ate well, too, from the good little pub/restaurant near me to Chinese on Dundas to Italian on College.  But seeing the inside of the ROM was especially fun, since it's something I've meant to do for so long.

It was interesting to see the way the shape of the crystal created odd visions of the outside world.  There was a lot of disappointment with the crystal because it's not very crystaline from the outside--people expected lots of glass, and it ended up having much more metal (?) cladding on it.  Apparently it still has too much glass, and so too much light, for some of the collections.  But from the inside the mixture of glass and solids actually makes kind of an interesting space.

I quite liked this camel (and his partner) from the China collection.

And for some reason I became enthralled by the shadows cast by the dinosaurs.  The odd, bony, graceful curves of shadows on ceilings and walls.

And floors. 

You might not be able to tell, but this was as long as my arm

It was hanging outside my back door when I forced it open (I have essentially no eave [that seems odd... can that word be used in the singular?] over the door, which means snow piles up right outside it) this morning to find my big shovel so I could dig out my car.  I failed to find the big shovel, in large part because it wasn't apparently within arm's reach of the door (this is as far as I got the door open).  And, yes, after I took the picture I knocked it down because I didn't want it crashing down upon me as I leaned out to grasp for the shovel.

I did nonetheless dig out my car.  Not that I want to use it today, in particular, but I agreed to go out for dim sum to a place I must drive to tomorrow morning, and I'd rather just hop in and take off.

Mmmmmm.  Dumplings.

Getting to know you

My parents came to town for a long weekend (which turned out to be an actual long weekend here, which I didn't actually know until shortly before they came; this was fine, though it did [we think] create some traffic issues), and we spent some time getting to know more of this place I'm living than I have as of yet.

We spent some time walking around near where I live, which involved discovering a few odd things I hadn't yet discovered.

For example, the ROM.  I've posted pictures of its front before, with the big modern bit sticking out from the old museum.  (Somewhat interestingly, the Google maps satellite image is very out of date when it comes to this--the crystal is still under construction here.)

This time we walked up towards it from the back--and my dad made a cool discovery:  it reflects a rooftop garden.

Kind of neat, no?  I think I knew that the ROM had such a thing, and it was semi confirmed by a sign we saw nearby advertising some rooftop garden company.

We also decided to get out of the city, and drove up to the Muskoka Lakes area.  We stayed in Bracebridge, near a set of falls.  After posting pictures of Niagara Falls, it seems silly to post pictures of these falls, but they were pretty, and had interesting rocks around them.  (And gross foam.)

We mostly just relaxed.  We walked around the town and by the river, we toodled along roads (in a rental car--the three of us plus luggage weren't going to fit comfortably in my Mini, and, anyway, no one should be forced into the back seat of a Mini for several hours), and we took a boat trip on Lake Muskoka.  It's a crazy lake, with lots of tiny islands, many of which have cottages (which is a very modest name for what these structures sometimes are).  And one of which had a crazy bendy tree.

I'm fairly sure that this tree was on this tiny spit of land at the end of an island, here.  Apparently, according to our cruise captain, that whole island belongs to one family.

It's pretty up there, in a very calm way.  I'm sure, though, that in winter, it's a completely different thing.

So, a nice time was had by all, I think.  And now it's back to normal life for a little while, before I head off to Chicago for an end of summer trip. 

General catching up

I just had quite a bit of fun being touristy in my still-new city.  Not only did my visitors and I go to Niagara Falls, but we also went to a few scenic places around Toronto.

From one of them, I took this picture of the skyline.  The CN Tower really does stick out in this kind of image, doesn't it?  It's hard to believe it's as tall as it is, I think in part because it's a little bit away from the rest of downtown, so there aren't other tall things nearby for comparison.

(We didn't go there, incidentally.)


Instead, we went to Casa Loma, the crazy castle-house built by a (briefly) super-rich Canadian in the early 20th century.  Can you tell that he had a little bit of a thing for Olde Tyme-y Royalty?  This isn't even the biggest tower of the place--that one (from which I took the above picture, by sticking my camera out a little slit window) is still a bit under scaffolding, so my pictures aren't great.

Incidentally?  There were crazy numbers of Russians at the place.  It was very, very busy, I think in part because of a city architectural festival that was on this past weekend.  I can't count the number of people I heard speaking Russian.  I found this interesting.

As you can tell, we had fantastic weather for all this--the gardens were particularly nice, and let us be all out in the sun.  And that made me want to tackle my "garden," aka my deck.

So, after my sister and b-i-l left on Monday morning, Mom and I tackled that.  We got some more herbs to replace the ones that got eaten, as well as some heartier, stronger smelling ones that might repel little beasties.  We planted a ton of marigolds in all the boxes and pots, in the hopes that their smell (which I personally love, but I know a lot of people don't like) would keep the demon squirrels away.  We stuck pinwheels bought for a buck (oh, wait, excuse me--a loonie) each in Chinatown in most of the pots, again in the hopes of scaring away squirrels.

And we made these.

What are they, you ask?  Homemade topsy-turvy tomato planters.

In a previous life, water bottles.

We cut off the bottoms, poked three holes around the new top edge, threaded twine through the holes, very carefully threaded a small cherry tomato plant (apparently larger tomatoes get too heavy for the unsupported stems) through the mouth, filled them with potting soil, and topped them off with a marigold (again in the hopes of saving them from rodent predators), and then tied the twine ends together and hung them from... hangers.

I'm so excited!

Here's what's really amazing about them.  See the one on the left, how the tomato plant sticks straight down?  That was yesterday when we were relaxing after our labors on the deck (and facing off with kind of scarily determined squirrels... yes, I'm currently a bit obsessed with them... I foresee a series of blog posts on my personal squirrel wars).

Today?  Look!

It's already turning up to grow the "right" way!

I'm sorry, but that's damned cool.  Oh, nature, and your fascinating ways.


I have also actually been knitting, though I am fairly sure that I knit NOT A SINGLE STITCH on Sunday.  Shocking, I know.

I started another sweater after finishing off the hex coat, reduced, but it's not very interesting yet.  It will be, because it's the gorgeous Tangled Yoke Cardigan.  I'm knitting it in Silky Wool, which is giving me a slightly too big gauge.  That's actually OK, though, because my ideal size is one half way in between two of the pattern sizes, and I think because of the cabled yoke there are limits to how much you can tweak the stitch count.  This way I'm knitting the size on the small size of where I want to end up, and will hopefully be able to block the thing into something appropriate.

And I'm now nearing the end of my reversible ribbed shawl.  There's actually a fair bit more of it than this, now.  The pattern calls for it to be yet longer than it currently is, but I'm getting--not tired of it, actually, because it's been a perfectly pleasant, and more interesting than expected, knit--but to the point where I think it should stop.  Especially because I think I've decided it needs crazy knotted fringe on it.

It is also very, very soft, very, very fuzzy, very, very warm, and very, very heavy.  It's kind of gorgeous, if I do say so myself.

Whoosh

Or, really, I should say "roar."

I've got visitors this weekend (mom, sister, brother-in-law), and yesterday we went to Niagara Falls.

Man, they're lovely.  It's insanely crowded and all that, but surprisingly un-touristy, all things considered.

And the falls are... well, darn cool.  We parked down by the Horseshoe falls, and then walked along the river up to where you catch the Maid of the Mist.  Which we of course did.  I mean, seriously, how could we not??

Thus, a few pictures, with relatively little commentary.

Horseshoe Falls.

American/Bridal Veil Falls

The wee little Maid of the Mist!

Blah

The likely prizewinner for greatest Russian poet is one Alexander Pushkin.  He lived in the early nineteenth century, and was quite the celebrity.

I think my favorite poem of his is "Autumn."  He apparently did indeed love autumn best of the seasons, finding it his most productive time.

Right now, I can't but think of one particular passage, in which he dismisses the other seasons as distinctly lesser.  Here's spring:

...I do not love the spring
The thaw bores me; muck, dirt--I'm sick of spring.

Today's one of those days.  Yesterday was lovely and sunny.  Today, not so much.  Rain.  Big clumps of snow mixed in with the rain.  Very little in the way of green emerging.  Just, blah.

Stuck!

I'm very lucky my car is so little, because this is as far as I could get into my parking spot last night after band practice.  I'm clearing the alley, but not by all that much.

I have actually tried to get the car to move, but nothing doing:  despite digging and throwing down some cat litter, the car is moving neither forward nor backward.

Ah, well.

So, here's another picture.  This was by far the coolest shop window I saw in Lisbon.  Actually, that I saw anywhere on my travels.  And possibly ever, except of course for the Marshall Field's Christmas windows when I was a kid.  Uncle Mistletoe, ho!

C'MON!

How is it fair to have gone from this:

to this?

Hmpf.  Whatever.

Two more quick notes before I run off to teach (Rise of Stalin, today, woohoo [not that I approve of Stalin, of course, but it's an interesting lecture, if I do say so myself]).

So, Ziti stayed with a very nice couple here, who gave him a nickname:  Mr. Needy Pants.  Why?  Because of his incessant desire for attention and LOVE.

See, they have a rabbit who has free range of one of the floors of their house, the floor with the bedrooms.  Hence, Ziti was not allowed where the people were at night.  And apparently, he did not approve of this, and meowed a lot, which freaked out the rabbit, who reacted by... thumping.  Silly rabbit.  Silly Ziti.

Anyway, he's happy to be home, I think, and has indeed been spending a lot of time very close to me, which is sweet.

However, it's also a bit troubling for the knitting.

Here's what I worked on while traveling:  the Queen Anne's Lace shawl by MMario.  It's a very nice pattern for a circular shawl.  I'm using quite fine yarn and small needles, so I'm actually not entirely sure it's going to be an appropriate size--but it'll be pretty, no matter what happens.  I'm through row 108, I think, of 159 rows.  Except since it's circular, and thus the rows get longer and longer, that doesn't mean I'm 2/3 of the way done.

I didn't knit much on transport, but I did knit a fair bit in hotels in the evening (I'm a good solo traveler, but I'm not much of a night wanderer when being a solo traveler).  I intended to read, but instead did some music listening, or some TV watching (something made easier by the fact that both Finland and Portugal are subtitle rather than dubbing countries when it comes to foreign shows on TV).

I'm kind of obsessed with finishing this now, in large part because I want to see if the yarn works out.  It's some Russian laceweight I bought last year, and in some ways I really like it.  But it's also been breaking a fair bit, which worries me when it comes to blocking.  This might literally fall apart at that point, but... we'll see!

We've got snow

That's my deck, earlier today.  I couldn't even get the back door open much further than this.

What's truly amazing is that a week ago we got nearly this much, but it virtually all melted early this week.  Not the big crusty piles, but at least all this kind of stuff.

But then.  Man.

And, yes, that is a lawn chair that's been knocked over.  That was the crazy windstorm of a couple weeks ago, which knocked signs and tree branches and stuff like that down.  And which knocked my chairs over.

Of course, the sad part is that most of the snow doesn't look like this.

Blerg.

This is the view right in front of my building  No, the sidewalk's not shoveled.  I am shocked--SHOCKED, I say--at the degree to which people don't shovel walks here.  I mean, aside from that whole the law says you're supposed to shovel thing, I think it's part of the essential social contract of communal life not to be an ass.  And not shoveling, particularly in a place like this, is assy.  (Yes, in principle I could do this, but it's an apartment and I lack a shovel.  And don't even get me started at the icy, bumpy horror that is the path from the front of my building to the back.)

Anyway.  Piles of crusty snow, in varying degrees of dirtiness.  Always a pleasant side effect.  Or not.

On the other hand, the snow (particularly that snow on the deck, which is right outside my bedroom window) does lend itself to interesting light effects.  And so, to show that, two shots of Ziti sitting on the giant sill in front of that window.