Monthly Archives: April 2015

My.Daily.Distraction ~ Post 174: Carpe Carousel: Seize The Ride

25 Saturday Apr 2015

Posted by in disney, Entertainment, History, Movies, Music, Travel

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I’m sure that all of you remember the carousel from the movie ‘Mary Poppins’ starring Julie Andrews.

Some of you probably also know that Canadian rock band Rush’s song ‘Lakeside Park’ is based upon Lakeside Park in Port Dalhousie, a suburb in St. Catharines, Ontario.

What most of you probably don’t know is that the Port Dalhousie carousel which can be found in Lakeside Park was Walt Disney’s first choice for the carousel in his movie Mary Poppins.

Oh…

The serendipitous and random interconnectedness of it all!

However, St. Catharines was not in the position to sell it to him.

Further, this landmark carousel which had been constructed in 1905 was deeded to the city of St. Catharines on the condition that the carousel rides would forevermore continue to be made available to all for the historically original fare of five cents.

To this day, anyone can ride any one of the hand carved sixty-eight animals and four chariots on this carousel for the same cost as it did one hundred years ago.

So, the next time that you find yourself in Ontario Canada’s Niagara region, Be sure to visit this historical amusement ride.

With each ride costing only a nickel, imagine the fun you can have with a whole dollar!

My.Daily.Distraction ~ Post 173: Benny The Brat

21 Tuesday Apr 2015

Posted by in cookies, Dogs, Nova Scotia, Pets

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Who knows what goes through the mind of a dog…

…or why?

Case in point:

When I was a teenager I had a Pomeranian dog. I named him Benny, after Elton John’s song Benny and the Jets.

I bought him as a puppy. He was red with a black nose. People told me that he looked like a little fox. He was adorable.

Most thankfully, Benny was a good and happy dog.

When I got married and moved to Nova Scotia, Benny came to live with me and my new husband.

We live in a modest little bungalow on the edge of a forest just outside Canadian Forces Base, Camp Greenwood in Nova Scotia.

A small public-school bordered on our backyard.

There was a pathway alongside of my house on which the little children would walk to and from school every day.

Benny was pretty good about the children and let them pass by undisturbed.

However there was a young brother and sister which for whatever reason peaked Benny’s interest.

I knew the exact moment that they were walking by the house on their way to school because it was the only time that Benny ever barked.

I could never figure out why.

One day I was in the front yard when the little brother walked by me on his way to school. He was not accompanied by his sister.

I found it interesting that Benny did not begin barking as he approached.

The little boy stopped and began talking to me.

“What’s your dogs name?” he asked me.

“His name is Benny.”

“Where’s your sister?” I asked the little chap.

“At home sick.”

“I’m sorry,” I answered. “I hope she feels better soon.”

“I like your dog,” the youngster said to me.

“I’m glad,” I replied.

“Your dog doesn’t like my sister though.”

I was suddenly intrigued by the little guy. He was telling me stuff about my dog that I wasn’t aware of.

“How do you know that Benny doesn’t like your sister?” I asked.

“The other day, me and my sister wanted to give him a cookie, and he let me give him my cookie.”

“That was very nice of you, thank you!”

“But when my sister tried to give him hers he wouldn’t take it.”

“Really?”

“No,” continued the little boy…

“… He just peed on it.”

My world came to a complete standstill as I mentally weighed what the little boy had just told me.

All these years later, I’m still wondering what was my dog thinking when he peed on that poor little girl’s cookie offering.

Then I think of that little girl.

I hope my dog’s actions didn’t scar her.

Nevertheless, it was by far the brattiest thing that Benny ever did…

…And I can’t stop myself from smiling every time I think about it.

My.Daily.Distraction ~ Post 172: “You Owe Me A Nickel”

20 Monday Apr 2015

Posted by in Blogs, language, memories, Toronto, Writing

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My Father and I had a weekend ritual that I remember to this day.

It all started when I was six years old.

Every Saturday morning I had to go to German school from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

My parents insisted.

And yes, it sucked.

Dad would have to drive me clear across Toronto to the only public school that offered German lessons to children.

As we drove down Highway 401 and neared the Dufferin Street exit, the car would become very silent, and our eyes very sharp.

Both of us were looking for the same landmark, but who would be lucky enough to find it first?

Whoever would be the first to spot Yorkdale Shopping Centre would have the honour of holding their hand out to the other and say the following victorious words:

“You owe me a nickel.”

Sometimes I would win the nickel, and sometimes Dad would.

Yorkdale Shopping Centre was still very new at the time. In fact it was considered quite the jewel as it was one of Canada’s first enclosed malls with the most elegant stores.

Of course, a nickel is now worth a lot less than it was way back then. You could buy a whole loaf of bread for a nickel.

On the other hand, the memories of my Father and me playing this game has significantly increased in value.

In fact, I’d gladly give up all my nickels just for the chance to play this game one more time with him.

I’d even let him win.

My.Daily.Distraction ~ Post 171: Smelly Marker Mayhem

17 Friday Apr 2015

Posted by in Art, Children, Parenting, Toys

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The first time that I saw scented magic markers in the toy section, I instinctively knew that this was a very bad idea.

Call it a hunch.

Giving a child a marker, and then telling him that it smells nice is openly telling the child to stick the marker up their nose. This is an inevitable disaster waiting to happen.

Besides, why does ink have to be given a phoney smell in a world where wearing a fragrance is becoming taboo in public places and allergies to chemical fragrance is on the rise?

Needless to say, I didn’t buy the markers. Not then, not ever.

Try to imagine my horror one afternoon as I was picking my youngest daughter from nursery school. I took one look at her and saw some sort of monstrosity under her pretty little nose.

She looked like someone had tattooed her upper lip with an ugly moustache.

“What happened?” I asked the first teacher that I could find.

The teacher looked at my daughter and laughed.

“Oh,” she began… “We were colouring with some new scented markers, and your daughter had to smell every single one of them.”

I was not amused.

“Will it come off?” I asked her while trying my best not to sound worried.

“It should eventually…” She replied.

No doubt, some colours may be easier to fade than others. Amid the green, purple, and orange spots under her nose were big blotches of brown and black. Obviously, their fragrances must have either been delicious or hard to detect. Why else would there be dime shaped solid circles of dark ink.

For whatever reason, I do not remember what happened in the hours or even days that followed.

It’s safe to say that what wouldn’t wash off, I would have tried to get off with cold cream. Further, I highly doubt that we made any public appearances until the worst was over with.

Dear Parents, Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, etc.

I beseech you…

Do not give young children scented markers.

Their world is smelly enough.

My.Daily.Distraction ~ Post 170: “Can You Hear Me Major Tom?”

16 Thursday Apr 2015

Posted by in Music, NASA, Science, Space, Spaveflight, Travel

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It was a very hot and muggy August day in Houston Texas when we visited the Johnson Space Centre during a family holiday.

While we were there, my Grandmother and I decided to go on a tour to see the actual NASA mission control room. It seemed only right because I felt like I spent most of my childhood watching mission control during the televised Apollo missions. What I looked forward to the most now was seeing mission control with my own eyes and not through a television screen.

During the tour, we were taken into the press room, where reporters were allowed to sit behind glass and observe mission control as historic events unravelled in real time.

What surprised me most was that mission control is in reality, much smaller than it appears on television. Mission control itself was now very empty and as devoid of life as the lunar surface.

After the historic Apollo moon landing in 1969, mission control, as we know it, became a historical landmark building. This designation prevents any kinds of permanent alterations. It is to forevermore remain as it was the day that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon.

Everything in that room looks exactly the way it did in July 1969. Every coffee cup, ashtray, and original computer casings are all still there.

Believe it or not.

Not being able to change anything posed a very big problem for NASA because the big ancient looking computer boxes which you may remember seeing on television went obsolete forty years ago. They cannot be swapped out.

At least on the outside.

What NASA had to do was constantly install new circuitry inside the archaic green metal boxes to make the computers more practical for those who use them now.

When there is a space mission, only portable televisions and computer screens can be installed so that those scientists who are running the show can watch the missions.

While standing in the press room, I placed both my hands on the glass that separated me from mission control. I was so close to actually being there, and was yet still so far away.

As I continued to gaze at mission control through the press room window, I thought of songwriter David Bowie’s iconic character from his song SPACE ODDITY, Major Tom, and how he must have felt like as he floated in his little tin can…

…where planet Earth was blue and there was nothing he could do.

My.Daily.Distraction ~ Post 169: 1.800.SANDMAN

15 Wednesday Apr 2015

Posted by in Childhood, Fiction, Folklore, Health, Myths, Parenting, Stories

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When I was a little girl, I remember the grown ups always referring to the sandman. For example, when my parents wanted me to go to bed, they would tell me that the sandman is coming. They also told me the sandman would take some sand from his bucket and sprinkle it in my eyes to make me go to sleep.

Upon hearing this, a lot of alarm bells would go off inside my head. This sent me a lot of mixed signals, and some of them were pretty scary.

I had some serious questions about this sandman that the adults were always talking about.

Questions like:

Why would my parents allow a strange man into the house?

Will the sand hurt my eyes?

Could he be trusted?

Does he have a proper name?

Does he like to sing?

A grown man intentionally putting sand in a young child’s eyes did not seem socially acceptable to me, even in the 1960’s. If I ever sprinkled sand into my playmates eyes, I would be promptly punished. So, how does the sandman get away with it?

I remember lying awake in my bed while waiting for the sandman. I wanted to see if he was the friendly sort or not. Sometimes, I’d sit by my bedroom window and look up and down the street to see if he was coming. Unfortunately, I always fell asleep before he arrived.

To this day, I still haven’t met him.

I’m beginning to wonder if he really even exists.

So, if you ever see the sandman, could you please do me a favour and pass on the message that I’ve waited a long time to try out that sleeping sand of his.

Tell him to bring me lots of sand.

Tell him to make sure it’s the good stuff.

My.Daily.Distraction ~ Post 168: Lipstick

14 Tuesday Apr 2015

Posted by in Beauty, Colour, Makeup

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I cannot understate the way lipstick was an ongoing theme in the relationship between my Mother and myself, much like sports would be an ongoing theme between a Father and son.

At the very least, this subject gave Mother and me something to pleasantly bicker over.

In my young life, I never knew my Mother to wear any lipstick other than Revlon’s salmon ice. It was her signature.

Several decades ago, when Revlon announced that they would be discontinuing that colour she immediately bought three cases.

That’s forty-eight tubes of lipstick.

There could have been more, but that’s all she would admit too.

After that, her next shade of preference became 24 carat orange, also from Revlon.

Lipstick was her constant companion. A tube would never be more than an arms length from her side. She applied it every half hour, whether she needed it or not.

Further, Mother made it her self appointed life long quest to convert me from my usual red lipstick to her 24 carat orange.

“No dice…” I told her.

The harder she tried, the more adamant I became.

“Just try it on to see how it looks,” she kept insisting, as she held her lipstick out for me to take.

Occasionally, I’d have to give in when I thought I saw tears about to well up in her eyes, but that didn’t happen often…

Then came the day that I was walking to the punch clock at the end of my shift. Some of my friends and coworkers were already there waiting to punch out and go home.

“That’s a really nice top you’ve got on,” Miss P. Said to me as I walked by her.

“Did your Mother give you that?”

“Yes,” I told her.

Miss P. Instinctively knew whenever I was wearing one of Mother’s tops. Probably because that was the only time I didn’t come to work wearing t-shirts.

It was then that she said to me:

“I really like that colour on you…what would you call that, salmon?”

There was an unavoidable truth in that statement.

Looking down at my shirt, I realized that Miss P. was right.

I was indeed wearing salmon orange.

All at once, oxygen escaped me as momentarily I found myself unable to breathe.

I must admit…

I never saw that one coming.

Game-Set-Match.

Mother wins again.

My.Daily.Distraction ~ Post 167: Still Bitter After All These Years

13 Monday Apr 2015

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I never thought the grudge that I imposed upon myself so long ago would last this long, but here it is thirty five years later and I find that I’m still not over the events from the eve of December 31, 1979.

It was New Year’s Eve, and my husband and I were celebrating in our little apartment on Grantham Avenue in St. Catharines. He had recently gotten out of the armed forces, and was temporarily working in construction. It was only a few weeks earlier that I discovered that we were expecting our first baby. We were young, scared, and oh, so broke.

In the week leading up to the new year we were were listening to a Toronto radio station who was counting down the top 100 albums of the 1970’s. All week they had been advertising the phone number where people could call in to vote for their favourite album.

Frank and I had amassed a very serious record collection during our time in Nova Scotia from 1977 to 1979. At that time the average album sold for around seven dollars each. That’s a lot of money in the time when minimum wage was a mere $3.10 an hour.

There were many great albums in that decade that included Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon, Jethro Tull’s Aqualung, the Eagles’s Hotel California, Supertramp’s Crime Of The Century, both Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody and Sheer Heart Attack albums, Uriah Heaps Demon’s And Wizards, all the Led Zeppelin albums, and the list goes on…

In the last hour before midnight, we were at long last down to the last top two albums.

I had my money on the iconic Pink Floyd album, Dark Side Of The Moon.

Imagine my disappointment when it made number two for best album of the 1970’s.

It wasn’t hard to curb my disappointment though because, like I said, there were so many other extraordinary albums.

When at last the announcement came that the top album voted as the best album of the 1970’s was Supertramp’s Breakfast In America I was numb with shock.

Don’t get met wrong…

Supertramp was indeed one of my favourite bands. Had the number one spot gone to either of their first two albums Crime Of The Century, or Even In The Quietest Moments, I would have accepted it. However, I believed that Breakfast In America was more on the pop side of music or you can call it mainstream if you will.

I have never trusted a phone poll since.

For those of you who may wonder why, after all these years, I still find myself bitter that Pink Floyd did not get the number one spot for album of the decade, allow me to quote the Pink Floyd song that said it best:

“The lunatic is in my head…”

My.Daily.Distraction ~ Post 166: Expressway Wordplay

10 Friday Apr 2015

Posted by in Communication, Poetry, Travel

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It was way back in the early 1980’s while I was driving my car about town that I heard a radio advertisement sponsored by the Toronto Transit Commission also known as the TTC. The ad said that the TTC was holding a poetry competition.

Toronto Transit Commission holding a poetry contest? How strange, I thought.

They were asking people to write a poem on how to encourage people to use public transit. The winning poem would become an actual TTC advertisement and be featured on city street signs.

Poems on city street signs? Even stranger, I thought.

I pondered that this endeavour would prove to be a challenge. How does one put a poem on a street sign and make it a functional advertisement to promote public transit?

???

CANNOT BE DONE, I told myself before dismissing the subject matter from my mind and eventually forgetting about it altogether.

Until about a year later…

I was driving on a collector lane, and as I was passing by Yorkdale shopping centre near Dufferin Street in Toronto, I spotted a large overhead highway sign.

It read:

LOOK TO THE LEFT…

A moment later I passed underneath this sign.

That was strange, I told myself.

Looking ahead I notice that I am quickly approaching another similar sign.

Before I pass underneath, I read:

AND YOU WILL SEE…

Okay, I told myself, something is definitely going on here. I start looking ahead to see if I was approaching another sign.

I was.

This one read:

PEOPLE RIDING ON THE TTC

I looked to my left.

What I saw was that travelling a short distance away, there was a TTC Subway going in the same direction that I was.

Further, I could see people riding on the subway.

That was when I remembered the poetry contest.

Somehow, somewhere, a very clever poet did what I had deemed as impossible. They successfully came up with a simple poem, that promoted public transit in a very positive and affable manner.

Even decades later, I find myself still smitten with this poem’s charm and simplicity.

It was not written by Whitman or Frost, but I found it incredible nevertheless…

In fact, I’d like to try my hand at some poetry right now.

Let’s see:

Ahem…

Look on this page…

And you will see…

Some really silly…

Poetry.

Okay, so this poem isn’t Whitman or Frost, or even original.

But for this day, this hour, this minute…

…It’ll do.

Go ahead, call me crazy.

My.Daily.Distraction ~ Post 165: “Got Skates?”

09 Thursday Apr 2015

Posted by in Charity, skating, Sports, Television

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Earlier this week, while watching my favourite television morning news show, Hamilton’s CHCH Morning Live, I saw a segment featuring a local charitable foundation: SKATE TO GREAT who are collecting used ice skates for children. This organization is also putting out a call to the public for used hockey equipment.

These donated items will be going to families who might not otherwise be able to afford skates and hockey equipment for their children.

What a great idea!

Just the thought of children not having any access to skates so that they can take to the ice for some wintertime fun with their friends is unacceptable.

As I continued to watch, the discussion brought back childhood memories of my Father taking me to what he referred to as ‘The Skate Exchange’ where for a few dollars we could trade in my last year’s skates for better fitting ones. This was ideal because with each new skating season, I seemed to always outgrow my skates from the year before.

This ritual would be repeated once a year. Father and I would make an entire day out of it. At the time, there seemed to be only one of these outfits in Toronto, and of course it was right downtown.

It only makes sense when each year as your child outgrows their skates, to trade them in for another pair. If I remember correctly, I believe that a brand new pair of skates in the mid 1960’s were from fifteen to twenty dollars depending on the size. Of course the obligatory skate protectors were needed as well.

The best part of the day was when immediately after getting my new pair, Father would spare no expense at getting my new skates sharpened, which usually came to about two dollars.

Throughout my life, my Father gave me many lessons in the art of living frugally.

This particular lesson was the very first.

As for skating itself, he would take me to public outdoor and indoor rinks. After getting me laced up, he’d accompany me on a few laps around the rink. Then, he’d skate off on his own.

These were my first lessons on independence.

From time to time I would fall, but there were days when I was able to stay on my feet without toppling once.

I enjoyed skating up until my mid-teens. That was when I started roller skating every Saturday night with my friends. It was at the roller rink where I met the love of my life who is now my husband of almost 38 years.

After I started rollerskating, I found that I had a harder time balancing on the skinny blades. Eventually, I gave skating up altogether, that it at least until I had children of my own to take skating.

Thanks to Hamilton’s CHCH Morning News for bringing these pleasant memories out of their forgotten state, and for helping promote this worthy cause.

Please remember that if you have any unused skates, please consider donating them.

To donate, or for more information on SKATE TO GREAT visit their website at:

SkateToGreat.org

You can also find them on Twitter: @SkateToGreat

Here’s the link to the CHCH Morning Live segment:

http://www.chch.com/skate-to-great/

Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s time for today’s morning news….