Thursday, November 17, 2011

abernethy, wood, mackinnon

Brock Township, November 2011
Sunny hillside with a view
And not a Johnnie Walker among them


Abernethy
Wood
MacKinnon
MacLean
McInnis
McInnes
McGregor
MacDonald
Michael
Cameron
Clark
McCallum
Duncan
Campbell
McPhaden
McLean
McQueen
McDonald
Philp
McIntyre
McFadyen
Bailey
Sheldon
Brown
Wylie

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Babysitting a kid on Bermuda Avenue

Jobs I had
before I was eighteen,
starting with age twelve
.


Babysitting a Kid on Bermuda Avenue whose name I forget. Boy, maybe five or six, possibly annoying, not sure. Had a dog. TV in basement. Nice parents. Went out a lot. Paid well.

Selling Regal Cards and Novelty Items door to door. Best customers in the high rise apartments over by Food City.

Selling Sarah Coventry Jewellery through home parties. Only ever had one home party -- hosted by my mum. I let her friends look at my samples plus showed them a few nifty tricks with a scarf I learned from the training brochure. If I sold anything, I don't remember.

Selling Avon. This was so awful I've blanked it out. All I remember is thinking the plastic turquoise case was a kind of grown up version of Barbie, where you, yourself, have become the doll. I still have a mild reaction whenever I see a stray catalogue or, worse, a Tupperware full of assorted 'product line' at a garage sale. It ruined turquoise for me.

Strawberry picking one summer; had to get up before dawn, walk to the Towers intersection, wait for a flatbed truck that would deliver me and the other pickers to a farm forty minutes (by flatbed) away. Ate more than I picked. Got a tan and a rash and a very small cheque.

Slicing meat and cheese at Tothe's Delicatessan. Also slicing fingers. Visits to emerg aside, I quite liked this job. Make-your-own free lunch included, which meant shaved Black Forest ham and smoked cheese on a fresh kaiser slathered with sweet butter and grainy mustard, a large dill pickle... and custardy, creamy slice of Napoleon, washed down with Orange Crush.

Receptionist at a denture clinic. Mostly what I did was take messages, make appointments and when people arrived with their broken dentures, pulling them straight out of their mouths to leave for adjustment, I'd grab a kleenex and carry them into the back room. I also paid myself because the denturist, a madman from somewhere in Eastern Europe, named Dr. P., did not know the going rate. Yoost write out some kind chick! he'd yell, so I multiplied my hours each week by the minimum wage, wrote a cheque to myself and he signed it. Sometimes he'd yell for me to go to the liquor store and get him some brandy. Only taking teaspoon for medeecinal! One time he yelled my name from the back room in such a way I thought he'd yanked out his own teeth by accident. I ran in to see and he was there in his big black dentist chair, leaning back, holding a huge butcher knife in one hand and a peach in the other. You vant peach? he yelled. Is good! I did not have peach.



Monday, July 4, 2011

As I have been given

First sentences of culled books
enroute to Sally Ann
July, 2011


As I have been given a large and magnificent diary for Christmas--seven by ten and nearly two inches thick--I intend to fill it in as long as may ardour lasts.

It is difficult to know quite where to begin this story, but I have fixed my choice on a certain Wednesday at luncheon at the Vicarage.

I'd never felt so intimidated ringing a doorbell.

The espresso machine behind my shoulder hissed like an angry snake.

"Thanks be, I'm done with geometry, learning or teaching it," said Anne Shirley, a trifle vindictively, as she thumped a somewhat battered volume of Euclid into a big chest of books, banged the lid in triumph, and sat down upon it, looking at Diana Wright across the Green Gables garret, with grey eyes that were like a morning sky.

It was late May.

It was the opening day of the summer term at Meadowbank school.

The July storm moved down the valley, rumbling around either side of the hills and Pembina Lake.

Mrs. Ferrars died on the night of the 16th-17th September--a Thursday.

Miss Jane Marple was sitting by her window.

I was standing at the window of Poirot's rooms looking out idly on the street below.

"Anything of interest this morning, Miss Lemon?" he asked as he entered the room the following morning.

The memory of the public is short.

Both Frank and Nancy have been married before.

When Farmer Oak smiled, the corners of his mouth spread till they were within an unimportant distance of his ears, his eyes were reduced to chinks, and diverging wrinkles appeared round them, extending upon his countenance like the rays in a rudimentary sketch of the rising sun.

Every time he drove through Yorkville, Rosenbaum got angry, just on general principles.

Look at me now, Joshua thought.

I, Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus This-that-and-the-other (for I shall not trouble you yet with all my titles), who was once, and not so long ago either, known to my friends and relatives and associates a 'Claudius the Idiot', or 'That Caludius', or 'Claudius the Stammerer', A.D. 41 or 'Clau-Clau-Claudius', or at best as 'Poor Uncle Claudius', am now about to write this strange history of my life; starting from my earliest childhood and continuing year by year until I reach the fateful point of change where, some eight years ago, at the age of fifty-one, I suddenly found myself caught in what I may call the'golden predicament' from which I have never since become disentangled.

We called him Old Yeller.

About midway along the Atlantic seaboard of the North American continent lies a strip of land which is known today as the Sate of Old Catawba.

"That is New York."

The children were at the Theatre, acting to Three Cows as much as they could remember of Midsummer Night's Dream.

I was nothing but a pimply little question mark on the day my sister and I first walked into Ken Jones Music in Etobicoke.

Some twelve miles west of Istanbul, beyond the outskirts of the city in the flat farm country near the coast, is Yesilkoy International Airport.

The extent of territory occupied by the Ojibway nation, is the largest of any Indian possessions of which there is any definite knowledge.

We started dying before the snow, and like the snow, we continued to fall.

The ship that was carrying me away from England to Africa in the autumn of 1938 was called the SS Mantola.

After an hour the young policewoman brought Fielding a cup of coffee and left him alone in the room.

The Beast destroyed my brief peace.

I was never so amazed in my life as when the Sniffer drew his concealed weapon from its case and struck me to the ground, stone dead.

Monday, June 20, 2011

3 Km - Grass

Randomly Selected Kilometre Markers
Eastbound on Hwy 407
Sunday, June 19/11


3 Km - Grass
4 Km - Guelph Line
5 Km - Dundas Street
7 Km - Appleby Creek, new housing development
11 Km - Recently ploughed field
14 Km - fallow field
20 Km - Sixth Line
25 Km - Lower Baseline Road
39.5 Km - Financial Drive
49 Km - kids' soccer game
50 Km - Algonquin Power
53 Km - Airport Road
53.5 Km - Mimico Creek
57 Km - large pond/small lake
61.5 Km - Rainbow Creek
62 Km - train trestle over woodland
77 Km - Yonge Street
85 Km - Warden Avenue
90 Km - grass, trees, chain link fence
92 Km - Markham Road
92.5 Km - Rouge River
94 Km - Ninth Line
96 Km - Barn
98 Km - York/Durham Line
100.5 Km - "Aircraft Patrolled" sign
103 Km - field, trees
103.5 Km - Sideline Road
104 Km - thicket, pond
104.5 Km - woodland
105 Km - woodland, Urfe Creek
105.5 Km - barn, Brock Road

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Grey Whale: Surfing

From a book I'd intended to give to a young niece
but have since decided I love
far too much to part with.


Grey Whale: Surfing With Devilfish
Minke Whale: The Camera-Shy Little Rorqual
Sei Whale: The Sprinter
Fin Whale: Asymmetry in the Whale Worlds
Blue Whale: Old Sulphur-Bottom
Humpback Whale: Not-So-Gentle Giant
Bowhead Whale: Skirting the Arctic Ice
Northern Right Whale: Lonely Survivor
Sperm Whale: The Generic Whale
Cuvier's Beaked Whale: Elusive Warrior
Northern Bottlenose Whale: The Flathead
Beluga: Ghostly Screamer
Narwhal: Acoustic Jousting
Long-Finned Pilot Whale: Stranded High and Dry
Killer Whale: Ignoring the Rules
White-Beaked Dolphin: The Squidhound
Atlantic White-sided Dolphin: Water Ballet in the N. Atlantic
Pacific White-sided Dolphin: Playful Pest
Harbour Porpoise: The Puffing Pig
Dall's Porpoise: Hyperactive Speed Demon

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

tips and tricks

Words, Phrases and Prices
from The Bay's advertising flyer
titled, 'The Art of Beauty'


tips and tricks
the power of cosmetics
take beauty seriously
skin consultation
$22.50
$66
fragrance wardrobing
prescription: cleanse, hydrate, concealer, foundation, powder, bronzer, blush, illuminator, brows, eyelid, crease, liner, mascara, liner, lipstick, gloss
dancing queen status
apply
smudge
follow natural outline
fill in
curl lashes
$160
$93
$140
brush around the inner corner of the eye
shimmer on the cheekbone, nose, collarbone, shoulders
orgasm
$99
light-reflecting liquids
pearlescent
golden
multi-faceted in more ways than one
instantly refreshed
RADIANT
face, neck, shoulders, decollete
NATURAL healthy GLOW
a perfect tan is not a seasonal luxury
eight shades, newly designed packaging
hydrating
addict
voluminizing
dresses lips with a veil
shimmering
sheer
melts
brilliantly plumped look
active and animated faces
complete solution
aging, sunburn, acne
boost
minimmize age spots, dark spots, freckles
discoloration
regain clarity, youthful glow
dark spot corrector
improvement
visible reduction
concentrated serum
reverse melanin production
luminous
developing
$95
diminished
visibly brighter
refreshing
#30
lackluster
intensely plumper
natural radiance
antidote
top secrets
peel technology
stimulate
$70
$71
exfoliation
epidermis renewal
rested-looking
$89
potent power
rare botanical
strengthens
irregular pigmentations
$390
moisture
hydration
barrier
imperfections
rarified, seduce, serpentine
neuropeptides
$54
paralyzing effects
botox in a bottle
freezes
contractions
striking speed
$160
stranglehold
french clay
skin-brightening
wrinkle-dispatching
$83
$118
youth activating
lit from within
$95
rivals
anti-aging
wrinkle prescription
noticeably reduces
wrinkle depth
irritation
veritcal fret
stubborn furrows
frownies
$140
$88
youthful bounce
clinically firmer
lifted-looking
continued use
cosmeceutical
clinical grade
collagen-boosting peptides
super-charged
$44
$110
$28
ceramides
antioxidants
active molecule
stimulate
DNA repair
stretch marks
$162
primes
absorption
treatment
fights aging
brighten, hydrates, refines
brightening serum
spot corrector
day cream
injectables, peels, lasers
microdermabrasion, facials
$170
battle
sabilized
elimination
$58
synthetic growth hormone
lightweight
firming
super-power ingredient
$275
hyper-pigmentation
free-radical scavengers
defends
$330
de-puffs
increases circulation
$275
feminine fragrance
embodies richness
enveloped, sensual
$126
evocative
addictive
exclusive
$89
$140
#127
ethereal energy
#102
flamboyant, elegant, spontaneous
$88
voluptuous, sensual, sophisticated
$102
$150
$80
$70
wanting more
$32