Midnight in her new favorite place - The Beach!

I don’t think I’ve ever seen her any happier than when she’s in the water with a stick to fetch and other dogs to play with, she just loves it.

Well ok … when she’s eating or offered a treat she’s just as happy. It’s a very close tie, too close to call.

Just after she’d finally done her thing and we were about to go back inside the house I heard a loud bang and I knew right away that someone had gotten into a car accident just down the street.

I looked down the street towards where I’d heard the sound and about three blocks down - just far enough that I couldn’t fully make out the details with my bad eyes - I could see a shiny silver flash and then I saw that a car had flipped over in the middle of the street. I guess the car was still flipping over as I looked!

Traffic kept going by me and at first I couldn’t tell that they were turning at the intersection just before where the accident had taken place, so for a few minutes I thought I’d been mistaken. Of course by then there was so much traffic going by, considering that rush hour had begun, that I couldn’t tell if there really was a car flipped over anymore or not. All I could see what the line up of vehicles.

So I stood there with Midnight peering down the street. Then I started hearing police, ambulance and fire sirens and figured that yes indeed I was right … a car had flipped over.

So I went inside to put on better shoes (I’d been wearing slippers!) and got the keys so I could lock up the house. I would have brought my camera with me but I decided to take the dog and since I didn’t put her harness on she’d be a handful (even with her harness she’s a handful). Then I went back outside and started to walk down the street with Midnight towards the accident. Actually considering I was with Midnight is was more like I was dragged down the street …

When I got to the scene of the accident some residents that lived nearby were standing around watching. I still don’t know exactly how the accident happened, but a black car must have been turning onto the main street from a side street and he either went too fast to make his turn before an oncoming car or he was hit by an oncoming car. His car then hit a silver car that was parked on the street and flipped right over into the middle of the street.

So there were three vehicles involved - two with drivers/passengers and luckily one that was empty at the time of the accident.

It didn’t look like anyone was seriously hurt, although the EMS were there and I’m assuming they would take the drivers to the hospital that’s only two blocks further down the street from where the accident took place. I wouldn’t be surprised if they ended with whiplash.

I was hoping that I’d see some EMS workers or Firemen that I knew. I know quite a few of them being an ER nurse. Unfortunately I didn’t recognize any of the guys to talk to, still I’m pretty sure that no one was seriously hurt. It’s certainly lucky for them if they weren’t hurt.

Frankly when I got down there I was expecting to see someone still stuck in a car, but both drivers were out.

My curiosity sated I let Midnight drag me back down the street towards home. Walking her, especially with a lot of people around, is certainly a work out. i had to keep her on a short leash most of the time so she wouldn’t jump on everyone we passed. So she was hot, panting and thirsty by the time we got back in the house and I was hot and sweaty. You wouldn’t think that short walk would do me in like that, but you haven’t met Midnight!

Gee there’s so many things happening around here lately … I wonder what will happen tomorrow?

I always seem to feel terrible with my Crohn’s but the past two or three weeks have been really bad and it just seems to be getting worse. The minute I wake up I’m in pain and sometimes the pain in my abdomen even wakes me from a deep sleep. All day every day I’m in pain. It dies down a little now and then, but then it seems to come back with a vengeance.

The fevers have been really bad lately too. It seems that when the pain is at it’s worst I usually don’t have a fever, but then once the pain dies down a bit the fever perks up and of course the fevers leave me feeling washed out and shaky - shivering or too warm depending whether the fever is starting or beginning to go away. I think I’m starting to get an idea of what menopause must be like for some women. BTW the fevers and chills I’ve been experiencing are definitely not menopause. I’m too young for it and it’s been ruled out by a few doctors … it’s just a multitude of low grade fevers each day caused by the Crohn’s - yet another lovely symptom. I probably have an abscess somewhere in my abdomen although they haven’t been able to find it yet (they have searched! believe me they’ve searched!).

I seem to finally be in a mood to write, so I’m just going with it. Actually we’ve had a lot of weird weather here this past week and we’re expecting severe thunder storms so I’m trying to get as much writing done as I can before the storm starts just in case the power goes out yet again.

On Sunday we started having power failures. It began at 3 in the morning for an hour and then we had three more power failures throughout Sunday morning. Then on Monday we had a two hour outage in the morning. Nothing to do with storms.

I still don’t know why we had so many power failures. I know there was a fire in the area Saturday night and on Sunday morning a huge transformer under an apartment building (a fair distance away from where I live) exploded leaving 900 apartment dwellers homeless … but I don’t think either of those things would affect the power in my immediate area.

Yesterday a big truck knocked down the power line that goes over the street just a few houses away from us, surprisingly not causing a power failure in our home. However it did cause the street to be blocked up by police and hydro trucks for a while. One of our neighbors was moving out of her house at the same time so there was a big uHaul and an American Van Lines truck taking up our whole side of the street. This was at the same time that the Power people and the police were blocking off part of the traffic on the street so it was a mad house around here!

Well I guess for a sickie I’ve had a lot of things going on in my immediate neighborhood to keep me occupied. Life is never boring around here and I’m thankful for that!

So how has your week been going? Are you glad the week is half over or are you just cruising through without a care?

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My Tiffany Hybrid Tea rose is growing tall and doing better than it ever has in the past. I’ve been growing this rose for about five years and it never bloomed much at all. It would only give me one or two blooms at a time and only two or three times a year.

This year it’s a blooming machine! It’s taller than it’s been in the past and it’s literally covered in blooms, and such pretty blooms they are!

It’s such a pretty rose. I’m happy to finally see it doing well. I hope this continues!

I just wish it had a little more scent. To me - it’s almost scentless.

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information. GTS participants remember to check in at As the Garden Grows each week so that we’ll know you made a new post!

Earlier today Chris and I took Midnight to Petsmart to get some dog food and to get some new toys. Midnight’s a big chewer so she’s going through her toys fairly fast. I wish we didn’t have to keep getting her so many toys, but it’s better for her to chew on something like a toy than my stairs or the living room table leg like she has done in the past!

It was another hot day here in Toronto so we decided to take our Lab to Cherry beach so that she could cool off in the lake. I guess we were there for a few hours. Midnight had a great time playing with one of her new toys in the water (an orange training dummy) and did her best to keep the other dogs from stealing her toy. Most of the other dogs that were at the beach today weren’t big swimmers so Midnight was able to keep her toy to herself by swimming further away from shore than the other dogs dared to go.

She had a great time but I still think she had a better time two weeks ago when we first took her to the lake for a swim.

We’re all tired after our day out. Midnight is crashed out on our lazy boy chair. Chris is lying on the love seat and I’m stretched out on the couch. Midnight loves lying on the furniture - especially where ever we were just sitting. I really have to check out some furniture stores or pet stores to see if they have any dog style couches as I’m sure she’d love to have her own piece of furniture. She’d still steal our favorite spots too I’m sure!

It’s supposed to be warm here again tomorrow but it’s also supposed to rain a lot so I guess it’s good that we got outside to do some fun things today.

What did you do today? Did you spend any time outside? Do anything fun?

Now I’m not all that interested in watching a golf tournament, but I do believe that I will be going. You see at the end of each days rounds, well the last three or four days of the tournament anyway, there’s going to be a free concert. Our passes are for Saturday July 26th (at Glen Abbey) and that evening Tom Cochrane and Red Rider will be putting on a concert.

I love Tom Cochrane’s music. I guess one of his most famous songs is Lunatic Fringe or perhaps Life is a Highway. I like all of his music and I’ve never managed to see him play live so this will be a real treat!

I just hope that I’m feeling well enough to go that day. My tum has been causing lots of problems in the last two weeks. Darn Crohn’s. I’ve had terrible fevers and lots of abdominal pain, plus I’ve been losing weight. It’s like I’ve been taking Phentermine or something the way my weight is dropping. That’s the bad thing about Crohn’s, well one of the bad things - you can really lose a lot of weight very fast when you are in a flare. It’s bad.

The last time my Crohn’s flared really bad and caused a lot of weight loss I lost about 40 pounds that I did NOT need to lose in less than a month. I hope that’s not going to happen this time too.

Anyway, I’m glad my brother got us the passes and I’ll be resting up over the next week in the hopes that I can go to the golf tournament and concert.

We took Midnight to Cherry Beach here in Toronto last weekend and I managed to take some pictures of her playing and swimming in the water.

It was her first time swimming, but being a true water dog she was right in there swimming around within minutes. She even swam out about two hundred feet from shore!

There were lots of other dog owners at the beach with their dogs as it’s one of the cities best leash free areas. So it truly was a dog day at the beach!

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Last weekend Chris and I and our puppy Midnight decided to go to The Brick Works. They were having a walking tour that discussed the Brick Works and the lost rivers of Toronto.

I think Chris got more out of the discussion and history than I did, but I was certainly enjoying the walk and the scenery. Midnight had a ball too - of course she kept wanting to jump in the ponds ( a no no for dogs at the Brick Works as it’s an ecological preserve with rare native fauna and flora) since she was so hot. She also wanted to jump into the water to catch the gold fish (not native, dumped fish) and a Mallard duck that was swimming by.

As you can see she really wanted to jump in. We had to hold her back!

Along with old buildings, native plants and native wildlife there are some beautiful ponds in the old brick quarry that was used to dig up clay to make a good portion of the bricks that make up a good portion of Toronto’s older homes (like ours!).

During our walk I spotted a turtle sunning itself by some native water lilies.

You can see more pictures from The Brick Works and some of the native plants growing there on my Gardening Blog if you’d like. Oh yeah, did I mention that the Brickworks is almost in the center of the city and that it’s only about a ten minute drive (or bike ride) from our home? Great place to go on a nice day.

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information. GTS participants remember to check in at As the Garden Grows each week so that we’ll know you made a new post!

My brother works for a company that is sponsoring the event so he might be able to get some free passes. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t including me in the pass offer and that’s fine because I’m not really a big fan of Golf anyway. Chris isn’t the biggest fan either but he thought it might be kind of cool to go. Heck, it’s potential material for a blog post on his blog at least.

I hadn’t talked to my brother for a while so while I had him on the phone I asked him about his new (and only) grand daughter. My niece had a baby girl back in February. The baby is doing really well, starting to roll over from her back to her stomach and already has a few favorite toys that she can’t live without.

Actually my brother sent a photo of her earlier in the week. She’s adorable. The baby looks quite a bit like my niece did as a baby. My niece BTW is the oldest of my nephews and nieces - she was born when I was just 11 years old! So she’s never really felt like a niece to me and I guess it seems kind of weird to me that she already has a child.

Anyway, I guess we’ll know sometime early next week if Chris will be getting a pass for the PGA Tour. I still think it was really nice of my brother to offer to give one to Chris whether he’s able to get the pass or not.

If Chris does get the pass he’s doing good this week. He already got free tickets to the Amos Lee concert that we went to on Wednesday night at the Danforth Music Hall. Great show BTW, I highly recommend that you try to see Amos Lee play if you can, especially if you like music that’s a mix of Blues/ Folk / Jazz - heavier on the blues than anything.

My nephew has a photographic display at the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition this weekend. I really should go to that to see his work and to check out the other artists. I just love pottery and sculptures and if the artwork is anything like last years I’ll be buying some items this time around.

The only problem is that tomorrow is going to be HOT. Really hot. So … do we go to the art show tomorrow or Sunday when it’s going to be a bit cooler?

We have gardening that still needs to be done as well. We started mulching the backyard garden last week, but about 1/3 of the back garden beds aren’t finished yet because we ran out of mulch! We bought more but haven’t had time to add it yet. Certainly if it’s going to feel like 40 Celsius (104 F) tomorrow I don’t think I want to be working in the hot sunny garden. Of course I could just stay inside where it will be nice and cool, work on the computer or be lazy and curl up and read A New Earth, Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose. Yeah it’s a self help type book. It was a gift from Chris’ aunt. I should read it at some point.

The other thing that Chris and I would both like to do, but don’t have to do, is to perhaps go back to Cherry Beach this weekend with our dog Midnight. We took her there last Sunday and she had a ball playing in the water. We’d taken her to the lake before, but she’d never done more than splashed in the water. This time Chris was throwing toys into the deeper water for her to fetch and we got to see her swim for the first time. She took to it well and other dog owners said she was a great swimmer. They couldn’t believe it was her first time.

We all had fun at the beach so I think that’s a must do.

Of course this is summer in Toronto and there’s always all kinds of festivals, events and things to do on the weekends. I guess I should check what’s going on so that we don’t miss out on something good.

At this point I’m thinking we should go to the beach tomorrow - the hot day. It’s cooler by the water and if we get hot we can always get in the water. Certainly with all the wet dogs running by we will get a bit wet. Then on Sunday we could go to the Art Exhibit and then finish our gardening when we come back. If there’s any other good things going on in Toronto we’ll I guess we can try to go to one of them on Saturday evening.

Looks like we’re going to have another busy weekend. What are your plans for the weekend?