Random Thoughts about life in general, living in the big city of Toronto
A little action in the neighborhood on Sunday:
A fire Engine in front of my house!
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No, I wasn’t trying to cook again. Really. Actually I think I’m the only one in the near neighborhood that doesn’t set off the fire alarm regularly when I cook. The neighbor behind us sets the smoke alarm off every single time he cooks dinner! I’m starting to get used to that high pitched whine.
I’ve been waiting almost patiently all summer to take a photo like this one. You see, I’ve noticed that I’ve had a lot of butterflies in my garden this year. Oh, I’ve always had butterflies and moths flying around, but this year there have been so many more. Monarch butterflies have been a rare site too, but again, this year I’ve seen at least one or two monarchs visiting my garden on a daily basis.
The trouble was that every time I went outside with my camera the darn Monarchs seemed to know that I was trying to focus my attention on them and they’d flit away in the breeze. As soon as I’d go back inside they’d come back for a visit. I’ve been starting to think that these creatures might be more intelligent than I thought they were.
Finally, on Thursday, one stuck around the garden long enough for me to zoom in and take a number of pictures. I had wanted to take some close up photos for several reasons. The number one reason being I knew it would make for a nice photo since Monarchs are such nice looking butterflies. The second major reason was that I wanted to make sure that it was indeed a Monarch. You see, there is another butterfly that looks very similar to the Monarch and that is the Viceroy butterfly. Viceroy’s have horizontal dark lines on their lower wings, and Monarchs don’t – that is the one major way to tell the difference. Now I know for sure that I have definitely had Monarchs visiting my milkweed (2 types), bee balm, phlox, and hibiscus (3 types).
Now if I can only get humming birds to visit my garden I’ll be a happy camper.
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This weeks theme is Food:
Guess what I had as my birthday dinner on Wednesday? Yep, easy guess, Chinese food. For some reason I’d had a craving for eggrolls for at least a week.
It figures, this is the only time our order got messed up. My husband Chris got all chatty on the phone with the lady taking our order and she tried to talk him into getting on of their special combo orders. Most of it sounded ok but it didn’t include one of the items that I really wanted to eat so we said no to the combo. We could have saved a few dollars if we’d gotten the combo she was pushing, but I wanted what I wanted. She repeated our proper order back to Chris and they concluded the call.
I hadn’t been feeling very well all day Wednesday and when we’d ordered the food, and when it arrived, I was feeling particularly bad, so we just left the bag done up so that it would stay warm. Approximately one hour after the food had arrived I felt better and we decided to eat. By this time the restaurant was closed since we’d ordered so late.
When we opened the bag, two of our items had been changed to items that had been on the combo. Instead of our order including a Chicken mixed veggie dish, and Singapore Noodles (the item that I really wanted) it had Chicken balls and bbq’d pork sliced. Yuck! How disappointing!
We’ve had a busy few days since my birthday what with our new Brazilian boarder having arrived early Thursday morning. So I haven’t had time to call the restaurant to tell them that they messed up our order, but I will call them sometime today. Usually when we’ve had problems with orders from other restaurants they’ve given us a credit on our next order. We’ll see what this place does.
Oh and thanks to everyone that left me a birthday message. That was really nice to hear “Happy Birthday” from so many people. My sister remembered, but my brothers forgot, as did most of my in-laws other than one of Chris’ aunts. Oh well. That’s ok, I don’t really care that much about birthdays, but it was nice to get so many greetings. I even heard from an old friend that I hadn’t spoken with for 3 years, and another old friend that’s only recently been back in touch with me in the last few months. Both of those greetings were nice surprises.
Thanks again, and I hope everyone has a great Saturday! I’m hoping to go to the Metro Toronto Zoo today if it doesn’t pour rain as it’s supposed to (and if I feel well enough to go, as I’m not feeling so hot right now).
Leave a Linky only if you are a Saturday Scavenger Hunt participant, thanks! Oh and don’t link and run – that’s rude!
Oh dear, I just found out how I’m going to die and I’m afraid it won’t be pretty. I wonder if you can change your fate or destiny once you know what it’s going to be?
You scored as Gunshot. Your death will be by gunshot, probably because you are some important person or whatever. Possibly a sniper, nice, quick, clean shot to the head. Just beautiful.
How Will You Die?? |
I thought for sure that it would tell me I’d die of illness or disease. I mean I do have Crohn’s so that makes me susceptible to severe complications. Plus I work in a hospital, in the ER where all the germs hang out.
Take the test if you dare and come back and tell me what your fate is.
(Wordless Wednesday below this post)
Canadian Troups have taken a lot of loses in Afghanistan in the last few months.
This past week has been particularly bad. I hate to hear about our brave soldiers losing their lives while fighting with the enemy or because they were ambushed by the Taliban, but at least they went there knowing that that could happen. However when I hear that our soldiers were killed or wounded due to friendly fire I get really angry.
PANJWAII, Afghanistan (CP) – The sun lifted into a clear sky with the usual haze of dust at 5:30 a.m. Monday while two U.S. A-10 Thunderbolts swept down the narrow Arghandab River valley, blasting away at supposed Taliban positions.
A young corporal from Newfoundland glanced toward the heavens, noting one aircraft’s sickening low-pitched moan as it shattered the ground with a 10-second burst of about 300 shells the size of pop cans.
It’s far from the rat-tat-tat usually associated with a machine-gun.
“It’s like the noise a whale makes when it runs into a ship,” said Cpl. J. R. Smith from Mount Pearl, N.L.
An hour later, the soldiers found out more than 30 Canadian soldiers, including Pte. Mark Graham who died, were the unintended targets at the bottom of that strafing run. A giant Chinook helicopter was needed to ferry out all the wounded.
How can something like this happen?
In earlier reports it was stated that the Canadian troups were aware that the US fighter planes would be passing over within a half hour. If the Canadians knew the Thunderbolts would be passing by, why on earth did the US pilots not know that the Canadians were right below them? How did they mistake the Canadian troups for Taliban Insurgents?
I don’t understand. I want some answers as to how something like this could happen. 30 injured, 1 dead (a father, an Olympic relay runner). Of the 30 injured only 5 are expected to return to duty.
I don’t mean to offend any Americans that might be reading this. I’m sure you (an American) would be upset if other UN troups accidentally killed or injured your soldiers, right? With all the high tech equiptment available these days you would think something like this would be impossible.
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In other news, I’m sure that just about everyone has heard that Steve Irwin passed away. He’s the Crocodile Hunter if you don’t know him by his real name. As a reptile owner and lover, some of his antics used to upset me. I thought he took too many risky chances with wild animals, and that he might have at times accidentally encouraged others to do so, and in doing so this would end up giving reptiles and even worse name in peoples minds. But he was an animal lover, an educator and he had a passion for life that most people never attain. He’ll be missed.
One of my favorite memories of him was from an episode where he was sitting in a sandy area with a small bearded dragon. He was busy telling the view audience that beardies are usually friendly and that they either don’t bite or rarely bite when the little guy jumped up and bit him on the nose. It was hilarious.
You’ll be missed Steve!
And to all the people who have been posting jokes and making fun of his death. Shame on you.