Tricia's Musings

Random Thoughts about life in general, living in the big city of Toronto



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Election Night in Canada

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Well it’s election night here in Canada.

Chris and I are watching some of the early returns to see which party is in the lead. It was a tight race between the Liberals and Conservatives at first, but as the count moves west it seems the Conservatives are taking the lead.

I found that deciding who to vote for was very hard this time round. I’m sure many Canadians feel the same way. I believe the last three governments have been formed with a minority, which of course means, to me at least, that the majority of the voting population isn’t happy with the choices we have for leaders and political parties (and their agendas).

I’m pretty sure that this election will turn out yet another minority government.

The leader of the NDP party, Jack Layton, is the MP for my area. In the last returns that I saw for my voting region it looked like the Liberal leader was in the lead, but leaders of Federal political parties rarely lose their seats so Layton will probably win for this area, but judging from results coming in nationwide, the NDP will be in third or fourth place overall.

Note that in the rare instances that I discuss politics on this blog I never mention which party I’ve voted for. I keep my feelings about my political affiliation private in part because I come from a very political family and as a result I know how volatile politics can be. I don’t want that for my blog.

I will say that I want a leader that stands by the political agenda that he (she) set in their political campaign. Not one who says one thing and then changes their mind a week after they’ve been elected. That’s happened far too often in the last decade or so!

Anyway … this isn’t a political blog. I just wanted my readers in other countries to know what’s going on here in Canada this evening.

I still find it funny that we Canadians can hold a whole election – campaign and all in just 37 days, while it takes our US counterparts close to two years to reach election day. I don’t know how you guys do it. A month of political advertisements on TV, flyers on my porch and campaigners calling and knocking on the door day after day is enough!





Paying for a night out on the town

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Wow, I’m starting to slow down in my posting quite a bit aren’t I? It hasn’t been the best week for me. My Crohn’s has been acting up – the worst of the symptoms … bleh …

I think I might be feeling so bad this week because Chris and I went out on Wednesday night. His sister was in Toronto for a quick Government related course and then she was going back home on Thursday after a test for the course and then well .. as I said in my last post she and her husband were moving to a new house on Friday (with Chris’ help).

Anyway … when Chris came home on Wednesday we drove off to meet his sister at her hotel in the lovely section of Toronto called North York. Uh huh … she was staying in a Novotel and she was waiting for us in the bar.

That wasn’t the best idea! She’d already had 5 Cosmopolitans while she waited for us! Once we got there she talked me into having a Cosmo and Chris tried out a new beer. Chris and I were both hungry and while we tried to talk his sister into going down the street to the Baton Rouge restaurant for a meal we were snacking on some kind of pretzel/ beer nut/ cracker mix.

In the end I had three Cosmos and my sister in laws tally came to 8 cosmos all while sitting on these weird modern furniture style bar stools at the bar.

By the time we got to the restaurant my sister in law was of course too drunk to eat. She ordered appetizers but only had a nibble. I wonder how she felt the next day? LOL I guess I’ll have to give her a call and find out.

I wasn’t feeling so good even by the time we got home. I don’t drink much anymore, so three pretty much pure alcohol drinks were enough to make me pretty tipsy, but unlike my sister in law I did at least eat half my dinner before getting the rest packed up into a doggy bag.

The drinks, the snacks that I ate and probably the dinner that I had all combined to make my Crohn’s act up worse than it has been for a while. Yes I should have known better, but you can’t be good all the time. Even people on a diet cheat every once in a while right?

Hopefully I’ll be feeling a little better in a few days. Maybe not though. My Crohn’s just seems to be getting worse and worse as each week goes by … maybe Wednesday night isn’t even what caused this latest flare … who knows.

BTW it’s Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada so Happy Thanksgiving to all my fellow Canadians!

The elephants – natural water filtration

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Earlier in the week I told you that Chris and I and our dog Midnight went for a walk in Taylor Creek park here in Toronto …

Remember those muddy dog pictures? (you’ve got to see the pics if you haven’t already, I’ve never seen a dog that well coated in mud!) Well. this city park has these big structures beside the highway (the Don Valley 404) that we’ve always called the elephants … well, because they do kind of look like elephants.

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See what I mean?

Anyway .. these “elephants” are actually natural water filters. I guess the rain water is supposed to filter down from the tallest structure to the shortest one and by the time it’s been through all three filters the water is totally clean.

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The filters are huge. I stood beside them taking pictures and I’d say they are 30 or more feet tall. They seem to be made out of concrete, but there’s probably some other type of material in them as I think the materials used to make concrete would leach into the water.

The area of the park closest to “the Elephants” was the most colorful.

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Most of our trees here in Toronto seem to be holding onto their green leaves, but the weathers been fairly cool all week so I’m sure that will change in an instant.

As you can see in the last picture the Sumacs have started to turn that lovely brilliant red. A clear sign of Autumn around here! The bull rushes (Cat Tails) beside them were starting to break up too, spreading their fluffy seed heads all over the place.

It’s supposed to rain this afternoon but if it doesn’t we might try to go to the park with Midnight again … if not maybe we’ll go on Monday. Maybe the forest will be a little more colorful this time round and I’ll come back with some pretty Fall pictures.

Have the leaves started to turn in your area yet?

A concert in the afternoon

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Chris and I did something different today. We went to a Progressive Rock concert at … of all places … the local Legion Hall.

The bands played from 2:30 pm until about 8:30 pm … I know, very strange hours for a concert, but hey .. it was at a Royal Canadian legion after all. Maybe that’s the only time it could be booked?

The bands weren’t professional, but they were pretty good. I’m not the biggest fan of progressive rock, it’s my husband that really loves that stuff. I’m more of a classic rock, indie and techno kind of person. It was a fun afternoon/ early evening though. I’m sure Chris will write about it on one of his music blogs, probably by tomorrow.

The place was close to our home so we were able to walk both ways. On the way back we zig zagged through a few side streets and we past a house with a beautiful garden at the front of the house. If I ever decide to completely redo our tiny front yard I’ll try to do something like what they did. Of course our front yard is really really small … like 10×10 ft. LOL So I guess we won’t have the antique looking wooden swing sets that they had to one side of their garden. Well … maybe if we move and get a bigger house on a bigger property?

So what did you do today? Yard work, visit relatives or did you go to a concert or some kind of event too?

It’s cold enough that the furnace came today!

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It’s been quite cool here in Toronto all week, but I’d say that today was the coolest. It was so cold that our furnace came on for the first time this Fall.

Our furnace is quite loud (and old) so when it first began rumbling at about 5 pm I wasn’t sure if it was a car engine outside or what was going on, then I realized it was just the furnace. Our puppy Midnight seemed to be less startled by the noise than me.

It’s a little cooler than normal for this time of year here in Toronto. I’m pretty sure that our house doesn’t usually get cool enough for the furnace to come on until at least mid-October or later most years, maybe even November during a particularly nice fall. Oh and I have the thermostat set pretty low, so the house was really cold by the time it finally came on! Brrrr

I hate the smell that comes out of the vents when the furnace starts up for the first time. Bleh .. I don’t know what it is … maybe dust that’s settled in the vents heating up? Or maybe it’s because we have an oil furnace. Whatever that smell is it seems to go away after the furnace has come on a few times.

Is it cool in your area too? Has your furnace started up yet?

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