Lest we forget...

A picture of my grandmother as a young woman and her brother. This photo was taken when her brother was ready to ship off to Europe to fight during World War Two, just as his father did for Canada in World War One. This was taken in Toronto, just 20 minutes south of Vaughan some almost 70 odd years ago. My family didn't have a lot of money, not that a lot of Canadians did back then, so many families have pictures like this one because in times like this it was worth taking photos of loved ones. And its a good thing they did, because my grandmother's brother like so many Canadians young and old never returned from the war. This photo is so bittersweet. Young happy faces should be facing the rest of their lives. It seems tragic and almost an old fashioned way of life, yet so many young people are living this life to-day. Make change happen for 2009.

This poem's for you:

In Flanders Fields

by John McCrae, May 1915

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep,
though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Sorry, i don't swing that way...

I've been here so long; think that its time to move
The winter's so cold summer's over too soon
so let's pack our bags and settle down where palm trees grow
I've got some friends, some that I hardly know
But we've had some times I wouldn't trade for the world
We chase these days down with talks of the places that we will go

We live on front porches and swing life away
We get by just fine here on minimum wage
If love is a labor I'll slave 'til the end
I won't cross these streets until you hold my hand,until you hold my hand
Ill show you mine if you show me yours first swing life away
swing life away
swing life away
swing life away
swing life away

You've got mail...

This is a block of mail boxes in my neighbourhood. I remember as a kid that the mail man used to come door-to-door to deliver your mail. They just might still do in some neighbourhoods. Vaughan is quite a young area, so there were LOTS of new home builds. So these mail box kiosks are in almost every neighborhood in Vaughan.
Do i prefer these boxes? Not so sure, its not that big of a hassle to go and check the mail, benefits are that you can mail out your letters from the slot in the top, and those two large boxes in the left hand corner is where they can put large packages I'd otherwise have to drive to the Post Office and pick up and sign for. So all of that is quite convenient. And I'm sure my dog would prefer this to a mailman!

Brief Canada Post history for those who are interested:

1693 - First paid mail delivery within Canada
1775 - British government begins offering mail service in Canada
1851 - British provincial governments in Canada take control of mail delivery
1867 - Following confederation, Canada Post is created as a federal department
1878 - Canada Post joins Universal Postal Union
1957 - Dr. Maurice Levy invents the automatic postal sorter, which could handle 200,000 letters per hour.
1971 - Initial implementation of the postal code
1981 - Canada Post Corporation Act is passed by Parliament
1981 - Canada Post is turned into a Crown Corporation
1993 - Canada Post purchases a majority stake in Purolator Courier
2006 - Introduction of the Permanent Stamp, a stamp that is always worth the basic domestic mailing rate. Canada Post announces plans to review whether or not to continue rural individual mail delivery services to 843,000 Canadian customers.

Litter Bug-gy

I'm glad i found this. Because this photo pretty much sums up everything that i think is wrong with the world today. Ech.

Who DOES this? Maybe, if you were less financially-able to own a vehicle and have about 8 kids you need to buy food for that can't carry it WITH you, MAYBE you need to "borrow" a shopping cart, take it home with your food. Then, instead of walking the cart BACK, you decide "nah, i'm just going to dump it here (probably) in front of my house on this little plot of land that my city tries to keep clean and beautiful. That's a WAY better idea. Its totally classy. And the supermarket won't miss it at ALL, its not like they COST anything. And let's face, it looks GREAT as a lawn sculpture."

Okay, I'm going on a bit much now, but really??? Really?? No excuse. I know you can't see from here, but there is often garbage in this part of lawn, that mostly looks like its been dumped out of a car. I could NEVER imagine throwing a pile of trash out of my car (while probably on my way home, where i could trash it in the can) onto the gardens in my neighborhood!!! Don't people have pride of ownership? And i live in a closed community, so if you're driving in, its cause you LIVE there. So, they're making their own neighborhood a dump. Ugh, stuff like this makes me want to move. Shopping carts NOT in stores or in parking lots REALLY erk me. They're like pet peeve #13.
I should add this to that Jeff Foxworthy book "you know you're a redneck if.....#1293 You keep shopping carts on your front lawn." Makes me so mad I tell ya! Not only does it look terrible, and is bad for the environment, but its bringing my property value down!!! That's not good in the market alone! Wouldn't this piss you off if you saw it in your neighborhood?

There's a daily photo and a daily rant for ya ;)

Wouldn't you like to get away?

"...Sometimes you want to go
Where everybody knows your name,
and they're always glad you came. " (okay, enough!)

While I will say that I do believe that Vaughan has some of the BEST restaurants that I've come across in Canada. Yes...in Canada. At least YET. I know this is debatable, but I believe it true. We have everything here: Italian, Chinese (real Chinese, no Mandarin buffet, although there is one of those), Korean BBQ, Japanese, Indian (the BEST ever), Sri Lankan, Thai, Portuguese (best Churrasqueira, and I've been all over Portugal), Burger Joints (American food), Mexican, Caribbean, Vietnamese, you name it! Sorry if I've left any out. And all these in a two block radius from my house. Yet I still cook quite a bit! Funny eh?

But one thing that Vaughan does NOT have much of, that I can say the rest of Canada indeed does, is pubs. Not much of an audience for it I guess. There are really only three 'pubs' if you will in Vaughan. Dublinn Gate (http://www.dublinngate.ca/) which is a nice little place, plenty on tap, but the food and atmosphere, no matter how much they try is reminiscent of "big box" restaurant style chains. Its just not authentic. The ceilings are far too high. We also have the Moose & Firkin (http://www.firkinpubs.com/) which is one of a large chain of "Firkin" pubs. This pub is not bad. The atmosphere is fairly authentic at least for a Canadian Pub and the beers are good. The food is palatable and satiating, but it leaves something to be desired.

Now that brings me to my photo, the third pub in Vaughan, On. At first glance this is actually a photo of The Chartreuse of Kleinburg, which is a fine dining restaurant. Which is just lovely, if you're into that kind of thing. But below (in the basement) is the Longchamp Pub (http://www.chartreuserestaurant.com/longchamps.html). Which is the best, most authentic pub in Vaughan, ON in my humble opinion. The only thing it's missing is a tacky thick bright-patterned dingy dirty carpet. Otherwise: it's dark (as to hide your chagrin for life while drinking it away), its dingy (but clean), its small, has low ceilings, limited sunlight, wood-panel-stucco walls, its got a fireplace, crappy tables and chairs, an old piano that no one plays, small dingy restrooms complete with communal bar-soap, not accessible whatsoever, unassuming, has good food, questionable customer service, low ceilings, subway-tiled-floor, has malt vinegar, smells like fish-fry, great variety on-tap, full of miserable old fuckers, and last but not least, its affordable. Its perfect.

The Honeymoon is Over

Or is it?
This is the centrepiece I took home from a wedding about a week and a half ago. All the flowers are pretty much dead except for one trooper there. The bride/groom honeymoon is officially over, and the flowers wilted. So much effort for one day. I know, i know why do I have dead flowers on my coffee table still? I just love having fresh flowers in the house (especially here in Canada with our whole two months of summer) that I hold onto them until the bitter bitter end. I hope the "honeymoon isn't over" for my friends though. Hopefully this lasting flower is symbolic. Okay, now i'm getting sentimental. I promise i'll take some better photos today!

When the hunter becomes the hunted...

I was 'oot'n'aboot taking photographs, and i noticed a lot of wedding parties having their picture taken. I thought it might be different to take a picture of the photographers. Kind of like looking in a mirror. One of those fun-house mirrors in this case mind you.

Photographers like that always remind me of a paparazzi. Which are almost vulture-like, following their prey picking and prodding them, "snapping" them. It reminded me of a story i'd read a long time ago. Therefore the caption (When the hunter becomes the hunted...) is a quote/unquote from a short story called "The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell. Essentially its a story about a wild game hunter who couldn't get enough thrills hunting wild game animals, so he decided to up his ante and hunt human men on his safari/ranch. The hunter called men "the most dangerous game", because one thing that men had over the wild game he'd hunted was the ability to reason, which made them all the more challenging prey. Needless to say in the end...the hunter got hunted. And in this case, the photographer got photog-ed.