Musings

Almost everything that catches my eye when I’m out “taking my exercise” is what you’d expect…sidewalks and streets, traffic, parked vehicles, road signs, mailboxes, plants and lawns, dog-walkers, joggers, kid’s toys, puddles, organic matter that the rain last night downed, wandering cats, stray chipmunks, assorted flags—all that you’d expect in a neighborhood-with-a-small-business-area. Special today: garbage containers.

This I didn’t anticipate: juse…written in white paint on an industrial electrical conduit box. Still trying to decode “juse.”

Posted at 6:57 PM | 1 Comment »

I checked my fave weather app at 7am (ish) and it said to expect rain (and lightning) by 11am. I checked later, and it indicated not until 1pm. It was 11:20 by the time I hit the street and…looking up, hmm, weather-y, but not so bad. Then, a few drops. I wisely had stayed close enough to the house that I looped myself in the back door and acquired a big umbrella, thanks to a hand-off from the Guru.

Twenty minutes later, I figured I was in the clear, but within two more minutes, the drizzle was kicking in. Mr. Personal-Putting-Green (see entry perhaps a month ago) had his flag out. In the rain. Got my blood pressure up. I took a photo and kept going.

Of course, by the time I was in the final stretch the weather had clinched the deal and I was super-glad I had the umbrella. Or my walk would have been gloobered up. (See Kayakwoman for this vocabulary.)

Posted at 7:41 PM | Comments Off on In which I became glooberificated

Growing up a few miles from Oldsmobile central, and several counties away from Ford central (and others), car talk, uncapitalized, was almost as frequent a topic as the weather. I remember hearing four-door and two-door much more commonly than their equivalents, sedan and coupe. The latter sound waaaay too “uptown” and worldly for my neighborhood.

This lot used to be full of shade-making vegetation. I miss it. If the doors are from the house or the pool-house, why are they on the sidewalk?

Posted at 9:06 PM | Comments Off on Four-door

Bench for the tired. Or tired bench.

Legal limit. Boundary issue.

A rose is a rose….

Posted at 6:32 PM | 3 Comments »

So much rain that spring petals washed downstream….

Around the corner: wisteria!

Later I found this delicate iris—shape contrasts to the usual bulkier ones….

Of course, that title phrase is not original…just saying I find flowers relaxing, which is meditative (literal meaning of the Japanese word).

Posted at 7:25 PM | Comments Off on Moment of zen

Bark. Crepe myrtle, I think (wait! I know this! Spacey brain right at the moment). Rotated 90° because I thought it would look better in this presentation; maybe it just looks strange.

Nandina berries, portrait mode.

Daffy trio, portraited. [Tentatively voting for making “portrait” a verb.]

Posted at 7:48 PM | Comments Off on Fun with photography

Bigger than a golf ball, smaller than a tennis ball, was this globe of flowers. I don’t recognize it and will watch it over the next few days to see if it turns into something I do recognize.

Nordic bird. Glass I think. Certainly soaring.

Nordic boat. Couldn’t help but think about roiling waters and nasty winds. Brrrrr and perhaps upset stomach, methinks.

Both are Nordic because we saw them in the Nordic museum. Enlightening. Very well done, I thought. The last “ethnic” museum I remember visiting was…something about the combined ancestry of the peoples of the Hill Country in Texas today. Wide-open ethnicities and origin places, not just Finland, Greenland, Iceland, and others with Modern Country names you’d expect. And smaller places like the Åland Islands, an archipelago I had to mention because of the “Å.*” Baltic Sea not Atlantic.

After the museum we stopped in a consignment gear shop with entertainment…climbing and skiing mostly, but also ice climbing. Nothing in the water or with skates that I noticed. After we left, BroMine noted they had two seasons, so I guess I was seeing the winter stuff; summer gear selections may well include snorkeling and scuba diving. Saw a foldable, extremely light food service set for campers and hikers that seemed interesting and more complicated than I expected…rather like origami.

* For the curious and less-informed, that topknot element on the Å is called an overring (note to autocorrect: do not change to overhang). In the past the sound(s) it represents were denoted with a double a (aa) or an acute accented a, á. End of lesson.

Posted at 10:58 PM | Comments Off on Åh, so

A new crop of yellow jasmine blooms….

A computational façade….

Posted at 7:01 PM | Comments Off on Without and with cedilla/cédille

Not sure what to lead with…I choose the seasonal, emotional, and possibly artistic image. Ghoul I thought, rather than ghost. Not sure why. “Ghoul” is from a late 1700s Arabic word for “to seize” that shifted meaning a bit to refer to a desert demon/monster that desecrates graves to eat corpses. That’s specificity; a ghoul is no city-critter.

Now, switch to the merely mildly mysterious. I cannot figure out for sure how this feather got so deeply embedded in the azalea foliage. Wind?

Posted at 6:26 PM | Comments Off on Minor mysteries

After a nice walk through the trees on a boardwalk high above the St. Laurence, we popped out by La Citadelle de Québec. We opted to look from the entry gate and not take the tour. You can’t wander around because this is still an active military base, plus it is the official residence of the Queen of Canada, who is also Queen of England, and I’m sure rarer than rarely visits, let alone stays in the Citadelle. Apparently electrification is important to the mini-moat around the exterior wall.

This is known as the Children’s Courtyard, within the Petit Séminaire de Québec, a Roman Catholic secondary school. Turns out where I was standing was the goal. The young man (second from left) stopped just in front of me and extended his foot toward me, tapped his toe immediately in front of my feet (no fudging!), and quickly and simultaneously deftly turned to continue the game. I really felt like a darned tourist, right in the way of real life.

On the slope as we worked our way down from the heights, we found this door. It’s not on a straight wall, and is not flush with either wall, the dark or light one. Rather strange. It is 51 Rue des Remparts, and is for sale. Across the street are two cannons. Who wouldn’t want to live here? Plus the plaquette notes that this was the home of Louis-Joseph de St-Verán, Marquis de Montcalm. You may know him from Québec history from the phrase Wolfe and Montcalm, referring to the leaders at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham here in 1759—both died from wounds they received in that battle.

Of course, demi-lune means half-moon, literally. Maybe that’s what it means here. However, on the open highway, it indicates a place where a driver can make a 180 and reverse direction. This meaning doesn’t quite make sense here?

Demi-lune is one of my words for this trip. Another is vitesse. It’s another driving term. It means speed. Vroom-vroom.

Kitchens get hot. Kitchens in ancient buildings are retrofitted in awkward ways. Thus, they are often cramped, with poor ventilation. Apparently, that’s the case here. Not only is this portal a vent, it’s a storage area for a rack of bins of food. No lie. Without plastic wrap or any other dust/fly protection over the bins. We did not eat here.

Coast Guard ship Amundsen. Monitors fisheries, and perhaps does research. Dramatic late-day light.

We ate in the lower town. Yum.

Nothing against the many fine foods and beverages I consumed today, but this was hand’s down the best: a maple syrup whiskey cream liqueur. A gift from our dinner waitress. The maple flavor was exquisite. I didn’t ask the brand, but a prominent one is Sortilège…with Canadian whiskey, of course. WikiPee says French Canadians call this miracle beverage eau de vie d’érable. Heaven in a glass.

Posted at 9:25 PM | Comments Off on A day in Québec City