We have a new addition to the menagerie here at 27th Street. His name is George (he came to us with that name, and it works for us), he’s a brown Newf and he’s 4 and a half months old. We weren’t sure if we were going to be able to pick him up this morning because there is a freezing rain warning today but the roads actually were not bad at all. More pictures later. He’s wandering about getting used to the house.
Here are the Go-Devils performing Old Joe Clark
About time I posted some Christmas-related music around this joint. Here’s Sonny Boy Williamson. He just wanted to know what his baby got him for Santa Claus, when the landlady got mad and called the law….
It was going to be a full flight. Almost all the seats at the gate were taken. The West Jet representative made an announcement – we were going to be flying in one of their newer aircraft, one that hasn’t been retrofitted with tv screens yet. No worries though, West Jet had a limited number of tablets for rent, tablets loaded with the latest apps and games. Oh boy.
A second rep emerged from the ramp, and started signaling the first. The message was a big no about something. “Ladies and gentlemen, we actually don’t have any tablets for rent on this flight, but I can offer a limited number of you copies of the daily paper….and we still have a couple minutes if you’d like to go buy a magazine or something.” Right.
I missed the announcement about the free drinks…
The rep scanned my boarding pass and looked at my passport. I couldn’t resist a comment: “Excuse me, but between the bad news announcements, I missed the one about complimentary alcoholic beverages”. She handed me a copy of the Herald and said, “have a nice flight.” I deftly ducked the look that meant, “shut up and get on the plane, I’m having a bad day.”
So there I was sitting beside the cool guy on the plane. The flight attendant droned through the usual announcements, finishing off with the one that says turn off your devices. Now I know most people don’t buy the notion that having a smartphone on in a plane is any kind of safety issue (after all, everybody reads the internet), but still most people do what they’re asked to on a flight. Not cool guy.
Cool guy was messing with his i-phone. His thumbs were going a mile a minute, and when one of the flight attendants came by, he would discretely make his device disappear, then when the coast was clear, his thumbs were at it again. I don’t think he was doing anything important or even all that interesting. He was simply being the rebel, playing with his i-phone until the flight attendant gave the word that computers could be used. Then the phone disappeared to be replaced by an iPad for the rest of the flight.
The flight attendants come around offering free pretzels or cookies, or for several dineros, a sandwich. I’m thinking even an airplane sandwich sounds good at this point, when cool guy produces a toasted Tim Horton’s sandwich from the airport that is clearly still warm. Everybody can smell how wonderful it is. He chows down. “Sir, can I get you anything?” “A sandwich please.” “Turkey and brie, or perhaps spicy Italian?” I glace over as cool guy swallows the last bite of his dinner. “I’ll try the turkey and brie please.”
I wake up as the plane is about to land. Down safe. As we approach the gate, the attendant makes an announcement. We can turn our phones on now. I pull out my ancient BlackBerry and turn it on to the get the time. A message appears: “Simcard rejected.” I fumble to take the battery out for a few seconds to do a hard boot. I imagine cool guy is glancing over with disdain. The phone recognizes the simcard this time, but it would take a few hours before recognizing the time change.
We exit the plane. I’m dog tired and drag my butt toward the luggage area. Yes, the little case I thought was carry-on was just a tiny bit too big to fit into the handy measuring device. Cool guy is a man on a mission, walking top speed, weaving through the crowd, and out of sight.
I’m very happy to be back home.
My best memories of Christmas have everything to do with the food. Mom would make pierogi and cabbage rolls and patychky, or meat sticks, as we liked to call them. She’s long gone now, but I try to keep up some of the food traditions by making at least one of them on the high holidays.
Yes, I’m making meat sticks. We’re going to my sister’s place Christmas Eve and on Christmas day, Tuffy P’s family are joining us for dinner here in Long Branch (I’ll be doing the cooking). 
Sunday I’m going to venture out in between ice storms to buy my meat, which I’ll marinate overnight and then Monday I’ll make them. Just about every Christmas I’ve republished my recipe, and when I looked at my stats today I saw that post has had 10 hits, a good reminder that it is time to re-share. So this is how I make them (it’s not quite the same way mom did….I’m going to come out and say I think mine are actually better), although I admit my sister’s meat sticks are also most awesome. I’ve taught Sister-in-law Viv to make them along the way, and hers are just as good as mine.
People have been talking about the eventual gentrification of Long Branch for ages. Sure, housing prices have been going up and there are some new condos appearing, but the long Lakeshore strip still has some rough spots.
I guess the deal is done now though. A Five-bucks has opened up on the ground floor of the new condo building across from the Beer Store. This is significant. I think back to the old Queen West and how fast that area changed once the Sanctuary, a Goth bar, became a Starbucks.
We’ve already been seeing developers buying up properties in South Long Branch, and dividing the lots up for the sake of a greasy buck. Neither the Committee of Adjustment nor the Ontario Municipal Board seem to care a lick about it. Our community fought in vain to stop a severance on our street, appealing the Committee of Adjustment Decision to the OMB. I sought help from our local Councillor but did not receive even an acknowledgement of my emails on this issue. I included the Mayor (yep, him) in one of my emails, and received an auto-reply, but nothing beyond that.
I’m not against development in Long Branch. I think more density along Lakeshore is good for the community and for local businesses, but I not so happy about the residential neighbourhoods south of Lakeshore being sliced and diced. In the end, I don’t see that our current system with the Committee of Adjustment at one level and the OMB at another is going to be very successful at managing growth in our area.
I do know that when the next municipal election comes along that I will be asking candidates about the kind of future South Long Branch they want to see and I want to hear their ideas about achieving it. I’ll be casting my vote accordingly.
Your Daily Dose of Bluegrass-Hiphop, whatever that is, Featuring Gangstagrass
I tried the Shelf experiment with this blog for a host of reasons, not the least of which was a kind of desire to break away from the way I’ve done things in the past. I had hoped that it would work very well on tablets and phones as well, and wanted to consider other devices in my choice of theme. It turned out it didn’t work so well on the iPad. For some reason on some longer posts it didn’t want to scroll.
I initially liked the way the format chunked out each post, but I confess I tired of it much quicker than I ever anticipated. And so I’m back to messing about with another theme I haven’t used before. This one is the 2014 WordPress default theme. It’s a magazine format, but for now I’m not using the featured posts but instead treating it more as a traditional blog. I like the design and I like the featured images capability and the nice large images.
I haven’t really settled on details like colour and font so you can expect I’ll try out some different ones for size in the coming days. Fortunately I have a patient and understanding little core of readers.
Now to again consider if I need a blogroll. There were almost no complaints when the previous theme eliminated it completely, and when I went back to look at my old one, I realize that it, like almost everybody’s blogroll I look at, is hopelessly out of date and full of links to blogs that are no longer active. I’m open for suggestions on this. I’ve considered creating a page with fewer links but perhaps including a little something about each of the blogs I do feature. If I do that the rule will have to be that only active blogs stay.
As usual I welcome comments on the new format. And to those who hated the previous ones but were too polite to say so, thanks.
27th Street 