Celebrating Fall at the Cottage

I am at the cottage while you are reading this, enjoying one of the last weekends of the 2009 season. Very soon now, we will need to close up the cottage for the winter, rake up all the leaves, turn off the water, leave bags of cloves and cinnamon out to hopefully keep the mice away and lock the door for the last time.

Weather-wise, it hasn't been much of a summer and this weekend isn't going to be any warmer if the forecast is accurate - possibly sunny today but cool, single digits most likely (as long as it doesn't snow, that's all I ask!!). As a result, my sister and I will probably be spending much of our time in front of the fire, working on our beading, watching some DVD's and just enjoying cottage life in general.

Here's a picture of a necklace and a bracelet I made last year about this time, they remind me of all the best fall has to offer in Ontario.

A Plethora of Birthdays

It's Marcia DeCoster's birthday today (happy birthday, Marcia!), and four women I work with are all celebrating birthdays this week - it was Lesia's birthday on Monday, Kelly's on Wednesday, Tracy's yesterday and it will be Melissa's birthday on Monday - phew! That's a whole lot of Libras, don't you think? Good thing they are so much fun and so easy to get along with!

Marcia posted this photo of her orange pink ringlets on her website (http://maddesignsbeads.blogspot.com/) earlier this week, aren't they festive? They look like birthdays feel, if you ask me. They make me think of happy celebrations.

Anna brought in cupcakes to the office yesterday in honour of Melissa's birthday, and shared them with us. They were made by the Cupcake Shoppe on Yonge Street (http://www.thecupcakeshoppe.ca/). Their prices are rather expensive, considering they're just cupcakes, after all, but they are a nice treat when you are celebrating something special.

Happy Birthday, everyone!

Cat City

I don't normally get too serious on this blog but I sat down tonight to watch a bit of what I thought would be mindless TV and instead, came across a documentary on the Global station called "Currents" that was called "Cat City." This program highlighted the efforts of various groups and individuals who spend time looking after stray and feral cats in the Greater Toronto Area. You can watch the trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9x1sOzaYU0#

As a cat lover and one who has been lucky enough to share her life with four very special felines so far - Butterscotch, Murphy, Carly and Max, all of whom were rescued cats - it was hard to watch this show at times and very moving at other times. To see the care and effort these people dedicate to these otherwise abandoned animals was truly inspiring.

One organization is called Toronto Cat Rescue. They help to feed feral cat colonies around the city and are involved in catch, spay/neuter and release programs. The idea is that if you can stop the cats from reproducing (they can start having litters as young as 5 months old), eventually you will diminish and possibly eliminate the stray cat population and we won't need animal shelters any more. I think that might be a bit optimistic, given there will probably always be humans who abuse and/or abandon animals, but it's still an admirable goal to work toward. http://www.torontocatrescue.ca/store/index.asp

Another shelter, the Second Chance Sanctuary, was looking after 300 cats when the woman who founded and ran the operation passed away at 80 years old. She was interviewed before her death and expressed her concern about what would happen to the animals once she was gone. It was sad to watch these segments and learn that she had in fact died during the film of the show (which covered a span of about a year) but even sadder when one of the workers at her sanctuary described how someone had seen a car pull in to their driveway, open the door and dump out two cats, close the door and drive away. One of those cats was just skin and bones,indicating a long period of neglect and starvation, and needed to be euthanized a few days later. How lucky for that cat that they spent their last days being well provided for and cuddled by these caring people. http://www.second-chance.ws/

Another man personally feeds what appears to be at least 20 cats down in the Scarboro Bluffs area. He goes every morning and feeds them, and has arranged for all of them to be spayed or neutered - all except one, whom he hasn't been able to catch yet! It was funny to see him with a large fishing net trying to scoop up this one cat, who kept getting away. It was touching to see how all the cats come running towards him when he arrives every morning, they obviously know him as a friend and provider.

This show just happened to be about cats. The same could be said for dogs, whales, birds, elephants, abused children, homeless men and women, you name it. Whether or not you feel compelled to help, as I did tonight, I wanted to share this with you. It's Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada and if you've got a warm place to sleep tonight out of the rain and food to eat and clean water to drink, you've got a lot more to be thankful for than some of these animals I watched tonight do. There are also other human beings living as rough as or worse than these feral cats, who probably won't be sitting down to a big turkey dinner with all the trimmings any time soon. All the more reason to give some thought and support to those less fortunate, if you are able, is all I'm saying.

Old School

One of the high schools at which I am taking a night school course was built in 1927 and as far as I'm concerned, the washrooms haven't been renovated since then.




The stalls have wooden doors that remind me of those you see on a saloon in an old Western. They are only as high as my chin, so I feel quite tall standing inside. The general mood is somewhat depressing, and it's difficult to realize our children are forced to endure this environment every day. Sure, it's functional but it's not pretty. Not that a washrooom has to be a work of art, but it shouldn't make the kids feel like they're in a very low budget prison either.

However, the room is redeemed by the presence of this funky looking machine, which turns out to be the hand dryer. It's pretty powerful, actually. I like the knob, it's so retro.

Last Night and Tonight

Did you happen to catch that Twins/Tigers baseball game last night? Probably not, if you live in Ontario, since it seems the game wasn't carried on any of the regular sports channels (do you seriously expect me to believe boxing or some sports chat show is more important than two teams who have to play an extra game to decide which one goes on to play in the division playoff series??) and/or blacked out in certain areas. In fact, I read in the paper that of the two channels that did carry the game, one of them blacked out at 9 p.m. (the game started at 5 p.m.), just at the bottom of the 10th inning as the game was tied up at 5 runs a piece. Man, I would have screamed long and hard if I had been watching that channel!! Then probably thrown my TV off the balcony a la "Network". But luckily, that didn't happen to me.

I watched the first 6 innings of the game, then had to head out to my Bead Crazy night school class - score was 3 to 1 for Detroit. I listened to the seventh inning in the car, which was pretty exciting as the Twins brought in 2 runs to tie up the game. Just as I arrived at the school, at the top of the 8th, Detroit brought in a 4th run to pull ahead - it was definitely turning into a nail biter! I was tempted to sit in my car and keep listening but, as usual, the call of the beads won.

Imagine my surprise when I got back in the car TWO HOURS LATER and the game was STILL ON!! They were in the 12th inning and I tuned in just in time to hear the announcer excitedly announce that the runner was heading for home plate to win the game for the Minnesota Twins. Man, it doesn't get any more exciting than that if you're a baseball fan and for those 54,088 people in the Metrodome, it's a game they will always remember.

(photo credit: Brian Peterson/AP/Minneapolis Star Tribune)

Tonight, I'm off to the October meeting of the Toronto Bead Society. It should be a very interesting meeting, as Maria Rypan, Marilyn Gardiner and Carla Canonico (editor in chief of "A Needle Pulling Thread") are presenting a panel on "Selling Your Designs for Publication." You can check out the details here: http://http//www.torontobeadsociety.org/web/index.php.

Creative Art Journals - Class 1

Last Thursday night was my first class in Creative Art Journals. The first thing our teacher, Toni Caldarone, had us make was a name tag. I modelled mine on Jennifer Heynen's blog signature, which she made with her new Copics markers (see her blog posting from September 1th here: http://jenniferjangles.blogspot.com/2009/09/pumpkins-and-markers.html).

We spent a fair amount of time talking about what is planned for the next few classes and discussing art supplies (many of which can be picked up inexpensively at Dollarama, who knew?) and then we worked on our next exercise. The teacher asked us to flip through magazines and find (1) one colour, (2) one pattern and (3) one letter. She also gave us a patterned square about 3 inches square. I picked the letter "C" because it's the first letter of my first name but when my patterned square turned out to be a nautical design, I went looking for the colour and decided I would make something reminiscent of the "sea". The red and white pattern I chose was actually a picture of the top of a pastry! Here's the finished result, with a little bit of wording added, including this quote: "As they say, we can't predict the wind, but we can set the sails."

Another Milagro Cupboard

The cupboard that I didn't buy was a double size with a darker wood. The problem for me was that it was too heavy, I didn't think I'd be able to move it myself. The vendor explained it had been sitting out in the back of his pickup truck the night before, in the rain, so it was waterlogged. He thought it would be much lighter when it dried out but I couldn't take that chance. Plus I figured it was too wide to fit in the back of my car!

But I did take a few pictures of it, so thought I'd share. The "milagros" on the front of this cabinet had more of an aged copper look to them, that slightly greenish tinge that copper gets after it has been weathered for a while.

The inside of these cupboards is just as fascinating as the outside. Like the others, this one also has slanted shelves inside as well as all sorts of drawings of the various tags on the inside of the doors, on a thick paper with a beautiful golden-coloured aged patina.

I'm still thinking about this cupboard, wondering where it might fit into my apartment. I have the vendor's card and he's going to be at an antique show at a shopping centre near where I live in just about ten days time, so if it's still on my mind, I might give him a call and ask him if the cupboard has dried out yet! ;)