Highlights of a wonderful Canada Day....
Jul. 1st, 2003 11:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fajrdrako* * *
The fireworks on Parliament Hill. From my friend Marcelle's apartment balcony, you can see it all. We stood out there and stared and oohed and aahed and gasped. It seemed to be an unusually wonderful collection of fireworks this year: it started out mostly read and white colours (so Canadian!) and then we got a lot of purples, then reds and greens, yellows and ambers.... I liked the purple ones best. No, I am not obsessed with Lex Luthor, why would you think that?
There was a type of pyrotechnics I've never seen before: fireworks that came out as a circle within a circle, each circle a different colour. Another set was different circles but instead of being one inside another, they were interlocked, like a chain made of colours, or atoms.
* * *
A Canada Day barbecue at Pat and Sandi's campsite out near Greely. We call it a campsite, but really it's a trailer with rooms built on in a permanent site, with a patio and gardens and trees all around - quite beautiful. There were no mosquitoes.
I sewed a quilt square and got my friend Harry to tell me about social history of the Jews in Ancient Egypt for the Smallville slash AU I am working on - I know Egyptian history quite well, but not the history of Jews in Egypt. It was very interesting, and I was glad to know that a great deal of my interpretations were correct, though there were a few details I hadn't known about.
We also talked about birds, and saw two blue-jays, a waxwing, several morning doves and a barn swallow at their bird feeder. Harry and I argued over the relative position of Minas Tirith and Osgiliath and he produced a map - I love having friends who walk around carrying maps of Middle-Earth at summer barbecues for no reason. He showed everyone the MTV special that's the easter egg on the DVD of "The Return of the King" on his laptop. This, at a picnic in the middle of nowhere. I love technology.
We had a wonderful barbecue with plenty of food. I brought a green salad and cole slaw; both were much enjoyed by all, but the green salad got particular comments. I was afraid no one would like it because the ingredients were a little odd: there was a small quantity of lettuce, carrots and broccoli, normal salad ingredients in my experience, but most of it was cilantro, parsley, fresh rosemary, kale, and neem. Harry asked about the neem, which was unfamiliar to him. It was really nice in the salad.
It was a beautiful day, except for the downpour while we were eating. Pat and Sandi have a portable gazebo-like roof which they promptly put over us. So civilized! We went indoors for dessert.
* * *
I went for a walk with Hildegarde and asked her about a lovely aromatic tree that I pass on the way to work, that flowered last week. She said she thought it might be mock orange. I'd never heard of mock orange. I later described it to Beulah and asked her what she thought it was; she also guessed mock orange. On the way home, I noticed an identical flowering bush a few blocks south of my apartment, and Beulah confirmed it was mock orange. I'd never noticed it in that particular garden.
Then I read the dodecal on![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
svdodecals by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
acampbell in which she mentioned mock orange. Oh, I love synchronicity. Mock orange is now firmly implanted in my brain - along with its lovely aroma.
* * *
The little bird peeps so sweetly. He's the first thing I hear in the morning (before the older birds have wakened up enough to create a racket) and sometimes, when the apartment is quiet, I can hear him peeping softly as if talking to himself. When I go to bed at night, his peeping is the lats thing I hear.
* * *
I did a tarot reading for Beulah. I wonder why I enjoy doing readings so much. Sometimes they just flow, like reading sequential narrative, like a comic book. This one was like that. Perfectly coherent from the first glance.
* * *
I really am extremely fond of my friends. All of them.
* * *
The fireworks on Parliament Hill. From my friend Marcelle's apartment balcony, you can see it all. We stood out there and stared and oohed and aahed and gasped. It seemed to be an unusually wonderful collection of fireworks this year: it started out mostly read and white colours (so Canadian!) and then we got a lot of purples, then reds and greens, yellows and ambers.... I liked the purple ones best. No, I am not obsessed with Lex Luthor, why would you think that?
There was a type of pyrotechnics I've never seen before: fireworks that came out as a circle within a circle, each circle a different colour. Another set was different circles but instead of being one inside another, they were interlocked, like a chain made of colours, or atoms.
* * *
A Canada Day barbecue at Pat and Sandi's campsite out near Greely. We call it a campsite, but really it's a trailer with rooms built on in a permanent site, with a patio and gardens and trees all around - quite beautiful. There were no mosquitoes.
I sewed a quilt square and got my friend Harry to tell me about social history of the Jews in Ancient Egypt for the Smallville slash AU I am working on - I know Egyptian history quite well, but not the history of Jews in Egypt. It was very interesting, and I was glad to know that a great deal of my interpretations were correct, though there were a few details I hadn't known about.
We also talked about birds, and saw two blue-jays, a waxwing, several morning doves and a barn swallow at their bird feeder. Harry and I argued over the relative position of Minas Tirith and Osgiliath and he produced a map - I love having friends who walk around carrying maps of Middle-Earth at summer barbecues for no reason. He showed everyone the MTV special that's the easter egg on the DVD of "The Return of the King" on his laptop. This, at a picnic in the middle of nowhere. I love technology.
We had a wonderful barbecue with plenty of food. I brought a green salad and cole slaw; both were much enjoyed by all, but the green salad got particular comments. I was afraid no one would like it because the ingredients were a little odd: there was a small quantity of lettuce, carrots and broccoli, normal salad ingredients in my experience, but most of it was cilantro, parsley, fresh rosemary, kale, and neem. Harry asked about the neem, which was unfamiliar to him. It was really nice in the salad.
It was a beautiful day, except for the downpour while we were eating. Pat and Sandi have a portable gazebo-like roof which they promptly put over us. So civilized! We went indoors for dessert.
* * *
I went for a walk with Hildegarde and asked her about a lovely aromatic tree that I pass on the way to work, that flowered last week. She said she thought it might be mock orange. I'd never heard of mock orange. I later described it to Beulah and asked her what she thought it was; she also guessed mock orange. On the way home, I noticed an identical flowering bush a few blocks south of my apartment, and Beulah confirmed it was mock orange. I'd never noticed it in that particular garden.
Then I read the dodecal on
svdodecals by acampbell in which she mentioned mock orange. Oh, I love synchronicity. Mock orange is now firmly implanted in my brain - along with its lovely aroma.* * *
The little bird peeps so sweetly. He's the first thing I hear in the morning (before the older birds have wakened up enough to create a racket) and sometimes, when the apartment is quiet, I can hear him peeping softly as if talking to himself. When I go to bed at night, his peeping is the lats thing I hear.
* * *
I did a tarot reading for Beulah. I wonder why I enjoy doing readings so much. Sometimes they just flow, like reading sequential narrative, like a comic book. This one was like that. Perfectly coherent from the first glance.
* * *
I really am extremely fond of my friends. All of them.
* * *
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2003-07-01 08:52 pm (UTC)No fruit, but lovely flowers -- ours have just finished blooming. They were really late this year.
I can remember watching the fireworks from the roof of our building on Metcalfe at Frank when we lived downtown. I can also remember watching them from the windows of my work -- 17th floor on a building on Albert -- you could see the peace tower from the windows so you can imagine the good view of the fireworks! All the noise, none of the crowd.
Sounds like you had a good Canada day :)
no subject
Date: 2003-07-01 09:07 pm (UTC)Yes, I had a great Canada Day. I hope you did too.
no subject
Date: 2003-07-02 05:45 am (UTC)And yeah, we had a nice Canada Day here, too :)
no subject
Date: 2003-07-02 10:07 am (UTC)A small garden is more garden than I have - I just have flowerpots hanging in my living room window.
no subject
Date: 2003-07-02 04:04 pm (UTC)We've even got our own strawberries!
no subject
Date: 2003-07-02 07:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-07-02 07:48 pm (UTC)Yeah, we picked them up last year through a mail-order add I saw. We got one, sometimes two a day. This year they are just going nuts and we get anywehre from one to two dozen wee little tasty berries every two days. And some of them aren't that wee!
no subject
Date: 2003-07-03 06:33 am (UTC)(Shameless, yeah, but it's *strawberries*.)
no subject
Date: 2003-07-04 05:42 am (UTC)But if there's a get together next weekend to see Pirates of the Slash, I will definitely bring some fresh strawberries along.
no subject
Date: 2003-07-04 11:32 am (UTC)And strawberries too - yum!
no subject
Date: 2003-07-06 06:50 am (UTC)/me should poke the list and see if folks can come.
no subject
Date: 2003-07-06 02:20 pm (UTC)Yes, please poke the list!
no subject
Date: 2003-07-02 12:17 am (UTC)As we are of you! Glad you had such a nice holiday. Reading this, I was there vicariously.
As for mock orange: There are some trees around here that end up with round fruit the size of small softballs, in late summer. Or maybe baseballs. Something like that. I will look closely at them when I drive to work tomorrow, and see if they are blossoming right now... alas, it's along a four-lane highway, so I can't really stop and sniff (g). But I'm tempted to.
Interesting tidbit: there are mock orange trees in Lexington, Virginia, in the old cemetery where Stonewall Jackson and his family are buried. That's the first place I ran across them. I've often wondered if those trees along the highway are also mock orange, and now I have extra reason to look into it.
Mock orange
Date: 2003-07-02 10:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-07-02 08:09 pm (UTC)I told my parrot-owning co-worker (her name is Soledad - the parrot, that is, not my co-worker!) about the baby and she was suitably impressed. Love your description of him talking to himself...too cute!
My favorite summer smell? We have lots of night-blooming jasmine around.
no subject
Date: 2003-07-03 06:44 am (UTC)Jasmine - how lovely! I find that my new healthy sinuses - cleared up because of my careful diet, and no dairy products - has made me more able to appreciate and notice the smell of flowers.