Some folks are forever losing their keys, some constantly misplace gloves, while others have a proclivity to forget where they put almost anything. I am one who can say that I do not share in any of these silly shortcomings. If only I could find those cups of coffee I picked up on the way home!!
According to Merriam-Webster, the definition of strut is:
Summer took its time arriving in Montreal this year but has evidently decided to make up for that by staying late. Again this week, the last of the official summer season, temperatures are expected to rise to the 28º Celsius point (82º Fahrenheit) with the humidity making it feel more like 35º (95ºF).
The light is particularly glorious early in the morning as these photos show. Also, after an absence of sometime the city is now inundated with thousands of Monarch butterflies.
What a difference 12 blocks make. Yesterday afternoon Montreal was hit by a line of thunderstorms. This is not an uncommon event; after several days of high heat and humidity something has to give. But around three o’clock something called a microburst hit a park not all that far from my place.
The damage to trees and power lines made the park look like a war zone. Thankfully to the best of my knowledge no one was injured but there will be many insurance claims for property loss.
The microburst hit the park with almost laser like precision. In fact the park beside my place, a mere dozen blocks to the east, was virtually unscathed. This morning I the aftermath of the storm a huge cleanup is underway in one park while in the other a shovel was used to whack down a broken branch, perhaps standing on a small tractor parked on a bank to reach the branch wasn’t exactly according to safety regulations, but he got the job done.
Willy-Nilly is defined as “random, without direction or planning”. I recently came upon a street sign that needed a bit of willy and perhaps a dash of nilly. Pictured above is the culprit. The upper sign clearly indicates that you cannot go straight; yet the lower sign informs motorists that they must keep right and go straight. Huh?
Fortunately this sign is not in a heavy traffic area, but nonetheless it could lead to significant confusion.
And ironically this go straight – can’t go straight conundrum came to my attention today, during Montreal’s Pride Week. With so many people wearing T-Shirts that say “I can’t even think straight” one can only imagine the turmoil this sign could bring to someone questioning their sexuality. Yikes!
Recently while out for a stroll taking in some of Montreal’s 375th Anniversary festivities we came across a state-of-the-art construction elevator. Much like those pneumatic tubes once used in department stores to send cash to a main cashier, and still used in hospitals, this device gets workers from street level to upper parts of the project.
The elevator is not yet in common use, but as part of a display it had been erected to demonstrate the efficiency of modern technology. Being curious, and always looking to spice things up, I volunteered to give the lift a whirl. In no time at all I was being sucked up the red tube on my way to the top level, then as the pressure was eased back down I gently came.
What will they think of next?
One often hears that millennials, those folks born around the turn of the millennium and in their late teens and twenties now, are more open to some of the things that we older people wrestle to grasp. Gender used to be a zero-sum game: male or female. Now it is a spectrum, a continuum, with transgender pronouns being bandied about in university lecture halls.
These open-minded people, children of the Internet, brought us sexting, Snapchat, and easy access to online pornography. Pretty liberal sorts aren’t they? Well, maybe not.
This past weekend thousands of millennials descended upon Montreal for the annual Osheaga music extravaganza. Three full days with numerous acts, few of which I had ever heard of.
Every year this event has me thinking about the big festivals of the late sixties. The grand-daddy, Woodstock in 1969, is still the benchmark against which these events will be forever compared. Like Woodstock this year’s version of Osheaga had thousands of young people, hot weather, significant rainfall and, mud.
Woodstock 1969
Unlike Woodstock, if media coverage is to be believed, there was no nudity. I was too young to attend music festivals in the sixties, but the photos of the event, and many other similar festivals clearly indicate a penchant for attendees to get naked. Concert goers are shown ambling about starkers, or in various states of undress.
In July of 1972 to Rolling Stones played the Montreal Forum. It was a hot night both outside and inside the building. A photo on the front page of the next day’s Star newspaper showed a topless woman on a guy’s shoulders enjoying the show. Rumour has it that she kept a copy of the paper with her and bragged about her instant fame all over town.
Were there similar photos in today’s newspaper? Nope. The concert made the front page, but all are clad. C’mon millennials, what gives? Even as recently as 1985’s Live Aid concert in Philadelphia people got into the spirit and shed a garment or two.
Live Aid
Jeez, talk about a stuck-up generation!
