It appears I have someone willing to wear an "era" costume and accompany me to the Kleinburg Binder Twine Festival.

Alix came to luncheon stayed on to watch the Jack Layton funeral service at Roy Thomson Hall.  Alix tried on the dress.  I worked on the sleeves a bit.

I decided supper would be too late for her when she got home.  I made poached turkey breast sandwiches with M------ W--- and cranbery jelly spread along with egg salad sandwiches with fresh dill from a couple of hard boiled eggs I keep handy in the fridge.  Voilà!  Milk made a very nice chaser.

I had to cut the sleeves again as it was a Very Easy pattern which usually requires one bias piece somewhere... at least in the patterns I choose.

To-morrow morning, I shall buzz up the sleeves, attach them to the bodice then run an elastic through the wrist bands and pop it on Moi to see it it looks right.  Good night for now.  God bless.

I come from a small town on the shores of Lake Ontario where we had a career mayor.  He had many children and all of them resembled each other.  The mayor and his wife were blond and from The Ukraine.

Now, there came to Port Harvey around the same time a typical English family with a bright daughter followed by a bright son.  As luck would have it, they were so English the son's name was Christopher Robin but the story is about his sister, Carol.

Now, Carol grew up excelerating in grades school and completing an entire year at Queen's summer school before she entered university after our then Grade 13.  She finished school and became a school teacher, married a brown-haired English immigrant who was "nice".  However, they had no children.

Many years down the road, the mayor's son found his way to Candlefield and looked up Carol when he knew she would be alone.  He took her passionately and sexually.  Now, Carol was past being floored and decided so a divorce would come of it.  It wasn't as though a family of children would be abhorred as they never had any children.

Days passed into months after she decided to keep the child that came of this unguarded moment.  Her husband as I said was nice and decided it wasn't Carol's fault so wouldn't divorce her, then, decided to keep the child because it was Carol's.  He promised everyone he would raise the child as his own no matter what happened to Carol as the child had come as a blessing when he and Carol were unable to have one of their own.  Anyhow, the child looked like Carol.

                              *                              *                             *                  

Just a few years ago when the catamaran hydrofoil came to Toronto to take Torontonian's to Rochester and vice-a-versa I happened to take a trip with a well-known local tour company run by a couple as their retirement investment.  On many of the tours the founder whose name the company bore came along as a curio and memorabilia of the great Margaret Martin Tour Company which is still extant.  

I crossed the lake on The Cat and understood why we were coming around the west end of Lake Ontario by bus instead of back again by hydrofoil.  In Rochester's port, he air was putrid and unbreathable but breathe we did as we had to.  There just was no air aboard ship when it wasn't running.

After a pleasant seat in the sunshine, I had lunch which meant I left my seat and came back to it afterwards.  There in my seat, before my very eyes was a twelve-year-old girl with a brown-haired man who was ostensibly her father.  I stood there and gawked at this little Carol Robin-John Vladka looking girl not the least bit taken aback by me or even noticing me.  She was busily taking in her souvenir picture book of the hydrofoil she was riding.

I sat in one of the free chairs in the middle of the ship and couldn't take by eyes off that child.  She was the spit and image of both her mother and her natural born father.  The man she was sitting with was Carol's husband, her adoptive father.  I didn't wish to make myself known as I was embarrassed to acknowledge the father on the grounds of the child's likeness to her mother, his wife and her natural born father, John Vladka.  Neither of them know me.  The child lives on in my memory of a rather happy rape story.  Ah yes, rape because Carol was married to someone else but could such a miracle happen if she had been traumatized by true rape?  The child's the answer it seems.  God bless and I hope it never happens to you.

The virtues of standard sizing has its limitations.  When the designer goofs up, the following happens and has happened in my own life.

In days of yore, one day, the transit operator decided to inform the ladies, starting with me, that bundle buggies do go through the rear/middle exit due to both the door frame and buggy axle being 18-inches.  

After a few tries, I dragged the bundle buggy back up the steps, seized it sideways and stomped out and down a full 14-inches to the ground from the bottom step.  Phew!  I was younger and stronger then.

What the designer and the transit operator didn't consider was that there are caps on the 18-inch axle to hold the wheels on making the egress quite impossibly about an inch too narrow.  Now that's quite a bit when the steps are boxed in not allowing me to twist the buggy through one of the two back doors.

Some packing boxes are wisely made and others are, well, standard sizing.  The outer measurements of both the packing boxes and boxes that are supposed to go inside are the same.  It should be the interior of the packing boxes and the exterior of the boxes holding the goods that should allow a good fit.

My latest plaint is my new refrigerator.  I had to replace my old olive green refrigerator.  I set out to determine all angles including one from life's oldest lessons as a child in the former Eaton department store.  The salesman told Mom and Dad before they started choosing a refrigerator, they had to know the size of the space available for the fridge. 

With that knowledge in hand, I chose the only refrigerator that would fit and at that only if I had the baseboard of the niche taken out.  That was due to standard sizing of the fridge to the upper walls of the niche.

Wisely, the new store sent me an unadvertised fridge that would fit without wrecking the wall and floor finishing.  A much smaller refrigerator that has earned my disdain in the short period of time I've had it.  Firstly, it's painfully small.  There is even lots of space left over in the refrigerator niche.  Secondly, they charged me more for their expertise and wisdom than for the other impossible but more spacious fridge I ordered.

Thirdly, inside the refrigerator, the shelf above sits on the lids of the jars on the shelf below if I am to have any economy of space.  This is insane as all the weight on the shelf above would rest on glass jars.  

This phenomena is due to the height of the jar being the same as the height of the space allowed for the slides that are built into the sides of the fridge interior.  The designer hadn't allowed for the thickness of the shelves themselves.

However, when foresight is used, the tall yoghurt container does fit between shelves very well without lifting the shelf above to make it fit.  However, the height between shelves doesn't allow two medium tubs.  ¿¿Mores:  Eat yoghurt not sauces and pickles??

It's a Catch-22 situation, my friends.  Do I live with this comical situation or have the designer sacked for the entrepreneur's better economy only to have another novice designer fudge up my life?

God willing, there will be a solution.  God bless and good luck shopping!

Last Saturday, we held a yard sale with the building next door in Montague Parkette between us.  As I was the first one from my building, I got the choice spot under the trees near the parkette entrance.  Slightly ahead in lucre, I started my next year's famous overcrowded dwelling sale collection - two bagsful of video cassettes as low as three for a dollar in perfect condition and academy award winners!

Allwin arrived fashionably late as every stylish gal knows she should.  Due to her artificial knew, she sat on the patio chair of the vendor beween us.  As her home is her hobby, his things went for a little more than others's as every fine lady deserves.  A basket from Allwin because the handle decoration faded left a drilled hole in it.  Perfect condition.  Good for Mommy's gift basket.

As far as my balcony gardening goes this year, I am only able to grow radhish sprouts and the odd radish.  Some are red, some are pink.  Others are white and longish and promising to become red at the bottoms but will they?  Last night's rain made the sages taller and stronger.  The lone catnip plant goes on by itself beside the sages.

This morning, I made fresh radishtop pickles by salting them down and rubbing in the salt and then chopping.  It was just enough for one serving with fish and rice.  There is some satisfaction to "balcony truck gardening".  God bless.

Today, as I was entering the QMB2, a friendly Canadian face with the abovementioned name appeared.  At this point, I recalled the glamourous ninety-year-old retired pianist who had volunteered in the third world organization one day a week with three or four other ladies.  I shall always remember her as she had an aura about her which set her apart.

Her hair was all grey but kept long and meticulously curled around the edges much like the early Hollywood stars.  Annette had been a pianist who was sought by a cellist now living in my building and still performing.  Apparently, the rift came in the marriage of no children when career paths diverged and she comfortably retired on money from her family.  

She never told me her surname.  She was just Annette, and what an Annette she was.  She was ninety, beautiful, presentable...  However, the day did come when a terminal bowel condition required her to have surgery and she retired from our circle of volunteers to her daughter's home in California.

Annette was a star.  She knew how to star in life itself.  Would that we were all Annettes instead of just one of the plain old selves.  Life would be so much more interesting and polite and pleasant.  God bless Annette wherever she is to-day.

Well, friends, I have taken my first glimpse at Chicago and can rave at the Architecture.  I have never seen more Art Deco anywhere nor have I seen such beautiful Gothic highrise buildings.  

First the city tour under the loop and then a boat ride up and down the Chicago River with a tried and true Actor who could sing split chord and describe the wonders on the river bank like an auctioneer.

The Navy Pier had a couple of stained glass museums at the end of it and the outside had Chicago Weiner hotdogs and orange slush creamsicles with Italian ice cream.

Chicago Avenue was where our bus waited until six o'clock not too far from a large chain pharmacy.  This drugstore had beef flavoured cat food that Xrissy has been lacking in her diet ever since Stephen Harper banned the importation of American beef products into Canada.  I got it over the border though with no Customs inspection.  They thought I was honest!

Across the street next to the pharmacy was the old water tower building which survived the great fire of Chicago.  After the great fire, most of the city was rebuilt in the most beautiful architecture of the time, and development of parklands and museums and conference centres continues even to-day.  Luckily, the time was when Art Deco was at the fore.

Across the street from the other water tower is the new Hancock Tower with Macy's, which absorbed Marshall Fields, and many other fashionable stores.  At the top there is a lookout.

The first day, we had luncheon at an "in" dive on a side street where hearty portions were dished out.  I ate a delicious beef stew.  The kugel I took home for dinner was not as successful.  The tomato juice and milk together in my hotel room was reminiscent of Grade One tomato soup lunches at home with Granny.  The funny hotel we stayed at out in the boon docks only served buffet breakfasts.  It's sister hotel in the same chain is a classy one right off the Magnificent Mile, Michigan Avenue.

I meant to visit H******'* Fabric store but didn't have the time for it.  It's such an attraction it actually appears on the google map.

I would very much like to enter some of the Art Deco buildings to see the interiors.  The Gothic ones are a must, of course.

Alas, Monday morning arrived and we headed home at eight o'clock in the morning and after a harrowing time at Birch Run, see me run for the bus, arrived home in Toronto around ten o'clock at Billy Bishop Way and Wilson Avenue.

Well, those are my first memoirs of Chicago and its satellite cities.  Oh yes, and I must mention eating the largest Chicago Weiner hotdog in the Weiner Café at the Henry Ford Museum of American History on the way down.

God bless 'til next time.

One afternoon at the old Hummingbird Centre in Toronto, Louise D.... who used to be with our COC (Canadian Opera Company) when it just formed up  saw me the the queue for a toilet in that antiquated place.  She burst out,

"Tiko, this is L....  D.... from Saint Luke's.  I 'll always remember you for the time I called you when I was at Saint Luke's.  That was the most fun I had ever had all the time I was there."..."I never knew you were a natural entertainer!"

"I'm not," I replied.

"All those things your neighbours did presented so humourously."  She began to laugh again.  "I get tears in my eyes every time I remember."

Well, I was quite ticked off at all those foolish ways of people around me who run around doing whatever pops into their minds any time at all.

Well, as I recall, there was that silly woman who got locked in her apartment and took half a day off from professional pay, as I call it, instead of paying the man across the hall whom she telephoned.  Apparently, she had given all her money to a neurotic handyman who installed her door handle wrong and couldn't make it until later in the day.  It was one of those knobs with the keyhole in the middle of it.  That wasn't the worst of it.  She sputtered all over this building for about it for three months quite annoyed at her handyman neighbour and was telling the "world".  

Now, as I recall, she called me in for noodles one day and told me, "I have prevailed as a professional for nineteen years and as a tribute to myself, I will accept these little things done for me by little people for free."   She couldn't get over how Dundonald Right wouldn't pay her her tribute when he could open that door for her for free.

Then, there was the night in winter when Dundonald came bounding down the hall with his brand new musical keyboard declaring that he had the money now. He wanted fame.  He knew I played a sometime upright D-Grand equivalent especially to flex my vocal chords and asked me for keyboard lessons which I wasn't giving. 

Let us quickly moved on to the next story which was about, yes, a Parson Brown, who was studying to become a Psychologist and earning his keep while he lived here by conducting the usual religious ceremonies that ministers do including marrying couples in holy matrimony.  The day came a bride swished off the elevator complete with white bridal gown, veil and a train as well as a tiny ring bearer and flower girl and was married to the lucky groom in Parson Brown's suite.  At the completion of tying the knot a champagne cork was heard popping off, cheering occurred and the entire party romped back into the elevator with much gaiety complete with confetti strewn on the hallway carpeting from Parson Brown's suite to the very second-to-the-end elevator!

After The Browns left, a slick pair moved in across the hall and kept discarding cartons of glass beer bottles on the garbage room floor.  I finally paid them a visit and The Randiest answered the door and flashed!  He was a chipp 'n' dayle man from a nightclub on our main "strip" back in the days when when "times were not so bad" when women went to nightclubs to see nude males.  His lady friend worked in a Bloor Street clothing store.

Long before the flasher, there was that man living in the corner apartment I caught on a torrid summer's day, bare naked except for a thin pair of black bikinis tip toeing down to the garbage room with a small empty brown paper bag.  I later told the parson's wife about him.  She righteously stalked off.  He no longer lives here.

After a little reprieve from these antics, a gay minister moved into the apartment at the other end of the hall who used to have conversations with his cat.  One night, I heard a knocking on my door and he asked me to house a woman seeking shelter.  Now, I am not naïve about the length of stay wished by someone like her so declined.  At another time, I saw him through the peephole holding an armload of laundry or mending.  I failed to open my door.

Across the hall from me lived a lineman with his a accountant wife. She used to drop by V.......'s Catering after work every night and load up on delicious take outs.  He was diabetic but ate himself fat on entire pizzas and other caloric foods nightly. Often an argument broke out and one night he threw her out in the hall naked for himself.  I guess to cool her off.  I don't know about that.

At that time, I remember Louise  D.... roared with laughter on the other end of the telephone line.  When I said, "...But, not all these people lived on this hall all at the same time together! More laughter followed.

Well, folks, that's all for to-night, and, don't let it happen to you!  God bless!

Although May eighth is Archie's seventy-eighth birthday, we started celebrating Wednesday when I went to the new chain convenience store across Wellesley Street from our street.  My food bill average has gone up like everyone else's but I seem to come home with all sorts of goodies in season and out.

The first time I went there, I came home with a miniature watermelon as well as 2L. tubs of good ice cream and many other freshest vegetables fish, pork and sliced peameal bacon which I hadn't seen for awhile in less than an entire loin roast size.

The prize across the street though is the smart little café which is owned and operated by an Artist-Cook who makes all the food and leaves a couple of swish young people to look after the beverage services.  

Everything is hung up gallery style with little cards next to the opera stating the names of the pieces and the Artist's names.  What an oasis!  He'll even deliver within the café building on Sundays if the order is in by two o'clock.  I'm lucky I don't live there or I'd lose my autonomy relying on his picture-perfect food.

The one time I went there with Archie, I had a crunchy carrot cookie stuffed with dripping good cream cheese icing and tea.  Archie had a piece of lemon cake with his coffee.

Well, that's all the latest local tour yielded this past month.  God bless.

It's 2:00am, the time CBC starts the pre-amble to the Royal Wedding next Friday.  I'm making no headway as a scribe to-night when I have much to tell.

My Easter trip to Chicago was delayed 'til the Twenty-fourth of May week-end, or, will that trip be aborted, too?  Judy's annoyed because I preferred to watch the Royal Wedding and not attend her tea as she isn't allowing me in late.  

Well, I'll never regret choosing "the best free show in the world," according to the late Patricia Duggan who attended the last Royal Wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Di by flying over the Atlantic on the Concorde and returning with gifts for all such as picture soaps and other memorabilia from the day.  

She and her travel-mate had bolted out of the salon where a "telly" had been set up just for Canadians like them to view the splashy affair declaring, "We didn't come all the way to London to watch it on television!" and made their way through the crowds to the front of the cordon shouting they were Canadians and came to see the real thing for themselves not sit in a room and watch it on television!

I'm glad I didn't put all my eggs in one basket and shall, indeed, see the best of the Royal Wedding. Until then, choose carefully, act wisely and enjoy life. God bless.

I called a third year Psych major to have my dream translated.  He said Mama Kitty was leaving, and, so she is.  Archie loved her to bits and pieces by giving her all her foods at once and laying out his food as well for Mama Kitty.  

Mama Kitty is now cross and irascible as she worked hard to eat everything while it was still good.  However, she was as fat as a turkey before Thanksgiving a couple of years ago and even a fight with Archie didn't stop him from over feeding Mama Kitty.

Lately, he has put her on five dishes of food instead of eight or more as I used to see.  Now, Mama Kitty has trouble communicating she wishes fresh catfood as her feline nose demands it.  Poor Mama Kitty.

Well, soon the day will come when either she leaves or Archie's demise will cause her to find another master to serve and for this she has prepared herself with paw reduction and powder and starched cap and apron!  God bless Mama Kitty.