National Grandparents Day

Today is National Grandparents Day! http://www.grandparents-day.com/ Who knew. I didn't until my trio, the Taffanel Wind Ensemble http://www.taffanelwindensemble.blogspot.com/ was asked to play at a seniors' residence this afternoon. As some people know, I do the seniors' residence circuit and see many levels of care. Our seniors' deserve a great deal of respect and care and some places are very good about this and others are shameful. I will not name places but take good care when trying to find a home for your grandparents.

I am in the process of helping two seniors find a nursing home for one and a seniors' residence for the other. The waiting lists are long for both and as you can imagine for the ones with a good reputation very long. I was quoted 4 years for one nursing home. The one good thing about Ontario that I discovered this week is that people are not charged for their care while in hospital waiting for a facility that is able to serve their needs. In Nova Scotia, people are charged $30 a day for care in the hospital while waiting for a facility that is able to accept them after they have been stabilized and have been in the hospital for 30 days. It is almost better to pick a facility that has a long waiting list (which generally means that the facility is more desirable and put off the impending costs).

Things to think about.

World Record art

A friend of mine used to collective wine corks and make table tops with them. She would find this world record fascinating: Albanian artist, Saimir Strati, 42 has entered the Guiness Book of World Records for the third time, this time with a large mosaic table with bottle corks. http://www.mosaicart-sast.com/He used more than 200,000 corks in a mosaic of a man playing a guitar. "This work is dedicated to the Mediterranean spirit which is nourished by music, the sun and wine." he said. (Wonder if he bought the corks or asked friends to give him used corks like my friend used to do?)

Strati entered the Guiness records for the first time in 2006 with the world's largest portrait made of nails. The image of Leonardo do Vinci used more than 500,000 nails- that is a amazing amount of hammering to be done!

He followed that up a year later with a mosaic using toothpicks dedicated to Antonio Gaudi, the Spanish architect famous for Barcelona's Sagrada Familia Church.
http://mostinterestingblog.blogspot.com/2007/08/amazing-art-saimir-strati-what-people.html (You can view the process in a set of photos of the production of the previous world record breaking pieces.)

Wonder what medium he will choose to use next?

Chicago, the green city

What a wonderful mayor Chicago has! Mayor Richards Daley who continues to innovate and initiate projects that help the city. Mayor Richard Daley who loves trees has spawned a plan to revitalize the city economically by regenerating it environmentally. This greening of the city has worked!

Tourists can start their tour of environmentally friendly Chicago by visiting the Fairmont Hotel which promotes environmentally friendly practices. From the 19th floor-window of the hotel, tourists can see the gardens of green on the roof tops of Chicago. Starting with City Hall, the mayor has transformed Chicago's rooftops into something of sustainable beauty. Chicago has more than 186,000 square metres of sky-high gardens, more than all other U.S. cities combined. Along with their aesthetic benefits, green roofs make buildings several degrees cooler in summer and act as insulation in winter.

The largest green roof, perhaps in the world, belongs to the city's Millennium Park, a controversial project that ultimately resulted in 10 hectares of shrubs, trees, ground cover, perennials and more than blanket an underground garage and the Old Illinois Central Track. Today, the park attracts close to 4 million visitors annually.
http://www.millenniumpark.org/

Perhaps, Toronto can take a cue from these projects and improve the environment of the city and attract visitors. It would certainly be worth a try.

Sarah Polin

I could not hold back any longer. Sarah Polin for vice-president! What an incredible choice! As Diane Francis said in her column: Is McCain trying to suggest any woman will do, are they interchangeable? Sarah Polin is in the same league as a Hilary Clinton and Condeeliza Rice?

Sarah Polin who would be a heart beat away from the presidency, and with a president who is 72 and has serious health issues this needs to be considered, would also be the chair of the senate. Chairing PTA meetings does not cut it and the town she came from has a population that it the equivalent of some apartment buildings! Condo boards are responsible for as many or more people.

Sarah Polin is supposedly anit- oil; interesting since her husband has just taken a leave from the world's largest oil producer, BP.

Like Obama, I will leave the issue of her children alone but a member of the NRA? I guess McCain and the Republicans do not have a problem with a politician who chooses to be photographed on a bear rug of an animal that she shot.

As I said to some people who we met on the weekend, Leno, Letterman, Maher and others must be so grateful that this choice was made. They would not have dreamed this up on their own.

Martha Henry and Trojan Women

On the weekend, we had the privilege of seeing one of the great actors perform at the Stratford Festival: Martha Henry who we have had the opportunity to see in a variety of productions including one of Michael's favourites Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. I don't understand why he likes it but am willing to attend performances of the play because he will come to some of my choices. Martha Henry performed the role of Hecuba in the Trojan Women.

It was an outstanding production. At the beginning, Poseidon and Athena make their entrance and discuss their plans for the Greeks who have just conquered Troy and now going to return to Athens and Sparta with the spoils of war. Athena looked like a Margaret Thatcher look-a-like; I don't think that was an accident. Martha Henry was the focus of the play, the tragic Queen who has lost all her sons most of her daughters and will be taken into slavery with the other Trojan women who have survived the slaughter of Troy after the Trojan horse is brought into Troy. Martha is able to convey emotion wordlessly and also the burden of what she has suffered emotionally and physically. Born in 1938, she is still a powerful actor on the stage.

I hope that we will be honoured with many more performances by Martha.

De Clutter

As a friend of mine who blogs is fond of saying "Thank you Martha". Today's project is to de-clutter! Very timely! If it wouldn't embarrass me too much, I would take a picture of the clutter that developed a couple years ago when our lives spun out of control with the death of both of my in-laws within 13 months. Their deaths had an added difficulty, besides the emotional and many things that needed to be taken care, we had to fly to Nova Scotia monthly for a year. Many things are left undone as you focus on what is most important at the time.

Now, that I truly am not working full-time and will supply teach when I have time, I will

de-clutter! I don't think that this will be accomplished in a month but I will make an effort to be picture ready by the new year.

There are still many things to deal with- publicity, music-practising and performing, writing, playing tennis, knitting- (I actually have a scarf to deliver for payment)-the list goes on.

I hope to have shelves organized like this:

Thank you farmers

After driving from Stratford to Goderich, I want to say thank you to the farmers who keep us in food. Sunday morning, after a hearty breakfast, we decided to explore a little. We have walked up and down the streets of main street Stratford many times and it was time for a change. We took highway 8, straight to Goderich. Aside from towns along the way, we were surrounded by farms with neat tidy homes and gardens. They certainly put some homes in the city to shame. Farming is not easy work, yet these people have well kept homes and gardens.

This year, the fields of corn looked like they had done extremely well. No scrawny stalks of corn, in most cases, the corn was taller than me. We had some Ontario corn on Friday and what a wonderful satisfy flavour. Must get more this week.

The towns of Seaforth, Clinton, Dublin and Mitchell looked like interesting towns to explore in the future. The architecture of another era had been preserved and now is recognized for its historic and architectural value. Next trip, we will take time to explore these gems.

At the end of the drive, we managed to drive the traffic circle in the centre of Goderich. Apparently, Queen Elizabeth declared it a pretty town, I can see why.

There is much more to discover in Ontario. Maybe, that is what we will do this fall when we finally take some time for a vacation.