The Seated View

I have a love-hate relationship with May.  May is the month when the world comes back to life, when it’s 99% sure it won’t snow again for months, when grey and brown makes room for shades of green and when it finally and at last becomes warm enough to take off my socks and set my toes free after a winter of being trapped.  What’s not to love? May, however, is also Arthritis Awareness Month in the US. I work for the RA site of HealthCentral. Which is located in the US. May is, to say the least, busy. And no matter what we do to mitigate the busy, to schedule things so they don’t all clump into the same week, to get a grip and keep our plans reasonable and attainable, it doesn’t help. Oh, sure. The first week everything ticks along like a well-oiled machine. The first week we get all cocky and pleased with ourselves, talking about how the plan is working and aren’t we just terrific. The first week is perfection.  The second week starts out fine, to...

It's finally warm enough to send the kids out to the playground, so that means it's time for the annual Spring party! Seems like a good enough reason to me... It'd been a while since we had a party, so an extra effort needed to be made. That meant party hats. Or rather, party animal party hats. The Boy suffered the ignominy of wearing both a teeny little bunny hat, plus simultaneously getting bunny eared. I tried out the bunny thing, too   Photo by David A few weeks ago, I met two wonderfully fluffy, ginormous frogs at a local store. Naturally, I had to get them for the Tinks. Did I mention they're huge?   Morgan named hers Waffles. Of course. Liam started a staring contest with his. They're still at it. The Boy came bearing treats. From a nutfree bakery! Everything was decadently delicious, but the chocolate-caramel bars were the biggest hit.  For me, The biggest hit was being able to eat everything. Not that I did — I sampled quite a...

This weekend, The Boy and I went to the Leslie Street Spit. Or, as it had been known for a while, The Ptui. Well, what would you call it? This excursion has been planned for a while. Ever since we meandered around on the Islands and heard the quackophony, we wanted to find out just how many waterfowl it takes for the sound of their nesting area to travel that far. The weather has been against us, but this past weekend, it was finally dry enough that we could wander around outside for three hours without risking pneumonia. Not without risking frostbite, though — it was 11°C/51°F. When the sun came out, which it did only briefly, it warmed up a bit. The Ptui is a peninsula created and maintained by construction rubble. It’s also a lovely wilderness area right in the middle of the city. Tommy Thompson Park is home to masses of wildlife and it’s a stopover on the migration path of birds. During the week, trucks drop off clean rubble, such as bricks from developments, and on we...