Feeling the music

Another photo from the dance practice held in the court in front of my home. It appears the ladies are stretching and warming up at this point in the practice.

COVID-19 is not stopping these ladies. Can't hold the regular dance practice inside, hold it outside. The ladies checked with the health department and the folk living on the court before plugging in their stereo equipment.

Almost empty hospital waiting room now the norm

Hospital waiting rooms are almost never empty or almost empty. At least that was the norm in the past. It is not the norm today thanks to COVID-19.

My liver is failing. It is a race between my heart and my liver to see which organ totally fails first. The heart has the edge. Livers are a bit more resilient. When I visited the liver specialist handling my case, the waiting room was just about empty.

The hospital restricts entry to only those with appointments. This means husbands and wives can no longer accompany their mates to their medical appointments. And even those with appointments have to run a gauntlet of questions before being allowed to enter. And you had better have arrived wearing a mask. No mask? No entry!

It is counter-intuitive but a lot of things are running faster and more efficiently with the pandemic raging. A lot of stuff is still closed. But if it is running it is probably running in a severely truncated state and yet with a full, or almost full, staff. I wonder how long this will continue.

A mask doesn't stop making a fashion statement

I spotted this young woman in a local store. I immediately thought, "Picture!" And thankfully she agreed to having a fast photo taken. Don't you just love the colour coordinated face mask and the pattern is such a wonderful bonus. And note the matching top. "Wow!" When I worked at the local paper before my retirement, I sometimes used non-models for fashion shoots. The best model with whom I ever worked was actually an art major from the local university. She was brilliant. And yes, the best models are thinkers and very creative, as well. Ah, if only I were still shooting fashion. I'd find something this woman could model. I'm sure she'd be great. And the pictures would be better, too. My little point-and-shoot's image suffers a little from camera shake caused by a slow shutter speed. At least, that is what this photographer in his 70s is claiming.

Line Dancing in the Court

It was a first: line dancing in the court in front of my home.

It seems a group of ladies who did line dancing at a nearby indoor venue were uncomfortable practising indoors with the COVID-19 virus still infecting people in London. One member of the dance group lives on the court and had an idea. She called the city and then called the health department. She got the go ahead to hold the dance class outside in the court with all dancers wearing masks. A couple on the court allowed her to plug the group's stereo equipment into the couple's outside electrical outlet.

It appears folk are learning to work around the virus. Yeah!

Tornado Watch and not Warning in effect

Arriving home, our neighbour excitedly informed us that a Tornado Warning had been issued. She was wrong. It was a Tornado Watch that had been declared.

A Watch lets residents know that the conditions are right for a tornado. Take care. A Warning indicates one or more tornados have been sighted, either visually or the presence indicated by weather radar. Take cover.

I believe the United States with Tornado Alley have the biggest and most numerous tornados in the world. But Southwestern Ontario is no slouch when it comes to tornados. We may pale in comparison to our southern neighbour but we still lose homes and very occasionally extremely small villages to these fierce summer storms.

The goal is100% energy efficiency

The Sifton Centre building is just one of a number of green commercial buildings either already standing or soon to be built in the new Sifton development in the far West end of London. What makes the Sifton Centre worthy of a picture? Answer: the solar panels on the south-facing wall. The panels are incorporated into the exterior design. If you weren't looking for them, you might miss them.

The stated vision of the new community is to be achieve 100% energy efficiency.

Hostas: a world travelling plant

I never thought much of hostas. Just a plant with big leaves and weird flowers was my thinking. And then the newspaper sent me to take pictures of a fellow who had an award-winning backyard garden filled with hostas, hundreds of hostas.

It was incredible. I had no idea that hostas came in so many varieties. The gentleman bragged that he had almost 200 different varieties. Since then I've learned there are more than 3000 registered varieties with possibly another 5000 unregistered throughout the world. This massive number of plants springs from a much smaller number of hosta species—40 to 45 would be a good guess.

That man made me a hosta believer. I love them. And the rabbits love them, too. It turns out hostas are related to asparagus and like asparagus are edible. The tender, young shoots are said to be best be but rabbits will eat them old as well. Apparently, the Japanese are quite generous in what they look for in a hosta for the table: small shoots, large eaves, even pretty flowers are all considered edible. If you see urui on the menu when in Japan, you are about to be served hosta as a vegetable.

The other day I took my granddaughters to a place that specializes in hostas: Hosta Choice Gardens. I got two new hostas. One promises to be a brute in a year or two. It may be six-feet wide and four-feet tall with giant golden leaves when mature.

Hosta Choice only sells hostas. That said, I saw some beautiful ferns growing there, plus some lugwort and bugleweed or ajuga that was speading wildly on one pathway. I admired all three and soon had a number of ferns, lugwort and ajuga in pots ready to take home. There was no charge for the non-hosta plants. Hosta Choice only sells hostas and therefore would only charge me for the two hostas.

I may live to regret planting the ajuga. It is a very hardy ground cover that sends out runners and expands its territory rapidly. I'm putting it on my hill overlooking my home. A bit of crazy wild ground cover may be desirable on the hill. That said, come back in ten years. My neighbours may be cursing my name.