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August 9th, 2007

  1. Why I Take OTHER People’s Photos in the Morning

    August 9, 2007 by Gail

    Carey & Lise

    And not my own. I like this photo larger, by the way.

    I can’t shoot a straight horizon if my life depended on it, ESPECIALLY in the morning. Before coffee. Notice the background being more askew than usual.

    Breakfast in Vancouver with Carey and Lise last Monday was delightful as always, followed by my usual mad transit dash across three zones. Last year it was to catch a ferry, and this year it was to go to Surrey to load up the van with my family and drive to North Vancouver. Yes, that’s the story of my long weekends in Vancouver: constant travel in ever-widening transit loops between Vancouver and Surrey and the North Shore, back and forth, back and forth. Which makes me all the more grateful that I can call Carey and Lise up the night before — while on the Skytrain, of course — and say, “Hey, are you doing anything for breakfast? Fancy some Eggs Benny?”

    Carey and Lise recently celebrated their wedding anniversary. As part of American-Canadian pairings, we can commiserate about the legal obstacle course called U.S. Immigration policy. Congrats that you guys made it through THAT, and extra congrats for everything else!

    Category Friends | Tags: | 4 Comments

  2. A Confession

    August 9, 2007 by Gail

    This site makes me laugh. I know more than a few passive-aggressive people — maybe you do, too.

    It’s probably the comments more than the actual posts that I find funny, especially regarding situations involving roommates. If you’ve ever lived with people other than your family, I’m sure you can relate to some of these notes submitted to the site. Or, maybe it IS your family.

    What people will do to avoid confrontation — i.e., write long, elaborate messages on paper or by email — is amazing. Sometimes it’s necessary to write a note, because meeting face-to-face for a frank discussion isn’t easy to arrange or downright impossible. But I’ve witnessed all sorts of behaviour in lieu, such as door-slamming, hogging the telephone, and righteous indignation played out with stomping feet. Yes, by adults! One person even withheld a $25 reimbursement from me, money I completely forgot about, thereby rendering the act of withholding all the more ridiculous. (Because oh man, not having that $25 was keeping me awake at night.)

    The classic example of a passive-aggressive note is where a skewer of words is followed by a smiley face. Or two. The classic work example is, as I overhead one office person say, prefacing the sentence with “Kindly”, as in “Kindly provide details as to how you arrived at these figures.” A euphemism for “WTF were you thinking?!?!” I overheard another person say whenever he sees the word ‘kindly’ he knows he’d better get his arse in gear and get it done asap.

    Wording letters just right is an art form, I suppose. And nobody does it better than the legal community as far as articulating hostility in as many shades as possible, the “cease and desist” letter at the far end of the spectrum of aggressiveness. However, most people aren’t bankrolling a legal team to do their dirty work for them, so the end result is often a hastily scribbled letter, maybe a Post-it note. At the moment I can’t recall ever writing a note to get someone’s behaviour or actions to change. I figure, if I did and by some miracle someone kept it and sent it to this website, I’d get busted instantly because I gave the internet a handwriting sample!

    Category Humour, Linkage | Tags: | 2 Comments

  3. Sunset Over Toronto Harbour

    August 9, 2007 by Gail

    sunset over Toronto Harbour

    Last night I had the good fortune of receiving an impromptu invitation to the National Yacht Club to join some people for dinner. The club has the best patio in Toronto in my opinion because of its vantage point — a tiny peninsula nestled between Toronto City Centre Airport and the city harbour. Very distracted by the scenery, I kept alternating between plane-spotting (mostly Porter Airlines traffic) and watching the sailboats cruise by.

    Over Labour Day weekend is the Canadian International Air Show, and I’m looking forward to a spot right here on this patio with all my camera equipment to capture it for the first time (I was in Tofino a year ago). Last night I only had my Canon A520, which lives full-time in my bag, but it did a decent job at sunset.

    Toronto Harbour
    marina sunset

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    Category Toronto | Tags: | No Comments