Music soothes the soul

I had much to say about my trip from Alberta to The Wet Coast this past weekend, so I did a great deal of writing yesterday, preparatory to Our World Tuesday, but I wasn't really satisfied with the my results.
Yes, while I was in BC, I visited family and friends.
It was wonderful to see my family: my young brother, my sister-in-law, my nieces, grandniece, cousins and, in particular, my aunt.
I have described my aunt elsewhere as 'indomitable' and she undoubtedly is.

Now, however, for Our World Tuesday, I think I'd like to share something else from that visit to British Columbia...music as sung by a barbershop chorus.

Wikipedia photo, men's barbershop chorus

At a gathering in memory of my friend Jim, whom I had known from the time he was a toddler and I was his babysitter, I enjoyed hearing some beautiful, beautiful music.
Jim was a dedicated member of a men's barbershop chorus, singing a capella music in the barbershop style.
Several of his friends from the chorus joined his family and many friends at his house to help celebrate his amazing life.
Some of you might never have heard of a barbershop chorus, but most of my generation will remember men's pre-rock'n'roll barbershop quartets such as the Ames Brothers (1948-1963), and women's quartets such as the Chordettes, also 1948-1963.


The Ames Brothers, left...                 The Chordettes, right

Sharing this week with another indomitable woman, Lady Fi, and her memorable meme

Our World Tuesday

"Only the good die young"

When I think of my aunt, I think of my long-dead
ancestors, and remember those far-away days.
This file photo is of the old Patullo Bridge
in New Westminster, where my grandfather
and my father were born, where I was born,
where my young cousin and
his brothers were born.

In the past year, two people I consider too young have died. Now I am pensive: I'm sad when I think of their deaths but, more than that, I am grateful for their lives.
One was my youngest cousin, whose life would have been beyond difficult if not for the care and dedication of my aunt. She and my uncle raised three sons, one with lifelong health problems, while she continued to teach school, which she did for 50 years!
Indomitable is the word that comes to mind when I think of my aunt.

New Westminster, BC

I'm hoping to see her this weekend, to have her join me on a dinner date with her middle son and his wife in Vancouver, BC.

However, I am now flying to the west coast to attend a memorial service for another young man, one I knew since he was a little boy and I was his babysitter in my home town, White Rock, BC.

White Rock, BC

Every now and then I find myself thinking:
It isn't right. It isn't fair!
I am the eldest cousin!
I am the former babysitter!

Even though I don't like it, that is the way of the world.

Vancouver, BC

Death makes us appreciate life. Death brings back memories from the far reaches of our minds, and we are grateful for the time those young people had on this earth. Even as we mourn, we are grateful for those lives that were lived, however short or however long.

Shane and Jim — I still love you.

 Posting these memories for

An Unfittie's Guide to Adventurous Travel

New computer continues confusing, but...

Last week, I mentioned my ineptitude with my new computer.
I'm learning. I'm sure I'm learning how to use it. Okay, yes, with some help from my much-more tech-savvy husband.
I used to be on the cutting edge of computerized typesetting, you know, but I retired from the printing trade before technology reached the heights it has since attained in the 21st century, and I was good at it. I really was. I'd even been known to be 'stolen' from one employer by another because of my skills.
Sigh.
Long ago and far away, folks. Now I have no skills. I have to risk annoying annoying my husband by asking  for help, so many times that he has come to regard me as a slightly underdeveloped child.

However, with his help: my triumph of the day — I am playing music from my youth via something called The Nostalgia Machine. (http://thenostalgiamachine.com/)


To change the subject completely now, I've found something new (new to me, don't forget that part, it might not be new to everyone) for my diet-controlled diabetes.
I found it accidentally, in the drugstore, while waiting to get my flu shot.
There were two kinds of 'naturally sugar free' mints on the counter, labelled 'no aspartame' and 'naturally flavored' so I had to try them, one little box of 'Spicy Cinnamon' and one of 'Pomegranate' — how could I resist pomegranate mints? Yum.

pomegranate and seeds

Yes, yum!
I decided to check out some of the listed ingredients on Wikipedia.
"Sorbitol (/ˈsɔːrbɪˌtɒl/), less commonly known as glucitol (/ˈɡluːsɪˌtɒl/), is a sugar alcohol with a sweet taste which the human body metabolizes slowly."

more pomegranate

Okay, we all know 'sugar alcohol' doesn't mean booze, and of course 'sweet taste' is what I was after.
So far, so good, and 'metabolizes slowly' is good, too, right?
But who knows what 'isomer of mannitol' means?  Not I.
But it also says the isomer of mannitol is 'found in nature, for example in apples, pears, peaches, and prunes.'

Yum. Now that sounds better, except maybe the prunes.

And then there are the illustrations offered by Wikimedia:

a red, white, and black one, which is kinda cute,
and also this next one: which no one in this household understands...

It is "all Greek to me" as my mother would have said.
Wait!
That's it! I've turned into my mother. I instinctively know a great many useful things: I can cook without recipes, for instance. Without recipes and without pre-prepared food.
I know which things go with which, etc., although I don't know how to serve pomegranate.
Sigh again.
Now, can someone tell me why my computer screen keeps disappearing, only to reappear with something else on it? Or why it scrolls up and down whenever it feels like it?

Posting for Lady Fi's magical meme: Our World Tuesday

Technology & me...or should I go retro?

I have a new computer. It's a little smaller than the previous one but the screen is right at eye level where I like it, and the keyboard is very comfortable...strange, because it looks  just like the old keyboard, but seems to work better. Maybe it isn't full of dust and junk. That could explain it. And it is very well-behaved. It sits right where I put it down, and doesn't wander around the desk like the old one did.

Now, of course, having a bright new screen and a comfortable new keyboard, I have grand illusions of The Great Canadian Novel! Those grand illusions seem to hit me every time my sore hands work properly and in sync with my brain. When the pain returns, I know I'll never write it.

Okay, so that lasts five or ten minutes, and then I discover I can't scroll down the page.  This happened while I was on Facebook earlier, and it carried over here into Blogger. My techie guy is at the school down the street playing pickleball, but he spent all of last afternoon and evening fussing with this new machine of mine, so I hate to ask him to help me again. I don't even know what to call the scrolling-down bar.

And, once again, here I am. Techie husband has found the slide-down-the side tool, and has also walked the dog. One would suppose it would behoove me to prepare dinner and, of course, one would suppose correctly...providing I have enough strength for cooking after wrestling with an iMac all afternoon.

I'm still having the occasional argy-bargy with the slider-downer on the righthand side here, but all in all it did turn into a reasonably good afternoon. Said techie, to whom I referred above, has come home, and has taken our little dog for one of the long, long walks she loves. The temperature was above freezing this afternoon, which was a nice break from the recent deep-deep-freezes, making their walk fairly comfortable.

Now I'm debating...do I make dinner, or do I continue attempting to master this new and supposedly wonderful machine? I don't know. (Sometimes I wish I'd spent all my new-computer money on a '56 Chevy with a 409. Sigh. But I don't drive any more. Sigh again.)

Ain't she sweet?

Sharing with Lady Fi's ever-popular meme 

Our World Tuesday

Canadian tartans seem to be or not to be

A couple of weeks ago, pursuing an interest in my family tartans, I began researching tartans in general. It seems almost every country, city, town, and spot on the globe has its own tartan these days, so I will have to limit these posts, for fear of alienating whatever followers I might have.
Sharing with Lady Fi's marvellous meme:
Our World Tuesday and wishing everyone at Our World a very happy and prosperous 2018!

Now, rightly or wrongly, my research has come up with these Canadian tartans.

Canada's national Maple Leaf tartan.

Canadian provincial and territorial tartans:

Alberta dress tartan

  Alberta

A British Columbia dress tartan

British Columbia

A Manitoba dress tartan

  Manitoba

  Newfoundland and Labrador

Nova Scotia, left. Cape Breton, right.

Cape Breton is part of Nova Scotia, but has always had a very strong sense of self.

Northwest Territory, below.

Ontario

    

Prince Edward Island, left, and Quebec, right.

Territory of Nunavut

  Saskatchewan 

Yukon Territory tartan scarf, left

The official tartan for the Canadian Territory of Nunavut (above right) has not, as far as my research can discern, been officially declared. (See top, map of Canada, with grey area in the north.) Nunavut's choice seems to come down to the difference between the territory's dress tartan and its hunting tartan. Given that hunting is essential in the lives of the people of Nunavut, I'm leaning toward the slightly more muted hunting tartan, below right.

Ugly Christmas sweaters

Does anyone remember when "ugly Christmas sweaters" were all the thing? They're still out there, although mine is very, very old.
Yes, I have one of them. I don't know where it came from. My husband tries to lay claim to it, every now and then, but he's Jewish, which pretty much rules him out. (insert smiley-face here, folks)

I suspect I might have found this ugly sweater in a used-clothing store once upon a time, and bought it to wear to a friend's Christmas party.
Still, I found myself wearing the sweater today because it is beyond cold here in southeastern Alberta. It is C-O-L-D and then some. I haven't been out there, but our little dog, Bonnie-Belinda, has been enjoying two-hour morning walks with her daddy, ever since spring...right up until yesterday when she decided five or ten minutes in the back yard is plenty.

How cold is Alberta-cold? We reached the point where Celsius and Fahrenheit are both below 0, with Celsius all the way down to -30 below 0 today...a mere -20 Fahrenheit.
The sun has gone down, so it's time for me to put the sweater on again, but first I'll share this with Fiona's wonderful meme, Our World Tuesday.

                 

                             

Sled and driver

Power source

Who can? The eagle cam can

Victoria Times-Colonist photo

In my native province of British Columbia, Canada, birdwatching...especially big bird watching...has been a (wildly) popular online sport for about years thanks to David Hancock of the Hancock Wildlife Foundation, skilled photographer Christian Sasse, and the helping hands of caring British Columbians. David Hancock's 'bird cams' went from the experimental to the popular, accepted, and expected.

The time and patience of David and his crews of volunteers and loyal followers, was more than rewarded this year when a miracle happened.

Everyone in BC and most of the western world—watched the Sidney, BC, eagle cam footage of its nest because it was occupied by two eagles, two eaglets, and a baby red-tailed hawk!

In British Columbia, Alaska, and Washington State, then across the continent, and perhaps the world, nature lovers and scientists alike watched that nest with eagle eyes—always cheering for the little hawk, while always afraid its adoptive eagle parents would one day begin to think of it as prey.

The parenting instinct won over, and the eagles raised their littlest chick with the same care and attention afforded their original nestlings. See the National Geographic story about "Spunky" the little hawk raised by eagles.

Wikipedia photo, showing an eagle's dangerous talons.
Talons like these never posed a danger to "Spunky" the little red-tailed hawk adopted by eagles.

About the Bald Eagle:
The bald eagle is the national symbol of the United States, so one might suppose that the largest bald eagle population is in the continental US, but that is not the case:
The bald eagle was almost wiped out in the US by hunters shooting ‘for sport'! The largest populations are not in the continental US, but in Canada and Alaska.
Attempts to re-establish bald the US population are becoming more and more successful, however.

Back 'home' in British Columbia, although the numbers of Bald Eagles did diminish, the species was never endangered to the extent that it was in the US. While driving alongside the coast from the suburb of White Rock on the US border, on my way to work in the city of Vancouver, I could witness for myself the increase in the BC eagle population. More and more of the huge raptors could be seen flying across the highway to the Pacific Ocean each year.

Bald eagles live near oceans and generally feed on fish, but they will also catch small mammals or feed on carrion. Younger bald eagles travel great distances...Florida-based eagles have been located in Michigan, while California-based bald eagles have traveled right up to Alaska.

About the eagle cams:
I remember when the late Richard Pitt, husband of a high school friend, was helping David Hancock place some of the first eagle cameras high in the trees of southwestern British Columbia. Just talking to Richard, I felt I was part of a big adventure— and, with a lot of work and enthusiasm on the part of nature-loving British Columbians, it really did become just that.
If this 2017 list  is any indication, there will be many eagle adventures in British Columbia next year. Conservation of wildlife and habitat has become one of the most important efforts on the planet, and we may just have a chance, thanks to dedicated people like David Hancock and Dr. Christian Sasse.
Although I no longer in live in my beautiful British Columbia, I do love to write about it.

Some of the eagle cams plus YouTube
Hancock Wildlife
White Rock, BC
Victoria and Sidney, BC

Hornby Island

Harrison Mills (list of viewing sites)

Hawk raised by Eagles - The complete Story - YouTube

Read about British Columbia's bald eagles HERE
and don't forget, here! National Geographic

(Further online investigation has yielded some evidence that Spunky may not be the first baby hawk to be raised by eagles. Birding lore suggests that when two infant hawks have been brought to a nest to provide food for eagle nestlings, one could survive while the other is eaten. The wee hawk would, of course, have its mouth open preparatory to receiving food, and the eagle parents could recognize the open mouth only as that of a nestling in need of feeding. I have been unable to verify this theory, however, and I am less than even an amateur birdwatcher...I'm just a wannabe.)

Sharing the eagles and eagle cams with  Our World Tuesday

I knew two, found a third, but more?

A piper in full regalia wearing
the Dress Fraser tartan

Scotland, England and Wales. Are there more countries with tartans? Yes, Ireland... and others, but more about them soon.

I grew up knowing I could wear the tartans of two Scottish clans: my mother was born a MacKenzie, and Grandma Davies a Fraser, so I knew I could wear the tartans of those two clans.

Ancient Red Fraser tartan, my favourite

I thought I understood why Grandpa Davies considered himself Scottish, because he grew up just outside Glasgow, and once a Glaswegian, always a Glaswegian and I didn't think to ask anyone about other tartans in Britain.

My MacKenzie grandfather was born, just as I was, in New Westminster, British Columbia, but his parents and at least one or two of his many older brothers moved to Canada from Scotland.

Dress MacKenzie tartan

Weathered MacKenzie tartan

Clan MacKenzie motto 'Luceo Non Uro'
"I shine, not burn"

Then, more recently, I found out there are also Welsh tartans, and realized that Grandpa Davies had had a choice... he could, if he wished, wear a Scottish tartan, but he had inherited the right to wear a Welsh one. This, in turn, might now give me a chance to wear this lovely blue Welsh tartan, to go with my blue eyes!

Davies...a Welsh tartan...who knew? And it's blue!

Davies tartan scarf

I think I would be remiss if I did not tell you about one of Scottish history's most famous MacKenzies: Roderick, who, while fighting for the Jacobite cause, gave his life to save a prince.

The Jacobite uprisings, also known as the Jacobite rebellions, or the War of the British Succession, were a series of wars in Great Britain and Ireland occurring between 1688 and 1746.


The uprisings were intended to restore the last Catholic British monarch, and later his descendants of the House of Stuart, to the throne of Great Britain.

England's King James II was deposed in 1688. For almost a hundred years, the Catholic Jacobites fought to reinstate him to the English and Scottish thrones.

When Roderick MacKenzie, son of an Edinburgh watchmaker, joined the Jacobite army, it was discovered that he bore an uncanny resemblance to Bonnie Prince Charlie. Roderick was, therefore, asked to ride, not quite with, but near the Prince.

This ruse managed to save the Prince for a time, but it cost young Roderick his life. The English forces, misled by the resemblance, captured and injured Roderick. As he died, he said, "You have just murdered a Prince." The English troops beheaded him, then took his head to London to 'prove' they had murdered Bonnie Prince Charlie. However, unbeknownst to the English, and thanks to Roderick MacKenzie, the Prince was able to escape and eventually took refuge 'over the sea to Skye' as the old song says.

Now, friends, it is winter here in the northern hemisphere and so, on a cold and blustery night, you might want to sit yourself down to read about Roderick and his brave sacrifice here at this link:

http://www.thesonsofscotland.co.uk/roderickmackenzie.htm

The ancient pile of rocks pictured below is a cairn

commemorating the bravery of young Roderick MacKenzie.   

Many thanks to my dear Scottish friend Yamini MacLean who took me to see the cairn, and to see as much of Scotland as we could pack into that all-too-short visit to my ancestral land.

The story on Roderick's cairn:

  

Sharing with Fiona's memorable meme:

Our World Tuesday