Ogallala NE
Another quiet weekend with the usual chores.
Administrivia - renewed photo card online/backed up Important Documents file to external hard drive/booked latest vaccines/renewed library card/fixed my Aeroplan password/updated my MC online.
I cleaned up some blog posts Missouri 08/Boca Raton 17 and started Winter 13/14) and also went through my draft posts and deleted many.
Monday and Tuesday, John used the golf simulator in the morning.
I did a quick trip to Longo's for some groceries. They keep moving everything around!
I spent time on the weekend and today cleaning up blog road trip posts over the years and linking them together.
Tuesday I went shopping and got two pairs of pants and a sweater after trying on three other pants and a jacket.
There was a protest in front of Union Station by the Freedumbers a$$holes.
Wednesday John headed out for his weekly golf game.
I took the bus downtown, at around 12:55 all the phones on the bus squawked with an Ontario Emergency Alert test but it seems not everyone received it. The power was out at the traffic lights at Lake Shore and Lower Simcoe due to a massive outage, however I didn't any other signs of it.
I walked up to the Textile Museum.
A new bank??
A new restaurant.
The work on the new Metrolinx line is causing traffic chaos just as the other line, Eglinton Crosstown did for years and it still doesn't have an opening date!
Metrolinx CEO Phil Verster gave an update on the progress of the much-delayed Eglinton Crosstown LRT. Updated March 26, 2024 at 7:50 p.m. The $12.8-billion Eglinton Crosstown LRT was originally scheduled to open in 2020. There's still no date for when it will start operating.
As I cut through Nathan Phillips Square!
The Second Harvest Truck Pull Challenge is a one-of-a-kind race that puts your strength and teamwork to the test. Teams of 10 compete to pull a 20,000-pound delivery truck across Nathan Phillips Square in the fastest time, raising funds for Second Harvest’s food rescue and redistribution efforts.
The new courthouse brings together under one roof most of Toronto's Ontario Court of Justice criminal court operations from across the city, including the lovely old building, Old City Hall, you see behind the trucks in the above photos.
To prepare the site for construction of the courthouse, IO undertook a complex archaeological excavation that uncovered thousands of artifacts from when the site was part of St. John's Ward, one of Toronto's earliest immigrant settlements. The work ensures that the historical value of the site is documented and preserved.
Textile Museum - The Secret Codes: African Nova Scotian Quilts brings together historic and contemporary quilts from makers connected to Nova Scotia, embodying the stories and voices of the community. Curated by David Woods, this exhibition includes more than 35 quilts and a selection of 8 paintings that highlight the various functions of quilts over time: as decorated blankets in the home, as possible codes of communication for enslaved people seeking freedom, as records of family history, as a celebration of Black women and culture, and as inspiration for other art forms.
BTW to see previous exhibits from The Textile Museum, click on the words "Textile Museum" in the labels/tags at the bottom of this post.
They were gorgeous!
There was another exhibit that didn't really interest me, other than this piece.
This piece was in the lobby.
Coming out of the museum on the other side of the courthouse, it was nice to have the sidewalk open after all these years.
Back in Nathan Phillips Square and the brains are back, now being sponsored by Mattamy Homes! Click here to see previous posts. Click here to see previous posts.
Coming home took 45 minutes, it should a max 20 minutes due to the construction on the Gardiner that is supposed to take three years! That will put a damper on companies making employees come back into the office!
From mid-April until mid-2027, the Gardiner will be reduced to two lanes in each direction between Dufferin Street and Strachan Avenue with intermittent additional lane closures as required. The eastbound on-ramp from Lake Shore Boulevard, east of Jameson Avenue, will also be closed.Thursday John mentioned that Google Docs was using up his space on his phone, so I removed his access to the files. Here is an excellent document explaining how Docs duplicates files across multiple devices. Here is an excellent document explaining how Docs duplicates files across multiple devices.
That led me to cleaning up and editing some of our large recaps of our various travels on Docs.
Figured out how to get my Rakuten account working again for online shopping discount. I turned off my ad blocker (didn't help) but then turned off Bitdefender anti-tracker and it worked!!
WOW I managed to fix my Blogger issue of not being able to make comments on my own blog and others, unless I went incognito!!! It was Bitdefender that was messing with Blogger! BTW John didn't have this extension installed.
We went to St. Lawrence Market as it is supposed to rain tomorrow as we head into a long weekend.
We got mussels (I'll try not to kill them before we cook them), good hamburger, sourdough bread and some vegetables. We always go to the same vegetable place, because they have good stuff, are very nice and always knock a buck or two off our cost.
We also found a new butcher who actually knows what he is taking about. DiLiso's Fine Meats.
John had just mentioned that there was a shortage, I'll have to stock up at the $ store.
Friday we both went for mani-pedis. It was $45 last month and now $50. It was a gloomy and chilly day so I stayed in while John ran an errand as it is a long weekend here.
I did more work on our travel recaps in Docs (China 09) as there was some duplication.
COOKING
Sat ham, roast potatoes, mashed turnip and carrots and Brussel sprouts
Sun ham and veg leftovers and mashed potatoes NEW spicy honey mustard sauce
Mon NEW Vietnamese pork and shrimp rice paper wrappers with Thai cucumber salad. I used my dumpling dip for the spring rolls. John didn't care for the shrimp in them with the pork.
Tue ham, scalloped potatoes and cauliflower and spicy honey mustard sauce.
Wed liver, onions, garlic mashed potatoes and cauliflower
Thu mussels (Jamie Oliver cookbook Bloody Mary mussels) and fresh bread. This was so disappointing, there just wasn't any real flavour, despite the horseradish, garlic and chilis. I think the mixture needed cooking to blend the flavours, and more liquid. Jamie mixed all the ingredients (cold) and then simply poured it over the mussels while cooking.
Fri steak and loaded baked potato
WATCHING
Earth is a 1999 Indo-Canadian period romance drama film directed by Deepa Mehta. It is based upon Bapsi Sidhwa's novel, Cracking India (1991, US; 1992, India; originally published as Ice Candy Man, 1988, UK), set during the 1947 partition of India. This was very interesting and a piece of history we really knew nothing about.
The Sympathizer is a 2024 TV mini-series. Near the end of the Vietnam War, a plant who was embedded in the South Vietnam army flees to the United States and takes up residence in a refugee community where he continues to secretly spy and report back to the Viet Cong.
Prince Andrew: Banished
Cooking with Stella also by Deepa Mehta. Inside the Canadian diplomatic compound in New Delhi, a mischievous cook affects the lives of her employers and fellow staff.
57 Seconds57 Seconds When a tech blogger lands an interview with a tech guru and stops an attack on him, he finds a mysterious ring that takes him back 57 seconds into the past.
READING
Best Friends Forever was a quick read but I enjoyed the twists and turns, although the female cop left me shaking my head.
I finished reading The Skeleton Road and I am enjoying the side story about the skeleton but I am skimming over the very detailed descriptions of the Balkan war.
