I have been fortunate in the sense that I haven't had to use the Emergency room services for over 15 years now. But that all came to a crashing end this morning when I awoke after a very itchy and painful night and found myself covered in the most ugly looking red, splotchy rash that the more I scratched the more I itched. I thought I was dying. Fortunately my better half was at home and immediately drove me to the Emergency department for help. We were expecting a wait of at least four hours because that's what we always read about in the papers. I saw two ambulances waiting and prepared for the worst. Surprise surprise, we were in and out within an hour start to finish. During that hour I was evaluated by a nurse, seen by a doctor, given a shot of adrenaline and a prescription to be filled. Turns out I developed a giant case of hives which I have never had in my life. Now I have to figure out what exactly I am allergic to that brought this one. Fun and games begin. I was considering a picture but I doubt that anyone really wants to see my red, blotchy anatomy, bad enough that a young, cute doctor had to see it.

You decide if it's a scam or not. Here's the deal, Toronto Hydro in TV commercials tells you they will give you 10 percent off your hydro bill at the end of the summer if you reduce your usage by 10 percent over last years usage. So being the type of person who likes to save a dime I rushed out and bought a telescope clothesline for the back yard and we have been hanging out our wash all summer. I run around like a fiend and turn off lights and the central air has rarely been on.
Today I got my hydro bill and was pleased to see that my consumption was a fair bit less than last year for the same period and also checked out Toronto Hydro web site.
What I discovered is that the 10 percent challenge is a scam and no one will be able to meet it unless they turn everything off. Here's the reason; the phrase "weather normalized summer consumption", read
it and weep.
Seems that last summer's consumption was high in their estimation so they wont use it after all but will blend it with the year before. Isn't that kind of deceptive? So if I used 1000 KW hours for the summer of 2005, it's not the figure they will use to calculate my discount. Nope, the adjusted figure is 920 KW hours so I'm already 80 in the hole. This is definately deceptive advertising and does anyone out there really care except me?

Yup it's true, the protesters have been forcibly removed by the police. Now in case your thinking of the Caledonia Natives who have been camping out on what was once private property owned by a developer, and is now private property owned by the Ontario Government you would be wrong.
It was instead protesters who were supporting a homeless man who had build a little shack under the gardener expressway and the people supporting him were from OCAP. You can read the story here.
Am I the only one who thinks there is a double standard, one for natives and one for white people? What the heck is the difference? Both groups are occupying property that does not belong to them?
I think what we are dealing with here is a double standard of sorts, the police know that if any of the OCAP protesters get hurt most Ontarians don't give a fig and will probably cheer, but if a native person gets hurt, as in Ipperwash, all hell will break loose. Just one of the many things that preoccupy me this quiet Wednesday morning.

It would seem I had a lot of time on my hands this summer so I knit up a couple of things. This one is my favourite of the softest, cuddliest silk but still a bit too warm for now. I will probably get to wear it in Greece in October.

When I get bored with big projects, I put them down for a while and work on socks and mitts. My other half really loves wool socks and he gets three new pair a year.


Our local yarn and craft shop went bankrupt this spring and I went crazy. I loved the color of this cotton but knew it wouldn't be enough to trimmed it in black.

Just another little cotton shell in a color I cant get enough of. There's about 10 more but I dont want to bore you, these are the best. I told my better half that I need more closet space for my sweaters and he broke out in a cold sweat. I guess not.
Now I still have a huge stash of yarn and no more patterns. With the fall coming I better start searching.

Having led a gypsy type life most of my life I have a fondness for neighbourhoods and good neighbours. Now I have had some abysmal neighbours in my time, in fact one neighbour once cut down my clothesline with my fresh wash on it. That was a bit of a bummer and we sold up and moved shortly thereafter. In my last neighbourhood even after 10 years I hardly knew anyone. That's what makes me appreciate this one.

This is our annual pot luck party which was started 6 years ago by my immediate neighbour and now encompases 8 homes on our block.

Every summer we pick a different neighbour to host and they are a lot of fun. We also do a little cocktail party at Christmas time and it's also hosted by a different family each year.
When a new family moves onto the block as two did in the past couple of years, we make sure they are part of our group. This is why I love living where I do and what makes this neighbourhood work.

He was definately having a ball and after my better half showed nerve the rest of the adults also decided they could play like children.



This was The better half's biggest catch, a two pound bass. They never look very big in pictures but trust me, it really was.

This is a lesson on what not to to do when the boat and dock meet. Getting a hand in between the two is a painful experience but is also a way to get out of cooking and doing dishes for the rest of the weekend. This happened on Sunday morning but this injury will be painful for a while yet. I'm typing with one hand, knitting is a non starter and even driving my car was a tad painful.
So, as my friend Skip the Captain said, "to hell with the boat, I wish you hadn't hurt yourself". Besides the injury, wonderful weekend was had by all. There were 11 of us in a small, maybe 700 square foot cottage with one bathroom. We spent the weekend playing bridge, eating, drinking, swimming, tubing and just generally having a ball.

Enough Bass and Pickerel were caught to feed all of us lunch on the last day of the long weekend and there was never a better meal had. We hope to make this a yearly tradition for our bridge club.
Next week were off to North Bay for a few more days of fishing. Then maybe I will get back to serious issues but I pretty much need a break from wars and stuff.