DIARY FROM ONTARIO CANADA

DIARY FROM ONTARIO CANADA MAY 2003

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Sunday 18th May 2003

Has been a good week weatherwise. Not too hot. Fair amount of rain. The men finished my friends' front borders and put a small interlocking brick path up to the front steps.

I was about to take pictures of my latest paintings, but my camera registers "DEW DETECTED". If you are buying a camera it is very important to have this feature. Operating the camera with condensation is a very easy mistake to make, summer or winter, passing from a cool air-conditioned area into a warmer damp area. It will damage the camera.

After drying out the camera, I took the following pictures. My paintings are clearer than these pictures. I must have moved the camera:

View of park from my garden, Canada.

My cottage in the Cotswalds, England.

I don't understand the north American way of inventing euphemisms for very unpleasant things. For instance, flea and lice infestations they call "cooties". For a long time I had no idea what they meant. (The word "cootie" comes from the Malayan word "kutu" for a dog tick. According to the dictionary, British sailors were responsible for this euphemism). The result is that some people do not take such infestations seriously and so they are spread. From colds to tape worms - this can be an extremely unhygienic country. Words do matter.
Now I'm wondering if they have decided to call pneumonic plague "SARS". Yes, indeed, it does sound better, but does not convey the same sense of urgency as the "pneumonic plague".
I have looked up pneumonic plague and the dictionary definition is as follows: "that in which the air passages are intensely congested with hemorrhagic (bleeding) exudate (pus) in the alveoli and bronchi, but with little or no fibrin (fibrin is an insoluble protein which is essential for the clotting of blood) formation; the bronchial and hilar lymph nodes are also involved." This sounds very much like Severe and Acute Respiratory Syndrome to me.

Sunday 11th May 2003

Lovely day. About 18慢. Very high wind. There have been many tornadoes south of here in the States. They gradually move this way. About the 20th of May we usually have them.

As I needed some pictures of cumulo-nimbus and stratus, I took advantage of some good conditions this afternoon:

My movie this afternoon was "Liz McGuire". Lovely light-hearted teenager movie. Reminded me of being sixteen again. Whizzing around on a Lambretta scooter to the sounds of "volare". What a joyous and hopeful time. I remembered too the feeling of being horribly gauche. .. falling down stairs in front of a party of adults and my best boy-friend. This while being dressed in my best evening gown and high-heels. Oh well, I guess we all go through it.

Last week I saw "X-Men". Fantastic special effects. Many fights against evil politicians and their armies. A kind of Harry-Potter for a slightly older age group .. who also enjoy Marvel Comic characters.

Return to other months of Diary from Canada at http://www.sentex.net~oficserv/Canlet.html

Return to home-page of OFICSERV Computer Office Services & Drafting at http://www.sentex.net/~oficserv

Link to the Movies Pages at Front Row Centre.

Visit a site for many photographs of North American Birds and animals.

Rhona Raskin Home Page at http://www.rhona.com.