Lise's Ramblings

Not familiar with CAPTCHAs? Even if you don't know the name, I'm sure you recognize them by sight. A CAPTCHA is a skewed or squished word, sometimes with embedded numbers or even a line drawn across the middle.  I thought I had this one down pat. Turns out the image to the right wasn't an ad I could ignore; that photo's embedded 39 was a critical part of my CAPTCHA. D'oh! I understand why CAPTCHAs exist: to help computers tell us humans apart from automated evil (a.k.a. spammers or spambots). These tests are important to filter out the monsoon of Viagra and mortgage auto-posts that would otherwise flood blogs and websites. What bothers me is when CAPTCHAs screen me out. I stare intently, but can't figure out the right term. I tilt my head, lean in closer to my monitor and eventually hit the refresh button (circular arrow) to request an alternate CAPTCHA, preferably on that's easier to read.  Sadly, that's when I usually realize I haven&#

Today’s rambling is inspired by the following two tweets I read earlier this morning: Ian and Darlene sound like a far cry from the life-endangering dude named Otto (from “The Simpsons” fame). Let’s face it, not everyone is cut out for a career of coping with bullying, tears, whining, shouting, vomiting, repetitive singing and goodness knows what else.  Fortunately, we can trust certain amazing individuals who are suited to driving those yellow buses and carry precious children to and from school daily. Did a school bus driver ever make a positive difference in your life? Mine never initiated water fights or took me for ice cream, but I recall drivers who were funny and supportive of shy kids. Two pluses in my books. I also remember one bus driver who always stopped at a different spot to let off one little guy on our route. He would vary the drop off spot slightly to give one of my classmates a few seconds headstart to avoid the sidewalk full of rowdy sec

A flower delivery?  Pour moi? Wait, it's not my birthday. It's not my anniversary. And I have no special occasion to celebrate. Yet, here's a gorgeous bouquet, which includes some of my favourite flowers, addressed to me.       AWESOME!!! (Thank you, Cindy.)

Birds, bats, bees, butterflies and bountiful beneficial bugs: Thank you for pollinating our crops, gardens and forests. Without you, we Canadians would miss 70 per cent of our food. 1 We also appreciate all you do to make our flowers and trees multiply and thrive. Even our medicines, spices, coffee, tea and chocolate are possible due to your efforts moving pollen from here to there. Special mention to busy chipmunks and other small mammals who pitch in as pollinators too, but who didn’t fit with the alliteration in my salutation. Without question, you pollinators are…       AWESOME!!!

If you had a chance to seize a once-in-a-lifetime experience, would you go for it? All too often, obligations and daily life cause us to hesitate to take the leap, let alone plan for the leap. On Saturday, traditional and social media gave us play-by-play coverage of Nik Wallenda’s tightrope walk across Niagara Falls : a risky feat he dreamed of accomplishing since he was a six-year-old child. That reminded me of a half-finished blog entry I’d written about a friend who chose not to let the window close on a similarly daring pursuit. This past fall and winter, my friend Fiep sailed to Antarctica . Not on a luxurious cruiseship. Not on a mighty icebreaker. No, Fiep traveled there and back as part of the crew on the bark Europa―a traditional tall ship, which was built back in 1911 and looks like something Geoffrey Rush or Johnny Depp would sail in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.  Click image for larger view of the Europa in the Strait of Georgia How’s that for adventurous

I support local farmers and food producers, but every now and then I have to rely on imported products. Have you ever craved a food so much that the price didn't even matter? If not, maybe the actual price tag was low, but you spent two tanks of gas to drive somewhere to find your treat. These are the sought-after foods with no substitutes. My grandmother's downfall was Turkish Delight. Sally ’s is steamed puddings. I suspect Dorothy’s might be an imported beer. Expat Kiwis hanker for Pineapple Lumps. And many of my friends go gaga over Mackintosh’s toffee. My imported goodies have varied over the years. Family friends of ours, the VanTols, used to request that their family overseas send extra goodies for us. As I child, I would get hyper when I knew the VanTols had received a box from Holland . We would slide along Marianne and Peter’s kitchen booth to await the spoils such as: ·          breakfast hagel (chocolate or multicoloured sugary sprinkles for on toast ; hagel

The shape of these chairs hasn't changed much during the past century, because why change something that works. Sure, if you're so inclined, you can now can get them in funky colours or lightweight resins, but the tried-and-true shape remains. Algonquin or Adirondack chairs sport a broad seatpan, a natural reclining position, and wide armrests for balancing books, beverages or plates. Who hasn't sunk into one of these beauties to watch a sunset, read a novel, gaze at the stars, chat someone up at a barbecue, doze in the sunshine,...?  Thanks to my Uncle Don, Aunt Marion and Michelle, I have a Moosehead-branded, wooden Algonquin chair on my deck. It has been part of many good times, including a road trip in the back of a pick-up from Gananoque. Have any fond memories of your own involving these chairs?  I called this blog post A-chairs, which you can interpret as Algonquin or Adirondack chairs, but perhaps the A stands for       AWESOME!!!  A-chair

Don’t you get a kick out of it when you make a stranger smile or laugh? Maybe they’ve overheard you say something funny, spotted you wearing a ridiculous costume, caught you singing to yourself in the car, etc. People tend to be amused when I unexpectedly recover from a near-spill. Maybe I start to drop something and catch it at the last second, or more often than not, I trip and nearly go arse o’er tea kettle. Glad to be of public service. Today’s humour is brought to you in the name of humiliation, but your smile and laughter make it        AWESOME!!!

Following up on my any excuse to celebrate entry, this month I submitted my second guest post to the fan-led 1000awesomefriends.org site. This time I chose to write in a different fashion and my topic was how Dr. Seuss influenced and influences generations of readers. Here’s a teaser… Inspiring generations to read Long before we had blogs, Google, flickr and Tweets, Dr. Seuss introduced us to Blogg, Yertle, Once-ler and Kweets. Along Mulberry Street and Pompelmoose Pass too, down to Who-ville and over to Solla Sollew. He showed us odd kingdoms, near and far, fed our brains and created characters bizarre. Check out the continuation of my silly poem on 1000awesomefriends.org [scroll past the book covers to read extra verses and reach the concluding AWESOME ].

There’s so much to like about low tides. Vast stretches of sand (rich red sand, in my case). Sea glass, shells and driftwood dot the beach. Marine creatures paddle around in miniature sea pools, left behind by receding waters. Shorebirds flit about and poke around in search of snacks. Low tide lures in clamdiggers, dogs with energy to spare, children armed with pails and shovels, and people out for a stroll to clear busy minds with sea-air salve.       AWESOME!!!

Picture this: an elementary class a freckle-faced keener squirming at her desk a teacher holding a box and calling out family names   a sluggish clock unbearable levels of pent-up anticipation Eventually, my name would ring out. I would scurry to the teacher’s desk to collect a precious bundle of books, which stretched an elastic fastener to its limits. Even though that was decades ago, I recall those days with incredible clarity. Scholastic book days―my favourite school days. Weeks after carefully poring through the newsprint catalogue, checking boxes and adding up totals, at last, my book selections would arrive. Comic collections, Choose-your-own-adventure novels, Clifford and Curious George picture books, the Miss Pickerell series, how-to books, biographies and countless other affordable reads. Scholastic had them all. Each batch of books came with yet another mail-order catalogue. The marketing whizzes who compiled those flyers knew their trade. They could entice me to