Suspended Sneakers
Yesterday evening and again this morning, I couldn’t help but notice the proliferation of abandoned running shoes, or sneakers, in town. Okay, so two pairs perhaps doesn’t constitute a proliferation, but if one sighting is odd, what does that make two?
And these shoes weren’t simply lying on the sidewalk or tossed to the side of the street. Both pairs were prominently displayed as if someone wanted them to be spotted by all passing motorists. Tied together by their laces, one pair was hanging from a hydro wire stretched across a main road while the other was suspended from the horizontal arm of a traffic light at a popular intersection. Hmmmm…..
Is there a secret movement, um…afoot?
© Lizann Flatt, www.lizannflatt.com
No part of this blog may be used without written permission from the author.
No part of this blog may be used without written permission from the author.
Whitby Weekend
So this past weekend we’re at the Ontario Lacrosse provincials in Whitby for number one son (yes, I know it’s Wednesday already…so the summer goes). It’s a big deal in the Ontario lacrosse world.
We wade through crowds and cheer ourselves hoarse. We smell smells that have no place outside a locker room but, well, that’s what you get when it’s hot and kids in heavy protective gear, which has to be used over and over again, run around and run around and run around more in a confined space.
At each arena we thread our way through the parking lot to the door. I’m seeing all sorts of stickers on cars that flash support for this home team or that home team. There are numerous pictures of lacrosse sticks: singly, two of them crossed, oriented horizontally and oriented vertically. I read slogans urging me to hug a ref. I am informed that it takes balls to play lacrosse.
When we pull up at, like, the fourth different arena of the weekend, the car beside me is sporting this sticker:
No kidding. We had a good laugh.
Driving around with that on your bumper? I think that takes balls.
[And the home team? Made it all the way to the semi finals but was stopped there. Not bad! Hawks rock!]
© Lizann Flatt, www.lizannflatt.com
No part of this blog may be used without written permission from the author.
No part of this blog may be used without written permission from the author.
Slug Sightings
I saw this slug today. Definitely not unusual considering all the rain we’ve had. But apparently this year the slugs are getting so confident, so bold and so sure of themselves they’re…
… hitching rides to your garden. Sheesh!
(No kidding, this slug was on somebody’s car in a parking lot when I saw it. I didn’t make this up.)
© Lizann Flatt, www.lizannflatt.com
No part of this blog may be used without written permission from the author.
No part of this blog may be used without written permission from the author.
Went on Road Trip…went to jail!
This past weekend saw me far from home. I went on a six-hour road trip for my son’s lacrosse tournament. I did not grow up with rep sports of any kind, so having kids who by times travel for their sport is a new thing for me. Costs aside, I’ve decided to embrace the madness.
I mean, if I’m going to have to go to towns or cities within the province that I’d not necessarily actually choose to visit, I figure why not make the most of my time there? There’s gotta be at least one interesting thing in most of them, right? This weekend it was Cornwall, Ontario.
So we hopped in the car and started on our odyssey. What a cool drive. We started in our granite outcroppings and boggy forests and lakes, drove through rolling forested hills, and on to the Ottawa valley with its flat farmlands. Fascinating to see the land change. And then we were there (only two major bicker sessions between the kids, yay!).
Check out this bomber out front of the place we stayed at! That’s the St. Lawrence River in the background. For scale, a nine-year-old is about as tall as those bushes.
Too bad the bomber’s also a pigeon perch. Spent Saturday in an arena. But before the gold medal game on Sunday we had some free time. Yay! I went to jail. Here I am behind bars.
That cell was rather cramped. Lucky I was only visiting. The Cornwall jail, which was in operation from 1834 until 2002, is now a museum. It was quite an eye opener for us all. I’m not sure which we all found most fascinating, the graffiti all over or the replica gallows from the days they hanged offenders in the courtyard. Or maybe it was the story of the bodies still unaccounted for that were buried in that courtyard.
Right after that it was off to lacrosse for the final game. After the weekend’s tie, win, win, win, the Hawks lost this final game by two. They did themselves proud and took home the tournament silver medal. Congratulations!
Then it was the six-hour drive home. We pushed through pretty quickly, because it was Sunday and the kids have this last week in school. Nor was I looking forward to driving during peak deer/moose roaming hours. We did stop for a break at my fave picnic spot on Golden Lake where my daughter found this dragonfly in the water.
Jumped back in the car and finished the journey. Only one deer sighting, and it decided not to play chicken with me. Phew!
© Lizann Flatt, www.lizannflatt.com
No part of this blog may be used without written permission from the author.
No part of this blog may be used without written permission from the author.