……brought to you by Nancy Merrill
A Photo a Week Challenge – Flare
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Category Archives: Toronto
Share Your World, 2015 – Week 4
Where did you live at age five? Is it the same place or town you live now?
At the age of five I lived in Toronto. The following year we moved to Oakville, which is about a half hour west of Toronto. We only lived there for four years before we moved back to Toronto. I have lived in this great city most of my life.
View of the city from Centre Island.
You are invited to a party that will be attended by many fascinating people you never met. Would you attend this party if you were to go by yourself?
I’m not sure I would go by myself. If I know someone at the party and I’m assuming that the person who invited me knows me I might go for awhile. This summer I went to a neighbour’s party but I didn’t stay long because there were a lot of people there that I didn’t know.
Did you grow up in a small or big town? Did you like it?
I guess you figured out that I grew up in a big city. In fact, Toronto is the biggest city in Canada. I can’t remember not liking it. We had a park, skating rink, tennis courts and swimming pool right across the street. In the summer I swam every day and in the winter I was always at the rink. In the summer we used to go to Centre Island for picnics and we always looked forward to the CNE (Canadian National Exhibiton) which signalled the end of summer. 
As a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
My first memory of what I wanted to be was a nurse (me and every other little girl in the 50s) but at the age of 12 I decided that I wanted to be a Family Studies (Home Ec.) teacher. That dream didn’t waver much. Sometimes I thought I might want to become a doctor but I always went back to teaching. I studied to become a Family Studies teacher and for 17 years that’s what I taught. I have been a teacher for 34 years and I still love it.
Bonus question: What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?
I answered this question on Sunday so nothing much new to report here.
For more Share Your World posts check out Cee’s Photography.
Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge – Industrial
….my first photo challenge of 2015 brought to you by Cee
Birthday, Brunch, Books and Best Buys
…..Dec.30 is the birthday of my twins, G and B
Today we celebrated a birthday. Thirty-three years ago I gave birth to two healthy children, a girl and a boy. We celebrated at G’s place where she treated us to a wonderful brunch of homemade bread, homemade ricotta cheese, jams, honey, coffee, fresh fruit salad, kale and goat cheese frittata and a delicious green salad. Everyone contributed to the meal but the bulk of the work was prepared by G.
Gifts were exchanged earlier in the day and then again at the brunch. Our son loves books and our daughter collects cookbooks. Yesterday G ordered B a very special cookbook that he had expressed an interest in and surprisingly it was delivered while we were there. Now that’s service!
After brunch we (our oldest daughter, our son and his fiancé) drove north on Yonge St. and stopped at Super Khorak to purchase some special food items for dinner. Our future daughter-in-law is Iranian and we wanted to purchase some authentic Iranian food. My son and my husband literally cleaned their bowls and the food containers with the flat Iranian bread that we bought. There wasn’t a morsel of food left over. It was definitely a ‘best buy’ today.
WP Weekly Photo Challenge – Warmth
…..the lack of sun over the last few days has not provided many opportunities to snap pictures of warmth….time to go back into the archives
Cee’s Black and White Photo Challenge – Circles and Curves
….thank you Cee for another great topic for The Black and White Photo Challenge
Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge – Cities and City Buildings
….Join Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge and post your own photos of cities and city buildings
The Ninth Street Santas
….on Dec. 6th, western Christian children celebrated St. Nicholas Day, New Toronto had its Santa Claus Parade and Ninth Street residents inflated and lit up their Santas
A week ago, Saturday, my husband and I were walking Frances over to the park when I noticed a very unusual sight on Ninth Street. Giant inflatable Santas popped up all the way down the street. Now it’s not unusual to see Christmas decorations this time of year and the inflatable variety are becoming more common but it seemed like every other house had a large inflatable Santa on their lawn.
On the way back from our walk we purposely went down Ninth Street from the top of the street and I counted the Santas. There were 16 of them in one block that were all the same size and design. There were a few smaller ones in between and there was one lonely Frosty the Snowman.
Later that night I went back to Ninth Street to see the Santas lit up. I parked the car and saw two people on the street. I approached them and asked them if this display of all the same Santas was a coincidence or if it was an organized event. The latter was true. Apparently someone on the street went door to door and suggested that everyone put up one of these Santas. They were at Walmart and were on sale.
I asked if the person with the snowman didn’t get the message. It just so happened that one of the people there was the owner of the snowman and she protested very loudly. I calmed her down and concluded that Walmart must have sold out of Santas and that’s exactly what happened. A few more Santas have gone up since then.
Silent Sunday – Dec. 7, 2014
Busy, Busy, Busy…..
….the month of November has been incredibly busy but very enjoyable for the most part
It seems that the number of cultural events that I get to experience are few and far between but lately I’ve been going to quite a few shows. As they say ‘when it rains it pours’.
The month started off, sadly with my aunt’s death and her memorial gathering six days later. On a h
appier note my daughter celebrated her birthday and my son came home for a short visit from London all in the same week. I also attended a show called Between the Pages with a group of friends where we were treated to readings from the top five books that were short listed for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. All the authors were there and we listened to them answer questions that were given to them by the evening’s host, Carol Off.
In the following week we celebrated Remembrance Day at school on the 11th. It is always a big deal at our school and the children and staff prepared a very moving and memorable assembly for the community. 
Two days later I attended an afternoon concert at the Edward Johnson building where the Dover String Quartet played to a full house. They were the winners of last year’s Banff Springs String Quartet competition. It was an amazing concert and received rave reviews from two newspaper critics. 
The concert was sponsored and hosted by the Women’s Musical Club of Toronto.
A week later on the 20th, my husband and I saw the show, The Book of Mormon at the Princess of Wales Theatre. It was a very funny show. Just what the doctor ordered. We needed a good laugh after getting the news that my husband will need another surgery to remove the other half of his thyroid. They discovered that the nodules were cancerous. Apparently cancer of the thyroid is very slow growing and as his doctor put it, it’s not the illness that he’ll die from. None the less, the news was discouraging and the play helped alleviate some of his despair.
Two days later, our good friends, D and D called us and invited us to brunch at the restaurant, Frank, at the AGO. The art gallery was featuring works from Michelangelo and Rodin so after our meal we decided to take in the show. I have to admit that I found the Michelangelo pieces somewhat underwhelming. Many of the works were very small and people moved into the the pieces way too closely for my liking but I can understand why.
The Rodin pieces on the other hand were all sculptural and much larger. I enjoyed seeing the sculpture, The Thinker, up close and personal. It was also interesting to see how large Rodin made the extremities of his figures. The hands and feet of many pieces were massive. 
On the 25th I received a phone call from my friend L and she informed me that our friend, C had put her back out and couldn’t use her tickets for the ballet the next day. She offered them to us and so the next day we headed downtown, had dinner together and then went to the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts to see the ballet, Nijinsky. It was an incredible performance. I was mesmerized by the slow motion action going on in the background and the shear physicality of the lead dancer’s movements. How that man isn’t black and blue all over is beyond me.
Finally on Friday, November 28th we were guests of our friends D and D at the University of Toronto production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore, It was charming and fun to watch.
As I said earlier ‘ when it rains, it pours’. So much to see and do. I’m exhausted just writing about it. Now that we’re into December I’m sure things will not slow down but for different reasons. November was truly a month for the arts.
Mama Cormier 
