Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Oh! Canada

Building in Vancouver, wrapped in Canadian flag, overlapped with image of manneqins sporting Olympics gear for the masses, as photographed on my trip west last November.  Also a Canada Post box photographed in Montreal recently.  All magically transformed with some obsessive Photoshopping while I should have been cleaning the house, to say nothing of getting washed and dressed, and maybe even baking, in preparation for the imminent arrival of my in-laws from Quebec.   Good to see that I have my priorities straight, n'est-ce pas?

Although I'm not usually a sports fan in any way shape or form (maybe a slight figure skating addiction--watching, not doing)...I am strangely compelled to tune in nightly to see how the Olympics are going and, more specifically, how Canada is faring.  I guess a little quiet flag waving in the sanctity of one's living room is not going overboard?  Still, it somehow stirs the old patriotic heart (that I scarcely knew was beating) to see all the fans decked out in red, waving their Canada flags or scarves, or sporting red maple leaf shaped hats, ringing their bells and cheering on the Canuck teams.  Go Canada, eh?

Send in the clones.

20 comments:

  1. Fabulous, love the flag wrapped round that building!
    My eldest daughter is an ice skater and she is enthralled with the figure skating (but I suspect it is more to do with some of those hot Russian skater-boys).
    Isn't it quiet with our brother absent!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Excellent pun! Is the brightness of the models due to clonic cleansing?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ah, Saj, a figure skating daughter. That can get costly. I can well see you in the role of "stage mother" stitching up the lurex, lycra, and sequins with a large bottle of Scotch at your side. I think your daughter will be safe enough with those hot skating boys, if you catch my drift.
    Brother? What brother?

    ReplyDelete
  4. DCW: "clonic cleansing" too funny! Yup, squeaky clean in the netherlands.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Jamie Salé and her French Canadian husband were in the Hudson's Bay Olympic Clothing Dept. yesterday. He pretended to be a salesman and she was showing some pre-teens how to strut their stuff in their new Olympic duds -- so funny.

    ReplyDelete
  6. There are five such small autumn red leafes on the wall in the living-room of mine, remembering me of home.
    An impressive piece of work you did with photoshop.

    Have to thank you also very much upon your wonderful comment made. Please have you all a nice Thursday.
    p.s.: hope you will win a lot of medals.

    ReplyDelete
  7. You might enjoy this article:
    http://www.slate.com/id/2244692/?from=rss

    Would it be wrong of me to buy myself one of those hoodies?

    ReplyDelete
  8. Shirl,
    I'm enjoying the Salé/Pelletier commenting/goofing around team whenever I see or hear them. Missed the Bay episode but saw them trying their skills at speed skating. They seem to have lost Jamie for the commentary for men's figures and replaced her with Liz Manley (who chuckles after everything she says). David needs to be prompted to speak, but isn't shy to express his honest opinion once he gets his mouth open. Very entertaining.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Thank you, Robert, for sharing a little flag-waving with me (and the rest of Canada). Have a great sliding through the next 2 days into the weekend!

    ReplyDelete
  10. C:
    Totally the right thing to do: Hood yourself proudly!

    ReplyDelete
  11. oooh, you'll be in trouble when Owen gets back, "what brother?" - indeed!

    I'm kinda pleased that my Scowly has opted for figure skating, she initially wanted to play ice-hockey but when she realised that you can loose teeth in that game she back-tracked faster than a politican!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Hi Louciao! These Olympics are taking me back to the days of British Columbia, Vancouver, artsy city, lakes, trails, and mountains which I visited with you. It's a beautiful place, and you must miss it. I've seen the site of the Montreal Olympics; they've managed to make it into something of a fair--I liked it.
    O, Canada! Love, me xx

    ReplyDelete
  13. Saj,
    Spandex and sequins are much sexier than no teeth. Although, I suppose it depends on one's personal tastes, but we won't go there.

    Don't you dare tell on me to a certain missing link!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Hi Margaret,
    I am so happy to have you back! Have really missed you and am looking forward to lots of visiting to your new blog. I love books and am always on the lookout for recommendations.
    Hugs to you!

    ReplyDelete
  15. The Olympic spirit is catching, eh? The image came out great...hopefully getting ready for the inlaws did too

    ReplyDelete
  16. Hello Art! Very pleased to make your acquaintance and take a look around over at your place.

    Getting ready for the inlaws worked out perfectly, right down to the chocolate cake. Thanks for asking.

    And you're right about catching the Olympic spirtit--it's practically viral, making one just sick enough to feel justified in taking time off from the routine.

    ReplyDelete
  17. OOKKKKKK !!! I'M BBBAAAAACCCCKKKKK !!!

    So !!! It was too quiet around here without that missing link of a brother what brother !?!?!?!

    Guess we'll just have to raise a right old ruckus and start popping champagne corks and shaking up beer cans before pulling the tabs and firing off bottle rockets and generally hooting and hollering and banging oil drums while dancing the lava java while singing or braying at the top of our lungs...

    Bet you were all out there looking up and down the blog street every night crying out : "O Brother Where Art Thou ! O Brother Where Art Thou !", while the music "I'm a Man of Constant Sorrow" played in the background...

    And so what's this quip, "oh, so you were away" ??? Ah, I see my big sis wants to be sassy while she's all hopped up on patriotic fever with the Olympic Games and all... yeah, I'll bet you and that sister Saj have been whooping it up in my absence, so now I'm just going to have to go back and read through all the comments there on both sites back until February 5th or so when we flew out of here... no wonder my ears kept ringing loudly, it was you two galumphing around in the blogosphere hooting like a pair of barn owls, making a racket with the raccoons and other night crawlers...

    Well, just wait 'til I'm all rested up again and really get back up to speed again after such an exhausting vacation... then I'll really start raising cane... which is funny, because for the past two weeks we've been constantly going by sugar cane fields, there's alot of that growing on la Reunion Island...

    Anyway, it is good to be back, and good to see you didn't totally forget your long lost blog-brother...

    Affectionately,
    Mr. Toad

    ReplyDelete
  18. PS oh yeah, and your caption "Send in the clones" couldn't help but remind me of a recurring reference to "Send In the Clowns" that keeps popping up in Tom Robbins fabulous book "Fierce Invalids Home Frome Hot Climates", which if you haven't read, you might enjoy...

    And WV is "bactu", is in, yup, I'm bactu the blogs again, so watch out, lock the wine cellars and whiskey barrels, that bad brother is bactu his old bad habits...
    ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  19. Oh, yeah. THAT brother!
    Heck, 2 weeks is either a long time or the blink of an eye, but any way you look at it, it's enough time to go cold turkey, do a Betty Ford turnaround,kick the bad habit, go straight, get sober, pull the blogspike out of the arm, get blasé, cultivate a glossy sheen of indifference, tear his face out of all the photographs, stop waiting by the computer and just generally get Oweened. Ah, but then he turns up looking all sun-sated and smirky, hanging out at the corner of the blog, and I'm hooked all over again.
    Welcome back?

    So go ahead and flip some cartwheels through the crevices of my Decollété and you will only discover how quiet and well-behaved and downright civilized the Sagittarian and I are when not under certain toady influences! Postively decorous, if not altogether bored, I'll have you know.

    And as for "Fierce Invalids" I recently re-read it with great pleasure. Yeesh you've got a good memory for literary details...I'd already forgotten about "Send in the Clowns" being a background tune to the book, though I haven't forgotten Switters' fondness for Broadway show tunes, or your lack thereof. Oooh, it's all coming back to me now...Maybe I should have changed the blog locks while you were away.

    WV: supgump
    Something to tide one over, similar to a stopgap; as in, Lynne resorted to a supgump of television programs to make up for the absence of Mr. Toad's Magic Lantern Show.

    When you've finished shaking up the bottles of champagne and popped a few corks, would you mind pouring me a glass? All we've got around here since the in-laws departed today is a stack of empties. And I believe our sister Saj is rather parched as well as she's been uncharacteristically quiet of late.

    Let the games recommence, dear brother.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Ah ! Send in the blog clowns then ! O-when the saints go marching down !

    WV = corsh, as in, corsh it's good to be back, smirking and tanned and all...

    :-)))

    ReplyDelete