"It's like leaving your other life behind." 
If you want to get out of town and you’re a sailor, boater, water lover, or just plain enjoy distinctive, decorative art, head north to the streets of Orillia for their ‘Sixty Sails’ outdoor art expo.
“Would you like to take Limba for a walk?” Robert, the excellent elephant expert asked me, with a twinkle in his eye.
“Absolutely,” I agreed. After all, Dahling, it’s been ages since I’ve gone for a walk with an elephant!
…not to mention the C for Candy Floss, the J for Jelly Beans and the big round W for the watermelons that Limba loves to eat whole. This lady likes junk in her trunk!
Just what the heck was Bob Barker trumpeting about on his visit to Toronto last week?
In a digital world obsessed with instant gratification, it was a highly rewarding experience to be sated by the skills 'in camera' and in the 'dark room' that MOMA'S featured women photographers, many in the very early years of the photographic process, possessed.
Equally electrifying is to reflect on the history of MOMA.
MOMA, the Museum of Modern Art, in New York City, hosted a special photography exhibition that I was privileged to see this past weekend:
Pictures by Women: A History of Modern Photography
From moma.org
'For much of photography’s 170-year history, women have expanded its roles by experimenting with every aspect of the medium. Pictures by Women: A History of Modern Photography presents a selection of outstanding photographs by women artists, charting the medium’s history from the dawn of the modern period to the present'
Photographs made by some of my favourite artists and icons, including Diane Arbus, Imogen Cunningham and Dorothea Lange, are that much more impactful and weighty, viewed 'live' in a collection as opposed to photographic plates in a book.
The last time I was in the Big Apple, it was for work, and it was....well work!
It is just so much More Fun when it's your own time And you're with a special friend (and daughter!)
Thinking it would be
Quite exquisitely nifty
To celebrate the milestone
Of my turning sixty
Jacqueline booked a
Half marathon
A villa
And a plane
Seven nights
Was the party
God
I’m one lucky dame
Two baths and three bedrooms
For Jay knew
The score
Reunited at the airport
Was The Infamous
Fearsome Four!
A Grand Cayman pipe dream
Was all it really seemed
Until reality was nixed
By the girls
and the Caesar mix!
Race day is 7 hours and counting.
My duffel race bag is packed with only THE most important 'make it to the finish line' items. After all, I have to carry this crayon red bag all 21.6 kms of the half marathon:
THE most necessary and important key-to-the-finish line items to pack:
Two more sleeps 'til we hit the beach............although I have to admit, I've been doing a little envisioning of the worrying kind around what shape my body might possibly be in this time next week----- specifically, 24 hours after the hearty 21.8 km marathon walk my gregarious group is running, walking (with possible sightings of crab crawling as I inch closer to the perimeter of the finish line).
ALL HAIL to Winter's onslaught, especially when it's effects are being wonderoulsy insulated by a December exodus to Seven Mile Beach on the Grand Cayman Islands, where my daughter Jacqueline and friends Phyllis and Rebecca all plan to pick up (half) marathon medals at the December 5th run/walk race for Joints in Motion. (arthritis). Being neither a runner nor a walker, (imagine a fully sweating Zumba Salsa hip hop dancer,) I was originally worried about the long haul between the shotgun start and the penultimate finish ribbon.
Colonel Russell Williams, he of alleged recent serial murder fame, is still 'gasping for control,' states Sunday's Toronto Star. Apparently Old Russell's tightly disciplined conscience is beginning to hurt in places he didn't know he had.
Going for a thrill ride in Byron Bay
Toronto Star - Travel Section, Thursday, February18th, 2010
Cece Scott
The sparkling waters of Australia’s Byron Bay are full of special surprises, from thrill-ride waves to a resident pod of dolphins.
Byron Bay, Australia–"Do you have to be a contortionist to get this thing zipped all the way up?" I ask the long-legged woman sitting at a makeshift table next to a stack of yellow and red sea kayaks.
"Well, I reckon your suit's on backwards," she answers, making me melt with embarrassment as my companions turn away with smirks on their faces.
The pungent full-body wet suit, stuck to my skin like a postage stamp, was still damp from a previous outing, but my early-morning enthusiasm was whetted by a conversation I'd had with our guide Andy, of Australia's Cape Byron Kayaks.