Saturday, May 26, 2007

This and that

I looked at that picture that I took from up in the mountains behind us. When I am walking there it reminds me strongly of Southern Ontario wilderness...well, I am not sure cottage country is wilderness, but it's a whole heck of a lot wilder than the hills behind THIS town...

The photo though, it looks all wrong, and I was thinking about why this morning when I was walking Chuck. I realised that it is so difficult to convey the piney smell of the woods, the clean air and the scruffling scuff of the pine needles underfoot. The paths through the trees, and the limited views.

It is weird up there, sometimes it seems like pine woods, then I round a corner and it seems like the Four Corners...another beautiful place. Then another turn and it seems like Georgian Bay with the lichen on the rocks....

It is all so evocative...the camera cannot even begin to resemble it. I continue to be surprised by how arid it all looks on film, and how arid it is...

It is raining hard now...bucketing down. How can clouds hold SO MUCH water? I understand it intellectually at some kind of lay-person's level, but I don't understand. There is a good chance that the scientists don't either if you question them a bit... It is pouring, rivers are running of the balcony roof...how can there be so much water in a cloud?

We went a wandering today, and saw these, which fascinated me....


He's small and so worried, clinging to his bag with the dragon breathing down his neck, literally. Are these Catalans clinging to their money bags as the big Castillian dragon in Madrid taxes off their money? A small child with toys, I don't think that, the face is wrong...those eye-brows, you see them on people here all over the place. People here still say to me that the problem is that all the money goes to Madrid. Could there be echos of this lament about Paris, Toronto, New York, London, Berlin......they take the money and pay scant heed to our needs?


Asterix and Obelix go Catalan...they've got the traditional hats on, look like toques to me, and they are wearing espardanyas, the espadrills here, with the lace up tops, identical to the ones we bought for the girls today! And Obelix has mastered the pourro, what a skilled guy, he'd probably like the wild boar in the hills around here too.


Do you like that hat? On close inspection it doesn't actually say what it looks like it says, but gee willakers, can you imagine buying that? Or getting it as a gift? And from who? Your Dad? Your Boyfriend?

The think that I find scary is that it isn't a homemade artifact of some sicko...these are designed, manufactured and distributed. Presumably almost exclusively to non-English speaking countries.

Kinda makes me nauseous.

We had a really nice day in fact, although our bus home either didn't come, came early, the schedule was changed, I don't know, but we sat around in the sun for more than an hour and a half waiting for the bus before we bailed and took an alternate, but very expensive transportation....Eldest and I agreed that it was a good day, but it all went on about two hours more than it was fun.

3 comments:

Angel said...

ok...about the hat...if it doesn't say what I think it says...then what does it say? And I cannot imagine wearing a hat like that around..even tho it's pink and sparkly.

Beth said...

If I could walk the dog in places such as the ones you describe, it would be so much more of a pleasure than a pain. (Do you do the poop and scoop routine??)

Do not like that hat. Sick. I hope it is not a big seller.

oreneta said...

Beth: By my reading technically it reads Bape...but really...

Beth: SO nice to hear from you again...It is mighty nice walking the dog here...and yes, I poop and scoop, even in the mountains. Most, though by no means all, do.

The hat is sick.