Ruby Returns

I told a therapist once that the reason I got a parrot was it meant responsibility. My father's generation went to war, which brings on adulthood pretty firmly; most others have children -- another responsibility delivery mode. As it turns out I loved that bird, but it wasn't the sort of mutual relationship that made the responsibility very rewarding, for me at least.

Enter Ruby. Over the past short weeks that Ruby has been in my life, more than once I've choked up with pride or love or whatever it is in her very presence. She has so challenged me and rewarded me with her intelligence and fun that the feeling gets too big for my chest . When a young puppy makes the decision to leave a pack of dogs she's playing with simply to respond to my command to come instead to me (her boring person who just wants to leash her and take her away from the mayhem of dog spit and dust), well it's a remarkable thing about dog intelligence and loyalty...

And over the past couple of days she's actually started to walk at "heel." At 17 weeks old. And I'm not doing nearly the amount of work I need to do with her. Today a few people in the new park we tried out this morning were amazed at her responsiveness -- they all assumed she was a small, grown up dog. And that's all her, Ruby, not me. She's far more intelligent than I when it comes to being a dog. I have worked hard to get her to first sit quietly and then to say hello to approaching dogs. Problem is, hilariously, now when she sees a dog, even a block away, she'll sit immediately and ignore my commands to walk, waiting to meet the dog! Then there are ALL the times when she ignores everything and goes puppy silly.

Oh, and I learned when walking her in the Rosedale Valley yesterday that she has a taste for horse poop. Ewwww. At least she dropped it when told to. Few things funnier than when a dog spits things out.

Some photos of Ruby, of course.
1) Fleeing, joyfully, a behemoth and gentle giant.
2) Catching the butt of a fleeing terrier (who had just stolen the frisbee from a beautiful Gr. Dane)
3) Ruby looking very much the Portuguese Water Dog here
4) Off the ground in the middle of the pack

Sorry for the snapshot quality of these shots, but my mind wasn't into doing much of anything but pushing the shutter release this morning.

Holy Mother of Marriott??

Downtown Montreal

Another nighttime shot handheld thanks to high (very high) ISO with very manageable image noise -- All hail the mighty Nikon D3 sensor! :)

Commercial Might

At one time Montreal was the very seat of banking might in North America, and indeed the world. Good thing too, for if such power had been expressed architecturally in Toronto as it was in Montreal the buildings would have been knocked down or only their facades saved, I figure. A couple have survived in Toronto. Emphasis on a couple.

Can you imagine the drive to maximize shareholder return producing this sort of magnificence ever again?

Montreal at Night

Somewhere on Rue Ste-Catherine

Opera Poster on Hoarding in Montreal

I feel like this today -- went to Montreal for a conference (where I presented) and caught my first cold of the season (I smugly last week knocked on wood and suggested I'd made it through the flu/cold season intact...) Not quite bleeding from the eyes, but can't help believe it would make me feel better if I did, somehow.

Being in Montreal is also my reason for not blogging for several days.

Upon reflection I like the uncropped version better

Fly. And be free.

On the Spit, Canadas are quwonking their displeasure at my approach, impatient seagulls stand, don't float, on ice at the downwind end of an otherwise open small bay. A couple of killdeer pathetically and fraudulently present broken wings as my feet quadruple in weight as my boots bring the mud underneath with them on each step.

But most gloriously is the unwritable sound of blackbirds -- redwing and red/yellow wings. I don't know what the actual names are and don't care. The redwings, the sounds they make, that blackbird inflection and tone, and the warning ding, as if a fine crystal jar were struck with a silver hammer, it's tip covered in velvet... No matter where I am, how many times I hear these sounds, this is childhood, this is the small marsh behind my childhood home where muskrat and blackbirds and bullfrogs, measured by the size of plates -- saucer to salad to dinner -- made their home. The blackbird calling reminds of fungi so large that as a small boy I could stand on the shelves they made circling tree trunks. My oldest brothers carved their names in those fungi (don't know the fungus names either; don't care either) so that by the time I was old enough the names had stretched in size, growing with the fungus. I remember still the sense of loss when foolishly showing those fungi to "outsiders" and the next day discovering them smashed from the tree trunks.

These are the same blackbird cries of protest heard as when we would try to traverse the marsh, moving from one island of grass and cat tail roots to another. The water black with tadpoles, the air more bug than oxygen in places, crawling annoying linings of our noses and mouths.

The marsh mud, the blackest thing we'd ever see, it's smell warm, alive.

Colourless Wall

I had a request to produce the peeling paint wall shot (posted earlier) in black and white. I've somehow misplaced the Raw file of that particular shot (which is of a much better and more interesting perspective) but here is the same wall from the same day produced in b&w (a process for which I have few skills, as may be evident).