The New Recute

 It started innocently enough. I had one nutcracker that looked like Santa. Then I saw others and well the die was cast. As of Wednesday that number has grown to 22. I am sure the collection really expanded once we began buying ornaments for our tree from Pier One Imports. They tended to put their Christmas merchandise on sale before Christmas and the temptation was too much. While I purchased a few elsewhere most of them came from Pier One as well as many of the nicest ornaments on our tree. 

“Marley was dead, to begin with ... This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate.” 

Pier One was a store we enjoyed, it was close and did not require a trip to a big shopping mall. We bought everything from bedroom furniture to candles but is was an especially important part of our life at Christmas. We could also get lovely Unicef cards there. 

“I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach.” 

When they closed earlier this year we dropped by and picked up a few candles. But we also realized it was one less place we would go simply to browse. Online shopping is convenient but rarely a shared experience. The last time I purchased a nutcracker at Pier One I was retired and had been to lunch with a group of friends from work. I was walking by with Manuela a lovely lady who had been telling us about a vacation home she was building in Mexico. The two of us wandered in and well the nutcrackers were on sale.  I realized when Pier One closed this was one yearly ritual that was no more and I decided the collection was complete. But recently we were watching a program on the Nutcracker and I knew there was one character missing. Yes I bought it online and yes I am now content with the collection as it is. 

“It is required of every man," the ghost returned, "that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide; and, if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death.” 

            

 

“No space of regret can make amends for one life's opportunity misused” 

Why a pickle? As a student, 40 plus years ago I spent several summers working at the H.J. Heinz Co. in Leamington, Ont. It has been an ongoing joke in the family ever since. This was long before the capitalists bought the plant to grab the brand, degrade the product, and break the union. May they wear the chains they forged in life, mankind was their business. Not as charity after the fact, when they have no further use for wealth, but as an ongoing part of a life richly lived.

Dinner and a show (The Wind in the Willows)

“Beyond the Wild Wood comes the Wild World," said the Rat. "And that's something that doesn't matter, either to you or to me. I've never been there, and I'm never going, nor you either, if you've got any sense at all.”

Helen sent me the link below to a pizza eating groundhog today, which I absolutely loved.

https://twitter.com/abc7/status/1250492458686771200?s=11

The video reminded me of the menagerie of small mammals (and some that are not so small)  that creep, crawl and hop thru the grass in front of the porch of our cabin. Unlike some, I'm looking at you Justin, we are going to follow the Federal and Provincial guidelines about unnecessary travel. Which means we will miss spring at the cabin, and I suspect the little critters will miss the bird feeders. However since everyone in our circle has been spared the virus, knock on wood, we have nothing to complain about. 

Okay the moose and bear were photographed from the cabin 

bur across the slough. Which is just as well. 

“He saw clearly how plain and simple - how narrow, even - it all was; but clearly, too, how much it all meant to him, and the special value of some such anchorage in one's existence. He did not at all want to abandon the new life and its splendid spaces, to turn his back on sun and air and all they offered him and creep home and stay there; the upper world was all too strong, it called to him still, even down there, and he knew he must return to the larger stage. But it was good to think he had this to come back to, this place which was all his own, these things which were so glad to see him again and could always be counted upon for the same simple welcome.”

" The wind is gusting, the dog runs full speed

towards nothing but happiness...,"

             From Waiting to Wave

                    Jonathan Carroll

Yes another seawall post. One thing Helen and I love is to

watch dogs. We did it when we visited New York City and

we always do it in Vancouver. Both cities figured prominently

in the documentary Dog Dazed about our love affair with dogs

in the city and the consequences of irresponsible owners who let

dogs  run off leash and chase wildlife and poop everywhere.

As much as I love dogs I do control my dogs and cleanup after them

and I am baffled that other people don't. However many of the things

people do baffle me which is why I often prefer animals and being at

the cabin.

So this entire post will go to the  DOGS!!!!!!

“Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend.

Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.” 

Groucho Marx

The difference is subtle but these are

different dogs one a bit younger. You will

also notice I rarely photograph people

hence the array of knees and ankles.

“If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die

I want to go where they went.” 

Will Rogers

“All his life he tried to be a good person.

Many times, however, he failed.

For after all, he was only human.

He wasn't a dog.” 

                

                                                    Charles M Schulz

I will also admit that while I like most dogs I do enjoy

little foo-foo dogs.

“If you don't own a dog, at least one,

there is not necessarily anything wrong with you,

but there may be something wrong with your life.” 

                                                 Roger Caras

“My little dogs ... heartbeats at my feet.” 

                          Edith Wharton

"I have a dog of Blenheim birth,

With fine long ears and full of mirth;

And sometimes, running o'er the plain,

He tumbles on his nose:

But quickly jumping up again,

Like lightning on he goes! "

John Rusking

And still missing our sweet girl Wendolene I am always

a sucker for Poms.

"Pray steal me not, I'm Mrs. Dingley's,
Whose heart in this four-footed thing lies."

Jonathan Swift (a lapdog's collar inscription)

http://thatsjustthewildwood.blogspot.ca/search/label/Wendolene

So as we can see there are many dogs off

leash and chasing things.

We are Shaun and Whateley and we endorsed this message.

 

What was it again?