Tuesday laughs

It works for me.  How about you?

 

Goodbye Global TV News

On Saturday night at 6:40 PM four blocks from where we live, there was another gang shooting.  We didn't hear the shots but heard about all the police that were in attendance.  One person was shot and killed.  At 11:00 PM, I put on Global BC News.  No reporting of this event hours before.

I've seen the changes in Global News.  They replay the 6:00 PM news at 11:00 PM!  No new news.  If you've seen the news at 6, you've seen it all for the rest of the day.  

The traffic helicopter is gone.  They pick up clips from Drive BC!  Journalists out on the field are fewer.  I googled it and this is what I found:

In September 2025, they laid off 45-46 employees, primarily in B.C. and Alberta, including 26 journalists. These cuts, part of a "restructuring" due to falling ad revenues and high debt, follow multiple rounds of layoffs in 2023 and 2024, including the closure of some local stations.

We started watching BBC news at 10 PM or 11 PM.  We see what happened overnight in the middle east.  The news from the US is not filtered as it is on Fox, CNN, and MS Now.  We get our US news from this network.  There was a very interesting interview today from some of the Epstein survivors.  They will never appear on US TV.

Good-bye Global, we've enjoyed your news for years.  Hello City TV, CBC or CTV.  We will check them all and see which one we like best.  I'm leaning toward Ian Hanomansing as he's a great news anchor.

Sunday funnies

  

The old days of photography

Selfies. It seems like everywhere you look these days someone is holding their phone up taking a photo of themselves or of the group they’re with. It didn’t used to be like that. It wasn’t a thing to do way back when. Sure, people tried to hold the camera up and guess that the shot was framed properly. It was just a guess. Plus, you had to be carrying a camera with you. That was something you would mainly do if you were on holiday. And you had better be packing extra rolls of film.

It was always a bit of a guessing game, especially if you were sporting a Kodak Brownie Hawkeye. Push the button and hope for the best was all you could do back then. And you couldn’t enjoy the photo right on the spot as you can these days; you had to take the roll to the drug store or camera store and wait for them to develop the film, which in some cases could take a couple of days. And of course, once you got the photos back, you’d discover how many were out of focus, or just a bad shot.

Those were the days when nobody was packing a phone that doubles as a camera! Your phone was attached to the wall of your house. Camera and phone were two different animals. Phone and watch was a thing, but only if your name was Dick Tracy!

But there was one way of getting a selfie, well, sort of a selfie, and that was to get captured walking down the street, usually Granville Street, by a man with a metal box on wheels and a camera mounted on top. A Vancouver legend, Foncie Pulice was his name and he became famous in Vancouver as the man on the street with a camera who took millions of pictures of ordinary people just walking along.

Foncie started out shooting for other companies but decided to start his own business in 1946 and kept snapping shots until his retirement in 1979. Most of his pictures are those taken on the east side of the 700-block of Granville, and that’s where I remember seeing him on my trips downtown.

The photos were usually a full-length shot of you, or you and your friends just walking down the street. He would try to make eye contact to make sure the person wanted to be photographed. He didn’t need to worry about adjusting the focus; when the subject stepped on a certain spot on the sidewalk, Foncie would snap the shot. Some were candid shots, or if you saw he was aiming at you, you could put on your best smile. Either way, Foncie had captured you, being you!

After a full day snapping shots on the street, Foncie and his wife, Anne, would develop the film at home. Then, the next day, he would take the proofs to his store downtown. Anne would handle the store while Foncie went back on the street to shoot more photos. Customers could redeem the coupon he had given them and purchase their photo. How much did he charge? Well, back in the 1940s you could get three photos for 50 cents!

Foncie was snapping photos on the streets of Vancouver for 45 years. He would work long hours, sometimes into the evenings, six days a week. The business of street photography started to die out in the early to mid-70s as more and more people owned their own cameras, and of course these days, with the camera in your phone, it wouldn’t stand a chance of survival.

Foncie retired and hung up his camera on September 27, 1979. He and his wife Anne, moved to the Okanagan. Foncie passed away in 2003 at the age of 88. His wife, Anne, lived to be 97 and passed away in 2011.

He was so much a part of the old days of Vancouver, and a lot has been written about him and his photos. 

Are your affairs in order?

I saw this post online.  I don't know if everything applies to where I live, but I thought it was great advice.  I've been executrix for three people.  The best advice to give people is put someone you trust as a signatory on your bank accounts.  It makes everything so much easier.  

Our affairs are all in order.  It's detailed and easy for anyone to find.   

When my husband's mother passed away, she prepaid her funeral expenses in 1950!  The funeral director was stunned at how much the price increased.  After she was buried, we prepaid our funerals too!  

This information is for those of you who don’t have your affairs in order. Make sure all bank accounts have direct beneficiaries. The beneficiary need only go to the bank with your death certificate and an ID of their own.  

We opted to put a beneficiary on our bank accounts.

**You cannot "TOD" Transfer On Death in British Columbia.  However, you can add someone to your title so when you pass, it is theirs with no taxes.

- TOD = Transfer On Death deed if you own a home. Completing this document and filing it with the court saves your heirs thousands. This document allows you to transfer ownership of your home to your designee. All they need to do is take their ID and your Death Certificate and they will then have the deed signed over. Doing this will avoid the home having to go through probate. 

- Living Will: Allows one to put in writing exactly what you want done in the event you cannot speak for yourself when it comes to healthcare decisions. 

- Durable Power of Attorney: Allows one to designate a person to make legal decisions if one is no longer competent to do so. 

- Power of Attorney for Healthcare: This document allows one to designate someone to make healthcare decisions for their person. 

- Last Will and Testament: Designates to whom personal belongings will go too.

- Funeral Planning Declaration: States one’s wishes as far as disposition of the body and the service/s. 

- If the above documents are completed, you can AVOID probate. If all the above is not done, you have to open an estate account at the bank. All money that doesn’t have direct beneficiaries goes into this account. You have to have your executor to open the estate account. The executor also has to publicize your death in the newspaper or post publication at the courthouse, to allow anyone to make a claim on your property. - It’s a complete nuisance. 

- Make a list of all banks and account numbers, all investment institutions with account numbers, lists of credit cards, utility accounts, etc. Leave clear instructions as to how and when these things are paid. Make sure heirs knows where life insurance policies are located. 

- Make 100% sure SOMEONE knows your Apple ID, bank ID account logins and passwords!

- Make sure you have titles for all automobiles, campers, motorcycles etc

- MOST IMPORTANTLY!- Talk with those closest to you and make all your wishes KNOWN. Talk to those whom you’ve designated, as well as those close to you whom you did not designate. - Do this to explain why your decisions were made and to avoid any lingering questions or hurt feelings. 

Hope this lights a spark to encourage all your friends and family to take care of these things and to make it easier for those we all leave behind. There is no template for these documents. these are quite simply, written documents, in your own words, and an exercise in just instructing your wishes to be carried out in detail in plain English. 

The above list at least helps you start an important conversation with your loved ones.

If any of my legal friends finds something wrong, please let me know.  My legal knowledge is from Judge Judy!

Ken Kirkby 1940 - 2023

When we lived in Richmond in the early 1970's, Ken Kirkby was our neighbour.  His wife was lovely and I remember when she gave birth to her son.  After her son was born, Ken left and they divorced.  He painted in his living room.  His art was incredible.  He was a quiet man.  

The home was sold and his wife said he moved up north. He was also a fly fisherman and Cec met him a few years after he moved on Peterhope Lake.  They were both flyfishing!  I've followed his artwork since we knew him.  I was sorry to hear he passed away.  I thought you would be interested in this Canadian artist!

Ken Kirkby entered the world on September 1, 1940, in the middle of an air raid over London during the Second World War. He later joked that this explosive arrival foreshadowed the intensity and determination he would bring to his art.

After the war, his family moved to Parede, Portugal, a seaside village where the Atlantic crashed against craggy cliffs. It was here that Kirkby’s artistic instincts took hold. He began drawing obsessively, absorbing the textures of the sea, the light, and the stories of the people around him. At just 16, he held his first exhibition in Lisbon—an immediate sellout that hinted at the career to come.

By the late 1950s, Portugal was tightening under dictatorship. On his 18th birthday, Kirkby made a bold decision: he brought his family to Canada, a country he had dreamed about thanks to stories from a whaler mentor who spoke of icebergs, Inuit hunters, and the northern lights. He arrived in Vancouver on September 2, 1958, ready to reinvent his life.

What followed was extraordinary.  For five years, Kirkby walked, paddled, and sledded across the Arctic—from Coppermine to Baffin Island.  He lived with Inuit communities, absorbing their stories, humour, and resilience.  He encountered inuksuit—stone figures that had guided Inuit travellers for thousands of years—and became fascinated by their quiet authority.

These years changed him forever.  He witnessed firsthand the challenges faced by Inuit communities and made a promise to an Inuk grandmother: he would find a way to raise awareness in the South about the struggles of the North.

Kirkby’s early Canadian success came in the late 1960s with paintings of Western landscapes.  But his heart belonged to the Arctic, and he began painting inuksuit—long before the symbol became widely recognized in Canadian culture.  At first, galleries weren’t interested.  But Kirkby persisted, convinced that these stone figures could speak to Canadians about the land and the people who shaped it.

His life’s most ambitious project was Isumataq, a monumental Arctic landscape measuring 12 feet high and 152 feet long.  The title means “an object in the presence of which wisdom might reveal itself.” It took decades to complete and stands as one of the largest oil paintings in Canadian history.

Eventually, Kirkby settled on Vancouver Island, fulfilling a dream sparked by early fishing trips along Nile Creek. He painted daily—often for long hours—and became known not only as a painter but as a storyteller, environmental advocate, and master fly fisherman.

He married fellow artist Nana Cook in 2017.  They both wore chest waders and exchanged their vows standing in the waters of Tunkwa Lake.  She was also a fly fisher and  together they created a shared artistic life on the coast, producing books and exhibitions that celebrated the landscapes they loved.  

Ken Kirkby continued painting with remarkable energy well into his eighties. He passed away peacefully on June 20, 2023, at his home on Vancouver Island, surrounded by family. He was 82.

https://ken-kirkby.com/

Happy 100th Fay

 

Back in the 1980's I worked with Laurie.  We've been friends ever since.  Laurie's mom was a single mother and at 55 she had terminal cancer.  Her best friend Fay was a nurse.  Fay quit her job to look after Laurie's mom.  Her mom asked Laurie to always look after Fay.  She is a lovely single lady with no family in Canada.  Laurie has always looked after Fay.  She started to get dementia a few years ago and now is living in Dr. Al Hogg Pavilion which is part of Peace Arch Hospital.

Laurie came to visit my brother-in-law while I was visiting and I went over to see Fay at her birthday party.  Phil was playing his guitar and singing to the crowd,  He had a great voice and sang songs all the people in the facility would remember.  Fay sang along with some and actually conducted him with a chocolate bar.

It was a lovely afternoon for a lovely lady!  Happy 100th Fay.

She received greetings from the Governor General and King Charles and Queen Camilla.  Laurie had them framed and they are putting them up in her room!

Rachael Maddow at UBC

Every so often, someone recommends something that turns out to be an absolute gem.  That was the case when my cousin Laurie told me to watch Rachael Maddow’s recent interview at the University of British Columbia. I’ve followed Rachael for years through her MSNBC program, and I’ve always admired her intelligence, her clarity, and her deep respect for history. But this UBC conversation reminded me why she stands apart in today’s media landscape.

Rachael Maddow isn’t just a broadcaster.  She’s a historian at heart—someone who understands that the past is never really past.  Her academic background shines through in everything she does, and in this interview, it was on full display.  She weaves historical context into modern political analysis with a fluency that feels effortless, but it’s rooted in years of study, curiosity, and genuine respect for the craft of storytelling.

What struck me most was her ability to make complex issues feel both accessible and urgent.  She doesn’t sensationalize.  She doesn’t shout.  Instead, she invites you into the conversation, guiding you through the threads of history that shape the world we’re living in today.  It’s a rare skill—and one that feels increasingly precious.

Watching her speak at UBC, I was reminded of why I’ve been drawn to her work for so long.  She’s not just reporting the news; she’s helping us understand it.  She brings context, nuance, and humanity to topics that can otherwise feel overwhelming.  And she does it with a calm confidence that makes you feel like you’re in capable hands.

Laurie was absolutely right to nudge me toward this interview.  It’s one of those conversations that stays with you—thought-provoking, grounded, and rich with insight.  If you appreciate journalism that respects its audience and honours the complexity of our world, Rachael Maddow continues to be one of the best voices out there.

This interview was presented by the UBC School of Public Policy and Global Affairs.  It  is an one hour and twenty-one minutes and well worth watching!

I was robbed!

I’m ok — just a bit shaken up, but I’ll be fine.

I was robbed yesterday afternoon in broad daylight at the gas station.

After it happened my hands were shaking, I felt dizzy and I was probably in shock. My money was gone, so I called the police. They were fantastic and even called an ambulance because my blood pressure was through the roof.

The officer asked if I knew who did it…

I said:

“Yes… it was pump number 2.” ⛽️

Diana never stopped being a Royal

The palace stripped Diana of her title the day after the divorce was finalized. She had one year left to live.  The divorce between Charles and Diana was finalized on August 28, 1996. The following day, a letter arrived at Diana's office from the Lord Chamberlain's department. It informed her that, effective immediately, she was no longer entitled to use the title Her Royal Highness. She would be known, from that point forward, as Diana, Princess of Wales — not Her Royal Highness The Princess of Wales. 

The distinction is not ceremonial.  It is constitutional.  It meant that anyone meeting Diana was no longer required to bow or curtsy.  It meant she had been formally removed from the inner circle of the institution she had represented for fifteen years.

Diana had not been told the decision was coming.  She learned of it the day it happened.  Those close to her described her reaction as one of genuine shock — not because she had expected to remain inside the institution, but because of the speed and the timing.  The ink on the divorce papers was barely dry.

She was 35 years old. She had two sons who retained their HRH titles.  She did not.  When William and Harry were in public with their mother after August 1996, protocol required that they be addressed before her — because they outranked her.  Her own children, formally, took precedence.

Diana died on August 31, 1997 — exactly 368 days after the title was removed.  In that final year, she walked through Angolan minefields, campaigned for a global landmine ban, and sat at the bedsides of dying people in hospices across the world.  She did all of it without the three letters the palace had decided she no longer deserved.

The title was gone.  The work continued.  The world noticed the work.

The tulips in Ottawa

In 1943, a baby was born in a hospital room that had temporarily stopped being part of Canada.  It sounds impossible. It happened anyway. And eighty years later, twenty thousand tulips still arrive in Ottawa every spring because of it.

The story begins in 1940, when Germany invaded the Netherlands. The Dutch royal family fled. Queen Wilhelmina escaped to London, where she ran a government-in-exile. Her daughter, Crown Princess Juliana, heir presumptive to the Dutch throne, was sent further away for safety. She and her two young daughters, Beatrix and Irene, crossed the Atlantic and settled in Ottawa, Canada.

For three years, the royal family lived there quietly. Juliana sent her children to local schools. She shopped in neighborhood stores. She became a familiar, well-liked figure in the capital.  In the autumn of 1942, Juliana announced she was pregnant with her third child.  That's when the lawyers got involved.

The problem was citizenship. Canada grants citizenship to anyone born on Canadian soil. If Juliana's baby was born in Ottawa, the child would automatically become a Canadian citizen and a British subject. Under the Dutch constitution, that could complicate the child's place in the royal succession.

The solution had to be precise. Canada could not declare a hospital room to be Dutch territory. No country has that power over another's land. But Canada could do something else.

On December 26, 1942, King George VI, acting in his role as King of Canada, signed a proclamation under the War Measures Act. It declared that the place where Juliana gave birth would be temporarily extraterritorial. For the duration of the birth, that space would not be Canadian soil.

The baby's Dutch citizenship would come through her mother's bloodline, as Dutch law allows. But the baby would not also become Canadian, because she would not technically be born in Canada.

Four rooms on the third floor of Ottawa Civic Hospital were set aside for Juliana. One for the princess. One for the baby. One for her nurse. One for a security guard.  The rooms overlooked Holland Avenue.

On January 19, 1943, Princess Margriet Francisca was born. She was the first and only royal ever born in North America.  She was named after the marguerite, the flower worn by Dutch citizens as a symbol of resistance to the Nazi occupation.

In the occupied Netherlands, the news of her birth was a rare moment of hope. The royal family still existed. A new princess had arrived. The future had not been extinguished.

The war continued for two more years. In 1945, it was the First Canadian Army that led the liberation of the Netherlands. When they arrived, they found a starving population. The last months of the occupation, known as the Hunger Winter, had devastated the country. Canadian forces distributed food and supplies. Many Dutch civilians saw them not just as liberators but as the people who kept them alive.

After the war, the royal family returned home. And Princess Juliana wanted to say thank you.

In the autumn of 1945, she sent one hundred thousand tulip bulbs to Ottawa.  The following year, she sent another twenty thousand and asked that a flower bed be created at the hospital where Margriet was born. She promised to send ten thousand more every year.

She kept that promise. After she became Queen in 1948, the gifts continued. Today, eighty years later, the Netherlands still sends twenty thousand tulip bulbs to Ottawa every spring. Ten thousand from the royal family. Ten thousand from the Dutch Bulb Growers Association on behalf of the people of the Netherlands.

The bulbs are planted in two beds. One at the Ottawa Hospital's Civic Campus, where Margriet was born. The other in Commissioners Park, in a bed named after Queen Juliana.

Every May, over a million tulips bloom across Ottawa. The Canadian Tulip Festival draws more than six hundred and fifty thousand visitors. The tulip was designated Ottawa's official flower in 2001.

If you have ever received a gift so generous it changed the way you thought about the person who gave it, you understand what a hundred thousand bulbs meant to a city that had kept a family safe.

Princess Margriet is still alive. She has returned to Canada many times. On a visit in 2017, she said simply: "I was born in Canada. So somehow, quite naturally, I feel strongly attached to my place of birth."

A hospital room that temporarily stopped being a country. A princess born in a space between nations. And millions of flowers, returning every spring, reminding two countries that some debts are paid not in currency but in color.

Commissioners Park, Ottawa

Spring Begins

 This is what is happening in many areas of Canada:

This is Vancouver, where I am fortunate enough to live:

Living in Vancouver has always felt like a small stroke of luck. Tucked between the Pacific Ocean and the Coast Mountains, our city enjoys one of the mildest climates in all of Canada.  While friends and family across the country shovel driveways and bundle up against biting winds, we often stroll along the seawall under a soft drizzle, watching cherry blossoms prepare to bloom before winter has even finished its sentence.  

This year, though, was remarkable even by Vancouver standards.  We had no snow where I live at all.  Not a flurry.  Not a dusting.  Not even that brief, slushy half‑hour that usually shows up just to remind us it’s still winter.  The last time Vancouver saw a completely snow‑free winter was 1982, more than four decades ago.  It’s strange to think that an entire generation has grown up without ever experiencing a winter quite like this one.

Walking through the city these past months, I found myself noticing the small things: green lawns in January, cyclists out in full force, and the steady hum of everyday life uninterrupted by icy roads or school closures.  There’s a certain ease to winter here, and this year it felt even more pronounced.

I’m reminded, again, of how fortunate I am to live in this corner of the world.  Canada is a vast and varied country—rugged, beautiful, and sometimes harsh—but Vancouver offers a gentler rhythm.  The weather is just one part of it, but it’s a part that shapes our days in subtle ways: the outdoor walks, the early blooms, the sense of continuity through the seasons.

Not everyone loves our rain, but I’ve come to appreciate it.  It keeps our forests lush, our air clean, and our winters soft. And every so often, like this year,  it gives us a winter that feels almost like an early spring.

As we move into the warmer months, I’m carrying a quiet gratitude for this place I call home.  For its mild winters, its natural beauty, and the simple comfort of knowing that even in the coldest season, Vancouver has a way of making life feel gentle.

They put my game show performance on You Tube!

On January 8th, I got a call from Lee Valley in Ontario.  The lady was awesome and wanted to confirm my shipping address.  When I told her I was in British Columbia, she said "I'll call the Vancouver store and have them send it by UPS".  I said "my husband loves that store, can I pick it up".  She said "wonderful".

On January 9th, Cec's birthday, Dawn from Lee Valley called to say I could pick it up!   My map app told me to take Hwy. 91 and go over the Knight Street bridge and turn left at 63rd Ave.   63rd Avenue was closed for construction.  I know this part of Vancouver because I grew up not that far away.  I turned at the first light I came to and drove down a street towards Fraser Street.  I drove by Walter Moberly School, where my husband went to elementary school when he moved from Kelowna to Vancouver!   They have certainly added to it and it is beside a lovely park!  He had great memories from that school.  It was originally built in 1902.  

Dawn at Lee Valley had a nice fellow put the three tiered plant stand in my car.  It is very heavy!  Cec had a good look at the store and on our way home we went to The River House in Delta for a lovely birthday lunch.  

Cheryl loves to garden.  She starts all her plants in the house and this unit is just what she needs.  She is very happy with it!  I gave away all my prizes but kept the cash!  Lexie took the teapot, Laurie needed a kettle, Cec got the razor and Dave's first cousin's four year old son got the ride on suitcase.  Theo was thrilled!  A cheque from Rogers for CAD$ 3,500.00 arrived last week.  It's sitting in my travel account waiting for a deposit on a cruise that's calling my name.

The Price is Right after the taping. Now it's been aired, I can spill the beans!

That was the best experience ever!  Just being chosen is such a thrill.  Howie is such a gentleman.   When I won he said "you can hug me, don't touch my hands".  Of course we all know he's a germaphobe but he is gracious and he was funny.  

I asked every staff member I met if they were Canadian and they all said yes!  They were all professional and so nice.  

Before we left Vancouver, we studied prices.  Lexie works at Superstore as a part time university job so she was memorizing grocery prices.  I went online to every car manufacturer in Canada and recorded all the lowest prices of every vehicle made in Canada.  I used the Ontario website as BC has different taxes.  We all thought of manufacturers like Heys luggage and other Canadian brands and memorized prices.  I know vacation prices so we had those down.  However, they don't tell you much about trip destinations so it's pretty hard to price.  I was close on them all!

We practiced the "clock game" at the airport.  We talked about every game what our strategy would be.  We knew all the games and devised hand signals for prices.  Hold up the fingers of the first digit, if it's hundred, then shake your fists twice!  

When I was asked my first price, I looked at Cheryl, eight fingers, two fist thumps, and I said  "$800.00!"  I found out later Lexie was the one that came up with the price.

For all the pricing of the small items, higher or lower, I just turned around and Cheryl, Lexie and Laurie would have thumbs up if higher, and thumbs down for lower.  It's really hard to think when you are in the spotlight and I don't know how I would have done if they weren't there to help me!

It's hard to believe three people could spin a dollar on the wheel!   I was so happy for the two girls who got to the Showcase.  They were young and cheered for everyone.

After the show I was escorted to a room where I signed a non-disclosure agreement and was able to take all of my prizes.  However, I was flying so the tea pot and razor fit in the little suitcase.   It was a good thing I didn't already have a carry on as I would have had to put one of them in the belly of the plane.  The kettle arrived about a month ago and the money arrived in a cheque last week!  I'll post the experience with Lee Valley tomorrow.  I've got all my prizes.

I asked the prize staff, "where is a good place for dinner"?  She said "restaurant or pub"?  I said pub and this was one block away from the studio!  We had two bottles of Prosecco, a wonderful dinner and a lot of laughs!

We were only a block away from the CN Tower. It was Lexie's first trip to downtown Toronto so we went up the tower.  It was a beautiful clear night and the view was awesome!

The view from the glass floor at the top of the CN Tower!

We never got adjusted to Toronto time.  We set out clocks for 1:44 AM Vancouver time (4:44 AM Toronto time) to make the early flight by to Vancouver.  Lexie had an exam at SFU the next day!   We got home by noon.  The end of a wonderful girls mini vacation!

The Price is Right Canada Tonight

 

Last September, Cheryl heard Howie Mandel was taping The Price is Right Tonight, Canada in Toronto.  She said "mom, we can go on your birthday"!  My birthday is on December 14th and I rarely celebrate it as everyone is busy preparing for Christmas.  I don't even post it on Facebook so only my close friends even know when it is.

We needed four people to apply so Cheryl, my daughter, Lexie my granddaughter and my long time friend Laurie who was with me in 1980 at Let's Make A Deal made an application to the Price is Right.  We had to send a video of each of us for the staff to view.  Thanks to Lexie and Cheryl, we created a great audition video and uploaded it with our long application.  Cheryl made t-shirts for each of us and we all had different sayings.  She also ordered some pom poms in bright pink, Lexie's favorite colour.  We received our tickets from The Price is Right and booked four cheap seats on Porter Air.

Laurie and I travel well together.  Laurie worked in lost baggage at Pacific Western Airlines.  She said "if we go to Singapore for 10 days, we can only take carry-on as anything that transfers in Narita will get lost".  We both packed carry ons and learned to take just necessities and clothing your could interchange.  Laurie and I booked the cheapest fare, no carry on, only 1 personal item.  We both had no problem with our very small bag.  Cheryl and Lexie however, needed carry on so they paid more!  I could not take my computer, the first trip ever without it but my smart phone would have to work.

The filming took place at the CBC studios in downtown Toronto.  The Residence Inn was one block away and as it was -13C/8.6F we stayed there.  We left Saturday afternoon and arrived late Saturday night.  On Sunday we had to be at our taping at 1:00PM.  

There were seats in the audience for 185 people.  We had confirmed tickets but lots of people had stand by tickets.  We lined up, met lots of crazy people like us and then went to the top floor to the studio!

They tell you it doesn't matter where you sit.  We were in the second to last row at the left side.  I will stop here as I signed a non-disclosure agreement.  I will just say, if you are in Canada, watch The Price is Right Tonight on CITY TV that airs tonight!  They told us they will be marketing it around the world so watch for it if you are outside Canada.  We could not say what city we were from although I had it on my shirt.  We couldn't relate to Christmas either as it would be shown in the spring.

Some people have called as my picture is showing up on TV ads for The Price is Right Tonight!  Coming down the aisle, and close to the wheel!  

Son-in-law Dave saw this on his TV and sent it to me! 

After the broadcast, I will finish this story!!!!!  All I can say is "Best Birthday EVER!" 

Update on Bill C-4 and Bill C-12

I've been following two bills in Canadian Parliament.  Bill C-4 and Bill C-12.  I searched on AI today to see the status of these important bills.  The reason I am interested is 15 foreign nationals facing extortion‑related charges in Canada have applied for refugee status.  This figure comes directly from the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), which confirmed that these individuals made refugee claims after coming under immigration investigation.  These people have lived here for a while, they didn't just come in.   It's about time this loop hole for people who are not fleeing a country that is dangerous, but coming to this country to extort our law abiding citizens for millions of dollars. Deport them ASAP!

Bill C‑4 is now law.  It received Royal Assent on March 12, 2026.  Here is what I found on Bill C-12:

Bill C‑12 – Strengthening Canada’s Immigration System and Borders Act

Current Stage (March 2026)

• Bill C‑12 has completed Third Reading in the Senate (March 12, 2026).

• The Senate has sent a message back to the House of Commons with amendments and recommendations.

• The bill is now “At consideration in the House of Commons of amendments made by the Senate.”

This means the House must now:

1. Accept the Senate’s amendments,

2. Reject them, or

3. Propose alternatives.

Only after that can the bill proceed to Royal Assent and become law.

Bill C‑12 will become law only after:

1. The House of Commons responds to the Senate’s amendments.

2. Both chambers agree on a final text.

3. The bill receives Royal Assent.

Given the political attention around this bill—including strong advocacy from migrant‑rights groups urging the Senate to amend or reject parts of it—debate may continue for some time.  Let's hope that doesn't happen and receives Royal Assent soon!

The Senate made three proposals:

Privacy Protection Amendment

1.  Proposed by: Senator Paulette Senior

Purpose: Protect Canadian citizens and permanent residents from unnecessary surveillance.

What it does

• Exempts Canadian citizens and permanent residents from the bill’s expanded information‑sharing powers.

• Ensures that only foreign nationals are subject to the new data‑sharing regime.

• Responds to concerns from privacy experts and civil‑liberties groups about the bill’s broad language.

2.  Proposed by: Senator Tony Dean

Purpose: Add transparency to the new asylum‑ineligibility rules (especially the one‑year claim deadline).

What it requires

The immigration minister must publish an annual report detailing:

• Average time between a claimant entering Canada and making their claim

• Number of claims ruled ineligible because they were made more than one year after entry

• How many late claimants left and re‑entered Canada

• How many late claimants applied for a Pre‑Removal Risk Assessment (PRRA)

• How many PRRA applications were accepted or rejected

• Recommendations on whether the one‑year ineligibility rule should be changed

3.  Proposed by: Senator Tony Dean

Purpose: Ensure long‑term accountability for the bill’s sweeping new powers.

What it does

• Requires a comprehensive parliamentary review of the entire Act five years after it becomes law.

• The review must assess:

• How the law has been implemented

• Its impact on asylum seekers, migrants, and immigration processing

• Any recommended changes

• A final report must be tabled in Parliament within one year of the review starting.

What Amendments Were Not Adopted?

The Senate rejected several proposed amendments that would have:

• Limited the government’s new executive powers

• Softened the asylum‑ineligibility rules

• Removed or altered Parts 5–8 of the bill (as recommended by the SOCI Committee)

What this means in practice

If someone shows up at the border and CBSA believes they have:

• Criminal ties

• Organized‑crime involvement

• Security concerns

• Fraudulent documents

…the minister can cancel their documents immediately.

Enzio Maiorca

I read these inspiring stories and I often wonder if they are true.  I checked this one out and yes it did happen.   It was the basis of the 1988 film, The Big Blue that is still available on Netflix!

In 2009, renowned Italian free diver Enzo Maiorca was exploring the waters off Syracuse with his daughter Rossana when something unexpected happened.  While descending into the depths, Enzo felt a soft bump on his back. He turned, expecting to see a curious sea creature — and found a dolphin urgently trying to get his attention. Without hesitation, the dolphin dove deeper. Enzo followed.

Around 15 meters below, they discovered a second dolphin, hopelessly tangled in an abandoned fishing net. It was fighting for air. Enzo quickly signaled to his daughter for a knife. Together, they worked swiftly and carefully to cut the net and release the dolphin.  The moment it broke free, it let out a sound Enzo would later describe as “almost human — a cry of relief.”

As they surfaced, they realized why the rescue had been so urgent — the dolphin was pregnant. Just moments later, she gave birth in the open ocean.  The male dolphin swam around the scene, then approached Enzo. In a gesture that felt deeply intentional, it gently touched his cheek with its snout — like a kiss of gratitude — before vanishing into the blue with its new family.

Reflecting on the experience, Enzo said: “Until man learns to respect and speak to the natural world, he can never truly understand his place on this Earth.”   Nature always has something to say — if we choose to listen.

Saturday Funnies

Happy Friday the 13th

 

A Look at the Legends, History, and Lasting Superstition

Few dates on the calendar spark as much curiosity—or quiet dread—as Friday the 13th. Whether you shrug it off or avoid ladders and black cats all day, this superstition has deep roots in Western culture. But where did it actually come from? The answer is surprisingly tangled, stretching across mythology, religion, literature, and even medieval politics.

Let’s explore how this infamous date earned its spooky reputation.

Long before Friday the 13th became a cultural phenomenon, the number 13 carried a reputation for bad luck.

Why 13?

• Many ancient traditions viewed 12 as the number of completeness—think 12 months, 12 zodiac signs, 12 gods of Olympus, 12 tribes of Israel.

• Thirteen, sitting just beyond that “perfect” number, felt irregular or disruptive.

• Even the Code of Hammurabi reportedly skipped the number 13 in its list of laws—likely a clerical error, but later cited as evidence of the number’s ominous status.

The Last Supper

• Jesus and his 12 apostles—13 people—shared the Last Supper on the night before his crucifixion.

• Judas, the betrayer, was the 13th guest.

This contributed to a long‑held belief that 13 at a table foretells death.

Why Friday?

Friday has its own somber associations in Christian tradition:

• Jesus was crucified on a Friday.

• Some stories claim Eve gave Adam the forbidden fruit on a Friday.

• Others say Cain killed Abel on a Friday.

While these stories vary, they helped cast Friday as an unlucky day.

Great White Shark off Vancouver Island!

 

Earlier this week, a great white shark "pinged" off the coast of Vancouver Island, researchers say.   The shark is a mature female that measures around five metres in length and weighs approximately 1,000 kilograms. She has been named Kara by researchers, who are thrilled to see her in northern waters. 

Kara was one of six sharks fitted with a tracking device in October 2025 near Point Conception in California. The device "pings" when a shark is at the surface with its dorsal fin out of the water for several minutes, giving an approximate location. 

"I've been studying these white sharks for almost 30 years, and this is the first one that's gone this far north," said Michael Domeier, who is with the Marine Conservation Science Institute and is behind the program tracking Kara.

Domeier, who is based out of Hawaii, says the program was designed to help track female sharks to see where they are giving birth, studying the animals in California and Mexico. 

While the ping is exciting, Domeier says that sharks in Canadian Pacific waters aren’t an anomaly, and that sharks have been recorded as far north as Alaska. 

Lady Jane Fellowes

Lady Jane was in one of the most impossible positions in royal history — sister to a princess, wife to a palace official, torn between two worlds. She chose silence. And kept it for 27 years.

When Princess Diana married Prince Charles in 1981, Lady Jane Fellowes was already living inside the world her sister was entering. Her husband, Robert Fellowes, was assistant private secretary to the Queen — one of the most sensitive positions in the royal household, a job that required absolute discretion, absolute loyalty, and the management of the precise information channels between the monarch and the government.

It has been suggested by some royal biographers that Jane's position as both Diana's sister and Robert's wife left her in a difficult position when Charles and Diana's marriage was ending. She was, in effect, sitting in the middle of a constitutional and personal crisis with family on both sides. Diana was her sister. Robert's employer was the Queen. The two interests did not always point in the same direction.

Lady Jane said nothing publicly during the years of the marriage's decline. She said nothing during the Morton biography. She said nothing during the Panorama interview. She attended events. She maintained her position. She kept the silence that her husband's role required and that her own instincts apparently endorsed.

When Diana died, Jane came forward once — at the funeral. She delivered the reading. She stood at the lectern in Westminster Abbey before an audience of 2.5 billion and read from the letters of Paul, and then she sat down and did not speak publicly again for years.

Lady Sarah McCorquodale retrieved locks of Diana's hair from Paris after the crash and presented them to the princes. It was Lady Jane who, according to those who were there, informed the rest of the family of Diana's death in the early hours of August 31, 1997 — calling Sarah, then Earl Spencer, with the news that none of them could have been prepared for.

She is now Baroness Fellowes. Her husband Robert died in July 2024. She continues to maintain, with extraordinary consistency, the silence she chose in 1981.

There is, in that silence, a kind of loyalty that outlasts everything.

Call the Midwife

I've watched every season and every episode of Call the Midwife available in North America.  My cousin in the UK gave me the book that was written by Jennifer Worth shortly after it started in the UK.  PBS picked it up in North America and I've watched it ever since.  Season 15 will start on March 22 on PBS.  We are always a few months behind the UK.

Call the Midwife is a warm, historically grounded British period drama about midwives and nuns working in Poplar, East London from the late 1950s onward; it’s created by Heidi Thomas and based on Jennifer Worth’s memoirs, and remains in production with long-running acclaim—perfect for viewers who like character-led, issue-driven drama.

Call the Midwife follows the staff of Nonnatus House, a nursing convent and midwifery team, as they deliver babies and care for families in a deprived East End community. The series blends intimate personal stories with social history—covering topics from post‑war poverty and housing to public‑health advances and national scandals.

The plot follows Jenny Lee, a newly qualified midwife, who joins the midwives and Anglican nuns of Nonnatus House; their work combines midwifery, community nursing, and social outreach in a deprived urban area where 80–100 births per month in Poplar make safe childbirth the central mission.

The show balances warmth and compassion with hard historical realities—poverty, public‑health crises, and changing social attitudes—delivered through episodic, patient‑centred stories grounded in historical research.

• Series 1 (1957): Baby boom, East End poverty, post‑war immigration.

• Series 2 (1958): Gas and air pain relief, unexploded ordnance, tuberculosis, spina bifida; Nonnatus House condemned.

• Series 3 (1959): Cystic fibrosis, polio, terminal care, midwifery in prison.

• Series 4 (1960): Child Migrants Programme, nuclear‑war fears, early LGBT themes, syphilis among sex workers.

• Series 5–9 (1961–1965): Thalidomide, contraceptive pill, typhoid, interracial marriage, dementia, sickle cell, abortion debates.

• Series 10–14 (1966–1970): Medical advances (ventouse, PKU screening), addiction and neonatal withdrawal, housing crises, political debates on immigration, fertility drugs, and social change; Series 15 set in 1971 was confirmed in 2025.

Call the Midwife has been officially confirmed the 16th season will return by the BBC, ensuring the series will continue. Despite intense storylines at the end of season 15 and a temporary, planned hiatus to focus on a new prequel and a feature film, the show is not ending, with production expected to continue in 2027 or 2028.