dewline: Remembrance Poppy Image (remembrance)
85 years after D-Day.
75 years after the founding of NATO.
10 years after the end of major Canadian Forces operations in Afghanistan.
8 years since the first election of the Vulgarian to the White House.

I expect to be watching the Ottawa ceremonies from my mother's care home this morning.
dewline: Quotation: "I grieve with thee" (Grief)
Geneviève Bergeron (b. 1968), civil engineering student.
Hélène Colgan (b. 1966), mechanical engineering student.
Nathalie Croteau (b. 1966), mechanical engineering student.
Barbara Daigneault (b. 1967), mechanical engineering student.
Anne-Marie Edward (b. 1968), chemical engineering student.
Maud Haviernick (b. 1960), materials engineering student.
Maryse Laganière (b. 1964), budget clerk in the École Polytechnique's finance department.
Maryse Leclair (b. 1966), materials engineering student.
Anne-Marie Lemay (b. 1967), mechanical engineering student.
Sonia Pelletier (b. 1961), mechanical engineering student.
Michèle Richard (b. 1968), materials engineering student.
Annie St-Arneault (b. 1966), mechanical engineering student.
Annie Turcotte (b. 1969), materials engineering student.
Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz (b. 1958), nursing student.
dewline: Icon reading "Trans rights are human rights" (trans-rights)
I don't know who I've lost to violence because of this aspect of their lives. Some of you have lived at risk since long before you and I got to know each other.

I'm trying to be here for if/when you need to talk.

Leaving it at that.
dewline: Remembrance Poppy Image (remembrance)
Another year, another Remembrance Day.

I don't think I'll be going back to the War Memorial in person today. I don't trust to the transit system's lack of mask rules in place right now that far. I do have a place that I can go to honour the spirit of the day, with the mixed feelings that one ought to have about this day.

Whether you call today "Remembrance", "Armistice" or "Veterans'" Day...I wish you well.

dewline: Text - "On the DEWLine" (Default)
...that there is still more than the one that falls on this date. This link to an earlier blog entry serves to name anew at least a half-dozen that matter to me in various ways:

https://dewline.dreamwidth.org/1559387.html

Oh, and from Elayne Riggs, who still lives in New York, a question that still stands a year later:

https://elayneriggs.blogspot.com/2021/09/twenty-try-two-hundred.html

I suspect that we can both ask that question over and over, from now until the Day of Judgement, and the answer is still going to be "no". That answer won't be fair, won't be just in any way, and it's still going to be the answer we'll both keep getting.

I hope to someday be wrong in a pleasant way.
dewline: "Truth is still real" (anti-fascism)
Geneviève Bergeron (b. 1968), civil engineering student.
Hélène Colgan (b. 1966), mechanical engineering student.
Nathalie Croteau (b. 1966), mechanical engineering student.
Barbara Daigneault (b. 1967), mechanical engineering student.
Anne-Marie Edward (b. 1968), chemical engineering student.
Maud Haviernick (b. 1960), materials engineering student.
Maryse Laganière (b. 1964), budget clerk in the École Polytechnique's finance department.
Maryse Leclair (b. 1966), materials engineering student.
Anne-Marie Lemay (b. 1967), mechanical engineering student.
Sonia Pelletier (b. 1961), mechanical engineering student.
Michèle Richard (b. 1968), materials engineering student.
Annie St-Arneault (b. 1966), mechanical engineering student.
Annie Turcotte (b. 1969), materials engineering student.
Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz (b. 1958), nursing student.
dewline: Remembrance Poppy Image (remembrance)
Remembrance is the path.
Remembrance is the goal.
Remembrance is the journey.
Remembrance is the destination.

Of those who lived.
Of those who died.
Of those wounded.
Of those healed...or so we believe.

We are imperfect.
And so is our Remembrance.

We are hopeful.
And so is our Remembrance.

We are wounded.
And so is our Remembrance.

We are mortal.
And so is our Remembrance...if we are careless.

Meanwhile

Jun. 4th, 2021 08:42 pm
dewline: Quotation: "I grieve with thee" (Grief)
The Tiananmen Square Massacre happened.
dewline: Remembrance Poppy Image (remembrance)
So this is Remembrance 2020.

Normally, I'd be at the War Memorial for the ceremonies later this morning. But, being a Time of Pandemic, what's normal right now?

Also, I found myself getting out of bed for breakfast at 430 AM. By the time I realized what I'd done, I'd already finished eating. So comfort is never going to be an issue today. Front-line troops, aircrew and sailors across the decades have long had it far worse than this.

dewline: Text: "Empathy in Silence" (empathy-2)
In happy remembrance of friends past and present with birthdays and suchlike today...and in sombre remembrance of strangers I never got to meet. For there are anniversaries.

The Crimes of 2001.

The Coup in Chile.

The first broadcast of CBC Radio's Tapestry.

The birthday of a long-dead friend, Leah Adezio known on LiveJournal as "Pikachette".

The anniversary of the wedding of Steve and Laura Roby (Laura being also since passed on), both also friends of mine.

The Great Canadian Handshake (in Space in 2006).

So much to pay attention to. And attention must be paid.
dewline: Text - "On the DEWLine" (Default)
The ceremonies were alright. I shouldn't expect to be comfortable at such rituals.

Back to the workday routine. Which, oddly, has a comfort to it despite the economics of the situation...and the weather today. I wonder how the overnight snowfall is affecting the O-Train lines.
dewline: Remembrance Poppy Image (remembrance)
I'll be at the ceremonies at the War Memorial downtown this morning. I don't expect to meet anyone I know there, because the crowds will usually be just too large for that.

See you later.
dewline: Remembrance Poppy Image (remembrance)
Okay, I'm back from my morning errands downtown. New shoes are finally available at the retailer I have to make do with at last, but buying them will have to wait maybe one more week. That's not a make-or-break situation.

Grey skies...appropriate to a Remembrance weekend. And we're expecting "periods of snow" tomorrow. And as much as I've considered suffering the weather of the day part of my obligations as someone observing the occasion...veterans themselves, in all their diversity past and present, shouldn't have to endure that yet again.

More later on other topics...
dewline: Text - "On the DEWLine" (Default)
I've been trying to make a point of attending the Labour Day parades in Ottawa over the last decade or so. These photos were from the 2013 edition. Sharing them "off-season", admittedly. So what?


Labour Day 2013 - Ottawa
dewline: Remembrance Poppy Image (remembrance)
First: I went to the ceremonies at the War Memorial today. Pix on my Flickr account: dwight_ew if you want to look it up.

You don't go to enjoy it, you don't go to be comfortable. The weather was blasphemously bright for the occasion, and if it weren't for my concern for the continuing health of our elder citizens (veterans and other alike)...

Anyway.

Second: I watched the Western Semi-Final CFL game today on TV. Seems near-blasphemous to have sports events on Remembrance at all, but there it was. Winnipeg vs. Saskatchewan. It did not go well for Saskatchewan. And some of the hits various players on both sides took make me feel even more hypocritical about wanting this sport and league to continue versus the concern for the players' health.

Third: I watched Doctor Who tonight. "Demons of the Punjab" addresses several issues dear to a lot of Whovian hearts, and a whole more non-Whovians' hearts as well. I'll leave it at that for the moment, except to note the setting: 1947, the Partition that sundered India/Bharat and Pakistan. The consequences of Empire for the lives of people on the street and/or the farm.
dewline: Quotation: "I grieve with thee" (Grief)
Azzeddine Soufiane.
Khaled Belkacemi.
Aboubaker Thabti.
Abdelkrim Hassane.
Mamadou Tanou Barry.
Ibrahima Barry.

They also died too soon.

Of terrorism.
dewline: Remembrance Poppy Image (canada)
Originally written for the Pen and Paper Workshop...

Cold Air, Firmly in Place – Dwight Williams - 14 November 2017

The cold air stays in place now. November is half done, and the cold air preceding the stronger snowfalls to come is firmly in place. There’s no evading it any longer.

The snowfall mentioned a moment ago is still maybe a few weeks away from properly installing itself across the streets and fields. That can’t be helped. Even allowing for climate derangement and the delays and tempering that it now brings to the equation, that snow will come.

Those of us who travel in this newly returned chill must make their preparations accordingly. There is no way around that need.

When I went downtown to observe the Remembrance Day ceremonies this past weekend, I bundled up. Three above-the-waist layers under the jacket. Gloves. Two under-the-pants layers. Yes, there were also over-socks on top of the compression socks I wear for circulation reasons.

You can argue that I was foolish in taking off the gloves to work cell-phone or camera as I believed the moment required. I usually take pictures of the ceremonies when I attend in person. Sometimes, I’ve posted copies of the images to my Flickr account for the public to look at if it suits them. It usually costs my hands a bit of comfort to do that.

As I write this, I’ve yet to upload those images. I chalk that up to concerns over hard drive space on my computer. You can expect that I’ll figure out a solution in due time. Dumping a few duplicate files here and there isn’t an impossibility.

This year, I took a different vantage. Most years, my chosen spot is along Elgin Street, usually either south or west of the War Memorial. Not this time. The northeastern corner of the square, along Rideau Street. In front of the Chateau Laurier, looking southward. That meant coping with the glare of the sun to some extent.

This isn’t impossible at this time of year for either me or the camera. But it is problematic. You’re warned often enough, by professional and amateur photographers alike, not to aim right at the sun when you shoot outdoors. The sensor can be damaged, burned out. A good thing, then, that I didn’t make that mistake.

Anyway, back to the hands. It did cost me some comfort to get those images. I waited, foolishly, until I’d moved on from the ceremony itself to the Peacekeepers’ Monument to put the gloves back on. There was a bit more wandering after that: from Reconciliation Square – a personal name for the Monument site – to Patty Boland Pub to the ByWard Market Building to Globe Mags and Cigars to lunch in the Rideau Centre. At which point, I decided I was aching too much to not go straight home.

I didn’t get images of the collected wreaths at the Tomb. Sorry.
dewline: Remembrance Poppy Image (military)
I've not much to say here. Not this year.

Best to leave it at that.
dewline: Quotation: "I grieve with thee" (Grief)
I've been putting this off for hours. Seven or eight hours, probably. It's difficult to be certain of the specifics right now. As it happens, [livejournal.com profile] robertjsawyer put me back on track over on Facebook when he linked to this Vancouver Sun article on heart attack survival rates in high-altitude places.

I went to my dentist's office-clinic this afternoon for a session with one of the dental hygenists on duty. They'd fallen behind the way they sometimes do when they're dealing with a heavy workload. I was already irritated by having to walk it from the local Transitway hub to their building in mid-minus-10 to 20 temperatures that wind chill had aggravated, and in addition to that, I found myself having to fill out and sign new legal paperwork on an iPad. You'd think someone used to working with Apple gear at home wouldn't have that much trouble with those, but actually signing an e-document with a stylus or your own fingertip isn't easy without lots of practice.

The wait time didn't help my mood after that, but again: heavy workload despite the ongoing competition for patients. This is a partnership that lots of people in Orléans rightly trust, and have done for decades. Despite the refitting of the facility and the changes in partner dentists and their affiliated hygenists, that's not going to change any time in the near future.

The refit also threw me off.

Then as I was settling into the chair for the checkup and cleaning, the hygenist - also new to me - gave me the news that is still sinking in.

My dentist had died on the weekend.

Not my current dentist. He'd taken over the slot in my health care team a few years ago, and it's my hope that I'll be able to keep him for a few decades yet. Assuming neither of us meets with either accident, foul play or bad self-maintenance consequences.

Rather, the first dentist to work with me as their patient after I'd moved to Ottawa was dead. He'd died at  a local ski resort, of a heart attack during the weekend. If memory serves, it was my father who'd introduced me to this dentist back in the late 1980's. I can't remember the exact year right now, and I suppose it would be a bit much to ask the clinic staff to start rummaging through whatever files they still have from those days, even if conversion into e-docs is an ongoing process meeting with some level of success right now.

He once actually accepted one of my inked sketches as partial payment for work he'd done. It was a decade or more ago, so I'm hoping it stayed with him until his end. My ego would be glad of it.

But not too glad. This was someone who managed to keep me at ease, even during the most involved work on the inside of my mouth, refitting old fillings or building new ones. I'd gotten comfortable with him doing that work, and it's taken a while for the new guy and I to get to that same degree of comfort. Not through any fault of his, but rather that I'm still out of sorts for my own set of reasons.

After I left, I found myself muttering curses not so quietly while walking back along St. Joseph Boulevard to Place d'Orléans. I was sad, I was angry. I'd fallen out of touch since he'd left the partnership. I'd wanted to find a way to get caught up on all manner of things.

Not going to happen now, not in any direct way.

One more thing to deal with along the road...and one less trusted soul to share with.

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On the DEWLine 2.0: Dwight Williams

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