"Doctor Jung?"

"How did you get in here? You do not have ze appointment, nein?" The elderly man was struggling to get his pipe lit.

"Well I was just passing by and I saw the light was on and I have this problem, see, so..."

"Zo you thought zat nice Dr. Carl Jung won't mind my dropping in unannounced for ze appointment" the elderly psychiatrist leaned back comfortably in his chair. "You thought, zat old man, has nothing better to do with his life zan to listen to me babble about my little complexes, nein?"

"Well, I knew you'd been dead for 50 years so I thought you wouldn't be too busy to see me." Anexplorer sat down in the chair opposite.

"Zat is still no excuse for rudeness." Jung looked closely at the schedule on his desk. "But as it happens I have ze few minutes to spare. Zat is your problem, mien herr?"

"Well I write this blog over at blogstream. I kind of tell anecdotes about my life and talk about taking my dog for runs along the bluffs and..."

Jung slammed his hand on his desk top. "Vas is this babbling. You zink I haf time for zis babbling. Tell me your problem or go back where you came from!"

"Well, my problem is I have this story to tell, about the first date I went on with my wife, but it kind of casts me in a bad light."

"Zo don't tell zis story, zen." Jung looked fiercely over the top of his mustache. "It is enough that ve know the shadow side of our lives. Ve do not need to babble zem to za vorld!"

"But that's my problem, see. I want to tell the story. It's very funny."

"Ah ze anima und ze animus. Ze two sides of you are in ze battle, no?" he asked with a kinder tone to his voice. "You are battling with ze dark forces of your nature, mein herr"

"Well, I wouldn't go that far. It's just a funny story. Only people may be laughing at me, not with me when they..."

"Stop! You are ze introvert, nein? And you are struggling with ze extrovert side of your nature in writing zis blog thing, nien? You think, just because I'm dead zat I am stupid? I still know a thing or two, sir!"

"Well I..."

"You are toying with ze famous Dr. Jung and with ze readers of your blog, are you not. Zay want to hear ze rest of the story und you are giving zem zis drivel. Zis is not ze true complex you are here to discuss is it. You are here to delay ze revelation. You are building ze suspense zo people will come by tomorrow in ze even greater numbers to read your blog, is it not zo?"

"Well I ..."

Jung waved a long and intimidating finger at Anexplorer, "You are a despicable human being, an evil stunted toad. Zat is my analysis of you. Now get out of my office!"

Anexplorer ran for the door.

"Wait," Jung bellowed! "Zat vill be $100 for ze analysis. Cash. Ve don't accept credit cards in Heaven!"



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Shadow, one of the bloggers on the 'stream, is very seriously ill in hospital. Bohemian is part of the prayer link for him. If you can spare a moment for him in your thoughts and prayers I'm sure it would be appreciated.

This should really be titled, How I Almost Failed To meet My Wife Despite All Of Nature Going Out Of Its Way To Create The Perfect Moment And The Woman Being More Than Willing.

Let me confess a failing. I have been called charming; but I'm not. Charming is being entertaining for a purpose, with a goal in mind. It is a form of seduction. It is much more sophisticated state than I will ever attain.

I yearn to be charming, but I am only entertaining. The entertainment is my goal. I want people to be having the best experience possible. And if it comes across as flirtatious at times, just wait ten seconds because I'm about to say something funny that will blow any romantic mood right out of the water.

I met my wife on a hay ride under a full moon. It was our first year in college and we shared a number of classes together as did many of the others on the hay wagon.

She liked me and had even engineered to be seated next to me. I was being entertaining (see above explanation), people were in a good mood, laughing, the moon was shining down, the horses were plodding along their bells gently jingling in the back ground.

There were so many of us on the wagon that we were pressed tightly together. I could feel the warmth of her hip next to mine. Oh yes I remember that part well. Some of the boys had their arms around some of the girls. Some of the girls had rested their heads on the shoulders of some of the boys.

A full harvest moon was shining.

When the axle broke on the cart.



The farmer apologized and we all had to walk back to the farm house together for the corn roast.

There was a light chill in the air and this beautiful woman walking next to me was laughing happily. Did I mention the full moon that rode the skies overhead.

She told me that her hands were getting chilly. I, helpfully, suggested she put them in her jacket pocket.

She explained that the pockets on that jacket weren't deep enough to put her hands in. It was a dilemma and I was a dunce, and her hands were still cold.

Fortunately my wife's best friend, Elaina, was walking behind us with her boyfriend and becoming increasingly exacerbated by my obtuseness. Elaina was not what you would call a subtle woman.

She came up behind me and whispered, loudly, in my ear, "Hold her hand you idiot!"

My wife smiled at me sweetly.

The moon shone down like the light bulb of a major discovery glowing over my head.

Thus spake zarthustra, from the opening sequence of 2001 a Space Odyssey, was suddenly playing in my ears.

I stopped being entertaining and reached out and took her hand, her small cold hand, in mine. We walked the rest of the way back to the campfire and the corn roast in silence.



That night we sang songs, we laughed some more, we sat close, I put my arm around her.

And then we went our separate ways.

But the next time I saw her at college, I invited her out.

And on that date I did something so stupid she kids me about it still. But that's a story for another time.

No one likes to show themselves at their worst. To expose their dirty laundry in public.

Part of taking pride is being at your best so you can show yourself at your best. The local Community Association I help found three years ago has consistently sought out the best in our area to celebrate.

But sometimes you stumble on something that is so bad, that unless it is exposed to the light of day, nothing will get done, because no one will believe you.

That is the case with Deekshill Park, a beautiful 6 acre forest a couple of kilometers from my home, but on the edge of a Toronto Housing Authority low rental complex. It doesn't have the best reputation so its a park I seldom visit.

We had organized a community clean up last week on Earth Day. One hundred people had come out to help and 300 bags of garbage were collected from grass verges and local parks, part of a City wide spring clean up initiative.

Seeing us all out prompted a phone call from a local resident asking why we had neglected Deekshill Park which, he said, was littered with refuse.

Karl and I naively set off Saturday to clean up the 6 acre woods that form Deekshill, thinking the cleanup would be no more than a two man job.

The following two short videos are what we found and are self explanatory. Here is the Introduction:



And here is what we found--



Between us, Karl and I had picked up four large bags of garbage over a two hour period before I went home for my camera. What you saw in the video is the waste that was left over. Our local City Councilor is attending our Executive meeting the First Tuesday in May. I intend to show these videos to him then.

No, don't go looking for rounds one or two, they took place last summer before I started blogging.

It was in June I noticed our garden had become invaded by an insidious illegal alien that had crossed the border of our backyard fence and had established a small colony in the shady area at the rear of our yard.

Creeping Charlie.

YIPES!

We are in our third year now of a pesticide/herbicide ban in the City of Toronto. Our yard is now a healthier place for dogs and wee small children and dandelions and creeping charlie. The Provincial Government has just taken Toronto's ban and has extended it to the entire Province.

I'm happy about that, but I'm not happy about Charlie.

Creeping charlie (Glechoma hederacea), also known as ground ivy and creeping jenny, is a low-growing perennial weed that thrives in moist, shady areas of the lawn and garden, but will invade sunny areas, too, if the lawn is thin. The four-sided stems grow to lengths of 15-30 inches with roots forming at the nodes, where leaves join the stem. Its leaves resemble those of the common geranium, round and scalloped, but are much smaller in size. In the early spring an abundance of tiny, lavender to blue flowers appear on 2 or 3-inch spikes.



At first I tried ripping it out of the ground, but creeping charlie had more hours in the garden than I had. The little demon may only creep but he is legion! The faster I pulled the more rapidly he grew.

Then I learned about "sunblasting". With sun blasting you cover the infected area with a non porous material and leave it for a month or so. When you lift it off, everything underneath has died. You reseed and you are away.

Except you discover creeping charlie has established a new colony over here and over here and over here.

He may be short and green and cute and I may be tall and big and ugly, but its not a fair fight.

Until now.

Now I'm armed with new information and creeping charlie's days are numbered. I was reading Katie's blog at Kate's Kiln where she offered the following advice:

"The problem is, creeping charlie can have roots that are 2 feet long so you can never get the whole thing out. Overseeding works but you may have to pull everything out two or three times before you can get rid of all of it. The second way works but it is kind of an extreme method. You use Borax and make a mixture using water. If you spray it on the creeping charlie, it will kill it. The problem is with this method is that nothing but grass will grow where you spray the Borax. Borax wont damage the grass either, the active ingredient in Borax is Boron and creeping charlie is very sensitive to it, grass is not.

"If you have the time and patience, I would pull the creeping charlie and reseed right away, soon enough it should be gone !!Or else, just take five teaspoons full of 20 mule team borax and mix it in a quart of water and spray away. The quart should cover about 25 square feet and then you can say good bye to Charlie !!"

I have my borax, I have my water, I have my spray can and like Katie said, "Goodbye Charlie!"

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UPDATE

There was no immediate change in the creeping charlie after the initial application of the borax solution.

However by this morning it was obvious that it had succeeded and the infernal plant was showing clean and unmistakable signs of demise.

A couple of lessons I learned: The water needs to be at least warm to help dissolve the Borax.

Creeping charlie is a sneaky adversary and I've found more of him lurking under the grass feet away from the main infestation.

Hooray!

She was as dead as any ship could be.

Destroyed in 1915 by a summer gale that crushed her against the shores of the Scarborough Bluffs and ripped her to pieces, her remains were scattered along ten kilometers of shoreline. Her boiler and walkway were all that protruded above the surface of the lake and had become the plaything of local children.

The Alexandria's days as one of the most graceful steamers on the Great Lakes were over.

And yet.

Strangely, the death of Alexandria was to save the life of a fellow ship in the C.S.L. line. Another of the retired C.S.L. steamers, the Belleville was an iron-hulled passenger and freight vessel which had been built back in 1865 as Spartan.

At the time of the Alexandria's loss the Belleville had been stripped in preparation for dismantling. But with the loss of Alexandria her life was saved and she was refitted and brought back into service for the Montreal-Toronto run where she plied the waters of the lake for another eight years.

For seven of those years the Alexandria lay in her watery grave, undisturbed save for the cries of young children and the odd seagull. Then in 1922 the Western Reserve Navigation Company was refitting the old sidewheeler Colonial for their cross-Lake Erie service. However, her great sidewheels were beyond repair and her owners set out to search for a pair of feathering wheels which might be suitable.

They found them, still in tact, under the cold waters of Lake Ontario off the Scarborough Bluffs. An expedition under the leadership of Capt. Frank Hamilton was dispatched to Toronto. For the first time in nearly a decade the Alexandria's wheels were brought to the surface and found to be in wonderful shape despite the ship's savage beating. After reconditioning, they were placed aboard Colonial where they churned the waters of Lake Erie until September 1st, 1926 when the 41-year-old vessel was destroyed by fire off Barcelona, New York.

Forty-nine years was a fine long life for a fire prone wooden steamer like Alexandria, but the old lady must have set some kind of a record by giving life to another vessel seven years after her own demise.