Multi-Cultural Festivities and Canada Day

Tuesday, July 2nd, 2015 -( 25°C / 77°F – Muggy and bright @ 6:26 pm in Atlantic Canada )-

Face Painting at an Asian Indian booth.

Face Painting at an Asian Indian booth.

— We got our first dishes of Lighthouse on the Green Ice Cream of this summer and then wandered across the street to where they were having their annual multicultural festivities. They don’t have their home made ice cream at the Lighthouse this year. 🙁 But they still have yummy stuff.

Gaelic guy in a kilt showing off his drum.

We talked to this guy for quite a while about Bhodrans and Celtic-Gaelic things. He reminded us of the upcoming Highland Games, where there will be drumming and suggested I might bring my drum and join in. While Cathi was distracted nearby, the guy realized that he did know her from somewhere, when we first got here, before her group got their new building, they worked in the same building across the street from the big shopping centre up the top of the hill in Fredericton.

— As we wandered around, Cathi began to listen to her inner gourmet, and no, we did not walk around like Jassper might have, drooling from both sides of our mouths. As I was eyeing the menu at an Indian (Curry etc.) booth, Cathi glanced toward the booth beside it and the man behind the counter caught her attention, “It’s chicken and rice-” So we got to sample some Iraqui food. I wondered how the local Iraquis might get along with the local Iranians, or how Hindus might get along with Islamic people, or if there are any problems like that at all around here, where we have this convenient common enemy- the cold, ice and snow in winter?

Cathi with flowers and a bridge.

Cathi wasn’t sure she wanted to stand there and let me take her photo as we were heading back for our vehicle. That’s Fredericton’s interesting foot bridge behind her, one of the city’s nicest -paved- walking trails would be on her left -our right- along this side of the Saint John River. There are just as nice walking trails on the North Side of the river, too.

— Later on this summer the city of Fredericton will host a world class Jazz and Blues Festival and several other events I can’t remember right now, but they’re all worth seeing. ( We survived the big ‘Rib Fest’ last month – I had a grilled cheese and turket sandwich while she had ribs and after we stood in line for almost half an hour she got disgusted with her favourite rib place because they wouldn’t take a debit card and it cost us something like $2.50 and another ten minutes to use the nearest ATM machine and stand in line again. )

— July First is Canada Day in most of Canada. People in Quebec have a bigger celebration of their own later on, and Newfoundland has a somber rememberance of a nasty battle in World War One in which way too many Newfoundlanders lost their lives. Something I didn’t know before I came up here, Newfoundland didn’t become part of Canada until 1949.

— And Cathi has been investigating a bunch of do it yourself web pages and has become fascinated with, among other things, what people have done with wooden pallets that most companies throw away. The pallets have to be checked out, often de-bugged with bleach or something like that and sanded down and painted or stained, but some of the examples of lawn swings and day beds as well as patio furniture are amazing and look like professional workmanship and you’d almost never guess they were made from ‘waste lumber’. We”ve been checking around town lately and come up with a couple good spots to pick up unwanted, -Free- pallets, and have a nice starting supply for her first week off this summer. & Now she’s slightly worried about somebody in the neighbourhood complaining about the junk we’re trying to keep hidden behind the shed etc. There will be more photos coming when we get cracking on her projects there. 🙂

— Yay! & This summer has been buggy, with aggressive mosquitos so far, but it’s been unusually cool, and that is fine with me. I have relatives who thrive in heat that makes me want to fall down in an icy lake and chill until Autumn, but I am not a real summer person.

— sigh–,

~~~~~ Jim