I love roses in general, and while red ones are impressive, I confess I have more of an affinity for Osiana roses. They are somewhere between orange and pink, with many describing certain strands as peach-coloured. I discovered them at a flower shop in downtown Ottawa back in ’95 when I was working in a very drab office with high walls, twisting corridors, and no windows anywhere near me. Each week or so, I would pick up some flowers to brighten up the office.
Yet I often hesitate to shell out the big bucks for them as gifts. I’d rather go out for dinner than buy something a friend of mine laments are “just going to die”. Valentine’s Day is the law of supply and demand at its worst. High demand, limited supply, very few substitutes for roses = high prices, almost predatory even. I remember sending some to a friend one time when she was feeling down and alone, and at the rate I was charged for Valentine’s Day, she could have had flowers every week for a month in just about any other month of the year.Â
So Jacob and I occasionally grab simple flowers if we want to give Andrea flowers, or a seasonal plant, perhaps. But back in 2005, Andrea was away for Valentine’s Day, and I wanted to get some flowers for her return. It was a pretty decent bouquet, if I do say so myself. There used to be a flower shop in the mall at work, long gone now. But it met the need that day.
I mentioned in a memory about buying a car in June 2005, and the first day that we went to Gatineau Park for a short drive. After that, we were looking for other things in the area to see and do now that we had the Blue PandA to take us farther afield. One weekend in early July, we went up to Wakefield to see the covered bridge. I had driven past before, and I had seen photos from other people, but I had never stopped.
We took a pic or two from the distance for the full effect, but I liked the inside just as much (photos 1-8). It was a good day.
Back in June 2005, Andrea and I decided to buy a car. Well, I suppose we decided to buy it a bit sooner. We had lived in Sandy Hill and took the bus to work or anywhere else we wanted to go, and it was relatively easy getting around, so we never felt a “need” for a car that strongly. Plus, I’m not a gearhead or even a wannabe, so for me, it’s just transportation, not entertainment. We had rented cars a few times to go on trips, and all worked well, with no giant issues.
Until one night we decided we were going to go to a movie in Britannia. From Parkdale, by car, that was about a 5-10 minute drive. Maybe 15 if you hit lights or you took a slow route. But we didn’t have a car yet, so we decided to take a bus. We walked from our house on Parkdale about 4 or 5 blocks up to Carling Avenue and waited for the 85 to come along. It’s a milk run, but it was one bus, and it seemed the easiest route from where we were. It was Saturday night, so not much else running near us that was useful.
The bus was late. It should have been running every 10-15 minutes, and we waited over 30 before one came along. It then took forever going down Carling, the slowest driver ever (they were training that night). We had left our house at 7:30 for a 9:15 movie, and it was almost 8:45 by the time we got to the theatre. Finished the movie, caught a bus home around 11:45, I think, and we got home around 12:30 or so. We were gone for 5 hours for a 2-hour movie.
And it’s not like we were in the boonies somewhere. Parkdale is fairly central. Carling Avenue is a major road. But the logistics of getting there for something so simple was just beyond painful. And while we had made the best of our transit options up until then, that one put me over the edge.
I suddenly wanted a car.
What I remember most, though, about the experience was that this was Andrea’s and my first experience with a major purchase together. And our views of risk were completely different. She felt the best way to mitigate the purchase was to buy new…we would pay a lot more, sure, but we would be confident it would likely hold together for a while. I was on the opposite end…I wanted to buy used to keep whatever the lemon factor cost was going to be as low as possible. We considered a few options, but in the end, Andrea convinced me that we could afford new. I often wonder what kind of conversation I would have had with my dad about it, as he had likely never bought new in his life. Often his cars were based on what we could afford, and it was often 5- and 6-year-old vehicles looking for a new life. Or older even.
But we looked around, and it didn’t take long for us to settle on one of the simplest, most reliable transport options going, the Honda Civic. We called it the Blue PandA and bought it from the Richmond Road dealer (photos 19-23).
After we picked it up, the first thing we did was go for a drive (obviously), and we went out to Kanata since we would NEVER go there normally. Just out along Richmond / Robertson / Hazeldean Road. Along the way, we saw deer, which we found oddly magical. Certainly, not something we saw near our house on Parkdale nor in Sandy Hill (photos 26-27).
And then we headed up into the Gatineau Hills. Just in time for a sunset (photos 28-38).
We had the car until July 2009, when we were in a car accident out in Kanata on the way back from the cottage (it was raining, and I was driving too fast to stop). We were shaken up, but other than a couple of scratches, no lasting damage to us, while the car’s frame was twisted enough to be a write-off. The insurance company wrote us a cheque for $10K, and it was done.
It served us well for the 4 years we had it. But I still remember that first day and seeing deer alongside the road in Kanata. RIP Blue Panda.
One of my favourite things about going to the in-laws’ cottage is the chance to wander down to the dock and watch the setting sun. I like sunsets pretty much anywhere, and 2005 gave us some really good ones.
In May of that year, I was still playing with a relatively new point-and-shoot camera, and I wanted to see what kind of sunsets I might get during the long weekend. Earlier in the day, it looked like there might be too many clouds on the horizon. But as night began to fall, the colour started. And then it went spectacular, even with my simple camera.
Later on in August, I managed to catch one just near the house.
But at Thanksgiving, we were headed back to the cottage, and en route, we got a series of shots like this one.
The Tulip Festival in Ottawa is always awesome. We don’t always get the best weather for the show, sometimes spring comes early or late, but there is always one good weekend when the sun is out, the tulips are in bloom, and Dow’s Lake is a madhouse of people wandering around the flowers taking pictures. Back in 2005, we were living on Parkdale, and we decided we would do a short trek over to the park to see them. I had seen photos, but I had never really gone there specifically to wander around, and I had been living in Ottawa for 12 years! What was wrong with me? (Don’t try to answer that; we don’t have that kind of time! hehehe)
First up were the pink ones, and I was quite taken with them (photos 3-4). Yellow and white were nice (photos 5-8, 19-21), but the seas of them didn’t do much for me. The bright orange ones that look a bit like Tiger Lilies to me were super impressive (photos 9-12). Of course, you can’t ignore the reds (photos 13-18).
And like most people, we posed for shots with the flowers…you have to get in close or you get 500 people in the background too! (photos 31, 36, 37). We don’t go every year, but every few years, we make time to go and wander among the tulips.
