What's UP?

Lovers of the English language might enjoy this: How do
non-natives ever learn all the nuances of English?

There is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings
than any other two-letter word, and that word is "UP."

It's easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the
top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do
we wake UP?

At a meeting, why does a topic come UP? Why do we speak UP?
and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to
the secretary to write UP a report?

We call UP our friends, we use it to brighten UP a room,
polish UP the silver, warm UP the leftovers, and clean UP
the kitchen. We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the
old car.

At other times the little word has real special meaning.
People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an
appetite, and think UP excuses.

To be dressed is one thing but to be dressed UP is special.

And this UP is confusing: A drain must be opened UP because
it is stopped UP.

We open UP a store in the morning, but we close it UP at
night. We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP!

To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look the
word UP in the dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it
takes UP almost 1/4 of the page and can add UP to about
thirty definitions.

If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the
many ways UP is used. It will take UP a lot of your time,
but if you don't give UP, you may wind UP with a hundred or
more.

When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP. When
the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP. When it rains,
it wets UP the earth. When it doesn't rain for a while,
things dry UP.

One could go on and on, but I'll wrap it UP, for now my time
is UP, so ... Time to shut UP!

Received from Thomas Ellsworth.

SOME MORE SCHOOL DAYS STUFF, by emen77.

I realize these posts I’ve been putting on BLOG are haphazard and scattered from one time frame to another! But that’s a true reflection of me, sometimes I am both, so forgive me, Family…..actually you have no options! Sorry about that. Anyway, once again I’ve lifted pages from my photojournal No. 2, they’re sort of a brief resume of my school life, Grade School through High School.

A little word of explanation on Page 2…..see the pic of me sitting on the dog? That was taken at the edge of our pasture, just west of the farm buildings when we lived at Cummings, 22 miles south of Vermilion, Alberta. The dog was old Lady, she had belonged to the Scott’s (my Auntie Lizzie and Uncle John Scott in Edmonton), and when she got old and infirm, was relegated to the farm to spend her last years. I think she was some sort of Golden Lab, very pleasant dog who adjusted to farm life and did indeed spend her last years there in peace and comfort.

Moving on to High School Daze, I attended a two-room school (step-up from the previous six years of grade school), at Kitscoty, Alberta, a small town where a big bunch of girls lived in a dormitory, had supervised home study every school night, and worked pretty hard. I had several extracurricular activities on the go, the school yearbook, students’ council, the school band, Andrew, my first boyfriend! Some of those friendships formed at the dorm have endured to the present day, believe it or not…sad to say not Andrew! He faded out of the picture when he went back to University in Edmonton. DARN! Got his M.D. and also his M.R.S. Some Belgian hussy, who turned out to be the Belgian consul in later years, very prestigious position in diplomatic circles.

So, to make a long story short, I finished high school, and then immediately enrolled in McTavish Business College in Edmonton for a year’s course in shorthand, typing, and bookkeeping. And so to the workaday world, and I’ve done previous posts on some of that, I think.









(Suffix from Jeff, i put the title up as received, because that's the way it was sent me. Two things, is someone copying my UNIQUE capitalization style, also, and i've been thinking of this for a few days now, more like weeks; i wonder what emen77 means, unohoo's first and only email address, after David and I coerced her into doing email, sometime in the last century, and if i'm right in my guess that it means, e-marion elizabeth naylor, age 77. E as in ELECTRONIC. Fair warning to you guessers out there, it could also mean, em, short for marion, elizabeth naylor. 77. I'd put someone else's money on that being the year of her life she CAVED to email.)

Because everyone in Canada lives in an igloo.

Now that Vancouver has won the chance to host the 2010 Winter Olympics, these are some questions people from all over the world are asking. Believe it or not these questions about Canada were posted on an International Tourism Website. Obviously the answers are a joke; but the questions were really asked!

Q:I have never seen it warm on Canadian TV, so how do the plants grow?( England )
A. We import all plants fully grown and then just sit around and watch them die.

Q:Will I be able to see Polar Bears in the street? ( USA )
A: Depends on how much you've been drinking.

Q:I want to walk from Vancouver to Toronto -can I follow the Railroad tracks? ( Sweden )
A: Sure, it's only Four thousand miles, take lots of water.

Q:Is it safe to run around in the bushes in Canada ? ( Sweden )
A: So it's true what they say about Swedes.

Q: Are there any ATM's (cash machines) in Canada ? Can you send me a list of them in Toronto , Vancouver , Edmonton and Halifax ? ( England )
A: What, did your last slave die?

Q:Can you give me some information about hippo racing in Canada ? ( USA )
A: A-fri-ca is the big triangle shaped continent south of Europe .. Ca-na-da is that big country to your North...oh forget it. Sure, the hippo racing is every Tuesday night in Calgary . Come naked.

Q:Which direction is North in Canada ? ( USA )
A: Face south and then turn 180 degrees Contact us when you get here and we'll send the rest of the directions.

Q: Can I bring cutlery into Canada ?( England )
A: Why? Just use your fingers like we do .

Q: Can you send me the Vienna Boys' Choir schedule? ( USA )
A: Aus-t ri-a is that quaint little country bordering Ger-man-y, which is...oh forget it. Sure, the Vienna Boys Choir plays every Tuesday night in Vancouver and in Calgary , straight after the hippo races. Come naked.

Q: Do you have perfume in Canada ? ( Germany )
A: No, WE don't stink.

Q: I have developed a new product that is the fountain of youth. Where can I sell it in Canada ?( USA )
A: Anywhere significant numbers of Americans gather.

Q: Can you tell me the regions in British Columbia where the female population is smaller than the male population? ( Italy )
A: Yes, gay nightclubs ..

Q: Do you celebrate Thanksgiving in Canada ? ( USA )
A: Only at Thanksgiving.

Q: Are there supermarkets in Toronto and is milk available all year round?( Germany )
A: No, we are a peaceful civilization of Vegan hunter/gathers. Milk is illegal.

Q: I have a question about a famous animal in Canada , but I forget its name. It's a kind of big horse with horns. ( USA )
A: It's called a Moose. They are tall and very violent, eating the brains of anyone walking close to them. You can scare them off by spraying yourself with human urine before you go out walking.

Q: Will I be able to speak English most places I go? ( USA )
A: Yes, but you will have to learn it first.

Earliest Memories....Em.

(Preface from Jeff, Mother suggested i might mention this post would be of particular interest to Millie and Barb. Barb Maclandish, as you may remember, is where the 'God is Love' tapestry went to, last month. Millie is her mom, and daughter of Mary Morrison, the lady who made the tapestry. So there, it's mentioned. HI BARB!!)

Have you ever tried to figure out the very earliest memory from when you were a small person? The earliest I can go is when I was three years old and my brother Jack would be not quite two, he’s 14 months younger than me. My parents would leave us playing happily while they went out for a few minutes to do the milking in the barn, hoping we would stay out of mischief for that long. Well, one day, the “playing happily” went to a new dimension, Marion came up with an inventive way of piling things upon things in order to reach the candy box, which was kept in a squarish tin box HIGH up in the cupboard out of the reach of small children. And yes, said naughty child managed to get the box down, with the assistance of her baby brother.as accessory in the crime. And get the box open, which was another victory in the case. But unfortunately the criminals were caught red-handed, with my parents coming in the door with the milk buckets, just at the crucial moment, when darling little Marion was SHARING with her brother, “One-a Ma-wie, one-a Jack”. I don ‘t remember the punishment, there probably was one, knowing my father, but then again, he always had admiration for children with inventiveness, so maybe it was just a good tongue-lashing.

In this post, I’m going to include some early pics (very few in number, actually), which will show some of the record-making events from my early days. The earliest picture ever taken of me was with my cousin Millie holding me on her lap on some ancient doorstep. I’m about 4 months old, Millie about 10 years, as she was born in August 1914, and I was born in November 1924. Millie was a significant part of my life when I was small, as she lived either with us, or nearby for some years. My aunties and uncles, and all my cousins, were an important part of my early existence, as were my granny and grampa Wilson, (my mother’s parents). I don’t remember much about Grampa Morrison, he died in 1927, he appears to me as a shadowy face, with a hand in his pocket for the “sweeties” he carried there for tiny grandchildren. He dropped dead on the sidewalk in front of Eaton’s store in downtown Edmonton. Granny Morrison I never knew, she died in 1921 before I was even born, in fact before her youngest son Alex was even in the dating mode.

I remember very well Jack and I sitting on the placid cow, Bessie, to get our pictures taken, we were about 3 and 2, somebody placed us there as Bessie sat cheerfully chewing her cud, and managed to get the photo op before the tragic moment when Bessie decided she’d had enough, and without ceremony, got to her feet, dumping us both off on the ground. Right over her head! (Cows get up hind feet first, unlike horses, which get up front feet first….just a bit of old farm wisdom here!)
My next memories I guess were of New Zealand, where we went when I was turning four and Jack coming three. I remember the flying fishes and watching them from the deck of the ships we travelled on, the Aorangi and the Niagara, they would fly so high, they sometimes landed right on the deck. I remember all of us climbing up the very steep hill (called One Tree Hill) in the centre of Auckland, where we stayed for the 2 or 3 months in New Zealand. Jack and I were fascinated by the piles of oak acorns under that tree, we filled our pockets with them. I remember how tough the soles of our bare feet became, covered with little brown freckles, even though it was winter time back home in Canada, it was middle of the summer there, and all kids went barefoot. Millie and Auntie Mary went with us, Millie (14), refused to go to school there….she wasn’t going to wear no stupid uniform! That incredible girl got away with it, too!

I remember going up- island to the mudpools at Rotarua, where the ground trembled beneath our feet, and the mudpots bubbled and plopped and you had to stick to the pathways or get seriously burned. The New Zealand enterprise fizzled out after a couple of months of my dad and uncle Hughie trying to find decent working conditions, so we turned around and came back home to the BIG DEPRESSION, and eventually back to the farm in Alberta where our family could at least raise enough food to keep ourselves alive. And so, goodbye to the Roaring Twenties and on to the Dirty Thirties…...
Have fun with the old pics, all taken from my big book No. 2! Still a few more old stories left, I’ll get to them eventually, family.

!.

Twisty House.

My nieces Amy, Camille, and Kristy have done excellent Canada Day posts already, so i'm not going to. Maybe.

Instead, i'll do a follow up to Kristy's post about her and Zoë and Jayden and Drew at a stampede breakfast. So, Kristy, here's the slide i mentioned with Randy and I riding, i think they're donkeys, and now that i look more closely at the slide, that's the Storyland Valley Zoo, not Al Oeming's game farm. See the twisted up little house in the background?I can tell it's SVZ from this other slide, of Randy and I and the twisty house. I wonder if it's still there. Do you remember seeing it when you took your babies to the SVZ?

Linda's Hiking Club

(Guest post from Linda)

This is my hike last week in Waterton. We had stopped at Paula's cabin in the townsite, and saw these brand-new fawns, just hours old. None of us had ever seen any so young. They could just barely stand up.

I LOVE hiking every Thursday...I am SO lucky. This is our eleventh year. Yesterday we went to Iceberg Lake down in Manyglacier, across the border. It's a 10 mile hike, and very scenic through forest and streams, cliffs and waterfalls, and we walked through snow for the last quarter mile or so. The lake is in a bowl of glaciers and really craggy mountains surrounding it.

Absolutely spectacular.

Out of the Blue.

About an hour ago, i noticed big black fumes of smoke coming off the back of the Rossdale power plant. Something other than wood was on fire, i would say. Seconds later, fire engines shrieking from every direction, took them about 10 minutes to put it out. The white smoke in the last pic is the steam coming off the spent flame.

My only indoor flowers.

Give an idiot a crappy camera and an internet connection, you may well get a self indulgent blog about practically nothing, like right here, the blog of sentiment, people-pleasing, familammadingdong, pictures and stuff. I have shamrocks in one of my plantpots, growing with about a 10 year old draceana, which i've cut back over the years from two growing tips to about 17, i think, depends on how the most recent cutback turns out, best to do these things just as summer swings into town. There's not much happening on the tops (apices) of the draceana, popular name as houseplant, 'dragon tree', so i can't sow much beauty up there. And, it's right in the window, so you wouldn't be able to see it with this crazyhead Alberta sun flyin' out of the sky.

Last Two.

I'll finish up my Father's day series of posts with the last two photos Linda sent me, as some of her favourites of Dad. So, where were these pictures taken, anyone? I don't recognize the background.

Post 80. Guess what?, it's FLOWERS.

A few days ago, i noticed while walking about the outdoors, how many Alberta wildrose's there are around here, growing in yards, streetsides, anywhere really, i should really take a walk in the random part of the river valley, these two stands of wildrose might have been planted, by the city, or the apartment mgmt. involved. Nonetheless, it is a beautiful flower, and characterizes the Alberta spirit aptly.
The first two are a stand across the street, some few steps from where i catch the bus each morning on my way to work. Then i walked a half block, from Bellamy Hill, to 103rd street, and ran into a lovely bloom of irises, and another bush of wildrose.

WELCOME, AUNT JOAN!!

HELLO EVERYBODY!! I hope you've been enjoying the father's day series of photos we've put up thus far. This post is a series of pictures on a different matter, that being, the mini Morrison family reunion that recently happened in Southern Alberta. AND, to welcome my Aunt Joan to the family BLOG..just found out through Mother that she reads and enjoys the blog. These are her pictures of the reunion.

This first picture, is my Aunt Jean Morrison, Uncle Jack Morrison, Stuart and Linda Fairbanks, my cousin, Arla (Nielsen) Wilding, and, Mother's forearm. Has to be in every pic, that one. (Just kidding).
Then we have, at the same table, my Uncle Bob Morrison, and my Aunt Chris (Morrison) Nielsen.
And, again at the same table, My Uncle Bob Morrison, and my Mother, Marion (Morrison) Naylor.
Next we have, of course, Stuart and Linda, whose table, and home, were main base for much of the visiting time of this mini reunion, and who i'm told were the most gracious and hospitable hosts.
Then, several pictures of the four Morrison siblings...you know who they are.

And last, Uncle Jack and Aunt Jean, i'm not sure where this is, but someone can fill us in, in the comment section.

We had been waiting on some pictures to share of this get-together, and so here they be, THANK YOU, Aunt Joan, for these. Looks like a good time was had by all, Mother certainly loved seeing you all again.

And oh, on the subject of reunions and get-togethers, i thought i'd include this picture here also, it is one of Linda's favourite pictures of our Dad, and whole fam damnly, from August 4th, 1997, at Mom and Dad's 50th wedding anniversary, held in the Mackenzie Park community hall, borrowed on our behalf by Sister Debbi, and, to my knowledge, this might be the only picture of all 9 of us in one spot. Picture taken by Uncle Bob.
My most distinct memory of this little party off the lake, is, after the 'mysterious' gift of a Carribean Cruise was revealed, was Mother bouncing around the room like a schoolgirl, grabbing everyone's hands, repeatedly, and saying, I'M GOING ON A CRUISE!!....over and over again. Apparently she was excited to be going on her first cruise. I wonder if she has any pictures from said cruise to share.(On the picture itself, i did a certain amount of tweaking, but there's only so much correction i can do in Windows Photo Gallery. This picture has been on BLOG before, or maybe an earlier incarnation of BLOG, but, being backlit by a large picture window, with lots of light coming in off the lake, the foreground is just too well lit for me to do much about the darkly lit third row, my 3 brothers. So don't listen to any stories someone might mention about which dastardly dark fiend(s) they might appear as.)

Dad at 15.

This is one of the photos Em sent me, as one of her faves. She tells me it's the first formal photograph of Dad, taken at age 15.

(just housekeeping)

I was just thinking about how interchanges occur in the comment section, if anyone reading would find it easier to have new comments emailed to them, incase they might have a new comment addressed to them, please feel free to subscribe to new comments, Camille or Kristy can tell you how, or, Kristy or I, can put you on the new comment list, where new comments are emailed to you, from the blog, when they occur. Just send one of us your email address.

A favoured pic from Linda.

Debbie's back yard...5 years ago...Rachel and Derek's wedding...me and Dad and Ady Olthuis

Whitefish or Ashley?

(titled by Granny)
Kristy, funny you should mention that about seadooing at the lake, this is one of Granny's favourite pics that she sent me to post, just hadn't put it up yet. I don't know if she has one of him running the seadoo.

I love these ones too.

These are some of the favoured pics of Dad, my dear sister sent, AND, i'm listening to the BEATLES, hey....hey jude just started...weird. See what you pepple's dun ta me? I love this family so much. I've been bragging about you all all my life. My friends have always loved to hear of my loving family.