There will be coffee-like substances

The rules for chasing mailboxes's 3rd Coffeeneuring challenge are out. They are more or less the same as last year, with a few changes. Basically, we have 7 weekends to bike to 7 different coffee shops and drink coffee/tea/hot chocolate/apple cider. Photograph. Blog. Repeat.

As I did last year, I'm going to bike out to different parts of the city and try a different beverage at each stop. If I repeat a neighbourhood from last year, I'm going to try a different café. The neighbourhoods I plan to visit are (in no particular order):
The Beach(es)
Roncesvalles
The Junction
The Danforth
The Brickworks
St. Lawrence Market
and one of Leslieville, Parkdale, Kensington, or West Queen West again. As always, I reserve the right to completely change my mind.

You can see last year's Coffeneuring trips below:


In other biking news, the Ice Cream Sandwich ride was sadly called off due to rain. We'll try again next year. The Tweed Rally is still going strong, though. It's going to be a lot of fun and we're pulling together some nifty prizes. November 16. Come on out!

The Rose of Tralee

My Great-Aunt Julie died a few weeks ago at the incredible age of 101. She was a remarkable woman: she grew up in a small town in Ireland before it was "Ireland," was a nurse during WWII, then met and married a Canadian and moved to Alberta. She had ridden a camel, a motorcycle, and been flown across the Arctic Circle, and was entitled to the full benefits and respects that are accorded to such a hearty adventurer.

She was still sharp as a tack at her 100th birthday in May 2012. We sang her favourite song, The Rose of Tralee, changing the name to Julie. That's her on the lower left.


At her funeral reception today, we sang it again.

The pale moon was rising above the green mountain,
The sun was declining beneath the blue sea;
As I strayed with my love to the pure crystal fountain,
That stands in the beautiful Vale of Tralee.
She was lovely and fair as the rose in the summer,
Yet 'twas not her beauty alone that won me;
Oh no, 'twas the truth in her eyes ever dawning,
That made me love Julie, the Rose of Tralee.

The cool shades of evening their mantle were spreading
And Julie all smiling sat listening to me;
The moon through the valley her pale light was shedding
As I won the heart of the Rose of Tralee.
She was lovely and fair as the rose of the summer,
Yet 'twas not her beauty alone that won me;
Oh no, 'twas the truth in her eyes ever dawning,
That made me love Julie, the Rose of Tralee.

Upcoming biking events

There are a few fun biking events coming up in the next few months. If you have a bike and live in the the Toronto area, you should come have a fabulous time. If you don't live in Toronto, you can do the third one where you live. Or you could come to T.O., which frankly sounds like the more fun option.

First up is summer's last hurrah on September 21: the Ice Cream Sandwich Ride, organized by Hyedie of the Cupcake Ride and Maegan of Lazy Sundaes. And me, nominally. It's open to everyone. We'll start at The Depanneur in Little Portugal and work our way over to Moo Milk Bar in the Beach. Check out the Cupcake Ride blog for details.

The day after, Denise will be hosting another Hydro Fields and Bungalows ride. I won't be doing that one, but if you haven't yet checked out the hydro corridor trail, you're missing out. Details are here.

C) MG from chasing mailboxes will be hosting another Coffeeneuring challenge sometime in October. Watch that space for details.

And finally, the DC and some of friends felt a bit bereft due to the postponement of the official Tweed Ride until next May^* and decided to organize a smaller event to tide us over until then^** and lo, the Tweed Rally was born. Saturday, November 16 will see a kind of scavenger hunt-slash-bike rally, visiting some of Toronto's historical landmarks^*** and followed up by fun times in the beautiful Edwardian Firkin on King, clad in outfits reminiscent of the era. Also? Prizes! Details on the FaceBook page here.

(We are eagerly accepting prize donations; contact tweedrallyto@gmail.com if you'd like to help us out.)

^*I still have to blog about last year's Tweed Ride. I still have to blog about a lot of things.

^**And I got talked into helping organize. How does that keep happening?

^***Yes, we do have them. Snarky.

Come on, PhysicsGirl needs a new pair of shoes!

Well, no, she doesn't really, but I would like to win these 30s-style oxfords from American Duchess. Aren't they fabulous?

Despite this blog entry, I don't want you to click that link or anything, because the more people enter the contest, the less likely I am to win. It's simple mathematics.

I promise that I will give them a very good home. I suspect there may be some hugging them close and murmuring "My Precious," if my past shoe-behaviour is anything to go by.

Even if, as seems likely, I do not win the shoes, I'm going to have to save up for a pair of the 23 Skidoos. Those look great, are apparently terrific for dancing, and I'm intrigued by the possibility of customizing them. Which might mean two pairs...

Understanding the gravity of the situation

Happy Gravity Day! Or more specifically, happy "magnitude of the local Earth gravitational field" day. For your viewing enjoyment, an appropriate Rube Goldberg machine:

In which PhysicsGirl improves her mind through extensive reading: P&P 22 & 23

Whoops! Another one stuck in the draft folder for a month. Run free, little posts!

The Annotated Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen, annotated and edited by David M. Shapard; Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice: A Sourcebook edited by Robert Morrison

It's back-to-school time again, and I thought it would be appropriate to review some books that were both enjoyable and made me learn something along the way. I love annotated books, in particular when they were written in different eras. I have been guilty of applying modern sensibilities and motivations to the characters and missing cues that contemporary audiences would have immediately understood. I think it's easier to miss this kind of information in Austen because, unlike Shakespeare, the language of the 19th century was so similar to what we now use that we (or is it just me?) tend to think that meanings and attitudes must still be mostly the same.

In which PhysicsGirl crashes the reunion and koi is coy

So there was this blog where a bunch of people challenged themselves to sew a new thing every week for a year, which sounds exhausting. They stopped that insanity, but recently they missed part of it and wanted to start it up on a yearly basis and thus was born The Sew Weekly Reunion.

I wasn't following the blog at the time of the original challenges, so I feel a little like I'm crashing the party, but what the heck. This year's challenge is the Pantone Fashion Fall Colours.

I protest! I hear you cry. White and black are not part of the Pantone challenge! And that scarf doesn't count!