Bhangra and West Side Story

The week flew by. A friend's 40th birth day party was celebrated, a play seen at Stratford and a last minute rush to prepare for TIFF (Toronto Film Festival). The party was a blast with homemade Sushi, lots of Cabernet Savingnon, and a rocking DJ mixing bhangra with 80s classics. I have given a lesson on cultural subtleties of north and south Indian culture by a slight intoxicate friend as well. Although, the element of surprise was lost (the birthday boy inadvertently caught a glimpse of the preparations in the basement), it was great chance to unwind with friends.

The meal before Stratford was a ho-hum affair. The Church Restaurant (constructed in 1873 as a Congregational church) provides a lovely ambience but the service as slow and the food was passable. Definitely not recommended. My duck three ways was ordinary which was head and shoulders above my friends' uncooked steak and bison.

However, the musical we saw at Stratford was dazzling. The energetic and athletic cast of West Side Story delivered great solos, and amazing dance numbers which would have made the perfectionist Jerome Robbins proud. I humming America, Office Kurpke and Somewhere all the way back home to Milton.

Aftermath of a Tornadao

It's official. There was an F1 Tornado which landed in Milton. It was one of five which hit southwestern ontario last night and certainly not the most devastating.

This was the damage to my dentist office on Ontario Street. They cancelled all appointments today obviously. My father was one of these calls...it was made by the secretary from her home as the staff couldn't even get into building. So lucky again, no fatalities.

If it wasn't a hurricane, it was a twister

It has been a summer of extremely unstable and frankly more violent weather. Rumours of a tornado touching down in Milton and a wild near-hurricane downpour which lasted a mere two hours. The sheets of rainwater fell downward and sometimes sideways. What crazy weather...and the aftermath is something to below. Part of a roof of my local dentist office was lifted off and carried to into Ontario street and into the parking lot of the adjacent Milton mall.

Tree branches and even whole trees themselves lay over the roads, yards and driveways, onto and into the roofs, and cars and boats. Then, there was the electrical fire. The broken branches of my neighbour's willow leaned heavily onto the hydro electric wires. There was a brief power outage at and when the power came back on at 6:45pm, this fire was ignited in the tree.


4The firemen came and realized the fire was electrical and contacted the Milton Hydro. The power to our section of the grid was cut and this extinguished the fire. Next, the chain saw came out to perform a bit of tree surgery leaving my neighbour with a new pile of smoking firewood. The charred wood was still warm.

Of course, Milton got off on the lucky side compared to the communities of Durham and Vaughn where the real damage to more than 600 houses was done. The really remarkable event was that there was only one fatality in this whole event. This was sadly, an 11- year old in Durham.

A rare double rainbow

A rare double rainbow
Originally uploaded by divinemissladybird

After a sudden torrent of rain, there followed a blaze of sunshine. The result, a gorgeous burst of colour over the Milton skies.