Tell Me Without Telling Me

Posted on 07 December 2024 by Isabel Gibson

The #TellMe challenge started in 2019 as a social media game: challenging others to express something in an indirect way.

Tell me you’re from NYC
without (actually) telling me
you’re from NYC.

I don’t own a car and life is easy.

Tell me you’re from the midwest
without (literally) telling me
you’re from the midwest.

A trip to run an errand is only 15 hours.

It started, I think, as a fun and creative challenge playing to exaggerated stereotypes and (mis)perceptions but, social media being social media, it soon degenerated into something a little snarkier. I bet you didn’t see that coming.

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Posted in Laughing Frequently, Wired | Tagged | 10 Comments

When One Doore is Shut

Posted on 07 December 2024 by Isabel Gibson

Winter in Canada has, perhaps, one redeeming feature: I don’t have to get up too early, or stay up too late, to see sunrises and sunsets. Driving from Edmonton to Calgary last week, we saw all the stages of a sunrise at an entirely reasonable hour.

It started by looking as if it was almost done.

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Posted in Appreciating Deeply, Photos of Landscapes | Tagged , | 6 Comments

Suitcase Face

Posted on 07 December 2024 by Isabel Gibson

Look at this cute guy, giving me the eye from across the room.

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Posted in Photos of Faces | Tagged , | 4 Comments

Things Not Seen

Posted on 29 November 2024 by Isabel Gibson

A picture is worth a thousand words, yeah? So that’s it. That’s the post. Well, maybe I’ll just add a few words.

You can see the snow for yourself; the temperature is less obvious. It’s cold in Calgary. But not cold enough, I guess, to trigger that Prairie rule of thumb so often offered as consolation, however faint:

At least it doesn’t snow when it’s this cold.

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Posted in Feeling Clearly, Laughing Frequently, Photos of Landscapes | Tagged , | 14 Comments

The Gamut Gambit

Posted on 22 November 2024 by Isabel Gibson

That’s the whole gambit.

From across the room, I throw a slipper at the TV. No, no I don’t. Is this a case of remarkable self-discipline? Of mature emotional control? Of respect for basic norms of civil behaviour?

No. I’m not wearing slippers.

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Posted in Language and Communication, Laughing Frequently | Tagged | 6 Comments

Yes, Virginia

Posted on 21 November 2024 by Isabel Gibson

Don’t you have a pump?

I don’t even draw a breath: any pause would spoil the artistry of my slightly but completely justifiably indignant response.

There’s a pump?

My hair-stylist/salon-owner looks at me in the mirror, trying to decide if I’m serious. I look back steadily and, as well as I can from under the cape, give him the hands-opening-up-and-out-shrug: the universal hand signal for Seriously, I did not know there was a pump.

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Posted in Appreciating Deeply, Laughing Frequently, Thinking Broadly | Tagged , , | 12 Comments

Then and Now

Posted on 16 November 2024 by Isabel Gibson

As recently as a month ago, we still had the beauty of colour.

Now we have the beauty of clean lines.

We really can’t have it all. But what we *can* have is fair-to-middling outstanding.

Posted in Appreciating Deeply, Photos of Flora | Tagged , | 5 Comments

Vow Wulls

Posted on 16 November 2024 by Isabel Gibson

No wonder people find English hard to learn as a second language. We have oddball past tenses. We have weirdly inconsistent plurals, driven mostly by what language gave us the word.

moose/moose
but…
goose/geese

mouse/mice
but…
house/houses

We have weird spelling in general.

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Posted in Language and Communication, Laughing Frequently | Tagged | 5 Comments

Not Fall, Not Winter, Not Nice

Posted on 09 November 2024 by Isabel Gibson

As we barrel along the highway, the car rocks ever so gently in the not-so-gentle cross-wind. A scatter of sleet reduces visibility as the wipers gradually lose ground against even this unenthusiastic adversary, more smearing than clearing the windshield. Ahead, the sky is a blanket of gray. Behind? Blue gradually giving way to a blanket of gray.

Sigh. In and around our nation’s capital the lovely fall days are now done: We’re into . . . what? The dog days of autumn? I guess so.  Biting winds. Precipitation that could turn into snow at any moment. Yup, it’s time to put the sandals away. And the camera.

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Posted in Feeling Clearly, Photos of Landscapes | Tagged , , | 8 Comments