The beaver is a proud and noble animal
Notes from a bemused canuck
After a couple of interviews and a 3-day internship, Ben has officially been offered an apprenticeship at Nestle, to start in August. It’s what he wanted to do, and where he wanted to do it, and I couldn’t be prouder of his achievements. I opened the door, but he walked through it and did the heavy lifting to impress HR and the team he’s doing to be working/studying with.
It is said that in the year 1387, scarecrows came to life in the Morgian countryside, driven by a mysterious force. In a threatening mood, they made an unbearable noise, tormented the wine-growing populations and prevented anyone who wanted to go and harvest ripe grapes from leaving their homes. We seem to remember that these acts of fright were the consequence of a commitment not kept by the winegrowers; they had in fact promised to bring the count a bushel of their finest grapes, in exchange for the good advice given for the protection of the vines.
Just found out that Philip Branton, my thesis supervisor all those years ago, passed away after illness complications on sept 16. Besides a strong scientific education, Phil passed on his love for good food, good wine and Frank Zappa. “As long as Zappa’s music is playing somewhere, there’s hope for the world”.
Phil, after being a touring jazz musician, fell into a science career and never looked back. He was larger than life, a brilliant scientist, and could go from work to play at the drop of a hat.
In his own words, “In the end I received quite a few awards, mostly for my leadership efforts. These came from the CCS (R.M. Taylor Medal, 2005), the CCRA (Award for Exceptional Leadership in Cancer Research, 2011), the McGill Department of Oncology (Lifetime Achievement Award, 2014), and I was awarded the McGill Medal in 2015. I was the Gilman Cheney Professor of Biochemistry at McGill (1996-2016, now Emeritus), received the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal (2013), and was named a Member of the Royal Society of Canada (2002) and an Office of the Order of Canada (2014). I name all these awards not to brag but to leave a record that what I did may have meant something. It certainly did to me.”
“The storms this Tuesday evening caused the Morges to overflow. According to the MeteoSuisse radar, it rained “more than 25 mm/h” in Morges on Tuesday evening around 6 p.m. – an exceptional rainfall which caused the Morges to break out from its bed, flooding the surrounding area, up to the Grand-Rue. The scenes were particularly impressive on the side of Parc de l’Independence where the river overflowed beyond avenue Ignace-Paderewski.”
An elderly lady was giving away a sideboard. It’s not small (1.6m x 1.4m) and being solid wood, it’s not light. She bought it in 1966, so it’s older than I am. Getting it home was a bit of an adventure, as Gino, Colin and I had to manhandle it down two flights of twisty stairs, then roll home on two handcarts. But we did it!
What this set off though was a mad tetris game in the flat to move furniture around. In the end, we shifted several frames, two 4×4 kallax bookcases, one 2×4 kallax, one 2×2 and we’re going to get rid of three tables in a upcoming tip run.
We took Byron to Vuillerens. He enjoyed the sculpture garden, the fairy forest but was getting a bit hot in the iris beds.
So grandad, after I peed on my usual tree, I went to the park to see Edgar Alan Crow, but I couldn’t catch him, cause mom wouldn’t let me run after him, and then I stole Nala’s ball, but I had to give it back, and then I was going to go into town to go see the lady at the meat library, and….
SQUIRREL!
MOM! MOM!! Did you see? There was a squirrel in the garden!!!
It’s ok, granddad, I protected you!
Halloween done. Ben birthday done. Automnales and dog show done. Next stop Katy’s birthday then Christmas, then lean January then hopefully things start to settle down for a bit…. Except there’s always something else. Like February relâche. Then Easter. Then summer holiday. Then… Then…
Done.
As always, people had a good time, there were lots of things to eat and drink, lots of happy ghouls and goblins, and we got lots of thanks for organizing it, but this year it seemed to take a lot more energy to get up and get it done…
