94
This is a salute to my amazing and loving mother Ann
My mother turned 94 this summer and continues to astonish her family with her spirit and determination. She’s not in the best of health (she is 94), but when we arrive every Sunday for our weekly visit she’s full of excitement at seeing us again. She makes it clear that at that moment, we are the only thing that’s important to her… okay, that and the food we bring her ;-)
We see her almost every week, but I’ve gotten lazy with bringing my camera which is something I know I need to fix. And a better subject I couldn’t find. She’s remarkably unselfconscious and happily sits while I snap away.
I just turned 64 recently and I realize how lucky I am to have my mother still with us. The rhythm of our weekends very much revolves around these visits… this ritual. Here’s a few photos from our visit this past weekend. Hopefully, lots more to come.
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HOCKEY VS. BIRTHDAY DINNER
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C’mon, there was no way I was not going to watch the Gold medal game between Canada and Czechia last night… birthday dinner be damned. Brilliant hockey.
Congratulations @teamcanadawjc 🥇🏆🏒
PASS THE SUFGANIYOT
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Every year that goes by, it becomes a little more special to get together and celebrate Chanukah (the festival of lights) with my family, my two sisters, their families and my 93 year old mother.
If there’s a greater religious context to Chanukah, it most certainly passes me over. Don’t get me wrong, the miracle of lights is a great story. I’m happy to believe that something like this did in fact happen, but let’s face it, it was a very long time ago. And in truth, I have no affinity for the food either… In fact latke’s with or without sour creme or apple sauce did not pass through these lips. Sufganiyot… forget about it!
What makes it special is that the whole family is together. It wasn’t all that long ago when it was my boys playing on the floor, eagerly opening up their gifts and cuddling the newest plush toy. Now it’s my grand niece and nephew’s turn for this. One day soon it may be my grandchildren.
So the Chanukah party is a marker of sorts. Next year I’ll take more pictures and marvel at how the kids have grown and of course how the grown ups have gotten older.
In spite of taking less pictures in 2022 than any other year in the last decade, I feel a greater importance of capturing the passing of time, registering in some way who we were at this moment in our lives. And just like those latkes, when they’re gone, they’re gone.
DETERMINATION UP THE WAZOO
I’d be lying if I didn’t acknowledge that I wasn’t just a little proud. During Covid times, my eldest son Maximilian has embarked on a quest to transform his physique. It’s not that he was a slouch before, but something gripped him to put in the work to do something special. To look the way we all, if we had the determination and the time and perhaps a few less decades on the clock, would want to look.
I’ve seen it first hand the hours after hours he’s put into this. It’s not fast and it certainly isn’t easy. It’s not one or two days a week but most of the days of the week., week after week, month after month. And the amount of mostly lean, high protein food this young man can consume is startling. Between him and his younger brother Solomon, half of our fridge is full of high fat, high protein Greek yoghurt.
And to make this all the sweeter, he’s done this from home while finishing the last year of his masters program and most recently, the preparation for his thesis. Impressive to say the least.
But I am the grateful beneficiary of a young man who doesn’t mind having his picture taken, so what more can a dad who likes to take pictures ask for? Max is willing to ham it up and do what’s necessary to show off his hard work. My job is to try to not screw it up.
I posted recently about my ailing mother as well as the birth of my grand niece, two important events in our family. This post is a postcard to Max and his older self. A reminder to him of the year and time we’re living in and how he spent it doing pull ups and stomach crunches and the myriad other gruelling activities to sculpt his body. We can’t stop time, but we can certainly freeze it for a few precious seconds.
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BABY RAINA
My mother is 92 years old and having a bit of a rough time as of late. I can’t think of a better antidote to this stage in her and our lives than the arrival of a new child. A few weeks back we welcomed my niece’s second child, Raina Millie into the world.
Such a sweet little (about five pounds) girl; during the baby naming ceremony which is mostly an excuse for the family to get together, share stories and eat, she slept and ate and I believe there might have been a poop or two. I can’t remember if she cried, if she did, it wasn’t done with much enthusiasm.
It’s been two and a half years since the arrival of Raina’s big brother Elliot. We’re all delighted to have a new family member, someone who will carry on the traditions that came before her. She’ll be told of her great grandmother Ann and great grandfather Milton, but they will be people in faded pictures. Her story will be made from the brave new world we’ve left her. With any luck, she too will have a long and healthy life and she’ll have the chance to have her great grand children pass the torch to their own. And who knows, by then maybe people will live forever.
It’s a great reminder to me of the value of images, it’s proof that we’ve been here and until we live forever, I guess we’ll just have to keep taking them.
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LAST DAY
38 years working for one company is a profoundly long time. I’d venture a guess and say that it’s not the norm any longer, with most young people changing firms at the drop of a hat.
I’ve had the good fortune to have just one company controller at Reliable, his name is Rex. Rex decided to make it a career and retired on June 30, 2021, he started in 1983. That’s a long time ago.
As hard as I try, I can’t really remember much about 1983. But I do know it was the year that I started working for what eventually became my company. At that time Rex wouldn’t have been much on my radar. I was a young sales rep trying to do what sales reps do, I didn’t have the luxury of hanging around the office much. It wasn’t until 1991 when my father passed away that my relationship with Rex started to evolve. He was the guy looking after the books and I was as green as the grass. Thankfully, Rex stuck around, in both good times and bad and there was plenty of bad on the horizon.
The cliche is that it’s another “end of a chapter”. When you’re a company that started in 1955 we can count lots and lots of chapters. They haven’t always had a good ending. I believe this one has. Rex has good health and we were able to hire his replacement long enough in advance that the transition should be seamless. And while Covid restrictions forced us to scale back our celebrations, I think that all in all it was a good day for Rex and a good way to say “thank you and farewell”.
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QUARANTINE
Some of you may know that I participate in a weekly word project on Instagram with a couple of friends called #thiswordthisweek. it’s a bit of a fun thing that we do to help us get through the photographic dry spells. But most importantly in this time of Covid-19, it’s become, at least for myself, a reason to still take pictures.
The word this week is Quarantine, a word everyone is all too familiar with. My first thoughts were to put our masks on and take some pictures of Alice and myself at home, try to make a statement about our hardships. But let’s face it, I go to work everyday, I get to walk outside and go to the market when I need to. It maybe a hardship of sorts but I’ve not been completely isolated. This is not the case for my mother Ann who is 91 years old, who’s been quarantined for the best part of ten months.
This story is not dissimilar to sons and daughters around the globe who have elderly parents. Isolation, fear, loneliness, boredom are words that describe what I’m sure my mother goes through every single day. Her friends are now mostly deceased, her ties are with the few that remain, her sisters and her children.
Her universe is the television and her large print books. She says she is okay but will also admit to the dark parts of being much on her own and no longer being a part of the outside world as before. She misses Sunday dim sum with Alice and her grandsons. She misses going to the mall and buying things that she doesn’t need. She misses her freedom. She misses her life.
My mother’s time cannot be counted in years and decades. Her time and her future are now. We visit every week and bring her food. At the end of the meal is always something sweet, creamy and delicious. When she’s eating her beloved dessert, I believe she’s at her happiest and most content. Perhaps she’s time travelling to a place that is warm and sunny, full of family and friends. The enjoyment she gets out of it is a thing to behold.
The quarantine is not fair to people like my mother. In some ways I don’t think she fully understands what’s at stake when we visit. We keep our distance, we make sure that we’re as careful as possible. Of course simply by being there we are taking a chance, risking her life at the same time as we’re trying to give her back some of her life. Quarantine and Covid-19’s cruel irony.
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A SAUBLE BEACH THANKSGIVING
My last post was back in June. That’s probably around the same time i last picked up my camera. What are we going to call this… the Covid-19 brain freeze ‘n drought sounds about right. Whatever the reason (really, damned if I know) I just lost all interest in taking pictures.
When I finally did pick up my camera again a few weeks ago, I hoped that the part of my grey matter that registers what all the little dials and buttons do, didn’t completely atrophy like a weight lifters biceps after he’s become a couch potato.
The good news is that maybe this is more like riding a bike than I thought. The basics came back pretty quickly. The harder stuff like using a flash was a little trickier, with some of the missing details only reappearing days later.
Our Canadian Thanksgiving this year was a trip, about 3 hours north west of Toronto to Sauble Beach. The missing element of travel has been a big reason why I haven’t been motivated to shoot. So this was the perfect opportunity to see if there was anything left in the tank.
My mission was made all the more interesting since Pat @laroquephotogram provided his Daido Moriyama presets to me. My creative rebound needed a bit of a push and this was a great help seeing the world through the contrasty perspective of the Japanese master.
Regardless of the results, the passion at least for the time being is back. The Covid-19 brain freeze ‘n drought seems to have abated. Yet another of the many reasons this time of year to be thankful.
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THY NAME IS CORONAVIRUS
With half of my wife’s extended family still in China, this years celebration held at Noble Seafood Restaurant was a bit of a quieter affair. My mother-in-law made it safely back from Shanghai a couple of weeks ago but her siblings are currently stuck waiting for the coronavirus epidemic to get sorted out so they can get flights back to Toronto and Sweden.
The vibe at Noble was a few degrees less than the typical new year’s meal. It wasn’t quite as busy or frantic as it might have been. Even a week ago (pre WHO emergency declaration) there were those that figured a celebration at home was a safer choice.
Still, it was decently busy and we united to put on a good show of overconsumption. Good times were had; crab, lobster, fish and abalone with a dash of pig and chicken were on the menu (12 courses in all). Believe me, no one went home hungry. Red envelopes were shared. Next year, we hope that we will all be together and Corona can go back to being the name of an imported Mexican beer. Until then, enjoy the pics and stay safe.
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THANKSGIVING 2018
I'm writing this on November 11th, Remembrance Day here in Canada. Today marks the 100th anniversary of the ending of the first world war. Commonly referred to as the war to end all wars.
It seems appropriate to finally be getting around to posting a few Thanksgiving images from last months trip to Port Cunnington, Ontario just outside of Algonquin Park. Today should also be called Thanksgiving. Here's a thought, let's call every day Thanksgiving and hope we keep everyone in the moment and maybe prevent all the crazy world leaders from starting WWIII.
Over dim sum this morning we took a moment (a minute actually) to stand up and honour those that fought and made the ultimate sacrifice for their country. For the first time in my life the thought that we've learned nothing from the last 100 years seemed too real.
So today I'll give thanks again and again and again. And I will remember again and again and again.
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SOLOMON @ 18
But a highlight of the yearly fundraiser is to watch these talented kids perform and entertain. What an amazing group of young people. We listened to Broadway show hits being belted out, piano waltzes and violin solos. An eclectic range of acts, all done with enthusiasm and confidence.
And with this, one of our final school events as the end of high school nears, I cant' help but feel sentimental. There's something that will be missing with the passage of these years. We may look back with a tearful eye. Simple times. Happy days. Next year, I might need to crash a fundraiser just to bid on some things I don't really need.
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FAREWELL MANDARIN
Last Saturday we enjoyed what would be our final family celebration at the Mandarin Golf & Country Club. After a more then 20 year run, the Mandarin officially closed its doors.
For as long as I can remember, the Mandarin has played host to our family gatherings. From weddings, to funerals, baby celebrations to casual Sunday dim-sum, the Mandarin has been the one constant in our gastronomical life. The food was always very good, in fact many times it was brilliant. The crab done 3-ways was the stuff of legend; spring onion, garlic and curry. The trifecta of crustacean bliss.
It was my father-in-law's club, actually his former club. After many years as a member, the annual fees no longer made sense in this post Tiger Woods era where there are more golf clubs then golfers. The for members only restriction never seemed to apply to the Zee family. Thank God.
With its best before date long past due, the Mandarin was still charming. I was quite sure over the last couple of years that the leaky urinals in the men's bathroom would one day explode and sink the entire club house. They survived intact. The high tech, sensor controlled automatic paper towel dispenser however worked perfectly right to the very last day. Each time dispensing the perfect amount of paper into your wet hands. It almost felt like it was done out of a sense of pride for the glory days when everything was shiny and perfect and new.
The images below were taken a couple of weeks back. Our last dim-sum at the Mandarin. It was a lovely autumn day. The food was delicious. We knew the clock was ticking for our final dinner, a 50th wedding anniversary celebration for my in-laws, but the menu needed to be settled, the amount agreed to. Three tables of twelve. Somehow we would squeeze everyone in. They would make it work, as they always did.
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