My letter to Mayor Jim Watson of Ottawa regarding pedestrian unfriendly traffic circles

Mayor Jim Watson,

 

After trying to cross the road at the intersection of St. Joseph Blvd.  and Jeanne D’Arc  Blvd. in Orleans  last evening with our granddaughter (  South East corner near Dairy Queen  to the North East side near Cora’s )  I have come to the conclusion that our city doesn’t give a hoot about pedestrians anymore.  I have never seen such insanity in my life, as car after car, at breakneck speed whizzed through without any regard whatsoever to anyone trying to cross the road at that point. 

 

I found this on the city of Ottawa website http://ottawa.ca/en/residents/transportation-and-parking/traffic/how-use-roundabout#pedestrians  and this is an outright lie that “Roundabouts are often safer for pedestrians than intersections that use traffic signals. At a roundabout, a pedestrian only has to cross two sections of one-way traffic, which is moving at slow speeds.” Well, the traffic last night was moving extremely fast; there was nothing slow about it.  When there seemed to be a break and I thought it was safe to cross, in a split second a car whizzed by from Jeanne D’Arc and pulled onto Saint Joseph Blvd going east right in front of me. The city’s website suggests waiting for a break in the traffic to cross. Well, there was no way one could even begin to cross even if you didn’t see any approaching vehicles because in no time at all a vehicle would come out of nowhere, from different directions, even if there seemed to be a break.

 

Just when I had given up and was ready to walk down to the traffic lights,  which were quite a distance away, a couple of cars stopped and my granddaughter and I were able to cross.  I certainly will never attempt to cross at that intersection again though. The city has seen to that.

 

What I experienced last night was a real eye opener to me about how we really feel in Ottawa about many of our citizens.

 

This traffic circle in Orleans is very, very dangerous to pedestrians and a disgrace. It’s only a matter of time before someone is killed at that intersection

 

Could you please explain to me why this is happening; the trend lately to disregard pedestrians.

 

Thank you

 

Maureen Ward,

Ottawa

 

Use LICKBO to Retire Hydro's Debt Retirement charges

Ottawa's hydro rates are ridiculous. My bill yesterday was for 76.12 for one month.

Hydro used to bill every two months. Now they changed the billing period, so maybe we wouldn't notice the difference in the bills. I guess they think we're morons.

As you can see below, more than half my hydro charges are for Delivery, Regulatory charges, Debt Retirement Charges and Tax.

Then today in my newspaper, I received the brand new LICKBO (LCBO) 36 page glossy "Magazine". A "Magazine" devoted to taking pictures of laughing smiling beautiful people (ugly people need not apply) because apparently we need to be told to drink more booze.

Not like LICKBO has a monopoly or anything in Ontario, and that the only place you can buy booze in Ontario is at this monopoly. How much did they pay for this "Magazine" anyway? A ton I imagine. And it is circulated through the newspapers. What a farce.

The money that Ontario uses for to tell us to drink more, should be put directly on the Delivery, Regulatory charges, Debt Retirement Charges and Tax of Ontario residents' hydro bills. That would make sense.

And stop producing these obnoxious "Magazines".

 

Moe Moe Has a Brand New Hat!!!

 

 

How to make a Bowel Buddy substitute

We ran out of bowel buddies. These are high fibre biscuits that we buy. Each one has 5 grams of fibre.

I thought, hey I could probably make something similar at a fraction of the price. So I did. I just looked at the ingredients on the package and made up a recipe that included what was in the package.

Here it is:

Mix dry ingredients in small bowl
2 cups of all bran type cereal
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder

Mix wet ingredients in medium bowl
2 eggs
1/2 cup skim milk
1/4 cup molasses
1/4 cup canola oil
1/8 cup brown sugar

Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients. Stir and put into greased 11 X 7 inch pan. Bake at 350 until toothpick comes out clean. Cut into 16 squares. You could probably also use an 8 X 8 inch pan.

My recipe has 4.25 grams of fibre per square. If you increase the bran cereal to 2 1/2 cups of all bran cereal, you would get the 5 grams equivalent fibre that Bowel Buddies give you. You would probably need to increase the milk by maybe 1/4 cup.

Easy peasy.

Make sure you check your grocery prices when you shop.

I used to do this but then I stopped being very attentive to the prices.

My friend Susan reminded me to do this, so I started again. And lo and behold, she was right. For the past four weeks I've been vigilantly checking my food prices, and for each of those weeks, one item scanned incorrectly (yogurt, eggs, mango and crackers).

When this happens, the store gives you the product for free. See policy below.

One trick I do is to write the price on the product, since I can't always remember what something is supposed to sell for. Then when I go through the checkout, I can easily review the prices.

http://www.retailcouncil.org/memberservices/consumerprograms/scanner-price-accuracy

1. THE ITEM FREE SCANNER POLICY
Retailers will implement an Item Free Scanner Policy as follows:
1.1 On a claim being presented by the customer, where the scanned price of a product at checkout is higher than the price displayed in the store or than advertised by the store, the lower price will be honoured; and

    (a) if the correct price of the product is $10 or less, the retailer will give the product to the customer free of charge; or
    (b) if the correct price of the product is higher than $10, the retailer will give the customer a discount of $10 off the corrected price.

Eating your oats the non mushy way

I don't like porridge. It's mushy and makes me want to gag. So I never eat it.

But recently I've discovered steel cut oats. And I don't cook them. I soak them in milk in the fridge for two days then eat them like that. They are very good. And nutritious. And filling. And they're not mushy.

1 cup steel cut oats
1 cup skim milk (or whatever % milk you like)

Put in plastic container, cover and into the fridge for two days.

Take oats out, place in two bowls, and add more milk (or not).

Add some brown sugar (maybe 1-2 teaspoons).

Add some raisins and a good sprinkle of cinnamon. Could also add chopped apples or other fruit.

This makes two good servings. I notice that the package directions say to use 1/4 cup per serving, but that's not enough in my opinion.

This is a good source of protein, fibre and probably about 400 calories.

Quite yummy.

Banana Boat Song - Happy Birthday Moe Moe

Cala and her sisters