White Horses on the Bay

I moved this blog to my new site

2010-10-08T08:18:00.000-07:00

check out White Horses on the Bay Here

Query Questions I May Have To Answer Some Day

2010-09-14T21:54:00.000-07:00

What's the book about?

It's an unscheduled journey of self discovery, telling the tale of a young man who yearns for love and acceptance in a world that is lonely and cold.

What is the audience hook?

An unexpected love affair will take the reader through the gorgeous landscape of Newfoundland's north central coast, out into the wild Atlantic seas, inside the warm music filled places of a classic outport town, and into the unique lives of the people who live there. The reader will spend five days in the spring of 1964 eavesdropping on the life of Fisher Sullivan as he copes with new challenges in his previously unfulfilling life.

What will prompt readers to buy it?

The literary landscape of the past few years, has been heavily weighted in vampire tales, post-disaster epics, addiction memoirs, and espionage escapades. White Horses on the Bay will be an enjoyable light diversion into a romantic landscape with charming characters. Like a tiny purple crocus popping up from the barren spring ground, this story will be a delightful and welcome respite from the gloom on the shelves.

Who will read it?
People of all ages will enjoy the simple romantic story line. Anyone who likes to travel to an unfamiliar place and immerse themselves in a unique culture will appreciate the glimpse into community life on the rugged east coast of Canada. There is history, adventure, opera music, kitchen parties, births, deaths and the messes of life in between the covers of White Horses on the Bay.
What is the quality of writing?
Although this is the author's first full length novel, she has been published in Canada's national newspapers, as well as local publications. She has completed several university continuing education courses in the writing and publishing faculties at UBC and SFU. She has a background in commercial copywriting for print and broadcast media.
What is special or unique about this book?
The fast paced story line of the main characters is entwined with historical threads and framed by the memories of the main character's grandmother, whose life spans the past and the present in one of Canada's oldest settlements. The progression of the novel follows the escalation of wind speeds in the Beaufort Wind Scale; from the calm, serene breezes in the beginning to the gale force storms that inevitably change everything in the end. The reader will learn about this wind scale still used today.
What does the project look like?
This is a literary fiction novel of 264 pages, 74,000 words. It will be enjoyed as all literary fiction is, for its inventive diversion from one's ordinary life.
How have similar books sold?
According to the Hills Strategies 2005 report on "Who Buys Books in Canada?" funded in part by the Canada Council for the Arts and based on Statistics Canada data from 2001, more than 1.1 Billion dollars was spent on books in Canada in that year. Over 50% of households reported buying "some" books in that year. Sadly, nearly 50% reported buying no books. There was a 50/50 split in the amount of spending on books in single gender households, so roughly 50% of people who buy books are women. A large percentage of people who buy books in Canada are drawn to literature with a romantic, sentimental theme, and therefore many will also be interested in a novel such as White Horses on the Bay. If the author's bookcase is any indication, similar books have sold very well.
How will this book stand out in the marketplace?

The Cover?

The name of the novel, White Horses on the Bay, will be intriguing and also vaguely familiar. It is an old maritime saying suggesting a storm is brewing. The concept of storms may encourage readers to pick this book from the bookstore shelf. The lonely character on this fence post may also draw the prospective reader to speculate what life in this place might be like. The clever inside cover synopsis and the intriguing first paragraph of Chapter 1 will hopefully, close the sale.

What will its shelf life-be?

White Horses on the Bay could have wide ranging appeal with a simple story that transcends countries and cultures. The main story-line takes place in Twillingate, Newfoundland but an echo of that story crosses the Atlantic and plays out in the opera houses of Europe. The time frame of the book's central narrative is Spring of 1964 and touches on the many events that occurred in North America during that era. References to music, movies and pop culture of the turbulent 60's is peppered with turn-of-the-century technological advances in electricity, architecture, art and transportation. The impact of WWII on several generations of Newfoundlanders adds a universal theme to the stories as does the harsh realities of living off the sea. These aspects may make the book quite appealing to a broad audience and therefore have an enduring shelf-life, once word of mouth is considered.

Why did the author write this particular book?

The author is a direct descendent of a famous opera singer from Twillingate. The remarkable story of Georgina Stirling, The Nightengale of the North, who dazzled the concert halls of Europe from the late 1880's, was the starting point of the author's foray into literary fiction. The author has always wanted to write a longer piece of fiction and decided to construct a fictional novel that touched on the interesting history of her family.

Short, tight, succinct query with three sentence description of plot, character, and conflict.

Fisher's commitment to life recedes a little bit with each passing day, dissolving like a massive iceberg grounded in a bay of unfulfilled dreams and un-requited love. One stormy day, the wind whips the waves of passion into his lonely heart and moves a mountain of doubt out of his way. A swirling gale of extraordinary events hurls Fisher Sullivan, and all who know him, head first into a sea of change.

Anthony Sedlak - The Guy can Cook!

2010-09-09T21:51:00.000-07:00

So my friend Debi and I went to a cooking class last night at the local gourmet gadget store, Kitchen Therapy, and we had the most amazing, head spinning, appetite conquering, mind boggling, culinary adventure anyone can have in an urban plaza that also sports a Le Chateau! Just mere steps from the H&M store, across from a Hallmark Cards shop, none other than the gorgeous gourmand himself, Anthony Sedlak was stirring up a savoury storm on an uncharacteristically stormy night. At exactly the moment he flung another handful of coarse salt into the Bolognese sauce, the lights went out with a thunderous BAM! It was as if he was channeling Emeril Lagasse and announcing his presence in the suburbs with a perfectly timed bolt of lightning.
Anthony Sedlak, is of course, right up there with the likes of Lagasse and other pop-culture TV chefs. His show The Main on the Food Network, has people from all walks of life and all culinary backgrounds tuning in to watch his incredible physique......I mean, finesse with all things gourmet. He's a local boy (BC) and he's made himself a name in the clique of cookbook gurus. I now have Gordon, Jamie, Joel and Anthony's names prominently displayed in my collection of kitchen counter cookbooks. I have had the good fortune to dine at Gordon, Jamie and Joel's famous restaurants, but I've never had the joy of personally watching them cook!

Sitting just a few feet away from Anthony's "cooking stage" at the back of the incredibly stocked kitchen store, my 11 classmates and I watched and listened as Anthony flung ingredients by the handful into simmering pots on the cooktop in the demonstration kitchen. He created the three course meal with more joie de vivre than the small space could actually handle and there were times when I threw my head back at the sheer power of his culinary conviction.
A few times he mentioned his penchant for Red Bull, which made me wince at the thought. He also confessed to having a "quarter life crisis", which made my menopausal friends and I feel ancient. He let it slip, perhaps in jest, that he suffers from OCD, but more than once, I wondered if he had a hyper-sensitivity to everything in his environment like Jeff Goldblum in The Fly, when he'd nervously bat at invisible specs in the air around him. The energy coming off Anthony Sedlak when he's wearing an apron and stirring a pot almost makes the gas burner redundant.
This chef is all about rustic cooking, local ingredients, simple recipes, long slow cooking and the not-so-delicate balance of the savoury and the sweet.
I found it kind of difficult to keep up with the way he peppered cooking instructions with philosophical quotations and personal life stories. A psychiatrist would have a field day with this guy! Who casually drops Margaret Mead quotations into a cooking lesson? "So that's 2 litres of Beef stock....A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has....and a couple of dried bay leaves"....
There are two things you notice when you encounter Anthony Sedlak in person: 1) he's really good looking and 2) he's super hyper. These are things you notice as opposed to things you already know. He's an accomplished and internationally recognized chef and he has a Food Network cooking show. At first, I thought he would be a great catch for my daughter. She loves writing about food and he loves making food. What could be better? So the first question asked from the cooking class assembled in the back of the store was "Are you single?". And I wasn't the one who asked it! Anthony mumbled something vague as we all felt a bit of crowd embarrassment and then he jokingly answered "If we're not in North Van, then yes!" I was a little less enthusiastic at that point on the idea of my daughter dating him. In fact, as the evening wore on, I grew less infatuated with him and more worried about his mental state. Every time he flicked the back of his neck and rubbed his jeans with his hands, I thought of Rain Man or that Sam character Sean Penn played in I am Sam!. But I guess genius in all its creative forms comes with a bit of quirkiness.
Back to the good looking thing. Anthony tried to explain "pork belly" by rubbing his own belly, which is the area now occupied by his rock hard abs. Nobody, even the guys, could concentrate after that. He mentioned the fact that he'd gained some weight during his Michelin 3-star restaurant days, but his 8-10K daily runs and his 80 -100k three-times-a-week bike marathons have turned him into a lean mean cooking machine. I think you could make fudge on the guy's marble slab torso. One of my classmates even asked, "how can you stay so trim eating food like this?" That's when Anthony mentioned the Olympic athlete fitness regime he's got going.
Let's just say that I loved his laissez faire attitude to cooking. The French phrase literally means, "allow to do", and it is basically the way I love to cook. Whatever ingredients I have on hand, whatever I feel like tossing together, often outdoes the precisely planned concoctions every time. In our house we call it "A Taste of the Fridge" and it is a fantastic adventure to embark on!
I don't want to be Anthony Sedlak's mother-in-law, but I wouldn't mind if he came over to cook once in awhile!

Back From La Belle Province!

2010-09-01T16:47:00.000-07:00

   After a lovely, long summer of hot, dry weather in B.C., a trip to Quebec was like icing on the cake! We spent 7 wonderful days exploring Mont Tremblant, Montreal, and Quebec City and enjoyed every single minute! It must be that I love old and beautiful places and enjoy learning about history and also, that we were able to spend quality time together. Lots of walking and exploring, dining and wine, art galleries and tourist traps, patio lunches and luxurious hotels added to the enjoyment factor!
   I didn't know it, but Mont Tremblant is the oldest resort in Canada. It got its first chairlift in 1939. Brad was able to take the ride to the top of the mountain before I arrived in Quebec, but once I got there, the weather turned cool and rainy so I could only imagine what the landscape looked like from up top. My journey to Mont Tremblant was interesting in itself, as I had a driver who is also a tour guide and spoke 6 languages. He told me all kinds of things about the countryside on our way to the resort and I just thoroughly enjoyed listening to him. Although the trees were still lush and green, you can imagine how spectacular the scenery would become in the fall, as the hillsides and mountains are just carpeted with deciduous trees. Every so often, a gorgeous stone church with a perfect spire, would appear in the distance like in an A.Y. Jackson painting.
   We had 3 great dinners in Mont Tremblant, our favourite being the Auberge Sauvignon. It was an old home converted into an inn with a gourmet restaurant that felt cozy and elegant at the same time. We had a 2006 Bordeaux that was exquisite. We actually walked all the way to the Inn from our resort digs, which was about 20 minutes along a lovely path beside Lac Tremblant. It seemed like a very posh, exclusive area with private club beaches and gated communities everywhere.

The Intrawest development at Mont Tremblant

We had a great day travelling from Mont Tremblant to Montreal and onto Quebec. Took the VIA rail from Montreal and enjoyed the first class tickets. You get to wait in a lounge area if you want, our bags were taken and placed on the train for us, we had the first car behind the engine, and were served a lovely lunch with wine and other goodies. The seats were very comfortable and the views from the huge windows were spectacular. The countryside of Quebec rolled by for three hours through little towns and farmland and great expanses of forests. I really enjoyed the sound of the train whistle and the jostling of the train car. It was a romantic way to travel.

We arrived in Quebec City in the late afternoon and found our hotel to be just a few blocks from the train station. We stayed in a boutique hotel in the old lower city. Very enchanting area full of cafes and galleries, teaming with tourists and very much like the old villages in the South of France. It reminded me very much of Cannes, Nice and St. Paul de Vence.

St. Paul de Vence (above) Old City in Quebec City (below)

Brad and I used the iPhone application of walking tours on our first day of sightseeing and enjoyed finding places with the GPS. We went to perhaps one of the ugliest buildings in the city which was also the tallest building and was a government tower where they have quite an astounding observatory on the top floor. It gave 360 views of the city and surrounding area and lots of great information on the window sills describing what you could see from that particular vantage point.

I think this photo really captures the tone of the city.

Lots of flat roofs, short buildings, colourful siding, etc.

We stopped in at the Plains of Abraham interpretive centre and spent a bit of time on the walkways, but actually saved a better visit of the battlefields for the second day. We also toured the Citadel which has amazing grounds and is an archaeological wonder.

The Citadel is included in the walled fortress of the Old City and is a World Heritage Site.

This guy was standing guard in the hot sun and it was about 30 Degrees Celsius!

We visited the Musee Des Beaux Arts Du Quebec on our second day of sightseeing and enjoyed seeing the Jean-Paul Riopelle paintings. One of his paintings recently sold for $1.4 million!

Jean-Paul Riopelle Painting

The Museum

Our old neighbours from BC, who now live in Quebec, joined us for an evening of fun that started with drinks on the terrace of the Chateau Frontenac and proceeded on to a 9 course tasting meal at Auberge St. Amour which featured food from Quebec. It was incredibly fun and all 9 courses were paired with what seemed like 2 glasses of wine each! Yikes! Quite a culinary adventure. I think I ate deer. I know I had fois gras! There may have been petite lapin?

Char, Marie-Andree, Brad and Jean

Note the # of glasses!

We spent a lot of time just wandering in and out of shops and galleries and churches. Here are a few photos of these places:

From the Old City of Quebec to the modern architecture of Montreal, we had a fantastic trip through the history of La Belle Province. It was such a great holiday. I highly recommend it!

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

2010-08-04T09:32:00.000-07:00

Of course Hamlet was contemplating suicide in this line from To Be or Not To Be, one of Shakespeare's most famous soliloquies. I'm just wishing I could sleep, even without dreaming, just one night, all through the night without waking even once. I don't know why I can't sleep well, but it may be something to do with my age and hormones. Or my gender and its genetically wired need to keep vigilant over the nest, protecting the young from predators. Well, the young are off on their own life's adventures and there's no one left to worry about here in the nest, so what gives? Here's an essay I wrote about my sleep deprivation. If I wasn't so tired, it would make me laugh!

I Need a Nighttime Revolution

I haven’t slept in decades. 1981 was the last year of great sleeping for me. Those sleeps where your head hits the pillow and the next thing you know the alarm clock is going off and it’s time to get up. The past 29 years have flown by for me in a fog of sleep deprivation that seems to be intensifying. I’m beginning to wonder just how little sleep a person can exist on. I remember a high school classmate of mine, who come to think of it may have become a communist but I’ve lost track of him, once mentioned to me that Che Guevara, survived on less than four hours sleep each night. And he led a revolution. I’ve got considerably less on my agenda, but still I question whether I’m in serious trouble trying to exist on what seems like 15 minutes of quality sleep.

There are lots of reasons why I haven’t slept in ages. I’m a worrier. I will flail out of bed at 3am to check the doors are locked, look in the garage to see if anything has spontaneously combusted, or see if we accidently left the mini wiener dog outside when he went out for his before-bed pee. There’s never any thing burning, the house is always secure and the dog is snoozing away in a rabbit-chasing dream.

My husband snores so I invested in earplugs. They’re supposed to muffle up to 33 decibels of sound, or the equivalent of a 747 jet landing. Somehow the earplugs just make me listen more intently. Also they make my ears itchy.

I’ve read up on sleep hygiene techniques. No TV in the bedroom, no caffeine late in the day, cut back on alcohol, etc. I’ve tried these things, with the exception of the last one. Who wants to be sleep deprived and give up wine? That’s just torture.

Yesterday morning when I was sleep-walking the wiener dog down to the mail box, I noticed a delivery truck slowly making its way down the street. I’d seen the truck many times before, recognized its company logo, the green medi-gas sign. But this time, I also noticed the three things they delivered. Oxygen, something else, and sleep therapy. It was that third one that caught my eye. Was it true? Can you get sleep delivered to your door? Like the newspaper or pizza? Wonder of wonders! Halleluia! I’ve found the elixir of my dreams and it’s conveniently driving down my street.

But then I wondered. What’s inside that truck that could possibly solve my sleep dilemma? Some sort of time travelling machine that would take me back to last year when our investments were soaring and our house was worth twice what we paid for it? This would be great, but then of course I wasn’t sleeping when times were good, either. Maybe the truck was full of husbands being returned from their off-site snore facilities to their homes where their wives were just waking up from a silent night. Maybe it was sort of like those ice-cream trucks that come around in the summer and play calliope music that only small children can hear, only this truck is playing a frequency only sleep deprived women can hear and they’re selling little blue sleeping pills out the back. Does it sound like I’ve lost my marbles? I’m well aware of it.

Every morning I slither out of bed, mention my lack of sleep to my husband who gingerly replies, “Oh God, I slept like a rock!” I look in the bathroom mirror at the dark circles under my puffy eyes and sigh. I seem to function well enough throughout the day and I try to remember my Mother’s advice: “Don’t worry about sleeping, dear, you’ll have plenty of time for that when you’re dead.” That one always helps.

A recent Globe and Mail article by Marina Jimenez about sleep deprivation and its near epidemic proportions in society today had some helpful insights for me. I’ve had to re-read it several times, though as I’m so tired I can’t stay focused. It talked about how a few generations ago, people slept in segments, often breaking in the middle of the night to do chores, then returning for another few hours of morning sleep. So I’ve decided to simply get out of bed at 3am, work on my novel, paint, read, clean the house, basically do all the things I’m too tired to do in the daytime right now, and see if this changes things. If Che Guevara can become one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people of the 20^th century on less than 4 hours sleep, then surely I can achieve something. Wait a minute….what happened to that guy anyway? I’m too tired to google it. Must take nap.

Patron Saint of Parking Spaces

2010-07-28T11:35:00.000-07:00

We call her the "Patron Saint of Parking Spaces" because whenever we invoke her name, we find a miraculous parking spot usually in a packed lot! Or a parking meter, right outside the shop/office we're heading to. Or a perfect spot on the ferry with a view from the car windows. And when she's in the car with us, her effect is even more obvious. She laughs it off and sort of wonders if it's blasphemous to even consider someone to be a "parking space saint". Then she reminds us that to be a saint, you have to be already dead. Never-the-less, we kid her about it and secretly say, "Thanks for the parking space, Jen!" when we find one.

I love having Jen visit. She makes me laugh and I can make her laugh so easily it's almost inhuman. I love the way she enjoys the simple things in life. A tiny green frog hanging around her place mat at the table, was the source of immense joy! Somehow, the frog knew that Jen would appreciate his company the most. The frog even walked across the waffles. Jen wondered if the waffles were still edible at that point, and of course I said that the only way the little green tree frogs are poisonous is if they come in contact with anything Belgian. She laughed and poured more syrup on her waffles.

Jen was here for a week and we enjoyed Salt Spring Island together with our Mom. We sat out late at night and watched the shooting stars, the satellites, the space station in orbit, and the bats darting here and there. We marveled at the night sky and the early morning tranquility. We listened to the birds, the rooster up the road, the float planes overhead. We noticed how there was not even a breath of wind moving the towering pines. We watched a swallowtail butterfly float through the air from flower to flower. We laid about in the sun and constantly sought the shade for Mom. We drank lovely wine (some of us did, anyway). We ate fresh caught crab and local Salt Spring lamb. We swam in the lake and even got Mom to join us!

We threw sticks for Bodger and watched him dig a few holes. We golfed at Blackburn and took lessons from Brad. We picked weeds and read books and played scrabble and talked. Sometimes we just listened to music and said nothing. It's a wonderful place to enjoy each other!

Jen the tree-hugger from Alberta!

Man Lands on the Moon and other Important Moments of the Summer of '69

2010-07-21T09:15:00.000-07:00

A Summer to Remember

    In the summer of 1969, around the time Neil Armstrong was landing on the moon, the Orbans landed in the middle of the Roe family living room. The Orbans were refugees fleeing Czechoslovakia.   Their country, fractured from revolution and war, sent many Czechoslovakians in search of welcoming countries around the world. The Orbans found themselves welcomed to Canada and the Roe family’s modest little home in southern Saskatchewan. An unlikely place to land, but a comfortable one, none the less.
    Always available to strangers in need, the fold out couch was the only seating in the Roes’ tiny living room, except for the French provincial chair and an orange hassock. There wasn’t room for much furniture at all in the three-bedroom, basement-less home on Bogue Avenue in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan which needless to say, is so far from the borders of Czechoslovakia it may as well have been the moon.
    The Roe family lived a pretty quiet middle class prairie life during the loud and turbulent 1960’s. It was the decade of civil disobedience and human triumph. Vietnam, presidential assassinations, drug culture, The Beatles invasion, Woodstock, and the space race punctuated a truly amazing time in the life of planet Earth.
    In the midst of all that worldwide angst a struggle of slightly less significance took place daily in the Roe family home. The conflict mainly concerned the bickering between the four sisters. The girls were between the ages of 8 and 13 with many different interests living under one small roof. Mrs. Roe often complained: “you couldn’t swing a cat in this house”. The youngest would look at her cat and wonder if they ever lived in a bigger house would they be swinging cats and would the cats mind this sort of activity?
   Enter the Orbans. Mrs. Orban had long dark curly hair. Mr. Orban had a beard and a mustache; and looked a bit like Dr. Shivago. They were young, newly married and childless. They were very tall. Their feet dangled off the end of the fold out couch. They stayed for a week. It was a temporary situation, the parents assured their daughters, while a long term settlement strategy was being worked out. The girls never really questioned why there were strangers sleeping in their living room. It was quite normal for the Roe family to have unusual guests for dinner or the occasional extended stay. There were the two recent exchange students from Ghana who provided an intriguing addition to the dinner table. They were the only African people the girls had ever seen outside the pages of Life Magazine. That is until the day a nurse from Uganda arrived to work at the local hospital.   There are photos of the Ghanians and Rose the Ugandan nurse in the Roe family album. Rose would occasionally join the family on their weekly hikes at Buffalo Pound Provincial Park. The students from Ghana loved Mrs. Roe’s shepherd’s pie.
   The Czechoslovakians were there the night Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. The six Roes and the two Orbans squeezed around the little 9 inch black and white TV.   To keep the picture reception clear, the girls jammed a pack of their dad’s matches in between the channel knob and the set to hold the frequency in place. They watched as the big billowy astronaut climbed down the ladder of the landing module, bounced onto the barren moonscape and made that famous footprint. “One small step for man....one giant leap for mankind.” It was perhaps the most significant moment of television any of them had ever seen. It’s possible it was the only television the Orbans had ever seen. Because of the language barrier the Orbans could only gesture at each other with wide eyes and clasped hands, how marvelous it all was.
    An event of much greater magnitude occurred not long after the lunar landing. It began with a white business envelope containing some remains.   The ordinary envelope originally contained gold fish carcasses. Jennifer, the oldest, had been storing the deceased pets in the bedroom dresser drawer for future internment. Jennifer was as sweet and gentle as an angel and most assuredly, God’s protector of all things meek and vulnerable in the Roes’ immediate world.   It was God’s will perhaps, that the gold fish lost the battle with their algae infested tank and succumbed en masse earlier that year. Jennifer felt it was her duty to give them a decent burial. With school and church activities keeping her busy she had vowed to “do it” when she had the time. The envelope was carefully tucked away on the bottom of the underwear drawer.
     The so-called dresser was really the buffet piece of the antique dining room set that didn’t quite fit into the Roe family’s small dining room. The girls’ underwear went in the long narrow top drawer meant to hold the silverware. The rest of their clothes lay in the deep long drawers below.
    Charlotte, the youngest, came across the envelope one day while searching for an undergarment. She pulled it out, opened it up and accidentally crushed the crisp skeletal remains. Charlotte gasped in horror at what she had done and inadvertently blew the dusty fish remnants out of the envelope and onto their delicate things. She tried to scrape the particles back into the envelope but every movement seemed to break them into even smaller bits of dehydrated fish. She knew how devastated Jennifer would be.
      Jennifer, had no doubt, said a silent little prayer each time she opened that drawer.   “Dear God, please forgive me for the delay in a proper burial for your blessed creatures. As soon as I can, I’ll lay them to rest in a more fitting way. And also, forgive us for not cleaning their tank. Amen”. If anyone was getting special heaven consideration, it was Jennifer.
    Charlotte decided to own up to debacle and tell someone what she had done. Elizabeth, the second oldest, was sitting on the hassock watching TV when Charlotte entered the living room.    The Orbans were sitting on the couch (now folded up for day use).  Jennifer was at her Christian Girls in Training meeting at the church.
    Charlotte sat on the French provincial chair, her skinny legs swinging between its ornately carved ones and carefully produced the empty envelope for discussion. She confessed to Elizabeth the unfortunate incident and hoped her sister would help fashion some kind of fish bones out of something and cover up the whole ordeal. Richard Nixon was saying something on TV. The Orbans watched closely, translating as best they could for each other.
    Elizabeth, the one who took to classical things like ballet and Mozart, suffered from chronic teenage angst like it was a disease. She jumped off the hassock, ripped the envelope out of Charlotte’s hand, and angrily poked the off switch on the TV. She turned towards Charlotte and sharply said, “You don’t deserve to watch TV”. Then very dramatically stomped down the hallway to their bedroom.
     The Orbans got up and went into the kitchen. Charlotte shivered in fear alone in the living room. After a few moments, Elizabeth returned with a load of underwear in her hands and threw it on the floor. A cloud of dust lingered in the air above the mound. The Orbans returned to the couch. Elizabeth turned the TV back on.
    Charlotte gathered up the clothes, skulked back to their room and stuffed the empty envelope into the drawer. At that moment the answer came to her like a thunder-clapping sign from God himself.   It would be easy to explain to Jennifer that the fish had been resurrected.    If she’d learned one thing in Sunday School in the previous eight years of her life, and it is likely she only learned one thing, it was that Easter Story and the part about the empty tomb.
    Later that night at the dinner table, the Orbans spoke in broken English about their lives in Czechoslovakia. Then they all sat close in the living room and watched the little black and white TV. They watched the news about the fighting in Ireland, the fighting in Vietnam, the fighting in Yugoslavia, the fighting in Korea, and the fighting at the universities in America. Then the girls bickered about which of the two channels available in 1969, to watch next. The Orbans sat silently listening. Elizabeth pushed Charlotte off the hassock. Jennifer hummed Amazing Grace and Charlotte gathered up the courage to tell her about the miracle of the fish.

Gender Bending Still Turns Heads

2010-07-16T14:51:00.000-07:00

I consider myself to be somewhat evolved, 'with-it', plugged into the 21st Century, yet there are still some things that startle me, make me feel old-fashioned. This morning at the hair salon, seeing a male hairstylist seemed completely normal. Not really the norm, but not disturbing in anyway either. He had tattoos and thick arms and he seemed more like the kind of guy you'd bump into in the beer line at a Canucks game, but he was never-the-less doing an up-do of sorts on a willing salon client. But it was something else that made me do a double take while my foil colour was sinking into my scalp this morning. There was a guy doing a manicure. I've never see that before. He was wearing the ubiquitous black spa outfit all the other employees had on, and there he was filing a lady's fingernails and chatting her up. The girl next to me was also mesmerized by the unusual sight and we both remarked how things are changing.

My daughter's friend is a hygienist. He's the same age as Jessica. I've never encountered a male hygienist before and I used to work in the dental field. Again, it seems kind of strange, but then why not? I guess it takes a long time for ingrained ideas to morph their way out of your comfort zone and some regular exposure to a different 'normal' for it to settle into your mind and seem not so strange.

My friend who is a flight attendant (remember when we called them stewardesses?) mentioned how even she finds it just a bit weird when the pilot assigned to her flight is a petite woman half her age. For some reason, we want our pilots to be John Wayne types. We think the steering wheel must be awfully hard to maneuver and would take some brawn to bring a 747 in for a landing. Turns out the whole thing is done by a computer chip no bigger than a finger nail.

I guess there are no more gender bending things to be shocked by anymore. Unless there is ever a female Pope. That would be interesting!

What a difference a decade makes!

2010-07-05T17:44:00.000-07:00

Although they are taken from different angles, these two photos show the same area of our cottage 10 years apart! The amount of growth is phenomenal! We have to actually fight off the encroaching forest every time we visit. We're planning to renovate the gardens and take out a few things that have overstayed their welcome and are overwhelming the beds. When we bought the place in 2000, we were told that local horticultural guru, "Banana Joe" helped to landscape the property and that over 300 perennials were planted. It's amazing when you look at the top photo, how sparse 300 plants look.

Over the past decade, we've discovered many things about gardening in the Gulf Islands: #1 being that deer like to eat almost anything. Slugs like to eat what the deer leave alone. Weeds love to grow in any condition. Delicate plants need care and attention in inverse proportion to how much impact they have on the overall look. Elephant grass is lovely, but the razor sharp edges can slice through flesh pretty easily. Hummingbirds, although preferring dark red colours in flowers, will consider light pink blooms if they are the only thing going. Horse Tails, look soft and lovely from a distance but given the chance will take over the planet in a matter of days. A Douglas fir drops 50,000 seeds each year and only 1 will grow to be a tree, the other 49,999 will migrate inside your tiny cottage. The little brown dots on the back of fern leaves will relieve the itch and pain from stinging nettle. And ironically, they grow side by side. Bamboo is an invasive plant that will devour the habitat it is placed in, except if its the expensive black bamboo that we have, in which case it seems to be withering and shrinking back every year.

We used to have lovely Lilly pads with pretty flowers on our koi pond, now we have algae as thick as pea soup. Like any pool one might have, the amount of work is considerably more involved than the actual enjoyment of said water feature. But still, I persevere trying to get the waterfall going each year and messing around with cheap fountains.

The gardens at Blue Moon Acres were a delightful challenge back in the early 2000's, and I whole-heartedly spent 6 hour marathons of weed pulling, soil tilling, and plant maneuvering. Now I suppose, as I get older I've grown a little less enthusiastic about creating the perfect ambiance and a little more enthusiastic for a glass of Chardonnay on a dusty chaise lounge. I still pick a few weeds, and water when I can, but the forest seems to be winning the battle a little more each year, and thankfully my eyesight is diminishing at the same rate. The fuzzy, lovely green vista is rather appealing in the way the glorious diversified garden beds used to be!

Canada Day on Salt Spring Island

2010-07-02T11:09:00.000-07:00

There's something poetic and profound about celebrating Canada Day at the cottage surrounded by nature. As much as we try to infuse the holiday with patriotic cheerleading and fireworks, the fact remains that a simple red t-shirt and a tiny Canadian flag waving in the breeze, celebrate our country just as much, perhaps even more. Here on Salt Spring Island, where everything has a rural, old fashioned flavour, there's a community birthday cake, the fire hall is decorated a bit, there's an antique car display, a skydiver with a Canadian flag parachute, and a smattering of residents and tourists wearing a little more red and white than they would normally do. Some people have buttons, or balloons, the occasional red cowboy hat, or funny sunglasses, but for the most part, the tone is quiet and reflective, a sort of "aren't we lucky to live in such a beautiful part of the world" sentiment that isn't even spoken. And we are.
Yesterday, I got Mom up early so she could watch the celebrations from Ottawa scheduled for noon, (9am our time) and she watched with enthusiasm as Queen Elizabeth walked through the crowds on Parliament Hill, shaking hands and receiving flowers. Mom is a couple of years older than the Queen, but has felt like they have lived through the same eras together and so the Queen is a constant, almost reassuring thing in Mom's life. If you hear the Queen's voice you'd know it was hers, even if she was just reading the newspaper out loud. If you see just the back of her with her matching hat and coat ensembles, you'd know it was her. If you see just her white gloved hand waving from inside the darkened windows of a car, you'd know it was hers.
For some reason, tears well up in my eyes when I see an old gentleman in a Legion jacket, adorned with medals, reaching out to the Queen with respect and reverence in his eyes. Or a small child pushing a bouquet of flowers into the outstretched arms of the Monarch. It just seems like the madness of the planet, wars, oil spills, politics, protests, everything that presses on our minds, stops for a few moments and something simple and steeped with history happens with panache and then it's gone. It may be utterly silly to have a monarchy at all, but there are some things in life we reluctantly embrace because they inadvertently bring a little joy into our lives. I may not think the monarchy is relevant or necessary, but it warms my heart on Canada Day to see my Mom's eyes light up at the sight of the Queen. "Look at her lovely hat," Mom says. "I bet her feet hurt, and she can hardly wait to get back into her own bed." Mom imagines the Queen to simply be a lady like herself, who just happens to live in a castle.
Watching the Queen on Parliament hill, watching the Saskatchewan Roughriders win the football game, and enjoying a vegetarian dinner cooked by Jessica in our tiny cottage kitchen; this is how we celebrated Canada Day 2010.

Ham for Henderson

2010-06-23T10:49:00.000-07:00

September 28, 1972 an announcement on the school PA system blared from the little brown speaker perched by our classroom door. "Attention students, please make your way now to the gym for The Game. I expect you all to behave yourselves and cheer for Canada enthusiastically." The entire student population of Palliser Heights School marched quietly into the main gym and sat on the hard basketball court floor, cross-legged, in neat rows, kindergarten at the front, grade 9's at the back. I was 11. I was in grade 7.
I can't remember if there were several TV's perched on those platforms they used to roll around or if we listened to the game over the radio through the speakers in the gym. I don't recall the details of the event, but I do remember it being so significant, our education was put on hold for the entire morning as we witnessed the historic hockey game between Russia and Canada, held in Moscow on the other side of the world. There we were, little Canadian kids on a school gym floor in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan listening to the play by play voice of Foster Hewitt and hearing those immortal words, "Henderson has scored for Canada" It was the most exciting thing to happen to any of us since man landing on the moon!
I was a typical Canadian kid who bought gum at the corner store with my allowance and eagerly collected the hockey cards that came with the gum. I'm not sure if we were getting free gum with hockey cards or free hockey cards with gum. At any rate, I had the Espositos, Bobby Clarke, Stan Makita, Ken Dryden, all the others, too. I think we kept our collections in photo albums or cookie tins. Hockey was universal, and although I was a little girl, I embraced the NHL as much as I hugged my Barbie. I was well aware of the sounds and sights of CBC's Hockey Night In Canada even if it was never on in my home. Let's just say if cricket was on TV, we'd have watched that instead. Dad was not exactly a Canadian Tire guy.
One of my high school boyfriends was the brother of an NHL goalie. I'll never forget the night we showed up at their home and his parents were sitting in their kitchen listening to the St. Louis game on an old radio. How they smiled and cheered every time their son's name was mentioned by the play by play guy.
Fast Forward to Thanksgiving 1999, and Brad and I are living in Oakville, Ontario. We are shopping on the charming Lakeshore Road, getting ingredients for the seasonal feast. We're in the Butcher shop on the corner by the Bank of Montreal. It's late, dark, maybe just before closing. We are standing in line behind a man with curly grey hair. The young meat counter clerk is returning to his station with a large item in brown butcher paper. He yells out, "Henderson, I have a ham here for Henderson." The man in front of us raises his hand and summons the clerk to him. "I'm Henderson." Brad standing beside me starts to tug on my arm. "Do you know who that is?" he whispers in my ear. "It's Paul Henderson. My God. It's Paul Henderson!" Brad is barely able to contain himself. Mr. Henderson pays for his ham, turns towards us and smiles as he passes by and out the door. Brad steps up to the counter and says to the clerk, "Do you know who that was?" The clerk says, ya, it was some guy named Henderson getting his ham, now what can I do for you sir." The young man seemingly had no idea who Paul Henderson was. We certainly did. We were staggered by the encounter. That's how big the legend of Paul Henderson is to at least a few generations of Canadians.
I'm not sure, but I don't think Paul Henderson went on to endorse watches or razors or sell financial tools or vehicles like sports heros of today do. His persona is tied only to that amazing goal. I think if I found myself in his presence again, I would say to him, "I remember exactly where I was the moment you scored that goal."
Today Paul's jersey, the one he wore in that historic game, sold for $1,000,000.00 at auction. It will be back on Canadian soil, soon and hopefully hanging in the Canada Sports Hall of Fame.

Dad

2010-06-17T18:35:00.000-07:00

He was the kind of Dad that looks good in a party hat and tie!

This is a story about my childhood, but more specifically, about our Dad.

In the late 1960’s, our family spent three wonderful years in the village of Summerland, B.C. We lived in a small, well kept orchard house surrounded by cherry trees on agricultural land known as a bench. Our home on Cherry Blossom Lane was on the shady side of Lake Okanagan at the base of Giant's Head Mountain. It seemed no matter where you stood on our property, there was a spectacular view. The giant's head towered above us, the lake sparkled below and in the springtime the blossoming cherry trees dotted the landscape in every direction.

Our street wasn't really called Cherry Blossom Lane, it was actually Front Bench Road. Our father gave it a more descriptive poetic name for use by our immediate family and any of our more open minded neighbours who wished to think of it that way. He often took liberties such as this. Being a writer, he liked to embellish even the most innocuous things for greater effect. He was the publishing editor of the Penticton Herald; the newspaper from the town nine miles down the road at the end of the lake.

Growing up with a writer for a father is both a blessing and a source of constant doubt. The older my three sisters and I got, the more skeptical we became of his telling of old family stories and even current events. So the memories we have of our childhood can differ quite dramatically depending on what we think actually happened, what our father had us believe was actually happening and what over time has become foggy recollections of events.

Case in point: “the window in the cow story”. There is an agricultural research centre near the town of Summerland where all kinds of experimentation with fruit, vegetables, and livestock went on. The grounds around the centre are quite spectacular and our family would often head up there for walks and picnics. Being in the media, our father had many wonderful "connections" one of whom was the director of the Research Station. One day, the director showed us to the back of the livestock barn where through the miracle of the "modern science of the 60's", we could look into the stomach of a cow through a window which had somehow been attached to a gaping hole in its side. Can this story be true? Did this really happen? In my memory, that window was about eight inches square and you really could see the cow's stomach parts swooshing stuff around inside. The cow munched contentedly on its hay as we stood and watched in disbelief.

Another childhood memory I have is of the Summerland Sweets Factory. You can still buy their delicious syrups and candies made from the various fruits grown in the area. My sisters and I were fascinated by the candy factory and on one of those behind-the-scenes adventures, we witnessed the assembly line production of the jellied candies. I remember the neat rows of yellow, orange, and green candies glistening as they went by on the conveyor belt waiting to be showered with powdered sugar and gently nestled in their miniature orchard crate wooden boxes. Ladies with white dresses and shower caps carefully arranged them with cotton gloved hands in those specially made little boxes.

Our parents were always involved with the community organizations in the cities they found themselves in throughout my father's newspaper career. This meant we often attended Rotary Club picnics, church suppers, local festivals, and cultural events of all manner. Dad would be covering them, Mom would be volunteering at them, and we four girls would be attending en masse usually in matching polka dot dresses with hats and gloves and patent leather shoes. In a flagrant display of nepotism, it was usually our faces captured in the newspaper coverage of local events. "The Roe Girls enjoy ice-cream cones at The Peach Festival" was one photo caption. And there were many more throughout the years.

This Father's Day marks the 30th year since our Dad passed away. I can still see him hunched over his manual typewriter, churning out stories about life in this country of ours. I can still hear the tales of our childhood. The time a cougar dragged our pet dachshund, Strudel, off in its jaws (the dog survived and lived to be 19 years old). There was the bear scare in Waterton National Park, the thunder and lightning storm in Algonquin Park and various other exciting adventures on endless camping trips across Canada. There were the inevitable briefings before long drives through the mountains, "Keep your eyes peeled ladies. There is wildlife to be seen at every turn. Notify the others instantly when an animal is spotted". Needless to say we strained those eight little eyes hour upon hour through Canada's wilderness highways searching for the elusive sheep, bears, and mountain goats. They rarely appeared but the thought that they would was exciting enough.

I'm not sure what year it was, but I remember the end of a family outing on the prairies, heading home late at night, the four of us sleeping in the back seat, Mom keeping Dad awake as he drove the Plymouth with one hand and smoked with the other. There was this magical moment as I peered out the window and gazed up at the twinkling sky and a song was playing on the radio. I can close my eyes now and still hear that song, "there's a kind of hush, all over the world tonight, all over the world you can hear the sound of lovers in love". I saw my parents sitting close, and everything was as good as it could possibly be.

I think of my father every day. I imagine how he'd love his grandchildren. How he'd be proud of his family. He'd love my husband, a media man himself. He'd still cherish our Mom and be her number one fan. He died before our Mom received the Order of Canada for her endless volunteer work spanning her lifetime and reaching every corner of our country. He left our world three months before the birth of his first grandchild. He may not be with us now in physical form, but his spirit, his stories, and the magic he instilled in us lives on. I'm so glad he was there throughout my childhood to make everything so special. To take us to that candy factory, to drive us home safely, and to name our street "Cherry Blossom Lane".

White Horses on the Bay is in the Mail!

2010-05-31T10:55:00.000-07:00

   I've been thinking about writing a novel for a long, long time. Probably since my grade 11 English teacher, Sister Marie, told me I was a good little writer. Thinking about writing a novel and actually writing one are two very different things; the latter is a major accomplishment, if I may say so myself.
   After years of writing essays and being published a few times in major newspapers, I decided maybe I can write. So in the fall of 2007, I took the plunge and actually set out to complete a novel. In my mind, I had only a vague idea, to write something about an opera singer, an ancestor of mine, who came from a small fishing village on the north central coast of Newfoundland. Basically, all I had was the true family story, I'd heard many times before; how famous the opera singer became and how this made us a wee bit more special just being related to her.
   Codfishing and Opera stars; not the most relatable themes. The thought of these two wildly mismatched things actually made the writing easier. There are so many stark contrasts in such a harsh environment; the barrens of Newfoundland. For example, you can stand at the edge of the island with a thousand miles of ocean before you and not see 10 feet in front of you in the fog.

The tiniest of flowers bloom on the edge of a 200 foot cliff.

   To be able to write authentically and describe my settings, I travelled to France in 2007 and to Newfoundland in 2008. With the internet, I probably could have easily visited these places virtually, but I really wanted to feel the atmosphere, not just see the landscape. I fear my novel has 10,000 too many descriptive words about fog and sunsets and water and wind, but hopefully the prose helps place my readers (if anyone ever does read the thing) in the midst of the mist!
   Today, I have completed the second draft of White Horses on the Bay and have printed it twice. All 538 pages in total. My little Epson printer chugged away, one page every minute or so, using 2 cartridges of ink in the process. It was cathartic to hear the wheezing of the printer producing hard copies of my hard work. Writing 73,493 words, actually typing them twice to the tune of more than 146,000 words, was no small feat. I had to slay the Kitchen Goddess, as Virginia Woolf advised. My house hasn't been vacuumed, dusted or seriously cleaned in many, many months.
  In the past three years, I've taken three creative writing classes at UBC. I completed two novel writing courses at UBC and SFU, and I spent many lonely hours, typing till my arms fell off in the solitude of my office. I literally developed tennis elbow in both arms. Through it all, I answered the question, "how's your novel coming?' at least a thousand times. Sometimes, I said, "great!". Other times, I said, "I'm taking a bit of a break." But in the end, I did finish it. That in itself, as my friend Debi says, is more than most people ever do.
   My novel is fiction, based on a true story in a true place, with lots of literary license taken by me along the way. White Horses on the Bay has adventure, romance, family dysfunction, forgiveness, birth, deaths, history and hope. The novel spans just six days in the life of the main character and a lifetime in the history of the opera star. From a Salt Box home on the edge of the sea, to the Palais de Garnier in the centre of Paris, White Horses on the Bay has taken me on a journey of self discovery and hopefully into the glorious world of the published writer.

St. Peter's Anglican Church Cemetery, June 2008

A Paradigm Shift in my Morning Cup of Joe

2010-05-28T18:20:00.000-07:00

   I think something significant just happened. Something on the scale of witnessing colour tv for the first time, or experiencing wireless internet, or discovering I'm a size 6 at Banana Republic. My world has shifted. For the better. I just now, over wireless internet, ordered coffee capsules for my new-fangled Breville coffee maker and my morning coffee has changed forever.

   I've been a coffee drinker for probably 33 years. It started back in 1976 when I'd pour myself a cup of "percolated coffee" from the little beige coffee percolator that sat on our kitchen counter back in our 1905 historic home in Moose Jaw when I was 16. My mom would make the coffee the night before, ready to be "plugged in" by my dad at 6am in the morning before he would make his commute east on the Trans Canada to his job in Regina. I can still hear the unique gurgling sound the percolator made each morning, promising a rich cup of caffeine to fortify my dad for his rugged commute. There would be a bit more than a coffee mug's worth left in the pot and I'd have it to feel all grown up before my high school day began.

   In my adult life, I've gone through eras of second generation percolators, bad drip coffee makers, a grind and brew which cost a fortune and created a clean up project on par with a house renovation each morning, a home cappuccino maker that had me missing hours of our dinner parties trying to make 6 cappuccinos for guests who were well beyond enjoying them, and a few expensive drip hybrids with filters and auto brew switches that always malfunctioned. Then came the Breville. Yowza! This thing is the Porsche of coffee makers.

   We ventured to our high-end kitchen supply store, and leaned in to the counter as our friend Robbin told us the features and benefits of his wonderful selection of coffee appliances. They gleamed like BMW's in a sunny showroom. There was so much stainless steel staring back at us, we were blind to their price tags. Robbin even brewed us a couple of sample cups of various variations of coffee machines. No more filling up a cloudy carafe, measuring out coffee that always spills all over the counter when you bump your arm against the appliance, no more "where are the filters" or using a paper towel shaped into a cone with a prayer attached.

   The new Breville makes a cup at a time with a "coffee capsule" which you simply pop into the unit like you're dropping an olive into a martini. Press a couple of buttons and voila.....delicious coffee seconds later, with nothing to clean. Just open the compartment, retrieve the little capsule and toss it into the garbage. (hopefully they're biodegradable).

   Like my mom did, in the 70's, I get up and make Brad his Breville coffee every morning. Not because he can't do it himself, (a blindfolded monkey could do it), but because I love him and I'm old fashioned that way. If I get to sit around all day in this cozy home making one cup of coffee at a time on my new machine, writing like I'm Virginia Woolf then the least I can do is make him his commute coffee in the morning!

C'est Bon! Cafe Breville!

VW...my hero!

The Heart of the Matter

2010-05-25T17:11:00.000-07:00

   My uncle-in-law recently suffered a heart attack and is scheduled to have surgery to repair his blocked arteries in the next few days. He was lucky to have been cared for quickly and in the good hands of medical experts right away. It made me think about the fragility of the human heart, that epicenter of our physical being that is also the spiritual and emotional essence of who we are.
   The heart is a muscle that contracts involuntarily and in doing so, keeps everything else sustained. It's also what we think of when we talk of love and sorrow. To be in love is to open your heart to some one else. To have your heart broken is to experience the deepest form of despair.
   I think of the time when my mother suffered the symptoms of blocked arteries, how she had the angiogram and the other diagnostic tests and discovered the need for bypass surgery. It was 1998, 12 years ago. She was 75. She bravely entered the big city hospital, underwent the major operation, came home 7 days later and was up and enjoying life as if nothing had happened about 3 weeks later. It is really amazing how far things have come medically since even just 12 years ago.
   Here are some trivial bits about the Heart:
The heart is the size of a fist. On average the human heart beats 72 times a minute. A codfish's heart beats 20 times and a hummingbird's heart beats 600 times a minute. A man's heart weighs about 12 oz. Not even a pound. There are 18,300,000 related sites to visit if you Google "Poems about the heart". Ann and Nancy Wilson started the band, Heart in 1970. I only discovered them in 1985. Newfoundland has towns named Heart's Content, Heart's Delight, and Heart's Desire. Doctors can perform heart surgery on babies before they are born. My mom's friend Doris, who is 95 is having a pacemaker implanted tomorrow to keep her heart beating regularly. Doris's heart has already beat 3.5 billion times in her life.
   Uncle Wayne, If you're reading this, we want you to know, we're thinking about you and wishing you the very best outcome in your pending procedure.

Floating on Air

2010-05-12T16:12:00.000-07:00

Harbour Air

Last week, I was incredibly privileged to be able to fly to Victoria Harbour on a float plane! It was my first time in such a small plane and I was a bit apprehensive to be truthful. I was definitely the neophyte in the waiting room of Harbour Air last Thursday, as I watched what seemed like a collection of well-seasoned float plane commuters mill about in the riverside "terminal" by Vancouver International Airport. There were a few planes heading out so the activity was brisk. Travellers checking in, business guys checking their blackberries, pub patrons checking out the hockey games on the big screens, and me, checking my pulse to make sure I still had one.

There were some reassuring things about the float plane adventure day including the skies being almost clear, the Fraser River had only a light ripple and the windsocks outside seemed to be blowing with just a gentle breeze. Also the staff at Harbour Air were completely professional looking and quite gracious and helpful to their first timer, me.

I waited in a leather bucket chair across from the check in counter and watched the comings and goings of the unique mode of travel. There was a steep ramp leading down to a dock just outside the "security doors" and two distinct looking Harbour Air float planes, both the DeHavilland Beaver single engine variety, the one used in Danger Bay, the 1980's iconic Canadian adventure drama. One plane was heading to Nanaimo and one to Victoria. I was hoping it would be obvious which one I would step onto! It was. The gal behind the counter came right up to me and told me it was time to board the plane.

I made my way with my passenger mates down to the plane and found the little fold out steps leading up to the cabin to be incredibly narrow and steep with only an inch or two leeway between getting on the plane or swimming with the fishes. Just before boarding, I asked the strikingly young looking pilot if I could sit up front and he cheerfully said, "Sure, grab the seat!"

I climbed forward through the plane with my laptop case and purse in my hand and squeezed my middle age, 5'6" body in between the two seats at the front, over top of his duffle bag full of safety stuff (I assumed), and into the co-pilot seat. I shoved my bags under my legs, attempting to "stow" them like a seasoned traveller, and then struggled with the contraption I thought was the seat belt. When Captain Doogie Houser joined me up front, he assisted me with the shoulder straps and lap belt and handed me the head set, told me the mic was disabled and then said a few things about emergency exits and life jackets and then we were suddenly moving forward along the wavy Fraser River! I was stunned. I had second thoughts about being up front where all the gadgets were, where I'd be able to see the altimeter spinning out of control, etc.

Then we started heading west, out the mouth of the river and up into the sky. My breath disappeared and my ears were ringing and my heart was pounding and the sky was building below us and the ocean was getting smaller by the second and the plane drifted sideways a bit but the pilot seemed unfazed. I watched Lulu Island grow smaller and float further away as we climbed to 2500 feet amidst the calm directions of the control tower and the even calmer response of our pilot.

It was 30 minutes of floating above the earth, the sounds of other pilots chiming in about their positions, the pilot fidgeting with dials and channels and the stick thing that steered the plane, the sound of the engine whirring in the wind, the peaceful gorgeous scenery of the Gulf Islands below us and the puffy cumulus clouds in the distant west. It was so astonishing and breathtaking, I could hear my own silent screams of delight in my head and wished I could tell the pilot how exciting it was. I could only tell myself.

The landing on Victoria Harbour with the huge cruise ships in the distance, the other float planes and sail boats and whale watching boats in the waters around us was so perfectly smooth and pinpoint, I was literally mesmerized. I will never forget the experience and seem to be talking about it non-stop like a child who has just been to Disney Land. The whole time I was in the air, I thought of my father-in-law who flew a small plane for many years over the Alberta and Saskatchewan landscape. I thought of how much he must have enjoyed doing that all those years. What a thrill it was for me to experience it the way I did.

This is the harbour where our plane landed.

Is it Me? Or is it my Bed?

2010-05-03T11:38:00.000-07:00

Lately, every morning I wake feeling as if I've slept on a pile of bricks. My shoulders hurt, my back aches, I feel about as rested as a new parent, and it takes me 2 or 3 tries just to get out bed and get my self moving forward. I wonder is it me? Or the bed? I have never really liked the bed we bought nearly 10 years ago. We splurged on a set that was so high, I swear you could pull up a bar stool and eat off it if you wanted to. It was billed as a "pillow top" to somehow give the impression that the entire thing was like a giant pillow for your body. But it never really felt that bouncy and soft to me. But I persevered thinking a firm mattress is much better for you than a saggy one.

Maybe it's my age. Maybe all people turning the corner in life, find their bodies kind of seizing up a bit. My friend walked by yesterday as I was yanking weeds and pulling muscles simultaneously, and she commented on how sore she was from doing the same thing the day before. Her fingers are so stiff in the morning it's like putting make up on with boxing gloves, she told me. We laughed at how hard it is to pull on a pair of socks, too. It's not like we're sitting around watching our muscles atrophy and wondering why we're so stiff. We both walk and practice yoga, we both do our own gardening and house cleaning. These are not insignificant activities. We should be limber and lithe but we feel bent over and brittle.

I used to tune out those Dux Bed ads they have on radio where the morning man or weather man is the front man for the product. Now I listen intently. HMMMM. A Dux Bed. Imagine the fantastic night's sleep I would get. How much would I pay for that? $6,000.00 is what they sell for. But what if it turns out to be me and not the bed?

What about people who live in places where they don't have stores called Sleep Country? Like where a bamboo mat on the floor is considered a luxury. Maybe some cultures have become so accustomed to sleeping on pillow-tops, our bodies are adapted to them and now we can't sleep any other way. Hotels now, extoll the virtues of their luxury beds and choices of pillows to market themselves the way they used to advertise free tv and phones in every room. I sometimes find myself wishing I could stay another night in a hotel bed instead of looking forward to sleeping in my own bed.

I guess the writing's on the wall, and a new bed is in our future. I can just imagine the stress of picking the right one. These are 10 year purchases that can make or break your back. As we approach our 23rd year of marriage this will be our 4th bed purchase. The first bed we had was of course the 1980's "Waterbed" which was a strange phenomenon our kids laugh at. The 2nd one was a lovely cast iron frame bed. Which served us well but looked outdated the day after we bought it. The 3rd bed is the one we have now which for quality of sleep, is highly suspect. I wonder what the 4th bed will be?

My Beautiful Jessica

2010-04-30T18:08:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Jessica's 29th birthday! She was born on a cold, snowy April evening, at the main hospital in Moose Jaw. It was two weeks past the day she was supposed to make her entrance into the world. I guess she wanted a little more time to think about it. Jessica is the sweetest, most beautiful girl in the world. She was a stunningly cute baby, too!

Jessica makes me so proud. I've always said, even though she's my daughter, she is one of the greatest people I know. So kind and loving, so smart and beautiful. I realize I'm totally biassed about it, but it's the truth!
   I was only 19 when I discovered I was pregnant with Jessica. It was a pretty traumatic day back in the late summer of 1980. I remember going to the doctor with my wonderful Mom and finding out the news. I remember my Mom putting her arm around me and saying, "Don't worry my dear, it will all be just fine." 9 months later, my Mom said the same thing to me as I lay in the hospital maternity ward writhing in pain. After a bit of surgical intervention, the sweetest baby in the world was laid on my chest and I'll never forget the moment I first saw her pretty little face.
   Baby Jessica was what some people refer to as "colicky". She cried quite a bit in the first few months and it broke my heart. I learned to sleep in 30 minute intervals with one hand on her buggy rocking it gently. Constant motion seemed to be the trick. After those few unsettled months, Jessica went on to be the happiest little girl. She was a joyful child.
   Today, we celebrated her birthday (one day late) with lunch at a lovely restaurant downtown. My Mom came with me. Jessica and her friend told us about their plans for their holiday in New York City that starts tomorrow and Mom talked of her visits to New York back in the 1940's when she landed on the Hudson River in a float plane and stayed on Park Avenue with her wealthy friend. Mom was the same age then as Jessica is now.
   On the way home after lunch, Mom said, "I'm so glad Jessica is having such a wonderful time. She's really enjoying this time in her life, just like I did when I was her age. Of course we had the war back then."

Have a great time in the Big Apple, my sweet girl!

Deadlines are deadly!

2010-04-21T18:51:00.000-07:00

I've got so many things on my plate these days, I don't know where to start and how to keep going on any one thing! The big news is that I've decided to take a hiatus from Facebook, on-line news sites, and other distracting activities and hunker down on the second draft of White Horses on the Bay. I've decided to enter a first novel contest offered by the university I've been flirting with and the deadline for completed manuscript is May 31st, 2010. They are looking for up to 90,000 word fiction or non-fiction manuscripts as well as poetry collections. I feel that this is the kind of incentive I need to tackle the weeds of my literary garden and finish what I started so many years ago.

The lovely photo above, taken by my amazing photographer husband, is of Trinity Bay and it reminded me today of the time I've invested in my novel writing dream. This photo was taken in June of 2008. Two years ago! Time really does fly by! There have been feasts and famines in my journey towards a published novel. I've spent days on end at this computer, spewing out a story even I can't really describe in a nutshell. People ask me, "What's your novel about?" and I sometimes have trouble chunking it down to a coherent paragraph. Their eyes usually glaze over before I've finished blithering on about Canada's East Coast, 1964, love at first sight, historic characters, operas, the fishing industry, bullies, and Dieppe.

If you think of a Jackson Pollock painting, with a thousand colours and tens of thousands of dribbles of paint, you might come close to the number of loose ends and plot lines going nowhere that I'm dealing with in my second draft. Every line I read from draft #1 seems to have been written by someone else with a completely different take on how it should be. Maybe this happens to all writers. I don't know. All I know is, I'm determined to complete my goal and accomplish my dream of writing a novel. Whether it is publishable or compost-able will be determined by someone else. In the meantime, I plan to get on with the task at hand and write, write, write!

So if my blog updates are fewer and farther between, please forgive. I'll be popping in once in awhile to vent some literary steam, but it may be rather random, like that volcano in Iceland! In the meantime, here's a short story I wrote about a friend of mine to keep you entertained.

The Famous Trudy Temple

On a cold but clear November day in 1980, I met Trudy Temple at her quiet little apartment to take her to lunch. She lived alone, in Moose Jaw’s only skyscraper, the one that stands like an exclamation point on the flat prairie landscape, beside St. Andrew’s United Church across from Crescent Park. It was a unique relationship between Trudy and I; an easy friendship that defied our age difference. She was nearing the end of her life and I at 19, was just starting mine. On that day, almost 30 years ago now, we were going out to celebrate her 95^th birthday.

Trudy Temple came into this world the same day the last spike was driven on the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1885, two decades before Saskatchewan became a province. Trudy was a celebrity in our town. Everyone knew Trudy Temple and most everyone had been to Temple Gardens, the art deco dance hall she and her late husband built in 1921 around the time of prohibition and Al Capone’s fabled brush with Moose Jaw. Temple Gardens was a city landmark for more than 50 years and for most of that time, it was the largest building in town. In contrast, Trudy herself was unusually small. My father once said, “Like Venus in the prairie night sky, Trudy Temple is a tiny twinkling light that’s awfully hard to miss”.

On her insistence, we walked to our lunch destination that day. The exercise, in her opinion, would do us both some good. Trudy’s zest for life was far stronger than her fragile physical state. Her safety was foremost in my mind as we walked slowly along the snow-covered streets of the city. More than once I felt regret for having suggested our outing as I feared she might fall while under my care. I remember how her little gloved hand holding tight to my coat sleeve, felt like a chickadee perched on the edge of my arm. I had to slouch a bit to accommodate her diminutive frame, which was four feet at best. I imagine she weighed less than 80 pounds. It was like escorting a helium balloon in the shape of a little old lady. If she let go, she might just float away. If she stumbled she might shatter like a miniature porcelain figurine.

Trudy was dressed warmly that day, in a red wool skirt and matching red sweater. She wore a puffy long parka with a fake fur collar and some smart and thankfully, sensible black winter boots. It all seemed to belong to a much larger woman and perhaps when these items were new, she herself, was. I knew she had taken special care to look her best for this important occasion right down to the oversized earrings barely hanging onto her tiny earlobes. Trudy always looked well dressed even when she was just “down at the senior’s centre playing piano for the old folks”. She used to say that line with a giggle knowing full well that she was older than any of them by at least 10 years.

Trudy’s height was further compromised by the fact that she was a bit hunched over all the time. This may have resulted from almost a century of playing piano. Her musical life that spanned several eras including the silent movie one. She often told me of her early years when she played the piano for the silent films in an old theatre up in Saskatoon. Her eyes sparkled when she spoke of playing faster and faster to Rudolph Valentino’s escapades as The Sheik . How she’d play something wrenchingly sad in the more emotional scenes and secretly snicker at the women weeping in the audience. She talked of that time so fondly as though it was the best part of her long and remarkable life.

Trudy’s favourite restaurant was the completely unexciting, terribly decorated and barely functional coffee shop inside the Moose Jaw Co-op: a grocery and dry goods store that anchored the centre of the city and catered to the farming community. As it was her choice, we would celebrate her birthday there among the big burly men wearing Massey Ferguson ball caps and plaid work shirts; The Farmer’s Uniform. The crowd would be sprawled about on uncomfortable looking chairs commiserating with one another about the perpetually terrible state of farming as they sipped thick coffee and gobbled up pieces of apple pie.

The smoke in the air that day, gave an already ghastly atmosphere an even less appealing tinge. It seemed an utter atrocity to bring such a delicate flower as Trudy into this harsh and masculine place; a piece of china into a ring of bulls. Trudy could not think of going anywhere else on her birthday. Maybe it reminded her of the simple things in life. It was for her, a comforting old-fashioned place where she could tether her tiny frame and not be blown along with the ever-changing world. Maybe she just never tried new places because they would come and go like the prairie winds and you could never count on them to be in business for long. You could count on the Co-op to always be there and to never change.

I felt like a giant in the presence of my petite friend, and yet it was her entrance to a room that would turn heads and create a stir. As small as she was, she could command an audience - even the cowboy boot and Levi crowd that filled the Co-op coffee shop that cold winter day. The conversations hushed and metal chair legs screeched across the linoleum floor as the farmers made a little extra room for The Famous Mrs. Temple.

We sat at a table for two and shared a basic meal. Trudy’s translucent skin flushed a bit with the warmth of the room and the steam from her cup of tomato soup. We chatted and ate our lunch and then celebrated the day, 95 years earlier when Trudy was born. We marked the moment with a small piece of chocolate cake and two forks. I sang Happy Birthday in a quiet voice and she pretended to play it on an imaginary piano.

The walk back to Trudy’s was pleasantly slow as we enjoyed the warmth of the afternoon sun. As we approached her building I looked down and noticed our shadows on the sidewalk. Mine and Trudy’s. Trudy noticed them, too and turned to me, looked up into my eyes and said, “My dear Charlotte, you know you’re alive and well when you can still cast a shadow”.

Trudy may be gone from this world but for a tiny woman, her shadow has been incredibly tall.

iThink Therefore iAm

2010-04-12T16:45:00.000-07:00

iDon't get it.

Maybe I'm getting old or maybe I'm becoming a skeptic, but I question the usefulness of the iPad. In the US, more than 600,000 units were sold in the first week of its availability and I wonder why? It's not like man has discovered a way to cook indoors or keep food from spoiling. This invention seems like a step sideways in new things. Remember the Segway? That thing that could make you move forward without walking? It was going to change the world. I think the iPad may be the same thing.

The iPad, another in a line of iProducts with the ubiquitous little "i" infront of the product word, is as far as I understand, the next generation in gadgets for the gadget crowd. Presumably, the people hungry for such a device are already gadget savvy and have an iPhone, iTouch, iPod, iMac, etc. They are already connected up the wazoo and plugged in in more ways than they know what to do with. I haven't seen an iPad yet, but I wonder if it will make lots of weird noises to add to the strange text/voicemail/incoming call/alarm/low-battery symphony our gadgets already emit every few seconds. There are so many "ping" "bleep" "doodle-ee-oo" sounds going off in our world these days, aliens listening in on other planets must be scratching their balloon foreheads wondering what the hell's going on down here.

The iPad is supposed to be the best thing yet for email, web surfing, game playing etc. But it's not so portable that you'd whip it out in a waiting room to keep you occupied while you wait. It's not going to the night clubs inside a little purse to be slipped out for instant messaging to the guy across the dance floor. I can't see myself taking it to the grocery store to refer to a grocery list, either. Apparently, you can download books (not yet, but soon) and curl up on the couch and read a book off its shiny screen, but you probably won't want to sit in a bubble bath with it, ever. Reading a book off an iPad would be like drinking wine out of a coffee mug. There would be no tactile connection with the written word, no classic turning of a page, unless you consider swishing your forefinger across the screen to be a similar experience. No tucking the volume away in a bookcase like a treasure, no lending a copy to your friend, no tossing it on your beach chair as you go in for a quick swim.

The iPad visuals are supposed to be just out of this world on games. If you want your games to be that life-like, why not actually play a real life game? Go play outside not inside the frame of your iPad. I think there maybe a chiropractic phenomenon coming to haunt the gadget crowd in the next few years, too. All this bending of the head to peer down at your iPod, iPhone, iPad, etc. is going to result in stiff iNeck syndrome. You'll get no physical benefits from playing games and you'll get a sore neck, too.

On the ferry yesterday, as the ship sailed through the gorgeous scenery of Active Pass, I noticed every third person in my midst had their heads lowered and their hands occupied with various electronics, texting away and missing the world around them. I even witnessed two mothers, standing a few feet apart, leaning with their backs against the windows watching their children playing on the climbing toys in the kid's area and both women obsessively glanced at their devices and never once at each other. No, "how old is your little girl?" No, "my son just loves that little slide". They missed the opportunity to chat with a stranger and connect with a human in their presence because there was something more interesting on a tiny screen in their hands.

   I find it ironic that man's race to develop devices for connecting to the world around us through the internet and social media is actually contributing to the demise of connecting with eachother in real time. There's nothing more annoying than being out on a date with your significant other and feeling like an electronic mistress is sitting on the table between you in the form of an iPhone, always tearing the attention away from the moments at hand, offering something more interesting than where a simple conversation might lead.
   I've seen people at concerts, recording the live music on their iPhones and watching the tiny screen instead of the actual live person on stage. We don't seem to be able to just live our lives anymore, we have to blog them or tweet them. A very funny example of this from The New Yorker
   I'm aware of the fact that I'm blogging my life right now, but at least I'm doing it alone and not at the dinner table or at the hockey game. And I'm using my laptop which sits on a dock at eye level on my desk. And I'm referencing notes I took written in pen on a pad of paper. Later, I'll go to the grocery store with a grocery list written on the back of a used envelope and maybe have a conversation with the person next in line at the check out. Oh, the simple pleasures of an iLife.

Such a Beautiful Place!

2010-04-06T09:27:00.000-07:00

Downtown Vancouver from Jericho Beach

On Easter Monday, I took my sisters, Liz and Jen, my brother-in-law Dan, and my Mom for a day out in Vancouver. We visited The MOA (Museum of Anthropology) which on a cloudy spring day is a stunning place to be. The ancient totem poles, First Nations' art, artifacts from every corner of the world, and even modern art installations seem more mysterious and intriguing in the soft light of a grey day. The architecture of the MOA is stunning, too. Arthur Erickson designed the building in 1971, and it is perched on the edge of Point Grey across from UBC. The building virtually dissappears into the landscape on three of its sides then opens up to a towering 3 story atrium on the ocean side to house the historic totem poles in the Great Hall.

Christopher Erickson photo. MOA

We spent 2 hours in the museum and then walked around the grounds outside for awhile. Liz posed for a photo at the base of a totem pole near the Long House.

The Easter Monday traffic was very light and we were able to drive along English Bay and stop several times at various photo vantage points. The heavy clouds had flashing pockets of sunlight which seemed to illuminate the buildings of the downtown as if they were on display behind glass at the museum. It was such a treat for the Las Vegas visitors! (Dan and Liz).

We drove down to the Olympic Cauldron, then over to Stanley Park. We were able to stop quite a few times and Jen and Dan took several photos of the Olympic Rings, the new Convention Centre, the ships in the harbour and the North Shore Mountains.

I like the horizontal lines in this photo. The dark clouds hanging over the mountains, the ship, the shores on both sides, the logs on the beach. Might make a great painting....

Liz, Jen and Dan. Liz is receiving a zebra tote bag filled with Tim Horton's coffee! Two of her favourite things!

We celebrated Liz's and Brad's birthdays on Easter Sunday. Had a feast of ham, too! It has been a really nice visit.

Jessica and Rob were home for Easter, too!

Moose Jaw

2010-04-01T15:29:00.000-07:00

Photo courtesy of the Moose Jaw Times Herald

I lived in Moose Jaw from the age of 8 through 18. I don't really remember much of my life prior to age 8, except for vague flashes of our years in Summerland where I went to kindergarten. There was the peeing on the bench incident at craft time one day that I would like to forget and an easter egg hunt at St. Stephen's I can recall, but most of my childhood memories seem to start when we landed in Moose Jaw, in 1968.

We rented a bungalow on Bogue Avenue, just a couple of blocks away from Palliser Heights, a swank newly built school I attended up to grade 9. It was in the North West area of Moose Jaw populated with 1950's style bungalows and a newer styled home called a Toronto Split. I have no idea why they were called that. Those homes had basements which I guess were popular in Toronto. When you entered a Toronto Split you were on a landing and you had to make a choice right away, whether to go downstairs to the rec room or upstairs to the main floor. We never lived in one of those homes. Two of our first three homes were rather unflatteringly referred to as "slabs" as they didn't have basements at all.

The second home we lived in was on Hall Street and it had a basement suite where a mysterious man lived. That house came with a cat named Max. I remember the man was a fisherman, and kept his catch in a freezer in the garage. He warmed us not to go near the fish, but one day I couldn't resist the temptation and I opened that freezer and checked out the fish. I remember touching the teeth of a fish and realizing how razor sharp they were as my finger bled.

That cat had the rather pedestrian name of Max, but our Dad renamed him Max Von Sydow, after the Swedish actor who up until the early 70's only acted in Swedish Films. Max Von Sydow went on to make over 100 films and is featured in the 2010 Robin Hood movie coming out soon. Whenever I hear that actor's name I think of the cat we cared for during our 2 years on Hall Street.

Moose Jaw was a great place to be a kid. It was safe and small enough to completely understand. There is the air force base just south of town, the Trans Canada just north, the drive-in theatre to the west and the Voyager Restaurant East on the way to Regina. As a kid, you could easily get to the outskirts of town and be in the fields and close to nature pretty quick. We did this a lot.

Even though the prairies are flat, there was still the river valley that created pretty good tobogganing hills in the winter, a threat of flooding in the spring, and canoeing in the warmer months. Moose Jaw was a place where kids played on the street until dark. We had everything we ever needed in a paper boat, a stream of spring rain running down the gutter, or a windy day for a kite. Even as a teenager, we could walk to the civic centre and skate on Saturday afternoons, we watched the football and baseball games in our school fields and danced to Stevie Wonder 45's in darkly lit basements.

What a contrast to today's world. Lessons and activities squeezed into every spare minute, parents rushing around in mini vans, kids texting them for rides, ears plugged with ipod buds, people living in isolation amongst the crowd. When I saw the neighbour children drawing with chalk on the sidewalk the other day, I was amazed at how unusual it was. You almost never see a hopscotch anymore.

I'm turning 50 this year and maybe that has something to do with my nostalgia themes on this blog. I can't help thinking about my life so far and all that has gone into making me who I am today.

The Debut of Gerome Thegnome

2010-03-30T21:03:00.000-07:00

Jean And Helen's Garden Blog Debuts!

At the risk of blogging about a blog which would suggest I've fallen down a rabbit hole and may never be the same again.....I'm announcing the debut of another blog of mine (well it's written by Gerome who dictates it to me and I type it). Gerome's arms are kind of stiff and so he has trouble with keyboards and mouse pads. So I've stepped up to the challenge of helping him tell the story of Jean and Helen's Garden project. Jean of course, is Mom and Helen is her new friend at her retirement home. Helen is a no-nonsense kind of gal who quite frankly, doesn't need all that fancy stuff they have over at the home, but the place is handy to her kids (who are retired and in their 60's). Helen is a fantastic person who just exudes gardening guile! She will spread that steer manure with her bare hands if she has to as Mom watches from a distance with a cup of tea.

They plan to grow some veggies and flowers and herbs and there's talk of a gardening competition amongst the 13 garden bed "custodians" at the home. I suggested they have a fall fair and enter their specimens for awards like the good old days in Saskatchewan. You know, best carrot, best beet, etc.

Sitting in the lounge by the aquarium this afternoon interviewing the gals, I was let into the inner circle of gossip on the garden bed clique. Seems Big Marge as they call her, is a bit of a heavy handed drill sergeant (in fact she was a sergeant in the WW11) and has already made some disparaging remarks about the other gardener's aspirations for garlic patches, etc. The fireworks will surely add a unique angle to the documentation of Jean and Helen's Garden project.

Helen and Jean posed by their garden plot today but asked that I not call it a "plot" on account of the elderly crowd at the retirement home. That word has fairly sharp imagery for people in their 80's and 90's. So we're calling it a "bed". The puzzle crowd putting 1000 piece puzzles together in the aquarium lounge by the garden patio will be hard pressed to concentrate on their finicky puzzle pieces as the garden activities kick into high gear (or as high gear as they can get when the gardeners are octogenarians.) I'll be helping Gerome Thegnome to document the progress of the garden each week (on Tuesdays) and hope it all works out. I think the stories of the gardeners, themselves may trump the plant activities.

Spring is Timeless

2010-03-23T12:04:00.000-07:00

   The fragrance of a spring morning in the gulf islands, that mixture of mossy soil and new green growth in the forest, floated in the air around us like aromatherapy for our souls as we soaked in the hot tub and indulged in the luxury of nothing to do. The silence was broken only by the melodies of songbirds hidden in the tall pines and the distant hum of a lawn mower somewhere up the road. We sat together for a long time gazing at the blue spring sky and talked of memories from our separate childhoods, the kind of talk that elicits comments like, "I know exactly what you mean".
  I remembered spring days in southern Saskatchewan when my mom would iron the week's laundry. She'd set up the ironing board in her bedroom, open the window just slightly to let the first fresh air in after the long cold winter. I would hear the dripping of thawing icicles from the edge of the roof, the cars driving down our little street making slushy tire sounds. I could smell the muddy puddles in the garden beds that ringed our modest home, the combination of old snow and wet prairie dirt drifting in across the wooden window frame.
   Mom would prepare the white cotton sheets, spraying them first with rose water from a small bottle that hung at the edge of the board. She'd get me to hold onto the ends of the sheets with her and pull them straight in a see-saw motion that resembled a strange dance and then she'd fold them lengthwise in half to fit on the squeaky ironing board. When the sheets were nice and flat and still hot from the iron, she'd make the bed with me lying on it. She'd fling the sheets above me and let them float down in a cloud of billowing white. This simple activity would feel like heaven. It was always best in the spring when the air in the bedroom was cool and fresh and the sheets were warm and fragrant. She would pretend to not know I was there and even tuck in the edges. I think it was these moments when we'd say our favourite thing to eachother; Mom would say, Charlotte..."You'll always be my baby, even if you live to be a 100." I would respond with "But you won't be there." It was a sad, sweet thing to say but it made us laugh.

The singing birds at our beautiful island retreat here on the west coast reminded me of the many times our Dad took us on hikes up at Buffalo Pound Provincial Park, north of Moose Jaw, on spring days. We'd hike out along the pathways, on sunny March weekends, and be close to nature waking up around us. Dad would have his weird "snake-basher" which was actually his walking stick that had a bit of a foldout seat on it. To add a bit of intrigue for us, he told us it would protect us from a rattle snake if we ever were threatened by one, (we never were). He'd bring along the binoculars and point out various things for us to spy on. We would hear the fluttering and stuttering of grouse before we'd see them. Birds of prey, chickadees, pelicans, they were always fascinating. We'd even spy on the bison grazing in the distance over by the ski hill.

There's something simple but extraordinary about the land waking up from winter and blossoming with the promise of spring, and it's even more profound on the prairies. The beauty of one single purple crocus in a field of brown is to me, one of the most welcoming signs of the season. That and pussy willows in the wild.

One Voice - The Wailin Jennys

click this link to hear a lovely song. if a big white screen shows up, click the play button at the bottom of it.

Inmates Over for Tea

2010-03-16T11:28:00.000-07:00

I've met some pretty interesting people at the retirement home where Mom now lives. Mom jokingly calls them the inmates. It's a five star prison, if that's the case. One you can freely come and go from and an air conditioned bus will drive you wherever you'd like to escape to. The place is luxuriously furnished with a grand piano bar on the first floor, and a more casual sports bar on the second floor overlooking the elegant dining room. On Fridays and Sundays, they have a cocktail hour usually enhanced by live entertainment. There are several spry souls who get up and dance to the music and quite a few people sitting on the stools around the granite bar. Mom and I usually sit in the lounge area on a loveseat and watch the goings on and marvel at the crowd of people truly enjoying themselves in the social atmosphere.

Last Friday, Doris came and sat down beside us. She is Mom's newest friend. Doris is very lively and funny and has some amazing stories to tell. She had just danced a two-step and was a bit out of breath, but after a few moments settled in for a great little chat. I asked her where she had lived before. She said she was from the local area and spent a good deal of her life in the valley. Her husband was the warden of the maximum prison out there. She raised her children in a quiet country acreage and taught piano for many years to hundreds of students.

"My husband used to tell me to draw the blinds and curtains in the house at night, when he was not at home, to be a little safer. He said I was a prime target for kidnapping. Well, I never felt the least bit afraid or insecure at all. You can't go around worrying all the time about stuff like that, now can you?" Doris took a sip of her scotch which seemed on the verge of spilling at any moment but never actually did.

"You know, Charlotte....it's Charlotte, right?" she said having heard my name just once. "I had a soft spot for those men in the prison. My husband said I'd probably want to just open up the prison gates and let them all go free if I had my way." Doris' nicely styled hair and clear sparkling eyes reminded me of the sweet old lady in the Titanic movie. "Why in fact, one time, I asked my husband if I could invite a few of the inmates over to our house for a Christmas party....you know to cheer them up a bit. He wasn't too keen on it, but relented and sent two prison guards with the men. Well, Charlotte, we had the nicest time that day. The boys had tea and egg nog and my Christmas cookies and they helped me in the kitchen. One of them, Mike was his name, well he said it had been a long time since he was in such a loving place and that he missed his mom. My heart just broke for some of them."

Doris took a sip of her scotch and then proceeded to conspire with my Mom on a plan to have a sing song at the grand piano on Sunday night. Mom would be in charge of getting the song sheets photo-copied and Doris would play the piano. Bill the big Greek guy (as Mom refers to him) who just lost his wife to cancer, came over and said he would help distribute the music. Bill used to be on the Vancouver Police Vice Squad. Grace, who lives across from Mom on the third floor shuffled over to see what the plan was. Grace was a lieutenant in the British Air Force in WW11 and is now 90. She wears an emergency button around her neck but doesn't use a cane or walker of any kind. I watched them discuss their idea as I enjoyed my glass of wine.

When it was time to leave, Doris placed her drink on the coffee table, stood up, took my hand and said, "It was lovely meeting you today, Charlotte."

Doris is 95 years old.

Addicted to the 21st Century

2010-03-11T22:41:00.000-08:00

Not exactly HD TV!

I've been out of the proverbial loop for a few days now and have come to realize that I'm addicted to the 21st Century. What happened was, I decided to take Mom on a little holiday to Victoria and then Salt Spring Island and I had all the best intentions of kicking back at the cottage and enjoying a little respite from my daily grind. Okay, to be honest, I don't have a daily grind other than my morning coffee indulgence, but I did want to get away from Vancouver while Brad is in Toronto to break up my long week of loneliness.

Mom and I and the wiener dog, headed over to Victoria on Tuesday morning to deliver a load of items for Haiti via the Canada Comforts charity I volunteer for. (I am the drop off point for knitting and other donated essentials produced by an army of women in the Lower Mainland and I deliver the goods to the warehouse in Victoria where it is transferred to available shipping containers and shipped to various developing countries throughout the year - this time to Haiti for disaster relief). So we set off to do our good deed and then headed up to Salt Spring Island to stay at our cottage for 3 nights.

We have not been to our beloved Blue Moon Acres for over 3 months. It is a record. Since we bought the place in 2000, we have enjoyed it at least once a month every year. This is the longest we've gone without being there. I had anticipated trees and branches strewn across the property, spiders living like kings in every nook and cranny, flyers piled sky high at the front door, and dead birds laying on the ground beneath an empty bird feeder. But oddly, the place was completely unscathed by our 3 month abandonment. There were, however two very serious glitches with the operational side of the little cottage in the woods. The internet and the satellite TV were both, how do they say in Russia.....KAPUT.

The Telus guy at the other end of the 1-800-help number said we needed a new modem and one would be cheerfully mailed to us in 3 to 5 business days. The Bell Satellite TV guy at the end of the 1-800 help number said we needed to hire an independent satellite serviceman to deal with the problem as they have no representative on Salt Spring Island themselves. Isn't it funny how these 1-800 people fail to solve your problem but end the call with , "Well is there anything else I can help you with today, Ma'am?" and you feel obliged to say, "No, that's about it, thanks...." even though your problem is nowhere near solved?

So I sulked a bit and decided that 3 days on Salt Spring without TV or Internet could be a blessing. Mom tucked into a thick novel and read the entire thing non-stop. Then the weather turned! Rain, Wind, Cold. I thought maybe I was too quick to abandon the internet situation and I made several attempts to resurrect the system myself: Un-plug, change plugs, poke on-off switch, hold on switch for longer, walk away, un-plug, try different plug-in. 17 combinations later and still no connection. Tried looking for neighbourhood "free" network but when your neighbour has an outhouse and the couple across the street has antlers for a door knocker, the network idea is pretty thin.

I gave up and popped open my laptop to hack away at the novel. Having read the latest edition of The Writer magazine and its cover story of "Give your Fiction Focus" I decided to try re-writing my entire manuscript in first person (it is currently third person). This resulted in a 4 hour experiment that went nowhere and had me wondering just how hard is it to shimmy up a 100 foot douglas fir to reposition the satellite dish?

So I hauled out the vacuum and sucked up every pine needle, spider egg sac, and thread from Bodger's towel shredding projects and then proceeded to clean every other surface in the cottage after that. I dumped the hot tub, refilled it, balanced it and sat it in to make sure it was perfect for our Easter weekend guests. I erased the blackboard "Happy Birthday Rob" creation from October 2009 and created a new spring themed piece of chalk art that turned out rather well. I did a crossword puzzle, read the Canadian Living March issue, cleaned the bathroom and changed the bedding. And that was day 1. By day 2, I was ready to whittle a new modem out of a cedar branch.

Enter the 6 inch radio/black and white TV unit we won in some golf tournament. This little cube, pictured above, has an antenna which offers pretty good sound from several TV stations. Global, CityTV, CBC, and a French station come in audibly quite clear. Visually, there are either two images ghosting each other or a very grainy picture like the better days of Don Messer's Jubilee. If the people have thick eyebrows, you're in luck. So I watched Entertainment Tonight and a CSI show I had trouble following, and then I basically gave up.

Day 3, I booked us a ferry out of paradise and we left 1/2 an hour earlier than we needed to for the 3:25 Queen of Nanaimo out of Long Harbour. This was a first. Usually, on the day we have to leave Salt Spring Island, we dread the moment we lock the front door. It is all we can do to drag ourselves up the steps to a packed car and drive away from our sweet little piece of tranquility. For some reason, this time, I was a bit eager to get back to my blog. Yikes! What have I created?

Concrete versus Vague and Squishy - Thoughts?

2010-03-05T16:37:00.000-08:00

Making things pretty

Writing a To Do list blog seems to have fallen way off my To Do list lately, but I've discovered I'm suffering from a common problem. My on-line writing mentor wrote an interesting blog today about concrete tasks versus vague and squishy ones. The flower pot I planted is a great example of this. It is a concrete task I spent an entire morning completing which entailed buying flowers and soil, removing old dead stuff, planting pots with new stuff, cleaning up the mess and then taking the photo. This concrete task actually crossed paths with a vague and squishy one which is to do something each day to make things pretty.

In my daily plans, I have many concrete tasks like the pot planting one: buy groceries, get dry-cleaning, vacuum floors, walk dog, take Mom to the doctor/dentist/hairstylist, make dinner, organize income tax receipts, put away laundry, etc. These are concrete, easy to check off items. The vague and squishy plans on my To Do List have more appeal to me, make me happy and fulfilled and are what I want to do. Write a novel, get in shape, do good in my community. But these tasks are a lot harder to manage, time-wise, energy-wise, mood-wise and even weather-wise. When it's gorgeous outside, all I want to do is get outdoors and do energetic things. I don't want to sit at my desk and write. When it's gloomy and rainy I want to snuggle up by the fire and read and not get out and exercise!

My mentor talks about a book called Getting Things Done, by David Allen. Among other things, David Allen writes about managing your hopes and dreams. Give them importance on your to-do list to the point of writing them down on separate pieces of paper and then sort them into similar categories. For example, I have a dream to write. I also have a desire to be healthy and fit, a wish to do a home exchange to London, England, a dream to have a home someday with a view of the ocean and an art studio that can stay "up" all the time. Allen suggests putting these vague plans into categories. Writing, Fitness, Travel, Lifestyle are my categories. He then says to make a point to review the Hopes and Dreams File (where your separate papers are) every week at the same time, (perhaps with a glass of wine at 5pm on Fridays). With each hope or dream, ask the question "is now a good time to work on this?" If it is, move the item into the Current File and include tasks on your daily To-Do list pertaining to the Hopes and Dreams item. ie: search home exchange programs on-line, or join fitness club Monday morning, or talk to real estate agent about possible ocean front properties. The point of David Allen's book is to not be overwhelmed by all your hopes and dreams to the point of never moving forward on any front. The concrete items of everyday life can take over pretty quickly if you don't watch out. Virginia Woolf talks about killing the Angel of the House, or the Kitchen Goddess. She writes, "Sticking to the routine of writing when every force in the world will try to steal it, or make you feel excruciatingly guilty about wanting to write, can be much tougher than the actual writing."

As for my novel, well I have my writing booked from 2pm to 5pm every weekday. Lately, this has been pushed aside for many different reasons including the Moscow trip and the Olympics and also my writer's block. On my novel paper, I will write: research ways to conquer writer's block on Tuesday morning. I also might check out taking another writing course at SFU or UBC.

It is amazing how writing down the simple To-Do list helps you get things done. Otherwise, an entire day can drift by without really accomplishing anything.

Vague and Squishy item on to-do list is become a better artist!

"God is Canadian today," said Claus, the kid from Brazil.

2010-03-01T13:40:00.000-08:00

20 minutes post Olympic Gold men's hockey game Robson and Granville

I can't believe how much fun and unbridled joy our city offered to the world in the past few weeks. After the game yesterday we walked the streets of Vancouver with no particular destination in mind, cheering and dancing and soaking up the celebration for more than 2 hours! At one point, a guy behind me said, "I don't know where I'm walking I just feel compelled to walk!" Many of us ended up at the cauldron down on the waterfront, just swept along it seemed, by the sheer energy of an entire country, and we were still astounded by the visual impact of the Olympic flame. I was wishing it would stay lit and the party would go on forever!

There have been so many amazing moments and stories about our games, but one that seemed pretty poetic to me happened yesterday. Brad had coffee before the gold medal hockey game with the CEO of the largest broadcasting company in Russia and the CEO of the largest broadcasting company in Canada and then he joined me and our daughter Jessica and her sweet friends at an eclectic restaurant on Granville and he watched the game on a small non-HD tv standing up, peering over the heads of the guys and girls in front of him. He stood beside a friend of Jessica's who has just come here from Brazil, speaks only a bit of English and has never really seen hockey before! Across from us at the communal table were three French Canadian boys, one who now lives in New Zealand and came "home" to Canada just to be in Vancouver for the games, even if it was to watch them on tv! We had the best time, enjoying what will probably be one of the most historic moments in our Country's history (like the 1972 hockey series) with our beautiful daughter and her friends. I'm sure Brad would have loved to be actually at the game or in a huge sports bar surrounded by crazed fans, but somehow witnessing a profound moment of national greatness in a simple way may leave us all with an even deeper appreciation for being part of that moment.

We walked back to our condo after a quick dinner away from the crowds and we passed the somewhat dreary rear facade of St. Paul's Hospital. I looked up and saw the lights on in many of the hospital rooms and wondered about the people there. Perhaps they were watching the game on their little hospital bedside TVs, or maybe in the ward lounge in their blue hospital gowns amongst the other patients and the nighttime staff, and I imagined their gratefulness at being able to sit up and watch the Olympics with others. I thought about how maybe some of them won't be with us very soon, here on this earth where the people of the world came together for a few weeks in winter to slide on ice and snow, to cheer each other on, to witness heroic performances and moments of greatness.

I feel so blessed to have had the opportunity to enjoy the Olympic games here in my hometown. I'm proud of my city and country and if I can figure out how to do it, I'm going to send John Furlong, CEO of Vanoc, a personal thank you note for the incredible job he did!

Granville Street right after Canada's Gold in Hockey!

Has Fashion Gone Too Far?

2010-02-24T09:14:00.000-08:00

Carlos Diez Fashions for Fall and Winter 2010 from Fashion Week in Spain

I'm just wondering if couture fashion shows are even remotely based in reality anymore. This get up above has got to be the stupidest incarnation of what passes for clothing I've ever come across. It makes me literally cringe. Used to be, the Christian Lacroix and Versace shows were the most avant garde of all, with giant hairstyles and ridiculous starched fabric ensembles resembling walking candelabras or clown balloon creations, but now the bar has been raised (or lowered to the depths of banality) in the new version of fashion.

Same Designer's Shoes in Madrid show

I'm pretty sure these will not catch on in Vancouver. Or anywhere for that matter.

Here's what I'm in the market for right now:

Also, a waist this thin is on my bucket list.

Bringing Tears to My Eyes

2010-02-22T16:11:00.000-08:00

Inukshuk on Crescent Beach

It's amazing how much emotion the Olympics have stirred inside of me. I feel so proud of my country and of course my city, but I feel more than that. When I look at the young, earnest faces of all the athletes, the ones that win and the ones that fall, the ones who jump up on the gold medal podium and the ones that sit quietly on the side line benches trying to fight back their tears, they all tug at my heartstrings and provoke unexpected tears. The joy on the faces of athletes' parents and the unbridled enthusiasm from complete strangers for all the competitors is just so uplifting. Sitting in the stands of the Medal Ceremonies on Friday night, the crowd of some 20,000 people cheered as loudly for the medal winners as if they were their own children. There were no Canadians on the podium that night but 80% of the audience was Canadian.

Even the commercials on TV these past two weeks, for the corporate giants who stand to make millions from the goodwill they are garnering at these games, have brought tears to my eyes. There's a Purolator commercial featuring the courier's task of getting equipment and documents related to the Olympics to the right places on time. And even that commercial as utilitarian as it is, had me reaching for the kleenex box when the nice little family out in the countryside of Canada got their tickets in the courier package at their front door. Normally this wouldn't faze me one bit. But now that my heart is swelling and Olympic fever has set in, I'm crying at the sentimentality of it all like it is some kind of love story about the human spirit.

The commercial that really tugs at my heart is the latest Tim Horton's ad. It is a true story and I remember seeing it on The Fifth Estate. It features a man who is waiting at the airport for his family to join him from their birth country. It doesn't have anything at all to do with the Olympics, but it does speak about Canada. His wife and children arrive on a snowy, cold morning somewhere in wintery Canada, and he greets them with warm coats and gives his wife a Tim Horton's coffee and says welcome Home.

Click this link to see it. It's a very good ad!

Say what you will about Tim Horton's, but it has become as much of an icon of Canada as maple syrup and mounties. Having just arrived back from Moscow, I can tell you it is more comforting than ever to attach yourself to something familiar that is available throughout our country and just feels like home. It's not as if the coffee is even from Canada! It's just the idea that people from all walks of life, from all cultures, from every corner of our country are drawn to stop in, pick up a little fortification for body and soul and feel connected to each other in some small way before they carry on with their busy lives.

I was mesmerized walking through the streets of Vancouver these past two weeks, seeing all the crazy fans, their faces painted with the colours of their countries, entire families with small children wearing matching Canada gear, business guys in suits with Go Canada Go scarves around their necks, and people cheering like mad at the top of their lungs. I went to the cauldron twice. Once with Rob and his two friends from university and once with Brad. It was spectacular. The structure is stunning and the flames are impressive, but what really captures your imagination is the power of this enduring Olympic symbol. It was breathtakingly clear and sunny and the flame was backdropped by the crystal clear North Shore Mountains and Burrard Inlet. It didn't matter to me one bit that it was behind a fence. I could see it clearly and more importantly, no protesters could destroy it. We as the host city, have a responsibility to protect the flame. I don't mind at all if that means I can't run up and run my fingers along the cauldron steel. Thankfully, there are only a few grumblers out there who would rather waste their time griping than spreading the joy. They seem to be missing the point somehow. Like a Tim Horton's coffee, it's not the item itself, it's the idea. It's intangible.

My souvenir!

What a difference a few degrees in latitude can make

2010-02-16T14:42:00.000-08:00

From my morning walk on White Rock Beach Feb 16th

As I look out my office window, I can see the North Shore Mountains, in particular Cypress Mountain where the Olympic skiing venue is, and it is heavily socked in with low clouds and some fog. Down here in White Rock, a mere 35km away from Cypress, it is gorgeous and sunny, with blue skies and a few puffy white clouds drifting by. It makes me think that most of the viewers of the 2010 Olympics on TV will get the impression that Vancouver is gloomy and cold and dripping with precipitation (not the frozen kind, either). They might say, "you call that the most livable city in the world?" If I was trying to get that money shot for NBC's Today show, up on Grouse Mountain, I'd be kind of frustrated, too. It has always been this way out here on the west coast. The topography with the mountains sweeping up from sea level and the Fraser Valley running from the ocean east to the Coastal Mountains near Hope, just keeps on creating the same weather pattern over and over again in the winter months. If I had a dime for everytime a meteorologist pointed out the big "system" coming in off the Pacific Ocean with the one right behind it and the one right behind that, etc. I'd be a millionaire. Also predictable are the high pressure systems in the summer months that create endless days of paradise.

Apparently, several newspapers around the world are having a field day with our weather issues on the Olympics. But as they are the Winter Olympics, why on earth would anyone expect anything other than winter weather? There's a reason why the Winter Olympics are not held in Palm Springs (as my friend Denise pointed out this morning on our walk). UK's Guardian thinks our games are jinxed

From what I've seen so far, things are going great! Except for a few stupid protesters who have hijacked the spotlight a couple of times, and a few events getting postponed due to weather, I think the games are going very well. The public transport system is fantastic. Maybe the UK has a leg up on most of the world in terms of public underground trains, but our new Canada Line is an engineering miracle! The sights from our Skytrain are spectacular. Our Seabus crosses one of the most picturesque bodies of water anywhere. The highway to Whistler is so gorgeous it is used routinely in car commercials as the best backdrop in the world making any vehicle look like an Aston Martin!
I'm off to more Olympic fun tomorrow night. Get to hob-nob with some celebrities and then check out more pavilions. I want to see Saskatchewan and the Atlantic pavilions, for sure. Brad and Rob are enjoying the first Team Canada game tonight. Go Canada Go!!!!

Becky and Brad at Cactus Club on Opening Ceremony Day

The crowds lining up to get into BC Place on Opening Day

Brad taking a shot on goal at Russia House

Olympics!

2010-02-13T14:55:00.000-08:00

Opening Ceremony at BC Place

It goes without saying, that we are very privileged to have been able to attend the opening ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympics. It was truly one of the highlights of our lives! We will never forget it. I've watched spectacles like this on TV many times, but to be there in person, to feel the anticipation rising in the crowds walking into the Olympic venue, hearing all those enthusiastic voices in so many different languages, waving flags you can't even identify, laughing and singing anthems and just sharing a joyful moment in their lives with fellow human beings is such a unique and uplifting experience, I can barely put it into words.

A TV reporter on the street came up to us and said with the most earnest and truthful sentiment, "It just feels like a place where people are happy." In a world where there are many unhappy people and there is suffering and pain and anger and hate, it feels good to just take a break from it all and breath in a bit of joy. It doesn't mean we are abandoning our concern for the deeper, darker issues facing this planet, it just means we are capable of setting aside our differences and focussing on a positive and rejuvenating event that welcomes anyone who wants to join in.

We met a homeless guy in a coffee shop on Friday morning. He was helping a young family figure out on their map how to get to the festivities at Robson Square, pointing out the landmarks to keep them going in the right direction. I could feel his pride at being able to help someone else. To be able to offer one thing he was pretty good at, his knowledge of the layout of Vancouver's downtown. He seemed he was uplifted and maybe for a moment in his difficult life he was connected to the life of others. He asked me to look at the intricate carving on his cane. A little wooden cat playing with a ball of string formed the handle. He was pretty proud of it. Said an Irish man gave it to him after he lost his the night before. I don't know if this was significant, but I do know that this man, was for a moment in time, part of the crowd, a fellow citizen of my city, a nice guy enjoying his morning and being a proud Canadian. It was a minor event in the midst of a global one, a reminder to me of what is at the heart of the Olympics; connecting citizens of the world in a positive way.

We soaked up the vibe of the city, walking along the downtown streets, checking out the zip trek ride over Robson Square that had a 4 hour line up. Thousands of people stood with gaping mouths, watching other people zip across the sky above them screaming with glee! It was amazing to witness the universal excitement complete strangers seem to have for each other, almost cheering the zip trekkers along as though they were personally happy for them. I found myself chatting with other onlookers like we were all in this together! Brad and I thought about doing the zip trek but the long line up was out of the question. Maybe next week, when the initial lines thin out, we'll do it!

We bumped into Arnold Schwarzenegger as he was heading into a press conference. And then a couple of hours later, I literally bumped into him (hit is left shoulder with mine) as he was walking to the mensroom in the same restaurant we just happened to choose to dine in! It was as though Arnold was stalking me! He has about 8 secret service guys flanking him. Even on his walk to the mensroom at the Cactus Club he had 2 guys in front of him and 2 behind him. No matter what you think of Arnold, you have to admit, he's a big well known celebrity/politician and there's something pretty exciting about bumping into him!
We have been so privileged to also be witnessing the Russian involvement in the Winter Olympics. Our friend Yuri Kostin, CEO of Prof Media, the largest broadcasting company in Russia, invited us to the opening of Sochi 2014, Russia House at the former Science World on False Creek. The iconic building which was unveiled at Expo 86, was completely transformed into a Russian pavilion with gorgeous giant screens showcasing the incredibly diverse landscape of Russia. We watched the launch of Auto Radio in Vancouver, the broadcasting of their top radio station Live from Vancouver via Brad's radio station, AM650. You can listen on-line at www.am650radio.com between 8pm and 5am in Vancouver, and it is broadcasting 24 hours a day back in Russia.

The party outside of Sochi 2014 Russia House. There was lots of excitement!

Brad, Ronnie, Victoria and Yuri infront of Blue Water Cafe in Yaletown

We left Russia House after enjoying their entertainment (and a couple of drinks!) and took the sky train right out front and headed to the German Beer Garden beside the Waterfront Station in Gastown. It was packed to the rafters with people from around the world who know good beer when they drink it, dancing and singing and just enjoying life! A guy from South Africa came up to me and told me all about his new friend from Poland who is hoping to get his city in Poland designated as a cultural centre or something like that. I had trouble hearing them over the eardrum-piercing 90's dance music sung in German, but somehow I didn't care and I just cheered on the Polish guy and wished him well in his endeavors! This seems to be another offshoot of the world getting together for the Olympics; causes getting some measure of attention and young people having the time of their lives. Jessica and her friend Alicia were at the German pavillion so we had a chance to hang out with them.

Jessica took German in high school and university and can't speak a word of it now.

We're heading back to Vancouver next week for more Olympic festivities. Can't wait to just enjoy the vibe with Rob, too. He's arriving on Monday!

In Transit

2010-02-08T13:40:00.000-08:00

A not-so-black cab in London

There is something about the black cabs of London that just charm you to the core. I've never seen one anywhere other than London. They must be some kind of exclusive trademark vehicle. This pink one above, was outside Harrods Department store. Sometimes, the cab drivers will talk to you. They are generally "blokes" from Liverpool or Manchester and have delightful British accents to add to the London vibe. Sometimes they will drone on a bit too much about local politics and royal activities. There is a feeling, though, that the black cab drivers are hardcore Brits and not at all like the taxi drivers in Canada who tend to be new Canadians from all parts of the world.

The Double Decker Buses in London

I've never seen such a high concentration of public transit in any other city in the world. The double deckers outnumber the regular vehicles on most streets of London. And then there is the Underground (or The Tube as the locals call it). The first time I took the London underground, I couldn't believe how under ground it was. You first take about 16 stairs down from street level to the ticket machines and turnstiles, then you take two very long escalators down to the tracks. It seems it could be 5 to 6 stories underground. It is 192 feet below street level at one of the stations. I discovered that The Tube is the world's first underground transit system and is third in the world for number of people using it. Paris and Moscow come 1st and 2nd. As someone who is a bit claustrophobic, I feel pretty queasy in The Tube. But it was fun to step out of our comfort zones and take it back to our hotel the day we visited Harrods.

Helena, our Russian Tour Guide Driving in the Right Side Driver's seat of her Toyota

Of course, they drive on the same side of the road as North American's do, but our tour guide's car was a right hand drive. So it made things rather interesting. The traffic, as I mentioned in an earlier post, is extremely congested in Moscow. There are now many North American vehicles, lots of BMW's, Audis, Volkswagons, and Japanese vehicles and the ubiquitous Lada sprinkled in for atmsophere on the streets of Moscow. Their transit system in also an underground and although we didn't get a chance to see it, apparently has some exceptional stations with amazing art and exquisite architecture. I read that 9 million people a day, use the Metro in Moscow. We saw some city busses but they looked like they were made of cardboard with wooden doors.

The cables for the street car buses.

There are endless miles of street car cables running along most streets in Moscow, but oddly, very few street cars.

Another thing that is quite unique, is that parking seems to be free. You can park pretty much anywhere and anyway you like. There were cars parallel parked, some angle parked and others right up on the sidewalk and occasionally double parked 3 deep all in the same block.

A car parked rather haphazardly (emphasis on the 'hazzard')

There doesn't seem to be a set lane structure. It's more of a "go with the flow" philosophy.

Thank God (and Yuri and Alyona) we didn't have to drive anywhere ourselves. It seemed pretty intimidating.

Our Flights

We had the good fortune of flying business class to London on Air Canada and I got to experience the "pod" adventure on that leg of the journey. I have to say you give up something for all that comfort. You can feel like you're in an isolation tank and have no sensation you are on a form of transportation. The pods are angled so your left shoulder faces the front of the jet. The windows are obscured by the pod walls, so you can't really look out at the landscape going by, and your travel colleagues are separated from you by those walls, too so you feel isolated, like you're inside a package on a moving shelf. I much prefer seats facing forward, elbows touching, head resting on my partner's shoulder. A kind of "We're in this adventure together" feeling beats the "I'm hurtling through space alone" one. That's just me, the tourist talking. I'm sure the business crowd relishes the sensory deprivation time between continents.

Our flight back to London on Aeroflot

Our flight to and from Moscow was on Russia's airline, Aeroflot. We were actually pleasantly surprised by the service. There is no inflight entertainment, no audio or tvs, so we read and tried to sleep a bit. It is a 4 hour flight from London to Moscow. I eaves dropped on the conversation between two men sitting behind us on the flight there. One was a doctor heading to a city in Siberia to perform surgeries for two weeks. A kind of Doctors Without Borders, guy. His seat mate was young telecommunications guy going to Moscow for a business trip. There were quite a few of these kinds of people on board. There was also a young father and his two little girls sitting in front of us. They had a laptop device and played Dora the Explorer video games non-stop in Russian virtually the entire flight. This was sensory overload, a punishment for me complaining about the Air Canada pod experience.

We landed in Moscow in the dark (6pm) and the plane did not taxi to the terminal. It stopped on the tarmac and we deplaned down a staircase in the -20 degree night. The entire planeload of people squeezed onto a bus and we drove across the ice covered airport to the terminal. We were sort of disgorged en mass into a holding room and then shuffled our way forward to the passport control booths to "enter" Russia. It took 3 hours to make it through the system. Needless to say, we were a bit discouraged by our initial encounter with Russia but by the next morning, we were completely over our border issues and absolutely mesmerized by the city of Moscow.

The view from the window of our Aeroflot flight our final day.

Goodbye Moscow!

Music, Theatre and Dance in Moscow

2010-02-06T16:15:00.000-08:00

The House of Music

Although Moscow is a city overflowing with historic buildings and 15th century churches, there are many very modern avant garde buildings that catapult your impression of Moscow into the 21st century. The House of Music is such a place. Built in 2003, it is a gorgeous facility with an amazing glass facade and an interior theatre constructed almost entirely of wood. We saw Bobby McFerrin's concert here with Alyona. McFerrin had 17 vocalists from around the world singing a cappella. Their voices were like instruments, virtually no words were sung, just notes. It was amazing!

Bobby McFerrin in the centre

The House of Music has Russia's largest pipe organ and it is a monster! Would like to have had the chance to hear it, but was just as impressed with the acoustics on the singer's raw voices. There is a hotel next to the House of Music, probably 35 stories tall, a glass sky scraper with a cocktail lounge at the very top. It apparently has an astounding view of the city. We tried to find our way into the hotel, walking up many flights of outdoor stair cases that led to closed doors. Alyona jokingly said that Moscow has lots of buildings with many doors and only one of them opens.

The Snow Men out in front of Moscow's Children's Theatre for the Snow Show

Slava's Snow Show

The Children's Theatre in Moscow, was built in the 1970's and has that Soviet style architecture (not pretty). However, the event taking place there is perhaps one of the most visually entertaining productions we've ever seen. Slava Polunin is one of the world's great clowns and his productions have travelled around the world.
Slava video clip
Outside the Theatre were hundreds of life size snowmen each with unique faces and adornments and positioned like a maze you could walk through. It was so delightful!
We saw the Snow Show with Alyona and her friend Oxana who just happened to be the former Miss Lithuania. She was stunningly beautiful, tall and very nice. She works for an oil company in Moscow.

The Ceiling of the Theatre hosting the Bolshoi Ballet

The world renowned Bolshoi Ballet company is performing these days in a beautiful theatre not far from the historic Bolshoi Theatre. Their home is being refurbished and is undergoing restorations that are apparently taking much longer and far more taxpayer funds than anticipated. It didn't really matter to us as this theatre was just gorgeous and ornate and the Bolshoi Ballet could dance in a parking lot and we'd be impressed! The Ballet was just so entertaining. They performed The Class which is a series of progressively more difficult ballet basics starting with the junior dancers and working its way up to the prima ballerina and top male dancer doing gravity defying jumps and twirls that were just breathtaking! The second act was a segment of a larger ballet production with beautiful costumes and a gorgeous set. You don't have to be a lover of the ballet to appreciate the artistry, music and exceptional talent of the Bolshoi!

The ovation!

Tomorrow's blog I'm calling planes, trains and automobiles.

Shopping and Dining in Moscow

2010-02-05T10:14:00.000-08:00

The Mall called GUM on the left, and a construction site draped in faux architecture screen on the right.

Day 6 in Moscow

(out of order on the blog recap, but really, when you're 11 times zones away, does it matter what day it is?)

In a country that has struggled through communism, when toilet paper and basic clothing were in limited supply for three generations of its citizens, the people of Russia seem to now be embracing capitalism and retail opportunity with open arms and deep wallets. It has only been 20 years since the fall of the Soviet Union, and many including our hosts, have vivid memories of much leaner times. Now there are endless streets lined with high end shops, Ralph Lauren, Versace, and Hermes to name a few. The GUM mall, which was the original shopping centre for Moscow's masses, is a collection of buildings dating back to the 16th century. They have been rebuilt several times and the structure standing now was completed in 1893. There are several arched 4 story atrium complexes with boutiques and name brand stores lining the aisles. Sony, Mac, Villeroy and Boch, Calvin Klein Jeans, etc. It is a bit like West Edmonton Mall without the sideshows and water parks. This is right across the street from the Kremlin and Lenin's Mausoleum! If he's turning in it, I guess it's pretty obvious!

The morning we were there, it was a bit quiet but by the time we ended our day out, it was teaming with shoppers and we even saw a US sports team in matching clothing, roaming around buying things.

Brad and I at a coffee shop inside GUM

Our coffee shop menu choices (note lovely cappuccino I ordered) and another shot of GUM

We bought several souvenirs for our friends in the amazing grocery store on the first floor. It's a bit like Harrods with its spectacular selection of products from around the world. The Vodka choices were endless! One thing we did notice, in the grocery store and throughout the entire mall, were the security guards. We felt followed, constantly. It was a bit unnerving. I swear the guy in Hermes was two seconds away from shoeing me out the door with a $1,000.00 Hermes broom.

We never once felt accosted or intruded upon by the police or beggars, etc. out on the streets. Just the security people in the stores and public places made us feel a bit uneasy. We managed to get up the courage to just walk around the neighbourhood of GUM and found ourselves at a fairly empty pizza restaurant for lunch. It was right across from the Bolshoi Theatre which is under renovation. Brad ordered a draft beer and I ordered a Stella Artois. This is what showed up:

The draft beer might be more than 1 litre. He didn't finish it! The pizza was fantastic.

We enjoyed sitting there at the window, watching the daily life of Moscow hustle by. There was a metro station right next to the restaurant so we could see office workers, etc. coming and going. There was a line of port-a-potties with an old lady sitting on a chair in the one on the end, converted into an office of somekind, and I guess if you needed to answer the call of nature, you paid her something and used one of the little potties in full view of everyone in the square. I don't think her 'office' was heated and we thought that maybe we had come across the worst job in the world!

Heading back to our hotel, across Red Square, it was brutally cold. -25C with a strong wind on our faces. We were just at the edge of the square near St. Basil's Cathedral when we spotted her:

The Bride!

Just when you think you've seen the most amazing thing that day, along comes a bride in her wedding gown in a snowstorm in January on Red Square.

Our beautiful host Alyona, took us to a Market out in the suburbs of Moscow on Day 5. We were almost the only tourists there that day. It was an interesting village, a street market and a collection of souvenir shops manned by only the hardiest of vendors on this cold January day. Alyona indulged us as we shopped for authentic Russian scarves, artwork, hand painted crafts, jewelry, etc. There were wild dogs roaming around the parking lot, which I had heard about from one of my friends back home. At first I was a bit scared about them, but they seemed like any other pack of dogs playing in the snow at a leash free park. So we ignored them. This is the market:

Char and Alyona at Izmayalovo

Here are a couple of street scenes from our travels through the city. You can see how some of the North American culture has infiltrated the Russian landscape.

A Freedom 55 ad on a building next to the KGB Headquarters. A KFC restaurant!

There is a starbucks in the building in the centre of this shot.

Tomorrow's blog will include some interesting photos from the Bolshoi Ballet, Bobby McFerrin, the Snow Show and more sights of Moscow. I leave you with this photo of a Moscow mom encouraging her little boy to have another ride down the snow bank on his green snow saucer with the Kremlin in the background.

The Traffic Report

2010-02-04T10:10:00.000-08:00

The Afternoon traffic along the river front road

11 lanes of traffic.

Day 3 and 4 Continued

Touring Moscow

Helena drove us through the streets of Moscow to show us several of the major landmarks. It was pretty much this kind of traffic, non stop, all day and night. It can take more than an hour to go by car the same distance it takes to walk 15 minutes. The road system in Moscow is a series of concentric rings beginning at the centre of the city with the Kremlin and radiating to the outskirts of the city of 12 million people. Many of the roads are one-way and there are times when all traffic is stopped by the police to allow important vehicles such as the President's motorcade to come and go from the Kremlin. Feeder lanes, leading onto the bridges, are like parking lots where each car inches forward while turning 180 degrees onto the bridge lane. We were astonished that there weren't more fender benders. And despite the glacial pace of the traffic in these jams, you rarely hear a horn honk. They are illegal. Perhaps many bottom lips are bitten and several packs of cigarettes are smoked, but no horns are honked in the frustrating commute. It wasn't all bumper to bumper and at times, we sped along the wide open streets with 6 lanes in each direction, zipping past parks and monuments and up into the university lands. Helena was an expert driver. She could point out historic relics, describe them with literary flare, and weave in and out of traffic all from the right side driver's seat without breaking a sweat. She was wearing a full length mink coat, too! Brad and I found ourselves to be mostly too hot in Moscow. We were bundled up from head to toe, capable of fending off -28, but spent quite a bit of time in cars and buildings. It was a small price to pay for the private tours of one of the most interesting cities on the planet.

The Russian State Library, once visited by Tolstoy, sits across from the Kremlin.

This is one of Moscow's treasures. It was completed in 1786, heavily damaged by fire during the Napoleon invasion, and rebuilt. Many of the beautiful buildings of Moscow had horrendous damage done during the various wars and uprisings.

Perhaps one of the most beautiful ones is Christ the Saviour Cathedral, which was destroyed by dynamite during the Soviet revolution in 1931. The original building had been commisioned by Tsar Alexander I, in 1839 to commemorate God's protection of Russia from Napoleon's invasion. Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture was debuted here. Like many grandiose construction plans in Moscow, the Lenin reconstruction of the site was aborted and the hole in the ground became a public swimming pool. Then in 1999, the building was recreated almost to an exact replica of its 19th century architecture and became once again, a Russian Orthodox Church holding 10,000 people. The 2010 Russian Olympic team was blessed here the day before we left to come home.

We were very fortunate and extremely grateful, to have such generous and caring hosts in Yuri and Alyona Kostin. They arranged for us to have the wonderful tour of Moscow with Helena, to be escorted around the city during our entire stay by another Yuri (the driver), to see many amazing events like Bobby McFerrin at the spectacular House of Music, The Snow Show and the Bolshoi Ballet. They took us to Pushkin, the famous Russian restaurant, and out to Izmaylovo Market. We were well taken care of and very impressed!

Brad and Yuri Kostin sipping vodka at Pushkin

Charlotte, Yuri our driver, and Alyona our host at the Snow Show

Snowmen out front of the Children's Theatre for the Snow Show.

A Country of Extremes

2010-02-03T10:15:00.000-08:00

Days 4 and 5
Moscow Touring

Brad and Char in front of St. Basil's Church on Red Square

Before I get started on the recounting of our two days of touring, let me tell you what our home base for 6 nights in Moscow was. The Baltschug Kempinksi Hotel sits on the banks of the Moscow River which divides the city of Moscow roughly in half. The river is much like the Thames in London, running alongside important buildings, palaces and landmarks. It was completely frozen over while we were there and rightly so, as the temperature was -28C our first day of touring. It seemed even colder than -28 Edmonton style. The low buildings and wide open streets add to the coldness of the city. The hotel is situated across from the Kremlin. It is one of the oldest buildings in the city centre, and one of the top hotels in Russia. Because of it's proximity to the government offices and centre of commerce, the Baltschug is the hotel of choice for the business crowd. And when I say business, I mean the buying and selling of entire countries (or so it seemed). One of the most interesting things to do with our time, was to sit in the lobby lounge and watch the revolving front doors steadily producing a succession of oligarchs each with their own body guards and secret service group! Every so often a series of armored Mercedes would pull up into the hotel drop off area and another contingent from God Knows Where, would arrive. Occasionally, women dripping in sable fur and ocelot scarves, teetering on 6 inch heels and jingling with diamond bracelets, would saunter in through the doors, their body guards hauling shopping bags from Prada and Dolce & Gabana behind them.

The Baltschug Kempinski

There are similarities and differences between a 5 star hotel in Russia and one in North America. In Russia smoking is not only allowed, it is encouraged! There are display cases of thick Cuban Cigars, ashtrays on every surface including inside the elevators, and in the restaurants and lounges. And just about everyone smokes. In North America, smoking is illegal! In Russia, a deluxe hamburger at the piano bar lounge can run you $700.00 US.

The club sandwich works out to $40.00 US as there are 30 Rubles to each Dollar

One evening, I had three 2ounce glasses of white wine and discovered after the fact that they were each $36.00! But enough about that. When in Rome......or Russia.....

Our tour guide was a lovely lady with a PhD in history. She spoke perfect English and apparently several other languages, too. She was a professional tour guide making a living showing foreigners the spectacular sights of Moscow. She used to be a tourguide inside the Kremlin, but when Yuri Gagarin's daughter took over the Kremlin tour business, she fired all the highly educated guides and replaced them with her friends (or so the story goes). Helena drove a Toyota with a British right side steering wheel. No real explanation for that, just another interesting piece of the strange puzzle that is Russia. Helena took us to Red Square, which is the outside public venue on the edge of the walled Kremlin. This is where the big military parades and Lenini's mosoleum are, and where the famous St. Basil's Church, built in the 15th century, sits like a Hollywood prop. There is a temporary skating rink with garish advertising and wild colours in the middle of Red Square which seems in stark contrast to the gloomy guards and police paroling the square. We were two of only a handful of tourists on this cold January weekday. We were outnumbered by the shovel brigade. These are Russians, mostly older people, who are bundled up in neon safety vests shoveling the snow right down to the cobblestones with 2 foot pieces of plywood nailed to broom handles. Some had brooms and swept the new fallen snow off the side walls of the bridges in a futile effort to keep it all bare. By the time they reached the end of the bridge, the ledges were covered again with fluffy snow. We wondered if they were doing this as some kind of court sentencing or work for welfare program. At any rate, the edge of the roads were as clean as a dinner plate.

Brad and the back of Helena inside the Kremlin. Palace on the right.

I always thought the Kremlin was a building. A grey monstrosity where Boris Yeltsin worked. It turns out that the Kremlin is a collection of buildings, churches, a palace, the armoury, the government offices of the President, and a museum or two. It is surrounded by a 2 story brick wall built by the Italians. It is a fortress with only a couple of entry points and 19 watch towers. The 800 room palace, once home to Catherine the Great and the Czars, sits unused and virtually empty. Only an occasional reception occurs inside it's spectacular architecture. We toured the Armoury Museum which was home to the largest collection of historic artifacts of Russian importance. The museum contains priceless collections of jeweled bibles, clothing worn by the Czars, carriages used by Elizabeth I, gifts given to Russia by visiting countries, Faberge eggs and many other amazing pieces. It was astounding.

The square inside the Kremlin with the four historic churches. That's Brad in the centre.

Helena gave us the quick Coles notes version of the entire history of Russia in a 2 hours visit to the Kremlin. There is a collection of churches in a very neat and tidy square, that date back to the 15th century and house the remains of the Czars and their families. The ceilings and walls of these churches are painted with religous themes and are simply awe inspiring. To imagine the people who have stood there in those places exactly where we were standing, was quite humbling.

The next installment of The Great Russian Adventure will take you on a wild car ride through Moscow's traffic.

Sleeping with the former Prime Minister

2010-02-02T16:08:00.000-08:00

Day 2 and 3 of The Great Russian Adventure
London
In the Maple Leaf lounge at YVR, Vancouver's beautiful international airport, we sipped wine and crunched hors d'oeuvres as we waited to board our flight to London. Just as I was settling in to watch the planes taxiing out, Jean Chretien, Canada's former Prime Minister, walked into the lounge with a few other men and a security guy. They joked around and then the Prime Minister sat down by himself one row behind us and ate an apple and read his book. I desperately wanted to go over and introduce myself, having worked on two of his leadership campaigns and being a life long Liberal. But a young man beat me to it and then I felt it would be an intrusion to bombard him with yet another visit by a stranger. So I sat and eaves dropped on his conversation while Brad read email on his Iphone.
On board our Air Canada flight, we took our seats in the business class pods. These are a bit like deep old fashioned bathtubs with cushioned seats. There are several little buttons, lit up electric blue on the wall of the pod to adjust your seat from upright to laying flat. I was afraid to fool around with them, worried that I'd push the wrong one and find myself rocketing into an embarrassing sleep mode before we even took off. Brad's pod was directly behind mine positioned in such a way that I had to strain my neck and turn my head to make eye contact with him. In these pods, you can only see the tops of other passengers' heads and there are no conversations with fellow travelers unless you are extremely tall! I could, however, see Mr. Chretien quite clearly as his pod was directly across from mine. It was exciting and unsettling at the same time. Further into the flight, I felt disrespectful taking off my shoes and putting my socked feet up in full view of the former PM. It seemed completely rude and somehow unpatriotic. I chose The Wrestler to watch after the meal, and during the more graphic sex scenes (which I had no idea the movie contained) I kept peeking out around the edge of my pod to see if Mr. Chretien could see my TV screen. It felt just horrendous to be viewing such a film in his presence. And then when it seemed the appropriate time to try to sleep, I just couldn't relax knowing I was lying down a mere 5 feet from Mr. Chretien, who by the way seemed to have no qualms at all about sleeping across from me.

That's Mr. C in the background!

After a long flight to London, Brad and I found ourselves in a delightfully tranquil Heathrow airport. We zipped through customs and baggage claim in just minutes and took a cab through the rainy streets of London to our hotel near Trafalgar Square. Traveling in January has its rewards; fewer tourists, better prices, less traffic. And even relatively nice weather in the UK. It rained the first day but Saturday was dry and warm. We walked all the way to Harrods via Buckingham Palace and were quite comfortable. Harrods is everything it is renowned to be. It's an amazing 5 story department store with astounding interiors, food and products from around the world, and customers seemingly from all corners of the earth. It was a real spectacle! We walked to Kensington and had a beer in a classic neighborhood pub and then took the underground back to Piccadilly Square.

Sunday morning we drive back to Heathrow in the back of a little black cab. Our cab driver was charming but a little too forthcoming with his political views and tourist info about the Royal family. I think he mentioned how much the Brits hated Cherie Blair, the former prime minister's wife, about 10 times. We sat silently feigning interest in his monologue as we mustered up our courage to fly Aeroflot! Some people think it is not the most advanced of airlines. A dinner companion in London had mentioned that he'd rather have to change planes in Frankfurt and take twice as long to fly to Moscow then to take a direct flight on Aeroflot, Russia's state owned airline. We were a little nervous about it, to tell the truth. And in fact, the flight was a little uncomfortable with no in flight entertainment and 4 1/2 hours of flight time.

We landed in Russia, at the Sheremetyevo Airport in the dark -20 C. and had a rather scary ordeal of not having the correct migration papers filled out. 3 hours later with pounding hearts in our chests, we finally made it through the passport control and then drove another hour through the dark cold snowy streets of Moscow to our hotel. We felt like we had landed on the moon.

The view from our hotel window on our first night in Russia

Stay tuned tomorrow for another installment of the Great Russian Adventure. Right now I'm going to have another nap....jet lag....zzzzzz

Day 1

2010-01-21T14:14:00.000-08:00

White Rock Beach, Jan 21, 2010

This is what it looks like here the day we leave for our trip to London and Moscow. I thought I'd take this shot, and then one on the edge of the Thames and one on the edge of Moscow River. Kind of a "how similar and how different places on this earth can be" theme. I'm expecting the river in Moscow to be frozen. But who knows. It is -18 degrees there today. We will leave tonight at 6:15pm and fly to London where when we land it will be 2am in the morning for us but 11am in the morning for them! I've never been one to sleep on a plane. Can't get comfortable enough and also I'm always too excited to even consider snoozing. Brad likes to tuck into an industry book and also sleep. So this is a bit of a travel miss match. I usually win him over with my witty repartee, for a while at least, and then he nods off. It is a lovely day here in Vancouver. So warm the tulips and daffodils are almost 4 inches high. There are buds on the trees. No snow on the mountains, which is a problem for the Olympics, but there is still a few weeks to go.

Well, the next time I write, I'll be looking at Buckingham Palace or maybe a sales bin at Harrod's. Tally Ho, then.

My Distracted Mind

2010-01-20T18:31:00.000-08:00

It goes something like this:
"Hey Mom, we should get you a new electric kettle at London Drugs. I'm sure they're not more than $30.00"
"Really? Are you sure?"
"Let me go and check their website and I'll see what they have."
"Alright, but I'm not paying more than that for a new one, I'll just get the old one fixed."
I walk into the office, sit down at the computer and move the mouse. There's a little red box with a number in it on the edge of my mail program icon. A new email has come in since I last sat down, I guess. Click email program. Someone has commented on my facebook comment to my facebook friend. Click link. Lots of comments on friend's status. Read them all. Sort of entertaining, but not really. Click "Home" on facebook bar. See what the news feed has added. Friends and family are joining groups, attending events, commenting on each other's photos, statuses, comments. Troll around some of the more intriguing ones. Click facebook logout. Stare at photo screensaver. Wonder what I'm doing in the office. What did I come in here for? Drag a few of the folders on the desktop to the cute trash bin on the icon bar. Glance at novel (printed version in binder), think about scene I'm struggling with. Get up, go to the kitchen to pour the tea, now steeped. Give mom her cup.
"Be careful, it's hot, Mom."
"So, I guess we'll get one then."
"Get what?"
"A new kettle. No point in causing a fire with the old one."
"Good idea, Mom."
Remember what I had gone into office for. London Drugs website. Kettle options. Return to office, move mouse, see new email has come in........

Is anyone else distracted like this? I am so unfocussed these days, it must be my menopausal mind. Can't sleep, can't concentrate, can't finish anything, can't.....where was I going with this?

Razor's Edge Between Excitement and Angst

2010-01-15T18:03:00.000-08:00

I've been so conflicted lately with the thought of going to the other side of the world, in the middle of winter, in the chaos of our divided angry planet, for a once in a lifetime opportunity. There are scary thoughts and exciting ideas battling for ground in my mind on a moment to moment basis. Every news item about terrorist plots, heightened security, and the sheer fragility of our world, sends me into a "sheesh...what on earth are we doing?" frame of mind. Then I see a travel blog complete with photos by a young couple from the UK who recently went to Moscow and absolutely loved it. Or I see the website of our host in Russia and discover he's a best selling author and a witty accomplished guy with world wide credentials in the broadcasting industry, and I think "Wow, we're in for an amazing adventure". It's the strangest feeling to teeter back and forth between fearful trepidation and enthusiastic anticipation. In the midst of all that angst, there is the Haiti disaster that just brings tears to my eyes every other minute.
Today's weather was a bit like the swirl of emotions in my mind. There were gale force winds and torrential rains throughout the night and all of the morning, then around 2pm the skies quickly cleared and a brilliant January sun shone and the landscape was reborn. The snow on the North Shore mountains looked neon white, the blue of the sky was so light and heavenly, it seemed unfamiliar. The trees in the distance perhaps miles away, were lit up so intensely you could count the branches. It was as though the weather had been swept away and a shiny new, brilliantly clean version of everything was revealed. My fears and concerns about the adventure ahead, will no doubt turn into a wonderful experience in a world most people never get to see.
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain

St. Basil's Cathedral - Moscow

Back in the USSR

2010-01-14T11:26:00.000-08:00

Over the last few weeks, as our trip to Russia draws closer, I've been studying the language, surfing travel forums, reading guide books and asking people I know if they have ever been to Russia. Virtually no one I have asked has answered yes to that question. It just isn't a common vacation spot, especially in winter! But there is one person I know who did go to Russia several times. Only his travels were not on a modern aircraft, his accommodations were not 5 star, his experiences not led by professional tour guides and interpreters. He of course, is my Dad, who if he was alive today, would not only tell me all about his Russian adventures, but he'd speak Russian while doing so. He was a lover of languages and learned enough of several languages to converse in them easily and truly impress. Dad was in the Royal Canadian Navy during WWII, and served on the historic convoys that brought military supplies and food to the Soviets. It was called The Murmansk Run. It was notoriously dangerous. German u-boats torpedoed the ships and mother nature sabotaged their passage every chance she could get. There were 70 foot swells, hurricane winds, ice flows and ice storms that threatened every voyage. My Dad served on the HMS Obdurate, a Royal Navy destroyer and completed two runs to Murmansk.
I will try to update my blog during the trip. I intend to keep a diary, at the very least, and will post all of it on my return if daily updating does not work.
Jan 14 To Do List
Buy some rubles! Also some pounds! Isn't it interesting, the strange words used to describe currency throughout the world? Kwanza, peso, yen, dollar, rupee, zloty, balboa, quetzal, franc, gourde, togrog. Boy, if I had a togrog for every piece of trivia I've picked up, I'd be a millionaire!
Reconsider coat choices for Moscow - dilemma is the -22 degree winter weather demands warm yet stylish coat. According to lots of travel tips for Russia, tourists should try to "blend in" so as not to attract unwanted attention by scam artists and even the local police, who are allegedly famous for "shaking down" tourists. So my new flashy red Hudson's Bay pea-coat I got for my birthday, will not only stand out....it will scream "Tourist from Canada over here, people".
Research meal idea for tonight - trying to reduce red meat consumption in 2010 to at most, once a week. As Fridays are generally "steak night", I need to come up with 6 non-red meat meals. I'm thinking vegetarian lasagna. Make big batch, freeze a few portions for Jessica's 10 Day Take Care Of Bodger marathon.

HMS Obdurate on Murmansk Run

Not-so-subtle Red Coat

Waiting for My Real Life

2010-01-12T14:14:00.000-08:00

Colin Hay  For his beautiful song, click here.
   I've been struggling a bit lately with the overall theme of my novel. Yesterday, during the final moments of Yoga, our teacher read a piece of wisdom from her favourite philosophy book about waiting for one's life to begin, and a tiny light went on in the back of my mind. The author discovered that while waiting for it to begin, he was missing what his life already was.
   I think most people walk through their lives peering into the future, looking for the elusive light at the end of the tunnel. Waiting for their ship to come in to take them where they were meant to be. Young people, especially, search for answers to who they are and what they should become. Then they worry: what if I don't know what I want, or choose the wrong thing.
   Some people in my life, with much deeper religious convictions than mine, pray for things to happen, doors to open and directional signs to appear, as though asking for events or situations to unfold is the key to them happening. Others I know, are trying to tighten their grip on the cable of life, hoping they'll be swept along to a better place if they can just hold on long enough. They are the "just make do; things are bound to get better" ones.
   My main character in White Horses on the Bay, is a young man who is born into an isolated world, a place where the land is vast but minds are narrow. He feels pinned down, not valued or really loved. He wonders if this is all his life will be and he yearns for more. Then one day, a stranger comes into his life and suddenly his world is illuminated. Nothing around him has really changed, it's just he can see it all through much clearer eyes.
   Maybe the theme is, our ships are not out on the sea of life drifting toward us, they are within us. Our lives are not necessarily a journey to somewhere they are what they are right here and now, and sometimes its only through someone else that we can see who we truly are or what we were meant to be. It's a Wonderful Life has this theme. Like a eulogy given after someone dies, the impact of their life on others tells a better human story, than a list of things they did.

The quote from Alfred D. Souza.

"For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin-real life.

But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten

through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, or a debt to be paid.

Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life."

January 12 Today's To-Do list
Call my best friend Beth in Moose Jaw and wish her a Happy Birthday! We've been friends since we were 14 years old. I remember the day we met. In the walkway corridor between to streets on our way to school. She was new, and we started to talk. Her Dad was a broadcaster and my Dad was a journalist and they knew each other in Regina. Beth and I were pretty much inseparable from that day on!
Get a few errands done in town and then write until dinner! Draft #2 is at 3471 words. Need 4200 by the end of today.
Phone credit card company to say "if someone is using my card in the middle of January in Russia, yes...it's me".

Jan 11 ToDo List - Tis Done version

2010-01-11T15:57:00.000-08:00

Sheesh....where did the day go? It's 3:24pm already and I'm just getting onto this computer. I'm behind schedule for a few reasons: Yoga, Mom at Drs. Appointment, Dog doodoo incident on carpet, and work. Yes, work. It is surprising, but I do have a bit of a freelance career and sometimes it rears its ugly head and bids me to apply my meager talent to further my meager contribution to the family coffers.
I will be applying an invisible check mark to the following to-do list items as they have already been done.
Yoga (Monday mornings at 9am). I could swear rigor mortis had set into my body overnight as virtually every yoga pose was nearly impossible this morning. My knees are stiff, my shoulders are sore, both arms have tennis elbow, my right hip does not move freely. It feels like a barbie leg with the little plastic socket that has to be lined up perfectly before you can snap it back in place. There's a move in yoga where you are on your hands and knees and you lift your leg out straight to the side perpendicular to your body and raise and lower it slowly (ironically, dog might have been doing exact same thing in upstairs bedroom while I was at yoga). Let's just say me and Barbie have the same hip issues but that's where the similarities end.
Coffee with Beth to catch up - Beth's been away on family issues for a few weeks and we needed to connect. Had a lovely 40 minute chat at the local coffee shop.
Deal with aforementioned carpet item with DooDoo Be Gone - you can't hold the mistake against little Bodger; the rain is torrential today and outdoor bathroom activities are nearly intolerable. C'est la vie.
Doctor Appointment for Mom - took Mom to her monthly check in with her physician. Mom is 87 and one of her complaints is that her right foot (which was broken twice during those 87 years) is not very flexible and she has trouble walking very far. I always have this feeling that the doctor is thinking, "you're 87, how far did you want to go?" Most people that age aren't walking at all! Mom's going to invest in some better shoes when her financial ship comes in next month, she says.
Voice work - for 20 years, I've voiced the interactive voice response system of a large credit union (among other clients). I tell callers to press 1 for this and press 2 for that. It's an ignoble vocation to say the least. In fact, I try not to tell anyone that I do this sort of thing. It's like being a meter maid; not the most cherished of professions. "Really, you're the person I hate listening to?" It's tough to respond to such comments. I had several items to voice for the bank today, and had to tackle them before I could sit down to write.
Write for 2 hours..... if I start right now, I can get 2 hours in before it's time to start dinner!
Learn signs for men's and women's bathrooms in Russia
I have a phobia about entering the wrong bathroom. I can't stand it when restaurants use clever signs for the facilities and you have to decide if the peach is women and the potato is men. At Milestones, the W and M are so stylized, I have to stare for a long time before my mind can reconcile which is which. Below are the Russian words for men and women. If the Russians use kitschy signs, I'm hooped!
люди = men
женщины = women

Found this one on the web.....

All Circuits are Busy at the Moment

2010-01-09T11:25:00.000-08:00

I just picked up the phone to call my sister Jen in Red Deer, dialed the long distance number, and got that ancient recording from the past, "We're sorry, all circuits are busy.....". What tha? I swear it is the exact same male voice from the 1970's, the one you always heard when you tried to call loved ones on Christmas Day. For some reason, it seems impossible. How can there be such things as circuits these days, and why would they be busy? It's Saturday, January 9th. I'm calling Alberta, from B.C.. Did I miss something?
To be honest, I don't really know how telephones work. I sort of let that technology just evolve without ever questioning how it works. Now communication choices are advancing so rapidly, we're figuring out ways to skype ourselves so we can see each other when we call from across the world. There's no chance of jumping on the "how does it work?" bandwagon, cause it's way beyond our grasp now! Is anyone else just flabbergasted at the magic at our fingertips? I'm completely astonished at the way we can flip open a laptop, that's not plugged into anything, contact a loved one thousands of miles away, and see them in real time while we talk about the weather! What will the next 10 years bring?

Back to the "all circuits are busy.." item; I think the land line plugged into the wall outlet that somehow connects to a circuit somewhere, is going to be obsolete very soon.

Jan 8 To Do List - Manage Growth

2010-01-08T11:44:00.000-08:00

Re-pot crowded house plants before they die - I'm setting out this afternoon to purchase some new plant containers and indoor potting soil with the good intentions of repotting some of the overzealous African Violets, ivies, jades and philodendrons spilling out of their current homes. It must be something about the abundance of light in this house that makes them thrive. I once read that one medium sized plant in each room of the house will remove 80% of the pollutants in the air.
While it’s a well known fact that plants convert carbon dioxide into oxygen through photosynthesis, the NASA/ALCA study showed that many houseplants also remove harmful elements such as trichloroethylene, benzene, and formaldehyde from the air. check this out

Whether it's credit card debt, waist circumference, or houseplant growth, it's always good to trim things back a bit at the beginning of a year.

Write for 2 hours - I'm on a roll these days, and the 600 word daily goal feels easy enough to achieve. I must get to today's writing very soon as the other To Do list items below will wreak havoc on my schedule.

Pick up a few copies of February Issue of Canadian Living - I submitted a photo and a little story about Mom's walking group and their Olympic odyssey. It's on page 19 of the issue.

Pick up Mom and take her to pub for our Friday afternoon ritual - for the last few years, Mom and I have done this almost every Friday. We go to the pub, I order a Stella Artois and an extra glass and I pour 1/3 of my beer into her glass. We sit and gossip about everyone and everything and then I stop into the butcher beside the pub, pick up two steaks for Brad and I and then take Mom home. Every Friday Mom says the same thing, "Well, I'm so glad they're doing such a good business in here." Then she tells me about my grandfather who worked 6 1/2 days a week as a crane operator at Bowater's Pulp and Paper Mill in Corner Brook, Newfoundland. On Friday's he'd get his pay, which more often than not, was just a couple of coins. The mill owned the town and everything in it, so your rent, groceries, drygoods and medicines would be deducted from your pay. Whatever was left over was yours to put away. Grandfather Scott would take his meager extra coins and head to the pub on Friday after work to have a few beers with the boys. Then he'd stagger home and face the wrath of our grandmother at the back door steps. One time, Mom tells me, Grandfather Scott was so leery of her scolding, that he stood outside and watered the garden for hours until it and his wife softened up.

Plan outfit for Christmas Party - tomorrow night is Brad's annual party for the staff. They always have their parties after Christmas to take advantage of better venue choices, cheaper rates, and less stress for everyone. It's pretty smart. It also gives the staff a little post holiday boost of spirit when the January doldrums are about to set in. I used to care deeply what my outfit would be, but as I slip into the twilight of my 40's, I've become completely blasé about such things. Also, my eyesight is going south. Oddly, I've often found myself on many occasions, staring at a bed strewn with wardrobe odds and sods, trying to desperately pull something out of hat and constantly questioning, "is this blue or black?"

Random Phillips Gallery photo - All Around the Circle Dinner Theatre - Cow Head, Newfoundland

photo credit: Brad Phillips

Jan 7 To Do List - A continuation of Jan 6

2010-01-07T10:13:00.000-08:00

Finish (or actually start) items from yesterday's to do list - It's amazing how fragmented my mind is these days. I'm thinking it's a peri-menopause thing or maybe pseudo-senility, or something like that. I know how to start doing a thousand things in one day, I just can't finish any of them. I mentioned this to my comrade, Vicki yesterday during a 1 hour chat on the phone. She said the same thing is happening to her. Her remedy is to take a nap. This seems like a brilliant idea. But I'm afraid of getting bedsores. Then we talked about the looming baby boom bubble of like minded (or like-absentminded) people hitting their 50's and 60's and how this might affect the whole world. I said, "I can just see a few years from now, a couple of enemies meeting up in the desert of some middle eastern land, and both of them standing there facing each other with blank looks wondering what the hell they came there for?" The more muddled the world's majority of people become, the better off we all might be. Maybe not financially, or scientifically, but for sure in the way we treat each other. Sooner or later, the number of people who don't really care if their TV is HD will outnumber the ones trying to invent Ipods that work on Mars. I just lost my train of thought.
Send congratulations note to Ryan Reynolds' Dad - This is kind of strange, but Mom's new retirement living arrangement, means she's rubbing shoulders with lots of very interesting retirees, including a famous actor's dad. It's the funniest thing to see all the 85 year old ladies buzzing with schoolgirl giggles about Ryan Reynolds' latest activities. "Oh, have you seen his beautiful wife?", "Wasn't The Proposal just wonderful?", "He's so cute!". They whisper in the foyer about Ryan's escapades like they're talking about Peter Lawford or Clark Gable. Ryan's Dad is a pretty big deal around the resort retirement-ship. He's also very nice. He is half the age of most everyone in the place. He lives there because of health reasons.
Pick up Christmas Gift package from Greyhound Parcel Depot - my sister Jen, bless her heart, sent gifts for us days before Christmas and unfortunately, put the wrong telephone number on the package. The parcel has languished on a greasy shelf in the back of the depot on King George Highway for probably two weeks now. Like Jen, it probably doesn't mind the Greyhound culture. She loves to travel on those busses; the scenery, the new interesting people from all walks of life to strike up conversations with, the gentle rumble of the road as it winds through the landscape of Canada, the nostalgia of familiar bus stop diners and depots. The slow and easy transition from one place to the next. That box has probably had a similar experience, sitting there on that shelf; a new shelf-mate every day or two, parcels from another part of the country sharing space, facing forward in the storage room. When I bring the parcel home and open it up, it will be like I've picked up Jen herself and brought her into my world for a little visit. I love those visits!
Check on Mom's condo in Ocean Park - every two days or so, I drive to Mom's old condo and check on it for insurance purposes. The closing date is Feb 2, so until it passes into the new owner's hands, Mom is responsible for it. It's so strange to walk into that familiar building, first unlocking the fidgety front glass doors, and then checking her little mail box, the one with the plastic strip with J.Roe C.M. punched into it in white raised letters. Then I take the elevator up to the 2nd floor, walk through the oddly yellow glow of the corridor down to her place on the left. I take the key with the Canadian maple leaves stamped on it for easy identification, unlock her door and step inside to an empty place. No smell of oranges right at the entrance like there always was when she lived there. No furniture, photos, elephants, or calendars with hand written notes squeezed into every little box. No loud TV or clicking of knitting needles in the distance. No call out from my Mother, "Hey Dear, is that you?" from the living room couch. I walk through the empty rooms and wonder what I'm looking for; a dripping ceiling, a broken window, a squirrel's nest on the fireplace? It's always the same; quiet, empty, uninhabited. But there's still a feeling that it is Mom's place. When we hand over the keys on February 2nd, the door will shut on Ocean Park Place and that chapter will be finally finished.

Mom's old Condo - Ocean Park

Jan 06 To Do List - Out with the old in with the new

2010-01-06T09:47:00.000-08:00

Start new file folders for 2010 - Like an ocean tide, this yearly task sweeps away the flotsam and jetsam of 12 months of receipts in the overstuffed file drawer and leaves a fresh clean and untouched row of new file folders. It even feels good to write the numbers 2010 in black sharpie marker on the little tab in the right hand corner. Amidst the glee of purging the last year's papers, one must be prepared for the rogue wave of the income tax file. There is risk of drowning in details in that one file.
Walk in the sunshine to the car dealership to pick up Hybrid - a cooling pump device was apparently malfunctioning and the repair shop had to order a new one from Edmonton of all places. I guess if you need something cooled in this country, Edmonton in January is your best source. It is a lovely 30 minute walk to the shop so this will count as today's aerobic activity. Yesterday's exercise came in the form of screaming at the TV during the last 2 minutes of the Canada/USA junior hockey championships.
Pick up Mom at 1pm, drive to Sears at Willowbrook to buy new pants - Mom got a VISA card from her brother for Christmas and she's determined to use it to buy some new pants. Sears is the best store ever for pants for Mom. Racks and racks of pleasant and comfortable pants, generally priced below $30.00 a pair and often further discounted at the check out because it's some kind of sale DAY. It's such a satisfying shopping experience. Sadly, the pants are so durable, we only do this once every couple of years. She'll insist the old pants go to the thrift store where I'm sure they get put on the hot sales rack and are scooped up in an instant. Meanwhile in my closet there are $200.00 pants that were not on sale, that never really fit me well, are too "unique" to actually go with anything and have been draped over a pants hanger for so long they now have a permanent chalky crease in the knee. Watch for closet purge in an upcoming episode of Char's to do list.
Write for 2 hours second draft word count is now 1446. I am aiming for 85,000. I have 140 days of writing scheduled between now and July 15th, 2010 to complete the draft. I need to accomplish 607 words a day. I'm right on track.
Consult Epicurious.com for vegetarian dish - Jessica is home for dinner tonight. Must look for fabulous meal to make. Will need to shop for ingredients as well.
There's no hockey on TV tonight. It's a strange feeling. Like when the power has been out for hours and you're stuck in limbo. You don't know what to think about, your mind is blank, you can't focus on any particular thought, you just sit on the couch in silence and stare at a black square where hockey used to be. Wait, maybe, just maybe we could watch something else....Isn't Glee on tonight?

Random photo from Phillips Gallery - Bodger at low tide

Jan 05 To Do List - Cabin Fever setting in

2010-01-05T10:15:00.000-08:00

Not that I live in a cabin, but I do feel a little anchored to the homesite right now because the Hybrid is in for repairs and I've no environmentally friendly way of getting anywhere, except maybe for walking......
Anyways, here is today's list:
Arrange wine bottles and other returnables in garage to give to Jacques, the old French guy who comes around our neighbourhood on recycling day and takes cans and bottles out of the bins. He's retired from mining in northern Quebec and now lives in a trailer park in South Surrey. Augments his pension with bottle refunds. (ironically, we're drinking away our retirement fund! C'est la vie!)
Write for 2 hours - yesterday's initial attempt at this daily item was a bit of a struggle. Awkward re-writing resulted in near wrong turn down completely different literary path. This is a hazard of the second draft....second guessing your original plan. Must stay on track and honour my original instincts while shining the words into brilliant gems. (See that last sentence really rocked, right?)
Paint for 1 hour this afternoon. Tragically, it takes about 1 hour just to set up the painting area. Should consider repurposing the spare bedroom as light-filled art loft. Like the book club shortcomings of 2009, I have approximately 12 paintings in their half finished state lurking around the house. Good intentions don't always result in finished works.

Practice Russian phrases - Although most Muscovites speak English to some degree, it can't hurt to learn a few important words like "help" and "sorry" and "can I have my passport back?" I just discovered yesterday, by the way, that Marc Chagall was Russian! My entire life I thought he was French. He left Russia and eventually died in St. Paul de Vence in southern France (a place we visited on our Europe trip). Apparently, much of his work hangs in the National Art Gallery of Russia. Must make point of seeing the Chagalls!

Order Pizza for Hockey extravaganza - for the last few weeks, we've been hooked into hockey like it's some kind of IV drip we need to sustain life. Well, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration. But between the World Juniors and the Canucks, it's been a &^%#load of hockey. Thankfully, the World Juniors end tonight. Hopefully the Canadians will win, although I think America could use a little good news these days.....

random photo from Phillips Gallery - Char in St. Peter's Cemetery Twillingate Nfld.

The 2010 Daily TO-DO List

2010-01-04T13:08:00.000-08:00

As today is the beginning of the week, I have decided to make it the official start of the New Year. I have pledged to start every day of the next 365 with The 2010 Daily TO-DO List. It's already 12:44pm and I've just gotten around to the first task which is to write the daily list. So we're off to a bit of a bad start. However, I have managed to accomplish a few things already and will be able to flick them off the list with a cheerful check mark right away.
Jan. 04 List #1
Yoga. (item occurs every Monday at 9am)
Clean bathrooms (utter opposite of blissful yoga)
Call Russian Airlines and choose seats for flight (hopefully get English speaking agent if not, consult travel booklet for common phrases)
Write for 2 hours - second draft work on novel (this is a biggy, try to coax literary gems out of blithering bog of initial draft, refer to bathroom cleaning activities above)
Take pants in for hemming
Run on treadmill so hopefully can take pants in at waist someday
Take Wiener Dog for walk between downpours (think of downward dog from earlier yoga)
Make extraordinary dinner for loving husband so as to distract him from my deteriorating physical appearance re: turning 50 this year (perhaps not as gracefully as Meryl Streep or Michelle Pfeiffer did)
Read Thirteenth Tale January's book club choice. Must try to read each book in the monthly selection in the month it is assigned so as not to end 2010 with 12 half finished books.

That's it. Today's To-Do list has been written. Now, the bathrooms aren't gonna clean themselves so off I go.

Random photo from Phillips Gallery - Salt Spring Pond

Just a White Cadillac?

2009-12-30T11:02:00.000-08:00

A strange car has been parked outside our house in one of the only free spaces available on the street, since December 24th. At first I thought it was someone being responsible after too many Christmas Eve drinks, opting for a taxi home with intentions of retrieving their vehicle as soon as they could. No one showed up. Then on December 27th, a couple of well dressed young guys, maybe 18 or 19 years old, appeared at the edge of the vehicle just as we were about to leave for a day in town. The taller of the two, caught my eye and he said, "Sorry about the car...the battery is dead and we will deal with it as soon as we can." Then he retrieved the new driver sign from the back window of the Cadillac and the two of them left in another car.

It seemed reasonable. Our guest's car also had a dead battery and with the cold weather and lack of movement, a dead battery was quite possible. So we accepted the explanation and the inconvenience of the parked car continued on. Day number 6, I started to wonder. What if it is a stolen vehicle? Were we too quick to accept the young guy's word? My mind started to travel down CSI paths and all kinds of scenarios popped up. It's a white Cadillac. The kind rich farmers drove in Saskatchewan in the 1980's. The kind with the signal light that never gets turned off. The kind of vehicle you just don't see any more. We used to call them land yachts. The only time you see one of these cars is at the airport and it usually has a guy in a bad suit standing beside the open door waiting for fares.

Why would two young rather hip looking guys be driving this vehicle? On Christmas Eve?

There have been times lately, when we have wondered about our lazy approach to questionable activities. Like last month, in the middle of the night, the dog was growling as though there were raccoons tiptoeing outside and he was well aware of them. We must have said, "Shut Up Bodger," several times before I finally got out of bed and peered out the blinds to the street below. A man was fidgeting with the passenger door lock of an unfamiliar SUV parked right in front of our house. "There's a guy having trouble getting his vehicle open," I sleepily said to my husband. I tried to go back to sleep. Bodger growled again. I got up again and looked outside. The guy was now trying to change the license plate on the SUV. "What on earth is that guy doing that for in the middle of the night?" I groggily mumbled. "Idiot," I added. Bodger growled. "Oh for the Love of God, ssshhh!" I said as I crawled back under the covers. "What's going on?" Brad asked. "Oh, somebody's out there fooling around with their truck." "Oh," he mumbled. This annoyance went on for about half an hour as we grumbled and scolded the dog and tried to return to sleep. Then Brad said, "wait...what if he's stealing that vehicle?" We both got up and watched as the guy finally succeeded in getting the vehicle started and pulled a u-turn on the street and slowly disappeared from sight. "Good God! We just witnessed a car theft. Call the police." "But what will we say?" "We'll tell them...wait, what colour was that vehicle? Was it an SUV or a Van? What did he look like? Are you sure it was a guy?" We contemplated how lame our phone call would sound and wondered if it was too late anyway to even say anything. How could we call the police and say, "So hey, for the last half hour or so, we watched a guy steal a vehicle from in front of our house." I felt enough guilt over our inaction that I walked into the police station the next day (after I'd spent most of the day doing errands and arguing with myself about what to do), and sheepishly told the desk guy what happened. He seemed non-plussed. Not much can be done about it now, lady, was his tone of voice. So I left feeling somewhat vindicated for my civic duty (however delayed) and thought nothing more of it. Until today. When I opened the blinds and saw that white Cadillac still parked there in the misty rain possibly containing a dead body in the trunk or a grow op in the back seat (it's a big car). So I called the police. I gave them the license plate number and they quickly ran it through their data base and sure enough, the vehicle is not listed as stolen. The boy's story is true. The battery probably is dead and they most likely borrowed the vehicle from one of their grandmother's who is a retiree from Saskatchewan living in Kelowna.

Case closed. There's a fine line between being a good citizen and being Mrs. Kravitz.

All I Want for Christmas....

2009-12-23T15:18:00.000-08:00

All I want for Christmas is my drain unclogged! The twisted lyrics swirled around in my head yesterday afternoon as I watched a plumber try to get my kitchen sink to drain. I turned up the Christmas music I had been wrapping presents to earlier, to drown out the hideous plumbing sounds and wished and prayed for the drain to unclog. Daniel, he had mentioned his name with an awkward handshake when he arrived, tossed his head back after an hour, lunged again with the drain snake and desperately tried to solve my sink problem while I milled about restlessly wondering how much plumbers make these days.

“We’re gonna have to call in a bigger company on this one ma’am. They’re good. We always call them on the jobs we can’t handle ourselves. They’ve got a way bigger snake.” I contemplated the thought of just moving to a different house. “You didn’t put any onion peels or potato scrapings down that garburator did you?” he asked wiping his hands on my Christmassy kitchen towel.

Well of course I did. Isn’t that what they’re for? Six years ago, I replaced the wimpy garburator the builder had installed with a super duper garburator and had tossed everything but the kitchen sink into it willy nilly and never thought anything of it. Teabags, eggshells, lemon rinds, broccoli trunks…you name it, I garburated it. And until this day, I had assumed everything tossed down there had sailed off to Neverland, supposedly in a ground up soupy organic state. For six years I was blissfully unaware of the juggernaut of goop I was creating just over 25 feet away.

Plumbing company #2 pulled up in front of my house with a trailer hitched to the truck. I wondered what the neighbours would think. Joe, his name turned out to be, shook Daniel’s hand as he left like they were passing the baton, and then Joe lugged in a giant shop vac thing and a huge rusty metal garden hose caddy wound with an even rustier looking giant drain snake. The contraption looked like it belonged somewhere in the very back of an iron salvaging yard where the machines reverting back to their base metals poke up out of the earth.

Joe spent the next three hours running the giant drain snake making roughly the same sound as a Siberian steam train applying its breaks as it comes into the station on frozen tracks. He fed the snake into the twists and turns of miles of drainpipes for so long I imagined the end of it coming up in my neighbour’s sink. Every once in a while, Joe would turn off the snake, run the water in my sink and watch as it almost drained but then bubbled up in failure. Every bubbling sound was accompanied with a curse and a huff and then the snake sound again – and the clock ticking.

By dinnertime, Joe had called in his boss who I assumed must be the world champion of plumbers, a legend in drain unclogging. If plumbers number 1 and 2 could not get the job done, this guy was the closer, or rather the opener to call. Oddly, he was also named Joe. Joe got down on the floor, dismantled the lazy susan in the cupboard beside the sink, fed that snake down that pipe like there was no tomorrow. The machine ground around down there in that mysterious world as both Joes worked in unison to snake, fill, drain, and plunge. It was like watching Dr. House solve a 1 in a million medical problem, saving a patient who’d already died twice.

One hour into the Joe and Joe expedition, and the summit, or depths, had been reached. The blob of onion skins, apple cores, tea bags and such had finally been discovered and obliterated like it was the Osama Bin Laden of clogs. Halleluia!

“I wish the Canucks had as much determination to get the job done as you guys did today,” I sheepishly said, eager to find some common ground and also congratulate them on their win.

“Don’t really follow hockey; it’s too depressing, ” Joe, the world’s greatest plumber replied. And with that he slapped his hands together and abruptly left.

The original Joe dragged all the dripping gear across the hardwoods and out the door and then returned with his shiny metal invoice clipboard thing. Five hours of plumbing equalls $600.00 plus tax literally right down the drain. Today, although I shouldn’t complain, there is a sort of brown soot on every surface in the house, metal shavings of some kind I can only hope are not contaminated. Just to be safe, I threw out the last of the chocolate covered almonds from the dish on the counter. To be doubly safe, I put them straight into the garbage can, not down the garburator. So a word of caution to anyone who thinks a garburator is some kind of transfer station. As Daniel and then Joe the Plumbers said more than once yesterday, “don’t put anything at all in that thing.” Good to know. All I want for Christmas now is a composting bin.

A Tale of Two Cookies

2009-12-15T09:44:00.000-08:00

"Did you make shortbread cookies with your mom?" I asked. Of course I already knew the answer.

"My mom made the best shortbread cookies of all, and she also made two cakes at Christmas; a white cake and a cherry cake," Mom answered as she placed another piece of maraschino cherry in the centre of a cookie. It was batch #2 of shortbread, on the way to 8 dozen in the past week. I'm aware of the gift of spending time with my mother doing traditional things like Christmas baking and I cherish these moments with my whole heart.

I remember making cookies with Mom when I was a child. The various kitchens we had in all the houses we lived in produced pretty much the exact same cookies every year. The round shortbread with the little piece of cherry in the centre. I've been thinking about how simple this cookie is and yet how rich it can be not only in taste but in memories shared. I remember beating the sugar and butter together in the plastic green bowls of my childhood, the way we'd roll the balls and flatten them and then poke the cherry in the centre. We'd bake them on old cookie sheets in old ovens, one sheet at a time. We'd cool them on little wire racks on the sparse counters of our humble kitchens. We packaged them in wax paper layers in cookie tins. We ate them together on Christmas Eve and left a few for Santa on the table by the tree. Now, 30 years later in my life, the kitchen is much bigger, there's a granite island to mix the batter and roll out the dough. There's a convection oven and non-stick pans where three racks of cookies bake in perfect air circulated temperature. In the family history of shortbread baking, the appliances and bakeware have changed but the ingredients and the cookies remain the same.

I will bake cookies with my Mom as long as our lives allow, and I will bake cookies with my children and tell them all about the days I spent sharing the sweetest of moments with their grandmother.

Climate Change...More Likely or Less Likely

2009-12-07T16:42:00.000-08:00

A couple of years ago, I was a juror in a court case. It was taking place at the same courthouse as the Pickton Trial. The Pickton verdict was in fact, handed down during the time I spent at the Supreme Court House in New Westminster. There were national news media tents lining the concourse of the building almost the entire time I attended my case which lasted 3 weeks. It was a fascinating experience for me and at the same time, extremely unsettling to be in the same building as the serial killer and probably within a few feet of him on occasion. And there were the families of the victims who I encountered daily during our breaks. This was the heartbreaking part, the human face of all the technical and legal proceedings.

I learned something about our justice system that I did not previously even consider. In a civil case, you do not have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, the guilt of the defendant. You only have to consider if it is more likely or less likely that the plaintiff is deserving of the positive outcome they are looking for. In a criminal trial, such as the Pickton case, the accused has to be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

The scales of justice are actually a set of scales. And very sensitive scales at that. They can be tipped by even a feather's weight. In our trial, although we felt compassion for the person in the court proceedings, we felt it was more likely her situation was caused by something other than the accident she had been in and we could not award her the millions of dollars she sought in damages. What was most interesting was that both sides of the trial, the defense and the prosecution paraded an equal number of experts of the Harvard, Oxford and MIT worlds. Each witness had to be accepted as an expert by the judge before their opinion could be considered. The thing is, that every time I thought the witness couldn't possibly be more definitive in their opinion, another opposing side witness would completely refute the science of their colleague. Neurosurgeons, Neuroradiologists, highly specialized medical experts refuted each other's opinions like they were discussing the merits of different hockey teams. 'That's not a severed axon....that's a bit of computer screen noise!' they'd say. The point is, we the jury, simple laypeople when it came to brain injuries, had to decide if it was more likely or less likely based on the evidence, however disputed it was, that the accident in question caused the person's considerable troubles.

Is the activity of human beings on this planet causing the climate to change at a rapid and dangerous pace? If there are scientists on both sides of the issue claiming scientific proof for and against this theory than who are we to believe? If we believe climate change and global warming are a result of fossil fuel burning, deforestation, and human destruction of the earth's environment, then we must continue to do something about our impact on this planet. We must discover and develop renewable clean energy, reforest the landscape, and clean up our environment. If we don't believe this, should we just continue on the path of cutting down the rain forest, polluting the atmosphere, destroying the watersheds, ravaging the seas, disrupting the flow of rivers and all the other things humans have been doing with out much care for the future? How can anyone think that human behavior is just fine the way it is? How can there not be an impact of billions of gas consuming vehicles spewing pollution into the atmosphere?

If I smoke cigarettes for decades....I will get cancer. Is the cancer something I would have gotten if I didn't smoke?....maybe, but I'm reducing my chances of getting cancer at all if I don't smoke. If humans go about their lives throwing everything they consume into higher and higher piles of garbage, will the garbage eventually take up the land? Of course it will. Therefore we have decided that reduce, re-use and recycle is a good idea. It doesn't take a world renowned scientist to tell you that taking care of your environment has benefits. There is no disputing the fact that wasting resources, fouling our lands and waters, and polluting the atmosphere will have a negative effect on our life on this planet. How fast the destruction happens doesn't really matter. Does it?

Falling From Grace

2009-12-02T21:24:00.000-08:00

It's devastating. The Tiger Woods debacle. Why do we place our "icons", our "heroes" on such pedestals and then leave ourselves so vulnerable to their shortcomings? Who has let us down? We have placed our hopes and dreams and ideas of what constitutes decency on the shoulders of our athletes, entertainers, political leaders and celebrities. Then they show their human side and we're left with our jaws dropping and our hearts broken. And we ask why? Why on earth would a guy with a beautiful wife, two sweet and healthy children, a ton of money to not only live on, but live lavishly on, a talent that is unsurpassed, an adoring audience, and a pedestal to do good from, throw it all away on what seems like a string of cheap and tawdry rendezvous with a bevy of barmaids? Why on earth?

I think of the golf magazine ads that talk about the "lessons in life" to be learned in the game of golf. Patience. Fairness. Honesty. Tolerance. Confidence. Even Tiger's own foundation, the one he created and leads and promotes, tries to use the game of golf to inspire young people to achieve their potential and strive for success. Why on earth would this guy cheat on his wife, defile his family and disappoint his fans and followers this way? It's heartbreaking on so many levels.

My Mom would often come for dinner on Sundays and we'd watch the PGA tournaments on TV as the meal cooked. She'd always ask, "Is Tiger playing?" And inevitably he always was. She'd mention "He has two children now", like she was keeping track of his lovely life. We'd watch and cheer for him and also for Mike Weir, if he was in the mix. Tiger Woods was as fun to watch as Wayne Gretzky, or any Canadian curling activity or a CFL game. Tiger drew fans from every gender, age group and interest. He was not only a golfer, he was a world-wide phenomenon.

Today, in the mall on our way to buying a few pairs of Olympic mitts at Zellers to give as Christmas gifts, we walked by the jewellery and noticed the Tag Heuer Watch poster was not the Tiger Woods one. Had he been dropped already? What's going to happen? Will Nike drop him? Gillette? Will he have to retreat and hide and not golf all of next year? What of his Foundation? How can he be a shining example to children when he has let his own children down?

If it was a Prince Charles thing, where he clearly loved Camilla right from the beginning and felt obligated to marry Diana to live the false royal life he was born into, I could almost forgive him. But to have a "bunch" of skanky bar hostesses, a trail of seedy text messages and voice mails, and who knows how many other trysts on his score card, is just inconceivable. Why, why, why?

My husband said it is as unsettling as the death of Michael Jackson. We just don't anticipate these things and we are thrown into chaos by them. I remember when we cheered on Ben Johnson and were so thrilled when he won gold. Then how devastated we felt as he fell from grace. What is this grace they achieved and then fell from? Grace in this context is "the condition or fact of being favoured by someone". We used to favour Tiger Woods, not because he was a great golfer, but because he was, or seemed to be a great guy. Now, I'm not so sure.

By the way, the definition of the phrase Have a Tiger by the Tail: to have embarked on a course of action that proves unexpectedly difficult but that cannot easily or safely be abandoned. Hmm. Try chipping your way out of this one, Tiger.

What if?

2009-11-30T10:53:00.000-08:00

I've never seen so much rain! I know I've said that before in my years living in B.C., but today driving down Hwy 99, as the sky literally fell on the road in buckets of rain, I was astonished and petrified at the same time. The highway itself, seemed to be under 2 inches of water. The spray coming off the big double hitched dump trucks was like going through a car wash. What if the rain never stopped? What if from this point forward, there was nothing but rain? As I finally left the freeway and turned down the suburban streets of my neighbourhood I passed a garbage truck with the garbage lady hanging off the back wearing a yellow slicker rain suit. I thought to myself, now there's a job that is probably miserable at the best of times but right now, in this rain, it must feel like hell on earth. What if that was my life?

It reminded me of an article I read in the Globe and Mail: "In Search of the Skateboarding Duck ". The article was written by Liz Jensen, a former news reporter who has moved on to fiction. She talked about writing on variations from the norm, taking a "what if" approach to writing. Stephen King talks of the same process. What if....an entire town becomes cut off from the planet by an invisible dome. What would happen? This is the premise of his new novel, a 1000 page tome called Under the Dome . It's an amazing way to get the creative juices working, and in Stephen's case, he has used this idea of "what if" in all of his 38 novels.

At my last SFU novel writing class, we talked about problems in our projects, how to make our writing better, how to tie up loose and scattered themes and thoughts. It occurred to me that during the process of writing my second draft, I should take the "what if" approach to my characters and scenes and make this a way to polish them and coax out the literary gems. Liz Jensen's idea of opening doors and peeking inside to find the unexpected possibilities for the story, is really a brilliant image to work with. It made me realize that the reader would probably much prefer to read the unexpected rather than the completely predictable.

I'm always imagining characters that would be interesting to write. Not for the current novel I'm working on, but for short stories or essays I have up my sleeve. The character of a garbage truck worker, enduring the torrential rain, literally hanging off the edge of a comfortable life, strikes me as something interesting to ponder. What if she fell, and I was the one to stop and help and somehow our lives were suddenly switched? What would Stephen write?

In the meantime, my second draft of White Horses on the Bay is under way. I have given myself 30 weeks to complete it. The project should be done by July 15th at 5pm. Stand By.

Guest Entry by B. Phillips

2009-11-24T10:08:00.001-08:00

A Mini Winter Vacation on The West Coast - February 2009

By B. Phillips

The road to Tofino is winding and a little scary at the best of times. This winter, after a stretch of record setting snowfalls and unpredictable bouts of fog, we found the drive to be downright nerve wracking. But like many things in life, the harder the effort, the bigger the payoff. On our first storm season excursion to Pacific Rim Park, I jostled around in the back seat, occasionally perching myself on the door ledge and tried to watch the scenery go by as best I could, but with this longer than normal nose of mine, it can be difficult to turn my head quickly without washing the window with the end of my schnoz. I felt a little nauseous at times, too, as we made our way up and over the mountain pass just west of Port Alberni. I held on, though, and not a single kibble escaped. My people kept the mood light with cool jazz selections on their iPod, and a down filled duvet in the back seat provided some extra comfort to snuggle up in when needed. When the road got particularly hairy, I tunneled into that bedding and kept a pretty low profile, an easy thing for me as I’m Bodger, the Mini Dachshund.

It takes about two hours and thirty-eight minutes to drive from Nanaimo to Tofino according to MapQuest, that thing the humans love to consult. I heard one of them mention the travel distance and the drive time estimate which to a dog, is like speaking Greek. I slept a good part of the way so the journey whizzed by like a Frisbee in the park and once we hit the coast, the winding road became a straight one as we turned north toward our destination. It was easier to keep a steady perch without the lurching curves of Highway 4 so I sat up and caught sunny glimpses of the ocean cascading through the trees as we made our way to our first stop; the biggest digging site I’ve ever seen.

Long Beach has the best sand ever, perfectly scented with decaying kelp and just the right hint of sea salt. I got started right away on a rather extensive minefield of little holes. My master set up the tripod and began documenting my activities like he has for the past eight years. He’s my official biographer and my personal valet. I must say, he takes quite good care of my needs and in fact, spoils me not just a little with things like this impromptu beach activity before we check into our accommodations for the next few days.

I dug several holes in the soft flat surface, each about 6 inches deep, until my snout filled with sand necessitating a sneeze and a re-boot shake. Then I headed over to the next perfect spot. Every once in a while, I’d glance at the shimmering ocean about 50 meters away from us, glistening silver in the late afternoon sun. Those incredibly inviting waves that I normally love to chase and bite were off limits this time. At eight to ten feet in height, they were a titch out of my league. My master had me on the leash so I wasn’t able to beeline it for the lapping edge of the Pacific and take a big bite out of the surf. Perhaps he was worried the tide might pull me out or maybe a rogue wave would drown me. Being a Mini Dachshund has its obvious height challenges, which are usually balanced by unrivaled cuteness. But there are certain hazards associated with my minimal stature that we must be mindful of. A wave that would simply crash into the legs of a Rottweiler, could send me out to sea with no return ticket.

After an admittedly indulgent amount of time afforded to me for this careful site preparation, my people decided it was time for cocktail hour and so we headed back to the vehicle parked in the lot right beside the National Parks information display board. My mistress read something aloud about recent cougar sightings and wolf activity. This kind of information is good to know before you go! I’m sure we all made a mental note to keep our eyes open for predators, as well as to read instructions first next time. I’m just the kind of late afternoon snack those guys up the food chain from me would love to enjoy.

We pulled into the parking lot of The Wickanninish Inn and my mistress whisked me into the reception foyer in her arms. I could have walked in un-assisted, but I guess she wasn’t sure how I’d react to all that wood furniture just begging for my signature. I mean really, if you make your furniture out of trees, you’re pretty much giving dogs an engraved invitation. My name was on the registration form right after theirs. Bodger Phillips – small dog. I thought this was very welcoming of them. I sensed right away that I was in for a delightful dose of pooch pampering. Weiner wooing, as I like to call it. My mistress likes to hold me a certain way so that onlookers get the full on Bodger Face, and complete strangers just melt in front of me; my square ears and black and tan complexion just irresistible. The staff behind the impressive Wickanninish Inn reception desk was all a-google right from the start.

After signing all the documents involved and promising to be good re: previously mentioned furniture remark, we headed up to our third floor suite in one of those little windowless rooms with the buttons that light up and the floor that feels a bit like quicksand underfoot. The thing has huge doors that open oddly, disappearing into the wall. It really freaks me out when by some kind of Stargate thing, we end up in a completely different place. I’ll never figure that one out. Anyway, after a long walk down a narrow hallway, we find Suite 302.

Inside it’s nothing short of heaven. There on the floor over by the fireplace in front of the ceiling to floor windows over looking the raw Pacific Ocean and the rocky cliffs below, is a lovely dog bed. Beside that is a basket with dark blue towels, two gaily-painted ceramic dog bowls, two large dog bones, and a recent issue of Modern Dog magazine. AND there’s one of those tennis ball launchers with a brand new tennis ball in it! Yahoo. This is going to be sweet!

To say our stay at The Wickanninish Inn was heavenly would be an understatement. The peaceful sound of ocean waves rolling up against the rocks below had me lulled into a delicious trance. The fireplace kept me toasty warm, the humans seemed incredibly happy, and the atmosphere was about as good as it gets. I could even watch a pair of bald eagles, perched at the top of a bare pine tree across from our windows without even the slightest fear of being in their sights.

Two days of roaming the delicious smelling sandy shores of Chesterman Beach was more than a huge payoff for the unnerving car ride across Vancouver Island. It was just like me, short but amazingly delightful. I’d do it again in a mini-heartbeat.

The author is an eight-year-old Black and Tan Mini Dachshund with unusual typing skills. He created this on a mac.

Gauntlet Poem

2009-11-22T20:10:00.000-08:00

Rainy months of a west coast winter

last night the winds were blowing

whatever the reason

there are a million little things

I can't help but imagine

as close to paradise

the earth beneath our feet

how quiet and unhurried

Beyond your reach, it feels good

the angle of light on the last days

and you wonder if all

the world is my oyster

wouldn't it seem strange

just for one night

breathing in the beauty of it all

I'd put my arms under hers and lift her up

Holding up Against the Wind

2009-11-19T09:43:00.000-08:00

Last night, the winds were blowing through our neighbourhood with 90km/hr gusts roaring down our street like freight trains every few minutes. The windows rattled and I wondered why they didn't just shatter from the vibrations. This was the third night of high winds, and each morning after the streets are strewn with flotsam and jetsam dislodged from garbage cans and recycling bins. There are branches and bits of shrub scattered across the yards. Christmas lights hang from branches like green ropes of taffy, no longer artfully wound around the trees. And yet through it all, the pair of eagles perch in their barren cottonwood lofts, with their nest seemingly unscathed by the gales. How is it possible? That nest, is renovated each year with twigs and whatever else goes into it, by the industrious couple, and perhaps it is reinforced by its own weight, but how is it not affected by the 90km/hr winds? Even the smaller nests built by the little birds, seem to stay up in the trees through the storms. There must be something in the common architecture of nests that allows them to withstand the forces of nature. It's really astounding to think of birds "thinking" about the way a nest needs to be built. Do the parents "talk" to their babies and say, "Listen kid, see how the twigs are intertwined here? That's not just random, there's a building code you need to adhere to." I think I'll check out that eagle webcam again and just have another look at an eagle nest up close.

11 is Way too Many

2009-11-18T16:18:00.000-08:00

Brace yourself; this is a blog you may want to be sitting down on a comfortable couch to read. It's about the couch itself. I'm stuffed to the gunnels with overstuffed couches and it's getting out of hand. Sure, some of them are useful, even attractive, but others have long since outlived their usefulness and are quite frankly, not in the best of shape and need to be off-loaded to someone else. But getting rid of a couch is not an easy task. We now own 11 couches. There is the loveseat and sofa set we bought in 1990, for the first home we owned, which now reside in the basement only to be utilized when Rob is home from university and has a few friends over. That set was savagely shredded by our dearly departed cat and is so heavy and awkward to move that no one would ever want it. Across the room from that set, beyond the ping pong table, is the fold out couch, also shredded by said cat, and in even worse shape and possibly heavier than its basement mates. So that's 3. Up in the spare bedroom there is another fold out couch for extra overnight guests. It's not that bad looking, but virtually never gets used. So that makes 4. In the family room there is the big leather couch, we always sit on, and it is holding up pretty nicely for being eight years old. Count it as number 5. Across the open concept main floor is the living room where the newly acquired Sofa from Bowring now cradles the wiener dog as he sleeps through the day. Its dark brown, lush upholstery and huge over sized design means you have to search to actually see the wiener dog curled up on it. Count 6. Over at the cottage we have the big blue behemoth fold out couch upstairs in the loft which has probably more than a few pee pee mistakes from aforementioned wiener dog. It's #7. Downstairs from that is the cute little miniature sofa for the barbie sized living room. It's #8. I just bought an IKEA fold out couch from the tenant who moved out of our condo last month. It was perfect and she was moving to Africa and didn't need a fold out couch over there....so that's #9. And finally, there's the couch Rob has in his apartment in Victoria which makes #10. Oh, ya, there is the couch taking up my parking spot in the garage right now. It's the one from the picture above. It's 14 years old and both the dog and the dear little cat who now shreds couches in pet heaven, have made considerable marks on it. It's still nice looking, but so far no one wants it. I've sent the photo to several thrift stores and charitable organizations and not a single entity wants the couch. It's not like you can throw it out. Even giving it away is difficult as we don't have a truck to transport it anywhere. #11 needs a new home. Would it seem strange if one day this spring, I have a furniture sale on my driveway? Offer Several well-worn, out of style, used couches for sale "as-is"! Maybe even have a buy one get one free sale?

There used to be a "recycle" weekend in our city. One weekend of the year, you could drag all your unwanted stuff out to the curb and people would troll in their pick up trucks picking up the stuff you set out. They cancelled that weekend because after a week or so, there were so many rain soaked couches floating down the streets, it was an environmental disaster!

First dry weekend that comes up...I'm going to push the couch in my garage out onto the driveway, stick a free sign on it and hope someone takes it away.

It's a Seller's and a Buyer's Market!

2009-11-13T08:57:00.000-08:00

On Monday, November 9th, Mom's condo was officially offered for sale on the real estate market. On Tuesday, the customary realtor's open house was staged and several agents visited the freshly painted, newly carpet cleaned, spotless and empty, charming 2 bedroom condo Mom has called home for 14 years. On Wednesday, presumably right after the Remembrance Day services, a "buyer" came through for a showing at noon. On Thursday morning the buyer made a second visit. Thursday afternoon there was an offer and then a counter and then an accepted contract. $3,000.00 below asking price, no subjects. In the real estate world they call it a clean offer!

I'm astonished! It is a recession, a down market, a tenuous time, and yet, Mom's condo, sold for a very good price in technically 2 days! It is a perfect outcome!

I had dreaded the thought of it lingering on the market during the cold, rainy months of a west coast winter, but to our great relief, the condo is sold! And the new owner is someone just like Mom. A retired lady in her 70's wanting to be closer to her children and grandchildren who live in the area, and wanting to live in the quiet suburb Mom has enjoyed for many years. It made Mom happy to know someone "nice" is taking over the place and will enjoy the neighborhood as she did.

Rob Plays for Prince Charles and Camilla

2009-11-08T09:31:00.000-08:00

Okay, I'm just about bursting with pride! I couldn't wait another minute so I called Rob (our son) at his university digs in Victoria and woke him up to get all the details. Last night, his jazz ensemble played for the private reception for Prince Charles and Camilla at Government House. Rob said it was spectacular! They set up at 7pm, played a set and then were asked to take a short break to come and meet the Prince. The band was introduced to Prince Charles, and the Prince asked Rob what instrument he plays. Rob answered, the drums. Prince Charles said, "I bet your neighbours liked that!". Rob said the Prince was incredibly warm and friendly and funny. It was the highlight of Rob's musical career so far!

No matter what people think of the monarchy, there is something quite thrilling to meet one of the world's most famous people. You don't have to be British to regard the royal family with admiration. I know that when we stood on the grounds of Buckingham Palace and watched the changing of the guard, there were people from every corner of the earth watching the spectacle with us and feeling the power of history and the mystique of that royal world. No one visits England just for the weather. They go there to see the palaces and the Abby, the pomp and pageantry, the monuments to kings and queens.

I remember one night, on a family vacation a few years ago, we were dining at a wonderful restaurant in San Francisco, and Rob was just sixteen and very much into music and we listened to a jazz band as we dined, and Rob said, "Someday, I want to play in a band just like that." And now he is doing exactly what he dreamed of and last night, he played for royalty!

The world needs musicians, writers, artists, dancers and actors.. A world without culture, would be a joyless, dismal place. Even in the poorest of places on this earth, people value and embrace the arts in their lives. If we don't encourage and support those in this world who try to make a living in the music and arts industries, we will lose the things that make life worth living; a beautiful piece of music, an inspiring piece of literature, a moving theatre performance, a memorable work of art.

There have been times when people have said to Rob, "What on earth are you getting a music degree for?...what a waste of time." These kinds of comments come from people who listen to music everyday, who buy tickets to concerts, watch movies with soundtracks, and generally have music in every facet of their lives. Where do they think this music comes from? It comes from people who have a passion in their lives, dreams in their hearts, goals in their future. It comes from people who pursue a path in their lives that may not be the easiest ticket to financial success, but we are all richer for their determination to follow that path despite what others say.

I'm so incredibly proud of my boy and I'm determined to encourage and support him as he pursues his dreams.

H1N1 is the new Susan Boyle

2009-11-03T08:48:00.000-08:00

Is it me or does the world seem as hungry for updates on the Swine Flu pandemic as it was for details on Britain's Got Mediocre Talent, Michael Jackson's death and other international concerns? When people are hungry they'll consume just about anything. On this morning's local TV newscast, a reporter's story was introduced with the hook of "Is there queue jumping by healthy people in the vaccine lines? - our reporter Suzie Fearmonger has the latest...." Of course Suzie couldn't find a single person in the line up who wasn't legitimately there. The queue was allegedly 90 minutes long (I've waited longer in the Drs. office for a sore toe). The anchor implied that the masses are panicking and the darker side of humanity is rearing its ugly head, even though there is no evidence of this. I guess it makes for a compelling reason to stay tuned for more updates. The news of the day has become the panic inducing speculations of the day.

I'm worried a bit about getting the Swine Flu only because I don't have time for it. In fact, I've started thinking about windows of opportunity where if I do get the flu, these "free" days will be more convenient for me than others. I simply can't afford to have the flu this week as I'm co-hosting and MC-ing three charity events on Thursday and Friday. I've got my university novel writing class every other Saturday and there are only two classes left. I've got the David Suzuki Foundation Fundraiser November 19th, so that week is out. I could squeeze in a high fever and some bedridden days around the 30th, but I have to be back in action by the end of that week.

I managed to stave off the virus during my Mom's move into the Resort Retirement Home, which is so much like a cruise ship I was worried about getting The Norwalk Virus during the 300 trips in and out of the building last week. I seem relatively unscathed.

I noticed on Hallowe'en night we had half the usual number of kids at our door. Could this be due to a) half the neighbourhood already laid up with H1N1? b) half the neighbourhood too worried about unsanitary candy wrappers from strange candy bowls perhaps riddled with H1N1? or c) a conscious decision by the parents to fortify their little ones with healthy food like chicken soup and vegetables instead of smarties and gummy bears over the next month or two?

Whatever the reason is, I've got a huge bowl of chocolate bars and gummy bear packets to live on if I get H1N1 and can't get out for groceries.

Thank God for the Olympic Flame torch relay. At least there's something else on the news every once in a while to take the heat off the H1N1 hysteria. I just hope none of the torch bearers come down with the flu, pass out in the snow and douse that flame. I can just hear that News Anchor now, "Are the Olympics themselves a form of Bio Warfare dating back to ancient Greece and its lust for world domination?" Or were those the Romans? I always get those cradle of civilization places mixed up. Doesn't H1N1 sound kind of Greek to you? Hmmmm.

This weekend, I'm going to squelch my fears of pandemic influenza and head out to the theatre to see This Is It...the Michael Jackson movie. I wonder what Susan Boyle is doing?

Pumpkin Debunking

2009-10-22T14:52:00.001-07:00

I don’t mean to sound all anti-pumpkin or anything, or come across as putting the kibosh on the orange squash of folklore and seasonal fame, but with my increasing sensitivity toward the environment and the pursuit of a smaller carbon footprint, I’m questioning the 10 pound pumpkin and wondering if it’s really all that necessary? Think about it. All those orange gourds, basking in the late autumn sun on endless tracts of good useable agricultural land, waiting for a pumpkin picker to hoist them into a truck to travel the highways of our country to the grocery stores in the suburbs, where a stressed out Mom will pay $5.00 to heave one into her cart, haul it home, set it out on the kitchen counter, hack away at the gooey mess for hours with sharp knives and glucky spoons to carve a hideous image into its good side, then set the creation out on the porch for a week or so, light a fire in it on Hallowe’en night, then heave it into the garbage can on November 1st and have another truck carry it to the dump on the next scheduled garbage day. This activity is carried out where Hallowe’en is celebrated in millions of homes across North America every year. Is there any other produce grown, cultivated, used and discarded in this manner on the face of the earth?

Oddly, pumpkins are grown on every continent except Antarctica, where the below 60 degree temperature most of the time makes pumpkin carving even more difficult with shivering hands. There are pumpkins grown in virtually every country on earth, and subsequently, pumpkin-growing contests to celebrate the sheer size the fruit can reach if nurtured with the same amount of care and resources a small village in a developing country could use. There was Steve Ironmonger’s 334 kg pumpkin in New Zealand, Urs Schwelger’s 468 kg giant in Switzerland, and our own Jake Van Kooten's gourd weighing in at 696 kg in Port Alberni, B.C. just last year. It got him a spot on Regis and Kelly and some kind of cash prize, too.

According to the Stats Canada Website, pumpkins are the 7^th most important vegetable in Canada, next to potatoes, sweet corn, peas, beans, tomatoes, and carrots. In 2001, apparently the last time Stats Can checked into pumpkin growing on Canadian farms, pumpkin producers pumped $22 Million dollars into their pockets, which is small potatoes compared to potato producers who unearthed $961 Million dollars for their efforts.

So yes, pumpkins do create wealth for farmers, and employ people who pick, pack, transport and purvey the brightly coloured behemoths, but actually, the vast majority of pumpkins are simply used for decoration and then discarded. 92% of pumpkins grown in Canada (according to Stats Can) are for fresh, take home and disfigure now use, and only 8% end up in pies. In other countries, like India, China, and Australia, pumpkins are used in all kinds of dishes from roasted pumpkin to soups to ravioli. Canadians pretty much just make pie. Sure there are some over achievers like my neighbour who roasts her own pumpkin seeds and calls it a snack, and there are some who have gone to the trouble to make their own pumpkin pie filling, but most of us usually bake with Mrs. Smith’s pumpkin puree or just buy the already made pie at the local bakery, tripping over our porch pumpkin on the way back into our house.

Pumpkins are grown commercially in Canada, for the most part, in B.C., Southern Ontario, and Quebec and grown privately across the country in the backyards of enthusiastic gardeners with a huge water supply and lots of space, i.e.: not downtown Vancouver. It’s not a balcony plant, let’s be honest. The taxonomy name for the pumpkin is cucurbitaceae or cucurbits for short. Pumpkin comes from the Greek word, pepon, which means large melons. The French changed it to pompon, the British changed that to pumpion, just to be difficult, and then the American colonists changed that to pumpkin sometime around the mid 1600’s when they invited some Native Americans they met over for dinner and served up a nice pumpkin pie.

I guess the point is, no matter what you call it, a fruit or a vegetable, pompon or pumpkin, the big 10 pound orange gourd may need to be re-thunk the way single use paper cups and cross country road trips in Hummers have. Can we as a society justify using the amount of water, soil, and fossil fuel necessary to take a pumpkin from seed to porch setting, just for one night of the year?

There were 680,388,555 kilograms (1.5 Billion pounds) of pumpkins grown in United States last year, roughly 10 pumpkins for every individual living in New Hampshire where it is the state fruit. Pumpkins, like other melons, are 90% water. We’re basically taking fresh, potable water, reshaping it into orange pulpy masses, playing with it for awhile, and then dumping it in our landfills without any of it passing through our bodies, except for the 8% that went into the pies we ate and is still stuck around our waists.

I could easily do without a pumpkin this Hallowe’en. I could do without Hallowe’en quite frankly, but that’s another story. This year, when the little goblins and ghosts and kids wearing Canuck jerseys come ringing my door for candies, I’ll have a fake, environmentally friendly pumpkin on the porch and maybe some kind of eerie recorded voice talking about global warming and climate change to really scare the begeebers out of the dear little souls. I can hardly wait to not carve a real pumpkin!

She is Beautiful

2009-10-21T06:49:00.000-07:00

"Every time, I'm meeting beautiful woman, she is leave me!" These were the charming words from Mom's Greek friend, Tony as he hugged her in front of the wall of mail boxes at her condo in Ocean Park. Yesterday, like the past 10 days or so, we were at Mom's condo, sorting and packing and cleaning. There are a million little things to pick up, look at, reminisce about, and decide upon when you are 87 and moving for the first time in 14 years. Mom has moved many times in her life, from one side of the country to the other and several cities in between. She must have packed up the belongings of 6 people and one wiener dog at least 7 times during my childhood. Throughout these many moves, some things have endured the harsh scrutiny of the packing process. There are little trinkets from Newfoundland, a copper pot from Summerland, a little wood carved fisherman from who-knows-where, amongst the many items we are taking along to her new residence. She wonders how it will all fit, even though the new place has over 600 square feet of living space and ample closets. I think the size of things grows in one's mind the longer we hold onto them. They are no longer just books on a shelf, they are books she's read at times in her life, books our Dad kept, books given as gifts. They are bigger than their bound selves. They are stories beyond their covers.

In the slow process of transitioning Mom to her new place, we have said many goodbyes to friends at Ocean Park Place and many hellos to new faces at The Pacifica. There have even been some crossovers, as the pharmacy Mom will go to in the Safeway beside The Pacifica has the pharmacist she used to have at the old Safeway beside the Ocean Park residence. So his familiar face yesterday as we "moved" her account to the new pharmacy, was a welcome and comforting piece of the moving puzzle.

For someone who has never really slept well, Mom is holding up in this transient two weeks and seems none-the-worse for wear. She always says, "I had an awful sleep" but somehow goes on to function with clever wit and enthusiasm for everyone she encounters throughout the entire day. I can have one night of insomnia and I'm a bear for a week!

Another thing I've noticed as Mom is with me these past few days is her ability to understand the incredibly thick accents and strange vernacular of the Coronation Street gang on CBC each night at 6:30 but for some reason has trouble understanding my "Would you like a cup of tea?" question from across the room. This is puzzling to say the least. It must have something to do with the brain's focus department. Whatever it is you are intently focused on, you can comprehend. The distant out of context stuff is a big muddle of words.

We're off to a busy day of activities, amidst the rain and drizzle, trying to tie up loose ends and make a bit of progress on the Big Move of 2009! I hope I can have good sleeps at night over the next week!

My Imagination

2009-10-16T09:36:00.000-07:00

Walking through the streets of New York City six years ago, I remember stopping for no real reason and turning my head toward the brass identification plate on a nondescript limestone building beside me and seeing a penguin looking back at me. It was the New York offices of Penguin Publishing. I remember distinctly, the strange feeling I had that day, a premonition that in my future, I would walk up those three short steps, open that door and enter the world of published authors. Maybe it would be Penguin or Random House or Harper Collins, or any big publishing house. I just felt it in my bones that it would happen someday and this little kizmit moment of noticing the Penguin plaque was some kind of good omen.

Ever since I was young, I loved to write. I wrote poetry in high school and won awards, I wrote newsletters in college, radio commercials at the beginning of my career, print advertising, short stories, children's stories, newspaper articles, essays, websites and more. I've dreamed of being published my whole life. Perhaps it is in my DNA as both of my parents were journalists. But I think it is in my nature to tell stories. My friends and family know I can blither on non-stop but that's what writers do, I guess.

Now that I'm working on the biggest writing project I've ever attempted, I can't help but imagine where it will all end up. Will I walk up the steps of a publishing house some day and know that I'm now one of the chosen few? Sometimes I go beyond this step and think of the movie my novel will become, even imagining who will play the characters, what the scenes will look like, what music will play over the credits. I can see these things as if they have already happened and I'm reminiscing.

Maybe nothing at all will come of the 2 years of effort in writing my novel. Maybe it will just be a process I had to go through to open my creative mind and invent something even better. Tomorrow when I start my university class, I am imagining myself skipping down the wet streets of Vancouver, briefcase in hand, twirling around like Mary Tyler Moore in the opening credits of her show, and I will toss my tam in the air and feel like the world is my oyster and the rest of my life is about to begin. I love the thought of it all. Maybe that's enough.