Category Archives: Adventures

About When Things Go Wrong

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Rick and I took a little trip east this last week, to Montreal and our nation’s capital. We flew to La Belle Province and after a couple of days there, rented a car to drive the two hours to Ottawa. On the last night in Ottawa, after supper with a friend, we drove back to the hotel and talked about what a good holiday it had been: the weather was hot but not unbearably so – we enjoyed a Friday night in a park close to Notre Dame listening to a busker and Saturday night walking home from a jazz club along Rue de St. Catherine among the young and hip of Montreal; both cities were very walkable and we (hopefully) worked off all the poutine/smoked meat/seafood calories we over-ingested; and really, all of our loose plans had fallen into place.

But talking about how good something has been before it’s over is like saying “shutout” at the end of the 2nd period of a hockey game. Cue the proverbial fat lady.

As we exited our rental, Rick looked askance at the trunk of the car, which didn’t look exactly closed. And when he popped it open, the latching pin came loose and the realization dawned on us that we could not travel in this car with a trunk that would no longer close. Hmmmm. After the initial pseudopanic – someone (probably me) bemoaned the fact that we didn’t have a bungee cord handy – Rick macguyvered it closed and then we went to our room to call the rental car’s after-hours help line. When I finally got a real person on the line – we’ll call her “Shelby” – which is the fake name she gave me so I couldn’t complain about her later – she said there was no problem, she would send someone to tow the car and amend our rental agreement to switch out to a new car. The only catch was we would have to get ourselves to the rental car place in the morning – the day we had planned to sleep in a bit. Oh well. An hour later the tow truck showed up and we sent our VW Lemon (I mean seriously? Have you ever had a trunk latch pin fall out before?) off to the lemonade stand.

Rising early, we decided that the 30-minute walk to the rental car depot that “Shelby” sent us to (assuring us that they had plenty of cars) was better than taking a taxi. Or for fighting for a reimbursement later. And really, it was so much better. A bit cooler weather but no rain and we got more steps on the Fitbit.

But then we got to the depot where they informed us that: 1) they could not view the agreement online from that particular location; 2) that they, in fact, did not have any cars available; and 3) that we would have had better luck with probably any other location, including the one DIRECTLY ACROSS FROM OUR HOTEL.

And so, we walked back. The service at the new location was excellent but guess what? There were no notes on our rental agreement from “Shelby”. [Do you think it had anything to do with the fact that when I found out that she was from Calgary and I, confessing we were from Edmonton, made some offhand comment about the upcoming Battle of Alberta that was about to commence?] Our new best-car-rental-friend, however, believed our story, tracked down the towed car and gave us a new rental with a full tank of gas.

Years ago, I read – and loved – the book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller. Part of the book chronicles his Pacific to Atlantic bike trip. Sounds pretty cool, right? Biking with friends for a good cause, seeing the sights, building up your quads, getting a stellar tan. But also: flat tires, torrential rainstorms, bicycle butt, and a lot of asking “What was I thinking?” And much as I thought that that bike trip was cool for him, all that yucky stuff would be too much for me. It was more about avoiding the bad than gambling for the good.

Now, granted, sometimes EVERYTHING goes wrong and then you wonder if traveling is really worth it, but most of the time it doesn’t go all wrong. Sure, we’ve drowned a cell phone, been stuck on Splash Mountain, had trouble at the American border, forgot Simon at the bathroom in Disneyland, had a wheel come flying off our holiday trailer in an epic manner, thought our car was on fire, and I once got instant food poisoning from eating one peanut dusted with ghost pepper. But those things were just sprinkled in with all the other really good and great things we did, like a good spice. (But seriously, don’t mess with that ghost pepper.)

Long story short, it’s all worth it. I mean, you could stay at home and still have all kinds of things go wrong, right? Or you could think about all the fun you had on your last vacation while waiting for Air Canada to deliver your luggage to Vermilion because it didn’t make it on your connecting flight. Which is what we’re doing right now while watching the first game of the Battle of Alberta.

I hope we beat “Shelby”. Just sayin.

About the Perfect Day

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About thirteen years ago, our family took an epic trip to the other side of the world to visit friends that lived there. Besides the obvious attraction of reuniting with our peeps, along with free accommodations and translation services, it was a warm country surrounded by ocean. In other words, a perfect holiday destination, completely different from our temperamental country of origin. It was a vacation I’m remembering wistfully today, in the midst of our February deep-freeze, as it were.

Towards the end of our time together, we crammed all eight of us – with suitcases – into their car and made a pilgrimage to the sea. Our destination from their inland city was less than Vermilion to Edmonton, but it took us all day to get there – we actually broke up the trip into two days. Because: Indonesian roads, traffic and time are just not the same as in North America. We arrived at our beach house in the pitch dark and fell exhausted into bed, the roar of the ocean so loud we thought there was a good chance we would be swept away in the night.

The next morning, when we cracked open our bedroom door – after checking that we were still, indeed, alive – we were greeted by Dave who had (bless him) made coffee and opened up an entire wall of doors to a porch where we could sip and stare at the ocean in our front yard. Not long after, we took a walk along the beach until our crew found a place to play in the surf. We spent the rest of the day exploring the jungle (and somebody’s fantastic treehouse – even though we weren’t actually invited to), alternating with dips in the pool and playing beach volleyball. When the sun disappeared, we ate a perfectly grilled supper of marlin steaks, prawns the size of our hands, and fresh vegetables. And then we played all the card games that Lynn could think of until we were too tired to stay awake anymore, even though we didn’t want the day – or our time with our friends – to end.

At one point that afternoon, when the sun was high and we were cooling off in the pool, Dave pronounced that it was A Perfect Day. It is something that has always stuck with me. While I don’t usually pine for sandy beaches, there is something to be said for the resetting nature of time by the water. That day we had nowhere to be but HERE AND NOW. The day progressed slowly and quickly. We spent time outside, we walked, we were curious and explored, we got a little wet and sweaty, we ate some pretty simple food and we were with people we loved. It’s a pretty simple equation.

And one that could actually be replicated anywhere. Sure, a beautiful exposure to ocean or mountain is helpful but it’s also good to remember that Perfect Days are just the sum of Simple Things. Plus, the time and the awareness to realize that Perfect can be Now. Even in February. In Alberta.

About Roof-Raising and Dirt-Digging

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[Some weeks the blog topics come easy. Other weeks, y’all get a throwback. For your consideration, here is a story about a kerfuffle with 3 little boys and a pile of dirt.]

My boys – Tim, Simon and Gil.

It was roof-raising day at Grandpa’s. (Gosh, this sounds like the opening line to a chapter in a Laura Ingalls’ Wilder book.) The boys and I were planning to go watch the trusses of Grandpa’s new shop get lifted and placed with a “cherry picker”. My husband called from work and suggested we get there ASAP to watch them put up the walls, too. And, to bring my camera.

So much for a leisurely breakfast of tea and crumpets. (Sorry – more novel references to a life I do not lead.) I urged the boys to finish their Wonder Bread toast, then instructed them to put on their long johns and a couple extra layers for the frosty morning outside.

 We arrived at Grampa’s yard before the first wall went up and though it looked like they were ready, it still took awhile before it actually happened.  While standing around and waiting, that’s when we noticed the mud, or rather clay, that was building up on our boots. And so, a weird competition began, something akin to who could get enough muck on their boots to absolutely prevent mobility. At that moment, I was praying silent thank yous that I had the presence of mind to make them wear their rubber boots. And that’s when it hit me that I had brought them over in our new van, complete with fresh Scotchguard (as if that is any challenge to three boys.) Why, oh why, hadn’t I brought the old truck? I knew then that I would just have to put them in the van shoeless and hose off the boots before we could go home.

By this time the first wall was up and we were watching the second get put into place. Unfortunately the novelty of the frame of a large wall suspended in the air was fleeting. Mud was much more captivating. Before they got completely stuck, I coaxed them to follow me to a grassy area to clean off their boots. Little did I know, there was a big dirt pile nearby. OF COURSE the boys asked if they could “check it out” and I complied with the admonition to “not get dirty”. This was about as effective as handing them a melting ice-cream cone and warning them to only lick it once. It was a slippery slope, both literally and figuratively. The boys progressed from running down the steep side, to sliding on their backsides, to practically wallowing in the holes they had dug with their hands.

Every time I called them over to try to brush them off a bit, dump the dirt out of their boots and watch another wall go up, they complained that they were cold standing there by me, so over and over I sent them back to the dirt pile to warm up with their running, sliding and digging.

Like three gophers, the boys watched from the top of the dirt pile as the roof finally became airbound and then settled on top of the building. With my photography assignment done, we headed to the house to wash up a bit – there was even dirt in their noses. But going inside the house necessitated the removal of their boots. I had them sit on the edge of the deck while I systematically took off each boot and dumped it. By the time I got to Simon, much to our dismay, we discovered that his left boot Would Not Come Off. I tugged to no avail. Gil grabbed him from behind under his arms and held on while I tried again. Simon was stretched out as far as he could go and we all kept descending into giggle fits over the stubborn boot. I told him I would have to dig the dirt out first and headed to the back of the garage where Simon spied Grandpa’s shovel. He screamed. He was then relieved to see me return with a stick. After removing about three pounds of dirt and pausing for more laughter, we were finally ready to clean up. For the two-mile trip home, I stripped the boys down to their long johns, put their jackets on inside out and carried them out one by one to the van.

Every time we drive by Grandpa’s shop, the boys ask when we can revisit the fabulous dirt pile. Maybe as soon as my patent for disposable plastic coveralls comes through, boys. Or, maybe Saturday.

About House Hunters International

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Photo by Robin Ooode on Unsplash

So, not to put too fine of a point on it but we’re in Month Twenty of this global pandemic thing, at least, since our world here in Canada became strapped down, wings clipped, house arrested. While it doesn’t really substitute for the real thing, I have been watching House Hunters International with insatiable interest these days. And the question on my mind is: Where in the world do I really want to go? You know, when the viral cloud begins to lift a little?

I don’t really have any patience for the shenanigans on the regular House Hunters franchise where (ahem) CRAZY AMERICANS looking for a new home come armed with 1. Unreasonable Expectations 2. Unfettered Attachments to Barbeques and 3. Unbelievable Demands for Separate Bedrooms for their Pets. The ensuing problem of living in a place like, say, Texas, is that you expect everything to be BIG: big house, big kitchen, big backyard. The only thing that people don’t usually come with is a big budget. Hmmmm. How is this going to work exactly if everything on the list is non-negotiable?

Sometimes on House Hunters International, because the move comes with a cost of living allowance, the budget IS big. On an episode I watched recently, the folks “settled” for a 3-bedroom, 2-bath apartment in Zurich – to the tune of $7100 a month! Yowza! More often re-locators are working with a big wish list and a small budget, like on the domestic version, but cultural differences can really change that must-have list fast. In Europe or Asia, for instance, things we often take for granted are not a given, things like bathtubs, ovens and clothes dryers. I can understand that in a country where square footage comes at a premium, space-suckers like bathtubs aren’t a thing. And ovens aren’t necessary when you can go out to eat in the market for cheap. But I’ve been to Asia and it’s humid there. It takes days for clothing hanging around the house to dry. I don’t know why clothes dryers aren’t more of a thing. But it’s not my country or continent, so what do I know?

The thing about travelling is that it’s a chance to experience things that are different. Why would we get such a hankering to go to the other side of world if the view is the same? And why would I want to expect the same things as I find at home – staying home would be cheaper, non?

But moving someplace else is a whole different ballgame. Home, for some, is the repose when all else is different: city, workplace, grocery store, cafe, greenspace. So I can understand wanting it to be dependable and consistent. I think that’s why so many of us in this last twenty months have indulged in home renovations and HGTV – because HOME helps us to find our place in the larger world, gives us a place of courage to start our day and a place of rest to end it.

And hopefully is filled, at least sometimes, maybe just even virtually, with other people that you love. Home really can be Sweet Home.

About the Best Memories

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The other day on Instagram, Gretchen Rubin posted this quote of hers: “The things that go wrong often make the best memories.” I’ve read this in her books, I’ve heard her say it on her Happier podcast and it always makes me think of the Disney ride, Splash Mountain.

In 2010, our family took a trip to Florida. (It’s called travelling – remember?) Our destination was Orlando, or more specifically, ALL of the Disney theme parks and waterparks, enough to fill up more than a week’s worth of vacation. Even if there was plenty of new things to see and do, our favorite rides got our due attention and we fought the lineups to go on the best ones at least two or three times. And one of our all time favorites, both in California’s Disneyland and Florida’s Magic Kingdom, had to be Splash Mountain. Even if our Florida experience on it was…well, let’s just call it memorable.

Here’s the story I told in our travel blog back then:

Splash Mountain is a lovely log ride along a relatively serene Disney river punctuated with two or three waterfalls of varying heights and one exciting five-storey drop at the end. Since we rode this attraction before, we already knew when to expect the drops. We were also familiar with the announcement (in an appropriate Southern drawl) on the PA system: “Looks like Br’er Bear and Br’er Fox are causin’ some commotion upstream. Your ride through Splash Mountain will begin again shortly.” This was (supposedly) to allay any aggravation when the ride would stall for a bit. So when we heard the announcement on our last time up the river, we assumed we’d get moving again soon. We were wrong.

Me and my fellow Splash Mountaineers circa 2010.

After 30 minutes of being cramped into a damp, sweaty giant plastic log right next to a hysterical animatronic bear with a bee’s nest on his nose on a very short action-and-music loop, the “magic” was starting to wear off a little. Three out of five of us needed to use “the facilities” and Rick was ready to run interference with the crazy lady in the front log who was getting anarchistic. Trying to distract their little ones, two moms in another log started to sing the “Banana-nana-fo-fana” song OVER AND OVER again – essentially replacing the hysterical-bear-audio-loop which thankfully was turned off after much too long. Annnnnnd the newlywed couple behind us were acting like the honeymoon had definitely lost its bloom. It was no longer a Tunnel of Love, it you know what I mean.

Finally, after about forty-five minutes of expensive Disney time, some “cast members” appeared from the secret doorway that was no longer secret since all lights had come on at about the same time that the soundtrack was shut off. We were warned (in a sinister government-agent kind of voice) not to try exit the boats by ourselves. I was also advised to “put my camera away” but not before capturing some very revealing inner chamber pictures. We were escorted down the stairs and into the back lot, sworn to secrecy about this Disney underbelly and then plied with Fastpasses and ice cream coupons. Let’s just say, it’s all water under the log now.

Isn’t this magical?

As I said, we’ve ridden Splash Mountain a few times. But the only time I can really remember is this one. Retrospection is funny, in more ways than one.

What’s your best/worst memory?

About A Strong Sense of Place

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In Japan, there are more than 300 versions of the Kit Kat bar…including a soy sauce version, a European cheese version and a wasabi version.

There is an 60-room hotel in Sweden that is built every year just 200 kilometers away from the Arctic Circle and, despite being made of frozen water, is required to have fire alarms.

When it comes to cities housing billionaires, Moscow is second only to New York City.

These statements all seem like something fun and obscure you would read in a quirky travel brochure or on a website devoted to interesting trivia about international destinations. And though they sound hyperbolic, they are all true.

Of course, it would be lovely to go investigate these things for myself – maybe some Russian billionaire could front me the $400 per night for a room in the ice hotel (plus the fare for a twelve hour train ride to get there from Stockholm) where I could eat some imported wasabi Kit Kat bars. Except, generous Russian billionaire friend or not, we are still not going anywhere anytime soon. Because: Covid.

Well, then gosh darn it, thank goodness for books. And podcasts. And the Interweb. And armchair travelers like Mel Joulwan and Dave Humphries who have made it their business to read books that boast a Strong Sense of Place and then talk about them on their aptly-named podcast. Although they transplanted themselves from mainland U.S.A. to Prague in the Czech Republic a few years ago with the aim of wandering more, they too are experiencing a travel hiatus. But that hasn’t stopped them from exploring the world through books.

They talk about travel books? Sounds boring, you say.

Oh, trust me – Mel and Dave aren’t a couple of stuffy professor-types discussing only books they found in the Travel Book Co. of Notting Hill – although if the shoe fit, they would. These podcasters are fun and funny and happy to regale their audience about fiction and nonfiction, new books and old, about books written for adults or for children – there are no holds barred. The determining factor is that the book has to have a Strong Sense of Place.

When I was homeschooling my boys a few eons ago, my favorite teaching tool that I hit upon over and over was the idea of unit studies, where everything we learned about revolved around a theme. Indeed, in Mortimer J. Adler’s classic How to Read a Book, he calls this the highest level of reading: syntopical – the reading of multiple books on the same subject. Maybe our reading of multiple picture books and chapter books about dinosaurs or pioneers or famous artists wasn’t exactly the highest level, but it sure did the trick of painting a fuller picture.

Oh! And pictures! This podcast has an affiliated website just bursting with the best photography – all curated for your easy exploring pleasure. Sometimes, because Mel is a Cooker, the photos are of beautiful food that she gives her tried and true recipes for. (She started out with another website Well Fed and some cookbooks of the same name and she never makes you read an 10-page essay before she gives you the recipe.) Dave is a artist who’s website design skills I covet. And – they have a cat named Smudge.

One of my very favorite things I have ever read about reading, I found on their website. Sometimes, even I think: I read too much and I ask myself: What good does it do anyway, this insatiable desire I have to read, read, read? Dave and Mel’s answer: Empathy.

Copyright: Strong Sense of Place

Well, okay then. And now, back to my pile of books.

About Travelling

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Although it seems counter-intuitive to travel during a global pandemic, we decided to do just that this last week. Eschewing our plans made last December to visit Disneyland this fall with our adult children, we opted for safe(r) travels within the confines of our Canadian border. All of our pictures are clearly time-stamped by the masks we had to wear anywhere we ventured outside of our pod.

About a month ago we booked flights for six to Vancouver and held our breath, took our vitamins and said our prayers that we would actually be able to take said flights, barring any fevers, sore throats or other COVID-like symptoms. The plan, over which we had absolutely no control, went according to… well, plan.

Travel, as they say, is broadening. Our main destination was not Vancouver but the giant island to the west of it. Sure we could have flown directly there, into Victoria or Nanaimo, where we spent a couple of nights each. But part of the charm of visiting The Island is engaging in what I like to call Ferry Culture. For those of us born in the wide open prairies, we can get into a vehicle and drive ad nauseum for days. But when you live on the coast, water sort of gets in the way.

Ferry Culture involves a lot of hurry-up-and-wait. If you need too make sure you connect to a flight, you have to get to the ferry in time and before it fills up. So you get up super early, drive to the ferry landing nearest you, and then you wait in line. Then you get on the ferry and you sit back and wait again as the ferry takes you over. This can all take hours. Fortunately there was food and phones and, in this case, family to amuse us.

And it’s fun, especially when it’s novel and when you’re on vacation. And when the scenery around you is beautiful. All that water surrounding you seems to do its job of cleansing your brain – which is really what a vacation is for.

Maybe it’s the change of scenery or the brain-washing, but I found myself fascinated by the number of small things that added up to big things on this trip. While the boys skipped rocks on one little beach in Chemainus, Sharlie was able to look for seashells to her heart’s delight – there were so many on that little piece of paradise that she could literally take her pick of the best ones. On that beach there were hundreds and thousands of shells and rocks and logs that the tide had brought in.

Should I even mention the grains of sand? Or the gallons of water?

And then we visited the Butchart Gardens. Of course, there are very green plants and trees and flowers (still) everywhere in October on Vancouver Island but the Gardens do an especially nice job of arranging and clustering them in a way that gives you pause. And when you try to estimate the number of petals on an accordion-like chrysanthemum, you count past 100 quickly. When you consider the petals in a twenty foot square patch of mums, it’s boggling.

And most of the plants were not even in bloom at this time of year.

In the rather large Butchart Gardens there are also trees, shrubs, leaves and needles you could consider “counting”. But really, that would get old, fast.

And then, there is the travelling itself. The ferries we rode on could hold hundreds of vehicles, some of tremendous size. Where the heck was everybody going and what was so important that it had to get done on the other side? And plane travel: what would have taken us a good day or two in the car to traverse, we managed by crawling into a giant sardine can in just a little over an hour. 500 miles an hour at 30,000 feet. Really, you don’t want to think about it too hard or the whole relaxing part of the vacation just goes Poof!

All this makes me consider my own tiny mortality. It’s really not much in the scheme of THE WHOLE WORLD, is it? And sometimes, I wonder: what am I really doing here, anyway?

On a podcast recently I was reminded of something that Andy Stanley said – whether it’s his words originally or not, no matter – it’s still good. He said that when we get overwhelmed with the idea of doing something good for mankind, just try instead to do for one what you wish you could do for all.

For some reason, I was reminded of this as I considered the seashores and the sand and the seas this last week. The stones that were skipped and the walks that were taken and jokes that we shared didn’t do that much for the world, but they did a world of good for us.

Thanks for the nice holiday, world. I owe ya one.

About Hatchet

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One of the good things about homeschooling my kids was that I sort of taught myself how to become a teacher. I never wanted to teach other people’s kids but I loved mine enough to give it a shot. Lucky for me, there were a lot of people who paved the way ahead of me and freely passed out the keys to providing kids with a decent education.

Of course, I have always thought that books were pretty foundational. Not necessarily textbooks, which while providing a framework for progressivity, could also be like eating dry toast for breakfast. Every. Day. How happy was I to learn that much of what we had to cover in Social Studies or Language Arts or Science could be found in Living Books. Meaning real stories written by real people. Even Math could be dissected by picture books and History plumbed with a great novel.

My love of literature started a long time ago in the basement of our farmhouse where an odd assortment of books had collected on the shelves. There were outdated textbooks, some Pulitzer Prize winners, MAD magazine digests, and the first kid’s books I knew. I suspected that The Cat in the Hat Comes Back was a sequel by its title, but as it was the only one we had, it was the only Dr. Suess that I knew. Homer Price, The House at Pooh Corner, The Middle Sister, The Big Wave, The Magic Tunnel populated the shelves, as well as a few of the Thornton W. Burgess, Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden, Hardy Boys and Donna Parker series.

The only library in our little town was in the Derwent school and because I showed so much enthusiasm for reading, the librarian soon let me look at the book catalogs that came across her desk and asked for my suggestions when it came to spending your hard-earned tax dollars for our little library collection. How cool was that?

What I didn’t realized was that some of the best descriptions, especially for books that graced the covers of the catalogs and the tops of the pages, were for award winning books. I never paid attention when I was in school to the gold stickers that were on the front of Really Good Books: the Caldecott Award and the John Newbery. Fast forward to the early 2000s, when I started reading How to Homeschool books in earnest, I discovered that there were many more of these magical lists, these Good Books that would not only entertain me my children, but teach them Very Good Things, too.

Hatchet by Gary Paulsen was one of those Good Books. Between the lines of a story of parents getting divorced, the protagonist Brian Robeson boards a plane at the beginning of summer break to go see his father who now lives in Canada, somewhere remote enough that a two-seater plane is the method of transport. As if just being a zit-spackled teenager caught in between your parents isn’t bad enough, Brian’s pilot suffers a heart attack and they plummet to the ground to their death. The End.

Just kidding. Brian (but not the pilot) survives the crash and he is pitted against the wilderness, desperately trying to stay alive until somebody can find him, like a needle in a stack of needles. All The Bad Wilderness Things happen to him: hunger, cold, rain, mosquitoes, moose attacks, nightmares about the dead pilot coming to get him, but somehow Brian uses his wits to figure out How to Do Everything With Only A Hatchet.

The Hatchet was a gift his mother gave him before he left which he luckily wore on his belt, surviving along with Brian when the plane, dead pilot and Everything Else That Would Have Been Useful wind up at the bottom of the lake. It turns out to be the key to everything in Brian’s survival.

Brian’s story – parts of which are based on the author’s real experiences living rugged in the bush – was so “enchanting” to Paulsen’s readers that they wrote to him and demanded: More Brian! And so Paulsen gave his adoring public more. The Hatchet series includes The River, Brian’s Winter, Brian’s Hunt, and Brian’s Return, all nice neat little books that you could read in a few hours or find as an audiobook at your local library read by Peter Coyote.

With the Brian books, I can vicariously survive with him in the woods because I have no intention of EVER getting stranded in the wilderness, in Vermilion Provincial Park or even in my backyard. I’m not exactly what you would call a gamer when it comes to the Great Outdoors. I prefer My Outdoors to be 20 above and wind-less, with a cooler of hot dogs and coolers on the deck and a warm bed awaiting me inside four walls. With electricity. And bug spray. No moose.

But.

The Brian Books remind me that with a little bit of ingenuity, we humans can survive a lot, almost anything really. We only need to look back at the last few months when we were first tossed into the COVID-a-tron to know that we can put up with a lot. And sometimes the way to get through the next unknown is to remember what you have already done. Brian, via Paulsen, returned to the woods again and again, because he knew he COULD do it again. And the last time, he did take bug spray.

About Running

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Just in time for spring and peek-a-boo sandals, my toenails are about to fall off.

Not all of them. Just two. And those would be the ones on my “pointer toes” – the abnormally tall next-to-big-toes. You know, the weird looking toes. Come to think of it, toes in general are weird looking. They’re all different from each other, thoughtfully fashioned to each have their own piggy personality.

So back to my imminent toenail departure. At the very beginning of COVID-19, just before that last memorable snowstorm swooped in, we went for our obligatory daily walk. (And by daily, I mean, four times a week if we’re not too lazy or…ahem, busy.) It was a beautiful March Sunday afternoon and we took the long way around town. We were probably a couple of miles in before I started to question the error of my footwear choice. The garage was still in a state of disarray from moving and rather than upend that Jenga tower, I had opted for a crappy pair of convenient old loafers with which to plow through the puddles.

Cue the blisters and the repeated battering of my extra-long toes. The result a couple of days later, besides the impressive sore-toe-ness, was that my two toenails had turned a royal shade of purple. And now a month later, they are loosening and threatening their exodus. Jeez.

I have heard about marathon runners losing toenails after their big race and for some reason I thought that they just peeled off along with their socks immediately after they had crossed the finish line. Duh. This makes more sense: they hurt like the dickens and they color up pretty and a month later, they take their leave.

So basically, I’m in the same boat as a marathon runner. Except I’m about 22 miles short. And I didn’t run.

I am the best of walkers, sometimes I’m even a tremendous hiker. I love pumping up and down the hills in the Provincial Park out my back door – at a reasonable pace. But running – I suck at running. I have no gumption for it at all.

Nowadays, I blame my knees, having inherited my mother’s arthritic joints. However, my mom never let a creaky knee or elbow keep her from jogging to the chicken coop or running up from the basement with a quart jar of pickles tucked under her arm, like a Heisman winner. And so, I take a page from her book and insist I will not give in either. I will jog a little on the treadmill now and then. I will do squats and lunges and take this kind of medicine to keep me strong and limber (because I don’t have chickens and I don’t make pickles.)

We’ve all heard of people who lace up and discover a whole new kind of freedom when they start to run. (Watch Brittany Runs a Marathon for a great example of this.) I listen to (and watch) these stories with envy. Because that has never been me.

Way back when I was in grade nine, I had some fancy ideas about becoming a runner. Running would keep me fit and maybe slim me down, but best of all, I could call myself: A Runner. It went totally against my nerdy, bookish persona and just like every junior-high-schooler, I desperately wanted to be something different from Who I Was. And so, when the Annual-All-Schools-in-the-County-Track-and-Field Day came along, I signed up. For the Long-Distance Event. (Oy-yoy-yoy. I’m pretty sure that’s what was in the thought bubble above my Mom’s head when I confessed this to her.)

Let me be clear: I went to a very small school. There were about fifteen of us in grade nine. And only one other girl from my school had signed up for my Event. Additionally, there was no training – not in gym class, not after school, not even a hint of a suggestion that: perhaps to avoid humiliation, one should practice a little for this Event.

Well, not that I remember.

I took it upon myself one lovely day in May to lace up my knock-off Converse runners (ahem: NOT a RUNNING shoe) and try running around my town. And if you know how big Derwent is, that’s not really saying that much. But I got about a block away from home and I was winded. Whew! I decided that that was probably good enough for one day and I walked back home. With good intentions, I thought I would go out the next day and “train” some more.

Well. Time flies when you’re in high school and I woke up one day and Surprise! It was Track and Field Day. Thankfully, my mom had sewed me a cute outfit, so I wasn’t going to look like a complete idiot. And I was sure that on that day, I would somehow be able to complete the race by sheer fortitude, a quality that I had never displayed in gym class before.

When the time came for my Event, I lined up with all the other two entrants in my race. The fake gun went off and I ran. The other girl from my school was pretty much in the same boat as me and when we saw our competition pull ahead, we unanimously decided not to deprive her of victory. So, about a block in, we both dropped out.

This is not the end of the story. Apparently, I did moderately better than my home-town compadre and for this mere effort – like the milliseconds between Olympian medalists – I was awarded a Second-Place Blue Ribbon.

Pretty great, huh? (And this was before participation medals.)

There is no moral in this story – well, not one that I want to explore, anyways. There are a couple of points however: I never was a runner and unless I get me some new knees – AND SOME FORTITUDE – I never will be one.

And: I may not be a runner, but I AM a (second-place) winner. I have the blue ribbon to prove it.

About A Month Later

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It’s been officially a month since we moved into a smaller home and I have to say: it’s been a busy one. Here’s my one-month recap in no particular order…

  1. Packing, moving, unpacking and ALL that goes with it really can mess with a person’s good intentions. Hence no blog post AT ALL last week. I told myself that I was taking spring break, maybe because the weather was so nice? But then, right smack dab in the middle of the week and despite the near-zero temperatures on either side of Wednesday, we got a blast of minus 30. It was just one day but I got to wondering – was that my fault? Did my smugness about the weather produce a smackdown? Oops. For insurance purposes, I have decided to get back to my two-blog posts a week. If March comes in like a lamb, you have me to thank. You’re welcome.
  2. My bookshelves are still in flux. (See above.) Because, reading emergencies besides, organizing my books is just not as important as work and sleep and feeding ourselves. (Oh, and Amazon Prime as we take our near-daily dose of re-watching The Mentalist from the beginning.) But also, I am trying a new thing with my books – shelving them by color. I’ve always filed my books in a particular order that allowed me to easily track them but author/podcaster Anne Bogel of What Should I Read Next? inspired me to go this crazy route. Crazy also because I’ve always been someone who kept the jackets on the books and now that I’ve removed them all, I don’t recognize any of my books anymore. It’s like going to a family reunion with amnesia.
  3. Remember how we cancelled Christmas? And New Year’s? And basically the first couple weeks of January because everyone around us (but not their dog) got sick? Well, Family Day weekend we had a do-over at my sister-in-law’s with turkey and taters and games and some general holiday hanging out followed by turkey sandwiches and two Oiler wins to boot. A very merry February Christmas indeed.
  4. My article Mom in the Driver’s Seat came out in the February/March 2020 issue of Our Canada magazine. It feels good to get some publishing traction again. But it also was good to remember the story of my mom finally getting her driver’s license when she was well into her fifties! I knew the story, but her grandchildren didn’t. (This is why we need to tell stories.) What a testimony to keep doing hard things even as we get older and “the things” get harder.
  5. I finally got to see the new Little Women movie with my dear friend Rhonda in a quaint little original theatre in Vegreville. Living 40 miles apart, we have no qualms about meeting anywhere within a hundred-mile radius for some good story telling like that, especially if Meryl is in the lineup – and she is the best Aunt March ever. And bonus: Rhonda introduced me to a gem of a restaurant in Veg: Loco Burro Fresh Mexican Grill. Yum. Go eat there now.
  6. And speaking of YUM – we used a gift certificate last weekend with two of our boys for a restaurant whose very name made them happy: MEAT. It was a seriously fun eating experience (not to mention the food was DELICIOUS) and our server Andrew6167 made it even better. (Thanks for the MEAT, Sydney! You always know the best places to eat!)
  7. Strathcona is such a fun place on a Saturday night and after our MEAT, we walked down the back alley and then piled in with all the other late night fans for some Made By Marcus ice cream. The. Best. Ever. Ice. Cream. Ever. Period.
  8. We went to Vegas in Vermilion with our good friends Cliff and Caroline (THE MAYOR) McAuley which was hosted by the Good Life Institute. A fancy meal followed by some fake-money gambling – but the chips made it look like the real thing. The highlight of the evening for me was hanging out with the group of senior ladies that hired Len’s Party Bus to ferry them to and from the event! What a fun bunch!
  9. I went to the Inspiring Women Conference in Lloydminster and was…well, inspired. My favorite: the panel session with Canada’s first female professional chuckwagon racer Amber L’Heureux, silk artist Bonny MacNab and the first female CEO of Lloydminster & District Co-op Leanne Hawes. Not to mention the keynote with Carrie Doll, brilliantly timed just when the afternoon sleepies want to hit – but Doll kept me very entertained and interested. She has a great story and a great podcast, The Inner Circle, where she gets many other Edmonton locals to tell their stories.
  10. My husband and I are enjoying a blast from the past as I am re-reading the Harry Potter books out loud to him every night. We started reading them aloud as a family in 2003 so a revisit is long overdue. We’re just getting into The Prisoner of Azkaban – Large Marge has been deflated and Harry has escaped the Dursleys for another year. Yay Hogwarts!

Okay, I didn’t know I did that much stuff. What a fun re-cap! See you Thursday!