Retirement

This reminds me of what I don't miss about working life.

I'm very happy and supremely content with getting up in the morning and doing whatever I want. Playing. Retirement is grand.

One thing though. Retirement implies having a pension, no? Which at my tender young age I don't. So I think that despite filling out forms writing "retired" in the space for "occupation", what I really am is unemployed!


Check out the other "Demotivators" at despair.com/demotivators

007

On a rainy Saturday, the first day of Christmas month, we drove to Nanaimo, past the busy mall parking lots to the movie theater, where, with only a few other matinee-goers, we watched the new Bond movie.

Outstanding. The humor is back. I'd been lukewarm about the last, darker tales.

The promotion of the movie release includes a celebration of 50 years of Bond. All these 50 year celebrations (Beach Boys included) are making me nervous. Now the question, "who's the best Bond" is nonsensical but what about a favorite Bond girl? My all time fave is Jill St. John in Diamonds are Forever, who, as Tiffany Case, spent the entire movie prancing around in a bikini. Great last words when, as they looked up at the satellite in the night sky, she purred, "Jaaames, how are we going to get those diamonds down?" She's a riot.

Skyfall has it all. An extended outrageous chase scene opening, villains, over the top stunts, old references, a woman or two, booze, cigarettes, casinos, more chases, heavy artillery. Great way to spend a rainy raincoast Saturday afternoon.

Way Past Time

So the real news of the election yesterday were the votes in Colorado and Washington state to legalize recreational pot.

Also, Massachusetts voted in favor of medical marijuana bringing the number of states allowing it to 17. As far as I'm concerned, "medical marijuana" is bullshit. Not that I don't believe it has medicinal benefits, au contraire, it absolutely does. It's just that it is a half-assed, pretend approach to legalization. It's like saying you can't have that double bourbon on the rocks if you're doing it because you like the taste, or you like the way it makes you feel or whatever, but you can if it helps your migraine. Sissies.

The Pepper (uh) Grinder

One of my all time huge peeves is the restaurant pepper grinder. You know the one. After the plates have been delivered to the table the waiter or waitress shows up wielding this enormous implement, "Fresh ground pepper?". Or even worse, shows up with the plates and the implement tucked under the arm, like where the Right Guard goes. Makes me mental. I decline out of principle. I've finally settled on saying, "No thanks, I think I'll TASTE IT FIRST." Which is probably a more reasoned response than my other inclination which is to grab the thing and clobber someone. Hard.

In the first place, I think it is very rude and disrespectful to the dish's creator, to start throwing salt and pepper on something before you know whether you need it or not. Give it a rest. Why not taste to see what the chef has in mind, before modifying? So to offer it at that point is retarded.

Secondly, why should someone else be grinding this stuff (with this 2 foot long phallic symbol) on your plate. "Say when", they say. Well how are you supposed to you know when "when" is, when no one has even tasted the thing? If freshly ground pepper is so important to provide then why not put a pepper grinder on the individual tables along with the salt? Only a few restaurants do this and believe me, when they do, I notice.

Porfirio Rubirosa was a notorious international jet setting playboy, originally from the Dominican Republic, whose main occupation was bedding and marrying women of the seriously rich and famous persuasion. A big time player. Among his wives was France's biggest film star Danielle Darrieux and the uber-wealthy American gals, Doris Duke and Barbara Hutton. Doris Duke paid Danielle a couple of million to divorce Rubirosa so she could have him. He had affairs with Marilyn Monroe, Tina Onassis, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Ava Gardner and anything else that moved, although richer was better. These wealthy dames paid big bucks when the time came to get rid of him.

He was quite the party slut his entire life and died in 1965 at the age of 56 after crashing his Ferrari into a tree after an all night celebration in Paris after winning the Coupe de France polo cup.

So why this apparent digression?

Well, they say that among his charms for all of these women, was his anatomical endowment. Parisian waiters to this day call these oversized pepper grinders "Rubirosas". Now there's an image to come to mind the next time a waiter comes at you with the Freshly Ground Pepper.

Slipstreamed

In early August Howard, Maristella and I piled into the car and took the ferry to Vancouver. Off to see Bonnie Raitt in concert and also to meet up with Number 1 Son who was flying in from the east for a 10-day West Coast vacation.

I hadn't been to a concert in I don't know how long but when, last spring, I first heard she was coming to Vancouver I knew I had to go. My track record on actually following up on events I'd like to go to is pretty pathetic but this time I thought, "Enough of the "should do" and just "do". The last time I was in the same city as one of Bonnie Raitt's concerts was in Ottawa a decade or so ago when she was performing with Eric Clapton. I did not go to my everlasting regret. I had been out in Victoria for the summer and didn't know, until too late, about the Ottawa concert. This time that wouldn't happen again and I was first on line for my tickets.

Getting to Vancouver is easy and way pleasant. The ferry terminal in Nanaimo is 30 minutes away from our house, the boat ride across the Strait is about an hour and a half, then it's a 30 minute drive to downtown Vancouver. We stay at the Sunset Inn in the West End on a quiet tree-lined residential street a block from Davie Street and within walking distance to everything - Granville Island, downtown, Stanley Park. I think the building used to be an apartment building, so lots of space and balconies. Perfect. This particular weekend was hot and sunny and totally gorgeous and everybody was outside.

We arrived early at the concert on Friday night, which gave lots of time for people watching. I was immediately struck by the age of the audience - almost all of a certain vintage. Lots of (male) grey ponytails, and not a few canes, something I can now relate to this past week. It is always a shock to me to look in the mirror, which in this case was the audience of the full Queen Elizabeth Theater on this night. After an opening act by a Delta blues guy, out came Bonnie with her amazing band. All but one band member has been touring with her for decades - plenty of time to get really hot!

Bonnie Raitt reminds us that she is 62 and is very funny about it. Knows her audience. She says she hopes she'll be at it for another 10 years but jokes that they might have to widen the aisles in the theater to accommodate all the scooters. She doesn't appear to have changed a bit in 30 years - same hair, same clothes, same guitar playing, same voice. It was a fine concert, just fine. Colin James came out to jam at the end, the home town blues player appears to be a Vancouver crowd favorite. I'm so glad I went, I'm still feeling the energy of that live performance all these weeks later.

I listen to Bonnie Raitt a lot and have for many years. The new album, the first since many years, Slipstream, is great. Her cover of Bob Dylan's Million Miles is outstanding, is getting lots of air play on the blues radio programs, and will, I predict win awards.

As it turned out, music was to play a very key role in our subsequent travels in the weeks following the Vancouver weekend.

I love music stores, especially used CD music stores. I like working my way through piles of CD's, looking for something I don't know I'm looking for. I like the cover art, and I especially like the liner notes. Every now and then quite by chance as happened recently, I'll find something that really gets me excited, like the Oscar Brown Jr. CD. Recorded in 1972, I first heard it in its entirety late one night on CBC and promptly went out to get it. On vinyl I guess, though no one ever called it that, back in the day. It was a record, plain and simple. I like the tactile nature of a CD store, or that of my own collection of hundreds of CD's and I like the sense of surprise to find something, or rediscover something, something that doesn't really happen for me online. Although I do buy from Amazon often (along with books which is another story), I still like the stores.

On this trip to Vancouver, I went off to find a music store I knew on Granville Street, Charlies Music City. This was a large used and new CD shop that also had a huge DVD selection. It was there last summer and had been for decades - it is now closed. The big, multi-level flagship HMV music store also closed this past year, which didn't surprise a lot of people, but I still managed to find stuff there. This got me thinking about how I access music, how everyone else seems to be accessing music, and what I should do next. I don't download music for free. I decided to have another look at the iTunes store and found it's still the same crap website I remembered it to be, so I'll not be going in that direction, along with some of the Apple proprietary shit that goes on with the iTunes store.

I had also been looking for something to play music on. My wish list included, in one unit, a radio, a CD player, a dock for my iPad, and great sound. All in one, but I had been having trouble finding what I wanted.  One day Maristella and I were in a big chain electronics store (that is also now selling vacuums and dishwashers) looking at something else and I went looking for music machines. I couldn't find them. All I could find were cheap looking iPod docks. I asked the sales clerk about it. "What do people listen to music on?" "Their computers mostly", he replied. Maristella and I looked at each other. "Great sound quality" we both said at the same time. "Not".

That was the low point.  But later we found Ditch Records on Fort at Blanchard in Victoria and all was right with the world again. I left with a pile of CD's from their very eclectic mix, as well as a recommendation from the clerk where to go for my magic music machine - a real old-fashioned audio store, Sound Hounds on Pandora, with people working there who really love music and sound.  Got into a long conversation about music quality through CD vs MP3 or whatever that was pretty enlightening. I ended up buying a TEAC receiver, with radio, internet radio, CD player and iPod connection, with small but wonderful Boston speakers and it sounds great in the space we have for it. However when I returned home with this new music machine in tow, I soon discovered that my ancient iPod did not work on it, its technology too old for all this new-fangled stuff, so I had to go out and invest in a new iPod Classic and transfer my collection. More money to Apple.

Here's what I'm listening to these days on my new magic music machine - on CD:

Slipstream - Bonnie Raitt
Shape Shifter - Santana
Spirit Rising - Angelique Kidjo
Sin & Soul - Oscar Brown Jr.
Locked Down - Dr. John

Here's a list of someone's recommendations for some of the best new music (so far) 2012. Lots to explore.

My Summer Vacation v.2012

 

Today is September and Labor Day Weekend, so that's that. Summer is over. It felt so short, and indeed it was.  Real summer weather started this year on July 4th and lasted all of seven weeks. Now the days are noticeably shorter, evenings are cool, early mornings brisk. The pattern of shadows in the backyard has changed as the sun is lower in the sky. It's completely dark by 9.

It's been a busy summer and the time passed too quickly. After the fateful boat trip which grounded us, house guests arrived and we hung out at the house planning dinner, shopping for dinner, cooking dinner and eating dinner. Sleep, wake up and repeat. In between all this gorging on fresh seafood and local market produce, we did manage to squeeze in some walks, local exploring and a few road/boat trips, one to the unpopulated west coast of Vancouver Island and by contrast to both major cities - Victoria and Vancouver.

Now everyone has dispersed to their respective homes and this past week we've been on our own for the first time in over a month. Quiet time, decompression time. The relaxation has been fine but at the same time there is so much I am itching to do - clean out the GreenHouse and get it ready for  fall when the fuchsias come back in, put in a new bed in the back to be ready for spring planting, remove a few shrubs that are ill placed. We found a hydrangea growing in the front of the house which is in total shade and gets little rain as it is mostly under roof overhang. It is a large shrub but with such conditions it was no surprise when it yielded exactly one flower, which I promptly cut off and brought inside to enjoy it close up.  Perhaps it was planted by the same tenant who mistakenly planted hostas along that same front bed. Deer food. They munch on it all summer and leave their "evidence" on the lawn. Time for a deer-resistant, full-shade change of plantings. I also want to go for longer walks now that the heat of the days is no more, exploring new trails. I also plan to rearrange all the art in the house and take on a couple of decorating projects.

But I can't. Do anything. I've been sidelined by not one, but two different injuries to my back. The first happened while I was in bed sleeping - when I woke up I was in pain and couldn't get out of bed. I'm wondering if it has anything to do with 4 hours of spring cleaning (a little late) the day before and if that is the case I'll make sure it never happens again. The second happened 5 days later when I finally felt able to walk a little further and went off to pick blackberries. I ended up falling down a bank by the railroad track and hurting the other side of my back.

So these days I am alternating hobbling around the house and garden and lying on a chaise in the garden shading by a big orange hat and wrapped in a blanket. I read books and self medicate, stare at the sky and the top of the huge cedar out front and watch the bees in the garden that is now a riot of blue and purple flowers. Yesterday morning I got in the car to go to the Saturday market to pick up flowers and the Saturday papers. I had a hard time getting in and out of the car and once on the pavement shuffled my way along like everyone else in this geriatric town. Stiff and sore. My future flashed before my eyes.

I need to get better soon, so I won't push it. All those projects can wait. Next week Number Two Son comes to visit and we're off for a few days in Tofino on the west coast, a place for walking and hiking and kayaking and, uh, surfing. I'd hate to show up there pushing my new walker.

The Stones at 50

Sebastian Kruger

Ghost Ship

The future father-in-law of Dustin Hoffman's character in The Graduate (1967) advised him to get into plastics, as that was the future. Good advice it would seem. Today the earth and the oceans are littered with it.

What is this compulsion to walk around carrying a plastic bottle of water? The "drink more water" advice has run amok. I really have no recollection of seeing, in my pre-plastic water bottle childhood, the bodies of people dead from thirst strewn along the roadsides of my hometown.

When I lived in Asia, the problem of plastic garbage was extreme, exacerbated by lack of garbage collection facilities and for sure, lack of recycling. The oceans are full of it, the beaches are full of it to say nothing of the streets and fields. I will never ever forget the disturbing experience of snorkeling off the beach in southern Luzon in the Philippines, swimming through a sea of plastic (Hovering).

Hiking along the beach near Tofino the other week I came across this sight of beachcombed trash that had been picked up and piled, ready for collection. Taking a closer look I could see many plastic bottles, plastic bags, styrofoam - the usual - and quite a few shoes. Apparently about a dozen shoe-clad feet have turned up on our shores since 2007, prompting great speculation and mystery. I did NOT look to see if these shoes contained any feet.

There has been a lot of talk recently about expectations of debris from the Japanese tsunami washing up on our west coast shores within the next year or so. Last week an unmanned ship identified as a Japanese fishing vessel was spotted about 150 miles offshore from Haida Gwaii (Queen Charlotte Islands). The Japanese government estimates that roughly 5 million tons of debris swept into the ocean, 70% of which sank. Over a million tons is still out there, along with all the other millions of tons of human trash dumped in the oceans every year.

Japanese ghost ship spotted off Haida Gwaii

I was out raking the lawn in the front garden the other day and stopped to talk to a passing neighbor. She looked at our huge red cedar and commented that this type of tree was "messy". She's the same neighbor who recently chopped down over 20 huge trees on their property next door (Hugging Trees), including a most beautiful giant I called the "Moonlight Tree", for the wonderful sight from our backyard of full moon rising behind it.

"So are humans", I replied.

Another Dennis

CAUTION

Cute Kitten Alert

Dennis

I'm not sure how it happens - one of those decisions that turns out to be an unexpected delight. You might call it exceeding expectations. That's Dennis.

We adopted Dennis from the Qualicum Cat Rescue a small not-for-profit place in town. It is run by a woman who has a long history of animal rescue, and having traveled to some of the most heart-breaking situations to help with the abandoned and suffering domestic animals, including New Orleans after Katrina. The storefront is a full pet food and supply store, some of the proceeds of which go to financing the cat rescue operation. On the first level of the building are the big shelves of pet food, along with other supplies. Interspersed throughout are big cat perching scratching posts.  Look closely and you will see adult cats cat-napping among the cat food shelves; they have the run of the place. There's also no fewer than 4 large dogs in the store, sprawled on the floor beside the cash register. Better watch your step.

There's one small room for the new intakes. Cat rescues, many brought in from abandoned situations  rest up, under observation, before being introduced to the rest of the residents. Upstairs is another room behind sliding glass doors. The Kitten Room. You can view the kittens through the glass but also, up to 3 people at a time can go inside and sit and handle the kittens. If you have reserved one, waiting until it is old enough to go home with you, you can go visit. Some, as Dennis was, came in with his Mother and the rest of his siblings, newborn. Others come in solo, or with a sibling - abandoned, they've been brought in from outside. Sometimes their mothers have been killed by cars or cougars, sometimes humans have dumped them by the side of the road. They are soon introduced to this nuthouse of kittens to socialize. When they are big enough, 1.5 kilos, they get their vet exam, shots and are spayed, before leaving for their new homes. The store appears to be a very popular work placement for young high school girls, so these little guys get a lot of attention. Apparently the woman who runs the place has found homes for over 1000 kittens in the years she's been operating.

I think Dennis has been very fortunate/spoiled all his life. As one of a family of newborns brought in early he always had his Mom, his brothers and sisters, a bunch of friends and humans to crawl all over. Now that he is in his forever home, he gets the best food, the best litter, a ton of attention from a couple of humans who adore him and dote on him. Whenever he feels like a nap, there's a warm lap somewhere in view to climb on. I have never had a cat like this. Dax was much more aloof, but the other side of that truth is I never had the time to pay that much attention to my cats in the past, until now, when time is what I have. He is a huge source of entertainment - we laugh and laugh both at his antics and our own. The sound of human baby talk in this house is truly bizarre.

Dennis is 7 months old now. We decided to go on a few road trips this spring so I went looking for a place to board him. There are a couple of cat boarding places nearby but looking online, I found a website for a woman who does cat sitting in our town. She will come to your house for an hour a day, feed them, play with them, make sure they're ok while you're gone. The cats can have a stay-cation while the owners are on vacation.

Well...not really "owners", After all it's dogs that have owners, cats have staff.

The Cat Lady came over yesterday for Dennis to interview her. Of course this being small town Vancouver Island during the visit we hear the life history, and it is extremely comforting to know that we are leaving the namesake of the God of Wine and Good Times, with what turns out to be a neighbor. She lives not far from us on acreage along the road I do my so-called runs on. I'm starting to think that everything I could possibly want in life is just down the road. Maureen has 6 cats living with her and has built this quite amazing outside cat "smoking room", her outdoor cat enclosure. I think you can trust your one and only in the care of anyone who builds something like this, don't you?

So now that that's arranged, we'll soon be off for a few days. Dennis will be Home Alone.

Wouldn't It Be Nice

I stayed up late the other night to watch the Grammy's. Yes I know they took place some time ago but it's only now that I just got around to seeing the recording on the PVR. Although I must say, even with fast forwarding past commercials and award show blather,  to only watch the performances,  it was still a considerable commitment of television watching time for me.

But worth it.

It turned out that a part of the show was devoted to the Beach Boys, who were billed on the show as being "reunited" for the first time in more years than we really want to remember.  This definitely got my attention, on a number of levels. 

The segment started out with a couple of contemporary bands doing Beach Boys covers. When the lead singer of Maroon 5 started to croon (no other word for it) those amazing teenage love lyrics of the song Surfer Girl, I thought, oh yes, this is their greatest song.  Memory time. It brought me way way back to a time of listening to the '45's of my friend's big sister Pat. Then off to my summers as a young girl at Minden,  camping in the tent outside the cottage with my cousins, flashlights lighting up the canvas walls, listening to tunes on the transistor radio of stations coming out of the dark from places like Michigan and Chicago and beyond, late at night.

Surfer Girl at the Grammy's was followed by another band covering Wouldn't It Be Nice. I was watching the singer closely to see if he was going to crack up at what I think are the most ironic lyrics ever - was he going to nail it or was he going to crack? Dum de dum "We could be marrieeed, and then we'd be happeee...Wouldn't it be nice..." I sing along to this song out loud and believe me, I can't do this with a straight face. What was Brian Wilson really thinking about when he wrote all this?

Back to the Grammy's, the "real" Beach Boys came on for the third and final song of the segment. The "reunion". Mike Love (who has never gone away), Al Jardine, Bruce Johnston who joined (I think) when Brian left, and Brian Wilson himself. There they all were, up in front of the Grammy world, singing Good Vibrations (not a favorite of mine) and when I saw them on the screen, oh my goodness, what a shock. I'll try to be delicate about this. Just let me say, I don't think I'm the only one who scares themselves when they look in the mirror.

Brian Wilson and Mike Love at the Grammy's 2012

Brian

What else is wrong with this picture of the 50th anniversary "reunion"? Who's missing? Two of the original brothers, Dennis and Carl, that's who.

Dennis Wilson, the drummer of the original Beach Boys, was my first crush (after Perry Mason, of course) as a young girl. When I was growing up, in Montreal Canada, California was Mecca. Everyone wanted to be here. As a wee teenybopper in the tent at Minden, with ear pressed to the transistor radio, the lure of sand, surf and California, as sung by the Beach Boys, was a beacon. Cheryl Tiegs was the cover girl, not just literally on the magazines, but for the whole sunshine fable. And Dennis Wilson was beautiful.

Later, when I was sort of grown up (sort of), and living in Toronto, I used to go the Beach Boys concerts that used to arrive every year without fail, during the CNE, the Canadian National Exhibition - a typical staid Toronto name for a midway, with lights and noise and a bunch of rides and side shows, where all the teenagers used to go to hang out. A young girl with a blond boyfriend who bought her a ring at one of the kiosks, two hearts entwined, wrapped around the finger.  The first ring anyone had ever given her and she thought it was just fine. Of course the "gold" wore off within the week revealing the rough metal underneath that chaffed the skin, the metal turning skin blue. But believe me, those summer evenings at the EX it were all tremendously romantic, all those blond, teen hormones in play, and most especially when combined with the headliner show Beach Boys concerts - "Do you love me, do you, surfer girl?" and of course, "Wouldn't it be nice?". Well what other answer is there to lyrics like that? YES YES YES!!!

But even by then, the group was a touring band, doing the circuit, dining off the old hits. Mike Love, the lanky front man and lead singer was the constant over the years. Brian Wilson withdrew early to live at home in his bathrobe,  taking with him his song writing magic, and Dennis Wilson was sometimes there on tour and sometimes not.

The last time I saw Dennis Wilson was in the open air arena at the Ex. It was quite strange. He sang a solo without accompaniment, a cappela, under the summer night sky. The song was the Joe Cocker tune "You Are So Beautiful To Me". The audience was completely still - it was all about the voice. The minute his voice faded to the end of the song,  the first blast of the evening's fireworks began, lighting up the dark.

Dennis then stopped touring and I stopped going.

He died some years later, in 1983, at the age of 39. Drowned.

That event was, for me, one of those "where were you?" moments, like, where were you when Kennedy/King/Bobby/Lennon/Diana died. We were young and foolish in Jamaica at the time and our driver, Mr. Campbell, came into the house to tell me the news. "One of the Beach Boys died", he announced. "Which one?", I asked, although I knew without hearing the answer that it was Dennis. That happens a lot to me, and to others. Knowing. Before you know you know.

For the next three days I played the music. Loud. This coincided with the visit of my mother, a true classical music fan, so no doubt my California surfer musical tribute was not entirely music to her ears. I was in mourning and one thing my mother was very very good at, was knowing when to speak and when to hold it.

I don't know how this 50th anniversary tour will go for them. The music sings for itself and a reunion of the last men standing, as it were, to play it again on stage seems kind of silly to me. Yes I know that lots of bands from the era do this reunion things, but this is MY band I'm talking about. I'd rather keep it to the sounds and the memories.

But what do I know. Someone, somewhere, thinks they will be making money.

Carl Wilson, Dennis Wilson, Mike Love, Al Jardine, Brian Wilson

Dennis Wilson 1944-1983

Time Change

I woke up this morning at 8 to find it was 9. Robbed.

'When told the reason for Daylight Savings Time, the Native elder said "Only the government would believe that you could cut a foot off the top of a blanket, sew it on the bottom, and have a longer blanket. '

from Robert Peters

Couch to 5K

Last spring, as we were getting ready to leave Manila and move here, I started to think about what I was going to do to get/stay fit. I had quite a routine going for myself - private pilates lessons twice a week, cardio at the gym at least 5 times a week, free weights and eating clean most of the time. The gym was an elevator ride away in the basement of my condo so that was a no-brainer, and Brenda was an amazing pilates teacher. All was fine and I felt great. What was I going to do when I moved?

A friend of mine in Manila who was from Vancouver just happened to know Qualicum Beach very well. In fact, she and her family come here every June to participate in the Qualicum Beach Triathalon.  She told me that it was a fun, low key type of event - swim 400 meters in the pool no less, bike 18K and run 5K. Hmmm. Maybe this was an answer. Training for something like this would certainly keep me fit.

There were just a few problems with this bright idea. I didn't run, I'd never owned a bike, and on the very rare occasions I did swim, it was only a gentle breast stroke. Wouldn't want to put my face in the water and ruin my makeup now, would I? Oh well, details, details. Not going to let that deter me. Back in Manila, I started cranking up the treadmill to start running intervals. How hard could this be? When I got to Qualicum Beach I figured I'd buy a bike and even sign up for a stroke clinic in the pool, since the last time I had a swimming lesson I was probably about 8 years old.

Well here's the update. I did buy a bike - and rode it about 3 times. It wasn't exactly like "riding a bicycle" and it didn't come easy for me. What the hell are you supposed to do with all those gears? I managed to stay upright and moving forward but that was about it. More practice needed.

As for the swimming, well I know where the pool is in town but that's about it. The thought of actually going in it makes me cringe. For one thing it's too wet. For another all kinds of traumatic memories are coming back to me from my childhood, including a particularly vivid one of a little me sitting shivering poolside at swimming lessons, with those horrid little white tiles and the echo chamber sounds of that huge indoor pool. There was also the incident when I dove into the pool and chipped my front tooth on the bottom, scarring me for life. So let's just say that GETTING TO the pool is still a work in progress.

That leaves the running.

I have never run outside before. The only running I've ever done was on the treadmill in the few months leading up to our departure from Manila. However, undeterred, I went shopping (as in, when the going gets tough...) as I need the appropriate running gear, no? It turns out that running outside is becoming an unexpected pleasure where I live. A 5 minute power-walk away and I'm on trails and roads running through acreage properties where llamas, horses, Shetland ponies and market gardens are raised. Sometimes the llamas, there are 5 in the field I regularly run past, are lined up against the fence looking at me with very strange expressions on their faces. "What on earth is SHE doing?" The ponies in the field across from the llamas are also intriguing - can I call them cute?. The woman who owns them has a dog that is as big as they are. The wild also is everywhere to see - birds and ducks and deer. The air is fresh, the trees are tall and if I turn one way on a clear day I see the magnificent Mt. Arrowsmith of the Vancouver Island range. Run (or more likely for me, walk) up to the top of the rise in the other direction and the mainland coast mountains come into view across the sea.

Mt. Arrowsmith - Vancouver Island

With views like this, the running is almost enjoyable. Almost. One foot in front of the other. Still doing the walk/run thing, but the run intervals are getting more frequent and longer AND, by the end of the time I'm surprised to realize that I'm feeling great. Love it ... when it's over. All is well.

And while I did say I'd finish the Qualicum Beach Triathlon I never did say in what YEAR I'd do it.

Stephen Tobolowsky

Stephen Tobolowky is a character actor whose name you may not know, but you may recognize from his 200+ roles in TV and movies, including the uber-annoying Ned Ryerson in Groundhog Day, the sheriff in Mississippi Burning and, more recently, a recurring role in Glee.

He is also one majorly Fine Storyteller.

Check out his tales of life on The Tobolowsky Files podcasts to see what I mean, available through that website and also (free) through iTunes. The great thing about it is that once you get hooked on listening to his stories, there are over 50 of them to go back to. A frequent companion of mine out in the GreenHouse or in The Bunkie studio.

Where Does Santa Go After Delivering the Presents?

FISHING!

Santa and his Dog spotted (by us) fishing in Cameron Lake, afternoon of December 25, 2011

Dipping a Toe Back in the Waters

I often say that I have no memory, but that can’t be true.  I don’t know to what extent a poor memory is deliberate, as there are certain memory lanes that I just refuse to walk down, while at the same time there are places I only live in memory and dreams. I have never had any way of structuring memories as I don’t write letters or many emails and don’t keep a journal. That was so, until recently, when I found a beautiful way to capture the immediate past.

A few months before we moved to Manila, for what was to be a 4 year stay, I started writing the blog East West and Upside Down. At the time, I didn’t really pay much attention to blogs, but a couple of twenty-somethings in my office suggested I start a blog as a way to keep in touch. So I did, and it’s been great.

From the start I saw the blog as a way of writing letters to people, of staying in touch, albeit pretty one-sided. It was never meant to be for a big audience of strangers. Way back in the day, when we first moved overseas to Jamaica, I wrote lots and lots of letters - and also kept copies of them, which served me as a journal of sorts. No intertube in those days. How much more efficient it is now, I thought, to put my tales and photos and cartoons and eye candy in one place, online, accessible to whoever wants to check in with what I’m doing. But the blog turned out to be much more than that. It turned out to be a personal place of memory, a place for me to go and reminisce and smile and more often than not laugh out loud. Clearly I was writing for myself, a most appreciative audience.

Then one day last month it was gone. Vanished. My entire Google account became disabled and my blogs were gone - inaccessible. I had no access to my stuff and couldn’t get a response from Google despite sending numerous emails. Turns out there is no there there. When Google says “Contact us” on a page, what it really means is contact our automated system, which will send some kind of automatic reply - or not. Being locked out was devastating and the thought of losing those 4 years of captured Asian memories in particular was incredibly painful. It felt like a virtual house fire where a room has been demolished, the one that held the very personal albums. Although the blogs were open in theory to the world, they could not be found with search engines, and so remained a place where my friends and sometimes friends of friends would read my “letters to them”. Writing them became a great source of entertainment for me and I’d sometimes go back and reread different stories, which would bring back all kinds of memories. It was also a way for me to sort through the hundreds of pictures I took on my travels to find the ones that told the story.

Google owns Blogger as well as Picasa, which is where all my uploaded images that get inserted in the blog are stored. It also owns YouTube. When the account was disabled everything was gone, including my newsreader, Feedly, which is fed through Google Reader, like everything else it seems. During the time I was trying to get my account reinstated I saw from the forums that this seems to happen a lot for one reason or another and that when it does, everyone becomes frantic - you can hear the howls of despair leaping off the screen. During the time without my account, without access to my own work, despair was a pretty good description of how I felt, especially as the days passed and it started to look like I may have lost it forever. 

The desire to write and take pictures and play with eye candy and jokes has not left me, nor the wish to preserve memories, but for now, I’m very reluctant to plunge back in with my previous “host”. I’ve been looking at other options but haven't yet found the energy to start all over again.

I seem to have lost my blogging mojo.

Meet Dennis