Hobbies You Might Not Want To Admit To

Morning on the deck in the South Chilcotins. While it is cloudy, I can see some extremely promising clear breaks to the south-west - even the ‘official’ weather forecast is looking optimistic. Weather aside, morning on the deck is a magical time, particularly when accompanied by a most excellent cup of coffee, as it is this morning (who am I fooling - show me a morning when I haven’t been accompanied by a good cup of coffee, and I’ll show you the inhabitants of hell learning to ice fish).

Morning is a particularly good time to observe birds. Birds, you say? Karen, you and the Pensioner better extricate yourselves from the boonies right quick - you are walking a fine line of eccentricity. (and trust me.... this concern is echoed with great resonance by our children....and not just with regard to the birds...). I’m with you, but hear me out. 

For the most part, I have assumed that birds fall into the following categories: robins, crows, seagulls, ducks, and brown/grey birds. (OK - I could probably identify an owl in a pinch). Astoundingly, I am finding that latter category - brown/grey birds - is considerably more diverse than I had originally understood. First of all, there are small, medium and large brown/grey birds. Who knew? AND.... some of these brown/grey birds have other colours on them! Like yellow, and red...! Amazing. 

Depending on your mind set, bird-watching can be either enormously satisfying or fully exasperating. Consider for a moment the size of your average field guide to birds vs. your average field guide to mammals.  Not even comparable. In this area we have, what? -  two varieties of bears, a couple of kinds of deer, moose, wolves, coyotes, a few cats, a bunch of weasils and the standard sampling of rodents?  But birds.... I couldn’t begin to list them! I mean, there are at least three different woodpeckers alone! (I say this only to impress upon you my new-found additional category of birds - woodpeckers have now been separated from the brown/grey category - some of them have red on them). And there’s no guarantee that one bird of a variety will look the same as another - apparently sex, age and whether or not it’s breeding season impact the plumage. Seriously? Hundreds upon hundreds of varieties AND a variety of permutations of colouring amongst each? Give me a break... or a bear - a bear always looks like a bear.

Nonetheless, the more time I spend observing this inexhaustible array of plumed personalities (did I just call them ‘plumed personalities’? ... I seriously need to get back to civilization....), I begin to understand the birdwatcher’s obsession. I’m not sure I am endowed with sufficient patience to make a serious hobby of birdwatching (plus I would like my children to continue to admit to being related to me) but there is a certain satisfaction to being able to say I can identify a red-breasted sapsucker. Wow. Pack up the car - I think the fine line may just have been crossed.

What Now?

The thing I unquestionably love most about our cabin in the South Chilcotins is the deck.  I have a bit of a thing for decks, actually, and this deck, though rudimentary and looking slightly the worse for its years, is blessed with all day sunshine. Combine that feature with a deck surface wrapping three sides of the house, providing shade and a cool breeze when the temperature tops 30 degrees, and you really have the ultimate wonder-deck. And of course, unlike Whistler, where spring drizzle and cold temperatures tend to predominate, the South Chilcotins, nestled in the rain shadow of the Coast Mountains, offer up generally drier, warmer weather, providing a cornucopia of deck-sitting opportunity.

So I sit here - it’s been cloudy most of the day, but for the moment the sky has cleared and I bask in late afternoon sunshine. To say it is peaceful would be an understatement, but to suggest it was quiet would be entirely inaccurate. Gun Creek thunders in the background, the wind hisses through the aspens, and the birdsong is cacophonous and continuous. These sounds, however, blend together in a sensual symphony, massaging the spirit and re-booting the soul. And the smell... snow brush flowers, newly minted evergreen shoots and wild roses... a combined fragrance paradoxically both delicate and over-powering. (Amazing how much time and money is devoted to trying to recreate the perfume of fresh air).

In short, a splendid afternoon. I’ve been on vacation for a week now. You might question the sanity of taking vacation time in June-uary - not really famous for consistent, fabulous weather, and, of course, too early for bike riding in the higher mountains. (In fact, I think you could say that June is pretty much famous for consistently cold damp weather.) However, the man known simply as Geoff, having pulled the pin on the day job and filed to collect his pension, was moving his base camp to these parts for the summer, and I just felt the need to tag along. 

Retired. Weird. How freakin’ old are we??? When did that happen? I know, I know - not specifically retired, just reassigned (I mean, retiring to become a mountain bike guide doesn’t exactly scream ‘decrepit’). It’s still a watershed moment though; a point in your life where you realize just how much life has happened, and that you are somewhat precariously balanced on the fulcrum of age. I guess I would be fine with that if... if I had any clue on where I go from here. (a friend of mine put it most succinctly - ‘I’m trying to figure out what to do with the second half of my life’). I wasn’t banking on having to resolve this quite so soon  - crap, I only just figured out what to do with the first half of my life! At this rate, I’ll be 100 before I can confirm my personal retirement plans. And I’m not sure if it is a good thing or a bad thing that I have this existential continuity crisis in common with my twenty-something kids. (I don’t think they find it all that comforting either).

So I take a breather on my deck in the South Chilcotins. I listen to the birds, smell the flowers, soak in the sun (though a rather grey cloud has obliterated it for the moment...literally, not metaphorically... I think it might rain.....). I delight in the brilliant greens of spring, the small bear foraging around the yard, the patches of grassland offering the first lupins, balsam-root sunflowers and Indian paintbrush, and the tireless avian choristers (though even in my lyrical reverie, I have to say that the crow is very like that one voice in the choir, who, try though they might, can NOT actually hit the notes...). As the saying goes, ‘you’re only as old as you feel’. Today, that makes me about 86. Maybe I don’t have to worry about the second half of my life...

Training Day

I know it's only February, but I can't help it. I am already thinking about spring and bike riding season. In Whistler, that season can start anywhere from early April to mid May (except for that fabulous, er, I mean, disastrous year when we had no snow and I was riding IN SHORTS in February. Probably not in the resort's best interests, but, what the hell, make hay when the sun shines, right??) Of course the karmic rebuttal to the biking-in-February year came last year when the trails didn't clear until mid-May. (it was so bad, I had to escape to Costa Rica to heal my winter-weary,  biking-deprived soul). As I may have mentioned in passing, I am quite fond of bike riding.

Passion for the sport notwithstanding, there are a couple of challenges inherent in the aging bike-rider scenario. Ignoring for the moment the entirely obvious fact that the middle-aged physique demands the retirement of lycra, there are also the problems of waning muscle mass, extended injury recovery time, brittle bones,  chronic tendonitis, and, for whatever obscure mystery as yet unraveled by mankind, an increasingly large ass. While these issues are, to some degree, mitigated by the middle-aged financial stability which enables purchasing a lighter frame, better components, slimming cycling wear and a photo-shop program that downsizes one's ass two sizes with the click of a mouse, we are by no means talking about a wash.

It would seem, as well, that fate is not always fair. While I may suffer miserably from the indignities of middle-age, appearances indicate that the man known simply as Geoff is rather more immune to aging than I am. I will not for a moment suggest that I have ever been able to keep up with my husband on a bike. Even in my best days, the man known simply as Geoff would reach the summit of a pass long before I would. Generally, I would arrive some time after he had caught his breath, admired the view, finished his lunch, completely stripped and rebuilt his bike, and was half-way through Tolstoy. Geoff's fascination with photography can be largely attributed to the fact that he had to find a hobby to fill his time while he waited for me to catch up on the trail. More recently, I am thinking that he may have to take up   pin-head painting or building ships in bottles. In short, the performance gap is increasing at a disproportionate rate.

Photo credit Geoff Playfair (taken by telephoto from the top of the next pass)

As I witness this phenomenon, it occurs to me that my standard approach of 'rest now, train later' is perhaps a determining factor. I immediately make a firm commitment to myself to undertake a rigorous winter training program. I have to be honest, though, I'm not really the 'self commitment' type. No - I'm more of the 'I'll definitely think a lot about committing to this, but I might not be as keen to actually get started' type. This year, however, is different. This year I will not be shivering on the trail, peering through the first snowflakes of the season at the man known simply as Geoff and saying, 'I think I am finally in shape'.

And so I plot my training course. Clearly, the stationary bike trainer will figure heavily into the program.
Several hours of pumping tires, removing skewers, finding shoes, raising the seat, lowering the seat and flicking through three hundred channels to find something other than 'Ice Road Truckers Season 14' to entertain me, and I am finally ready to spin.

Wow - this is great. Pulse red-lining, sweat pouring from my brow, nether parts chafed, hamstrings crying for mercy - what a workout - boy if I can keep putting in the hours on this thing,  I will be a veritable iron woman by May!!! Looking to do, say, 40 minutes today, maybe an hour given how good I feel? Time check - wait...what the hell...??? - I've only been on this tortuous contraption for FOUR minutes?.. FOUR MINUTES??? Something must wrong with the clock. Double check with the other clock. Nope. Four minutes. (I consider an unwelcome perspective - it takes five minutes to pedal up the driveway and to the closest trailhead).

Yaaaa - so this isn't going to be that easy. But neither is the first epic of the season. I'm no quitter - tough it out - keep pedalling. Time? Six minutes - excellent - well - don't want to overdo it on the first day. Maybe I'd best call it quits and do some stretches. Yoga. That's it - I should probably do some yoga. Work on my core. Then I'll lift some weights to ramp up the upper body strength.

Here's the thing, though - I don't actually know much about yoga. And anyone recall the secret location of the weights? (I remember putting them somewhere and thinking 'will I remember where I put these?'). So - two 'salutations to the sun' and a prolonged shavasana (which exhibited such a devotion to mediative stillness it could well have been mistaken for a nap) and I am done. Oh ya - and an 'ohm' thrown in for good measure - makes it authentic, right? Not exactly the rigorous workout I had intended, but, hey... it's months 'till bike season, right? I have plenty of time to shape up - really, there is no rush. And the human machine known simply as Geoff? Well, he's been waiting for me for thirty years - why change things now?

Activate Your Principles

Last week I turned a corner in my quiet existence. I became a radical environmental activist. ('Radical Environmental Activist' being our Federal government's description of choice for those registering opposition to Enbridge's proposed Northern Gateway pipeline.)

I'm pretty excited, actually - to be honest, I've always yearned to be a radical. The genetic code of people who grew up in middle class homes in West Vancouver generally precludes any tendency to non-conformity of any sort, let alone radicalism. A woman who religiously files her income tax by April 30th, would never consider checking out of a hotel at 11:05 if check-out time is 11, and drives the man known simply as Geoff crazy with her insistence that a paper bag which has been in contact with a loaf of bread is too contaminated to be recycled with the mixed paper is not exactly activist material.  Nonetheless, it would seem that this pipeline issue has pushed me right over the top - driven me to the absolute brink - incited me to a desperate civil disobedience. I wrote a letter. Well, sort of.

I have flirted with protest in the past.  However, honesty requires me to disclose that my previous efforts were to 'protest' as heating a TV dinner is to 'cooking'. That is to say that they have consisted of electronically signing my name to a form letter (generally passionately penned by the David Suzuki Foundation) and clicking 'send', whereupon, depending on the issue, the letter magically makes its way to the appropriate inbox in either Ottawa or Victoria. (I am particularly fond of the feature that, upon entering your postal code, automatically cc's your MP!!). This time, however, I find that Dr. Suzuki and his team have, to my great inconvenience, yet to provide a suitable letter. What to do?

Recognizing that writing a letter from scratch, much like cooking from scratch, actually requires effort, and perhaps even some time spent researching the facts, I quickly resort to perusing the internet for something I can plagiarize (preferably from a reasonably informed source which shares my views and encourages 'plagiarism for protest'). A few key strokes later, a suitable letter on the Pacific Wild site presents itself. Fantastic! What's this, though? I actually have to research the email addresses and contacts? Merciful Heavens - who knew this would be so much work - there is a rerun of Seinfeld that I have seen only three times starting in five minutes?! (and for the record? -  I suspect that governmental email addresses, which are about the least intuitive addresses I have ever encountered, are purpose-built to be undeliverable... but that's a subject for my next blog post: 'How I Became a Conspiracy Theorist').

However, protest is not without a price, and so I persevere. At long last, the email addresses located and entered into my contact list,  I have the letter signed and am poised to click the 'send' button when I suddenly think I should just tweak the letter a bit. I mean, there are a couple of phrases that just don't sound like me. Perhaps move a phrase here, change  a word there. That paragraph seems a teeny bit wordy, and I would never .... wait a minute.... do I actually think anyone is really going to critique this letter? Will Prime Minister Harper personally open this email and say 'If only Karen Playfair had used the active rather than passive voice and avoided all that hackneyed simile I would stop that Northern Gateway pipeline project. Immediately.'. Probably not. I probably just need to get the damn thing sent before the damn pipeline is built. And so I click. Done. I am an activist.  Sure - it took a plagiarized form letter and about fourteen 'Undeliverable' messages from someone called 'System Administrator' to express my outrage, but dammit, I am an activist. A bona fide radical environmental activist.

Sh*t Winter Cycle Commuters Say

In the spirit of the latest trend of 'Saying Sh*t' - this is for my fellow winter cyclists:

• My handle bar light has 740 lumens - I can light up the whole highway.
• I can't feel my face.
• Get off the freakin' shoulder!
• Are you riding studs?
• Hi - ya - do you guys have any stock on the litre size of chain lube?
• Brakes are really just a luxury.
• I can't feel my feet.
• Do you know where I can get a Gortex case for my iPad?
• That's the third battery I've put in my blinkie since October.
• I can't feel my hands.
• I totally wish they made backpack condoms with glow in the dark fabric.
• That grinding in my drive train is starting to really annoy me.
• Had to book it when I heard the snowplow coming up behind me.
• Today my snotsicle actually went from my nose to my handlebars.
• Are you getting any more than 4 gears?
• I heard that Pricepoint has a sale on derailleurs - I totally need to check that out.

Welcome to 2012: Year of the Vegetable

Welcome to 2012. After a longer than intended blogging hiatus, I'm ready to hit the new year with renewed commitment. (no doubt bringing relief to my many, many followers....all two of them...).

Writing, it would seem, requires time and a fresh, optimistic mental state. December is not a month that offers either of those ingredients for me. For several weeks through November and December, I am utterly mired in  budgets, business plans, and a general spiritual malaise triggered by limited daylight and  a melancholic-yet-seemingly-fruitless quest to recapture my Christmas mojo. (Dude... I soooo need to MOVE on and MAN UP!)

In any event, flipping the calendar inevitably represents a fresh start. Though it will be some time before the increasing daylight kickstarts my non-hibernation mode, just knowing that we're on the upswing assists immeasurably in restoring both optimism and creativity. It's a lot like coming out of the forest on a long ascent... ya, you still have a big, steep above-treeline kicker ahead of you, and it's a royal pisser that the man known simply as Geoff is already at the top waving at you, but just being able to see the extent of the remaining climb somehow provides a second wind.

Of course, the new year also brings with it an abundance of resolutions - in my case, unimaginative resolutions such as 'I will eat better', 'I will exercise more', 'I will phone my mother more often' (well, maybe just the first two - I'm only human, after all...). This year, the man known simply as Geoff got an early jump on the resolution band wagon and, in November, after watching a movie on the alarming correlation between disease and the consumption of animal protein, decided that we should join (if only peripherally) the vegetarian revolution.

Let me be very clear here - we are not vegetarians, nor are we likely to ever be vegetarians - that DELICIOUS piece of venison I ate at the Rimrock only days after embarking on our 'vegetarian journey' is proof of that. However, we are exploring what I would loosely term 'recreational vegetarianism'. This probably doesn't sound like all that big a deal. I mean, what? ... so you leave the meat portion out of the dinner and bump up the vegetables. Can't be that hard, right?

Yaaa... so I quickly learned a couple of things: 1) 35 odd years of cooking experience is useless once the rules change, and 2) I don't really like vegetables all that much. (That second discovery? A bit of a setback under the circumstances.)

Nonetheless, we have persevered. I have resorted to actually following recipes, as my usual 'wing it and pray' approach was resulting in some particularly unappetizing offerings, not to mention an unhealthy rate of weight loss. Thanks to the internet and a couple of engaging vegetarian cookbooks, however, I am managing to prepare meals that are, for the most part, edible and, on the odd, not unwelcome occasion, even tasty.

One of the things I find most striking about this whole experience is the complete change of ingredients one is required to stock. Suddenly ginger, cilantro, parsley, and celery are on the shopping list every week - I don't even like cilantro. We go through garlic, yams and chipotle paste by the truck load, and I am frankly weary of washing spinach. The coriander and turmeric, generally released from the spice cupboard only when we 'cook Indian', are suddenly disappearing at an heretofore unwitnessed pace. And I sure hope we don't see a global shortage of cumin any time soon, 'cause that would really put me into a tailspin.

Don't get me started on the 'legumes', though - seriously - I am a woman who, as a rule, will decide on what to make for dinner guests, say, about seven minutes before they arrive. Like, 'soak overnight' is SO not on my program. (however, I will say that I made a baked black bean dish the other night that was well worth the soaking and boiling effort it entailed... wait...was this some kind of an epicurean hallucination???). Then of course there is the chopping - I never really understood why people were so particular about their knives. Now that I chop vegetables for the better part of my waking hours, I yearn for a knife with an edge sharper than a wooden spoon.

Yup - I wouldn't say this transition to vegetarian-based eating has been seamless. And of course, in a bizarre this-was-all-your-idea-therefore-I-must-make-you-miserable way, I fully plan to grumble and moan to the man known simply as Geoff for as long as possible. However, as with all things challenging, it does provide great material for an anecdote, and seeing as the other option for a new blog entry was 'How I disposed of the leftover Christmas baking', you should probably be somewhat thankful for our efforts.

Now, if you will excuse me, I have a roasted eggplant to puree....

Inclemency and the Art of Cleaning

As I've shared before, though I am not a particular fan of winter, I will grudgingly credit the season with occasional days of brilliance. Today is one such day - a combination of bluebird skies, and sun and snow so bright that the world looks like one big Delft plate.  Periodically, a hint of wind nudges a branch, exhaling a shimmering puff of icy crystals. Granted it's a bit chilly, at minus ten,  and that hint of wind comes with a northerly bite, but the sub-zero temperature keeps the snow firm upon the trees and unsullied on the ground. Clearly a beautiful day, begging to be embraced.

But here's the rub with winter: not every day is like this. Not by a long shot. There are plenty of days when a metaphorical crowbar is the force necessary to pry oneself from the comfortable confines of the great indoors. Some days even the dog, generally an ardent fan of ANY outing, peers outside only to pooh-pooh the ill-advised idea of facing the elements (a statement which, unfortunately, significantly increases the chance of him also pooh-poohing on the carpet...).

The worst thing about those inclement days, particularly after a generous spell of good weather, is that I am suddenly confronted with the unpleasant reality that I have not engaged in anything remotely resembling housework in several weeks. I am forced to look around me and admit that, yet again, the magic cleaning elves, in whose existence I so fervently wish to believe, have failed me.

My faith shattered, I have no option but to mount an offensive attack on dust, dog hair and downright dirt. To be honest, neither I nor the man known simply as Geoff is particularly fussy about general household cleanliness. Nonetheless, given that societal norms discourage such things as an unidentified black substance overtaking your toilet bowl, or a layer of animal hair so thick it completely obscures the underlying floor, I feel obliged to conform.

In my mother's day, house keeping was a relatively simple task, unhampered by any inconvenient urge to question the environmental impact or general toxicity of the cleaning products being used. (My mother, for the record, is of a rapidly-diminishing secret society of individuals who fully comprehend the mysterious function of the iron).  In the sixties, I believe that had weapons-grade plutonium been proven to clean a toilet, it would have been readily available on your average grocery shelf (cold war be damned!). I grew up believing anything less than a spotless house was an indication that one was, at best, mentally deficient, and at worst, a socialist. Whatever chemical price was necessary to avoid these crippling stigmas was well worth it.

Today, I am compelled to shed the blissful ignorance of the perils of household toxins, and attempt to wrestle our house into a semblance of cleanliness using more benign substances than, say, weapons-grade plutonium. This is not without its challenges. Simply put, those toxins-in-a-bottle work like a hot damn. When it comes to removing unidentified black substances, goopy bathtub scum and the abundance of general grime created by, well, living, you just can't beat a good poison.  And let's be honest, a dishwashing detergent without bleach or phosphates? Sure, fish love it, but it's not all that effective at washing dishes. Nor is the eco-friendly laundry liquid particularly 'tough on stains'. Cleaning a bathroom with baking soda and vinegar? Feels good for the soul, but is a helluva lot of hard work for the body! How I long for the simple days when soaking baby clothes in a solution from a container labelled with a skull and crossbones made perfect sense.

But another thing my mother taught me is to stick to my principles. While that may have back-fired on her, given my raging socialist tendencies and considerably-less-than-spotless home,  it does mean I am committed to avoiding toxic household chemicals wherever possible. As a consequence, my bathtub may sport a residue of soap scum, my clothes may have the odd faintly-discernible stain and, if you're super fastidious, you probably wanna check inside the mug before pouring a cup of coffee, but I don't think that's too big a trade-off against pouring litres of poison down the drain each year.

And good news abounds... I have discovered that things look virtually spotless when viewed without glasses. I knew there would be a silver-lining somewhere in this failing vision thing.

Note: for those of you looking for some good information on eco-friendly cleaning check out http://www.ecoholic.ca/. Great website and the book 'Ecoholic Home' by Adria Vasil is a great resource.