2-6-26

I've been posting words on this blog for a long time. Today is just ten days shy of another blogiversary -- this time it will be number twenty. 

Considering a range of life spans for various creatures, twenty years, once considered the length of a generation, seems like a reasonable enough time to sign off. 

Looking back and looking ahead. A lot like the Buddha in my friend's garden, always looking ahead while focussing on the now and recalling the who-knows-when behind. 

So, onward with the ten-nine-eight-to-signoff countdown. 

Overchill

These days, we're often told to 'chill' -- not to fret over things, especially when it's something we can't do much about. 

Sometimes though I think we're told to 'chill' a little too often, as the world seems crazy enough to maybe need to be a little worried about now and then. 

Last week, I at least did something more constructive than simply 'chilling' as I was involved in two political meetings. One was a forum where potential leaders of BC's Green Party were making presentations and answering questions--an interesting exercise that helped me decide who I'd prefer. 

The other was a meeting with Ernie Klassen, our newly-elected Member of Parliament. What a refreshing difference he's already making in our riding. For one thing, his office is actually OPEN Monday through Friday. The other, he's willing to meet with constituents no matter what their party affiliation might be. Such a wonderful difference from the last two MPs who've supposedly 'represented' us. 

As for me on this Labour Day, my 'labour' focussed on overdue cleaning projects, as clearly this old fridge was needing. 

End of the Line

It might seem odd to feature an image of apples, long associated with new beginnings (think Eden, even), in a post marking the end of something. In this case, unfortunately, those wonderful apples are the last of their kind. I'm not even sure what variety they might be, but because I know the people who rented a house on the land with the tree, I've had access to these for quite a few years. 

The parcel of land with the house has now been sold. Like so much of the land near here, what was once farmland has now been zoned industrial. Sigh. But back to the apples.

Not great for in-the-hand eating, but wonderful for pies or applesauce or, as I mostly do, dehydrating. Odd perhaps, but I no longer use an actual dehydrator, as I've discovered that the pilot light on our gas fireplace makes for just the right temp to slowly dry the fruit. 

Little bags of dried apples will find their way into gift packs at Christmas, though I guess for next year, I'll have to find some other old-timey apple tree that will serve me with a supply of windfall fruit. And hoping for sure, with all the strife currently raging in the world, that this holiday season won't be the end of the line for everyone. 

Are people getting stupider?

I'm not sure, but it seems to me that some folks indeed are getting stupider. And I have a few reasons for thinking this--not all of them completely stupid. 

My number one reason is the number of folks in the US who continue to believe that he-who-shall-not-be-named is a truth-teller and, as such, is worthy of being able to run (and be elected) as the next president of the US. 

Another reason comes from watching today's news where California is being drenched by rains from Hurricane Hilary (only one L there, so no politicizing, please). As a result many roads have been closed now that waters are rushing over them, temporary rivers.

But hey--what's that I saw a little while ago on CNN??  Yep, folks driving past the 'road closed' signs as if they were mere decorations. Stupid. And I suppose if their car gets wrecked, they'll be looking for compensation from their insurance provider. 

The reason I even thought about this in the first place was a message on a box of cereal in our pantry. Look closely (you can double-click on the pic to enlarge it) at the box of Vector and you'll actually find 'directions for use' offering instructions for how much cereal to put into your bowl as well as how much milk (skimmed--oops, I use 1%) to add. To think, for all these years, I've probably been doing it wrong. Duh!!

Delicate

I guess the lazy days of summer must be upon me. Here it is, already July 4th, and I'm only now doing a post for Canada Day, July 1st. 

When I first stepped outside on July 1st, that delicate red poppy was the first thing that caught my eye. I'm just glad I had the sense to grab my camera, as by the next morning, the blossom was already gone. 

For all I know, this may have been one of the last times we, as a country, even observe Canada Day. The more we learn about colonialism, it's an issue we need to consider. 

We can't forget that the day itself was known for many years as Dominion Day. The very word says it all. I suppose it was a small step to at least change the name.

About all I can do is keep an open mind and keep learning. And of course, I can keep appreciating all the delicate beauty I see around me. 

Which way from here?

Once again, I am posting about a small celebration -- this time it's a blogiversary, and a fairly big one at that. Seventeen years, an amount of time that boggles my mind. Where all have I been since then? The sign maybe says it. Nowhere, but now here... 

I started writing here as a way of establishing a bit of an online presence. At least that's what the workshop I attended proposed itself as -- starting a blog as an entry point to the world of the Internet. 

Since then, it appears that I've written a post here 1,199 times. So I guess that makes this number 1,200. That's a number that makes me happy, as twelve has always been my favourite number. I even have a poem about it in one of my books. 

Where exactly I go from here (with this, or for that matter, with a number of other possibilities) remains to be seen. I hope that some of you will continue to stick around. 

Unanswered

Nearly every photo of the queen shows her carrying a purse on her arm -- even the one of her standing in the lounge at Balmoral when she met with Liz Truss. Because her purse was often a lot frumpier than the rest of her attire, I'm left wondering who chose those handbags. 

Because a purse is quite a personal matter, I suspect the bags may have been of her own choosing. 

But what I'm really wondering about is what the heck would be in one of them?

Did she carry a lipstick, a comb? Did she need ID -- a passport when she travelled? Did she have her own credit card (gold, of course, I'm sure). What about a driver's license?? After all, she was famous for driving herself around in the Range Rover, though maybe that was only on her own property. 

And money, what about that? Consider what it would be like to pull out a bill and have your own face on it. 

The mystery of the queen's purse. Will that question ever be answered?

Bear with me...

It's been too long since I've posted anything here. And really, I have no excuse. Stuff just sometimes happens, I guess. 

But I suppose I was reminded that I'd said something to the effect that I'd write about the bears we saw when we went up the coast last month. 

And now bears seem to be everywhere in the news! There was one in Alberta that must have freaked out a couple of tourists from Thailand. Another report cites how many black bears are being killed here in BC. But the crummiest of these has to be the killing of a bear that wandered onto a golf course in a park in the city of Burnaby. I really don't understand why it wasn't tranquilized and relocated. 

When I raised this question with my husband, he figured it had everything to do with costs. And yes, I reckon it's a lot cheaper to shoot and kill a bear than to hire the transport to take it someplace safe. 

If every decision in our contemporary world is based on money, well, I give up and we're all screwed. 

But to take your mind off such negative thoughts, here's a video I took when we were on our northern tour. Yep, those are mighty big claws, but all they're doing is digging for clams or other tasty bits along the shore. As for the shakiness, that wasn't fear. It's simply the fact that I was standing on a boat and small waves were rocking us a bit. 

Regrets

I never met her, but I felt I knew her. When news came this week that Shelley Fralic, writer and editor for the Vancouver Sun, had died, a physical sense of loss washed through me. 

Her longtime pal and fellow columnist Pete McMartin was the one who broke the news to me -- on the front page of Tuesday morning's paper. His tribute to her is worth reading to the end, as he uses her own words in summary, and wise words they are. 

She wrote about things that many would consider ordinary, but in such a fresh and honest way they rose above the plane of the mundane. A great example is a column from earlier this year, when she wondered why a worker at Canadian Tire didn't understand what she was looking for when she asked for a crescent wrench. In that same piece she muses further on encountering a worker at another store who didn't know what she meant when she asked about pink flamingo lawn ornaments. Worst was probably the supermarket worker who had no idea about Brussels sprouts. 

Her point in that column was that it seemed to her that people are getting dumber. And maybe we are.

I sure feel that I am. In part because I never wrote to her (though thought of it a number of times). Why? To thank her. For what? Wasn't she just doing a job, one she was getting paid for?

The thanks would have been for writing in a way that always filled my head and made me want to read her column right down to the last word. 

It would have been for making me think, and for occasionally making me explore; I doubt I would have become as accustomed to visiting Point Roberts if it hadn't been for a nudge from her.

It would have been for occasionally pulling my heartstrings and making me nostalgic for some memory nearly lost in time. And it would have been for making me laugh.

In a recent piece she mentioned the small pleasure of eating cookies, but in such a way that I not only laughed out loud (alone, no less) but nearly choked. I was prompted to write to thank her for the laugh, and to say it seemed lucky I hadn't been eating cookies at the time. 

But I didn't. Too many other emails to write, or maybe just the distraction of the day's Sudoku. Whatever, I didn't thank her, and now I can only regret that I didn't. I can just hope that mistake will help me express thanks the next time I need to, especially when it's for something as life-affirming and important as a laugh. 

Maybe it's time...

...that God needs a new pronoun too. 

My uncle often used to lead a prayer when we sat down to eat. And I loved that he generally began, "We thank thee, blessed Father/Mother..." an opening that acknowledged a being beyond the boundaries of a single given gender. 

On this day when we recognize one of the most intense complexities of mathematics, pi, it seems like a good time to grant a broader expansiveness to that most complex of all human constructs, the idea of God. 

And, if we're the sort who sometimes offers thanks to such an entity, we need to be grateful for Their (rather than Her or His) generous ways.

A fresh start

The blank page of a new calendar always feels like it means the chance for a fresh start on things. 

One of the matters we always settle up for the beginning of the year is our bills. 

I've long called our method a marriage-saver, as it's meant we've never needed to argue about money. 

When I buy something, I tear a small rip in the top of my receipt and put it into what we call 'the jar' (even though it's actually a drawer, and not a jar at all). When the guy buys, he puts his receipt into the same place, but because it's un-torn, we know he paid. 

At the end of the year, we separate the chits and make our totals. We figure out the difference, divide it in half, and that's how much the person who spent less pays to the one who paid more. 

Once we've got that figured out, we burn all those supermarket and produce store and home repair shop and pizza place receipts. 

Because it's been raining so much, we had to wait for our annual bonfire. But yes, here it is -- a fresh start on 'the jar' and on a new year. 

Here's hoping we're not the only ones heading into fresh territory, especially after the horrific events in the US today. 

Snow in May?

While those may look a bit like flakes of snow, that's not what they are -- and am I ever glad! Parts of Ontario and even places in BC are still getting the occasional dusting, but fortunately, not us.

It's a chunk of lichen, knocked down from the roof -- the result of one of those nearly-annual jobs of ongoing maintenance that go along with being lucky enough to have a home. Plenty of moss came down too, as well as an awful lot of spruce needles.

When I started to look up information about lichen, I had no idea what I'd be getting myself into. It turns out that are so many different kinds, and that they serve so many different purposes, well, it was a lesson that could have led me to needing to go to grad school for a PhD.

But I guess that's one of the things I love most about being able to explore the internet -- and like everyone else, that's about the most exploring any of us get to do these days.

Once upon a time, it was called armchair travel, only as I poke around for a definition of that term, I find that armchair travelling looks more popular than ever. If nothing else, the price is right, and no passport or currency exchange required.

The things that happen when a person decides to do a bit of home maintenance. Like Dr Seuss said, "Oh, the places you'll go!" 

Enjoying the signs

 We've had some beautiful signs popping up in our neighbourhood. Lovely lettering done in colourful chalks, all of them important, positive reminders. As I take my private strolls, I encounter them on the sidewalk, and no matter how many times I see them, they make me smile.

Small actions such as these are one of the reasons I am smiling today.

Of course, there's another sweet circumstance that always comes to mind for me on this particular date, April 10th.

It was another sign, and long ago, that made a child ask her mother, "What's Aprilioth?" The pair had been driving past the community centre, and an ad posted on the outdoor signboard was announcing an event scheduled to take place on April 10th. To the girl, the plain font, all in caps, meant the date looked more like a word than any specific day.

That child was author Eileen Kernaghan's daughter, and the question led to the setting of one of Kernaghan's wonderfully engaging fantasy novels, Journey to Aprilioth.

The signs are everywhere. We just have to be alert to them. Like they used to say at the end of every episode of Dead Dog Cafe: "Stay calm! Be brave! Wait for the signs!"

Leapification

Here we are at another Leap Day, a day that turns out to be full of odd celebrations and customs.

And really, February 29th holds a lot of potential as a great date for some rare and eccentric traditions. Just think, we'd have a full four years to plan our escapades.

Not a day for jumping, only leaping. We could leap to conclusions without fear of reprisal, feel our hearts leap at thoughts of true love, or spend the day in inspired speculations, making leaps of faith and logic.

About the only leaps I made today were small leaps of progress in the garden, as I gave both raspberry and blackberry vines their annual mega-prune. It's a job that always grants a share of satisfaction, maybe just because I know how tasty the summer crop will be.

As for the bridge sign above, the water flowing beneath it was beautiful and inviting. I think you were just supposed to swim from the bank below rather than cannon-balling off the railings.

Must admit to having several leaps in mind for myself, as I suppose we should all have a dream or two that requires, at the very least, some leap of imagination. Leap on.

Finding beauty

I'll admit to often finding beauty in odd places, spots where many people might just walk past. That was the case with this colourful assortment of autumny leaves, strewn across the stairwell outside my local library. I'd left my camera in the car, and decided I had to go back for it, as I knew the colours would fade or someone would come along and sweep them away. And yes, I realize they're placed sideways, but there's something I like about the unbalanced balance of the image that way.

Yesterday, with no camera in hand (I was driving, so not allowed, a good thing) I was struck by the sight of a straggly 'v' of geese flying across the afternoon's blue sky.

And then, beside me was a field of pumpkins, looking smallish but bright orange, all aglow with the promise of Thanksgiving and Halloween.

Strange, perhaps, but I love finding beauty in the world, especially when so many aspects of contemporary life seem to insist on being ugly. Better, I find, to look for the bright spots which mostly turn out be elements of nature. Yet another aspect of beauty to consider and maybe meditate on.

A rear-view kind of day

That rear-view window isn't the view from a racecar, though that might have been fun, as racecar is a a palindrome, one of those words that are the same, whether you read them forwards or backwards.

It's just a rainy day shot I took from the back window of the SkyTrain, I think not too far from Metrotown in Burnaby. Since SkyTrain cars are driverless though, I have to wonder why there's a windshield wiper. But, whatever.

My reason for this backward glance is that today is National Backward Day -- not exactly a big cause for celebrating, but kind of fun sounding anyway. And I suppose if you poke around, you'll find that just about every day puts a focus on some kind of cause or event.

End of the month, already. Time to turn the calendar to February, the shortest month, which will likely zip past even more quickly than this first month of the year has.

Still, looking back can provide certain insights. Sometimes it's by looking back that we get a better idea of how we might go forward.

The incredible stillness of silence

I'm not a golfer, but I admit to enjoying the walking part, as golf courses seem to always be beautiful places. Luckily, my partner (who's an awesome golfer) doesn't mind my tagging along, dragging only my camera for my usual nine-hole limit.

The photo above is from the course at Discovery Bay, and it's either the 13th or 14th hole. Whichever isn't all that important. The situation prompting this post is what mattered to me. The photo is from only a few seconds after the fact.

I'm not sure how I noticed it, but notice I did -- silence. Not a traffic sound, not a plane overhead, not even the sound of wind or an animal. The unusualness of the quiet managed to catch me off-guard.

It's not very often that total silence reigns. Even now, in the privacy of my office, besides the quiet taps of my fingers on the keyboard, there are sounds. Although the window's closed, I can hear a kind of humming from outside. Probably a machine, part of the ongoing construction our neighbourhood continues to endure. And another, the sound of a truck or other large vehicle passing a few blocks away.

How long did that momentary silence last? Twenty seconds? Maybe. I don't really know.

What ended it? I'm not even sure anymore, though I'm pretty sure it was a natural sound that broke the spell -- either a frog or a trill of birdsong. And soon after, I noticed the hum of traffic on the nearby road and then another of the little planes overhead.

The silence didn't last long, but its effect was deep and something I won't forget. For that small but precious interval, I'd witnessed something I don't get enough of, and experienced myself as a part of it. Exhale. Ahhh.

Abandoned

Dusk on a greyish Tuesday, when I'm on my way to the jail where I volunteer. This field full of forgotten pumpkins looked so lonesome, I had to stop and take a quick snap. A little fuzzy, to be sure -- even a little bit crooked -- but maybe that's appropriate, especially for where I was headed.

These pumpkins looked to me like orphans of a sort. Abandoned. Not big enough or pretty enough to get picked when the rest of the field was harvested for jack-o-lanterns. The ones left behind.

Just as I often wonder what will happen to the men I work with once they get out, I wonder what will happen to these pumpkins next week.

On achieving equality

There's a chilling line in a Kurt Vonnegut story about a future I don't believe any of us want to see come true. "The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal."

It's from a story called 'Harrison Bergeron' in Welcome to the Monkey House. While the idea of equality is a noble one, the way it's achieved in Vonnegut's vision is anything but noble. To achieve 'equality' among everyone, anyone with a beautiful face must wear a hideous mask; anyone with above-average intelligence must wear earphones that continuously blast cacophonous sounds to prevent them from thinking clearly. It's a society with a level playing field, but it's one where the bar has been lowered to the bottom rung.

On the weekend, I attended the On Words Conference of The Writers Union of Canada, a group to which I belong. The overriding theme of the weekend was the issue of equity.

Carmen Rodriguez offered a metaphor of explanation, one that made it clearer than any I'd heard before. She told us to picture three people standing behind a fence, outside a soccer match.. One of the persons is quite tall, one is of medium height and one is very short. The tall one can see a bit of the game, the mid-sized one can reach for the occasional glimpse, but the short one is out of luck. In other words, they're not being given equal opportunity to see the game.

Then someone comes over to the fence with three little stools for them to stand on. Now, the tall one has a good view; the medium person gets a better look than before, but the short one still can't see over the fence. Resolution for the problem? For the tall person, the short stool provides a solution, allowing them to see the game. For the middle-sized person, a stool that's a bit bigger will make all the difference. As for the short person, they will need a very tall stool to look over the fence comfortably to participate in watching the game. Equity. Aha! A chance for all to be equal.

At our family supper on Sunday night, I told Carmen's story and reactions around the table were mixed. One son thought each person should get the same advantage -- that they should all get a tall stool right at the start. Even though the tall person didn't need a tall vantage point, this way would be 'fair' to all with no one person needing more 'propping up' than the other. Interesting.

And then came the suggestion to simply take down the fence.

I'm still not sure how best to handle the question: How do we provide equality to everyone? About the best metaphor I can offer for now is the image of the curving fence above. Maybe each of us needs to find our own place along it.

Ridiculous

When I was little (like, five) I used to play store. This involved getting tins from my mother's cupboards and arranging them on the steps outside the front of our house. I never sold anything, but I remember taking great pleasure in setting up the 'store' and taking some kind of strange pride in how it all looked. Plentiful, secure. Who knows.

Looking at my kitchen counter, I realized it still looks like I'm playing store -- only the display isn't on the steps outside, and the line-up doesn't consist of beans or corn or soups.

The set-up this time is an assortment of the various remedies I have tried to get through this ridiculous coughing flu, the manifestation of this winter's flu that's decided to pay me an unwelcome visit.

It probably looks as though I've decided to play drugstore. Frankly, it's nowhere near as much fun as playing 'ordinary' store. I'm just hoping I'm not going to need to rely on these supplies for much longer. But excuse me, please, while I go to find another lozenge.