Happy Saint Paddy's day

Top o' the marnin to ya!

I always feel like smiling on St. Patrick's day, though I can't explain why. There is nothing remotely Irish about me except the shamrocks currently blooming in my front yard.

(Aside: I have not seen any other outdoor blooming shamrocks here in Vancouver except in a plant nursery. I found a tiny clump of these in a hidden corner of my side yard when we moved into this house six years ago, and transplanted them to the front. They have thrived and colonised, even through the nastiest of winters, and delight me by blooming every year around leprechaun day.)

As I was saying, despite the red hair and a fondness for a bottle of O'Hara's Red, I have no Irish blood. I am seventh generation Canadian, a Heinz 57 mix of Scot and several other nationalities, including native Indian.

So why do I have an affection for St. Patrick's day? Bartenders ruin beer in his name by turning it green. Leprechauns are greedy, gold chasing little buggers. Irish people talk funny so. I don't even know an Irish person.

Wait a minute, I do know an Irish person. Or did, once. Dilip Kerrigan. He was Indo-Irish, with caramel skin, licorice hair, and deep navy eyes. His smile radiated sensuality way beyond his 16 years. I was 15, and Dilip was my first boyfriend. We met at a party of ex-pat teens in Dar Es Salaam in 1973. We were both home for holidays from boarding school, his in Dublin, mine in Nairobi. We had four weeks before we had to return to school, and we met every day after that party.

Dilip had a motor scooter. We would ride it to one of the empty beaches north of town and swim, then make out under palm trees. I learned from Dilip that kissing could transport me to an exquisite new world, and  the shy touch of his fingertips on my breast could ignite a fire that thrilled and terrified me.  In the evenings when most ex-pat parents were at the gymkhanna club playing bridge or snooker, we met up with friends and went to Etienne's. Etienne was a French bar owner with a passion for African bands and no scruples about serving beer (but no hard liquor) to under-age kids. That month I developed a taste for beer. And kissing.

Etienne's was an open-air bar with rickety tables and a dirt floor. The drumbeats would reach up through the ground and free our  timid western limbs into wild dancing, leaving us sweat soaked and breathless when we hurried home to make our curfews.

When Dilip and I returned to school we wrote to each other for a while. Dilip wrote me vaguely suggestive poems which I hid in my Swahili textbook and devoured nightly after lights out. I never saw Dilip Kerrigan again. Our next school holidays did not coincide, and later that year my family and I returned to Canada.

Perhaps St Patrick's day, with its reminders and celebration of all things Irish, evokes the sensation of the first awakening of sensual passion in my life by that sweet Irish boy. Now that's a reason to celebrate.

Beannachtam na Femle Padraig!

Puck, Prime Minister, people swilling beer:

At ten o'clock on a Saturday morning. Oh Canada.

I was at the first sledge hockey game of the Paralympics last week. Generally, Paralympic athletes do not get the recognition they deserve. I have to admit, the Paralympics would hardly be on my radar, except that the sister of a friend of mine was an Olympian in wheelchair rugby some years ago, making me a little more aware. Now the games are here in Vancouver, and I am happy to see them generate so much excitement.

That excitement was evident at the sold out Canada versus Italy game last week. It is Hockey, after all, and this is Canada. Our red blood cells look like microscopic pucks. Our passports are the same shape as the blade of a goalie stick, and their covers are dyed to match the blue line.

At the game, the beer was flowing, the flags were waved, and the cheers were deafening. There had been no tedious security checks coming in: in fact the only hold up at the entrance was the line up at the beer taps.



Our Prime Minister was there, looking like someone had shoved a pickle up his...um...conservative platform. His advisers forgot to tell him this was not a somber occasion. Someone should have brought Stephen a beer. Are we sure he is Canadian?

Water therapy

"I'm going out in the Kayak," I informed B on Saturday morning. "I'll just be an hour or two."

It was a glorious spring day. I decided to paddle up the lake to Seal Bay, about two kilometers away.



It was silent but for the drip of my paddle, and the little rivulets of melt water cascading from the rocks, onto me (and the camera lens)when I went in to explore a little cove.



I got to Seal Bay, and decided to continue further north, by then mesmerized by the rhythm of paddling, and the sun on my shoulders. Our weathered old kayak, which we bought from a friend for a case of beer, is fast and sleek. She whispers through the water. I decided to head for the Indian pictographs, painted by ancestors of the Katzie First Nation.





When I had been gone longer than expected, my pit crew showed up with lunch. I was happy to see them, and hungry, but I enjoyed my solitude again after they went back to the cabin. I paddled on.



Eventually, as the sun dropped closer to the mountain tops, I turned for home. As I paddled into our bay, the snow on Golden Ears Mountain gleamed, and the afternoon light sparkled on the lake.




Days like that are imprinted on my soul.
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In the eye of the beholder

I own very little original artwork apart from some inexpensive pieces picked up in markets on my travels, and a few paintings by a talented great aunt. But I have one piece of painted wooden sculpture that I love so much I would grab it second on my way out of my burning home. The first, most cherished piece of art I would grab is my son's painting of his fourth birthday party. But that's another story.

I call my sculpture "Silly Little Man", although that is not what the artist called it. It depicts a small man with arms outstretched, standing in front of three large salmon swimming toward him. Here it is:



If you are thinking "Is she kidding? That's junk," you are not alone. Someone once asked me if I bought it at a garage sale.

I love it.

I love that the salmon are so fluidly carved, and done in otherworldly colours, while the person (to me he is a man, but could be female I suppose,) is blocky and rough, with no nuances of colour.

I love that the salmon look as if they are about to swim right over the man, barely seeing him and his outstretched arms.

I love that this piece symbolizes for me the mystical power of the salmon runs; so much a part of our west coast culture, both from prehistory to right now, for first nations and all of us. Anyone who has seen a shallow stream roil with the ruby backs of salmon on their fatal upstream journey, or watched them arc high over a waterfall cannot be but awed.

I love that, while the body of the fish are painted in jewel bright colours, their eyes reflect the raw cedar forests that line the streams they travel.



But what I love most about this piece of art is the foolishness of the little man in trying to stop the salmon from swimming upstream. At the same time, I identify with his hubris at trying. When I bought this sculpture, in 1992, he was me. I was a single mom of a toddler, still wet behind the ears in the practice of law, and going through an ugly divorce. It was just beginning to dawn on me that I was not CEO of the universe, and I had to let go of trying to control things I had no power over, or go crazy. I saw the "Silly Little Man" in a gallery window downtown, and it stopped me cold. I knew at once I had to have it, though at the time I could not have fully articulated the reasons. It is only in retrospect that I came to realize why it "spoke" to me. It cost far more than I could comfortably afford then (or even uncomfortably afford). I ate many meals of cheap mac & cheese after buying "Little Man". It was worth every noodle.

So "Silly Little Man" sits on my mantel, and I love it even more than when I got it 17 years ago. He still makes me chuckle. At both of us.

The artist, Peter Kiss, would likely be surprised by my interpretation of "Silly Little Man". His title for it, printed on the underside, is "Fish Guides". If you look closely at Little Man's right hand, it is pointing backwards, as if perhaps he is showing the salmon which direction they are to take. (And, yes, one finger of the right hand is broken. Sorry Mr. Kiss, your art is a little too delicate for the number of times I have moved house.) Perhaps the artist intended to portray the whimsical idea that, instead of salmon having a mystical force guiding them to the spot they were born, there are actually little traffic cops showing them the way.

What do you think?

Do you have a piece of artwork that you were compelled to have?

The day the country turned blue

The Olympics are over. I have mixed feelings about the whole Olympicorporation, though I do admire the athletes and their dedication. Today, I am happy to have my city return to some kind of normal.

Yesterday though, my ambivalence was on vacation. Gone so far it could not even text me a little reminder. No matter how I feel about the Olympics, I AM a hockey fan. Multiply fan by a thousand and you have the level of passion for the sport felt by my beloved and his father. So yesterday, we went en famille (me, husband, son, father-in-law and mother-in-law) to the packed local pub to watch the game on the big screen.

The game was a nail biter, though when only 24 seconds were left and we were a goal ahead it seemed time to start celebrating gold. Then; "OH NO!!!", and people across our puck-crazed Dominion groaned when the U.S. scored. I swear I heard a guy in Corner Brook scream "SON OF A BITCH! Lads, pass the screech, quick!" In the pub we shook our heads, disbelieving that the game was tied and would go into sudden death overtime.

In the interval, I commiserated by phone with my sister, who was watching from New Zealand. (She is a bigger hockey fan than I am, once mortifying me at a Canucks game by standing and screaming "I love you Trevor", after Linden was sent to the penalty box.) The pub patrons wondered how they could bear the tension. Many more pitchers of Molson Canadian seemed the answer at most tables. (I saw one young woman at a nearby table drinking a Corona. She must be foreign.)

The puck dropped for the overtime period. The din in the pub made the lampposts outside tremble. A rowdy woman kept shrieking at the T.V., "GET IT OUT! GET IT OUT!GET IT OUT!" It was my 80 year old mother-in-law. I looked nervously at my 89 year old father-in-law, who was half out of his chair, fists clenched. I mentally reviewed my CPR training. After five minutes , the tension and the beer forced me to take a very speedy trip to the ladies'. Too bad medals are not given for fastest trip to the loo. The score was still zip all when I breathlessly returned. Then the beer caught up with my son and he jogged off to the Gents'. Just as Son was out of sight, Crosby scored for Canada, and the Country let out its collective breath. My son came running back. "I missed it," he wailed. Many of you have seen the ensuing decorus pleasure shown by us reserved, shy Canadians. We went ape shit.

...

My mother claims that my father had a talent for being in the bathroom whenever something important happened. It looks like that gift has skipped a generation.


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Dad

My Dad died at the end of September last year. He had brain cancer.

I spent most of August and September back in Nova Scotia, visiting him every day in his palliative care ward. On his good days I would take him for a walk outside in a wheelchair, and we talked, or listened to music. He loved Mozart. And Patsy Cline.

On worse days, near the end, he lay in bed, desperately gasping to stay alive while I read to him and held his hand, hoping, or pretending, that he knew I was there. I silently wept.

I have written about my Dad here, and the beginning of his illness here. Those words give only a glimpse into the complicated love of our relationship. Now, thoughts of Dad smack me many times a day, leaving me sometimes smiling, sometimes aching, sometimes anguished. I can't write about them. Yet.

I didn't know that losing my Dad would be so hard, or that the pain would still be so dense. I miss him.


Above photo: Dad in 1988 (with my son).

Top photo: Dad in 2000 at Machu Picchu, Peru. He gave me my love of travel and of mountains.
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She just couldn't stay away

You thought she was a goner, but...

Apologies to Fred Penner for abusing his lyrics.

Yes, I am back. I missed you all. And I was recently given an irresistable reason to write my blog posts again. A reason I could not ignore, that just set my typing fingers a twitchin! I've been banned from blogging. By my work. Well, not exactly banned, but my employer has commanded said that we should not participate in blogs, facebook, twitter, or any other social networking activity. Even on our own time. This is supposedly for our own safety, as my job has somewhat of a public recognition factor, by people who are not always happy with the result of my labour. Which does not explain why the edict applies to everyone, from the virtually anonymous file clerks in our records department to those of us in the public eye. I think the real reason for the ban is so the Minister does not have to worry about one of us flashing boobs or balls on facebook. Which makes me want to open a facebook page and...

I have been busy, as my last post whined about. Much has happened since then. But I have been writing, (just not blog posts) and I may even receive a little coin for some of my scribbles. More about that later.

Thanks to the Olympics, downtown Vancouver is virtually shut down for all but the revellers. That means many of us downtown worker drones are teleworking from home walking the dog in the middle of one of the most glorious stretches of spring weather I can remember. As you can see:

These beauties are blooming in the traffic circle on my block.



Who knew azaleas, daffodils, crocuses and cherry trees could all bloom at the same time? I've never seen that before.



I enjoyed watching the kids play at recess at the local primary school. Until I got kicked off the school grounds because dogs are not allowed.

Some spring blossoms are not so welcome:


Here is a photo from the weekend. I had a lovely long paddle in the kayak in shirtsleeves! Is this the result of global warming? Bring it on!

Excuses, excuses.

Cheeky Jazz left the following comment on my previous post:

"Hhmph! It seems posts don't grow on trees either." She is surely referring to the fact that I have not posted in several weeks.

Well Jazz, here is what I have to say to you:


And:


Yes I just flipped Jazz the finger, but I like her, so I mean it in the nicest possible way. But have you ever tried to type on a keyboard with this damn contraption on the middle finger of your dominant hand? (I dislocated my finger and tore the tendon - dull story. Let's just say I did it cattle roping at a rodeo. Or hang gliding. Yes, that's it, hang gliding.)

But that's only one of my excuses for not posting in a while. It's a good one though, really plays the sympathy card.

The other impediment to me recording my scintillating prose, or drivel, depending on one's opinion, is TIME. I can't find enough of it. I have been out of town where there is no Internet every weekend since Easter. (Pictorial post on that coming soon. What......? Who just muttered "I won't hold my breath?") Weekday evenings are taken up with domestic science, and trying to get a little gardening done before the plants eat the house. If you live on the hyper-fecund Wet Coast of BC, you know what I mean. I swear we can sit in the yard with a beer, and watch the morning glories grow a metre by the time we are ready to fetch the second.

Blogging sites are blocked by firewalls at my workplace, so I can't even get an illicit blog word or two written or read while there. Even if I could I would only do so on breaks of course. (See you in that early meeting tomorrow boss.)

Tonight I should actually thank Jazz instead of flipping her the bird. Because I would much rather write than fold laundry, clean the kitchen, pull weeds, or scrape the peeling paint off the front porch. And thanks to Jazz I said "bugger that" to those chores, and opened my lap top. Which I will shortly use to journey to your blogs that I love to read, and actually take time to comment.

But tell me, where do YOU ALL find, steal, or borrow the time? Any hints?


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It doesn't grow on trees?

"Sweetie, you know how I've been searching for a new purse?"

"Have you?"

"Yes, we've talked about my hunt for a well made purse with a long shoulder strap and lots of compartments."

"Hmmm, if you say so."

"Well I found the perfect one."

What I am not saying yet is that I found it months ago at Roots Canada, but refused then to pay the outrageous price. Yesterday I saw it was on sale by 30 percent, which took the price down from in-orbit to only sky high.

"That's good" replies B, soaping up my back. I have deliberately begun this conversation while we are in the shower, where B is usually a little, um, distracted.

"I have a confession though, it was a mite expensive." (Massive understatement)

"Hmmm, whatever."

Good, he is distracted

"Well actually, it was more than a little expensive", I admit.

B is hardly even listening to me now, as he mumbles, "It wasn't over $500 was it?"

"Hell no!" I am relieved that he would calmly imagine I could have spent that much.

"Over $300?."

"No." Phew!

"Well it couldn't have been that expensive then."

B nuzzles my neck, and this is the perfect time for me to say "It was only $210."

"WHAT!!!! TWO HUNDRED AND TEN DOLLARS! FOR A PURSE? I didn't know a purse could cost that much!" B shrieks.

"But, but, you said..."

"I was kidding."

And paying way more attention than I thought.

Overdue housekeeping

I got back from the Great White North a week ago. After my last post from Yellowknife I went on to the town of Fort Smith, Northwest Territories, on the edge of Wood Buffalo National Park. Besides Buffaloes, there is an amazing wildlife fact about Fort Smith, but I'm going to only tease you with it for now. I will wait until I return in June and hope to actually get a photo of this phenomenon before reporting about it here. Stay tuned.

One of the reasons I love my work in the North is the opportunity to get into small communities, work with, and meet the people there. I am always impressed by people in these communities who work so hard to combat the demons of social, economic and historical problems that too often plague remote northern, mostly First Nations communities.

On the charter flight back to Yellowknife, we were served coffee from a thermos, and cranberry bread baked by the co-pilot's wife. Now that's great airline food service!

On arriving home, B and I immediately headed for our refuge. Our escape to a little piece of Heaven. Our cabin. This is the view from our deck on Easter Sunday.



And now for some overdue housekeeping. I was recently given awards by both Ian and David. I am especially honoured because I must be one of the most unsatisfying people to bestow a blogging reward upon. I am often shamefully late in acknowledging them, and I never follow the awards rules. Instead of passing on the awards, I invite you to read Ian's and David's fine writing. (See, I told you I don't follow rules well.) Thank you Ian and David.

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