The gorging season is over

It’s 10:45 on Saturday, December 28, 2013.  I’m sitting in the dining room at mom and dad’s while they have a morning nap.  We are going to go to the mall they always used to go to so that mom can see the changes that have been made to it recently and buy new underwear.  She’s quite excited about the trip, dad less so, but we will go out for lunch after shopping; I think he’s with us for that.  It’s a bright sunny day, which bodes well, but whenever I’m on an outing with mom and dad I have a flutter of apprehension in the pit of my stomach until it is over without either argument or incident. 

I’ve been checking the weather and ‘drive B.C.’ and the best day to go back to Vernon seems to be tomorrow, so I plan to leave early in the morning as there will be no commuter rush on a Sunday and they say the early ferries are the easiest to get on in the holiday season.  I want to be finished driving by dark.

We had fun on Christmas morning unwrapping the big boxes, tasting the treats from Korea and trying on the clothes.  We had the traditional eggs baked with black forest ham in muffin tins and some tiny cinnamon buns that mom loves.  Mom and dad stayed in the gowns Bill gave them all day and I went for a good walk by the ocean and then cooked the turkey.  The dinner was good, but we all preferred the leftovers on Boxing Day.  I went with Barbara and Terry to The Moon under Water brewpub on Bay Street for lunch yesterday.  The oyster sandwich washed down with a Tranquility IPA was a pleasant change from turkey and the pressures of parents. 

Now I’m back from my last walk by the ocean.  Mom and dad are still resting after our successful excursion to the mall.  Against all odds, we found the underwear mom wanted.  I dropped them at the main door of Sears and parked the car.  By the time I got back, they were already on the job.  Dad had stationed himself by the entrance, where he planned to walk around and rest on the walker as he waited for us.  Mom had decided that she would be most likely to get help from a woman in the bra department if she were alone and old, with a cane.  She was right.   Meanwhile, I went off on the much less important search for two pairs of full size white cotton panties. Fortunately mom has given up on the quest for bloomers to replace the ones she got when her mom died and that she has worn ever since.  She will continue wearing the last pair of them and now has the ‘boot top’ long johns that I bought her at MEC the other day.  All was bought and paid for within 45min.  We returned to the entrance to Sears to find dad resting on his walker, gazing at the forest of racks full of colorful bras. He was awed by the variety and the size of some of them.  Mission accomplished without incident, we drove to the Marina for lunch.  I had another Fanny Bay oyster sandwich; mom and dad ate mushroom, bacon and blue cheese burgers.

We were so full from lunch that for dinner we had tea and Christmas sweets.  Now I’m back at Barbara and Terry’s.  The gorging season is over without major incident.  We ended on a high note, agreeing that we would all soldier on in 2014.  This can’t continue forever.  Sadly, I think mom’s lymphoma is going to be the final straw.  Dad is in better shape than he was in April, but she is weaker; it doesn’t take much to make her breathless.  She still has moments when she says that she doesn’t want ‘to miss a trick’ (she’s thinking only of bridge when she says this), but they’re fewer and farther between.

I feel guilty about leaving mom and dad, but I think they still need some time to assess their situation and accept the changes that face them.  They seem to have a similar idea.  Dad said something the other day about enjoying the holiday and thinking about things next year.   We’re settling for the Scarlet O’Hara plan again.

Mom in the kitchen looking at the Christmas cake and Stilton cheese

Dad in the living room behind the treats from Korea

Christmas socks from Jay and May

Barbara and Terry standing on the floor tiled in pennies at the Moon brewpub

Terry and I at the Moon, not on it

Family Christmas

There’s not much to blog about on this holiday so far.  The weather has been grey, wet and cool.  Mom and dad are having a difficult time, as I had suspected.  Mom is such a determined Pollyanna that she keeps forcing the fun to the point of exhaustion and frustrated anger.  She is so afraid of the fact that they are very close to having to make a change in their lives, which probably means moving from the apartment they have lived in for so long and losing the independence they have always enjoyed, that she is refusing to face it.  She mentioned once on the phone when I first got back from Mexico that the nurse had suggested that they consider moving to a care home but now she won’t talk of it.  When we approached the subject a couple of days ago, she digressed into stories of other people and situations, anything to avoid a serious discussion of their situation.  Dad seems to want to talk about it and do something now, but he’s afraid to bring the subject up again because it makes her so upset that she gets angry and breathless.   Since he can’t use his legs, she’s the one who always did the running, and I mean that literally, around.  Now that she has lymphoma, she gets exhausted easily and because she’s tired and often in pain, she’s quick to anger and dwell on old grievances; this aggravates her nerves and causes her more pain. Dad wants to get them into a situation where they are more cared for, but when mom feels fine she’s sure that they can carry on and she wants one more party.  Dad fell again today.  We were going to drive to Tim Horton’s to get their traditional Sunday breakfast, which we would then take to Willows Beach to eat in the car with the windows open, looking out over the ocean and at the people and dogs playing on the sand.  I left the apartment before they did so that I could drive my car around to the underground parking and wait for them to come down in the elevator. When they still weren’t down after I had listened to a fairly long section of ‘The Messiah’ (Jay, Brian and Cathy and the boys have a fairly good idea of how long that is), I decided I had better go up to see what was happening.  As I was unlocking the door to the garage, mom appeared, wide-eyed, around the corner, scurrying toward me and almost too breathless to gasp that dad was on the floor near the door of the apartment.  Mom and I got him up easily.  He wasn’t hurt, but they were both exhausted, so I got them water and we sat in the front hall until they felt better.  Then we carried on and all went as planned.  The rest of the day was fine, but mom and I ended what had been a delicious dinner on a sour note, an old topic that has not mellowed with age, neither its, nor ours.  What do people mean when they say, “blood is thicker than water”, with the implication that that’s a good thing?  I’ve never understood that expression, but if it has anything to do with clogging the arteries and veins and giving you a crashing headache, perhaps I have a sense of it now.  I think I’d like a big glass of clear, cool water.  If it weren’t for my mornings of hazelnut coffee and blowing off steam with Barbara and Terry, I’d have popped a gasket by now.  Mom and dad have each other, and I’m happy for them that they do; they’re a formidable duo, but it’s going to take both engines pulling together as never before to get them through this. 

Our 'Big Box' Christmas.  Jay, Bill and Linda all sent our gifts in big boxes that dwarf the poinsettia tree.

Crows in the mist at Willow's Beach.  There were so many crows on the beach, in the trees, in the air, on the power lines, in the road and everywhere that it was more than a 'murder'; it was deafening hoard of crows.

More crows

One last crow

Nelson Mandela died this week

Nelson Mandela died this week.  He was born one year before dad was.  He was imprisoned in 1962, when I was in grade 12, before JFK was assassinated.  He was not released until 1989, when Jay was 8 years old.  He spent 27 years as a prisoner of the S. African apartheid government.  All the years that I went to university, traveled in Europe and N. Africa, returned to Thunder Bay and university, met Jim, married him, taught, we built our first home and had Jay, who lived for ¼ of his life, Nelson Mandela was in jail on Robben Island and then on the mainland.  He came out after all this time, the whole center of my life, with his resolve that his people should live as equals in a free democratic country undiminished and with his vitality that had once vented itself in violence miraculously still strong but now directed toward reconciliation. What a rare human being.  No wonder the world is mourning his passing and celebrating his achievement.  We might not look upon his like again; we can only hope that some of us who follow will carry on small parts of the great burden of humanity, justice and good humor that he bore so bravely.

It’s cold here, but we skied today.  As usual, it was wonderful to be out in the cathedral of tall snow-cloaked spruce.  It was perhaps -12 but with no wind, so by keeping moving, we were never cold.  I’m trying to ski whenever possible between baking and preparing for Christmas in Victoria.  Since I first posted this it has warmed up and I have skied a few times again in the glorious landscape of Sovereign and Silver Star.  I will go up once more on Sunday and then begin final packing for the trip to Victoria.  Mom and Dad phoned on Friday to say that the now traditional BIG BOX from Jay in Korea had arrived.  We are all excited about this Christmas in spite of or perhaps because of the fact that it might be our last one together in mom and dad's place.  We will see what 2014 presents us with, but they are both increasingly frail and are now considering a move to a nursing home.  

Yesterday's trail at Silver Star

Another scene from Silver Star

The peace that passeth understanding

More Mexico

This has turned out to be my second ‘shanks mare’ holiday of 2013, Beijing with Jay and now Vallarta.  I swam in the Pacific every day in La Penita with Barb, but here in PV I’ve only been in the pool once.  I’ve walked miles; however, to 4 dentist appointments with Dr. Adan Noel Michel Brixon, which have resulted in 2 crowns; to the jeweler’s, Diamante Azul, 3 times to have Jay’s medal altered, my grandmother’s ring strengthened and a pair of gold earrings made and to meet Dick and Ellen for 2 dinners, a breakfast and a shopping trip to the Sat. market at Lazaro Cardenas Park.  Other walks have been more aimless tours of the town to see what’s changed and what hasn’t.  The Emiliano Zapata market is still thriving up east of Insurgentes around Cardenas, a good place to buy fruit and vegetables.  The small Spanish tapas place is still on Mina, but I didn’t eat there because I couldn’t quite make myself do it alone.  I have no trouble being in coffee shops and some restaurants by myself; in fact, I enjoy eating quietly, looking around.  I don’t even need to have a book to pretend to be reading, but I couldn’t do it there where service is so slow and the atmosphere so intimate.  A Page in the Sun coffee shop has moved from Olas Altas to Madero, on the north side of Lazaro Cardenas Park.  As it’s a book trading and coffee shop and its new location doesn’t seem to be quite as desirable as the old one, I wonder if that says something about the replacement of books by ereaders and ipads.  I was looking for it because I had finished the book I started at Barb’s and I’ve almost finished Mansfield Park, the book I brought with me form Vernon.  My flight home is going to be long, from PV to Regina to Calgary to Kelowna, so I don’t want to be bookless.  I found a new coffee shop, Dee’s Coffee Company, just up from the ocean, past the big new pier near the south end of the Malecon.  I began the mornings at first by buying a tamale from the woman who sets up her stand at about 7:30 am on the street just below my hotel and then going in search of coffee and a shady spot to sit by the ocean and enjoy both.  Now that I’ve found Dee’s, I always get coffee there and sometimes also one of her muffins or buns.  She’s originally from Calgary, and all the things in her shop are delicious.  Her coffee has been voted best in PV 7 times, and I can see why.  There’s another good place to eat in the Olas Altas area; it’s called Salud, Good Food.  I’d eaten there before, but different people own it now.  The centre of good eating seems to be shifting to the Olas Altas area, as is the shopping.  I think it’s the influence of the gay crowd and the moneyed condoites in Conchas Chinas.  Am I right or am I left? 

Jay says it’s getting cold in Korea, and the emails from Vernon mention that next week is going to be cold, so I’d better soak up as much heat as I can to keep the batteries going through December.  As it is I’m sitting in my room ‘glowing’ as mom would say, and that’s because I’m merely typing.  If I even walk slowly on the shady side of the street, I begin to drip within 2 minutes, but I guess I’d better do it or I’ll wish I had when I get home.  But I don’t like it.  I prefer cool weather and quiet.

I forgot how I’d ended this entry this afternoon.  It’s now about 9:30 pm, and I feel completely differently.  This is the first of 3 Sundays when Juarez Street is closed to traffic at 5pm and the parades to the Cathedral to honor the Virgin of Guadalupe begin around 6.  I had forgotten about this, but on my way to Dick and Ellen’s at around five, I asked a guy sitting on the street corner why Juarez was closed to traffic.  He reminded me about the parades and it all came back.  We enjoyed these evenings many times in the past.  I continued walking along the Malecon to Dick and Ellen’s for our final margaritas and snacks before taking a taxi together through the tunnel to the restaurant La Bruja in Carranza.  After sharing shrimp and chicken fajitas and some Pacificos, we said our final good byes.  They took a taxi home, and I began to walk, warmed by the meal and their wonderful company and cooled by the breezes sweeping down from the Sierra Madres.  Everything about Vallarta pleased me at that moment.  It only got better as I joined the crowds on the Malacon and walked to the Zocalo where all was bright lights, music, dancing and food galore.  Full as I was, I couldn’t resist a piece of pecan pie.  Juarez was alive with people and stands selling tacos, tomales, popcorn and crepes, etc., etc..  I was in time to see the last pilgrims stride past still chanting encouragement to each other on their way to the Cathedral.  How could I ever make a negative comment about this land of papaya, cilantro, limes, lovely children, easy-going adults, waves rushing over rumbling rocks, pelicans and sunsets.  Ask me at noon tomorrow on my way to the airport and I may come up with something, but tonight I say again, Viva Mexico. 

The fisherman again with his loyal dog and pelicans but no fish yet

Drinks with Dick and Ellen at their place

These Christmas decorations on the Malacon look a bit cheesy in the light of day, but against the black night they're brilliant

Viva Mexico!

I’m back in Puerto Vallarta and have just returned from a great evening with Ellen and Dick.  As usual it began with Dick’s excellent margaritas and Ellen’s impeccable choice of appetizers, blue cheese and crackers with mixed nuts .  Then we took a taxi to a restaurant I’d been to once before with them where we had fillet of red snapper, muy rico.  They are so full of life and know and like, or at least have such astute and well-expressed opinions about, so many people that it’s never dull in their company.  Now I’m back in my rooms enjoying the glow that comes after a few drinks and a good meal.  The sliding door is open to reveal the vast black of the Bahia des Banderas surrounded on three sides by the bright lights of Vallarta and also to let in the warm evening breeze and the incessant whirring of somebody’s car alarm.  It’s been going since I got home, but I feel so wonderful it only bothers me a bit.

I’ll jump back in time to my visit with Barb in La Penita.  It was good to see her.  She’s coping amazingly well; I think the complete break of a week with Faye in an all-inclusive gave her some much-needed change and rest that has enabled her to handle the details of the house that had to be looked into before the renters arrive very well.  We had some good chats and swims and were invited for drinks and dinners by many of her friends, so we were well entertained.  One of our swims was really amazing for me.  We swam with pelicans.  I’ve loved those birds since I first saw them; they seem to be the working- man’s bird.  They’re big and ungainly looking; they fly low over the waves like cargo carriers deadheading home with no worries, and when they rise up, sweep back their wings and dive deep for a fish, it’s breathtaking how svelte they are and how arrow-like they cut through the water.  And we were surrounded by them as well as by smaller terns, all plunging after a huge school of small fish that were everywhere, bumping into us and jumping out of the water around us.  I’ve thought for quite a while lately that the idea of making a bucket list was a recent fad and a mug’s game, but if I’d ever joined the ‘listers’ and made one, I should have put near the top, ‘swimming with the pelicans.’  I had another encounter with a bird while I was in La Penita, a blue-footed booby flew so close to me as I walked the beach that I felt either his wing or the air close to his wing touch my hair as he passed.  He settled on a rock nearby, which is how I was able to know that it was indeed a blue-footed booby.  

The car alarm is still disturbing the calm of the evening, which reminds me of another loud and crazy aspect of life in ‘el cento’ de Vallarta, the buses.  The taxi driver we had tonight said that the bus drivers here are the best in the world.  I don’t know what standard he was using to judge them by, but if it has anything to do with wheeling the most baffed-out, shockless vehicles at the highest speed possible around the most pothole-ridden streets imaginable, then I guess I concur.  They continue to rank among the world’s best.  Today I sat in the front seat of one of them for the drive from the main Vallarta bus terminal to the bottom of my street.  It was about a twenty-minute ride that at any amusement park would have cost much more than the 6.5 peso fare that I paid.  As we careened from passing lanes to turning lanes to stopping zones, the knuckles of both my hands turned white from gripping my suitcase with one and the chrome bar around the driver’s seat with the other.  But I arrived safely, even after the driver’s last passenger challenge, which was to carry on full tilt as if he was going to pass my stop, even though I was precariously perched by the door, until just beyond it when he braked hard and practically propelled me onto the road. 

Viva Mexico!!!!!!

Pelicans and terns diving for small fish off the point in La Penita

Barbara at work on the tenaca early in the morning

and at play later in the morning

Puerto Vallarta

It’s Thursday, Nov. 21, and in about 2 hours, I will have my 2^nd dentist appointment of the trip.  If all goes as planned, and it usually does with this guy, I will see him again at 9:45am on Friday and then not again until Sat., Nov. 30, when he will finish off the 2 crowns I need to fix my 2 broken teeth.  He’s an uncharacteristically on time and on task Mexican, which explains why he’s gone from a hole-in-the-wall on Juarez St. to the biggest dental clinic in Puerto Vallarta in just over 15 years.   I hope his dental work continues to be as professional as his business acumen is impressive.

I feel a bit like the Pollocks did during their brief stay in Hawaii, trying to balance beach time with medical appointments.  I guess we are seeing ‘the future in an instant.’  No more running barefoot through sand and surf for heedless hours.  In spite of bringing sandals and shoes that I thought would be perfect, I have had to buy bandages for blisters on both feet.  I have walked miles in the town and along the shore, but not without remembering to put on sun screen, bandages, long sleeves, visor and the cooling neck thing that Jay gave me 2 years ago in Korea and that I’ve worn every hot day since.  I think I might even splurge and buy a new one in a different color, if I see one and have money on me and don’t decide that it isn’t really necessary yet.  I don’t mind getting old because the pleasures I have are all that I can tolerate, but being in Vallarta where we first were 17 years ago reminds me at every turn that I have changed even more than the city has. 

As I am staying in ‘el centro’ at the Hotel Suites La Siesta (aptly named), I have easily walked past our first 2 homes here.  The first, Casa los Rapidos, on the banks of the Cuale is now a renovated mansion with 2 floors above the original one we lived in.  The 2^nd, Martin’s tower, has not weathered the years as well; it looks worn, and its location, next to the tri-weekly neighborhood garbage pick up zone did not improve its prospect as I passed it the morning of garbage day.  The boxes and bags of various sizes were spilling their contents, and as I stopped to take a better look at the old place, a noise in the pile revealed itself to be some critter that in jumping out caused the pile to spill it’s smelly mess even further into the street.  This morning was my longest walk; I went to the end of the beach, over the hill to Conchas Chinas and along to the last road that takes you up to the highway at the point where you see the sign for Calle Easy.  We first saw this with Brian and Cathy.  Unfortunately, a big blue ‘basura’ bin was in front of the sign, but as it was almost empty, I moved it, only to reveal a moiling mass of tiny ants.  I was bravely crouched down in front of them about to take a picture when the ‘battery exhausted’ sign flashed on the camera.  So I got up, replaced the bin and walked back along the dangerous narrow path beside Highway 2.  I dropped down into Olas Altas where I saw that the Blue Chairs Hotel has changed.  It wasn’t blue when I was last here, but the chairs still were.  Now they are much more numerous and green.  The hotel is being renovated and will soon be twice as many as it did.  The people hanging out, literally as well as figuratively, on the green chairs in their skimpy bathing suits are still mostly men, but there seemed to be more women and some couples.  Maybe it’s broadening its appeal to the whole GLBT gang.  I carried on to the little restaurant by the cathedral where I had the ‘comida corrida’ because I won’t be able to eat dinner after seeing the dentist tonight.

Hente imortante y menos importante en el dia de la Revolucion

Boyos taking it all in

Muy typico

Lucha Libre

Gutting fish near the new dock on Los Muertos Beach

I'm in Mexico but I can't make my Google account work so I can't contact anyone

All's well in Mexico, but I can't email on my Google account, the only one I have, so I'm trying this.

Two views of Vallarta and the Bay of Banderas taken from the balcony of my room

November 16, 2013

It’s almost 6:00pm on Saturday, November 16, 2013, and I’m all packed for Puerto Vallarta, I think.  I checked the weather there before I began and it was 80f., so I’m only taking light summer clothes. Consequently, I think I’ll have nothing but carry-on luggage; the heaviest item by far will be the laptop.

 I remember November in PV from our first year there, when Jay was in grade 10 at the American School.  We had arrived at the end of August so he could start school, and it was hot, hot, hot.  November was the first month that I truly loved; we had all our initial adjustment ‘issues’ worked out and the weather had cooled.  The month begins with the festivities of ‘el dia des los muertos’ and continues with the International Sailfish and Marlin Tournament which Jim and I enjoyed watching twice when we were there.  For this event, they also bring cultural acts from all over Jalisco to the island and parks, so there’s a lot happening in the evenings.  It’s not going to be the same this time, but I look forward to being there again because the memories it holds will somehow sharpen whatever the present offers, I think.  And I will fight the urge to find that now is a sad remnant of the good old days.

As I packed, I came across an old diary I had kept in 1986, when Jim, Jay and I spent our first winter in Mexico, in Cuernavaca.   I had to force myself to stop reading it, but before I did, I read two parts that made me laugh.  The first was a comment Jay made as we were walking home from having dinner at ‘El Pollo Loco’.  He was riding on Jim’s shoulders, quietly looking around as we discussed how we were slowly getting used to walking along endless lines of stone walls topped with broken bottles, in the deafening noise and fumes of avenida E. Zapata.  All of a sudden he said,  “Oscar would love Mexico, all the noise and dirt and paper blowing around.”   He was missing ‘Sesame Street’, among other things, like his ‘Masters of the Universe’ figures, most of which we had forgotten in a taxi when we first arrived in Cuernavaca.  Jay always admired strength, size and power.  He really liked Eleazar, the man who did all the heavy lifting of water and gas bottles in the area where we lived.  He thought Eleazar could probably do anything.  In fact, one time when I couldn’t answer his question and just replied, “Who knows?”, he instantly responded, “ God and Eleazar.” 

Today is dad’s 94^th birthday.  He was born in 1919, two years after JFK.  It’s hard to believe that this year is the 50^th Anniversary of the latter’s death. 

Yesterday and today, I went cross-country skiing up in the winter of Sovereign Lake and Silver Star, and on Monday I’ll be walking in the  heat of PV, “… a body sure do get around.”

Mo and John at Silver Star

Me with Mo at Silver Star

This guy was there too

Sunday, November 10, 2013

It’s a slow moving, rainy Sunday morning in Vernon, but at 1:00pm, Mo and John are going to pick me up to go cross-country skiing at Silver Star.  I don’t know if it will be as thrilling as Friday afternoon was, when Miriam and I overcame our urge to just go for coffee instead of driving up to ski at Sovereign, where we discovered a wonderland of deep snow on the trails and had a great short ski, but it might be.  Sovereign opened on Friday and Silver Star opens today.  It’s still hard for me to believe that on Oct. 31 I was biking and now I’ve been skiing in spite of the fact that there are still leaves on many trees in the valley and a couple of roses on the bushes in my yard.

A few years ago, the city of Vernon planted a tree in front of my house on the area between the sidewalk and the road.  It must be about 10 years old now.  I’ve always liked it, but it wasn’t until I saw the same trees when Jay and I were in a van driving to the Great Wall that I decided to find out exactly what it is.  Now I know.  I’ve not only googled it, but also consulted with Miriam’s husband, Bill, a gardening enthusiast.  It’s often called a ‘golden rain tree,’ but its real name is ‘Koelreuteria paniculata’.  Now,in the fall, it has hanging bunches of pods that look like tiny Chinese lanterns, and in the spring it has pendulous clusters of brilliant yellow flowers.  Meanwhile in the back yard, the leaves on the giant maple are clinging tenaciously to their branches, so I haven’t bothered yet to buy a long handled scraper to pull the fallen ones off the porch roof and then clean the eaves troughs.  I’ll do that next week before I leave for Mexico.

 I’m looking forward to going to Puerto Vallarta and La Penita, especially because I will see Barb Steers and Dick and Ellen.  It will be the first time that Barb and I have been back without Jim and Rod, so I’m sure there will be difficult moments, especially for her because Rod died so recently, but I think/hope that seeing each other in Mexico again will do us some good and bring back happy memories that will get us through some sad moments and slowly into our new lives.  I certainly haven’t had time to get sick of winter yet, but the warm ocean water and hot sun are always welcome.  Two or more dental appointments are less inviting but necessary, and as I am justifying this trip largely by telling myself that it will cost about as much as dental visits alone in Canada, I can’t complain.

I will end by saying that if you ever get a chance to see the Alberta Ballet, take it.  Last Sunday I went to the Vernon Performing Arts Centre to see them dance to the music of Sarah McLachlan.  It was wonderful.  They’re a big, young troupe, and the choreographer, Jean Grand-Maitre, is really creative.  Their moves are sometimes those of classical ballet and sometimes almost like a hoedown.  Most of the time the stage is a changing pattern of movement woven either sinuously slowly or buoyantly fast by the bodies of many young dancers.  I hope some day I will be able to see them dance the works Grand-Maitre created for the music of Joni Mitchell and k.d. lang.  Before the dance, the manager of the Arts Centre made her usual speech and thanked the local sponsors, but this time she added that Alberta Ballet had asked her to also thank their main sponsor, Enbridge Northern Gateway, not a well loved company in BC.  This is probably cheap advertising for them, but it certainly is money well spent.     

Fall colour in Vernon, larch among the spruce and pine

Halloween 2013

Last night the season of hikes, rambles and bikes officially ended with the VOC banquet.  The atmosphere inside was festive, but as we left it was raining.  It continued all night and through today, so that now everything is soaked, the cedars and roses should be happy but they don’t look it.  It’s a grey late afternoon; the only bright notes being the luminous yellow leaves that carpet the back yard and the shiny orange pumpkin left on the front porch, its screaming mouth dripping rain.

Thursday was Halloween.  I had decided to go on the final VOC bike ride but woke feeling lazy.  When I opened the blinds and saw the sun, I felt a bit more of an urge to get out, but what really gave me a kick start was opening my emails and seeing Jay’s Halloween picture.  He had said he was going to be a hobo and was less than enthusiastic about the whole thing when we last Skyped, so I really had a laugh when I saw what he finally was.  That got me up and out.  I even wore the bright orange cardigan mom and dad gave me for my birthday and tried to make myself look like a pumpkin.  I was the only one who even approached being costumed for the ride, but I was pretty pathetic.  My friend Sue took my picture but I deleted it as soon as I saw it.  Either I’m more ugly than I think or I’m the least photogenic person on the planet.  The bike ride was longer and harder than I had hoped; I walked up the last part of the longest hill.  But it felt great to be back with the gang, that is until I got really cold on the long, last leg downhill and on the flats.  I had got into such a sweat going uphill that I was shivering when we settled down in the Lumby Pub for lunch.  A hot bowl of potato and chorizo soup with a beer warmed me up.  I took pictures of some of the Halloween decorations in Lumby; they were as good as anything I ever saw in Mexico on the Day of the Dead.  When I returned home I opened May’s email to see her great leopard face, so the day began and ended with costumes from Korea.  I quickly cleaned and carved the pumpkin, phoned mom and dad to wish them Happy Halloween, filled a bowl with all my favorite tiny chocolate bars and sat down with a glass of wine and my Mexican cds to await the arrival of trick or treaters.  I had some cute ones, just enough to be entertaining but not eat all the chocolate bars.  

Jay the elf

May the leopard

A bar in Lumby

More Halloween fun in Lumby

Inversions

I received an email from Barb Steers yesterday telling me that Rod had died in the early   morning.  Although I knew he had declined recently, I was still struck by the news of his death.  The finality knocked the air out of me for a while.  Rod was such a good man, a genuine gentleman.  He helped Jim so much with tennis, and they had great laughs together.   As you get old, the loss of the people who lit up your life is harder to take than all the physical and mental diminishments that must be endured.   

This morning I got up at 6:30 to drive to the Kelowna airport to pick up Caroline and Albert.  They came back from Hawaii because Caroline is not feeling well.  Because it’s unclear what is wrong with her and given the cost of all things medical in the USA, they prefer to have the rest of the testing done in Canada.  I was happy to see that Caroline looks well.  Although she doesn’t feel perfect yet, she has stopped losing weight.  So the 3 of us are back rattling around the house, sleeping off and on, getting over jet lag, reorganizing and eating at odd hours.  The weather continues grey and cool.  I left early for the airport because there was talk on the radio of low cloud and mist along the lake.  I wanted to drive very carefully because I was using Al and Caroline’s car.   I seem to have been more concerned about damaging their car than injuring myself.   Tomorrow, we will find time to drive up to ‘the Star’ and catch a little sun, I hope.  Albert has to take their car into the Honda dealership to have new winter tires put on it, and they still have to repack for the drive back to Ottawa where they will experience part of the winter they had hoped to escape in Hawaii.  They will probably continue their winter in the islands in January, by which time all should be settled with Caroline.

Yesterday, I got back to swimming at the Rec. Center followed by coffee with Lusia.  As usual the sauna and steam bath were a highlight, but I missed Korea because the cold shower at the Vernon Rec. Center is not as exhilarating as the freezing waterfall and pool at the Blue Ocean jimjillbong.  I remained overheated until we walked outside into the bracing mists of October without our jackets on.  That felt good.  This season, I’m going back to studying Spanish; Korean has beaten me.  Instead of a language exchange, I’m going to help Lusia prepare for her citizenship test in the spring.

A view of the inversion below from the sunny lunch stop on Pincushion

Another inversion seen from the sunny side, this time on Tuesday's hike up Rose Swanson. 

Another shot of the inversion from Rose Swanson

Thanksgiving

It’s 11:10 am, Wed., Oct 16, and I’m sitting in the customer waiting room at Kelowna Mazda, waiting for the car to have its check up and tire change in preparation for winter.  I discovered when I returned to Vernon that cars must have winter tires on by Oct. 1 if they are going to go on the Coquihalla Highway or up to any of the ski areas, so I made the first appointment I could because I never know when I might have to drive to Victoria.  I certainly will be there for Christmas; I’ve already reserved accommodation at the best B&B in the city, actually the B&T in Vic. West.  Also, skiing might begin early in Nov.   Since I moved here, the earliest I’ve been cross-country skiing is Nov. 15, less than a month away.

Since I arrived home, we’ve had cool, cloudy weather, a bit of rain and some nights when the temperature has gone down to -1 or -2c, but the Thanksgiving long weekend was terrific, sunny and warm.  I went for 2 good hikes and ate 3 Thanksgiving dinners.  I could have had 4 but 2 of my friends lacked the foresight to coordinate their invitations and invited me for the same day.  Mo and Miriam’s dinners were both wonderful, especially because of their variety of vegetable mixtures.  My own Thanksgiving dinner for the Pollocks was the least well done of the 3.  I should have had more variety of veg. and the grain fed bird was tough.  Albert was kind enough to say that at least you knew you were chewing it, whereas the meat on most chickens and turkeys these days is too soft.  His comment reminded me of the cooking disaster I had had at Jay’s.  When we got back from Beijing, the girls were still away, so we bought 3 small chickens and everything needed to make rice-stuffed, slow cooker chicken.  I’d never tried such a thing, but with my usual unwarranted self-confidence, I roared right in.  The chickens were small, so I stuffed 2 of them with a dressing of raw rice, onion, garlic and thyme and then placed them in May’s big slow cooker with carrots, celery and water.  I let them cook for too many hours, and the result was a tasty mush.   I don’t know what the meat would have been like with less cooking, but by the time I took it out of the slow cooker, it was so soft you could have happily downed it without a tooth in your head.  The bones had some texture left, but even they were so soft you could easily have chewed them with loose dentures.  May, Min Hee and I liked the flavor and were able to eat it, but even we had had enough by the time Jay and May’s friend returned from his trip around Korea to spend a night with us before heading off again.  He’s a tall young man with an appetite like David Glovers’; they can eat mass quantities of almost any leftovers.  I offered the last of the mush to him, and he ate it all up.  May and I were happy to get rid of it so easily because wasting it would have upset us, but not as much as eating more of it would have.

Miriam and Bill posing in their kitchen for a 'Canadian Gothic'  Thanksgiving picture.  He's holding the gardening tool Jim fished out of the Gatineau River, and she's testing the turkey for doneness.  It's appropriate because she's a great cook and he loves gardening.

Me pointing at the fresh snow on the distant mountains just before sitting down for lunch on Bluenose, our Sunday hike.

Monday, October 6, 2013

The twice that I have gone to Korea, I have adjusted almost instantly to arriving there, but the return has not been so easy.  It has taken over a week to finally feel at home and in the right time zone.  But by now I’ve seen some good friends, had a bike ride, gone on a hike, worked in the yard, organized a tutoring schedule for my 3 students and tonight I will go to the film club to see a new version of Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing.”  I’m back in the saddle again.  There’s a strong wind blowing leaves around and the sky is getting dark, so fall is here.

It was great to see Caroline and Albert at the Kelowna airport and drive home with them to a house that was in better shape than I had left it.  Caroline had done a lot of work in the yard, in the process of which she discovered how old and inefficient most of my tools are, so she had bought me many new things and a case to carry them in.  I have now experienced the joy of using these tools.  Albert repaired the back leg of the old leather couch that I had moved here more for sentimental reasons than anything else.  When the mover brought it into the house, I saw that the leg was missing but said nothing, as it was old.  I set it in its place under the living room window and put a fat paperback where the leg should have been.  There it was when Albert saw it; now it has a real leg, my dining room chairs have gliders that actually fit them and I finally have an outdoor clothesline.  Good friends are a blessing.

Inside the Blue Ocean Jjimjilbang in Song do, where I spent many a relaxing hour.

Caroline's niece Sharon, about to down her soju at the restaurant in Seoul where she and I enjoyed a delicious lunch.

Caroline and Albert at the Grey Monk Winery near Vernon

One of many teddy bears attached to trees on the trail we walked last Sunday in Myra Bellevue Park in Kelowna

I don't know which came first, the name of the junction or the teddy bears

This is my favourite.  If you push a button, he plays, "Raindrops keep fallin' on my head."

Back in Canada

I’m back in Canada and feeling almost normal as I drink a Tim Horton’s coffee while the 14c. wind blows across the back of my neck.  I’m hunched over the laptop in the tiny hanger where you wait for flights to small towns in BC at the Vancouver airport.  This is not the Incheon airport.  For the first time since June, I’m cold, but as I’ve been too hot so often this summer, either from exertion or weather, I’m enjoying it.  It’s waking me up.  I needed some kind of jolt because we got in at noon Vancouver time, which was 4:00am Korean time, and I don’t fly to Kelowna until 5: 35pm.  It was bucketing rain a few minutes ago, but now it’s just solid grey outside.  Looking over my last pictures of Korea in order to put this final blog together makes me already miss Jay, May and the girls, but I’m also looking forward to seeing the Pollocks at the airport in Kelowna and get back to my friends and life in Vernon.  I just looked up at the tv and saw that Milos Raonic is in the Thailand Open final.  That’s the first story I’ve seen on Canadian tv in a month.

A group of over 300 bikers all dressed alike prepare for a special ride along the Han River

A view of the mountains of Bukansan from the bike path on the Han River

The bikers on their way to cross a bridge on the Han River

A map of some of the paths along the Han

My last bike, much like the first one

One of 3 indoor driving ranges I saw on my last bike ride

Korean men are big drinkers.  If you click on the picture, you will see that this man has his soju strapped to the carrier behind the seat of his bike.

Windsurfers on the Han