living and learning

The Ides of January have come, but not yet passed.  So far it’s been a quiet Sunday.  I’ve just got back from a walk in the crisp air.  I took what is becoming my usual route, from my house,which is near the base of what Vernonites refer to as East Hill, up about 20 blocks to the fields at the edge of town and then a bit farther to the base of the hills that form the east wall of the valley.  At this point I’m in a wooded area where nobody can see me as I stretch, bend and blow my nose.  Today I watched four or five Steller’s Jays fly around in the trees nearby.  They’re beautiful when the sun illuminates their iridescent blue-black feathers.  Their low rasping caw; however, is not much more pleasant than the annoying yapping of the little condo dogs that inhabit the gated community I pass on the way up.  I also saw a fairly large hawk swoop down into a field, rise with nothing and fly off.  We had a bit of snow on Saturday, so all is white, but just.  The roads and sidewalks are bare. When I sat with Mo and John in their hot tub yesterday after the first day of adaptive ski lessons, the snow began to fall in huge heavy flakes.  I had to clear it off the car before I left, but by the time I got home it had stopped.  I shoveled the public walk in front of the house right away, as did all my neighbors.  It’s the only time we see each other and chat in the winter.  We’re almost all out together, getting our civic duty done while the snow’s still fluffy, before people, prams and bikes imbed their prints into the pavement.  Winter here seems mild to me, but we have just entered the heart of it, so we’ll see what that brings.

I think I’m going to learn a lot about autism this season.  At the potluck last Wednesday night, I met Shea, one of the students I will have in the adaptive ski program.  She’s a cute, seven-year old with long blonde hair; she looks and is great.  We had some laughs.  She likes ‘softies’ and wondered what Jay used to call his favorite ones.  I wondered what she was doing in the program, but kept quiet about it.  By the end of the evening, I had some ideas, and our first class on Saturday made it all clear.  She’s been diagnosed with autism and ADHD, neither of which I know much about, but I’m learning.  It’s her parents who want her to ski; she’s not interested at all.  She’s extremely bright and talks and sings and makes verbal connections that are absolutely fascinating, but she can’t even put her ski boots on, let alone get the boots into the bindings.  I was working with another woman, and it took the two of us to get her into her skis, onto the snow and to begin the slow shuffle to the ‘magic carpet’.  She can stand and walk, but in skis, she either doesn’t want to move or can’t.  I spent the whole two hours trying to figure out whether she lacked the will or the muscle control to do anything on skis.  She couldn’t seem to exert enough pressure on the edges of her skis to make even a ‘V’ shape for a snow plow, which I tried to cajole her into doing by calling it a piece of rhubarb pie because she had loved the piece she ate at the potluck.  Today I had a long talk with the woman I’ll be working with on Thursday mornings, and she told me that our student is also autistic, but fortunately, he likes skiing at least.  I’m going to be learning as much as if not more than I’m teaching at this job.  By the end of the Saturday session, I was so hot from working with Shea that my hair was wet under my helmet.  When I took it off, my hair was an embarrassing mess.  Today I spent a few minutes reinventing the ‘dew rag’.

I’m going to wear a cotton headband under the helmet to try to keep my hair at least a bit dry.  Thank goodness the Immigrant Services work is easy and learning Korean may be impossible, but it’s fun and I don’t get in a sweat about it.

Dad with Matti and Lindsay's daughter, Cleo

Mom with Cleo

Life laughs on

When I first heard, “Get a life,” I think it was uttered by a professional golfer to a heckler in the crowd.  It was perfect for the situation, “what of’t was thought but ne’er so well expressed”.  But like all apt expressions, it has been overused, and now when I hear it I usually find it banal.  In the last almost 2 years, I have been trying to ‘get a life’, and it’s not an easy thing to do.  The temptation to curl up and read or watch one of the many episodes of Poirot, MI5 or Masterpiece Theatre that I have on the PVR is sometimes overwhelming.  And I often give in to it.  But I knew that might happen because I had succumbed to it for much of my first year away from Thunder Bay at Queen’s University.  There too I had to mold a new me and at first it was a much fatter and more depressed one.  It took almost three months of strict dieting and hard studying to pull through,x and I was determined not to let the leaving of family and friends in Wakefield usher in another bout of overeating and underdoing.  Consequently, I searched the pages of Vernon’s newspaper and accepted all invitations to do anything.  And now 2012 is beginning, and although I find some days to be long, I’m learning to enjoy the fact that I can manage my own time and that the activities I am involved in are challenging.  I don’t know how good I’ll be at helping handicapped people ski.  The students and volunteers meet tomorrow at the Anglican Church across from my house for a potluck, so I soon will.  And if I ever learn Korean, it will be a miracle.  Perhaps while I’m at the potluck I should offer a prayer.  But Mi-Sun and I have fun together; last week a woman who had been sitting near us at Tim’s came over as she left and commented on how she had enjoyed listening to us struggling with English and Korean and laughing.  I’m meeting some admirable people and learning to be less knee jerk judgmental.  Or at least, if I jump to some humorous conclusion about someone based on very little exposure to them, I try to accept it for its entertainment value but be less ready to voice it in public or believe it myself.  At least, I hope that’s the case.  If I do get a new life, one of the old tendencies I’m going to have to rein in is the one that has me running off at the mouth.   

I went to a movie again this week with Mo and John, Martin Scorsese’s ‘Hugo’.  Unfortunately we saw it at the good old Town, and it was not in 3D.  Consequently, it was a little flat.  The story was touching but by turns overdone and boring.  It was so full of cogs, wheels and mechanical devices that it seemed more like a Spielburg film.  I think that if it had been in 3D; however, I would have appreciated more the fact that it was a worthy homage to one of the original movie directors, Georges Melies (about whom I had only heard from Jim).  Most of the critics I have read seem to think it was.  The complex works of the train station clocks and one scene of a train accident would have been pretty spectacular in 3D.

I talked again to someone who works for Expedia in Cairo this week.  This time it was a woman, and she knew Fadi, the man who helped me the last time.  It appears that I had better not hold my breath waiting for my itinerary to show up on line.  Something is amiss in that system, but she assured me that all is well for my trip to Korea in May. 

Before I get complacent about life in Vernon and cease to notice what surrounds me, I have taken some photos of the city this week.  Many of the walls of public buildings have good murals painted on them.  Here are three that are in one small area near City Hall.  

The east side of the post office building near City Hall

The same, slightly enlarged

An homage to a local potter

I thought Maureen and David would appreciate the potter's comment on the use of a thermometer, and I will point out to Ina that he was from Sweden.

Another local artist

  

Happy New Year

Happy 2012 to all!    May it be a year of peace, good health and joy, not necessarily in that order, but I put peace ahead of the others because the first news I heard this morning was about the fact that the North Korean military had been told to become ‘human rifles and bombs’ in the defense of Kim Jong-un.  As  Jay is in South Korea, probably the first target for those human weapons, I have a powerful reason to hope for peace.

I had an easy drive to Victoria on Dec. 20.  The car was loaded with Christmas baking and leftovers from the party; every water bottle I own was full of eggnog.  I could have spent winter in a snow bank and been towed out in the spring without having lost a pound.  As it was, we ate well over the holiday.  Now I’m home again determined to have only healthy food and eager to get out skiing and back to working with Kiran and Mi-Sun.  The latter sent me a Christmas card, so I now know how to spell her name. 

Mom and dad are keeping up the struggle for independence, which I now know is just as strong when you’re old as it is when you’re young.  The difference is that when you’re in your teens and early twenties, you’re desperate to get out of the house, and when you’re in your nineties, you’re fighting to stay in it.  The similarities are that both would almost rather die than live without a car, dangerous as that may be for those who share the road with them and that both are absolutely unwilling to take advice from anyone who assumes that by virtue of their age they are qualified to give it.  So I went for long walks by the ocean when I was in Victoria and had good conversations with Barbara and Terry over coffee and lunch.  Wjhen I returned to my parents, they were rested, I had relieved my tensions and we were able to enjoy each other’s company.  We had a good Christmas together, for which I am happy because I don’t know how many more there will be. 

The drive home was not great, and I wasn’t as well provisioned as I had been going, but I made it in spite of snow and bad drivers.  I’ve been in worse conditions but not driving alone.  At the summit of the Coquihalla, the road was snow covered and visibility was limited by blowing snow.  I stayed in the slow lane and watched a drama unfold between the Arrogant Worm and the Hell-Bent-For-Leathers, most of whom were in trucks and SUVs.  AW slithered into the fast lane, which was smoother and more worn than the other, and carried on at a safe 60km/hr while an increasingly long line of HBLs collected behind him eager to push the limit, which at that point was 110km/hr.  Some got behind me and tried to tailgate me into going faster than I dared.  Although at times I was going faster than the worm and a few did get by that way, but the frustration was building.  Finally, I slowed right down and the HBLs went around me and burned past the worm, who, like most of his kind, was probably blind to their fury.  This bit of theatre took up most of the really bad part of the drive.  By the time we got to Merritt, the conditions had improved.  The rest of the drive was fine, and there was no snow on the road in the Okanagan.

I went to the Town cinema to watch ‘the Muppet Movie’ with Mo and John on New Years Eve and then back to their house for drinks and dinner.  And now it’s 2012.

Mom and dad in their kitchen preparing Christmas breakfast

Mom and dad wearing the pyjamas Bill sent them for Christmas

A rhododendron blooming in Oak Bay

Terry's picture of me at the pub

My picture of Barbara and Terry at the pub

The soon-to-be-destroyed Blue Bridge taken from the pub

On the ferry, passing another, smaller ferry

Closing down for Christmas

It’s 5:10pm and dark on Sunday, December 18, 3 days before the longest night of the year.  By the 22^nd, the first day of winter, we will already be heading towards summer, and I will be in Victoria, BC, I hope.  I’m going to drive there on Tuesday, weather permitting, to spend the holidays with mom and dad and Barbara and Terry. 

My Christmas party was a success.  Most of the people I had invited came.  They were in the mood to see each other after not really getting together much in the last 6 weeks.  The few who were not members of the Vernon Outdoors Club mixed in well.  They all moved around and talked and laughed and ate and drank and stayed quite a long time.  It wasn’t exactly a cotillion, but I have made a puny entry into Vernon society and am satisfied with that for the moment.  Maybe next year I will break into the higher strata of Predator Ridge and The Rise.  Only people from Vernon will appreciate the heights to which I aspire.  Enough.  I overestimated how much eggnog people would drink, probably because my own capacity for drinking it knows no bounds.  I will take what is left to my parents who share my enthusiasm for it.  Dad has been losing weight lately and having to drink supplements; I’m sure he’ll prefer a bit of brandy and eggnog. 

I think my back spasms were the result of my doing too much hot yoga in the sauna and steam room at the Vernon Rec. Centre.  I haven’t been there in the last 3 weeks and all is well now.  This weekend of training for the volunteer program to work with disabled skiers was a qualified success.  I learned a lot, including about my own disabilities.  I have no upper body strength, so I will not be able to work with a sit-ski.  But there are many other things I will be able to do.  The program is well established at Silver Star, and the people involved, although they are all volunteers, run it in a professional way.  They are knowledgeable, skilled, and very humane.  They have a lot of equipment that will take time to learn about, but this weekend was an introduction.  I will not be working alone for the first year.  The snow conditions were good and the weather was warm, ideal for slow practicing on easy hills.

I had a very good class on Friday with Kiran at Immigrant Services.  Unfortunately, Misoon’s husband is still not well, but at least they know what is wrong.  He has angina and will have to live accordingly.  I went to visit her at their carwash on Friday.  She was nodding off in the office; she has to cover all the shifts at the moment.  Very different from the work she was educated for, teaching.  Such is the life of the immigrant. She thinks we will be able to get back to our weekly meetings at Tim Horton’s in the New Year.  I hope so because I think they were good for both of us.  I’m going to happily slack off for the holidays.

Merry Christmas to all

It’s 7:30p.m. on Sunday, December 11, 2011, and I’ve just driven home from Kelowna.  I visited and exchanged gifts with Jules and Carol and then with Peggy and Bert.  I ended up having wine and dinner with the latter. The Christmas entertainment has begun.

 I put up some lights and decorations last weekend and then realized that nobody would see them but me.  So I decided to have a small party.  Without thinking about it much, I took a picture of the front door, downloaded it and turned it into an enigmatically worded e-invitation to drinks and dessert on Thursday, Dec. 15.  Had I thought a bit about it, I would have realized that I was asking for confusion.   It was not clear whether I was inviting the spouses, or not.  Some took it for granted that I wasn’t and others that I was.  I then had to phone the former and make sure they realized that their significant others were welcome.  Of course this ballooned the party to potentially 30 and necessitated my going through old recipes and planning to make more desserts, which I haven’t done yet.  Then I realized that another element of the evening that I hadn’t sufficiently thought through was my plan to have make-your-own eggnog.  I would place a bottle of brandy and a bottle of rum beside a punch bowl of nog.  But I don’t have a punch bowl any more.  It’s one of the many things we got rid of before moving to the condo in Ottawa.  That kept me awake for a while on Monday night, but Mo solved the problem the next day by saying I could use her mom’s, which she had been given and used rarely.  So the party’s on, and at the moment I am in turns looking forward to it and to it’s being over with.

Saturday was a great day of training for SSASS, the adaptive ski program that I have volunteered to help with.  When I awoke at 6:30 and looked outside at the grey morning, I wanted to roll over and go back to sleep.  I had had a back spasm, the first of my life, in the middle of the night and was thinking of using that as an excuse.  But I was supposed to drive Mo and decided I couldn’t let her down. So I packed the Rough Guide to Korea in my backpack and was prepared to spend the day at Silver Star reading it if my back hurt.  But it didn’t, and the day turned out to be sunny and warm.  Our instructor was very enthusiastic, and he knew how to teach skiing.  I learned a lot and am now much more eager to face the two days of instruction next weekend.  I was afraid I might not ski well enough to be able to do it, but not any more.

I met the woman I will be teaching at Immigrant Services.  She’s from India, in her early fifties and speaks English quite well, but she wants practice with pronunciation, reading and writing.  It looks promising.  

The front door picture for the invitation to the party

The living room decorated for Christmas

The fireplace 

Christmas preparations

This is Sunday, December 4, 2011.  I awoke to hear a joke on the CBC radio that made me laugh and get out of bed in a good mood.  It was about a man who gave up trying to unsnarl the Christmas lights.  He just hung the gnarled ball above the front door and told his wife the lights were up.  As I laughed, I remembered Jim’s ill-humored efforts at Christmas decorating.  Men, I thought.  But by 4:00pm, I was laughing ‘on the other side of my face’.  That’s an expression my grade five teacher used to use. “ You’ll soon be laughing on the other side of your face”, she’d say in a threatening tone if you had found something funny that didn’t amuse her. It conjured up an image of contorted features that wasn’t pleasant, but I had never understood what it meant until this afternoon.  I was dedicating the day to Christmas preparations and got to the lights around 3:30.  Jim and I had bought them to decorate the condo on our last Christmas.  We put them up together and liked the bright white stars streaming down the west windows so much that we left them there. I finally took them down in March and just shoved them into plastic bags.  I ended up bring them to Vernon.  When I took them out of the bags today, I knew I was in trouble.  The lights hang in many strings from a couple of central wires, and each light is surrounded by a pointy little plastic star, brilliant when lit against the night sky, but challenging to unravel after they’ve been two years bunched in bags.  By  4:00pm, I was much more sympathetic with the man in the joke and Jim than I had been at 8:00am.  The lights are up, lit and sparkling in the living room window.  And I am sobered again, as I have been so often in the last 22 months by having to do something that I have never done before.  Hanging Christmas lights is no laughing matter, unless you’re watching someone else do it while you drink a rum and eggnog.

Skiing in Vernon is great.  I’ve been cross country many times and downhill once, and I still can’t get over leaving home with no snow and ending up less than half an hour later in mid winter conditions.  The only draw back is the fact that the car gets filthy every time you go up.  They use less salt on the roads here than in the east, but much more very fine sand.  However, the people I ski with are often members of the Vernon Outdoors Club, and they continue the practice of car pooling and paying the driver.  So you can go to a car wash and spray the dirt off the car whenever you drive.  Learning Korean is still the hardest thing I’ve done in years, but I like Misoon, and we enjoy our lessons at Tim Horton’s.   I’m going to meet my student at immigrant services this Friday.

 Living alone so far from friends and family is hard at times, but doing new things is both sobering and a laugh, and learning to help and be helped by strangers is a lesson I think I needed.       

The Black Prince cabin at Sovereign Lake Nordic Centre

The end of the fall centre piece.  I'll happily keep the orchid Bill and Paula gave me and the card from Joanna in Dubai, but eating all the squash is going to be difficult.

small world

Life goes on in Vernon, and I am there.  But lately I’ve been struck by how interconnected the whole world is.  I met Misoon again this Thursday at Tim Horton’s.  We had a good time together for two hours, a woman from Korea who for various reasons has lived in Canada for seven years and a Canadian woman who wants to learn Korean because she will be visiting her son there in May.  I think we will be able to help each other a lot.  Her English is better than my Korean, but she still needs help with it and with some details of life in Vernon.  I am moving like a snail without slime in my attempt to learn Korean, but I think I will know a bit by May.  I’ve had three other connections with the wider world in the last couple of months.   When I attempted to get map updates for the TomTom I bought, I called the company.  I ended up talking for about half an hour to a woman in Guadalajara, Mexico.  We spoke a bit in Spanish.  A week or so later, I discovered that the plane tickets to Korea that I had bought on Expedia back in August were no longer listed on my ‘itinerary’ at expedia.ca.  It took almost an hour and a half to settle this by phone.  In the course of the conversation, I introduced myself and asked the man I was talking with what his name was and where he was.  He was Fadi in Cairo, Egypt.  It took a while, but he was able to get my tickets straightened out, an Egyptian organizing the air tickets for a Canadian going to Korea.  The latest small world story involves my glasses.  Almost a month ago, I had my eyes checked and decided to get the new lenses put into my old frames.  I really like them because they are so light that they never slip down my nose, even when my face is dripping in sweat, as it often is now that I’m hanging around with the Vernon Outdoors Club.  The optometrist agreed because they are very good German frames.  After two weeks of waiting, I hadn’t been called to pick them up. I phoned the optometrist.  That’s when I discovered that they had been sent to Thailand where the lenses are made.  The factory in Bangkok wasn’t able to fill the order because of the floods and was sending them back.  Now they are being sent to Germany, the only other place in the world that makes these special lenses.  So, I’m wearing glasses that are about eight years old and squinting to watch the news on tv, hoping that the German economy doesn’t tank like the rest of Europe’s economies and that I will have my glasses before I drive to Victoria for Christmas.  We are interconnected and interdependent.  And it takes a lot longer to get a pair of glasses than it used to.  But I can communicate with family and friends in a way that still amazes me, even if I can’t see them and couldn’t even if they were here.