Nov. 17 and still no snow

The leaves have fallen, the temperature’s dropped but still there’s not enough snow to ski.  This will be the first winter since I moved to Vernon that I haven’t been skiing before Nov. 15^th.  Oh well, it’s sunny, and I certainly have had plenty of time to prepare for the snow.  I’ve even finished the Christmas baking: the dark fruit cake from the Joy of Cooking, which I modify every year (this time it has more rum and pecans); speculaas that I learned to make from Florence and a new shortbread.  I have used Terry Keough’s recipe for years and really like it, but this year CBC Radio One was raving on about how great the winning shortbread in their last year’s contest was and how you have to bake it at least a month early and let it mellow.  I had time on my hands and I fell for the hype.  It was rather grainy when first baked, but it is wrapped up and sitting in the fridge now, aging to perfection. 

I phoned dad yesterday morning to wish him a Happy 95^th Birthday.  I sang the song all the way through as usual, and he joined in for the traditional chorus of ‘For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow’ as he always does.  Then we usually have a good laugh, but this time there was no laugh and the rest was not good.  Mom was doing the wash, so he was alone and very upset.  He repeated a few times how she was not well and he couldn’t do anything.  This has been his theme for a while now, but usually mom pipes up that they are still managing.  As she was not there, he couldn’t seem to get his mind off his worries.  I asked, as I have many times since I helped them move in June, if he had spoken to the nurse who stops by to see him from time to time about taking the necessary steps to get on a list for a place with more care.  She had mentioned this to me and to them in June, but they have done nothing.  He said that even when she was there last week to see him after a fall he hadn’t said a word about extra care.  I keep thinking that they will ask when they’re ready and that if I initiate a move, mom, at least, will disagree, but perhaps I am going to have to go to Victoria and do something because they seem incapable of anything.  I’m not going to phone them again until tomorrow so that they have a chance to discuss the situation, but I wonder if they will. 

To end on a happier note, last weekend Jay and May found and bought wedding rings that they both like, so now they have the outward and visible sign of their marriage.  And I went to a concert at the Vernon Performing Arts Centre last night.  It was the Okanagan Symphony Orchestra together with ‘musica intima’.  The last work, ‘Dona nobis pacem’ by a Latvian composer, Peteris Vasks, was especially wonderful.  The strings and voices blended together to fill the room with an eerily peaceful sound.  The audience remained silent for almost a minute after the performers had stopped playing and singing.  Then they rose and clapped for quite a while.  That is most rose.  I later saw two acquaintances in the foyer; they hadn’t liked it. 

A cartoon from "The Morning Star" that made me laugh because that's the solution Jay and I have for all the technical problems we encounter.

A shot from the black rock where I walk when there are no hikes and bikes and not enough snow to ski.

November 11, 2014

November 11, 2014 has been brilliantly sunny.  The temperature is -1 at 3:00pm and should fall to -3 tonight.  I walked to the Remembrance Day service at the Kal Tire Centre this morning.  By 10:30 the place was almost full.  As usual, the service was well organized and very moving at moments.  One of the speeches was rather tedious and sabre-rattling, but the community orchestra and singers, highland bands and brightly uniformed members of every military and public safety group in town created an overall atmosphere of mixed solemnity and celebration of lives lost.  Two of the participants, probably the youngest and the oldest, provided the highlights of the ceremony.  The young girl who had won the elementary school war poetry competition read her poem.  It consisted of several poppy metaphors.  In one of them she said that the poppy is a suitcase that opens easily, with a glance, and out tumble memories in a jumble of joy and sorrow.  The whole poem was quite unique, with more assonance than alliteration and none of the usual painfully strained rhyming couplets. The man was a 94-year old veteran of WW2 who was laying a wreath in memory of his comrades.  After most of the wreaths had been laid, he was introduced.  He walked up the long isle carrying his, a young soldier at his side.  As they approached the memorial, the whole audience stood up and clapped for quite a long time.  I was moved to tears. War is hell.  It should not be glamorized and young lives should never be sacrificed at its alter.  But it seems right to remember comrades and fellow human beings who died in the horror of combat before they could experience the joys and sorrows that make life on earth so dear.  Dad also is 94 and although he can no longer walk as independently erect as that man did, he holds his head up with the same sense that some things are right, others not, and that attention must be paid to the former.  

The Honour Guard at the Remembrance Day Service with the Vernon Community Band in the background

Nov. 10, 2014

Anthony Hopkins was in Vernon today, and I missed him.  What makes it worse is that he was spotted and photographed in Starbucks and at The Bay in The Village Green Mall, and I was in the same mall except at the liquor store and Save On Foods.  RATS!!!! He’s in a movie that is being shot in Enderby, a village just east of Vernon.  Aside from that, not much is happening here.  I drove Mo and John to the Kelowna airport this morning; they are going to spend 3 weeks in Oaxaca.  Then I went to the mall to buy rum and other ingredients for the annual Christmas cake.  I made it this afternoon; it’s in the oven now.  I sent a small Christmas package to Jay and family before going to Mo’s.  So now I’m almost ready not just for winter but also for Christmas.  It takes a while for a package to get to Incheon, but I am a bit early.  I seem to be expecting a call to Victoria at any moment.  That combined with my usual preference for being early rather than late and the fact that I want to be free to ski if we get snow has got me trying to complete all chores before the snow flies.  The winds of change blew in yesterday and completely denuded the trees in the back yard.  I've been enjoying walks to the Black Rock lately, but I'm ready to ski. 

Dad will be 95 on November 16^th. 

New graffiti on the wall around the abandoned water reservoir at the top of Black Rock and a view toward Swan Lake on the east side of Vernon.

Fiction and real life

The first step of three this week in the winterizing program is being taken now.  Mark from Brown Mechanical Services is in the basement looking at the furnace.  Then he will tackle the fireplace, which will be a more difficult task I think.  I shut it down and turned off the pilot light last spring when I couldn’t get it to light and haven’t touched it since.  On Wed. I go to the doctor for a checkup, and on Friday the car gets its pre winter tire change, fluids check and general preparation for crossing the Coquihalla in mid Dec. for Christmas in Victoria with mom, dad, Barb and Terry.

Or will I be heading west earlier?  Mom and dad sounded terrible on the phone last night.  It’s all dad can do to dress himself and push his walker to meals.  If he can’t do these minimal things, he can’t stay at Shannon Oaks.  Then what?  Mom is still suffering the pain of post herpetic neuralgia every day and now she has the worry of Lymphoma.  She will have the first bout of radiation on Wednesday and is very upset by the idea.  They have always been so proudly self sufficient that they can’t accept their increasing dependency.  In some ways they waited too long before going into a seniors’ home so when they finally got there they have been physically unable to take advantage of its many programs.  Of course dad would have had to be dragged to such ‘hail fellow well met’ gatherings but mom would have enjoyed some of them and made friends for both of them as she has always done.  She’s what my friend Jane’s husband would call a ‘jolly hockey stick, that is when she’s not depressed beneath words.  Of course it’s very expensive where they are now, so they couldn’t have afforded to live there for twenty years.  I waited until they asked me for help with the move to Shannon Oaks and I’m inclined to do the same thing this time even though I don’t know what we’ll do about getting one or both of them into a care home because most of those have waiting lists of at least a year.  I know that if dad gets hospitalized again because of a fall he will be moved to a temporary care home as soon as he no longer needs a hospital bed but that could mean that he will be in a different location than mom and that will be hard.  I also know that they are frozen into inaction by the fear of exactly that happening.  They are waiting for something to happen so that a decision is not required, holding on for dear life.  And life is ‘dear’ when you’re that old, in the sense of costing every bit of energy you have every minute just to keep doing the most basic things.  I felt quite low after our last talk but I don’t know how to help them because as sure as I suggest something, mom will have a good day and think I’m rushing things.  She can still be pretty buoyant at times and then there’s no influencing her.  Or have I just given up?  If this were my novel and not our lives, I would resort to a good old ‘deus ex machina’ to solve the dilemma.

On the topic of novels, I have finally joined a book club.  Its members refer to it as the ‘sailing’ book club, a group of women who met sailing, so I expect some windy discussions.  Their numbers now include hikers and bikers, which is how I got to know some of them.  I’m sure we will all be full of hot air, and as each person brings an appetizer and $5.00 to cover the hostess’s purchase of wine for the event, the discussion should be lively.  No matter what happens, I am already glad I joined because the book we will discuss this Thursday evening is Ragged Company by Richard Wagamese.  It’s the first book of his that I have read and I love it.  He’s right up there with Alice Munro when it comes to being a medium for the transmission of the voices of the people he writes about.  And funny.  And humane.  He lives near Kamloops now but comes from a reserve near Thunder Bay.  His descriptions of the great outdoors are beyond my words to describe.  I’m now reading Indian Horse and it’s also great.

Ready for winter, I hope.

Winter is coming to a place near you if you are in a place like Vernon.  There was frost on the grass this morning when I left the house to meet Lusia for a swim at the rec. centre.  I was happy to spend the first 20 minutes in the sauna.  That’s what I really go for.  Then I swim a bit and have a steam bath.  Lusia and I turn the shower room into a jimhillbong scrub house, rubbing our skin with rough gloves and then we go for a good strong coffee.  Not a bad way to spend a chilly fall morning. 

I’m almost ready for winter, big winter quilt on the bed, warm winter clothes in the cupboard and the yard weeded and fertilized.  I have appointments for winter tune ups of the furnace, fireplace and car as well as a doctor’s appointment for me, so by the end of next week I will be ready to take off again at a moment’s notice. Mom and dad sounded desperate last Monday when we talked on the phone but by Thursday after mom’s doctors’ appointments they were relieved and in better spirits.  I don’t know what will happen tomorrow.

I missed the salmon run on the Adams River when I first got to Vernon.  It’s a four-year cycle, so this year was another big run.  I went with Mo and her friends to catch one of the last days.  It was impressive, but as many of the fish had already finished their mating and died, the shore was littered with what was left of them, almost as numerous as leaves and they stank.  The Sunday hike in Kal Park was the last one of the season; we saw snow on the distant hills.  We have a last Ramble tomorrow and bike ride on Thursday. The next outing will be to Sovereign Lake or Silver Star to ski.  On Sat. we “fall back”, so I will be rising at 6am to Skype with Jay on Monday.  The seasons turn.

Happy Hallowe’en. 

Jay and me posing as hollow-cheeked celebs

Salmon mating on the Adams River

An enthusiastic biologist explaining salmon anatomy

Wandering over the grassy hills of Kalamalka Lake Provincial Park

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

I’m back to Vernon and the VOC.  At least I’m here in body but my heart is still in Incheon and heaven knows where my head is.  In spite of trying to impose a regular routine on myself, I’m still getting up before 6:00am and feeling muzzy most of the day.  Today I will go on the VOC ramble at 10:00am and see if I can walk the crazies out.  Before leaving for Korea, I programmed the VCR to record the Ken Burns series on three members of the Roosevelt family, Teddy, Eleanor and Franklin.  It was so long that it filled the system, so I have had to watch it right away, which hasn’t been difficult as I am too spaced out to do much more.  The first programs are mostly about Teddy, an asthmatic, hyperactive, depressive complex character.  His father imbued him with a belief in the necessity and virtue of an active life.   Teddy himself once commented,  “Black care rarely sits behind a rider whose pace is fast enough.”  As my cares are minor compared to his, I shouldn’t need a horse to outpace them, a brisk hike with friends should do. 

I spent my last week in Korea going to a market in Seoul to buy small gifts for friends, visiting the Blue Ocean jimjillbong for the last time, doing my slow yoga in the mornings while Jay and May did their much more strenuous routines, eating May’s tasty, healthy Filipino lunches, watching at least one episode a night of  “Game of Thrones” with Jay, riding the bike around Song do and returning to Bukhansan National Park on the outskirts of Seoul for one last hike.  The latter turned out to be an over ten-hour excursion, extreme BMW (bus, metro, walk).  I left Jay’s just after 9:00am, spent 1hr. 38min. on the subway (according to the subway app. Jay downloaded for me), took a bus for about forty minutes and finally walked into the park.  I had to walk through the high-end, Whistler-like village at the base of the hill and up a paved road to the parking lot before I was faced with the choice of trails.  When I stood at that point on my first visit to Korea I chose a rather long hike past some temples to a palace, but this time I decided to at least begin on the steeper trail to a summit.  It was under 5km. long but mostly uphill.  The path was well worked through rocks that at times were arranged almost like steps.  There were brilliant red maples at some points and the weather was perfect.  Of course there were other people, but not too many.  I kept urging myself to continue by thinking that I only had to go as far as I wanted to, but as always happens, I got used to going up after about 10 min. and never really contemplated not getting to the top.  I kept a slow and steady pace, let some gung ho young men run past me and  settled in behind a Korean man of about my age for a while.  We shared smiles but very few words.  Near the top it got a bit challenging because the rock face was quite steep, flat and worn smooth by so many hikers’ boots passing over it.  But there were some grooves chipped into it and wire ropes to cling to.  From the top, the view of Seoul below was magnificent. 

I finished Alice Munro’s Dear Life in Korea.  Her mastery of language and perception of people and life is a wonder to me.  I found these stories to be her most complex studies of the human condition so far.  I puzzled over them, but one thing is clear, her wording is spare and masterfully apt.  The title comes up at the very end, and as usual she takes an expression that is so common it’s clichéd and makes it explode with significance. 

Perhaps that daughter, grown and distant, was the one she

was looking for in the baby carriage.  Just after my mother

had grabbed me up, as she said, for dear life.

I have used that expression, ‘for dear life’ a million times without thinking about it.  We run for dear life and hold on for dear life, but never before had I realized its possibilities for interpretation.  Life is ‘dear’, much loved and costly and mostly beyond our control.  We reach for and hold on to what we can, and it’s only the effort that counts because we rarely know what the right thing is.  She ends the book with the words:

                        We say of some things that they can’t be forgiven, or that we

                        will never forgive ourselves.  But we do- we do it all the time

And now I will spend the last year alone in this house in Vernon before Jay and his family join me and we see what the future holds and continue to learn by going where we have to go. 

A portion of a temple at Bukhansan

Part of the path up the hill at Bukhansan

Two of the peaks at Bukhansan, the near one is the one you hike and the far one is for climbers

Me at the top, with part of Seoul in the background

Happy Thanksgiving

Even May has to agree that the weather in Incheon this past week was good, warm and dry with some wind but not too much.  I would say it was perfect, but she won’t go that far; she really likes heat.  It continues to be fine today, but I am taking a break from outdoor activity.

Last Tuesday I finally took the Seoul City Bus Tour.  I enjoyed it except for the 15 minutes when the bus I was on had some problem with the intercom system that meant we were subjected to a buzz that at times intensified to earsplitting.  Fortunately, you can get off at any of the many viewing spots and pick up another bus every 30 minutes.  Needless to say that bus emptied at the next one, the War Museum.  I spent quite a bit of time there.  The grounds were huge and full of statues and old war machines.  Half the school children in Seoul were on class outings, screaming and climbing on them when I was there.  It was fun to watch them playing on the remnants of killer weapons.  The inside of the museum presented a history of Korea’s struggles to remain a united and isolated peninsula.  The other stop that I spent a lot of time at was Changgyeonggung (‘gung’ means palace) and Jongmyo Shrine.  The area is vast.  The palace is similar to many that we saw last year in Beijing, not that the Koreans would appreciate my saying that.  The palace and shrine date back to 1392, which was the beginning of the Joseon Dynasty.  That dynasty continued in Korea until the Japanese annexation in 1910.   Of course much has been burned and restored in the interim.  Wooden palaces are firetraps, but the Korean system of floor heating seems to have amplified the problem in that country.  After sitting on a bus in the belly of Seoul, I was happy to wander around the peaceful palace gardens for a long time.  On Tuesday I left Jay’s house early so that I could take the Subway to Seoul, which takes about one and a half hours on average, and visit two more palaces.  I went first to Changdeokgung a World Heritage site because I wanted to catch the English guided tour of the gardens at 11:30am.  Our guide was a beautifully costumed, quiet spoken, young Korean woman who was non-the-less insistent about the length of time we could tarry in any one spot.  She pointed out huge ancient mulberry and juniper trees and told us about the Joseon emperors and empresses’ interest in sericulture and the planting of rice.  It sounded a bit like Marie Antoinette’s playing milkmaid beyond the formal gardens of Versailles, but I was really impressed by the trees and gardens as a whole.  I wandered around the palace by myself later.  Next I went to Gyeongbokgung, which is the most touristy of all the palaces in Seoul.  It was very grand but crowded.  The Folk Museum in the same area had fewer people and was more interesting to me because some of the exhibits connected with things I have seen in travels around Korea.  There were many examples and explanations of the Shamanistic carved wooden totems and birds that have always intrigued me. Also, one aspect of Choi Jeong-Hwa’s art, his stacking of things, makes much more sense to me now that I have seen how foods are stacked for special celebrations such as 60^th birthday parties.  I appreciate more now his combining of past and present, nature and man-made, etc.

Jay didn’t have to teach on Thursday, so he and I took the subway into Seoul and rented bikes to ride along the Hangang River.  He was not the only person enjoying a day off on the river.  The bike paths were crowded, but it was a beautiful day.  There are no hills to climb, but Jay rode quickly at times and there was a bit of wind in one direction, so I was ready to rest by the end of the ride.  We sat by the river to have a drink and watch the kites flying high over our heads.  Friday was a quiet day.  The girls were also off school, so we rode bikes and went to the park.  We were thinking of playing badminton but the wind was so strong that it was impossible to control the bird. 

Saturday was our family trip to Muuido Island.  May’s brother and family were supposed to join us but the baby was sick so her two friends visiting from the Philippines came along.  The first surprise of the day was the length of the ferry ride.  We had to take the subway to Incheon International Airport (approx. 80 min.) where we caught a bus (approx. 20 min.) to the ferry and there discovered that we could practically swim to the island.  The ferry was loaded with cars and people to make the 15 min. crossing.  We got off and were met by the woman who runs the pension where we stayed.  She drove us there and our holiday began.  After unpacking, we decided to walk to the nearest beach.  What luck.  We were later told that this was one of two extreme tide periods in the year. We went to the beach at exactly the right time.  It was a short walk there and then we walked along the shore.  May and her friends did not consider swimming; Jay and I had thought about it but not worn our bathing suits, neither had the girls.  As we got warmer, we wanted to swim but the girls were hesitant.  Finally, we all held hands and went screaming into the water wearing our shorts and t-shirts.  It wasn’t cold, so we swam around for quite a while.  It’s lucky we did because on Sunday we had a lazy morning and by the time we were outside, the tide was also out and there was no hope of swimming until late afternoon by which time we would be on the ferry. We had a great barbeque on Saturday evening.  After, when it was dark, we could see and hear a huge fireworks display that was going on back home across the water in Song-do.  Jin Hee then wished she were there.  When it was finished, we decided to walk down to the little village by the ferry dock.  Jay bought some fireworks, which we lit on the vast expanse of beach.  The tide had gone way out after having flooded the main road to such an extent earlier that people with reservations at our pension were unable to drive there from the ferry dock.  Jin Hee and I had fun holding the long fireworks as sparks shot forth in bursts that didn’t go as high as the ones in Song-do but were impressive because they were close and we felt the blast and could point it anywhere.

The month is going by quickly.  

The Statue of Brothers (one a S. Korean officer and the other a N. Korean soldier) meeting on the battlefield, symbolizing the hope for reunification, the closing of the crack in the dome.

A view in the garden of Changgyeonggung

Two shots of furniture being moved into the top floor of the apartment building where Jay lives, no carrying heavy loads to and from elevators.

The moving truck

A lotus pond in the garden of Changdeokgung.  The guide told us that "they" say the lotus flower is the symbol of a true gentleman; it is pure white even if it blooms in a muddy pond.  

A view of roof lines at Gyeongbokgung

A stone arch in the subway station that is a copy on the one I saw in Gyeongbokgung

The inscription on the plaque beside the arch above.  I took a picture because of the English wording which struck me as funny because it made me think of mom and dad who would wish if that's the case that they had passed through the gate a few years ago because they have said a few times lately that they have been old for a long time and would not like to be old forever.

You will have to click on this to read it.  It gave me pause.  It was written on the wall in the part of the Museum of Korean Folklore that dealt with the celebration of the 60th birthday.

Jay carrying our bikes up the stairway of the bridge we had to cross to get to the place we were going along the Han River

May and her friends on the ferry to Muuido Island

Jay with two mermaids in the West Sea off Muuido Island

Our pension, at the top right, at sunset, with the tide in

Our pension at low tide the next morning about 10:00am