2012 BC Winter Games

Since most of this week was spent volunteering for the games, I'm going to have a blog full of pictures.  My job as host at Sovereign Lake Nordic Centre consisted of long stretches of boredom punctuated by short periods of action, excitement and chaos.  I could write volumes about the personalities of my fellow volunteers, but I won't.  The kids were the real kick.  I'd almost forgotten why I loved teaching.  Kids can be irritating and moody, but their often just self conscious, and when they're up, their vitality is contagious; although it's also exhausting.  My main jobs were distributing lunches and medals.  I was impressed by how volunteers can pull together such a huge show.  Nothing ever went exactly as our reams of written instructions suggested it should, but there were no major gaffs and I was impressed by how everyone concentrated on the main event.  The presentation of medals always went off with a solemnity worthy of the impressive efforts the athletes had made in the races.  When I took pictures, I concentrated on one girl from the Okanagan Zone because I met her on the first day and was curious to see how she would do.  She has a fairly minor handicap and was the first person to enter the BC Winter Games on a sit-ski.  She did so well that she even entered the final day of team relays as the only handicapped skier.

Emily and some of the other members of the Okanagan girls' team early Friday morning.  They were talking and texting when I asked them if I could take this picture.

Emily waiting for her turn in the Sunday relay

Waiting for the hand off

Coming in to hand off the baton to the third member of the team

Poling off the course

Biathlon was also at Sovereign Lake

Some of the colourful biathlon crew

The winner of the Sunday relay crosses the finish line

Jumping off the podium after the medals presentation.   The Okanagan team won the silver medal, but they were third in this event.

The widow with one wing

A few good things have come from last Sunday’s accident.  First, it has given me another practical application of the theory of relativity.  After a dislocation, all other physical pain seems easily bearable.  And after a few weeks of work with the people at SSASS, a handicap such as a temporarily useless arm seems minor.  Second, it has lead to an exchange of e-mails with Jay and a conversation with Barb Clegg and Elizabeth and Ross Murray in Thunder Bay that I would not have had otherwise.  Third, it has probably been the cause of my getting an MRI, which I was waiting for anyway, a bit earlier than I otherwise would have.  And last but not least, it has given me another reason to be thankful, as I have been so often in the last few years, for the love and help of family and friends, old and new.

This has been, perforce, a quiet week, no more skiing or working with SSASS.  By Tuesday, I had made an appointment for an MRI in Kelowna on March 11, exactly 2 years since Jim died, and another with an orthopedic surgeon on March 19.  I can drive, so was able to tutor and meet with Mi-Sun.  I’ve walked around Vernon quite a bit and had my haircut.  I usually can’t resist cutting a little here and there, the way you might slice a strip off a piece of cake, just to even it, and then have to cut a bit more.  Now that I can’t raise my right arm, all that has to stop.  And unfortunately, I got injured at a time when I’d clipped my hair into a real mess.  It’s been professionally fixed up now, but as usual I’m not completely happy with it.  It’s too manicured looking, and I long to snip it but can’t.  My mother used to say, “Our hair is not our crowning glory, Jan.”  She was right about that; although, of course, I didn’t agree with her at the time.

Me in more active times, with Marie on our last ski at Sovereign Lake

The new activity centre.  It's a pain management device that I sit down and put around my body.  It involves some kind of magnetic realignment of something or other.  I was lent it by an enthusiastic ski instructor and salesman who also volunteers with SSASS.  His wife has MS and uses it when she's in pain.  It apparently works for her.  I find it cumbersome and have not felt any benefit so far, but it was kind of him to lend it to me.

A joke about BC that was in the 'Globe and Mail' this Sat.  Click on the picture and it will enlarge.  The suggestion was taken more seriously in BC than it seems to have been by the Globe cartoonist.  I really like his take on it, though.

Another joke in this Saturday's Globe

A mating pair of mallards in Polson Park today

The same pair taken without the telephoto

Two odd mallards in Pollson Park.  The near one is the mate of the male next to her.  He stuck by her the whole time I was taking pictures, and when I got too close, they swam off together.  The albino didn't seem to have a mate, although there were two albinos.

Ogopogo in Polson Park.  He's all over the Okanagan.

  

You are old father William

The inversion lasted for about a week, and I drove up and out of it into the sun to ski every day but one.  Even though I hardly cook, never bake and make very little mess, I still have to do laundry once in a while and sweep the kitchen and hallway every week or so.  And then there’s grocery shopping and a few other chores that have to be done sometime.  The patterns of many years are slowly changing, and it’s not all bad. 

Seung A and Jun Yung, my Korean students are fun to teach.  I have each of them for an hour a week; of course the class goes overtime.  At $20.00 an hour, which Mela informs me is what her cleaning lady makes, I won’t get rich doing it.  But I do love teaching, and these kids are ideal.  They’re serious students, but looking for fun too.  Their mom is lovely.  She is having a difficult time at the moment recovering from eye surgery and living in a strange land alone with her children.  Her husband stayed in Korea to work.  She’s beautiful and looks delicate, but is actually very strong, I think.  They are only here for six months, and she wants to make the most of it.  She does a lot to get the kids into situations where they will speak English.  My friend Mi-Sun and I were laughing about it because she is just the opposite.  Working at the car wash, she is constantly forced to deal in English with people who speak only English and are often not too understanding of a person who doesn’t immediately understand them and satisfy their needs.  She can’t believe how they stare at her and don’t seem to know what on earth she’s saying when she knows she’s speaking English.  But her pronunciation is often just enough off to make her incomprehensible to people who are not used to accents other than their own.  Every Friday, she brings me lists of words and expressions dealing with everyday car wash matters and we struggle to improve her pronunciation and knowledge of idioms.  Consequently, when she has time off she rushes to places where she will be with her Korean friends, many of which involve church, which I can’t get her to stop calling ‘churchy’.

Rees and Shae were good this week.  Rees skied better; although, he hardly stopped talking about his new favorite movie, ‘Cars Two’.  He gave a DVD of ‘Cars One’ to Jenny, my fellow teacher and me.  Now we have to watch it and report back, especially our comments on Mater, the tow truck.  Shae arrived in her pajamas with her mother who was clearly close to cracking.  Shae had been crying on and off for no clear reason all morning.  The mom wisely left, and we distracted Shae into her ski boots and actually got her skiing; although, she was much more interested in looking at the snow sculptures, of which there are many in the village now.  When we returned to the SSASS room 2 hours later, her mother appeared rested and ready to tackle the rest of the day.  We may not teach Shae to ski, but I think we will play a small part in saving her mother’s sanity.

I have just returned from a Sunday SSASS training session that started at 8:30am on a warm sunny morning.  The morning went well.  The instructors who offered the class are fun and full of helpful techniques.  The conditions were a bit icy, but things seemed to be softening in the sun by noon, so I decided to carry on to the afternoon class.  That was a mistake.  On the first run I was involved in a crash that threw me into the air and down on my right shoulder.  The pain was so intense that I knew I’d dislocated it, but I had to endure the lengthy procedures that the Ski Patrols are obliged to go through.  They are especially concerned about broken necks, backs and concussions.   Then it took ages to get me wrapped up in the meat wagon and down to the patrol shack for more tests.  Fortunately there was an emergency ward doctor on the hill who came down, identified the problem and gave me a shot of morphine and some other drug.  As the patrols had already given me ‘laughing gas’, I was feeling light headed and dizzy but the pain was still intense.  Finally Mo, who had stayed with me the whole time and is an angel, was able to get me ready to get into her car for the ride to Vernon Hospital.  It was so much like the time Jim drove me from Liz and Ross’s camp to the Thunder Bay Hospital, dripping wet with a dislocated shoulder after diving into Loon Lake.  I’m accident prone, and Jim had resigned himself to being the one to get me out of scrapes or if possible prevent them from happening in the first place.  I miss him daily for this and many other reasons.  His earthy, dry wit often put things into perspective for me.  But my new friends were very helpful.  And after going through the same procedure that I had experienced in TBay, the anesthetic and the goon squad, I awoke almost pain free, Mo drove me home and now I am resting in the haze of painkillers.  If I’m smart, I’ll ‘process’ this information and modify some of my more reckless behavior.

Sorry, no pictures this week. 

Temperature inversion

This weekend I experienced the wonder of the weather inversion that members of the outdoors club had told me about.  On Saturday, Mo and John picked me up at 7:45 am to drive to Silver Star for the Carter Classic.  It’s the big team race/fundraiser for the adaptive ski program.  It was a damp, grey morning in Vernon, but as we drove into the mountains we rose above the blanket of fog into bright sun and blue sky.  It was a warm sunny day of spring skiing, perfect for the race.  The peaks of the Monashees were brilliant white in the distance.  I had a few good runs before and after the race.

 The SSASS room was swarming with racers and workers when we arrived.  Andy, the wonderful, generous but completely spacey man who presides over the whole thing was in his usual state of semi stammering dither.  Pete and Noreen and a few of the other very competent organizers were going about their tasks.  I was given two jobs before I finally settled into my role as screamer.  I stood at the bottom of the racecourse between the timer and the people who told the racers their times and yelled the bib number and time from the former to the latter.  And if you think that’s not an important job, you’re wrong.  It was vital.  The Carter Classic is a team race, four members on each team, one of whom must be a student in the adaptive ski program or a graduate who may or may not be on the SSASS race team.  Each person gets two runs down the course.  After they hear their first time, they have to estimate what their second time will be and the winner is the racer who comes closest in their second run to the time they estimated.  So you can see how important it was that the person yelling the time after the first runs had a good voice, which I do.  Many people complemented me on it after the race.  To add to the confusion, there were prizes for best team costume as well.  The winners were three women dressed as Super Chicks, with flowing caps with chicks painted on them.  Their man, whose well into his eighties, wore a cape that had a softie chick stitched on it and the words ‘Chick Magnet’ painted in bold letters underneath.  All this mayhem was followed by lunch and prizes.  Everyone was given a free ticket for the draws, so by the end almost everyone had won at least one of the many prizes that had been donated by Vernon businesses, except me.  It made me think very seriously about ever buying another 649 ticket.  

Today I awoke to the same damp, grey day in Vernon.  I enjoyed the usual slow breakfast, read and coffee and then got ready to go cross-country skiing at Sovereign.  Again I drove through the low-lying fog into brilliant sun.  This time I had the camera with me and took some pictures.

Tomorrow I will meet the first of the two Korean kids I’m going to tutor in English for the next few months, until I go to Korea in May.

Some of the runs at Sovereign Lake Nordic Centre

The run I was skiing on

The view from the road to Sovereign Lake looking down on what should be Lake Okanagan, Kalamalka Lake and the town of Vernon but what appears to be one frozen lake with Ogopogo, the Loc  Ness Monster of Lake Okanagan, trapped in it while rising

Another view of the fogged in valley from Marie's deck

The magical hoar frost that crystallized on everything at the fringe of the fog.  There was some in my yard, but nothing like this. 

Grass transformed into lace by the frost

January 29, 2012

I have to admit that winter in Vernon isn’t bad.  I’ve been determined not to sing the ‘god’s country’ refrain as so many of the people from the prairies and Ontario who have recently moved here do, but it is wonderful to live in a city that has relatively mild weather, little snow and no freezing rain, and yet be able to drive for 25 minutes into mountains that are white with deep snow and ski conditions that are excellent.  I finally got back to cross country skiing this Monday, and on Thursday and Saturday, downhilled in the best powder I’ve skied in since Jim and I were in Utah.  It hasn’t always been sunny, but the visibility is good and the powder so soft that even I, who have been skiing carefully this season because I don’t want to do any more damage to my right shoulder, am not afraid of falling.  I am, of course, staying on intermediate hills.  And to think, they don’t even have snowmaking equipment at Silver Star.  I met my 2^nd SSASS student on Thursday, an 8 year old boy named Rhees.  He also has autism, but unlike Shea, really wants to learn to ski because his dad is a good skier.  He was fun to be with.  He kept repeating as we went up the magic carpet, “ I can’t believe how excited I am!”  He’s as distracted, unfocused and full of his own imaginative stories as Shea is but once he’s heading down the hill, he keeps his eyes on his instructor and does exactly what she does.  It’s a joy to see how perfectly he copies movements even though he was telling ‘knock knock’ jokes the whole time I was trying to explain to him what we were going to do.  I also prefer to learn by doing and imitating those who are more advanced than I am; I just make a better pretense of listening to the theory.  Again this week, we didn’t get Shea beyond walking up and down hills and through the village in her ski boots, but she was less upset by the effort and blowing snow than last week and promised that she would ski in her next class. 

Coming down from skiing makes me think of carwashes because the only downside of skiing here is driving on the heavily sanded roads that make your car look as if it belongs to a yahoo off roader in one trip.  So my friend Mi-Sun and her husband are making money owning a car wash.  But it’s hard work.  This Friday she looked really tired and was.  They had about 3 problems with water and drainage at their place this week and after spending hundreds, they still weren’t resolved.  They are working hard for the money they are making.  But they must be making money.  This week as we got into our cars at the end of class, I noticed for the first time that hers is a new BMW.  I am inclined to leap to conclusions based on little evidence, but this observation of an Oriental person in a BMW or Mercedes has contributed to my developing generalization that Occidentals buy cars made in the Orient and Orientals buy cars made in Germany.  I drive a Mazda.

I saw a very good movie, ‘Le Havre’, on Monday.  The writer and director is a Finnish man, Aki Kaurismaki.  It’s the story of how a group of people who live and work in the port of Le Havre helps a young African boy who has escaped from a cargo container and wants to join his mother in England.  In spite of the limited dialogue, the people are eloquent and humane, the mood is low key but with humor and suspense as well.  Although it was set in France, the mood was Finnish.  It reminded me of the Helsinki section of Jim Jarmusch’s film, ‘A Night on Earth’; Jim and I thought that was the best part of that movie.  I googled Aki Kaurismaki and discovered that Jim Jarmusch had a cameo in one of his early movies, ‘Leningrad Cowboys Go America’.  It sounds as if it would be really funny, in a Finnish way. 

Last night I met a friend, Jane, at the Vernon Jazz Club to listen to an Okanagan group called ‘Offramp Jazz Sextet.’  They were really good, especially the pianist and percussionist.  The latter did something called beat boxing, a kind of vocal percussion, as a lead into ‘It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing’.  It was amazing, and as he did it the other band members came up on stage one at a time, piano, sax, clarinet, bass and singer until they were really giving ‘er.  Now I’m enjoying a quiet Sunday.  It’s quite warm, about 4, so I think I’ll go for a walk when I finish this.

Snow on the deck at 8:00 this morning.  It's all melted now.

My little retirement man in the snow this morning.

Hibernation

Last week I hibernated for 3 days.  The temperature was around -20, and I was happy for the excuse to stay inside reading, etc.  I went for a long walk each day, except Wednesday when it was below -20.  I told my friend Mo that I was getting fat eating my own words because I’ve said a few times to people who complain that it’s cold here that for a person who comes from Thunder Bay and the Gatineau Hills, it’s not.  The forecast for the top of Silver Star on Thursday was for -22, so classes were cancelled, but Mo and John and I decided to ski anyway and conditions were fine, a little overcast but not below -15.  However a lot of our students don’t move much, so it was probably best to cancel classes.  On Saturday we had a good talk with Shea’s mom and decided to go back to the beginning and just get her used to walking in her skis and going down a couple of small hills in the village.  Her coordination really is limited, but her mother admitted to the fact that even she has trouble sometimes knowing whether Shea can’t or just won’t do certain things.  We had some fun and we’ll see what happens next week.  I ended up helping with Marie’s class in the afternoon because she is in New York and couldn’t take her student.  His name is Edison.  He’s the same age as Shea, seven.  He has very serious mental and physical handicaps.  We used an amazing contraption to move him around on his skis.  He doesn’t talk and seems to either be quiet and contemplative or to laugh or cry.  He’s very cute, and I enjoyed working with him.  It was a good test for the ‘dew rag’ I invented last week because I got in a sweat moving him around and my hair stayed dry, to think that I am even concerned about such a stupid detail.  I had such respect for Edison’s dad.  He’s a very large man who radiates ‘you can count on me’.  It’s easy to see why Edison has such faith in him.  He ran around with us most of the time but left us at moments to slowly let Edison get used to being without him.  After the class we talked in the SSASS room where we all change and eat lunch.  Some of the kids knew him because he teaches drama at a school in Vernon.  He was joking with the kids as he wiped the drool from Ed’s chin and told me a bit about their family.  They have two other children, younger than Ed and both without handicaps.  I really enjoy the atmosphere in the SSASS room.  It’s positive and practical with not a hint of Pollyanna.  The students and volunteers know that life’s neither easy nor fair, but it’s a fact that can be dealt with more or less successfully and even with humour, depending on our attitude and the help we give to and get from others.  There’s a lot of joking and laughter in the room, a few tantrums and some people who just want to be left alone for a while.  Shea, who can drop and scream with the best of them and who is not keen on physical activity, sat silent and wide-eyed as an older boy came in from his snowboard lesson yelling about how he hated it and was never going to do it again.  Then that faded and people carried on eating, talking and either taking off or putting on gear. 

I’m looking after Marie and George’s dog, Osito, again this weekend while they are in New York City buying a piano.  It’s a very good and expensive one that George has wanted and saved for for quite a while.  He plays very well, but I have never heard him because every time I go to their house for a concert, someone else is playing their piano.Osito is flopped out beside me now after the long walk we had this afternoon.  He’s snoring.

Osito in the field at the top end of our walk.  Fluffed up with winter fur, you can see why he's called 'little bear', except for the tail.

The main street of Vernon from half way back home.

A longer view of Vernon

I have taped some of the Australian Open.  When I finish this I’ll pour a glass of wine, watch it and imagine I’m in the warmth down under.      

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