my trip to non-church

I have an unexpected day off today, and was excited at the chance to get some errands done. This time of year is when my tendency to procrastinate really catches up to me.

I enjoy the idea of Christmas, but find it difficult to really get into the Christmas spirit. Mostly I dread going to the malls.

I've gotten a fair bit of stuff done, especially considering it's still a week til Christmas. Some surprisingly pleasant exchanges with shop staff have made the potentially arduous task of Christmas shopping a lot more enjoyable, but I'm still finding myself a bit weary of the ambient hustle-and-bustle.

After a triumphant morning of getting stuff done, I found myself outside the Eaton Centre, in the laneway near Holy Trinity Church. On a whim, I wandered in, and found the atmosphere so peaceful and inviting that after wandering around the main hall for a bit I ventured in, found an armchair, and sat quietly for an hour, finishing my latest knitting project.

I enjoyed the sun through the stained-glass windows, and the hardwood floor that creaked as the little church secretary scurried around on god's business. I contemplated the scattering of homeless folks seated in the pews, each with his free cup of coffee. I enjoyed the relative silence; I could hear the lunch-hour pedestrians outside the open church door, and one of the old gents in the church was a shaggy looking mutterer, but even he had the reverence to mutter quietly.

I wonder what people think when they're in church? I like churches. I like the potential that churches have in uniting communities, and the voice that a strong, united community can have in our culture. I like the quietness and the atmosphere, and the way you feel like you should speak in a hushed voice; I also like the knowledge that thousands and thousands of other people throughout the years have enjoyed the same space and architecture that I'm currently enjoying. I just don't agree with the things churches like to tell people. We build beautiful spaces like churches that are really for the community at whole, but because of what they preach on Sundays I've always found myself steering clear of them.

On my way out, the little old secretary told me to come for the services, but I'd rather not. I do, however, like going to non-church, where you come as you are, believe whatever you want without being wrong, and can be a good person just because it feels nice. I think I'll do it again soon.

night of the ladybugs

It's been a lovely couple of days here. After some pretty chilly nights and a secret fear that winter was upon us, I've been glad to enjoa some sunny, mild autumn evenings. Yesterday I spent the dwindling daylight hours weeding and tonight I spent the evening composting. The warm weather has brought out the ladybugs, who always make me smile, even if they are invasive orange asian biting ladybugs.

Another thing to make me smile was being asked to talk to some funding reps while I was shovelling compost at Foodshare. I got a chance to enthuse at them about the work I was doing, and I think I made a good impression.

Also at Foodshare tonight, my compost mentor Mike mentioned tonight that a local school had asked him to recommend a reliable compost volunteer for their onsite composting program, and he gave them my name. The school is in my neighborhood, and apparently has a pretty good rooftop garden. I'm looking forward to more details.

stability ball funtime

It feels like the end of summer, and it's been a busy one. As with every summer, there were plenty of good excuses to slack off from going to the gym, or indulge in some rich, tasty vittles. While I appreciate the good company I enjoyed during those fine indulgences, it's now time to start paying for them.

I went to a stability ball class this week at the Y, and to my utter delight we had our class in the beautiful open air studio on the newly-built YMCA green rooftop. The class is mellowly exhilirating; it's diffuclt work and I'm definitely achy from it, but in a good way.

I've dusted off and inflated my stability ball here at home, and have been challenging myself with it. A small tumble involving a 4-point balance and talking on the phone has not deterred me...let's see if I can keep this up long enough to be good at it ;0

Elliot Lake heebie-jeebies

It's 11:45, the night after the last day of clinics. Tomorrow we drive back to Sudbury, a scenic 2 hour trip through some beautiful countryside; we're hoping to get an early start and get to Sudbury in time to visit Dynamic Earth, an attraction that allows visitors to tour the nickel mine and visit the world-famous Big Nickel (and the Big Nickel jail, mentioned earlier in these pages). I'm looking forward to it, it'll be a fun way to end an overall fun trip.

That, however, is tomorrow; between now and then, I have many hours ahead of me here in Elliot Lake, which, in spite of the wonderfully relaxed and amicable inhabitants, gives me a shuddering case of the willies. It's a quiet place, populated by approximately 12,ooo souls. During its heyday, it was home to about 30 thousand, largely supported by uranium mines in the area. After the mining operations shut down, the town dwindled, and has more recently become known as a retirement community.

It's the time of year when I walk around with my eyes cast upward, watching for the Scott's birthday meteor shower (also known as the Perseids meteor shower). The peak was last night, but apparently our home-away-from home in Sudbury is not in the best part of town, and I was advised not to go out wandering after dark. No worries, I thought, Elliot Lake will be nice and quiet and dark, and an even better place to watch the night sky.

Tonight after our clinic ended and the bunch of us (declared the alpha-and-omega clinic team by the other Sandra and I) had feasted at the Fireside Grill, I wandered out of doors to see what I could see. What I saw, as I ambled away from the ancient hotel (which itself reminds me a lot of the movie The Shining, to my great discomfort) was a perfectly intact little town, with not a single indication of life. Store signs and lights were on, although the stores themselves have been locked up since 6:00. The streets were completely empty of people and cars. A piece of plastic caution tape rustled at the end of the block. The monstrous hotel's decrepit air conditioning system belched startlingly and ominously behind me as I made my way through the parking lot. It felt like a scene from a Twillight Zone episode, the one about the guy who found himself to be the only living creature in town. I began to worry about zombies and bears, and whether I would be able to sleep with the AC in my room making those creepy organic burbling sounds. By the time I'd made it about 500 feet from the mall door (for the hotel entrance is within a little tiny mall which has been shuffled through by innumerable people whose lives are almost completely lived) I was completely unnerved. I acknowledged that there are indeed far more stars visible than either from home or from the Sudbury hotel parking lot, and then hustled back up to my room, locking the door behind me.

It may have been the pasta dinner (isn't cheese said to cause bad dreams and unease?), but I'll be glad to see the sights of Elliot Lake by daylight in the rearview mirror as we're burning out of town in the morning.

the refrigerator curse and playing dairy roulette

I'm in Sudbury working at a 2 day clinic put on by my department. This means that a team of us has been sent up here to provide in-person passport services to the good folk of the north, who would otherwise have to either send in their applications by mail or make the lengthy trek into one of our offices. We've just wrapped up day 1, and busy as it was, it was also pretty fun. The folks here are pretty relaxed and happy to see us, and us, we're happy to be here.

A few of us went out yesterday to Science North, and had a surprisingly good time. I'd thought it would be like a watered down version of the Ontario Science Centre, but it was it's own thing altogether, lots of hands-on stuff, live animals, even a butterfly garden. While messing around with a display of telephones, my boss called me (from a couple of phones away) and asked if my refrigerator was running. We all hee-hee'd about it, and then continued on our way.

After Science North we hit the grocery store and stocked up, I got cottage cheese, yogurt, fruit and a chicken salad, came back here and tossed them in the fridge. It wasn't until today, about 10 minutes before I was to start work, that I realized the fridge was not cold...it wasn't even working! The food was still cool, so I got some ice and put everything back in and ran off to work. During my dinner break, while noshing on my tepid salad covered with cottage cheese, I began to question the sanity of my meal choice, and abandoned the feeding halfway through. I'm now waiting to see if last week's recovery from food poisoning has left me with any special immunity to the refrigerator's revenge. (o please o please)

exorcising demons and journeying north

I am recently (as in today) recovered from a troublesome spot of food poisoning, and am feeling pretty good. I'm attempting to catch up on stuff--bills, dishes, general tidying, maintenance on my worm composter, etc, and figured I'd add 'posting on the blog' to the list.

The episode of the malevolent food took me quite by surprise. We had gone to a bbq at a friend's place, and enjoyed some very fun company and some very delicious food. All kinds of food. And too much of all kinds of food. I also got to introduce a little kid to some ladybugs, much to his mom's dismay. At some point several hours later, I woke to some highly distressing stomach cramps, followed by vomiting and associated problems. This lasted for hours, followed by a day or two of more cramping and general unsettled-ness. Not sure what the culprit was, but it was it was something that I found pretty appealing at the time.

Tonight, after a bout of therapeutic composting (my cure-all for just about everything) I feel way better. I'm introducing about 50 new compost worms to my indoor composter, courtesy of my kind compost-and-worm mentor Mike. I'd kinda forgotten about my indoor composter for a bit. Not a huge deal, they can survive for a good while, but they weren't really thriving. Time to start 'er up again and have a go at worm-bin 2.0!

I've only just thought of it, but this is one of countless indulgences I'm allowed. As far as I recollect, one day Byron came home and was told 'hey honey, I built a worm bin!' and all of a sudden there were 200 worms living under our kitchen sink. His audio buddies should take pointers and learn that if they would allow their spouses to be a little nuts in their own ways, they'd have a far less difficult time justifying their audiophile craziness. :)

I'm still loving my tinybook; it goes with me almost every day to work and on my varied adventures. It's good for emailing and surfing and working, but I'm a little dismayed to find that it and facebook don't get along very well. I'm finding the touch-screen (instead of a mouse) pretty easy to use, and I'm coming to appreciate the subtler keyboard. And, of course, I really love the portability of it :)

I'm looking forward to using tinybook on my trip north next week. I'm getting to go away to work! I'm so psyched! What's hilarious is that it's a trip to Sudbury and Elliot Lake with my boss. Doesn't matter really. I'm getting compensated pretty well to get on a plane and leave my regular job for a week to perform the aspect of my job that I think I'm really good at (ie. dealing with old people and non-big city people), and..and...Sudbury! I was there as a child, I have photos of me in the Big Nickel Jail! (as a tourist, not an inmate). Science North is there (I'm picturing a sort of less-glamourous Ontario Science Centre, but I could be way off), and I hear it's Canadian Shield -wild blueberries-and-fishing type of country--if I can find a quiet place to breathe deeply and see what's around, I'lll be happy.

We are plagued by fruitflies, absolutely overrun with them. It is a bit exasperating. We, we who live-trap mice and release them in parks, who catch spiders and put them outside, who chase errant bumblebees in the house with pieces of paper to escort them out of doors, we are bent on destroying these fruitflies with yellow sticky paper. I know we will emerge victorious.

new addition to our household

It's been an eventful couple of days around here. For the past little while I've been mulling over the idea of having my own computer, something I can dink around on without monopolizing our main computer, a pc that's hooked up to our gigantic screen television. It's really nice to have a 42-inch monitor, but not always necessary or convenient.

I recently started talking to Byron about my this yearning of mine, and last night we went out and bought me the cutest little netbook--a wee tiny 10.1" Acer something-or-other. I think I got a fair deal on it, and I'm sure it's capable of doing far more than I would even think of asking of it. I've been using it for oh, 40 minutes now, and love it!

Byron has pointed out, it's unusual for me to splurge on toys or gadgets--this is being billed as a birthday gift to myself. :)

My birthday was last weekend, and Byron knocked my socks off by having a load of my friends and coworkers come over for a surprise party. Byron took me out shopping for my birthday gifts (a new pillow and some plants and related garden gear) and when I came home all jazzed about staking my tomatoes, I was stunned to find some of my favorite people hanging out in the backyard. I think I was stunned for a long time, I just couldn't grasp why all these folks would be hanging out on my deck without even having called first.

It was a lovely, lovely time. I lay awake for hours after smiling at the thought of all of these folks taking time to help me celebrate my birthday. Byron and his pals handled the food, my dad brought a cake, and everyone made me feel special. There aren't any photos from the birthday party, you'll just have to take my word for it that it was probably the best birthday I've ever had.

10,000 snowmen, falling down, and the spring garden

"I have found your army of snowmen," wrote Scott, "and it is here." It may or may not be 10,000 snowmen, but I think the 24 or so that I made over the past couple of years brings it pretty close. Thus ends the quest for the snowman army, which, according to ancient legends, would signify an era of peace and joy and personal responsibility. Huzzah! Long live the snowmen!

In other news, I fell down yesterday while walking in a parking lot. Trippd over a wood plank on the ground and down I went. Skinned both knees, got a nasty bruise and have been gingerly tottering like a penguin all day.

Tonight I doddered down to the garden to have a look and within minutes found myself first leaning, then stretching, then crouching among the plants, weeding and inspecting. These days, the garden has blooming violets, trilliums and poppies, and lots of so-far-unknowns.

I'm indoors again, feeling a little sore and scabby, and am marvelling at the curative effects of outdoor therapy (also known as mucking about in the garden).

rainy day garden research

It's been a dreary, blustery day here on my day off. Considering the daylong torrential rain, I spent a surprising amount of time outdoors, wandering out at various times to poke at the composter, examine my newly emerged crocuses and prepare my lasagna garden bed. I also got a bit of cleaning done, and managed to do some reading about companion planting.

It seems that some plants have useful properties that can be put to work in the garden. Some repel pests, provide shade or support to neighbours or help enhance flavour of veggies. Basil and chives help flavour tomatoes and peppers, strawberries benefit from being planted with thyme and spinach, garlic and marigolds help to keep bad bugs at bay, and tarragon apparently encourages growth and flavour of most veggies. Who knew? The internet knew!

I'm planning on making the garden a lot more productive this year, not necessarily in terms of actual food harvest, but in terms of managing our green space wisely. We live close enough to the Don Valley that it's possible the TBC bees may forage in my own backyard, and that's inspired me to try to make our yard more natural and self-sustaining.

Armed with about 50 packets of seeds and about 100L of compost, I'm all atwitter to start season 3 of the garden, and it starts tomorrow, once the rain is done. Pictures to follow eventually...

BEES!

Just when the mid-winter bleariness seemed to have set in, I got a delightful email telling me to go here: www.torontobees.ca. It's just a shell, at the moment, but it's the future home of the toronto beekeeper's co-operative website. If you're a bee nerd, this is terribly exciting. Over the past year or two bees have really come into the spotlight and last summer our co-op had a huge membership and was involved in getting hives on the top of the Royal York hotel in Toronto (the Royal York's honey won second place in their class at the Royal Winter Fair!)

This year, with increased funding and the support and permits and approval for some huge new projects, we're looking at a lot of work and a lot of fun. Keep an eye on the website if you're interested in seeing what we're up to, what the bees are up to, or what you can get up to to help our little stripey friends.

the bundle buggy lady

We had ventured out this morning, on a brunch-Sayal Electronics-Lee Valley tools expedition. It was bright out, but too full of that mid-January-no-fun snow, and we saw more snow starting as we got home.


While enjoying the wintry neighborhood view from the porch, I glimpsed the bundle buggy lady trudging into the wind in the corner of the landscape. Dressed in a beet red coat, she was slowly pushing a buggy of groceries and carrying a cane up the snowy sidewalk. She made slow but sure and steady progress, sometimes taking a moment or two to navigate a challenging patch of sludge or ice. I was happy for her when she discovered that pulling is easier than pushing, and I felt guilty about our own sidewalk. When we got home from our vacation we found it had snowed in our absence, and then apparently rained. We'd cleared as much as we could but...


By the time I had gotten dressed to go out she was nowhere in sight. Too bad. I love winter, and I'm certain the experience would have been worth the effort.

home from vacation

We returned from Puerto Vallarta recently, where we spent a relaxed week in the sun. We were in the old part of the city which had lovely cobblestone roads. It also has very hilly streets, which makes navigating the very tall sidewalks a an exciting challenge in some parts of town.

We spent some good time with Declan and Yujung, who came from Korea for a month to visit Declan's family. Yujung and her capable helper Declan cooked dinner for a bunch of us, and it was a nice start to our trip. We also ate at an all-you-can-eat Brazilian Steakhouse, which everyone should do at least once in their life. I asked Byron to go on a banana boat ride with me, to which he good naturedly agreed. It was an exhilirating ride but left us sore and battered, and required a day's worth of therapeutic naps and Mexican television to recover from.

We ate some local junk food and tried to find a lucha libre match to watch. We declined invitations to see bull fighting, a fiesta and time share meetings. Some whales surfaced just off the beach one afternoon while we were enjoying drinks along the Malecon one day, and a few nights we stopped by the stage in the square to watch local entertainment. A mime, a clown, some jugglers. This place drew lots of people, and I enjoyed the atmosphere.

I've recently been ok'd to resume my regular composting and gym activities, which is exciting news. I've missed the tranquility of the compost yard, and think I'm ready for another run at becoming healthier. I'm crafting myself some composting gear and we seem to have found a solution to our tiny fly problems, all in all, 2009 has been pretty good!