We have diplomatic plates on the family wagon. Bright red ones which easily identify us as foreign, and everybody all over the world knows about foreign drivers. Its a two edged sword. Basically, I can do whatever I want when I drive. Its expected simply because I am foreign. Wrong way, wrong turns, poor parking, too fast, too slow. Whatever, I have red plates of power. The flip-side to this is of course that I also have red plates of responsibility. If anything, anything at all, places me in conflict with another driver the default opinion is that ‘it’ is my fault.
And that is just wrong, because we all know ‘it’ is always Dirks fault.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Thursday, March 25, 2010
It is Spring!
For over a week now it has been sunny and - relatively - warm. By which I mean about 10 degrees during the day while a few days even made it up around 15 degrees. The locals assure us this is insanely good weather for March, saying that often there will still be snow on the ground well into April. None the less, it is definitely spring out there and there are two recent events that prove it.
Firstly, the Sugar Shack Attack
With the onset of spring, maple sap has started to flow in the trees and 'sugar shack' season has begun. A sugar shack is a rural property that taps their own maple trees, makes their own maple syrup and of course runs a pancake house. They also offer sleigh rides and other kinds of fun like face painting and (in this case) a pair of very relaxed Labradors for the kids to adore. There are many sugar shacks in our area. We went to Fulton’s Pancake House, about an hour away. True to form the GPS took us there and back via differing scenic routes. Once there, everybody had a yummy pancake lunch (some of us even had maple toffee) and the kids had a great time playing outside. The sleigh ride through the forest was very pleasant. The trees had all been tapped and the tubing running through the forest made the whole place look like it was being vigorously flossed.
And secondly, everybody here knows that winter ends with a BANG! No really. An Earth shattering Ka-Boom! even. Check it out…
LINKY
That bridge and river is all of two blocks from our house. That bridge is one of the ones Jane walks over ever morning on her way to work. We spent Saturday morning wondering what was causing that semi-regular booming noises until Jane went forth to investigate. And soon after she came running home to get everybody else to come and watch them blowing up the river. BOOM!
All this sent some rather large chunks of ice floating down to the falls and into the big river, where the little ice breaking boat was hard at work keeping the channel clear.
Firstly, the Sugar Shack Attack
With the onset of spring, maple sap has started to flow in the trees and 'sugar shack' season has begun. A sugar shack is a rural property that taps their own maple trees, makes their own maple syrup and of course runs a pancake house. They also offer sleigh rides and other kinds of fun like face painting and (in this case) a pair of very relaxed Labradors for the kids to adore. There are many sugar shacks in our area. We went to Fulton’s Pancake House, about an hour away. True to form the GPS took us there and back via differing scenic routes. Once there, everybody had a yummy pancake lunch (some of us even had maple toffee) and the kids had a great time playing outside. The sleigh ride through the forest was very pleasant. The trees had all been tapped and the tubing running through the forest made the whole place look like it was being vigorously flossed.
And secondly, everybody here knows that winter ends with a BANG! No really. An Earth shattering Ka-Boom! even. Check it out…
LINKY
That bridge and river is all of two blocks from our house. That bridge is one of the ones Jane walks over ever morning on her way to work. We spent Saturday morning wondering what was causing that semi-regular booming noises until Jane went forth to investigate. And soon after she came running home to get everybody else to come and watch them blowing up the river. BOOM!
All this sent some rather large chunks of ice floating down to the falls and into the big river, where the little ice breaking boat was hard at work keeping the channel clear.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Yoga: Week One - Good Doggie!
As you may recall, I received a one month unlimited classes gift pass to the Upward Dog Yoga Centre for the FoJ. I started classes one week ago with a plan to attend the 6:30 – 7:30am sessions every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I didn’t manage it exactly because after starting on Wednesday, I was still too sore in the legs and shoulders to face Friday morning. Instead, I went to a Saturday class for noobs and then made the Monday and Wednesday morning class as per the plan. Close enough.
More importantly than adhering to any preconceived schedule, I am very much enjoying the classes and getting some badly needed serenity, stretching and strengthening from top to bottom. Although I have not been able to do all the poses, being either too inflexible or weak (if not both) in certain areas, I am pleased with what I have been able to do. I also think the teachers have been pleasantly surprised by some of what I managed as a yoga noob. Hooray for natural gifts (in particular, good balance) and previous experience in learning form, breathing and movement from martial arts classes.
Unfortunately the news isn’t all good. Part of yoga is paying close attention to specifics within the body while holding a pose or transitioning between poses: relaxing or stretching specific muscles or joints, breathing in/out in coordination with movements, distributing weight a certain way and more. All of this requires you to listen to the body, and sometimes what it says is not comforting.
I broke my left collarbone as a teenager, and my left shoulder hasn’t quite been right ever since. In addition, my lower back has a structural predisposition towards weakness. I know enough of bio-mechanics to know that when one component isn’t carrying its load properly, the burden shifts to another area that wasn’t intended to carry it. Eventually, something gives, and you may even end up with a series of cascading failures. Between my shoulder and back, I am going to be in some strife further down the line. I can safely predict neck, shoulder and hip problems in my future. Regular yoga will certainly help delay any issues, but it’s only a delay, and would have helped a lot more if I had started ten or twenty years ago.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
More importantly than adhering to any preconceived schedule, I am very much enjoying the classes and getting some badly needed serenity, stretching and strengthening from top to bottom. Although I have not been able to do all the poses, being either too inflexible or weak (if not both) in certain areas, I am pleased with what I have been able to do. I also think the teachers have been pleasantly surprised by some of what I managed as a yoga noob. Hooray for natural gifts (in particular, good balance) and previous experience in learning form, breathing and movement from martial arts classes.
Unfortunately the news isn’t all good. Part of yoga is paying close attention to specifics within the body while holding a pose or transitioning between poses: relaxing or stretching specific muscles or joints, breathing in/out in coordination with movements, distributing weight a certain way and more. All of this requires you to listen to the body, and sometimes what it says is not comforting.
I broke my left collarbone as a teenager, and my left shoulder hasn’t quite been right ever since. In addition, my lower back has a structural predisposition towards weakness. I know enough of bio-mechanics to know that when one component isn’t carrying its load properly, the burden shifts to another area that wasn’t intended to carry it. Eventually, something gives, and you may even end up with a series of cascading failures. Between my shoulder and back, I am going to be in some strife further down the line. I can safely predict neck, shoulder and hip problems in my future. Regular yoga will certainly help delay any issues, but it’s only a delay, and would have helped a lot more if I had started ten or twenty years ago.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Parental Snapshot #36579
Lillian is toilet training. Which is not presenting any special dramas, but it is relevant to rest of the story.
The other morning Jane had gone to work, Thomas was at school and Lillian and I had returned home from the shopping. I am, shall we say ‘standing’ in the bathroom, when Lillian barges in. She stops for a second, and with great enthusiasm exclaims "Good job daddy"!
And then she started clapping.
The other morning Jane had gone to work, Thomas was at school and Lillian and I had returned home from the shopping. I am, shall we say ‘standing’ in the bathroom, when Lillian barges in. She stops for a second, and with great enthusiasm exclaims "Good job daddy"!
And then she started clapping.
Monday, March 8, 2010
The Finale of the FoJ
I am going to gloss over the end of the FoJ relatively quickly. Lovely as it was, it is over, and there are lots of more recent events I want to blog. So here is the short version of the last fortnight of the FoJ.
We got one last major dump of snow on the same day and evening as my final birthday dinner, and this time it was proper snow that was wet enough to stick together. And so, after Lillian was safely at preschool, Thomas and I donned our heaviest winter clothing and ventured out into the elements, making our way to the GG’s park. We did two cool things. First, Thomas and I played hide and seek among the trees. Nothing new there, except that I had shown Tom how to follow my tracks in the fresh snow. And the second cool thing was to build Tom’s very 1st proper snowman. And here is a 'work in progress' picture...
Dinner was lovely. Jane lined up some Aussie expats and we all went to Sweetgrass, which specializes in modern, native Canadian food. Things like elk, bison, native greens, herbs and spices. It was yummy!
And on the final night of the FoJ, Jane and I watched the gold medal men’s hockey match between the USA and Canada. It was a seriously good game with lots of motivation on both sides of the ice. The USA had come to the Olympics rated 6th and were chasing a fairly tale ending. They had also trounced the Canadians when they met earlier in the competition. Meanwhile, the Canadians are very invested in hockey as part of their national identity, and had been trounced by the USA when they met earlier in the competition.
Canada were leading 2-1 when, in the final 2 minutes of play, the USA went for broke by pulling their goalie off the ice to give them an extra attacker. With just 24 seconds to play it paid off when they scored to tie the match and send the game into a period of 4 on 4 sudden death overtime. Both sides took some close shots, but Canada scored first. The crowd, by which I mean the entire country, went wild. I understand that there were riot police on standby across Vancouver in case things had gone the other way.
We got one last major dump of snow on the same day and evening as my final birthday dinner, and this time it was proper snow that was wet enough to stick together. And so, after Lillian was safely at preschool, Thomas and I donned our heaviest winter clothing and ventured out into the elements, making our way to the GG’s park. We did two cool things. First, Thomas and I played hide and seek among the trees. Nothing new there, except that I had shown Tom how to follow my tracks in the fresh snow. And the second cool thing was to build Tom’s very 1st proper snowman. And here is a 'work in progress' picture...
Dinner was lovely. Jane lined up some Aussie expats and we all went to Sweetgrass, which specializes in modern, native Canadian food. Things like elk, bison, native greens, herbs and spices. It was yummy!
And on the final night of the FoJ, Jane and I watched the gold medal men’s hockey match between the USA and Canada. It was a seriously good game with lots of motivation on both sides of the ice. The USA had come to the Olympics rated 6th and were chasing a fairly tale ending. They had also trounced the Canadians when they met earlier in the competition. Meanwhile, the Canadians are very invested in hockey as part of their national identity, and had been trounced by the USA when they met earlier in the competition.
Canada were leading 2-1 when, in the final 2 minutes of play, the USA went for broke by pulling their goalie off the ice to give them an extra attacker. With just 24 seconds to play it paid off when they scored to tie the match and send the game into a period of 4 on 4 sudden death overtime. Both sides took some close shots, but Canada scored first. The crowd, by which I mean the entire country, went wild. I understand that there were riot police on standby across Vancouver in case things had gone the other way.
Festival of Jason: Guests and a Return to Winterlude
I am falling behind on this blogging thing. Best get cracking…
The weekend after my Birthday (but absolutely still within the FoJ) we had guests. Ke and Dan drove up from New York city to spend a weekend, making them the very 1st non-family visitors of our posting to Ottawa.
On Saturday while Lilian was napping, we parked Thomas under a babysitter and the adults all hit the ice. We went for a quick skate on the public ring at the Governor Generals (very nice) and then loaded up and went back to Winterlude. It was tremendous fun without the kids, although I suspect that may not be the way it is supposed to work. Anyway, we had a fine time sliding on the giant slides and eating Canadian winter sweets including hot beaver tails and maple toffee. A beaver tail is basically a flat doughnut, while the maple toffee is cool because its poured onto a stick laying in snow to make it harden. The snow sticks to it, and makes for a nice cold counter-point to the warm and sticky sweet maple toffee.
That night we went out for a tasty dinner (thank you K&D). The menu presented me with an exciting opportunity to enjoy some posh poutine. Poutine is a Canadian dish consisting of chips (french/freedom fries) with gravy, cheese and optional extras like bacon, onions, etc. It is normally good cheap and hearty ‘don’t freeze to death’ food for the northern climate. This however was clearly not the people’s poutine. Instead, I enjoyed “fresh-cut fries, elk shoulder, smoke aged cheddar, caramalized onions, jus”. It was nice, but to be honest I had been perfectly happy with the poutine I’d enjoyed earlier in the week with my gaming-mates at the Elgin Street Diner.
Sunday we took the kids to the Children’s museum and had lunch at the attached café which has a terrific view across the river to the back of the Parliament building. Afterward we had a generally low key afternoon in which Ke and Dan awed Thomas with pics of their safari in Africa before heading back to New York.
Dan skates on the GG’s ice
Later, Ke prepares prepares herself for a Winterlude ice-slide.
Ke at the awesomely frozen waterfalls.
Props to the great northern posse.
The weekend after my Birthday (but absolutely still within the FoJ) we had guests. Ke and Dan drove up from New York city to spend a weekend, making them the very 1st non-family visitors of our posting to Ottawa.
On Saturday while Lilian was napping, we parked Thomas under a babysitter and the adults all hit the ice. We went for a quick skate on the public ring at the Governor Generals (very nice) and then loaded up and went back to Winterlude. It was tremendous fun without the kids, although I suspect that may not be the way it is supposed to work. Anyway, we had a fine time sliding on the giant slides and eating Canadian winter sweets including hot beaver tails and maple toffee. A beaver tail is basically a flat doughnut, while the maple toffee is cool because its poured onto a stick laying in snow to make it harden. The snow sticks to it, and makes for a nice cold counter-point to the warm and sticky sweet maple toffee.
That night we went out for a tasty dinner (thank you K&D). The menu presented me with an exciting opportunity to enjoy some posh poutine. Poutine is a Canadian dish consisting of chips (french/freedom fries) with gravy, cheese and optional extras like bacon, onions, etc. It is normally good cheap and hearty ‘don’t freeze to death’ food for the northern climate. This however was clearly not the people’s poutine. Instead, I enjoyed “fresh-cut fries, elk shoulder, smoke aged cheddar, caramalized onions, jus”. It was nice, but to be honest I had been perfectly happy with the poutine I’d enjoyed earlier in the week with my gaming-mates at the Elgin Street Diner.
Sunday we took the kids to the Children’s museum and had lunch at the attached café which has a terrific view across the river to the back of the Parliament building. Afterward we had a generally low key afternoon in which Ke and Dan awed Thomas with pics of their safari in Africa before heading back to New York.
Dan skates on the GG’s ice
Later, Ke prepares prepares herself for a Winterlude ice-slide.
Ke at the awesomely frozen waterfalls.
Props to the great northern posse.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
FoJ Supplemental: Get a dog up ya!
One of the lovely things I received for my birthday is a one month unlimited pass to the nearby ‘Upward Dog’ Yoga centre. I love the name, and the location is very convenient. The plan is to attend classes on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings. The reality starts tomorrow at 6:30am.
The start time will be fine. I am almost always up around 6am anyway, with most mornings just frittered away in front of the PC. And I definitely need to start doing something to ward off age and stress because I am, to be honest, in the worst shape of my life.
Time to get bendy and serene. Breathe in, breathe out. Rinse, repeat.
The start time will be fine. I am almost always up around 6am anyway, with most mornings just frittered away in front of the PC. And I definitely need to start doing something to ward off age and stress because I am, to be honest, in the worst shape of my life.
Time to get bendy and serene. Breathe in, breathe out. Rinse, repeat.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Festival of Jason: The Big Day
No sleeping in or breakfast in bed, not this birthday. Jane has been stupidly busy with work and needed to be there early. So we got up even earlier still to start the celebration and open my presents. My many lovely, lovely presents...
Afterward, Jane went to work and I took both kids to childcare, yes both of them (there was a casual spot available at the rate of $25 – happy birthday to me). I then enjoyed three sweet hours of quiet, spending much of it reading cards, and answering numerous birthday emails, Facebook messages and phone calls. I like stuff, everybody here knows how much I like my stuff, but by far the best part of the day was the people. Its was like there was some kind of global conspiracy of love.
To my wife, my kids and the friends and family that took the time to reach out from around the world and wish me well, thank you. Thank you all.
Once the kids were safely abed, Jane and I left them under the watchful eyes of a sitter and went for dinner at the highly recommended Fraser Café, just down the road. It was a delicious disaster. I simply wasn’t that hungry in the first place, and then my entre arrived. Now, the Fraser Café has an option where, rather than ordering off the menu, you pay a set amount and the chef simply makes whatever he wants for you. That is the option I chose, which I guess means it is my own fault that a stonking great bowl of risotto arrived as my appetizer. It was delicious, I ate it all, and when my Cornish hen main meal arrived, (also the chef’s choice) a good 2/3rds of it went into a doggy-bag for home. Dessert was not an option. Meanwhile, Jane greatly enjoyed an enormous cheese platter entre, and then her scallops arrived smelling wonderful, but resting upon a bed of Jane’s culinary nemesis – capsicum (it was not listed as part of the dish on the menu). And so, back to the kitchen it went. About 15 minutes later another plate, this one sans capsicum, emerged and was greatly enjoyed. Well, as much as she could eat after scarfing down that giant cheese platter. Once again, a doggy-bag was required and dessert was not an option. Do not for one second imagine that we won’t be going back, or that I will have eaten any lunch on the day it happens.
And so, I waddled to car and rolled home. Older, wiser, and most definately rounder. A very fine day indeed.
Afterward, Jane went to work and I took both kids to childcare, yes both of them (there was a casual spot available at the rate of $25 – happy birthday to me). I then enjoyed three sweet hours of quiet, spending much of it reading cards, and answering numerous birthday emails, Facebook messages and phone calls. I like stuff, everybody here knows how much I like my stuff, but by far the best part of the day was the people. Its was like there was some kind of global conspiracy of love.
To my wife, my kids and the friends and family that took the time to reach out from around the world and wish me well, thank you. Thank you all.
Once the kids were safely abed, Jane and I left them under the watchful eyes of a sitter and went for dinner at the highly recommended Fraser Café, just down the road. It was a delicious disaster. I simply wasn’t that hungry in the first place, and then my entre arrived. Now, the Fraser Café has an option where, rather than ordering off the menu, you pay a set amount and the chef simply makes whatever he wants for you. That is the option I chose, which I guess means it is my own fault that a stonking great bowl of risotto arrived as my appetizer. It was delicious, I ate it all, and when my Cornish hen main meal arrived, (also the chef’s choice) a good 2/3rds of it went into a doggy-bag for home. Dessert was not an option. Meanwhile, Jane greatly enjoyed an enormous cheese platter entre, and then her scallops arrived smelling wonderful, but resting upon a bed of Jane’s culinary nemesis – capsicum (it was not listed as part of the dish on the menu). And so, back to the kitchen it went. About 15 minutes later another plate, this one sans capsicum, emerged and was greatly enjoyed. Well, as much as she could eat after scarfing down that giant cheese platter. Once again, a doggy-bag was required and dessert was not an option. Do not for one second imagine that we won’t be going back, or that I will have eaten any lunch on the day it happens.
And so, I waddled to car and rolled home. Older, wiser, and most definately rounder. A very fine day indeed.
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