hyphenated - Filed under 'family & friends'

July 19, 2009 9:21 PM

a temporary escape

Camping is in my blood. All family trips during my childhood (with the exception of one to visit Grandma and Grandpa is Florida when they were snowbirds) involved a tent and a Coleman stove. Weeks at Rollins Pond in the Adirondacks canoeing, swimming, trapping crawfish, roasting marshmallows by the campfire were highlights of my summer vacations throughout elementary school.

I spent this weekend camping and doing most of the activities listed above (I didn't see any crawfish) as part of my friend Katherine's bachelorette festivities. Despite having a shower upon my return home, the smell of campfire smoke lingers in my hair and I feel rejuvenated by the fresh air yet drained by the sun's rays. There's nothing quite like camping to slow down the pace and to appreciate the simple and subtler elements of life. Blue skies and crisp air and the sound of water lapping at the underside of the canoe. A temporary escape from the daily routine and modern amenities...

Alas, my cellphone rang while setting up the tent. And a friend responded to messages on her Blackberry while sitting by the campfire. So much for escaping.

Filed under // family & friends science & technology

Comments [4]

July 12, 2009 12:30 PM

you don't know what you've got till it's gone

I've added something new to my morning routine - shower, eat breakfast, check email, brush teeth, pollinate, get dressed, do hair, do makeup. If you guessed that pollinate was the recent addition, you're right.

When growing fruit, tomatoes in my case, indoors the absence of bees and other pollinators is an issue. Without spreading the pollen from one flower to another, tomatoes will not grow. The pollination process is not very complicated - I basically poke my finger in all the flowers that are open, starting and ending with the same flower. Seems to do the trick, as tomatoes are developing on my plants.

Having to take time to pollinate, water, and fertilize my indoor garden simply because it is indoors and isolated from the natural environment really exemplifies the extent of the natural processes that we traditionally depend on in the production of food. For the most part, humanity has supplemented or replaced many ecosystem services, such as fertilization and irrigation, by relying on technological innovation and finite resources (such as fossil water and fossil fuels) in order to increase yield. But pollination is one ecosystem service we haven't yet replaced and that we rely on tremendously. To think that our current food supply depends intrinsically on the activity of insects, largely bees, and other pollinators is humbling.

Humans are at the top of the food chain, but we rely extensively on the links in the chain that extend right to the bottom. Pollination is a prime example.

In contemplating the importance of bees, a verse from a well-known Joni Mitchell song entered my thoughts:

Hey farmer farmer

Put away that DDT now

Give me spots on my apples

But leave me the birds and the bees

Please!

Dont it always seem to go

That you dont know what youve got

Till it's gone

They paved paradise

And put up a parking lot

Combined with the recent discovery that bees are on the decline for reasons yet to be fully understood, reading the lyrics to the song left me feeling ... nostalgic. Nostalgic in the sense of "a bittersweet longing for things, persons, or situations of the past." Partly because this is a song from my childhood and reminds me of hot summer afternoons on the porch with family and partly because I find myself mourning the loss of the bees in nature (the latter being a feeling in direct conflict with my phobia of bees and other insects with stingers) resulting from what is referred to as colony collapse disorder.

If human activity is causing the decline of the bees, I hope that we, as a society, have the common sense to rectify the situation. Loosing the bees seems like a case of not really knowing what we've got till it's gone. Pollinating ten tomatoes plants manually is one thing - pollinating all crops without help from bees is quite another.

Filed under // family & friends food science & technology sustainability

Comments [0]

July 9, 2009 6:42 PM

for the love of the game

In the good ol' days, NHL hockey players would usually play for the same team for their entire career. Not so today. Between trades, salary caps, and free agency, players are likely to call many cities home before they retire. I was hoping that Saku Koivu could've been an exception, but he will be playing for Anaheim next season after thirteen dramatic years with Montreal.

Since day one, I was a fan and I will remember Saku as being an great player but more so for being an outstanding captain. On the CBC this morning, he was described as a quintessential leader. He wore the C for 10 years, earning him the title of longest-serving captain in Habs' history. Pretty remarkable.

Saku's heart and dedication and courage were what made him such a great leader. Not only did he showcase all of these skill on the ice, but his battle with cancer made them all the more obvious. I will never forget the ovation that Saku received from Habs' fans when he returned to the ice after winning the fight.

One of the reasons I enjoy watching sports is for those moments where emotion overcomes competitive drive. When an athlete is overwhelmed by the power of victory (Federer at the US Open for one) or the agony of failure, a sense of meaning is bestowed to what is merely a game to those who aren't true fans.

I started watching hockey at a young age thanks to my neighbour, Yoda (link to Star Wars unknown because I didn't know what Star Wars was when I was 6 so never thought to ask). He collected hockey cards and would give me all the duplicates, which inspired me to start watching the Habs.

My interest in hockey became an interest in sports generally and I've become a fan of football (American, not European) and I've been known to watch tennis, golf (mainly because of Tiger Woods), and football (European).

Elaine still can't believe that she raised a sports fan - she is definitely not one. I fondly remember the Saturday night face-offs: Doctor Quinn vs. the Habs. A small black and white television from a garage sale became the 'compromise', but hockey is hockey and I watched on the tiny screen despite the lack of color and bad reception.

The irony is that I don't play any sports. Of the ones listed, I enjoy golf (if pitch-and-putt counts) and tennis (although my ability to return a serve is inconsistent at best). My attempts to skate are best described as a directional shuffle and I haven't played soccer or football since high school. And I don't recall being particularly skilled at either due to poor hand/foot-eye coordination.

At least I did alright on the written exam in gym class because I knew many of the rules from watching sports on television. But I didn't watch basketball and distinctly remember choosing three in response to a multiple choice question regarding the number of quarters in a basketball game. Blond moment, perhaps?

Filed under // family & friends Quebec & Montreal

Comments [0]

July 6, 2009 7:56 PM

cowtown

(download)

The tradition continues. Girls weekend in Calgary for Stampede. The pilgrimage to Calgary (aka Cowtown) started in 2007 and I returned last night from my third consecutive year at the Stampede. If Krista didn't live there, I probably wouldn't go to Stampede. But she does and the annual event serves as a good excuse for the girls to get together and have fun. So we do.

In preparation for the weekend, I dust off the cowboy hat and brace myself for endless country tunes, meat markets, and girls with low self esteem (if there's a Canadian equivalent to Daytona Beach during spring break, it's Calgary during Stampede). Needless to say, it's not my scene. But it is an interesting scene to observe.

In some respects, Stampede reminds me of my rural youth. Despite the urban setting, Stampede has a rural feel. Especially the rodeo. There's something about the rodeo that brings back memories of the guys in my grade driving their tractors to high school and visits to agricultural fairs and playing in barn lofts amongst the hay bales. Maybe it's the smell of barn in the air or maybe it's the presence of farm animals, but it's not really the rodeo itself. Although entertaining to watch, tie-down roping, team roping, steer wrestling, saddle bronc riding, bareback bronc riding, bull riding, and barrel racing don't have any real sentimental value for me.

As much as I welcomed the transition from rural to urban when I left home (I consider myself a city person through and through), I have a soft spot in my heart for the farm. Back in the day, I wanted to be anywhere but there and I did not appreciate farm life. But now, I'd love to travel back in time to 1993 and spend a day or two on the farm. Milking the goats. Collecting the eggs. Feeding the rabbits. Picking corn and shelling peas. And going for a walk through the fields and into the woods. Feeling rejuvenated by it all.

I do realize that I've left out all the unpleasant aspects of farm life - shoveling manure, bailing hay, weeding, chasing stray chickens, getting up at 5 am in the winter, transforming animals into meat. In my time travel farm fantasy, I choose to conveniently ignore the less romantic dimension of farming. Otherwise it wouldn't be much of a fantasy.

Filed under // family & friends

Comments [1]

June 23, 2009 2:05 AM

getting things done since 1994

It's fair to say that I'm not normal. At this point, I could launch into a long diatribe about how normal is an abstract construct, cannot be defined, is misleading, blah, blah, blah. But I won't. For my purposes normal = most people. If most people do it, I'll consider it the norm.

Rather than going into all the reasons why I am different (a recipe for a very long and not very interesting post), I'll limit the scope of this entry to the thoughts that were inspired by the following assertion made by Paul Graham in his essay, What You'll Wish You'd Known:

The only real difference between adults and high school kids is that adults realize they need to get things done, and high school kids don't. That realization hits most people around 23.

I was reading this essay on the advice of a family friend and agree that the piece provides relevant and unpretentious advice that most high school students ought to heed (but won't because most high school students don't know that Paul Graham exists). In any case, when I got to the last paragraph I was struck by the realization that I've needed to get things done since I was around 13, a full ten years ahead of what Paul Graham deems to be the norm. I'm not normal.

I stopped to wonder why I was ahead of schedule and I chalked it up to a combination of my goal-oriented and practical personality and my parents. As far back as I can remember, my parents made it known that they would not be paying for my post-secondary education. That was up to me. And I wanted to pursue post-secondary education. University had always been a goal because I eventually wanted to land the kind of job that is typically awarded to a candidate with a post-secondary education (I suppose that, in line with the Paul Graham worldview, post-secondary education is not really a requirement for the type of job I wanted, but the idea of creating my own job by becoming an entrepreneur was not one I had considered).

Sure, I could've pursued post-secondary education without financial assistance from my parents while maintaining the lifestyle of the typical teenager described by Paul Graham and, as a result, not gotten anything done. I could have done what many students do and gone into student debt. When I started school, I took out student loans as a contingency, but I never used them. I paid them all back as soon as I finished school.

My student loans remained unused largely because of my parents and the custom savings plan they devised. When I started babysitting and earning more than my allowance (which, for the record, was $1 for washing dishes, making lunches, and doing other household chores that alternated between Kathryn and I and $2 if I vacuumed my room too), my parents established a very basic savings plan: for every dollar I put into savings towards my post-secondary education, they would deposit a dollar to match it. The promise of having all my earnings doubled proved to be a fantastic incentive to work and to save.

So I worked and I saved throughout high school. I developed a work ethic. I padded the reserves I'd need to draw on when I moved to Montreal to begin CEGEP at 17. I continued to work throughout CEGEP and my undergrad. No summers off. No traveling (with the exception of a trip to Barbados for three credits and a fiscally conservative week in Daytona Beach for spring break that involved 54 hours of bus travel, many microwave meals, and no excursions to Disneyland or to clubs for the simple reason that my budget didn't allow for it). When I read the itinerary posted by Lily the other day, I realized that I wish that I could've found a way to integrate travel into my life during those years. But, instead, I was getting things done. And my job as the assistant manager at the Dairy Queen didn't offer vacation benefits.

In any case, I'm happy to fall outside of the norm described by Paul Graham for a multitude of reasons. For starters, I'm not struggling under the burden of a massive student loan debt. The tons of invaluable experience I've gained and the great lessons I've learned as a result are icing on the cake.

Filed under // family & friends

Comments [0]

June 21, 2009 11:54 AM

father and friend

There was a Tim Horton's ad that aired during the Stanley Cup playoffs that featured a daughter asking her dad if he ever wished that she was born a boy. In an attempt to be sentimental, the commercial was over-the-top cheesy, ending with the dad sheepishly questioning who would be "his little girl" if she had been a boy. Despite the cheese factor, the ad made me realize that I never even thought to ask my dad that question. I didn't have to - John has always openly maintained that he and Elaine were both hoping for girls.

While John's wish for girls came true, I've always felt lucky to have him as my dad. The stereotype of being embarrassed by your parents didn't really apply to John. That's not to say that he never embarrassed me - it's just that the embarrassing moments were few and far between. If anything, John helped to boost my coolness factor at school (which wasn't hard since it was pretty low to begin with). When he chaperoned my elementary school field trip to the Insectarium, all the boys in my class were hanging onto his every word when he told funny stories and jokes on the bus. The novelty that I called my father by his first name quickly became of no consequence.

Getting teased less due to the man-crushes of my classmates was only a minor benefit of John being my dad; I was able to hold my own versus the boys to begin with and they more or less gave up on teasing me when I proved to always have a comeback and never cried. For instance, when I wore full Inuit winter garb that I had acquired during my family's two-year stint in Kuujjuaq to school one day, a boy laughed and called me an Eskimo. I promptly thwarted his attempt to tease me by correcting him - it's not Eskimo, it's Inuit. Duh.

John is a great dad because he simultaneously supports and challenges me. He takes an interest in my life and has always made an effort to engage me in his. Building things with wood in the shop. Assisting with the amateur birding courses he offered locally (I changed the slides while he explained the difference between a woodcock and a woodpecker to a confused woman who then blushed when a guy in the class piped in "cock, pecker - it's all the same"). Playing chess, cribbage, backgammon, catch, darts, and horseshoes. Cycling. Canoeing. Stargazing. I enjoyed some of the engagement activities more than others, but I generally enjoyed spending time with my father (even if I didn't admit it between the ages of 13 and 16).

John is more than a father. He is a close friend. He is always there for me - to listen and share and make me laugh. Not too long ago, he said something to me that resonated: you shouldn't want to have kids, you should want kids to have you. I can attest that John practices what he preaches.

Happy father's day, John - this one's for you.

Circa 1996. I think John was winning and probably won. He usually does.

Filed under // family & friends

Comments [4]

June 15, 2009 8:29 AM

rural weekend

I spent most of the weekend with John and Elaine at their place in rural Quebec. The weekend was filled with good food (much of it fresh from the garden), good conversation, and good company. Needless to say, it was a good weekend.

Click here to download:

rural_weekend.zip (4082 KB)

Filed under // books & art family & friends food Quebec & Montreal sustainability

Comments [6]

June 4, 2009 5:49 PM

rational vs. romantic

This post has been in the incubator for awhile. The idea to write about marriage was one that came to me soon after I began hyphenated, but the post needed to marinate so that I could gather all my thoughts (I have many thoughts on this particular topic). So, on that note,... here it goes:

Kevin and I have been together a long time. We started dating when 'teen' was still a component of our age, if that's any indication. We've lived together for almost five years. We're committed to each other - we're in this for the long haul. For better or worse. But we're not married or engaged.

In that context, the question posed to Kevin by an acquaintance in San Francisco, namely "Why haven't you made an honest woman out of her already?", is one that comes up often enough (although most people pose it with more tact).

My main answer to that question is another question: "What's the point?"

I don't intend to suggest that marriage has no meaning. For instance, I can see how marriage would mean a lot to a gay couple in a jurisdiction where same-sex marriages are illegal. I can understand how marriage means a lot to a girl who grew up dreaming of her wedding day. I can see how marriage is important to those with strong religious views. But, I am not gay and I was more tomboy than little princess and I'm an atheist so, alas, marriage just isn't that important to me.

And, perhaps counter-intuitively, the longer I'm with Kevin the more insignificant marriage seems. After being together this many years, we've gone through good and bad times together and we've grown together. Our bond is true. We both know what the answer would be if one of us were to propose, but I don't see the need for a wedding to prove something that we already know.

When the stats are thrown into the mix (over a third of all marriages in Canada and almost half of those in the United States end in divorce), marriage doesn't look any more compelling.

That said, I wish I could call Kevin my husband without lying. There is no English good word for a committed, long-term partnership. Common-law spouse is too legal and unromantic. Partner is too vague (business partner?). Trying to convey my relationship to Kevin to those who don't know us is challenging and, in certain circumstances, I'll refer to him as my husband just to make things easier. Despite wanting to call Kevin my husband, I don't think that semantics provide a good reason to get married.

Some of my friend have gotten married partly because it is the first step to starting a family. Second step: children. As it stands now (never say never?), Kevin and I are, borrowing a great acronym from Dervala, C.A.L.I. No kids in the picture. We're destined to be DINKS* as far as I can tell. If there's no plan for step 2, why pursue step 1?

Maybe I take marriage for granted. Or maybe I'm too rational and not one to let my heart win in a debate with my brain. The (albeit small) part of me that is romantic wants to get married. But, when my romantic fraction pipes up, my brain counters "what's the point?". I'll keep thinking about it and maybe one day I'll come up with a worthy answer. Either that, or my heart will catch my brain off-guard and take full advantage.

As it stands today, I don't have plans to ask anyone to "save the date". My dad's probably happy to hear that since I won't be asking for the 50 bucks that he agreed to contribute to my wedding anytime soon.

*Double income, no kids.

Filed under // family & friends

Comments [8]

May 27, 2009 8:06 PM

nostalgia

I've been meaning to write a post about nostalgia for awhile - ever since Kevin started raving about the new Amazon Kindle. I'm sure that the Kindle is a very sophisticated and innovative device, but I still find it hard to reconcile with my fondness for a good book.
Kevin would argue that the genius of the Kindle is that it takes a good book and makes it more accessible. The kindle is more portable and less resource (e.g., paper) intensive. Despite my tendency to be swayed by arguments rooted in sustainability, I still find it difficult to get excited by the Kindle.

A good book is more than content. Dog-eared pages, musty smells, stains, cover art, font, notes on the inside cover, memories. All of these things add to the content and contribute to the book-reading experience. I derive more enjoyment from reading second-hand books as compared to new ones because the books themselves, physically, tell a story too. And, a rebuttal to Kevin's green argument, even paperbacks can be sustainable if reused!

For the most part, I pass books along to friends when I've read them. But there are exceptions. I have a box of favorite books in a box in Montreal, in the basement. The box is among other boxes of personal treasures - similar to the nostalgia boxes described by Lily. I want to keep these books because they mean something more to me than words on a page. They resonated with me and I want to hold on to them for posterity.

Elaine was keeping some of the books from my childhood and I hope they're still around. There's a copy of Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss that has blood splattered across a few pages - I got a nosebleed once when I was reading it (actually, I think I was listening to the audio tape that came with the book - the narrator's voice "Would you eat them in a box? Would you eat them with a fox?" still echoes in my mind). These books are associated with fond memories of bedtime stories and rainy days. A few years ago, Elaine gave me a used copy of a Richard Scary book that she found at a book sale. Apparently I loved the book as a child and seeing it at the sale reminded my mom of me.

The Kindle can't compete from a nostalgia standpoint and, for the same reasons I was reluctant to make the switch from film to digital, I don't think I'll be buying one anytime soon. In addition, I'm not convinced that the Kindle offers improvements to paper books in the same way digital photography did in comparison to film. Paying for film, waiting to get photos developed, weeding out bad shots on the spot, and sharing photos more readily are all benefits offered by digital. I have a hard time thinking of many issues associated with conventional books that the Kindle will solve. Most of the books I read are already rather portable. Perhaps the Kindle will corner the market for text books.

Filed under // books & art family & friends science & technology sustainability

Comments [3]

May 23, 2009 11:57 AM

the mythical roots of a banana

I am Canadian. No one has ever questioned that. I take it for granted. I don't get asked what I am or where I come from. I don't think I'd even be aware of the lack of that question if it weren't for Kevin. He's Canadian too, but his Asian heritage leads many people to ask him, very bluntly, what he is. Admittedly, I asked him that when we first met. "What are you?", knowing what I know now, is a pretty loaded question.

Fundamentally, the only answer to that question is "human". However, being human, we need to classify things at a finer scale. Linnaeus established an academic approach to something that we do naturally. The problem is that the classifications we use are too rigid and often guided by perception rather than reality.

Kevin's answer to that question has always been "Canadian". That's not often good enough. Apparently, the book has been judged by its cover. Perception rules the day and perceptions are difficult to abandon. The conversation that ensues is one in which Kevin explains his family history: Japanese mom. Chinese dad. Born in Canada. Doesn't speak Japanese or Chinese. It's a pretty personal conversation to have with someone you've just met.

Most people in my field idolize David Suzuki. His work as an active and outspoken Canadian environmentalist is such that his cultural background is largely overlooked by the media and his followers. However, his Japanese ancestry and experience in the internment camps during WWII are aspects of his life discussed in his autobiography and featured in a CBC documentary about his life (I forget what the documentary was called but remember watching it during the Ice Storm when we had power for one night before the infamous generator experienced technical difficulties). David Suzuki is an eloquent and articulate speaker and, when discussing his heritage (what he refers to as "mythical roots"), he sheds a lot of light on the struggle to be a Canadian when other fellow Canadians insist on applying the Asian label. An interview from the CBC archives that I discovered this morning is particularly good.

Genetics and culture are independent concepts that are often confused (leave it to David Suzuki to clarify things using science). In the end, it seems that the banana metaphor (yellow on the outside, white on the inside) rules the day. Actually, sometimes I think people only really get it when Kevin uses the banana metaphor to explain that he is Canadian despite his grandparents being from Japan and China.

Moral of the story: we need to fight our tendencies to apply Linnaeanesque classification systems based on visible traits (genetics) in our attempts to define people. In a globalized world, doing so can be insulting and, potentially, dangerous (the internment of Canadians with Japanese ancestry is a prime example).

Despite my rookie mistake, I've learned the lesson firsthand. Naturally, I forget that Kevin and I look different. I'm only reminded when we meet new people, go to restaurants with friends (when the waitress assumes I'm with our white-guy friend when we ask to split the bill), or when I see family photos where I'm the only blond in the group. There are some cultural differences when it comes to our families and upbringing but, having both been born and raised in Canada, Kevin and I are not culturally different. However, as long as we live in a world where shades of grey get overlooked in favor of visible black (or, in this case, yellow) and white categories, the interracial nature of our relationship will be featured on the cover of our book.

Filed under // family & friends

Comments [3]

Tags

Blogroll

family & friends