hyphenated - Filed under 'family & friends'

January 7, 2010 6:42 PM

year in review

The start of a new year inevitably prompts me to assess the year that just ended and ponder what the year ahead holds. In my case, on January 1st of last year, I didn't predict the events that transpired in 2009. If asked then where I'd be one year later, I would've responded "Vancouver". If you told me that I'd be married, I would've called you crazy.

Actually, I assumed that 2009 would be a replication, with some small, inevitable mutations, of 2008. Analogous to evolution in a relatively stable environment. But, as you probably know if you've been following hyphenated, the environment in 2009 was unpredictably stochastic.

Stochasticity is not a friend of mine. Nonetheless, I survived the ups and downs and the instability and the unknown. Despite poor forecasting, the outcome has been positive. I feel stronger for having ridden the wave that was 2009. This strength helps me to look at the blank 2010 calendar without panicking (too much). There are a few dates with pencil-marks, but the bulk of the year remains uncharted and unplanned.

I'd be lying if I said that I loved the predicted stochasticity, but I can acknowledge it, take a deep breath, and trust that most of the bridges that need to be crossed will appear on the horizon in due time. And if the bridges aren't there, we'll build them or find an alternate route.

Where will I be this time next year? I honestly can't say for sure. It could be Vancouver. And, despite the risk of mimicking Oprah, I do know one thing for sure: I'll be married.

Filed under // family & friends San Francisco Vancouver

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December 2, 2009 6:53 PM

thanks, again

In October, I celebrated Thanksgiving in Montreal. With turkey and all the fixings, I reflected on all I had to be thankful for. At that point in time, my mind was mainly focused on the upcoming move and I was mainly grateful that the long-distance had come to an end. I also appreciated the fall colours, the warmth of the fire, and (last but not least) my wonderful family and friends.

This past Saturday, I celebrated Thanksgiving in San Francisco. While turkey and family were implicated (I was following Elaine's turkey instructions and I was flustered when the bird looked done about 3 hours before our guests were set to arrive - a call home resulted in some motherly advice and everything turned out fine), fall foliage and warm fires were not. Given that current ambient temperatures are such that many flowering trees are still in bloom, it didn't feel like time for the harvest. Of course, the pilgrims didn't take San Francisco's climate into account.

As I've explained countless times to Americans over the last month, Canada's Thanksgiving occurs earlier precisely because the harvest occurs sooner further north. Goes to show that there was a time when Canadian politicians didn't make decisions simply by looking to the south and copying (unlike Harper's recent change of heart regarding his decision to attend Copenhagen).

In any case, despite the lack of snow and shivers, Christmas is right around the corner. The holiday decorations and eggnog at the grocery store will have to serve as reminders, since looking out the window does not conjure up visions of sugar-plums.

Filed under // family & friends San Francisco

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October 13, 2009 9:47 AM

savoring fall

autumnal [\ȯ-ˈtəm-nəl\] adj

of, occurring in, or characteristic of autumn
characteristic of late maturity verging on decline

❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧

The sun lays low in the sky and dips below the horizon earlier every day while flora and fauna brace themselves for the first hard frost of the season. Scarves emerge from closest and sandals reluctantly take their place in the darkness. Heavy humidity evaporates and the air alternates between damp and crisp, depending on whether the sky is an endless expanse of glorious blue or a low ceiling of matte, sombre grey. Summer has graciously retired and fall has arrived to advise that winter is en route to aggressively take its place.

In this corner of the world, fall is accompanied by birds noisily announcing their synchronized migration, fields producing the last gifts of the harvest, and trees making bold, fiery statements before going bald. Crimson, copper, gold, and amber leaves tremble and waver in the wind and, when they lose their grip, gracefully float to the ground.

Crunching through leaves along the forest path. The welcome warmth of the sun streaming between branches is subdued and easily stolen by the breeze. Sweet scents of decay rise from the ground along with memories of childhood screeches and giggles from when the chore of raking morphed into a game of diving into a crispy yet soft pile of browning leaves.

Giving thanks for the comforts of home. Heat radiating from the fire. Laughs and stories shared with family and friends. Pumpkin pie and fresh apples.

Click here to download:

savoring_fall.zip (232 KB)

Filed under // Canada family & friends food Quebec & Montreal

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October 9, 2009 6:15 AM

when chicken is an institution

As many readers of this blog know, I'm not a big meat eater. When I do eat meat, I tend towards organic/small farm options. However, there are rare exceptions. One of those exceptions is barbecued chicken. And not any barbecued chicken, only Châlet Bar-B-Q rotisserie chicken.

Like most cities, Montreal has its specialities when it comes to food, namely bagels, smoked meat, and rotisserie chicken. I never really got on the smoked meat bandwagon (I like it, but there's something fundamentally wrong with a sandwich that contains more meat than bread, in my opinion), but I'm all over the bagels and the rotisserie chicken.

Rotisserie chicken is the only of the aforementioned specialities that is quebecois to the core, as the other two have Jewish roots (Montreal is the home to the second largest Jewish community outside of Israel, after NYC). The argument could be made that my fondness for rotisserie chicken is in my blood, as my surname would have been Beauchamp-Berthelet if our society was matriarchal rather than patriarchal.

The ubiquity of rotisserie chicken in Quebec is epitomized by la sauce. When someone says la sauce in Quebec, they are most likely referring to this sauce, which was developed by les frères Berthelet (the brothers happen to be my great uncles, but I've never met them - I'm not on the gravy train).

When it comes to rotisserie chicken, Châlet Bar-B-Q in NDG is an institution. Recently voted the best rotisserie chicken in Montreal, Châlet Bar-B-Q doesn't seem to have changed much since it opened over sixty years ago. The decor is classic, with wood panelling on the walls, dim lighting, booths, and waitresses in outdated uniforms. And the chicken, served with fries, gravy, and a toasted bun, is unbeatable. Kevin and I went for lunch earlier this week and were not disappointed. If you're visiting Montreal, be sure to add Châlet Bar-B-Q, along with Schwartz's and St-Viateur, to your list of places to visit.

Photo owned by alanah.montreal (cc)

Filed under // family & friends food Quebec & Montreal

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October 7, 2009 8:06 AM

mutant sock puppets

Last month, we were at a friend's wedding. After the ceremony and before the reception, the bride's brother hosted a casual garden party. Sitting around in the yard and chatting with friends from school, the topic of toe socks somehow came up.

My friend Jonn happened to be wearing a pair and began signing their praises. He listed all the reasons why toe socks were better than regular socks. And then he took off his shoe to show us how free his toes were able to move independently of one another. We all cringed. There's something about toe socks that is fundamentally... uncomfortable.

I don't mind seeing bare feet, but socks that enable each toe to wiggle on its own make me wrinkle my nose. Thankfully, socked feet are largely contained within shoes so I can largely ignore the existence of toe socks. Also, I sense that I'm not alone in my views regarding toe socks so I don't think I need to worry about conventional socks being completely replaced by toe socks. And, as a result, cute sock puppets need not worry about becoming scary-looking mutants.

Once Jonn revealed his freely wiggling socked toes, Kevin brought up the emergence of Five Fingers, a new line of shoes by Vibram that transfer the principle behind toe socks to the realm of footwear. More cringing.

Kevin has been interested in Five Fingers since he was made aware of their existence and, since then, I've been staunchly against them. I have even threatened not to be seen in public with him if he decided to buy a pair and wear them on the street. Unlike toe socks, toe shoes cannot be ignored - one cannot wear Five Fingers discretely or secretly. They're right out there.

In my mind, Five Fingers make the Birkenstock-sock combo fashionable (assuming that the socks are conventional socks and not toe socks). Even if Five Fingers are superior to normal shoes from an orthopaedic perspective, any benefits are overshadowed by their absolute hideousness. I know that my repulsion to toe socks and Five Fingers is completely irrational. My sense of aesthetic rarely trumps practical considerations, but my aversion to feet in gloves is an instance where aesthetics take precedence.

Filed under // family & friends science & technology

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August 29, 2009 10:09 PM

carpe diem

Summer is coming to an end. I can hardly believe that September is right around the corner, bringing with it the inevitable rain and grey that define winter in Vancouver. I'm interested to discover what winter holds further south on the Pacific coast, but I'm not ready to see the end of another fabulous Vancouver summer. So, after a productive morning of shopping (found a dress to wear to my friend's wedding next weekend and it was on sale - bonus!) and catching up with family on the phone, I called Andrew to see if he was up for a game of pitch and putt, which he was.

Having spent the afternoon catching up with Andrew while clubbing a ball around the fringes of Stanley Park, I'm coming to terms with how much I'm going to miss this city. To think that I live 20 minutes (walking) from the downtown core, yet can walk 10 minutes in the opposite direction to play a round of golf amongst the resident geese while the afternoon fades into evening and the crimson sun sets over the ocean ... I don't think you can get that anywhere else.

While there are elements of Vancouver that I don't appreciate, the five years that I've spent here have been filled with great afternoons just like this one because the city is developed such that one can conveniently enjoy the beauty of the environment in which it's situated. No escape plans necessary. While it becomes easy to take it for granted, with the summer winding down and the move to San Francisco looming, this afternoon was fully appreciated.

Filed under // family & friends Vancouver

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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

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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

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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

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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

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