It’s my favorite time – it’s Olympic season. I see Brian Williams every two years and greet him like an old friend. I cheer on the athletes and share their stories with all that I know. I tear up at the commercials, I awake up and watch overnight footage. I become an export in all Olympic sports. I know the Olympians and their stories. And I truly believe that sport, commitment, honourable competition are something we should all strive for.
The Summer Games in particular I admire because there is no expensive equipment needed to get started. If you want to run – run. If you want to swim – swim. Get a ball and play. Dream. Strive. Go.
July 27th, 2012 Extra-Ordinary: The beginning of a next part of Olympic history. It’s you and me, Brian. Let the games begin!
So as I write this, I am eating some Hersey’s Kisses that I stole from the freezer in the common room at the retirement home. I mean, seriously, I am stealing chocolate from seniors. In walkers. This is an example of the things that I do when I go home. I eat more, I do less, I apparently steal, and I generally regress. However, in my defense, I probably would steal chocolate from seniors while at home.
I have one of the best aps for my Android phone: CardioTrainer. Like many training aps available, it combines GPS, step counting, maps and my dimensions to calculate distance run and calories burned. It’s fantastic. It’s free.
On this trip I was determined to not regress too far. Sure, I’ll fight with my brother, but maybe I could do alright. I awake early each morning – thanks to time zone changes – and I have to make a decision each morning to exercise. And I’ve done pretty good I think.
July 25th, 2012 Extra-Ordinary: According to CardioTrainer, I’ve run 42.2 kms since we left from Huntsville. I think that is 5% of my lifetime total.
We departed the house at 9:00 am exactly. We had targeted leaving between 9 and 9:30 am, but my mom doesn’t understand time ranges and therefore she amended our departure time to 9:00 am. When she climbed into the car, she gleefully announced that we were exactly on time – 9:00 am. Emile couldn’t let that slide – he announced back that it I keep the clock 2 minutes fast. But, I’ll bet we actually pulled out of the driveway at 9:00 am.
The drive on Highway 3 – Crowsnest Highway – is tremendous. There is no shortage of glorious twisting turning mountains passes bored through the mountains dotted with picturesque – and now growing – towns.
We stopped frequently on this trip – we needed to help Mom spent her Tim Hortons gift cards, and we needed smoke breaks and pee breaks. And food breaks.
When my parents were first married, they moved to Trail BC, and often returned to Vancouver to visit family. This meant much of the trip was spent recollecting family lore stories about the travels. Next time you see my mom, ask her about “Never Again (subtitled “The Whipsaw” and the “Sidewinder”)”, “I’ll Shut Up Now about the Sewing Machine” and “CastleGAAAAR” – they are stories worth the time.
I told you about Christina Lake visits when we were kids – it was 3.5 hours for my mom driving a 1969 Barracuda over two mountain passes. To keep the peace, she bribed at us always with a visit to the Castlegar Dairy Queen on the journey. It was old, brown and decorated with Dennis the Menace cartoons and we loved the stop. We stopped on this trip also and found to my dismay that the place – although still in the same location – had been modernized and updated.
We stopped in at Christina Lake at the house we always stayed at and found to my delight that although some updates had been made – it had been left almost totally alone.
We pushed through the Okanogan pleased to see the same fruit stands advertising local cherries and other fruit. We timed our arrival into the Lower Mainland perfectly – little traffic and still light.
Grandpa is so pleased to see us all.
July 23rd, 2012 Extra-Ordinary: Standing on the Christina Lake beach recalling long summer days and times gone by. Wishing so much that things didn’t change and that youth didn’t fade.
I sat on the couch watching Lethal Weapon 3. We watched the first two the previous two nights. Despite the efforts of Danny Glover, Mel Gibson and Rene Russo, I wasn’t giving it my full attention because all I could think about was it was my last night in Cranbrook.
I sat beside my brother saying nothing – and him saying nothing in return.
I reviewed the week – and it always seems to go so fast when I am at home – I have a healing Juniper rash, a burn, white paint on my hands and shins, a broken nail, pine sap all over my flip flops, an assumed 5 extra pounds and two ruined shirts. I dug around in the shrubs; removed painted over wall paper with a heat gun; taped, sanded and painted the white trim; cleaned up after the storm; ate a lot of carbohydrates and fat; and carried, toted, cleaned up, lifted, cleaned and generally did my share of the house maintenance.
My brother doesn’t say much, and when he does it is often sardonic wit. He smirks at me often – like he’s caught me being an idiot again. Rarely do sappy words leave his mouth. And Rarely is probably too strong a word.
He has to be at work each morning at 6 am, and therefore is almost always in bed by 10 pm. As the movie progressed, the clocked ticked on – and soon it was 10:30 pm. Then 10:45. And then the going to bed process finally began. I got the message.
July 22nd, 2012 Extra-Ordinary: I’m going to miss you too Todd, thanks for that extra hour together.
I don’t like fish or seafood. No, really, I don’t. Please don’t try to tell me “It doesn’t taste fishy at all”. It does. It takes like fish. Salmon does. Tuna does. Yes, even the lobster and crab do. Even if you drown it in garlic butter. I have sensitive taste buds. I can taste it. It tastes like fish. I don’t like it.
This eliminates traditional sushi as a pleasant food item for me. I enjoy going to Japanese restaurants for dinner with friends and my husband, as I can order the vegetarian options, but it usually means a tofu dish, or avocado rolls or cucumber rolls. And let’s face it – both of those rolls are boring.
When we are in Cranbrook, we always go for sushi. We always talk about trying one of the 3 other places in town, but always end up at Sakura. My brother – who also has the sophisticated anti-fish taste buds I do – always orders the beef and chicken teriyaki rolls. Emile always orders at least one salmon roll, and I always get the edamame and tempura veggies as starters. For a main, I skip around the menu ordering the vegetarian dishes or sometimes order a meat noodle dish. But I am usually disappointed in my choice of rolls – I can’t ever order from the “Special Roll” section because of the fish problem. You know – the rolls that come on a sleek long dish and you say “Oh, how beautiful” when it arrives at your table. Sauces artfully placed, and garnished carefully positioned. Sigh.
On the special menu this evening a “special veggie roll” was offered. It featured asparagus, avocado, spinach, mango, and sweet potato with a cream sauce and a blueberry sauce. I shared it with my mom, and it is the first time that I got to truly appreciate “roll art” arriving at the table. The dish was the perfect line between savory and sweet, and utterly delicious.
July 21st, 2012 Extra-Ordinary: Edamame, tempura vegetables, teriyaki tofu, “special veggie roll” and deep-fried mango ice cream. So Good.
Mostly pictures today because my words will not convey the whole story. There is always a sense of community when these things happen and soon after the storm during our drive around town, neighbours with chain saws were helping each other out. Trees blocking roads were quickly dispatched by citizens. There is still a lot of clean up to do, and many places do not have power yet, but the town is returning to normal.
July 20th, 2012 Extra-Ordinary: Massive Wind Storm Blew through Cranbrook (and much of the interior of British Columbia) taking our multiple trees and leaving 1000s without power. No injuries in Cranbrook, one death in the province.
Trees on an SUVCrushed Garage and Roof Damage on the House (three doors up the street from our house)Nervous Sleeping Tonight (across the street from our house)Ripped up SidewalkCrushed Beverage Cart and Golf Cart at Cranbrook Golf CourseMy Brother Surveying Damage at Back Shop (he’s the manager) at Cranbrook Golf CourseAsphalt Ripped Like PaperTree on Club House at Cranbrook Golf Course (that’s me and my brother gawking to give you an idea of the size of the trees going down)Massive Roots Ripped from the GroundRoofing Ripped off Apartment BuildingTree on Power Lines
PS – a 100′ 75 year old grand old pine was removed from our yard about 3 months ago. It is likely it would have toppled if it were still standing doing much damage to either our home or our neighbours:
When I wrote my GMAT exam to gain acceptance into an MBA program, I didn’t do a very thorough job studying. Well, actually, I spent a whole bunch of time reviewing practice exams from books I purchased from the UVic Used Book Store. But I neglected to consider that perhaps the GMAT people had changed the format of the exam and the exams I was reviewing were down level.
Because it turned out it was so – the GMAT people added in a whole new section – 2 written essays. The GMAT is a long exam, I think I had to write 5 sections that counted and then 1 section that would possibly be used in the future exams – assuming of course that it tested appropriately. And you don’t even know which section doesn’t count!
There is a section on the exam that you could fill out to ask GMAT to NOT score your exam. In the face of a total meltdown, you could just pretend like you never took the exam – but no refund of course. Just fill out a couple of bubbles, and sign your name. Voila! It never happened.
The exam was so long that you got a break part way through. I was nearing the meltdown stage – the questions weren’t as easy as they seemed at home with the answers in the back of the book. And those damn essays! I overheard a couple of conversations about how easy everything was. OMG! If I don’t rock this exam, then I am not going to business school. And if I don’t go to business school, I don’t have a plan. If I don’t have a plan, the world will end.
I returned to the room and finished that exam. My pencil hovered for several minutes above the opt out section. But my very competitive nature would not allow me to not find out how well I did – I needed to know even if it was terrible.
I left that room feeling defeated and over the next couple of weeks came up with a back-up plan to get a second B. Sc. in Economics/Statistics to go with the one I already had in Psychology. What? What good would that do me? And people think one is capable of making good decisions in your 20s.
I got my scores and honestly, I cannot remember what they were precisely. They were pretty good, higher than average, but nothing amazing though enough to get me into McMaster University. But what I do remember is the essays I hadn’t even considered until I walked into the exam room – on those I scored in the 99% percentile. What did I write about? Well, I cannot remember the subject of one – but the other asked you to write for or against progress.
I about how progress is important in many aspects (ie, medical treatments), but in others, we need to consider what we have before we progress on the next stage. I used the example of the old Post Office building here in Cranbrook – it was a beautiful building (as most turn of the century buildings are) with a tower at each corner. It was torn down to make way for a more modern – read ugly – post office building. But then we realized what we were missing. The Rotary club fundraised and built a replica tower in our town square so we could remember.
Each time I see the clock tower in the town square, I remember:
July 19th, 2012 Extra-Ordinary: Progress is good, but consider what you’ve got. (And study the current revision of the exam)
(Photo Credit Emile)
The Cranbrook Clock Tower – a replica of the original ones
My brother doesn’t like people to play around with things that are not broken or already good. “Just leave it alone!”, he’ll growl at you. When I prepare food, I am always screwing around with things. He hates it. He always tries it, and often will eat it, but happily watches me get back on a plane or in the car so he can just eat food how it should be. No “hippie” food, no vegan crap, just left alone.
I made dinner tonight – a stir fry with marinated tempeh and chicken served on grated cauliflower. Todd ate it. Said he could have done without the tempeh, but ate it. Dessert? Well.
July 18th, 2012 Extra-Ordinary: The look on my brother’s face when he took his first bite of chocolate banana/avocado pudding sweetened with honey. Mom and Emile shared an extra portion.
The Daily EO 