Mom: "Well... you know how it goes sometimes... he's book-smart but people-stupid."
Actually ya, I do know when someone is book-smart but people-stupid, I wouldn't have put it that way but it can fit the bill perfectly sometimes no? :-)
Ray: "He's not exactly chicken-shit but he's got hen-house ways..." This is said with a twinkle in his eye because he knows it's a good line. Ray is a joke-teller extraordinaire with impeccable timing.
I should note that they weren't referring to the same person, these are just snippets of conversation that I like to remember because I find them entertaining and funny.
Sometimes Ray says things I've never heard him say before and geez, I've know Ray for 30 years now. 30 years. I can't believe I'm saying that. I can't believe I'm at that age that I can say "Well hmmm... 30 years ago I was...." But then it can feel like no big deal. If you want to feel young then go live with elderly people, this is the best anti-aging treatment there is. I feel young every day. And happy to not be old. I think aging is a shitty thing man, really. Here we are with these brains and feelings that FINALLY start to mature and BHAMMM our bodies starts falling apart. Where's the fairness in that? And don't get me started on illnesses, they really bite the fucking BIG one. It's a strange thing; being a being that inexplicably bursts into life, grows up, gets old, then dies. Well... perhaps if we humans don't blow ourselves up in the next 20 years, we can at the very least get rid of nasty-ass diseases. One can only hope that if we get that smart we can figure out the easy stuff like war and aggression. Maybe if we're really lucky we can invent a peace virus that we can put in the air and the world of humans would breath in healing peace instead of disease. What would happen? No more war, no more suffering. Chemical Viral Peace Fare. Sounds good, let's start working on that shall we?
Living with my parents 80 years old and 93 years old. Shit. :-) Living on a lake in the middle of nowhere (sort of) is trippy. Getting out and running on a great big lake is cool. Wash, Rinse and Repeat.
Mom is kind of deaf. She has a hearing aid and the difference between when she is wearing it and when she's not is heard in the rising decibel level of the TV and the sonic boom soon after.
The hearing aid is annoying for her but she's trying to use it more. I have ear plugs in the living room. When I can't deal anymore I retreat to my basement bedroom. If she's wearing her hearing aid then I sit at my computer at the kitchen table. Both mom and Ray are curious about computer stuff although when I mentioned to mom that she could stay in contact with people with a computer her curt response was "No, computers scare me." I'm not an advocate of getting someone "current" or "up to speed". If mom has lived quite nicely without a computer its not a make or break whether she learns now. She keeps looking over my shoulder though so maybe at some point I can sit her down in front of the keyboard. I showed her stupid animal videos on youtube and both her and I were completely entertained. C'mon they're funny.... The maple kind? Yuh..?.
Today we went into Prince George. Ray sat in the backseat while I drove. He said he finally saw the scenery as usually he's driving so mostly what he sees is a strip of pavement. I was happy to drive, I don't like being in cars on the highway much anymore. I got into a car accident in 2007 and it ended with me and other car colliding into each other head-on on the TransCanada. Blech. Ever since then, winter highway driving is not pleasant for me. I used to think it was better to be a passenger so I didn't have to look, but that can make it worse. Now I know that as much as I don't like to drive, I can manage my nerves more if I'm behind the wheel. I'd rather be the master of my own driving destiny which kind of means driving.
Today I had to walk slower and not be too task orientated as everything was happening in the time it needed to take.
I am learning the fine art of patience & slowing down and this is good because those attributes have never been my strong suit. Patience with others, patience with circumstances and patience with myself. Since I stopped working 2 years I've had the unique and good fortune to be able to focus on practicing a blend of hindu-buddhist-shamanic practices. The devotion of hindu scriptures: the compassion of buddhism: the harmony of shamanism; meditation seems to tie it all together. Its an imperfect work in progress. It's not easy. That's why hindu sages ran for the caves of the Himalayas, buddhists spent time in monasteries and the shamans were half crazy outsiders.
I think I've found the best of both worlds hanging here and listening to the stuff my folks say...
Till next time
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Snow Blowing & Blowing Snow
We woke up to blizzard like conditions this morning which put a damper on my idea of snowshoe running today or at least delayed it. Instead, after breakfast Mom and I sat at the kitchen table and had a nice conversation while Ray had a snooze on the couch.
By the time Ray woke up and we had lunch, the snow had stopped and he decided that it was time to snow blow the driveway and area. It can be a bit delicate when trying to help out Ray. There is no shortage of assistance if he wants it, his kids are happy to help out, in fact they'd love nothing better than to help him, his veterans organization would happily send out someone to assist and pay the bill if he wanted it. That's the kicker though; if he wants it. I think that it's easy for many of us to assume that someone would welcome help when they get tired more easily and what used to be easy to do is not so easy anymore, but I don't think it works that way. I try to imagine what it's going to be like when I'm considered "elderly" and maybe I won't want too much help either. I can appreciate that independence becomes a cherished thing and the slope towards losing it can feel as slippery as the snow in the driveway.
However on the other side of the coin I really wanted to know how to use a snowblower. I've never operated one and it seemed kind of cool. I think Ray got tired of me following behind him like some eager puppy. After he had done the tricky parts he let me have a go on the very basic driveway. I watched Ray operate the machine with efficiency which gave me confidence that this should be easy... it was harder than I expected! The machine was heavy and I found myself fighting against it. It didn't take me long to realize I was making more work for myself and mostly I had to let the machine do what it does and I didn't have to push it or pull it, I just had to be patient - not exactly my forte.
The way I see it the trick to being useful is to remember that "useful" is a relative term and it's not so much about what I consider useful when I'm offering to help, but it's more about what Ray considers useful. Perhaps this is the conundrum of all kids whose parents are senior citizens, we want to make things easier but perhaps that's not what they need or appreciate. I mean when our parents still have all their marbles and aren't unfortunate enough to be dealing with the nastiness of dementia or Alzheimer's. The sticky wicket of course can come down to matters of opinion on what we (the adult children) think the parent needs and what they themselves think they need. I'm lucky in this respect as both mom and Ray haven't lost one ounce of their faculties regarding making their own decisions. It matters less whether I agree with their choices and more that I respect them regardless.
After we finished clearing all the snow, the weather was holding so I quickly snapped on the snowshoes and got out on the lake. The weather was just hovering around the freezing mark and all my tracks from two days before were long gone. I got out there to find that wet snow is HEAVY - duh. An extra workout for Lise! I had gone for a long road run (easy-peasy compared to snowshoeing) the day before so I probably wasn't as fresh as my enthusiasm was. I was running for maybe a minute before I had to walk. Snowshoe running in heavy snow feels like (or I imagine it feels like) when football players are training; running with tires in their way and they have to lift their legs up high to avoid tripping. The added challenge is doing this motion with the weight of your boots, the snowshoes and the snow itself. I decided that this felt more like speed intervals or hill training, if my burning legs and gasping breath were any indication.
I started to look for lovely snowmobile tracks along the lake as they definitely makes the traveling easier. By this time though the snow had started up again and I found myself in a sea of white with flat light that doesn't show any shadows or contours. Then it felt like I was imagining seeing skidoo track like some sort of mirage. I wondered about the Inuit who spend most of their lives in a frozen snow covered land and the idea of snow blindness started to make perfect sense to me.
I had a particular destination in mind for my run. A spot in the next bay over where I had spied some snow slopes that looked perfect for running hills in the snowshoes. Ya... I know this sounds like I'm a sucker for punishment and its true, there is a sadomasochistic relish in seeing a slope covered in deep powder and KNOWING it's going to be really tough. After slogging along walking and running, almost feeling like I was running on the spot in the snowy flatness of the frozen lake I finally made it to this hill. Once there I started to lose my nerve a bit as the open clearing was nestled between dense trees and my imagination began to wonder if there were critters in the woods - big critters like wolves or cougars.... I decided to ignore my nervousness and started up the hill. Crikey Shiela! The snow was DEEP and the weather was getting worse. Rather quickly I was slipping and post-holing even with my snowshoes. After I fell over once it became apparent that my poles would have been helpful.
I decided that this was probably not the best day for this type of adventure as the big blowing flakes were starting to settle on my Gortex jacket which wasn't feeling so waterproof and the visibility was shit. Not to mention that I hadn't brought anything with me in case I needed it; no first aid kit, no headlamp, no warm jacket... This little voice said "If anything goes wrong out here you are going to look like an unprepared asshole..."
Sometimes I actually do listen to my common sense and I decided to call it a day. And I figured that mom would start to worry as the weather had worsened since I started out.
As I made it back to our bay and was starting up to the front of the house, Ray opened the door and yelled out "Would you like me to fix you a drink honey?" "Hell yes! I replied. I could hear him laughing as he was closing the door. I had a big grin on my face too because I felt really damn lucky for reasons too numerous to mention. Snow blowing and blowing snow made for a great day!
By the time Ray woke up and we had lunch, the snow had stopped and he decided that it was time to snow blow the driveway and area. It can be a bit delicate when trying to help out Ray. There is no shortage of assistance if he wants it, his kids are happy to help out, in fact they'd love nothing better than to help him, his veterans organization would happily send out someone to assist and pay the bill if he wanted it. That's the kicker though; if he wants it. I think that it's easy for many of us to assume that someone would welcome help when they get tired more easily and what used to be easy to do is not so easy anymore, but I don't think it works that way. I try to imagine what it's going to be like when I'm considered "elderly" and maybe I won't want too much help either. I can appreciate that independence becomes a cherished thing and the slope towards losing it can feel as slippery as the snow in the driveway.
However on the other side of the coin I really wanted to know how to use a snowblower. I've never operated one and it seemed kind of cool. I think Ray got tired of me following behind him like some eager puppy. After he had done the tricky parts he let me have a go on the very basic driveway. I watched Ray operate the machine with efficiency which gave me confidence that this should be easy... it was harder than I expected! The machine was heavy and I found myself fighting against it. It didn't take me long to realize I was making more work for myself and mostly I had to let the machine do what it does and I didn't have to push it or pull it, I just had to be patient - not exactly my forte.
The way I see it the trick to being useful is to remember that "useful" is a relative term and it's not so much about what I consider useful when I'm offering to help, but it's more about what Ray considers useful. Perhaps this is the conundrum of all kids whose parents are senior citizens, we want to make things easier but perhaps that's not what they need or appreciate. I mean when our parents still have all their marbles and aren't unfortunate enough to be dealing with the nastiness of dementia or Alzheimer's. The sticky wicket of course can come down to matters of opinion on what we (the adult children) think the parent needs and what they themselves think they need. I'm lucky in this respect as both mom and Ray haven't lost one ounce of their faculties regarding making their own decisions. It matters less whether I agree with their choices and more that I respect them regardless.
After we finished clearing all the snow, the weather was holding so I quickly snapped on the snowshoes and got out on the lake. The weather was just hovering around the freezing mark and all my tracks from two days before were long gone. I got out there to find that wet snow is HEAVY - duh. An extra workout for Lise! I had gone for a long road run (easy-peasy compared to snowshoeing) the day before so I probably wasn't as fresh as my enthusiasm was. I was running for maybe a minute before I had to walk. Snowshoe running in heavy snow feels like (or I imagine it feels like) when football players are training; running with tires in their way and they have to lift their legs up high to avoid tripping. The added challenge is doing this motion with the weight of your boots, the snowshoes and the snow itself. I decided that this felt more like speed intervals or hill training, if my burning legs and gasping breath were any indication.
I started to look for lovely snowmobile tracks along the lake as they definitely makes the traveling easier. By this time though the snow had started up again and I found myself in a sea of white with flat light that doesn't show any shadows or contours. Then it felt like I was imagining seeing skidoo track like some sort of mirage. I wondered about the Inuit who spend most of their lives in a frozen snow covered land and the idea of snow blindness started to make perfect sense to me.
I had a particular destination in mind for my run. A spot in the next bay over where I had spied some snow slopes that looked perfect for running hills in the snowshoes. Ya... I know this sounds like I'm a sucker for punishment and its true, there is a sadomasochistic relish in seeing a slope covered in deep powder and KNOWING it's going to be really tough. After slogging along walking and running, almost feeling like I was running on the spot in the snowy flatness of the frozen lake I finally made it to this hill. Once there I started to lose my nerve a bit as the open clearing was nestled between dense trees and my imagination began to wonder if there were critters in the woods - big critters like wolves or cougars.... I decided to ignore my nervousness and started up the hill. Crikey Shiela! The snow was DEEP and the weather was getting worse. Rather quickly I was slipping and post-holing even with my snowshoes. After I fell over once it became apparent that my poles would have been helpful.
I decided that this was probably not the best day for this type of adventure as the big blowing flakes were starting to settle on my Gortex jacket which wasn't feeling so waterproof and the visibility was shit. Not to mention that I hadn't brought anything with me in case I needed it; no first aid kit, no headlamp, no warm jacket... This little voice said "If anything goes wrong out here you are going to look like an unprepared asshole..."
Sometimes I actually do listen to my common sense and I decided to call it a day. And I figured that mom would start to worry as the weather had worsened since I started out.
As I made it back to our bay and was starting up to the front of the house, Ray opened the door and yelled out "Would you like me to fix you a drink honey?" "Hell yes! I replied. I could hear him laughing as he was closing the door. I had a big grin on my face too because I felt really damn lucky for reasons too numerous to mention. Snow blowing and blowing snow made for a great day!
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
At the Lake!
I arrived at my folks place on the Lake. I'm going to be living here till the end of April. I'm pretty stoked about it to be honest, what's not to be excited about? A great big lake to snowshoe on, rolling roads to hill train on, mom's coffee, Ray's jokes (more about that later) and naps! Not to mention my cat Bomber is here and I miss the big lug. Also, I get to hang out with my folks, which, as you get older becomes a more cherished thing I think - if you're lucky enough to enjoy spending time with your parents. If you know my folks then you know what I mean, if you don't know them then I think you'll figure it out if you keep reading this blog, they're unique and wonderful. Let me introduce you. MOM is 79 years old and has one of the best attitudes about life of anyone I know. Ray is 93 which seems like a ridiculous number. As I don't exactly know who is reading this blog and at my mom's request I do want to respect their privacy by keeping some things a bit more vague, such as the actual location of their home and their last names. And really, those things don't matter as much as the experiences that I'm sharing.
I was excited to see the large expanse of snow on the frozen lake with visions of snowshoe routes beginning to dance in my head! The snow started falling within minutes of my arriving which brought a big smile to my face. I have a trail marathon in the Napa Valley on March 24. This is shockingly soon when one considers that a standard road marathon of 42KM (26 miles) takes significant training which I wouldn't be too fussed about. But take the same distance and run it on single track trails with significant elevation gain and you have a race that now takes a fu*** of a lot of training and I have 2 months. It's kind of funny how these races sneak up on a person, it seemed so far away when I signed up for the race. Now... not so far away really. I'm running about 2 hours relatively comfortably right now but that ain't 4 hours or 5 hours which is my wildly optimistic goal. Lets call it a "Stretch Target"... ya... that's it.
Mom mentioned that she hadn't seen the wolves on the lake lately, especially since she saw the cougar walking along one of the neighbour's dock and according to her wolves tend to stay away when cougars are about. Which is probably not a bad strategy but MEH... cougars schmoozers! I'll stay out in the open, I have my bear spray and happy thoughts. :-)
I was excited to see the large expanse of snow on the frozen lake with visions of snowshoe routes beginning to dance in my head! The snow started falling within minutes of my arriving which brought a big smile to my face. I have a trail marathon in the Napa Valley on March 24. This is shockingly soon when one considers that a standard road marathon of 42KM (26 miles) takes significant training which I wouldn't be too fussed about. But take the same distance and run it on single track trails with significant elevation gain and you have a race that now takes a fu*** of a lot of training and I have 2 months. It's kind of funny how these races sneak up on a person, it seemed so far away when I signed up for the race. Now... not so far away really. I'm running about 2 hours relatively comfortably right now but that ain't 4 hours or 5 hours which is my wildly optimistic goal. Lets call it a "Stretch Target"... ya... that's it.
Mom mentioned that she hadn't seen the wolves on the lake lately, especially since she saw the cougar walking along one of the neighbour's dock and according to her wolves tend to stay away when cougars are about. Which is probably not a bad strategy but MEH... cougars schmoozers! I'll stay out in the open, I have my bear spray and happy thoughts. :-)
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