The Seattle Suitcase Saga

I don’t know why airport limo drivers always get lost on the way to my condo building, but it seems like an epic fail for car GPS systems. Every time I have to talk a lost limo driver through the directions to my door, it makes me grumpy. It’s probably my own fault for always buying cheaper airfare for flights that leave at the crack of dawn before the airport express train starts running.

This time I was on my way to Seattle, and it was just two days after Trump’s election and one day after the women’s march I’d participated in. I’d posted photos of the march on Facebook and Instagram but --  in a fit of paranoia -- had deleted them all in case the U.S. border guards decided I was a troublemaker not admissible to the States.

After my limo driver finally found me, our mutual alarm over Trump’s victory overcame my grumpiness. But we would still be arriving at the airport later than I’d planned, and that was a problem because I was already cutting it close – something I tend to do with departure times.

Inside the airport my fears of being late and missing my flight skyrocketed when I confronted a total mob scene. I found a giant lineup of people who, like me, did not want to deal with the self-service kiosks and were overloading the “Assistance” lineup. (This labelling implies that you are somewhat defective if you don’t want to use the kiosks.) Large groups of jovial Chinese senior citizens with massive suitcases, giant families with neither English nor French, couples in the wrong lineup until the very last second – they were all there, remonstrating and straining the capacity of the three agents working the counters. Everyone seemed to have multiple giant suitcases.

Experimenting with carry-on luggage to avoid paying Air Canada’s exorbitant baggage fees, I had a small, wheeled, designer-brand suitcase I’d found cast-off in my storage locker room. I’ve found excellent furniture, clothes, and accessories this way, and love telling people that the purse they’ve just complimented me on was “found in the garbage.”

I’d never had a wheeled bag before and always made fun of people for being lazy and not carrying their bags. But here I was, rumbling along in the lineup, feeling sheepish but part of the mainstream for once.

At security I felt I was being singled out, though of course it was all “random” as one of the guards told me. My silver belt buckle set off alarm bells, and so did my boots with all their metal hooks. I was frisked thoroughly and asked to go through a body-scanning machine.

In Vancouver airport, I had just under two hours to kill before my flight to Seattle. Following signage, I walked into the Duty Free area on my way to U.S. Customs. But the departure board there said my flight was delayed by 1½ hours. That left me just enough time to take the train downtown and go for a walk along the seawall. I looked for an exit and found a staircase leading downstairs.

But I was stopped by an airport employee. “You can’t go down there. It’s a restricted area,” she said.

I asked how I could get outside. She flagged down an Air Canada agent.

“You’ve officially left Canada,” she said, “If you want to go outside, you have to clear Canada Customs.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I said.

The Air Canada agent said she would escort me through the restricted area and down to the arrivals hall so I could clear customs and leave the building.

I approached a Customs agent in the arrivals hall and explained that I had not really been out of Canada, that I had just inadvertently walked into the zone between “Canada” and “U.S. Customs” and had only been there about 30 seconds.

“You still have to clear Customs,” he said and handed me a Declaration form. “Fill this out,”

“But I haven’t actually been out of Canada,” I said.

“Officially, you have,” he said.

I sighed and filled out the form, No, I hadn’t bought anything, nor had I been to any farms, and for sure I had been out of Canada for less than 24 hours.

I breezed through Customs without having to explain my 30-second absence from Canada.

And when I arrived back from downtown Vancouver, I cleared U.S. Customs without being interrogated about my political affiliations. I celebrated by going for a “flight” of Okanagan Valley wines at a small café.

My positive view of America persisted when I left Seattle to fly back to Canada a few days later. The Seattle airport was fully staffed, so all the security gates were open and there were no bottlenecks. No one searched me, and no alarms went off. All security staff seemed efficient, knowledgeable and polite. I was impressed. Americans have Trump but they’re organized! We have Trudeau but our airports are chaos!

The little wheeled suitcase was not a success, though. It was so small that I was ridiculously short on clothing and even had to buy a new pair of boots because there hadn’t been enough room to bring a second, more winter-oriented pair with me. Of course, the $150 I spent on the boots was more than I would have paid to check my full-size duffle bag.

Once home in Toronto, I decided to put the suitcase back where I’d found it on the storage locker room floor. This was exquisitely bad timing, as the building management were about to do a storage locker inspection in concert with a cleanup.

A couple of days later a perplexed resident of my building gave me a call.

“I have your suitcase,” he said. “It was on top of my storage locker, and I got a notice from the building manager to say I was breaking a bylaw by storing something outside of the locker! Anyway, I found your business card in the suitcase, so I thought I should call you.”

He gave me his suite number, and when I showed up at his door, he was holding my suitcase.

“Actually….” I said, “You can have it. I was trying to get rid of it but the building management people figured it was yours.” I explained about the cast-off area of the storage locker, and apologized for the confusion.

He was happy to get a free suitcase, which I found funny, since his condo looked way more swanky than mine.

But everyone loves free stuff.

Dark deeds in the dead of winter

In the darkest days of winter, I can get up to all kinds of extreme activities, including cleaning and organizing. There’s something about the winter solstice that inspires me to go through drawers and closets. Coupled with my desire to find new ways to save money, it’s an amusement that yields mixed results.

One day I got into my store of camping food, looking for dinners I could parlay into edible indoor eatables. There was an unlabelled silver foil pouch. I suspected it was peanut sauce and fantasized about chicken satay with jasmine rice and tender grilled vegetables. When I dared to slit open the package, however, I found some kind of Thai vegetarian dinner, with tiny corn cobs and bamboo shoots. Sniffing it, I determined that it had not gone off and would be safe to eat. For dinner, I made jasmine rice and heated up the dinner.

But, this years-old dinner was inedible…..Horrible, stale, flavourless, like trying to eat chopped up cardboard packaging. I threw it out after three bites, and made egg wraps instead—and the tortillas, which had been in the freezer since the summer, were stale. So much for shortcuts to deliciousness.

Another night I made vegetarian chili and decided that since it was a bit watery, I’d put in a can of tomato paste. But when I opened the can, I found a well in the middle, full of suspicious-looking liquid, and all the thick tomato sauce up around the sides of the can. I threw it out, pondering the surprise that canned food can actually go bad. I may have to rethink my stash of emergency canned food….

Everything eventually breaks down and everything eventually becomes chaos; on a small scale, I’m fighting this all the time in my apartment. Even discovering mold on my door frame was cause for alarm and thorough soapy scrubbing.

My wardrobe is a travesty. I have the happy problem of having lost 20 pounds and finding that most of my clothes are now too big for me. Even my tights are now loose. And my knee-high winter boots really needed to be replaced, but I’m trying to save money. Unfortunately, there are some holes in the sides of the boots that cold winds from the Arctic tend to blow through, so I may have to duct tape them. Duct tape really is this girl’s best friend.

But following my friend J.’s lead, I have “found” some new pairs of socks in my drawer and have paired together singles that have slight resemblances to each other; for instance, two odd blue socks have come together as a pair, regardless of their being not quite the same shade of blue. Under knee-high boots, these new pairs are not even noticeable to the general public.

I’m spending more time online than is healthy for my back, but when a close friend told me about a great site that aggregates content from amazing sites all over the ‘Net, I went to check it out. To my surprise, it was a porn site: bigg.com….. Then I realized I’d noted a “b” instead of a “d”: digg.com.

On Christmas day I turned up CBC for the annual broadcast of  Handel’s Messiah – but had to turn it off after a while because a countertenor was singing the mezzo-soprano solos. The horror! As a mezzo, I have an innate dislike of countertenors because they take over coveted and rare mezzo roles. My nightmare is that I’ll go see a performance of Carmen, and find that a countertenor has taken the role.

I have door issues. I pull when it says “push” and push when it says “pull.” And I go out the entrance and in the exit. But at Homesense I actually do it on purpose because part of me enjoys seeing people give me irate looks as I enter through the exit. Yes, I do act my shoe size sometimes (10).

My life of housecleaning and online idling is soon coming to an end, but in the meantime, I think about how other people make a living, and make way more than I do. On the street the other day, I overheard a rent boy on the phone setting up a date. “The rate is $250 and I live at Queen and Dufferin,” he said “Top or bottom…..”

Close to my condo, a large Tim Horton’s is about to open, and they’re looking for staff. For about two seconds, I considered applying. It would be convenient, after all. But I don’t think the uniform would be a particularly good look for me. And they’d probably put me on the morning shift. I’m terrible first thing in the morning

For example, last week when I first woke up, I reached over to my chest of drawers to grab something and knocked over a brass ornament with sharp edges. It smashed into my mouth and cut my lip. Stemming the flow of blood, and applying ice to reduce the swelling, I realized this was going to make me look like I either had a giant cold sore or was just punched—so perfect for making a positive impression on new clients and inspiring confidence in my competence….

Road trip gone wrong

 In the end, it’s the numbers that always get me. Party invitations that go out without the date. Missed trains and flights. Event promos sent without the event’s address. Misunderstood mortgage terms—all these numbers go into my brain and immediately vaporize. I have to be ever vigilant and make sure I check and recheck numbers constantly.

Friday of the Thanksgiving weekend, I and my adventurous friend, just back from four months in the wilderness—let’s call him Wilderness Man—decided to go on a road trip that included a stop at his family cottage in eastern Ontario and a hike in to my isolated property on a picturesque river. All we had to do was pick up a rental car and drive a few hours northeast.

But the two rental agent guys claimed I was not “in the system” even though I knew I had booked a car. And of course there were no spare cars floating around on such a busy weekend. Patience is not a virtue I possess, so I hounded the rental agents to keep checking. There was not a trace of my online booking.

“I can prove I made the reservation,” I said.  As well as patience, however, I also do not possess a smartphone, which I could have used to look through my old emails and find the confirmation. I needed to go home.

“Take the shuttle,” one of the guys told me, gesturing to a van that had pulled up outside.

At that moment, Wilderness Man arrived, and I had to sheepishly brief him on the screw-up. I promised I’d be back in a minute with the confirmation number.

Back home, I pulled up my emails and found my car rental confirmation, noting with horror that it was for the following Friday.

I had to then ignominiously return to the car rental agency and admit to all three guys that I had massively screwed up and booked the wrong weekend.

Plan B was to find another rental agency with a spare car. None were to be found anywhere near the GTA, nor along the 401 corridor all the way to Kingston. Then Wilderness Man pointed to Barrie on my old-fashioned paper map. And there actually was a car available in Barrie—it just meant going completely out of our way in the wrong direction.

Wilderness Man and I  lugged all our gear along Front Street to Union Station. I observed that we both had more stuff than either one of us would have taken on a one-year trip around the world.

On the Go bus, it was a two-hour trip north through farm country to the downtown Barrie bus terminal. We had no idea where the car rental office was, and suspected it would not be nearby. Wilderness Man refuses to buy a cell phone because he spends half the year off the grid, and I have a cheapie that does not let me Google anything. So we were stuck in 1999.

I approached an idling cab, mispronouncing the street name where the Barrie car rental place was located. After repeating the street name numerous times, only to be observed with puzzlement by the cabbie, I approached the next one in line and got the same response. The two cabbies conferred and tried to decipher our destination. At last they hit on the right pronunciation. Triumph!

As expected, the rental agency was a $20 cab ride, far away in the distant suburbs in the middle of an ugly strip mall.

“Why would anyone out here need to rent a car?” Wilderness Man mused. “They all have cars and would have to drive here to rent a car. It doesn’t make sense.”

“Never mind, it works in our favour,” I said.

 “People must come here just to rent moving vans,” he wisely concluded.

We hit the road and started driving north and then east. We were at this point about four hours behind schedule.

“Just think,” I said, “If I hadn’t booked the wrong date, we’d be at the cottage by now!”

The journey east went without incident, except in a small town when I pulled out in front of a large pickup truck that came speeding out of nowhere, the driver angrily blowing the horn. For some reason, I found this hilarious, and perversely delighted in driving at exactly 80 kph on the highway, with the pickup driver fuming behind me.

At twilight we pulled off the highway and drove a short distance to a small cottage community. Wilderness Man’s family cottage was right on the lake, and the sun was just starting to sink down below the trees, flooding the lake with pink.

“It’s beautiful!” I exclaimed.

As I unloaded the car, I heard Wilderness Man fumbling with the lock.

“What’s going on?” I joked. “Don’t tell me the key’s not working….?”

“It’s not,” he replied.

We stood there for a second, taking in the immensity of the problem.

“I have no break and enter skills!” I said. Wilderness Man pulled out a bank card and tried to move the dead bolt with it. It didn’t budge. Then we circumnavigated the cottage, attempting to jimmy open every window and standing helplessly in front of them, looking blankly at these insurmountable barriers. There just seemed no way of breaking into the cottage.

“It always looks so easy in the movies,” Wilderness Man commented. We knew we’d have success if we just threw a rock through the door window, but the problem with that idea was that it would result in a smashed-in window…

Wilderness Man suddenly realized there might be a spare key at the second cottage his family owned just up the road. Of course, this entailed trying to figure out how to get into that cottage without a key, but after a lot of searching in the dark, we eventually found one hidden somewhere. And once inside, Wilderness Man phoned his mother, who told him where the spare key was for cottage #1. We were in!

To get home on Sunday night, we were supposed to drive back to Barrie and then take the Go bus to Toronto. This seemed like such a dumb idea that we decided to drive to Toronto and pay the extra fee. As we drove west along the 401, gaggles of Canada Geese flew above us in rag-tag flocks, heading north, which was completely the wrong direction, honking at each other. They weren’t even in proper V formations and they appeared confused and unfocused. I was really happy to see that in nature there are always screw-ups and therefore my own problems with numbers are just part of nature.

It's a gas!

I hate throwing things out when they're broken, and my first impulse is always to fix the object in question. For instance, my fan is fixed with elastic bands, electrical tape and duct tape. It looks like something someone threw out in 1956, but it works! 

With my shower curtain that I'd had for about four years, I'd repaired the rips with Scotch tape and duct tape, but these fixes weren't holding, due to the propensity of the shower curtain to get wet and compromise the stickiness of the tape, which then hung off it in soggy curlicues. Also, after trying half-heartedly to scrub the grime and slime from the bottom of the shower curtain, I finally decided it was time to buy a new one.

I'd heard about "eco-friendly" shower curtains that didn't "off gas" toxic fumes, so I went out to buy one. After all, who wants endocrine-disrupting gases insinuating themselves into the atmosphere of your home? I suspect my endocrines are already suffering from living in downtown Toronto and breathing in fossil-fuelled transportation devices.

I wasn't happy with the price of the "eco-friendly" shower curtain, but I figured I'd sacrifice money for the sake of not succumbing to phthalate-induced illnesses.

When I got home, I laboriously took down the old, ripped shower curtain and, regretfully, threw it down the garbage chute. Hanging up the new one, I noticed it had a very strong smell that I found highly unpleasant. Still, I expected this smell to diminish after a few hours. 

It didn't. In fact, the awful smell permeated my whole apartment. I could have sworn I smelled it when I got off the elevator in the hallway! Drastic measures needed to be taken.

I pulled the shower curtain down off the rail, letting it fall into the tub, which I then filled with hot water and expensive bubble bath. I left the smelly shower curtain in there for a few hours before rehanging it. After it had dried off, though, it still emitted a very strong chemically odour.

I pulled the shower curtain back down and hung it outside on the balcony, hoping that maybe the "fresh" air would kill the fumes. But no, this didn't work.

That was it: I was forced to throw out the shower curtain -- that was two sent to landfill within one week -- and I bought a new benign-smelling one that had no boasts about being better for the environment. So much for my environmental cred…..

My date with an Italian…..

What's a girl to do on a hot July weekend when Formula 1 racing cars are speeding around a track just a 10-minute walk from your place? She gets outta town. This downtowner decided to take off first thing Saturday morning in a rental car and head for the Uplands backpacking trail in Algonquin Park.

The rental was a Fiat, the kind you see in the TV commercials where all the Fiats drive by themselves from Italy, under the Atlantic, and arrive on North American shores pumping Euro-dance music. Cute, eh? I thought so, not realizing that CUTE is not exactly the attribute you want in a car that needs to take you over a long distance without aggravating you over dumb little details.

The Fiat was another Rubiks cube for me. 

The first sign of trouble was the key. I couldn't locate it on the FOB. When I asked the parking lot attendant where the key was, he pushed a button on the FOB and the key shot out of a slot on the side. 

Mumbling aloud about unnecessary gadgetry, I got into the Fiat and was overwhelmed by the stylish leather seats and slickly designed instrument panel made to look like a Lear jet cockpit. 

Problem was, I couldn't figure out how to do anything. 

Adjusting mirrors, tilting the seat back, locating the flashers, finding the sound system controls -- all became an ordeal that I partially gave up on because I really just wanted to hit the road. Leaving the underground parking lot, I had to feed the parking voucher into a machine. This was awkward because I was unable to figure out how to open the window. Normally you open a car window using buttons on the door… but there were none on the Fiat. A few hours later I discovered the window buttons in the middle of the dashboard! 

Once on the road, the engine kept revving up as if it were on manual transmission. Suspecting this Fiat was a manual/automatic cross like I'd unknowingly rented once before, I checked the owner's manual when I got to my apartment to pick up my bags. No mention of this type of transmission.

I clumsily packed the car. How was I supposed to push the seat back so I could fit my backpack into the minuscule back seat? Where were the levers? Who knows?……I stuck my pack in the tiny trunk instead. 

I blasted up the Don Valley Parkway. As my speed increased, the transmission shifted like it was on manual. Every time it shifted, the car jerked, leaving my eyebrows behind. I couldn't believe how noisy the engine was! I could barely hear 102.1's retro grunge, and I had to turn up the volume. Still the engine screamed like it was being tortured in the Roman catacombs. 

There were even gear numbers showing on the Lear jet instrument panel. In order to make the car slightly less noisy and shift from gear 3 to gear 4 I had to zoom up to 140 kph. But how long could I sustain this speed? If felt like I was driving a go kart on a Formula 1 track-- or driving in one of those dreams where you don't really feel in control.

The gears and screaming engine really annoyed me as I drove non-stop to the West Gate of Algonquin Park. You may wonder why I didn't stop and check the car's manual more carefully during the trip; well, I was timing the drive... It took me exactly three and a half hours from Harbourfront to the west gate up highway 35 to avoid weekend cottage country rush hour on highway 400. 

As soon as I jumped out of the car, I was accosted by a young couple who'd also rented a Fiat and wanted to know how to push the seats back. "No idea!" I said.

Over lunch, I pored through the manual. There was something called the Sport button, to be pushed and used on tight curves. I was irrationally paranoid of trying it, though. What if it put the car totally out of control and I crashed into some Canadian Shield pink rock? 

After lunch I got back into the car and shifted into Drive, then pulled onto highway 60. The car hummed quietly, with no more revving or crazy jerking. I suddenly noticed that the gear shift had a "D" with a "+" and a "-" sign beside it, and that I'd driven all the way from Toronto with it in "+" or overdrive.

But putting cares about the car aside, I changed into my hobo-esque hiking boots with destroyed soles and a melted tongue…It was time to get physical with my backpack and walk into the woods for some solo camping.

Drain Drama: Diary of mad hour in my bathroom

7:24 - Realize bathroom sink is clogged. Water stuck in sink and not moving.

7:25 - Pull out sink plug and notice how covered in slime it is. Realize have not cleaned it for years, maybe ever.

7:27 - Get on hands and knees and awkwardly look in cupboard under sink. Pull out thing-a-ma-jigger that works the sink plug.

7:29 - Attempt to stand up, and bang head. Swear loudly. Notice water still trapped in sink.

7:30 - Remove all crap from inside cupboard. Notice things I didn't know I still owned and for which I've needlessly bought duplicates…(i.e. nail polish remover)

7:37 - Back down on hands and knees. Unscrew some other thingy. Water begins pouring into cupboard. Desperately screw thing back in. 

7:41 - Dump vinegar and baking soda into sink. Watch interesting sizzling. But no movement on water.

7:43 - Dump eco-friendly toilet cleaner into sink. Watch it float around uselessly. Swear some more.

7:45 - Bring out chemical warfare - DRANO - and dump crystals in sink. Go watch Big Bang Theory for a few minutes. 

8:00 - Back to sink. Ugly blue pond of water trapped in sink. No movement.

8:01 - Contort body into unnatural shape again and go back inside cupboard to uplug thingy. 

8:03 - Ugly blue water pours into cupboard and onto arms. Scream like banshee and run to kitchen sink to wash skin.

8:08 - Sulk over chemical burns and hives forming on skin. Rewash with extra soap.

8:11 - Take wire coat hanger and straighten it. Put down into drain and wiggle around. All sorts of hard scum comes back up. 

8:14 - Turn on water. Ugly blue water pours into empty cupboard. 

8:15 - Clean up mess under cupboard. Get bucket and put it under drain. Remove thingy. Water pours into bucket. Genius!

8:22 - Try putting chain down drain. Suddenly lose grip and chain falls down drain! Swear like sailor. Stomp around in circles scaring cat.

8:27 - Using a plier, fashion a small hook on the end of the straightened hanger. Stick down drain and carefully "fish" for chain. Swear and feel like crying and laughing at once.

8:31 - Eventually get hold of chain and bring back up out of drain. Very slimy. 

8:35 - Call male friends asking for help. None available until Sat. Unacceptable!

8:45 - However, hear back from Frank, who offers to bring over "snake" tomorrow. Plumbing appointment set for 12:30 EST.

Epilogue: It took three tries, but Frank's snake finally busted through the giant clog, and water could flow again. If you've never seen what soap and hairs do when they bond together in a drain for years on end, I can tell you it ain't pretty….

Lock up your fruit trees

The urban foraging season is here! I was thrilled to find a big rhubarb plant growing in a yard beside a U of T building this week. Assuming no one was ever going to pick it and it would just go to waste, I stealthily snuck into the yard, and cut a bunch of rhubarb stalks, took them home, and stewed them for dessert. Recipe: Simmer the stalks in a bit of water until they're soft, add sugar, and voila…. sweet/sour deliciousness.

Every spring I'm on a quest for abandoned rhubarb. One year I found a nice big plant growing on Sudbury Street. I pulled out my knife and was about to hack off some stalks when I looked up and realized I was right out in front of Dufflet desserts; very likely it was their rhubarb they were planning to bake into some delectable dessert. As it was 2:00 in the afternoon, I jumped on my bike and got out of there fast before someone inside noticed the rhubarb robber...

In fact, nothing is safe from my predation. If your fruit-bearing tree or bush has branches shooting over your fence onto the public space of a sidewalk, look out -- my highly sensitive fruit-raiding radar will hone in on your fruit and pick and eat it. Plus, I have several secret locations where I usually pick berries.

I was discomfited to see the new configuration of the park at Clarence Square. A section of it has been cordoned off and made into a leash-free dog-run area. This is great for the dogs, but not so great for me, since there's an apple tree now inside the dog area. I used to pick apples from it in the fall by hitting them with a stick so they fell onto the ground… Now? The ground is not looking too sanitary.. So goodbye, Clarence Square apple pies.

If I trusted Lake Ontario, I'd be out fishing at Harbourfront every morning to catch dinner. But how healthy is that environment for fish? According to the Ministry of Natural Resources, mercury, PCB, and dioxin levels have dropped drastically in Lake Ontario fish…. But -- I just can't do it. It's like when I went swimming at Cherry Beach a couple of years ago -- the water was officially clean enough to swim in -- but it just felt wrong, and I did not linger. (Plus, there were tall weeds threatening to wrap themselves around my legs and drown me like in a horror movie.)

I've been goaded further in my foraging frenzy by taking an edible and medicinal foods workshop. Suddenly, after going on a guided walk through a Rosedale ravine and sampling a profusion of edible plants, I'm looking funny at every plant I see growing anywhere in the city. No plant is safe from my herbivorous gaze.

Garlic mustard is everywhere (it's an invasive species, and we can help eradicate it by eating it), and my big love now is gout weed. It's so delicious! I can pick handfuls of it for on-the-spot salad eating. Stinging nettle and burdock are everywhere too. Most exotic are the Japanese knotweed plants, which look like bamboo from another planet. These are also an invasive species and should be devoured. The only proviso is that you need to eat them right away; otherwise the stalks get soggy and lose their flavour.

With all these plants and berries growing all over the city, I may not need to feel so bad about being unable to afford organic farmer's market prices!

Log of the Lost and Broken

I'd been injury-free for a couple of years--a record for me--until a couple of weeks ago when I injured myself two days in a row.

The task was simple: move a shelving unit four feet away from a heating vent so workmen could come in and change the filter. A normal woman would have ascertained that the easiest way to do this would be to remove all the heavy electronics components, DVDs, and books from the unit to make it lighter.

I, however, decided to shove the shelving unit by brute force away from the wall. Leaning down, I grasped the corner and pushed hard. At that moment, I distinctly felt something go "pop!" in the side of my back. And then I felt a sharp pain.

The next night, while walking along Bloor St., I tripped on a clear plastic string that was sticking up from the sidewalk, and fell down hard on the beautiful granite pavement--right knee first, and then my entire right arm took the force of the fall.

The knee pain and back pain went away within days; my arm is slowly getting better, and I was even able to do all the usual shoulder and chest exercises at the gym recently. This is important, as I need to be in top shape for the summer's gonzo canoe trip in the remote Boreal forest.

Though injury-free, the first few months of 2013 have been replete with incidents of breakage and loss. And not being prone to magical thinking, I cannot blame it on the Mayan apocalypse.

The inventory goes something like this:

Lost

• 1 gold earring: Very annoying because to replace it; I have to buy two new earrings, not just one.
• 1 makeup bag: Extremely annoying, since it contained a brand-new expensive lipstick, which I then had to go out and re-buy.
• 2 mittens: One was inside the other (my hands get cold!), which means I lost two from two sets, a double whammy.
• 2 grapefruit spoons! Love those serrated edges.

Broken

• Cellphone screen: Dropped the phone, creating a jaggedy crack that's getting bigger.
• Stapler: I was kind of glad, since it was old and ugly anyway. 
• Silver chain: You'd think since it's real silver it would be sturdier, but no.
• Knapsack zipper: The rest of the bag was fine--but I had to throw it out -- how wasteful!
• Watch: Such a drag that my Swatch just stopped ticking. So much for the Swiss.
• Computer: Yes, I'm still using the old iMac, and it's turquoise. It keeps crashing and making ominous electro-shock noises
• Boot heel: It's come off, and shoe repairers refuse to try to put it back on! Now what?
• Wallet: The zipper broke right off, and the button to close it stopped working, so I threw it out (more waste!) and began using the Fossil wallet I received at a Dean Brody CD release party.
• Mirror: I bought it cheap at Canadian Tire, and the bottom part of the frame has come off, meaning the glass has slipped down, to  reveal the ugly cardboard underneath.
• Hem of living room curtain - ripped! Thanks, kitty...

Lost but found again

• Wallet: I left it at the cash register at Loblaws Queen W., and when I rushed back there in a panic, the cashier had turned it in to customer service. There really are good people in the world.

Confiscated by airport security

• Swiss Army knife: It was a good one too, with all the attachments a girl needs to open bottles and cans in the wilderness.

Easter on the escarpment

It was a perfect day for hawk watching. Beamsville conservation area is known to be a magnet for those superbirds of prey, particularly the special birdwatching platform constructed for avid birders. For a reason I couldn't fathom, the hawks were supposed to do regular fly-bys past the platform, thrilling birders with their aerial acrobatics.

But T. and I were disappointed. No hawks flew over our heads -- just a lot of turkey vultures, drifting high above us over the Niagara escarpment.

We decided to hike down into the river valley and eat our lunch. Mine was a peanut butter sandwich, and I was perturbed to see that half the peanut butter had oozed out through the cracks of the sandwich box and spread all over the interior of my knapsack. Everything--wallet, makeup bag, pens, maps--was coated in a layer of oily peanut butter. T., for her part, had actually forgotten to bring her lunch, which was languishing uneaten back in the truck.

Above us, the vultures circled, getting closer and closer, scoping us out for pillaging purposes.

"They're not getting any of my food," I said, attempting to hide my sandwich from all those eyes in the sky.

By the end of the day, the conservation people had posted hawk sighting numbers on their website. A great number of hawks had been sighted after our departure, along with approximately 740 turkey vultures.

"They must be the same vultures coming back and flying over the same area." I told T. cynically, finding it hard to believe the sky had been darkened with so many vultures, like some kind of biblical plague.

T. and I congratulated ourselves on resisting the temptation to stop at the numerous wineries along the escarpment. Many of them were offering free samples, which would have been a disaster for our livers. Not to mention the possibility of passing out hammered in a field somewhere, and waking up with 740 vultures circling above us.

The strawberry ice cream test

I have no will power. I am weak and out of control. I need to keep temptation out of my sight and out of my home; otherwise, I completely let myself go....Over the last month I've gained 5 pounds. It started with the opera fundraiser when I baked a batch of chocolate chip cookies and ate 6 of them before they could make it out the door. Next it was the strawberry Hagen Daz ice cream that was on sale for half price--how could I resist? I thought I'd keep it in my freezer as a sort of test to see exactly how long I could go without eating it. The results were dismal:

Night 1 - Slowly eat 2 tablespoons of ice cream. Savour it as it melts deliciously in my mouth. Resolutely put the remaining ice cream back in freezer. Feel smug about self control.

Night 2 - Take 2 more tablespoons of ice cream. So yummy! Put container back in freezer. Think about how a couple more spoonfuls wouldn't hurt. Get out ice cream. Look at calorie and fat listings on container. Put ice cream back. Think about it some more. Pull ice cream out of freezer. Eat 2 tablespoons. Eat 2 more. Suddenly a mindless madness overcomes me and I can't stop.  Eat the whole tub of ice cream, and feel fat.

My food intake is way up, but otherwise my life remains the same. Except that I now have a new kettle. The switch on the old one broke a few months ago, but I rigged it to work by sticking a dull but pointy knife in the hole where the switch had been, twisting the blade, and holding it in position by wedging the handle against a heavy mug to keep the kettle "on." I got overly ambitious, though, and decided to clean out the broken switch pieces, with negative results. The kettle was irredeemably broken.

Two things: Why do all kettles have to have switches on them? And why does no one fix small appliances anymore, meaning you  have to send perfectly good kettles to the garbage when a simple fix would make them functional again?

My Dad, who has no time for old junk and always knows where to find bargains, took me to buy a new kettle. I insisted we go to Canadian Tire, even though he pointed out that kettles would be cheaper at Wal-Mart. I said I'd rather support a Canadian company than an evil American imperialist mega-corporation. All the kettles at Canadian Tire were expensive, though. We then tried Zeller's next door--still no steel kettles that I liked (I'm avoiding further poisoning myself with plastic kettles), and finally walked into Wal-Mart and found what I wanted, at a reasonable price. Obviously I have no true convictions.

This Christmas weekend has been weird as well. On Saturday I was dusting the den for the first time in 2 months when I dropped my Balinese wooden monster head and broke its nose. I pulled out the glue bottle to fix the nose, and discovered that the nozzle of the bottle was impenetrable with hardened glue. Grabbing that same pointed knife, I tried to pierce the hardened glue, but the knife slipped and I stabbed my finger! Blood spurted, and I had to employ first aid skills to stop the bleeding. Question: Why are bottles of glue made to clog up?


On Saturday night the only TV station I could tune in was playing The Sound of Music, which was my favourite movie of all time when I was a kid. This was actually the first time I'd watched it as an adult, and I didn't like it at all! I found Julie Andrews really irritating, the music trite and fluffy, and the acting contrived and dorky. The musical numbers made me cringe. Wow, how I've changed....This was an interesting revelation about how different our adult selves can become from our child selves. I suspect that some people never really make the transition. Are they better off for that? I prefer sophisticated cynicism myself.....

Everyday entropy

As the weather gets colder and more wintery, I have more problems with the relationship of my body to objects in the time/space continuum, especially if there's a full moon. A few days ago when the full moon was shooting beams down onto Earth, I had a particularly ridiculous day.

It started with dropping a glass saucer first thing in the morning. There I was pre-caffeine, faced with a rambunctious cat and shards of glass scattered all over the floor. I had no choice but to get out the vacuum cleaner and suck up the glass, followed by sweeping to make sure there were no shards left.

The vacuum cleaner is a story in itself. Its long handle broke off years ago. I tried duct-taping it back on, but this flimsy repair couldn't withstand the force of the vacuuming motions. So when I vacuum I have to either do it on my knees or stoop over. Now, with broken glass on the floor, I couldn't kneel, so I had to bend over and vacuum.

As I stood up, I whacked my head hard on the cupboard, then dropped the dustpan full of glass. This meant I had to start all over again with the vacuuming and sweeping--before my cup of tea, remember...

The day went surprisingly smoothly after that, except during another job interview when I noticed dried blood stains on one of my portfolio pieces--no mystery, though--I'm constantly cutting my fingers. As well, I hadn't noticed until leaving the interview that moths had eaten an apple-sized chunk out of my colourful pink scarf.

I was a bit nervous going to opera rehearsal that night, as we were getting the choreography for a song and dance number I'm in, and I'm hopelessly inept at learning dance routines. It takes me 10 times longer than the average person to get them. I decided to make a hearty dinner of nachos before I went out to face my dance Gotterdamerung. Only thing is, I forgot to include cheese. This did not bode well.

Naturally, while getting direction on the dance number, I was unable to remember the lyrics and count kicks at the same time. My brain just short circuited. I'm surprised no one saw the smoke coming out of  my ears...Also, I kept kicking on the wrong side, so I ended up kicking the other girls. I wouldn't blame them if they started wearing protective padding to rehearsals to prevent injury from my wayward kicks.

After that expenditure of energy, I sat in the audience watching my colleagues rehearse. I fiddled with my earring and heard it drop onto the filthy auditorium floor. It's big and gold, so you'd think it wouldn't be hard to spot. But I spent 20 minutes crawling around on the floor among the dustballs looking for it. I  had given up when, during the break as I was talking to a guy who claimed not to have noticed me crawling around  on the floor behind him and freaking out, I spotted the earring right by my foot! This saved the whole entropic day, and gave me hope that not all things in my life will be broken and permanently lost.

What not to eat at a job interview

I'm not in a bargaining position when it comes to work. So I didn't feel able to say no to a job interview that started at 12:00 noon. I didn't bother haggling over scheduling and making it sound like eating is my biggest priority in life (it kind of is).  I speculated as to whether the interviewers would provide sandwiches, but I didn't want to ask in case it sounded too greedy and grasping. Since the interview consisted of a 2-hour writing test followed by a 1-hour interview, I knew there was no way I'd make it to 3:00 without fainting. So I made myself a honey and butter sandwich and stashed it in my purse. Yes, a purse. I do own some, which I carry instead of my usual knapsack when I want to look less like someone coming fresh from the Occupy Toronto site.

I put on just a touch of makeup--lipstick and mascara. Problem is, because of cash-flow issues, I can't afford to replace my monthly contact lenses. I'm therefore wearing leftover and mismatched contacts from my old prescription, which don't allow me to see close up very well. I guessed that the mascara looked OK, jamming my face against the bathroom mirror to have a look, but all I could see was a blurred, deranged-looking face.

At the interview venue, I made myself at home in the boardroom,  sitting down at a fancy-looking, big rosewood board table.

At one point I started to cough due to either dust or cleaning chemicals in the room. This devolved quickly into full-blown hacking. I coughed so hard my eyes watered. I worried about people hearing me coughing, because it sounded like I had TB or pneumonia and needed oxygen. With a cough candy in my mouth, I checked my makeup mirror to see if the mascara had run. Again, all I could see was a blurry blob.

By 1:00 I was starting to feel hungry and stupid....I took out my honey sandwich. Crumbs and honey kept dropping onto the rosewood table. A couple of people went by and looked through the window just as I was licking honey off my fingers. I tried to sweep up the crumbs, and they fell onto the carpet. They were quite visible, so I kicked them under the table. I wet my paper towel and wiped the honey off the boardroom table. Then I chewed gum and reapplied lipstick. At 2:00 the interview team came in and grilled me--thankfully, I did not embarrass myself.

Walking home, I looked down and saw that my recently polished boots were marked up with ugly salt stains....And then at home I took out my contacts and verified that the mascara was in fact smeared all over my eyes, making me look like a raccoon or someone with a drinking problem. For today's job interview I am not wearing mascara, and not bringing anything with honey in it. This way I hope to look more professional and less vagabond and demented,,,,

Tips for carefree IKEA construction

1. Don't tell any friends in the Green party you are buying IKEA products. They'll say IKEA is the "McDonald's of furniture" and that as well as contributing particleboard to landfill, it takes jobs away from local carpenters. You'll then have to contend with feelings of enviro-guilt on top of your construction frustrations. (Note to F. -- I have never put any IKEA furniture in the garbage!)

2. Even if numbers aren't your thing because you're totally artsy, measure the space you want to put the new item into. Chances are, the piece that looked small in the photo of the trendy Stockholm loft will be giant in your highrise apartment.

3. Don't try to make sense out of the extra holes and grooves on the pieces of wood you're using to build your item. It's like junk DNA--not there for any particular reason, just kind of left over from other projects or evolutionary stages.

4. Don't expect the diagrams to be all that obvious. IKEA saves money on translation, copywriting (thanks, eh?)  and paper by not putting any copy in the instruction manual. The diagrams are supposed to be multilingual and easy to understand. Many details are missing, however--like the part that should identify the front vs. back of your chest of drawers so you don't nail the back board to the front and end up with ugly nail holes all over the front. (Grrr.)

5. You'll need tools as well, like a toolbox with screwdrivers and a hammer. You'll really be doing these macho tasks such as hammering, screwing in screws, and of course, taking out all the nails and screws you put into the wrong places because you didn't get enough information from the diagrams.

6. If you want to break up with your spouse, building IKEA furniture together is a perfect precipitating event. Men like to ignore the manual and just go with the flow. Women prefer to study those diagrams. Arguments erupt. Relationships end. Do it alone unless there's an agreement to role assignment of boss and minion.

7, Women, don't allow yourself to get too worked up over the fact that the diagrams often only have men in them (unless they're really frumpy-looking women?). At least the IKEA catalogues show men standing over stoves in those stylish kitchens.

8. As for the instructions to attach the piece of furniture to the wall to ensure it won't topple over in the middle of the night, save your energy and ignore them.... It's more fun to live on the edge.

A day of dysfunctions

The day began ignominiously at 4 a.m. when my cat woke me up by running around in circles on top of the bed and leaping over my head. Although I kept yelling at her to stop, she kept on circling. This was despite my clear memory of putting food in her dish before going to bed to stifle the kitty-alarm-clock. During a lull in her campaign to get me up, I started to fall sleep, only to be jolted awake by a sudden, loud "MEOW!" right in my ear, and the sight of an irate furry face one inch from my eyes.  I jumped out of bed and found the cat's food dish empty!

It took me forever to get back to sleep. Around 7 a.m. I was jolted awake again, by a crash from the living room. I rushed out to see that the tower of videotapes with my TV black-switching-box on top had collapsed, leaving the box dangling by its wires--and my ability to catch the digital signal compromised.

I was fuzzy-headed all day, and consequently even more clumsy than usual. At one point as I was dusting a bookcase, I knocked over a pile of books, which fell on a glass of water, knocking it over and flooding the digital box remote control. 

Then, with fall here and the heat turned on, I needed to hook up my humidifier to give my place its wintertime rainforest atmosphere. I decided to take the humidifier apart to clean it, and was shocked to see inside a huge amount of what looked like fine, grey sand. I dumped this into the garbage, and then noticed that the sand had corroded all  the inner mechanisms--rendering the humidifier useless.

Since I'm determined to find work these days, I apply for many different positions. Some companies have online application forms that "extract" information from your resume and randomly dump it into various fields. This always screws up the information. I've wasted a lot of time reformatting the details of my resume, when really, isn't it easier for HR people to simply print off a resume and read it? This seems like a case of bad use of technology. Just because you can create an online application for jobs doesn't mean you should; it's far less efficient than receiving resumes by email. Time is precious, and I resent redundant user experiences that crunch my time. 

The weather that night was horrendous, and I wimped out of walking up to Bloor. This meant enduring the Bathurst streetcar. I got a seat, but then had some guy and his big belly right in my face. Why is it that certain men stand really close to seated women on streetcars so that their crotches are right in our faces? To make things worse, the guy was reading a paperback, which was positioned about two inches from my forehead. It took every ounce of control for me to not activate some of the skills I learned last weekend at my women's self-defense course!

The brutality of sewing

My grandmother was a self-styled elegant lady who made clothes for family members and their Barbie dolls, raided yards for dandelions to turn into wine, and designed tricky additions to the house--to be executed by her handyman son-in-law, my father. She always kept her temper except when these projects became super-aggravating: once during a particularly annoying wall papering exercise--the paper kept getting gummed up and ripping--and once when she was sewing. "Damn," she said in paroxysms of frustration. I was shocked, and knew there must be something terrible about sewing to drive her to say this forbidden word.

In spite of this early lesson in what activities to avoid, I somehow seem to have taken up sewing as well. It must be a genetic predilection for masochism.  Plus. I'm a cheapskate, so why should I pay someone else to do my sewing?

This morning I decided to fix the wasitband on a skirt that's been the victim of my procrastination, sitting in the closet for something like three years.

First I had to pin the waistband onto the skirt, suffering numerous puncture wounds. Then the sewing machine needed to be threaded. But I couldn't remember how, and had to launch a major search for the  manual.  Naturally, it was not in the file marked "instruction manuals" and not actually with the sewing machine.

Having located this obscure piece of literature in a bag of miscellaneous weird stuff, I then had to follow the instructions, which were written for people with IQs way higher than mine, and illustrated with complicated diagrams that I was told to follow.

The instruction "Increase the tension" seemed apt, as that's exactly what was happening. I was getting more stressed out every second. The bobbin thread got all tangled up. The bobbin itself went flying off the machine, freaking out the cat, who began hissing at the empty sewing machine cover. I couldn't see the hole in the needle to put the thread through, even with all the lights in the place blazing brillantly.

At last the machine was ready, and I carefully sewed on the waistband, narrowing avoiding sewing my fingers. I vowed to never again attempt such a brutal feat. But now I'm thinking it wasn't really so bad....maybe I could even design a line of funky hats and bags and sell them online.....

Technology ticks me off

I used to be an early adopter of technology (I bought one of the very first iMacs!) but lately I've begun to feel completely out of fashion. My only consolation is that if I hang onto my old technology long enough, it will become retro-chic and make me feel trendy again. Sort of like the people you see on the street wearing out-of-date clothing and hairstyles--you can't tell if they're leading-edge and ironic or just so out of it they don't realize the fashion train has left the station.


Built-in obsolescence really bugs me. I have a completely functioning iMac--with a turquoise monitor and hockey-puck mouse--that's now incompatible with all updated software and Internet browsers. Plus, it rejects my new iPod. Almost everything launched after 2003 makes my computer crash. I can't even download video from my video camera to my iMac. But that's another story, with a lesson for anyone considering making a major technology purchase after going out for drinks: don't do it!

As for my TV, until a month ago I had three sets of bunny-ear antennae set up to tune in about six TV channels. Then all the TV stations went digital, forcing me to spend $67 on a special box to convert digital signals to analog for my old TV. Sometimes the box works, and sometimes it doesn't. When the signal isn't strong enough, the broken mosaic images on my screen make everyone look like monsters in a horror movie, with disintegrating flesh and unidentifiable things crawling on them.

Not owning a mobile phone has become one of my personality quirks that I'm proud of. However, as a freelancer, I now realize I need to be accessible to clients. So last month I went to Wind Mobile for their special smartphone deal, and was ignored by the sales people. I walked out. Down the street at Public Mobile, no one was even in the store. Should I just give up?

A friend of mine may have the right idea. He's simply dropped out of the computer age. This week I got a typewritten note from him in the mail! I'm not sure where he's going to find replacement ribbons for his typewriter, but there must be some somewhere mouldering in someone's basement.

What's a girl with too much time on her hands supposed to do?

I read one of those bogus "studies" once that said people who complain and vent regularly are actually psychologically healthier than those who go around purposely thinking happy thoughts all the time. To keep myself sane, I will share my daily fresh hells as an underutilized creative writer living alone with a cat in a pricey downtown condo I can't really afford (but yeah, it kinda elevates my white-trash image).

It's a gloriously sunny fall day today and what could be better than going for a walk in the park beside the lake? Thing is, City employees like to drive around in their pickup trucks on the bike paths. This seems really hillbilly to me. It's not very relaxing to feel a truck creeping up behind you. inching along waiting for you to jump into the wet, muddy grass so it can pass. Why can't those guys drive on the roads?

Also, what is it with the diesel-powered weed whackers? First, why be weedist and discriminate against these plants? Second, burning fossil fuel to kill plants is insane. And third, they're loud enough to drown out the jets at the airport.

Before leaving, the fire inspection team arrived to check that my smoke detector was working (since I set it off every time I forget I've put something in the oven, I can vouch that it's OK). I was amazed to see the high-tech equipment the technician was using: a blow dryer tied to a broomstick!

I have to say my mood was not particularly improved by seeing today's Globe & Mail insert: a full-colour magazine showcasing the accomplishments of various high-powered Toronto women. I hope to soon start giving my "Why Bother?" demotivational coaching workshops so I can make it into the next issue. The first workshop's theme will be "The Seven Hangups of Highly Ineffective People" featuring my favourite: procrastination. Which reminds me, I need to go look at the bathtub and think about maybe scrubbing it some time this week.....