Yukon Chatter Bug

I like Weight Watchers. Of all the plans, diets, and fads I’ve tried, Weight Watchers seems the most sensible, healthy plan that I’ve come across. There’s no gimmick where you have to buy their food or avoid a whole food group or anything crazy like that. In essence, you control portions and account for everything that your teeth bite into, be it a healthy salad or that small piece of frosted cake you’ve been craving.

Although I’ve been to their weekly meetings and successfully lost some of the weight, of course with summer and change in routines, I’ve been off plan for a while. I haven’t really gained much back, but I’ve decided to try the online tools without the meetings. These give you access to a number of recipes, and you can keep track of what you eat on a daily basis.

There is a catch, however, that really irks me.

You have a choice between a monthly plan at $17.95 per month or you can pay on a three-month basis at $39.95. Paying every three months saves $13.90. So far so good, but…

here’s the catch:

For your convenience, your subscription will be automatically renewed at the end of your payment plan at the standard monthly rate (currently C $17.95 per month) until you notify us.

Get it?

How is this for MY convenience, I ask, when I manually have to change my plan after each billing (every three months) in order to keep the same 3-month plan? Thank goodness for reminders on my Google calendar.

In last week’s Whitehorse Star, there was a short article advising campers that “Environment Yukon has banned tents at the Million Dollar Falls campground.” Why? An incident involving a bear tearing open a tent.

Being a tenter myself, my biggest pet peeve when using campgrounds is the lack of bear-awareness that people camping seem to have. I find this especially true with people in hard-top campers, trailers, and RVs. With only a thin piece nylon material separating me from bear claws in my two-man tent, I feel somewhat vulnerable,  like  a piece of fresh meat neatly packaged up in nylon instead of plastic wrap, ready for a bear to dig its teeth in.

For example, on an early morning walk around Liard Hotsprings campground last summer, there were garbage bags (with garbage, of course) hanging on the side of some campers nearby and a couple of picnic tables not cleaned up from the previous night’s meal. Incidentally, one of the hotspring pools at Liard is closed every August partly because of increased bear activity.  There was even a fatal mauling by a black bear several years back. I can’t help but to wonder if the increased bear activity is linked to a general decrease in bear-awareness at local parks.

Liard Hotsprings

Not only does this lack of proper garbage and food storage/disposal put humans at risk, but these scavenger bears end up having to be destroyed.

Regardless of your mode of camping, please keep your campsite clean. The bears and I thank you!

An unintended shower assaulted vendors and visitors at the Fireweed Community Market yesterday. While waiting for my fantastic falafel at Faladi Foods, a combination of water sprays, screeches, and chaos erupted. The sprinklers in Shipyard Park suddenly turned on and sprayed almost everything in sight: tents, people, and wares. There was even a sprinkler INSIDE one of the tents. What’s worse, these aren’t the little backyard sprinklers you buy at Canadian Tire; ever try standing two-feet away from the spout of one of these jets of water? What a mess!

All things considered, I was impressed by how those affected took it in good stride, and a clever person even put an upside-down plastic cooler over one of the sprinklers to mitigate the damage.  These vendors have obviously been toughened by the regular Thursday tent-raising winds and showers of the past few years.

A post by Grannymar, an Irish blogger I read (because I like all things Irish), reminded me of my own scattered collection of recipes. Like her mother had, I have a clash of newspaper cut-outs, bits of pad paper with chicken-scratched recipes, and many others bearing other people’s handwriting: Mom, Teresa, Mme. Hamel, Mrs. Schulte, and so on. These signed recipes are like time-marks of my life, and each time I prepare them they remind me of the people who gave them to me, including yesterday’s feta, mint, black pepper and olive oil drizzled watermelon Mrs. Schulte showed me years ago.

Off I pranced to the post office to pick up a Christmas parcel a few years ago, and madly I tore open the box. I spotted a container of rolled oats, a packet of brown sugar, and Grandma’s carefully handwritten recipe for making oatmeal or soupane as we called it in French.  Tears flooded my cheeks as she obviously knew this was a sweet spot for me. This was, by far, one  of the most thoughtful gifts I have ever received at Christmas.

Firmly anchored in my head are childhood memories of Grandma making porridge on her woodstove. Whether it was for this reason or only because it was a treat from Grandma, that porridge was extra tasty. Of course the dark brown sugar and splash of whole milk helped.

The only problem now was finding an old woodstove to prepare it the way she did.

Similar to what my Grandma had, except the colour

An opportunity recently came up where I can purchase a used MacBook (15.4″/2.4 GHz/160 GB disk/2 GB RAM/OSX 10.6) for $600.

I know it’s in good shape, but for half the price I can buy a new netbook, or for the same price I can get a brand new Dell (15.6″/2.2 GHz/320 GB disk/4GB RAM/Win7-64bit).

I do use a Mac at work and like the feel of it.

Whaddaya think?

Sans entrer dans les détails, ces temps-ci je me trouve dans un bas. Et quand je me sens comme ça, je dois trouver un moyen de me nourrir, c’est-à-dire, de nourrir mon âme.

Ce soir j’ai assisté à un spectacle donné par Sylvie Painchaud, et oui, mon âme n’a pas manqué de bonnes choses. Sylvie a chanté plusieurs chansons tout en jouant du piano. Mais ce n’était pas juste des chansons, c’était un narratif – une histoire – dont on peut tous faire le lien: l’amour, la mort, les enfants, les parents, la musique, et les amis. Bref, la vie.

La passion dans sa voix ainsi que l’énergie qui émanait de son corps m’a fait pleurer, rire, penser, chanter. Je trouve difficile exprimer cette expérience avec de simples mots. (En plus, je me rend compte que ça fait quand même longtemps que je n’ai pas écrit en français, ce qui rend la tâche doublement difficile).

La chanson qui m’a le plus touché était inspirée, comme toutes les autres, d’une expérience dont Sylvie a témoigné. Un jour, en allant chercher ses enfants à la garderie qui se situait près d’une rivière, elle aperçu des policiers dans la rue devant celle-ci. Évidemment, elle a perdu le souffle, mais heureusement, ses enfants étaient en train de s’amuser au sous-sol. Ils étaient sains et saufs.

Le voisin, par contre, après avoir perdu trop d’argent dans une machine casino-vidéo chez un bar pas loin, a décidé de mettre fin à ses jours dans son garage. Sylvie connaissait ce cher monsieur, qui, apparemment, avait une femme et des enfants.

Les paroles de la chanson étaient de la perspective de l’épouse, un an après cette tragédie.

Pour la première fois de ma vie, j’ai pu voir ma chère grand-mère sous un angle très différent. On a tendance à oublier que nos grands-parents ont été jeunes, comme nous, et ont aimé, versé des larmes, et vécu, comme nous. Mais tout en écoutant cette chanson triste, je ne pouvais m’empêcher de penser à ma grand-mère qui a vécu la mort de mon grand-père dans des circonstances semblables. Non, il n’avait pas perdu d’argent; il souffrait énormément d’une mauvaise santé: l’emphysème résultant du travail dans les mines, ainsi que des problèmes de cœur. Il reste que pour la première fois, je la voyait là, une jeune femme, qui perdit son amant pour la deuxième fois dans sa courte vie, le premier étant décédé avec deux enfants la couche aux fesses. Elle avait plus de vécu à l’âge de trente ans que j’en ai présentement à quarante.

Ses chansons n’étaient pas toutes tristes, mais elles touchaient toutes le plus profond de l’âme.

Donc merci, Sylvie, d’avoir nourrit mon âme en cette période difficile pour moi.

J’ai bien hâte à ton prochain spectacle.

(Désolée pour mes fautes d’orthographes.)

When Urban Cake opened shop on Second Ave., there was a wee contest on the website where you could win a cake if you sent feedback. Can you guess who won?

On a day like today, which is much better described by What He Said, this mouth-watering cake soothes and comforts me. You’d never know it was gluten-free (I said gluten-free, not guilt-free).

One of my most memorable days touring St. John’s was visiting an area just below Signal Hill called The Battery: ambling along its winding roads; climbing the steep slopes; and photographing its antique character. This mural, one of many around St. John’s and painted on the concrete sides of a walkway,  greets us as we turn on to Outer Battery Rd. These murals throughout the city are painted by Derek Holmes and April Norman.

Here’s the other end of the above mural from Google Streetview:

View Larger Map

As the street is getting narrower, tucked away in a corner is this yellow eccentric structure with signs and odds and ends nailed to it:

Everything was painted bright yellow.

To give you an idea of just how narrow the streets are in The Battery:

Between some of the crammed houses, you can see the harbour along with some very antique-looking wharves…perfect Jim Robb fodder:

Behind all the rickety structures and ramshackle buildings are signs of life:

And here is just more of the same. Notice the curved roof:

Before the long-weekend, everyone asks you if you’ll be doing anything special. I was so looking forward to not being on a schedule. So being the spontaneous person that I am, I decided to take an afternoon trip to Skagway, Alaska. I now realize it’s been more than a year since my last jaunt south.

As usual, the quirky Arctic Brotherhood building with driftwood siding greeted me like an old friend:

Arctic Brotherhood Building, Skagway, AK

Established in 1899, I wonder about the history of the shovel handle I noticed between the entrance and the windows.

Arctic Brotherhood 1899

AB - Shovel Handle

There are many nooks and crannies that provide interesting photo ops, like this old axle:

Old Axle

Yet another old faithful call-him-what-you-will:

Soapy Smith's Parlour

And what would be a visit to Skagway without checking out the old rotary snowplow used by the White Pass & Yukon Route (W.P. & Y.R.)?

W.P. & Y.R. Rotary Snowplow

A train going through after the deed is done in 1899:

Snow Trench dug in 1899 by W.P. & Y.R. Rotary Snowplow...now another train can get through - photographer H.C. Barley, courtesy of Yukon Archives

Rotary Snowplow Blades

It may be a coincidence, but just about every time I leave the Yukon, it greets my return with some smiling blue skies:

South of Carcross

As a teacher, I spend April Fools’ Day getting pokes and slaps on the back hard enough to send me into a fit, and I’m not supposed to notice. As I go about my business handing out paper and pencils for our weekly dictation, I hear little whispers, ignore muffled laughs, and notice conspiring eyes throughout the room. In keeping with the French tradition of poisson d’avril, students write notes on fish-shaped paper cut-outs and surreptitiously stick them on the backs of others, so I’m beginning to look like a human fish tree. One note read, “Made in China”.

After dictation, I hand  out a second piece of paper and tell the kids to read all the questions before starting. These are francophone students in an English class, so I tell them that these are very simple instructions designed to evaluate their ability to understand simple English directions, and even if it’s super easy, they should still complete the test.  You know where this is going, I know, but I couldn’t help myself.

It was the old classic:

#1: Read all the questions before beginning the test.

#2-6: Random instructions about drawing shapes in certain corners, underlining this or that. You know the kind.

#7: Now that you have finished reading the test, only do question #1.

In one of my high school classes, we just finished reading A Midsummer Night’s Dream, so I drew up a list of questions for an open-book pop quiz. No one caught on that I never, I repeat, never give pop quizzes, and I told them so at the beginning of the year.

Again, the first instruction was to read the whole test before beginning to write. The last question was, “Copy any verse from Act V, Scene 1, and do not complete any other question. Rather, work on your assignment that is due for next week.”

At first I wondered how long I should let this go considering we’re using precious in-class time. Then I thought to myself that the questions were good review of what we had learned, so it wasn’t a loss.

Every single student was busy answering review questions from the play.

And this was after I told them twice to read all the questions first, AND after I read the test instructions out loud to them, AND after I listed reasons why they should read it first (jogs your memory so that when you get to the question again, your brain has already been activated…easier to answer…blah blah blah). On second thought, maybe it was the monotonous blah-blah-blah that made them tune me out.

I’m not sure I’m anxious for next year’s poisson d’avril. I have the feeling I’ll get smoked. Yikes!