Ripping up the Rockies

Throughout most of August, I was on vacation. Much of that time, we were camping in places where there was no connectivity to the Internet. Yes, places like that do still exist. When we did stay in cities and towns, we were so busy visiting dear friends and family that we had little time to go online. So, Dr Sock has been unplugged for a month, and hasn't posted here.

During our travels, we spent time in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, both on the eastern slopes and on the western side. The continental divide runs along the peaks of the Rockies near their eastern edge, close to where the mountains end and the prairies begin. The divide serves as the provincial boundary between British Columbia (BC) in the west, and Alberta in the east. We had never travelled through some of these areas before, especially on the eastern slopes, and were keen to explore new territory.

The Rockies on the BC side consist of extensive ranges of massive peaks, and wild rivers. The vegetation is lush and the mountains are heavily treed. Moisture moving inland from the Pacific Ocean tends to fall as rain or snow on the western slopes. There is little human habitation. By contrast, the eastern slopes are mostly in a rain shadow, and tend to be much drier. Also, the mountains, high and dramatic, suddenly fall away to prairie land, with few foothills, especially along the southern portions. As the Rocky Mountains are are a national treasure, there are many parks along the divide on both the BC side and the Alberta side, such as Banff National Park, Jasper National Park, Kootenay National Park, and Waterton Lakes National Park. There also provincial parks and and specially designed recreation areas and management areas.

Outside of the parklands, we found that there were very big differences in recreational land use on the eastern slopes as compared to the western side. In Alberta, it seems that there is little regulation of crown land. People like to go camping in the creek and river valleys of the eastern slopes. This camping consists of setting up large fifth wheel trailers, often in groups of five or ten families, wherever they can pull the trailers in close to a stream. They bring with them their All Terrain Vehicles (ATVs), and race around up and down hills, through creek beds, through swamps, and in the ditches alongside the roads. They tear up the ground with the ATVs, including fragile alpine vegetation, and destroy fish habitat. They race along hiking trails and cycling trails, ripping up the ground and destroying the trails. Then they come back to their camps and build huge bonfires. All of this seems to be lubricated with a great deal of alcohol.

We were shocked at the sheer number of these trailer enclaves and the ecological damage people inflicted with their ATVs. The roaring of the noisy ATVs was nonstop. Although the eastern slopes of the Rockies are beautiful, we did not find the area to be a pleasant place to be. There was nowhere accessible by road or trail that was not infested with ATVs. I was sad to see that this is the way that people are spending their time in the wilderness -- not with respect and awe, but destructively. These humans and their irresponsible actions seem almost like a cancerous growth spreading north and south along the eastern slopes. I was grateful for the parks, where ATV use is not allowed and the wilderness is being preserved.

While there is increasing use of ATVs in BC as well, it is minimal compared to what we witnessed on the Alberta side of the border. Same country, same Rocky Mountains, but different attitudes and provincial policies. Be careful BC, and take a long hard look at what is happening in Alberta before opening up more wilderness areas to ATVers. We are responsible for preserving our wilderness heritage for future generations, and to do so, we must avoid the mindless and wanton destruction of the type now taking place in Alberta.

Fashion Faux Pas

A couple of days ago, I looked out of my window at work and saw an older woman walking by on the sidewalk. She was wearing a sleeveless cotton print blouse. She was somewhat overweight. "Why on earth would anyone choose to wear such an unflattering style of clothing?" I thought (uncharitably). I have never liked that style of top. They remind me of small town department stores, gossipy neighbour ladies, older women, and dead ends.

Why indeed? On second glance, I realized that the woman was probably was about my age -- middle-aged -- and not any more overweight than I am. It was a hot day. Perhaps she had chosen a sleeveless blouse to try to stay cool. Cotton is certainly a better fabric to be wearing when you break into a huge sweat every few minutes because of a hot flash, and she appeared to be at the age for hot flashes. Moreover, a crisp loose cotton blouse does not cling to unflattering waistline bulges the way a knit top does.

So there you have it. When we get older, it is not the lack of fashion sense that betrays us so much as the body itself.

I have taken to wearing a type of sunglasses known as cocoons. They are great big plastic sunglasses that you can put on over top of your regular prescription glasses. They are not at all flattering. They make me look like I have giant bug eyes. I am certain that my beautiful daughters are embarrassed to be seen walking through town with me when I am wearing my cocoons.

But I like them. I like them because they fold over the tops and bottoms of my prescription lenses and wrap around the sides, thereby blocking out the sunlight from coming in around the edges. My previous preferred sunglasses option was clip-ons (also not fashionable), but I have found that they don't block the light adequately. In the past, for outdoor sports, I used to wear contacts, and normal fashionable sunglasses. But now that I am in my progressive lenses years, if I wear contacts I cannot read at all or do any close-up work. As I like to see well, I find myself wearing the contacts less and less, and choosing instead the prescription progressives and cocoons. Function over fashion.

Another fashion choice that I have always disparaged are elastic waist pants. I remember, as a young girl, reaching the important developmental milestone of leaving elastic waist pants behind for more fashionable and grownup pants with a zipper or fly. I have always thought of elastic waists as a fashion style appropriate for very young children, infirm elderly people, and those with a tacky fashion sense.

But what I have recently discovered, now that I have a rounder middle, is that pants with elastic waists are actually a lot more comfortable to wear now that my waistline has disappeared. It started innocently enough with "invisible" elastic stitched inside the waistband of normal looking pants. Then I moved on to "comfort waists" which are normal looking pants that have just a small two or three inches of elastic on each side, disguised to look like a regular waistband. Finally this summer, I broke down a bought two pairs of capris that have a full on elastic waist. I figure that as my tops hang down over the pants anyways, no one will notice the elastic. And no, the tops are NOT sleeveless cotton print blouses.

It is sad but true. I have reached the age of embracing the fashion faux pas. Next I'll probably start wearing a red hat and quoting the poem about wearing purple to anyone who will listen.

A Gap in the Record

Recently, I have been working on uploading and organizing my personal digital photo collection. Somehow, I have managed to get way, way behind -- two years behind, to be exact. How did that happen?

It all gets to be too much. I have too many digital photography devices: the old cell phone, the new cell phone, the tablet, the old camera, the new camera, and the photos that have arrived by email from friends and family. I have to upload them all to my photo program on my computer in a reasonable sequence, naming the events and correcting the dates (the date wasn't set right on my old camera so all the photos think they were taken in 2004). Then, because I am a perfectionistic Virgo, I have to edit all of the photos to make sure that they have the best balance of colour and light, and so that they are cropped properly to have good composition and no crooked horizons. And finally, I organize them all into folders labelled by year, month, and event. I have managed to turn something fun into a huge chore!

Because it has become a huge overwhelming chore, I have been procrastinating about dealing with my photos. The matter has been further complicated by having had my laptop computer stolen two years ago, and not replacing it right away. So, when I finally replaced it, I had to work with backups from various sources. Then the new computer crashed and had to go for repairs. Then I moved, and then I became very busy in my new job. Meanwhile, the photos on various devices kept proliferating, and I felt less and less inclined to even start the task.

I cannot blame the digital age though. I do recall that in the days of film, I used to get equally behind in sorting and putting snapshots into photo albums. There are chunks of time, years in length, for which I have no albums. These gaps in the photo record of my life and my children's development have now become nearly impossible to reconstruct, were I to go back into the boxes of unsorted photos.

While I was organizing my digital photos last night, I became aware of another sort of gap in the record. Any person looking at my photos over the last two years would probably come to the conclusion that I have a wonderful, leisure-filled life, always surrounded by family and friends. My albums are full of pictures of skiing, hiking, gardening, and travelling here and there. There are photos of our grownup children, our grandchildren, and many other family members, along with many happy dinners with friends.

I do have a good life, and I do enjoy skiing, hiking, and so forth. However, I fit these activities in around the edges, during evenings, weekends, and statutory holidays. My kids and grandkids, family, and friends are all far away, and I have to travel a long way to see them, or they have to travel a long way here to see us. Each of our grandsons is three flight connections away in different directions, or two long days of driving each way.

This photo of a hike to Sofa Mountain in the Canadian Rocky Mountains is the type of photo you will find in my digital albums.

The thing that is missing from my photo record is what I spend most of my time doing -- working. Five days every week, ten hours every day, eleven or more months of every year, are completely absent from my digital file of images. I am not quite sure what it means that I have this big gap in the record.

Canada Day Choices

Tonight I stood at the window of my hotel room and watched pedestrians rushing by on the streets below. Most of them were wearing flip flops, what we used to call "thongs" until that name was appropriated to denote skimpy underwear. Today, Canada Day, is the second day of a heat wave.

Three Chinese girls wearing blue tee shirts stamped VOLUNTEER crossed in the crosswalk. Three girls: two sets of legs. One of the girls was piggy-backing one of the others. She was the same size as the one she was carrying. Sore feet? Lost shoes? An injury? The three made their way quickly along the sidewalk with the crowds, and out of sight.

A bleached blond with sunglasses pushed up in her hair was wearing a black teddy. At least I think that is what the item of clothing is called, or maybe "hot pants": a one-piece with short shorts on the bottom and a strapless tube on top. There was a bit of hot pink trim across the bosom. Hot Pants piled into the crowd waiting for the walk signal at the corner and knelt down on the hot sidewalk to pet a tiny dog. The male dog owner gripped the leash and stared at Hot Pants, not in a friendly way. The light changed, and she tripped across the street and caught up to a clean cut fellow pushing a stroller. Were they together?

An aboriginal family passed below, going the opposite way to the the rest of the crowd. A young woman pushing a stroller and a young man, both seriously overweight, and some kids aged seven or eight or nine, each with a red maple leaf stamped on their cheeks. The woman pushing the stroller was texting on her phone as they crossed the street.

That was a little while ago. Now the rolling booms of a violent thunder storm dominate the soundscape. But it is not thunder; it is the sound of Canada Day fireworks. I look out my windows but I cannot see the light display. There are too many tall buildings and my windows face the wrong way. The sidewalk crowds have thinned out. Everyone rushing by earlier has now made it to their vantage point to watch the fireworks.

I have stayed in my hotel room, choosing not to watch. It happens only once a year, and I happen to be visiting this city on the day of the celebrations, but I have chosen not to go. My hotel room is cool and peaceful. Outside, it is muggy and the crowds I watched from the window were shoving and rushing. My feet already are blistered from a day of pounding the pavement in flimsy sandals. I walked with my daughter through Chinatown and along many gritty blocks.

I stood outside her apartment building beside a Chinese grocer, waiting for her to come down. I smelled the dried fish, all different kinds with their heads still on and their eyes gouged out, and the fish smell mingled with the smell of dried seaweed, and jasmine and lychee and a bin of something shaped like chocolate covered almonds, but red, like ovaries. The stink of the dried fish mixed with the smell of exhaust and urine and poverty. The sidewalk in that part of town was covered with dried gum, wet globs of spit, and cigarette butts. Although I have spent many hours as a young person exploring the downtown east side, my middle aged self returning now perceives no romance, only sadness and filth.

We walked out of Chinatown past upscale condos and trendy chain restaurants. "My friends and me living in that building, we are the urban renewal in action," my daughter said. "There is a fresh coat of paint in the hallway. I am renovating my bachelor suite."

We had iced coffee and shared a clubhouse sandwich and broccoli salad. We took transit here and there. We talked about life choices. How do people end up following this path or that path or another? So many choices. What was the turning point that took me into one career and then zigzagging into another, and when does taking a job mean that you are selling out your dreams or your values? How far do you have to go down a path to reach a point where you can't retrace your steps, and is that less risky than standing still, not able to choose? When you're living in poverty, do you still have choices, or is poverty a choice that snuffs out other choices? How far can an artist stretch for a buck, before the buck and not the idea defines the art? But without the bucks, there's no art either.

Choices. Better to have many than few, we decided.

What Really Matters

Lately, work has been hell. I have been charged with leading a change-oriented committee that is pulling in 15 different directions, or better yet, perhaps would prefer to do nothing at all. It is, apparently, unthinkable that any department should give up a smidgen of their budget or change a procedure that has been in place since time immemorial (or at least since the last department chair). The report is due in a couple of weeks and at this point we have come to agreement on nothing whatsoever.

Meanwhile, two key managers are away on medical leave because the unrelenting stress has worn them down. A construction accident is impacting operations and will cost millions to repair. A "mean girl" is whispering denigrating things behind my back. There is a plot afoot to unseat one of the other managers via a nasty smear campaign. I have missed a key deadline and can't find any time in my calendar to get the overdue work done.

I have been working 10-12 hour days for the last year, and I am exhausted. Normally, I like my work, but I am close to thinking, "Take this job and shove it." I need a holiday.

So, I have booked a month's vacation in August. Meanwhile, I have taken 2 extra days off this long weekend to make 5 days in total. I am not checking my email or phone. I have flown away to to see my grandson, whose first birthday is this weekend.

After only 2 days away, I am starting to feel human again. I have visited briefly with my daughter, the artist. I am now at the home of my oldest daughter and son in law. I have held my dear little grandson in my arms and helped host his birthday party. I have made cream cheese icing, taken my grandson to the playground, paddled a canoe around the bay, and picnicked at the beach.

I love my little grandson so much. Today at the beach, he toddled off down the sand to watch two older boys building a fort with driftwood. One boy handed him a stick and showed him how to drum on a log with it. My little guy came toddling back to us holding a big stick of driftwood, and feeling very pleased with himself. On the way home, I sat in the back of the car with him and made silly noises and played peek-a-boo.

This is what matters. My wonderful little one-year-old grandson and his terrific parents; my two brilliant, beautiful daughters and my son in law who is such a doting husband and dad; my beloved Rob and my sweet hardworking son (who have taken advantage of my absence to eat a lot of meat and go mountain biking); our second grandson and all the rest of our family and friends -- this is what really matters.

I will keep this thought in mind. It is only one more month until August.

How to Talk to Dogs

Or, maybe I should call this, "How to speak in front of dogs." As a long-suffering dog owner and person interested in language, I have observed that our dogs have rudimentary language skills.

Kate, the very eager and excitable one, is highly alert to every human movement and gesture. From these she is able to infer a great deal about important events that are about to occur, such as meals, walks, and car rides. She also has a limited receptive vocabulary -- words or phrases that she consistently understands. These include: "food, want some food?, sit, lie down, let's go, outside, treat, & walk." Of course, she also knows her own name, and the names of the other pets.

With the addition of appropriate context and tone of voice, she responds appropriately to a wider range of words and phrases. With the right tone of voice (usually profound annoyance or disappointment), she also responds to "no, bad dog, leave it, & out of the kitchen!" As another example, when we are out for a walk, if one of us shouts, "get the squirrel!" Kate will run towards the tree that holds a squirrel and bark frantically, or begin running about looking for a squirrel. However, if we shout, "get the cat," "get the ball," or even "get the wiener," her actions are exactly the same; she begins running about looking for a small critter or object to chase. So in this situation her actual linguistic understanding is quite limited and dependent on context. But as language-using humans, we tend to think that dogs understand the actual words we are saying, when in fact their method of deriving meaning is more holistic.

Our other dog, Sophie, is more sophisticated (ha ha) linguistically. She understands all of the words and phrases described above for Kate, even outside of the expected context, and many more as well. I estimate that her vocabulary is in the range of about 25-40 words/phrases. Also, she is not fooled by ruses like "get the wiener." However, being a terrier, she has stubborn streak, so she may understand but that does not mean that she will comply.

Sophie is the reason that we have had to learn to speak in code when talking in front of the dogs. Sophie can detect the words "walk" and "food" even when they are embedded without emphasis in a normal stream of conversation. Sophie also has learned to recognize some of the phrases and sentences in which these two words typically appear. So as soon as one of us says the words: "want to go for a...", "going to go for a...", or even "go for a ...", Sophie is already prancing with excitement and running to the door, even before having heard the actual word "walk." Because of Sophie, we now say things like: "I am considering ambling with the canines." Or "I think I will march with the bloggies." Or, "Would you care to join me in taking the boggles for a woggle?" The lengths we have to go to try to outsmart our dogs! And I have to admit, more often than not, they see right through us and our little linguistic charades.

A Yellow Dress

When I was growing up, girls wore dresses to school. This was not simply the style of the time; dresses or skirts were mandatory. As my family lived in a northern rural part of Canada, winters were long, cold, and snowy. I walked to school in skirts, a distance of about a kilometre, in temperatures of minus 20, minus 30, or minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Although I wore tights (we called them leotards back then), my legs would be numb and cold by the time I reached school. My hands in woollen mittens, and my feet in lined rubber overshoes pulled on over saddle oxfords, also were likely to be numb and tingly. We were matter-of fact about it, blowing on our fingers or warming them in our armpits. This was just the way things were.

My mom always made sure that we had nice clothes to wear even though money was tight. We would pore over the Simpson's and Eaton's catalogues selecting our new back-to-school clothes, or our new spring and summer clothes, and then a few weeks later a parcel would arrive. It was like Christmas, opening the parcel and trying on all the new things.

As a young child, my favourite colour was yellow, then later orange. Unfortunately, my skin is dark toned, with a kind of greenish undertone, and so neither of those colours suits me well. I would point out pretty yellow outfits in the catalogue, and Mom would talk me into choosing a different, more flattering colour. So, I never had yellow clothes as a child.

However, there is one exception that stands out in my memory. My parents were close friends with the "Dales," a couple who had three girls, all older than me. I deeply admired those older girls. The Dales were my godparents. When their youngest girl outgrew her bicycle, they brought it over for me, a tiny little two-wheeler, and that was my first bike. I learned on it, and so did my younger brothers. The Dales also gave me my first pair of ski boots, red rubber lace-ups.

One time, when I was about six, the Dales gave us some hand-me-down clothing. Included in the clothes was a beautiful yellow sundress with black zigzag piping around the hem. I was so excited about the dress. A yellow dress! I immediately began nagging my mother to let me wear the dress. Because it was a sundress, Mom said that it was not appropriate to wear to school. Besides, it was still early spring, and the snow was hardly off the ground. It wasn't really sundress weather, yet. That is what she said, but I discerned that she did not like the dress, presumably because it was a sundress (too revealing), and because it was yellow (not flattering).

Or perhaps Mom was just being practical. I wore pants or shorts to play in. As soon as I came home from school or church, I changed out of my dress or skirt into pants, and went outside to play. Dresses were not play clothes, and that was a good thing, as I was a tree-climbing, hole-digging, fort-building tomboy.

Anyways, one gloriously sunny day, the first really warm day of spring, I finally talked Mom into letting me wear the dress outside to play. It was a weekend, and the grass was turning green and the trees were budding, with the first few leaves starting to pop out. My parents and most of the neighbours were out in their yards doing what northern people used to do at that time of year. They were burning the dead grass off the lawn so the new grass could grow in better.

My parents used matches to light a section of dry grass, and then stood near the patch of burning grass with rakes to control the spread of the flames. My Dad was very safety conscious, so he had the hose running into a bucket nearby. Of course, it was also important to not burn the grass on a windy day. We kids loved the burning of the grass. It was a chance to play with fire, and what child does not love fire?

At some point that afternoon, I was squatting down, feeding tufts of dried grass into the flames, when suddenly my dad shouted. I stood up. He came running towards me with the hose. "Your dress is on fire!"

Just as I felt something burn the back of my leg, he doused me with the hose. Then he yelled at me for managing to catch my dress on fire. I was sent into the house to change into something more appropriate. I inspected the dress and the bottom edge of the hem was burnt. The dress was ruined. 

After that experience, I never had yellow clothing again. Somehow, the experience of insisting on wearing the yellow dress against my mother's wishes, and having a close call with fire, and being told that yellow did not suit me cured my of yearning for yellow clothing for many decades. That is, until recently. Last year I bought a yellow blouse. I have worn it to work several times, and every time I wear it, I feel happy and sunny. When I look in the mirror, my skin does not look green, and it seems to suit me just fine. Today I went shopping, and bought two summer outfits that are mostly yellow. I feel very pleased with myself. That is one of the joys of getting older. I have decided that I can wear a yellow dress if I want.