Colleen Anderson's Blog, page 52

Traveling in India: Transportation Travails

I think there are many great tales that often take place around transportation: planes, cars, trains, buses, elephants, camels, bikes, rickshaws, etc. Especially if you're traveling (obviously) there are more tales than the everyday commute, but even living in one's own city will afford you adventures.

India was probably the most diverse in terms of transportation and terror. I already wrote about flying in "Frightful Flights" but the rest was its own adventure. I never did ride an elephant...

Mental Health and a Helping Hand

This will be one of those unpopular posts that probably no one will read but I feel it's important enough to write about. Having experienced mild to severe clinical depression in the past I have learned several things. Depression isn't always the same every time, nor the feelings that accompany it. And people don't truly understand it, nor how to help a person going through it.

For those who have never suffered from a severe depression there can be a lack of sympathy. The person looks healthy ...

The Terrible Thing About April

Actually, I quite like April for several reasons. It's usually spring in one form or another and blossoms and bright colors abound, trees are pushing out tender green leaves, and everything is fresh and new after the winter. Even here in Vancouver, where yes, the grass truly is always green. However, the terrible thing about April is "taxes."

For Canada, the deadline is April 30. I get to try to get the taxes done before my birthday might come along. Sometimes I'm late and sometimes I've...

Weird Foods

Okay, everyone probably has their weird concoctions or Dagwood sandwiches that they used to make. Unusual combinations put together or some bizarre family recipe that others looked at like it would crawl off the plate and bite. Sometimes you could pull someone over to your side, and introduce them to the delights of strange delicacies.

I've already talked about some of my gross childhood foods. Well, there were other foods that were a bit of a mystery why we liked them, or even why we would...

The Plastics Revolution

I got to thinking about plastic and  when it started to inundate the world, to the point that oceans and beaches are being clogged with bags and containers, our landfills are becoming toxic dumps and we're looking at ways to get rid of these beasts that have a relatively long half-life.

Plastic is not found naturally in nature. Trees and even papery aspects of them in certain barks or wasp and hornet nests are. Glass in the form of a volcanic residue such as obsidian is found in nature. Sand, ...

The Gross Foods of Childhood

I'm sure I was like any kid and was given foods that were probably good for me but were too gross to consume. Some were the bane of every child, like liver. Some strangely dark meat resembling shoe leather, tasting like congealed blood and smothered in onions left an indelible print on my memories. But it wasn't the only organ meat that my mother tried to make us consume.

Beef tongue--Blech!

Tongue was fairly common and I imagine cheap enough for a family with four kids and not a lot of money. ...

Meanderings of a Long Weekend

I took the opportunity for the long weekend of going to Galiano Island, one of the Gulf Islands on the west coast of British Columbia. It's a long finger of island that butts up to Mayne Island. Sturdies Bay is where the ferries dock, a one-hour trip from Tsawwassen terminal.

My friends aren't far from Sturdies Bay, a five-minute drive, and their place looks out over the water to Little Gossip Island. There's a little bit of rocky outcropping that's submerged at high tide and has various...

Hair Fashion: Brent & the Peaky

When we were kids it was common for mothers to cut their kid's hair. Maybe that's still common but no kid would be getting their hair colored or streaked, which is possible today. Haircuts weren't fancy and involved the most basic; either a shearing like a sheep or a cut across a straight line and that was it. These hairstyles were pretty much pre-teen years because by the age of twelve and up my mother definitely heard some complaints on her skills.

Mothers often cut their children's hair in ...

Easter Eggs

I was lamenting this weekend that I no longer see the eggs of my childhood. Forget Easter bonnets. I never saw one and I think that was of an earlier era but chocolate Easter eggs still abound. However, we've hit such an era of mass production that there is little originality left in eggs unless you make your own.

I grew up in Calgary but my friend Laura, a native of Vancouver's lower Mainland, remembers the same eggs. My mother used to order these eggs from a local chocalatier. It wasn't...

Best Careers For Criminals

Our world has gone topsy turvy, and perhaps it's always been this way. There certainly have always been people who used corruption, selfishness, exploitation and amoral behavior to further themselves at the expense of others. These people were usually kept in check, or at least the wholesale rampant anarchy was, so that there is a semblance of society, rules and laws by which the majority abides. And it tends to make living a happier and better experience.

Sometimes we get too many laws, and b...