Maia Sepp's Blog, page 8
January 25, 2007
I'm an Old Lady With Bad Knees, or, First Fall of the Season
First, let me say this; I'm not a great skier. For someone who grew up steps from the Laurentiens and whose mother is from Magog, (which has turned from a factory town into a fancy schmancy ski resort) I'm barely average. There are a lot of reasons for this, mostly my general unco-ordination and the 10 years I took off skiing after I moved to Toronto, mostly caused by lack of money, lack of transportation, and lack of desire to ski Ontario's tiny hills.
I got back into the swing of things about 4 years ago when my better half suggested a trip to Horseshoe "Mountain". I snapped on some snazzy new parabolic rentals and skied like Bode Miller. (It's hard to ski badly down 300 vertical feet). And just like that, my winters were transformed. I went from hating winter, hating the cold, hating snow, to loving all of the above. And I mean looooooooooooooving. Now when I see flakes start to fall, I do a little happy dance. Every time someone complains about -15, I smile so wide my teeth almost pop out. People can't stand it.
So I'm not a great skier, but that's not my problem My problem has to do with chair lifts and chair lift related disasters; stopping them, falling off of them, and - even - pushing others *cough* John *cough* off of them.
The chairlift has become my nemesis. Particularly the ones at Blue Mountain, our regular winter hangout, which, even though it's a barely respectable 720 feet of vertical, is the 4th most visited ski resort in Canada. So, basically there's lots of traffic + high speed six pack chair lifts. Six people going in different directions at once on skis? I smell disaster brewing.
So, a few weeks ago, John and were out on our first trip to Blue of the season. About halfway through the night we got on the chairlift with a kid I knew was going to be trouble. He was swinging his snowboard under the lift and smacking my skis and yapping in a loud, obnoxious voice about his exploits to the dude sitting next to him (for a fourteen year old, he has had a lot of exploits). As we got ready to disembark he crouched down and slid off the lift with his elbows up, his board almost sideways, and his head up his ass. Almost immediately he hooked the back of his board (snowboards have a slight curl upwards at both ends) under my right ski and started to pull my leg out from underneath me. Instead of lifting up my leg and releasing his board, which would have been a lot smarter, I was sort of caught in a daze, thinking; this little bastard is going to take me down. And I'm an old lady with bad knees. Unsuprisingly, about 2 seconds later I went down, my right and left skis pointing towards each other in a jaunty 90 degree angle, one that generally indicates that you've just mangled your meniscus. And I couldn't get up, because this was the first fall of the season and I had no clue what I was doing. After a few seconds of malingering I clued in and remembered; aha! This is how you get back up. And I did.
I think it's the height of unfairness that I have to re-learn how to fall and how to get back up again every single winter, and I did a suitable amount of feeling sorry for myself afterwards. Unfortunately, this is also where I'm at with my writing. I've got exactly one paragraph written of my new book and I can't remember what the hell to do next. I expect the answer is, just like skiing, to get up and keep going. And here I thought it was going to be easier this time around. On the bright side, it doesn't involve chairlifts.
Cheers,
Maia
PS. I'm back to Blue this weekend - Super Bowl Sunday is the best night of the winter to ski because everyone's at home drinking beer and waiting for another glimpse of Janet Jackson's boobies. If I embarass myself horribly in another chairlift brouhaha, I'll be sure to let you know.
I got back into the swing of things about 4 years ago when my better half suggested a trip to Horseshoe "Mountain". I snapped on some snazzy new parabolic rentals and skied like Bode Miller. (It's hard to ski badly down 300 vertical feet). And just like that, my winters were transformed. I went from hating winter, hating the cold, hating snow, to loving all of the above. And I mean looooooooooooooving. Now when I see flakes start to fall, I do a little happy dance. Every time someone complains about -15, I smile so wide my teeth almost pop out. People can't stand it.
So I'm not a great skier, but that's not my problem My problem has to do with chair lifts and chair lift related disasters; stopping them, falling off of them, and - even - pushing others *cough* John *cough* off of them.
The chairlift has become my nemesis. Particularly the ones at Blue Mountain, our regular winter hangout, which, even though it's a barely respectable 720 feet of vertical, is the 4th most visited ski resort in Canada. So, basically there's lots of traffic + high speed six pack chair lifts. Six people going in different directions at once on skis? I smell disaster brewing.
So, a few weeks ago, John and were out on our first trip to Blue of the season. About halfway through the night we got on the chairlift with a kid I knew was going to be trouble. He was swinging his snowboard under the lift and smacking my skis and yapping in a loud, obnoxious voice about his exploits to the dude sitting next to him (for a fourteen year old, he has had a lot of exploits). As we got ready to disembark he crouched down and slid off the lift with his elbows up, his board almost sideways, and his head up his ass. Almost immediately he hooked the back of his board (snowboards have a slight curl upwards at both ends) under my right ski and started to pull my leg out from underneath me. Instead of lifting up my leg and releasing his board, which would have been a lot smarter, I was sort of caught in a daze, thinking; this little bastard is going to take me down. And I'm an old lady with bad knees. Unsuprisingly, about 2 seconds later I went down, my right and left skis pointing towards each other in a jaunty 90 degree angle, one that generally indicates that you've just mangled your meniscus. And I couldn't get up, because this was the first fall of the season and I had no clue what I was doing. After a few seconds of malingering I clued in and remembered; aha! This is how you get back up. And I did.
I think it's the height of unfairness that I have to re-learn how to fall and how to get back up again every single winter, and I did a suitable amount of feeling sorry for myself afterwards. Unfortunately, this is also where I'm at with my writing. I've got exactly one paragraph written of my new book and I can't remember what the hell to do next. I expect the answer is, just like skiing, to get up and keep going. And here I thought it was going to be easier this time around. On the bright side, it doesn't involve chairlifts.
Cheers,
Maia
PS. I'm back to Blue this weekend - Super Bowl Sunday is the best night of the winter to ski because everyone's at home drinking beer and waiting for another glimpse of Janet Jackson's boobies. If I embarass myself horribly in another chairlift brouhaha, I'll be sure to let you know.
January 5, 2007
Thank You, Strange Guy at the Queen's Quay Loblaws
On the day before New Year's Eve, we were hosting a dinner for some friends of mine. For any and all dinner parties I take a run over to the St. Lawrence Market, (a market so scrumptious it was voted one of the 25 best markets in the world). Conveniently, the market is just down the street from the Queen's Quay Loblaws (a grocery store so sexy it's rumoured to be one of Toronto's best pick-up spots), where I get all my non-market related sundries. Unfortunately, I also had to go shopping the day before New Year's Eve, a move only contemplated by utter maniacs.
I was in a wickedly bad mood; the fancy schmancy new Canadian Tire tree stand that we'd just bought had leaked while we were on our ski trip in Quebec and warped our recently refinished hardwood floors (more research on hardwood floors reveals that this type of damage is called cupping. Just thought you might want to know.) We had tried to staunch the flow, but I had just discovered some new damage before I left the house and I was officially pissed off.
I made the short trip downtown, muttering to myself while I steamed in my own juices in my little red car. As soon as I neared the market I realized that I was headed for disaster. My regular parking lot looked packed to the gills, the four-way stop was being overrun by SUVs bullying their way through the intersection, and people were *everywhere*. (I have a phobia about crowds. It's not pretty.) I managed to squeak into a parking spot, narrowly avoided getting squashed by a minivan, and escaped being flattened into the pavement by a family with a double-wide stroller, but by this point, I was almost purple with angst.
I managed to get through the throngs of people, sidestepped the crates of writhing lobster lining the walkways and ended up in front of a store where they were hawking - literally - yummy little Cornish Hens. The butcher was über friendly and quite funny and I felt a little warmed. I went over to the veggie store and picked up a bunch of green beans and shallots, but couldn't make it to the potatoes because of the wall of grumpy teens being dragged around by their mothers. I cut my losses, bought my handful of organics and headed out to the Queen's Quay Loblaws, but I was in for a surprise when I got there. It was the first time I've ever seen the massive main level parking lot look full, so instead of circling like some kind of parking lot predator I scooted up to the second level, thinking I was super smart. Nope, it was packed too. I knew I was in for a miserable time; I still wasn't feeling all that fantastic, the traffic was freaking me out, and I still had to clean the house.
I got my buggy and started to navigate the mess of yuppie/hippie/chichi/new-age couples and families with little less than a snarl on my face. It was almost impossible to navigate the store. Unfortunately, I'd been to the downstairs liquor store first, so I had three bottles of nice wine in my cart. Paranoid that someone was going to relieve me of $50 worth of spectacular booze, I didn't want to leave my buggy. I had been in the store for only about 5 minutes when the most interesting thing happened; I was trying to navigate the potato section when I came head to head to with an attractive older man in a nail-biting grocery cart standoff. I needed to get around him to make it to the all-important baguette section and he was in my way. And I wanted him to move.
And then...he did. He smiled at me, a smile that reached his eyes and transformed his face into a delightful maze of wrinkles. He backed up his cart, navigated around me, and said; "Happy New Year". It was a perfectly charming moment that rendered me so flustered I didn't move forward, thwarting the attempts of the person behind me, who pushed his cart ahead and ended up wedged against my ass. Instead of murdering him with a potato, I turned around and smiled. He backed up his cart, apologized, and smiled back.
My bad mood evaporated and I continued on my way, listening to snippets of family discord and strife; to husbands not giving a shit that their wives *had* to have organic beets for their side dishes instead of canned; to wives who didn't want to suffer through another torturous dinner with their mother-in-law; to mothers chastising their slouching Goth teens and screaming Gap-swaddled toddlers. The ever present, ubiquitous Christmas charols were playing in the background and they were...lovely. As I smiled at my cranky fellow shoppers and ceded right-of-way to their grocery carts, I thought about how lucky I was. I thought about how I was going to go home and make a yummy dinner for good friends and an unmarried/common-law/domestic partner who I adore. I thought about how thankful I am for what I have, thankful that we can all define who our family is in our own demented, quirky ways, and that living a happy life is sometimes all about perspective. So, thank you, strange guy in the Queen's Quay Loblaws, thank you for smiling at me instead of horribly mangling my foot by running over it with your buggy.
A very Happy New Year's to everyone. I wish you and yours all the best in 2007. And don't forget to smile at random strangers every once in a while. Just 'cause.
Maia
I was in a wickedly bad mood; the fancy schmancy new Canadian Tire tree stand that we'd just bought had leaked while we were on our ski trip in Quebec and warped our recently refinished hardwood floors (more research on hardwood floors reveals that this type of damage is called cupping. Just thought you might want to know.) We had tried to staunch the flow, but I had just discovered some new damage before I left the house and I was officially pissed off.
I made the short trip downtown, muttering to myself while I steamed in my own juices in my little red car. As soon as I neared the market I realized that I was headed for disaster. My regular parking lot looked packed to the gills, the four-way stop was being overrun by SUVs bullying their way through the intersection, and people were *everywhere*. (I have a phobia about crowds. It's not pretty.) I managed to squeak into a parking spot, narrowly avoided getting squashed by a minivan, and escaped being flattened into the pavement by a family with a double-wide stroller, but by this point, I was almost purple with angst.
I managed to get through the throngs of people, sidestepped the crates of writhing lobster lining the walkways and ended up in front of a store where they were hawking - literally - yummy little Cornish Hens. The butcher was über friendly and quite funny and I felt a little warmed. I went over to the veggie store and picked up a bunch of green beans and shallots, but couldn't make it to the potatoes because of the wall of grumpy teens being dragged around by their mothers. I cut my losses, bought my handful of organics and headed out to the Queen's Quay Loblaws, but I was in for a surprise when I got there. It was the first time I've ever seen the massive main level parking lot look full, so instead of circling like some kind of parking lot predator I scooted up to the second level, thinking I was super smart. Nope, it was packed too. I knew I was in for a miserable time; I still wasn't feeling all that fantastic, the traffic was freaking me out, and I still had to clean the house.
I got my buggy and started to navigate the mess of yuppie/hippie/chichi/new-age couples and families with little less than a snarl on my face. It was almost impossible to navigate the store. Unfortunately, I'd been to the downstairs liquor store first, so I had three bottles of nice wine in my cart. Paranoid that someone was going to relieve me of $50 worth of spectacular booze, I didn't want to leave my buggy. I had been in the store for only about 5 minutes when the most interesting thing happened; I was trying to navigate the potato section when I came head to head to with an attractive older man in a nail-biting grocery cart standoff. I needed to get around him to make it to the all-important baguette section and he was in my way. And I wanted him to move.
And then...he did. He smiled at me, a smile that reached his eyes and transformed his face into a delightful maze of wrinkles. He backed up his cart, navigated around me, and said; "Happy New Year". It was a perfectly charming moment that rendered me so flustered I didn't move forward, thwarting the attempts of the person behind me, who pushed his cart ahead and ended up wedged against my ass. Instead of murdering him with a potato, I turned around and smiled. He backed up his cart, apologized, and smiled back.
My bad mood evaporated and I continued on my way, listening to snippets of family discord and strife; to husbands not giving a shit that their wives *had* to have organic beets for their side dishes instead of canned; to wives who didn't want to suffer through another torturous dinner with their mother-in-law; to mothers chastising their slouching Goth teens and screaming Gap-swaddled toddlers. The ever present, ubiquitous Christmas charols were playing in the background and they were...lovely. As I smiled at my cranky fellow shoppers and ceded right-of-way to their grocery carts, I thought about how lucky I was. I thought about how I was going to go home and make a yummy dinner for good friends and an unmarried/common-law/domestic partner who I adore. I thought about how thankful I am for what I have, thankful that we can all define who our family is in our own demented, quirky ways, and that living a happy life is sometimes all about perspective. So, thank you, strange guy in the Queen's Quay Loblaws, thank you for smiling at me instead of horribly mangling my foot by running over it with your buggy.
A very Happy New Year's to everyone. I wish you and yours all the best in 2007. And don't forget to smile at random strangers every once in a while. Just 'cause.
Maia
December 20, 2006
Happy Solstice, Y'all
UPDATE: I just finished watching the news, and apparently the tree in question was dragged back into the lobby yesterday, but was removed after a few hours. The plot thickens!
***
There was all kinds of brouhaha recently about a Christmas tree that was removed from a downtown Toronto courthouse so that it wouldn't offend non-Christians. Most people are irked about the removal, and some, quite rightly, have pointed out the fact that Christmas and Christmas traditions - including the Christmas tree - are outgrowths of early pagan festivals that celebrated the winter solstice and aren't Christian at all.
I'm not a religious person myself, but I do enjoy a nice Christmas tree - ours is so large we have to walk sideways into our kitchen. (It's possible we are crazy.) In any case, in the spirit of debunking some perceptions about Christmas, I did some digging about Christmas origins and traditions.
It is widely believed that Christmas is an outgrowth of Saturnlia, "...one of the best known ancient celebrations of the Winter Solstice...Saturnlia was the greatest festival of the Roman year, and was marked with great feasting, gift-giving, dancing, playing, and relaxing. Homes were decorated, work was suspended, and there was general merry-making done by all." They also took their festivities on the road; "Caroling, Wassailing, and masked processions were other Saturnalia staples that outlasted the Romans." A few millenia ago, the solstice fell on the 25th of December, and in modern times it has shifted to the 21st or 22nd. (The solstice this year falls on the 22nd, at 22 minutes after midnight.)
What about the recently relocated Christmas tree, anyway? "The Christmas tree, like many Christmas customs, originated in the ancient Roman new year festival of Saturnalia...Home decoration was emphasized, and the decorations were the evergreen trees sacred to the sun- pine, holly, etc."
Even smooching at this time of the year has a pagan origin; "(t)he roots of [kissing under the mistletoe] are unknown, but is likely tied with the fertility aspects of mistletoe and that it was viewed as a bringer of peace by the Druids." This particular tradition was banned in many churches, due to its roots in paganism.
What about Yule? And what's up with that silly song about the partridge in a pear tree? "The pagan Norse Solstice celebration, Yule, gives us both the Yule log and the "Twelve Days" of Christmas. The burning of a tree, a log, or a wheel was a widespread custom in European pagan Solstice ceremonies. The burning of the Yule log is a symbolic sacrifice of the sun's sacred evergreen, and its sacrifice gave energy to ensure the rebirth of the weakened sun."
Personally, I've always wondered what Boxing Day - the day after Christmas - was all about. Apparently, "(t)his word comes from the custom which started in the Middle Ages around 800 years ago: churches would open their 'alms boxe' (boxes in which people had placed gifts of money) and distribute the contents to poor people in the neighbourhood on the day after Christmas.
Well, there you have it. I, for one, would like to thank the pagans for their partying spirit and general hedonism. Happy solstice, everyone! John and I are ditching our families and running off to ski the slopes of Quebec tomorrow. Now all we have to do is pray for snow.
I'll see you all in the New Year.
Maia
***
There was all kinds of brouhaha recently about a Christmas tree that was removed from a downtown Toronto courthouse so that it wouldn't offend non-Christians. Most people are irked about the removal, and some, quite rightly, have pointed out the fact that Christmas and Christmas traditions - including the Christmas tree - are outgrowths of early pagan festivals that celebrated the winter solstice and aren't Christian at all.
I'm not a religious person myself, but I do enjoy a nice Christmas tree - ours is so large we have to walk sideways into our kitchen. (It's possible we are crazy.) In any case, in the spirit of debunking some perceptions about Christmas, I did some digging about Christmas origins and traditions.
It is widely believed that Christmas is an outgrowth of Saturnlia, "...one of the best known ancient celebrations of the Winter Solstice...Saturnlia was the greatest festival of the Roman year, and was marked with great feasting, gift-giving, dancing, playing, and relaxing. Homes were decorated, work was suspended, and there was general merry-making done by all." They also took their festivities on the road; "Caroling, Wassailing, and masked processions were other Saturnalia staples that outlasted the Romans." A few millenia ago, the solstice fell on the 25th of December, and in modern times it has shifted to the 21st or 22nd. (The solstice this year falls on the 22nd, at 22 minutes after midnight.)
What about the recently relocated Christmas tree, anyway? "The Christmas tree, like many Christmas customs, originated in the ancient Roman new year festival of Saturnalia...Home decoration was emphasized, and the decorations were the evergreen trees sacred to the sun- pine, holly, etc."
Even smooching at this time of the year has a pagan origin; "(t)he roots of [kissing under the mistletoe] are unknown, but is likely tied with the fertility aspects of mistletoe and that it was viewed as a bringer of peace by the Druids." This particular tradition was banned in many churches, due to its roots in paganism.
What about Yule? And what's up with that silly song about the partridge in a pear tree? "The pagan Norse Solstice celebration, Yule, gives us both the Yule log and the "Twelve Days" of Christmas. The burning of a tree, a log, or a wheel was a widespread custom in European pagan Solstice ceremonies. The burning of the Yule log is a symbolic sacrifice of the sun's sacred evergreen, and its sacrifice gave energy to ensure the rebirth of the weakened sun."
Personally, I've always wondered what Boxing Day - the day after Christmas - was all about. Apparently, "(t)his word comes from the custom which started in the Middle Ages around 800 years ago: churches would open their 'alms boxe' (boxes in which people had placed gifts of money) and distribute the contents to poor people in the neighbourhood on the day after Christmas.
Well, there you have it. I, for one, would like to thank the pagans for their partying spirit and general hedonism. Happy solstice, everyone! John and I are ditching our families and running off to ski the slopes of Quebec tomorrow. Now all we have to do is pray for snow.
I'll see you all in the New Year.
Maia
December 19, 2006
Near Death Experience!
It's possible I'm a tad melodramatic, but that's part of my charm. I've been laid low with a spectacularly awful virus for the last week or so, making me delinquent on my posting, and in about every other part of my life. Now I'm busy trying to get BHJ and I ready to head to Quebec for a week of frolicking in the snow, except...there's no snow. Environment Canada says there's a 60% chance of getting the white stuff today, so please, everyone, pray to whoever your designated diety is (personally, I've accepted the Flying Spaghetti Monster as my personal saviour, mostly because of the focus on loose moral values) for some snow for us. We have the worst ski trip luck in the world. I blame John.
Cheers,
Maia
Cheers,
Maia
December 8, 2006
The Happy Tummy Cyber Cafe and Hammock Bar
I admit it, I'm a terrible hedonist. I like to sleep, I like to eat, and I like comfort. The only reason I believe in Astronomy is because I fit my sign's characteristics to a T. The first hit when Googling "Taurus" turns up: Self-indulgent and greedy. Um, well, yes. I like good food (lots of it), good wine (also lots of it), sitting on the couch (also...okay, you get the picture). In any case, my penchant for *lots of it* tends to spill over into my writing. Most of the conflict in my first book was pretty realistic, but now that I'm getting ready to start #2, I have a tsunami of soap opera storylines raging inside me. They all suck, and frankly, I find myself at a loss as to what the main drama's going to be in my next book. I've had some characters happily living in my head for a while, but I'm not quite sure what they want to do yet.
So, in an attempt to do some brainstorming, I turned to the news. What about traveling? That's always stressful. I had followed the news stories a few weeks ago when an American woman was yanked off a plane for breastfeeding (which prompted a country wide nurse-in at a number of US cities and got the flight attendant censured). Who knew that passing gas could also get you the boot? I decided not to have my protagonist fart herself off a 747 and kept searching. Since it's the Christmas season, I tried to do a little digging on the holiday spirit. What did I find? A mother who got her son arrested for opening his Christmas present early. No joke; apparently 911 is the new way to address behavioural issues.
I always gravitate towards the stranger than fiction type newstories, or sites like the Darwin Awards, which delights in showcasing some of humanity's worst moments. But after spending all this time scouring the Internet looking at news stories, I was forced to admit that I spend too much time reading about people's quirks and not enough writing about them. And I still don't have any good ideas.
You'll have to excuse me now. I'm heading off to the wedding of two very good friends, where I will be indulging...er, well, you know.
Maia
PS: The title of this post is the name of the restaurant I'd set up if I ever won the lottery, sort of an ode to headonism: a cyber cafe featuring drinks with insanely long straws, so that people don't have to get up from their hammocks. Believe it or not, I've been able to convince a few people that this is a good idea. Come on: Hammocks? Food? Drinks? Computers? What's not to love?
So, in an attempt to do some brainstorming, I turned to the news. What about traveling? That's always stressful. I had followed the news stories a few weeks ago when an American woman was yanked off a plane for breastfeeding (which prompted a country wide nurse-in at a number of US cities and got the flight attendant censured). Who knew that passing gas could also get you the boot? I decided not to have my protagonist fart herself off a 747 and kept searching. Since it's the Christmas season, I tried to do a little digging on the holiday spirit. What did I find? A mother who got her son arrested for opening his Christmas present early. No joke; apparently 911 is the new way to address behavioural issues.
I always gravitate towards the stranger than fiction type newstories, or sites like the Darwin Awards, which delights in showcasing some of humanity's worst moments. But after spending all this time scouring the Internet looking at news stories, I was forced to admit that I spend too much time reading about people's quirks and not enough writing about them. And I still don't have any good ideas.
You'll have to excuse me now. I'm heading off to the wedding of two very good friends, where I will be indulging...er, well, you know.
Maia
PS: The title of this post is the name of the restaurant I'd set up if I ever won the lottery, sort of an ode to headonism: a cyber cafe featuring drinks with insanely long straws, so that people don't have to get up from their hammocks. Believe it or not, I've been able to convince a few people that this is a good idea. Come on: Hammocks? Food? Drinks? Computers? What's not to love?
