Hup Holland Hup!

Originally posted to Multiply July 3 2010


I am not much of a sportsfan, but we make an exception for big events like Fifa.
This fellow Dutch Canadian showed up at the farmers market like this.

There are days when it is good to be orange.

My sister is a serious fan who understands the rules and strategies and so on. Two years ago she was here when the EuroCup was on. Holland did quite well in the beginning, but was eliminated by Russia, whose team had been trained by Dutch coach Guus Hiddink. The convoluted world of professional sport. Anyway, the camper that serves as her vacation home was decorated to the hilt!

Another Grad, another coast trip.

 Originally posted to Multiply June 30 2010

Son Alex had lost his geology job in the economic downturn, and cleverly used the enforced idleness for some upgrading. He added an intense one-year course in Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to his BSc.

GIS folks make sense out of the mass of data that surveyors and satellites deliver. It has a wide range of applications in many fields. Serious nerd work. Alex can now make computers sing and dance and knows even more stuff his old backwoods mother doesn't have a clue about. 


The course (at BCIT in Burnaby) came with a graduation ceremony with all the trimmings. Alex had missed his college grad, because when it happened he was already working way up North, so we all showed up for this one.


Entering Metro Vancouver is always a treat. Approaching the Port Mann bridge.

It is too bad one can't just stop on the bridge and gaze at the spectacular view. The barrier even makes it hard to take pictures, but I stubbornly keep trying. Pictures taken through the side window are not the same quality as those taken through the front.


The day before happened to be Chris' birthday, so the kids treated us to a lavish dinner at the Korean Barbecue place, quite an experience!

The next day we faced two dilemmas: how to spend the morning till the ceremony at 1.30 and how to get there. We had been warned parking might be a problem. Our normal accommodation had not been available. We were staying at some distance from the sky train and were not sure which buses go where. We solved both problems by hiking to the site, approximately 10 km. This gave us the chance to walk through Deer Lake park. 

I have always been intrigued by those Burnaby lakes, but they are hard to get to with the car if you don't know the city.

Notice the pair of loons in the water! On the way out of the park we saw a sign with: "Warning, coyotes!" Good thing too, some predator needs to cull the geese.

We had not brought enough food or drink, so the salmon berries along the trail were welcome.

The ceremony was the usual pomp and circumstance with dignitaries decked out in crazy fifteenth-century hats. The grads entered the auditorium to the strains of  "Land of hope and glory". A lovely melody, but an odd choice considering the vast majority of students is of Asian origin. The chorus brings memories of my dear anglophile Dad. He loved listening to the radio broadcast of the last seasonal Prom concert in the Royal Albert Hall.

This song was one of the traditional highlights, right up there with 'Rule Britannia!', which he lustily belted along with. We digress.

We will have to wait for the official photo to get decent pictures of the moment on stage, but there was plenty of photo-opping afterwards.

Nienke took this one with the timer.

An immigrant moment: I keep under-estimating the formality of these occasions. Many family-of-grads folks were milling around dressed to the hilt. I felt quite under dressed. My most presentable outfit was vaguely smelling of Korean barbecue after the night before and had to be replaced with something more casual. Besides we were somewhat sweaty and bedraggled after our epic hike. Alex made up for it by being resplendent in a suit.

And there we leave him for now. A smart, handsome and kind young man who is finding his way in life. 

 Postscript: the training led to a job as a mapmaker for a small mining company, just what he had in mind. Eventually it too ended. 

Read all about it at Alex' own blog, http://nothernlites.blogspot.com

Being on the receiving end of help

Originally posted to Multiply June 9 2010

Last Saturday I had an interesting experience: being at the receiving end of help and kindness. I am usually more in the helper position, for which I am grateful.

But I was at the market, feeling slightly off for not having slept quite enough (my own stupid fault) when Austraylian Wine Syndrome struck.  Apologies to present Aussie vintners. You have come a long way since the days of Monte Python. But this was Chateau Chunder, "A fine wine which really opens up the sluices at both ends." No wine had been involved by the way.

I called home to Chris, who gallantly came to the rescue. It was one of the moments when I was glad the man insists on having two cars. Several people came by while I was huddled under a blankie and looking distinctly green to offer hugs and sympathy. It was so sweet.  Chris drove me home while my dear market neighbors Ana and Colette minded the booth.

Then Chris went back and took care of the booth. I crawled into bed for a few hours, emerged briefly to make dinner, and crawled back in at 8. The next morning I was perfectly fine. A bit weak perhaps, but well enough to run around between 4.30 AM and 6 AM taking care of plant babies before our planned mini-trip to family in Calgary. We just got back.

Anyway, needing and getting help instead of doling it out was an interesting experience. It is only fair that we all get to be at either end sometimes!

Desk tops and knitting class

The year was 1952, the scene the third grade classroom in Holland.

Post-war Europe was more like a full employment version of the thirties than like Norman Rockwell North America.

As part of the regular curriculum girls were taught knitting, sewing by hand, darning socks, fixing holes in sweaters, and other skills indispensable to any housewife in the thirties. The boys got to do things with wood.

On the first day of knitting class we were given a ball of pale-green cotton yarn and shown how to cast on and "insteken, omslaan, doorhalen, af laten glijden" in other words make the four moves that constitute a knitting stitch.

I was utterly bewildered, especially by the part where one knitting needle dives underneath the other to pull the loop of yarn through.

After hours of strenuous effort I had produced a tangled mass of knots, black from my sweaty grimy little hands. We had a special teacher for needlework. The combined efforts of her and the classroom teacher could not unravel what I had wrought. They had never seen anything like it.

The state of my computer reminds me of that piece of work.

I often minimize something I am working on and come back to it later. I am always de-cluttering and re-cluttering.  As a Moon in Pisces with Venus in Virgo, I like order but tend to create chaos in my wake.  There is a blog brewing on ADD and the art of filing but that will have to wait.

What I want to know is: how in Pallas' name did I end up with a desktop folder inside the contact list that you get when you click contacts in the windows email program? C:\Users\Ien\Contacts\Desktop 2\Desktop

In retrospect a while ago my handy shortcuts had suddenly disappeared.I shrugged and made new ones. I will spare us the details but when I tried to get rid of the weird desktop things stopped working. 

It may be time for a refreshing reformat, but first I want to make sure my precious stuff is safely on a disk. There is no urgency, gardens first. But I do wonder how I did it.

The year we were H&R Block

Originally posted to Multiply on May 1 2010

I wasted the usual sunny hours on the last-minute income tax chore yesterday. In Canada the date is April 30, not 15. It brings things back.


The year was 1973. We were living in Fife just above Christina Lake, B.C.
Chris' geology job had come to a natural end the year before. There just wasn't enough copper left to make Phoenix mine operable, and that was that. Unemployment insurance was about to run out. I was still working as a short order cook but was due to give birth to our first child on May 20.

Chris had noticed that the people who worked in actual mines had more job security and steadiness in their lives than the geologists who were looking for new ones. He decided to get some training as a mine operator. A course would be offered in Rossland in the fall, and funded by some kind of government scheme. We just had to make it through summer.


Christina Lake is not much of a town. Everything happens in Grand Forks, a 20-30 minute drive to the West.  One winter day Chris ended up hitchhiking into Grand Forks.
This was a rare occasion since the man is a master at keeping cars on the road and cannot stand being stuck. Even in tough times we have usually been a two-wreck family. But this time we only had one car insured, a little  Zephyr that  turned out to be a bit of a lemon.


The driver who gave him a ride was working for H & R Block. He was looking for someone to operate a franchise in Grand Forks. Here was a well-educated guy with nothing else to do for a few months, how about it?


To make a long story short, we were H&R Block in Grand Forks that year. We rented an office across from the old Post Office and set ourselves up. Apart from the manual, which included such gems as "Avoid over-staffing an office with women", we received no training whatsoever. Fortunately the start was slow, allowing us to learn on the job.


I kind of enjoyed the process of becoming familiar with the abstruse language in the official tax manual that was our Bible. It was just a matter of focusing properly. After a while the language became familiar and transparent, we were totally at home in the forms, and we knew where to find any information that might be missing.


We became quite good at pulling it all together, including taxes for people who dumped a box on our desk containing all manner of mixed-up receipts. Most, but not all of the business was simple.
"Couldn't you find me some loopholes?" asked one  memorable client with the simplest package possible, one T4 slip and nothing else. Sorry sir, not in your case. But we did save some people some money.


I remember two of them: one was a single mother who did not know that she could claim an "equivalent to married" exemption for her child, resulting in a generous refund. The other one was a father and son team who operated a little fence post business on the side.


By the time we deducted everything possible the business had actually resulted in an official loss that they could deduct from their main income. Fun stuff!


Then, just when we were really enjoying the work and were gearing up for the bonanza of April, we started seeing disturbed clients with rejected returns. Was something wrong with our work? Not at all! But the dye job had gone wrong.


DYE job? Yup.  We did the work on white forms, provided by H &R, which then had to be copied through some machine, also provided by H&R, that supposedly created the same shade of blue as the government forms. If the colour wasn't just right the government refused to accept them. We had to adjust the shade of ink (I can't remember what or how) and send it in again.


We tried to explain this to people, but some of them could see just one thing: they had paid to get their taxes done and the government refused the results. I can't blame them.
As a result our April  was no busier than March. When the dust cleared and we figured it all out we had made almost exactly what Chris would have  collected as the last months of  UI.


But we sure learned how to do our own income taxes. Even in complicated years when I had two home-based businesses and it took forever to collect the messy records, April 30 finds me pulling the last bits together.

The first time it is just April 2

Originally posted on Multiply April 2 2010

April 2.

For the first time in my life and that of my siblings it is just another day in early spring.

April 2 was our mother's birthday. Mom's birthday was always a big deal, she made sure of that!  She died a few weeks after her 93rd birthday last year, after a long, productive and mainly happy life.

She was years ahead of her times. Her happiest years were her fifties, sixties and even seventies.

She lived in a place that she enjoyed, (Nieuw Loosdrecht, for my few Dutch readers) surrounded by natural beauty and with the chance to garden.The times had caught up to her, and she had a late brilliant career as the vice-director of nursing in a large extended care facility. Dad had resigned himself to her new status, and after retirement they were both active in the community and enjoyed almost 20 good years.

The mind got a bit fuzzy around the edges in the final years, and losing Dad in 2000 was tough of course. My sister Margreet, who lives nearby, was the Rock for both Mom and Dad for many years. Mom's good job made many trips back and forth to Canada possible. She often came with Margreet.

Above: a vigorous game of "Globe Trotters", the family favorite board game, with the grandchildren and Margreet. This must be the early nineties, looking at the  kids. That makes Mom in her mid seventies here, looking darned good!

I had been planning to do a sort-of eulogy thing here, but it is getting late. I must be able to get into the garden tomorrow. Mom would understand.

Flames and Flowers

Originally posted to Multiply on March 21, 2010

We missed the main Olympics, but on our latest weekend trip to see the offspring we got to see the flame, yeah! It had been rekindled for the Paralympics.

No trip to the coast would be complete without a visit to the Dutch Cheese maker between Cherry Ville and Lumby. We stocked up on a whole wheel of Gouda, which will be gone by the next trip at the end of summer. Grass-fed real food. It still does not taste quite like Dutch Gouda. I finally figured out it has to do with the grass. Ask any wine maker how important the terrain is!

Daughter's household is car-free by choice, so she is a master at getting the most out of public transit. She was a great guide. Some trains have this great seat right in front.

The journey started with a sky train trip to Waterfront, a beautiful old railway station that has a new lease on life as urban transit hub. Daughter took this picture of the hall.

The cauldron was just West of there on the harbour.

Below: containership getting ready to deliver its Walmart-bound goodies from China. Or whatever.

Funny, I had always pictured the flames near the Science Center on False Creek. The cauldron was fenced off, alas, but there was a viewing area with a huge ramp leading to it.

I am childish enough to request a "yes, we were really here!" picture.

The next 2 pictures are taken from the same place, but looking in a different direction.

Looking down the ramp, notice the barge with Olympic rings!

The rings again, and standing with your back to the cauldron you see this. The treed area is part of Stanley park.

It was still pretty busy and the crowds were being hustled along. Is this an example of Quebec language use or a poor translation? Flâner in regular French means strolling, not loitering. As in Yves Montand's song "J'aime flâner sur les grands boulevards". I guess strolling was too slow. MOVE, you camera-toting-posing-with-the-flames multitudes!

Back on level ground we see the viewing platform behind one of the many volunteers who made the games possible. All over town and suburbs people were proudly sporting their bright blue jackets, still basking in the after-glow.

Cauldron duly admired and documented, DD noted that we had 20 minutes left on our transfer to catch sky train in the direction of the next adventure: a visit to Granville Island Market by water taxi. This was my favorite part of the whole day. I love being on water, especially in a tiny boat.

View East towards the science centre. We are traveling from Yaletown West towards Granville Island.

Top picture: some weird architecture, below it floating homes.

I finally got the bridge to stand still long enough for a decent picture!

The vessel, on Granville Island.

I had never been on Granville Island yet. Our downtown expedition usually takes us to English Bay to smell the salt water.

Granville Island is a great place to shop for serious foodies, a little world of its own. Best enjoyed by oneself, with money in pocket, or with one like-minded female companion. By the time the four of us got there we were a bit tired and more than a bit hungry. There were no tables available in the food court and it was cold outside. DD remembered a fish place. We had to wait for a table at Tony's but it was worth it. Fortified by the best fish and chips and clam chowder ever we followed our intrepid guide in the direction of her home. We first made our way to a free trolley that took us back to sky train. I love good public transit!

This is the Fraser River seen from the train near New Westminster.

Meanwhile it was spring there. Here are some images of random urban greenery and abundant flowery pinkness.

Son Alex is temporarily living in the same area, so we had the the whole family there. This doesn't happen very often. B.C. may be the best place on Earth to live, but when it comes to maintaining family ties it can be too big for its own good. The kids may think it is just right, :). I had hoped for a vigorous session of Catan, but alas, the man was too swamped with exams to stay long. He did make a special contribution to dinner, in honor of the date.

A cake in honor of international Pi day. Pi, as in, that thing that has something to do with circles. I knew it once, but math doesn't stick. Fragments of Greek poetry can be dragged up, but science doesn't come easy.

It is hard to see at this angle, but the top clearly said 3.14. All in all, a good day.

 

Mountains, Mud, Chocolate and Family Values

Originally posted on Multiply January 26 2010
 
We broke the monotony of winter by spending a weekend with Chris' nephew Tim and family just West of Calgary. We are overdue for a visit to the coast to the offspring, but that will wait till after the Olympics.
The trip out was pure light therapy. We left home under the all-too-familiar 'flat cloud'. It started breaking up while we were on the ferry across the Arrow Lakes between Nakusp and Revelstoke.

Here are 2 more of mountains emerging from their morning veil. The ferry is at a wide open spot where the fog gets a chance to dissipate.

This one is looking West.

And this one is to the South-West

We hit cloud cover again between Revelstoke and Golden, but between Golden and Banff it was clear blue. Light Therapy! Boy, did I need that.

Here are just a few. I mean, how many times can you get excited over white peak against blue sky?

This one was still playing peekaboo.

Near the Kicking Horse Pass. (I think)



We were hoping to catch a glimpse of the Olympic Torch but it must have veered South towards Invermere before we got to Golden.

I almost feel sorry for the Olympic organizers. The next picture shows how high the frost line has been. We had a good start in early December, but now it is warmer and drier than usual.

One more, just because.

Enfin, we get the picture. White mountain tops, blue sky, all the calendar picture cliches. Even after 40 years of mountain dwelling I still get all excited. But then, I get excited about green grass in the spring too.

After Banff it clouded over. Usually it is the other way around. We took the slow road over Ghost lake and Cochrane. Grey skies do not flatter that dun-coloured landscape. It was kind of dreary.

 Near Bearspaw all was redeemed by sparkling hoarfrost.

Tim and Marjel's aspen grove, taken from the kitchen. They love it here and fully intend to stay, which makes me very happy! I really enjoy having family here, beyond the ones we have given birth to.

It was fun renewing my role as "Auntie Ien". Since it is part of an eccentric old aunt's job to introduce children to fragments of culture that might otherwise not come their way we spent some time studying 'Mud, Mud, Glorious Mud'. We now have the chorus down pat.


On Sunday we took a great side trip to the Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology in Drumheller. What is it with kids and dinosaurs these days? I don't remember being fascinated with them or knowing anyone who was. Anyway, we were shown around or rather, dragged forcefully to favorite places by two experienced and enthousiastic tour guides. These little girls (almost 7 and 5 1/2) are truly delightful creatures. They are quite privileged but somehow they have not turned into spoiled brats.

Alas, I had forgotten my camera on the trip. We drove through rolling prairie, under pearly grey light that made the land blend into the sky. The fields were covered in snow but the golden stubble showed through. It was beautiful in a totally different, less obvious way from the dramatic mountains. I need my big sky fix now and then.

The hour and a half trip to Drumheller was considerably shortened by reading Charlie and The Chocolate Factory. I am blessed with the ability to read in a moving car, and reading is one of my favorite things to do with little kids. We started on page 60-something before we even left the garage, and were just finishing the very last page when we got home. Talk about perfect timing!

For good measure we rented the Chocolate Factory movie with Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka so we could all watch it together. Most of it was great, but somehow the American makers of the film saw fit to alter the ending. In the book Willy Wonka and Charlie just descend upon the pathetic family in the great glass elevator, and lift all off to live in the factory in a sort of chocolaty Rapture. The movie alters the character of Willy Wonka, and drags out the ending with irritating preachings about family values. Boo!

Anyway, we left Monday morning under snowy skies, so here is some pictures from the way back.

The approach to the mountains is one of my favorite routes, no matter how often we see it.

It was hard to see where sky ended and mountain began. I love that effect.

The ferry across Arrow Lake, almost home.