What. The hell. Is with this.
I have absolutely no useful insights on this topic. I generally don't write about things I don't think I have the answer to. This one is truly "off the top of my head" and I'm basically just thinking out loud. This one is hard to write.
We're taught not to care what other people think, and live lives for ourselves. We're taught to do what we think is right and follow our hearts and our guts. To live life "for you" while at the same time being a good person. I love all these ideas. But implementing them, day after day, and not following the seemingly natural instincts of wanting to make other people happy, make friends, please people and all the weird permutations those ideas can lead to is REALLY HARD!
Where does this come from? Again, I have no answers. Is it ingrained in children? I picture Mrs. Seinfeld repeating "how can anybody not like him!". But what I admired most about Jerry was that he simply didn't care, and he really did live his life for him, even if it meant being a jerk. Cuz maybe he was a jerk. He was just doing him - and that's ok! It takes all types for this world to go around. Affinities, friendships, relationships, dislikes, frenemies, enemies - all these things are inevitable and you're likely not just going to have ones in the "happy" categories. So why rage against what's going to happen in some incessant battle to make all your interactions positive?
Well frig, it just feels great when you get along great with everyone. It's, sadly, one of my biggest wishes in life - that things can be easy breezy, drama free, we all get along and everyone just loves each other. Sad because it's so hard to "come true". I'm thinking about my staff retreats - the 2012 National staff retreat (remember crowd surfing?) and the 2013 Ontario Region strategic planning session in which was basically a giant love-in to the point where the facilitator commented just how nice a group we were (aww). On the other side of the coin, I think about the 2012 staff retreat where I was yelled at by a previously cited coworker in front of all my other coworkers and I don't have quite such warm and fuzzy feelings. Because it sucks when there's hate and ill will going on, and it's lovely and synergistic and good vibes build on good vibes when everyone gets along! So you can see why I aspire to it. Who wouldn't rather the latter scenario than being yelled at?!
But... as much as I have been working to breathe the bad people in, forgive them, and let them go, I myself have an incredibly short fuse when it comes to people driving me bananas. Being super sensitive and having really high standards doesn't make me the easiest person to please! So guess what.. I don't like some people.
SO WHY DOES EVERYONE HAVE TO LIKE ME!?
The answer, clearly, is "they don't!". My sage personal Buddha and loyal blog reader Erica (whose blog is so much prettier than mine!) framed it perfectly earlier this year: "not everyone is going to like you. and that's ok." I think getting ok with it is the only real solution, and therefore, of course, inevitably, the real challenge.
Isn't it funny how some people rub other people just the wrong way? There are some people I can just never seem to get my footing right with and I'm always aware of them just not quite loving me. And there are people who drive me bonkers who will just never get it right with me. I think just in writing this I'm seeing what a two way street this is, and it makes it better somehow - I think it's the key to the answer.
The people who I don't really like aren't bad people - they aren't a mar on society - I don't wish they would disappear into a hole (or be banished to a deserted island, which is what I used to secretly wish upon people in high school - I put them all on the island together to torture one another.. muahahaha. at that time there were like at least 10-15 people!! happy to say the island's real estate market has opened up a bit since then) - it's just that they rub me the wrong way, affect my sensitive sensibilities or maybe just aren't "for me". So why is it such an affront when you can tell someone doesn't like you? I'm not exactly the quietest, least opinionated person in the room. I can imagine I can be quite grating, especially after a few drinks (my husband informed me that during my birthday celebration last week I was screaming "WHAT COAT AM I GOING TO WEAR TONIGHT! I CAN'T PICK A COAT!" - totally unnecessary, annoying and ridiculous!). I bet even my highly introspective and self-based blog entries annoy people (don't anyone dare agree with that statement as a comment on my wall, I'll kill you! ;)). I get that I'm not everyone's cup of tea. I can see this type of off-the-bat, just-not-feeling-you reaction when my dog meets other dogs in the park. Some dogs he instantly wants to play with, will bounce in circles, beg them to chase him. Other dogs: one sniff and he's out of there. He might even get growly if said dog tries to play with him. Bailey is very firm in who he does and doesn't like, and he has an approximate IQ of 4. So maybe it's a biological thing? In which case I should clearly just stop writing and thinking aloud about it and give in to letting the chemicals rule our interactions!
I just read Sheryl Sandberg's book Lean In and was bummed during the chapter that pronounced that the more successful you get at your job, the less people will like you, particularly as a woman (URGH). I recently became a manager at my job and have aspirations for higher long-term goals. So do I just get down with the fact that people won't like me? Maybe someday I'll be high up enough and scary enough that anyone who doesn't like me will be too scared to act like it?! Just kidding.. because I will still know... I'm quite intuitive, you realize! Not to mention there's about zero opportunity for growth at my organization so I'm not going anywhere anytime soon!
I think overall it would be damn good and healthy to spend less time thinking about who does and doesn't like you. Who the fuck cares anyways! (said in a happy voice!). You only get one go at this life, YOLO if you will, and at the end of the day I certainly don't want to remember shedding tears over people who didn't like me and wasting that time by NOT spending it in a quality way with people who love me.
I do my best to be a good person (wife, daughter, friend, coworker, etc.), to be kind, to serve the world when I can, to listen, to take furry people for really long walks, to abide by my own moral code and to be good while being me (which is not exactly this perfect effigy described above! ha!). If we all do our best to be our best selves, then won't the chips fall naturally where they will? Friendships will form, some will recede, some will resurge; alliances will build, break; affinities will wane and wax - but it will all be the way it's "supposed to be" because we're all being us - constantly changing throughout our lives, meaning that these relationships will inevitably change as well.. but as long as you have a few key people you love and who love you, isn't that all we need?
I can see from this rambling I have some neat ideas. Implementing them and making them a part of my day to day consciousness, that's another thing entirely! I guess a good start is blogging about them. :)
I'm always on a quest to better myself. My next goal - being 100% proud of the me I am so I can be more ok when, inevitably, someone does not want to chase me at the dogpark.
Tuesday, 12 November 2013
Sunday, 22 September 2013
The Fog Always Lifts
This August
Jeff and I set out on a two week east coast roadtrip, determined to see
everything there was to see in Quebec City, all of New Brunswick, the entire
island of PEI and all of that beautiful Nova Scotia, from Digby Neck to the
Cabot Trail. Lots of warnings from
friends and family who had travelled down east met the news of our trip “I hope
the weather holds for you” “aye, I remember the Cabot Trail – couldn’t see a
bloody thing!” (I don’t know who that Scottish-toned person is but they look
like this in my mind:
)
and “oh, Halifax. Would have been nice to see the waterfront but it rained the whole time.” Regardless, we checked the long term forecast, gave each other the thumbs up and set out.
)and “oh, Halifax. Would have been nice to see the waterfront but it rained the whole time.” Regardless, we checked the long term forecast, gave each other the thumbs up and set out.
And, with the weather gods apparently on our side, we were met with brilliant sunshine all but four days. The first was our epic drive from Quebec City
to Miramichi, NB. There were parts of
that drive where it was raining buckets, other parts where it was just
spitting, and long stretches of simply eerie fog snaking through the
mountains. The only activity hindered by
the damp was ziplining over Grand Falls in Grand Falls, NB.
I was epically disappointed as this place was just amazing:
Maybe sometime we’ll have a chance to return
to NB and go for it! I think
still-getting-over-lifelong-fear-of-heights Jeff was secretly relieved he
didn’t have to cling for dear life to a slippery cable over the crashing waters
and jagged rocks. I had a dream of a
sunset dinner overlooking the Miramichi River from our hotel restaurant that
night. We brought our bags in in the
absolute pouring rain L. But, as I looked out the hotel room window
over the majestic river, I could see clear skies peeking at me from the east
and suddenly there were traces of golden light lighting the river and the
post-rain fog was dissipating as we watched.
I just about got my wish of the sunset dinner, with the added bonus of seafood
pasta featuring famous Miramichi salmon, watching Jeff drinking blueberry beer
and birds darting over the river.
The second
was our transitioning from PEI to Nova Scotia day. We ambitiously decided to drive from Cabot
Head Provincial Park on the north shore to Annapolis Royal, just west of Digby
in the NW of Nova Scotia. It was a
cloudy, foggy morning as we packed up our camping gear and set off on our
“scenic” south shore drive. You could
make out a lighthouse or two across a harbour, but mostly it was a pretty
gloomy day.
Once again, the fog changed
to an epic downpour at points, including of course when we had to run to and
from the grocery store and in and out of our cabin. The rain ceased long enough that night so I
could do a load of laundry (hijinx break?
I drove to the laundry room, saw it was coin operated, drove back to the
main office for change, put the change in the dryer instead of the washer (who
puts the dryer on the left!!!), drove back to the main office for more change,
drove back to the laundry room (got yelled at by a woman to SLOW DOWN – don’t
worry lady, my night wouldn’t have been “made” by hitting your kid with my car,
that’s in no one’s best interest), put my wash in, lost the money I’d put in
the dryer (10 minute max window? We’ll
never know), drove back to the cottage, back to the laundry room to switch the
stuff into the dryer, and back later to pick it up. I was very tired of doing laundry by that
point. Sidenote Jeff had slept for 2
hours while camping, then drove for 10 hours, so he was asleep sitting up on
the couch at 8:10 p.m., true story) but when we woke up the next morning, the
fog was heavy in the air. Uh oh. It was whale watching day. You can’t see whales in the fog!!
On Digby neck the fog seemed to
have a life and agenda of its own. One
side of the neck of land was perfectly sunny while the other was drowning in
fog.
 |
| Fog |
 |
| No fog |
Of course
where our whale boat was taking off from was insanely foggy – you could
actually feel it on your face. Jeff took
a picture of this lighthouse (see above) that was barely visible as we set off from shore. Then, suddenly, somehow , as our boat blazed
through the Bay of Fundy, we broke through the curtain of fog into the most
brilliantly sunny day I’ve ever seen.
Something about the dark, dark blue of the Atlantic ocean can make a day
seem exponentially more gorgeous than a regular sunny day spent anywhere
else. I feel so lucky we passed that
curtain of fog and broke out into the blue skies, because whale watching was
absolutely unreal! Highlights were two
humpback whales who I swear had been trained by the whale boats – rising,
diving, breaching and doing barrel rolls.
One barrel roll happened 10m from our boat. Being so close to a whale that you can smell
stinky whale breath is pretty incredibly awesome. My biggest sympathy for the whales is the way
barnacles hitch a ride on their tails and bodies – can you imagine how freaking
itchy it would be to have a barnacle attached to you at all times. No wonder the whales were slapping their huge
fins in the water as hard as they were – possibly dislodging a barnacle or two
in the process.
 |
| Barnacled Humpback |
Our third
foggy day hit us as we stretched way up into the northwest part of Nova Scotia:
the Cabot Trail. We woke up to fog and
the promise of a 90% chance of rain all day all over Cape Breton. Great.
The one day we allotted ourselves to do this beautiful scenic drive and
it’s not even going to be visible? We
crept up the highlands and found ourselves deep in the fog. Breathing it, feeling the droplets on your
cheeks, watching the collection of moisture drip off nearby lampposts – it was
foggy. We were still able to make out
hills, mountains and a few scenic peeks at the sea, but for sure the visibility
was reduced.
Then, suddenly, the gray
skies just seemed to get brighter. I
swear I could see one particularly concentrated area of bright. We pulled off
at the next lookout and there it was – the sun!
Doing its very best to break through the clouds. And it did!
By the time we got to the next stop the sky was a tumultuous mix of
clouds and fog being burned off by a gleaming yellow sun in a perfect blue
sky.
And by the afternoon, it was an
undeniably perfect sunny day that had me reaching for my sunscreen. We enjoyed the lovely weather as we made our
way along the Cabot trail and back down the highlands into the south part of
Cape Breton. It clouded over again, but
I am eternally grateful we got to see the views we did. Many of them made my list of “most beautiful
things I’ve ever seen”. It gets longer
with every trip we take. It’s a
gorgeous, wild, and often sunny world out there to explore!
A nice
metaphor for life, perhaps, that no matter how dark, gloomy or unsettled things
seem, the sun is under there somewhere, and will, in time, burn through the fog
and find you again.
Monday, 16 September 2013
Concert High
Last night I had the absolute pleasure of FINALLY seeing one of my favourite bands since 2006, Panic! at the Disco, along with openers Twenty One Pilots and headliner Fall Out Boy. I've seen Fall Out Boy twice already but find their new album to be the most ridiculously catchy thing that ever existed, so needless to say I was crazy excited.
I've never heard of Twenty One Pilots. But they were wearing ski masks. And singing songs with pretty decent social messages. So I was in! Jeff and I agreed they weren't bad at all, though we only arrived in time to see two songs.
Then we waited for my buddy Brendon Urie and Panic! to take the stage. It was raining at Echo Beach, but Jeff and I hardly noticed. An all standing venue, on beach sand, surrounded by kids average age perhaps 18... but we didn't feel old.. we just felt excited. Ok so part of this excitement could possibly be attested to the fact that the opening band was done before 8 p.m. meaning we'd be able to see good long sets from Panic! and FOB and still manage to make it home in time for Jeff to clock some shuteye before his 14 hour day at work today. Yes.. so we're old. But whatever works to get you PUMPED! :D
When Brendon took the stage and started with "It's Time to Dance", I was transported back to 2007 instantly. I had just downloaded that song and was playing it over and over again on my iPod on my drive to work at my shiny new job. This was exactly 6 years ago... ack! Time really flies. "Well, she's not bleeding on the ballroom floor just for the attention.. cuz that's just ridiculous.." Jeff and I had fun answering "WEDDING" to the prompt of "SHOTGUN", singing at the top of our lungs with all the other kiddies. They played my current fave, the single Miss Jackson (B's dancing in this video originally sold me hard on this song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUc_jXBD9DU - I often try to emulate his moves while Bailey and I are out hiking.. results likely laughable!). They played their new single, a couple from their last album which was good but not comparable in my eyes to A Fever You Can't Sweat Out or Pretty. Odd, and me and Jeff's Rock Band stardom song, Nine in the Afternoon. Most of you who are reading this and going "..who is this band?" will remember I Write Sins Not Tragedies as their breakthrough single http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vc6vs-l5dkc and if you watched music videos (like I did when I was a rich and lazy master's student!) you'll remember the world's creepiest wedding guests and yet another video where Brendon where eyeliner and a top hat. He is also into shiny jackets, which he was wearing last night. If there's one key to my heart, it's a sparkly item of clothing. So ya, anyways, I can't stop laughing about the ridiculousness of all of us getting prompted to sing the start of I Write Sins - "what a beautiful wedding..." ending with "the poor groom's bride is a whore!" and Brendon brings the mike back to his lips, laughing and exclaims "she's such a slut!" then burst into the "I chime in" verse and goes on singing. He kept sliding back and forth on the stage, in his sparkly jacket, taking advantage of the slippery drops of rain, and warning us to please laugh at him when he inevitably falls. Which he didn't, because I'm fairly certain he's super human. And he ended his set with a backflip off the drummer's platform down onto the stage. Stuck it. Loved it. I was so freaking happy. Great songs that brought back lovely memories, and an awesome singer, completely kooky and fun, too easy to picture singing in the spotlight next to a piano at a lounge in the 20s with his beautyful rich voice. I had a blast singing every last word.
Fall Out Boy was solid, for sure. Their shows have gotten significantly showier since I first saw them in 2007 - more lights, more video, more planned "stunts" - but hey, it was awesome! I'm happy to have someone put on a show for me. I thought their first few song selections were weak, but was thrilled when they started to play a few off their new album, especially Young Volcanoes which I danced my ass off to in the sand and the rain. Dance Dance was more 2005 nostalgia - I drew the heart a la 2005 Patrick (you have to watch the video or have a good memory to know what I mean http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6MOKXm8x50). They have a pretty solid selection of songs. Patrick has definitely gotten way more cute/fun/confident over the years too. But, sadly, my heart still belongs to Pete Wentz - my devastating crush on him when I was 22 was embarrassing enough at the time .. it's significantly moreso now. Especially when juxtaposed with holding hands with my husband LOL. But alas, Kristyn will be Kristyn. ;) And of course during the show I couldn't stop laughing in my head about this:
 |
| "Fall Out Boy", 2007 (Photo by: Dave Cristo) |
 |
| Almost best seats in the house - for 3 songs!
|
My main "hrrrrrmmm" about the FOB set was Pete's little interludes of talking between songs. I sort of wish he would just keep his pretty mouth shut. At one point, trying to encourage kids to embrace music he managed to compare FOB's Save Rock and Roll album to Green Day's Dookie (come on, Pete). And he kept referencing all the "kids in the crowd" who "just don't fit in" and people "just don't get you - but I feel that, man, no one ever got me either". Jeff and I just looked at each other and laughed. We lamented our mortgage, steady jobs and marriage and just how well we fit in to life in general.. dammit! ;) There were some definite freaks around us. Good for them. I hope the freaks find comfort in the music. I know I have at lower points in my life (Bang the Doldrums basically healed me after a cruddy breakup) - and I'll always be a bit of a weirdo at heart (and on the surface.. and in extremely detailed blog posts about concerts attended mainly by teenagers).
Amazing, amazing show overall. The energy, especially from Panic! (did I mention the bassist was also wearing a sparkly shirt, and their big sign behind the stage was sparkly too?) was contagious. I went home in the most fabulous of moods, after being a bit in the dumps yesterday, and have been riding my Concert High all day long. Cleaning out the fridge, dusting the house and vacuuming up another mountain of dog hair today were tasks made much more enjoyable by dancing and singing at the top of my lungs, reliving my favourite parts of the show (yes, I will now insert "she's such a slut!" into I Write Sins every time I sing it! - I'm all class, for the record). I didn't even notice the rain. Just the tunes, the good vibes, and Pete Wentz' smile (KIDDING).
And I can't finish up my concert post without mentioning seeing Alan Doyle at Jackson Triggs winery's amphitheatre last Friday night. He's the lead singer of Great Big Sea, for the unenlightened (!!), and does some solo stuff. He was incredible. I dare anyone to go acapella (spell check is suggesting "scapula" to replace that - I'm going to leave it...) all alone on stage, nothing but your voice and a glass of wine, and sound anything like Alan. He is unreal! My mom and I both got misty eyed during one of his ballads, about what else, a sailor, the sea and his love back home. Le sigh! A wonderful week of concerts.
Have you seen your favourite band lately!? If not, I would strongly recommend it for filling your soul and putting a huge smile on your face, and kooky dance in your step.
Tuesday, 3 September 2013
Trip Highlights
In Quebec
City we wandered cobbled streets
Admired
centuries of history
Dined at an
authentic Italian restaurant
Where a
French waiter and two significantly Anglo Ontarians tried to find common ground
Stayed at a
hotel on a lake that we never had time to see
And
picnicked on cheese and baguette while the Vinyl Café played on the radio
In New
Brunswick we hopped into inner tubes
Strapped to
one another, and also to our cooler
We cracked a
cold beer as our feet dangled in the cold river
And floated
peacefully down the Miramichi
I definitely
crashed into the trees hanging over the riverbank at one point
And we
laughed
On the south
shore of New Brunswick we walked on the ocean floor
The tide was
out, the tourists were in
And the
Hopewell Rocks were as towering and majestic as anything had ever been
Cinched at
the waist, busty ladies in corsets gathered together
100 feet
over the rest of us, looking down
Eroded by
the endless ocean
Hugged by
bubble wrap seaweed, floating and clinging then squinting against the bright
sun
Until the
tide returned
We ate
salmon in Miramichi
Lobster in
Shediac (Acadian style, of course!)
We dined on
mussels, clam chowder and more lobster in New Glasgow, PEI
We savoured
Digby scallops on Digby neck – warmed on a toasted hot dog bun, somehow the
greatest meal I have ever tasted
Lobster
rolls and scallop encores in Lunenburg
1.5 lbs of
lobster and fresh salmon near Peggy’s Cove
Oysters,
lobster and haddock in Halifax
Deep fried
everything in Antigonish – the ocean floor in a fryer, then on our plates
Steamed
clams (steamed hams?) fresh from the ocean in Portland, Maine
And $1/piece
oysters for Jeff
On my to do
list: getting fresh seafood shipped to Ontario for minimal cost… (suggestions
welcome!)
On PEI we
clapped, sang and stomped at a ceilidh
Fiddlers
fiddled, step dancers stepped, trumpets blared
Jokes flowed
Songs sung –
from the beloved Stompin’ Tom, to Mike the ceilidh guy’s “ol’ belly rubber”
which made this big weenie cry
Bald eagles
flew overhead nonchalantly
Herons
clustered together in flocks
Where were
we!?
Lighthouses,
lighthouses, lighthouses
From
gorgeous, to run down, to ugly, to lonely, to majestic
From red, to
white, to black
Beacons on
every point
Everywhere
(Lighthousemoon?)
Whale
watching off Digby Neck
The humpback
whale barrel roll
Fins of
minkes all around
Brilliant
sun 1, pervasive fog 0
Did I
mention the scallop rolls?
Touring the
west coast and the Acadian villages
Blue, red,
white flags, yellow star
Pride in
history, unchanging for centuries
Views of the
ocean
“I could live
here”
Lunenburg,
so colourful, so quaint, so adorable
The perfect
fishing town
Tall
colourful architecture here, the Bluenose II over there
And a
harbour full of sailboats under a shining sun
The bluest water
I have ever seen
Peggy’s Cove
Pink granite,
blue water, shining sky
Lighthouse
perfection
Clambering
on rocks, waves crashing all around
Feeling so
unbelievably at home
Halifax. Waterfront.
Could have set up a shop and moved right onto the boardwalk, never
leaving
Or could
have stayed a year at the Keith’s brewery where folks in period costumes danced
and sung
Could have
spent every night for the rest of my life listening to Signal Hill at the Lower
Deck, while the good beer flowed
Could have
stayed there and never left, I’m sure of it (NCC Atlantic, are you hiring?)
Laying on a
beach
This was
worth not taking the long route
To find this
time to relax
The coldest,
saltiest water
Nothing more
refreshing
The warm,
reddish sand
Quiet,
reading, relaxing
“We need to
find time to do more of THIS” says Jeff
Cape Breton
My history,
my blood
The Cabot
Trail and the most beautiful vistas in the world
Winding on a
road up a mountain
While the
sea opened up below
Climbing
further and further up
Green hills
that went on forever
Fiddle music
pulsing in my veins
Time with
Jeff
A commodity
there just isn’t always enough of
Two weeks,
7,500 kms, countless stops, always on the move
Coming,
going
Cabins with
salamander guests, hotel rooms in 4 provinces and 1 state
Feeling at
home the entire time, because my home was right beside me, driving the car and
smiling at me
A wonderful.
Spectacular. Unforgettable. Exhausting. Brilliant two weeks.
Canada’s
east coast - perfection
Monday, 15 July 2013
Summer Hijinx are the Hijinxiest of All
Field season is at the "ready to kill ya" point which explains my absence over the past little while. But I'm bursting with stupid stories, and just had to make a point to make some time tonight to post. Between the stupid, the awesome and the terrible, I'll try to paint an adequate picture of the past couple of months in not more than a couple paragraphs! (ha, brevity, never my strong point..)
I had the roughest go I've had at work since I started my job nearly six years ago, which did a pretty decent job at sucking my thoughts into a spiralling crazylady vortex for most of May and June. When it comes to just me, gettin' my work done, doin' my thing, meeting my deadlines, I'm bang on. That is when I flourish. When you add people to the mix it always makes things trickier.. especially when you add ones who detest you, don't respect you, lie about you (um, yup, that's all one person), I get thrown totally off kilter. Dealing with people, especially when their motives toward you are.. using synonym feature to find right word.. "sinister" too harsh.. let's just say "untoward"... can really do a number on your head, making you question yourself and your decisions. The good news is I kept treading water with the help of my wonderful friends and family who are so supportive and I am so grateful for every day; I kept my head above the proverbial water, murky as it was, and I made it out of the deep end and have climbed out of the cesspool. I am moving on from that toxic swimming pool and doing everything I can to put it behind me. Like an angry fire-breathing whack-a-mole, I'm sure this person will pop up again in my life, but hopefully I'll be in a better position to breathe in, breathe out, shake my head and laugh a little, and continue moving forward.
My allergies have been pretty redonculous this season; not sure about the rest of you grass pollen allergy sufferers, but I really think this has been one of the worst years for pollen allergies on the record. I knew it was bad. Then I decided to walk through a field of 5'5" tall grass. I know exactly how tall it was because it was hitting me in the eyes and mouth as I walked. If I'd put on my rubber boots I could have walked on the submerged trail, but I hate having wet feet for the drive home and was only in hikers, so I thought dry feet + field of grass sounded like a much better idea. I started sneezing.. 3 sneezes (usually I just pull out a double). Then 5-6 sneezes. When I was at one point bent over letting out a chorus of 12 consecutive sneezes and my face subsequently exploded, I decided I probably shouldn't continue to blaze my way down the grass path. As I reached my car on the return journey I noticed it felt like I had something in my throat - grass seed? Not sure. Ouch. Itchy. Can't tell. Cough cough.. ouch. What the heck. Deep breath.. having trouble breathing.. Oh, I see, it's just my throat closing up. Nice. That was a terrifying 15 minutes as I drove in a panic along Hwy 90 practicing breathing and painfully coughing. Luckily after blasting AC at my face for the 1.5 hr drive home, I was in decent condition, and promptly made an apt with an allergist. Hopefully 2013 will be my last year of face explosions: tbd!
I went out to spray Dog-strangling Vine, my favourite nemesis, for a week at the end of June. I led a team of 8-9 people each day and we did a serious number on this plant, helping to keep it off some very important habitat - ya us! I only gave one person heat exhaustion, 2 people funny foot rashes from wearing rubber boots in 35C heat (nope, it can NEVER be a reasonable temperature when I'm spraying) and maybe ended up with a team of 5 down from 9 on Day 4.. but we persevered! To celebrate near the end of Day 4 (final spray day), I looked over at one of the team members who was fiddling with the straps on her backpack sprayer while holding the spray trigger on the nozzle and was promptly greeted with a face full of Roundup. Watching it come towards me in a blue, slow motion arc through the air was something else! It smacked me in the forehead, eye and cheek on the right side of my face and I looked at one of our other interns, who was panic stricken. "Do you want paper towel?!!? LET'S GET YOU SOME PAPER TOWEL!". I replied "I need you to get the handwash water and wash out my eye right now." I sort of fell to my knees while she started pouring clean water in my eye and across my face. At that point, there wasn't much else to do but laugh and her controlled freak out was kind of hilarious. So I started laughing as she poured, which made it sound like I was choking on the water that was pouring on my face. An intern who had been around the front of the van came to the back to see what the commotion was about and could only utter: "Laura, why are you waterboarding Kristyn?!?!" Which made me laugh harder, which is when another intern showed up and thought to himself: "Laura is doing a really bad job at giving Kristyn a drink of water from that jug...". Which he later shared, which made me waterboard laugh again later. We spent the rest of the day retelling that story and laughing until our stomachs hurt. Just after that I went to call my parents to tell them the funny story and apparently can't handle holding two phones and a beer, as I poured the beer all over my shirt, my pillow and the bed I was to sleep in that night. Ahh. The perfect end to a dreamy week ;)
Last weekend I headed to Cedar Point in Sandusky, OH. This is our annual trip of roller coaster awesomeness that we missed in 2012 and I have since vowed NEVER to miss a year again. I missed it so much I'd find myself staring misty-eyed into the distance thinking about the twists and turns of Maverick (two launch starts, a drop that's greater than 90 degrees - yup picture it, like a backwards "S" (ride that S from the right), a two minutes of crazy barrel rolls and thrills), the fastest you'll EVER accelerate and probably EVER go from 0mph - 120mph on Top Thrill Dragster, and the 300 foot sheer drop on Millennium Force, then catching air on hills overlooking Lake Erie. Basically, the happiest place on earth. Somehow it's never really rained on us before. A bit during our trip in 2007, but never REALLY rained. We had a great morning in the hot hot sun, rode all the goodies and were planning our next moves when we saw the sky getting a bit funny. We made it right to the front of the line for Magnum XL and then were told the ride was shutting down due to incoming weather. Ok, time for a beer! Then in line for Maverick for an hour and a half waiting for it to run again, which it just does not do in the rain because of the launches. Ok, let's head to dinner! We got sprinkled on on the way to dinner, and when Viv and I felt the subzero AC temperature of the restaurant we made the executive decision to walk the 7 minutes to and from the car to get some dry long sleeved shirts to change into. We didn't want to get chilled then be cold all night. Nice plan ladies.. instead we got SOAKED in the storm that would eventually flood Toronto that day. We were soaked RIGHT THROUGH. Right through. At one point there was nothing to do but laugh. Or maybe I said "this will be one of those things we think back on and laugh about" :P When we showed up back at the restaurant looking like two drowned rats, Jay and Jeff (warm and drinking their beers inside) just sort of stared at us in feel sorry for you/kind of funny/oh my disbelief. The restaurant folks who gave us towels to go towel ourselves down in the bathroom were very nice. We drank some tea to warm up, changed into the dry shirts (thank goodness for plastic bags) and made it through the rest of the evening no problem, even though we were extremely wet from butt to feet! Anyone interested in riding the best rides of your life, plan to be IN for Cedar Point 2014 - all welcome! (sidenote: Viv and Jeff laughed like maniacs for their first time over the 420' off the ground arc of Top Thrill Dragster - there is nothing like your first time!)
Sidenote: our campsite for the weekend was under big shady trees, so typically that would be "dirt". For this particular weekend post all the summer rain, it was "mud". Mud which we a) skated in b) slid in c) dropped steak AND vegetables in. Mud which I refused to brave at 4 a.m. when the rain was pouring buckets onto our tent. You know you have a good husband when he agrees you shouldn't go out there, hands you an empty Powerade bottle and goes back to sleep. A saint, my Jeff! Not my finest moment THAT'S FOR SURE. I hope that very embarrassing factoid at least made somebody laugh - if so, it was worth it.
Bailey has started swimming, which is very fun and cute and probably very useful for a dog wearing a black fur coat in 30C+ weather. It's been great taking him to the dogpark so he can cool down and fetch sticks - he's a great swimmer! Yesterday morning while hiking with Bailey, my mom, Ziggy and my mom's friend Art and his two dogs, Bailey got lost - in Stouffville, in a giant forest, quite far from home, somewhere he's never been. We called and called for a good 5 minutes before he finally came back - completely out of breath, soaked from head to toe and looking a little panicked. We'll never know what happened. I'd like to put a GPS tracker on his collar, even if just to see where he goes on these expeditions!
This past weekend I got to attend an event at Little McCoy Island way up near Pointe au Baril in Georgian Bay. Fantastic day, beautiful weather, lovely people and to top it all off, there was a moose swimming across a channel of the bay on our boat ride out to the site. I put it in my speech, which was then an instant hit with the GB folks (apparently moose are relatively rare to see in the area). Ya moose!
Anywho! More hijinx to follow, I'm sure. Wow, did you know hijinx is actually spelled hijinks? You learn something every day. Thanks Blogger spellcheck. I of course will continue to spell it my way. Like the time I tried to bring back "whack", or coin a catch phrase ("you're breaking my box!") or am currently trying to make stick: "waking up in the 6's; eating breakfast in the 7's" - like for when you wake up anytime between 6-7 and eat between 7-8. Another example: "Waking up in the 5's is the worst!" (so true). Just wait.. it'll stick ;)
I had the roughest go I've had at work since I started my job nearly six years ago, which did a pretty decent job at sucking my thoughts into a spiralling crazylady vortex for most of May and June. When it comes to just me, gettin' my work done, doin' my thing, meeting my deadlines, I'm bang on. That is when I flourish. When you add people to the mix it always makes things trickier.. especially when you add ones who detest you, don't respect you, lie about you (um, yup, that's all one person), I get thrown totally off kilter. Dealing with people, especially when their motives toward you are.. using synonym feature to find right word.. "sinister" too harsh.. let's just say "untoward"... can really do a number on your head, making you question yourself and your decisions. The good news is I kept treading water with the help of my wonderful friends and family who are so supportive and I am so grateful for every day; I kept my head above the proverbial water, murky as it was, and I made it out of the deep end and have climbed out of the cesspool. I am moving on from that toxic swimming pool and doing everything I can to put it behind me. Like an angry fire-breathing whack-a-mole, I'm sure this person will pop up again in my life, but hopefully I'll be in a better position to breathe in, breathe out, shake my head and laugh a little, and continue moving forward.
My allergies have been pretty redonculous this season; not sure about the rest of you grass pollen allergy sufferers, but I really think this has been one of the worst years for pollen allergies on the record. I knew it was bad. Then I decided to walk through a field of 5'5" tall grass. I know exactly how tall it was because it was hitting me in the eyes and mouth as I walked. If I'd put on my rubber boots I could have walked on the submerged trail, but I hate having wet feet for the drive home and was only in hikers, so I thought dry feet + field of grass sounded like a much better idea. I started sneezing.. 3 sneezes (usually I just pull out a double). Then 5-6 sneezes. When I was at one point bent over letting out a chorus of 12 consecutive sneezes and my face subsequently exploded, I decided I probably shouldn't continue to blaze my way down the grass path. As I reached my car on the return journey I noticed it felt like I had something in my throat - grass seed? Not sure. Ouch. Itchy. Can't tell. Cough cough.. ouch. What the heck. Deep breath.. having trouble breathing.. Oh, I see, it's just my throat closing up. Nice. That was a terrifying 15 minutes as I drove in a panic along Hwy 90 practicing breathing and painfully coughing. Luckily after blasting AC at my face for the 1.5 hr drive home, I was in decent condition, and promptly made an apt with an allergist. Hopefully 2013 will be my last year of face explosions: tbd!
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| View from Sneezefest 2013 - at least it was worth it! |
I went out to spray Dog-strangling Vine, my favourite nemesis, for a week at the end of June. I led a team of 8-9 people each day and we did a serious number on this plant, helping to keep it off some very important habitat - ya us! I only gave one person heat exhaustion, 2 people funny foot rashes from wearing rubber boots in 35C heat (nope, it can NEVER be a reasonable temperature when I'm spraying) and maybe ended up with a team of 5 down from 9 on Day 4.. but we persevered! To celebrate near the end of Day 4 (final spray day), I looked over at one of the team members who was fiddling with the straps on her backpack sprayer while holding the spray trigger on the nozzle and was promptly greeted with a face full of Roundup. Watching it come towards me in a blue, slow motion arc through the air was something else! It smacked me in the forehead, eye and cheek on the right side of my face and I looked at one of our other interns, who was panic stricken. "Do you want paper towel?!!? LET'S GET YOU SOME PAPER TOWEL!". I replied "I need you to get the handwash water and wash out my eye right now." I sort of fell to my knees while she started pouring clean water in my eye and across my face. At that point, there wasn't much else to do but laugh and her controlled freak out was kind of hilarious. So I started laughing as she poured, which made it sound like I was choking on the water that was pouring on my face. An intern who had been around the front of the van came to the back to see what the commotion was about and could only utter: "Laura, why are you waterboarding Kristyn?!?!" Which made me laugh harder, which is when another intern showed up and thought to himself: "Laura is doing a really bad job at giving Kristyn a drink of water from that jug...". Which he later shared, which made me waterboard laugh again later. We spent the rest of the day retelling that story and laughing until our stomachs hurt. Just after that I went to call my parents to tell them the funny story and apparently can't handle holding two phones and a beer, as I poured the beer all over my shirt, my pillow and the bed I was to sleep in that night. Ahh. The perfect end to a dreamy week ;)
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| Badass 2013 Spray Team |
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| Millennium Force - pic from the line. That's a HUGE bitch! |
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| Top Thrill Dragster against the sunset (photo by Jay). 420 feet of magic straight up and down. Vroom.. VROOM...... |
Sidenote: our campsite for the weekend was under big shady trees, so typically that would be "dirt". For this particular weekend post all the summer rain, it was "mud". Mud which we a) skated in b) slid in c) dropped steak AND vegetables in. Mud which I refused to brave at 4 a.m. when the rain was pouring buckets onto our tent. You know you have a good husband when he agrees you shouldn't go out there, hands you an empty Powerade bottle and goes back to sleep. A saint, my Jeff! Not my finest moment THAT'S FOR SURE. I hope that very embarrassing factoid at least made somebody laugh - if so, it was worth it.
Bailey has started swimming, which is very fun and cute and probably very useful for a dog wearing a black fur coat in 30C+ weather. It's been great taking him to the dogpark so he can cool down and fetch sticks - he's a great swimmer! Yesterday morning while hiking with Bailey, my mom, Ziggy and my mom's friend Art and his two dogs, Bailey got lost - in Stouffville, in a giant forest, quite far from home, somewhere he's never been. We called and called for a good 5 minutes before he finally came back - completely out of breath, soaked from head to toe and looking a little panicked. We'll never know what happened. I'd like to put a GPS tracker on his collar, even if just to see where he goes on these expeditions!
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| Bailey (front, black) swimming with his lunchtime buddies at Guelph Lake today (photo cred: Busy Bee Critter Sitters) |
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| MOOSE! Prob a 2-3 year old male |
Anywho! More hijinx to follow, I'm sure. Wow, did you know hijinx is actually spelled hijinks? You learn something every day. Thanks Blogger spellcheck. I of course will continue to spell it my way. Like the time I tried to bring back "whack", or coin a catch phrase ("you're breaking my box!") or am currently trying to make stick: "waking up in the 6's; eating breakfast in the 7's" - like for when you wake up anytime between 6-7 and eat between 7-8. Another example: "Waking up in the 5's is the worst!" (so true). Just wait.. it'll stick ;)
Monday, 27 May 2013
The Carden Challenge
I don't have time for a super long blog entry about my 24 hour birding/herping/mamal-ling/ode-ing/lep-ing adventure, but I absolutely wanted to share some highlights while I have 1/2 hour. Then my trashy tv + workout routine must begin! So, in 1/2 hour:
This year was my first competing in the Carden Challenge, an annual event to raise money for the Couchiching Conservancy which consists of counting all the wildlife you can find within a set count circle between 6 p.m. Friday - 6 p.m. Saturday. And there are trophies for different categories, adding major incentive to competitors!
Got up to Carden around 5 p.m. on Friday afternoon. VERY excited to get the challenge going. Rounded up coworkers Jen and Ali, and headed up to Team Captain Ginny's house to drop our bags and strap into our field gear for the evening ahead. We started at 6 on the dot and were rewarded the second we stepped outside of Ginny's door with a starling, a ruby-throated hummingbird and a blue jay, plus a chipmunk. Nice! Three birds down, who knows how many to go.. I was aware the records set for the area were in the 130s (yes, 130+ bird species in 24 hours) but had no idea where our little team would end up. A herper, a birder and two jacks of all trades (oh, though I had been assigned dragonfly/butterfly "expert" - HA!). And we were off!
There was lots of driving, which is a bit of a nice change from the LOTS of hiking that occurred on my last long birding adventure (Christmas bird count in December = 18 km on foot over 12 hours in 1C temps with rain - eek!). Can't say I minded the car time. A great chance to consult the guidebooks, discuss our next move, and cruise along with the windows open listening for birdies. For non birders, you can actually identify most birds by the songs they sing (oh and no bird sings just ONE song, they are so tricky like that!) and it counts if you can pick them out by ear. Thank goodness for Ginny's iTouch allowing us to corroborate what we were hearing with an amazing bird app that plays all the calls back to you! Within the first hour we'd picked up a ton of warblers, thrushes, a catbird, a spotted sandpiper. I'd realized my giant binoculars from the 1990s are like Zack Morris' cell phone and I'm definitely in need of an upgrade (why did I look through Ginny's $300 pair? why!? now I know what the good life is like..). We saw two northern watersnakes slithering across the road: our first herp species! We saw a deer on the side of the road - ya! It was a biodiversity flurry.
No butterflies and dragonflies were out in the cold, so I was technically off the hook that evening. As the sun set, the sky darkened and a giant full moon yawned over the flat alvar landscape, Carden changed into a completely different place. The nighttime birds emerged and it was like nothing I've ever heard before. A whip-poor-will sings "whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will" - repeating that call 20 times before taking a breath and starting again. Multiply that by hundreds of them. Over top of that was the common nighthawk, swooping from a great height in the sky, nearly hitting the ground and then rushing upwards again at the last minute causing the air to push through its wings, emitting a loud burping noise that was like nothing I've ever heard before. The air was lousy with Wilson's snipes - you could hardly hear the other birds over the wind rushing through their feathers in a haunted-sounding owl-like call as they soared sightlessly through the night air. We crept up Wylie Road (one of the most famous birding roads in North America, I've literally met people from China and the UK on it this spring alone!) and had to stop the car as a big red eye caught in our headlights - a whip-poor-will planted squatly in the middle of the road, daring us to come closer. Eventually I had to get out and sort of chase him away - silly fella. We broadcast a barred owl call and got not one but two owls answering us back. I felt so very lucky that night. The funniest was when we played a saw-whet owl call and a bird answered that left us all standing there open-mouthed - what WAS that? It wasn't any owl call I knew. But familiar. Turns out it was a black-billed cuckoo, for some reason awoken from slumber to have a chat with us at 11 p.m. (not a nocturnal bird at all) - I almost felt bad for waking him up and making him sleep talk (as we all know, I can relate to that for sure!
We slept for a ridiculously small 5 hour shift, then hit the road again at 6 a.m. and went for 12 hours straight. We were rewarded with raptors (osprey, hawks), more mammals (snowshoe hare, groundhog on a rock), herps ("toad"poles, green frogs, garter snakes), another ton of warblers (there are so many species!) and finally when the temperature warmed up enough out came the dragonflies and butterflies! It was a challenge for sure, trying to learn on the fly and identify these fluttering things, but I am happy to say I caught and ID'd a total of 7 d-flies and 8 b-flies and held my own pretty respectably against the other teams. Ginny was a HUGE help with ID of course. And where would I be without field guides! I was determined to catch all three "Baskettail" species and was rewarded in the last 10 minutes of our day with snagging one out of the air, thinking "only Beaverpond Baskettails would be flying that high!" - and I was right. YEEEAA!!! At that point, Jen was just unearthing a brown snake and a red-bellied snake from under some warm rocks - what a successful end to an awesome day!
A highlight of the afternoon was a stop at Ginny's friends' place (the greatest property/house in all history, which left us all wide-mouthed with jealousy - 100 acres, forests, fields, gardens, huge barn, beautiful house, pond, covered deck, you name it!) which consisted of a place to eat lunch, overlooking a pond, while a Blanding's turtle (a rare species at risk) stared up at us from the pond and a red-breasted nuthatch which had been eluding us ALL DAY started to call out of nowhere ("ank.. ank.. ank"). I will never forget Jen's face when she heard it and spun around and stared at me wordlessly with her mouth hanging open - priceless! I had gone off to investigate some tiny blue butterflies (they were all silvery blues, as much as I wanted one to be a spring azure!) and on my way back saw a stocky green heron crash land into a pine tree. What the heck! Awesome!!
We laughed a LOT, which made it a lot of fun! We were BEAT at about 3 p.m. but a baby Blanding's turtle on the road absolutely perked us up. We dipped on a few species (where are you Ebony Jewelwings?! and we missed the loggerhead shrike by 1.5 hours!) but overall were pleased with our results: 101 birds (we were dying to make it to 100 - an osprey head poking out of a nest did it!), 11 herps, 15 odes and leps and 7 mammals (mammal highlight was definitely coyotes yipping and howling on Friday night as the moon rose). We came in 4th out of 4 in our category - darn! Competitive Kristyn was a bit sad! But the next team only had a few points on us and the winning team only beat us by 30 points (diff species worth diff points, so likely beat us by about 20-25 species). The bird numbers for the competitive category were between 100-120, and in the rec category in the 70s, so we gave ourselves a pat on the wing for that accomplishment. And the winners were announced as we ate pie, so really, you can't go wrong doing anything while eating homemade cherry pie!
We never did see that moose that we joked about for, oh, 24 hours straight. The blue-winged warbler's "rude noise" call made me laugh until my stomach hurt. I ate (drumroll) 5 slices of pizza, a chocolate croissant, a bagel, a cookie, two granola bars, two homemade scones with jam and cream and a piece of banana bread with butter (yes, our lunch stop/hosts seriously rocked), potato salad, roast beef, two more scones, pie and cake - then decided I'm never eating again... We saw a fox on the road leaving Carden at 8:30 p.m. (blast! where was he 2 hours earlier!). We watched fields of pink Prairie Smoke (a spring alvar flower) roll by as we cruised down country roads. It was really a lovely 24 hours, and team Flickers, Skippers and Peepers (and yes, we got a Northern Flicker and a Spring Peeper - no skippers though, but did get a Twelve-spotted Skimmer - dragonfly) will for sure be considering an entry again in 2014. And this time, we WILL be contenders for that trophy!!! :)
Post script that my midnight bath when I finally made it home and sliding my hot tired feet against the cool sheets when I crawled in to bed may be contenders for the best moments ever, in history.
Ack! It's 7:57 and I still haven't added any pictures - here they come!!!
HA of course my photo uploader isn't working - are you kidding me blogger?! Alright, alright I'm PVRing my show, let's see what I can do here!
This year was my first competing in the Carden Challenge, an annual event to raise money for the Couchiching Conservancy which consists of counting all the wildlife you can find within a set count circle between 6 p.m. Friday - 6 p.m. Saturday. And there are trophies for different categories, adding major incentive to competitors!
Got up to Carden around 5 p.m. on Friday afternoon. VERY excited to get the challenge going. Rounded up coworkers Jen and Ali, and headed up to Team Captain Ginny's house to drop our bags and strap into our field gear for the evening ahead. We started at 6 on the dot and were rewarded the second we stepped outside of Ginny's door with a starling, a ruby-throated hummingbird and a blue jay, plus a chipmunk. Nice! Three birds down, who knows how many to go.. I was aware the records set for the area were in the 130s (yes, 130+ bird species in 24 hours) but had no idea where our little team would end up. A herper, a birder and two jacks of all trades (oh, though I had been assigned dragonfly/butterfly "expert" - HA!). And we were off!
There was lots of driving, which is a bit of a nice change from the LOTS of hiking that occurred on my last long birding adventure (Christmas bird count in December = 18 km on foot over 12 hours in 1C temps with rain - eek!). Can't say I minded the car time. A great chance to consult the guidebooks, discuss our next move, and cruise along with the windows open listening for birdies. For non birders, you can actually identify most birds by the songs they sing (oh and no bird sings just ONE song, they are so tricky like that!) and it counts if you can pick them out by ear. Thank goodness for Ginny's iTouch allowing us to corroborate what we were hearing with an amazing bird app that plays all the calls back to you! Within the first hour we'd picked up a ton of warblers, thrushes, a catbird, a spotted sandpiper. I'd realized my giant binoculars from the 1990s are like Zack Morris' cell phone and I'm definitely in need of an upgrade (why did I look through Ginny's $300 pair? why!? now I know what the good life is like..). We saw two northern watersnakes slithering across the road: our first herp species! We saw a deer on the side of the road - ya! It was a biodiversity flurry.
No butterflies and dragonflies were out in the cold, so I was technically off the hook that evening. As the sun set, the sky darkened and a giant full moon yawned over the flat alvar landscape, Carden changed into a completely different place. The nighttime birds emerged and it was like nothing I've ever heard before. A whip-poor-will sings "whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will" - repeating that call 20 times before taking a breath and starting again. Multiply that by hundreds of them. Over top of that was the common nighthawk, swooping from a great height in the sky, nearly hitting the ground and then rushing upwards again at the last minute causing the air to push through its wings, emitting a loud burping noise that was like nothing I've ever heard before. The air was lousy with Wilson's snipes - you could hardly hear the other birds over the wind rushing through their feathers in a haunted-sounding owl-like call as they soared sightlessly through the night air. We crept up Wylie Road (one of the most famous birding roads in North America, I've literally met people from China and the UK on it this spring alone!) and had to stop the car as a big red eye caught in our headlights - a whip-poor-will planted squatly in the middle of the road, daring us to come closer. Eventually I had to get out and sort of chase him away - silly fella. We broadcast a barred owl call and got not one but two owls answering us back. I felt so very lucky that night. The funniest was when we played a saw-whet owl call and a bird answered that left us all standing there open-mouthed - what WAS that? It wasn't any owl call I knew. But familiar. Turns out it was a black-billed cuckoo, for some reason awoken from slumber to have a chat with us at 11 p.m. (not a nocturnal bird at all) - I almost felt bad for waking him up and making him sleep talk (as we all know, I can relate to that for sure!
We slept for a ridiculously small 5 hour shift, then hit the road again at 6 a.m. and went for 12 hours straight. We were rewarded with raptors (osprey, hawks), more mammals (snowshoe hare, groundhog on a rock), herps ("toad"poles, green frogs, garter snakes), another ton of warblers (there are so many species!) and finally when the temperature warmed up enough out came the dragonflies and butterflies! It was a challenge for sure, trying to learn on the fly and identify these fluttering things, but I am happy to say I caught and ID'd a total of 7 d-flies and 8 b-flies and held my own pretty respectably against the other teams. Ginny was a HUGE help with ID of course. And where would I be without field guides! I was determined to catch all three "Baskettail" species and was rewarded in the last 10 minutes of our day with snagging one out of the air, thinking "only Beaverpond Baskettails would be flying that high!" - and I was right. YEEEAA!!! At that point, Jen was just unearthing a brown snake and a red-bellied snake from under some warm rocks - what a successful end to an awesome day!
A highlight of the afternoon was a stop at Ginny's friends' place (the greatest property/house in all history, which left us all wide-mouthed with jealousy - 100 acres, forests, fields, gardens, huge barn, beautiful house, pond, covered deck, you name it!) which consisted of a place to eat lunch, overlooking a pond, while a Blanding's turtle (a rare species at risk) stared up at us from the pond and a red-breasted nuthatch which had been eluding us ALL DAY started to call out of nowhere ("ank.. ank.. ank"). I will never forget Jen's face when she heard it and spun around and stared at me wordlessly with her mouth hanging open - priceless! I had gone off to investigate some tiny blue butterflies (they were all silvery blues, as much as I wanted one to be a spring azure!) and on my way back saw a stocky green heron crash land into a pine tree. What the heck! Awesome!!
We laughed a LOT, which made it a lot of fun! We were BEAT at about 3 p.m. but a baby Blanding's turtle on the road absolutely perked us up. We dipped on a few species (where are you Ebony Jewelwings?! and we missed the loggerhead shrike by 1.5 hours!) but overall were pleased with our results: 101 birds (we were dying to make it to 100 - an osprey head poking out of a nest did it!), 11 herps, 15 odes and leps and 7 mammals (mammal highlight was definitely coyotes yipping and howling on Friday night as the moon rose). We came in 4th out of 4 in our category - darn! Competitive Kristyn was a bit sad! But the next team only had a few points on us and the winning team only beat us by 30 points (diff species worth diff points, so likely beat us by about 20-25 species). The bird numbers for the competitive category were between 100-120, and in the rec category in the 70s, so we gave ourselves a pat on the wing for that accomplishment. And the winners were announced as we ate pie, so really, you can't go wrong doing anything while eating homemade cherry pie!
We never did see that moose that we joked about for, oh, 24 hours straight. The blue-winged warbler's "rude noise" call made me laugh until my stomach hurt. I ate (drumroll) 5 slices of pizza, a chocolate croissant, a bagel, a cookie, two granola bars, two homemade scones with jam and cream and a piece of banana bread with butter (yes, our lunch stop/hosts seriously rocked), potato salad, roast beef, two more scones, pie and cake - then decided I'm never eating again... We saw a fox on the road leaving Carden at 8:30 p.m. (blast! where was he 2 hours earlier!). We watched fields of pink Prairie Smoke (a spring alvar flower) roll by as we cruised down country roads. It was really a lovely 24 hours, and team Flickers, Skippers and Peepers (and yes, we got a Northern Flicker and a Spring Peeper - no skippers though, but did get a Twelve-spotted Skimmer - dragonfly) will for sure be considering an entry again in 2014. And this time, we WILL be contenders for that trophy!!! :)
Post script that my midnight bath when I finally made it home and sliding my hot tired feet against the cool sheets when I crawled in to bed may be contenders for the best moments ever, in history.
Ack! It's 7:57 and I still haven't added any pictures - here they come!!!
HA of course my photo uploader isn't working - are you kidding me blogger?! Alright, alright I'm PVRing my show, let's see what I can do here!
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| Ginny and Ali checking out tree swallows on Friday night |
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| Possibly the worst pic of both Jen and I, ever. I love it! |
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| Moon rising Friday night |
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| Visiting a colleague's house to look for gulls and terns on the lake |
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| Team Flickers, Skippers and Peepers! |
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| Butterfly ID - Mustard White, or West Virginia White? (we decided the former, less exciting one!) |
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| Ali with the wee Blanding's turtle we saved from the road! |
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| Bird #100: Osprey! |
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| Last herp of the day: Red-bellied Snake - great find, Jen! |
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| The net that caught the Beaverpond Baskettail! |
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| No one said protecting yourself from deer ticks by tucking your pants into your socks is an attractive undertaking... ;) |
Tuesday, 23 April 2013
Highlight Reel
This blog is called Off the Top of My Head. I find I keep waiting for a great story to tell but life these days just seems to be a series of small stories with no cohesive theme.. so off the top of my head, I just wanted to share a few great highlights from the past weeks. Aaaaand... go!
1) Going to the Guelph Farmer's Market on Saturday morning. I live in Guelph but vacillate between being a regular city-girl kinda consumer (fast food, Home Depot, Stone Road Mall) and a crunchy hippy (hiking and canoeing, buying happy organic meat and wearing Birkenstocks to work). I try not to swing too hard to either side of the pendulum because I don't like the idea of being defined too strictly (prefer to be an anomaly :)). BUT.. does anything feel better than buying local ag and supporting local merchants? No. I don't really like mornings, or crowds, or, ironically, crunchy hippies, but I let my supercool friend Dawn L. drag me to the market at 8 a.m. on Saturday and I spent the rest of the weekend so pleased about my delicious cheese pies, organic chicken from a farm in Rockwood (I shall name him Colin) and dinner ingredients from around the corner that I will no doubt be back again! Already excited for berry season.. Not to mention a great night with Dawn, one of my fave peeps, which consisted of eating way too much, drinking pints at the Pennywhistle and lots of catching up and being goofy. :)
2) The Leafs making the playoffs. Are you kidding me? Did I just write that sentence? It's been a looooooooooong time since I've been able to get excited about that. Like.. I was in third year university... about 5 boyfriends ago (and now I'm married! ha!).. I was barely in my 20s - madness! We didn't get to watch the clinch live but that's ok (bc we were busy hanging with more fantastic friends, weiner-parent vegans Ben and Meagz), because we totally ruined it for ourselves anyways by trying to argue with the logic that they could indeed clinch a spot with a win on Saturday night. Jeff and I were convinced that the sports reporters, the columnists in the Sunday Star (and the headline that read "THEY'RE IN!!!") were wrong. Ya.. they changed the rules about ties for playoff positions this year and we didn't know it. So, surprisingly, Jeff and I were wrong, and the rest of the world was right. SO - our reaction of joy was slightly marred by our stubborness, but around 10 a.m. Sunday morning we finally accepted it ;) and have been in a state of overjoyed disbelief ever since. I CANNOT wait for the hype, hope and joy of a playoff game - I hope we can get a table at Real Sports one night!!!! (bc hells no I'm not paying for tix to a game at the ACC!)
1) Going to the Guelph Farmer's Market on Saturday morning. I live in Guelph but vacillate between being a regular city-girl kinda consumer (fast food, Home Depot, Stone Road Mall) and a crunchy hippy (hiking and canoeing, buying happy organic meat and wearing Birkenstocks to work). I try not to swing too hard to either side of the pendulum because I don't like the idea of being defined too strictly (prefer to be an anomaly :)). BUT.. does anything feel better than buying local ag and supporting local merchants? No. I don't really like mornings, or crowds, or, ironically, crunchy hippies, but I let my supercool friend Dawn L. drag me to the market at 8 a.m. on Saturday and I spent the rest of the weekend so pleased about my delicious cheese pies, organic chicken from a farm in Rockwood (I shall name him Colin) and dinner ingredients from around the corner that I will no doubt be back again! Already excited for berry season.. Not to mention a great night with Dawn, one of my fave peeps, which consisted of eating way too much, drinking pints at the Pennywhistle and lots of catching up and being goofy. :)
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| D&K <3, Guelph-style, 2009 |
3) Dawn (BFF Dawn) telling me a story that made me laugh so hard I cried. She's part of the reason I started this blog, because I swear more crazy stuff happens to her than could ever happen to me in a lifetime (and a lot happens to me, you have to admit). So Dawn awakes at 4 a.m. to a loud banging on the door to her apartment. Terrified, she creeps over to the door and looks through the peephole to see a crazy drunk girl outside her door, knocking and yelling to let her in, it's her, she's home, let her in!! (Dawn does not, obvi) Another drunk girl appears and says "maybe this isn't it.. maybe it's the next door".. and the drunkards start to make their way down the hall to Dawn's neighbour's door. However, the first girl takes a moment to throw up violently on the (carpeted) hallway outside Dawn's apartment door. SIGH. They then move down and start the charade again at Dawn's neighbours ("let me in! it's me! I'm home!"), and promptly the girl vomits AGAIN on the floor outside the neighbours'. I just picture Dawn in her pjs, watching this crazy scene unfold through her peephole, followed by a request to the building staff to please come clean up some hallway puke.. followed by now a vague, permanent stain on her carpet. Let me clarify, I feel so badly for her! But honestly, I could not stop cracking up. (don't worry, I won't post a creative, related picture)
4) Field season starting! It was only 6 months ago I was burned the eff out never wanting to see a tree again.... BUT.. somehow.. I'm ready to go again! I just loaded some property layers into my GPS unit at work today and I am STOKED! With these awesome GPS units I basically get to stand in an air photo (like a Google Earth image) and see what type of habitat I'm about to walk into (helpful for not falling off a cliff, or drowning in a lake ;)). There are a bunch of invasive species biding their time out there (I have the 2012 waypoints) but what they don't know is THIS YEAR, I'm READY for them! Phragmites, Garlic Mustard, Giant Hogweed and most specifically DSV - watch out here I come! (that was a direct quote from the Dead or Alive song Spin Me Right Round, if you were thinking it.. it was..)
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| Garlic Mustard dies first |
5) The end of the tooth saga. Here's how this one goes:
- 1999 - should have gotten my wisdom teeth out like a normal teenager but my dentist neglected to tell me they were impacted
- 2006 - I get a new dentist who tells me my wisdom teeth are super impacted and they need to be yanked. Oh and the lower left one has been pushing on my back molar for years and it's subsequently rotted and will probably have to be yanked, and the implant will cost $3,000. You are a student with no money.. full price. $3k. Fun.
- 2006 (later that year) - I get 4 wisdom teeth yanked (including some crazy procedure called a coronectomy to remove the crown of one where it was dangerously close to the nerve running through my jaw) and wake up with the questionable molar still there. The surgeon tells me the tooth is deemed "worth saving" and it should be ok.
- 2007 - I get another new dentist since I now live in Guelph permanently, who decides that cavity needs to be filled, STAT and it's HUUUUGE! Cavity filled. OW OW OW.
- 2010 - complete hot/cold sensitivity on the same molar. Seems odd. I don't think much of it, just chew on the right.
- 2011 - twinging pain in my face many nights when I try to go to sleep which I diligently ignore.
- 2012 (January) - searing pain in my left jaw, can't see straight, advil does nothing. NOTHING (that is scary). I see my dentist who finds an abcess below the notorious tooth and tells me I'll need a root canal. But it's so bad that she wants me to go to a specialist.
- Later that week - specialist drills into the tooth to drain the crazy infection to find that the canals of my tooth are gigantic compared to any normal human and asks if I perhaps took a soccer ball to the face in my youth or suffered other major trauma. WHAT? No. This still remains a mystery - the mystery of the giant canals. Perhaps there's something my parents aren't telling me.. He then tells me he is very sorry for how much pain I must be in with that much area for the infection to take root - "he's never seen anything like it". And, oh, no, he simply can't treat this all in one visit. I will have a second freezing/drilling/draining next week. Thank goodness for TORODOL in the meantime. The greatest painkiller ever.
- The next week - root canal part 2. They get it all, they fill the canals with creepy hot rubber that will apparently keep everything bad out forever. My root begins to die. Temporary filling to cap off thousands of dollars of dental work.
- 2012 (March) - my tooth has no feeling, nerves completely dead. Dentist puts in permanent filling and says watch it for a year then come get a crown.
- 2013 (early April) - fitted for a crown which means your tooth (in my case, my large filling that looks like a tooth) being drilled down to a nub and staying that way for 2 weeks. Eerie. I opted to not get freezing (I'm tough! plus the nerves are dead which really helps with not feeling pain) but of course the drill slips while she's carving my baby tooth and hits me in the gum. Ya!
- 2013 (today) - crown on! I now have a real-looking tooth that feels super smooth and weird, and is distinctly whiter than my other molars. However.. I should be able to rest easy for the rest of my life with this solid gold and porcelain sucka glued on. Too bad it's not actual shiny yellow gold.. that would be awesome. Thousands of dollars (much reimbursed, thank you Great West Life) and many hours of agony later... I'm done! And I really do love my dentist, despite the drill slip. Thank goodness I found her, fixer of very scary tooth.
6) Last night I texted Dawn back "sorry I can't chat, we're watching a movie. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel - it's great!" as we often share movie recommendations. Her response: "is that a porno?". I have been laughing all day at that one.
And that's about it for now, off the top of my head. What else is there to say but cheers to spring, great friends, cute husbands, smooches from your pooch, and my Leafs in the playoffs - GO LEAFS GO!!!!
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