Cooking With Boundaries

On Saturday night I tried to get an idea of some staples to keep around the house in order to attempt the Ration Experiment with a minimum of fuss.  Some suggestions were rejected outright by Collin (Marmite), some with grudging acceptance (only 12 ounces of sweets allowed!), and some with enthusiasm (ingredients for homemade bread).  We're both wondering how much "cheating" should be allowed - if I make hummus to have with the veggies, is that fair?  It certainly wasn't a known food outside of the Middle East in the 1940s...but it is made of chickpeas...

I made some, anyway.  It is delicious.  I have no regrets!

I also ended up making a very tasty pumpkin soup. I think if we're going to be cooking a lot of squash or gourds, I'm going to need a machete for the kitchen - taking those darn things apart was by far the hardest part of the whole process.  Plus I would like to machete things.

Watch John Belushi - Samurai Delicatessen

Apart from anachronisms sneaking into our veggie-heavy new diet, I'm concerned about what this will do to my social standing.  No, really - when we're invited to dinner, I always bring desert.  On Game Day, I generally also bring some kind of baked good.  We go through an absurd amount of butter and sugar.  With both severely limited (and eggs as well!) I may have to experiment with making things sweetened with fruit and bound with applesauce or vinegar. I foresee many doorstop-like fruitcakes in my future.  Merry Christmas, everyone!

In other news, Collin and I had a good time wandering around Inglewood on Saturday, through the 3º F weather.  The train doesn't go far enough east, so we took it to city hall and then had a nice stroll through some construction sites.  Everything looks prettier covered in snow!  Standing on a bridge over the Elbow River, we watched burgeoning ice floes drift by geese along the bank.  Beyond the geese, where the Elbow meets the Bow River, lacy tendrils of mist hovered over the warmer water flowing south.

Scenic or not, it was still bloody cold, so we hustled into Inglewood proper to find somewhere to defrost.  Cafe Nine didn't turn us away (Calgary cafe and restaurants often have inscrutable hours).  We each had a soul-reviving coffee, and decided to browse through their stock of Geek Chic gift items.  We had to leave after only a cursory glance, though, because they had piped-in music* and Collin was afraid his incipient head-banging was going to break something.

*Collin only dances to piped-in music.  This means he only dances in supermarkets, cafes, and elevators.

After wandering the snow-packed streets for a little while longer, we stopped and had lunch/dinner at Inglewood's Fire Station No. 3 - now The House and Hound Pub.  It's a sports bar.  As I  sat there all warm and comfy with a pint of local brew, watching the University of Calgary v. University of Regina game on the screen, I felt an entirely foreign emotion.  Was this what...interest in football felt like?  Maybe living for so long in a place where support of the home team feels more like an obligation because you live there (kind of like I'm obligated to get an emissions test for my car because I have one) is detrimental towards fostering athletic enthusiasm.  But the Dinos WON!  The people in the pub watched with detachment, as if it wasn't a big deal.  Whereas I was nearly compelled to go out and drape myself in Calgary crimson to show solidarity.  

Thank god we left before I could get any worse.  

Experiments

It's a cold night in Calgary.  I expect I'll be writing that a lot.

One of my favorite things to do when it's cold and snowy is to bundle myself up and go for a walk - particularly at night.  There's a park across from our apartment that has huge cottonwoods and different kinds of pines, along with wide grassy areas.  There's even a couple of cricket pitches!  A paved path follows the perimeter of most of the park, and lovely, old-fashioned street lights illuminate the way.

When it's wintery like this, the park is abandoned.  I'm free to trudge my way through the unblemished snow until frostbite begins to set in.  Tonight the snowfall was a fine, dusty type of snow and it looked gorgeous and glittery under the diffused lights of the city.

I may have to figure out some better winter gear, though.  Or  get an extreme haircut.  I have a lot of hair, and right now I can fit either my face or my ponytail under my hood, but not both.  Thanks this and a ridiculous retrousse nose, I ended up snorting enough snow during my walk to have powered Corporate America, circa 1983.  Maybe I should start wearing a balaclava.

In between walks in the park and through various snow banks, and trying to keep on schedule with my writing (I'm not...), Collin and I were pondering a couple of experiments today.  Food experiments.  My favorite kind.

Collin has a book called Cooking For Geeks that we were looking through, after I asked why it was that toast is so much tastier than regular bread (I can now tell you the answer if you're interested).  At the back of the book were a bunch of experiments that can be done to change the state of familiar food.  Foamed fruit juice sounds unnatural and shrimp roll-ups sound unholy, but the idea of gelatinous milk balls is intriguing.  Don't get me wrong, I think it sounds disgusting, too.  But I remembered my mom bringing milk to work for her tea, and doing all kinds of tricks to keep people from drinking it.  What would happen if they poured some stolen milk into their coffee and little blobs slurped out, instead?  They'd never steal your milk again!

Well, they'd probably think it had gone bad, and would throw it away.  I haven't gotten all the kinks worked out of this Very Fiendish and Gelatinous Plan yet.

My other experiment is more of a social studies experiment.  I was doing a bit of research about Albuquerque in the late '40s and early '50s for a story idea I had.  One thing that would pop up regularly were mentions of food and materials rationing.  This got me thinking.  What was it that made the war effort of WWII so different from the wars that were to follow?  Society and technology were changing, surely, but it seems like people on the homefront genuinely felt that they made a difference to soldiers overseas.  They were recycling, rationing, and repurposing objects with individuals in mind.  If we were to experience that kind of rationing and scarcity during our wars abroad today, would society's view of war and it's consequences change?  Would it even be possible to go to war?

I'm wondering what a diet that followed rationing guidelines from the 40's would look like with the products available today.  I came a across The 1940's Experiment, which has a writer who is using a rations-based diet to lose weight.  I can't deny that would be a nice side-effect, but I like the idea of rationing food/materials to benefit something else, just as rationing was seen to help the war effort in the 1940s.  I've been keeping careful track of our grocery expenditures since I came to Calgary.  Perhaps donating the money we save on groceries each month to the local food bank?

Collin thinks he could only last about a week, but I've got my eye on The Victory Cookbook that might help me make food more interesting than he fears (as if we need another one - I think he and I are both rather compulsive cookbook buyers).

"October, October - the summer is over!"

There's a tree across the street from our apartment that's caught my eye today.  The leaves have turned a brilliant gold, and every gust of wind sends them bursting up into the sky like a shower of sparks.   In a neighboring yard an apple tree's branches are bowed with heavy fruit.  Occasionally an apple will fall and bounce onto the sidewalk, to be squabbled over by the large black squirrels that occupy our neighborhood.

Halloween decorations are also starting to occupy the neighborhood.  The old Victorian houses on our street don't need much decoration to make them seem ominous at twilight, but a few of the owners are throwing themselves into the spirit of the season.  Yesterday I walked past a cherubic little girl in a bright pink jacket running around her yard, stabbing shrunken heads on pikes into the ground.  She seemed to be having a marvelous time.

Speaking of ominous, I went to a couple Word Fest events on Friday.  One was called 'International Intrigue' and featured F.G. Haghenbeck, Steven Heighton, and the "Queen of Victorian mysteries", Anne Perry.  Haghenbeck writes Mexican private eye novels that sound very fun and entertaining, written with the dry observational humor that characterizes many Mexican novels (he comes from a country with a stagering murder rate, he said, and you have to laugh or you go crazy).  Heighton read part of a short story from his book The Dead Are More Visible, and I think I may need to find a copy for myself.  It was the story of a Canadian in Japan, learning the language through a used Japanese/English primer.  It did a remarkable job of slowly building suspense until you come to realize, with rising horror, what actually happened.

Then there was Anne Perry.  The moderator of the evening was a huge fan, and didn't do as good a job at keeping her comments on point.  That was a bit unfortunate, but it was clear that Perry enjoys researching her topics, and feels strongly about the societal issues in each of her novels.  And then she read aloud from her latest William Monk mystery, A Sunless Sea.

I haven't read as much of her latest work because I do find them a little formulaic, but when she read aloud - wow!  It was as if all the air left the room. I don't think anyone even breathed.  She didn't speak loudly, but it carried.  Her characters, even Monk, had slightly different intonations and accents, and lent new weight to the words on the page.  I was impressed.  I still don't know if I want to read the latest Monk, but I have a new respect for her and her methods.

So that was Word Fest.  On Saturday Collin and I went to the wedding of friends of his.  It was at a church.

It's been years since I went to a wedding at a church.  My friends all tend to get married in the woods.  Collin and I were both confudled about the level of formality required (tie? Pantyhose?), but eventually managed to get ourselves there on time.  Actually, due to a calendar error (my bad) we arrived an hour and a half early.

The ceremony was short but lovely.  The bride was beautiful (and brave - she sang an impressive solo at her own wedding!), the groom was...himself.  After the bride shakily read the vows she'd written herself, he responded by saying, "Awesome!  Well!  That segueways well into what I wanted to say..."

I shouldn't give him too hard of a time, because I'm sure he was nervous.  Still, it was kind of funny.

Alas, Collin and I did not get a picture to prove how well we both clean up (I'm sure there are parties interested in seeing him in a tie, heh), but maybe we'll have to go out someplace fancy in the future to give those clothes an outing.  

Write. Sleep. Freeze.

The last two days have been gray and chilly here in Calgary.  It's the perfect weather for writing because I  don't feel like there's anywhere else I need to be.  Actually, in front of my laptop is the only place I ought to be right now.  I've decided to follow the National Novel Writing Month schedule and finish a draft of my novel by Dec. 1st (well, November 30th).  After spending a lot of time on false starts and research, I decided to give myself a hard deadline. Therefore, October is my last planning and plotting month.  And I have planned a way to plot!

A while back I bought Elizabeth George's (author of the Inspector Lynley series) Write Away.  Sadly, this book is one of a box that I couldn't afford to send up to AB, but I remember some key points.  One, George started out as a high school teacher, and finished her first Inspector Lynley novel during a summer.  The key was organizing herself and her information so when it was time to write the story, she was ready.  Second, George is probably a little OCD.  Part of her organization included doing character sheets and histories for each character that appears on her pages for any amount of time.  The final important thing I remember George mentioning is that she started with a crime in mind before she started thinking about characters or setting (unless they tied into the crime).  She would ask herself "what if?" questions about it until she came up with an interesting angle.

For the first time ever, I started with this third step.  I know the who, what, where, why, and whens of the crime (a violent poisoning death!).  I spent a lot of time researching what could drive a person to such desperate lengths (I'm trying to avoid the classic cozy mystery trope of, "Why, clearly he was temporarily insane!").  My internet search history is no doubt very alarming.

I've taken a lot of pointers from Story by Robert McKee, as well.  It's directed towards screenwriters, but I figure a good story is a good story in whatever medium you chose.  McKee has a lot of tips for keeping the momentum going, keeping people interested in the action, and ensuring cohesiveness in the plot.  Outlining the "turns" in the first act was easy enough.  Now I just need to figure out what happens during the majority of the story.

Well, I ended up rambling on about my book longer than I intended to.  It's what's been occupying my mind and time lately, and one reason why there's been a lack of blog entries.  My sister Allison just mentioned that she never hears from me, so I thought I should show I'm alive (again!).  Part of the charm of doing the NaNoWriMo challenge is that there are community events for writers to go to (Calgary seems to have a very active NaNo club - the WriMoSauruses) so I'll be able to socialize a bit more (and have more to report for the blog!).  Also, everyone should feel free to comment below - it's always nice to hear from people!  Let me know what you've been up to, or if you have any questions about things.

Moving along: the only really exciting news is that we got a new mattress Monday.   The IKEA bed and futon pad was just not cutting it (especially as more and more things seemed to collapse under it - why would anyone make a particle board bed frame?!).  After sleeping on the new mattress Monday night I woke up Tuesday feeling closer to my actual age, which was awesome.  Collin, who has terrible insomnia sometimes (and at the moment, another cold), went back to bed and slept most of the day.  I think this may actually be our most brilliant purchase to date.

Now our storage room is packed with pieces of wood from the old IKEA bed (except for the broken bits - they're on the balcony, and we're plotting ways to do a drop-n-dash in local dumpsters.  Actually, I'm plotting.  Collin is merely watching my increasingly stupid daring plans with bemusement.).  I had ideas to turn the scraps into a +15 for the cat, or make a side table.  Or make everyone kind of wobbly boxes for Christmas.  If only I'd listened to my father and brought my drill.... :)

The yellow leaves are starting to fade to brown, and snow is falling in soft flurries today.  It's not sticking, and the forecast says the clouds should start to roll back tomorrow.  It's a good day to make a pot of tea and get more writing done.  I think that's what I'll do.

Still Alive!

It has been quite a while since I wrote an entry!  Everything's fine, but we're settling into a routine that doesn't make for quite as interesting reading as I try to write about...

And as I write this, Collin objects.  "What?  It's plenty exciting!"  No doubt he's right - we've spent some time poking around the city and discovering (or rediscovering) some fun spots and events.  As it's been strange to be in a new place and not know many people, it's also been really nice to get to know some of his friends better.   Collin's paper on collective spin squeezing was officially accepted to PRL (woohoo!).  Finally, we signed a new lease so Kowalski the Cat and I are here officially, too.

So, in retrospect, time hasn't been wasted at all.  We went to Heritage Park a few weekends ago and timed it well - it was the weekend of their Fall Harvest Festival.  We spent a couple hours strolling up and down the streets and board walks, exploring old trappers cabins and the strangely humble former abode of one of Calgary's most famous early residents.  I was able to speak to costumed reinactors about old timey postage rates and how to type-set a printing press.  We ate ice cream in a small park next to a children's midway, where squeals of laughter rang out as joyously as it must have a hundred years ago, when the rides were first unveiled.

On our way out we stopped at the Farmer's Market, and snagged a lot of produce for outstanding prices.  Food prices are higher in Canada than they are in the States, and far higher than they are in New Mexico.  I still haven't gotten over my sticker shock whenever I go to restock on milk and bread.  It was lovely to spend $25 and walk away with as many fruits and vegetables as we could carry.

Since that trip to Heritage Park, autumn has arrived in Calgary in a wave of golden foliage.  I'll have to take a picture of our street and post it.  It's absolutely gorgeous.  Schools and community centers are preparing for other Fall Festivals, and the grocery store is stocking up on turkeys.  Canadian Thanksgiving is the second Monday in October, and then Halloween...

October will be busy.  Collin and I are heading out to the mountains this Sunday, to either hike to the Beehive at Lake Louise, or find a new place to explore.  I kind of want to try canoeing on one of the gorgeous glacial lakes, but that might get old (and cold) quickly.  I think I generally have more fun exploring on my feet.

A holiday, a friend's wedding, and Halloween after that...our friends will be hosting a big Halloween bash and I'm pretty stoked.  I love themed parties (especially the catering potential - at the gooey center of every Christi is a 1950's housewife, evidently), and have been missing the kind of silly dinner parties I'd host in NM.

To sum up, September's been filled with important everyday things.  October is shaping up to be more of the same, only colder.  I'm missing everyone back home and have been channelling that into making an array of baked goods (the most delicious so far is a tie between banoffi pie and maple apple blueberry crisp).  And my novel is progressing slowly but steadily.

I know it's time to stop writing when I start sharing recipes.  Banff and/or Yoho and/or Jasper National Park(s) next time!

Drumheller and the Royal Tyrrell Museum...and IKEA.

This morning, I heard a crash from the kitchen and got up to investigate. There was Kowalski the Cat, sitting on the kitchen floor, blinking innocently. But unfortunately for him he'd been caught red-handed - or rather, yellow-pawed. A pan was overturned in the sink.  Last night Collin made curry, and turmeric seems to dye everything it comes in contact with a lovely golden saffron. 

I glared at the cat. He yawned, and blinked again. I figured curry wasn't great for cats, so I rolled up my metaphorical sleeves and picked Kowalski up by the armpits.

I should have left the metaphorical sleeves down, because therein lay the pet ownership lesson I kind-of-should-have-already known: never wash a cat without proper protective gear.  I held his wriggling, yowling, shedding little body under the faucet and he did an excellent job of shredding my arms to pieces.  It was while the water run orange with blood and exotic spices that I realized I hadn't updated the blog in a while.  The mind is a funny thing.

One of the reasons for the lack of updating was Collin and I had been feeling under the weather for a while -  some terrible Canadian virus had laid us out for most of two weeks.  Once we were feeling better, we decided to resume out Saturday Cultural Outings, starting with Drumheller.

Drumheller! Albertan Badlands! Land of Dinosaurs and bad land! As I mentioned in a previous post, a geologist had been wandering through a place called Horseshoe Canyon in 1884, when he'd stumbled over a large fossil embedded in the canyon wall. The fossil was a large theropod, smaller than its cousin Tyrannosaurus Rex, and was eventually named 'Albertosaurus'.

Here is where we went:

View Larger Map

I imagined myself like Loren Eiseley, wandering through towering hoodoos and reflecting philosophically on my surroundings. In actuality we stepped out of the car and were immediately blasted with gusts of frigid wind. My hat went sailing off my head, and I deeply regretted leaving my sweatshirt behind. We looked around for a trailhead, and saw a ground of people in the distance. They were crowded tightly together, looking doubtfully at something on the ground.

We got closer.  I realized it was not the ground they were looking at, but a hole in it. Moments later it dawned on me that that was not a hole, but the terrifically steep and muddy trail descending into the canyon. It was like the rolling green hills of canola crops had been ripped open, so sudden was the change in elevation. From the top of the trail we had an impressive view of the jaggedly-eroded landscape.  But I wanted a closer look, and to do so we would have to slide almost straight down.

It's hard to think Beautiful Thoughts About Nature when your eyes are streaming with tears and your nose is running from an icy wind, and you're sliding around in the mud and falling on your bum a lot. By the time we reached the bottom we were a bit worse for wear, but at least the winds were calmer. It is past the time for wild flowers here, which is a pity because the bottom of the canyon was overgrown with wild roses. I'm sure it would be gorgeous to see in June or July.

The landscape itself kind of reminded me of New Mexico except for the vegetation.   I've found myself struck by the ground cover here. There's juniper everywhere, but it grows close to the ground, almost like a vine. The canyon was erroded in places to form small hoodoo formations, and the dark gray and white striations were quite striking. I found out later that the gray bands were part of the Burgess Shale formation. Also known as: Where All The Fossils Come From.

Anyway, we tromped around happily for a while.  Further into the canyon we discovered an open area where dozens of hikers before us had erected a field of inuksuit (the plural of inuksuk, a travel site has just informed me).  Flat slabs of sedimentary rock lend themselves to this type of construction well.  Traditionally, these stone cairns indicate food stores or water, or demarcate a trail.  In this case, they were just a more striking way of declaring, "I Was Here!" than scratching one's name into the cliff side. 

Our final verdict of Horseshoe Canyon was that it was interesting for a short visit,  but we should have come better prepared shoes-and-jackets-wise.  Also, while it was an interesting site, I hope I won't be accused of over-partiality when I say that I think the hoodoos at Tent Rocks or El Malpais in New Mexico are more impressive. I'm glad we went, though.

We continued the drive through the flat farm land for a few more minutes to reach Drumheller proper and have lunch.  Then it was time for the dinosaur museum!!

The Royal Tyrrell Museum is named for Joseph Burr Tyrrell, the geologist who found that first fossil - the Alberosaurus skull - along the Red Deer River. It is a well-organized museum, and very popular, as well; although it was about a fifteen minute drive outside of town the exhibits were overflowing with people (as was the parking lot.  I had a brief conflict with a rabid mother who'd been driving in circles around the lot with a van full of children, and who actually jumped out of her vehicle to throw herself in front of my car to keep me from parking in an open spot.  I was annoyed until I later saw her kids in the museum.  Yikes.  Fair enough, lady.).

  The museum, their brochure tells me, is one of the most significant paleontological research facilities in North America. It was kind of cool to see plaques in empty display cases reading, "This specimen has been removed for further study". Several scientists and interns were cleaning fossils in a glass-fronted laboratory, and interactive screens gave more information and videos about the who, what, when and where of each.

It was really interesting to learn how active paleontology is in this part of the world, and how important historical research has become as well. Evidently, southern Alberta was one of the areas combed by Cope and Marsh during the the 'Great Dinosaur Rush', and many fossils deemed too difficult to excavate at that time or too incomplete were left in the ground. Scientists have studied old journal entries from those explorers to locate some of these dismissed sites. One was a massive bone bed, the size of a football field!

So I enjoyed myself.

It was late in the day, but the day was not quite over.  On Thursday, our coffee table/dining table/side table/footstool finally bit the dust, and I requested a table that would permit us to sit in real chairs, since Collin already has the real chairs. But we needed it to be cheap. Solution?

IKEA!! We found a table.  His name is Norden. The experience was exactly as the song says.



The table is currently being used to hold my sewing machine.  I'm going Little House on the Prairie and making some curtains, which, if they turn out to be not-completely-embarrassing, I will post a picture of.

Shakespeare In The Park, Cabin Fever(s)

Last Wednesday, Collin and I headed over to Prince's Island to see a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, put on by the drama masters students from University of Alberta and... d'oh.  Another place that has masters students.   It was really fantastic - I've never seen it performed before, and the setting was perfect for it.  I was really impressed by the cast's athleticism (the park's design is such that the scenes that conclude or are interspersed with Helena chasing Demetrius were incredibly effective and hilarious: the two actors were flat out sprinting after each other along the jogging paths).

We had a fun time, and the weather was lovely.  So, that was that.

On Saturday, we headed up north, east of Innisfail, to the banks of the the Red Deer River.  Some friends of ours have a family cabin they invited us up to, and we were both ready for some time outside of the city.  "Cabin" seems like a bit of an understatement: as one of our friends said, you can get a pretty good deal on land out there.  Most people who go to buy a cabin want a cabin in Banff, not on the edge of Badlands.

Most people are crazy, says I.   Their house was lovely, and fit three couples and two toddlers quite easily.  Some enterprising family member had also built a hot tub on the deck out of a plastic water trough and some copper plumbing, with a pump and a wood-burning stove to circulate hot water through it.  It was big enough to hold six adults (although we did end up recreating Archimede's 'Eureka' moment - and good luck trying to keep three off-duty physicists from idly calculating our collective volume when the opportunity presented itself).  It was a wonderfully relaxing spot to watch the Perseid meteor shower streak across the dark country sky.

The land owned by the family was atop a bluff.  Their neighbors on one side raised cattle and (I think?) potatoes, on another side was Crown land.

"Crown land?" Collin asked.  I was too busy being impressed by the proximity of royalty to comment.  I am, after all, an American.

Of course, it does not mean that it's literally owned by royalty (although in my defense, Edward, the Duke of Windsor, did own a ranch in the Bow Valley so there was some precedent for my assumption).  It merely means it's state land.  So nobody was likely to notice or care if we did end up tromping across it.

After I was told that there were fossils around, I went off to tromp with a vengeance.  Their property is bordered, as I mentioned, by the Red Deer River.  On the other side, above the narrow, verdant banks, rose a bluff of gorgeously banded sediments characteristic of the Albertan badlands.   It was along this river in 1884 that a geologist first discovered what was to become the province's official fossil: Albertosaurus sarcophagus.   So to say that I tromped is perhaps untrue - I may have actually been skipping as I left.

At least, at first.  While Collin remained back at the cabin with Bill and the kids, drinking beer and evidently being towed around by a four-year-old looking for mice, I was collecting several nice rocks, but hadn't found any fossils.  And my window of opportunity was closing, because I had done something very foolish before departing - I had forgotten to put on insect repellent.

As the sun sunk lower in the sky and the air became cooler, swarms began to gather.  At first it was just one or two irritating midges, but as I walked closer to the river, I was viciously attacked from all sides by mosquitos so massive I was surprised basic aerodynamic principles still permitted them to remain airborne after relieving me of several pints of blood.  Eventually I paused to gather a handful of long grasses to use as a kind of fly whisk, and wondered if the smoke created by lighting my hair on fire would be sufficient to deter the little beasts.

Eventually, physically and emotionally wounded, and suffering from extreme blood loss, I headed back to the cabin.  When I got there I found Collin, Bill, and Rebecca chilling out on the deck.

"How was your walk?" Rebecca asked.

"Fine.  Itchy.  I wasn't able to find any fossils," I replied.

Oh, she told me - they were just down a little ways.  We could walk there quickly after dinner!

And we did.  It did, seriously, only take about half an hour to reach the spot.  In a layer of pale, crumbling sandstone, pockmarked with iron globules, was the fossilized remains of a forest fire.  It was a little bizarre to remove a chunk of fossilized log and see the clear char marks on the end.

It may seem strange to end an entry about a weekend stay at a cabin with praise about their rocks.  So instead, I will conclude with another telling fact about the group of friends we stayed with: after playing 'Arkham Horror' (a board game so complex and time-intensive that it takes half an hour just to set it up), no one tried to throw it in the fire, and everyone was still willing to speak to me.  Good people.

On Friday, I decided to avail myself of one of the free Historic Calgary events going on around town.  Historic Calgary Week is a Very Big Deal, or maybe it just seems that way because we live in a rather historical part of the city.  A week and a half ago, we noticed some interesting banners and informational signs going up in many of the yards around the neighborhood, and later found out that these homes were taking part in the historic walking tour. 

I’ve been reading about local history, and I’ve read a lot about the “Founding Four”, the “Famous Five”, the “Group of Seven” (I sense a theme).  These were the wealthy landowners, the oil barons, the wives of businessmen, politicians, and newspapermen.  Understandably, the voices of regular Calgarians are not well-represented.  The walking tour gives people a chance to see their homes, and read a little bit about them (our street had several Italian families living on it in the early 1900s, one of whom owned a butcher’s shop nearby).  A house in the street over was owned by a dentist, others owned by railway employees.  Some stayed their whole lives, and some moved on during the tough economic times of the 19-teens.  

To make a long story short (and here I notice that the auto-correct in my word processing program has observed I’ve used a cliche*, to which I would like to respond, “Phttt!”), I love history I can touch and Historic Calgary Week hits me where I live.  Also, the Chinook Historical Society may be perhaps the most terrifyingly efficient volunteer organization I have ever come across, as they successfully orchestrated more than sixty events over seven days, up and down the entire Bow River valley.  There was one volunteer (I think her name was Dolores?) who must have been using teleportation technology because I saw her everywhere.  

The second City Hall, front, used
while the sandstone hall was
being built (pre-1906).

The tour I went on was of the old City Hall.  Originally, when Calgary was still just Fort Calgary, and the population was quite small, the town council met in a pool hall, whenever there was the need.  As the town grew, the pool hall was replaced with a shed-like structure, and the council met in a room a floor above where the RCMP kept their prison cells.  The town kept growing, and finally in 1906 they began construction of a “proper” city hall.  A city hall, I discovered, that was of the same template used in prairie towns across Canada during the period.  

According to our guide, you
can clearly see the style of the
building by the shape of the
windows and angle of the roof.

“The hall was designed in the Richardsonian Romanesque style, and is constructed from local Paskapoo sandstone,” said the guide. The sentence tickled me, so I copied it onto the back of the historical society’s brochure.  I’ve accidentally memorized it now so I sincerely hope the topic comes up again.  I have other facts rattling around, too: William Dodd was the architect and was fired for being over budget, the hall remained unfinished for four years, the Calgary seal carved over the front door has the wrong date (1882 instead of 1884) for the establishment of the city, and that the building is weathering in that peculiar way sandstone does - in large flakes of stone, rather like the sloughing-off of skin.

The rest of the tour was mildly interesting, but in the 1990’s they gutted and renovated the inside.  They have administration offices and meeting rooms in it, so it’s understandable, but that doesn’t make for a riveting tour.  We did get to watch a video about the clock tower (which you can watch here, if you’re interested), featuring a very endearing fellow explaining how they fixed it and how it works.

On the SW side of Olympic Plaza.
Two of the 'Famous Five': Nellie
McClung (left), and Irene Parlby
with the headline, "Women Are
Persons!", a decision that made
women eligible to serve in elected
offices.

Across the street from City Hall is Olympic Plaza and the historic Stephen Avenue.  Stephen Avenue is fun because during the day it is a pedestrian-only street, which means I can walk and ogle old buildings without being hit by cars.  

Exterior Burns Building. The
wrought iron verandah used to
contain panes of glass.

The Burns Building is kitty-corner from where I was, so I went over to check it out.  Books I’d read about Calgary history had huge entries on Pat Burns, one of the “Founding Four”.  He’d started out as a rancher, and built one of the largest beef business in Alberta - ‘Pat Burns’ Shamrock Brand’.  The Burns building became his downtown store - massive marble counters lined either side of a wide aisle, set between tall Greek columns.  The walls featured huge glass windows to let daylight in, and elegant chandeliers for light during the winter months.  Fancy stuff for a butchers shop!  

Well, they still have the fancy-
pants marble stairs.  And
tiny floor tiles.

Time marches on, however, and the inside of the ground floor - what used to be the meat market - has been cordoned off into sad, cramped little sections.  The corner was a tiny coffee shop, with more baristas than customers, all of whom were having a spirited discussion about sci-fi tropes.  Next door was a fast-food falafel joint.  I think there's a high-class restaurant on the south side of the building, too.  

Watching the Olympics on Stephen Ave, at lunch.

The Olympics are a big deal, but in a different way than I’ve seen in the States or in Australia.  I haven’t picked up any feeling of pervasive self-confidence that Canada Is Going To Win All The Medals, for one thing.  As one Canadian comedian commented, the Summer Olympics aren’t really their thing.  That hasn’t slowed the interest, though.  In pubs, the TVs are all turned to Olympic coverage and all the patrons remained riveted to the screens.  Walking through Eau Clair Market (a kind of mini-mall) this weekend, the lounge area was filled to standing-room only as Calgarians trickled in to watch the Canada/US Women’s Soccer match.  On Stephen Avenue, they’ve set up a massive screen.  It was lunch time when I walked up the avenue, and it was remarkable to see people emerging from offices, shops, and restaurants to eat their meals standing in the street so they could watch.  I glanced up to the +15 (the level of above-ground walkways that connect many of the buildings downtown - particularly handy during -40 temps, I’ll bet), and saw more businesspeople looking down from there, sandwiches in hand.

Continuing south, I walked past the Canada Pacific Railway and under the tracks.  I'd heard that there was a Carnegie Library in town, still operational, and I wanted to check it out.  Eventually, I found it in Memorial Park. One interesting fact about the library: a ladies' literary society originally pushed the idea of Calgary having a public library, and petitioned for a Carnegie grant to build it.  They ran into opposition from many Calgarians, however.  They disliked taking money from a man who'd made it from "slave labor" (a quick Wiki search suggests they may have been referring to the Homestead Strike in 1892, and the practice of hiring non-union immigrants?  Maybe?).  Eventually the library was built and dedicated in 1911.  I loved the architectural details, particularly along the roof.  

Was this a neo-classical style building,
built from Paskapoo sandstone?
Where was the tour guide when
you needed him?

Yarn Bombing FTW!

One more thing for the day: as I was leaving the park, I glanced down at the flowers bordering the exterior gate.  There was a small guard rail - so people wouldn't step on the flowers?  Someone had very thoughtfully knitted a colorful cozy for it.  

*The auto-correct also objects to my use of “gender-specific expressions” and “wordiness”.  How rude.  I think, I’ll use more commas, and see if I can confuse, it.

No, it’s okay with that.  Weird.

Belated Photos: The Calgary Stampede

Collin and I mosied on over the the Calgary Stampede during it's opening weekend.  We had thought about getting tickets in advance, but never quite got our acts together enough to do so, thinking perhaps we could just get them on the day.

Packed stadium for the earliest rodeo events.

That was a mistake, because the line for rodeo tickets was halfway down the midway by 11am.  Plus, there had been a lot of headlines about horses dying and accusations of general animal cruelty.  I know, I know - rodeos are a fine tradition, we have a history of being a ranching culture, those animals are treated better than they are on the farm (...and the revenue from a million tourists is quite handy to have..?).  Here's the thing: when cruelty happens on a farm, I haven't paid to take part in it.

Not that I said any of this at the time, swept away as I so often am by a wave of CULTURE!  But thinking back, I don't mind that we missed it.  I later learned that even more horses (4, I think) had to be put down when the chuck wagons collided during a race and they were irreparably injured.  So.

But what did we see?  Well, there was the annual poutine, of course.  It's thick-cut potato fries with cheese curd and brown gravy on it, and is, I suspect, the best evidence that Quebecois hate all non-francophones and their arteries.  It's nearly a biological weapon.

That did not stop Collin from getting some anyway.

Thus (questionably) fortified, we headed over to the First Nations encampment at the far north part of the grounds.  There several groups of girls making bannock around some campfires.  I didn't realize that representatives from each of the Plains tribes actually camp in their teepees during the stampede.  So, although I guess they don't really mind, I still felt a little awkward looking through their camp.  I did take a picture of a teepee, though.

A teepee.  Ooh, I can add captions!

There were also several native artists demonstrating their gorgeous bead and quill work.  I asked one elderly lady if she ever got headaches from all that close work, and she said no, but sometimes it was hard sitting for so long to finish things.  I hear ya!

During the day, we explored all of the exhibitions (sadly, no giant rabbits, but So. Many. Clydesdales.), as well as the World Sheep Shearing Competition and the World Blacksmith Championships:

World Championships, but contestants were all from Canada, the UK and Switzerland.

One of my favorites again this year was the art exhibits.  Many painters and sculptors were in the hall, doing live demonstrations of their craft (particularly interesting to see how artists frame for a bronze statues).  The textile arts were very impressive, as well, including this quilt to commemorate the Stampede's 100th Anniversary:

We had a fun day out, managing to avoid sunburn or dehydration, which just proves we're getting better at this Stampeding business.

Next Up: Downtown Calgary, and photos added to Bow River Walk.

Belated Photos: The Journey North

Although we did, indeed, cross over various pioneer trails west, neither Collin nor I came down with dysentery, and we never had to caulk my car to ford any rivers.  Unfortunately, neither did we have to hunt for our meals, which rendered my carload of ammunition pretty much useless.

Just kidding.  I totally ate bison meat on this trip.

Alright, no more Oregon Trail jokes.  The theme of our trip from ABQ to the YYC was: Fire.  More accurately:  FIRE!!!!

Here is the hotel we stayed at in Cheyenne, WY.  It had a serious fire three years ago, and never really rebuilt.

After driving all day, you can probably imagine my alarm at seeing that we had made reservations to stay in an abandoned hotel.  Yes, those are security fences erected around it.  On the upside, it gave me great ideas for a zombie setting for a story.  And actually the inside of our room was pretty nice.

Next, more smoke!  Everything from Colorado Springs to Bozeman was on fire, so this was our impression of Wyoming and southern Montana:

Actually, as we passed through the country where Custer and the 7th Calvary met their gruesome end, we saw dark smoke billowing from a bluff above us.  It was the 3rd of July, and I figured it was safe to blame it on fireworks, but who knows?

July 4th, we crossed the US/Canadian border.  I was promptly nearly run over by a camper driven by a pair of Floridians on their way to Alaska, but they kindly made up for it by agreeing to take our Victory picture:

And here's one more of Collin and Bruce The Car:

Next up: Belated Photos: The 100th Anniversary of the Calgary Stampede!

Saturday at the Glenbow, or: Wherein our heroes find the Devonian Gardens by seeking shelter from the rain.

In case I didn't mention it, Calgary goes a wee bit cowboy crazy during July, thanks to the Stampede.  Have I mentioned the hats?  Millions of gallons worth of hats...anyway, even the most starched and staid institutions turn a bit denim during this time, and the Glenbow is no different.  So for our Saturday Cultural Outing, Collin and I hopped on a train and headed downtown to see the last weekend of their western exhibits.

The Glenbow Museum was one of Calgary's first museums, and has an eclectic collection of objects, based largely on the whims of its first patron.  Modern art (which bizarrely gave me a pang of homesickness - Canadian artists don't have much call to use warm colors in their work - impressionistic landscapes were all shades of muddy brown, green, gray, and blue.), Asian and African antiques, and a massive collection of weaponry, both ancient and not.  There is also a sizable portion of the museum dedicated to the First Nations people of Canada, and a section called "Mavericks".  Fortunately, there wasn't a trace of John McCain or Sarah Palin.  Many of these historic figures were genuine lunatics - climbing down oil wells?! and marvelously colorful.  One of my favorites was Bob Edwards, editor of the Calgary Eye-Opener, a pointedly sarcastic paper of weekly events.  He'd go on week-long benders every once in a while, which made the regularity of a weekly paper sometimes...not.

 The main attraction was the featured exhibit, an assortment of paintings by Charlie Russell, the Cowboy Painter.  I was pretty excited to see it, in the way I always am when I recognize the name of an artist.  That, and I actually do enjoy his work.  What I discovered though was that I enjoy his work most when in contrast to others artists.  Going into an entire exhibit of his work was a little overwhelming, where I left with the impression of, "Yep, those sure were horses!"

We spent several hours in the Museum, and then emerged in the pedestrian area of 8th Street for lunch.  Unfortunately, this part of town is surrounded by expensive hotels and the Calgary Convention Center, so our food options were limited to pub, pub, pub, pub or pub.  Collin and his Hitchhiker's Guide thought we might find a non-pub a few streets over...but no luck.  We wandered aimlessly until it began to rain, and then we wandered aimlessly and damply.

But then...there!  From under a dingy pedestrian walkway, the fluorescent lights of commerce shone brightly.  Teenagers dressed like Jersey Shore extras passed through automatic doors.  "A mall!"

"What?" Collin may have said.  I'm not sure because I was busy being pulled towards the entrance like a moth to a bug zapper.

I'm used to the sprawling monoliths of America where a mall is an island isolated from the rest of a town by approximately 50 square miles of parking lot.  This looked like the planners just had some J Crew store they needed to squeeze in somewhere.

But it was SO CLEAN!  All glass and chrome and tile - it was nearly blinding.  I wanted to take pictures.  It was gorgeous.  Even more gorgeous was the food court, with it's terrible Chinese food, which Collin and I gobbled down and instantly regretted.

About the time I started shoving the last half of my noodles around on my plate, I realized that my rapture at discovering such a place was almost certainly fueled by starvation.  Now that I realized I wasn't going to die, I also realized I was voluntarily sitting in a mall on a Saturday afternoon.  We decided to flee the food court, and ended up suddenly in a Provincial Park.

What?

It was the Devonian Gardens!  I'd seen signs for it all over town, but had never been able to find it.  Mainly because it had never occurred to me to look for it in the top floor of a mall, next to the food court.  But sure enough, there it was - thousands of ferns and succulents, arranged symmetrically around reflecting pools and koi ponds.  With the backdrop of the towering, cathedral-like glass ceiling, it really was quite gorgeous.  I don't know whose idea it was to install the park in a mall, but it was a clever move.  I instantly wanted to trip rude teenagers 25% less than I had moments before.

So I guess the lesson is that in Calgary, beauty can be found in some very surprising places.  Also, don't eat the Chinese food in the CORE food court.

Bow River Walk

Yesterday I put on my new shoes.  This ultimately proved to be a mistake, but an unavoidable one because I've worn holes through the soles of both pairs of shoes I initially brought with me.  The shoes broke my feet in, for sure.  How?  Let me tell you what I did yesterday afternoon.

After lollygagging around the house, bemoaning sore muscles unaccustomed to the weight training I'd done the day before (and, okay, all the L-Phys shenanigans the previous night), I decided around noon to get my keister out the door.  I recently read an article (where, I cannot recall, but if I do I'll insert a link) about a study done by a British university.  In it, they tried to determine which environmental factors encouraged stress reduction.  Ultimately they found that for all socioeconomic strata, living near the sea was anathema to stress.  They mentioned the fresh, bracing air (how British), and the soothing sounds of the waves on the shore.

Stress-free?  Awesome!  There's no sea in Calgary, of course, but it was built at the confluence of the Bow and Elbow Rivers, and Nose Creek, so there is a lot of water. And presumable soothing waves, the call of gulls, and a bracing fishy smell.

"Wait, wait.  What?" you ask.  "Bow, Elbow, and Nose?  Do Canadians suffer from uncontrollable twee?"

Well, I'm glad you asked, because it drove me a little crazy, too.  This is what I've learned: The Bow River is so named because a particular type of tree that is very good for bow-making grows along it.  Nose Creek is so named because it is the main drainage from Nose Hill (named, legend has it, because the bison wintering grounds of Nose Hill strongly resembled the nose of the Blackfoot chief).  The Elbow is named...well, still no good info on that.  It is quite serpentine in parts, and perhaps that's why...?

Collin and I have often walked along the riverfront, either to cross over Prince's Island to get to Eau Clair, or just for a good wander.  It's very well-tended, paved, and the trees and shrubs are (for the most part) trimmed to make it a lovely place to walking, jogging, or cycling.  But the last extended ramble we went on ended at a bridge  that had "1916" emblazoned on it, and the pedestrian walkway flooded by high waters after a day of thunderstorms.  I was curious what lay on the other side of that bridge, and decided to set off on a ramble of discovery.


View Larger Map

This is the path I took.  It was a nice walk, particularly earlier in the day (it always seems to get hottest around 3pm here).  They are constructing another pedestrian bridge to cross the Bow at St. George's Island (although it won't be done until 2013, so sadly I'll have to walk the long way around) which closed off a short segment of the river walk, but that was it.  Sweet-smelling purple clover was in bloom everywhere along the trail, as well as the lovely amaranth-tinted Fireflowers and Giant Goldenrod that often towered above my head!  But for the most part, it's clear wildflower season is just about over - there were a few of my favorites around still - shady spots sheltered a few delicate Harebells and some Wild Bergamot.  I also spotted a delicious-looking red berry that I didn't recognize, but I think it may have been a Silver Buffaloberry bush.

This find was, funnily enough, just south of zoo's bison enclosure. Part of the trail buts up against the southern boundary of the zoo, so you can actually look at the exhibits from your place along the river.  Of course, in the nature of zoo animals everywhere, they made sure to be lying out of sight of paying customers and lookie-lous alike.  The bison and (as indicated by it's very distinctive "cat-in-heat" call) a peacock are the only animals I know for certain are in the zoo.

The line to Edmonton is still in use.  There's still
glass insulators on those disused power lines next
to the tracks!

Further on, at the confluence of the Bow and Nose Creek I came to a rusty railway trestle bridge.  The Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) was crucial to the creation of Calgary as a city.  CPR was tied in very closely with the Dominion land policy of the late 19th century, which was pretty similar to the Westward expansion/Homestead Act concepts occurring at the same time in the United States.  In exchange for their services, the CPR received millions of acres of land, which it then sold to individual homesteaders.  Railway is still pretty big business in Calgary, but back then it was part of the "boom town" spirit.  The CPR line north across the Bow and along the western side of Nose Creek used to delineate between the "respectable" part of town, and the red light district.  Due to Calgary's penchant for catching fire and burning down (and perhaps due to a reasonable desire to clean up the city when it began to expand) there's no evidence of this disreputable past still around.

This part of town is now known as "The East Village", and has been trying to move beyond it's past as Calgary's "slums".  There is a startling amount of building/renovation going on (no housing slump here!), and this part of the city is experiencing a lot of urban renewal.  My favorites are always when old buildings are repurposed instead of being destroyed.  There is certainly a very vocal group supporting the former (as I realized when I went to a Historical Society-sponsored event recently), and the repurposing of this mattress factory is a nice example:

Looking south, across the Bow.  Calgary Tower in
the background.

If I ever find my camera cord I'll share pictures of things I've photographed poorly (WHERE did I put it?!).  In the mean time, I need to figure out Canadian television stations so I can stream the Olympic Opening Ceremonies.

ETA: 8/5/12 - have added photographs.

L-PHYS Conference

This year's L-Phys conference is being held at the University, and Collin was enlisted to not only give a talk, but help set things up.  With his early departures and long days, I've almost forgotten what the man looks like in daylight.  So, I was delighted when he asked if I wanted to go to the banquet last night.

It was pretty interesting.  For one thing, being an educator, my experience with large assemblages of professionals is that they usually have a ratio of women to men somewhere in the neighborhood of 50:1.  And they're loud, boisterous, and disastrous for public speakers (unless, of course, the speaker is also a teacher and knows the "tricks"), because teachers make the most unruly audience of anyone.

Not so for the L-Phys conference.  I think I saw maybe 20 women there, out of probably 200 people in attendance.  So what that tells me is that woman may be slightly better represented in physics than men are in primary ed, but not a lot.  Unless they were spouses along for a free meal, like me.  Conversations were subdued, and there was an intriguing mix of grad students (recognizable by their jeans and t-shirts), post-docs (jeans and button-downs), and profs (suits).  Whispy white hair crowned the heads of many, and I observed that mustaches were evidently de rigueur.

Dinner was quite good, and there was a tremendous amount of free wine.  With only three of us at our table, I'll admit I helped myself to it more freely than I should have.  However, I cut myself off at two and a half glasses, because I wanted to get home without passing out on the train.  But as we left, one of Collin's colleagues (I think?) gave us another free drink ticket.  We looked at each other, decided, "What the hell?" and had one more for the road.

While queuing, I overheard three middle-aged, graying scientists ahead of me, already pretty toasted, ask what time the bar was closing.  "12:30, sir," was the reply.

"Yyyyessssss!" they cheered.  They didn't actually high-five, but probably would have if they hadn't had drinks in their hands.

According to Collin, that's par-for-the-course behavior for physicists abroad.  Those crazy, crazy party animals.

Coffee, 'Pages', and postcards

I don't get much mail - actually, since coming to Canada, I haven't received any at all.  They have a marvelous system here: if you post a sign saying, "No Junk Mail" on your mailbox...the mail carrier doesn't give you any.  At all.  I wonder how much postage and paper is saved because of this?  Although I think I'd actually be pretty excited to see a Safeway flyer with my name on it, just to drive home the point that I'm actually here.

But I like mail.  Also, I like sending mail to other people.  I like stamps, and fresh stationary, and cracking open the groovy address book I bought from a Newsagents' when I was twelve (it has a koala roller-blading on it).  I particularly like writing postcards. They're a nice way of showing people you care about them without being required to settle in for an entire day of letter writing.  They fit my attention span - and thanks to specialty card stores with snarky stock - often fulfill my need to spread terrible puns around the world (The "Eh" Team, anyone?).

What I'm terrible at is actually mailing the darn things off.  But with my littlest sis' birthday...holy crap, tomorrow?  Oh, no!...I had to go mail some things off anyway.  The closest post office to us, I discovered, is in a Drug Store down on Kensington.  This was a delightful discovery.  Next time I need prompting, I can entice myself with promises to go look at nail polish after I post things.

On my way home, I decided to investigate Pages on Kensington.  They're an independent bookstore that Collin had mentioned thinking I would enjoy.  I did.  It's a wonderful little shop with an interesting selection of books - no genre fiction ("Alas!" said my mystery-loving soul), but general fiction, biographies, children's lit, history, science, horticulture, cooking, poetry, religion, and art.  It is an eclectic collection that clearly is a labour of love.  I didn't find the book I was looking for, but I did discover several books that I may have to go back and purchase.

I had barely left the bookstore when I brief rain shower began and I was persuaded to take refuge in the coffee shop across the street.  Really, weather, bend my arm why don't you?  Higher Ground, not to wax too rhapsodic, is a glorious place.  Plenty of tables, and space, but still has the intimacy of a whole-in-the-wall joint.  There are lots of outlets for laptops, and they even have a liquor license.  I foresee many an afternoon spent huddled by their bay window, with Lappy and a nice glass of wine before me.