Calgary Flooding

It's been a rainy couple of weeks, and it turned out the rain was more that the ground at the headwaters of the Bow River could take.  I turned on the TV Thursday evening to see an emergency message flash - areas of Calgary were being evacuated.  What?

Well, not our area, as it turned out.  What do you do if part of your city is flooding?  We had a very nice steak dinner, cooked perfectly by Collin.  It was surreal - we could hear sirens in the distance, and helicopters overhead.  The rain had stopped, briefly, and suddenly I couldn't get out the door fast enough to see what was going on.

We live about three city blocks from the river, in a neighborhood called Hillhurst.  Our neighborhood was (and is) fine.    Here's what we saw at 8pm on Thursday, June 21st.

10 Street Bridge

Poppy Plaza - the jogging path below is submerged

Poppy Plaza

Part of the memorial on the south side of the Bow

Waters almost touching the Peace Bridge

Memorial Drive, closed, and traffic leaving the Downtown area over the 10th Street Bridge

We were evacuated around midnight on Thursday/Friday, and fortunately some friends of ours in the northwest of the city were willing to put us and our cat up for an indeterminate amount of the time.

Because Calgary is built around the confluence of two rivers, the Bow and the Elbow, when they flooded it impacted huge chunks of the city.  There was a bad flood in 2005 that Calgarians called "The Flood of the Century".  As of this morning, flood waters had risen four times higher than the highest water of 2005, and are now the highest on record.  Authorities are not anticipating anybody being able to reenter the Downtown Core until Wednesday at the earliest.  The Stampede is due to open on July 5th and the entire Stampede ground is under water.

Our apartment and belongings are fine, but there were a couple of images that made me very sad.  The first, an arial photo of Prince's Island.  It's one of my favorite places to walk, and two weeks ago Collin and I celebrated our engagement at the River Cafe.  The second was a photo taken of a trussel bridge at the confluence of Nose Creek and the Bow River.  I believe one of the first photos I posted on this blog was of the same place (but the photo was taken from the north bank).  It's startling to realize the path I was on is now at least five feet under water.

I've learned a lot about Canadians during this event.   When I remarked on how orderly and sensibly the evacuation went, my friend Bill had some insight to share.  "Well, we're used to really bad storms here.  If a storm is so bad the government tells you to do something because of it, you know it's really, really bad.  So you do what they tell you."  I'm honestly shocked by how calmly residents complied with evacuation.  So calmly, in fact, that as far as police know there have been only four fatalities (and they occurred in a town upriver, High River, when then the river first surged).  That takes a lot of faith in your governmental agencies to do their job.  (That faith was justified)

There's been a complete lack of histrionics.  Mayor Nenshi (who deserves Mayor of the Year, as far as I'm concerned - if that award does not exist, it should be invented and given to him) has remained calm and organized, and done an excellent job communicating with the public.  There hasn't been news stories with sweeping patriotic music and a flag waving gently in the background, while pictures of devastation scroll across the screen (you can bet there would have been if Calgary were a major American city - in fact, I've seen this emotionally-manipulative shlock so many times).

Finally, (and I know this phenomenon is a human characteristic, not just a Canadian one) the rush of support for strangers has been staggering.  So many private individuals offered their homes to evacuated families that for the first night there were only 1,500 people in public shelters. That's out of 75,000 people evacuated.  A massive music festival, Sled Island, has been cancelled because of the flooding and the musicians are just performing concerts wherever they are to keep the displaced entertained.

The Red Cross is accepting donations for Alberta flood relief - more than Calgary has been affected.  Many family farms in southern Alberta have had their entire crop destroyed.  And now, as I write this, the Siksika Nation is facing rising waters with only a tiny fraction of the resources Calgary had at its disposal.

As for me, I'll be out with a shovel just as soon as they let me.

Advanced Nerdery: Part II

Calgary Comic Expo in a nutshell: it was worth every hour, and every penny to do the World of Warcraft NPC cosplay.

Out of the nutshell: We had a blast.  We went on Sunday and so (I discovered later) missed some of the more noteworthy costumes and panels, and Wil Wheaton giving Calgary Expo attendees another emotional Expo experience when he explained why it's so awesome being a nerd.  However, I regret nothing.  The lines were very long to get into those events - I spoke with one woman when we first got into the building at about 10:45, and she had to rush away to go stand in a line.  That line, she explained, was a line that would let her stand in another line that would let her into a room to see Nathan Fillion - at noon.  That seemed like a silly way to spend a day.

This was on a scroll handed
out to anyone willing to play.

We didn't completely escape the lines, though.  After getting our badges, we were led to a series of zig-zagging lines for about half an hour.  These were fun because they let us get a good look at each other's costumes as we passed each other again, and again, and again.  It also us the chance to make a big yellow sign that said, 'No, seriously: ask us about our quests!'.  Bill thought the enormous yellow exclamation marks wouldn't be enough to get people to actually talk to us.  He was probably right.

Once inside, Collin had to dash (as much as a six-foot man in a long purple robe and wizard hat can dash) off to a panel with the LoadingReadyRun guys, leaving Rebecca, Bill, and I to sort out the last minute details of our quest giving.  Bill knows some fabulous people at the Rothney Astrophysical Observatory and The Sentry Box who were game for holding onto some quest components for us.

Sadly, the boys had already left to go win a board
game tournament by the time I occurred to me
to take a picture, so this is just Rebecca and I.

As soon as we'd given the cocktail swords (for the Sentry Box, of course) and Gummy Bears (the gelatinous interlopers at the Observatory), we taped our exclamation marks to our backs and headed out.  Almost immediately, we had people asking us for quests.  Some people just came up to say, "Right on!  NPCs!  Great costumes!" and then got SUPER excited when we said, "Yes, and would you like a quest?  You look brave," and handed them a scroll.

One of the quest rewards - the epic
Saccharine Sash

One of the best moments was when a group of four or five teenagers came running - running - across the crowded convention floor when they saw our exclamation marks and asked for a scroll. When I suggested they make their "slaying" convincing, they earnestly reassured me that they were in the drama club and would have no problem with that.

 When they returned (running, of course), they crouched down on one knee and presented their trophies - gummy bears skewered on plastic cocktail swords.  It was amazing.

It was really cool doing something that made so many people at the Comic Expo - a gathering with a far higher level of per capita enthusiasm than anywhere else - so excited.  People wanted to have their picture taken with us (although that's pretty standard for comic conventions, I think), and we were even interviewed by a local radio program (none of us could remember which radio station, though).

Aside from the quest-giving, I had a lot of fun looking at the work of incredibly talented artists while there.  Just looking, though.  Neither Collin nor I had remembered to get cash before we got to the Expo.  I also saw Sylvester McCoy  and really wanted an autograph, but those cost $30 - and we had no money.  Boo.  Eventually, Bill and Collin left to play in a board game tournament (coming in 1st and 2nd, respectively.  Collin brought home a $50 prize), and Rebecca and I decided to head home.  We've already planned to do this again, next year, if Collin and I are still here next April.  If not, we may have to make a pilgrimage.  :)

To close out this incredibly nerdy update, here is a pic of graffiti left in our neighborhood last Saturday by an enthusiastic Star Wars fan :

With the awesome weather outside, I've got some interesting trips planned and will try to keep this blog more regularly updated.  Until then: live long, and prosper.

Advanced Nerdery

I'm cautiously optimistic about Spring.  It seems like it may be here, but I've been fooled before.  After the blizzard two weeks ago, one Calgarian remarked that Punxsutawney Phil is clearly defective (actually, that person was much more profane; I'm paraphrasing).  I've obsessively monitored neighborhood trees for incipient budding.  Our community center recently and optimistically presented a talk on "preparing your garden for planting."  I've inspected our bikes to make sure they're roadworthy, and Collin and I purchased new running shoes, ready for Going Outside.

On the upside, surviving a Canadian winter has served to deepen my understanding of why Calgarians lose their minds with festivals over the summer months.  I've spent two Julys in Calgary, and I feel confident that there was at least three major festivals going on each week.  Coming up first, though, is an event which seems to kick-off the season of sunshine: The Calgary Expo.

I cannot overstate how excited I am to be going.  I've never been to a comic convention before, but have heard enthusiastic accounts of the unique spectacles to be found therein.  In addition to sci-fi/fantasy television and movie actors appearing at panels to talk about their work, there are artists and writers, special effects masters (I'm hoping I get to hear Richard Taylor of Weta [the special effects company used in the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies] speak at a panel), and really cool vendors.  And...okay, I'm not going to lie.  I would kindareallytotally like MacGuyver's autograph, too.

It's a unique opportunity to witness a huge rainbow of creativity - and I'm not talking about the professional talent that will be visiting.  I'm talking about the attendees.  Some people work all year on costumes, and they range from easily-identifiable Supermen and Wonder Women, to incredible esoteric geek "in-jokes".  This picture [credit: Lyle Aspinall/Calgary Sun/ QMI Agency] shows a gender-swapped Mario and Luigi, a guy from Tron, Catwoman, one of the Incredibles and, I think, a guy with a home-made Adventure Time t-shirt.

It would be funny to sit in the Expo elevator,
but that would probably get old after an hour
or so.

Collin and I were recently at dinner with some friends, and brought up our idea for couples-costumes.  I spend probably more time than I should thinking up ridiculous costumes (reason #24 why being an elementary school teacher is the only job for me).  While I still think my idea of being Hans Gruber and Dead Elevator Guy from Die Hard is, like, the best ever - wheeling a rolling desk chair around a crowded convention center would be difficult.  Alternatively, we'd been thinking of our mutual aggravated fondness for the grindy-goodness of World of Warcraft.  Personally, I found herbalism soothing.  Wandering around in simulated outdoors, darting off the path after shiny flowers is exactly how I behave in the non-simulated outdoors.  It's comfortably familiar.

Anyway, we thought "Quest giver" and "adventurer" would be great - Collin could have a great, big yellow exclamation mark over his head, and I could look harassed and have an overflowing backpack of junk.  Now, this idea has been done many times before, and pretty impressively.  But, we wondered at dinner, what if we actually had quests for people to do?  Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could encourage strangers to come up and talk to us, go out and find things on a scavenger-type hunt, and give them a t-shirt that said '+4 armor' (or something)  when they returned?

The more we talked, the more fun it sounded.  We're looking into easy-to-make t-shirts, and I'm making some "quest scrolls" to hand out to strangers who play along.  Our friends are talking to a couple of the vendors to see if they're willing to be part of the scavenger hunt.  The biggest challenge may be figuring out how to make the floating exclamation marks stay upright, visible over the crowds, and comfortable to wear.

[source: de.wow.wikia.com]

Collin's decided to cop out and go as a human quest-giver.  Ha!  Go green or go home, I say, which is why I'll be dressed in a close approximation of my orcish hunter, Hattie.  Complete with purple spiky hair and fangs. Bwahahahahahaha!!

The Calgary Expo is April 26-28th.  I will, of course, post pictures and report whether our scheme was successful.  

Quick Update

Just a quick update, today!  I don't know if Collin let people know already, but his contract at U of C has been extended for another six months.  Yay!  

Old News: Christmas In California

It has been a while, hasn't it?  Since my last post, we've been to California for Christmas, slogged our way through snowstorms, had many dinners with friends, and generally made our epicurean way around Calgary.

Armstrong Woods

First, Christmas!  Collin's family lives in Northern California, and we had a great time soaking up the sun/rain by day, and reliving Collin's childhood by playing Hero Quest with his brothers and high school buddies by night.

3/4s of the Trail Boys in
Bodega Bay

There was hiking, and a fun trip out to the shore.  We drove through gorgeous rolling green hills, dotted with adorable lambs (and shadowed by hawks and vultures waiting to make them lunch).  The shore was very windy and cold...but then, it was December, so it came as no surprise.  We looped through Bodega Bay, one of the filming locations of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds.  Of course, there was a quick photo op (very quick - the townsfolk must be pestered to death.  The "No Trespassing" signs seemed particularly emphatic).  We stopped for lunch at the not-at-all ominously named Cape Fear Cafe in Duncan Mills.  No one was poisoned, thankfully.

One of the WPA
murals inside Coit Tower

Coit Tower atop Telegraph
Hill, next to a very macho-
looking Cristoforo Colombo

Later in the visit, Collin and I headed to San Francisco.  I'd been once before and had greatly enjoyed wandering its colorful streets.  Fortunately, the weather stayed nice for our trip.  We came in to the Port of San Francisco on the ferry, ate sourdough, watched sea lions, followed our noses to Ghirardelli Square, and climbed Telegraph Hill.  The WPA murals inside Coit Tower are gorgeous, and my camera actually cooperated enough to take some good indoor pics, for once!

The alley between City Lights
and Vesuvios

City Lights Books was its usual self-consciously off-beat self, and we browsed the shelves there for a while before heading next door to Vesuvios Saloon for a pint.  I seriously love that place.  Everything creaks.  Sitting upstairs, in one of the huge windows overlooking Colombus Avenue, it's unclear who's being put on display: you, the patron, or the characters on the street below.  I watched an old man and a young, Punk girl have an impassioned discussion about something for quite a while, down in that alley.

The desk from The Godfather.  [Insert joke here about offers you'll be unable to decline.]

There were also a couple of trips to wineries - did you know Francis Ford Coppola owns a winery?  I didn't!  The wine was...okay.  I thought the really interesting part were the displays of props from his movies.  It was interesting to see how detailed some of the props and costumes were.  Sadly, most of my pictures turned out very badly.  Looking at artifacts and reading anecdotes from the set of Apocalypse Now prompted Collin and I to add the documentary Heart of Darkness (about the making of the 1979 film) to our film cue.  

We went to Korbel Winery, as well.  I felt super fancy, sipping sparkling wine and nodding along to descriptors like, "medium dry" and "peachy", or "bright".  I discovered that Korbel Cream Sherry tastes like hugs and sunshine.  Sadly, they don't sell it in Canada.

Even if a lot of the outdoors we
explored was underwater.  Yay, Winter!

All of these fun activities, plus exploring Sebastapol and Santa Rosa, and going on marvelous walks.  As weather here in Calgary is still vacillating between "mostly acceptable for March" and "Who knew that nose hair could freeze?", I think fondly and often of being outside.

It was during this trip I discovered a new hobby: taking shaky, kind of blurry photos of fungus.  I blame the rain; everything looks better with water droplets.  Here, for your viewing pleasure - pictures of unidentified fungus (you're welcome).  If you know what any of them are, feel free to let me know!

Okay, moss isn't fungus, but I thought the
light was really pretty.  

It seems odd to close a blog entry about Christmas with pictures of mushrooms, but that's the sort of person I am.  Well, actually, I can do better.  Here's Collin, celebrating me updating my blog, finally.

Hurray!

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).