Running comes Home

I've hosted Collingwood's edition of the Run for the Cure nearly every year since the town got its own run site, seven years ago. A scheduling conflict means I can't be there this year, and I'm sad about more than missing the fun of a Sunday morning with those enthusiastic and wonderful pink-clad men and women.

The first reason I'm sad to miss it is that this will be the year they hit the million dollar mark. A million dollars raised in a scant seven years. That's pretty impressive, especially considering how many different organisations and charities are asking for your charitable money these days, not to mention the rising fees for pretty much every activity, including your kids' school. The milestone means an extra-big celebration and I'm terribly sad not to be there.

The other reason I'm sad not to be there is that I think I finally 'get' the urge to be part of fundraising events like this. I confess that while I support the folks who are so intimately involved and invested in these things, and I give my money and my time, I have often found myself confounded by their passion. This year, I get it. I think.

Sunday afternoon, I will attend a memorial service for my cousin who died of cancer this week. Debbie Gordon was a lovely, lovely woman, talented and kind, a nurse and a good one. Her wedding was the first of my cousins' weddings I was old enough to attend, a winter wedding and I remember how gorgeous Debbie was in her fur-lined white cape. She will be desperately missed by her kids and grandkids and her heartbroken husband. Her cancer wasn't breast cancer, but I feel so frustrated and powerless and sad for Debbie's loss, I think I now understand the urge to run, to fund raise, to at least hand over money in the hope of making a difference.

And a difference has been made. I found out this week, because of amazing advances in research, a dear woman of my aquaintance has a better chance of living a long and healthy life even though she was born with a breast cancer death sentence. After several cancer diagnoses in her family, she tested positive for the gene that virtually guarantees a breast or ovarian tumour. Both she and her sisters have made the tough choice that many such women are making: to remove the possibility of reproductive cancers, they have opted to remove their breasts and reproductive organs entirely. Can you even imagine being presented with such an option? Before you read on, take just a minute to think about what that scene in the doctor's office must have been like.

I'm grateful for the researchers' big brains. Happy for the positive outcomes. Devastated by the loss. Frustrated and upset. And I get it. I finally get the combative words survivors use and I know why you fundraisers work so hard. I'm sorry I won't be with you this year, ladies, but in my heart I, too will be running for the cure, and I vow I'll be there next year, pledge form in hand.

The Collingwood edition of the Run for the Cure is Sunday at Harbourview Park, 9 am.

Our Own Dialect? Yous Guys is Crazy.

A group of students from the University of Toronto has spent the last two years documenting the differences in dialect between people who live in urban areas versus the folks who live in the more rural areas of the province, also known as the bush.

Their report makes much of the word mucking, at least, as it's reported in the Toronto Star, which, being from the centre of the known universe is always surprised by the fact that there are other people out there at all.

I've never heard of 'mucking' with reference to eating, only to stables, but apparently, mucking is the word employed in northern Ontario to describe wolfing down one's food.

The researchers might have been better off hanging out with some of the people in our area, where, while it's on the wane, there is also a distinct dialect.

My dad used to ask me to 'gaffle' things. I always thought it meant to retrieve, although a google search turns up a bunch of different meanings, most having to do with stealing. My dad also never leaned on things; he would be "up aggin" them, which was a short form of against, I guess.

My grandmother used to say she 'minded the time...' referring to remembering something.

And my other grandmother would use 'like' in a far different way than most kids. She tacked her 'like' onto the end of sentences for emphasis, I think. 'I was watching the hockey, like."

Which brings me to 'the hockey'. My mother doesn't watch a hockey game, nor does she watch curling or football. She watches 'the hockey' and 'the curling', since I guess there's only one.

Now, in some circles, 'Yous guys' is normal third-person discourse, and of course, there's there's the ubiquitous 'eh' many of us also tack onto the end of a sentence, in an, 'isn't that right?' search for emphasis and agreement.

So, if ever your citiot friends are in town and you want to prove your local credibility, say something like, "Yous guys wait here, eh, and I'll gaffle me a timmies to drink while I watch the hockey, like. Oh, I mind the time that missed call cost the leafs the cup..."

That'll show 'em.

Facebook Confusion - Not the Rant You Expect

Yes, a lot of people were upset with the changes that showed up on facebook last week, but I think most of them are over it now. Last week in the height of the distress, I discovered a very strange thing lurking in my facebook friend list.

Like most people, I will confirm as a 'friend' pretty much anyone I've had a conversation with. At least, if it was a friendly conversation, it's generally a yes. But once I've said yes, I don't go into a long-lost discussion. You post, I read; that's pretty much it.

However, last week, I saw a post that showed up on the wall of a friend from a long time ago, and I went to my friend's page to see what she's up to. Well, as far as I can figure, she's, um, well...dead. Her page appears to be her page, but from what I can gather from what's written there, it seems like somewhere around two and a half years ago, she died. Her kids, who I never met (this woman and I were friends at work and it was 15 years ago) apparently keep her facebook page going, and write to her once in a while, telling her how they miss her and are thinking of her.
It's a tiny bit weird, but hey, in the new digital world, whatever gets you through the day is fine with me.

Here's the thing that's bugging me: my 'friend' died, and I didn't know for two and a half years. Doesn't this say something about the word, 'friend'? I know it says something about me and how well I keep up with my friends. And not something good.

And in case you're wondering, no, I haven't 'unfriended' her. When I figure out why, I'll let you know.

Bittersweet tarts

As the old joke goes, I don't have to outrun the bear, I only have to outrun YOU. And so I claim victory over my buddy in the 'butter tart smackdown' at the GNE.

However, if you visit the baking section, off behind the quilts and photographs at the Collingwood fair this weekend, you won't see my butter tarts in first place. They're in second. But not second to my buddy's, so, I win, even though I lose.

Oh, my loss is a very sad state of affairs. My sweetie and all my friends will have to suffer through a year of taste-testing and perfecting. Yes, very sad indeed.

I think what might have landed me in second place was probably neatness. My penmanship always got me in trouble at school, too. The tarts I entered didn't have a smooth perfect edge to them; they're uneven with little ripples where the pastry was a teeny bit too big for the pan. I could have spent a lot more time trying to smooth out those edges to give them a perfectly round appearance. I could maybe have been a little more fussy. Watch out for some fussy looking tarts this time next year as I try to win back the title.

I did win the apple pie competition, but you won't see my woven lattice top on the Cortland apples, since the sponsor of the class gets to keep the pie. I get ten dollars prize money and bragging rights. And trust me when I say I plan to be insufferable about it.

Butter Tart Smackdown

The gauntlet is down.

One of my friends has picked up the challenge I've been offering this week about the local fair, the GNE. Two years ago, my butter tarts won the red ribbon, and I've been pretty much insufferable about it.

This week on the radio I've been bragging again, having decided to re-enter the competition and asking for as many bakers as possible to join me. My buddy says he's up for the challenge.

It's not the first time.

This same friend and his wonderful wife were our very first dinner guests after I moved up here to marry my sweetie. I pulled out all the stops that night and at the end of the meal, he said he couldn't just eat an offering like mine without trying to top it. Thus began what we call "gauntlet" dinners, where we try to out-do each other's culinary feats, the only proviso being the meal has to be made from scratch. He's famous for his ribs, but I countered with a Thai feast and handmade sushi. One magical night, I was blown away by his classic Beef Wellington.

Our respective spouses are very encouraging of this competition.

We'll see if the spouses get tired of sampling the tarts.
Somehow, I doubt it.

Today's the day to pull out your flour if you want to join in the competition, whether it's butter tarts you're making or if you want to show off your skill with apple pie or preserves. The Collingwood Fair runs Friday to Sunday.

One year and I'm almost there.

Losing 20 pounds in a year isn't a huge feat in the grand scheme of things, but it has made me feel good, sleep better and will soon send me shopping for pants in a size I can't rememember ever buying before. The year I've spent losing this weight has also been a journey about food, eating and exercise. Here's what has worked for me:

A little bit of obsession.
It's like that old management trope: if you don't measure it, you can't mange it. I have a program on my mobile device that lets me keep track of everything I eat, all the exercise I do and what I weigh. The program helps keep me honest, and also continually makes a compelling case for restraint, since I can see a big day of overeating and overdrinking show up on the scale a day or so later. It also helps prevent me from lying to myself, "forgetting" what I ate or 'underestimating' my calories. Let's face it: we will lie to ourselves to justify our treats.
I also spent a lot of time thinking about food and exercise, reading magazines dedicated to running and books about where food really comes from. Plus, cookbooks. Lots and lots of cookbooks.

Eating less and moving more.
That's all. Feel free to jiggle, giggle, yoga yourself, go herbal, do Jenny or whatever you like. But at the end of the day, the final answer is that you have to put in less energy than you put out, or you'll wear that energy in the form of extra weight. Generally at the back, toward the bottom.

Setting a goal.
I decided to fit back into my wedding dress by Christmas of last year. I pulled the dress out of storage and tried it on repeatedly. It was tough but my sweetie managed to get the zipper up on Christmas morning. I can now put the dress on without any assistance, and I do, most Saturday mornings. Just to prove I can.

Doing the math honestly.
Unless you've found a way to add hours to your day, you cannot eat whatever you want and then exercise it away. Example: a big bag of potato chips easily scarfed down during the first half of an episode of The Closer is about 1000 calories. To burn 1000 calories takes two solid hours of running. Fast. Which is easier: two hours of fast running or not eating the chips in the first place? I'm putting down the chips because after three months of running every second day, I still have to hurry up just to get to 'slow'. My record on the trail so far is a mere 28 minutes of loping without stopping, so two hours is nigh unto impossible.

Oh, and,
There's no such thing as spot weight loss.
When you lose weight, you lose a little bit from everywhere. If you have a big butt, you'll have a smaller butt if you lose some weight, but you'll also have a smaller tummy, oh and smaller boobs, too, which your sweetie might not like.

And so now, I enter final stage of my Hunting Weight Challenge, which now includes a 5K race and the goal of five more pounds gone. Here's hoping this time next year, I'm not offering tips for putting the weight back on.

Movie Review: Windfall

I was with a group of about 150 people at the Gayety theatre in Collingwood for a showing of this award-winning documentary about the effects of a plan for wind power on a small community in upstate New York.

The three women who have secured access to the movie are showing it as often as they can, at small halls around Clearview and elsewhere. They say they don't have an agenda, that they want you to make up your own mind. But I'll tell you, the movie certainly does have an agenda.

While in general, Windfall is well made, at one point the soundtrack was so over the top, I laughed out loud. The scene: a shadow from a turbine's blade repeatedly falling across a kitchen counter. The music swells with each turn of the blade, and as the ominous cellos are bowed in time with the shadows, I suddenly had a vision of JAWS leaping through the kitchen window.

The strongest argument made in the documentary is that turbines are bad because the very discussion of them is divisive, pitting people against one another. But what the movie maker didn't highlight is that those divisions already exist; talk of turbines only brings them up from under the surface.

The divisions come from the vastly different worldview of people come lately to the country compared with that of people trying to make their living from the land. The opponents of turbines make much about how property values will drop if turbines are built. What they maybe don't realise is people who grow food for a living only think about property values when it comes time to sell; when the fight to stay on the land is over. If property values drop, some farmers' grandkids might have a chance to choose farming as a career, and raise their own family on land their great-grandfather used to help feed a nation.

It comes down to: turbine proponents generally want to stay on the land, while opponents generally worry about the view, and rightly so; they paid a pretty penny for those vistas.

It was a bit eerie to hear the very same arguments made in Clearview township being made by people with American accents on the big screen, though. Eerie and strangely heartening. It's good to be reminded that some struggles are universal. It also helps if you're trying to anticipate the outcome.

School Photo Album

Somewhere in the boxes of photos my mother has never managed to completely sort through, there exists a series of shots I someday want to archive.

Each and every first-day-of-school morning for my entire educational career, my mother insisted on taking a picture of my brothers and me with our 'satchel and shining morning face'. It was not an option to appear in the annual photograph.

Even when I was 24 and a graduate of both university and college, my mom wanted a picture the day I headed back to university for one more course, thinking I might want to upgrade my degree.

A notable picture is the one where I'm headed into grade seven and my biggest brother is starting grade 11. My 12 year old self is so geeky and awkward but my face is shiny and excited, and I was prepared for another year of being a straight-A teacher's pet. Of course, I didn't know yet what was in store that year, the year it seems bullying was invented at Nottawasaga Creemore Central School, although we didn't call it bullying yet.

From that picture, it seems my brother might have known something about school trouble, because next to his cheery little sister's, his face is the epitome of disgust, impatience and grump. The contrast is startling. I'd love to be able to go back in time to have a conversation with him that day, to find out what was up.

The pictures not only chronicle the passage of time for my first family, but their existence also captures the optimism of my hard-working mother: no matter how many times I failed Grade 11 math, she still wanted that first-day shot.