Tent versus Taj

I definitely vote for the term hockey tent to describe the new facility being built at Central Park in Collingwood. Maybe it will be gorgeous and wonderful when it is finally finished, and maybe I will spend many a happy hour gliding on its ice. Maybe I'll even finish up my Silver dances, like I planned back in the late 80s before breaking my wrist on a complicated turn. Maybe.

But I will continue to think of it as merely a tent, impermanent and fragile, especially after I saw what another community has managed to create instead.

I had the great pleasure of spending a spontaneous Saturday with a girlfriend and her family in Whitby. Part of our itinerary was taking her two kids to their lacrosse practices, indoors on one of the - ready for it-- SIX hockey rinks in the same building. That's right. Six. One building. Six rinks.

Every single rink was in use, all day. In winter, my friends tell me, they're all outfitted with ice. "Whitby's a big hockey town," they explained. This weekend, three surfaces were dry and warm and the site of lacrosse practices for little kids, (you have not lived until you've seen a five year old girl in shoulder pads, rushing the coach, learning to crosscheck - hilarious!) the rest were still covered in ice. There must have been some sort of tournament, because some hockey players appeared to be arriving in costume.

Outside the rinks, four baseball diamonds. I didn't go looking for a pool, but there is one, 25 metres, plus a wading area. Six tennis courts, a soccer pitch and a 400-seat restaurant. All owned by the town. Inside the arena - concessions are rented to the chain restaurants and there's free wifi.

Of course, Whitby is a much bigger place than Collingwood. With a population of 122,000, it's about six times bigger. And yet, this facility, at least 10 years old, has six rinks, attached with a central hall. At two other facilities, there are four additional ice surfaces. None of them is covered by a tent.

Fur Baby

Sweetie and I are big believers in compromise. We also believe in the veto. When we decided to bring a doggie into our home, I wanted a big black standard poodle and Sweetie wanted a chocolate lab. He felt poodles were too yappy, and I think labs shed enough fur to knit yourself a new dog pretty much every day. So, we got our Weimaraner. Not much fur, whipsmart, loyal, gorgeous.

For the last eight years, Emma has been a constant source of delight, laughter and cuddles. She sleeps under the covers, between us. I admit she has terrible table manners and is an awful bed hog, but she's never going to have to go out in the world to navigate the complexities of dorm life or a workplace. If you don't like her chin on your elbow, don't come to dinner.

Emma's only complaint in life is that the three of us are not together every single minute of every day. Today, she's at home alone wearing The Cone of Shame. Her right shoulder and left haunch look like she has been mauled by a tiger. The incisions from the removal of two suspicious lumps last week are gruesome - running from the dog equivalent of collarbone to elbow on one side and hip to bellybutton on the other.

We moved our mattress down to the living room so she doesn't have to take the stairs and rip the stitches. We are staying home and not letting anyone come by for fear she'll leap to her feet in her usual ecstatic greeting and rip the stitches. We are giving her massive doses of antibiotics to prevent infection. Painkillers, the whole routine. But mostly we're trying to keep her from moving so much, so she doesn't rip the stitches.

For a dog who seems to say, "That's all you got?!" after a 10k run, it's asking a lot for her to lie still for ten days. This is day four.

I'm praying for a speedy recovery, oh, and if anyone has a dose of patience to share, I'll take it.

My Price Point

Many of us have little phrases we use to remind us of things we've learned in the past, in the hope of avoiding a repeat of our mistakes. On my curling team, for example, my vice and I will often say to each other, "Get greedy, get sorry...." when we're considering what shot to play. We have learned from hard experience to try the low-risk shot rather than the high-reward one.

My new phrase when it comes to grocery shopping will be, "Fifteen Dollar Bacon", which for me is the price at which sanctimonious self-righteousness will be defeated by my Scottish wallet.

Yes, I bought a pound of bacon for fifteen dollars.

It was an accident. Please don't tell my mom or my brothers.

You see, my Sweetie and I are, well, 'into' food. What we're especially into is talking about food. We are quick to tell anyone who will listen that we get our beef from a farmer in Adjala, and our lamb from a farmer in Clearview. I can go on and on about how I grow and preserve my own tomatoes, and don't get us started on the fact that we have a chicken guy, so we meet the chickens before we eat the chickens and they live outdoors, pecking in the grass and devouring bugs. Remember, I grew up on a farm and so if I still drank milk, I would want it to be raw, if possible, harvested with my own little hands. We're invested in our food, we cook from scratch as much as possible, and so on and so on.

I suspect some people avoid us.

As we were having one of our favourite couples in the world over for the weekend, on Thursday, with a very long grocery list and a bit of time on my hands, I went (finally) to the newly-opened food co-operative in Collngwood, thinking to myself, "If they have anything that's on my list, I'll pick it up there, and go to the supermarket afterwards." A win-win, or so I thought.

I didn't know I was overspending so hideously because I was lost in the vision of myself buying my earth-friendly, eco-friendly, animal-friendly, fair-trade stuff. "Look at me," I thought to myself, "Doggie in the car at the curb, cloth bags at the ready, why, my real name could be MoonbeamMotherEarth SavetheWhales.

Later, at home, I told Sweetie about my day, showed him the beautiful, thick-cut bacon, and when he asked how much it was, I told him I didn't know; there had been no price on the package. There in my wallet was the incriminating evidence of my navel-gazing: I had paid $14.97 for one pound of bacon.

To its credit, it was Organic Bacon. For fifteen bucks a pound, it had damn well better be organic.

For fifteen bucks a pound, it had better be organic, grass-fed, diapered, homeschooled and tucked into bed with a kiss!

And herein lies the problem with clean, organic, local, kiss-on-the-head food: most of us can't afford it, and those of us who can, won't pay ridiculous prices for it more than once.