thinking outside the (gift) box

the older i get, the more i become like my parents.  my mom’s qualities usually materialize in the shape of a distaste for crumbs and an appreciation for life’s smaller joys (i refuse to let a rose go un-smelled), while my dad’s presence is within me most at this time of year.  dad passed away far earlier than any of us would expect, but when he was still with us, he often told the rest of my family that christmas had become too commercial and that we were accumulating way too much “stuff”.  as a teenage girl, this was the most preposterous message i had ever heard, but the farther i wade into the world of adulthood, the more like i agree with my dad’s message.  ironically, it took his absence for us all to agree with his holiday minimalism.  this year i intend to carry my father’s torch.

 

later this month, my mother, brothers and i will be spending the holiday at our cabin on the west coast, where our good fortune includes a patch of forest, a rocky stretch of shoreline, and wonderfully eclectic, resourceful, and kind neighbours.  instead of spending the weeks leading up to the break scouring the malls, i’ll be challenging myself to come up with free (or very inexpensive) and heartfelt gifts for my family.

 

 

 

 

Oren Lavie’s “Her Morning Elegance”

today marks two years since i met my boyfriend.  maybe we dance in our sleep the way these two do…

The most inspiring thing I’ve seen today…

In a way, this shouldn’t have to inspire – really, we should already be here.  Still, I love this quote from British Columbia’s Provincial Health Officer, Dr. Perry Kendall:

“Investing in prevention and the promotion of health should be
undertaken for the same reasons that we treat disease and
injury: not just because of the economic gains that will be
realized, but because it is the hallmark of a civilized, humane, and caring society.”

If you’re hungry for more health prevention and promotion food for thought, chew on this.

two wheel zeal

i love living in vancouver.

one of the first things i did when i moved here was sell my car.  living and working downtown, my once beloved honda civic became more of a nuisance than anything – parking’s expensive and hard to come by, the need for maintenance always seemed to arise at the most inconvenient moments (or, not often enough, which may or may not have been the case when i a friend of mine forgot to check my her oil for 6 whole months…), and insurance costs more than twice what it did in my hometown.  i was paying to live in a dense neighbourhood close to amenities, so why would i fork over more cash in order to drive to them?

it’s been 18  months since i reduced my wheel count by 50%, and here are the reasons why i’m not going back anytime soon:

• biking is cheap.  you can find a road-worthy ride for a few hundred dollars and a good lock for the price of a meal.  that’s about what a month of driving would cost, insurance and gas alone.
• the planet prefers cycling (or walking) to driving, except perhaps if you fuel up exclusively with an all-beef diet…
• need a car sometimes?  there’s probably one waiting for you within a few blocks.  i can’t say enough good things about the vancouver auto co-op: it’s easy to join, your membership fee is actually an investment in co-op shares which you get back  when you decide you don’t want to be a member anymore, they’ve got a range of new cars and trucks at your disposal ALL OVER the city (there are 7 within 400 metres of my apartment), it’s inexpensive to use (a trip across town for a few hours is usually under $20, which is cheaper than a cab), and the service is incredibly well-organized.
• the cycling commute is flexible.  is the road blocked ahead? hop up on the sidewalk to get around.  is traffic not moving? ride between the cars and carry on your way.  catch a whiff of a fine-smelling rose bush on the side of the road? cruise up beside it and smell ‘em.  hot day? veer onto a side street and ride through a sprinkler.  want to avoid a busy street? discover the network of bike routes vancouver has in place.  for all these reasons and more, bikes offer the ability to react to and engage with your commute in ways a car will never be able to.  one beef i do have is that bikes aren’t allowed to ride through many drive-thrus, although maybe this domain is best left to the automobile, anyway.
• more horsepower doesn’t always equal a shorter trip.  today i rode across a bridge in about 60 seconds.  thanks to rush hour traffic, the 40-odd cars i passed probably traveled the same distance in 8-10 minutes.
• buns (and other bits) of steel.
• cycling feels good.  especially the downhill stretches.  and (look, mom!) riding with no hands.

the bad news is, summer is officially over, and vancouver will soon resume its usual grey, sponge-like state, soaking up the sex appeal that cycling holds on sunny days.

the good news?  no more tandem bikes on the seawall.

july flame

a sweet stop-motion video i found on one of my favourite blogs

i can see the sun from where i sit this morning – hope the same applies to you.

rosy-coloured things on a monocoloured day

a dear friend of mine has inspired me to share some thoughts on this gorgeous, rainy day.

if gorgeous rain sounds like an oxymoron, i’m going to guess you haven’t been living in vancouver for the past month. july was jubilant, and completely saturated with sunshine. the city’s beaches burst at the seams during the day, and at night, the city’s beds full of the kind of sticky, deep sleepers that only the warmest summer nights allow.  i’m amazed i didn’t develop an allergy to cherries (or gin, but that’s another story), given how many of those garnety, stain-filled balls of perfection i put away. my bike racked up at least another 300 kms, my tender bits are the only part of my body that isn’t nutty brown, and the soles of my feet are perfectly calloused thanks to hours of barefoot beach-combing. i had one of those infinitely starry, perfectly clear nights to myself on a tiny island in the pacific, and oh, did i mention swimming sessions alongside families of river otters?  i don’t mean to brag, but in the words of paul simon, these are (were) the days of miracles and wonder.

despite all these weekend warrior indulgences, all that sun had its pitfalls. most importantly, the city had not been rinsed in weeks. riding my bike through the alleys of gastown, i had to hold by breath to stave off the combined smell of layered urine and garbage. all the city’s grass is a crispy brown. forest fires sent a haze over the city and air quality plummeted. by the end of last week, you could hardly see the sun during the day. for all these reasons, i’m pleased to see the clouds hanging over me today.  the final silver lining:  i can shamelessly hold down my couch for the afternoon, and share a few of my favourite bits & pieces from the last month.

oh – one more thing before you go, and a reference to my record-breaking gin consumption. you MUST make yourself several of these before summer comes to a close.    it’s my rainy day gift to you.

food for thought about food, and thought. pecha kucha left a good taste in my mouth.

thanks to pecha kucha vancouver for a fantastic, stimulating, and enlightening evening of sustainability-focused talks tonight. if you don’t know about pecha kucha, it’s a series of talks, each containing 20 slides displayed for 20 seconds each. with speakers ranging from recycling activists to nobel prize winners, artists to politicians, last night’s ‘green your city’ theme had the queen elizabeth theatre bursting at the seams with bright people and big ideas.

some of the highlights for me were:

- vancouver city planner david ramslie promoting a novel concept for green development: shared purposes across multiple buildings. for example, if you have 8 buildings on a city block, kit each of them with a specific capacity and the ability to deliver it beyond its own walls. one building might have a bike storage and repair facility that all 8 buildings’ inhabitants could use. another might have a specialized water collection and filtration system. yet another might be fitted with energy collection capacity through solar and/or geothermal. with this model, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, and each building doesn’t need to ‘specialize’ in all things sustainable. ramslie compared his idea with computers: a single PC doesn’t do us much good, but create a network between multiple computers, and all users see huge benefit. it’s great to see this kind of thinking within the city of vancouver’s planning department.

- “wild card” ifny lachance promoting the simple, yet so often unconsidered idea that buying green isn’t as green as buying nothing at all.

- eesmyal santos-brault’s ‘hive’ concept for work space, where the conventional office is abandoned and replaced by communal, comfortable, flexible work space that can be used how/when you want.

- tegan adams’ focus on food and the need for each of us to think consciously about what our motivations are behind what we choose to eat every day.

i’m feeling good tonight – vancouver’s got some very promising seeds planted. to learn more about the city’s plan to become the world’s greenest city by 2020, and to share your two cents on how to make this happen, go to www.talkgreentous.ca

i’ll admit it…

i’ve been negligent. we both know it: you deserve better than what this modest web endeavor has been putting out.

whomever you exceptional people are who actually read my blog, you’ve been subject to a pretty lacklustre few months.  however well life has continued to treat me, and it’s been exceptionally buttery, this kind of easy living doesn’t always make for good blogging, i’ve learned.  despite the delicious moments i’ve had to myself, they haven’t been especially bloggable, for which i apologize. 

BUT WAIT, FRIENDS – there’s good news!  in the interest of new adventure, chris and i are undertaking the first of many bike trips, and we hope you’ll come along for the ride.  paniers, SPD shoes, and naive enthusiasm in tow, we head out on our first long(ish) bike ride this weekend.  our success will fuel our fervor for something much greater: a pan-european voyage, scheduled for this time next year.  JOIN US as we expose our young, nubile flesh to the realities of road riding.  our pain and pleasure will be your armchair delight!

much blistering love from me and my better half,

c

burying my head in the (oil) sand(s)

the environmental waters are getting murkier these days, literally and figuratively.

i consider myself an environmentalist of convenience – i buy local, organic products wherever possible, use biodegradable cleaning products,  and sold my car last year, opting to walk/bike/use public transit to get around.  not to say these aren’t reasons to pat myself on the back, but it’s become way too easy to consider one’s carbon crimes forgiven just because that glass of wine at the end of the day is organic (and imported from chile).

i’ll admit it: i embark on long flights several times a year, buy new things whenever i want/need them, and take hot showers every day.  i like cheese from far away places and eat kiwi fruit every once in a while.  that’s right -  kiwi fruit – the tasty treat that, through transportation from the other side of the planet, results in more than its own weight in carbon being emitted into the atmosphere.  through every carbon footprint calculation i’ve ever tried, you would need about three planets to keep up with my rate of consumption.  knowing what i do about climate change and the drastic effects it’s due to bring us, i’ll be the first to admit that i’m burying my head in the (oil) sands(s).

even consoling myself with the good choices i am making is getting harder to do.  an article i recently came across makes a strong case for why cycling is actually worse for the planet than driving.  karl ulrich argues that cyclists use food as fuel, which is obviously energy-intensive.  ulrich goes on to point another downfall associated with cyclists: they have a tendency to live longer as a result of more frequent exercise, thereby lengthening the amount of time they have to suck back the planet’s resources. the article is somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but is cause for reflection on what seems like a black and white issue.

an interesting ted talk by catherine mohr examines the concept of embodied energy through a simple example of using paper towel vs. a reusable cloth to clean up a spill – which is the greener choice?  the knee-jerk reaction would be to choose the cloth – it can be reused countless times, as opposed to that paper towel that brought trees down in order to be created.  look more closely though, and the issue becomes cloudier.  how much hot water do you use to rinse that cloth?  how often do you launder it?  was it made from organic cotton and vegetable-based dyes?  it’s a thought-provoking example, and one of countless decisions we make on a daily basis.

in light of all this, we’re all hedonists by nature.  to borrow some wise words from the band trooper, “i’m here for a good time, not a long time.”  i’m not going to spend my days sweating over these tiny decisions – they’ll be made with the best possible information i can source out, and i’ll move on.  on my brand new bike.

stairway to heaven

some days, like this one, i miss living on vancouver island and having easy access to its rugged coastline.  this stairway is part of the commute to one of my favourite places to surf.

make your way down this path, and you’ll find yourself here: