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Another Sleepless Night with Twins

1/16/2021

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My day began at 5 a.m., when I was startled awake by someone yelling out, “Hello, everybody!” from the other bedroom.

It was dark. I was tired and confused. Although I lay awake listening for a while and all seemed quiet, I could not really get back to sleep.

I am a mother of twins.

One might think, from reading the title and the first few paragraphs of this blog post, that my twins are babies. In fact, my babies are 16 years old! Big babies! But, as any parent — and especially a parent of multiples — will tell you, sleep becomes permanently elusive.

When my big babies were younger, I often lamented the lack of sleep, and complained to parents of older children that I was looking forward to the day when the kids would sleep through the night so that I could, too.

I was assured wryly that that day would never come.

“When they’re teenagers”, the parents of older children explained, “you stay up all night worrying about whether they are going to make it home alive!”
Picture of teenage twins standing in front of a tracker with Santa riding on it
Given the timing of the pandemic, coupled with the fact that my twins are kind of nerds, my own two’s social lives have not wreaked that kind of havoc on my sleep schedule... though they do enjoy going out for late night walks together to the nearby playground, and I confess I occasionally worry about what sorts of local weirdos they might run into while swinging away in the dark.

But they’re typically home by midnight, sober and safe and chattering away about whether some meme is actually funny, or which video game is better, or other topic of epic importance. A greater challenge is the infighting about bedtime that happens when both are at home and in disagreement about when to start winding down and eventually turn out the light (four of us live in a small apartment, so separate sleeping arrangements are nearly impossible). The iron-clad bedtime routine we had from early childhood began to unravel rather rapidly when the adolescent hormones kicked in and circadian rhythms began marching to the beat of their own drummer!

There have been other interesting night adventures resulting in sleep interruptions over the years...
Picturebook of twins in the snow with a gorilla statue at the Toronto zoo
I recall with some disdain the night a 6-year-old Twin B — who slept in the top bunk at the time — woke up around 2 a.m. and was sick all over Twin A who lay sleeping peacefully in the perpendicular bunk below. The odd night incontinence episode also continued a few years beyond toddlerhood, and one time Twin A had to be rushed to the hospital just before midnight due to a suspected and unexpected seizure. It seemed that night wakings between the ages of about 4 and 10 always resulted in a tremendous amount of middle-of-the-night laundry.

Although things have calmed down somewhat in recent years, and my insomnia has shifted its blame from parenting multiples to more to generalized life anxiety, there continue to be sleep interruptions like gurgling humidifiers, broken fans, and the slamming of doors by those who insist on keeping them closed rather than open at night, but who refuse to close said doors gently and silently when they go to the washroom 17 more times before they finally fall asleep for the night.

And then there is the very occasional anomaly like this morning’s early arousal...

Not so long after the awakening, Twin B stumbled into my bed to snuggle, as we still occasionally do on a family weekend morning. He was soon joined by his brother, the perpetrator. We wanted to know to whom the latter had been calling out so early on a Saturday morning.

“I had a bad dream”, Twin A explained.

”But why so loud?” We wondered. The response, matter of factly: “There were bad guys; I had to take charge of the room.”


Sleepless nights or not, I’m glad I have these snuggly, confident teenagers around to protect me!
Picture of queer family with two moms and teenage twins
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Traveling in the time of covid

9/20/2020

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This past week, my partner, our boys, our elderly neighbour and I flew from Toronto to Edmonton. We had decided to surprise my partner for her birthday with a visit to the Columbia Ice Field. It was the first time we’d travelled together as a family since the ‘Rona, and the our first time on an airplane since the pandemic started.

As one might imagine, Pearson — normally crowded like any large, urban airport — was a ghost-town. Where lineups typically prevailed, a few masked travellers and their minimalist luggage moved smoothly and quickly through check-in and security.

For my partner - a commercial pilot furloughed since her last flight on March 13 - it was a particularly haunting experience.

In an attempt to both share my thinking about why we chose to embark on this “non-essential” trip and capture our impressions of the experience, I’ve decided to blog about it. I’ll start with the latter, and focus on the airport.

Out in Public

I found one of the strangest things about the whole airport adventure not so much to be the lack of people, but rather, the mask wearing.
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Mask on and hazy skies in Alberta, on acct of the smoke from the fires raging on the US west coast.
As someone lucky enough to have kept my job during this pandemic, I’ve been working full time. From home. This has meant that the meetings I attend virtually are with people who look — for the most part — as they did prior to the onset of the shut-down, i.e. they aren’t wearing masks. And with few exceptions, I largely do not leave home, other than for walks outside once a day and on weekends. My currently unemployed partner gets the groceries, drives the kids, and runs general errands. So I have not really been exposed to indoor public spaces and the mask-wearing that is now mandatory.

It’s an eerie feeling to see everyone, EVERYONE, masked. Only months ago online arguments were raging, about the appropriateness of Muslim women covering their faces... now I overhear the flight attendant telling person after person to please pull their mask up over their nose. (Yup, six months in, and people still haven’t figured out how to wear the darned things properly!!)

I’m also struck by how many people choose disposable masks. Almost without thinking, I set about ordering a supply of multi-layer cloth masks (some with insert for an additional filter) for our family shortly after the pandemic started. I’m curious about people’s choices.

Mask Comfort

Having the luxury of working from home, I also haven’t had to wear my mask for any length of time. Beyond a ten minute stretch here and there for various reasons, I have been living largely mask-free since the onset of the pandemic. Traveling at this time changed that.

This is the first time I’ve worn a mask for five hours, and I’ve had enough! I don’t know how essential workers are doing it, and I feel for my teacher colleagues who are still in the classroom/physical schools. My ears are hurting. My nose is itchy. Everything is sweaty. Ugh!

The Choice to Travel

So now, on to the non-essential travel choice. First of all, I realize how privileged I am financially to even be able to make the decision to travel. This blog post isn’t about that, but I do want to recognize that reality. Lots of people are struggling to pay the rent right now, and my biggest complaint is that I have to stay inside Canada for my 4-day vacation. I get it.

That said, we chose to travel for a few different reasons, which I will do my best to describe below. One thing I am recognizing about this pandemic is that people feel very strongly about their perspectives in relation to “managing” the virus. From masks to travel to school re-openings, everyone has an idea of how things should go, and the fact that we can control only ourselves and not society at large is creating a lot of anxiety for a lot of people. Moreover, the fear this anxiety creates can make it difficult for some people to think logically.

Safe Air Travel

Having a commercial pilot in the family, and belonging to a national organization that counts many professionals in the aviation industry among its members, we probably have a greater awareness of the travel-related matters than the average household. From cabin air quality to mandatory sanitation measures, we have more “inside scoop” than most folks. Given this knowledge, we believe that the risks of air travel are low.
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Edmonton has one of the most unique ATC towers I‘ve seen!
Transmission rates in airplanes are nil-low. A dig into reports of folks who contracted COVID-19 on aircraft reveal they likely caught the virus prior to getting on the plane. Even before Corona, the air on planes was among the cleanest. It’s circulated through the cabin every 4 minutes. You’re more likely to get sick on a plane from sitting too long, stressing too much, and not getting enough sleep when you travel and your routine is thrown off. And now, with increased measures like mandatory mask wearing, no open drinks in cups or food being served, and personal cleansing wipes handed out to each passenger to wipe down their area upon embarking, commercial airplanes are cleaner and more germ free than they’ve ever been.

The airport is also clean, with surfaces being sanitized constantly. Plus... wash your hands, people!

Weighing the Benefits

With one of us unemployed as a direct result of the pandemic, something my partner and I talk about a lot is the unintended side effects of extended lockdowns and social distancing. It’s no secret that mental health issues are at an all-time high, and that violence (including domestic violence) is not far behind.

Other impacts include a decrease in organ transplant and other life-saving surgeries and an increase of people dying of heart attacks at home because they’re afraid to leave the house and go to the hospital. It‘s not a small number.

The economic impact of the pandemic on those already struggling socio-economically has been devastating. While people celebrate “essential service providers” like grocery store cashiers and those who fulfill skyrocketing Amazon orders, the truth is that those people still earn minimum wage or close to it. Those lucky enough not to have been laid off, that is. Others are working longer hours than ever, and that, too, is taking its toll. For me at work the pace has been relentless. Most days are filled with back-to-back meetings and tasks with impossible deadlines. The evenings and weekends I’ve been working on top of the 8-ish hours my typical pre-Covid days comprised remind me of my days as a classroom teacher. I’m tired!
After months of increased struggle, be it financial, emotional or physical health, or other struggles related to the virus, people NEED a break!

​We believe that a family trip to another province, to visit an outdoor natural wonder not seen before, will have many benefits personally and — by extension — to those around us at work, school, etc. And so, since we’re in a position to be able to afford a few days away together, we did it.


Supporting the Travel Industry

On the earlier topic of job loss, let’s talk about the travel industry (and in particular, the aviation industry). While Jeff Bezos and his capitalist cronies continue to line their pockets with the spoils of people‘s retail therapy and other widespread swindles, small businesses everywhere are shuttering at an alarming rate. And other industries — and the people who work(ed) in them — are suffering, too.

All over the world and particularly in places like Canada, the aviation industry has basically come to a standstill. Pilots, flight attendants, flight engineers, ramp attendants, caterers, cleaners, office staff and huge numbers of related folks have either lost their jobs or been furloughed. Initially, the hope was that things would open up again in a month or two. As work restart deadlines continue to be pushed back and support cheques draw to a close, the struggle is becoming more real for many, including my partner, a first officer with a regional airline that stopped flying in March.
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At first, travel was basically forbidden while governments tried to understand what they were dealing with, and develop policies in response. The last pandemic occurred in the 60s (google Hong Kong flu), when air travel was not as ubiquitous as it has become in the last decade or so... and so governments are in new territory here. Trying to be “safe” (and avoid litigation), they err on the side of caution, insisting on mandatory 2-week self isolation for all who travel outside the country, even to other countries with low rates of transmission. Some (e.g. the Atlantic bubble) even impose these barriers on those traveling inside the country! This deters people from flying anywhere, and the industry continues to suffer, despite evidence of its safety.

In Canada, the situation is particularly dire: While airlines in other G8 Nations receive substantial subsidies to stay afloat, Canadian airlines have largely been left to figure it out on their own and hope for the best. I read somewhere recently that Air Canada (which has attempted to keep some of its crew and other staff) burned through 1.9 million a day from April - June. Smaller airlines don‘t stand a chance!

Other than 3 weeks on PEI this summer (the first two of which were spent in provincially imposed mandatory self isolation while I teleworked) that we drove to and spent at the property we own there, this Alberta trip was our first out of province excursion, our first time staying on commercial property and our first time traveling by air since the pandemic started. We are eager to support our sisters and brothers in the industry, and help begin to rebuild a strong travel network.
Traveling Safely

Earlier I wrote about weighing the risks. I believe that the benefits of travel are significant. And with appropriate precautions, risks can be effectively mitigated. Frequent hand-washing and keeping a healthy physical distance from those outside one’s bubble are generally good rules. At this time, they become even more important.

The requirement to wear a mask on board planes, and inside restaurants and other public places, may further decrease the risk of spreading the virus.

Given the benefits of travel for those who enjoy doing so, I hope I have encouraged at least some of you to consider getting back into it. Our family’s exploration of the natural outdoor beauty of Banff, Jasper and the Columbia Icefields was a welcome reprieve after months of restricted freedom. And for those who are still uncomfortable with travel, I hope you’ll agree that we can have differing comfort levels with this and still coexist on this planet!
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How to do NYE when you’re old and boring

12/31/2019

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I must be getting old. Either that, or I’m suffering from low grade depression or something. When my partner invited me to join her on a layover in New York for New Year’s Eve 2019, all I could think about was how awesome it would be to instead get home from work, change into my jammies and lounge around on the couch.

If Seinfeld had the summer of George, I’m having the NYE of Vera... and so far, it’s awesome!

After a horrible week spent mostly in bed with fever and a resultant loss of appetite on account of having an awful cold/sinus infection, I found my tastebuds slowly regaining their passion this afternoon. Consequently, I elected to order in through Uber Eats, and tried out a new Indian restaurant.
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With my partner away at work and my kids away at a party, I had a whole quiet evening to myself. And after getting ripped off with Christmas, being sick and all, I was looking forward to some quality downtime with myself!

Unlike George’s summer, this evening did not disappoint: In addition to devouring my tasty Indian dinner, I reviewed a little math, studied some flight stuff, and started a new music app to learn to play blues chords on the piano.
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Afterwards, I spend some time prepping a handout for one of my Airbnb Experiences, “Learn German and Eat Potato Salad”, for which I have a booking tomorrow.

In an effort to add value but reduce paper, I’ve been creating and providing electronic “handouts” for some of my experiences, which I use during the experience itself. Last week I made a plane spotting “bingo card” for my “Discover the Secret World of Aviation” experience, and tonight I made a visual language reference for the “Kartoffelsalat” which we’ll be making and eating tomorrow.
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Since it’s new year’s, I’m all alone, and I don’t really drink, I decided to splurge on a bubble tea, delivered directly to my door through Uber Eats. What with the delivery charge, small order surcharge and tip, it was ridiculously expensive, but kind of fun in a naughty sort of way - not the type of thing I would normally do! But, I haven’t had a bubble tea in SO. LONG. And besides, I would have spent way more had I actually hopped on the plane with my partner to New York. So I thought, hey, why not?!

The poor delivery guy got lost of course, as do all folks who trust in Google to get them to our secret, off the beaten path hideout, with with a few custom directions from the convenience of my couch, I soon had my bubble tea in hand.
If I were really on my own, I’d probably wrap up the NYE of Vera shortly, walk the dog, and then head to bed. But being a responsible parent of independent, young teenagers who are attending their first “real” party (their words, not mine), I feel somewhat compelled to stay up and ensure they actually arrive home at the appointed hour. (My colleagues with older kids warned of this stage years ago, when Alex and Simon were babies screaming all the time and wouldn’t sleep, and I was complaining of being tired - they wisely shared that the tired part wouldn’t end when the kids got older, since I would then/now be awake worrying about whether they were okay, and whether they’d get home safely. I guess we’ve finally entered that stage!)

Also I want to talk to my honey when the clock strikes 12 and she calls me in a drunken stupor from her dinner out with the crew at the hotel restaurant in Newark.

So it’s off to the next item on agenda of the Boring Old Person’s Stay-at-Home Guide to NYE: A little Netflix and dog snuggling... still in my jammies!
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Good night, y’all, and in case I fall asleep on the couch before midnight, happy new year 2020!
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A Stopover in the Most Magical (and Safest?) Place on Earth

12/13/2019

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It was with mixed feelings that we booked our stay at Disneyland in Hong Kong this past month. It didn’t seem right, somehow, to be revelling in an amusement park while the city was struggling with the fallout of continuing protests.

The political situation had changed considerably in the week since we’d spent a night there on our way from Toronto to Phuket. Then we’d easily avoided the protests in and around Kowloon. Now schools were shut down, people had been hospitalized, and even the airport was on high security alert. The threat of increased violence permeated both the media and our imaginations as we considered our options for passing through this international hub on our way back home to Toronto.

We knew there was a Disneyland in Hong Kong, and that it was near the airport. And while we’d made a wide berth around it during our previous overnight a week earlier, now it was looking like actually possibly the safest and most convenient place to spend a night, given that we’d need to be at the airport again the next afternoon for our flight home (standby loads were looking good for the flight we had in mind, so we were pretty confident we’d get out).

Plus we’d read that there were all kinds of specials currently available, because of the significant decline in tourism to the area. Which also meant a basically deserted park. Which meant no giant crowds and long lines full of sheep. Which meant that at least some of the “issues” I had with places like Disneyland were no longer quite as significant. We also considered that for all its faults, Disneyland provides a huge number and diversity of jobs for the local economy. Supporting the resort at at time like this is probably important to the many people who work there and are wondering about their future job security.

So, we booked a room for one night, and threw in a character buffet breakfast and three tickets to the theme park. For the first time in all our lives, we were going to Disneyland!
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Fancy Ass Hotels and Miles of Service

There were three hotels to choose from, all fairly similar in price. One featured an outdoor maze and a pool with a water slide. We picked that one, and although we never did get to the water slide pool, we were not disappointed.

Apart from the beautiful view from our window and the incredibly comfortable beds (which were very much appreciated, given the 15-hour flight ahead of us the next day), the many whimsical touches such as Seven Dwarves toiletries and shampoo and conditioners caps adorned with Mickey Mouse ears instilled a childish delight, even in those of us already over the hill!
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From the moment a smiling service provider opens the lobby door for you, to the moment you enter the glittering breakfast buffet hall and are greeted by iconic characters and their smiling handlers, the place is loaded with customer-service oriented staff. (Granted, they were probably considerably less stressed with the thin crowds than they usually are; nevertheless, we were impressed.)
I couldn‘t believe how excited I felt to be greeted by Micky Mouse at breakfast! And Eyore was not far behind, making several visits to our table - really seemed to bond with Tats, Eyore did.

Each character had their own handler, and also a photographer who followed them around, taking pictures on professional cameras and scanning a card code that could be used throughout ones stay at the resort. This latter detail was intended to ease the pressure of recording the adventure, so that you could just feel free to enjoy said adventure. (This came at a price, of course, should one want to order actual prints later on, and we instead availed ourselves of the fact that the photographers also happily took photos of our little group on our own personal phones if requested. Still, it‘s a neat touch for those who want and can afford to just live in the moment for a day.)

A Perfect Day in Paradise

After breakfast and a meander through the hotel maze, we hopped aboard the free shuttle, and set off to the amusement park. We had about 6 hours before we had to head back to the airport for our flight home to Toronto, and we intended to make full use of every minute!
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Apart from the sheer excitement of it all (and my partner’s indulgence of that wild abandon), three things conspired to make my first (and probably only) Disneyland experience particularly enjoyable: The weather, the (lack of) crowds and the music.

At low twenties Celsius all day with a light breeze off the water, it was the perfect temperature in which to be outside enjoying this beautiful masterpiece. Moreover, without the usual throngs of people, we were able to not only hop on whatever ride we wanted with little to no wait time, but were also able to see the incredible set up of the park‘s architecture so clearly. It‘s truly a magnificent place, with attention to detail in pop culture whimsy, physical accessibility and natural beauty around every corner.
Everything is just so well thought out!

Perhaps my favourite part of the whole adventure, or what contributed significantly to the stress free experience, was the noticeable absence of loud, annoying pop music. Instead, a Fantasia-like soundtrack played throughout most areas of the park, with the vast majority of music being classical and/or without words.

For my wildly distractedly auditory mind, it was a relief of enormous proportions, and allowed me to feast my eyes of the many visual delights that surrounded us.
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Everything was just so fun! Plenty of friendly „cast members“ (customer service folks) are on hand at any given time, and most of them are quite fluent in English. There‘s also a whole thing with stickers, the staff at the hotel and at the park hand them out to anyone who wants them, and even we got caught up in the frenzy and started collecting them.


Even the candy floss is more fluffy in Disneyland, I swear!
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It’s not all consumerism and tchotchkes, though. I did some research when I got back home a few days later, and it turns out that Disney is in the midst of installing what will become the city‘s largest solar power system, producing as much clean energy as would be required to run nearly 600 3-person households! So there‘s that (I know, doesn‘t exactly eradicate the amount of plastic the place produces...)


Disneyland: What you Expect, and yet Unexpected

As I hinted at before, I do have some issues generally with Disney - it‘s all the usual stuff, like the perpetuation of gender, race and sexual stereotypes, plus all the big consumerism polluter stuff. And that‘s all alive and well at Disneyland Hong Kong as it is anywhere else,no question.

On the other hand, I was pleasantly surprised at how much greenspace the park includes, and how much attention they have given to highlighting and promoting the local culture. For example, in addition to the typical North American breakfast foods at breakfast that morning, the buffet was also brimming with more traditional local foods and delicacies appropriate to the geographic area. Another example is the Mystic Mansion experience. Apart from being probably the coolest technological ride I‘ve ever experienced, it reimagines the traditional North American „haunted house“ to make it more culturally appropriate... if somewhat exotically glamourized and leaning towards the imperial obsession with „orientalism“!

Look, if you‘re hoping for an eco-adventure led by a black lesbian, you won‘t find that here. But if you‘re looking for a little magic and some unexpected bonuses, Disneyland is the place for you - especially if you can find a way to enjoy it as we did, on a nearly empty day.
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A Day with the elephants

12/7/2019

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Spending a magical day in the jungle with five retired female elephants in Phuket in November was definitely the highlight of our trip to Thailand, and truthfully one of the most touching experiences of my life. Over the past several years, I’ve been following a few wildlife accounts on social media, but there is something quite enchanting about experiencing these beautiful giants up close, especially in the context of a retirement sanctuary.

Anyone visiting Thailand is likely familiar with the significance of elephants in Thai history and culture. What many people don’t realize, however, is the complexity of Thai elephants’ history of abuse.
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In the past, elephants were used in the logging industry, as well as for riding camps and circuses. Although the former is basically illegal now, many elephants are still used for the latter two purposes. Rather than suddenly become unemployed overnight, many who owned elephants in the logging industry opened riding camps, where the creatures continue to be abused so that tourists can get their instagram shots atop an elephant.

More recently, pressure has been mounting to dismount the elephants. With the resulting decrease in riding camps has come an increase in “sanctuaries”, where in many cases volunteers pay to spend a day “helping” the elephants - this consists mainly of feeding them, walking them and bathing them with mud. The latter two activities are particularly intimate and not really appropriate for wild animals. Research shows that elephants rehabilitated successfully and released into the wild choose to move further from humans over time. Also, the endless bathing activities with new groups of noisy strangers can prove stressful to these intelligent and highly social (amongst themselves) creatures. Moreover, many so-called sanctuaries, it has been found, still use questionable “training” methods in order to ingratiate themselves with human visitors, most of whom remain woefully misinformed when it comes to elephant rescue.

It’s tough, therefore, for those traveling to Thailand and who want to spend time with these majestic creatures in a humane way, to know where to begin. And many tourists, it seems, do little to no research before embarking on their elephant adventure.
We did some research; at least, we knew enough to avoid the riding camps.

We selected from online an outfit that seemed to have very little to no physical interaction with the elephants, one that focused, rather, on education and delicious vegetarian food. The program offered much observation and learning about the elephants; we even feed them a few times, and since we had booked a full-day experience, we were treated to an extended buffet lunch followed by a cozy nap in our own private “treehouse” overlooking a little lake.
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The Phuket Elephant Sanctuary is a 3-year-old ecological park in Pa Klock, Phuket. Located on 30 acres of largely forested land with several water sources, it is currently home to five female elephants who have been rescued (purchased) from previous places of employment ranging from illegal logging, to riding camps, to begging. In all cases, these elephants were mistreated in their pre-sanctuary life, and showed signs of physical and/or emotional distress.
The sanctuary’s founder, formerly himself a trekking camp owner, was inspired to take a new approach to elephant tourism when he retired a physically disabled elephant to Lek Chailert’s Elephant Nature Park in Chiang Mai. Chailert became somewhat of a mentor to him as he developed his own park in Phuket.

The Phuket Elephant Sanctuary takes a largely “observation-only” approach, though we were permitted and encouraged to feed the elephants twice during our visit.
They really do seem to take more of a rehabilitative and elephant-focused retirement approach, however; in addition to hydrotherapy (which two of the more physically disabled elephants were engaging in while we visited), there are a number of streams and ponds on the property that the elephants can bathe in - without a slew of tourists joining them!
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In the morning, we watched an informative video about elephant tourism in Thailand generally and Phuket in particular.

After meandering around part of the property observing the elephants and their mahouds at some distance, we came back to the main building for a tasty vegetarian buffet, followed by some free time lounging about in the treehouse.

After lunch, it was time to go for a hike in the jungle to pick some bamboo and banana leaves for one of the older elephants, who was not yet spending much time outside her large stockade, on account of her anxiety and hostility towards other elephants and people.
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We learned about elephant communication, as well as what they like to eat. One interesting thing we learned was that the mahouds who came from Myanmar (Burma), as several of them did, had to learn at least some Thai, since the elephants knew only Thai from their previous decades of interaction with humans!

Then the three of us headed out to the jungle with our two guides to collect browse.
Along the way, we passed by two elephants wandering about with their mahouds, and also learned about the rubber tree forests that were being tapped to make latex products.
Then we took a short break to enjoy some refreshing water that had been infused with banyan leaves, a welcome treat on such a hot and sweaty day!

After hiking back with our treasures, we unpacked for the recipent’s mahoud to sort and feed the elephant. Then we moved back to the main building to prepare the afternoon “snack” for the elephants (a large basket of bananas, melon and other fruit that would be fed to them by the next group of tourists).

We also made “rice balls”, which consisted of rice, squash, bananas and some sort of nutritional supplement, mashed together and formed into balls, which we were later able to feed two of the elephants with no teeth!

There is really something quite entrancing about watching these giants with their long trunks rustling about. They are big and move slowly, and yet they seem so graceful, somehow.

Spending a day at the Phuket Elephant Sanctuary in Paklok brought with it many treasured memories, and not once did I feel like I needed to be in the water with them bathing together to get a full appreciation of these magnificent creatures!
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The Great Thailand Adventure, Part 1: In Transit

11/10/2019

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I had forgotten how hard long haul travel can be (well, for those of us pions who can’t afford first class, anyway).


Full Disclaimer: This blog post is full of whining and complaining about what a former colleague of mine would call “FWP” or “first world problems”!! I so get that I am super lucky to have the ability to travel as I do, both in terms of having the luxury and privilege of being employed in a job that offers annual paid vacation time and also in terms of having the means to pay for accommodations and standby travel; even though it’s cheaper than how some people travel, I fully recognize that most people don’t get to travel like this at all. That said, within the context of said travel, I am going to get my complain on. So if y’all can’t handle it, you should stop reading now and go back to consuming whatever more worthy online crap you were consuming before the internetz rabbit hole led you here.


So my partner is a pilot with an airline in Canada. And even though it’s a small regional airline, it’s one that has some awesome reciprocal agreements with partner airlines, which means we (her partner and kids) can all travel much cheaper than market value, and she even more cheaply (and in some cases even free).


But it’s standby. That means not confirmed. As in, you could be waiting a gazillion years before a seat comes up on a flight you want/need to get where you’re trying to go. And the more people you’re traveling with, the less likely it is you will get your first choice. Especially when traveling with a partner airline, because there’s a whole ranking system, and if you’re the family of a person working for an airline other than the one you’re trying to travel on, you’re basically at the bottom of the list. A third (or fourth or fifth) class citizen, as it were.


Below an illustration of how this played out recently. We were lucky in that it’s a fairly seamless example, but hard travel nonetheless.


Three of us had decided to use our 10 days of vacation time (and in the case of our kid who was joining us, his 7 skipped days of school) to try and get to Thailand. Unless we wanted to pay upwards of $1000 a person for a guaranteed seat, we had to figure out which partner airlines (that have the agreement with my bae’s airline) fly from Toronto to somewhere in Thailand, or to a place that has other qualifying flights to Thailand.


We quickly established that we’d likely have to go through Hong Kong, staying a night or two in an AirBnB there before trying our luck with a flight to Phuket, where we had rented an apartment for a week and arranged for some diving and snorkelling.


There were a few options, the “easiest” of which was a non-stop Cathay Pacific flight from YYZ to HKG. It leaves in the afternoon on Friday, and arrives in Hong Kong sometime on Saturday evening.


The only problem is that it was oversold, and already had three people (who were not us) on the standby list. So we decided not to risk it.


Flying standby successfully depends largely on one’s ability to predict the likelihood of finding an empty seat on any given flight. Knowledge is power. But knowing the loads means requiring access to inside information not usually available to those outside of airline staff. Out of this necessity, and thanks to the power of modern technology, an online network of inter-airline collegiality exists in a way that most people outside of the aviation industry cannot possibly imagine. Even if you don’t directly know someone who works for the airline you want to fly with and can check the loads for you on their internal systems, chances are you know someone who used to fly with someone who flew with a friend of someone who works for that airline. And if not, there’s always the apps and the facebook groups, the ones where you plug in your desperate plea, and some bored keener with inside information will give you the best available intel at that time.


So my partner obsessively googled and texted.


The next best options where all out of Newark, which conveniently is a destination her airline frequents. Lots of available connecting flights to Hong Kong there.


Alas, not a lot of space to get from Toronto *to* Newark.


So back to researching.


We finally decided to fly United to San Francisco, and try our luck with a connecting flight departing 45 minutes later to Hong Kong. If we were successful in getting on both flights, it would mean 22 hours of flying through multiple time zones over the subsequent 24 hours, but it looked like our best option, meaning that we were more likely to be doing 22 hours of flying than 40+ hours of sitting around an airport! The loads for the first leg were looking VERY good, and the second leg (assuming we could make it from one plane to the next in time) seemed to have just enough seats for us, based on the latest intel from an airline colleague.


With some free pens and chocolate, and a little sweet talking to the United CSRs in YYZ, we landed ourselves some adjacent seats on the first flight, and spent the next 6 hours strategizing (with support from an eager flight attendant) how we would manage our assorted carry-on luggage for the run from one terminal to the next, in order to attempt our luck with the connecting flight. It was an uncomfortable 6 hours, but the adrenaline from our first foray into international standby travel was flowing, and so the pain that lay ahead did not really sink in until much later.


The standby gods were smiling on us as we raced from one terminal to the next in San Francisco, arriving just in time to board the connecting flight to Hong Kong — we’d all three of us successfully obtained seats on this flight, too.


Middle seats.


And the flight that lay ahead was 16 hours. The longest I’d ever been on a plane in one stretch.


As I squeezed into my allotted 18 square inches, the burden of long haul travel sunk in. I had not slept more than about 20 minutes on the preceding flight, largely because my sweet but largish teenager kept leaning against me in his own pursuit of the elusive unconscious. And now I was squeezed in between two strangers, both of whom seemed to have little concept of physical boundaries, as I soon discovered. Encroaching elbows, arms and legs turned from mildly annoying in the first several hours to claustrophobia-inducing through the middle third of the flight.


After sobbing through “The Art of Riding in the Rain” (I digress, but you gotta see this movie! So sweet!! I’d read the book some years back, and they did a really nice job with the film version) and attempting for a few hours to sleep upright in my narrower-than-I-remember economy class seat, and failing to do so, despite my comfy memory foam pillow, eye patch and noise canceling headphones, I decided to go for a walk and find my partner.


I soon found her, luxuriously stretched out and fast asleep, in the middle of aisle 40, a few rows back on the other side of the plane.


Granted, hers was also a middle seat. But whereas I was sentenced to 16 hours between two man-spreaders in a standard, narrow row of squishy seats in in inadequate armrests, my skinny little girlfriend who can sleep in any position anyway had been assigned to an exit row, the one right next to the lavs, so that she had BAGS of room. Moreover, her seat was ensconced on either side with a solid half wall that firmly delineated her space from that of her neighbours’, hence protecting her from wandering lower limbs.


I considered waking her up and demanding a seat exchange for the remainder of the flight, but I figured it was better for one of us to get a decent night’s sleep than for neither of us to. (My motives were partly selfish: I knew that she would be better equipped to deal with my inevitable meltdown at some point later in the journey if she had slept a while at least.)


So instead I rummaged through her bag for a cheese sandwich I knew she had packed for me earlier, left her a hastily-scribbled note begging her to come find me when she woke up, and ventured to the back of the cabin, where one of the flight attendants indulged with me a cup of hot tea and surprised me with the fact that she was in her 53rd year of working as an FA with United!!! I was very impressed, and stayed a while to shoot the breeze with her and her colleagues, learning a little more about the secret lives of cabin crew on long haul flights such as these. She was gorgeous, by the way. Bright eyes, beautiful white hair and an engaging smile. I can only imagine the adventures she’s had over the years.


My tea and chat finished, I returned to my partner’s row to see if she might be awake now, so that I could have some reprieve from my cramped quarters for a while. Alas, she was slumped forward in her seat, legs splayed out in front of her, with her hood drawn low over hear eyes to block out the light. And still asleep. Blast it!


So I decided to make a quick pit stop on the way back to the man spreaders.


But there is no “quick” on an aircraft of this size. Despite having three lavs right there in the immediate vicinity, all three were occupied, and remained so for the next ten minutes or so. What the temporary inhabitants where doing in there for that long, I don’t even want to imagine, but suffice it to say that by the time one of the tiny stalls finally became available, my bathroom visit of boredom had become one of necessity, and I actually had to pee!!


Sleeping beauty was still, well, sleeping, so I returned to my row, climbed over the lightly snoring man spreader in seat C, and crawled back into my 18 inches. I was unpleasantly surprised to find that the last 8 hours had begun to produce a body and mouth odour from my neighbours that was less than desirable. Convinced I would never sleep again, I resigned myself to writing down my adventures thus far, my typing abilities more than marginally hindered by my tight quarters.


Only 8 hours to go.
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The Grumpy Professor’s Artist and Mathematician Nature Retreat

7/20/2019

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My neighbour’s property is a little piece of heaven. His nearly 3-acre field bordered by forest/tree line on two sides lies across the road from my 1.74 acres on PEI’s north shore, a short walk from the harbour that is home to shallow waters and a gorgeous view towards the massive, parabolic dune of Greenwhich National Park.

A big big role for me this summer, apart from directly taking care of meal prep and tidying for said neighbour, has been to develop and manage his property.

The Grumpy Professor, as he’s referred to around these parts, is fairly open to ideas, mainly because he doesn’t really care all that much about the property, and is primarily interested in allowing the dog space to romp!

This has allowed me some freedom in my aforementioned development and management.

As I’ve been learning more about historical and current differences in how Indigenous Canadians and Canadians of Settler/Colonial descent view the concept of land “ownership”/use, I’ve been thinking a lot about whose land it all is, really, anyway. As a result, I have been finding opportunities to share “my” property and the one “owned” by our neighbour with others in ways that blends business and philosophy.

We have opened up both our properties to folks who want to camp here, either in their vehicles, their own tent, or one or more tents or small, rustic cabins we have set up on site.
This influx of guests has also allowed my neighbour to get out of his shell a little, and meet some interesting people of varying ages, from a wide range of backgrounds.

As the GP is a huge introvert, and really can live up to his nickname of “Grumpy Professor”, I worded any ads quite carefully to disseminate both the rustic, simple nature of the lodgings (priced accordingly) and the sometimes problematic nature of one of the hosts.

Such calls bring to bear either fellow introverts or mathematicians (the GP is a retired math professor), or folks intrigued by and interested in what we have to offer. Consequently, over the past 6 weeks, we have enjoyed learning about civil war re-enactments from a lone traveler who stayed — bundled in multiple sleeping bags — in Rick’s stargazing cabin in early May, we have delighted in reading the poems on the road of two gals traveling across Canada in their camper van, we have learned to play poker with two young American campers who also hauled wood for us and watered some trees in exchange for the use of our parks pass and wood of their own campfire, and we have enjoyed several communal meals with one or several groups of visitors.

We’ve also had a number of visitors who have just kept to themselves, parked on “our” land for the night on their way to Souris or some other place.
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Observing a red fox meander across the front yard in the morning, or watching a great blue heron fly overhead to the nearby marsh in the afternoon serve as reminders that we share this land with a host of wildlife (beyond the horrid mosquitos... and even the dragonflies — who will eat their share of these small beasts — are starting to appear amidst the wildflowers).

Neither the rabbits in the back forest nor the robin whose nest (complete with three eggs!) is tucked in under the roof of the solar shelter near the front of Rick’s property pay any rent.

The struggle to reconcile what it means to “own” land vs to share it continues inside of me. On the one hand, who am I (or who is Rick) to decide who gets to use the property and when, and how much they should pay us for this privilege? On the other hand, having a well and outdoor shower installed costs money, as does the electricity to pay for the hot water bill. The composting toilet was not free to build and deliver to the back of the property, nor was the fire pit we had built, over which many of the people who stay cook some of their meals.
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And so we ask for a nominal fee from those who stay, and invite cash tips or work exchange from those who feel compelled or are able to contribute more.

A lot of the proceeds (and then some!) are used to pay for the many trees Rick has been planting on his property. He is determined to contribute what he can to the betterment of the environment.
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The two groups currently staying on Rick’s property have really jelled, and we are enjoying the opportunity to break bread together as we hear about their day’s adventures on this island that we call home for the summer. As an added bonus, my mother’s friend is here for a visit, and one of my boys has finally arrived!
It’s so lovely to have everyone together.

I relish my privacy and am very grateful for the privilege of home and land ownership. But I believe that the concept of “ownership” is problematic from an ethical perspective, and there are elements of this summer’s communal living experience that I wish I could enjoy year-round.
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Christmas: Stress or Stability?

12/17/2018

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For many, the advent of Christmas marks a season of anxiety and stress. Money is tight and fuses are short as extended families bicker about who goes where for Christmas, and what happens once they get there. Stores and online ad campaigns pull at your heart strings and play on your guilt to try to get you to loosen the purse strings and spill all your hard-earned cash into their coffers, so that you can have a faint glimmer of hope of living up to wildly unrealistic expectations. Even the most pious among us can get swept up in the superficiality and busy-ness of the season.

For me growing up, this intensity was seldom apparent. In fact, quite the contrary was true.


Stability and Peace

With virtually no extended family, my mom, Omi and I had few if any competing expectations. As far as gifts were concerned, modesty won out over both extremes of abundance and scarcity. And as Europeans, we would generally forego the traditional Canadian turkey dinner in favour of homemade German potato salad (kartoffelsalat) and wieners w crusty buns and Dijon style mustard, followed by Weinachtsstolle (German fruitcake) and Dominosteine, served on the evening of Dec 24, as soon as my mom got home from work. It was an exciting family gathering, but not a noisy one.


When I was little, my uncle formed part of the small group around the table for dinner. After he died, it was just the three of us for a few years. Later, as a teenager, I remember my mother’s friend, Horst, joining us for Christmas Eve.

Ironically, this annual holiday ritual represented one of the most stable seasons in my otherwise chaotic and unstable upbringing! Despite the schizophrenia, suicidal depression and clinical anxiety that wreaked general havoc my single parent, immigrant family life, Christmas Eve and the events leading up to it seemed like the glue of reliability that held us together year after year, and kept me — as the only child in the midst of this mayhem — sane.

The Reliable “Weinachtsbaum”

Come hell or high water, there was some form of real Christmas tree every year, with the same damned decorations, including the „Strohsterne“ that had been carefully preserved by my great-aunt in Germany and then my grandmother and my mother after her. There were the red balls packed neatly away in yellowing cardboard egg cartons, and there was the always-too-short string of yellow lights to emulate the real candles my grandmother‘s family‘s tree would have sported when the Tannenbaum was unveiled on Heilig Abend in their modest living room each year. (Oh how I longed for the multi-coloured lights and too much tacky tinsel that festooned the plastic trees of my Canadian school chums!)

Symbols of Stability

Unbeknownst to me at the time, that meagre tree, the gifts that surrounded it, and the simple supper of Wuersten with Senf, Kartfoffelsalat and Dominosteine that preceded the opening of said gifts each year provided a beacon of hope in my emotionally tumultuous childhood and adolescence. Where so much uncertainty prevailed, our family’s Christmas rituals represented the security so lacking in other areas of my life.

My family‘s Christmas Eve tradition is one I‘ve insisted on emulating each year into my adulthood, in spite (or perhaps because?) of the fact that my mother died 2 days before Christmas when I was 21, and my grandmother and mom‘s friend Horst are also no longer with us.
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My 14-year-old twins lead even more scrambled lives than I did at their age (along with a competitive helping of insanity and chaos in the emotional states of the adults around them!), and my hope is that the predictability and structure of our Christmas Eve traditions — and in particular, the tree — provides them much-needed stability each year, as it did for me growing up.

What’s on My Tree

Our tree features a combination of old- and new-world tradition. The lights that serve as the base each year are not multi-coloured as I‘d pined for as a child, but the string of soft white mini lights that adorn the tree is sufficiently long so as not to leave giant gaps even those years when we splurge on a larger tree! And in lieu of tinsel, we usually include some form of sheer, golden ribbon poking out here and there. (Reusable, of course!) Next come the red balls in assorted hues and sizes. They are not the same ones my mother used (those have long since broken), but they reflect the overall feel of my childhood Christmas trees.

After the red balls, the homemade wooden stars, painted yellow, that my roommate and I bought on Roncesvalles in my mid-20s after eyeing them in a shop window for some time one year (the same year we stayed up until 4 a.m. baking gingerbread for a house that looked considerably more pathetic in the end than the photo accompanying the recipe on the cover of some Sally Homemaker style holiday magazine that had inspired this foolishness in us!)
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Newer additions include a variety of birds (flying things, for my pilot girlfriend!!) I bought the year Tats and I moved in together, and I was attempting to make Christmas our own (albeit without consulting her first, the perils of which I only discovered later... but that‘s a blog post for another time, or maybe not even!)
Also prominently displayed is a wooden violin from a former musician friend, and a small metal bicycle that Vinx found at a yard sale and brought along one year.
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Tucked away in a corner is a delicate little faux-mother-of-pearl drum, complete with tiny golden drumsticks, which I stole from the tree in the elevator lobby on the floor of the hospital where my mother died.

(My kids, when I told them one year where the drum ornament had come from, were shocked and appalled to learn that their mother stole. I myself continue to harbour mixed feelings about the ethics of the event, in the grander scheme of things.)
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Perched among the lower branches of the tree is a Christmas card with a small aircraft on the front, and several penguins disembarking from said aircraft, onto the icy runway. The card is from an ESL student in a Grade 3 class I once taught - super enthusiastic about everything, this kiddo came to school the week before Christmas holidays fully decked out in a Santa suit each day. He knew Ms Teschow was working on her pilot license, and so he bought a card with an airplane on it!

The card represents my life as a teacher, and fills my heart with love for the many classes with whom I have been lucky enough to forge a student-teacher relationship over the years.
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At the top of the tree sits a rather plain-looking angel.
She is fashioned from paper mache of sorts, and is faceless. I purchased her when my mother died, from the hospice that had looked after her in various ways during the preceding year, and who was selling these homely, handmade creatures as a fundraiser.

Her understated robes wrapped around her, the faceless angel humbly oversees the proceedings from her vantage point, and serves as a reminder of the year my mother died when I was 21, on Dec 22, two days before our annual family Christmas Eve celebration.
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The last items to be placed gingerly wherever we can tuck them safely in are the few remaining „Strohsterne“ handmade probably by my great grandfather (no one‘s left alive to confirm the details), and mailed in a small manilla envelope to my Omi‘s sister in Kassel, Germany in the 1960s.

Somehow they made it to Canada, and here a few of them still are, gracing my family‘s Christmas tree, in 2018!
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And so our Christmas tree finds its way into our annual routine, predicable in both its appearance and content, offering up its cherished heirlooms to whomever in our little circle might appreciate or benefit from these varied traditions.

I hope it will do so for many years to come!
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15 Minutes of (Queer) Fame

12/11/2018

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One of the things my partner and I remarked on during our recent cruise was how awash in heteronormativity everything felt. The alleged 10-20% of the population that identifies as LGBTQ+ was not well represented on the boat! This made for a somewhat strange personal vacation on our end, despite the many fun activities available during our 7 days afloat.
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While we've worked hard in our personal life to surround ourselves with influences that positively portray the fluidity of our people, the mainstream world around us apparently continues to wallow in a quagmire of clearly defined roles, rules and gender stereotypes.

The literature, activities and announcements on board harp on these stereotypes, and while no one was outright homophobic, it was generally assumed that everyone aboard was "normal", ie straight and aligned with the gender binary.

In the middle of our cruise, there was a game show, based on an actual TV game show, called "Love and Marriage", held in the theatre. It was here that Tats and I elected to challenge the somewhat stifling straight culture that surrounded us.
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On a whim, Tats and I auditioned (if an impromptu queer interpretation of the required ultra-hetero Tarzan scene could be called an audition).... And the next thing we knew, we had won the audience over and found ourselves on stage as one of the three couples selected for the show!

Wedged in between two newlyweds and a husband and wife who had been together for over forty years, Tats and I representated "mid range" (over five years and under 20). We were also the only lesbian couple, and -- I suspect -- probably the only LGBTQ couple they've ever had on the ship's show. As a result largely of this latter fact, we found we gained considerable fame and notoriety; for the remainder of the cruise we kept getting "recognized" wherever we went. This consisted largely of people coming up to us with a big, friendly smile and telling us how much they had enjoyed our performance, and the occasional person yelling, “sing in Russian!“ across a room at Tats, because of a response I had given to one of the questions asked during the game show.

While it was a little disconcerting to be thrust into the public eye like that, it was in some ways a not altogether unfamiliar feeling. As a parent of monozygotic twins, I've become accustomed some level of notoriety (this was especially true when Alex and Simon were small and more easily recognizable as a “pair”).

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Also, people who talked to me and Tats were overwhelmingly positive, restoring my faith in humanity to a certain degree -- we'd been a tad anxious that the heteronormative schema of our floating country would outweigh our obvious cuteness as a couple and our clear "stage presence" (haha), but it would appear that the world of cruisers has had enough exposure to #loveislove wherever they live on land to be reasonably accepting of our brand... At least for an evening's entertainment!
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And so, we enjoyed our proverbial 15 minutes of fame.
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(Re)discovering Stan Rogers

8/20/2018

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Where words and photos sometimes fail, music steps into the gap! This post is a tribute to my teachers who introduced me, over a K-12 education, to some of the music that brings the the majestic landscapes and rich cultures of this magnificent country to life. In particular, it is an appreciation for the music of Stan Rogers, and East Coast music generally.

I recently returned from a road trip to NFLD.  ​With two teenagers in tow, I set out in our rental car from St Peter's Harbour, PEI, to St Anthony, on the north-western tip of the other island, primarily in hopes of seeing the whales.

​The journey there and back entailed 6 days of driving (big country we live in!!), and endless hours of music and podcasts. (On the latter, the boys and I enjoyed several episodes of Hidden Brain; I highly recommend for some thought-provoking discussion when on the road with teenagers.)

After being forced to listen to "Africa" by Toto for the 17th time in one day, I decided it was time expand our repertoire a little, and introduced the boys to Stan Rogers. They'd heard Barrett's Privateers before, but it was their first time with some of his other well-known numbers, and Northwest Passage soon became a favourite musical score to the rugged landscape that served as a backdrop while we whizzed along the Viking Trail in our rental vehicle.
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I remember my Grade 13 music teacher insisting that we listen to Stan Rogers; he informed us that as Canadians, this was an artist whose work we should know.

My 18-year-old self had never been east of Quebec, and I was not particularly impressed, especially since my musical tastes at the time centred more around 80s rock genre and bands like Rush and Van Halen. My 45-year-old self, however, driving along the west coast of Newfoundland with the ocean on one side and mountainous terrain on the other, was considerably more appreciative.

After several hours of Stan Rogers on repeat, I downloaded some additional east coast favourites, and the boys soon replaced Africa and Northwest Passage with The Islander, which we had to listen to at full volume and sing along to at the top of our lungs ("Come on, Mom, sing!") multiple times a day.
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While in NFLD, we went for supper one night at a restaurant with a live band and mummers. "I'se the Bye" was played and danced to, and I was taken back to my elementary school days, where Mr. Mec did his best to instill some Canadiana into us lowlifes through his commitment to a robust music program each year.  We sang this drinking song and others, too, and I quickly downloaded it for the next leg of our journey.
On that same album was What Shall we do with a Drunken Sailor, which I recalled from my junior Kindergarten days, where Ms. Burnell (sp?) played it for us on her autoharp, and we sang along with vigour, a bunch of 3- and 4-year-olds, blissfully ignorant that this east coast favourite was perhaps not super appropriate in its vocabulary or concepts for such young, impressionable minds.  The rhythm was catchy, Ms. B's enthusiasm was infectious, and our singing was loud and passionate (and probably a little off-key)!

Thus was crafted the foundation for my later appreciation of east coast drinking songs like The Night Pat Murphy Died and the afore-mentioned Islander, among others.

​As we neared the end of our 6-day odyssey around a mere smidgeon of the east coast, and were on route back to PEI so that one of my kids could catch his plane from Charlottetown back to Toronto, we played a few of the original playlist favourites again... but not without periodic interspersals -- at my boys' insistence -- of their new favourites, too! 
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I'll be forever grateful for the memories we made together on this trip, the three of us, and for the magnificent eastern Canadian landscapes that photos cannot really do justice, and which brought tears to my eyes on many occasions as we drove.  But most especially, I'm grateful for the music teachers I had, from Kindergarten to high school, who -- by their exposure of us to this music -- made this adventure so much more pleasurable for all three of us.
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Thank you, Ms. Burnell, Mr. Mec and Mr. Van Zuylen!
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    About Vera...

    Vera & her Sons, April 2021
    After writing for several teacher and multiple birth publications, including ETFO's Voice Magazine, Multiple Moments, and the Bulletwin, Vera turned her written attention to prolific blogging for some years, including BiB,  "Learn to Fly with Vera!"  and SMARTbansho .  Homeschooling 4 was her travel blog in Argentina.  She now spends more time on her Instagram (@schalgzeug_usw)  than her blog (pictures are worth a thousand words?!) 
    DISCLAIMER
    The views expressed on this blog are the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the perspectives of her family members or the position of her employer on the the issues she blogs about.  These posts are intended to share resources, document family life, and encourage critical thought on a variety of subjects.  They are not intended to cause harm to any individual or member of any group. By reading this blog and viewing this site, you agree to not hold Vera liable for any harm done by views expressed in this blog.
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Vera C. Teschow, OCT, M.Ed., MOT
Toronto, ON & St Peter's Harbour, PE
www.verateschow.ca 2021
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