How Many Berries Does it Take to Fill Up a Bear? QUART ONE

Creeeeeeeeak.  My pace quickens as disturbing images crowd my over-active imagination.  My mind’s eye picturing a 100 pound black menace rolling back the top of my economy-class Toyota sedan, like it was just a big-box-store sized can of sardines.  Its silver(ish) metal overcoat weakened by 12 years of being rode hard and put away wet would probably make it an easier task for a ravenous Ursus americanus americanus to peel back the roof like it's a ripe grape.

Shaking my head at my naïveté, I start walking just a titch faster.  I can just imagine the bear’s enthusiasm to reach the delectable lunch he can smell but not see, in the blue, dollar store cooler bag tucked away in the corner of the back seat of my somewhat battered grey import.  Assorted fruit and (maybe) a chocolate bar or two add to the smorgasbord of great smells.  Bonus!  Hmmm, ham or roast beef sandwich?

The day started off innocently enough.  My friend, Yvette, up from the Big Smoke for the weekend,  visiting the Near North for what turned out to be, at least that day, a glorious but decidedly strange and never-to-be-forgotten jaunt (my favourite pastime).  Truth be told, it’s definitely the oddest jaunt I’ve ever had.

Me, my friend, Yvette and Wonder Dog, Sofie, hurry back down the colourful, leaf-littered trail toward the parking area of the sculpture forest, aka The Tree Museum, near Gravenhurst.  My thoughts are torn between two things – seriously, how many berries does it take to fill up a bear?  And the other, how much damage could a small(ish) bear inflict on my venerable vehicle?

Our day started off so normally; the usual foot wiggles to get the circulation ramped up enough to get out of bed and stay upright, accompanied by gentle, old(er) people noises.  Bathroom time and then decision making whether to pack a picnic or take the chance of being able to find a place to eat at some point during our jaunt.  Picnic won out, as I remember a bunch of times being out in the middle of nowhere, listening to my stomach do the rumble and roll cha-cha from hunger, almost drowning out the radio.  The spacious blue cooler bag is packed tight and the non-perishables take up a good part of a grocery bag.  Then we hit the road.

A couple of hours later, crisp almost-autumn air hits our lungs as we get out of my car and stretch the pins and needles out of our legs.  It’s been a long drive from SCA, made even longer since my Garmin decided that the most direct route took us off the highway and through Orillia.  Really?  Why?  Can’t figure that one out but will try to remember to stay on the highway the next time.  Nuvi ‘Jane’ will just have to recalculate.

There’s only one other car in the rough, rutted grass parking area besides mine and my writer’s mind starts to fill in the blanks about the people who belong to it. Shrugging off the distraction, Yvette and I start down the uneven path towards the forest.  I mention to Yvette that I’ve got my cell phone in my pocket, my tumbo (a bamboo staff about 2 feet long (61 cm) from my karate training days - it’s good for parting iffy vegetation (poison ivy abounds up here) and fighting off smallish wildlife, if needed, and I’m wearing a bright blue tee-shirt, just in case. Nothing if but thorough, I think. I casually mention to Yvette, that it’s ‘that time of year’ when bears are trying to fatten up for the long, cold winter ahead.  Lots of fat = good hibernation.    

Yvette takes the information in stride but I think she is just a little apprehensive about bears in the ‘hood and, also, maybe thinks I’m pulling her leg.  Did I ever mention that Yvette is a bit of a hot-house flower?  She prefers the trendy but genteel streets of Yorkville and, in bad weather, the Eaton Centre.  She puts up with my jaunting with patient humour, provided that she stays under the mosquito squadrons’ and black fly battalions’ radar.  Apparently, there are no such creatures in London, England, where she hails from and it seems that our indigenous insects think she’s just the thing to quench their thirst.

We amble down the tree-lined path and around the bend and come across the first of many interesting, artistic endeavors, which involves real trees.

                                                                                                             

                                                       
Sofie, The Wonder Dog, just has to check out the trees, Hmmm, we think to each other.  Interesting.  Sofie, a little disappointed, I think, that there isn’t any pee-mail for her today.

The next thing we spot is a rather battered looking piece of plywood, white paint peeling, off all by its lonesome.  It is tucked away off the path and if not for the flash of white, we probably would have missed it.  There didn’t seem to be a point to it but when you think about it, it is a piece of wood.  To state the obvious, wood comes from trees.  We are in a tree museum.  Hmmm, could that be the point?  I’ll probably never know.  If I remember correctly, there was no sign near it to explain it.




Shrugging off the strangeness of this one, we return to the main path and meander down, enjoying the sunshine and clean, crispy air, not knowing that in a very short time, our leisurely hike would take a very interesting twist.

Stay tuned for QUART TWO …

AQUAYAKKING IN SANDYCOVE

I have been called some interesting things in my life and I’m not too sure that the latest appellation is one that I appreciate – The Plunger.  Hmmm, you ask, how in the hell did you come by that one?  

Hmmm, I reply, "I started taking Aquafit (also known as Aquayak, no explanation needed) a couple of months ago.  Three days a week from 11:00 in the a.m. to noon, I get my luscious body into the pool and exercise the crap out of it.  Not many of our group (numbering around 20) really pay much attention to start and stop times.  Most of us arrive at the south pool early, around 10:30.  It’s first come, first served when it comes to who gets to participate and max capacity in our little pool is 23.  And, no, it doesn’t matter what the weather is, as long as there’s no snow falling or lightning striking, we go."

It has been a weird kind of summer, in this year of our Lord, 2015.  My kind of summer actually, usually decent temps hovering around the 70° f mark, with little or no humidity.  I’m sure you’ve said it yourself – it’s not the heat, it’s the humidity, which kills me.  I just can’t stand it.  The minute I go outside and it’s humid, I start dripping, usually starting in my nice, thick hair and continuing southbound.  If it gets up to 90°, that’s okay, just as long as it’s not humid. 

But how often does humidity-less days happen?   Especially up here in the Town Above, since most of our county is on the banks of the fourth largest lake, wholly within the province of Ontario.  Somehow Mother Nature skipped the humidity in our weather forecast this summer and most days it’s just lovely.  I can honestly say it’s one of the nicest summers I’ve ever had.

With the good, comes the not-so-good though.  Without the humidity, it’s harder to appreciate getting into a pool (with a wonky heater) three mornings a week.  It’s even harder getting out, considering the brisk breeze, which turns on the headlights on all the women. 

One sullen mid-July morning, it seemed that the snow clause almost came into effect, when I dragged my reluctant self out of bed and, shivering, stumbled to the window to close it against the chill.  Hmmm, the brain started ticking over the question, Aquayak or no Aquayak?

After closing the bedroom window and thinking about turning on the gas fireplace in the living room, I made it to the back bedroom to check the outside thermometer.  That day it was a bone-chilling 63° (which translates to a measly 17° celsius) and it was windy.  I’m surprised that there was no wind-chill warning that morning.  Oh, and then there was the problem from the day before, something about a pump not working, which had kept the pool closed for the whole day. 

                                             

Standing by the patio door, mesmerized by the thermometer, hovering around 60°, I decided that skipping Aquayak that day was the better part of being smart. It was a bone-chilling thought to immerse myself in a supposedly heated pool under a dark, dour, sky, with a wind chill factor (at least in my mind there was one) and perhaps normal in November but totally out of place in mid-July.  

                                      (not really this cold but it sure felt like it some mornings!)

One day, it was over 80° f (27° c) in the pool, but that was rare.  Most times it hovered around 70°f to maybe 75° and our outspoken aquatics leader, Monique, a pioneer originally from Cape Breton a handful of decades or so ago, sometimes ended up directing her stalwart pod from a standing position on the side of the pool.   Others dipped a toe or maybe even a whole foot, shivered, said their hellos and goodbyes and left.  Most of our group are in the over 65 age range and experience a number of health challenges already, and they don’t want to add to them by willingly exposing themselves to pneumonia!

Which brings me back to my newest nickname, The Plunger.  The first time, Donna (names have been disguised to protect the not-so-innocent), called me The Plunger, I have to say that I was startled, as I immediately envisioned that thick, brownish, rubber thingie used to unplug stopped-up toilets.  I still have that image stuck in my brain. 

I did earn that nickname honestly though.  Because the pool heater has been wonky all summer, the only constant about the temperature has been asking, upon arrival at the pool, what temperature the pool was.  The cluster of women on the weathered, wooden deck, tightly wrapped in gay beach towels or thick, woolly, white, terry robes, usually tipped me off before anyone answered.  Even on a cool day, if the pool was a decent temperature, the early birds would go in just to keep warm.  Clumped on the deck in a somewhat sheltered corner and sitting close to each other told me immediately that I was not going to be tiptoeing into that pool. 

So instead of walking in via the stairs and getting stuck behind someone who was taking a long time to reach bottom, I started jumping into the deep end, which, if the 12” high numbers painted in black on the pool’s edge are to be believed, is 6’ (2 meters(ish).  I just get it over with in one fell swoop.  Hence, taking the plunge, or as Donna coined it, also known as The Plunger. 

One day, my nickname may have to change to The Cannonball, which is what I keep threatening to do.  I just have to manage to wrap my arms around my lower legs and jump, all at the same time.  A cinch to do when you’re a slim 13 year old, not so much at a chubby 60ish.  Maybe I’ll practice in our local indoor pool over the winter and surprise everyone next summer.

© 2015 Phyllis Mahon - “ALL IMAGES AS COPYRIGHTED BY PHYLLIS MAHON ARE PROTECTED AND REGISTERED … IT’S UNLAWFUL TO REPOST, COPY OR PUBLISH IMAGES FROM THIS WEBSITE.”

LIVING & MOWING IN A GREEN WORLD

How many of you have heard or even said it yourself, “If it weren’t for all the weeds in my lawn being green and growing like, well, like weeds, I wouldn't have to mow at all?

C’est moi! That’s me and my lawns.  Back, front, sides, doesn’t matter.  If it weren’t for the abundance of weedy green things, I really wouldn’t have to mow at all.  I long for the good ole’ days when I first moved to Sandycove Acres, from the Town Down Under. 

I push back in my over-stuffed blue tweed recliner, pop up the foot stool thingie and lay back with a tired sigh (even before coffee this morning, I weed-whacked all the naked dandelion stalks and then mowed) and remember back to when I first moved into New Dodge, aka Sandycove Acres.

Sofie's Little Pink Belly

The front lawn had been sodded long before moving day (good thing – it had been a mud pit when I bought the house) and had taken rather well and not a weed to be seen.  I’m thinking either Mother Nature had been extraordinarily generous with spring rain (it was, after all, only very early June), or maybe someone had been watering it.  The what wasn’t really important, just the result.  EXCEPT that Sofie, The Wonder Dog, although big of heart, is small in stature and can’t stand to tinkle if the grass is tickling her cute, little pink belly.  So, that leaves?  Yep, you guessed it!  My neighbours immaculately maintained lawn.  Her grass abuts my grass and, on the other side, my grass abuts my neighbour’s grass and so on and so on and so on.  I had to get my grass mowed and tout de suite!  I spotted my neighbour, Rich, toiling on my neighbour’s lawn across the street and made a bee-line straight for him.  In no time he was over at my house, mowing back my new-sod-gone-wild in the front yard to a height that Sofie would pee on instead of my neighbour’s.

Well now, three years later, my front lawn, especially, is a weedy hot mess.  Mostly it’s because my neighbour to the east of me, whose lawn abuts mine, does not believe in weed control at all.  Oh, and the neighbour I had when I first moved in with the immaculate lawn?  Well, didn’t she move out a month after I moved in?  The new neighbour, besides being a Water Rat (that’s another story for another day), also didn’t seem to care much about the outside of her property as much as she loved playing cards, scrabble, bingo and pretty much any kind of game you can name.  So, she sometimes had someone mow her lawn but nothing else much beyond that. 

 So now, with neighbours on both sides of my house with abutting lawns, who not only ignore weeds but actually seem to encourage them, my lawns didn’t stand a chance.  Before too long, we all had a good sunny crop of gaily waving dandelions, which I’ve heard, are good for the bees, and are considered to be the bee’s spring savior. 

Why all the pondering 2 years later?  Well, the game-playing neighbour moved out last year (I pause to sniff my pits), the second neighbour to move away in my three year tenure here.  The new neighbour, who besides having a huge sense of entitlement, has an ‘Alzie’ husband and a penchant for strict order, at least on the outside.  After spending months having her ‘new’ house renovated (and alienating her neighbour – yes, me, with a constant stream of contractors, etc. most of whom thought nothing of parking in my parking spot – another story for another time), finally finishes and now seems to be determined to whip her lawn into military-like preciseness.  So just when I think ‘her’ work is done, lawn guys roar up our quiet crescent early in the morning, spring from their jacked-up pick-up trucks with their young, perfectly working knees, all manner of tools at hand.  Other trucks deliver load after load of rich, black dirt and the outside makeover commences.  Sigh, it seems like ‘her’ work here will never be done.

Oh well, at least all this lawn work might actually encourage grass to grow, instead of  green, weedy things.  Well, after about what seems like a week but is probably only 2 or 3 days, the lawn guys leave in their tricked-out trucks.  Ahh, peace and quiet reigns again on Marlin Court.

Sofie just being cute

It doesn’t last long.  I’m guessing my neighbour was not satisfied with the lawn guy’s work, so now The Weed Guys start coming.  One day when I went outside with Sofie,  The Wonder Dog, my porch was littered with these small, white, pellets. Hmm, say I, peering rather nearsightedly at these strange things on my porch, where did this all this s*^t come from?  It didn’t take long before the birdie chirps and I figure out that ‘she’ had had her lawn done.  The sign on the edge of ‘her’ lawn is a dead give-away too.  Not happy am I.  I really don’t believe in all the crap ‘they’, the Lawn Companies, use on the lawns, even after the pesticide ban.  ‘They’ have come up with something ‘they’ claim is safe for dogs but the girl who was spraying today couldn’t tell me what was in the s*^t she was using, only the name of it.  I, nicely, asked her to make sure that crap was sprayed only on my neighbour’s lawn and not mine.  Oh, and the strange, white pellets which were on my porch – still don’t know.

Well, to make a short story just a titch longer, yesterday when I left the house for a client’s, ‘her’ neighbour on the other side, Ringo (not really) was mowing ‘her’ lawn.  When I got home, I noticed quite the swath had been cut entirely around my birdbath and Ringo likes to cut short.  I’ve been told that you’re supposed to keep your grass at a 3” height (7.6 cm for those metrically in-the-know) and so I do.  After I mowed today, you sure can tell who knows about the 3” rule and who doesn’t.  It looks odd.

Bald as a monk's head

I saw Ringo this morning and called over to him about his mowing job.  His excuse?  He didn’t know where the lot line was.  I pantomimed it to him with hand and arm signals, feeling like one of those guys who guide the gargantuan planes into their parking space at the airport, and a verbal explanation.  He didn’t look happy.  I have to believe that my neighbour, ‘Her’ had given him his mowing orders and had instructed him to go around the birdbath rather than just mow it on her side.  She had been at me a couple of times this week about its location and the weeds around it.  She thought it was hers (left behind by the previous owner, Water Rat) and was going to move it to Her backyard.  She did have sense enough though to ask me, though, who it belonged to before doing that.  ‘She’ also didn’t like the golden flowers I had let grow up around it, enjoying the contrast between the sunny yellow dandelions and the drab concrete.  The area now resembles a tonsure.               

I am territorial about my parking spaces, porch and yes, even my weeds and if Ringo ever mows my side again, I’m guessing ‘She’ and I will be having a nice chat about boundaries – again (and yes, that’s another story for another day).

© 2015 Phyllis Mahon - “ALL IMAGES AS COPYRIGHTED BY PHYLLIS MAHON ARE PROTECTED AND REGISTERED … IT’S UNLAWFUL TO REPOST, COPY OR PUBLISH IMAGES FROM THIS WEBSITE.”

A SANDYCOVE MOMENT

Recently I started going to bingo nights at The Wheel here in SCA South Park – residents only allowed, although security is kinda of lackadaisical and the odd outsider probably sneaks in, especially former residents who used to attend but have now moved out of SCA, north or South Park.  

A relative newcomer to The Park (I knew her in my old life in The Town Down Under) invited me to go with her a few weeks ago for the first time.  Funny how life can take you places you never thought you’d go.

When I was a child, bingo was a very popular delivery method for giving kids their loot bags at birthday parties.  It was simple - you played until you won your bag.  As soon as you won, you stopped playing.  Ah, I can still remember those days.  I had to play to the bitter end and even then, most of the time, the party hostess had to give me my loot bag ‘cause I hardly ever bingo’ed.  What kind of karma is that?  And why, with that kind of history, would I even go to bingo as a grown up?  Am I a closet masochist?  And now I even have to pay for the pleasure of playing? 

Here in the land of the Adult Lifestyle Community, the silver hairs get off relatively lightly when it comes to buying bingo ‘cards’ (not cards anymore - with the invention of the dabber, they’re printed on paper now and discarded after each game).  I can just imagine how many trees die for the bingo cause.

The basic package, which includes a set of warm-up cards and the mutli-paged main games, costs $7.00, commonly referred to as the $7.00 special.  You can spend more if you like.  You can buy as many of the warm-up sets as you want, @ $1.00 and the main games.  Extras of the last game of

the night, which is the jackpot card, can be purchased for $1.00, as many as you want or, more precisely, can keep up with, dabbing at the speed of a very fast tortoise.  The many long, rectangular tables are a-blur of colour as the bingo caller murmurs into the microphone, “B4” and the bingo dabbers march robotically down one set of cards and then up the next.  It kinda reminds me of a well-choreographed dance.  Groans of disappointment rise, a palpable cloud as someone in the far back corner, screams “BINGO”.  Then another groan, as someone else yells, “BINGO” from the opposite side of the cavernous room. 

The ‘Confirmers’ as I think of them, trundle across the room, some with a rolling gait which reminds me of the sea, as fast as they can to the bingo players and with admirable clarity and speed, call out the winning numbers, via battery operated microphones.  You can tell that they have had a lot of practice and each have developed a certain style over the years.  One of the Confirmers kinda goofed the other night and read out a few numbers which didn’t ‘go’ and then got us laughing by exclaiming, “Oh, silly me.  Those ones weren’t the right ones.  No doubt it won’t be my last mistake of the night.”  Peter, sitting one person down from me and the owner of the large container of fresh gummy jujubes and big, brightly coloured bubble gums balls, brought to share with our table, said, “Ah, Martha must be having a Sandycove Moment!”  A smile twitches my lips as I instantly relate to Sandycove moments, having had one or two or maybe a few in the last couple of years since moving to South Park, Sandycove Acres and it feels good that I have ‘em in a place where everyone knows what having a Sandycove Moment feels like. 

How many Sandycove Moments have I had?  Hmmmm, let me count the ways…on the other hand, maybe not count, lest my Power of Attorney for my health, which includes mental, feels that there are way too many ways and decides to commit me to the nearest Looney Bin!

Martha gets back on track and the card is declared a “Good bingo” by the official Bingo Caller (who just happens to be my new(ish) next door neighbour, bringing a few sighs and a couple of groans and play resumes.

My first game is a bewildering blur, as my bingo mentors try to ed-u-mi-cate me on the finer points of bingo organization.  For, as you can see by the ‘Game Plan’, it’s not that simple.  Other than the basic four warm-up games, which you can win by dabbing 2 lines ‘anyway’, all the other games have multiple winning possibilities, so that your $7.00 special will bring you hours of playing pleasure for the price of a pack of cigarettes (maybe less these days?).  Speaking of cigarettes…back in the ‘olden’ days, smoking was not only allowed in bingo halls but accepted as a lifestyle choice.  A thick greyish cloud of smoke hovered

above the bingo players’ heads, who hacked and coughed a discordant melody accompanying the bingo caller’s sing-song cadence.  Now-a-days, smokers make a frantic run for the exit doors when break is called and return reeking of their guilty, carcinogenic pleasure.

One ‘card’ can bring many minutes of bingo ecstasy.  For instance, on the regular games, say #7, Olive (each game has its own colour) and depending on the complexity of the winning criteria, depends how long it’ll take a player to cry out a triumphant “BINGO”.  For this game, you first need to dab each of the 4 corners.  That doesn’t usually take too long.  The second game on ‘Olive’ is the 4 corners (so if you’re the 4 corners winner, you’re already ahead of the game) and now you add the inside square.  That’s 8 more numbers, bordering the FREE square in the centre.  This takes a bit longer and usually, just when I’m within the win zone on one my of cards, someone else beats me to the punch.  Big groan.

A few weeks ago, I did win with one line, the top one on Orange ($15.00 whole dollars), and haven’t been back since.  I figured I’d go out on top!  Like Seinfeld.

© 2015 Phyllis Mahon - “ALL IMAGES AS COPYRIGHTED BY PHYLLIS MAHON ARE PROTECTED AND REGISTERED … IT’S UNLAWFUL TO REPOST, COPY OR PUBLISH IMAGES FROM THIS WEBSITE.”