Riddles

If life has a purpose, are we supposed to find out what? Can we make choices if we do know? If we are hard-wired to ask why, does that mean there is an answer? If there is no master plan, would our life be any less meaningful?

Some riddles Jeanne gave me:

• What has a head and a foot but no body?
• A cowboy rode to an inn/motel on Friday, stayed two nights and left on Friday
• Why didn't the skeleton cross the road?

Have a good weekend!

Choices

On the CBC news this morning I heard that the Conservatives' plan to reduce the GST by 1% will cost 5 billion dollars. The reporter mentioned that the WHO (I think) says that with 5 billion dollars, you can eliminate child hunger in Africa.
Choices.

It isn't opposite day

An active mind in a tuna tin can.


Best morning snack at Cypress mountain.

Oma

Yesterday I learned that my "Oma", my grandmother, my father's mother and my children's great-grand-mother had peacefully passed away in her sleep. She was almost 95.

This picture of her hangs on the wall; it was taken in December 1997 when we visited Holland with Caelan when he was 4 months old. Four generations in a picture.

I remember....

I remember staying with my grandmother as a kid. I remember how the morning sun shone through the yellowy-grey curtains with the funny patterns. I remember using a little burner-stove and cooking apples cut in tiny pieces. I remember that she bought me a present one day, we went to the department store (seemed so huge!) and bought this doll set with tiny white cups and tiny white plates and I loved it and promptly lost half the pieces.

I remember lying in the back of my parents car driving back from a visit to Grandma (before seat belts were mandatory and when kids could still ride where now only dogs can sit), lying on my back watching the street lights flash past. The keDONK keDONK keDONK sound of the wheels as they bounced on the concrete slabs that was the major road connecting Heerenveen and Assen - the road built by the Canadians for their tanks.

My dad tells me they'll play a recording of my choir's recording of the Kyrie of Dvorak's Mass in D at the funeral on Monday. They'll play a piece of my uncle Frans' jazz trumpet recording - uncle Frans passed away a few years ago. So we will be there, in a way.

Peace, grandma.

Fear

The skiing lesson on Sunday made me think about fear. I'm not kidding, when I looked down Ripcord or whatever black mogul run it was our instructor Natalie was intending to hurl us down I was terrified. I saw only bumps and valleys and no way for this huge big me with those long long skies to find a way through. I mean sure - finding my way down the unelegant flailing way that requires reassembly at the bottom... but in that easy flowing zig-zaggy dance that I love to watch? Nah-ah, not me!

So - Natalie went first and we followed. And somehow there was a path. Even though I couldn't see it, she could. And following in ski-tracks made me focus on each little turn rather than the whole slope. And I smiled as the ground smoothed out and we made it.

My mother tells me this story about when I was a young teenager. I used to go horseback riding just down the street from my parents' house. My grandfather came to visit and came along one time. Now, I don't remember this but it sounds so good so it must be true. :-) As far as I understand I was thrown off the horse and landed rather badly. Shaking with fear and pain, I gathered the reins, calmed the horse and got back on. And my grandfather said, that someone who can act despite of fear will get far. Yes, yes, I'm sure there is a great quote to go with that :-)

Nick tells me stories from the book he's reading about WWII. I remember watching "Saving Private Ryan". Watching the men in the boats as they approach the beach. I remember reading about people's response in the face of disaster. It seems many of us will respond by doing absolutely nothing when we don't know what to do and we're faced with danger, when fear makes us fail to see a path. Like a deer in the headlights we will sit there, waiting.

The fountain

Don't say, do't say there is no water
to solace the dryness of our hearts
I have seen

the fountain sprining out of he rock wall
and you drinking there. And I too
before your eyes

found footholds and climbed
to drink the cool water.

The woman of that place, shading her eyes,
frowned as she watched - but not because
she grudged the water,

only because she was waiting
to see we drank our fill and were
refreshed.

Don't say, don't say there is no water.
That fountain is there among its scalloped green and grey stones,

it is still there and always there
with its quiet song and strange power
to spring in us,
up and out through the rock.

-- Denise Levertov, Poems 1960-1967, in "Living Covenant, water as a metaphor in Lenten Worship", by Sandra Severs

Spring break

What a great week. Here's what we did.

• Grouse Mountain - full day of skiing and skating
• 
  
• Bike riding


• Baking cookies
• Wave pool (and hot tub to warm up)
• Crash Crawlies (I am *so* brave :-) )
• Science World
• Sunday I spent by myself skiing on Cypress, what an amazing day it was. Took a lesson; we went down a black run from the Sky chair with lots of bumps. I was terrified :-) but second time was easier.
  

Angels

Thank you to all my Angels.

Die Engel

Sie haben alle müde Münde
und helle Seelen ohne Saum.
Und eine Sehnsucht (wie nach Sünde)
geht ihnen manchmal durch den Traum.

Fast gleichen sie einander alle;
in Gottes Gärten schweigen sie,
wie viele, viele Intervalle
in seiner Macht und Melodie.

Nur wenn sie ihre Flügel breiten,
sind sie die Wecker eines Winds:
als ginge Gott mit seinen weiten
Bildhauerhänden durch die Seiten
im dunklen Buch des Anbeginns

Rainer Maria Rilke
Gedicht aus dem "Buch der Bilder"

Mountain

If the Mountain will not come to Mohammed, Mohammed will go to the Mountain.

Seems the snow felt our absence and has come to call.

The need of the water to return to its source of strength.

Here's my horoscope for March 9, from that ultimate source for truth and knowledge, the Province:

The mind is an amazing thing. Our state of mind literally creates our world. That's because whatever we think, hope, wish and dream is ultimately what we manifest. Today, you feel so positive and enthusiastic about life you've got the whole world in your hands

See how good it is to be a Capricorn? I mean, all the other signs just get riches and fame. I get the whole world at my feet :-)

Hold on... What about all the other Capricorns out there? Jeanne, I'll share with you. But that's it, OK? :-)

Sad... but true? :-)

Nick sent me this link....

Tropical storm brewing in Canada? :-)


Dundarave Beach, March 7th

Eat Me

I just noticed on the bottom on an old receipt of mine from Burgoo, that it says "look for our new North Vancouver location opening in March 2006".

So that reminded me to post my list of current favourite places to eat in Vancouver (in random order and under construction):

• Burgoo in Vancouver
• Banana Leaf in Downtown Vancouver
• Thai PudPong in West Vancouver
• La Regalade in West Vancouver
• Miko Sushi in Downtown Vancouver
  

About me

Things I didn't know about me until I tried:

• I can ski with jelly legs when I tell myself I want to
• I can do a black run when I don't think it is one
  
• I am told I am needed at choir tonight and Sunday for my ability to screech higher than most (Sandra warned me of a succession of b-flats ahead)
• I am finally forced to restrict the songs I download to my iPod, which now has only 500Mb remaining out of 40Gb. On the good side, I have made a playlist of my 2046 favourites.
• My iPod battery is conspiring against me, bailing as I am loudly singing, leaving me not sounding quite as good as I thought I did when I couldn't hear myself

Oh yes, and major accomplishment:

Congratulations! You solved the Sudoku in 20 minutes, 47 seconds!

Hard puzzles solved:	1
Your average time:	20:47
Your fastest time:	20:47

Hard Puzzle 1,763,115,111

We saw this car in Horseshoe Bay on Sunday :-)

Water

Sandra's sermon draws on the image of water, redemption and rainbow. The covenant with all creation. Living with respect for that unique miracle that is our planet. Water flows through this week ... reflecting the sunlight, as fog clouding my vision on Grouse Mountain, as snow in my hair as I tumble laughing with the kids, as the ice carved by my sharp blades as I supersprint to catch my snowball throwing grinning opponent.

Tuesday Feb 28th, wonderful sunset for which I had to stop on Marine Drive.


Saturday March 4. Foggy view as we wait for the sleigh ride from Ski-Wee. The fog was very dense, visibility maybe 50 feet. Skiing on blind faith. Faith, Hope and Love. I'm sure that tree wasn't there a minute ago :-)


Watched two very different movies on the weekend. "La Grande Seduction"; absolutely hilarious as a small village pulls out all the stops to make a doctor stay.
And "The Uprising"; utterly unsettling... human dignity in the face of irrational evil. The choices we make. I read "The Pianist" about a year ago, shortly followed by the stories of Eli Wiesel...

I think you can either focus on the strength and the faith and the amazing ability of people to show love during insane persecution. Or you can focus on the utter evil and dehumanizing force that allows normal people to trample on others. The truth is in what we choose to see. And how we would like our world to be. Living covenant with all creation, the eagles in the sky, the wales breaching the waves, the lowly worm burrowing through the mud.

If there's a hole in an apple, does that mean there must've been a worm? Forget all the above. Death to the worms. :-)

Reinventing yourself

I wonder if the reason that we imagine doctors to be older men is that the image is set in childhood. When even a 30-year old seems ancient.

Which would explain why our friends never grow old in our minds.

I saw this guy walking the downtown streets last week, making music with every step. A wheelchair wind-chime walker.

Talk about reinventing yourself.

Pirates

My friend Slyvin now has a recipe to make a wicked fish, which turns you into a pirate or a ninja. He was even kind enough to pose for a picture. Now, Slyvin's pet used to be my way of offloading any meat drops. And it turns out that gorillas only eat fruit. Or fungi. I guess I'll need to work on my cooking skills to do something with the wolf meat I've collected in Feralas.

There's something so comforting in the thought of cooking and sharing food. Break the bread. Drink the wine.