What a change of scene: temperature, light, people, oh and did I say temperature? It's COLD here in Toronto. I got back from Chiang Mai a week ago, then left for New York for three days until late Saturday night, so I feel like I'm only now getting settled back into Toronto. There was a thick beautiful coating of snow everywhere on Sunday morning when I woke up, making the light all pale and ghostly.
I had to leap to, rather than lying in, for the house needed tidying (Dom and Tashi did pretty well keeping things organised, but still, there was a little raggedness at the edges that needed dealing with). What was the rush? you wonder. Nothing heavy, but I was expecting a bunch of kids and adults to arrive around noon to celebrate E's fifth birthday. I made none of the food, just tried to organise the stage... no pressure, and it was fun: about ten kids and fifteen or more adults.
I wrote a blog entry in January about an ideal way of dealing with jetlag: read a great book (it was Wolf Hall that first book). Well now I have another coping strategy: be busy with fun things, like simple chores, undemanding parties, etc. The time goes by, I'm not tempted to fall asleep in the middle of the day, and it's all fun anyway.
The snow has melted a little in the bright noonday sun, but wind chill temperatures have been shockingly low: minus 22 yesterday morning for example. Once the wind died down the day turned beautiful, of course, warming and optimistic. But then again this morning, as I headed out on my first post-return jog, I found I was glad I had on windpants and long underwear, mittens, a headband, and a couple of layers on top too. Yikes! There were patches of glare ice in places, but mostly the sidewalks were dry. The cold wind made my eyes tear up, but that was the only difficulty I had.
I headed west to a new bakery-restaurant here called Woodlot. And then when I got there I realised I was echoing my Chiang Mai pattern. There in the early morning I often run through the old city to a woman who sells cafe buran, old-style Thai coffee, near the Chiang Mai Gate market. Here in Toronto I ended up like a homing pigeon, asking for coffee: a double espresso at Woodlot. The scene was different, bakers shaping loaves rather than the wacky traffic by Chiang Mai Gate, but there was the same black bite to the coffee, and the same pleasure at being out early in my running shoes.
It's odd this need for a destination. It comes and goes. Some mornings I am happy to make a loop, and to alter my route as I go, at whim. And other days, both here and in Chiang Mai, I am happiest having a destination and a purpose, a goal. I wonder what makes a particular day incline one way or the other. hmm... Food for thinking as I run next time.
That probably won't be tomorrow, for there's rain promised.
Instead I'll start in early on the next item on my to-do list: typing out my notes from my last weeks in Burma. I am feeling pumped, not sure why, about this Burma book. I think it's a relief to be at the stage where I am shaping the book, structuring it around stories and recipes, seeing where I still have gaps to fill. This is the fun part, for sure. I also have about twenty more recipes to figure out. Most of them shouldn't be a problem...or so it seems to me right now.
On this International Women's Day, the hundredth one, they tell us, I find myself wondering at the passing of time, and being grateful for all my freedoms. That I can sit here typing and know that this can be published and out in the e-world with a stroke of a key seems amazing. That I am uncensored, free to write what I wish, is a privilege many people don't have. And that I can vote, own property, raise my voice and be heard: now those are rights that my great-grandmother didn't have, not formally at least.
And so once again here I am counting my blessings...and waiting for spring to commit to arriving!
Showing posts with label iced coffee. Show all posts
Showing posts with label iced coffee. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Thursday, July 8, 2010
SMALL CELEBRATIONS ON A HOT NIGHT
There's a lot to celebrate this evening. It's mostly small and domestic in some way, but nonetheless important.
First, and most lovely, the lilies are in full glorious bloom in the back yard, yellows and tender pinks and all tints inbetween. They're generous in their beauty, but only briefly with us, especially this year with the incredible heat we've had all week.
At the tedious end: I got a lot of paperwork done this morning, the kind of bill-paying drear that we all have to do and that piles up until we get bothered enough to deal with it. Another chore done today was renewing the car licence plate, a date that comes up every year or two in July, the month of my birthday.
Speaking of birthdays, my friend Trisha has hers in a couple of days, so I took her out to lunch today. It was a real pleasure to sit unhurriedly, talking of this and that, slowed right down by the heat, enjoying each moment.
Late this afternoon I finally made some major additions to the immersethrough.com webste. I am always nervous about the website stuff, though getting more at ease with it. The additions are to the new page, "Grand Manan Island". My friend Lianne who has a place on the island, suggested that we do an immerse session there, to entice people to discover and love the island as she does. So now we're launched, with a session planned for September 16 to 19, 2010, and also, at last, info about it all on the immersethrough website. Isn't technology wonderful? I am so pleased to be able to put a tick mark beside that job on my "to-do" list!
And finally, not just finally as the last of this list, but in the sense of “at last”, Tashi’s new computer came into being today. He’s now fully loaded, with a desk top that is silent and powerful, after going three months without his own computer (his laptop having crashed several weeks before his final exams). He has been sharing mine, when he’s here, and that’s fine, but kind of awkward too. I have felt constrained about working, having to wait until he’s done with the computer before I can, say, type in a recipe or check my mail or get writing done. He’s been graceful and appreciative throughout. But a computer is a very hard item to share, especially now that we are all so wired in, so expecting to be connected at all times.
To mark this last celebration-worthy item, Tashi took Dom and me to supper at John’s Italian Caffe, a small restaurant at the end of the street, (Tashi must be feeling most celebratory of all, for he’s now a free man, no need to seek favours or tune in to anyone else’s timetable on a computer.) The terraces outside the cafes and eateries on Baldwin Street were all full of people enjoying the soft hot night air, languidly sipping drinks, no-one in a hurry. And now we’re back home with doors and windows open to catch the breeze, and a fan on to help, each of us typing away at a different keyboard.
It’s so interesting, the independence we need with our computers, once we get hooked. The equivalent in an earlier era would be the notebook or journal I suppose, or no, not the paper, but instead the pen or pencil we would use to write with. Ballpoints democratised pens in a way, but even so we all remember having a favorite pen or pencil, right? Some of us still do. And if we had a favorite, then it was vital that the tool we depended on was with us and available all the time.
These days the tool most of us find vital is a computer: a keyboard and screen and usually internet connection too. (For many it’s a Blackberry or an I-phone; I’m behind a generation with my examples perhaps, but can only speak about what I know!) We want to control access, or rather, we want unlimited access, to our vital tool at all hours and without constraint. And we are used to having that. Consequently the idea of rationing computer time, or scheduling it, is almost unimaginable to most of us.
All of this takes my head in several directions: I think about the difference between having plenty, or unlimited access, and having to ration or share, whether it’s computer time or some other precious item, What difference does it make to the pattern of our days? to our awareness of others? (or not?)
It’s something to think about.
Meantime, I hope you’re staying cool, perhaps with Southeast Aisan style iced coffee: strong black coffee stirred with sweetened condensed milk, and poured over many ice cubes. It’s a favorite in this house. And don’t forget that the best way to feel good in the heat is to slow it down, and to shower often, three or four times a day, and always just before bed. Don’t towel yourself dry, just let the water evaporate. You’ll feel chilly!! What a treat at the end of a boiling hot day!
First, and most lovely, the lilies are in full glorious bloom in the back yard, yellows and tender pinks and all tints inbetween. They're generous in their beauty, but only briefly with us, especially this year with the incredible heat we've had all week.
At the tedious end: I got a lot of paperwork done this morning, the kind of bill-paying drear that we all have to do and that piles up until we get bothered enough to deal with it. Another chore done today was renewing the car licence plate, a date that comes up every year or two in July, the month of my birthday.
Speaking of birthdays, my friend Trisha has hers in a couple of days, so I took her out to lunch today. It was a real pleasure to sit unhurriedly, talking of this and that, slowed right down by the heat, enjoying each moment.
Late this afternoon I finally made some major additions to the immersethrough.com webste. I am always nervous about the website stuff, though getting more at ease with it. The additions are to the new page, "Grand Manan Island". My friend Lianne who has a place on the island, suggested that we do an immerse session there, to entice people to discover and love the island as she does. So now we're launched, with a session planned for September 16 to 19, 2010, and also, at last, info about it all on the immersethrough website. Isn't technology wonderful? I am so pleased to be able to put a tick mark beside that job on my "to-do" list!
And finally, not just finally as the last of this list, but in the sense of “at last”, Tashi’s new computer came into being today. He’s now fully loaded, with a desk top that is silent and powerful, after going three months without his own computer (his laptop having crashed several weeks before his final exams). He has been sharing mine, when he’s here, and that’s fine, but kind of awkward too. I have felt constrained about working, having to wait until he’s done with the computer before I can, say, type in a recipe or check my mail or get writing done. He’s been graceful and appreciative throughout. But a computer is a very hard item to share, especially now that we are all so wired in, so expecting to be connected at all times.
To mark this last celebration-worthy item, Tashi took Dom and me to supper at John’s Italian Caffe, a small restaurant at the end of the street, (Tashi must be feeling most celebratory of all, for he’s now a free man, no need to seek favours or tune in to anyone else’s timetable on a computer.) The terraces outside the cafes and eateries on Baldwin Street were all full of people enjoying the soft hot night air, languidly sipping drinks, no-one in a hurry. And now we’re back home with doors and windows open to catch the breeze, and a fan on to help, each of us typing away at a different keyboard.
It’s so interesting, the independence we need with our computers, once we get hooked. The equivalent in an earlier era would be the notebook or journal I suppose, or no, not the paper, but instead the pen or pencil we would use to write with. Ballpoints democratised pens in a way, but even so we all remember having a favorite pen or pencil, right? Some of us still do. And if we had a favorite, then it was vital that the tool we depended on was with us and available all the time.
These days the tool most of us find vital is a computer: a keyboard and screen and usually internet connection too. (For many it’s a Blackberry or an I-phone; I’m behind a generation with my examples perhaps, but can only speak about what I know!) We want to control access, or rather, we want unlimited access, to our vital tool at all hours and without constraint. And we are used to having that. Consequently the idea of rationing computer time, or scheduling it, is almost unimaginable to most of us.
All of this takes my head in several directions: I think about the difference between having plenty, or unlimited access, and having to ration or share, whether it’s computer time or some other precious item, What difference does it make to the pattern of our days? to our awareness of others? (or not?)
It’s something to think about.
Meantime, I hope you’re staying cool, perhaps with Southeast Aisan style iced coffee: strong black coffee stirred with sweetened condensed milk, and poured over many ice cubes. It’s a favorite in this house. And don’t forget that the best way to feel good in the heat is to slow it down, and to shower often, three or four times a day, and always just before bed. Don’t towel yourself dry, just let the water evaporate. You’ll feel chilly!! What a treat at the end of a boiling hot day!
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