Packing Challenges

Usually I don’t find packing especially challenging. I’m sure I’m not alone in my ability to pack for a tournament or weekend away in ten minutes flat. I prefer not to do it that way, but sometimes, man, sometimes. I mean, how much do you really need? It’s just two days.

That said, I have had some unique challenges of late where my packing seemed woefully inadequate. Picture this:

Chicago weekend - the plan: go to Capitals practice Thursday night, then head back to Waterloo and catch our ride to Chicago from there. Sounds easy, right? Well it wasn’t. It was a billet tournament (a super fun girl – Val on Nemesis – hooked us up with a sweet place to stay), so I had my sleeping back and thermarest. Also, I had borrow my friend Laurel’s bike the Tuesday previous, with the plan to ride it to/give it back at practice on Thursday. It was a good plan. It was a HEAVY bike. H E A V Y. Picture riding trying to pack everything you need for three days and a tournament, including sleeping gear….plus a random anvil thrown in for good measure, and riding with it for an hour. The result: no problem. Tiny thermarest + tiny sleeping bag (they are both sweet) + a lot of sweat (riding to practice) + sweet weather in Chicago = problem solved. Heather 1, Packing Challenge 0.

This weekend - the plan: Hit up Dee’s party Friday night, and head to Waterloo for the weekend the next morning. In a car. Sounds really easy, right? We swung by my place (after staying overnight at Mere’s – I might have sort of kind of a little bit crashed out on the couch at 2 am) to grab some stuff early the next morning. I hadn’t packed yet because I hadn’t planned to stay over and thought there would be plenty of time in the morning. Well, I didn’t know it until several hours later, but as it turns out, when I packed for what turned out to be a very cold weekend in Waterloo….I was still drunk. Quite drunk. Thus it seemed adequate to set off with my computer, a few spare clothes (I do mean few). I didn’t even think to change out of the clothes that I had worn all day Friday, worn to the party, and then slept in. Yikes. It was 7 degrees in Waterloo, and I ended up staying until Tuesday. I borrowed a lot of clothes. Heather 0, Packing Challenge 1.

Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth by Margaret Atwood

If you were anywhere near me when I was reading Payback, you already know that I really liked it. I wouldn’t shut up about it. If someone said, ‘book’ , ‘debt’ or ‘Margaret’ – in any context: my grandmother’s name is Margaret – they likely got a five minute rant about it, whether they wanted it or not. Mostly not. Hey, I was fired up about it. I was even fired up enough that I renewed the book from the library. It was due and I’d finished it, but I wanted to do a blog about it. Voila.

Back in March, I picked up Payback as a birthday present for OneFriendMere. (the story: I kept mentioned my friend Mere to my other friend Page. Enough that I’m pretty sure Page thinks that I only have one friend. It’s okay though….Mere, Page….I have two friends). Anyway, I hadn’t read it when I gave it as a present (gasp), I’m just a fan of Atwood and thought that (OneFriend)Mere might like it.

Many months later, it became the first book I took out with my shiny new free Toronto library card. (aside: I was at the library the other day and they gave me two free passes to the Art Gallery of Ontario. I felt like a celebrity or a lottery winner. Or course they gave them to the lady behind me too, but that didn’t stifle the feeling at all. I’m not sure if the library appreciated all of the shouting and jumping up and down that I did.)

Here is a hilarious tiny bit about interest : (tiny bit….tiny….this is cool, right Margaret? Eminem would say “Bitch, I’m promoting you right now”, but I should probably look up the actually rules on this sort of thing. Anyone?)

All of that changed when I got a job. The job paid twenty-five cents an hour – a fortune! – and consisted of wheeling a baby around in the snow. As long as I brought the baby back, alive and not too frozen, I got the twenty-five cents. …..
Every once in a while an extra sum would appear in my red bank book – one I hadn’t deposited. This, I was told, was called “interest”, and I had “earned” it by having kept my money in the bank. I didn’t understand this either. It was certainly interesting to me that I had some extra money – that must be whey it was called “interest” – but I knew I hadn’t actually earned it: no babies from the bank had been wheeled around in the snow by me.

Another random bit that made me laugh:

You may think that all of this forgiveness stuff is watery-eyed idealism of the clap-if-you-believe-in-fairies variety.

Payback also made me happy that I read another book - George Eliot’s – The Mill on the Floss. Well, okay, most of it. Some of it. All but about 130 pages. It was that boring (plus 30 pages were missing). Atwood’s book has a whole chapter called Debt as Plot, where she discusses everything from Shakespeare to Scrooge McDuck. I picked up The Mill on the Floss when I was traveling in Vietnam. I can’t remember where I got it, but I it was free and it claimed to be a classic. Saying I didn’t love The Mill on the Floss would be a bit of an understatement, but I read most of it anyway. I figured if it was a classic I should at least try to get through it, plus I had a very long bus ride. Then I flew home and had a plethora of other options and dropped it. Anyway, not only did Atwood reference the book, making me happy I’d read (most of) it, finally, she also summarizes the plot. Now I know the ending, and I never have to pick up that piece of s*it again.

If you have five stars I can borrow, I would gladly give Debt five stars.

Germany Photo

I was thinking about this photo, kind of randomly. I had a conversation about photography on the way to Chicago, and then got to play with Mere's camera at her cottage. For some reason, that made me think of this picture, taken in 2007 from the window on on my hostel in Dresden. I was waiting for Toby and Bridget to arrive, sitting on the ledge looking into the street, and trying to get a shot of the train passing. Eventually it worked.

Snug Harbor and Rochester

Friday and Saturday I headed to Mere's cottage to help move some furniture. It was sad to be there for the last time, but we did a lot of fun things on the weekend too. Friday was chilly but sunny. We took a lot of fun pictures as the sun went down. I'll post some if I can. (Don't forget: I said fun pictures, not good pictures. ;) I haven't seen them yet to say if we got any good ones, but they were definitely fun to take). Saturday was beautiful. I was even nice enough to go swimming!

Sunday was UPA Sectionals, a one-day tournament in Rochester, NY. We played two games, against Albany (Caps won 15-0) and Starkist from Waterloo (Caps won 15-3). With that, we move on to Regionals in Boston in a couple of weeks. There was some crazy border traffic on the way back to Canada, so I learned that there is such thing as a Rainbow Bridge. The Queenston-Lewiston Bridge and Peace Bridge each had frightening wait times.

This blog is little because after being offline for three days, I'm behind on quite a few things.

Fairmont Quiz

I had a thought on the Fairmont title quiz that I just posted.....

If all you blog readers out there were willing to pledge a very small amount of money for cancer research, I will book the room with the title that wins the most votes in the poll. Here's what I'm proposing: if $20 where to be pledged.....we're talking in $1 increments (20 people pledging $1), I will match the $20 donation and book under Rear Admiral (or whatever). If you think it's a good idea, leave a comment with a $1 pledge. If it happens, I will collect the dollar from you whenever/the next time I see you following - don't worry, I won't forget, I'm unemployed. If it doesn't happen, I keep $20 and I am relieved. Just throwing it out there.

Fairmont Titles

Remember back when I won that gift certificate for the Fairmont? No? Well that's why I will provide you think handy link. Actually, normally I might not bother. I was afraid that if I just launched right into "I was planning a trip to a Fairmont", the following equation might pop into your head.

Fairmont - employment = kept woman.

Moving on. We didn't actually go to a Fairmont the other weekend, but we got close. The plan was to head to Chateau Montebello in Quebec - at some point, when frisbee is done for the season, we will absolutely go. The trip would have been sandwiched between Chesapeake and Chicago, each which involved about 18 hours of driving. A nice weekend closer to home - Stratford - won out. I did book the Fairmont, and then cancelled again 12 hours later. One thing stood out about the Fairmonts booking page: the possible titles. You know, Mr., Mrs, Miss - the usuals. Oh no, not the Fairmont.

Check out what you can choose as your title when you stay at the fancy hotel:

Dr.
Miss
Mrs.
Mr.
Ms.
Admiral
Ambassador
Archbishop
Baron
Baroness
Bishop
Brigade general
Captain
Cardinal
Chief
Chief master sergeant
Colonel
Commander
Congressman
Congresswoman
Constable
Corporal
Counselor
Count
Countess
CSD
CSM
Css
Dame
Dato
Dato Seri
Datuk
Dr & Dr
Dr. & Mrs.
Duke
Earl
Father
First Lady
First Office
Frau
General
Governor
Her Excellency
Herr
His Excellency
His Highness
His Royal Highness
Honorable
Honorable Dr.
Inspector
Judge
Justice
Khun
King
Lady
Lieutenant
Lieutenant Colonel
Lieutenant Commandar
Lieutenant General
Lord
Maesto
Major
Major General
Master
Master Corporal
Mayor
Mess
Minister
Monsignor
Mr & Dr
Mr & Mrs
Mr and Prof
Officer Cadet
Pastor
Pengiran
President
Prime Minister
Prince
Princess
Prof & Mrs
Professor
PSR
Puan Sri
Queen
Rabbi
Rear Admiral
Reverend
Second Lieutenant
Secretary
Secretary General
Senator
Sergeant
Sergeant Major
SFO
Sheikh
Sheika
Sir
Sister
SO
Sulan
Sultan
Sultanah
Tan Sri
Tan Sri Dato
Vice President
Viscount
Yg Di Pertuan Agung

Chicago

I was in Chicago this weekend, playing frisbee. Kristin hooked us up with PPF from Waterloo. I had never been to Chicago, and it seems like a really cool city. I would have loved to see more of it. The weather was super nice, somewhere around 25 or 30. Hot. We had a lot of very close games on Saturday, but disappointing went 0-4 on the day. As if that wasn't disappointing enough on it's own, it also meant that we played a pre-quarter at 8:30 in the morning. Had we come top two in our pool, we would have had a 10:30 start. 8:30 start time translated to 5:50 wake up (seriously), so I regretted the 0-4 a lot. The good news in that the team played much better on Sunday, and we ended up fifth. I enjoyed playing and the trip, and also tried to use the weekend to work on a couple of specifics on the field (although I'm sure no one noticed but me). The next tournament, next weekend, is sectionals in Rochester, which is one day. It's just one day, since we just have two teams to play, but the Capitals have six hours of frisbee planned. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the weather is just as nice.

ps. Damn good thing it was nice. The weather network said it would be, but still. Since we were leaving from Waterloo, I had to be able to ride my gear to Thursday practice (including sleeping back and thermarest), so I packed light.

Stratford

View Larger Map

This weekend, we rode bikes to Stratford to see a play. We saw A Midsummer Night's Dream, which was running as part of Stratford's Shakespeare Festival. The play was so good and the day so fun that we are going to try and go back (and see a different play). Hopefully the weather will hold to make riding an option again. Saturday was absolutely perfect for riding. Some clouds threatened to rain on us on the way home, but only threatened, and somehow it was still sunny.

Sticking with my mapdork theme of late, I've attached a map that shows our approximate route. It was about 45 km a direction. If you decide to try it, you should know that Luxemburg has a big hill and a smells of manure. ;)

Plastic Bags, Nickel Bags

Plastic groceries bags are going the way of the Dodo. At least I hope they are. Maybe I should say that plastic bags are going the way of the Piping Plover (pardon?). Except that I hope the Piping Plovers make a recovery and the plastic bags really do get wiped out – or at least stop breeding.

As of June 1, 2009, stores in Ontario must charge 5 cents per plastic bag. I think this is great, because it encourages people to bring reusable bags, or at least not be wasteful with the plastic bags. Whether folks are financially or environmentally motivated, I say whatever works. Metro reported a 75 % decrease in the average monthly consumption of single-use plastic bags after this policy was implemented. Which begs the question – if it’s working so well, why isn’t everyone doing it? Why just Ontario? It’s seems to be hit or miss in the rest of the country – mostly miss. Calgary, being Calgary (sigh), has decided to look into it.

One step further, some cities have banned (non-biodegradable) plastic bags outright. San Francisco, bless their progressive hearts, was the first US city to ban single-use plastic bags (March 27, 2007). Leaf Rapids, Manitoba (where?) has followed suit. Retailers in both cities could face a $1000-per-day fine if they keep distributing the bags.

Other strategies to reduce single-use bags have been implemented as well. Some companies like Loblaws have taken it upon themselves to charge 5 cents for bags. Other companies like IKEA will sell you a reusable bag or bust (although I imagine not that many consumers need a plastic bag for their bookcase, if you know what I’m saying). Ireland started taxing plastic bags in 2002, and we’re not talking a nickel. Ireland’s tax is 33 cents a bag. Mountain Equipment Co-op had bags that could be composted (at least in Calgary, I don’t know about other cities). Their website suggests that they are even going away from this, and offering reusable, recyclable bags or bust. MEC goes a step further than most companies – if you don’t take a bag at MEC, they donate five cents to an environmental charity. Typically it’s the retailers that keep the five cents.

Reducing single-use plastic bags has loads of benefits, reduced the use of oil (it takes lots of make the bags) reduced amount of carbon dioxide, even including litter. They take forever to break down in landfills, and when they do break down, it’s into smaller and smaller pieces. The pieces can end up contaminating soil, waterways and even getting eaten by animals. You get the idea.
So here is my question:

What is the best thing I can use for garbage? I’m actually asking, so if you have a good system, please leave a comment. Because I don’t get plastic bags from stores, it means that I am almost always shy on bags for garbage. I don’t need black garbage bags – they are too big. This is my best idea, thus far. I’ll go to the big grocery store (not the No Frills right close to me ) that has the plastic bag recycling bin, and take a bunch that other people have brought in. Or is that bad? Maybe those bags being recycled is better than me re-using them, if it’s for garbage. I think this is a better option than using new bags, but is there an even better option?

First Visitor/Stuck in an Elevator the Fourth

My friend Janice was in Toronto. How fun, my first visitor from the west. Actually, Janice was here a week and a half ago (or so), but only for dinner, since she was catching an overnight bus to go play in New York and Boston. We were chatting about travel, and I was reminded that I never did tell the story of my fourth time stuck in an elevator.

On night in Paganello (in Rimini, Italy), we headed to the hotel after dinner, giddy and likely a little drunk. I don't actually remember, but chances are. We thought it was hilarious/fun times to squish our entire team (at least those staying at the hotel) into the little elevator. Tiny elevator. Phone booth sized elevator. The pictures are from just before the elevator got stuck, while we were still thought with was a great idea. There is more of a best-verbal story of the "stuck time", so ask me about it sometime if you care too. Not while we are in an elevator, please. I will say that one of the things that I noticed while stuck is that the elevators maximum capacity was 4.

Minty Fresh Eyeball

Last night I sprayed myself in the eye with toothpaste. How have I managed not to do this for 30 years? It burns. My toothpaste tube is very nearly empty, so I had to work to get any out. I squeezed the tube, looked closely (and with my eyes wide open) and moved the brush to collect the toothpaste. From now on, I'll make this motion the other way. The mirror way, not the face way. Did I mentioned the burning?

Chesapeake

This weekend was the first Capitals tournament of the fall, Chesapeake open in Poolesville, Maryland. My friend Joanne suggested that Poolesville drop the L and E. I wish she had thought of it before I went, because I absolutely would have tried to steal her joke all weekend.

Nine hours of driving (in what was dubbed "the gay car", too many games of Yahtzee and eight games of ultimate later...we won! I could get used to this winning tournaments thing, it's a lot of fun.

On Saturday we started with the Lady Condors of Santa Barbara and took care of them with a score of 12-8. Next up was our Boston rivals Brute Squad (aka that team that beat Lotus in the universe point at No Borders), and this time they were on the other end of a universe. Capitals over Brute Squad 12-11. Game three was Pop from Minnesota. I don't remember much about that game, and I wouldn't be able to tell you that it was another in the win column, 13-6, if I wasn't reading it off of the UPA's RRI site. The last game of the day was Showdown from Texas, and this was a grudge match, at least for me. Showdown was the team who beat us (Capitals 2008) to knock us into the ninals at UPAs. At Chesapeake we beat them 13-9.

Team dinner was Italian food, and lots more fun. You had to be there. (In the sense that I had nothing more to say about it, not in the you should have showed way. It would have been weird if you showed. Unless you are a Capital).

On Sunday, we beat Wildcard (I have no idea where they are from) 13-6. What I remember most about this game is that we had to leave the hotel at 7 am to get there on time. I'm such a baby when it comes to sleep. I also think I need more of it than most people to feel good. Game 2 finished 15-9 over Scandal (Washington DC?) and Game 3 (the semi) was a rematch of with the Lady Condors (13-11). All this with just 3 D line handlers. Ouch!

The final was a re-re-match with Brute Squad. This time we took it to them, 13-8. It felt good, and there was even a prize: Kleen Kanteen water bottles. They say Chesapeake and have a crab on them. Definitely something I want ON my water bottle, not in or from my water bottle. They are pretty cool. I've never had so many prizes in one season. First ice cream, then a disc, them a water bottle. If only I could figure out a way to win groceries.

I'm exited for the rest of the fall.