My Dearly Departed Significant Other: recent sightings and other thoughts

In April 2015 I wrote about a dream I had of Mary. (It is posted elsewhere in this blog). She was facing the light and was heading off, without me, and without her sweater. Some time ago, perhaps a year or more now, I had another dream of her, which I thought I should document here as we approach the 7th anniversary of her passing. Seven years already! Time flies. 

In this dream I was walking, alone, in a European city, in a neighbourhood consisting of tall older buildings on narrow streets lining canals. (I had recently returned from a trip to Amsterdam, which bears a striking resemblance to this dream city). It was night, but the city was lit up for a festival of some kind, and the narrow streets were crowded with people drinking and singing and dancing. Where the streets widened into plazas in front of churches or municipal buildings, there were food kiosks and bandstands, streamers and lanterns, jewelry and knick-knack vendors.

I wandered around one such plaza, surrounded by people in wild costumes and extravagant makeup. There was a lot of background noise, made up of laughter and singing and music. The crowd was at that density where sometimes you can find yourself in a dense group, then suddenly you are briefly in the open. I moved with the currents, seeking more open areas. As one such lead opened up in the crowd, I spotted Mary on the other side of the plaza. 

She was wearing what looked, from a distance, like a full body tattoo covering one side of her body, from her toes to the roots of her hair. The tattoo was of a tree, her feet the roots and with colourful birds and playful squirrels partly hidden behind leaves and branches; her hair was spiky and green and mimicked the crown of the tree. The tattoo on her face was of a brightly coloured peacock looking out from the foliage. The other side of her body was dressed in a very nondescript monochrome fashion, with her head shaved on that side. 

She saw me, gave me a big smile and a wave; then the crowd closed in again and she was gone. 

Seems to me she was having a great time. Certainly the wild appearance is something she would have done in life. And it also seems to me that she wanted me not to worry about her but to get on with my life; we'll meet again eventually, but not yet. 

...

Recently I also thought back to the service we held in her memory in the spring of 2014. Friends and relatives told stories and sang songs; Rolf (the Buddhist monk we knew through friends) kept things going. I was pretty numb and when Rolf suggested I say a few words, initially I didn't know where to start, as I hadn't been able to prepare anything. 

But as I stood up I thought that each of us has a special gift, a superpower that, to the holder, seems so easy and intuitive that it is difficult to understand that others might find it frightfully difficult. One thinks of musicians who have a skill to start with; for some of us no amount of training or courses or practice will make us into a concert pianist. (Case in point: I am listening to Glenn Gould's rendering of the Well-Tempered Clavier as I type this). 

Mary's superpower was the ability to listen to children and teenagers, especially ones in trouble, in such a way that they wanted to confide in her; and to speak with them in such a way they wanted to listen and understand. She used this empathetic skill in conversations with our children but also with our nieces and nephews and other children lucky enough to meet her; and this was the secret to her success as a social worker in the field of youth protection. 

So in my comments to the assembled group, I recall speaking to my children, my nieces and nephews and their partners, and asking them to remember how Mary interacted with them as they were growing up, dealing with the various challenges that children face and that we as adults tend to forget. I asked them, as they become adults and have children of their own, to try to adopt some of Mary's approaches; while you may never be a Glenn Gould, the objective should be to be able to chunk out a few chords from Mary's songbook. In this way we can hope to spread some of Mary's gift of empathy and child-like understanding wider, which can only be good for the world.

Today I watch the next generation of children; and I am pleased with how they are turning out. Mary's approach to child-rearing is living on in her children, her nieces and nephews and their partners. 

At the ceremony I asked my brother to sing a song that he wrote with his partner. It is called "The Path You Leave Behind"; it is described as a non-denominational gospel number. It is wonderful to see that the path Mary forged continues to be trodden, and I hope this will continue through future generations as well. Meanwhile I am happy that she has found the quirky kind of space where she will thrive.

Ten books to take into quarantine

Strange times we live in. Will the world come back to "normal", as it did (sort of) after 9/11? Or are we headed to some new world of unknown form? Hard to say. But meanwhile Facebook friends have been busy suggesting Seven Favourite Discs, or Ten Favourite Books. So here are my picks for ten books to take into quarantine, with text expanded from the short blurb I posted on Facebook. What are your favourite books?



Day 1: Ficciones, by Jorge Luis Borges.Seventeen little gems. This copy is the very one I discovered on my parent's bookshelves in about 1965. Translated by Anthony Kerrigan. (There are some subpar translations out there).



Day 2: If on a Winter's Night a Traveller, by Italo Calvino. This falls in the "If you liked Borges, you'll like this" category. Entertaining, allegorical and subtle. You'll get used to the second person writing, wherein the author talks directly to you, the reader, about this new book you've just encountered at the local bookshop. You're sure to like it, it's by that famous Italian author Italo Calvino. At the beginning of Chapter 2, "you have now read about thirty pages and you're becoming caught up in the story." Self-referential and post-modern in a way only the Simpsons have managed at the mass media level, but with much higher literary values. No cowabungas here. Translated by William Weaver.



Day 3: Foucault's Pendulum, by Umberto Eco. Absurdities of the whole conspiracy theorist thing. Eco can be a bit of a showoff, flinging about literary allusions to everyone from Shakespeare to Borges with wild abandon. Another of his novels was littered with references to Borges, and while I felt smart having noticed them, I realised there were probably references to ten or twenty more authors that I had missed. But cut him some slack and dive into this hilarious review of Knights Templar, Rosicrucians and all the wingnuts surrounding them today. You won't regret it. Translated by William Weaver, who also translated my copy of Calvino.

Day 4: A Scanner Darkly, by Philip K. Dick.  It's hard to pick just one book of his, partly because I haven't read them all (he was nothing if not prolific). This one was made into a superb movie of the same name, and I picked it partly because his other movie, based on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, is better known to the public. (That movie was called Blade Runner). While this might seem like a major shift from previous suggestions, Dick's brand of darkly allegorical and dystopic surrealism reminds me of Eco, Calvino or Borges. Thing is, a lot of Dick's allegories have come to pass in one way or another.

Day 5: Protector, by Larry Niven. Yes, Ringworld is more famous (and is a cracking good story to boot) but Protector shows Niven at his best: Phssthpok is an alien who is completely internally consistent but, well, completely alien. Also, the space battle sequence respects concepts of travel at relativistic speeds and conservation of momentum, and thus takes place over several months. The lack of sizzle makes it hard to convert something like that into a Star Wars movie, but this is how it would play out in the absence of an FTL drive (Faster Than Light, for the uninitiated).



Day 6: Journey Into Fear by Eric Ambler. Many of Ambler's lead characters are Joe Anyone caught up in something they didn't ask for and for which they are not prepared or equipped. In this thriller written in 1940, a bookish British munitions expert with a PhD in ballistics travels to Istanbul to advise the Turkish military on upgrading their naval guns. On the way home it becomes obvious someone wants him dead. Very well done, and very Hitchkockian, although the movie was made by someone else. Sadly Ambler is mostly out of print these days, so if you see anything by him, grab it. He was an excellent writer. 

On a personal note: In another of his prewar books in the same vein, a young engineer gets a job with a munitions firm. Asked why he's doing it when it all will only be used to slaughter his compatriots in the fairly near future, he says something along the lines of if I don't do it, someone else will, and I need the job. That line was on my mind as I picked a career path after getting my engineering degree.



Day 7: The IPCRESS File, by Len Deighton. This book features superb writing and provides a lovely antidote to Ian Fleming's James Bond franchise: the unnamed protagonist works out of a seedy office suite on the third floor of a building surrounded by strip clubs. When he rips his trousers climbing a fence, he worries his expense claim, which is already three months late since he changed department, won't cover it. When he needs backup, he gets an aging private eye driving a Ford Anglia. But the plot and pacing are excellent. Deighton wrote three sequels, of which Funeral in Berlin is the best.



Day 8: Cocaine Nights, by J.G. Ballard. Some of you will know of my fondness for Ballard. For more, see my blog post (here) and scroll to the bottom.



Day 9: Two books by Bernard Atxaga. Yes, I am cheating a bit here, but bear with me. Basque literature is very lean, given the language is spoken by very few people, and that it was actively suppressed by many Spanish governments, Franco's being only the most recent one. I have seen statements along the lines of only 100 novels (or books) have been written in Basque in the last four centuries. Regardless, these two books are very rare translations of very rare books, and were translated to English in two stages: from Basque to Spanish by Asun Garikano and the author, and from Spanish by Margaret Jull Costa.

The first one, Obabakoak, introduces the Basque back country in a series of linked short stories set in the town of Obaba. (According to Wikipedia, the title tranlsates roughly as "individuals and things of Obaba"). The writing is gentle, ironic and not a little fatalistic.

 

The Accordionist's Son is a coming of age novel. Lordy how I hate those words on the cover of a book! Usually I'll run the other way when I see them. But this one is very good and also provides some understanding of the impact of the Spanish Civil War and the Fascist era on small-town Basque country, which is rugged, remote and difficult to travel even today, especially on the Spanish side of the border.

 

Day 10: A Man called Ove, by Fredrik Backman. Translated by Henning Koch. A very touching story that somehow launched itself off the shelf and into my arms in a local bookstore earlier this spring. Ove is the perfect curmudgeon, and you can see the fondness people around him have for him even if they are only seen through his eyes. Very touching.

So there you have it. 10 (OK, 11) books covering a range of styles and genres. Let's see yours.

The Canadian health care system works better than the US system

As a normally polite Canadian, I am royally ticked off and I’m gonna have to deliver a rant. (Sorry).

I am thoroughly fed up with uninformed American (and Russian) trolls loosely flinging unsubstantiated and factually incorrect statements about the Canadian health care system all over the InterWeb, just because they have a political axe to grind. So let me give it to you straight, in ALL CAPS because that seems to be the only way some folks might take notice:

THE CANADIAN HEALTH CARE SYSTEM WORKS.

Is it perfect? No. No system is ever perfect. But here’s another point: 

NO CANADIAN EVER WENT BANKRUPT BECAUSE OF A HEALTH CARE ISSUE. 

In the US there is some argument about the exact number, because most people who declare bankruptcy have multiple sources of debt, but one study suggested that medical expenses or loss of work related to illness contributed to 65% of all bankruptcies in the US last year. (Click here and here.) That’s 65% of 750,489 bankruptcies, or just under 500,000 cases in 2018. And yes, I am quoting the Washington Post, which some may say is fake news, mainly because the article is critical of Bernie’s loose throwing around of facts, but hey! At least I am providing a source for my information, unlike the trolls. Get the facts first, then you can argue.

So what makes me an expert, you ask? Sadly, personal experience. My wife, may she rest in peace, required multiple back surgeries to insert two steel rods to support her spine, which was collapsing due to advanced scoliosis. Later in life she was diagnosed with Stage 4 breast cancer, which required 2 years of chemo and radio therapy as well as several surgeries. Cost to us: Nada. Zip. ZEE-RO. OK, I may have paid for parking at the hospital now and then. But it didn’t prevent us from paying the mortgage or sending the kids to school. (Now there’s a topic for another rant.)

Yes, the cancer killed her. (Six years ago this week, thanks for asking). But this outcome is no reflection on the quality of the care; it is my understanding that American women are also dying of breast cancer. Give me a minute and I’ll dig up comparative stats on that, too, if you are too dense or stupid or unwilling to do so yourself. 

So if you have an opinion but don’t know WTF you are talking about, you have a few options. You can use the Internet or other public sources to obtain some facts, and accept that these facts may change your opinion. You can blather on regardless, revealing yourself to be a troll who will regurgitate just about anything fed to you if it meets your prejudices.

Or you can STFU. May I politely suggest that STFU is a reasonable first step. 

OK, the rant is over. I feel better now. (Sorry about that). 

UPDATE 2020-03-16: An American friend reposted this on his Facebook page, which led to sometimes heated debate over something like 100 posts... I might clean it up and remove names and copy it here. Stay tuned! 

Camino Portugués: a review

You've probably heard of this by now. The Camino consists of the well trodden pilgrimage trails leading from all over Europe to the burial place of Saint James in Santiago de Compostella in Galicia, and in use for about a millennia. 

Pilgrims of many different stripes tackle this; there are probably still people doing it for religious reasons but the tourists are an increasing segment. 

There are many different caminos with many different starting points. The Camino Frances, the classic, is something like 800 km from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port to Santiago, and another 200 km to the capes at Finisterre or Muxia. The symbol is the sea shell, which is supposed to point towards Santiago, but which often does not.   

I signed up for a section of the Camino Portugués with three friends. We flew to Lisbon and took the train to Porto where we started at the cathedral. Blue arrows point to Fatima, yellow to Santiago. We carried day packs and had a luggage service bring our spare gear, for about €7 per bag per trip; some pilgrims carry their full load on their backs.



Here is an overview of the main Portuguese route. We skipped the Lisbon-Porto segment, and followed a parallel coastal route until joining the main route at Redondela.



The walking is great fun, even in poor weather; we got some rain most days but only one or two soakers. A good backpack and hiking shoes are essential, and you need to be sure to deal with chafing before it becomes a blister.

The classic approach to logistics is to stay at so-called albergues (auberges, or inns) for pilgrims. These expect a donation of about €8 per night, and provide a bunk in a (possibly co-ed) dorm with shared WC and shower. Combined with the pilgrim meals available in most locations (€10 for lunch or dinner) it is possible to do this pretty cheaply. Alternatively you can book one or two star hotels or AirBnB accommodation as you go, but this can lead to frustration if you need to spend a lot of time on the phone or online due to overcrowding (such as over Easter weekend, as we discovered). Booking ahead is less frustrating but it means you are locked into a schedule and can't stop for weather or a blister, or do a longer day if you are feeling strong. A reasonable compromise is to book a couple of days ahead, and to do this every night; booking.com is a very useful tool for this. 


The Portuguese coastal route takes you along the beach and up into lovely forested areas. In towns, the route tends to follow side streets and you may need to walk a block or two off-route to get services (groceries, coffee shops). 


Some of the prettier pictures follow. 

View over Porto from the square in front of the cathedral.



Typical beachfront route over boardwalks, well marked and easily walked.



Lots of narrow lanes between high stone walls of indeterminate age. This bricked-up entrance leads to a large forested estate of some type.



A lovely spot to while away a summer afternoon...



The coast in Spain is wilder than the sandy stretches in Portugal.



Lots of old stone work, in both Portugal and Spain.



Monument to Jules Verne in Vigo, a bustling port and quite a lot busier than the other towns along the way.



View over the Bay of Vigo.



An older bridge than the one at Vigo; there were several bridges of Roman origin. Lots of history in this part of the world.



One of many lovely wooded paths.



Roman road XIX was apparently a main road through here, and the route follows it as closely as possible. Elsewhere we saw grooves made in granite by centuries of carts.



This is probably the best picture of the whole trip: early morning mist after a night of steady rain.



There were lots of rundown buildings, including churches, in both countries.



The destination: the cathedral at Santiago after dark. This one was not rundown.



Way points and markers:

You will need a phone with a GPS, Google Maps and downloaded maps for the stretch you are walking, because markers vary along the way. New Portuguese markers are lovely blue ceramic tiles, older ones are steel cutouts. Both are visible here.



Spanish markers common in the countryside tend to be granite slabs. These are easy to spot, obviously, but hard to move for detours due to road construction or other reasons.



In built up areas you have to be more careful as the markers will vary, and the real estate may not be available at every street corner for the granite Spanish slabs. Spray paint, metal markers embedded in sidewalks or curbs, stickers on utility poles... there are several approaches.

   



After Santiago I went on to Bilbao and Bordeaux. Historically, Bordeaux was apparently a key stop in the camino from Tours. I found this at the entrance to the city.





Saint Seurin (Saint Severin) Basilica was a stop in Bordeaux. A brass pointer in the pavement showed the way:



This is a very old church on the site of buildings going back to 350 AD. Inside it is pretty austere compared to some.











Exit from Bordeaux was via the gate known today as la Grosse Cloche and on to Rue Saint James:







Pointers were spotted as far away as Soest, Germany, where the Canadian Armed Forces had a base during the Cold War.



Would I do it again, or do another section? Maybe ... but the frustrating parts, of spending hours organising logistics every night, would have to be simplified.

Welcome to my new blog!

Here I will post personal and travel stories. Older content came from my Bioeconomy blog, where it was identified with the Personal or Travel label, to differentiate it from the Bio content.

Coming soon: a review of my hike of the Camino Portugués. Stay tuned!

Mongolia, Part 3: Hiking and riding in the Altai

Tom on a horse

OK, I will get this one out of the way early. I rode about half the trek, partly because of river crossings and mucky valley bottoms where the option was filling up my hiking boots with wet stuff, and partly because at the higher elevations I was running out of breath and holding everyone else up. (We crested a col at 10,200 feet before dropping to about 8,200 for the night, then camped two nights on the moraine at about 10,100). 

So do I look comfortable? I did get comfortable, eventually, because Bucko was pretty laid back. (Maybe they sedated him? I am sure the horses for the Westerners were carefully selected to be semi-comatose.) The Australian-style saddles were a big help; Eddie says the Kazakh saddles are murder. (Photo courtesy Lorraine).

The crew

And speaking of Eddie, I should present the folks who worked so hard to make this the great trip it was. In the first picture (courtesy Lorraine): Eddie, Carbai and Dosjan at the lunch table; in the second picture, Mel and Eddie at a different lunch stop; in the third picture, Carbai on his horse, completely in his element, keeping an eye on us as we move out one morning.

Finally here is the entire support team lined up at the end of the trek as we were loading up for the return drive to Ulgii. All told there are about 6 camel herders, three horsemen who rode with us, about 4 cook staff and helpers (Alex stands out as the only African in the group), and the rest are general labour for grooming and saddling our 16 horses every morning as well as their own horses, putting up and taking down the cook tent, mess tent and sleeping tents, as well as digging the pit latrines and any other general duties required to keep our little caravan on track. Many of the younger ones are learning English and it is doubtful how many will be nomadic herders like their parents. They shared a warm round of applause and (more importantly) a sizable tip in US$ from their Western clients. 

Next photo: Carbai is first from left, Dosjan 4th, and Alex next to last.

The trek

After two days at the southern end of Khoton Nuur, we moved to the head of the lake. (Click on the photos of the maps to view them full-screen; this will work better on a big computer screen than on a phone.) I'll spare you lots of text as the photos are quite effective. 

A beautiful day along the lake, following our camel train. Most important was keeping the lunch camel in view.



A happy rider and a rickety bridge over glacial runoff.





Next day we hiked up a canyon, Tsagaan Us Gol.

Cool breezes, larch forests and fields of alpine flowers make this very different from the hot and dry steppes.





Lydia posing in a field of wild onions and assorted alpine flowers.





Physically the most demanding day was the hike from about 7,200 feet to a pass at 10,200. I brought up the rear with Mel who kept an eagle eye on me as I counted 100 steps, then stopped to get my breath back and my heart rate down before tackling the next 100 steps. I rode the rest of the day to camp at 8,200 feet. 

Here I am putting a stone on the cairn at the col before we started to get a bit of weather -- ice pellets which turned to light drizzle. This all cleared up pretty quick, though, and was the only really bad daytime weather we encountered the whole trip.



Next day we hiked to a camp site by the river coming from the glacier. 

Will strikes a pose.



Finally we hike (I rode) to Base Camp at 10,200 feet where we spent two nights overlooking the glacier. Spectacular!

The ridge running from centre to upper left is the five peaks of the Tavan Bogd, which means Five Prophets or Five Saints. On the far right of the photo is Malchin Peak; the ridge denotes the border with Russia. Four of our group climbed the ridge to about 12,500 feet. Weather was closing in and the wind on the ridge picked up so they wisely turned back before reaching the summit at 13,290 feet. Between Malchin and Tavan Bogd, behind the little triangular peak sticking out of the glacier, is the tri-point with China and Russia.



Mist off the glacier never turned to rain.



This picture provides a better view of Malchin and the Russian frontier on the right.



Last hiking day is down to the ranger station where we will meet our 4X4s for the drive back to Ulgii. It's over :( 

Eddie and our horses; we haven't seen herds of animals for a couple of days; a happy rider.

Overall

What a pleasure it was to see this part of the world and meet Carbai's extended family of Kazakh nomads before the place is overrun with tourists. As it is, travelers on the Who Knew (Hunnu) Air flight to Ulaan Baatar and the Air China flight to Beijing the next day were overwhelmingly Westerners with backpacks -- where the backpackers trek today, the luxury glamping folks will follow, and that means one of the major impediments to getting there (the state of the roads) will get sorted out, allowing all sorts of people to wander in. These people won't put up with bad roads, and they certainly won't put up with open air pit latrines, even if the views are superb. This is economically good from a development standpoint, but ... 

The trip certainly got me out of my comfort zone, but not too far out! At least there was no wildlife actively trying to kill me. It will be hard to top this.

Appendix: Comparison with Iceland

Don't laugh, there is a lot in common: 

• Both countries have wide flat plains bordered by rugged mountains. These plains are grasslands, gravel and sand in shades of grey, green and brown in Mongolia; black lava fields in Iceland (although we encountered at least one lava field in Mongolia).
• Neither country has much in the way of trees or bushes to hide behind if, as the saying goes, you need to see a man about a horse. Iceland has rocks to hide behind, but Mongolia largely does not.
• Traffic will grind to a halt in both countries because of livestock lying around on main roads. Livestock roam freely around the whole of both countries. Iceland only has sheep; in Mongolia just about every domestic animal can be found loose wandering around on the highway: dogs, cows, horses, sheep, goats, camels, even yaks. Mongolian drivers just plow into the herds with horns blaring, and this approach seems to clear the road fairly effectively.
• Lots of roads which are marked on the maps are in fact of very poor quality, typically involving fords over streams. In Iceland they maintain these roads to a certain degree; in Mongolia if there is a muddy bit, people start going around with the result that you have multiple routes across a prairie. Picking the right one is an art because you can wind up in a gully or gulch and have to back track; also the erosion and soil compaction due to acres of road where a single lane would do must be significant. 
• Lots of 4X4 vans full of tourists. In Iceland these are jacked-up Land Rovers, Mercedes Benz mini-buses or Ford F350 Expeditions on high-flotation tires (for crossing glacial muck); in Mongolia it is modern Japanese or Korean SUVs or 4X4 vans on military-style off-road tires, or crude Russian UAZ-452 vans. Hint: stay away from the Russian vans.
• Icelandic ponies are genetically related to Mongolian ponies. Iceland strictly prohibits importation of horses in order to preserve genetic purity of the Icelandic pony, but Mongolian horses are cross-bred at times with imports. Both are sturdy little animals designed to survive difficult winters.
• Doors with low lintels! I have several new bumps on my admittedly hard head to prove this.
• Iceland is just beginning to deal with a tourist boom. Mongolia’s boom is coming, too, as us baby boomers avoid places like Egypt which used to be 'safe' but are now full of nutbars with guns.
• Currencies with lots of zeroes: To convert Icelandic Krona to Canadian dollars, take off two zeros; to convert Mongolian Tugrik, take off three zeros and divide by two.