Up To Nakusp

There are times when decamping to Nakusp feels like bringing the entire British administration from Delhi  to Shimla for the summer season. The elephants, camels and coolies had nothing on the Bristowe-Turners when embarking on this journey - in tow: laptops, paint samples, window quotes for cross-reference, all the cleanse pills and jars and instructions (I'm doing the Wild Rose one, it's going well), the diaper-toys-kid food brigade, the footwear for the mountains, presents for Mum and Papa Mike, baby in the squeaky shoes for extra cuteness, and of course the 20lbs of paper and resources I'm using to finish up one of the NGO contracts from March. Lord have mercy, we're taking the airplane. See you from the dialup connection in the Kootenays...

Categories: Nakusp

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The Main Difference Between Dragons And Lions Is That Lions Are Not Dragons

When Sloane and I were transitting through Hong Kong in March, we stayed at the Metropole Hotel in Kowloon. We were hoping to be able to change our itinerary to be able to meet up with Auntie Anne. She was coming through town for a schnazzy work thing, and we WOULDA been able to meet up, but we weren't allowed to change our onward ticket. 

Our itinerary had us going HK to Seoul, switch planes, and then from Seoul to Vancouver, all with Korean Airlines. (approx 11,000 km). Then it was to be Vancouver to Calgary, with Air Canada. (approx 1056 km)

Korean Airlines was willing to bend over backwards and do a little dance while throwing kimchi in the air to let us change our ticket, no problemo and kam sam nee dah to you, too. The whole "problem" rested with Air Canada. Somehow, they couldn't find ONE SINGLE SEAT for us on the (8 x daily) Vancouver to Calgary flights they run, other than the seat I already had booked. Despite my efforts, my industrious travel agent's efforts, and the efforts (dig this) of KOREAN AIRLINES to help us make it happen (thank you Korean Airlines!), Air Canada decided, in the end, to fuck us at the drive through. They wouldn't let us change the flight at all... and then, later, they cancelled the flight they made us book. And we were only told this once we arrived in Canada. Which meant that I had to wait twice as long in Vancouver as I would have if they'd kept the original booking. ...Which leads me to believe their flights aren't as heavily booked as they'd like to think... which inevitably leads to the idea of: WHY NOT LET ME BOOK A NEW FLIGHT THE NEXT DAY, OR ANY OTHER DAY?  

But I digress.

In any event, Sloane and I had one night in Hong Kong, and we decided, after much discussion between us, to eat at the restaurant across from the hotel. This restaurant was huge. As in, it-took-up-the-whole-of-the-second-storey-of-the-building HUGE. It was one of those Chinese restaurants essentially designed to host enormous displays of family weath; the kind that has whole walls devoted to fishtanks of arawana, the huge waiting area was filled with lean-over-and-peruse-your-future-dinner acrylic vats of lobsters/crabs/carp swimming in circles and waiting to be eaten. It had floor-to-ceiling divider rails, allowing for the restaurant to be partitioned off into chomp-sized pieces if there were particular piece-by-piece family events to be accommodated. It looked over one of the busiest roads in northern Kowloon, and had a truly awesome neon sign that featured a Godzilla-sized fish gulping repeatedly upwards at the characters that made up the name of the restaurant. And, we soon learned, the staff didn't speak English and weren't interested in my efforts at international sign language.

In the end I got the (English-speaking) manager to come to the table; I asked him for his suggestions as to what I should order; I ordered those things; our dinner was ludicrously delicious. And Sloane got restless about 0.5 seconds after I'd had my first bite of food. Which meant, in our then-new-age of walking, that she got to roam. The Chinese folks in the restaurant didn't really appreciate the nuanced amazingness that is our Sloanedottir, and so it behooved me to fix-and-thenceforth-monitor the situation. Which I did.

At one end of the restaurant was a sort of stage area. On the wall facing the restaurant, the huge Chinese characters denoting "wedding"/"marriage", Double Happiness:

This was where the bride and groom would sit, presumably, if the restaurant were packed with guests and we were celebrating a wedding. Which, this night, we weren't, so it was totally deserted except for us and three other tables, so Sloane and I headed up to investigate. I don't have any pictures of the papier mache figures adorning the pillars there, but I do wish I did. Truly serious, were these. The most prominent among the many animals depicted were the dragons, a matching pair which gripped matching pillars on either side of the stage, their bulging eyes made of quietly sizzling red neon bulbs. The heads were bigger than mine, the bodies wrapped, snakelike, round and round the poles. I took Sloane up close to see.

"Arrrruh!" I trilled, as I held her up to the dragon faces, showing her the teeth, the whiskers, the talon-clawed feet. Arrruh! I think the neon eyes actually convinced her a bit, and when she started to wrench around, wanting to get away, I showed her how you could touch the nice dragon and it was all okay, don't worry. She was all worked up by then, so I carried her back to the table. But halfway back, she turned and pointed at the dragons again. "Dra-gunn", I said, pointing too. "Arrruh!" "....Aaaaacccchhhh!" trilled Sloane making a kind of half-choked gurgling sound in her throat, thrilled with herself. So back we went to take another look. We spent most of the next half hour going back and forth between the dragon stage and our table. And Sloane's love of dragons was born.

I'd bought an embroidered Thai wall hanging in Bangkok which featured a detailed and shiny-beaded dragon, and we hung it on the kitchen wall above the high chair. Sloane points at it and gets us to Arrrruh! for her every day, and she grins and grins. Aaaaccchhh, she says to it, and claps her hands. Dragon! Yay!

So, to the story at hand: Turner bought me a Chariot for Mother's Day this year. I badly wanted a Chariot, or any facsimile thereof, asap last year - and I was THUNDEROUSLY disappointed to hear I wasn't allowed to put my kid into a drag-it-behind-the-bike thing until she could fit/wear a helmet. And they don't make helmets for babies. So that meant I had to wait until this year, and I did that waiting with all the patience of a sugar-stuffed kid anticipating a ride on the roller coaster, which is to say, not all that patiently. I spent all winter taking Sloane around, trying to fit her with a helmet that would stay on her noggin, to no avail. But our summer finally arrived and I finally found a helmet for her (the smallest on the market), and with those preconditions in place I slapped our kid post-haste into all the available bike-draggy-thing models around town, reported back to Chez Bristowe-Turner base about the prices and etcetera, and finally bought a Chariot model on consignment from the Macleod Trail outlet of Once Upon A Child. Happy Mother's Day to me!

Brought it home, triumphant. Hooked it up to the bike, dancing back and forth like someone who needs to pee really bad. And finally took the whole thing out on a maiden voyage. Sloane screamed the whole time, hating the helmet like mad (she has since come around on the helmet and wants to wear it everywhere).   

When I was eight and nine months pregnant last year, I used to sit around dreaming about all the amazing feats of athletic prowess I would perform after I gave birth to the bowling ball in my belly. And foremost in my mind was the image of me, three months post-baby (and of course completely fit and lithe already), biking down the Bow River pathway en route to Kensington to get a coffee or something (I don't really drink coffee, but that's not the point), dragging the baby in a chariot, the little sticky-uppy orange flag flapping in the lovely warm Calgary sunshine. It was a very specific vision. I was going to have that vision.

So one night early last week, away we went to Kensington, along the Bow River pathway. Calgary's weather this spring has been nigh-on awesome. It's been raining cats and dogs the last few days, but before that it was basically a month and more of sun and warmth and light wind and chinook after chinook, each day better than the last. Our ride to Kensington was on one of the best spring days of all time: leaves just unfurling on the Memorial Drive poplars, the river still low and the geese honking at the pedestrians and scooting their goslings into the high grass. Rollerbladers and dogwalkers and cyclists out in hoardes, and me and Sloane (screaming at the helmet), wheeling among them, finally living the dream. When you become a parent, it's important to have lots of little achievable goals. It allows you the illusion of progress. There I was, check mark in the box of "drag baby behind bike down Bow River pathway to Kensington". It was great.   

On the way home, I spotted the dragons that flank the entrance to Sien Lok Park where 1st St. SW meets Riverfront Avenue, and veered over to show Sloane. She was deeeee-lighted to Arrrruh! at the dragons, getting me to walk back and forth between them. Over the next week we came to visit the dragons whenever we rode the river path, and Sloane was always thrilled to see her friends with the big teeth. One day we were there doing the Arrrruh! and a young Chinese mother came by with her daughter. We started talking about the weather (beautiful again) and our daughters, and I looked at the dragons and thought to ask what the word for "dragon" is in Cantonese.

I should mention here that we speak to Sloane mainly in English, but there are some things I say in other languages - a mishmash of phrases and nouns in French, Hindi, Tagalog, depending. Sloane'll grow up thinking that a horse is a "ghora", or when something's all gone you say "wala, wala na". When something's going on I ask her, "Qu'est-ce qui se passe?" and when I want her to come to me, I usually say, "Eeder ao". These things just started coming out of my mouth when I became a mom. I could say them in English of course, like, I'm capable. But they seem right in the other languages, so I keep on.

So: given Sloane's appreciation of dragons, and the provenance of the joy associated with growling at them, it felt appropriate that we might introduce the Chinese word for dragon into our family vocabulary. So I sez to this other woman, I sez, "What's the word for 'dragon' in Cantonese?"

She looked confused. ...Dragon?

I said yes, dragon, gesturing to the two dragons on either side of the path, right beside us as we stood by the bike.

Ah... she said, "This is lai-yun." 

Hm, said I, trying it out: "Lai-yun?"

She looked at me, still a bit troubled somehow. I said, "Dragon is 'lai-yun', eh? [nodding at her, looking for approval on my pronounciation] Hm, okay: lai-yun..."

The woman started shaking her head: "No no. Lai-yun." She paused. Leaned in like I was a retarded person, and pointed at the dragons: "This is not dragon. L-I-O-N, in English spelling. This is lion."

I looked at the dragons. And they are very obviously not dragons. They are, in fact, very obviously LIONS. The light went on: lai-yun/lion. Ohhhhh. 

She said, "You know, dragon more long [showing with her hands], has these things [indicates long carp-like whiskers]."

Me: "Yes. Yes I know. You're so right, of course these are lions."

(In my own defense, I now present a short list of Similarities Between Lions And Dragons In Chinese Iconography: flowing mane; claws; tail; open mouth with sharp teeth. Dissimilarities abound, but those are the things they have in common. I think my error was understandable. ...Okay, of course I am a moron, don't listen to my rationalizations.)

 

 

Uh, so uh, now I take Sloane to see the lions. Except I pronounce it lai-yun. Because I'm stubborn that way, and can't admit I'm wrong. Mostly.

 

Categories: Calgary | Mom-ness | Sloane

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Sloane's Pictoral Week In Review: Week 62

It's been a while since the Pictoral Week in Review was keeping up.

 

Sloane LOVED watching the cranes taking down the old Greyhound building, in downtown Calgary. I used to work in this building, when I was the Director of Research at Carruthers & Associates, 1997-98.

 

Categories: Calgary | Sloane

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"New" Photos Up

I've put up some photos from April up on Flickr, here.

 

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This One's To Make Turner Feel Guilty

So Turner's in Scotland, gallavanting around discovering his roots and drinking sherry and eating fish n' chips. And researching the book, sure. Then he's off to Germany, to show off his German language skillz (not so useful in, say, Canada, India, or Thailand - i.e. for the last nine years of travelling he's done), ride the trains, get drunk with Ian Connacher (also on tour). I'm at home, supervising the construction of the deck, doing editing contracts for which I think I'll probably never get paid (lousy racken-fracken UN budget snafus), and being a single parent above all else, until further notice. Like, it was 28C today and I spent most of the day indoors due to one or the other or all three of these X factors in my existance. It may sound like I'm complaining, but I'm merely whining. But also noting that Calgary's weather has never been so amazing. (I can't WAIT for our screen doors!)

But, yeah. So tonight here's me, sitting on the couch, literally gnawing at a block of cheese. (I'd report that I'm drinking wine out of the bottle, because that would be a way-better detail. Alas, it's not true. ...But give me a few days.) In Turner's absence I just can't feed myself, it seems. Had to go to the local Pho Minh Chau (I'd link this restaurant, but they don't have a website - SUCH a shame. Super staff, great menu, and easy to find on 9th Ave in Inglewood. I'm a regular, and I recommend it) tonight for dinner. Because it's Day 3 of Turner's absence and I'm... at a loss. I can feed Sloane no problem. Because, frankly, she'll eat anything, and I do have a firm handle on the Canada Food Guide, plus a good understanding of basic infant nutrition. (And she's finally started to mimic my "Aaarrr!" noises when the spoon goes in, much to my DEEEE-light.) But me, I'm kind of a lost cause. Soup is too salty, except at lunchtime. Without supervision I'll put dijon mustard on basically everything I eat. And I'm pretty sure that if you eat a whole honeydew melon it's technically a meal. So I'm sitting here bereft of my personal chef and boxed into a corner, finally resorting to rodent behaviour. I hope you're happy, Turner.

But to actually twist the knife, I offer a list of new words our girl (that being Sloane) has mastered (in a purely toddler-ish half-slurred 'mastery'-at-best way) since Turner's Friday departure. Not listed are the ones she's already had for a while: baby, bottle, Mama, Dada, baba, Go-go [go outside], tchi-cka [cat], iss iss iss [give it to me], Bobo [character from one of her books], dirty [dih-tee!], and so on. No, these are new words, clear and verifiable even by unbiased judges. ...Judges? Give us the List!

• Sushi ("Soo-see!"). I told you, she's my girl.
• Door. I'm basically certain the Teletubbies taught her this one. "Lala knock-on-da-door! ...Yay, Lala!"
• Fifi. As in Auntie Fifi, aka Brother John's fiancee, Fiona
• Shoes ("Sssuuue!"), and Socks ("Sockk!"). Also trying to drill the signs for these into her noggin, to no avail.
• Bib. And then she yanked it off her head, laughing her ass off, going Bib! Bib! Bib!
• Splash ("Spash!"). As per when we're in the bath, throwing water around. Also followed by hiccup-inducing laughter.
• Paper ("Pay-pah"). Works for toilet paper, loose leaf around the house for Mama's many lists, and ripped-out magazine subscription pages. Those last should be banned, sez I.
• No! (self explanatory.)
• Pee Pee. I think you know what this refers to.

The speed is terrifying. At this pace she'll be reciting the Canterbury Tales in Middle English by the time Turner gets home in late May.  

Also for parental reference purposes: she's still afraid of the vacuum, still knocks on your basement office window calling "Dada! Dada! Dada!" when I'm out there pruning the lilacs (and nobody answers...), and has started laughing HA Ha HA Ha on purpose to indicate that something is funny, even if she isn't sincerely laughing. Now that's a sense of humour.

 

Categories: Sloane | Turner

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Dance! Dance! Dance!

Our Mother's Day topic is, "The decided lack of opportunity to publicly dance in today's Canada, particularly for mothers."  

When I was at university, I danced at least twice a week, if not five times. (It really depended on how close we were to exams...) Even in high school here in Calgary, I had a friend who would sleep with the bouncers (how sporking - I mean sporting! - of her, don't you think?), so we were in to the Taz and the Underground, at least, both nights on the weekend.

I was there to dance, me. My contribution to getting entrance to bars was focused on an expertise with replicating the hand stamps; one person (usually the tart – friend! - who boinked the door guys) would go in, and then come out a different exit and meet us in the parking lot. Thereupon it was my job to study the stamp design and draw it, backwards in black or blue or red ink (in those days, nightclub stamps came in only three colours), onto the hands of all our underage cronies. Blot with paper towel, lick & smear it a bit, and bob's yer uncle. My fake-o stamps worked every time. And then we danced!

Yeah, I love to dance. I was very, very pleased to become "legal" and avoid the hassle of finagling my way into the bar. Legal drinking age is 18 in Alberta and Quebec, and 19 in most of the rest of Canada, a fact I failed to consider when I chose a university in Ontario. So back to the (literal) drawing board: I had to doctor my driver's license to get my dancing fix. It was a simple process to falsify an Alberta driver's license in those days - peel open the lamination, scrape off the last number in the birth year, and glue it back together. Put a piece of transparent tape overtop, and carefully, gently draw in the necessary year. And voila. Worked so well that I was able to sell my fake ID after I turned 19 - to a moron to went to the same bar where I was celebrating my birthday and the bouncer, who knew me, recognized the name and confiscated the ID. Worst 20 bucks she ever spent, I bet. But anyway, I feel sad for the kids these days who have to get all mixed up with colour photocopiers and computer software and all that shit. In the old days all you needed was a bit of moxy and some skill with a razor.

So, fake ID (and later, my legal one) in hand, I danced and danced in university, honing my patented 'air violin' to Istanbul Not Constantinople, and generally stomped and sang along and jumped up and down and dragged people onto the dance floor and overall had a grand time.

After undergrad, the actual chances for dancing waned. I hadn't expected it, and at first I didn’t really realize it - I hadn't even thought about the fact that dancing might not be part of my life forever. But Sean Monkman and I held the torch on Thursdays in Guelph and held that night sacred for time at the Albion and Jimmy Jazz, at least for drinking - and not just a little dancing. And Thab and I got out to shake our asses every so often, but not nearly enough. There was just so much schoolwork, and too few dancey-dance bars, and uncooperative DJs. But moreso than anything, dancing just wasn't part of adult life, it seemed.

I'm not sure what I figgered, actually. That somehow my adulthood would involve a quota of late night dancing after the non-existent post-school homework and readings? …I dunno. In any case, I longtime-dated and then eventually married a non-dancing man. For the period we were broken up I was enrolled in salsa lessons with a Calgary dance company and went to salsa nights around the city, and the joy of finding a way of putting dance back into my life helped keep me sane that year. But Turner came out west to win me back, and we did a few salsa lessons together, but then it just sort of fell off the schedule. And despite the dancing-less-ness of our union, I married him anyway.

Now, I'm not saying I'm particularly good. I'm just saying that I enjoy the act of dancing. I am, you might say, a fan of getting my groove on. And now I dance a bit for Sloane, particularly in the kitchen when I'm getting her smorgasbord meals prepared, and she’s waiting, watching me from the high chair. But being a mom isn't really conducive to going out at some ungodly hour - 11pm? Midnight? What’s the magic number these days? - and dancing with strangers in a smoky bar into the wee hours. Frankly it seems cruel, to me, that mothers are supposed to be satisfied with dancing with their kids at home to Anne Murray’s 'Hippo In The Bathtub' and that kind of stuff.

I remember hearing, years ago, about moms in Toronto who organized a regular daytime rave for themselves at the El Mocambo or Jungle or somewhere on Queen West - from what I understand they hired a dj, and the chill-out room had diapers and wipes and a fridge for bottles. And the moms came once a month to dance and dance and dance to real, dancey, rave and techno, carrying their kids around the dancefloor and having a truly fantastic time. I wonder if this still happens.

I wonder if something like that could fly in Calgary.

 

Categories: Mom-ness | Olden Days

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For The Grandparents

 

 

 

Ok, sure: she's waaaay better looking than either of us. Bless'er.

 

Categories: Sloane

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Chez Bristowe Turner: Now Asbestos-Free!

Postscript: This post got a little long. I had this little story to tell and then I realized there are all sorts of important little side-stories attached. And so for those of you literateness-disinclined, in the tradition of The Believer, I provide a point-form review. ...So you can pretend you read it when you come over to visit Sloane.

Discussed:

• Zonolite, the viciously carcinogenic insulation found in more than 335,000 Canadian homes
• dreams of Chez Bristowe Turner attic renovation, destroyed
• manual labour, a collapsed lung, and obsessions about our backyard barn
• the Calgary real estate explosion
• light at the end of the asbestos-caked tunnel, and a flicker of hope for the ressurection of the attic plans, and
• ...VICTORY!

There you go. You can come over now and nod sagely when I ask if you've heard the good news about our house. Be advised that the above executive summary is a SUMMARY and also includes a subtle red herring. So you're taking your chances not reading the whole post, but that's your prerogative.   

...So. When we bought this house back in November of '04 '03, it was a strategic decision. I'd been desperate to buy a house for years and years and years, so when I got my government job I socked away half my paycheque, every paycheque, towards my future downpayment. I didn't go out, I'd sworn off the booze until further notice, and my rent & board were covered by Brucio. Basically my only expenses were the exorbitant $11/day parking fee near my building, and my thrice-weekly salad rolls from Vietnam Village around the corner from work.

A few months before the wedding I finally decided enough was enough with living in Douglasdale - what was I going to do, get married and then move back into Dad's basement? - so I went out looking, and chose a house in Ramsay. (This one we live in, as I type, in fact.) I took my savings, plus all the money my parents had given us towards the wedding, and I unrepentantly poured that whole glunk of cash down into the house, right away.

Ahhhhh! Home Ownership, At Last!

I loved the back hallway with its corner cupboard like at my grandparents' house in Thunder Bay on South Hill Street; Turner loved the kitchen. Although by many people's estimations our house was considered "a piece of shit" in "a crappy neighbourhood", I didn't completely agree. I could see that it LOOKED like a piece of shit, and I understood that the neighbourhood had crappy ELEMENTS, but I knew the 50' double lot was a great investment and the house was solid. Plus, I figured we would be here for a year or two, maybe five years on the outside. I had vague plans that we'd flip it and move closer to Inglewood, or Nakusp, or who knows - but at least to a bigger house where we'd start our family.

Nevertheless, the first time I went up in the attic I was THRILLED to discover it was a whole seperate floor! Like, unlike your standard attic with exposed joists and insulation and whatnot, our attic had a real, load-bearing floor. And it had cupboards, closets, painted walls. We asked our neighbours about all this and it turns out that our attic was once the second storey on the house, and about forty years ago the owners closed it in as an attic, poured insulation all over the floor, and removed the stairwell. Why they did this will remain a mystery.

In any case, I suddenly had dreams of renovating the attic. In the UK they call this a "loft conversion" and it's done all the time. In fact there are construction companies and contractors who work exclusively in the field of loft conversions, and sell the whole job as a package. Do you want one room? Two? A bathroom? Skylights? Please peruse our brochure for package rates and fittings options. Etc. I began to talk excitedly with my family about the possibilities, about the increase in the value of the house if we added another 600+ square feet to the place. Think of the vaulted livingroom ceiling! Think of the dormer windows and the extra bathroom! How wonderful!

Then Brother John was poking around in our attic one day, setting up the wireless network, and took a good look all around. Then he came downstairs and called me at work:

   J:    Ash, I think you have zonolite in your attic.

   A:    Heh? What?

   J:    I saw it on The National about two or three days ago. It's this carcinogenic insulation that's in old houses. It looks like wood chips. It's more dangerous than asbestos.

   A:    HEH! WHAT!?

   J:    I didn't touch it, I just looked at it, but I think that's what's on the floor of the attic.

So! What to do? Well, after hanging out the "Gone Fishing" sign on my cubicle door, I got straight on the internet. And it didn't take long to find out all sorts of scary stuff about zonolite, a type of vermiculite insulation used widely in Canada throughout the 1970s and early 80s (it's estimated to be present in more than 335,000 Canadian homes) which is, in some forms, apparently 20x more carcinogenic than asbestos. ...Asbestos being somewhat carginogenic in its own right, you may have heard.

After quietly shitting my pants right there at the desk, I did more research. Turns out having zonolite in the house is okay so long as you don't disturb it. So long as you don't, for example, sweep it up. Which we very nearly did on a few occasions in our enthusiastic visiting-the-attic trips up the ladder to consider the renovation prospects. Later that week I spent some time asking our realtor and a few acquaintances about what it would cost to get the zonolite removed, and everyone estimated the job at $25,000+. My dream of renovating the attic level died a quick, wheezing, mesothelioma death. We decided to blow fibreglass insulation in on top of the zonolite, to extra-insulate the roof, and shut up the attic. Forever, we thought.

I spent the next year getting over the disappointment of losing my vision of a magnificent second story on our home. And finally I turned my attention to our "shed". It's not really a shed. It's more like a small barn. With a root cellar, a greenhouse, electricity and its own ancient furnace, I'd long ago decided that this 700+ sq.ft. wood structure out back of our house would make a perfect office for Turner. We set him up in the basement initially, because our neighbour was storing a great huge heap of wood in our shed, and there was no way to work around it. But the neighbour said he'd get rid of the wood "soon", and we believed him, so we put Turner down the basement while we figured out how to finance the renovation of the barn.

Yes, it's a piece of shit. But you don't even have a piece of shit - you have to envy mine.

With the shift of my mental energies towards the barn came an upswing of energy for clearing it out. Which lead to the February 2005 Great Dump Of The Old Renters' Shit, the disposal of a giant pile of suitcases and general detritus in garbage bags which someone had piled up in the greenhouse (after they'd smashed up half the windows, of course). We'd been hesitant to throw this stuff out, mainly because it was very clearly someone's entire world possessions, including clothes and photos, plus a lot of simple personal crap like old Hallowe'en masks and stickers and a mug from an agriculture company. Garbage to us, but I thought these people would get out of juvie or come back from wherever they'd gone and retrieve this stuff. Letters from grandmas, that kind of thing. I'd come back for it, if it was me.

Anyway, by last spring it was clear no one was ever coming for this shit. So I threw it all out, piles and piles and piles of it going into the back alley for the Tuesday-morning pickup. Besides the general chaos in the greenhouse, there was old dirt and cat poo everywhere, dust and pieces of broken cardboard from where the ceiling had caved in due to water leakage. When I finally reached the clear floor of the greenhouse after hauling all the stuff away, I was sweeping up the extra soil and feathers and shiny flakes of what I figured had to be fertilizer or a strange broken glass substance. But then for some reason, something made me stop. I took a good look at the dirt on the floor, as fibres of insulation floated in the air all around me. And all at once my stomach fell. I looked up: the cardboard ceiling had caved in? Insulation was leaking out? I poked the edge of the hole with my broom. And what was very definitely zonolite trickled over the cardboard edge and fell to the floor.

After I'd run THE HELL out of there, I took off my clothes and threw them away. Then I spent a whole (possibly-hypochondria-induced) afternoon retching and convalescing in the livingroom, although having just done two hours of heavy lifting with no mask in all that dust and accumulated mold, I probably earned myself a temporary lung condition even if the zonolite wasn't working 20x overtime at shortening my life. (I was eight months pregnant and really not in any condition for manual labour, so maybe I should have known better?)

For all intents and further purposes the greenhouse was effectively abandoned, although I rushed in there a few days later with a mask over my face to remove the last of the garbage and to set up our various garden tools on the shelves. Since the window walls are half busted-in, I think there's probably enough ventilation in there to guard against imminent death if we only pop in once a week or so to grab a trowel or the rose food.

So! Having been twice thwarted, do you think all this zonolite dissuaded me? No sir, it did not.

Whenever I was in the barn, I found myself looking at the ceiling. It consisted of painted cardboard, erected from above between the attic joists. I poked at it. It didn't sound like there was anything above it, let alone little wood-chip-type bits of carcinogenic insulation. I don't know why, but I hummed and I hawed and I prowled around out there, during the day and at night with a flashlight, obsessed. I had a hunch about the barn: WHAT IF they'd insulated the greenhouse, but NOT the rest of the barn? Hmmmmm.... But try as I might, I couldn't find a way into the attic. I walked around and around, surveyed the outside walls, stood on tiptoe and pushed repeatedly at what was very obviously the official trap door to the attic, nailed shut from above with about a squillion nails. Even as yet without a route to the upper level, I found myself perusing the books section at Rona and Home Depot, going through the "Garden Cottages" magazines, looking at possible design ideas for when I renovated our barn for Turner.

Because boy oh boy, I was a-gunna renovate that barn for Turner, so help me god. No author husband of mine will be banished to the basement when we've got a perfectly good barn out back just aching to be turned into a writing retreat! Mordechai Richler's third-floor attic office will have nothing on Turner's BARN, thunked I.

...Mostly it was dreaming, I'll admit. We are broke, and we don't gamble, so there are no lottery jackpots coming our way even in theory. I am untrained and basically incapable of starting home renovation projects on my own; I'm enthusiastic, and I'm a willing and energetic worker bee, but when it comes right down to brass tacks, I just don't have the skillz to do stuff myself. Plus, dude: I was fully thinking skylights and new dormer windows and wiring it all up for internet and that kind of thing. Specialized stuff like putting in a bathroom and a loft where guests could stay, and an area for bikes and the lawnmower and tools. Yeah, if it ever happened, it wasn't going to be done by Ashley K. Bristowe in her spare time. And given the budgetary constraints, we were also in no position to out-bid every Tom, Dick and Sanjay in Calgary frothing at the mouth to get in skilled home renovation people.

...But? Then? Calgary's housing market went all apeshit? ...And like? Our house? It rose in value? ...Like, a lot? ...Like, a WHOLE lot?

As any homeowner will tell you, having the price of your house suddenly jump is dizzying and disorienting, but ultimately it's good news. That is, if your house jumps in value relative to the other houses around you. If everybody's house jumps in value, like in Calgary, then everybody now has more equity in their home. Everybody wants to sell their now-more-valuable house and move into a better-but-relatively-cheaper house, to take advantage of the situation. But for most of us, we're living within our means without too much wiggle room. Our mortgages are set in a place that we can (barely) afford, and we can't take on more monthly payments. So it comes as a disappointment when everyone rushes out househunting or goes online to the MLS listings and they all realize they can't afford to move. While YOUR property has jumped in value, EVERYONE'S property has jumped in value, and EVERYONE wants their big new money if they're going to sell. So unless you're going to cash out and move to Nova Scotia, there's really no sane way to upgrade your lifestyle by moving into a different house in the same city. And so everyone comes to the same conclusion: I've got all this new equity in my house, and I can't afford to move anywhere else. ...I know! I'll renovate! That way I can live in a nicer house now, and flip it later! Yes yes. We all know this route.

In general this kind of thinking and activity is good for the overall housing stock. Conditions improve, are upgraded. But everyone is looking to flip and nobody is willing to sell for a bargain. So you can take equity out of your house to renovate, but if the market crashes, you're on the nut for the bigger loan. If the market doesn't crash, you're making your property better - but remember, so is everyone else. It's sort of a single-blind experiment where all the homeowners are the mice, unaware of their also-sprinting competitors.

Now, knowing all this isn't going to stop us. No no no. I have a lather all set to go for home renovation, anyway! Damn the market and its vagarities! I'd pour every last cent into our house, learning how to do stuff, if we had the capital. Tiling the floors by myself! (Probably rather badly.) Framing the basement! (Ditto on the badly.) Etcetera!

About a month ago we started talking to Brucio about building a deck on the back of the house. I think Dr. Bristowe had finally had enough of sitting crookedly on our uneven back "lawn" (I shudder to think you might be picturing a manicured garden of grass.... noooooooo) perched sideways on his own old, peeling lawn chairs (we're not shy about accepting family hand-me-downs, you may have heard). So he snapped one day and the idea of putting on a deck was set in motion. Our deck-building friends arrive on Monday: deckwarming party to follow in early July.

This process evolved into further discussions about Brucio investing in our house as a partner, to improve the house in general of course, but also to make some money if/when we ever sell it. We're talking painting the stucco, replacing the windows, maybe doing new front steps, fixing the gate, and so on. Meanwhile we were also perusing the housing listings, trying to ascertain if we were truly fucked in the moving-onward-moving-upward process of finding ourselves a house that might not be right beside the 7-11, for example. Only the barest attempt at cursory research revealed that yes indeed, we are never, ever in our lifetimes, going to ever be able to afford to sell our house. Unless we are picking up and leaving Alberta with our lives and profit, which we aren't doing anytime soon, or so goes the plan.

Anyway, in the midst of finding out the market value of our house (a terrifying number too large to count, really) and planning these investment-renovations with Brucio, and actively looking at some of the other real estate options nearby (too small, or too expensive), the zonolite problem re-appeared in my brain. When it was going to cost $25,000 and we owned a house worth X number of dollars, it was simply out of the question. But now that we own a house worth X plus the drastic and terrifying appreciation, suddenly it might not be such a crazy idea. I got on the horn and arranged for an asbestos remediation company to come and assess our house.

Could be that we have no problem whatsoever. I doubted it, but could be. Like, in theory. But in any case, I priced the zonolite remediation (removal and air quality guarantee) and it came in at about $10-15 per square foot + $350/day air quality monitoring. Which brings the price tag of getting it the hell out of our ceiling at between $11-15K (the earlier estimates had been a bit high). So... then let's say we put in a few windows, a skylight, a wall or two, some plumbing and electrical, paint, and a stairwell. Maybe even a little second-story balcony landing on the back. In this scenario we've increased the square footage of our house by at least 800 sq.ft. and put in another bathroom and a bedroom, all for the investment of about $35,000 - 60,000, give or take.

Does it seem extreme to dump that much money into my ugly-much house? Well sure. But it begs the question: could I buy a different Calgary house that's 2000 square feet, and has four bedrooms and two bathrooms, for a mortgage price I can afford? Abso-smurfly not, not in a hundred years, and not even way out in the suburbs. Right downtown on a double lot? Sure, that'll be your first born child plus your nuts. No way.

OR: or, or, or, putting in a bit of elbow grease and investment into the barn to renovate it into an office for Turner. This project wouldn't raise the value of the house/property to the same degree (if at all), but I think it would actually be easier, besides feeling like a gigantic accomplishment. I love the idea of Turner toodling out to the renovated shed, mason jar fulla whisky in hand and all them clever words in his head. I get all shivery and excited about providing that space for Turner to work. He loves his basement office, but I know that once we had the barn all fitted out how he liked it, I'd never convince him to move, not ever. We'd live on Spiller Road for all the livelong days of our lives, prying it only out of our cold, dead hands.

So suffice to say, I finally called in the remediation people. And they came a few days ago. And lemme tell you, we got all kinds of value for our money.

Worth the price of admission, Point 1: Sean, the very nice asbestos remediation man and Dave, the very nice environmental engineer guy were interesting, polite, engaged in the process, and not in a hurry. If I'm paying you (or I might end up paying you for your grotesquely expensive and specialized services), I don't want you to act like you're doing me a favour. And these guys didn't. Contact me for a recommendation if you need either asbestos remediation at your own home, or any kind of environmental engineering-type stuff - they were professional and very reasonably priced; free consultation is the best kind of consultation, sez I.

Worth the price of admission, Point 2: Turns out there is no insulation in the barn attic, whatsoever! (No wonder it's so goddamn cold in there!) And we know that because...? Because Dave, the (tall) environmental engineer guy managed to figure out that I was pushing on the wrong side of the attic hatch. It's on hinges! And I was pushing on the wrong side! Those squillion nails weren't holding it down, they're holding it together! We put up a ladder and lo and behold we found... more of our neighbour's wood! (That he claimed, to my face, the other day that he had no idea how to get into the barn's attic is something I'm now calling into question...) But: Nothing Else! No zonolite! No lab testing necessary! (The greenhouse is insulated seperately, just as I suspected.)

HURRAY!!!

Worth the price of admission, Point 3: It turns out that only about half of the zonolite found in Calgary homes contains asbestos. Given the internet sleuthing I'd done (and we all know how dependable the internet is when it comes to verifiable, abso-toot-ly true "facts"), I had definitely given up hope that what was up in our attic could possibly NOT be terrifyingly toxic. I'd even had a huge temper tantrum on the electrician who installed our bathroom ceiling fan last year because he wasn't being 100% diligent about keeping zonolite from falling down through the hole as he worked. But here were these asbestos-industry guys standing in my kitchen telling me that we basically had a 50-50 chance of getting away lucky.

Folks, we've established that I'm not a gambler, BUT I LIKE THOSE ODDS!

So they went up into the attic, and they gathered up a giant bag of the zonolite (me hiding around the corner, cringing, imagining the little asbestos fibres floating all around us and getting sucked into Sloane's lungs), and took it away for testing. They also tested the drywall paste, since if you don't already have enough to worry about as a homeowner, it turns out that basically everything used in construction prior to 1980 may or may not have contained asbestos, particularly drywall paste. You're just in a game of Russian roulette to see whether or not YOUR house has it. So they took some chunks of drywall for good measure, and I wrote a cheque for $140 to cover the lab work, and we all shook hands and wished each other luck (luck for me = no asbestos in the house; luck for them = attic stuffed full of asbestos, ching-ching, giant remediation project!).

A few days passed. And then we came home on Friday to a message on the answering machine from Dave, environmental engineer guy. All the samples came back negative. He was preparing an official report for me and would send it in the mail, but the jist of it is this: NO ASBESTOS.

No. Asbestos. None. The zonolite in our attic is safe. The house is clean.

I stood outside on the lawn, where Turner had brought me the phone. I was just stuck there, looking at the house, contemplating the roofline and the attic, below. Actually, I guess I really didn't believe the news. I'd spent two years thinking that our health was at potential risk, living here. And that we couldn't really invest any energy or funds into the house, because eventually it'd just be torn down. Suddenly this whole world of possibilities was visible. Suddenly it didn't seem so bad to be five doors down from the 7-11.

Turner came back outside. "What're you doing? ...You don't believe it, do you?" No, I didn't.

"Well, believe it, Ash! Best $140 you ever spent, eh? Anything you do to the attic now, starts out $15,000 cheaper than it woulda been. ...Could've been worse! Could've been the carcinogenic insulation you've spent the last couple of years stressing about! Eh?!"

Yes, indeedy. It's starting to sink in that all that worry was for nothing, thank god. And that it's nice to be lucky.

 

Categories: Ash | Calgary | City Planning | Family | House

Comments [2]

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What The Hell Is Going On With Canada Post?

I can't ignore it any more: something wonky is happening down at Canada Post. Yesterday I received a letter from my bank stating that my mortgage payment had bounced and that if I didn't immediately rectify the situation that my credit rating would be adversely affected. That letter was dated April 27th - almost two weeks have passed since the bank sent me a warning that I'd MISSED A MORTGAGE PAYMENT. Now, actually, I'd caught that error myself about a week and a half ago, and fixed everything, so we're not sliding into credit hell here at Chez Bristowe Turner (at least, not yet). But two weeks for a local letter, seems a bit looooooong, don't you think?

Then there's Mum, who sent Brother John his birthday card three weeks before May 7th, and it still hadn't arrived by the time we went out to dinner to celebrate his 30th birthday. We've been getting incorrectly addressed mail for months now, for addresses that are nowhere near ours. The postal codes aren't even similar.

I won't go into the deets of the gigantic XpressPost delivery fuckup that was our pre-Thailand adventure of getting Sloane a new passport two days before we left. Because we're still very touchy about that GIGANTIC FUCK UP and it's better for the collective blood pressure around here if we just quietly go about our business of putting the finishing touches on our open-and-shut pending lawsuit on the matter. (It cost us in excess of $450 cash money to fix that last-minute disaster, even before you start counting up the time lost, stress undergone, sleep missed, etc., not to mention the seriousness of the form we had to sign - and get notarized by a lawyer in the middle of the night - stating that we hadn't received the first passport, signatures by us releasing the government to incarcerate us if it's ever found that we were lying. Which we weren't, but nobody likes to be threatened with jail - c'mon.)

Last fall our postal worker left our mail out in the rain two delivery days in a row and it was all destroyed. And although we have a nice, neat, large brass sign on our house which reads, "PLEASE USE SIDE DOOR" (with arrows showing you the way), Canada Post workers (and only Canada Post workers, I might add) always ignore the sign and ring the front bell, or just leave packages propped on the front porch. Because apparently our government mail service is now employing illiterate people. Or maybe they're just obstinate. Or perhaps our mail carrier is getting back at us for reporting those two days of sopping mail found on our sidewalk inside the gate. Frankly, I do reserve my right to report shitty service ANYway, so there.

Lastly, it's gotten fricken EXPENSIVE to send stuff. Letters have weeny little variances in the size and weight allowances, but if you keep within the limits I'm the first to say that it's a true bargain to be able to send something through the post for 52 cents. But god help you if the package is, say, a small paperback book. And, say, you want to send it to Ottawa. $18 later (no insurance included in that price - to which I always respond, "...Do I want insurance? Why? Are you going to lose it? What am I paying for with the $18 itself?") and they won't even use pretty stamps - just a utilitarian machine-produced label. Uh? ...Uhhhhh? Zillions of dollars put into advertising: send xmas gifts to your family! Send your EBay stuff with Canada Post! E-cards! Online tracking (for a price)! And yet it's $45 if you want to send some maple syrup to Thailand. For example.

Is it just us, and our family? I don't think we're being targetted per se, but Canada Post seems to be falling apart at the seams. I'm a lover of stamps and I like the idea of "the post" very very very much indeed. The mythology, the lore, the idea that the mail 'must go through', etcetera and so forth. However, I can't help but let my brain hover around the notion that Canada Post is subcontracting out the meat of its business to 1968 Czechoslovakia.

 

(Usually I put a little graphic or photo in posts like this, to ground the text with an image. When I went to the Canada Post site to pull their logo for this purpose, I found the following warning:

Canada Post Logo Permission Request Form Because it represents the highest level of trust for the people and businesses of Canada, the Canada Post corporate logo is valuable property of Canada Post. It is the most visible and recognizable expression of the Canada Post brand. Canada Post acknowledges the desires of third parties to show a connection or relationship to Canada Post. However, you should not use the corporate logo to imply affiliation with or endorsement by Canada Post without express written permission from Canada Post.

Somehow I just don't think they're going to give me permission.)

 

Categories: Ash | Canadiana

Comments [2]

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Honest Ode To Ramsay

About a week ago I received an email from some cool folks in Toronto, looking to move back to Calgary after many years away. Sounds like they're looking at Ramsay as a possible staging ground for their return to this city, with the intention of avoiding suburbia and hopefully finding something similar to their super neighbourhood in Toronto.  

Hi Ashley,

I came across the post about the rendering plant on your blog when I 
was researching the community of Ramsay.

My name is [name removed].  I'm an ex-pat Calgarian now living in 
Toronto with my wife, and our 14 month old daughter.

I thought I'd write you to ask your thoughts on raising a family in 
Ramsay.  Seems from your blog that it's a nice place to be.

We are considering returning to Calgary after five years in Toronto, 
but the thought of living in suburbia is, well... unthinkable.  We 
have really gotten used to the community spirit of living in a dense 
residential environment, especially in our neighbourhood of 
[inner-urban community in Toronto near Lawrence and Eglinton],                                                                        

which is full of young, smart, creative people, who are 
raising families.  We're in an amazing mom's group, there are several 
playschool co-op centres, parks, cafes...  It's the kind of 
neighbourhood where you go for a walk and keep bumping into people 
you know.

So I'm trying to figure out where we would live if we come back to 
Calgary.  I grew up in [near-northeast middle-class community in Calgary]

so I know the loneliness of the 
suburban teenager...  I've driven through Ramsay on my last few 
visits home and got the feeling that it's one of the only 
neighbourhoods in Calgary that compares to what we have here in 
Toronto.  I like the look of the creative folks roaming the streets, 
the pretty streets, and the cute houses that give the place a very 
inviting feeling.  We would consider living there.

So, if you have a second, maybe you could tell me about Ramsay and 
what the community offers to young families.  Are there good 
preschools?  Are the inhabitants progressive, creative people?  And 
do you know if the city is planning any development projects in the 
area that might compromise the neighbourhood?  Do you get used to the 
smell?

Thanks, glad I found your blog. 

 

While I complain periodically about the local drug scene (found another crack pipe by the newspaper box across the street yesterday), and the folks dragging all their worldly possessions up and down the sidewalk in front of our house (periodically peeing on my neighbours' steps, true enough), and it's accurate to say that the smell of the Liliydale factory is, some days, pretty gross, I have a lot of good things to say about Ramsay too. So I figured I'd post my reply to these fine people, for the rest of you Canadians looking at the Alberta economy with wistful longing. To pique your interest, likesay. Calgary may well be a city of 990,000 that sprawls over the geographic area of Delhi (a city of 14 million), and a large portion of the population does reside in the sprawl of blandified pink suburbia chewing up the prairie in every direction. But there are some pockets of urban living here, too, and certainly Ramsay's one such example.  

So here's my reply, which became a sort of Ode to Ramsay, Calgary's wrong-side-of-the-tracks hidden gem community. Read on:

 

Hey there. We lived in Toronto for a long time - at Gerrard & Broadview, and on Roncesvalles, and my husband put in time on Vaughan Road for a while, way back. I'm a reluctant returnee-to-Calgary after growing up here (Bonavista - I know what you mean about the lonely suburban teenagerdom) and fleeing for university. I built my adult life in Ontario and overseas, and was based in Toronto for the rest of my life, so I thought. Like, I was NEVER coming back to Calgary. Somehow, it happened anyway.

I bought in Ramsay for a couple of reasons. I'm a housing planner, but you don't need any special training to look at a map of Calgary to see that all the inner city housing is either waaaay out of anyone's sane range (Kensington & Mission), completely condo-ridden and full of drunk kids (the Beltline), the eyries of Mount Royal, or... Inglewood/Ramsay. Even this area is getting a bit crazy price-wise now, but we bought in two years ago just before things went totally insane. If you are coming from Toronto you'll be satisfied with the size of houses on the market for <$300K than the new Calgarians who need 2000 sq. ft. pink McMansions in order to feel at peace with the world - those people drive through here and see a slum, I think. But then, they can have their homogenized suburbs as far as I'm concerned, too. So I suppose we're even?  

"The Barns" of 18th Ave SE

While Ramsay may well have been a vacant ghetto fifteen years ago when we were growing up in Calgary, things have changed a lot since then. When I was looking to buy I knew this area would be a sound investment, I could walk to work (my job was downtown, then), and most importantly, I could afford a down payment here. Also, my dad lives in Douglasdale (the DEEP south), so the Deerfoot corridor is well-known to me and allows us quick access to areas of the city where I grew up, where I can navigate blindfolded. Plus my dad can easily drop by on his way home from work. And my brother ended up buying the house three doors down from us a few months after we moved here, so overall it's turned out to be a great location for us in terms of proximity to family.

Sloaner and Uncle Jah (aka Brother John) on point.

Ramsay is a bit down-at-heel in comparison to Inglewood next door; Ramsay's houses are of slightly lower quality, the commercial development isn't cohesive, you hear stories about drug busts - or see them taking place down the road (just once so far, but you never forget your first real-life SWAT team sighting). But this area is very definitely still in transition. Our neighbours are a bus driver, a carpenter, an electrician, house cleaners, etc. and all fine people, regular folks. However, Ramsay also pulls the creative folks to an extent - people who work at Critical Mass, One Yellow Rabbits, the puppeteers of Green Fools and Old Trouts and CAOS, my husband is a writer and I'm a photographer, there are massage therapists and painters and so on. I'm sure there are creatively-minded people living everywhere in Calgary, but because Ramsay is so raw, it's easier to uncover the public dribbles of obvious effort spilling over the landscape. As one of the oldest areas of Calgary, Ramsay has fewer controls on what colour you can paint your house and people are happy to hang public sculptures on their garage frames for everyone to enjoy as they rumble up the back alleys. There are prayer flags, and people trying their hand at haphazard self-taught home renovations, and weird cars, and violently snarly dogs running along (thankfully solid) fences, dogs that would never last in a more upscale neighbourhood.

There's no nearby large-scale grocery store, which is a big pain in the ass - but the Safeway in Mission is a short drive or a long walk, or for better selection we go across Deerfoot to the Forest Lawn Co-op. Hope springs eternal that someone will finally put a proper grocery in somewhere in Inglewood so we can shop locally, but a big condo project (that might have shifted things in that direction, services-wise, in Inglewood) just fell through due to water table issues, so for now the antiques stores and ridiculously-upscale furnitureplaces hold sway down 9th Ave there and we still have to drive to get proper groceries. So there are good things about Ramsay, but there are also things I'm looking forward to, when it gentrifies a bit more.

Thrown aside as "garbage", this perfectly good crack pipe. Some people, y'know?

As I'm typing this I realize that while I can give you a good overview of the community, I should mention that we work away from Calgary for about a third of the year, every year, in short bursts of two weeks to two months, all year round. Due to these kinds of schedule disruptions we haven't fully dug in to the neighbourhood, and I think we aren't as invested as we probably could, or perhaps should, be. I think this will change for us when Turner starts the writing portion of his current book (www.thegeographyofhope.com) - right now we're still in research mode. In the fall he'll start writing and we'll be here for a good long seven-month stretch, and I think that'll change things for us here in that respect. In theory we're very community oriented and I know what you mean about wanting those Toronto-type things in Calgary, but aside from a few community meetings and kids' birthday parties, we haven't really gotten properly involved, so I'm speaking mainly from our everyday experiences here, and what I hear from the other people we know in the area -- and from all this, Ramsay is known to be a fairly cohesive community and I don't dispute that claim, particularly for Calgary. Even having been around and out in the yard for the last month I've met tons of people our age new to the community, seeking just what you and I are: an established neighbourhood in the city's core. Certainly Ramsay has that going for it, in spades.

Looking north up Bellevue Avenue, the ridge of Renfrew visible in the distance.

I don't think I need to warn you that there is nowhere in Calgary that functions like a Toronto neighbourhood except perhaps Kensington, especially with the real estate market being so insane for the last few years and people flipping and moving and flipping and moving, not being grounded in one place. But there's also the car love of Calgary and the empty downtown (this latter is changing, but slowly). So I would be concerned that your abiding satisfaction and pleasure in your current Toronto community which may not be wholly replicable here. If you move back to Calgary you obviously have to be prepared to try to find the things that Calgary has, specifically, to offer, and exploit those aspects of life here, mercilessly. (I.e. suck it up and get a cowboy hat, etc.) Otherwi