The Five Question Interview

Crystal from "Chances Are I'm Going To Hell For This" was recently interviewed by her friend - and posted the results on her blog. She also chose to perpetuate the meme by asking for willing interview victims subjects in the comments, and I obliged, because I'm egocentric like that. So here are my answers to Crystal's five questions!

1. What/ who influenced you to go in to science?

Good question... I've often thought that I was just plain destined to get into science, because it matches my personality and thinking patterns so well. But there were lots of people who helped me to discover this compatibility.

I got interested in biology through loving cute animals, so I would have to cite James Herriot and David Attenborough for sparking that interest. And of course I have to thank my Mum, who watched all the wildlife documentaries with me, and successfully argued with my Dad that we should get a cat.

As my knowledge of biology matured, I became interested in smaller and smaller units of life - from cute lion cubs down to organs, then cells, then finally viruses and genes. I had an amazing biology teacher by the name of Ann(e) La(w/u)rence (sorry Miss, can't remember the spelling!) from the age of 14-18 - I've actually been planning a series of posts about great teachers, and you can bet she'll be in there - who was incredibly animated and enthusiastic about her subject, but especially about genetics and evolution. And once she taught us those things, I stopped searching for smaller and smaller things to investigate, turned 90 degrees, and headed off into an in-depth exploration of genetics. I guess if she hadn't intervened, I might have continued on to chemistry and then subatomic particle physics...

2. What would you do/be (besides science) if money were not important?

I'd be living on a sailboat (summer) and little rustic cabin (winter), travelling around the BC coast and writing a book.

3. How did you know your hubby was "the one"?

(Super-lameness alert).

When we first met, I was halfway through a two-year postdoc / work permit. So when I met this hunky Canadian carpenter at a big group dinner one night, I didn't automatically think "long-term relationship", let alone "future husband". But I really enjoyed talking to him, and when he gave me his number, I was more than happy to call him up (after the obligatory two day wait, of course) to arrange a date.

Still not thinking any further ahead than a month or so at a time, we started to see more and more of each other, and the more I got to know him, the more I liked him. The first time I knew we had something really special was on our first overnight kayak camping trip, about five months into our relationship. We went skinny dipping at midnight (yes, in the sea, in Canada, in May - just about worth it for the awesome phosphorescence) and then snuggled around a campfire on the beach.

But the first time I knew he was "the one"? We were hanging out in my shared house on a rainy Saturday afternoon, playing cribbage. He said something that made me laugh - and it kills me that I can't remember what it was - and I just suddenly realised that I wanted to spend all my rainy Saturday afternoons with him, and that I would be delighted to find myself playing cribbage and listening to his silly banter when we're both in our eighties.

I told you it was lame.

4. Are you planning on having kids anytime in the future?

Nope.

As discussed before, I have multiple reasons for this choice, the primary reason being that I just innately and emphatically know that it isn't for me.

Plans can change... but I am at least 95% sure that if you come and find me in 10 years, I still won't have any kids.

I'm VERY excited though that two close Vancouver friends are pregnant (after years each of trying, they'll be giving birth two weeks apart - wonder what was in the water that month). I've already told them both that I want to be a very active and involved Auntie.

Kids are awesome - as long as you can give them back.

(On my research retreat last week, I had four female colleagues (aged 30s - 50s) separately ask me the same question. When I gave my answer, all but one said "oh, you really should, you know". So the next time someone tells me that they have kids, I want to say "oh, you really shouldn't have done that, you know").

5. What is the most embarrassing drunk thing you have ever done?

OK, this is pretty shameful. One drunken night in my shared student flat in Glasgow, my flatmate and I somehow got into a discussion about the Seven Deadly Sins. Except that we weren't sure what they were. Her version (from her Catholic school education in Ireland) was different to my version (from the movie Se7en, heh), and we had no Bible, encyclopedia or internet to hand.

So... we went to the phone book and got the number for a local convent. Because we were drunk and the answer just simply COULD NOT WAIT, we ignored the fact that nuns are mostly in bed well before 11 pm, and called the number anyway. (When I say we, I mean that I dialled, but she encouraged me and assured me that the nuns wouldn't mind).

Me: "Oh hello, I was just wondering if you could tell me what the Seven Deadly Sins are?"
Nun: ".............................no." (click).

We looked the answer up on our other flatmate's computer the next day. My version was right.

Now it's your turn! Do you want to be interviewed?

If you do - here are the rules:

1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me" AND leave your email address (or blog link) in the comment!
2. I will respond by emailing you (or commenting on your blog with) five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions. (If you don't have a blog, I can post your answers here).
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

Retreat Part II: Welcome to America!

Miraculously enough, the morning after the night before dawned bright and hangover free. I was still unprepared for discussing my project with colleagues over breakfast though. Talking shop over coffee, lunch, dinner or drinks is perfectly acceptable, but brainstorming over a crab cake bennie and a pot of (bloody awful) tea just seems plain wrong.

Luckily for me, Mr E Man was on his way! He missed the 7 am ferry by ten minutes, but caught the next one, and picked me up from my picturesque (if chilly) hiding reading spot on the resort's boat dock.

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(Aside: when I first met Mr E Man, I was struck by how well connected he is. He seems to know someone everywhere we go, and has scored us everything from free Dairy Queen treats to half-price posh hotel rooms in San Francisco and an annual free ski lesson. I, on the other hand, brought only grad students and postdocs to our combined network. But a couple of weeks ago, at an after-work pub session, I realised that I, too, have become One Of Those People. Y'know, the people who say "oh you're going to [resort]? My brother-in-law is deputy director of the ski school there, gets me free lessons. Let me know when you're going up there and I'll see what he can do for you". Or "your hard drive crashed? My friend runs a data recovery business, here's his card". Or "your roof's leaking? Here's my (other) brother-in-law's phone number".

Or, in this case, "our friend's step-mum is a property rentals manager for a bunch of holiday home owners in Sooke, let's call her up and see if we can get a good deal on a last-minute booking".

When I say "our" friend, I obviously mean Mr E Man's BFF).
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So off we went to Sooke, on Vancouver Island's Southernmost tip.

As you can see on this map, the border does a weird little blip around these parts in order to incorporate the whole of the Island into Canadian territory. If I'd been reading my citizenship test preparation materials like a good girl, I might be able to tell you whether this act of border manipulation was negotiated peacefully or not. Either way, upon arrival in Sooke my phone sang me its happy little text message song, and I found a "Welcome to America!" message from a US cell phone network, which I thought was a bit presumptuous.

But it didn't matter, because we were in heaven. We had a beautiful little cottage overlooking the water, with a hot tub on the deck. The upstairs bedroom was smaller than the master suite downstairs, but we slept there anyway on account of the two-countries-for-the-price-of-one view towards Washington's Olympic Peninsula.

Hello Obamaland! The beach and the trees are Canadian, the mountains are American. Britannia rules the waves, but only in a general sense.

This prompted me to ask whether seeing America from my house meant that I could be Deputy Prime Minister, and Mr E Man to point out that no such position exists. I really do need to read that citizenship test stuff.

I do like Vancouver Island. We walked on the beach, saw a seal and loads of eagles (but no whales unfortunately), soaked in the South facing hot tub, had a nap, played Scrabble (a rare win for me!), tried some local beer in a redneck bar followed by a lovely dinner in an old (by local standards) and allegedly haunted pub, and finished the day with some chocolate brownies and more local beer in the hot tub. It was interesting though that I didn't have my usual reaction to small town BC - almost every time we visit my mother-in-law on the Sunshine Coast, I get the urge to drop everything, leave the city, and buy a wee place by the water. Not so this time - perhaps it was the chill in the air and the early sunset, despite our attempts to pretend that it wasn't actually winter.

No trip to the Island is really complete without a ferry ride. In an unprecedented move the following day, we arrived at the terminal five minutes before the ferry was due to leave - and got on. Fortified by some hot mint tea and BC Ferries' excellent chips and gravy, we spent most of the trip on deck, continuing our "it's actually summer" delusion.

Very cold and windswept seagull catching a free ride at the back of the ferry

I didn't see any whales this time, but the narrowest point on the route contained several seals and a variety of bird life, no doubt feasting on an abundant supply of fish. Duly inspired, we headed home for an evening of chores... and sushi.

Have I ever mentioned that I really enjoy living in Vancouver?

Retreat Part I: Speaking out - creakily.

As regular readers may remember, I work with a group of scientists and clinicians from various departments of my institute. Their research encompasses everything from cell culture to clinical trials, and unless I've worked with them on a specific grant application, I often don't have a very firm grasp of what they're up to. So Friday's "first annual" (I love that phrase) research retreat on Vancouver Island was a great opportunity for me to hear about everyone's current projects, and put faces to the names of some of the off-site PIs.

View from the window of my room at the retreat resort.

I also asked the organiser for the opportunity to present one of my current projects to the group, as I'll need input from lots of them if I'm ever going to get it finished. Like everyone else I was allotted 8 minutes and 1 slide.

Not wanting to have to leave the house at 5 am to catch the first ferry, four of us (including my boss) decided to fly to the Island. Given the foggy conditions we called the airline the day before the retreat, and they told us they'd been flying all week, no problem at all. Of course this meant that we took off an hour and a half late, and arrived half way through the session in which three of our party were supposed to present. "Luckily" for me though, I was due to speak at the very end of the day.

As in, last. As in, nothing but me standing between the audience and a lovely evening of dinner and drinks.

Now, I've done a lot of presenting in my time. Not much in high school, but a lot at the undergraduate level. My first few presentations were awful - I always get very nervous, and my lack of experience made things much, much worse. But while I got better and better with practice, I've still never stood up to give any kind of speech without a pounding heart and sweaty palms. My PhD and postdoc years gave me even more experience, including two platform presentations at the huge American Society for Human Genetics meeting. Despite coming close to a panic attack before every single major presentation, I would calm right down as soon as I got halfway through the first slide. I was always given a lot of compliments on my performance, and was told that I looked and sounded supremely confident. I even successfully incorporated a few jokes, and my regular lab meeting and journal club presentations became calmer, almost routine.

When I moved into industry I still had to present once a month or so, to both internal and conference audiences - new product launches, sales reports, marketing campaign metrics, that kind of thing. And at my wedding, my friends and family said it was obvious that I'd had a lot of public speaking experience (the wine helped).

My new job, however, does not give me any opportunities to present. So this was not only the first time presenting to a new group - always guaranteed to make me nervous - but also the first time I'd presented anything to anyone for over 18 months.

Apparently it is not like riding a bicycle.

I sucked.

I mean, I got across almost all the information that I wanted to convey, in more or less the right order. People asked questions and gave suggestions, continuing in the bar later. But I could hear my nerves in my voice for the first time in years, and I didn't even try to use the laser pointer because my hands were shaking too much. No-one said anything about that aspect of the talk, but I was not at all happy with my performance.

Of course, it's different when you're presenting your own research. In those situations you're THE global expert, and reminding myself of that always helped me to control my nerves. This current (unbloggable) project is not my core area of expertise, and is the kind of thing that absolutely anyone can have a strong opinion on that is at least as valid as mine. That and the time slot do provide some mitigating factors.

Still, though. Confident public speaking is a hard-won skill that I'd come to be proud of. I do not want to lose it. So I either need to find some creative way to fit more presentations into my current role (unlikely), or consider other options. Toastmasters, maybe - does anyone have any experience with them?

A few glasses of lovely local wine in the bar helped to take the edge off my disappointment. And dinner was delicious. It was fantastic to spend time with my colleagues outside of work and find out who's into restoring antique furniture, who's writing a book, that kind of thing. We had some really quite hilarious conversations as the wine continued to flow. Turns out that one of the PIs whose grant I helped with in October was second author on the paper I presented at my grad school interview - that made him feel pretty old!

Mr E Man chose to forego the above geekiness (although the furniture restoration / house renovation conversation would have been right up his alley). Instead he caught an early ferry on the Saturday morning to come and whisk me away to a romantic cottage on the Island's Southern coast. More in Part II...

I escaped to my lovely room and its jacuzzi tub at about 11 pm. Here's more of the view, and some more arbutus tree p0rn. This one is very young - does that make me a treedophile?

APLS Carnival

The MIND GAMES edition.

As I outlined in my own contribution to this month's carnival, I have a very bad habit of offsetting the things I'm doing well against some of my less sustainable behaviour. In need of a little help, I asked you for the mental tricks you use on yourself to help you make the right choices, even when they make life a little harder. And you didn't disappoint!

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"Fake it until you make it", suggests Beany. Her first attempt at this mind trick earned her a nice juicy raise and compliments from her boss - and her latest bout of faking it has turned her into someone who really does like to ride her bicycle.

RJS of GoingGreenMama acknowledges the hefty responsibility of thinking "beyond yourself to the generations ahead of you [...] and maybe all you wanted was a clean toilet!" She tries to prevent those little one-off slip-ups by thinking about the impact of the world's combined little one-off slip-ups.

Meanwhile, new contributor Steph finds that her mind games (or "sleight-of-mind" - I am so stealing that) have evolved as she has taken more and more steps to make her family's lifestyle more sustainable. From a starting point of concern for her children, she has progressed to considering the global impact of all her choices.

Betty Black turns the topic on its head with a fascinating post about her life-long struggle with food. She has found that considering her impact on the planet gives her an extra incentive to eat well - for, as she says, "what is good for my health is also good for the environment".

Farmer's Daughter looks to role models within her own family for inspiration. As she strives to follow the example set by her grandmothers and great-grandmothers, she also makes the difficult decisions with one burning question in mind: "Would my parents be proud of me?"

Kellie Brown acknowledges that there are times "when logic and reasoning and willing myself to do something don't work". Luckily, she has a whole arsenal of tricks. From remembering inspirational quotes to channeling another awesome grandmother, the common theme is sacrifice in the name of future generations.

Green Resolutions compares her own choices to those made by her real-life and on-line friends, and realises that the difficult decisions are sometimes easier than they initially seem. As she says, "If they can do these things, why can't I?" Remember kids, peer pressure is great - as long as you have the right peers!

Education was the key for Green Bean. After reading and watching documentaries about the hidden costs of consumerism, her "stomach hurt whenever I thought about buying something new". Coupling this guilt with the removal of her biggest temptations, she has ditched her bad habits and, as a bonus, reclaimed more time for the most important things in life.

Erin aka Conscious Shopper has a fun, if unusual, muse: Mary Poppins. Taking inspiration from the line "Find the fun, and snap, the job's a game", she's turned thrift store shopping into a challenge, and takes pleasure in the creativity of finding new, greener, solutions.

From Mary Poppins to MacGyver! Ruchi is another APL who relishes the challenge of living sustainably. As she tries to find ways to make do with what she already has, "my competitive streak would take over and I had to [make my computer] last out two months, and another two months, and another two months, and another two months."

CuriousAlexa describes herself as "a recovering perfectionist" who often finds herself paralysed if she thinks she won't do something perfectly on the first try. She has developed a range of tricks to help push herself past this "analysis paralysis" - and has already ditched the shampoo aisle of her local supermarket.

Another first-time contributor, Citizen Green, acknowledges that it takes time and practice to reverse those bad habits - but prefers to focus on the positive, and doesn't beat herself up when she slips a little bit. "Talk to yourself when you live green and tell yourself you are doing a great job!", she says.

Greeen Sheeep takes us on a tour of her local supermarket with shopping list, to-do list, and pet peeve list in hand. Her mind may wonder "Why do I even try?", but her trick of visualising the superior aspects of a sustainable lifestyle reminds us that the rewards are worth the effort.

Crstn85 is another APL who uses a range of mind games, including trying to live up to the expectations that her friends have of her. As she says, "would I be willing to admit that I turned the heat up a few degrees to my friend who I am constantly badgering to lower her thermostat?"

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Thanks to all of this month's contributors for another stellar carnival - as always, I feel like I've learned a lot! Stay tuned to the APLS blog for news of next month's topic...

2009 is looking up

“For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act – not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. All this we will do.”

President Barack Hussein Obama, January 20th, 2009

My karma is stuck in trafficma

I have to admit to a short-lived bout of extreme smugness today.

One of the main bridges bringing commuters into Vancouver is out of commission for the next few weeks, due to fire damage to the wooden (!) trestles under the bridge deck.

The early morning news was full of shots of nose-to-tail gridlock, from various traffic cameras and the ridiculously redundant Global 1 chopper. (WHY do they feel the need to bring us live air-borne footage of strings of tail lights in the dark, with no other features or landmarks discernible? And WHY is half of each Global 1 update taken up with advertising for Kal-Tire or whoever?) Amid the genuine acknowledgement of how hellish the commute is going to be for our suburban neighbours came a flash (or two, or three) of devilish schadenfreude for the polluting, commuting, I-don't-want-to-carpool drivers.

Switching off the TV and running ever so slightly late if I wanted to make it to the gym before work, I registered the freezing temperatures as I went into the garden to get my bike out of its storage area. What a beautiful day - sun at last, reflecting off the Lions in all their pinkish snow-capped morning glory, steam and fog mixing over the city's gleaming skyscrapers.

My foot slipped on some heavy frost as I pushed off from the back alley - no biggie, the actual road looked pretty much clear.

And it was, for about seven blocks - over a major intersection, and just far enough on my way that I decided it would be silly to go home. The frost and ice were bound to get better as I went further down the hill.

Except they didn't. I adjusted my stopping distance at the first set of lights - no problem. I continued as the light turned green, going more slowly than normal, and mentally readjusting my expectations from my workout.

And then, as so often happens, a car approaching from my right on a side street decided to turn left by going the wrong way around a roundabout, with no signal.

I had no idea that I knew how to make my bike fishtail in such an interesting and impressive manner.

Needless to say (for I am a huge wuss), I lost my nerve and ended up walking the rest of the way. Walking CAREFULLY as I crossed various very slippery side streets. Some braver souls were cycling very slowly and gingerly down the hill, but I wasn't the only one who got off and pushed. I didn't make it to the gym, of course, meaning that I have to go now instead - yuck, it'll be all busy and hot and sweaty.

That's what I get for being such a smug little no-bridge - a frustrating commute that took three times longer than usual, and the need to find an alternative route tomorrow.

Karma's a bitch.

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(P.S. Is it too much to ask that people who live on bike routes scrape their car windows, rather than pour hot water all over the car, which then cools and freezes into huge icy patches for cyclists to either fall on, or have to swerve to avoid? I know it takes a little longer, but is five minutes of their time really more precious than someone's life? Surely it's a litigation issue, if nothing else).

Tales from the Crapt Crypt

I have all kinds of long blog posts planned in my head - but no time to write them! So instead I will share a short but disturbing tale of horror from my office. Specifically, the dreaded unisex office bathroom*.

Now, on a good day I actually like my nearest loos. Those of us on even-numbered floors get two of the single room, self-contained type, with everything including the the sink hidden safely behind a lockable door. People on the odd numbered floors get the inferior, but at least gender-segregated, multi-stall bathrooms. (They often prefer to use ours instead, causing some long waits at times). I don't really mind sharing with my male colleagues. I just wish they would remember to a) flush and b) lock the door; I've walked in on three different guys in the last year, including two different guys on one particularly memorable day.

So. My story. I entered one of the bathrooms yesterday to find that someone had lovingly draped a long piece of loo paper over the wall-mounted handrail. And I do mean long - almost touching the floor at both ends. It looked perfectly clean and dry. I can only assume that some environmentally conscious person had taken too much paper from the roll and, rather than waste it by flushing it away like a normal person, left the unused portion for the next visitor.

Am I just being squeamish and untrusting, or is this an example of horrible unisex office bathroom etiquette? Or just horrible bathroom etiquette in general? (I definitely wouldn't do this at home, even though I only share with my husband).

I obviously didn't touch the paper. But it was gone a few hours later. I don't think the cleaners had been in, because there were no new rolls of paper and the bin was still full of paper towels. I really, really hope that the person who took it was the same person who left it there in the first place...

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*I did my postdoc on a different floor of the same building. We kept trying to segregate the bathrooms by sex - a logical step, you'd think, especially as one of the two rooms on each even-numbered floor has features required only by women - but some unknown person kept ripping the "Men" and "Women" signs down and putting them in the trash. Apparently this was a building-wide phenomenon. People on all floors have now given up and accepted their unisex betoileted state.

Vancouver 2010: new events announced

Non-Canadians are probably not yet aware of an initiative known as "Own the Podium 2010". The idea is to develop and support Canadian talent in the run-up to the upcoming Vancouver-Whistler Winter Games; the ultimate goal, of course, is for Canada to top the medals table, and also place within the top three nations (based on number of gold medals) in the Paralympics.

The other part of the plan has been less well publicised.

In order to improve the odds of a first-ever Canadian gold medal on home soil, and boost waning local support for the games, the organisers are planning to introduce a number of new winter sports. These events have been specially designed to give Vancouverites an advantage over their competitors:

- The "I Don't Need Snow Tyres, This Is Vancouver, and Anyway I'm a Really Good Driver" Giant Slalom (Motorised) event will take place down Fraser and other main city streets.

- The "Oh Shit" Freestyle Aerials (Bicycle) competition will be held wherever the combination of steep hills and new pot holes affords optimal air for commuters on hybrid bikes. Conditions change daily; check back regularly for updates.

- Similarly, the Short and Long Track "Walking Through Ice and Slush Without Falling On Your Arse" race routes will be decided after Games staff have assessed the city's side streets for the longest and steepest sections of treacherous sidewalk.

- The "Riding the Bus That is Crammed Full of People Who Usually Drive and Do Not Understand Bus Etiquette" Endurance Event preliminary rounds will be held, oh, everywhere. Survivors finalists will compete on the 99 B-Line down Broadway during rush hour.

- Unfortunately however, the "Sod It" Snow Shovelling (Sidewalks) event has been cancelled due to lack of interest.

My training is going well, and I expect at least a bronze in two of the above events.

Holiday photos

All taken on my phone camera, because while I did take my real camera to the UK, I never actually seemed to have it with me when we went anywhere photogenic.

Can you guess the locations of the following photos?

A: Somewhat easy

(Cath (not me!) correctly guessed Clifford's Tower in York).

B: the most obscure photo I have from this location; I have another image in reserve in case no-one gets it from this one!

(Chall correctly guessed Edinburgh. This shot was from inside the main courtyard of Edinburgh Castle, facing towards the Royal Mile. Better (but too easy for the competition) photo coming soon!)

(Second photo, from outside the castle. Not sure why the BBC were there).



C: the most obscure location of the three, hence the need for two different photos.

(No-one got this one, but apparently some people are desperate for the answer! It's Tynemouth, just outside Newcastle. A hidden gem; only locals really know about it. I was born about 30 miles up the coast (moved to York when I was 5, visited "home" a lot) but only went to Tynemouth for the first time when I moved to Newcastle for my undergraduate degree).

The prize? Erm, bragging rights?

Carbon offsets and other mind games

(This is my entry to the January APLS carnival, which I will be hosting here on the 22nd. Still plenty of time to get your posts in!)

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Regular readers might remember that I like to play a bit of poker. Nothing serious, just a low stakes game with friends. I usually break more or less even, but I do occasionally win up to (gasp!) $20.

While I consider my $10 buy-in to be part of my regular expenses, any winnings are "free money" and therefore special. The day after a big win, I might skip making lunch at home, and go out and buy myself something yummy instead. I might treat myself to something funky on iTunes. Or I might have an appie or a more expensive beer the next time I'm at the pub. I mentally offset this expense against my winnings.

The problem comes when I'm still doing the same thing a few days later. Sometimes I offset my $20 winnings against three or four different $15 expenditures. And somehow this seems perfectly reasonable and rational at the time. Free money, woo hoo!

Unfortunately, this bad behaviour spills over into my attempts to live sustainably. As I mentioned in my first APLS carnival contribution, I'm already doing some of the easier things, but struggling with the more difficult items. And my weird little brain tends to offset the former against the latter:

"I'd love a steak tonight. Oh, but red meat, methane... then again I do bike to work, so my contribution to climate change is pretty low, really, when you think about it. Medium rare, please".

or

"Local apples, or imported bananas? I should really get the apples. But I haven't had a banana in ages and it would be yummy on this cereal. Hmmm, well, at least I'll compost the skin".

or

"Can or bottle of Dr Pepper?* Plastic is bad, evil. But I don't want to drink all of it at once, and with the bottle I can put the cap back on and save the fizz. The plastic is recyclable. Oh, sod it, there are like two recycling bins on every floor at work."

At least I'm aware of the problem, right? And I'm starting to try a few little mind games on myself. When I'm looking at a restaurant menu I try to imagine the clouds of methane rising, not just from that one cow, but from a whole herd, all of them there only because people like me like to eat steak. In supermarkets I try to visualise the journey of that bunch of bananas (and all of their friends) from plantation to shelf. And when I'm tempted to buy something plastic, I imagine not just my bottle, but all the bottles on the shelf, floating up on one of the pristine beaches I've enjoyed in the last few months.

The latter image has been especially effective - I believe I have bought my last ever bottle of shampoo, as the switch to locally made soap has been very successful. (Now to work on my conditioner addiction). And the cardboard cylinders of frozen concentrated juice are just as good (and much cheaper) than the big plastic bottles.

But I do need more help! Especially with those food cravings... That's why I chose this carnival topic. I'm hoping that some of you more experienced APLS have some better mind games that I can use on myself.

Oh, the power of the carnival host. Mwa ha ha ha!

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*I drink pop like once every couple of months, just in case you're shocked and horrified!

Puck off

I'm not going to comment on the result of last night's World Junior Hockey Championship gold medal game*, for fear of a certain Swede coming up here and clobbering me. I wanted to focus instead on one particular aspect of TSN's pre-game coverage.

Between live on-ice updates and taped interviews with coaches and former players, the announcers chatted with a studio guest - none other than that smug git our esteemed Prime Minister, Stephen Harper.

Mr E Man turned to me incredulously.

"What the fuck's he doing there?!" he asked.

"It's a good thing", I replied. "If it starts to look like we're going to lose, he'll suspend the game and hope the Swedish team self-destructs before play restarts".

Fnar fnar.

Seriously, how is Harper still PM? And while we're at it, how is Bush still POTUS? The instant change-over you get in the UK and Canada is too short a transition, but the American transistion is waaaaaaaaaaaaay too long.

Methinks 2009 will improve greatly when both men are gone.

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*Other than a brief "woo hoo!"

2009 sucks

So far this year, and in no particular order:

• My mother-in-law slipped on some ice and broke her arm - both bones, just above the wrist. She didn't need any surgery, and seems in good spirits, but 2 months in a cast might change that. One of her sons is with her right now, another is going at the weekend, and we'll probably go up the weekend after that.

• My brother-in-law's apartment flooded when a pipe burst in the apartment above him. So he, his two kids, and his puppy are homeless for a month while everything is fixed. Luckily his insurance covers everything, including temporary accommodation.

• A good friend is reluctantly leaving Vancouver and going back to the UK, largely because of the lack of affordable day care. This is the second good friend I've lost for the same reason in a 6 month period, and I'm thinking of opening my own day care so my remaining friends will stay here.

• The awesome tenant in our basement suite is thinking of moving to the US in the spring to join her boyfriend. As Mr E Man said, "make him come here! We'll never find another tenant who'll look after our cats and give us home-made butter tarts with the rent money!"

• The state of the roads means I won't be able to cycle until next week at the earliest, and then only on the main roads - it could take weeks to clear the side streets. Until then I'm stuck taking the fucking bus, which I hate. Yeah, I know things are much worse in Edmonton / Toronto / Wherever, but that's part of the reason I didn't want to live there and chose to move to Vancouver instead!

• The oh-so-pretty lattice work arch over our gate, that the purple clematis climbs over in summer, collapsed under the weight of the snow and is now lying sadly in a 3-foot snow drift in the garden.
  

• Several other friends are either sick or having various personal crises.

Seriously, I think I'd like to skip 2009 and go straight to 2010.

Snowed under...

I'm back! Ever so slightly hungover, but the jet lag has gone. Staying out until after 2 am on our first full day back seemed to reset my system.

This is what happens when you leave your car outside for two weeks during record snow falls... this is NOT normal weather for Vancouver! And it's still snowing!

I hope everyone had an excellent Christmas or other festive break. Our first week in the UK was awesome, but unfortunately the second week was spoiled by a 24-hour norovirus that my sister brought with her from London and that swept through the entire family. It hit me next, at about 11.30 pm on Christmas Eve, so I was the only one to miss Christmas dinner. I did get to open my two stockings though - chocolate, fruit, chocolate, whiskey, more chocolate... just what I needed! Mr E Man and my Dad went down next, and my Mum was just getting over it as we left. Lovely.

Still, at least I lost some weight over Christmas, for the first time in my life...

So, back to reality - I worked from home yesterday, and am due back in the office tomorrow. As usual when coming home from a trip, I'm feeling a bit snowed under with laundry, other household chores, work stuff, and an avalanche of blog posts - I'll get to them soon, I promise!

Like Mr E Man, I need to start digging out. If only it would stop fucking snowing...

Happy New Year, everyone!