I have finally successfully managed to grow canterbury bells in my garden. I didn't realize that the volume of flowers they produce is so huge that the flowers, if not staked, keel right over. So I cut a few of the keeled over ones, and they are sitting in a noise of purple on my coffee table. And ever since then, I sneeze a lot. I don't know if these two events are connected, but I'm getting to the point where I look at purple flowers and I start to sneeze.
When I sneeze, the noise I make is ha-cheee. Not ah-chooo. My sneezing is in German. Boris the dog has been barking lately, I think he barks in English: woof woof woof, not wau wau wau. The rooster cookarookoos, which is closer to German than the English cock-a-doodle-doo. I can't seem to make up my mind on the childhood noises. I think that is the last thing to go when switching languages.
If you don't know me in person yet, and you met me, it probably wouldn't occur to you that I have ever spoken anything other than standard Canadian-accented English. And yet, about once a year, a random stranger will call me on it and express a suspicion that it's my second language. It last happened in March, at a meeting in Saskatchewan. If I could hear what these infrequent people hear, it wouldn't be there (it would be obvious if I was having some high-falutin conversation about Beethoven - BATE-hoven not bate-HOVEN, thank you very much - or Bach, which is not pronounced BaCK, but no, ordinary conversation). But there is something that gives me away to the very rare ear. The only time I notice it is during involuntary things like sneezes.
Kids learn language very easily. It certainly didn't take me long to learn English, and I'm sure I lost most of the accent within a year or two. The last things to go were what comes out when I hurt myself - It was Aua! not Ouch! until I was at least sixteen, and then it didn't become ouch but Shit! (I'm all class) - and the use of the word "with" in a sentence. I could say "with" no problem (W/V things are hard for Germans. As are VWs if they have a lot of maintenance issues, but that's another matter). I could, for example, say very easilly "with this chocolate I will pig out". But if you switched it around to "I will pig out with this chocolate" I was sunk. It wasn't just the W, it was the th (another tough one for Germans, and making BaCK forgivable because I understand about sounds your mouth just doesn't know how to make) - so my sentence would be I will pig out vit tis chocolate. Say the sentence properly, and feel your tongue in your mouth - do you feel how much farther up between your teeth the first th is than with the second? That takes focus if you have to learn it. For some reason, I managed to do it quite easily if it was the beginning of a sentence, but had to stop and reset my mouth if it was the middle. Or come out sounding like one of dem people who doesn't know who to do ze th.
But that's all ancient history, except for the sneezing. I'm such an English speaker, I catch myself thinking "how cool would it be to speak another language? I wonder what that's like?" No, really, I do. I wonder this even as I'm listening to, say, an Edith Piaf CD and understanding the French lyrics and flipping through a German novel. But it doesn't count! My French is terrible - I refuse to speak! - and I never *learned* German, not like I would have to learn Spanish, or Norwegian, or Inuktitut - or any of the other languages I will be fascinated with at some point in my life.
And my language is English. I prefer to write English only (I don't much care about the reading), I prefer to have complicated conversations (and simple ones) too in English. There are German words I find handy, and in conversations with other German-speakers will lazily resort to those, but they tend to be the untranslatables. I don't *need* them, I *like* them. I could only do my work in English. I speak English far better than German. But my German is fine. I speak it with a regional accent, I don't stress out about having to switch to it sometimes. It just is. I probably have 1.8 languates (2.0 if you give me 0.2 for the rudimentary French).
But there are people who have a total of 1.5 language, and no 1.0 in either one. I know lots of these - the ones whose German did not get maintained as well as mine (I spent significant chunks of my 20s in Germany, including some university stints, in part to avoid losing the first language) and whose English never did lose its sound of "this is my second language". There are so many people who can't speak either language without an obvious announcement every time they open their mouths: I don't speak this language perfectly. It happens to all sorts of people. Sometimes, I am entertained by the language that is developed as a result, when you take your original language and start to absorb new words and expression that are borrowed. My parents, for example, will go to the dump and maybe run over raccoons on the way there - "dump" and "raccoon" don't get translated to German (there are German words for these concepts, and they are cumbersome and were not in usage in their German lives).
Oh, and my car? bremm-bremm, not vroom-vroom. But then, it is a VW. It also makes my mechanic's till go ka-ching ka-ching.
This has never been a daily updates sort of blog, but sometimes, the stuff to tell you about piles up, and then, like all decent procrastinators, I ignore the whole big pile. (This is a pattern for other parts of my life too.)
So, since I last burbled at you... I went to Ron's Snake Islands kayak skills weekend, as I do every year. This one was the best one yet - our numbers were down from other years, which was in part due to a forecast of high winds combined with a longish crossing over to the Snakes. However, all of the people who did make the crossing were of above-average skills, and we covered more ground than we normally do. I am now (finally!) comfortable with high brace turns, and have a marked improvement in confidence on the low brace turns. I have, however, lost skill and confidence in coming up from upside down or sideways using additional floatation - Corey had to rescue me when I got stuck (to my credit, I didn't panic and wet exit). I lost my goggles in the water, which ended my voluntary upside-down state unless my hand was firmly on another boat. I took no pictures of the weekend, though other people did - no fewer than three photo collections have been sent to me.
Right after the Snakes, I went to the U.K., to Oxford. There wasn't much touristing, though my camera contains quite a few images of the grand old colleges and similar. They go with a rant on how societies deliberately create barriers to underline exclusion in order to create belonging. Between that and English food, I am once again reminded how much I enjoy living in Canadian society, where the word "egalitarian" is more than a dictionary entry. Also, my shoe fell apart while in Oxford, and there was no shoe glue to be found. I spent at least 10 minutes searching before buying new shoes (dozens of shoe stores to be found).
I got back on Friday afternoon, dealt with airport annoyances at Dorval (this was the first time I had to go through the silliness we are forced to endure if taking a flight to a Canadian destination other than the one where we first land from abroad). Originally, I'd thought I'd have enough energy to come home, get into the car (the kayak was already car-topped) and head up to Cape Croker. That didn't happen - I had to deal with very important tasks like strawberry picking, showering, grocery shopping, and napping.
Saturday morning, I took the car (complete with its recurring "check engine" light) up to Cape Croker, where I bailed on an instructional session (too many people at too diverse skill levels self-identifed as "intermediate") and paddled around with Sonja (aka Sam's Wife) before smoothly moving into the sit in a lawnchair on the beach and consume Sam's beer with Sonja. There was a (delicious) potluck, and there was disappearing into my tent for sleeping before it got dark - thus I missed the rest of what there was. Too tired. Yesterday, there was a car shuttle to Barrow Bay and a fun paddle back to Cape Croker via Barrier Island. I have some pictures of this in the camera. Barrier Island looks like the 11th circle of hell - which is defined as the 10th circle + seagull nesting + gigantic poison ivy.
Today, Monday, I am back at work in Guelph, and feeling distinctly overwhelmed. The car is at the car-doctor, no doubt draining my bank account. There are too many sticky notes on my keyboard, due to U.K.-buggering-off last week. There are too many tasks to accomplish. When I go home, I will feel the need to do some work in the garden - it is beautiful and wonderful and one big mess of weeds between the beautiful and wonderful, and I haven't cut the grass in ages. I need to fix the gelcoat on my kayak. I need to clean up the mess I shovelled out of the car (all my camping gear) before taking it to the shop this morning. I have not had non-sour milk in my fridge in about two weeks. I need to do laundry. I have a book I've not been reading despite wanting to. I have things I want to plan, but am lacking the big picture view of the next few months. I am getting annoyed with myself for not committing to things while mulling over other things.
Really, the the State of Johanna's Mind report could be summarized from my exchange with the coffee shop cashier this morning. I had my coffee, in a cardboard cup (had forgotten my cup), and I needed a new customer loyalty card (every 10th coffee is free)
Johanna: I'm sorry, I lost my card again, may I have another one, I know, I'm a loser.
Cashier: Who isn't these days?
As in, I know you're busy too. We all are. But *I* get to go kayaking again on Saturday. And when I'm on a kayak trip, all is right with the world. I highly recommend it.
You know you're in a Canadian-operated aircraft when the pilot comes on to tell you the score of the hockey game.
(You know I'm flying again when I'm cranky)
You know, it's been some time since I uploaded any pictures of myself. Thus, I give you this one. This is what I look like through the eyes of a nine year old. Or rather, this is the look you'd get if you decided to play with my camera, and "play" meant "take a million pictures of people regardless of whether they want their picture taken or not". Sooner or later, you'd see my tongue. It's a natural reaction. After all, Jim - who is the grandfather of Kchina, the nine year old in question - had much the same expression (but far better hair) in his portrait. Steve 
pretended to be absorbed in something over his shoulder. Leeann just went about her merry way and brushed her teeth regardless - I could do an instructional storyboard on teeth brushing from that series alone. Allyson posed her hand for some great shots (amazingly enough, she didn't position her fingers in any rude sort of manner). Julie's portrait expressed a sentiment that could best be called "get away from me". I suppose it's a small mercy that Kachina didn't venture toward the thunderbox with the camera. There was a lot of deleting to be done - most of the pictures were out of focus or just really really unfortunate angles, making incredibly lovely people look either a) much fatter than they are; b) much older than they are; c) much crankier than they are; d) like you'll be reading about them in the paper soon; e) shiny; or f) stoned. You'll understand that I won't be uploading most of these - see, I kind of lilike these people, and want to kayak with them again. These pictures would probably not make me very popular.
Last weekend I joined a whole lot of people - more names than I can remember, unfortunately - on the first ever (to my knowledge) GLSKA new members' trip. Keith and I came up with this one at the AGM last fall, after we realized just how many potentially cool new paddling buddies we may have missed meeting because we were on so many trips that were declared "full" by the organizers. Rather than leave it up to chance this year, we decided we'd simply make sure we met some new people by organizing a trip for them - and we pulled Jim in as an additional trip leader when it looked like our idea was well received. Our regular paddling associates were *not invited*. (If you have a problem with this approach, great! I strongly encourage you to organize another new members' trip - given how many people came out to this one, during bug season, when the weather was kind of crap, I suspect you will have no shortage of bodies. Just saying.)
We went to Sharpe Island in Massassauga Park. I think of Massassauga as Georgian Bay Lite - you have the Bay, but you're pretty sheltered. The water here is warmer than in most other parts of the Bay, which is always good for a trip in June. Massassauga lets you reserve sites, thus guaranteeing us a spot that was big enough for all of us. I booked the sites. Keith did everything else. Including leading the first - and biggest - group of trippers out there on Friday. I met my group on Saturday morning at Moon River Marina, and Jim and Kachina paddled back from Sharpe Island to help lead the group out. This was a very, very good thing. See, conditions were about as miserable as you can get if a) you have not paddled much; or b) your rudder is out of commission. I was in the latter category. And this time, I didn't manage to fix it with a trusty leatherman. I had to just suck it up and do a lot of corrective strokes with a wicked crosswind. This was ok, though, since Jim was paddling sweep (I can deal with no rudder in wind, but not if I also have to look out for other paddlers!) Besides, my hull tracks notoriously straight. Julie was not so fortunate - the rudder on her rental boat also did not want to cooperate, and it being a rental boat she didn't have the familiarity with the hull as I do with mine (and her boat does not have the same tracks like it's on rails characteristics as mine), so she really struggled until Jim pulled us over and managed to fix her steering. Still, it was a tough slog into the wind. We spent a lot of time hanging out behind islands so the group could, well, *re*group.
But no matter! Because we made it to Sharpe Island (Keith's group was out on a daytrip to Wreck Island). When we got there, we felt more like eating soup and less like paddling some more. Or maybe that's just me, and I'm lazy - but I did strip off anything that involved latex cuffs and fired up my stove. Which prompted a whole new round of dragonfly-bashing, just because it's *noisy*. It may be noisy, but it does not deserve this abuse. 
Have you considered that I am a morning grouch and really quite like the option of turning up my stove while waiting for my coffee water to boil? Presto, instant "don't talk to me". Furthermore, my stove simmers. Keith's does too - see how well it simmers if you lift the pan a few inches above the burner. Jim, who is one of the most vocal critics of the jet engine sound I like to create, was out of fuel for his stove. You can imagine my utter delight at offering my stove for his cooking needs! Finally! Not only would he have to eat his words along with his usual spam (you can't diss the stove that just cooked your dinner!), but he'd actually see just what a great stove it is. And, you know, to give Jim credit... by the end of the weekend, he was seriously considering adding a dragonfly to his kit. And at some point in the afternoon/evening, two of the guys fixed my rudder and became my heroes.
So, it wasn't a very tough camping trip. We did a lot of sitting, and there was even cake. And the next morning, all but *three* people chose to depart with Keith, and one of them was Jim (who has to hang out with me. He was using my stove. Plus, he's kind of used to me, after all these long trips we've done). I didn't bother feeling rejected, though - after all, Jim and I were left with two of the strongest paddlers in the group, Terry and Steve. And we went out to Wreck Island and wandered the interpretive trail, and then we played in a bit bigger water - just a taste of the Bay, enough to make me very glad my rudder was functional again - and then we found the wreck that gives Wreck Island its name before heading in. For me, this part of the weekend was the best - some good paddling, and I didn't have to search my brain for a name every time I was talking to someone. But hopefully, I'll see all of these people again, and I won't be going over my mental association checklist before opening my mouth - their names will just pop out!
A post that most of you will find agonizingly boring, and a small minority of you will be able to relate to perfectly.
For all the complaining and procrastinating I do, really, packing the stuff I need for a weekend kayak trip takes very little time (I procrastinated for 24 hours, I just did it in 25 minutes, not counting packing the food bag). Really, if you do this almost every weekend, the only things you need to do are:
The loading boat onto roofrack is what I really hate, though. My boat, empty, weights 51lbs (probably a bit lighter, due to the gelcoat that is missing in places! then again, perhaps that is compensated for by the cockpit cover). 51 lbs is not a lot to lift. But I have to maneuver it out of the confines of its home - and it is 17'7" long! there are corners and stuff! I don't like to bang it (see missing gelcoat). Sometimes, I wonder if I should find myself a paddling boyfriend (criteria: must live close enough to come over to help load boat) for this reason alone (though I have another one in my list of reasons for a boyfriend lately: when crashing at someone else's house, and there are a bunch of you, if you are half of a couple you get way better bed options. It's true! We're all going to the boss' cottage. My married colleague *of course* gets his own bedroom with lovely bed because he is bringing is wife. Those of us not accessorizing will be scattered on random cots and couches!) Back to the boat... loading it myself means I back the car up as close as I can, I put an old comforter on the trunk, and I slide the boat up. I hate this job with a passion.
But really... it's not a big deal, loading up for the weekend. Here my list of crap to be taken on a weekend kayak trip:
My boat includes:
Here's how it all fits in the boat:
Bow hatch:
Fathom Five Marine Conservation Area is a national park. That's what the Parks Canada website says. Bruce Peninsula National Park is also a national park. The two of them are very, very close together. They have the 
same sort of campsites: wooden tent platforms, very tall composting toilets with solar panels to power the fans, and "no fires" rules. If you thought the two were one, you would be forgiven. But they are not! And if you thought Fathom Five was all about the shipwrecks and caves that draw divers to this area, you would be making a logical assumption. But you would be wrong! There are islands that are part of Fathom Five. There are diving destinations that are part of BPNP. And, most importantly from my perspective, there are two sets of rules for camping, including two offices, two fee structures, two reservation systems.
Well, no. Not two reservation systems. Fathom Five has one set of backcountry sites, on Flowerpot Island. There are six tent platforms. It costs the same for six people to stay on six platforms as it does all of them to be on one: $9/person/night. You don't need to be able to paddle or hike in, either - there is a tourboat. And there are *no reservations*. First come, first served. Six sites. At the very tip of the Bruce Peninsula. Makes sense, no? Sure...
So, because this makes so much sense, and because we once again wanted to stalk some orchids, Rob devised a plan where we - all eight of us - would hog at least half the tent platforms at Flowerpot for the weekend. And in order to do so, we'd simply show up before anyone else on Friday. Done. So, would be campsite hog that I was, I waddled into the (very dead) office in Tobermory. Where the (very friendly, but not exaclty busy) staff told me, ummmm... this group of 30... they took all the sites... yesterday. Yeah. Seeing as not only are there no other campgrounds on the islands, but the other islands in Fathom Five are *off limits*, *no camping* and all that sort of stuff, and seeing as Rob had all these people driving from far away (I was a couple of hours early because I don't read my email very well), I was of course incredibly impressed by the efficiency that is Parks Canada. I contemplated spending the time I'd have to wait for Rob composing a thank you for such great use of my tax dollars letter. I went to the library to find more information on effusive thank you notes. And there, the internet, which I used to retrieve Rob's cell number from my email, and then... sigh... then I had a *job* to do. Ok, I volunteered. I can think of better things to do than sit in front of a computer when my kayak is on my car.
Like drive to the Bruce Peninsula National Park Office! Because they have two more sets of backcountry sites that are accessible via water, on the mainland: Stormhaven and High Dump. Here, you pay by the site. And you can reserve the sites long in advance. And if you haven't done said reserving in advance, you can take the long and twisty road into the Cyprus Lake campground to find *their* office and register. Which I did, dragging along John, 
who had also shown up early. (And I really am going to be fair - both the Tobermory and Cyprus Lake staff were incredibly friendly and helpful, insofar as they could be within their rules, and the Cyprus Lake people kindly let me book more sites than I had bodies in evidence, too. And we were really lucky that Stormhaven wasn't close to full, is all I can say.)
And that is what we did. A frustrating start to a glorious weekend. Really. It couldn't have worked out better. Because from then on, everything was smooth: the next time I got Rob on the phone, the connection didn't crap out, Rob managed to leave a message for Sarka, Marti and Doug - who were going to paddle out to join us the next day - with an updated rendezvous point, Elaine and Carla got my message at the Tobermory office ("look for two women with kayaks on the car. If you see some, accost them. If they don't run away when you call them Elaine and Carla, give them this note. Thank you!" And that's pretty much exactly what happened.)
And from here on, really, it's all gloating. See, the stretch from Dunk's Bay to Stormhaven is pure eye candy - cliffs and caves and the grotto and all that. I did it twice last year, but it was still pretty great again this year. The last time Rob did it, Georgian Bay cruelly forced him to focus entirely on the tricky water and he saw nothing. Rob was not unhappy. Nobody was unhappy. How can you be unhappy when 1. you realize that you are going to a *way nicer* campsite than the one you had planned on; 2. Rob's boat makes a clinking noise ever time he jiggles it too much; 3. there are caves and cliffs; 4. it is not raining; 5. there is no headwind; 6. you are not sitting in front of a computer but instead in your kayak.
The only tricky bit about Stormhaven is the landing - it's fully exposed to the north. In calm weather, there are these delightful limestone shelves that let you step out of your kayak. In the slightest bit of onshore wind, there are these stupid waves that want to grid your glass boat against these pesky limestone ledges lurking just below the surface. But we had a good crew of helpful people (and Rob and I were the only glass boat people that Friday), so we landed. And inspected our new paradise. And drank the welcome beers that had 
clinked their way along in Rob's boat, and ate the welcome smoked fish that our thoughtful trip organizer served us. I was waiting for the welcome committee to set up my tent, but at this point it went off duty. So I did it myself, on my appointed platform, wishing I was out on the (no camping!) flat limestone ledges with a wonderful view of the Bay. Elaine and 
Carla, meanwhile, spent 20 minutes trying to find their designated tent pad. They found it, along with about one million blood sucking insects. Oh, and several hundred feet elevation gain. So, while Rob, John and I were the goody-goodies who stayed in the woods on our wooden pedestals, Elaine and Carla thumbed their noses at us and at the rules, skipped over the poison ivy, and set up in way better spots than any tent pad in the park could provide. Envy!
Rob and I kept our envy in check, though, with another beer - and smug proclamations that the rogue campers would have to hide their tents during the day on Saturday, when we would go to Flowerpot, meet the rest of our crew, and hunt down those tiny little orchids. Except those two, they don't 
follow rules at all! No sir! Rob speculated that perhaps this goody-goody "but these are the *rules*" sort of behaviour was a central European thing (which Sarka disproved, by not even contemplating anyplace but the wide open rocks when she showed up). Their tents stayed where they were when we did our day paddle to Flowerpot the next day (I started *my* daypaddle by dumping on launching. Those cushy limestone ledges are as much fun for launching in a bit of onshore wind as they are for landing.)
Flowerpot is pretty. Particularly if you don't land where the tourboat does, and instead beach your boat between the two star geological attractions, the flowerpots. Which we did. And then we tromped along every meter of trail the island has to offer. We found three kinds of orchids - one of which didn't even look like a flower to me, so I refused to photograph something that made as little 
noise as that and took a picture of a columbine instead. But I did take lots of pictures of striped coral roots and calypsos. We had the hardest time finding the calypsos while standing right in front of them. They're good camouflage artists, those orchids - they are a similar hue but less intensity than the gaywings they hide among. But take eight sets of adult eyes and defenseless little 
calypso orchids that can't actually move because they're rooted, and the people win. We bagged those suckers (by which I mean, we flopped onto our bellies and took endless pictures while heeding Rob's many cautions not to hurt other flowers while stalking this particular bloom).
And then we paddled back. And hung out some more. And Sarka and Doug went swimming, without nary a whimper at the coooooold water. So those of us sitting in our 
dry and cuddly clothes on 
shore made the sound effects for them. There was much giggling, and much eating, and sunset watching, and it was perfectly lovely. And the next morning, the water was flat as glass, the launch was dead easy, and we were in danger of vertigo floating over the clear clear drops. We saw fish far below us. We made kayak trails through the pollen. We felt smug because the hikers couldn't see half of what we could. We 
dragged the day out for as long as we possibly could with not much coastline to paddle, and then we were done (and Sarka and Doug swam again at Dunk's Bay.)
The workday:weekend ratio is backwards.
Years ago, after a lecture to a first year survey class, one of the students came up to me afterwards and said "now I'm afraid to eat!". I'd been discussing the development of industrial agriculture and its associated environmental impacts. Pretty basic stuff. I'm sure Michael Pollan's students get paranoid all the time.
Around that time, I was very anti carbonated soft drinks. I was particularly anti Coca Cola for so many reasons, and for even more reasons, I was anti aspartame sweetened Diet Coke. I just didn't drink that stuff. Didn't drink it for over a decade, as a matter of fact. It just wasn't part of my lifestyle.
But, as mentioned recently, then the chance to win a trip to Turkey (or a bunch of other places I want to go much less than Turkey) through the iCoke.ca promotion. Which I discovered by seeing an ad. And then I discovered the icoke participating beverage cups at the place where I get my coffee. And I bought one. And I entered the contest. It told me in really loud letters that I now had 1 entry in the draw. That sounded pretty pathetic.
So! I have twelve (12!) entries in the draw now. That's a lot of pop. And I'm not going to pour that much sugar into my body. So, when a trip to Turkey is a very tiny possibility (tinier than getting a raise that would pay for a trip to Turkey, for sure, and yet, I don't march into my boss' office and demand more money so I can go to Turkey), there go all the I don't do aspartame and I don't drink pop things. That's 12 Diet Cokes.
And for 12 work days (the timing of which correlates perfectly to the timing of my 12 entries) I drank Diet Coke. And for 12 work days, I was tired. So so so tired. I'd have the pop instead of the afternoon coffee, around 3:30. Instead of picking me up, though, it caused me to fade very quickly. By the time I got home, around six or seven, I'd want to sleep. Every single evening. Not on weekends - but hey, on weekends, I'm bopping around in my kayak, so I'm excited about what I'm doing, no time to be sleepy.
And I puzzled over the sleepiness. There's work stress, sure, but that's a constant. I looked at what I ate - crappy food, but no crappier than the last six months, really. I decided to blame it on lack of exercise - I had this episode of intense leg pain in March that took me out of all that I was doing, and since then I haven't gotten back into the groove of the gym or the long bike rides or the other high intesity cardiovascular things (it still hurts sometimes, and I've lost fitness, so it's not *fun*). But I've been a slug for three months now. Hmmmm.
So I stopped the pop, three days ago. And I'm not tired anymore. I don't believe every nutjob website out there, especially not ones that have names like "The Truth about Aspartame", because... well... I have critical thinking skills. And I could find a website to back every weird theory I have (and if I didn't, I could of course create one). But "fatigue" is a rather frequently reported side effect. I don't know if there's a causal connection. I also don't care.
I know that in my very small case study (n=1) with a very limited number of observations (12 days with aspartame, 100s without), my evidence is this: no pop = alert. Pop = sleepy.
I really quite like spending my evenings puttering, not snoozing. So trip to Turkey or no trip to Turkey, bye bye pop. Though if one of those 12 entries wins, I'll happily pose with a case of the stuff. I just won't drink it. Because I can sleep at home, I don't need to go to Turkey to do that.
p.s. Not looking for alternatives. Like I said, I don't actually *like* pop very much, and I don't need recommendations about other sweeteners. I am well informed. But a potential trip to Turkey trumps well informed most days. Just saying.
I'm tired a lot lately. An hour ago, I was reading on the couch and I could not keep my eyes open any longer (I was reading the Peterson Field Guide to Wildflowers. I know it's not big on plot, but still...). So I took out my contacts, feeling too tired to even walk the 5 meters to the bathroom, and plunked them on the coffee table. I didn't really think that one through - when I woke up again, they'd of course shellacked themselves to the table. Crap. Right now, the two little discs are soaking in little pools of lens solution. Somehow, I think I'll be opening a new package of lenses tomorrow morning.
Last night, I had a friend over for dinner. And he's cool and he's interesting and his conversational skills leave the Peterson Field Guide in the dust, and yet, just after 10, I fell asleep while talking to him. How embarrassing. Worst host ever, that's me.
On the weekend, I was watching a sunset on Georgian Bay. The moment the sun was down, all I could think about was crawling into my sleeping bag. I didn't resist.
Other than going to bed ridiculously early, though, I've made the most out of the last few weeks. First it got ridiculously hot. So the weekend that started, I bugged Lorenz for the keys to his condo and headed up there with Eliezer, Marga and baby Avril, who were visiting from Venezuela. That was nice. On Sunday, I went for a quick paddle with Hart and Ray out of the private little marina at Ray's condo development. Then, I played in Toronto traffic for hours, taking my friends back into the city. That was not fun. That's when I knew it was truly summer, by the gridlock on a Sunday afternoon. It took 90 minutes from 400/401 to St. Clair/Mt. Pleasant. And after that, I still had to get *out* of the city.
It does not help that the air conditioning in my car has deserted me. It works, I think - but it does very very strange things to how the engine behaves. Thus, I won't use it. And I am balking at taking it in for service - for starters, that will probably be expensive. Also, I used to rant that air conditioning was for weenies, and I'm always bitching about how unnecessarily spoiled we are. So I thought I'd try a summer without. We'll see how long that lasts. Besides, I broke the antenna loading a boat onto my car, so I need to go to the dealer and get a new one anyway... because while I can deal with sweating on some days, I am not at all happy about no CBC on my way to work.
The heat lasted almost a week. I was thrilled with the thunderstorms and buckets of rain when it ended. I celebrated my excitement by having a nap, I think. My garden needed the rain. I am also being a bit ornery about the garden - even though I relent a bit with transplants, I am anti-watering. This, though, has more to do with laziness and no convenient water source in the garden than it does with my stated conviction of seeing which plants are suited to my microclimate without babying. The crabapple tree, two years after being brutalized by an inexpert pruning job, is sick. The rabbits ate most of my petunias and are starting on the 
impatiens. There are rogue morning glories all over the place, and my musical chairs for perennials game this spring has had surprisingly positive results for the coral bells (flowering for the first time this year, despite not being watered since the transplant operation). The honeysuckle is dead, I think. I'd spend more time in the garden if the mosquitos weren't as vicious as they are this year. I've been eyeing a "mosquito vacuum" on the Canadian Tire website. I won't go there, but that I even looked up such new-fangled biting insect destroying devices says something... (I have not yet advanced bast soundly slapping my limbs as they are contemplated for their snack potential). If I had a bug vacuum, I could buy a hammock and nap in the garden.
For what it's worth, though, I'm getting up at sunrise. I have Kicking Horse Kick-Ass Coffee, which is bloody expensive but a great reason to get out of the bed in the morning. I'm playing with a different camera for fun (see, for instance, the detail on my flowering onion above). I watched Eliezer's documentaries on his work in Venezuela and want to do something similar at my work - and today we got in the digital DVD recorder. I would have played with it, but I wanted to have a nap. I had a stunningly beautiful paddling weekend courtesy of Rob's annual flowerpottering and orchid hunting trip. I've got two expedition type kayak trips planned, both of which I'm rather excited about. I get to see my sister in a few weeks. The visit coincides with the week we both turn older. I will be 35. I'm trying to remember to upload some high res versions of pictures for a magazine tomorrow. I keep meaning to rewrite the template for my archive pages to include comments - I like the comments, and I save them all. But when the spambots first started attacking my pages, I felt I couldn't check on them every day and at least the old ones that had hundreds of spam wouldn't show. Now, I've monkeyed with the file names, and that's taking care of almost all of that, but I'm too tired to fix so the old comments appear. The thought of installing a newer version of MT which is compatible with human-verification modules makes me contemplate falling into such a deep and dreamless sleep that I'd better not go there.
And in the last week of this month, I defend a ph.d. thesis. I think we've finally come to the reason why I'm so tired all the time these days. And my next blog entry will have pictures of kayaks and sunsets and wild orchids, and it won't sound like I'm about to fall asleep. Which is what I'm going to do just as soon as I check on those contact lenses in their puddles.