The Squamidian Report – Dec. 20 / 03
Also in this issue:
Brenda
Karin & Jen
A Note from Jackie
The Ontarion
Hi All,
What is the one thing every vehicle that runs on the streets and roads and highways out here in the Coastal Mountains of BC needs ? – functional BRAKES!!! One day last week I was heading down into the valley and the brake pedal on the van became soft and went right down to the floor. Not a nice feeling at all. I took it into the local GM dealer and they said they could look at it that day so I left it there and hiked home. They will drive customers home but it’s a nice ¾ hr hike back up to our place, quite enjoyable. I had suggested that it was loosing fluid but they said that it needed front rotors and pads but there was no leak. I had no problem with replacing the brake parts, as I knew it was getting close to that time anyway.
Drove the van on the weekend with no problems, which was good because without the van Yogi wouldn’t be able to go to Hortons. I was heading back down on Monday morning and the brake pedal went right to the floor again, this time I didn’t know if I’d even get stopped or not. Not a nice feeling at all. Went straight back to GM and told them what was happening and that there had to be a leak in the system. They topped up the reservoir and said to try that for a while as the fluid may have just been too low. (Rather stupid thing for someone who had just fixed it to say). They claimed that they had checked for leaks and couldn’t find any.
Rather than head out onto the road I pumped the pedal and it would not firm up. I told them that I would not drive it the way it was. This time I accepted the ride home as it was raining. They phoned later to say it was up on the hoist and that there was indeed a leak in one of the lines. Duh. Anyway, the line has been replaced and the brakes are working the way they should now.
*
Interesting local stuff – way up the Upper Squamish River Valley in the middle of raw wilderness is a hydro generation station. It is right out at the edge of the meager road, with its back to the steep mountainside. Running down the mountainside are a couple of large pipes, delivering the water needed for the turbines. The source of the water is actually over at Daisy Lake, south of Whistler. There is an 11km tunnel under Cloudburst Mountain that delivers the water to the pipes running to the hydro station. Cloudburst can be seen from the Squamish area. It is the one to the north with the snow-covered rounded top and numerous ‘little’ lumpy peaks above that.
Yesterday, Friday, I was scanning the high snowfields on the sides of Mt Conybeare at the far end of Fries Creek Canyon from our dining room window with my binoculars. This is the canyon on the far side of the valley from us. I saw my first avalanche of the season. There have obviously been others, this was my first sighting. Because this area scales at about 10 miles away on my map, (16km for you younger ones) the slide can seem quite small and seems to move in slow motion. Pretty neat to see but I wouldn’t want to be up there. (At least not this time of the year).
*
Sue has been doing a ‘local’ audit in Vancouver this week. It’s been a difficult one that has been quite draining on her and her team. As well, the branch hours are long so she has been leaving home before 6 each morning and not getting home till after 8 each evening. It hasn’t helped that a couple of big wigs from head office had decided to drop in for a visit. Just added pressure. Anyway, she has the next 2 weeks off to relax, catch up on some sleep and do absolutely nothing.
Our Christmas Eve ‘tradition’ out here has become enjoying a nice quiet evening up at Warren’s. Making our own music in the cozy comfort of their log home and eating Janice’s good but somewhat ‘healthy’ dinner creations. Then they will come down here on Christmas day for dinner.
*
As most of you know, our old dog Yogi is getting up in years and just like any of us he has good days and bad days. He spends most of his time sleeping on his blanket with his teddy bear held between his arms. He has been dragging this same battered bear around for years. A testament to how gentle he is with his one cherished possession. In fact, if he thinks visitors may ‘want’ his Ted, he makes sure to keep it with him and out of reach of would be thieves. The only time he ever shared his Ted was when Tracy was passing away last summer. At that time he seemed to know she was dieing and laid Ted beside her, I guess figuring that she would receive the same comforting and security that he gets. Anyway, I have a picture of Yogi sleeping with his Ted posted on my web sites. Just go to the ‘Pictures’ link and at the bottom of the Pictures page is the link to ‘Yogi & Ted.
Well, there is lots of great stuff in the rest of the articles below
so sit back and enjoy. All my contributors have worked very hard to keep you
entertained and informed at this rather busy time of the year. I want to thank
each of them for their efforts, especially Greg who is my anchor column.
Without him this would be just another Email. Also, a big thanks to my 'part
time' contributors who have sent in your interesting adventures throughout the
year, wouldn't be the same without you. And a Merry Christmas
to all of you.
****
Greetings all!!
It was so cold some nights outside the little house where I first lived in in Kapuskasing that the nails in the roof and in the walls would make a cracking sound protesting against the falling temperatures. It wasn't a comforting sound to an eight year old and my mother would reassure me when I cried out for her. The bungalow only had two bedrooms and it wasn't far for her to come to settle me down. My brother in the twin bed across the room slept right through it all and she would whisper to me about the cold outside and all the noises we could hear..the heat in the pipes from the furnace with arms reaching to the floors above, the wind howling around the corners of the house or the sounds of footsteps in the hard snow outside. She would tell me about the time the temperature fell to over 60 below when she was a girl and the very air was frozen in a white fog and that it was so still, even sound itself seemed frozen. She told me about a boy at school who stuck his tongue to a metal pipe and how the janitor came with hot water to help him to get free and even then his tongue bled when he pulled away. I think it was soon after that that I became the next victim when I tentatively and ever so carefully touched the tip of my tongue to one of the handles of the church door three doors down the street and I was so shocked by what followed that I quickly pulled away, leaving a row of DNA the same way every other kid has done.
The cold permeated the house especially in the mornings; the fire had been banked in the furnace overnight and before my dad left for work he would stoke it up, add more coal and my mom would say, "Stay under the covers until the floor warms up." If she forgot about the milk delivery, the cream would rise out of the neck of the bottle with the little cardboard cap perched on the very top. Later, when I was teaching, I used to tell my kids at school about the frozen milk and the little cap and how my mom would pour the cream off for her coffee. They loved that story. Christmas was always different when I was little. My dad was a chef at the Kapuskasing Inn, a comfortable hotel for travelers and paper company executives. So, Christmas mornings would always find him at work very early instead of being at home with the family. Mid morning, he would slip away from the kitchen and come home to watch us open our presents. Then he would have to get back to work. Of course the gifts from Santa were never wrapped. I distinctly remember a huge toboggan leaning against the wall near the Christmas tree and there was even a note to us kids from Santa asking us to be careful when we went sliding and thanking us for the cookies we had left him the night before. I don't know how my mother kept rein on us for the next part of the day...but around two o'clock, she dressed us in our best clothes and we all walked down the street to the Inn for dinner as a family. My dad couldn't get away to come home for Christmas dinner so we went to him. The dining room at the Inn was always beautifully decorated. Tables with snowy white tablecloths and each held a little centrepiece of halved birch logs containing red candles. I remember those centrepieces. Then the swinging doors from the kitchen would flash open and my dad would stride out and across the room to sit with us. He was dressed in the whites of his uniform and I was so proud of him.
Those are a few memories of my Christmas at home as a young girl.
This Christmas, we have a new granddaughter to celebrate and another grandchild
soon to arrive and I wish my dad could be here to see them both. I hope that
their growing up memories will be as vivid as the ones I remember.
Very best wishes to everyone in this happy group.
Merry Christmas especially to Doug and Sue.
****
Hi Doug, and everyone who reads this,
I thought some of your readers might be interested in the latest message from Jennifer, who, as you all know is still in Berlin. I was just thinking, " isn't it amazing how we can put down our thoughts in writing and send them around the world in a matter of minutes." This message has traveled a long way from Germany to Canada via Australia... that's kind of cool !
Since this is the last message before Christmas, I just want to say, "On behalf of my family, I would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year !"
*
Last weekend I got to see a little bit more of Germany than just Berlin. We went with Ingmar's parents down to a little farm town in Bavaria called Flischbach. I would be surprised if it would be on the map, as it has somewhere around 16 farmhouses and that's it. But it seemed to be a common thing down there. Lots of little clusters of houses separated by fields or little groves of trees or a stream here and there. It was a nice peaceful little place, and quite near to the Czech republic. If I would have brought along my passport, I would have liked to skip over the border, just to say I'd been there.
To begin with, it was cold, but not cold enough for snow (that was a little disappointing). It was also pretty overcast and rainy for most of our stay at the Heiland Farm. That place has quite a history with Ingmar's family. Hardy(Ingmar's dad) has known the matriarch for pretty much her entire married life, as when he was young, his family was holidaying in the area, and by chance (or seemingly, fate) needed a place to stay for the night. There was no hotel in Flischbach, but someone pointed them to the Heilands', saying "the newly married couple over there have a pretty big house, ask if you can stay there". Well, they ended up staying the whole summer, helping out on the farm as payment for their accommodation. Every summer for the next 40 years the family has returned for visits.
There is even a certificate in the kitchen dedicated to the family Poese for their dedication. Now the farm has evolved into something of a private hotel (it even has 4 stars, I was told). People now pay a small fee to stay instead of helping out with the farmwork. Well, for some reason, Frau Heiland didn't want any money from us for this particular stay. She was so lovely and reminded me of my Oma. She had her grandson Johannes there too, who was a bright young lad, though I found him difficult to understand, because of the dialect. Though, surprisingly, I was somehow able to understand his Oma pretty well. I feel I should send them a thank you card or something.
The first night we -barely got there, I might add- the fog was so thick in some areas, it was almost impossible to see anything a few meters in front of the car. If it weren't for the reflectors on the edge of the road, we might not have made it til the next morning. We got into Flischbach and got our stuff sorted out in our rooms, and decided to have a walk around the neighborhood. We only crossed the paths of 3 tipsy looking young girls and a friendly cat which followed us all the way to the end of the road. This cat must have been a parrot in a past life, because she enjoyed riding on our shoulders. The thing reeked of cow though, so we let her walk after awhile.
The next day was a bit clearer, though it was a bit rainy. We had a look around some candle shops and factories (Ingmar's mother,Regina is a big fan of candles. Every time we've been to their place, she's had about 20 burning around the house) We also went by a place that did glassblowing, but our luck, they weren't doing any demonstrations on that day. They still had some nice things there.
We also went for a drive a bit further south to see if they had snow down there. It was a lovely drive through the hillier parts of the country. We did manage to find some snow though, around a ski resort, but since it was raining, it was mostly slush. We came upon one of the seemingly numerous fitness resorts/restaurants of the area and had a game of Kegeln, or Skittles, as it is called in the English-speaking world. Afterwards, we had another sample of the Bavarian cuisine. I'd tried Leberkäse the day before (it is neither liver, nor cheese, apparently it just looks like it... there's some story about the name involving monks, but I shan't go into that at the moment) and was impressed that a piece of meat could actually be light and fluffy. I'm getting full now just thinking of it... one thing I noticed about the food there was the ample use of salt. Lots of flavour, but one feels parched by every meal.
On Sunday, we had a good look around the farm, said hello to the cows and the chickens and the tractors. I'm not sure if they were pulling my leg or not, but their 40-somethink-year-old tractor was a Porsche. The other was a John Deere (common in Australia too -they're the ones that hold up the traffic all the time) and had all the fixin's from a sunroof to a satellite feature and even down to a place to plug in a laptop. I thought it looked cozy, but we didn't get a ride in it.
Well, then it was time to say goodbye. We got some eggs to take home and then about 5 minutes before we actually left, the sun came out and lit up the farmyard. Then it was gone again and we drove home amidst a drizzle. We did stop at a castle on the way back too. There was a market of sorts there, and now I'm starting to wish I'd bought some stuff for people back home. It seems that whenever I go shopping I don't see something that I just have to have. Maybe that's a good thing, because it means I'm not really spending my money. But I did see some fruit liqueurs that looked nice and festive. Ah well, too late, and no use lamenting that I should have acted differently.
Anyway, it was really, really, really, reallyreally cold there -windy-, and I just wanted to get back to the car and thaw out. Anyway, the rest of the trip home was pretty uneventful. The wind power propellers turned lazily as we passed. Ingmar dozed off and I counted the minutes and kilometers til we got back into Berlin. Sitting still can be exhausting, (anyone who's been on a plane will know that) but I was mainly itching to get home so I could have a drink.
All in all, it was a pleasant change of pace from the city. All the open space and misty mountainsides blanketed in forests of pine. Ah, poetry. Pity that it wasn't photo weather. After getting home, things have kinda started to go back to normal. Ingmar's finally been able to attend some of his lectures/tutorials, though I think they're still striking. Anyway, point being, I've had some time to myself to do some more artwork, though I will be busy with Christmas cards for a long time yet, I fear... [note: Jennifer makes her own Christmas cards for family and friends. Each one is original and hand drawn].
Oh yeah, the last couple of days have been heralding a bit of that christmassy white stuff. Early this morning as we left Potsdamer Platz, -after 10 hours of Lord of the Rings (movie marathon)- woo, and it was snowing. It seemed a magical moment. The specks trickling through the lamplights, the cool, the still. I love winter.
It didn't last that long though. Good thing we caught the bus pretty much right away. The funny thing about snow... I never seem to feel the cold when I'm around it. I know it's supposed to be colder than your average miserable snowless winter day, but for some reason the "power of white" quells my senses.
Anyhow, nothing more to tell at the moment. I'll give you the next update when something happens. :)
For now, all the best. Talk to you soon.
Editor’s Note:
The Porsche Motor Co started out manufacturing tractors, then expanded to the
construction of autos.
****
Holiday Greetings from South Etobicoke
I just want to add a few brief lines to this week's Squamidian to say how much I enjoy being a part of this odd little virtual community all year long. I look forward to receiving the report every week and reading about such a wonderful assortment of characters, situations, memories, travels, families, and funny little vignettes of everyday life. I also appreciate the fact that at any time, I can add my own little story and know that you will all celebrate my personal victories with me.
I want to thank the regular contributors who make the time to write and share their lives with us. Keep it coming, it has been great getting to know you. I encourage every Squamidian reader to set themselves a goal for 2004 to write at least one column...whether to share a travel story, or a weather report, or a small triumph, or a favourite memory. I can't imagine a safer environment to go out on a limb, even for the most "stage-shy" among us.
Last but not least, a special thank you to Doug for starting the Squamidian and bringing us all together in the first place. Who knew Doug had friends?
Merry Christmas and best wishes for a happy, healthy, love-filled, successful 2004 to every one!
with warm (virtual) hugs,
****
THE ONTARION REPORT
Good morning everyone! Well, it’s the weekend before Christmas and all is well. We’re hearing reports from our weatherman that we’re supposed to have a green Christmas. Right now we have snow on the ground but the temperatures are supposed to hit +5 for most of next week. I think Alberta is sending us one of their Chinooks to warm us up. It really hasn’t been too unbearable here weather wise. I’ve used the snow blower twice I think. This won’t be the first green Christmas but it’s the first in a long while. I think the last one was in the mid 80’s. Carole took a picture of me standing behind the snow blower on the front lawn in shorts and a tee shirt. I doubt whether I’ll be wearing the same this Christmas but you never know!
Today is the day that we are going to my brother’s place for the yearly family gathering. It’s also the first time that we haven’t hosted it. I told Carole that we’ll just consider it a Christmas Miracle that someone has taken on the task and is giving her a break from all the work that’s involved to have everyone over. It’s actually kind of a laugh at that because each family member has been asked to bring food along anyway. I guess you’d call it a “pot luck” family get together. Oh well, it’s nice that he and his wife are doing this anyway. It’ll be a nice change to be going to someone else’s place.
I’m writing this weeks report on Saturday morning for the first time in a long time. I usually get at it on a Thursday night but this week was sooooo busy that I had to put it off until this morning. Running all week doing Christmas shopping etc and to top it all off, I was asked to work all day Friday for Waterloo Nissan driving their customer shuttle car.
Although I had a busy week,
I don’t have much of interest to tell you all. Waterloo Fire Dept had 2 house
fires last week. One on Friday night and one on Saturday morning. The houses
were a complete loss and the families are out of their homes for Christmas. The
media around here have been advertising for clothes and essentials to be
donated to help out the 2 families that suffered these terrible losses. In both
cases nobody was injured or died in the fire. One family lost a pet cat. The
firefighters tried to revive the cat but to no avail. It still hurts to lose a
pet on top of all your worldly possessions. I’ve seen this situation many times
over the years and here in KW the citizens always come through to help. Our Red
Cross has set up a fund to find immediate accommodations for the families but
it’s only a temporary thing. I think they will do that for one month and then
the families must find more permanent digs. It’s quite tragic but it seems that
most people who rent a residence do not have contents insurance. I can’t for
the life of me imagine why they don’t. In most cases, it’s a mere $50.00 to
$100.00 to have loads of insurance on your contents. I suppose there are people
that simply can’t afford to put out even that amount of money when they are
living day to day. I don’t like to be judgmental but I know from experience
that many of the families in this situation would rather spend the amount of
money it would take to protect their belongings on cigarettes or booze. How
many times have we all seen someone in a TV news spot crying to the cameras
that they’ve lost everything and they’re having a smoke to calm them down? I
for one have seen it in person many times and find it hard to have sympathy for
such people. I guess I shouldn’t get into people bashing at this time of year
so I won’t say anymore.
This past year of writing
for the weekly report has been a true pleasure. I would like to take this
opportunity to thank Doug for asking me to contribute. I’d also like to thank
all of you for reading my babblings. It’s not only given me a chance to blabber
on about myself and the KW area it’s given me a purpose on Thursday nights.
That’s my regular evening to sit down and do more than write e-mails in hopes
that someone will take pity on this old retiree and answer him! LOL! I’ve
gotten to know a whole new group (Family) of people. Although we have only met
Doug (Adam and I have met Ryan as well) Carole and I feel like we’re close to
all of you in the Brubacher family and we want to wish each and every one of
you a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year! We
look forward to meeting all of you sometime in the near future and in the New
Year will make an attempt to do just that. Heck, you never know when we might
even venture to Australia or Nova Scotia or BC and do this meeting thing right!
Until next time we send our love to all.
Enjoy the Holiday Season!
Bye for now……Greg, Carole, Adam & Bailey.
PS: Something to Think About>
Life is a one way street. No matter how many detours you take, none of them leads back.
****
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Have a good one..
the
doug