Shedding It

I have been thinking about this question for a while. And now both my workplace and swim club are starting to think about it too. My workplace is starting to survey staff about what measures would need to be in place for people to feel comfortable returning. Some things are already there, such as restrictions on the number of people per elevator, and hand wash stations everywhere. But a full return will be complicated. We were in the process of renovating our building to crowd more people in when COVID closed everything down - that entire model will need to be rethought. Our work situation may not be as dire as at my sister’s workplace. She works in a very tall building and says that the calculation there is that with only two people per elevator, it would take 24 hours to get everyone to their offices. There are big questions about masks and what works best for people too. Some want everyone to wear a mask. Hearing-impaired people struggle to communicate with people in masks. Som

This is becoming something of a ritual. Get up way too early on a Saturday, then drive across town to swim with a gang of buddies. It’s now warm enough the Candace and Filippo have joined us. Today three people brought buoys, so the keeners set up a triangular 250m course. It was definitely a little more interesting than the usual back and forth between the rocks. Nadine had posted posted a funny story about forgetting her swim coat and needing to stop for gas while wearing only her bathing suit and towel the day before, as well as a memory of me in my Star Trek bathing suit. That led to lots of jokes and promises to wear our respective Star Trek gear this morning. I remembered, but her Uhura bathrobe is still hanging up at home, and she (once again) has only a towel to wear home Tom decided set himself the goal of swimming 3k, which is the same distance as Bring on the Bay, a huge open water even that would normally take place in just a few weeks, going right past our spot.

Today’s lunchtime task was to make up about three pounds of Landjaeger sausage (a beef and pork mix with caraway and coriander, that gets cold smoked and then dried until it is as hard as jerky - perfect for camping). After work I went for a second swim. It was “with” the swim club I do zumba with via Zoom on Thursdays. I was a half hour late, but people were still on shore or swimming. I said hello quickly to one person, hopped in the water and swam by myself to the other side of the lake and back. It ook me about half an hour. By the time I got back the others were starting to leave or had already packed up, so I got dressed, nodded good-bye and went to my car. I’ll try to be more social next time!

While swimming this morning, I was thinking about a 16th C swimming treatise (as one does) and thought it would be really fun to try and recreate all the instructions. The electronic version I have access to does not include the illustrations, so someone needs to make this information available to the broader medieval recreation ist swimming public, right? It feels a bit like redacting a recipe book. I cook a lot so can usually translate medieval instructions into useable modern recipes. I swim a lot, so why not do the same with swimming instructions? I have tried doing almost all the things in the treatise already, so it’s just a matter of matching technique and instruction, then recording clips of it all. There will be a couple of other anachronisms besides electronic recordings: there are virtually no records of women swimming, and the images of swimmers (male and female) show them either naked or in underwear. I‘ll wear my modern suit (maybe with a short chemise over top). I may

I didn’t get to the pond early in the morning as planned, but I managed to bike over and swim during my lunch break. The water was absolutely delicious. The edge of cold has completely gone now. You can’t see them from this angle, but there were actually many people swimming or playing in the water. And an unflattering selfie to show I was swimming. This week’s challenge is to decide what to de clutter next. Part of me wants to work on the basement because it’s cool. Part of me is resisting because it’s dark. Maybe I can arrange to be in some conference calls on mute; that has been working quite well for getting chores done.

Today started out rough, with my daughter having another bout of sadness over the breakup of a relationship. She ended up coming to sleep with me for several hours, which meant no swim as I wanted her to rest. There were serious efforts at letting go on both sides - her starting to figure out how to move on and me trying to let go of the desire to punch him right in the head. The rest of the day was much better. We bought groceries (and a huge basket of local strawberries) then collected my sister and her dog so we could all visit my parents for Father’s Day. Here‘s dad with the strawberry shortcake my sister whipped up, and Mom with Gracie.

After yesterday’s rotten mood, I made a conscious decision to sleep in this morning. Then I pushed myself to get out and join a group of swimmers at Lac Leamy. It’s not that far, but definitely further than my usual rides. I got about half-way there and discovered that the cycling lane on the bridge across the river was closed. There was no way I could cycle to the next bridge and get back to the lake in time to meet everyone. Instead, I decided to explore a route to the pond. It ended up being a really nice, if hot ride. The best part was a forced stop as at least 40 Canada Geese crossed the road one-by-one, stopping all traffic. The pond was quite busy but people were generally being careful about keeping their distance outside their family groups, and away from the shore it was easy to swim. This was the view looking across the river in the general direction of the lake I couldn’t get to. My consolation prize was a swim here. The rest of the day was spent napping, doin

It wasn’t really, but I wasn’t able to shake the gloom all day. I got up at a reasonable hour, went for a quick swim, watered my community garden plot and went to the office. Sadly, my swim watch with a brand new battery filled with water when I got in, and promptly died. It took me three tries to get the right entrance (forgot it had changed and missed the unmarked entrance before finally getting it). Then I was late because the page with my name on it from the list of employees allowed into the building was missing. I was only late by a minute or two, and it was mildly amusing, until things going wrong just kept piling up. I had to race home because my daughter needed the car for her riding lesson; she promised to take the watch back to the shop and ask them to see what they could do, but completely forgot until I texted to find out whether they had been able to repair the damage. By then it was closed for the weekend. It’s now sitting in a bag of rice in the faint hope it will s

Today I was involved in an excellent discussion on racism and diversity in my workplace, prompted by a colleague who is our branch representative on the department’s visible minority community. After a bit of a challenging start where some wanted to “call out” colleagues, one of my team (my brilliant, geeky, engineer who is an amazing people manager) spoke about embracing awkwardness and finding ways to bring about change without shaming. That led to a really good discussion about ways to be an ally, concrete suggestions on setting goals and measuring results in everything from training to hiring practices and promotion exercises, and who could help the department achieve its goals - everything from the Canada School of the Public Service to our MPs to the woman who used to be responsible for tracking diversity results and promoting best practices in another department but now works in ours doing something else. It is interesting to see how much awareness and attitudes have changed o

In my part of Ontario, we are now able to expand the bubble of friends and family to 10. I didn’t think this would be such a big deal until my friends Mel and April suggested going for a walk. We walked along the Canal. It was amazing! We didn’t hug, but we didn’t walk six feet apart the whole time. So much chat, some singing, sharing memories, and general silliness. It was just what I needed. We also saw a couple of bunnies: one boldly sitting on the grass, and another hiding in a mass of rose bushes (just like Peter Rabbit hiding in the briars to escape Mr. McGregor.

I may have overdone it a smidgen today: a good 3 hours of yard work this morning, then a 45 minute bike ride and a 5 km walk after work. That will teach me to skip swimming because I know I have ballet, and then forget what time ballet class started. Tonight I threw out a thing that was hard to give up. It was a golliwog doll knitted for me by my great-grandmother. It was about 50 years old and completely inappropriate for today. It had probably been patterned after Golliwog from the Enid Blyton Noddy stories. I never really liked those stories, finding them a bit mean and unpleasant even as a child. Still, I loved Golliwog because it had been made with love just for me, even though it usually lay under the bed and didn’t get so much as a glance from one month to the next. Yesterday, though, I noticed that the red and green stitches that defined its clothes had rotted away in places and the stuffing was coming out. I seriously considered trying to knit it back together, but finally d

I went yesterday and again today to the Pond. Yesterday was grey and chilly but the water felt relatively warm. The only bright spot was a cardinal on the Much of the rest of the day was spent visiting with my family. My son and his girlfriend are in town so we visited my parents. I did some experimental cooking for supper, using lots of sorrel from my garden in a salmon dish, and chives in my mashed potatoes. Today the sun was shining and hot on my back while I stood trying to get acclimatized; the chestnut trees are blooming and I could hear woodpeckers and red-winged blackbirds (and saw one). My friend Alexandra happened by just as I was about to start swimming so we had a nice chat. I think I am going to try and take a picture every time I go. We all went for a long walk around the neighborhood before the kids headed back to Toronto. Lunch was a frittata that used up more sorrel, plus some fresh thyme and basil. And today’s shedding things achievement was sending t

Actually he is coming, which is partly why I am on a bit of a decluttering binge. Tomorrow I need to wipe down every surface I can, and vacuum the basement again (the only area with a carpet), because he and his girlfriend are both allergic to cats.  I have discovered that one of the advantages of working from home is that I can do a lot of conference calls while cleaning up stuff. I just put myself on mute. Today I emptied out two drawers of my filing cabinet and now have space for actual office stuff. I even sorted all the gift bags and special occasion cards and put them neatly in a drawer. I may never need to buy another card as long as I live, even if I send out a lot more cards than I do most years. I have sorted all kinds of fabric and put it with patterns so I can actually sew stuff, instead of just hoarding fabric. It would be more practical if I were to clean up stuff on the main floor, but the basement did need some serious work. I have done part of the main floor and can fi

I managed to do five things today: Laundry Put away most of my seed starting stuff Pruned part of the garden, and harvested more rhubarb (but I have no idea where I left it - off to search for it now. Update: found in the back yard so I brought it in and will process after dinner) Vacuumed the basement. The most important thing was that I worked. It was a very full day but I had support from my adorable co-workers. Or so it seemed, until I realized they were just making sure I didn’t sneak past and get food without them.

I find I need to develop new lists from time to time so I actually do the stuff on them, instead of just updating them. Today’s attempt was to put reminders on a newer electronic list that I started using because I could “cross” things of it more easily, but then got out of the habit of using. So far, so good, though I didn’t get a lot of the hard stuff done. I did deal with the cilantro and parsley in my fridge (pesto, plus parsley hanging to dry), rhubarb is cooked and in the freezer (though I still have a plant to harvest), some of the spring planting stuff is part-way to its storage area, the cat litter is clean, and I now have lots of mustard. Plus I washed dishes, wiped down kitchen counters, and put some things away that I discovered as I continue to clean up the basement. That’s not enough, but it’s enough for today. My other big revelation for today was that I don’t have to do a fitness activity every single day. Some days, it is okay to sew or relax instead. I like to exerc

This little corner of paradise is just over 1 km from my house. Access has been closed off since last winter due to construction  to stabilize the shoreline and prevent erosion. I heard yesterday that it was open so hopped on my bicycle to go for a swim before work. There are new stairs, which will make entry into the water much safer, especially for the many seniors who enjoy swimming here. I did a lovely 2200 metres and got out just as the first construction worker arrived to do more work. I have since heard that it will closed until tomorrow.

I am falling into a decent swim routine. Friends go most mornings before work, but I just can’t get myself organized for that. However, I can manage early morning swims on the weekend. This weekend I had one calm swim and one full of waves and wind. The full moon was still showing when I left the house, and it definitely brought out the crazies. Here we are: The moon on the way to the beach Post-swim selfie time Roz was leaving just as I arrived. And for fun, yesterday’s gorgeous light as the sky cleared after a stormy night.