The Cheeseblog

We were sitting on the couch, eating dinner and watching “Jack Van Impe Presents” when, amidst the flurry of late rush-hour traffic and its honking and screeching, I heard it: squeaking. Not rhythmic, like a squeaking instrument, or tiny, like embarrassed mice caught in the act, but random, like an ADD’d rottweiler with a rubber toy. Squeak! Squeeaaaak! Squeaksqueaksqueak.

For some reason, the randomness of this noise and its pitch made me itchy with insanity. I twitched while SA patted my head. A few minutes later it ended.

Just 10 minutes ago, before the blessed rain started, I heard it again. Insistent squeaking. Attitudinal squeaking. Squeak! Squeaksqueak! As I was at my desk, which is by the window, I stood up to take a look. And who was squeaking? A small child, perhaps two years old. With SQUEAKING SNEAKERS. (which is almost as fun to say as “designer vagina”) She hopped from one foot to the other; she jumped off the curb and back up; she ran a little way down the sidewalk and then back again to her father who, I’m thinking, has to be on Valium to not be seriously considering just walking in the other direction, at a good clip, and they’ll never find him, oh no, because toddlers have notoriously poor senses of smell. Or perhaps he was just distracted by the other small child who looked to be the same age as squeaky, as well as the raggedy terrier who accompanied them.

Here are two of the many things I’ve learned over the years:
1. The internet is an interesting place that sometimes makes me giggle.
2. Children make noise. They come pre-installed with noise. Aside from pooping, noise is the most consistent thing they do. So why, in the name of all that is right and just in this world would you put a noisemaker in a child’s shoe?

Yes. Curmudgeonly. Currrrr.

Last year around this time I completed a 10 week running program and discovered that I could run 30 minutes without stopping. It was very exciting. Then with moving back downtown and winter and spring and the excitement of summer arriving, well, turns out I ran for 30 minutes without stopping and then stopped for 12 months.

This was especially stupid because when we lived in Burnaby it was a huge pain in the ass to run for 30 minutes on account of the geography. There are many, many hills in Burnaby. I would run for a bit on a nice flat stretch of road and then come around a corner and be scaling a concrete mountain. Then I would collapse and pant for an hour. I realize hill training is important for runners but I am not a runner, per se; I am someone who likes to work up a good sweat in 30 minutes and then get on with my day.

Now, moving back downtown had very little to do with wanting to be nearer to non-inclined roads but I did consider as I packed my running shorts into a cardboard box last October that there is the seawall downtown (or the other seawall, or the otherother seawall) and they tend to be quite flat and quite soft on the feet. Part of me did say, Hmm. Perhaps when I am downtown again, I will run more often.

Apparently, the other part of me said, Hahahahahahahahahahaha! Sucker!

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago I realized I was morphing into a big slug with hair and decided it was time to get my sweat on again. Because 30C weather is a great time to re-start a running regime, I hauled out of bed one morning and took off to the Coal Harbour seawall.

As an aside, about 20 years ago, my favourite song in the world was “Runner” by Manfred Mann. I was deeply inspired by this song because of its repetitive beat and lyrics and, of course, the melodrama. My love affair with cheezy rock started very young.

I used to call radio stations and request “Runner” but they would never play it. It inhabited my head, though, like a patch of windowsill mould that keeps growing back even though you destroy it regularly with bleach. I would sing “Runner” to people over the years but they always shook their heads, sad to disappoint, because they had never heard it. Kind of like the “Potato Salad” sketch by The Kids in the Hall. Hardly anybody believes it exists though I can enact the whole thing, including the sideways camera and Bruce McCulloch’s floral dress. Yes, I can enact a floral dress. So?

Today was my fourth morning run. I took the seawall east from the Aquatic Centre to Yaletown. Though I expected the other people on the seawall in Yaletown to be snobby and to throw their decaffrappulattes at me in disgust because I run in sweatpants that I cut off myself with kitchen scissors, actually more people said good morning to me than on the west-bound seawall (two days ago) or through the streets of the west end (last thursday) or on Coal Harbour seawall. (a week ago Tuesday) I sang “Runner” to myself under my slightly laboured breath and no one gave me a second glance.

That was all background so that I could share the following:

1. The first person I encountered on the street this morning offered me a copy of Awake magazine. This is the second time a Jehovah’s Witness has offered me stuff while I’ve been out for a run.

2. However, on my way home to clean up before going to work, I passed a slew of free newspaper monkeys and not one of them gave me the time of day. Must’ve been my sweaty neck. Did you know necks can sweat? I swear, the front of my neck sweats. I think that’s weird.

3. I ran past a dumpster upon which was written in Sharpie, “Hey man, if you piss here I will f*ck up your head.”

4. I also ran past a businessman getting out of his car in Yaletown, across from Urban Fare, who farted so loud into the still morning air I thought the terrorists had won.

5. During my “walk” segment of the run (I’m walking 2 minutes, running 3, repeating 6 times) I passed a construction worker smoking a cigarette who hollered, “There’s a smart woman! Good for you!” I waved at him. I’m unsure whether I am smart because, well, I AM smart or because I was walking not running or perhaps because I was walking instead of sleeping or whether it’s some sort of re-programming for construction workers and this is phase two, where they still holler at women but they comment on intelligence instead of physical attributes and/or mating potential.

To close, here is a random picture I came across while looking for something else. I feel like I know this guy. But I’m quite sure I do not know him at all, merely 20 or so people who look like him.

This weekend we went to Vancouver Island to participate in the quint-annual reunion of my mother and her cousins (on her mother’s side.) All of my mother’s cousins have sons. There is one daughter – out of 9 kids – but the daughter is in Argentina on a student exchange. All of the sons are between the ages of 17 and 25 and all of them like to holler and throw things and tell the others to shut up.

While we were waiting for the food to barbeque on saturday night, the sons rigged up a jump for a mountain bike. One son got a nice running start on his bike and drove himself up a ramp and headfirst into some hay bales. I think he intended to perform a spectacular flip over the bales but after three tries where he ended up with a mouthful of straw and dried animal dung – much to the delight of the other sons – he walked away from it, 1/3 of his dignity still intact.

One of the sons is pictured here in his “will wheelie for boobs” t-shirt.

We HarbourLynx’d to Nanaimo on Saturday morning. The HarbourLynx is a passenger ferry (no cars) that goes from downtown Vancouver to downtown Nanaimo in just 80 minutes. It’s a catamaran. Not sure if it was a rough crossing or if we are giant wimps but Saint Aardvark and I were green with the seasickness by the time that 80 minute Playland ride was over. It was like being inside a really really big speedboat, you know, the way they bump up against the waves? Either that or we hit a lot of harbour seals.

We stayed in a motel called “The Old Dutch Inn” in Qualicum Beach. This place ruled! There were pictures of Dutch painters, philosophers and children on the walls. The room numbers were painted on 3D wooden shoes that were stuck to the doors. The restaurant staff wore little Dutch caps and pinafores. There was a pool but I didn’t get to it because we were right across the street from the beach.

We walked along the beach for a bit, past the pebbly parts and down to the sandy part. The tide was on its way back in but there was still a stretch of sand left before the ocean. We had to plow the sea debris out of our way before we could comfortably swim and the ocean floor was shag carpety in places. I tried to avoid the white blobs that looked like spit or seagull poop, Mom swam far, far away and kept hollering, “It’s clear out here!” and Saint Aardvark encountered a couple of jellyfish and a sand dollar or five. The water was warm. We swam and swam and I nearly got dragged by my hair to the bottom of the ocean to be a mermaid but at the last minute managed to yank free of the seaweed that had snared me. Whew!

After a stop for ice cream, where the girl who scooped confided she can’t wait to leave Qualicum Beach because most of the people who live there are sort of older and there isn’t much to do, we were on our way to dinner.

We dined and laughed and visited on a piece of property that my mom’s uncle bought in 1948. He convinced his city-slicker bride it would be a good idea to leave Montreal and try raising chickens in rural BC. She went for it. Now two of the cousins live on the 18 acres of property with their sons (in separate houses).

We ate freshly fished salmon and prawns, corn on the cob, salad and chips. And 5 different kinds of pie for dessert. There was sun and then beer, a game of “extreme bocce” (you bowl overhand) and then mosquitoes appeared, followed by stars. We drove lazily down dark country roads back to the Inn.

The next day we had a breakfast picnic catered by Tim Hortons in a park called Englishman’s Bluffing Falls Park. No, that is not its real name. It contained a waterfall, trails to hike and cliffs to jump. The sons jumped off the cliff into the river, while their parents looked on, unable to reprimand because 30 years ago, it was them jumping off the cliff into the river. No one ended up with a spinal cord injury and only a couple of boys bruised their behinds.

There was also a heron in the park. It stood upon one leg and watched for bears.

Saint Aardvark, mom, dad and I said goodbye to the cousins and drove to Parksville. We had lunch at Poppa’s Pizza and walked for 17,000 kms across the sand before reaching the ocean. It was the lowest tide of the day. An older couple on their way back to their beach cottage told us we should have packed a lunch. Then the man showed us his water walking shoes. They had slits in the soles for the water to run out of and they were made of magic rubber with an insole that was removable so the sand wouldn’t collect. We were very impressed.

We saw another jellyfish and because it wasn’t floating at us in shoulder-high water, we stopped to take a photo. With SA’s foot for scale.

At the end of the sand there was ocean:

We turned around and walked back, holding on to our hats and losing our words to the wind. And this is how it ends.