Not-so-heavy Levy

"It's a hard go." 

That's a common Newfoundland expression.  These days it's used sort of ironically, in that people generally have it pretty good.  

See, it used to be that we were a have-not province.  Hell, before we were a have-not province we were perched on a Godforsaken rock in the North Atlantic, desperately clinging to a fishery that left us poor and in debt to rich merchants.  I often think of the long lean month of March when Newfoundlanders must have found their lives hardest; all their berries and root vegetables used up and a bitter northeast wind blowing.  Oh yes, times were tough.  It was a hard go.

But we are not ordinary people.  We are a hardy, tough breed.  In the 1970s and 1980s young people left in droves for Ontario and Alberta to find easier lives.  But they pined for home, for whatever it is that makes us love this place.

Then in the 1990s the closure of the fishery. Many thought it would be the end of it all.  And yet.

There is always something, something about our bleak unyielding landscape that we can't quit.  I cannot imagine living anywhere else.  The politicians are mostly bad, the weather is terrible, and often even the attitudes can be awful.  But there is a pride here that cannot be contained.  Walk downtown and sample the food, hear the music played by talent like no other.  Where else can you see icebergs, puffins, whales in one day?  Where you can watch a multitude of small fish roll on a beach, giving life to the next generation of this wonderful ecosystem?  Where else can you have the sweetest blueberries on earth (yes, on earth) and literally taste the salty air?  Only one place that I have ever been.

I love to travel.  I love it so much it is my passion in life.  But I have also begun to realize that without my home, my rock, it is nothing.  Newfoundland is the yin to my yang.  It is the completion of the circle.  Leaving here to travel to new worlds excites me but it is also equally exciting to return.  I get nervous butterflies of anticipation just before I arrive.  People don't just clap on landing at St. John's airport because of the harrowing winds (although it might be a little of that too).  It is also the sea of expectant faces at the bottom of the stairs at the airport, looking with love for those that return.  It is being able to call this place home, or wanting to.

So that levy?  The one in the budget that we are all up in arms about?  I'm ok with it.  I'd pay more if I had to, to stay here.  I unabashedly love this province, whether it is a have, or have-not.  It's not such a hard go.

Best part about January?

It's the furthest month away from Christmas!  Yep, I went there.

Travel is a passion

Hummingbirds flit through the trees like elusive flying jewels.  Honestly.  The forest is also incredibly loud, with a trillion bugs scraping their legs at your or rubbing their wings, every one of them crying out to be heard.  

We decided on Costa Rica because I am a travel nut, and I am crossing destinations off an imaginary (ok, not so imaginary) list I have in my head.  My husband and I took the kids to Rome recently, which was awesome, and because we had a long cold winter and I had some extra money, I wanted to go to Costa Rica in the spring.  I love to travel and I try not to let kids slow us down.  People say, why?  Why subject yourself to the pain of travel with kids?  And sometimes I ask myself the same question.  No doubt, it can be hard.  It can be scary.  You ask yourself why am I doing this?

Well, first of all, travel means more to me than the average person. As a child, I remember poring over my parents' National Geographic magazines and wanting to visit all of the places I saw.  We weren't a traveling family.  We did manage to go "off the Avalon" a couple of times to Terra Nova Park or Traytown in our home province.  But that was the extent of my travels until Grade 12 when I went on a school trip to England, Scotland and Wales.  Wow.  Were my eyes open!  I couldn't believe places like London existed!  The smells of the city, the bustling streets, I still remember to this day.

And so began my love affair with travel.  After that, I met my husband, and we did some typical traveling: Cuba, Florida.  But then I realised I needed more than that.  It was like a drug, I wanted more.  So we decided on Australia.  That was a beautiful trip, some of my highlights of travel came from that trip: diving on the Great Barrier Reef and to South Australia to see Sea Dragons.  A group of emus making us stop the car in the Outback and stare in wonder at these birds that were taller than we were.  Hearing birds on the lawn and looking out to see cockatoos picking at the grass.

We also wanted to travel to more exotic locations so we went to Southeast Asia and backpacked through Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia.  Until then, I had never truly traveled.  Really.  Landing in Vietnam was like landing in a place out of time.  It was like we landed on rice fields, and our first experience driving in Asia was hair raising.  But I can remember standing on the steps of our hotel (ok, hostel) and watching kids play with the light flickering through ancient buildings and realising how damn lucky I was to experience that moment.  That trip was phenomenal.  I loved Hoi An and Angkor Wat, with the ancient temples.  The food, the people.  It was all as I had imagined it as a child looking at those travel pictures in the magazine.  It was everything I had hoped for.

Even now, a smell or a picture can bring me right back to a moment or place in my travels and those memories are so vivid!

We've traveled to lots of places between the two of us, and then came children.  People said, you will not be able to do the same things you used to do before kids.  You know what?  It's true.  You seriously are not the same person pre-children as post-children.  You miss certain things about your pre-children life but you also want to show your kids your passions, so we wanted our children to see the world.

I think that things are harder in terms of speed and relative ease of travel, but the main thing is not wanting to take risks with your kids.  No one wants to put their kids in harm's way.  However, you can try to minimize this, and to be fair, life is a risk, is it not?  We started with typical trips: Quebec City when our first was 6 months old.  It was different, for sure, but it was great.  We saw a beautiful city while our daughter learned how to sit up on her own.  We graduated to warmer travel, and went to Hawaii when she was 3.  Our second daughter visited the Bahamas at 5 months.  We've been to Rome and Costa Rica and the girls are enjoying it more and more.

Traveling with a child also opens doors (some people truly love to see your kids and they will make sure you go to the front of the line) and makes you a more sympathetic traveler (you understand that things don't always go the way you want them to).  You have to slow down to see the world at their pace and that is often a very good thing.  We met Elena, concierge at the Hotel Rafaello in Rome, and both girls still ask about her. My 3 year old knew more about Pompei than most adults! We lived off-grid in Central Costa Rica for a few days and the girls loved it.  I discovered small strawberry poison dart frogs amongst the leaf litter there, probably because I was at their level.

In any case, I think you should try it.  Yes, you!  It can be as expensive as you want to make it.  The biggest thing is the airfare and if you plan in advance you can use points.  Go somewhere different.  Somewhere you can learn something - which is almost anywhere.  Go somewhere where they don't speak English just to see what it's like.

My girls have a few places on their lists: Natalie wants to go to Hawaii to see green sea turtles and wave to the manta rays since she's heard so much about it from us and her sister.  Julia wants to go to Paris so she can order food for us (she's the French speaker).

My list is still long.  I want to bring my kids to Asia (Japan as they love sushi and Bali because we can't overstate the loveliness of Southeast Asia), Australia and Africa (wildlife) and Galapagos.  I want them to experience it, but I also want to experience it through their eyes.  It's way better.  :)

Let's Come Out of the Closet About Lice, Shall We?

In the United States, it is estimated that between 6-12 million people become infested with head lice per year.  In Canada, the equivalent would be about 1.5 million people.  That's a lot of lice.  These figures are likely under-reported because who wants to admit they have lice?  Lice are gross little bugs that feast on your blood in your sleep and while your child is merrily playing games.  And yet.

If they are so common, perhaps we should know more about them and how to treat them.  Recently my two (long-haired daughters) contracted lice.  I was shocked!  I mean, there are notes sent home fairly regularly saying that cases of lice exist at the schools but I had been checking!  I had used tea tree oil shampoo!  I had put their hair up in ponytails!!  How had it happened?  Well, I can think of one thing, at least.  I didn't know what to look for.

Lice are notoriously hard to find.  They are the same color as your child's hair, for instance.  So if your child has blond hair, the lice are lighter than those lice on children with dark hair.  And the eggs (nits, to those of us with experience) are the size of a poppyseed on one hair and can only be removed with dynamite.

All joking aside, lice are a tremendous amount of work.  It's the pure time that needs to be committed that is killer.  I mean, lice are no more than a nuisance.  They do not spread disease.  They do not make your child sick.  They are an inconvenience, at best.  But what an inconvenience!

All of the bedding has to be washed and dried in high temperatures, along with hats, stuffed toys... mattresses and couches and pillows vacuumed. You need to treat your child, usually with a pesticide on their hair to kill the lice.  However, this does not remove the nits.  You need to spend a fair number of hours daily sectioning the hair and going through it to look for those tiny eggs - twice a day until the second treatment (7 days later) and then for another week if you are diligent.  And if you think a fine-toothed comb actually works, it's only useful for sectioning and maybe larger -ahem - items.  You need to pick those suckers off with your fingernails. Then boil all those things you used to pick through the child's hair.

My advice is to get familiar with lice (but not by catching them, obviously!) - that is, learn what a nit looks like so you can identify it.  Learn the signs of lice - not every person has an itchy head, so don't think that will tell you.  It is always easier to deal with lice if you catch them sooner rather than later. And if you are ashamed, or upset, just remember, you are not alone.  

Misogyny is...

     Misogyny is defined as:

1. Misogyny (/mɪˈsɒdʒɪni/) is the hatred or dislike of women or girls.Misogyny can be manifested in numerous ways, including sexual discrimination, denigration of women, violence against women, and sexual objectification of women.
2. Everyone gasps! We don't hate women!  Of course not; misogyny is more subtle than that.  Here are some real-life examples of misogyny.
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   - When a male colleague feels wronged that you get topped up pay on maternity leave

   - When you believe one male over 1-9 women (or more!) that she was assaulted by him, instead of believing her/them. (What's worse is when you are one of those people initially)

   - When you have to look at screen savers/calendars of scantily clad or naked women in the workplace

   - When you think "she looks like a slut" when she wears this or that or whatever.

   - When you plan a run that ensures you avoid a remote area

   - When the statistics say that 1/4 American women has been raped or has had an attempted rape, you know at this statistic must be wrong.  Because if you ask any woman, there is a high chance (amongst my friends, it's at least 50% or higher) she has been sexually assaulted.

   - When the dentist students in question at Dalhousie are considered by some (including women) to be "just joking". 

   -When you don't "get" any of these and you think I am paranoid.
4. Once your eyes are open to misogyny, it is everywhere.  I can't unsee it.  But I want my daughters to not know it - that is, not ignore it, but really not KNOW it.  I know things are getting better.  But they are not there yet.

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New Year's Resolutions

I always make a set of NY Resolutions.  Mostly they don't stick, but sometimes they make me a better person (if even for a day).  This year they are:

1. Read more, write more.  To add to this, I have to say that I would like to read more "traditional format" books.  I miss them. I miss having them.  I feel like something is missing from my life - even though I like my ereader too.  Also, if I am to read and write more, I have to actually use my ipad less - that's a tough one for me.  I think I might use it too much.

2. Stress less.  'Nuff said.

3. Finish the kids' scrapbooks.  I haven't really even started them.  So maybe photo books are in order.  Will this be the year?

4. Finish my photography course I started.  Ok so I didn't start it, I just bought it online.  But the goal is to finish it.

5. Travel as much as possible (not really a Resolution).  This is a New Years' Wish.

6. Drink more water (carry over).

7.  Get back at yoga.

8.  Run when I can.

9. See more movies in theatre.

10.  Continue path to judge less and be kind regardless of circumstances. (very much a work in progress)

Eight Ways St. John's Has Changed

Eight Ways St. John's has changed in the past 10 years or less:

1.       Need for Traffic Updates!  Except for a brief period of time in the mornings and evenings traffic did not slow. Ever. There was no such thing as traffic.  I scoffed at people who thought we had traffic.  Now, it helps to have Cecil Hare (CBC) and twitter feeds telling us which spots to avoid in the city.  Even middle of the morning: allot 20 minutes no matter where you are going!

2.       Ethnic Restaurants: now there are more of them!  There were always a handful of Chinese restaurants around, and India Gate is a fixture here, but you can get many other types of yummy Pakistani, Afghan, Asian and Middle Eastern now!

3.       People Walking Around the City.  I see people walking everywhere.  You didn’t see that as often years ago and it’s good that people are walking more.  All the city has to do now is make the place walkable – even in the winter.

4.       Lots of BMWs, Audis and Volkswagen.  This goes to show how much more money is in the city than there used to be – it makes me a little sad to know the Sunfire era is over.

5.       Good Talent and Entertainment: Let’s face it, St John’s has a hugely deep pool of local talent and b’ys it is fabulous!  But now there’s also talent coming from away to play, dance and act for us.

6.       The Big Box Stores/Businesses.  Seems like someone sets those “Big Box Store Seeds” overnight and with the right amount of rain, up she comes!  One morning I went to work past Robin Hood Bay Road and there were trees – when I came back that evening there was gravel and hundreds of gulls watching the new buildings begin to sprout.

7.       Continuing Urban Sprawl.  Can someone get a handle on this?  It just seems endless.  And now “Dannyland” is coming online too.  What’s happening to the old houses and subdivisions?  Is the entire bay relocating into the city?  Can we try to plan it a little better? Anyone wonder why the entire area by Quidi Vidi Lake is so underdeveloped (chicken factory, anyone)?

8.       A New Appreciation for this Fine City: It used to be that St. John’s was the place to go in NL when you had to move away from your town either to go to school or find work (if you didn’t leave to go to the Mainland).  But now it seems people have a growing appreciation for the food, culture and look of this small but sprawling, beautiful city on the edge of a continent.  Thank goodness for that.