Somewhere out there a Vogue editor is crying…

I woke up to winter in Calgary today. Sure, there were heaps of snow on the ground yesterday, and the bow river was slate grey and seething, but there was still something missing. The season change became official at 7am this morning, when Mother Nature overheard me trying to describe my outfit over the phone:

“Um, ok, so picture me as a Christmas elf at the mall, but all they could find for me was some old man’s wrinkled elf costume from who knows when. Oh, and my lumberjack socks are pulled up over my pants, almost to my knees.”

I’d like to say I went straight back to my room to change, but I didn’t. I tied on my damp sneakers (boots are for sissies, not real Canadians) and trudged out into the wilderness. When the weather works its way this deep into your bones, this early, there’s not a whole lot you can do. Except maybe, and I suppose I’m right on time here, channel it for Halloween?

Suffering for the ’shot’ at Shaganappi

Green in progress at Shaganappi's first hole

I have a new, profound, respect for investigative journalists. As part of my ongoing coverage of the renovations at Calgary’s Shaganappi Golf Course, I needed a shot of the progress being made on the first hole. But when I showed up with my camera, I found that someone had put a fence in the way. No problem. I’m a resourceful gal who doesn’t mind a little bushwhacking, so I dove into the shrubbery to find a better angle.

My backpack got caught and, less than three feet in, I was properly stuck. No problem. I ditched the backpack and pushed forward. My shins and hands got the worst of it. Dozens of prickly branches left dozens of tiny red welts (tiny being relative, of course). I thought of the poor reporters in Vietnam and gritted my teeth, thinking, “you’ve got it easy, girl, and you know it.” Then right in front of me… another fence!

Into the jungle

Oh great, another fence!

No problem. I followed it until a gap opened up in line with the hole. There was a big, wobbly roll of extra chainlink blocking most of the opening, but I climbed up onto it and, perching precariously, took the shot you see above. National Geographic shot of the week, it ain’t. But it did allow me feel a certain kinship with the wild lensemen of yore, those brave souls who brought the trenches to life a hundred years ago, and all those since who’ve weedled their way into far tighter corners than I, for the sake of ‘the shot’.

Perched for the shot

I was ’snapped’ back to reality when I went back to grab my backpack. As I tugged it free, a nasty little twig whipped straight up and hit me on the nose, right on the tender bottom bit. OUCH! It stung like mad! My eyes watered and I struggled, half blind, to get out of the darned jungle. Yes, a kinship indeed. I cursed the fences, and the builders who’d put them there. What on Earth did a plot of scraped up land need protection from anyway? And then it hit me… Oh, I guess from people like me~wink.

Why I don’t ride the bus to work…

I woke up to a grey morning today. The sky was grey, my sweater was grey, and my threadbare brown ‘cozy’ hoodie (because when the weather won’t make the effort, why should I?) has been verging on grey for years. I stepped out the door, already late, into a grey drizzle. It was a bus morning.

The rush hour bus is a grim way to start any day, stopping and starting and stopping and starting, all through downtown gridlock. But today, there was no way around it. I rolled up my torn cuffs as discreetly as I could in a bus full of business suits and shiny shoes, and stood by the back doors to wait for my stop.

I was well on my way to daydreaming myself out of my funk when the bus slowed and settled by the curb. I pushed the doors, but they didn’t budge. I pushed again, and jiggled the long handles… nothing. The bus hissed and I felt the jolt of the flyweel kicking in. Great, just great.

“Back doors,” I called out. The bus jerked forward. “Back doors, please!” I shouted over the crowd, who had all turned their heads to watch.

The bus driver glared at me in his mirror. I shook the doors again and glared back.

His answer came back biting: “Could you at least let me get to the bus stop first.”

This is why I walk to work ~ sigh.

More snow in June?

Take a closer look... Achoo!

Calgary weather has a cruel sense of humor. Like the uncle who insists on pinching your cheek in front of your fiancé, it doesn’t knows when to stop the joke. After this little incident, I had to do a double take to make sure what I found this morning was the kind of  fluff that makes you sneeze rather than sniffle. But somehow, this city always gets the last laugh. While I was taking a closer look with my camera, I was just about mowed down by a crazed morning cyclist. Touché, Calgary…touché.

A short note on the injustice of other people eating bacon at 7:10AM

My walk to work takes me through one of Calgary’s swankiest neighbourhoods. Wandering through The Better Homes and Gardens Theme Park so early in the morning can be pretty demoralizing to those of us not booked on a flight to Cannes this week. I can deal with picturesque window treatments and carefully landscaped lawns. Current model BMWs cutting me off on the sidewalk? No problem. But…

A line was crossed today. There is one house on the route so magnificent, so architecturally breathtaking in all its cedar shingled glory, that even its Home Depot outdoor potters transend our reality to honour the sublime. Anyways, that house, that family, was cooking bacon at 7:10 this morning! Is it really so much to ask that there be just a little pinch of justice for those of us with empty stomachs trudging by in beat-up sneaks? 

But then again, what a wonderful way to find out, at 7:10am, that yes, it is possible to have everything.

Risking it all atop the Calgary Tower

There’s a switch in the cloakroom – forty-five minutes one way, sixty the other. “Is that where you control how fast it goes around?” I ask the pretty hostess.

She nods. “We speed it up at lunch,” she says, “because people have less time.”

I can’t believe the power she has, and here I’d been wasting my time being jealous of her pin-straight, white blond hair. I fight the urge to try the switch. Imagine, one quick flick and somewhere deep inside the tower, giant gears are thrown into motion – diesel? Electric? How do you turn a building? The hostess shrugs it off. But what’s the power over one floor, when, with her hair, she walks out and I’m sure the city turns to her.

I want a taste, and my friend and I have a window seat, so I lean down and pull the grey metal sill slowly round, hauling us hand over hand around the circumference. My friend laughs. I guess that’s why she’s my friend. I’m on top of Calgary, watching a panning shot of New York. Cities are all the same at night, each window a separate distant sun. People from the country say there aren’t any stars in the city. Sure there are, but it helps if you look at it upside down.

My friend orders mussels from PEI. I order the carpaccio. This is a night of firsts, and raw red meat is as daring as they’ll let me get in this conservative town. When our plates arrive, I’m overwhelmed by the sweet buttery scent of my friend’s dish. The heaping pile of black mussels are shining in a pool of pale, summer yellow sauce. The carpaccio? How can a plate of thinly sliced, overly salted, strips of raw meat compare to the vision across the table. Here I am jealous all over again.

“Do you want to try one?” my friend asks, when she sees me eyeing her meal. “They’re so good, slimy, but a good kind of slimy.”

My carpaccio is a bad kind of slimy, and utterly, disappointingly, safe, while the mussels are so irresistibly dangerous. You see, I’m allergic to other shellfish, but, I’ve never actually tried mussels. She would let me if I asked, and the temptation takes all the flavour and fun out of my raw meat. I’m chewing on rubbery, tasteless (beyond the salt), slivers of what had sounded so exotic just minutes ago. All I can think about is how easily one of my friend’s fleshy nuggets would slide down my throat. Can you have an allergic reaction from your stomach? When would it set in? Would there still be time?

“I’m allergic,” I confess, knowing how easy it would be to lie. But how many of us have it in them to throw it all away?

“But,” I say, “can I dip my bread in your sauce?”

Might as well save myself for dessert.

(Image source)

Geologist Trapped In Calgary Tower!

“I would suggest going with Perrier or bottled rather than Calgary tap water,” implored our server, and I do mean ‘implored’.

The revolving restaurant atop the Calgary Tower is a swanky joint, don’t get me wrong, but upselling water? How uncouth! My friend and I were stunned. I would expect that sort of behaviour from a Subway Sandwich Artist (been there, done that lol), but from a debonair, expertly coiffed, professional waiter?

He continued to plead his cause, hand clutching tightly cuffed wrist, to us and to every one of his other tables, with phrases like “overly fluorinated” and “just like sucking on a penny”. We heard him give his well practiced speal a full three times within the space of ten minutes. I suppose I should mention that my lovely friend and I were the only holdouts – Calgary tap water all the way!

Of course, I had to ask about the ice cubes ~wink~

“Distilled water,” he said, and yes, he did use a Brita at home. I began to suspect there was more to our server’s story, especially when he went on to explain why we Calgarians find ourselves using so much lotion after the shower. And no, the conversation wasn’t headed in that direction ; )

Could there be, dare I say it, a “passion” behind his upselling? I’ve always been fascinated by what people chose as their “cause”, that connection to a part of the world that’s wholly theirs and theirs alone. What’s yours?

“I’m sorry for giving you a hard time,” I said, “but you seem to be so…um…passionate about this whole thing. I’m just curious where it comes from.”

He smiled and confessed, rather sheepishly, “I’m actually a geologist.”

Hop a Calgary city bus to…Tuscany?

A Calgary city bus cruised by me on my walk to work this morning, route number 30, destination Tuscany. Tuscany?? The bus was full of dreary fall jackets and grim faces. Imagine getting on a bus every morning promising escape, joy, sun and relaxation, and then being dumped off in some dark forsaken corner of the same city you woke up in. The cruelty of it. The inhumanity. That’s one joke I never want to be a part of. It takes almost an hour to walk my route to work, and an hour back, but I’ll choose sneakers over that kind of heartbreak any day! Note: I walk for a myriad of other reasons too, and yes, I know it’s crazy ; )

Why must riding the elevator always be so socially awkward?

Just asking.

I mean, am I missing something? Like the elevator etiquette handbook? Please let me know if anyone has figured out how to order a copy. Until then, I’m taking the stairs. Ok, maybe not on the way up. I am on the 29th floor. Hmmm, come to think about it, it’s almost time for me to go home and I’ve feeling pretty blah…so maybe I’ll start on my enclosed-space-social-ineptitude-motivated-exercise-plan tomorrow. Yep, wore myself right out just by trying to say that out loud.

Watch out Calgary, because tonight, just to make it interesting, I may leave one of my trademark unanswered-unappreciated-on-elevator-witticisms hanging in the stale air over our heads all the way down to G.

Think Chapters might have one of those books? Are they open late tonight?

City’s tallest building shortest on humanity

Searching for signs of humanity on my daily 8:02AM elevator ride up Calgary’s tallest building…

First hope: News of a Pakistan suicide bombing flashes up on the elevator’s plasma screen. In a crowd of freshly creased dress pants, a woman’s skirt twitches. Her hand goes to her mouth to cover her horror. I’m touched by her honesty. She feels it too, the sudden sharp sadness, the helplessness. Her hand falls back to her side, and I see that she was only hiding a yawn.

Second hope: Two heads nod in recognition. A comment, a joke, then laughter. The elevator fills with the unfamiliar sound. The two heads have short, perfectly coiffed, fruit scented hair. But the perfume quickly turns the trapped air sickly sweet, and their laughter sharpens into a piercing cackle. I look down. Two pairs of pointy black leather toes. I should have guessed.

Third Try: The elevator fills to capacity. Everyone wants a different floor, and mine’s the highest. I groan. I always get motion sick on amusement park rides. Someone has to do something. So I stick a banana in the door. Technically speaking, I wedge one end in the doorframe, so it’s jutting out beside the number pad in all its bright yellow banana glory. Nobody said anything. Nobody smiled. No one even acknowledged that there was a big banana sticking out of the door! Oh the humanity!!

Maybe I’m asking too much from a crowd of drowsy businesspeople, who are already late to wherever they’re going if they’re on the 8:02. Sigh. When not even a banana will jazz up your office workday, there’s only one more thing left to try… (click here to get noticed on the elevator to your next job interview!)