[2] #53: Ride for Refuge

Everyone rolled out of bed with enough time for a bowl of cereal and a yogurt, but not much more than that. The starting line was about a half hour from the home we had gathered in, and many of us still needed to properly register. Bikes loaded and helmets in hand we drove off to the race that will, in time, change lives.

We were raising money – putting our legs and lungs to the test in trade for sponsorship pledges that pool into a fund designed to help kids get to camp. The 52.72 kilometer track nearly killed me a couple of times, but the idea of more children packing into our programs, learning about the God we love and finding a place of emotional refuge (even if only for one week) kept me pumping along. That, and a quick-paced audiobook reading away in my ears. I started the race in a sweater and tracks, and crossed the line in shorts and a tank – wild how much heat a body self-generates. It took me four hours, three water bottles, two oranges and an embarrassing number of muffins to get there, but I got there. I think I’ll train a little harder for next year.

The Shovel: Scoop [2]

10/77 COMPLETE 12.9% TRIUMPHANT 

The Shovel: Scoop Two 26/09/12

1. Go snowboarding again

2. Take a ten-day Daniel Fast

3. Take a pottery class (slash, make and bake something out of clay)

4. Find the ruins and caves I visited as a child and explore

5. Eat a meal at Renee’s Café on the way to Mikisew

6. Take a professional icing class

7. Publish a story

8. Find and attempt a pogo-stick

9. Memorize the poem “Ladies [Ladles] and Jellybeans [Jellyspoons]”

10. Have a picnic and watch the clouds change shape (like in Up)

11. Walk around a city dressed like a superhero. Eat super-sized french-fries.

12. Learn Disney’s “Scales and Arpeggios” on the piano

13. Go to the African Lion Safari in Carlisle; get attacked by monkeys

14. Audition for a stage play or musical 17/11/12

15. Borrow somebody’s children and rock out at Santa’s Village

16. Eat a new sort of tropical or foreign fruit 30/10/12

17. Join a book club

18. Make a scavenger hunt of awesome and hand off the first clue to a complete stranger

19. Have that one conversation I've been putting off the last seven years. 08/12/12

20. Live one day completely blind

21. Pick up a hitchhiker 27/10/12

22. Volunteer to read a book for Librivox

23. Spend three consecutive days in an English accent

24. Find out if anything besides corn will pop in the microwave

25. Explore an abandoned amusement park/theatre/castle/town with Polo 14/11/12

26. Complete the story birthed from my study of Leviticus

27. Play hide-and-seek in somebody's cornfield

28. Bury a time capsule

29. Make and use tin-can-telephones

30. Go to a karaoke bar and sing a sober song

31. Go to a decent sports game of any kind. Learn how to care about sports.

32. Read through a whole newspaper

33. Volunteer at a soup kitchen

34. Baby-sit for someone I don't yet know

35. Buy a candy thermometer and use it successfully 06/12/12

36. One new, spontaneous experience

37. Visit St. Joseph's Island and walk across the bridge with Marsena

38. Roast chestnuts over an open fire

39. Play a game of chess against myself in a park - like that Pixar short :)

40. Develop a convincing Irish accent

41. Tie a swing to a tree. Swing on it.

42. Learn to juggle

43. Go skating (blades or wheels) under the stars... or city lights, depending on where I am

44. Hit the bull’s-eye on an archery target. Or a dartboard. Not picky.

45. Sell something I've made on Etsy

46. Spend one day in total silence

47. Join a yoga class

48. Write an encouragement letter to the Queen of England

49. Read every Sherlock Holmes story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in my collection

50. Have someone draw a caricature of me

51. Quilt 01/11/12

52. Eat only plain oatmeal for as long as I can (to appreciate the manna experience)

53. Do something that feels impossible 29/09/12

54. Go to Catholic Mass at the huge Cathedral in Hamilton

55. Canoe from MYW/MBC to Huntsville for ice cream

56. Read the book of Philippians 100 times

57. Temporarily transform the giant tomato of North Bay into Bob

58. Go to TIFF with Missa next year

59. Write a "short, true" story to Stuart McLean (of the Vinyl Cafe)

60. Get a job doing something new or unexpected 01/12/12

61. Hunt for fossils with Justin, way down south in Windsor

62. Create some art with oil pastels

63. Buy a second-hand puzzle and find out if it has all the pieces

64. Give someone working Drive Thru a CD - like that random guy did for me

65. Handwrite all of my collected recipes onto recipe cards (find/make a cool box)

66. Mail the explosive part of a Christmas cracker to somebody as a surprise

67. Decorate a random (un-cut) tree (in a park, or in the woods) for the Holidays

68. Record a cover song and post it on YouTube, potentially with collaboration

69. Get strong enough to do "several" chin ups and not die

70. Call in to a radio show and request or dedicate a song

71. Learn more about (appraise?) my Egyptian heart scarabs

72. Build a snow quinzhee

73. Finish editing Will Author's book. Don't charge him for it.

74. Mail a double batch of cookie to Ryan out west 25/10/12

75. Help make Lor's "washing machine" dream come true

76. Push a slinky down an escalator

77. Find somebody whose favourite movie I've never seen, and watch it with him/her

[1] #70: "It's snails, Miss."

The inspiration for this challenge was birthed by a ten-second clip from the silver screen.

"Escargot, Miss Callaway?"

"Why thank you, waiter-person! I'm starvin. I mean... I'd adore one."

[Awkward pause while she takes a bite.]

"This tastes like a balloon."

"It's snails, Miss."

"Good. Nice. Chewy."

[Thumbs up and a wink from the waiter... as soon as he leaves, she spits it into her hand.]

"All this money and these people eat slugs?!"

After an introduction like that, it just had to be done.

I bought the can from the NoFrills out by Stoney Creek. It was the most direct bus route while I was in the city, and it was on a trip for other groceries that the little tin caught my eye. It was under two dollars, and sat on my shelf for a long, long time. If inanimate objects can smirk or mock, this one did. I think it thought I would eventually forget about it and it would never face the shark-toothed jaws of an opener. But I didn't forget.

I received some pretty encouraging advise about this little culinary adventure in the weeks before its execution, especially from Kylie. Butter, garlic, parmesan. I add these instructions: dice quickly before you think about it too much. Diced, snails look surprisingly similar to mushrooms. Garliced and buttered, snails also taste quite like a fungus... which, I suppose, is not necessarily an improvement. We ate it with Tostitoes, but we didn't munch much. It is snails, after all.

[1] #39: The Wild Streak

Some posts need more introduction than others. This one needs almost nothing.

I have blue hair.

Not lots, just a little chunk guy chilling out behind my left ear, making every day a little brighter.

[1] #36: A Leaping Faith

This year had been a long list of firsts in my life thanks to the adventurous challenge of The Shovel, but last week I claimed a "first" not only for myself, but for the entire province of Ontario. 

I didn't really understand what I was getting into when Ben popped his head into the kitchen after dinner. "Do you guys want to go on the zipline?" he asked with a misleading nonchalance. I took one look at Jo, fellow cook and great friend, and knew our answer would be the same. "Um, Yes!?" we replied, blissfully naive of the commitment we had just made. And that was that: verbal waver signed. 

About an hour later I met Jo and her towel outside of the Staff House, my adopted springtime abode. Our one minute walk to the tower was a giddy one, but excited giggles turned into nervous laughter when I stepped into the shadow of this foreboding edifice. Oh, biceps... we have a little training to do. After a few tries and a little slipping of the fingers I managed to pass the fifteen-second test that determined whether or not I would be able to save my own life. The second fifteen-second test, whether or not I would be able to force my trembling body up the thin metal ladder to the high platform from which I would soon have to jump, took a more determined swallowing of fear. 

The guys were encouraging but a little vague. "Wrist in here," said Stu after practically bolting himself into place. "When I open the gate, just run." Wires, wrists and fists... a system that did not scream total security, but the engineers that thought it up and put it together are a trustworthy set, so with an eventual deep breath and a squeak of escaping internal protest, my feet leapt.

Then my heart leapt. 

I'm the type to fear the climb and love the drop. It's the classic roller coaster dilemma, but as with many that share the adrenaline addiction brought on by the physical thrill of being rushed towards the earth at a rhinocerosly rapid speed, I work through the terror of that first ride and cue by cue, build up my bravery. By the end of the day, all you feel is awesome and fearless. This is like that... but maybe a little cooler.

The zip at Mini-Yo-We is the only licensed line that lands in the water - and this year, I was the first to ride down. Bottom line: I make history. No big deal.

[1] #2: Training for Barnum and Bailey

There is a bewildering percentage of the North American population that suffers from a fear of circus clowns.  Irrational though it may seem to those of us whose personal interaction with the cheerfully clad actors of buffoonery and jest have been pleasant and calm, I understand that in the world of dark film there has been a twist in the expressions of these characters -- a perversion of their charm into something cruel and cold. This need not be the legacy of the professional jokester. Can we please bring it back to pie-in-the-faceing and the squirting floral boutonnieres of ages past? Here's you're balloon of ridiculous length.

Thanks to YouTube, my good friend Messa and I spent an afternoon learning how to inflate these balloon-animal-baloons with nothing but the hot air of out own lungs (and a little "Karate!" which, in this context, means a body-shuddering umph). Unfortunately, we listened to this guy and never saw this guy's video at all. (Gotta love contradicting advice?) Ahh well.

By the end of the time, both of us had twisted two colourful quadrupeds and caused a few fatalities. Lessons learned: there are ways to half-cheat at this if you need to, both of us are very easily amused, and a hole in one leg of a balloon animal plays out more like amputation than explosion if you've twisted it right. I will also add that Willow (the thirteen-year-old girl I was working with at the time) was very impressed with my new skills, and commissioned a latex Barbie house and a hoop-target for them to jump through.

Now, that wasn't so scary, was it? But then, the make up I was wearing was fairly conservative. Perhaps for our week of celebrations at Camp this summer, I will don a more dramatic look and play the birthday-clown for a day. I will need a little more practice for that role though... and let's be honest, an air pump.

[1] #31: From the Rooftops

The view from my window this morning doesn't feel like the city I have become so accustomed to. There is a low-hanging fog blanket snuggling up to the lake and doing its best to white out the sky and erase the horizon. I can see only shadows of a tree line across the bay, grey on softer grey layers of a storybook silhouette. It is raining gently, misting everything with a melancholic wash, just heavy enough that certain spots on my bannister have collected enough water to drip. Drip. Not often, not when I'm looking, but from the corner of my eye as I write. I slept with my windows open last night so I could listen to the city and the smell of the rain has rolled inside to my bed.

I can hear the birds, now. It doesn't last long here, this peace; in an hour the pigeons will wake up and bully the songbirds to hush, but for this moment they have the stage. I want to join them. I soon will.

Because in one more day I will be leaving this place. 

And there are certain things I must do before I go.

So I went to my room and riffled through a package of papers I have kept since High School. I shouldn't still have them, but I do. I find the one I am looking for, return to my balcony and open the door to this costal scene before me. It is exactly what I imagine the east coast to feel like in the mornings. Reminiscent of Ireland, with its muted greys and crisp greens. 

"Cai dil gu la laddie, la laddie, sleep the stars away."

And sleep the moon, and sleep the dark. I usually reserve this piece for tall stairwells when the echos fill the space and magnify my melody like a choir, but this morning it was an obvious choice. Maybe my sixth-floor apartment wasn't the rooftop I once envisioned, but as I sang out, full and loud, I watched over my little North End neighbourhood as it stretched itself awake with a yawn. So many rooftops, so many homes, so many families, so many lives.

I hope I have touched a few.