Parents, You Are Killing Me....And Your Child Too

Teaching karate to hundreds of children puts me into contact with many, many parents. This is the hardest part of my job. I understand that your bundle of joy is precious to you, that he or she is your shining star, your extension of self and there is no one in the world just like them. What I do not understand is your desire to keep them infants dependent on you forever.

After a decade of teaching kids to do things so many thought that “just kids” couldn’t do, and watching them thrive, I am being told that everything I do is wrong. A child behaves badly in class and I ask them to do pushups – how dare I? A child refuses to try, refuses to practice, and does not learn a single thing and so does not earn a belt and a certificate – what kind of a monster am I? Remind the class that their grading is coming up and that they need to practice their kata – you cannot put that much pressure on the children, they will have nightmares.

Many parents sign their children up because the children are out of control and need some discipline or because the child is being bullied and needs large doses of self esteem. However, when I try to discipline them or teach them that, yes they can learn something challenging and excel at it, I am destroying their will to live.  I am crushing them. My expectations of children are too high. Is that what we want for our children now, lowered expectations?

It saddens me to watch these kids being treated like they are fragile and then begin to act that way. It angers me to take the blame, that my one hour a week with these children is the reason they are so neurotic and not the constant over parenting.

Failing a test will not destroy a child, but never learning to work hard at something might. Never learning to bounce back after failure definitely will. Children need to learn to do things without their parents, and do them well. They need to learn that rules are to be followed, and when they are not followed there are consequences. They need to learn to take responsibility for breaking those rules and not putting the blame on the people who enforce them. They need to learn all of the difficult and challenging things they can do instead of being “protected” from trying. In the “real world” every person does not get a trophy just for showing up and your son or daughter’s boss is not going to be impressed when you march in and demand to know why your offspring did not get the promotion. Sound ridiculous? Well what age is the appropriate age to allow your child to start growing up? From what I can tell, the plan is to coddle them until they finish high school and then set them loose with no life skills.

Parents, please, let your children grow up and learn some independence. Allow them to become good at something. If they never learn how to recover from failure, they will never learn how to succeed. There is a reason the word “smothering” doesn’t have any positive connotations. 

What Must You Think of Me!

For years I have heard people joke about the iTunes recommends section of the iStore "you don't know me, iTunes!!" Though the suggestions sometimes feel insulting, I can see the path fairly clearly and the conclusions are logical, even if taste is not. Amazon recommends however, those require leaps of the imagination.

Regular readers will be aware that I teach karate and enjoy cooking. It should come as no surprise that I have purchased books about karate and cookbooks such as home canning guides. Both are activities I want to do safely without injuring or poisoning anyone and with all due respect, I don't believe everything I find on the internet.

After teaching karate for 10 years, I worry that my drills might be getting a little stale, so one of the books I purchased was about conditioning for martial arts. I thought I'd learn some new exercise ideas to liven up my advanced classes (I didn't, the book was useless). When Amazon recommended books on Kettlebell training, it didn't seem that far fetched. "Jailhouse Strong" was a little unsettling, both that it exists in the first place and that a search engine would lump it in with fitness and martial arts. Why does everyone think all dojos Kobra Kai from Karate Kid?

What really surprised me were the prepper book suggestions. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term "prepper" it is a new word for "Survivalist" - people who actively prepare for the apocalypse. As a Red Cross trained Disaster Relief volunteer, I understand the importance of having an emergency kit in case of fire, flood or natural disaster, (even though I don't) but that is child's play to the prepper. Preppers are more the modern equivalent to the bomb shelter builders of the 1950's. Prepper websites include such topics as, "safely crossing a fence with a firearm" and debating "bugging out vs hunkering down". All this because I wanted to enjoy my favourite roasted tomato sauce during winter when produce available at the grocery store is flavourless. 

Taken individually, these recommendations are funny. Put them together and you get the kind of profile the NSA would red flag. What Amazon seems to be suggesting is that I am hording supplies for the inevitable doomsday that I may or may not be planning to cause and preparing my body to survive my prison stay once the authorities catch up with my unhinged ass. 

Seriouly, Amazon, you do not know me!

The Long Fist of the Dating Law

"Where do you meet people?" I hear this all the time from adults. Once outside of academic institutions, we generally only come into contact with other adults through work or through friends. If you've had the same friends long enough, you've probably met all their dating eligible friends already. Being a fan of continuing education and "special interest" classes, I continued to meet potential mates long after leaving university.

The longest relation I ever had was with someone I met at the dojo. We trained together for years, earning our black belts together. Like dating someone you work with (which I avoid), dating someone you train with can be awkward if the relationship ends. Regardless of how poorly it ends, you will still have the same Sensei so unless one of you plans of giving up martial arts, you will be thrust together, often and aggressively.

Fortunately my ex is a pretty mature guy and we have managed to remain, at least civil if not friends. Generally we see each other at seminars greet each other politely and then go with our different crowds. Recently though, we have been exchanging friendly text messages. Mostly regarding advice on gifts for Sensei, some have turned more personal and friendly. 

Great, I thought, we've turned a corner, we will be actual friends now. We meet at seminars and hug. We chat, we train together. All is good. Guards came down, spirits and friendly banter rose, all was good. And that was why I was caught off guard but not shocked when I was the recipient of a long fist to the nose at a kung fu seminar on Saturday.

You can't go home again, at least not without your guard up.

Passing The Torch

Last Saturday, eight remarkable young people who I have had the pleasure of teaching for the past ten years successfully graded for their Shodan (first degree black belt). What an incredible journey it has been watching these little children grow into young adults - who are all now taller than me.

These kids are disciplined, hard working, successful in several different areas (most are on the honour roll), polite youth. Their etiquette is impeccable, better than most adults I know. They are a tight-nit group who look out for each other. And people still make comments to me about karate being violent and aggressive. My students have never been in trouble because of fighting. How many hockey coaches can say the same of their players? 

I salute these students, most kids don't stick with something for 10 years. Heck, most adults don't make it to black belt. Congratulations class, you did what I didn't think possible, you made me even prouder of you than I already was!

The Cold Meat and Dairy War

My guy is what I refer to as a Lazitarian, too lazy to cook, he eats whatever is laid in front of him. When he first moved in under cover of habit (see Stealth Cohabitation) he became a vegetarian out of necessity - I do all the cooking and I don't cook meet. Though he was gaining weight due to regular meals and careful attention to nutrition, his mother was sure he was malnourished and starving because...well, a person can't live without meat, especially her only child person. Eventually, he went back to eating meat when dinning out or at either of his parent's places but remained vegetarian at home.

He is a stubborn one, my guy and if pushed one way, will run the other (sound familiar to anyone out there? Hands up if you are dating one) and he can be spiteful, though rarely, just for the sake of it. It is the latter attribute that is waging a full on cold war in my refrigerator. I say "my" refrigerator because a) I bought it and b) the kitchen is my domain, much like gardening is his. It has nothing to do with gender or cultural expectations, each sticks with what they know. Food prep, weight training plans, hand-to-hand combat, plumbing and feudal weapons are my things. Bicycle repair, planting and watering things that grow, wood working, guns and grocery shopping are his. Don't even get me started on his rigorous miltaresque policies regarding bed making. I've been known to fight my way out of the restrictive covers.

When my guy worked in a factory and had access to a refrigerator and microwave, I made his lunches. Usually I just made enough dinner to ensure he had a meal for the following day. This summer he started trimming and removing trees then added landscaping and decks to his repertoire. Outdoor work that necessitated the need for sandwiches or at least foods that did not require heating. I assumed he could make a sandwich for himself, it requires very little culinary skill. That's when the luncheon meat started appearing in and contaminating my refrigerator. Then the chicken toquitos (if you don't know what those are, consider yourself lucky, microwaved there are the most offensive smell ever to waft from my kitchen). When I announced my decision to transition from vegetarian to vegan, nearly everything he brought home from the grocery store contained meat, cheese or egg. 

The cold meat/dairy war is upon us. He now even buys potato chips (my weakness) with dairy in them. Nothing gives him more pleasure than eating chocolate covered almonds in my presence and offering me one about every 3 minutes. He goes out of his way to grocery shop for things I cannot eat, even though I am the cook in the house and he knows what I prepare for us will be vegan. He has no complaint with the taste or quality of the food I prepare. He likes my cooking, even my vegan cooking. Really, my being vegan doesn't effect him at all, and yet he intentionally tries to thwart me at every opportunity. The better my diet becomes, the more processed junk he eats. He's at a barbeque tonight, stuffing his face with steak and domestic beer, while I'm home, drinking craft beer, eating a decadent cashew butter and vanilla pear jam sandwich, playing music too loud and dancing in my underwear. 

Rest well my dear, for tomorrow I reclaim my refrigerator, "Once more unto the Veggie Crisper, dear friends, once more....

Don't Look Back

I did pushups this week. At least 10 in every class I've taught. As a karate Sensei this would normally not only be considered no big deal but a surprisingly low number. I haven't been able to do pushups for nearly a year. A mountain bike crash last October left me with an impinged shoulder and a career as a karate instructor left me with enough inflammation to keep a firm lock on that impingement. 

Over the past year I've been through countless doctors’ appointments, sports medicine doctor appointments, x-rays, ultrasounds, bone scans and a cortisone shot. On a side note, the cortisone shot was at the beginning of the cycling season and though I was able to jump from 30 km rides to 110 km rides in a week without feeling any ill effects in my legs, the pain in the needle site was so miserable I cannot fathom pro athletes willingly subjecting themselves to this. Imagine having paraffin wax injected into your muscle, and then feeling it harden over the course of a week and you pretty much have the experience of a cortisone shot, all the discomfort with none of the annoying side effects like actually fixing the problem. Then suddenly, a couple of weeks ago, I noticed that I wasn't in pain.

Chronic pain is a funny thing, what keeps you awake at night in the beginning, becomes so familiar that you forget what it feels like not to hurt. When it disappears there's a weird period when you don't notice because you've gotten so used to just getting on with it. Other people's sympathy for your pain lasts about 2 weeks, after which no one cares or remembers anymore and if you remind them you are viewed as "milking it", so you put up and shut up. You learn to ignore the pain until you slip into bed and the full force of your over doing it during the day catches up to you.

The pain is gone, and now I have to deal with the weakness. Weakness is not something I deal with very well. I'm a very small female, the grade school girl who was picked last for soccer baseball - a made up sport for weaklings. I have devoted most of my adult life on not being delicate, not fitting the mold of the "delicate China doll" (which I have been called). I take great pride in surprising people with my strength and "toughness". Needless to say, struggling through some rather mediocre pushups doesn't sit very well with me. 

This is where professional me and personal me have to sit down and have a serious conversation. Professional me says that loss of strength is to be expected after such a lengthy recovery. That I should take my rehabilitation one day at a time and celebrate the successes along the way, "look, you did over 70 pushups this week, 3 weeks ago you couldn't do one." Just like I would say to a student in my situation, and I would mean it! Personal me spends a lot of time looking back at where I used to be. Personal me remembers the 100 push up warm-ups and clapping push up days. Personal me gets frustrated by my weakness. Both professional me and personal me have a lot more empathy for others than I do myself.

I've seen this scenario played out many times with friends and clients alike. People who used to be athletic, who got away from their sport and then stayed away because when they tried to re-enter it, their ego couldn't handle not being at the top anymore. That is exactly what it is, ego. The only person judging the number or quality of my pushups is me. No one else is thinking, "yeah, she's a nice person, very professional, takes pride in her work...but...have you seen her pushups lately? What is going on there?” The fact that so many people I know have quit after absence from sport due to ego scares me. I am a very humble martial artist, by an ego maniac about my strength - for my size or any size. I don't want to become another quitter. I don't want to be frustrated.

I'm trying very, very hard to breathe deeply, enjoy the journey back and to not think about asking, "are we there yet?".

Do Good Guys Wear Lyrca? - Another New Dawn in Cycling

Cycling fans we can smile again! Pat McQuaid has been ousted from UCI presidency and replaced by the UK’s Brian Cookson OBE. Cookson was endorsed by just about every cycling/doping critic around, but we’ll have to wait and see what he delivers. (You can read Cookson’s Manifesto here:
http://www.briancookson.org/files/6313/7208/9499/Manifesto_BC_English.pdf)
Now, my first cycling crush and the only American to ever win the Tour de France, Greg LeMond is back designing bicycles!

For those of you who aren't familiar with the LeMond bicycle, it was originally distributed through Trek until a certain litigious, chemical driven, bully on wheels used his then considerable clout and hatred for Greg to get the line dumped. Call it Karma, call it delayed justice, but the tables have turned. As the bully sits at home in Texas buried under an avalanche of lawsuits, LeMond is relaunching his brand through Time Bicycles.

This is the stuff of Fairy Tales, the Hollywood happy ending! The bullies and the corrupt leaders have lost in disgrace. The Cutters win the race, Dave Stoller gets the girl, the college degree and the pro contract. (If you are a cycling fan but you've never seen the movie Breaking Away, shame on you!).

The problem is, life is not so clear cut; good guys sometimes do bad things, bad guys sometimes do good things and our expectations that everyone has to stay on one side or the other leads to disappointment, pessimism and ambivalence. Look at the riders who admitted to cheating (without getting caught), confessing in order to help move things forward in a positive way. Which side of the good-bad divide do they belong on?  How many times have you said, “What’s the point, they’re all cheaters anyway”? All of them, really? The neo-pro barely making $30, 000 a year? The team that let the most skeptical of cycling journalists travel with the team with 100% access? What about Christophe Bassons? Surely he wasn’t an anomaly. He was racing at cycling’s nadir of doping and yet he remained so true to his ethics that he quit the sport rather than capitulate.

What cycling needs is what life needs, a healthy dose of cynicism tempered with optimism, a commitment by the critics to not just complain but do something about it and hordes of Dave Stollers and Christophe Bassons leading the way.

And if Time Bicycles or Greg LeMond needs someone to write a product review on the new LeMond bikes, just give me a call!

A Workshop, A Hike, And A Big Jam

Saturday I attended a wonderful (and free!) canning workshop that was part of the the City of Oshawa Food for Though series and sponsored by BerNardin. Although I had already experimented with my first canning project (had to use those tomatoes while they were ripe!), I have a lot to learn (and did I mention it was free?).

We watched the entire process from ingredients selection to making and canning the finished product. Encouraged that I hadn't made too many mistakes with the salsa, I immediately went out to buy pears from a fruit stand and a stock pot large enough to not boil over and scald me this time. The result was 1.5 l of delicious pear vanilla jam and the decision to preserve Christmas this year so I'm sorry if you were looking forward to a really fancy gift, you are getting jars filled with mushy goodness.

Lovely ladies volunteering their time to teach us

But before I could get to the cooking there were woods to hike, mushrooms to marvel at and kids to shake my head at. Sunday was a rare and wonderful day, indeed, as my guy had a day off, it is late September and the day was sunny and warm. To the woods! This time, to a ravine not far from our house that I have shamefully never explored before. On our hike I found the most vibrant and wonderful looking mushroom growing all by it's self.

It's red, so it must be delicious, right?

Despite my assertions that the tastiest foods on the planet are red and so this must be edible and delicious, my guy coaxed me away from the little fungus with nothing but a photo to remember it by.

We encountered the usual trappings in a wooded area surrounded by suburbia, mountain bike jumps and trails, trenches for pant ball games, red cups - lots of red cups and fire pits. Then just evidence of fires having been set, directly under trees...and then fires set in trees!!!!!

Burnt out tree - What were they thinking?

Children, please allow me to explain, it is evident that you like to drink and generally party in the woods. That's fine, I'm not very eager to come tripping through here at night anyway, but please realize that if you burn it down, you won't have it to play in anymore. This lovely protected greenspace will be replaced by a subdivision in a heartbeat and there will be even more of you sitting around on a Saturday night complaining that there is nothing to do. I hope they don't burn it down, I'm really looking forward to snowshoeing here in the winter.

(You can find the recipe for Pear Vanilla Jam here: http://foodinjars.com/2011/02/pear-vanilla-jam/)

Guess Who's Vegan To Dinner?

I became a Vegetarian at the age of thirteen. Recently I have decided to make the transition to full Vegan thanks to my new status as a Vega Community Ambassador, and to the inspiring recipes found on thriveforward.com and ohsheglows.com. I have yet to break the news to my family. I say "break" because, despite my not having eaten meat in over ahargahem years, I still hear "what are we going to feed you?" every time I attend a family meal. True, my father was raised on a cattle farm, but I have seen all of my family members consume at least some foods that did not consist of flesh.

All my adult life I have been asked, "well, what do you eat?" and "but, where do you get your protein?" Imagine their horror when I have to explain that eggs, cheese, and honey have joined the pantheon of "Protein Lisa Doesn't Eat". With Canadian Thanksgiving fast approaching, bringing meals with my family, my partner's family (both our parents are divorced so that makes 4 meals instead of two) where I will have to break the "bad" news to everyone I thought I'd do so in one missive with plenty of advanced warning.

The average Thanksgiving table in my family consists of a roasted bird or swine of some kind, boiled (generally mashed) autumn harvest root vegetables such as carrots, squash, potatoes, turnip, and a dessert (usually pumpkin pie) served with whipped cream or ice cream. All those root vegetables are my domain. They fall under the "not meat" umbrella of "Food Lisa Does Eat". I don't have nut allergies or gluten intolerance. I don't have a carbohydrate phobia (you need carbs, people). In fact, my diet has more variety than the restrictive fad diets of most of my family.

Let's start with the great protein myth; there are plant proteins, many plant proteins. It is very rare to eat anything that is all protein or all carbohydrate. Food is complex. Most things you put in your mouth contain protein and carbohydrate, and sometimes fat at the same time. Foods get labeled as a "carb" or a "protein" depending on the ratio or carbs to proteins to fats. If it has more protein than carbohydrates or fats, it is considered a protein. The only foods that are "pure" anything are manmade, heavily processed and should be limited if not avoided altogether. If it grows by itself, without humans doing too much to intervene, it is a mix. So, chances are something on the menu that isn't an animal will have protein, and that's where I get it.

The "well, what do you eat?" question is easier to answer; everything that doesn't have meat, eggs, dairy or honey. That includes, all vegetables, fruits, grains, nuts and legumes, edible flowers, herbs and spices, I love herbs and spices. Essentially I eat everything edible that grows but doesn't bleed. That leaves the door pretty wide open for feeding me or heck, why don't I just make a few dishes to add to the table and I'll eat that! Everybody wins!

It's Getting All Steamy Up In Here

We consume a lot of salsa in my home, and I've never had a salsa I liked better than the kind I make. I think it's my heavy handed cilantro use. Many a wintry Sunday I've made my kitchen look like a pre-Industrialization battlefield with bits of red tomato carcass everywhere, the juice dripping down my arms, counter, cupboard door...all the while lamenting that I cannot wait until tomatoes have flavour again. Well, that time is now and I am loathe to let it slip past me, so I am embarking on a brand new adventure - canning.

Quaint, a little archaic, really, really messy and, as my Guy reminds me hourly, probably more expensive than just buying jars at the store (after all, my recent foray in making apple butter resulted in a destroyed blender. How a top name brand - it starts with a K like in kitchen *ahem* blender can crumble under the load of mushy apples that have been cooked for 4 hours, cooled in the refrigerator and  suitable for a baby sans teeth  is beyond me, but I digress).

This rekindled desire to cook, bake, preserve and generally work with all things edible has been brought on by the drastic turn in temperature from 40 C with humidex to 7 C in about a week. This summer was just too hot to contemplate anything requiring the use of more heat and I lived on smoothies for most of August. Also rekindled is my Guy's snickering about how he's "tamed" me and that he has "turned" me into a "house wife". The fact that I am neither a wife, nor a house being a fact that seems to have escaped him. (The use of house wife as a derisive term is a rant that I just don't have the space to go into, suffice to say, a woman's choice to stay home or work is her own, though I am sure most of the population just doesn't have the choice in this two income economy.) Lucky for him my desire to remain a vegetarian and stay upright, mobile and healthy prevents me from ceasing all kitchen activities immediately because nothing kills my desire to make dishes that will also feed him like being called "tamed". 

I have no idea where this smugness even comes from because the only version of me he knows is the good cook/bread baker. That former self, the one who still makes me marvel when anything turns our right, had already pretty much disappeared by the time he met me. He only knows about it from the stories, so I am not sure how it is he thinks he gets the credit for my healthier lifestyle or why eating properly, with fresh whole foods, somehow makes me tame.

Tame isn't being adventurous in the kitchen, taking on new and increasingly difficult recipes and even making up a few. Tame is eating a lot of processed barely food because it's easy, and that's what everyone else does.

I have to go burn myself over steaming pots now, and I plan to make the salsa inferno, that'll teach him.

Antithesis' Guide to Long Distance Riding

With September (also known as mini-New Years) here I am reading a lot of articles about staying motivated and on track with fitness goals. They mean well, and are true in theory but very difficult in practice. As someone who rides alone a lot, I have a pretty good handle on getting in the kilometers even when your brain is desperately trying to talk you out of it. Here are my training secrets, may they serve you well.

1. Visit friends or relatives who live in a rural area you are not overly familiar with, preferably an area known for its corn.
2. Set out on a ride by yourself, when the road you are on ends in an inevitable dirt or gravel section, you must back track and turn at the first street you come to.
3. Do a loop (out-and-backs are not permitted)
4. Do not ask locals for directions
5. Don't even think about using the GPS/Map apps on your phone - chances are you'll be out of service range anyway.

I was fortunate enough to be in an area where corn fields are as ubiquitous as street signs are scarce. In such an area, if these guidelines do not add at least 30 - 40 km to your journey you are either an expert navigator or you really know your corn fields. 

Not knowing where you are and needing to get home sometime is the most powerful motivation I have found so far. You ride the extra kms because there is no other option. If you do end up so hopelessly lost that you cannot return home without help from your phone, use Google Maps bike route, it will add 15 km to your journey just to avoid even the slightest bump in the road.

*Note: I just returned home from a wonderful cycling mini-break, visiting family, riding wine country - which also happens to be peach country, cherry country, corn country, pear country and most fun of all, escarpment country. Eight days of cycling bliss on both back roads and main streets with huge bike lanes, without a single motorist cutting me off, turning into me, honking, shouting or passing too close. If you are an Ontario cyclist looking for a great place to ride, eat, drink and play you have to check out the Niagara Escarpment and all the little towns that make up the Regional Municipality of Niagara and be sure not to miss The Short Hills, Decew Road and Effingham Street for those all important Strava KOM points.

Is It Possible To Feel Cranky and Optimistic At The Same Time?

As Rambling As a Sunday Bike Ride

My first Century is done, dusted and for the most part recovered from. Let me catch you up, though I have always loved to cycle, and am not adverse to long days in the saddle, the fact that I had never ridden a proper century event (100 mile/160 km bicycle ride sportive) weighed heavily on me. That all changed when the two day, 200 km event I had been riding to support the MS Society for years changed formats to a one day Century ride. I rode it last weekend, by myself; it was lovely if a tad lonely. The route was brilliant, the people were not and that is what started me on this cranky spiral I find myself contemplating on a sunny Sunday morning. Why are so many recreational cyclists, such complete and utter jerks?

Where I live, recreational cyclists are 80% more likely to get hit by a car than commuter cyclists. There must be a reason for this, and it can't be all on the side of the drivers because the commuter cyclists manage to be stay relatively safe. It has long baffled me that so many recreational cyclists I know don't give a damn about the environment, complain about drivers put pull some of the most asinine stunts on the road and are ignorant to other cyclists, especially if the cross a different type of cyclists (triathletes are rude to roadies who are rude to anyone on a bike that doesn't cost the price of a car and mountain bikers disdain them all). It's worse than the worst high school cliquiness I ever encountered. 

Back in my days as a less bitter advocate for safe cycling routes as a community concern, I was confused that the recreational cyclists completely failed to show any interest in the subject. I couldn't wrap my head around why they were so apathetic until I realized that many in my community strap their bikes to bike racks, drive their cars to an area with little car traffic and start their rides on lightly traveled country roads. Never mind that such green spaces are slated to be developed, and that those roads will soon be arteries to get to the expanded toll highway. It doesn't affect them now so they are not concerned.

Last night, on a stroll along the waterfront trail, a multi-use recreational path that runs parallel to lake Ontario, has no hills, many barriers to high speeds and is generally conducive to a light ride even kids on bikes with plastic wheels can easily manage, I counted at least 4 energy gel wrappers littering the ground in a stretch of about 1.5 km. Really cyclists? I will avoid getting elitist and question refueling needs on such a path, but I will point out that your jerseys have pockets, pockets you carried the full gel packs in to that point, pockets your now empty gel wrapper could easily slip back into instead of littering a lovely green space in the middle of urban sprawl with your garbage. Your jersey can be easily washed, the planet cannot!

Back to the Century ride, I was stopped at a red light behind the car in front of me (because that's what you are supposed to do) and waiting to make a left hand turn. Another rider from the event passed me on the right just as the light turned green, passed the car in front of me (remember, the light is now green) and cut directly in front of it, indicating his left turn by putting his hand on the hood of the car, also cutting off a truck coming from the opposite direction. To their credit, neither vehicle driver gave way to rage (I would have), the just stopped their cars and looked shocked for a moment before driving away with much head shaking. I easily caught the rider in such a hurry that he'd rather die trying and put as much distance between me and him as possible lest he get me killed by the next driver who might not remain so calm.

During the ride I crossed many local cyclists out for a ride who were not part of our event. Most blew past, ignoring all other cyclists who were not in their "equals". The older the rider, the more they seemed determined not to see you. However, I did pass more than a few groups of young riders, at least three with a Team Ontario or O Cup jersey in their midst who were more than happy to say hello, holler wishes for a good ride and generally be happy to have the luxury of being out on a bike on a beautiful sunny Saturday in August. And that is where my crank turns to optimism.

Maybe these young riders, raised with recycling, Share the Road and groups of people to ride with will be different. Maybe they realize that active transit, lots of people on bicycles are good for the community, good for the planet and something to enjoy.

Finally, a chance encounter with a tweet brought me in contact with a Guelph woman with a terrific idea called "The Sweet Ride". Very leisurely, women's only bike ride that explores local cafes, bakeries and farmer's markets to sample their wares. Now my optimism soared. Maybe we could have something like that in Durham. A way to get all those women who have told me they don't ride bicycles due to fear, out on a bike for a comfortable ride in a non-threatening environment. Grow their confidence, make them aware of the personal and communal benefits of cycling and most importantly make new friends. 

So that's my new "off season" goal, research safe, user friendly and easy routes to various cafes and bakeries (a real challenge in my community where the car is EVERYTHING), connect with Guelph's Sweet Ride creator and get as many women as I can back on their bikes! Get your bicycles out of storage, give it a tune and get ready ladies, because next Spring The Sweet Ride is coming to Durham!

For more on my inspiration for The Sweet Ride see heartheather.com blog. Again thank you Heather for taking the time to respond to my messages and offer me support!

Outdoor Adventurer

I know it's been a while, vote for my album to send me on a camping trip to the arctic and I promise entertaining blog posts about it!
http://promoshq.wildfireapp.com/website/6/contests/324364/voteable_entries?utf8=%E2%9C%93&search=Lisa+Kennedy&button

Take Me Out Tonight, Because I Want To Ignore Music and Just Stare at a Screen

Saturday night I went to the Johnny Marr http://www.johnny-marr.com/messengeralbum show at the Phoenix, a small, intimate concert hall, which I think is the best way to enjoy live music. Huge arena shows are something to experience, but if you really love live music, nothing beats a small venue.

  

Being rather short in stature, I climbed up to the balcony where I could get a bird’s eye view of the stage rather than the backs of a sea of heads. From my vantage point I could see the stage perfectly and the crowd of people below filming the concert on their mobile phones.

We’ve all seen YouTube clips of mobile phone recorded shows and shut them off as soon as we realized what they were. The sound quality is crap, and the video is a motion sickness inducing shaky, blur. Which begs the question, why would anyone buy a ticket to a show, take the trouble to get dressed up, go downtown and watch the entire concert through the tiny screen of their mobile phone instead of larger than life on stage in front of them?

Many people were not dancing because they had to hold their phones still, and with the task of recording, couldn’t offer much in the way of applause at the end of each song. I can’t imagine how the band kept their energy up and pulled off such a tight and fun show with so little feedback from the audience.

I’m sure those fans all went home raving about what a great show it was. If they didn't like the music they would have stopped recording the show so intently, but in the process of recording a very poor quality version of the evening, they missed out on enjoying what was actually happening live directly in front of them.

Meanwhile, up in the balcony, farthest from the action, people danced and sang, cheered, bopped and had a great time because the show was really entertaining. The new album The Messenger is great and I actually prefer Marr’s versions of The Smiths classics to Morrissey’s iconic whine – heretical statement, but that's the way I feel.

Here’s the one photo from my mobile that I had a taller friend take. It’s a terrible photo but a good example of the standard mobile abilities (and mine has a pretty good camera).

I don’t hate mobiles and modern technology; I just think they are overused. What should be a tool of convenience has become a life-support that most people seem to be unable to effectively live without. Which is ironic because it is exactly the living part they are missing out on.

I recommend any fan of jangly guitar hooks to check out Johnny Marr's new album The Messenger because it rocks, and if anyone finds the red “Johnny Fucking Marr” tour t-shirt in a women’s extra small, please send one my way because they only had tents available at the Phoenix

The Conversations on the Bus Go Round and Round (For Jo)

"Granola Girl" that I am, I try to do my part for the environment. I don't eat meat, I recycle like a demon and I either walk, bicycle or take public transit everywhere. The latter makes me privy to conversations of a private nature. I try to arm myself with reading material and an iPod but I find the more I really don't want to overhear a conversation, the more it intrudes on my concentration. I don't know why people forget that everyone around them can hear their mobile phone conversations, but they do. I've heard so many "baby daddy drama" conversations that they have all blended into one he isn't paying child support-was with another woman-won't get a job-needs to move out ball of confusion and it is hard to differentiate them all. Those are the conversations I forget quickly. The ones that really stick with me are those of unintentional comedic brilliance. Recently a friend suggested I blog about them and so, here we are, some of my favourite snippets of public transit talk:

A young woman having a phone interview for a job from the seat behind me offered this gem: "I'm a scheduling wizard." This did make me immediately want to read the rest of her resume with a keen interest in what school she attended that had any kind of "wizardry" on its curriculum.

The lost young man who wanted to learn master guitar building from a prestigious school in "somewhere in BC or Saskatchewan, I forget, anyway it's somewhere on the East Coast." (For my non-Canadian readers, BC and Saskatchewan are both in Western Canada and Saskatchewan, being a Prairie province, doesn't have a coast of either an Eastern or Western variety).

The alphabetically challenged woman trying desperately to locate her lost Fendi wallet explaining that it "looks exactly like the Coach intertwined C's...but....you know....with F's" which is true, I guess, but there has to be a better way to put it.

Girls do need math, as was proved by the group of them having a one-up conversation about their footwear collection, 

 Girl 1: "Oh my god, I have, like, 20 pairs of shoes"

Girl 2: "Well, I don't even know how many pairs I have now because I had about 23 pairs but then I bought, like, another 15 pairs."

Recently I came upon the plan to start turning to the loud mobile conversationalist and say, "I can't believe you did that! I would be so embarrassed" as a way to remind them we all can hear them and to possibly traumatize the bad behaviour out of them. However, being sat directly behind a man twitching in his seat who was muttering in graphic detail about all the violent things he was going to do to "her” has made me rethink this plan. Transit people can be a volatile lot and its best that I not provoke them in person. Instead I'll do it via the safety of the internet.

Where All The Good Men Are

My guy is really good in a crisis. I know this because in the 15 months we've been together he has come to the aid of strangers in need on at least 3 occasions, and those are just the events I have witnessed. It has come to a point that, if we are doing something in the morning but have plans in the evening, I mentally allocate an extra hour and a half for him to come to someone's rescue. It gives me a bit of an inside perspective into the lives of Lois Lane, Mary Jane Watson and Bruce Wayne's countless women - minus the super villains.

The first event was a car crash (this was no accident, this was bad driving) we witnessed on a busy street but my guy alone stopped and stayed on the scene for. Purchasing water for those directly involved, making sure everyone was ok and waiting for police.

Second, while out for a lovely bike ride on a gorgeous sunny day, about 60 km from home and enough time for me to get back home, change, have something to eat and go off to teach karate. As we hit our turn around point I politely declined a request to borrow a mobile, as I didn't have mine with me and kept riding. My guy, on the other hand, stopped and discovered that the lady asking for a phone really needed medical attention. She had fallen on a recently replaced hip and, as cliché as it sounds, could not get up. She sat stranded on the grass with 3 dogs about her and unable to move. My guy got her to her feet, called an ambulance, called her husband and waited with her until she was safely in the care of the paramedics while I wrangled the dogs and felt utterly ashamed of myself for not stopping when she spoke to me. My only lame defense is that she asked for a phone I did not have, rather than ask for help.

Next came the stoned mountain biker who had inextricably managed to put his chain on incorrectly. In fact, the chain was so strangely installed that my guy had to take the rear derailleur apart to fix it. So there I stood, again loosing time to eat before going to teach, while my boyfriend performed a 20 minute trail side bicycle repair for "Blazy" the pothead mountain biker.

Before you say to yourself, "this man is too good to be true" and possibly think that I have made him up, let me fill in the mountain bike story. I fell hard on my shoulder during that ride. I was told to get back on my bike and off we went. I was lightly chastised for being too cautious on sections and slightly mocked for my lack of mountain biking prowess. Two things I have, on many occasions, openly admitted to 1. that I suck at mountain biking 2. that my lack of mountain biking ability turns me into a coward. I was dragged up and down many hills to complete the ride despite my crash. While my guy was fixing the stranger's bike, I was struggling to get our bikes onto the rack with what turned out to be two torn tendons in my left shoulder. I am still not allowed to lift anything with my left arm, let alone heave a heavy mountain bike onto a bike rack. He ain't perfect but he is very, very good.

Where have all the good men gone? They are running late because they've spent anywhere from 20 minutes to 2 hours helping a stranger in need while you are probably sat at the coffee shop being hit on by some creep.