Too Healthy to Live

Shades of Logan’s Run returning to haunt us. Now we know there is an optimum economic moment when for the benefit of our country, we should expire willingly or the system may decide to step in, at a future juncture, to aid our demise with a reminder and a helping push. Who would have contemplated that a struggle for health and fitness would eventually become a drain on the earth’s resources? Then again, we could simply accept it as a further step in the development of the green movement. Meanwhile, instead of tax breaks or seniors discounts etc. the government could legislate a ‘too old user’s fee’ for taking up hospital space, doctors time or other valuable commodities. I can hardly wait for that special envelope to show up in the mail; informing me I’ve tipped over into the overuse of communal assets zone and should consider earlier ‘retirement’.

Watch Your Balance

Until this article popped up in the New York Times, I never gave much consideration to the balance aspect of falling down. Usual scenario is to trip over some object or have something or someone accidentally knock you over. And then, age and bone mass kick in determining whether or not bones break or less critical forms of injury result. I’m a great believer in plenty of activity including weight bearing exercise either with real iron or as a consequence of hauling a backpack full of supplies hiking or scrambling in the mountains. Therefore, I figure I’m preventing the loss of bone density or at least slowing it down, so I’m less likely to suffer fractures or serious injury from minor falls. While aware of the factors contributing to a good sense of balance, I never contemplated the gradual deterioration of each function and the possibility of basically losing my balance for no apparent reason – not the best situation when it’s steep enough to require the use of hands to summit a peak. Also, I’m pretty positive all the walking, running, hiking and climbing must have upset those little proprioceptors on the bottom of my feet causing them to react a mite slower or simply get fed up with all the work.
As soon as I finished reading, the obvious next step was to try the one legged balance assessment and slot myself into a category. Phew! Can’t you just anticipate the onset of stress and the threat of failure having to submit to a test? Didn’t ace it, but passed with seconds to spare. The suggested exercises are easy enough to fit into a yoga routine or one legged stands could be performed in a check-out line. Doing the training is fairly quick and simple, besides which you never know when you may have to walk a straight line.

Poor Jimmy!

The latest downturn in the market must have caught the almost destitute Mr. Pattison deeply in his pocket book. How else to explain his attempt to retrieve his losses from the pockets of his most poorly paid employees? According to this story, he is requesting food store employees – Overwaitea, Save-On and Price Smart - to accept minimum 2 hour shifts in place of 4 hour; thus helping him in his desperate quest to lower expenses and improve his bottom line. One also has to remember it was his good pal Gordon Campbell – our beloved premier – who forced through the legislation lowering minimum shift hours which now allows Mr. Pattison to bring down the hammer. Assuming most employees require some form of transportation to get to work, we’ll compare the hourly wage to cost of transit fares. Okay 2 hours at $8.00 per hour yields the grand total of $16.00 less single zone fares of $2.50 each way leaving $11.00 to cover CPP, UIC, taxes and some to pay for the ‘benefits’ which are being offloaded from the company. For the unlucky workers who may need a 2 zone fare of $3.75 each way, they will have only $8.50 to cover expenses. There is little sense in discussing how anyone lives on the amount left as this item does not show up in the ‘human resources’ manuals – Jimmy’s people are merely interchangeable worker units.
Methinks Jimmy doth still don the food stained shirts and ties from the used car lot days!

A is for Apple

As American as apple pie! Since the sole apple native to the Americas is the crab apple, it is a mystery why an apple pie received this appellation. Stranger still may be including a maternal parent in the adage. As American as Mom and apple pie suggests that mom may just be a little ‘crabby’. Mmmm! Let her be crabby as long as she keeps churning out the pies. There appears to be no end to the variety of apples at a time when other food are tending to monocultures, so Johnny Appleseed would be proud of the way we have continued his life’s labour. Meanwhile how about a dish of applesauce?

Apples                 About 2 pounds (usually 5/6 apples) peeled, cored and sliced ¼ “thick, Pick them according to your own taste sweet or sour, but use crisper ones - Granny Smiths are my choice.
Water                   ¼ cup boiling (no instructions for this one).
Cinnamon            1/8 teaspoon ground.
Cloves                  1/8 teaspoon ground
Sugar                   1/2 cup granulated.

Over medium high heat, heat the first 4 items to boiling, cover, reduce heat and simmer 10/12 minutes until tender for chunky applesauce. For smoother sauce break up slices with wooden spoon and cook for additional 5/6 minutes until of desired consistency. Either way, add and stir in the sugar for the last 3 to 4 minutes of cooking time. As a bonus treat for the grownups pour in a ¼ cup of Grand Marnier or orange liqueur along with the sugar.

Squirrel Saga – Part Four

So for the first couple of days again nothing happened even though I’m continually checking the trap and the environs. Then, at long last, I began to notice a furry head poking around the corner of the block wall once again. Gingerly making his way along the stucco Mr. Sticky Toes slowly manoeuvred closer to the aroma cloud hovering above the trap, but held back either through judicious, intelligent, decision making or just sensing my presence peeking out from behind the drapes. However, the next morning the opportunity to almost have breakfast in bed, so as to speak, proved too much of an enticement and my attic dwelling pest went for the bait with the door clacking down behind him in a flash. And this time, there was no simple escape. The door held, the bars did not bend, the structure remained intact. Success! Quickly, I’m on the phone to notify the manager of the capture, so they can pick him up and take him on his merry way. Alas, there was no answer, so I trundled down to the manager’s suite to inform them in person and there appeared to be nobody home, as there was no response to the little knocker mechanism on the door. You wouldn’t think a critter that small could maintain such a racket for long, but three hours later the shrill squeaks and hissing were still emanating from the cage. And the incensed inmate managed to move the cage all around the deck with the boisterous and angered movements. Since I tend to sit close to the sliding doors, this racket got to be extremely annoying in short order and my pleas to be quiet fell on deaf ears. Finally tiring of the noise, I carefully pushed an unbent coat hanger through the bars to pick up the trap (the small carrying handle on the trap seemed easily reachable by the nasty claws) for immediate transport elsewhere. Deciding it was not my job to relocate the ticked off squirrel, I opted to place him in one of the stairwells where he would be out of the way for the time being. Because there is an elevator in the building the stairs are rarely used and I thought my captured villain would not pose a problem. Of course, later a couple of people related to me that they had decided to walk up the stairs, but were deterred by the shrieking they heard coming from the third floor. The following morning, the manager informed me of their discovery of the imprisoned squirrel and the subsequent release of said prisoner at the nearby golf course.
Now it was my chance to sit back and enjoy the quiet. After two weeks with nary a sound spoiling my bliss from above, I logically assumed all the problems had been transported away never to return. Not only had the pesky little beast not been able to stumble on the reverse route back to his attic dwelling, but no other homeless squirrel had managed to locate the vacant digs. So in my elation I put all the follow up procedures on hold – like finding the entrance and sealing it off for ever – and ignored the proper path, trusting nothing would again spoil the peace and quiet. Until a day about three months later when I thought I heard a scratching up in the rafters!
TBC

Cars from Mars

After years of watching sci-fi programs from the Twilight Zone to the X-files, I had assumed alien visits were basically clandestine except for the UFO sightings over mountainous and desert areas. Typically, they landed in farmer’s fields to mutilate domestic cows and wildlife or in remote forest clearings to sweep up unsuspecting earthlings for dissection and experimentation. Imagine my shock when I discovered they had started up their own used car lot in British Columbia. Are economic conditions that tough on our sister planet or is their answer to global warming on Mars to ship broken down gas guzzlers off world? Difficult to report on the employees – afraid to get to close in case it is merely a deceptive front for kidnapping unwary humans – they did appear uncomfortable in suits and soup stained ties; however, having to squeeze their bulbous skulls down to homo sapiens size could account for the misshapen appearance and odd manners. Most of the vehicles on display are carbon copies (intellectual theft?) of earth model cars – did not spot any Ladas or Yugos – although they are rather beat up from the dirt roads and potholes on Mars. Of course, it has forced me to alter my opinion of the drivers in this city. While I always considered a lot of them to be lousy behind the wheel and had suspicions of how they had managed to score a license, I imagine having to adjust to operating a ‘foreign’ automobile causes unintended problems. Pardon me as I rush out to locate an alien second hand clothing store to get me a nice red sweater with three sleeves and a double v-neck.

No Longer Lost About Lost

When Lost premiered I managed to watch for a grand total of fifteen minutes before my attention span wandered so I’ve been absolutely blank about any of the buzz or let downs associated with the show. After perusing the television listing for last evening, I decided to record the ‘Past, Present’ segment and the season premiere for later viewing. It was exceedingly brilliant to encapsulate three seasons into basically a 45 minute synopsis and discover I’m right up-to-date. Also, this way I’ve not wasted any time or energy in identifying with the cast or their problems, on or off the boob tube. This year’s premiere definitely caught my interest. Now, do I wait three years for another ¾ hour catch-up episode or record the program and wade through it sans ads?