Must. Finish. This. Paper.

Dear paper,

You are due tomorrow. The research has been completed, the books referenced, the thoughts laid out in well-structured sentences. And yet, even in the final hours of writing, you taunt me. I feel the need to read you a thousand times, combing for errors, searching for a slip in judgement or formatting. And each time I read you, I become more convinced of you being returned to me with "FAILURE" stamped across your front page. I beg of you, be complete and passable. I have invested weeks of my life into your existence and the thought you being less than satisfactory is driving me to distraction.

Yours sincerely,
The frustrated paper writer

Respect

In this day and age, you don't even have to turn on the TV to find out election results. Just log on to Facebook. The Winnipeg civic election was held yesterday, and people were madly posting their opinions of the results on their Facebook pages. (I'm assuming the same thing was happening on Twitter; I didn't check.)
The thing that really surprised (and disappointed) me was the lack of respect in people's status updates. Although Sam Katz was reelected as mayor, there was very little celebration online from his supporters. Instead, a torrent of "hate-updates" came pouring in from Wasylycia-Leis supporters. One of my friends commented on the fact that he hadn't seen any updates from Katz supporters and I can understand why. Who would want to voice their opinion when there's a good chance angry retorts will soon be spewed all over their walls?
It is one thing to be angry and upset about the election results. It's a completely different thing to take it online and start bashing other people's opinions. I find the status updates especially hard to swallow, since many of these people are normally championing equal rights for citizens of our city, province and country. Everyone is entitled to their opinion—isn't that what makes this a democratic society? I might not agree with people whose political leanings differ greatly from mine, but I also respect that they are coming from a very different perspective, and might have some valid points to offer.
It would be nice to see our latest election results motivating people to be more aware and active in their city council than just at election time. Write a letter to the mayor and make suggestions. Go to a city council meeting and see how the process works. Get behind local initiatives to build community gardens, ESL programs for immigrants, and summer camps for inner-city kids. How about working on a Habitat for Humanity home? Channel the anger into a positive force for our city. We might elect officials to run the city, but we also have a right and responsibility to help Winnipeg grow. Step away from the safety and relative anonymity of your computer and go make a positive impact on your city.

The viewing

The last apartment I looked at was on Tuesday, right in Osborne Village. It wasn't a great looking apartment and by the time I'd reached the caretaker's door, I'd already decided to not put in an application for it. But the appointment had been made and I wasn't going to be rude, so I knocked on the caretaker's door despite my decision. The door opened and a pudgy, grumpy woman glared out at me.
"Hi, my name is Karen and I'm here to see the apartment."
She closed the door in my face. Not bothering to keep her voice down, she yelled out,
"The 6 o'clock is here!"
"Is it 6:00?"replied another voice.
"No! It's 5:30! God, can't these people show up at the right time?"
"Well, tell them they're just going to have to wait a couple minutes."
The woman opened the door and said,
"Wait five minutes," and shut it in my face, leaving no chance for me to respond.
The appointment had been for 5:30. I had written it down with all the other information I had gathered on that specific apartment. But there was no room to argue and so I waited.
Five minutes later, the door opened and the caretaker stepped into the hallway. Well, maybe not so much stepped as shuffled. A tiny old man, his head seemed rather small compared to the rest of his body. He had a squashed up face, as if it was made of plasticine and someone had just been in the midst of molding it into a different shape. His eyes seemed to pop out of his head, pupils pointing in different directions. And to top it all off, he wore a dirty, grey tracksuit top and bottom which seemed to blend in with his dirty grey hair and skin.
It was an odd sight to see and I just barely stifled a laugh of surprise as him came over to shake my hand. We climbed up the stairs, his spare 70-year old frame coping fairly well with the steep steps. Unfortunately, I had decided to walk behind him and as we climbed the three flights, his dirty, grey tracksuit pants had trouble staying at his waist. The sight of geriatric butt crack at the top of the second flight was enough to stop me in my tracks. Again, the laughter was stifled as I allowed the caretaker a 20 second head start on the next flight. All throughout the apartment, I avoided being behind him, stepping into rooms before he had a chance to shuffle through. He seemed blissfully unaware of this problem and took me back downstairs for an application form.

Forever Daisied,
Confused and
Seeing more than she bargained for,
Karen

Scene change

It was a unexpectedly cold, rainy Saturday in August when I stepped into the elevator with the heavyset man. The elevator creaked and croaked, pulling us upward and every time he spoke, I looked up expecting to see a heavy moustache hovering under his nose.  Alas, his face was clean shaven. We got out on the fifth floor, the hallway dimly lit and smelling faintly of curry and cat piss. Stopping in front of a door on the right, he knocked twice, turned his key in the lock and ushered me in.
My first time viewing an apartment was a low-key, yet unforgettable ten minutes. The moustache-free caretaker prowled by the front door, barking out selling features of the apartment in his thick Eastern European accent. The woman who lived there showed me the view, and pointed out the sad looking ceiling in the bathroom. I could imagine myself living there, but I couldn't stomach the idea of walking through the smell of that hallway everyday. Apartment #1 was a no-go.
What is it about searching for an apartment that suddenly turns your world upside down? Maybe it's the idea of spending the next month trying to contact caretakers who never return calls. Or maybe it's the thought of giving up all free hours to view apartments with grimy bathrooms, tiny kitchens and the tenants' belongings piled haphazardly all over the place. In the end, I'm certain it was the fear of finding the one I really wanted and not being able to get the lease. It put fire in my veins and filled me with nervous energy, energy that woke me up at two in the morning so I could check for updates on apartment websites.
Thankfully, after all that anxious searching, I have found an apartment and I move in a month. I now sit amidst boxes of stuff, realizing that I own too many books and too few dinner plates. The place I've found is just right: not too big and not too small. The caretaker was friendly, the hallways were clean, and the light shining in through the kitchen window made the whole room seem bigger.
I can't wait to move.

The perils of "just winging it"

"…and the only person I could find was this phone number."

I said those very words this morning in a voicemail for a receptionist at a large university. I really should've just hung up, written down what I wanted to say and then phoned again. But I believed the curse of voicemail screw-ups was long gone and so I spoke off the cuff. And that's where the above line came in.
Sigh.
The voicemail curse is alive and kicking me in the rear end.

Sleepless night

Late yesterday afternoon, an enthusiastic coworker succeeded in convincing me to show up at the Manitoba Legislature in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
Say what?
Yes. In the next couple hours I'll be standing on the front steps of our government building, cheering like a mad person for the five cyclists and six crew members of Team CMU. They are finishing an amazing bike race, from Vancouver to Winnipeg in about 2.5 days.*
Any attempts to sleep were in vain, as were the attempts to read a book. I now sit here with a cup of tea, waiting for the phone call from my coworker.
Thank goodness my boss will also be there, and a late arrival time for work can be negotiated.

 *For more information about this race, and the other amazing teams they were racing against, see the following websites:
http://hotpursuit.cmu.ca/
http://www.hotpursuit2010.com/Hot_Pursuit/Home.html
http://twitter.com/teamcmu

Cheetah, cheetah

I have loved cheetahs ever since I wrote a report on them in grade 3. On May 30, 2010 I was able to do something I'd been dreaming of since handing in that report—petting a cheetah. It was only five minutes but worth every second. 

Bitten by the fear

 Whilst away in South Africa, my plot in the community garden was overtaken by grass and I went out there this evening to get it ready for planting. Before I dug in to the job, I stood in front of the patch examining the knee-high nuisance, vaguely wondering if it was safe to step in there. Just two weeks ago, I had been sitting on a concrete riser in a game reserve, gasping with fear as a puff adder attempted to sink it's venomous fangs into a game ranger. The man had just been showing the reptile to the crowd, explaining how dangerous it was and the effect the venom had on the human body. He snatched his hand away just in time, quickly fastening the lid back on the cage. Even after the snake had been taken away, I still had shivers of fear running up down my spine. The sign "Beware" with a snake in a triangle was posted around the visitor's centre, a constant reminder to be observant of where you step next. Snakes are a common thing in South Africa. I'm sure almost every South African has a snake story to share—my cousin found one on her porch not even a month ago. And (almost) all South Africans have a good, healthy fear of walking carefree in tall grass.
The wind rustled through the grass in the garden and I kept thinking about the snake. It could easily hide in this forest of green and I would have no knowledge of it until—bam! Excruciating pain shooting up my leg, poison seeping into my veins.
But there is no snake in the grass. Probably a mouse or two, definitely a couple hundred mosquitoes but no snake. As I stepped into the plot, sinking the spade into the dark, moist soil, I am at once thankful for the absence of the snake and a little scared that I've become accustomed to walking carefree in tall grass.

(above photo: taken whilst on a walk at Jan Smuts farm near Pretoria.)

Racism

I was spending the day with my Aunty Anne, when I accidentally fell into conversation with a racist. She was the owner of a biltong shop in a mall north of Johannesburg, and seemed very kind and considerate when I first entered the store. But once she found out my family had immigrated to Canada, her attitude changed. She weighed my 100 grams of biltong and told me how right it was for my parents to move us away from this nation. She believed the entire country was going to the dogs in government, and that most of them had nothing between their ears. With a rather alarming vehemence, she spoke of black people being barbaric, of not knowing how to do anything, and how she was convinced Apartheid was the best thing that happened to this country.
The money was on the counter, the bag of biltong held limply in my hand. My stomach was churning; I was ready to rush outside and be sick. It was one thing to hear of people who think like this--it's a completely different situation to encounter them one on one. She rambled on about Eugene Terrablanche having the right idea about how to deal with "those people", as I edged my way to the door. Thankfully, another customer walked in, and I was able to excuse myself from the hate speech being thrown at me.
Who did this woman think she was, that she could stand there in her upmarket neighbourhood and criticize fellow citizens of a different race? I feared not only her hatred, but also the continued existence of her life. Surely, her poisonous words would come back to violently haunt her.
16 years have passed since Nelson Mandela became president, and yet racism continues to wreak havoc within this country. I wonder if we stopped believing that "those people" were barbaric or stupid and started treating them just the same as anyone else, would the problems still be there? If the government cracked down on corruption, and began to tackle the overwhelming poverty in rural and urban areas, would there still be violent attacks on innocent people? If South Africa stopped focusing on impressing the rest of the world, and began work on the education of the country's future leaders, could peace be on the horizon?
If only South Africa were able to leave the past behind and work on the present, there might actually be some hope for the future.

Sugar cane and ocean views

It was a holiday within a holiday. Touching down on the newly minted runway of the King Shaka International Airport, we were greeted with warm sun and dear family. Granny and I flew down for 6 days to celebrate her sister's 80th birthday but we didn't really need an excuse to visit the family. As we drove away from the airport, the landscape of sugar cane fields and ocean confirmed that visiting Durban was the best decision I made this year.
Durban, Kwa Zulu Natal, is as far from the prairies as you can possibly get. The city lies on the eastern coast of South Africa and the warm currents from the Indian Ocean provide a sub-tropical setting. Even in winter, a winter that gets down to 13 degrees, the city is hidden under a lush canopy of trees, cycads, and other tropical vegetation. Some of the city's oldest roads almost never see sunlight, as the dense foliage from the trees on the avenue wind themselves into a natural archway.
The city is also set upon the hills that slope towards the coastline. I thought my childhood terror of Durban's steep roadways was foolish, but I was proven wrong. Many a time during our visit, I sat with my hands over my eyes as our vehicle hurtled down the incline. On the afternoon we arrived, my sweet, great Aunty Joan and my dear grandmother nattered away about life in the front seat of the former's vehicle, whilst I hungs on for dear life as we zoomed around Durban. Whoever said elderly people drive slowly have obviously not met my Aunty Joan.
But, regardless of my fear of steep inclines, the trip went exceedingly well. Gran and I spent the afternoon in the aquarium, both of us fascinated by the jellyfish and sharks. My cousin, Annette, took me up to Valley of 1,000 hills, where we visited a traditional Zulu village. I bought curry powder at Victoria Street Market in the city centre, and even spent the morning swimming at Umhlanga Beach. (when I say "swim", I really mean "attempt to not get knocked senseless by incoming tide.") We did many, many other things, but I won't bore you with all the details.

There's a first time for everything

My first glimpse of South Africa was not as I imagined. Flying in from London Heathrow at 6:30 AM, I imagined the sun casting brilliant rays of light over my former home. Instead, most of Gauteng was shrouded in a fog as thick as pea soup and we were swallowed up by the dense cloud cover, as we touched down at the airport. After a sleepless 11 hour flight, my mind was reeling. I was home. Home. I couldn't believe I was finally in South Africa. I dragged my tired body through customs, baggage collection, and out into Arrivals and the waiting arms of my aunt.
It was an overwhelming first couple hours. I was so exhausted I could hardly speak, and I had family members beaming at me like a litter of cheshire cats. At once, everything was so intimately familiar and utterly foreign. Memories came flooding into my head and I began to wonder if I had made the right choice in coming here. In a moment of desperation, I went to the washroom in attempt to find a little peace in which to sort out my muddled thoughts.
The washroom is really a WC, a tiny little room housing nothing more than the toilet and toilet roll dispenser. I went in, shut the door and took a couple minutes to regain my composure. But when I made to open the door, I realized I had accidentally locked it. The key was in the door, so I turned it one way and then the other. Neither worked on the lock. I tried again and again, and then, in defeat, I leaned my head against the door. "I have been in South Africa less than five hours and I go and get myself locked in the WC. Fantastic."
The humiliating part wasn't getting locked in--it was calling for someone to get me out. When my grandparents and Maria, the maid, realized what happened, they all packed up laughing. Grandpa attempted to get the door unlocked, whilst my gran stood behind him sending a text message to my uncle in the UK. After a while, a locksmith was called and my grandpa slid a section of the newspaper under the door for me to read.
The locksmith did show up fairly quickly, and got the door unjammed. It seems the lock had caught in the doorjamb and would've needed a locksmith to fix it sooner or later. The man, a strange mixture of South African and Parisian, was incredibly kind to my grandparents and even gave them a senior's discount.

Five hours in a different country. That has got to be a new record (or low) for me.

Forever Daisied,
Confused and
Wary of going to the WC,
Karen

P.S. It was a high of 21 degrees celsius today and I counted about 30 people wearing knee high boots and sweaters. I wore capris and sandals.

Do you want to sit next to me on this flight to London?

My seat mate on the flight from Toronto to London was quite an interesting woman. When we arrived at our seats (she cut in front of me in the check-in line at the airport), her face contorted itself into a look of supreme disappointment in her seat mate. I couldn't say I was very happy either. She spent the first ten minutes on board counting how many crying children were in the economy class (eight, to be exact). I made a snap judgment about her as we settled down into our seats: she was a rich woman (as I could deduce from the jewelry) and was used to sitting in first class where she wouldn't have to share a seat and would be far away from crying babies. But due to some unfortunate circumstance, she now had to travel in economy with all the yokels.
As we taxied down the runway, I wondered if I should actually give her a reason to be sorry she was sitting next to me....I could drink a large quantity of water during the flight and then continually interrupt her sleep by asking her to move so I coud go to the washroom. But before I put my diabolical plan into action, the woman redeemed herself by:
a.) sharing a chocolate brownie with me
b.) rushing to the aid of another traveller who has cancer and suddenly became rather ill halfway through the trip. My seat mate turned out to be a nurse, and she stayed awake for most of the flight, just so she could walk to the back every 10 minutes and check on the other passenger.
We chatted for a bit, as we got closer to Heathrow and I found out she was from Thunder Bay and would be catching a connecting flight to Aberdeen to visit family. The last I saw of her, she was dashing down the plane, worried that she wouldn't make it to the other side of the airport in time.

Lesson of the day: don't judge a book by its cover.

The obligatory "I'm starting a blog" entry

The entry below is a story about my trip to the Art Institute of Chicago in the summer of 2008. I wanted to start this—ugh, hate to say it—blog with something more than just the usual "Hey! I'm starting a blog!" line. In my experience, if the introductory entry is insipid and unimaginative, the later entries are bound to head in the same direction.
This blog will not be updated daily with uninteresting facts about my life. I really don't want to share that with all of you. There will be no random entries about pets, or diatribes on nothing particular. Instead, this a place where I can share my stories with all of you. Stories about getting on the wrong bus, about getting stuck in a parking garage—all the moments in my life where someone should just walk behind me with a pre-recorded laugh track.
This blog is also a way for me to share about the trip I'm going to be taking in less than a month. I will hopefully have access to a computer at some point during my vacation and, for those of you who are interested, will be giving you a glimpse into my four weeks with family and friends.
Above all, thanks for reading. I always appreciate the feedback and encouragement you send to me.

Forever Daisied,
Confused and Starting a blog (ugh),
Karen

A Grand Misadventure

Gustave was his name. It wasn’t long after our introduction that I fell hopelessly, head-over-heels, in love with him. The man was a genius. He set my imagination free and captured my heart in a single glance at his glorious masterpiece, Paris Street; Rainy Day.
Gustave Caillebotte, member and patron of the Impressionist group, painted Paris Street; Rainy Day in 1877. It’s not vibrant like Renoir, soothing like Monet, or eye-catching like Seurat. It is simply an ordinary, everyday scene where people are going about their business, sheltering themselves from the rain.

But if you look closely, if you really examine the painting, there is something—some underlying current of genius—that makes the painting come alive. It’s really all about composition. The lamppost divides the painting in half, which should make it a symmetrically balanced composition. However, the placement of the couple on the right-hand side and the building in perspective on the left-hand side make an ordinary composition asymmetrically balanced. Every detail of this piece is placed with thought and care. The very people walking across the street provide eye movement, pulling you further into Gustave’s world. The lighting is dim and colours seemingly melt into each other, as if he had actually painted this scene outside in the rain. The structure, composition, eye movement and subdued, rainy day colour palette were all pulled together to become my favourite painting of all time.

Gustave’s painting finds its home on the second floor of the Chicago Art Institute, sharing space with Monet, Degas, and Seurat. I had heard great things about the Art Institute and this much-lauded tourist destination was at the top of our list of things to see in Chicago. On our second day in the city, first thing in the morning, we found ourselves in amongst the crowd of other people all lining up to enter the building. My heart was pounding against my ribcage—finally! Gustave and I would be united and the heavens would open and rain down showers of colour and light upon us! The crowds would cheer as Gustave stepped into his painting, held out his hand pulled me into his creative realm. This would be the day that people would talk about, the day that reality and imagination would collide, the day that love would—

The doors opened and the crowd began to move, jostling me out of my wild daydreams. Once all the formality of entering was completed, Laurel and I began our search for the Impressionist wing. After a few wrong turns, we ended up on the second floor, in front of Seurat’s Sunday Afternoon on the Island of Grand Jatte, his most famous pointillism piece.

We were close. I could feel it.

It took a while to make our way around the second floor. We unknowingly took the long way round, seeing a few Impressionist pieces, but quickly moving back in time. It was breathtaking. History was everywhere in every piece, looking at us as we looked at it. Rooms filled with countless paintings I had only ever seen in my textbooks. There were portraits and pastoral scenes; epic battles and children eating fruit; regal kings and majestic queens; and Jesus in just about every other painting. The build up to my triumphant union with Gustave could not have been more appropriate.

The lighting on the second floor was cheery and natural, as if dappled summer sunlight was being filtered into each room. It varied slightly from place to place, but never so much that you would really notice it. On the final leg of our journey round the second floor, as we approached the Impressionist wing, we found the corridor filled with shadows. No light was streaming out of the rooms because the rooms had makeshift walls blocking the light and barring our entrance. I felt a sudden surge of anxiety and began to walk ahead, straining to see what was going on.

But no matter how fast I walked, or how quickly I prayed, it did not change the fact that construction signs, not paintings, were all I could see ahead of me.

We quickly made our way down the corridor and back into the main gallery on the second floor, where a desk attendant was fielding questions. At Laurel’s suggestion, I walked up to her, heart in hand, and asked,

“Could you please tell me where I could find Paris Street; Rainy Day by Gustave Caillebotte?”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she replied, “That painting is on loan to an art gallery in Texas.”

“Excuse me?”

“Ma’am, that part of the second floor is currently being renovated, and so we sent those pieces on tour.”

Her words rained down upon me like a ton of bricks and my instincts immediately decided tears would be the appropriate response to this news.

“But….but….you don’t understand!” I spluttered, fighting the urge to cry, “I came all the way from Winnipeg to see this painting!”

The attendant blinked several times, maybe because she thought I was loony; or maybe she was trying to figure out whether or not Winnipeg was a foreign city or some far-flung suburb of the Greater Chicago Area. I’m going to assume it was the latter because she replied,

“I’m sorry, ma’am, you’re just going to have to come back when it returns.”

And with a “Thank you for visiting the Chicago Art Institute” line, she turned to deal with the next tearful tourist.

I looked at Laurel.

She looked back at me.

Gustave had fled.

In some mean-spirited, vindictive mood, Destiny had wrenched this moment from my hands and run off into the night, never to be seen again. Maybe I deserved it. Maybe it wasn’t meant to be. Maybe, in the distant future, Gustave would come to his senses and allow me to see his grand masterpiece somewhere other than a textbook, calendar, or print from the CAI gift store.

All I knew at that moment was that the waterworks were about to put on a spectacular show in a public setting. I walked out onto the landing, clumsily wiping away the tears that were escaping from my eyes.

And thus, on the second day of our grand adventure in Chicago, my poor, artistically sensitive heart was broken.