The end of the backyard ice rink?

This is not a story about hockey. Hockey is a game and this goes deeper than that. Strip hockey of its teams, its salaries, its sticks, its pucks, its rules and its regulations. Take all of that away and you are left with what makes hockey possible in the first place. This is a story about ice.

Ice is a part of our collective Canadian consciousness. When I think about the winters of my childhood, I think about the hours spent skating on the tiny ice rink my dad built in our backyard. It was a simple bit of engineering with magical results.

My dad would wait until mid-December for temperatures to drop. After enough snow had fallen, he would clear an area of the backyard and use the snow to make banks around the rink. He repeatedly sprinkled water on the sides of the banks and on the edge of the grass in order to seal the area around the edges so that the water wouldn't leak out. After it had been cold enough for the ground to freeze, he used a hose to build up a base of ice.

Once we had a couple of inches of ice, he would "Zamboni" it by filling a large pail with warm water and flooding the rink. The warm water melted the surface and filled in all of the cuts from earlier skating. It probably took a week or two, depending on the weather, to create a good surface. Of course, thaws and rain would melt the rink but my dad would rebuild it as soon as it got cold again.

I couldn't get enough of that backyard rink. I would skate every day after school and go back out again after dinner. The sound the edge of the blade makes when it scrapes across the ice is etched into my bones.

The backyard ice rink is part of our narrative. But for how much longer? Will future generations of Canadian children be able to skate on homemade outdoor rinks or will it be a story we tell them about the way things used to be?

Climate change is transforming the world as we know it. This is not an exaggeration; this is a fact. Research shows that Canada's average winter temperature has increased 2.5 degrees Celsius in the past 70 years. According to Environment Canada, last year was the third-warmest winter in Canadian history.

Scientists in Montreal were the first to connect the dots between climate change and a shorter outdoor skating season. They looked at data from weather stations across Canada during the last 50 years and extrapolated that "at current rates, within four decades there will be very little to no outdoor natural skating in Canada with the exception of Winnipeg."

This prompted a group of geographers at Wilfrid Laurier University to create RinkWatch, a website where users can enter information about their rink's skate-ability and where researchers can track climate change. Associate professor Robert McLeman is hoping this will help people better understand large-scale environmental issues by placing them in their own backyard.

As he told the Ottawa Citizen, "When you talk about climate change and global warming, it's one of those big-picture ideas that people have trouble relating to on a personal or individual basis, so we thought, let's get kids and families to collect data about outdoor skating and use that as a bridge to pull them into citizen-engaged science."

It's great to see scientists who understand the importance of getting the public involved in their work. They're not just working to address climate change, they're working to make it matter to all of us. It's about making us less complacent by making us care.

In defense of winter

Poor winter. The least appreciated of the seasons, it is written off as a hardship to endure or something to escape from.

Winter is described in menacing terms -- bleak, desolate, frigid, dark. We are caught in its teeth, in winds that bite and in snow that blinds. I don't deny the accuracy of this description but instead of making my heart sink, it makes it sing. I love winter. Always have, always will. The colder and snowier it is, the happier I am.

I'm talking about real winter, of course. Not this rainy, grey non-season that passes for winter in Bonn. Real winter means months of below-zero temperatures and snow that stays on the ground and piles up higher and higher with every successive snowfall. Real winter turns lakes and canals into skating rinks. Real winter stings the nostrils and fuses eyelashes together.

There is no season more beautiful, more romantic and more magical than winter. I love the way snow softens edges and muffles sound. I love the silence and the solitude. I love the minimalist beauty of a world turned white, so completely still it feels like a painting. I love seeing roads, trees and houses covered in snow while walking home at night. I love warming up frozen toes in front of a fireplace. I love that winter makes it okay to do nothing and go nowhere -- the only season that makes anti-social behavior socially acceptable.

I haven't outgrown the childlike sense of wonder at waking up to see snow outside the window. It still thrills me. It brings back happy memories of building snowmen, barreling down a hill on a toboggan, skating on a square of frozen ice, cross-country skiing out the front door and generally just spending hours outside playing in the snow.

Up until last week, winter in Bonn has been grey, gloomy, rainy and warm. While some people were fantasizing about flying south, I was seriously contemplating a trip to northern Norway to get my fix of real winter. I'd take the aurora borealis over a tropical beach any day.

But then something wonderful happened; it started snowing and it hasn't stopped. The temperatures have been below zero every day since Tuesday. Real winter has finally arrived in Bonn. And I couldn't be happier.

George Stroumboulopoulos and his distractingly tight pants

Every fall, a new season of George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight begins. And with each new season comes big changes -- name changes, time changes, studio changes, channel changes -- but no changes have been as radical as the ones introduced this fall.

The length of the show has been chopped in half, the studio has been completely redesigned, the time slot has been moved to primetime, the news segment is out and a new three-person comedy panel is in. Also, George now wears skinny jeans that are distractingly tight in the crotch region (not that I'm complaining).

Here's how George explains the new format: "We used to go to bed together. Now we're having dinner together -- and maybe just that."

Cutting the show to 30 minutes and moving it from 11 p.m. to primetime may be good for ratings but it's bad for those of us who liked the freedom late-night television gave George to be George. Gone from the primetime show are George's musings on religion, politics and the environment. George was always impartial but he was never neutral. You never knew what party he voted for but you always knew what issues he cared about. His show was often a platform for his activism (he's an ambassador for the United Nations World Food Programme and he's traveled to the Arctic for a special on literacy, youth culture, and the loss of Inuit identity. He's been to Sudan with War Child Canada, and to Zambia for a World AIDS Day documentary. He sponsored the One Million Acts of Green challenge and he's a member of the David Suzuki Foundation's board of directors).

I miss the anti-religious, anti-consumerist and anti-authoritarian undertones of the old format. The only good thing about cutting the show in half is that it gives George less time to talk about hockey. I hate hockey.

But 30 minutes isn't enough time to let George do what he does best -- the long-form interview. George is a master of the long-form interview. He is sincere, interested, informed and intelligent. As a result, his subjects respect him. His interviews often feel more like conversations. He knows how to draw stories out of actors, directors, writers, musicians, athletes, activists and politicians. He's done the research and knows what he's talking about. He takes his time when asking a question. And, more importantly, he listens to what the other person is saying. He doesn't read scripted notes. He doesn't fawn. He isn't fake. He leans forward and draws people in with his natural charm and those big, brown liquidy eyes. He’s not just a good interviewer, he's an award-winning interviewer (as his collection of Geminis attests).

The CBC is making a big deal about moving the show to 7 p.m. But is this really a big deal? Do people still watch TV shows on television? I haven't watched TV shows on television since 2006. The beauty of watching George's show online is that I can watch it when it's convenient for me. So I can watch him when I eat breakfast or when I come home from work. Or I can just curl up on the couch and watch an entire week's worth of episodes back-to-back on Saturday afternoon. I suspect that most of his audience watches the show the same way, so why not keep it in the 11 p.m. timeslot?

Perhaps the move to primetime is a recognition by the CBC that George is one of its biggest stars. But what made him a star are all of the things you can't do in primetime. This is why Canadians like him. We sense he is genuine, deep and intelligent. If we want shallow and superficial, we'll watch CNN. The CBC is a public broadcaster. It should not be overly concerned about numbers and ratings and making money. Sure the CBC might get higher ratings by moving the show to primetime but at what cost? Is it worth getting more viewers if you have to sacrifice quality and depth? But there's no way to talk about this without talking about government funding and budget cuts and that's a post better left for another day.

As for the new set, I'm still getting used to it. It's too slick. Too bright. Too corporate. It's a beautifully designed set for a morning show. But not for George. The show's old set was always dark with lots of black. And I think this darkness contributed to the success of his interviews. It set a mood that helped people open up. The mood was serious and somber, a perfect setting for probing questions. The new studio doesn't match the mood that George tries to set in his interviews. It's too light, bright and airy. Of course, not all of George's interviews are serious. He's a funny guy and maybe he wants to inject more humour into the show. A lighter, brighter set better reflects this new direction.

The biggest change this season is the introduction of the three-person comedy panel. The panel takes up the last 10 minutes of each show and features two permanent panelists (comedian Ali Hassan and actress Naomi Snieckus) and one rotating guest panelist (filled by various celebrities but best when filled by the funny ones like Andrea Martin and Colin Mochrie). The panel riffs on random topics while George facilitates. Ali and Naomi are clever and funny. The panel is a good idea but it would be better to have it once a week rather than every night. Turning it into a weekly segment would keep it fresh and fun.

Anyway, I'm happy to see the show is still on the air. Nine seasons is an impressive run for a Canadian talk show. George just keeps getting better (and hotter) as he gets older. I just wish the CBC would recognize that George is one of their best interviewers and give him the time and space to do long interviews.

The new show is good. But I prefer the hour-long, late-night format.

Me and George outside CBC headquarters in Toronto this summer

Just for fun, here are a few of my previous posts about George Stroumboulopoulos:

We love George

George goes to America

Four hours with George Stroumboulopoulos

George Stroumboulopoulos: Canadian sex symbol 

An hour with George Stroumboulopoulos

Home sweet home

I went home for the first time in more than three years. I had expected it to feel weird to be back on Canadian soil after so much time away. But everything was pretty much the same as it always was.

Still, I saw some of the same old things with fresh new eyes. Take the word "awesome," for example. A few days before I left for Toronto, a German friend asked me about the word "awesome." He wanted to know: a) what it means; b) why it's used so often in place of more descriptive and/or accurate adjectives; and c) why it's considered an appropriate response to the question, "How are you?" (I had similar conversations with a Russian friend who confessed she found the word unbearably annoying and an Albanian colleague who was shocked to receive "Awesome!" as a one-word reply to a work-related email. For the record, the email was not from me.)

I explained that awesome was just a generic word to describe varying shades of good without expressing any real degree of the goodness of the thing being described. And that the point of using the word "awesome" as a response to the question "How are you?" is to demonstrate enthusiasm and extroversion, which are prized personality traits in North America. But I also said that Americans were the true users and abusers of the word and that Canadians didn't really say it that often.

And then I went to Toronto and was proven wrong.

I don't know if my ears were attuned to the word because of all of the recent conversations about it or if people in Toronto had always used the word and I simply hadn't noticed. But as soon as I arrived at Pearson International Airport, I started to hear the word everywhere I went. I heard it on the subway. I heard it on TV. I heard it at the coffee shop. I heard it at the hair salon (the girl cutting my hair said awesome six times in one hour. I counted). I even heard it in a commercial for salad dressing ("eat awesome" was its ambiguous tagline).

The other hint that I had been away from home far too long came during an afternoon at the Canadian National Exhibition. I decided to gamble $5 at the "Guess your age" booth. The carnie sized me up. He asked me to smile, he looked deep into my eyes, he looked at my hands, he asked me what my favourite food was (Japanese) and to name my favourite movie (don't have one). He pretended to think about it for a bit and then he pronounced me 55.

Clearly, he was just giving the stuffed animals away but I was annoyed that he didn't even try to guess. What's the fun in that? So I asked him how old he really thought I was and he replied, "Um . . . 43?" I was no longer annoyed, now I was angry. (I didn't know it at the time but I would be vindicated a few days later when I stumbled across an article about the guy in the Toronto Star. He seems to consistently guess too high and is thrown off his game by tall people.)

He said it was tough to guess my age because I was tall (it's unclear why a professional age guesser would make a correlation between height and age for anyone older than 18) and because he mistook my sister for my daughter.

I used to baby-sit my two youngest sisters when I was in high school. My favourite baby-sitting game was called, "Let's pretend I'm a teenage mother and you're my children." I'd take my sisters to the mall and make them call me "mom." It used to amuse me when people thought my sisters were my daughters. Now it depresses me. So I guess that's a pretty major change.

What else did I see with fresh eyes? Well, public transit in Toronto seemed embarrassingly bad after living in Japan for three-and-a-half years. It's not convenient, it's not reliable and it never really gets you where you need to go quickly enough. Toronto is decades behind other big cities when it comes to public transit. Also, Toronto's subway system seems to attract more "interesting" passengers than other cities, such as the woman who sat beside me who smelled like she hadn't bathed in three months or the guy who sat directly behind me, clipping his fingernails the entire time.

It goes without saying that the best part of returning home was reconnecting with family and friends (although in the age of Skype and email it's difficult to lose touch).

But it was just as nice to be in an English-speaking environment. I could read menus and chat with the checkout girl and read the community listings and eavesdrop on conversations and catch up on Canadian news and read the ingredients on the cereal box and order a pizza and ask for directions. In Canada, I'm no longer an outsider living on the fringes of a world I am part of but don't really belong to. In Japan and Germany, there were days I felt completely isolated and alone. I don't feel that way in Toronto. I feel like I belong.

Growing up, there were things about Toronto I hated. I thought it was too big, too urban, too flat, too ugly. It still is all of those things but I've come to appreciate it in a way I never did before. The city hasn't changed but my perception of it has.

It's an awesome place to call home.

A love letter to Canada

Dear Canada,

Happy 143rd birthday! Although, let's be honest, we both know you're much older than the 143 years the European settlers pretend you are. You may not have been a country in the legal sense of the word but people have called your land home for more than 20,000 years. Dinosaurs roamed across your plains long before we ever did.

The 143-year-old ruse reminds me of the way my mom continues to celebrate her 29th birthday 30 years running. But whatever. Today is not a day to point out your flaws. Today is a day to celebrate all of the wonderful and wacky things that make you so special.

You are so much more than maple syrup, hockey and poutine. You are not just snowshoes, canoes and barbeques. You are the rock beneath our feet. O Canada, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways . . .

1. Freedom: We are free to be whoever we want to be, say whatever we want to say, and wear whatever we want to wear. Other countries have burqas, bombs, and bullets. We have gay marriage, universal health care, and beer.

2. Diversity: We are a country of immigrants. We have different cultures, different religions, and different ideas but we all somehow manage to get along. We don't throw rocks at each other. We don't plant bombs outside busy markets. We don't believe in blowing each other up. We believe in human rights. We believe in tolerance. We believe a new citizen is every bit as Canadian as someone whose family has been here for five generations. Jamaican, Chinese, African, Indian, Australian . . . we are all Canadian.

3. Tim Hortons: A double-double and a chocolate dip to go, please.


4. Food: We can eat a burrito for breakfast, sushi for lunch, and souvlaki for dinner. A walk around the block is like a gastronomic trip around the world. But food from our own backyard is the best food of all. Blueberries, apples, pears, blackberries, corn, rhubarb, strawberries, potatoes, carrots, cherries, fiddleheads, and tomatoes. Just to name a few.

5. Wilderness: We have real wilderness in Canada. These vast, uninhabited areas are among the last remaining tracts of wilderness in the world. This is our national treasure and we should guard it with our lives. Canada does not just belong to us. It belongs to bears, moose, and caribou too.


6. The CBC: George Stroumboulopoulos, Claire Marin, Rick Mercer, Peter Mansbridge, Jian Ghomeshi, Anna Maria Tremonti, and good old Stuart McLean. The Hour, As it Happens, Definitely not the Opera, Vinyl Tap, A Propos, and The Current. The CBC is intelligent, funny, thoughtful, provincial, original, folksy, and fun. Sophisticated but not sleek. Polished but still a little amateurish. Just like us.


7. Manners: We are polite. We are friendly. We are humble. We are modest. We are unobtrusive. We say "sorry" a lot. We say sorry when you tell us to stop saying sorry all the time. (Sorry! We can’t help it.)

8. The four seasons: Lake swimming in summer, cross-country skiing in winter, walking under a canopy of red maple leaves in fall, and watching cherry trees bloom in spring.





9. Film and TV: FUBAR and Exotica. Degrassi and the Trailer Park Boys. We turn low budgets into brilliant art. Just giv'r!

10. Space: We are a big country with a small population. We can drive for days and still be in the same province. We can walk into the woods and not see another person for months. We live in towns so remote you can only get there by boat or plane. Our biggest cities aren't big at all. Thirty-four million people live in Canada. Thirty-four million people live in the Greater Tokyo Area.

Happy Birthday, Canada! You ancient, rocky, sexy hunk of land you!

A very Canadian summer

When I was back home for a visit a few weeks ago, a friend asked me what I missed most about Canada when I was in Japan. We were driving through the streets of Toronto at the time and it hit me that what I missed most about Canada was right there in front of me.

"I miss this," I said, as we drove through city blocks lined with tiny restaurants serving cheap food from around the world. Indian, Thai, Greek, Jamaican, Korean, Ethiopian, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Lebanese. Ten different countries in two city blocks.

I miss being able to have a burrito for breakfast, a falafel for lunch and souvlaki for dinner. I miss Red River cereal. I miss blending in with the crowd. I miss being able to speak English with everyone I meet. I miss being able to read the cereal box while I eat breakfast. I miss Grape Nuts. I miss the wide-open spaces, the small big cities and the unspoiled wilderness. I miss George Stroumboulopoulos. I miss Tim Hortons.


Don't get me wrong. I love Japan. But I often feel like an outsider living on the fringes of a world I am part of but don't really belong to. I am not Japanese and I will never be Japanese. I am treated with respect and kindness by most of the people I encounter. But the polite smiles and deep bows only serve to highlight the distance between us.

So it was nice to get out of Japan and go home for a few weeks. I spent a little bit of time in Vancouver and a lot of time in Toronto. It's funny how you notice things that you never really paid attention to until after you've been out of the country for a while. Take the liquor store in Ontario, for example. The stores are nicely laid out with helpful signs for each section: Ontario wine, B.C. wine, Australian wine, South African wine, Chilean wine, fine scotches, Japanese sake. And then, the one section I had never noticed before: The Party Zone. Classy!


Of course, no summertime visit to Toronto would be complete without a trip to the CNE. I like the CNE for the atmosphere, the free samples and the mini donuts. I hate the rides. I do not look at the rides and see fun, thrills and excitement. I look at the rides and see nausea, terror and the possibility of serious injury or death. (I like the ferris wheel, though. Ferris wheels are nice and slow and you get great views from the top.)






My sister was getting frustrated that I wouldn't go on any of the rides (not including the ferris wheel. We rode it twice). So I made a deal with her. I agreed to go on one ride as long as I got to choose it. I looked around the midway and immediately ruled out anything that went upside down. I also nixed anything that was more than five feet above the ground and moved at a high speed. Roller coasters were out of the question. We were too tall for the kiddie rides. The haunted house was too lame. The only option was the tilt-a-whirl.

The tilt-a-whirl didn't look so bad from a distance. But appearances can be deceiving. I knew I had made a mistake when, just before the ride was about to begin, a greasy carny walked over to our car, gave my sister and I a pair of high fives and yelled, "ARE YOU READY TO GO FAST?!?!"

"No!" I said in a panicky voice. "We want to go slow!"

But it was too late. The platform started moving. We were going around and around in circles, slowly at first and then faster and faster. Parts of the platform were raised and lowered, which caused the cars to spin in different directions and at different speeds. The cars would swing and snap unexpectedly. Not only was the platform rotating in one giant circle, but our car was spinning wildly at the same time. I started to feel violently ill. I couldn't focus my eyes. We were being spun around and around and around and there was nothing we could do to stop it.

"Let me off!" I screamed. "I'm going to be sick!"

But no one listened. The ride seemed to last an eternity, with me struggling not to vomit all over my sister's lap. I can't believe people actually pay money to put themselves through this type of torture and they actually enjoy it. I almost wept with relief when it was over.


After the madness of the CNE, my family escaped to Georgian Bay for two days. We went to the town of Lafontaine, which is where my grandfather's side of the family is from. The Marchildons were part of a group of families from Quebec who moved to the area in the 1800s. It's still very much a francophone community today (it's also the only place in Canada where every second mailbox has the name "Marchildon" written on it). The lake is one of the most beautiful places in the country.

We drove up to Georgian Bay with my dad's canoe tied to the roof of the car (does it get any more Canadian than that?). I should explain that the canoe is my dad's pride and joy. He built it himself, out of wood and entirely by hand. The canoe is a work of art (he told me to say that. He also told me to put a picture of it up on my blog. Here you go, Dad!).










One of my favourite things about Toronto is the TTC. I love the way the subway stations smell. They have a distinctive smell. If I had to describe it, I would say it's a mixture of old newspapers, stale air, dirt and metal. You're hit with this smell as soon as you walk through the doors. The smell hasn't changed in 30 years. There's something comforting about it. It smells like home.

Yo, Canada!

It's nice to be back in the motherland. It's a little weird, too. There have been a lot of changes in the last 14 months.

For example, phone calls from public pay phones in Toronto now cost 50 cents. Fifty cents! Talk about reverse culture shock!

Also, there is a Japanese exchange student living in my old bedroom. Her name is Noriko and she's the 22-year-old daughter of one of my Japanese coworkers. She's been living with my parents for about a month and she takes the subway to school every morning to study English. She also eats a lot of marshmallows (she won't eat corn-on-the-cob, though. She tried it once and said gnawing on the cob made her feel like a wild animal).

My parents love Noriko. She's always doing helpful things around the house like loading the dishwasher or wiping down the kitchen counters. She's quiet and respectful and has had a huge influence on my parents. They now drink sake instead of wine. They drink green tea instead of coffee. They shop for groceries at T&T instead of Loblaws. All I hear is "Noriko this" and "Noriko that." I've got to get rid of this kid. She's making me look bad.


What else is new? Oh, right. My friends Laura and Craig are moving to Abu Dhabi. I went to their going-away party, which turned into a surprise wedding. About halfway through the night some woman in a black robe showed up and everyone was ushered out onto the bowling green (the party was held at a lawn bowling club and, no, my Toronto friends are not in their '70s). And then, surprise! Laura and Craig got married right then and there. It was one of the best weddings I've ever been to.


There have been other big changes. My oldest friend in the world (and by old, I don't mean that she's old. I've just known her for a really, really long time. Which, now that I think about it, makes us old) had a baby while I was living in Japan. I got to see the baby for the first time this week, which was good and bad. Good because he's the cutest kid alive. And bad because now I want one too.


It's good to be back. I still haven't gotten over the novelty of walking into a store and being able to speak with the person behind the counter. They speak English and I speak English and we actually understand each other. It's amazing, really.

I am also getting reacquainted with Canadian culture. I drink coffee at Tim Hortons and watch the Trailer Park Boys. I read the Toronto Star every morning (okay, I skim through the Toronto Star to get to the page with the crossword puzzle and sudoku). And, uh, I guess that's about it for Canadian culture.


Still, it's tough to be back, too. I miss Japan terribly. I feel like I'm in mourning. I know that I'll be my old self in a year from now but I also know that my time in Japan will fade into a distant memory and that makes me sad too (let me paint a mental picture of how I am spending most of my time in Toronto: I am staring out the window, cupping my chin in my hand, thinking wistfully of Japan and sighing a lot).

It's not all bad. There have been moments of euphoria. My friends invited me to join their Sunday night poker group. By the time the last hand was dealt out, I was down to my last $3. I had lousy cards (a six and a four) but decided to gamble because that's what you do when you're gambling. I raised the stakes and went all in. Thanks to the luck of the draw, I ended up winning all my money back plus $2. Two dollars! That's enough money to make four pay phone calls in Toronto!

At that exact moment, Loverboy's Turn Me Loose came over the radio. I had just won $2 and Loverboy was on the radio. For that brief moment in time, I was so excited I forgot all about Japan.

So that's it. It's good to be back in the motherland. It also kind of sucks, too. I have a few more days of freedom in Toronto before I fly to Vancouver on Sunday and go back to work on Monday. That's when reality is really going to hit.

Today is David Suzuki's 70th birthday

It's hard to believe David Suzuki is 70 years old. Have you seen his body? The guy is in better shape than most 20 year olds.

He is also the most passionate, hard-working person I have ever met. The man is my hero.

I just wish he'd run for the Liberal leadership. But he won't. He hates the way politics works in this country. He's not exactly the kind of person to tow the party line.

Sometimes David can be really hard on himself, saying things like "I don't think I've made a damn bit of difference." This makes me depressed because a) it's not true, and b) it sort of is true.

I like it when he tells stories because he is a gifted storyteller and he's had a pretty fascinating life. My favourite stories are the ones he tells about his childhood.

Did you know he and his family were sent to an internment camp in B.C. during the Second World War after the Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbour (even though his parents were born and raised in Canada)? During the three years the Suzuki family was interned, David played in the mountains and fished with his dad. It's where his love of nature really took hold.

I like this story because it reminds me a little bit of my own childhood. Mostly just the part about fishing. When we were kids, my dad used to take us fishing every summer. It was never really about catching fish. It was more about being on the lake, listening to the silence, studying the rocks, enjoying the scenery.

My parents also liked to take us to Kortright Conservation Centre to walk in the forest and watch nature films. Most of our family photo albums are filled with pictures of my mom (her hair parted in the middle, two braids hanging down to her waist) stomping through the woods somewhere with my dad, who had one of us kids strapped to his back.

It was my parents who nurtured my love of the outdoors but it was David Suzuki who made me care about it. This happened when I was in Grade 10 and Mr. Ranucci was my science teacher. He was young and gorgeous and cool. I sat in the front row, right in the middle, directly in front of his desk. I think Mr. Ranucci was the first man I ever really loved. (It was unrequited love, of course.)

One day, Mr. Ranucci made us read an essay about the sad state of the world. The author was David Suzuki.

That essay changed the way I thought about things. I suddenly "got it." I've never actually told David this. Maybe he would like to hear it. I don't know. Maybe he's sick of hearing these kinds of stories. So maybe I'll just wish him a happy birthday instead.

CSI: Tim Hortons

I can’t turn on the TV without seeing that mysterious Tim Hortons "hot smoothie" commercial.

The one where the colour-blind woman is painting her living room hot pink and her husband comes home and says, "Wow! It really is pink." She asks if he likes it and he says he does. Except she doesn’t realize he’s talking about the pink drink in his hand, not the colour of the living room wall. Hilarity ensues.

It’s not the most original commercial but it’s powerful. Every time I see it, I want to vomit.

It’s the close-up of the frothy pink concoction inside the cup that triggers my gag reflex. It looks about as appetizing as a steaming hot cup of Pepto-Bismol. Did they have to made it such a toxic shade of pink? And what is a hot smoothie anyway?

So I decided to head straight to the scene of the crime to do some deep undercover research. I walked up to the Tim Hortons counter and asked the hard-hitting investigative questions.

Tim Hortons employee: Can I help you?

Me: Do you guys sell those hot smoothies?

Tim's: Yup.

Me: Um…I’m just wondering what's in them.

Tim's: It's a vanilla base with a flavour.

Me: So there's no coffee in it?

Tim's: No.

Me: Is there caffeine in it?

Tim's: No. Just a flavour.

Me: What flavour is the pink one?

Tim's: Raspberry.

Me: Are there raspberries in it?

Tim's: No. Just a flavour.

Me: Are they popular?

Tim's: Oh yes (nods her head vigorously).

Me: Have you tried them?

Tim's: Yup.

Me: Do you like them?

Tim's: Uh-huh. Yeah. But I like the hazelnut one the best.

Me: Okay. I’ll try a small raspberry one.

Tim's: Okay. $1.35 please.

After she handed me my hot pink hot smoothie, I peeled back the tab on the plastic lid and took a sip. I was pleasantly surprised. It didn’t taste anything like a steaming hot cup of Pepto-Bismol.

It tasted like warmed milk with about 10 teaspoons of sugar. A little too sweet but not as bad as I expected. The fake pink colour was a bit off-putting, though.

After about half a cup, it felt like a sugar bomb had exploded in my stomach. I couldn’t finish it and had to throw it in the garbage.

The verdict? It wasn’t as gross as I thought it would be. But don’t take that as a ringing endorsement. Let’s just say Tim Hortons is guilty -- guilty of selling really bad fake smoothies. Mystery solved.

J’adore Montreal

It’s been such a long time since the last time I was in Montreal that I had forgotten what an amazing city it is.

Even though I was there for a conference, I managed to hit most of Montreal’s major attractions. I didn’t get much sleep but I had a lot of fun.

I rented a bike on Friday morning and rode around the city for an hour. Later that night, I walked through old Montreal and marveled at the architecture.

A bunch of us went out to a gay club on Saturday night to see a drag show and ended up closing down a bar on St. Laurent. And, yes, I stuffed myself full of delicious, salty poutine on the way back to the hotel.

I also made a point of addressing everyone in French. Some people would immediately reply in English (is it that obvious?). But most were patient enough to respond in French.

Like the guy behind the counter at Tim Hortons who let me order a toasted honey wheat bagel with butter, an orange juice, a chocolate chip muffin and a medium tea, with two cream and two sugar, entirely in French. It took a few minutes but he let me stumble my way through the order and yelled out "Parfait!" once I finished.

Aside from the language, the nightlife, the architecture and the poutine, what really sets Montreal apart from Vancouver is the men. The men in Montreal make eye contact with women and (gasp!) actually talk to them. Had I stayed any longer, I might have ended up with a Quebecois boyfriend or two.

Luckily for me, I’ll be back in Montreal for two weeks at the end of November for another conference. I never thought I’d say this about a two-week conference, but I can’t wait.

Blisters and bliss

A lot of people have been asking me how my hike on the West Coast Trail went. The short answer is that I’ve never been so warm, dry, clean and happy on a camping trip in my entire life.

The long answer is, well, longer. I’ve been back in Vancouver since Wednesday and I haven’t been able to write about the experience until now because I’m having a hard time accepting the fact that the trip is over. But then I’ve never been very good at letting go and moving on.

I don’t want to be here, in Vancouver, in my apartment, in front of my computer. I want to be back on the West Coast Trail.

I miss walking barefoot on the beach at sunset. I miss the sand squishing between my toes, the wind in my hair, the scratchy film of salt on my skin. I miss the smell of seaweed rotting in the sun at low tide. I miss sitting around the campfire completely disconnected from the rest of the world. I miss lying in my tent at night listening to the waves crash against the rocks.

The funny thing is most people come back from the West Coast Trail with horror stories about the knee-deep mud, the torrential rain, and the long, hard hiking over slippery roots and rocks. But I can’t think of one thing to complain about. The hiking was easy, the scenery spectacular and the weather hot and sunny.

It was more like Club Med than a true wilderness experience. The trail through the forest is paved with boardwalks, ladders, suspension bridges and cable cars. Walking along the beach is tiring but easy.

A lot of the trail is on First Nations land and a few enterprising locals have cashed in on the hikers passing through. Like Monique, who served up burgers and beer on the beach on our fourth day of hiking. Or the guys who hauled crab and salmon out of the water and threw it on the barbecue before they ferried us across a river. Like I said, Club Med.

Most people do the 77-kilometre hike in five to seven days. We decided to take our time and do the hike in seven days, which meant we only hiked about five hours a day. As soon as we arrived at our campsite, we set up our tents and then spent the rest of the afternoon frolicking on the beach. We bathed under waterfalls, swam in the ocean, read on the beach, napped in our tents, played cards, took long walks at sunset.

It might sound weird but one of my favourite things about the trip was meeting the other hikers. And because there’s not much else in the way of entertainment, we gave them secret nicknames. There was Hansel and Gretel (a young German couple), the Fragrant Bubbas (a divorced dad and his two teenage sons), the Von Trapps (a large family from Lethbridge) and the Hotties (two brothers and their parents from Calgary). We named ourselves Five Fags and a Hag.

I was especially fond of one member of the Hotties and would make up excuses to walk past his campsite. For example, I would dump out full bottles of water at our campsite in order to refill them at the creek near his campsite. Although the fourth time I walked past his campsite in the span of five minutes in order to "get water" his dad busted me by yelling out, "Thirsty?"

Eventually, the cute (and smart and interesting and funny) Alberta boy picked up on my lame attempts at seduction and we went on a couple of long walks together. Which strikes me as strange now. I mean, we had been hiking all day. Why didn’t we just go sit on the beach somewhere instead of walking for hours?

There’s not much else to add. I've probably said too much already. I'd be slightly embarrassed if he googled me and stumbled across this blog. I told him we nicknamed his family the Hotties but I didn't tell him why I was always filling up the water bottles. Unfortunately, they had to leave the trail on the fifth day due to a family emergency.

I’ve skipped a lot of the details of the trip but I don’t want to bore you. I have one more day off work tomorrow so I’m going to head down to the beach with a blanket and a book. If I close my eyes, I can pretend I’m back on the West Coast Trail.

True patriot love

I celebrated Canada Day today the same way I always celebrate Canada Day -- by waking up at the crack of dawn and risking hypothermia. Who knew it would become a tradition?

For the past several years, I’ve competed in the Canada Day Challenge with some friends from my swim team. The "challenge" is a four-kilometre swim around Sasamat Lake in Port Moody. In theory, swimming around a lake is a fun, and very Canadian, thing to do in the summer.

Swimming around a lake when it still feels like winter out (hello, Toronto? stop hogging all the good weather) is not such a fun, summery thing to do. The Arctic-like air temperature wasn’t so bad once we started swimming. What really hurt was standing chest-deep in ice water trying to sing O Canada through chattering teeth and blue lips before the race started.

Turns out it was a good thing it was so cold and overcast. Without the sun in my eyes, I was actually able to see the large orange buoys and didn’t veer wildly off course like I normally do.

Because it was so cold, I was forced to swim the entire four kilometres at a fast pace to stay warm. I ended up setting a personal record with a time of one hour and two minutes. Although I placed third in my age group, I still got my ass kicked by a bunch of teenage Olympic wannabes.

Still, I wouldn’t want to celebrate Canada Day any other way. There’s no better place than the middle of a lake to reflect on how lucky we are to live in such a tolerant, beautiful country. Happy birthday, Canada!

Four hours with George Stroumboulopoulos

Warning: The following contains scenes of nudity, sexuality and coarse language. Viewer discretion is advised.

No, I’m kidding. Honestly, the following post is so free of sin it would make the Pope proud.

I’ve just spent four hours with (okay, in the general proximity of) George Stroumboulopoulos, who has been in Vancouver all week taping The Hour. I scored tickets to tonight’s show and invited my friend Annelle to come with me. But first I made her promise to not look better than I did and make a point of flashing her wedding ring if we got the chance to meet George.

When we arrived at the theatre, it was as if we had stumbled into a casting call for Canada’s Next Top Model. The competition was fierce. There were gorgeous, young girls everywhere. Dammit! Don’t these chicks know that George is the thinking woman’s pin-up boy? Why can’t they lust after Ben Mulroney?

The theatre was almost full and we picked seats about four rows up from the front on the left side. George and the production crew were glued to the TV sets flanking the stage. It was just after 4 p.m. and the prime minister was live on Newsworld addressing the nation.

As soon as Martin’s speech was over, there was a lot of running back and forth by people wearing headsets and carrying sheets of paper. They would run over to George and say something while he bent his head and listened. The room was crackling with excitement and energy.

Then George made an announcement of his own.

"Hey everyone. We’re going to do things a little differently today. Before we do the show, Newsworld wants to break in live in about 15 minutes from now to get some reaction from you guys on what the prime minister just said. So who here has something to say?"

One guy raised his hand and said he wanted to say something about how Martin didn’t speak French. A girl raised her hand and said she wanted to say something about how we need more government accountability. No one else spoke.

George seemed a little frazzled. "Anyone? Anyone? C’mon, I know you guys have strong opinions."

Before I knew what was happening or what I was doing, my arm shot up in the air and I blurted out, "I’ll do it!"

"Okay, cool," George said. "What do you want to say?"

I told him I wanted to say that this whole thing was ridiculous. That the prime minister should have made this announcement in the House of Commons. That this is a Liberal crisis, not a national crisis. If Paul Martin wants to get an unfiltered message out he can buy an ad.

What was I thinking? I’m still cringing about what happened when the cameras started rolling. I haven’t seen the footage and I don’t ever want to see it. It’s too horrifying.

At 4:30 p.m., George faced the camera as Newsworld went live to Vancouver for reaction. He ran up and down the aisles and posed questions to those who volunteered to comment. Somehow he remembered what every single person wanted to say and framed his questions based on the answers we had given him earlier.

As he made his way over to me, I was getting more and more nervous. My heart was pounding and I couldn’t remember what I was going to say. Suddenly, George was looming above me and a camera was thrust in my face. He asked me a question and I started talking into the camera. Then I remembered you’re supposed to look at the person interviewing you, not the camera. But I had to crane my neck to see George.

I butchered my answer. I spoke too quickly. I was too nervous. I was too distracted by his dimples and beautiful, dark brown eyes. I tried to repeat what I had said earlier but it came out all wrong. And then he asked me a follow-up question. A follow-up question! Shit shit shit! It was a hard question, something about the opposition. I don’t even want to remember what I said. It’s too mortifying to think about.

And then he moved on to the next person. I was left sitting there feeling like I had been dropped from the eye of a tornado. I had just made the worst possible first impression on George and, oh yeah, millions of other people too. Idiot!

After the show, the audience was invited to hang out in the lobby to schmooze with George and get their pictures taken with him.

As soon as he walked in the room, he was swarmed by a gaggle of girls. He was very gracious and chatted with them as they giggled and fluffed their hair. I inched closer and closer to their circle but before I could introduce myself a pushy woman elbowed her way in and thrust her teenage daughter in front of George.

She then demanded to know where the coolest place in Vancouver was. George seemed a little confused by her question but told her he liked Zulu Records. She pulled out a pen and paper and asked how to spell it.

"What street is it on? Robson Street?" she asked. This was it! This was my entry!

"It’s on West 4th," I said. George turned to look at me and as soon as he made eye contact, I put my hand on his forearm and introduced myself.

"Hey, George. I just want to say thanks for the tickets. I’m Sarah? From the David Suzuki Foundation?"

"Hi," he said warmly. He then turned his back on the pushy mom and her teenage daughter and the four hot chicks. We talked for a little while. He ordered a .5 beer ("I don’t drink"). He talked about hockey and how he just learned to skate. I told him he should take up swimming. He told me he read my blog the other day but neglected to mention whether that was a good or bad thing.

My mind flashed to all the gushing posts I had written about him and I felt exposed and embarrassed. Shit shit shit!

The conversation ended almost as quickly as it began when a loud woman with a group of teenagers from the YMCA pulled him onto the patio for a group photo.

"You’re not in a rush to go anywhere are you?" he asked me. "Don’t go anywhere. I mean it. I’ll be back."

As George worked the room, I met Kathryn for the first time. I started reading her blog after she left a few comments on mine. She confessed that she found my blog by googling George’s name. She somehow picked me out of the crowd when I was making an ass of myself on national television earlier. She’s officially the first internet friend I have met in person and it was a lot of fun speaking face to face.

After about 45 minutes, I was getting tired of waiting around, watching beautiful girls flirt with George. Someone from CBC was taking Polaroid pictures of George and his fans so I marched over to where he was standing and said, "Can I get one of those?"

He laughed and we chatted a bit more. He asked if I was freaked out by his phone call. I told him to call any time he wanted. We talked about cars and David Suzuki and work and stuff. He was funny and charming and down-to-earth.

We posed for a quick picture. Afterwards he asked if I ever came out to Toronto. I told I was actually from Toronto and that my parents still lived there. I also mentioned that I’d be there for almost two weeks next month.

"Well give me a call when you’re in town," he said. "We don’t have a studio audience in Toronto but you can come down and hang out."

What I wanted to say, but didn’t, was "Why wait until Toronto? What about tonight?" But I chickened out. Besides, it was pushing 7:30 at this point and he was on his way out the door. I thanked him again and wished him well.

On the drive home, Annelle and I were both giddy. "That was so exciting!" she said.

In summary:
1. George is even more gorgeous in person.
2. That McBain guy who reads the emails on the show is really short. He looks tall on camera but is quite small in real life. George, who looks short on camera, isn’t short at all.
3. George needs tighter jeans. His baggy jeans do not flatter his ass.
4. George has a razor sharp wit. He is charismatic, charming and genuinely nice.
5. George makes his job look easy. It’s not. It’s bloody hard work to think on your feet and come off sounding smart at the same time. I’m impressed. And smitten.

Waiting for George Stroumboulopoulos to call

George Stroumboulopoulos emailed me this morning. I turned on my computer and there it was, his name sitting in my in-box! Just kind of casually hanging out like it belonged there. The subject line was blank and the message was short:

“Sarah. How are you? What’s your number? George.”

Oh my god. Oh my god. Okay, breathe. Be cool. Stop grinning like that. But I can’t help it. Yes you can. He’s just a guy. No he’s not. This is pathetic. I am pathetic. What will I talk to him about? I have nothing to say. That’s not true. I have lots to say. I'm funny and cute. No I’m not. Yes I am. I’m too pale. I hate what I’m wearing today. I hope he doesn’t want to meet up after work. This turtleneck is suffocating. I should have worn something low-cut to show off my cleavage. What cleavage? I don’t have any cleavage. Good point. At least my hair looks good. Should I go home and change? I hope he doesn’t call. No, I hope he does. What if he thinks I’m boring? Who cares what he thinks? God I'm annoying. No wonder I'm single. Stop being such an idiot and just write him back.

So I wrote back and gave him my work number and home number. I briefly considered giving him my dentist’s number, my parents’ number and the numbers of at least 10 friends in case he has trouble getting hold of me.

George is in Vancouver all week taping his show. I’ve been calling and emailing the CBC for weeks trying to get tickets (you can read about my quest here). I’m guessing that George is writing to a) give me some last-minute tickets, or b) get me to stop clogging up the CBC’s email system. Stay tuned…

The Air Canada horror show

I love flying. Well, no, that's not exactly true. I love the idea of flying, but I hate the harsh reality of it.

I swear, the next time I hear Celine Dion singing "you and I were meant to fly," I'm going to throw my slipper at the TV (I know, I know. Kind of lame but I don't want to hurt the TV while protesting one commercial).

Has that woman been anywhere near an actual Air Canada flight lately? I'm guessing "no" because if she has, I strongly suspect the lyrics to her little song would go something like, "You and I were meant to fly in private Lear jets because flying economy class on Air Canada really sucks."

Had my own private Air Canada horror show today. Flew from Vancouver to Toronto. Didn't want to fly Air Canada but dammit they had the cheapest fare by about $200.

So I arrived at the Vancouver airport a good hour and a half before my flight. Thought it was a little inefficient that they only had two people working at the check-in desk seeing as how it's four days away from Christmas and all. Hmm...must have blown the budget on getting Celine Dion to sing her crappy song and forgot to save a little bling for some decent customer service.

Despite the fact that I was super early, the ticket agent informed me that there were no window or aisle seats left, only middle seats. Oh god. Not the dreaded middle seat. I was going to be stuck in a middle seat, probably between some guy wearing too much cologne and a teenage girl blabbing on her cell phone about last night's episode of Laguna Beach.

Actually, I ended up in the middle seat between a quiet, book-reading married guy on my right and a chatty, although very hungover and somewhat smelly, frat boy on my left. So not as bad as I imagined.

What was worse than I imagined was the baby two rows over. The kid cried on and off for four hours straight. Even though I was impressed by his lung capacity, I can't even describe how awful this was. He sounded like a squealing pig. But worse, like a squealing pig who escaped from a barn only to be caught in a leg trap in the woods. It was so bad, I had to listen to the enRoute "radio station" just to block out the noise.

I could go on. But I think I'm getting post-traumatic stress disorder by reliving my experience. Anyway, I'm here. In Toronto, where it's minus 20 with the wind chill. My sister Jane arrives in a couple of hours from Boston so we're going to head back out to the airport to pick her up. She's flying American Airlines, so hopefully she'll have had a better flight than me.