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Coffee, TV or Me

Coffee, TV or Me

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Two unrelated features in the news have been swirling around in my brain like, say, a cup of hot coffee. That somehow entered my brain. Never mind.

1. The New York Times is running a fascinating series looking back at stories in the news and how they were reported — and misreported — at the time. Scalded By Coffee, Then The News tells the familiar tale of the woman who got rich by suing because hot coffee was hot (there’s a documentary called Hot Coffee too but the NYT video is like the Coles Notes version). Only she didn’t get rich and that wasn’t the point of her suit. The media at the time got facts wrong and didn’t present some facts that changed my mind later: the horrific pictures of the 79 year old woman’s injuries and the history of McDonald’s callousness. She wanted her medical bills paid — mere coffee money to the company, who knew about and ignored other such injuries, and only took action, as companies will, when it became a legal and financial obligation. Some of you will watch the retro report or documentary and still believe the suit was frivolous. But think about how simple facts were distorted and others not reported at all.

2. A couple weeks ago I was asked to be part of a panel discussion on CBC’s The Current about a controversial column by The Globe and Mail‘s TV critic John Doyle, in which he claimed the “golden age” of television (think Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Mad Men) had bypassed the Canadian TV industry.  I was on the side of “maybe, but …” in the half-hour discussion, hosted by the respected Anna Maria Tremonti and including Doyle, former Toronto Star TV critic Rob Salem and the CBC’s Sally Catto.  I think the four of us on the panel — and any knowledgeable listener — would agree that we barely scratched the surface of the issues with Canadian TV and with Doyle’s column. (OK, Doyle wouldn’t agree with the second part of that.) And we had four reasonable, non-shouting-each-other-down people talking for half an hour with a skilled moderator. Think about the average amount of time the news generally spends on an issue in one stretch and how many times panel discussions are presented simply as two polar opposite opinions shouting at each other.

3. Now think about whatever story has you hot and bothered in the news right now and wonder if we know all the details and nuances. Spoiler alert: we don’t.

I have no remedy for this limitation of the news, of course, except to believe that awareness is the first step toward us digging beyond the headlines before we get our pitchforks out.

Coffee, TV or Me

Yoga for the klutzy skeptic

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One of the items on my not-a-bucket-list (which I’ve since realized everyone else on the Internet calls a life list, but that seems a little too on-the-nose) was finding a place to practice yoga that didn’t “namaste or Lululemon me to eyerolling death.” I seem to have found it in Yoga Spirit.

This is a place where one of the co-owner instructors went to clown school. This is a place where you can take yoga but not yourself seriously.

The reason for my yoga studio search was that, wanting a way to relax my muscles and my mind, I’d tried out the hot yoga place in walking distance of my condo and mostly hated it. A couple of the instructors were good, and it felt good, and some of the instructors were terrible, and it felt terrible.

When one said you should push through any pain or dizziness and that water wasn’t as necessary to our bodies as the “water companies” wanted us to believe, I was outta there. But I am interested to see if Big Water joins the ranks of Big Tobacco, Big Pharma and now Big Sugar (no, not the band or LA bakeryit’s really a thing).

I have a yoga DVD for home use but wanted a place to go where I’d be told if my pretzel shape wasn’t quite right, and to be encouraged and challenged by an instructor who wasn’t pre-recorded. (On the other hand, according to DVD Shiva Rea I’m AWESOME at this.)

My criteria for finding a place were that it had to be easy to get to from where I live and where I work, and near a SkyTrain station since I don’t often drive to work. I wanted to increase my chances of actually going.

Location was easy enough (thanks, Google). Yoga Spirit is in Burnaby between my home in Vancouver and office in Surrey, and next to the Holdom SkyTrain station.

Fit is a harder thing to judge, but I had some hints I’d like it. It’s not a chain, and the three co-owners teach many of the classes. Their class sizes are small, no more than 12 students. You can purchase passes and reserve a spot in class online. Their website isn’t written like a cult indoctrination. Their Saturday workshops include one called Tragically Hips. Did I mention one of the co-owners went to clown school?

And sure enough, it doesn’t feel like competitive yoga and doesn’t set off my BS alarm. They are welcoming to beginners and there’s a variety of body shapes and clothing on display. The various instructors have different styles but I’ve liked them all.

I tested it out by registering for one of their Saturday workshops — The Fundamentals of Flow, which helped me to be able to keep up with that DVD I have — and it happened to be taught by clown-school Claudia with her lighthearted, accepting attitude. I’ve been going to their drop in classes for a few weeks now and it looks like it’s going to stick. Fingers (and arms and legs) crossed.

One thing they didn’t advertise on their website is that they have mats available to borrow, which means if I plan to go after work I can shove leggings and a shirt in my purse and not cart a mat around on the SkyTrain and at the office.

They offer a variety of yoga styles including power, yin, prenatal and restorative, though since I’ve been going depending on time rather than type I’ve mostly accidentally stuck to hatha.

The small class sizes means if I’m pretzeled wrong they’ll notice and gently correct. It also means if I topple over they’ll notice, but they’re good-natured enough to tell us that’s normal, and to encourage us to ignore freakishly bendy neighbours and focus on our own safe practice.

And yes, the classes contain some Lululemon and namaste-ing but it’s less secret handshake and more come as you are, whoever you are. Even if who I am is a klutzy skeptic.

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Coffee, TV or Me

Dreaming big and little with Airbnb

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My favourite was the treehouse on Whidbey Island. Not just a tiny house in a tree, it had a giant tree growing through the middle of its one octagon-ish room, a bachelor apartment in the sky.

My wish list on Airbnb is full of unusual micro dwellings, partly for the cute factor and partly for the price: you can rent an entire enchanting home for no more than — and often less than — a nondescript hotel room.

The site makes it easy to browse, with Airbnb Picks lists such as Atypical Places to Stay, Trees & Zzzzs, Snow Domes, Littlest Listings, Artsy Abodes and Private Islands, among others.

I have a close-to-home getaway wish list featuring a caravan hotel in Portland and an itty bitty cabin in the cedars in Washington, a dome house in Sedona and a yurt art farm in Arroyo Grande, a funky jetstream trailer in Austin and a Creole cottage loft in New Orleans.

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There’s my European vacation wish list. A troglodyte house in France (above) and a cave home in Spain. A former pub in Ireland. A gypsy car or former art gallery in France, or a houseboat near the Eiffel Tower. An owl house in England or water tower in London. A garden home in the Netherlands. A tower in Italy. A stone villa in Crete.

I have a practical list, pretty places in planned destinations where I’d otherwise get a hotel, like the 2-bedroom condo booked in Quebec City that will afford some privacy and the ability to cook our meals over Christmas.

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Some are quaint places I may use simply as an excuse to travel, like the rainforest treehouse with hotsprings in Costa Rica or the astronomy-focused geodesic dome hotel in Chile (pictured).

Sometimes I browse the Airbnb app’s featured listings just to dream … and save my favourites to a wish list so maybe one day the dream will become reality.

Coffee, TV or Me

Iceland: The hills are alive with the sound of … hidden people

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“It’s not that we believe in ghosts; it’s that we know they’re there.”

So said our Icelandic guide Hlíf after we visited Höfði, the site of the Reykjavík summit between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev that marked the beginning of the end of the cold war, and which is said to be haunted by The White Lady. She repeated the phrase when discussing Icelanders’ belief in elves, a topic she broached with a tone of “here we go…”

Most tourists have heard about roads being diverted so as not to disturb the elves. Icelandic celebrities (that is, Björk) are probed by foreign journalists hoping for a link-bait headline. There’s also genuine curiosity: could anyone today really believe in hidden people? Are they quirking it up for the tourist industry?

Hlíf explained the persistence of elves in various ways. Respect for the old beliefs of their people who attempted to explain the world around them, no different from any religion or folklore, and which is now ingrained in their culture. A fiercely independent, isolated society who adopted Christianity by arbitration in 1000 AD on the condition that old customs would coexist. A way to anthropomorphize and therefore protect nature, in a land where the extreme beauty is so worth preserving and so often demands appeasing.

“If a loved one was depressed and disappeared, why not assume they found peace with the elves? If there’s an interesting rock formation and the road would destroy it, why not assume it’s an elf house and divert the road?” Hlíf asked.

When you see the vastness of space in this country, huge swaths of which are unpopulated, and where the second-biggest city would barely qualify as a town at home, there does seem no good reason not to divert the road. Just in case.

So much land. So few people.

But it was when we stopped at the endless, undulating lava field that caused the catastrophic mist hardships in the late 1700s that I half-expected to see hidden people darting among the shadowy crevices. The quaintness disappeared. They’re right.

Call it hidden people or geothermal activity, this land is alive.

Icelanders are tightly connected to the land in ways spiritual and practical. The ubiquitous sheep roaming freely are tonight’s dinner. Renewable energy provides nearly all of Iceland’s electricity.

Volcanic eruptions are common, some from familiar mountain-like stratovolcanos and some from the ground opening up, swallowing and spitting destruction and new life.

In 1973, inhabitants of Iceland’s Westman Islands were evacuated for months when their little island Heimaey erupted. The volcano threatened to destroy the harbour that was their life. Instead, when the lava flow stopped and cooled, it was sheltered and improved.

Iceland itself is growing by 5 cm per year as the two tectonic plates that meet in Þingvellir drift apart.

Those lava fields so alive with moss and elves blanket large swaths of the country. Some are vivid green where moisture helps the moss thrive, some peppered with waterfalls. Some are cracked black moonscapes where it seems nothing could survive, yet a lone farm occasionally appears in the distance, dwarfed by the hills above.

The Blue Lagoon might be glamming it up for tourists but natural hot springs and pools are the vital centre of Icelandic towns. Steaming sulfur flats bubble with flatulent mud, geysers erupt predictably as though the earth is breathing water.

In Iceland, nature has anthropomorphized herself. Icelanders follow her lead.

Postcard story: Help

Postcard story: Help

Help

The rambling old house was the prettiest house she’d ever lived in, of all the houses of all the relatives who had taken her in. It was right on the Bow River, no fence or anything; the long back yard just suddenly dropped off to become rushing water.

“Don’t you ever go past the garden without one of us, do you hear me?” her uncle had said sternly – and it was an effort for him to be stern, she saw the twinkle in his eyes – then waited for her shy eyes to meet his, and for her answer.

“OK,” she said when she realized he wasn’t going to take a nod as an answer.

“You swear?”

“Swear.”

“Cross your heart?”

A giggle escaped her lips but then she solemnly crossed her heart, liking this red-headed man and especially his red mustache. She wished she could touch it but she’d never be able to ask.

They all walked to just past the garden and her aunt pointed across the river and to the left. “Do you know what that is?”

The girl squinted at the fences in the distance. “No.”

“It’s the zoo! We’ll go there this weekend. Does that sound like fun?”

“Yeah.” This was the best house ever.

Her bedroom was tiny with a tiny window but it was all hers. For now. Some day she’d live with her mom again. She knew her mom wanted her to, and she didn’t understand why they couldn’t. “She loves you very much, she just needs to go into the hospital for a while,” was what they always said, but she never saw the hospital or talked to her mom so she didn’t think about it much or it made her cry and she was a big girl now, almost five.

Her little body froze. What was that sound? There it was again. “Help! Help!” It was faint, it was high-pitched, but it was unmistakable. “Help! Help!”

The tears started to fall. Someone was drowning in the river. Maybe a lady had gone past a garden and fallen in. What if no one else heard? She lay there a little longer, listening for sounds of rescue, until she could bear it no more. She rushed to find her aunt, gulping down sobs to choke out: “Someone’s drowning! I heard a lady screaming!”

“Oh sweetie. Oh sweetheart,” her aunt said, gathering the shaking body to hers, stroking the fine blonde hair. “Those are the peacocks. That’s the sound they make. It’s just the peacocks in the zoo.”