end of the tunnel

end of the tunnel
Originally uploaded by uberllama.

Wade.
Originally uploaded by Slowtron.

A picture of Wade from last summer.

The Longest Day of the Year

June 21st, the first day of summer. On June 20th, a coworker, Wade, died in a motorcycle accident. I found out the next day, along with everyone else. We were all crowded into a meeting area, trying to guess why we'd been called to meet so suddenly, and why the tone was so somber.

Personally, I assumed the company had gone bankrupt and wondered how it had happened so fast. Funny that, in casting my mind around for ideas of what bad things could have happened, I couldn't really come up with anything. Or not really funny, maybe lucky is a better word.

Wade was already with Veer when I started two years. Even with the crowd of nutcases that made up Veer at that time, he still managed to stick out as a unique personality. And a loud one - never much for quiet diplomacy. In some ways, he fit the stereotype of the IT Guy. He didn't hesitate to let me know when I did something stupid. Which was pretty often.

I didn't understand all of what he did, but the people who did were frequently in awe. There were a couple emergency all-nighters, saving the servers from melty oblivion.

I never really thought about it before, but Wade was a big part of my image of Veer, and one of the people that made me believe things would never go too far off track. There are a few - people in whose integrity and intelligence I trust and use as my barometers. If they're unhappy, I'm worried, but as long as they stick around I figure everything is okay. It's hard to lose a person like that.

Wade also became one of my favourite people at Veer by inadvertently reminding me of my husband. Both of them are always right. Both of them are always right even when they have no idea what the hell they're talking about. Both of them actually are right so often that you can't really even make fun of them for thinking they're always right.

And, like my husband, Wade was a great afficinado of arguing. An orator, really. If you weren't rock solid in your position, you were just asking to get creamed. Thing is, once you came around to his way of thinking, he could switch from angry to laidback and friendly in a second. For a grudge-holder like me, it was an amazing thing to behold.

But that was just work. He was also a hardcore mountain biker, hauling himself up mountains just to throw himself down the side at top speed. Motorcyclist. Got married on the beach in Mexico. And these were just the things I know...

I miss him and will miss him, and feel for all his friends and family that knew him so much more...there's nothing I could say that would ever be adequate

World of Wonders

Now this, in case you didn't know, is a snood. Don't worry, I myself was ignorant of the existance of the dog snood until just a few days ago. They're basically a scarf, earmuffs and a fashionable dog accessory, all rolled into one ridiculous-looking package. poor doggie.

I saw one for the first time during Sunday's long run. It was cold and rainy, so everyone we ran past was bundled up for their morning walk. One woman decided to take it a bit further and outfit her basset hound for the chill. We came across them as we ran through the woods next to the river. When you run in a big group like I do for my training runs, it's hard to see more than the person in front of you, so obstacles can seem to pop up out of nowhere. To prevent someone running into a pole or slipping on some mud, runners at the front have to call out obstacles. People in the middle pick it up and call it back. It feels like a preschool game, but it's effective enough (although "hOle!" and "pOle!" get mixed up frequently). Once when we running past the zoo, I called out "BuffalOO," but nobody else thought it was funny. Might have had something to do with being 12K into a 14K run.

Anyway, on Sunday as we ran past the woman and her be-snooded dog, the dog decided we were beyond fascinating. He waddled right in front of the pack and sat down to check us out. The front of the pack split to run around him and called out "DoOog!" And soon everyone picked it up, calling out "DoOog!" as we passed, before cracking up at the sight of his bizarre outfit. The basset hound, meanwhile, looked up at us and wagged his tail, happy to be reassured that the world did, in fact, revolve around him.

"Everyone is a house with four rooms...

...a physical, and emotional, a mental and a spiritual. Most of tend to live in one room most of the time, but unless we go into every room, every day, even if only to keep it aired, we are not a complete person."

-Rumer Godden

An interesting idea from an interesting woman. I read one of her young adult books, Thursday's Children, in junior high school and became deeply obsessed with it. I can't really explain why, a story about kids trying to become professional ballet dancers had less than nothing to do with me. Maybe it just played to my fantasies of being deeply talented but unappreciated and misunderstood - you know, just like every other 13-year-old. I found the book again recently and googled the author, and found this quote. Again, it is strangely, perfectly relevant for me, and yet, completely not. Somehow, I feel like all of my rooms are packed to the rafters with old newspapers and that a hoard of stray cats has moved in and made the house their own...

More driving lessons

I don't care how many freaking driving lessons I have to take, someday this will be me, dammit! All of it, including the blond hair, the convertible and perky little straw hat.

All that's stopping me from living my own stock photography road trip fantasy is the lack of driver's license. Did I mention I'm 31? Yeah, it's sad, but so far the inconvenience of living without a license has been completely dwarfed by expense and SHEER TERROR AND HORROR of learning to drive. Driving is hard. There's, like, eight million things happening at once and if you screw up, very bad things can happen. I don't understand. I know for a fact that there are a lot of stupid people out there. Anyone who's worked retail for five minutes knows that. Yet all these people can drive, while I'm still trying to master the right turn.

Apparently there is a happy medium between turning out into the oncoming lane and riding the curb. Or so they say. I have my doubts.

Sigh. Two more lessons over the next two weeks, combined with a bunch last year. And some when I was 20. Eventually I'll figure it out. I can't not. Not because I need to drive -I walk to work, live near downtown, carry my groceries home from the story- but because I'm just too embarrassed to keep up this learning-to-drive shoit.

Too Much Fun

One of Calgary's favourite bits of self-promotion is talking up the pathway system. Using what I suspect is some creative math, Calgarians will proudly tell you that we have the most extensive bike-and-foot pathway system of any city in North America. And, in some ways, it is pretty impressive. Some sections are extremely busy commuter corridors, while others are so quiet you hardly feel like you're still in the city. I'm lucky to live close to the downtown section of pathway, and I go running on it practically everyday.

However, flaws in this glorious system become apparent when you attempt any kind of long-distance route. Today, my goal was to run from Centre Street and follow the path down to Glenmore Landing - total distance, about 10 miles. I was a bit nervous since this would be my longest-ever run, but I armed myself with provisions: water bottle, energy gel mini-bottle, my inhaler, a credit card and, just in case, a map of the section of path I would be following. Now, I studied this map beforehand and tried to remember the various bridge crossings, on-street sections and dead-ends to avoid. But, in the back of my mind, I was still thinking, really, how hard can it be?. As it turns out, really fucking hard.

The first mile to Fort Calgary I've run a hundred times. Simple enough, although it's getting more, uh, interesting by the day. The path runs right past the massive new homeless shelter, and, as the weather gets warmer, more people are choosing to sleep rough along the river and in the fields. No rules and no curfews, I guess. It's never been a problem in previous years, I just ended up saying good morning to a lot of bleary-eyed guys as they stumbled out of the bush. This year, the number of people has exploded and there are whole fields that are totally trashed. It reminds me more and more of the total despair of the downtown eastside in Vancouver. And I feel like a monster jogging past passed-out bodies, but I'm also getting too nervous to stop...

Anyway, down past Fort Calgary - skipping the bridge that would normally bring me into Inglewood, and turning onto the Elbow River pathway. And here my troubles began. (Note: please read that last sentence in Grandpa Simpson voice. Thanks for your cooperation.) Right away I came across a bridge under construction (wrapped in white plastic, actually, which was an odd sight). There was a detour sign, but it pointed nowhere. The people in front of me decided to take the bridge anyway, and connect with the path on the other side. This worked until I reached the Stampede grounds, where the pathway closed again. Gee, I'm really glad this was all noted on the official map I downloaded two days ago. Anyway, another closure, another mysterious detour that lead me nowhere. I ended up in parking lot, surrounded by horse trailers, trying to guess where to go. I followed the lot along the river before being turned around by two attendants, who said they'd been redirecting people since last year's flood, which caused all the detours. Even though it's been a year, nobody has put up any signs and both guys looked like they were sick to death of dealing with wayward runners and cyclists. So I doubled back and ran around the track and corral, passing by a 4H convention. Some of the kids were already dressed for the horse show - that's a lot of tassels and rhinestones for so early in the morning, but what do I know?

So, through the Stampede grounds and out into Victoria park. Across a bridge and I found the path again. Running along into Lindsay Park path is like a rollercoaster, ducking under three old bridges in a row, my head barely clearing the deck. Everything seems to be back on track until I reached a fourth bridge and decided it was the one indicated on the map as a cross point. Instead I ended up running through Mission, past the old hospital, trying to find a way back to the river. I ended up reconnecting fairly quickly, but I had to stop yet again to check the map, which was turning into a pain in the ass. Back on the path I ran past families of geese, the mothers hissing at me to keep my distance.

At this point the path crossed 4th Street and led me on my strangest detour. I crossed the bridge over the Elbow and saw a sign for the Elbow Island pathway and turned down some stairs to follow it. The stairs dropped me onto a small dirt path which continued into thick bush. This is can't be right - but I followed it anyway. For a minute, things looked good so I kept following, then the path became so overgrown I could barely continue. I dodged branches, got scraped by brambles and ended up coated with spider webs. I ended up on the edge of the river, next to the huge homes that front this section of the Elbow. On the opposite bank, people were walking along a real path, but I couldn't get there. I had no choice but to head back the way I came, back through the bush. This time I came across a homeless guy, bathing in his underwear. We nodded at each other and I kept going. At this point I began to suspect I wasn't going to make my pick up time...

Back up the stairs and a bit farther I found the path again. Seriously, if there had been even a single freaking directional sign to guide me, I wouldn't have had any problem. At best there were a couple street detour signs that were essentially useless because they made you follow them on faith alone, there was no way of knowing where you were going or how far the street detour was. And the map is worthless ass. None of the closed sectioned were noted, and none of the complicated path-street-bridge-street-path detours were shown in enough detail to be understandable.

At this point I was on one of the nicest sections of the entire system, when the path passes through the Rideau neighborhood and Stanley Park. But I was so pissed off and behind schedule that I could barely relax and enjoy running through it. Constantly stopping to check the map had thrown me completely off any rhythm and I couldn't get back on pace. I kept going, hoping that it would get easier once I had passed through Sandy Beach and started the south leg of the trip. But a few more unmarked, inexplicable detours and an official sign that seemed to point me down an alley and I gave up. The frustration that had been bubbling under since I started down the Elbow finally boiled over into an angry tantrum. I wished I had my iPod just so I could throw it as hard as I could and maybe stomp on it a few times. Honestly, I was ready to tear bark off a tree - I really just wanted to break something I was so pissed off. Instead I took a deep breath and tried to appear sane long enough to borrow a cell phone to call home and change my pick up spot. I had only run about 9K, but all the stopping, backtracking, map checking, and inadvertant urban exploration had added up to over 80 minutes. More importantly, I was irritated at everything I couldn't talk myself out of it and couldn't get psyched up to face whatever the rest of the route might throw at me.

So, I didn't make it. Nor did I get anywhere near my 10-mile goal. I'm still pretty pissed off, and now I'm convinced that if I had just tried one more detour I would have gotten back on track. I think I'm going to try the distance again on Monday, but this time, I think I'm going to stick to my regular 8K route and just do it twice. Desperately boring, but I don't think I need any more 'fun' right now.