An Infrequent Traveller: Musings on getting around

I have made exactly four sets of airplane trips in my adult life: that is, four trips somewhere and four trips back. Across that decade, several things have changed, and maybe they're more noticeable to an Infrequent Traveller.

Strangely enough, I think airport lineups are getting better. Maybe it was a fluke, but it seemed to me that even the dreaded security and customs lines at Pearson (Toronto) moved quicker and smoother than they did in the past. Is it because passengers are now so familiar with taking shoes off and showing liquids, that things flow better? Or are the agents just moving them through better?

Where I did notice a hangup, more than once, was with the greater number of people bringing carry-on bags, some of those possibly over the size limit, aboard relatively small airplanes. These planes have three seats on the left and two seats on the right, and the overhead compartments are correspondingly deeper on the left. Passengers were having a terrible time finding places for their bags, especially on the smaller side. The airline is obviously aware of this problem, because they were asking for volunteers to check their bags (for free). On the return trip, I took them up on it, because I had a connecting flight with little extra time, and I was happy to have one less thing to trundle through the airport and fight for space with on the plane. (And my carry-on did get to Toronto with no problems.)

Airport food is horrendously expensive, even at the grab-and-go booths. Sometimes you are just stuck with it, so be prepared. But even short flights usually offer free drinks and snacks, so it's not worth paying for airport coffee or pop or bottled water if you're boarding soon anyway. I did buy a sandwich during one stopover, and a fruit salad while running through the Atlanta airport, see above.

It is definitely an advantage these days to have a computer, phone, or other device to keep you current on check-ins and changes. It's also a good idea to have a plan for accessing airport Wifi, if (like me) your life doesn't run with a phone. I put a shortcut to a site called Boingo on my home screen, which helps access public Wifi that doesn't just pop up automatically.

The biggest change, I think, was not in the physical or digital navigation of things but in my own perceptions, and the fact that (even being very Infrequent) I don't get mixed up as much anymore. The first time I ever came back through Toronto, I got hopelessly lost trying to find the shuttle van home. Turned out I was on the wrong floor of the terminal. Now I'm not even sure how I could have done that, because the van counter isn't that hard to find. But I was the kid who got lost coming back from the bathroom on the first day of school, so anything's possible. Moral of the story here: you're not stupid if you get mixed up in a new place; and after two or three times, you are going to feel, if not exactly at home, at least a little more in control.

From a VIA train, on the edge of Toronto (photo post)

FASTER than fairies, 

faster than witches,

Bridges and houses, 

hedges and ditches;

And charging along 

like troops in a battle,

All through the meadows 

the horses and cattle:

All of the sights of the hill and the plain

Fly as thick as driving rain;

And ever again, in the wink of an eye,

Painted stations whistle by.

Here is a child who clambers and scrambles,

All by himself and gathering brambles;

Here is a tramp who stands and gazes;

And there is the green for stringing the daisies!

Here is a cart run away in the road

Lumping along with man and load;

And here is a mill and there is a river:

Each a glimpse and gone for ever!

 ~~ "From a Railway Carriage," Robert Louis Stevenson

It's a good day in the Treehouse (updated)

This day is turning into a busy one for the Squirrel family.

Ponytails is on her way to a field trip at the Toronto Zoo, with her high school photography class.  (She's very happy that the sun is shining now, because there were thunderstorms all night.) When she gets back, it's guitar lesson night.

And since the sun is shining, that would be a good hint to Mama Squirrel to get a couple loads of laundry done and hung up outside.

The Apprentice is at work until after lunch, and then she has an extremely important driving test.  Mr. Fixit is going along for moral support.

Dollygirl has school with Mama Squirrel, and then later this afternoon she starts a flower-watering/checking mail job for some vacationing neighbours.  It's also our afternoon to work at the thrift store.

And Mama Squirrel has a support group business meeting here tonight.  Which means a small amount of cleanup and refreshment-fixing and all that, in between school and the rest.

These are all good things!  (Well, except maybe for the driving test, but passing the driving test is a good thing. UPDATE:  and she did!)

One of our pastor's favourite sayings is "it's a good day."  No qualifiers or additions--it's just a good day.

50 or so things about Mama Squirrel

A friend requested a "list of fifty," so I obliged. Last updated December 2014, to get rid of the dead You-tube links.

Early Life

1. I have not stayed in a hospital since 1969 (tonsillectomy).
2. I have not been in an airplane since 1969 (Bahamas).2010 update: I have now slipped the surly bonds of earth and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings.
3. I got my first Barbie in 1969.
4. She was a 1968 Talking Barbie who said, "I love being a fashion model."
5. I also had a talking Stacey who said, "I think miniskirts are smashing."

6. I watched the first season of Sesame Street in 1969.
7. I watched Maria and Luis's first date on Sesame Street in 1988. (Think I must have been babysitting. Yep, that was it.)
8. I watched Mr. Rogers, Mr. Dressup, The Friendly Giant, and Chez Hélène.
9. I watched way too much TV.
10. I still liked reading better.

Musical Talents

11. At one time or another I played piano, guitar, viola, clarinet, and recorder.
12. I never took guitar lessons but I strummed at a lot of campfires.
13. I went through more clarinet reeds than anyone else in ninth grade music (braces chew up reeds).

14. I took piano lessons for eight years.
15. I played keyboard in the school jazz band. We all wore black football jerseys (it was a choice of that or tomato-coloured cardigans).
16. I also played keyboard and sang in a trio with two other friends (we sang at church).
17. I also played the piano for Sunday evening hymn sings. I used to hyperventilate at anything with more than three flats.
18. I don't own a piano now. 2011 update: we now have an electronic piano, so that's good.

Positions Held

21. I used to do temporary office work.
22. I was fired from my first assignment because I couldn't keep the employers' names straight (most of them had the same last name. Was that Irv, or Herb, or...)
23. I would do just about anything as long as it was legal.
24. I once got paid nine dollars an hour to sharpen pencils.
25. Once I retyped a whole newsletter because the guy who hired me ran out of real work for me, and he needed me to look busy when they brought clients through.
26. I typed hours of transcripts about mental institutions and manic depression. By the time I finished I could discuss Lithium with the best of them.
27. I also typed transcripts for close-captioned TV. Fraggle Rock and The Beachcombers, Just Like Mom and The Edison Twins. (Finally got paid to watch TV.)

Computers

28. My first computer was a used KayProII. It had two floppy drives, and had no graphics at all. (Even its games were made out of x's and o's.) It came with a lot of CP/M software like WordStar. I bought a dot-matrix printer to grind out my essays...slowly.)

29. We sold it to a little kid down the street the year we got married.
30. Then we had a small laptop for awhile--good enough to type minutes of meetings. (In WordPerfect--without Windows.) And we could dial up the library with it and put books on hold.
31. Then came the Internet and also Mr. Fixit's expanding ability to cobble computers together. We're now running a setup that can switch from XP back to Milennium if we ask it to, plus we have a "virtual PC" so the kids can run their Windows 95 software. And I finally learned how to use Word...

From Toronto to Here

32. I lived in Toronto during most of my university years.
33. The Kaypro and I lived everywhere from a university residence to an elegant Forest Hill mansion (that lasted two weeks: the landlady turned out to be senile), to a cockroach-infested highrise (one summer), and half of a dark, depressing basement (one year), two doors down from Bea Lillie's birthplace.
34. I loved the subway, BookCity, cheap movies, Toronto Island, and being able to go to the museum any old time.

35. I didn't love the high rents, the cockroaches, and when the sewer backed up all over the basement.
36. I moved out of Toronto and found an upstairs apartment with a window and no vermin. It also had no bedroom and no bathtub, but I figured it was a small price to pay.
37. Besides, that's where I met Mr. Fixit. (No, not in my apartment, but after I moved.)
38. We met in July, were engaged in September, and got married the next June.
39. Our first real date was playing mini golf. We also went to a Three Stooges film festival, an antique show, out for Chinese food, and just sat by the river and talked.
40. Some things never change.
41. We moved into our first house and found out for sure that we were going to have an Apprentice the same week that I graduated. I was a bit too busy to go to commencement.

This and That

42. Mr. Fixit and I both like old movies: anything from the '30's through the '60's, occasionally the '70's. Orson Welles, Peter Lorre, Veronica Lake. (But no musicals. One song per movie is about Mr. Fixit's limit.)
43. We also like '70's cop shows with lots of big cars and groovy clothes.
44. We don't have cable TV or satellite, but we have an antenna in the attic that gets the Canadian stations. 2014 update: we went on to free satellite channels for awhile, but now we are back to the basic few.
45. I am no good with machines. I don't even like noisy vacuum cleaners, and I never have figured out all the TV/VCR/DVD controls. That's why it's a good thing Mr. Fixit is around.
46. I hate cold weather.
47. Malls give me headaches.
48. At one time or another I took French, German, Latin, Italian and sign language. (Can you tell I'm running a bit low here...)
49. I am probably the only person who's had both Krakovianka and Coffeemamma over for a visit. But not both at the same time.
50. And...when I was eight years old I collected hockey cards. I knew the names of all the NHL teams. I saved up hockey card wrappers and sent away for a Hockey Card Locker to keep the cards in. I also had a 1975 Bobby Orr doll. (I still have the clothes, but the doll broke. We let Ken wear the clothes because they were cooler than his '70's fancy pants.)

51. But...I never watched hockey. (Sorry, Coffeemamma!)

Chinese food

One of the first (and really the only) sort-of-international restaurants I remember eating at WIWAK (When I Was a Kid--there, I just made up my own Internet abbreviation) was George's Chinese Restaurant. George was probably the most authentic Chinese thing about the place...it was pretty standard Cantonese-for-Canadian-tastes cuisine. Very good food, but not scary.

When I started university, I had a Chinese-Canadian roommate whose parents ran a restaurant. She told me that it was also a to-Canadian-tastes restaurant, and that when her parents wanted to eat real Chinese food, they closed the restaurant and headed to Toronto. Since we were studying in Toronto, she offered to take a couple of us to Chinatown for something a little more adventurous than soo guy almond.

So we were introduced to congee, and rice noodles fried with meat, and the little bowls filled with rice where you take some of what's on the table and add it to your bowl. And chopsticks, of course. And tilting the lid on your teapot to signal that you wanted more. I went back to that restaurant a few times while I lived in Toronto, and also checked out some other interesting places. One restaurant I remember featured the cooking of some Chinese province that specialized in spicy (not Szechuan). Not realizing just how hot that chili-spiked dish was already, I added some of the bowl of sauce on the table...it wasn't plum sauce! But I ate it anyway.

This recipe is a lot tamer than that. I think it's kind of semi-authentic Chinese (meaning it uses hoisin sauce instead of ketchup). We've made it a couple of times and it's very tasty.

Beef and Green Bean Stir Fry

1 sweet red or green pepper
1 lb. lean ground beef (we have also used leftover roast beef)
1 tbsp. vegetable oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp. minced gingerroot (the kind you have to chop up)
1/4 tsp. each salt and pepper
3 cups diagonally halved trimmed green beans
1/2 cup beef stock (I used no-MSG bouillon powder)
1/4 cup hoisin sauce
2 tbsp. soy sauce
1 tbsp. cornstarch
2 green onions, thinly sliced
Rice or noodles for serving

Get everything ready to go before you cook. Seed, core and cut the pepper into thin strips. Mix up the beef stock, hoisin sauce, soy sauce and cornstarch. Chop up the beans, garlic and ginger.

Ready? In wok or large skillet, stir-fry the beef over high heat until no longer pink, about 3 minutes. Using slotted spoon, remove the beef and set aside. (If you're using leftover meat, cut it into thin strips and add it later with the vegetables.)

Drain fat from the wok; add oil. Stir-fry garlic, ginger, salt and pepper over medium heat until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add green beans, red pepper and 2 tbsp. water; cover and steam until beans and pepper are tender-crisp, 3 minutes.

Return beef to wok. Stir up the hoisin mixture again and stir into pan. Bring to boil; boil, stirring, until sauce is thickened and glossy, about 1 minute. Sprinkle with green onions or pass them at the table.

(Source: Canadian Living Magazine, March 2005)