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What I did while not running. Holiday Highlights

With the late start to holiday preparations due to the marathon, I’m feeling that the holiday season came and went a little too fast.  Through this period I interspersed the fun times with the fun of running 40+ mile weeks.  Since my five days of rest following the marathon on December 5th, I’ve run every day.

We were all off between Christmas and January 3rd.  Our son Steven was home from Kitchener-Waterloo where he is an intern at Research in Motion.

Christmas morning

Much of December 24th was spent preparing for our family dinner and we ended our day by attending midnight mass at St. Basil’s church.

Present-ation plus

You Are Not a Gadget by Jaron Lanier

Ready to roll

Rolling the chocolate roll

Nearly 7 hours for a 22 pound stuffed bird

Christmas dinner was well enjoyed by all and we gathered round the fireplace, oops, I meant computer to see a slide show put together for grandpa’s birthday celebration.

Watching family slide show

Boxing Day was spent relaxing and eating leftovers including a lot of cocktail shrimp and a melted brie and maple-pecan appetizer. We ate turkey for five days straight.

On the 27th we ventured out with two nieces, a nephew, our son and his girlfriend to see Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas, a modern fairy tale, at the Bell Lightbox Theatre.  Afterward we enjoyed snacks at the OB Cafe which is part of the impressive TIFF-Bell Lightbox complex.

Our crew, prepared for the 3-D version of Nightmare Before Christmas with 3-D glasses

Entrance to MOMA exhibit of Tim Burton's oeuvre

Unidentified civil servant still craving sweets despite holiday excesses

Snacks at the OB Cafe on site at Bell Lightbox

We drank a lot of Stumptown Roasters coffee at home and at LIT Espresso Bar on College street. On December 28th I ventured out into the wilds of Boxing week sales with a trip to MEC and Europe Bound. I did not find what I was looking for however did drop into LUSH and took advantage of their sale prices. Apart from the fun atmosphere and great sale at LUSH, I found the shopping expedition vaguely depressing, un-festive and decided to stay away from the shops, and have only visited grocery stores since.

Stumptown coffee at LIT espresso bar

Groceries for Japanese rice dish Maze Gohan

We shopped at PAT, the Asian grocery store in Little Korea to pick up supplies for our family New Year’s dinner as each family member usually prepares a Japanese or Asian dish.  While preparing a rather complicated rice dish called Maze Gohan, we watched a remastered version of a Luchino Visconti classic, The Leopard. This version recently became available and my husband had put it on hold at the library and had finally made it to the front of the waiting list. Three cheers for the Toronto Public Libraries! Visconti is best known for the film, Death in Venice. The Leopard features an outstanding performance by Burt Lancaster with the orginal Italian version using a dubbed voice and an English version featuring all of him.

Friends had kindly invited us to their default New Year’s eve party at their friend’s place in the Beaches.  Since our son and our roommate Alain were hosting a New Year’s eve party at our house, we decided to stay at a B&B in the Beaches on Balsam avenue, the Balsam Beach Inn, 6-7 blocks from the party in the beach and give “the boys” their own space.  We were in the two-bedroom upper suite and were quite charmed by our quarters.

B&B on Balsam Avenue in the Beach

B&B on Balsam Avenue in the Beach

 

Blogging at the B&B on New Year's Eve

Fabulous cookie treats made by our New Year's Eve hostess

Unidentified couple (not us!) participating in three-legged race on the boardwalk

The highlights of the party included; beef brisket (smoked meat) from Montreal, a test of sobriety on the beach which involved walking along wooden barricades, partially sunk into the sand, three-legged races along the boardwalk, an outstanding selection of homemade cookies and dancing to a range of hits including Poker Face, the Clash and local heroes from the past, Teenage Head (I kid you not middle-aged Torontonians). The teenagers present showed great tolerance to the dance antics of the adults.  I overheard one discussing what songs might keep the grown-ups on the dance floor.

Maze Gohan

New Year's cookie selection

We made it back to our B&B around 2:30 a.m., and set a record for sleeping in due to the utter quiet and the light-shading drapes. I think the last time I slept past 11 a.m. was as a teen. In just under 30 minutes we brewed our Stumptown coffee, packed up and were on the road as we had mass to attend and food to cook. My plan to start the year with a run along the beach while thwarted did not feel as much of a disappointment as the morning was grey and foggy and you could not see the water from the beach.

We had a wonderful dinner at my sister’s home in Richmond Hill. I’m sure it had been a busy day for her as she is the mother of an 8, 6, 4 and 2 year old. In spite of her busy life as a mom she runs every other day and plays hockey. Over the holidays one of her teams competed in a tournament. I ended my evening with triple servings of dessert and a large can of Poppycock on my lap. Having decided to make the most of the season’s end I munched away with abandon.

Poppycock, discovered on New Year's by me, former Cracker Jack aficionado

My husband asked me to move away from him as he too was hooked and was annoyed that I did not comply with this request, leaving him to rely to his own self-control devices 🙂 It was my first encounter with Poppycock and I woke the next morning wondering where I might buy some.

Those who fear snakes were made a little uneasy by the prized gift of one of our six year old nieces, as shown below.  And, for the record, we have 3 six year old nieces.

I got a western hognose snake for Christmas!

We had talked about going to see True Grit and The Social Network but somehow the days flew by and we did not make it to either.

 

Reindeer ensemble, a treasured gift from our son's girlfriend, Thuy

On Monday we drove our son back to K-W and had our final holiday dinner there.  It was very nice to have him home and we miss him but our nest is not quite empty as we have his friend and now our special friend, Alain home with us.  Happy New Year!

 

Farewell dinner in K-W

“For I dance
And drink and sing,
Till some blind hand Shall brush my wing.”

William Blake



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Merry Christmas all!

Busy day.  Ran one mile to  buy the missing ingredient for punch.  Family dinner, turkey, children, an infant and a birthday cake for Steven.  Purchased from ITunes a beautiful Christmas tune performed by Steve Winwood, who has been around forever. Check it out below on YouTube.

Two grandmas and their four month old grandchild, baby Zack

 

Good times! Belated birthday cake for a 23 year old

 




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Christmas eve greeting

Cradle Song

Sweet dreams, form a shade
O’er my lovely infant’s head!
Sweet dreams of pleasant streams
By happy, silent, moony beams!
Sweet Sleep, with soft down
Weave thy brows an infant crown!
Sweet Sleep, angel mild,
Hover o’er my happy child!

Sweet smiles, in the night
Hover over my delight!
Sweet smiles, mother’s smiles,
All the livelong night beguiles.

Sweet moans, dovelike sighs,
Chase not slumber from thy eyes!
Sweet moans, sweeter smiles,
All the dovelike moans beguiles.

Sleep, sleep, happy child!
All creation slept and smiled.
Sleep, sleep, happy sleep,
While o’er thee thy mother weep.

Sweet babe, in thy face
Holy image I can trace;
Sweet babe, once like thee
Thy Maker lay, and wept for me:

Wept for me, for thee, for all,
When He was an infant small.
Thou His image ever see,
Heavenly face that smiles on thee!

Smiles on thee, on me, on all,
Who became an infant small;
Infant smiles are His own smiles;
Heaven and earth to peace beguiles.

William Blake

I dedicate this favourite poem for a Christmas Eve to newest nephew Zack, little Henry and nine year old Tigist Dallesa who lives in Ethiopia. You can read more about Henry on his mom’s blog Fit ‘n’Frugal and check out the recipe for carrot cake oatmeal.

Sweet dreams all!

Henry's first Christmas!


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More shopping on the run

I decided to do a four mile run today to rest up for a longer run tomorrow of 10-12 miles with the Saturday group, a.k.a. smart men as described in an earlier post for which they agreed to allow a photograph of their legs to appear while seeking counsel from their publishers and lawyers about blog privacy. Joining us will be a visiting “wise guy” from Waterloo who has known my husband for longer than I have, 30 years or more.  Sadly husband “P” has a cold and his knee is still troubling him so he will be unable to join us.

As for my short run, the first stop was U-Deal Restaurant and Hotel Supplies on College near Clinton where I bought a lemon zester and gingerbread cookie cutter to replace one that has gone missing.

U of T Bookstore in Koeffler Student Centre

Another mile and I popped into the U of T Bookstore at College and St. George/Beverley where I found the book I was looking for but in hardcover not the paperback I had hoped for. I debated the merits of the additional cost of the hardcover version, about $15 extra versus saving myself a trip to Yonge-Bloor or the Eaton Centre. I decided that yes, avoiding a trip to the heart of holiday shopping melee was worth the price. And, I rationalized to myself that perhaps this particular first edition, might one day be a collector’s item as social criticism and analysis of the digital age comes of age.

Life Science area, U of T bookstore

I enjoy shopping at this bookstore.  Where else can you find anatomical key chains and cute, plush microbes and germs. Earlier in the week I was here to purchase So You Want to Be a Lawyer for a nephew who, hopefully, he is not reading my blog.

Educational plush microbes and germs

Then I ran over to the Annex location of Book City where I found the book I was seeking, along with another. The first book is only available at Book City, not at Chapters or Indigo.

I popped into PAT grocery store to price butter which was a disappointing $6.99! Butter seems to have skyrocketed in price lately. PAT grocery store is a large Asian food grocery store in Little Korea where we sometimes buy 50 pound bags of Japanese style rice like Nishiki or Kokoho Rose, grown in California.

My final stop was Shopper’s Drugmart near Dovercourt and Bloor. I’ve noticed that this location often has sales on perishable items. I was very pleased to find that one pound of unsalted butter was on sale for $2.99. Bonanza! I guess Shopper’s is going into the grocery business as the butter was a house brand. I bought three pounds of butter along with Fry’s cocoa and finally jogged-waddled home laden with my purchases.

Late in the afternoon the final gift on my list, ordered from an Amazon affiliate arrived by courier.  So my shopping is complete and I can enjoy the longer run tomorrow morning without the need to rush here or there.  And, I have continued to run on these busy days of baking and eating what I have been baking.

I wish you all a wondrous, peaceful and joyous Christmas eve!


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Shopping on the run

I like to make sure that leading up to the week of Christmas and New Year, I’m in a good groove with my running.  Sure, you can wait until January 1st but by that time you have already dug yourself into a bit of a hole, or deficit of healthy living.  Much better to have some psychological momentum before holiday excesses lead to post-holiday resolutions and regret.  One way to find the time to run during this busy period is to shop on the run.

Gwartzman's, a fun place to do some holiday shopping

My run today was six miles.  My first stop was my husband’s workplace to pick up my Metropass.  He walked to work and forgot to leave my pass.  That done, I headed to Gwartzman’s art supply store at 448 Spadina Avenue just south of College, a veritable institution which I first visited in the mid-seventies while studying art.  It hasn’t changed much since then but I did find all kinds of stocking stuffers and small gifts which I packed into my large MEC fanny pack.

Gwartzman's Goodies

From there I ran to Kensington Market to visit Wanda’s Pie in the Sky cafe on Augusta just south of College.  An Aunt had told me that I could pick up a copy of “Just Add Shoyu” a Japanese Canadian Cookbook.  I had imagined a smaller book with a more flexible cover which would fit into my fanny pack so I had to run with the book in hand.  Which as it turned out was not all that difficult.  Wanda’s was very nicely decked out for the holidays.

Just Add Shoyu - A Japanese Canadian Cookbook

Gingerbread delight at Wanda's

Warmly festive at Wanda's

Note to self: Return when not in the middle of a run

On the way home, I crossed paths with a runner-friend going the opposite direction.  Jean is one of my role models, a vivacious, energetic 70 plus athlete with fabulous shoulders may I add, from her early years as a swimmer specializing in the butterfly.  She took up running in her early forties with the intention of improving her voice by increasing her stamina.  The rest is history as without much effort she regularly does well in her age group and continues to perform, every now and then.  In her younger years, she traveled with the opening act to the Great Speckled Bird with Ian and Sylvia Tyson.

We had a brief chat and she told me that she had just come from Trinity-Bellwoods Park to see the Toronto Maple Leafs practice.

She wears it well

Here are some ideas that may help to find enough time to run or can be done on your run.
1) Order a magazine subscription. Buy the current copy at a newstand if you will see the recipient in person. Order the subscription on-line.
2) Buy Swiss army knives at Mountain Equipment Coop. Easy to carry a lot of these in a fanny pack.
3) Gift certificate for Lee Valley Tools
4) Gift certificate for MEC
5) Run by your local Book City, it will be a lot quieter than a Chapters or Indigo. Phone ahead to make sure they have the books you want.

Happy last minute shopping!


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December 19th, a special day

Indeed, the 23rd birthday of my son. Did I run while pregnant you may ask? I first knew I was pregnant when I started to experience morning sickness while on a routine, easy run and had to stop. The hardest period of running was during the heat of the summer, with the already internal temperature of pregnancy, I backed off quite a bit during the summer.

Wrapped with love

Here is a famous family story which my son has heard much too often. I was running on the track at Hart House prior to the informal race that has been held every Friday for a few decades. My husband was a regular participant of these races which still go on today. The organizer announced with a megaphone that the racers should be careful as there is a pregnant woman on the track. This was my final run before giving birth 11 days later.

Good runner but likes basketball better!

As for Steven, we are lucky to have as our son a fine young man with good judgment and good friends and a promising career as a computer software engineer on the horizon. Although, promising enough that he dreams of moving to San Francisco to work in Silicon valley.  NOoooooo! Don’t move too far from your mother 😦


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Holiday intermission from the marathon story

A pitfall of running a marathon so late in the fall is that I’m playing a bit of catch-up with the holiday spirit.  Those cookies I promised to blog about have yet to materialize.  There is not a trace of Christmas decoration about.   Much of that, I hope will happen today and tomorrow.

The evening of the marathon, we had a very slow and rainy drive from Sacramento to San Francisco.  The rain stopped shortly after we arrived and we walked the two blocks from our hotel, The Larkspur (formerly the Cartwright) to Union Square to take in the holiday decorations.

Union Square's trademark palms

Union Square, Macy's quintessential holiday windows

The following Sunday we were back in Toronto and spent the afternoon at the theatre with 3 nieces and 2 nephews. All enjoyed A Year With Frog and Toad at the Lorraine Kimsa Young People’s Theatre. Frog was played most charmingly, by Louise Pitre.

Party of seven


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Another kind of adventure

Just over three weeks ago, I made a post about an outing with two friends, well Friend 2, the expectant mom gave birth to the adorable Henry 2 1/2 weeks ago.  She has a blog which you can click on here, called Frugal and Fit and no surprise, the pace of her posts has slowed a lot.

One rule of thumb for getting things done with a newborn is to expect that anything that used to take one day, will now take a week.  The meaning of busy and tired are dramatically redefined.  Best wishes to the happy but tired parents!  And welcome to the world, Henry.

The beautiful, and sometimes inconsolable Henry!

In our household, the 2  1/2 week mark was when my husband began to panic, thinking that I might never get back to running.  Or perhaps, thinking that a nice run was all I needed to perk up a bit.  He insisted that I go for a run with the stern directive that he was kicking me out of the house and locking the door for 45 minutes.  That would have been early January and I can still remember the weird spacey sensation of running in the cold, weighed down by an otherworldly fatigue.

I ran erratically after that, until week six.  I was elated to discover that the Central YMCA had a childcare service, not too common at that time, and those places with childcare generally did not accept infants until at least 6 months.

So I was there on my son’s 6 week  birthday, ready to produce his birth certificate.  I was there every weekday, arriving dressed to run and skipping a shower as I only felt comfortable leaving him for 30 minutes.  These 30 minute runs took place on the tiny indoor track as parents were not allowed to leave the building and there were no treadmills at the YMCA back then.

I had my son a couple of months after turning 32.  The age at which my mom had the youngest in our family of six kids.  When I have the time to give justice to the story, I’d like to write about how my mom passed along her love of sports to all her kids.

Thank you mom!

My mom at age 32 with the last of her six children, my baby sister