There is such a thing as hill karma. It’s just an immutable fact. If you’re coming back to where you started, every metre of ascent will be returned unto you in equal part. But with wind, there is only the Murphy’s law codicil: “always against you.” Even if you’re just doing an out-and-back. Winds shift.
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At 25C and irrepressibly sunny, today was truly summer-like. I drained 2.25 litres of water on this out-and-back trip punctuated by a delicious if excessive for biking lunch at my father in-law’s. There’s a fine line between burping and barfing. At least I didn’t have beer with lunch. What a glorious evening for a bike ride. Temperature in the mid 20s, sunny. Gentle wind. There were gajillions of cyclists out on the Gatineau Parkway (it opens to cars this weekend I think), taking advantage of the relatively clear road and warm weather. There was still a arborist crew clearing deadfall and there were a few spots on the road with tree debris but nothing dangerous. To hear Pierre Poilievre howl about the Conservative government’s plans to put a Treasury Board negotiator at the bargaining table of Canada’s Crown corporations you’d think that the places were run by the Soviet Workers’ Councils of Leon Trotsky’s dreams. Perfect day for a bike ride. Sunny, cloudless, a wind that seemed mostly to chase me everywhere I went. This is not a bad route. I had planned to come back along Leitrim Road to the Airport, but for some reason, the GPS decided I should take Russell back instead. Oh well. I’m having problems with Garmin Connect, so I’m posting the deets via mapmyride.com. The nerve. Chapter one: Terrance Oakey, the spokesmuppet for Merit Contractors Association, a lobby group that wants, among other things, laws passed to require unions to cough up private information on any expense over $5000 to Revenue Canada, legal restrictions on what sorts of issues unions can comment or act on, writes an item in Huffington Post saying that unions should not be allowed to engage in politics. Only collective bargaining. Unseasonably cold, but sunny. Discovered Corktown Road, which runs east-west between Carling at Andrew Haydon Park and March Road. Traffic free. Scenic. Use it to link up with the Ottawa River Parkway and then Old Carp Road to get yourself out to Kanata practically car free. Wow. That was totally exhilarating. And humiliating. I rented a wonderful carbon framed bike with Shimano DI2 gropo from Wine Country Cyclery.
My mother, Wilhelmina Jansen, passed away April 4. I wanted to write this personal note about what my mother gave me. Wilhelmina Jansen, my partner Irene Jansen’s mother passed away today after a short illness. She was 88. Since I’m so much later starting than last year, I figured I’d skip some of the normal, 40km or 60km startup rides. Why not hey? After all, I did more cross country skiing this winter than last so that should prepare me, right? Um… not exactly. Not that this would change my voting preferences. The Tories lost me at Robert Stanfield. But it bothers me deeply that the latest federal budget lowers tariffs on hockey equipment and curling rocks but raises it on bicycles and a thousand other items. More about this “banana republic” intervention Jim Flaherty waged on Manulife Financial to get them to raise their five year mortgage rate. Apparently he did it because he’s worried about the rise in consumer debt to income ratio and he’s worried that if the cost of borrowing gets cheaper again, while house prices stay high, people buying houses will take on more debt. Jim Flaherty got all displeased today about Manulife Financial’s plan to reduce its five year mortgage rate to 2.99%. I know. I’m falling asleep just typing it. Manulife got all contrite and repentant and declared that it would leave its rate where it was. I find if you pinch the palm of your hand, or maybe jab your wrist with the point of a pen it helps. Mallory said this to me after we got back from her Oma and Opa’s place this afternoon. Don’t know what she was thinking of but I thought of her going over the jump Irene made for her on the hill in Opa and Oma’s back yard. Mallory was in the cookie race again. No idea how she finished overall but she headed out strongly. I saw here smoke someone else from her heat climbing the hill and she tells me she came in second of all the girls she started with. Will be when I announce she slid moving out of the house to go to university, join the circus or whatever she decides to do as an adult. Because both times I have blogged to say she is sleeping on her own she’s gone back to co-sleeping almost immediately afterwards. So the next time it [...] In November 2011, Mallory started sleeping on her own after co-sleeping since she was an infant. At the time, it was an event we’d been hoping for since 2008. Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horvath has announced three major legislative priorities for the newly rogued/de-rogued/re-rogued Ontario legislature and I must say I am underwhelmed. I see why she’s opted for partial measures that are either vague or unenforceable. It’s a minority government and she wants to see what’s possible without forcing an election. And that means staying at the table. And that means proposing stuff that won’t make those ideologically opposed to you laugh, walk away or have an aneurism. Like this whole A Day in the Life thing wants me to. I really do. I want to believe he’s a hardworking, earnest human man who throws himself earnestly into his job of seeing to the welfare of thirty million Canadians. But I just can’t. There’s probably a reason 70 per cent of the people who visit Ontario Parks never visit the interior. Portages. Back in the late 1980s all the phones had cords. Long ones. Because you wanted to be able to walk around the entire raw concrete floored, fluourescent-lit, low-ceilinged light industrial space that was the Canadian University Press office of the day, while talking on the phone. Around this time in 2006 Irene and I were settling in to a room at the Civic Campus of the Ottawa Hospital, tired, bewildered, but crazy, heart-bursting in love with our newborn child, Mallory. So Senator Patrick Brazeau issued some form of statement – Theresa Spence wouldn’t meet him in person – telling her to end her hunger strike and respect the process. Why not, hey? It’s been good to him. Can it be that he reckons that because he’s got a good gig out of supporting the Tories that she can too, somehow? So Mallory’s opened her ration of one pre-Christmas present. We’re stuffed from our nascent traditional Christmas Eve meal of cheese fondue and a few clicks north of here Theresa Spence is heading into week three of a hunger strike to get a meeting with Stephen Harper. Back in her home town, her people are living in fourth world conditions where the Muketei River empties into James Bay in Attawapiskat. |
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