You are here: Home / 2006 / Archives for February 2006

Snow Today!

28 February 2006 By Leave a Comment

My mum sent me this email and these pictures from Whitehorse today. For those Californian’s who want to know what life is like below zero (Centigrade of course!).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hi Girls.

Attached are some snow sculptures which Dad took this morning. These were done over Rendezvous weekend. I tried taking some on Saturday but nearly froze my hands doing so. It was a cold miserable wind out. When Dad took these this morning, he nearly froze his hands off too. There is a cold wind in town especially around third avenue. It was quite nice at our place as I went for a walk at 4:00 pm. A bit of a wind but not nearly as bad as in town.

Love Mum

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Click here to see the slide show. (I love Picassa!!)

Filed Under: Life in the Yukon

Avon Walk for Breast Cancer

27 February 2006 By 3 Comments

I have registered for the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer this July 8th and 9th in San Francisco, California. I’m feeling pretty good about it. It’s a personal challenge. It’s a personal goal. It’s a commitment to my future.

Join me. Support me.I thought I might write a blog about it because breast cancer affects me personally. Not so personally that I have it, it’s just that I know three very important women who have it or have had it and I’m sure I will know more in the future.

I don’t know much about breast cancer. In fact, I know as much about breast cancer as I know about prostate cancer. Except, I know I have breasts, so breast cancer affect me personally. And, as I’ve mentioned above, three very important women I know and their families have been affected by breast cancer and I am walking this walk for them.

I am walking the Avon walk for breast cancer for Theresa Crawhall. Theresa is the wife of one of my unofficial personal mentors Robert Crawhall. Robert was my first manager at Nortel Networks when I started in 1993. Robert and Theresa live in Ottawa, Canada with their two daughters Hayley and Dana. Theresa taught me it is possible to have in influential career AND a family. I’m not so sure where she is now or what she is doing, but I’m hoping she’s alive and well and enjoying her life, her family, and her career. When I knew her, she was creating public policy for the Federal Government of Canada–professionally contributing to and personally creating the social fabric of a nation. And to me, that is an incredible life accomplishment.

I am walking the Avon walk for breast cancer for Naomi Bulka. Naomi was my assigned mentor when I became a technical writer at Nortel in 1995. At Nortel, new hires were assigned a mentor to help them navigate their first few years in the corporation. Naomi was a 55-year old grandmother. She had graduated from university in her late 40s and had started this new career. When I met her, she had been a technical writer for four or five years. I was very impressed. I was especially impressed that she talked to me about her new career and making career decisions AND she was 55 years old. Naomi taught me that not only can you have a family, but you can be personally and professionally successful in EVERY DECADE of your life. Naomi died from breast cancer in 2001.

I am walking the Avon walk for breast cancer for Therese Lacroix. Therese is a very close friend of my parents and therefore, is very important to me. She lives in Whitehorse, Yukon with her husband Bertrand. She is a brilliant person. She is a light–full of love and laughter. Bertrand was an administrator for my French program when I went to high school. One long weekend in May in the late 1980s, I was walking my dog in Wolf Creek campground (across from my house on the Alaska Highway) and I found M. Lacroix and his wife spending the weekend camping. Later, I told my parents they were there and my parents went across the road to meet them. They have been close friends ever since. Therese is a wife, a mother, and very recently, a grandmother. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in October 2005. Therese, two kisses on each cheek for you. I love you.

And finally, I am walking the Avon walk for breast cancer for me. I need a challenge. I need a goal. I need some focus. Hopefully, I’ll help others on the way. What better reason do I need?

So. Here’s to everyone I know who has been affected by breast cancer–family, friends, friends of family, and family of friends. Join me, support me, or simply just think of me on July 8th and 9th as I’m walking the Avon walk for breast cancer.

Filed Under: The Avon Walk for Breast Cancer 2006

Vive le Bec Libre

14 February 2006 By Leave a Comment

Vive le Bec Libre!!!!

Happy Valentine’s Day

Filed Under: Bits and Bytes

Rendezvous and Majorettes

12 February 2006 By Leave a Comment

It’s almost time for Rendezvous in Whitehorse. The Yukon Sourdough Rendezvous is a mid-winter festival that gets people out of their cabins (thus avoiding cabin fever) in the middle of winter. There are different events: the Queen competition, tub races, flour packing, beard contest for men and women, hairy legs contest for men and women. (What can I say? We are pretty real in the Yukon.) There are Can Can Girls. There are Can Can Guys (I can’t find a picture of these fellows–which may be a good thing.) There is also, from what I remember, a group that does the Snowshoe Can Can. There is also music–lots of music (mainly because Rendezvous follows the Frostbite Festival). All in all, it’s pretty entertaining.

Every year, there is a Rendezvous parade. I was sorting though some pictures the other day and I found a picture of me as a majorette in this parade. Now, what do you think of when you think of a majorette? Batons. Yes. Twirling skills. Yes. Choreography. Yes Synchronized moves. Yes. But, what are they wearing? Usually, they are wearing body suits and wee skirts, no? Isn’t that what you think of when you think of a majorette?

How Cute!Well. In Whitehorse, Yukon, in the middle of winter for a parade that takes place in the middle of winter, the majorettes are wearing many, many layers of clothing, winter boots, and if you can believe it–mittens! Yes. Mittens. Now–that takes skill.

Filed Under: Life in the Yukon

Powsowdie Soup

9 February 2006 By 1 Comment

This is a REAL recipe from a Scottish cookbook.

Yum!!

Do you think the parsley actually adds to the appearence of the soup? Does it somehow make it more palatable? I think this recipe belongs in a biology class–not a recipe book.

We had a roommate once who was a massage therapist and collected bones–any bones. Any dead animal he found, he would collect the carcass (no matter what state of decomposition) and bring it home. He used his camping stove (and I’m guessing–his camping pots) to boil the excess skin and tissue off the bones.

One time, he heard there was a beached whale out on the Sonoma Coast somewhere. He and a friend managed to cart off the entire head of the the stinky, decomposing whale. Luckily, he wasn’t living with us by that time. He had his own house and buried the whale head in the ground on that property. Apparently, though, he fell in love with his friend during that particular adventure. I guess for some people, that relationship-defining moment involves looking up, seeing your woman wielding a dagger, chopping vigorously in the general vicinity of the neck of a dead, rancid, beached whale and realizing you want to spend your life with her. I’m sure there must have been a full moon too–lighting up the beach. Nothing like adding a little atmosphere to your romantic realizations.

I must say, though, from her perspective…if you are willing to go anywhere near stinking, rancid whale flesh, you already got it going on.

Filed Under: Bits and Bytes, Recipes

Bats

5 February 2006 By Leave a Comment

Today’s story is about bats. I think bats are just mice with wings. I was talking to my life-long friend Lorraine last night. She mentioned that she thinks she might have sucked up a dried up bat with her shop vac. Yuck–at least it was dried up.

I first met Lorraine in Grade 2. It was 1979 and we were seven years old. She asked me to chase the boys with her. I can even remember what she was wearing: LIME GREEN pants, a matching vest, and a navy blue turtle neck. She was in another class at the time, but we eventually ended up in the same class though: Mrs. Halleberg’s Grade 2 class at Takhini Elementary School.

Lorraine was my first friend ever to sleep over at my house. Except, she only made it to midnight. Years later, I found out she was so afraid that my parents would make her do chores that she didn’t want to stay the night and find out.

Years later, she tells me that she couldn’t believe the amount of chores the Burke girls did. The Burke girls cleaned house. The Burke girls baked bread. The Burke girls shovelled the driveway, and chopped wood, and had dinner on the table when our parents got home. Years later, I told her that we didn’t know we had a choice. In fact, we didn’t have a choice. That’s just what we did. We didn’t know any better so we didn’t question it. We just did.

Anyway this is a blog about bats and the dried up bat that ended up in Lorraine’s shop vac. She tells me that a few months ago, her and her husband thought they had a bat in their kitchen, but it eventually just went away. She thinks found it yesterday as she was making a quick attempt to clean under the cupboards with the shop vac between baby feeding and baby changing. She doesn’t want to look to find out if she did indeed suck up a dried up bat. Maybe she’ll look in a few days she tells me.

Then, she tells me she thinks she has another bat hibernating in her attic. Her hubby, Rick, was up there putting something away and lifted up a lid to a box and there is a bat in the box–hibernating. They live in Ottawa, Canada. It’s too cold to put it outside, so they just sealed off the attic until spring. I thought that is a pretty humane thing to do.

I have a bat story too. One night, I had a friend over for a BBQ dinner. I guess we left the door open as we went in and out of the house. A week later, there was something fluttering in the bay window at the head of the bed. It was fluttering and faltering and fluttering and faltering. It eventually brushed against Stephen’s face. At which point in time, he sat bolt upright, swiped at his face, and ended up swatting the bat against the window above the bed. We didn’t know it was a bat at the time though. I screamed and jumped out of bed at all the commotion. The bat was now immobile on the window sill–stunned I think. Stephen grabbed his shorts from the pile of laundry by the bed, threw them over the bat. I opened the window and he threw the whole sh-bang out the window.

I think the bat was flying around in the dark and faltering because he was starving and probably dehydrated. He had been in the house for over a week (I’m guessing). I’m glad we captured him and threw him out the window-shorts and all. Months later, we found the shorts out in the yard. We didn’t find a bat.

Filed Under: Bits and Bytes