The Man Who Loved Women

This is what most people remember when they think of Albert Einstein - the perfect caracature of the 'mad scientist'.

Albert, along with Madame Currie and Louis Pasteur were childhood heroes of mine. While other kids swooned over rock stars and movie idols, I'd spend hours in the stacks at my local library reading about scientists, their lives and the things they discovered.

When I was 10 my folks bought me a microscope and I examined everything I could under its mirrored lens. I collected butterfly wings, grasshopper legs, daisy petals and grew salt and sulphur crystals to study. I'd examine my specimens and draw sketches of my observations. I'd build things out of cardboard and shoe boxes like pin-hole cameras and periscopes. I wanted to be a doctor or scientist when I grew up but when I got to high school my guidance counsellor told me that girls were better at 'the arts' and wouldn't let me sign up for classes in calculus, chemistry and physics.

With no encouragement to pursue my interests, I almost flunked out of grade 9. In the middle of grade 10 the teachers thought I might be a 'special needs' child so they had me tested. When I was called into the vice-principal's office for the test results, I was met by the school psychologist and guidance counsellor. They all seemed mad at me. They said there was no reason for me to be doing so poorly in school. In intellegence, I had tested in the top 3 percent of the population so laziness was to blame fo my poor acedemic performance. I told them I was bored. Then they really got mad. To ensure that I wasn't bored, they decided to increase my workload and so the next year I had to take both grade 11 and 12 classes at the same time. I had grade 11 english and history in the mornings and grade 12 english and history in the afternoon. The following year I was 15 years old and legally had to be in school until I was 16. They didn't know what to do with me so they put me in grade 13 with kids who were so much older than me.

High school was a horrible experience for me. I had no friends. Kids my age shunned me and called me 'the brain' and the kids in my classes were older and didn't want to hang around with a 'baby'. If I had been a boy I could have found a place with the 'nerds' in the chess club but at my school there was no social support for clever girls. So, to get along with the other kids, just so I'd have someone to talk with, I learned to play dumb. If ever there was a social outcast or geeky kid, it was me. I carry this social awkwardness to this day. People have said that I am aloof but I'm really very affectionate and can be funny. I'm simply an absent-minded, self-conscious geek. At times I'm surprised that I even managed to woo and win Lise.

Anyway, today I read that my hero Albert was quite the ladies' man. Apparently, along with developing the theory of special relativity and winning the Nobel prize he also juggled six girlfriends. Atta boy!

People called him eccentric but look at him when he was younger. I can see how some women would see him as dreamy. While my infatuation with him has always been cerebral, he will now be, for me, a symbol of how geeky can also be sexy.

Alex Martin Undresses Today

Today, Seattle resident Alex Martin, takes off her little brown dress.

She has worn this dress for the past 356 days as a one-woman show against fashion. This year-long performance project is her attempt to address consumerism. I think it's pretty cool.

I heard an interview she gave and she said she's thinking her next project will be to make clothes entirely from recycled materials. I remember reading somewhere that old fabric (thrown-away clothes) represents tons of waste in local landfills. She's already made a pair of knickers from an old t-shirt so I can't wait to see what she creates next. Might just have to dust off my sewing machine and get creative too.

Have fun reading her journal and other people's comments.

Softwood

Well, it looks like Canada has made a deal with the US on the ongoing softwood lumber dispute. We're going to get $4 billion of the $5 billion they illegally took from us. I don't trust them and I don't trust our current government to do well by us. It looks like I'm not alone in my concerns.

Opposition parties want to review this "deal" before it is inked. I don't blame them for their concern. From what I understand of the agreement, either party can 'opt out' by just giving 12 month's notice and it says that all current litigation on this issue is stopped. We've already gone to the courts five times and won this dispute. Despite this, the US has refused to honour its obligations under the Free Trade Agreement. I don't know about you but I have a hard time trusting anyone who doesn't keep their word.

Here's a little primer on the softwood lumber issue:

Twelve Again

In honour of Canada Day, I was fortunate to enjoy a long holiday weekend. Living at my Lakeside Lair is almost like having a holiday everyday but this weekend was particularly restful for me.

A few months ago we decided to take on a house guest for the summer. Lise's clown-partner Lara needed a change of venue so we suggested she come and hang out with us for awhile. She's a very cool gal - plays electric bass in our shed, plays Chopin on our piano, knows all the 70s rock bands, drives a 63 Rambler and likes to restore old bicycles.

One day as Lise and Lara were driving home from their shift at Leamington hospital they saw a couple of bikes for sale at the side of the road. They were a pair of vintage CCM coaster bikes and needed some work but the farmer only wanted five bucks a piece for them! When I saw them in the shed propped up against Lara's bass amp I squealed with delight.

I tried to hide it but I couldn't wait for her to begin working on them so I could ask to take one for a test spin. She had to special order new tires and that took several weeks but soon, she had the chains all greased, the chrome fenders gleaming and the new tires installed. I bought two chrome bells for the handle bars and we took them for a spin around the neighbourhood.

I had forgotten how much I loved bike riding. She said we could use them anytime we wanted to so I thought we should get a bike carrier for the car and take them out for a real ride in the country.

For this holiday weekend we decided we would get up early Monday morning and take the bikes for a spin. I won't get into the gory details of how we had to stuff the bikes into the trunk of my car because we didn't have a wrench big enough to take the ball off my trailer hitch to install the bike carrier but we were determined to go riding.

Thanks to the clever use of bungee cords, we drove the few kilometres into Harrow and unloaded at the entrance to the Chrysler Greenway. The Greenway is part of the Trans Canada Trail and is about 50 kilometres of abandoned rail line converted to public trails. In our area it runs behind residential areas, soybean fields, vineyards, wineries, through wetlands and Carolinian forest. Lise and I had gone geocaching at points along the trail but this was our first bike ride.

Not far from the Harrow entrance, as you bike through the woods along the trail, one of the first things you notice is the aroma of wine-soaked oak barrels. As you move further you can see a mountain of barrels stacked behind Colio winery. We biked to the Arner Town Line and back and along the way passed vineyards, fields of zucchini and apple orchards. We crossed Cedar Creek and stopped to admire how the willows' boughs bent to the water's edge. We noted the blackberries would be ripening soon and promised to come back with a pail.

The trail was awash with wild grapes, woodland strawberries, blackberry shrubs, clover, black-eyed Susans, and Rose of Sharon. The air was rich with smells of horses, manure and wildflower blossoms. As I rode I was reminded of my maternal grandfather. He was an outdoorsman and loved being in the bush. As a child he would take us into the bush to pick berries and while we stuffed our cheeks with fruit he would name every plant and tell of its use. He knew which ones were poisonous, which ones were good for cuts and bruises and which ones were good to eat. He could look at the ground and tell you what kind of animal made which track. For a little girl who grew up in the Bronx I was lucky to have family in Canada with whom I spent my summers.

Not every child is as fortunate. On the local CBC morning radio show they interviewed Richard Louv. He wrote the book 'Last Child in the Woods' about how today's children no longer play outside like we did when we were kids. He spoke about what he called nature deficit and the psychological, spiritual and social impact of raising children who are detached from nature. He draws a connection between the incidence of child obesity and attention deficit disorder and children's preference for indoor play such as video gaming and computers. He says that parents' fear of Lyme disease, pedophiles and West Nile, or lack of access to natural areas or our growing litigatious society which restricts the use of wild space, are what causes children's connection to nature to suffer.

How very sad. How very sad that we are raising an entire generation of kids who may never know the wonder of catching fireflies in mayonnaise jars. Who may never sink to the tops of their rubber boots in a bullfrog's bog and land on their doorstep in muddy-sock feet or reach through prickly vines to eat berries they pick themselves. Who've never tried to glue together the pale blue halves of a robin's egg or learned to make duck calls by cupping a blade of crabgrass between their thumbs or collected seashells or beach glass. How sad that the only tree forts these kids will ever know are now engineered in weather resistant plastic and pressure treated lumber and not recycled pallets, milk crates and discarded kitchen curtains.

How very important it is to support the preservation of natural spaces like the Chrysler Greenway and the Trans Canada Trail so that tomorrow's kids can, as I did on Monday, know what it feels like to be twelve again.

Happy 4th of July

I wanted to share a little something to honour this celebration but had a hard time finding something that I felt represented to me all that is good about and all of my best memories of the United States. Just as I was about to give up, I found this sweet video. Enjoy.

Happy Canada Day

I was listening to the CBC in the car yesterday and they were talking about a poll that revealed that 70 odd percent of Canadians think we are too modest. Well today is Canada Day. The celebration of the federation of Canada. In honour of this day I'm sharing with you a series of three short videos.

The first is a video set to the music of one of my favourite acts, The Arrogant Worms. The next two were very popular beer commercials the first also features The Worms while the second has gone down in Canadian history and has been repeatedly parodied. Enjoy!