Two lives, one adventure

25 02 2011

And so a great adventure begins. It’s my last day of work before I head off into a sabbatical, graciously granted by a supportive employer. The next 10 weeks are reserved for research, reflection and writing. The Savvy Aviatrix will return to the left seat, and Skater Girl also plans to make numerous appearances here. Out of sight is not out of mind because blogging can be done from anywhere.

For the next three months, I’ll also be going on a journey back in time, to an chapter of life that’s been swept into the corners of history and all but forgotten except by those whose nerves it directly taxed.

And this is what I hope to achieve.

"The death of innocence" 12-2-88

While searching for her dreams and her place in the world, a young woman faces twin challenges that put calluses on the heart in equal measure. She is forced to fight a (95%-curable) disease that kills her slowly and she spends too much of her too-short life looking for love in all the wrong places. All the while, she desperately tries to protect her little sister from the bad in the world. The older sister learns about wisdom and serenity as her clock ticks down, and the younger sister is too far away to hear.

It is story of a unique relationship between two strong-headed women, at a time when we know more than everyone else, we are smarter than everyone else and we deserve only the best. We are finally mature enough to truly appreciate and respect each other as grown-ups should. We struggle together, but also each in her own isolation. In the end, the decade that separates us in age also ensures that we only have a few short years to truly enjoy each other’s adult company.

My sister – the feminist, the rebel, the poet and the artist – was just 34 years old when she died. Her prose is violent and harsh, dark and damning. She was mad as hell and made sure everyone knew it. Letters, journals and poetry, along with interviews of mentors, friends and companions in art and crime are the cannon upon which the non-fiction narrative is based. Out of them emerges the story of a talented individual with a strong sense of justice who dies far too young, and her little sister, who realizes far too late exactly what that means.


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Categories : Americana, Blood relations, Just another working stiff, Skater Girl, The Savvy Aviatrix

40.

28 01 2011

This weekend a dear, dear old friend of mine turns 40. And when she turns 40, we will have known each other for just about half of our lives.

Where exactly we met is no longer relevant. What’s more interesting is when and where we became friends: on my last day at university, in a bar over numerous ales and too much high-cholesterol pub grub, our then-boyfriends at our sides. Thankfully, we both had the sense to jettison the boyfriends within a useful timeframe, and get on with our lives.

Full speed ahead.

Like all women on the cusp of middle age, I will assume she too has gotten her fair share of suggestions, tips, tricks, ideas and junk mail advertising on how to try to stop the clock, at least in terms of physical appearance. Numerous flyers promoting beauty treatments, magic fountain-of-youth serums, liposuction and plastic surgery have probably found their way into her snail and electronic mailboxes. For some people apparently, only drugs and a little “snip snip” here and there can soothe that sudden, tragic, sinking feeling of officially “getting old”.

Yesterday, another (under-40) girlfriend said to me, “You know, I need just a little teeny touch of Botox just… here,” pointing to a spot above the bridge of her nose. Unless I developed a sudden and catastrophic case of glaucoma, the spot she pointed to was pretty much invisible. There was nothing there, not even the first meager sign of a wrinkle-in-waiting.

So I was somewhat insecure the next time I looked in the mirror myself. Do I maybe need a little teeny touch of Botox too? Or perhaps a whole gallon?

Of course I don’t, don’t be silly. And I firmly believe that a woman who can’t stand the sight of her natural 40-year-old face urgently needs some kind of professional psychological help.

My 40th birthday last year came and went – it was a wonderfully warm Spring day – and I eased into my exciting new decade with grace and cool and panache. Someone once told me that turning 40 is like turning 20, except you can afford to wear nicer clothes and drink more expensive wine. I am not the partying type, but I did take the opportunity to dress up (high heels and all) and R. helped me throw a damn good one with a few close friends. We feasted on sushi and antipasti platters in celebration. One doesn’t turn 40 every day, after all.

So, dear IronicMom, Wordbitch, teacher, wife, daughter, sister, mommy, auntie and Best Woman, on the morning you turn 40, simply remember this: You are the same person, a day older, a day wiser and a day longer my friend. And please ditch that mail like you ditched that boyfriend. You look fabulous. Happy birthday, Leanne.


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Categories : Americana, Just another working stiff, Skater Girl, This & that in the real world

The art of skating on Hollywood Beach

28 12 2010

If you have never been to Hollywood, Florida, I highly encourage you to go. Not to be confused with that… other Hollywood over on the… wrong coast… Hollywood, Florida is a great beach town (an “All-America City” Award winner in 2007) nestled between flashy Fort Lauderdale in the north and metropolitan Miami in the south, between the Everglades in the west and the Atlantic Ocean.

The French Canadians have already discovered this little corner of paradise and judging by the number of Quebec license plates on the streets, it seems that the entire province migrates down here when it gets cold up there, turning it into Chicoutimi-sur-Mer, USA for six months of the year.

The beach promenade, or “Broadwalk,” has got everything you’d want on an ocean boardwalk – including free wireless access! – even if its not actually, you know, made of boards. (Webcam here.) There are cool little restaurants, an old-fashioned band shell, and shops selling all sorts of cheesy, loud beach stuff that looks fashionably out-of-place anywhere but the beach. All that’s missing is a Starbucks franchise.

You can even answer emails on your laptop, if you must.

The promenade has two clearly marked lanes: one for pedestrians and the other for cyclists, wheelchair athletes, skateboarders, and my kind of folks – inline skaters. Altogether, the path is about 25 feet (8 meters) wide and stretches the length of Hollywood Beach – about three miles (5 kilometers).

So true to my nature, I had to take a spin. Happily, I laced up my skates for the first time since singing in the Berlin rain at the end of September. Having survived THAT two-hour taste of hell, it was time to remind myself of what attracted me to this sport in the first place.

Of course I hadn’t calculated on the 30 mph winds coming straight at me from a storm system in the south (didn’t hurricane season end a month ago?) that was sending dark clouds over the coast. Fighting weather is one of the most thankless tasks on earth, let me tell you.

But hey, back in Zurich it was snowing, so I guess I was ahead of the game.

Discounting weather, a second occupational hazard for the skater-in-pseudo-training along the Hollywood Beach Broadwalk is simple human stupidity. As in: individuals oblivious to their surroundings who enter the visibly marked bike path with their brains quite obviously in neutral, if not completely absent and/or non-functional.

Okay – kids on bikes, say, and old people on walkers don’t count. To be fair, they have no idea what they are doing anyway so it is up to the entity moving faster than a snail’s pace to watch out for them.

But it’s the seemingly sensible adults whose erratic and unpredictable behavior is the biggest danger to wheeled athletes just minding their business and quietly doing their laps along the beach. Like human bowling pins, these dense living beings meander into and then stand perfectly still in the middle of a roadway that is not theirs, as if waiting to be picked off for points. These are indeed prime candidates for the Darwin awards.

Free space for free skaters.

Of course, no one would argue that the world would be a much better place if it had a few less French Canadians in it. On the other hand, the last thing I really need is another eight screws in my arm.

So from now on, primarily for my own health and sanity, when on skates, I will hit the Hollywood Beach Broadwalk no later than 7am – early enough to enjoy a glorious sunrise over the Atlantic, and secure in the knowledge that the snowbirds are still snoring away in their overpriced hotel beds, sleeping off their overpriced hangovers and digesting last night’s overpriced poutine.


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Categories : Americana, Cruisin', Skater Girl, Sports that can kill

Giving Thanks

24 11 2010

A friend of mine once revealed to me a few techniques she uses to fight insomnia. Counting sheep doesn’t do it for her, so she developed some exercises of her own. One was to count backwards from 100 to 0 by threes. In French, German or Swahili. Another was to think of all the different languages you can say “please” in.

A third exercise is to go through the alphabet and name at least three things per letter that she is thankful for.

I like that one, and in honor of Thanksgiving tomorrow – the most important day of the year – here is some stuff I am thankful for (in reverse alphabetical order). People, events, things and places that make my life a little happier, and each day a little more meaningful.

  • Zebras, Ziploc bags, Zippers
  • “Yes we can!”, Yosemite and Yellowstone, YOU – my reader(s)
  • Xtra cheese in my fajitas, Xtra gin in my drink, Xtra cash in my paycheck
  • Winter sports, Washing machines, Wine of all colors
  • USA, Uhu-glue, the Universe
  • Velcro, Vacation days, Voracious appetite
  • Tulips, Time, Tea with lemon
  • Sweetie, Sourdough pretzels, Sunshine, Strong women, Swimming pools, Scallopine al Limone, San Francisco, Skate-marathons, Speed, Singapore (Slings), S-L-E-E-P!

(Sorry, went a bit overboard on the S’s…)

Very few bartenders know how to make these well.

  • Rollerblades, Relatives in South America, Rose-colored glasses for the proverbial rainy day
  • Questions, Quaker Oatmeal, Queen’s University
  • Pa, Petra, Philadelphia(ns) and the Flyers
  • October 11th, 2008, Oceans, Opportunities
  • Naaahfick & Co., Non-violent civil disobedience, New shoes
  • My big brother and his kid, Many old and new friends all over the world, the Month of May
  • Life, Love, Latte Macchiato
  • Kindle, Kiwi-raspberry juice, Knowledge
  • Journalism, July 4th fireworks, Jet airplanes

BOOM! Nothing like a couple of good explosions on a warm summer evening.

  • Ironic Mom, Ikea, Italian pasta dishes with white sauces
  • Happy landings, Hershey’s Kisses, Hot showers
  • Grand Canyon, Good health, God
  • Fritzi the dog, Fitness, Freedom of choice
  • Early mornings, Eighties music, Eucalyptus trees
  • Dairy Queen, Driving my SmartCar, DasLetzte.ch
  • Columbia University, Cell phones, Common sense
  • Bagels, Blogging, Black Jack
  • Autobahns, Aviation, Apt.#410

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Make it a great day.


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Categories : Americana, Blood relations, EuroTrash, Just another working stiff, Skater Girl, This & that in the real world

Water, water everywhere.

27 09 2010

So it rained. And it rained. And then it rained some more. And then God said, “I don’t think they are wet enough down there in Berlin, so I will let it rain even more.” And it did. And after a day and a half of a nonstop downpour of varying intensity, a few of the 50,000 marathoners thought perhaps it might be time to buy a kayak.

The adverse weather conditions were the real story of this year’s Berlin Marathon. Cloudy but dry until two hours before the skaters started out on Saturday afternoon, the city was a lake by the time they finished.

Yours truly is not a wimp or a quitter, but she has great respect for the elements and the injuries wet streets can cause those underway on eight slick rubber wheels. Any fight you pick with asphalt, you will lose, guaranteed. Any fight you pick with wet asphalt, well, consider yourself a goner. So when it came time to make the big decision – to start or not to start – there really was only one sensible answer: Nope, uh-uh, no way José. Not today, my friends.

However, when it comes to marathons, common sense takes its leave. We all worked too hard and waited too long for this to just not show up on race day.

So here I was in the starting area along with 6,000 skater-colleagues, against better judgment, waiting for the gun. With the streets disguised as rivers, a personal best time was simply out of the question. The conditions demanded a careful, concentrated technique, not unlike walking on eggshells.

Us (skaters) in the rain.

About a third of the way into the race, my skates felt like sponges that had absorbed five extra kilos in water-weight. Each. That’s when the wind picked up and it really started raining.

The first 20 kilometers (13 miles) took me an hour, and just as I was doing the math for the rest of the race the asphalt jumped up to bite me – I lost my grip on a crooked tar seam and went flying.

A split-second later I slithered face-down along the wet, oil-slick streets. The only spectators for my belly-flop were an old guy out walking his dachshund and a few other skaters who swerved to avoid this picture of misery, thanking God it didn’t happen to them.

Sitting on my butt in the middle of the roadway, I checked to see if all body parts were still intact. One knee hurt like I had cracked a kneecap, and I felt a tingling sensation on an elbow. The five-inch bloody gash was kinda gross, but harmless, and for some reason I felt no pain there. I gingerly got up and flicked two dead leaves off the front of my blue-and-pink spandex suit. The white layer of skin I left on the street soon dissolved in the rain. Already soaked through to my underwear from water coming from the sky, I had now also bathed in water on the ground.

Regaining my stride and once again picking up good speed, I skated over the half-marathon mats and a mantra formed on my lips. I shouted out: “You will not get me, you lousy, wretched, flooded streets!! YOU WILL NOT GET ME!”

Fellow skaters glanced over in horror and distanced themselves from this obviously distraught maniac. By kilometer 32 (only 10 more to go – this is way too easy!!!)  I was grinning like I’d escaped from the funny farm. Shortly thereafter, skidding around a corner, I hit the deck again, this time a little harder, with an audience of a few hundred. Dignity, au revior! But what the hell. No one gives up four kilometers from the finish line.

Don’t ask me who won, or in what time, I have no idea. And because I freed myself of the pressure to clock a personal best, I enjoyed every one of those 42,195 meters in the driving rain. It was simply lovely – a confirmation of why I do this. An added bonus: I felt great and barely broke a sweat. Even though I was longer in transit than ever before (more than two hours) it felt like a Sunday walk in the park. It was a chance to believe in myself again.

And yes, you guessed it. The wounds will heal and there is always a next year, too. I will certainly be back for more.

Them (runners) in the rain.


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Categories : Cruisin', EuroTrash, Skater Girl, Sports that can kill, This & that in the real world

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