Happy 141 birthday Canada!

It has been a few days since I blogged last time. It's not that I had nothing to say--I was so exhausted that I could not bring myself to stay up and type. Besides, my fingers and hands hurt so much that I'm not sure if typing would have been possible even if I could stay awake long enough. What happened is: last Friday we got delivered 2 square yards of top soil and a six-square-yards large container for gardening. It was for Maggie's front yard gardening project. We spent the whole weekend digging up the dirt from the front yard. The problem was that the container and top soil were behind the house. We had to lug a plastic box which we loaded with excavated dirt the length of the house to the container. The dirt consisted mainly of clay soil, rocks and bricks. Each load weighed about 50 kg. Both Maggie and me had very sore backs by the end of each day. On Sunday, finally, the digging was over. We filled the six-square-yard container to the brim. Of course, it's simple math: 2 square yards of the top soil wasn't enough to fill the excavated garden, but it was enough to plant several plants and keep them in place. After more than 12 hours of work on Sunday we couldn't wait to crawl to bed and get some rest. Alas, we must have been drained beyond exhaustion, because neither one of us could fall asleep.

Sore and tired we went to work on Monday. It was a workday enveloped in haze of half-dream. I only remember being very slow and agitated with the smallest things. Since the whole gardening thing isn't done yet, we went to order more soil, which is supposed to be delivered on Wednesday.

Today, after full 12 hours of well deserved sleep, we woke up to Canada Day, which is a national holiday. The country we chose to call home is 141 year old. After the late breakfast we jumped into the car and went to Kingston, which was once upon a time the capital of Canada, to see the celebration. It was pretty lame, with a band playing in the port in front of the town hall and a few Canadians, dressed in red and white with maple leafs everywhere rocking in the rhythm and singing out of tune (along with the band which was also out of tune). The pleasant surprise was a band called "OKA" from Australia, which performed pop using some native instruments. I will try to upload the video of them later this week.

We were back home in time for fireworks. I had to alter my running route, because the people blocked a few intersections to launch their rockets and firecrackers. It was a fantastic feeling, running in the dark with all the fiery flowers exploding in the air around me. It almost felt like the neighborhood celebrated my run! Yeah, right! I wished I could have shared that moment with Maggie, but she opted to stay at home, tired from the trip.

Gardening (again)

This is going to be a very short entry. I can barely keep my eyes open. Today we got delivered the garden soil, gravel and a metal container in which we'll dump the grass and dirt we dig out. We started right away and removed the grass from the area Maggie shaped for the future garden. It's a lot of work, the future garden will cover about two thirds of the front yard. I never knew grass could be so heavy! The 6 cubic yards container is already half full. Tomorrow we need to dig some more, then put on the gardening soil and plant a few plants Maggie bought last week. Providing I'm able to move at all, after today. We are both sore all over and can barely move. Maggie is pretending to watch TV, though her eyes are closed. I am struggling to type on my lap top, though my thoughts are really difficult to summon. Our gardening adventure is definitely exhausting. Will it be successful? We'll have to survive the weekend before we're able to tell.

Annual checkup

I finished the book Londonstani and, all the cursing and swearing aside, loved it. There are a few wicked plot twists--the best one at the very end of the book--which made the pain of going through the “rudeboy” British-Pakistani slang well rewarded. Without giving out the plot, it's a fine satire of the Pakistani immigrants in London. The characters are confused between the freedom of choice and following the tradition, which ends up in some bizarre and funny situations.

Maggie and I have the same family doctor: she's a female. And an Asian. It mattered to Maggie to have a female doctor, and I couldn't care less. Besides, it seemed convenient to have the same doctor who knows us both and knows the history of our aches, so she can compare how much pain Maggie and I inflict on each other. That's how our she-doctor ended having me as probably the only white patient--we never saw another Caucasian person in the waiting room.

Today we had our annual check-up. When she saw me, the doc was alarmed by my weight loss (some 15+ lbs since the last checkup). She was visibly relieved when we told her that I'm not terminally ill, but just regularly run, exercise and eat smart. Maggie gained 4 lbs (he he). We compensate for each other. As usual, we do the check-up together so we can discuss the doc's suggestions for improving and maintaining our good health. We were offered two new vaccines, blood work and a few other tests to consider. Then she checked Maggie's breasts for lumps or anything suspicious. All clear there. A little surprising how efficiently and fast the doc moved over those areas: squeeze here, nudge there and all done. An awkward moment happened when I was offered a palpating checkup of testicles for testicular cancer signs. It has been an ongoing joke between me and Maggie ever since we left the doc. Amazing how many things in daily life can be associated with testicles. We laughed so much, people must have thought we were nuts! (Nuts--see what I mean?)

The Canadian Dream

"It's called 'the American Dream' because you have to be asleep to believe it" - comedian George Carlin

The American Dream has badly devaluated in the last few decades. Although, compared to it, the Canadian dream is more in the realm of nightmares. The kind of nightmares from which you can't wake up into a sunny morning. Since yesterday, several of my colleagues complained about work, the way they are treated and the money they make. I was afraid that something was wrong with me, for being constantly disgruntled about my job. I thought that, maybe, I set my expectations and goals too high. But now I know it's not me. It's the company that stinks. Unfortunately, the people who complain are the ones I like the most. Soon, they'll be gone into the greener pasture and I'll stay to rot all alone in the stinker.
Maggie told me this morning on the way to work that I'm inert. I'm just sitting on my behind and waiting for a better job to find me. I hate to admit it, but she's right. I must wake up and become more pro-active in search for something better, or just something else. Maybe it's just a string of bad luck, but last couple of jobs felt like a quicksand: they swallowed me bit by bit. And just when I managed to pull myself out of one, I sunk into another. My former boss thinks I should be grateful to have a nice job in times when people are being laid off en masse. But, why should I compare myself with the less fortunate? Why not with those who prosper? Like those few higher editors and managers in our company, who could learn quite a few things from me if they'd bother to listen, yet they have the power to decide what my future will be. How could I be grateful when I found myself yesterday envying a truck driver on his freedom in his rig, crisscrossing the continent and listening to audio books? It's high time to move on!

A pathetic gardening post

Yasuhiro is firmly planted in our front yard. I also realized that gardening is not high on my list of favorite activities. It didn't help that the soil right underneath the grass is clay, littered with the construction debris: bricks, shingles, nails, rope, etc. The builder never really cleaned after the construction, they just piled more soil over all the garbage left around the houses. Later on the grass was planted on top--that was their permanent solution for the trash problem. Anyway, excavation lasted a couple of hours and produced more rubbish than soil. Yasuhiro got proper fertile planting soil for its roots. When the tree was finally placed in its hole, there was a huge pile of clay to get rid of. The problem was--we didn't really take in account so much residue and had no idea what to do with it. For now, we just moved it to the side of the house. Then we'll have to call the garbage collectors.

My back, forever tender after the herniated disk I suffered two years ago, is slightly stiff after all the hauling and digging involved with planting. I am actually amazed that it isn't much worse. All it took last time for the disk to pop out (and press the sciatic nerve, numbing my left leg for over a month) was to bend over the bathroom counter to take out the contact lenses...I stayed bent for the next two months. Hopefully, there won't be a greater price to pay for today's exercise in gardening. I have been working out faithfully, so with a little luck I'll avoid the health disaster this time.

Pathetic, I know, wasting so many words on planting a tree. Still, on a Sunday as boring as this, I'm happy to have at least something to write about.

Japanese Maple

Guys usually buy flowers to their wives. At least some guys do. Well, today I outdid them all--I bought my wife a tree! It is a part of a forestation project in our yard. It has been 18 months since we moved into our new house, watched the muddy construction site grow into pleasant neo-Victorian style neighborhood. Now that the snows are melted and the grass is growing and needs to be mowed, re-mowed and re-re-mowed, many of our neighbors have done little flower gardens in their yards. We are among the last few who yet have put the shovel to the grass. That's why we went to a nursery today and returned with the plant big enough to be called a tree, yet small enough to fit in our little Toyota: a Japanese Maple. I named it Yasuhiro, the first Japanese name that came to mind. Like Yasuhiro Yamashita, the best judo competitor of all times. Tonight, Yasuhiro is staying in the living room, until Maggie researches exactly how it's going to be planted and what we need for it all. Tomorrow, if everything goes according to plans, Yasuhiro will be firmly planted in our front yard.

It's a sad day for Croatia, a small country with a big football ambition. Today, that ambition is yet again put on hold. In the quarter final of the Euro Cup, the Croats and the Turks played scoreless and quite anemic game for 90 minutes of regulation time. Then they continued in the same uninspired manner for the next 29 minutes of extra time. I have to give credit to the Croats, they were much more skilled in diving and faking fouls. In the last minute of extra time, they scored, bringing the agony of spectators to the end, or so we thought. After mandatory hugging, fist pumping and chest thumping, with only a minute to go, it was supposed to be the game over. But the persistent Turks took the ball, kicked it and - scored! And the game went to the penalty kicks, where Croatia simply didn't have the nerves, guts, skills, heart, wind...call it what you will, they sucked big time, scoring only one of four kicks and giving the game and the pass to semi finals to the Turks. And all they needed to do after they scored the first goal, was to play the ball. But they stopped, jubilant and dumb, paid the ultimate price and are now going home with heads hung low.
I always believed into unpredictable justice of sports competitions, but this one has nothing to do with justice--this one was about smarts and hearts. The smarter and more persistent team, which is by no means a better team, goes on to face Germany in the semis. Go Turkey!

Fastest 10K

So, Tuesday I worked from home and on Wednesday I had a video shoot in downtown Toronto. For the first time since I stopped freelancing in 2004 I broke from the imprisonment of my tiny office-studio without actually being on vacation. I didn't even realize how depressing and confining that place is until I experienced freedom. There must be a way to do this more often!

When I finished my Wednesday's run, I was congratulated by Joan Benoit Samuelson (pre-recorded) on my Nike+ iPod running kit, for completing my fastest 10 km: 48:38. Go figure! I have been running 10+ km every Wednesday and Saturday for weeks, and now, all of a sudden, the fastest 10K! Although, I did feel great during the run yesterday, it went easy, not too hot, nor too cold, but it didn't seem that fast. But, who am I to argue with Ms Benoit-Samuelson?

Maggie is complaining that she doesn't have a husband anymore. See, I bought a really neat and cheap Linux lap-top, Asus eee PC. It's really tiny sub-notebook, very portable and ideal for a trip to Spain. The thing is--I know nothing about Linux and for a couple of weeks now my evenings are wasted in browsing the Internet to find out how to configure the machine. Now that the future of our marriage is at stake, I think I'll return to my wife and leave Linux for now.

Working from home

Today I worked from home. It was meant to be nice, work-in-pajamas kind of a day, but I ended up working more than I would in the office. There was a video I had to edit, the deadline is tomorrow, and by the time I was finished I put in more than 8 hours of work. I even worked through the time I'd spend commuting to and from work. After all, I'm not sure if I gained anything by staying home. Except being able to work in pajamas. And, of course, there was much less distraction and more comfort. Yeah, I think I'd do it again.

Lost souls

A friend I haven't heard from in years contacted me through Facebook. Like many of us involved in journalism in former Yugoslavia, he became a cameraman for a foreign news agency when the war started. Also, like many of us, he left the Balkans after the war and settled abroad. In his case, it was Washington DC, where he continued working for the same employer. Today I found out that he quit his job with the agency and is going back to Bosnia. He also is not with his wife any longer, a pattern I find common to many of us. It makes me wonder if we were all changed by the war so much that we wander the world eternally displaced. I could almost sense that familiar feeling of not belonging in him. Unlike him, I realized some time ago that going back to the Balkans is not a solution either. I could never feel at home there anymore, just like I don't feel at home in Canada or anywhere else. I wish he could settle down in Sarajevo and find what he is looking for, but part of me knows it can't happen. We may not have been injured physically, but some internal wounds were inflicted upon the little group of us who dared to fly high on adrenaline and who never found peace of heart since. On the outside we are all nice guys and gals, sociable and fun. But deep inside is an emptiness, a dark hole which consumes our self-confidence and makes it impossible to stay put. You know how sometimes you get jitters in legs and they won't stop shaking until you stand up and start walking? It's the same kind of feeling, only it comes from the inside and it affects not only the legs, but the whole body and soul. I was a lucky one, I found my anchor in Maggie, my little island of sanity in the strong current of change. She keeps my feet rooted to the ground and pulls me back when I start drifting. I hope she can keep pulling. Without her I'd be gone with the winds, like an old grey kite, ripped and scarred but somehow still flying.

Indiana Jones

Maggie wanted to go for a walk on Saturday evening, but I, lazy as I am, had a better idea: bicycles! We went for the first ride of the year, just around our sleepy little neighborhood, and enjoyed it. It definitely beats walking. Especially when my legs are still sore from the run.

Sunday weather was as moody as only the weather in Canada can be. The morning was beautiful, clear and sunny when Maggie left to do some shopping. She came back a couple of hours later, during the thunderstorm. By the time we ate it was sunny again, and warm enough to dry the roads, if not the muddy yards. At least we don't need to water the grass for now, Mother Nature does it for us. We went to see the new Indiana Jones movie in the gorgeous weather and returned under heavy showers with strong wind. I don't remember such violent weather changes in the same day in 10 years since I've lived in Toronto area.

Ah, the movie! I was a great fan of Indiana Jones trilogy of the past, so I used all my persuasiveness to convince Maggie that this is the movie to see. For the best part it resembled the movies of the past, with a car chase through the jungle, and even a nuclear attack on Indy Jones which he, of course, survived. Actually, it was watchable until the end, when Spielberg's ETism kicked in and destroyed the movie. He brought in the ALIENS who killed the bad guys, unearthed a flying saucer buried under the hidden Mayan city for 5000 years and left. I am not sure if it was supposed to be funny, a parody on ET, or Spielberg totally lost his marbles. Not that anyone would take such a movie seriously, but I prefer more believable plot twists. This time not even the computer animation and special effects could save it. Spielberg simply blew it!