Winter's Wrath, Spring's Splendor

THIS WAS ON MARCH 24, A FEW DAYS INTO OUR "SPRING," OUTSIDE MY OFFICE.

And from inside the foyer at my office building...

AND THIS IS OUTSIDE MY APARTMENT, ON SUNDAY, APRIL 13, ON A DAY WE'RE SUPPOSED TO GET IN TO THE DOUBLE DIGITS CENTIGRADE...

You can see the remnants of winter everywhere, still covering the brown grass, the leafless bushes...but the sun is shining, the thaw is under way, the warmth is winning the annual tug-of-war...

This constant and intense change is what we endure, being the stationary nomads that we are.

We don't move, but everything around us changes so dramatically that we might as well have traversed 1,000 miles.

What's that old saying? The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Spring...has it sprung?

I cannot contain my excitement about the onset of spring.

At Donn's place (the blogger formerly known as Homo Escapeons), I saw the first robin of the year. In our part of the world, that is traditionally considered THE first true sign of the onset of summer.

We've seen the Canada Geese return. We've seen most of the snow melt. But for me, the biggest and most certain indicator of spring and summer is seeing a robin. And now I have.

So all is right with the world.

The fact Donn barbecued a terrific steak to go along with perfectly cooked potatoes and onions and mushrooms, in advance of seeing his brillant son Spencer do Improv, was pure spring heaven after what seemed like a long, cold winter.

There's talk of the temperature exceeding 20C (around 70F) in the next few days. I'm skeptical, but hopeful. Can you be both at the same time? I don't know. All I know is I'm ready for heat, for the sun's warmth.

And that's a good thing.

The Neener Neener News: The Tough and The Fluff

So, I've been trying to get my simple sportswriter-type head around this whole kerfuffle over demonstrations and protests against the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing and calls for a boycott of the Games in China.

The gist is, protesters have been using China's hosting of the Games as a worldwide stage to draw attention to the regime's treatment of Tibet and all of the unrest and civil disobience going on there.

The Dalai Lama's right in the thick of things. China's trying to clamp down on all the unrest just a few months before the Games in Beijing, and it's a hugely embarrassing time.

And this week, protesters are making worldwide headlines as they try to make life difficult in London and in Paris and, on Wednesday, in San Francisco, during the ceremonial torch-running exercise that's a part of all Olympic Games.

The International Olympic Committee, itself a den of high political power and money-grubbers beyond any bounds that could be imagined, is trying to stay on the high road, threatening to stop the torch-running to preserve the integrity of the Games.

Generally, I hate the mixture of politics with sports. Sports SHOULD be a pure thing just in and of itself, far above all the rest of the crapola.

But I also hated the mixture of drugs with sports and money with sports, and bad morals with sports, and that hasn't stopped any of the bad stuff from happening.

Sports, now, is part of the ugly world landscape, not separate at all.

So faced with all of this, I've been trying to figure out where I stand on an Olympics hosted by a repressive, yet dominant, society.

And my conclusion is that if a Hitler-led Germany could sponsor an Olympics, and a Bush-led U.S. could host a Games, why can't China?

The point is, the U.S. and most of the so-called Free World boycotted the 1980 Games in Moscow while the Wall was up. The East Bloc boycotted the L.A. Olympics in 1984.

Politics, sadly, has always been a part of the Olympic movement. Both of those Games were severely diminished because it wasn't the entire world coming together.

Everyone knows China is a repressive regime. But where are almost all of the products we use nowadays made? In China.

We criticize them for their policies, but then we buy everything we own from them. It's all hypocrisy intertwined.

And it infests virtually every government and belief system we have, from Communism to Democracy.

We buy everything we own from China because they sell us those things cheaper, because they pay their workers diddly squat, at least comparatively speaking.

We talk out of both sides of our mouths.

We whine about the high cost of things and the high cost of us producing our own products because of high wages.

But then we also whine when all of our people lose their jobs because their wages are too high and they're laid off and their jobs are exported to other places with cheap labour.

Free trade has made unemployment rampant in the so-called progressive world because places like China and India have figured out how to give us what we want at a lower cost to us.

So our companies out-source to those places to save money...And to improve their own bottom lines.

Meanwhile, the cheaper costs are passed on to us, and we don't even think about arguing. We don't care where the products come from, as long as they're cheap.

We're blindly pacified.

We don't think about the overall cost to us in unemployment or a lost society. And we watch, from afar -- if we watch at all -- as those same countries that give us cheap products treat their citizens cheaply.

I could go on and on.

But I think a good term for what's happening is intertwined hypocrisy. And I think it's at play here in this Olympic torch saga and in the Olympic Games themselves, and the fact they're being held in China.

The Olympics slogan, supposedly its ideal, is Higher, Faster, Stronger.

And the Chinese have been issuing press releases decrying the demonstrations and protests against their Games, talking about how they're damaging the Olympic spirit.

Well, China is a regime that keeps its citizens Lower, Slower and Weaker. And the IOC and the world knew this when it granted them the 2008 Summer Games.

China is the biggest, most diverse country on the planet. It is economically involved, intimately, with the world. It's a huge power that the rest of the world isn't scorning, but is embracing.

So why wouldn't it also embrace China as a worthwhile host of the Olympic Games?

The protesters, while obviously acting against a bad thing, are just as much opportunists as anyone else. They know the pictures and stories they're generating all this week will be front-page news. It's all part of the game.

The game is much more than the 100-metre sprints or any other event that will actually take place in Beijing this summer. But all those events have already been tarnished by the whole steroids scandal.

I just wish sports was what it was to me as a kid. Unfortunately, it never will be again.

---

And now for some real news, from an email I received at work this week...

Riviera Nayarit, Mexico - The iconic sweethearts of American football, the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders (DCC), have returned to Riviera Nayarit for a breathtaking whirlwind tour and photo shoot from April 3rd to April 9th.

The amazing beauty of Riviera Nayarit is the ideal setting for the 25 members of the DCC to return for a second time for their 2009 Swimsuit Calendar. A press event took place on April 4th to showcase the DCC, which also included a live performance.

The squad was also able to squeeze a little rest and recreation during their time in Riviera Nayarit. They enjoyed the region’s many attractions including authentic Mexican cuisine and fun adventure/eco tours.

A few highlights of their visit included: strolling the tranquil beaches of Rincon de Guayabitos; taking a motorboat through La Tovara National Park near San Blas to see the birds, crocodiles and turtles in this mangrove sanctuary; and relaxing in exclusive Punta Mita.

MY HAIR (and other unimportant issues)

LESS THAN SOME BUT MAYBE MORE THAN MANY, MY HAIR IS IMPORTANT TO ME.

I generally don't make much of a fuss about how I look.

I don't buy any of the latest fashions, I struggle to clip my nose hairs and ear hairs, I'm not picky about keeping my nails cut every week.

I'm a walking fashion disaster who wears jeans and a t-shirt almost every single day during the winter and shorts, sandals and a t-shirt every single day of the summer.


For those Nitpicky Nellies or Nigels among you, in the spring and fall I wear whatever I can get away with that's appropriate for the weather.

My thing is comfort, not culture. Fusion, not fashion.

But when it comes to my thinning hair, that's another thing entirely.

I wash it the same way and brush it the same way, every single day. And when it's not right -- or as right as I can make it at the best of times -- I freak.


I don't use any goop or any conditioners. It's naturally curvy or wavy or whatever, and long ago I found out what it naturally likes to do. And that's whatever it wants to.


So I went with the flow, so to speak, and found a style that I've lived with most of my life.

And when I go to get my hair cut, I tell them the same thing all the time and I want it cut the same way, all the time.

And I'm not a very organized person. I don't make haircut appointments every six or eight weeks in advance, because of my work schedule -- and just because I don't think ahead.

I think in the here and now. I'm impulsive.

On Wednesday, my hair was OK. On Thursday, it wasn't. So I needed to get it cut.


So imagine my horror when I tried to make an appointment on Thursday with Ashley, my "hair girl," for Friday or Saturday.

All booked up, she said (she's very cute and she can cut hair well...what can I say?)

I called my backup "hair girl," Barb, who charges a lot more but whose place offers massages while you're waiting and then hair massages before she cuts.

Every time I've gone there, she talks about her other business in construction (snore...)


All booked up, she said.

There's another few places I've been to around here in such dire circumstances, but at one, they barely speak English and at the other, they once cut my ear.

So I set out Saturday on a multi-faceted, high-risk mission:


Get my income tax done, mail some bills, pick up some new cutlery to replace the stuff my daughter takes to work and loses, hopefully get a new camera battery...

And, if possible, get my hair cut.

Almost certainly I forgot several things, but who's counting?

After finding out I'd be getting a lot less back from the government from my income tax file than I had hoped, I remembered a place two doors down in that strip mall. I went inside.

"Are you Dennis?", one of the stylists asked me.

"No, but you can call me Dennis if you want," I replied with a smile. "I'm Chris. I haven't made an appointment but I came in on the off-chance you could cut my hair."

"We're waiting for someone named Dennis to show up for his appointment," she said. "I'm Anne. We can take you in right away."

So Anne, who has a space between her two front teeth just like me, cut my hair.


And she did an OK job, because I hate getting my hair cut.

I always let it grow too long and I wait until the last second to get it cut again, only when it gets unbearable for me...kind of like pulling rotten teeth.

Anne was very pleasant. She's from Kazakhstan in what used to be Russia in what used to be the Soviet Union but she moved here when she was a child.

We talked about the stabbing at the supermarket down the street a couple of weeks ago, about my bald spots, about what I do for a living...

And about how some people are incredibly organized and how some people, like me, do everything at the last minute.

My hair is short again. I gave her a $2 tip. I'm happy, she's happy.


But I still don't have my camera battery, otherwise I would have probably attached before and after pictures. Instead, I've used these other pix from years gone by.

---

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were within my grasp Friday night.

Actually, they were less than two hours away -- in Grand Forks, North Dakota, U.S. of A., both appearing at a Democratic Party something or other.

I had given some thought to actually going down there just to see them. But I had to work.

For my money, as I said months ago, Obama's the guy. I think he IS the saviour of the U.S. and the rest of the free world.

I thought for sure, initially, that Hillary would win. But I think she tried too much to be like a man, which clearly she is not.

Her popularity was at its highest when she was more vulnerable, open and sensitive like the woman she is.

---

My daughter finally got voicemail capability on her fancy-schmancy cellphone.

And right at the end of her new little recorded message to all who call her, she says, "and Dad, only leave a message if you really have to get a hold of me."

You see, I have a habit of calling her just to see how she's doing or what's new. And that is like slow, painful death to a teenager, coming from their father.

Sometimes, I actually pass on critical information that she absolutely MUST respond to, such as that I love her or I want to tell her a joke or something or to find out when she wants me to pick her up from work.

And all this time that she hasn't had voicemail, and I couldn't leave messages just to torture her or otherwise, she's had to phone me back just to find out why I called her in the first place.

So I called her Saturday, expecting to get her voicemail on a day she's usually working. Lo and behold, she answered.

Of course, I teased her about her voicemail message as she was trying to eat lunch with a girl she's going to Europe with for two months at the end of this month.

I bothered her for as long as I could before we said goodbye.

---

My son, who had been carrying on a long-distance phone/internet relationship with a girl who lives seven hours north of here, has abandoned that and now has a new girlfriend who actually attends his school.



I'm driving them, tonight, to a movie, and then picking them up.

There's hope for him yet.