Plants and Pottery 2020

I have been back at pottery this year, using the UBC studio run by students (I am a "community member"). It was shut down for a while over the Summer, but then reopened with limited capacity and a booking system. Some pictures below of what I have been doing, mixed in with our gardening efforts on the terrace. For me, a successful garden means beautiful, perennial plants that you can eat. This really limits you to herbs, and we had a good crop of those. We also had some vegetable success. There were a couple of squash plants that really produced for us. 

I got married this Summer

Yes, I know this post is overdue. My desktop is cluttered with pictures ready to post on other blog posts, so I behind on more than just this one. 

I had wondered whether we would actually get married as we are older (on the side closer to 60 of 50s) and have both been married before, both with two adult children (and one grandchild) from our previous marriages. We (and the bank) own an apartment together, and in Vancouver that is a considerable commitment. Sometime in the Spring I began to think that getting married was a good idea, and Veronica accepted me. 

It would have been a small wedding, but ended up even smaller because of COVID. We had it on our large balcony (it is like a patio but on the second floor so we call it a terrace). We had just family and one friend each. My nephew is a pastor in Terrace and he flew down to do the ceremony and that really felt special, and we got a bit of religion. My father is living with us and was the best man. He gave a heartfelt but humorous speech to the bride. Veronica's close friend was her her maid of honour and her daughters gave her away. 

Here comes the bride and then the ceremony. 

Then we were married, good job!

Then an excuse for a family reunion. We had a catered lunch and of course a few gin and tonics. 

All that socializing can get tiring, especially in uncomfortable, formal clothes. 

Best Pizza in BC

What people like in a pizza varies considerably. There are also strong national differences in how it is prepared. I remember in Germany they would ask, "do you want an egg on that?" and if you said yes, they would crack a raw egg on the top for the last 5 minutes of baking. So if you look at the title and say "how does Brian know what I think is the best pizza?" I would agree that I do not. I also have to admit that I have not tried all the pizza places in BC in a fair comparison. 

With those caveats, my vote goes to the Bold Pizzeria in Kamloops. It is a wood oven fired style, but with heavier toppings than is usual for that style. They have an excellent version of "the works" style pizza called The Average Joe. They also have a revolving monthly selection of special recipes which are really innovative. I had the luck of having two of those on visits to my father. He is now living with us in Vancouver which means I do not have an opportunity to go back for more. 

In Vancouver, the two places that come close are Burrata Pizzeria in Kerrisdale, my new neighborhood, and Cotto Enoteca Pizzeria in Burnaby. Both very good. For traditional inexpensive delivery pizza or pizza by the slice, I like Uncle Fatih. 

Tying Sticks Together

I have been working on our terrace garden as the weather permits. It is a real joy. We have one side pretty well set up the way we want, with some herbs, tomatoes, a plant (whose name I am blanking on) that has followed Veronica through several moves but is much happier out of a pot and into the "ground". We also have a bunch of Latinki (English name unknown) grown from seed that are quite happy.

I had taken out a bunch of ugly bushes and trimmed the remaining hedge. I am working now on a wandering path with some cement tiles. I imagine grandchildren frolicking on this path. The project in between was organizing trellises for the various plants on that good side. I built them out of bamboo sticks tied together with twine. My tying was somewhat arbitrary, but if you google "tying sticks together" (which I did) you will find a whole wealth of material! My next round of trellises will be superior with this knowledge.

Cycling for Fun

I have enjoyed cycling since I first learned at age five when I was living in Berkeley. The enjoyment came from the sense of speed from my own effort as well as the extension of the radius I could reach without public transportation or parental involvement. When I was in high school in Victoria, cycling in to school let me avoid the toxic dynamic at the local stop for the school bus. It became both exercise and my main means of transportation. It was a shared passion with my ex-wife and cycling together was part of our courtship. When I was working in Germany between MSc and Phd, cycling became a weekend activity with long trips on rural roads in the Pfalz with a friend, Utz Weber. Coming to work at UBC, cycling has become a main option for commuting to work. There were a few years in there with a break from active cycling: while I was a PhD student in NYC; my year in Toronto at the Fields Institute early in my career; about six years after an accident when my son was a baby. At that last one, I injured my arm and was unable to properly take care of my son at that age. It was a wake up call to my parental responsibilities. When I went back to cycling, it was almost exclusively for commuting and it has been that way for the last twenty years. I should say that its utility did not diminish the joy it brought me. In these "interesting" times, I have been working at home for the last few months. I have taken to cycling as a break and to get some exercise. Even if it is intended to improve my fitness (mental and physical), it is still fun!

Like many others stuck at home, I am baking

You know that many people have been baking at home because of the difficulty finding flour and yeast in the stores, at least in the early weeks of COVID-19. I am now able to find them most of the time here in Vancouver. I have a bread maker and made several loaves of bread. I have to say, the unnatural shape of the loaves that come out of a bread maker is a drawback. I made buns from scratch with my father, using a hugely powered mixer that he later passed on to us.

He came down to visit us for a week and we made oatmeal raisin cookies together. He was the first guest in our spare room in the new apartment. I also made focaccia from a recipe in my old Joy of Cooking and bagels. 

Having been a student in NYC I believe in NY style bagels while all the ones here in Vancouver are Montreal style (or just buns in the shape of bagels). There is something about the chewiness of a NY style bagel that has real appeal. People that have had Montreal style first seem to prefer them, but I find them hard rather than chewy, and too sweet.  

Plague Masks v2

I made a couple more masks. It is a slow process as I am sewing them by hand and I am not an expert at it. I have been giving them away, but the next ones will be for me. I have heard that I need at least three, as it takes at least three days in a bag for them to become clear of the virus (hopefully on the outside). Following the instructions from the last post, the ones I am making are two sided. I had some new supplies from Amazon and some old scarves from Veronica to use as material. 

Mask #2 below went to my son. We all decided that the design on the right should not be worn in public.

Mask #3 is best so far. I made it a little smaller than the others. More attractive model as well. 

   

Plague Season Updates

My father was going to move down to a retirement home in the Vancouver area. He had a place lined up in Burnaby and we had worked with his step-children to clean out his condominium to get ready for the sale. It was on the market for two days before the Plague Season shutdowns began here in British Columbia. I have visited my father in Kamloops a couple of times since then. On my way down last time, I saw this group meeting in the Chilliwack Mall parking lot. Nice way to get together with your buddies!

Like many places, it looks like we will gradually start opening up soon. There will be some limits on what we can do and there is the possibility that masks may be mandatory for some activities. I found it absurd in the early days of the virus when the official advice was to wear masks and use hand sanitizer: these were things that were sold out almost immediately (and should have been saved for front line workers in any case). We have some fabric masks on order through a local charity, but I also looked online for mask patterns and came up with the following:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JR5yb4sFDTo

I made a first mask with this pattern with material from an old handkerchief and an old T shirt. I didn't have any elastic fabric so I substituted ribbon loops to which I attached pieces of rubber band. It works, but slow going as I don't have a sewing machine so have to do the stitching by hand. I may make one more, avoiding the mistakes I made with this one, and adding some embroidery designs. 

    

Scrap Wood Carpentry Returns

This small project is meta: I used scrap wood from a previous project made out of scrap wood that I disassembled. It is a placeholder until I can get out to a lumber store to get longer pieces so this extends to the wall. You can't really call it a spice rack, I guess it is a spice organizer. Veronica suggests I add a second shelf for the larger jars so I will work on that design.

No rotary saw or table saw anymore, my projects will be all hand tools from now on. OK, I do still have an electric drill...

Plague Season Outing: to Burns Bog

In British Columbia we are still permitted to go out to some parks as long as we maintain 2m separation. Last week, we went to Burns Bog (Delta Nature Reserve) for a walk. The loop through the bog was closed but the main path was open. It is not so easy to find access, but eventually we parked in a nearby residential area and crossed the railway tracks (past the sign that said not to do that -- good thing I had those years in NYC) into the park area. As the name suggests, it is swampy but great to get out into the fresh air. We have been having excellent weather the last week or so, predicted to last for another week.

    

That is skunk cabbage on the left and the most beautiful woman in the world on the right. I am trying to get a little exercise to offset how much time I am spending in the apartment so near to the fridge. I have started alternating cycling trips and weight lifting (I have a bench and a set of dumbbells on the terrace).