Twenty-nine years and counting

This is weird but I know exactly what I was doing 29 years ago on June 11. I was teaching at Dr. E. P. Scarlett and we had a celebration of creative writing. I was wearing a skirt, which was unusual for any year. Richard came to pick me up after school. I remember I was having trouble with an ankle tendon and was limping a little.

We just had the interior detailed

I got into the car and we headed for the auto brokerage. It was the only time we have used a broker to buy a vehicle and I don’t remember exactly what our rationale was. We got to the lot and there it was, a brand new 1993 cherry red Toyota Previa. It came from Vancouver and we thought it was just about the coolest van going.

We had arranged to sell Kermie the 1970’s Volkswagen pop top and we were looking for something that would let us sleep in it and carry bikes. We christened the new van Beano, after its jelly bean shape, not the product designed to reduce gas after you eat beans. Once we realized the confusion we thought of calling it Jelly Bean instead but Beano had already stuck.

We have been on some wonderful adventures in Beano over the years. We have slept in it a few nights when we arrived late the night before a cycling tour was to begin. Once when we were preparing for a ride on the Going to the Sun Road in Montana, the wind roared like crazy all night and we were amazed at how quiet it was in the van. We slept in it again the night before The Silver Triangle ride one year, and it carried us to the start of many cycling trips in Alberta and B.C. It has outlasted several single bikes and one tandem.

We bought the van before we bought our first tandem and the tandem not only fitted into the van easily when the middle seat was removed, it also matched the colour almost perfectly. We didn’t have the opportunity to pick the colour of the tandem. There was only one in stock when we wanted to buy ours so the match was a lucky accident.

When Beano was new it carried 6 of us and all our gear from Vancouver to Sydney where we rented kayaks. We paddled to D’Arcy Island and spent the night there before paddling back and piling into the van for the return trip.

Beano hosted a ‘touring’ poetry group at one point. The L group, as we called ourselves, was invited to do a reading at a bookstore a couple of hours north of Calgary. I remember driving the backroads with Richard the evening before the reading so we could get the required number of miles on the engine to break it in for the drive the next day on the highway.

In addition to carrying people and their cargo, Beano has been used as a moving van a number of times. I moved my school stuff in it when I transferred from Scarlett to Ernest Morrow, then when I moved from Morrow to Pearson, and finally from Pearson to Forest Lawn.

It helped Richard’s parents move to the house on the hill, and moved David’s stuff two or three times. It also carried some of Mum’s stuff when she sold her house and moved into the seniors’ lodge. It has carried dressers and beds and most recently, new chairs for our living room.

I love driving it because I never have to worry about having enough cargo space. It won’t fit a full 4X8 sheet of plywood lying down but it will take that sheet if it’s first ripped in half lengthwise. We brought Richard’s lathe home in it and almost every other piece of machinery that now lives in the shop. It has carried workbenches and tool boxes and chunks of trees salvaged for woodworking projects. It has carried all the birds we have had and their various cages and it has made many trips with friends and family. I remember one very hot summer Richard and I picked up Mum and took her for a drive just to cool off because Beano had air conditioning.

It has had its windshield replaced 3 times, has been broken into once, and has been in one accident. I think the guy behind me fell asleep at a light and bashed into the back end. The break-in occurred when it was parked at a helicopter landing site just west of Golden while we were at a backcountry lodge hiking. That is a number of years ago now and, at that time, we got the second last tail light available for that model in North America.

And that, eventually, is the problem with old vehicles: you can’t easily get parts. So far we’ve been lucky. We’ve had to have it towed a couple of times when the battery died but it’s still running. It has been in a garage most of its life so the rust isn’t as bad as it could have been. When I had the summer tires put on it a couple of weeks ago the guy informed me that there was still lots of tread on the winter tires but they were ‘older than dirt’ and he couldn’t, in good conscience, recommend that I put them back on the van for next winter. I told him to toss the tires. I’ll buy a new set in the fall.

Beano is rusting

I don’t know how much longer we’ll keep the van. A lot depends on parts. Once things start to go wrong with it and the dealership can’t get parts, it will be time to pass it on to someone with the desire to look for parts in junk yards. I’ve heard of those vans going for 400,000 km if people are willing to give them the TLC they need to keep them going. I’m rather hoping I can drive it until we’ve had 30 years together. If it keeps running well chances are good but there’s no guarantee.

I don't know what I’d replace it with. We’ve been waiting for a hybrid Sienna for years and they’ve finally arrived. Still, I go back and forth on whether I really need another van or not. I know a lot of people make fun of minivans but I’d be hard pressed to find another vehicle that is so versatile. Then again, maybe I could get away with something more like an SUV. I’m certainly not ready to take the leap to a one car family. For me it’s not only about convenience: it’s also about independence. There aren’t that many times when we each need a vehicle at the same time but they still occur and I like the freedom of not having to plan transportation around a single vehicle. It’s a luxury and I enjoy it.

The siren call of new vehicles is also having an effect and I drive Beano less than I once did. Now, when I drive an hour out of town to work on ukuleles each week, I more often take the Previa. It has a backup camera, adaptive cruise control, bluetooth pairing with my phone, and heated seats. I do like those features.

In spite of all the whistles and bells available, I remain attached to Beano. Each time I get into the driver’s seat I marvel at what a good old van it is and how much I enjoy sitting higher up than in the car. So here’s to Beano, 29 years and counting, and here’s to whatever adventures are still in store for us in its company. I’m sure that, when the time comes for Beano to go to another owner, there will be another blog post. Stay tuned.

Not bad looking for 29

Sewing, cycling, and a game

In the last blog I talked about screwing my courage to the sticking place and attempting to shorten the sleeves on two wool shirts. The first shirt is done. The workmanship won’t win any prizes and you don’t get a closeup of the stitching but the sleeves are now a good length. I have worn it for a day and it’s comfortable. I took a day off from sewing yesterday. I can only stand to do it in small doses. This morning I measured the other shirt and I’ve marked where to cut the sleeve and have taken off the cuff.

I’m adhering to finishing one sleeve before I cut off the other one. It would be just like me to try to put a cuff on the wrong sleeve if I had two to choose from. Once I have this shirt done I have a few pairs of pants to turn up. That should be easier than the shirt sleeves. One thing at a time and take it slowly.

Another thing besides sewing that I didn’t think I’d ever do is playing a game on my phone. I’ve never been much on games for the same reason I’m not much on sewing: I never had the patience and couldn’t see the point. Enter a silly little game called Words of Wonder. It’s initially free on phones if you can put up with the ads. After I had played it for a day and found myself enjoying it I shelled out the eight bucks to buy it and get rid of the ads. They still try to get you to watch ads by promising you a bunch of sapphires if you look at certain ads on YouTube. Since I haven’t bothered to find out what the sapphires are for it doesn’t bother me to ignore them. They also offer various collections of postcards for a limited time. Again, who cares? It’s something to do with playing the game competitively and, by now, you can guess my reaction to that.

The game is a bit like Scrabble or a crossword puzzle. The difference in this game is that they give you a series of letters and a blank crossword shape. You have to fill in all the words in the crossword from the letters supplied, no written hints, just the letters. The game does allow you to rearrange the order in which the letters appear in a circle below the crossword.

I’m finding the whole thing surprisingly engaging. I don’t remember when I got the game but I think it’s under a week. I’ve now solved 200 of the puzzles. It’s strange how sometimes I look at the jumble of letters and wonder how I could ever make a word out of those. Then I see one word which leads to another word and another. At some point I get stumped and rearrange the letters to see other words. Sometimes I have to resort to pencil and paper and plugging letters in at random until I recognize something. Of course, the makers of the game want you to pay for hints when you get stuck and I’m not doing that. Now if the sapphires gave you free hints I'd be more interested. Richard has helped me on occasion and sometimes, you are actually given the chance to get a hint letter for free. I've yet to figure out how that works.

I suppose it isn't a lot different from Wordle, and I don’t know why this game appeals and Wordle doesn’t. It’s an engaging way to spend a few moments during the day when I’m between tasks or in the evening when I don’t feel like doing much else. Puzzles and games tend to lose their appeal for me fairly quickly when I do find one I like so I’ll see how long this lasts. One disadvantage is that you can’t play it offline.

Just as I’ve finally gotten around to sewing, I’ve finally gotten around to riding my bike for the season. I’ve been undecided about whether or not I like the conversion to an e-bike. Haven’t quite sorted through the ins and outs of charging the battery, hooking it up, resetting the computer, and how to work with the gearing and the various levels of assist.

I’ve not been too pleased with the performance on hills. It seems the bike wants to help all it can on the flats where I don’t need it and it’s sluggish on the hills where I could use the help. Yesterday I decided to go out and ride around and around the neighbourhood for half an hour to see if I couldn’t figure it out. I found that the language the makers of e-bikes use is confusing. In everything I have looked at they say the harder you pedal the more the bike assists you. To me that means the more pressure you put on the pedals the more assistance you get. Nope! Turns out the faster you pedal the more assistance you get, and that is a totally different animal.

The riding strategy has to change. I’ve always known that it’s better to keep a higher cadence but sometimes I just get tired and bash my way through by pedalling more slowly and putting more weight on the pedals. The e-bike is not friendly when I do that. So, gear down and speed up the revolutions when you approach a hill and then keep the cadence high and increase the amount of assistance as you go up the hill. I suppose it’s not all that different from gearing down as you go up a hill but the final step, before getting off to walk, has always been the slow-revolution slog and that seems to be more difficult on the e-bike. With the motor and batteries the bike is heavier and, if you’re in slog mode the bike really doesn’t seem to help much regardless of the level of assistance. Of course, I could be totally out to lunch on this and as I ride I’ll probably find other ways to be more efficient. At least, yesterday, I had a totally enjoyable ride and came back thoroughly winded. It’s been a while since I’ve worked that hard. It’s humbling to think that I used to be able to ride like that for hours and hours at a time. The good news is that I can regain some of that fitness a little at a time. I don’t think I’ll ever go on long tours again but I’d like to work up taking and enjoying day rides in the mountains. The first step is to get out on the bike and now that I’m beginning to figure out how the e-conversion works, that will be easier. Stay tuned.

I hate sewing but...

Mum at 92

My mum was born 109 years ago last week so I’ve been thinking about her a lot. There are a couple of things I’ve been contemplating lately that she always used to do that I thought I’d never do. I’ve mentioned before  that I hate sewing. It still isn’t my favourite thing to do studying lutherie has taught me patience, and not just patience for the things I love to do. I’m finding that if I slow down, take things one step at a time, and don’t think about how long I would like something to take, I can usually get things done. It always takes longer than I think it should but if I can put that out of my mind the task becomes less frustrating.

A couple of years ago, before going to Australia and New Zealand, I bought two shirts made from merino wool. I wanted ones with collars and, at that time, they had no collared shirts for women, so I bought mens. They fit pretty well except that the sleeves are about five inches too long. Being a confirmed sewing-hater, I took the easy way out and moved the buttons on the cuffs so the sleeves wouldn’t flap down over my hands. That sort of works but there is still all this extra material in the sleeves that doesn’t need to be there. I keep thinking how much more I would enjoy the shirts if the sleeves were shorter. So off I go to YouTube where there are a handful of videos on how to shorten the sleeves on a man’s shirt. I watched them and then watched the clearest one a few more times.

It’s not rocket science. It is fussy, although it's easy enough to understand what needs to be done. I decided to shorten the sleeves on the two shirts. Mum would be very surprised. She was present for the hissy fits I had when I was forced to sew in junior high. I’m amazed at how much I learned from her, just by sitting and watching and listening to her explain things. I’m fairly confident that I can shorten the sleeves without making a total mess of the shirts. I rescued one of Richard’s shirts that was destined for Good Will in order to practice on. I’ve gotten as far as taking off the cuff and taking apart the placket on one sleeve. I figure I’ll do one sleeve beginning to end before I tackle the second one. That way I’ll be able to refer to the sleeve that is still intact if I need to check something out. I want to have the shirts done in the next week or two.

I can’t say I’m looking forward with delight to the project but I’m fairly motivated to achieve the result. I think that’s probably the difference. When I had to take sewing there were so many other things that I’d rather have been doing, and I just wanted to get it over with. Fast forward a lot of years, and I realize that if you’re not proficient at something it’s going to take you longer than someone who is experienced and proficient. That means being patient enough to make mistakes, undo them, and then start again. I’m not even going to estimate how long it will take me to get the shirts done. I’ll look again at the video, take my computer to the sewing machine for reference, put an audiobook on, and from there it will take as long as it takes. If I get really frustrated I’ll walk away and come back to it later. I’m pretty sure I can do this.

Update a couple of days later: I spent some time yesterday with Richard’s old shirt. The process for shortening the sleeves is to remove the cuff, then remove both sides of the placket, cut off the sleeve to the correct length, lengthen the slit for the placket, and then put the placket and the cuff back on.

While I was reviewing the videos I came across one I hadn’t seen. In this one the woman simply removed the cuff, cut the sleeve to length and then sewed the cuff back on. If the placket opening is a little smaller, oh well. As long as you can get your hand through it that’s fine.

Since I had already dismantled the placket on one sleeve I shortened that one and put it all back together. It’s not beautiful. My new sewing machine has a different sort of pressure foot on it so I can’t line up the seam the way I could on my old one and a lot of this reconstruction requires top stitching. My seams are not straight. On the second sleeve I decided to try the easier fix. On the practice shirt the cuff comes right in the middle of the button hole that is on the placket. I think on the wool shirts the sleeves are long enough that I’ll be able to trim them above that button hole. If not, I’m not too fussed about it. They will still function. That’s on my ‘To Do’ list for today. I’m not even going to think about how long it will take. I will finish when I finish. I think Mum would be not only surprised but a little bit pleased.

The hard way

The easy way