I have been at the Lake, trying to pack in enough physical activity to last for the next ten months. Before this vacation, strenuous physical motion meant getting up from the computer to check the fridge.
Yesterday, for instance, I kayaked solo for 3 hours with nothing but a small bottle of water and a single bar of pressed oats to sustain me. And yet I felt alive -- fully alive -- as I dipped the paddle repeatedly into the waters on either side of the bright orange plastic water craft, over and over and over again, 99000 times. Somehow, by the last kilometre and the grace of some evil miracle, the kayak was transformed as a lead-filled cement box, and my arms cruelly switched out for rubber tubes which quivered and shook and spastically flagellated until the boat bumped gently up alongside the dock. An emergency lunch was administered. "I think he's going to pull through! Anyone for tennis?" Such is the unrelenting cheery good-time lust for non-stop sport, here at the cabin.
No, really, it's been good.
I have read a couple of books while here. I can't remember which ones, but they were both memorable, I can tell you that. [After a long pause in which I stimulated memory via the never-fail act of staring out the window with my mouth open, the titles came back to me: Lord of Emperors by Guy Gavriel Kay, and Infernal Devices by Philip Reeve.] And then I ran out of books. That was pretty much the first day. It's been found copies of Dr. Al's dentist-office hand-me-down Discover magazines since then. There's a used bookstore in town which needs looking into, and a library into which I might to venture to stress the inevitability of province-wide collection sharing vis-à-vis my library card, as in: hand over your books right now and nobody gets hurt.
Michael introduced me to a new game, which he brought me from The Gambia. It's very cool, but he doesn't know what it's called. [It's a mancala type game.] It's made from mahogany, and has 12 depressions in 2 rows - 6 per side. Each depression is called a "compound" and holds 4 bean things. It's surprisingly fun. Apparently there are versions of it all over the world, and have been since ancient times. I introduced him to Hive, which is one of my favourite two-player games.
Yesterday, for instance, I kayaked solo for 3 hours with nothing but a small bottle of water and a single bar of pressed oats to sustain me. And yet I felt alive -- fully alive -- as I dipped the paddle repeatedly into the waters on either side of the bright orange plastic water craft, over and over and over again, 99000 times. Somehow, by the last kilometre and the grace of some evil miracle, the kayak was transformed as a lead-filled cement box, and my arms cruelly switched out for rubber tubes which quivered and shook and spastically flagellated until the boat bumped gently up alongside the dock. An emergency lunch was administered. "I think he's going to pull through! Anyone for tennis?" Such is the unrelenting cheery good-time lust for non-stop sport, here at the cabin.
No, really, it's been good.
I have read a couple of books while here. I can't remember which ones, but they were both memorable, I can tell you that. [After a long pause in which I stimulated memory via the never-fail act of staring out the window with my mouth open, the titles came back to me: Lord of Emperors by Guy Gavriel Kay, and Infernal Devices by Philip Reeve.] And then I ran out of books. That was pretty much the first day. It's been found copies of Dr. Al's dentist-office hand-me-down Discover magazines since then. There's a used bookstore in town which needs looking into, and a library into which I might to venture to stress the inevitability of province-wide collection sharing vis-à-vis my library card, as in: hand over your books right now and nobody gets hurt.
Michael introduced me to a new game, which he brought me from The Gambia. It's very cool, but he doesn't know what it's called. [It's a mancala type game.] It's made from mahogany, and has 12 depressions in 2 rows - 6 per side. Each depression is called a "compound" and holds 4 bean things. It's surprisingly fun. Apparently there are versions of it all over the world, and have been since ancient times. I introduced him to Hive, which is one of my favourite two-player games.
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