Getting a Leg Up

I guess BG's been feeling under-attended-to lately, what with all of the pregnancy cooing, and going to various doctors appointments for poking and prodding, because he decided to go to "advanced power skating class" a couple of weeks ago, and in the last minutes of class, fell down and broke his leg in a SPECTACULAR way. Like, standing alone, with nobody near him. He broke his leg in two places. If that's not a cry for attention, I don't know what is.

I actually feel really badly for him, if that wasn't apparent by my intro. He's in a lot of pain. He's on crutches, and the worst part for him is that he's basically useless for eight weeks. Bathing alone and climbing stairs are now marathon events, and he can't even drive, having shattered his right tibia and fibula. Only a few weeks ago I was complaining to him that he couldn't sit still at home, that he was always doing some project and couldn't we just spend some TIME together quietly talking, and not have him racing around like a madman every second of every day.

Well, I got my wish, I guess. Someone up there has a pretty messed up sense of humour.

This is the kind of situation where you realize who your friends are. More than a few of our friends have rallied together to do the kinds of heavy-lifting and ladder-climbing that neither of us is able to do (BG is calling us, bitterly, "The Useless Couple"). Even still, he hobbles down the basement stairs JUST TO SEE WHAT'S GOING ON. He can't help himself. However, we have gotten to have some lovely, lazy chats that start early on Saturday evening and end late on Sunday mornings. We've eaten Cheetos in bed. We've watched some movies. We complain to each other about our various physical discomforts, comparing pain. So far, he's winning.

This baby is coming in July some time. I hope he can drive us to the hospital by then.

It's Been A While...

Too long, in fact! I'm still alive. We're busier than ever -- we're packing again! Unfortunately, it's not for another whirlwind backpacking tour of the globe. This time, we're moving with the intention of staying still for a long time, because we recently purchased a house and are getting ready to move in very, very soon. The summer was far too short and far too cold for my liking, and work has been kicking our butts like crazy! So much for our newly-found Zen existences.

I have picked up a new hobby, though -- rock climbing! So far I've only tried indoor climbing, but I am thoroughly addicted to the adrenaline rush and sense of achievement that comes with every climb. I may also be addicted to the herds of fit and shirtless men that swarm the gym every evening I've been there. Yay for trying new things.

In less exciting news, Love and Chopsticks has been bookified -- sort of. I never meant to make a profit from my little online project here -- I only wanted a hard copy to archive for our book shelf. Later, I found that friends and family were interested in purchasing copies for their own collections; I have to admit that I'm flattered and confused! Nevertheless, the link is here if you want to explore it.

I'll try to be more attentive to your needs in the future, friends. I've missed you.

Kindred Spirits

It's no secret that we essentially ate our way around the world. Though we experienced so many things, we remember distinctly the food -- naan breads bought on the streets of Delhi, blisteringly hot and tasting of charcoal; the comforting blandness of all-you-can-eat dal bhat in the mountains of Nepal; Tibetan momos (yak meat dumplings); sticky-sweet coconut sticky rice with cold sliced mango in Thailand. A few days after we got home, I was browsing through one of my favourite stores when I happened upon a recipe book about baking -- an obsession of mine, some might say.

This book caught my eye for a few reasons. As I said, it was about baking. It was full of recipes from all corners of the world -- middle Eastern breads, Montreal bagels, European pastries. It was full of gorgeous photos taken in these places, with little written vignettes that captured the spirit of the moments on the page. It was written by Canadians. I saw a recipe for good old-fashioned Canadian butter tarts and nearly swooned. I slammed the book shut and marched directly to the cash when I saw a recipe for Portuguese egg custard tarts, perhaps BG's most favourite thing in the world.

The book was Home Baking, written by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid. They live in Toronto; they speak of a coffee shop in Kensington Market that they frequent; I think I know it. They travel the world and they collect stories and take photos, and they learn about a country and its culture by understanding the food that its people eat. They understand why food is so very important to us; they understand that it's so much more than nourishment. It's joy. It's a celebration. It's delicious.

Jeffrey and Naomi have written several delicious-looking recipe books, and I'm determined to own every single one. It seems that we came home and discovered a set of kindred spirits. I would love nothing more than to meet this amazing couple in that little coffee shop in Kensington and talk about -- well, food.

Right now, those Portuguese egg tarts are cooling on the kitchen counter, and I'm thinking I have to find a good place to hide them, if I want them to last until tomorrow.

I've Got the Ho-Hum Doldrums

It's a beautiful spring day in Toronto. It was bright and sunny and warm, all of those good things. We have survived our first Canadian winter in a couple of years -- it seemed ages long, and yet we only arrived when it was already half over. Long weekends are soon upon us, and we're starting to make plans for weekend getaways over the summer. This is a season of optimism and hope. We should be cheered by the longer days. We should be making the most of them, going out for walks after dinner when it's still bright outside. It's only a matter of days until we start seeing people on patios, and soon I'll be able to wear sandals (but not for long! Work mandates closed toes only.)

People keep asking me: "Does it feel like you never left?" What do I say? Yes, in some ways -- I have slid back into my old life, my old ways, very easily. Nepal and New Zealand are like a distant dream now, an experience I hardly remember. I remember that I felt something when the Himalayas opened up before me, sitting in the back of a tiny hatchback surrounded by goats. I remember that same feeling when we turned the corner and started to walk down the Hooker Track. In both cases it was more than an experience; I can't even say that I was struck by it. I was flat-out walloped by it. I was floored. It was like overload -- the sparkling sunlight, the waving grasses, the dewy mornings. The mountains stretched out so high and yet so wide that I could only take it all in one scene at a time. I wanted to stand still and stare forever, and yet I couldn't help moving forward because I just had to see what was next. And now? I power through my morning routine, sit on the subway. Coffee and breakfast at work. Break. Lunch. Work. Home. Power through dinner, power through my workout. Chores. Litterbox. Shower. Bed. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Life is no longer about experiencing; it's about survival. We're trying to relax more, to keep that chilled-out attitude that we got so GOOD at while we were gone. However, thinking about how we were while we were gone reminds us that we're not gone. We're here. We're home.

What I wouldn't give to be on an airplane right now.

A Snap of the Fingers

We spoke to my sister-in-law today. She's in Africa, volunteering for a few more months. Her placement ends in May, and she hasn't found any new opportunities, and is toying with the idea of coming home -- the economy's not good, she's worried it'll take a while to find a job, blah blah blah.

We very, very strongly advised her to stay. Her ticket brings her home to Toronto at the end of September; why would she cut her trip short by six months? Sure, she's worried. Sure, she's probably homesick. She's tired and lonely and all of those things that make the thought of home, and stability, very appealing right about now. We remember those feelings with great clarity. Now that we have home and stability, the thought of being where she is right now is extremely tempting.

So many people have said to us, "I wish I could do what you have done!" Well, they all can. However, there are lots of reasons that they think they can't. They are the same reasons we waited so long to leave -- the jobs, the house, the family, the fear. I'm not exaggerating in the least when I say it was a monumental effort to get everything tucked neatly away before we took off to Kathmandu. I also want to point out that we couldn't have done it alone. We had ongoing help from many people in the form of emotional support, people to do the odd little jobs for us, people to take care of our stuff while we were gone. Doing it once was hard enough. Doing it again -- well, I might not need as much convincing, but I wouldn't look forward to it.

She's already done the hardest part. She left -- and now that she's gone, she should stay gone. This is truly the chance of a lifetime, and she should make the most of it, even though right now it's hard to see it for what it is. I hope she gets there soon.

Just Can't Get Enough

Well, so much for going on hiatus. I can't help it; I've MISSED this!

We're still re-living the dream in a big way, and this week we got to do a presentation for our friends at the Adventure Travel Company here in Toronto. Jennifer, Dennis, and many others there have been really helpful in the past when we planned this trip -- and others. I distinctly remember the first time we spoke to Jennifer about Round-the-World tickets. We listed off the places we wanted to go, and she whipped out a map of the world and a red pen, and went completely nutso with arrows and route plans. She knew it all, instantly -- she gave us routes and then re-routed the routes; she hammered out an efficient and reasonable itinerary that fit within the ticket parameters before we'd even realized it. It was amazing.

Anyway, the presentation was a great success, from what I gather, and we had a fantastic time. We talked peoples' ears off, that's for sure, and we'd do it again in a second.

In the meantime, here's a link to our presentation, in case you missed it.

The blog is back, baby.

Adieu, Adieu, to You and You and You

I've been logging into blogger almost every day for the past week. The "NEW POSTS" page pops up, and I sit there and stare.

It's happened. I have nothing else to tell you.

I could keep reminiscing about our trip, telling funny-at-the-time-you-had-to-be-there anecdotes from "when we were in Tibet/Australia/Namibia/Wherever". I thought about continuing with fresher-than-fresh live updates of our new lives and where they were going. I really, really tried.

Then I remembered why I never really got into the blogging thing before we left -- our lives are really just not that exciting. Life is good, but it's not necessarily blog-worthy. What can I tell you? I'm starting work soon, which is great. BG is working, and we've gotten into squash (the game, not the vegetable, though I do enjoy it roasted in olive oil or as soup.) We buy international wines at the liquor store downtown and not at the vineyards like we did in 2008. We keep buying honey pomelos and not eating them because we don't have a two-hour bus ride to kill. We go to dinner parties with friends where they play Norah Jones as background music and we discuss the pros and cons of laminate vs. hardwood vs. engineered flooring and whether or not a professional designer is really worth the money. Do you really want to hear about that?

I also didn't want to leave this part of our story unfinished, with a random dangling post about grocery shopping and senior's day. It would have disturbed my psyche to leave it like that. It needs an ending. This is it.

There is one final thing to say. I need to thank everyone who read this blog and lived vicariously through us. Reading your comments and knowing that we were still present in your lives, somehow, meant so much to us. Meeting new people and finding that we could actually be of some use to someone was really special. This blog was meant to be a way to let you all know that we were alive and well, but it ended up being so much more than that to us. It was a way for me to express how I really felt when confronted with the unknown, with the frightening, and with the staggeringly beautiful. I wouldn't have bothered recording like this if all of you hadn't been here to read it, and so I thank you all for reading, because now I also have a way to remember the moments which were so inconsequential at the time, but have become especially meaningful in hindsight.

This isn't really the end. You'll be hearing about our future adventures, and heck, when anything even remotely exciting happens, you'll hear it here. I promise.

In the meantime, thanks again.

Musing

Every so often the thought, "what was I doing this time a year ago?" pops into my head. It's usually pretty amusing to compare it to what I'm doing right now.

Take today, for instance. A year ago today, give or take, I was in Laos. Maybe we were kayaking on the Mekong River; maybe we were riding through the winding countryside on a rickety bus while our fellow passengers vomited into plastic bags all around us. We were most likely dodging livestock. There was probably a bunch of turnips under my seat.

Today I went grocery shopping and dodged shopping carts, because it's the last Thursday of the month... and that means it's SENIOR'S DAY! Everywhere! The grocery store, the drug store, the bulk food store -- sweet, soft-spoken, deaf little people all over the place, bumping into me and counting their pennies out at the cash.

At least there were still turnips!

That Wasn't So Bad

During our African adventure, we often joked that there must be a reality TV crew lurking somewhere in the distance, because the number of times that things went wrong just seemed statistically impossible when based on random chance. This week it became apparent that the TV crew is still with us, and were documenting our return to Real Life with a particular kind of evil zeal.



The original plan was that I would take the few things stored at my mother's and drive them to Toronto on Monday night. We would spend the night at my cousin's, which I was happy to do because it meant I could play Wii spend time with him. Then the movers would meet us at our storage facility on Tuesday morning, and we'd be moved in by lunch. Easy peasy.

What actually happened is that the quantity of material possessions at Mom's trebled in our absence, somehow, and ended up being enough to fill at least four large SUV's. After a brief conference call (BG was in Toronto, playing Wii already) we decided he would rent a cargo van in Toronto on Monday and come to pick up our stuff. We initially decided to spend one last night in cushy, luxurious, motherly comfort... but then a pending snowstorm toppled our plans. We drove to Toronto late that night, knowing that we had the keys to our new apartment and could sleep there, because the van would be safer parked there than downtown.

Unfortunately, our air mattress was not at Mom's as it should have been, even though every other single thing in the universe appeared to be there. We had to stop and buy a new one en route... and then we had to stop again and exchange it for a better one after a couple of hours of reflection (BG!). Once at our new place, we discovered that the walls were freshly painted (Yay!) but reeked (Boo!) and that the carpets had been shampooed (Yay!) but were still soaking wet (Boo!). We opened all the windows and cranked up the heat -- sorry, Environment. Then we rolled up our sleeves and took off our socks and got to work cleaning, because there's nothing worse than living in someone else's dirt.

On Tuesday morning BG drove to the storage facility to meet our movers and I set to scrubbing the bathrooms (that's right, we have TWO.) He returned unaccountably early, and I was initially thrilled to think that the move might be finished early. Actually, it was to be finished very, very late, as something got mixed up in the booking and the movers thought we were moving tomorrow, not two days ago. And that cargo van sitting in the parking lot, full of our stuff which the movers were supposed to help us with? Guess who had to empty that thing. Yep... Team Chopsticks.

In the end, the moving team, a group of very nice and very apologetic gentlemen, came the next day (early, in fact!) and had us in our new place in just a few hours. They even offered to cover half of the extra two weeks' rent that the storage place charged us for the extra DAY we were there.

Then the elevator decided to work only intermittently. Then we realized that our unit is actually at the very furthest end from the elevator. Then we realized that in our haste to move out in 2007, we'd helpfully labelled our boxes "MISCELLANEOUS", "EXTRA BITS", "UTENSILS", and "SAW".

I'd say we're 95% done now. It's okay that I haven't breathed outdoor air for 48 hours; I hear it's really cold outside anyway. It's okay that I can't find anything yet because I can't remember where I just put it. It's okay that the second bedroom is completely full of boxes and crates because this is only a temporary place and there's no point in unpacking the good china. At least I found the coffee maker.

Today we put the clothes away. It took the whole morning, and the whole process made me feel sick to my stomach -- the enormity of the task, the enormity of our wardrobes. Life was so much simpler when all we had to worry about was our two backpacks and our passports. Still, life goes on, and I find myself sleeping in my own bed, sitting at my own desk, watching my own TV, cooking with my own carefully selected and terribly abundant kitchen gear.

Life is still good.

What to Say?

I find myself strangely silent these days, without trials or tribulations worthy of writing about. The holidays were wonderful, and we've been catching up with friends and family. We've signed a lease for an apartment and are looking for a car, and our jobs are slowly coming together.

We're slowly realizing that our Trip of a Lifetime (TM) is really and truly over, and yet I hesitate to put Love and Chopsticks to bed. I haven't said everything I wanted to say. There are still stories to tell. Besides, if Love and Chopsticks comes to an end, it means that our journey is really over, and I guess I'm not ready for that.

Stay tuned, I guess.

Indulge Me a Moment

I'm going to step back in time to New Year's Eve 2007/2008. We were in Lijiang, south western China. Our wall-mounted "heater" blew tepid air and our toes were always cold. When we showered a pool puddle of water formed on the bathroom floor, because there was no tub.

That night it was so cold in Lijiang that it snowed, a rare event in that area. To celebrate the New Year, we splurged on dinner at "Le Cafe Paris", where BG had salmon and mashed potatoes, and I had the very French specialty of Mongolian tofu hotpot with noodles -- accompanied by a gallon-sized bucket of rice. "This country was built on rice," the waiter told me. "Rice is cheap in this country." Later, carbohydrate-induced torpor fully upon us, we walked the pretty, picturesque streets of Lijiang and contemplated the purchase of yak jerky.



Very late in the evening, well past 9:30, we decided that we were absolutely, thoroughly chilled, and returned to our guest house. We climbed into bed and watched a movie. I'm ashamed to say that we rang in the new year with the newest Transformers movie, Megan Fox and all. Guess whose pick that was?

This time we're ringing in the New Year with family and crab legs. I can't believe how much has happened since December 31, 2007.

Happy New Year!

Sweetness Follows

I'm finally wearing my own pyjamas. I finally dry myself after my shower with real towels, no more of the handkerchief-sized travel towels that don't actually dry anything. I wear jeans and sweaters, shoes with heels. I use a hair dryer. I have a manicure. One day I curled my hair; the next day I straightened it.

Just because I can.

I hug my mom and sisters and mother-in-law; I squeeze them until they squeal. I call my friends, drive a car, eat sushi. When I walk down the street I listen to the people talk and understand everything that's being said. I make cappuccino twice a day.

Just because I can.

My wardrobe seems endless, even though I can't find my winter boots or coat. Right now I'm pretty sure I'll never need to go shopping ever again... at least until Boxing Day sales kick in. The skies are grey and it's snowing like mad, but it's Christmas and I've never been happier to be suffering jet lag and an impending cold, because I'm finally at home and I'm not suffering alone.

Happy Holidays, all.