Hold On

Our last afternoon in Banff brought us a window of clear skies and glorious gondola ride to the peak of Sulphur Mountain. New snow, plenty of it, lay on top of old snow, storm clouds roiled in the distance, and the windchill dropped as we ascended.

Now when Catbird says glorious gondola ride, what she means is terrifying.  Though some might call it acrophobia (which means an unnatural fear of heights), Catbird doesn't see anything unnatural about a wingless mammal trembling when sailing up a mountain, over the tops of trees in an aging plexiglas box dangling from a one inch cable, and all under the purview of a couple of bored adolescent males.  

Catbird is, for the most part, pretty cautious (read: scared witless about many, many things), and wants to live a good long life with her physicist.  But she also wants the prizes that are way outside her comfort zone. She learned, incontrovertibly way back in nursing school, that we all have to die of something, and invokes that thought as she weighs the risks and rewards of her adventures.  

Possible headlines inform her fears:

Local Physicist and Bitchy Wife Die in Mine Collapse in Argentina 

...or (in my hometown paper)

Former Ellettsville Girl Dies when Catwalk Gives Way at Iguazu Falls (with subheading: "She Shoulda Never Left," Says Former Guidance Counselor)

...or Caught in 3rd World Political Uprising, Physicist and Insignificant Wife are Missing and Presumed Dead.

The pragmatist in Catbird's head helps her negotiate between fear and adventure, looks for safety measures to minimize risk.  Sensible shoes, seatbelts, sunblock, DEET, pre-trip review of local customs, copies of each other's passports, timely vaccinations, mosquito net, bottled water, etc. all must be given their due. 

But in the gondola, sitting across from her physicist, there was no seatbelt, no handle, no net, no visible fail-safe measure of any kind.  If the winds, which were kicking up some great ghostly plumes, managed to tip the gondola off its cable, there was nowhere to go but down.  Nothing to catch Catbird and her physicist, who sat opposite one another as the cables stretched not only higher on the mountain, but also higher above the trees.

And with that realization came a clarity of thought that rang true for the whole of life: we have nothing to hold onto but each other.  So Catbird, unbalancing the distribution of weight and rocking the gondola like a Ferris Wheel, stood up and moved to sit where she could hold her physicist close.  

The view was great, and it turns out holding onto each other is a pretty good way to experience life, even when you don't fall.

The Town of Banff and the Banff Ctr Way Below

Looking West from Sulphur Mountain

THE GIFTIE GIE US

Many of you know Catbird's Little Sister is getting married this month, in Jamaica. As a friend posted under a Facebook photo that included Little Sister, "Jesus, girl, don't you have any ugly friends?"  Yes, Little Sister is a beauty.  Little Sister is also 16 years younger than Catbird, and maybe because of that age difference, Catbird has never felt sibling rivalry with Little Sister, just pleasure in her company and happiness for good things that come her way.


But this wedding does prompt Catbird to stand up straight and try to do the best she can with what she's got.  Older sisters MJ, and WildbyNature will be at the wedding, too.   Now Catbird has more in common with WBN, but MJ is the sister closest in age and the one Catbird spent her childhood out-weighing and being (at least internally) unfavorably compared to.  We've made peace with that (50+ years will give you the opportunity, if you take it), but still, Catbird wants to look good for this wedding.

Which will take place on a beach.  

The 16-month engagement (AKA the what to wear phase) filled the Yahoo in-boxes of MJ and WBN with what do you think of this emails.  Little Sister picked a dress almost immediately, but MJ, WBN and Catbird were more challenged.  A group shopping expedition of all four sisters (interesting to accomplish since Catbird lives 1000 miles from the others) finally yielded Catbird at least one good dress possibility, along with a lot of laughs and renewed joy in the loving bond of these fine women.
 
On her own, Catbird has garnered for this wedding a sun hat, a special pair of bifocal sunglasses (if she could just find them), a non-orthopedic pair of sandals, and that wonder of engineering: a maximum support strapless bra.  But still no appropriate bathing suit.  Catbird has spent enough on shipping and returning charges to purchase three or four expensive swimsuits.  If only she could find one.

We've also spent the year working on hair and make-up options: perms, short, medium and bobbed, brushed back, layered, with and without wispy bangs. New  bottles of Clinique, Peter Thomas Roth, and Clarins of Paris crowd her gift-with-purchase make up bag, and--like an acolyte--Catbird has tried every eye-shadow and lipstick color recommended by What Not to Wear make up guru Carmindy. 

And then, a photograph arrived this week that smacked Catbird in the face and told her to get a grip!  In the photo, she stands next to her grandson, the Amazing Ki-O and his cousin MMac, watching them pour ingredients into the mixing bowl to make cookies.  These two 2-year-olds are beautiful, excited, focused on their task.  And, though Catbird remembers enjoying this adventure, she doesn't look happy in the picture; she just looks O-L-D.

Her hair is gray.  Not sprinkled with gray or threaded with silver; it is fucking gray.  Worse, her face, well, it sags, especially around the neck and the eyes. Her skin is textured.  There are several chins.  Several.  Stacked sloppily, one on the other. 

All Catbird's vanity, slapped silly by a photograph, brought to mind this infamous snatch of poem by Robert Burns:

from To A Louse

O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
An' foolish notion:
What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us,
An' ev'n devotion! 

...sigh.  As Lyle Lovett says in his song Good Intentions, "[life] is a process of learning to excess all of those things that you already know."  Catbird is learning to excess a profound aha moment she experienced when she first fell for her physicist: movies use beautiful people for love interests to show you on the outside what love makes you feel on the inside.   

Not to be an after-school special about it, but it really is what's on the inside the counts.  And under all that wedding-prep vanity is an abiding love for Little Sister and a desire give her the best we can. (And okay, yeah, it must be confessed: the desire not to be the one in the photos about whom others say "Oh, my God, what happened to her?")

So, Little Sister, while much high fashion is no longer an option for Catbird, she will do the best she can not to embarrass anyone at your wedding.  And even if she does end up in a mamaw bathing-suit and sensible shoes, she hopes Little Sister will remember, time may be a brutal banffwhacker to our outsides, but the love abides.


Still nowhere near free from vanity, Catbird feels compelled to include this picture from trendier times and add:  she did once have beautiful legs.

Catbird, c. 1970

  

SNOW, HOT SPRINGS AND HIGH TEA

We awoke to snow this morning, and a cold and slippery trek through campus to the dining hall.  Oy vey!  We eat on the 4th floor with a grand view to the mountains but today our grand view was of snow and more snow, and not a mountain visible beyond it.  Very dense, but such big gentle flakes it looked like a Hollywood movie set and called to mind Bing Crosby.

View out my window

My physicist had the afternoon free, so we drove up (and we do mean up) to the hot springs and, as the wind ratcheted up, the snow turned more sleet-like, and Catbird was grateful for all her driving experience on winter roads.  

 Parking Lot at the Hot Springs

In the hot springs, we could turn our faces to the sky, but couldn't open our eyes because the snow was so sharp and wind-driven.  It was like getting an ice facial.  Water temperature was 102F; air temperature was about 30.  So sometimes the fog and snow made it impossible to see the other side of the small pool.  Needless to say, one stayed as submerged as possible.

View of the Springs from above

For about a minute after our soak, it looked like it would clear up and we could take the gondola up to the peak of Sulphur Mountain. But when we got back to the car, we had 2+ inches of snow to dust off (after only an hour!) and more coming down, so cooler heads prevailed. 


Coming down the winding, steep road from the springs, Catbird drove very slowly, and pulled over to let two cars pass.   Within minutes, we came upon one of the cars that had just passed us, teetering over a steep embankment with one wheel in the air.  We didn't wish them harm, but did feel vindicated for our caution.  It was really treacherous.


Down from the mountain we decided to warm up with high tea at the beautiful Banff Springs Hotel, built in 1877. We paid six bucks to park at the foot of the hotel and slipped and skidded our way up the as-yet-unscraped sidewalk, full of expectations of cucumber sandwiches and petit fours and prissy service.   Imagine our shock, then, to be told that they had stopped serving tea at 4 p.m. 

I always thought 4 p.m. was the prime hour for tea so I looked it up:  Wikipedia tells us that afternoon tea is served between 3 and 5, and high tea between 4 and 6, so WTF Banff Springs Hotel?

Redrum?

We wandered through the hotel (trying to get our $6 worth of parking) and consoled ourselves with memory of afternoon tea taken at St. James above Fortnum & Mason on our honeymoon.  And, after my physicist checked out the menu from the closed tea-room, we consoled ourselves with the 90 bucks we saved by arriving after 4.

We came back to our room and made tea in the coffee maker; but it wasn't the same.  No petit fours. 

FLASHBACK TO THE MISSION OF SAN IGNATIO

While we were in Iguazu, my physicist and I rented a car and drove 150 km in the dumping rain to the Jesuit Missions of San Ignacio.  Fortunately, it was sunny by the time we arrived and we were able to enjoy the adventure.

If you have not seen The Mission (1984) with Robert DeNiro, Jeremy Irons, Liam Neeson, and Aiden Quinn, please rent it now.  Not only does it have all those young hunky actors, it also stars amazing Iguazu Falls.  It is a beautiful retelling of the Jesuits in South America.

Meanwhile, here is Catbird's condensed (and possibly slightly biased) history lesson: Often when we hear about Christian Missions, my physicist and I feel the need to make immediate acts of contrition (and we aren't even Catholic), but as missions go, this Guarani/Jesuit  village seems to have been more collaboration than exploitation.  We figured two lone Jesuit priests must have been pretty special to get the chiefs on board and to get them to build the church even before they built their own shelters!  Ultimately, over 5,000 Guarani lived here, giving up their river migrations and learning to farm.  In addition to their own plots of land, they also farmed community plots, and built a hospital and a home for orphans and widows.    

Partially Reconstructed Entrance to the Church

By joining together, the Guarani could repel raids from the north set on capturing the Indians to use as plantation slaves. The Jesuits and the Guarani learned each other's music and instruments and knitted them together into some beautiful sounds.  Oh, it was lovely.  But it all ended badly, of course, when Spain and Portugal got pissy about their colonies needing slaves, and the Pope got worried that the Jesuits had waaaaay too much autonomy.  The Jesuits got yanked, the villages raided, and the Guarani were made slaves, killed, or slipped back into river life.  In other words, after a brief period of lovely cooperation, productivity and spiritual growth, fear and greed prevailed.  Again. 

photo from the interpretive center

Restoration/archeological excavation of the Mission at San Ignacio began in the 1940s, then stalled, and has picked up again since becoming a World Heritage Site in 1983.

Indicative of their mutual respect, on the entrance to the church there is a Guarani angel carved on one side and a Jesuit angel carved on the other.

  
Mark Twain once said "I don't know about Christianity--it's never been tried."  I think he must not have known about San Ignacio.  

LAKE LOUISE

LAKE LOUISE

They call her Louise because her eyes
shine blue, ice blue, so choked they are
with granite motes unmoored by life's relentless forces.


They call her Louise because she kneels
without rising, her face flat and open to the powerful
shoulders battling over her passive form.


They call her Louise because her beauty fills the frame,
and in it you can hear the slow crack as ancient bergs
calve glaciers into her waiting arms.


Gazing on her beauty, men whisper the names of their first loves,
women blink against the light, and children hold their breath.
They do not say she is a mirror to their soul; they just call her Louise.


A friend's breathtaking vacation pictures inspired this poem several years ago.  Catbird has dreamed of Lake Louise ever since.  In fact, Lake Louise is one of the main reasons Catbird signed on for this trip.

Imagine Catbird's disappointment, then, to arrive at Lake Louise and find it not only frozen over (which we expected) but also covered with several feet of snow.  No beautiful blue.  No reflection of the soul.  No mirror for the mountains.  Just white and more white.

Lake Louise

To further crumble romantic notions, we discovered that--instead of the beautiful mysterious woman Catbird had imagined as the genesis of the lake's name--Louise was the fourth daughter of Queen Victoria.  Originally, the indigenous people called it Lake of Small Fishes, then the first Europeans renamed it Emerald Lake, both for obvious reasons.  And somewhere along the line, in a politically expedient move it became Lake Louise. 

Now if Catbird had been thinking with her head, instead of dreaming and imagining, she'd have realized LL would be snow-covered.  She'd have figured the name Louise was a political appointment.  She isn't sorry for the dreams and romantic notions that brought her this far, and she still holds the notion of that glorious blue reflection, even if she didn't get to see it.  But Catbird did have to set those aside in order to enjoy the reality of Lake Louise today, which included some lovely hiking and the powerful crash of an avalanche. Metaphor for life, anyone?

Trail above Lake Louise, toward Mirror Lake

 

ALBERTA

In the drive from Galgary to Banff, in our very comfortable Nissan Sentra from Enterprise, my physicist and I began to wonder: what is the difference between a prairie and the plains?  Were we in prairie-land or plains? 

Just outside Calgary, where ugly gray box houses stacked ad nauseum against other ugly gray box houses, we noticed a complete absence of trees. We were relieved when a stand of firs, obviously planted as a weather break, signaled the end of the colorless developments, and gave way to miles of soft rippling grasses.  

No trees on this grassland, either, just a patchwork stitch of old fencing and the very occasional crumbling shack left from some earlier generation of sheep farmer.  No sheep, though, and no goats.  No wheat fields, orchards or rows of corn.  Very few head of cattle, and once, a handful of horses.  We did spy several ponds with Arctic swans, though.

There was something comforting to Catbird to see so many miles of earth at leisure.  My physicist, though, had his eye on the distant Rocky Mountains, our destination, as they emerged from a vague smudge on the far horizon.

Downtown Banff

The town of Banff sits right up against the mountains, and Banff Centre, home of Banff International Research Station--our host for the week--is just a mile or so straight up from town in the foothills.  The Centre is very university-like, compact and geared for pedestrians.  Our room is somewhere between a dorm and a small hotel; we share a bathroom with a (fortunately non-existent) suite-mate, have a queen sized bed and daily housekeeping services.

View of Banff Centre, looking West (the town of Banff is between the Centre and the far mountains)

Most striking to Catbird, in this very hilly knot of buildings there is NO accommodation to physical disability.  Our room is on the 3rd floor and we had to lug our bags up.  Likewise the conference room and break area for this conference are all available by stairway only.  There is an elevator to the dining room on the 4th floor of the Sally Borden building, but the steps leading up to the entrance assure no one in a wheelchair will get that far.  Apparently, this is no country for physical disability.

The interior of a couple of the buildings is striking, but the exteriors all run to the blah side of things.  That is perhaps the only architectural continuity among the buildings--their drabness.  Catbird doesn't think every building on campus requires a red tile roof, but it would be nice if there was some color here or there, or if the tightly packed structures at least complimented one another in some way.  Perhaps when one has the backdrop of the Rocky Mountains, the exterior of your building requires no more aesthetic than to try not to block the view.

We are still studying the classifications of plains and prairies and finding that both of these, plus steppes, savanna, pampas are all described in much the same way.  Grassy flatlands, whose terminology largely depends on the continent.  In our studies we found that Alberta is one of the Canadian "prairie provinces," so we're going with that.

SPRING

Spring comes in different ways, depending on where you live.  In Indiana, spring brings crocuses, rain and mud, violets, and, by Memorial Day, big fat peonies to pick and put in mason jars to take to the cemetery.  In one of her lovely poems, Helen May refers to 'that shirt-sleeved dalliance with spring.'  Hoosiers know there are still some cold snaps due, but, like sunflowers, they tip their heads up to welcome and worship the yellow sun.

In Austin, spring comes fast and hot, with bluebonnets, Indian paintbrush, Indian blanket, and the realization that the irrigation system--and possibly the air conditioner, too--need some serious maintenance, right away. The season for planting tomatoes is almost gone before it gets here, and we relish in the glory of open windows and delicious bike rides and lunch outdoors.

Snow melting off the Bow River near Johnston Canyon, Banff, Alberta, Canada

Here in Banff, though, spring doesn't even seem to be on the same weather continuum.  Today Catbird drove to Johnston Canyon to hike to the falls, but found the 3"-4" of ice on the trail too much for her otherwise quite useful hiking boots.  Even the walking stick could find not purchase.

Folks who were able to continue all had crampons on their shoes.  Catbird thought a toboggan or hockey skates might have worked.  But, since she had none of the above,  in another annoying accommodation to good sense and age, Catbird turned back.

BANFF

Sitting on the floor at the Dallas airport, waiting for a new plane, Catbird called T-Mobile to find out just how onerous the roaming charges would be in Banff. But somewhere between the automated phone tree, hold, and the live voice, Catbird got the giggles.

Banff is such a funny word and so very fun to say.  It sounds like a curse word and has enormous versatility.

Oh, why don't you just go Banff yourself!
Eat Banff!  
Banff off.

Even my physicist got tickled with Banff up a rope.  We are not sure the T-Mobile customer service representative was as enamored as we were, but Banff him.

This morning, we awoke to an outdoor temperature of 17 degrees (with a windchill of 9) and all Catbird could say to that was:
Holy Banff, what were we thinking? 

Emergency

Once again, we turn to Dictionary.com to help us clarify terminology. This time the word is emergency.

–noun

1. a sudden, urgent, usually unexpected occurrence or occasion requiring immediate action.

2. a state, esp. of need for help or relief, created by some unexpected event: a weather emergency; a financial emergency.

–adjective

3. granted, used, or for use in an emergency: an emergency leave; emergency lights. 
 

So when the airline attendant says it was incorrect to say we had an emergency landing, Catbird, with dictionary.com as her supporting evidence, most respectfully disagrees.

Twenty minutes into our flight from Dallas to Calgary, American Airlines Flight 687 made a sudden lurch, experienced by Catbird as when one brakes the car unexpectedly for an errant pedestrian.  Then the engines (and Catbird knows because seat 32A placed her directly next to one of the engines) began to heave like a 1972 Buick LaSabre with its wheels caught in the mud.  My physicist and I looked at one another and shrugged; he mouthed "no problem" but Catbird shook her head.

In no time the airline attendants were rushing up the aisles with urgent instructions to shut down electronic devices and bring our seat backs and tray tables to the upright and locked positions.  The pilot (in most sonorous and reassuring tones) informed us that we would be returning immediately to Houston for an air pressure problem, and please don't be alarmed by the emergency vehicles that would meet us.  

From the back of the plane, my physicist and I couldn't see much, and could hear even less over the jet roar, so we just rode it out.  My physicist, ever the cool chap under pressure, unwrapped and ate his Mediterranean Veggie Wrap. 

Ten minutes later, we landed with a quiet thump--and genuine applause--but we were a long time on the tarmac as the plane had to be checked out before being allowed near the terminals. Meanwhile, the seatbelt sign went off and folks flocked to the bathrooms.   Almost immediately the toilets quit flushing. We couldn't avoid knowing this as row 32 was strategically placed at the intersection of the jet engines and the head (not where Catbird likes to sit). Not to be crude, but apparently that landing scared the crap out of a lot of folks.

...so later in the day, when we got restless and itchy waiting for a new plane, grumbling and worrying about the delay, we just reminded ourselves how good it was to be on terra firma, breathing moderately fresh air and how grateful we should always be for landing, once again, wheel-side down.

IGUAZU

In the Guarani language, Iguazu means big water.  We can attest.  I don't know about my physicist, but Catbird has never been more thoroughly wet outside of a shower or a swimming pool.  Between the rain in the morning, the spray from the falls and the crazy boat-ride at the end of the day, it took three days of Texas sunshine to dry out Catbird's "waterproof" shoes.

 Here we are at the beginning of the day, at Garganta del Diablo,  the mouth of the devil.  This is the most powerful set of falls, as seen at the top left of the map.

There are almost 300 different falls and the train and catwalks take you out through dozens of different views and it is all beautiful.   For the history and dimensions, interested readers can go do http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iguazu_Falls.  Catbird doesn't have many pithy words of her own to add to this account, so will just post more pictures instead.