A Delightful Weekend – and Good News About Good People

This weekend was yet another pretty great weekend filled with a really delightful mixture of alone time, time with family and social time (online) with friends. Not only that, it’s becoming noticeably warmer. I even went out without a coat on Saturday!

As many of my readers know, I’ve been studying Hindi for years now. How I started is a long story that started over a decade ago that I told on my old blog but I’ll tell here one day also. The short story is I’d been interested in visiting India for years, starting with food, visiting through travel books and videos, and onwards to film. When I rediscovered cycling and then long distance cycling I dreamed of traveling by cycle in India and having cycled some in Quebec when my French was better, I knew that knowing a local language could increase the enjoyment of the visit for me and those I met so I decided to learn Hindi before I went. What I didn’t take into account was how difficult it would be and how long it would take. This was no “learn a bit of Spanish before going to Mexico for a week” undertaking. This was serious. It was over a year before I could really put a sentence together. On my first trip to India (no bike) in 2016 with several years of classes under my belt, I still struggled, often having to figure out what to say well in advance and rehearsing silently in my mind before going to a restaurant or talking to an auto driver. But in 2018 I ramped up my effort and since then have been aiming for five hours of class per week with my teacher who lives in India. This works best for us weekend mornings (Canada time) so my weekend mornings are spent learning more Hindi. I’m reasonably good now, can read and write and speak without deciding in advance what I’ll say and even dreaming sometimes in Hindi. I realize now that based on this schedule, I spend about 20% of my weekend speaking or listening to Hindi. It’s not the kind of immersion I’d get if I could live in Delhi for a year but it’s certainly improved my speaking a lot over the years.

Saturday morning was also our once monthly book club. I started this early in the pandemic with a few people I knew online in Canada, the US, Europe, and India. The model is simple and similar to the silent book club I’d visited just a few months prior: chat a bit and go around the room talking about the books we’re reading. Even after the pandemic it hasn’t stopped and now we’ve been going for five years. The chatting goes beyond books now touching on everything from film to food to politics to our day to day life. In our lives we have various anchor points that ground us in whatever is happening around us whether it’s a global pandemic or a rash of ridiculous geopolitical nonsense. Through all that we’re there talking a little about that but also about the things we love. And so that is a lovely way to start a Saturday.

Then it was time for a quick lunch and I was out the door to the bike shop. I had an idea of what I was looking for and felt a little guilty for it as it’s the nicest bicycle I’ve ever ridden. For the cyclists, it’s a Specialized Roubaix SL8 Sport 105. I took it for a ride around the block and it was amazingly comfortable and quick which is what I’ve been looking for. It’s design is focused less on speed through being light and aerodynamic (though it is lots more of those things than my other bike) and more through making sure the rider is comfortable. As I mentioned earlier, my goal going forward is to have as many cycling adventures as possible and not to wait for those adventures to be of “dream trip” status. That may or may not happen. But if I can cover 200-300 km in a day I can sure have lots of interesting experiences and see lots of things here. However, if I do have the opportunity to do long ultra events in exotic places (like Goa to Ooty and back) I’ve got a good ride to do it on.

I don’t have it yet as they have a few things to do to get it ready to go. But I did grab a quick snap while I was out on my test ride. It is an amazing coincidence that it’s my favourite colour. As someone whose bikes have been black and grey since restarting cycling as an adult it is fun to have something so bold.

So on Tuesday I’ll have it with hopefully aero bars and clipless pedals ready to go for a nice 20-30 km ride home and then a 200+ km ride on Saturday. I’m a little nervous about that but worst case it’ll be difficult type 2 fun.

Sage and I met up afterward for a bit of shopping and then it was back to the house where Sage made dinner and I posted a quick entry.

Today was equally fun. Again I started with 2.5 hours of Hindi class and then some time as a family watching reels and shorts we shared with each other before it was time for another tradition that started during the pandemic: Silly Games. Imagine a low key panel show among friends on Zoom. During the two hour session we play various games, some improv games, others from radio like Just a Minute or even board games. If it translates to Zoom, we play it. It is nominally competitive though none of us really cares who wins or loses. We spend the time playing games, laughing and joking.

This time, six of us played scattergories to start and then after that a ridiculous game one of our families does that they call simply “the game”. The person running the game gives one player a number between one and ten. Then the others get to ask one question of the person, suggesting a category. The players then each name a category and the person with the number returns an answer based on their rating of that. So, for example, if my number was 8, someone might ask “Thai Dishes” and I would answer “Pad See Ew (drunken noodles)”. It’s not my favourite (that’s basil chicken – gai pad gra pow) but it’s up there. Then someone else might ask “Movies” and I would give the answer “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” – again, not my 100% favourite but definitely a good watch. Then in the end, everyone tries to guess my number. Correct guessers get a point. Everyone gets a chance to answer and ask questions. It’s a fun game and also an interesting way to learn things about friends – or even your partner. I thought I completely understood Sage but when I asked her “Items on a Japanese Restaurant Menu” she answered “Teriyaki Chicken” which actually sounds reasonably good to me so I thought 6. It was 3. Not because she disliked it but because there were so many good sushi options that she’d choose before that.

That tradition, too, is almost 5 years old as well. It’s interesting to see that traditions we started during the pandemic have continued. I wonder if others have traditions of their own started during the pandemic that have continued to this day.

And of course I’ve been looking at good news and wow does my cup runneth over for good stories. Here are a few though my backlog is huge!

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When I was a kid, I ate so many peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I still do! In fact I literally just ate one. I would bring them to school sometimes for lunch and there was never an issue. but then somewhere along the line that changed. People started having extremely serious allergic reactions just from being around it. I heard one story of a young woman kissing her boyfriend who had just eaten some nuts actually dying from the experience. A colleague’s sister also had a similar allergy and could feel her throat closing when someone near her had nuts on their breath from eating earlier in the day.

So it’s exciting to see that research is showing that people can be desensitized from these serious allergies even as adults.

It turns out that why I don’t remember my classmates having issues but younger people do remember this is a change in guidelines. When I was a kid, it was the 70s. There weren’t a whole lot of guidelines for how to take care of your kids and it didn’t matter if there were, parents did what they did. I mean really, I’m sure I’m not the only one who remembers riding in the car with two parents smoking and all the windows up. (“No, I won’t open the window! It’s COLD out there!”)

But later on guidelines started to be followed that said peanuts should not be introduced to babies so early. So it appears that the result was that when some kids eventually did try peanuts, their bodies were like “Wait, what is this horribly dangerous thing!!!” and had a huge allergic reaction. So the guidelines have been changed and as a result, peanut allergies have begun to drop again.

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I am a huge advocate for libraries and literacy. Books have literally changed my life. Had I not loved books so much and learned to read so early and well (thanks, Mom!) I wouldn’t have done so well in school, wouldn’t have learned about computers, wouldn’t have gone to university, learned about biology, biotech which found my career and the job that had me work nights that led to me being on a chat system late at night in September 1991 where I met Sage with whom, among many other things, I share a love of books, literature, and knowledge. Literally every good thing in my life can be traced back to loving books. So any time I see libraries promoted, books and literacy front and centre and people making this stuff happen for more people – especially making access to books easier, I’m giving a standing ovation.

So check this out. In India, community libraries are popping up in places like vegetable markets where lots of people routinely go are. Not only that, unlike most libraries in India, these libraries often do not charge a membership fee. (This was surprise to me when I started visiting libraries in India. All my life I’d taken for granted free libraries whose only requirement for entry was being a civil human and only requirement for taking books out was living nearby. Some libraries I could only visit but not actually touch the books and one library in Mumbai I wasn’t even allowed beyond the library because I wasn’t a member.

On a similar note, I’ve known about Share a Book India for some time and shared it a while back on social media. They also make books accessible to children throughout India through school and community libraries. While I wasn’t able to donate due to its being tricky to find payment processors to do the work. I was able to contact them and they shared an Amazon wishlist with me that I was able to use to buy a number of books for them. So if you’re interested in helping but live outside India, that’s a good option.

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While most of us may not have lots of money to donate, some of us have skills to use for raising money. This teacher organizes an annual run to raise funds for her students to go to university. Each year she adds a new twist, often longer and more difficult including things like a run for 24 hours straight on an indoor track or a 105 mile ultramarathon. You can see all of her different efforts listed on the GoFundme page for the project.

Two other educators, Grace Miller and Kate Livesay are cycling 300 miles across Vermont with 30,000 feet of climbing (Ouch!) to raise money first for classroom materials (teachers in the US fund lots of their materials out of pocket) and then after that to fight Tennessee State Senate bill SB0836—a bill that would ban undocumented children from accessing public school. Whatever your feelings about immigration, children should not be brought into this fight in which they have no choice. This is especially true for education which as I said above, can completely determine one’s path in life.

You can find and support them at Pedals for Pencils, which also includes social media links to follow their journey.