My little burrow

If I have a blog, I suppose I should update it occasionally

2008-08-02T00:31:00.000-04:00

Honest, I keep meaning to update this thing, and never get around to it. What is it that they say about good intentions? Something about a really nifty interstate highway, isn’t it?

So, where should I start? Probably with my niece and nephew. Before they went away to summer camp I took them to the Toronto Island. But I mentioned that in my last post. So I will skip ahead to my mother taking all of us (my brother, my niece and nephew, myself) to Stratford to see The Music Man. Great production by the way and highly recommended to anyone who can get to see it.

It was nice to see that they dressed up for the theatre. I’m sufficiently old fashioned that I expect people to not show up in cut-off jeans and t-shirts with big logos when going to a play. And in going to a Sunday matinée there were a number of young (age 8 or thereabouts) girls in big princess dresses. So cute. It beats some of the other people I’ve seen recently.

Down at the Shaw Festival this year I have seen Getting Married, A Little Night Music, and Wonderful Town. At Stratford, in addition to The Music Man I have seen Hamlet, The Taming of the Shrew and Cabaret. At Soulpepper I watched The Odd Couple, As You Like It, Uncle Vanya and The Way of the World. And Tuesday I got out to the local touring performance of Avenue Q. Some of these productions were much better than others.

If you are offered a chance to see Shrew at Stratford this year, turn it down. I will never again see a play by that director (although the author seemed to be an OK dude). But the best sight was at Avenue Q where I sat behind a small family of a (white) father (about 6’4”), a(n Asian-North American) mother (about 4’6”) and their young (but legal age) son (who was really hot in a Dean Cain / David Usher kind of way). It was hard to hear the song “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist” over the howls of laughter from the family in front of me. Still, a great show.

D'oh, ray, meme

2008-06-27T22:49:00.003-04:00

Because I got tagged by Knatolee...

What was I doing 10 years ago?

I was stuck in a job I didn't like, thinking about getting more education to improve my odds of finding something I would much prefer and that would be better suited to my abilities. My how times have changed.

Five snacks I enjoy:

(1) Chudleigh’s Apple Blossoms
(2) Applebee’s Onion Peels (with the old horseradish dipping sauce)
(3) Hostess Hickory Sticks
(4) Butter Tarts
(5) Nobody’s looking, right? Poutine. Not that any of the above are any better.

Five Things on My To-Do list today:

(1) All alone beweep my outcast state
(2) Trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries
(3) Curse my fate
(4) Think on thee
(5) Scorn to change my state with kings

Five Things I would do if I were a billionaire:

(1) Travel. I would like to get to Australia and New Zealand. And continental Europe. And much of Canada and the States. After that, since I would have so much money, the rest of the world. I’ve heard good things about Sri Lanka…
(2) Try to find an investment broker who isn’t too interested in absconding with ill-gotten gains.
(3) I would probably move. I like my place, but I could do better, if money were no object. Although I would likely stay in the city.
(4) See a few more plays than I normally do.
(5) First thing on the list, really. But it’s too personal, so I’m not going to tell you. But I do know what it is.

Five jobs I have had:

(1) Sitter on babies
(2) Chemistry laboratory assistant
(3) Waiter / Bartender
(4) Banquet manager
(5) Computer consultant

Five of my bad habits:

(1) I take every fun meme I see
(2) I’m probably far to paranoid and guarded for my own good
(3) Complacency
(4) I can be side-tracked into bad prioritizing, if it means that I’ll have more fun
(5) Excluding my relatives from my life

Five places I have lived:

(1) The Borough of North York
(2) The City of North York
(3) The City of Metropolitan Toronto
(4) The City of Toronto
(5) Wasaga Beach

Five people I would like to get to know better (yes, this means you are tagged!):

(1) I don’t tag people. If you want to fill out this questionnaire, tag yourself.

Five Random Things:

(1) Yesterday morning, a couple on their way to the hospital to deliver their fifth child into the world had to stop on the side of the highway because the baby wouldn’t wait. I didn’t notice until the ambulance arrived. Did I mention that this occurred right under my window?
(2) A little more than a month ago I watched flames envelop a house a few blocks from me, not realizing at the time that I was witnessing the covering up of a double-murder and suicide.
(3) When Heinz chose “57 varieties” as its slogan, it already had more than 60.
(4) The international telephone dialing code for Antarctica is ‘672’.
(5) George W. Bush is the first U.S. president to declare himself exempt from over 750 U.S. laws, sidestepping most of the Bill of Rights including the constitutional requirement that the president follow all laws. Yes, they mentioned it specifically to suppress tyranny. (I guess some of these aren’t truly random.)

One good tern deserves another

2008-06-20T22:26:00.001-04:00

Today, I took my niece and nephew to the Toronto Islands. We saw many interesting things – Mourning Cloak, Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, Giant Swallowtail, Monarch, Spring Azure, one of the Ladies (probably American, but I didn’t get a good enough look to rule out Painted) and a couple of other butterflies that were to distant to see.

There were several Blue-gray Gnatcatchers calling from the treetops, Yellow and Common Yellowthroat warblers in the wetter sections, and a beautiful male Baltimore Oriole at lunchtime joined us on the grass. A Brown Thrasher repeated its series of repeated calls from a wide open tree top. Crossing on the ferry we could see Common Tern and a few Canvasback Ducks on the Inner Harbour.

There is a new section of the park showcasing the colonisation of early succession species on the newly developing dune. Of course, these things meant absolutely nothing to the kids – they could not have cared less. They told me of their trip to the Grand Canyon where others were astounded to see three California Condors but they were unimpressed. Why did I bother? No, honestly, that’s a question. Why did I bother? Nonetheless, they seemed to enjoy their day.

The terns were far less common than they were even a decade ago. I remember one day about ten years ago when I was biking on the Leslie St. Spit. I was coming back along the eastern side of the loop and must have got too close to the tern colony (even though I was staying on the road). One of the terns which had taken to the air took exception to my presence and continued to harass me. It circled overhead and took a few dives at my head, rapping me soundly with its bill on at least one pass. Good thing I wear a helmet.

Human recreation frequently focuses on shorelines, and our population is increasing. This means that more terns (which are ground nesters) lose their nesting sites or abandon their nests before the chicks can fend for themselves. And it doesn’t help that terns are still hunted (illegally) in South America where they winter. But the Common Tern has come back from near-extinction before. Plume hunters went after egrets and terns to adorn ladies’ hats towards the end of the 19^th century. This hunting is what prompted the original foundation of the Audubon Society. And terns made a comeback. But in the last 40 years, their populations have once again dropped. This time by 71%.

At loggerheads with habitat destruction

2008-06-07T21:40:00.001-04:00

Each summer I take a trip up to the Carden Alvar. I’m sure that I’ve spoken of it before. There are a few unique birds that can be found easily in that area and while not quite nowhere else, at least very few other local places. One such bird is the Loggerhead Shrike.

Shrikes are fun little birds. They are one of the few predatory songbirds. They like to kill small birds and rodents and then pin their corpses onto the thorns of certain trees to act as a larder. They are also a threatened species in Canada (threatened in the west and endangered in the east). There are two regular breeding areas for them in Ontario: the Carden Alvar and the Napanee Plain. And the last I heard, the Ontario population numbered about one hundred.

And once again, habitat destruction is playing a major role in its decline. Is this sounding like a familiar theme yet? And in the past forty years their numbers have declined by 71%. Yup, we’ve finally hit the seventies. Seven more species to go.

Off in left field

2008-05-25T14:12:00.001-04:00

Last weekend was the May Two Four weekend. Yes, I know that May 24 is part of this weekend, but trust me, last weekend was the celebration of Queen Victoria’s birth. Not that anybody celebrates Queen Victoria anymore.

I went down to Point Pelee for the birding. It wasn’t as spectacular as the previous weekends (I had seen Mississippi Kite and Black Vulture as well as being one day off for seeing the Lark Bunting that showed up) but it was still a good day (It ended with a pair of Laughing Gulls). I managed to see more than 20 species of warbler (good years I’m over 25 and I had one year with 30).

This was also a good year for sparrows, my having seen Clay-colored, White-crowned, White-thoated, Field, Swamp, Song, Lincoln’s, Fox, Sanannah, and hundreds of Chipping (not counting the Juncos and Towhees (which may or may not be sparrows)). You will notice (as if you care) that I mentioned Field Sparrow in that list. I didn’t see very many of them this year, but I’m still seeing them.

Field sparrows are losing their prime breeding habitat. They like early succession grasslands, which implies they colonize in the years after a fire or other major disturbance. Management of fires is a major factor in their declining numbers. And while they also like agricultural fields, their nests tend to get ploughed before the nestlings have fully fledged. It’s unlikely that this species will be threatened with extinction, but its numbers are still declining. In fact, their numbers have dropped by 68% in the past forty years.

But do they make a good pie?

2008-04-14T21:51:00.001-04:00

Every summer I drive up to the Carden Alvar. Or, I have done since I’ve had my own car. The alvar is a wonderful little section of Ontario, filled with species that you don’t find elsewhere. And I like going there to see the birds that I don’t see anywhere else in the province. One of which is the Grasshopper Sparrow.

Small and cryptic birds never get seen unless they like to sing. Fortunately, the Grasshopper Sparrow has a unique call, and there is one particular field I know that they always nest in. But other than that one place, I just never see the little suckers.

Most of the sparrows breed in the Canadian Prairies and the American Great Plain (which explains why it would also be found in the alvar, which tends to imitate grasslands. However, increasing agricultural pressures are reducing the numbers of Grasshopper Sparrow. Fields get ploughed before the end of the breeding season; both too frequent burning and over-grazing reduce the necessary cover. Which means that in the past 40 years, these little sparrows have declined by 65%.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

2008-04-10T21:46:00.000-04:00

Two weeks ago the curbs were thick with crusted snow and the front yards of houses were deep in snow. Then, over the next few days, things started to melt. Grass was seen at the base of trees and on the slopes of south facing hills. Well, not green grass, of course. No, the brown of winter-kill grass. But at least it wasn’t snow.

Then, during the last week, with temperatures in the teens and occasional rain, the snow disappeared. I can look out my window and the only spots of white that I see is a bubble over a set of tennis courts. And as the snow melted away, so did the Snow Buntings. Well, I hope they didn’t melt too, but they have been making their way back to their breeding grounds in the high arctic. Actually, the males should be setting up territories by now, even though they are living through -30° weather and can barely find grass among the snow.

But they have adapted to wide open areas in the cold latitudes. One of the problems with global warming is that it does not occur evenly across the globe but tends to be much more noticeable towards the poles. The breeding grounds of Snow Buntings is being overgrown by woodier plants (scrub willows and the like) and the slightly warmer weather allows more species to thrive… including more predators. Which means that in my lifetime the numbers of Snow Buntings, which I used to see every winter and now only occasionally see, have dropped by 64%.

Bringing a lump to your throat

2008-03-31T23:02:00.001-04:00

I should probably have merged this post with the one on Lark Sparrows as the only time I’ve seen a Black-throated Sparrow was on that same trip to Arizona. At least every other bird in this “top twenty” list can be seen in Ontario. (Although, wait a few more years and the “number one” should be extirpated by then.)

On that same day that I arrived at the Sonoita Creek Preserve, instead of driving back to my hotel I instead wandered up into the mountains (following a trail… I don’t exactly wander through snake-infested strange lands). Following the ridges and avoiding the rockfalls, I had just seen the only Roadrunner I have ever seen (other than that purple and grey one that goes “beep, beep”). Then, cresting the next hill there was a scrubby little bush with three or four sparrows hiding in it. At least one was a Versper’s sparrow, and two were Black-throated.

Two days later, at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, I saw many more. And those are the only two times I have seen the cute little guys. So why is their breeding habitat disappearing? Well, it seems that the ideal conditions for them are created after an area is frequently swept by (relatively) cool fire. And with fires being managed nowadays, what fires do come through tend to be less frequent but more intense. This is perfect for Cheatgrass to grow, which is an invasive species throughout much of the sparrows range. I’m not really sure what causes the temperature difference, unless it is because when there is a fire, there is more fuel to burn. If only I knew a specialist in burnination…

At any rate, since I’ve been alive the numbers of Black-throated Sparrow has decreased by 63%.

Good for a lark (part 2)

2008-03-24T22:27:00.001-04:00

On my long road trip to Arizona, my first full day in the State was spent at the Sonoita Creek Preserve near Patagonia. After half a day of tromping the trails I returned to the parking lot and saw a few more birds I had never before seen - there were Say’s Phoebe and Green-tailed Towhee flitting about. And a large group of sparrows were picking through the gravel. Lark sparrows are very rare in the east (there are breeding records for Ontario, but not in successive years), but far more common on the Great Plains and into the Rockies.

But that wasn’t my first viewing of a Lark sparrow. Five or six years ago at Point Pelee in May I wandered into the Visitor Centre to hear about the rarities that I had missed. And, apparently, there was a Lark sparrow on the West Beach not 50 meters away. My impression of finding the bird was not its brightly coloured red and black head but rather the semi-circle of huge telephoto and telescope lenses that ringed one poor little bird, huddling miserably and lonely in a scraggly bush at the edge of the beach.

I don’t think there is any one reason for a decline in numbers of Lark sparrows. Sure, agricultural intensification and suburbanization play their parts as does the rate of fire (either too frequent or insufficiently frequent is not good for their numbers). Certain invasive plant species are not conducive to the sparrows’ preferred breeding habitat. And pesticide control of grasshoppers isn’t helping. Overall the population has dropped by 63% in my lifetime, but they still are measured at more than 7 million.

Snap, grackle and pop

2008-03-20T23:25:00.001-04:00

Spring migration has started. Well, it starts about mid-February with the Eastern Bluebirds, followed by some of the ducks and hawks. And just a few days ago (before that last snow storm that dumped two feet of snow on us, the Red-winged Blackbirds and Common Grackles started to appear.

Which brings me to the next bird in decline. The Common Grackle. A medium sized blackbird (OK, it’s not a European thrush, so it isn’t a real blackbird, but it is what we call them. Because I’m not going to be proper and call them icterids.) It is not a rare bird; there are estimated to be about 73 million of them. But 40 years ago there were 190 million, so it has declined by 61%.

I would recount the story of my first seeing one, or my last seeing one but… well… they’re grackles. I see them in large numbers every year. They’re already back for this season. But why are their numbers dropping? Well, after the breeding season they roost communally and they will eat grain and other agricultural products, so they are seen as pests. But even with blackbird extermination programs, they will be with us for quite some time.

But I'm not bittern

2008-03-13T16:03:00.001-04:00

Bitterns are one of those elusive marsh birds that you rarely see unless they are flying and the American Bittern is no exception. There is a large (and accessible) marsh at Point Pelee in which bitterns nest and can occasionally be seen. But far more fun than watching them is listening to them.

The American bittern is one of the birds out there with hundreds of common names: stake driver, belcher squelcher, thunder pumper. In the evenings, if you are lucky, you can hear the bitterns calling to one another, or more precisely, booming. There really are no words to describe the sound of an American bittern – you’ll just have to hear it for yourself. Listen. Unfortunately, the recording doesn’t do justice to the volume. The booming of the bitterns can carry for miles over a nice open swamp.

I remember the first time I ever heard bitterns booming. It was the summer after grade 12 and my parents and I had gone to the annual Canadian Nature Federation (now Nature Canada) meeting in Sackville, New Brunswick. Before coming home, we spent a couple days on Prince Edward Island. One evening, after having viewed the wind farms at the north-western tip of the island, we stopped for dinner at a quaintly rustic (read: tourist trap) restaurant in a small Acadian village beside an extensive marshland. Over the course of dinner it sounded like the kitchen hands were going out to use an old fashioned hand pump to get their water. I never would have guessed that the sound I was listening to was made by a bird.

And now, with marshes being drained and purple loosestrife invading more, the large marshes which are needed to support bitterns are becoming harder to find. It also doesn’t help that most of a bittern’s food is frogs which themselves are becoming harder to find. The net result of course is that in the last four decades, the population of American bittern has dropped by 59%.

It must have forgotten the words

2008-03-12T00:32:00.000-04:00

The Rufous Hummingbird lives in the Rockies and places west. There are records of the bird showing up in Ontario (I remember there was one two years ago, coming to a feeder in Niagara Falls in November). But I have certainly never seen on in the province.

My last two trips to Vancouver were in February and April, which is far too early for the return of hummingbirds that far north (although they do start coming back to Arizona by February). Unfortunately, my trip to Arizona was in January, and while I did manage to see a pair of very early Costa’s Hummingbirds, that was it for the western ones.

However, I did manage to see a few rufous hummingbirds in my earlier trips to the west coast. Back in 1986 my family was up in one of the mountains north of Vancouver (I can’t recall which one, but I suspect that we were up in the Cypress Bowl). I had been looking down and just discovered a Sundew (no idea which species; it’s a rather large genus) when a Black Swift went whizzing by overhead. Now, as the name would imply, swifts are rather, well, swift. But this poor blighter must have really annoyed a hummingbird because, as fast as the swift was flying, the hummingbird was all over it. Outpacing the swift – pecking at it from above, below and from the sides – effortlessly getting around to whatever presented an opportunity for attack.

Fortunately, we were with a naturalist who could tell us that it was a Rufous. All I saw was a blur of speed (well, I could tell it was a hummingbird, but they are a lot easier to identify east of the Mississippi where there is only one species to choose from), but apparently there was a known nest nearby, and given the elevation we were at it was the only choice.

And that was the last one I saw. While they can be found throughout much of northern Mexico in winter, the majority of them like the nice forests that in recent years have seen much too much logging. The result being that in my lifetime the numbers of Rufous Hummingbird have dropped by 58%.

Whip it good

2008-03-09T21:30:00.000-04:00

I remember my childhood, growing up in a wooded ravine in the city of Toronto. OK, so I grew up in the Borough of North York, spent my adolescence in the City of North York and now live in the City of Toronto. But I’m still within the same municipal boundaries. It’s not the pictures that got small… no, wait. That’s Norma Desmond.

At any rate, August was a great time for having the windows open at night and listening to the various birds on the hill - the distinctive whinny of the Screech Owl and the insistent repetitions of the Whip-poor-will. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a Whip-poor-will, though. I’ve seen two Chuck-will’s-widows before. And I’ve certainly heard Whip-poor-wills, and have heard one calling shortly before a nighthawk briefly flew overhead. I suppose it mightn’t have been a nighthawk at all (it was rather dark, with the only light coming from a gibbous moon. But it has been years since I’ve consistently heard one.

I guess the last time that I heard a Whip-poor-will was three years ago in May at Point Pelee. I was there late watching (or more likely listening) to the displaying Woodcocks (fun little birds, just like mini-footballs with wings) when I heard a distant Whip-poor-will. They have become sufficiently rare down at Pelee that the naturalists put it up on the board as a “bird of interest” in the Visitor Centre.

So, why are they disappearing? The forests they live in are being increasingly fragmented. Fire suppression techniques are preventing the development of their preferred habitat. But perhaps most importantly, the massive efforts to spray insecticides to control gypsy moths are killing off their food source. So, they have dropped in numbers by 57% in my lifetime.

Good for a lark

2008-03-07T23:31:00.001-05:00

Which brings us to the Horned Lark. Some of the later birds on this list I haven’t seen in years and am not at all surprised to see on this list. However, I see horned larks every year. They hang out in the onion fields just north of Point Pelee. They can be found in mixed flocks with snow buntings in the winter just to the east and west of the city (and probably in the city, too, if I knew where to look).

According to my shiny new atlas, they probably didn’t breed in southern Ontario before the arrival in North America of the White Man. Horned larks breed in fallow fields and open areas. While they breed in the high arctic, they also can be found throughout much of the farmland of the continent. So, their numbers have always been high. But, with modern fertilizers, there is no need to let fields lie fallow for a year. Or, fields will be left for a short time (allowing the larks to start a family) and then the fields will be plowed, before the fledglings can fend for themselves.

Another cause of their demise is unproductive marginal farmland being returned to forests, which are too dense for the larks. Still, in the last four decades the horned lark population has dropped by 56%. And as there are still more than 70 million of them in North America, I don’t think they risk being added to the Endangered Species List any time soon.

It ain't easy being blue

2008-03-04T23:32:00.000-05:00

The Little Blue Heron is not a regular visitor to Ontario and there are no breeding records in either of my atlases. However, I have once seen one in the province. Towards the end of the breeding season, those herons and egrets that failed to find a mate will suddenly expand their range and some of the southern species will end up far from their traditional climes. In this way I have seen cattle and snowy egrets, wood storks, glossy and white-faced ibis and once, just once, a little blue heron.

When I was in high school our family used to take a trip during the March break to the Gulf Coast of Florida. The wetlands there used to teem with egrets and herons. Every year we could tick off the common birds, in addition to the “fun” rarities like the reddish egret which feeds by throwing its wings up to form an umbrella in the hopes that fish will head towards the sheltering shade. It’s fun watching herons slowly stalk their prey. Skulking centimetre by centimetre, holding its head perfectly still. Slowly, the long neck will extend and then wham! (no, not George Michael) faster than the human eye can follow the great spear of its bill plunges forward to grab its unsuspecting prey. Occasionally, the heron won’t open its bill wide enough and will end up impaling the fish or frog it was going after.

And then comes the immense pleasure of watching the heron flip the slimy thing up into the air, catching it head first and trying to swallow it. These birds will grab fish that are thicker than their own necks, and yet they still manage (with several minutes of struggling) to get them down their gullets.

Unfortunately, wetlands are not seen as being commercially viable, so many are drained to make way for farmlands or coastal community developments. This has resulted in a population drop in little blue herons of 54% in the last 40 years.

Ruffling a few feathers

2008-03-03T22:46:00.000-05:00

Two years ago I ordered a book online. Today, when I got home, it was there waiting for me. And this will be one of the most interesting (if hard to read) books I have ever got. But one of the most rewarding, if I manage to get through it. The book, of course, is Atlas of the Breeding Birds of Ontario (2001 – 2005).

Now, since I have access to these electronic pages and it would seem a shame to leave them blank, I may as well write about the birds I know. The National Audubon Society has nicely listed the twenty species of birds that have declined the most in my lifetime. For those of you playing along at home, the official date is “since 1967”, but that seems close enough.

So, without further ado, I give you “number 20” – The Ruffed Grouse. The last time I saw a ruffed grouse was three years ago when I was in Ottawa. I had gone out to a small forested area just to the west of town in an attempt to track down a group of Bohemian waxwings that were being seen in the area. Following the snowy trail (and the snows around Ottawa can get very deep) I had a wonderful afternoon of birding. The sky was clear and although the temperature was a bit nippy (this is Ottawa, after all) I was well bundled up. There were several flocks of chickadees and redpolls to keep me on my toes, as well as a few crossbills. And the crows flying overhead would croak occasionally reminding me that they were ravens and not, as I had first thought, crows.

Not paying as much attention to my footing as I might have, I was surprised when a small patch of dirt beside the trail took to the air in a noisy beating of wings. It settled a few meters farther away and gave me great looks as it continued to slowly walk around my position. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised that grouse would be around in winter. I know they are non-migratory, but just how does what amounts to a forest chicken survive the northern Ontario winters? Well, lets check the atlas…

Hmm. It looks like the ruffed grouse is capable of digesting very fibrous material; it eats aspen tree buds and twigs in the winter and uses several techniques to cope with harsh winters in the north temperate and subarctic regions, including frequent feeding and using fat reserves to decrease heat loss and satisfy greater metabolic needs. And why are its numbers declining? Two principle reasons: logging of aspen forests and managed forest practices. You see, aspen forests aren’t commercially as lucrative so we get rid of them, harvesting the aspens for pulpwood and then replanting the area with more lucrative species. Also, aspen is an early succession species - with managing forest fires, there is less opportunity for succession.

The net result? In the past 40 years we have reduced the population of ruffed grouse by about 54%.

Not entirely unexpected

2008-01-28T23:14:00.001-05:00

The funeral is tomorrow.

Time is running short

2008-01-24T23:59:00.000-05:00

Sorry that I haven’t spoken to any of you in a while, but life has a funny way of creeping up and filling your available time.

I guess I had best start with an update on my sister-in-law’s health. I saw her shortly before Christmas and she remained alert, but stayed in her chair as she could only walk with extreme difficulty. She was once again put on a treatment of directed radiation in an attempt to shrink the tumour on her spine.

Christmas itself was a ghastly affair. My sister-in-law had invited a few of her close friends, which meant that the Jews outnumbered the nominal Christians by a ratio of at least three to one. Which, if it were a dinner party, would have been fine. But, no. There was an insistence that it be “Christmas”. So, people dressed up in red and green (that you know was bought just for the occasion so they could “fit in”, despite the fact that our family has never had any such manner), discussing the latest news from Israel.

My mother and I cooked a full, traditional Christmas dinner (squash soup, roast turkey, mashed potatoes, glazed carrots, steamed peas, Christmas pudding, lemon sorbet) at my brother’s place. Fortunately, it wasn’t like last year where you had to be careful not to use the meat knife on a food item with dairy or they would have to throw it all out (both the food and the knife). Still, with all the children and other guests it would have been nice to have at least an offer of help. Not my idea of Christmas. Oh. And the radiation hasn’t worked, as my sister-in-law cannot walk unassisted.

Two weeks later and she hasn’t been out of bed for a few days. And two nights ago she was taken to hospital with breathing difficulties and in pain. The doctors have increased the dosage of her pain medications and got her breathing eased. And then sent her home. I suspect that being home is her choice, but it does put an enormous strain on my brother. He has taken a leave of absence from his work, and yet never stops working. I was there last week (my mother’s computer crashed and my brother still has an old clunker which I could slave my mother’s hard drive to, in order to copy important files onto a flash drive). His kids were constantly needing assistance (to do the simplest tasks (I guess they are “acting out” against the unfairness of life)) and when a bell sounded from the upstairs bedroom, they were the first to shout that their mother needed help. They couldn’t take it upon themselves to see what was needed… just to make sure my brother knew. I got out of there as soon as the files were copied, not wanting to add to his workload. I’ll need to find an event that I can take them to soon, to give my brother a break. But the kids are still going skiing up north on the weekends, and it’s hard to do something on a school night. Hopefully I can think of something.

Do these maps actually work?

2007-11-30T10:07:00.000-05:00

And whom do I know in Churchill?

Map.

If you stop by again, whoever you are, leave a message.

Yet another blow

2007-11-30T01:27:00.000-05:00

Not the greatest news. My sister-in-law was going to go in for one more pinpoint zap of her brain. Apparently, the technique is to put a metal colander on her head and nuke away. The radiation that gets through each hole is minimal, but where the rays of two holes intersect you get precision nastiness against the targeted cells. Unfortunately, before the procedure they did one more scan and found that the cancer had spread into the “fluid surrounding the brain”. Accordingly, she will now be getting one more generic cranial nuke and is going back on a new regimen of oral chemotherapy. Um… not fun.

And now my mother is feeling hurt. She volunteered to sit with my sister-in-law through the radiation treatment and was declined. I know that the reason is that my sister-in-law is trying to surround herself with happy, up-beat people and that while my mother is nice, there is not situation so perfect that she can’t find a dark cloud. Well, I’ll try not to get in the middle of this one.

2007-10-26T17:47:00.001-04:00

Boy, has it been a while since my last update. And yet, not much has changed. My sister-in-law has had her sixth (and presumably final, for a while) round of chemo and has had yet another round of tests. The tumours (of which there are several in her brain, lung and liver) are smaller than they were, but nobody is yet using any terms like “remission”, “arrested” or “abeyance”. The best any doctor has said is her own sister (an ophthalmologist, who said “she is less close to death than she was six months ago”. Not exactly a ringing endorsement.

I was up at my brother’s cottage for Thanksgiving (note to all you Americans: Thanksgiving is an October holiday) and while she may not have had much in the way of energy, at least she got out apple picking. And when I say “apple picking” I mean watching the kids throw produce at one another while eating apples from the trees. But it’s OK. Everybody does it. The orchard expects it.

Not much of an update, but it's what I know so far...

2007-06-08T00:21:00.001-04:00

My sister-in-law has started her chemotherapy. It’s one of these newfangled thingies (yes, that’s the technical term) that leaves her exhausted for the first week, fatigued for the second week and almost normal for the third. And then it starts all over again. And by exhausted I mean that she has no energy whatsoever and feels tired all the time. And if she has a nap, that’s how she feels when she wakes up.

I really hope that it is having some effect, ‘cause it is certainly impinging upon her quality of life. The family did manage to get up to the cottage last weekend, but she didn’t feel up to doing much while she was there. But at least there is some continuing normalcy. Tests won’t show if the chemo is having an effect for another week and a half.

I survived the Bat Mitzvah

2007-05-15T22:11:00.000-04:00

Last Tuesday was my nephew’s birthday. I don’t normally spend time with my brother’s family except at Christmas. However, I intend to spend much more time with them now, under the circumstances. Dinner was nice (and not an effort for my brother or his wife as they just ask the one-time nanny now housekeeper to make a larger meal). Afterwards, however, my sister-in-law’s father continued to regale us with tales. My brother was cleaning up the kitchen, my sister-in-law was putting the kids to bed, my mother was making little “well it’s been nice but we really must get going” noises, and he continued to ramble on. The stories are humourous and well told, but they were told just as well as the last couple of times he’s told the same stories. Eventually, my sister-in-law had to come down and say “well, goodnight folks”. I should have just walked out an hour and a half earlier.

I did learn that my sister-in-law was going to treat her cancer aggressively. Not only did she receive radiation on her spine but she also was getting a second treatment each day on her cranium. She expected to lose her hair shortly before her daughter’s Bat Mitzvah. She tried to buy a wig but that was the one episode that made her ordeal entirely too real for her. She broke down in the fitting rooms and couldn’t bring herself to think about what was happening. She said that she was fine as long as she had a plan to take things no more than one day at a time. This long-term planning was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

The evening before the Bat Mitzvah saw us all gathering in the party room of my mother’s condominium. I found the planning for the seating amusing. My sister-in-law’s father had drawn up a diagram of two tables and put in the names of all the guests. Too bad that he forgot both my mother and myself. I took that as a suggestion that I didn’t have to be there. In vain, as it turns out. Of course he was apologetic and I have no doubt that the mistake was unintentional, but I did chuckle (internally) as I tried to guess how or why he just happened to omit the two non-Jews from the list. At least he remembered my brother.

The day at the synagogue was long and unfortunately boring. I’m sure it would have been far more interesting had I understood the language in which it was spoken. I was told later that in North America fewer than five percent of the Jewish population can actually speak Hebrew (beyond sounding out the words in the passages that they have to read when they turn 13). It made me wonder about how organized religions attempt to remain insular and parochial: language (be it Hebrew or Latin); dietary restrictions (Kosher, Halal, fish on Friday); clothing… the list goes on. Does organized religion help to build strong, moral character, or is it a further polarizing factor to ensure that “us” is not “them”?

Dinner that evening was delicious and must have cost a pretty penny. For those who want to know, cocktails started with champagne as the servers passed around vegetable spring rolls with plum ginger sauce, crostini with teardrop tomato, bocconcini and basil as well as grilled venison tenderloin and Portobello mushroom on rösti potatoes. Dinner started with a salad of mixed greens followed by a mushroom risotto. The entrée was a choice of either a glazed salmon or rack of lamb. Unfortunately, I was the first at the table to be asked which I preferred, and, as par for the course, I hadn’t yet made up my mind. I asked the waiter to surprise me. The lamb was delicious, cooked to a medium rare and accompanied by mixed, steamed vegetables and a cassoulet of lingot beans. For desert we had the choice between some sort of chocolate dome and a two layered lemon semi-freddo and lemon curd square. Hmmmmm, good. But it must have cost a fortune.

I should have joined the catering corps

2007-04-29T23:36:00.000-04:00

Well, I have more information on my sister-in-law, now. A complete series of scans has also found an inoperable brain tumour. She has talked with her oncologist, and has got into a clinical trial which may (it’s a double blind, so she might not be getting the “new” treatment) help to keep the cancer “maintainable”. At this point, nobody is using the word “cure”.

Meanwhile, she has obviously taken time off work (she was promoted the day before her diagnosis to Senior Vice President at the bank where she works as a lawyer). And as my brother is also a lawyer, let’s just say that they are not hurting, financially. But two weeks from now is my niece’s Bat Mitzvah. (OK, technically, my niece will become a Bat Mitzvah, but most people use the word to mean the celebration.) Because my sister-in-law is cutting back on her extraneous concerns, my mother will be overseeing the catering of the party the night before.

Let’s put this into perspective. My brother and his wife are rather wealthy. There will be a party for the out-of-town relatives the evening before the celebration. Then there will be a luncheon (for more than a hundred people) following the celebration. And then that evening there will be a dinner at a nice restaurant. But my mother has been looking over the prices and realized that she can save money in many ways. Renting napkins? Surely paper is good enough. Especially as the rental cost is an entire dollar per napkin. And we have enough stemware and flatware. It doesn’t have to match – what’s important is that we are all there. Nor do we need flowers, really. Somehow, I don’t think that the party will quite be what my sister-in-law originally imagined.

And apparently I can provide the non-alcoholic drinks for everybody. That will help to cut costs. At what point should I step in and tell my mother (who was raised during the Depression) that penny-pinching may not be the objective of this particular social gathering?

When life hits, it hits hard

2007-04-29T23:34:00.000-04:00

And then life hit. Hard. My sister-in-law is quite active. She skis in winter, bikes in summer. Since her marriage she's dieted and exercised down to a size four. She's never smoked and only drinks wine with dinner on "special occasions". But recently she's been having some lower back pain, so she went to the doctor just to be safe.

Wow. Just a bit of lower back pain? The doctor found a growth on her spine and a biopsy determined it to be cancerous. Over the next three days she's had three radiation treatments. But that isn't the worst of it. It seems that the thing in her back was a secondary cancer of a previously undiagnosed primary lung cancer that has already metastasized. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but a lung cancer that shows distant metastasis is automatically grouped as Stage IV. A quick check of Wikipedia shows that lung cancer has one of the lowest survivor ratings, with fewer than one percent surviving five years with Stage IV cancer. How in hell did this happen?