Bill and Wendy's ickcillint adventures

On December 20, 2010, my beloved father died.  Seriously ill since June 2010, he succumbed to his complex health issues less than 24 hours after being declared palliative.  He died peacefully following a giant slumber party held at the Marjorie Snowden Willoughby Hospice House.  The slumber party was attended by mom and all Dad’s eight kids, except for one.  The only child of Dad’s not present was my brother Glenn who lives in Ottawa.  However, at about 7 am, as Glenn wished Dad good-bye over a speaker phone, Dad breathed his last breaths.  We are all devastated beyond belief, but relieved that he is now resting. Today, December 21, 2010, Bill and I received our stamped passports with Entry Visas for Sri Lanka. We are scheduled to arrive in country, January 4.  As well, our Subaru Impreza sold this week. So, with Dad now gone, the passports stampted and the car sold, the red light to go to Sri Lanka has stopped blinking and the green light to...

As you know, three Fridays ago, we were dodging bullets in our hotel lobby. Therefore,  Ickcillint meaning absorbed new adjectives and verbs like: fear, disbelief and protective action.  Violencia is alive and well in Mexico, as you can see from this photo from the Saturday morning headlines in the newspaper.  The man killed in front of our hotel was only one of five men killed in various sectors of Mazatlan on Friday.   However, the very next day (Saturday morning at 5 am) there was about a ten piece brass band, including tuba outside our hotel belting out Mexican Musica from the back of a pickup truck (click on video link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0rdry7T0PY ).  Objectively, these two dramatically different scenarios display the best and worst of Mexico, the incongruence of the country. Subjectively, I am wondering if these two stories carry a similarity.  A brass band playing outside a hotel at five in the morning?  I must say, it provoked so...

We arrived in Puerto Vallarta last night and the cab driver cautioned us about going to our destination hotel, La Rosita. The reason for his caution was that three American touristas had been shot dead outside that hotel the night before. Paternally, our driver kindly suggested an alternative hotel and we accepted his recommendation given that we, ourselves, were dodging bullets a few short days ago in Mazatlan. On top of the risks to personal safety we ourselves have witnessed in Mexico, there is some security concern for our youngest daughter, Lisa. Lisa, has been teaching English in South Korea for nearly a year. A week ago, she was sent a high security notice from the Canadian Embassy requiring her to have all documentation, belongings and money in hand and to ready herself for evacuation from Korea at any time the Embassy deems the security risk intolerable. We are all aware of the dictatorship in North Korea and the concern regarding that type of political instabili...

Today began as any other day in Paradise. After a long run along the malecon, Bill and I headed to the pool area of our hotel. Hotel Hacienda, recommended by our cab driver, sits on the beautiful malecon in Mazatlan and our fifth floor balcony commands a sweeping ocean and beach view. It appeared that there was a Federale Police Convention going on at the hotel, as the place had many police officers staying. They were all checking out this morning. We had the pool to ourselves. We had just rinsed in the fresh waters of the cool lobby pool and were sitting on our beach chairs reading and talking when we heard about 4 popping sounds seemingly coming from the hotel lobby. Alarmed, I turned to Bill and said, “That sounds like gunfire.” Then more pops. I lept off my cabana planning to hit the pool deck, but realized I was too vulnerable and instead ran to and squatted down behind a small walled pool maintenance area. Bill squatted on the other side. The lobby staff also ran out into the ...

Yes, even seasoned travelers like us wasted two sunny days in Mexico lying around in our hotel room blowing splatter patties (my brother Kurt’s descriptive of diarrhea). Hit by the bug, but blessedly not too hard, I succumbed to drugs today, while Bill, in his wisdom, took his Imodium yesterday. Otherwise all is well. We keep pinching ourselves that we are actually (and finally) going to Sri Lanka in the New Year. However, with this good news we are realizing that we might again be adjusting to a new country with drinking water crawling with amoeba and bacteria. Oh, the joy of looking forward to that. We shall say goodbye to you all, yet again. However, George Elliot in her outstanding book, Middlemarch, hits a little too close to home when she wrote the following: “ It is certainly trying to a man’s dignity to reappear when he is not expected to do so: a first farewell has pathos in it, but to come back for a second (how about a fifth?), lends an opening to comedy, and it w...

Yes, you guessed it.  We heard today our "White Papers" have been approved by the Sri Lankan Ministry of Defence.  We are being invited to arrive in Sri Lanka alone on  December 7th or with the other  volunteers on January 10th.  We have advised CUSO we will accept the January 10th arrival date. However, we need to send our passports to Ottawa for visa stamping and we can't do that from our current location of Mexico - unless we can bilocate our passports to be in both Ottawa and Mexico at the same time.  Since we do not possess bilocation powers, we are chopping down our one month trip in Mexico to two weeks.  This allows us to fly home and mail our passports to Ottawa. There is a three week turn around for this final documentation process: sending our passports to Ottawa, having the Sri Lanka High Commission office stamp the work visa and they then, return the stamped passports ...

As you know, given the delays on our visas to Sri Lanka, we decided to go to Mexico for a month.  On Friday, November 5th, we received the following news from our advisor, Nana, in Ottawa; news which we find encouraging.   "Sri Lanka has said they will make an exception for you and bring you in-country as soon as the visa is granted – they are postponing everyone else’s arrival to January/February." We also get a sense that CUSO is increasing the urgency and pressure on Sri Lanka to get us placed, as they included in the email this correspondence,   "I’m flagging Wendy again as her placement in Sri Lanka continues to be held up by visa difficulties and we will likely lose her if we don’t find her a placement soon." T his morning, November 12th,  I received the following update from Nana, " This morning I spoke to the CD for Sri Lanka , Jane Rosegrant, who gave an update on the visa situation. For... Wendy,  we still can't be sure when the perm...

Have you ever noticed the many G words in our language associated with work, pain and torture? Grunt, groan, grind, gasp, gnarl, gnash, gruel, grasp, grip, grief, gripe, grumble, grit, grouse and grim to name a few. All these words adequately describe the second part of our bike trip. I surely used all the above words when describing our bike trip to my sister Teresa, an avid touring cyclist.  She confronted me with the following question after my tirade about the trip, " Was there anything you enjoyed about the trip?" I must admit, that I think of myself as a positive person and was confronted by her words.  Was there anything good about that adventure?  Are you kidding? We froze, fried, fought and were freaked out at times.  We were famished, fatigued, frought with anxiety and felt f $#* at times.  Are you kidding?  We decidedly, determinedly, dandily, doggedly loved it! Here is the Part Two video of our bike trip....

With ambivalence, we have left the lake. It continues to be so lovely out there: colourful leaves coating the ground, waves lapping gently at the shore and galores of mountain sheep grazing and mating. However, as we all know, the weather can change any minute, so it was time to relocate. We now reside at 976 Nicola St. Given our last eight months of rapidly displacing and relocating ourselves, we are adapting into flexible folks and so, we are now enjoying downtown living. We are close to hospital and shopping and with Bill hogging our only vehicle now, I am grateful to be able to walk to where I need to go. He denies he is hogging offering in his defence arguments that include: “You gave me a list of stuff to pick up, you needed me to fix your mom’s door, you wanted me to deliver the heater back to Shirley and Mike’s, and you wanted me to pick up stamps.” He always seems to have a clever reason to have the car. He was a lawyer. Lawyers know how to twist the facts to support their ...

Winter is ordained to follow fall. As you know, we have been living at the lake, but the lovely Indian summer (is it still appropriate to call it that?) is about to give way to freezing wind, snow and sleet. As the cabin has no central heating, the water pipes need draining soon to prevent the pipes from freezing and bursting. All liquids such as vinegar, oil, wine, soya sauce, canned goods and other sundry liquids need removal from the cabin for the same reason. So, given our yet again delay, we have necessarily rented new lodging for ourselves. Susan and Lee Charlton, some people we know, offered us their suite. As it is near the hospital, they use it as short term accommodation for hospital visitors from out of town, medical interns training at the hospital or nursing students here on practicum. It is ideal for us for several reasons. First, we don’t have to sign a lease, therefore are free to leave if and when our visa is granted. Secondly, we are close to the hospital, so can vi...

You guessed it. Grounded again. Here is a portion of the email we received this morning from the Sri Lankan folks at CUSO-VSO: Dear Wendy I am writing to give an update on the visa situation here in Sri Lanka. You will be aware that for a long time there has been a complex process for obtaining visas for volunteers and staff. At times, the granting of visas happened very close to planned travel dates of volunteers, which was particularly stressful for the individuals traveling. However, except when trying to fill placements in “high security” areas, we have been successful in getting the visas through on time. Over the past three months the government has been instituting a new process for visas, which involves obtaining security clearance before the granting of visas. Previously, visas were granted and the clearance applied for after arrival. Unfortunately, this new process is proving to be a lengthy one. There is no way to speed this up, though we had meetings today with releva...

We are keeping warm!  We have toques and fleeces and blankets.  While having our morning coffee the other day, I looked across at my loved one, wearing his striped grey/blue toque.  I casually commented, "You look like Dopey".  Several minutes later, I heard a defensive retort from the outhouse, "I do not look like Dopey.  Dopey doesn't have a mustache!"  Dopey, apparently caught sight of himself in the mirror nailed to the outhouse. Judge for yourself: It is actually quite fun living at the lake. I have never been out there this late in the year and the weather is fine, the trees are turning crimson and gold. Deer are feeding on the beach at night and the mountain sheep are flocking into large groups. Bill is animated; he truly believes that we are actually departing to Sri Lanka this time. Forgive my cynicism, but I am less than lively about the certainty. I have donned cynicism and pulled up a lap robe of scepticism as protection against disappoi...

The other day, driving in to town from the lake my husband proclaimed, "I feel like a boonie, driving into town for supplies on a old dirt road in a rattle trap car.  Indeed, he had a wild look in his eye and was driving erratically.   He looked like a boonie man;  hair two days from a shower, grey beard with two days growth, duck down growing all down his neck (preparing himself for the thin, grey pony tail) and he wore an old, stained t-shirt.  His attire, along with the wild look completed the uncomfortable image of what my man had become ... a boonie man. Needless to say, he had a boonie woman with him: hair askance, sporting hairy legs and pits.  Yes, we need to get back to town or out of town, one or the other. We do have some news.  It seems we are on track for departure for October 26th!  The Sri Lankan folks advised us today that they feel that we, along with other vo...

I doubt I have shared with many of you the origin of the word, 'ickcillint' in the blog title.  It came about as a result of my studies in New Zealand.  My PhD professor, Dr. Kate van Heughten, from the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand inspired the word! When giving feedback on my thesis, she would kindly say to me, "Ickcillint work, Windy, ickcillint." (the english word, 'excellent' adjusted phonetically to a Kiwi accent). I just loved the way she said it. Using the word in our blog title is Bill's and my way of continuing our connection to New Zealand. As Kate and I have maintained a relationship since my defense and graduation, she has been reading our blog.  She was unaware that she was the inspirator for the title of blog until she wrote to me the following: “Ickcillint” has by now probably acquired a new meaning in the English language across the globe (a mixture of hope, excitement, anticipation, frustration, d...

Do you remember back a blog or two when I invented, or rather, conceptualized the Accommodator? You know, the cycle seat that accommodated lips and ball so they wouldn't hurt on long cycle tours?  Anyway, while riding along on this cycle trip, Bill detected a flaw in the Accommodator.  He became concerned that a man's testicles might swell within the Accommodator and therefore, the man (Bill) would then have to take the bike seat off after a long ride and carry it with him until the swelling subsided.  I believe he had determined a definite flaw in the conceptualization and so, I set to work revising the concept. Therefore, I created a Clapper Trapper Quick Release mechanism that allowed the rider to open the trap door and slide out of  the seat, thereby eliminating the need to take the seat off and carry it after a long ride.  So, with that design difficulty out of the way, I was free to carry on thinking of the answers to other questions that arose dur...

Bill and I have four guardian angels. These angels materialized during our bike trip between Burton and Lumby.   We made it to Burton on Thursday night, hungry and cold. It was a long day.  We found one campsite in Burton; it was virtually deserted.  However, there was one other couple in a neighbouring camping spot.  Now, Bill and I in our wisdom and laziness, don't carry cooking equipment, preferring instead to eat in restaurants.  We do however, carry nuts and cheese and granola bars, in the event that we cannot find a restaurant.  I asked the lone woman in the campground where we could get supper.  She informed me that Burton has one restaurant and it was closed for the season. So, we resigned ourselves to nuts and seeds for our evening meal and pitched our tent prior to consuming our miserable, paltry meal.  Guardian Angel #1 to the rescue. Gordon, owner of the truck an...

Five significant things have transpired since our last blog.  Firstly, we had another scare with my dad. Secondly, we completed our move to Kamloops Lake.  Thirdly, my PhD alma mater city, Christchurch New Zealand suffered a major earthquake.  Fourthly, our daughter, Shelley got married on September 4, 2010 and finally, we resumed our bike trip. Yes, my poor old dad got very sick near the end of August, for no apparent reason. His mobility fell from walking independently with a walker to three of us (Mom, Bill and I) trying to muscle a limp rag doll out of a chair to the bathroom.  Something was obviously very wrong: profound weakness, almost comatose at times, visual hallucinations and severe confusion.  He has been in hospital two weeks now and only in the past few days have they diagnosed an E.coli infection.  He is getting better now,  but oh my, he will need to work hard at strengthening in order to go home.  He is ...

I need to clarify some thing with all of you. My blog is meant to inform and hopefully entertain, but it is not meant as a vehicle to instil guilt or provoke others to take responsibility for us. Since my last blog, we have been overwhelmed by people's responses: Joan and Jim offered us the Beaver house on their property; Kevin and Marguerite have offered us their condo at Sun Peaks. My sister has offered us to stay upstairs with them, Diane, has found us a basement suite to rent, Chris and Mary have offered us an opportunity to house sit for them while they are in Australia. Marlene and Bruce have offered us a room at their place, so has Ron. Possibly others have offered us lodging as well. My sister, Linda has cried about our plight and my dad shakes his head. Lisa yelled at us to stop the Sri Lanka process and look elsewhere for volunteer work. We so value our friends and family for their support. Thank you, thank you. But, just to set the record straight; we do have contro...

  We have been unlinked from Jaffna, in the north of Sri Lanka. CUSO-VSO has advised us that the possibility of getting into Jaffna is presently too difficult and they are trying a new route of entry for us. CUSO is now trying to place us into the Central Province, specifically, into a city named Kandy. Kandy is in the central mountain region and is a thriving and beautiful city. We have a new departure date of October 19 th for arrival in Sri Lanka for October 26 th (we still plan to visit Lisa in Korea, enroute). My job as a clinical social worker will not vary a great deal.   Political tensions are developing between the Canadian government and the Sri Lankan government due to the arrival off our coast at Esquimalt of the MV Sun Sea, a boat full of 500 Tamil refugees seeking asylum in Canada. In light of these tensions, I am most dubious about our chances of ever getting into Sri Lanka. On Monday, August 16 th, with that despair driving me, I called our Ottawa advisor...

We came back, prematurely, from our bicycle trip. My beloved friend, Bettyanne Albinson, who has been struggling with cancer for nearly ten years, finally succumbed last Saturday. Bill and I were breaking fast on Friday, July 30 in Keremeos at the tail end of our cycle wine tour when we received a call from her daughter, Sharlene, that she was not expected to live beyond the day. So, we cycled into Penticton, bought a bus ticket home, sent our bikes on to Nelson with the tour guide of Wright Wheels Bike Adventure Tours http://www.biketoursbc.ca/(my brother in law), and as the bus didn’t leave until 5pm, we hit a couple more wineries to kill time. After hopping the bus, we arrived back in Kamloops at about 11 pm and went directly to the Hospice House. There, we were able to say goodbye to her. She was responsive and knew us. She died the next afternoon. The funeral took place yesterday at the Kamloops Funeral Home. The place was packed and I was the eulogist. The family did a lovely...

  Oh yes, you all both laughed and empathized with me when I got angry at the delay. Well, now, wouldn't you know it ... the long suffering, maddeningly optimistic, Mr. Blair, finally lost his cool too. Yes, last week, the man awoke; clouds so dark descending upon him, his face was invisible save for the intermittent snarls that emitted from the clouds. At one time, I heard, "We have got to get the fuck out of here." Yes, despair hit Bill as well.   Although this is his blog too, the blog does, admittedly, focus on my thoughts, my feelings, and my observations ... Ok, so I am exposing my self-centeredness. However, Bill has given up a lot as well. His Miata is sitting in storage and he has not been able to drive about this summer, looking super-studly in his little sports car. He hasn't been able to nonchalantly look about at stop lights, with Van Morrison or Bob Dylan tunes loudly emoting from his car stereo.   But that is not all. Oh no. Losing his spot o...

Well, last blog, I fouled the nest. However, I grabbed a broom to the tangle of attitude that had stormed into our, er... my, nest and have been sweeping up a storm all week. The nest is clean, tidy and a sense of calm and order has returned. Whew! Unger is hard to take. I feel much better. We have confirmed tickets to leave September 28. We fly to Korea to see Lisa, our daughter who is teaching English as a Second Language there, and then from there, fly to Sri Lanka on October 5. We, however, still do not have Visa approval from the Sri Lankan Government. However, we have been told by the Sri Lanka CUSO-VSO staff that if in about 3 week's time, we have not yet received approvals, they will re-apply for us to obtain Visas for the interior or southern part of Sri Lanka.  We have been approved by Passport Canada for the new passports.  We made our trip down on Tuesday this week and all was approved.  The biotch did not "assist" us this time. Jaffna, Sri La...

  Normally, I am quite sweet. Really, a lovely, lovely person. This is just my perception, okay? Bill may have a much different perspective of me, especially after the last couple of days. I am very, very cranky. Actually, I am really mad! Yesterday was the last straw. I will provide some context for you. Passport Canada requires Canadians who travel or who are out of the country for great chunks of time like we plan to be (two years), to carry a passport that will remain valid during the period of travel or the period out of the county. So, due to the delay in departure, our passports will no longer meet this requirement and we therefore, have had to apply for new passports. However, there is a glitch. Canadians are not really supposed to apply for new passports until the passport is nearing the expiration date. In the event of an early application, Passport Canada requires the traveller to provide some evidence of WHY they need to apply for an updated passport before the ...