How [not] to clean a bathtub

My grandmother’s so-called “miracle” cleaner (2023 edition).
Not that I’m endorsing it. I’m too old to be an influencer.

My Dutch grandmother (Oma) swore by the cleaning product Vim, pronounced “Fim” in Dutch. (The V sound in Dutch is used only for W’s.) To this day, whenever I use Oma’s favourite cleaner, I hear her voice exclaiming, “Gebruik maar de Fim!”: Just use the Vim.

I’ve used the “cream” version for years to clean our bathtub. Recently, Mr. Fluffster bought the “bathroom spray” version (see photo above). Easier to apply, it requires far less scrubbing to get the job done. Much easier on my aging back!

A couple of weeks ago, with what I thought was a bottle of Vim, I sprayed the bathroom tub and tiles for their weekly cleaning. But even with vigorous scrubbing, the stuff didn’t foam up as usual. And it felt greasy. Another glance at the bottle explained everything: I’d just scrubbed our bathtub with carpet-spot remover!

Not Vim.

I immediately imagined it nibbling away at the tile grout or already-damaged tub enamel. After hosing off the carpet-spot remover, I sprayed on plenty of Vim, which foamed up and worked as usual.

Why did I grab the wrong bottle? I blame it on a recent rearrangement of our cleaning products: the carpet cleaner occupied the spot once reserved for Vim. Morning brain fog had nothing to do with it.

Mr. Fluffster laughed when I told him about it. I shouldn’t be surprised by the teasing that followed.

* Cleanser by shashank singh Noun Project (CC BY 3.0) and scrub brush by Andi Nur Abdillah from Noun Project (CC BY 3.0).

Blizzards, freezing rain, high winds, flight cancellations. Er, Merry Christmas!

Above left, hardy dianthus on our balcony defying the weather two days before we left for Toronto.
Above right, a less-hardy Ms. Fluffster waiting for a bus on our way to the airport.

“‘A significant weather event’: B.C. drivers warned to stay off roads amid dire warnings about snow, freezing rain” blared one West Coast headline the day we set out. A Toronto one warned: “Winter storm sweeps Toronto, leaving slippery roads, power outages, flight cancellations.”

We could have rescheduled. But we didn’t want Mr. Fluffster’s mum to spend Christmas alone. She’d prepared a month’s worth of meals, plus a mountain of cookies, and was eagerly awaiting our arrival. So on the morning of December 23, we headed to the airport. New boots, a wool toque, and thick mitts for me; a warm new fleece vest under his winter coat for Mr. Fluffster. We brought carry-on luggage only, fully charged devices, and plenty of snacks: we were prepared for a cancelled flight and a night at the airport.

Our flight already delayed by an hour, we gave ourselves even more time to get to the airport than originally planned. It was snowing steadily. We expected transit hiccups since the Lower Mainland is slow to clear roads. We got lucky. The bus made it across the icy bridge, and the train was running, but only to the airport.

A second delay was announced at the airport. On the hunt for check-in machines, we passed a long lineup of dejected travellers hoping to rebook their cancelled flights. After checking in, we waited for four and a half hours.

At 3:15 pm we boarded our plane. Each seat had a plastic-wrapped blanket and pillow on it. Nice touch, I thought, but do they really think we’ll be here all night? First, we waited for an available runway. An hour later, we got in line for de-icing. De-icing took half an hour. Refreshments and free earbuds were handed out. More than two hours later, the plane finally took off — by that point only four hours later than scheduled.

We touched down with surprisingly little turbulence, given the high winds over Toronto. The pilot warned that it might take “a while” for a gate to become available. Flight attendants offered beverages and granola bars, and the seatbelt sign went off. We were into the wee hours, Toronto time.

Several more hours and announcements later (No gate. Still no gate. We have a gate! But no gate staff), we were set free.

At 4 am, there’s no mass transit running from Pearson Airport, so we headed for the taxi stand past crowds of cranky or sleeping passengers. Mounds of suitcases everywhere. When we stepped outside, security told us to wait inside because of the cold (-14C, with a windchill of -27C). Back inside, we retraced our steps to the end of an interminable lineup for taxis. Yet another hour’s wait.

At 5:30 am Toronto time, 16½ hours after leaving home, we got to our hotel and fell into bed. 

Days later, Air Canada sent us each a $300 travel coupon as an apology for the delays. We can do this again next year at a discount!

Newcomers to the neighbourhood

We often go for walks along a gravel trail next to a river (see above) just a few steps from our apartment building. As we head to the mall along that trail, we sometimes stop to chat with neighbours — as we would from a backyard if we had one.

There’s one new neighbour we haven’t run into yet.

According to one of the security guards, when #NorthVanBruin got up on its hind legs to bang on the apartment window, it was so startled by its own reflection, it ran off. A week later, the guards who took the photos above from inside their small curbside office persuaded the mild-mannered bear (likely the same one) to leave merely by telling it to “Shoo!”

It was probably just foraging for a last meal before hibernating. Why not check out a security office for goodies? Maybe #NorthVanBruin got a whiff of a guard’s graveyard-shift snack when it showed up at 3:09 am? Not much else on offer at that hour.

Our other new neighbour is a grandfatherly enigma. We often encounter an elderly gentleman pushing a stroller along the river trail. Whenever we run into him, rain or shine, hot or cold, the stroller’s hood is always pulled all the way forward. A heavy blanket is draped over the stroller’s occupant (the part we can see), and a plastic cover when it’s raining. We’ve never seen or heard the baby — if there is one. No crying, gurgling, or fussing from underneath that blanket. No little foot poking out from an overlooked chink in the wrapping.

We’ve seen Stroller Gentleman sitting on a bench, stroller parked next to him, looking intently at his phone. His eyes never meet ours, and we’ve never seen him stop to talk with anyone.

But then why walk an empty stroller? Maybe it’s his grocery cart? Or it keeps him steady on the gravel trail?

Or maybe the baby is sound asleep every time we pass him, at different times of day, in all weathers? I’ve never known a baby that sleeps that much. Mine certainly didn’t.

I may never find out. It’s driving me crazy.

Texada Island — a delight for masochistic hikers

Texada was our Northern Gulf Island destination last September, a quiet place more sparsely populated than the other islands we’ve visited. The two “towns” don’t have shopping hubs, so it took us two days to find the grocery store! There’s only one paved road, and most trails we hiked were rough and steep. By sparing our car long drives on potholed gravel roads, we likely avoided even rougher and steeper ones.

Our well-equipped Airbnb (Texada Island Vacation Rental) felt homey and welcoming at the end of each long, often exhausting, day of hiking. Here are some videos and photos of our trip.

Our backyard. Texada may have even more deer than Mayne Island. Look for the second one munching behind that picnic table.

Trail markers, all created/placed by volunteers — some hard to spot.
We spent lots of time just hunting for the elusive pink ribbons.

Drought was apparent everywhere, but the weather was glorious.

Went beachcombing at Shelter Point Regional Park one day to hunt for a suitable piece of driftwood for our balcony at home.
We succeeded … eventually: Mr. Fluffster has high driftwood standards.

Mount Pocahontas — the toughest of the five trails we hiked; like North Vancouver’s Grouse Grind but even steeper and rougher;
While hauling my aching, sweaty body up to the peak on hands and knees, I wondered how I’d ever make it back down again.

But the views from that peak were spectacular.

Breathtaking beauty! Silent because Mr. Fluffster wanted his voice removed.

We clambered slowly across this treacherous section of the Sword Fern Trail.
I slithered over part of it on my butt. That dangling pink ribbon was our only clue we were headed in the right direction.

Phloxes outside the Mary Mary Café, where we had ice cream sundaes after hiking up Mount Pocahontas,
and dinner on our last evening. The locals we met there — and elsewhere in the island —
were mostly friendly retirees, keen to give directions and recommend local sights.

Our next island hop will be Galiano next May. Texada was lovely, but I want easier hiking. One Pocahontas is enough for me!

Note: Ms. Fluffster is now on Mastodon.

Happy (belated) birthday, Random Bits of Fluff!

A year ago September, I started this blog. My first post, How do you feel?, seems like a lifetime ago — though I still haven’t tackled everything on that to-do list.

I like the slower pace of retirement, and my time easily fills up with fun and productive activities. A few months ago, I got tired of churning out weekly blog posts and baking bread, so I cut back, and did more cycling and socializing. Then I found a creative way to fulfill that “volunteer somewhere or other” goal (from What the heck was I thinking?)

When the spirit moves me, I “volunteer” from home recording audiobooks (novels, short stories, poems, essays, etc.) for Librivox and proofreading ebooks for Project Gutenberg, Librivox’s major source of content in the public domain. Recording audiobooks now ranks as my second-favourite pastime — after cycling.

As one of the thousands of dedicated Librivoxers who’ve uploaded over 40,000 free audio recordings (of every genre) for anyone to enjoy, I’m having a ball! To prepare, I read aloud in my head first (then reread out loud) to figure out if my voice suits the content, wrestle with technology (Audacity digital audio editor), and hone my reciting/dramatic skills (just a little; no awards expected). As a bonus, I get to “meet” interesting folks from all corners of the world (though mostly the US and Canada).

I had a few technical hiccups at first. Once, as I was editing, the program started turning functions on and off, as if it had a mind of its own. I panicked and force-quit Audacity, scrapping an hour and a half of good work. Then immediately discovered that that my iPad (which I read from) was resting on the keyboard.

My mic is super sensitive, and my living room “office” isn’t sound-proofed. Recording on weekdays picks up noise from construction, traffic, sirens, float planes, the river, etc. Sadly, most recordings aren’t enhanced by the sound of a toilet flushing. It’s easy to eliminate an ongoing background drone; far harder to edit out intermittent sounds. So I limit myself to recording in the evenings and on Sundays — in between float plane arrivals/departures and Mr. Fluffster’s guitar practice. I’ll soon have that float plane schedule memorized, and maybe I can incorporate the guitar as background music. [Mr. F’s note: NO!]

Then there’s pronunciation, which I once thought I was good at. I recently had to re-record the word “cupola” in a chapter of a children’s story (KYOO-puh-luh, not cup-POLE-ah!) Eight times. It took longer to replace one word than to record the whole chapter. Lesson learned: I now Google pronunciations obsessively.

I don’t do accents — not my forte. I need to focus just on not stumbling over the words. Occasionally, I experiment with a different voice (the rasping New York landlady was fun, but hard on my throat). Volunteer proof-listeners sit through hours of recordings to ensure the text is correctly pronounced and read in its entirety. I think of them, as well as my listeners, when I try to inject life and expression into my voice.

Check out Librivox if you’re an audiobook lover. Or aspiring voice actor.

Proofreading ebooks isn’t as entertaining, so I do only enough to feel virtuous. Beginner proofreaders (called “P1s”) compare OCR-scanned text to the originals, correct “scannos” (incorrect characters; kinda like typos, but the result of blots on the original pages), and close up end-of-line hyphenation. Starting out enthusiastically, I quickly racked up the 300 pages required to graduate to the next proofing level, “P2,” which isn’t nearly as satisfying because so few errors remain. I may demote myself just to go back to “P1” content. What can they do — fire me?

Do I miss paid work and the office? Not a bit.