VANCOUVER MUSINGS

POST # 51


Well here we go again. It's blog day and I woke up wondering just what the heck will I write about today? This seems to be happening more as time passes, and I wonder if I am running out of ideas for a weekly blog? Probably I'm not, but by making that statement I guess I've given myself a built in "out" if I decide to stop writing every week. Maybe one day in the future I will just write, "Sorry, I've run out of ideas, THE END." In the meantime I'll just keep on writing whatever comes into my brain.

So what is in my brain this morning is somewhat of a jumbled mess of thoughts.

I could write about the fact that in the past week alone I have slept in three different locations. Now that keeps things interesting because when I awake it usually takes a few moments to figure out just where I am at. At least enough time has gone by that I don't feel like I am on my sailboat any longer. Also in the past week I have been both in Canada and the USA, and I had to wonder just which country the bed that I was in, was located. This kind of reminds me of the book I just read called "Borderlands" and in it the author is riding a motorcyle along the border between the US and Canada when he comes to a town that straddles the border. There is a library there, and the back half of the building is in Canada but the entrance is on US soil. If you live in Canada you have to cross the border to enter the library, but then you can leave the library through the back door, which pops you right back in Canada. How unique is that? When one looks it up on google maps, not only is the library stradling the border, but it appears that there are at least two houses doing the same thing. So lately I feel like I might be in one of those houses, with one bedroom on the Canadian side and another bedroom on the US side. Or maybe a bedroom on one side of the border and the bathroom on the other. Imagine having to clear customs each time you need to have a pee.

I could also write about the fact that I have made the transition back to dogs from cats for a while at least. My last two housesits have been cat houses, most recently with Shadow the cat and prior to that Oscar and Felix the cats. But as of a few days ago, I am comfortably settled back in with Jackson and Peach, my little Yorkshire terrier mates, here in Vancouver. Maybe that is the best way to figure out which bed and which country I am in. Just check out the animals living there and then I'll know. I'm hooped if I end up with a housesit without pets though.

Maybe I could write about the weather. If it gets down to that, we know the blog is on it's last legs for sure.

How about writing more updates regarding the progress of my leg? Well there isn't much to report on that front other than the fact that I seem to be enjoying incremental improvements as the weeks go by and so that is probably the best I can hope for at this stage.

I could write about the fact that today would have been my dad's 96th birthday if he was still alive. In fact, my dad came up in conversation recently, most likely because I was thinking about his birthday, and that lead me into talking about how he would make crepes each Sunday while I was growing up. Well before I knew it, I was emailing my sister Gerry, to find out if she could remember the recipe and soon after that I found myself in a kitchen churning out crepes as fast as people could eat them.
Gerry obviously had the right recipe (thanks Ger) and the proof was in the eating. Lots of smiling faces and satisfied tummies all around. Perhaps I'll do it again sometime in the future because it was kind of fun, and the crepes tasted pretty damn good as far as I could tell. Just like the old man made all those years ago.

I could also talk about yesterday. Why yesterday? Well, I have some Dawson friends visiting Vancouver at the moment and we had arranged to try to get together in the afternoon, out at the place they are staying which is a long skytrain ride from my current housesit. I took the skytrain out to the Loughheed Town Centre, one of the large shopping malls in the greater Vancouver area. The plan was to call them once I arrived in order to see if we could rendezvous. Well unfortunately that didn't happen, but for a while I found myself hanging around a shopping mall. These days, me hanging around a shopping mall would be like a vampire hanging around in a room full of silver crosses. In other words, not my favourite place to spend time. But as I was there anyway, waiting for the appointed time to call my friends, I did a walk around to give my leg a work out. Here it is less than a month before Christmas and you could have shot a cannon down any walkway and you wouldn't have hit a soul. The place looked deserted. And in addition to that there were a few shops with signs advertising 80% off sales, and one shop was having a going out of business sale. Certainly a sign of the times, as the industrial civilization continues to wind down and/or the fact that too many people are in too much debt or too broke to think about going out and buying more stuff. This unscheduled mall visit just happened to coincide with the theme of the book I am reading at the moment, titled, "Too Much Magic" by James Howard Kunstler, a follow up to a book he wrote in 2005 titled, "The Long Emergency" and as far as I can tell by looking at the state of affairs at this mall, Kunstler has nailed it right on the money. I think there are plenty of people who know that things aren't quite the way they were, but still we try to hang on and pretend that things will be ok if we just wish a bit harder.

And now I've just found one more thing to write about which wasn't even on the thought agenda when I began this blog. A few minutes ago, Peach was looking up at me with that "can I sit in your lap please" look, and so of course I obliged her. What she didn't relay with that look was her ulterior motive, which I have now found out more than once, was to get settled in nicely, fall asleep and then ever so quietly start letting out little Yorkie farts, which pack a surprising punch for such a little dog.
Thanks a lot Peach. But she looks so damn content in my lap, that I am happy to put up with her farting. That is, until my coffee cup is empty, and then the party will be over for a while at least.


Well, it's a grey morning here in Vancouver, but for now it's not raining, so I'll have a quick look at the satellite weather map and if the conditions look good, I will hop on my bike and head out on a mission. The mission? To track down some Chimes ginger chews, which is a new taste treat I recently had the opportunity to try. They are so good, that it will be worth the search.

Time now for a second cup of coffee. Sorry Peach, you'll have to move and go fart somewhere else.

Back in December.

All the best,

Paul
The Thoughtful Wanderer