Kirk is getting around to finishing up the sound system in the bedroom, which, when all is said and done, will outperform the one in the living room. He must love me since it’s all attached to the computer and therefore is mainly for my benefit when working. Things don’t always go as smoothly as we’d like though. When he came into the dining room for some equipment he looped a piece of wire around a drawer in a unit and pulled it out. Normally this wouldn’t be a big deal…except that the particular drawer in question contained several bottles of micro-glitter…and one popped open when it hit the floor. If you ever think glitter is easy to contain….I challenge you to fling a few ounces of it across the floor and then try to keep two cats out of it. I wonder how long it will be around and continue to crop up….
Archive for November, 2008
Always Passing Through
November 26th, 2008, posted in TravelHeading home from a few days in Duncan at the hatchery. Thought I might be able to catch the 12:30 ferry. No such luck, the 3pm it is then. Driving into Nanaimo. Those old familiar feelings pop up again. Bitterness, anger, loss, disillusionment, humiliation, failure. You can build relationships and friendships over the span of years and you can lose respect for them in mere moments. A friend and a mentor turns out to be a coward and a user. Trust in others and personal and self confidence recede. So fragile. It seems so impossible, someday I hope the hurt will go away. But not today apparently. Will I ever manage to transit this place without shedding a tear or two?
How fast can I get through this town? Will I see anyone I know? I hope not. Don’t look around or I might. Take the route that helps me avoid the possibility of a chance encounter. I hate it here. An hour to kill at the ferry terminal. Encounters here have been rare over the years, but they have happened. I feel moderately safe. Slip in for a couple of magazines and head back to the car. If I was going to run into anyone it would be more likely to occur on the 5pm run. There used to be a few of us regulars on that one.
Quite the overhaul this place has had! The old terminal is gone, the lanes are rerouted, and where there used to be a simple little cafe, there is a quaint little marketplace with a magazine shop that carries titles I’ve never heard of before. Kinda cool! The Renaissance is docked, not sure if I’ll be on it or the Cowichan. After the news last night I assume it will be the Cowichan. The new ferries burn more fuel so are less economical on small loads. Not many cars in the lot, so I’d quantify this as a small load.
Cloudy here today, and cool…and smelly. Hate those pulp mills. Smells like where I grew up. Funny how you can amplify an emotion and wrap an entire city up in it. There’s a bittersweet component to passing through here. Did I ever actually really want to move here? Or did I just convince myself that I did because it was what I thought I wanted, or rather what I thought I “should” do? Nanaimo is better this way, a place to pass through. When I think of the community that I would have had to leave behind, all our boating friends, I know in my heart I would never have been happy here. We would have lost something we have spent over ten years cultivating. Now if I can just convince my head of that.
Finally loaded. Not on the Renaissance today. I’m car number 20 according to the counter on the ramp. A car sits in the lane…no one in it. Someone went missing or abandoned their car on the last trip? It would have had to be on the last Nanaimo to Vancouver run rather than the just arrived trip…since it’s pointing out the same way we are. Odd that they haven’t towed it off the boat. Strange. Ah, when I walked past I saw a sign indicating the driver was physically disabled. now it makes sense. When we started loading they stopped us partway up the ramp. I guess they were assisting the driver.
Flat calm, no wind, a gorgeous day on the water. The sun is out now…and a car alarm is wailing below decks. Why do people set their alarms on the ferry? Silly people, they always go off! Take a few photos from below on the car deck, can’t feel my fingers anymore…
Another trip to the Island, over and done with. Lots of writing to do now…..
On the road again…
November 24th, 2008, posted in Travel
I think this is my last road trip on my current contract. And I have to admit that I’m burnt out. I need to find something new to do. Would really love to find a way back to teaching. Anyway, I’m currently in Duncan, BC. I’ve passed through before but I think I must have missed it somehow…probably because I am always racing to catch the ferry when I’m in this neck of the woods.
I am actually surprised I even made it here on time today! I set the alarm clock last night before I went to sleep…and then forgot to turn it on….good thing I basically don’t need an alarm clock anyway. In my entire life I’ve probably only ever slept in once or twice. And yet I always set the clock. I think I’m afraid of that one really important day when I finally do sleep in…so I keep setting it….sometimes I even set two…just in case…then I wake up 5 minutes before they go off and stuff them under my pillow…go figure.
Anyway, this morning I woke up 5 minutes before the alarm that wasn’t set should have gone off. Then I desperately tried to get a couple of things done before I headed for the first ferry…the ferry I came dangerously close to missing. Half asleep, driving to Horseshoe Bay, all the darn construction and at the last moment I did my usual and mixed up my left and right and took the wrong lane…and missed the turn. Gads, you’d think I’d have this stupid thing figured out by now…but apparently not. So now I’m in a panic, rushing back down the highway in the wrong direction trying to get turned around at Caulfeild. Pay my exorbitant ferry fare and drive down the empty lanes…all the other cars are already on board..I drive right onto the ferry. My only comforts are the fact that i actually made it on….and there were two or three cars that loaded after me….I wasn’t last…that counts for something.
About 25 minutes out of Nanaimo I opened up the laptop to see exactly where I was headed…and the thing went to a black screen that had a line of error text on it. Uhhhhhh, this is not good….. Turn the thing off, and restart it. It tells me it didn’t start up right last time (yeah, I sorta got that part). It wants to do an error check. OK. Just as I am pulling into Departure Bay it decides it will start up properly. Whew! Getting to the hatchery without a functional computer would have been embarrassing and rather useless. I really, really want a Mac laptop….
On the road again, and for some reason I got the wrong road name in my head…..and headed down it for a short distance before I questioned myself….and turned around and found the right road.  It’s always comforting to see those little signs that say “Salmon Hatchery” with a little arrow beneath…pointing me in the right direction.
As I’m heading down the road the sun is peeking up and through the thin fog. The field of dried grasses is lightly frosted. Gorgeous…and I was running late and couldn’t spare the time to stop. Oh well, some images that don’t make it onto the camera stay in your head. It really was pretty. I thought maybe I’d catch it tomorrow morning, but the forecast is for rain. Maybe I’ll get lucky Wednesday morning.
Anyway, found the hatchery, had a tour, went and found some lunch, found a nice spot near the water in Cowichan Bay, took a couple of photos, back to the hatchery, left and found my hotel. Strange folk here. I paid in advance via the internet and they almost seemed to not like that. “If you want to make any long distance calls we need your credit card to unlock the phone” Uh, no, I’m good, got a cell phone with me. Just want wireless. “Oh, we don’t have that, wired only, if you want wireless, give us your credit card” Uh…no, that’s OK, I can live with a wire….
I head over to Save on Foods for some milk and nibbles…and the Save on Foods looks like it is half empty. Half the shelves are bare, the produce department has a few produce tables in a huge empty space. A little weird for my taste so I head across to Safeway. A bit more normal. They actually have food…..
Footprints on my heart…and my dining room table…and my coffee table
November 19th, 2008, posted in CritterTalk
Milo, well, there’s that issue of peeing in the wrong place at seemingly random moments. I’m not sure if I felt better or worse when we took him in for his annual checkup and the vet said she has a cat that pees outside the box too…if the vet can’t fix the problem…how are we going to?? And then there is his habit of wanting to drink from the water taps….flinging objects from whatever place you put them onto the floor, his penchant for nipping toes, ankles, cheeks, noses, etc…
And Loki? Oh, he may be cute, but he’s no angel either. He’s a food hound and that nose of his. It jams straight up yours at any opportunity. If breakfast isn’t served by 7am there is Hell to pay and he won’t let us sleep in…ever. If his dinner isn’t served by 6 pm sharp he will wolf down dry food and puke it back up…better get that tablespoon of wet down fast or you’re going to be cleaning up a mess somewhere.
I went out to the living room this morning and looked at our dining room table….covered in little dusty footprints. Evidence…. Tiko used to get beaten for getting up on counters and tables. So he just did it when we weren’t around, but like today, I always saw the evidence. When these guys came along we tried to say no, then realized at least we knew and why kid ourselves…they are going to do it no matter what. Just clean more often and absolutely NOT allowed up when there is food present!
Poor Tiko must be turning over in his grave….
Finding all the great little Mac Apps!
November 14th, 2008, posted in Mac StuffAt least once a day I send a message (now using iChat rather than MSN!) to Kirk telling him that I love my Mac. Why? A number of other reasons:
#1. It just works!
#2. It’s not Windows!
#3. The ton of free and really useful applications out there. For example: