- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2313
And today, the owner has bad news. He's talked to the new owners, they'll be closing the restaurant, March 1st, Feb 28th is the last day.
They strung him along, telling him they'd keep the staff, the name, run the business...
They were lying.
I don't care. This couch surfing and perennial homelessness, it's getting a bit much, I only wanted a couple more weeks to pad the wallet, wanted the weather to improve to do some prospecting before I return to BC, but like a whip the entire 2 week long term forecast changed overnight.
"It could change again" I tell myself.
The other staff, immigrants every one of them, papers tying them to the restaurant, this restaurant, they're not so happy. The salad girl tells me she'll miss us, I understand, we've all been through a lot together. The Nephew, he's tossing the idea of travel, he has savings. The waitress, she's panic-stricken, she needs the job, bad, overspends, doesn't budget, she's in deep trouble. The rest, well, plans will divulge themselves over the next week I'm sure.
We've cancelled the reservations for March, April, May, started telling the regulars, some are in tears, there will be more I'm sure, the restaurant's been there 27 years, people proposed in it, brought up their children there, for a lot of people it's a big part of their lives. The staff as well, nowhere in the world could you get dinner and a show for such a reasonable price. But times change, and this is not necessarily a bad thing. A tank of gas, or 4, a few cans of beans and I'll be hitting the creeks for a few weeks before working my way to BC. I have a feeling that it's time now to earn my own fortune,
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 1882
And couch surfing again, this a 3 week tour, maybe longer, will depend on the new owners, the improvement in the weather leaves me restless to be off and about in the jeep, and all this sleeping on other peoples couches, it's gotten to be a bit much. All well intended and appreciated, but there's a distinct lack of...well, desk, the trifles that I need to get by. A Desk. Maybe a bed, not urgent, a bathroom is more important, and that's it. If I'm here in March I'll have to go looking, there's no peace of mind to found on the couch, in front of the TV, always some idiocy playing, vacuous distraction, the current couch, the full slate of cable, always something inane to distract you from projects of importance, I'm far better prepared this trip, but lacking the privacy to meditate or otherwise catch up is making me insane. "It's only temporary" I tell myself, but that's become at the moment my life...
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2630
Found them at a garage sale, New looking, still in box, Mephisto Copying Pencils, thought they were like pencils or charcoal and so used them instead.
But upon playing with some watercolors I discover that they have the curious property of turning purple when when wetted, like watercolors, but the line is that of a standard pencil. So I google it and find this:
Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copying_pencil
Not nearly as new as they appeared, and I'm glad I found out - time to find some tools a little less toxic and more to my purpose.
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2393
Sunday, the long drive in from BC for the final three weeks of work. Maybe more, we'll see how the new owners are.
The drive, snow covered roads, long, slippery, advisories posted everywhere and by the time I reach Fernie - some 6 hours later, there are signs warning that the Crowsnest Pass is closed. Check the phone, so is the one at Invermere, many road closures, no choice, no hotel rooms in Fernie, bluster on forwards to Crowsnest...
...by 7:30 I arrive, Pass is closed, not due to open until sometime the next day, I try a few back roads to the highway but they've got them blocked off as well. Choices, go back to the Firehall in Sparwood, grab a cot and a blanket, or backtrack to Cranbrook and Invermere, that pass - for the moment - is open again.
No liquor at the Firehall and so I'm off. The roads, bad already, are getting worse, visibility a few meters, can't see the road, only the abyss off to the left, slowly, slowly...cars vanish over the edge here in winter, leave no trace, the embankment loses the tracks in just a few moments, the snow covers the wreck, if they're lucky they'll be found in the spring, but read the missing people, many aren't found for years...When I was a kid my mother told us of the story of the family that went missing on the way to Vancouver, found, 22 years later, by some hikers in the Hells gate, over a cilff and into some treetops...go off the road here, now, and that could be you...
Eventually I make Calgary. A miracle of sorts, the next day, checking the road reports, every road from Nelson - the pass, south of Creston, the Crowsnest at Elkford, the #1, is closed. I made it, just barely, 30 below and 1:30 in the morning and I'm looking for a couch.
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2402
Chopping Wood. Finer and finer, splintering into smithereens, she's complained, I'm merely stacking it, it needs to be chopped, chopped more, further, splintered into shivering kindling...
I oblige. I disagree, wood burns better as logs, the bigger the log, the longer it burns, but this is philosophy. Her preference is for the kindled log.
I try to get ahead, chop more wood, free up a morning or day to just laze in or attend other things, but the more I chop, the more they burn.
I do what meager woofing I can. And it is meager, I'm lazy, demotivated, I have an abundance of other things on my mind which aren't getting done. I'd rather be paying rent and living alone than living with the generous flexibility of "do what you can..." Because I can always do more. I can do great things...but I am here, in the woodshed of the Kootenays, I don't belong here, I am waiting my summons to greatness, I make my notes, work - sporadically, on my projects, meet her friends, her boyriend-not-boyfriend, friend, just friend, he seems a good guy. An equally dark sense of humour. Funny, flirtatious, (uh-oh, she knows), bright (enough), we get along.
Time passes.