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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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An unexpected Thanksgiving off, and I was greatly appreciative. The owners of the restaurant probably realized that holidays aren't worth the overtime, and they're right, and - bloody hell, I'm all in for the holidays.
So I planned to hit up the soup kitchen, which does a free Thanksgiving dinner that is (hugely) well attended, and then I thought better and took friend for dinner.
Here, there's no end of people here you can take for dinner. It's that sort of town.
And friend, well, I mean, I'm pretty tough to deal with, she's a longstanding ex, but she's always kept the sofa made up for me, always fed me, stopped stocking the Vodka (because that was an EXPENSE!!!), but - know who your friends are.
SO an overpriced dinner at the fanciest place in town, which - look at their menu - isn't that fancy, but they've done great with the decor.
***
Tuesday, my double, bloody hell, a midday rush (3:00 - 5:00), otherwise a slow spiritual suicide. The murder of innocent days.
***
Wednesday, supposedly off, but I get the text "... is sick" and as I had Thanksgiving off I can't argue the fact. Work. Dismal. After work, check the thrift shop (Positive Apparel) and find nothing, it's furniture equivalent, nada, then get groceries. Lots. Enough for a week. Hit "Dollarama" in a quest for cinnamon to quell the mould on the chilis and a 2" paint roller, find both (or close enough) - and a few other trifles that I didn't think to write down but found nonetheless. Success!
The Chilis? Glad you asked. One of the three has produced a 1 inch gonad that overnight turned red, as well as two smaller gonads that also turned red. So I will have some (?? How many is some? 3-4) of the spiciest peppers on earth, only I haven't tried them yet and need to bring them into work and have them thinly sliced and delivered for assay...
After that another trip, this time to the Coop, some more ephemeral supplies, and I run into B*****, in his special "walking uniform" which would mask as an exercise uniform if it weren't for...
And he paces me back to the building, he's in need of a cigarette, is restless, the divorce, not going so well (?? do they ever ??), the children, the ...
We're done the cigarettes when he takes the hint and fucks off, my place, it's a studio, it's not for entertaining, I spell it out...
I hate that it's that way, but - You know, not changing a lifetime of habit or preference for a random...and really, it's not just gender bias, if you saw my place you'd know it wasn't for entertaining.
***
Today, Thursday, still a couple sheets to the wind. Off to Creston, where I'd offered the choice to Thanksgiving friend (hotsprings, Creston) and the die was cast.
First, Gleaners. Nada. I've never seen so much shit I didn't want or need in my life. Or - wait - I have seen, every Friday volunteering at the thrift shop...
Maybe I could have broken down, bought a few canvases for restretching and art projects but - nope, nope, it's too overwhelming....and I have enough on my plate to keep me busy until the end of my life...
***
Then the Iode, lucky chance that it's open, but again Nada. From here to the bookstore - Kingfisher, a great old/collectable bookstore, only I have a list, a hundred books stacked by my computer, and they have nothing that's on my list.
I spend a little extra time, discover the basement, where "Science/Math" are grouped together and ... is misspelt, this gives me hope....I find a copy of Isaac Newton's "The Principia" in translation (Why? Because he wrote it in Latin, Dummy!!!!) this is my find of the day, My only find.
From here to lunch, friend has supplied her recommendation. It's a nondescript shit-hole on the intersection of the highway and the main street.
***
I fucking have to kill her. It's in a restaurant/gift shop, at the end of one of the busier streets, the intersection. The "Gift" portion of the shop comprises mostly just rocks/gems/minerals/new-age/greeting cards and CNC wood plaques epitomizing dumb-ass twee sentiments about home. there's just room enough for a half dozen tables.
The menu, dismal, we decide on a couple of burritos. I go and pay. With drinks (Diet Coke and H20) it comes to $50.00.
Wait. Wait. Wait for the food.
When it arrives it's as if you described the theory of a burrito to an alien; who understanding nothing of burritos, of earth, of what you mean by "beans" and "rice" and "fresh vegetables" and with what limited comprehension it has tries to make you a meal from home-grown off-world ingredients. I paid $50.00 for this. Every mouthful of disgust, and I have to eat it, the most expensive remorse or disgust you can buy; it's beyond appalling, the diet coke can't wash the retching out of my throat, and still I force myself. I'm glad to see my friend is finding it no more savoury than I but is forcing herself to "chow down" as well. For a side they've "lovingly" piled three fingers worth of tortilla crumbs (the bottom of the bag, clearly, not a whole chip amongst them), and the condiments comprise a small dish of "Pace" brand salsa and home-soured cream.
The most fucking disgusting meal of my life.
***
Still retching from the aftermath and the bile rising in my throat and not just a little bit annoyed at friend (I did suggest McDonalds, the poor-choice of fools but Michelin Starred next to that abomination), we make our way to the High street jewellers, look at his selection of used vintage watches (he has better, in the back room, but I haven't the budget after spending $50.00 on garbage and $70.00 on gas and so I resist the temptation...) and querying him find that he is able to repair old watches. This is good, I need a local watch guy, and I've grown tired of handing them off to the jewellers in town at $300.00 a pop only to find after 6-8 weeks they can't fix them...
From here to the next stop - Beacon bookstore, a vintage/used/curated bookstore right on the high street. And - again, an amazing selection of vintage/antique books, many great titles, and I never knew it was here...
Who would have guessed Creston would prove to have so much to my taste?
I mean, other than food...
This ends the day. The rest of it trying to get the flavour of the world's worst burrito out of my mouth, multiple rinses with soda, diet coke, vodka, just not doing it but an explosion earlier this afternoon might just have seen the last of it, god knows it tasted better...
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And, while on the phone eagerly recommending the children watch the untold tale of my life, and - while there was my childhood well documented by JK Rowling I lament the gap in my middle age and the daughter corrects me:
"You know, there was the Indiana Jones movies, Pa"
I think about it and she's right. I mean, no one wants to watch the countless hours I spend preparing for adventures in the Gym or at the Library or striding Mountain Tops, they only want the highlights...
And these movies, they cover it.
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Refusing to give up I moved the chilis indoors. 4 X 3 foot shrubs in 10 inch pots balanced on a 8 inch window ledge. I was avoiding doing this because there's no bloody room for me in the apartment, let alone the plants, but I've been 6 months growing these fuckers and I'm gonna see some results.
I wonder if they appreciate the homecoming, if they remember the ledge they where they started, if this will be the clue, "Time to Spawn, to Fruit", it's the circle of life guys and I'm giving you one last chance...
They do seem happier, and the plants-on-the ledge does brighten up an otherwise madhouse of incompleted art projects.
***
The morning, a couple of thrift shops (nada), grocery store - I'm making salsa. I'm done with the store-bought, their "Mild-Medium-Hot" which all are invariably mild, the "Fresh" and "Home-Made" which are never either; just slightly more seasoned chunky tomato puree...
My recipe, 8 fresh Roma tomatos, 1 large Spanish onion, 6 Jalapeños, the juice of a large lime, a hand full of spicy Thai Chilis, garlic cloves, garlic salt, salt & pepper to taste.
I actually don't have a recipe and it changes every time but every time it's the best salsa in town.
And I'm eating it, tasting, as I go along, damn, it's mighty fine without the tomatoes, just the onions and garlic and peppers and why tomatoes anyways...
and tasting and tasting and I go through first one bag of chips and then another before I'm done and what will all this tasting there isn't a lot of salsa made but I put it in the fridge for later...
Maybe this will inspire the chilis to fruit, making salsa with store-bought chilis 6 or 7 months in is preposterous...
(later, trapped inside, realizing that man should not live on Salsa alone, attempts for an evening constitutional threatened by a growling belly. For dinner I make a clam chowder, small pot, which turns out to be 4 big bowls and as I hate leftovers I'm cussing myself out for not inviting a friend over for dinner. But better I didn't with the belly-and-all)
***
What to read, what to read? If my apartment is a mess books are a large part of it, not the sole contributing cause (art supplies!!), just a big contributing cause. And I'm choosing books to read that I can take to the bookstore and get credit on, avoiding those I'm dying to read like the 2 volume set, first person, on Thompson/Tyrells explorations in Western Canada/US, because I suspect I'll want to hang onto them (being relatively rare) and I'm trying after my own bumble-fuck fashion to make this apartment liveable.
I start them anyways, flipping to the back, only 200 pages, should be easy and quick enough but then I note that the forward for each is 100 pages, roman numerals, and they just got a little bit (enjoyably but not responsibly) longer and I should choose something I can part with...
(Sorry, clickbait AI News. You'll need to do better - what books and 650 don't make you an expert by a long shot!.)
***
In the evening, a prospecting video out of Tasmania. Tasmania, part of Australia, so no surprise, a location in the jungle, YouTuber in a shallow creek with a couple of classifiers, slow shovelling the gravel, finding placer nuggets of tin, spinels, zircons, topaz and sapphires. All of this in every pan. His net haul isn't so great after 2 days, but - watching him work explained a great deal. Too much talking to the camera, not enough shovelling buddy!!! Some places are better than others, a humble creek, and I speed through the video; I'm annoyed, and I need a jeep. Somewhere in this great province we have the same or better...
And I finish with a movie, "The Planters", which is a separate post.
***
This morning I hear from Iskra on Facebook. A few months ago, reading old letters, looking up vanished friends, found her on facebook and added her. And today she replies. She'd been thinking of me a few months before, then recalled my last name, and then I added her as a friend on Facebook, and she knew...
Stranger things...
Iskra, a Macedonian girl that lived down the hall from me in London. Sent by wealthy parents to avoid the conflict in Yugoslavia, started, as she explained to me, by "Kutnik's" or "Chutnik's", the Serbian hill people whom apparently the rest of Yugoslavia reviled. She would finish her explanation with a sigh and lament Tito as the best president the former Yugoslavia ever had.
She was an interesting one. Maybe 20 years old she got a job working at a gentleman's club in Soho, her duties included dressing enticingly and dancing and encouraging the patrons to order expensive bottles of champagne and tipping her glass into the plants when they weren't looking. She had some stories...
She confessed to me that if she ever lost her virginity it would be to a man who dressed like a woman, she found that strangely sexy...
And telling Nana, another friend from work, Serbian, another war-exile, and she explained to me that Macedonia was filled with girls like this...
So there will be a long piece of writing to catch up with her...
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SO the week at work was uneventful, the weather is cooling down - 20 degrees top in the day, low down to 4 or 5 degrees at night. By this weekend it should be freezing. The Thai chilis are giving it there all; but the rest, well, they're not doing so good. Maybe I should move them indoors, where they can have warmer temperatures (but worse light), but I'm plumb-damned-darned almost giving up.
I'll have to think where I can move them indoors. And maybe look for a full spectrum grow light.
The water is still too high to bother with a trip to Balfour to search arrowheads, the town is quiet, and I'm restless.
Today, groceries, yogurt, fruit, made a giant bowl of properly spicy salsa because in all my shopping I've tried every brand and none of them - even the hottest, are remotely spicy.
Complaining, of YouTube, the algorithm, completely wrong, seldom lately has it delivered anything I can listen to, it's been taken over by AI narrated/generated videos, utter nonsense, and so I'll go back to "This American Life", "NPR", "Radiolab" and look for more audio intelligence to accompany my little art projects, that background noise that's just intelligent enough to allow me to free my hands to do other things.
Otherwise, little of note in my reading and film frontiers, I've a big pile of books to get through before I bring any new ones home anyways. So in lieu of an exciting personal life I might start reading excerpts from my poetry...
I've discovered that my income is greatly insufficient to the life I want to be living and maybe this will solve things?
And, for the moment that's all.
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Meanwhile, since getting back; coworker, sick, rumour has it she's had more sick days over my vacation than I had vacation days. How this is possible is anyone's guess, but I don't doubt it. She's texting me, still not feeling well, would I work for her tonight?
***
And M***, at the cafe, doing well, but do I know so and so and he describes him, another cafe regular, his girlfriend, and I do, by sight only - not that it matters since apparently he was found dead in his tub just before I left for vacation, probably the same day I last saw him...
I have a theory but it's wrong to speculate upon the deceased...
***
M****** is working a Flea Market this weekend and I've committed to dropping off some of my ties with a view towards lessening my load and paying off some of the costs of the vacation. And, given the sheer number of ties I have, maybe even of taking another.
So I sort through them, choose about 30 (leaving some 4 or 5 hundred left), drop them off, M****** is filled with admiration, it's true, they're beautiful things but no one out here wears a tie...
I should start wearing ties around town the next few days, inspire the competition that can then find their own ties at M******'s stall...
***
And B***, wearing the coat I gave M****** who then regifted to B***, running into him at the Kootenay Co-Op, and he's laughing, makes me try it on, we're the same size, catch up, he's interested in some of my ties and I refer him to M*****.
***
Today, another day off that hasn't yet been thwarted although I have to live under the shadow that it may yet be, this morning diverted from my regular cafe by an inane gibbering woman that would not let go the ear of the barista, head down to another, it's been there a couple of years but of such erratic hours that I've never stopped in. Today is the day, and - inside, clean, contemporary urban layout, 1 other customer, 3 staff. It takes 10 minutes to get a double espresso. They don't do filter coffee, (POUR OVER is their equivalent), don't have cream, sugar (although they serve the espresso with a spoon, which to me seems useless). How they've managed these couple of years is as much a mystery as any of the businesses in the Lower East Side of Vancouver, the lead Barista, a man of my age and clearly strong opinions (although this from his demeanor, not his speaking), his venture, behind the bar to take my order because the other barista isn't yet capable, then relaying it to her, then back to tidying empty shelves, ...
***
And the neighbour, texting me first thing in the morning that she's certain other neighbour (Kramer) is a Prostitute, saw her coming in this morning dressed like....(fishnets, high white boots). No surprise there, we'd all speculated, and why she sees fit to tell me is a bit odd...
***
Which brings us up to speed, time now for a Baker Street stroll, thrift shop (or 2), make some lunch and get started on a few creative projects...