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The last few days at the restaurant pass, cards from customers wishing you the best, Friday, Saturday, Sunday pass and then it's' done. Stupid tips, even to these the end of days.
Throw away my shoes, 2 pairs this season, from new to split through the soles, throw away shirts that saw second and third lives, should have been thrown away weeks, months before. Pack up your ties and waistcoats, load up the jeep, return to Nelson. The dire wobble of the front tire, held on by 2 lug nuts, this will be it's final run.
Now for the big unpack, resort, laundry and begin in earnest to try and find a place to live.
***
The restaurant, normal operations, is done, but there is still the clusterfuck of cleaning to be addressed.
Return on Wednesday to find out there were no plans to clean, this is it, a ton of work left to be done to close the place down properly, put it to sleep for the season, but everyone is already madly off in their own directions. Will return on Friday to finish this off, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, probably into next week, all this postponing work just drags the season out, but it's over.
Sleep, Wednesday night, I have dreams of girls with full breasts and plump asses, the first time in quite a while my mind has been a friendly place...
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Another Poster, there's so many alternative business models out here it boggles the brain. This one is a little more creative, I should meet her
Link: https://www.lovesshaman.com/
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Sunday, a brilliant day, Autumn sunshine and I'm heading North, back to the meadows. I've supplies, bananas, oranges, some olives, grapes, trail mix, not hearty but this isn't a pleasure trip.
And past Cooper creek it begins, the wobble on the passenger front tire. Get gas. Look at the tire - it appears the lug nuts have come loose again. Only now they're not tightening, not loosening, merely spinning. 2/5, maybe 3 out of the 5.
This is a problem. The Jeep, I know, precarious condition at best, but to attempt to travel up the mountain - 12 KM rough roads, 6 KM in 4 WD, well, I don't want to be walking down again.
And I would be walking down again.
Tighten as best I can and return to Nelson, I can have a mechanic look at it on Thursday. This is the quickest. And so again I'm couch surfing, bored, I should not be, there's no excuse, I have much to do but my mind is still at the top of the mountain, digging, what I have to do - writing, painting, etc - can be done indoors when the cool weather comes.
It's the rush to make hay at the end of summer.
On that note I mentioned a prospector who came in a few weeks ago, breathless about some pegmatites he found above the dark sky preserve. And I'm on the MTO looking up some land use around Ymir when zooming in I notice it. He's claimed at least 10, 000 hectares in the district I used to go for my black tourmaline and aquamarine.
Looking at costs...$20, 000 per year. Minimum. He's a variety of claims up there, but this is an expensive gamble. All these claims laid in the past 3 weeks. From approximately the night he showed up drunk in the restaurant talking about all the pegmatites he found. I look him up - exploration geologist for a gold mining company based out of Vancouver.
Hmmmm.
Somehow I'm a little annoyed.
Anyways, Jeep fixed with luck tomorrow. And I've managed to squeeze in an appointment with the Dentist, so - days not entirely wasted. This weekend, the last at the restaurant, then the deep clean - how many days? 2? 3? We'll see. Then it's off, spend the last snow-free weeks digging at the summit...
***
Update. Talked to Mechanic. Jeep won't be getting fixed. Will be lucky if it survives to Balfour for my last few days of work. Time, now, to find another...
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As the police described her, last weeks dine & dasher.
Even as I write this she's parked out on the Ferry landing, she's newspapers and blankets hung up over her windows, in the afternoon she takes them down.
She doesn't get out of her car, instead opting to sit inside for 14, 16 hours a day, on her cell-phone, playing Candy Crush.
It's insane and I'm curious - she's not so visibly marginal as many of our more established residents, so - what's up? Who do you call? Clearly there's been some sort of mental schism or break, but what, and how to remedy? Because this is madness, and if she was low on resources last week where precisely is she now? And all this whittling of time with Candy Crush...she's postponing some hard choices and who can you direct her to for assistance, guidance, because clearly the girl's in over her head.
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Friday, busy enough for 1. Not too busy, not too slow.
A single girl, mid 30's, pretty-ish, ballcap, tall, slim, sitting on her own eating a burger and side salad and playing "Candy Crush" on her computer. Draft beer.
She seems normal enough, which should be a flag, given the area....
I have a table of Chinese tourists, they're asking me questions about the map, where the ferry goes, etc, etc. And I'm explaining it to them and I look up and she's gone, laptop, sweater, everything.
Go outside - she's running away towards the ferry traffic - I yell out after her if she's going to pay - she turns back hastily and says "I'm coming back...."
She isn't and I'm pissed. It's not like I can run after or tackle her, I have other tables, this annoys me greatly.
Needless to say she doesn't come back. Bill, $35.00, I get to pay.
One of the local homeless people comes in to give me her plate # - "In case she doesn't come back", he saw me running after her. It pays to be on good terms with the locals.
Anyways, what can you do? The cops don't care. I saw this in Vancouver, where the homeless and junkies were perpetually popping into corner shops, cafe's, helping themselves to whatever they could lay their hands on. Only the grocery stores, with private security and more guards than clerks, had any chance of stopping it.
It used to be that the police were there to prevent crime. Any crime. Now, now it's just the high-end boutiques, the rest of the shops - despite paying their taxes, are on their own. Raise prices. Hire security. Deal with it. The social contract, your tax dollars at work, doing nothing.
SO this pisses me off on a number of levels, you have the who (license plate), she's not homeless or a junkie, merely exploiting the Crown's unwillingness to prosecute 'trivial' crimes.
But I'm in luck. Well, as in luck as you can get in these fucked-up dystopian times.
Sunday, at the spoken word event in Lakeside Park, I get a text from work...
"What did you say her license plate number was...?"
I send it on. I get a picture of the plate in return. She's in the restaurant, playing "Candy Crush". And sure enough, she does a runner. Only this time they've boxed her in with their cars while they call the police. She's done it here, she's done it elsewhere...
The police show up, after 3 hours, reluctantly take her info, talk to her. "She's down on her luck..." they tell the restaurant, despite her having a full pack of smokes, new Ford Focus, I-Phone, they've logged her details, no charges, just a talking to.
This is bullshit. She's made her way from the coast to here on this entire business model, that small crimes aren't worth pursuing, and were you to suggest perhaps lowering her tires, leaving a "Kootenay Welcome" on her windshield, why, you'd be a criminal! Yet she's allowed to commit a hundred, thousand or more such "minor" offenses, 99.9% of which will go unreported, in her travels across BC/Canada.
She's a pretty girl, down on her luck...
And justice, now, in Canada, it's all self-serve. Don't trust or rely on the police, they are there for the rich, for those with a lawyer, don't waste your time. If you see a cop, shoot first and ask questions later.
So it begins.