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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: Blog

Published: 27 February 2025

Hits: 182

Monday, head out of town. The weather's fine, as good as it'll get, there's been a lot of snow, a lot of rain, it's warming up, out to Balfour to look for artifacts.

It's been a few months since I made the trip, the trees, stripped of leaves, show how much the lakefront is filling in, 2nd, 3rd properties on lots that once held a single lakefront property.

The character of the lake, the town, it's changing, has been for a while. Not for the better.

Arriving at Balfour, first thing I notice - the property 2 lots down from the restaurant has been sold. Maybe 150 meters of lakefront, now cleared of trees and being built up by excavators. Asking around, apparently it'll be a trailer court for 55+ retirees.

It's ugly. Ugly as fuck and the lack of trees mean that it's a least 20, probably 30 years from being presentable. 

Then there's the restaurant and it's neighbour. The neighbour, I've mentioned him before, a local "Character", by which I mean hostile abusive drunk. He's been banned from contacting any number of people on Facebook, he's the kind of ass that thinks threats of violence and Nazi salutes are funny. His property, it's been improved after his own mind and model of self improvement, more grey modular homes, garages, the property is now filled with them, side by side, garages filled with vehicles - how many does anyone need? More and then some it would appear. And other buildings, rentals perhaps, or guest accommodations, all so closely packed you'd wonder how they get in. It's a dump, formalized with a lot of crummy and probably unauthorized buildings.

***

Then there's the restaurant. Smoke coming from the chimney, somebody's home, garbage piled high outside the staff accommodations. That probably can be attributed to SR's absence this summer, he was responsible for the management of the property, without him it's gone to shit. JR will have done nothing.

Apparently the restaurant has sold. Or is about to sell. Soon. There's a bidding war. I see posts on Facebook by the customers it never had looking forward to the new, better owners that will win back their business. And I've heard from acquaintances that it's sold, or is selling,...

All this talk of it's selling, it selling, it's proof it hasn't sold. That it didn't sell, that it'll be that liability on their hands again this summer and thank god I'll have other plans and won't have to go back there and work.

***

The Ferry landing, the strike tent in the middle of the traffic lanes. The washrooms, at the top of the landing, they've finally gotten fucking smart, gendered the bathrooms. A men's and a women's. And where the mens (ungendered) used to have a single stall they now have 2 stalls and a urinal. 3 times the capacity. I can't speak for the women's but safe to presume it's doubled. This, 2 years after the improvements, could have been done at a fraction of the cost and double the quality when they were building it, but they were too much the fuckwits. 

That said, the strike, ongoing, US/Canada relations, well, ....all these improvements to infrastructure, the uglification of Balfour, to what avail? The people are disappearing, the world is changing, and no ferry means we need no improvements to the landing, why would we, things are not what they once were...

***

Change, that spotted over the past 4 months, since last I was out here, it's startling. Things have been going on. Not good things, but things nonetheless.

I head down to look for arrowheads. 3 1/2 hours spent stooped, bent double, crouched, looking at rocks on the foreshore. The lake is low, there's lots new exposed. That said, no great treasures. A couple of worked pieces of flint, an old scraper, nothing to photograph or write home about. When the bus comes to take me back to Nelson I'm pretty grateful. When I get to Nelson I stop at the candy store, treat myself to $10 worth of school chalk (Licorice), the last they have. And then at the Kootenay Bakery for a half dozen salted chocolate cookies. I have no idea where this sweet tooth has come from but I'm doing my best to accommodate it. And damn if it isn't all just tasting mighty fine...

***

And in the days following I'm realizing I need exercise, yoga, this bending double for a few hours has seriously wounded me, my every muscle, and summer's coming, summer's soon, and I can't be this out of shape... 

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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: Blog

Published: 23 February 2025

Hits: 161

Now, again done the medicine prescribed, giant gobstoppers of Amoxicillin, 6 per day, now used up. The rest is to nature, and I’m exhausted, feeling as if I’ve stood against the ropes while Mike Tyson took 6 or 7 rounds and got it all out of his system. I’ve still a cough, but the expectorate has lost it’s malignant hue.

Outside, since I’ve been sick, perhaps 3 feet of snow and now a continual drizzle. On the dark asphalt, slick, still a couple of moist yellow spots where I spat on the first days of my sickness, bits of the plague in the flesh, clinging to the asphalt as if waiting for spring when they can begin to grow and crawl and evolve into something else…

I’ve been subject to strange cravings, cookie dough, Pillsbury croissants, dark chocolate and salted caramel ice cream. Shanghai noodles, I’ve stocked my fridge, Asian food, it’s a small town, there’s no going out for this, better to make it for oneself.

Now, time for a walk, and then a longer one, this convalescence will demand some energy I don’t have but a walk, a longer walk, perhaps tomorrow try and get out of town, head out to Balfour and see what all this rain and snow have brought to the surface….

My apartment, a complete and utter mess, ankle deep in salt and sand, the heater failed a couple of weeks ago, still waiting on a repairman, thinking it would be sooner, thinking it would be courteous I pulled all my furniture away from the heat pump, there it’s remained, the repairman, due every day and never once shown up. Fortunately the apartment keeps reasonably warm without the heat, 17 or 18 degrees, nothing a blanket and sweater can’t handle.

And for the moment that’s it…

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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: Blog

Published: 18 February 2025

Hits: 166

The week leading up, reservations. All told maybe 60, 70 people, 2 1/2 turns of the restaurant. Not too crazy, we should be able to manage fine.

A few days before, customer comes in for soup to go. She can see I'm unwell, not the best, and so is insistent that I get the chef to dish her soup to go out. I can touch nothing. Single-handedly I'm the plague, poisoning babies, killing villages, ...

I'm too sick to argue.

The same day, another lady, has a friend, can't eat gluten or rice, what do we have? I answer nothing. Not entirely true, but - close enough, and my patience for this is expired. 

***

Valentines comes and it's a shit-show blown up beyond belief. Clearly and without precedent, without even a near comparison the worst Valentines I've worked in the industry. Ever.

There's a line up at the door all night. People without reservations, who thought they wouldn't need them, couples, families with strollers, people looking confused that a reservation might be required, "Why?", you can see it in their perplexed, offended faces.

The busiest day of the year, and why would you need a reservation? We manage to fit in perhaps 40 walk-ins, another 200 are left grumbling to go and try elsewhere.

***

Feb 14th, Saturday. Busy again, this time with people out to enjoy the live music and a few mocktails. A young couple come in, don't like their table, try and switch to a booth for 5. I tell them we're reserving that for a larger group, they get offended, leave, write an online review that calls me a "racist" for not letting them have the booth. 

***

This industry, it's peak entitlement. Every idiot feels entitled to have their every idiocy pandered to. I'm done with it, maybe, at best, I've another 3, 4 months left, but I can't do it anymore. Now to begin looking for a way out...any commonality, of good manners, breeding, it's vanished and I'm exhausted.

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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: Blog

Published: 18 February 2025

Hits: 165

Over 2 weeks of feeling like shit, sleeping 16-18 hours plus a day, barely surviving every day at work.

I'm used to this, not "Used" to it, per-se, but more of the stoic philosophy that says ride it out until you get better, and sooner or later you'll wake up feeling a little (or a lot) better.

2 weeks, 2 days, until last Sunday I finally grab a cab and drag my sorry ass off to the hospital.

Work, they'd grown a little impatient with my misery, I had no choice, really.

The hospital, Emergency, 3 hours waiting to see a physician. The standard, and then some x-rays and it's Pneumonia.

Fine. Off to Shoppers to get a prescription, 5 days, 6 pills, I should be feeling fine around Thursday or Friday.

The week passes. Still sick as a dog, sleeping, work is to be barely survived, endured. All I want to do is to get home and back into bed. I eat out, nothing in my fridge, tacos, but they taste wretched and I've no appetite. Breakfast, same, food, generally, the same. I pick, fuss, eat a bit, and then go to bed. On a whim I go to the Co-op, buy 4 cans of Organic Soup, $5.00 per can, only it's as well garbage, I'm paying 10 cents for the can, 3 cents for the "organic" soup, which is nothing at all, for $5.00 in a restaurant you'd send it back, and you'd be right, and here I've filled a bag with this inedible nonsense. I'm too sick to cook and too sick not to.

The days are unendurably long. I'm not well. Not by a long shot. Thursday, working the day, collegue texts me that she'll be late. 4:30. 4:30 comes and passes, no show, 5:30, 6:30 and I'm on the phone with the owner, "Where the f@@#R! is .....", no call in, nothing, this place, it's murdering my every hope of survival. 

I'm not happy. 

A replacement is found, sent in to spell me off, and I'm home again to bed. 

Friday I'm better. I've slept, not well, but better.

Dreams, by the way, for the week. No liquor, no cigarettes (well, maybe 5 per day). Most days simply pass out in bed, the night sweats, wake when you wake, no memory of dreams. But one night, that i'm in a well lit warehouse, hundreds of other generic souls boxing up cutlery, boxes, hundreds, no soul to this, a factory, machine.

Then the next night a dream in which all the things, court filings, papers, business, it's bursting out my wallets, I'm disorganized in the extreme, everything I've ignored these past few weeks due to being sick is now piled up in bulbous exploding wallets and I need to get organized, get my shit together...

...and I'm awake for an hour or so before I figure out this was a dream, a fever dream, and the fever, it's filling my waking and sleeping hours and I'm not able to find when I'm myself.

***

Friday, Valentines Day, Saturday, the day after. These are separate posts. 

Sunday, my medicine, prescription, expired on Thursday, and I'm pretty sure I'm not getting better. And so I finally suck it up, cab once again to the hospital. 

3 more hours, a physician, the hospital, today, it's full. The waiting room, full to the brim, no seating, and so 3 hours today, it's a blessing. 

The last diagnosis, pneumonia, well, incorrect. They thought I had a more fashionable variant doing the rounds, prescribed accordingly, no, it seems I have the more classical variant.

I could have told them. 

A new prescription, 2 pills, 3X a day, 5 days until I'm out.

Home to bed, take my pills, pass out. 

Today, still exhausted but better able to manage reading a book, keeping on schedule with my pills. This will pass, for sure, but it's been so long since I've been myself, well, alive even, that I've forgotten and how will I know when I'm well again? Time will tell. Tomorrow, a double, merely have to survive and get through it...