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The Daughter's Visit
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 1690
And the daughter comes, with her best friend, to visit for 4 days before my eviction, not even a week after the boy has left.
It's a lot of visitors, expenses, in just a couple of weeks...
Pick her up from the bus stop, Tuesday morning, 9:00 AM, first stop - I've got it planned - whitewater rafting. $80.00 per kid, + $20 tip for the guide. They're in with a small group, an American woman, her mom, should be fun, it's a beautiful morning, they're leaving from the dock at the Prestige...
I pick them up at 2:00, J*****, her friend, had a great time, the daughter complains it was boring. I buy the photos from the guides, a CD, yeah, I get that it was boring, not so white-water, not so adventurous, but still, she could have had fun...
She's way too jaded, even for a 16 year old.
The next day, the Kokanee Zip Line, only 2 of them in the group, they have a lot of fun although the daughter still manages to be blase about it. Another $240 spent, with tips for guides and go-pro footage...It's Wednesday, so I drop them in Nelson, they can peruse the markets, get lunch at the Yellow Deli, Visit Oso...
Her friend loves it. Doesn't want to go home. And the daughter is sensing that she maybe shouldn't have enrolled in summer school, she could have stayed on a bit longer...
Thursday, Friday, days off, Thursday we tour - Kaslo, the museum at the Ferry, to New Denver, then down through the Valley and to Thor's Pizza for dinner, then home.
Friday - a small day, the ferry over to Crawford bay, check out the Artisans, The Glass House:
("It's where I got my quidditch broom" I tell her...)
There are lots of Artisans here, blacksmiths, glass blowers, potters, etc. A quiet day, then home, and to the bus, I might not see her again all summer, she's school, other plans, and surviving summer here, well, it's gonna be long and tough. But in the fall there will be a little - lot - more time off, and I'll be returning to Calgary ...
I think they had fun. J***** definitely did, the daughter, well, probably, but she's keeping it on the down-low.
Sunday Market at Meadow Creek
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Other
- Hits: 1304
Almost an hour North of Kaslo. I'm curious, in absence of garage sales, and there's much here to be curious about, the road is empty, there's nobody...
There's a lot of Sunday Markets here. Every community has one. I'm curious, not hopeful, just curious...
Bullshit. A couple of buskers playing badly to an audience of none. A very few stalls, nothing, a 40 minute drive for diddly, no-one here could sell their stuff - all of it - and hope to make a hundred dollars, I settle on a couple of expensive croissants - spinach and feta, chocolate, and that's it, the day is done, return to work.
A trailer stuffed with dead whores
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Rants
- Hits: 1679
Going to look at a place in Kaslo. House. Only it's not a house, as the advert suggested, implied that it was, "home", it's not, it's a sawed off trailer filled with despair, in a trailer park a few blocks from the main street, trailer park, that overlooked neighborhood of Kaslo that I've never explored, the owner, a 60-odd hippy, her partner, meet me at the hotel, drive out to the location, this is the reason there weren't any photo's provided...
It's fucking awful. I mean a hole, dark, dingy, terribly furnished, good, maybe, if you were working above the Arctic Circle and dealing with chest-bursting aliens, but it's not cutting it. It's the kind of place you imagine when you hear of a woman being rescued by a SWAT team from a serial killers tortuous depredations, you picture, first off upon entering, a group of Gestapo staring down laser-scopes filling the trailer, to rescue a couple of girls chained to the wall...l can'd do it, not even at the bargain price she's asking, I'd pay more, but I want more, anything, a tarpaper shack with a wood-burning stove would be an improvement, but this, This, well...I'm better off sleeping in a tent on the lawn...
She thinks it's good, is glad that I showed up to view it, it's been discouraging how many people have called about it and missed the preview, she's eager to sign the paperwork, go to the credit union, get a rental agreement, I'm not so eager, fuck this, I can live in my tent all summer, doesn't matter where, but this, this fucking trailer, I'd sooner move back to Alberta, and I kindly defer signing papers until I've looked at a few other places...
Bongo the Woofer
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 1287
It was sporting of her to set me up a couple of tents on the front lawn while the guesthouse is booked. One, a clothes-closet of sorts, the other more immediate living. Or sleeping. Only at night, the days are far too hot, days you have to escape, find someplace cool, a hammock in the woods...
A week into this real-world-woofer living and a friend of hers comes by to do some garage saleing. She's heard about my prowess, I'm rolled out of bed at 6:30 AM, still ripped from the night before, can't stand, can't find my wallet (it's in the garden, where it fell out of my pocket...)
I find it. Miracle. And then we're off, I'm driving, friend is navigating, it's good she's there, keeps me sober, or on the right side of the road while I sober up...
The first few, in Nelson, nothing, really, of interest, a box of kids toys, I overpay for the job-lot, mostly instruments, rain stick, zills (finger cymbals), various slide and tin flutes, train whistles, gyroscopes, the total of the lot, by sticker price, can't exceed $5.00, but I buy the job lot for $10.00 because I can't be bothered to do the addition...
We move on, hit the 7:00 AM lot, then down south of Taghum to the Valley for the 8:00 lot. Nothing for me. Breakfast bite, then homeward, the lineup of 8:00 and 9:00 on the list. She's having a great day, purchases at every stop. Me, not so, nothing I'm so inspired to buy, mostly rubbish, curiously, most of the real treasures are in the free bins, a set of pasties, unused, with tassels, I need this. A very big Maglight, I need this. 2 Vintage 35 MM Nikon and Yashicamat cameras, with lenses and filters, I need this...Stapler and Staples, I need this, I could go on, I'm getting everything I need for free, but paying for every frivolous want ...
And so it goes, plucking the best of fruits for free and buying rubbish to alleviate my guilt...
Finally, garage sale, misc shit for sale, including - Bongos!!!!
This is how I know I'm still sketchy, hammered, 2 sets of bongos, both broken, one - separated, veneer torn, the other missing skins, I pick them both up for a mere $15.00, bargain, but, really, WTF?
I mean, what do I need Bongos for? But I have this vision, that I'll invite the Rainbow Tribe to live with me on the front lawn, that I'll be known as "Bongo the Woofer", that there will be a flash-mob uninvited festival and I'll sing "I...don't want to work...I just want to bang on the drum all day..." and I realize, again, that I'm still loaded from the night before and just buying shit to buy shit and that really, really, I need to find a place of my own...
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