He's not a man, he's a reading machine...

In an era when books are routinely used to train artificial intelligence, usually without the author's permission,  it was a little unsettling to see this sign outside of my local bookshop this morning.

 

Things change

It was my first attempt to run down to the shops on an errand, when I spotted the two neighbourhood boys strolling up my street, clad in almost identical black teeshirts with roomy black trousers billowing out from their long legs.

I've seen them several times over the past year; one of them lives in an apartment building around the corner, and I've seen his pal at the ancient glass entry door in the morning, before they head out to middle school.  (I've also seen them hogging the courtesy seats on buses and scattering ice cream packets on the sidewalk, but, heck, thirteen is thirteen.)

That's the thing.  They don't look thirteen this late summer afternoon.  They've shot up a couple of inches, and their shoulders have broadened.  High school for them, this year, I think.

Then I discovered I'd left my wallet behind, doubled back, and decided to seek a cooler way into the village.  The sun was just bordering on uncomfortably warm, but the shadows were deliciously pleasant, with a light breeze wafting up from the strait.

So I nipped around another corner, and skidded to a halt.

For years, the City of Victoria has covered the utility boxes with historical photos of the surrounding area: landmarks -- such as hospitals and schools -- shown as they were decades before, and houses that are no longer there.

This is startling different, and the reason for it is what had been there before:

That's Joseph Trutch, the first Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia, and on at least one list of "The Ten Worst Canadians in History", for his reprehensible policies toward indigenous peoples.

I had an inkling that the former utility cover wouldn't last long, so snapped this photo in 2022.  

That was the spring that Trutch Street changed its name.  The original idea, I believe, was to rechristen it "Truth Street", but then it emerged that the Lekwungen word for "truth" is "Su'it".

It's pronounced something like "SAY-it".  For over a year, the voice prompt on the #7 bus dutifully announced it, until a few months ago, when the name of the bus stop was changed to "Fairfield and Chester".  To be fair, that's the closest cross street to the actual stop.

The deer canter

Stepping out into the cool of early(ish) morning, I reach the sidewalk, and a trio of deer dash across Fairfield Road, their hooves hammering the pavement.

This is the first time I've seen our usually laidback urban deer running.  

They're fast.

They bound.  They bounce off the grass, and over shrubbery.  I turn, to see them vanish into the bushes that encircle the east end of our building.

Another cluster of clattering rings out behind me.  I wheel around, and a fourth deer sails by me, only a foot or so between us.

I never see what has spooked them.

Dog days of summer

While slipping out for a slightly-post-sunset stroll,  I descended the hill on Linden Avenue and was dismayed to spot a tiny dog trotting on the opposite side -- trailing a lead about four times its length, with a cluster of empty poop-bags attached to the end.  Well, I was relieved that the trailing poop-bags were empty, but in this neighbourhood, seeing an unaccompanied dog conjures up scary visions of an elderly person collapsed somewhere.

Distracted and concerned, I crossed the street rather more automatically than I should, my peripheral vision belatedly registering a cyclist whizzing down the hill.  He missed me by a comfortable margin, while I kept my eyes on the dog.  It turned and gazed at me.  I called softly, and it came to be petted, while I quietly pulled the lead into my hand.

Straightening up, I saw a woman striding toward me on the cross street.

"No, not my dog," she said, in response to my questioning glance.  Beyond her,  a roly-poly woman appeared to be looking around on the sidewalk.  She approached me unhurriedly, taking a few minutes, and yes, the dog was hers.  She told us (striding lady had paused) that the dog was deaf and near-sighted, being fifteen years old.

And trailing her leash on the very edge of a curb near a hill with speeding cars and cyclists, while you stroll a good half-block away, I thought to myself, saying out loud:  "I'm so glad she's yours; I thought somebody might be hurt."

The little dog had finally clocked that her mistress was a few casual steps away, and shuffled towards her, the bags whispering on the concrete.

Taking thrills where you can get them

I'm taking in an extra loop of the neighbourhood, to get in a bit of exercise before going to get Demeter's dinner.  A neighbour from down the hall in our building, spots me and scurries across the road to approach me.

"Are you on your way to Roots Cellar?" she inquires eagerly.

Roots Cellar is a local grocer specializing in local produce and "nutritious food and healthy lifestyle choices". It is, as you can imagine, rather upscale and very middle-class, despite its claims for being "dirt cheap".  The business is expanding, and has just opened its second store in Victoria, after a long wait of nearly a year.  The selling point, in addition to what has already been mentioned, is in supporting local businesses and producers, which is not to be sniffed at.

It's been a long year without a local grocery.  The small and even more specialized organic food store appeals to a very narrow (and comfortably off) vegetarian/vegan/gluten-free clientele.  

When we lived in Fairfield in the nineties, there were two supermarkets in Cook Street Village, both doing steady business for years.  The Country Grocer closed down in the aughts, replaced by (of course) expensive condos.  Oxford Foods (named because it was on the corner of Oxford Street) soldiered on in its grungy glory, featuring the kind of items prized by pensioners, of whom there are a lot in our neighbourhood: packaged foods, canned foods, cleaning products... Their produce was serviceable, but not all that fresh, and mostly imported. The owners decided to retire and sell to the younger couple who runs the original Roots Cellar.

As it happened, I told my eager neighbour, I had popped into Roots Cellar early that morning, securing a Bosc pear for Demeter (one of her favourites) and having a quick look around at dazzling stacks of every kind of fruit and vegetable imaginable, up to and including jackfruit and pineapples.

If you're in the market for dairy products (see what I did there?), you're in luck: wide varieties of yoghurts, milks, sour cream, and whipping cream in many forms, to say nothing of a huge selection of cheeses.  There's a meat counter and a deli counter, and many options for meat substitutes.  A small display of ice creams, a modest bakery and baking section.  No boxed cake blends (small bags, though, of more local mixes).  Absolutely no paper products, or cleaning aids. If you want cereal, you go to the bulk bins for rolled oats or granola. Very West Coast.

So, no one-stop shopping, but an easily accessible place for staples such as eggs, milk, or fruit.  It's been more than nine months since Demeter's fall, and my being able to quickly replace supplies will be a welcome change from making do with what I can find in convenience stores.

Our condo building was positively buzzing with giddiness.  Over a grocery store. 

The Resident Fan Boy, trying to transport a heavy basket to the laundry rooms upstairs, encountered neighbour after neighbour, unseen for months, using the elevator to get to the sidewalks and join the pilgrimage.  

Is this touching or pathetic?

A muster of pea-hens

While trundling things down the hill on Linden Avenue, I sometimes see strange sights, like the day I looked ahead and saw the sidewalk taken up with large fowl.

By the time I came abreast of the brood, they were toddling through a neighbouring garden, under the wary - and, no doubt, frustrated - eye of the household cat.

The invisible holes of a neighbourhood

Yesterday was dark and rainy, and the gutters became cataracts.

Today is the epitome of a perfect day in late May - something it's best not to mention to those I know in Hades.

This morning, I paused by a large bush of California lilac, listening to the powerful buzz of scores of industrious bees at work, their abdomens orange with pollen.

All the flowers and greenery have responded exuberantly to the combination of rain and sun.

Cook Street is white with tents for their annual street party. I walked along here last year, and browsed through boxes of DVDs as Pic-a-Flic downsized for their impending move after three and a half decades on Cook Street. I didn't know that then, but I knew their site was optioned to make room for yet another condo, and I feared they would go altogether.

I seemed to spend most of my time in Hades watching books stores and video stores die off. My two favourite bookstores managed to survive, but a video rental by a pizza place, preceded by another small establishment specializing in art,documentary and foreign films, succumbed a few years after my arrival, leaving me to depend on the public libraries.

Through the Victorian summers in the years of my Hades exile, I always had Pic-a-Flic, with its long corridors of films and television series from around the world. I also had other fixtures of Cook Street, for example, the grey and gaunt proprietor of the old-fashioned grocery stand, whom Demeter and I called "Grumpy" - never to his face, of course. Grumpy seemed to mellow over his decades in the drafty recess where he sold fruits, vegetables and flowers. I learned that he was a regular entertainer at the coffee house across the street, where he sang, of all things, folk songs by the likes of Gordon Lightfoot.

Shortly after Pic-a-Flic made the move to Stadacona Park and a much smaller shop, I saw the notice that Grumpy was retiring, and not long after that, the coffee house where he sang disappeared.

I gather that Grumpy is now strumming his guitar at the local pub, and other businesses have sprung up where he displayed his wares and sang his songs.

I still feel a pang when I walk past the refilled gaps, because I know there are gaps. It's okay; holes rarely remain empty for long -- even invisible ones.

Mr Woof-woof

There are fleeting things that make a neighbourhood.

When we lived in Fairfield, it was The Whistler, a cheerful 50-something cyclist who became our gauge for how late we were.

After the morning struggle to get elder daughter dressed and breakfasted, I, with younger daughter strapped into the stroller, would stride east, the rising sun blinding all three of us. Out of the glare, the Whistler would emerge, peddling smoothly and swiftly, but we'd hear his steady whistling first, interrupted by a friendly "Good Morning" as he whipped past.

In Hades, I'd watch the platinum-blond trio of sibling neighbours burst from their front door, tumbling down the porch steps, quarreling all the way to the tank their mother was warming up (probably out of self-defense).

I don't know when The Whistler ceased wheeling his way west, because we moved. Gradually, the Battling Blonds across the street grew more independent, setting off separately to different schools with different companions.

In our current neighbourhood, a feature has been Mr Woof-woof. That's not his name. It's what I'd hear as I strolled to or from our apartment.

Woof-woof

Not bossy, not threatening, just deep and carrying. A huge white dog, usually sitting on the steps of his large house, tied to the railing, behind a gate reading "Beware of Dog".

I always felt rather sorry for him; he seemed to spend hours outside on his own. You're not supposed to wave or call out to dogs, according to those online articles - it's supposed to count as teasing - but I couldn't help calling out a soft "Hello, Mr Woof-woof", as I passed on the opposite sidewalk.

Just before Christmas, the Resident Fanboy ran into Mr Woof-woof, walking out one evening with his owner, who did tell him Mr Woof-woof's actual name. She also told the RFB that her dog had cancer.

And one day, I noticed the gate was open.

Years later, when we recall these little everyday details that made up where we lived, we might say, "Oh yes, it was always like that; that went on for years."

But it didn't.

Then I got tired and left

Last November, I made time.

So often, I've looked at the Gorge Waterway from the bus, as it takes the loop en route to Silver City. It was a glorious morning, so I left home a good hour before I had to, and got off the bus, misguidedly, at a hairpin curve on Gorge Road, but made it across unscathed.

And there it was. My adolescence.

An uprooted tree, had toppled head down in the Gorge, wasps buzzing around its corpse. Was it there when I cycled along here in Grade Nine? Am I really so old?

There were the same steps, the one leading down into the water. I used to sit here, waiting for the boy I secretly loved - who was in love with my best friend, of course.

I almost wanted to balance along the very edge, as I did as a nine-year-old, when the bricks were being slowly piled. Beyond was the playground, swings still there, but in a slightly different location. No teeter-totters in this litigious age. The clammy change-room for swimmers oblivious to concepts such as fecal counts stands behind, and in front, a bank of vegetation blocks the view of the beach.

I turned up the steep incline leading to the crosswalk. My legs remembered it better than my head. At the intersection, there are now traffic lights, and a push-button walk signal in the direction of my old elementary school.

No more "Stop students! Traffic through!" sung out by a military-inspired student crossing-guard trio, marching down to their corner:  
Left! Left! Left! Left!
I had a good job and I left! I had a good job and I left!
First, they hired me, then they fired me, then I got tired and left!
Left! Left! Left!

Up Admirals Road, where a huge yellow seniors residence has replaced the corner-store, and a couple of houses. I glanced in, and a lady in a dressing gown waved.

I waved back.

On up the hill to the duplex. An older lady was already peering down the drive.

"I never realized there was a house back there."
"It's a duplex. I lived in this one by the street, and the Wardens lived in the back one."

She told me how she and her husband, newly-wed, got together a thousand dollars for a down-payment on a modest house we could see from our standpoint. I thought to myself that a thousand dollars would have been a humongous amount when this lady was a young married. She was telling me her life story as the bus I meant to catch rolled by.

I caught the next one.

Fences and neighbours

Growing up in Victoria, I'd had opportunities to live in many neighbourhoods:  the Gorge, View Royal, Esquimalt, and Fairfield.  House-sitting during my Hades exile introduced me to more:  Oak Bay, Gonzales, Camosun, Gordon Head, Saanichton, Royal Oak, Hillside, and Sidney (which isn't Victoria, but is where Victoria International Airport is).

When we took our apartment, we assumed we would be in the downtown neighbourhood of Harris Green, but we're actually in Fernwood, a 12-minute walk from the Belfry Theatre, which, up until now, has been really my only reason to visit Fernwood - aside from Summer Band in the long-ago past.

On a sunny Sunday afternoon in February, I decide to seize the opportunity to explore my new neighbourhood, which is one of the older neighbourhoods in Victoria.  A few decades ago, it was rather a hippy-dippy place; now it seems to be a popular neighbourhood for committed lesbian couples.

It retains its quirky feel - as I looped my way around the ancient houses, the high school, and the tiny cluster of shops and watering holes, I looked over a fence and found this odd mini-theme park of rusting armour and frogs.

Odd in any neighbourhood but Fernwood.

Defiantly patriotic

The blazing tangerine that has dominated the sky for a week of late September heat wave is finally making its exit, as I make my way down the humid street in search of stamps. The post office at the pharmacy is closed, but you can buy stamps at the regular register.

The cashier offers me a choice: a selection of geological landscapes or large, maple-leaf-shaped stamps festooned with rainbows. Canada is not only celebrating its sesquicentennial, but also a dozen years of "marriage equality".

"I have several relatives whom I can really piss off with these," I muse, examining the latter sheaf.

The cashier laughs.

"I'm feeling pugnacious," I tell her. "Maybe I can use them on our Christmas cards."

It's getting dark as I pass the local bookstore, where a dozen people are strumming ukuleles.