Keeping track

When my father departed for Boston with another woman, my mother decided to scrub around her life, make a fresh start, and move to some place warmer. She splurged, booking two "roomettes" on the train from Edmonton, Alberta to Nanaimo, British Columbia. I was eight years old and charmed by the beds which slid out of the wall like drawers. To this day, I can't recall having a better night's sleep, rocked through the Rockies. I was woken only once, as the guard in Jasper paced the platform calling out to those who could hear him to change their watches back one hour. Early in the morning, I lay on my stomach in my drawer-bed head-to-head with my six-year-old sister, gasping as nearly bottomless canyons opened up beneath the train as it sped over trestles. By breakfast time, we watched the sunny Okanagan orchards flash by the dining car. As an introduction to a new life, it was pretty hard to beat.

Recapturing that perfect sleep was one of the goals on my mind when we decided to take Demeter and younger daughter to Halifax by train last year to see elder daughter at her university and spend the Canadian Thanksgiving long weekend. Other considerations were Demeter's life long dream to travel completely across Canada by rail (this seemed a reasonable compromise), and the idea of traveling through the Maritimes in autumn.

We started the 26-hour journey with the dayliner jaunt from Ottawa to Montreal, moving in and out of the shadow of rainstorms and reaching Canada's second largest city with its mad inter-weaving of La Metro subway, VIA rail, Amtrak and commuter trains at La Gare Centrale, to say nothing of the shoppers. After nearly forgetting my suitcase on the platform (I was shepherding Demeter and younger daughter while the Resident Fan Boy charged ahead and disappeared down the train corridor), we glided slowly across the dark river surrounded by the blazing lights of the city, and made our way down the south bank of the St Lawrence before veering away south from the Seaway just past Rimouski and crossing into the province of New Brunswick at daybreak just at the innermost tip of Chaleur Bay. From there we headed steadily south, rumbling across the Miramichi River about mid-morning, entering northern Nova Scotia sometime after lunch then making a long circle around the south-west edge of Halifax, arriving in the late afternoon, steps away from the famous Pier 21 where so many new Canadians entered the country, including Demeter many years ago.

When we took Demeter to the Pier 21 Museum the next day, a brand-new Cuban-Canadian tour guide greeted her with an enormous "Welcome ba-a-a-a-ck!" and a gold alumna sticker for her coat. She remembered her fellow boat passengers, Germans en route to Wisconsin and Italians en route to Toronto, being put in holding cages, while she, a British subject, was waved through to the waiting train to Edmonton. (We also learned there had been a young man, a Haligonian, on the boat...)

And we visited with elder daughter at the University of King's College, ate two Thanksgiving dinners (one of them cooked by us in a student residence kitchen), saw the sights, including the ancient (by Canadian standards) Old Burying Ground in the centre of the city where they stopped burying people in 1844. And I wistfully watched elder daughter striding through the streets of a city that will be hers and never mine. And I watched Demeter wonder about the beautiful boy from Halifax and what might have been. And I was grateful to have seized the chance to come this way, even though the train bed, not a magic drawer, but a shallow fold-out shelf, was lumpy and jumpy and I never did much more than doze, or peer out into the darkness at ghostly white cottages, paddock fences, and flashing poles.

We flew back home. Train travel, alas, has long ceased to be the economical option.

Rideau River Rorschach

It's five minutes to midnight. I took this in October, but not this October. Gosh, I hope I haven't posted this already....

If I had a hammer (write of passage number twenty-two)

He has one of those tool boxes you see workmen with nowadays: it's white and blue plastic, about three feet long and a foot deep -- looks rather like those cases hospitals use for transporting organs, if organs were three feet long and a foot deep. He's placed the tool box across the aisle and is standing behind it grasping railings on either side. He's wearing a dark tee shirt that says something about carpentry across the back. I have a good view of it because I'm standing behind him and I need to get off the bus.

Crowded bus etiquette is tricky. You don't want to ask someone to let you pass if they're getting off too, so I tap him on one broad shoulder and ask: "Are you getting off?" Unfortunately, he seems to think I'm angling for a seat that has just become available ahead of him. By the time we've established I'm trying to get out, the bus has taken off again.

"No," I say in despair. It has been a long day with too many crowded buses. "That was my stop."

"Well, you should have got ready two stop sooner," he tells me.

This is too much. "I got up in plenty of time," I protest.

He snaps.

"WELL WHAT THE *&^%@# DID YOU EXPECT ME TO DO, LADY? WHERE WAS I SUPPOSED TO GO?"

Now, in several years of taking transit, many of those weighed down with any number and types of bags and containers, I have never yet made someone miss their stop by blocking the aisle. It seems impolitic to say so, seeing as he's still yelling at me. By this time, I've to slip down to the exit, and while he continues to bellow, give him my best "Oh, are you going to go on like this?" look before turning to find younger daughter, who in the crush of getting on had found a seat further forward.

"I'm sorry about this, Mom," she says in a little voice.
"It's okay, sweetie," I tell her. "It's not your fault."

Angry Carpenter has sat down in the seat he thought I wanted, so has a good view of this tender little scene. He leans forward.

"Ma'am, I apologise for losing my temper."

Like his previous outburst, this is completely out-of-left-field, and scores of responses flash in my brain. However, it's an apology and how many of those do you get these days, even in Canada?

"You have yourself a good evening." I say, with all the sincerity I can muster. Then younger daughter and I get off.

"Mind if I swoop?" "It's your place..."

Demeter flew in for a ten-day visit that encompasses Thanksgiving, so I'm cheating today. I hope I won't have to cheat for the whole ten days, but we'll see. This is my absolute favourite skit from The Kids in the Hall. I find both the characters here rather endearing, but especially the quintessential hockey fan played by Scott Thompson who, ironically, was the first openly gay actor I recall encountering on TV. Mark McKinney, the would-be gay vampire, is actually straight in real life and, I feel compelled to add, co-wrote and starred in one of my favourite television series of all time Slings and Arrows. Also, I grew up knowing guys just like Brad. His caped companion, not so much, but I led a sheltered life and didn't go to hockey games...

Who-bris?

Okay. I've watched "The Wedding of River Song" twice. Trouble is, I need to watch Steven Moffat's episodes at least three times before I have the slightest idea what's going on. This episode was like the Silents, the creepy slimy things in business suits who hang from ceilings like bats and are instantly forgotten the minute you look away. Every time I try to recall what happened in the first fifteen minutes --- I can't. I just can't. There were pterodactyls, weren't there? And Winston Churchill as Caesar. Oh yeah, and a Noel Fielding look-a-like in a Star Wars bar.

My head hurts.

My understanding, from a very quick look around the Doctor Who sites I can stand, is that opinions are sharply divided on this one, between those that were dazzled and those who were bored (which is difficult to imagine) and have decided that Stephen Moffat has ruined Doctor Who.

Oh, here we go again. Even at his most preposterous, Russell T Davies didn't ruin Doctor Who. (I've gone on about this before; if you care, just type "Russell T Davies" in the search box, but only if you must...) Steven Moffat, another highly talented and brilliant television writer, won't ruin Doctor Who. Most of my favourite episodes have been penned by Steven Moffat. So why do I feel oddly deflated?

I like Matt Smith as the Doctor. I like Amy Pond. I'm very fond of Rory. And I love-love-love River Song. (I've gone on about that before too.)

Y'know, I think the problem is that I really don't care for this split season thing, with half-a-dozen episodes airing last spring and another bunch airing this late summer/early autumn. If we're going to go with this story-arc thing, best have all the episodes close together, so lame-brains like me can keep up. Also, frankly, two short seasons just make me feel twice as cheated when they end.

My contribution to the obsessive arguments now dominating the Who-niverse: It seems to me that the Silents have taken upon themselves the task once overseen by the Time Lords. The Resident Fan Boy thinks I'm on to something and that the Silents are the Time Lords. Discuss.

The ten suggestions

The door is always open, says the current billboard in front of the Resident Fan Boy's church. "Except when it isn't," says I, making my way across the crosswalk from where the bus has dropped us off. The Resident Fan Boy dissolves into manly giggles. The front door of the church is always locked except for Sunday morning services. "Sometimes," he intones, "you need to sneak around the side. There's a metaphor in there somewhere..."

We're here early because younger daughter has her final rehearsal before her solo in this suddenly chilly morning's "inter-generational" service. There will be bongos, bells, and inaudible Bible readings by coerced pre-adolescents. Younger daughter has been carefully preparing an ugly duckling of a little song entitled "Beautiful". I've been listening to her prepare over the past few weeks; it's devilishly difficult to sing, with an odd meandering melody. Then there's the lyrics:

Beautiful is a flow'r, the sea; and sometimes beauty is me
Beauty is summer, the grass or the snow; or even seeing animals, a fawn and the doe.
Beauty is the prairie, the forest, a bird; and sometimes beauty can be just a word.
Beauty can be a sunset that rises; Beauty can be many colours, shapes and sizes.
Beautiful...Beautiful...Beautiful.

Wait a minute. A sunset that rises? Fortunately, the Resident Fan Boy explained to me that it was poem by a girl who died at age eleven. Oh. Okay. He also pointed out that only a child raised on the Canadian prairie could come up with "Beauty is summer, the grass or the snow...." Every Prairie kid knows that snow can show up anytime.

Younger daughter will not sing, as it happens, until an arts-based "reflection time", based on "God's Loving Ways" (the ten commandments, but that made God sound way too bossy). Each "Way" has been carefully rephrased: "Honour thy mother and father" has become "Pay attention to your parents and other adults who love you." Not quite the same thing, is it? Anyway, the congregation has fifteen minutes to cut out images from magazines and clue them to the appropriate commandment Loving Way. I decide this is an ideal moment to accompany younger daughter to the washroom and notice several other people have the same idea.

When we return, the Resident Fan Boy is gleefully snipping something out. He's discovered an ad for Genesis Compost which declares: "Your tomatoes will be the envy of your neighbours!" Oh, the irony. He's gluing it under Loving Way #3: "Be careful how you use my name, whether you are speaking in anger or joy." (Loving Way #10 is probably more appropriate but that's clear across the sanctuary.)

Younger daughter's task is to sing the congregation back into the prayers. And she does it.

Beautifully.

Dancing between the rain-drops

When we first came to Hades in 2001, you could still smoke in restaurants. This was a bit of a shock to us because in Victoria, indoor smoking in public places had been banned for some time. Oh, there was a hullabaloo; restaurant owners and particularly pub and bar owners swore it would destroy business. Then everyone noticed that food tasted better and everything seemed cleaner and the fuss abated.

So we came to Ottawa and seemed to fall into a time warp, sitting in the so-called non-smoking sections and emerging into the streets stinking of tobacco anyway. We frequented the diners and delis along Elgin Street in those days, as we were living in a nearby hotel waiting for our house to be vacated. The Elgin Street Diner was one, and through the haze, I would gaze at a mesmerizing photo while waiting for my BLT.

It's still there, eleven years later. Poised like a ballerina about to take the stage, a lithesome lady in a veil hovers beneath a huge umbrella. Monsoon-like rain ricochets off the street around her beautiful bare feet. She makes the summer-suited men lined up across the street look ungainly and identical.

I've asked the diner staff about it; no one seems to know anything about it. I've googled and googled, thinking of every word combination to bring up the image, but am clueless about the identity of the photographer. Any ideas out there? Hello?

I can see the photo more clearly these days. A year or so after our arrival in Hades, smoking indoors in public places was banned. Restaurant and bar owners howled in protest, predicting economic doom. Everyone got used to emerging from eateries smelling of food and not cigarettes. We don't even need the rain to wash us clean.

Update: Some days later, the mystery was solved.

The squeal of the Sciurini

I've spent a chunk of this past month listening to the prancing and pawing of each little roofer. Well, they were actually very large sturdy chaps, the kind who probably do well picking up women at bars. Still, they were fairly loud: "Stomp...Crash...scrrrrape...."

They were redoing our roof, and reopening our hatch, so, instead of climbing a wobbly extendable metal ladder to do maintenance, we can climb a wobbly shorter ladder and haul ourselves up through a dark hole while attempting to push up the hatch-lid. I'm not exactly looking forward to the prospect of this as a yearly ritual, but I got a third of the way up the aforesaid extendable ladder one balmy evening last week before realizing that the hatchless option was not going to work for me. I retreated on shaky legs and in deep shame while the aforesaid sturdy chaps chuckled, not unkindly.

They're gone now, leaving a new roof and dead vines drooping down the front of the house, so I cleared away the obstacles barring the entryway to the dusty, drafty bedroom balcony we never use, shouldered a large pair of secateurs and set out to prune the dangling doomed bits of Virginia Creeper. I found myself eye-to-eye with an indignant squirrel who had been using several winding tendrils of dropped vine to create a large nest on a ledge next to the balcony. She flattened herself on the stucco and hung on the wall defiantly, chattering rodent threats. I didn't have the heart to shove her nest over the precipice, so trimmed away at any lifeless vegetable matter within reach.

I carefully shut all doors leading to the upstairs balcony and trotted downstairs to sweep the front path of debris resulting from my trimming and Ms Squirrel's housekeeping. I saw some trailing wilting ends within arm's reach and started giving them a good yank. I had to leap backward as the squirrel's concoction, a large tangle of vine, chewed up newpaper and what looked like a head-sized gauze bandage, plummeted down the side of the house. I looked up and the squirrel peered back at me from the edge of the roof, seemingly frozen in shock.

As I set back to work, the keening started: Skree (five second interval) Skreee (five second interval) Skreeeeeeee...

I'm a monster.

West of Eden

I look out over the large garden that slopes down the hill below Lansdowne. It reminds me of a long-ago May, my first visit to London when I'd gaze out the back of a friend's house in Muswell Hill, south over the dipping garden and beyond to the red brick houses below. However, here, I see the Olympic Mountains rising in the distance on the far side of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. They've pulled up grey and white cloudy eiderdowns to their rocky chins, but the sky above us is clear and very blue.

Drifting through the clearing is younger daughter, hair cascading down her back to her waist. She's picked an apple from one of the surrounding trees and eats it dreamily, occasionally frowning to herself in the midst of her inner dialogue -- the only place where words come easily to her.

It's Eve, Eve in the morning, returned to Eden.

A flash of light

I've known her since I was a teenager; she's in her nineties now. I remember the measured tones of a thoughtful accountant; now deafness cuts her off from most conversation and her carefully chosen clothes don't always survive the long ride to church. I'm in the passenger seat when we draw up to the apartment to pick her up, so I'm the one to ascend the steep steps and signal her through the glass where she's waiting in the lobby. I greet her, but she's concentrating on negotiating the transferral of her cane to accommodate the changing sides of the bannisters. In the car, the rest of us chatter and she is silent. I know better than to try and include her over the roar of the traffic and her hearing aids. She clambers out of the car as we pull up to the ramp leading into the church and she makes a beeline for today's greeter who embraces her and guides her to a seat.

In this Unitarian congregation where I grew up, it has become the custom over the past few decades for those who choose, to line up after the offertory and light small candles off the larger flaming chalice, planting them in one of two bowls of fine sand where they will burn until just before the closing song. I follow Demeter and light my own candle, thinking of loved ones in Hades. As I turn to move back to my seat, I see a hand reach out. It's my thoughtful deaf accountant glowing and smiling at me. I smile and grip her hand, then find my way back to Demeter. I tell her what happened, and she says, "She had just remembered who you were."

(I'm halfway through a house-sit where the computer is, oooh, roughly twenty years old. It's a dial-up. You may not hear much from me until the end of August when I'm back in the grip of Hades.)