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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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The COPD club, they meet outside at the electrical box in the parking lot for the hotel. The building actually built a shelter for the smokers, but nobody likes to use it. Nowhere to sit.
They're all the same age, my age, but to look at them you get a widely varying picture of biological ages. 2 of them, barely able to walk, coughing up lungs. The other, my upstairs neighbour.
It's the water cooler of community housing.
Upstairs neighbour is on the outs with her boyfriend, she can't support him, he's not pulling his weight, he's bought groceries but he gets them at Dollarama, buys the cheap Neopolitan Ice Cream, she's had enough. He has to get a job.
This is rich, given it's been 30 years since she worked, on disability but she's never offered to explain just how or why...
And running into him, now inspired to get work, hilariously he's been working on the truck at the thrift shop, he's got to have a talk with her, they get along well enough, only - well, she's a handful and wants it all...
Since he's been out of the picture she's made me a "Friendship Bracelet", the kind with all sorts of various beads, colourful, the beads, plastic, wood, glass, some rocks, like what you might exchange at a Taylor Swift concert...
If the pink shirts didn't make me suspicious looking enough the bracelet will cement things.
I pop by to check in on the Other Neighbour, she's been on the down low, broke and in one of her self-pitying humours, her place slowly drifting into a messy oblivion, coffee table littered with empty canned cocktails and mini-liquors, she's stopped asking to borrow money as she has no way to repay it and so I just e-transfer her some cash, community housing means your pay cheque is community as well, which I don't mind in trifling sums but I have bills as well...
She let herself in this morning only to demand that I carry her table, outside on the landing for 2 weeks now, downstairs to donate to the thrift shop. Management must have sent her an email. I could see all this being "the helpful neighbour" growing old real quick...
***
The restaurant, busy ever night except (oddly enough) on Friday and Saturday. Last night, passing through, a refugee from Shambala, the streets are filled with these lost souls, loving the vibe, sleeping in the alleys and doorways, this one, clearly not yet come to his senses, dancing, looking at the menu, dancing some more, I’m too busy for this. I leave him alone, attend the paying customers, it’s a hectic night. When finally I get around to asking him if he’d like to order he tells me the …. looks good, and I ask - just to confirm - if he’s able to pay. He digs through his bag, and after a few minutes shows me a couple of rocks. Just rocks, not crystals, not polished, just river-worn rocks that somehow caught his fancy. Now he must know his audience, because I’m intrigued, but too busy for this at the moment, in the afternoon we could have talked but now I’m hopping, not the time, and so I send him packing and he takes it in good nature…
***
And, out for coffee, the town has a new superhero, the "Unicyclist", tall and made taller by the Unicycle, in full on leather biker gear, reflective motorcycle helmet with full visor, speeding down Ward on his electric unicycle, he makes it look easy, all you have to do is keep your balance...he'd make a great community safety officer, speeding around and administering Naloxone to all the sleeping beauties...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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Neighbour on my floor pops in yesterday morning, lets herself in, she'd had a bad dream and wanted to consult my dream dictionaries. She's kinda-the-Kramer, seldom knocking, merely letting herself in to grab some coffee, sugar, art supplies, whatever she needs, and I haven't the heart to start locking the door.
Her dream, that she and her brother were in a football game, they lost, and then he killed himself, and it has her all out of sorts.
Myself, this is odd, I'd had a dream that night that I was in airports, missing flights, confused as to connections and destinations, and my sister (young, maybe 10 years old) had taken a dive from a platform, suicide, landed on her neck, it broke and a milky-white fluid poured out around her body and I'm shouting for my father...
As well disturbing, and I'm struck that we both should have had such similar dreams (the death of a sibling by suicide.).
But she's too busy to chat, conversation is not something she does anyways and I have to be kind of grateful, she's looking up the symbols in various of the dictionaries, finding competing explanations, trying to sort it out...
***
The neighbour upstairs, taken the past few weeks to hanging out with a boyfriend she met at the Soup Kitchen, he's homeless, lives out of his car, so she spoils him with bubble baths and home cooking and inane TV and they seem pretty happy.
"We laugh so hard together..."
She doesn't work, too many of these people don't, and so every day it's wake up to the Vodka, have a joint, and the party gets started...
They approach me, they've been drinking too much, they want to start a sort-of mutual support group, a Temperance or Tee-Totaler league, there's no doubting I'm occasionally off the rails but these, these people don't help...
I volunteer instead my free liquor removal service, I'll take all the leftover vodka they have on hand, for free, they can get started on this abstinence binge right away...
"Tomorrow" she tells me, but tomorrow comes and goes and there's no half-empty bottle of vodka on my doorstep.
***
Money has started to stick in my bank account. Partly because the restaurant is that little-bit busier, and - more largely, because I've been buying the native cigarettes. They're terrible, but the whole smoking thing is terrible, and the savings is enormous. The savings is my bank account. And I ask if they have a moonshine or liquor distributor, but they don't, they might get, they've got everything else, "E", "Superman" pills, Adderall, Ritalin, Special K, they're just getting started, their prices are great and so maybe soon...
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This summer, of all the summers I've lived here, the most temperate by far. 35 degree days followed by days of rain and cloud, already there's the cool of autumn in the air, the morning, but by the afternoon it's the midday inferno.
The cherry tomatoes are ripening, there will be a good little harvest there, the strawberries are sweet, the basil grows, in the words of the neighbour - "Profusely" and the chilis are starting to give off little flowers where soon I hope to pick my Carolina Reapers.
No luck on the Jeep front, and I'm half thinking of giving up, waiting until next summer, I mean, the options at this point aren't great, and I'm loathe to take on a mountain of debt just when the bank account is showing some signs of improvement...
Chris checks in on me, haven't seen him all summer, he's his biking club now, his lover, but there was an accident on a FSR up near Trout Lake, maybe our FSR, and he wants to check I wasn't the fatality...nope, another couple, "influencers", not in the least interested in prospecting...
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So I go into the Best Western Parking lot to feed the crows. That way I'm off the property and there's no complaints.
The crows, I've had complaints that they've been cawing outside nonstop looking to be fed. I don't give in. This would be training them in behaviours I'd rather not.
And the other day I awoke to one on the railing outside my door. Waiting for me. Funny, I feed them on the other side of the building, but they've found me out. Clever. There's no feeding them here, though, there would be complaints and evictions...
But when I'm outside in the morning, pocket full of Dollarama peanuts, I set up a sort of scrimmage, a football game, flicking the peanuts into the parking lot - they prefer the shelled ones. And even if I can't see them they soon see me and chaos ensues.
First 1, then 2, 3, 5, 8...all hopping along, one swoops in and catches a peanut on the wing, others, shy, fly close and then hops carefully towards it, too shy and he loses it to another, others show up and chase each other away, some - 1 greedy, attempts to take 2, 3 in his beak, but often loses them when challenged by another, pigeons by the dozen now showing up and running interference, a peanut is too big but they can gather up the crumbs from the crows pecking...
Make it a game, try and flick the peanuts where each crow has a reasonable chance of grabbing his own, it's like football and I'm the quarterback, they seem to get it, going wide when they've finished their peanut for another...
This is the morning, before my coffee and maybe again after it's ready and I've checked the news. In the afternoon they're on their own, although I've still been followed, I'm trying to set up the expectation that this is an early morning thing, not an all-day thing, the early-morning football and then they too should be off and about their day...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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Thursday, a long, slow day at work - days, slow, nights, stupidly busy. I'm on the day shift.
A customer from the old restaurant comes in for take away, tells me that the old restaurant, the old "Cock-n-Suck" has re-opened, new owners, new name, new menu.
I get a lot of news about this place, on the street, old customers, and I'm curious, of course, I spent 6 long years there and I'd be glad to see what they've done. And while I'd be - not loathe, but cautious about returning I've had enough people recommend the new owners that I'll at least case the place.
Head out, they've done a great job. Literally unrecognizable, all the hardwood wainscotting painted white, tables - white, walls, white, I'd post photos only the staff are in them and they might not want the publicity. It looks great. No longer the dim, dingy and dated pub. The new owners' there, she recognizes me, is hyper-cheerful, I offer my sincerest congratulations, they've done a great job of the place, they've perhaps 8 or 10 staff on the floor, I take a seat on the patio.
I've never seen that many staff in the restaurant at once, ever, and the ones I'm seeing, they're all front of house. I get A**** as my server, she's a local, used to own the bar/grill at the golf course, a professional, a little older than me.
Chat, I'm recognized by a few of old customers...It's not spoken aloud but I get the question.
Glance over the menu, the've done an OK job - it's much truncated with more interesting food - a lot better for the kitchen, for the servers. The prices, well, nowhere is cheap and I've got to come back when I'm a little more flush and try the "Puttanesca" - $35, I'm curious, though skeptical that they can pull off a $35 pasta (remember, I worked in ---*** Vancouver, where a plate of Bolognese cost $50, $150 with shaved truffles - but chef there, world renowned, everything was made from scratch. Pasta, tomatoes hand picked by chef and the cow was named "Bob". And I'm pretty sure that's not the case here in sunny Balfour...).
I let A**** order for me, she would know what's best...
A sushi roll. Their own take. I look at her, "you gotta be kidding me...", but she doesn't know where I work, and I can't fault her...
I ask about the staff, why, how are there so many, and she's explaining this is a "try-out/training", they won't have that many when they're fully up and running. And they tip-pool, which - well, in Vancouver, Calgary, when you're working amongst peers that's not a bad thing. But out here you're seldom rubbing shoulders with equals, and that makes me a little skeptical. Surveying the talent pool they've recruited so far, a few incompetent, some inept, A****, who knows what she's doing, a nameless bartender, older, who probably knows what he's doing as well, a demon (not on tonight, thankfully, who knows what she's doing but does it badly served with a big helping of indifference). I ask A**** about her, a quick micro-smile tells me all I need to know, ...
So that's that.
***
I've run out of data, I didn't think it was a big deal but dealing with 256 Kb streaming is painful, music, videos, reddit, facebook, impossible, and there's another week left on my cycle. I have to stop lending my phone to the neighbour, she watches movies all night and the data has been used up, I talk to her, she's welcome to borrow it, watch movies on her TV, but she's got to shut it off when she's done, she's been falling asleep and the movie runs all night...
***
Unity. Old friend moving to Saskatchewan to nurse her elderly/ailing parents comes to her senses, the parents, all promises now off the table and there's a list of draconian rules and expectations. She's decided to go to Calgary instead.
Only the day her moving out BC income support comes through, to her rescue, and so they find her another place to live, pronto, upper Rosemont, a shabby building under perpetual renovation, income support. And so she's staying, only for the sake of 24 hours she lost the best community housing gig in Nelson, close to downtown, and got moved about a 45 minute walk from basically any and everything. Not that it matters, she has a car, but - , well, ... Nelson's a walking town if you can manage it.
***
Friday, Saturday night at the Sushi Place surprisingly dead. Surprising given that weekdays they've been hopping. And Sunday the boy comes down from Calgary for a couple of days to visit. He's packed a few boxes for me - 4 boxes of Antique Candlesticks (52 in total, 12 pairs and the rest singles), I keep two of my favourites, the rest are taken in 2 loads to the Antique shop. "I was a regular Jean-Val-Jean when I was younger..." but they don't get it. Nobody does. There are some treasures, mint Georgian, Late Victorian pairs, some singles even older, but - I'm done, as is I probably still have 20 in a tiny apartment and the boy assures me I have many more boxes in the locker.
2 boxes of books, and I'm amused to note that I have a couple of them already on my shelf. These will have to go as well.
1 large box filled with kitchen stuff, rice cooker, coffee grinder, Belgian Waffle press which I have to keep for sentimental reasons (to make waffles for the kids...). A pile of unnecessary cutlery, garlic presses, wooden spoons and ladles, and a mint condition complete set of Lagostina Cookware. I dispose of my thrifted pots and pans, there's no need.
1 broken riding crop, it wasn't me and the boy argues it wasn't him but I'm sad, there will be no riding the magic pony until I get that replaced. 1 empty briefcase.
2 boxes of art supplies, mostly defunct and expired acrylics and oils, I'll have to go through and salvage what I can.
1 box of mixed media, those things to all other eyes are inexplicable but I'm delighted.
And one box of "ju-ju", those dumb-ass tiny things I've collected, roman coins, trifles, relics, reliquaries, portable shrines, fonts for holy water, religious kitsch, Catholica, buddhist amulets, Indian Gods, etcetera, etcetera, my own Wunder-Kabinet of sorts, only there's not the cabinet for display.
The boy assures me the locker, it's fast becoming orderly...
***
The visit, good, evenings a few drinks on the patio, I confess the dearth of cinematic interest and excellence, he tells me he's been watching "House" - all 7 seasons, and he's had to watch them all to process my parenting style...
I've had a few friends recommend this to me, "I'd like it", for reasons they wouldn't elaborate upon, but with the boys recommendation I'll give it a try...
***
The apartment, bathroom, it's a mess. The added boxes make it impossible to sweep, the forms and abstractions of my paper mache, the shredded newsprint, confetti, have drifted all over the floor, and - a little at a time, hard to believe only a few months ago I passed inspection. But with the riddance of the candlesticks, tomorrow the books, I should be able to begin again. Time now to wring out my liver and grow a new one and get to work...