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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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The last few days, short staffed at work - as always, slammed Monday, but with regulars I knew, our "better" customers, then again Tuesday, non-stop, the sketched Shambala crews, some tippers, some not so much. The day is long, wave after wave after wave, like some sort of Zombie Apocalypse, people sitting on the beach, assholes every one, it's get through it to the end, these last 6 weeks promise to be brutally long.
Now C* - worked with last year, a worker, diner styled matronly waitress, a little too plump and doesn't like running, and the other, JR's mother in law, here to work but really she's "Doing us a favour", she's a problem, doesn't bus tables, or run the dishwasher, or a thousand other things necessary to keep the ship running smoothly. And as such I find myself incredibly busy only to realize I'm picking up the slack, I'm not so busy on my own behalf, rather busy picking up after this lazy-ass ...
Anyways, my ire peaked I leave her to do the cleanup, floor it into Nelson, it's my Friday and Taco Tuesday all in one and I'm going to start my week-end right.
The liquor store, the evening's ration, I run into a dirty B* from the Chamber of Mines, also getting a ration, although his is a little better quality, chat, he's enthused, South Slocan, found his way into a big crystal pocket, hauling out some huge ones, and I'm inspired, I'll have to pop round the Chamber of Mines and see what he's dug up...
After Tacos, (too many and not to the usual standard) I drive down to Rossland. Nighttime, late, the roads are empty and it's a peaceful hour and half spent.
The night, at altitude, cool, I tuck into my sleeping bag, I've not slept this good since, well, since it heated up.
Wednesday morning, café, coffee and a scone, then a nap on a bench waiting for the thrift shop to open. I'm keeping up my reputation...
No finds, but from here to a logging road, 20 KM up, all manners of mafic, ultramafic, igneous, some heavily mineralized veins up here, there's gold and I can smell it, some vuggy spots with rusty, dirty quartz crystals inside (none worth keeping), some what appears to be massive skarn garnet, greenish mineral (limonite?), brownish crystals (??), all sorts, and so this amuses me some hours poking about, then further up, freshly blasted a marble deposit, then again further up more veins of rusty quartz, which I smashed and smashed again in the hopes of seeing some free gold, but I did not.
From here now back onto the highway, and what was a pleasant nighttime drive is now the stress of getting out of the fucking way of every car zooming up behind, and there's not near enough shoulder for me to be on the highway. This drive is a nightmare, I need to remember - other than construction-delayed Kootenay Lake, to keep this beast off the highway in the daytime...
Castlegar, I find some Chinese, I should have waited, the owner, pleasant but incompetent, her server, the same, 5 minutes to take an order, to fetch a glass of water, to bring change, how is it possible given that I'm the only person here?...
***
Evening, cool down & nap in Lakeside Park. Find a spot on the grass with my book, read, doze, the park is filled with the ambient noise of children playing, there's a giant xylophone, drum in the park, they jingle and bang non-stop, the piano at the ice-cream café is tinkled upon by children, the conversations of passers by, glimpses of melody.
The drum circle begins, eyes closed and I listen, they're ferocious, laying down some good rhythms and beats, how many are they? More than fifty, not quite a hundred, they're very good.
And now something new, techno-world-fusion dance music, and I sit up and open my eyes...
Someone's driven a white car into the park, set up speakers, and is blasting this music...
People are dancing. I recognize Nelson from Nelson and he's there, smiling, always in a good mood, and he's explaining it's "Dance Fusion", ecstatic dance, just come and dance, and people, they are coming, soon there's a crowd, 50 people, 100 people, 150 people, I recognize them, so and so from the laundrette, the Magic Man, there's the autistic girl from the library, very pretty, looks like an elf, ears poking through long dark hair, the dancefloor is bounded by the extension cords running to the speakers, she for the first half stands outside it, on the very edge, hands dancing (not feet), then just inside it when she "joins", if that is the right word...
The dancing, world-beat music, not rave quality but good enough, and everyone is freestyling, 150 people, 150 styles of dance, the people, the people, aged 2-75, no one demographic predominates, there's jugglers and fire spinners (no fire, merely the spinner) practicing, hoop dancers, there's everyone...
This ends the evening...
***
This morning, coffee, Big City Girl is back again, and I'm wondering if it's to stay, and Magic Man asks if I enjoyed the Dance Fusion and I'm off to do laundry, hit the local thrift shops, drive off to Kokanee Creek to shower, shave, trim my nails, back into town for some lunch, then to the library, and now, time to do some work...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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Now, days off, hot summer days upon us, the streets of town filled with tourists, the homeless, all catching up and in good spirits, flush, it's Wednesday (Welfare) and they're in the cafe's, out grabbing lunch, there are the early and colorful arrivals for Shambala (still searching for the addled lost member of the tribe, MIA since last year, never found), the weekend, hopefully a bit quieter - next week will be the reverse migration of the confused festival goers trying to remember their way home and a whole new crop of homeless people will be added to the streets.
Anyways, a day off and I must make of it what I can.
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And the days have suddenly gone insane, previously, busy, but in spurts of an hour, now, 2, 3 hours, non-stop all day, people have gotten used to higher prices, it's the same all over, everywhere, there's no getting away from it, patio, restaurant, full, if you're lucky 3 staff, usually just two.
Full on gong show.
Tell the customers - "Sit at any Clean Table", and they'll undoubtedly find the dirtiest table, husband gotten up to pay, wife in bathroom with child, and seat themselves there, like swine the lure of filth is too attractive and steam whistling from my ears they pretend not to understand English.
Sunday, Monday, we're busy, Tuesday the pace is furious, we're the only show open between Nelson and Nakusp, and paving & construction on the road means no one is taking the time to go to town.
Manners, people, manners, and did the Pandemic teach you nothing?
That said, there's the regulars, who've gotten used to it, and so you do what you can when thrown in the trenches but what you can is seldom enough.
7 weeks left of this, the full tilt madness, then it will drop an order of magnitude, things will once again be manageable, but surviving these 8, 9 hour days until then, I'm not sure there's enough Vodka in all the Kootenays...
On a more pleasant note, a rather charming drawing of yours truly done by a child customer when I attempted to ID her for her Shirley Temple...
The resemblance is obvious.
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3 Fatal Drug "Poisonings" (or OD's, not sure what they mean there) in Nelson in one week.
Bloody hell. That's a big number for a small town.
Link: https://www.nelsonstar.com/news/3-people-die-of-drug-poisonings-within-1-week-in-nelson/
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Monday after work which didn't start, slow, JR felt he could handle it on his own, rainy outside, rain, in July, how often does that happen? Not very.
And I was chomping at the bit, had my granola, water, was ready to get up Crystal Mtn and clean it out. About time.
A long drive with nothing to talk about, beautiful, piss pouring rain, 2 hours to the logging road that turns up and up and I'm off, the first 6 KM, rocky, bad, but I can manage. This was the site of my last breakdown. This is the cause of some slight anxiety, as this place, this mountain, it's been the graveyard of a few of my automobiles, and the three cylinders of fury, gallon of oil, well, I'm not cancelling any adventures because of it...
The next 6 KM up, they're nail biting. The road, always bad, is plenty the worse for the lack of wear, from this point onward I'm unrecoverable, car breaks, nobody is coming up this last stretch to get me, peel your VIN, grab your shit and get the hell out of dodge...
And herein lies the rub, that this car, it's full, packed full of rubbish, more than I can carry in 2, 3, 4 trips even, and so a breakdown - well, it's inconceivable. Intolerable.
Up and up, the switchbacked cobbled roads climbing at 45 degrees and then pitching cliffwards another 45 degrees, less a road than a boulder-jammed rut with 6 inches of navigational wiggling, every year the road slips a little more in line with the slope of the mountain, away from the level, and already I'm thinking this was a very, very bad idea.
The roads up to 6KM are bad, past 6KM, well, ....
I arrive, breathe a sigh of relief, my fingertips are numb from clenching the wheel. I pour a goodly libation to the gods that got me here and if so inclined will see me safely down.
And begin work. The day is grey, rainy, overcast, you can barely see the mountaintops across...
The work, well, first the surface collecting, picking up the easy finds off the top of the dirt. Small, nothing too worthwhile.
By this time it's dark. The rest will wait for morning.
The next day, rainy, grey again, I'm filthy in a matter of hours. Dig down to bedrock, search for new pockets. Nada. I do a good job of baring a few meters, but - nothing. And so I go through the dirt I've dug, go back to a few vugs, clean them out again.
And for all this there's precious little return. A couple of one hour breaks to prospect other possibilities, above, below, but it seems this is the spot, the only spot, really, where the crystals got a chance to form.
Back to the digging.
***
I get, in the end, maybe 10lbs of crystals, most small, a few as big as my thumb, a couple of beauties. But this I would have gathered in a few hours a few years ago, and so - and so - this area is tapped out, no need to return unless I can somehow come up with some dynamite or explosives.
Which I may.
The mosquitos now are insane, and I've no Vodka left for another farewell salute, but it's time now to head down the mountain, now, the smell of brakes as I ride them the entire trip, and safely to the road aim the car southward, I need a shower, covered in filth from the pit, sweat, deep-woods-off, but I've done it, done for the season, done and I have my treasure and now to find a shower, find some food, find a town...
Subcategories
Dating
OK. I've been on a few internet dates. I confess this with the same reluctance I would admitting to masturbating, adultery, or excessive drinking and drug use.
This is a list of some of my best -- AND WORST -- dates ever. Note that you gotta go on a lotta dates to get this kinda list, this kinda discouraged. And my online dating thing has been sporadic - an every few years kind of thing at best. Some of these dates go back 10 years, others are a little more recent. And to answer any people who might argue "It beats hooking up at the bar", well, you don't have to hook up at the bar, and at the bar you can see what your getting...
Anyways - apologies to the countless normal, decent dates that I went on but just didn't hit it off with. Memory is selective, it tends towards the extreme, and in this you will find the extremes...
Dear Osama
In which I write everyone's favorite advice columnist.
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