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Today, again rainy, foggy, wet, how many days now? My nose starts pouring from the moment I step outside. Morning, get groceries, then the bus-stop, to Balfour, to hunt arrowheads, all this rain must have turned up something new ...
Cash is there, the Mother-in-Law's brother from the last restaurant, holding his dog. It's a cute dog.
We're catching up, he likes rocks, knows a few things, has ideas, about rubies, sapphires, etc, that he's found, local, only - well, he's unfortunately a junkie. Which is not a slur but it does somewhat mean you got to put things into context a bit.
But we're talking and he's realizing the importance of getting off the junk, just got subsidized housing up lake, wants to make some changes, it doesn't get him high anymore, does nothing for him, and fuck, the amount he needs, his prescription, it'd kill 10 people...
I know what he's talking about. It takes me a mickey to get sober, pass for sober, fuck how well do I know.
SO we chat, bus comes, I confirm a bus will be returning (because damned if on this cold and rainy day I want to be trapped up lake for hours and hours on end).
I was right. The wash-out has grown, some large flakes/scrapers/micro-blades, and further up the shore a couple of scrapers, (maybe, hard to tell, odd bits of stone regardless), and a couple of rude arrowheads.
From loonie, left - a scraper, (I think, oddly shaved to a sharp edge from both sides, bilateral), above left, oddly shaped rock out of some sort of tourmalinated schist, oddly shaped and out of place on a washout. Above loonie, arrowhead, hard to see but to handle it becomes obvious, knapped both sides to a symmetrical point, otherwise mostly debitage, a couple of "micro-blades" (or debitage, again), and to the right, a carefully worked flint, dark grey, knapped both sides, almost as if it were an arrowhead that lost it's head, then got repurposed.
So, given the rain and chilly day, my nose draining me perpetually, no box of Kleenex could keep up, my bag filling with water, not at all unsuccessful, given my last day out there a positive victory, the rain, despite running off my nose, jacket, hands, despite freezing to death and getting soaked through and through, if you keep on looking you'll keep on finding.
Worth noting, while most of the rocks above would be invisible in any other setting, but the distinctive green/grey of the Kootenay Argillite does stand out in the fog and the rain. it's obvious, the paler examples especially. The scrapers on the left, well, that's just intuition, for once not discarded....
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Grey clouds lowering on the mountains, rain, rain, dismal leaves crushed under foot, the blackened silhouettes etched onto the sidewalk, and the rain, non-stop, snow visible but not into the valleys yet.
Yesterday, at Save-On foods, a case of Hari-Kari, someone, an unidentified male, used their washroom, came out with his neck sliced open, a proper bloodbath, no updates, only severely injured, self-inflicted, witnesses are recommended counselling, this weather, government, age, it would do it. I'm curious as to who it is, was, someone no doubt on the peripheries of acquaintance, everyone here is.
Rain, rain, and when I let myself indoors it continues, the pitter-pat of my nose dripping everywhere, a terminal cold, I've become an extension of the clouds that cold-sweat buckets on the street, forever a Kleenex, tissue, scrap of toilet paper or napkin wiping my nose, drip, drip, drip...
Yesterday morning, a train derailment, blocking all access to the mall. I had no need to go, just news.
And today, setting about on my second round of errands and the power goes out. All over town, 45 minutes, then it's back up.
The news, I've gotten quicker, I just get the gist, we're in trouble, everyone, global stability, it's all done, the end game is being played out. The appointments, cronies and kleptocrats, experts in nothing but their own self-enrichment, whenever things can't get any worse they invariably do, I'm dropping the news by and largely from my list of things to do, catch-up upon, there's no good news at the moment, only bad news and irrelevant news, and - worst of all, with the right leader (not Poilievre, not Trudeau) we could be not only prospering but flourishing, per capita we're the richest country on earth second only to Australia, we only need clear vision, governance, leadership, a plan...
Stop importing minimum wage-paid slaves, cheap foreign labour, instead import experts, engineers, begin the industries wherein we can become self-sufficient, produce our own consumer goods, recycle, innovate, to hell with all the lowly service jobs lets get started on the ownership and fair distribution of our own resources, we could, should be a model to other countries...
Instead, well, instead, the news down south is as terrifying to us as it is to them.
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The end of the world, delivered to your door in a cardboard box, courtesy of Amazon.
Not that I'd in any way support them, but having a list of supplies I needed before I could get underway on some bigger painting projects, and having had no luck sourcing them in town, I turned to Amazon. .Com as I'd forgotten my .Ca password.
And - my god, if they didn't deliver everything I ordered in 2 days. From the US, to my door.
To compare, all the books I've been reading, most of which didn't arrive for 2 weeks, some as many as 5, well, - Amazon - all things aside - and they shouldn't be put aside, enough with the billionaires already, off with their heads, but bloody hell are they efficient.
So, supplies garnered, to Dollarama to buy up a big stock of cheap disposable paints - I have some ideas, that before I waste quality paint and canvas on I want to first experiment with cheaper mediums. Before committing to the big guns, maybe a hundred dollars to figure out what I'm doing will save (the theory goes, at least) a few hundred dollars in painful mistakes.
I'm counting on this to buy my jeep for next spring, on Facebook Marketplace I've seen a few for sale, of interest, on old Mercedes (SUV Jeep Style) that'd be perfect, only I'm about 30K short. The helicopter, well, that sold pretty quick but who knows, maybe by spring there will be another?
The living room fills with garbage and it's time now - today, after my volunteer shift, to start mixing up colours and begin the experiments.
Outside, the last of the fall colours peeling from the trees, the fog hangs lowering on the mountains, grey and rain, giant ravens circle the parking lot, no reason now not to get this underway...
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Slight sense of achievement, 2 electric razors, neither of which would even slightly trim my beard, instead merely pulling it out in bloody hunks. One even stopped doing that.
So get onto YouTube, watch a few how to videos, fix one, then oil them both.
And now 2 razors, good as new.
***
The car, the car, always in the forefront of my mind. Finally, finally, after 100 false starts I go up the hill, it's still there, tires flat, windows broken. I call BCAA. It's looking good, only have to wait for the tow truck driver, only about 20 minutes later they call back, my car, is it insured? How long has it been there? They're on to me, no tow.
And so I call the wreckers and they actually promise to recover it that day.
There are things in it I could use, a waterproof camo jacket, fishing rod, lures, but, damn, let it go, I can get all of the above for $10 at a garage sale next year.
The next day, through the rain and drizzle, I walk up to where the car is - and - praise the lord - it's gone. Should I have grabbed the plates? I don't know, I only know it's off the large list of things I have to worry about. Now there's room in my life for a working high-clearance 4 Wheel Drive Jeep.
***
And the weather, perfect, fall, clouds in the morning, rain, drizzle, cold temperatures. Wake up, have a coffee, go back to bed, the snow's coming down the mountain. You can see it, maybe 100 meters up, not so long now, not so long at all...
***
And reading, after "A Voyage to Arcturus" Bloch's book on De Sade is looking pretty damned sane. And I'm still getting pages of notes out of it. I'll be a little more thorough in my review, but he's excellent, and far more entertaining than De Sade ever was...
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...being the marvelous history of General Augustus Sutter
Which being the history of a remarkable man and time in history, told by Cendrars becomes poetry and art. A slender, although marvelous read, from the point of view of a man who can't seem to reconcile the swings of fortune God (and man) have assigned him.
Cendrars is kinder to him than history is, although how much information he had access to is uncertain. The historical accounts currently do not describe him as kindly in his dealings with natives.
You can read the bare bones of his life here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Sutter