There are still times when it seems surreal that we live here.  I often sit on my window seat and feel amazed that I’m here, in the lower mainland, in a brand-new townhouse.  And when we drive around and I realize that I know how to get where I’m going, that I know the exits and routes, it seems crazy.  I live here and my life right now is pretty wonderful.

I love getting up every morning and coming downstairs in my pyjamas and robe.  I never really did that before. When I was working I would get up, shower, dress, eat breakfast and go to work. It was rush, rush, rush every morning.  On the weekends, I would get up, shower, dress and do all the things around the house I didn’t get done during the week; again rush, rush, rush.  Now I wake up, stretch, grab my robe and head downstairs.  I make myself a cup of tea and let my bones settle.  Then I put on yoga pants and do several episodes of Gentle Yoga.  The osteoarthritis in my left knee is quite bad now and that impacts both of my knees, my hips and my back.  The gentle poses and stretches really help.  Then I usually have another cup of tea and think about breakfast.  Some mornings I switch things up.  I get up, watch morning television and then I put on yoga pants and do my poses and stretches.  Either way, it’s usually after 8:00 when I get up and around 11:00 before I’m ready to meet my public. I love that my mornings are restful and quiet, and that I control the pace.

I love ironing.  Dale wears dress shirts to work and every Wednesday or Thursday I have three or four of them hanging up, ready to be ironed.  I take my iPad upstairs with me, set my music to shuffle and start ironing.  I love the smell of the freshly pressed fabric.  It is rewarding to see his shirts hanging without wrinkles.  I usually iron my t-shirts, camisoles and jeans too.  I love tucking them into my dresser drawers, all smooth and soft. The songs on my iPad are ones I love and hearing them adds to the pleasure.  Sometimes I sing along, sometimes I stand there and let the music wash over me.  Ironing before was just another chore to get done after work or on the weekends.  Now it is an enjoyable task that I look forward to each week.

I love that I can walk to get fresh food.  There is a small farm market less than a block from my house.  To get there, I walk along a pedestrian pathway which has beautiful gardens on either side.  The market also has a great selection of ethnic food, so I can get rice, pasta, sauces and oils there too.  Not too far away is another little market that has a deli and a bakery.  Between these two markets is a Super Valu store, which carries local bread and organic milk and eggs.  From May until September, every Thursday afternoon there is a Farmers’ Market in the city square.  On Sunday afternoons during the summer, musicians play at the square.  We can hear them from our house.  I can go days without getting into my car to go shopping, but if I need to, there are many shops I can get to within an easy ten minute drive, including Costco and Hudson’s Bay.

I love that there are kilometres of biking and walking trails that we can easily access from our location.  We simply cross the main street in the downtown area, go down a couple of blocks and there we are!  We can bike along the raised walkway or we can go through the park.  If we go through the park we can watch soccer or baseball games and  get fish and chips from  Pajo’s (although this location isn’t as good as the original one in Port Moody and it’s only open in the summer).  Most of the trails are along the river and through the woods but the first part we go through is in downtown Poco.  The mild weather here means that we can probably bike on the weekends throughout the year.

I love that there are lots of options for eating out within walking distance.  We can have sushi (there are several Japanese restaurants), Thai food, Greek food or pizza.  We can go to a neighbourhood pub or we can have burgers from A & W.  If we want ice cream we can walk to Dairy Queen or splurge on gelato from Matteo’s. If someone comes to visit, we can go for coffee at Starbuck’s or Waves.  Both have outdoor seating to enjoy during good weather.  On Sunday mornings we can drive to several places for brunch.  Earl’s is technically within walking distance and if we want something really special, a drive into the city is easy enough to do.

I love that there are many community theatre organizations in the surrounding area and that there is a website that lists all the auditions.  Now that I’m in a production with the Surrey Little Theatre, I’m making new friends and connections.  I could be in several shows a year with several different groups!  That makes me very happy.

I love that here in BC my little red Bug with flower and ladybug decals makes people happy.  Every time I’m out in it I see people looking, pointing and smiling.  In my rear view mirror I often see people taking pictures of my car.  When I’m at my car in parking lots, people often say how much they like it.  When I was in Alberta most people looked at my car like it was the representation of all things liberal and wicked.  I’m sure they thought I was a dope-smoking hip-pie, not just a (former) school teacher with a whimsical and artistic bent.

I love that we are close enough to our boys to help them.  If they need us, for any reason, we are minutes away, not like before when we had to get into the car and drive for hours and hours or hop on a plane to get to them.  Both boys occasionally pop by, and that is a wonderful thing.

I love that we are close enough to downtown Vancouver to drive there for the evening.  We’ve been to Theatre Under the Stars in Stanley Park.  We’ve seen football and hockey games.  We went into one of the fireworks nights and we met up with friends from Port Alberni at the QE Theatre to see “Book of Mormon”.  If we want, we can drive to the old neighbourhood, the West End, and walk around.  Yaletown, Gastown, English Bay and Granville Island are close enough to consider visiting anytime, and believe me, we take advantage of that!

Mostly I love that Dale is working at a job where he feels valued and useful.  It was hard for him to have been let go from his last job.  But, you know, the universe was looking after us.  His job now is much better than his last one, with more opportunities and perks.  And even though he acts like he’s bitter and twisted because I’m home all day, doing what I want to do when I want to do it, he’s happy, productive and fulfilled.

Could some things be better? Sure. The benches in front of our house on the walkway are, some summer evenings, used by homeless people who sit there and drink.  They can be loud and they often leave a mess behind.  And some of the people who walk their dogs along the path let them poop on the grass in the park and they don’t always pick it up.  Our townhouse is too small for me to do the big projects I would like to do, the ones I pinned onto my re-purposing board on Pinterest.  We don’t have space in the garage to store the materials much less space to do the work.  We haven’t been here long enough to have developed a circle of friends, but that will come.  We’ve moved enough to know the timeline for that: it takes about a year.  However, we do have some friends here and with Facebook and Skype I’m not at all lonely.

Right here, right now, I am happy. And that, people, is a good thing.

I was in our doctor’s office a while ago.  Finding a family doctor here was an adventure that I will talk about another time.  I was sitting in the waiting room, along with several other people, listening to two young women carrying on a rather personal conversation in tones loud enough for everyone to hear.  We all pretended to be engaged with our magazines or phones, but we could not help but hear every word.

One of them was complaining about how her boyfriend was pulling away from her and the other one was comforting her.  We heard how he was spending more time working, or playing video games, how they hadn’t been intimate (they weren’t as delicate as that) in months and how he had initiated several conversations about ending their relationship.  Her friend’s response? Things would change when they got married or when they had their first child, whichever came first.

I think at this point in the conversation my head came up and I looked at them.  Had they looked my way they would have seen my look of horror.  If I been braver I would have told them that their ideas were wrong.  Why do people think you can fix relationships by getting married or having children?  Why do people want to stay in relationships where one person doesn’t want to be there? And why, in this day and age, are young women still dependent on men to provide support for them and their children?

I raised boys.  If I had raised girls my overriding message to them would have been for them to be able to look after themselves and any children they might have on their own, for them to get the skills and experience they needed to be independent.  Not they would have had to be alone, not at all, but things happen.  Relationships end, people lose jobs, and people die.  When a woman has no skills and these things happen, she and her children are vulnerable, their options are limited. And that is something we shouldn’t want to happen to anyone.

But the conversation between the young women continued and my desire to shake them and make listen to me intensified.  They started talking about how happy they would be if only they could go on a vacation, or get a new car, or lose those few extra pounds; they listed many things they thought would make them, and their boyfriends, happy.  Again, if they had seen my face they would have stopped.

I hear this all the time, and not just from young women.  People look for things to have or things to happen to make them happy, as if happiness is a “thing” that can be bestowed.  “Here is your bag of happiness, now go and be happy.”  Happiness comes from you.  It’s not another person’s job to make you happy.  It can’t be found in the folds of a new dress or in the sand on a faraway beach.  Those things might bring a fleeting happiness, but then you have to look for the next thing to bring that feeling. And it  doesn’t come from complaining or whining.  That just sucks you into negativity.  Happiness is something that starts in you.  It’s all tied together; being grateful and seeing joy and appreciating what you do have, being content. You can’t be those things if you are constantly upset about what you don’t have or what you can’t get or what others have that you don’t have or what others get that you don’t.  Does that mean we shouldn’t want more or try to be more?  No, not at all.  Contentment doesn’t have to mean complacency.  And no one is happy all the time, but it should be the feeling that you can identify in your life more often than any other.

When the two young women went back into one of the little consulting rooms I closed my magazine.  I thought about how young they were and how they needed more life experience to truly know things.  I wished there was a way to give young men and women the advice they really need, to share with them the wisdom they can’t get until they’ve lived more than just a decade or two on this earth.  It can’t happen, I know.  I didn’t listen to anyone when I was that age, I knew everything then, so why would I expect young people to listen to me?  It’s only now, after more than 50 years on this planet and after dealing with children and parents and bureaucracies for more than 30 years, that I have come to the knowledge I have.  And that knowledge tells me those two young women will get lessons to teach them what it is they need to learn, and that I heard them to reinforce the lessons I’ve learned.

Do something today to make you happy.  Listen to music, sit in the sun, walk on a beach, chat with a friend, smile at a stranger.  No one is going to hand you a bag of happiness;  you have to build it, in you, one thought, one act, one positive statement at a time until it becomes your way of being and you realize you are…..happy!

I am a competent driver and I’m comfortable driving around our neighbourhood, and by neighbourhood I mean the general area around where we live.  I can get myself to all the grocery stores, several malls, IKEA, Costco, the kids’ house and so on.  I was a little reluctant to drive beyond those boundaries, feeling that I would be overwhelmed with the traffic and exits and such.  However, the need to go venture further afield has come up several times and I’ve met that challenge.

First of all, I had to get myself to the theatre in Surrey.  That was pretty easy.  I made Dale take me on the route before I had to go to the first audition.  We took several routes and decided on the best one.  So, that first evening, I got into the car, put the address into the GPS and headed off.  It was easy-peasy.  My confidence went up.  Later on I had to go to the Service Canada location in Port Coquitlam to get a new passport.  That office was closed because of water damage and the security guard gave me a paper with the addresses of other locations.  Again, I plugged an address into my GPS and off I went.  It too was easy-peasy.  Okay, I thought, I can do this.  And when challenges came up, like my usual routes were closed because of accidents or construction, I handled them.  However, those little adventures were not into the big city.

Yesterday I had to drive into Gastown to meet with one of Jordan’s friends.  Then I had to drive to Kits, do an errand and then go back to Gastown.  When all that was done, I had to drive home.  And you know what, I did it.  The traffic wasn’t all that bad and my GPS is wonderful.  It even tells me what lane I should be in and if a quick turn is coming up after the first turn.  It did take me down several roads I might have wanted to avoid in the lower east side, but that’s where Gastown is.  I felt quite proud of myself when I was on my way home.  And you know what, I am not afraid of any drive I might have to take in the future.  And why should I be?  With a GPS if I make a wrong turn it re-adjusts and gets me back on track. It tells me well in advance of a turn so I can get myself where I need to be on the road.  Most people are courteous drivers, allowing me in if I’m in the wrong lane and need to move over.  And if I sometimes have to wait until the less courteous people drive by, well, then I wait.  No big deal, I will get there.

That’s a big lesson in life.  We can all do more than we think we can do.  We can all push our boundaries and try new things.  And we should.  In fact, we must.  We might have to take small steps at first, but even small steps lead us forward.  We should not ever feel stuck in relationships, in jobs, in life.  If we do, we need to address that feeling and move on, one small step at a time.  And after a few small, faltering steps we gain confidence and take bigger steps and soon we are striding forward, to something new, to something different, to where we were meant to be.  We will run into obstacles along the way, but they can be overcome.  And we might just meet someone wonderful, going the same way we’re headed; someone to lean on and learn from.  That’s what it’s all about; living, learning, growing, trying, failing, moving on…the real circle of life.

Dale and I were high school sweethearts.  That meant I spent most of my time with him. I had friends I hung out with, and teams I played with, so I did have some “girl” time.  But the majority of the time we were waiting for our boyfriends, or any other boys for that matter, to come around.  Dale and I got married young and had children within a couple of years so most of our time was spent as a couple or as a family.  We both worked full-time, so there wasn’t a lot of extra time to give to other relationships.  Dale got away for some ‘guy’ time; fishing or hunting or going to NASCAR races.  I didn’t get away much.  I remember one shopping trip with a female friend and I did go to some teacher conferences with female colleagues, but I wasn’t, and still am not, a woman with a lot of female friends.  When I finally had time to give to a friendship, when the kids were grown up and my work life settled down, we moved. And then we moved again, and again.  My closest friends are now hours and hours away.  And we all have busy lives.  We keep in touch mostly with texts and phone calls, and Facebook.

On TV and in books and movies, women are always hanging out; going on vacations together, taking road trips, consoling each other over the difficulties in their lives.  I know some women who regularly schedule “girl” time  with their siblings and friends.  They go on theatre trips or rent cottages. They go to book club meetings where they don’t really discuss the books.  Dale is my best friend and at this stage in my life, I want to spend most of my time with him and so I’m okay with the fact that I won’t have those legendary female relationships that form the basis of bestselling books and blockbuster movies. At least, not right now.

However, several weeks ago I got a call, asking me to if I wanted a part in a local theatre group’s production of “Calendar Girls”.  Well, I had auditioned, so the answer was an unqualified YES!  Everyone knows the true story from the movie.  A group of feisty middle-aged women create a charity calendar featuring their skillfully disguised nude bodies.  That group of women was amazing, and the group of women I’m involved with for this production is too!  It is hard not to transfer the camaraderie of the characters into our real life relationships.  The teasing, the support, the tears; everything that we feel and do on stage we are transferring to each other in real life. Being together on stage is a bonding activity.  You have to trust the people you’re with, and they have to trust you.  You need to feel comfortable with them, otherwise your unease comes across to the audience.  Well, add partial nudity into the mix, just to ramp up the vulnerability, and the bonding becomes even more real.

There are men involved in this production.  The director is a man, and there are three male characters.  However, the director won’t be on stage with us and the male roles are small.  Most of the time it’s the six friends on stage. There are two other female characters who round out the cast.  So, there we are; six women who love the theatre, doing something we love, trusting that we have each others’ backs and are literally covering each others’ asses.  Well, in some cases we let the asses show, but we always cover each others’ boobies, and there are no front bottoms (if you know the play or the movie, then you’ll know that line).   We are going to get together before the show opens to spend quality time in each others’ company.  We will gather at one house and deepen our friendships over drinks and food.  That can only be a good thing, for the show and for us.

Now I want that kind of group female friendship.  I want to find the Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha to round out my foursome (I get to be Carrie because I’m the one writing the blog). I want to fly to Hawaii or Mexico with a group of women, and hang out with them around the pool, drinking and eating and commenting on fit young men.  I want to go on road trips to look at antiques and stay in quaint inns.  I want to go shopping in high end stores with some friends who will truthfully tell me when a dress flatters me and more importantly, when it doesn’t.  Will those things ever happen?  I don’t know, probably not.  But I can start putting more effort into the female relationships I already have and start building new ones. But for the record, I call shotgun (if I’m not driving) and I need my own room and bathroom.  Oh and make sure there’s chocolate, there must always be chocolate.

Okay, I’m finding it hard not to take the random smoke detector alarms personally.  I think it has something to do with me.  Not that I’m smoking hot, but I might be giving off some sort of magnetic field that interferes with them.  I mean, when I was working and wearing watches, they always ran fast, every single watch.  And there were two streetlights in our Castlegar neighbourhood that would either go on or off when I drove or walked by, every single time.  In Leduc there was a streetlight at the entrance to our subdivision that would go off when I drove by it at night.  So, I’m thinking something’s going on there.

Any way, we have been having issues with the smoke detectors here in our townhouse. First the one on the main floor started chirping.  We assumed the battery needed changing, so Dale took it down and we discovered our smoke detectors didn’t have battery backup. Well, that was surprising, but it didn’t fix the problem.  Dale vacuumed it and put it back up.  About three weeks later it did the same thing.  This time Dale traded it out with the smoke detector downstairs, figuring it was further away and I wouldn’t hear it if it chirped.  He was wrong.  My ears are now super sensitive to smoke detectors; I can even hear when one goes off in the neighbourhood.

The final straw came last Saturday night.  Dale got home from a fishing trip later in the day.  Neither one of us had had dinner so I made us some toast.  I didn’t burn the toast, and I had the fan over the stove on low (I never cook anything without the fan on now, I don’t boil the kettle or use the toaster without it either) and suddenly the smoke detector went off.  It wasn’t a steady alarm but three quick and loud sounds.  Dale grabbed a tea towel and started swinging it at the detector.  That was when we learned that the smoke detectors in the house, all four of them (one on each level and an extra one in the garage), are attached.  All four of them started going off, not simultaneously but in random sequence.  BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! from the main level.  BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! from the lower level.  BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! from the upstairs.  The one in the garage was going off I’m sure but we couldn’t hear it.  Dale ran around checking to see if there was a fire somewhere.  Maybe it was a coincidence that I was making toast. Nope.  No fire.  So we opened windows and doors and hoped the alarm would stop.  Oh, and our complex has a light outside each unit.  It was flashing, so that if there was a fire, the fire department would know which unit to rush to.  Our neighbour came over, to see if we were okay.  Dale was saying a few choice words about our stupid smoke detectors when the poor woman came to the door.

Well, the alarms eventually stopped but by that time I was fully traumatized.  I couldn’t even eat the toast!  I slept with one ear open, waiting for them to go off again.  When I got up in the morning Dale was on the computer. researching the best smoke detectors to have near kitchens and the ones that are the best rated for not giving false alarms.  He then went to Lowe’s and bought four new detectors and installed them.  Last weekend he vacuumed our vents and they were full of drywall dust and debris. He thought maybe the old smoke detectors were contaminated, clogged with stuff that made them think there was smoke in the air.  And the new ones have battery back-up, something we will need if the coming winter season has storms like the one we just had.

However, even with new detectors in place I can’t relax.  I made crème brulee last night and the oven had to be on broil to brulee the sugar.  That was fun!  I had the fan on high and I was hyper-vigilant, peering into the oven, watching for the merest hint of smoke; as a result the sugar wasn’t properly melted. This morning I made toast.  I put the toaster on top of the stove and turned the fan on high.  I like my toast nicely browned and crispy.  This morning it was lightly browned and still somewhat soft.  Tonight I’m planning to make a stir fry in the wok.  My heart is palpitating just thinking about it.

I don’t want to make light of people who have gone through horrendous trauma, but I think I may have SDPTSD; Smoke Detector Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It is great that we have things to keep us and our possessions safe.  Our townhouse has sprinkler heads everywhere, even in my walk-in closet.  But when you can’t cook or bake properly, or when you worry about the steam coming up from the pasta you are draining in your sink, things have gone too far.  Is it too much to ask that I can sear a pork tenderloin on the stove or that I can melt cheese on toast in my oven without having severe anxiety about the flipping smoke detectors?  Then and again, maybe this is a Mary Ellen issue, not a smoke detector issue.  Maybe we didn’t need new smoke detectors, maybe I need therapy, and a realignment of my chakras so that I don’t send out metaphysical electric signals. Whatever, I just want to cook and bake without elevated heart and breathing rates!

We have had a hot, dry summer.  We have been threatened with Stage 4 water restrictions, no watering or outside use of water of any kind, for anyone.  Imagine how that would affect certain businesses, like car washes and locations, like botanical gardens.  It was so hot that stores couldn’t keep fans in stock.  We had four column fans in our home alone, two in our bedroom and two in the living room.  For a while, they were on 24/7.

And all of that came to a crashing end, for a while, yesterday.  The forecast was for heavy rain and high winds, and they came.  One window upstairs was almost pulled off our house before we got to it.  The rain had come in the wide open window, soaking the dresser and carpet beneath it.  And to top it all off, the power went out.  Not just for a few hours but for more than 24 hours.

It is amazing how lost you can feel without power in your home.  There was virtually nothing to do.  Well, I guess we could have moved furniture around or painted, but we couldn’t do our usual Saturday chores. Dale was vacuuming out the ducts, getting ready for when we finally do have to use the furnace.  I was looking through recipes on my iPad, trying to figure out what to make for dinner.  The power went out with a mighty bang (we later realized it was the upstairs window).  I had seen the lights flicker a few times, and there were branches on the ground from the trees on the other side of the walkway, but we weren’t prepared for no power.

Looking back, we should have been.  The weather system that caused the storm, a trough of colder northern air merging with warmer, moisture-laden southern air, occurs often around here, just not usually in August.  But I guess we can kiss “usual” weather good-bye what with the warm sea blob, and el Nino and global warming.  Anyway, after a few hours of dusting and tidying up and then reading, I was ready for a cup of tea. Nope.  Nothing to boil water on. (We later realized we could have used the barbeque but that didn’t hit us until Sunday morning when Dale made tea and great breakfast sandwiches out there.)  We couldn’t cook anything, all we could make were things like sandwiches or cereal.  Finally at about 5:30 we decided to venture out.  The sting was out of the storm, the rain had let up and the wind had died down.  Twitter and online sources were telling us that there were pockets of power, thank goodness for Rogers LTE, as we had no Telus wifi.  So we got our phones and charge cords and piled into the car.

Most people on the road were using the four-way stop procedure quite well.  Some people, however, are idiots.  They figure if the person in front of them is going then they can too.  Or they try to be overly polite – after you – which messes the whole system up.  We thought we would head towards Coquitlam Centre as we knew it had power, but the road west on Lougheed from Shaughnessy was closed, manned by policer officers so we headed east.  Pitt Meadows looked promising.  The first little mall area was fully lit but only had fast food, so we continued on.  We saw a Boston Pizza that was open and we backtracked to it.  There was a 45 minute to an hour wait, so we got back into the car.  However, I did see a bank that had power and I got some cash.  You know, one should always have cash, just in case something happens, like the power goes out and businesses can feed you but they can’t take your cards.

We had seen that further into Pitt Meadows there was no power, at least not at the traffic lights so we tried Maple Ridge.  Nope.  The traffic report on the radio was telling us that the roads were clear east of Metro Vancouver, so we continued on, joking that we would stop when we got to Hope.  Abbotsford was quite well lit up.  We tried another Boston Pizza but they weren’t seating anyone as they were too busy with pick up and take out orders.  Okay.  The IHOP a block away didn’t have power, at least that’s what the sign said.  I think they didn’t have power earlier so they sent their staff home.   We could see the Red Robin across the street had power, and a full parking lot, so we headed over.

We had only a few minute wait before we were seated in this very busy restaurant.  Our server told us that the power came back on around 5:00 and they called both shifts in to deal with the crowd.  Our food came quickly and was great.  Our server was attentive and efficient and we tipped her accordingly.  We could see the workers in the bar area.  They never stopped getting fountain drinks, making milkshakes and pulling pints.  We hope the servers paid them, and the kitchen staff, out of their tips.

The drive home was easy.  We were mostly on the freeway so we didn’t need to use the four-way stop that often.  As we got closer to home we started checking lights.  Yup, they have lights, yup, they have lights, nope, we don’t have lights.  It was almost sad to come home to a dark house, with no possibility of a cup of tea or a hot bath.  And Dale uses a CPAP machine.  I would have to stay awake all night to keep him alive, to shake him into breathing again.  We both actually had a terrible night; me keeping him alive and him worrying about staying alive and keeping me awake.

Dale got up at 3:00 in the morning, unable to sleep.  He thought that if he left at least I might get a few hours of good sleep.  It was good that he got up.  The ice in the ice maker in the fridge was just starting to melt.  He emptied it before it drained out all over the floor.  He came back to bed around 5:00, freezing cold.  Around 8:00 we both got up and Dale made the breakfast I mentioned earlier.  Oh, and Dale had two cold showers during all of this: once before we went out for dinner and once on Sunday morning.  I did not. Thank goodness I had showers and washed and styled my hair on Saturday morning before the power went out.

After our  lovely breakfast we headed out again, mostly to drive around so we could charge our phones, but also to get a few supplies.  The stores in the first strip mall heading west on the Lougheed had power and customers, the Canadian Tire and Super Store did not.  And the traffic lights further up were not working. The drive to Lougheed Centre was painfully slow, mostly because of the huge intersections.  It was hard for people to figure out what to do with two turning lanes in each direction along with at least two lanes going straight through in each direction.  Everyone finally figured it out and we got to the mall.  We got in and out as quickly as we could but it was very busy.  We came home to discover our power was on!  Hours and hours ahead of the projected time!  I immediately tweeted our thanks to BC Hydro. Those crews work very hard during storms and they were already stretched because of the work they had to do as a result of all the forest fires.

So, we survived the first storm of the season. We will make sure we are better prepared for the second one.  I see us using our small butane stove in our future, and more canned foods. I think we only have cans of tuna, mushroom soup and black beans in the pantry.  It was good to know that the fridge stayed cold-ish for the 24 hours we were without power, and the freezers kept the frozen food frozen.  And that was in August, keeping things cold in December or January should be a piece of cake.  However, keeping us warm might be harder.  Sigh, I see more preparations in our future.

We’ve driven past the Britannia Mine Museum several times, either on our way to Whistler or to Squamish.  Dale always expressed an interest in stopping there but we never have. Then last week he saw an ad on TV for the museum and we put it on our weekend to-do list.  We planned to get an early start on Saturday, but life intervened and we didn’t leave the house until just before noon.

The traffic on the freeway once we got close to the Grandview exit was terrible.  We moved very slowly in heavy traffic.  We wondered why and then we realized it was the first day of the PNE.  It wasn’t a real concern for us, we were in the Mustang with the top down and it was a beautiful day, but I felt sorry for anybody who was heading to the ferry.  So we chatted happily, listening to the oldies, until the traffic cleared and then we were on our way.

The Sea to Sky highway is beautiful.  The views are spectacular and there isn’t a spot on the entire road that doesn’t have a view.  It helped that it was a gorgeous day and that we were in a convertible.  We got the museum and parked.  It turned out we had good timing.  The next mine tour was at 2:30 so we only had about 15 minutes to wait.  Dale checked out the machine shop and I looked into the building dedicated to the two communities that were built up around the mine site.  Then at about  2:25 we walked up to the tour starting point.

We didn’t have to wait long until the train arrived.   It backed up along the track to the platform and our guide got out.  She reassured us that there was nothing nefarious going on; she had returned with hard hats and without passengers because the tour ended on the other side of the mine.  She dumped the hard hats into a bin and told us to suit up.  When everyone had a hard hat on she started her spiel, giving us basic information about the mine then we got into the train cars and started the tour.

We should have known from her first words to us that Steph was a card.  Our first stop was at the explosives magazine.  She told us that the mine was a terrible place to store explosives because dynamite becomes unstable in wet conditions.  She had two sticks of dynamite in her hands, or so we thought.  They were metal props and when she banged them together they created quite a noise in the enclosed space of the tunnel. We all jumped and made various noises of surprise.  This made her laugh and she told us that we had given the best reaction to that gag all week.
She took us on the rest of the tour, her personality fully in place.  We saw drills and  drills sites and she showed us the light sources they used in the mine.  The tour was short and soon we found ourselves out the other end, with the train backing up to get the next crew.  We headed down to the mill.  It is an fascinating place.  The stairs to the upper levels are horrendous.  They are very steep and while going up would be difficult, coming down would be terrifying.  Steph led us through the process of getting the copper out of the rocks.  Both places, the mine and the mill, were dangerous places to work.

After the mill information we headed out, thinking we would go to Lion’s Bay for lunch.  That plan failed when the only café in the town was closed.  So we headed south, to Horseshoe Bay, where we knew we could find a great place to eat.  We found a place to park on the end of the main street, right by the Boathouse Restaurant.  When we were seated on the patio we were the only ones out there but within minutes several other people joined us, so our timing was spot on again.  We had arrived during happy hour so we ordered appetizers from that menu.  It was lovely sitting on the deck, sipping a beverage, eating great food, enjoying each other’s company and the view.  At one point there were two ferries in the harbour.  We spent a wonderful hour or so there and then we headed home.

The drive home was uneventful, once we got going in the right direction on Marine Drive. Unfortunately that meant we had to go all the way to Whytecliff Park, but it was a nice drive. We ran into a lot of traffic trying to get over the Lions Gate Bridge but again, that’s life in the city.  We couldn’t do anything about it so we just sat there patiently, waiting for our turn.  Dale turned off into Stanley Park and then drove through English Bay, turning up on Davie.  We never miss a chance to drive through the old neighbourhood.  Soon we were out on the highway again, and on our way directly home with another thing on our Saturday to-do list checked off.

This past weekend I flew to Trail in the West Kootenays. I grew up there, started my married life there and had both my children there. It’s where I’m from, what I say when people ask. All my siblings made the trip; my brother driving from Calgary and my younger sister driving from Revelstoke. We gathered at my  older sister’s house, where she lives with her husband, some cats and horses,  a dog and my mom.

They live up on the mountainside outside Fruitvale. The house started out as a modest log cabin but has grown over the years into an fabulous home. Mom has a suite in the above ground basement. We visit her briefly down there but we always end up in the kitchen around the table. Sometimes we move into the comfortable living room. Summers are always beautiful in the Kootenays, so we eat outside at the stone table and then afterwards we sit in the camping chairs around the outside fireplace. 

Coming “home” is always wonderful. No matter how long it has been since we last talked (or messaged in this day and age of readily accessible technology) we fall into easy and enjoyable conversation. We reminince, sharing our often varied recollections of events from our shared past. We catch up on what has been happening in our lives, expanding on our Facebook postings, phone calls or texts. We are all over 50, so imagined slights or grievances have long been laid to rest or are now used as humorous fodder for our teasings. My older sister is an accomplished cook and baker so we eat well, and often. Laughter abounds and familial ties are strengthened over glasses of wine and cups of tea.

The visits are always over too quickly. We all have lives that take us in different directions;  to jobs, to children, to our own separate homes. As much as we love going there to visit, we also love going home. That’s kind of amazing. We go home to Fruitvale, then we go home to Calgary, Revelstoke, Port Coquitlam, wherever. We feel the pull as the weekend draws to a close. Texts come more frequently; when do you expect to get home, when should I pick you up, what do you want for dinner when you get here? Our lives, put on hold for just a while, come back to the fore. 

That doesn’t make the visits any less meaningful. Quite the contrary, actually. It is amazing that given our busy lives we still make the time to reconnect to our first family, the family we grew up in, the family that set the stage for the people we are today. We may not see each other every year, we may not talk or text for a couple of months, but I feel close to my siblings and mom. That connection is always there. Having said that, I knew we all feel the pull back to our spouses, or children, to our jobs and responsibilities. Because that is what a family is supposed to do; prepare us for the world and then send us out into it, while providing a safe place to come back to now and then. 

So, this weekend, I flew home, both ways. 

The August long weekend is always jam-packed with events. This year was no exception. It started off slowly on Friday night with a bike ride to the river. We spent about an hour sitting in the river, letting the moving water pull the heat from our bodies. It cooled us down enough to get through the rest of the evening. 

Saturday passed by quietly until about 6:30. That was when we walked over to the Port Coquitlam Station. There was a special running of the West Coast Express train, taking people to and from the fireworks in downtown Vancouver. We were early, of course. I have a fear of being late, of having to rush, so invariably I am early. Take me to an airport and I want to get through security and to my gate as quickly as possible. If they say to be there 45 minutes early, I figure an hour is better, so we found ourselves at the train station early. Just after we bought our tickets a West Coast Express employee arrived. We hadn’t followed the prompts on the screen properly so she fixed us up. We had a lovely chat with her. Her name was Amanda and when we couldn’t place her accent she told us she was from Singapore. She was an amazing representative for the West Coast Express. 

When the train arrived at 7:39, we got on board and headed up to the top deck. We found two seats next to an older gentleman and he indicated they were available. He then put away his paper and we had a lovely chat all the way into the city. I didn’t even notice that we stopped twice! By 8:00 we were at the Waterfront Station. We followed the signs to the Canada Line and we got on the sky train to Yaletown. A short walk up Davies Street and we were back in our old neighbourhood. Funny that, we lived there for just two months and I claim it as my old neighbourhood! 

We went to The Capital for a late dinner. We were seated at a table for four right by the open window. It was cooler there than inside and we could see all the people walking by. It was very busy and the young man who seated us said he might have to put another couple at the table with us. We said that wasn’t a problem. Our table mates arrived just after our drinks. We chatted and learned that they had just moved into the West End from Cloverdale. They sold their 3000 square foot house and bought a 600 square foot apartment. They seemed very happy with the move. It was very noisy and talking was hard. We got our food first, ate and then said good bye.

Not fireworks, coloured lights in rattan orbs in the trees on Bute Street

We continued walking along Davie, then turned down Bute towards the water. We crossed Beach and found a nice patch of grass on a bank. We spread out our blanket and sat down. The fireworks started promptly at 10:00. We listened to the simulcast music on our phone; Dale had an earbud in his right ear and I had one in my left. The fireworks were amazing but there was no wind to carry away the smoke and so the smoke sometimes obscured the show.  At about 10:25, the fireworks ended and we retraced our steps back to the Waterfront Station. The full moon was a brilliant orange. We thought it was because of the smoky haze in the air, but that same moon met us in Port Coquitlam when we got off the train at about 12:30. 
Sunday morning came quickly after our late night, but we got up and got ready and then drove into the city for the Pride Parade. The highway drive was easy but the traffic downtown was heavy. We drove around for a bit and then found a parkade on West Georgia. We parked and walked up to Robson to find a spot on the parade route. We were a little late and all the good spots had been claimed. We eventually decided to stand at the corner of Robson and Jervis. The area got more and more crowded. We weren’t pushed into the street, as had happened before, but there was a woman leaning on my back for quite a while. She wanted whatever the people in the parade were giving out, so she would lean on me with her left hand and extend her right hand. I don’t think she got much. Several of the people around us were loudly and constantly asking for things. It was hilarious when a young woman in the parade yelled at her friend to “give these nice people free condoms”! Another woman with an impressive bosom barely contained in a bustier tucked condoms between her breasts and told them they could have them but they couldn’t use their hands. Laughing, they leaned in and took them out with their mouths. 

We didn’t stay until the end of the parade. I found it hard standing for so long. We made our way slowly back to the car where we found the exit to the parkade had been  blocked off. We carefully drove out the entrance, merged into the traffic and drove towards home. We had a late lunch/early dinner at Joey Coquitlam. As soon as we got home I turned on the fans in the living room and stretched out on the couch for a nap. The rest of the evening passed quietly.

We spent Monday afternoon at Hastings Raceway Park with Darin and Devon, sitting in the shade and making losing bets. Actually, Dale won three times and I won once. However, I don’t think we quite covered our losses. There were two races where the results went to enquiry, and had the results changed, I would have won on those races too. It was exciting, to see the horses you’ve bet on be in contention. I am not a logical bettor. Darin checks every stat and makes considered bets. I bet on the names I like, or I look for connections and bet on the three horses with weather words (or money words or, best of all, royalty words!) in their names. Most often I bet on the horses with the longest odds; when I win, I want to win big! It’s happened once, so it can can happen again. Between the races it was great to chat with the kids. That was the best part of the day.

I have a song stuck in my head from this weekend; “Downtown” by Petula Clark because things are always great when you’re downtown. In case you missed it, I love living here!

I’m sitting in the ferry line-up, on the Nanaimo side. It’s about 11:30 in the morning. The plaintive sounds of a guitar and a folksy voice are wafting through the air. I can’t tell where it’s coming from, perhaps from the Volkswagen camper van a couple of rows over. The family next to me is French. I can’t understand what they’re saying, just a word or phrase here and there, but their quiet voices are soothing. People walk by; chatting, holding a child’s hand or a dog’s leash. It is restful, perhaps because I haven’t been waiting long. I’m hoping to make the 12:15 ferry. I might not feel so sanguine after a several hour wait in the heat.

I crossed over to the island five days ago. My drive to Horsehoe Bay in the busy morning traffic was made in the rain. I was one of the last cars on the ferry before it sailed. I was in the lowest vehicle deck and by the time I parked and made my way up to the passenger deck, the line-up for the cafeteria was quite long. It didn’t matter to me because I didn’t want breakfast anyway. I went to the coffee shop and grabbed a muffin and a cup of tea. I sat at a little table and pulled out my iPad. My reading was compromised by the conversations and activity around me. An older couple at a nearby table was on the way to the island for a wedding. A young couple with a baby were trying to keep her entertained. Toddlers were toddling by; most stopped to stare at the baby. A group of teenage girls at the table beside me were chattering away, texting at the same time. I finished my snack and sat for a while. Then I gathered up my belongings. I strolled through the gift shop and then walked to the front of the boat to find a seat. I settled in and concentrated on my reading. As the land grew closer, I headed down to my car to wait to disembark.

The weather had cleared up and the drive to Port Alberni was familiar and uneventful. I stopped at a nursery to pick up flowers for my friend and then I drove to her house. She still has a son at home and a married daughter with a young son close by. It was lovely to be in the bosom of a busy family. It was even more lovely to catch up with a dear friend. We chatted late into the evening every night, either at the kitchen table or in the living room. We ventured out during the days; to have the world’s best doughnuts at the Harbour Quay, to check out some houses her daughter and her daughter’s husband were hoping to buy and to shop for dinner. One day we drove to Coombs and walked slowly through the market, jostled by tourists. We bought a few things, had ice cream and drove home.  Sometimes we stayed home, watching her grandson. He’s a busy, almost two-year-old. He learned my name while I was there, although he couldn’t manage all of it. I was “En-neh”.  He stuck out his tongue between the syllables. No matter what we were doing, my friend and I talked. And I learned some new, interesting things about her. We didn’t grow up together. We met about 10 years ago, at work, so we both have things to reveal and many, many more years as “besties” to do it.  

The ferry is loading. Some people are panicking as they come from the marketplace. They’ve forgotten where they parked. The loudspeaker crackles and a voice tells the driver of a white truck pulling a grey fifth-wheel to return to the vehicle. The lane beside me empties, then the cars at the front of my lane slowly start to move. I’m going to make this ferry! See you on the other side.