Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Chilliwack Dreamin'

We arrive at the lake on Friday nights, usually around 8:00pm. By then, a small crowd has nestled down into our site, lights turned on, ice stashed in the coolers, with neighbours and friends ready to greet us with cold beer dangling at the ends of open arms.

Mark was there last Friday and had just returned from a fishing trip up in Campbell River, and look what he brought us: Hmmmm, fresh prawns. He even made garlic butter, as you lifted the little buggers towards your mouth, it's smell teasing your taste buds mere seconds before the prawn is infused in such delight.

As you know, Mark and his wife have expensive taste. They drink Grey Goose Vodka and lately they've been mixing it with Red Bull energy drink.

Now, I haven't tasted either, since I hate vodka and I'm too nervous to drink these energy things that make your heart race and keep you up all night wondering when it'll explode. Mark makes up drink after drink and offers them to just about anybody who walks by our site. Including prawns!

Lately, I've noticed other seasonal folks walk by and wave, or stop to chat as if they've known me all their lives. It makes me wonder about the late night walks Mark and hubby take to other sites, drinks in hand. There's this one guy hubby talks about, a gentle giant ex-South African cop, who tells a story of once killing 21 men.....with 3 bullets. Anyways, hubby has visited him on several occasions, always sneaking up behind him and grabbing him by a headlock. Gentle giant barely flinches.

The Grey Goose vodka bottles are too beautiful to throw out and I've been keeping the empty ones for display at the camp table. (anything goes when decorating campgrounds) Until one evening I spied two young men stalking out the place, I hear them whisper "are they full", then one dodges behind a tree closer to the site to investigate further. You've never seen two guys run as fast as they did when I popped out of the trailer. I think I'll get Brandon to piss in them.

Sometimes I am left alone with my thoughts as the visitors depart, when the teenagers don't want to listen to my old fuddy-duddy music, as Brandon runs off to Cooper's place and as hubby and Mark are out and about making new friends, this is the only time, MY TIME, I'm allowed to play my music:



The boat traffic hasn't been all that bad this year, probably because of the price of gas, but as always, some yahoo has moved our buoy to accommodate his own boat. And he moves our buoy so that it is too close with another guy's buoy. At least he's not anchored on it. Since the end of June the campground has been full and you get this few oddballs who think they can do whatever they want to.

We ordered in a truckload of pea-gravel to cover the sharp crap that was already there, sharp pieces of slate or something. We also needed the extra layer to even out the site. It looks quite nice now, as we lay out our loungers and prop up the umbrellas behind them, looks tropical.

Approximately 2km from Cultus Lake there is a new housing development called







There are not too many pictures on the internet (because I still don't have a camera charger) but these pictures sort of show the view, except these are the homes on the lower street of the development. And many of the trees on the hill have now been cut down. House prices ranges from 450,000 to 714,000, depending on the view you get, but all the houses are built with top notch materials and care.

We've been watching this development for about a year now and there are a lot of houses ready built for sale. We love the Chilliwack area. It's clean or fresher or something. New. It's also not Surrey, where it's becoming a dumping ground for America's Most Wanted. You can't go shopping anywhere now without having some rehab ex-convict manning the cash register.

I hate my neighbourhood. I hate my neighbours. I hate being the minority. I hate it when the Surrey R.C.M.P. won't lay assault charges on the 50 year old fuck next door who choked my 15 year old visually impaired daughter, then punched her in the face, just because she wouldn't move away from a basketball hoop nearby, as they park underneath it to pester the kids again. They saw no marks on her neck, despite 5 other teenagers, my husband and myself witnessing this event, they believed him and his now Christian demeanor of lying through his teeth, "I didn't touch her".

The next evening I saw him and yelled out into the street that I was going to kill him, "I'm going to kill you if you ever touch my daughter again...I am going to buy a gun and kill you ..you goddamned motherfucker!"

10 minutes later the Surrey loser-brigade is at my door. Go ahead I yell, charge me for uttering threats, but you damn well better charge the loser next door too, or there will be hell to pay.

I'm not afraid of the Surrey RCMP anymore, nor do I feel protected. They're useless. And don't bother phoning the complaint line either, because the bitch at the switchboard will just tell you there's a shift change and there's more important crime out there than your little incident. So let me get this straight: you won't come when fucktards next door have blocked my driveway so that I can't hook up my travel trailer to go camping, but you will come when I tell you that I'm just going to tie up their car then, with a towline off my Hummer and remove them myself. And I'm the one in trouble. Hmmmmmm?

See, I'm already rawled up. It's not easy to make a decision to move. But if you're feeling bad about yourself when you're home, hide out from her and her spying and whether or not your dumping debris down the creek, or your pool pump is too loud, or the kids will get run over by their speeding in the street and knowing the police won't do fuck all, or the other neighbours who haven't pressure washed their houses in years and it's now stained in moss green, with unkept gardens, and the prostitutes come at night to take care of business because everyone in the street is too cheap to leave their lights on at night, and the 80 bed facility nearby is almost ready for the next round of released convicts.

Shit, only three more days, only three more days until Friday.