The Last Peacock

This is so strange,  living in Canada, one would assume only Canadian Geese.

 However,  simply put,  Western Canada is very mild and we rarely receive snow.   Unlike, all those northern "well known" states that seem to be shut down by a winter's breath.   In British Columbia, we ski,  snowboard,  swim, sunbathe,  dance and be merry all year long.   Just as long as we have an umbrella in our hippie backpack that has a slight aroma of skunk.   *wink wink*

 But with warmer climates,  comes development,  and we are being developed over and over again.   Not from the inside out,  but from the outside in.   What remains are little pockets of "last hold outs" a few acres here and there,  farms,  old growth trees that can no longer be protected by legislature,  yet are standing tall because of a few folks who smell like skunk.

So it remains.   A peacock farm,  and a cockle of peas,  feathers and all,  abandoning their habitat to cat food,  and hummingbird troughs,  and artisan rock walls,  stoops and decks and RV shadows,  neighborhoods of similarly built houses,  row upon row,  street upon street, less trees upon lesser.

Here is a video clipping of one of the males, feathers fully opened.
https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=283546625111582

Freaks and Geeks...........

I wouldn't have it any other way.  So proud of you son.  Despite the hairdo.  It's cool to be smart.

Colonel Mustard with a Lead Pipe in the Ball Room.... or a bunch of nails!

We have had problems with our plumbing since last summer. 

Most urgently, our kitchen sink plugging up suddenly with toilet sewage. Toilet paper floating among an afterthought of lazy dish washing from the night before.  

RULES:
Upstairs, do not flush, do not shower, do not brush your teeth.  Go to second floor.  Poop there, but you can pee upstairs.   Do not use mom and dad's shower or toilet, sink OK.  Kid's toilet, shower and toilet good, no sink.  

Kitchen sink bubbles up shit.  Dining room floods from the hole now forming in the ceiling.   Stained yellow. Plumbers, all expert, all stupid.  Fucking crooks.  Just need flushing.  $400.00 

A few abandon the estimate.   Some do not return phone calls.

2 months later, do not poop upstairs, no kitchen.  One shower.  Four people.  Kill.  Paper plates, towels soaked and destroyed.  Elbow joints, tee joints, flanges, silicon, Liquid sauce, grains, snakes, and trains. 

Ceiling removal.  Fucking popcorn fucking ceiling.  No!  $389.  $275.  This and that.  Cameras. $800.00

Nails!  Just like the ones that flatten our tires.  Nails!  Instead of strapping the plumbing pipes into place, they were screwed in, or nailed into place.  Lazy construction.  Poor workmanship.  Uncaring.  Bullshit we now have to contend  with.   Live with.

Toilet paper snowballs onto the nails, like hooks, building and building a pyramid of clog.  Shit.  Backed up sinks, toilets.  Bank accounts.  Buyer Beware!

How to Survive Bus Transit in Surrey, B.C.

When the door opens there's an instant smell of misery.

Foreboding eyes warn quickly, then release to the mist forming skin on the windows.

You cannot see from the outside world, how we are packed in an orderly fashion, row upon row:    some sitting - some standing with arms reaching to the sky as if pleading to God, send us 5 more commandments.

But they are merely holding on for dear life, because the driver on shift today hates his job and hates the scum of the earth he has to contend with.  He hates the smell of whiskey and being short changed and having to make schedule deadlines .... and yellow lights.  So he brakes hard, dead stop, as two passengers drop to the ground, knees buckling against baby strollers and wheelchairs amassing flags of Green Peace and Save Tibet.

He is haggard, the interior even worse.  It reminds him of years of abuse, battered fist fights, blood and guts, disorderly conduct, puke and piss.  And that was only half of the clients I traveled with in the 20 minute long ride to Newton Exchange, where I now have to to transfer to the most notorious route of all, Surrey Central #321.

It is not unusual to have strangers fall asleep on your shoulder, nor converse with you and you and the other you, or have empty beer cans roll between your feet, rattling from seat to seat - Surrey pre-trial clients boasting how they only received 6 months probation and no jail time, custody battles, hard luck stories all accentuated with being wrongly accused and cheap perfume.

The majority clearly have no dental plan, or deodorant, but proclaim a scholarly genius of all worldly woes.

I keep my eyes peeled to the skin on the window - no contact.  Contact would open up another story.

Thou shalt give up your seat for the pregnant and elderly.
Thou shalt give up your seat for the pregnant and elderly.

Thou shalt gi.........................

Brandon and his best buddy at Cultus Lake

Purple with a Mix of Red

Here's a picture of my son's graduating class photo from Grade 7. He's the white boy, in fact, he's the only white boy in this picture. And there's nothing wrong with that. Caucasians in our area are the minority, we are most definitely a mixed population of sorts. Sometimes it's a good thing. Sometimes it's a bad thing. But mostly we live amongst each other, we become friends and we just ignore colour.

A few days ago a friend on my Facebook (never met), a Latino from New York, posted a comment about how funny it was to see "white people dance". I commented back and said "I thought you were white, so what colour are you"? What do I know ... her profile picture looks like she's white with a tan. And instead of laughing HA HA HA, they laugh back JA JA JA.

She responded back: I'm purple with a mix of red.

So there you go. If you didn't know. I responded back that purple was my favourite colour.

I'm still awaiting her response on my overuse of the letter "u" in my Canadian spelling.

Anyways, Brandon, who is now in Grade 8 and taking first year French, has a teacher who is Spanish, and who also teaches the Spanish language class. Brandon has been to Francophone school from Grade 1-4 and knows it quite well. His homework is a bit of mystery, since it appears she is teaching incorrectly. In French, all nouns have a gender - they are either masculine or feminine. The gender of some nouns makes sense (homme [man] is masculine, femme [woman] is feminine) but others don't: the words personne [person] and victime [victim] are always feminine, even when the person or victim is a man! Spanish teacher is sending assignments home that do not follow this simple rule.

I soon learn that Brandon often "dummies himself", pretends not to know the answers, because HE KNOWS THEM and doesn't want to be a smart-ass in class. He already feels he's the go-to kid when the teacher points for answers. I have to say, when I hear things like this it really pisses me off ! Brandon doesn't want me to say anything .... don't draw attention to him.

Sadly, it's true. From experience, if you complain to the school about a teacher, that teacher will soon learn about it, and the next thing you know your kid's grade went down from an A to a C.

Not being too discouraged, when you think about it, lots of kids are signed up for "ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE". And they're not even purple !

Strawberries and Doomsday .....

I can't help it. To this day, when I see or have strawberries, especially when eating them, I think of doomsday. This, in part, by a Charlton Heston movie called the Omega Man. You know, one of those biological warfare type scenarios where mankind is wiped out but only a few survive ... and there was this one scene when he discovers a woman eating from a jar of strawberry jam (stuff long gone and like GOLD), but he doesn't turn her in, oh no ... he swipes her spoon and enjoys the last lick. Now I may be mistaken, this could be another film, but I'm betting it starred Charlton.



Anyways, it was refreshing to have strawberries early March, even though they came from California, a place one wonders how things could still possibly grow under such air pollution and gas emissions. They did seem a tad big, like a growth serum was injected into them. Yum.

No ... my hands didn't develop a disease of rare blistering warts. These are small vine tomatoes grown in New Zealand, distributed by a company in smallsville, Delta, British Columbia. I'm allowed to call it smallsville because I grew up there.

Odd how the packaging will tell the consumer, inspected in Canada, packaged in Canada, distributed by Canada ... and in small print: grown in N.Z.

I promise! I'll take care of it ......

We ... or I should say, He ... bought a fish tank last week. I don't mind it much, I like fish. I even have a favorite (out of the six ... two of each kind). And while I enjoy watching them on the kitchen counter, I also find myself enjoying feeding them ... and feeding them .... and turning their lights off and on and caring for them ... and feeding them ... and their water is murky. Just took two days. Two days was all it took for me to be the caregiver of 6 fish.

And last week they were talking about a dog!