April 2003 Archives

Good Friday was a pretty lazy day. It was the day after Z-Girl's bday.

I saw J & B's new house.
And I had a picnic in the park with friends.

Walking to the party
Z-Girl Fun

It was my friend Z-Girl's birthday last week (or at least that's when she celebrated it). It was such a gorgeous evening that I snapped some pictures as I sauntered toward the venue in question.

A group of us met for a few pre-dance-like-a-maniac drinks at the CVO Firevault which is a fireplace showroom which happens to have a restaurant and lounge hidden downstairs. The concept it a bit bizarre. It was very trendy, but quite comfy nonetheless.

Afterward, we stopped off outside a pub near Carnaby Street to drop off the Girl with the Loudest Laugh in the World. It was the kind of evening where more patrons are outside in the street than actually in the pub. Nights like this make London seem the friendliest, loveliest city in the world.

After abandoning She Who Laughs Like a Hurricane, we pressed on to the Kitsch Lounge Riot which was extremely trendy and kitschy and pretentious, but also staggeringly fun and quite cool.

The rich and gorgeous were in abundance and there were a series of West End Stars with a live band singing croony Sinatra tunes and belt-out-loud show tunes. The woman currently playing Velma in Chicago at the Adelphi absolutely thrilled me with her rendition of "Big Spender" and I forced my way to the edge of the stage where I danced like a rapturous acolyte from some cult.

I think somehow the magic was within me or perhaps I just stood out so much among the trendy and moneyed crowd that I dazzled like a farm-girl in dungarees at a debutante's ball. In any case, I was almost kidnapped into the harem of an Arabian Princess. It was frightening. I was dancing away, minding my own business, when this very expensively dressed, middle-eastern woman celebrating her 40th birthday put her arm around my waist and dragged me into her circle of dancing harpies. I escaped but was dragged back in again and again.

Eventually, I fled to the bar where I bought my first and only drink at the Kitsch Lounge (£7 for a vodka and tonic, a bit rich for my wallet). Even here, my sex appeal was undiminished. The barmaid, Fluffy according to the bill, treated me like a long lost high-school boyfriend. She insisted on serving me ahead of the teeming hordes already waiting and called me "pumpkin". Yes, it may possibly have been a reference to the hue of my shirt, but equally possibly it may have been an achingly hopeful term of endearment.

Later, a man wearing a shirt so thick it could have been cut from a tablecloth – complete with champagne stains – accosted me during a lull in the music. He was smoking a cigar the size of a zucchini. He put his arm around my shoulders and shouted we were destined to be friends for the rest of our lives.

"Do you realise," he said, "that we have danced with the same six women tonight?"

I think he may possibly have meant Z-Girl and a couple of her friends and was just seeing double. I’d noticed him staring fixedly at their bottoms and other curvy bits as he lurched around the floor burning lesser beings with his flaming zucchini.

I considered staying and becoming his friend for real. I got the sense that he would have been delighted to buy me a tray of £7 drinks, but there was an evil glint in his eye that worried me. What if I said something wrong and he sent a minion to set fire to my kidneys while I slept.

Reassuring him that I loved him truly like a brother, I slowly backed away and scrambled out into the London night.

The magic was not over yet, though. I walked through the West End and found myself outside this swanky old building that had often intrigued me. It looked like a grand old gentlemen’s club out of a Wodehouse novel. I paused to try to find some sign or label that would reveal its identity. As I did so, a somewhat shaky old man stopped beside me and spoke.

"That would be the Garrick Club," he said. "Yes, sure to be it. This is Garrick street and that’s the Garrick Club."

I stepped away from the brass plate that held a doorbell and nothing more and cocked my head attentively.

"It’s a writerly kind of club, I believe. Yes, yes, many famous writers belonged to that club. And lawyers too, I believe. Oh yes, sure to be it. Lord. M– is, or was, a member. He’s dead now. Oh my goodness, he’d be an old man now if he was still alive. Sure, over a hundred at least. I used to seem him coming out of the Garrick Club many an evening."

He began walking as he spoke and I followed. We were both going in the same direction so it seemed impolite not to. He nattered on about this and that and eventually stopped again and began fumbling with his keys.

"Well," he said. "Good night to you, sir."

"And a good night to you," I said and shook his hand. He seemed a bit surprised by this but he smiled and waved just before he stepped through his door. It was three in the morning. I was standing on the cobblestones of Covent Garden and although my Audrey Hepburn wouldn’t be back in London for another two days, I was pretty pleased with the world.

Visiting the relatives on the Wet Coast

Back in Edmonton

And a 1.8mb minute and a half long quicktime movie of my old boss describing a treeplanting party involving large quantities of Butter (apologies if it doesn't work on your machine).

I think I’m running about a week behind schedule. Right now I’m on a plane from Victoria back to Edmonton and I’ve just realized I’ve spent the last 15 minutes planning exactly what I want to do when I get to Victoria. Where I’ve just been. The horrifying realization has popped into my head that I had all these grand plans stored somewhere in my head and forgot about them all until it was too late.

I must have been more stressed than normal approaching this trip. It didn’t really feel that way, but this flight (10 days into my holiday) feels like the first time I’m ready to start having fun. Too bad I have to be on a plane to London in less than four days.

I had a pleasant enough visit with everyone, but it felt in retrospect like I spent an inordinate amount of time watching bad television.

Victoria’s a beautiful, laidback city. I should have tried harder to fit in. Why didn’t I spend more time sitting in coffee shops swathed in polar fleece and goretex? Why didn’t I steal more flowers from stranger’s yards? Why didn’t I go to Wings night at the Swiftsure? Why didn’t I visit my friend Heather on her allegedly gorgeous, albeit steep farm? Why didn’t I go sea-kayaking? Why didn’t I smoke any drugs? Why the Hell didn’t I write a single word while I was there?

I guess it wasn’t a complete disaster. I did go running along the seawall a couple of times. Played a few sets of tennis. Spent some quality time with the maternal familial line. I quite like the West Coast branch of my family. My maternal grandmother is roughly 2000 years old and is as spry and enthusiastic as toddler. It must run in the family. My mother seems to have stopped aging about fifteen years ago. And then there’s my Aunt Wendy’s family who are just cool, generous, lovely people. My aunt in a particular is a delight. She belches louder than any human being I've met, possibly louder than any other land mammal.

I can see the praires through the airplane window now. It may seem odd to some but they always fill my heart with an enormous sense of homecoming. It hits me even stronger when I'm driving. Every time I spend a while cooped up by those damn mountains and then slide down the foothills into the praires the openness hits me with a big 'whump' and my eyes fill with silly sentimental tears.

Sure is ugly though.

Oh well, time to deplane.

Currently on holidays in Canada wielding the digital camera like a weapon.

We had a six hour stopover in Minneapolis and took the opportunity to check out the fabled "Mall of America", supposedly a rival of "West Edmonton Mall" in the city of my birth. I'm here to tell you that there is no contest. We made a brief visit to West Edmonton Mall today just to confirm that it kick's MOA ass and that is, indeed, the case. As big soulless malls go, WEM is better than MOA which feels like a gigantic warehouse they stuck some shops and a couple of roller-coasters into.

Anyway, here are a few shots of the missus and me enjoying a delicious repast at the Stampede Steakhouse in the Mall of America whilst being entertained by some people dressed up as Peanuts characters pretending to sing Country and Western songs.

After our steaks, we jumped on our connecting flight to Edmonton, which was uneventful except that our luggage got soaked with hydraulic fluid during the flight, always somewhat disturbing. You'd think most hydraulic fluid in an aircraft would be needed in some way and it would be bad to waste it painting the passengers' luggage. No matter. We lived. And were met at the Thoms residence with champagne. We'd been up for more than 25 hours at that point so the real party didn't start until breakfast.

After breakfast we went for a walk over to the C's house. When we got there, no one was home except for Little Grannie Annie and the dog.

The next day we went for another walk in the woods, and when we got back we burned some stuff. The weather up until today has been not too bad, just above zero and cloudy. It is however, pretty butt-ugly this time of the year. Dingy is the adjective that shouts for attention everywhere, barely heard above the ominipresent foghorn of GREY. Today, it's gotten a bit colder: 7 below, and started to snow again. Oh well, I'm off to Victoria tonight. Should be warmer there.

After burning stuff, I popped into town to have coffee with some friends. Another friend of mine, Roy, whom I dearly love, was supposed to meet us there a bit later but the original place we went to was closed due to smoke damage. (Uncle Albert's Pancake House, next to it, had recently burned down -- very sad). There was a note telling me (and him) to go across the street to another coffee shop (the 1912, if you're interested). I saw the note. He didn't and spent the next hour wandering around. I could have called him but I'm used to having a mobile phone in my pocket at all times and was paralyzed with panic at how to cope without it. Anyway, I'm pretty sure he must hate my guts now and so that's another friendship down the tubes. Shit.

Fortunately, there were some friends there whose lives I didn't ruin. And I went off on a tour of Ken and Miranda's New Digs. They've bought a bakery that they're going to turn into a Garden shop. It's not quite there yet but it's full of cool stuff, including an old Honda trike from our mutual treeplanting days. My God, those things were a danger to all and sundry. But fun in a deadly kind of way.

And then K and M and I went over to Russell and Heidi's for dinner.

And yesterday we went to my Dad's for dinner. It was tasty and my dinner companions (being relatives, all) were distinctly odd. But in a good way.