Martians and Windex and Indian Summers

Yesterday. Where do I begin? Yesterday was just one of those days. It was as if martians had landed with an extra large load of windex and got busy shining up everything to inifinity.

English please? It was so beautiful I felt like I'd entered heaven on earth. It reminded me why moving to Salt Spring in late September/October is really the only time to move here (imho) because it's too good to be true gorgeous and one even has some hope of finding a place to rent. That's second.

I was driving to the North End along the road that parallels St. Mary's Lake and hints of oranges, yellows, and tree greens reflected in the mirror of lake water. The morning sunshine, golden with Fall, was streaming through the leaves of the trees along the road and making patterns.

I was on my way to an orchard to talk to the owner for an upcoming Driftwood story and I always like driving up roads on the island because there are so many I've never known and they are full of surprises in so many ways.

I entered the property and drove past a few old cabins coming to a stop beside a beautiful pottery studio with a wooden parking sign.

An older man looking very fit sporting a 2004 BC Seniors Games T-shirt and shorts greeted me by saying, "You must be Alice?" "No," I said, "I'm Gayle."
"Good," he said, "if you'd said yes, I'd know you were the wrong person."

He has a Ph.D. in Zoology and taught Wildlife Management at the University of Alaska and lived in Fairbanks for 30 years. His wife also has a PhD in the same thing. They met at UBC in the 1950s.

They own 17 acres of property that had been owned first by early black settlers on the island (160 acres) taken over in 1922 by English settlers.

Their retirement heaven consists of the main house, a cold storage shed, pottery studio, two other old cottage-type dwellings, a round pond surrounded by a stand of Fir trees with greenery all around its edges and a raft of floating iris in the middle that bloom traditional purple in the Spring.

Bob Weeden of Whims Farm has become extremely knowledgeable about heritage apples and he began his hobby orchard in 1992 when he planted 100 trees. He never intended to have apple trees or even to live on Salt Spring (but a detour on a cycling trip) and memories from his youth in New England during the Depression era when he'd go, on weekends, to the commercial orchards to pick the windfalls in exchange for some pocket change conspired to transform dream dust into reality.

We walked through the gate into a sloping green landscape with the dappled gnarly trunks of apple trees, their waxy green leaves contrasting the hues of apples, dangling like clusters of Rubies, Amber and emeralds.

He told me about them as we passed each tree: Gravensteins. Kings or King of Tompkins County to be more precise. Lemon pippins. Ananas Reinette. The Lady. Belle de Boskoop. Glory of Boskoop and a debate about where the first apple seedling originated: Tibet.

I spent about 2 hours with him, taking his photo, hearing him speak about first the apples, moving on to lamenting how apples seems to have become a second class fruit in this day and age and speaking about John Ralston Saul's the Collapse of Globalism.

After that interesting morning, I was in such good spirits with my Friday off from the "day job", I decided to treat myself to lunch. I drove out to Raven Street Cafe which is becoming one of my favorite places to eat on the island when I eat out.

It's perfect because it's not in Ganges, and often it's very quiet and yet the food is really fantastic and it's close to the most peaceful dock: Fernwood dock. It's a great place to get away from your "regular" on-island life if you know what I mean. I parked the car, walked inside and who should be there but a friend I hadn't seen in ages.

He couldn't believe it. "I've been thinking about you all morning," he said with some exaggeration in that statement I'm sure.

We had lunch together. Got caught up. Walked on the dock and then went back to his place because he said he'd been in Victoria the day before, was at this wonderful place called Delish, and even bought a chocolate mousse with the intent of inviting me over. (Isn't that nice?). If any other guy had said that to me I'd be like, ya, sure, nice line. But, I believed him. Gayle=Chocolate. Chocolate=Gayle. How nice!

Raven Street Cafe makes the most wonderful salads and really the only reason to eat the salad which is great is because of this "to-die-for" Miso dressing. They need to bottle that stuff. Hey, maybe they do. Maybe I should check that out.

Anyway, afterwards, we went back to his place and had tea and the most perfect chocolate mousse.

Later I went to a talk by a guy who owns one of the kayak companies here. A man who was turning 50 hired him to guide him on a kayak journey from Salt Spring to Alaska. The natural beauty and the wildlife and the feelings of accomplishment would not, in my books, overpower the hell of sleeping on rocks, trying to cook in the rain, five meter swells, and whatever else.

Gross but impressive nevertheless if that's your thing.

And, all in all, just a great day in my books.

Bad Table, Bad Dog

In the West End of Vancouver, people are obsessed with their dogs. I'm not one of those people. I'm a cat person myself. Just one will do. I haven't turned into one of those women yet. The kind that must purchase a house to house their ever-expanding numbers of feline friend-substitutes.

I do like some big dogs. My like of the dog is directly correlated to how much I like the owner. The dog can't be so big that it scares me. It has to be a friendly big dog that wags its tail.

Collies. Chocolate Brown Labs. Golden Retrievers. Sheep Dogs. German Shepherds that know me already so they don't bark at me every time I re-enter their territory.

The dogs I really don't care for are the ones that seem to have been genetically modified in a test-tube in some laboratory that isn't really legally entitled to be creating dogs. You've heard of puppy mills? These laboratories are called, umm, I don't really know. Got any ideas?

I expect these little insect-rodent-dogs come to fruition in the same manner that foam trees pop out of capsules when you put them in water and leave them for a few days. Or, they get made from combining grasshoppers with beavers or something using the Teleporter from that movie The Fly.

Whenever I see one of those dogs with the kindling-sized, matchstick legs, I think of that movie, A Fish Called Wanda and how that guy was always trying to find new ways to kill that old lady's dogs. Oh, I'm sorry am I offending anyone?

I often wonder where all these Size 0 dogs came from in the West End? There were no dogs that looked like that when I was a child. What has transpired in the many, many years in between my birth and the present to create these insect-rodent-dog breeds?

And, while I'm on the subject, my pet peeve when it comes to dog owners in the West End is how they'll be walking down the street and how they'll have their little insect-rodent-dog on one of those retractable leashes. It doesn't occur to them that when you're walking towards them, like a regular human or the nearest facsimile, that if they don't retract the leash (in much the same manner one retracts a fishing line) that just happens to have their dog at the end of it, that you will either have to jump rope "Double-Dutch-style" over their leash, or walk right into it doing an amazing Stevie Wonder imitation, or walk way out of your way because God forbid you should inconvenience their dog who they have not taught to HEAL like real dogs and real dog owners have trained them to do.

But no, oh no. Because their kissey,kissey, huggy, huggy baby insect-rodent dog is on one side of the sidewalk, they are on the other, and you, the invisible dog-free entity, are trapped in the middle.

I'm not really interested in talking about dogs actually. So much for a segue.

I am interested in talking about the table (above) and how perfect a breed it would be in the living room of a Vancouver loft where those insect-rodent-dogs are most likely to be found.

They are in their unnatural habitats being fawned and tripped over and dressed in pink or rainbow-hued raincoats by their very proud masters and mistresses who are unknowingly, but systematically, being trained into submission by their miniature alpha, insect-rodent-dogs. They should all be rounded up and be made to participate in a training session offered by The Dog Whisperer. Thank you Keiko! Rant complete!

This table is part of a small exhibit at the offices of The Architectural Institute of BC. A very poised UBC student named Lauren leads walks around the city, speaking to the architectural history of specific neighborhoods.

Showing up for one of the walks she leads is what led me to spy this table in the first place. It is located inside the office space of the AIBC across from Victory Square at Cambie and Pender Streets. There is a small exhibit of furniture at the moment in the reception area which is huge.

I like the humour of whomever created this table. I guess I should have looked to find out who that was. I wonder what kind of dog they own?

I wonder, if you owned such a table, would your dog be really confused with you "f...ing" with its head?

Would your dog look at the table and think hey wait a minute, where's the fire hydrant?

Would it look at the table and think well, I guess I'll just go take a dump over there by the lamp on the heavenly, furry lambskin rug because obviously some other dog already owns the territory under that table, or whatever.

Bad Dog.
Bad Table.