Awakened early this morning by the roar of a fresh-off-the-tarmac aeronautic behemoth trying to get airborne over the roof of our cheap Richmond hotel.  Ahh……..welcome to Vancouver.  Hear me roar!

Should be noisy at the very least.

Last night was spent visiting old friends.  Really nice in that comfortable-old-sock kinda way that old friends have.  We slipped into ‘our ways’ pretty quick.  Reminisced.  Caught up on family.  Shared deteriorating health stories and had a bit of dinner and wine.  Basically, all very good.

And yet, not so good.  We’re all seven years older and, although everyone walks with a bit of a stoop, they have always been five years older again than us.  Their stoop is a bit stoopier.  But we’re all a bit slower.  Mentally and physically.  None of us are drinking much.  A couple of small glasses of wine.  F looked a bit tired after two hours and so we left soon after.  But I was tired, too.  Back to the hotel by 9:30.  In bed by 10:00.  There is no doubt about it, we are gettin’ old.

It is not just our age, tho, that I noticed.  We just aren’t as interesting for them as we once were.  Most of our au courant ‘chit chat’ would be about logs, dogs, ravens and local characters, engines, oceans and projects on the go, logistics, visiting guests and the looming challenge of winter.   We didn’t pursue any of that.  None of it holds much interest for the other side of the room. 

We are now hicks, basically.  Rubes.  Hillbillies.  We don’t know the latest TV series, sitcoms or, for that matter, the latest ‘good movies’ (our friends have impeccable taste in movies so there was always a gap there).  Hell, we don’t even know all the latest news stories.  We are just simply ‘out of it’.  S spent a bit of time showing us exactly what an Ipod was and almost convinced me that I needed one.  I was convinced I wanted one as soon as I saw the ‘finger-sweep’ control but I still can’t rationalize needing one.  Not yet, anyway.  Give me time.

It would have been a waste of time to explain all the virtues of the Honda Eu 6500 genset or the value in Surette batteries versus others.  PV panels don’t have much commonality, either.  Sally growing herbs, tomatoes and ‘salad’ fixin’s wouldn’t have held much interest beyond a polite smile and a nod.  And when Sal described paddling around one of the local islands and getting caught by a turning tide, their eyes glazed over.  We are not always on the same wavelength now.

We aren’t on the same page politically, either.  That was a shock.  They believe 9/11 happened as reported.  I don’t.  So, BIG politics as a topic ended there.  I didn’t dare raise issues of BC Hydro and privatizing our rivers nor would I have found empathy in our loathing of the way BC Ferries has gone.  No sense in talking that trash.  We just follow different issues now, I guess.  

Which is OK.  We love ém still.  We have lots of history and we can keep ourselves engaged just up dating family, health and future vacation spots.  But the ‘new stuff’ each is up to is no longer of much mutual interest.  We have lost the magic of being ‘in sync’ on the latest stuff.  Inevitable, I suppose.  The price of having moved away seven years ago.

It was worth it.  But the price is a bit higher than I anticipated.  I kinda miss the old ‘give and take’ we used to have on current events.  We weren’t always in agreement but we were always dancing to the same song and keeping good time.  Now, not so much.