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.          

Yesterday was just a travel day.  But it turned out to be magic.

We are (still, as I write this) headed to Vancouver by way of Victoria for a wedding and delivering our W’fer, Lina, to her new digs at the local hostel in downtown Vic.   I had scheduled an appointment in Campbell River to attend to on my way out.   Time: 12:30.  Everything was timed to the half-hour and, as we had successfully caught the intended ferry, we were right on schedule for what was going to be a very long day.  And I showed up at exactly 12:30.

The receptionist looked at me and I asked for the fellow.  “Sorry”, she said, “he’s not here.  Did you have an appointment?” 

“Yes.  For 12:30.  Booked a week ago.  Confirmed two days ago.  E-mailed confirmation again yesterday.” 

“Oh!  I’ll call him.” She did and reported that he would make it in about half an hour. 

I glowered.  I was not happy.  But, as this was a favour for a friend, I said, “I’ll wait.” 

“I know you!”


“I don’t think so”, I said.  “I live on a remote island”.


“Did you use to live in Vancouver?” 


“Yes.  Grew up on the Eastside.” 


“I used to hang out on the Eastside.  I was on skid row for a couple of years.  I was a pretty strung-out heroin addict in my twenties.” 


“I used to run the Downtown Clinic on Cordova Street when I was in my twenties.  How old are you?” 


“61.  And I remember you.  I remember your face from the clinic.  I used to go there a lot.  Sometimes two or three times a week.  I was pretty skinny and sick back then.” 

I was staring at a woman my age, well dressed, nice hair, pleasant smile.  She had a matronly figure and she was looking at me like she knew me.  I didn’t have a clue as to who she was.  Not a flicker of recognition.  I didn’t know what to say.

But the phone rang and she answered it and I used the interruption to go outside.  And I tried to remember.  Names came up.  Scenes reappeared.  The general feel and smell of the place all returned.  It was a mixed feeling.

The Downtown Clinic was in the heart of skid row.  It was a very busy place.  Think: field hospital very near the front line in a battle still heavily engaged.  But it wasn’t large.  I had 34 staff in about 3000 square feet of space.  We saw as many as 400 people a day.  Names, faces and dates were blurry even at the time.  We were working in constant daily chaos.  It was ugly.     

And it burned me out after just a smidge over four years.

When I decided to leave, I didn’t linger long over the decision.  The last few months there were lived ‘on edge’.  I was exhausted.  A bit angry.  More than a little depressed.  I hated it.  I felt as if I had wasted my time there for the most part.   What was different?  What was the point?   I had no answers.  Even though there were a few survivors amongst the slaughter, I had no feelings for the place by then and even less for the poor souls who frequented it.  Bombing skid row seemed like the only alternative to the mass of disease and misery that overwhelmed us every day.  It was so bloody hopeless.

I didn’t even try to remember it.   

But there she was.  Happy, healthy and, clearly, she remembered me.  Maybe we had made some sort of difference, after all. 

All of a sudden I felt like going back in to the office.  I was no longer ticked off that the guy was late.  I had been given a chance to look into my past a bit and it looked a little better than I had remembered it.  I walked back in.

She got out from behind her desk and came towards me smiling and holding out her hand.  I instinctively held out my arms.  She and I hugged for at least a minute.

Yes, there were a few tears.

We spoke some more.  Remembered a few mutual ‘acquaintances’.  Talked a bit about life.  My appointment came in and I went to my meeting.  Before she left for her lunch, she interrupted us and said, “Sorry.  I just had to tell David  to come again.  He made my day!” 

We held hands for a second, “You made mine.”  

I watch the news a bit.  Not much, just the headlines.  I don’t spend much time on it.  Too depressing and I have concluded that much, if not most of it, is lies anyway.  I don’t think I am alone in that.  I mean, think about it: the news is entertainment and is sponsored by advertising.  Like kid’s cartoons on a Saturday morning.  Even if what they say is even partly true, is it not surprising that every story only requires 30 seconds to tell?  And that nothing ever seems to happen most of the time in 95% of rest of the world?

Sorry, I could feel the blood rising……….a rant was looming………………..

But I do have an interest in the economy, I like to follow the goings on in the Middle East and Asia and, of course, I wanna see the latest ‘wardrobe malfunctions’. 

I am also fascinated by the United States.  But not in a good way.  It is not like I wanna go there.  Not anymore.  Certainly not to live.  To me, the whole country seems to be like a drunken bull or bear in a china shop.  You just know things are gonna get broken but will the whole place come down?  And these days, it seems, the beast is really staggering.

My guts tell me, however, that this is not yet the time for the system to collapse.  I don’t think you have to buy gold.  Buying gold may make you money over the short term but the money will still work.  So will your credit card.  It is when you have to use the gold to buy bread that it’s real value will show up.  That is when the system has collapsed. 

I have no real knowledge of anything but my guts have been right so far.  And this current financial debacle feels like just another couple of shelves of crystal going down.  Mind you, there is a lot of glass on the floor already…………

The books I am reading, tho, suggest otherwise.  They say ‘the end is nigh’.  I doubt very much that anybody knows and if there is one thing Capitalism is good at, it is ‘adjusting’.  This is a system that makes money when disaster strikes and makes money when the sun shines.  The one thing you can count on with Capitalism is the old adage about finding a silver lining in black clouds.  Hell, capitalists have found silver in black deaths!  Just  look to see how KBR/Halliburton/Blackwater made out like bandits after Katrina leveled New Orleans.  Capitalism has never met a disaster it didn’t like.

Somebody is making money these days.  

And it is that kind of survivability that makes me think that the beast will live long and (yech!) prosper. 

Don’t get me wrong: I want the world to prosper.  I like the world.  I’d just like a system that wasn’t quite so destructive to the environment and that was a bit more egalitarian in the wealth distribution.  But, then again, I don’t like sad movies either so my preferences don’t really count. 

Anyway: to the point………….finally, eh? 

Things are likely to get worse before they get better.  I just don’t see sunshine looming at the end of the day.  Not yet.  Certainly not in BC.  Worse, the people I read are forecasting more rain and freezing temperatures (well, some of them are forecasting unseasonal heat waves but the point is the economic weather forecast is not good).  I think that means that we will, once again, be ‘adjusting’.  We’ll be forced to use what we humans seem to have relied on for millenniums – the ability to adapt. 

And the point is that this next adjustment will be bigger than we, the post WW2 generation, have experienced to date.

At the very least, I think it is gonna cost a lot more to be a peasant.   

“Hold the Zhōngshì Yīngyǔ”. Literally: Chinese-style English.  (an anonymous comment left yesterday)

Yikes!  Censorship already.  Sal on my case and now this!  OHMIGAWD!  I am going to sign up immediately for membership in the Canadian Civil Liberties Union. 

I definitely believe in freedom of MY speech (but I am not so sure about my anonymous commentators).  Like most governments-in-exile, I am a bit selective in giving out licenses for free speech (better make a note of this for the Little Green Book).  Some animals are just more equal than others.

Anyway, the mix of Chinese and English (Zhōngshì Yīngyǔ) is often called Chinglish.  Not surprisingly, the same kind of name has been applied to the mix of Spanish and English as Spanglish.   I will definitely ‘hold up’ on writing in that style but the comment raises a fascinating point about language and communication. 

But my point will be this: there is nothing wrong with Chinglish.  For those of you who do not know about Chinglish, I will share with you a bit of what I learned about it.  (My kids would shout ‘BORING!’ right about now). 

We are all familiar with the Chinese-English that sounds like short sentences using predominantly English nouns and verbs but lacking the ‘connector’ and descriptive words that we call conjunctions, adverbs, adjectives, and the like.  I can do a passable imitation of Chinglish but it is considered politically incorrect.  It shouldn’t be.  It is very correct in so many other ways.  Kind of efficient in a harsh sounding way to unilinguisticaly pampered ears.

Here’s why: As you know, the Chinese language is written in what we call characters or ‘pictograms’.  The words are actually symbols that, when used individually or together, form the word currently being communicated. And it is the picture-words in groups that provide meaning through context – not by way ‘connector’ or descriptive words so much. 

So, their language is a lot of ‘loose’ words or pictures that make sense only when taken in the aggregate.  Context is everything. 

A small example of that is the ballpoint pen.  The Chinese had a pictogram for a pencil or something similar but the ballpoint pen was new and modern.  So they had to find another pictogram to ‘make’ the new word.  Oddly (for me, anyway) they had a pictogram for  ‘atomic’.  Don’t ask how that came to be.  Because the new, ballpoint pen came out not long after the new atomic bomb was dropped on Japan, the word for ballpoint pen was written as ‘atomic pencil’.  And that would make no sense unless it was used in the new modern context in which it was conceived. 

English doesn’t do that.  English, for the most part, is inclined to invent new words when something ‘new’ happens and so we now have all sorts of words that are new-but-accepted like say, doodle, microwave, movie, telephone, parachute and the like.  We have really new words that have made it into the dictionary quite recently such as ‘Google’ (used as a verb) and ‘text’ used as a verb.  Of course there are all sorts of weird words vying for acceptance all the time so the dictionary is constantly being updated.  And so is the language.

Theirs?  Not so much.  They just reconfigure the pictograms.     

It is a hard enough task as an new English learner to just get a grip on the nouns and the verbs.  But, if your mother-tongue was never big on anything other than nouns and verbs (as pictograms emphasize) and all descriptive and connective words are largely implied by context and association, it is a very difficult transition.  Instead of incorporating what would be seen as frivolous connector words it is quite reasonable to learn a new language by filtering out what is unnecessary in your own culture and sticking with the main words.  To hell with adverbs, adjectives and conjunctions!  Time is short! 

Now, I could be wrong.  It has been known to happen.  But I was told that this is the way Chinglish or Pidgin English has come to have a distinct character and delivery style.  So, Chinglish is much more than English-not-spoken-well.  It is English spoken as Chinese speak their own language. 

And, anyway, what could be more clear than: ‘No Tickee, no washee?’

I write this blog for myself.  Or, so I say, anyway.  But the truth is, I also kinda ‘modify’ it some for the reader.  I can’t help myself.  I have a whore-gene.  I like to think of it as ‘knowing my audience’ but, again, that’s just another word for pandering.  I think I tend toward sycophancy in my letters.

Plus, Sally critiques everything. 

‘Course it ain’t hard to write for your audience when you only have 25 readers.  In fact, I know that I have less than 25 because Alicia, bless her beautiful little heart, just signed up to encourage me.  She is in her mid twenties, living in Haida Gwai and hasn’t ever had an iota of interest in what I do every day.  Same for my old buddy, Sue, I am sure.  So there is definitely one ‘follower’ in name only, probably a few more.  I pretty much know everyone personally or at least by only one degree of separation. You are a select group.  

So, in a way, I am writing to ‘family’.  And you know how we all adjust to family now and then.  That’s what I am doing – ‘adjusting’.

Or suck-holing.  Your call.  

Joy, however, is a faithful fan.  So is Annette and Linda.  These are my real, true-blue regular readers and so I find myself catering to them somewhat.  It’s an unconscious thing.  Reading back over the last year I find that I am not as grumpy as I might be.  I am less ‘sexual’ in my innuendos, I play a ‘cuter’ role in my stories and, of course, I emphasize my love and devotion for Sally (women love that).  And, sadly for me, I limit my political rants. 

I am embarrassed to say that I even write more on decor, furnishings, cleaning, cooking and socializing because of them.  They like that sort of thing.   I want them to be happy. 

But I have just learned that I have a secret reader group.  A clutch of clandestine Chinese are covering my course in coastal living (all those ‘c’ words were meant to challenge them linguistically.  (I will be referring to alliterations emphasizing ‘r’s and ‘l’s over time.  Watch for it!).

As you know, we have ‘Chinese friends’ who are more than the typical Canadians of Chinese descent-type friends we all have.  These are Chinese-y Chinese.  Pur laine.  Still living in China.  100% through and through, living-the-Middle-Kingdom-life-folks who come to visit now and then.  And we go to them as well.  I found out today by e-mail that our friend B and some of her students are following my blog!

This is an unnerving surprise although, from a business perspective, you can imagine the potential for my blog!  If B and the kids spread the word and my blog goes PRC viral, my dreams of influencing the world (maybe even ruling it) have a chance.  1.5 billion Chinese following my teachings!  Imagine that for a just a minute (any longer may induce suicidal tendencies).  I might have to publish a little green book.

I look a bit like Mao, but with lighter hair, don’t you think?

Anyway, I now have to modify my writings even further.  I have no idea how it will show up.  Maybe tastier and more varied but making you hungrier more quickly?  I dunno.  Do not be surprised if the sentences get shorter and I drop a few adjectives, adverbs and particles.

Blog of future different!  

Lina and Sal are still at ‘spring cleaning’ and the place is starting to shine.  That’s a good thing.  I am rarely called upon except to bring a ladder and take it back, lift a chesterfield and put it back – that sort of thing.  That, too, is good.  I am not a good ‘spring’ cleaner.

I am no chauvinistic pig, however.  I clean.  In fact, I do a lot of cleaning around the house.  Mr. Domestic, they call me.  But I confess that I sorta pick what I do and then make a bit of a fuss over it.  It’s a male thing.

For instance, I always ‘clear’ the table.  I don’t always wash up afterwards but I always clear.  And, of course, I make a bit of a show of it and crack jokes and act goofy.  I make my chore memorable.  In this way it seems as if I am doing more than I am.   And on a regular basis, no less.  Reliability personified.

Then I disappear.  And you can count on that, too.

Just as well.  This ‘spring cleaning’ thing is a kind of cleaning I am not, it seems, very good at.  It requires being on your knees (can’t do that) and cleaning a thin film of dirt from here and there (can’t see that!).  It requires taking stuff from different places (didn’t know that was even there!) and doing different things to it before it is deemed clean enough to put back (what sorta things!?).  It is, as they say, complicated.   

I just don’t have the right stuff for this.  This kind of cleaning requires more than willingness, strength and good looks.  Ya gotta know what to do with a dirty comforter, lamp, rug and overhead fan as well as things with grout and cracks and God-knows-what-all.  Just cleaning the kitchen cabinets took them all day!  This is multitasking with multiple tools in multiple ways none of which I am familiar with.

I can’t even find things in the kitchen cabinets!

But that is not the main reason I am not doing so much.

We live in a 1200 sq.ft house – give or take.  But a lot of cleaning is done in little 2 sq ft areas.  I occupy at least 4 sq ft standing straight up with my stomach sucked in.  I simply can’t get in to 25% of the spots that are targeted for the ‘spring clean’.  And in those spots generous enough to accommodate me, they aren’t so generous that they will allow me to then move about with any ease whatsoever.  I can get stuck doing this kind of work and no one wants that.

Then there is the awkward problem of the 20 square foot areas.  Big enough for me….but not big enough for anyone else to be safe if they are close by.  When I ‘turn’ in the kitchen and someone else is there, they have to ‘watch out’.  It can get nasty in a confined space and no one wants that, either.

The exception to that rule is Sally.  Sally thinks the kitchen is hers.  And it is.  I am OK with that.  But, you know, sometimes a guy has to go into the kitchen……..

When that happens, Sally continues to roam the kitchen as if I wasn’t there.  It is the ultimate expression of denial.  She literally doesn’t see me.  She’ll walk right up to the sink while I am doing the dishes and turn on the taps, wash her hands, dump crumbs and put in a dirty dish as if I wasn’t even there!  That is not easy.  I am very much there.

When she crosses the tiny kitchen (from say, west to east) and I am in the way, she just kinda pushes past me looking a bit surprised by the unanticipated glancing collision.  Think: the USS Starship Enterprise traveling at warp speed and there is an unanticipated ‘vibration’,  “What was that, Scotty?” 

“I dunno capt’n but whatever it was we are already a thousand light years away.” 

How is that possible?  It is like she is living in another dimension and our dimensions ‘collide’ briefly in a rift in the time/space continuum.   In a strange way, I have only 25% of my normal presence in the kitchen.  It is weird. 

But, that too, is OK with me.

I just ‘beam’ myself up and get the hell out!      

Up and at ’em first thing this morning.  The tide was low and we had some submariner business to address.  Shallow submariner.

First, introduce Lina to the local oysters and clams.  That is always fun.  Teaching a new person about such things, offering them one raw for eating-on-the-spot, that sort of thing.  Old geezer-type fun, ya know?

“Aach!  I don’t think so.  Do you eat them raw, David?”  

“No.  Not really.  Only when I feel the need to assert my manhood.  Sadly, I don’t feel that way much anymore.  I prefer them cooked.  I like cuddling more, too”. (Hmmmmmm, maybe I should be eating more raw oysters, after all?)  

While Sal and Lina went on a killing spree, I raked up sea-weed for later mulching into the garden.  At this time of the year the kelp is ‘unattached’ and easily raked up.  I filled buckets and dumped them into a larger receptacle nearer the beach.  Gathered a hundredweight and heaved it up the rocks to where the high-line will haul it up to the garden area.  Not much of a story, really.  But that is what we did.

Well, the story has a smidge of drama; the Old Pudding hurt her back yesterday and her boots leaked today.  They filled, actually.  Miserable way to start the morning.  So she was being a trooper schlepping in the mud.  She just keeps on truckin’.  Maybe I saw one less smile over the work-time.  Maybe not.   

Rubber ‘wellies’ are hugely important out here and most of the ones on offer at the stores are junk.   Mind you, the ‘junk’ is cheap and lasts a year so there is always a reluctance to invest five to six times as much in something better.  I mean, at our age, are we really bothering much with investing for the future? 

Well, short term, perhaps; tomorrow’s dinner is in the bucket siphoning itself clean of sand and the oysters are milling about awaiting their fate in the same bucket of Sal’s great home-made chowder.  Man, that is gonna be good!  Clam chowder futures – the best investment we ever made. 

But all is not entirely well.  I have a wind generator and we have had a lot of wind.  I thought my batteries would be topped up.  They were not, not quite.  Went out to the shed-that-requires-brains and looked at the gauges.  The old ammeter indicated that nothing was happening.  Damn!

The windgen is spinning for all it is worth and no juice seems to be coming out.  Not good.  And that pretty much determines my schedule for the day……  I’ll get back to you on this.

………………………..and, I am back.

Seems the gauge is whacked.  The juice was flowing (so said the other gauge: the multimeter) but the gauge in the shed was sleeping.  Which gave me a thought……………….

So, I had a nap. 

It was good.  Didn’t sleep much, tho.  The gals were hard at it and banging things around but, if you are horizontal (and they are not), there is not much room for complaint so I just enjoyed what peace there was (not much) and the hour or so release from the rigours of gravity.  The way I figure it: it is gravity that kills you.  I mean, think about it….every dead person is horizontal.  Coincidence? 

I gotta say: one of my greatest pleasures living up here is being able to think.  Or, better put, having the time to just sit there and slowly think something out.  It is a real treat. 

Don’t get me wrong; little is the better for all this thinking.  If anything, less just gets done.  But I am OK with that.   Just thinking is a pleasure.

One of my neighbours confided in me last week or so that she, too, valued and enjoyed the freedom to just sit and think.  She described it as I would have.  I guess it is a country thing.  I sure don’t recall having a lot of time to think when I was in the city. 

But, of course, you knew me then and probably noticed that. 

Keeping a blog – especially a frequently updated one – is a bit of challenge.  On the one hand, you want it to be interesting or, at the very least informative about an off-the-grid lifestyle.  Being mildly amusing or just a bit peculiar now and then adds a little je ne sais quoi to the mix as well.

On the other hand, it has to be real.  Ya gotta tell the truth.  But that, in itself, is not too hard.  After all, I have nothing to hide.  Well, I do, actually.  But not much and I’ll likely continue to hide it for awhile.  At least until I have a publisher lined up. 

Put another way: my neighbours are safe for the time being.  But let me say this: they are the motherlode of stuff interesting.  

The truth is that living off the grid is not all octopi and w’fers.  It is not all wind-towers and funiculars.  It is not all killer whales and ravens.  Believe it or not, it can get a bit ‘slow’ around here on occasion.

And such a time is with us now.  It is raining.  And it was raining yesterday.  And the day before.   Heavy rain limits the appeal of the great outdoors and that means staying indoors.  Staying indoors means the computer.

You can see where this is going.

Probably not.  I can’t either.  This is just a bit of mid-morning musing, actually.  So, here goes……

Morris called.  Morris G.  He is a welder down south who specializes in wood stove repair.  Like some of the marvelous people I have yet to reveal to you, Morris is extraordinary in his own way.  He is first a real human being who has a good heart, a smart brain and a deep interest in, of all things, woodstoves.  And the people who love them.  The man has been in the business for over 24 years and speaks of baffles and vents, chimneys and bricks, different gauges of steel and various techniques for welding with the enthusiasm of a 16 year old boy with his first Playboy magazine.

We’ve never met.

When our stove needed a rebuild, I called a number on a card and talked with Morris.  I explained our situation and, of course, the challenge of having to drive by quickly on our way south and of having to drive by equally as quickly when returning.  Both such times he would be at work.  “No problem.  Leave it at my house and pick it up a few days later on your way back.  I’ll leave it just outside my garage.  It will be safe.”

We did.  It was.  And it was fixed literally better than new.  That was at least three years ago.  The other day I called and left another message.  When he called back, he said, “Oh, you’re the guy on the island, right?  With the Artisan model that I fixed by beefing up the side rails and things.  Hey! thanks for the flashlight”. **   

We spent the next hour discussing stoves, possible improvements, my learning to weld, what kind of welder to buy and I even got an offer of a few hours of lessons from him if I ever get one.

Sally said, “You spend more time on the phone talking to a guy you have never met over the insides of a stove than I do in a whole week of conversations with my friends over books we have read!”

“Well, that says more about the books you read than it does about the fascinating world of wood stoves.”

That is one way to put a spark into an otherwise dull day.

** (sorry for the hanging thread……..Morris was so good to us that, when we paid his bill, we sent him a gift of a nice flashlight – something we were in the processing of becoming experts at the time.  He was appreciative and remembered us from that.)

As a rule, I do not have an addictive personality.  I am not even disciplined or regular in my habits (bowels, however, are good, thanks.  Good of you to ask).  I just don’t like routine.  Don’t like schedules.  And I am even coming to resent, more and more, the commitments I make of my own free will. 

In fact, I am starting to think I have something closer to BREADS (bored really easily, attention deficit syndrome)…..gotta try something new, ya know?  I basically dislike doing the same thing too many times in a row.  It’s boring.  OK, sex, ranting and scotch.  But, other than that…………b-o-o-o-o-o-ring.

I mention all that because I just noticed that I am acting quite opposite to what I just said.  I am getting hooked on the bloody computer.  It’s weird.  I will go looking for stuff I am not interested in.  Worse, I forget to look up the stuff I really should look up.  The only time I really notice this is when I hit a key and a pdf. file loads.  Then I get reams of data on hundreds of bits of crap that I have no interest in and it dawns on me, “What the hell am I doing here?” 

Well, it did rain heavily for the whole day, Sal went to yoga and it is too early for scotch so that only leaves ranting! 

I have to make a funicular cart.  It will carry our boat out of the sea like a marine ways.  Exactly like a marine ways.  So that means it should be heavier than water.  ‘Can’t have me one o’ those floating marine ways, ya know?’  Need one that sinks down under the water (while still sitting on the rails) so that the boat can float over it and we can then pull them both up at the same time.  Makes sense, right?

So, I figured to weld up some tubes and all that…………….’cept I can’t weld.  So then I figured I’d place the rails the same distance apart as the wheels on my boat trailer.  But then some doofus stole my boat trailer.

The universe was showing the usual resistance to my plans. 

Anyway, I decided that since there are tubes and receiver tubes, there might be receiver angles and fixtures.  Maybe I could bolt a carriage together?  So I Googled it.  Found reams of pdf. files showing me metal angles.  I started to look at them all.

By this time, hours had gone by. 

I could have learned to weld in less time! 

“What am I doing here?!”

Don’t worry.  I’ll get it together.  Just have to spend a bit more time on the computer………. 
 

Wow!  The chemistry in our house changed overnight.  Women, eh?  Can’t live with ’em.   Instead of watching a shoot-ém-up last night, we watched the Time Traveler’s Wife.  And then they (les femmes) picked Remember Me for tonight.  I’m getting nauseous. 

“Geez, couldn’t you find something that had some cars blowing up?  Or, maybe some guy morphing into a monster or something?  Maybe a sci-fi thing with spaceships?  You know, good movies?“

They both look at me, said nothing and walked past me as if I wasn’t there.

Oh well, I have monsters from the deep.

John stopped by after his prawning efforts and tossed one of his traps ashore.  “Hey!  You guys may want to have a look at this guy!”

In the trap was a beautiful reddish-coral coloured octopus about the size of a very large grapefruit with attendant tentacles.  He/she was in the trap and chock full o’ prawns.  He had feasted before John got him.  We managed to release him from the trap and placed him on the steel grids that make up my stairs and landing at the beach.  We were pretty sure he’d slip through the spaces and skedaddle off.  That is what octopuses do.  As a rule.

Not this one.

He just seemed to get stuck.  We think he was too full of prawns to get through the space that he would normally easily pass through.  So now we had to coax him.

“Oh God!  Don’t let him die!”

So, we poured water over him as we pushed and prodded and tried to ‘herd’ the octopus back into the sea about 15 feet away.  He was a reluctant puss.

I tried lifting and pulling him first by one arm then by ‘gatherings’ of arms but his suckers on the remaining arms clung to the rocks so strongly that I thought I might tear him in half.  So, the brute force technique was abandoned.  We were going to try psychology instead.   “Think!  Think like a….an…..octopus………kinda………..what would you do?”

“It is easier to think like Jesus!  What would Jesus do!?”

We put a large bowl full of water beside him thinking that his natural instincts would pull him in to the water and then I could fling the puss out with the bowl-water.

He headed up hill towards the boathouse instead.

“I thought octopi were supposed to be smart!?” shrieked Sal getting exasperated.

Lina just stood there transfixed.  And looking like a land-locked Swiss.  And I was wearing my slippers on the beach.  Marine biologists we were not!

Opportunity!  Puss passed over some loose kelp.  No firm ground to ‘stick’ to.  I swept him up and rolled him downhill towards the water while Sal poured water over him.  It is hard to imagine an octopus losing his sense of dignity but, as much as that is possible, rolling him down the hill must have been mortifying for him.  He looked ‘redder’ in the face.  Wherever the face is.  Must have been embarrassing – especially being man-handled by a man in slippers.  He eventually righted himself and slipped into deeper water.

“Well, our work is done here people.  Let’s move along, now.  Nothing more to see.”

Thank God that ended well.  For a while there it threatened to be another movie where we all ended up crying.