We have ghosts!

Well, not ghosts so much as voices.  We have voices in the night.  Sometimes. 

How can there be voices in the night when there is no one out there?  How is that possible?

No idea.  Makes no sense.  Could be ghosts, I guess.

It should be spooky.

But it is not.  Not so much.  The voices can be heard at any time really but usually and mostly in the late summer and late at night when it is really dark.  They don’t sound threatening.  There is no feeling of danger.  Yes, it could be kayakers but, really, there are too many instances for it to be late-paddling kayakers and, anyway, kayakers come and go.  The voices stay for awhile.  It isn’t kayakers.

Furthermore, when I hear kayakers chatting as they go by, their noises have a cadence to their conversation and paddling.  When we hear the weird ‘ambient’ voices, the whole sound text is different, more conversational, more continuous.  In fact, the voices may even sound, at times, like a monologue.  Like a speech or a sermon.

But I cannot tell you what is being said because, as careful as I am in attempting to hear, I can not pick out a single word clearly.  It just sounds like the background conversation one might hear at a large gathering.  Just a mumble of speech-sounds.

For some bizarre reason, it feels like the conversation or speech of natives.  First Nations.  It feels like I am overhearing a hum of voices from the past.  Weird, eh?

Sally: “Can you hear that?  Can you hear what sounds like voices?”

Me: “Yeah.  It’s that weird sound again.  Can you make out any words?  I can’t.”

And so it goes.  We confirm each other but can’t deduce what the source is or what the sounds are, actually.  Just that it sounds like conversation.

We have other inexplicable noises out here, too.  We have a duck or something small that is out on the water at night (again, usually late summer) that makes sounds exactly like a cougar might make when it is warning off a threat.  Not a growl.  Not a hiss.  More like a feline howl of sorts.

That was pretty freaky the first few times we heard it.  Usually gets the immediate attention and focus of a guest, too.  But now we just accept that the cougar-ducks are out.  No biggie.  We hope!

We get the odd thing that goes ‘bump in the night’, of course.  Everyone does.  And most times the dogs just accept it as such themselves.  But every once in awhile, they will jump up and warn off the mysterious-but-unseen intruder – who or whatever it is.  That, too, has become somewhat normalized.  Sometimes the dogs will go just-plain-nuts.  They will hear something or smell something and start running around and acting like they are seeing ghosts.  And sometimes, it does feel a bit strange.

When the wolves howl, the dogs react but we have come to know a wolf reaction.  If a small mammal like an otter or martin or something is scurrying about, the dogs react in the appropriate small-mammal way.  And we recognize that.  But every once in awhile they just go over the top and the only thing that makes any sense is that it is larger than a pack of wolves and weirder than a strange person approaching at night.  We actually know what those dog responses sound like.  The total-freak-out response is a mystery.

Don’t misunderstand me……….this is not constant.  It is not daily or even weekly.  It is intermittent but regular enough to acknowledge.  Sal hears it more than I do but, generally speaking, we are reminded of our voices more than several times a year.  I’ll approximate ‘six’.

Do I care?  No.  It is curious-making, though.  I like that.  It is kinda nice to have a few small mysteries out there.  Anyway, as I already told you, sometimes you just have to make your own entertainment. 

And sometimes it is made for you…………..doo doooo doo doooooooo

I find it hard to write this……………but…………..geez…………try to understand………….

When you live remote you have to make your own entertainment to some extent.  Learning how to live off the grid is the main interest, of course.  In fact, it is often fascinating and even has the occasional element of adventure or danger involved that serves to spice things up.  Living out here is fun!

But man cannot live by chainsaws alone.  There has to be more.  Yes, we have ‘community’ and gardening, fishing and small motor repair, Blu-ray movies and books by mail.  And I can write my blog when things get a bit slow.  Honestly, our lives are rich.  Really.

Well, OK, sometimes I want a little more.  So sue me.

When we hanker for something different we can always go to the city but, more and more, the city doesn’t seem like something new.  It is not different.  Not different enough, anyway.  Same ol’, same ol’.

Travel is always new……………………..or is it?  Sadly, the excitement of new cultures and new landscapes is waning for me.  It is not them.  It is me.  I still love visiting a new country and all that but, travel is not what it used to be for me.  Not anymore.  I’m experiencing a bit of ambivalence, I am afraid.

Maybe it is seeing a McDonalds in Thailand………I dunno……….?

Actually, I am experiencing fear and loathing if I take time to consider what is happening in such good ol ‘stand-bys’ as Mexico.  But just airports and the ‘schlep’ of it all is enough to put me off nowadays.  It has to be a function of age.  Sort of a ‘been there, done that and now it tires me out too much‘ kinda thing.

Embarrassing but true.

All this is my way of saying (explaining) that I have slipped the bonds of adventure seeking.  I am getting old.  I am turning to convention.  In fact, I am actually looking forward to it.  I think I am gonna learn to cook.

Yes, yes, I know………..I am already pretty famous for my sushi (mostly because I am very generous with the Sake).  And I reckon only Hy’s can do a better steak.  But the truth is: I don’t cook.  Not much.  Not really.  I chop stuff up that Sal says to chop up.  Of course.   And I can make a few things like a cheese sandwich, popcorn and toast.  But that is pretty lame, don’t you think?

So, I have decided that I am going to find my inner Indian.  I got an Indian cookbook.  Mamajee’s Kitchen.  I am gonna make some spicy, weird stuff like green curry, dhal, chicken vindaloo and gulab jamun.  I may even brew some Chai tea.  Oh yeah!  Call me Ganesha!

I admit that I have had this urge for some time.  Ever since I found Indian dance movies so interesting on the ethnic channel.  You really have to watch one.  Lots of dancing and smiling.  Weird off-tempo music.  Almost hallucinogenic.  The movies never appealed to me in the least but the net effect was that I always wanted a curry immediately after.  It was like I was being hypnotized.

Well, whatever.  That’s my story.  And now I am going to learn to make curries.  The dancing part?  Probably not.  But, living remote can change you…………?  So ya never know.

I guess the storm season has officially begun.  We’ve had a few good blows this past week and the ferry service has been suspended twice already.  It can get a little hairy out there.  Tís the season for hunkering down and stayin’ put.  Which is fine by me.

Hunkerin’ down, Sally style is a bit different, tho.  For her, it simply means not going to town unless the weather is going to be clear for the day.  We don’t want to make the effort to get there but not be able to get back because the ferry isn’t running.  Otherwise – weather be damned! – it is business as usual for her.

She’ll head off anywhere in her small boat if she wants to get there.  Being the postmistress now and then, attending book-club and community association meetings, it seems, all waits for no one.  And so Sal shows up.

Yesterday the winds got up to 90kmh in the late evening.  No big deal if you are snuggled up around the fire.  But that kind of thing can be a concern if it had turned earlier and one was caught out in it.  Especially with the light of day becoming shorter and shorter.

But you know the post office motto: “Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night, stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”  Sal subscribes to that.  So Sal will go.

If Sally heads to the post office in the morning, she may have more than a bit of a pounding coming home later.

And common sense plays no role in her deliberations.  “Sweetie, the mail plane isn’t flying today, anyway.  And that motto of stoicism is the US Post Office motto.  The Canadian one is ‘Never deliver today what can be lost, spindled or mutilated before tomorrow.  The rates may go up!‘  Honestly, no one needs their Walmart flyer or a Lee Valley catalogue that bad!”

“True.  But sometimes people need to buy stamps!”

But it is not all weather roulette.  Book club does make the effort to do a weather check in the winter months.  Whenever possible.  And community business is conducted more and more by e-mail as the season grows cold. So Flyin’ Sal is somewhat restricted in her recklessness.  But never shut down.  Intrepid is not the word.  Neither is fearless.  Blind, unconscious willfulness comes closest.  Bloody-minded, at the very least.

“What’s the big deal?  No matter how high the waves, my boat floats over them.  I just have to go slower, is all. Anyway, if it is really bad, I’ll take one of the dogs.”

And that, dear reader, is one of my mental crutches.  The dogs ain’t stupid.  They won’t go if it is too dangerous.  Well, not willingly anyway.  They are pretty loyal to Sal but they make it clear that they prefer the warmth and safety of home over the near-death experience she is sometimes offering.  Their take on the situation usually serves to alter Sal’s plans.  “Well, who woulda thunk it?  Dogs are cowering and crawling away.  I guess they are not feeling well.  Maybe we should stay home.”

Trust me: it is easier to teach old dogs new tricks………..Ol’ Puddings just get tougher and tougher.

Sal and I worked on the deck again yesterday.  Finished the foundation level.  Mostly.  A log or two still to place but just an hour or so more work will really finish it up.  The frame is complete.  We can see the big picture now.

We are still working well together altho the strain is showing on the Ol’ Pudding. I may have a crack or two, as well.   It is hard for her to take supervision – especially from someone in whom familiarity has bred contempt. And I sympathize.

“Familiarity breeds contempt.  Absolute familiarity breeds absolute contempt.  And I know you very, very well, sweetie.”  (S. Davies, circa 2012)

Part of the problem is that men and women think differently.  Or, as Sal would put it, “Men think differently!”

To my mind, men make decisions, women make conversation.  And, I mean that in the nicest way possible.

“Please measure that space so that I can cut the board”.

“I get thirteen feet six inches”.

“Good!”  And I then make a step towards cutting the board……..

“WAIT!!  I just think it is 13 feet six inches.  You should check.”

“I don’t need to check.  I trust you.  If you have any doubts, you should just measure it again.”

“No. I think you should check.  In that way, we’ll both be right or we’ll both be wrong.”

“No.  Not really.  If you measure it right then we’ll both be right because you can use a tape measure as well as I can.”

“But, you’ll be mad if it is wrong.”

“Well, that is true.  Especially after all this inane discussion.  But just be careful and do the job right and no one will get mad.  And no one will get hurt.”

“See?  I knew it!  You’ll get mad.  You are already getting mad.  I am not gonna measure the space.  No way!”

And she steps away from the space……………..

Fuming, I leave the chop saw and go down to the space in question.  And I say, “OK.  I’ll measure the space.  But, when I do, you go and take that measurement and you cut the board.”

“No way!  What if I cut it wrong?”

“But Sal, we are supposed to be working together!”

“Exactly.  That is why I want you to measure the board, too.  We measure together.  Maybe we even cut together, ya know?  You see?  Two people cooperating like a team!”

I can’t argue with that kind of logic.  “Fine.  Pass me the tape!”

I hope that partially explains the pace of this project.

Community day.  Again.  It was fun.

Nice, bright, late-fall day.  Still some orange in the trees.  I am standing in the community wood workshop looking out the windows and I see a herd of goats wandering down the road.  Coming up shortly behind are the two local women whose herd it is.  A few of the goats stop now and then to nibble on trees and things as they pass down the hill.  It is all very, very picturesque.

But I do spend a moment wondering why a herd of goats are headed for the dock………….?

Forty-five minutes later I decide to head home and I, too, begin to head toward the dock.  I am half way down the hill when I see the ‘goat ladies’ tethering three goats and pulling them from the field of one of the local landowners.  Seems the herd found some nice forage there and they had all stopped to snack.  The goat ladies had other plans and schedules and they were now deemed pressing enough to tether a few goats and start hauling them down the hill.

I stopped to admire the scene: a group of fifteen to 20 goats living large off the land of whoever had the greenest grass and two goatherds trying to keep to a human agenda.  It was entertaining.

“Say, why are you taking goats to the dock?”

“They are going for a ride!”

“Lotta goats for your small boat!”

“Only three are going.  New home.”

“Oh.  And the rest of the herd is just along to say good bye?”

“Yeah.  They know.  It’s happened before.  They like to come this far, anyway.”  And then the women pull on the chosen three and the rest of the herd reluctantly began to follow.  We all walked down the last 200 feet to the public wharf.  Twenty little goat bums ahead of me.

When we got to the end of the dock, the ladies hauled the three down the ramp.  The rest of the herd gathered at the head of it but they did not follow.  They just looked on as #1, #2, and #3 were readied for the boat ride.  Then, after waiting for a respectful minute or so, they all turned on their heels and headed back up the hill to the neighbour’s pasture.  The goat ladies just carried on with loading and preparing.  It was a study in natural management.

The goat herd has a home.  It has acreage.  But the goat ladies think that goats should walk in herds to feel fulfilled and so they take them up and down the logging roads now and then for their ambulatory repast.  The goats eat on the go, as it were.  And then they eat on the come returning home.  Seems to work out just fine.  The animals are extremely healthy, quite beautiful in a goat-kind-of-way and quite obviously content in their surroundings.  Nice to see.

And that, in a nutshell, is part of the draw of going to community day.  There is always something of interest going on.  Sometimes it is a new boat at the dock, or the mail plane coming in, maybe an encounter with a long unseen neighbour.  Hard to know.  It is always changing.  Sometimes it is just seeing a herd of largely unfettered goats on the dock saying their goodbyes to a few buddies.

Sal and I sat on the couch last night.  I was reading a book on organic farming (Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal by Joel Salatin) and pouring scotch as required.  She was working on my book.  This is good.  If Sal is on the case, the book might happen.

I may not be a good writer but I am prolific and over the past two years have written well over 700 posts.  About 1200 pages of 8×11 single-spaced drivel.  As you know, it was originally intended as just an exercise to see if I had the discipline to write every day.  That is what the experts advised: “Just write.  Fuggedabout quality.  Just write.  See if you can do it!”

Well, I can do it.  In fact, I can hardly stop myself, actually.  It has become a bit of an obsession.  Well, a habit anyway.  It must be therapeutic in some kind of way.

Even though I trust Sally totally (especially in matters such as these), she is no more an editor than I am a writer.  She hasn’t a clue.

“So, how are you gonna do this?  Do you see a theme, a story line, a book of any kind?  Or do you just see a huge pile of blog posts like I do?”

“I have broken them down into categories, ya know, like building, everyday events, accidents, wildlife, boating……that sort of thing.” 

“I guess that makes sense.  But then what?  Make chapters out of the categories?”

“Maybe.  That might work.”

“What else is there?  I can’t actually see a story, can you?  Got any sort of plan?”

“Not really.  My plan is to first categorize and I haven’t finished doing that yet.  And I keep having to read them again and again to know which category they should be in.  So far, I don’t see much of a pattern let alone a book.  This is a huge job!  Stop writing for God’s sake!  OMYGAWD!  You are writing about this!  Stop!  Stop this madness right now!”

Production, it seems, may be out of control.  Packaging is way behind and we have yet to find a distributor.  I know we are grossly under capitalized and our accounting is a mess.  Labour relations are volatile and we have not established a market of any kind.  In fact, we just have a small sampling to justify our way-over-leveraged commitment.  Worst of all, management sucks!

I dunno………. I may have to sell my shares and get out.

Did more work on the deck yesterday.  That was good.  But it rained the whole time.  Still, we got a few more posts in the ground and there is visible progress.  Sal and I are working well together this time.  We don’t usually.  Too many supervisors on site as a rule, not enough willing workers.  Labour problems seem to plague us.

This is an amazing problem when you think about it.  There are only the two of us!  And we are great partners in most things.  But neither of us knows anything about building – not really – and yet any disagreements are the result of an implied knowledge that one tries to exercise over the other.

“What are you doing?!”

“Cutting a log.”

“Did you measure it?”

“No.  Thought I’d just wing it, ya know….?  Looks about forty-eight inches.”

“What!?  You have to measure!”

“Well, of course I measured it, didn’t I?  It is exactly 46 and seven eights.”

“Well, you didn’t tell me!”

“No.  True.  I try to keep this sort of thing on a need-to-know basis.  I didn’t think you needed to know”.

“Well, I can’t help if I don’t know what is going on, can I?  Why are you being so difficult?”

“Kinda guy I am.  Difficult.  Now, if you don’t mind, I am going to cut the log now, you deck Nazi!”

“I am not a deck Nazi!  You’re the deck Nazi!”

And so it goes for a few minutes and then things are good again and we go along nicely for another hour or so before another petty-tyrant issue erupts.  I can’t honestly say that I am any less guilty than she.  Maybe a bit more, actually.  Maybe.

I sometimes (often) don’t know what I am doing and having questions asked of me at the time is – for me, anyway – vexing.  I tend towards the terse and snappy at such times.  Mea culpa.

Sal is pretty much problem free as a person.  She has a good attitude and is willing to do what needs to be done.  But she does like to have everything explained ahead of time and she likes to understand what is going to happen before it is supposed to happen.  She likes plans, lists and proper preparation.  These are totally foreign concepts to me. 

“We don’ need no stinkin’ plans!”   (Cheech and Chong Institute of Technology)

I tend towards winging it.  I like to think of it as creative.  Sometimes I call it ‘organic’.  And I prefer the ‘just do as I say’ kind of helper – the kind that can read my mind.  So, that prerequisite is, for sure, not really fair for her.  She has trouble reading my mind and, of course, there is no plan in there to read, anyway.  Hell, there is barely a mind!  What mind there is, is usually confused and or empty of the required skill/knowledge information even at the best of times. Even if she could read it, there would be too many blank pages with scribbling all over.  I am much more a ‘sketch-on-a-napkin-as-you-go’ type.

When you think about it, it is a bloody marvel we ever get anything done.  But it does make for adventure.  All the time.  I love working with Sal.

It is not mutual.

“I’ve got this idea for a huge project and I am going to need your help.”

“I am going to be away then!”

“You don’t know what it is or when we are going to do it?”

“Whenever.  Whatever.  I am pretty sure I am booked then.   I am completely sure, actually.  I’ll be far away then.” 

“See, you can read my mind, after all!”

“Don’t you think you should write a bit about our personal growth?  You know, how our experiences have taught us things and how we, well, grew-as-people, kinda? 

“I’ve put on weight…..?”

“No, silly.  I mean, like how we can do more stuff and how we know about wood and stuff?”

“I don’t know about wood.  Neither do you.  You can recognize the species when they are trees but when they are cut into lumber, you seem to have the same trouble as me.  Hell, wet cedar still looks and feels like fir to me!”

“OK.  Bad example.  But, surely we have grown some in the last eight years.  Haven’t we?”

“Well, you are better at a lot of stuff but, really, being able to dock your boat without smashing into it first is hardly personal growth.  Mind you, I do heal faster than ever before now that I think about it.  But, of course, I cut myself more often so that’s a wash.  I dunno, Sal.  Maybe when the bread rises a bit more, we can claim that as a victory”.

“C’mon, you know more stuff about batteries and solar energy, right?”

“Yeah.  I guess.  But it all changes so fast, I am now only two generations behind the technology.  And I am still confused whenever I see more than four wires coming out of something.  If there has been growth it has been nano-growth.  Same for engines.  Just when you think you know something, you have an engine on your hands that ‘makes no sense’.  We may have grown but we have also grown old.  Kinda off-setting, ya know”.

“Well I, for one, feel as if I have grown.  I really do.  Like taking care of dogs.  Sitting on the community board.  Taking care of dogs.”

“You mentioned taking care of dogs twice.”

“We have two dogs!”

“I am not so sure that your sense of logic has grown much.”

“So, why do I feel as if I have grown?  More to the point, why do I think that you have, too?”

“I think it is like when a guy stops beating his head against the wall.  Stopping feels like an improvement.  Personal growth.  In fact, it is just the cessation of self abuse.  We got out of the rat race, the madding crowd and now live a normal healthy life.  That is a huge improvement over sitting in traffic and worrying about bills.  But jumping ship is not personal growth.  It’s just jumping ship.  For personal growth to happen your bread has to rise and I have to be able to fix small engines.”

“Wow!  In that case, we are doomed.”

“Well, the first step is admitting you have a problem.  Let’s call that our first step to personal growth.”

“We gonna stop there?”

“I think so.”

We are not pretenders.  We are real.  Real off-the-gridders.  Real tough guys.  We got our solar panels, our gore-tex, our big batteries.  We even got chainsaws and winches.  We have our ‘rural cred’, our bona fides.  Look out, you city wimps!

Well, you don’t have to look out too much.  Even though we are definitely in the feral zone, we are just.  We aren’t newbies so much anymore but we are still definitely sophomores.  Which means more-than-soft in Latin.  Plenty to learn.

Our rank? One out of ten.  Maybe 1.25.

But good ol’ Sal is keeping up the quest.  Yesterday – between helping me frame a new deck extension – she started making her own bread.  From scratch.  No Mr. Kitchen Aid bread-maker  for her!  This was the yeast and the kneading, the rising and baking kind of bread.  Took awhile.  So did the deck.  Man, it was good! (The bread.  The deck still has some way to go)

What a treat it was to come in at the end of the day. The whole house smelled of bread baking.  It was like stepping back in time.

Don’t get me wrong.  Sal has baked bread before.  There was the five-minute instant bread that came in a Betty Crocker-type box and tasted exactly like the packaging.  Once we had a bunch o’loaves from some biscuit recipe that tasted like a giant biscuit (go figure).  And there were the already-semi-baked ‘just-warm and-serve’ types that, all in all, were OK but are not quite right for the true forest dweller.

But she did once do a make-from-scratch loaf, too.  Sadly, the flour-to-bread ratio was not good.  We had much more flour all over the house than we had in any one loaf and, with the Molly Maid service expense, all the cleaning and extra laundry and the massive flour waste, her cost benefit analysis suggested continued shopping at Safeway.  We probably could have flown to Paris for baguettes, actually.

But not this time.  This time was good.  Very good.  One small step up the learning curve for Sal.  One giant leap for David’s breakfast.

Living off the grid is more than actually leaving grids.  It is a much larger lifestyle change than simply getting your electricity and water from a different source. The activities differences are huge.  And diversified.  Most of the local people have been doing it for years and they are constantly surprising me with logical but unusual activities designed to make life better.

Home-baked bread is just one of the steps.  Every year several people collect apples from various orchards and press them into juice and such.  A lot of folks make jams and jellies.  A neighbour down the way makes wine from blackberries that is far superior to most wines we buy.  People go into our bay in the spring to collect the tops from nettle plants (fresh spinach-like greens early in the season).   Many, it seems, have extensive gardens and they work them.

There’s prawn gathering, clams, oysters.  And fishing, of course.  More and more I am hearing of someone ‘putting a deer away’.  And chickens are common and ubiquitous, though layers are preferred over roasters.  And, while there is a cost saving, this is motivated as much by the health of it.  And the taste of things!  These folks (us, too, to some extent) have made it a lifestyle choice to hunt and gather, grow and do their own processing.  The most productive amongst us could likely survive off the land for a considerable time.

Us?  Not so much.  We still shop.  It used to be once a week then every two weeks and now we are averaging once every three weeks and, without any hardship except a few minor shortages (dairy and some fresh veggies, mostly) we could go for as long as two months without shopping and maybe four or five on a subsistence level.

Still, I do not think we will ever be really ‘up-there’ (in status) off-the-gridders.  There simply is not enough time.  The good ones just know too much.  They can do too much.  They are just so much better at all this (even if they don’t choose to exercise all the skills they have all the time) that we will never catch up to that level of expertise.

Which is good news, actually.  Living off the grid is to prefer the journey over the destination and we are enjoying ourselves no end.  The bread and homemade jam?  A magnificent bonus!

Community day.  Plus we had the Public Health nurses come to visit (flu shots) and the Coast Guard came by for a PR show and tell.  Brought the community a nice big boat to tour.   Big mail day, too.  All in all, it was a busy day.  Even better, the sun was shining.

You’d think we were a huge community if you judged by Wednesdays.  There were over twenty five people at the ‘canteen’ that operates in the bunkhouse on Community Day.  The whole space is less than 1000 sft.  And we must have had a dozen visitors in the workshop.   We may have even done a little work.  And my guess is that were over thirty people – not counting the school kids – who did a tour of the Coast Guard boat.

Community Day – it’s weird.  I go up around 10:30 a.m. and figure to stay an hour or so………just to be sociable, do a little chore……..and then go home.  I never seem to manage that and don’t usually get home til 4:00 or so.  No real reason for that…….not really…….just conversation, that sort of thing.  Time flies.

This time it was the Coast Guard that held me up a bit longer.  One of the crew had been to visit us back when we were starting to build eight years ago.  He was a friend of a friend and they were both in the Coast Guard at the time and so they dropped in and, it seems, he remembered and recognized us.  That same fellow was on the crew that came to attend to me after my mishap with the propeller.  And he remembered that, too.

This guy and I are like ‘ol’ buddies………..?

It is not a good sign when you are recognized and on a first name basis with search and rescue. 

Oh well, I suppose we will be seeing plenty of each other in the near future……….

One thing remarkable about today: no one brought up the US election.  Well, I did, of course.  But no one else did and, furthermore, the responses I got were of complete and total ambivalence.  Not even a quip or sarcastic remark.  It was like it never happened…………?

That surprised me.  My neighbours are pretty political.  They follow politics.  And, to a person, they were Obama fans.  So, why the lack of comment?  I have no idea………….I can only guess.

My first guess is that they were pretty sure that Obama would be re-elected.  So was I but I still talked about it.  Secondly, they have generally rejected the larger system and, when you think about it, Obama is the penultimate representative of that system.  They are not interested in Obama in the same way as they are not interested in the Queen of England.  Thirdly, they are all older.  The political conversations to be had have all been had many times over.  “So, what else is new?”  Of course there is also the obvious: “We can’t do anything about it- whatever it is and we just have to live and cope so what is there to talk about?”  Which is fair comment, I suppose, but doesn’t that apply to a lot of issues?

Bottom line?  No splash.  Barely a ripple in the space/time continuum.  Same ol’, same ol’.  The kind of thing that used to occupy the people I know no longer does.  Well, if the ‘day after’ is anything to go by.

This was a huge cause celebré for the last three or four months in the media!  We were supposed to believe that it was the topic of the day every day!  But, perhaps it was not?  Maybe it was just another thing that was a topic in the media but not so much in the home?

Not in the typical off-the-grid Canadian home, anyway.