Chapter 20: Home, damp home

So I flew, in a dwall, to Vancouver my childhood home. And while it’s lovely to be with my Mom and brother again, and see my little kitty cats, some things have not changed. It’s still raining here. Mum of course secretly hopes that I will move back to Vancouver one day. And so, whenever I comment on the freezing showers of rain pouring down on our heads and the low scudding clouds (and just a few weeks away from the summer equinox too), she becomes quite worried. So, when the clouds lift more than 10 inches off of the top of her head (and she’s only 5’6”) she gleefully announces that the sun is coming out. Well, I regret to say, it’s not so. But as my wise brother noted, if one didn’t have the rain in Vancouver than the sunny days wouldn’t seem so glorious and the city wouldn’t seem so clean. That always surprises me here; it’s spotless, I suppose because the rain washes everything off of the streets and into the sewers. Honestly, you could eat your dinner off the asphalt.

Some other things which haven’t changed: my cats still think the best time to come to me for some Good Ole Loving, is when I’m typing on my laptop. I wonder if the tick-tick-tick on the key board is an aphrodisiac to them, like Bolero was for Bo Derek in 10. And yet my heart is broken. My cats, who were best friends in South Africa, now hate each other, hissing and spitting and clawing. I think they were separated while in quarantine, but it breaks this father’s heart. I’m taking them to a pet psychiatrist.

Vancouver is notable for it’s total lack of style. Or maybe there is a style, but it’s as though everyone here is getting dressed up to go out and slay a bear or fell a tree. Old ladies wander around the shopping malls in shorts, hiking boots and anoraks, or training shell suits. Another popular combination is jeans, sandals and the ubiquitous fleeces, whether as a sweater or a vest. Popular colours are burgandy, gray, mauve, and black, usually together. Everyone sports a goatee, even the women. I suppose it’s for warmth.

Another thing. I’m trapped at my Mum’s on the North Shore because of a total public transit strike which has already lasted two months! And they are doing major reconstruction work on Lions Gate Bridge (which goes from the North Shore to downtown). After 15 years of consultation, the municipal authorities have decided simply to resurface and slightly widen the chock-a-block 3 lane bridge, and work has been dragging on for months – behind schedule and over budget, thank you unions and corruption. But it’s a great problem for me because one cannot any longer cycle over the bridge to downtown even when the bridge is open, and taxis from the North Shore to downtown and vice versa are prohibitively expensive when the bridge is completely shut, from 8pm to 6am every night. It reminds me of the tale which Kate in LA told me wherein the municipal authorities down there spent $220 million to build a huge school, right on a toxic waste dump. Whoops! I truly believe that municipal authorities the world over must be the stupidest vermin alive, slightly superior to nematodes, but not much. Fortunately for me my dear Mum is being incredibly generous with her car, and her boyfriend lives only a couple of blocks away.

So while I’m generally very down on Vancouver – I’m very tired of strangers telling me what a wonderful city it is, I know otherwise – yesterday I was supremely impressed when I went to the mall. There, I hit a level of chore-efficiency which cannot be equalled anywhere else. Malls in South Africa don’t have what you need, and the sales clerks are thick, and there are always lineups in the banks. Here, in a trip to the mall which took slightly less than two hours, I did the following. I visited the doctor, got a $US money order from my bank, subscribed to a local cellular phone service (just $20 per month and free talking all weekend long!), got my photos developed and scanned onto diskette, posted some letters, paid a visit to the cosmetics counter, where I bought some very expensive potion to rehabilitate my sun-ravaged skin and make me look 17 again. I also made a number of purchases from different stores, including a converter plug; a combination lock, fresh shrimps, whipping cream, and vitamins. I felt like I’d had an orgasm when I left the mall. Here, here, to Canadian consumerist efficiency.

Let’s do a scorecard for Vancouver, Canada, to help those innocent tourists who think “Vancouver is just the most special wonderful, beautiful city in the whole world!”

• Climate –15
• Consumer efficiency +12
• Style –2 (would have been –8 but since I look so good in comparison, I’m giving it 6 offsetting credit points. My Gucci glasses get their first outing tomorrow.)
• Presence of mother and brother +400
• Presence of kitty cats +8
• Irritating smug Canadianness, and militant unions who bring the whole city to a standstill –12
• Restaurant quality +8
• Cheap cellular telephone service +10 (it’s called Fido, can you believe it?)
• Photography course I’m taking +3 (only two other students, one I may have to kill to keep my sanity)
• Availability of good photographic scenes, when clouds lift, +10
• Fact that in June there is still snow on the mountains, -11
• Gym quality +15 (I joined Golds gym, huge, near Mum’s house for $120 for two months, all inclusive even yoga classes, which I’m starting, in order to find my inner poise)
• Quality of boys at gym –3
• Nightlife –6 (no scratch that, I went out with Kerry on Friday night. It’s minus 18)

The fact that the clouds lifted totally yesterday afternoon, and I could see green-furred mountains of the North Shore outlined clearly against the deep blue sky +5

It gets a score of 410 points, but for those of you who don’t have a mother or kitty cats here, I suppose that would be a credit balance of just two points.

Finally, I bought a whole bunch of literary magazines yesterday to get some idea of to whom to submit my short stories for publication. And I found this delightful “Call for Submission” in the back of Broken Pencil magazine:

“Bloodsisters, the menstrual rebel collective, would like your poems, stories, rants and musings, about menstruation and living in the female body for their next ‘Red Alert’ ‘zine. We cannot afford to pay, but we welcome your input. Please send to Bloodsisters, Elle Corazon, 176, Rue Bernard Ouest, Montreal, Quebec.”

Is your jaw hanging as low as mine, chin scraping the floor? Well, all you aspiring female writers out there, I will give this one up to you! And I was shocked and dismayed to see that this is a Canadian entity, rather than an American one. Personally, I always thought we had more taste, but it’s clear that I have been wrong. We belong in the Gay and Lesbian LA Yellow Pages too.