TubaOrNotTuba

In the world of transportation, we have one major divide; it comes down to the side of the road that you are supposed to travel on. We learn about this early on. Some nations have different ways of doing things. Simply put, they drive on the wrong side of the road, no pointing fingers at anyone. Anyhow we have been following the travels of a couple in a camper van. We picked up on their trip when they hit the East Coast of Canada then followed them across the United States up and down and up and down again from South to Central America. There’s been a sense of wonder about how they would get across what is known as the gap and it turns out that there is a way to do it by ship so far so good. However today the narrators threw a different situation at us; it turns out that in two or three small nations in Central America you are not allowed to travel with a right hand drive vehicle nothing to do with being on the right hand side of the road; these nations have decided for whatever reason that you cannot come into the country with a vehicle set up for travel in the United Kingdom or Australia or parts of Asia, forbidden of course. I wonder, do they allow vehicles that must have a right-hand drive like a garbage truck or certain utility vehicles. Now the narrators are not going to fight with anyone over this. They have simply booked passage further South into South America. They will avoid the problem but this vehicle has already been all over Europe at all over North America and I’m left to wonder how many other enclaves of stubborn bureaucracy exist. No plan to move there with their van, this was just passage through the country. Anyhow, I will pick up with their trip in a week or so when they’ve had a chance to get from where they are to where they want to go so they can continue heading South to Argentina. Not a trip I am likely to ever make but I have a certain curiosity about the whole thing. Right now they are in the country where I get my coffee, sort of, and we will not be visiting any coffee plantations. But in a spiritual sense, I can say to myself that I have been there.

There are things that we take for granted. I had jumped to a conclusion years ago. I believe that something which the world calls a service dog was considered to be a given. A right if you will. And now I know that I am wrong. At least in this area. The province is considering writing into law that a service animal is allowed in various places. Now before you jump to a conclusion I do not have a service animal. It has been discussed but so far I’m just on the outside looking in if you will hence my conclusion that if you have a dog by your side that was properly trained you could go into other places. Both legally and morally. I had made the assumption that certain places were not designed with an animal being welcome no matter how well trained. Case in point a butcher shop. But for the other places that you might expect to find someone accompanied I had just assumed that it was status normal. I have been on public transit and in schools and in shopping centres. All of those seemed at least open to the idea. To find that the province is still not finished preparing their legislation came as a surprise. Knowing how long governments take to implement change this could be years down the road. I also had assumed that such things were uniform across the nation. Not so. That means that for someone traveling with a service animal they have to go through the research before hand for each major jurisdiction. A lot of unnecessary research given that this is something that should be accepted as a consequence of society. Yes I know that in my own home a dog is welcome. I do not expect all of my acquaintances to make this their lifestyle. But in the public spaces that we accept as normal I would have considered that a service animal was just part of the game. I will now be more attentive. I will look at proposed legislations. I will ask legislators if the opportunity should present itself. Is all of this really necessary? Our business is so short sighted that this is considered an option that is open for discussion? I am not going to rant until I know more but keep an eye on me.

Right now there is a campaign underway to rename our most important landmark. Our only landmark actually. I’m not going to get into the why or who the winners and losers might be but I wonder if anyone has considered the consequences. Tourism is important to us and if you cannot find your way here you cannot come. Down at sea level the waves all look the same and we do not have any really high points of land. Remember what I said about landmarks. I wonder if you were to change the name how people would ever get here. Now I know you’re thinking that everyone has a GPS and that all knowledge lies within. Not so. For those who wish to come here the two main options are as the question goes the bridge or the ferry. And yes the theory came first over and over and over again the bridge in sharp contrast is unique and so this is why I offer as a Plan B to simply rename the structure to the bridge. Forget your nod to history because the tourist does not care all that matters is getting here to spend your money and visit the beach. In fact you could rename the structure «Bridge to the beach» but that seems redundant. It is true trying to balance history and reality can be hard but it’s not all about the history. I want to find a way to set things up so that you only need to replace your maps one time and your GPS one time. That way the money flow can continue. To deal with the history portion simply place a very large brass plaque near the footway and make sure there are other large signs to point out where the plaque can be found. All the rest of it is just window dressing I want in future to have «The Bridge» be the name because we will not be getting a second one. Unlike big cities where new links seem to be the game we have a very small population no need for another bridge or another ferry for that matter we should keep it simple so that we can concentrate on more important things. Like the weather. Like, will the weather be nice next weekend. Will we have beach temperatures? Anyhow that’s just a thought, they will not be asking my opinion although they should.

One of the more important lessons I remember from high school is that it is not what you say but how you say it. Consider sitting in English class while you study a play by Shakespeare. Good material but if you remember any one person you had better classmates than I. We were all less than mediocre. I bring this up because I’ve been listening to different podcasts and there are some outstanding presentations if you take the time to seek them out. One of my favourites is a broadcaster with more than four decades of experience. Someone who has been writing his own material on a daily basis for all that time. And it shows. He can take something as mundane as a report on a baseball game and turn it into virtual poetry. Not the material but the presentation. I wish I had those chops. Keeping my attention for almost an hour is outstanding. Proof that the material is robust. But it is the presentation that draws me back. We have not had a great politician in this country for decades. Seriously we have a Prime Minister with a background in public speaking and drama who can lose my attention within seconds. The reason why we remember political speeches is because the mixture of presentation and material brings things to a whole new level. Churchill was never part of my life but I will stop and listen if he comes on a broadcast. A ghost from back when public speaking actually mattered. I was listening to our current provincial Prime Minister this week. About as memorable as the last bag of potato chips. And he prides himself as being a public speaker. How sad. Oh well. Still raining. Doing another reset on winter.

I just spend some time trying to determine what qualifies as a traditional meal in this area. After all I live on an island where a lot of potatoes are grown and people catch fish but that is not the response. Before my adult life I was often offered bowls of stew. Essentially a meal made with root vegetables and if you’re fortunate some chunks of beef. And there was a strong divide between the recipe used by my grandmothers on my mother’s side and on my father’s side. Two different households. If I placed a bowl of stew from either kitchen you could tell it apart immediately. My mother peeled her carrots my father did not. If you boil an unpeeled carrot long enough the skin will be removed and it will appear in the mix of food in the bowl. A very different texture. My grandparents came from similar backgrounds but different villages and now I’m wondering was this the only reminder of the life from where they came. You can see why this would leave me curious. Place the two areas on a map and you could cover the areas with a teacup which incidentally was a very common beverage in both houses. It was not another question of religion or language or family size. Could it be that I’m looking for something that has nothing to do with background and everything to do with how much time my father was willing to spend in the preparation of carrots. Seriously that is the only factor that makes any sense. My dad did not like to scrape vegetables so he did not. And if you were to ask what do I do? the answer is simple; of course I peel my carrots. Maybe I am on my way to removing a terrible food product from what my grandchildren and great grandchildren will eventually consume. I have checked with commercial products; canned stew; restaurant stew and other place’s stew I never found unpeeled carrots. There, you have it: a complete history of a food from my home. Everything else prepared by my parents used identical recipes. The only differentiation comes from the carrots.

This seems like a good day to change the bedding. Take all the covers off and do a quick wash and dry. And then re make the bed just like every other time. What I do need to do but have not, is to flip the mattress. A beast designed to hold two adults comfortably and thick enough that we’ve been able to rely upon it for a couple of decades. Heavy. One that would profit from being turned on a regular basis. In this case from end to end rather than from side to side. Geometry. A tessellation as they say in math class. And what I quickly realize is that the mattress is too large and heavy for it to be an easy one person job. Yes, I can probably manage the job but I might pay with a round of back pain. Commit myself to bed for a couple of afternoons. And so I hesitate. Soon, I tell myself. I will get someone else and we will make a team game out of it. In the good old days you could change a whole mattress by going and finding a Bale of hay. Not anymore. We have a huge construction with lots of wire and test you inform another stuff that I hope to never see. That would mean that the mattress was broken. Perhaps from some idiotic attempt to flip it single handed. A new mattress is expensive and it requires one of those shopping trips where you go to the city and trips from store to store trying to test out a mattress that you cannot really test. Believe me, flopping on your back and spending 5 minutes is not enough. In sharp contrast we have other beds that are designed for camping. Much smaller and much later. But I do like my bed; no stress about going there night after night. Except for that urge to flip the thing around. I will work on that idea. Beats sleeping on the floor.

We have just received a request from a neighbour. Wondering if we would be willing to babysit a pair of small dogs. I am fine with the idea but there are questions. I do not know these dogs nor their size nor their specific temperament. I don’t know how they react to fox is outside the window. Like right now. We have had a pair of foxes that have been arguing all afternoon nose to nose tooth to tooth loudly. How would a strange dog react to this. So far we have said maybe but I do know that it will require a special kind of dance. Based on experience getting two dogs outside at the same time is tricky unless you simply open the door and hope for the best. And what about at night? Will these dogs expect to take their own place in the bed even with strangers. We’ve been through that. Dogs that decide that the foot of the bed under the covers is there best place. What do two dogs do. I somehow doubt that they sleep in shifts. We shall see. Life is nothing more than a set of challenges, right? My own gut feeling is that two dogs is no worse than one dog or three. You just have to make sure that the door opens at the right time. And that I do not trip over the water bowl. Been there and done that. I do have to remember the Amazon delivery truck will upset the balance, but not to the rescue. I will see how this goes. And in passing the dates are not fixed apparently. I did my due diligence and asked that question.

It does not take long. I voluntarily withdrew from the economy some months back. OK some years back. But I now realize that I have no more idea about the cost of anything. How much is rent? I don’t know. What’s a fair hourly wage for a certain job? I don’t know. What does the jug of milk cost? I don’t know. And on and on. If you told me that an apple was worth a dollar I would have to believe you perhaps it is worth a dollar. Money has become something I used to use. In a drawer there is a bag of pennies. I think. Wait, you mean that they do not use pennies anymore? Where have I been his life passed me by. I used to believe that the dog had a peaceful life. A bowl of food which miraculously appear at his place every day along with fresh water. Well, that is where I’m at. Maybe the real question is am I happy? By all measurable standards, yes. If any of my siblings come to visit they can figure out for themselves what it costs to live here. And I will ask them about where they live without realizing what any of the numbers mean. Somehow this is not what the economy wants. They foster tension in competition and other negative sentiments. I just am. And when the sun goes down far enough I will go to bed and wait for the next day. Reminds me of something I heard about a young child who worked in a coal mine. Found sleeping beside the wall. When asked what had happened the child explained that the mice had stolen supper and there was no candle so simpler to just go to sleep and wait to see what happened next. An old story that makes so much more sense now. Of course, the mice have not stolen my supper in a very long time. But it could happen.

I am fully aware that a forecast is nothing more than a good guess. Last evening when we sat down for the supper time weather TV local forecast and things went off the rails. Our broadcast suddenly moved to Nova Scotia. Different announcers and different forecasts on. And then about the time I had settled into learning all about the latest building plans for the big city over there we were back at home. A slight apology for technical difficulties and life carried on. Fast forward to now. Late afternoon. And that steady rain we had been told about has suddenly changed to steady snow, enough that shovelling might be needed. Now I knew this kind of thing could happen all it takes is a couple of degrees change in temperature or a couple of degrees of change in the direction of the wind and all of a sudden you live in a different place in terms of weather. It will not affect us. We have no place to go and no need to do so right away. I did have a moment of fantasy where I thought that if we lived in a big city we could call out for pizza. Let the problem be the driver’s not ours. That will not happen and we will just return to regular meals and regular forecasts. Probably, yes, we will watch the weather forecast this evening just to give us something to talk about. In this part of the world we pay attention to the weather. If I was the person who likes to bet I could spend all my available money I’m guessing. Instead I keep an eye outside and I listen to the videos. A lot of comedy interspersed with good music. And by tomorrow we will be on to another weather system. At this rate March may come in like a lion. And yes, such weather expressions mean nothing. We could have a whole easy month ahead or a dreadful one but before we know it the tourists will return and the beaches will be busy. One note. Our local cardinal seem to find the perch to be slippery or icy or sticky or something we’re not sure. Just changed.

Many years ago music came in packages. We called them albums and they cost more money than most of us could afford. However while at university I discovered an in. The campus radio station was a place that received in the daily mail, new record albums contributed by the various companies that had a stake in the business. Cheap advertising is still advertising I guess. There was a magical room filled with LP’s; too many to listen to, but from time to time we would sample. Take an album into a studio put it on the turntable, drop the needle, listen and put it away again. Assigning our own score if you will. I remember one album in particular always left me with unanswered questions. The artist was Captain Beefheart. I listened shrugged and moved on. Several times. Never developed a real taste for his music. So today I decided to go back and re-listen. In this case a full documentary on his life and music. Spoiler alert. I still would not buy his record. Outside of my interest zone. But with time I have become more accepting of stuff that is for lack of a better word; weird. I also see where he fits into the pantheon of rock musicians. He had some famous friends. From the documentary I have learned that he gave up music and took up painting. We all need creative outlets. And the next time I come across one of his albums I will have a better idea of what is going on. It should be noted that, that radio station is long gone, nothing but a memory. Music has a life to go down further… beyond simple moments. One does not always have a complete change of opinion even after many decades. I think we all know what we like.