TubaOrNotTuba

An artist is supposed to leave his mark. Perhaps not musical artists but there are other mediums. So I spent some time considering what I had available to me in the short term. Near the top of the pile was the idea of being a sculptor. There was a lovely block of cheddar in the fridge but I quickly realized that my art might fall victim to a passing rodent or dog or someone on a midnight raid in that same refrigerator. So I looked outside. Right now we have some snow although the rain is doing its best effort true move any traces. I considered going down to the beach where there are literally tons of sand available I have worked with sand before. I built a couple of castles in my youth but the problem with sand is that wind and waves tend to destroy what man has put into place. Up the road, in a field, there were blocks of stone. On closer inspection I notice that people had already engraved their names into the surface. A way of showing ownership I imagine. I could gather rocks along the beach to make, I don’t know, a hammer or an axe. Like I saw in a museum. Or I could go online in order a large piece of again I don’t know marble or granite but that invites hours and hours and hours of physical effort to create whatever. Yes, I know some artists will tell you the object is hidden inside the stone but I do not have the patience to search for anything. I will probably go back to the refrigerator, cheese did look good. I mean all the parts I don’t use in my sculpture can serve as supper. I just need to read a bit more about the imagined permanence of cheese. The life of an artist. Especially one with virtually no experience.

I have been recalling moments in music education. My education. Depending highly upon my peers. I admit it. The majority of what I learned, I learned from others. All instruments and technologies confused. Yes, it was. Confused, I mean. I can remember my first introduction to recording. From a lad two streets over who wanted to sell me his reel to reel tape recorder. He made it sound absolutely wonderful. With a razor blade and a lot of time I could make a recording from the sounds around me. Forget the fact that I was not old enough to shave and the razor blades were in some ways dangerous. The deal fell through because I did not have enough money on hand. And then we moved and in my new neighbourhood I learned that others collected music. For the main part in LP format. Someone next door who loaned me my first Led Zeppelin album. Someone else, three doors down, who introduced me to traditional blues. I doubt that he knew that, because we could only access his record collection when he was not at home. Others in my class had different artists’ LPs. We lived in a world of musical anthologies. There were bargain basement LPs that contained 20 or 30 songs from the hit parade. When we met people in our class that actually could afford to buy real records from one band at a time, it was an eye opener. Or ear opener if you will. By the time I made it to college I had people in my residence that not only had good budgets but eclectic musical tastes. I was able to profit from the open door policy. You know, where they would leave their door open in the evening while they played what they wanted to listen to and the rest of us soaked it up. For all you modern people that depend on playlists from the Internet I doubt that you ever will have the kind of variety that we had on a daily basis. I know that it gave me a broad taste in music. Something that I managed to play into a personal collection of recorded cassettes. I was a mellow man with a very limited budget. I have, as life continued, managed to get rid of most of the media, but not the memories. It often takes only one or two notes to bring back memories of moments from so long ago. Going forward I will continue to discover but I doubt that I will ever have as broad a range of content as I did back in the days of high school and college.

It was pointed out, in one of those seen in passing moments that the advertising for my neighbours company is still online. My neighbour passed away several years ago and I do not know the status of the company but it is interesting to see what he actually used to sell. In this case systems for people that are living off grid. Things like solar panels and pumps and the other sort of material you would use to bring comfort to a small home. I gave myself a pat on the back because I know an awful lot more about such things then I did a decade ago. I know some of the better questions to ask. What is the strength of a submersible pump. What is the required current for such a system. Are the materials still available? Back when I lived in the city I knew nothing of such things. My water came out of convenient taps in various rooms in the house. My electricity arrived at a pole outside the house. I had never considered, back then, what may be required if I was living in country that was away from services. I know now such things also serve farmers. Getting water to the livestock as an example. I also know more about what happens when you live on top of a big rock. Or, in our case a big sand dune. Changes the strategy. And for what it is worth the systems installed by our neighbour are still, as far as I know, still functioning fully decades after his work. In other words, he knew what he was doing and he did it the right way. Am I going to disconnect from the grid and put in my own pumps? I hope not. I also have working systems. But I know that if push came to shove I could get water into my kitchen with little effort on my part. Money does not equate with effort other than in loose terms. All that from an advertisement. After all, analysis of a situation, is the first step in getting a solution to a problem. Or at least recognizing that you have a problem.

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.