No Mo’ Sno’

 

You know that snowfall I reported a post or two ago? Well, it kept snowing. And snowing. And snowing, until 35 centimetres had landed on the south island and everything froze in place. No last minute prezzie shopping, no grocery shopping, no visiting, no departing upstairs neighbours. Nothing. The rest of Canada has every right to thumb their noses at us, but that doesn’t make the stress any less stressful for people accustomed to green Christmases.

My snowmance extends to fantasies of being snowed in, of the aforementioned hot tea, fat novels and cozy blankets. The truth is far less enchanting. The truth is even I get cabin fever. It’s not that I would go out, it’s that ability to choose whether or not to go out. Being snowed in negates that agency.

Oh, Ter and I did suit up and venture out the next day. We assessed the Tiguan situation, shovelling off as much of the snow as we could to prevent him from freezing solid when the melt came (it has yet to start). Mercifully, the snow was still light and powdery, and we managed to dust off the hood, windshield and windows, but digging out was too much for two babes in their sixties. Besides, if we’d been able to clear a path to the road, the road itself was impassable.

In a bizarre way, it was fun to be out in bright sun and knee-high snow, working with my proton to move the white stuff around. It felt like we’d accomplished something when we finally came indoors to thaw ourselves out. It’s important to feel empowered in such situations, because it’s hard to stay positive when the challenge continues beyond a day or two, especially as Christmas Day creeps ever closer and there are still things to be done.

I can’t imagine the strain on parents of little kids. How do you explain to a six year old who believes in magic that Santa couldn’t get his sleigh out of the driveway? Yup. I am luckier than most in these Currier and Ives conditions. Perhaps it’s a recognition of how overwhelming life has lately been that my loving friendly and generous Universe has blessed me with a puny-by-comparison set of args this Christmas. I’m warm, I’m safe, I’m fed, so quit whining, Ru.

I submit that it’s all relative. A few days of “severe by west coast standards” snow is hardly a life or death event, but Christmas has taken an odd turn in past years and this was the first holiday season since Mum died that looked promising. I’ve become woefully nostalgic for Christmases past, which in itself is different, if not understandable in the circumstances.

Ter and I used to go all out during the holidays, and while I’m sure we griped and got stressed at the time, I only remember the joy. The tradition. Filling the advent calendar with Quality Street chocolates. Dashing out to pick up sock stuffers during lunch breaks. Shopping trips on weeknights when the stores are less crowded. Baking a ton of cookies. Lavish Christmas teas with friends and family. Wrapping presents in elegant paper. My wee sister’s fabulous mincemeat tarts. Kicking back on Christmas Eve when all was said and done, sipping a ruby mimosa and watching Alistair Sim by the light of the “f***ing soap opera tree”, as a friend once called it. The Christmas Day phone call to my parents ahead of the Queen’s Message.

Everything has changed. My parents are gone. So is the Queen. Our beautiful Edwardian flat was traded for a ho-hum standard apartment. A global pandemic moved in, stayed for two years and never really departed. The world itself seems to have tilted further out of alignment. Indeed, why should Christmas have survived intact?

You have to laugh at the irony. Imagine, Christmas being called on account of snow.

Merry, merry anyway. With love,

Tough Love

 

My loving, friendly, generous Universe blesses me daily. I live in a world where miracles abound. All things happen with everyone’s best interest in mind. There is a reason for everything, even the difficult stuff. I try to go gently, practicing kindness, compassion and being non-judgemental.

Obviously, there are days when I’m more successful at this than others.

I don’t rely on Oracle cards, but I do follow Colette Baron-Reid on F***book. She posts a daily card, which I often don’t see until days after the fact so, clearly, I’m not that invested. Still, there are occasions when the card of a particular day will ring true in hindsight (not that I look behind me that often. As Ragnar said to his sons in a later episode of Vikings, “Don’t look back; that’s not where you’re going.”)

One day recently, the card simply stated “It Is What It Is.” The message advised me to adopt radical acceptance, explaining that acceptance is the best means of opening myself to greater abundance, blessing, and/or happiness. It suggested taking things at face value and not to read more into a given instant. Sometimes things just happen. Not everything has a deeper meaning. Acceptance enables good energy to flow easily, clearing log jams that result from us focusing too intently on what vexes us.

That very same day, I lost my mind over something so trivial it’s almost embarrassing.

Anyone who knows me also knows that my vehicle is sacrosanct. Indeed, only two things can drive me to spontaneous acts of violence: Flyer games, and any slight, be it a scratch, dent or other misdemeanour, against my vehicle. Well, on this day, I was the victim of a visitor who parked in my reserved space – and boom! Kindness, compassion and being non-judgemental flew right out the window. I seethed and foamed and fretted at the utter lack of morality in that individual. Capital punishment was a just penalty for the crime of forcing me to park my beloved Tiguan on the street.

Once I cooled off (and it took a while), I marvelled at how cushy my life is that I have the luxury of obsessing over something that, as a First World problem, barely rates as a problem at all ... or it shouldn’t.

Suddenly, the day’s Oracle card returned to mind: It Is What It Is.

Huh, I thought. The card meaning was suddenly clear. By advocating radical acceptance, the Universe was saying, in the most loving, friendly and generous way:

“Get over it.”

Park Plates

Ter and I have long considered putting personal plates our vehicle. The problem is, what to put on them? She wouldn’t be any keener on DURAN E or HOK E HOS than I’d be for FOOD E or WIK N WU. We’d thought of putting JULES on Jules, but it’s good that we didn’t because Jules is no longer with us. As it was, Tiggy inherited his predecessor’s plates, which were at insurance time this year, over twenty years old.

The dilemma would have continued indefinitely had ICBC not ridden to the rescue. Earlier this year, in cooperation with BC Provincial Parks, they’ve issued a number of license plates featuring four “super, natural” vistas—mountains, lakes, forests ... and a spirit bear.

Well, shoot. Problem solved.

The bear plates have been cropping up on cars all over town. The numbering sequence started at PA000A. By the time we got our plates, so many had been sold that the sequence began with PB. “ ‘Peanut Butter’,” I said to Ter at the insurance agent’s office, where we were both required to sign the changeover from our old license number.

She glanced at me, pen in hand, and said nothing.

“Or ‘Panda Bear’,” I continued, musing.

That got a slightly better result, but still no hats and horns. Since our brains are not geared toward accepting blends of letters and numerals, it’s always helped me to use either the phonetic alphabet or make up a word association of my own. For instance, our old plates began with “JBM”, which, in the phonetic alphabet, translates to “Juliet Bravo Mike”. Thanks to my wee sister, who suggested it when I asked what she’d use, it also translated to “Jellybum.”

Anyway, we signed the papers and took our shiny new plates out to the strip mall lot, where a freshly-laundered Tiggy eagerly awaited his new tags. Getting them into the plate holders proved a tad challenging, as the holders have been bashed about but good over the past seven years, but Ter persevered and eventually they slid into place. Affixing them to the bumpers required new screws to replace the old rusted ones (our first stop on this little adventure was the hardware store), and no small skill in lining up the holes. Ter hunkered by the back bumper and spent a while doing just that, with varying degrees of success. Eye to eye with “PB” while her patience gradually thinned, she finally looked up at me and said, “We could also use ‘Pooh Bartz’.”

That did me in. I howled. “Pooh bartz” is an interjection originally coined by my older sister in lieu of a metaphor more colourful while yet residing in our parents’ house (both my sisters have an odd gift for coining words/phrases/sayings), and it’s stayed with me deep into my relationship with Ter. That she would blurt it out in relation to our prized new plates slew me right there in the parking lot.

Later, she tried to override the option with “Polar Bear”, but I fear I was ruined for anything else when it comes to remembering my new license number.

Pooh bartz.

Blustery Days

My earliest memory of hella high winds formed when I was about five years old. I was in kindergarten in Sorel, at a school that was, I believe, walking distance from home.

I don’t remember much about kindergarten except that I didn’t like it. It was new and strange, and full of kids who spoke French when I was the only one who didn’t. I don’t know if I lasted the full term, or if my folks pulled me out after I pitched a four alarm tan-tan in the driveway one day; so much of that time in my life is long gone but for the dramas that tend to stay with a person well into adulthood. Allowing for said dramas to become exaggerated over time, I have a clear sense of losing my mind one day, and my mother telling the kind folks who had come to pick me up to go on their way. I don’t remember anything more than that, but if Mum does, I bet the story’s as embarrassing as the one she likes to tell about the day I first saw snow.

I digress.

While I was still in kindergarten, I remember stepping from the school into bright sun and big wind. The leaves were doing their swirly dance on the sidewalk and skittering into the street. I was wearing my plush green winter coat, which was heavy enough to keep my feet on the ground when the wind tried to lift me off them. It was so strong when it hit me that it felt like a big hand curling around my legs. It tugged so insistently that I was sure I’d achieve liftoff like Piglet in the stories by AA Milne—to this day, on a big windy one, I’ll generally ask of no one in particular, “Can I fly Piglet next?”

Fast forward to November 2015. Ter and I had ventured out to do some Christmas shopping and the wind was so strong when we got home that folks were parking on Dallas Road to watch the ocean pound against the shore. I love a stormy ocean, and while I normally watch it from the shelter of my living room, this time, I couldn’t resist. “I have to go look,” I told Ter, and promptly left her to struggle with the shopping bags while I headed up to street level.

Our street sits a bit lower than the main road. How much lower became evident when I reached the top of the slope and was struck full in the face by a blast of salt spray—and this before I got across the road. I waited for a break in the traffic and crossed over to join the other nut cases hanging out by the railing.

Wind roaring. Surf crashing. Gulls hanging overhead. Kids in their twenties spreading their wings and leaning into the teeth of it, letting the wind hold them upright. Small dogs being carried because otherwise they’d be airborne. My vision immediately obscured by the spray on my glasses. The sheer force of the wind felt like that long-ago hand trying to push me back into traffic, shoving so hard that it seemed almost enraged. I fought back, kept my feet, staggered a few steps along the sidewalk. You can’t breathe in wind that strong; it jams itself down your throat and stays there. And all the while, you are reminded of how fragile, how mortal, you are against this heaving, howling, living entity.

Jesu Maria. Get me out of this.

With the wind helping me along, I trip-and-a-trip-trip-tripped back toward home, where Ter had managed to secure the Tiguan by the curb and wrestle our loot into the house. “Well?” she asked from the top of the stairs. “How was it?”

“One of the stupidest things I’ve ever done,” I replied, gasping.

“Yah,” she said, “while I was trying to drop the hatch on Tiggy, the wind swooped in and snatched one of the empty grocery bags. The last I saw, it was zipping toward Moss Rock Park.”

I could very easily have gone the same route.

Last week, the west coast was treated to a hat trick of storms over three days, ending with the remains of Typhoon Songda predicted to be the most intense of the trio. Once again, folks pulled over to watch the ocean do its thing. Ter parked Tiggy behind the house for the third act, as did most of the neighbours. The street out front was empty that night. The wind ramped up for a bit of a show before dinner, then died back by eight and never really took off.

I didn’t even try to go outside.

De Deuce, You Say!

Ahhhhh, the heavy, Dior-esque perfume of leaded gasoline. The rib-quaking rumble of a chrome-plated V-8. The leonine roar of that same engine. The affronted bellow of a lesser model, revving to crest the top of the slope as it awaits the traffic flag’s all-clear. People clapping, horns hooting. A pair of old guys parked on the tailgate of a vintage Dodge pickup, providing Muppet-like commentary as the parade flows past.

And the colours! Candy apple red, basic black, pearl white, sunshine yellow, Tang orange, deep purple, sky blue, mint green, burnished copper. The occasional two-tones: black and white, black and red, red and orange, orange and yellow, buff and wood-grain. The detailing: flickering flames, grinning skulls, swooshes and swirlies in complimentary shades of turquoise and magenta. BC plates and US plates on exotic roadsters and hulking sedans. White wall tires, sparkling spoke hubcaps, rag tops and hardtops, white-haired seniors and tattoed twenty-somethings behind steering wheels as big as manhole covers.

The deuce coupes come to town every couple of years. When they do, they bring out the automotive afficianados among the locals and jam up the neighbourhood for the better part of a Saturday morning. I was sitting in the Ocean Room last weekend, reading while the world passed by my window. Normally, I hear the nondescript drone of ordinary traffic punctuated by a diesel tour bus, but when I heard something with a carburetor, I looked up to see a fluorescent orange hotrod zipping along Dallas Road. It was followed in quick succession by a bright yellow deuce, a black gangster-mobile from the 1930s and a purple-and-azure 50’s Plymouth. The event is called for the deuce, but anyone with a classic car is welcome to the party—even if you’re driving Grandpa’s rusted Olds because you can’t afford anything newer. They converge on Clover Point after breakfast on Saturday and cruise from there along Dallas Road to wherever lunch is scheduled.

After twenty minutes of gumball colour streaming, I couldn’t stand it. “I’m going down to see the cars,” I called to Ter. “I’ll be back in a half-hour.”

Except I forgot to bring my phone to remind me of the time. I brought the Canon instead, managing to snap maybe twenty pictures before the batteries died (I haven’t used it much lately), then finding a spot simply from which to enjoy the show. I’d have stayed to the last of the estimated 1200 cars, but Ter had an appointment and I was going along for lunch afterward.

I love my 2010 Tiguan. I loved my 1996 Camaro, too, but Blue Thunder was my first and Blue Silver was my baby. I love cars in general, so much that I wish I’d thought to take auto shop in high school except that it wasn’t offered to girls and among the countless other clues I’d not had at the time was my ability to comprehend the workings of an engine. Learning how to tinker under the hood never occurred to me, though I think I would have enjoyed it. Nowadays, with vehicles run by computers, designed from the same template and only available in five shades of grey, it’s disheartening to think that the art of the car may be dying out … until the deuces come to town.

Long live the classics.

DIY

“Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile” – Albert Einstein

After twenty years in the same suite, our dear friend Treena has bought herself a condominium. Before she moves in, however, she’s renovating. And she’s doing it herself.

Ter and I were called to assist with collecting supplies last week—namely transporting a thousand pounds of laminate flooring and seven gallons of paint from the shop to the condo. Tiggy is a little Stormtrooper, but he also has a maximum load capacity of 1110 pounds so, after some frantic mental math during which our combined weight was added to the load, we estimated that the flooring alone would take three trips. Picture this: one Tiguan, two babes in their mid-fifties, and one waif hauling 34 boxes weighing approximately 20 lbs apiece from the curb to the second floor suite.

Bwahahahahahaha!

The first load was tricky since, having committed and therefore unable to reverse, we had no idea how we were going to accomplish this feat without killing ourselves. We bumbled through 5 return trips, during which I predicted we’d be professionals by the time we were finished.

Load #2—half the remaining flooring and 5 rolls of underlay were picked up at the shop and sat in the Tiguan while his girls took a union lunchbreak. Appropriately fuelled up, the “curb to condo” routine went somewhat more smoothly. (Curiously, Ter was energized by the carbs she’d consumed while Treena and I could have used a nap.)

Load #3—the last 160 lbs of floor plus seven cans of paint (3 eggshell, 2 semi-gloss, 1 primer and something else that I’ve forgotten); Tig was all but doing wheelies up the road with the weight over his rear axle. And when we arrive at the building … no parking save for the passenger zone with its 3 minute maximum.

Ter slammed the car into “park”, killed the motor and declared, “We’re doing it.” And from sheer terror of being busted (and potentially fined) by the strata council, we had everything out of the car, up the elevator and down the hall in twenty minutes flat.

As I’d predicted six hours earlier, professionals.

Treena comes from a family of do-it-yourselfers. Her aunt happens to be Ter’s best friend from high school, and there is nothing she can’t fix, improve, or invent on the fly. Ter is equally smart when it comes to improvising. My superpower is pointing out that “you’ve missed a spot”. Thinking about hard work exhausts me, but something magical happened on the chain gang that day:

I had a blast.

I was aching all over and two loads of laundry awaited when I got home, but I spent the day helping someone I love alongside someone I love and that made me happy. Treena, bless her, was ever so grateful for our help, and I suppose that contributed to the joy (gratitude tends to inspire a greater effort), but I am grateful to her in turn, for giving me the chance to experience the unexpected delight of offering my time and my heart in service to one of my kind.

Love and service. That’s what life is all about, Charlie Brown.

Auto Bio XII

“My Other Car is a Jaguar”

Tiggy was back in the shop two weeks ago—he’d started idling rough and after a few days employed a visual aid to shift our attention to action. Ter came home on Sunday with the announcement that my first Monday after vacation had just gotten interesting: the “check engine” light had come on.

Crap. What fresh new hell is this, Tiguan?

We arranged to have me drive him in and Ter took the limo to her office. Turned out to be little of nothing—some carbon buildup on the spark plugs was giving him hiccups, so the techs cleaned off the plugs, sold me a bottle of fuel tank cleaner, and reminded me (shame, shame) to give him supreme instead of regular unleaded gasoline. A small cost at the end of an anxious day, but I like to threaten my loved ones with their expendability.

Poking along in rush hour traffic, we approached the Jaguar dealership that dwarfs the VW shop half a block down the street. I gave him a tap on the dashboard and pointed. “See that red F-type, Tiguan? Take a good hard look and be grateful that I don’t turn you in right now.”

Hey, he doesn’t need to know that one Jag will cost three of him.

* * *

A few days later, I happened on this article. A rave review of the F-type coupe so well-written than it’s practically poetry. Sure had me salivating … until I got to the one flaw in the big cat’s form. Apparently the ergonomics aren’t that great. How disappointing. Is it enough to stop me from salivating? Nah. In my dream, the car is comfier than an old shoe.

Auto Biography XI

“Das Bomb”

Fourteen years after buying Jules, it was time to replace him. Ter was now commuting up the highway to work, through a micro-climate infamous for weather that made the low-slung Camaro a hydroplaning hazard. She also spent a lot of time looking up tailpipes and being blinded by bullying headlights in the mirror, so she began talking about an SUV. A larger, higher vehicle would make her feel safer on the road, and since my whole life goes with her whenever she drives away, I was fine with her decision. The tricky part was finding a vehicle that we both liked.

Not that we conducted a coordinated search. Truth is, I liked not having a car payment every month, and we were still so fond of Jules that parting with him seemed like a betrayal. It helped that nobody was producing an SUV that matched our individual wants with mutual needs; we saw nothing on the street that inspired us to further investigation. They all looked the same. They were too big, too boxy, too ordinary, too not right. Typically, as Jules got Ter through one more winter commute, the notion of a new vehicle started fading as spring approached.

Then the Vancouver Olympics happened. A new Volkswagen commercial began running during the evening TV coverage. I have always enjoyed VW commercials, though their bugs and bunnies are not remotely attractive as a means of transport. Besides, everyone knows that Volkswagen drivers are idiots; they’re all over the road, dodging through lanes and trying to get ahead of everyone else—annoying as heck and not that fashionable to boot. But VW TV ads are great. This one in particular:

Aside from showcasing the way I normally drive, I liked the compact look of the vehicle. I liked its strange little name, too: “Tiguan” – a smaller SUV with the power of a tiger and the reflexes of an iguana. Big fun for me, boy. I could spin some fab donuts in that little guy. But did I say anything aloud? Heck, no. It was a Volkswagen. No way would one of them wind up in my driveway.

Uh huh.

Ter got serious about wanting a new vehicle shortly after the Games ended. We talked about trucks ad nauseum but I wrinkled my nose at anything she suggested, and vice versa. Finally, she said, “I haven’t really liked anything except that little Volkswagen.”

Uh oh.

Turned out we’d been in agreement from mid-February and hadn’t known it. She called me at work one day: “I’m looking at the Volkswagen website …” which was basically a call to arms. We pored over specifications and argued about colours (I preferred white, she wanted black). I put a pic of a Tiguan on my computer desktop.

“What’s that?” a co-worker inquired, bending over my shoulder for a closer look.

“My new car,” I replied.

“What is it?”

Saying “Tiguan” only earned a puzzled look, so I resorted to answering, “A Volkswagen.”

We brought Tiggy home on May 1, 2010. They were good about moving Jules while our backs were turned; I recall patting his rear fender on my way into the dealership, and when we saw daylight again, the stall where we’d left him was empty. And there, all puffed up and proud like the vehicular version of Moon Pie, was Tiggy.

The joy of a Tiguan in 2010 was that few other people in town owned one. Ours was rare enough to prompt total strangers to ask what it was. Gradually, more of them appeared on the street and nowadays, I see them in bunches every week. But people still ask about ours. Even Tiguan owners will ask. “How do you like it?”

“We love it,” is our standard reply.

Aside from the annual service curse, he’s exceeded my wildest expectations. He hauled the weight of an ex-husband to the recycling depot in 2011. He helped us move house twice. He has delivered new furniture, carried bags of books and groceries, and most importantly, he has transported Ter safely to work through three soggy winters without the slightest skid. He grips the road and growls before he pounces; if I’m at the wheel, he’s the first away when the light goes green. He’s cute and zippy and he has a kick-ass boss stereo system.

He das bomb.

Auto Biography X

“The Power of Mum”

You wouldn’t think it to look at him, but Tiggy, our sweet little SUV, is cursed. He has only required annually scheduled servicing since he was purchased in 2010 and, on the whole, he rocks. Ter and I are madly in love with him. He’s safe, solid, dependable, quick as a lizard, fierce as a tiger, and cute as the proverbial button.

Except after he’s been serviced. Here’s the history:

2011 – Tig’s first scheduled service and I’m sure something happened the next day, but perhaps this is only because something did happen the following year... and the one after that ... and the one after that ...

2012 – on her way to work the day after Tig’s second scheduled service, Ter hears a loud bang! and the steering goes funky. She pulls over immediately to discover the far rear tire is flat as a pancake. When the tow truck arrives, the driver shows her the chunk of metal responsible for the gaping hole in the tire’s tread. Eyes wide, she gasps, “When did I pick that up?”

“Oh, right now,” the guy assures her. The tire is shot but the dealer doesn’t carry that model, so it takes a couple of days (and a couple hundred dollars) to get Tig a new shoe.

2013 – on her way to work the day after Tig’s third scheduled service, Ter is rear-ended when the guy behind her doesn’t see that traffic ahead has stopped. Tiggy weathered it fairly well, but Ter was whiplashed and to this day is still in treatment for it. Tig spent two days in the shop and is sporting a new rear bumper, paid for courtesy of the other guy’s insurance. Needless to say, both Ter and Tiggy are now hyper-nervous about tailgaters. I merely wish that a flame-throwing exhaust pipe was an option, ’cause I’d have ordered one while he was in for repairs.

2014 – on her way to work the day after Tig’s fourth scheduled service (and immediately following a chiropractic adjustment), Ter is merging onto the highway when Tiggy *binks* at her. She’s accustomed to his *bink* – usually he’s signalling that the temperature is ripe for snow, so she’s actually about to say, “Tig, it is not going to snow!” What emerges is a sharp, “Crap, Tiguan! What the hell is this?”

The tire pressure warning light has engaged. Panicked and in pain, she gets him to the dealer, where a technician is corralled to inspect all four tires. The diagnosis is a computer glitch—a fair assessment, since immediately after the tire incident in 2012, the same light went on, Ter had the same panic attack, and it turned out that the computer needed resetting to acknowledge the new tire. Present day mystery solved—but while the car is here, the part they ordered to fix the oil leak has come in, so can she leave it with them for the day?

What oil leak?

Oh, the one that had been discovered during inspection and supposedly fixed the day before. Apparently the service associate thought the fix had been made, but such was not the case. Ter is really steaming now – she has to interview a new finance clerk in the afternoon so she must get to the office. Hand it to the service staff at the shop—they rallied to take care of her and her leaky little SUV. She got a courtesy car and Tiggy got his oil leak fixed. He was also washed twice in two days; more baths than he’s had all winter.

We’re now in the clear … until his next service appointment in 2015.

I’m only superstitious about hockey games, but this after-service curse is getting ridiculous. In a weird way, and perhaps unwittingly but one never knows, I think Mum might be responsible. Years ago, once Ter and I had agreed to replace our beloved Jules, the time came to tell my parents what we were getting. We knew going in that it could cause a ripple because my folks were kids in Scotland during WW II and Tiggy is ...

... a Volkswagen.

Dad took the news pretty well, but my stalwart-rebel-Scottish-nationalist mother was uncommonly reserved. After a while, she quietly confessed, “My dears, I am sorry, but I remember what the Germans did to us during the war.”

Giving the sentiment due consideration, we bought the VW anyway. Gods bless her, Mum says she’s forgiven us (as if we were ever in danger of being disowned—that’s Dad’s gig), but I suspect that deep inside, whenever she looks at our Tiguan, she winces. Ja, he’s German. He nags like a Nazi and makes you sit up straight. He runs like a military machine and thinks he’s superior to every other car on the road … but he’s our little tank and we love him so, Mum, can you please do something about lifting the hex?