Where Canada Ends

On leaving Vancouver.  We checked in for the flight, and checked in one piece of luggage. We were hoping to go to one of the nicer (before-security) restaurants at that point, but no. Once you check your bag in, you must follow it.

So we went through security, and then something very strange happened. We went through customs.  We were welcomed back into these United States. Yes, before we ever left the ground, a giant “Welcome to the USA” sign greeted us in Customs.  When you get to the customs person, s/he scans your tag and pulls up an image of your bag.  If you waltz in 50 minutes after your bag is checked, the system has difficulty finding the image of your bag—this is why we had to follow the bag (or so we were told).

You know I wanted to take a photo of the ‘Welcome to the USA sign’ but I wasn’t fast enough to sneak a shot.  I even asked if I could take one.  Hahahahahaha.

Then I wondered:  If a pregnant woman gives birth after going through Customs, is the baby an American citizen?

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Here’s a lovely bit of Canadian graffiti:

This was right outside the Diesel store on Robson Street.  A few days after I took this, the sign was still there but the graffiti was gone.

Air Travel

I like traveling by air. It’s quick. You can leave one world and get plopped in another in a relatively short amount of time. We left the big city (Vancouver, BC) for a quick trip to Tofino on the west coast of Vancouver Island.

No bothersome security checks, no crying babies with embarrassed, frustrated parents. Just a whole lot of great scenery.

Meet Max, our pilot. This guy has job satisfaction in the high 90th percentile. Max loves to fly.

Max has a slight French accent that gives him a definite ooh-la-la factor.

Flying over Vancouver Island means going through the mountains. Here’s a bit of what we saw:

Très bon.

Around Town: Vancouver, BC

Retail Therapy: BC Liquor in Vancouver

In an effort to observe the locals in their natural habitat, I went to the ribbon cutting at the new BC Liquor store at Alberni and Bute in Vancouver (link to store here).

A few days ago, one of the checkers told that they’d be having a ribbon cutting. When I arrived and saw everyone there in business attire, I realized that his mentioning this event did not equal an invitation for yours truly.

Are you here for the opening? My wide-eyed look of ‘oh-gosh-I-don’t-belong-here-but-there-might-be-free-samples’ was not missed by the guy at the door, but he let me in anyway.

Marketing cracks me up.

In moderation, of course.

There was the usual speechifying, but the formalities were brief. In fact, the guy pictured above was the only one who spoke. It was refreshing to be at an event where one guy covered the whole agenda in under 15 minutes, and there was no need for every mucky-muck to get her/his two-cents in.

On average, bottles of wine are at least $5.00-7.00 more in Canada (not enough difference between the CD and the USD to quibble about which dollar).  Moving south of the border, even Two Buck Chuck is $3.00 in Trader Joe’s located in Oregon (not sure about Washington).  Dear State of California, if you really need to raise some cold hard cash quickly, I say slap some taxes on alcohol (like you’ve done with cigarettes).

Widgeon Slough, British Columbia

Some Scouty goodness for your viewing pleasure:

Widgeon (rhymes with pidgeon) Slough (pron: slew), British Columbia.

Hahamongna: You Cannot Be Serious

The majority of recent housing development in Pasadena has been about getting people into high-density structures near public transportation. Take the Del Mar Gold Line station, for example. If you draw a half-mile circle around the Del Mar station, you’ll see how much new (and pricey) housing has sprouted up within walking distance.

I suggest that Pasadena uses the same logic when it comes to building soccer fields. Let’s put them in neighborhoods where people can walk or bike to them. Let’s make soccer fields accessible to families who may not have a car for every driving-aged person in the house.

The field at the north side of John Muir High School has been used for soccer for a long time. Why not develop that into something permanent? What about other schools? Other sites nearer to where people live?

Taking a relatively pristine natural area, an area contiguous with the Angeles National Forest, and paving it over with a parking lot to serve a soccer field makes no sense. The area is a natural watershed—let’s keep it that way.

Did you know that JPL is a Superfund site? Here’s the web site. They are working with the City of Pasadena to build a treatment plant “to help restore lost water resources to that community and to help remove groundwater chemicals originating at the site of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.” This is yet another reason to keep the Hahamongna watershed free of any further development.

Read more from my compatriots. I’ve tried to include links to the relevant posts:

Altadena Above It All – Cha cha cha!

Altadena Hiker – Let It Be

A Thinking Stomach – Something Precious

East of Allen – Keep It Natural

Finnegan Begin Again – Hahamongna Watershed Park

LA Creek Freak

Mendolonium – Hahamongna

Mr. Earl’s Musings – Words will not be minced!

My Life with Tommy – Hahamongna: Wisdom & Gift

Pasadena Adjacent – Hahamongna

Pasadena Daily Photo – Hahamongna Blog Day

Pasadena Latina

SaveHahamongna.org

Selvege – Hahamongna Blog Day

The Sky Is Big In Pasadena – Hahamongna Blog Day

Webster’s Fine Stationers Web Blog – Hahamongna Heartache

Vancouver, BC

They’re a tidy lot, these Canadians.

Or are they? Yesterday, I saw a couple of drivers flick their cigarette butts into the street. At Locarno Beach, I saw plenty of cig butts in the sand.

The inscrutable Canadian. Certainly not American, and not British or French either. The Canadian identity seems wound up in not being The Other. What happens if you stab a Canadian? Does maple syrup come out?

I’ve been here five days. So far, I can’t say anything definitive about Canada that I couldn’t have said after my first visit to Vancouver 30 years ago.

Well, maybe one thing. Wine is very expensive here—even the bad stuff.

Queen Elizabeth II’s face is on the Canadian $20 dollar bill. Canada is not simply a member of the Commonwealth, it is a ‘Commonwealth Realm,’ meaning that QEII is the monarch, or, more officially, “Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom, Canada and Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith.” Australia’s version of this is much the same with ‘Australia’ in the place of ‘Canada’ and the God bits taken out.

What would it be like to be born in a country so influenced by other countries? What’s it like to end up in a tradition-laden culture without being sure exactly what came from where, all the while trying to craft something new and whole out of the composite parts?

What is this place like for all the immigrants who have been here for generations, and for those who just arrived? What’s all this like for the indigenous people who were here in the first place?

Vancouver is a very multi-cultural place. I’ve heard at least four different languages on the street (five if you count the English I couldn’t understand until the third sentence). In the Canada Day parade, there were pipers in full Scottish regalia, a group of Bollywood dancers, a Korean contingent, more dancers (this time Chinese), and a group of Croatians. All proud of their heritage, and all fully Canadian.

There was a time in my early twenties when I wanted to be Canadian. After spending 6 years in England, I didn’t feel American enough to want to live in the US, but I knew I wasn’t English enough to stay in the UK long-term. Canada, land of the red leafed flag, appealed to me as a little of both countries and a lot of je ne sais quoi.

It still does.

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Thoughts from a Canadian blogger about being Canadian here.

The Drawer

I am cleaning out The Drawer That Never Gets Cleaned Out. Some things I’ve found:

–My ex-husband’s address book from the early 80′s (and mine too)

–A certificate of congratulations from the Young American Bowling Alliance recognizing my then-7-year-old son on his high game (80) and high series (200) (November 11, 1991)

–At least twelve key chains (I quit counting), including one that is a brass replica of a ticket to Phantom of the Opera

–My TWA Frequent Flight Bonus Program Member card (Not Transferable)

–A tiny vial labeled Smoke Bomb Oil

–The instruction booklet for a pager

–The key to a car I haven’t had since 1997

–More return address labels than I’ll probably ever use

–A booklet from Pacific Bell that includes instructions for a rotary phone

–Four bookmarks with sayings on them: 1) Love is sharing your book. 2) This book very good, but this bookmark DELICIOUS! (with a picture of Cookie Monster). 3) When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping. 4) I finally got it all together…but I forgot where I put it.

–A little plastic thingy that connects a cable to VHF/UHF thingys on a TV

–A Home Depot card with a receipt showing a store credit of $123.63 (12/10/03)

–Gummy bear earrings (discolored, disfigured)

–The key chain I used in junior high and high school, which has a green frog on one side and a mirror on the other

–Lip gloss, Dr. Pepper flavor

–A piece of 8.5 x 11 paper folded four times with a tiny pencil drawing of a stick figure on the outside and the word “INTEGUMENTARY” written twice on the inside

–Keys and locks—some actually go together

–A laminated picture of Katherine Harris on a chain that says: “Conspiracy Theory #359: W. is Katherine Harris in disguise. Think about it.”

–The broken off arm of a bowling trophy (the arm that has the ball in it)

Sifting through stuff = Sifting through memories = Sifting through places and stages of life and people = Sifting through ideas and identity.

I didn’t expect that cleaning out this drawer would lead to the Zombie Resurrection of Memories, but it did.  I was progressing nicely.  Several items were already in the garbage.  Then I got the urge to make a list, which I knew would become this blog post.  Then I had to take a photo, so I asked The Scout for the black velvet background and drafted him to assist with composition.  Then I dug through the trash and found the Smoke Bomb Oil.

Why the Smoke Bomb Oil?  Because I miss my boys.  They are men now, and I am fortunate enough to see them from time to time.  But I miss my boys, and I have dreams about them as little kids.  Can I blame this on hormones?

Some years back, my dad told me several times that he missed me as a little girl.  I didn’t appreciate him saying that to me.  I’m still here, Pop, right in front of you! But now I know what he means.

I parted with the Smoke Bomb Oil, but not with the button with the baseball kid, or the bowling certificate.  I regret to say I couldn’t throw out the bowling arm either…not until it is reunited with the rest of the trophy (which I still have).

One drawer down…the rest of the house to go.

Darwin, California

People live here, but we didn’t see any.

I imagine if you live in Darwin, you are very thankful for Netflix.

Time to get up and move around:

We were so in phase in our dance hall days
We were cool on craze.
When I
You and everyone we knew could believe

Do and share in what was true.

–Wang Chung, Dance Hall Days

Darwin Dance Hall is one of the buildings yet to be vacated by Elvis.

This area was home to the Timbasha Shoshone (their website), displaced when Pres. Hoover hoovered up their land to create Death Valley National Monument.  The Timbasha Shoshone tribe received recognition by the US Government in 1983.  The Timbasha Shoshone Homeland Act was ratified in 2000: you can read about it here.  Hats off to those who have fought the federal government (for decades!) to get (a fraction) what belongs to them.

This guy is smiling on Darwin, though he’d probably be as surprised as any of us to find himself there.

There were many hunks of rusting metal in Darwin.  Why, if there were a war on you’d think that they’d need this metal.  I guess we’re either not in that kind of war, or not in that kind of metal market, or both.

You can just hear the echoing ping of target practice.

Once again, Trader Joe’s is your friend

With apologies to those of you who don’t have the access you’d like to have to a Joe’s. You know how you go to Trader Joe’s and they have the food demonstration thingy and most of the time it isn’t that great?  Oh, it’s not exactly terrible, but it isn’t very often that I get inspired to go home and make the same thing.  In fact, when I tasted this pasta salad in the store, I was underwhelmed.  But I decided to give it a go, because who doesn’t need more arugula in their life?  Or rocket, as our friends in the UK like to call it.