I took a walk the other day

I headed north on Spence, turning right into the easement behind Parliament.

Blocked to the north, I turned south.

Then east.

The easement empties into the park behind the swimming pool and skating rink.

Next to my old high school.

My daughter Emmaline joined me for a spell of frisbee.

It's her old high school too.

And we both drive little red cars.

Content

Someone spoke to the traveller today of how any story of Hillsdale has to include a chapter on how the developers got rich.

The traveller grew up in a house purchased for $17,000, built by Reeson, one of _____ Regina builders, on a lot developed by McCallum & Hill on land sold by R.A.Kramer, who bought it from ______, who bought it from ______, and so on back to _______, whose claim for the land was dated _____, from the Canadian government, which invented its title on the land in _______, wiping out land rights of the _____ ______, who claimed the land was part of the earth, was earth. (He'll fill in these blanks later.)

However, says the traveller, we already know who gets rich and what dynamics of power explain where we are. All we have to do is read the street signs: here's Newlands and Anderson, a lieutenant-governor and a premier.

Instead, as if snagged by a tremor of years, the traveller sees himself defined by light and summer green, by whatever he remembers, by what comes to him right now. And the rest of it.

Family Corner

Let's see, it's either get to work or brag about my kids, who are all making room for themselves in this world and laying good stuff on the rest of us.

Just now Emmaline sent this link to a spirit-lifting, global version of "Stand By Me".

Last night, I caught Mixed Improv, a weekly show Lucy has organized downtown at Aegean.

Also last night, Tom's improv collective, Pump Trolley, opened its run at Cottage Bistro on Main in Vancouver.

Inspiring, these three. I'm so lucky.

However,

Dedicated readers of this blog will know that a year or so ago I went on and on about the pigeons. I haven't said much lately, any more than residents who live near a once-toxic airstrip would bother to comment on the spring balloons and gentle kites that now fly there--that's how successful last year's arsenal of prods, random zaps, netting and shovels has been in showing the pigeons who's boss around here.

However, this evening I went down to find the top tube of my bike frame ridged with pigeon shit. It wasn't random pigeon shit either. After careful study, I deciphered the pigeons' shit code this way: thanks for the cool bike frame, asshole.

Borrowing the logic of cold war-era American foreign policy, I upped the armaments, coating the frame with crankcase sludge from a '55 Olds, toxic to pigions (and not, as it turned out, much good when chafed between one's thighs).

So that's one for the pigeons, but just the one.

Home from Emma

Transfer smokey laundry directly from bag seat of car to wash 'n dry in basement of apartment. Done.
Unload car to make room for Queen Anne chair donated to Lucy moving into her apartment.
Done.
Wash bugs, tree sap, road dust off car.
Done.
Consolidate files, print and store new work.
Doing that today.
Pull photos off camera, prepare to display. Here they are.
Doing that today.
Clear sambucawinebeerscothredeyecidervodka from system.
Might take a while.
Stop daydreaming about rowboat, dock, fire, curve of lake, forest floor, companions.
Getting there.
Get on with Hillsdale work.
Starting Thursday.

Textu(re)ality

In Kelowna this weekend I sat at a tractor show for about 8 hours over two days. With only a card table, three chairs, and a display consisting of a stack of books, this laptop looping the images from 14 Tractors, a poster, and a scatter of tractor cards, my footprint at the event was rather small and static. The actual tractors, on the other hand, were rather large, colourful, loud and full of motion.

The booke more or less about tractors was no match for the moment full of tractors, but I had fun.

Word

Got word of an online publication I'm in, got word:

Nerve

Yesterday I tested out the Traveller figure on a bike ride through Hillsdale, checking out what was going on a half hour before game 2 of the Stanley Cup finals.

A police officer named Stanley would be Stanley Cop, wouldn't he?