Friends!

My new car makes me feel as though I’m driving in a hotel room.

I did some shopping and then had a good long nap before idling the rest of my day away. However, I baked some cookies with which to spoil myself today and tonight with my friends. I also spent a lot of time watching Sheba and treating her; she has lost another pad off her foot. I reckon she chews them off when a sliver or a burrowing seed gets into it, poor baby.

Although I didn’t get up terribly early yesterday, had a good nap and did little, I was exhausted at six pm. I had to force myself to stay awake until seven, when I got into bed to read a New Yorker. My reading lasted about fifteen minutes, and then it was lights out and had a good long sleep.

I was up shortly after four this morning and got right to work ‘cleaning’ a pound of huge juicy Prawns. I’m excited about a new recipe I’m following to make Prawn risotto that begins with cooking the heads, tails and shells. Once they’re cooked, I’ll be straining out the body bits and using the sauce as the base for the dish.

Then I de-leafed about twenty-five Brussel Sprouts. They are one of my favourite vegetables. I’ll be frying some Shallots and then the leaves and lots of Pistachios and serving it as a side dish. For a salad, I’m making one with dried tomatoes, radish and capers following a recipe by mt favourite chef: Yotam Otolenghi.

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What a nice break: The sky is clear and fill of bright inspiring stars. We’re in for two days of nice weather and I look forward to tidying up the shed now that I’ve burned a lot of the wood that was in there. It also means the ground will stay dry and that’ll make caring for Sheba’s sore foot much easier for me to husband.

Tonight, is my dinner with three wonderful friends, Jay, Eoin and François. E&F are a couple I met though our dogs and Jay is the brother of a dear friend, and former neighbour, Kelly. My entire experience with them is here on Gabriola; the same, of course, is true of my dog walking friends, Di, Judith and Regina.

These wonderful people are God-sent; with all our community events cancelled and friends from Vancouver unable to travel, they really enrich my life.

Yay National Theatre @ Home

Tuesday morning, I was tight as a drum. I was virtually mute and had a rough time “settling” with Kevin and at the dealership. Yesterday morning, I was back to fluency with my fellow dog walkers. Everything was back to normal—except for the dead bird I found in the hallway. How did that happen?

Driving to and from the dog walk and the store was joyous. The seat in my new car has me much higher off the ground; getting in and out is phenomenally easier. And it heats up! And it’s sooooo smoooooth.

I did my shopping and came home to work on the floors in my dining room and kitchen. The floors needed some TLC and I installed new pads on the bottoms of all my chair legs. Then another dog walk, a lovely spa in spectacular sunshine, fabulous forest perfume and birdsong before dinner and bed.

Late in the afternoon, fog settled on us like a roosting brood hen. I watched it descend, creating a beautiful but eerie atmosphere in the forest. I added a large freshly chopped half-log to the fire and felt nice and warm and cozy. It feels so good 

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Woo fucking hoo! I’ve subscribed to National Theatre at Home (NAT) and I now can stream magnificently filmed presentations of their stage productions. NAT offered several productions free on YouTube when the pandemic began and all I saw were extraordinary (I’m not a Shakespeare fan remember); their production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream is now one of my favourite plays that I’ve ever seen staged! 

The streaming service is seventeen dollars a month or a hundred and seventy-three per year. I started with a monthly membership to see if the catalogue changes each month, and I began watching American in Paris … and weeping. Perfect theatrical artistry absolutely stupefies me. I am rendered helpless. 

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Prior to my breakdown, I never had a feeling about a day. Every day felt the same. I’d have emotional reactions to events of the day, but not about the day itself. But I do now.

I get up in the morning and attend to all my essential chores: feeding the pets, lighting the fire, cleaning and tidying the kitchen and litter box, making the bed. Then I get my two pieces of toast and my drink, and I sit down at my computer. And I write.

I write emails, my post, an essay or I’ll work on an unfinished essay from my past, and if I want to have some fun, I’ll do a writing exercise. I wrote for hours just like I always have, but now no money comes in.

It’s when I sit down to write, that I experience the first pause of the day. No duty demands my concentration and I can ponder a subject for my post. That turns me inward for inspiration, and my firsts consciousness is of how I feel: joy/excitement is always when I feel on a sunny day; a common feeling on any day is contentment. Some days, I’m overwhelmed by anxiety/tension.

The miracle is that my feeling is never negative; I’m never depressed unless life delivers something that warrants it. 

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I’ve a little more shopping to do today; the rest of the day I’ll be cleaning up in the yard and shed and chopping some wood. It’s lovely, clear and bright right now, but I do see distant clouds approaching. The fire is high.

Pollen

Success!

It was a blessing for me, that it was spectacularly sunny yesterday. Sunshine makes me so happy, I’m certain it improves my potential for fluency. I left to buy a car with Kevin optimistically. We got to the ferry line up early and before we were due to load, I went searching for Tom, the tow truck driver, and my car and removed all my personal items.

Tom told me what Bev at the automotive shop wouldn’t: The Fiat engine was shot. The oil pump broke, all the oil leaked out of the car and the engine seized. Value of Fiat: $0.00.

I had the ferry ride to adapt to the financial shock. I owe Kevin dearly for staying with me through the process and helping me. He had the dealership fix the brake linings, noticing in a long report that they had not been addressed.  

The car more than meets my needs. I absolutely love it. It’s much smoother on the road than the Fiat, it’s powerful, warm and f’en huge. It’s going to be a fabulous camper, and driving it is easy—I loved taking my first drive in it on such a gorgeous day. 

I can easily play my own music, it has (fabulous) heated bucket leather seats—seven of them; it’s my first car with a rear-view screen, all the door windows have pull-up sunscreens and doors can be opened automatically by the remote—I can even start and heat the car before I get into it.  Do-dads!

I left the dealership at two, after three hours of doing all the paperwork, getting the breaks fixed and buying insurance. And when I got to the ferry, it had just begun unloading, so I was quickly on board and home at three.

There’s a new car in the driveway.

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I arose, bright eyed, at three this morning. If I can’t sleep, I get up, do chores, and go back to bed if I want later in the morning. But I’m full of energy and wrote all morning until it was time to go to meet my friends and their dogs to walk in the Elder Cedar forest.

Today I shop for stuff for my dinner party for four on Friday night. They’re people I trust, still I wrote to them yesterday to ensure we all felt safe and ethical getting together—whatever that means. I actually suggested we shouldn’t meet, but they are keen and our knowledge of no positive tests so far on the island, gives us confidence (plus I am on antiretroviral medications).

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I was actually both excited and nervous about driving my new car to the dog walk this morning. I was excited about driving my palace on wheels but part of me was nervous it would explode. My confidence is automobiles has taken a major hit; I’ll need some time and experience in my new vehicle to regain it.

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Below are my first photos on my new camera. I am taking them using the “automatic” settings as I’ve not yet learned how to manually select exposure options. I took these when I walked from home to the village the other day but only learned how to download the images this morning. You can see how nice and clean GALTT keeps out trails! (I'm a member but not yet a volunteer.)

New Car Day

The Fiat engine repair is a serious problem. The inability of the local automotive shop to deal with complex problems with my car, was the spark I needed to take action. 

I can live on Gabriola and never go to the big island, very comfortably. The only essential off-island services are government offices and medical specialists/the local hospital. I don’t want a car that can’t be easily serviced here. So rather than go through all the hassle of getting the engine fixed now and the body work done later so that I can resell it, I decided to change cars.

I have a deep inborn dread of and car salesmen—and I mean sales men (not women). And I can’t sell something privately; the calls and visits of strangers is absolute anathema to me. I become mute and I lose motor control of my arms, hands and face. The same thing happens with car salesmen.

When I saw the chance to trade in the Fiat, even in poor condition, and get a new (used) car, better suited to my lifestyle, the simplicity of the solution was irresistible regardless of the cost.

I’m going to miss my Fiat. I loved how the entire roof opened up for Summer rides, the great heater and Bose sound system. And I loved having a fire engine red little European car. But I’m already excited about having a vehicle far more appropriate for my lifestyle here on Gabriola—and, the prospect of having a camper that Sheba and I can sleep within on Summer adventures.

Steve and I had a camper. I talked to him yesterday and we really enjoyed recalling our “vanning” trips together. I can hardly wait to go visit Victoria this summer—assuming the virus recedes—and spend a weekend in the car visiting friends and sleeping in it overnight.

In the end, I’m really excited about the future with this car, even though it’s black. Dana’s told me I can put all my favourite music on a memory stick and play it in this new car, and it has, he says, a powerful motor. And … heated seatsand plenty of other doodads.

I’m off with Kevin to the dealership at nine this morning. I hope all goes as planned and that I’m soon back with the new car. What a great way to start what has always been, for me, the Month of Disappointments!