I don't suppose that people are much interested in listening these days. Sometimes they are, but not often. We are all really struggling just to survive, pay rent, keep a roof over our heads and not get overwhelmed by climate change fear. I'm okay for housing, since I live in a BC Housing apartment where I pay but a pittance for rent, but I think I'm still feeling overwhelmed. I just survived another Remembrance Day, which is all a bunch of tub-thumping patriotic and war-mongering nonsense, and it is so draining having to resist that collective militaristic delusion, feeling zero support from others since almost everyone else is brainwashed, even in church, apart perhaps from our priest, but this kind of passive activism is exhausting.
And, right now in my region, the Greater Vancouver Regional District, we have the threat of a full-out bus strike hanging over us. For me, it isn't going to be that bad, since I walk a lot, am used to walking, and most of my work assignments are reasonably close together and not that far from where I live. However, the union has threatened to go on a full-out strike if they can't reach an agreement by this Friday. They are holding hostage the most vulnerable people, those who rely on transit in our city. That is so wrong, so absolutely wrong! And they can still get away with it. I'm also a union guy, but to everything there is a limit, and when the safety and wellbeing of the poor, weak and vulnerable are up for grabs, then our transit union, and their bosses have overstepped their boundaries.
There are still small things to celebrate. The coffee is good and strong this morning. I hand-brew it these days, for a couple of reasons. The small coffee maker that I bought doesn't make quite enough for two large cups, and I don't feel ready yet to invest in another big coffee maker. So, I have kept the pot and filtre cone from a machine that died a couple of years ago and just do it the old-fashioned way. So, I balance the filtre cone over the pot, and it sort of fits, though at an angle. And I boil the water. Not in an electric kettle, but an old-fashioned model that whistles when it's boiling. measuring the right amount of coffee so that the resulting brew isn't like insipid maiden's water. It's not an exact art, but I seem to be getting better at it.
And I like my old kettle. I bought it second-hand in a store on Main Street in Mt. Pleasant, while hanging out with my step-cousin. She has since passed away, cancer, March 2014. Rest in peace, Lanice. In our blended family you were my only friend. I mean it. We walked over to the Downtown Eastside where I had recently moved into my new apartment, where I would be for four months between the rooming house where I lived from 2000 to 2002, where I now live, and and the apartment I have lived in for the last seventeen years. So, Lanice and I visited in my new apartment (she was my first guest), and we celebrated with a pot of tea, and the water was boiled, of course, in my new second-hand whistling kettle. This morning will be a mixed blessing. I will be walking four miles, largely through a beautiful heritage neighbourhood, Strathcona, into another beautiful heritage neighbourhood, Grandview-Woodlands. Then, once I am done with my client, I can shop for lovely Italian cheese, walk around and absorb the beauty, then sit in a coffee shop with the drawing I am working on of a peacock. Then another brief professional visit with another client.
Life could be worse, it could be a lot worse, and now that the sun is coming out this morning I will cease to complain, at least for five minutes, darlings.
By the way, Gentle reader, you will notice something a little bit different about my blog. I can finally make proper paragraphs again. I think I just needed a couple of years to notice the Compose app. I have always been useless with this kind of technology.
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