Today was undoubtedly the nicest weather I’ve biked to school in since moving to BC (I didn’t have to come to campus last week). It’s like 20 degrees and sunny.
The Dubious Monk
chinese curses since twenty aught two
Tagged with summer …
sun and sea
It’s funny how all my writing on here is about going for walks down to the water. Sorry. You’ll just have to deal with it I guess because this is my first summer in Vancouver and I’m a fan.
This morning I went down to English Bay to do a bit of reading in the sun and went further East than usual where there’s a large inukshuk and benches on a small finger of rock sticking out into the water. Most of the places I’ve been sitting to watch the water are set quite a ways back from the beach, which gives a nice view, but out at this point it sounded like you were at the ocean. There was a woman sitting on one of the benches (apparently) meditating away, and it would be hard to pick a better spot. Other people were slackrope walking and there were teams of dragonboat-ish canoeists out on the water.
I feel a bit of urgency in enjoying all of this because I’m one of those new librarians who can leave the lower mainland to find work. I’ve been applying in places where the ocean will be a dim memory. Even if I manage to stay here, I’ll probably move to a different (cheaper-rent) area, since chances are I won’t be making much money, and the water won’t be right out the door any more.
the days are long and humid
Summer is here. We had a thunderstorm yesterday. It wasn’t super intense or anything but I was glad to have gotten home from work 20 minutes or so before it started. And it stopped raining by the time Holly had to go to work this morning.
The seasons being backward make communication weird sometimes. I have to add in hemispheric qualifiers to any seasonal comment I make. And the idea of Halloween (which wasn’t too big a thing ’round these parts) or upcoming Xmas seems completely outside of reality.
The commercials here still use snow and Santa in overly warm suits, which baffles me. Holly’s been commenting on the sheer profusion of commercials for keeping your home antiseptic. There’s at least one anti-bug chemical ad every commercial break, sometimes a few.
Our place here hasn’t had any terrifying arthropod visitors, which I am exceedingly grateful for. Though we started a compost in our back garden, and our sharemates aren’t big fans, since it may have attracted some rodents. A couple of days ago we put a bin around it and it seems to be stymying them for now. When Holly turned it the other day, there was a good amount of blackness to the mulch.
why I don’t have an office job
Today was beautiful outside. Sunny and warm and I didn’t have anywhere I needed to be. So I went down to the Forks and sat by the river and read and felt like I was in Nanchong. No one was swimming in our river, but I was right near a bridge and the water sure was muddy. Eventually I got a smoothie and ruined the illusion but until then it was all good. Oh, and I wandered through a French bookstore in St. Boniface just to get a bit of that “I’m not at home” feeling.
