small world

Life goes on in Vernon, and I am there.  But lately I’ve been struck by how interconnected the whole world is.  I met Misoon again this Thursday at Tim Horton’s.  We had a good time together for two hours, a woman from Korea who for various reasons has lived in Canada for seven years and a Canadian woman who wants to learn Korean because she will be visiting her son there in May.  I think we will be able to help each other a lot.  Her English is better than my Korean, but she still needs help with it and with some details of life in Vernon.  I am moving like a snail without slime in my attempt to learn Korean, but I think I will know a bit by May.  I’ve had three other connections with the wider world in the last couple of months.   When I attempted to get map updates for the TomTom I bought, I called the company.  I ended up talking for about half an hour to a woman in Guadalajara, Mexico.  We spoke a bit in Spanish.  A week or so later, I discovered that the plane tickets to Korea that I had bought on Expedia back in August were no longer listed on my ‘itinerary’ at expedia.ca.  It took almost an hour and a half to settle this by phone.  In the course of the conversation, I introduced myself and asked the man I was talking with what his name was and where he was.  He was Fadi in Cairo, Egypt.  It took a while, but he was able to get my tickets straightened out, an Egyptian organizing the air tickets for a Canadian going to Korea.  The latest small world story involves my glasses.  Almost a month ago, I had my eyes checked and decided to get the new lenses put into my old frames.  I really like them because they are so light that they never slip down my nose, even when my face is dripping in sweat, as it often is now that I’m hanging around with the Vernon Outdoors Club.  The optometrist agreed because they are very good German frames.  After two weeks of waiting, I hadn’t been called to pick them up. I phoned the optometrist.  That’s when I discovered that they had been sent to Thailand where the lenses are made.  The factory in Bangkok wasn’t able to fill the order because of the floods and was sending them back.  Now they are being sent to Germany, the only other place in the world that makes these special lenses.  So, I’m wearing glasses that are about eight years old and squinting to watch the news on tv, hoping that the German economy doesn’t tank like the rest of Europe’s economies and that I will have my glasses before I drive to Victoria for Christmas.  We are interconnected and interdependent.  And it takes a lot longer to get a pair of glasses than it used to.  But I can communicate with family and friends in a way that still amazes me, even if I can’t see them and couldn’t even if they were here.

Sun., Nov.20, 2011

I propose a change to the old expression, “ It you want something done, ask a busy person.”  I suggest that if you want real action you ask a Korean.  Tammy, the Korean woman I met at Mo’s dinner last Sat., contacted her friend June in Kelowna who phoned her friend Misoon in Vernon, who called me on Tuesday about getting together.  We met at 2:30pm on Thursday, at the carwash that Misoon and her husband own on 25^th Ave., went to a nearby Tim Horton’s and had our first lesson.  I think it’s going to be wonderful.  Both Misoon and her husband were teachers in Korea; they came to Canada eight years ago.  In that time, they have moved around and done a lot.  The best part is that both Misoon and I know a bit about language learning and will be able to help each other.  I could tell by the comments she made in our first meeting that she has an ear for my mistakes and is able to make helpful suggestions.  She even gave me 2 sites to go to.  I’ve gone to one so far, and after downloading some free software, I’ve been able to work on a couple of lessons with sound.  I still think that Korean will be a big struggle, but now I’m much more keen to give it a try.  If one has to use it or lose it, I certainly prefer learning a language to doing puzzles or playing Bridge as a way of keeping my mind alive.  Also, I’m eager to go to Korea to see Jay and that’s a good enough reason to make an effort to learn Korean.  I think I’ll be able to help her too.  She is much more advanced in English than I am in Korean, but even in our first meeting I was able to suggest a couple of things and she was happy to think about them. 

Last Sunday night I went to the Okanagan Symphony Orchestra’s presentation of Mozart’s ‘Requiem’.  I didn’t decide to go until the day before, but was able to get a ticket near the front and centre because I only needed one seat.  The soloists were good and the orchestra and chorus were very good.  Beginning and ending with music of eternal rest and light, it passed from wrath and doom, through grace and mercy.  I felt drained by the end, and thought of Jim often.  Yesterday I went with Priscilla and a friend of hers to see Philip Glass’s opera, ‘Satyagraha’, live from the Met at the Vernon Cinema.  It was a much more spare experience.  The music was chant-like, repetitive, and ultimately very moving.  Satyagraha is Sanskrit for the power or the force of truth.  The concept behind the opera was based on the ancient Hindu epic, the Bhagavad-Gita, much more cyclical than the Christian.  Gandhi’s early life and work in South Africa was presented as if he had been one of the great persons who appear throughout human history to help lead people out of their misery.  What gave the production its creative exhilaration was the combination of the music with the sets and stage work, which were breathtaking.  The final act was less moving than the first two, but the experience as a whole was well worth it.  I’m entering the cultural stage of my Vernon experience.

 After the opera, I walked to the rec. centre to vote in the municipal elections.  I had tried to find out something of the candidates, but I ended up depending heavily on the advice of a woman who knows the community well and whose judgment I trust.  I woke up this morning to discover that my candidate for mayor had beaten the incumbent and that all the people I chose for council had won, so I guess my acquaintance had her finger on the pulse of the community. 

I went cross-country skiing twice this week.  The first time, I went alone and began as I always begin things, by thinking that I don’t really want to do it.  Getting started was the usual season-opening fiasco.  It took me ages to find my gear, put some of it on, get the rest into the car and decide which wax to use.  As it was, I had the wrong wax, but the woman who was running the lunch counter and shop helped me with the trail map, so I headed out slipping but not gripping.  Just as I got to the opening of the trail, I met Colin, the soul of the Vernon Outdoors Club, and his group of friends.  He took my picture with them and then I started out, still slipping and going slowly but feeling less lost.  By the time I had finished the short and easy trail, I was red cheeked and glad I had done it.  The next time, I went with Marie who showed me a good run.  Next week I’ll have to go through the whole rigmarole again when downhill begins.

Skiing at Sovereign Lake 

Cathy with her grand daughter Cleo on the ferry to Victoria

Marley with her niece Cleo at Lindsay and Matti's

Dad with his great grand daughter Cleo 

Mom with her great grand daughter Cleo

They can't be skiing

On Thursday morning I went for a walk along the Grey Canal with Marie and Osito.  It was a fine fall day, but I was stopped in my tracks when the former mentioned that she and George were going to go cross-country skiing in the afternoon.  I was prepared for winter to come but not for it to be here.  But it is.  Sovereign Lake Nordic Centre opened on Thursday.  I still am not ready to actually drive up into the snow and start the season.  I’ve never before lived in a place where you can drive 20 min. from fall to winter.  I need to be in the white stuff before I get the urge to play in it.  So I have spent the rest of the week in fall mode, picking up my newly edged and waxed downhill skis, raking and bagging leaves, going to a fall fair, getting my hair cut and finally in a last desperate effort to postpone the inevitable, cleaning and weatherproofing every piece of winter footwear I own.  I’m running out of stalls, but there are still a few leaves on the maple and of course I have to use my cheap pass to the rec. centre, which is only good for the month of November, and I’m going to help Bert gather the last of the walnuts from his tree on Tuesday and then I’ll have to crack and bag my share.  Realistically, I don’t think I’ll be able to get on the snow until next Thursday. 

I swam 3 times last week, but I can’t get past 30 laps; my friend Mo and her husband do 80.  They’ve been swimming a lot for about 5 years, but I don’t know if I’ll ever get to that.  I’m too keen on the sauna.  The one in the rec. centre is very good, but as they say about the only down side of Paris being that it’s full of Parisians, so with the Vernon sauna; it’s full of Vernonites.  They’re fine people, but the gang in there around 12:30 is full of truisms which they give voice to at high volume.  Fortunately they can’t take the heat for as long as I can, and when they leave, I stretch out, assume some yoga positions, and approach meditation as nearly as I ever do.

We finished our last training session at Immigrant Services this Thursday night, and I should get my student in a week or so.  I discovered when a video section of the class revealed a technical problem that a young man in the class knows a lot about such things.  He fixed the situation, and I asked him as we were leaving if he could come to my place and hook up the Bose sound system, which Jim and I bought with the big t.v. but I had not been able to use.  He dropped by a few days later and connected it in about 20 min.  He didn’t want any money, but I insisted he take at least $20.00.  He’s just out of college and hoping to get some kind of work and volunteer teaching ESL this winter so he can travel and teach English next year.

Last night I went to my first dinner at a friend’s house since I’ve been in Vernon.  Mo and John had 6 people over including a Korean friend of theirs who was visiting them from Edmonton.  I practiced my feeble Korean with her, and she said that she might be able to put me in touch with a Korean woman who lives in Vernon and could be interested in a Korean/English lesson exchange.

Tonight I’m going to hear Mozart’s ‘Requiem’ at the Vernon Performing Art’s Centre.  No snow there.

Fall

Now we are into November, the month of the long nights.  On Saturday I read a good article in the ‘Globe’ about how the myth of Levesque’s and Quebec’s betrayal on the night of Nov. 4, 1981, The Night of the Long Knives, persists among certain Quebecers.  It made me remember the picture I have of Jim with Jay in a pack on his back on Parliament Hill on the day we went to see the Queen and Trudeau sign the papers for the repatriation of the Constitution with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.  That was a good day in our lives and for Canada too, I think.

Last night we fell back to standard time and gained an hour, which I appreciated because I went to the Vernon Jazz Club with Mo, a friend, and her husband, John.  We listened to the music of the Sean Cronin Quartet featuring Bruno Hubert.  They were great, a bass, a clarinet, drums and Bruno on piano.  Mo and I talked with Bruno during one intermission.  He must be about 40, but it’s hard to tell because his curly hair is everywhere.  He’s a shy, strange dude who plays jazz piano like a genius.  I asked him about the club’s piano, which didn’t look that hot and he laughed.  He’d played on it about 5 or 6 years ago and actually liked it, but it was out of tune when he tested it yesterday.  However, he can tune a piano, so he did and really enjoyed playing it again.  If you ever get a chance to hear the group or Bruno play, take it.

Hallowe’en on 26^th Street was fun.  I had more kids than we ever got in Wakefield, and they were all cute and well costumed.  One tall couple of high school students dressed in black came collecting food for the food bank. I just sat by the front window reading, watching the street and handing out candies and cans from 6 until 8:30 and then it was over.  Tuesday, I had an ultrasound on my shoulder, which showed that I’ve severed 21/2 of the 4 tendons in the rotator cuff.  I got flu and pneumonia shots on Wednesday, so the centre of the week was spent on maintenance.  I felt like an old car that spends more time being fixed in the garage than driving on the road. 

Fall hit the horse chestnut in the back yard in one blow.  The leaves were just beginning to turn yellow when the temperature dropped to -5 on Wed. night.  I awoke on Thurs. morning to see the ground covered with leaves and more dropping heavily from the tree.  They’re huge and you can almost hear them clunk as they land.  I’m going to leave most of them, but even at that, I spent some time today bagging the ones on the sidewalk, garage roof and parking area.  It was a bright cold day, perfect for such work.  The enormous maple is still holding on to its green leaves.

I will end this entry on a sad note.  Albert’s mom died this morning.  She went slowly but painlessly, and the whole family was around her in her final days.  She never liked to be alone and rarely was.  

Hallowe'en on 26th Street