This was a week of paying taxes, getting my hair cut, working in the garden, getting a new dining room table and chairs, learning where and for whom to vote and watching the Royal Wedding. The taxes involved emails, phone calls, faxes and money. I ran around a bit, but Dave did the tedious work, as he has for many years, and I’m grateful for that. I got to know a very helpful printer in Vernon in the process. Every little job gets me more into the community. I had my hair cut by a Brit who was recommended by Linda who organizes the Vernon Library annual book sale, and has done for the last 20 years. I have been working as one of her volunteers and this week will log many hours as a cashier at the sale. She was looking for cashiers; apparently there are arguments about how much the books are worth sometimes. I’ll find out. My haircut is fine but nothing to rave about. I knew that would be the case as soon as I saw him. He was round, plain and middle aged. The fact that he mentioned his Venezuelan wife gave me a moment’s hope for some style, but no such luck. But then I’m never satisfied with my haircuts; I can’t understand why hairdressers can’t make me look as I imagine I could.
I watched the wedding of William and Kate live. I had set the PVR, but as I awoke at around 3:00am to go to the bathroom, I turned on the TV to see what was happening. People were entering Westminster Abby, and I stayed to watch. I enjoyed it and even took a picture of a picture that amused me. It’s of two very plain Anglican nuns who sat together near the alter throughout the ceremony. They presented a perfect contrast with the outfits, hats and ‘fascinators’ of the other guests. I missed Andrew and Fergie’s daughter’s, but Ina told me to Google ‘ Royal Wedding 2011 hats,’ to see them. I did and saw a wonderful video with music of many of the amazing headpieces, but those two were among the most extreme.
I’m back to extreme gardening. I’ve put in many hours of hard labor this week, digging up irises that haven’t been moved, I think, since the house was built in 1934. The corms are huge and heavy and matted with roots of grass and weeds to such and extent that I have to break them with a spade and rip them with all the strength I have in my hands. The straw colored mats of roots reminded me of Elton John’s hair as I remembered it from the wedding, but when I looked him up on Google later, his hair didn’t look as wild as I had remembered it. There’s a very good gardener on the radio here who calls his spade Elvis because it was originally a type called The King of Spades, which he shortened to The King and finally Elvis. He’s had it for 20 years. His gardening advice is very practical, and I intend to listen to him whenever I can. My job is far from done, but tomorrow I will have the luxury of watching others dig and plant the cedar hedge that will go between my house and my neighbor’s.
Tomorrow, we vote. I have watched CBC, listened to Vernon radio, read the local paper and ‘The Globe and Mail’ and consulted the sites that Albert and Caroline sent me. I’m ready to vote for Jack. I read that when asked, most Quebecers don’t mention the name of the candidate in their riding or the NDP, they just say, ‘I’m voting for Jack.’ I toyed with the idea of voting Green because the candidate here either is or has the same name as a boy who went to FWCI when I did and the Green Party did better than the Liberals in my riding of Okanagan-Shuswap in the last election, but thought better of it when I went on one of the sites and saw that in the last poll the NDP was very close to the incumbent Conservative. So in my anybody-but-Harper mood, I’ll vote NDP, even though I have reservations. Blah, blah, blah. No government’s perfect, but at least we can vote and bitch about it afterwards, as we pay our taxes and disagree about how they are spent and who evades them.
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