Blake and Tracy’s wedding was well worth the trip. The older I get the more I appreciate but unfortunately the less I remember a phrase; “attention must be paid,” from Death of a Salesman. One of the characters makes it in relation to the funeral of Willy Loman. It’s by celebrating the important moments in the lives of friends and family that we give meaning to all human life and recognize that each is worthy of notice. Isn’t it aggravating that just as you get old enough to really understand what great writers mean, you forget much of what you have read?
The morning of the wedding, I went with Caroline to buy planters and plants to beautify the entrance to ‘Grounded’, Gabe and Amir’s coffee house and kitchen, the location of the wedding and reception. It was fun and worthwhile. We got to participate in the preparations for the event. I heard of the horrible remarks Tracy’s mom had made to Amir about the restaurant and was prepared to hate the woman, but she was lovely at the wedding as were we all. When young people are excited, happy and all dressed up, who would dare to darken the scene. The ceremony was brief but meaningful, the music well chosen, the tequila heady and the Mexican food some of the best I’ve ever had. It was a good wedding. On Sunday, Mela and Don had friends over for sushi. It was delicious. I was able to see the Couches and Martins who hadn’t been at the wedding.
Bert met me at the airport in Kelowna, and I had dinner with him and Peggie before driving home to Vernon. The garden had burst into blue. It sounds good but isn’t. The offending plant spreads like a weed and, in the perversity of things, loses appeal by being so easy. I have spent hours removing these blue devils’ roots from their tenacious hold on the corms of irises and roots of roses and peonies. My fingers ache now at the mere memory of them. I have left a very few discrete plants, but am prepared to dig them out at the first sign of spreading. Joyce, a neighbor across the street came over to commiserate. She knew the man who had planted them. She also put them in her garden only to have to uproot them a few years later. I walked to the Vernon Museum and Archives yesterday to find information about the previous owners of the house. It was interesting. I discovered who had owned the property back to 1893, before the three homes that are presently on it were built, obviously. Other than that I’ve spent some aggravating hours trying to get a BC driver’s license. It’s harder to obtain than an Ontario one, which I did just over a year ago. It’s enough to make a person stay put, especially since the eye test came after all the verification of papers and past records. I had been watching the people do the eye test as I waited and thought it would be fine because they looked into stationary binoculars. I knew I could do a two- eye test easily, but when it was my turn, I had a shock. At one point I saw nothing on the yellow field in front of my eyes but a flicker of black. I closed my bad eye and really saw nothing. They had some way of testing one eye at a time. The black flicker was only visible to my bad eye with which I see a lot, but not what’s in the centre of my visual field. I quickly used a trick I’ve developed of looking down. For an instant, I was able to see what was in the middle. I made out much of the line of numbers that was there, but at the end of the test the woman said, “Your right eye’s really weak, eh.” I just said, “Yes”. This was uncharacteristic brevity but the best response when faced with people in authority like license issuers and border patrols. I see very well with both eyes and had no trouble seeing which signs were nearest and farthest away.
Now I’m going to watch the Canucks in the 2nd game of the Stanley Cup final. Tomorrow I rise at 7 and meet the members of the Vernon hiking group for the first time. I don’t know where we’re going and I don’t know who’s going with me but I promise I won’t write a song about it.
No comments:
Post a Comment