I have to admit that winter in Vernon isn’t bad. I’ve been determined not to sing the ‘god’s country’ refrain as so many of the people from the prairies and Ontario who have recently moved here do, but it is wonderful to live in a city that has relatively mild weather, little snow and no freezing rain, and yet be able to drive for 25 minutes into mountains that are white with deep snow and ski conditions that are excellent. I finally got back to cross country skiing this Monday, and on Thursday and Saturday, downhilled in the best powder I’ve skied in since Jim and I were in Utah. It hasn’t always been sunny, but the visibility is good and the powder so soft that even I, who have been skiing carefully this season because I don’t want to do any more damage to my right shoulder, am not afraid of falling. I am, of course, staying on intermediate hills. And to think, they don’t even have snowmaking equipment at Silver Star. I met my 2nd SSASS student on Thursday, an 8 year old boy named Rhees. He also has autism, but unlike Shea, really wants to learn to ski because his dad is a good skier. He was fun to be with. He kept repeating as we went up the magic carpet, “ I can’t believe how excited I am!” He’s as distracted, unfocused and full of his own imaginative stories as Shea is but once he’s heading down the hill, he keeps his eyes on his instructor and does exactly what she does. It’s a joy to see how perfectly he copies movements even though he was telling ‘knock knock’ jokes the whole time I was trying to explain to him what we were going to do. I also prefer to learn by doing and imitating those who are more advanced than I am; I just make a better pretense of listening to the theory. Again this week, we didn’t get Shea beyond walking up and down hills and through the village in her ski boots, but she was less upset by the effort and blowing snow than last week and promised that she would ski in her next class.
Coming down from skiing makes me think of carwashes because the only downside of skiing here is driving on the heavily sanded roads that make your car look as if it belongs to a yahoo off roader in one trip. So my friend Mi-Sun and her husband are making money owning a car wash. But it’s hard work. This Friday she looked really tired and was. They had about 3 problems with water and drainage at their place this week and after spending hundreds, they still weren’t resolved. They are working hard for the money they are making. But they must be making money. This week as we got into our cars at the end of class, I noticed for the first time that hers is a new BMW. I am inclined to leap to conclusions based on little evidence, but this observation of an Oriental person in a BMW or Mercedes has contributed to my developing generalization that Occidentals buy cars made in the Orient and Orientals buy cars made in Germany. I drive a Mazda.
I saw a very good movie, ‘Le Havre’, on Monday. The writer and director is a Finnish man, Aki Kaurismaki. It’s the story of how a group of people who live and work in the port of Le Havre helps a young African boy who has escaped from a cargo container and wants to join his mother in England. In spite of the limited dialogue, the people are eloquent and humane, the mood is low key but with humor and suspense as well. Although it was set in France, the mood was Finnish. It reminded me of the Helsinki section of Jim Jarmusch’s film, ‘A Night on Earth’; Jim and I thought that was the best part of that movie. I googled Aki Kaurismaki and discovered that Jim Jarmusch had a cameo in one of his early movies, ‘Leningrad Cowboys Go America’. It sounds as if it would be really funny, in a Finnish way.
Last night I met a friend, Jane, at the Vernon Jazz Club to listen to an Okanagan group called ‘Offramp Jazz Sextet.’ They were really good, especially the pianist and percussionist. The latter did something called beat boxing, a kind of vocal percussion, as a lead into ‘It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing’. It was amazing, and as he did it the other band members came up on stage one at a time, piano, sax, clarinet, bass and singer until they were really giving ‘er. Now I’m enjoying a quiet Sunday. It’s quite warm, about 4, so I think I’ll go for a walk when I finish this.
Snow on the deck at 8:00 this morning. It's all melted now.
My little retirement man in the snow this morning.
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