Rent-a-cops

We were biking along the seawall and had stopped at Sunset beach on a bench to enjoy the view as we always do. A lady and man cop were walking by which is unusual. Doug joked with them and said 'what? didn't they even give you bikes to use to patrol?' and they smiled and said no.

Then the lady cop came back and said 'heh, have you seen a 12 yr old girl on a purple bike? She is lost and we are with her mom and dad. They're from out of town.' We said no, we hadn't but would keep an eye out. She said good and if we saw her, please call 911 cuz they were frantic with worry and we said yes, we could well imagine. We sat there and commented that we really hadn't seen many kids on bikes today just a few little ones but no 12 yr sized.

And then, about 5 mins later, Doug pokes me and says 'HEH' as a girl on a purple bike rode by. The 'HEH' startled her and I jumped up and said 'are you lost?' and she looked stunned and said 'I'm not sure'. I said 'are you from out of town?' and she said yes. I said 'how old are you?' and she said '12'. I said, well, the policeman are looking for you with your mom and dad and pointed down the seawall. She just started to shake, from relief I guess, and so Doug said to me to stay with her and he biked down to find the police.

While waiting, I asked her her name and told her mine and suggested she sit down as she must have been quite frightened. She said she was and said she had been on her bike and they had been walking/jogging. They told her that if they got separated, she was to just sit on a bench and wait for them. She said she'd been sitting and waiting on many benches and they never came. She was from Portland.

Soon Doug came back and said to her 'do you have an Obama Tshirt on?' which I thought was an odd ? but the girl unzipped her jacket and there it was! then police, on foot, came a few minutes later. The lady cop yelled 'what's your name?' and she answered 'Amelia' and she radioed that in. and also asked to see the Obama Tshirt. So then the cop whips out their little black book and takes our names, birthdates, address and phone number! Amelia said to me while we were waiting for Doug and the cops to come back, 'thank you SO MUCH' for stopping her.

Poor kid...dumb parents.

In the Passing Lane of Life.....

Something unexpected has happened to me....suddenly, I am TOO busy to write in my blog about "Life in the Slow Lane"....who knew????

Last week we were lounging about the hot tub on the cedar deck overlooking the water on Salt Spring Island, then after a 'mini cruise' across the pond courtesy of BC Ferries, we celebrated Mother's Day with family. A quick trip back to the condo to do several loads of laundry, air out the suitcases and then repack for another house sitting trek out to the suburbs of Coquitlam.


No lounging during this gig...in fact the books never got opened we were so busy. I did some serious purging of paperwork, stuff, old stuff and really old stuff. Imagine my surprise to find, hidden in the antique buffet top drawer the following:

• 6 calculators
• 12 wooden rulers!!!!
• 2 three hole punches
  3 staplers
• 4 boxes of staples
• 4 boxes of paper clips
• 5 cameras...1 digital and 4 film including 2 extra lenses, 2 flash units and a timer cord
• 4 cellphones and about 12 charger cords
• 6 picture frames....one actually had a picture in it
• Over 200 black and photos ranging in size from 1x1 inch to 8x10. It would appear that everyone I have known who has died managed to send me all their photos moments before they died. Some have notes on them such as 'Ray and Ollie'.....I know who Ray is (my dad) ..but who is Ollie? And I guess my dad's mom was proud of his new bride as a photo of my parents cuddling in front of a 1943 ?Packard has my grandmother's handwriting saying 'Son Ray and his lovely wife'. A 8x10 photo shows about 100 handsome men in uniform where each of their faces is about the size of the end of a pencil eraser. On the back, my dad has written a note to his dad: "I'm the third one from the right on the top row...in case you've forgotten what I look like!" I brought the photos home tol sort through and scan selected ones into the computer to save...some day.
• a dozen golf balls
• My house budget books from 1996-2004. In 1996 I have written under the column for $$ for gas purchases 'gas price war--gas is 39cents/L'...WOW...those were the days.
  

Once all the paperwork was sorted through, THEN I got to sit down for 8 hrs at least and shred all the delicate information so that the neighbours won't go through my trash and see how foolish I was to hang onto my Nortel shares and ride them all the way down to the bottom! Oopps, hopefully they don't read my blog either!

Other tasks I accomplished was to go through my 200+ CDs and keep the ones I like and box up the ones I don't...including the dreaded 'ABBA Greatest Hits'...am I the only one who doesn't like them?? I took the excess ones (yes, ABBA too) and the now empty CD faux wooden holders to the church thrift store for their annual garage sale. Come Saturday, I'm sure someone will yell 'Heh! Look over here what I found! Some one has thrown out a perfectly good CD of ABBA!'...well, dancing queen THIS is all I can say.


Ok, buffet drawer clean--check.
CDs done and gone--check

Now out to the garden for two full days of chopping of daff and tulip heads, pulling up slimy...what WAS that dead plant? things, weeding, lawn edging (thanks Doug), more weeding, pruned rose brushes, set up the bird baths and their drippers (discovered I had 'pruned' the rubber hose to the bird bath so had an emergency repair to do), pruned the rhodos...ok, it was more like a serious hair cut judging by the four full garbage cans and huge pile of prunings, ....

....and then, just because there were still day light left, brushed the dog and gave her a bath...which then meant cleaning both bathrooms that I used to wash her and blow dry her AND then clean up where I had brushed her.


Left fresh flowers on the kitchen table for the daughter as she was returning home on her first wedding anniversary after a weekend away with hubby. I was exhausted but the house was tidy, the yard looked great, the dog smelled clean and the kids have 6 calculators they didn't know about! They thanked us profusely so I know it was worth it....


..and that dear friends...is Life in the Slow Lane???

If it's Tuesday, it must be Belgium....no, wait...that was LAST week!

I think I have become a gypsy....I travel from place to place and live basically out of a suitcase. Ok so maybe I don't wear big bangly earrings or tell fortunes using a crystal ball but I do know how to play the tambourine.

We moved back into the False Creek condo and immediately got back into the swing of life in the city. Tennis lessons, yoga classes, dinners out, bike rides, walks, wandering through art galleries then bragging about it all to others who are, in our opinion, less fortunate. You know the ones...those that don't live 'downtown'.

My cousin spent a few hours with us on the weekend and she fell in love with 'our life'. In fact, she wants our life. Even my mother has told Doug that if I should ever mistreat him, then she knows an 87 yr old woman who will step into my shoes in a heart beat!

But back to the 'call of the suitcase'. After a mere one week sitting in the hall closet, out came the suitcases and we were back on the road. This time to spend a few days in Salt Spring Island dog and house sitting. Now before you feel too sorry for us...the dog is a pampered poodle and the house is a gorgeous home overlooking the water.

If I HAVE to sit in a big comfy chair and read my book sipping wine, then I guess this is a good place to do it!

Snapshot from our trip

Back from our big trip over the pond to visit Holland (the Netherlands to be more correct) and Belgium. Both countries sport great chocolate, beer, French fries with mayo and very very old buildings. And don’t forget the water…lots and lots of water. As one tour guide put it, the Dutch live, and die, by the words ‘Pumping or drowning’…there are no other choices.

The children learn to swim, ride a bike, sail and skate in order to survive living 7 ft below sea level. And oh, the bikes….everywhere there were bikes whizzing by, parked in huge parkades or locked to lamp posts, bike stands, whatever. The Europeans are so much more advanced IMHO about transportation…they have dedicated SAFE bike lanes where bikes pass each other to and fro with the same rules of the road as on the motorways. They don’t wear helmets, smoke too much and yet seem very fit. Odd to see businessmen in suits with briefcases, women in skirts and heels often with children sitting in wheelbarrow type attachments to the front of the bikes, housewives with shopping and all on bikes.

The rivers are full of barges transporting all sorts of goods pushed or pulled or all-in-one units where the workman lives on board and keeps his car or two cars in some cases on his roof top. When he arrives at his cargo’s destination, a crane moves the car off and he’s ready to go. Skinny trolley buses skim up and down at ground level to quickly move people around. Canal boats act as’ hop on, hop off’ tour boats. People live on barges and house boats in the canals but we were told this is very expensive with costs commonly $400,000 Euros to purchase.

Because much of Holland was damaged during the bombing of WWII, some new buildings, especially in Rotterdam, are very unusual to say the least. Creative energy abounds. And yet, the Dutch embrace their past and continue to honour Anne Frank’s memory by maintaining her house as a museum. The crowds, mostly young adults, line up daily to see where Anne spent two years of her life in hiding. The buildings in Holland and Belgium not uncommonly sport dates as early as ‘1601’ proudly displaced above the doors.

And oh, the doors are magnificent. Shiny lacquer paint with elaborate door knockers or decorations look inviting. The Dutch crave light due to 2/3 of the year being rainy and grey so their homes contain many large windows to let all the light in. They shy away from drapes and are proud to have their homes, inside and out, on display. Many put beautiful vases with flowers or pottery on the window sills for display. The Belgians however love lace and so use their windows to put on a showy display. If not lace curtains, then lace patterns hang in the window panes much like stained glass panels.

The homes and buildings in both countries were mostly constructed of brick ranging in color from yellow to red to brown. Cobble stoned roads and narrow streets added to the charm and to think that horses hooves and wheeled wagons, hundreds of years worth of common folk and soldiers having marched over them was mind numbing. The vastness of the history was sometimes overwhelming..these countries had buildings and history dating easily back 500 years. Here in the ‘New World’ as they call it, if a house is 85 years old it is called a ‘Heritage House’ and a plaque is erected.

The people are proud and somewhat reserved but eager to help. English is spoken widely but in the smaller towns it was a bit of a struggle to be understood in some places. Pointing to menu or bar items resulted in us ordering 3 very odd beers in Dordrecht, Holland but still we enjoyed them outdoors in the open market on Good Friday.

Travelling the world opens up your eyes to the beauty and flaws in our own part of the world It is always educational to see how others solve problems that we all share whether it is recycling (which they vigorously do…containers on city streets to help sort, right on the spot, garbage into paper, glass or cans instead of just one big garbage can), transportation, flood control or infrastructure construction.

Europe may be the ‘Old World’ but they can sure teach the ‘New Kids on the Block’ a thing or too.

The Good, The Bad and the oh so UGLY..

Since we last 'met', we have jetted to and fro from the 'old country'..over the pond the refer to us over here as being in the New World....more to follow about what we did and saw but for now, here is what is foremost in my memory....the trip back...fasten your seat belts...this is gonna get bumpy!

Just to let you know that we did indeed arrive home and safely....the last part was iffy for a while thanks to our driver (thanks Uniworld for that) who spoke no English and drove like he was on the German Autobahn...we did the drive to the airport in 30 mins flat (we were told it would take an hour)! Doug had the unfortunate position of riding shotgun so got to see all the action (I could tell by how he was hanging onto the handle from the ceiling that he was a tad nervous) and fortunately I couldn't actually see out the front of the van but I could see how fast we were passing other vehicles...including the ambulance in the tunnel which had it's siren blaring and lights flashing!!!!!!!!!!! No one, and I mean NO ONE, was going to be in front of this lunatic.

Then we arr'd at the airport, he pulls into some weird underground lot where clearly he had a free pass and let us off at the hotel and rental car place...convenient for the Quebec couple who were actually staying at the hotel and renting a car but not so for the other 4 of us. So in broken English he grunts and points the way to the inside of the building and grunts and points some more to the elevator to go up to Departures. He comes with us in the elevator, the doors open, he grunts and points to the TV monitors and leaves!

We managed to find Row 7 and apparently KLM is partners with Air France (who knew) so we eventually found our check in counter. 'Go to Gate A60' she says after tagging the luggage. She didn't say that A60 was a good mile away by foot (or so it seemed). When we finally found the A Gates and up a set of escalators to find a nice big sign 'A 1-39' but nothing about higher gates. Asked a very bored looking gal in the perfume shop where they might be and she points to yet another set of escalators to go up another floor. Oh good, now we see the sign...can't be much farther to go.....wrong....thank god for the moving side walks as it still took us another 15 mins to walk.

Arrive with about 20 mins to spare for the 1:00pm when we were told to 'be at the gate'....now in the US and Canada that means 'be within ear shot of the gate cuz about 20 mins after that time we'll start to announce loading'. Not so in Belgium....we discovered this when, at 12:55 I decide to go for 'one last bathroom break' and come back to find them boarding the frickin' plane!!! Doug waiting patiently...sort of....at the very end of the line...we were the last to board..except for the lady in the wheelchair....oops.

Now we had a very tight connection in Schiphol...the minimum allowed is 50 mins and we had 65 mins so we knew we had to hustle. We had our connecting boarding passes and knew what gate it was and how to get there...'turn right soon as you get off plane'. We were glad when the doors of the plane closed early and the captain announced we'd be leaving a few minutes early...woo hoo. Then some old lady who had been on the plane probably since 1:00 while I was in the bathroom, sits bolt upright and in some odd language is waving her hands all panicky. Others jump in to help translate and it turns out she just know remembers she's left her bag in the lounge! Oh give me a break! She wants to bolt off the plane and make a run for it but the stewardesses say that is not allowed so they phone and we wait...and wait....and wait....and wait...ok, now we are 5 mins past when we should've been up in the air and our connecting time is getting smaller and smaller.....and wait....finally a hand appears with a very large bag (how in god's name could you possibly forget something that large??) and they bring it to her and close the door...ok, so much for all that screening shit....they could've been handing lord knows what to her....

Finally we are off and up...juice thrown at us, cookie tossed our way and bang we've landed....ok, looking good...ahead of schedule....this is gonna be ok. Dash off the plane and what do we find....a staircase....leading us down to the friggin tarmac to get on a bus! Wait...., wait...., wait...finally everyone (ok, don't know about the wheelchair lady..maybe she's still sitting on the plane) got on and we drive to I'm guessing the terminal.

Now we have no idea where we are as 'turn right when you get off' doesn't apply anymore. Follow the signs to E2, up stairs, escalators, turnn right turn left and boom, run smack into a swarm of people lining up to go thru some imaginary 'border' they have created. Queue up (apparently the Dutch like to queue up...it's a national sport along with soccer...) to show, yet again, our passport and our boarding pass for the upteemth time, and then practically sprinting to our E2 gate...the boarding pass says be there at 1425 but I'm real sure that is a misprint cuz why on earth would you need to be at the gate at 1425 when the flight doesn't leave till 1540...a full one hour and 15 mins early?

Well, once again, wrongo bucko . We arrive to yet another very very long....queue....damn Dutch....and we slowly, very slowly inch our way forward to .....yup, show our passport and boarding pass AGAIN!!!! The only relief was when a young couple we met at the airport going over appeared from the throngs of people with big smiles on their faces and say 'NO WAY! It's the nice couple we met in the Vancouver airport 10 days ago!' (they were about 25 and on their way to Spain to see her sister...we think she was pregnant but I digress).

Anyhoo, back to us...ok, I can see the whites of the eyes of the Middle Eastern custom agent and the only thing stopping us from squirting thru the opening to freedom was....a very old and in my opinion, very suspicious looking East Indian couple who...guess what 'forgot to sign their passports'....hmmm, sounds suspicious to me! I say pull them out, give them a body cavity search and let's get this show on the road....but no, the custom agent says 'sign your passport just like it is here on the picture'. So the lady does and then the agent holds up the passport photo beside her face to carefully look and compare. He does the same, very slowly, with the man. Now if you ask me (and forgive me if this is politically incorrect) but don't they all sort of look the same??? She was in full sari with bangles and bobbles so it was a close call IMHO. Anyhoo, they apparently passed the sophisticated Homeland Security visual check. I was wearing my glasses and no makeup and I seemed to be able to pass for my photo which was taken after my hair had been done and makeup carefully applied so go figure. Doug of course looked exactly like his photo....has for the past 20 years.

We make it thru that queue and end up in yet another FRIGGIN queue to go thru another metal detector and xray thingy. Doug had his belt off more times than on our honeymoon :). But of course, we end up behind the East Indian couple who have to take off all the jewellery and bangly things and he had crap in his pockets etc etc and they don't like it when you budge in front in those security line ups looking all frustrated and in a hurry. So I could hear Doug going 'JEEZZZZZZ' under his breath but we pass thru unscathed (in Brussels, they searched MY hand luggage and carefully looked at all the chocolate...wonder how much they just steal....).

Course now the lounge which had minimal seats to begin with is now full. We squeeze in two seats and our bums are not down for more than 5 mins (I know cuz I was trying to figure out if there was time for another bathroom break and luckily chose not to go or I think Doug would've left me) and they start loading the plane! Yes, it took that long to get thru all those damn checks.

Now, this is interesting...there was a lady on the cruise with the 'Jane Goodall' look...safari hat, matching vest and skirt, hiking boots, long black braid and a flowery cane? Well she was on our flight as she is from here too and she was keeping up with us and all our bolting and running from gate to gate, plane to plane ...every time we turned around, she was right behind and kept up with us all the way. So imagine our surprise when they are loading those with babies and 'needing assistance' when she LIMPS UP to the front of the line really working that cane angle! Doug says to me 'Ok, NOW I don't trust her!' (she had no change to tip the maniac driver so bummed some euros off Doug and said she'd pay him back in Canadian dollars. Doug, being the gentleman, said 'don't worry about it'...and so, she didn't..worry or pay him back).

About 600 people got on the plane, or so it seemed, as we sat on the tarmac and it got hotter and hotter inside. And there were no less than 8 screaming, crying babies on board...one immediately behind us...sitting on Grandma's lap, kicking Doug's seat. Imagine how pleased the man, not travelling with them, was being squeezed into the window seat! Somehow, magically, the stewardesses found another seat for him so 'the baby could stretch out'...heh, I paid $1200 for my seat and this brat gets it for free!??? So now the kid has enough room to really work up a kicking frenzy. Course Grandma is cooing and going 'now Emma...don't kick the seat or the nice man won't like it'. Then Grandma says 'Emma? Did you just wipe your nose on Grandma's sweater?' Well, apparently Emma had indeed wiped her nose as both grandma and Emma had freakin horrible colds and they both coughed and sneezed and coughed and coughed to the point where I thought Grandma had spit up a lung. I fashioned a 'sneeze guard' by wrapping my sweater over the head rests to 'seal off' the space between my and Doug's seat so that hopefully the sweater stopped the germs from flying straight thru the space and into our faces. The kicking and pushing continued against Doug's seat as well as the hacking and coughing (somehow, the 'Nose Picker' looked pretty good by comparison...even the 'Horker' didn't sound this bad...more about them in a later blog entry) and Doug had had it...all the more subtle approaches like him going 'Oh for...sake' and 'JEEZZZZZ; didn't work so he unbuckled the belt and got up and spoke directly to Grandma 'LOOK...you have got to stop that'. Pitt Bull Mama says 'look SIR...if you have a problem with babies then maybe...' but Doug cut her off and said 'I Don't have a problem with babies but I do have a problem with her kicking my seat! and if it continues I will ask the stewardess to move you'. The mama said 'oh yeah right..like they will move US before moving you!'..in any case, the kicking stopped. But not the whaling and crying from the kid and Grandma coughing all nite long...it was a very very very long 9 hrs and 20 mins...we know cuz we watched on the flight tracker and it moved down terribly slowly. Doug watched 3 movies.

Oh, and just to top things off....KLM is promoting Africa this month so all flights leaving Amsterdam feature African food and wine...yum yum..so after not eating since breakfast they serve us some crap that I don't even recognize. I ate the bun and the couscous salad and drank two bottles of South African wine (which I have been boycotting ever since Mandella was jailed) and two bailey's!

It was good to see the son-in-law at the airport. We made it to 830 pm then hit the sack and slept for 12 hrs. Today however, we are up and it's 4:30..or it was when I started this rant.

On the Road again....

We hit the road again to make the trek north and did 1800 miles in 5 days. But that is not the whole story...in 5 days we ate at McD's 5 times, filled the gas tank 5 times, supped at Quizzno's and Pizza Hut, hit the casino in Laughlin, Nevada and power shopped at the outlet mall in Oregon so paid no tax!

We saw weird rock formations, rolling hills, hundreds of windmills in California, acres and acres of vineyards, solar collector 'farms', cows, horses, sheep, llamas and one dead deer. The quietest part of the drive was cutting over from the 99 to I5 in California going through farm land and Wasco. The busiest part of the drive was driving with all the lunatics through Seattle and that was at 10:30 am....god forbid what it must be like during rush hour!

We had one special dinner out in Redding, Calif at 'Rivers' on the Sacramento River to celebrate Doug's birthday.

In direct contrast, the next night we had 'happy hour' in the Super 8 with dindin at Quizzno's after our power shop at the Woodburn Outlet mall. We sure know how to mix it up.

'Home' safe and sound in BC now where we will be busy with appointments, unpacking, repacking before hopping on a plane to Amsterdam on Sat.....so much for 'Life in the SLOW lane'!

Wild Kingdom

'Working hard at taking it easy' is my mantra here in 'Life in the Slow Lane'. And boy, have I been busy.

Friends were down here visiting from the Great Frozen North aka BC during a heat wave at the beginning of March. One place we visited with them was Boyce Thompson Arboretum to walk through the wild flowers...and giant carpenter bees, geckos and wild turkeys.

The tour included being told all the proper names and nicknames for the flora and I took many pictures. And no, I did NOT take a picture of the 'Blue Dick'.

THIS is an African Daisy.>>>>>>>>

We took a trip to Palm Springs to celebrate my birthday and I got to try out my golf game. As you will recall, I have had 3...count 'em....3 golf lessons hitting a whiffle ball. I thought I did rather well as I didn't hit any water hazards, sand traps, windows or buildings.

I did however hit one duck and one sister-in-law. .......

Both survived.

Both declined to have their pictures published here.

And finally, this week we joined a group of friends for a massive crab feast.

Now you just know that when you mix sunshine, friends, wine, appies, comfy chairs, wine, lots and lots of crab and....more wine that a good time was had by all. Well, all except the crabs!!!!!

And yes, a ham sandwich would've been quicker but it was well worth all the work of getting those teeny tiny morsels of crab meat out of the crab. I'm still full.