May 28, 2010
A pair of black glasses has been found in Campbell River!
How to figure out if they are mes lunettes though? I could ask Superstore if they’ll watch my literary weather forecast on youtube and match them. Or I could boat and drive it back to Campbell River to discover they’re not mine!
There’s a new greasy spoon/rubby caff I need to sample up there… should I continue my tradition of extravagance/expenditure for a plate of egg and chips. Last year I did a research trip to the same spot to visit a particular diner, that turned out to be a bust compared to what I’d remembered of it. The imagination is always better.
Eyesight, however, does not improve with imagination.
Had an exchange with my friend with whom I purchased the his and hers Betty’s specs all those years ago. He was astonished I still had them, noting that actually yes his original pair were still tucked away in the cupboard. I debated trying to go back to Betty when I hit Dublin. Then he updated me on the price of his last pair since he’s gone all Hugo Boss subsequently. I won’t be joining him chez Hugo! Betty had a bunch of original 50’s frames that her father had sold way back in the day. I actually still have those red curvy “extra set of eyebrows” 50’s specs someplace here. A bit of superglue where I snapped them and new lenses may work. Maybe I could bring them back to Betty. She does a fine eyetest, does Betty, even tho’ it’s in another timezone.
There’s also an optician up by Quebec and Broadway who does a great job, but the glasses you need to sell a to a fattened Angus cow to afford.
May 26, 2010
The befuddling prospect of finding a new set of glasses, on a budget that wouldn’t buy a reasonable pair of leg warmers. How I am challenged! To understand exactly which glasses had travelled with me, since I purchased them at Betty’s (Grants) along the Quays near Temple Bar in Dublin and lost them somewhere between Nanaimo, Campbell River and Cortes Island, could be a good start.
Trevor Linden, the hockey man, has a nice set on the advert, but are they made of the lenses I lost in Campbell River Trevor? How come you’ve no real information in that advert! He just puts them on, takes them off, flings his hook and puts them on again. The language of spectacles needs translation for I cannot entirely comprehend it. Progressives, or not? + and – numbers and so on.
Today I tried to demystify the experience at the cheapo ready-made spectacle stand. I was very taken with the styles. A lavender set. Took the eye test. Cannot read the top 3 lines, check the number and put the matching specs on to … some very fuzzy rendition of a line of products in the next aisle so blurred they are a mystery. Down the numbers to the lesser value, same problem. I guess I did not mislay a set of reading glasses.
Back to the Optician route and the cost is that of a plane ticket to Paris practically.
14+ years Betty’s specs and I were united. This is a very costly divorce. Acrimonious. Might have to go back to the Quays to resolve this.
May 24, 2010
Today we remembered a life that was lived fully and bravely, but ended too soon. The small man offered Jean Sibelius on violin to the remembering. A duo of him and Grandma talking about her good friend Anna. Ah music, sometimes it cannot be toppled. And he so solid, so strong, such a whole sound so redolent of that whole life lived I began with.
Conversations with good people full of love and sadness. In a small community. In a remote place. Dear Land of Home.
May 21, 2010
4am rise, few wrong turns, Campbell River, polenta, eggs and pineapple. Violin live and Green Day all the way up the highway. The best egg I ever ate was in Karachi, Pakistan. The last place I ate polenta was NY. All eggs and polenta and roads in and out of rain showers lead to Campbell River.
How come we can’t drive in and out of rain showers in urban spots?
In Mayo there is no in and out with rain. It’s an equal tunnel. Windy too. Ever so windy.
Here we have come to remember someone.
May 21, 2010
Lovely rhapsody created by the wind up behind Nat Bailey Stadium last night. A tick, tick, clang on the flag pole, while the tarp was whipping it up. And a screen broadcast Japanese flag and adverts and green lights out to a completely empty baseball pitch. Are they advertising to the sparrows now? Targeting les nuages, tapping new overhead markets. I seemed to be the only one benefitting up there in the car park. A nice windy look out point during a storm.
May 18, 2010
I think this could be my favourite documentary ever Allen King’s Skid Row. Everything from the pacing, the voices, the wooden streak in it. There’s one shot in particular or series of them that I must go through and isolate. Here it is, completely here
May 17, 2010
Stupidity documentary here – riveting. (Not sure if it’s viewable outside Canada. If not will hunt for links)