Little Pieces of Canada

I notice as I drive up and back the same 15 minute stretch of highway 99 twenty times a day, that I wave at all other motor coach and bus drivers. It has become so second-nature that I sometimes catch my hand waving at anything that looks big or has clearance lights on it...
Like Hostess truck drivers, for example, or pick up drivers. Even when I was getting a miracle ride home from church today I kept my hand from lifting as every great motor coach sailed by.

I know the road so well that I can practically sleep and drive. But I don't. The coaches seem to get as bored as I sometimes, driving along, they themselves having memorized the route. Only now and again will the routine be broken up by a slow tractor in the way...or a female flagger in a neon yellow reflective jumpsuit...or a snowboarder racing across the road as only a snowboarder can in stiff snowboarding boots...but not by any animals yet. I haven't even seen a piece of road kill here in Canada. They take cleanliness very seriously.

But when I walked out of the metro on Friday when I went down to Vancouver to send off a mitigation letter to plead for innocence in regard to my logbook infraction on day one, I saw a man sitting on the rain-wet ground. His hair was the same color as his face, as his jacket, as his hands, as his sign, that said, "Anything will help." Anything, really? I could think of a few things that might not...but anyway, I thought of one that could have. "I have an apple," I offered. He opened his mouth and I knew.

"I'd take it, but I don't have teeth to eat it!" He smiled. His look was as vacant as his gums. He had laughed about it, but really. That's sad! Can't even eat an apple for how life has neglected his mouth. Wow.

Today I made it to church. A little 5-member branch in Squamish, BC. Today there were about 15 or more people, though, for all the visitors. I brought two others with me, Merilee and Seth, our curious friend. It was a much less dramatic journey to get there this week. We got dropped out of the bus right off the highway (basically tucked and rolled) and then from there it was just a mile walk in a mildly misty air. It was pleasant. And on the way, there was a sign about how to care for your dog on its leash and its poop, and underneath the human part there was this for the dogs:

Dogs: Woof Woof, Bark Bark. (Good Dog).

I laughed and laughed and made Merilee take a picture of it. So she made me get in the picture and I'm sure that looked marvelous...but it was a funny moment. I'll hopefully get that picture soon.

OH! We've walked around the Whistler town a couple times. We hit up the sweet library (that's now closed for the Olympics...and there's a secondary school that's going to close for the whole Olympics, can you believe that?), we strolled the whole area that's marked on the cartoon map as "stroll area" and looked at all the over-priced stores. We walked through one Olympic store that has awesome cool Olympic everything that I can't afford. We walked through the movie theater which really has a speak-easy feel to it. We found a MARVELOUS candy store called The Great Glass Elevator Candy Store. YUM I found a piece of heaven in Whistler. And we got icecream that was delish and not as expensive as the other place that has a great, actual-size COW made of...ceramic? who knows what. But whatever they made it out of must have been expensive, or why else would one scoop of icecream cost $4.95? That's not right. They had creative t-shirts, too. Like "The Jonas Brudders" and "Dairy Potter" etc. Maybe if they laid off the gimmicks people would actually buy their ice cream! cuz it wouldn't cost an arm and an udder.

We saw a lot of people running around in short shorts and long socks with Australian flags for capes. It was Aussi day! That was all we saw, though. That and a whole heap of snow boarders and skiers. Oh, I bought some mittens. They're red and white with little Canada flags on them and Whistler on the wrist. Cute and cuddly, that's what they are.

Okay, that's all that's come to mind here as I sit down. And I'm about to run out of battery. So no pics with this post. But soon!