HAPPY VICTORIA DAY!

בס"ד


Blogging in the garden while the coconut curry simmers...

I watched the parade this morning on CH. I really miss going to it every year ever since I moved to Vancouver, so the telly will have to do. Joel & I marked our 11th anniversary of probably seeing each other for the first time, as '94 was the first year he marched in the parade with his high school band & I never missed a second of the festivities...

The party started with "Captain George" Forest at the head. He's the official greeter of Victoria, & he & I used to work next door to each other years ago when I was a tobacconist here. He was a good guy.

Good ol' Gordy Tupper, one of CH's beloved personalities, gets the prize for making the most hilarious accidental comment of the parade: as he spotted the Ocean River Sports float featuring multiple kayakers suspended above the street paddling the air, he enthusiastically exclaimed, "These guys think they're passing water, but they're not!"

& of course, no parade would be complete without shriners on scooters! Actually, my favourite is the pennyfarthing riders :)

I took off this afternoon to enjoy the holiday Monday, which I never do. I'm usually so busy being Jewish that I don't partake in or even recognise "normal" Canadian goings-on. It was a gorgeous day today, too, & I deserve to not work occasionally. I'd make a bad Israeli, as I can only take only 1 day off a week for so long...

Anyway, I strolled up to one of my fave used bookstores, Kestrel, & browsed to my heart's content. I picked up a copy of one of the best books ever written, IMHO, The Piano Man's Daughter by Timothy Findley. My friend Melissa invited me to a reading of his at UVic the year it was published & I remember sitting in the dark so enraptured by the way he threaded his voice through his words.

Several years later, when I was homesick for Canada after living in Israel for almost a year, I used to frequent a particular net-café in the Russian Compound of Yerushalayim. it was Canadian-owned & operated, with all the employees & performers being "Canoe Jews". It was awesome. I could spend an evening there enjoying a folk singer from Calgary or a day there working the web to tunes by Sarah McLachlan, the Barenaked Ladies, Moxy Fruvous or Crash Test Dummies. It almost felt like home...

...so one day I was chatting with one of the girls who worked the counter there, & she handed me a book. "Do you want this?", she asked, "'Cause I'm finished reading it & it was really good." It was The Piano Man's Daughter.

"Really good" was an understatement.

Each night I turned in with this novel, falling asleep before I could put it down. It was such an enchanting read, that by the time I was only 20 pages into it's 500 leaves, I was already dreading the time when I would finish reading it, & then I would no longer have this nighttime companion. I felt sad.

Fast forward 7 years & I have bought myself a softcover of it, with a newer cover illustration (I preferred the flaming piano on the original) & settled myself down in the nearest park. I sat on a large stone, people-watched, & dove back into this story until it was time for me to return home & cook dinner.

Fortified, I floated home on the neighbourhood scent of barbeques & beer.