A new career? Already?

So.  Since we last spoke, I had "the boys" over for bridge.  Tom hadn't been over since the renovations, so I got to "qvell" yet again.  (Bonus points for those of you who know what "qvell" means.)  So, sushi and bridge, and enough fun so that no one (that would be me) remembered to take pictures.

On Friday, a new adventure.  Neighbor Joan is on her second career as a tour director (following a successful stint at the airlines).  She asked me to join her on a Vancouver city tour.  Those of you who have known me for a while may (or may not) know that I actually worked as a tour guide in a prior life.  Back in San Francisco in the early 80's, I was feeling bored and at loose ends, and decided to do tour guiding, both to learn more about SF and to keep up my language skills (I was doing this in Spanish and German).  I actually quite liked it.  So, as I am once again feeling bored and at loose ends, I jumped at the chance to do it again.

It did not disappoint.  We picked up out group of 31 (Aussies) from the cruise ship terminal, and loaded them on the bus, and off we went (I should say that Joan had provided me with an itinerary and some appropriate patter in advance, so I wasn't completely unprepared.)

It was one of those glorious, warm, sunny days in Vancouver, so, after a drive through downtown, we headed for Stanley Park...

...making several stops, including this one at Prospect Point.  Here, our erstwhile leader Joan and intrepid bus driver David (I have trouble managing a car in Vancouver these days - how he managed to so maneuver that behemoth of a bus I don't know)...

..... and pointed out the Lions Gate Bridge....

There are some things you can say, of course, and some things you can't.  You can say that the bridge was designed by the same fellow - Joseph Strauss - who designed the Golden Gate Bridge.  You can say that it was financed by the Guiness people, because they owned a big chunk of land on the other side - now West Vancouver and noone would buy it unless there was a way to get there.  You CAN'T  say that British Properties, as it was later named, wouldn't - by covenant - sell to the Jews until after World War II.  (In one of the ultimate ironies, of course, it is now in large part populated by Chinese....) 

Then, after driving through Kitsilano and Kerrisdale, we landed in Queen Elizabeth Park...

.....and then to the airport, for their 14 hour flight home.

Joan let me do a bit of patter - and answer some questions - myself.  I have to tell you, I had a great time.  I don't, generally speaking, like Aussies all that well - too loud and beery for me - but this was a great group.  It was easy to be gracious to them, and I enjoyed showing off Vancouver.  I could do this again - and may get my chance.  Joan is putting me in touch with several outfits who use independent guides, for either single or multiple day outings, both here and Alberta (think Banff and Lake Louise.)  The pay is not bad either, and it will keep me off the streets.  I am hugely excited, and hope it pans out...

Having left our group at the airport, Joan and I took the Skytrain home, seeing this creature on the way...

One of the nicest parts of the day was the opportunity to get to know Joan better.  Turns out we have lots in common - including a mutual friend in Palm Springs - and a similar Weltanschaung.  Perhaps the beginning of being able to wean myself off using my office colleagues as a substitute for real friends?  Here's hoping.

I was exhausted at the end of the day, though - standing for two and a half hours at the cruise terminal was enough to do me in, not to mention the walking during the rest of the day, so I took Saturday off.  Sunday, I was back to walking, though.  There are four buildings and some town houses in my complex; that is my building on the right....

.......caught one of our many egrets taking a bath....

.....and the new family on the block settling in....

Beautiful place, no?

So, I promised you a review of The Immortalist.  After a slow start - so slow I almost gave up - I got into is.  I won't give it an unconditional review - a bit too predictable for me - but not a bad read.
As for D'Souza's The Big Lie, well, I think I mentioned that I got it by accident, thinking it was an anti-Trump screed. (It is pretty hard to read the subtitles when you are buying audible books on your phone...)  It turned out to be just the opposite, basically accusing  - pretty plausibly, I have to say - the Democrats of being the fascists in the picture, being the "big state knows best for you" people (as the fascists were) rather than the republicans.  As a piece of right wing propaganda, I actually found it pretty convincing.  Scary, really, but I am happy to have read it - or should I say, listened to it?

So, off to other things.  I just started listening to Fahrenheit 451.  I read it years ago, of course, but was reminded of it by a UTube clip I came across on Facebook (a place where I spend very little time - except for playing Scrabble).  It showed a comedian on the streets asking young people to name a book - any book.  The humour was in the fact that they couldn't.  I, however, did not find it at all funny, and am beginning to think I should start memorizing my book for posterity.  Ah, but which book, you might ask?  I am taking suggestions.....

(You might remember that last year I was re-reading 1984, which appeared on the best-seller lists after Trump's election.  That is another classic that deserves another re-read by us all....)

On a lighter note, my bedtime reading is currently "The Novel Habits of Happiness", another Alexander McCall Smith offering,  This was is the latest in the Isabel Dalhousie series.  So far, yet another thumbs up.

So many books, so little time....

Happily Busy Again

Happily, it has not been too hard to fill up my dance card (I've been catching myself recently using allusions which no one under 60 would recognize - like "dance card".  But you guys knew what I meant, didn't you?)

On Wednesday last, John booked me for a trip to the library, a walk in Central Park (no, not the one in New York, the one in Burnaby, right near the library), a short detour to see Dennis's new apartment, and, of course, a meal. 

You can tell it is a city walk when one of the "peek-a-boo" views is of the Sky Treain....

...lots of old growth stuff too, though....

Dennis was happy to show off his new place.  These guys have known each other since before high school, and I am grateful that they have now included me in their circle.

We had a nice lunch at Minoa's, Dennis's "go-to" neighborhood restaurant in Burnaby, the suburb immediately to the East of Vancouver).  Vancouver used to be awash in Greek restaurants.  Not so much anymore (now it's Asian restaurants of all stripes, of couse), and I'm glad to add this one to my repertoire; it is family run, atmospheric, has good food, and on top of that, it is cheap.  We will no doubt go again.

Back to the routine of bridge twice a week with Alex.  We are not doing too well in the winning department, but are still having a good time.

Thursday last brought dinner with my law school friends Robin and Debbie....

We only manage to do this three or four times a year, so have lots to talk about when we do.  (Not too bad for three old broads, huh?)

I had committed to Alex to playing in the bridge Sectional in New Westminster....

.....and there he is, organized, as usual.....

One of the nice things about these "do's" (aside from the bridge playing, of course), is seeing old acquaintances again.....

...including Bruce, below, one of erstwhile tournament directors....

....and old fiend Tom, seen on many previous occasions in these pages...

The daily (or almost daily) walks continue, and there seems to be a new family in the neighborhood....

Monday went on another "Met in the Movies" outing with friend Jack, to see Luisa Miller.  He had actually seen it before, but was kind enough to agree to see it again.  Truth of the matter is that it was not one of Verdi's better efforts - it was an early opera, and is rarely performed - and the plot was a bit convoluted even for an opera.  But the voices were lovely (as previously noted, New York - and San Francisco, and, for that matter, Vancouver - are awash with Russian artists - Putin's loss is our gain), and there were at least a few glorious arias, not to mention the infamous Placido Domingo singing the baritone role.  We left about half way through the second act, and called it a day.

I seem to be seeing a lot of Dennis and John recently.  On Tuesday (cheap movie day, of course), we went to see Deadpool 2, a send-up of the Marvel comic superheroes.  Most of you, being more up on popular culture than I am, no doubt saw the first one, and are more up on the superheroes.  Even without thosebenefits (I did get a running commentary - a bit like the Coles Notes version of the comics - from John),  I actually quite liked it, much to my shock and horror.  It was quite funny, the dialogue was snappy, there was a moral underpinning, and yes, I even liked the special effects.  Thumbs up!

I don't have too many evening outings, really, but this week I had two.  A neighbor in my complex, Karen, had invited me to play "kitchen bridge" with her group before, and we had a reprise on Tuesday evening.  It was fun, all right, but I have to admit that I miss the "kick" of playing for masterpoints.  

We had a bit of kerfluffle on the way home, though.  Having picked up Karen's dog from her son's place, we discovered that he (the dog, not the son) had been fed some grapes.  Panic ensued, as grapes are apparently deadly to a dog's liver (who knew?).  So instead of coming home, we went to the pet emergency room, to induce vomiting and put the dog on inter-venous to flush out its liver.  One hesitates to think how much this must cost,but Karen dotes on that dog and would be heartbroken it it died, so.....

And finally, bridge at Duplicate Lite (hate the name, love the club) in Surrey, B.C. with Dennis.  I was really honoured when he suggested it some time ago, as, although he is without question the best bridge player I know, he has not played in the clubs for years - decades, actually.  Anyway, off we went.  A bit of bother getting there - the club's premises are being renovated and I had never been to the temporary location before - but it was worth it.  Everyone was excited about seeing me again, which is always heartening.  More to the point, though, it was good bridge - and we came in first in our section and 4th overall in the room (around 28 tables, I think).

Yeah for us!! 

Head to include a picture of the director...

He has an unpronounceable last name, but everyone calls him "Happy Ed" because he is so good-natured.  (Actually, the saying is that all the directors have the last name of Please, as in "Director, Please" when you call them over to the table for a ruling.)

We called John to join us for a celebratory drink at the Deutches Haus, a neighborhood German restaurant previously mentioned in these pages. 

Well, I'm off to get on with my day (as you can see by the time of this post, I had one of my all-too-frequent bad nights, and have been up since four, doing pictures and bringing you guys up do date).  So, a few last odds and ends.

The quote of the week:

Tyrannies seem to be on the march; this may reflect a yearning for something outside ourselves, something to relieve us of the burden of fashioning our own plotline out of the thin air of our lives, or of sorting out the competing stories that increasingly are falling on us like a poisoned rain.  Our narrative engines may not be up to the task of making sense of our yearnings...

...and the book round-up of the week:

Alexander McColl Smith, The House of Unexpected Sisters, the latest in the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series.  I love this man's books, all of them.  They are charming and gentle and have lots of little lessons for living a better life.

John MacLachan Gray, The White Angel.  I wanted to like this.  I really did.  After all, he also wrote Billy Bishop Goes to War, which was both a good read and a good play.  This one didn't work for me, though.  It took place in Vancouver, and was based on a true (unsolved) crime, i.e., the murder of a maid in the Shaunessy mansion of a rich tycoon.  It never grabbed me, and I gave up after 50 pages, something I rarely do. 

Our library outing earlier in the week (see above) brought in a new crop of possibilities, so now I have on the go (among other books previously mentioned) The Immortalists, by Chloe Benjamin.  The premise is that in 1969, four children (13, 11, 9 and 7 respectively) illicitly seek out a fortune teller and find out the dates of their deaths, and what ensues as a result.  The writing is not terrific, but I am intrigues by the premise.  Final review to follow.

Ttttthat's all, Folks.

More about Russia, and other Things....

Appropriately enough, since I'm going to Russia later this summer, this seems to be The Year of Russian Culture in Vancouver.  There was Eugene Onegin last week.  This week brought a new opera based on Gogol's short story called The Overcoat.  For those of you who don't know the premise, a poor bullied bureaucrat buys a new overcoat (with bonus money from his boss, for an idea that makes his fellow workers redundant, or, at least, deprives them of their raise).  It transforms his life, until it is stolen, after which he descends into madness.  Very Russian.  And very operatic.  I have seen it dramatized before, but it really works as an opera. 

A personal connection:  the wife of a colleague did the costumes, and a fine job she did too.

Jack and I agreed, I think, that to say we enjoyed it would be putting too fine a point on it - I, for one, don't "enjoy" modern music - but it worked dramatically, it was compelling, it was good theater, and I was glad I went.

And what could be more Russian than Chekov?  The Cherry Orchard was on at Jericho Playhouse, and off I went, in spite of the fact that I purportedly loathe Chekov.  (Chekov was the one who said, by the way (although not in this play) that if a gun is shown in the presented in the first Act, it must go off by the third.)  Back to the Cherry Orchard.  They did a fine job with it, I must say (although having recently seen the National Theater of London version in recent memory, it is hard to make do with a small local theater production), but it is still a play about silly people (the clueless aristocracy, the loyal servant, the wily peasant, the idealistic revolutionary), and I still don't care whether they get to Moscow (or, in this case, Paris).  But it did meet my basic criteria for theater - I am still thinking about it.....

Saturday, I was set to go to the North Shore (North Vancouver, for those of you from away) for a matinee by the North Shore Light Opera Society.   Since the traffic is so bad getting to the North Shore you basically have to pack a lunch to get there, and since it was Saturday, I decided to make a day of it. and have breakfast at the Lonsdale Quay before the performance. 

As you can see, it was a glorious, sunny day, and I had a lovely morning, wandering the shops and food stalls.

The Centennial Theater was a new venue for me, and I quite liked it.  And, of course, I love Sondheim.  Any Sondheim, really, but Into The Woods is one of my favourites.

Although based on a mash-up of the Grimm's fairy tales, it is really quite dark - as those fairy tales were, at heart.  Being a musical, there was a happy ending - sort of - but the moral of the story is "be careful what you wish for".

By the way, I saw the original on Broadway, with Mandy Potemkin and Bernadette Peters.  This wasn't that production, trust me, but fun nonetheless.  My only quibble was that the orchestra overshadowed the lyrics (and no, it wasn't just my hearing, there was twenty something sitting next to me, on the third row I should say, who couldn't make out the lyrics), and with Sondheim, the lyrics are everything.  They should have put the orchestra behind the stage....

Hey, maybe that's what I should do for my next career - directing.....

Anyway, one of the highlights was the fact that there were lots of children in the audience.  And yes, I quite remember that I loathe children.  However, these were very well behaved, enthusiastic, and, most important, the future audience for the theater.  I told every parent I could get hold of that I was impressed, not only with the children but with the parents for introducing the children to the theater at a young age.

Oh, and the quote of the production came from Prince Charming.  When being chastised for his wandering eye, the Prince says "but I was raised to be charming, not sincere....."

I have to admit that I had pouted a bit (hopefully not visibly) when friend John went on and on (as he does, bless him) about the "do" he was hosting for Mother's day.  Not that I give a fig about Mothers Day - or any other Hallmark holiday, for that matter - but it was the idea of not being invited....

But on Sunday morning (probably at the urging of his mother, but no matter) he called to invite me over, and even remembered to take my hamburger off the grill before it turned to charcoal...

Here are John and his mom, and sister Janet on the left...

.....and mom and dad.....

Also there were John's brother Peter, his girlfriend and her son.  I have known them all for a long time, and it was a lovely, relaxed afternoon. 

They hadn't seen the renos, though, and walked the few hundred yards to my place to do that.  You haven't seen them either, I guess, so....

The bookcases are new, built in...

(Probably not the best idea in the world to have bookcases in your bedroom in earthquake country, but, hey, I can think of worse things in the world than being buried in books.....)

The wood floors are new.....

..and, of course, the rugs to cover them....

....and then, of course, there's the deck and the view from it.....

....not my front door, but a neighboring one that I like better.....

Monday brought my last full day of work for now - I am out of work for a while - but I managed to forestall wholesale panic by planning a full week of other things.

It started with dinner with colleagues (and friends) Deidre and Susan.  Our first choice, The Dosa House, my neighborhood Indian restaurant (definitely NOT a white tablecloth type of place, but good food in a clean, family-run place - the kind I love taking people to) was closed on Monday.  We settled on The Flamingo House, my neighborhood Chinese place, instead.  No pictures, so you'll have to trust me that good food and good fun was had all around.

.....I am back to playing bridge twice a week with Alex, and it is good to see the old crowd.  A little disconcerting, though, as a significant handful were with us in the desert.....

....I'm also back to my regular evening walks - about 3 miles - along the river front.  This weeks' collection of flora was particularly stunning - spring will do that...

So.  What else?  In addition to reading back issues of the New Yorker  (passed on to me by friend Geoff before I left Palm Springs) and back issues of the Economist (carefully saved for me by John and duly passed on last week), I'm back to books.  There are two on the night table; the first is Ben Sasse's book called The Vanishing American Adult. So far, the best thing about it is the title.  I think it is heading towards the premise that we should step back from hedonism and go back to god, church, family and country, although I am not entirely sure - I keep on falling asleep, and reading the same paragraph over again - and again - and again...

The next one is better.  Someone left it in my office for me while I was gone (probably Brian - it is his kind of read).  It is called Anarchy and Old Dogs, by Colin Cotterill, and is a Dr. Siri Paiboun mystery (apparently there is another entire series about which I had no knowledge).  Dr. Siri is a reluctant 73 year old coroner of the newly formed republic of Laos, and Cotterill's descriptions of the country and people - of which I have zero prior knowledge - are wonderful.  I am quite enjoying it, although - in the nature of nightstand books - I keep falling asleep.... 

The other two are audio books, which I now download on my phone, and listen to while I walk.

I just finished The Great Game - The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia, by Peter Hopkirk.  It continued the Russian theme, as it is about the machinations of Russia and England for hegemony in the area.  A few too many battle descriptions for my liking, but fascinating nonetheless, and a period of history and part of the world that I previously knew very little about.  For you history buffs out there, I highly recommend it.

Finally, I'm now listening to The Big Lie by Dinesh D'Souza - Exposing the Nazi Roots of the American Left.  This one was a surprise - I ordered it on a whim, thinking it was one of the Trump expose books that are now out there - I guess I didn't see the subtitle (that's the trouble with trying to read ads on the phone....).  Lo and behold, it turns out to be a Trump apologist instead - imagine my shock and horror.  Amazingly enough, I am finding it quite interesting, certainly well written, well read and well analyzed.  Everyone always complains about living in silos - always reading and hearing people with our own point of view.  Well, I have broken out of my silo.  Detailed review to follow...