The Roketman and the Haiku
This picture is from our first night on the Haiku - isn't it a sweet little boat? We spent most of the afternoon buying groceries and moving in.
I admit this isn't the best picture, but I really love the lighting.
I do really like this boat -- I want to charter it next year too. But I think I'll buy some sage for the owners to put in it, as soon as I'm ambulatory. Smudge out all the bad spirits, thoughts, whatever. The ritual works.
These pictures are from the night before my accident. awww. I do have a lot of emotion still, and I can't blame them on the painkillers either. I do appreciate the support, people. (maybe I'll blog about how to address invisible friends out there on the web... dear readers sounds too cute, people almost sounds too impersonal, "guys" is sexist. I'll go with calling all y'all "people" until I figure out something better. But feel free to propose something better.)
(did anybody notice how cleverly I slid from talking about something uncomfortable to blathering about inconsequentials?)
Must be bedtime, huh.
Back to reality
If I had more energy, I'd write about the stages of coming back home after a wonderful vacation. I'd sprinkle in a few stages of grief, a few stages of denial, of comparing my real life with the fantasy of being someone who would actually deserve to stay in such wonderful hotels and be treated like a queen...
But when you come home to a house where the cleaning lady didn't come like she was supposed to, it's like the five cats threw a party and invited 892 of their furriest friends to shed all over. And I do mean all over. How the heck did we get fur flurries in our bedroom closet, when they were shut out of the bedroom?
We ended up buying the Transformer-mobile. I thought we paid a bit too much for a used wheelchair, but not when we checked online for the new price. Wowsers.
The trouble? It doesn't fit through the bathroom or bedroom door... Plan B (b as in bathroom? groan...) is the crutches.
I relied on the crutches a bit too much yesterday, what with the cleaning and thinking I could take care of the house, and overtaxed myself. I took a painkiller for the first time in a full week. (I was going through the mail and found the description of what they did during the operation, and it was incredibly sobering. I hurt a LOT more after reading that, and instantly resolved to take better care and
not do that again.)
Tomorrow, we check the thrift stores for a "transport" wheelchair, that will get through doors. And a bunch of other stuff, like seeing how soon I can see my regular doctor, turning in the disability papers, etc.
I admit, I'm in a funk and may not get pictures mounted very soon. Do nag. This is the kind of mood where I need reassurance, that my strange version of normal is appreciated by my friends and colleagues.
An essay on Serendipity
I've probably said it before. Serendipity rules my life. I head out in the direction I think I need/want to go, and POOOFF!
oooops. Course correction. Going over there instead.
And you know, it all sorta works out. I'm amazed that most of the time, it works out for the
better. This is the Empress Hotel, named after Queen Victoria. It celebrates its Centennial this year, and has been highlighted in
Victoria Magazine and other magazines. This was one of my big wishes for the trip- to pull our boat up to the Empress and have high tea.
This is where we stayed instead - the Inn at Laurel Point. And I have to say, it's pretty spectacular. That picture above, that's the view from the front of our hotel.
This is the view we had from our room. Can I just say I kinda like it?
Tonight, we're staying at the Brentwood Bay Lodge and Spa, up closer to Sidney. It's a sweet little hotel, but I liked looking at the boats scurrying in and around Laurel Point. There were planes coming in to land, just yards away from kayakers and Sea-doos and cute little harbor ferries. There were buoys to keep everyone in their own lanes, and harbor patrol boats to herd any stragglers.
Both the Roketman and I were a bit cranky today, struggling with Victoria parking (actually, the lack thereof) and traffic. I think we just didn't want to leave the Inn at Laurel Point.
Tomorrow, we take the ferry back to Anacortes. I'm hoping to get dinner at the Microbrewery in Burlington, you remember the one that serves breakfast? Last time around they were closed for dinner on the Fourth.
Then on Friday, we have a doctor's appointment to get the official prognosis for the Achilles tendon. (think good thoughts for me, ok?) We'll drive back to Seattle Friday afternoon, and fly home Saturday morning.
I'm a bit wistful, can you tell?
Life is good
Life is good. Yes, it might be better without the gimpy leg, but I am telling you that
life is good.
Here's where we're staying tonight - the
Laurel Point Inn. I was in the process of taking pictures when the battery went dead in the camera...
Here's the bathtub. I won't be using it, what with the foot in a cast and all. Maybe I could call the front desk and ask for trash bags and some duct tape, whattaya think? ok, maybe not.
We decided to go for a walk, and I really wish that I had the camera with me! We ended up walking all the way to the
Empress Hotel for a very lovely dinner at the Bengal Lounge. Oh, it was so very colonial. There was even a tiger pelt above the fireplace, and fans moving back and forth. With tassels even.
Oh, I should acknowledge that it wasn't "WE walked." It was me in the chair, and Mike pushing. My Knight in Shining Armor... (how come I always typo Knight as Knit?)
Ah, good night. I have a lovely pillow on a lovely bed that's calling my name. I'll probably fall asleep as soon as my head is horizontal... and so will my Knight.
Make that my Good Knight. As in, Good night, Good Knight.
(groan....) Say good night, ruth.
(echo: Good night ruth.)
The highlights of the day
Today was a driving day. We left
Chemainus about noon (hey, it's a VACATION!) and headed for Port Hardy, on the northernmost point of the island. We had no intention of
getting there, mind you, but it was a good destination to input into the Garmin.
Remind me to extoll the virtues of GPS navigation one of these days - it's a giggle to veer off the prescribed route and have this voice say "Offroute. Recalculating." The Roketman has added on the option to get Sirius satellite radio through the Garmin, and it interrupts the music to give directions. Except, at one point, it sounded like the voice gave us a raspberry. I'm sure it was just the music, but still.
We had lunch in Nanaimo, and I found the sweater I've been looking for, a genuine Salish-knitted sweater. The woman who owns the shop was married to one of the tribe, and still has contacts there.
Needless to say, this was the highlight of my day. I did wear it back to the car, because I was
COLD! from the air conditioning in the restaurant. I did get a lot of strange looks from other people. If anyone had asked, I'd have said "We're from Los Angeles" and they'd have nodded their heads. We do have the reputation of being crazy, us Hollywood types.
This was the highlight of Mike's day - looking at the boats in Nanaimo harbor. I could say that he wants the big boat with the shrink-wrapped helicopter on its heli-pad, but he's really rather have that tug behind the harbor sign. (click through to Flickr for a better view)
Who is this graceful woman?
(notice the blue sign)
How do you know a man loves you? When you say "Honey, do you think this would fit me?" and this is what he does.
The stitches in the lips are finally gone, but not all the feeling has
come back. (the stitches were on the inside, thank god! but owww...) I feel much better about going out in public...
The Roketman did a yeoman's job today. We went to Butchart Gardens in Victoria, BC (Vancouver Island) -- it is handicapped-accessible, but with lots of hills. Poor guy.
I have to admit that Butchart Gardens puts the Huntington to shame. (I feel pretty disloyal writing this, because the Huntington is local to me!) It's as if the H is a collector's garden, but the Butchart is an artist's garden. I got lots of pictures, stay tuned.
After Butchart, we drove around the bay (missed the ferry by THIS MUCH!! (car car car US.) According to RM, it would take as long to drive as to wait for the next ferry.
In actuality, it took longer to drive, but the view was much, much better. I really had no concept, no real perspective of how big this island is, or how mountainous.
Next year, forget the San Juans. We're coming over to Vancouver Island. There are inland waterways that are just breathtaking.
I'm running out of superlatives. No, Really.
The View from Dunsmuir Lodge
A change of scenery can do me a world of good. Today we got on the ferry from Anacortes to Sidney on Vancouver Island. I swear, I was positively giddy. We got the new rental car with no problem, headed out hours early -- I was even doing donuts with the wheelchair in the motel parking lot. I looked up to see a trucker type guy grinning at me. I told him, "It must be the pain medication, huh."
The ocean was awesomely calm for the ferry ride. I'm not sure what the real highlight was, the silliness of turning back because a couple cars didn't make it to the right ferry line, or seeing some porpoise (or were they dolphins? who knows??) fins. They didn't quite make it all the way out of the water.
Ah, the real highlight was the scenery. We're on the hotel wifi (the Roketman doesn't want to connect the Broadband cellular wireless from Canada, go figure) and it's a slightly wonky connection. I'll upload pictures later.
This is only part of the spectacular view from our restaurant and hotel, the Dunsmuir Lodge on the campus of the University of Victoria.
I chatted up a man at dinner who recognized my cotton spindle. He said his parents worked at a cotton mill in mid-nineteenth century England. I gave him my card and asked if I could do an oral history for the blog. Keep your fingers crossed! (and Jack, if you read this, I
am serious!)
I'll end tonight's blather by calling on all Canadians to rise up and demand your own version of the Americans with Disabilities Act!! Our room is terrific, except for one important detail. The bathroom door is too narrow for the wheelchair. Fortunately, they gave us a loaner, but it's no match for the Transformer-Mobile.
