Reading: Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

In the midst of: Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

Not yet given up on: John Milton, Paradise Lost;

On deck: Don Quijote

Moving: gardening

House:

Garden:

9 May 2002: Going

Maybe, because this is an international trip, I should have brought the journal CLH gave me to use in Europe. Maybe, because it's only Vancouver, my old reliable notebook is just fine.

Only Vancouver. Yeah right.

When RDC met me in the airport yesterday, the first thing I said was "When are we moving?" and he was pleased. Although hardly surprised: hills instead of endless flat, water instead of endless dry, mountains up close and personal instead of on the horizon. This much I had seen from the plane. I hadn't been able to score a window seat but could peer out from my aisle one. I hadn't seen mountaintops poking through the cloud cover, but as we descended, I saw mountains all right--snowcapped, unlike Denver's in this dry year; close in, unlike Denver's ever; jaggy, like the Grand Tetons. As young as the Rockies are, they are sedately shaped as a skyline feature, except Devil's Head. Also, contrary to Denver's landlocked soullessness, Vancouver is not only right on but bounded by water.

Yesterday at Dot Org we had a Big Top briefing at which someone remarked how important an attendee's arrival and transportation are in setting the tone of a trip. So it's important they be welcome and whisked off to town fast-like. Okay, but they're still arriving at DIA and still have to confront I-70 on the way. Peña Boulevard (which connects DIA to I-70), if I haven't seen pronghorn antelopes along it in years and the grasses aren't native or green, at least isn't built up. Then once the driving is done they'll still be in Denver, which contrary to almost everyone's expectation, is not actually in the mountains. Which was another thing to admire about Vancouver as we descended. Vales and variegated terrain and oh, what a pleasure to the eye, I suppose even to someone for whom it is not also a relief.

The jetway was all glass. Glass in Denver would become an Easy-Bake Oven in no time flat, plus there's not really a view. There's Pacific Northwest Indian artwork throughout and a tableau of coastal wetland, with a pond and piped birdsong but no actual otters (pity).

The customs line seemed to take as long as that in Heathrow, which had easily quadruple as many people ahead of me as this. I stood and read Oranges and linejumped once. One reason for the wait might have been the custom agents' chattiness, or maybe it wasn't chattiness but sussing out potential badasses. "How long are you going to be in Canada?" asked one, and I had no idea what I had written on the customs card now in her hand. "Until Monday," I answered, instead of guessing a number of days--did Thursday count, when it was already evening, or Monday when I would leave at dawn? Should I count the Christian way, by which sunset Friday to sunrise Sunday somehow counts as three days?

(Okay, I feel slightly bad for ranking on religion twice in two entries, but that three days thing has bothered me for a long time and the few/ several thing is a) language and b) about one woman whom I didn't like anyway, apart from her religion.)

"What are you doing here?"

Errr. "Leisure. I have no idea. My husband works here and he's going to show me around." I know. I didn't even read a guide book ahead of time and I haven't read Words regularly since before Madeleine was conceived. I shouldn't've said that RDC works for a company based here. Usans stealing Canucks' jobs, and all. But one of the agents went to UBC and had heard of the company so I was finally allowed to go on, eager to find a peestop and RDC, in that order.

I found both, in that order, and asked about moving, and we found the Cadillac of minivans (is that from "Get Shorty"?) and here I am au Soleil in downtown Vancouver. I know and will repeatedly tell myself that I must not tell my mother the name of the hotel, but subconsciously my mischeviousness or shoot-self-in-footism (or something worse) will take over and I shall grit my teeth whenever she says "the le Soleil" (which, really, realistically will happen once before she forgets it).

When we pulled up, the door attendant said, "Back from the airport?" and RDC told me in the elevator (which was not staffed: not the Ritz) that he'd collected the car from a different attendent, who therefore had told him where Mr. C was going. When you have to stay in a hotel for almost two weeks, it's much more reasonable to stay in a place like this, when otherwise a Motel Six's mattress, shower spigot, and locked door should be all you need. But this was ver' nice.

Otherwise, between airport and hotel, gardens, gardens, gardens, wildflowers, trees, gardens, mountains, and sweet ocean air.