Rambling ...
This did not intend to become a monthly blog but it seems as if the flurry component of my life means that there is "lotsa stuff" and then "no stuff". The past month has been a bit of the latter until I look at the calendar and realize that work has started, that I have had a road-trip with my dad (and a possible new career opportunity as an itinerant wine consultant for restaurants in small towns in the Kootenays), that the Triumph-in-a-box's papers were in fact in the basement and that all the other stuff I unearthed looking for them will be useful fodder for long winter evenings and the fireplaces after the chimneys are swept.
The road trip was fun despite the severe limitations that being The Driver puts on knitting time. Dad and I have not travelled together since family days when I was the one in the back seat moaning that I needed to stop NOW or I was going to be sick. My claim to fame in the family travel annals is of having barfed every single time we made the bimonthly run to town. Don't bother making suggestions: there is nothing (except these and they weren't invented yet) that could manage my dad's driving + my mum's smoking + 27 miles of gravel. I figure that's why bulimia has no hope of a hold with me: I'm done with barfage unless illness necessary (yes, too much drinkage counts as illness. Why are you asking?).
Ahem.
As I was saying: the trip was fun. Turns out my father is pretty good with a map (especially when reminded that, "I don't know, you've got the map!") and I'm pretty good at driving and looking at stuff he is interested in. The SS Moyie restoration was pretty impressive to a guy who rode her last when she was pushing a barge up Kootenay Lake(undigmified behaviour for such a lady but it kept her out of the salvage yard) and the wonder of so much pavement (last travelled by him in 1957??) was remarked upon frequently. We sorted out a lot of family connections and rearranged one another's memories to our mutual satisfaction. I found out that I had, in fact, stayed in Kaslo previously but was either in utero or nine months old so my recollections were a little hazy. His, on the other hand, were sharp but things (a creek and possibly a beach in front of a hatchery) had been moved around!
We made a loop from home to Kaslo to Revelstoke (including the gravel from Meadow Creek to Trout Lake - another New And Broadening Experience) to Vernon to home. The Sr Boy and I had ridden most of it (except the gravel) on the Vin over the years so there was a certain bittersweet component - lots of bikes on the roads, glorious new pavement between New Denver and Kaslo, and a couple riding out from the Kaslo Motel on their way south who could have been us with their back and forth loading and puttering and farewell waves to an interested stranger who wandered over with her morning coffee. The sun shone, the roads were virtually empty and The New Vehicle did just fine even if still nameless. That, however, has changed.
There had been a few suggestions: Silver Trout (shot down by The Jr Boy as lacking in imagination) and Rosie (what's not to like about Rosie-the-RAV?? apparently everything when The Jr Girl has spent a(n) hellish year working with Rosie-the-person) did not make the cut and we were stalled, so to speak. She is definitely a She so that let out names such as Trigger and Felix although those may have future potential.
However, it would seem that, as one result of all that roadchat with my dad, TNV will be known as Agnes (Aggie for short). Yes, she is silver, "Ag" on the periodic table with lots of interesting characteristics and history to consider, but more to the point, Auntie Agnes was my Gran's sister and, according to my dad, together with her husband, Uncle Jock, "the only ones of that clan that got along with almost everyone." (In a proper document there would be a footnote mark here and you would flip to the end of this entry to find: 1 "Personal communication to author on road trip, Sept 2007")
I never knew (or don't think I knew) either of them and my Gran died when my mum was a child but stories of the amazing inability of the clan to get along were occasionally muttered over ("feuding, always someone feuding" was a phrase of my mum's used when we kids were having a backseat row). I think a vehicle (what the &%$$ is a RAV, anyway? a car? a truck? an SUV? One - at least this one - does not say, "Let's take my RAV.") named after the grandaunt who was remembered by my dad as "a lot of fun" has potential to also be "a lot of fun" not to mention a good thing. That Agnes is also the patron saint of gardeners (and a bunch of other stuff including rape victims and engaged couples - go figure that combo) might also have some good vibes toward getting herself a trailer hitch so that the pine needles which need haulage out of here could be done by MyOwnSelf rather than lining up KimUpTheStreet and wasting her weekend.
Except that The Jr Boy et moi are off to Victoria for The Great Unpacking of The Triumph-in-a-Box. Such a life of gallivanting.
Oh! and I now have a pedometer so I can see how far I am (not) walking on a daily basis. Joyous!
Still breathing, if not exactly evenly.......
The road trip was fun despite the severe limitations that being The Driver puts on knitting time. Dad and I have not travelled together since family days when I was the one in the back seat moaning that I needed to stop NOW or I was going to be sick. My claim to fame in the family travel annals is of having barfed every single time we made the bimonthly run to town. Don't bother making suggestions: there is nothing (except these and they weren't invented yet) that could manage my dad's driving + my mum's smoking + 27 miles of gravel. I figure that's why bulimia has no hope of a hold with me: I'm done with barfage unless illness necessary (yes, too much drinkage counts as illness. Why are you asking?).
Ahem.
As I was saying: the trip was fun. Turns out my father is pretty good with a map (especially when reminded that, "I don't know, you've got the map!") and I'm pretty good at driving and looking at stuff he is interested in. The SS Moyie restoration was pretty impressive to a guy who rode her last when she was pushing a barge up Kootenay Lake(undigmified behaviour for such a lady but it kept her out of the salvage yard) and the wonder of so much pavement (last travelled by him in 1957??) was remarked upon frequently. We sorted out a lot of family connections and rearranged one another's memories to our mutual satisfaction. I found out that I had, in fact, stayed in Kaslo previously but was either in utero or nine months old so my recollections were a little hazy. His, on the other hand, were sharp but things (a creek and possibly a beach in front of a hatchery) had been moved around!
We made a loop from home to Kaslo to Revelstoke (including the gravel from Meadow Creek to Trout Lake - another New And Broadening Experience) to Vernon to home. The Sr Boy and I had ridden most of it (except the gravel) on the Vin over the years so there was a certain bittersweet component - lots of bikes on the roads, glorious new pavement between New Denver and Kaslo, and a couple riding out from the Kaslo Motel on their way south who could have been us with their back and forth loading and puttering and farewell waves to an interested stranger who wandered over with her morning coffee. The sun shone, the roads were virtually empty and The New Vehicle did just fine even if still nameless. That, however, has changed.
There had been a few suggestions: Silver Trout (shot down by The Jr Boy as lacking in imagination) and Rosie (what's not to like about Rosie-the-RAV?? apparently everything when The Jr Girl has spent a(n) hellish year working with Rosie-the-person) did not make the cut and we were stalled, so to speak. She is definitely a She so that let out names such as Trigger and Felix although those may have future potential.
However, it would seem that, as one result of all that roadchat with my dad, TNV will be known as Agnes (Aggie for short). Yes, she is silver, "Ag" on the periodic table with lots of interesting characteristics and history to consider, but more to the point, Auntie Agnes was my Gran's sister and, according to my dad, together with her husband, Uncle Jock, "the only ones of that clan that got along with almost everyone." (In a proper document there would be a footnote mark here and you would flip to the end of this entry to find: 1 "Personal communication to author on road trip, Sept 2007")
I never knew (or don't think I knew) either of them and my Gran died when my mum was a child but stories of the amazing inability of the clan to get along were occasionally muttered over ("feuding, always someone feuding" was a phrase of my mum's used when we kids were having a backseat row). I think a vehicle (what the &%$$ is a RAV, anyway? a car? a truck? an SUV? One - at least this one - does not say, "Let's take my RAV.") named after the grandaunt who was remembered by my dad as "a lot of fun" has potential to also be "a lot of fun" not to mention a good thing. That Agnes is also the patron saint of gardeners (and a bunch of other stuff including rape victims and engaged couples - go figure that combo) might also have some good vibes toward getting herself a trailer hitch so that the pine needles which need haulage out of here could be done by MyOwnSelf rather than lining up KimUpTheStreet and wasting her weekend.
Except that The Jr Boy et moi are off to Victoria for The Great Unpacking of The Triumph-in-a-Box. Such a life of gallivanting.
Oh! and I now have a pedometer so I can see how far I am (not) walking on a daily basis. Joyous!
Still breathing, if not exactly evenly.......
posted by Another Joan at 2:54 p.m.
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