VanRamblings has finally arrived home from our Nova Scotia vacation.
As is our wont, we did not sleep much the early morning hours prior to our departure from Halifax Stanfield Airport. Quite honestly, VanRamblings is surprised that we made it on to the plane on time, and left behind only our Vancouver Canadians baseball cap somewhere in greater Halifax (we’re prone to losing things), and had our 100+ ml Vichy sunscreen confiscated at the airport (whoops, guess we should have packed it in the suitcase … oh well). Otherwise, all went well, and we were Toronto bound by noon (you’ll notice from the video above that Airbus seat 18a’s window was just a tad streaky), finding ourselves in the air for about an hour and a half.
Landing and taking off in Toronto went fine. As we were rushing from one plane to another, we stopped off at Starbucks for a coffee and date square, shortly thereafter finding ourselves in seat 12f (with a non-streaky window). The five hour jaunt from Toronto to Vancouver was a bit much, but we did manage to watch The Losers, which provided everything it promised: an action-packed comic strip adaptation, a hot, tough-as-nails ‘girl’ (Zoe Saldana), big explosions, and gleaming bad-ass cinematography.
The flight was uneventful, but a tad jealousy-inducing for VanRamblings. Why? Seems that everyone around us had an iPad. iPads with external keyboards, and in leather ‘cases’ that would act as a stand, causing the device to look like a screen. VanRamblings wants an iPad, but we’ll wait for an iPad-versary, a faster, leaner, sleeker, less expensive mobile device with front-and-back facing cameras, USB and HDMI ports, an HD 16:9 widescreen, built-in flash (so we can watch YouTube videos), GPS, the ability to multitask, a longer battery life, and … so we’ll just wait for now.
VanRamblings’ arrival in Vancouver had us thinking about our Film Club conversation about ‘passion’. The group’s general consensus was that, as we age, passion transforms into ‘acceptance’.
We recall, 40 years ago, when we were first married and Cathy traveled to Edmonton to visit her mother, we would both be near tears at her leaving, and then again upon her arrival home. Waiting for our luggage at Vancouver airport yesterday, we observed that only one of the 200 passengers onboard our flight had someone waiting, a spouse and two daughters. The rest of us hoofed it on over to the Canada Line.
Upon arriving home, we found our apartment to be the disaster we expected. The entire apartment, save the bedroom (which we’d asked the workmen to leave untouched) was covered in plastic. In the kitchen, we couldn’t access any of our appliances, or cupboards. The living room furniture was swaddled in plastic wrap, as was our computer hatch, and the closet doors were on the floor. As for the bathroom, well … The whole Co-op looked like a construction zone (because it is). We took one look at the state of things, carried our suitcase into the bedroom, began a bit of unpacking, and called a friend about going out to dinner, which we did, at the Saravanaa Bhavan. When we returned home, we simply went to bed.
Arising today at 6 a.m., we went out for coffee, and were distressed to find that, in our absence, our favourite local coffee shop had gone out of business. Back at the Co-op, the workers arrived at 7 a.m., and after a bit of negotiating, together we agreed that as most of the re-piping work was complete, that come day’s end it might be appropriate to remove the plastic sheets from VanRamblings furniture. At 4 p.m., the foreman knocked on our door to say that all should be back to ‘normal’ by month’s end.
Were that he knew us better. At least our apartment will be in shape.
