my first visit with the vancouver natural history society (nature vancouver)
i spent all day today taking my food safe. i had to take it for a te site that i'm over. they require our member to have it, so me and mireya had to have it too. it was a cold, crispy, ice on your car if you aren't fortunate enough to park under cover, which i am, kind of morning. gloria was waiting for me in the parking lot of her apartment building. i knew she'd be there early and she'd be anxiously keeping an eye out for me. and she was. puffs of air visible the morning cold. probably steaming up her big glasses but that's a bit of post hoc visualization for you. she climbed in thanking me for picking her up, "i just don't know how i would have gotten there." she breathed. i murmured some kind of "you're welcome/no problem" type utterence and headed towards the garrett wellness centre. i was mid some shania twain song and i sang along to a couple of lines. Gloria pauses. "i see you're a shania fan." Gloria saw her in concert when she had a cold (shania, that is) but she's not into this new younger generation country. she likes the old time country from the sixties. this conversation took us most of the way to the wellness centre. we were fifteen minutes early so we sat and talked in the car for a five minutes before going in.
our instructor was super young looking. he's a health inspector. i don't know what kind of schooling you need to be an ispector, but one expects it's no weekend diploma. anyways despite his youthful looks he seemed to know his stuff. the wellness centre is in an old school. they don't appear to turn the heat on in this old school. i was sooo cold the whole day. i kept my scarf on (the brown woven one that bethany gave me last year), i tried to go bare handed but eventually the frogs made their way onto my hands. then my legs were so cold i pulled my winter coat ontop of them and tucked it in under my bum.
there was a big racket outside during much of the morning and when we walked out for our lunch break, i saw why. the whole school field was covered with snow geese! snow geese for as far as the eye could see. it was cool.
we ate at a nearby subway. i quizzed gloria on the temperatures we had to know. "it's all common sense. you keep the hot foods hot and the cold foods cold." she brushed me off. "but you need to know to pass the test." i explained. mireya and i both tried to impress her with the import and give her a refresher on the facts, but she seemed to care less. she changed the subject and began to insist firmly that she was going to die before she was 55 because her cousin is 51 and just had heart surgery and her mom and aunt died at 55...etc.
when we got back i went to the back of the classroom and stood by the measely space heater they had going to get some heat. it warmed my scarf and then i tucked my cold tender nose top into the warm folds and went back to my seat. the second half of the day was shorter. we were done the sections and the recap by 2 and then we took the test. we had an hour to do a fifty multiple choice test. i finished pretty quickly and gathered asthma pamphlets out in the hall while waiting for gloria to finish. she didn't take that long. "i hope i passed" she told me as we got into the car. " i remembered everything but the temperatures." exasperation from me.
it was nice to be home an hour early. i read an article about ubc's macdonald who revolutionized bc's postsecondary education, and all my asthma pamphlets. then i heated up some honey garlic chicken wings left over from wednesday night's social, ate a carrot and some cheese melted on a whole wheat pita. interesting meal, i know. i ate at the computer while i figured out the bus route i was going to take to the macmillen blodell space centre where nature vancouver was meeting. then i sang some songs in a horrible voice, punctuated by coughs and voice warbles (not the kind of warbles oprah singers have (if opra singers even stoop to calling their trills warbles is a matter for another discussion), but the kind a boy with a deepening voice gets, or a girl with a scratchy, phlegmy, coughy throat). but there was no one around to hear me and it lift my spirits and helped me enjoy the whole dishes experience (oh yeah, i forgot to say i sang while doing the dishes).
by the time the dishes were done it was almost time to get ready and go. i told fabs on msn that i was going somewhere exciting and new. "the love boat?" she naturally asked. not the love boat, per se... i excitedly explained nature vancouver and how tonight just so happened to be the photography contest night and blah blah blah and then i wrapped up in the red plaid scarf and frog mitts, got my bus change ready, brought a book for the bus (attitude of gratitude) and stepped off towards the bus with a lively jaunty step.
the b-line was crowed as always. i saw barb who loves my chicken enchilada casserole. we chatted until she got off on her stop. then i moved down towards the middle of the bus with the ebb and flow of exiting and entering passengers. i ended up in front of the back door standing in front of a guy who seemed to keep looking at me inquisitively every time his shoe bumped mine. then i would turn my head and see another boy with a fluffy, mousy afro and brown cords who looked like he had a question. so i stared out the window. at broadway the afro boy asked his chinese neighbour if we had passed 5th ave. "that's the next stop" i tried to tell him as i moved up and sat in an open seat, but it came out in a muffled croak. however i think he caught the jist of it because he seemed reassured. i got off at 5th ave too. brown cords afro asked me which way to the ubc bus. this time i wasn't all matter of a fact knowledgeable. i said i think this way and pointed to the underground tunnel. he hurried on ahead of me. on the other side i saw him asking another guy and the other guy bringing him back towards the tunnel. i felt a little sheepish and wanted to say "sorry did i send you in the wrong direction?" but instead i just walked by. they weren't paying attention to me anyways.
the night was dark and clear and cold and frosty and the moon was bright and far away stars twinkled. i walked down fourth taking a lively interest in the shops that bordered the road. mostly sporting shops, especially snowboarding and skateboarding shops. i passed an office type place and a toothless guy with a smoke turned in the doorway and grinned at me. i smiled back in a sort of indifferent way, (hard to explain.) i crossed burrard and hung a left, hoofing it towards the bridge. right beside the molsen factory/brewery? is an armory in an interesting building. i never noticed it before but i noted it plenty tonight. i turned right on cornwall and then right on chestnut. i could see the space building through some trees. there was a steady trickle of cars as i made my way towards the parking lot. i waited for a volkswagon van to pass before crossing the road and into the parking lot. i had never been to the space centre before. it's a pretty nice building. would be an interesting place to explore some day. i walked up the front steps, up the ramp and in the doors. followed a couple down stairs. a man with a shaggy head, wearing a brown leather bomber type coat with leather gloves passed me down the stairs. i looked at me from the side and said jovially "you look like someone who knows where she's going." surprised, and hoping he wasn't going to ask me for directions, i half laughed and confessed "not really, that's deceptive." "oh, well you pull it off." he complimented and hurried down a rounded hallway. i passed a tall man that looked like ghandi stopped in front of a woman sitting at a table with pamphlets and notices, and made my way into the auditorium. i sat in the almost back row in the middle. i looked around me. all grey heads. i could see grampa mclean being happy in this environment. renee too. gramma b would probably enjoy it as well. anyways i was the youngest person in the room by far right up until just before the program started. then a youngish looking couple walked in. we were it for the youngins. being with the oldies didn't bother me though. there was so much experience and knowledge in the room. i imagined all of the things those people could teach me. things most people my age don't know.
the photo contest has five categories, birds, mamals, botony, etymology (bugs) and other natural history. then there's the best in show. ron long presented the pictures and made commentory on them. i really liked his commentary because it was of a photographic nature. like foregrounds and backgrounds and how the eye goes to the light and compostions and stuff like that and i tried to soak that up and learn it. (ron gives workshops and classes on photography at the george c. reifel bird sanctuary. isn't that cool?) he presented the photos not by category but by contributor. there were something like a hundred and nintey photographs. wow, there were some amazing pictures. like so amazing you can't believe that they're true. virginia hayes! she won first, second, third in the bird category and best in show. her shots are so amazing. i saw some of her previous stuff on the website, so i was familiar with her name. anyways, in all the categories, wow. so amazing. i was all by myself, but i had a fun time. so fun.
when it was over i took off and walked back to granville, waited for the b-line, still crowed after nine oh clock. as i made my way down the bus, past the area of the long benches facing each other, a guy with an ipod and a black flaming toque touched my sleeve and pointed that there was a seat beside him. oh allright, i thought, and sat down. he offered his seat to another lady who assured him there was a seat across from us free and sat down. he smelled slightly of beer. i scratched my head and then he almost shouted in his ipod deafness "nice frog mittens!" "thanks." i said. well that started the whole frog mitten conversation. he asked if they were kermit the frog. "nope." i answered. " well who are they?" "they don't have a name." i told him with a shrug. "are they fraggles?? remember the doozers? are they doozers???" this went on for a while. i told him they were frogs. well then what kind of frogs? there's lots of different kinds of frongs, there's bullfrogs, poisonous frogs. "they're mitten frogs." i said firmly a couple of times. he gave up, but a second later he pointed to a lady's coat and said "ha. your mittens match her coat." they didn't really. they clashed with her coat and i so wanted to say so, for some really weird reason. the truth police wanted to do it, but i held them back and shrugged and said "kinda" to him and that was the end of our delightful bus conversation with the whole bus watching and listening to the only people on the bus making any noise.
then something bad happened. it happened suddenly in my throat. a cough tickle. not any cough tickle. the explosive hacking asthma type of cough that i've been having lately (i forgot to mention how i had a big one in class this afternoon and had to leave to get it under control). nonononononono i thought and tried to swallow the tickle. i looked to my right to my left, i was surrounded by closely packed people. this was not a time to have a big coughing episode. the tickle was growing and my eyes were tearing up. i tried to satisfy it with a little closed mouth light coughcough. it was nightmarish. i wanted to get off the bus. but i didn't. i suffered through it and coughed as discretely as i could with a tear streaming from my left eye, still trying to hold some of it in. gash.
i have to go to bed. i'm tired.
our instructor was super young looking. he's a health inspector. i don't know what kind of schooling you need to be an ispector, but one expects it's no weekend diploma. anyways despite his youthful looks he seemed to know his stuff. the wellness centre is in an old school. they don't appear to turn the heat on in this old school. i was sooo cold the whole day. i kept my scarf on (the brown woven one that bethany gave me last year), i tried to go bare handed but eventually the frogs made their way onto my hands. then my legs were so cold i pulled my winter coat ontop of them and tucked it in under my bum.
there was a big racket outside during much of the morning and when we walked out for our lunch break, i saw why. the whole school field was covered with snow geese! snow geese for as far as the eye could see. it was cool.
we ate at a nearby subway. i quizzed gloria on the temperatures we had to know. "it's all common sense. you keep the hot foods hot and the cold foods cold." she brushed me off. "but you need to know to pass the test." i explained. mireya and i both tried to impress her with the import and give her a refresher on the facts, but she seemed to care less. she changed the subject and began to insist firmly that she was going to die before she was 55 because her cousin is 51 and just had heart surgery and her mom and aunt died at 55...etc.
when we got back i went to the back of the classroom and stood by the measely space heater they had going to get some heat. it warmed my scarf and then i tucked my cold tender nose top into the warm folds and went back to my seat. the second half of the day was shorter. we were done the sections and the recap by 2 and then we took the test. we had an hour to do a fifty multiple choice test. i finished pretty quickly and gathered asthma pamphlets out in the hall while waiting for gloria to finish. she didn't take that long. "i hope i passed" she told me as we got into the car. " i remembered everything but the temperatures." exasperation from me.
it was nice to be home an hour early. i read an article about ubc's macdonald who revolutionized bc's postsecondary education, and all my asthma pamphlets. then i heated up some honey garlic chicken wings left over from wednesday night's social, ate a carrot and some cheese melted on a whole wheat pita. interesting meal, i know. i ate at the computer while i figured out the bus route i was going to take to the macmillen blodell space centre where nature vancouver was meeting. then i sang some songs in a horrible voice, punctuated by coughs and voice warbles (not the kind of warbles oprah singers have (if opra singers even stoop to calling their trills warbles is a matter for another discussion), but the kind a boy with a deepening voice gets, or a girl with a scratchy, phlegmy, coughy throat). but there was no one around to hear me and it lift my spirits and helped me enjoy the whole dishes experience (oh yeah, i forgot to say i sang while doing the dishes).
by the time the dishes were done it was almost time to get ready and go. i told fabs on msn that i was going somewhere exciting and new. "the love boat?" she naturally asked. not the love boat, per se... i excitedly explained nature vancouver and how tonight just so happened to be the photography contest night and blah blah blah and then i wrapped up in the red plaid scarf and frog mitts, got my bus change ready, brought a book for the bus (attitude of gratitude) and stepped off towards the bus with a lively jaunty step.
the b-line was crowed as always. i saw barb who loves my chicken enchilada casserole. we chatted until she got off on her stop. then i moved down towards the middle of the bus with the ebb and flow of exiting and entering passengers. i ended up in front of the back door standing in front of a guy who seemed to keep looking at me inquisitively every time his shoe bumped mine. then i would turn my head and see another boy with a fluffy, mousy afro and brown cords who looked like he had a question. so i stared out the window. at broadway the afro boy asked his chinese neighbour if we had passed 5th ave. "that's the next stop" i tried to tell him as i moved up and sat in an open seat, but it came out in a muffled croak. however i think he caught the jist of it because he seemed reassured. i got off at 5th ave too. brown cords afro asked me which way to the ubc bus. this time i wasn't all matter of a fact knowledgeable. i said i think this way and pointed to the underground tunnel. he hurried on ahead of me. on the other side i saw him asking another guy and the other guy bringing him back towards the tunnel. i felt a little sheepish and wanted to say "sorry did i send you in the wrong direction?" but instead i just walked by. they weren't paying attention to me anyways.
the night was dark and clear and cold and frosty and the moon was bright and far away stars twinkled. i walked down fourth taking a lively interest in the shops that bordered the road. mostly sporting shops, especially snowboarding and skateboarding shops. i passed an office type place and a toothless guy with a smoke turned in the doorway and grinned at me. i smiled back in a sort of indifferent way, (hard to explain.) i crossed burrard and hung a left, hoofing it towards the bridge. right beside the molsen factory/brewery? is an armory in an interesting building. i never noticed it before but i noted it plenty tonight. i turned right on cornwall and then right on chestnut. i could see the space building through some trees. there was a steady trickle of cars as i made my way towards the parking lot. i waited for a volkswagon van to pass before crossing the road and into the parking lot. i had never been to the space centre before. it's a pretty nice building. would be an interesting place to explore some day. i walked up the front steps, up the ramp and in the doors. followed a couple down stairs. a man with a shaggy head, wearing a brown leather bomber type coat with leather gloves passed me down the stairs. i looked at me from the side and said jovially "you look like someone who knows where she's going." surprised, and hoping he wasn't going to ask me for directions, i half laughed and confessed "not really, that's deceptive." "oh, well you pull it off." he complimented and hurried down a rounded hallway. i passed a tall man that looked like ghandi stopped in front of a woman sitting at a table with pamphlets and notices, and made my way into the auditorium. i sat in the almost back row in the middle. i looked around me. all grey heads. i could see grampa mclean being happy in this environment. renee too. gramma b would probably enjoy it as well. anyways i was the youngest person in the room by far right up until just before the program started. then a youngish looking couple walked in. we were it for the youngins. being with the oldies didn't bother me though. there was so much experience and knowledge in the room. i imagined all of the things those people could teach me. things most people my age don't know.
the photo contest has five categories, birds, mamals, botony, etymology (bugs) and other natural history. then there's the best in show. ron long presented the pictures and made commentory on them. i really liked his commentary because it was of a photographic nature. like foregrounds and backgrounds and how the eye goes to the light and compostions and stuff like that and i tried to soak that up and learn it. (ron gives workshops and classes on photography at the george c. reifel bird sanctuary. isn't that cool?) he presented the photos not by category but by contributor. there were something like a hundred and nintey photographs. wow, there were some amazing pictures. like so amazing you can't believe that they're true. virginia hayes! she won first, second, third in the bird category and best in show. her shots are so amazing. i saw some of her previous stuff on the website, so i was familiar with her name. anyways, in all the categories, wow. so amazing. i was all by myself, but i had a fun time. so fun.
when it was over i took off and walked back to granville, waited for the b-line, still crowed after nine oh clock. as i made my way down the bus, past the area of the long benches facing each other, a guy with an ipod and a black flaming toque touched my sleeve and pointed that there was a seat beside him. oh allright, i thought, and sat down. he offered his seat to another lady who assured him there was a seat across from us free and sat down. he smelled slightly of beer. i scratched my head and then he almost shouted in his ipod deafness "nice frog mittens!" "thanks." i said. well that started the whole frog mitten conversation. he asked if they were kermit the frog. "nope." i answered. " well who are they?" "they don't have a name." i told him with a shrug. "are they fraggles?? remember the doozers? are they doozers???" this went on for a while. i told him they were frogs. well then what kind of frogs? there's lots of different kinds of frongs, there's bullfrogs, poisonous frogs. "they're mitten frogs." i said firmly a couple of times. he gave up, but a second later he pointed to a lady's coat and said "ha. your mittens match her coat." they didn't really. they clashed with her coat and i so wanted to say so, for some really weird reason. the truth police wanted to do it, but i held them back and shrugged and said "kinda" to him and that was the end of our delightful bus conversation with the whole bus watching and listening to the only people on the bus making any noise.
then something bad happened. it happened suddenly in my throat. a cough tickle. not any cough tickle. the explosive hacking asthma type of cough that i've been having lately (i forgot to mention how i had a big one in class this afternoon and had to leave to get it under control). nonononononono i thought and tried to swallow the tickle. i looked to my right to my left, i was surrounded by closely packed people. this was not a time to have a big coughing episode. the tickle was growing and my eyes were tearing up. i tried to satisfy it with a little closed mouth light coughcough. it was nightmarish. i wanted to get off the bus. but i didn't. i suffered through it and coughed as discretely as i could with a tear streaming from my left eye, still trying to hold some of it in. gash.
i have to go to bed. i'm tired.
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