Medallion the cat thought she would forever have run of my little apartment in the Yaletown section of Vancouver. She reverted almost instantly into the cat I remember. She’d curl on my lap and purr, greet me each morning when I sat for some cereal and watched the sun hit the mountains.
Then Mr. Basil Hayden arrived and the hissing started. It’s been almost a week so she’s over it for the most part. But it was a funny dynamic. Last night they slept curled up together. Peace in our time.
Apartment living after 15 years is odd. I’m high up in a tower and sometimes stand out on the balcony and wish I had a wizard’s robes and staff. The people in the building are all so friendly, and almost all have a dog, so Basil has met lots of new friends when we go on “Walkies.” I always liked that word, I picked it up from Wallace and Grommit first and decided it would be my code name for him to know when we were about to go let him do his business which we end up doing four or five times a day. Now, all I have to do is say it and he runs and grabs his leash and brings it to me.
He hasn’t taken to city living totally. He hates to be on a leash. But he prances like he owns the entirety of Vancouver and everyone around are just his subjects. People stop me on the street to tell me how beautiful he is. They set down their bags or whatever and ask if they can love on him, just for a few seconds. It feels like I have a four legged gift to give my new home.
The mornings on Beatty street are pleasant. My routine has become simple: Get up, clean up, walk (Basil) and feed him and Medallion. Have some tea on the balcony, then walk to work. The transit station is along my walk, people bustling to and from various locales and all nod or say hi or note how the weather is either rainy or beautiful.
Forgive me a tangent, but in Star Trek Generations there’s a moment where Picard comes across James Kirk chopping wood. Shatner delivers a line perfectly, “Beautiful day isn’t it?”
When the weather here shines, everyone delivers that line perfectly, unprompted.
At noon the cruise ships sound the departure horns from the bay. I thought Seattle had good sushi, Vancouver spanks it, calls it a bad boy, and tells it to go home. There’s an Asian market right by my place and I boiled fresh live Dungeness Crab for a friend for dinner and it. was. divine. I even used a new recipe for the carapace fat mixed with garlic and butter to dip bread into. I had never done that. I had always just sprayed that stuff out.
(Recipe fans: boil the crabs alive. Pop the top carapace when done. Scrap out the tomalley (yellow fat), mix it with a small amount of egg, lots of garlic, and a little butter in a skillet (DON’T OVERCOOK IT), pour it back into the top half carapace as a serving dish. Dip french bread in it. Nectar of the gods)
Major changes become little changes so fast. Today I go to look at a little condo overlooking a river far from here. It’s small and like everything up here real estate wise it’s insanely expensive for a tiny space. But it has a small area for Basil outside and is in a quiet neighborhood. Downtown living is interesting but I can’t take the police sirens *every* *single* *night*.
I miss Aspen Blue, and Adia, and Eowyn Marie terribly. Sometimes so much I can’t bear it. But such is the nature of change.
Every day is packed, with major changes flowing into little ones. And that’s ok.