Then and Now: Thirty Years

“5 August 1986: I have got the feeling that I fall in love with another place… – it’s Vancouver!” Thus the start of my journal entry from that momentous day, the first I spent in Canada. Yes, I wrote it in English, even though I hadn’t quite figured out the use of the gerund. It was the summer between Grades 12 and 13, and my aunt had brought me on a trip to visit family in Vancouver .

I still remember the feeling of waking up in that little house in East Vancouver with its slide-up windows (very strange for a German used to inward-swinging casements) and hearing people walk by on the street, talking in English – “Mrmlmrmlmrml,” that soft purring that to German ears sounds like the speaker is talking around a wad of chewing gum.


It was the most magical holiday, and I loved every minute of it. Loved it so much, I came back the following year, and the rest, as they say, is history. Actually, that summer of ’86 is history, too. And in honour of said historical occasion, I made a point of going back to Vancouver this August and visiting some of the same places we’d gone to “back then”.


As I only just realised this year, August of ’86 was the ideal time to come to Vancouver for the first time. It was Expo 86, the World’s Fair on Transportation and Communication, and Vancouver had been polished to within an inch of its life. All sorts of new buildings and infrastructure were put up just for the occasion – places that have since become defining landmarks for Vancouver. Science World (built as Expo Centre), Canada Place with its white sails, the SkyTrain, the Sun Yat-Sen Garden in Chinatown… all of them opened in ’86.


And then there was Lighthouse Park, Downtown (Skyscrapers! Pretty cool for a girl from a Bavarian mountain village), the Pacific Ocean, Granville Island, a day trip on the ferry to Vancouver Island… plus a couple of road trips into the Interior, one of which led us out here to the Okanagan, where, rather prophetically, I ate my first peach-fresh-from-the-tree (bliss!) and acquired my first Okanagan sunburn/tan.


We spent a whole month in Canada – a month of almost unrelenting sunshine. And when my aunt and I climbed back onto that airplane on September 4th, suitcases laden with Canadian souvenirs (amongst other things I took back a muffin tin and corresponding cookbook, a Lazy Susan, a jar of homemade peach jam, Chinese tea candies, and a hoodie with a Snoopy on the back), I left behind a piece of me. A piece that I had to come back to retrieve the following year – unsuccessfully, I might add; that time I simply got stuck for good.


So this year on August 5th (it just happened to be that very day), I once again took a trip to Vancouver. Canada Place (I thought it was very nice of them to put up “30 Years” celebratory banners just for me), Science World, Chinatown, the SkyTrain, Peace Arch Park (the border crossing to the US – I managed to lock myself out of my car in the parking lot), the Pacific Ocean, Granville Island… And then last weekend I went on another quick jaunt down there for a couple of days, and went on the SkyTrain to Downtown Vancouver, to the Art Gallery and Robson Square. And drove back across the mountains, on my own that time – exactly thirty years after I had first been through there in my uncle’s car – back to my family, my own house and my Canadian life.

Life, the Universe, and O Canada… It’s been a good thirty years.IMG_20160826_121150664_crop

Louis

The day Johnny died, I saw on Facebook a picture of a dog with a caption that said something like: “When I die, please don’t say ‘I’ll never have another dog.’ Honour my life by saving another.” Now, replace “dog” with “cat”, and you have a principle we’ve lived by for quite some years already. So a couple of weeks ago, we betook ourselves to the SPCA, and came home with – drumroll please – LOUIS!IMG_20160821_161809232

Ain’t he adorable? Of course he is; he’s a kitten – they’re the very definition of cuteness. And this one certainly lives up to the expectations placed on him.

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Louis in front of his house (the first few days he liked to sleep in the upstairs bedroom)

His name was suggested by the Youngest Offspring, who coughed up the cash for the “adoption fee” (which is really the cost of having the critter neutered). He thought it would be fun to name the cat after a Canadian historical figure, and the first one that sprang to mind was Louis Riel (if you don’t know who that is, you can educate yourself here). Also, we have a long-standing custom of naming our cats after royalty, and there’s certainly plenty of King Louises to choose from. My personal favourite is Louis XIV, because, bombastic and megalomaniac, which just seems to suit a small, fuzzy ginger kitten.

IMG_20160819_095010032So a couple of days ago we took Louis (the kitten, not the king) to the vet to, umm, be turned into an It (is he a eunucat now?). When we picked him up, the vet said we should try to keep him (it) quiet for about a week, but she said it with a chuckle – she’s acquainted with kittens, after all. And sure enough, Louis didn’t get the memo – within minutes of bringing him home, he was doing his psycho-kitten act, racing around, jumping on and off furniture, attacking anything that moves or doesn’t…

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We are not amused.

He’s wormed his way into our hearts quite thoroughly, this little guy. The whole family loves him – well, the whole family with the exception of Cleo, our feline lady, whose black aristocratic nose has once again been put out of joint by the presence of a little pest who keeps trying to attack her and won’t be deterred by hisses. Too-bad-so-sad for her; Louis is here to stay.

So there you have it: Life, the Universe, and Louis. Now where did the critter get to again?

World Photography Day!

Helen Jones says it’s World Photography Day (go follow the link and check out some of her awesome photos). So I figured I’d join in the fun with a few pics, some old, some new, a few that I’d saved for using on my blog, and a few of which I’d already posted their brothers (i.e. another photo of the same scene from a different angle). Enjoy!appebarrelsbreadCoffee Creekgranny glassesRose (3)sunset

The Price of Love

IMG_20160730_145258700_HDROur darling Johnny, Tri-Pawed, Long John Charcoal, Twitticus, Fuzzy, Silly-Cat died last night. He got sick sometime Sunday night, just kept getting worse and worse. We took him to the vet, who suspected FIP (a fatal cat virus) and did blood tests to that effect; but it turned out not to be that, so today she was going to do an ultrasound to see what it might be. But he just quietly slipped away sometime in the night.
In a sense, I’m glad it’s over – these last few days have been stressful, to say the least. Because, you see, we loved that cat. He was really special. It might sound like playing favourites, but – okay, it’s playing favourites. Cats are not children, who depend on your love for their wellbeing, so I don’t feel a smidgen of guilt for loving one special cat more than, perhaps, another.
And it really is that, love, I mean. Johnny was a wonderful cat – affectionate, cute, funny, a little silly, quite vocal (purr, rumble, chirp, coo, squeak, purrrrr…), and all around great to have as a part of our family. We’re so glad we brought him home from the SPCA, that October day four years ago (you can read that story here). Having him around has given us so much pleasure, so much love.
And the price for that is the pain of having to say goodbye. The more you love, the more it hurts to let go. But it’s worth it – loving is worth every single tear it costs.
So, early this morning, as the sun rose over the hills, I put Johnny in a box and ran my hands one more time over his thick, velvety black fur.
Goodbye, darling Johnny. I’m so very grateful for the love we got to experience because of you.

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