Seriously – on Saturday Trombone was relatively verbally agreeable (grunts of frustration and occasional shrieks of anger notwithstanding) and on Sunday, out of the blue, he started saying no.
Not just “NO,” though. He says it like this, in the company of rapid headshaking (just in case it wasn’t clear):
“Nononononononononononononononononononono!”
Overnight!
I had been (silently and secretly; I am not an idiot) thinking that maybe we were going to dodge the Toddler Says No bullet. Nonononononononononononono I was wrong.
So I am saying a lot of “yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyes!” whilst nodding fervently. I think my head actually might fall off by the end of the week but my outlook has improved 20-fold. All hail the power of positive thinking.
Busy week with highlights (out for dinner & to hear William Gibson!) and lowlights (car got hit in parking lot while we were out for dinner & hearing William Gibson!) but here, to bump Stephen Joseph Harper down from the top of this page, is a delightful flyer from our mailbox yesterday:
“WHO” do you call when there’s an Emergency?
What happens when “YOU” can’t make that call? Will “THEY” know “WHO” to call?
Everest, The First Nationwide Funeral Planning and Concierge Service provides a free, no obligation card (but please give us your phone number and the best time to call) for your wallet that links back to a file at the Everest offices. When the ambulance people pick your limp body up from the scene of the accident, they look at your card, call Everest and Everest says “Call her MOTHER!” I’m just not sure I want them making any decisions on my behalf if I’m incapacitated. If they can so flippantly abuse the English language with their advertising campaign, imagine what havoc they could wreak with my life-supported or dead body?
“Yeah she totally wanted the solid oak casket. It’s right here in her file: “I” want the solid oak casket for when “I” die.”
“She would never have used those quotation marks!”
“Tough, lady, it’s “signed” right here. Hand over the $10,000.”
I do enjoy the re-branding of “funeral broker” as “concierge service” though. Very savvy.
HI! How are you? Congratulations on your not fucking up everybody’s commute yesterday! Maybe this is because things were actually better and maybe it’s because you’ve been crowing like a doom-dealing raven for a month about how we should Expect Delays on The First Day of School and we should Plan Our Trips Accordingly. Either way, all the people on the news seemed really pleased with your service. Of course, all the people on the news were at Broadway and Commercial, riding your Golden Child, the 99 B-Line.
I have no quarrel with the 99 B-Line. I have taken it. It is a fine bus. It gets places fast and is rarely discourteous. Saint Aardvark takes the B-Line every day as part of his three-pronged approach to work commuting and he has never complained about it.
My quarrel, Translink, is with your insistence that you can only keep your 99 B-Line happy with additional buses. The B-Line must feed, feeeeeeeed on the buses from other lines. A few weeks ago I waited 20 minutes for the 135 that runs along Hastings Street. The week previous, a 135 came along every 5 minutes. While I bumped along, crushed against my fellow passengers I overheard this exchange:
Fellow passenger who was at the bus stop before me: So, busdriver, wassup with the long wait for the bus?
Busdriver: Hmmmm. Don’t know?
Passenger: Usually the 135 comes every 5 minutes..today it was half an hour! And it’s a short bus! (not a real short bus but as opposed to the “articulated” buses with the accordian pleats in the middle)
Busdriver: Well I know they took all the accordian buses off this route so they could go onto the 99 B-Line route
Passenger: Oh
Busdriver: Yeah, but the buses should be running as frequently. They just, you know, won’t hold as many people so maybe more people will be waiting for the next one.
Passenger: Oh.
Or how about yesterday, Translink, when I went to my usual bus stop after dropping Trombone at daycare. Every tuesday and thursday I take this bus at 7:40 am. Yesterday it didn’t come. No, I didn’t miss it. I know because I walked to the next bus stop and there were all the people who usually get on the 7:40 bus, waiting, smoking, fuming. Is it a coincidence that buses are mysteriously disappearing from suburban routes while the B-Line grows fat and accomplished? Your success story but at whose expense? Mine and my suburban compatriots.
Here’s how it looks to me: urban dwellers who have the choice of this, that or the other bus, or a cheap taxi ride, or a vigorous walk or cycle; they get more buses. Suburban dwellers, the ones you are simultaneously trying to woo out of their vehicles, who depend on one particular bus, whose taxi fare would be exorbitant, who wouldn’t be able to walk or cycle to work without a) taking 2 hours to do it and b) risking their lives on the highway, who pay more for their fares because they have to travel multiple “zones;” they get fewer and more irregular buses.
I came up with a great idea for you yesterday. Because I don’t expect you to ever actually serve the suburbs (“we gave you a skytrain, what the hell else do you want?”) I would appreciate some kind of registration system at your website. Transit users would sign up if they wanted to. They could enter in their normal routes.
“Hi, I’m Cheesefairy and I take the 155 on Wednesday mornings, the 135 on Monday and Friday mornings and the 112 on Tuesday and Thursday mornings.” (Dear readers: please don’t stalk me)
You store it away in your database. Then, if you ever decide to change the routing, you send me an email. YOU don’t even have to do anything. Your COMPUTER can do it for you.
“Dear Cheesefairy. You have registered with Translink as a regular rider of the 112. Just a note to let you know that we are canceling the 7:40 bus for the month of September. Suck it.”
See? All that waiting I did yesterday (let’s not discuss the 30 minutes sitting on the skytrain yesterday afternoon at Waterfront Station because that wasn’t your fault) gave me time to think fabulous thoughts!
Anyway Translink, stay real. You know I have no choice but to use you because if I had to drive downtown every day I would die by Christmas of apoplexy.
We finally made it to the Great Pacific National Exhibition yesterday, after a false start on Wednesday (wood flooring purchase in the morning + 27C heat + Trom “no nap -none at all!” bone = mama & daddoo in a melty puddle on the disgusting carpet saying “let’s eat chips for dinner” and “how about we try the pne on friday.”) Good decision on our part; yesterday was cool & did not actually rain on us while we were out.
On arriving I examined the Fair Guide carefully. I saw pig races listed. I saw the horse show, the Superdogs, the Peking Acrobats. I did not see duck races. Just as when Flying Wedge Pizza stopped making their “Spinach Fettucine Pizza” (sob) I stifled my disappointment and we moved on.
We proceeded to the Marketplace building, where SA went to pee and I pushed the stroller at -3 km/hr through throngs of people who were stopping to buy magic crystal nail files, fake tattoos and Tupperware. I saw the Miracle Shammy (TM) booth but did not ask whether or not a MS could aerodynamicize a duck, despite this being a very good question. We just kept moving, like chocolate bars on a conveyor belt. I saw SA’s hat about 50 feet ahead of me and followed it, watching as it grew further and further away. I cursed not having brought my cell phone. I overheard a man on his cell phone: “I’m by the booth with the Peruvian ponchos. No, YOU come HERE.”
Eventually we caught up to SA and beat a quick retreat from the Marketplace building. I purchased garlic fries and SA purchased Hunky Bill’s perogies. While Red Robinson in his Elvis shirt announced the beginning of the finals of his talent competition, Trombone seagulled half my fries and a lot of SA’s sour cream.
To the performance of an allegedly famous local singer songwriter (he writes hockey songs) we proceeded east to the animal barns. Trombone greeted all the horses, cows, etc. with his adorable, jaunty “Hello!” which became less jaunty and more insistent with each repetition. At the supermarket, you see, people answer him. At the barn, the Clydesdale just looks at you and keeps eating. (“Heh heh heh,” said the teenage boy to his friends, “that horse is eating from the OTHER ONE’s FOOD!” Hoo! That IS funny!)
Finally we moved through to the smaller animal barn. There were baby ducks, rabbits, goats, etc. While I was buying green tea/lemon verbena soap from the little farmer’s markety type store, a goat bleated in Trombone’s face and he decided he’d had enough of nature. So we proceeded east towards Playland WHICH SOUNDED LIKE THIS ALL THE WAY THROUGH IT HOLY GOD THE HUMANITY.
Oh and we ate 48 mini donuts, of which Trombone got one.
SA bet his annual $2 on the roulette and did not win.
I debated buying cotton candy and eventually decided against it.
We traipsed back to the home improvement pavilion so that SA could visit the Quantum Knights. They eyed him suspiciously because he has no beard this year so doesn’t look all crazy like them.
Trombone needed some running around time so we hit a green patch and let him wander off while a Polynesian dance troupe danced and a Polynesian man sang songs, one of which he claimed was an ancient love song written by a Hawaiian man for his wife but which sounded exactly like “Michael, Row the Boat Ashore.”
I picked up some Kettle Corn and we trekked back out & up the hill & back to the car & on the highway & home we were.
I know. Not a single ride, not a Superdog show, not a lineup for the Dream House (though as we walked by, SA said loudly, “I hear Tamara Taggart’s in the kitchen with her new baby,” [ Tamara Taggart being a local media celebrity who recently gave birth to her first child and we, being subscribers to TV Week Magazine and having been subjected to a twelve page spread of photos from her baby shower and this after a twelve page spread of photos from her wedding the year before, feeling entitled to talk about her as an acquaintance] and that gave us great jolility.) Those traditional PNE things just aren’t fun with a 14 month old. They are fun WITHOUT a 14 month old and they are fun with an older kid, but at Trombone’s age, you can only buy so much time with fried foods before you have to cut your losses.
And anyway, there was no duck racing. The fair has been soured.
But here’s the video from 3 years ago’s duck racing.
