The first question Bill, who was 77 with Cerebral Palsy, asked was ‘What do you DO?’
I had not been asked that question in over a year and a half, and here a disabled person was assuming I DID. His view was the opposite of Health Authorities workers, the medical suppliers, the YMCA/YWCA supervisors and directors, the doctors, specialist and everyone else I had met who assumed disabled meant ‘life without focus and purpose’.
Of the five people I talked to at this indoor market for those who knew all about scraping by, two asked what I DID. Perhaps the reason 79% of Canadian wheelchair users are unemployed is because, in this city where the 10K’s goal is to have 15% of the entire population RUN regardless of age, those who do the hiring, who are part of those who ‘have’ equate ‘crippled’ as ‘hopeless and helpless’
Those who are just getting by know that in the underground and sideline economy, where spending a day to make $10-$30 is okay, disability from mental illness to physical issues don’t stop someone’s gig. And that gig is ‘follow your dream’ which often, when kicked to the curb, frees a person to take the risks of following what they love, and hoping some money comes.
I used the world ‘crippled’ because in a film watched last night the protagonist kept saying, “I don’t fear death when I fight; when I meet the next challenge, but I fear being crippled.” Dying was synonymous with being able to ‘Do’, to keep going after your dream, or as he said, ‘The next mountain to climb”, but being disabled was worse that death: it was a unimaginable living dead-end.
I said to Linda on leaving, “My problem is that I’ve been talking to the wrong Canadians. I had given up, thinking Canadians were apathetic assholes. But I've just be talking to those who don't know what life is like on the edge, and the wrong ones." I laughed, "Thank goodness." I went back to interact to those who have lived in the Tower, and it was a relief. It was a cool swap meet.
For the whole time I was at the market, the heat of the room turned my body red, and my speech and movement was impaired. But not a single person finished a sentence or interrupted me. And they didn't do tasks FOR me, like when I struggled to grasp coins in payment. I wanted to know what they did, and they wanted to know what I did. We were equals.
The woman who sold me the Margaret Atwood Handmaid’s Tale and Jeanette Winterson’s Written on the Body
was heading off to India.
The 14 year old who sold me the goth black top, skulls and cats showed me her favorite hoodie, with a music note and skull, music goth. We bartered. “How about 50 cents?” she asked.
“Will you take a dollar?” I countered. I am either very bad or very good at bargaining. That was a good deal.
I talked with some starting Native art carvers. I had met them at the Xmas fair. They were hanging and had the instruments out, carving while we chatted, doing the dream, even if the money wasn’t there yet.
Bill, who told me he had been told by doctors that he would be dead by the time he was 30 proudly proclaimed he would be 77 years old soon. We both belonged to the Quadriplegic Society and he had the same power chair controls as me, I have the beta version and he has the alpha version. Bill’s CP makes it harder to understand, but he waited for me, and I waited for him. We traded info about hospitals, and rehab, wheelchair fitting, and hobbies. He gave me a sleep shirt with native art on it. I picked up that Bill, like me, liking having a talk. I also noticed that he liked a) talking to women, flirting a little, and 2) looking at their breasts.
Was Bill the 'normal' Jerry Lewis on his telethon fought for? Jerry always talked about the ‘wretched lives’ of those with MDA and Cerebral Palsy, and telling everyone that like Bill was told, and Harriet Johnson: they would die young, young, young. Or rather, they would die UNLESS they live for Jerry (seriously, he states that one boy is 'still alive' because he, Jerry Lewis, took time to go bowling with him: and that like the Babe Ruth story, he is the Babe Ruth, for whom children stay alive because of his promises: "Hero worship, okay? That child stayed alive because of Hero Worship, and that's what I'm doing"). Yet he calls those who are disabled 'half a human' and Bill and I live in a 'Steel Cage' (his term for a wheelchair). When asked , 'Is that how you REALLY feel about them (those with disabilities)?' (an interesting 2 minutes)
His reply, "They can't run with me down the hall can they?",
and in the stunned silence of the interviewer he continued, "In TRUTH..aren't they left with half (of being a human)? If there is a degree of measurement, are they whole (humans)?" This is where Jerry Lewis seems to talk about Eugenics. Are those with migraines 9/10th human?
Was Bill at 77, happily enjoying his harem of women to converse with weekly, and yes, maybe loving the breasts too, but happy, and kind, and generous. A success story? Or half a human? To me, Bill was living a good life, and the life he wanted. What was my life? Bill wanted to know. Writing, I told him, but thought later how I didn’t send postcards until I got disabled, indeed, I didn’t reach out much once I got out of the social edges.
Jerry's has a harsh response to criticism from a group who USED to be poster children for his telethon: those shown as dying, as to be pitied. Now these 'Jerry's Children have grown up and say, stop making us out to be things to be pitied, we don't NEED a great white able bodied hope who put himself forward as the only one who cares (even to being nominated for a Nobel Prize). Jerry's response was to threaten to take away their wheelchairs for complaining.
Or as he said in the linked clip, 'what do I care about them (ex-Jerry Lewis Poster chidren)'. He explained to the interviewer, "When 100 million people are watching me and thinking what I do is okay I can't worry or dignify (them)": the now adults, children who were used as poster children for MDA. His stance is that if able body people agree with him that the disabled are 'half a human' and wouldn't survive without Jerry, then he doesn't want to hear from those he is fundraising for, or even used TO fundraise. And if they complain, take away that 'steel imprisonment' in which they live (gee, INDY gets me places, but isn't my prison or my guard). As to being disabled, Jerry told Vanity that if he was, he would 'kill myself'.
In choosing that point of view, or Bill's, I think I'll go with Bill. After all, nice breasts to stare out, and good company isn’t a bad life to live. I guess they would be hunky boytoys for all the hetero gals out there. Basically, to Jerry, I 'Don't' do life, while to Bill and those at the swap meet, I 'Do'.
At the swap meet, still thinking myself as human, I bought gifts; books to send, a goth top for a teen known only by email and laminated posters for other onoline friends.
But I also got gifts: a sleepshirt from Bill, some extra posters, a cloth woven carry bag and a new outlook, a view to look at until I can look out my windows again. 
Yes, a woman let me look in her old viewmaster which had 3-D mix of superheroes and Canadian ‘wonders’ from spiderman swinging in, to a bucking bronco in the Calgary Stampede. You can see that it totally gave me the ‘WOW!’ factor (and that I am completely overheating, my face and arms bright red).
The woman said she got it, and was going to give it to someone but after seeing my natural reaction (“I did NOT have my mouth open!” I told Linda. She insisted I did, and was like a little kid), she knew that I was the ‘right’ person. And finding that I would keep it by the computer to have something too look ‘outside’, that made her certain. Bought a gift waiting for the right person to come, she sounded like me. We traded names of Blogs, and what we ‘Did’.
It took me three weeks, with my poor health to get there, but it was pretty cool, interesting people, interesting stuff.
The location, in Fernwood was surrounded with what Linda and I call, Ukrainian colors. 
This is because she come from the prairies where after World War II, groups of people from various countries were given land along the train line, so while she grew up in a town which spoke German (is dry, no alcohol, thus no prom, and had a typical 1938 German school day), there are within 10 miles, a French speaking town, two more French speaking towns twenty minutes away, Old Mennonites (Prussian and Paraguay), Russian, and Ukrainian towns.
From her married in relations and community, Ukrainians like bright colors, BRIGHT colors, so when we saw a house like this,
it felt we were right back in the Prairies.
When Linda moved away, her ‘setting up home’ presents fell into two catagories, those that could be used, and those that glowed in the dark, which were put in a separate box. Even now, Linda will say, ‘oh don’t worry, that’s a Ukrainain towel/blanket’. This means, it is wild and not to her taste and not something she is too worried about getting damage as it is functional, vivid colours but functional. Fernwood, is reported to be an area of artists now, and still has lots of old houses, and the kind of old group housing houses, 
complete with the VW bus in front (one guy turned his car into a hot tub for reasons still unclear) which I remember from the time I lived there after arriving from Gettysburg, PA to go to university.
Our house was a lot like this Edwardian multilevel, which had 12 boarding rooms.
I went there because I could afford it (just under 100 for a month) and though not as well painted as this, I was next to the kitchen and the bathroom. In fact, what I was paying for wasn't a room but the pantry off the kitchen, shelves removed. My room was 8 feet by four feet. I had a bed, and a door out. While it was small and unusual, it didn’t seem that odd during daylight when my grandfather inspected it and said, “Are you SURE?” as grandmother said I couldn’t stay with them and this was mixed gender and I could afford it.
It turned out the rumors of drug use was true in Fernwood as the next room over, the guy was growing pot plants, and on shaggy guy who had a live in girl when I arrived, earned his rent by selling magic mushrooms. Perhaps this was the when I had the path split: I COULD have enjoyed free love, candles and drugs (though I don’t remember lesbians or bisexual around, mostly just horny stoned guys). But since I was trying to go to uni, and work a full time job AND get home before the sun set (since that was not the place to wander after dark). Getting food was hard as our communal kitchen was often being used to prepared drugs, including preparing the pot buds, which took over the sink for three days, so no spaghetti! I was oft invited and started running out of excuses to avoid going in the 'vehicle hot tub' which I think didn't know the word 'bleach' and had hosts of STD's (maybe this was one of those places you COULD get herpes from a hot tub?). So it was time to move.
While there are lot of great houses, with lovely colours, and rightly should be heritage houses.
But I am not sure if they are registered as Fernwood is one of the ‘lost’ areas of Victoria, not an area anyone thought of 'preserving' despite age. With a town hall, theatre, pub, and center, all within walking distance of town, and on the way to both the jobs at Hillside and the University, Fernwood is fortunate it hasn’t been discovered, bought up and turned into condo developments.
The place is full of character homes as well as parks, little pathways and green spaces, but also, and this keeps the price down, DRUGS, lots of them. I heard from a tenant, after I left the panty ‘room’, a month or two later the house was raided, perhaps due to one tenant there going from house to house looking for drugs when his supply ran out. There are, spaced between the restored and painted Edwardian houses, squats and shooting galleries.
Unlike the UK, squatters are not legal nor can then get rights to the house (in the UK, you can even get on a list, or get a list of places that are open for squatting, and if you stay for 10 years, you OWN the building). Here, it is criminal vandalism, not that I haven’t had to squat (live) myself in unheated, no bathroom bits of roof and floors. Thank goodness for university bathrooms and showers and McDonalds, eh?
But one thing that Fernwood does is expand your mind, one way or another. This trip it was trying to navigate the streets, as the one ways, dead ends, and tiny streets is another reason adding lot of cars and condo’s is a bad idea. As Bill put it, “We are in the Center of a Maze!” True enough and often we would be blinded, while lost trying to find the entrance and street by yet another building blowing our limited color scheme and brightness ideas wide open.
This is only a fraction of the buildings I took pictures of, or asked Linda to, all within a two square block radius.
Suddenly, I have the urge to get some glow in the dark forest green, eggplant purple and banana yellow and get decorating.
This is the snowfall from 4:20 a.m. to 6:15 a.m.(It was raining at 4:20 a.m., snow falling 4:25 a.m.)
Linda is sad about the flowers just emerged.
By the time I got downstairs, the walkway was not suitable for wheelchairs, limiting me. The sky and clouds were blue/purple with yellow spots of light dotting the street and coming through trees as I could see fat snowflakes whirling around and down. 
A blogging thanks to Linda, who ventured out in Moccasins of deer skin and rabbit fur we got in Churchhill, MB, on Hudson's Bay in the arctic and got the shots I asked.
A cyclist rides on, disappearing into the fog, as they go up the steep hill towards town.
The sidewalks are untouched, and the snow drifts down over cars and trees. Twice, the weight of snow on an upper tree branch showered Linda with a silent snow deluge.
Though the sun is up, there is no light as yet, only a odd reflection of blue on the underside of the clouds, and the fat flakes, indicating it is just below freezing. I don't know if midday will leave us with a mucky mess, but now, it is both pretty and means delays.
I provide 'moral support' and most importantly, make sure the door is open when Linda returns.
Avast mateys! And fare thee well to ‘Talk Like a Pirate Day’. I been a-wenching, appraising the fair and buxom, which be staring a lot at me’ Pirate Queen Linda.
Being out of it from mid-Friday to late Saturday, I missed most of the weekend, but wanted to talk about my visit to Royal Roads a bit ago (meaning, I have no idea, but it is the last place I went).
Royal Roads is not only famous for the filming of MANY films, including being the Academy in X-men, but has a famous and slightly strange history of one of the great powers in the British Empire and coal for the ships.
Here in British Columbia the richest man and family was the Dunsmier’s, the coal Baron’s of the province and providers of the coal for ships for the entire west coast, one of the critical coal stops and an important position for the British Empire. We went to visit Hatley Castle, of Royal Roads, which was built by James Dunsmier the son of Robert Dunsmier (who built Craigdarroch Castle in Downtown Victoria but died a year before the 1890 completion).
When Robert died, James, one of the two brothers, got the coal company and railway to go with it (now the E&N railway, protested for being completely wheelchair inaccessable!). Due to tragic family dysfunction, Craigdarroch Castle, after 10 years of construction, with 39 rooms and 28 acres of gardens was occupied solely by Jame’s mother, Roberts’ widow. And at her death in 1908 James simply auctioned of the contents of the Castle (Which still has the largest and finest collection of in-situ stained glass in all of Canada).
This included the commissioned nine muses lamps but thankfully not the exotic paneling 
(picture credit Robert Wong). Several decades have been spent trying to restore the castle, only one of the lamps have been found.
James decided to move across the water from town and build not just a castle but a manor, with full grounds and a wall surrounding it ($75,000 just for the wall). Even though he used a completely different architect, the whole, ‘I’ve got a bigger tower than you do!’ makes it seem more than a bit of ‘I’ll show you’ to the dead father Robert. The Hatley Castle was complete in 1908, the same year James sold his Parents castle (odd similarities regarding the two). Everything with Hatley castle had a ‘F-you!’ aspect to it. For example, the gardens, particularly the Conservatory, which cost as much as building the entire wall around the dozens of acres and 10 km of road, was filled with white orchids from India along with a Banana Tree (in a Pacific Northwest Rainforest?). No need for the Chinatown of Victoria, as The Hatley estate had its own on-estate Chinatown to house the 120 Chinese gardeners. The “Castle”, with teak floors and oak and rosewood paneling overlooked the dock and water where his yacht the “Dolaura” waited.
The ‘Dolaura’ was 210 feet long (some yacht) and cost $200,00, having mahogany paneled drawing rooms with a huge fireplace, a dining room to seat 24 and a private suite which had sitting room, plus three other rooms including a tiled bathroom with venetian marble and silver bath fittings. This all on a yacht near some of the roughest seas, and ship wrecked coasts.
The Castle was James’ “I’m taking my toys and going home” pout after he was elected not only to parliament but four years later became Premier of BC. That was short lived being forced to step down less than 2 years later due to charges of conflict of interest attack over railroad legislation (he owned one). He became the Lieutenant-Governor three years later, in 1906, but refused to sign Royal Consent over an Anti-Oriental Bill (the Lieutenant-Governor is the Queen’s Representative and because Canada is STILL a commonwealth, the representative can take power away from the parliament at will. So if the Queen’s representative says no, it does not become law – he did this.). Due to his massive hiring of Japanese labor for his mines caused another outcry and pushed him into stepping down as Lieutenant Governor in 1909. Forced to step down from the two highest offices in the province: Premier of the Province, and then as Lieutenant Governor within 10 years, he dealt with it as boys sometimes do. He sold his entire railway and coal holdings for $11,000,000 and retired to ‘The Castle’ to fish, hunt and play with ‘the boys’ (seriously, that’s what the bio’s say).
He died in 1920, his daughter and wife in 1937 leaving Hatley Castle in caretaking. The Government bought it for just $75,000 and turned it into a Military Academy, for junior officers (so it was a sort of X-men academy), which it remained until 1995, when it, under lease to the Federal Government became Royal Roads University. It is a low residency university and ‘The Castle’ as well as much of the Gardens and other parts are completely wheelchair inaccessible. Welcome to Canada!!! No Disability legislation here, or MBA’s for wheelies.
Seriously, as attractions go, much less as a ‘university’ (err….), this is one of the worst inaccessible examples, particularly as it is regularly used for weddings, but the gardens, including the parts USED for weddings are also completely inaccessible, along with Hatley Castle itself.
The disabled parking used to be right next to the castle (but they were turned around and ‘staff parking’ was painted on the back of the signs). But now, it is at the bottom of the long hill, and out of about 400-500 parking spots there are a total of…….one parking spot.
Luckily it is close to the ‘accessible toilet’ of Harley Toilet. Having to come in through the ‘servant entrance’ is bad, having to go to the loo in the middle of the parking lot, the ONLY toilet in the parking lot, is well, puts an emphasis that though the Federal Government might have disability equality in the Human Rights Act, that doesn’t mean they won’t treat you as a second class citizen…openly. (me, bitter about having to wheel into a porta-toilet in the middle of a parking lot to pee? Naw!)
But enough with that, on to the gardens (the Castle, being inaccessible, was not an attraction). While Linda and Cheryl walked up the three steps to the winding walkway up the castle,
I had to follow the car traffic out and then up the hill to the service road. Thank God I was in Indy! After a bit of this I put indy into high speed tank mode an ‘broke through’ onto the grass.
It turns out that what appears to be flat is actually large clumps of grass, often in ridges and sometimes covering things, (septic tanks?), which mean that there was a lot of high speed weaving around and screaming, as Cheryl and Linda stopped and stared.
Then of course, Linda starting taking pictures: after all, I might tip over! (THIS is my caregiver?)
Hatley Castle and grounds really go for the ‘we got lots of Ivy, and it’s really old’ that the Empress goes for as well.
In this case, some trimming would help as the ivy was completely covering several windows but it does make for a pretty picture.
Here is the upper garden (white orchids) and a lower lawn,
which was probably good for croquet (it is actually played quite a bit around here). Now it is used for weddings.
Here is the lower lily pond, which is as far as I can get to the Castle, so I am doing my ‘Tiger’ pose 
(actually I am more trim now, due to boxing plus being really ill and not eating! Vain much?).
While Linda and Cheryl climbed up, it was back to the road for me and up to meet them around the front of the Castle. I really don’t know why they don’t have a ramp at the corner of the three steps to get in, but they don’t. It does some nice front gardens and oozes, “I have oodles of money and I am going to just sit here in it, when I am not off shooting things.” 
James did have a daughter but she died the same year as her mother, so the money and effort poured into a property (which had its own CHINATOWN, sorry, I just couldn't get over that - they pulled it down in WWII) which was never given the love of a family home.
On a personal note, my grandfather, while in the military in WWII, used to have to clear and clean the acres of the wall surrounding the estate – my grandfather wasn’t officer material, so he cleaned for them, but he sure could scrounge: I grew up rowing the rowboat wear a giant bag in front and back label ‘material of the Canadian Naval Service’ which was supposed to be a ‘life-preserver’ but I was terrified would sink like cement. Seeing Royal Navy stamps on tools, supplies, lamps and everything else around his place was standard. In fact, he told me that he started his house painting business by stealing two extension ladders from the navy with a pal. At East Sooke he still had (and used) one of those ladders. Go Navy!
So here we are, arrived at Hatley Castle!
Linda fussed around with the Camera and the 'Is the auto flashing' for so long we have a previous picture of us smiling and Linda hauling ASS, too late. This one is the picture she would prefer to have published though.
We were off to the gardens, while much of it was inaccessible (literally one step),
it gave me opportunity to take pictures. The upper garden building used to be covered in 1910,
and there was also a greenhouse, this upper garden building cost as much as building the km’s of wall around the dozens of acres of his estate.
But it is very fetching. Much of it now is a rose garden but you can see how it is adjacent to the Castle
where those flowers were placed daily in the Castle.
Here is Linda in one of the sitting and viewing areas within the upper garden.
While Linda and Cheryl took off to the gardens, I was playing out with the super macro function of my camera on the flowers. 
Meanwhile Linda, out in the rose and other upper gards was taking pictures of the scores of bee pollinating and nectar gathering.
Now what is an over the top Castle and Garden structure without some peacocks to wander through them? This being Victoria, that is pretty much a ‘must’, a ‘Fashion Do!’ along with swans if you have a pond. The lower lawns were full of Canada geese. But lucky for us, it wasn’t just a Peacock, but a baby Peacock as well.
Here is the smaller female (the male is the one with plumage) with her baby. I had never seen a baby peacock before. So that was nice. Also this ‘family picture’
(my fav) which I am giving to the family to send out for this years’ Christmas Card.
After a last picture,
we were off to the ground which had all sorts of exotic names like ‘Desert Garden’ and ‘Japanese Garden’ (which this picture is supposed to be, not very Japanese in my experience).
There were lots of other signs but not a lot of upkeep, or accessibility, as here is just one example of the inclines,
and those were often loose sand, gravel and had to be done in ‘tank gear’.
We did find another mother guarding her peacock peachick (I had to look up what a baby peacock was called), though in this photo with two moms and babies is ‘muster’ or ‘ostentation’ (group of peacocks) of peahens and peachicks.
Cute, but the names do sound like something I got as take out recently, or was that chickpea?
By this time I was tired of the inaccessible nature of the place so I decided to take on the little ornamental bridge (since if other people can walk over it why not wheel over it?). After a few runs at it, I got up the steep incline.
It was a nice stream, but I couldn’t get DOWN until I took up my foot plate and reclined the chair as much as I could in order to stay in it. With, “Oh God, oh, Oh, OH MY GOD!!!!!!!……ahhhhhh, that’s wasn’t so hard.” I descended. Linda and Cheryl were laughing, but since I could not fathom why, I merely ignored them and rolled on with grace and deportment.
Time to go, since I was getting slurry. Which is when Linda got ‘The IDEA’. See, it is not always me who instigates these things. Though I admit I wandered with INDY over to the Canada Geese with camera at the ready to see if they would take flight, perchance. But it was Linda who was urging me ‘put the speed up’, I stared at her. She pointed to the geese and made a shooing motion, ‘make a run at them!’
Well, as it happened, I had recently been wondering why adults give up the joys of running at flocks of birds they way kids will, so I started bouncing around the terrain (Which helped with the “AAAAAaaaaaaooooooaaaAA!” shouting) at high speed toward the large flocks of Canada Geese.
However they just walked aside giving me the ‘look’ like I was the girl from the chess club which had barged into the ‘cool’ party and suggested we all play ‘Boggle’! (no, not Bong, Boggle – it’s a word game.)
So thus ended our Hatley Castle Adventure, with me almost caught molesting the local wildfowl. We took off while the getting was good.
So ‘Good Sailing and safe Port’ at the end of Speak like a Pirate day. I would like the point out that Victoria WAS a ‘Free Port’ much like Port Royal and Nassau, it is just we didn’t get a LOT of piracy since it was the GOVERNMENT importing the opium, gambling, setting up prostitution (still legal here!) in order to try to attract American ships. Victoria, BC even had its own brand of opium: Tai Shun.
To see a period can of it and a history of Victoria/Vancouver Island Opium check here (miles are determined from Victoria, so 12 mile pub is 12 miles from Victoria). When you visit Victoria, make sure you go to Fan Tan Alley in our Chinatown (the oldest in Canada), one of the last ‘escape and small shop’ alleys that the Dens would have a back door onto in order for patrons to escape any busts. Now has great corset shops, alternative music shops and all other form of interesting places.
I want to show you the street where I live. And why it is worth hanging around despite the noise. Because it is a nice area and within wheeling distance to a very nice and old park and to the beach/waterfront. Because when I go to wheel down to get a DVD (of the very terrifying and lovely Pandorum) from the DVD rental place, THIS is the sidewalk I wheel down.
It is more than just nice and even, so no sloping to the left or right, but also a floral burst of outdoors.
And I usually see squirrels every trip, sometimes crows follow me, I have seen an owl on this trip down this street and when I return, I see this robin, looking very regal for someone looking for worms 
(the two crows were on the other side of me, the female picking branches for the nest and the male guarding her – sweet ‘twue love’ crow style). And I guess robins like to preen since THIS is the view from the van (we went to pick up Cheryl from the Coho) of the fence directly in front of me.
Squirrels often use this fence as a highway. I like that we live in an urban/secret rural beltway.
At then end of the block of the Sakura Blossom tunnel, which has many zero entry apartment buildings with seniors living there, stands this older, 1940’s building, which has a fair sized bamboo forest off on the side.
Linda said, “That place NEVER looks that good.” Well, in spring, and when the sun is out, a lot of things look good. I remember that from the first spring in Cardiff – grey, wet, nasty tipy flagstones which soaked you like landmines, and row houses that looked like someone crying frozen in architecture. But then the spring sun came out and it look really quite nice. I asked Linda ‘Wow, why don’t we move to THIS area?” coming off the round-a-bout
She replied dryly, “This is OUR street, we are at the other end...in sunlight, you just haven’t seen it in sunlight for six months.”
Ah.
Where we live now however is very nice, and we looked around at many different apartments to try and find the right place. Where we live now was the best we found at the time (since we were living in a ex-crack dealers apartment beneath someone who liked to try and listen to us having sex – we REALLY wanted to move). So, another block down and there is the flower store. I showed you the purple Mumms we got, but I had wanted the blue (Linda wanted the purple, and I wanted Linda to be happy). Here are the large blue ones ($7.99),
the smaller bundle for $4.99 was already gone, alas.
We are fortunate to be within a block of a shop that sells a great variety of flowers from these gorgeous lilies,
to mumms and carnations and more, all in amazing colours, ranging from $2-$12. So though I may be trapped inside and fearing the noise and the heat, without a view of outside, I have life and colour, like these pin cushion
(or the bird of paradise behind). And of course, what is spring without a sunflower?
Wheeling on a half block are more houses and apartments. Many of the apartments have cement pot in front where gardens are kept, or are landscaped,
as the quality of gardening is quite high here. A lot of old heritage houses, built on bedrock on one side of the street (close to the old Cathedral on the hill), as you can see with these houses, sporting the lovely purple bushes (name?),
but not exactly wheelchair accessible. On this side of the street are a mix of post war houses and apartment buildings from the 1960’s to 1980’s. Here is the fence of a side street showing even when things are ‘let to go’ it comes out nice, in springtime.
Two blocks along is one of the apartment buildings we desired to get into, it looks like it was made for people living in Hollywood during the 50’s (does it come with a LONG mother of pearl cig holder? Yes, I wanted to vamp it!). The whole area is curvy with multiple gardens, these balconies and as you see, ramps for the inhabitants.
I think it is more expensive than where we are now, but I imagine some aging film star in there saying, “Oh darling, you remind me so much of a young Catherine Kelly, who was all the ‘wow’ amoung us B-list film stars and sure to launch into the A films, and who knows maybe star next to Cary Grant…” wink wink, “that would have been dreamboat days! Come by sometime and I can screen my films for you, like “A Fallen Tomcat” or “The Smitherson Sister”"
It was places like this in L.A. where older women with way too much jewelry were "the third daughter of the Count, you know, and would have been doing the Royal Circuit if not for The War, her country just didn’t exist after that.”
Sorry, odd memories as the people who lived in Pasadena between Lake Street and MIT were an interesting mix (including Ray Bradbury). Back in Victoria, here is a back garden from an apartment compledx we wheeled by.
Crossing the street, I took a picture of this heritage house turned either boarding house or bed and breakfast, I think it is a bit of both.
I like it because it has not only an atrium but also an roof deck which is used as an observatory for star watching at night. This is the street where I live. One of them.
After wheeling home we went to pick up Cheryl from the Coho (here it is heading back to Port Angeles
that day it was delayed since a semi-truck backed OVER a car, not a good day for the car), and since I was in the van, and the sun was out, I suggested we go to the waterfront. We parked across from the duck pond, and used a trail I had not used in a long time. I liked this section of the waterfront as it gets pounded hard by winter storms and erodes and changes the nature of the park often. Sadly none of the “Do not walk during winter” signs were up with a pictogram of a little man falling down a cliff to his death under the word, “Erosion.” I did find instead an actual slope going down to the beach!
Hooray! This meant I could go to the beach for the first time since being in a wheelchair.
Linda assured me that she would help me back up. After getting down (with help), I wanted her assurance again, because that was going to be an ‘inch at a time’ climb for me.
And to my joy, we found a ‘danger zone’ with lots of XXXX on where people were not supposed to walk, stand or stop.
You can see the danger XXXX under my wheelchair!
Coming back Cheryl went down and said, “My God, the whole thing is eroded underneath, you were sitting on nothing!”
I was all excited, “Quick, take a picture showing me sitting on nothing, that would be so cool!” They took the picture. Then Linda and Cheryl reminisced about all the signs like ‘Do not continue if you have lung or heart issues’ in Hawaii and other places I get my picture taken next to or just they take the picture as you see me heading off PAST the sign on my oxygen (SEE, the logic was that since I HAD a prosthetic lung, technically, I didn’t HAVE a problem anymore….except it turned out later that day, I did.).
I am wearing these jeans because though skinny, Linda helped me into them saying that they ‘made my ass look sexy’ – how she sees that in the chair, I know not, but there you go, the slimming, ass sexy jeans and danger girl.
On the way down to the beach we saw a songbird robin,
which had a beautiful singing voice. All the birds were in mating patterns.
The good news was that I got to go down to the beach and wheeled to the end of the pathway,
I did not however try to balance my back wheels and make my way through the driftwood. That is for another day. On the way back, I was taking pictures of the driftwood when I saw something. It was a seal who was popping its head up for water, and must have found something good beneath the kelp bed to eat. Here is the brief shot of the Seal head and seal ass I captured on film.
We did make it up to the top of the slope. Huzzah. And just in time to see this humming bird.
It was resting between doing very, very fast loops for mating attraction. Or so says Cheryl. It would hang in the sky, and then faster than the eye could see, it would swoop down near the ground in a fast loop, up again, and then looping again. I actually managed to catch it as it was heading down to the ground.
The mating dance worked because as we watched, it ended up at the top of one loop (we would lose sight of it near the ground and all the bushes) with another hummingbird a foot behind. They headed off doing a set of helix type counter swoops around each other – ahh to be a hummingbird in love.
Across from us, while the hummingbird was swooping was this songbird (unknown?) in the bushes.
One of the things I like about Victoria, and where I live in Victoria, I saw so many flowers, and a host of different animals, from marine life to various birds all in the space of an hour or two.
After this I was slurring very badly, and Linda took me back to the car. We drove two blocks up to the same Drive In my parents generation went to, the Beacon Hill Drive Inn, which uses lush cream, ice cream, and I had a hot butterscotch sundae before heading home for my nap. I might not get out often but I am glad when I do.
FYI, Linda has added a few medical items to the wishlist, including some of my camelbak drink holders, since one temp careworker decided the sip tube WAS going to come out, regardless if it didn’t after using all her force to pull it, push it bend it and eventually break it, in order to wash it. “I’m done!” Sigh. Also some digestive breakdown for my intestines and other fun but necessary items, like Batteries for the monitor where Linda can hear me, when I am too weak to move or call her.
Next time, it is us doing the 74 postcards I sent out today (74 – woot!).
For the whole time I was at the market, the heat of the room turned my body red, and my speech and movement was impaired. But not a single person finished a sentence or interrupted me. And they didn't do tasks FOR me, like when I struggled to grasp coins in payment. I wanted to know what they did, and they wanted to know what I did. We were equals.
and in the stunned silence of the interviewer he continued, "In TRUTH..aren't they left with half (of being a human)? If there is a degree of measurement, are they whole (humans)?" This is where Jerry Lewis seems to talk about Eugenics. Are those with migraines 9/10th human? 
Yes, a woman let me look in her old viewmaster which had 3-D mix of superheroes and Canadian ‘wonders’ from spiderman swinging in, to a bucking bronco in the Calgary Stampede. You can see that it totally gave me the ‘WOW!’ factor (and that I am completely overheating, my face and arms bright red).
This is because she come from the prairies where after World War II, groups of people from various countries were given land along the train line, so while she grew up in a town which spoke German (is dry, no alcohol, thus no prom, and had a typical 1938 German school day), there are within 10 miles, a French speaking town, two more French speaking towns twenty minutes away, Old Mennonites (Prussian and Paraguay), Russian, and Ukrainian towns. 
it felt we were right back in the Prairies. 
complete with the VW bus in front (one guy turned his car into a hot tub for reasons still unclear) which I remember from the time I lived there after arriving from Gettysburg, PA to go to university. 
I went there because I could afford it (just under 100 for a month) and though not as well painted as this, I was next to the kitchen and the bathroom. In fact, what I was paying for wasn't a room but the pantry off the kitchen, shelves removed. My room was 8 feet by four feet. I had a bed, and a door out. While it was small and unusual, it didn’t seem that odd during daylight when my grandfather inspected it and said, “Are you SURE?” as grandmother said I couldn’t stay with them and this was mixed gender and I could afford it. 
But I am not sure if they are registered as Fernwood is one of the ‘lost’ areas of Victoria, not an area anyone thought of 'preserving' despite age. With a town hall, theatre, pub, and center, all within walking distance of town, and on the way to both the jobs at Hillside and the University, Fernwood is fortunate it hasn’t been discovered, bought up and turned into condo developments. 
Unlike the UK, squatters are not legal nor can then get rights to the house (in the UK, you can even get on a list, or get a list of places that are open for squatting, and if you stay for 10 years, you OWN the building). Here, it is criminal vandalism, not that I haven’t had to squat (live) myself in unheated, no bathroom bits of roof and floors. Thank goodness for university bathrooms and showers and McDonalds, eh? 
This is only a fraction of the buildings I took pictures of, or asked Linda to, all within a two square block radius. 
