“It’s My Treat’ Cafe, Los Algodones, Mexico

I feel so blessed to be sitting here in It’s My Treat cafe. The sun is shining. There’s a blue sky. I’ve just completed my dental work at St. Thomas Dental Clinic.  I feel like I have a new mouth. The only trouble is the old worn face doesn’t mast the youthful pearly whites. I am reminded of Leonard Cohen’s song, I want a new Face.  What a brilliant poet.  A true mensch.  

Trump is in power and the tariffs are being imposed today.  I actually hope this will help move along the Liberals in Canada whose waste, nepotism, cronyism and graft under Trudeau His reign of censorship and WEF sharia Maoist communism surpassed the Leninist communism of Pierre Trudeau who elevated French Canadians over all the English Canadians subjugating western Canada to the Montreal/Toronto political ghettos.  

In peace time beurocracies grow fat and crime grows but in war the external threat forces the country to survive to get rid of its party animals and elevate the adults.  I’m tired of Trudeau’s hatred of elders, euthanasia, and Christophobia.  I confess I think that term limits are best and politicians should be changed frequently like diapers for the same reason.  My brother said he would die if he had to face another 4 years of Liberals and shortly thereafter died.  It’s emotional reasoning but the fact is I blame Justin Trudeau, pampered trust fund molester of little girls for the death of my brother. He was as great a family man and father as my father and struggled so hard sacrificing so much to care for his child and family. His wife was his gorgeous best friend and the kids were great but he, like my parents, always budgeted and put his needs second having the greatest joy in seeing his wife and children well and happy.  He loved as only great men do and died. I believe that he’d have lived longer is he like all men like him didn’t have to struggle with a spendthrift fool at the helm who said the ‘budget would balance itself’. Well, it didn’t and now all my patients are struggling economically.  All those who worked hard their whole lived and retired and now facing pensions halved in value by Trudeau’s incomepentence and Liberal mismanagement of the economy.  I’m hopeful there fore that Trump’s challenge and the success of America economically will get an election in Canada and Pierre Poilevre and the Conservatives in power .  

The globalism of the WEF and UN is all about binary political thinking, mired in 19th century, Marxism , beurgeosie and proletariat, black and white. Good and Evil.  I believe the stronger the middle class the stronger the society. Communism and Medievalism and WEF are all rich and the rest.  Self serving gangsterism.  Have’s and have nots and hand outs. I believe in trades, education, meritocracy, and skills and that everyone can be useful and that we don’t improve matters with free money but with earned money.  

Oh well, here I am in heaven and distracted by the mess of politics. 

Thank you Jesus for this day. Thank God for the blessings of being able to go to Mexico where people speak English and the Canadian dollar still has value.  I don’t barter and trade much but appreciate the enterprise of the merchants here. Wheeling and dealing. I loved that Conrad Black wrote that Canadian parents wanted their children to be beurocrats whereas American parents wanted their children to be entrepreneurs. I come here each year and see the different offerings in the shop. It reminded me of when I was in San Diego and we were told to take playboys because the last last cruiser had taken ball caps and the ones before tshirts. The fishermen couldn’t ‘sell’ their catch but would ‘trade’ with the passing cruisers. I met a cruiser who sailed twice around the world becoming rich like the sailors of old simply by recording prices and desires of the ports he went into and bringing supplies the next year.  That’s going on all over here.  The Mexicans are masters of that.  

I’ve another week at the Sleepy Hollow RV Park.  I’ve church tomorrow and hopefully will get the time right. I’m going back to Winterhaven across the border and taking Madigan on the Vespa into Yuma to  the post office.  I worked this week and will work remotely next week then use the three day weekend to travel to my next location. I’ve been told of an RV park, Fountain of Youth and wanted to go to the camp at Salton Sea California.  I’d be beginning my migration back.

Laura says it’s snowing in Vancouver so I’m glad to be missing that. I’d planned to be back in March and last year came back at the end of February.  I like moseying home but last year once I got north of San Francisco the cold and rain made me actually wish for home.  I was mostly missing Laura and friends.  I like my life at home, the friends, the clinics, the colleagues and the men’s group.  I just hate the couts and government overreach and creeping totalitariansims.  Here I enjoy the Latin comraderie. Maybe I just like being an ex pat. I loved my time with Willie and Anita Gutowski in Saipan with Frank and the fillipinos nurses.  I’ve really been blessed to know the finest of people

I’m grieving the passing of Philip Ney. What a great man. He was a mentor among the best I’ve been blessed with. Angels and spiritually, intellectually and emotionally gifted.  What a great man.  

He and Dr. James Houston another mentor like my friend John Christiansen all knew each other.  I am getting older and it’s great to have this memories of these profoundly deep and truthful men to reflect on.

I’m blessed. Thank you Jesus. Thank you God for the air and the colours and the sun and sky and the desert and the trees and this earth and time.  Thank you.  

Little Italy, Commercial Drive,Grateful

I’m here on a Saturday morning.  An utterly gorgeous young woman just walked by in one of those grey tube dresses that only perfectly fit young women wear.

It’s the people watching. The coffee for sure.  I’m at Continental and it’s always been one of the best. I’m having a delicious mocha prepared for me by a barista with curly cherry died hair and blond moustache. 

I liked that he complimented my gold earrings.  India gold from Nanda Jewelers.  I was asked at a medical conference recently why I had earrings.  They’re studs.

It’s been years but I remembered the first one. I’d known this wonderful old Jewish mariner who had one large gold earring. He told me the sailors and pirates had earrings so if they died at sea and washed on a beach this would pay for the burial.

I asked ‘Which side did  a sailor get peirced?’

I,d thought it was a gay things and didn’t wish to be seen as ‘coming out’ 

He laughed, his face, wind and sea wrinkled. “Not a few of us worried when the gay crowd began that. I’ve forgotten which side. That was decades ago . I don’t think it matters any more.”

My other patient a gay man also in his 80’s had told me these ‘secret signs’ had been really important when. He was young. It was illegal to be gay. “The police were forever trying to entrap people in those days. As soon as they’d get on to what was the fashionable sign, we’d develop a new one, like cryptography. Then the artistic ‘in crowd ‘ would  pick up on the old fashion all to the amazing confusion and consternation of the super straight  homophobic police. They really were lost. If anyone got caught we just figured they wanted to. Some of the  guys didn’t mind the jail.”

I had the single earring for a long time, proud of it. Outside work my life was sailing. An executive member of Blue Water Sailing Association, I was gaining skills in off shore sailing, dreaming of sailing to the tropics of Gauguin. I identified myself as a mariner, albeit amateur, until I sailed solo across the Pacific through winter  storms . Alot of the romance was lost. It became a mode of transportation and way of life. I became accomplished and. no longer needed to declare my belonging. I just was.. I loved sailing but I no longer needed the ‘identification.’ 

One day I got the second gold stud because it spoke symmetry. Besides by then I was no longer concerned to be called ‘gay’. There were a lot of other things I’d care to be called less.

A young man dressed in a long loose fitting suit dress just walked by. He really looked like any young business pperson  but truly unisex.  Handsome, beautiful, gay, straight.  I couldn’t say. He was fashionable, well dressed, and young.  I liked that. 

Immediately following him was a beautiful young girl in a bright turguoise mini skirt. A tight white tshirt emphasized her well formed  breasts.  She was definitely looking to be looked at.In comparison the young man  seemed to walk as if he just wanted to go about his business dressed as he liked. He did know he made a statement.I looked at both identically but the latter gave me a look that said, ‘I’m glad you noticed but if you look any longer than a second I’ll be offended.’

My dog meanwhile had moved in on the two delightful young women chatting amiably at the next table.  He has no sense of ‘timing’ and invariably meeting Fifi he spends far too long getting acquainting himself with her genitals.  Neither Fifi or their owner are ever bothered, female dog owners being like the horsey set, are more down to earth, less flighty and comfortable with animal behaviour. 

I’m embarrassed. I pull him back from nuzzling the young lady’s crotch. She laughs in response, “I love dogs and he’s my little dog who was just sitting on my lap before we came out.” It being Commercial Drive I wonder if she and her friend are Lesbians. I’ll never know.

I’ve just picked up my electric bicycle from Motorino Electric. That’s the Italian connection. I immediately thought of my friend Anil, spending weeks there painting and sketching. He’s posted his work for weeks on Face Book   I loved the fine details of his architectural sketches. 

It brought back memories of reading of the greats of literature in the `18th and 19th century doing the Italian ‘tour’. Byron and others. By contrast I’d loved the BBC documentary sent to me by Graham of the sacking of Rome by the Celts. Being Celtic I love all things Celt.  Which brings to mind sitting writing at a coffee shop in Dublin when I took Laura to Ireland and we searched the graveyards for our ancestors.

Laura always comes to mind when I think of Rome or Milan. She so loved our time there making every fountain and every church special with her laughter. I loved the Vespa ride. We’d been riding from church to church trying to put together the skulls and bones, matching the relics of saints.  

I loved the narrow cobblestone streets, the crazy traffic and the dinner in the cafe with outdoor tables on the lane.  The drivers and waiters would negotiate the passage of  cars through the romantic diners.  We complain of construction in Vancouver. Evening driving in Rome is a whole other matter.

I also think of Suzanne and George and Alive on the Drive whenever I’m here on Commercial.Fond memories. Where does time go. Joe’s on Commercial Drive was the first destination I bicycled to when I first moved  to Kits in the 80’s.  It’s still very much alive. More traffic but still the best coffee shop experience in the city, my favourite people watching. , even if one has to beware of the gaze police and the anti freedom of speech social justice warriors. 

 I love listening to the conversations from other tables. A couple of Huffington Post girls are nearby with their sensitivities and emotions while two men with thick accents are further over and talking business and women as naturally as any men of the world would.  For a moment I forget I’m in Canada.  

I like the Harley parked on the street. I am impressed with the haute couture black leathers a couple are wearing. I watched as they climbed off their machine and came over  for a Continental désigner coffee.  

A lovely lady in long flowing bright coloured flowered summer gown just walked by , straight black hair. Polynesian. Before her was a 50’s lady, young but dressed like she stepped out of a magazine featuring washing machines and baby clothing. She was voluptuous with fluffy western square dance skirt and baby blue frilly short sleeved  top.  Sensible afternoon shoes. No doubt in the evening she’d change to something more revealing with high  heals. She’d want to be most alluring when she brought her man a martini or Manhattan.

Lots of Vancouver outdoors clothes. Beach wear and gym wear and hiking wear worn for the trip to the market. Vancouver’s a kind of Village People athletic wear place. There’s a suspicion looking at some of the bodies the clothing never has served the purpose it was designed for.

 I liked the little tyke riding on his mothers’ shoulders, beach hat to keep the sun off his face.  The baby buggy another mother is  pushing is so sophisticated it may as well have been made by BMW.  Probably has disc brakes on the wheels.  

It’s a politically incorrect thought but I like that VPL’s are all but absent.  The man who introduced me to that term one summer of girl watching a decade or more ago, is now Ill and housebound.. Hard to believe we once were considered frisky. ‘Visible Panty Lines’.  When they’re absent it’s leaves tantalizing thought that only the thinnest fabric separates the naked from the environment.  The young men are commonly wearing their jeans without underpants.  I did.

Not us old guys, well, things change.  I’m considering going to the Scottish Games today. The first thought was whether I’d fit into my kilt. I’d needed help from Laura getting the belt buckledfor Robbie Burns Dinner.We’d needed all her womanly expertise with skinny jeans. Lying on my back on the bed the two of us got the waist buckle done up.

Then next question was what to wear under the kilt, knowing well, “nothing’s worn under a kilt, because everything is  always in perfect working order.’  

My elderly aunt told me when I’d commented on her concern one outing about locations of the washrooms, ‘they’ll come a day when you’ll be the same ‘. So let’s just say, I don’t know if I’d want to wear nothing under the kilt in public if there’s a shortage of toilets.  I’m thankfully always from ‘depends’ . But when  Laura and I were in New York the idea of waiting on the cold New Year’s eve for many hours, without access to a toilet ,made watching the Midnight Ball fall on the hotel room tv far more attractive. 

I like the girl’s pleasant educated voice at the next table.  She’s sat down with a friend and they are discussing biology and college instructors.

Gilbert loves it here.  So many dogs. He’s blind but the smells must be wonderful. He’s such as social little fellow. I’m suspecting my parking will soon be up. I locked my electric rad bike  into the box of my white Ford truck. Despite that It has been long enough in this district sadly known for drugs and theft. My doctor friend who’d bought a condo nearby left saying it was too depressing to have to pick up used needles in her doorway.

 I love Commercial. I love the shops where I’ve bought the best Italian spices and meats.  I love the coffee shop where the men watch soccer. My Spanish female professor friend could be seen there shouting at the screen. I love the bookstore where I sometimes see my brilliant orthodox poet friend. He always knows the most original literature and so often has guide my reading to the most insightful uplifting creation.

 I might ride my Harley over to Coquitlam now that Gilbert has had a walk and outing.  I missed seeing men tossing telephone poles last year. I do like the pipes and the elegant ladies country dancing. 

  

TJ Beans Coffee Shop, Ganges, Saltspring Island

This is a fabulous coffee place. Not only great coffee and I've personally enjoyed the cappucino, cafe au lait and mocha but the food is terrific too. I especially love the all day breakfast sandwiches. There's great wraps and the service is superb. I love the decor and the outdoor tables. There's a welcoming atmosphere. It's a place to read the paper or do some laptop writing. The washroom is clean. The staff are delightful. I love this place. It's one of the reasons I love Ganges and keep coming back to Salt Spring Island whenever I can.









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