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Last week, a new fuel filter. I'd set out on a trip to Revelstoke, thrifting, exploring, maybe some prospecting, but the Jeep sputtered, lost power, and somewhere around New Denver I came to my senses and decided it would be a lot better to break down nearer to home.
Turn around, plans abandoned.
Change the fuel filter.
This seems to fix things for a bit, but there's something new, always a new surprise under the hood. This a shaking and rattling as the Jeep changes gears. This, you can tell while riding, will be no trivial thing. So call and make an appointment with the mechanics.
"Maybe a U-Joint" they tell me. Fingers crossed.
Of course it's not a U-Joint, it's the transmission, it's shot. Completely. Add to this various oil leaks, seals, no suspension in the back end, shocks, welding...
And the grand total will be $5200. Roughly.
The answer is, of course, no, it should have been no a long time ago. $8000 in repairs in a little over a year and the jeep is still going over a fucking cliff, I could have been driving a new Wrangler - all the time, not just every other week - for the same as I've put into this. So - for this year - the gathering and prospecting is largely done, time now to address my income and find the means to level up my wheels.
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Mask mandate after mandate, lockdown after lockdown, we're being doomed by half measures.
Out, around Nelson, everyone doing the right thing. The required thing. Wear your mask into a crowded restaurant until you're sat, then take it off for an hour to visit.
Doctors, Nurses, protesting against getting a vaccine. How is this a thing? If you work in a hospital this should be a requirement - not debatable - just as during the great AIDS pandemic adult actors wore condoms or provided testing proof that they were HIV free. Yet Nurses, orderlies, etc. should be able to decide whether or not they get a vaccine?
Mother fuckers, your average porn star has more common sense than some of these loons.
Old folks homes, assisted care facilities - still reporting outbreaks amongst unvaccinated workers - HOW CAN YOU ALLOW AN UNVACCINATED VISITOR OR EMPLOYEE INTO THESE PLACES?
We are doomed.
Police in Toronto protesting mandatory Vaccines. They are civic employees - how is it a requirement you be vaccinated to go work remotely at Camps up North and yet the governments own employees are clamoring for a free pass?
And restaurants. The passport - demanding customers have vaccine passports - but what about the staff? And this is tricky - because - an awful lot of staff in restaurants haven't got their vaccine. Refuse to get it. For any number of reasons, the vast majority entirely stupid - but - if it were a requirement many restaurants - already short staffed - would be forced to close.
Every country reporting rising numbers, largely due to the unvaccinated spreading it, more and more breakthrough cases, vaccinated people getting it, subtle adaptations as it mutates, multiplies and spreads. We've allowed the stupid to speak to science as if their opinions were fact, as if they deserved an equal listen, as if common sense were political, an imposition on their freedoms, we're becoming victims of an excess of compassion, and this will drag on and on and on...
This is the pandemic without end.
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And here a summary rant of the events since last week.
The rave - after 2 years of restraint, much anticipated - tickets for the son and daughter - plane ticket for daughter to Calgary so they could drive down together - cancelled, last minute, on Monday - too many cases out here - 200 cases in 2 weeks, a full 2% of the population infected with the new Delta Variant.
So, no rave, but the plans been made and the kids will come down all the same.
The restaurant, now closed Tuesday and Wednesday - the owner has some campaigning to do with the newly called election. This will give her more time to do it.
Thursday - The owner's son - my colleague - and his wife - decide to make it a three day weekend. This despite his wife having had the past 10 days off. It's their sons birthday and they have yet another party to attend. So it's just me and Wigglesworth.
Wigglesworth, 18 years old, maybe 5'6"and 200 pounds, telling me the name of her boyfriend (Conan? Cory? Conrad? Why is she talking to me...), telling me she can't get the vaccine because she's allergic to them, bleah, bleah, bleah. I've heard it all before.
Wigglesworth is off at 4:00. I ask if she'd like to work later, we'll be busy, but no, she's scheduled until 4:00, she's working until 4:00, she has an appointment. Funny for someone so garrulous she doesn't elaborate on the appointment, but I can guess. Dairy Queen. She made cash tips and she's off to spend them.
So - Thursday night - the height of summer - and it's me on my own. The owner - husband of - is there to help me. In a muscle shirt and dirty jeans he can pour me a beer if I need it.
This is not the help I need. We've been short-staffed all summer, and now, with kids birthdays and Dairy Queen we're more short staffed than ever. I'm seriously pissed and he knows it. We're slammed - predictably, walk-ins of 6, 8, 12, and it's just me on my lonesome. There's no shorter, curter, ruder, abrupter waiter on Kootenay Lake. This is bullshit - the owner - he knows, he can tell how pissed I am, but the show must go in.
I survive, barely, the reputation of the restaurant - never fine - has doubtless taken a licking. I don't check the reviews but - given my temper - I doubt any were favorable.
***
Friday, Garage Sale at Ainsworth. I wake early, drive up, am amongst the first on the scene and I clean up. There's been a separate post on that. Work - the owner's son, he's apologizing to me with a flushed face - he didn't know I'd be on my own (Really? REALLY?) - he's been told, his dad gave him a talking to...
The day passes, another one down. I survive. At this point that is the sum of my ambition - live through the September long weekend and then just breathe.
Saturday - I open. An early day for me - I'm expecting the kids - but the night - all the staff are in - all the other staff - all the staff because I have taken the night off.
I laugh. If I'm working I can work by myself, if I take the night off they need the whole kit and caboodle to cover me.
***
The kids arrive - good to see them - how long's it been? A while. We go for dinner, and again. The indoor mask mandates have taken effect - you must wear a mask to your table before you can take it off. We're doomed. The restaurant, filled to the brim with unmasked diners, easily 50, 60 people, talking, breathing, and with a 2% infection rate you can bet that it's here. It's here. I watch the waiter, busy with 5 tables. 5 tables no more than 20 feet from the kitchen or bar. Busy with 5 tables no more than 20 feet from the kitchen or the bar and with a dedicated bartender and hostess.
I work in hell.
Sunday, recover from Saturday's excesses, the boy, the girl, they were no help whatsoever with that bottle of Vodka, had to kill it on my own, and Sunday I'm paying the price. The boy is as well, good to know he's a featherweight. We head up to the hot springs - I haven't been since the Pandemic began and they've only lately begun to open them to the general public.
Only there's an hour and a half wait to get into the Covid soup. And count the people in the pools, in the cave - We're doomed. Doomed by half-measures. We stand a bit, watch the line, we're not getting in. Upstairs to the restaurant for a disappointing lunch, try again to get into the pools but it's not happening. They've increased their prices - $15.00 admission (up from 9 or 10, I remember), and $5.00 for a towel rental - and these price increases are on the back of reduced service. They're cleaning up.
It's amazing this, do everything wrong and double your money. I'm in awe. Still - in another couple of weeks - after the September long - it'll be a lot safer - there'll be a fraction of the customers, most of whom will be locals, and there will be no waiting in line.
Sunday night - still recovering - we watch "Annette" with Adam Driver. I've covered that elsewhere.
And Monday, the kids are off, work again - Wigglesworth wants to know if she needs to bring a Doctors Note for why she can't get a vaccine, I have some great customers. Survive the day, survive the night - and there's only 2 weeks left. 2 weeks and the business will go over a cliff, there will be busy spells, for sure, but nothing like the summer, and my sanity will be slowly restored...
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Work has been keeping me busy. Too busy, 10, 11+ hour days at the end of the world. The owner's son's wife - working haphazardly as a waitress, 5, 6 hour shifts, has her child's birthday, takes the day off. Then gets sick and takes a week off.
We can't afford this.
All the running, from the beach to the patio to the restaurant and kitchen, it's made me lean - at the beginning of the summer there were suspicions I was getting a bit pudgy, a bit of a spare tire, but now you can't pinch even a quarter of an inch, I'm like Jack Skeleton running through the restaurant.
The beach, it's own private Idaho, boatloads of revelers pulling up, expecting the same standard of service they'd get inside, only now a hundred yards from the kitchen across a sandy beach - Jr. largely handles it, I can't be bothered, my "Fuck OFFFFF" attitude a little too obvious, but Jr. is figuring it out - after a nightmare evening in which 2 large groups partied it up down there, unannounced, complained about the service and then failed to tip, "18% Gratuity to be added" signs posted all around the beach - he's getting smarter. And - while I hate auto-gratuities - if there's a place they should be applied - it's here.
Mondays - Mondays, we're the only restaurant open between Nelson and Revelstoke. And we fill up - parties of 6, 8, 17, all showing up at the same time, never a reservation - we're swamped - it's more than he and I can handle - we have a busser - his 17 year old brother in law - but he's clueless, cut from the same cloth as the wife, generally more in the way, breaking things, a hindrance, unable to do even one thing at once and generally languishing in a state of confusion behind the bar.
And the other new girl - a little heifer, 18 years old, can't make her own drinks, wants to be a server but tries to call in sick, it's her birthday, it's raining outside and she's afraid to drive, she doesn't want to work early, work late, ...
This place is killing me. Really. Not a little bit, a lot.
3 weeks of summer to go.
In town, there's a rotating roster of restaurants that are closed - due to the Covid. From 38 cases one week to 74 the next. 74 cases is almost 1% of the population out here. In a single week. And we're waiting for it to get out to our restaurant - it's a matter of time.
Time for a few photos. Trips up the mountain - the waving fireweed in the wind glitched my panorama mode - my phone/camera, dropped so often that really, I need a new one - but not now, not now.
***
And the Election - Justin Trudeau - the west is on fire, seriously, this is not a "Climate Emergency" it's a climate Catastrophe - and everyone out here has a million other things on their mind. Fuck you. Fuck your fucking election, we're on fire. Do something about that.
***
Meanwhile, the weekend before last a more successful garage sale hunt. All sorts of Treasures - An antique scale, heavy, cast Iron with the cool display, circa 1961, $35.00. An antique gothic style New Haven Clock, $15.00. Antique cash register, more antique clocks, hutches - Mixed Media Opportunities abound, only everything is in too good a shape to be taken apart on my whims and destroyed - and reluctantly - VERY RELUCTANTLY - I show restraint and leave them behind. I've not 1 but 2 lockers full of supplies, should I ever find opportunity to retrieve them.
But - and there is one but - THIS:
In absolutely mint condition, $50.00. I can't leave it behind.
And so another typewriter.
****
There's more, always the unforgotten notes - the Hippy Campers parked in front of my place everyday, the bears, raccoons, the crows that have taken to cawing my name when I go outside for a fag but fail to reciprocate with treats for me, classic Nelson "Entitlement", there's a few books I found - Manly P. Hall on Self Unfoldment - I've been looking for his books for over 20 years, first one I ever found, Terence McKenna's "Food of the Gods", A Native American Herbal Guide (medicinal plants of the Americas), a box of fountain pen nibs, and there was the freshening rain a week or so ago - 1.7 mm forecast, but a torrential downpour - for a few hours, that freshened the air and brought hope - but, too little, too late, and we're on fire all over again. And I've now only time to ready myself for another 12 hours in hell, the Monday Night Slaughter, before my sole day of recovery. So - more news, other news, another time.
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Now, largely over the summit of the longest weekend of the year.
And there's no overstating the "Long Weekend" bit. Busy, crazy, walk-in tables of 10, 14 and even 30. Why would you need a reservation for 30 people? That's just crazy. No place else on the lake would have 'em is why, but we have boundary issues. Late tables, coming in at 9:00, Ten, twenty minutes after nine, we're still taking 'em, there until 11:00 at night, later than town, every server's nightmare.
Just hold your breath and get through it.
On a more positive note, Friday, yard sale in Balfour, sent staff to do my treasure hunting, came away with:
Which is a masterpiece of sorts. It needs a new lining and fixture for the clasp, but - on it's own, as is, it's a masterpiece. I'm going to make it my "Murse".
The weather - hot, humid, smoky, with a high chance of Covid. We've taken up the masks again. Except for the owner's son, who's "conscientiously objecting" by not wearing one. Other than the owners I'm the only member of staff to have gotten a vaccination.
There was the promise of rain - but, less rain than a general dampening of the roads, a humid nudging of the pavement. No rain to speak of.
And - rumor has it that the infections have come closer to home - another local pub has closed due to it. Funny, they never closed for TB or the hundreds of STD's that pass through it on a nightly basis, but they closed for the COVID.
For the moment that's it. Just survive today and tomorrow will be a day off.
