Stuff On Top

May 13, 2002 -  11 p.m. 

 

 I think i have had what i like to call a stream of consciousness weekend.  My buddy Shawn came over from the island to visit me and just hang out this weekend. 
   Friday night was normal...it was the last normal moment, it would seem, for the rest of the weekend. 

   Saturday morning we were hanging out in my living room thinking of things that we could do...or rather we weren't really thinking about anything.  Lounging around before breakfast is a good thing to do.  All of a sudden S says to me, 'do you want to go to New Westminster?'  this was a little strange to hear.  New West is sort of like BC's answer to New Jersey.  My immediate response was of course, 'yes.'  It was quickly followed by a, 'why?'
   His response of, 'for a baseball bat' made everything clear.  And so we went.  It was our quest.  We would travel to hell for a baseball bat.  Ok, ok, it wasn't really hell, just a little like it, kind of.  So off we go.  We would travel to the depths of...ok, ok....but we would go there, with our camera's and take some pictures.

  You know, pictures of random things with each other in them.  On the way we spotted a cemetery, from the train, where we might want to hang out for a while.  So we noted where it was and thought we might come back. 
   Were you aware that everywhere from the skytrain station in New West is up hill?   No?  Well, let me calves tell you, it is.  And would you think you could find a baseball bat somewhere near the skytrain station?  Well you might think that.  Well, you might.  We didn't, in fact, we didn't even look around.  Because before we had left we had used the internet, that marvellous tool of bat findings to determine the most likely place to fulfill our quest and we drew a map.  Sort of a treasure map.  You know like the hidden treasure of the Sierra Madres, only, well, a baseball bat.  (does it help you imagine it at all if i tell you that the bat that we eventually found was gold i colour?)
    So having given away the results of our quest, i will say that we walked up 3 or 4 thousand hills, found a treasure place (which smelled like baseballs and sweat) and procured our treasure).  From there we walked up one more hill.  Why?  You'd think there was something pretty special up that last hill wouldn't you?  Nope.  It was just when we used that marvellous tool we call the internet to draw our map, i found a street named after one of my friends.  So we had to take a picture.  Were we slightly less angelic young men we would have just taken the sign but i am pretty sure that that might have been wrong.  And the picture turned out so much better.

   After this we took off for New Westminster Quay, expecting something amusing, and interesting with cool shops.  What we found was the penultimate experience in boredom.  It made our time in the baseball shrine look like a trip to the fun house (you know, one with really cool trick mirrors).  What an exercise in boredom that turned out to be.  I recommend you go.
   I did, however, purchase for my friend a very meaning full gift.  A very useful gift.  A gift with meaning and use, both.  It was a flower...yeah, yeah, a flower with a name, but for the sake of my not knowing what the hell names are, let's call it a charlie for now.  You see, this flower had a purpose.  We were going to a cemetery, why not take with you a flower.  A tall, full, white flower with leaves that kind of looked like ragweed.  Some lucky grave, with perfect, meaningful epitaph would be given this flower.  Of course the fact that Shawn did NOT want to carry a flower around with him, made it a much better gift.
   After some refreshment, in the glorious sun, we trundled off into the daytime.  Back to the skytrain, only to get off a couple of stops later, to hunt for our cemetery.  We didn't really know where it was exactly, but we did know a direction.  I appointed Shawn our fearless leader (because it is the job of the tireless masses to appoint the ruler in a democracy is it not?) and he led us down the garden trail, or was it a path?  No matter, only a few moments later and we were standing beside one of the best groomed cemeteries i have ever stood outside of.  Unfortunately we were standing outside of it because the gate was locked. 
   It was a deserted place.  Empty and lonely.  We decided to walk around...we found a building that had an open gate and if we just skirted around it, we would be in the cemetery.  It was at that point that i discovered that it was a Jewish cemetery.  All of a sudden, sneaking into the cemetery seemed like a much less romantic notion.  I don't really know why, it's not like we were going to be hooligans, we just like cemeteries, but...i guess there are just things that we don't really know about the Jewish faith. I mean, we know that Saturdays are there holy days, perhaps the fact that everything was so empty and lonely indicates that the dead are left alone on Saturdays. 
   Anyways, we walked on, looking for an obviously open gate into the cemetery.  What we did finally found was one couple, walking around, slowly, sadly, doing cemetery things.  We didn't know what to do.  We could just have left, but you know...we weren't that easily daunted.  Shawn, actually went back to the building, to find someone, anyone, to get permission to look around.  I was amazed at this frankly.  Impressed.  I was no less impressed when he tried a couple of the doors on the building even though they were locked. 
   We decided it pretty much wasn't to be.  We weren't going to break in.  But we had this flower...so we did the only thing that we could do....we deposited it on the grave closest to the wall.  Of course this grave was 30 feet from the wall.  So...how do you get a flower on a grave 30 feet from the wall?  You throw it like a javelin, of course.  Just to help you visualize a little better, a picture...

  
   This done...we left, perhaps a little disconsolate, but, still ok.  One would think, that at this point we would just turn back and go back to the skytrain we had recently left.  Well...later...i would think that this was the smart idea.  As it turned out, we didn't.  We turned right instead.  Walked down a road we had no idea where it went to, in fact, we had no idea where we were.  We knew two things, one, we were leaving New West, and entering Burnaby (there was a sign) and this could be nothing but positive and that if we walked far enough we'd be at the airport, because the bus that was going down the road that we were on, would get there eventually.  About a 6 hour walk, i think, but eventually.
   You'd probably be amazed and likely bored out of your mind at the conversations we managed to have as we walked about how much we both like rock walls and which types are more attractive than others.  You know, or something.  Eventually, when the road we were on started to move further and further away from where we thought the skytrain was, we figured we should try to make our way back to it.  We did...to get there we had to climb a steep hill at the end of a dead end road, travel through the woods, across a recently bulldozed clearing, over a beautiful new walking bridge and along the yellow brick road.  And we thought the baseball bat was a quest...

   We found the skytrain and headed back towards civil lization.  (space intended)  In spite of the huge crowds adorning the platform we got off at metrotown in an attempt to find a movie that we wanted to see.  Oddly enough, at 4 o'clock on a Saturday, there were only two movies that were starting that we could see, across something like 19 screens, spiderman, about 3 times, or ice age.  Shawn had seen spidey and it was $10.50 for the matinee, ice age, i had seen.  15 minutes after our arrival at metrotown, the largest mall in BC, we were back at the train, we had not stepped inside even one store.  Things were as they should be. 
   Moving along, we came downtown and got off at another stop for Tinsletown, another Mall-Super-theatre complex.  Here, we managed to get into the front of a line, and go and see spiderman for a matinee price of $5.50.  Life was good. the movie, i liked.
   When we walked out of the movie, it seemed like it had been a very long day.  For some reason a day that in my mind felt a lot like the movie, 'stand by me.'   But how could it be over yet...we still had one more place to go.  From Tinsletown we walked downtown the the Atlantic Trap and Gill, a pub, where Shawn's brother in law was playing in his Celtic band.  We sat, we ate (they have grand nachos), we listened.  It was good music.  After a couple of sets...our...extreme...tiredness. caught up with us and we walked, one last long walk across a beautiful bridge, home. 

   Then...we watched...Mad TV...and went to bed.

ok...ok...i was going to talk about our mad kidnapping and mad dash quest all in the spirit of ice cream that went on yesterday...but this is already too long...maybe some other day.