Thursday, December 21, 2006
Christmukah, West Coast style, part 1
Last Thursday night, Vancouver suffered a terrible storm that knocked out some 3,000 trees in Stanley Park, downed power lines all over the city, and created all sorts of other urban havoc.
Needless to say, Friday morning’s carefully choreographed trip to Vancouver Island was not destined to go smoothly. It was supposed to go something like this: Finish printing corporate holiday cards by 6:45 AM. Granddaughter and grandson #1 (designation by age) gets dropped off at 7 AM. Son arrives at 7 AM. Load up car with luggage. Drop cards in mailbox. Pick up potato latkes and sufganiyot order at Solly’s bakery. D rive to home of granddaughter #2. Transfer everything and everyone into their family van. Son takes my car away. Drop off other car at the airport Park ‘n Fly (for the wife, when she arrives from Europe the next day, as she has no car keys). Continue to ferry terminal and get onto 10:15 ferry, crossing to Vancouver Island, crossing over to terminal where we drive north to Nanoose Bay, home of grandson #2.
Well, grandchildren get dropped off - 10 minutes early, even! - but the schedule goes downhill from there. The power lines are down between their house and mine, so my son’s alarm hasn’t gone off and his car is locked in his underground parking garage. So we have to drive over and pick him up, which is in the opposite direction of where we’re going, and the traffic lights are out everywhere, and the city crews are out everywhere, clearing fallen trees from the road, and it takes a very long time to get onto the highway. So we load the kids and luggage into the car and send them off the to ferry while my son and I head to the bakery. But between the traffic and the lights out ... well, we never do get to the bakery - thank goodness they were gracious enough to understand - because we’d miss the ferry otherwise, so we turn down a side street and head to the airport. Except we keep hitting traffic jams, so we alternately speed and crawl to the Park ‘n Fly, and then boot it to the ferry terminal. I jump out of the car with 10 minutes to spare (they’re supposed to cut off ticket sales 15 minutes before sailing) and plead for them to sell me a ticket because my grandkids and my luggage, even my reading material, is on board, not to mention that I’d have to wait for hours for the next ferry. The kind fellow lets me through, and I hoof it to the ferry, where the staff are waiting for me to board so they can close up the boat and pull up anchor (or whatever they do). I should know by now not to choreograph things so tightly.
More about the weekend later ...