Message-Id: <199612021810.KAA21351@netcom13.netcom.com>
To: lira-kin@postofc.corp.sgi.com
Subject: Signs and Portents (1 of 2)
Date: Mon, 02 Dec 96 10:10:08 -0800

A whole lot of things fell on my head at work, the master bathroom was
taken completely apart, John was out of town for a Microsoft conference
until Thursday, we had many people in the house, and I needed to get away
from everything that was happening.  The timing worked out in that I got
something done on Tuesday that would be the start of another thing that was
to take two days to complete... and so it was good timing, in some ways,
when my sister Kathy came from San Diego to visit.

Yes, *that* Kathy Li, the old Rev Mom and present Mad Woman with a VCR, who
is likely most famous on the comic groups and TV groups.

Kathy arrived on the Data I/O doorstep Tuesday evening with a very nice
shuttle driver in tow, with her bag on his shoulder.  She had two arm
braces on because of damage to her wrists from too much computer work with
inadequate tools.  I ran back to my machine, shut everything off, and then
I took her bag out to the car as we talked a mile a minute.  We talked a
lot over dinner at Tombo's, a tiny fast food Japanese place with really
simple, good food.  We had fun catching each other up about life and the
fact that both of us were starting to come down with cold.  She was nice
enough to keep me company on my drives to and from the church for my
Diaconate meeting and didn't have a problem with just being there as the
deacons talked through the services for November and the beginning of
December. 

There's a lot going on, not just the usual Thanksgiving and the beginning
of Advent, but we were having to make plans for Pastor Bob's good-bye as
well as the coming of Lee, so Kathy's patience was appreciated.  We then
went on home to sit and watch some TV.  She got to pet Fezzik a lot, and
meet both James and brother David at home.  That was a lot of fun to watch
and see. 

It's funny, for me, to see someone greet Fezzik.  Everyone is always so
amazed by Fezzik's size, when, for me, he's just my dog.  Kathy was
obviously happy to be able to pet the huge pup, and it was fun to see how
he reacted to her voice, because it's so much like mine.  We stayed up well
past midnight just talking.

In the morning, I woke up feeling vaguely sick.  I kinda half-heartedly
went to the shower, packed for an overnight stay, cursing the fact that
John has taken the bathroom travel kit that had my extra contact lens and
shower equipment.  Kathy asked if I really wanted to go, and I said, sure,
let's try it.  We needed a map for Vancouver, and if we could find it at
the nearby Target then it was a sign and we should go.  We both knew that
we'd both freak out too much if we didn't have any map at all.  Kathy had
found a list of things she wanted to see in the city and I hadn't really
had the time to even look.

The first place we stopped at was the Target, to get Kathy a scarf and a
hat, a disposable camera because we forgot hers in the house, some drinks
for the drive, and the map.  Kathy had a lovely, funny and absurd sense of
timing with the camera throughout the rest of the day and the next,
snapping shots at all odd moments.  The first was just in the Target
parking lot.  We didn't find the map there, so I thought we should stop at
the B&B autoparts both for windshield wipers and they might have a map as
well.  As we started heading towards Victor's though, I decided that I
really wanted to have something for breakfast, so we stopped at the cafe,
drank mochas in the shop and had the fun of the folks in the shop
recognizing the fact that Kathy was my sister.

We then stopped at B&B autoparts, and had a heck of a time getting the
windshield wipers off.  A guy that worked there came out for a smoke and
ended up helping us out with the blades.  Turned out that it was far easier
to do the whole blade and frame than just the blade.  As we paid for the
windshield wipers, we asked about maps.  The girl said, sorry, we don't
have any maps here, but there's likely to be on in the gas station.  Kathy
and I giggled at each other, "If there's a map at the gas station, it'll be
a sign!"

The gas station was just across the street, and we drove over there to
park.  They did have some maps, but only of the local area.   The girl
behind the counter there pointed us at the drug store in the next parking
lot.  Instead of starting the car all over again, we walked over.  It was
kinda funny by this point and when we finally did find a detailed
Vancouver/Victoria map at the drug store, we both said, in unison, "It's a
sign!"  Kathy took a picture of me with the map in the parking area of the
gas station.

I guess some of us make our own signs and portents.

The drive up was really beautiful because the sky was filled with clouds
and just brief scatterings of rain.  The road was really dry so it was
really easy to just zoom on through.  It was fun to wander through the
northern farmland and valleys with the mountains jutting out to the north
and to the east.  In the distance the cotton of the clouds was combed by
the stone fingers of the mountains.  Then the sun came out.  It was
brilliant, warm and bright. 

We've done really well.  The map made it easy to look for places.  We found
Chinatown, found some parking along the edges of the busy places, and
wandered through  the busy, busy streets slowly, with a bag of hot, roasted
chestnuts.  I found both a bag of dried Chrysanthemum blossoms and a roll
of practice paper for calligraphy.  The latter took a whole lot of looking
through various art stores with proprietors that only spoke Chinese and
kept pointing me at the bottled ink.  It was rather awesome to walk through
all the places with roasted ducks, produce of all types, and shop upon shop
upon shop of imported Stuff.  The chestnuts were warm and smooth and
creamily rich to the taste, and left black smudges of charcoal on our
hands.

We also refound the Buddhist garden near the cultural center and we spent
moments in the quietness of the pond, bamboo and maple, watching our
feathered breath in the cold air.  Kathy had fun asking if the trees out
our way were sick or something because the leaves all turned funny colors
and *fell* *off*.  <giggles>  She finally concluded that it had to have
something to do with the absurd abundance of ground water.

As it grew dark we grew hungry and we went looking for a restaurant that
Kathy had found in a guide book for Vancouver called the Pink Pearl and we
went there, really early, for dinner.  It was probably at about 5pm, as it
was just open and it was quite some time before other people came in to sit
down.  It was really dark and starting to get colder outside.  The food
there was excellent but also rather expensive, even with the translation to
Canadian money.  Of course, we also ordered one of the live fish
specialties, basically something that translates to 'fragrant bones' where
a live black cod was taken, killed, filleted, cooked and then the bones
were battered and deep fried and served under the fillets.  It was
delicious.  We also got a spinach and beef dish.  I got a winter melon and
'assorted meat' soup that had large, fleshy mushrooms, crab meat, and duck
in it.  It was delicious and the broth rich with stocks.  I really enjoyed
that while Kathy had a shredded duck meat and fish maw soup filled with
various mushrooms of various types.

After dinner, we found a phone and phone book and called a bed and
breakfast reservation place that got us a place that was fairly near, and
easy to drive to.  The lady directed us there and the directions were very
clear and quite useful.  With Kathy doing the navigating we got there
fairly quickly and I got out of the car to check the house numbers.  There
was a giant old oak out front, with the dead leaves a thick blanket under
the branches.  It's nice and quiet here and there's a Starbucks across the
street, so I'm saved so far as coffee is concerned. 

The house itself was enormous with a good half a dozen rooms and a radiator
in our room that filled the small area with heat.  We crashed for a while,
Kathy soaked up the heat.  We drank some root beer and Kathy de-pepto'ed
her bag as her bottle leaked and she then went to bed.  I stayed up for a
while watching both Deep Space 9 (the Tribble episode) and Babylon 5.  By
the time I got to bed, my feet were pretty cold in that big,  drafty house.
The radiator had stopped emitting heat by then, and the bed only had one
blanket, so I spread my trench coat on top and slept somewhat fitfully as
the coat only cut part of the cold.
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End part 1 of 2