We can hardly go back and edit all the countdown posts, but we are making our abrogation public. We no longer expect to leave Halifax on May 1, and will have to mark May Day in some other momentous fashion, because we have a LOAD of stuff to get done before blast-off. Most critically, we have not been able to assemble our wind turbine because we cannot figure a way to attach it to the bus.
Revision of history from White Bus Black Dog on Vimeo.
Talking about history revision: Kate Beaton has a book! If you have never read her history comics, this promises to be a wonderful introduction to them. Edit: Oops, look like she sold out in a day. Go read her archives, at least.
We had some big news yesterday, but we couldn’t update you because our internet was down.
This is Gordon. His family can’t take care of him anymore because they had to move. Their new landlord is scummy and is terrorizing them with ridiculous threats and surprise inspections, all in an attempt to make sure they get rid of their dog.
Gordon’s mom, who we’ll call Patty, posted an ad on the internet: One Jack Russell, free to a loving home.
Within a couple of days, Patty had sifted through all the responses and was sure she’d found a nice place for Gordon with a couple in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia. Patty dropped him off. .
A couple of days later Patty was on the internet. Missing her dog, she looked through the animal classifieds. There, on the first page, she saw a shadowy picture below a bold headline, written all in capital letters: Jack Russell Terrier. Two hundred and fifty dollars. Patty was stunned.
Gordon’s new family was trying to sell him, for a huge profit! Patty called them up. She demanded they give Gordon back.
They said no. So Patty arranged a dog napping. That evening she got her boyfriend to call and set up a meeting, posing as a potential buyer for Gordon. They got in the car and they drove, planning little except to get Gordon back. After an uncomfortable confrontation, they did.
Yesterday we adopted Gordon. We’re big people; Muddy’s a big guy, too. Gordon looks small, but he’s holding his own so far. We hope he can make himself a space in this family: the only one he still has to convince is Muddy.
So, White Bus Black Dog, day minus four, and now we’re plus one.
Pack from White Bus Black Dog on Vimeo.
Today someone took away the wicker chair Muddy had torn to bits, Paul bid on a Bike Again bike, and Bethany went to the market to retrieve lots of goodies (including but not limited to cheese curds, Nova Scotia apples, Tofu jerky, homemade sushi, Colombian empanadas and fresh bread).
Edit: Paul won the bike! Revolutionary red Raleigh.
Giving Muddy a bath was probably the most annoying thing we did today, especially because he decided later to create a network of trenches in the yard. Cutting wind turbine blades was way easier today than yesterday: in fact, I feel like we have become Masters of the PVC. I’ll post some pictures on another entry (or maybe wait until we have the whole turbine done?). There is a major problem with this wind turbine idea in that we don’t know how we are going to attach it to the bus, but we are persevering anyway, until the assumption that we will figure that part out when we get to it. We will have to, I guess.
Busy busy busy from White Bus Black Dog on Vimeo.
I don’t want to spend this summer stuck in a bus. As thrilling as it will be to travel, see old friends and new places, and stretch in a million different ways, the inside of a stinky old metal machine is not my idea of paradise, nor is it an acceptable use of four months of sunshine.
So Paul and I have a pledge to bear with each other and make allowances for bike travel. I’m not sure if the bus will drive ahead, and wait for the biker to do their 5, 10, 20 or more kilometres of slow-traveling, or if the bus will travel at the same speed as the bike, forming a peculiar procession of two. I’m not training for anything, so I’ll only ride if it isn’t raining or cold, and Paul has not said whether he will ride much at all, but I bought a good bike that could hopefully inspire both of us to take to the streets more often (we have been sharing a road bike for more than a year. It wasn’t even a very good one, and we got it for free, so this purchase was long overdue).
Meet the Miele.
Two days in a row we drove into Dartmouth and up Waverley Rd. to the far-flung Spider Lake Steet to find it. Ribelle Angelucci has owned this Miele for a few decades, using it as his second or third string option, his winter ride. Ribelle, however, knows how to take care of a bike. He has been a long distance racer for a long time, and brought many bike parts with him from Europe when he came to Canada. His parents fled Italy to escape Mussolini, and he lived in France, Italy, and Montreal before finding himself in Nova Scotia. His thick accent belies how long he has lived here. He still rides but not as often or as far as he used to. He said he used to make 1000 km in a month, but now he is down to 600. He has a workshop next to the foundation of his house, carved into the hill, and he does most of his own repairs. He is a bit of a hoarder, keeping old tires, pedals and shoes long past their point of usefulness, but they are reminders of his trips, and who knows what else.
As thrilled as I was to find a sweet-looking bike, I think it was the story-hawk in me that made me want this one. I loved Ribelle’s stories, the way he talked, the things he didn’t say and I liberally imagined. His name means “rebel,” and his Italian friends would be embarrassed to call him by it, because it was so unusually bold.
Ribelle invited me back if the bike ever gave me any trouble, and I fully intend to take him up on that (whether the Miele actually fails, or not. This is one of those stories that I wanted to find this summer, and look, here, already, I have one!).
Edit: Actually, we have probably met two such people in the past little while. I wrote about the other one here: Annapolis Royal
Oh my
I can’t believe it is Day Minus Eight already. I spent much of the day fretting over this article for J-source, my exam, and scholarship applications. It’s like being in school still! I asked Paul “So, where are we going first?” just now, and neither of us could come up with anything. Labrador? P.E.I.? The original plan was to take off south ASAP, to get out of the cold, but now Unforeseen Circumstances Which Must be Kept Secret mean we will be in Ottawa on May 12, so we don’t want to stray too far afield in the in-between.
School is expensive, grease is free from White Bus Black Dog on Vimeo.
Back-lit and ominous, Paul has an awkward phone conversation with Bethany. Never again will this method be used for an update. Terrible.
Day minus nine from White Bus Black Dog on Vimeo.
It’s April 21st and it’s hailing in Halifax. A sunshine Sunday has come and gone, and with it has wilted the promise of bees. In the naval shipyard across the highway from our apartment, cranes have been unloading heavy things all morning, sending booms like antiaircraft flack echoing through the north end of the city. Boom! I tied a letter to a rock this morning and threw it over the highway. It said: “Could you blast us a hole in the hail? Flip the cranes upside down,” I said, “and make a little space for the sun!” They gave their reply: Boom! On Brunswick Street, faces have again retreated behind rampart scarves. I walked a bag of garbage across the parking lot to the dumpster, and all of the people I saw looked routed by the weather: squint-eyed and mitten-handed, with pieces of hail on their shoulders and in their hair. Boom! Up the street, the food bank line was long. I came back inside and washed a mound of dishes down to a pile. Boom! This place feels weak and dirty. In the basement, we’ve been filtering waste vegetable oil; it drips slowly through our filter jeans, making our apartment stink like fried meat made rotten by the wait. Boom!
They say we’ll be wet and cold for the next three days, but that the weekend promises warmth and sun. So I’ll put a potted plant by the window, and I’ll say to us both: “Hold your head up, kid, it’s almost May. You’ve only got to keep yourself wintersweet a little longer.”
