On the rest of the trip

I have struggled to write this entry but things have been a bit weird for me.

I’m going to start with an expansion on what I said at the Celebration of Margo’s Life. As an agnostic Catholic at best, I had not wanted to pretend to be a Catholic pilgrim. Aside from having a hang up about lying, despite being a sceptic, I have a certain respect for those who genuinely believe. After arriving in Compostella, the three of us had visited the pilgrim office where our “pilgrim” passports were processed. The pilgrim office recognizes three types visitors: genuine Catholic Pilgrims, people who have done it for a mix of spiritual and touristic reasons and “pure” tourists. I firmly opted for the pure tourism certificate. Somehow, Margo, who officially renounced her Catholicism and Chris the Quaker, managed to get themselves talked into getting the semi-spiritual certificate.

Having read the account of how the bones of St James the Apostle ended up in the North West corner of Spain and being something of a sceptic, it would greatly surprise me if the bones that have been venerated there for over a millennia were actually those of Jesus’ companion. At best, they are those of a local person worthy of sainthood who became conflated with Saint James the Apostle. One of my jokes about it is that Saint James the Apothecary is constantly apologizing in heaven for the misunderstanding. I do believe that it is the same set of bones that has been worshipped for more than a millennia. That, in and of itself, makes them holy.

I’ll not protest scepticism as I am not sure of my faith. I do think that there is a place for scepticism but the Crypt of Santiago isn’t it!

I will also note that I wasn’t the only one wearing a kilt at the Celebration of Life. Margo’s son John was also so attired as was his son Arthur.

Louise was the last to speak. I am afraid that I had trouble hearing her as the microphone was a little too far away from her mouth. I think she was a bit distracted as she was simultaneously nursing Patrick!

Jonathan, Elliott’s twin brother was there assisting Tom, John’s father-in-law, with the tech side of things as the ceremony was being broadcast to friends and family in Europe and possibly elsewhere. The Mole later asked what Jonathan does for a living. I replied that I didn’t know. The Mole then suggested he might get a job at LeBaron’s in North Hatley if he was out of work. My response to the Mole was: “You’ve heard of the concept of sibling rivalry?” (I have since learnt that Jonathan is involved in keeping the BC government’s websites up and running.)

After the ceremony, the clocks of both St-Michael the Holy Mole and myself had wound down and as it would be couple of hours before the Reception, lunch was proposed. There was a failed attempt to go to the Oakridge Mall en masse, so we retreated to our downtown hotel. I suggested he and I go to the Indian Burgers Joint I had noticed near the hotel. In the course of a phone call while I was driving us back, the Mole invited my parents along. In hindsight, I think this was a bit of a mistake. The problem was that the offerings of the fast food joint were new to all of us, especially my Father who doesn’t remember the first thing about Indian food. The burgers were all vegetarian or even vegan in a traditional Indian way as in the beef patty was replaced with a patty made of beans or potatoes rather than a “beyond meat” pseudo meat patty. None of us being experts, we ordered on faith. At a certain level, our faith was betrayed as the staff didn’t seem have grasped the concept of fast food. It seemed to take forever for our orders to be completed The burgers were tasty, but I’m not sure I’m going back there.

As a side note, Michael later commented that their mango lassi used soft ice cream instead of yoghurt which prompted me to do a monologue as if I were an Indian apologizing for that by explaining that is how they do in his state in India which is admittedly a small state with barely five million people living in it.

I changed out of the kilt and went off to the reception with the Mole. There were quite a number of people there along with quite a spread of food and drink. There former included Rice Krispy squares courtesy of Louise, spurred by my joke on the subject. 

Among the people I spoke with, was T. from Canmore. He told me that he was planning on going to Santiago de Compostella using the bike Chris had ridden there! Said bike has a no-farting sticker that I had put on it during our trip in Spain! I found it interesting that the bicycle would revisit that pilgrimage destination, particularly as I had spoken about the trip at the ceremony.

I also spoke with a woman who introduced herself as “a Megan”. Apparently, she was one of several Megans in Margo and Chris’ life as well as one of the many waifs and strays they had housed over the years. Like many people, she thought my speech was very à apropos. I must confess that I thought it was better than some of the other speeches given, particularly the one following mine.

I was slightly disappointed that I didn’t get to interact much with Arthur, Tessa and Ruby. They were to busy playing with each other as well as other kids their age. They seemed to be having fun with some sort marble run game. It did my soul to see them happily play with each other.

All too soon, the Mole and I ran out of steam, and so we returned to the hotel.

The Mole returned to Montreal the next morning. I had lunch with Raymond whom I had met while biking across Saskatchewan. We caught up on news. He had been working in a garage that specialized in customizing cars, but had since become a disaster response planner for the Canadian Red Cross.

I then drove to North Vancouver to see Kristine and company. She had not gone the celebration of life owing to strained relations with both Margo and her brother who was at the event for no particular reason. Mummy joined us there. Kristine apologized for her driveway which she said was “deceptively steep”. I retorted that I was never deceived by her driveway: I always thought it was steep! Midnight was happy to see us, but then as a Labrador, he is programmed to be happy to meet people. I wish I had thought to bring him a bacon-based doggy treat!

We were treated to a trip to a nearby stable where the family’s horse was being ridden by one of Kristine’s daughters (I am no longer sure which one.) We got to meet and stroke the horse afterwards. There was a certain discussion of our horse riding pasts as Kristine, Mummy, Margo and I had all ridden and interacted with Aunt Lorna’s horses to varying degrees.

I had been under the impression that the tartan rental place opened at 9 AM. After checking out of the hotel on the Monday morning, I drove out the place only to discover that it only opened about an hour later. As my flight was at 11:30, I was in a bit of a pickle. I resolved the issue by trying an exterior door which opened to an atrium. I then tried the door of the shop itself, and found that it opened. My intrusion brought out a middle-aged woman who was a bit alarmed by my presence. I explained that I just wanted to drop off the kilt before my flight. As there was no need of a financial transaction to happen, she accepted the bag.

It took me a bit longer than I’d wished to get to the airport. Still, I wasn’t late. I dropped off my bag, bought a little something at the Vancouver Public Aquarium gift shop and went security. Someone at security arranged a cart to drive me to my gate. Pre-boarding was in process when I arrived. I walked up to a gate agent and said: “I believe I qualify for pre-boarding.” I was soon seated in a premium economy seat. I believe that it was my shortest airport transit that included a check-in. (My shortest airport experience was at Toronto’s Billy Bishop airport when I exited one Porter Dash-8 and walked over to board another one.)

When the plane arrived at the gate in Montreal, I waited until the bulk of the able-bodied passengers had exited the aircraft before getting up. I was, however, at the fore of the wave of disabled passengers as there were at least three attendants waiting with wheelchairs who eagerly offered me their services. I hope I was sufficiently polite in declining their services. As with my flight out of Montreal, the gate was sufficiently close to the exit that it wasn’t worth waiting for a cart.