On what I said at Margo's celebration of life

 I apologize for the delay, but here is what I said at Margo's celebration of life:

"My name is Daniel, large nephew of Margo, my adventure auntie.

I am here to offer up a pair of apologies which reveal something of my beloved aunt. The first apology is for wearing a kilt which is nae doone at Hieland funerals. However, this is a celebration of life and a kilt is the only remotely formal garment that I can wear over the fixation.

I also believe Margo would have appreciated it as she was fond of men in Highland wear. She once told me that shortly before her marriage, she heard that her Father, Grandpa, was proudly boasting to his friends about how he would be giving away two brides that summer as her cousin Jane had asked him to stand in for her late father. Now between Margo’s feminism and rebelliousness, she wasn’t at all keen on the idea of being “given away”. However, as Grandpa was getting on in years and had suffered the loss of his daughter Shelia earlier that year, she made a deal, mostly with herself. She said to him: “If you're going to give me away, you’ll have to wear your kilt with the Bonnie Prince Charlie jacket.” To hear her tell it, he hadn’t been planning on wearing his kilt but was quite happy to oblige her. And he looked very elegant doing so.

My second apology is for not having been wholly truthful with her when we were in Santiago de Compostela together. 

If I may digress, this was my first long distance bike trip and I had been apprehensive about it despite having been thoroughly organized into it by Margo. 

Cycle-touring has since become my favourite type of vacation. For many years, I had an ongoing project of crossing from sea to sea by bike in three-week sections as that the maximum length of time I could take off work.

Getting back to Margo, she, Chris and I had biked to Compostela from Seville following a pilgrimage route across Spain and a bit of Portugal. As the only even nominal Catholic of the group, I insisted that we be honest and say to anyone who asked that we were doing it as tourists, not pilgrims. We visited the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, said to be the resting place of Saint James the Apostle and at one time, number three on the Pope’s list of recommended pilgrimage destinations, after Jerusalem and Rome. I went down into the small crypt where the mortal remains of the Saint and a pair of his disciples were kept. 

A few minutes later, Margo came down and in a slightly too loud and strident voice asked me: “Do you think that anyone actually prays to Saint James here?”

I replied: “Yes, I know some do.” 

What I didn’t tell her was I knew that because I had just offered a rather skeptical but sincere silent prayer to the Saint."

On a long delayed lunch

Well, I’m in Vancouver. I got here through a combination of careful thought, mild indulgence and kindness.

I am tall to the point that even in normal times, I find airline seating on the cramped side. With my left leg unable to bend that much and having a large external fixation on it, economy class seating was right out, unless it was some form of extra legroom seating. Even then, well what with the crutches I felt claustrophobic just thinking about it. This was not helped by the flights I took last summer. The flights on Bearskin Airlines and the Learjet had claustrophobic elements to them.

When went to look for flights, I found that WestJet didn’t offer direct flights between Montreal and Vancouver which ruled it out as flying with them was both longer and more expensive than with Air Canada. I don’t understand why WestJet doesn’t offer flights between Canada’s second and third largest cities. It makes it harder for me to take them seriously. (Long after I booked with Air Canada, I found out that Porter Airlines now offers Montreal to Vancouver flights.)

Through judicious searching, I found some suitable flights on Air Canada that offered several things that I wanted. One of them was wide bodied jets to reduce the feeling of claustrophobia. They also offered premium economy seats, hence more space. In fact, my flight out was a mix of business class and premium economy as the seats were in what is business class on international flights but the service was only premium economy. It was a bit of an indulgence, but it helped me get here.

As it was, I had a few panic attacks both before and during the flight. I was quite nervous and a little fearful, starting with going through security. I really wasn’t sure what the procedures were for crutches or external fixations. However, it went reasonably smoothly and the security personnel seemed to know what they were up to. Once through security, I might have asked to be taken to my gate via an electric cart. However, my gate was so close to the security checkpoint that it was only twice as far to walk to the gate as to where the carts were parked. It would have taken far longer to find a driver and to sit down as I took me to walk to the gate.

At the gate, there were some flight attendants waiting around and two of them were sitting on a bench with a handicap sign on it. I nervously but politely asked them if they would let me sit down on the bench. They were happy to do so.

I think I was the first on board and a flight attendant stowed my crutches in a overhead bin while I pulled out the things I wanted on the flight from my carry-on bag. The business-class pod seat was very comfortable, though a little tricky to get in and out of with the fixation. It could also have done with an instruction card on how to use the various functions of the seat.

I watched a number of episodes of Disney+ TV series which Disney isn’t releasing on DVD, curse their eyes. I also needed to use the toilet a few times, a clear sign of nervousness. Thankfully, I was able to get there with the crutches, using the seats for support and balance. On one trip back to my seat, I realized that about a third of people in section were stretched out in sleeping positions rather than sitting up. It was a morning flight so maybe that was it.

People were very kind, both flight attendants and fellow passengers. When the plane go to the gate in Vancouver, a woman across the aisle from me retrieved my crutches from the overhead bin without me asking! I made a point of waiting until the able bodied passengers in my section had left before getting up to get my carry-on and stowing my gear.

At Vancouver Airport, I had to walk a certain distance before I could get my bearings and figured out where I was vis-à-vis baggage retrieval. By the time I had done that, it didn’t seem worth the effort to summon a cart. One of the perks of my ticket was that my bag was labelled priority, so it beat me to the luggage carousel. Admittedly, I gave it an advantage stopping to use the loo on the way.

I then set out to find the car rental place pulling my roller luggage with my left hand. This meant I was slow going down the ramp the rental level and a passing fellow traveller offered to help. I hope I was sufficiently polite in declining her offer.

There a bit of a snag at the rental place as when I arrived they didn’t have any cars ready: only SUVs. They offered them to me, but I insisted on a car as most of the time it would only me driving it and as I was going to the celebration of the life Margo, something of an environmentalist, I would very embarrassed if I showed up in anything larger than a Subaru Outback. The rental people had probably suffered more demanding customers. They checked their computers and found out that a Toyota Corolla was being sanitized and would be available in about ten minutes. So I waited.

As I driving away from the airport, I was pleased to see sensible bike paths beside the road. Going over the Arthur Laing bridge, there was a highly visible cyclist pedaling away. On the other side, I was waiting for the lights to change when the cyclist went past me. It made me feel glad.

My plan had been to find lunch on the way to Alma Street, but owning a miscalculation on my part, it only when I was approaching Dunbar Loop that a restaurant appeared. It was the Crepe Café. It had a sign at the door saying the daily special was butter chicken with naan bread which pleased me greatly. There were some workmen climbing down from some scaffolding outside the building. One of them went to open the door for me before I could protest. The butter chicken and naan bread really hit the spot.

 Afterwards, I stopped by the house on Alma Street to check in with the family. Chris, John, Louise and Patrick were there along with Chris’ sister Carolyn. I got to cuddle little Patrick. He wasn’t too sure about me, but then, at his age, there is little he is sure about! His physique is what is known as “bien nourrie” in Quebec. He definitely is a cutie. I don’t remember where John and Louise’s spouses and other children were, except that they weren’t there. We chatted away. Louise talked about how Tessa was using the climbing wall in the basement. That triggered something that I had thought of in Vancouver airport. In the domestic wing, there is a wall meant to look like a sloping cliff. I had wondered how often people try to climb it. I mentioned this to assembled company. This prompted John to relate how he nearly gotten into trouble rappelling off a building in Victoria as the building next door housed a “hush-hush” branch of the Canadian Government!

I drove to my hotel downtown, checked in, parked the car, went to my room and had a well-deserved snooze. Afterwards, I had supper, then got in contact with various relatives. I then gave into the urge to go to bed even though it was barely past 8 PM.

I was awoken by a text message from the Montreal General at 6:30 AM. It was about confirming next week’s appointment. I had made arrangements with St-Michael the Holy Mole to have breakfast at around 7 AM, so it wasn’t that bad.

After breakfast, I had a shower, then tried to write down the directions to Tartantown in Port Coquitlam. While I was packing on Sunday, I found out that my kilt no longer fit me. A quick internet search brought to Tartantown’s website which listed them as willing to rent kilts. Their limited range of tartans included Black Watch which I considered an adequate substitute. So, I set off for the wilds of suburban Vancouver. I must confess I made a few wrong turns. I stopped at least three times to check Google Maps as I was unwilling to subscribe to Toyota’s navigation system. On one occasion, I had pulled into a tire store to check progress. I was startled when a man in a black suit tried to open the right rear door. It turned out that he thought I was his Uber ride!

Anyway, I got there safely in the end. It was a bit anti-climactic as an employee greeted me, took my waist measurement and then took an appropriate kilt off the rack. I tried it on and it fit, funnily enough.

I then indulged in something that I had been waiting to do for 1 year, 1 month and 1 day. That is, something I had wanted to do the day of the accident. I am a bit ashamed to admit it but I had lunch at Taco Bell. I have a weakness for Taco Bell that stretches back almost thirty years. There used to be a few in Montreal, but they ceased to operate at some point during Covid. I’d like to blame LeGoat and his language policies, but that might be a stretch.

I had supper this evening with the Mole at the Happy Noodle House. I must admit, I like the creative nature of restaurant names in Vancouver than in Montreal. For that matter, I find the multicultural qualities of Vancouver distinctly refreshing from Montreal’s rather eurocentric qualities.