2005-02-20 - 7:42 a.m.

>Now To Commence Assembly

Here is a particularly bleary-eyed Rufus.

I don't know what is wrong with me. No updates for 9 days. It is not as if I have been brokering a deal for world peace. I have just been... unable to bring myself to post. I even wrote 3 entries that I simply didn't get around to posting. One was about what kind of clothes I like. One was about how I dreamed of being an inventor as a child, detailing my very few creations. The third was full of stories about hallucinigens. Instead, I will tell you about our trip to a store that has a very strange effect on men and women...

Well, we made the trip to I-K-E-A. We returned home, sagging triumphantly beneath huge piles of unfinished unassembled wooden furniture.
-Two large shelving units with extra shelves
-one of those triangular dining tables that unfold into a square, with skookum brushed steel legs (oh my, I just used the word 'skookum.' I am becoming my parents.)
-two black folding chairs, they are kind of flexy, but comfy because they support your back in a good place
-a cubic ottoman with a rich green cover (a good match for our green rocking easy chair)
-long bamboo horizontal blinds to conceal the fronts of the shelving units
-a pile of photo frames
-a fancy silicone ice cube tray (it makes long icy swizzlesticks).

The cost was $302. And that's Canadian currency, that's, um, $244.42 US at the current exchange. And none of it was money from our own pockets.

So here is the photo-essay of our trip:

There we were before dawn's break, excitedly walking down to the bus depot (a few blocks from our apartment), teasing each other and speedwalk-racing. It was a cold and crisp morning, but we were highly anticipating bringing home a large pile of inexpensive furniture.

On the bus, waiting to leave the depot, we were still all smiles. The bus was filled to capacity, and of the 62 people, I was one of three men - including the driver. I couldn't help but liken the rambunctious behaviour of the 30-50 year old women to a bachelorette party just before the stripper dressed as a policeman comes out. Let me say, though, I'd rather be among howling women any day than in a similarly excited group of men. Men in groups become such monkeys. Mokeys with way too much time and thought invested in sports on TV.

On the way to the ferry: the mist lay low on the meadows below, and the song of Ireland calls me hoooooome! Well, Aye-didlle-diddly, Aye-diddle-dee... This is my new desktop background.

This was our driver, a deep voiced man who hid a sharp wit in his somber tones. He was full of information and funny stories about the antics of local celebrities who had taken this bus trip.

So... many... textures...

On the ferry! It is funny how the ferries become such an unquestioned part of your life when you live on an island. Everybody who lives here has the same stories and experiences. It is the bottleneck of Vancouver Island - the one place you are likely to meet a dozen people you knew from high school on a single boat.

So, yeah, I skipped over the actual shopping part. We got a little stressed by the crowds, but had no trouble getting what we came for. We took our stuff back to the bus and friendly I-K-E-A people helped to pack it up and handed us free bottles of water. We had a little while to kill and ate veggie sandwiches in the restaurant and plotted on how we would get our stuff (way too much to carry) home from the bus depot later.

On the ferry ride home, the sun went down in the most spectacular way. We had awesome seats this time, the comfrtable widely-spaced ones. Bee played gameboy while I read "Red Dragon" by Thomas Harris and drank tea and ate banana bread.

At the depot later on, we called a taxi and the driver helped load everything up and drove us the five blocks home. One piece got a little damaged hanging out the back of the taxi, but it was not the end of the world. It was, however, the end of our trip. Hurrah!

Oops, I almost forgot! As per melanie's request here are the S0uth P@rk versions of Bee and me, as created at this german website:

It's me!

It's Bee!